Should Jayden Daniels start in week 1?

July 29, 2024

by Steve Thomas

A pretty big question that will be resolved during training camp in Ashburn is whether Washington’s prized rookie quarterback will start in week one of the upcoming 2024 season.  He was obviously drafted here to be Washington’s quarterback of the future; that isn’t in doubt.  Therefore, the real issue here is for the coaching staff to determine whether starting immediately or waiting for some period of time will ultimately be better for Daniels’ long term development.  Let’s try to dive into this question, shall we?

The first thing I thought about is history – what have other teams done with their highly drafted rookies?  In order to address this question, I took at a look at every quarterback drafted in the top 5 of round 1 for the last ten years, 2014 through 2023.  We’ll get into results in a minute, but first, here’s the list of these quarterbacks and the first game that they started:

2023

Bryce Young, #1 overall, Panthers: week 1

C.J. Stroud, #2 overall, Texans: week 1

Anthony Richardson, #4 overall, Colts: week 1

2022: None

2021

Trevor Lawrence, #1 overall, Jaguars: week 1

Zach Wilson, #2 overall, Jets: week 1

Trey Lance, #3 overall, 49ers: week 5

2020

Joe Burrow, #1 overall, Bengals: week 1

Tua Tagovailoa, #5, Dolphins: week 8

2019

Kyler Murray, #1 overall, Cardinals: week 1

2018

Baker Mayfield, #1 overall, Broncos: week 4

Sam Darnold, #3 overall Jets: week 1

2017

Mitchell Trubisky, #2 overall, Bears: week 5

2016

Jared Goff, #1 overall, Rams: week 11

Carson Wentz, #2 overall, Eagles: week 1

2015

Jameis Winston, #1 overall, Buccaneers: week 1

Marcus Mariota, #2 overall, Titans: week 1

2014

Blake Bortles, #3 overall, Jaguars: week 4

As you can see, in summary, of the 17 quarterbacks drafted in the top 5 between 2014 and 2023, 11 started in week 1, 2 started in week 4, and 2 started in week 5; put another way, 13 of 17 of these quarterbacks were promoted to starter in the first quarter of their rookie year, since week 5 technically is the second quarter.  That leaves just two, Tua Tagovailoa and Jared Goff, who had to wait until later in year one to get their first start.  Purely from a statistical perspective, the odds are high that Daniels will be under center in week 1.

I’m going to remove Trey Lance from the analysis, because he was a bust from the very beginning who clearly should not have been drafted in the top 5 by Adam Peters’ 49ers.  I had him rated as #7 in the 2021 draft-eligible quarterback class and labeled him a third round developmental pick.  That rating might have been too kind.  That leaves the Dolphins’ Tua Tagovailoa and the Rams’ Jared Goff as the only quarterbacks – again, minus Lance – drafted in the top 5 in the last 10 years who didn’t start in the first quarter of their rookie year.  In the case of the 2020 Dolphins, they had a very experienced, quality 15-year veteran, Ryan Fitzpatrick, who had started the prior season for the team and done well.  Also, Tagovailoa was coming off of a serious hip injury suffered in week 2 of his 2019 season at Alabama.  In that situation, it seemed like the perfect opportunity to allow the rookie to have some time on the bench to sit and learn.

In 2016, the Rams had journeyman Case Keenum on the roster since the 2015 season.  Keenum was always going to be replaced by Goff, but the Rams showed great restraint by not simply throwing Goff to the wolves.  Taking into account Tagovailoa’s situation with his injury and the presence of a quality starter in Fitzpatrick, Goff seems to be the only case of all 17 of these quarterbacks who was legitimately held back for a significant amount of games solely in order to aid in his development.

Certainly, some of these quarterbacks would have benefitted from some low-pressure developmental time.  I’m not going to take a ton of column space to go through each individual situation, as I think that would probably overkill for this purpose.  Suffice to say that, of these quarterbacks, my quick, off-the-cuff thought is that the only true franchise-level quarterbacks on this list are probably Trevor Lawrence, C.J. Stroud if he can build on his amazing rookie year, and Joe Burrow.  A case could be made for Goff and maybe, possibly Kyler Murray.  The clear and obvious busts are Lance, Darnold, Trubisky, and Blake Bortles.  I’d also say that Anthony Richardson will be trending in that direction if he doesn’t show something in year two.  The rest of these quarterbacks have had varying degrees of success and are somewhere in the middle.

The takeaway point here is that while most teams tend to start highly drafted quarterbacks immediately, I don’t think there’s a hard and fast rule necessary to achieve success, as players have both succeeded and failed while starting both early and later into year one.  Many of the teams to which these quarterbacks were drafted were bad teams with problems, which are likely much more indicative of success and development than are a few extra games played.  Other than the players who were clearly over drafted, such as Lance, Trubisky, and probably Richardson, all of these players have potential and probably have the ability to develop into quality players if the situation is right.

What does all this mean for Washington’s Jayden Daniels?  Surprisingly, after examining this data, my opinion has changed slightly.  I’ve typically been of the belief that young quarterbacks should probably sit for a time to start their careers, simply to give them time to adjust to their new reality in the NFL.  However, in this situation, I’d say that unless Washington sees in the preseason that its offensive line is as bad as some fans – including me –  have speculated, I’d say that Washington should probably go ahead and throw Daniels out there.  Daniels needs to get used to both offensive coordinator Cliff Kingsbury’s offensive system and the group of starters that he’ll hopefully play with for years to come.  Based on the 17 players I’ve identified here, I think the good quarterbacks are going to make it irrespective of whether they play in week 1 or not, and the truth is that most of them start immediately, as I’ve shown here.

The biggest word of caution here, as I said above, is the offensive line.  Jump into the way back machine for a minute and revisit the career of David Carr, who was drafted by the Houston Texans with the first overall pick in 2002, which happened to also be the first pick in franchise history.  That year, Carr was sacked a staggering, and league-leading, 76 times that season.  That amount of pressure dramatically affected his performance, and it’s fair to say that it probably had an impact on his career.  Washington needs to avoid that kind of thing happening to Daniels.  Therefore, if the fact that Adam Peters has for some reason not taken the team’s tackle problem particularly seriously appears in the preseason to be leading to the potential of a repeat of David Carr’s rookie year, then that might call for Mariota to get the start.  Other than that, I’d say to Dan Quinn, whose opinion actually matters, I say throw the guy out there and let him play.

What do you think?  Let me know in the comment section below.