Commanders Pondering Analytics with Daniels?

Out in Washington, just like in New England, they’re trying to poke holes into Jayden Daniels’ game as the Commanders have seemingly shown the most interest in the LSU quarterback.

The number one stat that keeps coming up is the fact Daniels never had a pressure-to-sack rate of less than 20% in a single season in his career, with his combined pressure-to-sack rate finishing at 24%.

Commanders reporter Mitch Tischler of NBC Sports Washington spoke with 106.7 on Monday and talked a little bit about his thoughts on the analytics focused on Daniels’ sack rate. To Tischler, he believes when it comes to Daniels, the LSU standout has the physical tools, which he believes might be tougher to correct with North Carolina’s Drake Maye.

“I like Jayden, but I certainly won’t be upset if Drake Maye ends up being the guy,” said Tischler. “There are baselines in college for these stats that, for years, it’s been a moving goalpost about, ‘if a guy can’t complete more than 60% of his passes in college, he’ll never do it in the pros.’ And you have a guy like Josh Allen who, coming out of Wyoming, completed in the mid-50s percentage of his passes, and lots of folks said, ‘Oh, he can’t be successful, he’s not accurate enough, he doesn’t have a high enough completion percentage.’ You look at kind of what he’s doing in the league now, and you can see there are different ways to be successful.”

“Obviously, the pressure-to-sack ratio isn’t a fantastic stat for Jayden Daniels, but I think his completion percentage and his yards per attempt, and his ability to use legs can kind of counteract those things. At the end of the day, you look at it, and Drake Maye’s pressure-to-sack ratio is percentage is a percentage point and a half lower than what Jayden Daniels’ is. It’s not like it’s a massive upgrade when you start looking at Drake Maye. So, listen, there are positive and negative stats you can throw out there for all of these guys at quarterback. At the end of the day, you have to, as a team, sit down and look at where the player needs improvement and if that can happen within your organization.”

“It’s kind of the same thing I’ve been saying for a long time. For me, I think Jayden Daniels needs to learn how to use the whole field and read the middle of the field a little bit more, maybe be quicker going through his progressions. And I think that’s something that you can teach a young quarterback.”

“With Drake Maye, my worry is his footwork, and his quick pass completion percentage where he can get a little hairy with the football. To me, that feels a lot tougher to fix something physical than something mental when you get to the NFL level. And in the meantime, with Jayden Daniels, you have his elite athleticism that you can use to move him around the pocket.”

Tischler also noted that he understands why there is concern when it comes to that pressure-to-sack statistic after what happened with Sam Howell last year, with Howell going down a staggering 65 times in 2023.

For now, they’re going through a lot of similar discussions we’re hearing locally, so it was interesting to hear that perspective.

(EDITOR’S NOTE:Portions of the above appeared in this morning’s daily news and notes column.)

About Ian Logue

Ian Logue is a Seacoast native and owner and senior writer for PatsFans.com, an independent media site covering the New England Patriots and has been running this site in one form or another since 1997.

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