Washington Commanders quarterback shakes hands with fans after a Monday Night Football game against the Cincinnati Bengals. His 93.1 passer rating was the highest ever by a rookie quarterback. (Photo by Alika Jenner/Getty Images)
PHOENIX – As he stood outside the stadium that housed the early years of his college career, Jayden Daniels spoke fondly of competing for Arizona State.
“It started all this, laid the foundation.” the Washington Commanders quarterback said Wednesday. “Obviously, the people that recruited me here, I can’t thank them enough for what they’ve done for me and my football career, and the relationships that I’ve made off the field here. I still cherish them to this day.”
The former Heisman winner and 2024 second-overall NFL Draft pick returned to Tempe this week, practicing at ASU before the Commanders take on the Arizona Cardinals at State Farm Stadium in Glendale Sunday,
Daniels began his college career at ASU in 2019 and would play for the Sun Devils for three years before transferring to LSU.
He thrived in Baton Rouge. In his time there, he passed for 6,725 yards and 57 touchdowns in two seasons, winning the Heisman Trophy in his senior year and becoming a much coveting draft pick.
Despite controversy at the time surrounding Daniels’ move – which he said later was spurred by the opportunity to compete “at the highest level with all these weapon, all these resources” – he still has positive feelings about his experience in Tempe.
Daniels was recruited by former ASU coach Herm Edwards, with whom Daniels still speaks to this day.
“Phenomenal head coach, phenomenal man,” he said. “Looked out for me while I was here. I still talk to him today so that dynamic’s still there.”
Some of those other relationships he formed in Tempe include current NFL stars who were teammates at ASU, including Brandon Aiyuk, Rachaad White and Ricky Pearsall.
“It’s awesome. It started here, we grew up and to see everybody live out their dreams,” Daniels said. “Those are brothers to me and I’m happy for them.”
Daniels acknowledges growing up a lot in the past five years, since playing the role of freshman starting quarterback at ASU.
“I came here at 18 and kind of was still trying to find myself,” he said. “Once I made that move to transfer, I was 21 years old and was kind of able to find out who I am as a man, being away and being on my own.
“That move helped out a lot from, you know, being able to grow up, figure out who I am as a person, who I am as a football player, and going from there.”
Koki Riley, an LSU reporter for the The Advocate in Baton Rouge, has seen that growth in real time.
He covered Daniels during Riley’s time as an ASU student as well as on the beat for LSU, and thinks one of Daniels’ biggest areas of growth from the beginning of his career to now is the development of his confidence on the field.
“I think you could definitely tell that he was more comfortable in his skin once he started succeeding (at LSU),” Riley said. “During the Cincinnati game, he was yelling over at the sidelines like, ‘we’ve got to go for this.’ That’s something I don’t think he ever would have done at ASU.”
Former ASU quarterback Jayden Daniels said he “can’t thank (the Sun Devils) enough for what they’ve done for me and my football career.” (File photo by Julian Rosa/Cronkite News)
Riley is referring to Daniels’ game Monday, in which he helped the Commanders defeat the Cincinnati Bengals 38-33 – a team coincidentally led by another LSU Heisman winner, Joe Burrow – in a Monday Night Football game that was decided on a late touchdown pass from Daniels to Terry McLaurin.
Daniels finished the contest 21-of-23 passing, with 254 yards and two touchdowns, totaling a 93.1 passer rating (the highest ever by a rookie quarterback) which earned him NFL Offensive Player of the Week honors. He was just two weeks removed from earning NFC Offensive Rookie of the Week from his debut performance against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
Anyone who was a teammate of Daniels in college would not be surprised at his current success in the NFL, from the way he practiced his craft on the field, to the way he handled himself off the field.
Mekhi Metcalf, a former wide receiver at ASU, recalls how Daniels practiced his craft on the field.
“From the first day I got to practice, seeing him, as such a young player with a lot of veteran guys on that team, he was able to come in and handle his own,” Metcalf said, “Everyone could see it. You could tell that he had that ‘it’ factor, just the way he carried himself the way he was on the field. He was just masterful in the way he went through everything day in and day out.
“He was just a guy you could tell early on that, he was going to just continue to get better and better every day, and then from there on, the sky was the limit for him.”
It seems that Daniels’ ceiling continues to grow every week, and his performances as a rookie on the biggest stage so far have been nothing short of excellent, yet his steady attitude remains.
“It’s another game, that games in the past doesn’t even mean anything no more,” Daniels said when asked if his performance on Monday Night Football was any different than his big games in college.
Daniels is looking to build on his already impressive rookie campaign Sunday against the Cardinals at State Farm Stadium.