Breaking down sacks on Jayden Daniels Part One

Reviewing every sack Daniels took in his final year at LSU and breaking down what he can learn from them

One of the biggest knocks on quarterback Jayden Daniels going into the draft was his pressure to sack percentage. For those that don’t know, pressure to sack percentage is simply the percentage of times a pressure turns into a sack. In his final year at LSU, Daniels had a pressure to sack percentage of about 20%, meaning for every five times he was pressured, he was sacked once. That’s a pretty high rate and the concerning thing is that this stat is one that historically tends to translate well to the NFL. Guys with low pressure to sack percentages in college tend to remain that way in the NFL and likewise, quarterbacks with higher rates tend to remain high in the NFL. 

The Washington Commanders saw the struggles of that first hand last year. Sam Howell had a similarly high pressure to sack percentage in college and we all saw how that worked out for him last year. The big concern with this stat is that it tends to show guys that take too long to make reads in the pocket and end up getting sacked because they hold the ball too long. That was certainly the case for Howell fairly often last year and has been the case for other quarterbacks with a high pressure to sack percentage, like Justin Fields. 

However, each sack is an individual event and not every sack is the fault of the quarterback or down to him holding the ball for too long. They all need context and with that context, we can see if there is a worrying trend underneath that high pressure to sack percentage or if the number is being somewhat overblown while lacking context. So to get that context, I’ve gone back and compiled the sacks taken by Jayden Daniels in his final season at LSU. ESPN’s stat charts have Daniels as taking 22 sacks last season, but they credited him with a sack taken against Army, which I watched and couldn’t find. Even in their play-by-play section, there’s no play where they have Daniels being sacked. So I’m going to call it 21 sacks, which I will split up over two posts. This first post will look at the first 11 sacks Daniels took in order and break down what went wrong and what Daniels can learn from each one. 

Sack 1

Situation: Fourth and goal from the one yard line. 

Play analysis: LSU lines up in a stacked two by two formation, with two receivers stacked out to the left and two more receivers stacked to the right. The defense shows a Cover-0 look, with two defenders over each stacked set and the rest in the box on the line of scrimmage ready to rush. The FSU defense, however, doesn’t run pure Cover-0, with the two defenders on the edge both faking a rush before sinking back into potential throwing lanes over the middle. 

LSU runs two high-low concepts to either side of the formation. To the left, the stacked set runs an out and a flat route while the pair to the right run a basic cross and a spot route. These types of route combinations work best against zone coverages because they put zone defenders in a bind, forcing them to decide between sinking back deep and giving up the easy throw underneath or biting up underneath and giving up the deep route behind them. Thanks to the stacked sets, they can still work against man coverage, but FSU does a pretty good job being sticky in coverage here and taking away the options, at least initially. 

Daniels works to his left off the snap, but neither option is available. He quickly comes back to his right, but the receiver running the in-breaking route hasn’t made his cut yet. Daniels tries to wait on him, but the pressure arrives. He starts to sink back to try and buy more time, but then he spots a defender sinking back underneath the potential throwing window. Daniels attempts to go off script by spinning out and scrambling to his left, but loses his footing and gets sacked.

What Daniels can learn: This sack isn’t really on Daniels as he had nowhere to go with the football when the pressure arrived. If we’re being picky, the thing to learn here is this pair of concepts didn’t give him a quick win that you need against Cover-0 type looks. FSU weren’t hiding their intent to run a Cover-0 style of play, so perhaps going forward Daniels can learn to identify that look pre-snap and perhaps adjust one or both of the route combinations at the line of scrimmage to get more man-beating concepts. On fourth and one, you could maybe argue he should have just thrown it up there anyway and given his guy a chance to make a play as it would have turned over on downs anyway, but there was a pretty big risk of a significant return on any interception.

Sack 2

Situation: Fourth and one from the 12 yard line.

Play analysis: Another fourth and short in the red zone for LSU against FSU. This time LSU loads up the box with multiple tight ends to sell a run fake inside. Daniels fakes the hand off and keeps the ball himself, looking to throw a flat route to a right end sifting across the formation. Unfortunately, the play is dead almost immediately. FSU had multiple unblocked players coming off the edge, both of which were in position to make a play on Daniels to prevent him from keeping it and running. Another defender spots the sifting tight end and matches him in the flat, taking that away, leaving Daniels with no real option. He attempts to make some of the unblocked defenders miss and run for the first down himself, but he is unsuccessful and is sacked. 

What Daniels can learn: There’s not much Daniels could have done differently here. The play was broken as FSU had a defender to account for Daniels running, a defender to account for the sifting tight end and an extra defender that beat the down block from the right tackle and was there to clean up if needed. LSU were hoping the play-action fake would be enough to get every defender to bite inside on the run and leave Daniels with a wide open throw, but FSU had their number on this occasion and Daniels couldn’t really do anything about it. 

Sack 3

Situation: Second and nine from the 26 yard line.

Play analysis: LSU lines up with an empty backfield, initially with four receivers in a diamond formation to the left. Before the snap, Daniels motions one of those receivers across the formation and spots a linebacker following the motion. That potentially means there’s a matchup with a receiver on a linebacker to the right, so Daniels works to that side of the field post-snap. He checks with that receiver and indeed the linebacker is working to cover him, but he has the safety over the top to help out too. Daniels does well to quickly recognize that with the safety helping the linebacker on one receiver, the other receiver to that side is left completely one-on-one. That receiver breaks open over the middle and Daniels just begins his throwing motion as he gets hit from behind for a sack. 

What Daniels can learn: This is another play where Daniels isn’t really at fault. He made the correct reads both pre-snap and post-snap with the motion uncovering a potential matchup and then the safety helping the linebacker. Unfortunately, the protection just didn’t hold up. The left tackle got beat by defensive end Jared Verse, who was the 19th overall pick in the 2024 NFL Draft, and sometimes you just have to accept that will happen from time to time. 

Sack 4

Situation: First and 10 from the 36 yard line.

Play analysis: Here, LSU runs a classic Air Coryell concept known as 989. The two outside receivers run go routes while the slot receiver runs an route that can change based on coverage, either breaking to the post or more flat over the middle. The tight end looks to chip on the edge before releasing to the flat as a check down option. The FSU defense plays two-man, meaning they keep two safeties back deep but play man coverage underneath. The two outside receivers on their go routes both get a step or half a step on their respective defenders but the defense does have safeties over the top of each one, making them very tough throws for Daniels to hit. 

He does however have the slot receiver breaking free over the middle of the field. Just as the receiver makes his break over the middle, Daniels feels pressure and makes the decision to try and scramble. He feels a potential lane to his left so takes off running, but ends up running straight into a defender who brings him down for the sack. 

What Daniels can learn: This is the first sack where I felt like Daniels could and should have done a better job. With just a little bit of anticipation and trust in his slot receiver breaking inside away from the leverage of the coverage, he could have hit that route over the middle before the pressure arrived. To be honest, even if he had just kept his patience for half a beat more, he would have seen his receiver running open and been able to make the throw before the pressure arrived. Instead, he looked to scramble and ended up running into a sack that was avoidable.

Sack 5

Situation: First and 10 from the 39 yard line.

Play analysis: On this play, LSU attempts to flood the short side of the field with four receivers all working to one side. The outside receiver runs a deep skinny post while the slot receiver runs a deep over. The tight end runs a wheel route behind those two receivers and the running back swings out to the flat as a fourth option on the checkdown. That leaves a single receiver isolated to the back side on a slant. The Grambling defense does a nice job matching up most of the routes, with the flat defender turning and running with the tight end on the wheel route while the deep safety steps up to bump the slot receivers deep over route. The outside corner does lose a step to the deep post, but the back side safety is alert and sprinting back deep to potentially contest any deep shot. Daniels doesn’t like any of his options and attempts to climb the pocket and scramble for yards himself, but ends up running into a sack. 

What Daniels can learn: There were plenty of options for Daniels to make a throw here. The first would be the post route. Yes the back side safety is a potential threat but only on a deep throw with tons of air that gives him a chance to catch up. At the time Daniels hits the top of his drop, the receiver is level with the outside corner, which should be enough for Daniels to pull the trigger. He has the arm talent to beat the safety with the throw, so that would be where Daniels would ideally be throwing the ball on this rep. 

Perhaps Daniels felt that safety was more of a threat than it appeared, which is fine if that is the case. But even in that scenario, Daniels still had the running back in the flat as a wide open checkdown. It was even more glaring because the flat defender, who would typically be charging down to the running back in the flat to take that option away, had to turn up the sideline and run with the tight end on the wheel route. That should have been the sign for Daniels to take the checkdown with no flat defender. Instead he attempted to run himself and ran into a needless sack.