Breaking down sacks on Jayden Daniels Part Two

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

Yesterday I started the process of breaking down each sack Jayden Daniels took in his final season at LSU. One of the big knocks on him coming out of college in the lead up to the draft was his pressure to sack percentage, so I wanted to give context for each sack and try and see if there were any underlying issues that was learning to a high pressure to sack percentage that the Commanders need to clean up to help Daniels be successful at the NFL level. In yesterday’s post I broke down the first 11 sacks of the season in order, today I will finish off the final 10. He’s credited with 22 sacks on ESPN, but one of those sacks came in a game against Army and I was unable to find it. If you missed the first part of this breakdown, be sure to check that out by clicking here. But with that said, let's continue breaking down the sacks. 

Sack 12

Situation: Third and five from the 48 yard line.

Play analysis: On third and five, LSU runs a sprint rollout play. Daniels receives the snap and rolls out to his right while the offensive line all roll out with him to keep the pocket moving. LSU has two receivers to the right of the formation both used to create a traffic for a third receiver that motions across the formation and sprints out to the flat. The play works as intended, with the receiver breaking open as he works out to the flat while the trailing defender has to work around the traffic created by the other two receivers. Daniels hesitates on the throw and that gives the defender a chance to recover. Once the defender has recovered, he’s in position to undercut any throw, taking away the only real option on the play. The other two receivers aren’t really there to catch a pass, just to create traffic for the other receiver. With nowhere else to throw, Daniels has to try and scramble, but the defense secures the edge and tackles him before he’s able to get back to the line of scrimmage.  

What Daniels can learn: Simply put, he cannot hesitate in that situation. The whole play is designed to go to one receiver and the design worked with the traffic created and the receiver running free. Daniels has to make the throw on time and give his receiver a chance to pick up the first down. If the receiver can’t make the first down, that’s not really on Daniels, but he has to know going into the play that there really is only one option here. Now obviously if the route was covered then Daniels has to try and improvise and go off-script, but that wasn’t the case here. When a play is designed to go to one receiver and the design works as intended, the ball has to come out on time. 

Sack 13

Situation: First and 10 from the 20 yard line.

Play analysis: To start a drive, LSU looks to take a shot down the field here against Missouri. The two receivers to the right execute a double post concept while the receivers to the left run a slot fade combination. Off the snap, Daniels works to the double post concept to his right. The safety to that side stays quite shallow, giving the slot receiver a chance to get level and run by him. The slot corner fails to stay on top of the route as well, meaning there is a legitimate chance for Daniels to take that shot down the field beyond both the slot corner and safety and allow his receiver to chase it down. 

Daniels drops back in the pocket and feels the defensive end to his right stunting inside. He calmly slides to his right to allow the right tackle to redirect inside and wash the defensive end down the line. He has plenty of time in the pocket to read the play down the field. Now I can understand him being potentially hesitant given there's both a safety and and a slot corner bracketing the slot receiver, but the receiver does get even with them and eventually runs by them, so I’d love to see Daniels take the shot in this situation. He opts against it which is fine, but there’s not really a checkdown option to the right side here as the back gets caught up in protection. The only real checkdown is to the left of the field as part of the slot fade combination, but Daniels has already moved to his right and it would be tough for him to work back left. He hesitates for a moment and decides to try and sneak up and out of the pocket, but ends up running into a sack. 

What Daniels can learn: First and foremost, it would be great to see Daniels trust his receiver and be aggressive with the shot here. Yes it is double coverage and the margins are potentially tight, but the safety was playing shallow and had to flip his hips to try and run with a receiver that was already in full stride while the slot corner had already let the receiver get level with him quite easily. The elite quarterbacks in the NFL see that leverage and take their shot. Now we can’t expect Daniels to be an elite NFL quarterback right away, but you certainly hope the second overall pick can get there and learn to be aggressive in taking that shot in the future. 

But the bigger thing for Daniels here is to be a bit more decisive. Once he decides not to throw that double post concept, he has to feel that the time he has had in the pocket has been quite long and protection won't hold up forever. He should know he won't have time to work back to his left to find the checkdown and that his running back is staying in to block rather than running a route. I’d want to see Daniels use his athleticism here and take off running to the right. That double post concept forced every defender to that side to turn and run, leaving the flat completely vacant. Yes a defensive tackle does loop to the edge late, but Daniels shouldn’t have any issues outrunning a defensive tackle. At that point, it would be Daniels against a spying linebacker and even if the linebacker gets him it would still have been a positive play. With Daniels speed, I suspect the linebacker wouldn’t have been able to catch him either and Daniels probably would have had a huge gain on the play. Obviously you want to see a quarterback make the throw from the pocket first and foremost, but his legs are a unique weapon and he might as well use them if he doesn’t like the passing option.  

Sack 14

Situation: First and 10 from the eight yard line.

Play analysis: Later in that Missouri game, LSU starts another drive deep inside their own territory at the eight yard line. They again look to start the drive with a shot play, but this time with a double move on the outside to the right and a seam route to the left. You may have heard of a sluggo-seam concept before, where the outside receiver runs a slant-and-go (sluggo) double move and if that isn’t open, the quarterback can often move the deep safety faking the sluggo and come back across to the seam route on the other side of the field instead. This isn’t quite the same play as LSU uses a stutter-go rather than a sluggo, but the idea is still the same. 

Daniels snaps the ball and immediately looks to that double move, selling a shoulder fake as part of the double move. Unfortunately the corner sinks back deep as part of a Cover-3 scheme, which pretty much kills the double move option straight away. Daniels stays on the route a little bit longer, hoping his receiver will still manage to burst past the corner but it’s quickly apparent that the route is dead. Daniels then feels pressure in the pocket and does well to step up and out of the pocket, rolling out to the right side. However the defense is in a zone coverage and as soon as Daniels begins to scramble, the flat defender spots him and charges down to the line of scrimmage. The defender manages to tackle Daniels out of bounds short of the line of scrimmage, resulting in a sack. 

What Daniels can learn: The first thing I would like to see here from Daniels is a more convincing pump fake. He gives a half-hearted shoulder fake but that’s not going to convince many people a throw is actually coming. He needs to practice a real pump fake with an actual wind up and fake throw, instead of just a shoulder fake if he is to convince defenders at the NFL level he’s actually going to throw on a double move. But more importantly, Daniels has to accept the route is dead quicker than he does here. You can tell he knows the route isn’t on after the fake, but he stays with it. Perhaps that’s just how much trust he had in Malik Nabers, but you can’t fall into the trap of locking onto your top receiver just because they’re the top receiver. 

Daniels should have read the route was dead pretty early due to the leverage of the corner sinking back into Cover-3. Sure, give the pump fake a try to see if you can get the corner to bite but then immediately move on. Had Daniels given a stronger pump fake and then moved on, he might well have found the seam route on the other side of the formation wide open. If not, he might have managed to make it all the way outside to the curl route, which the flat defender was late to get out to. 

I will give credit to Daniels here for managing to avoid the initial pressure by stepping up in the pocket and finding a lane to sneak out of. I will also credit him for not taking a big hit once he started to scramble. There were plenty of times last season in similar situations where Daniels cut back inside or up the field trying to break a tackle in order to pick up every possible yard. I would much rather Daniels do his best to get to the sideline and accept a one yard loss that technically counts as a sack rather than cut inside into multiple defenders and risk taking a big hit for the sake of a couple of yards.