Jayden Daniels struggles in loss to Packers

Breaking down Jayden Daniels struggles against the Packers on Thursday night

Washington Commanders quarterback Jayden Daniels had one of the toughest performances of his young NFL career against the Packers on Thursday night. Daniels completed 24 of 42 passes for just 200 yards and two touchdowns. Daniels certainly wasn’t alone in the poor performance category, the Packers completely outplayed the Commanders in all phases on the field and the Packers coaching staff had terrific game plans in place on both sides of the ball. I didn’t love Kliff Kingsbury’s game plan either, so Daniels wasn’t always being put in great positions to succeed against a very strong Packers defense. But despite those mitigating factors, Daniels wasn’t close to the high standards he set for himself last season.

In this post, I’m going to try and isolate Daniels' performance and his struggles outside of things like offensive line struggles and play-calling issues. Those were certainly big factors in his performance, but there were plays where those elements weren’t factors and Daniels still struggled, especially in two areas that Daniels is typically very strong in. There were bad signs for Daniels early on in this game.

This was the Commanders second play of the game on offense and it’s one they ran a bunch last season. They use 12 personnel, consisting of two tight ends, one running back and two wide receivers. Tight end Zach Ertz starts aligned outside receiver Terry McLaurin to the left but motions into the formation before the snap. The Commanders use a play-action pass here where they fake a run and use max protection to give time for McLaurin and fellow receiver Noah Brown to run routes further down the field. McLaurin runs a corner route to the left while Brown runs a deep curl route to the right.

As Daniels gets to the top of his drop, he starts to feel pressure arriving. Micah Parsons Is coming off the edge and while left tackle Laremy Tunsil is slowing him down, Parsons is still getting beyond him. On the other side of the line, rookie right tackle Josh Conerly Jr. gets beat inside by Rashan Gary, who penetrates into the backfield. Conerly uses his quick feet to try and get back inside and cut him off, but Gary is still generating pressure. Daniels feels Gary and Parsons coming and naturally begins to take off scrambling to his right. However, at the point he takes off running, Noah Brown is beginning to make his break back to the ball on his curl route. Had Daniels taken a small slide step to his right, he could have quickly reset and thrown on time before the pressure arrived.

Brown did separate on the route and would have been open for a nice chunk, but Daniels didn’t take a small slide step and reset to throw. Instead, he felt the pressure and immediately started to scramble to his right. As he does that, multiple defenders follow him out to that side and cut off any path to the edge. Daniels attempts to cut back inside to the left but the defensive line as a unit does a great job pursuing him and eventually gets him down behind the line of scrimmage for a sack.

There were two themes in this play that were consistent throughout the game. The first was that the Packers defense was able to negate Daniels’ scrambling ability. Daniels had seven carries for just 17 yards in this game. Last year, only the Steelers and Eagles held him to similar numbers and that happened in back-to-back weeks when Daniels was playing with a broken rib. The other theme was that Daniels missed the opportunity to hit receivers on timing throws that he was so good at last year. A large part of the passing game last year was Daniels finding McLaurin or Brown on timing routes like curls and comebacks, but he just didn’t see those routes clearly in this game.

This play came on the Commanders third drive of the game. After a failed tunnel screen to Deebo Samuel, the Commanders show a run-heavy look to try and set up another play-action pass. This time, McLaurin runs a deep comeback while Samuel motions across the formation on a jet sweep fake before continuing out to the flat on a checkdown. As Daniels gets to the top of his drop, he looks down the field to McLaurin. He should be able to see that the cornerback in coverage is feeling threatened by McLaurin’s speed.

McLaurin runs a nice route. At the snap, the cornerback bails out of his press look and opens his hips inside to run down the field with McLaurin. McLaurin reads this and works straight up the field initially to try and eat up the cushion created between himself and the defender. Once that cushion is eaten up, McLaurin works himself into the cornerbacks blind spot, angling his route towards the sideline to threaten the corner with the potential to run by him down the sideline. This forces the corner to turn his back to both McLaurin and Daniels as he turns to run down the sideline, which is when McLaurin sharply breaks off his route and creates a ton of separation.

Normally, Daniels would see McLaurin angle that route outside and get the corner to turn his back, which would be a clear indicator to throw the pass to McLaurin. For some reason here though, as the corner turns to run deep and McLaurin breaks off his route, Daniels decides to check the ball down instead, despite having plenty of time in the pocket. Now, I will say he still completes the pass to Deebo Samuel in the flat and Samuel is a great target to have on checkdowns because of his ability after the catch. Samuel gets up the sideline and picks up seven yards before being forced out of bounds, setting up a manageable third and three. So it’s not exactly a disastrous play from Daniels, but he had his primary receiver breaking open further down the field and time to deliver that throw.

A few plays later, Daniels missed another opportunity for one of these timing throws down the field.