The phrase “Greatest of all time,” aka GOAT, is overused in sports discourse these days, but there is a legitimate path to Washington Commanders 2024 second overall pick quarterback Jayden Daniels having the best rookie season in NFL history. Let’s break it down.

Regular season history

Before even diving into into the regular season, it’s worth mentioning the situation Daniels walked into on draft day. It was Year 1 of a brand new regime with head coach Dan Quinn and general manager of Adam Peters in charge of a Commanders team that was 4-13 in 2023 and had far and away the NFL’s worst defense. Quinn and Peters overhauled that unit, through both personnel and scheme changes, that led that side of the ball to raise its level to league average across the board. 

However, what Daniels did in offensive coordinator Kliff Kingsbury’s offense was historic: Daniels broke the NFL’s rookie quarterback records for completion percentage (69.0%) and rushing yards (891) while helping lead Washington to a 12-5 record. That record in 2023 was good enough for the San Francisco 49ers to earn the NFC’s No. 1 seed entering the postseason, but thanks to three NFC teams winning at least 14 games — the Detroit Lions (15-2), Philadelphia Eagles (14-3) and Minnesota Vikings (14-3) — the Commanders entered the playoffs as the No. 6 seed. 

Breaking postseason, generational curses

Fast forward to today, and Daniels has the Washington Commanders in the their first NFC Championship game since the 1991 season, 33 seasons ago, and they will face the second-seeded, NFC East-champion Philadelphia Eagles. That’s the last time Washington won a Super Bowl, and Daniels was nine years away from being born. The Commanders’ presence in the 2024 NFC Championship breaking a 33-year gap in appearances tied the Cincinnati Bengals (1988 to 2021) for the longest amount of time between conference championship-game appearances since the round began in 1970 following the AFL/NFL merger. 

Beating both the third-seeded, NFC South-champion Tampa Bay Buccaneers in the wild-card round and the top-seeded NFC North champion Detroit Lions in the divisional round powered Daniels to 14 wins, including both the regular season and postseason. That tied him with Pittsburgh Steelers future Hall of Famer Ben Roethlisberger for the most wins by a rookie quarterback in NFL history, per CBS Sports Research. 

One more quarterback win stat, which is a little murky because football is a team game: Daniels is the second rookie quarterback to defeat his conference’s No. 1 seed in playoffs along with then-Baltimore Ravens quarterback Joe Flacco, who beat the 2008 season’s No. 1 seed in the AFC, the Tennessee Titans, in the AFC divisional round. Unlike Roethlisberger in the 2004 postseason (three touchdown passes, five interceptions) and Flacco in the 2008 postseason (one touchdown, three interceptions), Daniels was not aided by teams that possessed top-five scoring defenses like both of those two were. He entered the playoffs with the NFL’s 18th-ranked scoring defense. 

Upon arriving in the postseason, Daniels has put up generational production through his first two games, literally. He has more wins (two) than negative plays (one sack in the wild-card round and no interceptions or fumbles), and he has thrown for 567 yards, four touchdowns and no interceptions while completing 69.7% of his passes in addition to rushing for 87 yards on 29 carries. Only two other quarterbacks have hit the benchmarks of at least 500 passing yards, 75 rushing yards, four passing touchdowns and no turnovers in the first two games of a single postseason in NFL history, regardless of experience: Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes in 2019, when he went on to win his first Super Bowl and Super Bowl MVP, and Buffalo Bills quarterback Josh Allen in 2021. 

The 2024 NFL Draft’s second overall pick is also the first player since at least the 1970 AFL/NFL merger, per CBS Sports Research, with at least 250 passing yards, multiple passing touchdowns and no interceptions in each of his first two career playoff games. 

Daniels isn’t the first rookie to start at quarterback in a conference championship game. He’ll become the sixth along with Shaun King of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers (1999 season), Roethlisberger of the Pittsburgh Steelers (2004), Flacco of the Baltimore Ravens (2008), Mark Sanchez of the New York Jets (2009) and Brock Purdy of the San Francisco 49ers (2022). However, Daniels can separate himself from all of those names and become the first rookie quarterback all time to start the Super Bowl with a win on Sunday at the Eagles. 

Why Daniels could lead Commanders to New Orleans with win in Philadelphia on Sunday

So could Daniels and the Commanders actually upset the NFC’s top two seeds in consecutive rounds to reach Super Bowl LIX? It’s certainly within the realm of possibility. The NFC East rivals split the regular-season series with each team winning at home by one score. Philadelphia won 26-18 in Week 11, and Washington won 36-33 in Week 16 with Daniels throwing a game-winning 9-yard touchdown pass to wide receiver Jamison Crowder with six seconds left to play. 

The rookie went off for five passing touchdowns in addition to two interceptions and 258 yards passing on 24 of 39 passing while adding 81 rushing yards on nine carries. It is worth noting Eagles starting quarterback Jalen Hurts didn’t play in the final three quarters of Philadelphia’s Week 16 loss after suffering a concussion. Entering the third matchup of the season, Hurts is banged up once against after suffering a knee injury in Philadelphia’s 28-22 NFC divisional-round victory against the Los Angeles Rams. 

In Washington’s Week 16 win, the Eagles attempted to treat the Commanders quarterback like the rookie he is by blitzing Daniels on 35.6% of his dropbacks, which was Philadelphia’s second-highest blitz rate in a game of the 2024 season, including the playoffs. 

That approach didn’t work so well with Daniels shredding the Eagles’ blitz for 173 yards passing, three touchdowns and no interceptions on 10 of his 15 throws while being blitzed. That netted out to a 145.3 passer rating, which was the third highest in an NFL game this season when blitzed on at least 15 throws in a game. Daniels’ 145.3 passer rating in that situation in Week 16 trailed only Rams quarterback Matthew Stafford’s 152.6 passer rating  in Week 11 against the Patriots‘ blitz on 17 of his throws and Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson’s 148.9 passer rating in Week 7 versus the Buccaneers’ blitz on 15 of his passes. 

Should Daniels overcome the pressure (Philadelphia’s 36.9% quarterback pressure rate ranked as the eighth best in the NFL in 2024) he’ll face against the Eagles star-studded pass rush to lead Washington back to the Super Bowl, it would be pretty safe to say his 2024 is the best rookie year in NFL history.