Man, Free Friday: TNF + A Jayden Daniels Watch

Two NFC South teams combine to make a watchable TNF product for once; Rivers actually watches some football.

Buccaneers 30 at Falcons 36

I was admittedly extremely focused on the results of a certain baseball game that was occurring opposite this Thursday Night Football, so I finally “arrived” at this game in the sense of doing more than a casual glance at what was happening in the third quarter. Luckily for me, it seems the entire game started at that point.

I was impressed by Atlanta’s quick-go fourth-down to tie the game early in the fourth. This is something I was hoping to see the Texans do at some point against the Vikings — if we’re gonna get a bunch of elaborate blitzes, then why don’t you have no time to set up the rush?

Cousins was given a great pocket to operate with, and Mooney made a great Football Move to find pay dirt.

I was not impressed by Atlanta’s inability to make physical contact with Baker Mayfield. (He was pressured just five times in 25 dropbacks, and ran for 42 yards on six scrambles — you know Baker Mayfield isn’t trying to scramble.) Nor was I impressed by their run defense. The Falcons only lost yards per play 6.8 to 6.5, but that’s because they dominated the clip in the last five minutes of the game and overtime.

The Buccaneers ran for 6.2 yard per carry, had a lead or tie from the middle of the second quarter on, and lost. How do you manage such a feat? Well, you simply have one of your seven-yard runs with 2:55 left get fumbled directly into the Falcons hands, then you run for minus-3 yards, a 10-yard holding penalty on second down, and cap the next two plays off by losing another yard so you have to punt. If the Falcons did that, we’d be saying that they were continuing a proud legacy of choking. Instead, both the Falcons and Chargers seem clutch and/or normal this year and it’s freaking me out a little bit.

The extreme NFC Southness of the final 20 minutes of real-time in this game was incredible. The aforementioned Irving fumble into a quick four-and-out interception by Cousins. The Bucs going minus-14 yards in three plays and chewing up only 24 seconds before punting. Atlanta getting a delay of game before it’s game-tying field goal attempt. Then this weird half-interception attempt/half-tackle from Zyon McCollum that led to KhaDarel Hodge — only on the field because Drake London walked off under his own power last play — to just rev it straight to the house on the middle of the Bucs defense.

Excellent surrender cobra by McCollum. And horrendous tackling angles by backup safeties Christian Izien and Kaevon Marriweather.

Improbable. Highly consequential. A fitting end to a lot of stupid football.

A humongous win for Atlanta’s chances of winning the NFC South. It ties them with the Bucs, and gives them one step towards a head-to-head tiebreaker as well.

Jayden Daniels: A Quiet Storm

I’ve threatened to do it a few weeks in a row, and yesterday I finally found time to put together a full watch of Jayden Daniels throws this year.

I think the best way I can describe watching Daniels is that it is extremely calming. He has some frenetic movements when he needs to break the pocket, of course. But his backpedal and motion when he knows where the ball is going feels almost unperturbed. Like he’s just headed to the mailbox and back. The screen passes are so natural to him they almost feel robotic, without a second of wasted effort. (And there were a lot of screen passes.)

I’m loathe to praise Kliff Kingsbury because I think he’s probably just on a heater here nobody has adjusted to yet, but Daniels is doing an outstanding job of executing an offense. This is Week 1. Huge blitz coming from the Buccaneers. Unblocked rusher up the gut. Look at how smooth this throw is:

Something I’ve come to admire with C.J. Stroud, and something that I see on tape with Daniels to some extent as well, is this ability to make a really difficult throw look extremely easy. In this case, with a guy headed right for him and another to the outside, several quarterbacks would be spooked. Daniels has timed the blitz well enough to get the ball off super early. He has it in rhythm and arced so it’s an easy catch for a running back. I know it’s technically a “wide open” throw, right. But that doesn’t mean it’s a layup NFL throw. Jayden Daniels sure made it feel like one though.

Daniels’ stature and arm give me young Deshaun Watson vibes. He’s not bowling over anybody, but he’s plenty fast and well-measured within the limits of his athleticism. He also does not look to run right away.

Nobody with a natural inclination towards scrambling resets on his drop that many times in one play. He looked extremely disciplined.

Daniels doesn’t have a cannon, but he knows how to drop a teardrop in a bucket, and having to work within that limitation reminds me a lot of Watson.

This is having literally juuust enough arm to make this play work. If the DB attacks harder it is a PBU. Is he hit in motion? Yeah. But not in the arm. That was always going to be an arc throw. It’s impressive that he got the ball to where it went even if it required his receiver to make a major play on the ball to get the catch. But I think this play shows the limitations of Daniels vis a vis your cannon armers out there, the ones who just throw their weight behind this ball and it arrives in a second.

So as a writer, one of the jobs I take most seriously is … it’s impossible to not have preconceived notions. But when you hit the video and you watch what is happening, you can’t let that notion affect you. I came in expecting to watch the Buccaneers game, see some clearly bad things, and find some improvement going forward in Weeks 2-4. But most of what I wanted to see from Daniels was already evident in Week 1. He did get sacked a few times. He did throw a few balls in the danger zone when he was facing man coverage. (He’s got a 30.3% DVOA against man as compared to a 51.7% DVOA against zone, per FTN’s StatsHub.)

Of course everyone has the highlight throw against the Bengals in their head when they talk about him — there’s a reason it’s one of the go-to bits of a piece. But more than anything watching Daniels so far has been a “you don’t go broke taking a profit” clinic. And outside of the Bucs, nobody has really presented him with a closed window at the bank. I’ll give you one other throw I loved against the blitz:

Pressure off the edge, drifts to the right in the pocket, and then floats this ball over the underneath defender. Gorgeous.

And just as an extra credit bit — you told me about the touchdown throw but you guys never told me about this one:

I don’t think what Daniels is doing statistically is sustainable because no outlier at that level is sustainable. These screens are not going to be as effective as they’ve been the first four weeks of the season. But between his pocket movement, his poise, and his placement, there’s an extremely good NFL quarterback presenting himself to you early in his career. I didn’t really expect to see anything but that given, you know, the overwhelming praise. This isn’t the 2012 football internet anymore, nobody’s hiding.

There’s sure to be a rookie wall here or there, and he’s gotten lucky on interceptions. But there’s nothing here that doesn’t work long-term to me. The only question I have is about the ceiling.

Great turnaround find for the suffering Commanders fans, and poetic that it came as Dan Snyder was excised.