This will not be a banner year for the Washington Commanders. In fairness, those are few and far between to begin with.
Washington’s 2024 will either be a modest step forward or a deeper dive into a crevasse where the only way out is through. Head coach Ron Rivera is gone. So too are six starters who logged at least 65 percent of the team’s snaps on their side of the ball. A rookie quarterback will step into the lineup in hopes of raising this team to something beyond mediocrity.
This is all a good thing for the Commanders.
It’s been more than a decade since this franchise has produced double-digit wins in a single season. It’s been 33 years since Washington won more than 10 games in a year. The team’s 2023 wasn’t a teardown, as that suggests there was a useful structure here. Instead, it was spreading around various pieces of rubble and selling off whatever copper piping remained.
So what will success look like for a franchise that hasn’t known it in any meaningful way since Cheers was on the air?
Washington has broken promising new quarterbacks in the past. Robert Griffin III went from rookie of the year to injured mess before he could even collect an NFL pension. Kirk Cousins was run out of town by ownership unwilling to give him a long term contract. Alex Smith was, at best, a temporary solution who regressed significantly after leaving Kansas City for the nation’s capital, then suffered the leg injury that effectively ended his NFL career.
There are several culprits to blame, but the fact remains the Commanders were a rotten franchise whose toxicity trickled from the top. Former owner Dan Snyder was so despised that a group of billionaires quietly forced him out of their club, necessitating a sale to Josh Harris after 23 years of fruitless ownership. When Jerry Jones is able to claim the high road on you, that’s saying something. Snyder’s tendency to make the worst possible decisions at every turn are well documented.
That lends hope to the idea Daniels, the second overall pick and fruit of last year’s four-win campaign, can be different. Harris’s reign hasn’t been much of anything, but no news is good news for a franchise that spent the last decade plagued by bad press. Washington’s priority has to be creating a stable environment in which the reigning Heisman Trophy winner can thrive.
Elements of this already exist. Terry McLaurin is averaging more than 1,000 receiving yards per season through five years in the league. His 9.9 yards per target in 2022 ranked fifth among all qualified wideouts in a year where his quarterbacks were Sam Howell, Taylor Heinicke and Carson Wentz.
Jahan Dotson was a mess in 2023, but the former 2022 first round pick has shown flashes of big play ability to be more than just a low-budget fantasy football flier. Brian Robinson has been an average runner out of the backfield in his two seasons as a pro behind an iffy line, but he blossomed as a useful receiver last year who can be a valued safety net in the short-range passing game; his 8.6 yards per target ranked first among NFL tailbacks last year. Austin Ekeler is here as well, hoping he can prove he’s not about to fall off a production cliff at age 29 despite an underwhelming 2023.
After that, things aren’t great. Signing Tyler Biadasz was an upgrade for an offensive line replacing 40 percent of its starters and Cornelius Lucas has been better than expected at left tackle. The rest of the line is not inspiring.
The tight end position will feature two-man sets with a 33-year-old Zach Ertz and rookie Ben Sinnott, who was great at Kansas State but may project more as an H-back even before getting to the standard struggles of first-year tight ends. The WR3 battle may come down to Dyami Brown, Olamide Zaccheaus and rookie third-round pick Luke McCaffrey.
This is all to say, Daniels will ride the struggle bus in his NFL debut. But there’s reason to believe he can spin some of this straw into gold.
Concerning pre-draft interview with the New York Giants aside (hey, he was just punking a division rival… right?), Daniels has the traits of a franchise quarterback. Vitally, he can buy time in the pocket with his legs and throw on the run, which will come in handy given the challenges presented by his blocking.
Daniels was buoyed by a stellar receiving corps at LSU. His top targets in a Heisman-winning 2023 were Malik Nabers and Brian Thomas Jr., both top 20 draft picks. He had another NFL wideout on the roster in 2022 in Kayshon Boutte. This undoubtedly helped, but so did the deep ball touch to make throws like this:
Now he gets to toss rainbows to McLaurin, who has never played with a good quarterback and whose average target distance has declined each of the last two seasons. When he needs to check down, he’ll have his choice between 2023’s most efficient target out of the backfield and a guy who had 107 catches two seasons ago.
There’s not a lot to work with between those two high spots, but it’s a start. Daniels’ biggest challenge in 2024 will be reading defenses and making the correct decision to toggle between the two. The biggest indicator of his franchise quarterback status may not be a big deep ball completion or even a completion at all. It’ll come when he identifies a deep safety lurking on McLaurin and uncorks a dart to Dotson or Brown or Sinnott or whomever for a safe, modest gain.
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Daniels will have to exceed expectations to move the Commanders’ needle in 2024. Last year’s depleted defense ranked 32nd in both points and yards allowed. Washington reloaded with a pair of second-round rookies who should pay dividends (Johnny Newton, Mike Sainristil) and free agents Frankie Luvu and Bobby Wagner. Even so, it would be a surprise for this team to play even average defense this fall.
That leaves shootouts to be won against a schedule that isn’t nearly as soft as you’d expect from the league’s second-worst team. 2024 will be painful for the Commanders. But Daniels can create the balm to heal those burns if he can display even a fraction of the playmaking that made him last spring’s second overall pick.
