- 5 hours ago
Louis Riddick joins Grant & Danny to talk Commanders, and he predicts Jayden Daniels returns to the form that took the league by storm in 2024.
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00:00Louis Riddick was on the show today at 3 o'clock.
00:02The ESPN analyst talking about Jaden Daniels.
00:05He's long been one of Daniels' biggest advocates, and I like it
00:08because he's a national voice.
00:10Not only is he influential on ESPN on all their programming,
00:14does the car wash with them on Get Up and Take Two
00:17and Stephen A. Smith is Louder Than You and all the shows that they have.
00:21He's on all of them.
00:22But on top of that, he knows ball.
00:24He's a former front office executive.
00:26I don't think he just kind of picks guys he likes and says things.
00:28I think he watches the tape and really studies it.
00:31So when he tells you, I know Daniels is going to be great this year,
00:34I know he's going to play at a high level, gives you some confidence.
00:37This was earlier today on GND.
00:39I said I put it on social media.
00:42Not that social media is the gospel or anything,
00:44but it's just an easy way to get your thoughts out there
00:46when you're sitting around late at night watching TV like I do all the time.
00:51He'll be a top-five quarterback again this year,
00:53just like he was two years ago as measured by QBR.
00:56He'll be top-five again.
00:58I'll put my money on that.
01:00This guy can throw the freaking football, and he's so electric.
01:04I absolutely love him.
01:07Riddick on Jaden Daniels, another of the things he had to say
01:10while we were interviewing him about the now third-year quarterback for the Commanders.
01:15Anyone who just all of a sudden thinks that Jaden is yesterday's news
01:20based upon what happened just this past year with his injuries,
01:25you're just fishing for reasons to knock down a guy who maybe you never liked in the first place.
01:32But Jalen's going to remind you all who he is.
01:35Not you all, but you know who I'm talking about.
01:36He's going to remind all the people who doubt him who he is this year.
01:41He is very confident.
01:43Yes.
01:44And he said, I am sure of it.
01:45He's going to be top-five.
01:46How confident are you that Daniels is going to play?
01:49Not well.
01:50We all, I think, think he's going to play well.
01:52But get back to playing at that elite level.
01:54That is a huge ask.
01:56Yeah.
01:56Not very, to be honest.
01:57Football offense, not great wide receiver room.
02:00You and I have disagreed over the supporting cast in general,
02:03but the receiver room itself is not great.
02:07To just say, like, that's, he's not saying he's going to play well.
02:10He's got a chance to make a pro bowl.
02:12He's saying he's going to be one of the five best quarterbacks in the league.
02:15That is a massive statement.
02:17Yeah.
02:17He referenced QBR.
02:19That's better than May, Purdy, Love, Stafford, Prescott, Mahomes, Allen.
02:23Daniel Jones was incredible last year before getting injured.
02:25Joe Burrow, Lamar Jackson, the MVP winners, Justin Herbert, the star quarterback.
02:30So, to me, that's a big ask.
02:31But there are two reasons why I'm not confident.
02:34One, again, we're just, we're forgetting the health disaster of last year.
02:38There's no magic health pill that was taken.
02:40Like, until I get a huge sample where he's not injured and not, you know,
02:46putting himself at risk and not getting his helmet turned around sideways
02:49and wincing on the ground because of broken ribs that he had his rookie year.
02:52More than half of the games that he was either playing or eligible to play,
02:57he's been affected by injury.
02:59Until that changes for a long time, I'm not just going to sit and be like,
03:03yep, it's all good.
03:04But let's wipe that away and just have a conversation without the health part.
03:08Fair enough.
03:08Because I think that's not only accurate and fair and reasonable,
03:10but it also can just be the only thing we focus on.
03:13So, let's play the hypothetical game.
03:15Fair.
03:16Let's get to the next conversation, which is,
03:17in a world where he starts 15-plus games.
03:21Maybe he does miss one with an ankle.
03:22Maybe he does miss one in the blue ten or whatever.
03:25But he has a healthy full season for the most part.
03:29Your confidence, again, that we're talking about an elite 2024-esque season.
03:33Yeah, I just think it's too hard.
03:35That's number one.
03:36But, again, the health part, A, that's too hard for that.
03:40But also, B, we'll disagree about it until the cows come home.
03:43They got almost $45 million in cap space, and they haven't done enough on offense.
03:47For those kinds of numbers, for a guy learning a new system in his third year
03:51on his rookie deal that still hasn't played 25 games in the NFL.
03:55I want to tee this up on the phones for people.
03:58At 800-636-1067.
04:01800-636-1067.
04:03I mean, there is no hesitation with Riddick.
04:08There is zippy trepidation here.
04:10His point is, Daniels is that guy.
04:13He's that special.
04:14Is he playing?
04:15Then he's going to play at that level.
04:17Which is how we talked last year at this time.
04:20Yeah.
04:20Because we all saw it for the entire 2024 season.
04:23But most of us have lost a little bit of that swagger.
04:26We have lost that confidence.
04:28We have lost...
04:29You've seen more now.
04:31If you'd only ever seen...
04:32Like, if Foster Griffin, through nine starts, was just hanging a bunch of bagels,
04:36they're like, oh, maybe this guy's actually just way better than we thought.
04:39But then he goes out and gives up nine Ernie's in a couple of outings.
04:41And you're like, all right, well, maybe we were actually kind of right.
04:44In terms of Daniels, if you'd never seen him struggle, then yeah, going into last season,
04:49it made sense to say he's going to be a top five quarterback in the league.
04:52To still double down on that after last season, and it wasn't just the injuries,
04:56but the performance not quite being on the same level.
04:58And there were plenty of reasons for it.
05:00We've gone over them ad nauseum.
05:02He basically, it's like nothing that Riddick saw last year has made him waver or changed
05:08how he felt after 24, which is admirable.
05:13Yeah.
05:13I just don't know how you couldn't have your confidence shaking some.
05:16And again, I know we're saying non-injury division, but that's still weighing on it for me.
05:20Like, I cannot ignore that part of it.
05:22And I think that's a huge factor in this, because the availability of the guys that are always
05:26there in the top five, that's a massive thing for me.
05:29But to the actual production itself, I'd expect that from someone that's in year seven, right?
05:34Where you've gone through it, you've had the ups and downs, you've got consistent performances,
05:38you're making that max money, you're there to make people better.
05:41It's your job to take the third rounder that everyone thinks is a slot receiver and make
05:46him a star.
05:46That shouldn't be the job of a third-year quarterback in the first year of a new system
05:51on a rookie deal.
05:52They're asking him to do too much, and it's already started, and the expectation is not
05:56I'm not blaming Louis Riddick.
05:57He loves the player.
05:57I do too.
05:58But the expectations have already gone way out of whack again.
06:00I mean, you've got really smart people that are going, as long as he's healthy, it'll
06:03be magic.
06:04Oh my God, it's so hard.
06:06It's way, way harder than everybody's letting on.
06:08And no, I'm not confident.
06:10I'm hopeful.
06:11Again, I think he's got as good a skill set as anybody.
06:13I'm thrilled he's here.
06:15But again, I think everybody's going to lose patience and be way too quick to write him
06:18off.
06:19If you buy like I do that the Blau offense is going to be great for him, because it's just
06:25great
06:25for quarterbacks, that gives you more confidence, I think.
06:29Now, if you're out at practice today and you're seeing them go play action, boot, he plants,
06:33he fires, dig route, Terry McLaurin catches it, you start salivating and dreaming a little
06:38bit on what if Daniels operates this thing at a high level, and it's all the stuff that
06:43makes quarterbacking easier.
06:45Look at the leap Caleb Williams made year over year just by being in an offense that is quarterback
06:50friendly.
06:51In fact, Blau talked about this, Daniels embracing the new offense.
06:56This is going to be a process.
06:57There will be ebbs and flows, but this is an offense that is geared both for Jaden Daniels
07:02and also that is going to make his life a lot easier.
07:04Sure.
07:05I think as much as anything, it just, you know, the expectation we talk about with regard
07:10to ownership, like he's bought in completely and it's the same work ethic.
07:15It's the same young man that you guys have grown to know and love and it's just, it's
07:21been cool to ask him to do something different and watch him soak that in as well, because
07:26you guys have seen some of the excellent parts of his game and our goal is for you to see
07:30other excellent parts of his game as well.
07:32So he has fully embraced that and gone for it.
07:36You know what else Riddick talked about that I thought was important as it pertains to last
07:39year's regression was Terry McLaurin falling off the cliff, the soft tissue injuries one
07:44after another, never been on the practice field, not playing a whole lot of games.
07:48We know that story.
07:502024, the best year of his career, the only year where he's ever had a quarterback playing
07:54at that level that Jaden Daniels did.
07:57And it was, I think if you count the playoffs, the number that stands out in my head, I'd have
08:01to look this up.
08:02It was like 17 touchdowns.
08:04Didn't he score 13 touchdowns and then four in the playoffs or something like that?
08:07I believe it was 13 in the regular season and three in the playoffs.
08:11The 16 touchdowns for Terry McLaurin.
08:14He was amazing.
08:15So what happens if full off season, everyone's going nuts about how good he looks.
08:20The coaches are saying this is the best off season he's had around them in three years.
08:24This was Blau today on McLaurin.
08:26I think, you know, we may move him around a little bit more.
08:30You know, we'll do the things that he does well to try to put us in advantageous positions.
08:35So he's done an excellent job so far with handling what we've thrown at him.
08:41And then, you know, we're just, we're going to keep asking him to keep pushing the envelope
08:44to build on the great career he's already had and then try to take another step.
08:49There's a Nationals element to this.
08:51I was on with the junkies today and they're like, how did the Nats fix Kbert Ruiz?
08:55And I'm like, well, they play him a lot less and in more ideal situations.
08:58Well, how have they gotten Jacob Young to hit home runs?
09:01Well, they took a guy who hits the ball pretty hard and they're having him not hit it on
09:03the ground and hit it in the air.
09:06How did the commanders and David Blau unlock Terry McLaurin?
09:10Well, instead of having him always line up on the left and run the same three routes
09:13in the exact same spot, now they have him in stacks and bunches and motions.
09:17They're going to do a lot of stuff to accentuate their players that they weren't doing before.
09:22You might see the Kbert Ruiz breakout.
09:24You might see the Jacob Young power surge here in the form of a McLaurin or somebody else.
09:30Yeah, they need it.
09:30I mean, the only thing that was different from McLaurin was the touchdowns.
09:33Every other year, he's basically been between 75 and low 80s in catches for just over 1,000 yards.
09:39He was that two years ago.
09:40But the touchdown numbers what jumped up and everybody looked at it as this renaissance season.
09:44Maybe that was usage.
09:45Maybe that was good red zone plays or whatever.
09:48You know what it was to me?
09:49I don't know if you felt this way.
09:51Huge plays, dude.
09:52Just massive, big plays over and over and over.
09:56For way more, he's always made the great play going up the ladder from Heineken.
10:00Yeah, the in-traffic stuff.
10:01Against the Colts.
10:02But if you remember that season and the playoffs, it was like catch and run, touchdowns.
10:06The one against Dallas, remember?
10:08Yep.
10:08End of the game where they had that defensive lapse.
10:11He just made so many of those plays that resulted in scores.
10:14Those huge moment type plays, to your point.
10:15It was the first time I ever remember thinking at the end of the year, like, damn, is he a
10:20top 10 receiver?
10:21I never felt that way.
10:22He's my guy.
10:22I love him.
10:23He's top 15.
10:24He's top 17.
10:25Whatever he is, at the end of 2024, you're going, well, that was the eighth best receiver at the position.
10:30Right.
10:30Whereas before, in his 6-11 season numbers approximate, he's going for 1,100.
10:36Similar counting stats in every other way.
10:37More yards per catch, in fact, on a lot of circumstances.
10:40Or better catch percentage or a whole bunch of other things.
10:43And we don't think of it the same way because they were terrible.
10:45But I think there's something to it.
10:46Again, I'm not telling you he was bad.
10:47Simply saying, the touchdown numbers really jumped.
10:50And some of those massive plays stick out in our memory.
10:52Rightfully so.
10:53But, I mean, to me, he has to be.
10:56Because, again, I think their wide receiver room is a bunch of readily available, low ceiling, whatever, is in an
11:02unknown third rounder that we're hoping turns into, you know, Amon Robb, St. Williams.
11:06To me, it's a lofty expectation for a guy that went in round three.
11:10So, to me, McCord's got to be awesome.
11:13I think there's no choice there.
11:14You'll hear what Louis Riddick had to say about the supporting cast for Jaden Daniels and some of the things
11:19they've done to help him where maybe they haven't done enough.
11:22We'll get into that next.
11:23But I want to hear from you guys as well.
11:25Phones are open at 800-636-1067.
11:28Phones are open at 800-636-1067.
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