- 12 hours ago
Grant & Danny debate how the Commanders can keep Daniels healthy in 2026.
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00:00but I'm assuming you've finished Quarterback on Netflix at this point.
00:04I literally have like 11 minutes left to go in the final episode.
00:07Kids get in the way, man, but I'm right there.
00:08You're doing this thing, which I used to do all the time at school,
00:13where like a week ago I told my teacher I had a chapter left,
00:16and then she's like, so you finished it.
00:18I'm like, eight pages.
00:19You finished it.
00:20Three pages.
00:21So you're, I get it.
00:22Life's happening.
00:23So you haven't finished yet.
00:24I have not.
00:24But I have, and a lot of our listeners I think have,
00:26and we have enough information now to get a pretty decent feel for the series
00:33and Jaden Daniels, and I only bring up Quarterback.
00:36It's not a prerequisite to the conversation to say it is a reminder of the nature
00:42with which he just constantly was dealing with some type of nagging, awful,
00:49debilitating pain, injury, recovery, rehab.
00:53There was no adding to his game.
00:55There was no further development.
00:57It was just constantly trying to get back to being Jaden Daniels
01:00in what is supposed to be the most important year of your career.
01:03Shanann told this to me years ago.
01:05He said the most important year for AQB is always going to be year two
01:08because you've got the experiences in game
01:10and everything that you did in year one to learn from.
01:12The game is starting to slow down.
01:14That's where you have to make your biggest jump.
01:16Hard to make a big jump from being an MVP candidate.
01:19What all you're doing is rehabbing on the stationary bike
01:21or on that exercise ball, catching a tennis ball to regain your balance and stuff.
01:24Yeah, it's not development time.
01:26Let's try to just be healthy enough to get into a game time.
01:29But based on just all of the episodes that I watched of the quarterback series on Netflix
01:34and then the topics of the week, which have been Daniel-specific nationally,
01:39things like you've heard the Manti Teo argument that he's the most important person in the division.
01:44Steve Palazzalo was on with B. Mitch and Finley today.
01:47And I know Toby was in with them today breaking this down.
01:52But Palazzalo talked about the idea that Daniels is the best scrambler in the league
01:59and he'll basically make or break Washington.
02:02And I don't think that is a revolutionary idea.
02:04Most of the time when you have a good quarterback,
02:06if that player is on the field and playing well, you're good.
02:09And the vice versa also is in play.
02:12But because of that, I actually think there's a conversation that might be the elephant in the room
02:16that we need to have, which is I wonder how confident people are that he will stay healthy this season.
02:21If we're saying Daniels on the field means they're good and Daniels not on the field means they're not.
02:27And by the way, that's not just how we feel.
02:29I have talked to people within the organization who say the exact same thing.
02:33Hey, if Jaden's there and he's able to stay healthy, we can be a playoff team this year.
02:37That's how they feel over there.
02:38Well, then the obvious question is, do we think he's going to stay healthy?
02:42So what I want to set this up as is, was last year a revealing season where we found out
02:50that there's a lack of durability
02:51or it's the beginning of some stretch where he runs around enough, he takes shots enough at that size,
02:57with that frame, he's going to get hurt?
02:58Or was it just a fluke outlier?
03:00I think that's the debate we need to have.
03:02Was last year something we'll look back on in several years and say,
03:04what a terrible season that was.
03:06What a bad luck year where everything that could go wrong health-wise did.
03:12Or was it revealing?
03:13And where do you come down on that?
03:15For me, I'm such a worrywart.
03:18To me, it's revealing.
03:19It's the thing I was afraid of and it came to life.
03:21Is it possible for you to remove your pessimism and DC fan worrywartedness?
03:30Yes, because I think what I'm doing now is I'm putting my fan to the side and I'm going,
03:35what was the one thing I was concerned about with Jaden Daniels?
03:37It wasn't intellect, processing ability.
03:40It wasn't speed.
03:41It wasn't touch.
03:42It wasn't accuracy.
03:43Any of the attributes you want in a quarterback.
03:44Really thin frame, too many hits.
03:47What happened?
03:48Really thin frame, too many hits.
03:50You get hit enough times.
03:51Some of them turn bad.
03:53Some of them are innocuous to turn bad.
03:55Some of them are bad that don't turn out so bad.
03:57But he was hit too many times over his first two years.
04:00Year one, it was quote-unquote just broken ribs, by the way.
04:03Year two, it was the horrible thing in the pocket.
04:06Now you've got getting caught from behind with the hamstring.
04:09Then, of course, the gruesome injury against Seattle.
04:11And then, of course, the injury against Minnesota.
04:13So I forgot one there because there were so many.
04:15Make sure that you have the list in front of you when you do it.
04:17You have to reference them because there are so many injuries.
04:19But when you're concerned about something and then that thing happens.
04:23In other words, the way insurance works is, hey, you're in a flood zone.
04:26And the flood happens.
04:27It was like, well, yeah, that's why we charged you more because you're in a flood zone.
04:30That, to me, is the flood zone.
04:32My insurance that I would take out on Jaden Daniels wouldn't be poor play or him partying too much
04:38and him getting arrested for DUI or going 1,000 miles an hour on Fairback County Parkway.
04:45He's frail and he gets hit too much.
04:46And that's what happened.
04:47So the insurance analogy that just came to me is he got into five car accidents last year.
04:53You're going to pay a little bit more in car insurance.
04:56Yeah, you're going to pay a premium.
04:57Pretty clearly, right?
04:58And the knock has been, I think, like, what is the knock in insurance?
05:03Maybe it's that you're 16 and a young driver or something.
05:06It's like there was the expectation that maybe it's not going to be perfect and you won't be unblemished.
05:10But then you get into an accident.
05:12You get a speeding ticket.
05:13Two weeks later, you get into an accident.
05:15You're in driving school.
05:16You pass the course.
05:17You're good to go.
05:18You get into another.
05:19Like, that's what happened last year with Jaden Daniels.
05:21So it is very reasonable for people to be nervous or anxious.
05:25I want to start with why I think he is more likely to stay healthy this season.
05:32And the first thing I'll give you is I hope this is true.
05:37I think it's true, but I hope this is true.
05:39I think he will be running less.
05:43Now, folks have come out over the last year or two and said that he should stop running.
05:48And I would argue with that because the point of Jaden Daniels, the reason you take him to,
05:53the reason he was so unbelievable in his first season and has a chance to be the next great quarterback
05:59in this league,
06:00is the dual threat ability.
06:02Is he outstanding in the pocket when he's right, seeing things, reading them out, processing, being anticipatory, being accurate, making
06:11throws?
06:11Yeah, that's the beauty of this kid.
06:13He's not just some running quarterback at the high school level, you know, in some wing T offense that's going
06:18to go for 217 on the ground.
06:20He can do everything you ever want to do at a really, really high level from the pocket.
06:23And that's got to be what he majors in.
06:25But the notion that he should never run, which people have subscribed to, other than the occasional scramble,
06:31that they shouldn't have anything designed to take advantage of his legs in this offense, I think is ludicrous.
06:37It's taking away what makes him special and basically saying, Superman, you're not allowed to wear a cape or fly.
06:44I guess I'm just a strong dude that runs around and beats people up now.
06:47How different am I than Batman or some of the other super people, right?
06:51And so I'm not going to take that away from him.
06:53But I do think there will be less in way of design runs in this offense.
06:57I think there will be more easy answers in the passing game quickly.
07:02When you watch this, and I went back at one point early in the offseason, and I won't pretend like
07:07I watched every single scramble,
07:09but one day sitting at lunch, I watched a ton of his scrambles.
07:12And the vast majority of them, Danny, are either accurate or perceived discomfort within the pocket as something's not available
07:21or there right away.
07:23Does that make sense?
07:23Yes, it does.
07:24So snap is gotten.
07:26I'm waiting.
07:27I'm processing.
07:28Okay, it's not there.
07:29Let me reset.
07:30I feel something breaking down around me.
07:33Gotta go!
07:34And I can do that.
07:35Most guys can't.
07:36But I'm the surfer coming through the waves, slipping through the linemen and the defensive bodies in front of me,
07:42and now I'm picking up eight and dancing out of bounds right before I get touched.
07:45There was so much of that over two seasons.
07:48If there are quicker answers in the passing game, layup completions, that could be the running back, that could be
07:53the tight end,
07:54that could be the receiver, in a more quarterback-friendly offense, I think the scrambles go down.
07:59You're never going to completely deprogram him to a way that he's never scrambling.
08:02But if there are fewer design runs and fewer times he has to scramble, because as a coordinator I'm doing
08:08my job making your life easy
08:09and getting you those easier throws, by nature I would say it's impossible to argue that the risk of injury
08:17does not go down significantly, right?
08:19If that's the case, then yes.
08:21And that's what I'm hoping.
08:22I'm hoping for those things as well.
08:24But the thing that I've asked for, and again, I don't want people to give away strategy in the spring
08:28and now into the summertime,
08:29but I want the—where's my paradigm?
08:32What I want to hear from people is we need to keep Daniels healthy.
08:36We need him to be healthy.
08:37We need him to make the right decisions.
08:39So in other words, a lot of this is, you know, Daniels, as you said, being Superman, going, I can
08:43make that play.
08:44And sometimes it's fourth and one, and you've got to have it against the Eagles.
08:48I get that.
08:49I get your diving head first.
08:51Sometimes, though, it's, you know, the third play of the game against the Giants in week number two,
08:55and you get your helmet spun sideways.
08:57Nope, can't have that.
08:58Danger, danger, danger, danger.
09:00You're lucky you don't get hurt.
09:01I need those coached out.
09:03And I don't know what the—to me, when you have enough design runs and you have enough different things in
09:09there,
09:09you're basically reinforcing a certain paradigm.
09:11I need the paradigm to be health.
09:13You be healthy.
09:14So that means avoiding danger.
09:15That means less risk.
09:16That means less of some of these things.
09:18Now, the pocket breaking down around you and you getting out of trouble, as you said, it's a superpower.
09:23The exact opposite of that is what Patrick Ramsey used to do, where he would stay in there forever.
09:27God bless him.
09:27He's in the pocket, and he's seeking defenders with his magnet inside his body.
09:31Take that shot.
09:32Looking for somebody to rip him in half.
09:34But there are guys—see, the problem with that thought, I think, is a player like a Peyton Manning never gets
09:42sacked and rarely gets hit.
09:43He is as immobile as anyone in this sport.
09:47Guys like a Cousins or a Carr, these mostly cinderblock-footed pocket passers, it's about knowing pre-snap where you're
09:56going,
09:56and in those cases, being in offense is friendly enough to get you outlets and answers.
10:02And that's going to be up to David Blau.
10:04It's the perfect combo.
10:05And you've got guys all over the spectrum, like Aaron Rodgers, as prolific as he was, was always sacked a
10:09ton because he's that extra beat, that extra beat, that extra beat.
10:12Ball holder.
10:13Yeah.
10:13So there's a million ways to skin the cat when it comes to this.
10:16But I've got a guy that I have simply decided, this is for me.
10:19This is for Danny, the person who's—if I'm asked for advice, I'll tell you, please stop that guy from getting
10:24hit.
10:25It doesn't matter as much if Justin Herbert gets hit or if Josh Allen gets hit.
10:29This thin little guy getting hit is catastrophic.
10:32Every one is basically a lottery ticket.
10:34But that's an important point.
10:35So you're saying you think his frame makes him more susceptible?
10:38Absolutely.
10:39I've always thought that.
10:40There are people that still argue with that, though, right?
10:43I had the numbers.
10:44I don't have them anymore pre-draft about his height and his weight and his general body makeup.
10:49Yeah, that percentile, whatever you call that.
10:51Exactly.
10:51And there aren't really guys in the first round that have had these long, successful careers that are that size.
10:57But what's interesting is, I remember actually I talked to Kirk about this.
11:02Kirk would have been over a year ago now.
11:04I think he might have even been still with the Vikings toward the end of his time.
11:07And I was asking him about the Daniels frame and size.
11:11And he basically was saying, I play a lot of the time as the season goes on and I lose
11:15weight and whatever else.
11:17I get like 205 pounds or whatever it is.
11:20He's like, I think there's too much made out of the weight sometimes of quarterbacks.
11:24Because we think of guys that are listed at 215, 220 as significantly different.
11:28So to me, it is more of like a body structure thing.
11:31Almost like a frame where you're looking at Emmanuel Forbes' legs and they're skinny or something like that.
11:37And maybe that's where folks are going to knock him.
11:40I think you can protect yourself.
11:43Even at his frame.
11:45Lamar Jackson is not a huge guy by any means.
11:47Lamar Jackson, as his career went on, has gotten better and better at how to take hits.
11:52I don't know if he's done this.
11:55But there are people that will work with stunt doubles and folks on how to fall and what is better
12:03for my body.
12:04And that's the kind of stuff I would have been doing this offseason.
12:06And maybe he did if I'm Jaden Daniels.
12:09Because I think the key is not going to be this fake idea of never being hit or never running.
12:16It's just not reality in this league with his skill set.
12:19As Palazzalo put it earlier today on the station.
12:22He's probably the best in the league at scrambling.
12:25He's got one of the highest rates of doing it.
12:26But when he does it, he's more effective than almost everyone who's ever done it in the history of the
12:30sport.
12:31Why not do that?
12:34But I come back to being able to protect himself.
12:37Another reason why I think he'll be healthier this year.
12:40The lessons learned.
12:41So let's use the analogy of the crashes, right?
12:44You're more likely, I would say, after a stretch where you had some issues, to be a better driver.
12:50I would say stats would bear that out.
12:52Because you're just a little more cognizant of what you had happened to you or were involved in before.
12:59Yeah, you're checking texts and you rear-end somebody and you've got to pay a bunch of money.
13:01Maybe you don't check those texts anymore.
13:03So that first-hand experience of what he needs to do differently, I think, will help him.
13:07There's also going to be a heightened level of necessity for this team to protect him.
13:14How does that show up?
13:15I'm not really sure.
13:16But I do think there's an element of fewer design runs.
13:21Still going to be some.
13:22But you're not going to have as many of them.
13:24In what other ways can they do that?
13:26I don't know.
13:26Do you keep an extra guy in and pass pro on longer-developing plays?
13:29Do you really prioritize the offensive line?
13:32It didn't seem like from a personnel standpoint.
13:34They certainly did not, in my view.
13:34They did that because they let their center go and didn't bring anybody in.
13:38They brought their left guard back, who was very good in pass protection, not quite as good in run blocking.
13:45Left tackle's elite.
13:46Right tackle, you need some growth from.
13:48Cosme's going to be really good.
13:49So it should be a very solid offensive line.
13:51But they even tried to go out, remember, they were linked to Linderbaum.
13:54To Linderbaum.
13:54So maybe it was an idea they had at one point of like, okay, let's do everything we can to
13:59protect him.
14:00But that's also got to be part of my argument, I think, as someone who thinks he's going to play
14:04in more games and be healthier this year.
14:06Remember, if year one didn't happen, I could sit here like you are and go, dude, you just saw what
14:12happened.
14:12He didn't miss a single game in year one.
14:14Now, he probably should have missed a month with a cracked rib.
14:16Kind of a fluky thing at the end of a play.
14:18But okay.
14:18Had he missed two games, three games, that's not an injury-riddled crazy thing.
14:23He got through the whole year and basically had that one major issue.
14:26Took some big shots.
14:27I understand that.
14:28But it was a full season of football, running around as much as he did, where he had basically one
14:33problem.
14:33So if the argument is, look at what happened to him last year, his body's too frail.
14:37I can kind of play the same game from year one and say, that body survived a lot of blows.
14:43I suppose you could.
14:44To me, it's less about the, he got away with it, then the process isn't good.
14:50You see what I'm saying?
14:50And that's my point about year one for the whole team.
14:53The process of saying, that's why I keep bringing up, hey, I'm going to go for, here's our pass catching
14:57options for Jaden Daniels.
14:59A tight end that hasn't played a full season in years, who's a catch and fall guy, and a couple
15:04guys off practice squats.
15:05Let's go get them.
15:06And it worked so incredibly well.
15:07Just because that worked doesn't mean that should ever be your plan ever again.
15:11And they learned their lesson year two.
15:13Year one, oh, well, he just got hit a bunch.
15:16That's Jaden being Jaden.
15:17Oh, my God.
15:18Helmet spun around.
15:21Arrow knocked out of him against Atlanta, where they had to call timeout.
15:23And Mariota's picking him up, going, dude, everyone's watching.
15:25You've got to stand up.
15:26I mean, they got away with it, with the broken ribs.
15:29And again, everything could have been worse.
15:32So, to me, everything that happened last year versus everything that happened in 24 was just a violent equalizing.
15:38It was a violent returning to the mean, and now we're back at zero again.
15:41That's literally how I view it.
15:43It's because if you average the records, it's the same thing.
15:45If you average the, hey, we're going to go with a bunch of old vets and be slow on defense.
15:48Worst defense ever.
15:49Now you're back to starting point, square zero.
15:53Square zero, I'm sure that's a phrase.
15:54But you know what I mean.
15:55Yeah.
15:56I'm sort of me.
15:57Square one, ground zero.
15:59Or I just, or ground one.
16:01You ever been there?
16:02I'm a big fan of ground one.
16:03Ground one.
16:04Ground one to major, Tom.
16:07I lost my train of thought.
16:08My point generally, though, is I think, I'm hoping that the offense this year under center,
16:14a lot more, as you said, good answers for the quarterback early is the paradigm,
16:19and they're just not going to tell me.
16:20I would just love to hear people say, we have to keep him upright.
16:23We have to keep him healthy.
16:24Wherever that comes from.
16:25It's going to manifest itself in games or not.
16:27Obviously, we'll get the answers then.
16:29But I'm hoping that's on everybody's mind at all times around the building.
16:33The most recent list for this that I could find was a year ago, at the start of the season.
16:38But this was most quarterback hits taken per start over the last 20 seasons.
16:45And the list is just a bunch of dudes who either didn't get to their potential or missed a lot
16:52of time via injury.
16:53So it's Daniel Jones, who's had a torn ACL, hurt multiple years.
16:58I think he had an Achilles.
17:00He's had all kinds of different things and hasn't reached his full potential.
17:03We've seen him flash, though.
17:04That's right.
17:05Andrew Luck decided to retire.
17:07He just couldn't deal with it.
17:07He's like, yeah, I got kids, man.
17:09I want to walk around and play with them one day.
17:12Carson Wentz went from 33 touchdowns MVP candidate to getting torn up diving for the goal line and bouncing around
17:19as a backup a few years later.
17:21Deshaun Watson, completely fallen off.
17:24Yep.
17:24Some of that didn't have a whole lot to do with football.
17:26Well, remember, one of the quote-unquote good seasons, he couldn't fly with the team.
17:30Deshaun Watson had to take a—again, I don't feel sorry for him because of what happened, but your point is,
17:34he had to take the bust against him.
17:36It was John Madden in his prime.
17:38I mean, it's unbelievable what he went through with all the hits.
17:40And then the last one on this list is Joe Burrow, who's been to a Super Bowl, but Burrow is
17:44one of these guys who's been in and out of the tub his entire career.
17:48And it's a major question mark about whether or not he's going to reach his potential and win Super Bowls
17:53and become an MVP and be a Hall of Famer like he is on the trajectory to do.
17:58So a lot of it is just hit avoidance and not being involved in as many—here's where the analogy, I
18:05guess, becomes literal—of those human being-like car crashes.
18:09So that's the question for you guys at 800-636-1067 that we'll start with today.
18:16I just finished quarterback.
18:17It is a really uplifting show.
18:21If you're a Daniels fan, that gives you a lot of hope that he's going to go on a revenge
18:25tour and that he is primed to have a monster season because he's an immense talent.
18:30But it's also a reminder of just how excruciating and exhausting and terrible last year was where it was one
18:39thing after another in the second season of this player who coming out a lot of people felt like might
18:44have years like that.
18:46And so point blank, was last year revealing and you feel like it's the beginning of something?
18:51Or was it a fluke outlier that we'll look back on in time as he is winning MVP awards and
18:57say, that conversation was much ado about nothing.
19:00It was just an unfortunate, fluky season.
19:05800-636-1067, 800-636-1067, Grant and Danny on the—
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