Jayden Daniels Scouting Report
- Watched: Alabama (2022), Florida State, Alabama, Florida
- Pros:
- Probably the closest we’ve seen to Lamar in terms of running ability since Lamar himself, particularly in the open field.
- Works side to side in his progressions more than most QBs in this class and does it fairly quickly.
- Generally gets the ball out on schedule.
- Lower body is in sync with his eyes pretty much at all times.
- Definitely has an internal clock when he’s in the pocket.
- Throws with good timing and placement on curl routes/when receivers squat down against zone defense as well as slot fades.
- Cons:
- Tucks and runs more often than you’d like.
- Will bail out of clean pockets when his internal clock is going off.
- Does not keep his eyes up when he scrambles.
- Velocity is mediocre.
- Tendency to leave the deep ball short.
- Often misses behind his target on horizontal routes.
- Will happily climb the pocket when pressure comes off the edges, but immediately looks to rollout rather than resetting the pocket.
- Does not protect his body on his runs.
- Below average accuracy outside of passes behind the LOS; particularly poor on intermediate passes.
- General:
- Suffered from a ton of low snaps from the center.
- Zero snaps under center.
- A lot of RPOs with the TE leaking out to the flat where Jayden can run or dump it off.
- Overall Take:
- Pro-readiness: 6th (out of 9)
- Potential: 3rd
- Overall: 5th
- Number Grade (out of 100): 76
- Given the meteoric rise in Jayden Daniels’ draft stock this season, my expectations were pretty high when I turned on his film and I came away disappointed in his passing skills, ultimately landing with a 4th round grade on him. Let’s start with the positives though. His running ability is as advertised; he’s a home run play waiting to happen if he gets into the open field. He has the speed to pull away from basically everyone, changes direction very well, and sets up downfield blockers to maximize yards. He definitely is not as dynamic in traffic, but most QBs aren’t. As a passer, Daniels does a nice job of marrying his feet with his eyes; this both helps to manipulate zone defenders and also to make sure he can get the ball out quickly once he commits. He also pretty quickly reads the whole field side to side, recognizing where the holes in the zone are likely to be and getting to those progressions. The downside is he simply does not throw an accurate football. There were a weirdly high number of wobbly throws, and outside of hitting stationary targets squatting down against zone, he just really struggled with ball placement, regularly forcing his WRs to contort their bodies around to make catches or sailing passes well over their heads. His throwing velocity is also mediocre; passes to the far hashes and down the field tended to hang up in the air, and while he threw with good enough timing to not get penalized against college defenses, this likely won’t be the case in the NFL. Jayden is quick to bail out of the pocket, and when he does, he fails to keep his eyes up, instead fully committing to being a runner (which, to be fair, is his biggest strength). Ultimately, I expect him to end up somewhere in between Trey Lance and Tyrod Taylor in the NFL; he’s a more elusive/faster runner than both, but similar to Lance, he displays the ability to read the full field, struggles with ball placement, and bails out of the pocket too much. I don’t think he throws as good a deep ball as Tyrod did, but it’s definitely a similar style of play. If he can improve his accuracy, he could be a good starting QB given how electric his running ability is, but to me, I just don’t see much reason to expect him to make that leap. He feels like a long-term backup/spot starter to me; a player that will have some awesome highlights but will mostly leave his fan base wanting more.
- NFL Comparisons:
- Most Likely Comp: Trey Lance
- Peak Comp: Tyrod Taylor 2.0/Poor Man’s Lamar Jackson
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