Former Cowboys' standout expects Jayden Daniels to be the NFC East's top quarterback

"If he's getting smarter, I expect him to be the best quarterback in the NFC East."

That's what ESPN NFL Live analyst Marcus Spears had to say last week when discussing the Commanders and the NFC East. Keep in mind, Spears played for the Cowboys and still lives in Dallas, so he was extolling Daniels' rookie season and what he thinks Daniels can accomplish in year two (2025).

Spears continued, "I was thinking about last year. We didn't talk about his legs. We didn't talk about all the crazy plays he made. We talked about his clutch ability to push the football down the field, his ability to move the football with his arm. Those are the things that we got excited about and those are the things we should be excited about going into his second year."

Spears is correct. In fact, it was Daniels' inexperience in his first NFL game that was quite visible, as he often quit on reads too soon, and took off running. Washington fans were excited after the season-opening loss to Tampa Bay, flooding radio shows with how exciting Daniels' runs were the previous day.

In Week 2 at home against the Giants, Daniels was again running around in the first half, until he got stopped and driven into the ground and lay on the turf, with all Washington fans silent in the stands, scared of how badly he might be injured.

Daniels did go out of the game briefly, having had the wind knocked out of him. But in the second half, he was a different quarterback. Running became secondary. Looking more downfield, he concentrated on staying in the pocket when needed. Those things began to become the primary mental focus for Daniels, and his season took off on an upward trajectory.

So Spears was correct again when he continued, "Yes, all of those things are additives, and he does them well. He's fast, breakaway speed, you can run some quarterback runs with him. But Jayden Daniels was dominant from the pocket. He was dominant in extending plays and throwing the ball downfield, which should give a lot of people in Washington, D.C., a lot of excitement about his growth and where they can be and potentially be next year."

He's right again. Daniels, while passing for 3,568 yards, completed 69 percent of his passes with a TD/INT ratio of 25:9. His passer rating was 100.1, and his QBR was 70.6, both good numbers for a rookie NFL quarterback.

This article originally appeared on Commanders Wire: NFL analyst is impressed by Jayden Daniels' work from the pocket