Of the 45 rookie passers to throw the ball 400 times or more in the NFL's Super Bowl Era, Washington Commanders quarterback Jayden Daniels had arguably the best first year of them all.
By winning the NFL's Offensive Rookie of the Year Award, Daniels clearly had the best rookie season of 2024 culminating in an NFC Championship Game appearance.
However, by completing 69 percent of his pass attempts, throwing 25 touchdown passes, having the seventh-best interception percentage, and the third-best passer rating, Washington witnessed an amazing freshman campaign. Now, one NFL executive worries Daniels is in line for a sophomore slump in 2025.
“I’m afraid that is the team that is going to have the quarterback hit the sophomore slump," one executive said of the Commanders in an anonymous survey of senior personnel around the league published by The Athletic. "And now you have invested in all these older guys and you are not really building a team anymore, you are just adding pieces...At some point, you get diminishing returns with all those old guys.”
That executive mentioned the slump experienced by Houston Texans quarterback C.J. Stroud, who struggled to hit the same efficiency marks he did in his rookie season while playing behind a struggling offensive line.
That offensive line featured left tackle Laremy Tunsil, the same blindside protector Washington is hoping will help prevent a similar dip from Daniels.
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