Dynasty Rookie Draft Advice: Jayden Daniels (2024 Fantasy Football)

This is what we’ve been waiting for, fantasy football enthusiasts. The NFL Draft is under way, and we finally get to see where the rookie prospects are going to launch their professional careers. And NFL Draft landing spots allow us to start to zero in on fantasy football and dynasty rookie draft pick values. Here, we’ll break down Jayden Daniels and his fit with the Washington Commanders.

Throughout the draft, we’ll take a closer look at fantasy-relevant prospects, giving you an overview of their strengths and weaknesses, and assessing their fantasy value in both redraft and dynasty formats.

Let’s dig in.

Fantasy Football Rookie Draft Outlook: Jayden Daniels

Fitz’s Fantasy Football Outlook

The Washington Commanders have tabbed Jayden Daniels as their quarterback of the future, selecting him with the No. 2 pick in the NFL Draft.

The reigning Heisman Trophy winner, Daniels turned in a remarkable season for LSU in 2023, throwing for 3,812 yards and 40 touchdowns, with only four interceptions. Daniels also had 1,134 rushing yards and 10 TD runs.

It’s Daniels’ rushing potential that will most appeal to fantasy managers. He’s fast and elusive, and Daniels isn’t shy about tucking the ball away and running when he sees open space in front of him. Over his last three college seasons dating back to his final season at Arizona State in 2021, Daniels averaged 70 rushing yards per game — and that’s with sack yardage counting against a quarterback’s rushing yardage in college football.

The 23-year-old Daniels is no slouch as a passer either. He completed 72.2% of his throws last year and averaged an outrageous 11.7 yards per pass attempt. Daniels throws a pretty deep ball and throws accurately to other levels of the field, too. His lightning-quick release will serve him well in the NFL.

Perhaps the biggest concern with Jayden Daniels is the combination of a slender build and a propensity to absorb some big hits. Daniels is 6-3, 210 pounds, and he can be a little too fearless as a runner, leading to the sort of jarring shots from defenders that leave his coaches wincing. For example, Daniels was having a big game vs. Alabama last season, with 219 passing yards, 163 rushing yards and three total touchdowns, but he was knocked out of the game after absorbing a big hit early in the fourth quarter in a game LSU wound up losing 24-15.

Daniels doesn’t come into a bad situation in Washington. PFF graded the Commanders’ offensive line a respectable 15th in pass blocking. Terry McLaurin is a high-quality receiver, and Jahan Dotson could become one. Offensive coordinator Kliff Kingsbury didn’t exactly preside over high-powered offenses during his stint as the Cardinals’ head coach, but he’s regarded as something of a quarterback whisperer for his work with QBs such as Patrick Mahomes, Baker Mayfield and Johnny Manziel at the collegiate level.

Daniels had a predraft Expert Consensus Ranking of QB21 for redraft, and his predraft ADP in Underdog best-ball leagues was QB20. Those both look like good values considering that Daniels has immense rushing potential and is likely to play right away. I have him ranked QB16 in redraft and feel like that’s a conservative ranking.

In dynasty superflex leagues, Daniels figures to go somewhere from 1.02 to 1.05, depending on how dynasty managers holding top rookie picks feel about Marvin Harrison Jr., Malik Nabers and Drake Maye. It seems unlikely that Daniels will go ahead of Caleb Williams unless there’s an extreme Daniels truther sitting on pick 1.01. With Daniels’ remarkable athleticism and exciting run/pass potential, he’s worth an early pick.

In 12-team 1QB dynasty leagues, Daniels figures to go late in the first round or somewhere in the top half of the second round. The importance of the QB position is reduced in 1QB dynasty leagues, but Daniels still has appeal because his rushing ability gives him the potential to be a top-five fantasy scorer at the position. In 1QB dynasty leagues, Daniels figures to go somewhere in the late first or early second round.

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Thor’s NFL Draft Profile & Player Comp

Jayden Daniels (LSU)
6033/205 | RAS: N/A
Player comparison: Randall Cunningham

Jayden Daniels brings two superpowers to the pros: He will, from Day 1, be one of the most dangerous running threats the NFL has ever seen at the position. He also has a downfield cannon with a feathery touch. Both of these things will translate, embedding a reasonable floor and the makings of a theoretically sky-high ceiling.

Originally signed by Herm Edwards at Arizona State to be the face of that program, Daniels’ development as a passer had stagnated by Year 3. He transferred to LSU, where his career was salvaged by Brian Kelly and the Tigers’ new staff.

The biggest thing LSU did to improve Daniels’ game in 2022 was to get him to take care of the ball and reset him back to factory default settings. Following a 10/10 TD/INT rate in 2021 at ASU, Daniels posted a 17/3 TD/INT ratio at LSU in 2022. This was more in line with the two years before that at ASU when Daniels posted an aggregate 22/3 TD/INT rate.

In 2023, everything came together during Daniels’ national coming out party. He finished No. 1 in the FBS in PFF deep-passing grade and No. 3 in big-time throw rate while finishing 98th percentile in avoiding negative plays.

He had learned how to take care of the ball while becoming hyper-aggressive in situations that called for it, that ever-rare dichotomy of explosion and discretion. Combine that with his absurd rushing output – his 2,329 run yards the past two seasons were nearly 600 yards higher than the next-highest quarterback – and you can see why he won the Heisman.

Last season, Daniels bent the spatial rules of the football field. He forced opposing defensive coordinators to decide where they were going to rob Peter to pay Paul schematically. Whatever they decided, Daniels made them pay.

Do you spy on Daniels to contain him behind the line of scrimmage? If so, how are you going to keep a second safety deep to protect against the long ball? Do you try to speed things up by ramping up the blitz? You better get home quickly if you do that. Daniels was PFF’s highest-graded quarterback against the blitz in 2023.

I love Daniels’ snap-decision profit calculator. When he has the best of it, he pushes all his chips to the middle of the table. If it’s not, he will seamlessly revert to taking whatever profit is available to him. He doesn’t bail the pocket until he has to; Daniels is a full-field reader who is not looking to pull the down until he has to. But when he does, he shoots into the second level before defensive backs realize he’s broken containment.

Daniels’ pocket management has grown by leaps and bounds as the game has slowed down for him over the past few years. He has quiet feet and a sturdy platform under him as he calmly surveys his options. His 82.2 PFF pressure grade last year ranks No. 2 in this class. Daniels’ accuracy and placement are high-level at all three levels.

The concerns about Daniels are his fifth-year breakout, his rail-thin frame with his propensity to take big hits while running, his lack of work attacking the middle of the field and his high pressure-to-sack ratio. He must learn to slide in the NFL or he will get hurt.

Last season, per PFF, Daniels was only 9-for-18 with a 2/1 TD/INT rate between the hashes 10-20 yards down the field. This makes him a tricky projection to offensive systems such as Minnesota’s, which regularly peppers the middle of the field. It’s unclear whether Daniels is uncomfortable with this sort of thing or whether it was simply the constitution of LSU’s attack.

The issue that has been discussed most this offseason is his pressure-to-sack ratio. We’ll start with the positive: It improved from a truly ghastly 30.8% in 2022 to a far more manageable 20.2% in 2023 (Drake Maye territory). But it absolutely needs to keep improving. This is the last frontier of Daniels’ renaissance as a player – mastering decision-making under duress.

I’m not as concerned by the fifth-year breakout as some others are. Daniels was a highly-touted recruit with obvious ability who played all five seasons and showed consistent improvement outside of the bizarre 2021 outlier. It’s more likely that his leap up last season is indicative of more improvement to come than it being a mirage. The arrow is pointing up developmentally, and Daniels was already the nation’s best QB last year.

Check out more NFL Draft profiles and player comps from Thor in our 2024 NFL Draft Guide