{"id":672445,"date":"2026-01-12T22:08:17","date_gmt":"2026-01-12T22:08:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/672445\/"},"modified":"2026-01-12T22:08:17","modified_gmt":"2026-01-12T22:08:17","slug":"jayden-daniels-takes-big-fall-in-qb-rankings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/672445\/","title":{"rendered":"Jayden Daniels takes big fall in QB rankings"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jan. 12, 2026, 5:09 a.m. ET<\/p>\n

Washington<\/a> quarterback Jayden Daniels looked like one of the best quarterbacks in the league already as a rookie in 2024.<\/p>\n

The quarterback won the Rookie of the Year Award and led the Commanders<\/a> to the NFC Championship Game last season. However, the 2025 campaign couldn’t have gone much differently, as the team and Daniels struggled mightily.<\/p>\n

The Commanders<\/a> finished with just five wins, and Daniels played in only seven due to multiple injuries. Even when healthy, Daniels looked nothing like what he looked like as a rookie. There were still those great flashes, but the offense as a whole was underwhelming.<\/p>\n

Now that the regular season is over, NFL.com’s Nick Shook<\/a> has ranked every team’s primary quarterback based solely on their 2025 performance. Shook grouped the quarterbacks into tiers, and Daniels is much lower than anybody thought he would be.<\/p>\n

Shook has Daniels all the way down in Tier 5 and ranks him 28th out of 32 quarterbacks. Michael Penix Jr., J.J. McCarthy, Shedeur Sanders, and Justin Fields are the only passers rated lower than Daniels.<\/p>\n

Expert NFL picks: Exclusive betting insights only at USA TODAY.<\/a><\/p>\n

Regarding this placement, Shook offered the following:<\/p>\n

Jayden Daniels’ highly anticipated sophomore season never got off the ground. Injuries plagued him and the Washington offense throughout the season, robbing us of a chance to see how he could build on his Offensive Rookie of the Year campaign. Now, he’ll have to learn\u00a0a new offense.<\/p>\n

Daniels’ season was indeed ruined by injuries, and now the quarterback has to learn a whole new system after Kliff Kingsbury was fired. Still, there were enough positives from 2024 to make you think that Daniels can still be an elite passer in this league.<\/p>\n

The quarterback threw for 1,262 yards, eight touchdowns, and three interceptions. The hope is that a new offensive coordinator and better playmakers will help Daniels get back to his elite production.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jan. 12, 2026, 5:09 a.m. ET Washington quarterback Jayden Daniels looked like one of the best quarterbacks in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":672446,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2069],"tags":[95878,427,7,6,95993,95994,95882,97916,96003,97808,96194,95896,95888,95895,95897,95899,96626,95883,96006,95881,855,111,2480],"class_list":{"0":"post-672445","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-washington-commanders","8":"tag-accessfree","9":"tag-commanders","10":"tag-football","11":"tag-nfl","12":"tag-sstssportsnflcommanders","13":"tag-sstsncommanders","14":"tag-tagamerican-football","15":"tag-tagj-j-mccarthy","16":"tag-tagjayden-daniels","17":"tag-tagjustin-fields","18":"tag-tagmichael-penix-jr","19":"tag-tagnational-sports","20":"tag-tagnfl","21":"tag-tagnfl-hub","22":"tag-tagoverall-negative","23":"tag-tagoverall-neutral","24":"tag-tagshedeur-sanders","25":"tag-tagsports-news","26":"tag-tagwashington-commanders","27":"tag-typestory","28":"tag-washington","29":"tag-washington-commanders","30":"tag-washingtoncommanders"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115884412432122800","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/672445","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=672445"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/672445\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/672446"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=672445"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=672445"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=672445"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}