Jayden Daniels = Next Marcus Mariota?

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One of the more popular comps in this year’s NFL draft class is that LSU’s Jayden Daniels is the next Lamar Jackson. Unfortunately, I don’t think Jayden Daniels is the next Lamar Jackson. Let’s start with the rushing, since that’s clearly what drives this comp for most — to put it simply, we have never seen any quarterback in history run the ball like Lamar Jackson has. During his college career Lamar Jackson averaged 126 Yards Per Game on the ground and 8.6 Yards Per Carry. Those numbers are simply preposterous. Daniels has averaged 71.9 Yards Per Game and 7.5 Yards Per Carry. Those numbers are very good, in fact those numbers rank Jayden 5th in Rushing Yards Per Game out of 114 drafted or draft-eligible QBs.

However, the gap between Jayden at #5 and Lamar at #1 is greater than the gap between Jayden and former Purdue quarterback David Blough, who is 71st on the list. Daniels is in the territory of guys like Josh Dobbs, Trey Lance, and Marcus Mariota — all guys who can certainly be an asset for an NFL offense on the ground, but don’t even come close to affecting defenses to the extent of Lamar Jackson.

Lamar also loved to pound the intermediate and deep middle of the field, with 24.5% of his non-screen passing attempts going between the hashmarks at a depth of at least 10 yards down the field, the 11th highest rate of any of the first or second-round QBs taken since 2015 along with the presumed top 5 of this year’s QB class. Jayden Daniels targeted the same area of the field just 18.1% of the time in his career, the 5th lowest rate among QBs in that group, above only Christian Hackenberg, Teddy Bridgewater, Marcus Mariota, and Justin Fields. Attacking the middle of the field is a vital skill for almost any successful NFL passers, as that is where defenses are often most vulnerable and where big chunk plays are available. Middle of the field passing requires throwing with anticipation and without hesitation, however, and many more conservative passers are unwilling to navigate that heavily-trafficked area. In that regard, it’s hard to find two players more dissimilar in terms of aggression than Lamar and Daniels.

Despite Daniels’ pretty deep passing statistics this year in his 5th year breakout campaign, the conservative deep passing approach we’ve seen from him throughout his career likely says more about his NFL potential. Guys who aren’t willing to frequently push the ball downfield in college, instead waiting for their receivers to cleanly win outside before pulling the trigger, are unlikely to throw deep a lot in the NFL where 1 on 1 matchups outside are much harder to win and the occasional risk is necessary. The list of highly drafted QBs who went deep as rarely in their careers as Daniels is not a pretty one:

Now you might see that Patrick Mahomes’ name is on one of those lists and decide to rely on the outlier for hope. I can’t stop you, but I’d strongly argue that if you think Daniels and Mahomes have any tools in common or that Mahomes’ situation at Texas Tech resembled anything like what Daniels has enjoyed during his career, I think you are being dangerously generous. What should concern you is every other name on those lists, and most importantly the presence of Marcus Mariota.

Mariota, like Fields, appears on basically every list with Daniels. He scrambled from a clean pocket at an above average rate (though not as often as Daniels and Fields), scrambled at an above average rate overall (again not quite as often as Daniels and Fields), targeted MOF less often than those two, and like Daniels was an overly conservative deep passer. His NFL career is a tale of maddening inconsistency as he looked like a surefire star early on only to see his career disintegrate under a parade of turn downs, hits, sacks, fumbles, and injuries. A QB who takes too many sacks and won’t take chunk plays over the middle of the field but also won’t compensate by pushing the ball vertically is just not a very valuable NFL starter, unfortunately.

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