The Season with Peter SchragerThe Season with Peter Schrager: Jayden Daniels Deep Dive with NFL Network’s Daniel Jeremiah
Peter opens the show with a deep appreciation for the epic Jayden Daniels performance on Monday night in Cincinnati. Peter paints the picture of why this could be a new day in Washington, with the perfect GM, HC, OC, and QB coming together at the right time. He, then, brings in NFL Network’s lead NFL Draft analyst, Daniel Jeremiah, to go back in time and review his January scouting reports on Daniels. DJ explains a VR/AI technology that Jayden had access to at LSU that is helping him today in Washington, as well as what 55 starts at the college level has done for the Commanders’ rookie QB. The two wrap the podcast with a quick snapshot of some of the top college football prospects playing today, ahead of the 2025 NFL Draft.
The Season with Peter Schraeger is a production of the NFL in partnership with iHeartRadio. What's Up, everybody, Welcome to another episode of the Season.
With Peter Schreeker.
I am Peter Schreker, your host, and I am still smiling after what was an incredible viewing experience Monday evening. I got to devote this whole episode to Jayden Daniels. And if you're not a Commander's fan, or if you're a diehard Eagles, Cowboys and Giants fan and you think you're gonna vomit listening to this, I'll just tell you turn it off, find another podcast, go listen to something else, because I'm gonna geek out over Jaden. I loved, loved, loved watching him play at LSU last year, and I'll be honest, I don't have a long library of his Arizona State days.
I don't go way back with him.
I fell in love with him last year when I started watching LSU games on Saturday, especially down the stretch of the season, and he made this incredible push to the Heisman. I then spent most of the pre draft process saying, yes, Caleb, but what about Jaden Daniels, Yes, Caleb, but what about Jaden Daniels.
There is no wrong.
Answer yet, It's too soon, But I will say anyone who was big on Jaden before the draft looks pretty smart right now, because three weeks into his rookie season, he looks as good and as polished and as ready as any rookie quarterback that I remember, even CJ. Stroud last year. I remember he lost his first game, had a good bounce back game. It took him a couple of weeks to feel as comfortable and look as confident as Jaden Daniels has through three weeks. And Monday Night it was everything on display Monday Night Football. You had a rookie quarterback playing on the road in a hostile environment under the lights on National TV and not ESPN, that TV American broadcast company, National TV. That game was on ABC for a national audience. That was the broadcast network. And this Bengals team, which is a Super Bowl contender, and everybody's eyes going to the season is zero to two, starving, hungry and looking to finally get its first win of the season, and Jaden Daniels came in there against lou Ana Rumo's defense, and coach lou Is one of the most respected and well regarded defensive coordinators in the league, and Daniels came in and sliced that defense up, going twenty one of twenty three, throwing for two hundred and fifty four yards, throwing two touchdowns, running the ball for forty yards, and running in a touchdown. This guy had six offensive possessions and his team scored five touchdowns and had one field goal and did not punt the entire game. He is the first quarterback with a ninety plus completion percentage, two hundred and fifty plus passing yards, two passing touchdowns, and a rushing touchdown.
In any NFL game. Ever.
He's also the first player, not just a rookie since nineteen fifty to do all of this in the in the in one game, complete ninety percent of his passes, throw for two fifty and more yards, throw for two touchdowns, run for a touchdown, and have more touchdowns than in completes.
It's it's a statistical anomaly what he did.
But then you go through the context of the story and that final key scoring drive. They're up five points and it's third and seven and they're on the road and Burrow just threw this, this dagger of a touchdown to Jamar Chase to cut the game to five. And Burrow's been there, done there. Burrow's hungry, Chase is hungry. Chase is going off in this game. And they're up five and it's third and seven and they get on the field and the play call comes in and it's all screwed up. Everyone's in the wrong place. You can see rookie Luke McCaffrey is looking like a chicken with his head cut off. You got Jamison Crowder on the top of the screen, and they call time out. Now at this particular moment, rookie quarterback on the road, five point game, I think it's usually in your best interest to either say, hey, let's go and get a seven yard gain and try to get that first down. Make it easy, a simple play, or maybe we pick up a few yards and we either go for a long field goal or we punt the ball and make them go the length of the field. Kingsbury calls a play and it's gopher broke for this dude. Jayden Daniels as a rookie in his third game under the lights on Primetime TV to cock back and throw that touchdown pass to Terry McLaurin in the back of the end ze when they needed seven yards. He goes twenty seven yards into hit McLaurin, who gets his knee in. It's the stuff that tell you a star is born and that legends are being made in real time. I don't think this is hyperbole. I don't think I'm going way over my skis. That might have been the greatest regular season rookie performance I've ever seen in a game. And Daniels on top of that, is calling for plays from out of bounds. He's telling guys where to go. It looks like i Q wise, he's way ahead of where most rookies are in his third game. I also think it's the perfect situation. I can do a four hour podcast on the Washington Commanders offseason and all the ups and downs. You have to realize Ben Johnson was likely going to be the head coach if we were to call this early in the process. They met with him, they liked him. Ben Johnson pulls his name from contention and then goes and says, I'm gonna go and return to Detroit. We're gonna try to run this thing back, Fine, that's Ben Johnson's say, Washington, though they didn't offer the job to Johnson. They pivot and they say, Okay, well he's out of the conversation. Let's look somewhere else. They hire dan Quinn. Dan Quinn joins Adam Peters. Adam Peters is a first year at GM who himself has been through a million interviews and met with a million teams, coming from the forty nine ers and before that the Broncos and the Patriots where he's won Super Bowls. You've got Peters, You've got Quinn. Now you look at the offensive coordinator position. Guys Cliff Kingsbury interviewed with the Eagles, wasn't offered the job, interviewed with the Bears, where he coached Caleb in college, wasn't offered the job. Interviewed with the Raiders, discussed the job, terms were set, terms were discussed, and then kind of fell apart at the last second. And then that very same day where it fell apart with the Raiders, dan Quinn calls and says, should we talk about this Washington gig. Eventually, King's who has been an NFL head coach, who has coached at the college level, both Patrick Mahomes and Caleb Williams, and in the NFL level has been with Kyler Murray, a mobile quarterback. Kingsbury goes to Washington. He and Adam Peters quickly hit it off. He and Dan Quinn quickly hit it off.
And it's one of.
Those deals where we'll keep our cards close to the vest. But like they were all in on Jayden Daniels all summer. Now, if Caleb was available, would Caleb in the pick?
Maybe?
I don't know, but it wasn't going to be mayor Daniels as everyone was reporting it was Daniels. Jaden gets there and Cliff basically puts an offense in that is around this quarterback and his talents and what he can do. It was the perfect marriage of GM coach, offensive coordinator, then this vessel, this kid, this quarterback to make it all work. You surround that with what they did in free agency. And they didn't go and try to sign some thirty million dollar receiver. They didn't do something crazy and bring in a bunch of rookie wide receivers to go along with them. No, they said, let's stick with Terry McLaurin. And then Let's give him zach Ertz to work with, who's been there, done that. Let's give him Austin Eckler in the backfield, who's been there, done that, and let's try to build an offense that includes both veterans and rookies. Look, I don't know if the Commander's win another game this season.
I don't.
Maybe they go, you know, two and fifteen and we say that was a crazy win they had.
But I do know this.
What I saw on Monday night was a star and what I saw on Monday night was an offense that I really enjoy watching. I mentioned they didn't punt on Monday Night. The Commanders have not punted since Week one. They didn't punt against the Giants either. Two straight games no punts, a ton of points, two wins, and a new superstar in Our Lives, The Jayden Daniels era is here and I am here for it. Our guest today on the podcast is the great Damiel Jerrha. We are going to do a deep dive. We're gonna talk more on Jaden, but we're also going to talk about the other rookie quarterbacks, some of the rookie wide receivers and then we're gonna do a little sneak peek at next year's draft and maybe get into a little Schador Sanders, maybe little Travis Hunter, maybe a little Carson Beck, maybe little Jackson Dart. Yes you're not familiar with those names, We're gonna get into all of them with my guy DJ, Daniel Jeremiah moved to six.
Right to this. Our guest is a dear friend of mine.
Our yearly joint mock drafts on this podcast are the highest rated and most listened to podcasts that we do each season on this podcast, and I think he's truly one of my favorite people, and it's also one of the most plugged in and knowledgeable when it comes to these college prospects, but also the rookie class. With no further ado, my dear friend from the NFL Network, mister Daniel Jeremiah DJ, what's up, buddy.
It's so great to see Pete. But I got to say, man, I think I had that shirt in high school. That is phenomenal. What is the material? What are we working with?
It's like a swede, like a flannel, like it's just comfortable.
I just want to cut a cup of hot chocolate and just want to cozy up to a fire with that shirt on.
No doubt, no doubt.
As you live in sunny LA and we're already the seasons already changing here in New York, and the season's good segue check this out. This season has changed in Washington. In my monologue, I start off and did a whole spiel on how Jaden Daniels was the perfect player for a team that needed them at the right time, with the perfect coach, perfect offensive coordinator, and it's all just like the stars aligning in Washington right now. But you were hot on Jaden Daniels way back in like October of last year. You were texting me like, did you watch Daniels this week? And then throughout the draft process you were a big Jaden Daniels fan. And then we go through it all and he's the number two picks A. He was an undrafted player. Everyone liked him. Looking at it now, did you ever envision it being this fast and this great and this sensational right out of the gates?
Well, I'm not in that game. I mean I thought probably more like what we saw in the first two games, which was really good, really good. But what we saw against Cincinnati was like not not like rookie good, not first round pick good, but like good good, like regardless ninety one percent. I mean like it was ridiculous and it was just the poise. It was fascinated when I ended up pulling up my reports, like I want to, like, can we go through it? So? When did you write this?
You wrote this in March last year?
This was This was in January.
Okay, January, right before Senior Bowl. Right at that time. You've got to write snippets of all the top prospects.
Let's go through the archives. Go, I guess nine months ago, what did you have on Jaden Daniels?
Go all the good, all the bad. I want to hear it.
Okay, here we go. Daniels is a tall, lean quarterback with exceptional accuracy, decision making, and speed. Very poised and comfortable in the pocket saw that the other night. Likes to use a rhythm bounce at the top of his drop before settling his feet into the ground and smoothly transferring his weight to throw. Extremely quick release, beautiful throwing motion. Throws with anticipation, touch, and accuracy. He flashes the ability to manipulate safeties with his eyes to create separation downfield when he gets pressured, he doesn't hesitate to explode out of the pocket, has elite suddenness. He's more of a linear speed runner than a break you down, make mistype ball carrier. He does need to do a better job protecting himself, though, as he took some huge shots in the games I studied. Overall, Daniels took a massive leap in twenty twenty three and now offers both a high floor and a high ceiling.
Ooh yeah, I I haven't seen the other part of it.
You know.
It's I have not seen the negative yet because I agree with you, he's done.
A better job protected himself. He's on a much er job protecting himself.
Like he's not built like Lamar, he's not built like Tua. He's not big enough like Josh Allen to take these hits, and yet he's evaded these hits really well. And these run option designs that they're doing have been outstanding. I look at what it is out of the gates. Talk about fifty five starts in college versus maybe Anthony Richardson who had thirteen at University of Florida, and what the difference is and you could see.
It, right, Yeah, you can see it. You can see it even like with bo Nix the other day. I mean, who started sixty two games in college? So this is the This is the lesson that I think I'm trying to put into practice, and I think people around the league in the media are starting to pay attention to. Is that this takes time. Like you can't microwave these dudes and have them just come out ready to go. So it's it's just an accumulation of reps. I talk about the catalog, right, You've got to build the catalog of plays, of seeing coverages of seeing combinations, and just you're constantly storing that in your memory bank. So when you look around the league and now we see you know, Gino doing his thing, Sam Baker even justin fields, how much better he looks in Pittsburgh than he looked pously in Chicago. Yeah, that's all these guys. So did wait did so what happened?
Then?
Did they all of a sudden regain all the talent that they had coming out? Like No, They've always had the talent, they just haven't had that catalog of experience and back in previous you know, decades, you know, Traykman was allowed to struggle early on and get the tar kicked out of him and then kind of grow and then and then eventually it pays off. Peyton Manning is allowed to throw a zillion interceptions his first year and we're not going to freak out and know that he's just gaining more experience. But to have the the huge number of starts in college is such an advantage man, because it's a different game, but it's still reps. You're still reacting to coverages, you're still seeing things. So I there's no the guys that have had a lot of success early and c. J. Stroud's like on his own island from what he did last year, which was so unique because he hadn't played a ton at Ohio State. But Herbert comes into the league have and started a ton of games. There's you know, Dak comes in even though he wasn't a high pick, he had played a ton of football Assissippi State, like a lot of these guys that have had early success.
DJ brock, Brock Purty played, So.
I think there's definitely something to that, and I think it's also a cautionary like, hey, we don't need to throw the other guys out. Let's let the other guys get the number of starts and get the experience they need. And unfortunately for them, they're having to learn at the highest level. Uh, with those reps and with those experiences.
Yeah, and I don't know where the urgency came from, but it did happen at some point, And maybe it's the new salary cap where you get them five years at this cheap price. So it's like, let's get the most out of them as we can. We can't just stash them. But when we grew up, I remember Michael Vick backed up Chris Chandler. I remember Steve McNair backed up Chris Chandler. And these were top guys.
And rivers behind Drew Brees, no doubt, no doubt, and Phil Simms backed up Scott.
Brunner, like this is what was what was done. It was just like understood, like you don't throw a guy in right away. And yet now I look at guys like Bryce and Richardson and it's, yeah, it's tough. I don't know if I'm concerned about Caleb and if it's too soon, but that offensive line and that offense doesn't like to be so sturdy as it is in Washington. What have you thought on Caleb as we were all over heels for Caleb Williams going into this thing and it hasn't been one hundred percent perfect.
Yeah, I thought going through that process and I had Caleb over Jayden coming out, and the thought process was and I said this through the whole spring, which is, if this is a race, Jayden's going to start ahead of Caleb. He's just he's further on in his development at this point in time than where Caleb is. But Caleb, I think has more in him to eventually have a higher ceiling. You know, whether he gets there or not, we'll have to wait and see. And that's why Jayden I think was a safer pick because of where his entry point was. But Caleb, I look at these young guys and I'm like, I get alarmed if I can't pull out the five to eight plays a game where I go, okay, that's the good stuff, like and with Caleb, I've seen that, especially this last.
Three hundred something yards, yeah.
Three hundred and sixty three yards. I think with some big third downs and fourth downs like that. They they did some good things there. Now he doesn't have all the pieces around him that everybody thought he was going to have. The offensive line is not done well. They cannot run the ball at all. There's other issues there. But I think he's I've seen better from him as we go along, and I'm seeing the good stuff in there, and maybe in some smaller doses. The Bryce thing is the one that's concerned me because and I saw him live a couple of weeks ago against the Chargers and then studying that, I'm like, man, I'm studying these games and I'm trying to find those plays, those five to eight plays, and I'm not seeing them, of those flashes even that they aren't there. And you know that that could be an environment thing from what happened last year. I'm not saying it's irreparable, but it was. There's still healing that needs to take place there. And maybe that's part of this, this this idea right here to let him sit for a little bit.
You just in general, you're a nice guy.
You're also really polished at TV, and you also see the whole league. You're not one who's privy to like hot takes and initial like, you know, screaming reactions. I can go that way, and last week on air, I felt like I was, you know, caping for the Carolina Panthers franchise and defending this organization that I have no ties to. But I'm like canals, he doesn't want to do this in the third week of the season. Guys, he doesn't.
There's there's no there's no ulterior motive for them benching Bryce Young.
This is not what they want. This is absolutely a move out of need and desperation in that.
They couldn't complete a bubble screen. That was the exit. That's where I had to get off the highway on that one when they couldn't complete the bubble screen.
I know a lot of people in our industry don't watch, and I'm not trying to take shafts, but they don't watch week to week, and they're certainly not watching Carolina Panthers LA Chargers, and they're certainly not watching, you know, the Carolina Panthers lose by fifty in the first of the season and just get completely blown out.
But I do watch it.
I do talk to folks, and it's like Andy Dalton, whether we like Bryce or not, because he's a great kid. Andy Dalton gives has a better chance to win, and they're fifty two other guys in the locker room and we got to compete at some point. It can't just be let's keep trotting out Bryce because it's it's embarrassing. If he's benched, they go out there, they win, and it's it's funny. We're now doing this on a Wednesday, very little Miacopa's in the media about how ridiculous and stupid the Panthers were for benching Bryce.
You know, yeah, I didn't. I wasn't on the train saying it was the wrong decision there. I left that stadium thinking it's going to be hard to maintain the locker room and move forward presently with Bryce starting right now. It just it was so bad. It was so bad the first two weeks. And this is somebody who is the biggest Bryce young fan coming into the draft, and I still, you know, I still have hope that it could work out for him. If not, there somewhere else, But again, there just hasn't been those you need those positive nuggets to take out of those games, and they're warn't any. I mean, it was futile. And the other thing I said, which Panther fans came at me hard this week, which is a vocal crew. By the way, I don't know if they are, they're a very vocal vocal because I said, it's one of the worst rosters that I've seen. And that's not the part. That's not the fault of of Dan Morgan. That's not the fault there of coach Canalis. Like they're new together in this new regime, and there's been an exodus of talent out of that building over the last few years, star level talent that is left. And I'm just watching them and I'm going, I don't know. I mean, they can't stop anybody. The first two games run or pass. They had three explosive passes in the first two games combined. I think they had nine with Andy Dalton the other day. So from what i'd seen the first two weeks, I'm like, guys, I'm not. Everybody's like you need to apologize. I'm like, well, I can't see the first two weeks. I didn't watch those games, like they couldn't do anything. And now this is another point. This was about two things. This was about Andy Dalton. Give him his flowers because he threw on time his backfoot was in the ground, the ball was gone, so any issues they might have had up front, he took care of those by just getting the ball out of his hand. He was excellent. And the other thing, I'll give Canalis a lot of credit with someone who I think i've met once, I don't know, I've heard great things about him. But this was a culture challenge. This was a test of where this team's going to be. You've played terrible for two weeks, You've already switched out the quarterback. How do you respond? And I think for them to come out and really kind of get after the Raiders the way they did, I think that's a tip of the cap to the culture that he's great in there.
All I needed to see was the reaction in the locker room. Tepper comes in and the owner, whether he's everyone loves him or not.
And I don't think many do in the media, and I don't think many do at home.
He gives the game ball to Canalis and the place explodes, and it's all about the players, and they're the one celebrating and celebrating the head coach.
So to me, look, and I know we're all outraged.
We protect these young quarterbacks but like, I had to take that stand last week and I did it on my podcast, it on the show and say they know better than we do, and they don't want to do this. Guys like they don't want to do this. This, this doesn't benefit them to do this. They're going out there on a limb to save the season. All right, back to Jaden real quick. Yeah, when you were talking to folks about Jaden going into the sin his path is interesting Arizona State. But then transfers to Brian Kelly, give us sort of the history on Jaden if you can empty the bag a little bit on the football and then on his path that led him to the NFL, because I think we can all use a refresher course because this guy's a sensation right now.
And it's like, wait, well where did he come from?
Yeah? So, first of all, Southern California quarterback. I'm maybe one hundred and sixty pounds, you know, soaking wet, come out of high school, but was a highly recruited and highly regarded recruit coming out through brazillion Yards in Southern California. He goes to Arizona State, It's a huge get for them. Early on in his time there he beats Herbert in Oregon in a huge game. Big upset hits Ayuk, who was his go to guy on that Arizona State team, for a big play in that game, but he kind of flashed on the scene. Well then it starts to crumble at Arizona State. There's recruiting violations come down, there's going to be the coaching change. HERM Edwards is out, so he kind of gets a little bit lost in the shuffle there. He ends up then transferring to LSU, and once he gets to LSU, you see the first year salad and then the second year he explodes. It felt very much like Joe Burrow from that standpoint of just seeing settling and then exploding. And that's what he did. And one of the cool things about it, and this was written about in the run up to the draft, but something that I did a lot of homework on is they have a legend on the l LSU campus named Jack Marucci. If the name sounds familiar to folks, if you've heard of Marucci bats, if you've got kids that play baseball, that's his He He was the trainer, the athletic trainer at LSU. He wanted to play with football in the backyard, and he's like, you know, instead of buying a wood bat, maybe I'll just make my own. The guy makes his makes his own wood bat, and so LSU player is a great baseball program there. He starts making his own bats literally out of his out of his garage, just for fun for football lo and Behold likes LSU baseball players start mess around that start using it. When one of these LSU players ends up getting in the major leagues and he goes he's with the Cardinals and goes, hey, you got to bring one of those bats. I want to show pooholes. So he ends up pooles ends up swinging this bat. He likes it. Long story short, he builds a billion dollar industry as a trainer at LSU is the largest bat manufacturer, overtaking like Louisville Slugger. Like he's anyways, amazing guy. He's a genius. So he's also very into tech and cutting edge things, so he gets into this. He finds a flight simulator company out of Germany that puts on these headsets that it's like VR on steroids. It's VR with an AI component to it. And then he develops the software. They're able to dump the opposing stadiums in the sec of everybody that they're going to play, so you can look around and it looks like you're in there, where the shot clock or where the play clock is, everything's identical. Then you're able to dump your entire offensive playbook in there. Then you're then you're able to take the team you're playing. So you've got Mississippi State this week. They can take all the tendencies. Okay, when you go three by one, three receivers on one side, one on the other, they're in. They're in this coverage seventy percent of the time. So they put they dump all this information in and then you can then he can then get reps during the week, Jayden Daniels was doing so Jade Saniels basically like coming under in like, Okay, this is the play that I've called, so I know the play. Okay, we snapped the ball. Okay, at the snap of the ball, what they do their safeties rotate, So I'm seeing all this and then I can know where I want to go with the football. You're not like physically going through anything. You're just you're mentally repping these things. So this is something that he got into heavy. And then Jack had told me that through this process, he started to say, okay, can we crank the speed up? So, okay, now I've got to want to play faster. He wants it faster. So they let's try one point one, Like if you think about listening to a podcast, Now let's go one point two. By the end of the year, he was at one point five. So he's getting say, let's just throw the number out there. So in a game you're going to have offensively in college, you have seventy five snaps. He's played those seventy five snaps, run all those plays, seen all those coverages in that environment maybe a thousand times during the week. And oh, by the way, he's seen him at one point six speed, so when you get to the game, it looks like it's completely slowed down. So this has been a key, and he's been he's been adamant about how this has helped him. So fast forward in the draft process, teams knew, whoever drafts Jayden is going to be able to take this tech with him, They're going to be able to take this this VR stuff with them. So and then other teams had went down there, like New England had gone down there LSU and met and studied all this stuff. So I think there's I think there's a handful of teams that have it in the NFL right now. They're restrictive on who has it, but Washington is definitely one of them. And he still incorporates this. So if you're watching Jade Daniels, it looks like he's cool, calm and collected in the pocket, like it's slow motion. Well it is in slow motion because he's been playing this thing at a faster speed a hoy long.
He's had Trey Hendrickson breathing on him, He's had Dexter Lawrence bred He's already seen it in one point five. That's fascinating. I also you cover this and you know the key characters like Cameron Taylor Brick came out and was like, it's a college offense that they run.
Like talk about.
Cliff's offense because I can tell you as a as a person who talks to Cliff often that he's like, no, this kid is fearless, this kid is aggressive. This kid makes all the smart decisions. And during the summer he was the guy and it's so cliche, but he's first in last out And I do my breakout players list and I put Jad in Daniel's number one. Everyone's like, duh, he's a number two overall pick. I'm like, no, no, no, I think he's gonna take over the league. Like I think he's that sensational and Cliff's been raving about him. Why was this the perfect fit from a football standpoint, as you for someone with a front office personnel that like, oh, you have an offensive coordinator who can actually build an offense around this guy. Because they're both kind of cutting edge with how they play and how they think.
Well, I think people think of Cliff as like Texas Tech Cliff, and it's like, first of all, Cliff's been the head coach in the NFL, Cliff played in the NFL. Cliff has plenty of bona fides when it comes to credentials of NFL football and not taking some hokey high school offense and rolling it out there at the NFL level. There's some complexity to it, but he's creative. So when you have somebody that's creative and someone who knows how to maximize the skills as a player, that he has. That's a great combination and your experience is the best teacher. The guy's coach, Mahomes, the guy's coach Kyler Murray. He knows how to utilize a skill set that's pretty special that what Jayden has. And you know, if you just want Jayden to just sit there and just let's just play drop back football the whole time, I think defensive coordinators would send you a thank you note. They're figuring out ways to stress stress teams and using him especially in third downs, being able to incorporate him as a runner, and then really working with him on protecting himself in that way. You're going to see it. You're going to see it as we go throughout the year. Like if you watch the Cowboy Game of the Day, Derek Henry has an unbelievable game that Raven's got Deterrek Henry going, I'm like, you know how many times you have to block the backside end when Lamar Jackson's your quarterback zero because you have to account for him. It's going to be a multiplier effect for everybody else in that run game. And Jade's not going to have to carry it fifteen times to have a major impact on the run game because your tackle and tight end is going to just be like, no oh, I don't worry about blocking him. He's got to stay home because he could pull it.
Absolutely.
It's it's the threat of the run that's almost worse than the run itself. I also would say that this kid, you don't see that at a rookie third game, screaming at the sidelines. Let's get to play in like he's got a he's got a thing about it.
What's interesting about that. It's interesting about that is with young quarterbacks, and this is some of the things people don't don't realize of, like, gosh, I don't know why this guy's not why is this not working. Here's one thing I can tell you a story I won't tell who it is, of a rookie quarterback who had a very was in a very verbose offense. So the language is long. So the trickle down effect was he's new to the NFL. You're new to and this is a long play calls, so you're trying to hear the play call on your helmet. It's taking you a minute to process that then spit it out. Now I get to the line of scrimmage. My headset's cut off because I haven't got up there in enough time for still have a voice in my ear. Think about McVeigh, what he would do with golf right to be able to help him and get in his headset. Well, that's out because I'm late getting to the line of scrimmage. I don't even have time to really survey the defense, and I've got can't have the cards.
In the NFL on the sideline they don't have yet.
So that all of a sudden, you think about like guys feeling rushed and hurried and not feeling comfortable employsed. Some of that can be Well, the freaking play call is so dang long that they can't get that out, and it's like that doesn't show up on a box score of the challenges that some of the young quarterbacks face.
Yeah, all right, we did quarterbacks. I was gonna talk Boone Nicks a little bit, Drake May. We don't have to. Let's move on real quick. Because we were for the draft. We all knew there were three wide receivers and maybe four if you wanted to consider Brian Thomas. He was in the conversation living but we all knew there'd be three in the top fifteen, and all three of them have had big games already in the NFL. And Marvin Harrison, Milik Neighbors, and of course Roma Dunes. They had his breakout game in Week three early on. Though Neighbors leads the NFL in targets, he's second in catches, and he's first in receiving touchdowns. This could be a breakout start in a way that maybe we didn't even anticipate. As much as we loved him coming out of college. Your initial thoughts on Milik Neighbors in New York and could this guy be that next next dude.
I'll tell you first of all, this was a fantasy football strategy that paid off for me this year, Shrikes. So my starting quarterback in fantasy football is Jaden Daniels. My receivers are Mileak Neighbors, Marvin Harrison, and DK Metcalf, and we're having a heck of a start. My Tidy d brought powers went, I went reused. There was everybody's like, you can't take I'm like, no, no, no, look at this, look at these And I loved Dons. I love a Dunesay. He was my second receiver in the draft. One of my favorite players, and you saw him go off last week. But there's a lot of mouths there in Chicago. But like if you look at neighbors, it is he is the number one. There is a gap, there is a valley, and then there is another valley, and then there's another gap, and then there's who they can throw to next. He is the guy, point blank. Marvin is Is is going to be the one early with Arizona. He's their most talented guy. So these are guys that went in the door as number one wideouts, which is hard to do. But Malik is Malik is different than those guys. When you watch him on NFL tape, He's got just so much twitch and so much juice. Man, Like the change of direction, stuff's insane.
But that touchdown catch, I felt like he was six foot ten.
I know, he got up and he can go up and get it, get your feet down and then just the but even just in and out. Watch him get in out of cuts, watch him just throw him a hitch route and watch him wheel out the back door. He can go from static to top speed like that, like it is. It is dynamic. But I mean, look, Marvin i've seen Marvin. Last week was the best he's looked, even though the numbers were better the week before. You're starting to see, Okay, I'm starting to see some of the nuanced stuff that I saw in college. He's starting to get a little more comfortable. We know the size, the physicality people were. Do you talk about in an overreaction society? We had cherry picking, well, we had people cherry pick picking his mph numbers from the first week of the GPS numbers, and I'm like, guys, he was at Ohio Stadium with twenty two miles per hour like this, He's fine, He's not a slow poke. He's gonna be okay. But all three of those guys are going to be outstanding and a Dunesday's super, super instinctive, super tough. It was good to see him get going last week. But Bowers has been has come out the gates hot as well. So those are all kind of the marquee guys. We felt like we watched those guys in college for a long time, and I think the transition is a little easier at the receiver position than maybe it was ten fifteen years ago.
All Right, I'm gonna let you go. But before we do so, and it saysn't do you any advantage putting your name on anything because you're not.
But just give us a couple names.
Now, Look, anyone can go and google online a mock draft, but it's not the mock draft until we're done with college football.
We usually have to be done with the bulls season.
Then we get to like senior ball, and then you'll put out your top fifty list and I'm like, all right, the Bible's out. Now we're gonna go look at this, and now we can go from there. Are there some names if you're an NFL fan who happens to casually watch college or a college fan that loves it but doesn't necessarily have the eye for NFL talent, give me some names that you would watch on Saturdays that might show up in the first round of next year's draft.
Well, look, I'll give you just a couple of quarterbacks. One that everybody knows and is talking about, another one that everybody is going to talk about more as we go through the process. Let's start with Jackson Dart from Old Miss Jackson d Dart. Jackson Dart, you want to talk about it? First of all, it's a phenomenal quarterback name.
You get born as Jackson Dart, Like you got two jobs. You can either be a firefighter or you're gonna be a quarterback. That's like you're only two gigs. That's all it is.
Yeah, one hundred percent. Like if you're also, if your name happens to be like Cannon, I think you're you can't play receivers. But he his story is gonna be one that's gonna be fun to dig into as we get to the draft. He was at USC coaching, change happens, Lincoln comes, Caleb comes, Jackson's like, well, I'm not sitting around here for this, so he he bails. He had opportunity to go to Oklahoma or to Old miss That was his decision.
What did Lane come in with. What was the pitch?
Well, I think the pitch is I'm gonna recruit I'm already recruiting really well and I'm going to continue to recruit well and with the with transfer portal just getting going at this time, an il just getting going at this time. Football matters in Oxford, Mississippi. UH they are committed to it. They have a very aggressive NIL program and Lane is an outstanding developer of quarterbacks and an excellent play caller. So he ended up winning the day there he gets him and now in this this is third year, he's just gotten better and better and better, and now all of a sudden, you look up. He's he's got a live arm. He's incredibly tough as a runner, like he's got a ton of production as a runner. Is Everything I hear about him at the school is about, you know, leadership and how I mean I think there's number three in the country. They're going to be in the playoff this year. You live at their schedule, the SEC they'll be in the playoff, you'll see him. He's got the he's got the paint kind of over the eye thing that's going on, like a brave heart type vibe going on. Is he a great throw I would say good. I would say getting better every year. Armstrength, fine, accuracy has gotten much better this year. And they haven't played many talented teams yet, so we'll see as they get into some of the SEC play. But he's he's really he's really intriguing. And the other one, I'm telling you, we're gonna this is going to be the the face of this draft, it's we're going to be talking about Shooter Sanders and there's going to bed. If you're going to be people, there's going to be people.
What do you think they'll give me an initial thought? Because I've heard people say not a first round pick. That others tell me, no, that guy's a top five pick.
So I did him over the summer and I thought, like twenty five to thirty five hype type, you know, like Okay, Bordline and what happens anytime we're having this conversation, like last year at the beginning of the process, bo Nicks would have been twenty five to thirty five. Those guys all they all, they're all gonna move up as we go through the process. But I think there's people in the media that are not going to like him, just you know, for his dad and everything that the attention that Colorado has gotten wherever anybody feels about that there and then there's there's gonna be some people in the league, maybe some more of the old school people that are gonna feel the same way. But I'm telling you, I talk to an assistant general manager the other day that had just seen him play live, and it's like people gonna say whatever they want to say about that kid. He is tough as crap, and I said that when I watched him over the summer. He hangs in there. He takes a beating. Now he holds the ball a little too much, takes too many sacks. But he can throw the ball at all three levels. He's got a beautiful motion. He can drive the ball, he can layer the ball. He's you know, they're playing Baylor. He completes a Hail Mary at the buzzer, no down on the end of winning that game in overtime. So there's something there. There's substance there. Like some people that's there's all you know, all sizzle, no steak, all hat and no cattle, whatever analogy you want to use. The dude can throw. He can really really throw the ball.
I like what you say about going to be toughness because the toughness is important to me, especially when you're making to the leap. And he takes a beating at Colorado, like I'm watching, he evades a lot of it. But I watched those games. I watched the Colorado State game. Then I watched this game against Baylor, and he's under duress and He's making tough, tough passes and he's completing them, and he's doing them to just guys, not just Travis Hunter. He's throwing the ball around the yard to a bunch of different guys. I think he's really good too, NFL wise, though, I'm not at that point yet where I can grade him. But you do this for a living. You have him in the first round, maybe even top ten.
Well, I it's so early in the process. I haven't dug into this all yet. I've watched the tape from the summer from last year, and I've seen him just TV scouting, so I'm reluctant to put that on him. But i just know, you know, if you're looking at a quarterback, can this guy be an NFL quarterback? Can this guy every throw? Absolutely? There's no question there. And it's just because of who he is. He's gonna be the face of the draft. It's going to be the talk of the town. So that's just something to get ready for it.
Let me ask you one last player and then we'll get out of here. Travis Hunter. He plays about one hundred snaps. I was talking with Charles Woodson on Saturday, and I'm like, we are watching. It was after the Michigan game, and I'm like, you know, this Hunter, he plays every snap he's good.
And Woodson's like.
I played twenty maybe thirty snaps of offense during the year. He plays that every game Like there this this is a real unicorn.
This kid.
Yeah. I did him again over the summer and I actually had a lot of I was surprised how much pushback I got because from the from the media side, the team side, actually everything I heard was was identical. I wrote him up as a receiver. Okay, is real. He is really skinny. He's real thin, but he is so good with the ball in his hands. He's so explosive and smooth and slithery. I compared him Garrett Wilson, That's who he reminded me of. And go play above, play above the rim, do all those things. I think Garrett's fast, a little faster than him, but he's that type of instinctive feel just a football player that way at corner and some of it because he's playing a million snaps. But you can watch a Stanford game last year. He got beat up pretty good in that game at corner. So I want I know, and yeah, I just want him. I would write him up as a receiver. And if I'm Travis Hunter, and I'm sure whenever he decides on an agent, and whenever that goes down, I'm gonna do a couple of things. I'm gonna say, Okay, can I see the top ten salaries for the top ten corners in the league? Now show me the top ten salaries of the top ten wide receivers in the mart. One of these list is not like the other. Travis, Yep, yep.
I got to go to a random game. It's actually a long story. It's kind of cute. My son fell in love with Michigan last year during their run. My wife went there. I had never been to the Big House. Of course, your program's been to the Big House. I had never been to the Big House. You went to Appalachian State for the listeners. Uh. I've wanted to pick a weekend where it would probably be a win. I also wanted to pick a weekend whereas an early game because I had to fly to LA afterwards. We went to the Arkansas State game and took my wife, took a couple of my son's friends, and we had an absolute blast. Big House was great, and I spoke to people at the Michigan program and before the game, I'm talking to the folks on the sideline.
I'm like, who do I watch? Are like?
Will Johnson's the guy, yeah, big I fell in love with. He's got two pick six's and I think you know he's wearing that Charles Woodson number two. Will Johnson. Is he on boards yet? Because I he's a lock. He's a locked, top five lock like that high he's the top.
I would say top fifteen is a conservative. Yes. At this point in the process. They've got They've got a bunch of us man.
They do. They got the big gend THET.
They got another d tackle as well. They're good. That was a breaky you went to the SC game because I was watching that in the hotel and what a great game in credible.
Game and they just watching that game.
I get on the I get on the elevator and it's it's Ben Herbert, the Straint coach. Uh. All the Michigan guys. Oh they were exhausted. I think they were exhausted.
So funny see that's Harbos crew. And then I was getting a text. I got a text from Mike McDonald who's the head coach in Seattle. And he's a Michigan guy too. Those Michigan guys, they're all over the NFL game they did. All right, I'm gonna let you go right now, Daniel. I so appreciate it. Where can we find you on Sundays? Because I will click the Oudyssey app or the iHeart Happy are And then during the week, of course, you and Bucky do the move the stick stuff.
So where can we find you?
Yeah, on Sundays? If this is way too much effort for people, But if the Chargers are at home, I'll be in studio uh for game day morning, So I pop in there and do some hits on that and then call, then walk across the street call the games for Charges Radio with Matt money Smith. So yeah, if you're driving around, you're flipping through the flip into the stations, you'll stumble across my voice a little bit on there calling Charger game. So and then then in the sixth podcast, we're five days a week, Shrags, We're five days a week, five days a week, five days a week. Buddy, they're making this work over here, man.
Trust me, I know. God bless you, my friend. You're the best.
Daniel Jeremiah, awesome as always, thank you.
For joining the season with Peter Schreger.
Good to see bro.
That was incredible.
We love getting in touch with Daniel Jeremiah now in the process. But also to look back on his stuff, that scouting report on Jaden Daniels could not have been more spot on. If anything, he might have raised some red flags that have not come to fruition yet. Also the Shador Sanders thing, this is going to be all we talk about January, February, March, right into April. I'm telling you this now, everybody get ready. And I like how Daniel kind of straddles it here, like I think he could be twenty five that or higher or go up.
Like that's where we're at.
And I think it's going to be the biggest name and the topic of conversation throughout the draft process. That's why we love it. And it's almost here, believe it or not. A lot of teams are already thinking quarterback after just three weeks of football this season. Every week on this program we do a shout out to our sponsor, Uber Eats, and this is time for delivering results presented by Ubers.
It Eats.
I give out a Player of the Week award.
It goes without saying, Jaden Daniels is my winner of the award. Daniels went twenty one of twenty three ninety one percent completion percentage, went on the road into a hostile environment, and took care of a hungry, hungry Cincinnati Bengals defense every single time he got on the field. That was six possessions, five touchdowns, one field goal. Jaden Daniels just a rookie, and yet he is the winner of the Delivering Results Award, presented by Uber Eats, where you can get almost almost anything for game day. It's the official on demand delivery partner of the NFL. You can order now that was presented by Uber eats. It almost almost anything for a game day, great week ahead, great games. I might be attending one. I'm in La on Sunday Chiefs Chargers. I gotta do the Fox pregame. Can I skid that all over to the stadium. I would like to go as a fan. I think I'm gonna buy a ticket just on like one of the sites. I don't want to say a site that we're not partners with on this podcast. I'm not sure if you like their partners on every podcast all these different sites, but I might just buy a ticket. If you see me at so far, say what's up. I always like to see my homes in person, and I have never seen Justin Herbert in person. Sadly I won't be seeing Joe Alt. Sounds like he is out. It sounds like Rashaun Slater is out. But Herbert might be a go. I think I'm going to attend that one. And then there is a beauty of a Sunday nighter between the Ravens and the Bills. Can't wait for that as well. Another great week of football. Another guest that we love, Daniel Jeremiah.
Tune in next week. We'll have plenty more on the Season with Peter Shirk.
The Season with Peter Schrager is a production of the NFL and partnership with iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
