Grant and Danny
Chris Trapasso On The Recent Daniels' Struggles
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And used cars. Electric cars. And one day. Maybe even flying cars. With millions of options to choose from, buying a car becomes a whole lot easier. See it? Find it. Auto-trader. Life can be hectic, and managing your mental health is more important today than ever before. That's why Mindful Therapy Group's mission is to take the pain out of finding a therapist. Whether you need talk therapy, psychological testing, even medication management, Mindful has you covered. Our mental health providers are here for you, with both in-person and telehealth options to get you seen in as little as 48 hours. Mindful Therapy Group also accepts insurance. Join us to start your journey to a healthier and happier you. Visit mindfultherapygroup.com to get started today. On the guest hotline, we find our friend Chris Trappaso, CBS Sports. We've had him on over the years. Many times, we preview the NFL Draft, does some good deep dives for CBS, and he recently wrote about what was happening to Jaden Daniels, analyzing the commander's quarterbacks. Jaden Decline was the headline, and he dove into a bunch of numbers. Chris, you are on in the nation's Capitol, buddy. Thanks for a few minutes. How are you? Hey, I'm doing very well, guys. Thanks for having me on to talk to him, Jaden Daniels. I always appreciate it. Quantify what we saw to start the season, and now what we've seen here of late, because overall, the numbers are still pretty impressive. We have all those great memories, but it hasn't felt the same lately. What did we see early? What did we see now? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, that's good to keep that just in the proper framework, that this is not someone that's suddenly we're talking about as a boss. I mean, he's still operating at a pretty high level, especially relative to how most rookies operate. Early on, the scheme was getting guys open. I wrote in my article that whether you think it was just natural ability or that scheme from Cliff Kingsbury in the first six weeks or so, when really the Jaden Daniel's train took off, the commander's had four wide receivers in average separation score. There's a new analytics website out there, fantasypoints.com, that they're watching all the film, assigning a grade based on how open a receiver is on a given play, summing them up and averaging them by how many routes they've run. We had Luke McCaffrey, Dimey Brown, Terry McCorran, and the third one is Escap--oh, and Noah Brown, we're all in the top 25, and that was the only quarterback that had that. So the scheme is working well, and credit to Jaden Daniels and his understanding, maybe it's some of the VR that he's utilized, maybe it's his vast experience at the college level, he was understanding where to go with the football and throwing very accurately. Now lately, I think it really is the case with any quarterback and any situation, defenses are starting to adjust, they're starting to take away that first read. There's not as many open receivers underneath and at the intermediate level, and like we saw late in that game against the Cowboys, the first three quarters were not that spectacular, but late was, Daniels is still able to make some of those impressive throws, but those layups aren't there, to get him to the 70, 80% completion, the yards after the catch for his entire team have kind of diminished over the last couple of weeks, these three straight commanders losses, so I think more so than anything else, and I kind of summarized my article with this, that let's see down the stretch here with the commanders certainly in the thick of the NSC playoff race, if Jayden Daniels can elevate those around him, and if it's not a wide open Noah Brown on a dig route, or the seam shots down the middle to Zach Eartz that were netting big gains that haven't been there, let's see if he can do more beyond the scheme and beyond those first looks in this offense, I think he has the natural ability to do that, and I think he elevated those around him at LSU, but I think he's just not able to rely so heavily on the scheme like he did in the first two months of the season. Yeah, it makes a lot of sense, Chris, and it was great to see him running the ball again as well and explosively as he did against Dallas, because I think that could open some things back up. You know, that had been basically a huge part of his game that completely went away over the couple of weeks before Dallas, and then he went seven for 75 on the ground, but you point out he's completed 61% of his throws for about 6.4 yards per attempt, three touchdowns three interceptions over these last three games, which just doesn't even look like numbers. That would be assigned to him based on what we saw previous to that. I'm curious though, you know, how much of this is him versus like a Kingsbury thing with the offense where we talk all the time about the second half Kingsbury regression, you pointed out if you take out the last five minutes of the Cowboys game, and I think that's totally fair to do because the first 55 were different. And then all hell broke loose and it was just a wild card of whirling, nervous of, you know, maniacal football play, but they're 27th in EPA. They've been number one all year over a three week span, you know, prior to those last five minutes against Dallas 27th out of 32. Yeah, and I think that is a very fair question to ask. I'm sure you guys have talked about it all week and there's, you know, the history there with Cliff, with Cliff Kingsbury as an offensive coordinator in Arizona that down the stretch, you can even go back to his Texas tech days that, you know, a lot of hot starts and then teams would catch on and then the adjustments maybe weren't there. So it for as much as, and this is interesting, for as much as Cliff Kingsbury has the NFL experience, he has the play calling experience at the collegiate level with pets from homes, you know, you know, you know, cross paths with with Baker Mayfield, Kylo Murray, of course, he has that experience and Jane Daniels insane amount of experience at the collegiate level, there's only a rookie. I'm not necessarily much of a believer that all of a sudden Cliff Kingsbury is going to just totally drastically alter his scheme and make an insane amount of adjustments. We have the track record that we know he has not done that. I actually have more faith like you're mentioning in Jane Daniels starting to utilize his legs more when that first and maybe second read is an open that he understands he's usually like the fastest player on the field. Maybe the rib injury is a little bit in the rear view mirror and we know that, you know, Dan Quinn has mentioned it hasn't really held him back, but he hasn't been able to practice as much. And I think, you know, all the practice reps you can get at the rookie are really important. So I actually have more faith that Daniels himself can make something out of nothing more frequently than hoping that Cliff Kingsbury is suddenly just going to be this great November and December play caller because he just never has been that type of play caller in the NFL or in college. So Chris Trappaso CBS Sports with this year on GND. So Chris, all off season I was screaming until I was blue in the face. Grant was sick of it. Everybody listening to the show was probably sick of them going. They're missing an opportunity. They are not doing enough giving Jane Daniels enough weapons. And for the first, you know, nine games, I look like a horse's ass as this all pencils corn 36 a game, pretty much every week and they're running up and down the field. Now all of a sudden it looks like maybe I was right as people have kind of caught up. Give me a wind, just your thoughts on that and then use the separation scores part of this is maybe a window into what's actually going on here with the offensive leg. Yeah. No, that's a really good point. And I actually wrote near the end of my article that and this is kind of paraphrasing my own writing here, but that Washington is realizing that it's scheme might not be brilliant and it's past catching options might be good, but maybe not great. And to your point, that's kind of the general consensus. That's just what I thought mean, Kerry McLaurin, we've all thought has been like a budding superstar. And we've seen him be that de facto number one in most games, he's the go to guy, whether it's 86. He had touched on last week, the catch against the Cincinnati Bengals early in the season on that early Monday night game. He's been that guy. Besides that, we all did go into the season thinking, okay, like what else do they have? Like zackers, I think it's been a pleasant surprise at his age, Luke McCaffrey is athletic. I liked him coming out of rice, but I wasn't expecting him to be a big part of an offense. Dimey Brown splash plays here and there, but never really consistent enough. I actually haven't checked what their average separation scores are lately, but I would assume they would have to be lower because in watching the film those first six weeks, again, I don't think it was all four of those guys were just running these amazing routes getting opened by themselves. This scheme was getting them open underneath at the intermediate level and Daniels was doing a great job understanding again where to go with the football. So I would assume that those numbers are down a little bit and when you're a quarterback, you're not going to always have those wide open receivers. So again, it goes back to Daniels. Can he and collaboratively Cliff Kingsbury come together and get the most out of what is probably a average at best skill position group in this entire NFL? Doors take us to summers away or winter adventures and afternoon getaways. Your dedicated Fidelity advisor can help you open those doors by working with you on a comprehensive plan to help you reach your wealth's full potential because doors were meant to be opened. Visit fidelity.com/wealth. Investment minimums apply Fidelity brokerage services LLC member NYSE as IPC. Do we really need another computer when it's faster, more powerful? Not everyone does, but to reinvent music using a neural processor, work off the grid with all day battery or bring your vision to life with AI powered co-creator, then a co-pilot plus PC can make a difference. 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So I'm going to read an excerpt and I just want you to expound upon it and it goes into what you were just talking about in terms of the talent wide receiver. Through the first six weeks of the season, Washington was 10th in football and yak per reception at 5.6 yards, Daniels was the only quarterback in football with four receivers in the top 25, which you've talked about in separation score. But this idea of yards after the catch that have gone away. Is that a ball placement thing or does, does a yak typically come from openness? Is that why you reference it and link it to separation score that theoretically, you know, the yak came from guys being wide open and that part has gone away. So I've watched all of Daniels drop X this season as part of this every Tuesday. I come out with a grading article for first and second year quarterbacks. I've been doing it for like five or six years now. I haven't noticed Jaden Daniels like, oh man, his ball placement. Like he had a say wide receiver open on a deep over, but he threw it behind him so he gets tackled. I think it's more scheme related and just player skill related. And again, when you look at this skill position group, McClellan, because of his pure speed that he's that low four, three guy, he's not going to make a ton of guys mess, but if he gets any type of runway, he can really go. Luke McCaffrey is also very fast. Noah Brown, Daimy Brown, not really yards after the catch guys. Zach Earts was never really that type. So I think it's more, again, the scheme is not getting these receivers, not just open for Jaden Daniels, but open with space to pick up, you know, to change a five yard plant into a 15 yard game. We just haven't seen those, not even just a splash place down the field, but those intermediate that 10 to 20 yard games that I think were so prevalent in the first two months of this season. You mentioned the grading that you do on the young quarterbacks, which is a piece I always love. So what's been the high watermark for Daniels and where is he at now? Presumably, I mean, Nick's has kind of caught him in the rookie of the year race. It seems like Daniels is the favorite and Nick's is right behind him going into week 13 now, but I'd be hard pressed to imagine just body of work full season. Daniels wouldn't still be the number one of this class, but I defer to you here. How do you kind of see that with your rankings now? Okay. This works out because I'm on a Washington radio station, but I really mean it. I'm given my objective analysis here. Jaden Daniels should still be late years ahead of BONX in the offensive rookie of the year race. Like watching them and I'm talking about steam and Jaden Daniels has been really relying on it. You know, Nick's has been probably three times as reliant on the scheme that Sean Payton has given him in Denver. I mean, it is swing pass screen wide receiver screen tunnel screen to the tight end. RPL like he has not been asked to do very much as a quarterback that defense has played well in Denver. They've won a couple of games against unless their opponents and the touchdown numbers are, you know, starting to get relatively close because a lot of yards after the catch they're in Denver. In terms of Daniels, high water mark, I mean, I'm looking at the grades now week three, I gave them an A plus, week four, a minus. And then really it hasn't kelv off considerably during this three game losing streak. I gave them a C minus in week 10, a D plus in week 11. But then this past week, even though the numbers weren't good and the offense was stagnant, I still gave him a B. I thought individually as a thrower, he didn't really put the ball into harm's way besides that screen pass that was just a great play by the defensive lineman. And then like we mentioned, even though it was ugly, the first three quarters, what he did in those final five minutes was, you know, nothing short of spectacular. So I don't think the sky is falling or the league has completely figured out Jaden Daniels in terms of what he can do on the football field. I think a lot of times when he is taking off, he's still surprising defenders with how fast he is. The arm strength is still there. And like I said earlier, I don't think that he suddenly has this accuracy issue. It was not a problem at LSU. And in the first two months of the season, it's just that he's not getting more out of those throws that were the five yard passes that were going for 15 yards like he did in the first two months of the season. So what are you seeing from what's being taken away? I guess in other words, you know, tape, tape gets out. Defense coordinators get paid too, obviously really smart football players are there looking like they understand what Kingsbury and company want to do. So what's what's available that he's missing? I mean, you see where I'm kind of getting at, right, where it's I'm going to watch in the ship sink and I'm going, is there anything we can do? We're just going to sort of go down and like Terminator two style with a thumbs up heading into the lava. Like, what are we doing? Yeah, I know. Good point. That's a good visual too. I think middle of the field at that 10 to 19 yard range that kind of the analytics department or the analytics industry would call the intermediate level. So many of those dig routes where you would get a vertical from the slot and then a dig right in behind it, whether that was Noah Brown, whether that was Terry McClellan, teams are taking that away. They're thinking that, you know, one of those two off ball linebackers to kind of take that throw away down the field. We haven't seen, I mean, certainly we saw the 86 yarder kind of in desperation mode against the Cowboys, but early on, there was three or four early in the game deep strikes down the field where you're still getting like what I think Patrick Mahomes and Josh Allen and Justin Herbert get a lot of that too high safety shell where they're saying, yeah, we're going to let you complete it underneath. And like I mentioned earlier, when they were 10th in the league and yak, they were taking those over the middle slants, RPOs, comebacks, shallow crosses, and they were turning into positive games. They were moving to football. They were moving to sticks, you know, they had, what was it, so many drives in a row that were, that were not punting the football or they were scoring points on like every drive for a couple of games. Teams down the field and at the intermediate level, those chunk plays haven't really been there as frequently. We've seen Zecker still produce a lot of those touchdown late in games over the last three weeks. But C two has kind of been taken away from being that rhythmic guy early in games over the middle for Jane Daniels, Christopher Pozzo of CBS sports. I guess we'll go a full circle here in the final 30 seconds or so. But if you were the GM of the bears and there was a redraft today, Daniels goes one or or is, would you not say that? Oh, that's tough because again, I, I'm very fortunate that I have this unique perspective of watching all these quarterbacks. The last few weeks Caleb Williams has played some really, really good football too. And the arm talent is there, the ability to escape defenders also there. I would still probably say that Daniels goes one because what I think is kind of a sneaky point that we've been mentioning here, the scrambling ability of Daniels is ahead of Caleb Williams. He is just a faster, more explosive athlete. We knew that coming out. And I think anything that Caleb Williams can do as a passer, Daniels can do as well. But when it comes to, hey, turning the corner, Caleb Williams, pretty athletic to maybe run seven, eight yards, Jane Daniels can turn the corner and turn it into a 30 or a 40 yard gain. So I think that's the difference between the two going from college and then what we've seen so far in the NFL. Chris, great with us, man. Awesome. Peace is always in. Appreciate the time. Thanks guys. Yeah. Go read it. It's fantastic. CBS sports is where you can find Chris Trappasso's work. The set gift, the holidays are in full swing and so are amazing deals at Amazon. You'll save so much on holiday gifts for the kitchen like appliances and cookware. You'll have money left over for a sauce pot so you can make your mom's famous gravy recipe. Or at least try to or that cutlery said so you can carve up the turkey with surgical precision. Oh, what fun it is to save. Come Amazon for all your gifty needs. 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Chris Trapasso covers the NFL for CBS Sports and he joins G&D to discuss the recent struggles of Jayden Daniels, Kliff Kingsbury, and the entire offense.