Washington Commanders rookie quarterback Jayden Daniels has turned heads all over the country with his surprising start to the NFL season. Count former Heisman Trophy winning quarterback Johnny Manziel among them.
"Right now, if you were to look at the MVP race in the NFL, I think Jayden Daniels would be very, very high up on that list through the first four weeks of the season," said Manziel during his regular appearance on Action Network's BBOC YouTube channel. "He is playing incredible football, seeing the field well, and they're obviously off to a great start."
Daniels, the No. 2 pick in this year's NFL Draft after winning the Heisman Trophy at LSU last season, has the Commanders off to a surprising 3-1 start. His 82.1% completion percentage is the highest of any quarterback through four starts in NFL history, and he led Washington to a stretch of 16 straight scoring drives (not counting kneel downs), tied for the most in the NFL since 2000.
The early success for Daniels and the Commanders has been particularly special for Manziel, who got to see his former coach Kliff Kingsbury, now the Commanders' offensive coordinator, get praise for both the development of Daniels and helping orchestrate a blowout of the Arizona Cardinals, a team that fired Kingsbury as head coach after the 2022 season.
"I'm very happy for [Daniels] and very happy for my guy Kliff, especially going into a setting in Arizona where it was his former team," said Manziel. "I think anytime you get a chance to do that against a former team that gave you the boot, to come out and have a day like that, score as many points as they did and have that kind of offensive performance, it's got to feel great. Revenge matters to coaches and players, not just in college but in the NFL, too."
Kingsbury was Texas A&M's offensive coordinator and quarterback coach in 2012, when Manziel came out of nowhere to win the Heisman Trophy as a redshirt freshman. The job propelled Kingsbury to be among the hottest young coaches in the sport. He was hired as Texas Tech's head coach the next year, and after six years in Lubbock, Texas, moved onto the NFL, where he coached the Cardinals from 2019-22.
As for Daniels, while Manziel may be hyping him up as an MVP candidate, the odds are stacked against him. At DraftKings, he's currently eighth on the odds board at 25-1 to win MVP. Patrick Mahomes is favored, followed by Josh Allen,Lamar Jackson, C.J. Stroud, the surprising Sam Darnold, Brock Purdy and Joe Burrows.
Only once in NFL history has a rookie won the MVP award: Jim Brown in 1957.
And while many around the league, and in particular Bears fans, are wondering if they should've taken Daniels over their No. 1 pick, another former Heisman winner in Caleb Williams, Manziel said that while Daniels has obviously been better so far, it's too early to say that.
"I do think Caleb will continue to develop and grow as the season goes on," Manziel said.
The 3-1 Commanders are currently in first place in the NFC East. They host the team that drafted Manziel, the 1-3 Cleveland Browns, on Sunday at 1 p.m. ET.
Johnny Manziel appears weekly on Action Network's BBOC YouTube channel, with Johnny's Intangibles releasing every Monday and Johnny's Scramble Drill releasing every Friday. He also appears on BBOC Live, which airs every Saturday morning at 10:30 a.m. ET on the BBOC YouTube channel and the Action App.
