If the Washington Commanders are truly Super Bowl contenders, they’re going to need to have at least one person on the roster playing at an NFL MVP level. That’s a simple equation that’s stood the test of time.
Ideally, that player would be second-year quarterback Jayden Daniels, who has already played an that level for most of an entire season after he was named a Pro Bowler, NFL Offensive Rookie of the Year and led the Commanders to the NFC Championship Game for the first time since 1991.
Bleacher Report’s Brad Gagnon put Daniels as one of his 5 “Prime Candidates” for NFL MVP honors in 2025 alongside Kansas City’s Patrick Mahomes, Buffalo’s Josh Allen, Baltimore’s Lamar Jackson and Cincinnati’s Joe Burrow.
Mahomes and Jackson are already 2-time MVP winners. Allen is the reigning MVP.
“(Daniels) is riding a wild trajectory after lighting up the league as a rookie,” Gagnon wrote on July 4. “Now, he has even more support and experience around him ahead of Year 2 … (but) sophomore slumps are real. Did you see what happened to C.J. Stroud in 2024?”
In reality, a sophomore slump for Daniels would be nothing short of a disaster.
Commanders Don’t Have Other MVP Candidates
There is only one player on Washington’s roster who might also even be considered a dark horse MVP candidate — wide receiver Terry McLaurin. It’s worth pointing out since The Associated Press began handing out the NFL MVP in 1957, no wide receiver has ever won the award.
Quarterbacks, however, have been named MVP in 14 of the last 15 years and every year since 2013.
The Commanders have had 3 NFL MVP winners in franchise history; running back Larry Brown in 1972, kicker Mark Mosley in the strike shortened 1982 season (seriously) and quarterback Joe Theismann in 1983.
Daniels Is Modern Definition Of Franchise QB
There is perhaps no team in the NFL with as much riding on its franchise quarterback as the Commanders have riding on Daniels as they try to orchestrate a turnaround after decades of ineptitude under former owner Daniel Snyder, who sold the team to Josh Harris and Magic Johnson before the 2023 season.
Harris and Johnson hired Adam Peters as general manager and Dan Quinn as head coach following the 2023 season and the new group’s first big move was to take Daniels at No. 2 overall in the 2024 NFL draft and sign him to a 4-year, $37.7 million contract.
Now, the future is as bright for the Commanders for the first time in over 30 years and Daniels is at the heart of all of those plans — plans that could include the Commanders’ home stadium moving back to D.C. from Maryland.
“The Commanders are ahead of schedule in their rebuild,” Bleacher Report’s Moe Moton wrote on June 26. “With a second-year signal-caller and a coaching staff that optimized the talent on a rebuilt roster, Washington isn’t under much pressure to win Super Bowl LX, though the club should enter the 2025 season with the mindset it can win it all.”
Commanders rookies report to training camp on July 18, with veterans scheduled to report on July 22.
