There was a time when Washington Commanders rookie Jayden Daniels called Deshaun Watson, the current signal-caller for the Cleveland Browns, his favorite quarterback. The two boasted similar play styles and had the same goals: to win a national championship in college and become an NFL quarterback.
But ahead of their matchup on Sunday at Northwest Stadium, the two quarterbacks represent opposite trajectories for a pair of franchises that have been stuck in quarterback purgatory for more than 20 years.
Since 1999, Washington has fielded three different monikers and 28 different starting quarterbacks. The list of passers ranges from the promising (Robert Griffin III and Kirk Cousins) to the embarrassing (sorry, Danny Wuerffel, John Beck and Rex Grossman).
The team occasionally cobbled together a competitive roster, but playoff success eluded Washington without a consistent presence under center.
Daniels, the reigning Heisman Trophy winner and the No. 2 pick in this year’s NFL draft, already looks like the kind of star who can end Washington’s quarterback woes.
The 23-year-old leads the league with an 82% completion percentage while posting a passer rating of 107.4 in his first four starts. The accolades are starting to pile up, with an NFC Offensive Player of the Week award and NFL Offensive Rookie of the Month nod.
“He is seeing the field well. He is extending plays when he needs to extend plays, but he is also keeping his eyes down the field when scrambling,” teammate Terry McLaurin said. “That just adds another element to our offense when a quarterback can hurt you from in and outside the pocket.”
The wide receiver’s assessment could have also applied to an early-career Watson. The comparisons between the two date back to Daniels’ time as a college recruit, when several analysts drew parallels between their running styles and scrambling abilities.
The new kid on the block didn’t just accept those comparisons; he embraced them. In a 2019 interview with SB Nation’s House of Sparky, the former Arizona State quarterback called Watson his favorite quarterback.
“That’s what I feel makes him so dangerous being able to not just sit in the pocket, and he can extend plays with his arm and his feet. Getting outside the pocket, he’s harder to defend because you have to defend receivers longer, you have to defend him also. …It’s why he’s my favorite quarterback,” Daniels said. “Just making stuff happen when there’s nothing there.”
At that time, Watson was riding high. After taking Clemson to back-to-back national championship games, the Houston Texans selected the dual-threat quarterback in the first round of the 2017 NFL draft.
After an electric first four seasons, Watson looked like a franchise quarterback. He garnered three Pro Bowl nods and led the Texans to a pair of postseason appearances.
But a contract dispute led him to sit out the entire 2021 season. It’s been downhill since.
In early 2022, 24 women accused Watson of sexual misconduct. The Texans had seen enough and shipped him to the Cleveland Browns for a king’s ransom: three first-round picks, a third-round selection and two fourth-rounders.
For the Browns, it seemed like a reasonable price to pay to exorcise their quarterback demons. Washington’s 28 signal-callers seem relatively stable compared to the 38 passers that Cleveland has trotted out since returning to the NFL in 1999.
Ahead of the 2022 season, Watson seemed like the best Browns quarterback in a generation. The off-field issues were concerning, but that didn’t stop Cleveland’s front office from handing him a $230 million fully guaranteed contract.
It hasn’t paid off.
Watson looked like a shell of himself after serving an 11-game suspension in 2022, posting career lows in passer rating (74.9), completion percentage (58.2%) and yards per attempt (6.5).
He didn’t show much improvement in six starts last year, recording similarly grisly numbers before a shoulder injury ended his season.
The Clemson product has flashed the occasional impressive throw in 2024, but has struggled to regain the Pro Bowl form of his days in Houston.
As the Commanders studied film this week, they didn’t see the Watson who took the Texans to the playoffs. They saw instead a steady montage of subpar play from the last two seasons.
“When he was in Houston, I saw the talent. It’s undeniable,” Commanders offensive coordinator Kliff Kingsbury said. “Clemson, [I] was always a big fan.”
“Was” may be the operative word.
In conversations with reporters this week, Kingsbury and Daniels focused on Watson’s past, not his present.
At Arizona State in 2019, Daniels praised the former Pro Bowler’s accuracy, arm talent and athleticism at the NFL level. But as a Washington Commander in 2024, he only complimented his opponent’s collegiate career.
“It’s kind of different,” he said, downplaying any similarities between his play and Watson’s. “But man, back in those days, just the swagger that he played with. What he did at Clemson and how he led those guys to back-to-back national title games and won the last one.”
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