In the 2024 offseason, NFL teams selected six quarterbacks in the first 12 picks of the draft, by far the most ever. As rookies, these passers had their ups and downs. One carried his team to the NFC championship game. One nearly set the record for sacks taken in a season. One never got a chance to play due to an injury.
Where do these players stand going into year two? Is this group still set to change the league—or were NFL teams overzealous when they drafted these guys back in April of last year? Welcome to Sophomore QB Week at The Ringer. This week, we’re breaking down the play and futures of Caleb Williams, Jayden Daniels, Drake Maye, Michael Penix Jr., J.J. McCarthy, and Bo Nix. Today, we’re looking at Daniels, who won the NFL’s Offensive Rookie of the Year award after his standout season in Washington.
Since 2001, 103 quarterbacks have attempted at least 100 passes as rookies. Of those rookie passers, just 10 have netted at least 50 expected points added for their teams. And of those 10, just two have improved on their EPA totals in their second seasons. Seven were worse as sophomores. The final quarterback in that sample is to be determined. That’s Jayden Daniels, Washington’s superstar passer who is looking to avoid the dreaded “sophomore slump” in 2025.
But here’s the good news for Daniels: Sophomore slumps aren’t real. Quarterbacks of all levels of experience tend to do worse following a great season, not just sophomores. That small sample above shows seven out of nine elite rookies declining in their second year—similar to what we see from veterans coming off big seasons. Since 2001, 271 quarterbacks have totaled 50 EPA or more for their teams. Of the 249 of those QBs who went on to attempt at least 100 passes in their next season, 179 have seen their EPA numbers decline—71.9 percent.
Dive a little deeper into the numbers, and a similar pattern emerges. Rookie quarterbacks who totaled more than 50 dropback EPA declined by an average of 31.8 EPA in their subsequent seasons. All QBs who totaled more than 50 EPA in one season saw an average decline of 33.1 EPA the next. Break these samples down into a few EPA cohorts—I’m choosing above 50 EPA, zero to 50 EPA, negative-50 to zero EPA, and below negative-50 EPA—and the pattern of decline/improvement is remarkably consistent:
Average QB Year-to-Year Change (2001-2025, 100-Pass Minimum)
The data is clear: Sophomore quarterbacks don’t experience a “slump” greater than what we’d expect from veterans. (In fact, most QBs improve as sophomores. On average, second-year quarterbacks add 22.8 EPA to their rookie totals. That number for the change in any QB’s performance from one season to the next is negative-2.4, meaning the average quarterback performance holds fairly steady from year to year.)
Sophomore QB Week
The bad news for Daniels is that he has almost nowhere to go but down. By total dropback EPA, he just notched the third-best rookie season since 2001 (behind only Dak Prescott and Robert Griffin III). He completed 69 percent of his passes, throwing for 3,568 yards and 25 touchdowns against nine interceptions while adding 891 yards and six scores as a rusher. That’s the most rushing yards ever for a rookie quarterback. It’s simply going to be difficult to improve on those numbers.
Look at some of the best rookie seasons since 2001, and you can see this in practice.
Top Rookie QBs by Total Dropback EPA Since 2001
And here are those same players in their next season (with Daniels excluded):
Top Sophomore QBs by Total Dropback EPA Since 2001
Every player except for one (Andrew Luck) saw a decline in completion percentage. All but three (Griffin, Russell Wilson, and Justin Herbert) saw a decline in passing yardage. Only two (Matt Ryan and Herbert) increased their passing touchdown totals. You get it. Regression to the mean comes for all of us—even incredibly talented NFL quarterbacks.
But does regression have to come for Jayden Daniels?
Those are the numbers. How do things actually look on the field? What is the reality of sustaining success from one season to the next in the NFL?
Daniels and his Commanders coaches and teammates have done the familiar offseason routine of saying they are looking for areas of improvement:
- Daniels told Yahoo Sports’ Jori Epstein in May that he was spending his offseason “watching film and trying to eliminate some tendencies.”
- He elaborated on that point in August to Nicki Jhabvala of The Athletic. “My main focus was on how I can improve mechanically from Year 1 to Year 2,” Daniels said. He continued by saying he was focused on footwork. “I think that’s always going to be the biggest piece, is fine-tuning the footwork,” he said, adding later that he felt these mechanical changes have improved his accuracy and velocity.
- He’s also mentioned adding a bit of muscle this offseason, telling Bryan Colbert Jr. of Next Man Up that he needed to “add some more armor on to sustain 17 games.”
- Head coach Dan Quinn has highlighted Daniels’s leadership strides this offseason, telling Andscape’s Jason Reid that “now, he’s able to help develop others and help them fulfill what they [can] be. That’s a big deal.”
- Offensive coordinator Kliff Kingsbury noted Daniels’s comfort in the offense to ESPN’s John Keim. “Just watching him move around, he’s not thinking as much, he’s playing fast and letting his natural gifts kind of take over, and that’s what we want to see,” Kingsbury said. “I expect him to take a big jump.” Kingsbury also backed up Daniels’s assertion that his throwing velocity has improved: “The arm strength, it looks better and you can tell he’s stronger, there’s no doubt.”
To hear Daniels and the coaches tell it, we should expect a slightly beefier, more experienced quarterback under center for Washington this season. One who can rocket balls to his receivers even better than before. But that’s just Daniels the player—the team is also looking to improve the offense as a whole.
That starts with continuity with the coaching staff. Kingsbury’s offense in year one featured a heavy dose of RPO plays, as well as a fast, no-huddle approach that kept defenses on their toes. The result was an offense that ranked sixth in DVOA.
Now, Kingsbury will be adding to his bag. “Just to be able to expand our offense and really get to the next level of it is exciting,” he told The Washington Post’s Adam Kilgore earlier in August.
Tight end Zach Ertz even called last year’s offense “vanilla.” But now, he said, “We’re not starting on first base. We’re starting maybe on second base in terms of the details and guys knowing the plays. … There’s got to be new plays; there’s got to be a little evolution.”
Daniels has called the scheme “most definitely a night-and-day” difference from last season.
What exactly are those changes? Details are hard to find—which makes sense, as Washington doesn’t want to reveal its hand before it’s ready, and Daniels was on the field for just four plays for Washington in the preseason. He rushed for a touchdown but didn’t attempt a pass.
In addition to Daniels’s offseason work and Kingsbury’s evolving scheme, the team has taken steps to upgrade the personnel. That starts with the offensive line. In March, Commanders general manager Adam Peters traded for five-time Pro Bowler Laremy Tunsil to play left tackle. That move will kick second-year pro Brandon Coleman inside to left guard. Then in April, the front office used its first-round pick on Oregon tackle Josh Conerly Jr., with the expectation that he’ll immediately start at right tackle.
Beyond the offensive line, the Commanders traded for longtime 49ers receiver Deebo Samuel in March. While Samuel’s play has fallen off in recent years, the hope for Washington is that he can add a dynamic yards-after-the-catch element that the team didn’t have last season. The team also used a fourth-round pick on Virginia Tech wide receiver Jaylin Lane.
And while star wide receiver Terry McLaurin, who had the best season of his career last year, spent most of the offseason in a contract standoff, he reportedly signed a new contract Monday morning. That solidifies Daniels’s go-to target and Washington’s receiving core.
But there is turnover in the backfield. The relationship between the team and running back Brian Robinson Jr. completely deteriorated—for unclear reasons—to the point that the Commanders traded away the fourth-year back to the 49ers for just a sixth-round pick. That leaves running back duties to 2023 sixth-rounder Chris Rodriguez Jr. and 2025 seventh-rounder Jacory Croskey-Merritt. While Croskey-Merritt has received glowing camp reports and played well in the preseason, having such an inexperienced backfield feels like a big gamble.
But that’s just life in the NFL—few teams enjoy offseasons without roster turnover. Maybe that’s one reason why good quarterbacks often regress.
Cut through the roster movement and coachspeak, though, and look again at that list of top rookie passers since 2001. Except for Griffin—whose injury troubles are well-known by Washington fans—every player in that group became a franchise passer for their team.
Despite Washington’s best efforts, Daniels will likely take a step back this season. But that’s not really a bad thing—it’s a result of just how good he was as a rookie. And when you look at the signal, not the noise, you see that Washington almost surely has found the long-term quarterback it’s been searching for.
