As of Thursday morning, DraftKings Sportsbook had second-year pro Jayden Daniels of the Washington Commanders fifth among the betting favorites at +750 odds to win 2025 MVP after he ran away with the Offensive Rookie of the Year Award for the 2024 campaign.
During a recent appearance on the FanDuel TV “Up & Adams” program, Commanders tight end Zach Ertz touched upon what makes Daniels such a special talent so early into his pro career.
“His humility — the thing about Jayden is, things really haven’t changed,” Ertz said, as shared by Myles Simmons of Pro Football Talk. “He’s such a humble guy. He is just one of the guys. And oftentimes, when you see guys come in that were drafted as high as he was, that won the Heisman, they come in with almost an ego. And Jayden was just a guy that wanted to learn. …Yeah, his confidence, his comfort in the offense has grown from last year when first he came in to now — the offseason, (organized team activities). His demeanor, his ability to execute, yeah, it’s improved. But the person has not changed at all.”
The second pick of the 2024 NFL Draft, Daniels guided the Commanders to this year’s NFC Championship Game and earned some MVP votes after he won 12 of 17 regular-season starts. Per Pro Football Reference, he ranked fourth in the league among qualified passers with a 70.6 adjusted QBR. Additionally, StatMuse shows that Daniels was seventh in the league with 4,459 combined passing and rushing yards and ninth with 31 combined passing and rushing touchdowns.
Those running the Commanders believe that the club retaining offensive coordinator Kliff Kingsbury, backup quarterback Marcus Mariota, pass game coordinator Brian Johnson and quarterbacks coach Tavita Pritchard will help Daniels take a significant leap in his second season. Ertz noted that Daniels has been hard at work in an attempt to improve aspects of his game before veterans are due to report to training camp on July 22.
“…He’s a guy who loves to put in the work, loves the process, and has very, very high standards for himself,” Ertz added. “He has such high confidence in himself because he wants to be so great that it really resonates with the rest of the guys on the field and on the team with him. So, from the outside looking in, you could say he had a phenomenal year. But in the back of his mind, he’s saying, ‘I could be better this year.’ And it’s crazy going into his second year, how good he was last year. But he’s going to have that mentality for, hopefully, the next 15 years.”
On Thursday, DraftKings Sportsbook had the Commanders sixth among the betting favorites at +1800 odds to win Super Bowl LX. If Daniels truly is better this season than he was last season, Washington could enter the playoffs as the NFC’s top seed.
