Dan Quinn ended minicamp short of naming Jayden Daniels the starting QB in Washington, saying only that Daniels ‘is making unbelievable progress’ and ‘has earned that opportunity to go compete.’
But does it really matter that he didn’t say it?
“I thought Mitch Tischler did a really good job in how he framed this question, because there are those that will try to make this like a gotcha thing, and he didn't do that,” JP Finlay said. “But to everyone that watched minicamp the last few days, it was obvious that for the first time, Daniels got all the work with the first team offense. And when you say hey, Daniels is now getting all the work with the first team, is he your starter, I think Quinn answered it well. Did he get the first team work? Yes, and they had to see some stuff from him, which he showed, but if you know Dan Quinn and that Seahawks tree where competition is everything – 20 years ago they let Russell Wilson, a third-round pick, beat out Matt Flynn – it’s competition all the time, and no way was he going to declare him the starter.”
“You want people to feel like they earned something anyway; I think just handing something to somebody, it may be the way of the damn world, but you know what? That's why the world is so screwed up, because you got a bunch of people that don't understand the true work it takes to be something,” was BMitch’s response.
Landphill agreed, saying we all know Daniels is the guy barring injury, but it’s a reaction to a ‘weird’ part of football.
“It’s just kind of this weird thing that football teams do. I think that if you just come out right after you draft a guy and say, well, he's our starter, it maybe could rub some people there the wrong way,” Landini said.
“You gotta at least have him show up to camp and prove to everybody that he's working and capable of doing it, and then they'll name him. But obviously, he’s going to be the starter, so I'm not worried.”
And maybe, honestly, not making an official declaration is better?
“When you allow them to go through it and you let them work for it, he might get a better hold on the team, because they see this guy work his ass off; he's putting in the work, he wasn't handed a thing,” BMitch said. “One thing professional players hate: they don’t care who it is, but they hate when you hand somebody a job. If I gotta fight for mine, why doesn’t he have to fight for his?”
“There was some discussion last training camp about if Jacoby got a real chance to compete for that job,” JP replied, with B shooting back that “we knew that wasn't competition, they did what they wanted to do.”
And that’s why he doesn’t care who is named QB1 until September 1.
“I want that dude all week to be the starter, because in preseason, who cares who the starter is?” Brian said. “They don't play anyway!”
“And if it is a competition,” JP and Landfill agreed, “Jayden’s winning anyway.”
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