Time for a little rookie update on Jayden Daniels as we enter the first week of the summer shutdown…and as Brian Mitchell read from a recent John Keim article about how Jayden is drawing a lot of praise following OTAs and minicamp, he was seeing exactly what everyone else was.
“Since Jayden has been here, there has been a lot of praise about him from coaches and players understand what they're looking for, and they believe in him,” BMitch said. “The thing I love is that ever since he has come in, he's done everything that stars don't normally do. He didn't come in expecting to be treated a certain way, he’s come in with the mindset that I'm gonna go out here and impress you to get the love and respect. He hasn't expected people to just praise him without him doing stuff.”
A trait that you don’t always get from such a high, and heralded, draftee.
“When you are a player and you drafted in the Top 5, you normally have kind of a reason to feel a little good about yourself, but he hasn't done that,” BMitch continued. “I know people will probably say things, but you are what you exhibit, what you give to people on a daily basis, and I believe this young man has come up and he's worked. He was at Arizona State, things didn't work out, so he left and went to LSU and had to put in the work – and then you see the year he had and everybody want to tell me something about him. The LSU football program has a certain level of expectations, and he exceeded them, and now, getting to this next level, he’s done the things he needs to do.”
Okay, so it’s so far, so good, but we haven’t played a game or even a scrimmage yet, right?
“When he starts to play, he has to protect himself; he’s a competitive guy, but he has to realize that you're not here to just compete against every hit that's out there,” Brian said. “You’re here to be there for your team, game in and game out, play in and play out, drive in and drive out. If he can do that, then I think that they chose the right guy.”
All Doc Walker, fellow NFL alum in for JP Finlay Monday, could do was agree.
“No doubt about it, he passed the test in the collegiate season in the SEC, and he’s gonna be better than he was there,” Doc said. “He's been coached tough, he's not sensitive. He is a coach's dream, and now he's just gotta hope he gets some help from his teammates, because you know, you lived it. He's gonna be as good as both interior lines allow him to be offensively and defensively, and I think we are gonna be in for a big surprise – the same guys that failed in one instance, can be successful with a new program. You feel the energy there; it’s gone from a morgue to Studio 54, and I can’t wait to see them work in a training camp environment, because it's gonna remind me of the old days and how we got after in practice.”
Listen to the whole conversation above!
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