One college football coach compared 2024 NFL Draft prospect Jayden Daniels to Kansas City Chiefs star quarterback Patrick Mahomes, according to The Athletic’s Bruce Feldman.
“I tell people this: Outside of Patrick Mahomes, I haven’t coached against someone like this,” one college football coach said. “He’s just very hard to defend. We tried to force him to run it to take it out of his hands. The throws he makes and the timing he has, I thought was second to none. He throws the deep ball extremely accurately.”
That’s some massive praise for Daniels, who won the Heisman Trophy in the 2023 season while playing for Louisiana State University (LSU). Daniels threw for 3,812 yards, 40 touchdowns and just four interceptions while completing 72.2 percent of his passes for the Tigers.
A dual-threat quarterback, Daniels also carried the ball 135 times for 1,134 yards and 10 scores, showing that he was one of the most dynamic threats with the ball in his hands in the entire country.
After beginning his college career at Arizona State University, Daniels transferred to LSU prior to the 2022 season and really took off. He posted a 17-touchdown, three-interception campaign in 2022, but his play and numbers really took off last season.
“He improved a lot,” another college coach said. “He’s a really good deep ball thrower with more than above-average arm strength. Those 15-, 20-yard touch throws were better than I thought. He didn’t look like he was that fast, but he just glides and runs by people, and he outruns their angles. Florida wasn’t very good last year but they still had team speed, and even when they had angles on him, he’d run by them. When you eyeball him before the game, he doesn’t look very big, but he’d lower his shoulder and could take punishment.”
Mahomes, who is now a three-time Super Bowl champion, is widely considered to be the best quarterback in the NFL right now.
The Kansas City star is a terrific improviser with the football in his hands, and if Daniels even comes close to having Mahomes’ success as a pro, he will be deemed a successful draft pick.
There are a bunch of NFL teams that could use a quarterback at the top of the draft, including the Chicago Bears (No. 1 pick), Washington Commanders (No. 2 pick) and New England Patriots (No. 3 pick).
Feldman projects Daniels to land in Washington with the No. 2 selection, but fans will have to wait until the 2024 NFL Draft to see where the star quarterback gets to continue his football career.
