Commanders' Plan for Jayden Daniels Under New OC David Blough Revealed By Dan Quinn

The Washington Commanders offense is going to look much different next season.

Head coach Dan Quinn told reporters Tuesday the plan under new offensive coordinator David Blough is to feature quarterback Jayden Daniels under center far more after he largely played out of the shotgun in his first two seasons.

Blough was the assistant quarterbacks coach the past two seasons and was promoted to OC this offseason after Washington parted ways with Kliff Kingsbury.

"Jayden's a big part of our thinking in all the things we do," Quinn said. "He wasn't a part of the staff selection, but he drives a lot of the thinking and how we can feature him and where it goes. Having the ability to connect with him, that's certainly a big deal for us. ... It wasn't the deciding factor, but it certainly was a good factor."

For his part, Blough said, "There's different ways to go about things, and it's something that I'm convicted about that with his skill set, his fundamentals, the things that we absolutely loved about him when he first got here, still rang true. [Under center] is something that we will like to implement with him and get him in that position."

This is quite the change, as NFL analyst Warren Sharp noted the Commanders were last in the league with a total of 45 under-center dropbacks the last two seasons. Daniels took just 31 of those dropbacks, which stood in stark comparison to many of the teams that made the playoffs this past season:

Daniels' ability to bounce back from the 2025 campaign will be a major storyline next season.

After all, he led the Commanders to the NFC Championship Game as the Offensive Rookie of the Year in 2024 before knee, hamstring and elbow injuries limited him to just seven games—four of which he finished—in his second season.

Washington went 2-5 in his starts and 5-12 overall, which was quite the dropoff from his promising first year in the league.

There will surely be an adjustment period for the young quarterback moving forward seeing how he has largely played out the shotgun, but the coaching staff in Washington clearly believes this will be better in the long run.