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The Washington Commanders are one of the most pleasant surprises of the 2024 NFL season. Washington went through more than most teams in the offseason, getting a new ownership group and a brand new front office and coaching staff. Expectations were low for the first year of this new regime, but the Commanders are suddenly 3-1 after an impressive blowout victory against the Cardinals on Sunday.
Rookie QB Jayden Daniels has led the way for the Commanders. Daniels has been as close to perfect as one should expect from an NFL QB. This is all the more impressive because he is a rookie.
Daniels has a number of eye-popping statistics through four weeks. He has an 82.1% completion percentage after his first four games. That is the highest completion percentage by any player during a four-game stretch (min. 100 pass attempts) at any point in their career since at least 1950, per NFL+ via The Athletic's Ben Standig.
Daniels was also on a long streak of completing passes under 15 air yards. He completed 35 such passes in a row stretching over multiple games, a feat which NFL Next Gen Stats claims had a 0.02% chance of happening.
Jayden Daniels, Commanders got on impressive streak of scoring drives through first four games
What is even more impressive about the Commanders is how efficient their offense has been through four weeks.
Washington had had one of the most efficient offenses since the year 2000 thus far this season. When measuring by EPA per drive, the Washington Commanders have been the second most efficient offense in the NFL since 2000, falling only behind the legendary 2007 New England Patriots per Sheil Kapadia.
The Commanders managed this incredible streak of efficiency by scoring drive after drive. In fact, the Commanders have had 23 scoring drives compared to four punts through four weeks. During that stretch, Washington has only had 19 incomplete passes, which is a truly mind-blowing statistic.
For comparison's sake, the 1973 Rams are the only other team in the Super Bowl era that had more scoring drives (21) than incomplete passes (14) in their first four games of the season, per Jack Andrade.
It seems that the combination of head coach Dan Quinn, offensive coordinator Kliff Kingsbury, and rookie QB Jayden Daniels is the perfect combination.
As a result, Jayden Daniels is running away with the NFL's Offensive Rookie of the Year race early in the season. This is both a recognition of how absurdly talented Daniels has been through four weeks, but also a result of other top QBs (Caleb Williams, Drake Maye, J.J. McCarthy) failing to emerge in quite the same way.
If Jayden Daniels and the Commanders can keep up this pace, they'll be running the NFC East in no time.
