Washington Has a Plan to Manage Jayden Daniels’ Running Risk

Commanders Daily — The Commanders want to protect Jayden Daniels from unnecessary hits, but OC David Blough knows they cannot take away his elite scrambling ability. | Philip Hughes | HTTR4LIFE LLC

The Washington Commanders have spent a lot of time this offseason trying to figure out how to protect Jayden Daniels without taking away one of the biggest weapons in his game. His legs can change the entire complexion of a drive, whether the play is designed for him to run or he simply escapes when everything breaks down. The issue isn't whether Washington should stop using that ability. It's figuring out when the reward is worth putting Daniels in another situation where he can take unnecessary contact.

David Blough doesn't see the problem as simple as calling fewer quarterback runs. "With every play you call or every play you design, every rep you take, there's risk involved in all of it," Blough said. That's the reality of football, especially when your quarterback can create something most players at the position cannot. Blough's job is to decide when that extra risk is worth taking and find ways within the design to limit Daniels' exposure. "There's different ways that we can try to set that up to help protect him."

Part of that responsibility belongs to Blough, and part of it is directly on Daniels. Washington can decide when to call his number, what situations make sense, and how much space the design gives him to work with. Once Daniels takes off, however, the decisions become his. Does he slide? Does he get out of bounds? Does he fight through contact for another yard or understand that the play has already given Washington enough?

That is where Blough says much of the teaching comes into play. "Is it smart to slide here? Is it smart to get out of bounds? How do we protect our head? How do we protect our shoulders?" Those are small decisions that can make a massive difference over the course of a season. No doubt that there are situations where Daniels absolutely needs to fight for every inch, but there will be plenty of others where six yards and no contact are better than eight yards and a bell-ringer from a defender.

Every Jayden Daniels touchdown from his historic rookie season 🔥

Will he return to form this season?pic.twitter.com/UOLHKnBW3f
— Kalshi Football (@KalshiFB) September 6, 2026

Washington also can't simply remove Daniels' running ability from the offense and expect the same results. Defenses have to respect the possibility that he keeps the ball, takes off when coverage wins, or turns a broken play into something entirely different. Blough understands that even when the original call doesn't work, Daniels can still "flip the game with his legs." Taking that dynamic aspect away would make the offense easier to defend and remove one of the things that makes Daniels different from most quarterbacks in the league.

Philadelphia will give Washington its first real chance to see how the plan works. There will almost certainly be moments when Daniels has to leave the pocket, along with situations where Blough believes using his legs gives Washington the best chance to convert a critical down. The plan's overall success probably won't be measured by how many times Daniels runs. It will be measured by how often Washington gets value from those runs without Daniels taking a hit he never needed to absorb.

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