5 O’Clock Club: Can Daniels learn to better protect himself from injury in his 3rd NFL season?

It’s 5 o’clock somewhere…

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Tucking and running with the ball is a feature, not a bug, of Jayden Daniels’ game. The Commanders quarterback is a gifted and shifty runner who set the NFL rookie record for the most rushing yards by a quarterback in a single season, finishing 2024 with 891 rushing yards. Interestingly, he surpassed the previous record of 815 yards set by Robert Griffin III in 2012.

Unfortunately, he shared another career distinction with RG3 — having it get derailed by injury, at least temporarily. Daniels suffered multiple injuries in 2025 and ended up playing in only seven games and only four of them from start to finish.

Jayden suffered three key injuries in his sophomore year in the NFL. The first occurred in Week 2 — a knee sprain that sidelined him for two weeks. That was followed by a hamstring injury around Week 7 that caused him to miss another game. The final blow came in two stages; the first occurred in Week 9 against the Seattle Seahawks when he suffered a dislocated elbow; he managed to return to the field in Week 14, but fell hard on that same elbow while chasing down a defender who had made interception, re-aggravating the injury and ending his season.

The knee sprain was caused by a scramble up the middle on Thursday Night Football during a Week 2 loss to the Green Bay Packers. He landed awkwardly as he was tackled, which ultimately resulted in a low-grade knee sprain. Despite the injury, he actually finished playing out the game before an MRI the following Monday confirmed the sprain.

His hamstring injury was caused by a sack-and-fumble play early in the third quarter against the Dallas Cowboys when Dallas linebacker Shemar James rushed up the middle on a first-and-10. Daniels pulled the ball down to avoid throwing an interception, but as James hit him and pulled him backward, Daniels lunged forward to protect the ball (which he fumbled) and, on the sack, James landed awkwardly on the back of Jayden’s leg.

Daniels’ elbow dislocation was caused by a scramble and sack play late in the fourth quarter against the Seattle Seahawks when Daniels took a snap on second-and-goal and scrambled to his right. Seattle linebacker Drake Thomas tracked him down and sacked him at the 4-yard line. As Daniels was slung to the ground, he instinctively planted his left hand (his non-throwing arm) to break the fall.

[I’m not putting the video here because I can’t watch it myself; if you want to see film of the elbow dislocation, you can click here]

His four injury events in 2025 were the result of (No. 1) scrambling on a called pass play; (No. 2) a sack on a called pass play; (No. 3) a scramble and a sack on a called pass play; and (No. 4) an awkward fall while moving towards a ball-carrier following an interception on a pass play.

What’s noticeable about that list is that none of the four 2025 injury events happened on called runs; rather, they happened on scrambles, sacks and turnovers.

Many fans tend to diminish the one significant injury JD5 is known to have sustained in 2024 because he didn’t miss any games, but he broke one or more ribs on an awkward tackle from behind at the end of a 46-yard run off of a zone read on the first play of the game.

In just two seasons, then, Daniels is known to have gotten injured at least four times while playing quarterback — ribs, knee, hamstring, elbow — and the word that pops up most commonly in the descriptions of those four plays is “awkward.” In all of them, Jayden was on the move when he got hit legally by a defender (or two) but ended up with his body twisting awkwardly or with his own body weight or that of a defensive player creating stress on joints, muscles or bones.

Daniels’ mobility is part of what makes him a great player, but that mobility comes with a risk premium, as we’ve learned from seeing the former No. 2 overall pick injured or re-injured at least five times in 24 regular season games.

The front office has done a lot to improve the offensive line and running backs that protect Jayden on passing plays. Head coach Dan Quinn made a major change by hiring David Blough to replace Kliff Kingsbury as the offensive coordinator with a mandate to change the style of offense — presumably to, at least in part, protect the team’s franchise quarterback.

But Jayden will still get sacked. He will still run the ball — both on called running plays and when pass protection breaks down. Only so much can be done by others to protect him; Jayden has to be better at protecting himself from injury.