Hogs Haven
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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...
