For the first time since 2022, someone other than Baker Mayfield will start a regular season for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, thanks to the dislocated right thumb he suffered last Sunday against Minnesota. Mayfield says that somebody, rookie Jalon Daniels in his first NFL start, just needs to be himself.
"He simply put it as, 'You've been dreaming of this opportunity,'" said Daniels of the advice he has received this week from his veteran teammate. "'Just stay composed, play as yourself, don't try to be anybody else besides yourself, and just go out there and go make football plays.'"
Exactly what Daniels is going to be as an NFL starting quarterback is a bit of an unknown, given that he's in relatively uncharted territory. On Sunday against the visiting Green Bay Packers, he will be the first undrafted rookie ever to make a regular season start at quarterback for the Buccaneers in more than 50 seasons of franchise existence. But the Buccaneers, and especially Offensive Coordinator Zac Robinson, have seen enough on the practice field and in preseason games since they signed Daniels out of Kansas in May to believe that he can succeed on the sports' biggest stage.
"Being the QB2, I'm trying to go out there and be able to operate the offense smoothly as if there's nothing that changed," said Daniels after his first practice as a QB1 on Wednesday. "Everything I've been doing on a week-to-week basis, I think that I have given the confidence to Z-Rob to be able to go out there and operate the offense how he wants to."
Daniels has an easy confidence that should serve him well when the action turns serious on Sunday, but he knows the Packers' defense is going to try to test him they way it would any quarterback making his NFL starting debut. Already this week he has been picking the brains of Mayfield and practice squad quarterback Easton Stick after all the quarterbacks broke down Green Bay film together.
"Defenses, whenever they see a rookie quarterback they try to do everything that they can to try to be able to blitz the quarterback, try to be able to make him get confused, try to be able to disguise everything that they can, and I'm aware of that," he said. "Me being aware of that, I'm trying to do everything that I can to, like I said, lean on Easton, lean on Bake and try to be able to get every single answer I can to everything they've had on film."
In some ways, Daniels profiles as a quarterback like Mayfield, with similar builds and the type of mobility that can be used to extend plays or pick up critical yards on third down scrambles. In 49 games at Kansas he threw for 9,282 yards and ran for another 1,445 yards and 23 touchdowns.While he will primarily looking to do his damage from the backfield, he knows there will be times when he needs to make plays with his legs.
"Sometimes the defense wins," said Daniels. "When the defense is locking everything up, sometimes you have to be able to try to get out of the pocket and try to be able to go make plays. Because at the end of the day, at the quarterback position your objective is to try to be able to move the chains every single play. If the defense is doing their job, my ability to be able to get out of the pocket, try to be able to get out and try to go find a receiver downfield, and if I can't receiver downfield the objective is to try to be able to move the sticks."
Daniels also spoke of needing to serve as an emotional leader – "be the thermostat and not the thermometer" – for the team since he'll now be running the show. That involves making sure the highs don't get too high as much as not letting the lows get to low. That said, Daniels seems to have a perpetual smile on his face, and that is sure to be the case on Sunday when he realizes a professional dream.
"This is a dream come true," he said. "Obviously, your first start, you get one first start. You don't do it twice. So living in the moment, I think that's everything. Being able to live in the moment, being able to take every single emotion in, to go through every emotion. I think that's something that somebody told me before: Every high, every low, every good, every bad…go through every single emotion because it builds you into who you're going to be and it builds character for every situation you're going to come through down the line."
