Is Caleb Williams Catching Up to Jayden Daniels?

By the time you read this article, you may know if Jayden Daniels has successfully practiced. Washington’s rookie quarterback was knocked out of last week’s game against Carolina with a rib injury, and while it’s not supposed to be too serious, it may still cost him a week or two on the sidelines. The Commanders are going to try to get him up and ready to go, but they’re not going to rush the future of their franchise back early for one random game in October, and so it may be Marcus Mariota once again.

If so, the NFL bigwigs are quietly cursing under their breath. Two weeks ago, they flexed the Commanders into the late window for Week 8, because Washington plays the Chicago Bears and, more importantly from a narrative perspective, Caleb Williams. A matchup between the first two picks of the draft is always going to be interesting, if not necessarily meaningful (remember Bryce Young beating C.J. Stroud last year?) but it’s all the more interesting when both of them are actually playing well.

About a month ago, it was looking like Daniels was set to run away with the Offensive Rookie of the Year award, and he’s still the betting favorite, but Williams has come on strong in recent weeks. Yes, Williams has had a run of soft defenses, but he’s successfully shredded them, and ‘being able to beat bad defenses’ is a hurdle that not every rookie quarterback clears. It may still be Daniels’ award to lose at this point, but Williams is going to make him work for it, and that’s all you can really ask for in an award race. We repeatedly made the point before the season that you can’t expect any rookie quarterback to be good, but one of the six rookies likely would overperform that expectation. It’s been really fun to see two of them clear that bar.

We may not get to see the two compete on the field this week, but we can take the competition into StatsHub, which allows you to slice and dice players’ performances with our full range of advanced stats and charting numbers. Let’s dive in a little more and look at the two frontrunners for OROY in the leadup to their (potential) matchup.

By DYAR and DVOA, there is no competition. Daniels has been one of the best quarterbacks in the league through seven weeks. He’s third in passing DVOA (value per play) behind Lamar Jackson and Josh Allen and fifth in passing DYAR (total value) behind Jackson, Allen, Baker Mayfield and Joe Burrow. His 459 DYAR would rank 16th on the all-time rookie leaderboard, and at his current pace he’s at least a threat to catch the all-time leader, Dak Prescott’s 1,302. That puts him as a borderline MVP candidate, not just an OROY favorite. Williams, on the other hand, has been playing more or less at replacement level. That’s not bad at all for a rookie; his -12.3% DVOA would be above average for first-year quarterbacks in our database. But, at the same time, it’s not something that should immediately jump out at you as being particularly special. He ranks 25th among qualified passers, and would theoretically be behind Drake Maye in this year’s rookie class, if Maye had had enough dropbacks to qualify to be ranked at this point in the season. Williams looks a little better if you look at straight, non-defense adjusted VOA (-5.1%, which ranks 22nd), but then, so does Daniels (32.0%). Based on the year to date, there’s a clear-cut top rookie passer; Daniels is well beyond his class and into best-of-year discussions.

But this isn’t the Offensive Rookie of the First Seven Weeks award, and Williams has come on strong over the last month. Since Week 4, Williams has a passing VOA of 43.9%, third best in the league behind Jared Goff and Lamar Jackson, and just above fourth-place Daniels’ 33.9%. That’s what’s driving Williams back into the narrative; before you adjust for quality of opponent, Williams has been picking apart NFL defenses in a way he wasn’t in early September. Seven touchdowns to just one interception and 687 yards in three games is not something we’re used to seeing out of a Chicago quarterback. A three-game sample size could always be fool’s gold –remember, Mitch Trubisky had a strong October in 2018, with a 12.8% DVOA from Weeks 3-7 that led him to a Pro Bowl berth. But for a franchise who has been longing for a franchise quarterback since the days of Sid Luckman, it’s easy to see why people are getting excited.

His detractors will point out that slicing and dicing Carolina and Jacksonville isn’t exactly the toughest test, but even adjusting for defenses faced shouldn’t put too much of a damper on the hopes of Bears fans. Williams does have the biggest drop-off between his VOA and DVOA over the past month, but he still sits at a very credible 26.2% DVOA, which ranks sixth. That’s enough to slide him back behind Daniels (28.4%), but that’s not a significant gap at all. Yes, Williams is being propped up by a couple defenses who would be lucky to pressure a stone statue, but Williams has taken those opportunities and made the most out of them. And so, this is a discussion, rather than just the media trying to create a rivalry out of wholecloth.

Williams’ biggest step forward has been in his success pushing the ball downfield, reflecting his growing comfort in the system and against NFL defenses. That’s something where standard stats might trip you up, as Williams’ aDOT has dropped from 8.8 over the first three weeks to 5.7 over the last month. But over the first month, Williams was just throwing balls almost randomly; his catchable air-yard rate rose from 33.0% to 58.1%. Over his first three games, Williams was 4-for-21 on passes 20+ yards downfield and had a deep DVOA of -67.1%, second-worst behind only Bryce Young. Williams isn’t throwing the ball aimlessly down the field as much since then, only 3-for-6 on passes of 20+ over his last three games, but that’s because he’s waiting until he actually has chances. His 146.4% DVOA on deep shots over the last three weeks is third behind Goff and Jackson. He’s also seen his first-read percentage drop from 41.6% to 35.8%, another sign that he’s seeing the field and understanding where to go with the ball better, and not just forcing a downfield shot for the sake of it. These are all very positive signs going forward for Williams.

Still, however, Daniels does seem to have the inside track, and not just because he’s been successful for twice as long as Williams has to date. Even over the past month, Daniels has operated better in tougher situations, specifically under pressure. When defenders get home, Daniels has a -26.7% passing DVOA since Week 4, the second-highest mark in the league. Williams is at -80.6%, and that’s a significant step up from his season-long mark of -127%. Williams has had an 84.3% DVOA against the blitz over the last month, best in the league, but that’s mostly because he’s been punishing teams for blitzing unsuccessfully. Against blitzes which failed to get pressure over the last month, Williams is 11-for-13 for 154 yards and a pair of touchdowns with a DVOA of 123.5% — Daniels, on the other hand, is 11-for-15 for 120 yards and about twice as likely to dump the ball off to a checkdown rather than find an open receiver one-on-one down the field. Williams is doing a better job, then, of taking advantage of defensive mistakes – but he’s also been substantially worse when pressure actually does get home. When teams get pressure without blitzing, Williams has struggled all season long. His 9.1% sack rate is sixth-worst in the league, and two of his five interceptions have come on ill-advised passes in the face of an oncoming blitzer. Daniels is, by no means, perfect under pressure – an 8.2% sack rate isn’t exactly something to write home about, either – but he’s been far better at getting out of problems than Williams has been. He has the lower adjusted sack rate (8.9% to Williams’ 10.5%), his pressure-to-sack rate is less than three-quarters of Daniels’, and his general ability to dodge and weave and make something happen under pressure has been better. Daniels by far has been the passer less likely to hurt his team when things go wrong; things just don’t go wrong as frequently when you’re playing the Jaguars and Panthers.

That athleticism used to avoid sacks shows up elsewhere in Daniels’ game, too. We’ve been talking solely passing numbers to this point, but Daniels’ is an effective part of Washington’s run game. Daniels’ 28 designed runs are the fifth-most for any quarterback, and that rises to seconds when you take out sneaks. And while his DYAR on those designed runs isn’t fantastic (-15), his success rate of 46.4% is respectable. It’s on scrambles, though, where Daniels’ ability really shines. Daniels leads the league not just in number of scrambles (31), but in DYAR as well (78). The only quarterback with more than 15 scrambles with a better success rate than Daniels’ 67.7% is Patrick Mahomes. Williams is no slouch scrambling himself (41 DYAR), but he’s more of a “pocket collapsed, can I break this sack attempt, if so it’s time to go” runner. Daniels finds lanes and takes off, showing both good athleticism and good judgment in when to do so. Williams is a functional athlete; Daniels is explosive, and that distinction has played out this season.

In short, Williams has some ground to cover if he wants to catch Daniels, even if we assume Williams’ new baseline is what he’s done over the last month. The question for Williams is if he can continue to have that level of success against stingier defenses, while the question for Daniels is if he can keep up league-leading-type numbers over the course of a full season. It really is a different stratosphere for the two rookies so far. But Williams’ jump over the past month of the season is real, and has at least started to close the gap between the two – the OPOY race really is a race, and not just a cakewalk for Daniels. Hopefully, Daniels’ ribs will allow him to play this Sunday, not because head-to-head results should matter, but because we all want to see the top two rookies in the class on the same field at the same time.