ESPN’s Chase Daniel Talks Eagles, Broncos, Commanders & More with Rich

Chase Daniel watched the same Deshaun Watson tape everyone else did, and he did not find much.

"Not a lot. Not a lot, to be completely honest," he told Rich.

Daniel was careful about the limits of what he can see. He has not been around practice, and Watson has taken something like 27 or 32 preseason reps, so the practice field could tell a different story. But the games are the games. Safe throws. Underneath. Missing easy ones. A man comfortable inside the offense and not much more.

Then you turn on Shedeur Sanders and see someone taking shots down the field, taking chances, and yes, throwing those two interceptions.

Daniel was genuinely surprised Watson got the job, and the press conference is what moved him. Forget the fans, who are going to boo regardless, and forget the 17 away games line that Daniel Jeremiah floated. Think about it from a teammate's chair. You hear your guy decline accountability and shrug off something that happened and affected people, at the exact moment you had a chance to endear yourself to a fan base that already hates you.

"Just shut up and play at some point," Daniel said, describing where he landed.

His theory about the decision is that it did not come from Todd Monken. If Monken had his choice, Sanders fits his style better, spread out in 11 and 12 personnel, letting it rip.

What Daniel thinks is actually happening is sequencing. Start Watson, let him falter because the team is not great, and by Week 3 or 4 Sanders steps in as the hero. Going from Watson to Sanders is far easier than the reverse.

"Shedeur is going to play way more games, in my opinion, than Deshaun will."

His bigger conclusion is bleaker. Daniel does not believe the Browns have their 2027 quarterback on the roster today, with two first-round picks coming and CJ Carr, Arch Manning and Trinidad Chambliss in that class.

Asked for a Rick Dalton moment, a point at the screen where 2019 Watson appears, Daniel said there is not one. He framed the whole thing as confidence, which he thinks the sport does not discuss enough. When things happen to you on or off the field, a quarterback loses confidence fast, and getting it back is brutally hard. Doing that in Cleveland is harder than doing it somewhere like Los Angeles.

Rich then went macro on new coordinators, offering Sean Mannion in Philadelphia, Drew Petzing in Detroit, Declan Doyle with Lamar Jackson, Kevin O'Connell with Kyler Murray, and Davis Webb calling it in Denver.

Daniel said he missed two, Brian Flores from Seattle and David Blough with the Commanders. Then he picked Blough, a former teammate from the 2020 Lions.

The reason is Jayden Daniels. Chase thinks the scheme resembles Ben Johnson's, or the Darrell Bevell offenses in Seattle, throwing down the field with trick plays and heavy personnel usage. It will put Daniels under center far more, load more onto him mentally at the line of scrimmage, protect him better, and still run him.

He also rejected the sophomore slump framing. Daniels had what Chase calls the best rookie year of all time, and then he got hurt.

Asked who Daniels throws to, the honest answer was short. Terry McLaurin and Diggs. But Chase argued this style of offense can carry thinner skill groups, reaching for the Sean Payton teams he played on in New Orleans, where beyond Marques Colston you were naming Devery Henderson, Robert Meachem and Pierre Thomas. Washington needs guys like that to step up.

On Philadelphia, Daniel knows his reputation and leaned in anyway.

"It's going to be the biggest litmus test of Jalen Hurts's career this year."

For the first time, Hurts has to fit an offense rather than have one built around him. The Mannion and McVay-tree scheme demands checking in and out of plays, motion and second motion, checks into runs, and getting under center, which Hurts does not love and is actually good at. Daniel noted that Shane Steichen is the only coordinator Hurts has ever had in back-to-back years, going all the way back to college.

He also thinks losing AJ Brown stings less than people expect. A quarterback with an outright number one can get so locked into that player that he stops running the offense.

The quarterback he expects to leap is Bo Nix, and he called Denver the best team nobody is discussing.

The critique was the most technical thing in the interview, and it was about footwork. In Sean Payton's offense there is no single five-step drop. There are three or four of them. A square out to the field is the fastest five you have ever taken. A curl to the field is a slow five and a quick hitch. A corner post is a big five and two hitches. Daniel does not think Nix understood that last year, which is why the tape shows him sped up, waiting on concepts, feet going pitter-patter, bailing after the first and second read.

He stopped short of calling it happy feet, crediting Nix's pocket presence. The goal in the Webb offense is marrying the feet to the concept.

The sports radio closer: who starts more games in Las Vegas, Fernando Mendoza or Kirk Cousins?

Daniel answered with research he commissioned years ago on when first-round rookie quarterbacks actually get on the field. Rich guessed Week 1. The average, going back to 2020, is Week 3.

Then he made the case for playing the rookie, because the only way to learn the hardest position in sports is to play it and go through adversity. His one caveat is mental readiness, which he does not think is a concern here. Every time a microphone goes in front of Mendoza, he says the right thing.

The last word went to Dak Prescott, at TJ's request. Daniel called him underrated last season, with a 10 or 12 game stretch where you could argue he played the position better than anyone. A pure pocket passer, surgical with his footwork and reads, and unusually detailed. Dallas needed to fix the defense and did.

"If their defense can finish top 12 in the league, this is going to be a playoff team that can win playoff games."

He also went out of his way to credit Brian Schottenheimer, not just as a play-caller but for handling the circus.

For the record, Daniel opened the show bullish on Michigan, which surprised him too. He credits the Kyle Whittingham hire, calling it a move outside the family for a fully formed adult, likes the roster and expects a better defense. It comes down to Bryce Underwood, whether he can be protected, and whether he can get anywhere near what people said about him coming out.