Rich Weighs In on Bucs’ Undrafted Rookie QB Jalon Daniels’ “Massive W” against the Cowboys

Sports media has a habit of burying the best story in the building under the loudest one. Rich wanted to make sure Jalon Daniels did not get buried.

He opened with a draft-night example. Cam Ward's journey from Incarnate Word to first overall pick was incredible, Rich said, but as Ward walked to the stage, Jacksonville traded up with Cleveland for Travis Hunter, and that became the story. "So we didn't talk about Cam Ward very much."

Daniels is living a version of that. After six years at Kansas, he spent the entire draft waiting to hear his name and never did. He still became the first rookie to start a game this season, lost to Green Bay in his debut, then went into Dallas and won on Thursday night while the Cowboys' collapse dominated the conversation.

The history is what makes it worth stopping on. Rich laid it out: Daniels is the first undrafted rookie starting quarterback to win a game for a team that entered winless in the common draft era. "First to do it," Rich said. "He does it on Amazon Prime. Everybody's watching, and he does it against Dallas."

And he played well. "He was superb," Rich said. Daniels avoided the big mistake, aside from a near pick-six that would have swung the game, and he moved the ball with help from the running game.

Prime Video kept cutting to his mother in the stands, which became its own bit in the studio. Rich and the crew wondered whether anyone had called to warn her she was on camera. The broadcast later had her on the postgame show alongside Vita Vea, which Rich called pretty cool.

There is a show connection, too. The Rich Eisen Show gave Daniels an NIL deal back when it was handing them out to deserving players who were not getting one. Afterward, Daniels described what the win meant. "Six months ago, if you would have told me that my first win would have been on a Thursday night Prime football game, I don't know what I would have told you," he said. He added that he wants to go through every emotion, "through all the highs, the lows, the bads, the goods," because "it makes you better and prepares you for any situation that comes down the line."

Rich said calling it a massive win for the Bucs would be overstating it "by 0%." The team, the coaching staff and an offensive coordinator who had been maligned all needed it.

Then came the inevitable question. Rich walked into his son Cooper's room that morning, and the first words out of Cooper's mouth were, "Dad, do you think Jalon Daniels is going to take Baker's job?" Somebody in the room even joked that general manager Jason Licht might wish he had waited on Baker Mayfield's extension.

Rich shut that down. "Do not come for Baker," he said. He conceded anything can happen, noting he might have said the same thing about Drew Bledsoe and Tom Brady in 2001. But to him, Daniels did exactly what a backup is supposed to do, the same job Case Keenum, Tyson Bagent and Mac Jones did when they stepped in and won games while the starter was out.