SI

Commanders’ Jayden Daniels Dropped Funny One-Liner in Pre-Draft Interview With Giants

The now-Commanders quarterback hinted just how much he wants to score in a pre-draft interview with the Giants.

Josh Wilson

Jayden Daniels during a recorded interview with the Giants before the 2024 NFL draft
Jayden Daniels during a recorded interview with the Giants before the 2024 NFL draft /

The New York Giants never had a real chance to draft Jayden Daniels—selected second in the 2024 NFL draft by the Washington Commanders—but one of his answers to a question during the pre-draft process might have had them wishing they could've.

In a clip promoting an upcoming episode of HBO's Hard Knocks, which this offseason is following the Giants as they enter their historic centennial season, showed a pre-draft interview where Giants brass grilled Jayden Daniels.

Head coach Brian Daboll put Daniels through a situational wringer, having him draw up plays on the whiteboard, rename positions, and recall play names back to him.

After he threw the play back to Daboll (with just a minor error), Daboll layered on another aspect.

"If it's Cover 1, what do we want you to do?" Daboll asked.

"Throw a touchdown," Daniels responded.

A pretty iconic answer, and a massive display of confidence from a would-be rookie quarterback. Of course, that confidence is part of why he was taken with the No. 2 pick, never to be made available for the Giants, who drafted sixth. New York wound up taking wide receiver Malik Nabers with their first-round pick. They did not take a quarterback in the draft and enter the 2024 campaign with a depth chart of Daniel Jones, Drew Lock (signed as a free agent this offseason), and Tommy DeVito.

The irony now is Daniels may very well end up throwing touchdowns against the Giants twice per year for the foreseeable future as a division rival.

Published |Modified
Josh Wilson

JOSH WILSON

Josh Wilson is the news director of the Breaking and Trending News team at Sports Illustrated. Before joining SI in 2024, he worked for FanSided in a variety of roles, most recently as senior managing editor of the brand’s flagship site. He has also served as a general manager of Sportscasting, the sports arm of a start-up sports media company, where he oversaw the site’s editorial and business strategy. Wilson has a bachelor’s degree in mass communications from SUNY Cortland and a master’s in accountancy from the Gies College of Business at the University of Illinois. He loves a good nonfiction book and enjoys learning and practicing Polish. Wilson lives in Chicago but was raised in upstate New York. He spent most of his life in the Northeast and briefly lived in Poland, where he ate an unhealthy amount of pastries for six months.

Home/NFL