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Jayden Daniels’s Ridiculous Rookie Year Perfectly Summed Up By One Wild Stat

Rookies have made their conference championship game before, but never like Daniels did.

Tyler Lauletta

Washington Commanders quarterback Jayden Daniels celebrates after a win.
Washington Commanders quarterback Jayden Daniels celebrates after a win. / Nathan Ray Seebeck-Imagn Images
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Jayden Daniels has the Washington Commanders on the doorstep of the Super Bowl in his rookie season.

On Saturday, a masterful performance from Daniels helped lead the Commanders to a 45-31 win over the Detroit Lions, securing a spot in the NFC championship in the process.

With the win, Daniels is set to become just the sixth rookie quarterback in NFL history to start in a conference championship game, but his path to a title game was comparatively much more challenging than those who came before them.

As Kyle Brandt of Good Morning Football pointed out, the previous five rookie quarterbacks to start a conference championship game had the help of a top-ranked defense in the league, while this year’s Commanders land in the middle of the pack.

While the other players on the list all deserve their flowers as well, it’s clear that game-management was enough to help lift an elite defense to advancing in the postseason. Meanwhile, on this year’s Commanders team, Daniels and the offense are undoubtedly the stars of the show.

Next week, Daniels will look to put himself on an even more exclusive list—while he’s the sixth rookie quarterback to reach a conference championship, with one more win he could become the first quarterback in NFL history to start a Super Bowl.

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Tyler Lauletta
TYLER LAULETTA

Tyler Lauletta is a staff writer for the Breaking and Trending News Team/team at Sports Illustrated. Before joining SI, he covered sports for nearly a decade at Business Insider, and helped design and launch the OffBall newsletter. He is a graduate of Temple University in Philadelphia, and remains an Eagles and Phillies sicko. When not watching or blogging about sports, Tyler can be found scratching his dog behind the ears.

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