Commanders Haven’t Discussed Adding Veteran QB

According to Albert Breer of Sports Illustrated, despite Daniels’ history with the injury that caused him to miss seven games last year, the 25-year-old is considered week-to-week. Breer points out that head coach Dan Quinn has only ruled the passer out for one game, though a Tuesday flight to London will give Washington only a day or two to decide if Daniels will travel with his teammates to the United Kingdom.

Daniels spent the week traveling across the country to New York and Los Angeles, meeting multiple specialists who steered him towards forgoing surgery. Instead, he’ll rehab with the team while wearing a brace over his left elbow in the hopes of making a quicker return to the field. After the initial injury last year, Daniels avoided surgery and returned to the field after a three-week absence, just to aggravate the injury in his first game back and miss the last four games of the season.

The Commanders appear to be buying into the idea that Daniels will avoid a lengthy absence with their apparent contentedness in the makeup of their quarterbacks room. Knowing that Daniels will certainly miss at least one game, the only other passer on the roster to serve as Mariota’s primary backup is seventh-round Rutgers rookie Athan Kaliakmanis. The Minnesota transfer started two seasons for the Scarlet Knights, sporting a career completion percentage of just 56.3 but showing a strong progression of development over the course of his 42 games as a first-string quarterback.

There’s certainly a chance Kaliakmanis continued his encouraging pace of development upon landing in the nation’s capital, but it feels fairly unlikely that the Commanders will be confident trotting the rookie out in a worst-case scenario that sees Mariota follow Daniels to the sideline with injury. With the memory of this happening just last year, though, Washington’s lack of urgency in adding a veteran arms speaks either to their faith in Kaliakmanis to fill in or their faith that Daniels won’t be out for long.