Jayden Daniels Gets Some Advice From an Impressive Hall of Fame Duo

Montana, a third-round pick in 1979, only started one game that year and only started seven games in his second season. Marino, part of the historic draft class of 1983, started nine games as a rookie, passing for 2,210 yards and 20 touchdowns.

Of course, Marino’s second season might be one of the best any quarterback has ever had. In 1984, Marino set new NFL single-season records for passing yards (5,084) and TD passes (48). Both records have since been broken, but those numbers were staggering at the time.

“I had a lot of great receivers, cats that were around a while,” Marino said, talking about Mark Duper, Mark Clayton, Nat Moore and jimmy Cefalo. He also noted that the Miami Dolphins were battling all season for home-field advantage in the AFC playoffs, so every game mattered. “So it was like important yards, important touchdowns, important wins,” he said. “To me, I'm proud of that part of it.”

Marino praised Daniels for his “overall demeanor” as a young quarterback.

“As a rookie, I did pretty well, and he did way better than we did,” said Marino, now 63 years old. “The demeanor, how you handle things, and just the athleticism, and what he's been able to do … the future’s right there, man.”

Montana, 69, said watching Daniels play at this level so early in his career has been fun to watch.

“Knowing how difficult that is to get down on a week-to-week basis, and everybody's aiming for you when you start having success, (which) makes it even more difficult. And the things that he was able to do and bring the level of the team up to get him almost to the Super Bowl last year was just … it's fun to watch quarterbacks like that.

“I just wish I could run like that.”

It’s not that Montana couldn’t run. His 59 rushing yards in Super Bowl XIX — in which the San Francisco 49ers defeated Marino’s Dolphins — was once a record. It still stands as the sixth-best rushing performance by a quarterback in the Super Bowl. In 16 years, Montana rushed for 1,676 yards. Daniels, who rushed for 891 yards as a rookie, is likely to pass Montana’s career mark before his sophomore campaign is done.

Then there’s Marino. When Daniels rushed for 88 yards in his first NFL game last season, that’s all he needed to eclipse Marino’s career rushing total of 87 yards.

That’s not a typo: Marino rushed for 87 yards in 17 seasons.

“It's hard to do,” Marino said, laughing at himself. “You have to try to do that.”

After such a brilliant rookie season, the 24-year-old Daniels enters the 2025 campaign with high expectations. He was quick to note that the Commanders organization has been very good at building a “just focus on now” mentality.

“I keep working,” he said. “And I just have that hunger to always want to get better. So I think that's a big thing.

“I don't want to be known (for) what I did in my rookie year. I want to be known in my second year and so on and so forth.”

Marino doesn’t doubt that Daniels can handle the expectations, mainly because managing expectations is part of the job for all top-tier quarterbacks. He said he can see Daniels has the maturity, work ethic and trust in his teammates that is needed to succeed. He added that Daniels’ love of the game is important as well.

“Just keep doing what you're doing,” Marino said to Daniels — though he did add a little constructive criticism.

“Just be a little smarter about running, you know, and taking hits. That's all I would say to you. That's all I would say, bro. You play a long time. You don't need to take that many hits.”

Montana’s advice also included something Daniels should not do.

“I think the one thing that you try not to do is try to overthink and overdo. Like, ‘I have to do more than I did last year.’ … You just have to be yourself and know and believe in yourself. And yeah, you're going to make mistakes. It's going to happen. You know it. And it's just how you react to them.”

Montana may have made a few mistakes himself, but he was virtually perfect in the four Super Bowls he won. In those title games, he completed 83 of 122 passes for 1,142 yards, 11 touchdowns — and zero interceptions.

Montana’s reputation for keeping cool under pressure earned him the nickname “Joe Cool.” Daniels has shown flashes of that as well. He was asked if that characteristic is innate or if it’s something that can be taught.

“I think it's a little bit of both,” he said. “I think that's just how I was raised.

“And for me, it's like Joe said, it's go out there and have fun… At the end of the day, it's a game that we all played when we were kids. So it's still that passion and joy that I had when I was six or seven years old, just running around and just having fun with my friends in the backyard.”