
Before Jayden Daniels got to Commanders camp last summer -- before the Commanders even knew for sure they'd be selecting him with the No. 2 pick in the 2024 NFL draft -- new coach Dan Quinn wanted to make sure the situation was right.
"We needed to create an ecosystem," Quinn said when asked about how to break in a rookie quarterback. "And it started, really, with the staff."
It was during Quinn's interview with new team owner Josh Harris and new general manager Adam Peters in January 2024 that he outlined his plan for setting up the first offseason around a rookie QB. After his firing over three years earlier as the Falcons' coach, Quinn spent time analyzing what he'd do differently the next time. One thing that stood out: He hadn't built his Atlanta coaching staff to withstand success.
After the Falcons went to the Super Bowl in the 2016 season, offensive coordinator Kyle Shanahan left to become coach of the 49ers and took assistants such as Mike McDaniel and Mike LaFleur with him. Matt LaFleur, meanwhile, left to join Sean McVay's staff with the Rams.
"So you had this brain drain," Peters said. "But you've got to understand you've got to have somebody next. That was one of the things that, in his interview, he talked to me about -- building a deep coaching staff and having the next guy and the next guy, anticipating success."
Quinn hired Kliff Kingsbury as offensive coordinator. He hired Brian Johnson as pass game coordinator. He retained Tavita Pritchard, who'd been hired a year earlier as quarterbacks coach. And he hired former NFL quarterback David Blough as assistant quarterbacks coach.
"I wanted a big staff, hoping that things would go well and teams would want to interview our guys and we'd have people from within to replace them," Quinn recalled in an interview before practice at training camp last month. "And that way, when things happen, it's not different voices, different systems. So we were thinking ahead, and all of this is before Jayden even arrived."
There's an axiom that says more young NFL quarterbacks are ruined than made in the NFL -- that the situation is everything when breaking in a young passer. Teams that get the opportunity to land a potential franchise signal-caller are heavily invested in making sure it all works. There has to be a strategy.
"I think whenever you draft a quarterback early, you want to have a plan or schedule to put in place," said Giants offensive coordinator Mike Kafka, whose team selected Jaxson Dart in the first round. "Understand that it's not really a one-week plan. It's a six-month, one-year, two-year type of plan. ... We try to put together a little checklist and a plan for every player, and the quarterback is no different."
But the quarterback is different, in a lot of very important ways. Drafting a signal-caller early is a major move for a franchise, and one that carries massive risk. Making sure that passer succeeds can be the difference between a coach keeping or losing his job. That's why the plan is so important, and why it has to start before even making the pick. We talked to a few coaches and executives around the NFL to get a feel for those plans, how teams go about them, what works versus what doesn't and what's different from team to team (and quarterback to quarterback).
Build out the support system
Peters thinks back to the 2024 free agency period, a month and a half before the draft. Knowing they were going to take a quarterback and hoping it would be Daniels, the Commanders had to make sure the roster around him was right.
"The first thing we wanted to do was get a really good backup quarterback," Peters said. "A quarterback that could start or could compete with him. But at the same time, find a guy who, if he was the backup, he wouldn't be pissed off. He would be helpful."
Washington targeted two. One was Sam Darnold, who had been the backup the season before in San Francisco, where Peters had been the assistant GM. The other was Marcus Mariota, who coincidentally had at one time been a Heisman Trophy winner and No. 2 pick, just like Daniels.
Quinn and Peters are quick to mention Mariota -- whom they eventually did sign -- when they talk about the support system around Daniels and the success the Commanders had last season. They laud Mariota as a great teammate, and Quinn even mentioned the similarities between the draft circumstances of the two quarterbacks. There's a reason they wanted to bring him back this season, and the way he supported Daniels was a big part of it.
"Backup quarterback is a very important role for the young player because they have perspective," said Titans coach Brian Callahan, who is tasked this offseason with breaking in this year's No. 1 pick Cameron Ward. "Everything in that room is about supporting the starter, so you want guys in there who've been in the league, who've been through it and can talk to him from that perspective. It's huge."
Of course, that's not the only role of the backup quarterback.
Make the kid earn it
"The next step is how do you do a competition," Quinn said. "That's important to us. That's kind of the standard of our program -- showing your teammates you've earned it, that you're willing to do all the things you need to do to win the job."
Quinn had Daniels split reps evenly in camp last year with Mariota. It's easy to look at the situation and know the high draft pick who played six years of college football was always going to win the job. Even if that's true, though, coaches feel it's important to convince the rest of the team that nothing is given.
We see this everywhere. Sean Payton wouldn't call Bo Nix the starter in Denver right away last season, even though everyone knew he would be QB1. Dart is sitting behind Russell Wilson in New York right now and probably will continue to do so once the season starts. The Falcons and Patriots managed Michael Penix Jr. and Drake Maye, respectively, through training camp last summer knowing they would both open the season as backups. Rookie QB situations run the gamut, depending on where the team is in its building process.
"Veteran players really don't care for guys being anointed," Callahan said. "When Cam came in, we still had Will Levis before he had his surgery, and it was a pretty even split. It wasn't a false competition. Will was actually doing very well, I thought. And what that allowed Cam to do was earn guys' respect, earn the right to be the quarterback. The veterans want to find out if he's made of the right stuff."
Callahan has been through this before. He was the offensive coordinator in Cincinnati in 2020, when the Bengals selected Joe Burrow No. 1 in the draft. That was a unique year with the COVID-19 pandemic, so there were far fewer on-field practices and less chance to establish true competition.
But one benefit from the COVID year, Callahan says, is that all of the meetings were done virtually via videoconference. So he still has recordings of them to reference as he breaks in another rookie QB.
"It's cool to be able to go back and listen to what Joe said and what resonated with him at the time," Callahan said. "What made sense to him and what didn't. You go back and remind yourself what he struggled with, because obviously Joe doesn't struggle with much anymore. But to go back and hear what those things were has been very helpful for this experience."
Callahan made the decision to make training camp as intentionally difficult as possible for Ward. The Titans are dialing up blitzes (and fake blitzes) in practice. They're also using a 15-second "shot clock" instead of a 40-second play clock (a trick Cincinnati used with Burrow in 2020). Given Ward's extensive college experience and makeup, the Titans' coaches felt the best way to bring him along quickly was to stress him and let him work through the struggles.
"It's great to see how he's responding to adversity," Callahan said. "They've got to feel it and they've got to figure it out. Playing quarterback in the NFL is the hardest position in sports, and if you bring a guy along slowly and try to build his confidence, eventually it's going to get shattered. So I think there's a bit of a hardening that has to go on. And Cam doesn't flinch."
But there are other things to consider. Quinn recalls a conversation he once had with Hall of Fame quarterback Troy Aikman, who told him that coach Jimmy Johnson wanted to keep some stuff off his plate when he was a rookie in Dallas to make sure he focused on his own development. Johnson told Aikman not to worry about policing the huddle, making sure guys were lined up right and avoiding silly mistakes.
"So much can be put on kids: 'Lead more, lead more,'" Quinn said. "Right now, I want you to build your relationship with your teammates, who are learning you, and play quarterback. You don't have to bring the team up. You don't have to put the organization on your shoulders. Leave that to us."
There's a fine line to walk, though. Bad things are inevitably going to happen. There's no way to help a young quarterback steer clear of that. The key is making sure he's equipped to handle those moments when they do happen.
Vikings coach Kevin O'Connell was working with rookie J.J. McCarthy last year before McCarthy was injured in August and is now getting him up to speed as the 2025 starter. O'Connell has quickly developed a reputation for getting the most out of whatever quarterback situation he has in front of him.
"With this position, no matter what we can craft and create here or in preseason games, there's going to be some things that, when it's Week 4 or 5 and you're playing the Green Bay Packers at Lambeau Field and they're spinning the dial on coverages and pressures and he's getting hit and he's still got to just do his job and play, that's what rookie quarterbacks struggle with," O'Connell said, speaking on QB development in general. "The compounding negativity is almost fatal to some guys."
Let him win over the room
Things like the geography of the locker room can matter. Coaches want their young quarterbacks to spend time around the right kinds of teammates. For instance, Callahan "very intentionally" put Ward's locker next to those of Calvin Ridley and Lloyd Cushenberry III -- his No. 1 wide receiver and his starting center, respectively. Quinn, meanwhile, said he didn't arrange the locker room in any particular way around Daniels last year, but the 2024 offseason did see the Commanders bring in Super Bowl-seasoned veterans such as linebacker Bobby Wagner and tight end Zach Ertz.
Sometimes, the key relationships just develop organically.
"It's also cool to see how much [Ward] and [defensive tackle] Jeffery Simmons are constantly around each other," Callahan said. "They play cards together, they talk back and forth at each other. You want [Ward] around the veterans on your team, because those are important voices. I could tell him something 100 times, but that exact same thing sounds a lot different when Jeffery Simmons says it."
The veterans have to reach a comfort level with the rookie just as much as the rookie has to reach a comfort level with them. If the first-year QB -- say, Dart with the Giants -- is expected to back up a veteran to start the season, then the team has to simultaneously get the veteran ready to start Week 1 while the future of the franchise waits to establish himself as a leader among the starters. There are ways to make it work, but it generally falls on the young QB to find them.
"I think it's just about how you approach the game and how you prepare," Wagner said, recalling his early impressions of Daniels. "I've always said 'rookie' is more of a mentality. If you accept low expectations, it's easy to use it as an excuse and fall into that rookie category. He wanted to come in and take over the league, and that mentality makes a difference. He's humble and confident, but I think that all comes from his preparation, and it comes out in obvious ways."
"The main thing nobody really talks about with leadership is you've got to be authentic," Falcons quarterbacks coach D.J. Williams said, recalling the way Penix carried himself in camp a year ago when the first-rounder was installed as the backup to veteran Kirk Cousins. "Got to be yourself. And Mike was a great teammate last year, understanding that this was Kirk's team but in his own way finding ways to be a leader. You saw guys he was throwing to in practice, guys on the scout team all gravitated toward him, and it was the same way once he became the starter."
One of the things coaches talk about when bringing a rookie along behind an established starter is seeing how he reacts to a surprise. If the rookie has a shot to open the season as the No. 2, then he might have to go into a game at a moment's notice because of an injury. Some coaches try to simulate that in camp.
"There's usually a level of anxiety at times for young players when they get thrown into the mix," Giants coach Brian Daboll said. "It's not exactly planned in terms of 'He's getting rep three.' Sometimes we'll just say, 'Get in there.' Then he's calling plays in front of veterans that have done it at a high level. I think that's important."
Everything the rookie quarterback does gets noticed by the veterans, who know full well the organization's plan is for him to lead them eventually. Some of the things coaches do with rookie quarterbacks in practice is designed with his teammates in mind as much as it's designed for the rookie himself.
The big question: To play or not to play?
One of the hottest topics this time of year is playing time in preseason games for developing quarterbacks. Should second-year passer Caleb Williams be playing a ton in the Bears' preseason? Should the Titans be more careful with Ward? There doesn't seem to be any clear, correct answer.
The Falcons didn't play Penix in last year's preseason even though he wasn't going to start regular-season games for them. That was a head-scratcher, but Falcons GM Terry Fontenot said, "The natural mindset is, 'I don't want to play those guys and put them in harm's way.' But if you don't get what you need out here on the practice field, and we need to see it out there, that's when we would."
Even then, though, there are questions to answer before throwing a young QB into a preseason game in which the opponent is eager to hit him. If you play him, does that mean you have to play your starting offensive line? And what if one or more of them are banged up and need the rest?
The Commanders played Daniels in preseason games last season because they thought it was important for him to see that live action. They had joint practices with the Jets and Dolphins, which helped, but game conditions are still different.
"It does help," Quinn said. "It's different, the game, for a quarterback. Doesn't mean you need to play the whole time, but playing time helps."
This isn't an exact science. Plenty of teams get it wrong. A lucky few get it right -- and also have the right guy to make it work. Quinn and Daniels look as if they did it right and are on their way to bigger and better things as a result. Callahan and Ward ... we'll see, but the plan seems strong so far, and Callahan has done this successfully in the past.
A rookie quarterback's training camp is just the first chapter in what he and his team hope is a long, successful career. Push him hard but not too hard. Make him comfortable but not too comfortable. Get him ready but don't get him hurt. It's not easy, but it's vital. Get it wrong, and a team could wreck a guy's career before it gets started.
But get it right, and there's almost no limit to what can be achieved.