Gifted J.T. Daniels still has a lot of room for growth to avoid becoming Josh Rosen 2.0

Georgia Bulldogs’ quarterback J.T. Daniels showed immense promise as a freshman at USC. His injury-shortened stint at Georgia will be defined by how his knee recovers.

The Georgia Bulldogs have had a rollercoaster experience at the quarterback position since Kirby Smart arrived as head coach. There’s a lot of “what-ifs” that have occurred. The saga continued in 2020 as USC transfer J.T. Daniels played in just four games as he dealt with the recovery from an ACL tear in 2019.

Smart replaced Jake Fromm with the strong-armed Daniels in hopes of making the offense more dynamic and capable of upending Alabama and win a national title. Daniels was impressive despite middling stats in 2018 as a freshman. He completed 59.5 percent of passes for 2,672 yards, 14 touchdowns and 10 interceptions.

His stat line in 2020 was much more promising. His completion rate jumped to 67.2 percent for 1,231 yards, 10.3 yards per attempt, 10 touchdowns to only two interceptions. But further analysis showed much of the growth was through fluff and non-transferable moments as we project Daniels’ NFL value.

The Bulldogs’ system looks like a more traditional NFL-style offense that relies on the run game and dropback passing. Almost every play has a quick underneath read to bailout the quarterback. This allows inflated completion rates that don’t accurately reflect how well the quarterback is managing the offense.

Fromm was especially bad taking the easy completion every time and evaluators overvalued his raw numbers because of it. Daniels has an aggressive downfield mindset in comparison but how his passes arrive at his targets leaves room for growth. It’s one thing to throw a catchable ball needing adjustment but it’s another to have receivers constantly slowing down to finish the play.

I charted all of Daniels’ 119 throws in 2020 and came away wanting more from most of his highlights. He had some big-time throws that clearly showed a smart decision-maker who has a rocket arm capable of lighting up defenses. The tools are evident and he’s an NFL-caliber passer in terms of overall talent.

Without context, he’d be one of many quarterback prospects who had the physical ability but lacked the overall polish and consistency in driving his body through his throws to generate property placement and velocity. The majority of Daniels’ deep attempts forced major adjustments but his talented receiving corps. It’s frustrating to see a wide-open receiver end up on the ground because they dropped to avoid a defender from running through them.

His short and intermediate attempts were solid in the small sample size. He can step into the pocket and drive the ball past defenders. Daniels’ mobility is limited to the point where there’s a concern of how little he’ll produce outside of the pocket but winning despite traffic around his feet is a more valuable skill.

Much of Daniels’ play was reminiscent of Josh Rosen at UCLA. Rosen peaked early in his career and never improved. He was a smart passer with good but not great physical tools and limited mobility. His short and intermediate passing was average to above-average in terms of accuracy, but it didn’t matter in the NFL.

Daniels has the benefit of another year or two, and the fact he was coming off a torn ACL in a Covid-shortened off-season before he draws a clean comparison to the former top-10 bust. He must become quicker to reset his feet and find the torque from his core and legs to lead receivers away from defenders instead of into them. Too much of his production looked like this play below.

Trusting a receiver to win jump balls is a positive but merely a tool. Passers who continually throw that type of ball aren’t doing it on purpose, but actually lack the necessary strength and accuracy to avoid it. Now almost one-and-a-half years removed from his massive injury, Daniels must show growth in this critical aspect.

He’ll immediately be thrown into the spotlight. Alabama appears weaker than we’ve seen in several years as they replace a ton of big-name playmakers to the NFL with unproven youth. They start the year at Clemson and then see Auburn and Florida in October.

The relatively good news is Daniels will see quality familiar faces. The team brought back about 80 percent of their offensive production from last year. Obviously losing star receiver George Pickens to an ACL tear in the spring puts a damper on what could’ve been a monstrous season from the freak athlete.

Right now, I’d bill Daniels as a Day 2 developmental target for teams. His flaws may not be fixable, and it’s the type of flaw that must be seen first before fully buying in. I can’t think of anyone outside of Kirk Cousins who dramatically improved in this area in the NFL, and even he hasn’t magically fixed the issue but it’s slowly seen development.

If Daniels can lead his receivers more than spot-throw, he can absolutely ascend to a first-round talent. He’s that gifted, and in the perfect situation to ascend up 2022 NFL Draft boards.

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