The Washington Commanders were likely just doing their due diligence, but what they actually did was stoke the fires of controversy less than a week from the 2024 NFL Draft.
Washington brought in four of the top quarterback prospects in the 2024 class — LSU’s Jayden Daniels, North Carolina’s Drake Maye, Michigan’s J.J. McCarthy and Washington’s Michael Penix Jr. — in for a group visit, which didn’t sit right with Daniels’ agent, Ron Butler, according to ESPN’s Adam Schefter.
“It didn’t seem to go over too well with…Ron Butler, who sounded off on social media last night that he didn’t seem particularly pleased with the process,” Schefter said. “I think Jayden Daniels thought it would be a visit with just him meeting with the Commanders. Many people think that Jayden Daniels will wind up being the No. 2 overall pick, but the Commanders essentially opened up the process.”
While Commanders general manager Adam Peters defended the decision to have the group visit, stating it was a positive for the team’s internal assessment to see them interact in a group setting, he and the team took some heat for how it has handling the evaluation process.
Pro Football Talk’s Mike Florio even went as far as to suggest Washington is going out of its way to ensure Daniels doesn’t want to play for the team.
“I’m going to get drafted by one of the most dysfunctional franchises in the NFL over the last quarter century, they’ve got new management, why would I want to play here?” Florio said. “Show me something that makes me want to be part of this team for the next five, 10 or 15 years. … Because you never have to convince the guy to say yest to you, you start doing all this weird [expletive] that is all flowing from the fact that we have the power to decide who goes where.”
Daniels is the betting favorite to be the No. 2 overall pick in next week’s draft behind USC’s Caleb Williams.