With Jayden Daniels being injured Sunday, Dan Quinn was ready for Monday’s barrage of questions.
Some will think the injury means the Commanders will be calling fewer zone-read option runs. “Not so fast, my friend,” is how head coach Dan Quinn responded.
“It would not,” Quinn said. “On this one, that Jayden ended up getting injured, it was on honestly more like a scramble. There was a lead blocker outside and he was 30, 35 yards down the field. So no, that’s not the type of design run that we would move from.”
Quinn is correct. Daniels was not injured around the line of scrimmage by a larger defender. He was nearly outracing the secondary on what might have been a huge touchdown run.
Apparently, Quinn’s answer was not good enough, so he was asked from another angle how Jayden could have run that play differently. However, Quinn again was correct. The design of the play did not increase the risk of injury. This injury occurred yards down field.
“Yeah, he was really trying to work off the safety at first, and so to cut across his face, he was trying to go score. And so, as he was getting down the field, I thought from the design standpoint it was good and he just kind of fell awkwardly on it. So, it was not a function, in this particular case, of running in the A gap and getting hit by a defensive tackle. It was a down-the-field run that, in a lot of ways would’ve felt like a scramble if you had just saw the second half of the play, not the first half. If that makes sense.”
Might Daniels change his equipment somehow to gain more padding?
“Not as much on the pad. He already has a specific one in this instance. It’s really going to be more of the rotational part of things and to see how that part would go and what it looks like to make sure he can have all the movements down. He’s got a pretty secure padding, it seems smaller, but it’s where it protects over the ribs like a lot of the quarterbacks have. It’s protected strongly there.”
Dan Quinn is correct. This was an unusual injury that occurred not because of the design of the play. Therefore, Quinn or Kliff Kingsbury are not to blame for this injury.