How Did Buccaneers QB Jalon Daniels Do in His First NFL Start in Week 4 vs. Packers?

Todd Bowles had seen enough of Jalon Daniels by Sunday evening to give him another start. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers coach said after a 17-14 loss to the Green Bay Packers that the undrafted rookie from Kansas will be his quarterback again Thursday night in Dallas while Baker Mayfield’s dislocated right thumb heals.

The debut left plenty to sort through. Daniels ran for 55 yards, which set a club rushing record for a rookie quarterback that Parnell Dickinson had held since 1976, and he threw his first touchdown pass. He finished 19 of 27 for 148 yards, took three sacks and was intercepted twice. Green Bay scored 10 points off those turnovers in a game decided by three.

Daniels’ first half vs. his second half

Both interceptions came before halftime, when Daniels was 8 of 13 for 74 yards, according to Pro Football Talk. Safety Evan Williams took the first one near the sideline on a throw for Emeka Egbuka. Linebacker Edgerrin Cooper dove for the second with 34 seconds left in the half, and Trey Smack kicked a 58-yard field goal on the final play before the break.

After halftime he was 11 of 14 for 74 yards and a touchdown pass. He ran for 26 more yards, 21 of them on a third-and-2 that kept alive a 12-play, 84-yard drive, Tampa Bay’s longest of the season. Kenny Gainwell finished it with a 10-yard catch on a ball Daniels threw on the run, the first touchdown pass by an undrafted rookie quarterback in franchise history.

Tampa Bay got the ball back down three and reached the Green Bay 46 inside the two-minute warning. Daniels was pressured on three of the next four snaps and sacked once, and Williams came free on fourth-and-11 to force an incompletion. “I have to do a better job of being able to put us in better protection,” Daniels said, per the team’s website.

How Daniels compares with Baker Mayfield

Mayfield started the first three games, all losses. This is Daniels’ one start next to Mayfield’s three.

The completion percentage flatters him, as we can see in nfelo’s Week 4 table. It lists 93% of his passes as short and 79.1% of his passing yards as coming after the catch, the highest share among quarterbacks with at least 20 attempts through Sunday. Chris Godwin Jr. caught six passes and gained 31 yards.

He took fewer sacks than Mayfield’s average and was still under pressure often. The Packers pressured him 15 times, a 41.7% rate, and hit him seven times, according to The Athletic’s Matt Schneidman.

What the advanced stats say about Daniels

His 65.0 passer rating was the lowest by a Tampa Bay starter this season, a shade under Mayfield’s 67.9 against Minnesota. Expected points added (EPA) is kinder to him. nfelo has Daniels at minus 0.17 EPA per play, a figure that includes his eight runs, compared with minus 0.26 per dropback for Mayfield in its season rankings.

As a passer he was well behind. Adjusted net yards per attempt subtracts for sacks and interceptions, and his 2.1 was less than half of Mayfield’s 4.6.

Around the league, his minus 6.5 total EPA sat in the bottom third of nfelo’s table through Sunday. Five quarterbacks were lower: Malik Willis, Daniel Jones, Jalen Hurts, Athan Kaliakmanis and Jacoby Brissett. Justin Herbert and Cam Ward matched him.

What Daniels has to fix in Dallas

Thursday’s game kicks off at 8:15 p.m. ET on Prime Video, four days after the debut. “He had some ups and he had some downs, but for his first time out there, he didn’t panic, he didn’t do anything,” Bowles said of Daniels. “He escaped, used his legs well at times.”

The Cowboys (2-2) beat Houston 34-30 on Sunday and have allowed 30 or more points in consecutive games. C.J. Stroud threw for 347 yards against them.

Mayfield is expected to miss at least two more games. Daniels said he read the coverage correctly on both interceptions and missed with the throws, and he took the blame for the protection call on the final fourth down. Tampa Bay is 0-4 for the first time since 2013.