Jalon Daniels gives feedback on Chucky’s analysis.
The Bucs may have something in Jalon Daniels.
The undrafted free agent quarterback signed in April made the 53-man roster and is now Baker Mayfield’s backup. Pretty big move up the food chain for Daniels.
One of Daniels’ biggest fans is Chucky, the Bucs’ former Super Bowl-winning coach. When Chucky served as a game analyst during the Chiefs-Bucs preseason broadcast, he raved about Daniels. On and on.
However, you just know Chucky will find a flaw. He found two in Daniels’ game, both of which can be overcome with experience and work.
The first was an observation that Daniels occasionally is late coming out of the huddle. Chucky said that’s common for young quarterbacks still learning a new offense’s verbiage.
The second nitpick is Daniels was sometimes struggling with the snap. Chucky said that’s because Daniels was strictly a shotgun quarterback at Kansas and taking snaps from center is still a bit foreign to him.
Joe spoke with Daniels about Chucky’s observations in the Bucs’ locker room. Daniels said he’d have to see specifically what plays Chucky referred to, but he didn’t think Chucky was wrong.
> “It depends on the play and it depends on the time,” Daniels said of coming out of the huddle late. “Sometimes my coach is telling me (through the headset) to get out of the huddle a little bit later than we need to \[in order to kill time\].
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> “It could be at times me trying to get the verbiage of the play call out. I guess it depends on the time of the play. … I’m not sure which plays he was talking about but it could have been when I was trying to get the verbiage of the play out. It just depends.”
Daniels admitted learning an NFL playbook and then spitting out plays has at times been a bumpy road.
> “I think I have definitely gotten better at that,” Daniels said.
As for the snaps, Daniels said, yeah, he rarely took snaps from center at Kansas. Whether a bad snap is his fault or not, Daniels said it is his responsibility to make sure those less-than-smooth snaps never happen.
> “I wouldn’t say I am still getting comfortable being under center,” Daniels said. “I think I’ve done a pretty good job of being acclimated to that.”
Daniels said he has been practicing since his college season ended on taking snaps from center, knowing “we barely did that at Kansas” but that would be expected of him in the NFL.
> “That’s another thing that kind of depends on the play,” Daniels said. “It could be communication on my part. Get guys the right cadence and sometimes it may be me not getting the ball.
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> “I will always say it’s my fault. No matter what the result of the play is. If it is bad, I am supposed to be the eraser of anything that goes bad in the game.”
Again, these things get smoothed out with time and reps. Joe’s not worried.
Joe does know the Bucs are really excited for Daniels and they believe he has a high ceiling.