A second Patrick Mahomes in the league? The heads will turn whenever a rookie gets compared to the 28-year-old NFL star. This is exactly what is happening with the Washington Commanders’ new QB. Ever since Jayden Daniels entered the NFL arena, many are speculating him to be the “closest thing” to the Kansas City Chiefs quarterback.

This time, it’s Daniels’ defensive coordinator from LSU, Blake Baker, who compared both the quarterbacks on a common factor. In a recent appearance on The Jordy Culotta Show on Friday, July 12, Blake Baker compared Jayden Daniels to Patrick Mahomes when it comes to defending against them. The 42-year-old said, “I told him [Daniels], I said man you know, you and Patrick Mahomes are 1A and 1B as far as toughest guys I’ve ever had to defend.”

Explaining his stance, Baker further added that Daniels is a special talent, and is master in posing challenges on the field. Additionally, the DC emphasized how Daniels changed defensive strategies with his dynamic ability in both running and passing. The comparison of Daniels to Mahomes might have some merit.

In the 2023 season, Daniels had his best season in college, amassing 3,812 passing yards with 40 touchdowns. On the other hand, Mahomes in his best season at Texas Tech in 2016, covered 5,052 passing yards with 41 TDs. This means Patrick still has a slight edge over Daniels. However, only yardage doesn’t matter. Throughout his college career, the Chiefs quarterback wasn’t able to move past 1,000 rushing yards, but Daniels covered 1,134 rushing yards in just one season.

So, yeah, the competition is tight, and they both are somewhat equal as per their gameplay of college is concerned. Meanwhile, besides Blake Baker, another person too made the same comparison earlier.

Jayden Daniels can be a running back?

Ahead of the NFL Draft, in March, a post from MLFootball on X tried to compare Jayden Daniels with Patrick Mahomes. It stated that an unnamed NFL scout thinks that the Heisman winner can also play a very different role – the role of a running back. The tweet said, “LSU QB Jayden Daniels could be a running back in the #NFL and is the closest thing to Patrick Mahomes, a longtime scout said. “I don’t know if I’ve ever seen anybody like him. He could be a running back.”” Besides this, NFL journalist Bruce Feldman highlighted a college coach’s statements in April.

As per Feldman, the coach, who is speculated to be Blake Baker himself, said, “I tell people this: Outside of Patrick Mahomes, I haven’t coached against someone like this.” According to the person, he is very hard to defend. Additionally, an attempt was also made to force him to run it to take it out of his hands, but the accurate throws made by him and the timings are unmatchable. Hence, Daniels is considered a future threat to the opponents, as well as is compared to Mahomes from time to time.

Yet, it all remains on just paper as the rookie QB still has to prove his game on the biggest stage of the NFL gridiron.