Jayden Daniels arrives, playing a nearly perfect game to lead Commanders over Bengals

Joe Burrow of the Cincinnati Bengals was considered the established star among the LSU Heisman Trophy-winning quarterbacks facing off on Monday night. Jayden Daniels was the Washington Commanders rookie who had an exciting future, but he wasn’t Burrow yet.

It seems there are two star quarterbacks from LSU in the NFL now. On Monday night, Daniels was better. He’s the one we’ll be talking about all week. A new NFL phenomenon might have arrived in front of a national television audience.

Daniels, the second overall pick of this year’s NFL Draft, put on a show in Washington’s 38-33 win over the Bengals. Daniels was simply spectacular in his third NFL game. He was incredibly accurate as a thrower and hard to track down as a runner. And when the Commanders faced an enormous third down with a little more than two minutes to go, Daniels lobbed a beautiful 27-yard touchdown pass to Terry McLaurin to put the Bengals away. Daniels finished 21 of 23 for 254 yards and two touchdowns, with 39 yards and a touchdown rushing. That’s the highest completion percentage for a rookie quarterback in NFL history. Not bad for a third career game.

The Bengals were supposed to be the team excited about this season. They’ve started slow before, but not to this extreme. After a second shocking home upset loss to start the season, Cincinnati is in big trouble at 0-3.

Washington is 2-1 and has to be incredibly excited about its future with Daniels. We could look back on Monday’s coming-out party as an announcement that Daniels had arrived — a lot earlier than expected.

Commanders offense rolls in 1st half

Bengals cornerback Cam Taylor-Britt has been a boisterous quote machine this season. Last week he said the Washington Commanders kept things simple for their rookie quarterback and they had a “nice college offense.”

The midweek entertainment is great, but that’s what’s wrong with the Bengals. They think they’re Super Bowl contenders. They carry themselves that way. There’s not much substance yet to back it up.

You can have Taylor-Britt’s bravado when you’re good, but the Bengals are 0-3. Maybe Taylor-Britt thinks Washington has a college offense, but the Bengals couldn’t stop it all night.

The Bengals started fast. Burrow hit Ja’Marr Chase on a pretty-looking deep pass for a 41-yard touchdown. The Commanders’ secondary hasn’t been good this season and it seemed then like Burrow might have a massive night in a much-needed win.

But the Commanders had the offense that lit up the scoreboard in the first half.

Washington had touchdown drives each of the first three times it touched the ball. The drives covered 69, 62 and 75 yards. On the third one, Daniels threw a 55-yard deep pass to McLaurin, who torched Taylor-Britt on the play. Nice pro offense. That set up a touchdown run by Daniels. Washington had a surprising 21-10 lead at that point. Daniels was 7 of 8 for 139 yards in the first half. The Commanders were averaging 8.5 yards per play before halftime.

The Bengals were supposedly the more desperate team and the big favorites, but it didn’t look like it for most of Monday night.

Bengals struggle on defense

The Bengals already had a stunning loss to the Patriots at home in Week 1. It looked like a loss to the Commanders at home in Week 3 was unlikely coming into the game. Then the second half started with a 62-yard kickoff return by Washington’s Austin Ekeler.

That set up a Daniels touchdown pass to 320-pound offensive lineman Trent Scott. That was Daniels’ first career NFL touchdown pass, and it could be a popular trivia answer someday. The Bengals were down 28-13 and an offensive tackle was dancing in their end zone.

The Bengals weren’t going away. Andrei Iosivas and Chase scored in the second half, but the Commanders still led 31-26 with less than 10 minutes to play.

Daniels led a game-clinching drive after that. On a fourth-and-4, Zach Ertz caught a first down pass. The Bengals were incapable of getting a stop against a rookie quarterback in his first Monday night start, and his second road start. Then when the Bengals had one more shot at a stop to get Burrow the ball back, Daniels had a sublime touchdown pass to McLaurin.

“Cover zero. I knew I was gonna take a hit, but I trust my players out there,” Daniels told ESPN’s Lisa Salters after the game. “I trust my guy to go and make a play.”

Cincinnati did score a touchdown with 40 seconds left, but Washington recovered the onside kick and Daniels had the proper ending to his storybook night.

The Bengals have a lot to fix, and at 0-3 they better do it right away. It’s a tough spot to be, especially with losses to two teams that were considered among the worst in the NFL coming into the season. But we know now that while the Commanders’ issues aren’t all fixed, they’re not going to be an easy win for opponents. Daniels is already too good to take a win over Washington for granted.