Pro Football Hall of Fame quarterback Warren Moon admits that he has his chest puffed out a little bit more these days. That one of the NFL’s most anticipated games of the weekend, the Washington Commanders versus the Baltimore Ravens, features two young Black quarterbacks playing at an MVP level resonates deeply.
“It’s one of the things that I’m most proud of, being able to help another generation of guys get opportunities,” Moon said. “My journey was a little bit tougher because I wasn’t given those opportunities.”
The Ravens’ Lamar Jackson and the Commanders’ Jayden Daniels have spent the week dismissing any comparisons between the two and downplaying the game’s underlying circumstances. They’ve tried to frame Sunday’s matchup in Baltimore as just another game, albeit one between two of the NFL’s hottest teams. Other factors indicate it’s something more.
NBC had interest in moving the game into prime time, but CBS blocked the request and will have its top announcing team, featuring Jim Nantz, Tony Romo and Tracy Wolfson, working the game.
According to TickPick, Sunday’s meeting between the 4-1 Commanders and the 3-2 Ravens is the hottest ticket in Week 6 and the “get-in” price is $302 per ticket, a 232 percent increase from the asking price when the season began roughly a month ago.
Jayden Daniels’ fast start to his rookie season has the Commanders in first place in the NFC East. (Mark J. Rebilas / Imagn Images)
“The entire football universe is going to descend upon our state, and we’re one of the few states in the country that has two football teams,” said Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, who will be in attendance as the honorary captain for Sunday’s game. “Ironically, they’re not just the hottest teams on the planet, but they have two of the most exciting players on the planet.”
The Ravens’ M&T Bank Stadium and the Commanders’ Northwest Stadium are separated by little more than 30 miles. Yet, for many years, the organizations might as well have occupied a different NFL orbit. The two fan bases — even in the Maryland counties that sit in between the franchise’s home bases — have mostly ignored each other during football season, trash talk barely rising above playful banter. Members of both organizations bristle at the suggestion that the “Battle of the Beltway” constitutes a rivalry. Despite their proximity, the Ravens and Commanders have really never been in each other’s way.
They have played seven times in the regular season and the matchup has produced precious few highlights. Sunday, though, has potential. It’s probably the most anticipated matchup ever between the two teams.
Jackson, a two-time MVP winner at 27, is off to the best start of his career and has lifted the Ravens out of an 0-2 hole. Daniels, the 23-year-old phenom Washington selected with the second pick in April’s NFL Draft, is doing things no rookie quarterback has ever done and has helped the Commanders become the league’s biggest early-season surprise.
“He’s going off,” Jackson said. “He’s doing what we saw in college — what got him the Heisman.”
Only two players in league history have averaged 200-plus passing yards per game and 50-plus rushing yards per game in their careers: Jackson and Daniels. They’ll be sharing a field Sunday, allowing football fans to imagine the possibilities.
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“It definitely wasn’t considered a rivalry at all, mostly because the Ravens had been successful and Washington had not been,” said longtime NFL wide receiver Donte’ Stallworth, who played back-to-back seasons for Baltimore and Washington in 2010 and 2011 and still lives in the nation’s capital.
“I think this can become a rivalry. I’ve had at least two or three friends, who are new to the area, and they’re wanting to jump on the bandwagon of being a Washington fan. Obviously, Jayden Daniels has a lot to do with that. Both teams are on different paths this year and they’re converging at a really interesting time.”
Laying the foundation
After starting more than 50 games in college, first at Arizona State and then at LSU, Daniels was deemed by most pundits to be more NFL ready than Jackson was when he entered the league in 2018. With a relatively new ownership group and a recently hired general manager, the Commanders tabbed Daniels as the major piece of their rebuilding efforts and built the rest of the team accordingly. Daniels was anointed as the starter halfway through training camp and he’s looked the part ever since.
Jackson became a three-year starter at Louisville and won the Heisman Trophy as a sophomore, However, Jackson’s NFL prospects were met with skepticism. He famously was encouraged by some evaluators to change positions. Even the Ravens’ decision makers weren’t entirely sold on Jackson as a quarterback. They wouldn’t have waited to trade back into the final pick of the first round to select him if they were. Baltimore had a veteran Super Bowl-winning quarterback in Joe Flacco and no plans to start Jackson immediately. A mid-2018 season hip injury for Flacco forced them to turn to the rookie, and he’s never looked back. Jackson was the unanimous league MVP in 2019, his first full season as the starter.
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“I don’t like when people try to compare me to Lamar and vice versa,” said Daniels, who described his and Jackson’s relationship as “little bro, big bro.” “I’m a fan of his, and how he plays the game, how he approaches the game. But we’re two different quarterbacks, two different styles. I appreciate what he’s done for the sport and what he’s done for the African-American quarterbacks.”
Jackson has long abhorred the media’s attempts to compare him to other quarterbacks.
“We’re just trying to make a name for ourselves, not anyone else,” Jackson said of he and Daniels.
Still, some of the comparisons are inevitable considering they are both dual-threat quarterbacks who just happen to play within a 40-minute drive without traffic (good luck with that). This season, Jackson has thrown for 1,206 yards, nine touchdowns and one interception while rushing for 363 yards and two TDs. He’s ninth in the league in passing yards and eighth in rushing yards.
Daniels has thrown for 1,135 yards, four touchdowns and two interceptions. He’s rushed for 300 yards and four TDs. No other player in NFL history has posted 1,000 passing yards and 250 rushing yards through their first five games. He ranks 12th among quarterbacks in passing and 16th among all players in rushing. Yet his biggest achievement might be how he’s electrified the Washington fan base.
“They’re changing the way the game is played,” said Moon, who played 17 seasons in the NFL and was selected to the Pro Bowl nine times. “These two guys are probably two of the most talented dual-threat quarterbacks that you’ll see in professional football. Michael Vick was very dynamic but he was more of a runner than he was a passer. These two guys can both throw the football. They can throw it from the pocket, but they also can damage you very badly with their legs.”
For Moon, the success of Black quarterbacks like Jackson, Daniels, Patrick Mahomes, Jalen Hurts, Dak Prescott and C.J. Stroud is personal.
“I felt like everything myself, (Commanders executive) Doug Williams and Randall Cunningham fought for was to give all these other younger African-American quarterbacks coming up more opportunities to show what they could do,” he said.
For Josh Johnson, Jackson’s 38-year-old backup who made his NFL debut in 2009, this week’s dialogue about the two quarterbacks is proof of how much progress has been made.
“I feel very proud, very appreciative of the growth of the league in respecting players’ talents, judging it not by the color of their skin, but what they are able to do out on the field,” said Johnson, who started three games for Washington in 2018. “You see a lot of guys taking advantage of it, starting with ‘L’ here. He does a great job for our organization, leading and making plays.”
Lamar Jackson has won two NFL MVPs with the Ravens. (Andy Lyons / Getty Images)
A new expectation
Commanders coach Dan Quinn understood why specific questions were asked Wednesday about the quarterback matchup. Quinn engaged minimally on the week’s peripheral topics until asked about the Ravens’ ability to contend annually. Since 2000, the Ravens have been to the postseason 15 times and won two Super Bowls.
“That is it,” exclaimed the first-year coach of a franchise that hasn’t won a playoff game since 2005 or posted a winning record since 2016. “Consistency sometimes doesn’t sound like a sexy word, but it’s really important. They’ve shown remarkable consistency as an organization. … They always seem to be tough. They have a real identity about them, the way they play and compete. When we’re talking about our identity, it (isn’t) formed in two weeks. For these guys, we’re talking about years. It’s really impressive.”
Commanders players and coaches are cautious about accepting that this start means they’ve arrived. “I mean, 4-1 is weird,” special teams ace Jeremy Reaves said after Washington’s 34-13 win over Cleveland on Sunday. “Like, I don’t even know how to react.”
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Puzzled yet thrilled reactions are common these days in the nation’s capital.
“After Week 1, some media outlets ranked us around 30th in power rankings,” said Eric Bickel, co-host of the popular morning radio show “The Sports Junkies” on Washington-based 106.7 The Fan. “This week we’re like top five. It’s kind of mind-blowing.”
Daniels “is unbelievable,” Bickel said. “I think the sky is the limit.”
As a lifelong fan of his hometown Commanders, New York Knicks standout Josh Hart knows about getting dunked on. There were years of unfulfilled campaigns and being a punching bag for NFL foes and late-night comedians. Then came new football decision-makers and the promise of Daniels.
“Feels nice to wake up excited and go to sleep happy and not be pissed off every Sunday,” Hart said.
Hart, 29, owns three Washington jerseys. The Silver Spring, Md., native plans to wear his just-acquired white Daniels No. 5 and a broad smile at kickoff. Even anticipating what’s to come, he can’t ignore the past.
“You got to win for it to be a rivalry,” Hart said.
(Courtesy of Josh Hart)
One meeting against Baltimore won’t answer every question or declare a rivalry exists. Yet, for Commanders veteran defensive tackle Jonathan Allen, the measuring stick contest will tackle plenty.
“We look at Baltimore and what they have done over the last however many seasons. They have been the standard (for) what you want to be as a team,” Allen said. “I’m excited to see where we are.”
An in-state rivalry renewed?
Years of the Ravens’ success and Washington’s shambles allowed the AFC North squad to poach fans from the Commanders’ prime home market areas, including Prince George’s and Montgomery counties. Ravens officials have zero interest in talking publicly about their desire to attract fans from those “battleground” pockets, but team officials certainly pay attention to television ratings and ticket sales from the D.C. area and are always considering ways to expanding their fan base.
The sale of the Commanders in July 2023, however, has helped create positive momentum and energy for the Washington franchise. The Commanders intend to build a new stadium, possibly on the adjacent lot of the current home (or the District’s nostalgic RFK Stadium site) around 2030. Winning helps attract more fans, perhaps even those that exited over the past decade.
“Getting rid of (former owner) Dan Snyder and being able to have this new ownership group, I think it engendered a real level of energy into the team,” Moore said.
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If the team’s torrid 2024 start is a sign of things to come, Daniels and his teammates will help sell out Northwest Stadium, move money-making merchandise, and be a legitimate foil for the Ravens. For the first time this century — outside of the Robert Griffin III era blip — all of that seems plausible.
The Ravens lead the regular-season series 4-3, but it’s Baltimore’s overall resume on the field and within its veteran front office that is demonstratively stronger. The irony is that when the Ravens arrived from Cleveland, Washington fans discounted any nemesis talk.
“I probably had a little healthy sort of D.C. arrogance, certainly through the early 2000s,” Bickel said. He believed the team could be winners even with Snyder’s involvement. “I was in denial — and then I became envious of the Ravens the last 10 to 15 years.”
There’s always been an edginess between Baltimore and D.C. residents. Baltimore is a provincial, blue-collar town that has little tolerance for being perceived as a little brother to “higher-profile” cities in its proximity. However, current players, most born after Washington’s glory days, have little passion for the matter. The Commanders and the Ravens typically play each other in the preseason and the players from the respective teams see each other from time-to-time at local events. However, the circumstances haven’t been enough to generate a legitimate rivalry.
Ravens-Steelers, Commanders-Cowboys it is not.
“The Battle of the Beltway? Well, that will happen on Sunday,” Ravens All-Pro safety Kyle Hamilton said. “It would be cool — I know some people who are D.C. fans — to have some bragging rights against them. Yes, I guess it’s kind of a brotherly rivalry.”
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Vinny Cerrato, former vice president of football operations for Washington in two stints over the first decade of Snyder’s regime, has experience from both perspectives. The afternoon radio host for 105.7 The Fan in Baltimore recalls Snyder and Ravens owners Steve Bisciotti “weren’t friends at the beginning” due to the Ravens’ success and “territorial fights.” The frostiness among the owners evaporated. The notion of football adversaries never heated up.
“They play every four years. It doesn’t matter,” Cerrato said. “You know what it is? It’s a good story with the two quarterbacks.
“Everybody is going to make the comparison between Jayden Daniels and Lamar Jackson. They are going to want to see if Jayden is the next coming of Lamar. Why are people coming? It’s the quarterbacks. People love watching the quarterbacks.”
(Top photos: Scott Taetsch and Christian Petersen / Getty Images)
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