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ASHBURN, Va. — His alarm buzzes at 4:45 each morning, but most days Jayden Daniels doesn’t need it. He’s already awake, driving through the predawn darkness, pulling into an empty parking lot at 21300 Coach Gibbs Dr. The routine he started his final year at LSU has become a staple of his rookie season in the NFL.

“You always here this early?” Adam Peters asked after bumping into Daniels in the hallway around 5:30 a.m. a few weeks ago. Peters, the Commanders’ first-year general manager, was headed to the weight room. Daniels was about to watch some film.

“Usually, it’s a little earlier,” Daniels told him. “But I had to make an extra stop today.”

Peters looked down. Daniels was holding two boxes of donuts, gifts for his offensive linemen.

For a while, his teammates didn’t know he was showing up so early; Daniels studies with the door shut and doesn’t tell anyone he’s there. But in time, the car that kept beating them to the building, day after day, week after week, started to tell them something. A few started to wonder: is it normal for a quarterback to show up this early?

“Not normal for most,” says linebacker Bobby Wagner, a 13-year veteran bound for the Hall of Fame. “Normal for the great ones.”

After Washington took Daniels second in April’s draft, the team’s new center, Tyler Biadasz, figured he’d start coming in early to work with the rookie on exchanges. He showed up at 6 one morning and realized he was late. Daniels was already on the practice field, repping that day’s walkthrough. Alone.

Terry McLaurin knew after his first practice. Daniels hadn’t been on the field 15 minutes — hadn’t been in the building a week — and he was already making checks at the line of scrimmage. Then the rookie made a throw that cut through the teeth of the defense, a throw McLaurin remembers in detail five months later.

“Here’s why this play is different,” the sixth-year Pro Bowl wideout says. “The receiver’s running a crosser, and most guys wait to release it until he clears the hook defender in the middle of the field. They wait until that window opens up, you know?

“Jayden threw it before there even was a window. I’ve never seen a rookie do that.”

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Hope is dangerous in D.C., but Jayden Daniels has the Commanders believing

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Hope is dangerous in D.C., but Jayden Daniels has the Commanders believing

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