Jayden Daniels Answers Kevin Durant & Travis Scott Questions on the NFL, his Iconic Hail Mary & More

To end 2024 Ballroom December Cover Story stars Commanders rookie quarterback sensation Jaden Baines and superstar Travis Scott. Travis and I put together a list of questions from our own experiences with a former Heisman winner. That boy asked some deep questions. For real. And the ballroom team traveled to his home in California to get their questions answered. People back home, they call me Smooth Operator and they call me Young Smooth. When I run, people say it doesn't even look like I'm running fast because everything just looks smooth. So I would say that's the main thing. My author creativity is like I'm very just smooth in everything I do. Like out of structure, out of the ordinary. Not too many people are like me. I could do the things that I could do on the football field and everybody's different respectfully. But the main thing is like how I'm able to torque my body or, you know, be able to move around faster than other human beings at the size that I am. I mean, you don't really see that from too many people. The unpredictability, I think that's the fun part in sports and just in life in general. Being in this space, you got to be comfortable being uncomfortable. If you want to go out there and achieve the goals that you want, whether that's Super Bowls or stuff like that, you never know what's going to happen. You can start off the season 10-0 and lose the rest of the games. But I think you got to be comfortable just living in that space of, man, I'm going out there. I prepared. I prepared for this moment. I prepared all week to go out there and be blessed to go out there and play on Sundays. Yeah, I'll say my inspirations are people that like inspired me to play this game was one, Michael Vick, Donovan McNabb. And then overall, I'll say Reggie Bush. He's a huge part kid from Southern California watching him at USC. Reason why I wore number five and stuff like that. But to be in the position I'm in today, play quarterback Michael Vick was for sure an inspiration for me. Playing Madden 2004 with my older cousins, playing on the PlayStation 2 and just going out there and running around Michael Vick. So that kind of just drew me to liking him even more in his game. How I mentally bounce back or reset after a tough play or a tough series, I think it's kind of been the same ever since I've been in college. It's like the last play doesn't even matter. The last series doesn't matter. Whether I go out there, throw a touchdown, we punt the ball, a turnover, fumble, interception, something like that. That doesn't matter. If you let bad plays pile up on top of each other, at the end of the day, it's going to keep compiling bad plays and the result's not going to be pretty. So, I mean, how fast can not only myself, but my teammates be able to reset, refocus, and keep moving forward? I'll talk about it with my coach, what happened, what I see, and then we just move on from there. But I just say, hey, be able to just talk about it real fast. Don't really dwell on it. Because if you keep it all bottled up, you're going to keep thinking about it. So be able to talk about it and get it out of the way. I'll say the main thing is just knowing the reason why you're doing it. One of the reasons why I do it and I play this game is to be one of the best ever. Ain't no high expectation I set for myself. That's the standard I set for myself. But you got to put in the work each and every day to go out there and prove it. At the end of the day, nobody's going to care how high I was drafted, where I win, or how much money you make. How can I help this city? How can I help the team win? And that's the main thing. That's why I go in each and every day. How can I get better to be better for my teammates, be better for the organization, be better for the city and the fan base? Something unexpected I learned about myself was I kind of already knew, but just how competitive I really am and how much will I want to win. But I'll say past that, how much impact I really have on my teammates or people that are older than me. Obviously, I watched playing football and seen in the league and had high success. I don't really know how much impact or stuff like that I'll be able to have on the team because obviously I'm coming in as a rookie. And you got guys that have been playing in the NFL for 10 plus years. So that's probably the most unexpected thing I learned about myself. Caring to basketball. It's not for fun, even though I love basketball, but it's more so really just for ball control and footwork purposes. So just go out there and be able to use a different sport to help me get ready and prepare for obviously the sport that I'm playing. It helps me trick the mind a little bit, so I can go out there and when I pick up a football, the football is naturally smaller than basketball. A moment of adversity I was able to overcome was my transfer from Arizona State to LSU. Dealing with stuff in my personal life and everything like that. Getting up and having to go across the world to a whole different university and not really know anybody out there who I was getting myself into. But just trusting what God had for me and the plan he had set out for me. It worked out, but just the failure that I had my last year at Arizona State and be able to just go from there, grow from there with the hunger and everything to go out there and get better and make a name for myself. I mean, adversity I experienced currently in the NFL is we just recently snapped the three game losing streak. I don't remember the last time I ever lost three games in a row, so that's something new to me. Just going through that time where it's like, hey, you haven't won in almost a month and you go out there and you're losing close games and it's very frustrating because how competitive I am. It's like, man, I want to go out there. I hate losing more than I love winning. I don't want to lose. I'm too competitive for that, but it just comes with that. Trials and tribulations throughout my rookie year. Everything can't be perfect. If everything's perfect, then everybody would be able to play this sport. Just go out there and just learn it from the losses, learn it from, hey, this is how we lost this game. This is where I got to get better and continue to grow from there. It's something like, hey. A coach used to tell me, Coach Herm Edwards told me, just know when the journey is over. Don't change nothing about myself with my God-given abilities, my mobility, stuff like that, but just know when the journey is over. Just knowing when to get down, when do I have to go and fight for the extra yard. At the end of the day, it's like, hey, I'm here for the long time. For the long haul, it's not really short term or just the season. It's for the long haul, so your health and your longevity is the greatest thing. And biggest thing I was ever told was your availability is your best ability. Having to go up there and get in the huddle in front of guys that are older than you that have been playing in this game for eight plus years, and they're all looking at you. You got to go up there and articulate your words and not really stutter of getting a play call out so everybody knows their job. Up to training camp, the end of training camp, like preseason, I would say that's kind of where I felt like, yeah, I have this under wraps, but I still remember my first practice with the vets, and they were like, all right, go in the huddle. You got your helmet on. They talk to you in the headset, and you got to go out there and try to spit out the word. And I'm struggling, and I'm like, keep asking the coach, like, hey, say it again, say it again. So that was kind of like my welcome to the NFL moment. I'd say one play so far in my NFL, short NFL career, I would say one play that kind of like the unity of the team led to like a game-changing play was we're playing Cincinnati Bengals on Monday night, and you're playing those boys Joe Burrow and Jamar Chase, all those guys. They're hot. I remember driving now. It was Monday night. Everybody's watching. They're trying to see what Washington Commanders are about, and we go down, and I think it was like fourth and seven. That drive, I think we converted two fourth downs, fourth and seven, like a fourth and two. I would just say like those moments right there is like when it's got to have a game on the line, like everybody got to be able to take a deep breath, relax, and remember the small things, the details, and don't let the moment get too bright. I would say the main thing about pressure, and I think everybody says it's kind of cliche, but pressure is a privilege. Not everybody is able to be in the position that I'm blessed to be in and go out there and perform each and every day and have a lot of fans waiting for you or seeing what you can do to help win a football game. So I would just say I kind of embrace that, but, man, where I come from, I don't really see any pressure. You know, I kind of made it out the area where a lot of people don't really make it out. You know, we got a couple people in the NFL, and, you know, it's starting to change now, the dynamic, but a lot of people don't really make it out. So I don't really see pressure. Kind of after I lost both my grandparents to COVID in the same month, it was like, hey, man, like nothing could be harder than that. So like football is kind of like the safe haven and going out there and just having fun and playing ball. The biggest thing to putting the right people around me, obviously, I mean, nothing is past my mama. So that's the biggest thing. She reads people. She doesn't want to put people around me that she doesn't feel will benefit me at the end of the day. So that's kind of the biggest thing. But staying close to family, keeping my circle tight. Like I'm always around my family. I'm always around my cousins and even my boys that know me ever since before I even got here. And along the way, people that I became close with on my team or, you know, in college and stuff like that, be able to keep that tight-knit group of guys that I really feel like have the same mindset and the same goal as me on and off the field so we're able to grow with each other. Boy, that's some deep questions. For real. I would say my legacy is, man, like how I carry myself off the field. Whenever I'm done, it's like, hey, Jaden treated the cafeteria people and the janitor people with the utmost respect. He was always down-to-earth, always humble and had the humility of he's not bigger than everybody else. And I would say that's kind of just the biggest thing, like giving back to my community, giving back to the community in the DMV and stuff like that. It's kind of means more to me, way more than football. Obviously football means a lot. But after that, I just want to be remembered as a well-rounded person. For me personally, I would say the Hail Mary and how it kind of ended, I would say it's kind of just like equivalent to when Kobe dropped like 60 on his last game where everybody was on their feet. You never know what's going to happen. He started just going crazy like that. That moment was like everybody just holding their breath when the ball was in the air. It's like are you trying to see if someone catches the ball, we bat the ball, we win or we lose that. That's kind of how I remember myself being when watching Kobe's last game and he just started going crazy at the end of the game. It was like at any point he could go for 50 and he ended up going for 60. I would say who needs a Hail Mary? Hopefully the Washington Commanders can get another one. That would be dope. Hopefully we don't need to be in those situations, but I always take God's blessing if we get them. My family kind of threw me a Hail Mary when, like I said, both my grandparents had passed away. It was kind of like not a lot of things. I wasn't really focused and had my energy in the right direction. As far as football, I was too busy worrying about and dwelling over what had happened. Kind of just, man, I hit the portal and I was kind of like my Hail Mary of getting that fresh start and moving forward. My family was with me every step of the way. I made my own decision, but they were there to help guide me and push me to achieve my dreams and live out what I always said as a kid. I'm Jayden Daniels, and this is Ballroom Cover Story.