ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Sometimes, a Sunday of football feels like it lasts forever. If you felt like that yesterday, there's a reason. It was the longest day of NFL football in at least 50 years, with an early kickoff in London all the way through a Sunday night game delayed by lightning that stretched into Monday morning. And it wasn't just long. It was also eventful, with a coming-out party for rookie quarterbacks. Here to talk about all of it is NPR sports correspondent Becky Sullivan. Hi, Becky.
Before this season kicked off, you told us that the big story this year was going to be rookie quarterbacks. So how are they doing?
BECKY SULLIVAN, BYLINE: Yeah. It's been a ton of fun for me to watch, at least. The NFL hasn't had a season like this with the rookie quarterbacks in, like, over a decade, where so many of them were making a splash. Earlier this year, we had six teams draft rookies early in the first round, which set a record. Now three of those guys are starting. And it's noteworthy because, you know, it's just hard to play in the NFL. There's a big adjustment period, normally, for these guys.
SHAPIRO: Yeah. Tell us more about that - the differences between college and pro football.
SULLIVAN: Sure. Yeah, I mean, just the speed of the game in the NFL is so much different. The size and the athleticism of the players is way bigger - off the charts compared to college. And the players that we think of as, like, the greatest quarterbacks of the past generation - you know, often, they didn't play well their rookie season. Or, many times, they didn't play really at all. Like, Tom Brady, Patrick Mahomes, Aaron Rodgers - all of those guys sat out for most or all of their first season just to watch and learn.
So the last season we had kind of like this, where a lot of rookies were in play, was back in 2012. This year, it looks like we might get two historically good rookie seasons. Those two guys are Jayden Daniels in Washington and Caleb Williams in Chicago.
SHAPIRO: What makes those two guys so unusual?
SULLIVAN: Well, both of them were stellar in college. So Williams won the Heisman at Southern Cal. And then, the next year, Daniels won it at Louisiana State. Williams was picked first overall, followed by Daniels at No. 2. That's not what's weird. What's unusual is that they've both been playing really well, especially these last couple weeks.
And the expectations for them that were set out before the season were totally different. The talk around Chicago was that this was the best situation ever, maybe, for a rookie quarterback. The team has great receivers. The team actually hadn't been all that bad the year before. Whereas, by contrast, Washington was seen as more of a challenge. It had - the team has a new owner. There was a new coach this season. They were coming off just a really bad year. And so the expectations for Williams in Chicago were sky high, while, for Daniels, I think, fans in Washington probably would have been happy just to see a glimmer of promise.
And Ari, the way I think that anybody would have been able to tell this is just by looking at who was wearing these guys' jerseys.
SHAPIRO: Yeah.
SULLIVAN: So I went to the Bears game in Chicago last week. Williams' No. 18 jerseys were everywhere. I talked to a bunch of people wearing them, including Jugnu Shah, who was born and raised in Chicago, and he was just old enough to remember the last time the Bears won the Super Bowl. Here he is.
JUGNU SHAH: I was here when Walter Payton, in '85 - I was 6 years old. My dad and all his friends barely could speak English, but they knew what a touchdown was.
SHAPIRO: Wow. So that's the scene in Chicago. And what did the jersey scale show you here in Washington, D.C.?
SULLIVAN: (Laughter) Well, here in D.C., the franchise, the football team, really hasn't had a great season since, like, 1991. And until a couple years ago, the team also had maybe the most hated owner in, like, all of American professional sports. So as you might expect, all of that had sort of dampened enthusiasm for the team. And in the first few weeks, you just didn't see many of the jerseys out and about for No. 5, Jayden Daniels.
All of that has changed. Stores in D.C. have been selling out. Variations on the Jayden Daniels jersey are the top three sellers on the Fanatics NFL shop right now. Washington fans are absolutely out of their minds happy because, you know, we could very much see this team as a playoff contender if Daniels keeps playing the way he's been playing.
SHAPIRO: NPR's Becky Sullivan, thanks a lot.
SULLIVAN: You're so welcome.
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