Seattle Dragons Week 5 preview: BJ Daniels and PJ Walker ready for mobile quarterback battle

B.J. Daniels has arrived!

Anyone who has watched the Seattle Dragons has noticed the questionable play of quarterback Brandon Silvers to date. Sunday was no different, as he started the game incredibly slow and generated three points of offense.

Some of the longest and most committed fans of the Dragons had taken to calling for Daniels to play in the two Seattle home games, and it appears they have been rewarded.

Now he’ll presumably start against the undefeated Houston Roughnecks, who are this year’s LSU of the XFL. The Dragons, who have played very Seattle-like close games all season, are the biggest underdogs of the week.

Houston is led by their 2019 undrafted phenom, P.J. Walker. Walker set a bunch of records at Temple, and spent some unknown number of minutes on the practice squad for the Indianapolis Colts.

P.J. Walker is also leading the charge in answering whether these XFL standouts have improved their game, or are simply beating up lesser competition.

Whatever the answer is remains to be seen, but in the meantime, he’s looking like a regular 2014 Cam Newton of the XFL.

Enough about P.J., let’s talk about B.J. instead. Last week, Daniels came into the game against the league-leading St. Louis Battlehawks for the second half and the offense looked immediately better. Simply put, Silvers has not even been on par with XFL competition, while Daniels has at least seen the NFL.

Speaking of which, Daniels is yet another perfect representation of the athlete makeup of the XFL. Similar to our piece on Marcell Frazier, he is 1) Still young and hungry, 2) Has experienced the NFL but never gained any traction, 3) Was a UDFA or late-round - 7th round in this case - and most importantly 3) Is a former Seattle Seahawk.

Here’s Daniels’ NFL snapshot:

That’s right, Daniels - who was a five-year quarterback at South Florida - has receiving stats listed first on Pro-Football Reference. That’s because he has two receptions on two targets, and only one completion on two attempts, so technically, he’s a better NFL receiver than quarterback.

But on this Seattle Dragons roster? He’s the only guy that’s led anything resembling a comeback, and most certainly the only of the two QBs thus far who can do this:

That’s some straight up Russell Wilson nonsense right there. What a quality sell on the run and an actual in-motion completion.

While P.J. and B.J. perform in front of a live DJ (yes they really have those at XFL games), Seattle fans will also witness two quality defenses try to hold down the mobile quarterbacks. Houston claims it was their defense that won the day last week, while the Dragons have allowed even fewer touchdowns on the season than the Roughnecks. At this point, it’s not looking good for the Dragons to close out with a winning record, but there are still some interesting storylines to keep tabs on in the upcoming weeks.

Then, once we hit free agent availability in April, it gets really interesting.