Jayden Daniels looks the part as Washington's starting QB as he prepares for his NFL debut

ASHBURN, Va. (AP) — Jayden Daniels put a smile on his coach's face with a simple request.

Daniels asked Dan Quinn if he could pull aside newly signed receiver Noah Brown and work with him after practice to get him up to speed quickly.

“That’s exactly what you’d hope to hear from a player: ‘Why would we wait till Monday when I can start on this today?’' Quinn said. "Jayden has that mindset to him."

It was the latest example of the Washington Commanders' rookie face of the franchise looking the part as their starting quarterback ahead of his NFL debut Sept. 8 at Tampa Bay. The No. 2 pick out of LSU continues to show the maturity that made Quinn, the coaching staff and the rest of the origination feel ready to put him under center right away in Week 1.

Daniels is coming off winning the Heisman Trophy as college football's top player and is shouldering lofty hopes, but he is projecting realistic expectations.

“It’s not going to be a finished product Week 1, but just try to get better and go out there and go through some growing pains,” Daniels said Thursday. “You know you’re a rookie. You’re not going to have everything perfect. You can strive for perfection, but it’s not going to be perfect. It’s going to be ups and downs."

Daniels is one of three rookie QBs set to open the season as the starter, along with Chicago's Caleb Williams, taken first in the draft, and Denver's Bo Nix, who went 12th. New England earlier Thursday selected Jacoby Brissett — who coincidentally was with Washington last season while seeing zero game action — the starter over No. 3 pick Drake Maye, while Michael Penix will back up Kirk Cousins after going eighth and Minnesota's JJ McCarthy is out for the season with an injury.

“I’ll just go out there and just play ball,” Daniels said. “To be able to have the opportunity to go out there and play my first professional football game in the regular season, it’s going to mean a lot — not only for me for but my family.”

Quinn limited practice time this week and is giving players an extra long weekend off before beginning preparations for the Buccaneers. He wants his team, staff included, to get away from football and enjoy the Labor Day holiday.

Still, Daniels is already well-versed with who he'll be going up against.

“A very sound defense,” Daniels said of Tampa Bay. “Obviously what Todd Bowles does over there and his track record as a defensive coordinator, everything speaks for itself. They got a very savvy veteran in Lavonte David controlling the defense. He knows what’s going to go on, so we’ve got to go out there and we’ve just got to execute."

Daniels went into offseason workouts splitting first-team snaps with veteran Marcus Mariota, and it was clear when training camp started the rookie was in line to be the starter — Washington's eighth different QB to open a season in as many years. Following two preseason games and plenty of practice time, Quinn selected Daniels as the starter.

Teammates have not seen anything different since.

“He kind of took control of the huddle week even with no pads on,” said rookie left tackle Brandon Coleman, who is also expected to start. “Then, when stuff got faster that second week, that guy, he never slowed down. I think these games and then also just the practices leading up just kind of helped him excel even more to where he’s at.

"I’m excited to see what he’s going to do next week.”

AP NFL: https://apnews.com/hub/nfl

Washington Commanders quarterback Jayden Daniels (5) stands back to pass during the first half of a preseason NFL football game against the Miami Dolphins, Saturday, Aug. 17, 2024, in Miami Gardens, Fla. (AP Photo/Rhona Wise)

Washington Commanders quarterback Jayden Daniels warms up before a preseason NFL football game against the New England Patriots, Sunday, Aug. 25, 2024, in Landover, Md. (AP Photo/Nick Wass)

BUDAPEST, Hungary (AP) — Hungary and Ukraine will begin high-level consultations on the rights of Ukraine's ethnic Hungarian minority, the countries' foreign ministers said on Monday, an early sign that strained relations between Budapest and Kyiv could improve under Hungary's new government.

Bilateral ties between the neighboring countries had eroded for years under the pro-Russian government of former Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, which refused to provide Ukraine with money or weapons to assist in its defense against Russia's full-scale invasion.

Orbán, who was voted out of office in a landslide election in April, justified many of his government's anti-Ukraine policies with what he said was the restriction of language and education rights for the roughly 100,000 ethnic Hungarians that live in the Ukrainian region of Zakarpattia.

Aimed at combating Russian influence but ultimately affecting other minority languages, Ukraine passed a law in 2017 that made Ukrainian the required language of study past the fifth grade, angering Romanian, Bulgarian and Hungarian minorities.

But in a post on X Monday, Hungary's new Foreign Minister Anita Orbán wrote that “expert-level consultations aimed at resolving the rights of the Hungarian minority” will begin as soon as this week.

The talks will form “an important foundation for the prompt and reassuring settlement of minority rights issues,” wrote Orbán, who is not related to the former prime minister.

“I trust that the dialogue will be constructive and productive, and that the negotiations will soon bring tangible progress for the Hungarian community,” she continued.

The step was an early sign of a possible mending of the bilateral relations that had dropped to historic lows under Orbán. His nationalist-populist government had blocked crucial European Union funding for Ukraine, held up sanctions against Moscow and threatened to impede the war-ravaged country’s efforts toward eventually joining the bloc.

In the lead-up to the April election, Orbán’s government ran an aggressive anti-Ukraine campaign, casting the neighboring country as an existential threat to Hungary that threatened to tank its economy and drag it into the war.

But with the election of the center-right Tisza party and its leader, Prime Minister Péter Magyar, hopes emerged that Hungary's new government would pursue a more constructive approach.

In a stark example of the about-face in relations with Moscow ushered in by Magyar's election, Hungary's new foreign minister last week summoned the Russian ambassador over a massive drone strike in Zakarpattia — a move nearly unthinkable during Orbán's 16-year tenure.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called the summons in Budapest an “important message” and thanked the new government for its response.

On Monday, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha wrote on X that his government is “ready to open a new, mutually beneficial chapter in Ukrainian-Hungarian relations without delay,” with the aim of “restoring trust and good-neighborly relations between our countries.”

Sybiha wrote that during a phone call with Anita Orbán, he had thanked her for “the Hungarian government’s principled and swift reaction to the latest Russian strikes against Ukraine.”

Prime Minister Peter Magyar, right, and Foreign Minister Anita Orban during the appointment ceremony of ministers of the Tisza government at the presidential Alexander Palace in Budapest, Hungary, Tuesday, May 12, 2026. (Szilard Koszticsak/MTI via AP)

Ukraine's Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha speaks with the media as she arrives for a meeting of EU foreign ministers at the European Council building in Brussels, Monday, May 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Marius Burgelman)