Giants OL praises ex-mate Darnold

As he checked out the highlights of the Jets’ season-opening win at Detroit, Giants offensive tackle Chad Wheeler saw something quite familiar. He saw Sam Darnold running and throwing and doing things an elite quarterback does and told himself he had seen it all before.

“I saw him scrambling to the right, throwing touchdowns, same thing he did in college,” Wheeler, a teammate of Darnold’s at USC, told The Post. “He’s just the same guy, that’s all. He’s good.”

Darnold enjoyed an eventful and memorable NFL debut. His first pass for the Jets was intercepted and returned for a touchdown. It was not a harbinger of things to come. Darnold got the poor throw out of the way and went on to complete 16-of-21 passes for 198 yards and two touchdowns as the Jets poured it on in the second half for a resounding 48-17 victory.

“A lot of quarterbacks would have been shook after that,” Wheeler said. “He just responded well. Hats off to him.”

Wheeler was a four-year starter at left tackle at USC. He was in the huddle and on the field in 2016 as Darnold moved in at quarterback and a star was born. Even before that, though, Wheeler sensed something special in Darnold as he watched him work on the scout team in practice, especially when it came to how Darnold handled himself around his older teammates.

“He’s a mature dude,” Wheeler said. “He doesn’t seem like he’s 21. It seems like he’s been in the league for years.”

Last season, Wheeler said Darnold was the best quarterback in college and deserved to be the No. 1 pick. The Darnold hype went into overdrive after the Week 1 showing, but Wheeler is confident his former Trojan teammate can handle the burgeoning fame and plaudits and will not get full of himself.

“Oh no, no,” Wheeler said. “People were talking about him at ’ SC and it never went to his head. I expect him to do the same thing here.”