Von heaps praise on Darnold
Like most experts, Von Miller never expected Sam Darnold to fall to the Jets. The Broncos pass-rushing dynamo didn’t think he would get by the Browns.
“I don’t know anything about drafting quarterbacks or anything like that, but I thought that he was the No. 1 pick for sure,” Miller said on a conference call on Wednesday as the Broncos prepared to face the Jets on Sunday at MetLife Stadium. “I thought he was the best offensive player in the draft last year, so he’s a great quarterback and he’s been playing well lately — they haven’t been coming up with the wins, but he’s playing really well.”
After a scintillating opener, Darnold and the Jets have dropped three straight games, and the rookie quarterback has shown his inexperience — throwing just two touchdown passes in that span, four interceptions and completing 57-of106 passes for 670 yards. Still, the Broncos’ six-time Pro Bowler raved about what he has seen and saw leading up to the draft.
“Like I said, I don’t know — when it comes to picking players, I don’t know. But my feeling, watching the draft last year and the players in it, I thought he was going to be the No. 1 pick,” said Miller, who has four sacks and two forced fumbles this year. “Baker Mayfield was the No. 1 pick [by the Browns] and rightfully so, but in my opinion, watching everything, from a pass-rusher’s point of view, I just felt like [Darnold] was the No. 1 pick in the draft. He wasn’t the No. 1 pick, but he’s definitely playing like it.”
When told of those comments, Darnold was predictably humble.
“That’s high praise from a really talented player, probably one of the best players in the league,” he said. “Obviously, he is a great player and [I’m] looking forward to going against him. … It’s pretty cool that he said it.”
Darnold, though, is more concerned with shaking off his recent struggles and snapping the team’s losing streak. He feels he’s close to breaking out after narrowly missing a few big plays against the Jaguars on Sunday.
“Well it can be frustrating on the field,” Darnold said. “It could just be like a foot away from hitting Robby [Anderson] or inches away from hitting [Bilal Powell] on a go [route], so those things can be frustrating. But at the same time I’ve got to understand that it’s part of the deal, it’s part of what you go through as a rookie quarterback coming into a new team just kind of figuring out the guys.”