HE’S LEARNING
Sam Darnold needs to learn from mistakes on the job, not on the bench
The Season of Sam is The Season of Sam for a reason, so you’re lost if you think it makes sense to bench the centerpiece of this historically woebegone franchise that hasn’t had a true difference-making quarterback since Tricky Dick was in the Oval Office.
It might have been painful to witness Sam Darnold’s struggles in the past three weeks (one TD, seven interceptions), but there’s no reason that he should pick up a clipboard and learn from the sideline. You learn by doing and failing. You don’t learn at his position by pressing the pause button.
Could Todd Bowles foresee any scenario, short of injury, that would prompt him to make a quarterback change to 39-year-old Josh McCown? “Not at this time,” Bowles said Monday. Not at this time, that time or any other time unless Darnold is walking around with a broken limb or two. Even then, I’d have to think long and hard before I pulled the kid.
Spoiler: Barring an act of God, the 3-6 Jets are not making the playoffs. So, the rest of the season must be dedicated to helping Darnold grow from his on-the-job training. It’s been a roller-coaster ride with the rookie, including a four-interception nightmare in a 13-6 clunker in Miami on Sunday.
“I thought I played stupid football,” Darnold said matter-of-factly of his mistake-prone perform- ance that yielded a season-low 31.8 passer rating. “I just got to be better. I know that. Coaches know it. Everyone knows it.”
They also know that the young quarterback needs to be exposed to all of this if he has a chance of becoming the player they think he’s destined to become. Darnold admitted the Dolphins threw a “couple different wrinkles” at him on Sunday. Good. Great. It’s too bad that they didn’t try to fool him more.
It’s all valuable intel that he’ll need moving forward. Make mistakes now. Learn from them and get better. Rinse and repeat.
It’s invaluable exposure for a talented and smart 21-year-old who is going to find out a lot about himself this season. Truth be told, he didn’t see the field well on Sunday. He was tentative and unsure of his reads. As he succinctly put it, his first-quarter interception “just sucked.”
Was he apprehensive after that early turnover? Yes.
Did he get away from his typically resilient and confident self because of it? Well, yeah.
“I just got to play smart, play better,” Darnold said. “I definitely feel like I forced some things, but at the same time, I feel like there were some throws when I was second-guessing myself and I could have pulled the trigger…. It’s just me at some moments in the game getting in my own head. I just got to stay true to my progressions, stay true to the confidence that I normally have and just go out there and sling it.”
Here’s the message to any panicked souls: Darnold is going to be fine.
Unless aliens overtake his body, he’s going to learn from this season-long journey.
“He knows he has to play within the system,” Todd Bowles said. “He understands when he can and can’t make throws. You want him to make throws — and make big throws — but you don’t want him to force them… I thought he made a couple bad throws. He saw (the field) well at times, and at times, he had a couple bad reads. That kind of crept up yesterday.”
Darnold’s film review revealed that he missed open teammates, but it’s hardly the end of the world. However, there might need to be adjustments made to improve the in-game communication flow between offensive coordinator Jeremy Bates and him.
The Jets were forced to burn timeouts midway through the first quarter and on the opening drive of the third quarter because the play clock was winding down.
There are typically two reasons why that happens: A) The play caller isn’t relaying the play fast enough to the quarterback, or B) The quarterback isn’t relaying the play-call efficiently and/or fast enough in the huddle to allow for sufficient time to make pre-snap adjustments. Neither is a good thing. Darnold’s willingness to attack and absorb the full playbook this summer is commendable, but it’s evident that there needs to be a more streamlined in-game flow between Bates and Darnold from play to play.
Darnold’s inexperience came into focus on the first drive of the third quarter. On a 2nd and 6 from the Miami 41, Bates dialed up a draw play to Eli McGuire. On the surface, there was nothing wrong with the play-call. Here’s the issue: The Dolphins called a run blitz, so running a delayed handoff (out of shotgun) was suicide.
A more experienced quarterback would have properly identified the blitzing linebacker (who tackled McGuire for a twoyard loss, by the way) and called an audible. I don’t believe that Darnold has the freedom to completely change the play at the line. He can kill a called run into a called pass, but he’s not to the point in his development where he can scrap it all and call an entirely different play.
Although Bowles admitted that he’s “very concerned” about his team’s offensive struggles in the past three weeks, he understands that part of the cost of doing business with the rookie quarterback is enduring growing pains like Sunday.
Darnold understands that too, but that shouldn’t make it easier to accept.
“This is the frustrating part for me,” Darnold said. “Our O-line blocked really well. We were able to run the ball. It was just me turning the ball over. If I don’t turn the ball over, I feel like we have a good chance to win that ballgame. I thought our offensive line, our receivers, our running backs did a great job in the game… If I don’t turn the ball over, I feel like it’s a different story.”
The coolest part of Darnold’s story is we’re still on Chapter One.
It’s going to get better. Just keep reading without interruption.