Jets’ Darnold impresses in overcoming shaky start

DETROIT – Jets rookie Sam Darnold was nervous as he dropped back to throw his first NFL regular-season pass against the Lions.

It showed, because he made a terrible decision, forcing a throw across his body, and across the field, that was intercepted and returned for a touchdown.

That moment could have been the one that defined Darnold’s first start with the Jets. The disastrous sequence could have damaged his confidence and his teammates’ belief in him.

But as Ford Field shook with deafening noise around him, the Jets rookie shook his head side to side and gave the slightest hint of a smile as he jogged back toward the sideline.

“It really can’t get much worse than

that,” Darnold said after the game. “That was really the kind of thinking that was going on in my head. And I knew that we have a good team. We have a really, really good team. So I knew if I just did my job, took what the defense gave me, that I was going to be able to go out there and look back and have a successful game.”

There were many encouraging things about the Jets’ 48-17 beatdown of the Lions on Monday night. But nothing was more heartening than the way Darnold overcame his early adversity and how it seemed to rub off on his teammates.

“He has that ‘it’ factor. He’s a gamer,” Jets cornerback Trumaine Johnson said. “Coming back from a pick-6 (on the) first ball, you don’t see rookie quarterbacks do what he did. I’m proud of him.”

Just last year the Jets were an example of how not to deal with adversity.

They’d play well enough to put themselves in position to win games against teams that were better than them. Then they’d inevitably make a silly mistake, or catch a bad break, that they couldn’t recover from.

But on Monday night, the biggest mistake of the game seemed to make them stronger. And the Jets have only Darnold to thank.

He looked like an overwhelmed rookie on his first snap of the game when he rolled to his right, stepped forward and awkwardly threw across his body and toward Bilal Powell. Lions saftey Quandree Diggs stepped up, easily snagged the interception, and returned it 37 yards for the touchdown.

Now we know why Darnold looked overwhelmed. He was.

“Yeah, so on that interception I was pretty nervous,” he said. “I’m not going to lie to you guys. But after that, you know, I put it behind me.”

“He didn’t flinch, he didn’t even blink,” Jets coach Todd Bowles said. “Obviously, we got it out of the way and I can sit here and tell you that we planned that so he could get the jitters out, but we didn’t. He came back and nobody flinched on the sideline. He came back and played well.”

He put it behind him immediately. So quickly, that as teammates and coaches came up to Darnold to let him know that they were still with him, he impressed them with his poise after such a difficult circumstance.

“Oh my god, I’ve been seeing this from this guy since he arrived here,” cornerback Morris Claiborne said. “He’s just fearless. It seems like nothing really gets to him. He keeps the same attitude and same look on his face. I know a lot of people when you see that the first play of the game, you start thinking all other kinds of thoughts. And being in that position for him, I know that was hard. But it didn’t faze him, as you can tell.”

Darnold was so calm on the sideline after the pick-6 that it seemed to rub off on his teammates.

A big punt return by Andre Roberts gave the Jets a short field on Darnold’s third drive, and he responded by leading them on a touchdown drive to tie the score at 7-7 before the first quarter ended. In the second quarter, he fired a perfect throw to Robby Anderson for his first career touchdown pass to give the Jets a 17-7 lead.

When the Lions stormed back to tie the score at 17-17 after the first drive of the second half, Darnold and the offense responded again with a six-play, 75yard drive that seemed to cement the belief for everyone. That was the start of 31 unanswered Jets points to finish the game.

It’s still too early to know exactly what the Jets have in Darnold. But for one night, at least, it was obvious that he set the tone for his teammates by fighting through a very difficult moment.

“It’s huge, man,” safety Jamal Adams said.

“You talk about adversity as a team, not just as an individual player, but you talk about adversity as a team. You throw a pick-6 and you don’t flinch, the team doesn’t flinch, we understood what happened, and Sam didn’t blink.

“It shows maturity and it shows where he’s coming from as far as the football player and the person. And we believed in him, we didn’t doubt him after that play. We just settled down, we locked in as a group and we came out victorious.”

“He has that ‘it’ factor. He’s a gamer.” Trumaine Johnson Jets cornerback