The Sam Darnold Problem

8:19 Monday night: Opening week of the National Football League. I felt a rush of energy chorus through my body as I sped through the remainder of my math homework. The Jets opening game against the Detroit Lions was that night, and I was pumped for what I hoped would be a winning season after two years of misery. I finished my homework and sprinted downstairs only to hear the pained yell of my brother and the thump of something being thrown on the ground.

Sam Darnold, with all the anticipation he had created and the speculation on whether he was the right pick, had thrown an interception. And if that weren’t enough, it was his first play ever as a quarterback.

Darnold’s throw was picked off and returned for a touchdown. I was in shock, and the thought process, one that usually starts in week five or six for me about Jets quarterbacks, had just begun: Can we trade him yet? How are we going to develop our run game? What miracle do we have to pull off to make the playoffs? Fortunately, God was feeling bad for Jets fans, and the tides quickly turned.

Rebounding beautifully, Darnold went on to throw two touchdowns, and the Jets, with some help from their defense, ran up the score and blew out the Lions, 48-17. We began to see some of what made Darnold so good in college: he ran well laterally, completed a bunch of startlingly accurate throws scrambling from the pocket, and didn’t falter under pressure from the Lions defensive line. I was confident that Darnold would be able to continue this success in their next game against the Browns, a team that had not won for their last 635 days.

I’m going to skip the boring recap of the Jets game against the Miami Dolphins and just cut to the chase. Darnold was bad—not terrible, but bad enough that I began to start asking those questions again. And to make things even worse, his stats were actually above par for the game.

He threw for 350 yards and even tossed a touchdown to running back Bilal Powell. But in crunch time, in the red zone, when the Jets needed a score, he threw a high wobbly pass into the end zone, and the rest was history. I’m pretty sure the whole block heard me after I watched the Dolphins defender snag one of the poorest passes I’ve ever seen a Jets quarterback make, and that’s saying a lot.

In the Jets’ next game against the Cleveland Browns, Darnold crossed paths with the first overall pick in the same 2018 draft, fellow rookie quarterback Baker Mayfield. The first half was pretty solid and Darnold didn’t really do anything wrong. The Jets ran it in for two touchdowns. 14-0. I spent halftime feeling rejuvenated, and since it was only a Thursday, I even cranked out some AP U.S. History homework to pass the time. However, I came back downstairs late in the second half, and Baker Mayfield was in for injured starter Tyrod Taylor, leading his team to two touchdowns and bringing them back in the game. And then it happened again. Carlos Hyde ran the ball in for a go-ahead touchdown, but there was still time left for the Jets. But Darnold threw another pick with a minute left. And then he threw another with 30 seconds left. And there went my hopes for the young quarterback and the Jets season. Mayfield instantly became a hero in Cleveland, while Darnold continued to struggle after his hot start in Week One. In Week Four, the Jets were destroyed by the Jacksonville Jaguars and dropped to 1-3.

Let’s look at two examples of players who didn’t start the first game of their very first season. Patrick Mahomes of the Kansas City Chiefs and Mitchell Trubisky of the Chicago Bears, the tenth and second overall picks of the 2017 draft, have a lot in a common. They both threw for six touchdowns, both of their teams have winning records, and at this point in the season, I imagine their fans are pretty happy with their performances. Trubisky didn’t even start off the season that well, but his incredible offensive performance in Week Four (he threw five touchdowns in only the first half) proved his obvious talent. Mahomes sat out the whole season last year under Alex Smith, as opposed to Trubisky, who played the second half of the season. Mahomes is a perfect example of what nurturing and development can do to a young, skilled, but raw quarterback. I’ll drop a stat for you. He has thrown more touchdowns this year than veteran quarterbacks Eli Manning and Joe Flacco. And he seems as cool and collected as you’ll ever see a quarterback of any age. Even Mayfield, who is one of the four rookie quarterbacks now starting, sat out the first two games of the season, and I think if the Browns hadn’t done this, they might have been on their 700,000,000th day without a win by now.

I leave you with a thought. It is vital to nurture the growth and development of young quarterbacks, especially rookies, and I mean this with the utmost sincerity. Playing Darnold in the first game of the season, Though he performed well, was a poor decision. He was so skilled coming out of college, and still possesses that skill, but his performance for the rest of his career will be impacted by the Jets’ bad start and his struggles with controlling the offense and turning the ball over. Football at a professional level is so much tougher and faster than football at a collegiate one; every player, but especially quarterbacks, needs time to adjust.

I may not be an expert on the development of quarterbacks, but my opinion on young quarterbacks still stands. So if anyone from the Jets front office reads this, know that you probably should've given Josh McCown another year.