There are no excuses left for Sam Darnold. It’s a tough pill to swallow after 33 up-and-down games for the young Jets quarterback, but the stats and the tape cannot be denied any longer.
Darnold reverted to the same mistakes he made as a rookie – again – during Sunday’s 20-3 loss to the Dolphins. He threw two terrible interceptions, led the Jets to just one scoring drive, didn’t throw a touchdown and only mustered 197 passing yards in New York’s 11th consecutive loss.
In a vacuum, the Week 12 loss was an ugly game for Darnold. But extrapolated over his NFL career, it paints a pattern of a failed young quarterback, an all too familiar occurrence for the Jets.
Consider this: Darnold has as many games with multiple touchdowns – 11 – as he does games with at least two turnovers with an overall record of 11-22. Unsurprisingly, the Jets lost every game Darnold turned the ball over more than once. He also has the exact same amount of interceptions in his career – 36 – as former Jets quarterbacks Mark Sanchez and Geno Smith had in their first 33 games in New York. Darnold does have more passing yards, touchdowns and a higher completion percentage than Sanchez and Smith, but he also has a worse winning percentage.
One could argue these numbers exonerate Darnold because it shows he’s performed better than those two despite a worse supporting cast and coaching staff around him. But that argument died after Week 12.
Darnold played with all three of his starting wideouts – Jamison Crowder, Breshad Perriman and Denzel Mims – in an offense almost identical to the one Joe Flacco played with the past two weeks. Darnold played significantly worse. The team averaged just 4.9 yards per play on 260 total yards and scored just three points with Darnold under center, while the Flacco-led Jets averaged 307 total yards, 6.2 yards per play and 27.5 points in two games. Flacco himself matched his 2019 touchdown total over those two games and only turned the ball over once.
The only differences between Weeks 9, 11 and 12 – besides Darnold playing – were the loss of La’Mical Perine prior to the Dolphins game, a slightly altered offensive line, and Adam Gase calling the plays instead of Dowell Loggains (though Gase tried to convince everyone that didn’t change despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary).
Therein lies the telltale sign that Darnold’s time in New York is drawing to a close. Even with a better-than-normal supporting case, he underperformed. Not only that, he hasn’t improved in some of the most integral facets of quarterbacking in the NFL.
Darnold’s decision-making looked terrible once again with both interceptions and a couple of errant passes. Were some of these the plays called by Gase? Absolutely. But Gase likely didn’t tell Darnold to throw the ball into double coverage to the wrong side of Jamison Crowder when the Jets were in field goal range. Nor was it Gase’s fault that Darnold stood flat-footed in the pocket and delivered the ball almost directly to Dolphins cornerback Xavien Howard to basically end the game for the Jets.
Everyone better be voting for @Iamxavienhoward right now >> https://t.co/KiybRl11uJ
📺 @NFLonCBS pic.twitter.com/SSLi9k9ydt
— Miami Dolphins (@MiamiDolphins) November 29, 2020
Those plays were on Darnold, and they played an integral role in the Jets’ pitiful offensive performance. Though Darnold had moments of greatness in the loss – like he always does – they weren’t enough to overcome the clearly unimproved play of a third-year quarterback. The truth of the matter is that Darnold couldn’t perform when it mattered most: in the red zone and at important moments in the game. In crunch time, he faltered.
Darnold very well may be a good quarterback in this league, but he hasn’t been in New York. This season alone, Darnold is 0-7 as a starter with 1,242 passing yards, three touchdowns, eight interceptions and a 58.7 completion percentage. He has just 7,131 career passing yards with 33 passing touchdowns to go along with the 36 picks mentioned earlier and a 59.6 career completion percentage. Darnold’s touchdowns and competition percentage rank dead last and his yards rank 21st out 23 quarterbacks with at least 30 starts and 500 passing attempts since 2018. That list doesn’t even include Kyler Murray, who already has more touchdowns, fewer interceptions and a better competition percentage than Darnold in six fewer games.
Joe Douglas may have initially taken the Jets job partly because of Darnold, but he can’t be convinced Darnold is the future of the franchise after his first 33 starts. With the Jets likely to have a shot at grabbing Trevor Lawrence or Justin Fields at the top of the 2021 draft, it’s time to look elsewhere for a quarterback rather than waste another year of evaluation on Darnold.