I spent most of the day pissed off over the Darnold news, as I'm sure most of you have as well. I can't blame you if you don't want to read anything positive right now, so if that's you then click away. When you first looked at our schedule for the season, 2 gigantic pains in the asses stood out: 1). Ridiculously early week 4 BYE 2). Virtually all of the difficult games are lumped together in the first 6 weeks It was always extremely likely that we would get off to a terrible start, most likely 2-4, even with Sam on the field. Also, the week 4 bye created an annoying stretch of 13 consecutive games to close the season. Now, that bye is a crucial recovery week for Sam. On top of it, he's missing games that we were likely to lose anyway (@NE and I would guess @PHI). We're going to start the season 0-4 unless something ridiculous happens, but I'm excited for what could happen after that. Sam will come back to a team that has been written off, and he'll come back to his favorite target in Chris Herndon (who he would've had to play without). He'll get the following matchups in a very soft middle of the schedule: @ JAX (no Foles), @ MIA, NYG, @ WAS, OAK, @ CIN, MIA. I don't expect him to come back and lead us to the playoffs; it would likely take 10-2 for that to happen. But instead of being demoralized by a rough start, the team is going to be rejuvenated when its starting QB comes back. Instead of Sam struggling against some of the best pass rushes in the league, it's going to set up the narrative of him bursting through the doors and turning the team around. Heal up, Sam. It's still going to be a fun year.
This is what I've been saying all day to talk myself off the ledge. Not having Darnold on the field for those 4 games is going to suck, it would have been fun to watch him go up against upper echelon teams and maybe sneak a win or two out. Hopefully Sam can come back by the time we play Jacksonville and we can string some games together.
I can still see the possibility of a win on Monday. Browns could come out ready to rebound, or it could just be the beginning of another dumpster fire season for them. The Browns are the only team you could count on to be worse than the Jets for the last 2 decades. We’ll need a great defensive performance, and hopefully a strong day from Bell. Patriots game is a guaranteed loss. After that is the bye, means that Eagles game is almost 4 full weeks. Sam could be back for that game potentially. We might only be 1-2 when he gets back.