Sam improves in all the major categories, %, tds, yds, ints. With a worse o line. How did he not make strides?
I know he struggled yesterday in only his second playoff game and some of it was essentially garbage time, but he still accounted for over 500 yards of total offense. I'd hardly say Jackson is some failed experiment. He will still win the league MVP with a 6 to 1 touchdown to interception ratio. It's ok to acknowledge that he had a bad game and they ran into an absolute buzzsaw yesterday without writing players off in their entirety all the time. It's what makes it frustrating to discuss the NFL or even read the media write about the NFL. There's so few games that everything is soooo reactionary.
He wasn't Patrick Mahomes with a historically bad offensive line and mediocre skill position players at 22 years old.
I disagree with the general vibe that Darnold did not make progress last season. He passing pct went from 57.7% to 61.9% - which is the difference between not good enough to play in the NFL and meeting the standard required. He moderately improved his interception percentage, again down towards the range that decent QB's manage from year to year. The fumbles went up but we now know that he was playing with a torn ligament in the left thumb from mid-season on and so we have a marker to measure his 6 fumbles in the last 4 games by. His numbers would look great if not for the 7 int's he had in his 2nd and 3rd starts back from the month-long layoff with mono. His games in the second half of the season turned into a 13-4 TD/Int split and a 93.3 QB rating. That's a pretty impressive second half given the supporting cast, even against a lineup of unimpressive opponents. The season started with a 4 game illness and a game after returning he tore the ligament in the thumb against Jacksonville and played through that. What he did in 2019 may not look like much but it was a major indicator that he can handle adversity and still perform at a reasonable level. I'll take that as progress for the year even above the numbers he actually put up which suggested progress for the year.
Seriously that ranking makes no sense. Sam progressed. Maybe it wasn't a huge leap, but if you consider everything he dealt with progressing at all shows he has some talent. Mayfield had a great team built for him and regressed. Schedules weren't much different. How is this list realistic?
When I say Sam didn't really progress I'm referring to his overall performance as an NFL QB. Stats aren't the measure. They don't translate from last season to this season because we changed offenses. Sure we can say his completion percentage is up and his INTs are a little down. But that has a lot to do with Adam Gase and 70% of our passes being 4 yards or less. Gases' spread is built for ball security and high percentage completions, so if these categories didn't improve we would have a real concern. But it didn't translate to Sam taking any real strides forward. Yes Sam improved the second half of the season when our opponents were much weaker. But he improved the second half of last season against stronger opponents. I cant say he looked better at the end of this season than at the end of last season. Most of his improvement in the second half of this season was because in the first half he had already regressed from the end of last season. Especially his footwork and throwing motion. Its not a hopeful thing to note that both his first two seasons ran the same, barely average, course skill wise. This is not making forward strides. I do agree he had some valid excuses. And because of that we got to wait another year to find out about Sam what we were hoping to find out this year. But if you have already found that out - more power to ya. I hope you are right.
Hopefully Darnold takes a long look at the film, works on this and his deep ball. Have to wonder how many times did this happen throughout the year?
The Jets went 7-6 in Darnold's starts this year. They went 4-9 last year. You can't spin this into a "no-improvement" year. He looked more like a starting QB. He had better stats and the Jets had more wins. This despite total chaos on the OL and injuries to several important playmakers, including Enunwa and Herndon. Geno Smith looked much better at the end of his first season than he did in his second. That's a "no-improvement" season. What Darnold did this year gives me some hope that he is the answer. I'm more confident of that assessment at this point than I was at the end of 2018.
