What if the one of these QB that lighted up the league is not a top 10 pick? What if it is a Mac Jones or a Kyle Trask? Would you believe the Jets should have drafted Kyle Trask at 2nd overall? My feeling is one or many of the QBs drafted will have a decent to a great career (other than Lawrence) but there is a SIGNIFICANT chance that the QB that succeed are not viewed as top 5 prospect. It's not coincidence, most QBs drafted later ususally land with team that have way better supporting cast and great coaching staff. I am 100% sure that if the Jets drafted Josh Allen and the Bills drafted Darnold we would still have not supported Josh Allen enough to be the player that he is now and that Darnold would have a way better situation and career than with the Jets in Buffalo.
I know we need to improve significantly everywhere, but offseasons with this many opportunities to get a QB, from trading for Watson to drafting Fields/Wilson at 2 to trading down and drafting Lance/Jones, are very rare. If there were no good options, I'd say fine give Sam another shot, but that simply isn't the case.
My only point is that Sam returning in the Jets is a possible scenario no mater how much you hate Sam Darnold or want him gone. It is not impossible that Joe Douglas and Robert Saleh see eye to eye and give another shot with Sam. As for the QB position as important and crucial it is. I don't believe anymore about the right or bad year to draft a QB. Nobody hyped Mahomes prior to his draft and he was a late riser based on his arm potential. He landed in GREAT situation for him and flourished. I do believe the supporting cast, coaching staff are as crucial as the QB drafted for him to properly develop. I do believe we have improved the coaching staff but I also do believe the supporting cast to be mediocre at best and we setting ourself again to fail another young QB if we go in that direction. The Jets are in a great situation to improve the team on all front and become way more competitive without having to draft a QB with their first selection. Like I mentioned Joe Douglas will evaluate all top prospect and if he feels one of the QB is his guy he would draft him but that is not certainty.
It isn't about hating Sam personally, it's about by any objective measure, he sucks. And getting significantly outplayed by Flacco this year shows that he probably won't be good going forward, whether that's on the Jets or another team. Also, there are bad years to draft a QB, and I'm not talking about 2017, which even at the time wasn't seen as a bad year. A bad year would have been 2013 or 2015 if you didn't have one of the top two picks. As far as the supporting cast being necessary to develop a QB, that's true, but we have no obligation to play a rookie QB this year if we draft one. Whereas Watson is already developed, and if he comes here, he knows what he's getting into, so I wouldn't worry too much about it. Trading for Watson isn't for winning this year, it's for winning over the next decade.
Flacco played better than him in 2 games. In the other 2 he was far worse than Darnold imo. People seem to be forgetting or ignoring those 2. That's not significantly outplaying in my book. It is better for the Jets to move on. It's probably better for Darnold too. Every little mistake is going to be under the microscope here, every open receiver ignored, every pass attempted instead of taking easy yardage on offer. All QBs do it, especially under pressure - look at Rodgers on Sunday. I firmly believe that Darnold can put this year behind him, and improve his year 2 performance by 5-10% all round. I'm not sure he can do that on the Jets, but if the FO/CS believe he can then keeping him next year and trading down to build the roster is the right way to go. If they don't, then you get what you can for him. I believe they are better qualified to make that decision than anyone on here, or in the media too.
It doesn't matter. You stay with what you can control. You don't worry about the what ifs, you do the best you can with the information you have. If that information Is suggesting that Justin Fields or Zach Wilson have the potential to be studs in this league. You go after that. If that information says that one of the other later candidates at the QB position is worth reaching, then reach. I don't care how it happens. The fact Is, we've passed on several stud QBs this last decade. We are talking about giving up a fortune for a QB we could've had at #6. We could've had two top caliber QBs that year, instead we took a safety that ran himself out of town. At some point you got to get It right. Sam Darnold has been given time to shine. I understand he hasn't been given a lot. It's unfortunate. ...but he has shown that he isn't elite. He isn't someone that elevates others around him. He is turnover prone, he can't read defenses well enough to justify him being a starter in this league. He's still seeing ghosts. It's obvious. I think he has talent. I hope he turns his career around. I do. We are not that place to do so. We as fans have played the waiting game on non sense for far too long. It's time to get this damn thing corrected. To fix the errors of recent history. Darnold just isn't the answer.
we got into trouble we traded all those picks for Sam. Not even sure we have that luxury again with Deshau, top5 an or not. We have nobody lol besides Becton and q
It is a bit exaggerated but I think it's exaggerated because Flacco had two pretty good games and Darnold really didn't have any. Not to mention the offense looked more functional. It is definitely plausible for him to fix himself, although more likely than not he'll end up as a career backup. If he does fix it and move forward with a solid career, what do you think his ceiling is?
Flacco did what Darnold wouldn't/couldn't do ... he threw the ball downfield. We thought all the check downs were Gase's offense, and yeah they were clearly options in Gase's offense. But Flacco showed there were plenty of downfield options too that were being ignored by the previous QB
QB is the most important position in the sport. If he doesn't realize that having the worst one in the NFL is killing us he's not fit to be a GM. It's literally our biggest need by far.
Why do you think that virtually EVERY analyst on TV -- draft gurus, ex-players, ex-QBs who were very good, etc. -- have all said they like Sam and think he can be a Top 10 QB in the NFL ? What are they seeing that we Jets fans are not ?
For one thing it's a massive exaggeration to say virtually every analyst believes Sam can be a top 10 QB, that's just not true. The ones who do say so are likely unwilling to admit how wrong they were about Sam when he was drafted. Nobody wants to admit they whiffed.
It is most likely that he is a low level starter or backup for sure. But I don't think it is impossible that he turns it around to become a Tannehill/Stafford level starter. A 5-10% increase across the board in a scheme that's a better fit, with better weapons and better coaching would see him in that sort of range. Anything else would be an extremely long shot.
It's the primary reason why Kiper and McShay are pumping him so much. They were about as wrong as him as anyone.
Flacco had two good games, one game so-so, and one game bad. Overall, if you look at his rating, I think reflects eye ball analysis pretty well: 81. If you do the same for Sam, he had his share of bad games, for a total rating of 73. This is a pretty significant difference, and it's not like Flacco, who is old and coming off injury, was that good. I guess he was so-so for a back-up. Both played in same exact Gase system. But if the starter is way worse than so-so back-up, you know there is a lot of ground to cover to be an OK starter, not to mention FQB. This is no knock on Sam, I actually think he is a hard worker, but you know the odds are against him at this point to become FQB, if he gets thoroughly outplayed by so-so back-up in his 3d year. I do hear the point about Sam being young and him being selected #3 for a reason. Now, that was 3 years ago. He was selected because he did have ability, but like other prospects around him (Allen, Rosen, etc) had critical things he had to improve. Namely, accuracy (he was low rated passer even from clean picket in College), TOs and bone headed decisions, that plagued him throughout College career. Three years later, he is still one of the worst in TO/game, the absolute worst from clean pocket, and continues to make bone headed decisions. Can he improve? Maybe, but probability of that is much less than 3 years ago. Even if Sam was justifiably highly rated 3 years ago, the fact he has not improved these areas, drastically reduces his value today. At this point we are lucky to get second round pick for him, and more likely looking at a 3d rounder or worse. And that's what the QBs in 2nd/3d/4th round are: small chance they can be star players, not completely impossible, though extremely unlikely. People take a shot at it, take a risk, knowing they are likely to fail, but if they even get a back-up out of it, it's not so bad. We just did something similar with Morgan. However, now we need a guy who has a higher probability to become starter and even FQB. #2 overall pick gives the highest chance outside of trading for someone who already is FQB.
Thought you guys would enjoy reading this, Jeremiah just came out with his prospect rankings: https://www.nfl.com/news/daniel-jeremiah-s-top-50-2021-nfl-draft-prospect-rankings-1-0 He has Wilson as the #4 overall prospect and Lance/Fields at 11/12 respectively.
That's a good list. It's cool to think that the Jets could add 3, possibly 4 or even more of those guys to the team in April. A few more key players in Free Agency too. This will be an almost completely new team in 2021 in many ways. That is why I think the QB will likely be new too. Very interesting write ups on Wilson, Lance and Fields. I'll say it again: If Douglas/Saleh love any of the 3: Draft him.
There was only one game against the Dolphins where Flacco played worse than typical Sam. The other three he was better than typical Sam. And even the bad game against the Dolphins wasn't any worse than bad Sam.
First of all those analysts have almost zero predictive power, i.e. for all their impressive-sounding jargon they aren't any better at evaluating QBs than we are. And now, they're just refusing to admit they were probably wrong. That's the difference between them and me, I had Sam and Baker as my favorites in 2018, but I underestimated how important mobility is at the time, and I'm willing to admit that.
