I've said it before, and I am sure I will say it again, but Sam Darnold has a bright future in the NFL. I truly believe that. I saw enough in 2018 an 2019 to know the ability is there. He just needs a better roster and better coaching around him. Better game plans and play calling too. The problem for the Jets, is that he was horrendous and part of a (2-14) team in 2020. When that happens, I prefer to clean house. They did with the coaching staff, now they will with a lot of the roster, and that includes QB, not because Sam is terrible, but because they potentially have better options. Starting fresh with Watson or Wilson or Fields, to me, is better than keeping Sam. Darnold still has a potential downside and his rookie deal is running out. Like I said, 2020 was awful. I am pretty sure he can and will bounce back from it, but there is still a chance he doesn't. If he doesn't, then the Jets would be screwed. That is a risk Joe Douglas can't take. Another NFL team can though and I think they will with either a late 1st Round pick or a 2nd round pick, or multiple picks. We will see, but Sam does have value.
Jog on fanboy, I can't be arsed with you today, just you stick to blaming Berrios for all Sam's wrong's
When other teams consider whether or not to make an offer for Sam, they will go back to their college scouting profiles where many considered him the top QB prospect in years. "Fearless", "Leader", "Gunslinger", are words that will appear in every profile. Then they will compare his rookie season to others in that class. At the end of that season most still believed he had the greatest upside in comparison to his peers. Then they will look at the past two seasons where his Head Coach, Offensive Coordinator (not Loggains), and QB coach were all the same man, Adam Gase. (In comparison, Josh Allen has had stability at all three positions, and while McDermott and Daboll get all the credit, Ken Dorsey is one of the best QB coaches in the NFL) The question will be, do they believe they can reset Darnold to year one? Because if they can, the past two seasons won't matter to anyone.
Whatever. When we upgrade the WR talent in FA. Berrios doesn’t make the team. If JD was high on Fields or Wilson, he would have been traded Darnold. He knows Lance or Mac Jones has likelihood to even be better, crapshoot.
What you've done here is confirm that there is way too much going on with Darnold that we don't know. That's not a knock at all, it's just the way it is. But if we find out some day that Darnold's failures are largely due to organizational failures we'll be even more pissed. The mystery regarding those NFL insiders who still believe he's got the potential to thrive point in that direction. Whether those still seeing high value in Darnold have seen every bit of video ever produced is not really the question, it's what do they know about him that is not revealed on the tape. And it's probably much more important who those voices belong to. It's more important to me if they are working in the NFL than just being paid to write about it - hell, some of the loudest voices have never made a dime on their "insight" and it is those inside the league that will make the decisions that matter. Darnold is still working with Palmer, or at least he was a year ago, so is he? As you say, any improvements are hard to see. Is Palmer really the best guy out there, how far does his training program go? I get the impression it is all or mostly mechanical, the root of accuracy but only part of what it appears Darnold needs. I found something that discussed Darnold having interest in a computer based mental agility program McCown was doing when he was here but nothing said that he ever got involved. Did he? That technology is the kind of thing that some progressive trainers are doing - is Palmer, is anyone at the Jets? Isn't it odd that we have heard nothing of it? Is this something a team would want to hide from the others, which would be difficult at best, or something a team would like to crow about to their fanbase? The idea that Darnold said he was happy with his mechanics a year or so ago was discussed within the last couple of months and no one was able to confirm it - I can't find anything. In that discussion there were Darnold quotes that said he would do whatever was necessary to improve his game. Did Gase encourage Darnold to do anything at all and was it at cross purposes to what Palmer may have been trying to do? Who knows? But I think many of us have always had the idea that Gase was both a poor communicator and not one open to a lot of outside influence. He has demonstrated that in game planning, at least, he is loathe to consider the limitations of his players. That certainly sounds like an old school guy who would strongly resist being dragged into the future. The fact that three years into his NFL career Darnold would still run out of bounds for a seven yard loss rather than toss the ball into the crowd is a problem and one that indicates he still hasn't gotten to that point that many QBs have said was critical when "the game slowed down" for them. Is that something a player has to find for himself or shouldn't that be a place where he can get help? Slowing down the game is where seeing the big picture comes into play, but we haven't seen or heard any word of that having happened with all his past coaches. Which goes right back to the technology question. The CBA may restrict the teams' ability to be in contact with players but I doubt it would hamper their determining the best state of the art help for them and finding a way to make it happen. I see a lot of the sentences here end in question marks but they're almost all rhetorical and I don't know if we'll ever see acceptable answers.
Let's continue discussing Sam in below thread. Locking this now. https://forums.theganggreen.com/threads/build-around-sam.95263/
