When Sam Darnold spoke to the media for his season-ending session Monday, he was in a state of flux; the Jets have no head coach, so whether Darnold stays in New York or goes elsewhere, he’ll be learning a new system in his fourth year.
He made it clear that he wants to do that with Gang Green, even if he admitted that he “didn’t play well enough” to save Adam Gase’s job.
“It’s very important to me," Darnold said of sticking with the Jets. "I said it once I got here: I want to be a Jet for life. I want to turn this thing around, and I know we can. I definitely want to stay here, hopefully for the rest of my career."
For 14 weeks of the NFL season, that seemed like it had no chance of happening, as the Jets were on pace for the No. 1 pick and the right to draft Trevor Lawrence…but after two straight wins in Weeks 15 and 16, the Jets locked themselves into the No. 2 pick, meaning Lawrence is probably headed to Jacksonville and Gang Green has a choice to make: pick the next-best QB, or do something else.
Gase said earlier this year that his biggest failing as Jets coach was failing to develop Darnold, and, well, some pundits seem to be coming around to the thought of a fourth year for Sam.
“I talked to a lot of people who know (Justin Fields) well, and their inclination was that once you’re out of the Trevor Lawrence game, there’s a big drop off,” NFL insider Jason La Canfora told Zach Gelb on WFAN over the weekend. “A lot of people saw Justin Fields for the first time this week, and it was amazing, but he does not have a 40-game sample like Lawrence. That was an awesome game, but I can show you a few that are less than awesome.”
Fields and BYU’s Zach Wilson are considered the next two QBs in the potential draft class, and per La Canfora, “a lot of scouts think they’re equal.”
So would it behoove Jets GM Joe Douglas to see what he has in Darnold in a new offense with maybe some better weapons, and do something else with the pick?
“You’re throwing darts here; it’s an inexact science, and maybe Joe Douglas was blown away by that game,” La Canfora told Gelb, “but I think that as we go through this process, they have Darnold here, and they have a lot of holes to fill, and we’ve seen teams willing to trade ones and twos and going off the chart to do what they have to do to get a particular player.”
According to La Canfora, Cincinnati was turning down offers “that would make your eyes bleed” from teams looking to move up to No. 1 and draft Joe Burrow last year. Neither Wilson nor Fields is Burrow in his eyes, but with some teams possibly enamored with either QB, is it worth moving down to pick up more draft capital and/or league-ready players, while still filling a need in the first round?
“Maybe there’s so much value in this pick that you auction it off, try another year with Sam, try to rebuild that offensive line – not with Scotch tape, really invest in it – and sort out your skill position group to give him more of a fighting chance to see what you have there,” La Canfora said.
Mekhi Becton, the mammoth left tackle the Jets got at No. 11 overall, is in on that notion.
"That's my quarterback, I would love to see (Darnold) leading the offense next year," Becton said in his season post-mortem Monday.
A lot of that hinges on whom the Jets hire to replace Gase, but one thing is clear: if you can take owner Christopher Johnson’s words at face value, the culture is going to change because it has to, and mission number one is ending what is now a league-high decade-long playoff drought.
“I am sick of losing. I am so tired of this, as are the players and the fans,” Johnson said in his Monday press meeting. “But, I think for a lot of the reasons I laid out about our bright future, I really think Joe is the GM we’ve been searching for for years. I have a lot of faith in him, and if we can get this coaching hire right – and I think we will – I think we can be a team that no one is going to want to see on their schedule next year, and we’ll see where we can go with that. I see a very bright future for this team.”
Follow Lou DiPietro on Twitter: @LouDiPietroWFAN
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