With the Jets reporting to training camp on Wednesday, quarterback Sam Darnold was the club's designated offensive "veteran" to speak to the media.
Darnold said his expectation for his second NFL season was "a lot of wins," a seemingly minimalist goal that in actuality hasn't been reached by this franchise in nine years.
That was during the very short-lived era of quarterback Mark Sanchez, who announced his retirement from pro football on Tuesday. He'll be heading to ESPN to serve as a studio analyst on college game days.
Don't bother to look for Sanchez's No. 6 along the Ring of Honor at MetLife Stadium, though. Despite taking Gang Green to consecutive AFC Championship Games in his first two pro seasons, Sanchez did not blossom like a flower in the eyes of most fans. No, he was treated more like a fungus, with an irritating penchant for turnovers that culminated with the infamous "Butt Fumble" against the Patriots on Thanksgiving night 2012, his last season as the Jets' starter.
Even before the Sanchez retirement news broke, I've been guilty of being way too preoccupied with the parallels between him and Darnold. They're both athletic California kids who attended USC. They both left after their junior seasons after each played 27 college games. In the 2009 NFL Draft, the Jets traded up to the fifth slot to select Sanchez. Nine years later, they moved up to three in order to secure Darnold.
In their respective rookie campaigns, both were at the low end of ProFootballFocus.com's grading curve. Sanchez was ranked 30 out of 32 NFL quarterbacks with at least 250 dropbacks. Darnold placed 27 among 33 qualifiers. Sanchez's 54% completion percentage in 2009 was the league's fourth-worst; Darnold's 57.7% was the third-worst efficiency last season. And if Darnold didn't sit out three games with a foot injury, his 15 interceptions could have easily come closer to approaching the ghastly 20 picks Sanchez tossed as a rookie. In any event, both totals were the second-most thrown by a quarterback in those seasons.
To be fair, Sanchez redshirted as a freshman, meaning he turned pro at 22, Darnold's age today. Also, Sanchez started just 16 of those 27 college games. Darnold made 24 starts for USC and recorded 360 more passing attempts and about 3,200 more yards. At the same stage of their respective careers, Darnold is a much more polished passer with a better arm than Sanchez.
Still, Jets fans tend to forget the promise of Sanchez's early days. He was "The Sanchize." Sure, he made plenty of mistakes even while the team was winning, but almost every young QB does, including Darnold. Sanchez may have been more of a game manager but, especially in season two, he made enough winning plays to get his more advanced supporting cast on the cusp of that elusive second Super Bowl berth. In six playoff games, all on the road, he threw for nine touchdowns versus just three interceptions. Considering this team's history, he was on his way to becoming a legend.
Of course, it didn't work out that way. Sanchez's development first stalled, then severely regressed. After winning 27 of his first 47 games as a starter, plus four of six in the playoffs, he went 10-16 with a 31-to-38 touchdown-to-interception ratio the rest of his career.
The Jets as a team may not reach the same level of achievement in Darnold's formative years as those Sanchez-led clubs, but there are several reasons to believe that Darnold's stock price will have a further-reaching and longer-lasting upward trend.
The main one is intangible. Darnold already has a better feel for the game than Sanchez ever had. I wrote often in those days that Sanchez's troubles were typically the result of processing deficiencies. My memories of him are filled with his mind-boggling decisions that made me wonder, "What the heck was he looking at on that play?"
On the other hand, NFL experts like ESPN's Dan Orlovsky marveled at Darnold's ability to quickly process changing information before and after the snap as a rookie. Darnold's 5.1% of turnover-worthy passing attempts may have been the league's third-worst, according to footballoutsiders.com, but I felt the stat didn't tell the whole story. To get a better sense, I went back to look at clips of all 15 picks.
Some interceptions were clearly on Darnold. I counted two bad throws to open receivers and three misreads where he was bitten because he didn't see the underneath coverage. On three occasions, he forced passes into coverage while under pressure when he probably should have opted to just throw the ball away.
The others? On Darnold's first professional snap, the Jets dialed up a trick play that required Darnold to throw the ball across the field. A pick-six welcome to the NFL moment, courtesy of overmatched former offensive coordinator Jeremy Bates. Three others were on what I deemed desperation throws—late-game, fourth-and-long, etc. No one should have blamed Darnold for getting those balls downfield. Two were his receivers' faults—Charone Peake had a ball in his hands pop out and land in a defender's lap and Terrelle Pryor gave up on a route in the end zone, failing to fight the cornerback cutting in front of him. The last one was simply bad luck—a short pass got batted up in the air by a pass rusher and came down in the wrong hands.
So, the final tally showed eight correctable cases. Is it unreasonable to believe he can cut those and the nine dropped picks under the direction of new coach Adam Gase, who was hired to take a more hands-on approach to Darnold than prior coach Todd Bowles?
Sanchez's entire Jets career was under the reign of similarly defensive-focused head coach Rex Ryan. It didn't do him any favors. Not that I blame poor tutelage as the entire reason for Sanchez's failure to progress. He clearly had other issues.
For these reasons, despite so many parallels, I like the odds for Darnold to write a different tale than Sanchez.
For a FAN's perspective of the Nets, Devils and Jets, follow Steve on Twitter @SteveLichtenst1.
