The Sam Darnold experiment is over in East Rutherford, with the Jets trading their former third overall pick to the Panthers for a trio of draft picks on Monday.
Many believed the return was a fitting one for a quarterback who has struggled in all three of his seasons at the NFL level, especially with New York lined up to draft its next hopeful franchise star in Zach Wilson, but Audacy NFL insider Michael Lombardi isn’t sure if he would have moved on from Darnold so quickly.
“I don’t know if I would have done that,” Lombardi told Moose & Maggie on Wednesday. “I don’t know enough about Zach Wilson’s leadership skills, he was never the team captain, I’d really have to dig into some of that. I think it’s challenging when your quarterback isn’t the alpha male on the team…I would need to know more.”
The Jets had head coach Robert Saleh and general manager Joe Douglas in attendance for Wilson’s Pro Day, and recent reports suggest that teams believe New York is locked in to take Wilson in the upcoming draft, suggesting that the team is sold on the BYU product’s talent and leadership qualities. Jets fans will never know what Darnold could have done with a stronger team around him, but Lombardi would have liked to see the franchise give Darnold more weapons before deciding it was time to move on.
“I know Sam, I scouted Sam coming out, and I think he has a lot to offer,” Lombardi said. “Do I think he’s careless with the football? I do. But had I been in that job, I think I would have tried to find a way…to increase the talent level around the quarterback…it’s not always the quarterback…we always blame the quarterback, when it takes a good team.”
The Jets certainly didn’t qualify as a good team with Darnold, winning just two games last season and compiling a record of 13-35 since drafting Darnold out of USC. The team was among the five worst teams in yardage differential all three years of Darnold’s tenure, which Lombardi believed didn’t help the team’s ability to properly evaluate his future value.
“If you keep Sam Darnold, you have to believe you can improve his play,” Lombardi said. “Darnold, when you break him down, rarely played in front. Made a lot of mistakes with the football, careless. But often times he was down, he was never in front of those games. He played from behind so often. When you examine his numbers when he played in front, he had a 94.4 quarterback rating, he averaged over 7.5 yards per attempt. Of his interceptions most of them occurred when he was behind.”
Monday’s trade would indicate that Douglas felt a change was best for both parties, and Darnold’s improvement with better personnel wasn’t a guarantee.
“What Douglas was saying is that even if we play from in front, Darnold is not good enough,” Lombardi said. “I liked Sam Darnold coming out of the draft, I don’t love what he did with the Jets but I don’t think it was all on him. But I think [Douglas] walks into Zach Wilson with a better hope that Wilson can do those things better than Darnold, playing from behind and then making some of the good decisions with the football.”
Listen to Lombardi’s full interview with Moose & Maggie below!
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