Ordinarily, an NFL team’s announcement that their starting quarterback will be out for an upcoming game would send the Las Vegas lines spinning.
So what does it tell you when the spread for the Jets’ home tilt versus Arizona on Sunday ticked, at most, a half-point after Adam Gase disclosed on Wednesday that Sam Darnold’s shoulder injury would require backup Joe Flacco to start?
Actually, it’s a stunning indictment of Darnold, whose regression has gotten to the point where the Jets organization should be looking at other quarterback options in the coming offseason.
That is why the theory floated by the media, the one saying the 0-4 Jets shouldn’t fire Gase right now because of the harm it would do to Darnold’s development, never made sense. I see the opposite – if you really think Darnold is salvageable, why not get him far away from the coaches who seem clueless as to how to best maximize his talents?
No matter how you feel about Gase, though, it’s clearly a fallacy to blame Darnold’s failings this season solely on his surroundings. Contrary to popular belief, Darnold has had plenty of dropbacks where the offensive line gave him the requisite time to get balls out to receivers who broke free only, to have those passes go awry – if thrown at all.
Against Denver, Darnold’s inability to process the action in front of him literally hurt him, as wide receiver Lawrence Cager was open across the middle on the play Darnold held the ball too long before getting body-slammed to the turf by Denver linebacker Alexander Johnson. Such plays have become more common from Darnold, while his heroic exploits, like his 46-yard touchdown scamper, have been far less frequent.
Darnold is not the classic, straight-drop quarterback type Gase has had some success with in the past, but Flacco is. Darnold needs to be on the move, maybe with a little advanced trickery like motion or play action, but he has looked lost – though not necessarily ‘seeing ghosts’ like last season against New England – when he has been tasked with surveying the field to go through progressions beyond his first read.
The trick with Flacco, though, is to balance the 35-year-old veteran’s superior processing ability against his relative immobility, so that he doesn’t end up like Trevor Siemian, who broke his ankle before halftime in a Week 2 start last season after Darnold was felled by mononucleosis.
After a rough half-season in Denver where he took 26 sacks in eight games, Flacco required offseason neck surgery that rendered him inactive for the first three weeks of this season. On Sunday, he will again be in grave danger every time he drops back behind an offensive line that might not include impressive rookie tackle Mekhi Becton.
Then again, there’s a high probability that Flacco is more likely to execute the offense with better precision than Darnold has, so it’s anyone’s guess as to what will happen. Will he truly use this opportunity to showcase himself as a legitimate NFL starter, as he stated in Wednesday’s post-practice media session, or he will morph into Eddie Martel, the fictional QB in the film “The Replacements” who immediately chucked passes out of bounds out of fear of getting walloped behind a porous offensive line?
The Jets’ 0-6 record in the games Darnold has missed in his first two seasons inflate his value, as they literally can’t win without him. Flacco at least knows how to win games, with a 108-78 career record as an NFL starter and a Super Bowl ring to boot, one he won in Baltimore alongside then-budding executive and current Jets general manager Joe Douglas.
While I don’t see the Jets defense evolving into a competent enough unit to hold the Cardinals and speedy quarterback Kyler Murray in check long enough to earn their first of the season on Sunday, I am curious to see if Flacco can jump-start Gang Green’s offense in a way Darnold hasn’t.
For a FAN’s perspective of the Nets, Devils and Jets, follow Steve Lichtenstein on Twitter: @SteveLichtenst1
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