Sam Darnold should be the Jets quarterback of the future... for now

 Whatever happened to try to win with the players you have right now?

Not all the Jet players on the roster will be here for what the Gang Green faithful hope is the next team that a run at contending, but some of them should be. One of those players is Sam Darnold. Darnold has never gotten a true shake at being the Jets franchise guy. Darnold had a cup of coffee as the Jets guy behind center, even though he’s been “their guy” since he was drafted third overall in 2018. His first year he had no offensive line and created plays out of his rear end and tried to win, in his second and third seasons he had the offensive genus Adam Gase. With that he had no weapons while trying to navigate Gase’s miserable offense.

This offseason instead of trying to replace Darnold in the draft or trying to trade for Watson—giving Watson or the new guy the same situation that Darnold is in, try to put actual talent around Darnold so he could succeed. Plus, if you trade for Watson, the situation he will inherit will be worse than this team Darnold has.

The reason for that is because if you get Watson you will give up multiple picks that the Jets front office can use to take the team better. If you pick one of the quarterbacks early in the draft, congrats, that won’t make the team better either, because YOU STILL DON’T HAVE WEAPONS FOR YOUR SHINY NEW TOY!

Going with Darnold will give you the best chance to put a winning team on the field sooner. Darnold is an average NFL quarterback right now, and if you put comparable players around him he’ll be a good quarterback, who could win a playoff game. The comparison to Ryan Tannehill stops at them both having Gase as a head coach. But, what Darnold could become is what Tennessee has gotten from Tannehill. A quarterback that can play well enough to get you to the playoffs and give a chance to win a Super Bowl.

Using this offseason to get weapons and offensive line help to help Darnold regain his confidence will put the organization in a better position to win than knocking down the scaffolding of the previous rebuild just to redraw the blueprints. The defense does need help as well, but the offense is more of an issue. The defense can be worked on when the offense is a unit that can consistently put up 28-35 points on a regular basis because you need to score points in this league to win games. Defense does win championships, but offenses get you to the doorstep. The defense has more holes to fix than the offense. The offense needs some weapons that play into Darnold’s strengths. Darnold in his rookie year excelled when he through the medium and deep balls. Having a weapon like Robby Anderson was a safety net Darnold used when he needed a big play. Getting a vertical threat that can take the top of a defense works for majority of NFL offenses, and having Darnold under center is not an exception. In order for Darnold to throw the deep ball, he needs TIME to do it, how do you get that time? Using a premium draft pick to get a brick wall in the draft to buy that time. If you need a lesson as to why having a good offensive line is important—look at the last Superbowl.

If Patrick Mahomes had a halfway decent offense line, the game is completely different, and maybe some of the big plays that Kansas City built its offense around come through—making it more difficult for Tom Brady to get his seventh ring. If the best player in the NFL needs an offensive line, so does Sam Darnold to truly determine how good of a signal caller he is. Until that happens, the Jets will continue to be the worst construction crew in the country.

 

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