Why do you think Sam Darnold hasn’t been good in the NFL

[Maxman]

22 hours ago, GreenFish said:

I don't know.  But I’ve never seen a guy get so many chances. He’s about to get more people fired. Joe Brady was a genius until he had to coach Sam Darnold. Now he’s working at Red Lobster getting paid in biscuits.

Some guys have all the luck.

[Dcat]

8 hours ago, CanadienJetsFan said:

Wow.

quite the accurate analysis.

Zach’s got good feet by the way!

But are they Rex Ryan approved?

[Grandy]

On 1/20/2022 at 1:16 AM, win4ever said:

 

1.  The media will always hype up prospects.  There is no downside.  They get views and views with various angles, and if the player sucks, it gets mostly blamed on the coaching staff.  Darnold got hyped after the PSU Rose Bowl game, as tank worthy stud:

That's the pass tape from the TV angle, and you can still clearly see the issue with him.  He doesn't set his feet well, and he's just not a good progression read.  I can't break down the whole film, and I don't have the All-22, so I'll do one example from above video:

 

I actually watched this entire thing and it's pretty enlightening.

It was his signature game and a very good one, but it's still marred by a lot of misfires and just downright atrocious mechanics. He was and still is very raw. 

[NYJets43]

4 minutes ago, Grandy said:

I actually watched this entire thing and it's pretty enlightening.

It was his signature game and a very good one, but it's still marred by a lot of misfires and just downright atrocious mechanics. He was and still is very raw. 

He was 19 years old. Of course he was raw. 
 

Sam was never supposed to play that season. Max Browne was the 5 star guy who was supposed to take over. He just ended up being a huge bust. It would have been interesting to see how Darnolds career would have panned out had he sat a year or two in college to refine his mechanics. 

[Grandy]

34 minutes ago, NYJets43 said:

He was 19 years old. Of course he was raw. 
 

Sam was never supposed to play that season. Max Browne was the 5 star guy who was supposed to take over. He just ended up being a huge bust. It would have been interesting to see how Darnolds career would have panned out had he sat a year or two in college to refine his mechanics. 

There are many 19 year old with better mechanics, plain and simple.

Though I do wonder about if he wasn't thrust into the starting position when he was. I actually think it very easily could've gone worse because his sudden insertion as a starter and meteoric rise that year wouldn't have happened. He has also not shown that he could refine mechanics to a suitable level. Who knows.

 

[neckdemon]

i think that maybe he hasn't been good in the nfl because he sucks balls

[NYJets43]

4 hours ago, Grandy said:

There are many 19 year old with better mechanics, plain and simple.

Though I do wonder about if he wasn't thrust into the starting position when he was. I actually think it very easily could've gone worse because his sudden insertion as a starter and meteoric rise that year wouldn't have happened. He has also not shown that he could refine mechanics to a suitable level. Who knows.

 

It’s hard to say. USC entered some dark times after that Rose Bowl year. 
 

He certainly had the best supporting cast he’s work with as a freshman in college with JSS. 

[CanadaSteve]

18 hours ago, Jetsfan80 said:

Did Oregon play a Pro-Style offense when Herbert was there?  Because if so, I'd say he qualifies.  His top receivers at Oregon in 2019 were Johnny Johnson III (projects to be a Kenny Stills type of receiver in the pros), Jaylon Redd (5-9 slot receiver) and Juwan Johnson (2020 UDFA).  

In 2017 & 2018, his top receiver was future 7th round pick Dillon Mitchell.

Not sure...I don't follow college ball enough to know, but he is a great example.  Kid played well without having three of the best WR's in all of college playing for him simultaneously.  He also completed 66 percent of his passes the final year with a TD/INT ratio of 32/6.

[win4ever]

11 hours ago, Grandy said:

I actually watched this entire thing and it's pretty enlightening.

It was his signature game and a very good one, but it's still marred by a lot of misfires and just downright atrocious mechanics. He was and still is very raw. 

Yeah, he really got hyped because the game was an instant classic, so the performances were overrated.  

He still shows the bad feet, delayed passes, mixed with bad reads.  The hope was that he was going to progress from there, but I don't think he ever did that.  I think the draft version of him was pretty much the same as the PSU game version of him.  That lack of progression worries me about his possible improvements in the NFL as well, because those issues still exist.  It's like he can't seem to get rid of them and rework himself.  

[Rhg1084]

 

[Jetsfan80]

14 hours ago, NYJets43 said:

He was 19 years old. Of course he was raw. 
 

Sam was never supposed to play that season. Max Browne was the 5 star guy who was supposed to take over. He just ended up being a huge bust. It would have been interesting to see how Darnolds career would have panned out had he sat a year or two in college to refine his mechanics. 

Sitting out a year or 2 wouldn't have fixed his slow-processing brain.  

And if a QB is so raw that he needs to sit for "a year or 2", then you don't draft him at # 3 overall in the first place.  That's a guy you take in the 2nd round, at earliest.

[Maxman]

4 hours ago, Jetsfan80 said:

Sitting out a year or 2 wouldn't have fixed his slow-processing brain.  

And if a QB is so raw that he needs to sit for "a year or 2", then you don't draft him at # 3 overall in the first place.  That's a guy you take in the 2nd round, at earliest.

That is actually a problem for a lot of teams, and it is the 4 year deal \ 5th year option that causes it.  In theory if you could take a QB at # 3 and have him sit for 2 years and play like Mahomes or Aaron R, it would be a no brainer to do it. Both of those guys sat. 

But if you sit him two years you have to make a decision on him so soon. So I agree you can't do that at # 3 overall anymore. But I am pretty certain it is impacting the miss rate of these top picks.

[jago]

he never had the kevorka.

[win4ever]

1 hour ago, Maxman said:

That is actually a problem for a lot of teams, and it is the 4 year deal \ 5th year option that causes it.  In theory if you could take a QB at # 3 and have him sit for 2 years and play like Mahomes or Aaron R, it would be a no brainer to do it. Both of those guys sat. 

But if you sit him two years you have to make a decision on him so soon. So I agree you can't do that at # 3 overall anymore. But I am pretty certain it is impacting the miss rate of these top picks.

I think that's why the Packers drafting Love was a smart move (it backfired because of diva Rodgers) because my pre-draft scouting on Wilson was essentially Jordan Love with a little better accuracy.  There are guys that just need to sit and reset their college offenses.  I think the 49ers are smart to do it with Lance, basically sitting out the year as well.  

Even Lawrence, they would have been better off if they started Minshew and let him acclimate to the NFL.  I don't think any of these QBs lately have been good enough to be studs from day 1 unless they got elite level talent around them.  Everyone points to Herbert, but he had essentially 2 pro-bowl receivers, great running game, and a pro-bowl caliber TE around him, even with a bad line.  

[Jetsfan80]

2 hours ago, Maxman said:

That is actually a problem for a lot of teams, and it is the 4 year deal \ 5th year option that causes it.  In theory if you could take a QB at # 3 and have him sit for 2 years and play like Mahomes or Aaron R, it would be a no brainer to do it. Both of those guys sat. 

But if you sit him two years you have to make a decision on him so soon. So I agree you can't do that at # 3 overall anymore. But I am pretty certain it is impacting the miss rate of these top picks.

Partially agree.  I just don’t think sitting and watching is really linked that strongly with success, even for “raw” prospects.

If you evaluate a QB and think he’s raw enough where he has to sit a year, you don’t take him high UNLESS he’s blessed with elite athletic gifts (which Darnold wasn’t).

When the Jets took Darnold that high, and had him as their # 1 QB, they showed no intentions of sitting Darnold, as evidenced by a lack of competition at QB.  So that speaks to an evaluation issue on Darnold.  They should have recognized far earlier how raw he was and avoided him in the draft.

[Maxman]

4 minutes ago, Jetsfan80 said:

Partially agree.  I just don’t think sitting and watching is really linked that strongly with success, even for “raw” prospects.

If you evaluate a QB and think he’s raw enough where he has to sit a year, you don’t take him high UNLESS he’s blessed with elite athletic gifts (which Darnold wasn’t).

When the Jets took Darnold that high, and had him as their # 1 QB, they showed no intentions of sitting Darnold, as evidenced by a lack of competition at QB.  So that speaks to an evaluation issue on Darnold.  They should have recognized far earlier how raw he was and avoided him in the draft.

I was going to say that Darnold should be excluded from this discussion. If he sat, if he didn't have Gase involved, and if he turned out to be good (that is a big if), he still wasn't going to be great. So there is no way he lives up to the selection.

Aaron is older so he kind of was drafted in another era.  You really have Mahomes and now the kid in San Fran as the guys who are sitting, oh and Jordan Love.  Mahomes is kind of an anomaly I guess. He was going to be great either way.

[Jetsfan80]

5 minutes ago, Maxman said:

I was going to say that Darnold should be excluded from this discussion. If he sat, if he didn't have Gase involved, and if he turned out to be good (that is a big if), he still wasn't going to be great. So there is no way he lives up to the selection.

Aaron is older so he kind of was drafted in another era.  You really have Mahomes and now the kid in San Fran as the guys who are sitting, oh and Jordan Love.  Mahomes is kind of an anomaly I guess. He was going to be great either way.

Theres just no way to prove either way whether sitting helps.  Until you get into real game action and see whether a QB has the mental capability to handle the speed of the pro game, you don’t really know what you have.  

There are aspects of the ability to “slow the game down” that can be developed.  But the QB has to have the DNA to make it possible.  A select few QBs have supercomputer brains.  But Many are like  Darnold and have “slow brain disease” that can’t be fixed.  The game will never really slow down for those types.

[NYJets43]

7 hours ago, Maxman said:

That is actually a problem for a lot of teams, and it is the 4 year deal \ 5th year option that causes it.  In theory if you could take a QB at # 3 and have him sit for 2 years and play like Mahomes or Aaron R, it would be a no brainer to do it. Both of those guys sat. 

But if you sit him two years you have to make a decision on him so soon. So I agree you can't do that at # 3 overall anymore. But I am pretty certain it is impacting the miss rate of these top picks.

QB is a very difficult position to scout in general. There are just so many variables to look that you aren’t comparing apples to apples. 

1) Level of competition (Lance and Wilson)

2) Surrounding talent (Jones, Fields, and Lawrence playing with semi-pro teams their entire career)

3) College offenses making reading defenses easy 

4) Mental makeup (how they handle adversity) 

It makes sense why the bust rate is so high on these guys. In college the best QBs can run around and hold the ball forever until someone gets open. That stuff rarely works in the NFL. Those crazy throws from broken plays that Darnold and Wilson used to make every game in college happen a lot less frequently in the NFL. 

Even if you look at high school recruiting the bust rate is pretty high at QB. Most of the 5 star guys don’t turn into Justin Fields, Trevor Lawrence, and Bryce Young.