{"id":721595,"date":"2026-02-01T14:40:18","date_gmt":"2026-02-01T14:40:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/721595\/"},"modified":"2026-02-01T14:40:18","modified_gmt":"2026-02-01T14:40:18","slug":"what-went-wrong-with-sam-darnold-and-the-jets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/721595\/","title":{"rendered":"What went wrong with Sam Darnold and the Jets?"},"content":{"rendered":"

For five decades, the Jets<\/a> have searched \u2014 and searched and searched \u2014 for a franchise quarterback capable of leading a team to the Super Bowl.<\/p>\n

It turns out they had one in Sam Darnold<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Of course, not many believed Darnold could be that guy when the Jets traded him away five years ago.<\/p>\n

And the Jets never provided Darnold with anything close to the star-powered supporting cast he has with the Seattle Seahawks, who are set to face the New England Patriots in Super Bowl LX<\/a> in Santa Clara, Calif., on Feb. 8.<\/p>\n

But Darnold\u2019s incredible comeback story begs this question: What went wrong during his time with the Jets?<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was a lot that I didn\u2019t know back then, so I\u2019m just going to continue to learn and grow in this great game,\u201d a reflective Darnold, 28, said after passing for 346 yards and three touchdowns in last Sunday\u2019s NFC Championship Game victory over the Los Angeles Rams.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re always looking to get better. I\u2019m always looking to get better. That\u2019s the great part about this game is you win an NFC championship and you win games throughout the season, but there\u2019s always ways that you can look to get better.\u201d<\/p>\n

The square-jawed Darnold was squarely on the radar of Jets fans all the way back in 2017, when a large contingent advocated for the team to tank \u2014 or \u201cSuck for Sam\u201d \u2014 for a chance to draft the much-hyped quarterback out of USC.<\/p>\n

And while the Jets weren\u2019t bad enough that season to land the top overall pick \u2014 they finished 5-11 \u2014 general manager Mike Maccagnan managed to move up to No. 3 in the 2018 draft by sending the No. 6 pick and three second-rounders to the Indianapolis Colts.<\/p>\n

When that trade went down in mid-March, most expected the Cleveland Browns to select Darnold at No. 1 in a loaded draft also featuring Josh Allen, Lamar Jackson and Baker Mayfield.<\/p>\n

But when the Browns drafted Mayfield and the Giants took running back Saquon Barkley at No. 2, Darnold fell in the Jets\u2019 laps.<\/p>\n

The expectations were immediate and immense, with Jets fans hailing Darnold the long-awaited savior that had eluded the franchise since Joe Namath was waived after the 1976 season.<\/p>\n

Darnold\u2019s Jets career got off to an inauspicious start when he threw a pick-six on his very first pass attempt, but he rebounded with two touchdowns to help rout the Detroit Lions, 48-17, in the 2018 season opener.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou know what you\u2019re getting out of that guy,\u201d head coach Todd Bowles said of Darnold afterward<\/a>. \u201cYou trust that type of person when you\u2019re the same guy every day. That\u2019s really been the most impressive thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Darnold endured more growing pains during his rookie season but also showed flashes of excellence, including throwing three touchdown passes in a duel with Aaron Rodgers during an overtime loss to the Green Bay Packers.<\/p>\n

In 13 starts in 2018, Darnold went 4-9 with 17 touchdown passes against 15 interceptions.<\/p>\n

But the Jets\u2019 4-12 finish marked their third consecutive losing season, prompting owner Woody Johnson to fire Bowles.<\/p>\n

The Jets hired Adam Gase \u2014 known then as a quarterback guru who received a recommendation from Peyton Manning \u2014 in January 2019 to replace Bowles.<\/p>\n

But a power struggle<\/a> developed between Gase and Maccagnan, and the Jets fired Maccagnan that May, after he had already led them through free agency (including signing Le\u2019Veon Bell) and the draft. The Jets replaced Maccagnan with Joe Douglas, who previously worked with Gase in Chicago.<\/p>\n

Despite the offseason drama, optimism remained high for how Darnold would develop under Gase.<\/p>\n

But their initial season together was interrupted when Darnold caught mononucleosis, causing him to miss Weeks 2 through 5.<\/p>\n

Darnold struggled to regain momentum once he returned. His second game back was a 33-0 drubbing by the Patriots on \u201cMonday Night Football,\u201d during which a mic\u2019d-up Darnold infamously declared he was \u201cseeing ghosts\u201d during a four-interception performance.<\/p>\n

For the second season in a row, Darnold demonstrated a propensity for highs and lows. He finished with 19 touchdown passes against 13 interceptions. The Jets went 7-6 in games started by Darnold, but after a 1-7 start, they finished 7-9 overall in 2019.<\/p>\n

More alarmingly, the Jets finished last in total offense (273.0 yards per game) despite Gase\u2019s expertise in that area.<\/p>\n

Everything went off the rails in 2020. The Jets\u2019 offense remained a mess, again finishing last in yardage (279.9 yards per game) and this time in scoring (15.2 points per game), too.<\/p>\n

A discontent and underperforming Bell was released that October, just 17 games into the four-year, $52.5 million contract he signed with Maccagnan.<\/p>\n

Darnold regressed in his third year, throwing for nine touchdowns and 11 interceptions in 12 starts.<\/p>\n

\u201cI came here to help him, help him develop his career, and we haven\u2019t been able to do that,\u201d Gase said late in that 2020 season<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need to do things well around him, but at the same time, it\u2019s on me to get him to play better than what he\u2019s played. I haven\u2019t done a good enough job.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Jets started 0-13, then won back-to-back games under Darnold in Weeks 15 and 16, costing them the No. 1 pick \u2014 and a chance to draft Trevor Lawrence \u2014 and dropping them to No. 2.<\/p>\n

Johnson fired Gase after finishing 2-14 and hired Robert Saleh to replace him.<\/p>\n

Despite that disastrous season, debates raged about whether the Jets should stick with Darnold or draft BYU quarterback Zach Wilson with the No. 2 pick.<\/p>\n

Darnold was 13-25 with 45 touchdown passes against 39 interceptions through three seasons, though he had never started alongside even one Pro Bowl player.<\/p>\n

The Jets\u2019 leading rushers over those three seasons were Isaiah Crowell (2018), Bell (2019) and a 37-year-old Frank Gore (2020), none of whom eclipsed 800 yards.<\/p>\n

Their leading receivers were Robbie Anderson (2018) and Jamison Crowder (2019 and 2020), with the best of those seasons being Crowder\u2019s 833-yard output in 2019.<\/p>\n

Had they kept Darnold, the Jets could have drafted all-world LSU receiver Ja\u2019Marr Chase at No. 2.<\/p>\n

In that same draft, the San Francisco 49ers traded three first-round picks to move up and select quarterback Trey Lance at No. 3.<\/p>\n

But the Jets decided to stake their future to Wilson, a polarizing prospect with obvious arm talent who had dominated a soft collegiate schedule that was weakened by COVID-related cancellations.<\/p>\n

A few weeks before the 2021 draft, the Jets traded Darnold to the Carolina Panthers for three picks, including a 2022 second-rounder.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s safe to say, if our pick were a little later, we wouldn\u2019t be having this discussion right now. We\u2019d fully be comfortable moving forward with Sam,\u201d Douglas said at the time<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis was an opportunity to hit the reset button financially.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"SEATTLE,Sam Darnold and the Seahawks are Super Bowl-bound. (Photo by Ronald Martinez\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n

The Jets are not the only team to give up on Darnold. The Panthers did not re-sign Darnold after he went 8-9 with 16 touchdowns and 16 interceptions in two seasons from 2021-22, opting instead to trade up and draft Bryce Young with the No. 1 pick in 2023.<\/p>\n

Darnold then signed with the 49ers and, after beating out Lance for the No. 2 job, spent the 2023 season as Brock Purdy\u2019s backup while learning in head coach Kyle Shanahan\u2019s quarterback-friendly system.<\/p>\n

From there, Darnold signed a one-year, $10 million contract with the Minnesota Vikings, who used a first-round pick on J.J. McCarthy less than two months later. But McCarthy suffered a preseason knee injury, costing him his rookie year and clearing the starting job for Darnold.<\/p>\n

Darnold flourished under head coach Kevin O\u2019Connell, throwing for a career-high 35 touchdown passes and leading Minnesota to a 14-3 record. But Darnold struggled in the Vikings\u2019 final two games, including a 27-9 drubbing by the Rams in his playoff debut.<\/p>\n

The Vikings moved forward with McCarthy last offseason, then missed the playoffs at 9-8 as McCarthy struggled \u2014 inviting second-guessing about their decision to not re-sign Darnold.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are those nights you wake up and stare at the ceiling and ask yourself,\u201d Kwesi Adofo-Mensah admitted Thursday, a day before he was fired as the Vikings\u2019 general manager.<\/p>\n

\u201cI always go back to the process and what we thought at the time. It\u2019s easier to go and be revisionist and results-based, but going to think through what we had at the time, I still understand why we did what we did.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Vikings\u2019 loss was the gain of the Seahawks, who signed Darnold to a three-year, $100.5 million contract last spring.<\/p>\n

Darnold (4,048 yards, 25 touchdowns) proved to be the missing piece on an offense headlined by star receiver Jaxon Smith-Njigba, running back Kenneth Walker III and the veteran Cooper Kupp, complementing a defense that was the NFL\u2019s stingiest in 2025.<\/p>\n

Seattle went 14-3, earned the top seed in the NFC and, now, is one win away from a Super Bowl championship.<\/p>\n

The exact thing the Jets have been chasing since 1969.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe shut a lot of people up tonight,\u201d Seahawks head coach Mike Macdonald said of Darnold after the NFC Championship Game. \u201cI\u2019m really happy for him.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For five decades, the Jets have searched \u2014 and searched and searched \u2014 for a franchise quarterback capable…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":721596,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2051],"tags":[18488,7,226,1917,255,2321,2097,6,208,1878,238,505,1733],"class_list":{"0":"post-721595","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-jets","8":"tag-adam-gase","9":"tag-football","10":"tag-jets","11":"tag-new-york","12":"tag-new-york-jets","13":"tag-newyork","14":"tag-newyorkjets","15":"tag-nfl","16":"tag-patriots","17":"tag-sam-darnold","18":"tag-seahawks","19":"tag-super-bowl","20":"tag-zach-wilson"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115995898185561101","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/721595","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=721595"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/721595\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/721596"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=721595"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=721595"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=721595"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}