Darnold's numbers so far
Overall, Darnold was a below-average quarterback last season. When you take a look at the 26 quarterbacks who threw at least 400 passes, he ranked 21st or worse in QBR (22nd), passer rating (21st), adjusted net yards per attempt (21st) and off-target percentage (21st). The guys below him in those categories were either struggling young quarterbacks such as Mayfield, Gardner Minshew and Daniel Jones and/or passers who lost their jobs such as Andy Dalton, Mitchell Trubisky and Kyle Allen.
Of course, we have to ask all kinds of questions about the context under which Darnold played. Let's start with the second-half split I mentioned. You can make a reasonable case that we should just throw his first half out of the window, since he didn't look like his usual self in a heartbreaking Week 1 loss to the Bills. It seems likely that he was already struggling with mono, which then cost him the next four games. After he came back, Darnold lost a toenail in a brutal 33-0 loss to the Patriots and then sprained his thumb the following week in a loss at the Jags. Once he was (relatively) healthier and presumably fully recovered from the mono in the second half, his numbers leaped forward.
I would find some middle ground here. It's fair to discount Darnold's performances from earlier in the season when evaluating his future, in part because we don't have any sort of meaningful sample of how professional quarterbacks decline when they deal with mono. (To be clear, I hope this doesn't change.)
There is also a danger in picking and choosing the starts that "matter" in evaluating Darnold's future and blindly selecting the good ones as proof that he'll turn into the guy the Jets want. His first start after returning from mono was the win over the Cowboys, when he posted a 113.8 passer rating in a nearly perfect performance. And when the schedule did get tougher for a healthier Darnold over the final three weeks of 2019, he posted a middling passer rating of 84.5 in games against the Ravens, Steelers and what amounted to the Bills' defensive backups in a meaningless Week 17 victory. There's not as clear of a story as we would like when it comes to the mono impacting him or the Jets quarterback growing in the second half.
Darnold's injuries through two years are concerning. The mono was a freak incident, but in addition to the toe and thumb ailments he played through, he missed three games in 2018 with a foot injury. Those injuries could end up fading quickly into his past, like they did for Matthew Stafford, who missed 19 games across his first two seasons and then didn't miss another one for the next 8½ years. The injuries also could continue to be a problem in keeping Darnold from growing further.
Of course, the best way for the Jets to keep him healthy would be to keep the pass rush off their young quarterback. That has been a problem. Darnold was the second-most pressured quarterback out of those 26 regulars last season, in a group alongside passers such as Deshaun Watson, Ryan Fitzpatrick, Russell Wilson, Jones and Allen. Those are all quarterbacks who use their feet to extend plays, creating pressures in the process. The good news is that Darnold was contacted on only 10.5% of his snaps, which ranked 10th in the NFL.
Would reducing the pressure on Darnold immediately improve his numbers? It depends on which stat you use. By passer rating, he ranked 21st in the league when pressured, improving to 13th when he wasn't bothered. On the flip side, by QBR, he was the 14th-best quarterback of those 26 when pressured, falling to 23rd-best when he wasn't pressured.
One thing worth remembering: Darnold was excellent dealing with pressure in college. During his two years at USC, he posted a QBR of 59.0 when opposing defenses got home with pressure. To put that in context, nobody else who started across both of those campaigns posted a QBR greater than Mayfield's mark of 36.2, and just four two-year starters were over 20. Darnold has regressed in dealing with pressure over the past two seasons.
Darnold fans would likely note that the Jets haven't had much of an offensive line over the past two seasons, which is a sentiment shared by general manager Joe Douglas. The only player left from the 2018 line is guard Brian Winters, and the Jets followed in Buffalo's footsteps by buying linemen in bulk this offseason. The New York line could have as many as four new starters in 2020, including first-round pick Mekhi Becton and former Seahawks lineman George Fant as their new tackles.
In taking a closer look, though, you can't just chalk up the pressure problems to the line and assume investing in new guys up front will totally solve the problem. Darnold also figures in the blame here. By ESPN's pass block win rate (PBWR) statistic, the Jets ranked 21st in the league once he returned from his bout with mono. PBWR measures how effective a line is at blocking opposing pass-rushers for 2.5 seconds, which is typically enough time for a quarterback to get out the football. After that, it's fair to assign more of the blame for not getting the ball out to the quarterback, his receivers and the offensive coordinator. (The Jets' PBWR also improved dramatically while Darnold was out of the lineup.)
Darnold was inconsistent in terms of getting the ball out on time. Occasionally, that could be a positive, as he would be patient in working both sides of the field before working back to an open receiver. More often than not, though, he would get stuck trying to work a route combination, wait for it to get open and then either take a hit or be forced into throwing the ball away.
This really came up in the red zone, where Darnold's decision-making just wasn't acceptable. He tied for the league lead with four interceptions in the red zone, and he could have easily had a handful more. Some of his touchdowns were even a product of questionable decisions to throw into coverage, like this Jamison Crowder touchdown catch. Darnold took an average of 3.11 seconds before releasing the ball in the red zone, the second-slowest rate in the league. Holding onto the ball that long inside the 20 isn't a viable recipe for success unless you're Patrick Mahomes or Russell Wilson.
While the problems were particularly acute inside the 20, Darnold's decision-making overall is still inconsistent. His interception rate improved from 3.6% as a rookie to 2.9% last season, but by Football Outsiders' adjusted interception rate, Darnold still posted the league's ninth-worst adjusted INT rate.
The decision-making problems manifest in ways beyond interceptions. He is still prone to trying to get the ball out at the last second under pressure, leading to wayward passes with no hope of being completed. He tries to fit passes into impossible windows downfield, which occasionally ends up with him dropping passes into double or triple coverage. There are moments in which he'll be working one side of the field and pass up a safe completion in the hopes of something bigger developing downfield. In most cases, those opportunities didn't develop.
Naturally, with better receivers or better pass concepts, Darnold might be right to wait for those big plays to develop downfield. Let's talk through what he has around him.
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Overall, Darnold was a below-average quarterback last season. When you take a look at the 26 quarterbacks who threw at least 400 passes, he ranked 21st or worse in QBR (22nd), passer rating (21st), adjusted net yards per attempt (21st) and off-target percentage (21st). The guys below him in those categories were either struggling young quarterbacks such as Mayfield, Gardner Minshew and Daniel Jones and/or passers who lost their jobs such as Andy Dalton, Mitchell Trubisky and Kyle Allen.
Of course, we have to ask all kinds of questions about the context under which Darnold played. Let's start with the second-half split I mentioned. You can make a reasonable case that we should just throw his first half out of the window, since he didn't look like his usual self in a heartbreaking Week 1 loss to the Bills. It seems likely that he was already struggling with mono, which then cost him the next four games. After he came back, Darnold lost a toenail in a brutal 33-0 loss to the Patriots and then sprained his thumb the following week in a loss at the Jags. Once he was (relatively) healthier and presumably fully recovered from the mono in the second half, his numbers leaped forward.
I would find some middle ground here. It's fair to discount Darnold's performances from earlier in the season when evaluating his future, in part because we don't have any sort of meaningful sample of how professional quarterbacks decline when they deal with mono. (To be clear, I hope this doesn't change.)
There is also a danger in picking and choosing the starts that "matter" in evaluating Darnold's future and blindly selecting the good ones as proof that he'll turn into the guy the Jets want. His first start after returning from mono was the win over the Cowboys, when he posted a 113.8 passer rating in a nearly perfect performance. And when the schedule did get tougher for a healthier Darnold over the final three weeks of 2019, he posted a middling passer rating of 84.5 in games against the Ravens, Steelers and what amounted to the Bills' defensive backups in a meaningless Week 17 victory. There's not as clear of a story as we would like when it comes to the mono impacting him or the Jets quarterback growing in the second half.
Darnold's injuries through two years are concerning. The mono was a freak incident, but in addition to the toe and thumb ailments he played through, he missed three games in 2018 with a foot injury. Those injuries could end up fading quickly into his past, like they did for Matthew Stafford, who missed 19 games across his first two seasons and then didn't miss another one for the next 8½ years. The injuries also could continue to be a problem in keeping Darnold from growing further.
Of course, the best way for the Jets to keep him healthy would be to keep the pass rush off their young quarterback. That has been a problem. Darnold was the second-most pressured quarterback out of those 26 regulars last season, in a group alongside passers such as Deshaun Watson, Ryan Fitzpatrick, Russell Wilson, Jones and Allen. Those are all quarterbacks who use their feet to extend plays, creating pressures in the process. The good news is that Darnold was contacted on only 10.5% of his snaps, which ranked 10th in the NFL.
Would reducing the pressure on Darnold immediately improve his numbers? It depends on which stat you use. By passer rating, he ranked 21st in the league when pressured, improving to 13th when he wasn't bothered. On the flip side, by QBR, he was the 14th-best quarterback of those 26 when pressured, falling to 23rd-best when he wasn't pressured.
One thing worth remembering: Darnold was excellent dealing with pressure in college. During his two years at USC, he posted a QBR of 59.0 when opposing defenses got home with pressure. To put that in context, nobody else who started across both of those campaigns posted a QBR greater than Mayfield's mark of 36.2, and just four two-year starters were over 20. Darnold has regressed in dealing with pressure over the past two seasons.
Darnold fans would likely note that the Jets haven't had much of an offensive line over the past two seasons, which is a sentiment shared by general manager Joe Douglas. The only player left from the 2018 line is guard Brian Winters, and the Jets followed in Buffalo's footsteps by buying linemen in bulk this offseason. The New York line could have as many as four new starters in 2020, including first-round pick Mekhi Becton and former Seahawks lineman George Fant as their new tackles.
In taking a closer look, though, you can't just chalk up the pressure problems to the line and assume investing in new guys up front will totally solve the problem. Darnold also figures in the blame here. By ESPN's pass block win rate (PBWR) statistic, the Jets ranked 21st in the league once he returned from his bout with mono. PBWR measures how effective a line is at blocking opposing pass-rushers for 2.5 seconds, which is typically enough time for a quarterback to get out the football. After that, it's fair to assign more of the blame for not getting the ball out to the quarterback, his receivers and the offensive coordinator. (The Jets' PBWR also improved dramatically while Darnold was out of the lineup.)
Darnold was inconsistent in terms of getting the ball out on time. Occasionally, that could be a positive, as he would be patient in working both sides of the field before working back to an open receiver. More often than not, though, he would get stuck trying to work a route combination, wait for it to get open and then either take a hit or be forced into throwing the ball away.
This really came up in the red zone, where Darnold's decision-making just wasn't acceptable. He tied for the league lead with four interceptions in the red zone, and he could have easily had a handful more. Some of his touchdowns were even a product of questionable decisions to throw into coverage, like this Jamison Crowder touchdown catch. Darnold took an average of 3.11 seconds before releasing the ball in the red zone, the second-slowest rate in the league. Holding onto the ball that long inside the 20 isn't a viable recipe for success unless you're Patrick Mahomes or Russell Wilson.
While the problems were particularly acute inside the 20, Darnold's decision-making overall is still inconsistent. His interception rate improved from 3.6% as a rookie to 2.9% last season, but by Football Outsiders' adjusted interception rate, Darnold still posted the league's ninth-worst adjusted INT rate.
The decision-making problems manifest in ways beyond interceptions. He is still prone to trying to get the ball out at the last second under pressure, leading to wayward passes with no hope of being completed. He tries to fit passes into impossible windows downfield, which occasionally ends up with him dropping passes into double or triple coverage. There are moments in which he'll be working one side of the field and pass up a safe completion in the hopes of something bigger developing downfield. In most cases, those opportunities didn't develop.
Naturally, with better receivers or better pass concepts, Darnold might be right to wait for those big plays to develop downfield. Let's talk through what he has around him.
Is this Sam Darnold's last chance? A progress report on the Jets QB and what to expect in 2020
Dig into the numbers, and the odds are stacked against Darnold. But considering his age and skill set, there's reason for optimism.