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Nothing is more haunting in sports than a transaction that explodes in your face. Sparky Lyle haunted the Red Sox for years after they traded him to the Yankees for Danny Cater (to say nothing of that other Yanks / Sox swap years before they involved a person named Ruth and a play called ” No, no, Nanette “).
For a while, it looked like Daniel Murphy might find a way to hit 2,000 against the Mets in a year or two after they let him go to the Nationals. The Jets never really let Bill Belichick feel like their man, so he has spent the past 21 years as their personal horror home in Amityville, invading every one of their dreams, daydreams, and nightmares.
Yes. You know where it’s going.
This goes to Sam Darnold.
It goes straight into the darkest region of every Jets fan’s soul, this two-week kickoff of the 2021 football season, in which new savior Zach Wilson performed exactly as you might expect. a raw, green rookie is playing and the Old Savior, Darnold has played… well, at a damn high standard. The Jets are 0-2. The Carolina Panthers are 2-0.
Wilson was shaken by growing pains. Darnold was resplendent. We’ve all seen what he did against the Jets in Week 1 – 24 for 35, 279 yards, one touchdown, no interceptions and really just one mistake from Sam, a red zone fumble early in the game on a discount. You might have seen what he did in Week 2 against the Saints – 26 for 38, 305 yards, two touchdowns, one pick.
“I’ve always had a lot of self-confidence,” Darnold said after the Panthers finished trashing New Orleans, 26-7. “That will never change. Just finding completions and continuing to move the ball around the field is a good feeling.
Carolina tight end Dan Arnold said: “He’s a top quarterback in my eyes.”
(And yes, those words surely pass as easily to Jets fans as a pint glass full of arsenic on the rocks.)
OKAY. We can pump the brakes here at least a little. Darnold’s two-game partnership with Prosperity came against the Jets – who are, well, the Jets – and against the Saints, who were riddled with injuries and illnesses a week after beating the Packers. Both games were at home. And Darnold has the kind of weapons around him – most notably Christian McCaffrey – that he could only have dreamed of as a Jet.
Always …
It’s a situation that will serve as a sort of shadow government for the Jets, for now and as long as Darnold is QB1 for the Panthers, a time that will coincide with Wilson’s tenure as QB1 for the Jets. – and Darnold’s next game, Thursday in Houston, will be on national television where another good game will usher in a new wave of jokes about the Topeka Jets in Topanga.
It’s grossly unfair to both quarterbacks, of course, especially Wilson. But this is where we are. This is where the Jets are.
After all, the team could have chosen to keep Darnold and use the No. 2 draft pick to fill a different hole (which the Jets have a lot of) or add multiple picks. It was a legitimate option, especially considering Darnold was only three years old from being a much-vaunted No. 3 overall pick. And Darnold had his moments as Jet.
It was also fair to believe that Darnold was never going to maximize his talents here, that he needed a change of scenery and that the Jets needed to move on. And it’s not like the Jets traded him to a division rival, or even a conference foe; it was only thanks to a timing quirk, that the Jets have lured the NFC South this year (this only happens once every four years), and an ominous sense of humor among the schedule manager. to make the Panthers their first game.
Most of the time, what Darnold does or doesn’t do won’t affect the Jets, not directly. But it will be difficult to convince Jets fans if the trend lines remain the same.
Wilson, of course, can help make matters better by limiting his throws to bad-colored jerseys and becoming the quarterback that a lot of people, not just the Jets, believe he can become. And Darnold could help soon when the Panthers move to the Tampa / Dallas / Buffalo part of their schedule (although there is also a date with the Giants looming on October 24, and one of Darnold’s best games is. came against Big Blue in 2019).
“It’s really good football,” Darnold said on Sunday.
It is certainly in Carolina, for the moment, for the Old Savior.
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