Is he right?

Ben McAdoo.

Former Giants head coach Ben McAdoo made news this week by actually telling people how he honestly feels.

That is out of style these days.

McAdoo covered a number of topics with Paul Schwartz of the New York Post, including Sam Darnold.

“I think the kid the Jets drafted has a lot of magic in his game,’’ McAdoo said. “I think he’s special. He’s obviously a talented guy, he can make plays with his feet. I’d just have a hard time drafting a guy in the first round where you don’t necessarily like the way he throws.

“He can overcome it, guys have, but that’s something that’s a challenge for me. I’m gonna be looking at that, trying to fix it, because it’s a fundamental flaw, and I believe in the fundamentals. The quarterback, his No. 1 job is to pass the football. If I don’t like the way he throws the ball, I have a hard time picking him, right?’’

I love this kind of candor from football people. It’s so rare these days. Most people are so afraid of causing a stir, so they don’t tell you how they truly feel.

And I don’t think McAdoo has any agenda towards the Jets, at least not one I’m aware of.

Obviously, there is no “Giants-bias” here because the Giants fired him. Sometimes you have people with Giants connections ripping the Jets, and it’s clearly because of the anonymous between the cross-town rivals.

But that clearly isn’t the case here. McAdoo has no warmth for the Giants after they fired him.

There is no question Darnold’s delivery is a cause for concern. There is no way around that.

“His elongated release is impossible to miss,” said draft expert Lance Zeirlein of NFL.com. “The ball drops to his waist with forearm pointed towards the ground, pre-delivery.”

The problem with this is it gives defensive backs an extra split second to jump a route. When a QB with a windy-motion decides where he’s going to throw it, and looks/aims that way, but the ball doesn’t come out a quick as a guy with a compact throwing motion, it can lead to more picks. This was a big problem for Tim Tebow.

First off, I don’t think there is much he can do to change this. The muscle memory of his throwing motion, at the age of 22, is probably hard to change. And you know what, if you try to change it, you could do a lot of damage to his game. Remember, he’s very accurate with his current delivery. You try and change that, perhaps the accuracy goes down.

But as Zeirlein said, “His windup is an eyesore for sure, but he has the velocity to mitigate the additional release time.”

I agree with Zeirlein. I think Darnold can overcome this with velocity and great decision-making.

But, due to this concern with his throwing motion, the Jets need to take it slow with his development, and not start him immediately.

Why?

Because if you have an elongated throwing motion, and you are young and make bad reads, you could turn into an interception machine.

You can’t consistently make bad reads with a windy throwing motion. That could be a recipe for disaster.

So the Jets need to wait until Darnold has a strong grasp of his reads before starting him.

July 13, 2018

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