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Good, but room for improvement . . .
Sam Darnold finished the Denver-Jets game 10-22 for 198 yards and three touchdowns. While he’s getting a lot of kudos for his performance, and rightfully so, it certainly was one of those perfect storm games. The Jets ran for 323 yards, so that created some deep shots, and he hit on three of them.
But aside from those three passes, he really didn’t do much. Don’t take that as a criticism, because the bottom line is he did a lot to help the Jets beat Denver. I’m just throwing it out there for conversation sake.
The kid needs to get better at leading Gang Green on long, sustained drives. That hasn’t happened very often. You know what I’m talking about, those 10 play, 80 yards drives where you methodically march your team down the field.
He done some good things, especially against Detroit and Denver, and some bad things especially against Miami, Cleveland and Jacksonville, but his next step must be putting together more sustained drives.
Because what happened yesterday against Denver, with those three TD passes, all with single-coverage, on simple reads, is quarterback utopia, and it’s not going to happen every week.
Right now his completion percentage is 55 percent. That means almost every other pass is hitting the ground. It’s hard to sustain drives that way. Guys like Tom Brady, Aaron Rodgers and Drew Brees are consistently around 65 percent, and that is a big reason those guys are so good at long, sustained drives.
In the Cleveland and Jacksonville games, there were no Jets drives over 70 yards.
Once again, not being critical of the kid, just pointing out something that needs to improve – the ability to lead his team on sustained drives. This also helps the defense get more rest, and not get worn out like in Jacksonville . . .
Buster Skrine got concussed tackling DaeSean Hamilton after getting beat over the middle for a gain of 18. He’s had a number of concussions in his NFL career. I have a theory on this. When you give up a lot of receptions, you have to make a ton of tackles. When you have a lot of PD’s and picks, you aren’t tackling, you are making plays on the ball, not the man. Skrine, who is really tough, has to make a lot of tackles on a regular basis due to giving up myriad receptions, and perhaps this is the reason he gets concussed so much. He’s almost playing like a linebacker . . .
As you know, the Broncos-Jets game ended in strange fashion, with Marcus Maye picking off Case Keenum in the end zone and returning it 104 yards to the one-yard-line.
He ran out of gas. Why would that happen to a 25-year-old safety?
Let’s not forget, he missed the entire off-season, a couple of weeks in training camp, and the the first three weeks of the season due to ankle and foot issues.
And honestly, if you are dealing with ankle and then foot issues, obviously the amount of running you can do to get in shape is limited. The trainers didn’t want you pounding on that foot/ankle.
So now that he’s finally healthy, he still has some work to do to get into better shape.
I asked him if one of the issues on that long run was related to all that time on the sideline, and he said, “Definitely.”
October 8, 2018
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