One of Darnold's big problems is that he can't throw anything short or over the middle where the receiver is moving if it's not a scramble drill. He throws to the sideline pretty well, and he throws deep crossers pretty well on broken plays. He also has virtually no deep game. It's peculiar because he was such a gun slinger in college and underneath linebackers are the least dangerous threat for the most part out of the back 7. He's more willing to challenge good corners on the sidelines than he is run stuffing linebackers? Weird. So that kind of condenses what you can do, especially on third down which is where a QB needs to shine. We run some bootlegs and such but it also limits the throwing options to only half the field and for whatever reason (Darnold's fault or not) he has a defensive end screaming down on him whenever we run them. The lack of running game hurts this kind of play a lot and the end is usually chipped and or unblocked and the quarterbacks responsibility. You have a quarterback that's scared to throw over the middle and can't hit moving receivers on slants, deep ins OR deep balls. What the hell do you do with him on 3rd down? Throw in dropped passes and his skiddish behavior on 3rd down which leads to instant overload blitzes and it's a recipe for disaster. He still left several plays on the field on that potential game winning drive though that a good quarterback connects on.
What, exactly, is the argument that Sam is a good QB? All of the relevant QB stats point to him being mediocre or bad. He has a bad completion %. Bad YPA. Low yardage numbers. Low TD numbers. High turnover numbers. What's the argument he's good other than "Gase sucks"?
One thing i’ll say is we shouldnt be married to Lawrence even if we go 0-16 & Sam isnt the answer. Now i think Lawrence is elite & should be under consideration but more than ever if Sam continues to falter this team needs to find the perfect QB to lead them forward.Not just the most talented,most successful or that passes the “mom” test. That rare breed that embraces turning this thing around w genuine conviction & has the leadership/chops to back it up. Anyone who follows HS recruiting will tell you that we are in a golden age for QB talent.Every class gets deeper w more & more talent. That means their willl be a good supply of QB prospects entering the draft seemingly every yr. Lawrence’s “generational” distinction maybe commonplce skillset wise in the coming yrs. Jets have the ammo to play this thing out & build a formidal roster along the way for the QB to succeed. It would make some sense to trade out of #1 for a warchest,start building up this offense to see the Sam investment through(for better or worse) & waiting to pounce on “the guy” should he become available knowing we have the ammo to execute whats needed to acquire said guy w the trade down from #1 as well as Adams trade.
I totally get it. I think the question we're all trying to figure out though, between the poor coaching and poor talent level, is how good can Sam be. Right now, he is what his stats say he is...However I think we can all agree that the talent level on the OL and at the skill positions has been terrible...and, by using the same "he is what he is" logic, Gase hasn't been good...So are we giving up on Sam too soon when compared to the coaching/talent issue? My thought is yes, but I have nothing to prove that other than to say it seems pretty obvious to all of the talking heads that the talent/coaching is sub par....Does that make Sam a great qb, no, so it's a gamble...But going on pedigree and how well other young qb's have improved with better coaching/talent around them, seems like a good gamble. Case in point, Allen, Murray and even Mayfield with their new coach who drew rave reviews when hired. I think the coaching and qb play are so directly related that we haven't had a good read on what Sam can be. Complicating the issue is the $ commitment...But here's what I'm thinking: 1) Sam + current draft picks + possible haul for Lawrence + better coach > Lawrence + current draft picks + possible haul for Sam + better coaching
I think this is the right call cause if anything the haul we’ll get from Lawrence will provide enough long term assets where if Sam fails we’ll be able to quickly pivot w some sort of trade for his replacement via draft or otherwise.It’s good karma to see Sam through by giving him a better coach & obviously better talent around him. It’s noce having some insurance that would allow for that
The same has been said of plenty of guys who didn't make it in the league. It just doesn't pay to fall in love with prospects. The team that gets a haul of picks almost always makes out better than the team that jumped up in the top of the draft. Here's a recent example: 2016 Draft-- the Eagles want to go up from 8th to 2nd to get get Carson Wentz. 1) The Eagles give the Browns picks 8, 77, 100, their 2017 1st rounder, and their 2018 2nd rounder 2) The Browns trade ALL of for more picks: a) 8 goes to the Titans for picks 15 and 76 b) 77 goes to the Panthers for picks 93, 129, and 168 c) 100 goes to the Raiders for picks 114 and 154 d) 2017 first goes to the Texans for 2017 pick 25 and 2018 1st rounder e) 2018 second goes to the Colts for 2018 picks 67 and 178 Ultimately, the Browns traded Carson Wentz for 11 players. Some of those picks were traded for players, including as part of the package for Jarvis Landry. Some of the players they picked were subsequently traded, such as Jabril Peppers was part of the trade for Odell Beckham, Jr. Some of the players are still around, such as Denzel Ward. Some of them played poorly and were cut, like Derrick Kindred.
My thing is that we know what Sam is when he's surrounded by talent because he was surrounded by lots of it at USC. When surrounded by talent he's a slightly inaccurate passer who can put up decent yardage but commits lots of turnovers. He didn't run through his progressions well at USC. He'll occasionally have a nice scrambling play but often times those plays only happen because he has such poor pocket awareness.
I get what you're saying here but Lawrence is literally the best QB prospect since Andrew Luck. You cannot group Lawrence in with every other QB who was picked high in the draft. Guys who are AS hyped as Luck/Manning were actually pan out pretty often in the NFL.
While I agree with what you're saying in principle, I think the Browns are literally the only example of a team that made that sort of move and failed. The Titans and Rams with RG3 are better examples of teams that won the trade. I think if you ask the GM to go back and look at, he'd wish he had Carson Wentz then the floundering that franchise did for three years after they made that move. Even though Foles won that SB - Wentz was on his way to potentially winning the MVP that year too.
But are you hoping to surround Sam with enough talent that he becomes Andy Dalton? Or do you draft Lawrence and look for him to take the reigns and be Andrew Luck from day one and surround him with talent (and learn from what the Colts did wrong with Luck and what we did wrong with Darnold).
Sam doesn't have to be done for the Jets to draft Lawrence. Look at Tannehill - after leaving Gase the guy is a beast. But how can you pass on a guy like Lawrence after going say 2-14 with Sam with near bottom QB rating again? Sure Sam might turn out to be good, but given poor coaching, lack of talent around him, maybe his own play too, etc, whatever the reason may be, he was not able to demonstrate he is a top QB yet. Hence, it is simply a statement of fact he is very much rated based on potential. Just like Lawrence is. And it is not even close whose potential is higher - Lawrence (if he keeps up what he has been doing so far) would probably go #1 overall in every draft for the past 10 years or more. As much as we like Sam, think he was put in terrible position, was wrong, and so on, you simply cannot pass up on a guy like Lawrence if you get a shot at him, unless you already have a proven star QB, which Sam is not.
Of course we should. But there are just as many if not more examples like Herndon and company that drop crucial first down wide open throws over and over. As bad as we are, we could have as well won the game against Denver if he holds on to the ball, and our Defense would stop playing like brainless assholes. We can blame Sam all we want, but the CS is totally putrid, on both sides of the ball. Very little effort by most, with a game plan that is predictable and laughable.
Will all due respect to my Jets pals here at TGG, but we need to stop thinking naively that Trevor Lawrence is the prayer to our answers. We have seen over and over and over that that 1st pick QBs with mega trades to boot are not always the panacea, while good teams continue to be good or great teams and find the best of the best out there, like Wilson, Mahomes, Watson, and others. Cleveland is starting to put wins together because of a spectacular running game, and not making the QB be the center of attention. These teams all have a common denominator....great coaching first and foremost and a balanced talent base. We unfortunately have squandered years upon years of zero impact drafts and keep sinking lower in the hole of incompetent coaching. Trevor or not....we have bigger problems to fix, and we don’t need the number pick to do that immediately, if not sooner.
How many games did Bill Parcells win with the Giants in his first season there? He took a 4-5 team from 1982 in the strike year and went 3-12-1. Why? Crappy talent. How many times did Bill Belichik get over .500 in his 5 seasons with the Browns? Once. He was 5-11 his last year there, took 6 years off as a HC and then went 5-11 with the Pats and 0-2 the following year before Mo Lewis found him a QB. What was his problem? He just hadn't figured out how to coach successfully until fate handed him one of the greatest QB's of all time. Bill Belichik was a genuinely bad HC through his first 6 seasons of doing that and was headed for the door when we bailed him out. Bill Walsh? 2-14 and 6-10 before he found Joe Montana. I mean give me a break here this is one of the greatest coaches of all time and he made Adam Gase look like a genius based on his first year with the 49ers. Chuck Noll? 1-13, 5-9, 6-8 before he won FOUR Super Bowl rings with the Steelers. Why? Crappy talent. Weeb Ewbank? 3-9, 5-6-1, 5-7 before he found Johnny Unitas. Obviously a terrible coach who just got bailed out by his QB. The point of all of this is that there have been a small handful of coaches who didn't get beat like a drum their first couple of seasons with a crappy talent team - which is why they had the job in the first place after the last guy got fired. I'm so tired at this point of all the whining from Jets fans who think somebody, anybody would be better than what we've got. It's like a crib full of crying babies asking about why not the banana pudding instead of that freaking pea mush you keep trying to stuff my mouth with? I don't know if Adam Gase is any good as a head coach. He's certainly made some stupid decisions to date. The same kind of decisions the 99% of successful coaches made in their early years with crappy talent. I hate to say it but Don Shula is probably the only HC in history that was just pure gold right out of the gate and even *he* got his stuff pushed in by the Jets in his first big opportunity to validate his greatness. Edit: and BTW Weeb built Shula's team for him before getting pushed out the door in Baltimore as an old man.
I understand what your saying but the above QBs you mention were not as talented or NFL ready than Trevor L. He is better than any qb that has come out since Manning and in my opinion he rates higher than Luck when he came out. But this franchise will probably trade the pick hoping that a talent like Lawrence comes out the following year.
There will be talents like Lawrence in the coming years..have zero doubt. The Talent & development of young signal callers has never been deeper or better. The fact that the NFL is now embracing & utilizing college offensive systems only compounds this notion. You may not see guys like Trevor every year but certainly plenty of elite prospects.Which one will be the right fit for the Jets?
