Quarterback Evaluation: Sam Darnold

Is the former third overall pick worth a second chance?

The latest name being linked around the league as the NFL moves into the height of the quarterback carousel season is Sam Darnold. Darnold, the 2018 third overall pick , appeared to regress last season under Head Coach Adam Gase and it’s believed the Jets will listen to offers on the 23-year-old quarterback. While the Jets ended up missing out on the first overall pick and Trevor Lawrence, they could still be interested in taking Justin Fields or Zach Wilson with the second overall pick, which would make Darnold redundant in New York. 

So would Darnold be worth a look for Washington, or any other team for that matter? His stats are nothing special, having completed less than 60% of his passes for 2208 yards, nine touchdowns and 11 interceptions in his 12 games during the 2020 season. But looking at the All-22 shows that while he certainly has some issues, there’s some context to those stats and some flashes of the potential that saw him drafted so highly in the first place.

This clip shows some examples of Darnold not receiving a lot of help from the team around him. The first play is a common play-action concept that combines a go route from one side of the field with a deep over from the other. Typically, most offenses will have a third receiver work to the flat or spot up somewhere underneath as an outlet in case the defense brings pressure. The Jets, however, decide to try an Max protect, keeping both tight ends and the running back in, leaving no checkdown option for Darnold. It’s not ideal, but also not totally unheard of. After all, the coaches would expect that with eight players kept in block, Darnold should have enough protection for the two routes to develop down the field. That turns out not to be the case as the Bills add on rushers and swarm the pocket around Darnold before closing in to sack him.

The coaching wasn’t ideal on that first play, given Darnold had no outlet to work with under pressure. But they should have had enough blockers to protect him, which falls on the protection unit to execute better. The second play of the clip, however, is a puzzling play design. It appears to be a designed play-action rollout to the left. The Jets pull the right guard in the opposite direction to the running back as part of the play-action fake and then have the guard continue on his path outside as a lead blocker for Darnold as he rolls out. It’s an odd way to roll out a quarterback, especially to his weaker side, but the most puzzling part of the play was the route assigned to the receiver to the right of the formation. The receiver runs an out route, initially working inside before sharply breaking outside towards the sideline. With Darnold rolling out the other way, the defense is unlikely to respect the threat of that route and Darnold is extremely unlikely to be able to stop his momentum, reset and throw all the way back across the field to that receiver, making the route almost pointless.

On top of protection issues and some poor play designs, Darnold also had to deal with some mistakes from his receivers. The third play of the clip shows Darnold working from a third and 11 situation. His slot receiver to the right runs a deep out and Darnold hits him from the far hash. However, the receiver fails to hold onto the ball, allowing the defender to knock it loose before he could complete the catch. Drops, poor ball skills and even things like falling over in and out or breaks plagued Darnold’s receivers this season. 

The Jets clearly had multiple issues on offense, from protection to receivers to coaching. Darnold had his issues too, which we’ll get to, but he was fighting an uphill battle. Even so, he still managed to flash positive traits that make him an intriguing prospect.

Here against the Broncos, the Jets run a post-wheel concept to the left, with the running back working to the flat and the slot receiver running an over route from the other side. As Darnold secures the snap and begins to drop back, he reads the post-wheel concept to his left. The Broncos play man coverage, which would typically be a good look for the wheel route, but the defender stays on top of it well. With all three routes to his left covered, Darnold turns his attention to the over route from the other side. He feels pressure arriving from his left, so he steps up in the pocket and resets to his new target. He delivers the throw just as the pressure arrives, taking a big hit but still managing to find his receiver in stride with the opportunity to pick up additional yards after the catch too.

At the start of the season, Darnold also showed some strong command of the offense at the line of scrimmage.

On this play, the Bills align seven defenders on the line of scrimmage, suggesting a big blitz is on its way. They leave just two corners outside over three receivers to the right, and the slot corner begins to cheat inside, which hints he might be blitzing too. Darnold spots the potential blitz off the slot and knows the Bills will be light in coverage to that trips side. He gives his receivers a hand signal, which can be seen from the end zone replay angle of this clip, telling his receivers to execute a screen to the flat. Darnold then snaps the ball and quickly throws to Jamison Crowder in the flat. The Bills have a linebacker and safety work across to try and make up numbers, but it’s too much ground to cover and Crowder manages to break free up the sideline for a 69-yard touchdown. The throw wasn't particularly difficult and Crowder did all the hard work after the catch to turn it into a big play, but the recognition of the blitz pre-snap and the poise to audible to a play to beat it was a very promising sign from Darnold.

What stood out to me most when watching Darnold was that a lot of his best plays come in key situations. Situational football is critical in the NFL, with situations like third down, red zone and two-minute drills often being the difference between winning and losing. Coming out of college, Darnold was often described as having the “it factor”, which can’t always be properly defined, but often means being able to step up and make big plays in the right moments. I certainly saw some of that when watching Darnold.

The first play of this clip sees Darnold and the Jets facing a third and 20 situation. The Jets call for a sail concept, consisting of a deep post, a corner route and the tight end working to the flat. It’s a concept that attacks all three levels of the defense. The Bills show a Tampa-2 coverage look pre-snap but appear to rotate into Cover-3 post-snap. The deep post stretches the deep defenders while the flat route by the tight end just grabs enough attention from the flat defender to open the corner route behind it. Darnold delivers a perfect throw that drops in over the head of the sinking flat defender and into the arms of his receiver for a first down.

On the second play of the clip, the Jets start a two-minute drill drive from their own 12 yard line. Two-minute drills require the quarterback to work more outside to the sideline to give the receivers a chance to get out of bounds and stop the clock and one starting so far back requires some chunk plays too. Darnold accomplishes both of those goals on this one play. The Jets work out of an empty backfield, with running back Le’Veon Bell aligned in the slot to the left. Bell runs a wheel route behind the post route from the outside receiver. Darnold reads the leverage of the defender working to the flat to cover Bell and notices he’s too far inside, leaving space for Bell to work up the sideline. Darnold delivers a perfect throw that drops in the bucket and Bell pulls in the catch for a 30-yard gain, though he’s unable to get out of bounds.

The third play of the clip comes from the same two-minute drill, but a few plays later. Facing third and six just outside of field goal range, Darnold knows he needs to move the chains to give the Jets a chance of getting some points before the half. The Bills show a heavy blitz look again but this time Darnold baits the blitz from the slot corner with a hard count. Darnold then snaps the ball and looks to throw over the blitzing corner, but the right guard is slow to pick him up. Darnold decides to step up in the pocket to allow the guard a chance to run the corner by him. As he does that, Darnold finds a lane to work with and begins to run, but spots Crowder working away from his defender. Darnold baits the defender forward by running and then throws behind him to hit Crowder, who picks up 21 yards on the play and out the Jets in field goal range.

As we saw on that last play, part of what makes Darnold effective in key situations is his mobility. He’s very good at escaping broken protections and working outside the pocket to extend plays and work off-script when needed, which can often lead to more explosive plays.

The first play of this clip comes from the Jets second game against the Bills. The Jets face a third and nine situation with a deep out from the slot receiver and an under route from the outside receiver. The Bills send a big blitz and the Jets keep a tight end in to help, but the tight end hardly gets a hand on the edge rusher, who has a free run to Darnold. Darnold calmly rolls out to his left to avoid the defender and gets back on track with the play, finding the deep out for a first down. 

The second play is an amazing piece of improvisation from Darnold. Against the Colts, the Jets look to hit another form of the post-wheel combination, but with an out-and-up double move replacing the wheel route. The Colts only rush four and flood the coverage, taking away all of Darnold's options. He is forced to scramble around in the pocket, avoiding multiple potential sacks before finding his way out to the flat to his right. With some extra time created, Darnold finds a receiver breaking open in the end zone and hits him on the run for a touchdown.

The third play of the clip shows just how mobile Darnold actually is. On third and seven, the Jets look to attack down the field from a trips set to the left. The Broncos send a fifth rusher in the form of a linebacker and while the Jets have enough blockers to pick it up, the running back misses his assignment. That leaves a free rusher up the middle for Darnold to deal with. He does an excellent job stepping up in the pocket to avoid the rusher before taking off running. He makes multiple defenders miss in the open field on his way to an outstanding 46-yard touchdown run.

That mobility is becoming a key trait for modern quarterbacks and Darnold certainly has plenty of it. However, despite some nice mobility and good flashes in key situations, Darnold also put plenty of bad plays on film too. Throwing more interceptions than touchdowns is obviously a big negative. Some of those interceptions showed some worrying decision making from Darnold.

These are three of Darnold’s interceptions from this last season. The first comes from the result of either a horribly wayward throw or a terrible decision. The Jets run a common route combination with the slot receiver running an out route while the outside receiver vacates space for him with a go route down the sideline. The Colts appear to catch Darnold by surprise with their coverage, as the slot corner immediately bails out to the flat, taking away the out from the slot receiver. Meanwhile, the outside corner stays on top of the go route and never looks threatened. Darnold decides to make a throw anyway, and either badly sails a throw to the slot receiver or makes a terrible decision to throw the go route. Either way, the ball lands in the arms of outside corner, who intercepted the pass and runs it all the way back for a touchdown.

While there might be some debate on if the first interception of the clip was a horrible decision or bad mechanics causing the ball to sail, there’s no debating the second interception of the clip. Darnold is forced to scramble to his left, where slot receiver Jamison Crowder attempts to break back outside to give him a target. However, Darnold gets too far outside as he scrambles and has to reset to throw back inside to Crowder, as he does that, a linebacker sinks back underneath Crowder's route. Darnold attempts the throw back across the middle of the field, but gets intercepted again. 

The third play of the clip shows the margin for error in the NFL is small. Darnold looks to work outside to his left on a quick hitch to try and pick up the first down and move the chains. However, the receiver fails to challenge the corner vertically, meaning the corner is able to stick tight to him as he breaks back towards the quarterback. Darnold threw the ball on rhythm, trusting his receiver to work open. However, he also placed the ball too far inside, meaning the corner that stuck tight to the receiver had a clear path to the ball. The corner took that path and jumped the route, taking the ball all the way back for another touchdown off an interception.

Darnold can’t get away with consistently poor decision making at the NFL level, or he’ll continue to get punished with interceptions. Another alarming trait is that some of Darnold’s interceptions came on similar concepts.

These two interceptions both came on corner-flat concepts. Corner-flat concepts as one receiver to run a deeper corner route while the second works to the flat. The hope is the defense plays zone coverage, leaving the flat defender to decide to step up and play the flat route or sink back and take away the corner route. In that scenario, the quarterback can simply read the flat defender to see which receiver to throw to. On the first interception, the Bills do play a zone coverage and the flat defender peels off to the flat, which should tell Darnold to throw the deeper corner route. However, the flat defender opens his hips inside and is in position to sink back underneath the corner route. Darnold should notice his leverage and look elsewhere, but instead throws a pass to the corner route that the flat defender sinks underneath and intercepts.

On the second play, in the red zone, the Colts have a slight coverage bust. Both corners end up working to the flat, leaving the outside receiver to run free. That receiver fakes a slant pattern before breaking back outside on the corner route. By the time the receiver breaks back outside, the outside corner has already recognised his mistake and begun to recover. The corner sinks back underneath the throw and intercepts it in the end zone, saving a touchdown and preventing the Jets from getting even a field goal attempt.

Recurring interceptions is a worrying sign for a young quarterback, especially on a concept that is designed to be simple. My friend Seth Galina did a good breakdown on Twitter before Darnold was drafted of his struggles with the smash concept, which works on a very similar premise to the corner-flat concept. For that issue to still be a problem in Darnold’s third year in the league is concerning to say the least.

With all that said, I believe there are enough flashes of talent to make Darnold worth giving a shot. He wouldn’t necessarily be my first option if I was looking for a quarterback this offseason, but having missed out on Matthew Stafford and a trade for Deshaun Watson seemingly unlikely, then taking a relatively cheap gamble on Darnold has little downside depending on what the Jets are asking for in a trade. Darnold still has plenty of talent and at 23, he’s still young enough to fulfil his potential in a better situation.