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To me, that goes beyond his sparkling 13-of-14 first half Sunday. It’s where he’s been. It’s also where he is.
He’s been through trainwrecks, for sure, with the New York Jets and Carolina Panthers, even if he won’t call them that. He’s also seen what the NFL’s best scheme looks like, and played for a Super Bowl team, albeit very sparingly, with the San Francisco 49ers. And as for where he is? It’s about as good of a situation as a quarterback could have to try to stick his proverbial foot in the ground and accelerate into the second phase of his career.
So, yes, Darnold was impressive Sunday—the aforementioned 13-for-14 start accounted for 151 yards and a score before halftime, and he and his teammates cruised through the second half to a 28–6 win over the New York Giants. But I don’t think it’s wild to think that the 113.2 passer rating he put up in his old home stadium is just the beginning, because playing for Minnesota Vikings head coach Kevin O’Connell, and with Justin Jefferson & Co. sets up an uber-talented guy to do that.
And also because what happened Sunday is, well, what Darnold expected, which is why, when we talked postgame, he wasn’t in much of a mood to be reflective about the moment.
“I feel like I can’t take the big-picture view now—I just have to keep it one day at a time,” he told me over the phone, leaving East Rutherford, N.J. “That’s a cliché. But it’s a cliché for a reason, you know? If I just continue to take it a game at a time, one day at a time, I feel like I’ll be in a good spot. I’m not going to look big picture or what can be in the future because that would be doing me and this team a disservice.”
That said, Darnold had reason to appreciate what he’d accomplished.
MetLife Stadium is where his career was born as the No. 3 pick of the Jets in the 2018 NFL draft, and where it seemed, for a while, to have gone to die. So there was that element of it—coming back to exorcize those demons.
Then, there was the actual progress he’s showed as a quarterback, which, as he saw it, felt pretty tangible on his 21-yard dot of a touchdown pass to Jalen Nailor in the third quarter, because it showed so much of what he learned becoming the starter again late in the 2022 season in Carolina, and then last year in shadows learning from 49ers coach Kyle Shanahan.
“It was just being confident with my eyes and what I see,” Darnold says of the touchdown to Nailor. “Understanding the coverage and obviously Jets [Justin Jefferson] on the bubble screen is going to attract a little bit of attention, being able to hit [Nailor], who obviously ran a really good route, and it was really good execution, just getting the ball out on time. Because if I don’t do that, I’m either sacked or throwing it away. So, I think playing on time in this system is always going to be key for me.”
Then, there was the decision by O’Connell to go for it on the fourth-and-2 in the second quarter that resulted in a three-yard touchdown pass to Jefferson, and manifested how the coaching staff’s confidence in Darnold, even if the team’s quarterback competition ended by default (when J.J. McCarthy was lost for the year duo to a knee injury).
“It was awesome,” Darnold says. “It shows the trust he has in me to get the ball out on time and accurately to Jets—when he’s one-on-one, we have to take advantage of it. It was a really good opportunity and execution on our part.”
There were plenty of moments like that for Darnold on Sunday. But the bigger idea is that there should be bigger ones coming.
So when it came to the day at MetLife Stadium? He said the coolest thing about being back was seeing and saying hello to a few security guys that he befriended over his three years with the Jets.
As for the rest of the story line? Clearly, Darnold had bigger things in mind.
