Jets Would Have Kept Sam Darnold If They Had a Later Pick in Draft

Adam Krieger/NFL/April 6, 2021

I need to make one thing very clear, I am a lifelong-suffering Jets fan and I am happy for Sam Darnold. He was never going to succeed with this team, but I fully know he is a good quarterback and will do well in Carolina.

It has been a wild ride for the former number three overall pick out of USC. He was taken ahead of Josh Allen and Lamar Jackson but has not performed to their levels, but that is not his fault. He started his career with Todd Bowles as his first head coach, not the best situation to put a young quarterback with a defensive-oriented coach.

Sam Darnold’s issues in the NFL are the same issues that he had in college, he turned the ball over and a decent offensive game plan could have helped him mitigate that. Then he got stuck with Adam Gase and everyone knows how much of a disaster that turned out to be.

So Darnold is officially traded to the Carolina Panthers and the praises start flowing out of the New York Jets organization. About 24 hours after the news became public, this tweet from Dov Kleiman comes across my feed.

"If the Jets didn't have the 2nd overall pick, they would not have traded Sam Darnold." – @AdamSchefter

"If the Jets would've been number 3, or 4 or 5. They would've kept Darnold."

Notes that the #Jets feel strongly about Zach Wilson, and that is the only reason for the trade. pic.twitter.com/axmYLDN0bM
— Dov Kleiman (@NFL_DovKleiman) April 6, 2021

The draft pick has been locked in for months now, and everyone knew what a loaded quarterback class would be, so what has changed? It went from Corey Davis telling reporters that he was expecting to work with Darnold, to Robby Anderson celebrating his former quarterback coming to his current team.