Joe Douglas is Rooting for Sam Darnold to Succeed with the Panthers

The Jets just sent their former number three overall pick, Sam Darnold to the Carolina Panthers and General Manager Joe Douglas is rooting for Darnold to succeed elsewhere. In an interview with Albert Breer and Si.com the man who ultimately made the decision to ship off the quarterback talked about what went into that decision.

“You know how much work and dedication he’s put in the last three years here, how many rough situations he’s been through, and never wavered with his confidence.”

via SI.com

Rough situations is a brutal understatement, he came into the league with Todd Bowles, who up until becoming the head coach of the Jets was just involved in defense. After moving on from Bowles, the team brought in “The Gase of Hell”, an “offensive specialist” which is just a load of crap. All he ever did was hang around Peyton Manning for a few years and everyone assumed he was a genius. WRONG!

After the dust has settled on the trade Adam Schefter comes out and says the team would have kept Darnold if they had a later pick in the draft. They are so confident that whoever they are going to draft is going to be an upgrade from Darnold, meanwhile, he will probably thrive with the Panthers.

“Whether I look bad or not [for trade], I could give two s—s about that. I know that he’s gonna have success. The timing didn’t really work out for him here. We couldn’t turn this around fast enough for him. And that’s not his fault. I root for good people, and that dude’s a good man, and he’s gonna do good things. I believe that.”

Joe Douglas to SI.com

Trey has alluded to this a few times in his NFL Draft Mailbag posts, but Douglas has an almost impossible task of rebuilding this franchise with minimal talent. I too am rooting for him to succeed, I know he was wasted talent with the Jets and destined for failure.