Sam Darnold 2.0: How Jets' QB can build on promising rookie season

Over a full month before the 2018 NFL Draft, the New York Jets declared their first-round intentions quite clearly to the rest of the league. They traded three second-round selections to the Indianapolis Colts, moving up from the sixth-overall pick to the third. Their obvious goal? To get themselves into position to take a top quarterback.

Fast-forward to April, and the Jets had their man. To the organization’s surprise, Sam Darnold slipped into their hands at No. 3, and he was the new face of the franchise.

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QUARTERBACKS 2.0

• How Dolphins'  Josh Rosen can get back on track
• Bills' Josh Allen must refine deep-ball passing
• Browns' Baker Mayfield must improve intermediate passing
• Jets' Sam Darnold must play better on road
• Lamar Jackson can improve as deep-ball thrower

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Darnold had a volatile but ultimately promising rookie year. He threw 17 touchdown passes, falling one shy of Joe Namath’s franchise record for a rookie. Darnold also set the team’s rookie record for passing yards per game (220.4). No Jets rookie had ever hit 200 yards per game.

Toward the end of the season, Darnold amassed a four-game stretch in which he was one of the league’s best quarterbacks by just about any metric. In 2019, he’ll aim to duplicate the top-level production he showcased last year.

Here are some of the ways he can do that:

Performing on the road

Darnold, who was 4-9 in games he started, posted some extreme home/road splits in his rookie season. At home he was often a solid quarterback, even independent of the rookie grading curve. Darnold threw for 268.7 yards per game at home, the most ever by a rookie quarterback (minimum six home starts). By contrast, on the road Darnold had a few games where his struggles tanked the team’s chances of victory. Six of his worst eight games by passer rating were played on the road.

In home games, Darnold threw for 7.8 yards per attempt, which ranked 14th out of the 30 quarterbacks with at least 150 passing attempts at home. On the other hand, in road games, Darnold threw for only 6.1 yards per attempt, which ranked 27th out of the 30 quarterbacks with at least 150 passing attempts on the road.

Darnold had miserable outings in Cleveland, Jacksonville and Miami that sabotaged his numbers greatly. However, there were a few flashes giving hope that Darnold could become a good road quarterback.

In Week 1, as the youngest opening-day starter in NFL history, Darnold had an efficient outing against the Lions in Detroit. He completed 16 of 21 passes for 198 yards and two touchdowns, rebounding from a game-opening pick-six to post a 116.8 passer rating that went down as his second best of the season.

Returning from injury in Week 14, Darnold went into windy Buffalo and defeated a defense that ranked second in DVOA last season. He also became the youngest quarterback -- 21 years old --  to lead a game-winning drive.

Deep passing

Before getting to Darnold’s struggles with the deep ball, it’s important to note that he did have a good year throwing in the intermediate range.

On passes thrown 10-19 yards beyond the line of scrimmage, Darnold completed 63 of 104 attempts for 1,065 yards and nine touchdowns, with six interceptions. His passer rating of 100.0 in the intermediate range was comfortably above the league average of 92.0.

In particular, Darnold’s hot spot was the range of 16-21 yards downfield. On throws in that range, Darnold completed 23 of 33 attempts for 540 yards, a 70 percent rate and an average of 16.4 yards per attempt. Those numbers clobbered the league averages in that range (50 percent completion percentage and 11.4 yards per attempt).

So while he was impressive in the intermediate range, he must be more consistent with his long ball. The exact depth where Darnold began to see his efficiency taper off was about 22 yards beyond the line of scrimmage. On throws in that range or farther, Darnold completed 11 of 52 attempts for 374 yards, a completion rate of 21 percent and a yards per attempt rate of 7.2. Those numbers fell significantly below the league averages in that range (33 percent completion percentage and 12.7 yards per attempt).

Ball security

It’s important to keep in mind that although Darnold struggled with interceptions last year, he did do a tremendous job steering clear of the other turnover variety — fumbles.

His propensity to lose the ball on the ground was one of the biggest knocks on Darnold coming out of USC. In 2017, his final season as a Trojan, Darnold lost nine of his 11 fumbles. 

However, in Darnold’s rookie season as a Jet, it appeared he emphasized improving this part of his game, as he was clearly making a concerted effort to protect the ball with both hands. As a result, he fumbled on a sack only once all season, and that didn’t happen until the final game.

Darnold was officially credited with five fumbles last season, but the other four were either botched handoffs or snaps — mistakes that were not entirely his fault. Therefore, Darnold was solely  responsible for just one fumble all season. 

Even so, his official total of five fumbles was still fewer than 25 other quarterbacks last season and tied for the fewest by a rookie (minimum 13 starts) since Ben Roethlisberger and Carson Palmer lost only two apiece back in 2004.

Interceptions are another story. Darnold threw 15 picks last season, tied for the second-most in the league despite missing three starts. He posted an interception rate of 3.6 percent — over the last 10 seasons, the only rookies to post worse rates (minimum 300 passes) were Josh Allen, DeShone Kizer, Geno Smith, Matthew Stafford and Mark Sanchez.

Fortunately there were encouraging signs toward the end of the season. After returning from injury in Week 14, he threw just one interception over his final four starts, including none over his final three. Darnold currently owns the league’s third-longest active streak of most consecutive passes thrown without an interception, launching 113 attempts since his last pick. With the Week 1 opener against the Bills and another second-year QB, Josh Allen, just a month away, we will soon find out if Darnold can keep that going.