Phil Perry breaks down where Bill Belichick and the New England Patriots stand heading into the offseason, looking at the opportunity to add talent in the NFL Draft, and loads of cap space
Sam Darnold is not hopeless. He has plenty of physical talent. He entered the league as a promising prospect and was promptly surrounded by one of the worst supporting casts in football. For three years.
That he's finished the last three seasons ranked 35th, 26th and 31st in quarterback rating isn't all his fault. Neither is the fact that he's ranked 33rd, 29th and 28th in expected points added per play.
But that doesn't mean the Jets should be holding onto him as their starter.
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That's exactly what ESPN's Adam Schefter suggested the Jets would do, though, soon after news broke that the team would be hiring former Niners defensive coordinator Robert Saleh as their new coach.
Maybe former Niners passing-game coordinator Mike LaFleur, heading east with Saleh to become Jets offensive coordinator, is in love with Darnold's ceiling. Maybe LaFleur feels as though there's evidence to suggest Darnold is a franchise quarterback primed for a breakout year.
While that possibility exists, the statistical evidence would suggest that's wishful thinking. Per Pro Football Focus, from a clean pocket, Darnold ranked 30th in the NFL in accurate-pass percentage (56 percent) this season. Drew Lock (60 percent) was better. Gardner Minshew (59 percent) and Nick Mullens (59 percent) were better. Darnold's adjusted completion percentage from a clean pocket -- considered a more predictive situation for passers than under-pressure scenarios -- was 33rd (74.0), according to PFF.
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We've seen a quarterback from the 2018 draft class go from not-so-accurate passer to one of the best in football in a very short period of time. Maybe that can happen again if the Jets build up the talent around Darnold. But there's no guarantee Darnold will experience a Josh Allenesque leap in 2021.
Plus, before the Jets even find out if that's possible, they'll have to make a call on whether or not they want to pay him.
A decision on Darnold's fifth-year option for 2022 is due in early May. If the cap stays flat in 2021 -- and there are rumblings that could be the case -- then Darnold's fifth-year option would cost somewhere in the range of $24 million.
Would that be the most prudent move? Giving a quarterback who has shown very little as a pro a huge bump in pay, while eschewing the opportunity to draft a cheaper quarterback with the No. 2 overall pick?
To boil it down even further, which of these paths makes more sense: Drafting Justin Fields or Zach Wilson at No. 2 overall? Or keeping Darnold through 2022 on cap hits that, in total, would about triple the cap hits for one of those rookies?
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The Jets are in the middle of a complete rebuild with a new head coach and, they hope, a new culture. OverTheCap.com projects they'll have the fourth-most cap space in the NFL this offseason. And if they use No. 2 on a quarterback, they'll still have three more first-round picks in 2021 and 2022 to build around the young guy -- plus whatever they'd be able to get in return for Darnold in a trade.
Again, there's a case to be made that Darnold does in fact have potential. I've even made the case that if he became available, the Patriots should take a flier on him.
But when you look at where the Jets are drafting, the state of their roster, the prospects available to them at No. 2 and the dollars involved . . . it just doesn't make much sense for them to continue to roll with Darnold. Saying that they will -- or at least communicating that through the media -- feels like posturing ahead of the inevitable trade.
Patriots fans, though, should certainly be rooting for Darnold in green again next year. They should be rooting for that fifth-year option to be picked up.
Not just because there's a chance Darnold continues having issues placing the football. But because it would eliminate one more team from the pool of clubs looking for quarterbacks in this year's draft.
There could be as many as 10 teams interested in young signal-callers ahead of the Patriots at No. 15. Not only does that make it unlikely that one of the top-four passers in the draft class slips to New England. It also could make it difficult for the Patriots to leapfrog quarterback-hungry teams ahead of them via trade.
If the top-four are out of reach for Bill Belichick -- whether Darnold stays in the plans for the Jets or not -- it's worth considering whether or not the Patriots would be interested in Alabama's Mac Jones. We broke down that possibility from a variety of angles on this week's Next Pats Podcast and in this week's Mailbag.
