The first game of Jets quarterback Sam Darnold’s NFL career was a resounding success as he bounced back from a game-opening interception to pilot the team to a 48-17 road win on Monday Night Football.
Darnold’s performance has elicited a lot of excitement among Jets fans who have been waiting for a franchise quarterback since the days of Joe Namath and even the normally unexcitable Todd Bowles found something exciting about the rookie’s debut after the win. On Wednesday, though, Bowles reined things in when he was asked about Darnold being the quarterback the franchise has been trying to find for decades.
“We won one game, I can tell you after about 100 more of them whether we have one or not, right now it’s a little early,” Bowles said, via a transcript of his press conference. "... It’s one been one game to sit here and say whether he’s great, whether he’s trash or whether anything else is kind of way too early for that. He’s played one game, he’s got a lot of years to go and he’ll build it as he goes.”
One need only look back at New York’s tabloid history to know that Bowles is right about making judgments off of one game. That said, it still seems unlikely that the Darnold bandwagon will be slowing down should he do well in a win against the Dolphins this weekend.