Mike Maccagnan was sitting at the Water Grill in Santa Monica, California, watching over the menu as a young waiter approached.
“Sir. Maccagnan, I’m a Jets fan and I just wanted to thank you,” the waiter said.
It was March 21, 2018 and Maccagnan, then the general manager of the Jets, had traded three second-round picks to the Colts four days earlier to move from No. 6 to No. 3 in the draft for a defender. The waiter expressed the optimism that many fans felt with that move.
That afternoon, Maccagnan and other Jets officials saw Sam Darnold throwing passes in the rain on the USC campus as part of his professional day. They walked away believing that Darnold would finish 1st at the Browns.
Instead, he fell in front of them at number 3, and their choice created more hope around the planes than he had felt for years. Like that young waiter from California, Jets fans everywhere thought the team had found its savior and better days were coming.
On Monday, that hope died when the Jets sent Darnold to the Panthers for three options.
What happened?
Darnold’s death is not as easy as many would like to believe. It’s an ugly stove of factors that everyone has added in another situation that the Jets miss in a position that has largely affected the organization for nearly 50 years.
The Jets saw Darnold as a Day 1 game changer. Owner Christopher Johnson predicted that his draft pick would be looked back on in 20 years, when the Jets became great. He won a competition that summer against veterans Josh McCown and Teddy Bridgewater, which was clearly weighted toward his win.
His first game started terribly with a pick-six on his first pass, but he recovered to throw two touchdowns and helped the Jets defeat the Lions 48-17 in Detroit in Monday Night Football. ”. Near the end of the game, Jets fans gathered behind the Jets bench at Ford Field and chanted “JETS, Jets, Jets, Jets.”
It seemed to me that the Jets and their defender had arrived.
This is the last time the Jets won a game in September, and the last time Darnold’s record would have surpassed 0.500.
It soon became clear that the foundation under Darnold was built on quicksand. Coach Todd Bowles and his staff will be fired at the end of the season, replaced by Adam Gase, who was hired largely because of how he could help Darnold. Maccagnan was fired that spring and now GM and the coach who recruited him have disappeared.
Darnold fought Gase’s complicated offense. He slowly processed, struggled to read the defense, and seemed overwhelmed at times. Internally, people have pleaded with Gase to reduce the burden on Darnold and simplify things. It worked for a short time at the end of the 2019 season, but 2020 was a disaster, Darnold did not throw for 300 meters in a single game.
Beyond the coach, the Jets failed to surround Darnold with a strong offensive line or players with good skills. They signed Le’Veon Bell in 2019 and that didn’t work. They recruited Denzel Mims last year and he struggled with injuries. They let Robby Anderson go free, a big miscalculation of GM Joe Douglas. There were games when Darnold’s best receivers would be a challenge to identify even for avid fans.
They tried to set up an offensive line with the signatures of agents without a budget. The left-wing attack on Mekhi Becton, a first-round pick, was the only significant investment made on the line. In total, Darnold played with 56 different starting teammates on offense, none of them being Bowler Pro.
Darnold was not without flaws. It is possible that everyone was wrong about Darnold’s assessment outside of college. He was a spinning machine (46 in total), often trying to do too much. It took until December 2020 for him to have three consecutive games without a turnover. By the end, it felt like a better game plan was to ask Darnold to do less than lead the team. He did not see the ground well and often threw interceptions that scratched his head and failed to see open receivers.
Sustainability was also an issue. He hasn’t played a full season once for the Jets. A leg injury cost him three games as a rookie, a mononucleosis attack eliminated him for three in 2019 and a shoulder injury forced him to miss four games last season. The Jets went 0-10 in those games, another sign of organizational failure.
Finally, it’s hard to stop thinking about the day it was written and that magical night in Detroit and think about the hope that existed then. That stings you now. That hope could still be realized, but not here, not with the Jets.