NFL 2020: New York Jets stay winless after Sam Darnold's poor performance
Things just keep getting worse for the New York Jets.
The team at the bottom of everyone's NFL power ranking fell to 0-7 with Sunday's 18-10 loss to the Buffalo Bills. The Jets are the league's only winless team, and the two people taking the most heat for that are head coach Adam Gase and quarterback Sam Darnold.
The No. 3 overall pick in the 2018 NFL Draft, Darnold has not lived up to expectations by any measure. There are other young QBs who are surrounded by teams with talent deficiencies -- Joe Burrow (Bengals), Justin Herbert (Chargers) and Daniel Jones (Giants) come to mind -- but they're doing better individually than Darnold.
On Sunday, Darnold completed 12 of 23 passes for 120 yards, with no touchdowns and two interceptions. His Quarterback Rating was 17.6 (out of a possible 100) and his Passer Rating was 31.1 (out of a possible 158.3).
Gase did his part in post-game interviews to shield his quarterback from blame.
The Jets' offensive line was called out by Gase. "It was collapsing quick on him," the coach was quoted by ESPN," noting that Darnold "didn't have a lot of time to throw the ball."
Gase added, "If you look at it statistically, we're not good anywhere statistically."
Can the Jets continue with Adam Gase and Sam Darnold?
Some of the blame for that has to go to Gase. He's the one who played a big hand in the Jets getting rid of All-Pro running back Le'Veon Bell a couple weeks ago. Bell was signed by the Jets last year and made the highest-paid running back in the NFL. But Gase reportedly never wanted Bell on the team and couldn't figure out how to best use the talented runner.
Gase came to New York with a reputation as a quarterback guru and offensive genius. But now in his second season with the team, the Jets have the NFL's worst offense and their franchise QB is failing.
No one would be surprised if the Jets fire Gase at the end of this season. If they are bad enough to land the No. 1 pick in the 2021 NFL Draft, no one would be surprised if they use that pick on another quarterback -- probably Clemson's Trevor Lawrence -- and put the Darnold era behind them.
Before that, these Jets just need to get a win (or two).
This week doesn't look good for that, as they face the defending Super Bowl champion Kansas City Chiefs on the road.
After that, however, the Jets have three straight winnable games against the New England Patriots, Los Angeles Chargers and Miami Dolphins.