Sam Darnold Is Confident His 'Best Days Are Ahead' With Jets

Jets quarterback Sam Darnold had a year to forget in 2020, but his confidence never wavered. 

Even as he approaches this season's finale with some of the worst numbers at his position in all of football, and as speculation regarding his future in New York continues to swirl, Darnold hasn't stopped trusting himself and his abilities.

"I absolutely believe my best days are ahead and I’m just going to continue to put that work in to be able to get better and improve every single year," Darnold said in a Zoom call on Thursday.

The fact of the matter, however, is that Sunday's contest in New England could potentially be Darnold's final game in green and white.

With a 13-24 record over his three seasons under center for New York, Darnold hasn't exactly developed into the franchise quarterback the Jets envisioned that they were getting with the No. 3 pick in the 2018 NFL draft. This season, entering Week 17, Darnold has the league's worst QBR (42.2) and passer rating (72.3) with only eight touchdowns (and nine interceptions) in 11 games.

That said, New York may elect to move on from Darnold this offseason, trading the third-year quarterback away to build around another signal-caller, one they can add with the second overall selection of next spring's draft. 

All season long Darnold has insisted that he hopes to be a "Jet for life." While this season has been what he called the most challenging of his entire football career, he's not letting hypotheticals change his mentality.

"I’m a Jet now," he said. "I know we all like to think of hypotheticals and what-ifs, but I’m a Jet right now and I love being here, I love the guys in the locker room and I love going to work every single day here."

This year as a whole hasn't been pretty, but give Darnold some credit. Without his performance over New York's two-game winning streak, the Jets would likely be 0-15 entering their final game of the season this weekend.

The quarterback hasn't turned the ball over in his last three games, the longest such streak of his entire career. He hasn't had any massive games in that span, but staying away from the turnover is a "huge stride" in his head coach's eyes.

"Would I love to see him have more three-, four-touchdown games? Absolutely," Adam Gase said Thursday. "But that’s not something he can necessarily control, right?"

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Darnold had his season-best completion percentage in New York's win against the Rams before throwing two touchdown passes against the Browns last week, tying the most he's had in any single game all year. New York's offense, on pace to be the league's worst for a second straight year, had the upper hand against two postseason contenders.

"I know we’ve talked about it in here with you guys last couple of weeks, but I think that’s where Sam’s growth is come last couple weeks," Jets offensive coordinator Dowell Loggains added this week. "He knows to put the cape away, you don’t need to be Superman."

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Gase reiterated this week that while much of the blame for struggling teams falls on the quarterback in this league, it's not fair to put New York's season on Darnold. After all, the 23-year-old was working without starting wideouts for plenty of weeks, he missed time with a lingering shoulder injury and as Gase said, "every game has its own story."

Criticism aside, Darnold explained that facing challenges continuously this year has helped him become more resilient than ever before. 

As for the future, Darnold won't focus solely on what's next until the offseason begins.

"You know how it is," Darnold said. "We are trying to get a win in Foxborough this weekend."

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