Sam Darnold won’t play Sunday, but Jets coach Adam Gase expects to see the quarterback on the field again this season.
“Hopefully he gets better sooner than later, but I expect him to be back at some point,” Gase said Wednesday. “I don’t know when it is, but I talked to him yesterday and I think he’s feeling better, he’s getting stronger. I think we just want to make sure he’s healthy when we get him out there.”
Darnold is suffering from a shoulder sprain that has caused him to miss three games already. With the Jets at 0-9 and his future with the team cloudy, there is some question about whether it would be smart to just shut Darnold down for the rest of the season.
“If I said that to him, I don’t know if that would go over very well,” Gase said. “He wants to play. Last week when he tried to make some of the throws that he went to make and he wasn’t able to do it the way he wanted to, I think that was something where that’s what caused us especially to pull back because he was not feeling like he was able to control the ball the way he wanted to, throw with the velocity he wanted to.
Sam DarnoldAP“I’m not getting that feeling from him or anyone else that he shouldn’t play the rest of the year. We want him to get out there, his teammates want him to be out there and everybody wants to see what it can look like when we have the starting receivers, starting offensive line, him out there. Let’s see what we can do when we get all those pieces out there.”
Rookie LT Mekhi Becton had to exit the Jets’ loss to the Patriots early because he was having trouble breathing. The team was unsure what caused the issue, but Becton said Wednesday that it was just the lingering effects of a cold.
“I was coming off a cold and my chest was still congested from that,” Becton said. “It’s not a huge problem. It’s not going to be a future problem. It was just that one time and that one time only.”
At the time, Becton was unsure what it was.
“I definitely was nervous because I didn’t know what was going on,” Becton said. “Once I figured it out, I’m good now.”
Becton said he knew it was not COVID-19 because he is tested every day.
Darnold (shoulder), DL Henry Anderson (knee/ankle) and LB Blake Cashman (hamstrings) did not practice Wednesday. Gase said he expects Anderson to return to practice Thursday. … WR Breshad Perriman (shoulder), K Sam Ficken (groin) and DL Quinnen Williams (hamstring) were limited. … The team activated LB Patrick Onuwasor off of IR and designated OLB Frankie Luvu to return to practice from IR.
