The afterglow of picking Sam Darnold with the No. 3 pick in the NFL draft last week has barely started to fade, and now the team gets to see him on the field.
Darnold will be on the practice field for the first time as a Jet on Friday afternoon when the Jets begin their rookie minicamp. He will be surrounded by his fellow draft picks, undrafted free agents and tryout players.
While there will be plenty of players on the field, all eyes will be focused on No. 14. This is just the start of the process to get Darnold ready to play. Will he be the starter when the Jets face the Lions on Sept. 10? Possibly, but the Jets have made it clear they will not rush him. They also are clear that if he is ready, they won’t have restrictions on him.
“Once we get him in and he starts the playbook, there is no timetable,” Jets coach Todd Bowles said during the draft.
“We have to see how fast he learns and how fast he can grasp everything and then get some experience. We’re not going to throw him in there, but at the same time, we’re not going to hold him back either. I think we have a good room with the quarterback situation, so once we get him in and he starts the playbook and gets used to the system, we’ll go from there.”
Darnold will be on the first team this weekend with the rookies. Then he will begin working with the veterans. The first OTA practice with the entire team is May 22. Darnold can begin to learn from veteran QBs Josh McCown and Teddy Bridgewater.
Mike MaccagnanAP“Obviously, it will play itself out over time and I’ll let Todd talk about that because Todd obviously determines when these guys play,” Jets general manager Mike Maccagnan said.
“But our focus really with any quarterback we evaluate was not just the player he is going to be initially, but the player we think he can develop into. Our goal obviously from an ability and potential standpoint is to help him fulfill that, so we think he has a very high ceiling and that will play itself out over the spring.”
The Jets were thrilled that Darnold was available for them to take last week. While there are questions about his turnover issues at USC, Darnold was viewed by many draft evaluators as the best quarterback in the draft. The Jets hope they are right.
The team has been searching for that franchise quarterback for four decades since Joe Namath left town to join the Rams. Richard Todd, Ken O’Brien, Chad Pennington and Mark Sanchez have all been where Darnold finds himself now — a first-round pick by the Jets facing huge expectations and the hopes of a frustrated fan base.
Darnold won over the Jets during the pre-draft process with the way he approached things as much as how he played on the field.
“I like his competitiveness,” Bowles said. “Obviously, all of the quarterbacks compete, but the biggest thing that you really don’t see is that he has an inner desire and drive that brings out the competitiveness in the other players, and once you get to know Sam, and we spent some time around him, his personality really came out, along with that drive and obviously his accuracy. We really liked that about him.”
