Jets quarterback Sam Darnold faces another tough defense on Sunday to cap off his second season. Darnold will have faced the No. 3 defense in the NFL (the Bills), the No. 4 defense (the Steelers) and the No. 5 defense (the Ravens) in consecutive weeks to end the year.

Experience like that only can help Darnold grow as a quarterback.

“He’s building that library up. He’s building that knowledge up,” coach Adam Gase said. “Every time he takes a snap in a live game, it’s more experience for him. He’s seeing things he might have seen earlier in the year and it looks cleaner to him now. It slows down. He knows what to do. He knows what his problems are. He knows what his outs are.”

Gase said he and Darnold watched their Week 1 loss to the Bills this week while preparing for Sunday. Gase said Darnold’s improvement is clear. He sees better pre-snap reads by Darnold and communication.

Gase said Darnold has gotten better through the year in communicating with him about what he likes and does not like in the offense.

“I think once he felt more comfortable with the base he had, the communication goes way up,” Gase said. “It has gone way up. I think each week it gets more. He’s not afraid to say, ‘I don’t like this.’ He’s not worried about hurting anyone’s feelings. If there’s something he wants, ‘Hey, how come this isn’t in? Can we throw this in?’ Just little things like that that don’t seem like it would be a big deal.

“If you’re around him, you know how respectful he is. He’s an unbelievable kid. He always wants to make sure he’s doing everything for everybody else. It’s not as easy as you think to say, ‘Hey, I don’t like this.’ He’s done a good job of getting to that point where now he’s not afraid to say anything.”

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