After Thursday night’s loss to the Browns, Jets head coach Todd Bowles said blame for the loss fell entirely on his shoulders.
Bowles is unlikely to find a lack of agreement with that assessment, but quarterback Sam Darnold did deem his performance “not acceptable” and castigated himself for making too many mistakes in his third NFL start. Darnold was 15-of-31 for 169 yards and two interceptions in a performance that called for him to make short passes almost exclusively
During a Friday conference call, Bowles was asked how he thought Darnold played. Bowles kept things positive while talking about the rookie.
“I thought yesterday was one of his better ball games from a mental standpoint, and a toughness standpoint, and a grit standpoint and the natural stuff. It is easy to throw when you have time in the pocket and they’re wide open, but when you can move around and make plays happen [that is different]. I thought he took care of the ball for the most part until the end of the ball game, obviously when we had to press to try and get something done. But I thought he grew a lot last night. Going in and watching the schedule, after he won the starting job, I thought this would be his toughest game from a scheme-coverage standpoint because of the things that they do on that side of the ball. I thought he handled that well.”
Others will take a dimmer view of Darnold’s outing and an offensive game plan that started out OK -- the Jets led 14-0 in the first half -- before producing little the rest of the way. With a very good Jaguars defense on deck, things aren’t going to get any easier for the rookie or his head coach.