New York Jets: Breaking down Sam Darnold’s performance against Detroit
Time to go back and break down the numbers on the performance of New York Jets quarterback Sam Darnold in week one against the Lions.
It doesn’t get much better than the debut of Sam Darnold for the New York Jets against the Detroit Lions. It started ugly with the first pass but it ended up being quite the night for the young man from USC.
Tonight we are going to break down his performance by the numbers, with the assistance of Pro Football Focus (subscription required).
But first let’s quickly review that ill-fated first pass of the game. Darnold mis-read what he saw with the zone coverage.
Quandre Diggs fooled him as he set up close to the line as if he was going to rush the passer. Instead, he dropped back into the zone coverage.
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Darnold is flushed out to the right and he sees Bilal Powell running down the left side.
He did not, however, see Diggs lying in wait, watching his eyes. He saw the pass, stepped in front and was gone.
It was a bad idea to throw across his body, but if you noticed, it didn’t happen again. He learns from his mistakes.
That’s done now, on to the good stuff.
The line wasn’t flashy, but it was good:
16-21, 76.2% completion percentage, 198 yards, two touchdowns and one interception.
He upped the yards per attempt average to 9.4 yards, which shows he was given the freedom to push the ball a bit.
Under pressure, Darnold was able to perform. He was credited with dropping back five times under pressure, completing two out of three passes.
He completed five out of nine passes when blitzed, which was his lowest completion percentage of 55.6%. However, when blitzed his passer rating was 81.9. Overall, he put up a rating of 116.8
Next. Jets get it rolling in Detroit. dark
As far as the distance goes, Darnold went a perfect 12-12 on passes up to ten yards deep. This was expected as he has been efficient on the short stuff. That accounted for 105 of his total passing yards.
His roughest part of the field was from 10-20 yards, where he only went 2-5 for 32 yards and the early interception. Obviously it didn’t exactly kill him on the night.
On throws over 20 yards he was 2-3 for 61 yards and the Robby Anderson touchdown.
I guess that deep ball is coming along.
All in all it was a great night and Sam Darnold is only going to get better.