{"id":41087,"date":"2018-09-13T14:00:57","date_gmt":"2018-09-13T18:00:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.jetnation.com\/?p=41087"},"modified":"2018-09-13T02:46:49","modified_gmt":"2018-09-13T06:46:49","slug":"negative-sam-darnold-plays-vs-detroit-lions-week-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/2018\/09\/13\/negative-sam-darnold-plays-vs-detroit-lions-week-1\/","title":{"rendered":"Negative Sam Darnold Plays: vs. Detroit Lions (Week 1)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Welcome to the inaugural Negative Sam Darnold Plays, as the young QB led the Jets to victory against the Lions in Week 1.\u00a0 Please don\u2019t panic, this is a relatively short article, and be sure to check out the Positives article to feel better.<\/p>\n

Negative Darnold Plays<\/h2>\n

1<\/strong>.\u00a0\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

You have seen this play a thousand times, and it was all over social media 20 seconds after it happened, so I don\u2019t need to harp on it for too long.\u00a0 The issue here starts with the blocking from Neal Sterling because he allows his defender to come up the field.\u00a0 It\u2019s not a terrible mistake, but it makes Sam Darnold roll out further to his right, and away from the safety valve in Powell.\u00a0\u00a0 The primary read (Tomlinson) and secondary read (Anderson) are both well covered, so Darnold decides to go to his 3rd<\/sup> option, which is Powell.\u00a0 Unfortunately, he\u2019s drifted too far to the right to avoid the defender, which makes this throw extremely difficult and ill advised.\u00a0 Powell is open for the pass, but Darnold leads him too far up the field, rather than just trying to make a completion.\u00a0\u00a0 It\u2019s a terrible mistake, but you already knew that.<\/p>\n

2<\/strong>.\u00a0\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

This one is in the negative column for Darnold because of the outcome, but it\u2019s actually pretty smart recognition by him.\u00a0 To start off, this is an RPO pass and Darnold decides to pick the passing option.\u00a0 The problem with RPOs is that, offensive linemen can only block one yard down the field on passing plays, before it\u2019s considered an ineligible receiver downfield.\u00a0 In college, the offensive line has three yards of cushion, so the offense has more choices.\u00a0\u00a0 When Darnold makes his decision, he sees Enunwa crossing the formation, with a defender trailing behind, which is going to give three receivers for the Jets with two defenders in the vicinity.\u00a0 The safety is playing deep, and therefore won\u2019t be able to affect the play until the Jets gain positive yards.\u00a0 Neal Sterling should block the defender on Enunwa, and Robby Anderson runs the clear out on the outside.\u00a0 It\u2019s pretty much a pitch and catch for positive yards.\u00a0 Why did it go wrong? Brandon Shell whiffs on a block, as he tries to cut down the defender.\u00a0 Shell goes to the floor, trying to get the defender down, but he just steps right over him and into the path of Darnold\u2019s passing lane.\u00a0 The QB doesn\u2019t have any other options on this play, so he throws it to the ground, otherwise risking an illegal receiver downfield penalty as the best-case scenario.\u00a0 It\u2019s a great read and play recognition by Darnold, but Shell missing his block, blew up this play.<\/p>\n

3.<\/strong>\u00a0\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I\u2019m going to put this play in the negative section because of the outcome, but it\u2019s not Darnold\u2019s fault at all.\u00a0 In fact, I\u2019m quite impressed by his ability to read the defense here so quickly.\u00a0 First thing to notice, single high safety look, and the defender on Enunwa is giving inside leverage, as he\u2019s about half a yard to the outside.\u00a0 This tells Darnold that Enunwa will get a relatively easy release to the inside since the safety is over the middle.\u00a0 The main issue here is the middle linebacker, which is the same problem as the Positives Play 2 in the other article.\u00a0 If the linebacker falls back, then hand the ball off to the running back, as the Jets have the blockers there to get around the edge.\u00a0 If the linebacker follows the running back, then pull back, and make the throw to Enunwa down the middle.\u00a0 The ball is well placed, but it bounces off Enunwa\u2019s hand for an incomplete pass.\u00a0 In two instances, Darnold has correctly read the defense pre-snap, and then aptly manipulated a key defender post snap.\u00a0 That\u2019s incredibly impressive for a rookie debut performance.<\/p>\n

Conclusion:<\/h2>\n

Sam Darnold started off his career in the worst way possible, with a pick 6.\u00a0 However, he rebounded quite well and showed off an excellent array of skills.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know if I\u2019ve been this impressed by a rookie since Andrew Luck.\u00a0 There were guys that had better physical ability, but to be able to dissect defenses and remain calm is quite impressive for the youngest opening day starter since the merger.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Welcome to the inaugural Negative Sam Darnold Plays, as the young QB led the Jets to victory against the Lions in Week 1.\u00a0 Please don\u2019t panic, this is a relatively short article, and be sure to check out the Positives article to feel better. Negative Darnold Plays 1.\u00a0 You have seen this play a thousand […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":42,"featured_media":41090,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2504],"tags":[2444,2744,2447,2856],"class_list":{"0":"post-41087","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ny-jets-film-review","8":"tag-brandon-shell","9":"tag-neal-sterling","10":"tag-robby-anderson","11":"tag-sam-darnold"},"acf":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/Lions-Darnold-Negative-2.gif","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/peLffi-aGH","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41087","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/42"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41087"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41087\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41092,"href":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41087\/revisions\/41092"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/41090"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41087"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41087"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41087"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}