Every year, Aaron Schatz of ESPN writes an article where he picks an ideal free agent fit for each NFL team. What makes Schatz’ exercise unique is that he only picks “one free agent per team, and only one team per free agent” which means that linking a player to a team takes that player off the board for all the rest.
This year, Schatz’ pick for the New York Jets was a bit of an eye-popper: quarterback Sam Darnold. Darnold, still only 27 years old, most recently played for the Minnesota Vikings as he led the team to a very impressive 14-3 record, so it’s easy to see why QB-needy teams like the Jets would be interested. However, in the not so distant past, Darnold was the #3 overall pick for the New York Jets who was traded before his rookie contract expired, so there’s definitely some history to muddy the waters on a Jets-Darnold connection. Schatz acknowledged all of this within his logic for the link, writing:
The idea seems ridiculous. Darnold going back to the Jets — the organization that nearly destroyed his career? But the difficulty with placing Darnold on a new team is that you want to match him with a franchise where the offensive coordinator will run an offense similar to what Kevin O’Connell had for him in Minnesota. That’s what allowed Darnold to finally flourish, overcome his early-career bust status and rank 14th with a 60.4 QBR in 2024.
Although he doesn’t come from the Sean McVay/Kyle Shanahan tree, Jets coordinator Tanner Engstrand seems like a good match because of the way the Lions used under-center play-action when Engstrand was working under Ben Johnson. The Vikings had the quarterback under center 34% of the time this past season, while the Lions were at 36%. Perhaps a new coaching staff could guide Darnold and the Jets to the playoffs — just not quite in the way fans expected when the Jets took him third overall in 2018.
Admittedly, the scheme fit is there and the Jets regime is very different than the ones that he previously played for in New York. I guess the expression “stranger things have happened” exists for situations just like this.
What do you think? Could this reunion come to fruition? And, as a Jets fan, would you want to it?