Sam Darnold is making it look easy in his second year and as of now, Adam Gase may have found the quarterback he’s been looking for since Peyton Manning. In two preseason contests, he’s 9-of-12 passing, while engineering two scoring drives. In Thursday’s action against the Falcons, Darnold marched the Jets offense 66 yards down the field with ease, highlighted by a 21-yard back-shoulder dime to Robby Anderson. He still has a ways to go to really enter “must take a flier on this guy” status. However, his talent and development in Gase’s offense will make fantasy owners scramble to the waiver wire if he makes noise early on in the regular season.
The downfield throws to Robby Anderson are nice and all, but Gase’s offense is predicated off quick passes, accuracy and dump-offs — areas where Darnold has shown massive improvement. This is why Jamison Crowder drips in 100-plus reception upside and why Le’Veon Bell’s target and reception totals should continue to be at an elite level.
Monitoring the all-important third preseason game against the Saints will be crucial to see where he stands. Darnold will get an aggressive Saints secondary that generates turnovers and will give him a test of where he’s at in his development.
As of now, we have the sophomore signal-caller as our QB23 with a very high ceiling.
