What did they see in Darnold?

[trueblade]

Straight from Rhule's mouth:

Quote

"We were sitting there one day on defense, and I can't remember (exactly) what we were watching, we were watching a cut up, and Sam was playing on the other side of the ball, and a couple times he made some throws, and Phil Snow, our defensive coordinator, was like, 'Man, that kid looks like Matt Stafford.' And so, we put a couple games on – and this is the defensive staff -- and they were all like, 'You know what, every game we watch, he makes a couple of big-time plays, and there has to be some meat on the bone there,' " Rhule said. "So, kind of went through the process and kept watching him and going back and watching him in college and watching his pro day and then going back and watching his first year in a different offense and the second year and his third year. When the compensation was enough where we didn't have to give up what we thought was too much that [it] would hurt our team and a chance to get him here, we'd watched so much tape on him that we saw enough shining moments."

Bolding and underling added by me.

source: https://www.nfl.com/news/matt-rhule-on-why-panthers-didn-t-pick-qb-in-draft-i-just-believe-in-sam-darnold

[iamhubby1]

10 minutes ago, CanePantherHornet said:

Exactly. For some reason they think they can contend now so they're desperately swinging at the fences and compromising our future in the process.

 

Rhule wanted to start a winning culture right away. Going with an established  QB should have helped with that. It didn't. 

 

We are 7 games into the 2nd year of a rebuild. We have not compromised the future.

[PantherPhann89]

I think what they saw in Darnold was that he was a young, experienced NFL QB that they could coach up. 

What they failed to see is how he played after a few sacks and hits.

[CRA]

22 minutes ago, SmokinwithWilly said:

Darnlod has the tools to be a good NFL QB. Arm talent, mobility and he's shown flashes of having "it" as we saw in the Vikings game with that 4th quarter comeback.

 

Lot of players have for tools to be good and aren’t.  The draft is full of them and most are never to really be heard of or ever become noteworthy. 

Sam experiment shouldn’t of ended when the Jets dumped him.   His path back to a starting job should of been a long one. 

[imminent rogaine]

40 minutes ago, Moo Daeng said:

They saw what he was showing us the first 3 games which was rather good I thought. Then the plane crashed in to the god damned mountain.

CMC was the bandaid for the hemorrhaging line. Defenses get a little tape, cmc goes out, and Darnold is back to Jets-Darnold seeing ghosts and panick-throws.

[R2-D2]

Has a good arm and ruhle was impressed with his personal interview during his coaching interview with the jets.

Thought was he could be a tannehill style reclamation project. Had similar backgrounds in that neither played as much quarterback growing up as most top tier prospects. Thought was he could execute in a good offense. 
 

obviously everything is falling apart at this point though. 

[raleigh-panther]

2 hours ago, GoobyPls said:

To justify trading a second round pick for him?

 

He’s never been remotely good, by every advanced metric he was not just bad but the worst starting QB over the last 3 seasons. Anyone who saw the jets play last season would tell you Flacco was their best QB and he’s washed up.

I can’t believe people were falling for that 3-0 start, he was executing an elementary level offense and still missing wide open receivers, he wasn’t being exposed cause the defense was on a record pace in terms of yards, first downs and other metrics.

They saw what they wanted to see 

not the reality 

not his history 

they saw what supported their narrative particularly after they screwed the pouch on draft position and other veteran QBs 

[Cdparr7]

Darnold averaged 2.5 sacks per game in NY.

Hes averaged 4.5 sacks per game the last 4.

We aren’t helping him.

[firefox1234]

A mixture of bird signs, smoke signals and some sketch telephone psychics.

[kungfoodude]

12 minutes ago, raleigh-panther said:

They saw what they wanted to see 

not the reality 

not his history 

they saw what supported their narrative particularly after they screwed the pouch on draft position and other veteran QBs 

Pretty much this.

Everyone who still believes he has the talent or believes there is still hope, this is you. If you couldn't see if before the season, if you couldn't see it in the first three games, if you couldn't see it last four games.....you can't see it.

[Cary Kollins]

50 minutes ago, stbugs said:

Don’t agree that it was the same as Teddy. Teddy was seen as a stop gap that knew Brady’s offense, but I think in Sam they saw future franchise potential.

I assume they saw some of the great plays, like some he had this year as well and thought they could make him consistent. Same with the folks in here wanting PJ. They remember that one pass to Moore against the Lions and his one good pass yesterday. Problem is that strong armed QBs like Teddy and PJ can make those wow throws but overall they don’t make enough consistent plays.

Teddy was signed to a three year $63 million deal with $33 million guaranteed. 
 

They thought Teddy would be the guy because reasons. 
 

Darnold only had his fifth year option picked up, which of course now looks like a terrible decision.

Edited October 25, 2021 by Cary Kollins

[SetfreexX]

2 hours ago, Cary Kollins said:

Seems like the same poo they saw in Teddy…hope and a prayer that he could turn into a franchise QB with proper coaching and talent.

 

Turns out the staff are either poor evaluators or poor coaches, or both.

I would say there was a level of ego / naivety in the sense that AT THE HIGHEST level they could get by with JAG at the SINGLE MOST IMPORTANT POSITION IN THE NFL. 

I will give them credit for rebuilding the defense as quickly as they have and I fully anticipated we'd start to add on the offense as it was in better shape than the defense. This coming off-season is that time; however I think the FINALLY understand that you can't do anything worthwhile without premium talent ala investing a high draft pick or signing / trading for a viable franchise QB which is a situation that basically never presents itself.  

[ImaginaryKev]

Sam looks broken, he had some nice traits and flashes of the type of play the modern NFL covets bc at this point you can't be confident. I actually think the best thing is to keep him in the lineup if you're not signing or trading for anyone and see if you can coach it out of him. I mean, you ALREADY picked up his 5th year option, don't back down now. 

But yeah, right now it seems the coaching staff was overconfident in their ability to coach offense and it shows Sundays

[AU-panther]

2 hours ago, GoobyPls said:

To justify trading a second round pick for him?

 

He’s never been remotely good, by every advanced metric he was not just bad but the worst starting QB over the last 3 seasons. Anyone who saw the jets play last season would tell you Flacco was their best QB and he’s washed up.

I can’t believe people were falling for that 3-0 start, he was executing an elementary level offense and still missing wide open receivers, he wasn’t being exposed cause the defense was on a record pace in terms of yards, first downs and other metrics.

They saw tools.  He is an above average athlete and he has some arm talent, although not the accuracy.

If you look at our other free agency signings,  and even our draft classes, you can see a theme with this staff, they definitely like players with tools, measurables, or positive traits.

Cam Erving, Darnold, Henderson, all first rounders, you don't get drafted in the 1st round unless you have some good tools.  Even Elflein  was drafted relatively high for a center and was consider to have good "traits".

I think this staff believes they can take talented players and make them better players.  Honestly it might be their biggest downfall and might be leftover from them being college coaches.

With high school kids you are looking for best athletes and then you turn them into football players.  At this level, once a player has been in the league a few years, the chance of you getting more of them than other NFL staffs is rather slim.