OK, Jets fans. You may want to sit down for this. We have to talk.
I know you are feeling good about your team right now. Sam Darnold looks like the franchise quarterback you have all been waiting for. Teddy Bridgewater looks good and is a nice potential trade chip. The last time the Jets’ quarterback situation was this healthy, you probably did not own a cellphone.
Your enthusiasm is understandable and deserved. There has been plenty of suffering.
However, the glow of the quarterback situation has obscured one fact about the 2018 Jets: They may not be very good.
I know. I know. You don’t want to hear it. It’s like I’m a wet green-and-white blanket.
But look closely at this team. They are still a year away from being a potential contender. They still have massive roster holes that are not going to be fixed until next offseason.
Now, they could shock me and put together a big season. But I don’t see it.
Let’s start with Darnold. I believe he is going to be the starting quarterback on Sept. 10, when the Jets open the season in Detroit. On Sunday, he took the majority of the reps with the starters again and he looked great. The kid has traits that you can’t teach. I think he is going to have a long, fruitful career.
But … even the best quarterbacks often struggle as rookies. From 2013 to 2017, there were 57 quarterbacks drafted, six of them in the top 10 like Darnold. Eleven of them played a significant number of games as a rookie. One made the playoffs — Dak Prescott in 2016 with the Cowboys. Prescott walked into a ready-made team with the game’s best offensive line, good weapons around him in the passing game and a breakout star at running back in Ezekiel Elliott.
Darnold’s supporting cast looks nothing like that Cowboys team.
The Jets’ offensive line is not very good. Even once they get left tackle Kelvin Beachum and right guard Brian Winters back from injury, this unit is going to struggle. Throw in the fact that they are learning a new zone-blocking scheme, and there will be plenty of fans cursing out this line on Monday mornings this fall.
“They’ve got to work together,” coach Todd Bowles said of the line. “I feel good about them when they’re healthy.”
Going hand in hand with that is the running game. Isaiah Crowell and Bilal Powell are a couple of nice complementary backs, but is either one a bellcow back the team can ride? The Jets have rushed for a combined 139 yards in the two preseason games. The longest run by either Crowell or Powell was 5 yards.
The Jets have some decent wide receivers but lack a true No. 1 who instills fear in defenses. At tight end, the Jets have a group of five guys fighting for the job, and to be fair, they have all had good moments in training camp. Young draft picks Jordan Leggett and Chris Herndon are potentially good starting tight ends, but they are likely a year away from that at least.
On defense, the hole is easy to find. This team still has no pass rusher. It feels like Bowles has run through the entire roster at outside linebacker in camp, and no one has emerged as the guy.
“We have guys that show flashes,” Bowles said of the pass rushers. “We just need consistency.”
The good news is the future does look much brighter than it usually does in Florham Park. If Darnold develops like it looks like he should, that solves the biggest problem NFL teams face. He could join a solid core of Leonard Williams, Jamal Adams, Trumaine Johnson, Marcus Maye and Robby Anderson.
The Jets project to have the most salary-cap space in the NFL next year, giving general manager Mike Maccagnan plenty of money to fill some holes. And if I’m right about them not being great in 2018, they will have a high draft pick again.
So, go out and get your No. 14 jersey or just put some tape over the name on your Ryan Fitzpatrick/Richard Todd/Neil O’Donnell jersey. You should be very excited about what Darnold can mean to this franchise. Just don’t expect those results to come over the next four months.