NASHVILLE, Tenn. – Todd Bowles said many colorful things — by his standards, anyway — on Sunday regarding how ticked off, disgusted and generally fuming he was over the Jets’ latest late-game flop, a 26-22 loss to the Titans.
But by far the most consequential thing he said had nothing to do with any of that.
It was this: When asked how close rookie quarterback Sam Darnold was to playing against Tennessee, the coach said, “He could have played. He just needed more (practice) reps.
“You just can’t bring him back after 14 to 17 days, even if he’s healthy, to not have timing and everything else and put him out there in a game like this. We’ll reload this week and see where he is.”
Asked whether he expects Darnold to play against the Bills on Sunday, he said, “I don’t know. It’s too early.”
A couple of points about the above:
First, give Bowles or management or team doctors or whoever makes these decisions credit for doing right by Darnold, making sure his injured foot is fully healed and his rookie brain is fully prepared before putting him back on the field.
He is a precious commodity and must be handled with care.
Second, it is time to put him back on the field!
The three games in which he has not taken part had their own storylines and drama, and it would be disrespectful to the players who put their bodies on the line to say they were without meaning.
But mostly . . . They were without meaning.
For fans and those of us tasked with writing stories about what the young men in green and white do on the field, every game in which Darnold sits out is one less game for him to learn and for us to observe him learning.
This has to stop now, as long as it does not mean putting him at risk, obviously.
The sands of Darnold’s rookie hourglass are running out, with only four games left, two against first-place teams in the Texans and Patriots.
Now more than ever, with a six-game losing streak, a lame-duck coach and a river of salary cap cash ready to flow this offseason, Darnold must do all the developing he can before opening day 2019.
Quarterbacks need work. Unlike say, rookie running backs such as the Giants’ Saquon Barkley, who showed up in Week 1 ready to play in the NFL.
(If I were them, I would invent a minor injury for Barkley and shelve him for the rest of December, the better to cut down on injury risk and wear and tear.)
Not so quarterbacks, and certainly not Darnold, whose first season has been wildly inconsistent and had been on a downward trajectory before he got hurt.
Josh McCown seems like an excellent all-around human, but we no longer can be subjected to watching him play. On Sunday he was 17-for-30 for 128 yards and an interception, and the offense did not score a touchdown.
You had to feel for the guy afterward. When the Jets led 16-0, McCown must have thought he was en route to a parting-gift victory in perhaps the final game of his long NFL career.
But no. He was uncharacteristically less-than-chatty after the game, glumly answering a few questions before there was nothing left to ask.
Regarding when he learned that he would start, he said, “[Bowles] told us later in the week.” He said it so softly, I had to ask him to repeat himself.
Whatever. All that is over now. It is time for McCown to go back to being the highest-paid unofficial assistant coach/mentor in the NFL.
It is time for Darnold to play. That was the entire point of the 2018 season. Without him, it is meaningless.
Neil Best first worked at Newsday in 1982, returned in 1985 after a detour to Alaska and has been here since, specializing in high schools, college basketball, the NFL and most recently sports media and business.