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The Jets made a big trade last week when they shipped quarterback Sam Darnold to Carolina and cleared the path to take a new quarterback with the second overall pick in this month’s draft.
Once that quarterback — Zach Wilson is the expected choice — is in place, he’ll join head coach Robert Saleh and offensive coordinator Mike LaFleur in a first season with the franchise. Darnold didn’t have that as he came in during Todd Bowles’ final season, transitioned to Adam Gase in 2019, and then saw Joe Douglas replace General Manager Mike Maccagnan a year after he was selected.
Albert Breer of SI.com reports that Gase didn’t bend his offensive approach all that much to fit Darnold and that contributed to the former Jet’s rocky play the last two years. Douglas told Breer that he doesn’t have such a fear about the next quarterback because Saleh, LaFleur, and the rest of the staff have made it quite clear what they want in players.
“Obviously, you’re excited about Robert,” Douglas said. “And then you’re excited about this great staff of hires and teachers he’s bringing in. . . . And then you get into these meetings, and there’s such a clear-cut plan. There’s such great teaching methods that they have in place. And just going through these conversations, it’s reinforced the excitement that you had when we made the hire. These are great guys, man. They have the vision and they have a plan and it makes your job easier from a personnel perspective when there is that clear vision in what they’re looking for — like, O.K., this is easy, we can find guys that are made of the right stuff. It’s been cool. It’s been really cool.”
Quarterbacks have a way of making or breaking head coaches and General Managers. Douglas and Saleh will be defining bet for their Jets tenures in a little more than two weeks.
