Why Panthers fans shouldn't be optimistic that Sam Darnold's problems are fixable

It's not all Adam Gase's fault. Or the supporting case. Darnold has been bad.

I’ve had time to sleep on it. It’s been nearly 48 hours since Sam Darnold officially became a member of the Carolina Panthers and, though I’ve calmed down a bit, I still don’t feel much better about the move.

It was a short-sighted move that speaks to the impatience from both ownership and the front office that has held the franchise back from committing to a sorely needed rebuild. I explained here why I disagreed with both the move itself and the timing of it.

Whatever.

None of that matters now. The trade has been made so the only thing Panthers fans can do is look forward and hope that 1) this coaching staff can resurrect a once-promising career and 2) this is one of those instances of bad process leading to good results.

I mean, it is possible. Darnold is a talented player and he was drafted third overall for a reason. He’s capable of doing stuff like this…

Per science, Sam Darnold should be a consistent stud on a non-Gase team pic.twitter.com/2hO38BNrxn

— Ian Hartitz (@Ihartitz) September 22, 2020

A year ago, I warned Jets fans about falling for those flashes, and now here I am a year later trying to offer one up as a potential sign of hope. But, really, they are all you have to hold onto at this point. Whether you’re analyzing Darnold’s three years in the NFL through a qualitative or quantitative lens, it’s not pretty.

When watching his film from the 2020 season, it’s hard to see much of a difference between it and his 2019 film … or his 2018 film … or his college film. You get the point. Of course, it’s hard to ignore Adam Gase’s offense and the Jets’ lackluster supporting cast making things actively harder for the young quarterback, but the reverse is true, too. Darnold isn’t doing his part, either.

That becomes glaringly obvious when you look at metrics designed to isolate his play. Sports Info Solutions’ proprietary Points Earned metric, which is based on the Expected Points Added model, ranked Darnold as the second-worst quarterback in the league in 2020. Only Carson Wentz was worse, while guys like Gardner Minshew, Drew Lock, and Mitchell Trubisky were all better. Wentz and Darnold, both of whom were traded this offseason, were on their own island of awfulness. Nick Foles finished just ahead of them but the gap between him and those two was SIGNIFICANT…

It gets worse. The Jets’ offensive line was awful, right? Well, Darnold was abysmal even in a clean pocket. He graded out as the 32nd-ranked quarterback when kept clean, according to Pro Football Focus. And his Big-time Throw rate was near the bottom of the league at 1.7 percent. So he wasn’t just bad when given a clean pocket, he was boring.

That’s one thing that stands out when watching Darnold’s film. He’s not really the gunslinger he’s made out to be. There’s a reason why his highlights are always out-of-structure: In structure, he’s terribly conservative. Gase was criticized for his painfully horizontal offense, but have we considered the possibility that it was a result of Darnold’s own limitations as a passer? Those short throws were the only ones he was actually capable of making at an above-average rate…

via Pro Football Focus’ 2021 QB Annual

Even the most ardent Darnold skeptics can’t deny it: The man can throw a swing pass.

Panthers fans gave up on Teddy Bridgewater because of his tendency to throw short but it’s not like Darnold was significantly more aggressive. Bridgewater’s average throw traveled 7.3 yards past the line of scrimmage, according to RBSDM.com. Darnold’s aDOT was 7.8. His average throw traveled 1.1 yards short of the sticks while Bridgewater was at 1.6. We can’t blame the Jets offense for that either. Joe Flacco averaged 11 air yards per pass attempt and his average throw traveled 2.2 yards PAST the sticks.

Flacco wasn’t just more aggressive. He was better, which really throws a wrench into the whole “Gase ruined Darnold” argument. The former Super Bowl MVP outperformed his younger counterpart in every conceivable measure, including PFF grade, EPA and QBR. Even if you throw away the first half of Darnold’s 2020 campaign, when the Jets’ supporting cast was banged up, that remains true. Flacco’s superior performance kills any argument claiming that Darnold’s league-worst production was the direct result of a poor support system. We can ask “how many quarterbacks would succeed in such a situation?” but we can just as easily ask “how many quarterbacks would have performed better?” We have at least one answer to that question: A 35-year-old Joe Flacco.

The environment in which a quarterback play is going to affect all of the metrics laid out here, but I think we’ve overstated just how much of an influence Gase’s play-calling could have reasonably had on Darnold’s performance. We’ve seen Gase get decent results out of Jay Cutler and Ryan Tannehill. Peyton Manning had one of his better years with Gase calling suggesting plays. His reputation as a QB killer is based wholly on Tannehill breaking out in a friendly environment in Tennessee and Darnold being awful … and the former was much better during his time playing under Gase.

for whatever it's worth, sam darnold and ryan tannehill during their time with adam gase pic.twitter.com/4AtnFGkVX9

— charles (moderna man) mcdonald (@FourVerts) April 5, 2021

Gase’s scheme can’t be that bad. Defenses weren’t just gloving up every route he called. They can’t defend everything! Cutler, Tannehill and even a late-career Flacco managed to be much better in the same offense. So even if you believe Darnold was a victim of Gase’s schematic buffoonery, that still says something about his inability to find second or third options consistently, which is one of the hallmarks of good quarterback play. Making good decisions and throwing accurately are two other big ones and both have been problems for Darnold going back to his time in college. In many respects, Darnold is still that same prospect he was coming out of USC. Only he’s a few years older and a bit more expensive.

This is not what Panthers fans want to read. I know this. I wish I could be more optimistic but it’s just really hard to do so without dusting off pre-draft scouting reports from three years ago or posting those thirst-trap highlights that Darnold produces every couple of games.

After escaping Gase and the Jets, Darnold will almost certainly be better than he has been. But all of the evidence suggests that he will almost certainly not be good enough to be a long-term answer in Carolina.