Canales and Darnold

[strato]

19 minutes ago, kungfoodude said:

Anthony Richardson has tools and size. He was also clearly fuging awful.

Darnold chokes without ever even reaching the playoffs. This revisionist history based on one game is utterly laughable.

He has gotten better, without question, but he is also a bottom third QB.

No man, he is not bottom third. Please. 
I saw him choke in the biggest game for Minnesota last year.  Sure did. Not blind. But I don’t know that he learned nothing. We may get some clarity on that coming up soon. 

People usually do incremental improvements rather than putting it all together at once. Or they don’t because they hit their ceiling and can’t improve but that is generally an ability thing. 
Plus players often learn best from failure, and getting more repetitions where they can apply what they may have learned. 
 

I guess I am a less than serious fan because I would take going 12-5, 13-4, and playoffs most years and be satisfied, with no guarantee of a SB championship. 
Compared to what we have been fed for years, I take that poo all day every day. That is what he is doing. 
 

I’ll wait and see how he responds this year because they will be in the playoffs won’t they? 

Edited 22 hours ago by strato

[kungfoodude]

4 minutes ago, strato said:

No man, he is not bottom third. Please. 
I saw him choke in the biggest game for Minnesota last year.  Sure did. Not blind. But I don’t know that he learned nothing. We may get some clarity on that coming up soon. 

People usually do incremental improvements rather than putting it all together at once. Or they don’t because they hit their ceiling and can’t improve but that is generally an ability thing. 
Plus players often learn best from failure, and getting more repetitions where they can apply what they may have learned. 
 

I guess I am a less than serious fan because I would take going 12-5, 13-4, and playoffs most years and be satisfied, with no guarantee of a SB championship. 
Compared to what we have been fed for years, I take that poo all day every day. That is what he is doing. 
 

I’ll wait and see how he responds this year because they will be in the playoffs won’t they? 

Lol. Yeah, I would also take Minnesota and Seattle's roster and coaching. What kind of absolutely lightspeed insane comparison are you even making? Darnold would have much more visually pleasing and little better or equivalent W/L results in Carolina this season. As bad as Bryce is at dumb dumb TO's, Darnold is in the Winston tier. 

The people that continue to view him as this QB god are pure football comedy.

[strato]

4 minutes ago, kungfoodude said:

Lol. Yeah, I would also take Minnesota and Seattle's roster and coaching. What kind of absolutely lightspeed insane comparison are you even making? Darnold would have much more visually pleasing and little better or equivalent W/L results in Carolina this season. As bad as Bryce is at dumb dumb TO's, Darnold is in the Winston tier. 

The people that continue to view him as this QB god are pure football comedy.

Glad I am entertaining you yuck yuck. 
I damned sure would rather watch him instead of Bryce every Sunday (and that goes for other QBs too).
There is no way of knowing the record with him but I would think he could do better with this team than what we have. 

[NCBlu]

I never got the rush to move on from Darnold.

They had already picked up his 5th yr so they had to pay anyway then to get Baker so late made no sense to me at the time 

Darnold just needed a chance to grow in a stable environment and I'm happy for him he seems like a humble good guy

[mrcompletely11]

11 minutes ago, NCBlu said:

I never got the rush to move on from Darnold.

They had already picked up his 5th yr so they had to pay anyway then to get Baker so late made no sense to me at the time 

Darnold just needed a chance to grow in a stable environment and I'm happy for him he seems like a humble good guy

He was a free agent 

[frankw]

Darnold has progressed in ways nobody here would have expected. But at the end of the day he has always had all the physical gifts necessary to become one of the better QB's in the league. That's why the Jets gambled on him in the draft. I think he's going to end up the tier of QB like a Kirk Cousins where he will put up good numbers in the regular season and then come back to reality in the postseason.

[Khyber53]

On 12/19/2025 at 11:13 AM, Jmac said:

Wondering what could have been if Canales had the chance to work with Darnold. Obviously, Sam has all the tools to be a franchise QB, just needed to get his head straight.

Did they give up on Sam to soon? Seems like he was playing better before they let S.W walk. Sam would have florished under D.C probably, but we shall never know. Darnold would have allowed Canales to use the entire play book including QB sneaks.

Looks like a big miscalculation to not give him a contract.

 

Tried to say it back in the day, but nobody would listen. That game against Minnesota where he put the entire team on his back and brought us within a whisker of making a massive comeback showed who he really could be.

But we weren't there as a team and certainly didn't have the coaching staff in place.

Now, we might well be looking down the same gun barrel with Bryce. But no one wants to hear that either.

[hepcat]

Darnold improved a lot after spending a year off learning under Kyle Shanahan. 

[csx]

On 12/19/2025 at 11:41 AM, kungfoodude said:

I could only imagine how bad Sam Darnold would be in a Dave Canales offense.

I am gonna guess it would look a lot like when Sam Darnold was here the first time.

 

You've always had an odd thing with Darnold that hasn't held up well

[Moonraker]

Willis was impressive last night given the circumstances. GB and SF seem to just have it figured out as far as QB goes.

 

It's frustrating, but I enjoy seeing our old players find success elsewhere. 

Edited 1 hour ago by Moonraker