Sam Darnold's NFL Journey and Influence on Team Success

I want to ask you about Sam Darnold here. How did that story evolve into this, Phil? I mean, do you believe in that line where organizations are more likely to let down quarterbacks than quarterbacks are more likely to let down organizations? Do you buy that? Because this is his 15 and here's another stat for you, Phil. He's the winningest quarterback percentage wise since 2022. How did he get to that point? Oh, well, I didn't know how to begin with all this. You know, first he's got the talent to be a franchise quarterback. He always has. Sometimes I would look at even just go, I wish he was a little more assertive. You know, uh, when you're the quarterback of a franchise NFL, you've got to be a guy that is connecting to everybody to make it, to give it a better chance of working. And, you know, so I wasn't shocked to see what he did out in Seattle. Not at all. Let's see. He's big, pretty mobile, strong as hell. Good arm accurate. When you give him enough protection. Yeah. That's a franchise quarterback, but you know, we got to go in all these. Well, you know, he hasn't won before. Wow. You mean he didn't win down in Carolina when they had that awful team? Oh, and he lost with the jets. Yeah. I thought the jets were going to damn Superbowl. So there's, there's a picture of the Carolina Panthers. There's Sam Darnold sitting next to Baker Mayfield on the sideline as the game's going on. Who's playing quarterback. Yeah, it's PJ Walker. He was a guy that kind of beat around the league, but he was a starting quarterback. Well, those two were on the sideline. Look what those two have done since they got out of Carolina. About this too. You want to add one more day? We're scouting defense events on a look team for Carolina. And those two guys now are going to be talking about $50 million contracts. Absolutely. Yeah. Hey, listen. They were scout team show guys for the Carolina Panthers. Mayfield told me he goes, yeah, Sam Darner was the right end. I was the left end. And I'm like, let me answer it this way that you, you had a lot of comments before, and you said some things that are true that just shows you no matter who you are, what talent you have, you cannot overcome the coaching and the organization. You have no chance of overcoming it. And you know, like Patrick Mahone, you look at him, the great thing, all the years, all the talent, all of a sudden, what happened? Well, what happened is they didn't have the players. And even though he was making a few good plays and doing that all the time during the season, but unless you have that group around you to where you show your talent and they get it, then, oh yeah, this quarterback can win any game, you know, whatever. So it's arguments that'll never cease about the quarterback. Let me give you one last one here on Darnold here. How much of a difficult transition is that for a quarterback, Phil, when you go from a Clint Kubiak to a Brian Flurry, maybe a different voice, a different way, situational play calling. I try to explain this to people. You can have the same playbook, right? Phil on the desk. But when you have a different play caller, situational play calling becomes an issue here on how that guy sees the game versus the other guy. Is that the main thing you have to work with, with your new coordinator? Yeah. You know, I, I, there's a lot there, Dan. Um, you know, two teams could run exactly the same play exact. You know, every receiver's doing exactly what another team was doing, but one team makes it really work and the other one can't, and it's the way you present it, of course, the talents, when to call it, there's so many things. Just calling it the right time is good for three or four or five big plays for each team on both sides of the ball. So, you know, that's something I look at a lot and you know, as I watched, I went back and watched some Patrick Mahomes take from last year and I just went, oh my gosh, I watched every one of the games with him. It's hit me even more right now that they were not very good. And what the hell was he going to do? He was getting crushed, throwing on the run, throwing it behind his head. He was doing everything. And it just kind of puts into perspective. Once again, no matter how great you are, the game of football, you need help with your teammates. And let me, and also maybe even more from the coaches.