FLORHAM PARK, N.J. _ Sam Darnold has been playing without any training wheels, and he's riding just fine, according to Jets general manager Mike Maccagnan.
In fact, make that more than fine.
"He's really been unflappable," Maccagnan said Monday while on with WFAN's Boomer & Gio. "We are exceptionally happy with him. ... They've thrown everything at him, in terms of the offense. He's handled it, he's moved on and he's done well with it. Every day he goes out there he gets a little better."
Maccagnan said that in his 25 years around professional football, Darnold is one of the best rookie quarterbacks he's ever seen.
"You have to remember, he literally just turned 21," Maccagnan said. "He's a very young person. But [we're seeing] all the stuff we knew about him coming out of college _ how people thought about him there. [It's] his personality, his work ethic, the way he handles pressure _ all those things are the intangibles that you really" want in a player.
This was the first time since the day Darnold joined training camp that Maccagnan has commented to the media about his progress, and it's clear the rookie has made a seriously good impression early on, from his work ethic to his ability to bounce back from mistakes.
Coach Todd Bowles, who's rarely anything but measured, again underlined Monday that there's been no decision on who will start the Jets third preseason game against the Giants _ much less who will start Week 1 _ but gave a good indication as to how he was leaning. Darnold got most of the reps and has received rave reviews now not only from Maccagnan, but from offensive coordinator Jeremy Bates.
Bates, who addressed the media for the first time since training camp began, said he was most impressed with "how easy the game is for [Darnold], both mentally and physically."
"We haven't scaled back offensively," he added. "We're giving Sam the same amount of information and the same plays as we're giving Josh [McCown] and Teddy [Bridgewater] . . . He's able to take the classroom knowledge and all the stuff he's studying in the class room and take it right to the field and execute it. We're throwing a lot of football at him and he's able to handle it and that's hard to tell in college. In college, he was looking at the signs at the sidelines. You just never know."
When asked if Darnold was ready to be the Week 1 starter, Bates didn't bite _ instead saying that all three quarterbacks have the ability to be NFL starters. However, "he's progressing extremely fast," Bates said.
"He's owned the playbook," Bates said. "The three or four days he wasn't here (due to a contract dispute) and (then) he was on the field, he didn't even have meetings. He just went out there and started calling plays and running plays. ... A lot of times, that takes a whole year for some guys. And he just came out _ no meeting time _ and he hit the field running."
What's most impressed him, Bates said, is Darnold's ability to adapt when things break down, "which they do probably 70 percent of the game," he said.
"He's able to keep his head downfield, he's able to scramble, find the lanes and find an open receiver. Just being able to make plays off-schedule is very powerful. ... He's a student of the game."
