Sam Darnold is back.
The road back to recovery wasn’t easy, though, despite how good he looked in Sunday’s win over the Cowboys. Darnold had to deal with having both strep and mononucleosis at the same. If that wasn’t enough to make the second-year quarterback physically ill, he also had to stomach watching the league’s worst offense, a unit he was supposed to be running.
The focus for him while sidelined, however, was to maintain his weight. Darnold did that by downing some rather unappetizing drinks.
“The tricky part about it is I had mono and strep throat at the same time,” Darnold told Sports Illustrated. “I had to get over the strep and the mono over four or five days. So I really couldn’t eat much. I was trying to force down protein shakes as much as I could. And throughout those three or four days where I had to do that, my throat was basically closed. So I was forcing down those protein shakes and having a lot of people calling me, texting me, making sure I was doing that even though I didn’t feel like it.”
On Sunday, everything returned to normal. Darnold picked up where he left off last season. Jets offensive coordinator Dowell Loggains said Darnold would not be a “magic wand” that fixed the rest of New York’s problems, but in reality, almost every facet of the team benefited from having the quarterback back.
Over his last six starts, Darnold has completed 66.2 percent of his passes for nine touchdowns, two interceptions and an impressive passer rating of 98.5.
Darnold’s performance on Sunday was the ultimate payoff for him missing time. Darnold finished 23-of-32 for 338 yards, two touchdowns and an interception after downing a lot of protein shakes. Three weeks felt like an eternity, but it was well worth the wait for Gang Green.
