Stephen A. Smith: Don’t Jinx Sam Darnold

There’s a warm fuzzy feeling around the Jets rookie QB at the moment. After flashing excellent potential during the Jets first pre-season game, Darnold received high praise from Redskins cornerback Josh Norman and received the majority of first team reps during a practice this week. Jets fans were impressed, the fans of opponents were impressed, but Stephen A. Smith doesn’t want to hear it.

The outspoken personality always has something to say and his latest was hilarious to watch due to the animation:

“I don’t want to hear excitement over pre-season, I don’t want to hear excitement over joint practices, I don’t want to hear excitement over something you saw at Florham Park. That doesn’t mean anything when it comes to these New York Jets. Not with their horrid history of providing one disappointment after another. I believe in Todd Bowles as the coach, I believe in Mike Maccagnan as the GM but dammit they can’t go out on the field and play”

“I don’t want to hear no more about Josh Norman’s comment applauding Sam Darnold, by the way, the same Sam Darnold who threw 13 interceptions last time we saw him throw a football and that was in college. I like Sam Darnold, some would argue he should have been the number one overall pick, I think he’s going to be pretty good, I’m hopeful, as long as you don’t jinx him”

I always find it funny that media personalities don’t want fans to engage in conversations around their favourite team based on what’s happening at the moment. Stephen doesn’t want you to talk about what you see in the pre-season, or what you see in practices, but surely the media depend on our opinions and our conversations, someone should remind Stephen it’s why he has a job in the first place.

If you watched the pre-season game and didn’t want to come away talking about Sam Darnold, I don’t understand you. He showed poise, he showed pocket awareness, he showed accuracy and touch and an ability to throw on the run. He was playing with backups against backups, so I don’t want to hear competition level. He was working with what he had and it was the individual components that looked so promising rather than the results.

Stephen A. doesn’t want to hear that positive atmosphere around the Jets at the moment. He’d rather we all sat around obsessing over what we haven’t done, rather than the path we’re on. However the hype train around Darnold is leaving the station and I’m firmly aboard, and I have to say...it’s started to look pretty crowded on here.