Every team that moved on from Sam Darnold probably has a few restless nights now that the quarterback led the Seattle Seahawks to the Super Bowl. He’s doing it while beat up, and making a lot of old decisions look questionable. A few former New York Jets players aren’t hiding their disbelief.

Former Jets safety Jamal Adams, wide receiver Robbie Chosen, and tackle Kelvin Beachum all spoke glowingly about Darnold, who’s now just one win away from a Super Bowl ring.

“He showed flashes; that’s why [the trade] didn’t make sense,” Adams said to ESPN. “Our head coach that we hired [Adam Gase] didn’t really help us out now. He did not help us out. Sometimes you look back like ‘Golly!’ We had Sam Darnold in our hands, and now he’s going to the Super Bowl.”

Chosen echoed that thought, framing it less as a player failure and more as an organizational one.

“Sometimes in the league, in certain situations, it’s not always the player,” Chosen said. “It takes the foundation around you that helps you become great. I remember saying it on [a podcast], when they were trying to debate with me about him as a player. I’m like, ‘He’s good, he just hasn’t been developed correctly.'”

That impatience has become a theme. Darnold spent three seasons with the Jets before being traded in 2021, a move that puzzled plenty of people at the time. His first two years weren’t clean, but they showed why he was taken No. 3 overall. He threw 17 touchdowns as a rookie and 19 in his second season, clearing 3,000 passing yards in the latter year.

Year three went sideways. Darnold struggled, and the supporting cast offered little margin for error. Even so, when veteran Joe Flacco filled in during injuries, his spot starts were more productive. It didn’t take much longer for the Jets to decide they’d seen enough.

That was it. Darnold was shipped out, and the organization moved on. The “impatient” label fits. Regardless, Darnold found his way, took his lumps elsewhere, and eventually landed with a team willing to trust him again. Now he’s leading that team toward the Lombardi Trophy.

“Everything he has endured, everything he went through has set him up to be the player that he is, the person that he is and the competitor that he is,” Beachum said. “It’s all forged him and hardened him to be the player that he is.”

But it’s still interesting to wonder how things could’ve turned out in New York had the front office remained patient with him.

“Man, if only New York had some patience with him,” Adams said. “Like, he was the guy, man. He was gonna be The Guy. He just needed time.”

The players weren’t the only ones who were left baffled by Darnold’s exit.

Former Jets GM puts the front office on notice

When Mike Maccagnan drafted Sam Darnold in 2018, he believed the New York Jets had finally found what they’d been chasing for years. A real franchise quarterback. That was his hope for himself, the Jets, and for Sam Darnold.

“I was always kind of sad that Sam wasn’t able to fulfill that potential in New York,” Maccagnan said to ESPN. “That’s where he started his journey, and, in an ideal world, he would’ve finished it there. But it wasn’t meant to be, and he had to go on his own journey to grow and develop in different places.”

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There’s no bitterness in the way Maccagnan talks about it now. More than anything, he sounds relieved. Relieved that Darnold is finally showing what he believed he could be. He said it feels good to see a projection come true, adding that scouts live for moments like that.

Maccagnan was fired by the Jets in 2019, but he’s not framing Darnold’s resurgence as some kind of personal victory lap. He doesn’t see it as vindication. He just sees it as confirmation. He was right about the player. And, in his mind, the Jets were wrong to move on so quickly.

“My personal opinion: I would’ve liked to have seen him get a full opportunity there,” Maccagnan said. “But at the end of the day, I wasn’t in that building, so I can’t say, ‘They should’ve done this, this and this.’ I wasn’t around. But I was saddened to see them trade him.”

By 2021, the Jets, led by Joe Douglas, decided it was time to reset. They traded Darnold rather than continuing to build around him. Whether that move was about stockpiling draft capital or starting over at quarterback became clear soon enough. With the second overall pick in the 2021 draft, they selected Zach Wilson.

That gamble didn’t pay off. Wilson never became the answer. Douglas was fired in 2024. Maccagnan was already gone. In the end, the only one who truly came out on the other side was Sam Darnold.