Sam Darnold: "There's Always Room To Grow And Continue To Learn"

Sam Darnold (0:00)

All right, yeah, not our best tonight, guys. It was, you know, just offensively, couldn't really feel like we couldn't get anything going. You know, we had a couple of good drives. I feel like early on, you know, I had a third down where Jax was there, and I should have gotten it to him early.

So, yeah, you know, again, credit to those guys. You know, they had a good plan and, you know, executed at a high level. But again, there's a lot of things that we can do better and need to do better moving forward.

SPEAKER_2 (0:30)

What's number one on your list of that?

Sam Darnold (0:32)

I mean, we got to look at the tape again.

You know, just, you know, I always think it starts with first and second down efficiency. You know, obviously, third down red zone, red zone definitely needs to be better. But, yeah, if we can just continue to be more efficient on first and second down, you know, all those other things I always feel like fall into line.

SPEAKER_3 (0:55)

And you and Coach Macdonald and Coach Fleury, we'll talk about getting the ball out quicker. It seems like this year maybe where you have to get out of the pockets and play to the down stuff is not meant to be things efficient. Do you think you can play to with that?

Sam Darnold (1:08)

Yeah, I think for me, like, you know, it's all about, you know, when I get the ball out quick, it's all about knowing where to go with football. You know, and I think, you know, again, just being decisive, you know, knowing when I need to move on in progression and doing that. So, again, you know, talking about this game specifically, you got to watch the tape, obviously, but, yeah, I feel like there were opportunities to get the ball out, and I just didn't.

SPEAKER_4 (1:29)

A lot of your big plays last season came on those, you know, times where you escaped the pocket and found, like, chugged plays down the field. Why do you think that hasn't been as big of a thing this year?

Sam Darnold (1:39)

Yeah, I think teams are doing a good job, one, of taking those things away in scramble mode, but, again, we can always be better in those situations, you know, in terms of me allowing receivers, tight ends, backs to, you know, giving them time, you know, as I kind of scramble outside the pocket, maybe buy them a little bit of time to get open and find them down the field. But, yeah, there's always, always ways to get better.

SPEAKER_2 (2:03)

A little bit of new, again, with the offense, with Zach and Jadarian coming back in and the changes on the offensive line. As a process for you guys, how do you feel like you handle all of that as a unit today?

Sam Darnold (2:16)

Yeah, I think there's, you know, the theme is, you know, we can always be better and do better, you know, it just wasn't good enough today. And, you know, I think our, our preparation, you know, and how we went about the week and with, you know, Jadarian and, you know, Sharbs, even Quenton up front, you know, Grey going to right, like, I feel like our prep was really good. And those guys had a great week of practice. You know, unfortunately, it's about going and, and doing it. And, you know, that starts with me. I got to be better in certain situations. And we got to be better as a whole on offense.

SPEAKER_3 (2:54)

You had a, you had a pass with Clint before you both came here. Is there any adjustment period for Coach Fleury?

Not that it's bad or wrong, but it's different.

Sam Darnold (3:03)

Yeah, I think, you know, as the season goes on, there's always, you know, room to grow and continue to learn each other. You know, and I feel like the last, the last couple of weeks, we've been continuing to develop that relationship. And, you know, I feel like it's been going good. And again, for whatever reason today, again, we got to watch the tape, but it just wasn't good enough. And we'll continue to dive deep into it, be very honest with each other throughout the next, really throughout the next day going forward. And obviously we got Tuesday coming up tomorrow. So it's a quick turnaround to Wednesday and getting ready for the Cardinals. But, you know, we're going to take a hard look at ourselves tonight and tomorrow and figure out, we can figure what we can do a little bit better.