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There are signs of growth in Sam Darnold, none more so than in how he handles bad decisions and mistakes following the New York Jets 42-21 loss at the Baltimore Ravens on Thursday night. Darnold showed a budding and sincere maturity in how he owned up to mistake. 

Something that wasn’t the case earlier this season. 

Six weeks ago, Sam Darnold threw a bad interception in the red zone on the cusp of halftime, a terrible decision in what would be a loss at the Miami Dolphins. After the game, Darnold tried to excuse away the interception, saying he was attempting to throw the ball away when it was obvious he was trying to squeeze out a play. It wasn’t even a question of what he was trying to do and the excuse rang hollow. 

Darnold attempted to dodge responsibility, a bad look for a franchise quarterback. Now on Thursday night, Darnold threw another interception right before halftime, stopping a promising Jets drive. Down 21-7 at the time, a touchdown or a field goal would have made the game competitive and given the Jets some momentum. 

It was a bad decision and a costly one for the Jets. 

This time, however, there were no excuses from Darnold for the bad throw. 

“Really bad decision by me. It sucks against any team in the NFL but especially against these guys. Especially the way we were playing too, I felt like we were running the ball really well. Our offensive line played really, really well today,” Darnold told reporters after the game

“Obviously, I could have played better and then that decision at the end of the half…you just want to get points in that scenario.” 

Here lies a key to the growth and maturation of Darnold, oft-overlooked when assessing the second-year quarterback. 

While Darnold has shown significant growth in a number of key categories (passing yards, completion percentage, touchdown-to-interception ratio and other indicators), it is this component of leadership that will ring the most. 

If he is the franchise, the ‘Samchise’ of the Jets, then he will have to own moments like this. Darnold made a bad throw, there was no way to explain around it. And importantly, he didn’t. 

He stood their and owned up to it. He didn’t try to make excuses or explain away the intention. He made a bad throw. He said it was such. And he said he had to improve. 

It wasn’t a great game from Darnold who was 18-of-32 for 218 yards with two touchdowns and an interception. The Thursday night loss wasn’t a disaster, however, and Darnold held it together against a top-tier defense and a Ravens offense that put the Jets behind 13-0 at the end of the first quarter. He didn’t see ghosts and put together a rather decent performance all things considered. 

But while the ghosts on the field weren’t seen, he did show backbone in owning the moment and the mistake. 

Much of the mid-point of this Jets season was spent worrying and wondering if Darnold had progressed (and these past six weeks have shown growth and development). Here however, this maturation in accepting responsibility that is as important for his future as the franchise quarterback as analytic or metric. 

Thursday night, Darnold took his knocks. He also showed why he is capable of being the franchise quarterback this team has waited decades for.