Did Sam Darnold tank the Cotton Bowl to avoid being drafted by the Browns?

Conspiracy theorists were all over Twitter during the Cotton Bowl wondering if Sam Darnold was tanking so the Cleveland Browns wouldn’t take him in the NFL Draft.

The Cotton Bowl didn’t go according to plan for Sam Darnold and the USC Trojans on Friday night. The Trojans were sorely outplayed by the Ohio State Buckeyes and couldn’t get anything going offensively against the talented defense that sacked Darnold eight times and forced four turnovers.

Darnold lost two fumbles and threw a costly pick-six that all but put the game away in the second quarter as the Trojans ended up losing 24-7, with the only touchdown coming after USC recovered a fumble on special teams to start the drive at the Ohio State 15.

Darnold finished his night completing 26-of-45 passes for 356 yards and zero touchdowns. It wasn’t the type of performance he was hoping to have to cement his status as a potential No. 1 overall pick in the 2018 NFL Draft. It led to many suggesting Darnold returning to USC for his redshirt junior season to continue his development. But it also led to some conspiracy theorists on Twitter who thought Darnold was tanking his own performance in the game to avoid being the top pick of the Cleveland Browns.

This is all good fun on Twitter and will get some fun engagement and plenty of retweets. And this is entirely funny, unless you’re Darnold, or the Browns, but they may be used to being the butt of jokes as the laughingstock of the NFL.

However, there is zero truth to these sarcastic tweets. There is no chance a player would ever intentionally play poorly to avoid being the top pick in the draft because they don’t want to play for the Browns.

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If you even entertain such a thought, you may need to seek some professional help, because you may be losing your marbles. Darnold is a very good quarterback prospect. Sure, he has some things to refine with his game, but to suggest he played poorly because he didn’t want to play for Cleveland, now that’s just crazy talk.

It’s perfectly reasonable to not want to play for Cleveland considering they are about to go 0-16, the franchise has long been a stinking failure and the history of quarterback has more names in it than the phonebook.

Why wouldn’t Darnold just play as well as he could and let the chips fall where they land. If the Browns want him, and he really doesn’t want them, he can always pull an Eli Manning or John Elway and say he won’t play for them and force their hand. He wouldn’t outright tank and risk costing himself millions in the process. Not to mention, a competitor would never intentionally do such a thing when all they want to do is win, win, win.

Let’s chalk this one up to a good joke on Twitter, but if you believe Darnold tanked to avoid the Browns, I have a bridge I’d like to sell to you.