5 reasons Jets can win the Super Bowl this year

1. Sam Darnold is poised for a huge sophomore season

The Jets’ fortunes began to turn around in the 2018 draft, when the Giants’ decision to take Saquon Barkley let Sam Darnold fall into their laps with the third pick. Darnold had his fair share of struggles during his rookie season, but a strong finish led to optimism that Darnold could be the Jets’ franchise quarterback.

The Jets have done everything they can to help Darnold’s development, hiring an offensive-minded head coach with a reputation as a quarterback whisperer in Adam Gase and importing new weapons to help Darnold and the offense. After handing off to Isaiah Crowell and slinging passes to the likes of Jermaine Kearse for large stretches of the season, Darnold now has Le’Veon Bell in the backfield and Jamison Crowder in the slot alongside returnees Chris Herndon, Robby Anderson, and Quincy Enunwa.

It’s a rather common phenomenon in the NFL for quarterbacks to take a big leap forward in their second year in the league. We saw two major occurrences of that last season, with Mitch Trubisky guiding the Bears to an NFC North title and Patrick Mahomes emerging as the NFL’s MVP in Kansas City.

While most are eyeing Cleveland’s Baker Mayfield as the second year passer worth watching, Darnold is in an ideal situation to succeed right now. Darnold is already picking up Gase’s offense very quickly, looking very sharp in OTAs and carrying that form over into the early portion of training camp.

The Jets have done everything in their power to help Darnold succeed, and he is clearly putting in the work to make a huge leap forward in year two. If Darnold takes a huge step forward like Mahomes did a year ago, the Jets could be down in Miami in February vying for their first title in half a century.