Worst NFL offseason move for each of the 32 teams

Carolina Panthers: Trading for Sam Darnold

There was a point where Sam Darnold looked to be a lock to be the No. 1 overall pick in the 2018 NFL Draft. But then, the Cleveland Browns decided to surprise some people and took Baker Mayfield (or at least that surprised the ones who weren’t paying attention to the signs that John Dorsey was leaning heavily in that direction).

This led to Darnold going to the New York Jets at No. 3 and he was being asked to turn around a franchise that had been struggling for quite a while. Making that task harder was the hiring of Adam Gase who had just finished destroying the Miami Dolphins from the inside, and then did the same to the Jets.

With Gase gone, New York elected to just go with a clean slate which included traded Darnold to the Carolina Panthers where he will take over for Teddy Bridgewater who got just one season with the team. The hope is that Darnold will be better without Gase and while that might be the case, it’s still a long shot.

Darnold didn’t have a great coach in New York but he wasn’t without blame. He was often a turnover machine and that was a major issue of his back at USC, which was completely ignored by pundits for some reason.

There’s nothing that suggests he will magically stop giving the ball to the other team which could be a major problem for the Panther. Making matters worse, Carolina could have landed Justin Fields at No. 8 in the draft and kept the second-rounder they gave up for Darnold.