USC head coach Clay Helton, admittedly biased, has a message for the Browns, for the Giants, for the Jets … for any NFL franchise searching for its next franchise quarterback.
“I can’t think of a better guy to start off an organization and be your quarterback than Sam Darnold,” Helton told The Post.
Darnold, who opted not to throw at the Indianapolis combine, will hold his much-awaited Pro Day on Wednesday under a threat of showers. Helton will be there.
“I’ll say this: There’s no more fierce competitor in football than Sam Darnold,” Helton said. “In my 24 years, I’ve never been around a guy that competes harder and has no fear of competition. He’s also a guy that does not worry about popular opinion. He’s always gonna do what he feels is best in the moment. If he feels it’s better to throw on Pro Day, then I fully support him.”
The Browns, with the first-overall pick of next month’s draft, are considering Darnold as their quarterback of the future to sit behind Tyrod Taylor in 2018. But if they pass — if they prefer Wyoming’s Josh Allen, or trade the pick to a team that prefers Allen, Josh Rosen or Baker Mayfield — then Darnold will be in play for Giants general manager Dave Gettleman.
Helton would give this advice to Gettleman, to Browns GM John Dorsey, to Jets GM Mike Maccagnan … to any GM longing for his quarterback of the future:
“I would say that they’re looking at a young man that I think’s gonna better any organization,” Helton said. “They’re gonna acquire a young man that has unbelievable intangibles. That has been trained in what I think is the closest pro environment there is at USC. I think it’s the greatest training environment that you can have as a quarterback, because we are in the second-largest media market in the country behind New York. The expectations at USC is championships each and every year and that pressure is always on you. You’re in the paper good or bad every day in how you handle that.
“And the level of competition that you’re going against on a daily basis, I mean, it’s JuJu Smith-Schuster against Adoree’ Jackson every day.
“From my standpoint, being a quarterback coach by trade, they’re gonna get a kid that’s a great decision-maker, that gets the ball out on time and is extremely accurate. And at the end of the day, they’re getting a kid that produces wins. And that’s the greatest attribute of a quarterback. You don’t see a lot of great quarterbacks on bad teams.”
Helton uses an anecdote to reveal Darnold’s leadership style.
“I think every guy is different,” Helton said. “He does his leadership really in two ways. One, he is a tremendous one-on-one communicator. He can communicate with the group, and does. But I think his really special attribute of being able to go to a guy, any guy on the team, and be able to communicate one-on-one of
what he expects from them.
“JuJu’s one of my favorite guys, but a really big personality. We’re in a seven-on-seven period, and Sam completes a touchdown to JuJu, JuJu does a nice little celebration in the end zone, and he walks back over. And Sam’s just gotten the job. And JuJu comes over, and Sam kind of goes up to him and says, ‘Hey, we don’t need that right now, let’s just focus on our job. Let’s focus on beating this team this week.’
“It blew me away when I heard it, because it was very quiet. It wasn’t to embarrass JuJu in front of the team. If I wasn’t standing right beside him too, I wouldn’t have heard it. But for him at that age be able to say something to an older kid, an established player on our team and really a star on our team, to be able to do that, that spoke volumes to me about his leadership right from the beginning.
“The other thing that he does as far as leadership in my mind is he sets it as an example of what it is to be a pro and pro work ethic. I mean, every day he shows up to work and shows what the work ethic is for our organization. There are no bad days for him. And it was infectious with our team.”
Beauty will be in the eyes of the beholder with these Class of 2018 quarterbacks. None of them checks all the boxes. Darnold has an elongated throwing motion.
“He can make every throw on the field, let’s start there,” Helton said. “His release is a little long, but his quickness in decision-making and arm strength allows him to get away with it. Everybody would love to criticize mechanics, but if you go back to look at the best players in the game, they are able to deal with pressure in hostile environments with their motion. Whether it’s their footwork or different arm angles that the ball comes out at, the fact of the matter is we don’t live in a perfect world in football.
“I’ve seen a lot of great seven-on-seven quarterbacks that couldn’t operate on game day, because they had to go have a perfect step into their throw or have a perfect motion rather than there’s grown men falling around you or moving around you and you’re having to step up and move around and keep your eyes downfield, and be able to have different arm angles to be able to complete the ball. At the end of the day, you go back and look at his completion percentage [64.9]. I think it’s very very good, especially for our level.”
Darnold also lost nine fumbles last season. It brought his two-year total to 14.
“As far as the fumbles go, part of that’s on us as a football team, having to put some young kids in during this season,” Helton said. “He always tries to have two hands on the ball at all times until he pulls the trigger. We had three injuries by some older kids on the offensive line, had to play some freshmen that were growing up. You still look up and the guy’s 20-4 as a starter and won a [2016] Rose Bowl and a Pac-12 title. At the end of the day, no matter what’s going on around you, your job as a quarterback is to win ballgames, and that’s what he does.”
And that’s not what the Browns, Giants and Jets did last season. Clay Helton is certain that for someone, it will pay to Suck For Sam.