The man who drafted Sam Darnold for the New York Jets in 2018 watched from his home in Houston last Sunday as his old quarterback celebrated the NFC championship. The confetti at Lumen Field was swirling, and so were Mike Maccagnan’s emotions.

His mind wandered back to Darnold’s rainy pro day at USC, all those scouting trips to the West Coast (four consecutive weekends in the fall of 2017) and the pure elation on draft day when Darnold was available with the third overall pick.

The Jets’ former general manager recalled Darnold’s promising rookie year, and years later, he still hears the echo of that voice inside him — the one that kept saying in 2018, “We got one.” Meaning a franchise quarterback.

And so it was bittersweet for Maccagnan as he observed Darnold’s near-flawless performance in the Seattle Seahawks‘ victory over the Los Angeles Rams. While he was overjoyed for Darnold, whose crooked NFL path is one of the hot storylines heading into Super Bowl LX, it also was a heavy moment for the old scout.

“I was always kind of sad that Sam wasn’t able to fulfill that potential in New York,” Maccagnan told ESPN this week in his first interview since being fired by the Jets in 2019. “That’s where he started his journey, and, in an ideal world, he would’ve finished it there.

“But it wasn’t meant to be, and he had to go on his own journey to grow and develop in different places. It makes me feel good that he’s fulfilling his potential. It’s not necessarily vindication. In our business, when you see something, and it turns out the way you envisioned it, it makes you feel good. I think every scout probably feels that way.”

Darnold, who played three seasons in New York, was traded to the Carolina Panthers in 2021 — a move that still sparks debate among Jets fans. Five years and four teams after the trade, Darnold has blossomed into the quarterback and leader the Jets always expected.

And still need.

“He showed flashes; that’s why [the trade] didn’t make sense,” former Jets safety Jamal Adams said. “Our head coach that we hired [Adam Gase] didn’t really help us out now. He did not help us out.

“Sometimes you look back like ‘Golly!’ We had Sam Darnold in our hands, and now he’s going to the Super Bowl.”

Three former teammates — Adams, wide receiver Robbie Chosen and tackle Kelvin Beachum — spoke glowingly of Darnold this week in interviews with ESPN. They remembered him as a dutiful young player with exceptional arm talent, someone who blended into the locker room and cared more about X’s and O’s than X (Twitter in those days).

They also lauded his aplomb in the aftermath of the infamous 2019 “Ghosts” game, which no doubt will be brought up in the coming days because it was against the New England Patriots — his opponent on Feb. 8 at Levi’s Stadium.

Mostly, they appreciated his ability to avoid being chewed up and spit out by an impatient league.

“Sometimes in the league, in certain situations, it’s not always the player,” Chosen said. “It takes the foundation around you that helps you become great. I remember saying it on [a podcast], when they were trying to debate with me about him as a player. I’m like, ‘He’s good, he just hasn’t been developed correctly.'”

MACCAGNAN ISN’T A spotlight seeker. He wasn’t that way in his four seasons as the Jets’ GM and he hasn’t been since his unceremonious ouster seven years ago.

Until now.

He agreed to an interview because of his affinity for Darnold and his family. Just the other day, Maccagnan saw a reposted video on social media of Darnold’s parents, Mike and Chris, hugging Sam and backup quarterback Josh McCown outside the locker room after Sam’s first NFL game — a win over the Detroit Lions on Sept. 11, 2018. Maccagnan was standing only a few feet away from the scene.

“I’m getting a little choked up, and I didn’t think I would,” Maccagnan said at the start of the interview, mentioning the video clip.

Remember when? Sam Darnold greeted by his parents after his first Jets game – Sept. 11, 2018, a win over the Lions. Quite a journey. Now he’s going to the Super Bowl … with the Seahawks. #Jets pic.twitter.com/dzZLnIP9eq

— Rich Cimini (@RichCimini) January 26, 2026

A highly drafted quarterback can be a legacy-defining pick for a GM. Maccagnan didn’t get enough time to see it through. His quarterback prodigy flashed potential as a rookie, but the team finished 4-12. The Jets, seemingly in a state of perpetual change, replaced Maccagnan and coach Todd Bowles with Joe Douglas and Gase, respectively.

After a promising second season, Darnold showed significant regression in 2020, prompting Douglas to trade him for three draft picks, including a second-round choice.

Douglas, fired in 2024, politely declined to be interviewed for this story, referring to his post-trade comments. At the time, he expressed confidence that Darnold would develop into a good quarterback, but he felt the better long-term plan for the organization was to start over with a rookie — Zach Wilson, drafted second overall in 2021. Wilson turned out to be a major disappointment, but Douglas never second-guessed the decision, he told friends over the years.

There was sound reasoning behind Douglas’ decision, which included a financial component as well. The counterargument: Never give up on a young quarterback with potential. It will go down in Jets lore as one of the most compelling “what if?” scenarios.

What if they had drafted Dan Marino over Ken O’Brien in 1983? What if Aaron Rodgers hadn’t torn his Achilles in 2023? What if they had given Darnold another chance?

“My personal opinion: I would’ve liked to have seen him get a full opportunity there,” Maccagnan said. “But at the end of the day, I wasn’t in that building, so I can’t say, ‘They should’ve done this, this and this.’ I wasn’t around. But I was saddened to see them trade him.”

Adams was a year removed from the Jets when Darnold was traded, but his hope was to see Darnold flourish in the Big Apple.

play

Graziano praises the ‘common sense’ of Seahawks in roster-building

Dan Graziano discusses the Seahawks’ roster-building strategy, and in particular their decision to sign quarterback Sam Darnold.

“Man, if only New York had some patience with him,” said Adams, who was dealt to the Seahawks before the 2020 season. “Like, he was the guy, man. He was gonna be The Guy. He just needed time.”

The Darnold-led Jets didn’t have a strong roster or a strong infrastructure. At times, they were dysfunctional. It didn’t help that he contracted mononucleosis in 2019, which cost him three games early in the year. From 2018 to 2020, he ranked 37th out of 40 quarterbacks in Total QBR (40.3).

In Darnold’s three seasons, the Jets were 13-35. Now consider his past two seasons: He went 14-3 with the Minnesota Vikings in 2024 and 14-3 with the Seahawks, joining Tom Brady as the only quarterbacks in history to win at least 14 games in consecutive seasons.

Meanwhile, the Jets have continued to cycle through quarterbacks, going from Darnold to Wilson to Rodgers to Justin Fields, extending the franchise’s streak to 10 straight losing seasons. And now, they will most likely have a new starter in 2026.

Darnold was part of the morass, but maybe, just maybe, he needed to struggle in New York.

“Everything he has endured, everything he went through has set him up to be the player that he is, the person that he is and the competitor that he is,” Beachum said. “It’s all forged him and hardened him to be the player that he is.”

IT WAS ONE of the worst games of Darnold’s career — four interceptions in a 33-0 home loss to the Patriots on a Monday night in 2019. The enduring moment of the game actually occurred on the bench, when a miked-up Darnold told a coach, “I’m seeing ghosts.”

It was aired during the ESPN telecast. In an instant, it went viral.

Using football parlance, he admitted he was confused by Bill Belichick’s defense, creating a narrative that has followed him throughout his career. The following week, in Jacksonville, a plane flew over the stadium with a banner that read: “Gardner Minshew ain’t afraid of no ghost.” The Jaguars trolled Darnold by playing the “Ghostbusters” theme song in the stadium in the final seconds of a 14-point win.

To this day, he still gets asked about the “ghosts,” but not as often.

“I like the fact that he’s reached a stage where they’re talking more about the things he’s doing on the field as opposed to a sound bite from a game, said very quickly in frustration, sitting on the bench,” Maccagnan said. “That just hangs. In your head, you’re like, ‘OK, how many players has that happened to in the NFL?’ Probably not many. Those are things that kind of hang around.”

Adams said he thought back to the ghost game earlier this season when Darnold was intercepted four times by the Rams in November.

“This time, it was different,” Adams said. “He never flinched and he came back swinging. That’s what stood out to me.”

In a way, Darnold will confront his — ahem — demons in the Super Bowl. His career record against the Patriots is 0-4; he was outscored in those games 123-23. He has one touchdown pass and nine interceptions, the second-worst ratio for any quarterback against a single opponent since 1990 (minimum: 125 attempts), per ESPN Research.

Talking about Darnold, his former teammates cited his resilience as the driving force in his circuitous career.

He was traded by the Jets. Benched in Carolina. A benchwarmer for the San Francisco 49ers. Discarded by the Vikings in favor of the unproven J.J. McCarthy.

Still, he is set to become the third quarterback in history to start a Super Bowl while on his fifth team or more.

A new narrative emerged last season, following his poor performance (nine sacks) in the Vikings’ playoff loss: Can’t win the big one.

Darnold should adopt Elton John’s “I’m Still Standing” as his theme song. His intangible qualities are what attracted Maccagnan to him during the scouting process. They’re also what endeared him to teammates.

“He always had that greatness within him,” Chosen said. “Seeing him have the opportunity to win it all on the biggest stage, I’m very excited and happy for him.”

Adams said, “Sam is the greatest human in the world and the coolest dude ever. Seriously, he’s not only a good football player, but a great dude and a great teammate. I miss balling with him, I tell you that, because I knew he’d show up every day for work.”

Asked to describe Darnold’s journey, Maccagnan made an abstract comparison, recalling the old Marlboro Man cigarette ads from the 1970s. The man in the ad was Darnold’s grandfather, Dick Hammer, who died when Sam was only 2.

“There’s this weathered, tough man in this iconic photo, and you start thinking, Sam, in his own way, has weathered very intense storms in his development with different environments,” said Maccagnan, acknowledging “a lot of those environments” weren’t conducive to quarterback development.

Maccagnan, a senior football evaluation specialist for SumerSports, an analytics-based company serving the NFL and colleges, acknowledged that he made his share of mistakes during his Jets tenure. But he always knew, from the first time his scout’s eyes watched Darnold play quarterback, that the kid had something.

“He’s the one I never second-guessed,” the former GM said. “I always felt he was the one I got right.”

The second trade of the 2025-26 NBA season has arrived, and it’s a doozy. Almost a month after the Hawks kicked off trade season by sending Trae Young to Washington, the Cleveland Cavaliers, Sacramento Kings and Chicago Bulls have gotten together for a subtle but meaningful three-team deal that should beef up Cleveland’s bench for the stretch run. Here are the details, according to ESPN’s Shams Charania:

• Cavaliers receive: Dennis Schröder, Keon Ellis
• Kings receive: De’Andre Hunter
• Bulls receive: Dario Šarić, two second-round picks

So, how did all three teams do in the deal? 

Cleveland Cavaliers: A-

Cleveland came into the 2025 offseason needing to address two areas. The first was point-of-attack defense, as their defense relied heavily on their two stellar big men. The second was a backup ball-handler to replace Sixth Man of the Year candidate Ty Jerome, who was critical to last year’s roster but was going to be out of their price range as a second-apron team in free agency. Cleveland tried to tackle both slots at once by trading for Lonzo Ball, who was stellar for Chicago last year, but has struggled for the Cavaliers this season.

So instead, they made this deal to address both needs. Let’s start with Schröder. He is obviously inconsistent, and played badly for Sacramento this season. However, I’d like to point out one of the strangest trends in the NBA. Cleveland will be the seventh team Schröder has played for in the past four seasons… and he seems to alternate between playing great and playing badly with each passing move. 

He was so good for the 2022-23 Lakers that the Raptors rewarded him with a mid-level contract. The Raptors had him for half of a season, said no thanks, and dumped him on Brooklyn. He was so good for the Nets that they had to trade him on Dec. 15, the first day Golden State could legally make the trade, just to stop him from winning them games as they tried to tank. He was so badly afterward for the Warriors that Golden State traded him less than two months later in the Jimmy Butler deal. He was great for Detroit down the stretch, and he used that success to get another mid-level deal from the Kings, with whom he struggled this season. So if the trend holds? Cleveland gets the Sixth Man of the Year candidate version of him, not the bad contract version.

In all seriousness, Cleveland ranks 23rd in the NBA in bench scoring. The Cavaliers score 10 fewer points per 100 possessions when Donovan Mitchell goes to the bench. Schröder theoretically helps on both fronts, and while he’s small, he’s a ferocious on-ball defender in the right matchups. Against other small guards, he’s actually fairly valuable on defense. Speaking of valuable on defense, we have Ellis, who has undergone one of the stranger playing time sagas in recent memory.

Ellis, a 2022 undrafted free agent, emerged as a key starter for the Kings down the stretch of the 2023-24 season. He was perhaps the best defender that team had, and he shot above 40% on 3-pointers in a supporting role. That’s exactly the sort of player the modern NBA prizes. Which made it all the stranger when head coach Mike Brown started yanking his minutes around last season. The trend continued this year. His effectiveness hasn’t really dipped, though he’s now shooting “only” around league average from 3 after multiple years above 40%. The Kings just seemingly soured on him as a player. Their loss is Cleveland’s gain, as the Cavaliers get two very helpful role players in this deal.

The cost for Cleveland? De’Andre Hunter… a player they were seemingly trying to cap dump anyway. The Cavaliers acquired Hunter at last year’s deadline, but his shooting declined precipitously this season, and despite excellent defensive tools, he has never consistently been a high-level defensive player. Hunter fits the vague outline of a 3-and-D wing. He’s big and athletic and he takes a lot of shots. But his production has never matched the idea of what he could be. He’s now 28. He went through a playoff run last season. It seems like if it were ever going to happen for him, it would have already. And with the emergence of breakout young forward Jaylon Tyson coupled with the impending return of Max Strus, Hunter had simply been edged out of Cleveland’s long-term plans.

And that’s the cherry on top of this trade for the Cavaliers. Hunter was arguably bad salary not only for this season, but next year, when he’s owed almost $25 million. The Cavaliers not only got off of that money, but they saved around $50 million in the process. The Cavaliers had such a gargantuan luxury tax bill that the drop from Hunter to Schröder and Ellis trims a huge chunk off of their payroll. Now Cleveland could even potentially get out of the second apron entirely by dumping Lonzo Ball and making some other moves around the fringes. The Cavaliers entered this deadline cycle with a payroll approaching $400 million while operating around $22 million above the second apron. Improving their team while potentially ducking the second apron without having to give up a first-round pick would be an absolute home run of a deadline. Cleveland owes most of its draft capital to Utah from the Donovan Mitchell trade, so they’ve made lemonade out of the deadline lemons they were working with.

Sacramento Kings: D

We covered what was happening to Ellis on the court in the Cavaliers section. I briefly want to touch on what happened to Ellis off of the court last summer that necessitated this trade. Sacramento had a team option on Ellis’ contract worth roughly the minimum. This is fairly standard for undrafted or second-round success stories, and the smart play is usually to decline that team option. Why? Because it makes the player a restricted free agent. That way, he can get guaranteed, life-changing money faster, while you can lock the player up under team-friendly terms thanks to the matching rights that come in restricted free agency. Oklahoma City uses this strategy all of the time. It’s how the Thunder locked Lu Dort, Aaron Wiggins, Isaiah Joe and Jaylin Williams into below-market contracts.

Well, apparently the Kings, lottery dwellers in 17 of the past 18 seasons, know better than the defending champion Thunder, because they picked up their option on Ellis. That allowed them to keep him at roughly the minimum, but it meant he would be an unrestricted free agent in 2026. They used the extra financial flexibility gained by keeping Ellis at a low cap figure to sign Schröder, whom they spent most of this season trying to dump when he got outplayed by Russell Westbrook on a minimum salary.

As all of this was happening, the sharks started circling on Ellis. Sacramento never seemed bothered by the fact that the smartest teams in the league, like the Cavaliers, the Celtics and the Spurs, were all interested in Ellis. Nope. This was a player the Kings needed to dump… probably because they knew one of those smart teams was going to swipe him in free agency next summer for nothing. Reporting had indicated the Kings wanted a first-round pick for Ellis. Shocker: they didn’t get one. Because they’ve mismanaged this situation for months in ways that the entire basketball world vocally criticized them for. How the team that gave away Tyrese Haliburton generated this level of self-confidence, I will never quite understand.

The end result here is Sacramento winding up with Hunter. Now, in theory, the Kings are very short on wings. Keegan Murray is the only good one on the team. But think about where Sacramento is as a franchise. The Kings literally have the worst record in the NBA right before a generational draft class arrives. Virtually every player on their roster is on the trading block as they seem set to kick off a rebuild. And they’ve added an expensive veteran in his prime, taking them far beyond the projected luxury tax for next season unless they make follow-up moves.

What on Earth is the plan here? What is the version of this trade that qualifies as a success for Sacramento? If Hunter struggles as he did in Cleveland this season, they’ve effectively given up one of their few trade chips for someone the league will perceive as a bad contract. But if Hunter bounces back and looks more like he did last season before Cleveland traded for him, they will have added someone who will help them win games they really should be trying to lose. 

Are the Kings so bad that they don’t fear improvement, and merely like the 28-year-old Hunter as a long-term fixture to hover around the background while they tank and maybe help them two or three years down the line when they’re ready to try to win again? That seems the likeliest explanation here, and for what it’s worth, despite this year’s struggles and the generally disappointing arc his career has taken relative to his potential, Hunter is a serviceable NBA wing. Those are in short supply and the Kings needed one. They just took the Kingsiest possible route to getting one. The Beam Team has never felt further away. The good old Kangz are back in full force. 

They avoid an “F” mostly because the trade isn’t big enough to be genuinely harmful. They’re not giving away unprotected picks or taking on four-year deals. And hey, I guess they saved the $4.3 million guarantee on Schröder’s deal for the 2027-28 season, so that’s… something. They’ll also be able to convert two-way big man Dylan Caldwell, who has been a pleasant surprise defensively, to a standard contract. You just had to imagine there were easier ways to go about doing that.

Chicago Bulls: C+

Look, Chicago’s end of the deal here is harmless enough. The Bulls take on the $5.4 million in salary owed to Dario Šarić in order to make the money work for Sacramento. They get a couple of second-round picks for their help. This is broadly what bad teams like the Bulls should be doing with their money. It’s no game-changer, but hey, incremental improvements are nice, so the Bulls get an above-average grade.

However, I do want to take a moment and talk about the optics of Chicago and Sacramento uniting in yet another three-team trade. This is the third consecutive calendar year in which the Bulls and Kings have collaborated on a three-team deal. Let’s look at how that’s gone for them…

• In the summer of 2024, the Kings wanted to acquire DeMar DeRozan in a sign-and-trade from the Bulls. The Bulls, however, did not want to take on the salary of Harrison Barnes to facilitate the deal, so they looped in the Spurs. The Kings gave San Antonio unprotected first-round swap rights in 2031, you know, right as Victor Wembanyama should be smack dab in the middle of his prime, just for taking on Barnes, who has been a solid starter and beloved locker room veteran for them as they’ve ascended back in to the Western Conference contender class. Meanwhile, the Kings are trying to cap dump DeRozan, whose contract runs a year longer than Barnes’ did. Great work, guys.
• At the 2025 deadline, DeAaron Fox tried to force his way to San Antonio through a trade request. The Spurs ultimately paid what was regarded as a meager draft asset price and no meaningful young talent to land their All-Star point guard. The Kings, not wanting to accept the need to rebuild. looped the Bulls in and traded for Zach LaVine, who, as we keep saying over and over again today, they’re now trying to cap dump. Don’t give Chicago credit for getting off of the contract, either. LaVine seemingly had positive trade value at the time. The Bulls got a first-round pick back for him, after all. The problem? It was their own 2025 first-round pick… which was top-eight protected. The Bulls traded for a pick they easily could have tanked in order to keep because they were that desperate to reach the Play-In Tournament and suffer their annual April loss to the Heat. The cherry on top: Sacramento didn’t regain control over its 2031 pick in the Fox deal. That pick, which the Kings regarded so lightly that they paid it to dump a contract six months earlier, was suddenly so valuable that the Spurs wouldn’t give it up to get an All-Star.

Now, we have this deal. Chicago’s end of it was fine, but there’s something ominous about any trade that involves both the Bulls and Kings. They’ve spent the past few seasons co-running a charity for well-run organizations. I shudder to think of what sort of heist their 2027 dalliance will create for one lucky contender.