NFL receiver Robbie Anderson came into his own on the New York Jets before getting traded to the Carolina Panthers, where he’s currently at now.
After Anderson made headlines this offseason for publicly saying he didn’t want Baker Mayfield on the Panthers — with the team going ahead and acquiring Mayfield anyways, and with Anderson then backtracking — this week also saw him speak about the other notable quarterback on the roster, Sam Darnold.
During an appearance on the I AM Athlete podcast, Anderson claims that the Jets’ dysfunctional environment essentially stymied Darnold’s growth.
“I will say this with Sam: I feel like his development was all messed up coming into the league,” Anderson said of Darnold.
The speedy wideout pointed to guys like Patrick Mahomes and Lamar Jackson as young quarterbacks who weren’t thrown to the wolves from Day 1 and actually got the chance to digest the playbook and get acclimated to life in the pros.
“I don’t feel like Sam should’ve played right away,” he said. “I feel like his career got jump-started the wrong way. I feel like, being in the building, the coaches … it wasn’t right. So, in his defense, he wasn’t developed 100 percent correctly.”
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Darnold, who is 25, was drafted with the No. 2 overall pick in the 2018 NFL Draft. He has shown flashes of greatness, but has largely been a disappointment and failed to meet the expectations that were set for him coming out of USC.
After three underwhelming seasons under center in New York, Darnold was traded to the Panthers, where he reunited with Anderson, one of his favorite targets in the Big Apple. The Jets then went through yet another rebuild, this time with QB Zach Wilson as the new franchise cornerstone and the hiring of Robert Saleh as head coach.
Whether Anderson’s assessment is accurate or fair is debatable, but Darnold didn’t exactly acquit himself tremendously in his first year in Carolina — prompting the Panthers to strike for Mayfield.
