According to conventional NFL logic, the Seattle Seahawks did everything backwards.

And it worked.

There are lessons for the Jets that we'll discuss today on Locked-on Jets.

You are Locked-on Jets, your daily New York Jets podcast.

Part of the Locked-on Podcast Network, your team every day.

Welcome, this is the Locked-on Jets podcast, part of the Locked-on Podcast Network, your team every day.

It is Tuesday, February 10th, 2026.

And I'm your host, John B from gangreneation.com.

Thank you so much for making the show your first listener, first watch every day. And for making locked on the number one sports podcast network. A big shout out to you every dayers. If you're new to the show, this is a daily podcast covering the New York Jets with new episodes each day through the week, Monday through Friday.

And our episode today is brought to you by Fandual.

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FanDuel. Fan Duel, play your game. On today's show, we're focused on quarterbacks. A member of the 2025 Jets quarterback room has expressed interest in returning. We'll talk about why that's a bad idea. A retired NFL quarterback has expressed interest in returning to the league.

We'll talk about why the Jets should stay away. But we will begin by talking about the quarterback who

is in the headlines across the NFL. And that, of course, is Sam Darnold, former member of the New York Jets and current Super Bowl champion. Sam was part of the Seahawks team that beat the New England Patriots on Sunday in Super Bowl 60. Thankfully, if you're a Jets fan, because I think the last thing we needed was the Patriots winning a seventh Super Bowl, and the Patriots rising to the top of the league and perhaps launching another dynasty. Well, that's not happening now. Sam Darnold was part of the story in that game. There were lots of heroes, though, for the Seattle Seahawks. And, of course, on this podcast, Sam Darnold is a frequent topic of conversation. It's been that way since 2018. You know, the Jets went into the 2017 season, and there was lots of talk about the team potentially tanking for Sam Darnold. They ended up winning a few more games than they were expecting. They traded up. They drafted Sam Darnold. Then after three tumultuous seasons, Darnold was traded to the Carolina Panthers. And in many ways, the Jets have become a cautionary tale because of the way things panned out with Sam Darnold here. The Jets did everything wrong and tried to develop this quarterback. They did not surround him with quality playmakers. They did not build a

quality offensive line around him. They gave him terrible coaching. There was no harmony in the

organization. There was lots of infighting between the front office and head coach. And this was

true over multiple regimes. Nothing the Jets did was good with Sam Darnold. And you could write a book on all the mistakes the Jets made.

And they're paying for those mistakes because the Jets still have not figured out the quarterback position while their former quarterback went out to Seattle and just won the Super Bowl.

And say what you will about Sam, you can doubt that he's an elite quarterback, which I don't think he is an elite quarterback. But clearly he's good enough to win a Super Bowl with if you put a good team around him. And there are broader lessons that we can learn from the New York Jets. Look, everybody knows the failures in developing Sam and failing to develop Sam. And we've talked about them on the show. We'll continue to talk about them, I'm sure, plenty over the course of this offseason. But I think there are other lessons the Seattle Seahawks can teach us because the Seahawks went against a lot of conventional wisdom in the NFL in how they built their team. And this was true in multiple ways. And one of the ways was the way they got Sam. They signed him in free agency. They gave him a contract that was not a big money

deal. It's a pretty good contract for a guy who's a quality starter. Now, again, do I think Sam Darnal's a top five quarterback? No, I don't. I thought he was going to be when the Jets drafted him. He's not. Even today, I don't think he is. Is he a top 10 quarterback? I don't think so. but he's a quality starting quarterback.

And I think that

we're very dismissive. And this is not just the Jets. I think NFL fans in general and NFL media

...