Jets quarterback Sam Darnold is eyeing a Week 5 return against the Eagles, Rich Cimini of ESPN.com tweets. Darnold, of course, missed last week’s contest with mono and is still feeling sluggish as he recovers. In a few weeks, doctors say he’ll be ready to take the field again. 
The Jets’ QB situation went from bad to worse on Monday night after Trevor Siemian‘s ankle folded like a Slinky. Siemian is out for the year, leaving young Luke Falk as the club’s de factor starter.
Darnold, the No. 3 overall pick in the 2018 draft, showed flashes of promise last year, though he finished out with only 17 touchdowns against 15 interceptions in 13 games. This year, the Jets were excited to see what he could do, but all they’ve seen so far was his start in a losing effort against the Bills.
At minimum, the Jets will be without the USC product for their contest against the Patriots on Sept. 22. On Oct. 6, after their early bye, they might just have Darnold back in action.
de facto
Huge Patriots fan here, but I have to admit the state of the AFC East is truly embarrassing. This Jets team added $70M? to its roster this offseason and now this is their final on-field product? Mosley and Darnold going down is very unfortunate, but the lack of talent on this team is utterly disgusting. They have 3 legit players in Mosley, Adams and Le’Veon Bell. The rest are all backups on ‘real’ franchises.
Then we get to the Dolphins. I truly believe that Alabama, Clemson or even Georgia could play a competitive game against them. It will take a MIRACLE for this team to win 1 game this year and if they do, it will most likely be against the Jets.
There is a glimmer of hope with the 2-0 Buffalo Bills (who owe Vedvick a steak dinner for that record). At least the Bills have some good young talent (Singletary looks like he could be a true, #1 RB), a solid defense and a good head coach as well. For the Patriots sake, I hope the Bills somehow figure out a way to make the playoffs to give some credibility to the AFC East, but all things considered, the Patriots can just show up at their division games and be guaranteed a 5-1 record without a game plan or practice! That’s a HUGE advantage over the other playoff bound teams, all of which have at least 2 legitimate NFL teams in their division who could beat them on any given Sunday.
Here’s to yet another top 2 playoff seed and a first round bye for the Patriots thanks in part to such an awful AFC East!
No team is going to dominate division rivals indefinitely. Long time fans remember when the Bills, Dolphins and Jets were riding 9 game winning streaks against the Patriots.