Darnold on Why He Thinks Passes Were Being Tipped

Sam Darnold was asked about the tipped passes yesterday against the Buffalo Bills. He had several balls knocked down at the line of scrimmage.

Buffalo has done a good job of that last year and even the preseason this year, so we kind of knew going in that they liked to do that. They got to a lot more balls than we had planned, obviously. Hopefully, we’ll have a good plan to combat that next time we see them.

I think with some of the front guys they had coming, I think I can do a better job of going around some guys and kind of changing my arm angle to fit some balls in there. But I think for the most part, that’s something that we’ve got to give them credit for. We’ve got to give them credit for batting balls down. It’s a tough deal when stuff like that happens. You have a good plan in the back end and the defensive linemen bats the ball down, it’s a tough deal, but it’s definitely something that we can get better at or we can control.

Here is the rest of Sam Darnold’s press conference.

On the offensive struggles…
I think, for us, it was a little bit of miscommunication. I think with it being the first game, we’re going to get some of that. But there are no excuses. We’ve got to go out there. We’ve got to execute to the highest of our ability and I’m sure next game we’ll go out there and do that.

On Adam Gase saying that he played better than initially thought after Gase watched the tape…
Yeah, I thought the same thing. I think, for me and for our whole team, it’s about hitting the big plays when they’re there. We were dinking and dunking it a lot in the game, which is fine, we’ve just got to hit the big plays. So when those big plays are there to be made, we’ve got to make those plays and I’ve got to make the throws.

On his footwork…
I think my feet, they could always get better. I thought I did an all right job, but from that aspect, I think I can always get better.

On his long throws to Robby Anderson on their final drive of the game…
I think, for me, just inaccurate balls. (I’ve) got to be better and I will be. There’s just no excuse for it, I’ve just got to be better and more accurate.

On Jamison Crowder…
Yeah, I think Jamison did a really good job of finding the soft spot in the zones and even in man-coverage, he did a good job of separating. On a lot of those underneath routes, he just did a really good job of getting open.

On Coach Gase’s message to the team today…
Just focus on where we are now. Yesterday, it is what it is. We’ve just got to attack the week now and start fresh.

On Gase saying the mistakes from the game are small and correctable…
No, that’s fair. I think there’s definitely a lot of small things that we can correct and they’re very fixable, which is a good thing. It’s good to have that in Week One. Yeah, we let that one get away from us and we were real about that today in the locker room and in the team meeting. But again, it’s just about staying where our feet are and right now, we’re 0-1 and we’re attacking Week Two.