Joe Namath stunned by Sam Darnold’s meltdown

Joe Namath was as shocked as anyone.

The Jets legend couldn’t believe just how poorly things went for Sam Darnold and the Jets on Monday night during their ugly 33-0 loss to the Patriots at MetLife Stadium, particularly Darnold’s mechanics as the sophomore quarterback remarked he was “seeing ghosts.”

“I have grown to believe, in watching Sam here in the interviews for the past year and this short change, Sam’s trying so hard to do things the way he’s asked to do them, that he’s even taken on terminology,” Namath said Tuesday. “I hear the words coming out of Sam that his quarterback coach, his offensive coaches or whatever, use. That word ‘ghost,’ I’m thinking, I’m wondering, yeah, did somebody yell at Sam? Did he overhear somebody say, ‘Well, damn, he’s seeing ghosts?’

“Because there were times that he was backing off throwing the ball when there wasn’t anybody right in his face. And as a former quarterback, you’ve got to catch that, you’ve got to learn that. It’s sometimes … uncontrollable to flinch. Your eyes close when somebody swings at your head or gets in front of your face. But his footwork was at its worst that I have seen it in the two years that — not two years complete, a year and change — throwing the ball, throwing it up for grabs damn near. And that’s high school. I don’t think you can get away with that even in college, high school. He might’ve been seeing ghosts, and I think he might have been repeating what someone told him, whether it be another player on the team or a coach on the team: ‘Damn, boy, you’re seeing ghosts, plant those feet and throw.’ I just think he’s a young player at this time and he’s gonna get more mature and better and smarter, and had an awful night last night.”

Namath’s comments were first reported on “Gang’s All Here” — the new New York Jets podcast from the New York Post, which launched Tuesday.

The Hall of Famer was “still trying to recover” Tuesday morning from the loss.

“We did a good job against the Cowboys. We got a taste of a victory. And then [Monday] night, what could go wrong went wrong,” Namath said.

But Namath couldn’t look away.

“It was frustrating. Talking with a friend this morning, he couldn’t last for the entire game. But by God, I needed to,” he said. “I needed to stick it out and watch every last minute of it. And I did, even though it was really bad.”

Namath also made sure to note that the Patriots are the defending Super Bowl champions and one of the top teams in the NFL while the Jets are rebuilding.

“This doesn’t happen overnight,” Namath said. “A second-year quarterback, you know, he’s learning, man. You don’t expect the second-year quarterback to be as good as he’s gonna be in his third year, fourth year, a fifth year. We know we need pieces. We know there are people performing out there that won’t be there next year. These are tough things to talk about, but the fact of the matter is: That old saying, that one-eyed monster, the camera, doesn’t tell any lies.”

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