QB Guru John Beck on Whether Mac Jones Can be the NFL’s Next Sam Darnold

Sam Darnold just became the first quarterback to reach a Super Bowl on his fifth team and win it. The follow-up question writes itself. Is there another Sam Darnold sitting on a roster right now waiting for the right room. John Beck thinks he has the name.

Rich sets it up. With Darnold's win, how does roster construction shift, how does the price tag on quarterbacks shift, what happens when a team finally proves the patient path works. Beck, who lives in San Clemente where Darnold also lives, leads with the personal note. Great human being, fun to watch how this played out for him. Then he gets to the answer.

Mac Jones. That is his guy.

Beck explains the lens. He was around on draft day when San Francisco was on the clock for the third overall pick. He cannot share everything because of his relationship with Kyle Shanahan, but he believed Mac was very much in play that day, before the Niners traded for Trey Lance. Nothing against Trey, he says. Good person, worked with him, loves him. The fit just was not the same. Beck saw the pattern that ran through Kyle's history with Kirk Cousins in Washington and saw Mac fitting the mold cleanly.

Then last season, San Francisco actually got to test the theory. When Brock Purdy went down, Mac Jones started four or five games and kept the Niners alive. Beck argues the only reason San Francisco was still in the running for the one seed entering the final Saturday of the year was Mac. He kept the offense afloat in the system, and that system, the Shanahan-McVay tree, runs across half the league.

The parallel to Darnold is the part Beck wants people to hear. Mac was a first-round pick, not as high as Sam, but high. His next team, when it happens, will be his fourth, just like Darnold's was. He has the Shanahan touch on the resume now, just like Darnold did before Minnesota. The ingredients are sitting there.

Rich pushes the construction question. If you are a contender, especially one who just brought back Trent Williams, do you have the right backup behind your starter for a postseason run. Beck pulls from his own playing days. He was once told a team was bringing in another quarterback on top of him, because the front office believed they had a Super Bowl roster and needed someone with playoff games on his resume. That is the kind of slot Mac Jones could fill on a team that knows what it has.

Rich agrees but adds the math. Some teams are going to look at Mac, look at the alternative of paying a draft pick fifty-plus million when his time comes, and pick the Mac route. Beck nods. If you are San Francisco, you do not move him at all. The price of insurance has changed.