Darnold Injury is Another Strike Against Todd Bowles

Todd Bowles is on the hot seat entering the Jets Week 10 game against the Buffalo Bills. Yet, it might be the comments that Bowles made earlier this week that will truly do him in. The day after the Jets 13-6 meltdown to the Miami Dolphins, Bowles said he was unaware of any injury to his quarterback Sam Darnold, even though his quarterback told the media the day before he was "dinged" up.

Either Bowles is playing dumb with the media, or he was truly clueless.

 Either way it's a bad look for the Jets embattled head coach. Now he enters Sunday's action with Darnold out with a sprained right foot, and veteran Josh McCown under center for the first time this season.

Should the Jets allow the bumbling Buffalo Bills and quarterback Nate Peterman to beat them on Sunday, Bowles days as a head coach are finished. Nothing would surprise anyone if he were fired after taking such a loss.

Still the fact that Bowles was unaware of the Darnold injury is troubling in of itself. This is a coach who has come across as disinterested in the offense during his tenure as Jets coach. This season alone, the Jets are ranked 29th in total offense. 28th in the NFL in pass offense. After getting off to a fairly solid start to his NFL career, Darnold has regressed the past three weeks, with his worst performance coming last weekend in Miami when he threw a career high four interceptions.

A lot of that performance can be attributed to poor coaching, and an offensive line that is in tatters. Bowles even allowed center Spencer Long, who has a broken finger to stay in the game until the final few minutes which was a huge mistake. Long had a nightmare game snapping the ball at Darnold's feet for most of the game. Who knows the quarterback could have been injured on one of those plays?

If Darnold did sustain the injury with Long in the game, that is on the head coach. Darnold is the face of this franchise, and Bowles showed that he truly doesn't care. And if he does care, he is just flat out careless.

So with just a couple days to go before the Jets face off with the Bills, the pressure is defiantly on Bowles and the Jets to deliver a win. This team is not going to the playoffs, but this is as a close to a must win as it gets.