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The National Football League saw yet another trade involving a quarterback on Monday, this has certainly been an interesting offseason for the game’s most important position. While it still doesn’t feel like we have seen a serious turnover among quarterbacks, there is still a turnover happening. Monday brought the latest one as the New York Jets sent quarterback Sam Darnold to the Carolina Panthers. Carolina was sort of the last team standing after quarterbacks found new homes this offseason and they are now hoping that Matt Rhule can resuscitate Darnold’s career.
Interestingly enough, Rhule almost took over the Jets a few years ago and would have wound up coaching Darnold then. Many Dallas Cowboys fans wanted Rhule to take over America’s Team when Mike McCarthy (who was also linked to the Jets job once upon a time) did, and now all of them will meet at AT&T Stadium this fall with non-Jets uniforms on.
The Dallas Cowboys will face Sam Darnold and the Carolina Panthers in 2021
Fate is indeed an interesting bird as it will bring Sam Darnold in a Panthers uniform to AT&T Stadium on Sunday along with head coach Matt Rhule. Whether or not the Cowboys are going to be able to handle Carolina or not remains to be seen, but we all expect Dallas to be improved in 2021.
One thing you can bank on is a large narrative when Darnold’s Panthers do indeed visit the Cowboys. You will recall that Darnold returned from mononucleosis to face the Cowboys back in 2019 and that he helped lead the New York Jets to their first win of the season. It was one of the more embarrassing losses in the Jason Garrett era, and that is really saying something.
AT&T Stadium likely holds a special place in Darnold’s mind as it was the building that held the 2018 NFL Draft when he first entered the National Football League. In that sense it will be a homecoming of sorts for him, along with Matt Rhule who used to coach down the road at Baylor, so what was one of the lesser-exciting games of the Cowboys season now has a bit of spice to it.
Carolina holds the seventh overall pick in the 2021 NFL Draft and it is possible that they take someone whom some of us would like to see wind up on the Cowboys (Kyle Pitts, one of the tackles, etc.). That would obviously add another layer of intrigue to the matchup, football season needs to hurry up already.