My Return Journey to NFL Message Boards + Sam Darnold’s Ideal Future

As a young girl, I spent an absurd amount of time on the Chargers’ online message boards (I figure it was better than those creepy chat rooms where everyone just keeps asking “a/s/l???”) in order to learn as much about the team as I possibly could. It cannot be emphasized enough how integral these threads were in my development as an educated football fan. I would not be half the woman I am today had I not constantly buried my nose in “PeepingTomlinson69’s Weekly O-Line Analysis” and ***The Official 2008 Oakland Raiders Lookalike Thread*** (JaMarcus Russell’s resemblance to a steaming pile of garbage is absolutely uncanny, check it out if you have a minute).

Recently, I found myself reminiscing on the height of my Chargers fandom: the high school days when I had hours upon hours to peruse these outstanding pieces of journalism. Unfathomable was the idea that any of the other nine Chargers fans were as knowledgeable as I’d become. I yearned for the time in my life when I got so angry over football games that I threw television remotes across the room (I threw a half-full water bottle while watching Penn State a few months ago but that’s completely besides the point).

In order to reinvigorate my inner angry, hot take-spewing sports fan, I decided to dive back into the dark depths of the message boards. But after so many years away from home, not just any board would suffice. The first pick was absolutely crucial.

I truly cannot remember the last time that anything even remotely positive has happened to those poor souls in New York, still proudly (probably the wrong word choice) rocking their green and white. (I went to college in South Carolina and this is where we’d say “bless their hearts.”) Whenever I feel bad for them, I reassure myself that the vast majority probably blacked out after the Butt Fumble (oh my god it has its own Wikipedia page) and have not remembered a single play since.

Bracing myself for impact, I ventured into “The Gang Green” board, expecting to see takes flying across the screen and fans calling for Todd Bowles’ head to be roasted on an open fire. But alas, it was a shockingly tame place. Maybe my blackout theory was correct? Somberly scrolling through, feeling only slightly less disappointed than when I found out Santa wasn’t real (sorry if I just spoiled that for anyone and ruined your entire holiday), I stumbled across a title that piqued my interest:

It was short and sweet, but that was all it took. My heart started to race, eyes grew wide, and the familiar hand-on-computer mouse sweat was back. In that moment, I was fourteen again. After hammering the left-click button, I was taken inside the thread, where the poster had decided to pit these two former USC quarterbacks against each other (such a shame that people think that this is okay in today’s society):

“Inaccurate turnover machine with a mediocure arm and piss poor decision making. it doesnt help he is behind an awful line with one of the leagues worst coaches

he needs to sit until a new coach is in place. or he will become sanchez 2.0”

-jerseyjay14, Well-Known Member

What triggered me the most as I tried to digest what I’d just read was not what the words said on the surface, but the fact that they were written with such a negative connotation, as if becoming the next Mark Sanchez was a lifestyle to be avoided at all costs. Let us not forget that he took the Jets to back-to-back AFC Championship games. He didn’t win either of them, but he was probably too disturbed by the fact that Rex Ryan had a tattoo of his wife in a #6 jersey (speaking of things that I need to make sure people never forget). Couple that with the whole ~feet~ thing and I don’t know how seriously I would take my coach either.

What could possibly be so terrible about Mark Sanchez that jerseyjay14 was worried for Sam Darnold’s future? I understand the idea of creating your own legacy, but the way I see it (unless I run out of contacts because I avoid doctors like a real adult), Mark Sanchez is the only man that Sam Darnold should be emulating.

In the past, Mark Sanchez has dated high-profile women such as Hayden Panettiere, Kate Upton, Eva Longoria, Jamie-Lynn Sigler, Hilary Rhoda, and Lindsay McCormick. Admittedly, I have no idea who half of these people are, but Google has informed me that it is a very impressive list, so I’m extraordinarily impressed.

Sam Darnold’s girlfriend, on the other hand, is not famous and probably an extremely normal, kind human being without an enormous ego or any horrifying emotional scarring that she experienced while growing up in Hollywood. What a snooze. Sam could use a little trauma in his life to spice it up a bit. I’ve been to Newark. It’s not great.

Furthermore, Mark Sanchez tested positively for PEDs in April of this year (ah, so that’s why he was on that sensational tear in 2017). He even announced it in an ominous Instagram post via a screenshot of a note on his iPhone. Everyone knows that: 1. If you ain’t cheatin, you ain’t tryin, and 2. You have not done anything worth doing in this life if you’ve never had to make a weird iPhone-note screenshot post about it on some form of social media. If these are two things that Sam Darnold is planning on doing in the future, I stand behind him 1000%. If a young buck such as Sam is going to make it in the big city, he needs to do controversial big-city things.

I could go on, but I’ve already covered sports, women, drugs, and social media in this blog so anything else that I’d mention would be severely lacking importance in comparison.

P.S. I’m sorry that I posted a shirtless photo of Rex Ryan. I hope you kept reading and are even reading this now. Endless thanks to those who are.