Mac Jones included among five potential Sam Darnold-style NFL comebacks

Fox Sports has identified five NFL quarterbacks as potential candidates for a career turnaround resembling Sam Darnold’s, with Mac Jones among the players under consideration.

The comparison follows Darnold’s reported rise from struggles with the New York Jets, Carolina Panthers and San Francisco 49ers to leading Minnesota to a 14–3 season. He later joined Seattle, where Fox Sports says he led another 14–3 campaign and helped the Seahawks win the Super Bowl.

Fox Sports described Darnold’s revival as an unusually late arrival in the NFL. Baker Mayfield’s 2023 resurgence with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers was cited as a similar, though less extreme, example.

Jones is included after a markedly different trajectory from his start in New England. The first-round pick made the Pro Bowl as a rookie in 2021, went 10–7, helped the Patriots reach the playoffs and threw 22 touchdowns.

His form and New England’s results later declined, including a 2–9 record in Bill Belichick’s final season with the team. Jones was subsequently traded to Jacksonville before signing a two-year, $8 million deal with San Francisco in 2025.

The analysis presents Jones and the other four quarterbacks as speculative comparisons rather than confirmed comeback stories. The supplied Fox Sports material does not identify the remaining candidates.