FLORHAM PARK, N.J. — Sam Darnold is going to be just fine.

If you’re a Jets fan who watched Sunday’s loss to the Dolphins, maybe you don’t believe that. After all, your team has more than 40 years of quarterback scar tissue to work through.

At first glance this looked like a bad day for Darnold, a day when he realized how tough the NFL is. He threw two interceptions — both of them incredibly costly, and helping lead directly to the Jets’ 20-12 loss to Miami.

He went the wrong place with the ball on some plays. And when the pocket broke down, he looked a little flustered trying to get away from the Miami pass rush.

But if you looked closer, there were more encouraging signs than there were bad ones.

“Other than the two picks, I thought I played pretty well,” Darnold said Monday. “So I’m just going to try to play as consistent as possible and find completions when I can and take shots when I can.”

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Let’s get the bad stuff out of the way first.

His first interception of the game, the one that led directly to the touchdown that gave the Dolphins a 7-0 lead, was a bad rookie mistake. There’s no way around it.

Darnold saw Miami safety T.J. McDonald move to the right and assumed he was going to cover the tight end. He didn’t see McDonald stop and wait for him to throw the ball.

“I thought he went with the inside dude so I tried to fit it outside,” Darnold said Monday. “Didn’t realize he was there, obviously, if I had saw he was there I wouldn’t have thrown it.”Mistakes are how a player learns, this just happened to be a costly one. But if Darnold, who is a fast learner, isn’t making the same mistake three weeks from now it will have been well worth it.

“I’ve just got to be more aware,” Darnold said. “I’m not making any excuses, but that’s going to come with time.”

The other costly error came early in the third quarter. Darnold had just driven the Jets down the field to cut the gap to 20-6 when Jordan Jenkins forced a fumble and recovered the ball on the Miami 12-yard line.

This was the perfect chance for the Jets to get back in the game. But on first-and-10, Darnold’s pass for Terrell Pryor was intercepted in the end zone by cornerback Xavien Howard. At first glance it looked like a careless throw by Darnold.

In the interview room after the game, Darnold said the pick was his fault.

But the throw wasn’t the problem. Long after the game, Pyror stood in front of his locker and explained what really happened: he had run a poor route.

“My job was to cut across the corner's space,” Pryor said. “And I didn't do that well enough. The way Sam throws, he doesn't look at you, he doesn't stare at you when he throws, he believes that you're going to be there. I let him down.”

Pryor, who played quarterback for five years in the NFL, knows just how costly his error was. And he knows Darnold was taking the heat for him when he took blame for the mistake.

”I said to him after the game, ‘I hope you forgive me, I will make sure I'm there next time,’” Pryor said. “That one, it's not on Sam and I wish it could go on a stat for me. That was is a tough one for me and I'm still thinking about that right now and that's all I keep thinking about is that play.”

There are two things that are important about that sentiment from Pryor. One, players already respect Darnold — both for his abilities and as a teammate — in the locker room. Pryor going that far out of his way to take blame for the mistake is proof of that.

But even more encouraging is that Darnold, as a rookie, knows enough about the offense to make throws based purely on trust. Some quarterbacks have a hard time getting to that level, even after a couple of years — as Jets fans know. But Darnold is already there.

There are going to be more mistakes from Darnold in the coming weeks and months. Just look back at the rookie seasons for Tom Brady, Peyton Manning and Eli Manning. It’s difficult to succeed as a rookie in this league.

But despite Darnold’s mistakes and inconsistencies on Sunday, he played well enough for the Jets to be in the game late. He went 25 of 41 for 334 yards, a touchdown and two interceptions — making him the youngest player in NFL history to ever throw for 300 yards. He threw well on the run and never really got rattled as Robert Quinn and Cameron Wake — two of the best edge rushers in the league — gave constant chase.

The real takeaway from Sunday’s game is that the Jets are going to need more from Darnold’s teammates. The offensive line needs to give him more time to throw — he took three sacks against the Dolphins. In addition to Pryor’s poor route, he also dropped a ball and so did tight end Chris Herndon.

The defense needs to clean up the costly penalties, including two that wiped out sacks on third down.

Sunday showed tantalizing flashes of Darnold’s future potential. But it also showed that the Jets are good enough to win now with him. But his teammates need to be better.

Email: vasqueza@northjersey.com