Sam Darnold has found perfect fit with Vikings after doomed Jets tenure: Mark Sanchez

There are many forces standing in the way of a Jets win when they play the Vikings on Sunday at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in London. The first of those forces are the Jets themselves, given how clumsily they got in their own way (did anyone mention the word cadence?) during last Sunday’s hideous, 10-9 home loss to the Broncos. A close second on that list is Vikings reclamation-project quarterback Sam Darnold — a familiar face, having been drafted third overall by the Jets in 2018. By all accounts (except perhaps from only Darnold himself), the Jets failed Darnold in his three seasons with them. They never put enough talent around him.They changed offensive coordinators.

They changed head coaches.It all gave Darnold little chance to succeed in green because his three years with them were so chaotic. Mark Sanchez, a close confidant of Darnold’s as well as someone who walked in his shoes (and vice-versa), knows chaos, because he lived it in his five years as a Jet.

Sanchez, now an NFL analyst for Fox, was drafted fifth overall by the team in 2009, nine years before Darnold. Sanchez and Darnold grew up nearby each other south of L.A.and live just a few doors away from each other in the same neighborhood — so close that Sanchez this week joked with Darnold that he was going to toilet-paper a large tree on his property for Halloween. The ties between the two are uncanny.

Both went to USC.Both were drafted by the Jets in the first round.

When Sanchez welcomed his son, Daniel, into the world, he went to a parenting class conducted by Darnold’s grandfather. Kevin O’Connell, Darnold’s head coach in Minnesota, was a groomsman in Sanchez’s wedding to actress Perry Mattfeld.O’Connell was a backup quarterback to Sanchez on the 2011 Jets. Sanchez called the Darnold and O’Connell pairing a “great marriage.’’ “He’s such a humble kid and such a mild-mannered kid that somebody also had to elicit that dog inside of him, because it’s there,...