and Washington Redskins wrapped up Dallas Cowboys Hats , the quarterbacks kept chatting.Apart from the on-field workouts, those moments gave Alex Smith a chance to get to know Jets rookie Sam Darnold a little bit. But rather than dole out advice from one high draft pick to another after 12 NFL seasons, Washington's veteran starter wants Darnold to chart his own path as a rookie."All these situations are different," Smith said. "He's got some good guys in his QB room to lean on that have played a lot of ball, so he certainly didn't need to hear me tell him anything. I think my rookie year's probably more of an example of what not to do as opposed to what to do."Before he can potentially earn the Jets' starting job, Darnold could get the nod against Smith in the teams' next preseason game Thursday night. Coach Todd Bowles would only say, "All of our quarterbacks need to be ready to play," but Darnold took the majority of first-team snaps this week and impressed the Redskins.Cornerback Josh Norman compared Darnold's decision-making skills to Philadelphia's Carson Wentz and Dallas' Dak Prescott and found out firsthand that Darnold doesn't throw like a rookie."This little kid is not mistakes and he's really accurate," Norman said. "It's kind of like, dang. You get rookies in here, you're trying to like mess with them and bait them a little bit into thinking that he was going to throw a route that you know you could make a play on Dallas Cowboys Hoodie , and he's not having it. And it's so crazy to see that at an early age."Fully aware of his early age, Darnold wants to be faster at calling plays and breaking the huddle. Bowles wants to see the USC product catch up on the playbook and knows the best experience comes from game action."He studies his playbook and he goes out and tries to execute on the field and he tries to learn, which is great," Bowles said. "You can't see growth until years pass by, to a degree. I'm not going to measure him day-by-day from a growth standpoint in three weeks."Smith doesn't feel qualified to judge Darnold's game cover to cover but liked what he saw at workouts this week."Just from afar, I thought he looked good," Smith said. "He has a great skillset, can really throw it. He moves around well. I think he has good eyes."Darnold, the third overall pick, actually looks a lot like Smith after the 49ers took him first in the 2005 draft. But it's not on Smith to tutor Darnold; that's up to veteran Jets Josh McCown and Teddy Bridgewater.The 39-year-old McCown is competing with Darnold for the starting job but has nothing but nothing but positive early impressions."More than anything (he) does a good job of taking the classroom to the grass pretty efficiently. It doesn't take him multiple meetings and walkthroughs and different things," McCown said. "So far everything you look for to play the position Customized Dallas Cowboys Jerseys , whether it's just the desire and the want to and all that, all of those things are there and you have to have that in order to have a chance in this league."FanPulse: Cowboys fans are “somewhat confident” in team direction, think Week 1 victory is upon us Welcome to SB Nation FanPulse, a survey of fans across the NFL powered by SurveyMonkey. Each week, we send 32 polls to 100+ plugged in fans from each team. Cowboys fans, sign up HERE to join FanPulse.Will the Cowboys win or lose in Week 1?A lot has happened over the course of the offseason for the Cowboys, but there still remains an obvious sense of optimism. We’re talking about a team that is 22-10 over the last two seasons and while that’s obviously inflated by the 2016 season so is the Cowboys identity. Ezekiel Elliott is back for a full season and that means it’s time to feed him. A less-talented defense benefited from that greatly two years ago, and entering this season that side of the ball has strengthened dramatically. Dallas has the roster to compete and win comfortably if everything breaks right, so six points feels fair.How confident are you in the direction of the team?Very confident: 22 percentSomewhat confident: 62 percentMeh: 5 percentNot very confident: 9 percentNot confident at all: 1 percentConfidence in the Cowboys typically revolves around the players themselves; it’s hard to trust anything beyond that as these results show. Ask any general fan and they’ll hit you with the “Jerry Jones needs to get out of the way” trope, but those paying attention know things have been different for quite some time.The collective brain-trust of Stephen Jones, Jason Garrett www.authenticsdallascowboys.com , Will McClay, and yes, Jerry himself, have certainly earned the right to be trusted, but they’ve also done some suspect things. Releasing Dez Bryant and Dan Bailey are some of the bigger decisions they’ve made since the team last took the field, how the Cowboys perform now will move the needle in one direction or the other.What is the worst NFL rule?Think about this for a second. The helmet rule is actually so bad that the overwhelming majority of football fans everywhere think it’s atrocious. As Cowboys fans we might be a bit partial to the catch rule being the worst one to ever exist, but the helmet rule isn’t far behind. Hopefully the big deal of it was just for the preseason because if it ripples over into the regular season (WHICH WE ARE NOW AT!) things could get annoying fast.