Sam Darnold to Practice for the New York Jets on Wednesday

Quarterback Sam Darnold is trending in the right direction, practicing on Wednesday for the first time suffering a shoulder injury in Week 4.

New York Jets head coach Adam Gase said that Darnold will be limited in practice on Wednesday and will be evaluated after the session to see if he can handle more work on Thursday.

“Right now, I’ll say all options are available. We’ll have him on a pitch count. I think the biggest thing will be how he feels tomorrow,” Gase said before practice on Wednesday.

“If there’s anything that really feels like it lingers or anything when he’s throwing, that’s kind of his red flag of - ‘Hey I’ll let you guys know.’ I think the trainers and Sam have done a good job of communicating back and forth to make sure that they’re both on the same page and then relaying the information back to us to make sure that we know what is going.

“It’s one of those situations where we need him to be real honest – which he has done a good job of since I’ve been here – in telling us where he’s at on thing. We’ll see how it goes, we’ll get him rolling and kind of see how he feels and see the next day as well.”

Darnold was hurt in Week 4. On the play where he was injured, Darnold was sacked and Denver Broncos linebacker A.J. Johnson picked the Jets quarterback off his feet and drove him into the ground. He suffered a sprain to his AC joint.

He came in to finish out the 37-28 loss but has been held out the past two weeks with the injury.

The past two weeks, it has been veteran Joe Flacco starting for Darnold. While the offense wasn’t bad in Week 5 in a loss to the Arizona Cardinals, including a season-high 21 first downs, Flacco has still led the Jets on just one touchdown drive since being the starter.

In his two starts this year, Flacco is 39-of-77 for 387 passing yards with a touchdown and an interception. He’s been sacked five times in his two starts.

Gase plans on splitting reps with the starters between Darnold and Flacco for Wednesday. The Jets play the AFC East-leading Buffalo Bills on Sunday.

The Bills beat the Jets 27-17 in Week 1.

The lack of first-team reps for Flacco isn’t an immediate concern for Gase.

“We got to work them both. We’ll see how today plays out. I think having Joe, as someone that has had a lot of experience, my confidence level in him – if he has a little less reps – I’ll be alright with that. To me, he can handle that,” Gase said.

“If we were talking about a second-year player that was behind Sam, I’d be a little more concerned.”