Yeah I mean I laughed at the gestalt of the Jets' performance last night, but in terms of individual, never-gonna-recover-from-this embarrassment, the buttfumble was 10x worse than the offhand comment.
You know what I thought when they showed Darnold saying "...seein' ghosts"? Yeah, no shit you are, Sammy boy. You've thrown 3 interceptions and missed a half-dozen open receivers. Your mechanics are FUBAR. Get your head right. You know what I didn't say? "oh wow, he's mentally crushed, he's scared, he isn't cut out for this league".
Every Patriots fan on this board could name 5 games in which they remarked at the time "Brady's seeing ghosts out there today". Let's start with the 3 playoff losses in Denver, and the list is easily added to from there. It happens. You're not making the right reads, you're getting deceived by a defense doing its damndest to deceive you, and the result is your offense fucking up. Hell, I've probably heard the term from announcers a dozen times describing someone's play, sometimes even a WR's play. There was a brilliant 10-minute mini-documentary years ago on how Rick Ankiel was "Seeing ghosts". It's not a reflection on your character, it's a reflection on your play, in one game.
And let's say he had turned it around after that, led two nice drives, and the game finished 33-10 or something. Jets fans would take positives from this, commentators would give a young QB credit for adapting in-game, and it'd generate not much more than a smirk. What's actually embarrassing was the failure from that point forward to adjust, and the comprehensive failure of the team for 60 minutes.
I'll also wager that if Darnold had said it in retrospect at the interview podium - "yeah, tonight I really was just seeing ghosts out there, those safeties are so good at disguising, I even let it affect my throwing mechanics, can't do that" - absolutely nobody goes out and mocks it beyond a few token tweets. Because it was mic'd up, and he had a thousand-yard stare while saying it to himself or nobody-in-particular on the field, all of a sudden he's got character issues? Come the fuck on.
All to say, I understand why an NFL Films person would let that air. It's descriptive of what was going on. It's a common sports term. What was embarrassing was the gameplay, from the QB on down to everyone else. Pinning those feelings of embarrassment on some intern, and some remark that could just as easily have ended up innocuous - a moment in time, not a permanent state - is total bullshit.