The Vikings had been the feel good story of the NFL season. I had projected them to win only 5 games this year, as the vibes were awful entering the season. They let Kirk Cousins walk in free agency after he tore his achilles and drafted JJ McCarthy out of Michigan. McCarthy is young for a rookie QB, only 21 years old, so it was clear that they were going to take a step back this year. Jordan Addison had received a DUI charge on July 12th. They let go of star pass rusher Danielle Hunter, who has had another excellent year for the Houston Texans. One of their rookies, Khyree Jackson, had died in a car accident in what was one of the most tragic NFL stories I remember. Then, in the preseason, JJ McCarthy tore his ACL after 1 game, which means they are going to have to start Sam Darnold to start the year. Darnold had bounced around to multiple teams after being considered a draft bust for the New York Jets at 3rd overall. He entered the season with 63 career touchdowns, but also 56 interceptions and 38 fumbles with less than 60% completion percentage. To me there was no chance this team would be good. Then they started the season 5-0.

Considering I had picked them to win 5 games all season, I was flabbergasted. Darnold had 11 touchdowns and 4 interceptions in this stretch while completing 64% of his passes. He was also doing this while playing very aggressively, averaging 8.2 yards per attempt and having a completion longer than 25 yards in each game, including a 97-yard touchdown in week 2. Yet, I still was not convinced. I had seen this before with Darnold, in 2021 he came out on fire in a very similar way. He led a very crappy Carolina team to a 3-1 start, had 5 touchdowns and 3 interceptions that year while completing 67% of his passes while averaging 8.2 yards per attempt, the exact number he had averaged during the Vikings to start this season. In 2021, Darnold proceeded to dive further than Boeing stock last year, absolutely imploding over his next 5 starts to the point where he got benched. In those 5 starts, Darnold completed 52% of his passes while throwing just 2 touchdowns to 8 interceptions on only 5 yards per attempt. So we had seen this movie before with Darnold led teams; it was only a matter of when the Vikings would fall off, not if.

Except they didn’t fall off. The Vikings and Darnold kept rolling; after losing their next 2 games they proceeded to rip off a 9-game win streak. In that stretch, Darnold put up 21 touchdowns to just 7 interceptions, completed 69% of his passes while averaging… 8.2 yards per attempt. The potential had finally been reached, Sam Darnold was playing like the player the Jets drafted in the 1st round all those years ago. He was playing so well that people were wondering if the Vikings were going to trade the rookie they just drafted in the 1st round and re-sign Darnold for a fat pay day. The Vikings entered their week 18 game against the Lions with a 14-2 record and a chance to win the 1 seed and homefield throughout the playoffs with a win. Then, in typical Vikings fashion, they proceeded to lose to the Lions in blowout fashion, 31-9. Darnold played a disgusting game, completing 44% of his passes and averaged only 4 yards per attempt. The Lions sent pressure at Darnold all night long and he crumbled, throwing inaccurate pass after inaccurate pass. They blew a chance to win the 1 seed and now had to travel on the road for the 1st week of the playoffs. Still, there was plenty of reason to be optimistic, right? Aaron Glenn, the Lions defensive coordinator, has had his name circulating in head coach interviews this past week, so if you wanted to you could easily have chalked up the loss to the Lions as just 1 bad game where the Lions came out with an excellent game plan and executed it perfectly. You had just seen Darnold play well for 16 games, so 1 bad start seemed to be the outlier. Flash forward 8 days later to last night, where the Vikings absolutely crumbled against the Rams in a playoff game, losing 27-9. Darnold turned over the ball twice, got sacked 9 times with most of them being his fault due to holding on to the ball for way too long. He completed just 62% of his passes in this one, averaging only 6.1 yards per attempt.  The numbers don’t truly capture how bad this was. This was a Monday night playoff game, so the eyes of football fans everywhere were set on this game. Troy Aikman and Joe Buck were on the call, and Troy Aikman is not one to hold back his thoughts about quarterback play. All night, Aikman went on and on about how the sacks were almost all Sam Darnold’s fault, how he was hesitant and holding on to the ball for too long, and how even his completions felt out of rhythm. It was a big moment where you want to see your quarterback respond to a bad performance the week prior by bouncing back and securing a playoff win. After all, this is a quarterback that played so well in his age 27 season that analysts were projecting him to get a contract that would total in at least 100 million plus, but potentially even more. Yet in the biggest moment of their season, he proceeded to revert back to old Darnold, playing nervous and hesitant on every single snap. His team was loaded with weapons, yet moving the ball seemed to be an impossible task. The Vikings went from a chance at the 1 seed to being eliminated from the playoffs in just 8 days. One of the best seasons in franchise history was now over, with months of great play turning to dust and disappointment. 

Let’s take a closer look at the defining play of the night. The Vikings are in 11 personnel, with 3 wide receivers to Darnold’s right and tight end T.J. Hockenson isolated to his left. The running back is on his left side as well for this one. The Rams fake like they are going to blitz, but end up only sending 4, with one of those being a delayed rush as well, we will address that here in a sec, so don’t forget it. 

 When Darnold hikes the ball, you could tell the fake blitz confused the right side of his offensive line. Some teams have the quarterback call out which players the offensive line needs to cover, and some have the centers do it, so I don’t want to pin this particular part on Darnold. However, his running back steps to the right after the blitzing safety gets past the right side of the line, protecting Darnold and allowing him to step up. The fake blitzers have to sprint back to their coverages, meaning that if you get the ball out quickly, at least 1 of the 3 receivers on the right should be open for a completion that would at the very least get you the first down, but potentially a big play as well. T.J. Hockenson does what is known as a block and release route on the left side, blocking Rams corner Ahkello Witherspoon for a moment and then releasing for a curl route. Even if Darnold is not able to find one of his 3 receivers on the right, he should at the very least be able to dump the ball to Hockenson, who could then make a play after the catch and hopefully grab a first down for you. I highlighted Hockenson releasing from his block below.

So he has Hockenson open short, and as you can see on the right, there is 1 corner who is being forced to make a choice on who to cover. There is safety help over the top out of frame, but even with that considered, there are 2 Rams defending 3 Vikings, so 1 of the Vikings players will be open if you are able to make a quick decision and rip one to your player. Like he did all night though, Darnold hesitated in this moment, and when you are playing a team that was talented enough to make the playoffs, that little hesitation is all the defense needs to make a fake blitz like this one work. Remember how I brought up that 1 of those pass rushers was a delayed rush? That would be Mr. Witherspoon, who ran at Darnold the second Hockenson stopped blocking and went out for his curl route. In terms of overall time, Witherspoon does not get to the quarterback until about 3.5 seconds after the ball is snapped. While this may not sound like a long time to you and I, in NFL quarterback terms, against this particular type of zone blitz, the ball should have been out after about 2.5-3 seconds. Unfortunately for Darnold, he holds on to the ball for too long, an indication of either not processing the game fast enough, which is an issue, or being too nervous and hesitant to get the ball out, which is an even bigger issue. Witherspoon then sacks Darnold, strips the ball from him, and DROY front runner Jared Verse picks the ball up and runs it all the way back for a touchdown. The game was as good as over at this point. 

Let’s take a look from a different angle, at the point where Hockenson releases and the running back picks up the safety blitzer that gets past the right side of the line. You will see the safety help on the right side I referred to earlier, but again, it is 2 players for the Rams having to guard 3 players for the Vikings. If Darnold makes a confident throw with anticipation at this point, the Vikings get the first down they need. You also will see the tight end open on the left side, so even if Darnold doesn’t want to make the throw to the right, which your playoff starting QB should be able to make, you still have the tight end to dump off to. In fact, there are only 2 defenders on the left side of the field at all, so Hockenson could have turned a short dump off into a big gain. The throw should just go to Jefferson on the out route, which I highlighted below, but again, the Hockenson option is there also. Any QB with confidence pulls off this play to get his team a first down, whether it is Jefferson, the correct read, or Hockenson, the last second dump off. Instead Darnold tightens up, holds onto the ball for too long, and effectively ends the Vikings season.

So how do the Vikings move forward? Darnold did play very well for 90% of the season. Yet in back-to-back weeks, when the lights were the brightest, Sam Darnold started seeing ghosts yet again. Darnold is set to be a free agent this summer, and I am very curious to see how much money he will get paid. Do teams around the league think he is the quarterback that for 16 games was the best he had ever been, at a prime quarterback age? After all, his final regular season stat line was 35 touchdowns to 12 interceptions, with a 66% completion percentage on 7.9 yards per attempt, all elite numbers that most teams would beg to get out of a quarterback.  Yet, I would be absolutely stunned if anybody offered him a multi-year deal after it ended as poorly as it did. If you’re the Vikings, who have a rookie quarterback coming back next year, do you want to pay Darnold a hefty pay day to come back after shitting the bed like he just did? Look, I’m pro-player, and I hope Darnold gets his bag this offseason for his sake. But if I am a franchise that wants to make a win now move at quarterback this offseason, I would look elsewhere before I pay Darnold 100 million plus to come lead my team. I would also be hesitant to franchise tag Darnold if I were Minnesota, as he would take up 41 million in that scenario for a single season. It will make it extremely challenging to upgrade any other parts of the roster if you do this, plus you want to see what you have in the guy you just drafted at 10th overall the year prior. So, what happens with Darnold this offseason? It will end up being one of the biggest dominos of the NFL offseason, but right now, when it comes to real deal suitors and offers, it looks like Sam Darnold will be seeing ghosts.