David Levine
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Joined: 7/14/2007
From: Las Vegas
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Sam Darnold, Minnesota Vikings
Darnold is playing good ball. Only 27 years old (and younger than Joe Burrow!), Darnold looks like a vet because, well, he is one. During his 59th career start Sunday, he was poised against pressure, able to create outside of structure, regularly found the right reads and delivered the ball accurately.
The natural talent that got Darnold drafted third overall back in 2018 -- his arm and how well he throws from messy platforms -- was on display multiple times against the Texans. He drilled tight windows in the end zone for key scores, but this third-and-long far sideline out route to Justin Jefferson with an offensive lineman in his lap was, to me, the most impressive rep.
https://twitter.com/i/status/1838411933126459449
These three games under coach Kevin O'Connell in Minnesota have been some of the best football we've ever seen Darnold play. The last time we saw him as a starter wasn't too bad, though. He played six games for the Panthers to end the 2022 season. With Ben McAdoo as the offensive coordinator, the Panthers went under center a lot, ran a ton of play-action and gave Sam downfield and intermediate routes to hit on long dropbacks.
That is exactly what Darnold is getting from O'Connell, who is levels better than McAdoo as a playcaller and designer, and who has far more experience in this style of offense than McAdoo did. Look at some of Darnold's production metrics, as well as some descriptors of what the offense is asking of him. He's picking up exactly where he left off in Carolina.
It isn't bad news that O'Connell is getting Darnold to his spots on the court. It's good news! O'Connell is as good as any coordinator in the league at working around a quarterback who isn't, perhaps, at the tippy-top tier of the position. He got the best production of Kirk Cousins' career in his final couple of seasons in Minnesota. He got a month of solid offense out of Joshua Dobbs. Heck, Nick Mullens threw for 400 yards in a game last season. O'Connell is so stinkin' good at just getting a guy open -- whether by formation, motion or route combination -- that so long as he has a willing QB, this offense stays explosive.
The question facing Darnold and the Vikings is whether they can sustain this. It is wicked hard to outscheme every Sunday opponent for a month, for two months, three, four. Almost everyone who does it comes from this offensive tree -- Sean McVay, Kyle Shanahan and Mike McDaniel. O'Connell's offense is far more similar to McVay's than what Shanahan's and McDaniel's have become, and McVay went for the big upgrade at quarterback (Matthew Stafford) to make his life easier. Winning on the chalkboard every week for 20-plus weeks is just too tall of an ask.
The first weak point that opposing defenses will attack? Darnold. Pressure has famously flustered him, and while those longer dropbacks are good for downfield routes putting big stresses on defense, they invite a ton of pressure. Darnold has been pressured on 35.2% of his dropbacks and has taken a sack on 9.1% of his total dropbacks, both of which are above league average. On a small sample, Darnold is holding it together when pressured (ninth in EPA per dropback, 14th in success rate), but his off-target rate is higher than all but five quarterbacks so far this season. Darnold isn't a scrambler, either; he's either going to take a sack or put that ball out there.
This is the rub for Darnold: He has to succeed when O'Connell's machinations fail -- when he's pressured or forced to play outside of structure. And Darnold doesn't need to win on scramble-drill plays or beat free rushers or anything. If he can just continue to avoid turnovers and whittle down on sack numbers, then he'll continue doing his part for the Vikings' offense. We might call this the Jimmy Garoppolo/Brock Purdy dichotomy: Garoppolo was never able to do anything when pressured for Shanahan, while Purdy can do enough. So long as Darnold is more of a Purdy than a Garoppolo, he'll continue to produce.
I called the Vikings pretenders in this space last week and picked against them in my Friday column. Vikings fans raked me over the coals, and Sunday, I ate my crow as Minnesota demolished the Texans at home. I'm still not convinced, though. I've watched a lot of Darnold over the years, and I know that these flashes of quality play are often chased by a few head-scratching weeks. I also watched O'Connell prop up backup quarterbacks for all of last season. It's one of the reasons I had preseason faith in the O'Connell-Darnold pairing and identified O'Connell as a Coach of the Year pick.
I'm one step closer to believing that this will last all season. I've gone from "full-throated doubter" to "suspicious but willing to entertain."
Verdict: Good coaches can win with Darnold. Great coaches can win with Darnold for a while. Time to make your money, KOC.
https://www.espn.com/nfl/insider/story/_/id/41398891/nfl-week-3-lessons-ben-solak-quarterbacks-darnold-fields-dalton-seahawks
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