MINNEAPOLIS – At the dawn of the new year, Sam Darnold was a folk hero in Minnesota. The quarterback (no longer considered locally as a turnaround project, but rather a full-blown high-octane Pro Bowler) not only swept the rival Green Bay Packers to give the Vikings their best regular-season record in 16 years, but he checked in as almost certain to return in 2025, as the captain of the pleasantly surprising ship.
In the Vikings’ next two games, the rejuvenated Darnold not only lit a fire under his potentially lucrative offseason earnings. He was the main reason why those two games turned out to be the most deflating and ultimately the most end games, from an otherwise inspiring Minnesota campaign. In other words, the quarterback fell even more dramatically than he rose, establishing himself as a perfect candidate for a football community always reluctant to allow the air of “Minnesota Nice” to overshadow the lingering anticipation of disappointment.
Week 18 was one thing. Going to Detroit to unseat the giant Lions, the favorite of the entire NFL, was always going to be an arduous task. Who could blame Darnold for throwing a couple of pitches and hustling a couple more? After all, it was his first NFL game of playoff magnitude. He would surely sit just one touch for the next wild card game, in a life or death scenario. Surely a trip out west, where he was born, raised and once built his draft stock, would rekindle that unflappable, almost fearless composure that marked the rest of his genuinely authoritative debut with the Vikings.
No. It’s not like that. Monday’s season-ending loss to the Los Angeles Rams was nowhere near better for Darnold than the week before. It was catastrophically worse. The numbers aren’t pretty (he finished 25 of 40 with a touchdown, an interception and a fumble) but the image of his unstable dance in and around the pocket was even uglier. By the end of Monday’s game, Darnold had absorbed a playoff-record nine sacks, losing the Vikings a combined 82 yards. On paper, that’s an indictment of an unstable front. Darnold’s endless penchant for holding the ball (he may still have it) was the truly overwhelming culprit.
This is not to say that Darnold’s return to NFL relevance was a sham. Part of his appeal, for much of this season, was his willingness to stay in the pocket, withstand the heat of pressure and throw the rock deep with his first-round arm, feeding some of the best playmakers of the perimeter of the game, Justin Jefferson and Jordán Addison. In fact, for several periods, his combination of natural accuracy and impenetrable zeal made the Vikings’ offseason gamble to let Kirk Cousins walk look downright brilliant; They had gambled on a pair of mysteries about a solid but unspectacular household name, and Darnold paired up perfectly with O’Connell and Co. to seize the moment, even briefly making fans forget about first-round rookie JJ McCarthy.
But just as quarterbacks aren’t guaranteed starting jobs every year (Darnold knows this well), teams They are not guaranteed 14-win seasons. teams There are no guaranteed playoff appearances. The Vikings rode the “Minneapolis Miracle” to the NFC Championship game in 2017, only to miss the postseason in three of their next four seasons. They reeled off 13 wins in O’Connell’s inspiring 2022 debut, only to finish in the playoffs and then miss the dance — and essentially lose Cousins forever — next year. Things change quickly in the NFL. Which is another way of saying, Darnold may have enjoyed a renaissance in 2024, and may have earned a close look as more than just a placeholder under center, but in the biggest and brightest moments. that they would always differentiate their equipment between “nice fall story” and “significant winter contender,” well, it froze like the Vikings’ home state.
Is the design of O’Connell’s work here irreproachable? Or the interior offensive line? Or a Brian Flores-led defense that racked up turnovers in clutch moments all year but let Matthew Stafford and the Rams take them on Monday? As always, an NFL loss, even an egregious one, cannot be attributed to a single player. And yet, if we can crown Darnold for his hand in guiding the Vikings’ attack from September to December, we can also identify his hand as the one that firmly helped drag Minnesota back to Earth and, ultimately, out of the playoffs in January. The Vikings just needed competent passing to be competitive in the end, and what they got instead was what you’d expect from a wide-eyed rookie who was called cold off the bench.
At 27 years old, this is not the end of the road for Sam Darnold. Not after releasing 35 scores in his first full-time gig in years. The road ahead may simply not be paved in purple. O’Connell won’t forget 16 games of mostly top-10 production, but he and general manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah will also enter the 2025 offseason with the last two games fresh in their minds. That’s not a pleasant thought. One, because those games showed that, even with star weaponry, 14 wins against a so-so roster and a successful quarterback, the Vikings still looked more like a wild-card contender than a Super Bowl heavyweight. And two, because the time has come to make another big bet on the quarterback.
Darnold’s free agent market almost certainly took a hit thanks to his completion, and in theory, that could benefit the Vikings. On the other hand, how much should they Would you even be willing to pay for their services right now? The NFL is always desperate for quality weapons, and April’s draft class is not believed to be especially strong at the position, so it’s possible that a needy team like the Las Vegas Raiders or New York Giants could launch with a reasonable offer. And if that happens, forcing Minnesota to bid for his return, well, Adofo-Mensah’s recent track record suggests the Vikings will be more inclined to say, “Thanks for the memories.”
Remember Cousins last offseason? He was older, yes, and he was coming off a serious injury. But he had given Minnesota six years of a mostly stable quarterback. At least he had led a playoff victory in the city. And the Vikings, heading into 2024, were no longer comfortable paying big money to “just be good” at center. They preferred to throw multiple darts at low-risk, high-upside prospects, one of which was Darnold. The other, McCarthy, may have missed his rookie season due to knee surgeries, but he’s still a premium investment as a top-10 pick. He is younger. It’s cheaper. And after Darnold sank rather than lifted Minnesota to close out his dream debut, who’s to say McCarthy can’t deliver further sooner rather than later?
In the parity-driven NFL, there isn’t necessarily a clear answer. After all, the Vikings wouldn’t have had the chance to fail in the playoffs, if not for Darnold’s stardom helping them get there. Can they convince Darnold to return on another team-friendly one-year deal? Can they just restart a quarterback competition next summer? Would that stifle whatever confidence remains within the number 14? And if they let him go, they’ll inevitably look for Darnold 2.0 in free agency, or pray that he emerges on Daniel Jones’ practice squad call-up, so that this team’s playoff-ready veterans aren’t completely left out. dry. Pivoting completely toward “the future” might well be the right move, giving McCarthy the patience to grow at his pace, but it’s less of an easy sell when you have a shiny facility filled with players and coaches who just came within a single win of the El number one seed in the NFC playoffs.
In a strange way, it would have been easier for team brass to move to 2025 if Darnold had simply shown nothing in his humble quest for career redemption; then at least they’d have an easy justification to turn to McCarthy, the hand-picked face of the franchise, next fall. But that was not the reality. The reality was that Darnold far exceeded expectations… until he didn’t. It’s not unusual for teams and quarterbacks to experience a playoff loss; Only one team wins it all each year. It’s all the more complicated when every win and loss, especially late in the season, informs the next steps of a franchise at a crossroads.
And so, for now, we are back to square one in the most important position in football. The Vikings faithful got a taste of what was good about this season. But here we are after the early departure of their team and, as is often the case, they have to wait again.
