Matthew Coller: Darnold learned to play 'point guard' in SF — can he protect the ball in MN?

The Vikings' QB talked about his mentality at camp on Thursday.

Sam Darnold / Image courtesy of the Minnesota Vikings

Three weeks into the 2021 season, the Carolina Panthers thought they robbed the New York Jets blind.

Quarterback Sam Darnold, who the Panthers acquired in a trade that offseason, started out the season 3-0 with 888 yards, 8.3 yards per attempt, three touchdowns, one interception and only 34 yards lost to sacks. By PFF’s “turnover-worthy play” metric, he only committed three miscues in those three first weeks, making up 2.5% of total plays, 11th best in the league.

The rest of the way Darnold went 1-8, threw 12 interceptions and led the NFL with 4.9% of his plays qualifying as “turnover worthy.”

Darnold’s career has been haunted by turnovers. Only Jamies Winston and Ryan Fitzpatrick have higher interception rates among QBs who have thrown at least 1,000 passes since 2018. He has the fifth highest sack rate and more fumbles than Patrick Mahomes in half the drop-backs.

Yet there was a glimmer of hope. In 2022 he only dropped back 162 times but dropped his turnover-worthy play rate to 2.9%, which was better than average and 0.2% ahead of Kirk Cousins. In the two games he threw more than 10 passes for the 49ers last year, Darnold only had a single turnover-worthy play. Even if we add in pre-season reps amidst a QB competition in San Francisco, Darnold had just one TWP in 37 drop-backs.

Add it all together, you have a total of 247 passing plays and only 2.8% TWP rate since the nightmarish 2021 stretch.

On Thursday, Darnold said that during his time in San Francisco he learned to adopt a different mentality than he had in previous stops with the Jets and Panthers — a mindset that focused on not trying to press too hard to make something happen.

“The biggest thing for me as a quarterback is playing the game like a point guard,” Darnold said. “Being able to dish the ball to the guys and let them go run after the catch and not trying to do too much out there. Take what the defense gives you — I know that’s a cliche but it’s really true especially on first and second down. Taking completions, coming back to the sideline and if we had a look where I could have taken a shot then maybe come back to it but taking what they give you play after play and eventually something will pop.”

The deeper we look into the numbers, the more evidence we find that point-guard style play resulted in passable quarterbacking and doing too much resulted in disaster. In 2021 when Darnold threw the ball in under 2.5 seconds, he graded a 68.1 by PFF. That was still below average but was only a shade behind Jared Goff (70.2) and Matthew Stafford (71.8). When he held the ball for more than 2.5 seconds he had a 47.5 grade, second worst in the NFL.

Furthermore, he was not great with a clean pocket but when pressured his play was catastrophically bad. Darnold had the fourth worst pressure PFF grade and third worst QB rating. He was 24th out of 30 in average time to throw.

Are you seeing a pattern here?

But here’s where it gets interesting. Darnold only ranked 19th in the percentage of pressures allowed that were attributed by PFF to the quarterback. His O-line ranked 28th in pass blocking and receivers graded 32nd. When he ran play-action, he was mid-pack in QB rating (90.9, slightly above Cousins in 2021) yet the Panthers only ran it on 24.4% of plays. They also only averaged 4.4 yards per pass attempt on screens.

Playing point guard is way more difficult when you don’t run plays that allow the QB to play point guard or give him weapons to make plays.

It should come as no surprise that Darnold had a 37.7% play-action rate in 2022, 7.4 yards per attempt on screens and an 80.6 PFF grade when kept clean (Stafford had a 79.4). None of his TWP’s were on throws under 20 yards, versus 12 of them the previous year. The Panthers were 11th in pass blocking, though they still graded 28th in receiving despite a strong showing from DJ Moore.

When we try to separate the times where he was able to play a point guard style, there were results that are much closer to what the Vikings are looking for in 2024 if he secures the starting job for a long period of time.

“When you've experienced what Sam's experienced, the positives, the highs, some of the lows that he's felt like have been real learning opportunities,” head coach O’Connell said.

None of this guarantees that Darnold will have a sudden surge in his career. There are only a handful of examples of success after a rough start. However, there are more examples of players reducing their turnover-worthy play rate. Tua Tagovailoa went from 4.8% to 3.5% between 2021 and 2023. Matthew Stafford went from 3.7% in 2021 to 2.0% last year. Josh Allen reduced his rate by 1.2% last year to a manageable 3.0%.

Whether Darnold can add his name to that list of former top-pick QBs who found ways to better avoid turnovers is yet to be seen. He has gotten off to a strong start to camp, wowing onlookers with two deep connections with Justin Jefferson and another bomb to Jordan Addison on Thursday.

“Right now it’s just going through the play call, going through what I’m seeing on defense and making sure I’m checking all the boxes mentally,” Darnold said.

Additional notes

— JJ McCarthy had a strong practice, completing two very impressive passes that stood out. One of them was a deep ball to Jalen Nailor, who is battling for the WR3 position, and the other was a blazing fastball to tight end Robert Tonyan.

We haven’t seen McCarthy take first-team reps but he did look fairly comfortable operating the offense on Thursday. He will need to put some good days together before the pads come on and the intensity ramps up.

— Brian Flores was open about his own struggles with losing Khyree Jackson in a car crash that took his life and two of his friends.

“It's still something that gives me a pit in my stomach and something that I am dealing with internally,” Flores said.

He added that he had been very impressed with Jackson’s ability to overcome adversity and felt that’s what was going to guide him in the NFL.

“I was really excited about coaching him, getting him here and I think he had a bright, bright future,” Flores said.

— The Vikings’ defensive coordinator also commented on corner Mekhi Blackmon suffering an ACL tear that will keep him out for the 2024 season.

“He’s very talented. He’s exactly what we’re looking for in a Viking. It’s a tough loss, we all feel it,” Flores said.

Kevin O’Connell announced before practice that the Vikings have signed CB Cobi Francis, a 25-year-old who played only a handful of snaps on special teams with the Texans, and ex-Cowboys special teams LB Jabril Cox.

It is unclear whether there are more moves on the way to fill the void.

During practice Shaq Griffin left with what appeared to be a lower leg injury after grabbing an interception. He was walking around after practice and there didn’t seem to be serious concern for his health but it was a reminder that the team is very short on depth if anyone else were to get hurt.

— Dallas Turner has been enjoying his battles against Christian Darrisaw. By “enjoying,” I mean that Darrisaw is showing him what it’s really like to go up against an elite left tackle.

“I’ve never seen a tackle like him before, I’m not going to lie,” Turner said.

The rookie from Alabama, who has been taking first-team reps with Andrew Van Ginkel still working in, gets feedback from Darrisaw about the tackle’s perspective on his rushes.

“What helps the most is asking what he’s looking at when looking at a pass rusher like myself, what is he reading?” Turner said. “What gives him the signal to strike his hands? I ask him a lot of questions.”