Matthew Coller: Detroit was the Darnold game everyone feared

Darnold posted one of the worst games of his career in terms of completion percentage when the Vikings needed him.

Jan 5, 2025; Detroit, Michigan, USA; Minnesota Vikings quarterback Sam Darnold (14) rolls out of the pocket against the Detroit Lions during the first half at Ford Field. Mandatory Credit: David Reginek-Imagn Images / David Reginek-Imagn Images

DETROIT — In Sam Darnold’s entire career, he only had three games with a lower completion percentage than the mark that he posted on Sunday night against the Detroit Lions. Coincidentally, those games were memorable.

One was against the New England Patriots, where he was caught saying that he was “seeing ghosts” — a phrase that continues to be associated with him every time he struggles. Another was against the Vikings in 2018. The third was a game that his team won in Carolina despite him going 5-for-15 with two interceptions.

Those three ugly performances represented different points in Darnold’s career. The game against the Vikings was in his rookie year, where the uber-talented quarterback was coming off back-to-back wins and then regressed hard. The “seeing ghosts” game was a year later. It also followed a tremendous game the previous week. People in New York started to wonder if anything was different in Year 2. And in Carolina, it was the last game of the season following a really good run of five starts. It was a wind-out-of-the-sails type showing.

How much of that sounded like what we saw on Sunday night?

While the major difference is that Darnold had been on a long streak of excellent play, he was still coming off one of his best career games versus the Green Bay Packers and much of the world had begun to accept that this version of Darnold was the reality. Cold water, meet face.

Darnold finished 18-for-41 with 166 yards and two sacks in a 31-9 loss that cost the Vikings the No. 1 seed. Now they must fly to Los Angeles to face the Rams next Monday and then hope to get another crack at the Lions in two weeks.

From the beginning of the game, something was off. On the first drive he overthrew a pass in the direction of tight end TJ Hockenson that we have seen him make over and over this season. He was sacked to start the second drive by old friend Za’Darius Smith and then overthrew Hockenson when he was wide open down the middle for a third-and-long conversion.

“Just got to hit the throws, it’s as simple as that,” Darnold said in his postgame comments.

After the game Darnold denied that the atmosphere had anything to do with his play but that’s hard to accept considering Ford Field was as loud as any stadium in the NFL can get during the duration of the game. The Lions had legends Calvin Johnson and Barry Sanders there. NBC’s Sunday Night Football crew was on the scene. The game was the most hyped that we have seen in the league all season, if not in a long time considering the stakes. And Darnold played like someone who had too many coffees before the game.

“Early on in the game, it seemed the misses were a little high, so we’ve got to take a look at it, fundamentals, techniques, and take a look at the plays that things happened on,” head coach Kevin O’Connell said. “Having the Monday night game, we’ll be able to do – we’ll be able to have a real full kind of debrief and understanding of what took place because clearly it starts with me.”

If you thought it was just big-game jitters to start and that Darnold was going to shake it off, it looked like you might be right on the Vikings third opportunity with the ball. He completed a 13-yard pass to Josh Oliver and then 31-yarder to Justin Jefferson. But then he proved you wrong when the Vikings reached the red zone. Three straight misses turned into a turnover on downs.

Darnold entered the game having the highest completion percentage in the NFL inside the red zone. That evaporated inside the 20 over and over. The Vikings finished 0-for-4 and only came away with two field goals.

“I thought we had some opportunities and then some other times they did some good things in man coverage and got us off our first or second reads and just didn’t put the ball in the end zone at a level that we’ve been doing,” O’Connell said. “We’ve been at a pretty strong clip down there finishing with touchdowns over the last six, seven weeks or so and that did not happen tonight. We have to take a look at it and be ready to try to improve immediately and know a challenge that we have going to L.A.”

Normally the Lions blow out teams that have dry spells on offense and don’t take advantage of their opportunities but in this case the Vikings defense did everything it could to give more chances to Darnold.

To start the second quarter, the defense sacked QB Jared Goff and forced a punt, then the offense came away with no points after three straight incompletions. Immediately the defense got the ball back when a tipped pass turned into an interception for linebacker Ivan Pace Jr. After getting the ball at the 7-yard line, the Vikings only came away with three points.

Oh, how differently the game might have looked had the Vikings produced touchdowns.

“This came down to our ability to put seven on the board in the first half and take advantage of a short field turnover, take advantage of getting the ball on the 50-yard line and you have to turn those things into some real points against a team like that,” O’Connell said. “If we’re kicking field goals all day against that offense, we’re going to have to score some touchdowns eventually to give ourselves a chance to win the game.”

But their quarterback wasn’t playing at a level where they could produce touchdowns. The Vikings had another chance to jump all over Detroit in the second half but they failed on downs again in the red zone, then picked off Goff again, and then Darnold took a crushing intentional grounding that forced them to settle for another three points.

At that point the Vikings were only trailing 10-9. Very much a ballgame. There is only so long they could have reasonably expected the defense to hold down the NFL’s best offense though. Early in the third quarter, the Lions put together a monster 13-play drive that wore down the Vikings defense.

The only shot the Vikings had from there was to fight fire with fire. Instead Darnold couldn’t wire a pass through to Hockenson on third-and-4 at the Detroit 34-yard line and O’Connell elected to kick a field goal.

He said in his postgame comments that his belief in the defense’s ability to get a stop played into trying to make the game 17-12 in that moment.

“Just with the way that our defense was playing, it would’ve been a chance to get that three in there and then see if we can get one stop and go down and put the ball in the end zone and take the lead,” he said. “At that point in time, you’re gauging how your whole football teams playing.”

It’s hard not to wonder if Darnold had appeared more dialed in and confident if he would have gone for the fourth down because his defense had just been on the field for a seven-minute drive.

Unsurprisingly when Will Reichard missed the kick, the Lions didn’t need an invitation to get on a roll. They scored almost instantly and the game was over.

Now come the hard questions.

In a world built for over reaction, is it too much to wonder if Darnold is going to let them down again in the playoffs and turn this 14-3 magic carpet ride into a quick playoff exit? Is it unfair following a near-MVP season from Darnold to start talking about the Vikings shaping their future plays by what the well-traveled quarterback does in the postseason?

Had the Vikings lost a routine game by a touchdown and Darnold played well, it wouldn’t be a question but you can bet that a failure of that magnitude is only going to ignite the national discussion around the Vikings’ offseason decision. Will it be a distraction heading into the game? The team has been so good at blocking those out this year but one team will be dealing with all the questions about its QB’s future and the other will not.

How much should they really change next week? The last time Darnold had a bad game, he and O’Connell went back to the drawing board and came out with numerous good performances and he turned his season around. Will that happen again or will a slump end their season?

“I think for me, personally, I’ve got to look at the tape, see just my feet and just correct everything from a mechanics standpoint – not look too deep into it, but just get better,” Darnold said.

Is it an over reaction to say that we went from trusting Darnold to consistently bring the Vikings strong QB play from thinking he’s the biggest wild card going into the 5 vs. 4 matchup?

The answer to all of that is probably yes. Despite the misery of Sunday night, he’s going to finish with a 102.5 QB rating for the season, 35 touchdowns and 4,319 yards. Quarterbacks across the league have bad games, sometimes in big contests. Josh Allen had a 9-for-30 box score in a loss to Houston.

This wasn’t a routine loss. This was for the No. 1 seed. And the penalty for a loss was extremely harsh, sending a 14-win team on the road.

Still, the Vikings enter as having the second best record in the NFC. As fast as things changed from last week vs. Green Bay to this week vs. Detroit, they could change again and the Vikings could be booking flights back to the Motor City for a shot at revenge for Sunday night.

It’s truly a week-to-week league and whatever the next few weeks bring will give us the full picture on Darnold — maybe with just a January 5th blemish, maybe with a lot of warts. We’ll see.