Matthew Coller: It's Sam Darnold's time to fulfill his potential

The journeyman quarterback will never have a better opportunity to rewrite his history in the NFL than with the 2024 Vikings.

Aug 10, 2024; Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA; Minnesota Vikings quarterback Sam Darnold (14) warms up before the game against the Las Vegas Raiders at U.S. Bank Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Jeffrey Becker-USA TODAY Sports / Jeffrey Becker-USA TODAY Sports

EAGAN — By now you have been made aware of Sam Darnold’s rough road to get here. Wildly inconsistent play, bad numbers, struggling organizations, poor supporting casts and all that jazz. But you might not fully realize just how big the obstacles were in his previous stops.

In 2018 the former star USC quarterback took over a Jets team whose roster was in peril and coach on the hot seat. The Jets’ receivers ranked 28th by PFF, run game 27th and the O-line 21st. The defense finished 29th in points allowed. The offensive coordinator had one total year as an OC in his career before joining New York and he was fired quickly from that gig.

Darnold had a lot of rough games but the good ones didn’t always get rewarded. On December 23, 2018, Darnold led the Jets to 38 points behind 341 yards and three touchdowns against the Packers. And his team lost.

There was more where that came from in the subsequent seasons. Adam Gase’s tenure was foreshadowed in his bizarre first press conference and the roster continued to lag. In 2019, the Jets ranked 28th in pass blocking by PFF, 16th in receiving and 26th in rushing. Still, he went 7-6 in Year 2 and seemed to recover from the “seeing ghosts” game against the Patriots by posting a solid 90.4 QB rating in the final 10 games of ‘19.

Then it all came crashing down. Behind an O-line ranked 31st by PFF, receivers ranked 30th and the 25th graded running game, Darnold won two of 12 starts in 2020.

Normally that would be it for a young quarterback but Carolina put so much of his struggles on the situation around him that they traded a second-round pick for him.

But they simply repeated history. The 2021 Panthers finished 28th in pass blocking by PFF, 32nd in receiving and 23rd in rushing by PFF. Matt Rhule struggled to adapt to the NFL and was fired midway through the 2021 season.

When Darnold finally played with the 11th-ranked O-line, he was better, going 4-2 with a 92.6 QB rating in 2022. In total he went 8-9 with a 77.3 QB rating in 17 games as a Panther. Other QBs (Baker Mayfield, PJ Walker, Cam Newton), started 16 games in 2021 and 2022. They went 4-12 with 14 TD, 18 INT and a 69.8 rating.

Another interesting nugget from Darnold’s numbers. In 820 passes when tied or winning his career QB rating is a solid 93.2. In 991 passes when losing his rating is a miserable 66.0. The league rating when tied or winning: 93.7 The league rating when losing: 84.4. Does that indicate he was making way more of his huge mistakes when trying to come from behind and play hero?

And this is how one gets talked into Sam Darnold.

When there enough historical examples of quarterbacks coming back from the brink of clipboard holding because of a huge jump in supporting cast and coaching, it’s hard to discount the possibility of a breakout season. Depending on your era and location, you might reference Geno Smith, Jake Plummer, Jeff George or Jim Plunkett as high draft picks who just needed to find the right spot.

Is it really possible though? Those players are outliers. The typical story of top players who don’t work out and get second chances usually looks more like Rick Mirer or Carson Wentz.

So what are the odds of a Darnold turnaround? If it’s going to happen, how would it happen? Let’s go back to the start and work our way back to the present to find out…

The draft

Now that we know the results of Darnold’s first six seasons in the NFL, it’s easy to forget how high many draft analysts were on him coming out of college.

NFL.com’s Eric Edholm was one of them.

“You hoped he would be somewhere in that Aaron Rodgers, Patrick Mahomes realm,” Edholm said over the phone. “He was a tough kid. He took some big hits and peeled himself up and threw it all over the yard. A little bit of Brett Favre.”

His arm strength and special ability to throw off platform combined with Darnold’s made him a very exciting prospect and the data backed up his special skill set. He finished fifth in passing yards in 2017, led all of college football in the PFF stat “big-time throws” and NFL.com gave him a 90 “production score,” second best in the 2018 class.

Edholm recalled a game against UCLA late in the season in which Darnold’s overall performance was not memorable but he made one spectacular throw that confirmed all beliefs about his high-end prospect status.

“That was the throw you remembered…. at one point we were hearing that he could be the number one pick,” Edholm said. “I definitely had him in my top 10. I had him a little ahead of [top draft pick] Baker Mayfield.”

Darnold’s pro day solidified him at the top of the draft. On a rainy day in SoCal, he fired the football all over the field, wowing the teams in attendance.

Analyst Mark Bullock, who penned a long piece in the Washington Post about Darnold before the draft, was impressed prior to the draft by the USC QB’s ability to put the team on his back when the situation called for it. He led a 1-point win over Utah with 358 yards and three touchdowns and a 3-point victory over Stanford racking up 325 yards on 17-for-25 passing.

“He had that gamer to him,” Bullock said via Zoom. “Third downs or key drives overtime, those were situations where they seemed to get the best out of him. He would step up and make the big play. He could make pinpoint accurate throws and layer the ball over the first level of coverage and hit tight windows. There was big upside there.”

Bullock wasn’t quite ready to put names like Aaron Rodgers alongside Darnold but he thought that Darnold had long-term quality NFL starter written all over him.

“I thought he would be the most consistent quarterback out of everyone in that draft class,” Bullock. “Now I’m wondering why I thought that.”

For those who report and/or study the draft, Darnold’s shortcomings were glaring. He didn’t just lead college football in big-time throws, he also finished fourth in turnover-worthy plays. The evaluations hinged on whether the beholder thought he was talented enough to overcome his issues.

“He kept turning the ball over every game and it was a really frustrating part but we all just felt like the draft flu caught all of us and we were making excuses like, ‘Well, the physical tools are all there,’ because they were,” Edholm said. “Looking back I definitely talked myself into him way more than I should have.”

During the leadup to the 2018 draft, CBS Sports draft analyst Chris Trapasso couldn’t get over Darnold’s miscues.

“I had him at 22 on my big board so I didn’t think he was going to be a bust but I was lower on him than most,” Trapasso said.

Trapasso reads over the phone what he wrote of Darnold prior to the ‘18 draft: “He’s a fascinating prospect who isn’t even 21 years old yet but he’s basically Jameis Winston….size, arm strength, mind of a franchise quarterback with a gunslinger mentality. The latter helps him often but tends to him in trouble….his feet are noticeably antsy in the pocket against pressure...there’s a ridiculous amount of talent with Darnold, he has to fine tune how he deals with pressure.”

“The player I saw at USC has pretty much been the player he’s been in the NFL,” Trapasso said.

It’s true. Darnold had the fourth most turnover-worthy plays while under pressure for the Trojans in ‘17, seventh most interceptions and had the fourth worst fumble grade by PFF. Fast forward to his last full season starting in the NFL in 2021, Darnold had the second most turnover-worthy plays under pressure and seventh lowest fumble grade.

So we understand why Darnold was a top prospect and how his shortcomings in college translated as much as his strengths. But do any of our draft experts think that it will be different in Minnesota?

“For players like Sam who have the ability and may not have always had the ideal offense and ideal coaching situation and still relatively young and now has been gifted this amazing opportunity,” Edholm said.

“There is still talent there,” Bullock said. “You can see the ability to layer those throws and in clutch situations deliver those holy-bleep throws. I don’t think the Jets did a good job of helping him. I saw play-action schemes where they had no checkdown options and bootlegs where the receivers were running the opposite direction of the bootleg. How do you expect him to throw to that receiver? And the drops didn’t help….I tend to think if he gets into the right system where it’s friendly on the quarterback and gives them a lot of options [he could be good]…but I don’t think he’s suddenly going to become an All-Pro.”

“The Vikings’ situation is pretty damn good,” Trapasso said. “Nick Mullens was throwing for 400 yards in a game last year. O’Connell will have to grab him by the shoulders and say, ‘Just do what I’m telling you to do.’ If he can keep him within the structure, I think they can be pretty good on offense… but the more he tries to improvise, it’s one amazing play for every three bad ones.”

None of our analysts are giving up because they have seen turnarounds before. Edholm commented that he certainly thought Geno Smith was done as a starter until he landed in the right spot at age 31.

“He has a chance to be like, ‘see, I can do this,’” Edholm said. “If there’s ever a guy to bet on with these kind of odds, it’s this guy. Do I think he’s in for a Kurt Warner ‘99 season? No. But I would not be shocked if he does some really good things.”

The offense

In The Athletic’s “QB Tiers” article, which is a collection of coaches an executives ranking quarterbacks compiled by Mike Sando, Sam Darnold is listed as the 29th of 30 quarterbacks. But it comes with an asterisk: Sando noted that Darnold got as many votes from executives as a Tier 3 QB alongside the likes of QBs like Geno Smith, Derek Carr and Baker Mayfield as he did Tier 5, which is a backup.

“Sometimes I think he’s a [Tier 3] in the right situation,” an exec told Sando. “It would not surprise me if he has a decent year with Kevin (O’Connell). I’m teetering between 3 and 5. I’ll go out on a limb and say he’s a 3 this year.”

It seems that draft analysts and folks inside NFL buildings alike keep coming back to O’Connell as a reason that Darnold could take a significant step forward.

We only have a sample of the first preseason appearance but Darnold’s lone drive looked very comfortable.

O’Connell detailed a third down throw that was timed out and delivered perfectly.

“The dagger cut on third-and-10…[Jalen Nailor] is not even near his transition on the top of the route, and that ball's out on five [steps] and one hitch, the ability to layer it….that throw was really impressive,” O’Connell said.

In the same 12-game batch of plays, Darnold had even another throw that wowed observers. Running back Ty Chandler was attempting to block in front of the 27-year-old quarterback and stepped on his foot. As Darnold was falling, he delivered a pass that most QBs would have been happy with from solid footing.

“I've actually never seen that before — a guy throwing a field out-cut losing their lead leg in the process,” O’Connell said. “So that was really, really impressive.”

The Vikings’ head coach also pointed out that the headsets went out and he called a play that Darnold didn’t expect just to see how he reacted.

“Sam seemed to handle it like a veteran and just talking to the guys in the huddle, just the way he maintained his poise,” O’Connell said.

Until Darnold hits the field against the New York Giants, that’s the only sample size to go off aside from a string of very smooth practices.

How can we go about figuring out whether O’Connell’s coaching and scheme will actually move the needle?

Statistical evidence isn’t easy to pin down because the only QBs he has worked with in Minnesota are Kirk Cousins, an established top-15 QB, and backups Josh Dobbs, Nick Mullens and Jaren Hall. If we go back farther in his career, it’s the same type of split. Matthew Stafford was already one of the top QBs in the NFL and KOC’s quarterbacks in Washington were very far away from that.

Cousins’ numbers changed but they didn’t exactly get better. Under O’Connell he averaged 275 yards per game at 7.2 yards per attempt with a 96.2 QB rating. From 2019-2021, the Kubiak years, he averaged 257 yards per game at 7.9 YPA and posted a 105.0 rating.

When Cousins’ volume increased, his efficiency decreased but the overall value added by passing more was evident. The Vikings finished with the seventh best passing Expected Points Added in 2022, their best mark since Cousins signed in 2018.

It’s hard to see O’Connell shifting from the pass-first approach even with a QB whose track record isn’t as good as Cousins and an improved backfield. Even in games where Alexander Mattison was running the ball well and the Vikings were struggling to pass, they didn’t back off throwing. In a 3-0 win over Las Vegas, Mattison averaged 6.6 yards per attempt but the Vikings threw the ball 33 times between Dobbs and Mullens. In a 12-10 loss to the Bears, Mattison had 52 yards on 10 rushes but Dobbs dropped back to pass 34 times.

Darnold’s high-volume passing games have almost all come when chasing from behind. In games where he attempted more than 35 passes, he’s 2-14. When he’s thrown fewer than 25 passes, he’s 8-3.

Under KOC, Cousins had 10 wins in 16 games with more than 35 passes and only had three total games between 2022 and 2023 with fewer than 30 throws.

Warm up the cannon, Sam.

Whether O’Connell’s system makes life easier isn’t easy to pin down statistically. Per NFLNextGen stats, the 49ers’ Brock Purdy had the highest Expected Completion Percentage in 2022 based on how open the receivers were based the location of defenders at 69.8%. We can safely say that Kyle Shanahan’s offense was pushing that number because Jimmy Garoppolo also ranked highly and Purdy was near the top again in 2023.

Kirk Cousins was in the middle at 63.4% in 2022 and at 64.9% in 2023. Darnold had the lowest Expected Completion Percentage at 56.2% in 2022, 9th lowest in 2021, 11th lowest in 2020 and fourth lowest in 2019.

It isn’t a perfect one-to-one connection because of the many factors that go into completing passes but it’s safe to say Darnold hasn’t been throwing to wide open receivers left and right throughout his career. If he makes good decisions in O’Connell’s offense, he’s going to see a significant uptick in completion percentage even if he doesn’t outperform expectation, as Cousins routinely did due to his accuracy.

Simply understanding what O’Connell’s plays are asking him to do could be an enormous factor in whether Darnold has a career year. This is where O’Connell’s communication with his quarterback, as we saw with Cousins, should pay dividends.

“When Coach O 'Connell calls a play, being able to know exactly kind of what he's thinking with that play,” Darnold said. “And if we get a certain coverage where he wants me to go at the football and all that. It's understanding the play caller's intent when he calls a play and going and making that play come to life.”

One area where O’Connell can help Darnold most is on easy-button plays i.e. play-action and screens. The Vikings haven’t been particularly good in those areas over the last two seasons with Cousins ranking 18th in yards per attempt with play-action (min. 100 play-action drop-backs). He was 10th in screen yards per attempt but only at 5.7 YPA, 3.1 per attempt behind Brock Purdy at the top of the NFL.

At Darnold’s best in 2022 he was third in screen YPA (7.4) and had the third highest percentage of play-action (37.7%) and averaged 8.2 YPA on those plays.

O’Connell’s offense has been proven to create open concepts for its No. 1 wide receiver and Pro Bowl tight end but if the easy-button plays don’t improve there will be a cap on how good/consistent Darnold can be.

“It’s been a process at which his ownership of the offense has gotten to a really good place already,” O’Connell said. “I think it's just his comfort in how we've built the atmosphere for all of our quarterbacks.”

The supporting cast

During the first day of joint practices, the Cleveland Browns defense was causing some problems for the Minnesota Vikings’ offensive line, pressuring Sam Darnold consistently. Center Garrett Bradbury made a suggestion: How about switching up the cadence so they can’t time the snap?

In years past, Bradbury would have left it to Kirk Cousins to decide when to change the cadence. Cousins also had full control of the checks, protections, audibles and everything else.

“We’re leaning on each other… we’re working together a little bit more as opposed to just listening to [the quarterback], which is great and it keeps us on our toes more and we’re not just sitting there listening,” Bradbury said. “It’s a little more on the O-line’s plate, a little more on my plate, which I welcome.”

The veteran center gave us a window into the ways in which life after Cousins is going to be different. They can’t just roll the ball out for Kirk and have him run the show. Getting the most out of Darnold is going to take a village.

“Garrett and the entire offensive line has been huge for me being able to learn all that stuff quickly,” Darnold said. “For him…to turn around and say what the front is or what we got and me being able to make a certain call at the line of scrimmage, it definitely helps.”

While Vikings fans have been well trained to bemoan the offensive line, last year was very different from the past in terms of pass protection. PFF graded them as the second best pass blocking team in the NFL behind Philadelphia. There were 24 QBs with at least 100 pressured drop-backs that were pressured at a higher rate than Kirk Cousins and his 5.2% sack rate was sixth best in the NFL.

Statistically speaking there is nothing more clear than the importance of keeping Darnold in clean pockets. His PFF grades when pressured from 2019 to 2022 were 35.1, 54.7, 33.3 and 50.4. Nobody is good under pressure but his average grade over the last four years would put him between 25th-30th. That’s not going to get the job done.

One number working in his favor is the percentage of pressure that he causes. From 2019-2022, Darnold ranked 6th, 14th, 13th and 9th best in terms of percentage of pressure that he caused himself. So we can say with some certainty that his safety in the pocket will come down to the line rather than him holding the ball too long.

As much as the blocking will impact Darnold’s success, there’s a guy on the Vikings’ roster like nobody else he has ever had on his side: Justin Jefferson.

In the land of GOAT receivers, it can be easy to take for granted the fact that Jefferson has 90+ PFF grades in his first four seasons in the NFL and that QBs throwing in his direction (mostly Kirk Cousins and a little Nick Mullens) have posted a 112.1 QB rating. When Aaron Rodgers won MVP in 2021, his QB rating was 111.9.

Throughout the summer, Darnold and Jefferson started to connect more and more often until hitting on big plays regularly. The Vikings Entertainment folks that put together daily camp highlights for social media always knew they could count on a deep throw from No. 14 to No. 18.

“I feel like we both have that communication with each other to say on any play if he needs to tell me something or if I need to tell him something, it's always good,” Jefferson said. “I feel like just having that communication with each other, it just builds so much chemistry.”

The three players Darnold targeted most before arriving on Jefferson’s planet were Robbie Chosen, Jamison Crowder and DJ Moore. Each had their moments, none are talked about as future gold jacket candidates. That has allowed the QB and megastar receiver to try things that Darnold has never been able to do before with his arm talent.

“It's been really cool to watch just because there's some nuances to some of the things that have kind of developed here that maybe we didn't have in previous versions of this offense,” O’Connell said.

Darnold has also never had multiple receivers at once with the talent of Jordan Addison and TJ Hockenson — though he will have to wait a few weeks for his tight end to come off IR. The 2024 Vikings supporting cast blows away any previous iteration. Despite missing Jefferson for half the season in 2023, the Vikings still ranked by PFF as the eighth best receiving team. Darnold’s previous weapons have never had a top-15 receiving grade.

The opportunity

So as Darnold gets set to lead the Vikings into Week 1 against the New York Giants and through the entire season now that JJ McCarthy is out for the year with meniscus surgery.

It’s a unique position. Rarely does a quarterback enter a season knowing that his likelihood to stay with his team long term is extremely low and yet the implications of the season are enormous for his career. If Darnold gets the Vikings to the postseason then he can guarantee he will be starting next year. See Geno Smith and Baker Mayfield as evidence of that. If he falters, it’s altogether possible he won’t get another chance as QB1.

“As a young player you can definitely get excited about what the future might hold or what things might look like,” Darnold said. “But at the end of the day, you gotta be where your feet are, and this sport. This position, it's hard enough as it is. If you start worrying about the wrong things, it'll come back to bite you…I’m just gonna continue to be myself and lead this team.”

As Vikings fans and the organization look down the road to 2025 when McCarthy, everyone will go along for the ride with Darnold. There will never be a better chance in his career to have a magical turnaround season like we have seen in the past from Vikings QBs like Randall Cunningham, Jeff George and Case Keenum.

The pieces are in place. Now he has to go do it. That journey begins in East Rutherford, New Jersey.