Matthew Coller: Sam Darnold's rise starts with the simple things

The former No. 3 overall pick always had an impressive highlight reel but winning on basic concepts like play-action has taken him to the top of the NFL...

Dec 8, 2024; Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA; Minnesota Vikings quarterback Sam Darnold (14) looks to throw against the Atlanta Falcons during the second quarter at U.S. Bank Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Matt Krohn-Imagn Images / Matt Krohn-Imagn Images

EAGAN — The Minnesota Vikings season had a pretty clear pivot point. Coming out of a 12-7 victory over the Jacksonville Jaguars in which Sam Darnold threw three interceptions and the offense struggled to finish drive, the Vikings quarterback was either going to continue to be a roller coaster or he was going to use the Jags game to refocus and get back to the things that helped him start 5-0 and draw MVP discussion.

The answer is incredibly clear. Over the last four weeks, Darnold has completed 68% of his passes for an average of 289 yards per game with 11 touchdown passes and zero interceptions. PFF ranks him as the best quarterback in the NFL since the ugly win over Jacksonville, a hair above MVP favorite Josh Allen.

“I think there can be incredible growth in moments where, maybe on the outside, it seemed leaving Jacksonville like there's something really wrong,” head coach Kevin O’Connell said. “Sam's going back in Monday morning and, based upon a lot of things that Josh (McCown), Grant (Udinski), and myself talked to him about, almost self-coaching. ‘If I just have better feet there or I don't know why my eyes were there.’ [It] was an incredible growth moment for him to just come back the next week and start stacking some things.”

In the four explosive performances, Darnold has had breathtaking highlight-reel plays, including a 52-yard touchdown to Justin Jefferson that could be called his signature moment of the season to date. He leads the league in PFF’s Big-Time Throws stat and has the most yardage on throws that travel more than 20 yards over the last four weeks.

All of these things are signs of a former No. 3 overall talent coming into his own and making the plays that the New York Jets once dreamed about when they selected him in 2018.

But there has been a lot more to his recent play than just the “wow” plays. The Vikings quarterback has done something that he talked about many times during training camp and preseason: Play point guard.

Where the “point guard” portion of his game shows up most has been in two areas: Play-action and the underneath passing game. Both require timing and execution. Both are the driving forces of the passing game. Both are more consistent than 52-yard touchdowns.

Let’s start with the play-actions.

Last week against the Atlanta Falcons, the Vikings intercepted a pass and needed an extended drive to put the final dagger in the Falcons and secure their sixth win of the season. With 4:03 remaining and the ball at Atlanta’s 43-yard line, O’Connell dialed up a bootleg for Darnold. He rolled out to his left, looked downfield and then checked back to his underneath option, tight end Josh Oliver. The Falcons lost Oliver in the flow of the play and Darnold completed the pass back across his body for a 26-yard gain. Game over.

Since the Jags game, Darnold has the second most yards on play-action in the NFL and the highest yards per attempt (14.6). He has a 95.7 PFF grade (out of 100), zero Turnover-worthy plays, an 83.3% completion, four touchdowns, zero interceptions and 155.8 rating.

“There’s a lot of kind of nerdy stuff that goes into it but when you see it come to life in a way that makes it easier for Sam [Darnold] to just throw and catch,” O’Connell said.

Out of Darnold’s 30 completions since Week 10, six of them have qualified as Big-Time Throws. That means the other 24 have been on schedule good decisions by the quarterback.

“I think he’s been really good putting the ball in play, avoiding negatives, checking the ball down and we’ve reaped the benefits of some yards after catch from him doing that, keeping us on schedule, and then we’ve got our whole playbook at our disposal,” O’Connell said. “That’s what I think our team’s kind of grown at and what I’m trying to grow at is just having multiple paths in game to get the same result.”

Darnold’s skill set meshes well with the play-action game because he has the athleticism to throw with velocity on the move when called upon. Versus the Falcons, he hit a routine first-down completion to Justin Jefferson while running at full speed to his left. The play required him to flip around and lead the ball out in front of Jefferson as he was screaming across the field. Darnold made it look routine.

Where the 27-year-old quarterback says the reason the play-pass game has come together is his increased comfort in the offense.

“The thing that I talk about all the time is the amount of time we've put into this offense since April, we've been running very similar concepts even during the season that we've been running since then,” Darnold said. “So just the comfort level that I have with those play-action passes to be able to go run them in games very seamlessly and go find completions no matter where they are, whether they're 5 yards down the field or 50 yards down the field.”

When Darnold is executing play-action plays in structure, they are helpful in the pass protection game. It is more difficult for the defense to get rushes on the quarterback when he’s rolling away or when they have to respect the possibility of a run. Out of 41 drop-backs with play-action over the last four weeks he has only been pressured on 13 of them and been sacked three times. The Vikings have needed help wherever they can get it with protection recently because opponents have dialed up blitzes as an answer to Darnold’s deep passing game.

“Most of the time that's a clean pocket when you're in a [rollout] unless you have a [defensive end] just screaming up the field,” running back Aaron Jones said. “So he has a little time and then he could just pick and choose [where the ball goes].”

Another answer to opponents’ rushes has been Darnold’s improvement in the short passing game.

When throwing between 0-9 yards through the air over the last four weeks he has an 89.1% completion percentage (2nd), 7.1 yards per attempt, 6 TD 0 INT, an 85.3 PFF grade (2nd) and 136.0 QB rating (1st).

“I think over these last games, [Darnold was] getting back to three or four or five in a progression,” O’Connell said. “All those plays are just so massive, even though in the moment it just seems like another first-and-10. ‘Oh, it's second-and-3, great.’ But when you stack them all up together, it's winning football. That's why he's winning games and leading us to wins.”

One thing O’Connell pointed toward this week was Darnold giving him feedback on plays, letting the play caller know which aspects of the gameplan he was comfortable with and which needed the “red pen” to cross out.

“It’s a surgical process leading into it, it’s making sure Sam feels total comfort,” O’Connell said. “We haven’t had many plays, but we’ve had a few where the red pens come out and it doesn’t get called because he doesn’t like the play and we got plenty of them. Every week I’m hoping there’s more and more, hey let’s get rid of them, makes it easier to call the game.”

Surgical is the perfect way to define Darnold over the last four weeks. The word cloud before that might have included phrases like “up and down” or “a roller coaster.” The key for Darnold is to keep it that way.

And he will need to keep it that way amidst non-stop discussion about his future. An underappreciated part of Darnold’s consistency of late has been the fact he has become a debate topic due to his future contract situation.

“Sam has really taken heed to all the cliches: Be where your feet are planted, be in the moment. Let's go 1-0 this week. Let's worry about this game plan,” offensive coordinator Wes Phillips said. “There has been a lot of praise and he hasn't let he hasn't let that affect him and when games don't go necessarily the way we want to or the way he wants to he hasn't let that affect him either so he's he's been consistent in his demeanor and his approach in his work ethic and you know that's where we want to be the most important game is always the next one and for this week at Chicago.”

Important, indeed. The Vikings need the version of Darnold that is continuously executing the scheme-driven concepts like play-actions and underneath passes to lead his team to the finish line. With a Detroit loss, the door is now open for the Vikings to compete for the NFC North crown and they will only do it with high-level play from their quarterback.

“I think the biggest thing for me is just continuing to make good decisions and when I do let the ball rip, let it rip with confidence,” Darnold said. “I think that's been the biggest thing for me these past few weeks, and I'm just going to continue to do that.”