When a season goes poof
The Minnesota Vikings and Sam Darnold had everything going for them less than two weeks ago. Then it all went very sideways
There was a moment in Monday night’s playoff game between the Minnesota Vikings and Los Angeles Rams that seemed unnecessarily mean. The Vikings were down 18 points, and, weirdly, not really showing much urgency in trying to move the ball downfield, and a graphic flashed on the screen. The Vikings were founded in 1961, it said. They are the oldest franchise in any of the four major North American professional leagues to have never won a championship.
I mean, jeez. Here’s some salt for that wound.
Minnesota’s crash into irrelevance was notable mostly for its speed. Just a couple of weeks ago they beat the Green Bay Packers for their ninth straight win to move to 14-2 on the season and set up an improbable showdown with the Detroit Lions for the NFC’s top seed. Most importantly, quarterback Sam Darnold had continued his fairy-tale run, shaking off a little mid-season blip and playing again like one of the best quarterbacks in football, four years and three teams after the New York Jets had given up on their first-round bust. In that win against the Packers in Week 17, Darnold had thrown for 377 yards and three touchdowns, and was saluted by his teammates in the locker room afterward like a conquering general. Even if you didn’t care at all about the Vikings, you had to appreciate the story of a player whose career is basically left for dead, suddenly finding success out of nowhere thanks to finally being placed in a system that could make use of his talent.
Was there a risk that it could all blow up real good? Absolutely. I wrote about the Darnoldaissance for theScore in December and, well, here’s the key part:
Over the next few weeks, he'll lead the Vikings into the playoffs, which is generally where a guy with his history in the position turns back into a pumpkin.
And lo, it was pumpkin time all right. Darnold’s meltdown began in Week 18, when he went 18-for-41 against the Lions, racking up just 166 yards and no touchdowns in a 31-9 loss. He was worse than those numbers suggest, repeatedly missing open receivers and making poor decisions.
But, hey, sometimes bad games happen. The Vikings were still 14-3 and into the playoffs. The draw meant they faced Los Angeles, with the wildfires there forcing the game to the neutral site of Glendale, Arizona. A natural disaster is an uncomfortable way to catch a break, but the move meant that Darnold would be spared the loud road-playoff-game crowd. Plus the Rams would obviously be thrown out of their normal routines in a host of ways. The Vikings were favoured for a reason.
And then the Rams destroyed them. The final score of 27-9 doesn’t quite explain how lopsided it was. After falling behind 10-0, Minnesota kicked a field goal and had the ball early in the second quarter after forcing a Rams punt. Darnold took a sack and threw an incompletion, and the drive would have ended there but for a roughing-the-kicker penalty that gave Minnesota new life. It was just the break that the Vikings needed!
Darnold responded by throwing a terrible interception. On the next Minnesota possession, he responded to pressure by spinning around hopelessly, taking another sack and this time fumbling the ball, which was scooped up and returned for a touchdown that made it 17-3 and, even at that early stage, seemingly out of reach.
Darnold would get no better. He spent the rest of the game utterly spooked by pressure, taking nine (!) sacks and just generally looking confused and uncertain. The television broadcast repeatedly cut to shots of head coach Kevin O’Connell, the playcaller who is credited with reviving Darnold, looking somewhere between dismayed and disgusted after Darnold took yet another drive-killing sack. O’Connell seemed to have given up before the game even got to the fourth quarter, running a typical offence at normal pace instead of rushing to try to score points quickly. It’s possible he realized that pushing Darnold to go faster at this point would amount to an even bigger disaster, and he might have been right. Darnold was not exactly projecting assurance out there.
Two weeks ago, Darnold looked like the comeback story of the year, a guy who at 27 years old had rescued his NFL career and was in line for something like a three-year, $100-million contract. Were the Vikings guaranteed to give that to him? No, not with rookie J.J. McCarthy, drafted in the first round but out this season due to injury, in the fold. But they might have. Or someone else might have. Darnold was a top-10 quarterback, regardless of O’Connell’s influence on his performance. Those guys are hard to find!
But now, it will be exceedingly difficult for any quarterback-needy team to invest big money in him. Would you be getting Cinderella, or the pumpkin?
Perhaps I’m overreacting. Darnold had 17 pretty good weeks and two terrible ones. Would some coach see enough there to think that they could pull an O’Connell and coax something like greatness out of a guy who obviously has talent? Maybe. But the mental part of the game is a big part of being an NFL quarterback. And Darnold, at the worst possible time, melted down.
What a difference nine days makes.