Sam Darnold Still Has Prominent Doubters
Minnesota Vikings quarterback Sam Darnold leads the NFL in touchdown passes, his team is 3-0 atop the NFC North, and he ranks seventh per EPA+CPOE, an efficiency metric measuring expected wins added.
Sam Darnold Still Has Prominent Doubters
But not everyone is buying it, at least for sustainability’s sake.
Darnold has never caught on consistently as a productive QB1 during stops with the New York Jets and Carolina Panthers since 2018. So when he showed up to the 2024 season and began picking apart defenses like Tony Romo, some raised eyebrows regarding how long the heroism might last.
ESPN provided the latest example this week, jumping in with two feet on the Vikings’ defense but questioning Darnold’s gumption to maintain his current 45-touchdown pace.
“Have the Vikings unlocked the Darnold many expected when the Jets drafted him with No. 3 overall in 2018? I’m skeptical,” ESPN’s Bill Barnwell wrote Thursday, three days before Darnold’s Vikings hit the road for a meeting with the Green Bay Packers.
“Darnold has only taken three dropbacks this season in situations in which the Vikings were trailing. They were in the opening quarter of Week 1 against the Giants, which didn’t really qualify as an obvious passing situation,” Barnwell continued. “To use the Next Gen Stats model of how likely a pass attempt is to occur on a given play, 41 of Darnold’s 89 dropbacks have come in situations where the likelihood of a pass was 75% or greater. In those situations, Darnold averages 5.8 yards per attempt, which ranks 23rd out of 31 quarterbacks.”
Very few passing attempts while trailing are a testament to all phases of Minnesota’s operation through three weeks, as the club has outscored opponents by 55 points.
“Even given that he hasn’t been trailing often, there’s been enough of the old Darnold that I’m hesitant to jump onboard with the idea that this is a new quarterback. He has fumbled three times, including a contested pass that went 5 yards backward, and an inexplicable overhand pitch attempt on a play whose timing was busted. Minnesota has recovered all three,” Barnwell added. “He has thrown two bad picks and had, by my count, at least four interceptable passes in his first three games that fell harmlessly to the turf after being defended.”
Examining passes that could’ve been intercepted applies to any quarterback, and, in fact, tweets circulated frequently about all of Patrick Mahomes’ “interceptable balls” dropped by defenders.
Thankfully, nothing Sam Darnold has done in the past with the Jets or the Panthers matters anymore. It’s totally up to him to effectuate sustainability in Minnesota. The early returns are undeniable, however. The man is currently seventh in line to win the league’s MVP award, if that can be believed.
Dustin Baker is a political scientist who graduated from the University of Minnesota in 2007. Subscribe to his daily YouTube Channel, VikesNow. The show features guests, analysis, and opinion on all things related to the purple team, with 4-7 episodes per week. His Vikings obsession dates back to 1996. Listed guilty pleasures: Peanut Butter Ice Cream, ‘The Sopranos,’ Basset Hounds, and The Doors (the band). He follows the NBA as closely as the NFL.
All statistics provided by Pro Football Reference / Stathead; all contractual information provided by OverTheCap.com.
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