Nov 17, 2024; Nashville, Tennessee, USA; Minnesota Vikings quarterback Sam Darnold (14) warms up before a game against the Tennessee Titans at Nissan Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Steve Roberts-Imagn Images.
If you’re new to advanced stats — analytics, to sound fancy — the best way to adjudicate quarterbacks is a metric called EPA+CPOE.
The “EPA” part of EPA+CPOE is defined this way: “EPA is a metric that quantifies the number of expected points that a play adds (or loses). EPA uses historical data based on the down, distance, and field position to determine the points scored on average from that exact situation.”
And CPOE: “CPOE from Next Gen Stats aims to contextualize how good a quarterback’s completion percentage is while controlling for the difficulty of the throws they attempt. CPOE accounts for air distance, distance from the sideline, target separation from the nearest defender, the quarterback’s distance from the closest pass rusher, pass speed, and time to throw.”
The combination basically diverts from “counting stats” like passing yards and touchdowns — in favor of efficiency. And for the Minnesota Vikings, quarterback Sam Darnold ranks 11th among qualifying quarterbacks in the NFL through 11 weeks.
But that’s not the surprising part. Have a look at Darnold’s EPA+CPOE compared to other Vikings signal-callers since the Brett Favre era:
Darnold adeptly bounced back on Sunday from an atrocious Week 10 outing at the Jacksonville Jaguars, delivering 3 touchdowns to almost no turnovers in a win over the Titans last weekend. Darnold tossed the ball to running back Aaron Jones on the game’s first drive, and Jones dropped the rock. The fumble was credited to Darnold.
The Vikings signed Darnold eight months ago as a “patchover quarterback” to a rookie on the way, which turned out to be Michigan’s J.J. McCarthy. McCarthy tore his meniscus in the preseason 3.5 months later, fully handing the QB1 baton to Darnold for the 2024 campaign.
Through 10 games, Darnold is playing at a level akin to the best version of Cousins in the Twin Cities — at a salary of $10 million. Although Darnold’s Week 10 game at Jacksonville was truly horrid — 3 picks in the redzone will do that — he’s been just as effective and often better than Cousins.
If McCarthy stayed healthy and posted this EPA+CPOE in 2024, Vikings fans would collectively be in love. With Darnold, however, some greet his efficiency with an “I guess this will work.”
Darnold and the Vikings next play the Chicago Bears on Sunday at Soldier Field and are favored to win by 3.5 points.
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 MIN 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.