Sad Ending to Great Season as Vikings and Darnold Dominated by Rams
The 2024 Vikings season that looked so promising two weeks ago came to an ill-fated end on Monday night in a second straight prime-time dud.
After the poor performance in Detroit, which cost them a division title and sent the Vikings to a neutral-site game in Arizona, the favored Vikings were dominated 27-9 in the wildcard round loss. The Rams were the better team on both sides of the ball, far outclassed the Vikings at quarterback, and delivered a crushing end to Sam Darnold’s career renaissance season with two forced turnovers on the Vikings’ quarterback (including the strip sack/fumble return for a TD) and a playoff-record-tying nine sacks.
Vikings Playoff Loss: Sad Ending to Great Season
It’s a sad ending to an exciting season and sends the Vikings into an offseason with questions in many areas, starting at the most important position of quarterback. Darnold’s sub-par play the last two weeks has cost him a likely franchise tag at $40 million and opens the door for J.J. McCarthy to step into the starting role a year sooner than what was expected before Darnold’s Cinderella season went kaput.
Darnold’s inaccuracy and holding the ball too long is the most obvious takeaway from the last two games after a regular season in which he had 13 games with 100-plus passer ratings and was selected to the Pro Bowl. His poor play against the Lions and Rams the last two weeks was surprising and disappointing given his strong overall play as he led the Vikings to a 14-2 record pre-Detroit and the fact he played pretty well in the Week 7 and 8 meetings with the Lions and Rams (both were over 100 passer ratings).
But Darnold is not alone in the blame game. Yes, he too often held the ball too long, including on the strip-sack TD but the offensive line (minus both of their elite offensive tackles Christian Darrisaw and Brian O’Neill (concussion) by the fourth quarter) was mashed, the defense was shredded in the first half by Matthew Stafford consistently beating the blitz and when the special teams had a golden opportunity to block a punt in the second quarter with the Vikings down 10-3, Kamu Grugier-Hill inexplicably could not finish a play that could’ve changed the trajectory of the game (or at least made it closer).
Kevin O’Connell made another questionable decision to go for the first down on 4th-and-2 from midfield with 1:32 left in the first half and the Vikings getting the ball to start the third quarter. The analytics likely said go for it, and I didn’t mind his decision at the time to go for it since the Vikings had picked up one first down on the drive, but with Darnold’s struggles and the many sacks he’d taken, the wiser choice probably was to punt. As it turned out, Darnold took a sixth first-half sack of 11 yards and gave the Rams a short field to score the TD that put them up 24-3.
So, it’s on to the offseason, during which the Vikings will spend an estimated $70-80 million to shore up the offensive line, re-sign key defenders such as Pro Bowl corner Byron Murphy, and figure out who will be the veteran backup or bridge quarterback to McCarthy. Can they bring Darnold back after his season-ending flop for the same $10 million? Will Daniel Jones take on that role at a bargain rate?
These are decisions that GM Kwesi Adofo-Mensah and Coach Kevin O’Connell were hoping to make after a playoff run, not after an inglorious first-round exit, even if playoffs were generally not forecast for this 2024 Vikings team entering the season.
The reality is that this team’s future is still dependent on McCarthy quickly ascending to the level of an elite NFL quarterback, similar to the top quarterbacks playing next weekend in the divisional round, including Patrick Mahomes, Lamar Jackson, Josh Allen, Jalen Hurts, Jared Goff, C.J. Stroud, Jayden Daniels (a member of McCarthy’s rookie class), and, unfortunately for the Vikings after their loss, Matthew Stafford.
Here are my other reactions to the Vikings playoff loss to the Rams:
1. Keys to the loss—along with Darnold’s poor play, losing the turnover battle 2-0 with the strip sack/fumble return for a TD by Jared Verse in the second quarter was the biggest play in the game. And the Vikings’ offense allowed nine sacks, 12 QB hits, and 10 tackles for loss, while the defense was getting only two sacks, five QB hits, and four TFLs.
2. Darnold’s accuracy was so off at times that he couldn’t even complete swing or screen passes to Aaron Jones, missing him badly a couple of times, along with throwing way behind the wide-open Jalen Nailor on a third down incompletion on the opening drive of the third quarter. Even on Darnold’s few big completions, receivers had to reach back to make difficult catches on poorly thrown balls, such as on the Vikings’ only touchdown drive with passes to Nailor (on third down) and T.J. Hockenson (on his TD catch).
3. Justin Jefferson had only two targets and no catches in the second half except for a poorly designed two-point play after Hockenson’s TD, where Jefferson caught the ball at the two-yard line and was immediately tackled. Jefferson was targeted only eight times overall, with five catches for 58 yards in the first half.
Jordan Addison had only three receptions for 29 yards, and he had to make tough contested catches. Jalen Nailor caught three passes for 33 yards, and Darnold missed him open when he forced it to Addison on the second-quarter interception.
4. The Vikings ran it ok (106 yards on 22 carries, 4.8 average), but the run game was not going to win this game after falling so far behind. Cam Akers had a nice 26-yard run two plays before the sack/fumble return for a TD in the second quarter.
5. Tight ends hurt the Vikings: Especially on the first drive, the Rams tight ends were very productive, with Tyler Higbee having two catches for 27 yards on that TD drive and Davis Allen catching a wide open 13 yard TD pass in the last minute of the first half to put the Rams ahead 24-3. The Rams’ tight ends caught nine passes for 97 yards, including that Allen TD.
It was a big game for tight ends on both teams, with T.J. Hockenson leading the Vikings receivers with five catches for 64 yards.
6. Jonathan Bullard’s offsides on 4th-and-2 on the opening drive was inexcusable for a nine-year veteran. The Rams scored on the next play with Stafford’s TD pass to a wide-open Kyren Williams as the coverage broke down.
7. The Vikings D blitzed Stafford 56% of the snaps but only produced two sacks, and he made a lot of great throws against the blitz, so perhaps Brian Flores was too aggressive against a savvy vet QB. But it is understandable with the heavy blitzing in the second half when down three touchdowns.
8. Run defense and third-down defense were about the only positives for the Vikings: The Rams had only 90 rushing yards and were 2 of 10 on third down. Unfortunately for the Vikings, the damage was done in the passing game in the first half, with Stafford completing 14 of 20 passes for 154 yards and two touchdowns, with no sacks allowed.
9. The officials’ call on changing the early second-quarter strip sack by Jonathan Greenard that was returned for a TD by Blake Cashman to an incomplete pass was bad. Stafford was trying to throw it away, but he had his head down, so the play should have at least been called intentional grounding. It was a 10-3 game at the time, so if the TD had stood, the game would’ve been tied. And a grounding call would’ve helped the Vikings in field position even as the Rams were stopped on that drive.
The Rams tried to help the Vikings penalty-wise with 10 for 95 yards (vs. only two penalties for 20 yards by the Vikings). Included were a roughing penalty that forced the Rams to settle for a field goal on their second drive and a roughing the punter call that gave the Vikings a first down on the drive that Darnold threw a pick in the second quarter.
10. The neutral site game was about 50-50 with Rams and Vikings fans, but the Vikings didn’t take advantage of not having to play in the Rams home stadium. The Rams also had extra motivation to win for their Los Angeles community suffering from the awful wildfires, but the Vikings certainly didn’t lack motivation in a win-or-go-home playoff game.
Around the NFL Observations in Wild Card Weekend & a look ahead to the Divisional Playoffs next weekend:
1. Similar to Vikings-Rams, all of the other games had double-digit margins for the victors except Washington’s exciting 23-20 win at Tampa Bay. The No. 6 seed Commanders are the only team above a four-seed to make it to the divisional round. They also were the only road team to win, although technically, the Rams were on the road, as the game was relocated to Glendale, Arizona.
2. The best game of the divisional playoffs should be the battle of MVP candidate QBs Josh Allen and Lamar Jackson in the Sunday late game at Buffalo.
Both teams dominated on both sides of the ball in their wild card wins. The Ravens jumped to a 21-0 lead in their 28-14 win over the Steelers, with Jackson throwing for 175 yards and two TDs and gaining 81 yards on the ground. The Bills spotted the Broncos an early TD and then outscored them 31-0 the rest of the game. Allen passed for 272 yards and 2 TDs and ran for 46 yards, while Dalvin Cook’s younger brother James had 120 rushing yards and one TD.
I’m picking the Ravens as the better all-around team in a close game.
Mahomes and the Chiefs should roll at home over the Texans, who surprised me with their big win over the Chargers, which was fueled by their defense and the four interceptions of Justin Herbert (who now is 0-2 in the playoffs with two bad losses, including the collapse at Jacksonville in 2022).
I think it will be fun to watch the ultra-clutch Jayden Daniels go against the injury-weakened Lions’ defense (that the Vikings should have taken better advantage, but Darnold played too poorly in that Week 18 game). Washington has a top-five defense to try and slow down the prolific Lions offense. The pressure is all on Detroit, and I’m picking the Lions, but an upset here wouldn’t shock me, and I think the 8 ½ point spread in favor of the Lions seems high, but they’re the league’s top-scoring team, so they could cover it.
Same upset-alert with the Rams headed to Philly as the pressure is on the Eagles in this game so the Rams’ young and talented defense can play loose. The matchup of Stafford, Puka Nacua, Cooper Kupp, Kyren Williams, and all the Rams tight ends against the Eagles’ No. 1-ranked defense should be an interesting chess match between Rams coach Sean McVay (who runs the offense) and Eagles DC Vic Fangio. I’m picking the Eagles in a close game.
I’ll preview the Vikings offseason beginning next week. Suffice it to say there will be lots of drama starting with the likely extensions for the head coach and GM, the QB decisions, free agent moves, especially on the O-line, with Aaron Jones and the defense with several key free agents and the plentiful salary cap room. And will Brian Flores get a head coaching job, or is he here to again coach up the defense that led the league in takeaways but didn’t produce any in the playoff loss?
Jeff Diamond is a former Vikings GM, former Tennessee Titans President and was selected NFL Executive of the Year after the Vikings’ 15-1 season in 1998. He now works for the NFL agent group IFA based in Minneapolis and does other sports consulting and media work along with college/corporate speaking. Follow him and direct message him on Twitter– @jeffdiamondnfl
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