When J.J. McCarthy went out for the season with a meniscus tear, most national pundits wrote off the Minnesota Vikings’ season. The outside interest in the team lay in what the young future of the franchise could do. Immediately after his preseason game, before the injury, some even posited that McCarthy might force his way into starting Week 1. Fans of the team knew that Kevin O’Connell and the Vikings were serious about starting the season with Sam Darnold and expected them to give him a long leash. Still, I expected McCarthy to start at some point during the season.
When McCarthy’s injury took playing time for the rookie off the table, making Darnold the only starting option, outside interest in the team waned. Vegas set their win total at 6.5. They were a distant fourth in odds to win the NFC North. No one expected much from Darnold, who was mostly known for busting with the New York Jets. He’d shown flashes of decent play with the Carolina Panthers in 2022 and the San Francisco 49ers in 2023. However, the bad taste left by his Jets tenure meant few people viewed him as a serious NFL starter.
Through five games, Darnold has proved that he now deserves to be taken seriously as a starting QB. Despite being just 25th in passing attempts, he’s fourth in passing TDs with 11. He’s also fifth in yards/attempt as a passer, behind only Jared Goff, Brock Purdy, Lamar Jackson, and Jayden Daniels. He’s sixth in Passer Rating. If you look at more advanced stats, his ranking sinks slightly. Still, it’s a respectable showing. He ranks 10th in ANY/A, fifth in CPOE, 14th in dropback EPA/play, and 11th in EPA+CPOE composite. Darnold is producing like a top-third QB by most metrics.
Darnold deserves a lot of credit for the improvements he’s made that have led to his strong performance. However, his level of play doesn’t necessarily live up to the stats that put him in the top third of the league. The difference is made up by his supporting cast, with great offensive line play, Justin Jefferson leading a strong pass-catching group, and Kevin O’Connell‘s play calling. O’Connell has elevated Darnold with excellent designs that play to his strengths as a passer.
Let’s dive into the tape to see how O’Connell has helped elevate Darnold into a quality starting QB.
creating easy yards
The Vikings have created easy yards for Darnold in a couple of ways, but screens have been a nice component of the offense. Darnold averages 8.1 yards per attempt on 16 screen passes, seventh out of 36 qualifying quarterbacks. Nice design and blocking are the reason they’ve been so successful.
Here’s a short compilation of plays from the Green Bay Packers game to show the consistency:
O’Connell has also found other easy ways to get yardage on short passes. The play below was a great way to prey on the defense moving forward to stop play action. Trent Sherfield snuck between offensive linemen, something you only do when you’re lead blocking for a run play. This caused the LBs to forget about him, leading to a big gain after the catch.
third-down designs
O’Connell has a hallmark of his third-down play calling. He loves manipulating bunch rules by defenses. You will often see the Vikings motioning either across the formation into a bunch, going from a three-man stack to a bunch, or going from a bunch to a three-man stack.
There are numerous examples. Here’s one against the New York Giants. The Vikings start out in bunch but have Johnny Mundt motion into a three-man stack. That creates a natural rub route that gets Jefferson open, but a Giants player makes a spectacular play to recover and break up the pass:
Against the 49ers, Minnesota motioned in the opposite direction, from a three-man stack to a bunch. The Vikings needed to create separation with design after Jefferson and Jordan Addison were out. Therefore, they used Trishton Jackson to run off the DB who was pressing him and create space for Brandon Powell, who ended up as the furthest inside WR after the motion, to break outside and pick up the first down.
O’Connell has been building on this week after week after week. He had this nice design for Jefferson against the Houston Texans. The motion forces defenses to communicate and, in some cases, check the coverage. If the players aren’t on the same page, it can create easy openings for receivers.
Here, Jefferson gets wide open but drops the pass:
Below is a different motion but a similar idea to the Powell play against the 49ers above. Addison comes across the formation, and he and Nailor run vertically. That clears out a wide space for Jefferson to run an option route he breaks outside for an easy first down. It looks different than the press rep above, but the idea is the same. Force DBs vertically, in this case by getting them to respect two fast receivers, and hit the target underneath for the first down:
Here’s another example of third-down motion creating a coverage check that favors the Vikings. Jefferson motioning across the formation makes the Texans switch Derek Stingley from press coverage to off coverage against Jefferson. O’Connell also has Jefferson lined up inside the numbers, leaving him a lot of room to attack the outside against off-coverage.
The best receiver in the game wins that route easily, and Darnold delivers an anticipatory throw for the first down:
robust downfield passing game
Let’s move to Minnesota’s go-to concept this season: the deep and play-action passing game. Darnold is second in yardage on 20-plus-yard throws this season, with 370 yards on 21 attempts. He’s throwing deep on 15.3% of his passes, which is fifth in the NFL. He also runs play action at a high rate, as his 29.1% ranks 10th in the NFL. His 10.2 yards/attempt ranks seventh among passers. O’Connell does a great job of timing shots for the Vikings to get chunk plays.
The Vikings love running Dagger, which is a great concept against most coverages. The key to Dagger is a vertical clear-out route that draws the deep safety’s attention.
If it’s single high, this player in the middle of the field or post safety has to run with the deep route. In two high, the near safety has to run with the vertical route. In Cover 3 and Quarters, the defense will have a deep player playing outside leverage on the second receiver. That opens up a lot of space for the dig over the middle of the field. If you stack the receivers against man coverage, the CB on the outside receiver also typically plays with outside leverage.
In Cover 2, there really is no outside corner to track the WR running the dig, so you can attack the spacing of the LBs underneath. In Tampa 2, the high hole player will often continue running with the clear out, creating space for the dig. Because the deep safety had to run vertically with the clear-out route, he can’t drive on the dig, making Dagger a great way to generate an explosive play.
On this play against the Jets, it does exactly that. The Jets are playing what looks like Quarters that they rotate into post snap. The CB up top at the snap rotates to more of a deep safety position, and he has to run with Addison deep. Pre-snap, the slot corner quickly runs out to cover Jefferson, but you can see him move so he’s in between Jefferson and the sideline. That opens up the middle of the field, and the play action pulls the LB to the offense’s left up far enough that Darnold can find a window to fit the throw in to Jefferson for a big gain:
The biggest play of Minnesota’s season was also on Dagger. It was very aggressive to run play action from the shadow of their own goal line, but it paid off as the CB in man coverage had to play outside against Nailor because of the stack, and he came wide open on the dig route after Jefferson cleared out. Darnold recognizes something one step beyond that, though. He sees Jefferson outrunning the CB in man coverage on him and the safety. He throws the ball over the top for a 97-yard TD.
O’Connell will play off his tendencies by mixing in other concepts, like this sail route off of play action. The motion into a stack and release by Jefferson and Nailor makes this look like a Dagger combination again, but they break outwards into Sail. You need to mix up route concepts, or opponents are going to catch on to them. O’Connell keeps opponents on their toes:
O’Connell understands defensive coverage rules and consistently exploits them. He uses play action to attack the middle of the field; the run fake pulls LBs toward the line of scrimmage. He uses deep clearouts, like the one below, to pull deep safeties away from routes crossing the middle of the field.
In the play below, he does a great job of attacking an LB with PA and running a route into his zone across the formation, so he is unaware of the WR running a deeper cross behind him in Jefferson. Beautiful coordination:
Here’s more manipulation of the LB level. The Vikings run short routes with Mundt and Aaron Jones, catching the eyes of the LBs. That leaves Nailor, running a crossing route, wide open between San Francisco’s zones:
O’Connell also attacks when opponents focus on Minnesota’s best players. In this case, it’s Jefferson. In the play below against the Giants, he puts Josh Oliver and C.J. Ham on the same side and runs vertical routes with them. Because they aren’t fast players, the Giants devote their attention to the side with Jefferson and Addison. That leaves Oliver wide open in the seam for a nice gain:
Red-Zone dominance
Minnesota’s deep passing might be even better than its red-zone passing. Darnold has thrown eight red-zone TDs, tied for fourth in the NFL. Perhaps more impressive is that Minnesota has turned 48.4% of their red-zone plays into a first down or touchdown, second only to Houston. Design has played a huge role in Darnold’s success in this area.
This play, run from the 21, technically isn’t red zone, but it basically is. It’s a wonderful fake screen design, making the defense work hard to try to identify and cover Jefferson because he starts from the backfield, and then throwing it over the top to Nailor:
Using Jefferson as a decoy led to another TD, as him running a wheel route drew attention and confused defensive coverage, getting Aaron Jones open for a TD:
Another Nailor TD used a play-action fake to help create an open receiver. The Vikings love running Duo and have been very effective. Motioning a WR into the formation is a very common way teams will run Duo. That, plus the play-action, really sold San Francisco’s defense. The CB wants to aggressively attack Nailor’s block so he can help with the run play, but Nailor can sidestep and run right by him for the TD.
Subverting run expectations also led to Oliver’s TD against the Packers. Here, Oliver sells the block before leaking out across the formation. It results in a TD:
Preying on your opponent’s expectations is how you get an edge in football. You set them up for one thing, and then you do another. O’Connell has a strong feeling about what his opponent is going to do and knows how to play off that to create open receivers and explosive plays. It’s a joy to watch every week.
darnold is helping himself
Like I said at the beginning of the article, Darnold also deserves a lot of credit for the improvements he’s made to his game. The arm talent, like on the long TD to Jefferson above, has always been apparent. Still, he’s demonstrated significant growth in how he processes the game.
The play below shows that Darnold can anticipate how the play will unfold. He has Jefferson running an out route against off-coverage by Stingley and sees Stingley take multiple steps backwards to help protect himself deep. That means Jefferson will have space to win on the out, but there’s a limited window before Stingley, a very good player, drives on the football.
Darnold beats this by starting his throwing motion before Jefferson breaks outside and gets a nice completion for a first down:
Decisiveness has been a hallmark for Darnold. The red zone requires smart, quick decisions. In the play below, Darnold sees a zone coverage where he opens to the bottom of the screen with both routes covered. But he also knows that the Texans don’t have another deep player to that side, so Nailor’s route from the back side will come one on one, with Nailor running away from the defender.
He puts the ball on his hands for a TD.
Decisiveness is nice, but it must be combined with ball placement. Against the 49ers on a critical third down without his top two receivers, Darnold was willing to rip a seam throw against Tampa 2. Nailor beats the LB because the LB has his back turned, but it still takes confidence and skill to first throw the ball and second put it low and behind the receiver in a spot where only he can get it. This is great placement that protects the receiver and converts a critical third down.
Mobility has also been a boon for Darnold. He has scrambled three times on third down so far this season, and all of them have led to first downs. That means he’s on pace for 10 third down conversions with his legs this year. Darnold is averaging 10 yards/attempt on his seven scrambles. This starkly contrasts with Kirk Cousins, who only scrambled eight times on third down from 2021 to 2023 (he was successful on five of eight). Darnold has the athleticism to escape the pocket and make defenses pay.
Here is a nice scramble against the Packers:
Darnold can also use his mobility to throw, like on this TD to Jefferson that breaks open late:
Some things to clean up
Look, there have still been some wild plays by Darnold throughout the season. It seems that once a game, there’s a play that almost results in catastrophe. The fumbled pitch to Aaron Jones in the 49ers game was fortunately recovered, a backward pass against the Texans that Powell took for seven yards, and a crazy underhanded shovel to Jones against the Packers as he was being brought to the ground. He has five fumbles and four interceptions in five games.
You’ll always get a wild streak with Darnold, but the same attribute will lead to him bombing the 97-yard TD to Jefferson or scrambling for a first down. At some point, you have to take the good with the bad.
Still, I have two areas I’d like to see him work on throughout the season. So far this season, he’s taken 14 sacks, a 9.27% rate (Kirk’s worst year as a Viking was at 7.03%), and is bottom in pressure-to-sack percentage at 23.3%, per PFF. Part of the high sack rate is due to how often the Vikings throw deep. However, Darnold also bears significant responsibility for the sacks, like on the four he took against the Jets:
Another key will be learning to give up on dead plays just a little sooner. The pitch to Jones on a botched play is a great example, but so is this near-pick against the Texans. The Vikings don’t have a player open in the flat, and throwing the flat late on a rollout will often result in an interception, if not a pick-six. Darnold needs to learn to give up on plays just a tad sooner. That should reduce the number of potential turnovers moving forward.
Conclusion
Minnesota’s passing offense has blended well to create an explosive offense with Sam Darnold at the helm through five games. The defense has been the star, but the offense has held its own against the league’s top teams. The Vikings have taken big leads in every game during their 5-0 start.
Kevin O’Connell has been excellent at designing and sequencing plays. The offensive line has blocked well. The receiving options are playing great, with Justin Jefferson maintaining his position as the best in the league and Jalen Nailor showing significant growth in his third year. They’re even going to get reinforcements in the form of T.J. Hockenson. To tie it all together, Sam Darnold is playing the best football of his career.
Let’s hope it can continue for the rest of the season.
