Mistake-prone Vikings escape Jacksonville with 12-7 win over the Jaguars

JACKSONVILLE, FLA. – Kevin O’Connell had promised game balls to each member of the Vikings defense and praised the work of a hastily-assembled field-goal operation: Parker Romo for hitting all four attempts in his NFL debut, Jake McQuaide for replacing injured long snapper Andrew DePaola, and Ryan Wright for his deft handling of McQuaide’s wild first snap.

Then, the coach arrived at the thesis of his postgame speech in the visitors’ locker room at EverBank Stadium.

“We will improve. We will put the ball in the end zone. Sam, everybody in this locker room knows you are the guy that’s going to take us there,” O’Connell said to quarterback Sam Darnold. “But this is one of the wins I’ll be most proud of. Because not one time did I feel it, not one flinch. These are the ones you remember.”

The Vikings are 7-2 after a 12-7 victory over a two-win Jaguars team that might have been plays away from a headline-grabbing blowout. They outgained Jacksonville 402-143, posted five drives of 50 yards or more, punted just twice and held the ball for 42:19, longer than any team in the NFL this season and longer than all but one non-overtime game in team history.

They sweated until the final minutes, though, surrendering the lead after the game’s first drive, trailing until Romo’s third field goal midway through the fourth quarter and remaining in danger until Camryn Bynum tracked Mac Jones’ overthrown pass and made an over-the-shoulder interception with 1:57 left. They were locked in a stalemate for the second consecutive week with an AFC South underdog using a backup quarterback, unable to eliminate the Jaguars after Darnold threw three interceptions in field-goal range, including one in the end zone and another at the goal line.

The Vikings’ record has them in enviable playoff position through nine games, even as two tenuous victories followed a pair of NFC losses that raised questions about their postseason mettle.

But if the victory over the Jaguars did anything for the Vikings, it kept their playoff buffer intact while they try to sort out their issues.

“We’ve got to find a way to end the snap with the possession in our hands,” O’Connell said. “I know we will rectify that problem and go back to putting points on the board when we get down there. I don’t know if I’ve been a part of one of these stat lines, with that kind of time of possession, [running] 82 plays, getting that many rushing attempts off. Execution of the team around you, when you don’t have the performance that you want, that’s a team win.”

O’Connell said there was “not one” time he thought about pulling Darnold, even though Sunday was just the fifth time a Vikings quarterback had thrown three or more interceptions in O’Connell’s 44 games as coach. Nick Mullens, the last quarterback to do it before Darnold, would have been the Vikings’ other option Sunday.

Darnold has thrown five interceptions in the Vikings’ last two games, and his 10 interceptions are now tied with Green Bay’s Jordan Love and Seattle’s Geno Smith for the most in the NFL. But O’Connell reiterated his support for the quarterback in particularly pointed terms.

“We’re still 100 percent confident in Sam. It’d be craziness not to be,” he said. “But at the same time, it’s a great opportunity to figure out exactly what happened.”

Darnold targeted Justin Jefferson on all three of his interceptions, trying to hit the wide receiver on a 4-yard slant against physical coverage from Tyson Campbell, who popped the ball in the air for linebacker Foye Oluokun to pick off. His second interception, on the Vikings’ third drive of the game, was low and behind Jefferson, and Montaric Brown snatched it in the end zone from one of the split-safety looks that Jaguars defensive coordinator Ryan Nielsen gave the Vikings all day.

On the first drive of the third quarter, Darnold fired downfield for Jefferson toward the right pylon of the end zone, but the throw was too short for the receiver, and Darnell Savage intercepted it at the goal line as Jefferson threw his hands up in frustration.

“If I’m going to throw it, give him a chance, and if he doesn’t, have the ball hit the ground,” Darnold said. “You can’t put the ball at risk, especially on second down like that. So I’ve just got to continue to manage those situations and be better that way.”

The interceptions cost the Vikings points. They did not lead to any scoring for the Jaguars, who surged down the field for a 70-yard touchdown drive on their second possession of the gamebut gained only 74 yards the rest of the day. Defensive coordinator Brian Flores increased the amount of pressure he sent after Jones throughout the game, with the Vikings sacking him three times and forcing two second-half interceptions of their own.

“We don’t care what happens on offense,” linebacker Jonathan Greenard said. “We don’t care about what happens on special teams. We care about us on the defensive side. We know it doesn’t matter what happened — we still have to go out there and put a fire out.”

Blake Cashman, returning from a turf toe injury that had him out for three games, had a sack, two tackles for loss and two quarterback hits, including the one on Jones that precipitated Bynum’s final interception. Linebacker Ivan Pace Jr. also had a sack, and Andrew Van Ginkel took down Jones with a two-handed shove after racing untouched to the quarterback in the third quarter.

“Especially in a game where we’re getting 100 percent shell [coverage] on the other side, the reaction is, ‘Just send them, ‘Flo,’ send them all,” O’Connell said. “And I’ve got to be careful about that because, just let him call his game and do his thing. Because it does get like that sometimes, and my confidence in those guys, when we do send them, is pretty sky high. I just thought in general, the way he used [pressure], the way he used the looks, and then causing some confusion there, still getting our DBs in space, I thought there were some unbelievable defensive performances.”

Those performances went with another effort from their quarterback that O’Connell said Vikings coaches will revisit in search of ways to help Darnold balance aggression and precision.

“First and foremost, you got to unpack all the fundamentals and techniques: Where were your eyes? Where were your feet? [The] protection, what did that look and feel like to you? Did you get sped up by something?” O’Connell explained.

The coach and quarterback can have those conversations, though, after their seventh win in nine games together, and before two more road matchups against losing teams.

They will have to fix the problems that surfaced again Sunday to make the kind of playoff run that could reframe their grungiest win of the season in the final retelling of the year.

They could leave Jacksonville, though, grateful they did enough to keep their year on course.

“It’s one of those games where, it’s super gritty, it’s a tough, hard-fought win,” Cashman said. “They pay dividends toward the end of the year.”

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