Analysis: Sam Darnold was a difference maker again for the Vikings, in a good way

The early sequence played out like a bad sequel. Four plays after Blake Cashman’s sack of Will Levis forced a punt to start the Vikings‘ game with the Titans on Sunday, Sam Darnold spun around his left shoulder for a toss play to running back Aaron Jones. The pitch was slightly behind him as he moved to his right, and the ball bounced off Jones’ left arm before the Titans recovered it at their own 45. The fumble was charged to Darnold, his third of the season on a botched exchange with a running back, and followed his three-turnover games against the Colts and Jaguars for his seventh giveaway in nine quarters.

“This is the National Football League; we’ve got to execute tossing the football,” coach Kevin O’Connell said Monday. “Whoever’s fault it was, whoever takes the ultimate minus on the sheet, it’s catastrophic. We’ve had two of them early on in games, and it can’t happen.”

But before the here-we-go-again chorus could reach full volume, Darnold went back to work. He checked to a run — the same toss he’d just bungled with Jones — on the Vikings’ next offensive play, opening the drive with a 3-yard run. He found Justin Jefferson for a quick 4-yard completion on second down, and the Vikings picked up 16 yards on Jarvis Brownlee Jr’s third-down pass interference penalty as Darnold tested the corner in single coverage with a fade to Jefferson. Then, the Vikings worked the dagger concept Darnold loves so much, with Brandon Powell clearing the deep coverage as Jordan Addison broke behind him on a dig route while Josh Oliver picked up Brownlee’s corner blitz. Darnold fired just before Brownlee arrived, hitting Addison in stride for a 47-yard touchdown.

“Sometimes they’re breathing down your neck, especially the way that this defense plays,” Darnold said Sunday. “I just felt like the way we prepared throughout the week for certain pressures and for their certain looks — again, credit to our coaching staff for being able to put together a lot of just really solid look teams. The scout teams this past week were unbelievable with this kind of stuff.”

It was the biggest play of the Vikings’ 23-13 win that functioned, in some ways, as a get-right game for Darnold. He completed 62.5% of his passes, finishing without an interception for only the third time this season, and gained 19 yards on six runs: three scrambles and three short-yardage sneaks that produced two first downs and a touchdown. It quieted a bit of the talk about the quarterback’s recent mistakes, and gave O’Connell a platform to praise his quarterback’s resiliency.

“It was a really good foundational kind of growth week,” O’Connell said. “Because I think we went back to really highlighting a lot of those things [he’s done well this season] throughout the week, and putting it on Sam to get to that standard every single snap of doing his job. And then he played great. So, hopefully it’s something consistently that we see moving forward.”

O’Connell alluded to it on Monday, after the Vikings’ eighth win of the season underscored the point: A season that began with tepid public expectations because of the quarterback will go as far as Darnold can take it.

His success against the Titans came on a day where the rest of the offense provided only modest support. The Vikings struggled all day with Titans defensive tackles Jeffery Simmons and T’Vondre Sweat, with Jones and Cam Akers combining for only 64 yards on 25 carries. Akers had a 12-yard run just before halftime; he gained 13 yards on his other nine attempts, while Jones needed 15 carries to produce 39 yards.

O’Connell said Monday the toss plays were an attempt to “not run at those guys, to try to get the ball in the perimeter a little bit more,” and in the third quarter, the Vikings used a bootleg throw from Darnold to Akers in the flat as a kind of perimeter run for a 3-yard touchdown.

When they needed to gain a yard or two on the ground, they resorted to Darnold on a sneak, putting 259-pound tight end Josh Oliver behind him for a push sneak in the second quarter. Darnold slipped away from Sweat for a 6-yard gain off a scramble, and hit Jefferson for 31 yards while rolling away from pressure.

Addison, who was battling leg cramps throughout the day, left after he was unable to track down a deep ball that Darnold put behind Titans safety Amani Hooker in the third quarter. Jalen Nailor dropped another would-be touchdown, after Darnold evaded pressure from Kenneth Murray Jr. and hit Nailor in the chest in the end zone.

“A lot of the things centered around his feet, his eyes, his ability to use his athleticism when warranted,” O’Connell said of Darnold. “And we knew that that would probably come up in the game with the type of interior and edge pressure that we thought we would get. He was really decisive with his reads, and I thought that made him accurate with some big-time throws, some longer than others.”

O’Connell called it “high, high-level quarterback play,” and it made the difference in another game where the Vikings were a play or two from a lopsided win. This time, Darnold made the plays they needed. They’ll count on it from him for as long as they’re playing.

“When he plays like that, regardless of how things are going in the other phases of our offense, we’re gonna make enough plays to give our team a chance to win the game,” O’Connell said.

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