VikingLord wrote: ↑Tue Jan 14, 2025 3:57 pm
Cliff wrote: ↑Tue Jan 14, 2025 2:20 pm
You may be right. So far his body of work on a team with good offensive weapons is 1 year though.
All year long, with the exception of a few games, I would have bought your argument.
But the last two games he destroyed the credibility of that argument, at least in my view. He had the weapons and the same guys around him on offense that he had all year and unless you're willing to buy the argument that it was they who suddenly failed, the blame for the dramatic dropoff in offensive performance falls squarely at Darnold's feet.
He may not be a very good QB in the end, but it's not just an argument that this is his first year with even decent weapons. That is a fact. It could be he would have been just as terrible with good receivers on the Jets and Panthers but we'll never know.
He was a one-year vet on the minimum deal. There was a good reason for that. He popped for a while, but we've seen that before with even lesser QBs than Darnold. It's really not all that rare for a guy who has a reputation or has never had a lot of success to find a spark for some period of time and enjoy success, but in the end it's never sustainable.
There definitely was, but a lot of that reason in retrospect is tied to his supporting cast and the teams he was on. It's also because the NFL is a "what have you done for me lately" type of league. After just one good season people were talking about Darnold getting paid 50m per year somewhere.
I think it was Stump (sorry if it wasn't you) who once posted that if a QB doesn't shine within like the first 6 games of the time he takes over the starting role, the chances of him ever shining for any period of time in the future is close to zero. In other words, a guy either shows he can get on the bike and ride it, or he will never really be able to ride it well. Darnold, at least up to this point in his pro career, has never ridden the bike well.
It makes a difference if the bike is a tricycle missing one wheel tho ...
Even this year there were many times and games where he wobbled around a lot and was saved by his defense or special teams. To his credit, he made some great plays as well. But nothing about him strikes me as sustainable. Nothing. If the Vikings don't implement their actual plan at QB going forward at this point it will be a huge disappointment and large step backwards.
If you don't expect a future Vikings QB to ever "wobble" you're in for a lot of disappointment. I agree the Vikings should stick to their original plan of going with JJ, but now they need an insurance policy. Darnold was obviously supposed to be a stop-gap and that's ok but to my mind JJ immediately having a season ending injury throws a bit of a wrench in those plans. You definitely can't "ride the bike" if you're missing a leg.
I'm sure all of the sacks weren't solely his fault, but he failed to read the pressure and get rid of the ball. One could argue that any time a QB takes a sack it is the QB's fault for not getting rid of the ball. Most plays have safety valves for quick read/release and most QBs can chuck it somewhere out of reach of defenders while avoiding grounding. Heck, look at the masterful job Stafford did avoiding a sure sack on that fumble that was called back, or what Goff did to avoid the safety in the game against Detroit. The rules are designed to not only protect the QB, but to help him avoid sacks. So taking 9 in a single game is just a terrible performance by the QB no matter how bad the pass blocking was or how many times the defense sent extra rushers.
I'd say 6 or 7 of the 9 sacks weren't on him. I've never seen any QB throw the ball away 10+ times in a game. Darnold did actually throw the ball away a few times and if he would have thrown it away every time he got sacked that's how many it would have been.
We'll also have to agree to disagree about what Stafford did being "masterful". It was a hair away from a fumble and should have definitely been intentional grounding. In reality he should have tucked the ball and taken the sack.
Along those lines he also threw a bad pick, was terribly inaccurate on multiple throws (that throw to Addison in the 1st quarter was TERRIBLE. Amazing play by Addison to bring that down. I watched that route develop. Addison was open out of the break. Pass should have come out sooner and was a very normal throw that should been into the numbers or even a bit out in front of him so he could maintain momentum out of his break. Instead, he has to wait for it and leap way up to grab it with the defender bearing down on him the whole time. And so it would go like that most of the rest of the night), and just generally looked like he had never seen anything the Rams did. There were multiple times when receivers were open in NFL windows. Not wide open, but open. Darnold would not let it go.
This is where we definitely agree. Sam got rattled and the passes that he actually could have made, he didn't. He missed some wide open shots, threw some bad passes, etc.
The fact he took only 9 sacks is actually a testament to the OL more than an indictment of them, at least from the row where I was sitting.
After watching the videos of the sacks he took I can't agree with this at all. The offensive line got its #### kicked. Sam has to keep his poise in those situations if he ever has a chance of being "great", but I understand being jumpy behind that line.
