'I don’t think he’s playing with any fear right now'
'I don’t think he’s playing with any fear right now'
Resurgent Vikings quarterback Sam Darnold draws high praise from one NFC personnel man. Is everything scouts loved about the USC QB finally bubbling to the surface? Bob McGinn's series continues.
By Bob McGinn
This is the continuation of a 2024 series looking at active players and their current situation vis a vis what it was entering the NFL draft. The comments from personnel men were made in the months leading up to the draft for my NFL Draft Series, which dates to 1985. Scouting football prospects is an inexact science, especially when it comes to off-the-field considerations. It has been said that no two evaluators view a player exactly the same way.
A forgotten quarterback, Sam Darnold, and his overlooked team, the Minnesota Vikings, have emerged as one of the compelling early stories in the NFL season.
The Vikings, forecast by most for the basement of the powerful NFC North Division, sit 2-0 and atop the NFC largely because Darnold is playing the best football of his pedestrian seven-year career.
Should the league have seen this coming? Kyle Shanahan, Darnold’s coach a year ago when he backed up Brock Purdy in San Francisco, thought so even before the Vikings defeated his 49ers Sunday.
“He was the third pick in the draft — easily could have gone 1 or 2 — (because) he is that type of talent and has that type of toughness,” Shanahan told Greg Papa last week on NBC Sports Bay Area. “Sam’s got all the tools to be a great quarterback in this league.
“We were really fortunate to have him as a No. 2 last year, which was kind of crazy. He’s a stud, and he’s only going to get better as the year goes.”
Darnold completed three extraordinary passes in the victories over the New York Giants and 49ers that suggest Shanahan isn’t just trying to build up a conscientious former player.
In the opener, the Vikings were backed up in their own end on second and 12 when Darnold found Justin Jefferson on a deep sideline route for 44 yards.
“Just watch the throw he made (in New York),” said Shanahan. “To the field. He had to wait on it. They faked a screen. He had to throw it down the sideline. Took a big hit with no room, couldn’t step into it. Basically, shot a JUGS machine all the way across the field.”
On Sunday, the Vikings led, 7-3, in the second quarter and facing second and 9 from their 3. From a deep drop off play-action, Darnold stepped up and rainbowed a bomb that carried 55 yards in the air to where Jefferson made the catch in stride and turned it into a 97-yard touchdown.
Midway through the fourth quarter, the Vikings were up, 20-14, after the 49ers had just scored a touchdown. It was third and 8 at the Minnesota 46. With Jefferson sidelined since the third quarter with a thigh injury, Jordan Addison and T.J. Hockenson unavailable and Aaron Jones gimpy, Darnold went to Jalen Nailor and delivered a screamer among defenders to the third-year man’s back shoulder on the hashmark for a gain of 26. A field goal culminated the 14-play, 62-yard drive that served to repulse the defending NFC champions.
“I don’t think he’s playing with any fear right now,” an NFC personnel man said after viewing the play. “He looks very, very comfortable. That kind of goes back probably to the confidence he gained backing up Purdy last year and also knowing he’s the guy again.”
The question is, will Darnold’s exquisite level of play over the first two weeks continue?