Sam Darnold highlights team resilience, acknowledges his struggles in win vs. Jets
The Minnesota Vikings didn't have a lot of success on offense in their 23-17 win over the New York Jets on Sunday morning, but they did find a way to pull out the victory. There were a lot of interesting elements for the Vikings, including the punt return team making numerous mistakes that almost cost […]
The Minnesota Vikings didn't have a lot of success on offense in their 23-17 win over the New York Jets on Sunday morning, but they did find a way to pull out the victory. There were a lot of interesting elements for the Vikings, including the punt return team making numerous mistakes that almost cost them the game.
Offensively, they showed a lot of struggles across the board. Wide receiver Justin Jefferson had a difficult game even though he caught six passes for 92 yards on the day and the offense struggled to move the ball once running back Aaron Jones was ruled out after the first half with a hip injury.
Sam Darnold knows there is room for improvement
One of the bigger surprises on Sunday was how much quarterback Sam Darnold struggled. He completed just 45.1% of his passes and threw an interception when he skied the ball over Jordan Addison's head. After the game, Darnold was very reflective on their performance and acknowledged that there is plenty of room for improvement.
"Yeah, I think I feel good. Obviously we got things rolling. But like I said, man, there's so much room for improvement. For us to be able to go out there against a really good team and get a win like that shows you a lot about our resilience as a team, and as an offense, too, I think just going down, we would have loved to have scored a touchdown or to score a touchdown on that last drive.
"But the way we were able to go down the field and continue to just play ball and not get caught up in how the game is going or the flow of the game. I think we were just able to really continue to take it one step at a time throughout the game, and you know you're going to go through the ebbs and flows of it, and for us to just be able to have a good drive — obviously we would have loved, like I said, to score.
"But to end it in a field goal and make them have to go the whole way and score a touchdown put a lot of pressure on them to go do that."
The candor that Darnold had after the game in admitting the flaws of both his game and the offense as a whole. Jefferson echoed similar sentiments in his postgame interview with Stacy Dales of NFL Network.
"I feel like we didn't play well on the offensive side of the ball. You know, we didn't have any energy. I mean, we had energy in ourselves, but we didn't make the place to, you know, contribute the energy. So, I mean, it's definitely a tough win. We definitely got to give thanks to our defense today for giving us this dub. But offensively, it wasn't good enough."
The entire unit seems to know they have work to do and they will be given the time to get it right with the bye week upon us. It's not doom and gloom for the Vikings, but things aren't quite as good as they were heading into the game.
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