Sam Darnold found out an old NFL adage is more than true in Vikings’ tough loss to Lions
Winning football games against the best teams in the National Football League is a difficult task. The Minnesota Vikings won 14 games on the season but were only 5-3 against teams with winning records on the year. 5-3 is still an impressive record, but when the Detroit Lions are in your division and go 7-2 […]
Winning football games against the best teams in the National Football League is a difficult task. The Minnesota Vikings won 14 games on the season but were only 5-3 against teams with winning records on the year.
5-3 is still an impressive record, but when the Detroit Lions are in your division and go 7-2 in said games, you have to be one step ahead. They couldn't slay the demon that is Dan Campbell's Motor City Kitties, who played incredibly well to get the win 31-9.
There were a lot of plays that the Vikings were unable to make and it mostly boils down to quarterback Sam Darnold.
Sam Darnold's missed throws cost Vikings NFC North
Let's not beat around the bush. The Lions deserved to win the game. They did a great job in attacking the Vikings' offensive line and wide receivers throughout their routes. Defensive coordinator Aaron Glenn had an excellent game plan and called a great game.
The reality here is this: Darnold was inches away from completing multiple passes that could have changed the game. Playing in the NFL is a game of inches. A few inches here or there could completely change a football game, because that's how narrow of a margin it is when you play the best in the world.
The biggest factor in the game was the red zone. The Vikings were historically bad in the red zone with a success rate of just 7.1% on 15 plays. One of the ways the Lions got stops in the red zone was brilliant play calls from Glenn.
All season long, the Vikings have done a great job in getting players open in different ways with mesh concepts and shallow crossers. They tried to do so here with the thoughts that the Vikings would get a man coverage look from the Lions that they were getting all game long.
Surprisingly, the Lions played zone coverage with a wall on the goal line, which stifled the play from the start. Darnold threw the ball away, but it was just the beginning of the issues for the Vikings.
Let's begin the discussion about Darnold's misses because there are some bad ones, especially in the red zone.
This was the first fourth-down miss of the game and it was a big one. The design is a good one that springs open Jordan Addison on a rub route to the flat. For some reason, Darnold chooses not to take the wide-open first read. It's quite surprising because he's done a great job of doing that all season.
Once he comes off of Addison, he goes through his progressions and finds Jefferson running a whip route on the far side of the field. Now, Darnold has a chance to hit an open receiver for a touchdown after turning down the flat route to Addison.
Well, that decision didn't pay off as Darnold missed the throw there as well. Neither decision to throw the ball is bad. In fact, picking either of them would be good! Both receivers were open but he just missed the throws and that theme will continue all game long.
This miss is a little bit simpler. The Lions' pass rush gets home with a cover-0 blitz and forces Darnold to get this throw-off a little bit quicker than he wants.
Jefferson is running a double move on the outside with the idea of running to the back pylon. He runs a great route, but is just a few inches out of reach for Jefferson. We've seen Darnold hit these throws all season and coming up just short was the theme of the day.
Like the above play with Addison running into the flat on a rub route concept, this is similar. You might remember this concept being the play where Malcolm Butler got the interception in the Super Bowl against Russell Wilson.
Addison gets wide open here and you can tell it's Darnold's first read because it's where his eyes go immediately. He doesn't pull the trigger for some reason despite being sprung open and ends up still trying to hit Addison in a scramble drill but fails to convert on fourth down.
Why was he being so indecisive in the red zone? He's done a great job attacking, especially with first reads all season long, but didn't pull the trigger on Sunday.
There weren't misses just in the red zone either. Darnold was missing throws deep as well, something he's been great at all season long.
Against the Lions, Darnold struggled. He completed just 2-6 passes for 58 yards. On the season, he led the National Football League with 35 such completions and was the only quarterback to throw for over 1,000 yards on those with 1,192 yards and led the NFL in yards/attempt with 17.5.
There were two shot plays that Darnold just missed that could have gone for big gains, one of them for a touchdown.
This one is interesting, as there are multiple good options on this shot play. Darnold loves to attack vertically, which he does here to Addison.
It's a scissors concept called Detroit or PoCo (depending on your offense) on the near side of the play with Addison running a deep post and Jalen Nailor running a corner route. Hockenson releases late into the flat with a max protection look.
Darnold loves to attack vertically, which isn't a bad option. Addison has the inside leverage on the safety. What Darnold doesn't do is lead him and instead throws the ball upfield. If he leads him, this could be ta touchdown. My guess is that he throws it upfield to prevent the defender covering the deep half in bail technique from trying to make a play. Even so, an overthrow prevents this from being even a competitive ball.
The other argument here is the Nailor could get a touchdown on this corner route because he gains two-plus steps of separation. It's not a bad choice to pick Addison with Darnold's success in attacking deep, but there was another option if he didn't love the post.
Early in the game, the Vikings had a third and 18 that was inches from a conversion.
This is a great way to summarize the day the day that Darnold had. It's just four verticals with the slot and tight end running up the seam and the outside receivers running go routes.
Hockenson gets wide freaking open against the zone and Darnold just needs to throw a good football up the seam with the Grand Canyon-sized space he has and it'll be a first down. Well, he misses the throw by inches and it doesn't come to fruition. It's a throw that Darnold's done a great job of making all season, but it wasn't in the cards here.
Despite all of the misses and great defense the Lions had, there were still opportunities to win this game. The Vikings could have easily had upward of 20 more points against the Lions. Just getting the touchdowns in the red zone would have changed everything. Would it have won the Vikings the game? Hard to say either way, mainly because a changed dynamic in-game impacts the remainder of it.
All in all, we can, for now, write this game off as a fluke for Darnold. He's played significantly better than this all season and has not had a trend of playing two bad games in a row. In fact, he's arguably had just two bad games all year.
You could tell in this one he was pressing and too amped up for the game, something that is somewhat normal in a playoff-type atmosphere for a young player. Now that it's out of his system, the Vikings can make the necessary adjustments to fix the offense.
Repeating this type of historically bad performance is not sustainable and Darnold's process was mostly good throughout the game. Things should be much better against the Rams on Monday night and beyond.
Next year might be J.J. McCarthy at the helm, but don't worry about Darnold. He will be fine, and so will the Vikings.
2025 NFL Mock Draft Roundup: Vikings predictions split between trenches and on-ball playmakers
Keep track of who could be the next great Minnesota Viking
Kwesi Adofo-Mensah pursued breakout 2024 MVP candidate last offseason, proving brilliant approach sets him apart
The competitive rebuild and free agency approaches from Kwesi Adofo-Mensah are working
