Peter Schrager Believes Sam Darnold Proved Something Important On Sunday Night
Credit: Jeffrey Becker-Imagn Images
The Sam Darnold experience in Minnesota has been nothing short of a quarterback roller coaster. The journeyman has gone from a placeholder-slash-mentor to season-long starter to breakout surprise superstar and then back to reality all in the course of eight games. It’s enough to leave Vikings fans spinning and wondering which of these versions is the real Sam Darnold?
Since the second half of the Packers game, Darnold has shown a penchant for flailing at crucial moments and poor decision-making, which culminated in a horrific first half against Indianapolis. But despite the pessimistic side of the fan base and media throwing up caution flares over his three-turnover effort against the Colts, others view his Sunday night performance in a far different light.
Good Morning Football’s Peter Schrager lauded the quarterback for a performance that he believed proved the signal-caller’s true growth.
“But I’ll tell you, you know I’m not a huge statistics guy. I don’t go to PFF or the Next Gen and say, well I saw the miles per hour… that’s just not my thing,” Schrager said. “But I like the story. I don’t do numbers, I don’t do fantasy. I like the story. And the story to me is Sam Darnold found a way at halftime to kind of pick himself up by the bootstraps… Sam Darnold won a game that, in the past, Sam Darnold would have lost. I think that is huge… Sam Darnold to me is the story this morning. Found a way to dig out of the old Sam Darnold and show that he is a different player and he’s been reinvented. And guess what he can win these games even when he starts off rough.”
You look across the league at quarterback play and there are some very highly-paid quarterbacks right now. Sam Darnold is at the top or right there at the top with those Josh Allen, Mahomes, and the rest of those guys when you’re talking about completion percentage, touchdown passes, passing yards and now they’re six and two.”
Schrager is right on the money here. No one is guaranteeing that this is a Super Bowl team, but they have a chance, and the path to serious success doesn’t come through lopsided victories led by an impossible-to-keep-up-with list of defensive performances.
The quarterback and the head coach are going to have to prove that they can succeed as a team when the game is not tilted in their direction. Darnold has a long history of falling apart when things get tough. Kevin O’Connell has yet to prove he has the ability to thrive in non-scripted situations and clutch moments. Sure, it would’ve been great for the Vikings to blow out the Colts on Sunday night, but three turnovers and no points in the first half, followed by three fantastic touchdown drives — one of which was undeniably clutch — says more about this team than a lopsided victory ever will.
Great teams find ways to win when things aren’t going in their favor, and that’s what Sam Darnold and the offense did on Sunday night.
.@Akbar_Gbaja came away impressed with Sam Darnold pulling through the adversity last night. (via @gmfb) pic.twitter.com/2AufOlYlBT
— NFL Network (@nflnetwork) November 4, 2024
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