Same ol' Sam?

[medaille]

All QBs can't win the big game ... until they do.

Even a guy like Manning was shit on for not being able to win the big game.

[Bullazin]

All QBs can't win the big game ... until they do.

Even a guy like Manning was shit on for not being able to win the big game.

Do we need to shit on Sir Francis as well?  I swear. Sammy is an excellent QB, I would have wanted him back on a 5 year deal if JJ was not in the fold.

[purplefaithful]

Darnold is water under the bridge now...

Main concern for me going forward is all about McCarthy:
- Durability?
- How high is up?

The Vikings have to hedge their Qb bet going into 26. Qb2 and BFlo are the big offseason talkers.

[Montana Tom]

I watched Sammy play yesterday.
We have not had that sharp/on target of a passing game all season, with 3 different passers.
He was accurate throwing in the breadbasket, rather than high or wide of the receiver (where it was up to the receiver to adjust most of the time).

Nothing we can do about it now.

[Still Hurtn]

Kwesi had 3 vet QB options and passed. Spent tons of money to build a win now team. Kwesi made some bad decisions..gambled and failed.

[pattersaur]

Kwesi had 3 vet QB options and passed. Spent tons of money to build a win now team. Kwesi made some bad decisions..gambled and failed.

Gambled and failed is a good way to put it for sure. But what can we learn from it? I don't think Kwesi is going anywhere.

He bet big on a 'rookie' QB being ready enough to keep us afloat and surge at the end of the year to hopefully push for the playoffs. He was wrong, but not by much.

To me McCarthy should be Day 1 starter next year and it shouldn't be much of a discussion. 90% of the QBs playing well around the league right now took a long time to get there. Many had to find new homes along the way. But if the Vikings believed enough in his talent to pass over the other guys only 9 months ago, that's not conviction that dissipates easily. McCarthy being made of glass is the biggest problem right now so the Vikings need to better hedge against that next year. But if he's upright he should be starting and will be. The team still believes and so do I. If the team doesn't believe anymore and has come to the conclusion they were wrong about him-- after 8 games-- that's almost more concerning to me than if we run it back with only JJM and Brosmer.

On Darnold-- Last year I believed and got burned. This year, I fear a similar fate to last year awaits him, unless Seattle D can carry a heavy load against SF.

[MaroonBells]

Do we need to shit on Sir Francis as well?  I swear. Sammy is an excellent QB, I would have wanted him back on a 5 year deal if JJ was not in the fold.

Same. Key phrase being "if JJ was not in the fold." He was in the fold though, going into his 2nd season, and on a rookie contract. And there was no way this team was going to pay Darnold $100M over three years AND sign all the free agents we wanted to beef up the young QB's surround. 

I don't know why people always forget this simple fact. Did it work out the way we envisioned? Nope, but that happens sometimes. Injuries were a big part of it. Injuries to our defense early on, injuries to our highly paid offensive line, injuries to the young QB himself. It was a shit-luck year and I'm glad it's over.

[StickierBuns]

Its simple: if the team didn't draft JJM, they'd have resigned Uncle Sammy. JJ needs to play to get better. Can't do that behind Darnold. And if the Vikings didn't draft JJM, I'd be all in behind Darnold hoping he could change his narrative.

But the bottom line is no matter how great the stats are and the team records, is Uncle Sammy or Danny Dimes winning championships?? You tell me. The Vikings are looking to change their organizational narrative as 4 time Superbowl losers. McCarthy has come in hot with challenging games and bad throws, yet has had some clutch and great throws. Only time will tell who was right.

[medaille]

I think the thing is that we let Darnold walk because of how promising JJM looked. I think if he looked like the first 6 games of JJM, we would have kept Darnold and let JJM develop over time as a backup and we wouldn’t have pushed all our chips in around a rookie QB.

I also think that you really have to wonder, how everything would have looked, if JJM had been healthy enough to start all season. If we started the season 2-4 and then won 3 in a row and had 8 games left of the JJM we’ve been seeing the last few weeks, we probably end up with something much closer to what Kwesi and KOC’s plan was when they were setting everything up and we’re probably fighting the Packers for that last WC spot. That said, I still think that the plan we made this year had a lot of holes in it, but it was probably still a borderline playoff plan.

Regarding Darnold, I don’t think we need to rag on him too much. There’s only a handful of elite QBs that carry their teams deep in the playoffs every year. Even the best of that second tier of QBs looks like Darnold more often than their teams are comfortable with. It’s just so hard to be consistently good against the best teams in the league. I think that’s why it’s so essential to go find that next elite QB and not just settle for the tier 2 guys. A year ago, Goff was a franchise QB you could win a SB with, now he’s the guy that led his team to 6 turnovers and lost to a guy with 3 passing yards and a 4th place spot in the NFCN and their fanbase is talking about all the guys that they need to fire and replace. If you don’t have an elite QB, a Darnold or a Goff is a pretty good consolation prize, but you should still be looking for that next elite guy.

[JR44]

I do not get all of the absolutes with Darnold. He played one year in our offense and turned his career around and based on what he is doing this year, it was not a fluke. He very may have continued to improve in our offense as he continued into year two and gained more familiarity in the offense and with KOC. I think we would have seen an ever better version this year.

The narrative that he can't win a big game or he chokes is a complete joke. What is it based on? Until last year he had never played in a playoff game or any game of great significance. Sure, he did not play great in the last two games, but the entire team was awful, he had no protection. So we are basing the narrative on 2 games? Go check the game tape of the MNF agains the Rams and tell me how he can't win a big game. He has the Seahawks at 13-3 and has won plenty of big games in the process as he did here last year in taking us to 14-3.