Same ol' Sam?

StickierBuns wrote:
I think its just one game, but Uncle Sammy's history precedes him. He can change the narrative in the playoffs.

..or not

The Rams sure seem to have his number, but it was one game and before that he has been considered a leading MVP candidate. I don't buy into the he can't win a big game. Last year was the first time he has played in what would be considered a big game, so pretty brutal to label him for two games.

With the Sam ol Sam, we certainly do not lose the last two home games and are probably sitting at 9-1/8-2 and top of division right now.

Darnold gonna Darnold.

It's why no matter what happens with McCarthy, I'm thankful the organization went the route they did and didn't hand over a huge contract to someone who plays his worst when the moment means the most. Nice guy, but not the guy I want under center with the season on the line

Sam Darnold in the history books with the greats. pic.twitter.com/i6gUzPQVeI

— NFL (@NFL) December 29, 2025

DeepFreeze05 wrote:
https://x.com/NFL/status/2005675269508759902

Actually what Sam has done is much more impressive in that he is the first QB to do with two different teams.  Also consider it was in his first year with each team and first year in offense as well.  The main reason it has never happened before is because a team is not going to let a guy go who just won 13 or more games  :D

Darnold is a stat whore when it is going well. He can sling it. But a bit of pressure and he can crumble into a steaming pile.

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.

medaille wrote:
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.

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.

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.

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.

Still Hurtn wrote:
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.

Bullazin wrote:

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.

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.

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.

MaroonBells wrote:

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.

Damned if you do, damned if you don't.  Everyone wants a rookie QBOTF and a loaded team around the rookie salary.  But does it always work out, no.  So then we bitch about trusting a young QB.

Reminds me of the web site I never built.  FiretheNextCoachNow.com

JR44 wrote:
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.

I don't need to turn on the tape.  I saw how he played like absolute shit the last two games of last year.  I saw how bad he looked against our D this year.  He is way too easy to rattle.  If you have a genius OC and an elite O-line (detroit the last two years) then you can win with guys like Goff or Sammy.  But if not, you better have a vet that can still make plays when facing the heat.

How many superbowls have Goff or Sammy won?  Goff got there on the back of a stud RB that broke down and so Goff looked terrible.  So bad they traded him away for an aging vet in Stafford.

greediron wrote:
I don't need to turn on the tape.  I saw how he played like absolute shit the last two games of last year.  I saw how bad he looked against our D this year.  He is way too easy to rattle.  If you have a genius OC and an elite O-line (detroit the last two years) then you can win with guys like Goff or Sammy.  But if not, you better have a vet that can still make plays when facing the heat.

How many superbowls have Goff or Sammy won?  Goff got there on the back of a stud RB that broke down and so Goff looked terrible.  So bad they traded him away for an aging vet in Stafford.

Okay, great guess all you need is two game to make a determination on a guys entire career.  Funny how so many labeled Darnold as some loser and wanted him out after he won 14 games and now here he is winning 13 more games on a Seahawks team that has who on it and still the ridiculous baseless claims he can't win.  27 wins in two years and counting.  

How many Super Bowls did Dan Marino, Fran Tarkenton and Jim Kelly win?  That is such a poor argument.  This isn't tennis, you can't win by yourself.

I think what's overlooked in all this would we rather have had JJM or Darnold,   my thought is that we wouldn't have likely had Darnold if we hadn't taken JJM.  No rookie QB,  we would have beem more focused on Cousins or some other more established QB,  not a long shot reclamation project,  and once they chose the rookie path,  they need to show some conviction and stick with it,  same reason I say we aren't shopping for a real QB competition this offseason.

StickierBuns wrote:

He can win games with a good team around him, but can he win IMPORTANT games? I do hear you.....I mean, it can't be denied how good Uncle Sammy has looked both last year in Minnesota and this year in Seattle. REALLY good. I love watching him pass the football, its effortless. He's a very skilled thrower. But he has a narrative to get past and he can do it in this year's playoffs. Its up to him. My stance isn't that he can't, but more that he needs to show he CAN. Because he never has....and more to an effective point, he's showed the opposite. That's his history. That's why there's an accurate narrative he needs to overcome. He's not some unknown quantity that just hasn't broken through yet.

Bingo.  Enjoyed watching him much of last season.  But when we needed it, he didn't.  He saw ghosts.  I have seen that a couple times from him this year as well.  He melts under pressure.  

I just wouldn't hand a guy like that 100 mil over 3 years.  Not until he showed he could when it mattered.

I keep coming back to the idea that maybe we should've seen Darnold's 2024 season coming and signed him for two years instead of one. Former 3rd overall pick with all the tools that go with it coming into the kind of offense, coaching and surround he's never before had. If we HAD signed him for two years, he either would've been a Viking in 2025, unquestionably taking the Vikings to the playoffs, and giving JJ another year in the oven, or we could've traded him for some serious draft capital in the 2025 draft. 

Sure, hindsight and all that. But it just would've taken a little bit of foresight to maybe realize that JJ McCarthy was super young and giving him two years of development would not have been a bad idea. Worst case is you have Darnold at 10M per as a solid backup to JJ in 2025.