Former NFL safety and current CBS game analyst Adam Archuleta said something on Sunday’s broadcast from Tennessee that’s becoming more of a common take as the Vikings continue to shock the NFL with a quarterback few if anyone other than coach Kevin O’Connell believed in.
Magician? Whisperer? Good coach? Vikings’ Kevin O’Connell coaxing more from Sam Darnold than anyone before.
Sam Darnold is completing more passes for more touchdowns than he ever has. “What we’re trying to get from Sam is to play the best football of his career,” Kevin O’Connell said.
The Minnesota Star Tribune
November 21, 2024 at 2:24AM
“You can tell that Sam Darnold has been coached in a way that he never really has been coached in his career,” Archuleta said as Darnold put together an excellent game under pressure in a 23-13 win over the Titans.
This idea was pitched to Darnold on Wednesday as he and the Vikings returned to the practice field ahead of Sunday’s game at Chicago. Darnold was limited because of a surprise foot injury, but said he said the foot “felt really good.”
Darnold fielded the question with caution and figurative happy feet, no doubt concerned how the answer would fly with those who coached him during his three-year, 13-25 stint as a failed No. 3 overall pick of the Jets, as well as those who coached him in Carolina during his two-year, 8-9 stint as a failed comeback candidate.
“I just feel like you know, um — not talking about past experiences at all — but I think just here it’s the detail that we’ve had ever since OTAs, ever since April,” Darnold said. “We’ve been able to lock in our progressions. Just our feet, our eyes, where they’re supposed to be. And just being on time within the concepts. If you play like that, it makes the quarterback position a little bit easier.”
Darnold’s numbers suggest the former flop is playing with a level of ease he hasn’t experienced until now, Year 7, 27 years old, on a one-year prove-it-to-the-entire-league contract.
Here are some of those numbers:
- A 67.9 completion percentage for a guy who’s never been higher than 61.9. Nineteen touchdowns, tying a career high. Eight 100-plus passer ratings in 10 games for someone who had 12 in his first 66 games.
- A Pro Football Focus rating of 78.9 for a guy who’s never topped 66.0. A career-low bad-throw percentage of 13.5 from Pro Football Reference. A career-high on-target percentage of 80.4 from PFR for someone who’s never been better than 77.1.
- Seventeen-game projections of 32 touchdowns, 4,058 yards (career high: 3,024) and 338 completions (career high: 273).
Yeah, yeah, there is another not-so-friendly stat: 10 interceptions, a pace that would give him 17, two more than his career-high 15 as a rookie.
But, hey, O’Connell isn’t a complete magician. He’s a former NFL quarterback and Super Bowl-winning offensive coordinator. He’s respected leaguewide for his ability to teach the finer points of the position and relate compassionately to those who toil in perhaps the hardest job in sports. He also knows to tread lightly when a reporter asks him what he’s doing so well with Darnold that others before him might have done so poorly.
“I can’t really speak to any other situations,” O’Connell said. “I feel very strongly about the way we coach the position here. It’s definitely a ‘we’ thing. … It’s our whole staff. And it’s Sam feeling like it’s a back-and-forth thing.”
Though he’s known as a player’s coach, O’Connell said he’s “always going to coach Sam hard.”
“There’s been some moments when we’ve come in on Mondays and maybe I coach some things up a little harder based upon the razor-thin margin of error for the quarterback position,” O’Connell said. “When you go back and look at times when it doesn’t work out, you better have been coaching principles to try to avoid some of those things ahead of time.
“Then you’re circling back to, ‘Hey, all this was was a feet and eye thing. You’ve taken this rep 15,000 times since you’ve been here, but why on this one was this footwork a little off or why were your eyes in this place instead of right here?’ ”
O’Connell talks as much or more than any coach about the critical detail of marrying the quarterback’s feet to his eyes. That helped Darnold post one of his best games of the season Sunday after throwing five interceptions the previous two weeks.
What also helps Darnold? A belief in him that sure seems genuine from O’Connell.
“When you [coach the finer points] and do it in an organic way that has a little bit of positive reinforcement and a belief in the player, you see a guy play at a good level or a high level,” O’Connell said. “What we’re trying to get from Sam is to play the best football of his career based upon the principles we believe exist in this offense.”
Oh, there’s one other significant stat Darnold achieved with the Vikings under O’Connell last Sunday:
A career-high eight wins.
Vikings tight end Josh Oliver has not practiced all week after sustaining an ankle injury against the Titans last Sunday. His absence could mean more playing time for T.J. Hockenson.
