O'Connell's trust in Darnold pays off again vs. Packers
Rather than play it safe, the Vikings passed on the final drive to close out the win over GB
By Matthew Coller
MINNEAPOLIS — Sam Darnold has come through in a lot of key situations this season, including last week when he led a game-winning drive against the Seattle Seahawks. Nothing he’s faced before Sunday’s afternoon’s game, however, could match up with the hype, consequences and opponent strength that came along with a 3:25 start versus the Green Bay Packers.
Along the Vikings’ journey to the top of the NFC mountain, head coach Kevin O’Connell has continued to bang the drum that he believes in Darnold as the Vikings’ leader. That started way back in OTAs. But O’Connell’s words carry weight because he has backed them up with actions. At every turn, he has continued to put the ball in Darnold’s hands when the Vikings need him most. O’Connell hasn’t played it safe or shied away, he’s fully trusted Darnold’s talent and command of the offense and it has paid dividends over and over. That was true again in the Vikings 27-25 victory against Green Bay.
After the Vikings missed a field goal that would have put them up by 20 in the fourth quarter, opposing QB Jordan Love caught fire and led two lightning-quick touchdown drives and converted a two-point conversion that cut the Minnesota lead to two points with 2:18 seconds. With three Packers timeouts and the two-minute warning left, O’Connell knew that they were going to need first downs in order to put the game away. So instead of running the ball and letting the Packers use their timeouts and then looking for a game-winning stop from the defense, he decided to let Darnold go put the dagger in Green Bay.
Darnold started the drive with a rollout pass to fullback CJ Ham for 13 yards and a first down. Ham did a nice job of staying in bounds, running the clock to the two-minute warning. An unsuccessful run put the Vikings in a second-and-11 spot with 1:57 left and Green Bay still holding two timeouts. Darnold again rolled out and hit Justin Jefferson for nine yards on a high-difficulty throw. Almost there.
“It's something that we work on all the time,” Darnold said of his tough pass to Jefferson. “It's something we've been working on since April. First of all, for him to be able to make that catch, I think he made it with one hand. I just try to put it in a really good spot for him, even though it was tight coverage, and I knew he would be able to come away with that football.”
The Vikings could have elected to run it on third-and-2 with the game on the line. How many teams in the NFL would have done anything except run it? Not this time. It was Darnold time again. Another rollout. Running back Cam Akers wide open in the flat. With a defender in front of Darnold, he popped the ball up in the air and the veteran running back made a terrific grab just before it hit the ground.
“That was incredible,” Darnold said. “Incredible catch, incredible execution by all the guys on the field. It was not my best effort on that, but I'm just happy that Cam was able to come away with that and seal the deal for us.”
At the podium following the game, the head coach explained why he felt that letting Darnold throw in that situation was the right move.
“I felt comfortable with Sam in those moments,” O’Connell said. “I loved how some of those things married up with some of the runs we'd either done late in games throughout the year or even tonight in the game. So I thought we'd get some edges and get Sam and his athleticism out on the perimeter.”
By no means was Darnold taken by surprise when the calls for passes came into his headset amidst the chaos of the final two minutes.
“When guys are packing the box trying to stop the run, I know that KO is going to be aggressive,” Darnold said. “Whenever he does call a pass in that situation, I'm always prepared for it, and I feel like our guys did a really good job of executing that.”
The aggressive approach wasn’t perfect against the Packers. There was an interception that led to a Green Bay touchdown and a three-and-out with just over six minutes left and the Vikings up 27-18 that cracked the door open for a possible Green Bay comeback.
The idea, however, is that just like swinging for home runs in baseball, it works more than it fails in the long run. Asked whether it was his trust in Darnold or his coaching philosophy that led him toward an aggressive approach, the Vikings’ 14-2 head coach answered that it was both.
“We want to be aggressive,” O’Connell said. “The best parts of our team come to life when we're aggressive. It requires execution. It requires some hard downs for some guys out there, whether it's the guys up front, our running backs, our tight ends, whatever it may be. Then it's ultimately Sam's ownership of the plan.”
It was hardly just the final drive where an aggressive approach paid off because of the execution and Darnold’s ownership of the gameplan. The Vikings threw 43 times with 33 of them ending up as completions and Darnold finished with 377 yards and three touchdowns.
As we have seen so often this season, the Packers tilted their coverage toward Jefferson early in the game, which gave the Vikings QB opportunities to find other receivers. Jefferson ended up leading the team in receiving but they got ahead with touchdowns to Jordan Addison and Jalen Nailor.
“Justin, the growth he's had to still give us what he gives us snap after snap even though it's frustrating for him at times because he's such a competitor,” O’Connell said. “We're very, very fortunate to have him. I thought [Nailor] was huge. Whether it was single-high [coverage] or not, there was just a strong emphasis on making sure they had presence around [Jefferson], so there was some grass to be found.”
When the game was over, Vikings players gathered in the locker room waiting for QB1. He was a little busy being interviewed by the greatest quarterback in NFL history Tom Brady on the FOX broadcast, so it took him a while to arrive back in the locker room. When he walked in, Darnold got doused with water and picked up on his teammates’ shoulders. The Vikings Twitter/X account shared video of the event with O’Connell standing proudly to the side watching his team celebrate.
“Phenomenal moment…It was really cool,” O’Connell said. “I'm just so proud of him. There's so many things that lead into moments like this for Sam since he became a Minnesota Viking, just to see how he's ultimately been able to maximize everything about his opportunity. Our football team loves him for it, and I've had an absolute blast coaching him and just so proud of him.”
While the good vibes were at their peak after the game, head coach and quarterback still leaned on a common phrase that they have been saying all year long: “Let’s go 1-0 this week.” The Vikings now head to Detroit with a chance to win the NFC and earn homefield advantage throughout the playoffs and a first-round bye with a victory. They will need to get right back to work.
“When your team has ownership of every possible thing that we're doing and they work for something greater than just themselves, anything is really possible,” O’Connell said.
Darnold remarked that fans have started saying the “1-0 each week” mantra to him when they see him in public. But there’s nobody in the locker room who has needed that message more than the QB who is achieving heights that haven’t been seen before in his career.
“Random people will come up to me, ‘hey, we're 1-0 this week, man, just keep going,’” Darnold said. “I see you guys. I see you. It's awesome, man, just the way the entire community has embraced this team and just our mindset with everything. It's pretty special.”
Darnold is stacking “pretty special” moments now. Whether it’s the game-winning drives against Chicago, Arizona and Seattle or his performances against the Falcons or Packers, he’s put together one of the best seasons in franchise history. It’s hard to say the results would have been the same if not for O’Connell’s commitment to giving his QB the reins in all the most important situations.
I knew Darnold would be good from the beginning If I was a betting man I would have bet the Vikings would win more than six games as predicted by the experts early on. However, I did not expect Sam to be this good. As someone has tweeted "He is OUR freaking QB!
I’m just enjoying the ride this season. Close games and comebacks and game saving interceptions. What a great season and more games to come.