Vikings offense weathers off day from Sam Darnold, but does he remain a concern?

LONDON — The last question Justin Jefferson wanted to answer was this one. His Minnesota Vikings had just beaten the New York Jets at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. The team was entering its bye week with a record of 5-0. There were plenty of reasons for jokes and fun, but when longtime NFL receiver Brandon Marshall asked Jefferson about his fancy postgame outfit, his response was less than spirited.

The wideout glanced down at his glistening gold Burberry ensemble, mentioned the brand and then immediately moved on to an offensive performance that almost made him sick.

“I wasn’t happy,” Jefferson said. “We definitely left yards and points out there.”

The most insightful word mentioned there might be we.

In the immediate aftermath of Sunday’s 23-17 victory, one man shouldered the brunt of the blame for the Vikings’ offensive struggles: quarterback Sam Darnold. Yet conversations with him and head coach Kevin O’Connell, paired with a review of the all-22 film, paint the picture that Jefferson offered up Sunday evening. The offense’s issues — only one touchdown scored, two turnovers and an average of 3.8 yards per play — fell on the collective.

In a few instances, Darnold misidentified reads and sailed passes. We’ll get to those shortly. But there was a bevy of blunders that doomed plays for Minnesota. Right guard Ed Ingram was turnstiled. Tight end Johnny Mundt was jacked at the line of scrimmage, eliminating a potential screen pass. Receiver Jordan Addison was blanketed by Jets cornerback D.J. Reed. And the list goes on.

“We were a play or two away from it maybe looking a little differently,” O’Connell said. “And that’s what the NFL is all about.”

Sam Darnold talks about mindset pic.twitter.com/OjBAthoFrm

— Minnesota Vikings (@Vikings) October 6, 2024

For all of the praise that has been rightfully heaped on Darnold for his start to the 2024 season, the Week 5 win laid bare the other factors in his success. He has been helped immensely by an efficient running game, solid pass protection, receivers who can separate and a play caller who can adapt on the fly. This isn’t to take anything away from Darnold, who still must decipher the defensive structure and deliver the ball accurately and on time. It is but a description of the requirements for the Vikings to continue building on their excellent start.

Let’s begin with Aaron Jones, who is averaging 4.9 yards per carry this season, more than all but six starting NFL running backs. A more insightful data point explaining his impact might be his average yards after contact (3.55 yards), the fourth-best number in the NFL. Think of it this way: Jones has generated nearly triple the amount of rushing yardage after contact than before it, making up for poor blocks and even enhancing the yardage when the rushes have been blocked correctly.

This affects the other facets of Minnesota’s offense. O’Connell can use more deception in his play calling the closer he is to the first-down marker. The offensive line finds itself in more advantageous circumstances because defensive linemen have to play the run. And Darnold can operate almost as if the wind is at his back. It should not surprise then to know that backup running back Ty Chandler, who is averaging only 1.74 yards after contact, could not mimic Jones’ production Sunday after he exited after the first quarter with a hip injury.

In the postgame news conference, O’Connell said he had no update on Jones’ status, other than that the Vikings hoped pulling him from the game prevented a “major injury.” If Jones misses any extended time, Minnesota’s brass must think long and hard about supplementing the running back room.

Worth considering next is the pass-protection unit, which, through the first four weeks, had played admirably. Some leaks emerged against the San Francisco 49ers, Houston Texans and Green Bay Packers, but that’s going to happen when you’re facing players like Nick Bosa, Will Anderson, Danielle Hunter, Rashan Gary and Kenny Clark. For the most part, the offensive line gave Darnold enough time to do his job in the first four weeks — with one exception: Ingram.

Sixty-six NFL guards have played 150 snaps this season, and only one of them has been dinged for more pressures than Ingram, a third-year veteran out of LSU. Here’s one of those from Sunday:

Here is another:

One potential fix may be Dalton Risner, who injured his back during training camp and was placed on injured reserve. Risner flew to London with the team but did not participate in Friday’s practice. The bye week could give him time to mix in at right guard.

Of course, the quicker receivers can separate, the less time the offensive line has to hold up. Rarely has this been a problem with Jefferson, Addison and Jalen Nailor in the fold, especially under O’Connell and his offensive staff. Before Sunday, the Vikings were averaging nearly a half-yard more of separation than the average NFL team, according to Next Gen Stats. The Jets, who have an elite secondary with Reed, Sauce Gardner, Isaiah Oliver and others, limited Minnesota to its lowest average separation of the season.

Multiple times, O’Connell called deep patterns against one-on-one coverage, situations in which the Vikings typically win. Here is one from Sunday, an Addison fade route against Reed:

Tight end T.J. Hockenson, who is likely to return from his ACL tear in the next couple of weeks, should strengthen the Vikings’ weaponry. The onus will then return to Darnold, who was not as sharp Sunday as he has been.

On a second down in the second quarter, Darnold motioned Addison and watched Oliver travel with the receiver across the field. Typically, when a corner follows a receiver from one side to the other before the snap, the defense is showing man coverage. In this situation, however, the cornerback blitzed. Neither Darnold nor the offensive line spotted it, and the quarterback was blindsided for a sack.

Early in the third quarter, Darnold eyed the left side of the field on a third-and-8 chance. Rather than spotting Mundt on the second level, he hurled a pass toward Jefferson into double coverage. Here is what that looked like:

There were other atypical Darnold decisions by his 2024 standards. On a third-and-8 in the fourth quarter, Darnold hooked a pass in Addison’s direction on a speed out near the left sideline. A few minutes later, Darnold faced pressure on the interior and, while Addison was running free toward the middle of the field, could not transfer his weight correctly to generate the right amount of force to complete the throw.

“There were definitely opportunities out there that I missed,” Darnold said. “Myself, personally, I’ve just got to continue to take it one play at a time. If I can do that, we’ll be good.”

There was that we again, the word that might define Darnold’s entire career. When it was going poorly with the Jets, he became the focus. And as it has gone well in Minnesota, the same has been the case. Evident in both settings is the importance of the infrastructure around him — around quarterbacks in general. That infrastructure must be built, but then it must be maintained weekly. Never has that been more apparent than Sunday.

(Photo: Kirby Lee / Imagn Images)