Vikings head coach Kevin O’Connell is a maestro, and Sam Darnold is his ideal backup instrument

It's not uncommon for Minnesota Vikings head coach and offensive play designer Kevin O'Connell to build an emergency quarterback system on the fly out of spit and packaging materials. In 2023, O'Connell used Kirk Cousins ​​for the first half of the season and everything was going well. But Cousins ​​ruptured his Achilles tendon in Week 8 against the Green Bay Packers, ending his season.

O'Connell then had to put together a team with Joshua Dobbs, Nick Mullens and Jalen Hall. The Vikings had lost six of their final seven games and were confident in selecting Michigan quarterback J.J. McCarthy with the 10th overall pick in the 2024 draft (even trading up to do so), but they wanted a better answer as a backup quarterback in case something happened to McCarthy.

The decision to sign Sam Darnold to a one-year, $10 million contract during the offseason, making $8.75 million, became clear after McCarthy suffered a torn meniscus during the preseason.

Darnold isn't just playing for his future as the Vikings' starting quarterback, he's playing for his future in the NFL as a whole. The No. 3 overall pick in the 2018 draft out of USC was a misfit with the New York Jets, the team that drafted him, before drifting off into the world as Brock Purdy's backup with the Carolina Panthers in 2021 and 2022 and the San Francisco 49ers in 2023.

Last Sunday against the New York Giants, Darnold played one of the best games of his NFL career as a pure passer. The numbers were decent — completing 19 of 24 passes for 208 yards, two touchdowns, one interception, a 113.2 passer rating and a 2.4 passing EPA+ — but the real story here was how seamlessly Darnold fit into O'Connell's concepts and earned the trust of his coaches and teammates.

There were three explosive plays from Darnold in particular that O'Connell wanted to talk about after the game.

“I think there were a few,” O'Connell said when asked which pass Darnold made the biggest impression on him. “The seam ball he threw under center to Josh Oliver, he was taking a chance and [he] On that play, you could make a simple pass that was explosive, and he executed it perfectly.”

That pass was thrown with 5 minutes, 26 seconds left in the first quarter. The Vikings were down to their 21, in the full backfield with first down and 10 from the Giants' 27-yard line. Justin Jefferson was in the left slot, clearly the focal point of Bug Blue's Cover-2 defense.

At the snap, the Vikings overturned the New York defense on a downfield route with a four-man vertical pass from Jordan Addison to Jefferson to Oliver to fullback C.J. Ham. The Miami Dolphins and San Francisco 49ers love to test defenses with multiple vertical passes out of their heavy looks, and O'Connell's version was pretty awesome, too. Darnold took advantage of Jefferson's deep concentration opposite Oliver and a gap in intermediate coverage when rookie linebacker Darius Mouasau stayed underneath to cover halfback Aaron Jones' release route.

ESPN's Dan Orlovsky gave a great breakdown of the play:

With 13:39 left in the first half, the Vikings were pinned at their own 1-yard line after safety Dane Belton downed a 39-yard punt by Jamie Gillan. If O'Connell hadn't been so confident in his quarterback, the idea would have been to throw a safe pass short of the sticks and shove the ball down the Giants' throats. But with 11:41 left in the first half and second down and 12 from the Vikings' own 10-yard line, O'Connell had Jefferson run a deep backside corner route that Darnold completed.

“I think it's been a while since we've had a 99-yard drive, but that pass to Justin was awesome,” O'Connell said. “You rely on your quarterback in that moment to get your best player going, and you have his trust and you get a lot of time to work with two guys open. It was a really big play in that moment and it set the stage for us to go down the field and get seven points as we pushed the team back 99 yards. So I think there were instances of that throughout the game.”

O'Connell later elaborated on why that pitch was so special.

“It's a feel thing. Justin has a unique understanding, he can move at full speed, change direction, and have full body control, often on the quarterback. And it can confuse the quarterback. 'Hey, where is he going? What angle is he coming out of?' We were right in our own end zone at the time. We got great defense and we threw a perfect strike. I saw the look on Justin's face after we finished the drive, and I think he was pretty happy with who was throwing the ball.”

No surprise there. Jefferson said after the game that the play didn't go over well in practice this week, but everything worked out in the moment.

“We've been working on that. We literally just practiced that play a few days ago, and we just weren't aligned on that play. So we just tried to communicate with each other and make sure we were in the right spot and he was throwing it in the right spot. On that play, everything we talked about happened exactly and we made a beautiful throw. It was a great start to our drive, and we got the energy going for a 99-yard drive.”

This play also came out of a no-huddle, so there wasn't any extra time to think. If you want to know how much faith O'Connell had in his quarterback, look no further than the fourth-down pass to Jefferson for the touchdown. The Vikings were leading 7-3 at this point, and with Daniel Jones at quarterback, the Giants weren't going to tie it with anyone. O'Connell clearly wanted his quarterback to feel the euphoria of scoring a sharp point at the end of the drive. This time, O'Connell kept the other receivers away from Jefferson, the backside isolation receiver, and it was pitch-and-catch for cornerback Deonte Banks to try and keep the pace going.

O'Connell also cited Darnold's 21-yard touchdown pass to receiver Jalen Naylor as a prime example of his ability to bring the core of Darnold's ever-expanding and ever-adjusting playbook to the field. The Giants tried to limit the damage by corralling Jefferson and Addison early in the game, and this was O'Connell's response.

O'Connell complicated the bracket's thinking by throwing in a frontside Rebels concept against the Giants' Cover 1, which not only left Naylor wide open, but also left a backside tight end wide open in the person of Johnny Mandt.

“Sometimes you worry that if you send in all these different movements and sounds and quiet rhythms, it's going to fall apart,” O'Connell said, “but that's exactly what Sam's performance is, and it's really something we can build on.”

His first regular-season game with a new team, all sorts of concepts being forced upon him by one of the NFL's best offensive minds, and the former draft bust felt like he'd been with this offense his entire career.

O'Connell had some great things to say not only about Darnold but about the unpredictability of a quarterback's progression in general.

“Some of the people that I talk to a lot know that I've talked a lot about the quarterback's journey. Quarterbacks in our league don't have control over a lot of that journey and are expected to perform right away in some cases. I've always really liked the way Sam carries himself. He's a talented player and can throw big-time passes. Every pass that we ask him to throw, he's more than capable of doing. And he's a great example of what the last month and a half has really been like and preparing in the way that he's going to show up on Sunday.”

“Sam will come in here and say he can do better, but he started 12 of 12 games. [Darnold completed his first 12 passes] And that presence to help get through that early adversity came directly from the quarterback position. And maybe that's why his teammates saw him as a captain and almost unanimously elected him captain. I can't say enough about what he's accomplished and how excited I am to build on his performance today and even further moving forward.”

As for Darnold, he's just getting started in a new environment.

“I think for me, it was just about coming out here and like I always say, just playing my game,” he said after the win. “One play at a time, but again, just play with confidence. I think that's the biggest thing, because we have a great offensive line. We have a great system. If I play on time and do everything I need to do to execute, we'll be fine.”

So far so good. The Vikings' next opponent is the 49ers, Darnold's team from last season, so we'll see what weapons he has at his disposal to break down that stout defense. More broadly, we may be witnessing one of those quarterback rehab stories where the player's athleticism and the person calling the game are a perfect match.