EAGAN, Minn. -- Sam Darnold put forth a career performance for the Minnesota Vikings this season, ranking among the NFL's top 10 quarterbacks in passing yardage, touchdown throws, passer rating and winning percentage. Yet it's not impossible to imagine that his future trajectory could be determined by what happens Monday night and beyond.
Teams weighing the possibility of signing him in 2025, including the Vikings, will want to answer an important question: Can Darnold lead his team on a postseason run, starting with Monday night's wild-card game against the Los Angeles Rams (8:00 p.m. ET, ESPN/ABC)? Or will his undeniable development fall short at the most important part of the season?
"This is the time," Darnold said Thursday, "when people -- whether guys are in the league for a long time, whether they've been with the same team for a long time, whether they're bouncing around the league -- it's kind of where legacies I guess are made. In the playoffs. Not just winning games, but winning those later games, like AFC or NFC championships, Super Bowl. That's how you're going to be remembered at the end of the day."
Darnold's initial data point was not encouraging, if you consider the Vikings' Week 18 matchup against the Detroit Lions as a quasi-playoff atmosphere, with the NFC North title and the conference's No. 1 seed on the line. His shaky outing was the biggest, but not the only, factor in the Vikings' 31-9 defeat. Darnold missed a series of key passes, including at least three potential touchdown throws, and finished with the second-highest off-target rate (34.5%) in a game for his career. His 43.9 completion percentage was his lowest of the season, and only the second time he finished below 60%.
Narratives have a funny way of working their way into team decision-making, and so Darnold stands at a crossroads. A bounce-back performance against the Rams could portray his Week 18 fiasco as an aberration. Should his play again fall below his season threshold, however, he might have demonstrated the limits of his development.
Vikings coach Kevin O'Connell guided Darnold through the regular season with unyielding conviction, but he is at least considering whether to give himself a backstop in the playoffs. O'Connell said Thursday he hadn't decided whether Nick Mullens will remain Darnold's backup, or if he will elevate newcomer Daniel Jones into that role. Jones started 10 games earlier this season for the New York Giants before being released and signed by the Vikings six weeks ago.
O'Connell's first choice, of course, would be for Darnold to straighten himself out by Monday night.
"The kind of year [Darnold] has had, and the way he's responded from any moments of adversity, [make me] really excited to get to work with him this week," O'Connell said. "My confidence level that we can get him right back on track is as high as it could be, and I know our coaches feel the same way, and I know most importantly his teammates feel the same way."
While it has largely been lost to short attention spans, Darnold actually hit a similar rough spot in a much lower-profile Week 10 game against the Jacksonville Jaguars. On that afternoon, Darnold threw three interceptions, all on low-percentage throws he forced toward receiver Justin Jefferson. O'Connell did not consider benching his quarterback, but he did respond by gearing down the offense, focusing on the running game and shorter passes to tight ends, and leaned on four field goals to eke out a 12-7 victory.
At that point in the season, Darnold led the NFL with 13 turnovers. On the day after the game, O'Connell walked into the quarterback meeting room to find Darnold already in the process of self-diagnosing his mistakes.
"Looking back on that game," Darnold said, "I wasn't too disappointed in the decisions that I made. It was where I located the ball or how I threw the ball I was more disappointed with. I think the biggest thing for me is just continuing to make good decisions and being able to, when I do let the ball rip, let it rip with confidence."
In his next seven games, Darnold rebounded to throw for 2,012 yards, 18 touchdowns and two interceptions, compiling the NFL's seventh-best QBR (73.4) in the process. But his struggles returned and expanded against the Lions.
He lapsed when making confident throws that ultimately misfired, most notably on a first-quarter seam throw to tight end T.J. Hockenson that sailed over his outstretched arms and a third-down pass that overshot Jefferson in the end zone in the second quarter. But he also appeared paralyzed at times in his decision-making -- in part because of a Lions pass rush that pressured him on 42.2% of his dropbacks -- and failed twice to throw toward receiver Jordan Addison when he was open in the end zone.
Afterward, Lions coach Dan Campbell said he thought Darnold would be "deadly" if he had time to survey the field "because we did think he would pick us apart." The Lions' pressure sped up Darnold's footwork and decision-making, and led him to the same place this week that he was after the Jaguars game.
In that moment, Darnold rebounded to throw for 246 yards and account for three touchdowns in a 23-13 victory over the Tennessee Titans. The Rams represent a more formidable opponent, but Vikings coaches have not dropped their optimism that Darnold will produce the type of game that will resume the narrative of his season.
"I have full confidence that Sam is going to make a couple of those throws that maybe were a little bit off in that [Lions] game," offensive coordinator Wes Phillips said. "He's made them all year. He's bounced back when he's had maybe a rough game. There haven't been a whole lot of them. But when he has, he's bounced back and I fully expect that this week.
"It's a team thing. It's not all on Sam. There's a lot of talk about Sam. Sam is going to be just fine."