NFL groups which can be in search of potential franchise quarterbacks are in for an fascinating journey in 2025.
The upcoming draft class is seen to be meh at greatest, and although I feel that narrative is overcooked, there isn’t a lead-pipe lock as there was in 2024 with Jayden Daniels or Bo Nix or Caleb Williams. And in free company, you’ve acquired Aaron Rodgers with all his ancillary drama, and a complete lot of “Oh properly, no matter, by no means thoughts” behind him. Perhaps you assume you possibly can experience with a Russell Wilson or a Justin Fields. Perhaps you assume you may be the one to corral Jameis Winston’s rogue tendencies sufficient to place the hay within the barn. Perhaps you imagine you possibly can “repair” Zach Wilson or Trey Lance. Or maybe you’re in Daniel Jones’ nook, although I don’t know why you’d be.
Regardless, the buying record there may be going to be satisfactory, at greatest.
The odd man out on this whole course of seems to be Sam Darnold. And in Darnold’s case, evidently he’s getting battered by recency bias to an excessive diploma. Within the 2024 common season for head coach/offensive shot-caller Kevin O’Connell and the Minnesota Vikings, Darnold accomplished 361 of 545 passes (66.2%) for 4,319 yards (7.9 yards per try), 35 touchdowns, 12 interceptions, and a passer score of 102.5. Darnold was excellent below strain (13 touchdowns and 5 interceptions), he was deadly when blitzed (12 touchdowns and no interceptions), and he was a prolific and environment friendly deep passer.
The third general choose of the New York Jets in 2018, who has cycled by means of a number of groups since then and had by no means put a definitive season collectively earlier than, did simply that below O’Connell’s management as a backup for injured 2024 first-round choose J.J. McCarthy.
Now that McCarthy is able to go after the torn proper meniscus that price him his rookie season, Darnold might or will not be within the Vikings’ future plans. And had been it not for a really tough finish to the season, issues might be completely different there. In opposition to the Detroit Lions in a 31-9 regular-season finale loss, and vs. the Los Angeles Rams in a 27-9 Wild Card loss, Darnold turned again into the pumpkin all people was ready for. In these two video games, he accomplished 43 of 81 passes for 411 yards, one landing, one interception, and a passer score of 66.4. Darnold regressed in each approach potential. The deep accuracy was now not there, he was a nightmare when throwing within the pink zone, and that man who had been so good below strain all of the sudden fell proper out the window.
“Darnold has actually performed higher and higher each week,” Lions head coach Dan Campbell stated after Detroit’s regular-season beatdown of Darnold. “It appears like he’s simply continued to make this gradual climb, and continued to enhance, and what you actually see is, man, when he will get the play-action move they usually nudge the sides, or they’ll max defend on some of these things, two-receiver routes, three-receiver routes, and he can see it and has time, he’s lethal, and we couldn’t enable that to occur.
“We didn’t really feel like there was any approach we may let him sit again there as a result of we did assume he would choose us aside, ? If you happen to give him that a lot time, as a result of he was taking part in at such a excessive degree with the weapons that they had, and so, we knew it wanted to be the proper steadiness of protection and strain, and we tried to convey greater than they might deal with for many of it, after which we needed to maintain on within the again finish and people guys did, man. They actually, they coated their tails off for many of that sport.
“After which, we had been capable of play sufficient to the place we may double (Vikings WR Justin Jefferson) 18, handle him, and we singled some guys out — like (Lions LB) Alex (Anzalone) was one-on-one with (Vikings TE TJ) Hock (Hockenson) on various issues. And so it simply labored.”
That technique doesn’t sound too dissimilar from what Vic Fangio’s Philadelphia Eagles protection did to Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas Metropolis Chiefs in Tremendous Bowl LIX. However as Mahomes has all of the skins on the wall, that sport was not a referendum on the quarterback. Darnold, nonetheless seen as a regular-season fluke by many within the know, had no such cachet. However that little catastrophe was extra about what Lions defensive coordinator Aaron Glenn put within the playbook than anything — simply as what Fangio did to Mahomes was unattainable to counter.
Typically, the bear eats you.
So right here we’re with Darnold on the open market except the Vikings re-sign him, and a less-than-definitive reply to the query, “Who the hell is Sam Darnold, anyway?”
By way of a lot of the 2024 season, and with O’Connell as his good information to a brand new degree of quarterbacking, Darnold had stints by which he was about pretty much as good as any quarterback plying his commerce within the NFL. Sure, it helps to have a schematic and motivational genius like O’Connell in your nook, and sure, it’s good you probably have the NFL’s greatest receiver in Justin Jefferson. However Darnold proved to be far more than a dreaded “system quarterback” – not each good throw he made below strain or towards complicated protection would have been thee for some other quarterback under the baseline.
After re-studying Sam Darnold’s 2024 season, I really feel that recency bias has severely tweaked public notion of how good he was a lot of the approach. Now, the query is, how can he construct on stuff like this? pic.twitter.com/YuEsodhGbX
— Doug Farrar ✍ (@NFL_DougFarrar) March 7, 2025
“I’d be gradual to say that the NFL world is giving up on quarterbacks,” O’Connell stated on the scouting mix final week, when requested why individuals are so desperate to insist that sure quarterbacks won’t ever determine it out. “I feel it’s grow to be very talked-about for individuals to resolve within the second that individuals can or can’t play. They had been proper once they determined that about me as a participant, however I feel it’s all the time essential to judge every state of affairs as its personal.
“I view it extra about us in regard to, what course of do you have got for the place? What do you ask the place to do in your offense? After which, how are you going to coach it mentally, bodily, method and fundamentals to play the type that you just imagine will greatest swimsuit them and permit them to maintain? And I feel it’s exhausting to maintain. The best quarterbacks in our league, what separates them is their capability to do it week in and week out, no matter circumstance, and it’s simpler stated than carried out, however we really feel very strongly about our quarterback course of that we undergo.”
As he ought to, and Sam Darnold’s 2024 season was proof optimistic that O’Connell’s quarterback ideology is as foolproof as any may be for such a risky place. Are we actually assuming that Darnold won’t ever be something however a one-year surprise, or is it potential that what he did and what he realized about himself final season might be the springboard to the longer second act no one anticipated?
Perhaps different groups shouldn’t surrender so simply if and when Sam Darnold is accessible as the brand new league yr turns over subsequent week.
