The one -time season of the Quarterback, Sam Darnold, as the starting batsman of Minnesota was magical until it wasn’t.

At 14-2 and with one match in Detroit with the no. 1 seed on the line, Darnold’s chariot became pumpkin. Then, in the game card, the orange threat spread to the rest of the team.

“Because of a lack of a better term, We have laid an egg as an offense“Darnold recently told Mike Silver of theathletic.com.” And I think it sucks for me personally. I felt that we were a very good team, but at the end of the day – and it sounds a little pessimistic – but if you come to the end of it and you don’t win the whole thing, you failed. “

He is right. There is only one trophy. And the better a team performs in the ordinary season, the more prominent the failure looks like it happens.

“I feel like I could have played better to be completely honest with you,” Darnold said. “I feel like I haven’t played for my standard. I really feel that way. I feel like I would just have played better, I would be able to give the team a chance. ‘

Darnold’s play was more striking in week 18, when the Vikings repeatedly had chances and Darnold repeatedly deceived. When the playoffs started, the Vikings were simply too much and overwhelmed.

What happened in the two losses that made a start of 14-2 in a 0-2 finish?

“I feel like La did very similar things in third place than Detroit did to us,” Darnold said. “They played a man and tried to play” robber “things, and that just gave us some problems. It gave me problems in person. ‘

While Darnold tries to learn from that experience, it sounds like he is more committed to running with the ball in 2025 than/when his options are stitched in the passing game.

“(Kevin O’Connell) and the guys in Minnesota have done such a good job – and we are doing a good job here too – to give my answers if they take away options,” Darnold told Silver. “Just go through your progressions and work your feet and if it’s not there, take it up and run – because there is no one responsible for the quarterback unless they play a spy or whatever.”

Whatever happened in 2025, the profits made by Darnold in the first 16 games of the 2024 season were undermined by the regressions of the last two. And even if he gets a good start again this year, the right question will be whether he arrives when the lights are the brightest and the game is the highest.