Darnold just continues to play high-level football for the Vikings this season.
Only three times in the 64-year history of the Minnesota Vikings has a quarterback had ten games with at least a 100 passer rating in a single season. Daunte Culpepper did it in 2000. Brett Favre did it in 2009. With another clutch performance in Sunday’s comeback win over the Cardinals, Sam Darnold has equaled those two with his tenth such performance this season — and he has five games left to break the record and stand alone in franchise history.
Randall Cunningham had nine games above a 100 rating in 1998. So did Culpepper in ’04. Kirk Cousins had nine in each of the 2019-21 seasons. That should help put into context how impressive and consistent Darnold’s 2024 has been.
He got off to a slow start against the Cardinals. Midway through the third quarter, Darnold had thrown for just 79 yards and taken four sacks. But with the Vikings trailing 19-6, their offense finally emerged from its slumber. They scored on each of their final three possessions, rallying to pull out a 23-22 win that moves them to 10-2 on the season. During those three drives, Darnold was 12 of 17 for 156 yards with touchdown passes to Johnny Mundt and Aaron Jones.
Darnold finished the game 21 of 31 for 235 yards, 2 TDs, and no picks. That’s good for a 111.6 rating. He’s been above 100 in every game this season except for wins over the Jets and Jaguars. He’s also thrown multiple touchdown passes in nine of 12 games.
Looking beyond just Vikings history, Darnold is only the seventh player to ever have a 100+ passer rating at least ten times in the first 12 games of the season (Update: Lamar Jackson just became the eighth a few hours after Darnold did it). Aaron Rodgers has done it twice. The other five are Patrick Mahomes, Philip Rivers, Dak Prescott, Carson Palmer, and Peyton Manning. Rodgers holds the all-time record with 14 such games in 2020, which Darnold could still break if he does it in each of the final five games of this season.
It’s really been remarkable to see this kind of clutch play and consistency from Darnold. Most importantly, he hasn’t thrown an interception in any of the last three games.
“The ability for him to be detailed and so focused in those moments and then flat-out throw the football at a really high level, there’s very few plays you go back and say, ‘aw, shoot he just missed that,'” Kevin O’Connell said. “Fundamentally, coming off a stretch where maybe we had some turnover issues, he’s really played really good football now pretty consistently. Been a huge driving force behind us winning games. My confidence level in him is sky high to play the game however we need to play it … Sam has been absolutely huge for us in the moments where everybody needs him.”