The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

America Loves an Underdog

Posted on | December 30, 2024 | No Comments

Four months ago, nobody expected that Sam Darnold would be hoisted upon his teammates’ shoulders as the Minnesota Vikings celebrated their 14th victory of the season, making them the winningest team in the NFC, with one week remaining in the NFL schedule. After losing long-time starting QB Kirk Cousins to the Falcons in free agency, Minnesota had traded up in the NFL draft to get Michigan QB J.J. McCarthy with the 10th overall pick. McCarthy had led the Wolverines to a national title and was expected to become the Vikings starter at some point during his rookie year. Minnesota had signed Darnold to a one-year deal and expected him to begin the season as the starter, just to give McCarthy time to get ready for the QB1 job. Those plans got scratched, however, after the first pre-season game on August 10. McCarthy played well enough, but in the next practice, he reported soreness in his knee and it was discovered that he’d torn his meniscus, requiring surgery that meant he would be sent to the injured reserve list, missing his entire rookie year.

At that point, every sports commentator had the same reaction: You’re going to compete for the playoffs with Sam Darnold at quarterback? In the same division with the Lions and the Packers? Fat chance.

Before the NFL season kicked off in September, the over/under number for total wins for the Vikings was 7.5 on FanDuel, meaning that among fans who were willing to bet money, most saw Minnesota as a below-average team, barely good enough to place third in the NFC North, where the Chicago Bears are perennially fourth. And most of this expectation of mediocrity was because of Sam Darnold who was, to NFL quarterbacks, what Kaboom was to breakfast cereals. To name Darnold as your starting QB was to admit you had given up any pretense of being a serious contender. Anybody who ever said “Super Bowl” and “Sam Darnold” in the same sentence would immediately disqualify himself from being paid as a professional sports commentator. If you squinted one eye and turned your head slightly sideways, you might be able to envision a scenario where a team with Sam Darnold at quarterback could get lucky enough to go 9-8 and back into the playoffs as the 7th-seed wild card, but to compete for the division title in the NFC North? To win fourteen games? No, that could never happen with Sam Freaking Darnold at QB.

Once upon a time, Darnold was a promising prospect. In two seasons at USC, he’d amassed more than 7,000 passing yards, and was the third overall pick in the 2018 NFL draft. Unfortunately, he got drafted by the New York Jets, a franchise that has destroyed the careers of innumerable first-round quarterbacks over the past couple of decades. After three disappointing seasons with the Jets (because all seasons are disappointing with the Jets), he was traded to the Carolina Panthers, right before the Jets drafted BYU quarterback Zack Wilson (whose NFL career was then predictably destroyed). The Panthers are a garbage franchise at least as bad as the Jets, however, and nothing that Darnold did during two seasons at Carolina improved his status as a QB. He was just another NFL “draft bust,” a first-round pick who never amounted to anything, and nobody was surprised when the Panthers let him go after the 2022 season. Darnold, who had been the third overall pick in the draft just a few years earlier, found himself on the roster of the San Franscisco 49ers as the backup QB behind Brock Purdy, who had famously been the very last pick (7th round, 262nd overall) in the 2022 draft. This is what recovering alcoholics call “rock bottom.”

Something about that year in San Francisco, however, seems to have made a difference for Sam Darnold. For the first time in his NFL career, he was with a quality franchise, where the owners, the fans, the coaches and players all expect winning seasons. Since being hired as 49ers head coach in 2017, Kyle Shanahan has taken San Francisco to three division titles, four NFC championship games and two Super Bowls, and has done all this without having the kind of superstar “franchise” quarterback that is usually considered prerequisite to championship-caliber football in the NFL. Every other team in the league knows they can pick a quarterback in the first round, and still get beat by Shanahan’s Niners, with some unheralded journeyman at QB. Going to the Super Bowl with Jimmy Garoppolo and Brock Purdy? Yeah, Kyle Shanahan can do the impossible.

That mentality somehow rubbed off on Sam Darnold during his year in San Francisco, I reckon, because this year with Minnesota, he’s not only had the best season of his career, but one of the best seasons of any NFL quarterback. With 4,153 yards passing, 35 TD passes and a 68.1% completion rate, Darnold ranks ahead of Patrick Mahomes (3,928 yards, 26 TDs, 67.5%). The Vikings have lost to only two teams — the Lions and the Rams, both in October — and head into next Sunday’s season finale in Detroit with at least a chance of securing the NFC’s top seed (and a first-round bye) in the playoffs. It would be very difficult to beat the Lions at home, but if Minnesota can pull it off, it would be the second-biggest comeback of the year. Did I say second-biggest comeback?

Yeah, because there was this guy — maybe you’ve heard of him — who got cheated out of an election, investigated, prosecuted and targeted by lawsuits, a guy who survived two assassination attempts and everything else to become the 47th President of the United States. In everything that Democrats tried to do to Donald Trump, they turned him into an underdog, apparently forgetting how much Americans love an underdog.

Sam Darnold is now the Donald Trump of quarterbacks.



 

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Category: Football

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