New Vikings QB Sam Darnold is hoping this is his redemption story

Sam Darnold got a green-and-gold nudge to join the Vikings this offseason.

Not that Darnold, the 27-year-old quarterback, needed help picking a place to resurrect his NFL career. He wanted his next offense to offer smart game plans, a cohesive coaching staff and ample talent — all infrequently found in his previous stops.

Many people in Darnold's inner circle wanted him to pick the Vikings. But none were as vocal as a Green Bay Packers fan from his native Southern California who happens to be one of Darnold's best friends.

"Because he knows the [Vikings] organization well, watching twice a year and having to battle those years for playoff contention and whatnot for the division," Darnold told the Minnesota Star Tribune. "He's the one who's continually texting me like, 'Man, I'm wishing you the best of luck, not two games of the season, but I'm wishing you the best of luck.' "

"He was excited to maybe go to a couple of free Packers games," Darnold quipped.

The Vikings front office, too, thought their team was a perfect setup for Darnold. General Manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah bet $10 million over a one-year deal that Darnold, whose record comes with many losses (a 21-35 record as a starter) and turnovers (56 interceptions to 63 touchdowns), can turn around his career like Baker Mayfield and Geno Smith before him given the right culture, coaching and surrounding talent.

Adofo-Mensah and head coach Kevin O'Connell are not alone in thinking Darnold has more to offer in the right setting.

"So often in the league we correlate, offense is good, the quarterback is good," said ESPN analyst Dan Orlovsky, an NFL quarterback from 2005-17. "But it's the most dependent position in all of pro sports. It's really hard to play that position well unless you have three things going for you."

Orlovsky listed a sound play caller in O'Connell, a veteran offensive line led by left tackle Christian Darrisaw, and one of the NFL's best receivers in Justin Jefferson.

"He's never had any of those three things," Orlovsky said of Darnold. "It's a completely different world for him to experience."

'Some tough years'

Darnold was just 20 years old when he was drafted No. 3 overall by the New York Jets in 2018. He was nearly six months younger than injured Vikings rookie J.J. McCarthy, who was the youngest of this year's six first-round quarterbacks. But Darnold was a consensus top prospect after two seasons at USC. He burst onto the scene for then-head coach Clay Helton, throwing 31 touchdowns to nine interceptions in a redshirt freshman season capped by beating Saquon Barkley's Penn State in the Rose Bowl.

The Vikings were drawn to the 6-3 frame; an arm with velocity, touch and anticipation; and athleticism — as well as the intangibles.

"When we first saw him, we said that kid has the 'it factor,' " Helton recalled. "He's always been a natural leader, unbelievable teammate. I most appreciated his ability to take coaching, wanting to be coached. … He wasn't hard-headed, was able to be coached within the system and do some special things with it."

Less than 13 months after Darnold arrived in New York, none of the leaders who brought him there, including General Manager Mike Maccagnan and head coach Todd Bowles, were still employed.

Vikings quarterbacks coach Josh McCown was Darnold's Jets teammate that season. He saw how Darnold handled a 4-12 season as a rookie.

"His resolve speaks to who he is as a person," McCown said. "I think that's part of what attracted the [Vikings] organization to want to bring him in. It's what you're looking for. I was there, I understand the things he was up against his rookie year."

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The Jets churned through coaches and players. The defense ranked 29th, 32nd and 32nd in yardage allowed during Darnold's three seasons there. He was also too reckless, throwing 39 interceptions and losing seven fumbles.

Vikings linebacker Blake Cashman and Darnold spent the 2019 and 2020 seasons together in New York. Cashman recalled Darnold's toughness through an array of 2019 maladies — mononucleosis, a sprained thumb, bruised ribs and a knee injury — to lead them to a 7-6 record in 13 starts.

"We had some tough years in New York," Cashman said. "You want to talk about wins and losses, but there were games we're having issues with our depth chart because guys are injured, and Sam was getting hit a lot. He had a rib injury and people are trying to say, 'You're the quarterback, you can't be out there.'

"He's like, 'No, I'm finishing this game.' "

Gaining NFL maturity

Jefferson, the NFL's highest-paid receiver, praised Darnold's deep throws and how easy they are to catch during training camp.

Former Carolina receiver Brandon Zylstra, a Spicer, Minn., native, nodded along while watching that clip of Jefferson on social media.

"I was like, 'Yeah, that's the Sam I know,' " said Zylstra, who caught eight passes for 139 yards and a touchdown from Darnold on the 2021 Panthers. "That's why I'm so excited to see him in action now. I just think his ball placement, his touch and his IQ level of where to put the ball is pretty elite."

Darnold was dealt another tough lesson when the Jets traded him to the Panthers in April 2021.

Carolina coach Matt Rhule was fired after 11 losses over a 12-game stretch from the end of the 2021 season to the start of 2022. Darnold started only two of those games, both losses, due to a shoulder injury and being benched for Mayfield. Temperatures steadily rose on everybody during Darnold's two years in Carolina.

"We were losing games and we had been losing games," Zylstra said. "There's a lot of pressure on us, pressure on the staff, pressure on the players. It kind of created an unnecessary tension in the building. …We had a new coordinator in there every year, new coaches every year, the player turnover was pretty high. I think the mixture of all that probably didn't help the cause of us winning games."

When Darnold lost the 2022 training camp battle with Mayfield for the starting job, he was relegated to a new perspective of watching from the sideline — a perspective for which he became grateful.

"As a young player," Darnold said, "whether you want to think about it or not, your mind is going a million miles an hour."

More perspective arrived once he got back onto the field. He played six games at the end of the 2022 season. The Panthers went 4-2. Darnold didn't light up the scoreboard, averaging 190 passing yards. But he managed games. He got help from the defense. He won without being a hero.

"There's so much else that goes on during a football game that's totally out of your control," Darnold said. "I kind of realized that when I was backing up in Carolina my second year there, and then got a chance to play late in the year."

'What it takes to win games'

Darnold got to pick his NFL team for the first time in 2023 free agency and chose the San Francisco 49ers.

Quarterback Brock Purdy's elbow recovered fine after surgery, so Darnold took a back seat as the No. 2 QB in a championship organization. He learned winning practice and study habits. He got his feet wet in the popular Mike Shanahan and Gary Kubiak-style of West Coast offenses, which have disciples in 49ers coach Kyle Shanahan, Mike's son, and O'Connell.

Darnold watched how Purdy managed a 12-5 team that reached the Super Bowl.

"Got to understand what it takes to win games in the NFL," Darnold said. "It was crucial for me."

Before San Francisco's NFC Championship Game win over the Detroit Lions, former 49ers legend Steve Young addressed the entire team. Darnold sat in the crowd listening to an old gunslinger who knew something about a slow-starting career.

"Just to hear about his experience, and the ups and downs he went through in his career with Tampa Bay," Darnold said. "Not a lot of people really know about that. To see what he went through and to bounce back in San Francisco, again there's a ton of examples. But every story is different."

Playing 'point guard'

Starting when the team reported for work in April, Vikings coaches poured their energy into preparing Darnold to replace Kirk Cousins as starter. That preparation gained more weight when McCarthy, the 10th overall pick, suffered a season-ending torn meniscus in his right knee during his first preseason game in August.

An emphasis with Darnold has been to play with a "quieted mind," as O'Connell says, where the overload of playbook information and step counts — three, five or seven steps and then your eyes need to be here, then there — become second nature. In this Vikings offense, quarterbacks are burdened with long play calls and often juggle multiple calls at the line of scrimmage, read the defense and get the offense into the right play while the 40-second play clock ticks.

"I thought he had really good command of it," said McCown, the Vikings QBs coach. "It's hard. You jump from system to system in the NFL and try to kind of offload the old information, download the new information, and not get those wires crossed is tricky."

"If you can narrow your focus, that's where your talent can come to life," he added. "Sam was the No. 3 pick for a reason. There's a lot of natural talent there that we're seeing him tap into."

O'Connell doesn't want Darnold feeling like he has to do too much, which Darnold said he understands after seeing Purdy dish the ball to 49ers playmakers.

"Just understanding better the role of a quarterback," Darnold said, "and that's like what Coach O'Connell says to me: just to kind of play point guard, give it to our guys in space and let them go do work."

O'Connell doesn't want any early hiccups to define his new quarterback, as they have in Darnold's career to this point.

"We all sometimes have our greatest growth in moments of failure," O'Connell said. "The level of that failure at [quarterback] tends to be magnified because it's for all to see. Wins or losses tend to get put on that player regardless of circumstance around them or the voice in the headset or all the things that goes into it. … I'm confident in the combination of all those things for us here in Minnesota."