It's become clear that most people who have published a ranking of NFL quarterbacks this offseason didn't bother to watch any Minnesota Vikings games last season, aside from the two at the very end when Sam Darnold struggled. That's the only way we can explain the continued insults and abhorrent rankings that Darnold has been subjected to since signing with the Seattle Seahawks.
While he played at a top-10 level (top-five at times) for most of the 2024 season, all anybody is focusing on are the two starts against the Detroit Lions and the Los Angels Rams, ignoring all the great throws and remarkable improvement that Darnold put on film in his other 16 starts.
And so Darnold has consistently been getting under-ranked on these offseason QB lists, usually falling somewhere between No. 21 and No. 15. Today we found a ranking that takes this dynamic to an extreme. Nazim Ishaq at EssentiallySports has Darnold ranked all the way down at No. 26 in the NFL, just one spot higher than former Seahawks star Russell Wilson, who's in the twilight phase of his career.
"Which Sam shows up in 2025? The guy who struggled for five years, or the one who posted an 85.8 grade with Minnesota? His late-season collapse was concerning."
We'll say it again, because this is getting infuriating. The late-season "collapse" came against two of the toughest teams in the NFC, one of which would have won the Super Bowl if they hadn't been decimated by injuries. Meanwhile, the Rams won five games in a row to close out the season (it probably would have been six if they had bothered to play their starters against Seattle in Week 18) and were playing at a really high level going into the playoffs.
In any case, you can't judge a quarterback's season by two games - let alone project how he's going to perform in the future based on that small of a sample size - especially when one of them is his first career playoff start.
Darnold may or may not be able to reach the same heights he did last year with the Vikings, but he is far, far, far better than most analysts are giving him credit for right now.
