Devastating Sam Darnold stat doomed the Vikings and hurt his free agency value

The 2024 NFL season could not have ended more abruptly than it did for the Minnesota Vikings. They entered their final regular season game against the Detroit Lions, playing as well as any team in the NFL. They had won nine in a row to improve to 14-2 on the year, and were one win away from clinching the NFC North and the NFC's No. 1 seed.

Unfortunately, the Vikings were completely outclassed in their Week 18 matchup against the Lions, bumping them to the No. 5 seed in the NFC. Instead of earning a first-round bye and having home-field advantage throughout the NFC playoffs, the Vikings had to begin their playoff journey in the Wild Card Round on the road against a battle-tested Los Angeles Rams team. That game went about as well as their final regular season game did.

The Vikings lost 27-9 in a game that was virtually out of reach at halftime. A lot went wrong for the Vikings on Monday, obviously, but Sam Darnold notably had his second consecutive dud. Not only did he turn the ball over twice, but he matched an NFL playoff record by taking nine sacks in this game. The Vikings lost 82 yards on those sacks.

Obviously, it's incredibly hard to win any NFL game by taking nine sacks. While some of the blame for Darnold taking all of those sacks has to fall on Minnesota's offensive line, one jarring stat would suggest Darnold was more at fault. That alone not only cost the Vikings in a huge way with their season on the line, but could hurt his free agency stock immensely.

Sam Darnold doomed the Vikings by not being able to handle any pressure, and that could hurt his FA stock

On one hand, the Vikings allowed 24 pressures compared to Los Angeles' six. Normally, the first thing you'd think of when looking at a statistic like that is the offensive line. When figuring out that only 11 of those 24 pressures came within 2.5 seconds of the snap, that's when the finger must get pointed at Darnold.

This means that 13 of the 24 times Darnold ended up being pressured in the pocket, he had more than 2.5 seconds to go. In other words, the Vikings offensive line gave him a substantial amount of time to throw more often than not, but Darnold just couldn't let the ball go.

The Rams' defense deserves credit for getting to Darnold and for cutting off his early reads, but Darnold simply has to find a way to execute better than he did. He had Justin Jefferson, Jordan Addison, T.J. Hockenson, and Jalen Nailor to target down the field. He had Aaron Jones to dump the ball off to if he didn't see anything quickly enough. Despite the plethora of skilled weapons he had at his disposal, Darnold froze on numerous occasions.

Darnold's regular season was one to remember. He completed 66.2 percent of his passes for 4,319 yards and 35 touchdowns. He played well enough to earn a spot on the NFC's Pro Bowl roster. Perhaps more impressively, he only lost to two teams all year.

The problem, though, is that those two teams he lost to, the Lions and Rams, pressured him more than any other team. He consistently proved he could not handle the pressure, and the Vikings lost all four times they played against those two teams.

Assuming Darnold is looking for a massive contract as a free agent, the team that signs him is going to want him to lead them to the Super Bowl. Well, if Darnold can't handle pressure at all, how is he going to do that? The Vikings offensive line was far from perfect. Kevin O'Connell even talked about that after the game. However, Darnold was given time more often than not, and still held onto the ball long enough to get pressured. That's a major red flag, especially when considering the stakes of the last two weeks, and could be enough to cause teams to look elsewhere at the quarterback position.