Field Gulls
A deep dive into Sam Darnold’s interceptions during his breakout year with the Vikings.
New Seattle Seahawks quarterback Sam Darnold threw 4,319 passes for 35 TDs and 12 interceptions in his one season with the Minnesota Vikings. His completion percentage was 66.2%. Interceptions aren’t always the quarterback’s fault alone. Let’s analyze Darnold’s picks and understand the real reasons.
Despite an excellent overall rating (100.8), interceptions had an impact—which caused fluctuations in his QBR.
The pattern shows that Darnold was most susceptible on medium-depth passes. A third of his INTs were concentrated between 11 and 30 yards, indicating difficulty reading defenses on the move and in zone reading.
In 2024, Darnold had 12 interceptions in 17 games—which ranks him 6th along with CJ Stroud and Patrick Mahomes and behind only Jordan Love, Jared Goff, Geno Smith, Baker Mayfield, and Kirk Cousins.
Darnold’s read was correct. The center is unable to contain Dexter Lawrence, who hits the QB’s arm and the pass falls short, being intercepted. Could Darnold have felt the pressure better? Yes. But the offensive line should have done its job.
The pressure came very quickly. It was fourth down, so a sack or an interception wouldn’t have made much of a difference here. Darnold takes a chance and is intercepted.
The clearest trend in Darnold’s interceptions was his insistence on consistently targeting his primary target—Justin Jefferson. On at least half of his interceptions, Darnold forced passes to Jefferson even when double or triple coverage was involved. This fixation limited his read progression, which made life easier for defenders.
A striking example of this is that in the game against the Jacksonville Jaguars, Darnold threw three interceptions—all targeting Jefferson, all in a zone with multiple defenders nearby.
This also happened to Jordan Addison. A serious mistake by Sam Darnold here. This could even have been a touchdown if he had thrown the ball to Aaron Jones in the flat. Darnold even looks at Jones but for some reason rejects the idea and goes to work on the other side of the field. Brian Branch runs the route for an interception.
Nick Cross and Jaylon Jones had Justin Jefferson double-teamed, but Sam Darnold locked onto JJ and forced the pass right into Cross’s hands. He threw the attempted forced pass right into Cross’s hands, and Cross intercepted the ball. The fixation on Jefferson caused Darnold to miss Jordan Addison open on another route.
Justin Jefferson simply misses this route, and the ball is deflected. It’s reasonable for Darnold to believe that Jefferson could have made the play here, but again, he fell into the same trap of fixating on just one target.
Another pattern that repeated itself throughout the season was Darnold’s ineffectiveness against zone schemes, especially those with two safeties deep (Cover 2, Cover 4, and Cover 6). Defenses that hid their intentions well pre-snap led Darnold to throw where there appeared to be a window—but...
