Analysis: Some quarterbacks just need a second chance, or third or fourth

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Analysis: Some quarterbacks just need a second chance, or third or fourth

2024-10-11 18:00 Last Updated At：18:10

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Sam Darnold is realizing his potential on his fourth stop. Baker Mayfield and Geno Smith did the same. Jared Goff found his way on his second team.

Some quarterbacks just need a second chance. Or third. Or fourth.

Darnold was supposed to be a stopgap player in Minnesota, signed to a one-year, $10 million deal to keep a seat warm for J.J. McCarthy. But the rookie first-round pick suffered a season-ending knee injury in August and Darnold has seized the opportunity.

The Vikings (5-0) are the NFC’s only undefeated team going into their bye week and Darnold is a major reason why they’ve had success. He has completed 63.5% of his passes for 1,111 yards, 11 touchdowns and four interceptions with a 103.4 passer rating.

“I knew all along if we could get some guys open, Sam Darnold’s going to hit them because he’s talented. He can play quarterback in the NFL, I’ve always believed that. I’m just proud of him,” Vikings coach Kevin O’Connell said on Pat McAfee’s show this week. "He’s kind of not really worried about anything other than just his role on our team. He’s one of our captains. He works as hard as anybody to be ready to go. I’m not surprised when he goes out and has success.”

Selected by the Jets with the No. 3 overall pick in 2018, Darnold lasted just three seasons in New York. He played for two coaches — Todd Bowles and Adam Gase — on teams that went 13-35. Darnold then spent two seasons in Carolina, playing for two coaches — Matt Rhule and Steve Wilks — and three offensive coordinators on teams that went 12-22.

He crossed over with Mayfield during a chaotic year in Carolina in 2022 and backed up Brock Purdy last season in San Francisco. Mayfield went from the Panthers to the Rams in 2022 and ended up in Tampa Bay last year.

Solid coaching and supporting cast matters.

Darnold has it in Minnesota with O’Connell, Justin Jefferson, Aaron Jones, among others.

“A lot of guys with ability and sometimes they get in a different circumstance or different system and they excel in it and then other times they don’t,” six-time Super Bowl champion coach Bill Belichick said on SiriusXM show “Let’s Go!” “I think we’ve all seen a lot of guys, the Tom Bradys of the world, how much he improved over the course of his career, it’s really phenomenal. It’s not where you were. It’s where you’re going and how hard are you willing to work at it.”

Darnold refused to blame the culture in New York and the organizational instability for his failure to succeed.

“I had a lot of opportunities in New York and I always felt like I could have played better there,” Darnold said last week in London before the Vikings beat Aaron Rodgers and the Jets 23-17.

Darnold wasn’t at his best against his former team. He completed just 45.2% of his passes and had a 50.3 passer rating, the first time he was under 100 this season.

But Darnold displayed poise and resilience. He bounced back from a pick and threw a 25-yard pass to Jefferson on second-and-9 to extend a fourth-quarter drive that ended with a field goal after the Jets had closed to 20-17.

“What I was proud of with Sam was it was another example of when momentum had kind of turned in many ways by our own doing, he was able to jog back out on that field, walk into the huddle and move the team,” O’Connell said.

Darnold probably would’ve been a candidate for the Comeback Player of the Year award before the AP issued guidance to voters before the season, instructing them that “the spirit of the award is to honor a player who has demonstrated resilience in the face of adversity by overcoming illness, physical injury or other circumstances that led him to miss playing time the previous season.”

If he keeps playing at this level, Darnold could end up with another award: Most Valuable Player.

AP NFL: https://apnews.com/hub/nfl

Nobel Peace Prize awarded to Japanese organization of atomic bombing survivors Nihon Hidankyo

2024-10-11 17:58 Last Updated At：18:00

The Nobel Peace Prize was awarded Friday to Nihon Hidankyo, a Japanese organization of survivors of the U.S. atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, for its activism against nuclear weapons.

Jørgen Watne Frydnes, chair of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, said the award was made as the “taboo against the use of nuclear weapon is under pressure.”

He said the Nobel committee “wishes to honor all survivors who, despite physical suffering and painful memories, have chosen to use their costly experience to cultivate hope and engagement for peace.”

Hidankyo chairperson Tomoyuki Mimaki, who was standing by at the Hiroshima City Hall for the announcement, cheered and teared up when he received the news.

“Is it really true? Unbelievable!” Mimaki screamed.

Efforts to eradicate nuclear weapons have been honored in the past by the Nobel committee. The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons won the peace prize in 2017, and in 1995 Joseph Rotblat and the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs won for “their efforts to diminish the part played by nuclear arms in international politics and, in the longer run, to eliminate such arms.”

This year's prize was awarded against a backdrop of devastating conflicts raging in the world, notably in the Middle East, Ukraine and Sudan.

“It is very clear that threats of using nuclear weapons are putting pressure on the important international norm, the taboo of using nuclear weapons,” Watne Frydnes said in response to a question on whether the rhetoric from Russia surrounding nuclear weapons in its invasion of Ukraine had influenced this year's decision.

“And therefore it is alarming to see how threats of use is also damaging this norm. To uphold an international strong taboo against the use is crucial for all of humanity,” he added.

Alfred Nobel stated in his will that the peace prize should be awarded for "the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses.”

Last year’s prize went to jailed Iranian activist Narges Mohammadi for her advocacy of women’s rights and democracy, and against the death penalty. The Nobel committee said it also was a recognition of “the hundreds of thousands of people” who demonstrated against “Iran’s theocratic regime’s policies of discrimination and oppression targeting women.”

In a year of conflict, there had been some speculation before the announcement that the Norwegian Nobel Committee that decides on the winner would opt not to award a prize at all this year.

The Nobel prizes carry a cash award of 11 million Swedish kronor ($1 million). Unlike the other Nobel prizes that are selected and announced in Stockholm, founder Alfred Nobel decreed the peace prize be decided and awarded in Oslo by the five-member Norwegian Nobel Committee.

The Nobel season ends Monday with the announcement of the winner of the economics prize, formally known as the Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel.

Corder reported from The Hague, Netherlands, and Becatoros from Athens, Greece. Mari Yamaguchi in Tokyo, Lori Hinnant in Paris and Vanessa Gera in Warsaw, Poland, contributed.