The Minnesota Vikings continue to have their 2024 season honored with postseason awards. The Sporting News revealed their postseason awards and the Vikings had two recipients: quarterback Sam Darnold won Comeback Player of the Year and head coach Kevin O'Connell won Coach of the Year. Sam Darnold and Kevin O'Connell honored with awards This is the first of multiple Comeback of the Year awards that Darnold will likely be winning, as he's also nominated for the AP Award that will be given at NFL Honors the Thursday before the Super Bowl.
Darnold is the second Vikings player to win the award since its SN inception in 2008, following Adrian Peterson and his 2,097-yard rushing season in 2012. Quarterbacks have dominated this award of late, winning seven consecutive times. Andrew Luck started the streak in 2018, and Tua Tagovailoa continued it as the previous winner.
Darnold received 503 votes and won by a considerable margin over another quarterback, Joe Burrow (144 votes), who had a massive season after missing much of 2023. He also didn't have much competition from Chargers running back JK Dobbins (109 votes), who came back from a torn Achilles to star for his new team. The nature of the award is to come back well from poor play and adversity, not just injury.
Darnold got the nod for his late-blooming season in Minnesota being so impressive. This isn't the first one for O'Connell either, as he won the PWFA's NFC and NFL Coach of the Year awards earlier in January. O'Connell also.