JACKSONVILLE – Allow the cliché: You are what your record says you are. The Minnesota Vikings are a 7-2 team in command in the race to top the NFC with a number of games coming up in their schedule that are very winnable. Escaping Jacksonville with a win, regardless of how they got there, keeps them on track in the battle for playoff position. They owe no one an apology for this.

Now let’s admit some facts: Despite the final score, the Vikings completely dominated the Jaguars. They almost tripled their area and held onto the ball all afternoon. The Jags’ sputtering defense couldn’t slow the Vikings on the ground or through the air and they were able to make almost no progress against Brian Flores’ defense.

If you didn’t understand the final score and only saw the rest of the box, you would guess that the Vikings won by 27 points.

But the fact that Sam Darnold threw three interceptions inside the 25-yard line, ending three excellent drives, left everyone leaving Jacksonville with a sour taste in their mouths.

It can be said over and over again that getting the W was the only thing that mattered, but something else began to take hold: the possibility that a very good team could be weakened by its quarterback’s negligence .

We’re past the point where we say, “Hey, you’d take 7-2 based on preseason expectations.” We are wiser now. We understand that Flores’ defense is capable of stifling teams, especially when they are properly rested and not playing against the Lions. We understand that adding TJ Hockenson mid-season was like making a trade to bring him back in 2022. He single-handedly creates an underlying threat that wasn’t there before. We understand how good Aaron Jones is, dammit, the age curve. We understand that O’Connell’s routes have disrupted defenses all year.

Hell, with Cam Robinson in the mix, they kept an offensive line good enough to get the job done in back-to-back weeks.

The Vikings are not a perfect team but we are talking about a group that can go up to 52 players for 52 players with 90% of the league or better.

The No. 1 player, however, can’t throw the ball three times to the other team if he wants to keep up with the NFC. Period. The Vikings won’t survive disappointing games or being beaten by teams like the Cardinals, Falcons, Packers or Lions if the quarterback gives the ball that way.

Roller coasters are thrilling in theme parks and maddening in the NFL. Darnold is a human rollercoaster. There doesn’t seem to be any solution for it to stop being this way. No matter how many times the drop happens and they search for answers and explanations, it seems to happen again. Last week against the Colts, he tried to force the ball in an extremely tight window and was picked off. Three times Sunday against the Jags, he put the ball where it shouldn’t have been in the same way.

If Darnold was a relatively safe QB before and just now transformed into an INT machine, we could say he’s been a victim of bad luck as of late. But its history includes, season after season, ranking the last five turnover-worthy games.

There has been a lot of buzz on social media pointing the finger at O’Connell. Of course, this is an overreaction to the frustrations and keeping the Jaguars in the game. The offense gained 28 first downs and made 82 plays at 4.9 yards per play. But asking O’Connell to do a better job of saving Darnold from himself is reasonable. Aggressive doesn’t necessarily mean aggressive all the time (um, a third-and-1 pass?). Screen Passes can feel free to return at any time. Double backs only work in high school. Red zone touchdowns are actually legal, feel free to use them.

But O’Connell’s bet on Darnold as a whole is the only one he can make. Leaning on Darnold through hell or high water is the only path that has an advantage. You’d have to sniff glue to think another QB is going to give them a better chance. Would you have preferred Jacoby Brissett? This roller coaster has twists and turns.

O’Connell won the Super Bowl with a quarterback who had INT and sack issues his entire career because that QB had a rebound at the right time (and a 49ers guy dropped a pick). Matthew Stafford led the NFL in INTs in 2021 and had a three-game losing streak that year in which it looked like KOC himself could jump on the field and play better. They escaped when Stafford got up again. If you don’t have a consistent QB with a mega star, the next best thing is a rocket arm who sometimes does inexplicable things.

However, unexplainable things hurt the brain. How can he be so good, then send the ball nowhere and have it recovered? Just check and keep moving. Of course, the advantages of the last guy who tended to check were also quite limited.

This is Sam Darnold’s world we live in. This can work one of two ways: if he gets hot again or if they win the games where he makes huge mistakes attacking the defense and running the ball effectively. They did it on Sunday.

That’s life in the NFL, too. There were some terrible losses in the NFL on Sunday. Jared Goff had five picks. The Falcons failed. The Bears asked their fans to fire the coach. The fact that the Vikings survived a stumble of this magnitude probably speaks more to the team’s strength than its weaknesses.

For now, the Vikings can boast about being able to win lousyly. Hey, chefs do it, right? If they start to fall apart as the season goes on and fail to come out on top against inferior opponents, they will have squandered one of their best starts in the last 20 years.

But let’s not call it 2022. Statistically, blowing out the opponent wasn’t something they did that year. Winning on defense wasn’t something they did that year. Aaron Jones was not someone they had that year.

We’ve reached the point in the season where we have all the answers and things are going to play out, one way or another. There is no trade deadline to settle anything and adjustments have been made (and worked on) on both sides of the ball. It’s in the hands of the roller coaster QB now and it’s a helpless feeling at times.