Sam Darnold rose to his feet, took a few steps, then collapsed back down to the playing surface on Sunday afternoon at U.S. Bank Stadium. The silence from the home crowd was deafening as Darnold limped to the sideline under his own power.

Just a few weeks earlier, Darnold was making his debut with the Vikings, and nobody seemed to have very high expectations for this particular player or team. Now, all of a sudden, everybody was holding their breath, praying it wasn’t anything serious.

The feeling of impending doom that accompanied the scene unfolding on the field spoke volumes about the impact Darnold has made in his short time as the Vikings’ starting quarterback.

So did the massive roar that Darnold received when he emerged from the medical tent and trotted back onto the field into the huddle.

Make no mistake about it. That was the moment that Darnold won over the fan base.

“The reaction meant everything to me,” Darnold said. “My entire time here in Minnesota has been amazing.”

After getting additional testing done on Monday morning at TCO Performance Center, Darnold has been diagnosed with a knee bruise. He isn’t expected to miss any time as the Vikings begin their preparation for Sunday’s game against the rival Green Bay Packers.

That’s good news because it feels like something special is brewing in Minnesota.

Though the defense certainly deserves credit for its dominance, Darnold’s renaissance is the main reason the Vikings have shockingly looked like Super Bowl contenders.

You could make a legitimate care that Darnold should be in the MVP conversation based on how he has played throughout the improbable 3-0 start. He has completed 68 percent of his pass attempts for 657 yards, and he currently leads the league with eight touchdowns.

It’s not hyperbole to say that Darnold has been among the best quarterbacks in the league so far, and frankly, he looks more than capable of keeping it rolling. He was the No. 3 pick in the 2018 NFL Draft because he possessed seemingly limitless potential.

Maybe this is who he could have always been if he was put in a position to succeed.

“He’s doing a great job,” star receiver Justin Jefferson said. “He’s going out there confident and being himself.”

That has been more than enough as Darnold has slowly rewritten the narrative while helping the Vikings established themselves as a force to be reckoned with during a 3-0 start.

The perception started to change when Darnold showed flashes of brilliance in a 28-6 win over the New York Giants. You started to sense the tide was turning when Darnold delivered a perfectly placed pass to Jefferson in double coverage along the sideline for a 44-yard gain.

The good vibes continued when Darnold found that same success in a 23-17 win over the San Francisco 49ers. You knew something was happening when Darnold launched a deep pass to Jefferson from the shadow of his own goal post that went for a 97-yard touchdown.

The hype train left the station when Darnold balled out in Sunday’s 34-7 win over the Houston Texans. You could almost feel a shift in the universe when Darnold peeled himself off the turf, then returned to the game to a standing ovation from the fan base.

“He’s a baller,” running back Aaron Jones said. “He’s everything we would want in a quarterback.”

Now that Darnold has found a home with the Vikings, the biggest question centers on whether this is sustainable. It’s rooted in the fact that Darnold hasn’t sustained much success throughout his NFL career to this point.

“I don’t really have a lot of interest in talking about the past,” O’Connell said. “I think we all need to start being totally present, and when he plays well like he has, I think we should talk about a guy playing the position at a high level and move on.”

Those comments from O’Connell came last week before Darnold went out and lit up the scoreboard once again. He won over the fan base in the process, and while some might still not want to believe, it looks like the sky is the limit for the Vikings.

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A Ramsey County prosecutor will receive a Carnegie Medal for saving a man who was near the edge of the top of a building, the Carnegie Hero Fund announced Monday.

In February 2023, Hao Nguyen ran across a St. Paul street after spotting the man and then slowly approached him.

Hao Nguyen (Courtesy of the Carnegie Hero Fund Commission)

Nguyen, the Ramsey County Attorney’s Office Trial Division director, talked to the man in Vietnamese. The man told Nguyen he was doing math calculations, but the way he said it didn’t feel right to Nguyen. He said at the time that he surmised the man’s calculations were about his life.

Nguyen had moved the man about 10 feet from the edge, but the man dove toward it and Nguyen went after him.

He said he worried they’d both slip and fall over the edge, so he put the man in a bear hug and got him to the ground until law enforcement arrived. The man was taken by ambulance for a mental health evaluation.

The man, 31-year-old Hai Nguyen, later died by suicide in western Wisconsin.

The Carnegie Hero Fund announced Monday it is honoring 18 people who, “in acts of extraordinary heroism, risked serious injury or death to save others.” They select recipients quarterly to receive the Carnegie Medal, a special honor for civilian heroism.

Another Minnesotan selected in this round is Dalton Grose, of Waterville. He was working on a boat when he saw a truck went over a retaining wall and began sinking in Fountain Lake in Albert Lea. Grose piloted the boat closer, jumped into the water fully clothed and used his feet as leverage against the truck to force the door open.

Grose cradled the 85-year-old driver, taking three bounding steps and submerging and resurfacing until he reached wadable water and got the driver to safety, according to the Carnegie Hero Fund.

For help

The 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline can be reached by calling or texting 988 for free 24/7 support.

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Some Gophers football fans chanted “Who hates Iowa?” before the season opener against North Carolina on Aug. 29, showing their attention is never far from their bitter rival.

By the time the Floyd of Rosedale game arrived three weeks later, the majority of fans wore maroon for the game against the Hawkeyes at Huntington Bank Stadium. But many of those same fans had left the building after Iowa scored 24 unanswered points in a 31-14 win.

Hawkeyes fans converged on the northwest corner of the stadium for when the visiting players lifted the bronzed pig trophy in that end zone. Then Iowa fans were seen in videos chanting “I-O-W-A!” as they exited Minnesota’s stadium.

Since 2011, the Gophers are 1-7 against Iowa in Minneapolis.

Two bad halves

The Gophers (2-2) had 14-7 halftime leads against both Iowa and North Carolina, but were outscored 36-3 combined in those second halves to suffer two startling defeats.

“I think we have had two bad halves of football in four games, in terms of performance,” head coach P.J. Fleck said Monday. “When you go back and look and evaluate yourself constantly and go back and reflect as a head football coach, my job is to be able to get our team to play their absolute best for 60 minutes. Haven’t been able to do that in two of the games, in my opinion. That 100 percent falls on me.”

Missed tackles galore

Defensive coordinator Corey Hetherman had the Gophers down for 22 missed tackles against North Carolina. Pro Football Focus had the U down for 13 missed tackles against Iowa.

“It became a tackling issue in the second half,” Fleck said. “We’d miss one tackle or we would hesitate and not shoot our gun. We wouldn’t shoot tackle and breakdown. You do that against that (running back Kaleb Johnson). You can coach that, but you’ve got to go apply it. We did it in the first half. We didn’t do it in the second half. It wasn’t like nobody was there. We had people where they needed to be. We just didn’t make the play.”

Veteran safety Darius Green, who is expected to be a leader in the back end, had the lowest run grade and two missed tackles versus Iowa, per PFF. He has been working his way back from an offseason injury and missed the first two games of the season.

With safety Aidan Gousby and cornerback Justin Walley both out injured, Green’s errors were more glaring Saturday.

Briefly

Against No. 12 Michigan, the Gophers will face a defending national champion for the 10th time on Saturday. The U is 0-9 in the previous matchups. Minnesota has lost four straight to the Wolverines with the Little Brown Jug on the line, including a 52-10 blowout in Minnesota last October. … The Gophers’ game against No. 13 USC will be at 6:30 p.m. Oct. 5 and will air on Big Ten Network, the conference announced Monday.

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