It could be argued Sam Darnold cost himself a lot of money over his last couple games, but one Minnesota Vikings legend says Darnold's done enough to remain the team's quarterback.

In his first 16 games, the No. 3 overall pick in the 2018 NFL Draft rewrote his story, throwing for 4,153 yards and 35 touchdowns while completing 68.1% of his passes. All of those numbers were, by far, career highs.

But in his final two games — one in which he could have clinched the top seed and the other a playoff game — he threw for just one touchdown pass and 411 yards and led his offense to just 18 points.

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Darnold looked in those final two games like what he was known for before arriving in Minnesota, and there are now calls for the team to move on to J.J. McCarthy, the quarterback they selected with the 10th pick last year.

But former Vikings running back Chuck Foreman thinks Darnold did enough to remain the starter.

"The guy comes into the league, he's drafted by a team that has no talent, he gets labeled. Goes to another team with no talent, gets labeled more. Then he goes to San Francisco, a winning team to get behind the coach that shows him the way … and then he comes here with Kevin, and he takes them to another level," Foreman told Outkick's "The Ricky Cobb Show." 

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Foreman shifted blame for the two losses to Minnesota's offensive line rather than Darnold, who, he said, was helpless against the Lions and Rams. 

"The pressure he was under, I only see one or two other quarterbacks that could have any kind of escapability with that, and that's Lamar Jackson and Josh Allen," Foreman added.

"I'm signing him, I'm hoping they can both come together in the middle. I understand the money part, but I hope Sam understands his career has been revived right here. And he's got a following here. Make adjustments next season, but I think he should be the guy."

Darnold is a free agent after the season and is a candidate for a franchise tag. His previous highs in yards and touchdowns were 3,024 and 19, respectively, in 2019 with the team that drafted him, the New York Jets.

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• The app Clapper has surged in downloads amid a potential TikTok ban in the US.
• Clapper is a social-video app founded in 2020 and based in Texas.
• It offers an ad-free experience and monetization for creators.

Clapper, an upstart video and livestreaming app, has soared to third place in the free iPhone app download charts. The surge comes as TikTok awaits a decision from the Supreme Court about whether it will face a ban in the US.

Clapper was founded in 2020 when the first Trump administration initially floated the possibility of a TikTok ban. Bita Motiie, Clapper's head of operations, told BI that since then, Clapper has seen spikes in user growth any time the topic has been in the news.

"We've seen skyrocketing numbers of users joining us recently due to the fact that people are actively now looking for an alternative," Motiie said.

The top trending topic on Clapper on Wednesday was #TikTokRefugees.

A similar dynamic seems to have pushed the TikTok-like app Xiaohongshu, also known as RedNote, to No. 1 on the free iPhone apps leaderboard.

The US Congress passed a divest-or-ban law last year that will force TikTok to stop operating in the US if its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, doesn't sell the app. TikTok told the Supreme Court that the app would "go dark" in the US on Sunday if the divestment deadline isn't extended. A Supreme Court decision on TikTok's future is expected this week and legal experts told BI they thought the justices would uphold the law.

"A lot of our focus right now is helping all these TikTok users join our platform and learn about the differences," Motiie said.

Clapper shares much of the same vertical video functionality as TikTok but differs in a few key ways. It's only available to users 17 or older and doesn't carry ads.

"People are being bombarded with ads 24/7 through their phones, and we want to provide a safe haven where creators can focus on that genuine connection with others," Motiie said.

Creators can earn money on Clapper by receiving gifts from other users in livestreams, group chats, and direct messages. Creators can also sell subscriptions to their content or items on Clapper Shop. Clapper takes a 30% commission from these earnings.

Clapper's content can appear rougher around the edges than some other social-media platforms. On opening the app in the UK on Wednesday morning, BI was served a video of a man seemingly getting a horrific eye injury after being hit in the face, a woman almost being gored by a bull, and sexually suggestive "thirst traps."

Users can turn off "not safe for work" content. The app also forbids sexually explicit content or nudity.

Motiie said Clapper was focused on hiring three to four additional community managers and utilizing AI moderation tools. Clapper is a small business at present, with around 20 staff based in Dallas, Texas.

A Clapper spokesperson said the company hadn't taken on any outside funding since 2023, when it raised $3 million in seed financing. The spokesperson said the company is profitable and that it is not currently seeking further investment.

Industry insiders say Clapper needs to move quickly to seize the moment

Asti Wagner, CEO of Invyted, an app that connects brands with influencers, said Clapper would need to move quickly to appeal to creators and refine its marketing to ensure its overnight popularity translates into lasting business success.

"TikTok was lucky in that it massively boomed in lockdown when everyone was on their phones," Wagner told BI.

"The 'no ads' thing is really interesting, but I don't know how long that will last," Wagner said. Social platforms, in general, tend to derive most of their revenue from ads.

Motiie said it was very unlikely Clapper would introduce ads over the next couple of years. However, that doesn't mean brands can't collaborate with Clapper creators, she added. Clapper is also encouraging brands to set up their own profiles on the app.

Gigi Robinson, a creator with more than 150,000 followers on TikTok, joined Clapper in 2020.

She's only posted four videos and grown her audience there to around 1,000 followers. However, Robinson said that in light of TikTok's precarious position, she's considering posting more content on Clapper and has been in touch with the company's partnership team to get her profile verified.

Whatever TikTok's ultimate fate is, Robinson said the potential of the app going dark has highlighted that creators shouldn't be over-reliant on any single platform for their audience and earnings.

"A majority of creators are scrambling right now," Robinson told BI. "That's going to be the lasting impact."

The US Department of Transportation filed a lawsuit against Southwest Airlines, accusing the carrier of selling flights with unrealistic schedules that operated chronically late.

According to the DOT, Southwest Airlines caused 90% of the delays on flights between Chicago Midway and Oakland, California, and between Baltimore and Cleveland, Ohio, during a five-month period in 2022.

The agency also announced a $650,000 fine to be paid by Frontier Airlines for similarly behind-schedule operations. Earlier this month, JetBlue was hit with a $2 million fine for chronic delays.

DOT did not immediately respond to questions about why Southwest was sued while the other airlines were fined.

In a statement, a Southwest spokesperson said the airline is "disappointed that the DOT chose to file a lawsuit over two flights that occurred more than two years ago. Any claim that these two flights represent an unrealistic schedule is simply not credible when compared with our performance over the past 15 years."

The spokesperson added that Southwest has operated more than 20 million flights without other infractions since the DOT's chronically delayed flight policy was enacted in 2009.

This story is developing. Check back for updates.

The market share of Apple TV+ in the US has been fairly consistent over the last few quarters, at least that’s what the latest research from JustWatch shows. Now 9to5Mac has seen exclusive data on the market share of streaming platforms during Q4 2024 – and the situation for Apple remains stable.

Ohio Republican made the remarks as Los Angeles continues to battle devastating wildfires