The Minnesota Vikings must guard against overreacting to one abysmal playoff loss, but any move the team makes at QB this offseason will come with drastic consequences.
ESPN’s Dan Graziano didn’t mince words when advising Minnesota on the correct path forward, going all-in on cutting ties with starter Sam Darnold.
“If you were looking for clear evidence that the Vikings need to let Darnold leave as a free agent and move on to J.J. McCarthy, the past two weeks have offered plenty,” Graziano wrote. “If McCarthy — the No. 10 pick last April — isn’t ready coming off his knee injury, Darnold himself is proof that you can trust coach Kevin O’Connell to find the bridge guy and get the most out of him in the meantime. If anything, the past two weeks have provided the Vikings with an obvious off-ramp that they should have been planning to take all along.”
Sam Darnold Had Monster Season for Vikings, Retains Significant Value
GettyQuarterback Sam Darnold (14) of the Minnesota Vikings.
Nothing Graziano said would have been surprising in any way had it been a forecast from the beginning of the season. But dropping that advice now is ignoring, to at least some degree, a season full of context regarding Darnold’s future.
Darnold came in as a bonafide bust after going No. 3 overall to the New York Jets in 2018 and failing to make his mark there or in Carolina with the Panthers across his first five years in the league. He was also a backup for the San Francisco 49ers in 2023.
But then Darnold threw for over 4,300 yards and 35 touchdowns and the Vikings won 14 regular season games, with two of their three losses coming to the Detroit Lions who are the No. 1 seed in the NFC.
Minnesota played awfully against the Rams, the only other team to best Minnesota in the regular season, on Monday in the final game of Super Wild Card Weekend. Darnold was equally bad in a Week 18 game that was almost as big against the Lions in Detroit, which cost the Vikings a bye week and the top seed.
All that is fair, but Darnold is now a relatively known entity in O’Connell’s system. McCarthy is not.
And while it would normally make sense to move on from the $10 million bridge quarterback for the No. 10 overall pick who hurt his knee during the summer before his rookie campaign, circumstances simply aren’t that cut and dry in Minnesota any longer.
Vikings Must Consider Keeping Both J.J. McCarthy, Sam Darnold Next Season
GettyMinnesota Vikings quarterback J.J. McCarthy.
At the very least, letting Darnold walk in free agency for nothing would almost certainly prove an enormous mistake. It is certainly a greater immediate risk than trading McCarthy for three draft picks, including a first-rounder in the top 10 this April, which is what ESPN’s Mel Kiper Jr. believes his trade value would be.
That, too, would be a risk depending on how good McCarthy becomes. But with Darnold — who is only 27 years old — as an option, the Vikings must at least consider the old cliché about the bird in hand vs. McCarthy’s potential, which at least partially concealed in the bush.
Perhaps the best option is to use the franchise tag to keep Darnold for 2025 at approximately $40 million and see how he and McCarthy/their competition in practice develop over the summer and perhaps even into the regular season.
Minnesota would have until early November to trade Darnold or McCarthy, and the relative weakness of the 2025 draft and free agent classes at the position would keep the leverage on the Vikings’ side of any negotiations.
That can-kicking option of keeping both QBs into next year feels like a safer move than overreacting to two bad weeks from Darnold, who failed in his first-ever playoff start but played well above the league average for most of his first season in the Vikings’ system.
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Vikings Urged to Make Drastic Move With Sam Darnold After Playoff Defeat