Expert Analysis
12/11/24
12 min read
Should the Minnesota Vikings Pay Sam Darnold In Free Agency This Offseason?
The Minnesota Vikings quarterback plan seemed so clear cut back in March.
GM Kwesi Adofo-Mensah and Coach Kevin O’Connell decided to let 36-year-old Kirk Cousins—who was coming off a torn Achilles—leave in free agency rather than give him a new multi-year contract for $45 million per year with a lofty guarantee approaching $100 million (which the Atlanta Falcons did to their current chagrin).
The Vikings strategy was to sign a veteran bridge quarterback on a low-cost one-year deal, which turned out to be a $10 million contract for former third overall pick and Jets bust Sam Darnold (coming off a year of excellent training as Brock Purdy’s backup in San Francisco).
Then, they’d draft their future franchise quarterback in the first round of the quarterback-rich 2024 draft and benefit salary-cap-wise from a rookie contract for the next several years.
That became J.J. McCarthy when they traded up to the tenth overall pick after seeing four QBs taken in the first eight picks. McCarthy’s deal: four years, $21.85 million ($5.46 million per year), plus a fifth-year option.
The plan was for Darnold to be the early season starter, and when he presumably faltered, the 21-year-old McCarthy would take over mid-season. The fallback was if Darnold proved adequate enough to have the Vikings competitive with the help of a great supporting cast led by QB-whisperer O’Connell and all-pro receiver Justin Jefferson, McCarthy would then sit and be developed in his rookie season until he took over in 2025.
There’s a line at the end of the movie “Dan in Real Life” where Steve Carell tells readers of his advice column that instead of planning ahead, they should “plan to be surprised.”
That is certainly apropos for what has unfolded this season in Minnesota. McCarthy’s preseason knee injury ended his rookie season. Darnold has since thrown a major wrench in the team’s future plans, as he’s in the midst of a career year for the NFL’s most surprising team—the 11-2 Vikings.
Darnold’s strong season is a huge ingredient in the team’s success and gives reason to believe he should be back with the Vikings next season.
He’s showcased his arm strength, off-schedule playmaking, and mobility as an athletic quarterback who is well-liked by his teammates. He has developed into a team leader and is popular with the Vikings fan base, which chanted MVP late in last Sunday’s 42-21 win against Atlanta.
The latest great performance by Darnold accelerated the discussion about whether the Vikings should make a concerted effort to re-sign the 27-year-old this off-season.
Entering the second half against Atlanta, the Vikings led 14-10, and Darnold had completed 6 of 10 passes for 97 yards and two touchdowns. In leading the Vikings to an important win to stay a game behind the Lions in the NFC North, Darnold exploded with 250 passing yards and three touchdown passes in the second half.
Darnold finished with an almost perfect, career-best passer rating of 157.9 with his career-high five touchdown passes, no interceptions, 347 passing yards, and a 79 percent completion percentage. He far outplayed his predecessor as Vikings QB—Cousins—who threw two costly interceptions and had a missed fourth-down conversion on an off-target pass.
Darnold made what is likely the offensive play of the year for the Vikings (so far) with his scrambling escape from a sure sack on a blitz. With vet savvy, he kept his eyes downfield to find Jefferson wide open for a 52-yard TD that gave the Vikings a 21-13 third-quarter lead.
Darnold has his first career 5-touchdown game 🔥@Vikings | @FedEx pic.twitter.com/vpdu6qd64F
— NFL (@NFL) December 8, 2024
Two more touchdown passes on perfect throws to Jordan Addison followed in the fourth quarter to turn the close game into a rout.
This performance has taken the legend of Darnold as a resurrected quarterback to an even higher level. Oh, how the world has changed for the Vikings and their expected one-year starter in Darnold.
He ranks third in the league with a 108.1 passer rating based on 28 touchdown passes (third-ranked), 10 interceptions, and a 68.4 percent completion rate. He’s also a more athletic quarterback than many people think, allowing him to escape the rush and run effectively for first downs (194 rushing yards and one TD this season).
Most importantly, he has the Vikings on a six-game winning streak and is on the verge of clinching a playoff spot. They are keeping the heat on the Lions in the NFC North and are now two games ahead of the Packers for the first wild card spot.
Darnold is clearly in the Comeback Player of the Year race and could be a top-six finisher in MVP balloting behind Josh Allen, Saquon Barkley, Lamar Jackson, Jared Goff, and Patrick Mahomes.
He had the talent all along, going back to his USC days, but he fell short early in his career due to shaky supporting casts and a propensity to throw too many interceptions (52 in 49 games as the starter with the Jets and Carolina Panthers from 2018-2021).
He started this season with 10 picks and three fumbles lost in the first nine games, but he still produced 103+ passer ratings and seven wins in those nine games. He has been more careful lately, with no interceptions or fumbles in the last four games (while tossing 11 touchdown passes), as O’Connell (who runs the offense and is the play caller) and Josh McCown (the Vikings’ QB coach) have stressed ball protection.
Darnold clearly benefits from an excellent supporting cast of coaches and players in Minnesota. O’Connell played for five teams in six seasons and was a backup to Tom Brady in New England in 2008 (where he was a third-round pick).
He’s a QB-whisperer who helped Matthew Stafford win a Super Bowl as Rams OC and got the best years out of Cousins in 2022 and 2023. He has done a great job with Darnold, as has McCown, who played 18 years in the NFL with 76 games started.
Darnold has perhaps the NFL’s best pair of wide receivers in former first-rounders Jefferson and Addison, who combined for 15 catches, 265 yards, and five touchdowns against Atlanta.
Jefferson is a three-time Pro Bowler (and the league’s highest-paid non-QB) who ranks second to Ja’Marr Chase in receiving yards (1,170) this season, and Addison has 708 receiving yards and seven touchdowns despite missing two games with an ankle injury. T.J. Hockenson is a Pro Bowl tight end, and Aaron Jones is closing in on his fourth thousand-yard rushing season.
The offensive line lost an excellent left tackle in Christian Darrisaw (ACL), but the team traded for Cam Robinson, who is playing well enough in the spot, and Brian O’Neill is a Pro Bowl-caliber right tackle.
The interior O-line is less stout, and overall pass protection could be better (41 sacks allowed, eighth-most). Darnold’s scrambling ability and quicker release as the season has gone on are helping the cause, and the O-line, tight ends, and backs have protected better late in games recently.
Darnold is also proving to be a clutch player. In the last three weeks, he went six for six for 90 yards on the winning drive in overtime in Chicago, directed a late game-winning drive against Arizona (throwing the winning TD pass to Jones), and had a terrific second half last Sunday.
It was extra impressive to see how well Darnold played in a pressure-filled game against the Falcons, given the hoopla surrounding Cousins’ return and the fact that Daniel Jones had recently joined the Vikings practice squad and was standing on the sideline. Darnold’s cool and calm personality and on-field demeanor are serving him well in this resilient year.
If Darnold finishes strong with 13-15 regular season wins and at least one playoff victory, it will be hard for the Vikings not to re-sign him. If he winds up in the Super Bowl, the pressure will intensify to bring him back, but his market value as a potential free agent in March will also rise significantly with playoff success on top of a strong regular season. That could cause the Vikings to let him leave, as they did with Cousins.
Darnold and Russell Wilson are on track to be the top free-agent QBs in a year where the college crop of incoming QBs is considered much less attractive than last year when there were six first-rounders in the first 12 picks.
O’Connell has consistently praised Darnold this season and called his performance against Atlanta “spectacular.” The coach also says he is a big fan of Jones, who had a great game in the Giants’ 2022 wild-card win against the Vikings in O’Connell’s first season.
Jones gives the Vikings a vet option to pair with McCarthy if Darnold is too expensive to retain and Jones does not get an enticing offer elsewhere.
I love getting a chance to watch him every single day on this journey that he’s on here in Minnesota and just relishing in the op, and that’s what he’s done. He’s been great.
Vikings Head Coach Kevin O'Connell
McCarthy is coming off a major meniscus injury that required two surgeries. He’s reportedly recovering well and is expected back by May OTAs. With his youth and since he hasn’t yet started a regular-season game, there could be a strong temptation to make him the backup, at least for next year, which makes sense, although O’Connell praised the progress he made in training camp and the one preseason game he played in when he threw two touchdown passes.
The Vikings need to look no further than their division rival Packers to know it worked out just fine to have Jordan Love sit for three years behind Aaron Rodgers before successfully taking the reins last season and leading Green Bay to a playoff win in Dallas.
The Vikings have plenty of cap room in 2025 (an estimated $80 million—sixth-most in the league—if the cap rises by $20 million, as is likely considering recent increases). A mitigating factor could be the many quality free agents the team will want to retain, including Jones on offense and many key players with expiring contracts on the defense, which ranks first in interceptions, second in takeaways, and sixth in points allowed.
This group includes starting corners Byron Murphy (six interceptions, third in the league), Stephon Gilmore (a five-time Pro Bowler), Shaq Griffin, safety Cam Bynum (three interceptions and 75 tackles), and edge Pat Jones (seven sacks).
I think the Vikings can structure a cap-friendly deal for Darnold to keep a playoff team basically intact while adding some free agent help. A good comparable would be Baker Mayfield’s three-year, $100 million deal ($50 million guaranteed) signed in Tampa Bay last offseason after his career revival with a fine 2023 season that included a division title and a playoff win.
Mayfield has a low 2024 cap number of $6.9 million, and the dead money hit after this year would be $33 million, which drops to $17 million in 2026.
If the Vikings decided to move on from Darnold in 2026, they could absorb that type of dead money hit with a low-cost McCarthy in the early years of his contract. However, the cost of re-signing Darnold could rise to the $40 million or more level, as it did with Jones after his big 2022 season with the Giants. Love jumped to a $55 million extension after only one year starting, so it’s hard to predict what the open market will bear.
The Vikings could also place the franchise tag on Darnold (projected at more than $41 million in 2025) and negotiate a long-term deal with a low first-year cap number, but I don’t expect the team to take that approach, which would limit them in early free agency.
As a long-time NFL exec, there were plenty of times when I had to pivot to a new plan based on player performances that forced changes to take place. In 1998, when I was Vikings GM, Brad Johnson was our starting quarterback after he led us to a wild-card spot and playoff win the previous season. Former Eagles Pro Bowler Randall Cunningham was our backup and took over as the starter when Johnson injured his ankle in Week 2.
With the help of a great supporting cast led by future Hall of Fame receivers Randy Moss and Cris Carter, Cunningham led us to a 15-1 regular season and the NFC title game, where we lost to Atlanta in overtime.
Cunningham was named NFL MVP, and we had two starting-caliber quarterbacks that offseason. We decided to trade Johnson to Washington for first, second, and third-round picks (since it wasn’t practical to trade the league MVP) and draft a quarterback in the 1999 first round (Daunte Culpepper).
Of course, the Vikings won't trade McCarthy, but the point is circumstances change, and that was the case with Cunningham, who stayed as the vet bridge quarterback in 1999 before Culpepper became the Vikings' starter in 2000.
So stay tuned on this looming situation that will dominate the early offseason for the Vikings if Darnold stays on a successful track. I expect that to be the case with him continuing to prosper under a formula that includes his ability, excellent coaching, and his great supporting cast.
