Sam Darnold, man. The Minnesota Vikings signed Sam to a 1 year, $10 million, contract to serve as a bridge veteran for their top 10 first round pick, J.J. McCarthy, who would be given every opportunity to eclipse him and take the reigns. I wasn’t present during training camp but I was fortunate enough to be in attendance for McCarthy’s one preseason game. Here are some of the highlights:

Oh nm, wordpress is a dick and I can’t post videos without paying more. Whatever, rest assured, it was all super dope. Here are some links tho, saved me $98 to do it this way.

https://x.com/analyst4sports_/status/1822377267806585298
https://x.com/jasrifootball/status/1822392663397531896

Smash cut to J.J. immediately tearing up his knee and being out for the season after looking like the truth and Sam Darnold being the unquestioned and only option starter for the season.

All seemed lost, but wait….THATS KOC’S MUSIC! Kevin O’Connel didn’t hear no bell!!!

Now, it’s week 16, the Minnesota Vikings are 13-2 with two games remaining. Sam Darnold has thrown 32 Tds against 11 Ints to go along with 3,700+ yards, 67+% completion percentage, a 105.4 passer rating (which I think is a bullshit stat btw) and a PFF QB grade of 86.0,6th in the league and a metric I believe matters far more than any of the rest (full disclosure, I work for PFF which might make me biased but also doesn’t mean I’m wrong).

Sam Darnold is playing at a level that, by any metric, is a elite quarterback.

So I just spent a couple hundred words gushing over how great Sam Darnold has been (which he has). Why would I make a headline that seemingly flies in the face of all of this evidence? Great question, you are clearly super smart and handsome and special and I love you. BUT.

Sam Darnold’s greatness this year doesn’t matter. It matters for THIS year. It matters for this team’s potential Super Bowl run. It matters for the next two weeks and however many playoff games they are fortunate enough to endure. It does NOT matter beyond this season. Allow me to explain.

The Minnesota Vikings have been on a multi year mission to reset their salary cap after the Kirk Cousins era. They paid that man a lot of money. This year, they still had dead cap obligations to him. This organization is done with that hinderance. They made a concerted effort to let Kirk go and get the ‘dollars that represented whatever’ and instead invested a top 10 pick in their future. They have a plan.

Can plans change? Sure! Should they change? Maybe! Let’s look at this as objectively as a life long Vikings fan can.

To do this properly, we have to go back in time a bit. Kirk Cousins was good ‘ish’ before he signed his deal with the Vikings. Kevin O’Connell and the staff got the best out of him while he was here and healthy. I could bore you with all the numbers but if you just watched his time here, you know it’s true. KOC didn’t just get the most out of Cousins, he also got the most out of Kirk’s backups after he went down with that little achilles injury. Nick Mullens and Josh Dobbs kept the 2023 team respectable. That’s not nothing. It also brings me to the most important point I have.

Kevin O’Connell knows how to deal with quarterbacks. He was one and dealt with the failure and strife that a person in that position will deal with in this league. He ‘fixed’ Kirk Cousins, he made Nick Mullens and Josh Dobbs usable NFL signal callers. He unlocked the talent of the 2018 3rd overall pick, Sam Darnold, that was dormant until this year. If J.J. McCarthy is a dude he and that rest of the coaching staff believes in, I don’t care if Sam Darnold takes them to a Lambardi trophy ceremony. This isn’t a commentary on Sam Darnold and his abilities, this is an observation of what Kevin O’Connell can do when he believes in a quarterback. At this moment, with what the organization has shown us, if Sam wins it all, we build him a Nick Foles statue, tell him thanks for the memories and move on. I trust KOC. He’s earned that.

Now, showing Sam the door isn’t all that simple. I’ll be clear in my position that they shouldn’t pay him 50+ mil a year no matter how the season ends. That’s not to say he doesn’t deserve it. I want Sam Darnold to get as much money as anyone is willing to give him. He’s earned it. What should, and will, happen, regardless of how the season goes, is the Vikings will franchise tag Sam. If they are as committed to J.J. as I believe they are, these are the only conceivable possibilities. Here are the aforementioned options, lets talk about them.

First, and most likely scenario, the Vikings franchise tag Sam and trade him to one of the numerous quarterback needy teams. The list is not short. It could be the Raiders, the Browns, the Giants. It could even be a much more palatable, for Sam, 49ers or Rams (this would require the 9ers to move on from Purdy, which I don’t think they should do, or Stafford to retire, which is a big if…respectively). Point being, this could very easily turn into a 2nd round return.

The second scenario, also involving the franchise tag, would be the Vikings keeping Sam and rolling with him until J.J. recovers/is ready to take over. This, to me, is the much less likely situation. If KOC and the Vikings truly believe in J.J. McCarthy as the future, which I fully think they do, having Sam Darnold on the roster doesn’t fit. Not just because the tag would eat up around $40 mil on the cap and limit what can be done in free agency but it doesn’t mesh with the environment they’ve been cultivating.

I’m very clearly in the camp of the first scenario. Tag Sam and get a much needed draft asset for him. Reup Danny Dimes in the role Sam was meant to have this year. The reasonable money signing of a veteran QB for your young, future of the franchise, quarterback to ‘beat out’ and win the starting job. Then you have the backup plan of said vet that can be coached up by this staff the way they did with Darnold this year and you have your insurance incase a freak injury or utter failure occurs. Also, then you have around $70 mil in cap space to make the rest of your team better.

I know the ‘cap isn’t real’ which is true, sort of. I mean it is but it isn’t. You just need to look no further than what they were able to do simply by letting the incredible Danielle Hunter go. That’s a DUDE. They let him walk. He’s been great with Houston. He would have been great here. Instead, that allowed them to sign Jonathan Greenard, Andrew Van Ginkel and Brian Cashman. It also let them have the flexibility to sign Stephon Gilmore right before the season started. The Salary cap doesn’t matter, until it does. With your QB on a rookie contract next year you now have the ability to sign players like Trey Smith at RG, DJ Reed or Charvarius Ward at CB or any number of dudes to make this team exponentially better.

Sam Darnold is probably going to be better than J.J. McCarthy at the beginning of next year. How much better and for how long? That’s the difference between $50 mil and $5 mil. My monies on the latter. Also, J.J. is the truth and I love him, full disclosure.