Which Vikings QB Is the Odd Man Out?
With the selection of assumed quarterback-of-the-future J.J. McCarthy with the 10th overall pick of the 2024 NFL Draft, Minnesota now has quite the crowded QB room at TCO Performance Center.
After draft weekend festivities have concluded as a whole for 2024, the Vikings currently roster four quarterbacks. Two of them being returning veteran Nick Mullens and sophomore Jaren Hall, the two new kids on the block are the aforementioned rookie McCarthy, and the supposed “bridge” quarterback for McCarthy’s development, Sam Darnold.
It truly is an interesting dynamic all around. Mullens is now the longest-tenured Vikings QB on the roster, having been traded to the Vikings in August of 2022 from the Las Vegas Raiders. This was technically Kevin O’Connell and Kwesi Adofo-Mensah’s first maneuver at the quarterback position. He and Darnold are the resident veterans in the room as Mullens is 29, and Darnold will be 27 by the time the season starts. Veterans for sure, but by no means are they “older” players.
Which Vikings QB Is the Odd Man Out?
Nick Mullens infamously played a healthy amount of quarterback last season after newly-minted Atlanta Falcons QB Kirk Cousins blew an achilles at Lambeau Field in Week 8. It seems silly to say, given Nick Mullens had more interceptions (8) than touchdowns (7) in these appearances, but Minnesota had their best chance to win in the second half of the season when he was on the field.
It is ironic, considering the Vikings didn’t win a single game that Mullens started, that the offense looked much better with him at the helm after Cousins went down than with either Hall or Josh Dobbs, outside of Dobbs’ six-quarter-long “Passtronaut” run. The offense moved the ball at will with Mullens leading it, whether or not it ended in him throwing a bone-headed interception.
We all know Darnold’s story to this point; being drafted to the Jets, arguably the worst of the abyss of NYC sports and their unforgiving fanbases, media, and questionably-run franchises, getting chewed-up and spit out by that machine and traded to another mostly-incompetent franchise in the Carolina Panthers, until he finally got to experience what football is supposed to be when he signed with the San Francisco 49ers for 2023.
My words on the Jets and Panthers are quite harsh, and I would be remiss to not give Darnold any blame for the disappointing trajectory of his career to this point. He sports a painfully mediocre 63 TDs, 56 INTs, 12,064 passing yards, and 59.7% completion percentage over the first six seasons of his NFL career.
He only started one game for the 49ers in 2023, which was a losing effort in their regular season finale against the division rival Los Angeles Rams. Darnold was quite average in this game, completing 62% of his passes, tallying 208 total yards, throwing a touchdown, and running in a touchdown. All is not lost for Sam, as he is likely the Week 1 starter for the Vikings this coming season, and this will be by far the best situation he has ever been a part of when not being considered a backup.
Hall is a project QB that had a promising opening sequence to his career until his head got bounced off of the Atlanta turf as he was trying to run in for his first career touchdown on his second career touchdown, but we wouldn’t see him again until Week 17 on New Year’s Eve in a Sunday Night Football bout with the Green Bay Packers in a must-win game at U.S. Bank Stadium.
Unfortunately, the nicest way of putting it is that he shouldn’t have started that game, and Mullens would ultimately relieve him. In Hall’s defense, his circumstances couldn’t exactly be considered “fair” for a late-round project QB, but if he isn’t going to make any excuses, neither should anyone else.
The obvious man out does unfortunately seem to be Jaren Hall, as McCarthy and Darnold are completely safe and it would be a questionable decision at best to let go of the quarterback with the most experience in Kevin O’Connell’s offense in Nick Mullens.
From a value perspective, this makes sense as well, as releasing Mullens will only save $2 million on this year’s cap, per Over the Cap. $2 million in savings is not worth letting loose the quarterback with the best grasp on the offense. If Minnesota were to release Jaren Hall as a post-June 1st designation, they would be punting on a fifth-round pick and saving about $1 million on their 2025 cap.
Another factor is the attention of Kevin O’Connell. He has deferred some offensive game-planning and play-calling responsibilities to offensive coordinator Wes Phillips, whom he brought with him from their time together in Los Angeles with Sean McVay and the Rams. O’Connell has done this to give himself the most time and opportunity possible to work with J.J. McCarthy, meaning there won’t be an emphasis on developing Jaren Hall, who was drafted specifically to be a project.
This isn’t all to say Jaren couldn’t be placed on the practice squad when the Vikings decide on their official 53-man roster later this off-season. In fact, there is a pretty good chance Hall could make the practice squad and remain there for a long time, as it is unclear whether or not he would draw interest from other teams around the NFL. They did do this with Kellen Mond, but he would end up being poached by the Browns, and there could arguably be more to work with Jaren Hall. All it takes is for one team with flexibility at QB3 to see what they like in Hall, and he is as good as gone from Minnesota.
Again, these circumstances seem completely unfair to Jaren, but that is life in the NFL, and he himself understands that. Things move quickly, and that is putting it nicely to describe the speed of commotion regarding everything about the Minnesota Vikings since Hall was drafted at 164th overall in 2023.
While I’m certain Kevin and the front office would love nothing more than to keep Jaren Hall around on the roster, there is no need for 4 quarterbacks to make your Week 1 53-man roster, especially with the decisions they are faced with in the arguably even more crowded defensive back room.
Editor’s Note: Statistics for this article were found via Over the Cap and Pro Football Reference.
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