The Vikings Have Made a Crucial Decision with Sam Darnold
A lot of mystery surrounding the Vikings and how things are going to proceed with Sam Darnold.
A variety of options exist — let him walk, re-sign him to a large deal, tag him, do a tag-and-trade — but Minnesota appears to be leaning in a certain direction. Indeed, Kevin O’Connell has spoken with the media a bit recently due to the NFL Awards and interviews that take place leading up to the Super Bowl. The head coach has suggested that Minnesota is going to proceed in a certain manner.
The Vikings, Sam Darnold, & The Decision That’s Been Made
Kick it over to Kevin Seifert, the Vikings writer for ESPN.
A recent piece from Seifert made note of some of the options for Minnesota’s QB1 from 2024: “Over the past three weeks, the Vikings have been working through options that include signing Darnold to a multiyear contract, using the franchise tag to retain him for 2025 or handing the keys to 2024 first-round pick J.J. McCarthy, who has resumed on-field training after sitting out the season because of a torn meniscus in his right knee.”
Even more important is the quotation that gets passed along. O’Connell had this to say about Darnold: “he’s earned the right to be a free agent, but we will continue to have ongoing dialogue and discussions with him and his representation.”
See the all-important detail? Per the team’s head coach, Darnold is going to march into free agency in March, meaning the Vikings will not be applying the franchise tag. It’s a fairly strong statement: earned the right to be a free agent.
Now, maybe the words from O’Connell were just a strange blip and not reflective of how the organization is actually proceeding. Quite possibly, O’Connell misspoke.
If so, then a different interview is harder to explain.
O’Connell took a few minutes to do an interview with CBS Sports (even doing a strange hand-grip strength test at the end). He was asked about Darnold. “I believe Sam has kind of played himself into being probably the marquee free agent quarterback available,” the head coach explains. “Now there’s a lot of conversations that will take place between now and the start of the league year […] We would love to have Sam back in Minnesota, but at the same time we do feel very confident in J.J. McCarthy. He’s healthy.”
So, a bit of a political answer. O’Connell wasn’t willing to commit with ironclad certainty about how things are going to proceed, but he did reiterate a key point: Darnold is the top quarterback moving into free agency. Again, that would appear to suggest that a franchise tag — the team’s tool to keep him out of free agency — is going to go unused.
Crucially, the idea of Darnold “playing himself into” being the “marquee” passer seems to reconfirm the earlier quote about O’Connell’s belief that the passer has earned a chance to land a large deal in free agency.
All things considered, Mr. Darnold played strong football last season. His season finished poorly but his overall stats are impressive: 66.2% completion rate for 4,319 yards, 35 touchdowns, and 12 interceptions. At 27, Darnold may still be improving.
PFF gave him an 80.7 grade — easily the best of his career — and his passer rating finished up at 102.5. He was named to the Pro Bowl and finished 3rd in Comeback Player of the Year voting. Oh, and he was 10th in MVP voting.
Per OTC, a QB franchise tag would come in above $41 million. The Vikings seem willing to allow Sam Darnold to venture into free agency to see what the league is willing to pay him before making their final decision on his future as a Viking.
Editor’s Note: Information from Pro Football Reference, PFF, and Over the Cap helped with this piece.
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K. Joudry is the Senior Editor for Vikings Territory and PurplePTSD. He has been covering the Vikings full time since the summer of 2021. He can be found on Twitter, as a co-host for Notes from the North, and as the proprietor at The Vikings Gazette, a humble Vikings Substack.