Sam Darnold Spills Beans on Vikings Departure After 2024 Career Resurrection
Sam Darnold spent 2024 with the Minnesota Vikings, completely revitalizing his career in the process. That season saw him put his name among the NFL’s best signal callers.
- 4,319 passing yards (5th)
- 66.2% completion percentage (16th)
- 35 TDs (5th)
- 6.4% touchdown percentage (5th)
- 218 passing first downs (5th)
- 7.9 yards per attempt (5th)
- 12.0 yards per completion (6th)
- 254.1 yards per game (7th)
- 102.5 passer rating (6th)
- 5 game-winning drives (T-2nd)
- 14-3 record (T-2nd)
Of course, the Vikings didn’t feel the need to commit to this long-term, seeing as they had just drafted J.J. McCarthy with the 10th overall selection earlier that year. This put the Vikings in quite the awkward situation, as not many considered the possibility that Sam Darnold would completely turn his career around and make himself almost undeniable.
Well, that’s what he did, and the Vikings still opted to deny him. It was understandable for the Vikings to do so, seeing as Darnold hadn’t ever even been an average QB at any point of his career before the 2024 season. The drafting of McCarthy very high was an obvious sign that he was the long-term plan. It was likely that re-signing Darnold was initially not a consideration as to eventually pivot to McCarthy. Sam Darnold himself even hinted toward this on a podcast appearance recently.
Sam Darnold Discusses the Behind the Scenes of His Vikings Tenure
Sam Darnold appeared on Bussin’ With the Boys, a Barstool Sports podcast. Co-host and former NFL player Will Compton asked Darnold if he wished it worked out long-term with the Minnesota Vikings.
“I think for me, Minnesota was amazing…I think having success in a place, and like, getting to know the guys in the locker room, of course you want to make that work.
Shortly into negotiations, it was like, ‘alright this isn’t gonna be the spot’.”
Compton then asked how Darnold knew this, wondering if the contract offered from Minnesota was a “low, one-year” deal. Darnold had a straight-forward answer.
“Yeah, that’s exactly right. I’m not one of those guys where I’m, like, spiteful. I get where the GM was coming from, I totally do. You see it with a lot of teams, you saw it with San Francisco, you saw it with Houston for a little bit…these rookie QBs and their rookie deals, like trying to strike hot while you have a rookie QB so that you can pay other guys around him to get the team really good.
I get that part of it. And I get, also, drafting a guy in the first round and understanding and having a belief that he’s the guy. So for me it was like, I kind of had to put that hat on where I understand. I totally get where they’re coming from, and going back to the beginning, everything happens for a reason. There is a part of that where it’s ‘ok, I’m not supposed to be in Minnesota next year’, and that’s ok with me.“
Darnold said all the right things although, to be fair, it’s probably pretty easy to say them when he walked straight from Minnesota to Seattle and immediately won a Super Bowl. The interview does confirm that the Vikings did offer to re-sign Darnold, which was known, and that Minnesota low-balled him. It’s clear that J.J. McCarthy was the Vikings’ guy all along, and that was the case the entire time. The fact that Sam Danrold just absolutely balled out blurred that reality for a lot of people, whether it was the correct decision to move on or not.
Sam Darnold Finished His Cinderella Story, and It Was Awesome
Upon winning Super Bowl LX against the New England Patriots, Sam Darnold completed one of the best comeback stories in sports history. From a No. 3 pick by the New York Jets, to bust, to journeyman with the Panthers and 49ers, to career resurrection in Minnesota, to Super Bowl champion. It doesn’t get much more “Cinderella” than that.
A lot of people had written Darnold off after his disappointing final two appearances of the 2024 season, those disasterpieces against the Lions in Week 18 and the Wild Card smacking from the Rams. To be completely transparent, I was part of that crowd. I was a big J.J. McCarthy guy, and was ready for this franchise to finally home-grow its own franchise signal caller.
While Sam Darnold is on the comedown from his miraculous comeback, the Vikings find themselves right back in QB purgatory with a QB competition between Kyler Murray and J.J. McCarthy. Surely, one day they’ll get it right. As for now, it appears that Sam Darnold is probably the one that got away, and some of us fans wrote him off because of two bad games and the desire to see if the Vikings actually drafted a franchise guy.
