Does It Make Sense for the Minnesota Vikings to Extend Sam Darnold After the 2024 season?
Sep 30
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Sam Darnold and the Minnesota Vikings are off to an unexpected 4-0 start. Sam leads the league with 11 passing touchdowns, as well as a 118.9 passer rating that leads the league as well. It is safe to say that Darnold is playing at minimum as a top 10 quarterback through 4 weeks of the season. All of this being said, even if Sam Darnold keeps up this pace, he will not be playing quarterback for the Minnesota Vikings next season.
Sam Darnold deserves a lot of the credit when it comes to his performance, and the Vikings 4-0 start, but without the defense playing at a top 10 level and Kevin O’Connell pulling the strings on offense, this team would not be where it is at the moment. Let’s start with the defense.
The Vikings brought in some key defenders in free agency that have been key contributors to this year’s success. Jonathan Greenard (EDGE from Houston), Andrew Van Ginkel (EDGE from Miami), Blake Cashman (ILB from Houston), Stephon Gilmore (CB from Dallas), and a few others that have made their own contributions. The reason the Vikings were able to do this was because they parted ways with Kirk Cousins, freeing up a lot of money to bring these guys (including Sam Darnold) into the building. Sam Darnold is making $10 million dollars this year compared to the ex (Cousins) who is making around $45 million dollars this year. The Vikings were able to bring in these key pieces in free agency because the quarterback wasn’t taking up a substantial amount of the cap space like previous years. So yes, Sam Darnold has been playing great football, but the upgrades on defense is a huge reason to why this team is 4-0 as well.
Kevin O’Connell is another reason why this team is 4-0. Kevin identified Sam Darnold this offseason as a guy that could come into Minnesota and possibly play out the year as the starting quarterback while trying to find the future franchise starter for this team. Kevin O’Connell is probably the only guy on the planet that knew this is how Sam Darnold would be playing this year. O’Connell has now taken multiple “journeymen” quarterbacks and turned them into competent starting quarterbacks for the Vikings. Last year it was winning back-to-back games with Josh Dobbs, who had been with the team a total of 10 days in two weeks. Along with guiding Nick Mullens to passing for over 400 yards in two games in the last few of weeks of the season. If Kevin O’Connell can prop up Josh Dobbs, Nick Mullens, and make Sam Darnold look like an MVP candidate through 4 weeks of the season, what can he do with JJ McCarthy? If I am the rest of the NFL, I don’t know if I want to find out.
JJ McCarthy was selected as the Minnesota Vikings no. 10 pick in the 2024 NFL Draft. The Vikings traded up one spot to land the Michigan QB. Due to an unfortunate meniscus injury, JJ McCarthy was placed on season ending IR. If the injury didn’t take place, who knows if we would have been even having a conversation about Sam Darnold. JJ McCarthy was competing for the starting job and reports out of Minnesota said that JJ McCarthy was closer to starting week 1 than most people had thought. I don’t think it’s crazy to say that barring the injury, we could have very well been talking about a 4-0 team with JJ McCarthy starting at quarterback.
No matter the outcome of the Vikings season, whether that being a trip to the playoffs, and maybe a playoff win or two, or even a Super Bowl win. There is no reason to sign Sam Darnold to a multiyear 55-million-dollar per year contract, which he would command. The Vikings quarterback for the 2025 season will be JJ McCarthy, who by the way is on a rookie contract for the next 4 years. This allows the Vikings to keep making quality free agent signings in the offseason and keep improving this roster. Rather than signing Sam Darnold to a massive contract that prevents you from doing just that. This strategy in fact, has been the recipe of success for the Vikings 4-0 start, so why go away from that.