Every football fan knows the old adage: “If you have two quarterbacks, you actually have none.”
Well, the Minnesota Vikings, who fell to the Los Angeles Rams, 27-9, in the wild-card round of the NFC playoffs on Monday, enter the 2025 offseason with two quarterbacks and a big decision to make. Sam Darnold, who was thrust into the starting role after rookie J.J. McCarthy suffered a season-ending knee injury in the preseason, is coming off a standout season in which he put up career numbers in virtually every statistical category and was named to the Pro Bowl while leading Minnesota to 14 wins and a playoff berth. (Darnold could also potentially win a Comeback Player of the Year trophy, depending on how voters interpret the purpose of the award.) It’s a bona fide breakout for a player who was widely regarded as a bust. And with some of the throws he made …
… it’s easy to see a team convincing themselves that Darnold’s career year isn’t just a flash in the pan. Think Geno Smith in Seattle or Ryan Tannehill in Tennessee—the quarterback position is the most difficult to master in sports, and it’s easy to see how Darnold, who was just 20 years old when he was drafted by the Jets in 2018, took a while to acclimate to the league after playing for dysfunctional organizations in New York and Carolina.
Yes, Darnold ended his season on an absolute nadir. After missing a number of throws in a Week 18 matchup against the Lions with the NFC’s no. 1 seed on the line, he followed that up with a dreadful wild-card performance against the Rams that was a kaleidoscope of ugly sacks and bad decisions. He threw just one interception, but had a fumble returned for a touchdown. Things were so bad that at one point he was catching heat from ESPN broadcaster Troy Aikman for missing on routine screen passes.
Those latest performances may make Minnesota’s decision easier (and might have cost Darnold millions of dollars in free agency). But those performances shouldn’t fully derail the Season of Sam. Teams don’t evaluate players based on their worst two games, and Darnold’s body of work in 2024 suggests he’d provide an upgrade to many teams’ quarterback rooms. The question is whether that team will be the Vikings.
That’s because McCarthy was supposed to be the future in Minnesota. After the Vikings selected him with the no. 10 pick in the draft, the plan seemed clear: Darnold, whom the team signed away from San Francisco on a one-year deal, would serve as the veteran seat-warmer until the rookie was ready to take over. But McCarthy fully tore his meniscus in August, putting the start to his career on hold. Now, after Darnold played so much better than expected, the question becomes: Is McCarthy still the plan?
Let’s look at the three principal ways the Vikings could handle the situation this offseason:
Option 1: Sign Darnold to a Long-Term Deal
Perhaps this seems out of the question after the last two weeks. Or what if it’s more likely than ever? Darnold may no longer be able to negotiate for the type of steep guarantees that would make a long-term deal unpalatable to Minnesota. After their experience with elite bag-getter Kirk Cousins, the Vikings could want Darnold on a deal that offers them flexibility going forward. Luckily for them, one passer offers the perfect blueprint for what such a deal could look like: Baker Mayfield.
In 2023, Mayfield played on a one-year deal with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. He guided the team to a 9-8 record and an NFC South title while throwing for 4,044 yards and 28 touchdowns against 10 interceptions. For that performance, the Bucs rewarded him with a three-year, $100 million contract.
Darnold was better in 2024 than Mayfield was in 2023. He’s also a bit younger, at 27 years old. With that in mind, and accounting for some salary cap inflation (the cap is projected to rise 7.7 percent in 2025), the floor for a Darnold contract probably starts at around $35 million in annual value. But if QB-needy teams start a bidding war, that number could climb north of $40 million.
A contract structured like Mayfield’s would be “long-term” in name only. The Mayfield contract may be called a three-year deal, but it’s not nearly that big of a commitment for the Buccaneers. His cap hit in 2024 was just $6.9 million, and while it will climb in 2025 ($35.8 million) and 2026 ($45.8 million), the Bucs left themselves the option, in case Mayfield flopped in 2024, to be able to get out of his contract as soon as this offseason. If the Bucs wanted to move on (spoiler: they won’t) they’d save $20 million against the cap with a post-June 1 release. If Mayfield’s play totally implodes next season, the Bucs could cut him in 2026 and save $40 million.
Contrast that with the deal Cousins got in Atlanta. If the Falcons cut Cousins this offseason, they’ll be on the hook for a $40 million dead cap charge in 2025 and a $25 million dead cap charge in 2026. They’ll save nothing against the cap. An unwillingness to commit to a contract with this kind of inflexibility is partly why the Vikings let Cousins walk last year.
A big Darnold extension would seem to necessitate a trade of McCarthy. Some have speculated that McCarthy could return a top-five draft pick—as Mel Kiper Jr. recently noted, McCarthy is a year younger than top 2025 QBs Shedeur Sanders and Cam Ward, and was a better pro prospect than either of them.
But it wouldn’t be inconceivable for the Vikings to keep both QBs. Again, look at Atlanta: The Falcons’ decision to draft Michael Penix Jr. even after having already handed a big deal to Cousins was panned at the time, but appeared quite shrewd once Cousins’s play declined to the point that he was benched for the rookie. Maybe it’s true that “if you have two QBs, you actually have none,” but it’s also not the worst problem for an NFL team to have.
Option 2: Let Darnold Walk
This was the original plan. When the Vikings signed Darnold last March, GM Kwesi Adofo-Mensah talked about the flexibility that already having Darnold on the roster gave them at the position heading into the draft. “If the opportunity comes where that player is available, we’ll take it. If it’s not available … we’ll find potential odds at a long-term solution in addition to what we’ve already brought in with Sam and anyone else we acquire.”
It’s not really a big mystery—in signing Darnold to only a one-year deal, the Vikings were clearly looking elsewhere for a long-term solution. After drafting McCarthy in April, Darnold became a quintessential “bridge” quarterback, likely in line to start the season while the rookie got acclimated.
The Vikings had a clear vision for the roster in 2024. The plan was to sign (or re-sign) a bunch of talented but expensive players and retool around a cheap rookie quarterback. This is something you almost have to do when you happen to have the best receiver in football and need to give him a four-year, $140 million contract to keep him happy. When you’re paying Justin Jefferson quarterback money, there isn’t much room on the ledger for Kirk Cousins.
The Vikings also used their cap space to sign free agents Jonathan Greenard (four years, $76 million), Andrew Van Ginkel (two years, $20 million), Blake Cashman (three years, $22.5 million), and Aaron Jones (one year, $7 million).
And while every training camp report and highlight should be taken with an enormous grain of salt, for what it’s worth, McCarthy looked “GOOD” while Darnold was “inconsistent.” McCarthy debuted in the preseason with an impressive stat line against the Raiders: 11-for-17 for 188 yards passing, two touchdowns, and an interception.
As head coach Kevin O’Connell said in August, after McCarthy’s season-ending injury: “As excited as I was to draft him, he's confirmed everything that I hoped to see. Our fan base and everyone should be excited about the fact that we've got our young franchise quarterback in the building.”
Option 3: Use the Franchise Tag on Darnold
The middle ground. Tagging Darnold would cost the Vikings a projected $41.3 million against the salary cap next year. That’s certainly more than Minnesota planned to spend at the position in 2025 after drafting McCarthy, but the team has more than enough cap space—projected to be $57 million, fifth most in the league—to make it work.
Tagging Darnold would essentially allow Minnesota to kick the can down the road. They could enter 2025 in a similar situation as 2024—with Darnold as the veteran “bridge” QB and McCarthy waiting in the wings. Only this time, Darnold would cost an extra $36 million against the cap, he’d likely be a little disgruntled that his breakout performance didn’t result in long-term financial stability (creating a potential hit to the Vikings’ sterling reputation for how they treat their players), and the spotlight on the QB battle would be even brighter.
Still, this is exactly the type of situation the franchise tag was made for. Last offseason, in explaining his team-building philosophy, Adofo-Mensah explained that, “Everything's on the table, and we're trying to do our best to compete for a long time.” He stressed flexibility. This is the decision that would keep the most doors open for the team.
So, now the big question: What will the Vikings actually do?
In weighing the options, I don’t think it’s most insightful to look at Darnold vs. McCarthy, or Darnold vs. Mayfield. Instead, think about Darnold vs. Cousins.
This season, Darnold generated an EPA per dropback of 0.06, the 16th-best mark in the league. Cousins in 2023? Also 0.06—15th-best. And if EPA isn’t your cup of tea, just look at the rest of the stats:
Vikings QBs, Compared
This is just eerie, right? Those 2023 numbers from Cousins are roughly in line with his averages over his six seasons in Minnesota, too. In other words, Darnold’s big breakout delivered for the Vikings roughly the same quality of quarterback play they enjoyed for six seasons with Cousins under center.
The Vikings’ improvement, then, to a 14-win squad this season is not really the story of a breakout quarterback. Rather, it’s the story of a defense that ranked second in DVOA in 2024 after finishing outside the top 10—and often outside the top 20—in the four seasons prior. For as much attention as Darnold has gotten, defensive coordinator Brian Flores’s scheming and Adofo-Mensah’s defensive additions should get as much credit. This is just a better, more balanced team than Cousins enjoyed for most of his time wearing purple.
With Darnold’s play sufficiently in context, the Vikings are essentially in the same spot they were last year. Minnesota’s options: commit big money for B-plus quarterback play, or roll the dice on a young, talented, but ultimately unproven—and cheap—first-year player. Darnold will be rewarded for his breakout season somewhere. But the Vikings have already shown us what their preference is.