Inside the world’s most valuable sports league, perhaps the most impactful decision a team can make is deciding who will play its most important position: quarterback. And for the NFL season’s first 17 weeks, Minnesota’s decision to sign Sam Darnold to a one-year, $10 million contract last spring looked like one of the league’s best bargains.
Originally intended to be the Vikings’ backup, only to be thrust into a starting job on the eve of the regular season because of a preseason injury to rookie and first-round pick J.J. McCarthy, Darnold instantly thrived within the offensive system of Minnesota coach Kevin O’Connell, himself a former NFL quarterback, displaying the type of production that led him to be selected third overall in the 2018 NFL draft and little of the struggles that made Minnesota already the fourth stop of Darnold’s seven-year career.
Yet as soon as the Minnesota Vikings’ season stunningly ended Monday, in a 27-9 loss to the Los Angeles Rams in the first round of the NFL playoffs, a dilemma began.
Will teams around the league still view Darnold as a potential face of the franchise capable of taking his team to new heights, or a flawed free agent who will regress to the mean?
It wasn’t a question many were considering only two weeks earlier. Entering the regular season’s final week, the Vikings had rattled off nine consecutive wins, a streak that owed to Minnesota’s aggressive defense, but also to its quarterback, who had thrown 35 touchdowns and 12 interceptions. By significant margins, Darnold’s passer rating and completion percentages were both career-bests. Teammates were so fond of Darnold that, after Minnesota won its 14th game — one off the franchise record — in Week 17 to set up a regular-season finale with Detroit that would decide the NFC’s top seed in the playoffs, Vikings players lifted Darnold on their shoulders to raucous cheers.
It was such a stirring resurrection of a career that it begged the question of whether Darnold’s success would lead the Vikings to reconsider their succession plan of starting McCarthy in 2025.
Yet if the Vikings’ were one of the NFL’s best stories, however, they were quickly headed toward one of the league’s worst endings. Blown out by 22 points against Detroit in the Jan. 5 season finale, where Darnold was ineffective under pressure, the Vikings crumpled again just eight days later in the postseason’s first round by the Rams, who sacked Darnold nine times.
Darnold’s final two games may have cost him potentially millions, but he is still expected to be pursued by multiple teams, said one NFL executive who evaluates talent and spoke on the condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to discuss other players publicly.
“There is still going to be a pretty strong market for him,” the executive told NBC News. “He is still young and highly experienced and there are plenty of teams out there, like the Raiders, Titans, Seahawks and Browns that could be interested. Coaching fit is critical.”
Of that group, the Raiders are projected to have the most cap space — around $92 million, second-most in the NFL — to sign free agents, according to overthecap.com.
ESPN reporter Jeremy Fowler echoed the sentiment, writing Monday that Darnold was still the top quarterback on the free-agent market.
If Darnold isn’t in Minnesota in 2025, his bid to earn a sizable contract and remain a starter elsewhere could be boosted by two factors: precedent, and scarcity.
In each of the last two seasons, quarterbacks have cashed in after career-resurrecting seasons that teams believed were replicable. Signed by Seattle ostensibly to serve as a temporary bridge to its quarterback of the future, Geno Smith played well enough in 2022 to earn a three-year contract worth a reported $75 million. One year later Baker Mayfield, another former first-round pick turned nomad — including a season as Darnold’s teammate in Carolina — played so well in his first season with Tampa Bay that he earned a three-year deal worth a reported $100 million.
Teams in need of a quarterback also aren’t assured of finding one in the 2025 draft. Teams are “tepid” on the quarterbacks potentially available, the NFL executive said.
O’Connell, the Vikings’ coach, recommended his team consider Darnold’s entire season when making any decisions. Minnesota could franchise tag Darnold, which would pay him the average salary of the league’s top quarterbacks but prevent him from going to free agency for the next year.
“What he was able to do this year, when not very many people thought he would be able to lead a team to 14 wins, is rare,” O’Connell told reporters. “The way he came in, committed himself to just a daily process to be the best version of himself.”
He wasn’t that best version in an early playoff exit. The multi-million dollar question around the NFL is how many teams believe Darnold can still reach that potential for them.
