For as great as Sam Darnold has been for the Minnesota Vikings this year, he has probably played his way out of the Twin Cities already. He was always going to be the stop-gap quarterback to eventually get them to first-round pick J.J. McCarthy; while two surgeries and a rookie season ending before it started ruined McCarthy's first year with the team, the Vikings still view him as the future face of their franchise.
On Friday, The Athletic had 12 beat writers make an educated guess as to who each team's starting quarterback would be in 2025. Minnesota reporter Alec Lewis picked McCarthy. As great as Darnold has been, Lewis wrote that the Vikings want a far less erratic player and a better decision-maker under center, not to mention one who's still on a rookie contract.
In theory, McCarthy should be that, but he was always going to be the rawest of the first-round quarterbacks taken in this year's draft. (While Michael Penix Jr. is not starting for the Atlanta Falcons just yet, it may have more to do with how well Kirk Cousins has played in his first year with the team than anything.) McCarthy plays for a great head coach and a strong organization, but I have my concerns — and frankly, Darnold has played too well to be back in Minnesota on a similar contract to the one he is playing under this year.
Look. From a team building standpoint, I get it. I operate under the same philosophy of the late United States general Norman Schwarzkopf: You want to fail fast. It does not serve the Vikings to sit, wait and wonder if McCarthy is going to be the guy for them or not. The idea was he would back up Darnold for one season before taking the reins in 2025.
I think McCarthy being hurt his entire rookie season is deplorably bad for his development. Although he was a five-star coming out of high school, he only played three years at Michigan and was only the starter in two of them. Michigan ran a ground-centric attack that never asked McCarthy to carry the offense. He showed us he could win playing that way, but he never showed the consistency in the pocket he's going to need to succeed in the NFL.
I keep going back to this. How sure are we that Darnold is going to hand the baton off to McCarthy smoothly, or better yet, willingly? The NFL is a business, and Darnold is about to get paid! Against all odds, Darnold has impressed me this season now that he is starting for a team that actually has a clue what it is doing. That could be in McCarthy's favor, but again, he has such a steep learning curve.
Sometimes in life you have to take a gamble, but this is not as calculated of a risk as it seemed initially.
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