Vikings Predicted to Make Unpopular Decisions on Both McCarthy & Darnold

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Quarterback J.J. McCarthy of the Minnesota Vikings.

The Minnesota Vikings have to decide whether to go with the quarterback they know or the one who remains a relative mystery.

Sam Darnold has seven seasons of professional experience and 18 starts under his belt in Minnesota. Rookie J.J. McCarthy turns 22 years old later this month and has never taken an NFL snap that counted after injuring his knee during his first-ever preseason action last August.

Darnold threw for more than 4,300 yards and 35 TDs this year, repairing his reputation and leading the Vikings to a 14-win campaign. But he came up lame in Week 18 against the Detroit Lions, which kept Minnesota out of the NFC’s No. 1 seed and a bye through the first round, then followed that up with 2 turnovers and 9 sacks in an embarrassing playoff defeat to the Los Angeles Rams on Monday night, January 13.

McCarthy could be the next big thing. He did come into the league last year with a better draft grade than either of the top two QBs in the 2025 class (Shedeur Sanders of Colorado and Cam Ward of Miami). And in a weird turn of events, McCarthy’s trade value has increased despite a rookie campaign in which he didn’t play at all due to an injury.

Moving on from McCarthy for two or three draft picks, including a first-round selection in April, could end up looking like a genius move or an all-time bonehead play — there’s just no way to know for sure. But ESPN’s Benjamin Solak believes that is ultimately the call the Vikings are going to make in the coming months.

Vikings Predicted to Extend Quarterback Sam Darnold

GettyQuarterback Sam Darnold of the Minnesota Vikings.

Solak published his thoughts on both Darnold and McCarthy Tuesday, predicting that the Vikings ink Darnold to a new contract and shop McCarthy in the shadows.

“I really, truly believe the Vikings will extend Darnold. They have the room for something in the Daniel Jones neighborhood — four years, $160 million is probably optimal, if they can get Darnold to sign that before another team in the free market offers him a whale of a deal,” Solak wrote. “Depending on the size of the contract, they’ll either keep McCarthy or quietly look to trade him ahead of a bad quarterback draft class and see if a needy team takes the bait.”

There are multiple ways to look at a $40 million annual contract for Darnold. The first is that it’s too much to pay a player who has had only one quality NFL campaign in seven tries, is somewhat reliant on the Vikings’ offensive roster and system to succeed and just played arguably his two worst games of the season back-to-back when it mattered most.

Another way to consider it is that Darnold’s market value dropped $15 million per season over a projected four-year contract because of those two games, and he’s actually now a bargain at $160 million total given the importance of the position, the current QB salary scale and the fact that the salary cap will continue to increase over the life of the deal — rendering it less onerous with each passing year.

Vikings Predicted to Trade Quarterback J.J. McCarthy

GettyQuarterbacks J.J. McCarthy (left) and Sam Darnold (right) of the Minnesota Vikings.

The relative weakness of the QB position in both the draft and free agent classes puts Darnold in an advantageous spot.

However, Minnesota can mitigate his cost by locking Darnold into a deal as early as possible. The Vikings can then use the QB need across the league to bend the weaknesses to its advantage by selling considerably higher on McCarthy than the 10th overall pick they used to draft him last April.

A handful of teams, including the New York Giants at No. 3 and the Las Vegas Raiders at No. 6, need a quarterback and won’t be able to land Sanders or Ward without trading up for them anyway.

If either organization likes McCarthy more, that’s enough for Minnesota to land its first-round selection in 2025 and probably one or two more solid assets across this and/or next year’s draft.