Can Minnesota Have Their Cake and Eat It With Sam Darnold?
Credit: Kirby Lee-Imagn Images
Last month, Skor North’s Thor Nystrom channeled the Minnesota Vikings fanbase and argued that moving on from Sam Darnold and rolling with J.J. McCarthy in 2025 was always a “predetermined outcome.” It was destiny, even after Darnold vastly outperformed expectations relative to his $10 million contract. Those fans got even more confident in this belief after Darnold played poorly in his last two games of the season.
However, it does not appear as if Kwesi Adofo-Mensah and Kevin O’Connell have made their final decision on Darnold’s future. NFL Network’s Tom Pelissero — who grew up and “grinded it out” in the affluent, cake-eating suburb of Edina and is thus plugged into the Vikings organization — gave us a new update on Darnold’s negotiations with the Vikings. “Talks are fluid,” Pelissero reported. “All options are still on the table with Sam Darnold and the Vikings. They’re still feeling this out.”
With Sam Darnold set to enter free agency next month and JJ McCarthy still recovering from knee surgery — what is the Vikings plan at QB for 2025?#NFL #SKOL #SBLIX pic.twitter.com/vTUEdgEsPr
— Rich Eisen Show (@RichEisenShow) February 4, 2025
Clearly, the Vikings want to keep Darnold, at least on their terms. What we don’t know is whether “on their terms” means a team-friendly contract extension, the franchise tag, or the transition tag. The most die-hard McCarthy Truthers refuse to believe that keeping Darnold is at least a possibility and have been telling themselves that this report must be part of a ploy from Minnesota’s front office. Maybe they’re just gaining leverage for a potential tag-and-trade to a quarterback-needy team like the Las Vegas Raiders?
The question is, however, is that a realistic possibility for the Vikings?
Tagging and trading Darnold would be a risky move. The Raiders are really the only other quarterback-needy team with enough effective cap space ($85,766,761) to pay Darnold while still addressing other needs. Other potential suitors — the Los Angeles Rams, New York Giants, and Pittsburgh Steelers — all have $37,542,278 or less of effective cap space, which is short of the $39,637,000 required to acquire a quarterback on the franchise tag. Maybe they’d still try making room, but if not, the Vikings have no leverage over a team like Las Vegas.
Regarding local media, @alec_lewis notes the Raiders as one team potentially being interested in Sam Darnold. Largely in part of their flush cap space.
In regards to a tag-and-trade option, Lewis notes that, “the Vikings would have to weigh the value of a late-round pick versus… https://t.co/IgCbJgy4gP pic.twitter.com/FiiTMJ9jSb
— The Purple Persuasion (@TPPSkol) January 21, 2025
If Kwesi can get a Day 2 pick from Las Vegas before free agency, then a Darnold tag-and-trade would obviously be worthwhile. On the other hand, if Alec Lewis’ late-round draft compensation projection is accurate, then such a move wouldn’t be worth the trouble. Lewis also reported that Minnesota is “not going to [slap on the franchise tag] without conversing with Darnold’s representatives to ensure that it’s the best feeling for both sides.”
All this is to say, I don’t see the path for Minnesota to tag-and-trade Darnold. However, I do think there’s a decent chance that the Vikings can find a happy medium with Darnold’s representatives that would keep him in Minnesota for the 2025 season. Although Las Vegas has the cap space and draft capital to improve in this area, the Raiders offensive line ranked 21st in Overall Block Win Rate in 2025, while the Vikings finished third. Darnold may be incentivized to accept a team-friendly deal in Minnesota, knowing how difficult it could be to replicate last year’s success in Vegas.
Last year’s negotiations with Kirk Cousins may provide a glimpse of what a potential Darnold deal could look like. ESPN’s Kevin Seifert wrote in July 2024 that “Kwesi Adofo Mensah’s final offer to Kirk Cousins, delivered at the NFL combine at the end of February, was a deal that fully guaranteed Cousins’ 2024 salary and offered partial guarantees for 2025. Cousins, who would later say he wanted to avoid what amounted to a “year-to-year” contract, turned it down.”
Inside the Vikings' QB transition: Where it started, how they thought about it, what they wanted from Kirk Cousins, the private workouts, the potential Penix-McCarthy choice, draft day game theory + their plan for J.J. McCarthy's development.https://t.co/Si7kcOnFtH
— Kevin Seifert (@SeifertESPN) July 19, 2024
Keep in mind, the Vikings offered Cousins this deal knowing that they were going to select a quarterback in the 2024 Draft. Now that we’re a year removed from McCarthy becoming the QB of the Future, Minnesota may be less interested in offering Darnold a fully-guaranteed salary in 2025. That’s because Kwesi must account for the possibility of McCarthy emerging as the starter at some point, which is why my best guess as to the Vikings’ final offer for Darnold will be a two-year, $72 million partially-guaranteed contract extension that includes a potential out in 2026.
For the sake of argument, let’s assume that the Vikings guarantee 55% of Darnold’s salary in 2025 — a percentage that is in line with the contracts of Geno Smith, Daniel Jones, and Baker Mayfield. That would mean Darnold would only be averaging $19.8 million in guaranteed money each season, leaving Minnesota with $35.9 million of effective cap space afterward. Keep in mind that is also assuming that the non-guaranteed incentives are deemed “unlikely to be earned,” meaning they wouldn’t count against the cap prior to the 2025 season.
$35.9 million is more than enough to make a run at a big-name free agent like Trey Smith, who is expected to fetch a contract worth anywhere from $20 million to $25 million per year. Although it may be wiser for Minnesota to make a run at slightly more affordable options in Will Fries or Mekhi Becton, both of whom could be up to $10 million cheaper than Smith. This would allow Kwesi to address more needs ahead of a draft where the Vikings are without a second-round pick.
Minnesota wants to have their cake and eat it. They want to sign Sam Darnold, but they also want to be aggressive in rebuilding the trenches in free agency. Those two things seem mutually exclusive at first, but that may not be the case if Darnold is willing to return on a team-friendly deal. The final decision lies in the hands of their leader for 2024, who can either maximize his short-term salary on a bad team or accept less money to join a competitive team with the talent to help him cash out again in the future. If it’s the latter, the Vikings can have everything they want.
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