There’s no denying the mess the Minnesota Vikings find themselves in at the most important position in team sports.
It’s also unfair to completely skewer general manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah and head coach Kevin O’connell for choosing the unknown promise of No. 10 overall draft pick J.J. McCarthy over longtime NFL journeyman Sam Darnold this past offseason.
In hindsight, the move looks disastrous for the Vikings, who at 4-7 will start undrafted rookie Max Brosmer at quarterback against Darnold and the 8-3 Seahawks at Lumen Field; the Seahawks have climbed to an 11.5-point favorite for Sunday’s matchup.
In reality, though, the Vikings’ decision to let Darnold test free agency, and ultimately land the $100 million deal he was coveting, was weighted in reason and made a ton of sense for both sides (at the time, at least).
Minnesota viewed McCarthy’s rookie-scale contract as a vehicle to attack other areas of need in free agency, specifically the interior of their offensive and defensive lines. McCarthy’s promotion also allowed Darnold to find a better situation; with all due respect to Jalen Milroe, he doesn’t have a high-end QB prospect breathing down his neck in Seattle, and the Vikings stand to recoup a third-round compensatory pick in the 2026 draft for losing Darnold to his hefty Seahawks contract.
It’s no secret that the Darnold decision hasn’t aged well for Minnesota, but even the fans were ready to see what McCarthy could do after last year’s late-season nose-dive and first-round playoff exit.
Seahawks head coach Mike Macdonald may have inadvertently struck a nerve with Vikings fans this week, though, with his comments on Darnold and why Seattle ultimately ditched starter Geno Smith to sign him in March.
The Minnesota Vikings (and their fans) may have overreacted to Sam Darnold’s shaky finish to the 2024 season
It’s amazing how quickly a player or team’s fortune can change in today’s NFL world.
As Vikings reporter Alec Lewis wrote in advance of Sunday’s game, Darnold went from getting hoisted on his teammates’ shoulders in the locker room following a galvanizing win over the rival Green Bay Packers in Week 17, to essentially getting shown the door following brutal losses to the Detroit Lions and Los Angeles Rams to end the season; the Vikings scored a total of 18 points in those games, and Darnold was sacked a playoff-record-tying nine times against the Rams.
Circling back to the Vikings’ process this past offseason, a big reason making the switch to McCarthy made so much sense was due to Darnold coming up small in the two biggest games of the season. Had Darnold played well and the Vikings won a playoff game or two, he’d likely still be Minnesota’s QB1 right now, with McCarthy coming off a lost rookie season due to injury.
Via Lewis and Michael-Shawn Dugar of The Athletic, Macdonald said the Seahawks put more stock into Darnold’s Pro Bowl season as a whole than the two games that ultimately got him run out of the Twin Cities.
“It’s a little narrow-minded,” Macdonald said. “You’re just going to go off a two-game sample? When we were looking into possibly trying to get Sam, to a person, the type of player and teammate he was on a daily basis was really cool.
Then you watch the totality of the tape — there’s a lot of great things going on in the red zone, on third down, two-minute, on the move; we know he’s a great thrower on the move. All those things shined through.”
The words “narrow-minded” should definitely sting for Vikings fans — because everyone was feeling the same thing back in February. The overarching sentiment was gratitude for Darnold and excitement for McCarthy’s chances of becoming the franchise QB this team has desperately needed.
Macdonald wasn’t talking about the Vikings’ front office, but the brutal truth is that his point works for both sides.
Darnold has spent the majority of 2025 proving he’s a lot closer to the quarterback the Vikings celebrated postgame after that Packers game — or who led Minnesota into Lumen Field and beat the Seahawks, 27-24, the week prior — than the one who crumbled in a pair of must-win games that went sideways at the end.
On Thanksgiving weekend, it's a realiity the Vikings' front office and fans will have to eat on Sunday.