Around this same time in 2025, the Minnesota Vikings and Sam Darnold had decided to go their separate ways, and the veteran quarterback wound up signing a multi-year contract with the Seattle Seahawks in free agency.
All Darnold went on to do in the 2025 season was lead the Seahawks to a Super Bowl win and make the Vikings feel a major amount of regret for moving on from him.
On Monday, a tiny bit of that regret disappeared when the NFL revealed that Minnesota has been awarded a third-round compensatory draft pick (97th overall) to make up for Darnold's departure in free agency in 2025.
As a result, the Vikings now have two picks in the third round of this year's NFL Draft and a total of four selections among the top 100 picks.
Minnesota Vikings still recovering from Sam Darnold signing with Seattle Seahawks
At the time, Minnesota felt like they were making the right choice when they decided not to re-sign Darnold a few months after he helped lead the team to an impressive 14-3 record in the 2024 season.
Prior to 2024, Darnold had not lived up to the expectations he was given when the New York Jets selected him with the third overall pick in the 2018 NFL Draft, and the Vikings clearly didn't feel comfortable signing him to a lucrative contract.
So, instead of bringing him back, Minnesota wished him luck and shifted gears to making J.J. McCarthy the team's new starting quarterback.
Unfortunately, it now looks like the Vikings made a major mistake.
McCarthy put together one of the worst seasons by a first-year starting quarterback in NFL history, and the guy who played a significant part in Minnesota moving on from Darnold last year, Kwesi Adofo-Mensah, was fired as the team's general manager in January.
And now, the Vikings are attempting to find a quarterback in free agency who can actually get the ball in Justin Jefferson's hands, which is apparently easier said than done for some signal-callers.
But at least they got the extra draft pick this year!