Minnesota Vikings fans who have spent the past couple of years hoping the team would part ways with divisive quarterback Kirk Cousins might be feeling like they made their wish on a monkey’s paw — or, at the very least, that free agency is taking place in The Twilight Zone.
Before we’d even had time to consider that Kirk had eaten his last scoop of corn at Pizza Ranch, the top free-agency QBs started disappearing like Roger Goodell snapped his fingers wearing the Infinity Gauntlet.
What’s the plan here? you may have asked yourself as you watched options vanish from the board, all while checking your empty pockets for draft capital that just wasn’t there.
Well, early Tuesday morning news dropped that Minnesota’s plan — or part of it, anyway — included signing Sam Darnold to a reported one-year, $10 million deal.
Darnold was a highly coveted draft pick out of USC in 2018. He was the centerpiece of the 2017 New York Jets’ “Scam For Sam” campaign, when the faltering 2017 Jets purged their roster during a bumbling season in hopes of being first in line for Darnold in the draft. (The name, of course, is a play on the Indianapolis Colts’ infamous “Suck For Luck” strategy to draft Andrew Luck.) New York didn’t quite get there. But by spending a little bit of draft capital, the Jets traded up to acquire Darnold. He was the second quarterback off the board that year, behind Baker Mayfield.
How did all that Scamming For Sam work out? The Jets won four, seven, and two games in the next three seasons, respectively. That third year was so bad that they wound up with the No. 2-overall pick in the 2021 draft, no scam necessary, which they promptly spent on Darnold’s replacement, Zach Wilson.
(Pause for laughter.)
Darnold then spent a couple of seasons on the Carolina Panthers as part of two woeful quarterback committees: With late-stage Cam Newton and P.J. Walker in 2021 and with old draft classmate Mayfield and Walker again in 2022. Darnold went 4-7 and 4-2 in those two years, respectively. Last year, he nearly earned a Super Bowl ring hanging out with Brock Purdy on the sidelines during defensive series (sorry, Dan Marino).
Fan reaction to the decision has been gloomy, even by Minnesota standards. I’m not going to aggregate a bunch of angry tweets. You can look those up for yourself; they won’t be hard to find. The reasons are obvious. Every team Darnold has played for has been a relative disaster, with the one major exception being the team he conspicuously didn’t actually play for when he was on the roster. It also doesn’t help that by association, he’s in a kind of Rat Pack of recent QB draft busts alongside Wilson, Johnny Manziel, and, to a lesser extent, Mayfield.
But before you get too cynical — I know, funny thing to say to a Minnesota Vikings fan — consider that Darnold obviously isn’t the plan; he’s part of it. It’s a one-year bridge deal. General manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah may still have a trick up his sleeve in the draft or an even more long-term vision that won’t become clear until the 2025 draft.
It’s also worth mentioning that, backup stint with the San Francisco 49ers aside, Darnold has been part of two of the most slapstick franchises in the NFL in the Jets and Panthers, whose last few years play like the writers of Veep made a football TV show. Undeniably, Darnold was a part of those franchises, but they also continued to languish in oblivion after he went elsewhere.
Longtime Jets fan and NFL Network personality Dan Hanzus has long maintained that Darnold hasn’t gotten a fair shot and may be better than people give him credit for. Could that be the case?
It’s easy, and probably correct, to chalk a lot of this fan anxiety up to PTSD from the Christian Ponder era. From the endless parade of backups after Minnesota’s quarterbacks’ knees and ankles exploded. From starting Joe Webb in a playoff game. Darnold certainly looks suited to a spot in the Vikings’ Gallery Of Woeful Signal-Callers.
But the worry runs deeper than that, and the concern is valid. The problem is that this Darnold signing feels like yet another indication that Adofo-Mensah’s plan for the franchise isn’t probable or attainable. “Competitive Rebuild” always sounded ominously like one of those meaningless business terms that seem clever but have no practical application in reality. If it was that easy, teams would always keep being good while replenishing their rosters and managing their salary caps.
Over the first two years of his tenure, Adofo-Mensah has depleted Minnesota’s draft capital enough that trading up in a QB-rich draft class is more difficult, if not impossible. It would have been easier had they just bitten the bullet and traded away some assets after Cousins went out for the season with his injury, but they didn’t. They were still “competitive.” Now they sign one of those free-agent bridge quarterbacks so many teams have been eyeing, yet they pick one of the least enticing prospects…and give him $10 million? Meanwhile, the arguably superior Jacoby Brissett signed with the New England Patriots for only $8 million. Russell Wilson is playing in Pittsburgh essentially for free popcorn and merch from the team clothing store.
It’s starting to feel like a pattern with Adofo-Mensah’s roster-building approach — both uncommitted and impulsive. Perhaps that’s not the case. Darnold has never had so much support on the field or the sidelines. Maybe reuniting with his old buddy and new Vikings staffer Josh McCown will pay dividends. It’s only a one-year contract anyway, and the extent of Adofo-Mensah’s strategy won’t become clearer until draft day. Maybe this is one of the first tough decisions on the way to a genuine rebuild. But if Vikings fans feel a little churning in their stomachs, it’s not the double cheeseburger you ate at Cuzzy’s last night — it’s a reasonable reaction to Tuesday morning’s news.
