The 2025 season couldn’t have played out worse for the Minnesota Vikings.
J.J. McCarthy struggled on the field and suffered multiple injuries. He played only 10 games and exited his final two starts early. He threw 11 touchdowns and 12 interceptions, completing only 57.6% of his passes. Off the field, McCarthy became an internet meme, the poster child for every quarterback who underperformed on a big stage. His “Nine” alter-ego became a punchline.
It wasn’t as if the Vikings got much better quarterback play when McCarthy was sidelined, either. Carson Wentz was serviceable for five games, but his reckless style led to untimely picks and forced him to undergo season-ending shoulder surgery.
That meant that when McCarthy got injured again, undrafted rookie Max Brosmer came in to replace him. Brosmer struggled, perhaps as one might expect from an undrafted rookie, rather than expecting shades of Brock Purdy to emerge.
All of this would have been enough torture for the Vikings in 2025. But they didn’t franchise tag Sam Darnold, who led the Seattle Seahawks to the NFC’s No. 1 seed. He completed 67.6% of his passes, tossing 25 touchdowns to offset his 14 interceptions.
Anyone expecting Darnold to wilt under the pressure of the postseason was dealt a humbling slice of reality. Darnold was even better in the playoffs, completing 69.8% of his passes, throwing four touchdowns and no interceptions as the Seahawks dismantled the San Francisco 49ers and outlasted the Los Angeles Rams.
That has left Minnesota looking disorganized, unable to retain Darnold after he led them to a 14-3 season. How could the Vikings, who have always been eager to “run it back” with veteran quarterbacks like Kirk Cousins, Brett Favre, and Brad Johnson, sometimes even for a season too long, have been so content with allowing Darnold to seek a long-term deal elsewhere?
It’s as if Minnesota were in a Black Mirror episode, where someone presented them with an illusion of choice. Had they selected Darnold and he folded again under pressure late in the season, they would have wondered why they wasted a year of McCarthy while going back to their comfort zone of a veteran quarterback who had a ceiling that limited them in the postseason.
Instead, the Vikings chose the path of the young, second-year quarterback, hoping to reach heights the franchise has never seen before. Never again would they be stuck in their own ways of being good enough to compete but not great enough to contend.
Well, they got their wish. With McCarthy, the Vikings were neither good nor great enough. Instead, they stumbled to a 4-8 start. That eighth loss? Conveniently, the Seahawks drubbed them, 26-0.
Darnold wasn’t particularly good in that game. It’s difficult to say he was even that efficient. He completed only 14 of 26 passes for 128 yards and no touchdowns. He fumbled twice, losing one.
The difference, though, was that Darnold wasn’t discombobulated like Brosmer was in his first career start. If anyone had any expectations that the Vikings couldn’t be any worse than they were with McCarthy, they were sadly mistaken.
Brosmer tossed four interceptions, including an inexplicable 85-yard pick-six on fourth-and-one only four plays after Darnold’s lost fumble. When the play started, Minnesota was down only 3-0. After the turnover, it was 10-0. It might as well have been 41-0.
Five days after the Seahawks beat the Rams to advance to the Super Bowl, the Vikings fired general manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah. Many wondered what had changed in the 26 days following Minnesota’s final regular-season game. It’s hard to imagine that Darnold leading Seattle to the Super Bowl didn’t factor into the decision.
That’s what made Adofo-Mensah’s dismissal that much more frustrating. Minnesota hired him largely because of his background in analytics. His unconventional style was supposed to elevate the Vikings to new heights.
Unlike a “football guy” like Rick Spielman, Adofo-Mensah wasn’t going to budge in his short-term offer to a veteran quarterback. If Darnold wasn’t willing to take a one-year deal to stay in Minnesota, the Vikings weren’t going to match a competing offer or place the franchise tag on them.
Instead, Minnesota chose the alternate road, expecting different results. And why wouldn’t they? Kevin O’Connell was credited with turning Darnold around in 2024. He had also helped other quarterbacks, such as Josh Dobbs and Nick Mullens, have moments of success leading Minnesota’s offense.
In the end, the Vikings chose the wrong path. Their unconventional approach to the quarterback position led them to the same result they had before. And in the version Vikings fans can’t stop imagining — one that hasn’t happened yet, but feels disturbingly inevitable — the ending is the cruelest of all.
If this were a Black Mirror episode, the main character, wallowing in their feelings, would be seated in a small room with a television sitting in front of a chair.
The character would turn the television on to see Super Bowl LX, with Sam Darnold under center, ready to take a knee in “victory formation” to seal Seattle’s second Super Bowl win in franchise history.
NBC’s cameras would zoom in on Darnold accepting the Lombardi Trophy minutes later, capping a storybook season that wouldn’t have been possible without Minnesota.
In 2024, the Vikings rebuilt him from a draft bust into a Pro Bowl quarterback. A year later, the Vikings allowed him to seek greener pastures in hopes that they could find a quarterback as effective as Darnold.
Of course, there’s no guarantee that Minnesota would be in the Super Bowl if they brought Darnold back. Injuries derailed their offensive line early on, and key members of the defense were out in the first half of the year.
The television would then flip to an alternate reality where the Vikings did bring Darnold back. It would show the Rams beating them again in the Wild Card round.
There would be ESPN and NFL Network clips of pundits mocking Minnesota for doing what they always do. Worst yet, they have Darnold signed through the 2027 season.
All McCarthy does is win. Why waste the 10th-overall pick on him if you aren’t going to play him?
Credits roll. Audiences in Green Bay, Chicago, and Detroit laugh.
Was there ever an ideal decision? Or are the Vikings always cursed to be on the wrong side of history?
