After the Vikings gave up an opening-drive touchdown to the Giants in the wild-card round of the 2022 playoffs, former Cowboys coach Jason Garrett turned to me in the NBC viewing room and said, “It’s gonna be a long day for that defense.”
After the Vikings scored an opening-drive touchdown on Sunday against the Seahawks, Garrett had another pearl of wisdom, as to quarterback Sam Darnold: “They can’t let him out of the building.”
Starting with the comeback to beat the Cardinals in Week 13, Darnold reached a higher level of performance. He operates efficiently from the pocket. He moves when he needs to, buying enough time to find an open man. And he’s throwing more and more accurately.
His game-winning 39-yard touchdown pass to receiver Justin Jefferson in Seattle was perhaps the best throw of the year, by any quarterback. Darnold didn’t just step up into the pocket; he sprinted through it. And he was able to deliver a strike with the right amount of touch to drop the ball between a pair of defenders.
So what happens next? They could extend Darnold’s contract now, betting that he’ll keep getting better and that the price to keep him will keep going up. They would wait until after the season, negotiating with him as a choice between the franchise tag or the free market looms.
The Vikings could roll the dice that he won’t get a better offer than what Minnesota would pay, banking on the notion that other teams will believe that only the Vikings and coach Kevin O’Connell can coax this type of performance out of him. Once he’s out of the building, however, he might not come back.
The fallback is the franchise tag, which will be in the range of $40 million for one more year. That could be the starting point for a longer-term deal, with the ability to keep him for two more years at a total expenditure of $88 million.
Complicating matters is the investment made in rookie J.J. McCarthy. Ideally, they’d transition at the right time from Darnold to McCarthy. And the right time might not be now.
That’s going to be the biggest conundrum for the Vikings in the 2025 offseason. They ultimately got it right with Kirk Cousins; dollar for dollar, Darnold at $10 million is a steal.
Will they get it right with Darnold?
Some would call it a good problem to have. Still, the best problem is no problem at all.
