After Sam Darnold’s three-year commitment to the Seattle Seahawks and the Vikings’ self-withdrawal from the Aaron Rodgers sweepstakes (if they were even ever really truly in it, to begin with), there’s one thing that has been made clear that I have personally felt has been the case since the night of April 25th, 2024: J.J. McCarthy is the plan.
He is, has been, and will be the plan going forward. With each domino that falls, that becomes more and more crystal clear. The very first domino came on the night that he was drafted, an obvious one, but Minnesota traded up one spot with the New York Jets to ensure that they secured the rights to McCarthy so the Denver Broncos (who claim they wanted Bo Nix all along, and that they “got” the Vikings) couldn’t trade up themselves to snipe McCarthy off of the board before the Vikings had a chance.
With the Seattle Seahawks’ signing of Sam Darnold, it’s easy to see how it’s a sign that Minnesota is rolling the McCarthy way, but it makes even more sense when you peel back another layer. We were talking about Sam Darnold getting paid $40 million or more on his next contract, wherever he ended up, and it didn’t even really come near that. The Seahawks got Darnold for only an average annual value of about $33 million, and that’s just on the surface.
Per Mike Florio of ProFootballTalk, the Seahawks can very easily get out of the Darnold deal after just one season and the $37.5 million that the QB is fully guaranteed in 2025. Darnold’s 2026 guarantees are only for $17.5 million in case of injury; that doesn’t even guarantee until the week of next year’s Super Bowl. His 2027 money, the final year of his Seattle deal, is completely non-guaranteed.
Long story short, if Darnold flops year one in the Pacific Northwest, then Seattle can release him after this season with just about zero long-term harm done. If the Vikings didn’t want to give the QB who led them to a 14-win season while throwing for 4,300 yards and 35 TDs, then they’ve got some REAL faith in McCarthy.
Truthfully, even in the heat of Darnold lighting it up, it still never felt to me, in my opinion, that this was ever truly his team. The vibe around the Vikings always seemed to be that once McCarthy is cleared, the team is his so when the Vikings made the decision to let Darnold test the market, that got all but confirmed…until Aaron Rodgers popped up.
A scenario that was the material of silly jokes about Brett Favre ten years ago got scarily close to reality: the joining of forces between Rodgers and the Minnesota Vikings. All signs point towards the fact that A-Rod himself was waiting for Minnesota to approach him, and they didn’t.
Keep in mind, this is not the “washed-up” Rodgers from the first half of 2024 – he was pretty, pretty good to end the year last season. The old man still finished top 10 in passing yards and passing touchdowns and threw 13 TDs to 3 INTs over the course of the last seven games of the season.
Watching the film, Aaron had a little bit of that “Rodgers swag” to him. He started to look a little like the “bad man” that Stephen A. Smith always referred to him as, but there was just one problem; he was on the New York Jets, and it’s hard to say there’s anything on this Earth that can make that organization look good on the field.
The praise of Aaron Rodgers isn’t made with the intent to say the Vikings should sign him (they shouldn’t). Rather, it is all the more reason why it is confident that the Vikings have finally truly drafted a franchise signal caller.
I know it’s really a nothing-burger, but I’ve watched that touchdown pass from McCarthy to Trishton Jackson in the first game of the preseason last year so many times. There’s something about that play that just gives some kind of reassuring vibe that Minnesota has the one.
There has very obviously been a plan in place that the Vikings wanted to stick to no matter what. It didn’t matter if Darnold had an out-of-body-experience for four months and threw almost 40 TDs, and it didn’t matter if one of the best quarterbacks in human history desired to complete the three-team trifecta that was performed by the guy from before him.
Kwesi Adofo-Mensah and Kevin O’Connell have a plan in place, and it’s worked masterfully to this point.
Deviation from the plan could lead to blunders, which could lead to job changes. There’s zero reason to stray from the path with the light at the end of the tunnel.
