Did the Vikings' brass give clues about the QB situation in Indy?

Kevin O'Connell and Kwesi Adofo-Mensah spoke at the podium on Tuesday

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By Matthew Coller

INDIANAPOLIS — We should all thank Roger Goodell for what the NFL Combine has become. At one time, there was no such thing as “the buzz in Indy.” Podium sessions from coaches and GMs weren’t must-see TV and they wouldn’t have dreamed of having somebody run the 20-yard shuttle in primetime. But now the Combine is one big game of Clue. Will it be Sam Darnold with the franchise tag and a trade? Will it be Daniel Jones and JJ McCarthy? Will the Vikings take a defensive tackle, running back, guard or corner? Are they about to spend free agent dollars like college boosters buying Lamborghinis for five-star recruits? Give us the hints!

Since the franchise tag deadline isn’t for another week and free agency doesn’t open for another three weeks and the draft isn’t for another two months and the next darn football game we get to watch isn’t for six months, we all play along.

Playing Clue with Kevin O’Connell isn’t easy though. He doesn’t show his cards unless he wants you to know what he’s got.

On the matter of Darnold, the head coach said during his podium session at the Combine on Tuesday that he enjoyed Darnold’s progression from backing up in 2023 with the 49ers to leading a 14-win team in 2024 in Minnesota.

“Sam’s year was so fun to be a part of, just thinking back to this time last year and onward through the offseason, acquiring Sam and getting him to trust in us to help him on that next step on his quarterback journey and what a step it was, so proud of the year he had,” O’Connell said.

The ironic thing is that the Vikings’ head coach might be playing a little Clue with the rest of the league in Indy. If the brass is looking to get something in return for their quarterback, they are there trying to find out whether teams like the Raiders, Giants, Titans etc. would be interested in jumping the free agency line to acquire Darnold in a trade. If the Vikings have any interest in bringing him back, they are in Indy to talk to his agent and figure out what type of dollar figure would make that possible since playing on the franchise tag would be limiting in free agency.

Either way, any missteps in the commentary by O’Connell could be used as leverage. If they want to move him, KOC has to make sure that potential trade partners think that the Vikings might bring him back rather than letting him walk for nothing. If they don’t want to move him, the Vikings want to keep up the illusion of possibly moving or tagging him to create some leverage.

“I’ve had great dialogue with Sam from the time the season ended up until very, very recently,” O’Connell said. “I think my relationship with Sam has grown to a point where the respect level is sky high and this process is going to play out both short-term and long-term for the Minnesota Vikings, and Sam is in a position where the NFL thinks he can play quarterback at a high level.”

A lot of words, not a lot of clues unless you squint about that last part about the NFL thinking he can play rather than “we” think he can play.

What about hints in the waterfall of quotes about McCarthy? This area might be quite a bit more fruitful.

First, O’Connell went out of his way to talk about McCarthy’s recovery going well.

“J.J.’s doing really well from the standpoint of where he’s progressed to in his rehab,” O’Connell said. “And he’s now where he’s got his sights set on that offseason program start date and getting off to a great start there.”

Being on track to get rolling with the offseason program is a huge step for McCarthy in his recovery and potentially the team’s belief in him as QB1. His weight became a concern after he was shown on TV looking much skinnier than the McCarthy that we saw in training camp in 2024. A source indicated that McCarthy is up over 200 pounds. Last year he weighed in at the Combine at 219.

The fact that KOC would make a point about the offseason program is a relevant clue.

Here’s another one: O’Connell went into great detail about how the team mentally prepared McCarthy last season as if he was the starter.

“Going through a weekly process that would mirror what Sam went through, whether that’s film study on a Tuesday, going through the early-down plan on Wednesday, third down, red zone as the week progresses,” O’Connell explained. “Then being in that meeting late in the week, that Saturday meeting where we go through the call sheet. My favorite meeting of the week is the red-pen meeting to try to get as many plays off that call sheet as I can. Simulating that: What are your favorite plays in the plan? What do you feel most comfortable with? As if you were playing in the game. We did that time and time again this year to try to see what we could get out of this year for JJ to make it so that when he hits the ground running in the spring, he’s in the best possible position to do that.”

He’s in the best possible position to hit the ground running in the spring, huh? Interesting.

The best clues might be hidden within what O’Connell didn’t say. He didn’t tell the gathered media that patience was going to be required with McCarthy. Last year following the draft, O’Connell was insistent that Darnold had a great chance to be the starter and that they weren’t going to play McCarthy until they were absolutely certain that he was ready. We didn’t hear any commentary in that vein. Everything screamed: He’s ready to roll.

A few minutes after O’Connell wrapped up, our Sherlock Holmes act inside the Indiana Convention Center continued with general manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah.

Where O’Connell was short on Darnold-related chatter, Adofo-Mensah laid out the tricky nature of evaluating a quarterback who won 14 games and then had two brutal performances in the final two weeks of the season.

“It’s tough, I was telling my staff that if I could have thought of a brain teaser experiment to think through, that would have been a pretty tough one,” Adofo-Mensah said. “Pro Bowl quarterback, win all those games and then lose to two teams twice. That was the core of our offseason, really thinking through wholistically. Not trying to be overweighted by those eight quarters but not underweighting those last two games. He played a lot of good football for us. Year 1 in the system so you can expect more later, so we’re excited about the potential for Sam, whatever that ends up being. It’s a tough exercise.”

So you can expect more later, huh.

It is true that Kirk Cousins played decidedly better in the first eight games of 2023, which was Year 2 in the system. It isn’t crazy to believe that with an improved offensive line, healthy Christian Darrisaw and fully healthy TJ Hockenson that Darnold could actually play better and more consistently if he had a second year.

That’s the bizarre thing about this entire situation. If McCarthy wasn’t in place, we would be talking about how the Vikings have an opportunity to build around Darnold and things would look pretty cheery. Instead Darnold is a pariah because of the playoff performances and his potential pay day. Weird. Did Roger invent the rookie wage scale just to toss another wrench in this crazy game we’re all playing?

Adofo-Mensah faced a similar line of questioning as O’Connell when it came to McCarthy’s progress despite not playing in 2024. He made a comparison to learning a new language.

“He’s conversational in our language, understanding the ‘why,’ the intent behind things,” O’Connell said. “You want him to go out there and play free and let his talent take over. All the learning he’s done will allow him to do that. We’re excited about the makeup of him, he’s been everything we wanted him to be.”

It will allow him to go out there and play free this year, huh? Interesting.

In the end, we did not win the game of Clue and get all the information we were hunting for but the Vikings’ leadership did sound like they had their minds made up. Now the question might not be so much “who” but “how” and “where.”

Can we be sure that the direction is going to be in the way of McCarthy? Of course not. No amount of clues ever give us 100% answers at the Combine. Last year the Vikings played the middle with Cousins and then let him walk to the highest bidder. Coming out of the Combine, it was only leaning toward Cousins exiting for Atlanta but they didn’t drop enough winks and nods for anyone to be sure.

They also didn’t say a word about moving up for a second draft pick in the first round while they were at the Combine and then they swung a big trade with the Texans to give themselves extra ammo if they needed to trade up for a QB. That pick ultimately became Dallas Turner when they were able to stand pat (mostly) and pick McCarthy.

The NFL wouldn’t be as popular if there wasn’t a constant stream of questions to be answered during the offseason and events like this for coaches and executives to talk around those answers. Right before KOC and KAM went to the stage, the Kansas City Chiefs GM was dancing around whether they’re going to bring back guard Trey Smith and the world followed up with speculation about what his words meant.

So there could always be twists and turns on the way.

The answers will present themselves fairly quickly. If Darnold is tagged before March 4th, that strongly suggests the Vikings have a trade partner. If he’s not, then if they don’t sign him a week later, we’ll know that it’s McCarthy time.

We could just wait a few weeks and have everything we need to know arrive on our doorstep. Why wait until then when you can play Clue to pass the time?

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