Vikings at the center of intrigue at the NFL Combine... again
Is it deja vu from last year?
By Matthew Coller
AIRPORT WAITING TO FLY TO INDY — One year ago, we landed in Indianapolis for the NFL Combine wondering what the Minnesota Vikings’ leadership would say about their quarterback situation.
We parsed through every Kevin O’Connell and Kwesi Adofo-Mensah press conference and interview comment for hints about whether they wanted to give Kirk Cousins a strong enough offer to come back or if they were going to put their futures on the 2024 draft class. At night, local and national reporters asked everybody they could find inside Prime 47 and High Velocity for buzz about what other teams might be interested in Cousins and what the potential price tag would be. We beat the bushes for answers on whether the Vikings really believed the QB class was good enough, which QB the Vikings could have their sights set on, whether the Commanders or Patriots would be willing to trade out of their top draft picks. We closely studied the throwing performances of Michael Penix Jr. and JJ McCarthy inside Lucas Oil Stadium.
The takeaways from the Combine ended up pointing us mostly in the right direction. Everybody thought the Atlanta Falcons wanted Cousins. The Vikings’ words indicated that they would be willing to re-sign Cousins but it sounded like they had a hard price point. They also seemed really intrigued with the draft class. McCarthy crushed every interview like he was a 35-year-old veteran. Penix Jr. threw the bleep out of the football. Both QBs looked like they would be a good fit for the Vikings. Most agreed that Minnesota was an ideal spot for every single available QB.
As usual, the Combine didn’t give us all the answers but it certainly got us closer to the truth.
As we head into NFL Combine Week 2025, there are similarities and differences from last year. On one hand, we will be looking for hints about the Vikings quarterback situation. Every talk show in Indy will be making Sam Darnold and the Vikings QB future an A1 topic with NFL Insiders. Is Darnold returning to the Vikings? Tag and trade? What’s his value on the open market? Which teams would be most interested? O’Connell and Adofo-Mensah will have a prepared dance routine to handle the QB questions in their press conferences and chats with media. We will pick those apart more than necessary.
All that feels pretty much like deja vu. But when it comes to the actual situation, it’s quite different. About 365 days ago, there was a lot of anxiety about the Vikings future. They were coming off a 7-10 season, staring down the barrel of a QB draft pick that carries the same level of uncertainty as roulette. As the Vikings were sitting down with QBs in Indy and watching them throw, they knew in the back of their minds that if they picked the wrong guy that it could all go downhill.
Since McCarthy missed all of 2024, it still remains true that making the wrong decision at quarterback could take them down a bad road. The difference is that they have so much more information now than they did a year before. They are making bets on pros rather than prospects. Even though McCarthy hasn’t played an actual snap in the NFL, he was so impressive during training camp and preseason last year that O’Connell declared him the team’s future franchise quarterback. And Darnold is coming off a season in which he ranked in the top 10 in PFF grade and QB rating and proved to be capable of leading the team to one of its best seasons in history.
The decision was way more daunting when they were trying to figure out how much to offer a mid-30s above average quarterback coming off an Achilles tear. It was way tougher when they were trying to analyze a barely 21-year-old Michigan quarterback who won a national title but threw for less than 3,000 yards in doing so.
One year ago the Vikings only had guesses at how Darnold might be able to handle being a bridge QB and how McCarthy would adjust to the NFL. Outside of the injury, they got the best-case scenario out of both. So good, in fact, that Darnold made the decision to move on from him way more difficult than anyone would have expected.
As we hit the first pivotal leg of the NFL offseason, the Vikings do have difficult choices. They have to guess whether McCarthy will be physically ready to start 2025. They have to guess whether Darnold could recreate 2024 if he returned. They have to project how much free agents are going to cost and how much cap tomfoolery that they would need in order to fit Darnold.
A key part of the Combine might be removing several of the unknowns from the equation. The good old football get together will offer them opportunities to find out what type of contract Darnold is going to be seeking if they attempted to sign him to a short-term deal and the level of desperation around the league. How much interest exists in a tag and trade? Or are teams willing to play chicken with the Vikings and dare them to let him walk for nothing in return?
Suddenly a rumor about Matthew Stafford has added intrigue to the mix. Las Vegas Review Journal writer Vinny Bonsignore reported that the Raiders have interest in Stafford, which could take the most likely suitor for Darnold off the table.
The Vikings have to find out whether they can sell the idea of another team trading for Darnold and extending him so the acquiring team doesn’t have to work around the franchise tag. That would be similar to Alex Smith getting traded to Washington and signing a new contract in 2018 or Matt Cassel getting a new deal with Kansas City after the Patriots sent him there in ‘09.
O’Connell and Adofo-Mensah do not have the luxury of getting close to the truth in Indy. The deadline to franchise tag Darnold is March 4. That’s right after the Combine wraps up. They can’t get stuck holding the bag if they want to move on from Darnold.
The backup QB position (if Darnold goes) is also pretty darn relevant considering McCarthy already got hurt once. O’Connell may already have a sense for Daniel Jones’s chance at remaining a Viking but the team can get an even clearer picture on whether Jones is going to end up landing elsewhere. Despite his struggles in New York over the last two years, he still could be fairly high on the list of available QBs.
It’s possibly my memory is failing but it’s hard to remember many other storylines outside of the quarterback position at the Combine in 2024. It wasn’t until March 15 that the Vikings traded with the Texans to grab another first-round pick, so there wasn’t much discussion about the rest of the draft. Dallas Turner was considered a guy who was clearly going in the top 10.
Justin Jefferson’s contract wasn’t actually a story. There were many, many folks who were trying to make Jefferson’s contract a story. Fake trade proposals were abound. Rumor mongers attempted to rumor monger. Nobody bought it, though the Vikings likely had to fend off opposing executives bugging them about his availability.
This time around, there are a dozen other angles. Once you reach 14 wins, the bar gets raised from a team that’s building and heading in the right direction to a franchise that should be in the mix for the Super Bowl next year. That means there is more attention paid to the details.
We knew last year that the Vikings couldn’t fix every single position in free agency and assumed that they would be players for a few big names. In Indy this week, they will be connected to everybody. Agents representing top free agents should all be accidentally whispering prices to the Vikings. They have cap space and needs abound.
The first step (beyond the QB decision) before they can dive into the free agent market when it opens in mid March is figuring out who’s coming back. Meetings with Cam Bynum, Byron Murphy Jr. and Aaron Jones’s representatives are one place to start and then they have to decide on the second level of the roster that includes players like Trent Sherfield and Jonathan Bullard.
All of this will be going on amidst the most diverse bunch of options that the Vikings have in the actual draft. They will need to know which positions that they’ll actually need by the time draft time comes around. If they sign the two top offensive guards, the need may shift to corner. If they sign Murphy Jr. and another veteran, the need may shift to defensive tackle and so on.
At the Combine they will need to assess whether a guard is worth a first-round pick and/or whether there are tackles who might be able to move inside. They need to decide if they should wait on a running back or if taking one early is no longer crazy with the shift in emphasis toward the run game around the league.
As much as we will try to pick apart all the comments and rumors, we might not see the fruits of the Combine until weeks later. In the Vikings case, what they are able to take away from Indy will shape the rest of the offseason. No pressure.
Should LA get rid of Stafford, getting Darnold seems pretty obvious for them.. big question for is can it be done in a trade (or 3 way trade for example)
LA gets Darnold
Vikings get Raiders 2nd rounder
Raiders get Stafford
Everybody wins!
On the expectations off of 14 wins topic, I do feel like we all need to keep ourselves in check a bit. Schedule looks like it might be quite a bit tougher this year and they will potentially have 7 starters on defense walking out the door if I’m doing my math right. They’re also likely starting a QB with 0 starts in the NFL. Schedules tend to look tougher than they actually are (we all thought SF and HOU would be Ls I’m sure), and they have a lot of cap space to bring guys back or sign solid players on D, but it would not be surprising at all for them to take a big step back.