RandBall: Sam Darnold was a near-perfect Vikings QB for one season

Around this time last year, most Vikings watchers were preparing for (and ready for) the likely end of the Kirk Cousins era.

Cousins did, indeed, leave for a lucrative deal with the Falcons, one Atlanta surely regrets.

The Vikings more quietly gave a one-year, $10 million deal to Sam Darnold, who was still relatively young (26 when he signed) but had crossed the threshold from prospect to veteran journeyman.

A lot of us rolled our eyes but understood the big picture.

It was assumed the Vikings would then try to draft their QB of the future, with Darnold serving as a placeholder for however long it took that QB to be ready to play.

Phase 2 of the plan came to fruition when the Vikings made J.J. McCarthy the No. 10 overall pick, the highest draft choice they have ever used on a QB.

The offseason into training camp established a clear pecking order, whereby Darnold was working with the starters but McCarthy was making progress. A promising preseason game suggested McCarthy was getting close to forcing the Vikings to make an interesting decision, but a season-ending knee injury changed everything.

Seven wins. Maybe eight. Nothing learned. Can’t we just fast-forward to 2025?

And of course we know what happened next. Darnold exceeded even the most optimistic expectations with a career year: 35 touchdown passes, 4,319 yards, a Pro Bowl selection and a 14-3 regular-season record.

It was a near-perfect season out of Darnold.

As Patrick Reusse and I talked about on Monday’s Daily Delivery podcast, we can appreciate that even as we acknowledge that by the end of it, logically for both sides, it was only going to be one season.

It only took a few hours into the NFL’s two-day legal tampering window Monday for word to emerge that Darnold is signing a three-year deal with Seattle.

The Vikings said all the right things and maintained talks with Darnold in case his market were to fall apart. But he was clearly at the head of the list of available free-agent quarterbacks in a year when a lot of teams need one and not many are available in the draft.

It was Darnold’s time to cash in, and it’s the Vikings' time to move on to McCarthy.

It’s perfectly fine to say that. It’s completely rational to say an eager goodbye to Sam and also thank Darnold for a season that — until those final two games — really could not have gone much better, particularly for the price.

Darnold and the Vikings got as much as they could possibly expect out of each other for one year, with both benefiting greatly.