RandBall: Vikings fans are keenly aware of the economics with QB Sam Darnold

My sports journey began in the 1980s, and undoubtedly my youth at the time clouds my recollection of how things were back then.

It does seem safe to say at leas, though, that roster building was less complicated 40 or so years ago than it is now.

There were nuances and free agency. Some teams were closer to championship quality while others were rebuilding.

But much of a roster boiled down to this: If a veteran player was good, you wanted to retain that player. If they were not good, you wanted to rid yourself of that player.

Some teams spent more than others, but not to an excessive degree. In 1985 in Major League Baseball, the league I followed most closely from about that year through roughly the next decade, the middle teams in terms of player spending — throwing out the top-five and bottom-five teams — all had payrolls between $9 million and $12 million.

There were no salary caps. Rookie scale contracts in most leagues wouldn’t arrive for another decade, at least.

It’s almost hard to remember a simpler time like this, particularly now that fans out of necessity have turned themselves into amateur contractual experts.

On Monday’s Daily Delivery podcast, Patrick Reusse and finished up by talking about Sam Darnold’s status with the Vikings. I found myself later in the morning thinking about how complicated it is — and how different it might have been when I was a young fan in the 1980s.

Darnold produced a surprisingly excellent season for the Vikings in 2024, throwing for 4,319 yards with 35 touchdown passes and just 12 interceptions.

The Vikings, projected to win around seven games, doubled that with a 14-3 season.

Darnold was the sort of high-risk, high-reward gunslinger that fans tend to love. He finished tied for third in big-time throws and tied for first in turnover-worthy plays (both via Pro Football Focus).

A couple generations ago, the Vikings might have had an easy decision for the future of the position: A quarterback fell in their laps. Even though they drafted a rookie the same year Darnold arrived, plans changed. They would do everything possible to keep Darnold.

Fans would have been on board because back then it was simpler: You want to keep high-performing veterans, and Darnold clearly fit that description in 2025.

But that was then, and this is now. My sense is that the vast majority of Vikings fans are ready to move on from Darnold and hand the keys to second-year QB J.J. McCarthy.

Part of that could be traced to Darnold’s back-to-back clunkers in the Vikings' final two games of the season. And some of it could be a simple fascination with a young QB, which is hardly a new concept.

But a lot of it boils down to money and an understanding of the salary cap. Darnold would cost roughly $40 million in 2025 if the Vikings use the franchise tag on him by Tuesday’s deadline. McCarthy is on a relatively inexpensive contract for three more seasons.

It’s simple math, even if the decisions used to be a lot simpler.