Analysis: Franchise tag for Sam Darnold would add another layer to this unpredictable Vikings season

This isn’t word for word, but the preseason prediction for the 2024 Vikings from this corner of the football world went something like this:

No Way In God’s Green Earth Sam Darnold Leads The Vikings To The Playoffs!

Result: Wide wrong.

Care to go double or nothing on this 2025 prediction?

No Way In God’s Purple Earth Sam Darnold Doesn’t Get Franchise Tagged For An Estimated $39,637,000!

Thoughts?

“That’s above my pay grade,” former Vikings quarterback and 2002 NFL MVP Rich Gannon said a few weeks ago when our discussion about Darnold’s MVP chances turned to thoughts of where Darnold’s feet might land and for how much in 2025.

Gannon, however, did offer some advice as a guy who, like Darnold, spent his first six seasons in a dysfunctional situation — with the Vikings, ironically — before eventually gaining his career foothold en route to winning MVP at 37 — 10 years older than Darnold is now.

“Let’s throw out some arbitrary numbers,” Gannon said. “Let’s say he can re-sign for $40 million a year and stay with the Vikings, a place you like, a good organization, a head coach [Kevin O’Connell] you believe in, good play-caller who believes in you, you thrive in his system, you got those weapons, Justin Jefferson …

“Or you can get $50 million and go somewhere else. Do the latter and I think he’s making a huge mistake. What difference does it make if you take $50 million and you’re out on the street again in a year and a half because it’s not the right situation again?”

Souhan: Time for the Vikings to lock up their future

Darnold was considered pricey last spring when he got $10 million to A) serve as the Vikings’ short-term bridge to rookie J.J. McCarthy and, B) prove to everyone else he’s either starting-caliber or, at worst, the next Andy Dalton.

The market has changed considerably since McCarthy’s season-ending knee injury in August and Darnold’s ensuing MVP-caliber play for a team that’s 13-2 and needs no outside help to win the NFC’s No. 1 seed. So those who suggested four months ago that Darnold might be lucky to get a Baker Mayfield-type deal ($33.3 million a year) probably aimed a little low.

“If Sam can just keep the car on the road, he’s going to make a boatload of money,” Gannon said. “There’s been 30 coaches fired in the last four years. And 29 of them were fired because they couldn’t get the quarterback right, including Bill Belichick. Brandon Staley got fired for other reasons, because he had Justin Herbert. And there will be six or seven more this year, too.”

O’Connell has said there will be a time and place for Darnold and the team to discuss 2025. That time and place isn’t heading into back-to-back games against Green Bay and Detroit.

The Vikings have a problem to solve, but it’s the best problem to have. It’s also a problem that seems tailor-made for the one-year franchise tag.

The team still has lofty dreams for McCarthy. It also has several other roster spots to address primarily in free agency since there’s limited draft capital.

What the franchise tag does is buy the Vikings up to a year to figure things out. They can work slowly with McCarthy. They can build the roster without tying future cap space to Darnold. They can trade him like the Patriots did in 2009 when they franchised Matt Cassel and then traded him along with Mike Vrabel for the 34th overall pick.

And if the Vikings don’t tag and trade, they get to keep a strong-armed 27-year-old who’s been mentally-reprogrammed by K.O. the QB Whisperer himself. Here’s a taste of what the two of them have done so far in Year 1 together:

Vote for your most underrated Vikings

Rodgers and Mahomes won league MVP each of those years. Darnold is an MVP dark horse, but the race isn’t over.

Sure, Darnold probably won’t like being tagged. But, hey, he’s still young and he’d be getting roughly $40 million to soothe the pain for another year. And staying where his career went from flop to franchise tag wouldn’t be such a bad thing either.

“Just running for the best financial situation at the quarterback position is not always the best thing,” Gannon said. “Being with the right person, the right people, the right coaches, is the way to go.”

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