EAGAN, Minn. -- Kevin O'Connell visits the Minnesota Vikings' quarterback meeting room often in his capacity as head coach, playcaller and a former NFL passer himself. When he entered late last season, five pretty credible faces stared back at him.
The group included three still-young top-10 picks in Sam Darnold (27), Daniel Jones (27) and J.J. McCarthy (21), as well as two veteran backups in Nick Mullens and Brett Rypien with 23 NFL starts between them.
"[They all had] the ability, in my opinion, to win games," O'Connell said. "All with the ability to play the position at a pretty darn high level, all at different times and points of their journey as quarterbacks in this league."
As counterintuitive as it might sound, one of the Vikings' biggest jobs this offseason is to cull that group. Someone has to go. The NFL has an annual shortage of quarterbacks with the attributes O'Connell described, but salary cap considerations and the reality of modern team building mean that one -- and likely more -- has to move on from Minnesota this spring.
That process started Tuesday when the Vikings chose not to use the franchise or transition tag on Darnold, according to ESPN's Adam Schefter, giving him an unimpeded path to the free agent market after a Pro Bowl season in which he threw for 4,319 yards and 35 touchdowns.
There are defensible reasons for skipping the tag, and for letting Darnold leave altogether, but it is nearly unprecedented in NFL history. The only other NFL quarterback to change teams the year after throwing at least 30 touchdown passes is Jameis Winston, whose departure from the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in 2020 was prompted largely by the 30 interceptions he threw in 2019.
The best use of the franchise tag by the Vikings would have been as leverage to trade Darnold and get more in return than a future compensatory pick for the value he built last season. That goal proved too narrow of a path to navigate. It would have required a team that Darnold wanted to play for deciding it was worth giving up a draft pick to avoid competing for him on the open market. Otherwise, Darnold could have in essence scuttled a trade by refusing to agree to a long-term contract with the interested team.
The Vikings have continued to talk to Darnold about a potential return in 2025, much as they did last season when they offered Kirk Cousins what amounted to a one-year contract to bridge them to McCarthy, the No. 10 pick of the 2024 draft. Cousins declined and accepted a market-level deal with the Atlanta Falcons, one that guaranteed him money for at least parts of three seasons.
A Darnold return to Minnesota, however, would require the presence of unusual circumstances. He would either need to accept a contract worth far less than he might receive on the open market, experience an unexpectedly soft level of interest from other teams or simply be the rare beneficiary of a team that isn't ready to commit to its young franchise quarterback. Even then, a second year with the Vikings would seem awkward.
It might sound smart to accumulate quarterback assets at all costs. But would the Vikings really push McCarthy's timetable back another season? And should Darnold, at 28 and coming off a Pro Bowl season, need to compete for his job?
ESPN's Adam Schefter, speaking Tuesday on "The Adam Schefter Podcast," said his guess is that Minnesota makes the "most sense" in matching Darnold with his likeliest landing spot. "It's not exactly what Sam Darnold would have hoped for or wanted," Schefter said, "but it's still a pretty favorable outcome in my mind."
Longtime NFL observers would note the Green Bay Packers' success in giving quarterbacks Aaron Rodgers and Jordan Love three seasons of development before becoming full-time starters. But in in both instances, they sat behind future Hall of Fame starters who were still playing at high levels (Brett Favre, Rodgers). Darnold had a career year in 2024 but does not merit that sort of team-building influence.
O'Connell and general manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah have employed a carefully choreographed set of public comments, explaining their continued communication with Darnold but emphasizing that he had earned the right to get to free agency. Never have they explicitly said they wanted him back as their 2025 starter.
There is a decided risk in turning over the position to McCarthy, who is far less experienced than the other five members of his 2024 first-round quarterback draft class. His 713 career passing attempts at Michigan are less than half of what Caleb Williams, Jayden Daniels, Drake Maye, Michael Penix Jr. and Bo Nix averaged in college (1,560). And while the rest of them were getting valuable NFL playing time last season, McCarthy was the first quarterback selected in the first round to miss his entire rookie season because of injury in the modern draft era, dating back to 1967. He did not benefit from a single practice rep after tearing the meniscus in his right knee on Aug. 10.
Even so, most of the organization's actions over the past five months have indicated an interest in pursuing a transition to McCarthy. That's why the Vikings' true team-building need at the position is to sign a quarterback who could start if needed but would not be out of place as a backup if McCarthy wins the job in training camp. That profile most closely fits Jones, the No. 6 pick of the 2019 draft, who spent the final six weeks of the 2024 season on the Vikings' practice squad after being released by the New York Giants.
The real question is whether Jones will find interest from a team that offers him more of a clear path to play in 2025, or whether he might decide that a full season with the Vikings -- even if it is mostly or entirely as a backup -- could better benefit his long-term future. Darnold has demonstrated that taking a step back, as he did as a backup with the San Francisco 49ers in 2023, can pay off.
This conversation might have been different had Darnold not faltered in his final two starts last season, completing only 43.9% of his passes in a Week 18 loss to the Detroit Lions and then taking nine sacks in a playoff defeat to the Los Angeles Rams.
Even so, NFL teams almost never dismiss the kind of season Darnold produced in the way the Vikings are positioned to do. But they have too many quarterbacks, as wild as that sounds, and someone has to go.