The Vikings have a quarterback problem that the NFL hasn't seen in more than 20 years
The Minnesota Vikings have quite a problem on their hands. What is that problem? They have two viable starting quarterbacks. Sam Darnold has been playing at such a high level that it's having everyone question things about what the future of the franchise is going to look like due to his play. In his 13 […]
The Minnesota Vikings have quite a problem on their hands. What is that problem?
They have two viable starting quarterbacks.
Sam Darnold has been playing at such a high level that it's having everyone question things about what the future of the franchise is going to look like due to his play. In his 13 starts, Darnold has thrown for 28 touchdowns and 10 interceptions with the last four games being an absolute heater with 11 touchdown passes and just one turnover (a fumble against Tennessee).
The difficult aspect of the quarterback discussion for the Vikings is the presence of J.J. McCarthy waiting in the wings. It's a scenario we haven't seen in 20 years and that situation could shed light on what the Vikings could do.
The Vikings QB situation is eerily similar to the 2004 Chargers
This is quite an interesting scenario and it's easy to see why it hasn't happened in two decades. I talked about it on an episode of The Real Forno Show back in June about how the Vikings quarterback situation could end up like the 2004 San Diego Chargers and it's more true now than it was when I recorded this.
"I want to relate it to a scenario that happened with the Chargers 2001 NFL draft. They had the first overall pick and hey weren't 100% sold on Michael Vick. Now, in today's day and age, I think everybody would have been sold on Michael Vick the player, but 2001 it was a very, very different league so they traded back to fifth overall and they got a decent package and then they took LaDanian Tomlinson and with the first pick in the second round, they took Drew Brees. And Brees we know and he's going to end up being in the Pro Football Hall of Fame, but at that point, Brees his first couple years he was okay and very up and down. And in the 2004 NFL Draft, they had the first overall pick again they took Eli Manning, traded for Philip Rivers, got extra draft capital from the Giants and the rest is history. So 2004 Drew Brees is in a contract year, balls out and I believe he made the Pro Bowl so now the Chargers are looking at themselves okay. We've got essentially the first overall pick here because that's the pick they had Rivers was taken for do we go with Rivers or do we keep Drew Brees after he just absolutely balled out and he looks to be like a legitimate quarterback. What do we do? And I think that scenario is something that you can kind of look at for a comparison point if darnold just all of the sudden takes off because he just turned 27 years old."
It was bound to happen at some point, when the quote "journeyman" quarterback ended up showing that he was a franchise guy with another waiting in the wings.
The difficult part for the Vikings is that Darnold's success directly impacts their future plans with McCarthy, who the team is very high on. O'Connell said this when he announced that McCarthy would be out for the season.
"As excited as I was to draft him, he's confirmed everything that I hope to see not only early on through training camp, but through his performance last Saturday. Our fan base and everyone should just be excited about the fact that we've got our young% of the s franchise quarterback, I believe, in the building."
What did the Chargers end up doing? They franchise tagged Drew Brees and kept him for the 2005 season. Remember, the Chargers selected Eli Manning first overall in the 2004 NFL Draft but traded him to the New York Giants for the fourth overall pick in Philip Rivers.
At the time, Brees was just viewed as a bridge guy, as his first three years hadn't shown he could be a franchise guy to that point. His performance in 2004 earned him a Pro Bowl nomination and he was the starter going into the 2005 season.
Now, there was no rookie wage scale when Rivers was drafted, so he was making $6,875,000 average annual value on his rookie contract while Brees' franchise tag was $8,078,000 per Over The Cap. That is significantly different than today's NFL here the salary cap was $85.5 million. Their combined cap hits of $14,953,000 was 17.49% of the salary cap.
If the Vikings were to give Darnold the franchise tag, which is worth $41,304,000, his salary paired with McCarthy's $4,966,999 cap hit with a projected $272.5 million would be 16.98% of the salary cap. It would be doable for the Vikings in terms of a historical precedent, but it would be a difficult proposition to have that much invested at quarterback when they have the ability to maximize a rookie contract.
Ultimately, Brees tearing his shoulder at the end of the 2005 season made the decision for the Chargers, but it was really hard for them to make a difficult decision when you look at how each player's career turned out, as both are sure to be inducted in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
Are the Vikings in that same position? Well, let's not get ahead of ourselves. Neither Darnold nor McCarthy is projected to be on the path to being enshrined in Canton, Ohio at this point. Now, could they be? The next 15 years will answer that question.
How will the Vikings handle it? Conventional wisdom says let Darnold walk and give McCarthy the reins to start the season. They also signed Daniel Jones this season to theoretically have him as the backup to McCarthy for next season.
However, Darnold is starting to generate MVP discussion across the media sphere. Over the last two weeks, Darnold's MVP odds via DraftKings Sportsbook have grown from +9000 to +5000. That is a significant shift when it comes to MVP odds and it's really noteworthy to have that kind of shift.
Will that change how the Vikings approach things? Who knows, but the conundrum is so similar and that's incredibly rare.
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