The biggest name in the 2025 quarterback carousel will be Vikings quarterback Sam Darnold. And he’ll likely be making the leap to yet another new team.
Adam Schefter of ESPN.com points to the Raiders as the team to watch in the chase for Darnold.
The Super Bowl Sunday news comes exactly a year after the emergence of news a year ago that the Vikings were targeting Darnold as the replacement for Kirk Cousins.
After failed stints with the Jets and Panthers (due more to the Jets and Panthers than Darnold), he spent a season as the backup to Brock Purdy in San Francisco. During Darnold’s first and likely only season with the Vikings, the third overall pick in the 2018 draft won 14 regular-season starts. That’s the most victories by a quarterback ever in his first year with a team.
For the Vikings, it was a great return for a $10 million investment.
But with two bad games to wrap the season — one with the No. 1 seed on the line and one in the Wild Card round — the Vikings seem to be more content to move forward with 2024 first-rounder J.J. McCarthy, who missed all of his rookie season after injuring his knee in the preseason opener against the Raiders.
Vikings coach Kevin O’Connell told PFT Live on Friday that Darnold has earned the right to become a free agent. Which means that he will. And it also likely means that someone else (whether the Raiders or a different team) will sign him to be the starter.
For a perennial non-contender like the Raiders, entrusting the job to a guy who failed to deliver in the season’s biggest spots is no big deal. In Minnesota, a one-and-done postseason performance is a disappointment. For the Raiders, it would be a massive improvement.
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