In the biggest game of his season so far, Sam Darnold turned back into the guy Vikings fans saw in the two biggest games of their 2024 season. For as great as Darnold has been all year with the Seahawks, his play on Sunday is a reminder that the Vikings made the right decision this offseason with the information they had at the time.
Darnold threw four interceptions and no touchdown passes in Seattle’s 21-19 loss to the Rams on Sunday. In a highly-anticipated battle between 7-2 teams, with first place in the NFC West on the line, he had his first true stinker of the year. Ironically, it came against the same team that dominated Darnold in the first round of last season’s playoffs — a game that removed any doubt about what the Vikings needed to do at the quarterback position.
Sam Darnold just threw his fourth interception of the day against the Rams.pic.twitter.com/l7HPzcbGFp
— Will Ragatz (@WillRagatz) November 16, 2025
We should get a few disclaimers out of the way here. The first is that Darnold has been absolutely fantastic for Seattle this season, and this one game doesn’t change that. He’s been better than he ever was in Minnesota, both in terms of statistics and the eye test. The other is that J.J. McCarthy, five games into his career, has been mostly terrible. There is no question whatsoever that the Vikings would be better than 4-6 right now if they had re-signed Darnold instead of letting him depart in free agency. The Seahawks, barring a total meltdown, will be in the playoffs in a couple months. The Vikings, barring a miracle turnaround, will not.
But guess what? The benefit of hindsight doesn’t change the reality that the Vikings made the correct call to move on from Darnold and give McCarthy an opportunity.
Let’s go back to the night of Jan. 13, 2025. The Vikings’ season had just come to an end in embarrassing fashion against the Rams. Darnold had turned the ball over twice and taken nine sacks, one week after his 18/41 debacle of a performance in the de facto NFC North title game in Detroit. That night, it was clear what the Vikings needed to do.
Mark J. Rebilas-Imagn Images
Option A was to run it back with Darnold despite the fact that he had wilted in the two most important games of his career. That was always going to require giving him the kind of contract he ultimately got from the Seahawks (three years, $100 million). Going down that road would’ve meant having less money to fix the other glaring holes on the roster, further delaying the process of finding out what they have in their tenth overall pick, and putting Darnold in a position where fans would’ve been clamoring for the backup the moment he had a bad game.
Option B, which the Vikings chose, was to let someone else pay Darnold and to go all-in on the QB on a rookie contract. It meant having extra money available to go out and bring in a loaded class of free agents. It meant taking a big upside swing on a young player at the sport’s most important position, which the franchise hadn’t done in a long time.
Has it worked out so far? Not even a little bit! It’s far too early to write McCarthy off, but his accuracy and mechanics are a major concern after his first five games. The marquee free agents the Vikings signed with the money they saved (Byron Murphy Jr. Jonathan Allen, Javon Hargrave, Will Fries, Ryan Kelly) have been largely disappointing. The most expensive roster in football is almost certainly going to be watching the postseason from the couch.
But hindsight analysis isn’t very useful. And that’s all it is when someone says the Vikings should’ve kept Darnold: hindsight analysis. Unless that person has receipts from between mid-January or mid-March of this year, saying the Vikings should run it back with Darnold, their current opinion isn’t very interesting or worth putting stock into.
That’s been the case all season long, as Darnold has thrived for the Seahawks and made Seattle look brilliant for bringing him in to replace Geno Smith. And that’ll be the case for the rest of this season and beyond, regardless of how Darnold and McCarthy play.
The Vikings had good reason to believe that taking a shot on a young QB gave them a better shot at eventually winning a Super Bowl than giving Darnold $30 million a year. The process was the correct one, even if it hasn’t worked out up to this point.
With all of that said, the Vikings have to feel at least a little bit more justified in their decision after seeing Darnold fall apart against the Rams for the second time in ten months. At least for now, that should quiet the hindsight analyzers who have brought up Darnold after every Vikings loss.
