The Minnesota Vikings find themselves in a transition year as they lost Kirk Cousins to the Atlanta Falcons in free agency and now will roll out either Sam Darnold or J.J. McCarthy as their starting quarterback during the 2024 NFL season.
Darnold is expected to get the nod to start the regular season given his age and experience, though the plan seems to be to let McCarthy take over once he’s up to speed.
Minnesota is being counted out of the NFC playoff race due to their quarterback situation, but they’ve still got strong offensive pieces to work with.
As far as Darnold goes, he hasn’t lived up to his draft pedigree but has still shown he can handle starter’s snaps at the NFL level.
In fact, the Vikings believe that there’s still some upside for Darnold to unlock via Jeremy Fowler of ESPN.
“The Vikings are really excited about Sam Darnold,” Fowler said. “They believe there’s untapped potential here. He’s never quite had a supporting cast like this with Justin Jefferson and T.J. Hockenson and Aaron Jones and so he’s underachieved so far. They’re hoping that maybe he can have a Geno Smith type of impact.”
Darnold has certainly shown a good handle of offenses in previous stops, and as Fowler noted he has more options at his disposal.
The Geno Smith comparison is an interesting one as Smith looked rejuvenated once he had better pieces around him, so perhaps Minnesota is on to something when it comes to Darnold’s fit with their offense.
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