Picture, if you will:
Locker cleanout day, a somber time for the Minnesota Vikings. The dreams of another potential Super Bowl season were flushed away in Arizona. Players were gathering up both their belongings and emotions while talking to reporters.
But a couple of floors above the aggravated sighs and clichés, Kevin O’Connell stood at the whiteboard in the office. He stared at the depth chart with Sam Darnold at QB1 and J.J. McCarthy at QB2. He was all but ready to take Darnold’s nameplate and throw it in the trash when a familiar voice was at the door.
Who’s ready for Sammy Chainz!?
There was Darnold, shirtless with a giant chain around his neck that said “Sammy Time.” O’Connell was floored, mainly because it was a Tuesday afternoon. Still, he had to give Darnold credit for trying.
One year ago, the Vikings were in a similar situation. They needed a quarterback but didn’t want to pay Cousins the $45 million the Atlanta Falcons gave him. After leading the Vikings to a 14-3 record, Darnold is within his right to ask for the same amount of money.
But is Darnold’s situation comparable to Cousins’, and what should the Vikings do with McCarthy?
The dilemma begins with where the Vikings were last year. Cousins cleaned out his locker at TCO Performance Center and dropped a bar reserved for your favorite ‘90s hip-hop classic: “It’s not about the dollars. It’s what the dollars represent.”
The line had different meanings for both sides of the Cousins argument. Cousins had been a solid quarterback, hitting the 4,000-yard benchmark four times and the 30-touchdown plateau three times during his six seasons in Minnesota. He provided stability to a franchise that has deployed old Jim McMahon, Spergon Wynn, and Joe Webb as their starting quarterback.
If you wanted a squeaky-clean franchise QB, Cousins is your guy. But no team was willing to give him the long-term deal that endorsed that premise.
Cousins’ preference for short-term deals was part of the issue. He opted for fully guaranteed money instead of the Monopoly money pushed around in most contracts. He also had limited postseason success, with one playoff win in nine seasons as a starting quarterback.
Cousins was good, but was he really worth north of $40 million? That was the other side of the coin.
O’Connell and Adofo-Mensah valued Cousins as a leader, and O’Connell wanted to keep Cousins even as his value continued to rise. Adofo-Mensah probably wasn’t against paying Cousins, but he also had his price.
While the dollars represented Cousins’ desire to be given the keys to the franchise, it represented Adofo-Mensah’s chance to build a roster that could compete annually. It’s right there in Adofo-Mensah’s infamous interview with Jori Epstein, where he said he would like to build a team that could get “multiple bites at the apple” as opposed to going “Full Rams” by burning draft capital and cap space to go all-in.
When Cousins eventually signed his four-year, $180 million contract with the Atlanta Falcons, Adofo-Mensah put that money to use, signing Jonathan Greenard, Andrew Van Ginkel, and Blake Cashman in free agency. While the Vikings pushed money into the future to navigate the $57.3 million in dead cap this season, the difference between Cousins’ and Darnold’s salary is $35 million – the same combined cap hit of the free-agent trio in 2025.
That’s how the Vikings went from a 7-10 team in 2023 to a 14-3 team in 2024. But it wasn’t just the infrastructure that got them there. Darnold had the best year of his career, throwing for 4,319 yards, 35 touchdowns, and 12 interceptions. His value climbed to as high as $54.7 million before his free-fall in the final two games.
Like Cousins, Darnold had reached the 4,000-yard and 30-touchdown thresholds that made Cousins so valuable. But he doesn’t have the complete track record that Cousins had after failed stints with the New York Jets and Carolina Panthers.
Still, Darnold has a few things going in his favor. The Vikings have a solid fallback plan in McCarthy, but he’s an unknown after suffering a season-ending knee injury in a preseason game. A second procedure in the middle of the season made McCarthy’s status even more unclear. While he has returned to on-field training, it opens the classic Vikings fear of You don’t know, he could be Christian Ponder!
Darnold is also younger and healthier than Cousins was this time last year. The Falcons probably regret signing Cousins, who they benched for Michael Penix Jr., people expected them to release in March. Still, it was something they should have seen coming entering his age-36 season after suffering a torn Achilles.
By comparison, Darnold will turn 28 in June, and his only ailment might be a bruised ego he suffered in the final two weeks.
These things give Darnold leverage in a new deal, whether he’s negotiating with Minnesota or another quarterback-needy team. But the Vikings also have one piece of leverage they didn’t have with Cousins – the franchise tag.
The Washington Commanders tagged Cousins twice, but Cousins had a clause in his contract that didn’t allow Minnesota to franchise tag him.
Spotrac projects Darnold to have a $40.1 million market value next season, which isn’t far off the $41.3 million franchise tag Over The Cap projected. While keeping Darnold would cut Minnesota’s available cap space from $70 million to $34.2 million, they could still add in free agency and push some money into the $101.5 million available in 2026.
That scenario shouldn’t upset Darnold because it would give him leverage in free agency, which is why NFL Network’s Tom Pelissero believes the smart money is on a Darnold return.
“The way that the franchise tag operates and the way that it influences these markets is if the price on a long-term deal is higher than what the tag is, then that makes it leverage for the team,” Pelissero said on KFAN. “If the tag is at or above what the deal might be, that can become leverage for the player.
In other words, let’s say the Vikings think that a deal for Sam Darnold — I’m just coming up with a number off the top of my head — is $35 million per year. Then, using the franchise tag at $40 million a year is an advantage for Darnold. Because the moment the franchise tag’s applied, every agent’s going to think: One tag this year is $40 million, next year it would be $48 million. That’s $88 million over two, that’s the baseline, I’m not doing anything less than that. So that can be leverage for the players.
It creates a situation where Darnold doesn’t have to go to O’Connell’s office dressed as “Sammy Chainz,” and the front office doesn’t have to tip-toe its way around giving a top-tier salary to a fringe top-10 quarterback. It makes the comparison between Darnold and Cousins similar, but not quite the same while creating another interesting decision for Minnesota’s front office.