The Minnesota Vikings can only trade quarterback Sam Darnold if they extend him to a multiyear contract or franchise tag him in order to maintain his player rights in 2025.
Both options are expensive and potentially risky. However, given the thirst for quarterbacks from at least a half dozen teams around the NFL and the relatively weak draft and free agent classes at the position, it makes sense for the Vikings to retain Darnold if only for the purpose of dealing him for draft capital in the coming months.
The “Locked on Sports Minnesota” podcast floated the essentially unprecedented move of franchise tagging Darnold and then trading him on Thursday, Jan 23.
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“There’s not a lot of precedent for a quarterback of this age, coming off the season he had — especially when there might be mutual agreement between the player and the team that it will be a tag-and-trade situation going in,” Sam Ekstrom said. “I don’t know if that’s ever happened.”
Co-host Luke Inman noted that while Darnold’s trade value was arguably in the range of a first-round pick heading into the final game of the regular season, his last two performances against the Detroit Lions and Los Angeles Rams, respectively, tanked that value to a significant degree.
“Now your market feels like a third-rounder, late second at the very best,” he said. “Maybe somebody overpays and is willing to cough up their second [round pick] just so they don’t have to get in a bidding war.”
Inman’s less optimistic appraisal came in considerably lower.
“Something like a fourth and a sixth [round pick],” Inman said in his assessment of Darnold’s trade value ahead of free agency in March. “Dream scenario: late second, early third. Realistic scenario: two later picks — like a fourth and a 2026 fifth, which is still better than nothing.”
The Vikings have just one first-round selection and two fifth-rounders in the 2025 draft as of Thursday.
Quarterback J.J. McCarthy could likely command a first-round selection as well as a couple of later picks down the line in this draft and/or the next. However the 22-year-old is more likely to remain in Minnesota after Darnold struggled down the stretch.
