Matthew Coller: With the Vikings QB position, nobody really knows what's coming next

Sam Darnold's future is officially a debate topic but the future simply isn't clear.

Dec 8, 2024; Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA; Minnesota Vikings quarterback Sam Darnold (14) scrambles with the ball against the Atlanta Falcons during the third quarter at U.S. Bank Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Matt Krohn-Imagn Images / Matt Krohn-Imagn Images

EAGAN — The toughest position in sports may be quarterback but the toughest thing in sports to figure out is who is actually good at the quarterback position.

Here’s a few fun tales from recent NFL history to demonstrate…

After the Seattle Seahawks signed ex-Packers backup Matt Flynn to a big contract in 2012, the draft analysis world was stunned to see the Seahawks draft an undersized college QB in the third round. Waste of a draft pick, they said. That Russell Wilson will never see the field, they bemoaned. One year later Wilson raised the Lombardi Trophy.

Frustrated by Jimmy Garoppolo’s lack of playmaking skill, the San Francisco 49ers traded the farm to move up in the draft and take Trey Lance in 2021. Now they have their future franchise quarterback. Watch out, world! The next year, San Fran selected Brock Purdy with the final pick in the draft. Mr. Irrelevant. Maybe a camp body. As a rookie Purdy led the 49ers to the NFC Championship and then the Super Bowl in his second year.

Why would the Eagles draft a running back trying to play QB in Jalen Hurts when they have an accomplished quarterback like Carson Wentz?

Why would the Packers draft Jordan Love when they have Aaron Rodgers?

The Lions should draft a quarterback, no way Jared Goff is the guy.

Lamar Jackson should switch to wide receiver. They’re all set with Joe Flacco.

The Seattle Seahawks must be tanking, we all figured when they signed Geno Smith.

The Tampa Bay Bucs are just getting veteran competition for their young QB Kyle Trask by signing Baker Mayfield, right?

If we go farther back in history, we’ll find a lot more where that came from. Hall of Famer Kurt Warner was playing indoor league football. Hall of Famer Steve Young was a bust from the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Rich Gannon won MVP in his late 30s.

Did you know that Tom Brady was a sixth-round pick?

The NFL is even pretty bad at picking which QBs are going to be good right before the next season.

If you go back and look at The Athletic’s annual “Quarterback Tiers” article — a poll of executives and coaches — from prior to the 2024 season, Geno Smith is 20th, Russell Wilson ranks 22nd and Sam Darnold is 28th. Daniel Jones, a current practice squad backup for the Vikings, is 23rd. Aaron Rodgers, whose team is 3-10, is seventh — three spots ahead of Jared Goff. DeShaun Watson ranks just ahead of Baker Mayfield.

Not everything is wrong, of course. The usual suspects i.e. Patrick Mahomes, Josh Allen, Lamar Jackson and Joe Burrow were ranked at the top and remain at the top. That’s also in line with NFL history in which the Bradys and Mannings or Montanas and Marinos remain elite for a very long period of time. Everybody else seems to go as their teams go.

Yes, all of this is tying into the Minnesota Vikings upcoming decision with Sam Darnold. His performance on Sunday against the Falcons was so spectacular that his status for the future has taken center stage as a topic de jour around the NFL.

The Vikings thought highly of Darnold before the season, which is why they paid him $10 million, but they never expected him to be the next Steve Young when he had a career 78.6 QB rating prior to this year. Now he’s third in the NFL in rating and seventh by PFF. The spot Aaron Rodgers was expected to be in.

All season people have been asking whether he could sustain his strong level of play or if it would fade with a larger sample size. It hasn’t. Coming off one tough game in Jacksonville, he’s played like the best QB in the entire league. That’s where PFF has him in the past four weeks.

He can’t keep this up right? No way he could be the guy, right? Well, there have been so many instances where an unexpected quarterback ends up being the guy, including the greatest quarterback of all time, that it can’t be dismissed. Maybe Darnold is just another name to throw on the long list of QBs who turned out to be great after not appearing that way at first. We don’t really know yet.

That’s the problem with using Darnold as a debate topic. What are we supposed to argue about when the real answer is: We don’t really know yet?

On Tuesday, offensive coordinator Wes Phillips alluded to the possibility that Darnold could end up elsewhere, while also saying he’s proven himself.

“We all know that Sam is going to be a sought-after type of guy from wherever that may be so…whatever his future ends up being, I know all of us are going to end up being happy for him no matter where that ends up being,” Phillips said. “He’s proven the doubters [wrong], he’s proven he can play in this league.”

On Monday, head coach Kevin O’Connell talked about the delicate dance of acknowledging the elephant in the room without telling Darnold every two seconds not to worry about it.

“I think it's important that we're not talking about it too much, where if every single day I'm telling them, hey, let's just focus on today, don't worry about it, then it becomes maybe I should focus on more than just today,” O’Connell said. “I just can't say enough about how Sam's [Darnold] handled himself.”

Yeah, they don’t know what’s going to happen next either. The only thing we can say for sure is that Darnold is playing at a franchise quarterback level and that it doesn’t seem like a fluke. He’s playing within the offense and then making all-world plays when called upon. He was supposed to be this good all along and if you go back to 2022 he’s 15-5 with a 102.5 rating. That’s a growing sample size of great play.

We also know that it’s not impossible to win with a quarterback who has a big contract. The Lions, Eagles, Packers, Bucs, Seahawks and Rams all have QBs on at least their second contracts. So do the Bills, Chiefs, Ravens and Chargers. Maybe with the salary cap ever-growing and good teams getting better and better at managing winning windows and cap hits, the impact isn’t what it used to be. Or maybe the QB just has to be good enough.

There’s also the franchise tag, which would allow for a bigger sample size for the Vikings to find out about Darnold and for them to still potentially plan for a transition to first-rounder J.J. McCarthy.

The Vikings will have options. They can play a game of Choose Your Own Adventure with the final stretch of the season. If the path leads them back to Darnold, he will still have everything that’s making him currently great in place. If the path leads to McCarthy, they get the rookie QB contract edge and pray that the environment works for him as well as it did for Darnold.

But the Vikings really need to see the rest of the season to have a better idea about what to do. They don’t know yet whether they walk out of the stadium after their final game feeling like Darnold gives them the best chance to win the Super Bowl next season or if it was a fun season with big-armed Sam and now they can return to their regularly scheduled program.

That decision certainly isn’t coming this week before Monday Night Football against the Chicago Bears.

As counter intuitive as it may be in a football world that’s constantly looking toward the future, it might be best for everyone to take the same approach that Darnold is taking himself. One game at a time.

What’s the saying? Life happens while you’re making plans?

The Vikings have only had a handful of these seasons in the last 25 years and Darnold is putting together one of the most successful and entertaining performances in team history. Why spend every minute of the final stanza of the season fretting about whether he will be under center next September when you can ride the wave of the most unexpected season in the NFL this year?

When the time comes for the Vikings to make the decision, we’ll all probably have a good sense where they are going to go with QB Decision 2025. We’ll know how the season ended. We’ll know how he looked in the final four games and in the playoffs. We’ll know how far away they are from a Super Bowl or we’ll all be making parade plans.

We can allow the situation to play out, as many other teams did with unexpected situations at quarterback over the history of the NFL. For now, Darnold shouldn’t just be a debate topic because of his future, he should be a topic as the best story in the league for 2024 and a dangerous QB to be reckoned with in the postseason if he keeps playing at this level.