January 15, 2025 • 13 mins
Minnesota Tim dives into the implications of Sam Darnold's performance at the end of the season and how it affects his market value as a quarterback. He discusses the potential for Darnold to still secure a lucrative contract despite a dip in performance, emphasizing the ongoing demand for quarterbacks in the NFL. The conversation also touches on the dynamics of team needs and the impact of Darnold's past performances on his future opportunities.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
With the Minnesota Vikings season over for the second time
in three years after they got bounced in the first
round after a spectacular special regular season, we are starting
to dive into the off season speculation, the possibilities, and
(00:22):
the question that I want to answer on this podcast
is how far has Sam Donald's stock fell? How much
has Sam Donald plummeted in the stock market over these
last few weeks, Because all year long, or at least
(00:44):
from mid season to the end of the year, when
he was playing his best football of the season, we
were talking about, Okay, do the Minnesota Vikings bring him
back on a three year, one hundred to one fifty
million dollar deal? Are we talking about another team like Vegas,
(01:06):
the Giants, the Panthers before Bryce Young figured out? Are
we talking about one of those teams bringing in Donald
and signing him to a three to four year two
hundred million dollar deal.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
I mean, the.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
Falcons just signed Kirk Cousins to one one hundred and
eighty million dollar contract with one hundred million guaranteed after
he ruptured.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
His achilles at thirty six years old.
Speaker 1 (01:32):
So the possibilities are endless with Sam Darnold and then
he has his final two weeks of the year where
she played terribly, the worst football of the season, and
it was throwback to the New York Jets. It was
throwback to the Carolina Panthers because a guy that was revolutionalized,
(02:00):
the QB whisperer and Kevin O'Connell and the biggest pressure
moments of the year completely went back to his old
former self and lost it.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
And Mike silver is in a writer for the Athletic.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
And this picture has been going around of a screenshot
between Kevin O'Connell and Sam Donald. Now one of the
questions that we need to answer is who leaked the screenshot,
And it says this on the Athletic dot com. Look
for Justin O'Connell told us quarterback over the headset, then
look for Jordan. If you don't like what you see,
(02:42):
throw it out of bounds. We can't be sure exactly
what Donald saw. Ghats millions of dollars evaporating before his eyes,
But it wasn't Addison running free. The second year white
Out was streaking down the sideline after fainting an outroute,
a move that turned around rookie safety Cameron Kitchens and
left him trailing badly. Donald after taking a shotguns Net,
(03:05):
looked right, pumped once, backed up to avoid a pass rusher,
and drifted to his left. After holding the ball for
nearly seven seconds, Donald finally ducked for cover as LA
defenders Michael Hiked and Brayden Fisk plowed him to the
turf at midfield, leaving his head facing the opposite end zone.
(03:25):
Now it was fourth and twenty one and O'Connell chose
to punt on the next play and essentially on the season.
So this is a play that happened in.
Speaker 2 (03:35):
The fourth quarter.
Speaker 1 (03:36):
And who else could have leaked this besides Kevin O'Connell.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
Or Kevin O'Connell's agent.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
Because ultimately, this graphic or exchange makes Kevin o'conna look
like the good guy, and it makes Sam Donald look
like the bad guy. And I'm not surprised by this.
This is something that coaches telled quarterbacks all the time.
Look for JJ, look for this guy, and if it's
(04:08):
not there, throw it away. This is a common sense
moment from Kevin O'Connell. Every head coach in the league,
even the worst ones, would say something like this because
it's common sense. So it does make Kevin o'conna look
like the good guy and Sam Donald look like the
(04:28):
bad guy. But it's not like this is some absurd,
amazing analysis that I'm just so blown away by that
no other head coach in the history of football would
ever come up with. So yeah, O'Connell's right, but it's
not like I'm blown away by what he said. Adam Schefter,
(04:53):
one of the best NFL insiders there is, always has
the breaking stories first or second, right behind the first,
ahead of Tom Pelasarow or Andy in an app report,
or is right there alongside them.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
And he went on the Pat.
Speaker 1 (05:09):
McAfee show and they talked about Sam Donald and the
Minnesota Vikings quarterback situation.
Speaker 3 (05:17):
Stiff right in we're just wrapping up the Sam Donald
Vikings conversation after the last two games Sam Donald has had.
There are some people in here that are Pittsburgh Steelers
fans who say, I'd pay that guy three years, one
hundred million dollars to be our quarterback going forward because
they don't have a quarterback. Then there's other people who
do have a quarterback that say, did Sam Donald miss
out on a hundred and twenty million dollars over the last
(05:38):
couple of weeks. What are your thoughts on the Sam
Donald situation and what do you think happens with he
and the Vikings going forward, just from where we sit
today one day after their loss season ending loss.
Speaker 4 (05:51):
Well, I still think he's probably the number one free
agent quarterback available in a market where there are any
number of teams that need quarterbacks that will not be
able to get the quarterback that they need in the draft,
and so he's going to be a desired commodity. But
you can't look at the last two weeks and think
that he enhanced his value. I think he had a
(06:13):
chance to kind of blow the roof off his value,
and they lost at Detroit, and they lost last night,
sacked nine times. Blame the offensive line, blame whoever you want,
but those are not his best and finest back to
back games of the season. And he played exceptionally well
all year long, and he boosted his value and everybody
saw the type of quarterback that Sam Donald is. But
(06:35):
the last two weeks, clearly I think impacted his value
in a negative way. But we'll see how much. He's
still the best curaging quarterbacks out there, and so you
have to think somebody is going to value that a
tremendous amount. The question is how much.
Speaker 3 (06:50):
So does that mean that that's good news for the Vikings,
who potentially weren't going to be able to get to
the number that maybe another team was. But now there's
a chance that the value has been brought down any
bit where the Vikings would be able to dance even
though they have to pay Addison, have already paid Justin Jefferson,
and have many other names on the team that are
going to get paid big dollars.
Speaker 4 (07:09):
It's a great question, Pat, I don't know that we
know the answer to that right now. I think it's
going to depend on what the market bears. Right If
there's a team out there, allah the Raiders, the Giants,
the Steelers, whoever it is that needs a quarterback to
ear any number of them that do that looks at
Sam Darnal from this year and says, Okay, we're going
to pay the guy forty million dollars whatever it is
that they may get it to a number that may
(07:31):
be out of the Vikings range.
Speaker 3 (07:33):
Got it.
Speaker 4 (07:33):
But it's possible that the last two weeks impacted the
number enough so that maybe it's within the range of
the Vikings asking price and they can get a deal
done and bring him back. But again, I think here's
the thing. They have JJ McCarthy waiting in the wings.
They really like JJ McCarthy. They don't know exactly what
they have, but they love what they saw this summer.
(07:56):
He spent a good part of the year rehabbing, So
you're not going through practices. You don't really know for
sure what you have. You think you have a quarterback,
but you don't know you have a quarterback. So I
think in a perfect world, you'd like to have Sam
Darnald back if you could, But there may be a
team out there that's willing to pay him more than
the Vikings are. God, I think there's a wide range
(08:17):
of outcomes here.
Speaker 3 (08:18):
Yeah, so they got a reserve on. You know, if
it hits the reserve, it can go somewhere else. If
it doesn't, we're gonna end up paying that. I wonder
if that's a percentage of the salary cap is the number,
or if it's an actual hard number with how the
entire thing is going.
Speaker 1 (08:32):
So that's Adam Schefter and Pat McAfee on the Minnesota
Vikings quarterback situation with Sam Donald and Adam schefter.
Speaker 2 (08:40):
Brings up good points.
Speaker 1 (08:42):
And one thing that we cannot forget to consider in
this whole Sam Darnald thing, has this stuck plummeted a
little bit? Yes, I mean there's no doubt about that
these last two weeks he's not gonna get the same
dollar amount. If he defeated the Lions, and if he
feeded the first opponent in the divisional round and advanced
(09:03):
to the NFC Championship game, there's no doubt that he's
not going to get the same contract. But we cannot
underestimate just how thirsty bad teams are for a good quarterback.
We cannot underestimate how much bad teams want their hands
(09:26):
on a potentially good quarterback.
Speaker 2 (09:28):
And we see this in the NFL draft.
Speaker 1 (09:32):
Quarterbacks that initially have round two or round three grades
but our athletic specimens, all of a sudden get drafted
in the top ten because teams lose their minds on potential.
Speaker 2 (09:48):
Teams go crazy.
Speaker 1 (09:51):
About a guy's athletic ability and what if we could
just make him into a pocket passer, and then he
has his prota and then he completes pastes to wide
open wide receivers and then it's like, well, this guy's
gonna be a superstar. So he originally goes from mid
round to pick or late first round pick, all of
a sudden, he's a top ten guy aka Anthony Richardson.
Speaker 2 (10:10):
You see it every year.
Speaker 1 (10:12):
You see a guy every single year that is a
low grade and then all of a sudden flies into
the top ten, top fifteen of the NFL draft. And
it's very similar with Sam Darnald. You don't think that
the Raiders are the Giants or some other bottom feeder
in the league that needs a quarterback badly to have
(10:32):
any assemblance of a competitive roster, won't give Sam Darnald
thirty five to forty million dollars a year. Of course,
they are going to because they want to be in
the show and they want a possibility at being a
competitive team. So they're not gonna strut out an Aiden
O'Connell or whoever the Giants have at quarterback. I don't
(10:56):
think Aiden gonna counts with the Raiders. They're not gonna
strut this guy out there year. They're gonna bring in
a Donald who threw thirty five touchdowns twelve interceptions. They're
gonna they're gonna convince themselves that Donald can take their
roster and make it much more exceptional than it is
right now.
Speaker 2 (11:17):
So Donald, Yeah, his pay got docked a.
Speaker 1 (11:19):
Little bit, But we cannot underestimate how horny teams are
for a solid quarterback in the NFL. Just spitting facts,
because the Giants, the Raiders, at their bottom feeders in
(11:40):
the league, they want one, and they want one bad.
They're thirsty, and they're going to be contacting Donald's agent.
Speaker 2 (11:48):
And although Donald.
Speaker 1 (11:51):
Puked away the season at the end of the year
by holding onto the ball too long, there were seventeen other.
Speaker 2 (11:58):
Football games that Donald proved to the.
Speaker 1 (12:03):
League that he was much better than his former self
with the New York Jets and the Carolina Panthers. So Donald,
he'll get paid. It didn't plummet, it went down a
little bit. But if you're another team, you're not necessarily
disappointed that Donald Stock went down because instead of paying
(12:25):
him fifty to fifty five million dollars a year, well,
now I can get away with paying them thirty.
Speaker 2 (12:30):
Five to forty million dollars a year.
Speaker 1 (12:32):
So these teams aren't necessarily upset that Donald Stock went down.
Speaker 2 (12:36):
He just became more affordable. He just became a guy
that you can.
Speaker 1 (12:40):
Pay and still pay another player on the team more
money to make him stay or sign a guy out
a free agency.
Speaker 2 (12:46):
So if you're looking at.
Speaker 1 (12:48):
This from another team's perspective that's horny for a quarterback,
well then they're.
Speaker 2 (12:55):
Kind of happy.
Speaker 1 (12:56):
We just saved twenty million dollars and our offer to
Sam Donald and Sam Donald's agent, so it went down,
but it didn't completely go away, just because of the
market and what NFL teams desire in NFL quarterbacks. Thank
you for watching this episode, and thank you for making
(13:17):
this podcast per ever your day. Subscribe wherever you're watching
or listening. Thank you for going on this podcasting journey
with me one hundred percent honest, one hundred percent of
the time.
With the Minnesota Vikings season over for the second time
in three years after they got bounced in the first
round after a spectacular special regular season, we are starting
to dive into the off season speculation, the possibilities, and
(00:22):
the question that I want to answer on this podcast
is how far has Sam Donald's stock fell? How much
has Sam Donald plummeted in the stock market over these
last few weeks, Because all year long, or at least
(00:44):
from mid season to the end of the year, when
he was playing his best football of the season, we
were talking about, Okay, do the Minnesota Vikings bring him
back on a three year, one hundred to one fifty
million dollar deal? Are we talking about another team like Vegas,
(01:06):
the Giants, the Panthers before Bryce Young figured out? Are
we talking about one of those teams bringing in Donald
and signing him to a three to four year two
hundred million dollar deal.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
I mean, the.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
Falcons just signed Kirk Cousins to one one hundred and
eighty million dollar contract with one hundred million guaranteed after
he ruptured.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
His achilles at thirty six years old.
Speaker 1 (01:32):
So the possibilities are endless with Sam Darnold and then
he has his final two weeks of the year where
she played terribly, the worst football of the season, and
it was throwback to the New York Jets. It was
throwback to the Carolina Panthers because a guy that was revolutionalized,
(02:00):
the QB whisperer and Kevin O'Connell and the biggest pressure
moments of the year completely went back to his old
former self and lost it.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
And Mike silver is in a writer for the Athletic.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
And this picture has been going around of a screenshot
between Kevin O'Connell and Sam Donald. Now one of the
questions that we need to answer is who leaked the screenshot,
And it says this on the Athletic dot com. Look
for Justin O'Connell told us quarterback over the headset, then
look for Jordan. If you don't like what you see,
(02:42):
throw it out of bounds. We can't be sure exactly
what Donald saw. Ghats millions of dollars evaporating before his eyes,
But it wasn't Addison running free. The second year white
Out was streaking down the sideline after fainting an outroute,
a move that turned around rookie safety Cameron Kitchens and
left him trailing badly. Donald after taking a shotguns Net,
(03:05):
looked right, pumped once, backed up to avoid a pass rusher,
and drifted to his left. After holding the ball for
nearly seven seconds, Donald finally ducked for cover as LA
defenders Michael Hiked and Brayden Fisk plowed him to the
turf at midfield, leaving his head facing the opposite end zone.
(03:25):
Now it was fourth and twenty one and O'Connell chose
to punt on the next play and essentially on the season.
So this is a play that happened in.
Speaker 2 (03:35):
The fourth quarter.
Speaker 1 (03:36):
And who else could have leaked this besides Kevin O'Connell.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
Or Kevin O'Connell's agent.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
Because ultimately, this graphic or exchange makes Kevin o'conna look
like the good guy, and it makes Sam Donald look
like the bad guy. And I'm not surprised by this.
This is something that coaches telled quarterbacks all the time.
Look for JJ, look for this guy, and if it's
(04:08):
not there, throw it away. This is a common sense
moment from Kevin O'Connell. Every head coach in the league,
even the worst ones, would say something like this because
it's common sense. So it does make Kevin o'conna look
like the good guy and Sam Donald look like the
(04:28):
bad guy. But it's not like this is some absurd,
amazing analysis that I'm just so blown away by that
no other head coach in the history of football would
ever come up with. So yeah, O'Connell's right, but it's
not like I'm blown away by what he said. Adam Schefter,
(04:53):
one of the best NFL insiders there is, always has
the breaking stories first or second, right behind the first,
ahead of Tom Pelasarow or Andy in an app report,
or is right there alongside them.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
And he went on the Pat.
Speaker 1 (05:09):
McAfee show and they talked about Sam Donald and the
Minnesota Vikings quarterback situation.
Speaker 3 (05:17):
Stiff right in we're just wrapping up the Sam Donald
Vikings conversation after the last two games Sam Donald has had.
There are some people in here that are Pittsburgh Steelers
fans who say, I'd pay that guy three years, one
hundred million dollars to be our quarterback going forward because
they don't have a quarterback. Then there's other people who
do have a quarterback that say, did Sam Donald miss
out on a hundred and twenty million dollars over the last
(05:38):
couple of weeks. What are your thoughts on the Sam
Donald situation and what do you think happens with he
and the Vikings going forward, just from where we sit
today one day after their loss season ending loss.
Speaker 4 (05:51):
Well, I still think he's probably the number one free
agent quarterback available in a market where there are any
number of teams that need quarterbacks that will not be
able to get the quarterback that they need in the draft,
and so he's going to be a desired commodity. But
you can't look at the last two weeks and think
that he enhanced his value. I think he had a
(06:13):
chance to kind of blow the roof off his value,
and they lost at Detroit, and they lost last night,
sacked nine times. Blame the offensive line, blame whoever you want,
but those are not his best and finest back to
back games of the season. And he played exceptionally well
all year long, and he boosted his value and everybody
saw the type of quarterback that Sam Donald is. But
(06:35):
the last two weeks, clearly I think impacted his value
in a negative way. But we'll see how much. He's
still the best curaging quarterbacks out there, and so you
have to think somebody is going to value that a
tremendous amount. The question is how much.
Speaker 3 (06:50):
So does that mean that that's good news for the Vikings,
who potentially weren't going to be able to get to
the number that maybe another team was. But now there's
a chance that the value has been brought down any
bit where the Vikings would be able to dance even
though they have to pay Addison, have already paid Justin Jefferson,
and have many other names on the team that are
going to get paid big dollars.
Speaker 4 (07:09):
It's a great question, Pat, I don't know that we
know the answer to that right now. I think it's
going to depend on what the market bears. Right If
there's a team out there, allah the Raiders, the Giants,
the Steelers, whoever it is that needs a quarterback to
ear any number of them that do that looks at
Sam Darnal from this year and says, Okay, we're going
to pay the guy forty million dollars whatever it is
that they may get it to a number that may
(07:31):
be out of the Vikings range.
Speaker 3 (07:33):
Got it.
Speaker 4 (07:33):
But it's possible that the last two weeks impacted the
number enough so that maybe it's within the range of
the Vikings asking price and they can get a deal
done and bring him back. But again, I think here's
the thing. They have JJ McCarthy waiting in the wings.
They really like JJ McCarthy. They don't know exactly what
they have, but they love what they saw this summer.
(07:56):
He spent a good part of the year rehabbing, So
you're not going through practices. You don't really know for
sure what you have. You think you have a quarterback,
but you don't know you have a quarterback. So I
think in a perfect world, you'd like to have Sam
Darnald back if you could, But there may be a
team out there that's willing to pay him more than
the Vikings are. God, I think there's a wide range
(08:17):
of outcomes here.
Speaker 3 (08:18):
Yeah, so they got a reserve on. You know, if
it hits the reserve, it can go somewhere else. If
it doesn't, we're gonna end up paying that. I wonder
if that's a percentage of the salary cap is the number,
or if it's an actual hard number with how the
entire thing is going.
Speaker 1 (08:32):
So that's Adam Schefter and Pat McAfee on the Minnesota
Vikings quarterback situation with Sam Donald and Adam schefter.
Speaker 2 (08:40):
Brings up good points.
Speaker 1 (08:42):
And one thing that we cannot forget to consider in
this whole Sam Darnald thing, has this stuck plummeted a
little bit? Yes, I mean there's no doubt about that
these last two weeks he's not gonna get the same
dollar amount. If he defeated the Lions, and if he
feeded the first opponent in the divisional round and advanced
(09:03):
to the NFC Championship game, there's no doubt that he's
not going to get the same contract. But we cannot
underestimate just how thirsty bad teams are for a good quarterback.
We cannot underestimate how much bad teams want their hands
(09:26):
on a potentially good quarterback.
Speaker 2 (09:28):
And we see this in the NFL draft.
Speaker 1 (09:32):
Quarterbacks that initially have round two or round three grades
but our athletic specimens, all of a sudden get drafted
in the top ten because teams lose their minds on potential.
Speaker 2 (09:48):
Teams go crazy.
Speaker 1 (09:51):
About a guy's athletic ability and what if we could
just make him into a pocket passer, and then he
has his prota and then he completes pastes to wide
open wide receivers and then it's like, well, this guy's
gonna be a superstar. So he originally goes from mid
round to pick or late first round pick, all of
a sudden, he's a top ten guy aka Anthony Richardson.
Speaker 2 (10:10):
You see it every year.
Speaker 1 (10:12):
You see a guy every single year that is a
low grade and then all of a sudden flies into
the top ten, top fifteen of the NFL draft. And
it's very similar with Sam Darnald. You don't think that
the Raiders are the Giants or some other bottom feeder
in the league that needs a quarterback badly to have
(10:32):
any assemblance of a competitive roster, won't give Sam Darnald
thirty five to forty million dollars a year. Of course,
they are going to because they want to be in
the show and they want a possibility at being a
competitive team. So they're not gonna strut out an Aiden
O'Connell or whoever the Giants have at quarterback. I don't
(10:56):
think Aiden gonna counts with the Raiders. They're not gonna
strut this guy out there year. They're gonna bring in
a Donald who threw thirty five touchdowns twelve interceptions. They're
gonna they're gonna convince themselves that Donald can take their
roster and make it much more exceptional than it is
right now.
Speaker 2 (11:17):
So Donald, Yeah, his pay got docked a.
Speaker 1 (11:19):
Little bit, But we cannot underestimate how horny teams are
for a solid quarterback in the NFL. Just spitting facts,
because the Giants, the Raiders, at their bottom feeders in
(11:40):
the league, they want one, and they want one bad.
They're thirsty, and they're going to be contacting Donald's agent.
Speaker 2 (11:48):
And although Donald.
Speaker 1 (11:51):
Puked away the season at the end of the year
by holding onto the ball too long, there were seventeen other.
Speaker 2 (11:58):
Football games that Donald proved to the.
Speaker 1 (12:03):
League that he was much better than his former self
with the New York Jets and the Carolina Panthers. So Donald,
he'll get paid. It didn't plummet, it went down a
little bit. But if you're another team, you're not necessarily
disappointed that Donald Stock went down because instead of paying
(12:25):
him fifty to fifty five million dollars a year, well,
now I can get away with paying them thirty.
Speaker 2 (12:30):
Five to forty million dollars a year.
Speaker 1 (12:32):
So these teams aren't necessarily upset that Donald Stock went down.
Speaker 2 (12:36):
He just became more affordable. He just became a guy
that you can.
Speaker 1 (12:40):
Pay and still pay another player on the team more
money to make him stay or sign a guy out
a free agency.
Speaker 2 (12:46):
So if you're looking at.
Speaker 1 (12:48):
This from another team's perspective that's horny for a quarterback,
well then they're.
Speaker 2 (12:55):
Kind of happy.
Speaker 1 (12:56):
We just saved twenty million dollars and our offer to
Sam Donald and Sam Donald's agent, so it went down,
but it didn't completely go away, just because of the
market and what NFL teams desire in NFL quarterbacks. Thank
you for watching this episode, and thank you for making
(13:17):
this podcast per ever your day. Subscribe wherever you're watching
or listening. Thank you for going on this podcasting journey
with me one hundred percent honest, one hundred percent of
the time.
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