Purple Rumor Mill: Keeping Sam Darnold, Vikings Winning the Super Bowl, Beef with the Packers
VikingsTerritory’s Purple Rumor Mill is a two-day chronicle each week. All the week’s rumors are lassoed and plopped in two spots — articles on Saturday and Sunday — for review. Today is the January 5th edition.
Purple Rumor Mill: Keeping Sam Darnold, Vikings Winning the Super Bowl, Beef with the Packers
Remember — rumors are rumors. What you read on weekends in these pieces is what the world is talking about pertaining to the Vikings, not necessarily items that will come to fruition.
Here’s the second batch of the week. Yesterday’s can be read here.
Rumor: The tide has turned, and the Vikings will likely find a way to keep Sam Darnold in 2025.
Per new reporting from The Athletic, Minnesota reportedly wants current QB1 Sam Darnold back in 2025, a plot twist compared to a couple of months ago when the popular theory suggested the 2025 Vikings would belong to rookie passer J.J. McCarthy.
The Vikings drafted McCarthy in Round 1 last April, with Darnold on the depth chart as a “bridge quarterback.” Yet, when the summer and regular season arrived, McCarthy tore his meniscus, canceling his rookie campaign, and Darnold exploded for 36 touchdowns through 17 games.
“They spent a first-round pick on J.J. McCarthy last spring and Darnold is in for a big payday in March. Despite that, after conversations with a team source, one thing is clear: The Vikings want Darnold back in Minnesota for 2025,” The Athletic’s Dianna Russini wrote earlier this week.
Aside from Darnold, Minnesota is on tap to have north of $70 million in cap space during the 2025 offseason, and re-signing Darnold might siphon $40-$50 million from that budget. Oddly, the Vikings recently wound down an era of paying a quarterback the megabucks when Kirk Cousins departed for Atlanta 9.5 months ago. Fans rejoiced over the affordable quarterback era on the way. It might’ve been short-lived.
“While the original plan was for McCarthy to slowly develop into the starting quarterback while Darnold was there to hold the rookie’s place, McCarthy’s injury changed things,” Russini continued. “Now, the Vikings have a problem — Darnold has been almost too good (not in a bad way, but in a “this is now complicated” way). McCarthy hasn’t played since August, and realistically he won’t be fully in the mix until spring at the earliest. He’s around the building and with the team constantly but he hasn’t been medically cleared.”
Darnold has nibbled at MVP consideration this season, and his team is 14-2, one Sunday Night Football win away from homefield advantage in the postseason. The guy deserves a big contract in 2025 — from somebody.
“So, what’s the move? One option on the table: the franchise tag. It’s pricey (more than $40 million) but it buys time. It would give McCarthy another year to develop from the bench, or at least set up a real competition. (There’s nothing wrong with McCarthy sitting — think about what the Packers did with Jordan Love),” she noted.
“And it would give the Vikings a chance to do a shorter-term deal that’s more cap-friendly, yet also gives Darnold similar money to what he’d get on the open market.”
Keeping Darnold is rapidly morphing into reality.
Rumor: ESPN believes Minnesota will meet Baltimore in the Super Bowl.
ESPN’s Ben Solak published a playoff preview this week, complete with predictions, and according to him, the Minnesota Vikings will meet the Baltimore Ravens in the Super Bowl this February.
Solak explained, “The Super Bowl will be between the Ravens and Vikings. We’re beyond the stage where I have one sound prediction for the Super Bowl and into the stage where I’ve thought of so many different permutations that I’m just rooting for a favorite. We still don’t know if either Minnesota or Baltimore will win their respective divisions or run through the wild card, but I’m confident in both teams’ ‘can beat anybody on their best day’ qualifications.”
When the regular season kicked off four months ago, oddsmakers labeled Minnesota with a +8000 moneyline to win the chip. That has shrunk to +850 entering Week 18.
“The biggest thing I’d like to see is the Lamar Jackson-Brian Flores rematch. Jackson played a famously poor game in 2021 against the Flores-led Dolphins, losing 22-10 after Flores mercilessly blitzed Jackson into submission,” Solak continued. “Since then, Jackson has gotten a new offensive coordinator and dramatically improved against all-out pressure. But Flores also has evolved and wins more these days by simulating pressure, not sending it outright.”
The all-purple Super Bowl would represent the Vikings’ first trip to the league championship in 48 years.
“Jackson hasn’t played Flores since that contest — not even in 2022 against the Steelers, when Flores was a senior defensive assistant there. It would be a rematch three years in the making and a battle between the most unguardable quarterback and the most unanswerable defense. Get-out-your-popcorn stuff,” Solak concluded.
We’ll take it.
Rumor: Vikings outside linebacker Jonathan Greenard thinks the Packers are dirty.
Packers tight end Tucker Kraft went for the knees of EDGE defender Patrick Jones II on Sunday, producing a low blow that looked horrid in the moment. Most fans feared the worst for Jones II, a fourth-year pass rusher on the Vikings’ roster.
And fans weren’t alone in the discontent. Greenard tweeted about Kraft’s block after Minnesota’s win over Green Bay: “Dude motioned from 30 yards away to STILL cut him. Pathetic. Be a man block up high. NFL get rid of this block PLEASE.”
Greenard wasted no time acclimating to the Vikings-Packers rivalry.
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Dustin Baker is a political scientist who graduated from the University of Minnesota in 2007. Subscribe to his daily YouTube Channel, VikesNow. The show features guests, analysis, and opinion on all things related to the purple team, with 4-7 episodes per week. His MIN obsession dates back to 1996. Listed guilty pleasures: Peanut Butter Ice Cream, ‘The Sopranos,’ Basset Hounds, and The Doors (the band). He follows the NBA as closely as the NFL.
All statistics provided by Pro Football Reference / Stathead; all contractual information provided by OverTheCap.com.
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