‘Dream Scenario’ Trade Pitch Sees Vikings Flip Sam Darnold in Unprecedented Move

The Minnesota Vikings would probably prefer to avoid paying Sam Darnold north of $100 million with J.J. McCarthy waiting in the wings, but letting a 14-win QB walk for nothing isn’t ideal — especially for an organization with a mostly empty cupboard when it comes to picks in the 2025 NFL draft.

Minnesota won’t have the option to trade Darnold this offseason unless they extend him, which would mean a lucrative multiyear contract, or slap the franchise tag on him. The latter path would come with a one-year commitment in the range of $40 million.

The “tag-and-trade” method, as the hosts of “Locked On Sports Minnesota” referred to it during the Thursday, January 23 edition of their podcast, isn’t a common occurrence in the league. And it’s even less common when it comes to quarterbacks.

“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.”

But there is a first time for everything and tagging Darnold, now 27 years old, so as to get some value back for him makes a ton of sense for the Vikings. There are at least a half dozen teams in the market for a potential franchise QB this offseason, though there are only two signal-callers in this year’s draft class with first-round grades, and Darnold is the top free agent QB on essentially every list.

The inevitable question then becomes: What can Minnesota get in return for him?

Sam Darnold’s Trade Value Plummeted Over Final 2 Games of Season

Luke Inman, one of Ekstrom’s co-hosts, outlined the “dream scenario” for the Vikings in a Darnold tag-and-trade — noting a drop off from a potential first-round pick level of value prior to the QB’s two poor showings in Week 18 against the Detroit Lions and in the first round of the playoffs against the Los Angeles Rams.

“Now your market feels like a third-rounder, late second at the very best. Like, that’s the dream,” Inman 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.”

However, Inman went on to suggest that the more likely return would be a couple of selections in the later rounds.

“Something like a fourth and a sixth,” he continued. “Maybe people start to think about [Darnold’s] body of work and what he did winning 14 games. At the end of the day, that’s worth something. … So dream scenario: late second, early third. Realistic scenario: two later picks — like a fourth and a 2026 fifth, which is still better than nothing.”

Vikings in Desperate Need of More Draft Capital in 2025

The contract projections for Darnold — which begin at around $100 million over three years via NFL execs who spoke to ESPN’s Jeremy Fowler and cap out at around $160 million over four years based on Spotrac’s calculations — appear to indicate, at least on the surface, that Darnold should possess more trade value than two late-round selections.

That said, draft capital is in high demand based on the inherent upside value to any pick in any round. Case in point, San Francisco 49ers quarterback Brock Purdy was the final selection in the final round in 2022 and started in the Super Bowl less than a year ago.

Not to mention, any team that trades for Darnold will have to carry his pricey franchise tag salary in 2025 and then foot the bill for an extension in the price/year ranges noted two paragraphs above. All of those factors minimize what the Vikings might be able to expect in return via a tag-and-trade.

But anything would be valuable for Minnesota, as the team has just one first-round pick and two fifth-rounders heading into the draft as of Thursday.