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NFL Super Bowl LX Sam Darnold's performance for the Seahawks this season — but particularly in Sunday's win over the Rams — has Vikings fans wondering why their team let him go last spring. Steph Chambers / Getty Images In Minnesota, the scenes of Sam Darnold on Sunday night created an intense emotional response. There the quarterback was, side-stepping a defender and uncorking a dart of a throw for yet another touchdown. There he was, hoisting an NFC championship trophy. There he was, smiling on the field after his Seattle Seahawks had beaten the Los Angeles Rams to earn a trip to Super Bowl 60. “It’s amazing, ” Darnold told Fox reporter Tom Rinaldi. Advertisement The Vikings coaches, players and fans watching from afar likely would have chosen a different adjective. Upsetting? Agonizing? A year ago, Darnold was theirs. Now, not only has the quarterback their team moved on from reached the pinnacle, but the Vikings are mired in another offseason of uncertainty at the position they’ve had trouble filling for decades. Darnold’s 346-yard, three-touchdown performance on the NFL’s biggest stage added heaps of salt to the Vikings’ painful wound. It also revived the discussion about a key pivot point for an organization that hasn’t been to the big game in almost 50 years. How, many have asked, could the Vikings have moved on from this? The most succinct way to sum up the Minnesota side of this chapter in Darnold’s story? Even though he won 14 games last season and led the Vikings to the playoffs, he struggled in several big games — including in the playoffs against, ironically, the Rams. As a result, the team’s primary decision-makers were never fully committed to the idea that he could be the team’s long-term franchise quarterback. “He’s earned the right to be a free agent, ” Vikings head coach Kevin O’Connell said of Darnold last February. Had the Vikings collectively believed more deeply in Darnold, they could have prevented his departure in free agency. They could have negotiated a long-term deal. They also could have used the franchise tag. Their resistance to doing anything beyond offering Darnold another one-year contract was influenced by several factors. None was more prominent than J. J. Mc Carthy, the first-round quarterback they had drafted in 2024. For years, Vikings ownership wanted to take a crack at a young quarterback, knowing the small cap hit would help build an optimal roster around him. Mc Carthy’s torn meniscus delayed that opportunity. Re-signing Darnold would have added more time to the waiting game. Advertisement There was also the question of how Mc Carthy would handle Darnold’s continued presence. Would taking a back seat for another season help or hurt the youngster’s long-term development? Would it help or hurt him in becoming one of the team’s locker-room leaders? Additional considerations carried weight, too. Past draft misses meant they needed cap space in free agency. Spending on Darnold would have prevented the Vikings from using money to fill roster holes elsewhere. The team also tried to gauge whether or not Darnold could replicate his 2024 season. The Vikings also reviewed his two-game finish against the Lions and Rams in the most meaningful moments of the season. He struggled on those two nights, but so did the offensive line and those in charge of the offensive design. Differing opinions on the dynamics of those games — and all of these subjects — made it hard to come to a consensus about what to do at quarterback when the offseason began. As we’ve written, “Some inside the building pushed to keep Darnold, thinking that with more time in the system, his professionalism and experience would matter more than a couple of free-agent signings. ” Others internally questioned Mc Carthy’s readiness for such a meaningful on- and off-field role with a team built to win now. The Vikings planned to insure their choice with another first-round quarterback in Daniel Jones, whom they had added late in the 2024 season. But once the free-agent period began, Jones signed quickly with the Indianapolis Colts. Once Darnold inked a three-year, $105 million contract with the Seahawks, the Vikings pushed forward with their initial vision. They spent aggressively in free agency with the money they saved at quarterback. But their signings flopped. Center Ryan Kelly suffered multiple concussions and missed nine games. Defensive tackle Javon Hargrave didn’t fit defensive coordinator Brian Flores’ system and finished with a measly 3. 5 sacks. Right guard Will Fries was the only offensive lineman to start all 17 games, but his contract value did not match his production. Their combined cap hits for 2025 hovered around $20 million. Darnold’s was only $13. 4 million. Advertisement “There are nights you wake up and stare at the ceiling and ask yourself (about the decisions you make), ” Vikings general manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah said a couple of weeks ago. “I always go back to the process and what we thought at the time. It’s easy to go and be revisionist and be results-based. I still understand why we did what we did. The results maybe didn’t play out the way we wanted them to. ” A few weeks into the 2025 season, some within the Vikings building were juxtaposing the team’s turbulence with the Seahawks’ success. The disparity was jarring. In Minnesota, the offense seemed broken. In Seattle, Darnold was orchestrating one of the NFL’s most explosive passing games. The widening gap in the record between the two teams made comparisons inevitable. The difference in production between elite receivers Justin Jefferson and Jaxon Smith-Njigba didn’t go unnoticed by Vikings players, either. Darnold didn’t play particularly well in the Week 13 game between the two teams. However, Seattle’s 26-0 thrashing of Minnesota at Lumen Field — where Darnold had led the Vikings to a thrilling comeback a year earlier — punctuated the trajectories of the two franchises. His showing on Sunday underscored the trouble the Vikings find themselves in as they enter 2026. They have said that they’re seeking competition for Mc Carthy. Meanwhile, O’Connell and Adofo-Mensah are set to enter their fifth seasons in charge despite not yet having a postseason win. The next few months — not to mention the 2026 season — could be something of a high-wire act for Minnesota’s decision-makers. How can they help Mc Carthy to improve while also getting the kind of quarterback play that earns double-digit wins and maintains confidence in their leadership? Given the lackluster free-agent QB class, who can the Vikings target to thread that microscopic needle? If there is a moral to this story, a lesson per se, it’s not a simple one. Perhaps it’s a cautionary tale about turning to a young quarterback too early. Perhaps it’s a window into what can happen when a judgment is made based on the emotional end of a season rather than the entire experience. Perhaps it’s a reminder that even the best offensive systems need talented quarterbacks as much as, if not more than, talented quarterbacks need them. Alec Lewis is a staff writer covering the Minnesota Vikings for The Athletic. He grew up in Birmingham, Ala. , and has written for Yahoo, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and the Kansas City Star, among many other places. Follow Alec on Twitter @alec_lewis