A couple of weeks ago, following the Seattle Seahawks winning the NFC Championship Game and advancing to the Super Bowl, I wrote a piece about the revisionist history that had been taking place about the situation surrounding quarterback Sam Darnold and the Minnesota Vikings that unfolded after the Vikings’ season ended with a Wild Card loss to the Los Angeles Rams. With Darnold and the Seahawks having won the big game last night, I’ve now gotten an example of this from perhaps the most prominent
talking head in the industry today that illustrates this better than I could ever possibly illustrate it on my own.
On ESPN’s First Take this morning, Stephen A. Smith did a full-on excoriation of the Vikings for allowing Darnold to leave in free agency last season and turning the offense over to the young, unproven J.J. McCarthy.
The rant, in its entirety, is as follows:
The real answer to this question (“Which team should have the biggest regret this season?”) is the Minnesota Vikings. You didn’t even make the postseason. You have an all-world receiver in Justin Jefferson. You got a brother that ain’t a scrub in Jordan Addison. You got a tight end in T.J. Hockenson, okay? And you gave away your quarterback to hand the reins to, essentially, a rookie in J.J. McCarthy who you drafted the year before but didn’t play one game because of a meniscus tear, so basically his NFL action was this year. He was unproven, and this was after Sam Darnold took you to a 14-2 record to start before you lost the season finale and a #1 seed and then, ultimately, a playoff game to the Los Angeles Rams. So two bad games, and when you couldn’t protect him you gave up nine sacks against him to the Los Angeles Rams in the playoffs. And you threw him to the wolves, you said ‘to hell with him, we want to utilize our money elsewhere. That’s why their GM is gone, he was fired. That’s why Kevin McConnell* should no longer be called the quarterback whisperer, that’s why he’s lucky to have his damn job with that kind of decision, he’s a damn good coach and I know that. But I don’t want to hear no ‘quarterback whisperer’ anymore. Don’t want to hear that. Bottom line is, the Minnesota Vikings threw away a football season and jeopardized the career of Justin Jefferson by making the decision that they made”
Yeah. . .that Kevin McConnell is a damn fine coach. Apparently not a fine enough coach for Stephen A. to use his correct name, but a damn fine coach all the same, am I right?
But Stephen A. Smith is very, very passionate about the fact that the Vikings made a mistake in letting Sam Darnold walk away in free agency. . .now.
HOWEVAH. . .
Let us flash back to a year ago or so, shall we? This is when Stephen A. Smith was asked if the Vikings should bring Darnold back following that loss to the Rams in the playoffs.
Interviewer: “So, Stephen, you’re saying the move is to go with J.J. McCarthy?”
Smith: “I’m saying, sure. I believe that’s the case. But, in the same breath, again, it’s about how much it’s going to cost you. It’s about how much it’s going to cost you. And I’m saying you don’t give him $40 million. You don’t give him $40 million. You go with J.J. McCarthy, because how much of a difference will it be?
Darnold wound up signing a three-year, $100 million deal with the Seahawks. The Vikings offered him a deal. We don’t know what sort of deal they offered him, or what the cap hit would have been for Minnesota this season had he signed it, but he ultimately wound up signing with Seattle. His cap hit for the Seahawks was lower for this season, but is set to increase and, as I talked about in the previous story, the Vikings would have found themselves in the same situation they found themselves in during the Kirk Cousins era that they were trying to get away from.
But this? This right here? This is the sort of garbage I was talking about. Seriously, January 2025 Stephen A. Smith needs to have a serious sit-down with February 2026 Stephen A. Smith so that they can get their stories straight, because one of them is speaking with their mouth while the other appears to be using a completely separate orifice.
I said it in the earlier piece, and I’ll say it again. You don’t get to be retroactively pissed off or annoyed that the Minnesota Vikings did what the Minnesota Vikings were largely expected to do. . .or, in some cases, what you directly advocated that the Minnesota Vikings do. Yes, it didn’t work out the way we would have liked it to for the Vikings, and it worked out really well for the Seahawks. Again, as the youth say, it be like that sometimes.
Look, I don’t know if the Vikings would have won the Super Bowl this year with Sam Darnold at quarterback. I have a sneaking suspicion that they wouldn’t have. I’m not even sure if they would have gotten any further than they did in 2024. And if they hadn’t, the headline and talking point from the Stephen A. Smiths of the world and all the other talking heads would be all about how the Vikings made a mistake by running it back with Sam Darnold and not trying to take advantage of having a quarterback on a rookie deal and trying to build around him. It never ceases to amaze just how flexible these sorts of things are.
I suppose that hoping for at least a little bit of intellectual honesty and consistency in situations like this is setting the bar entirely too high, but man. . .it sure would be nice to be surprised by the Really Smart Football People™ at least once in a while.
