NFL - Random Opinions

I think the scriptwriter got confused and turned Kirk Cousins back into Sam Darnold.

 

The Vikings better sign Sam or they might wind up being sorry. There’s no guarantee that McCarthy will be any good.

 

lol, brilliant!

 

Im sure their waiting and thinking about all sorts of QB options with McCarthy the only 2025 signed QB on the roster, but could Minnesota afford to pay Darnold a starters wage when 1) McCarthy is supposed to be the future and 2) Darnold will get big money offers from others possibly? So, there are many variables/factors to consider. Certainly Darnolds play surprised many and there are some real tuff games left, including Playoffs.

 

They can certainly afford to sign him to a 1-2 year deal. McCarthy is on his rookie deal for 3-4 more years if they use the rookie 5th year option. So, I don't think they should have any issues signing Darnold. Let's face it, he is inline to get a Baker Mayfield deal, not a Kirk Cousins contract.

Mayfield was signed to a 3 year $100,000,000 contract / $50,000,000 guaranteed
Cousins was signed to a 4 year $180,000,000 contract / 100,000,000 guaranteed

 

A lot can happen over the final 4 weeks and in the Playoffs and I like what Im seeing, I think everybody does throughout the Vikings org. A 1 or 2-year contract would be ideal, especially with an unproven McCarthy (can he stay healthy?... is he the real deal?), but at the same time there are possibly about 5 or 6 teams that may kick the tires on him. Do they offer him starter market value or do they consider Darnolds season a fluke so far, lol. Its all really up in the air, in my opinion.

If he really enjoys Minnesota, I hope he stays here, no doubt about it. If he isnt offered an outrageous contract from some desperado team, I hope he is cool with a couple of years in Minny with a nice pay-rase.

 

That money I was quoting was starting money. I don't think anyone will give him Cousins' money. You can afford Mayfield money and with the success he has had, I don't think he will be in any hurry to move on to another team.

 

Mayfield actually has a more proven track record, if anyone pays Darnell a lot more than Mayfield they are crazy seeing how this is his only good season in the league.

 

Yet the Browns moved on from him...

The point is with them both is, a bad team will make a good QB look really bad... or in the case of Mayfield, injuries.
A good team can make a mediocre QB look pretty damn good. Both are better than the average, imho. Both have seen their share of bad teams, with Mayfield having enjoyed a bigger share of good teams to help him look good.

I would argue this season is Sam's only of his career to enjoy starter status on a good football team.

 

The thing is Darnold is going to get a big deal elsewhere.

 

Joe, makes a valid point, in my opinion. If Darnold is offered a great contract elsewhere, then what in tarnation will the Vikings do, is my question.?

They cant get into a bidding war, but they need a steady eddie if there is a glitch with McCarthy. Everyone whos anyone needs two, at least, workable QB's.

If the Vikings cant get a short-term deal with Darnold, then do they sign a FA and how much would he demand?

Hoping and praying, Darnold loves Minnesota so much he'd give a little and re-sign. Im asking for a lot, kind of a miracle type deal/situation.

Vikings seem to be a team with an unprecedented situation to deal with that I cant recall happening before.

Im just going to relish in the moment and hope the 'brass' in Minnesota are already working on a 'deal you cant refuse' type thing.

 

What do you consider a big deal?

 

He might get something like $150M over 4 years and at least half guaranteed and that might be on the non-competitive side.

Are the Vikings willing to pay like $110M over 3 years with like $75M guaranteed? If so then ya they could do it and then 5th year option McCarthy and have a year to see if he is the guy but are they willing to spend all that money at QB when they have McCarthy on a rookie deal?

 

My argument, if this is a debate, is that they were already willing to sign Darnold as a proven veteran while drafting an unproven rookie. After that is done, it comes down to situational outcomes. This being, McCarthy has not proven anything yet, most likely due to an injury. Darnold has quite handily proven he can, to this point at the very least, lead this team to a playoff birth, while exhibiting top 10 success at his position. If top ten success is the measurement by which a team can conclude they have found a competent player, at the age of 27, would you not agree a 2-3 year contract would make very good business sense for that team?

This is a premature argument, because if they go on to win one or more playoff games, this argument gets MUCH stronger. If they lose the first weekend and it is in someway caused by the play of Darnold, it gets much weaker. We are only making a debatable argument based on play through week 15 at this point.

Based on play through week 15, in the current situation of playing with this roster provided by the Vikings, as well as the current coaching staff, I would have to argue Darnold is worth More than the contract you or I outlined. However, we both know that isn’t how the league works, so it will most likely be closer to what Mayfield made, than what Cousins made. Can’t we agree on that at least?

 

For all the flowers Fred Warner gets, and he's obvs a very good player, the difference we saw last night with Dre Greenlaw on/off the field(and we can extend this out to the entire season) was stark.

Greenlaw was a monster right out the gate last night and was a big reason why the Rams O got totally crushed in that first half, to the point of setting a new Mcvey record of going 4 straight drives without a first down! Warner plays with extremely high energy, but Greenlaw plays with a physicality that he can't match and it really showed up. Once #57 went out the game in the 2nd half the Rams O dragged themselves off the mat enough to at least move the scoreboard along and it was enough. With all the leads/close games the 9ers have given up this season you have to wonder where they'd be if just Greenlaw had been healthy. Not even the 20 other guys who've been injured, but just Greenlaw.

You can't look at a game like this and not talk about the Offenses. Yes there was bad weather for a time, but 18 points total, 6 from the 9ers....Stafford was awful in the first half and pretty much the entire 9ers O was awful for most of the game. But it was Greenlaw who really stood put to me personally.

 

V good chat re Sam Darnold. Its gonna be fascinating to see how the offseason plays out for him. There's still regular season, and more importantly playoff, games that can have a bearing on all this so we'll have to see it play out a bit, but there's no question Darnold will get paid by someone. There will be no 1 year deal this time unless its a tag.

Just putting last weeks game against the Falcons to one side for a second. Up to that point i think Darnold has undeniably been a success in Minny and has earned himself a payday, but there were things that would give me pause as well. I've seen multiple games from Darnold where he came out of it looking far better on paper(100+ passer rating) than he did from the eye test(plenty of TO worthy plays that he got away with). I saw an advanced stat recently that said Darnold, on top of his actual turnovers, had one of the highest number of turnover worthy plays in the league at 18. I consider that to line up with some of the things i'd seen for myself, albeit anecdotally. Darnold also has an outstanding framework around him for success. One of the best offensive HCs', great offensive players and one of the best DCs in the league who gets the offense the ball, thru stops or TOs, a hell of a lot.

Put it all together and i see where Irishdawg is coming from on the Mayfield call. Personally i think this season is reminiscent of Geno Smith's first year as full time starter in Seattle, after which he was out of contract and the Seahawks had to do something. Geno got a 3year $75mil deal with just over half GTD. If i was Minny that is def where i would be aiming initially, maybe with a higher GTD to sway things. I would also be leveraging Darnold's journey so far, which has been very difficult early on and equally as nomadic as Geno's. Make him feel wanted, let him know its his job right now and there is no stacked deck re McCarthy. Darnold seems very at home there. It just seems like a better fit for him than life in the Big Apple and everything that comes with it. At least, thats what i would've been doing a week ago....

There's just one problem, and that is that he just had a monster game against the Falcons haha! Full disclosure: I never did get to watch it, and i know what i just said about box scores, but when you go 350 @79% comp and 5-0 TD/INT for a near perfect rating, thats dominant. And it potentially really changes things, ESPECIALLY if he puts up numbers anything like that in a playoff game. Heck a couple more in the regular season prob moves Darnold into a different tier and next up he's got a Bears D that has thrown in the towel. So a mega payday could still happen, tho if it got to that scenario a franchise tag would be seriously considered surely.

 

In regards to last nights game... I have an opinion.

49ers De'Vondre Campbell is an asshole.
______________

From Coach Shanahan on down, the team was surprised and many 49ers vented... he decided to just walk away.

Here are a few reactions from the 49ers... first, Coach Shanahan - “He said he didn’t want to play today,” Shanahan said. “He did when I asked him why he didn’t want to go in. That was in the third quarter.”
Asked if that has ever happened to him before, Shanahan said, “No.”

“He was gonna go in when Dre came out,” Shanahan said.

“We’ll figure out something but I don’t know that right now,” Shanahan said. “When someone says that, you move on. You don’t deal with that anymore. . . . If somebody doesn’t want to play football it’s pretty simple. I think our team and myself, you know how we feel about that, so I don’t think we need to talk about him anymore.”

George Kittle - “I’m a leader on the team, and if that is something that is being a distraction on the sideline, I would’ve loved to voice my own opinion in the moment,” Kittle said, via Nick Wagoner of ESPN.com. “And we’re past that moment. So, it doesn’t matter what I wish I could have said or wish I could have done, but I don’t like distractions on the sideline. I think that’s ignorant. And I think it’s just dumb. It’s just stupid, and it’s very immature. I just don’t see how you could do something like that to your team. . . .
“It’s one person making a selfish decision. I’ve never been around anybody that’s ever done that, and I hope I’m never around anybody who does that again.”

Charvarius Ward - “He a professional. He been playing for a long time,” Ward said, via Matt Lively of KPIX. “If he didn’t want to play, he shouldn’t have dressed out. He could have told them that before the game. I feel like that was some sucker shit that he did. Definitely hurt the team because Dee [Winters] went down. We needed a linebacker and I think [Demetrius Flannigan-Fowles] was banged up, too. For him to do that, that’s some selfish stuff to me, in my opinion. Probably gonna be cut soon, so, it is what it is with that.”

 

Does this guy even have a job this morning? Just cut him and forget about it. Unbelievable!!!!

 

Darnold should make more than Mayfield's 33.3M but ya I don't see him making close to $45 without a Super Bowl. But ya my dirty $110M and $150M estimates have it at $36.7M and my $37.5M. I do think those are likely conservative though but it'd have to be about $39.2M to be closer to Kirk's number and that is going to be hard to see.

 

Shanahan said, via multiple reporters, that the 49ers are still “working through the semantics” of what to do, but said he does not expect Campbell to remain with the 49ers. Shanahan said that refusing to play in a game is “not something you can do to your team or teammates and still be a part of our team.”