Even though Sam Darnold was great for the Minnesota Vikings this year, he’s probably already left the Twin Cities. He was always going to be the stopgap quarterback to eventually get them to first round pick JJ McCarthy; While two surgeries and a rookie season ending before it started marred McCarthy’s first year with the team, the Vikings still view him as the future face of their franchise.

On Friday, The Athletic asked 12 editors to guess who each team’s starting quarterback would be in 2025. Minnesota Reporter Alec Lewis chose McCarthy. As great as Darnold has been, Lewis wrote that the Vikings want a much less erratic player and a better decision-maker under center, not to mention one who is still on a rookie contract.

In theory, McCarthy should be that, but he was always going to be the rawest of the first-round quarterbacks selected in this year’s draft. (Although Michael Penix Jr. is not yet a starter for the Atlanta Falcons, that may have more to do with how Kirk Cousins ​​played in his first year with the team than anything else thing.) McCarthy is playing for a great head coach and a solid organization, but I have my concerns — and frankly, Darnold has played too well to be back in Minnesota on a contract similar to the one he’s playing under this year.

Look. From a team building perspective, I get it. I operate under the same philosophy as the late American General Norman Schwarzkopf: you want to fail fast. It does no good for the Vikings to sit around, wait, and wonder whether McCarthy will be the right guy for them or not. The idea was that he would back up Darnold for one season before taking the reins in 2025.

I think McCarthy being injured his entire rookie season is deplorably bad for his development. Even though he was a five-star coming out of high school, he only played three years Michigan and only started in two of them. Michigan ran a ground-centric offense that never asked McCarthy to carry the offense. He showed us he could win playing that way, but he never showed the consistency in the pocket he’ll need to succeed in the NFL.

I always come back to this. Are we sure Darnold will hand over the baton to McCarthy smoothly, or better yet, willingly? THE NFL is a business, and Darnold is about to get paid! Against all odds, Darnold has impressed me this season now that he’s starting for a team that actually has a handle on what they’re doing. This might be in McCarthy’s favor, but again, his learning curve is very steep.

Sometimes in life you have to take a gamble, but it’s not as calculated a risk as it initially seemed.