It’s easier to take the high road when you’re sitting on top of the mountain.
Seahawks quarterback Sam Darnold, who won the Super Bowl in his first season in Seattle, has no hard feelings about Minnesota’s decision to move on from him after a 14-3 season as the team’s starter.
“I totally understand the move to go with the younger quarterback on a rookie deal, and signing these veteran players that you can maybe pay a little bit more while he’s on his rookie deal, especially if you believe in him,” Darnold said in a recent appearance on The San Clemente Podcast. “Yeah, the business side of it, I totally understand. And like, I think J.J. [McCarthy] is a good player. I think he’s going to be a really good player in this league. I truly believe that. And, you know, for them to see that and be like, “Alright, we’re gonna, you know, Sam, that was a great year,’ but like the business part of it, it was like, ‘OK, like, you know, I totally understand.’”
It was perhaps more than a business consideration. Darnold’s performance in a Week 18, winner-take-all, game at Detroit raised questions about his ability to deliver in the biggest moments. (The wild-card loss eight days later was much more of a total-team failure, especially on the offensive side of the ball.) The Vikings ultimately had to decide whether to make the kind of commitment to Darnold that could have kept McCarthy on the bench for too long.
Still, it’s not as if Darnold broke the bank. His three-year, $100.5 million deal with the Seahawks had a one-year out, with a base package of $37.5 million paid in the first season. This year, he’s making $27.5 million. Which is well below the current market rate. (He deserves a raise, frankly.) The Vikings could have found a way to keep him, if they wanted.
There was a more political issue at play. The Vikings had traded up from No. 11 to No. 10 to draft McCarthy. They needed to see what he could do.
But, as history now shows, they also needed to have an accomplished veteran with starting experience, in the event that McCarthy was injured (he was) or struggled (he did). That’s how the 2025 Vikings season collapsed, and it surely played a role in the decision to fire G.M. Kwesi Adofo-Mensah.
The Vikings tried to keep Daniel Jones. But he didn’t think he’d win the starting job. Jones instead went to the Colts, where he was more confident he’d become QB1, and he did.
This year, the Vikings got a massive bargain in Kyler Murray as the McCarthy alternative. And the coming season will answer many questions.
Will the Vikings decide to keep Murray, who wisely negotiated a no-tag clause for 2027? Will McCarthy step up and secure the long-term job? Will the Vikings be starting over at the position?
There’s no guarantee the Vikings would have had a dramatically better season if they’d kept Darnold or Jones. Still, even with the various struggles at the most important position on the field, the Vikings nearly won enough games to get to the postseason. It won’t take much to get them over the hump, as it relates to getting to the playoffs.
The question is whether the Vikings can do more than that. They haven’t won a playoff game since 2019, and coach Kevin O’Connell is 0-2 in the postseason. For as high as the Vikings were riding through 16 games of the 2024 season, there has been a hard fall. This year, it will be critical to turn things around — and then to sustain it into the next one.
Vikings Clips
Veteran defensive tackle Isaiahh Loudermilk is heading to Minnesota.
The Vikings announced today that they have signed Loudermilk.
The 28-year-old Loudermilk has played his entire NFL career with the Steelers, who selected him in the fifth round of the 2021 NFL draft. The 6-foot-7, 293-pound Loudermilk played eight-man football at a small high school in Kansas but was so dominant at that level that he got a scholarship to Wisconsin, where he spent five years.
After playing out his four-year rookie contract, Loudermilk signed a one-year contract with the Steelers last year. In 2025, Loudermilk started the first two games of the season for the Steelers before suffering a season-ending ankle injury. Loudermilk has played a total of 60 NFL games, with seven starts.
Loudermilk has a familiarity with Vikings defensive coordinator Brian Flores, who was on the Steelers’ staff in 2022.
Vikings owner Mark Wilf said on Tuesday that the team is ready to move on to a second round of General Manager interviews and the team has reportedly picked five candidates to continue in the search process.
Jonathan Jones of CBS Sports reports that they want to have second meetings with their executive vice president of football operations Rob Brzezinski, Broncos assistant GM Reed Burckhardt, Bills assistant GM Terrance Gray, Rams assistant GM John McKay, and Seahawks assistant GM Nolan Teasley. Brzezinski has been doing the job in Minnesota on an interim basis since they fired Kwesi Adofo-Mensah.
49ers assistant GM RJ Gillen, Titans assistant GM Dave Ziegler and Lions Assistant GM Ray Agnew were also involved in the first round. Chargers assistant GM Chad Alexander declined an interview request.
The timing of the next interviews hasn’t been announced, but it probably won’t be long before the Vikings are ready to make a hire.
The Vikings are moving closer to naming their next General Manager.
Owner Mark Wilf said at Tuesday’s league meetings that the team has reached the end of their first round of “exploratory interviews” for the post. The Vikings fired Kwesi Adofo-Mensah this offseason and executive vice president of football operations Rob Brzezinski has been handling the responsibilities on a temporary basis.
“Now we’re gonna go more in-depth in the coming days, more in-person versus virtual, and I’m sure we’ll have some great conversations,” Wilf said, via Emily Leiker of the Minneapolis Star Tribune.
Brzezinski is a candidate to take the job on a permanent basis. 49ers assistant GM RJ Gillen, Bills assistant GM Terrance Gray, Rams assistant GM John McKay, Seahawks assistant GM Nolan Teasley, Titans assistant GM Dave Ziegler, Lions Assistant GM Ray Agnew, and Broncos assistant GM Reed Burckhardt were also involved in the first round of interviews for the job.
The Vikings signed second-round linebacker Jake Golday to his four-year rookie deal on Tuesday, the team announced. Minnesota now has its entire nine-player draft class under contract.
The Vikings selected Golday with the 51st overall pick.
He played defensive end for two seasons at Central Arkansas before switching to linebacker. In 2024, he transferred to Cincinnati.
In earning All-Big 12 honors in 2025, Golday totaled 105 tackles, six tackles for loss, 3.5 sacks, three pass breakups and a forced fumble last season.
The Vikings previously signed first-round defensive tackle Caleb Banks, third-round defensive tackle Domonique Orange, third-round offensive tackle Caleb Tiernan, third-round safety Jakobe Thomas, fifth-round fullback Max Bredeson, fifth-round cornerback Charles Demmings, sixth-round running back Demond Claiborne and seventh-round center Gavin Gerhardt.
Vikings defensive coordinator Brian Flores has a tiger by the tail. And he’s pulling it, hard.
Via Daniel Kaplan in an item published by Front Office Sports, Flores will be amending his complaint against the NFL and multiple teams on Wednesday to include a claim for retaliation. The alleged basis for the retaliation is Flores’s opposition to the NFL’s enforcement of its arbitration provisions in employment agreements.
The argument is simply stated, even if it will be difficult to prove. He’ll argue that his head-coaching prospects have been blocked by his aggressive, and to date successful, assault on the NFL’s habit of requiring coaches to agree to contracts that require all disputes to be resolved by arbitration ultimately controlled by the league.
Flores has secured multiple victories on that front, culminating in a federal appeals court scrapping the league’s longstanding practice of forcing coaches to submit to an in-house procedure that has the head of the organization — the Commissioner — ultimately responsible for processing and deciding claims made against the NFL and/or its teams.
Flores, who continues to be one of the most successful defensive coordinators in the NFL, has been unable to get a second head-coaching job since being fired by the Dolphins after the 2021 season. (His pending lawsuit includes a retaliation claim against the Texans for not hiring him in the aftermath of the filing of his race discrimination case against the NFL and multiple teams.)
Kaplan also reports that Flores has sought information from all 32 teams about their hiring practices, now that the discovery process is moving forward.
Flores filed his lawsuit in early 2022. For most of the past four-plus years, the case has been bogged down as to the threshold question of whether the claims will be processed in arbitration, or in open court.
It’s gutsy, to say the least, for Flores to keep pushing these issues as aggressively as he is. Businesses like the NFL don’t like to be sued. It will make it harder for Flores to get another head-coaching job, even if he’s been kept out due to improper motivations.
Still, if he truly believes in his position, he’s doing the right thing by refusing to back down.
That said, proving retaliation will be a challenge. No one will admit to it. His lawyers will be required to show through circumstantial evidence and/or aggressive cross-examination that the stated reason(s) for not hiring Flores are a pretext for a prohibited consideration.
The Vikings opened up a spot on their 90-man roster on Tuesday.
The team announced that they have waived wide receiver Shaleak Knotts and they did not make a corresponding addition to fill out their active roster.
Knotts signed with the Vikings after going undrafted last month. He appeared in 43 games for Maryland over the last four seasons and caught 67 passes for 963 yards and seven touchdowns while playing for the Terrapins.
Justin Jefferson, Jordan Addison, Jauan Jennings, Myles Price, Tai Felton, Jeshaun Jones, Dillon Bell, Joquin Davis, Dontae Fleming, Terrill Davis, Marcus Sanders, and Luke Wysong are the remaining receivers in Minnesota.
It’s official: Minnesota will host the 2028 NFL Draft.
As expected, owners voted to approve Minnesota as the host at the NFL spring meeting in Orlando on Tuesday.
The event will be anchored in downtown Minneapolis, in and around U.S. Bank Stadium, the home of the Vikings.
“Minnesota knows how to show up for big moments, and we’ve seen it firsthand,” Commissioner Roger Goodell said in a statement. “This is a market that delivers at the highest level. Working with the Minnesota Vikings and Minnesota Sports and Events, we look forward to bringing the 2028 NFL Draft to this great community, driving positive economic impact throughout the region, and hosting an incredible experience for fans and the next generation of the NFL.”
“For three days, Minnesota will become the center of the football world,” Vikings owner Mark Wilf said in a statement. “The 2028 NFL Draft will give us an opportunity to showcase not just U.S. Bank Stadium, but the energy, hospitality and pride that define Minneapolis-St. Paul and the entire state and region. We have no doubt the community will deliver a world-class event that is unique to Minnesota.”
With Minnesota now officially approved, the NFL has its next two drafts set. In 2027, the event will take place in Washington, D.C. on the National Mall.
Since the last draft at Radio City Music Hall in New York City in 2014, the draft has been hosted by Chicago, Philadelphia, Dallas, Nashville, Cleveland, Las Vegas, Kansas City, Detroit, Green Bay, and Pittsburgh.
The Vikings will only have one home preseason game this summer, but they’ll get more than one day of work against their opponents that week.
The team announced that they will have two days of joint practices with the Ravens. They are set to work with the AFC North team on August 19 and 20 with the preseason game between the teams scheduled for August 22.
Joint practices have been a regular occurrence during Vikings’ camp in recent years. They have also worked with the Patriots, Browns, Titans, and Cardinals in recent seasons.
The Vikings will visit the Giants and Broncos in their first and third preseason games this summer. The Ravens will be hosting the Eagles and Commanders.
The 2028 NFL draft appears to be heading to Minnesota.
League owners are preparing to make it official at this week’s league meeting, after talks between league officials, local officials, and the Vikings.
The draft has become the NFL’s biggest annual offseason event, attracting hundreds of thousands of fans to the host city. Virtually every NFL city has expressed interest in hosting the draft since the league first moved it out of New York and began traveling the country in 2015.
Minnesota was considered the favorite to host in 2028, but it takes a vote of ownership to make it official. The Minnesota bid was focused on the major event at U.S. Bank Stadium, with other portions of the draft spectacle at the Mall of America and other sites in the Twin Cities.
After leaving New York City, the draft was in Chicago twice, and then in Philadelphia, Dallas, Nashville, Cleveland, Las Vegas, Kansas City, Detroit, Green Bay and Pittsburgh. Next year’s draft will be in Washington, D.C.
