ESPN Reports: 49ers Acquire Sam Darnold in Trade with Vikings to Replace Brock Purdy as Starting QB in a Record Breaking Blockbuster Deal of…….

The Vikings are concentrated on defeating the Detroit Lions on Sunday to guarantee them the No. 1 seed in the NFC going into the playoffs. Off the field, meanwhile, journalists and experts covering the NFL have been speculating months on what Minnesota would do at the quarterback position in 2025. Their most recent ploy has been heating speculation on the Vikings’ possible summer acquisition of rookie J.J. McCarthy.

Matthew Coller informed Ben Goessling of the Star Tribune on the newest Purple Insider podcast, “They are not trading J.J. McCarthy.”

On Wednesday on ESPN Radio, Adam Schefter of ESPN indicated he expects the Vikings to get calls concerning McCarthy this offseason. Since then, even trade concepts, tossed out on social media, have been subject to plenty of rumors and conjecture.

Sam Darnol’s career year cast doubt on McCarthy’s future in Minnesota. Leading the Vikings to a 14-2 record and one win away from home-field advantage, the 27-year-old has thrown for over 4,101 passing yards and 35 touchdowns. Now, even though McCarthy was selected with the No. 10 overall in the 2024 selection, Minnesota most certainly will find a way to retain Darnold past the end of his one-year contract.

“I not believe they are trading J.J. McCarthy. This is one of those talkers; everyone will do it, but it will be the same as last offseason when we said, “They’re not trading Justin Jefferson,” but then it becomes, “Well, what if this happened?” What should they do? and it’s like, it’s not realistically going to happen,” Goessling added. “This seems to me to be the same. They are not likely to relocate a guy they selected. That they ascended in order to get Kevin O’Connell mentioned a franchise quarterback. Not going to happen is it. There is not any chance of that, in my opinion.”

Not when he will be twenty-two years old. Not following one year of Sam Darnold. Not after they invested so much time and money on him and used such a high draft pick. And also teach him how to be a National Football League quarterback using the sweat equity this year of instruction. Seeing Kevin O’Connell once a week. Everything they did during training camp to help him with timing, footwork, and all around development. And they simply will say, “You know what? See ya here. Visit the Jets. Visit a living hell, where some team will grant us a couple draft picks. Simply said, Coller said, it is not happening.

Franchise tagging Darnold and seeing if he can replicate his miraculous 2024 season looks to be Minnesota’s most likely road ahead for this summer. That allows their rookie quarterback enough time to grow into an NFL-caliber starter, much like Green Bay did following Jordan Love’s 2020 draft and allowing him to flourish behind Aaron Rodgers for two seasons.

“The Vikings, with another quarterback they believe in, it gives them leeway to have this go wrong,” Coller noted. “And the Vikings have had in their history, they have had quarterbacks that they drafted not perform the way they expected or had knees explode random.”

“Sam Darnold would thus have an outstanding backup quarterback for next season. McCarthy is quite young and has a long time left for his rookie contract. NFL changes things over years so drastically. Should something go wrong, or provide a fallback, this provides a fantastic background.

And obviously, there’s the possibility that Darnold just isn’t this terrific next year; the roster does split apart and then they can turn to J.J. McCarthy.” Coller said. “If Darnold is just Josh Allen, if he is just Lamar Jackson, he is simply that amazing; then, you may decide to trade J.J. McCarthy. But why would you do it following one year?”

As Goessling noted, simply keeping Darnold past this season does not set a timeline for deciding on McCarthy.

“They do have means to keeping Sam Darnold without committing five years or six years. At least immediately, it does not have to appear like that,” Goessling remarked. “Thus, I believe they will find means to have both of these guys here.”