Picture, if you will:
Kevin O’Connell sat in his office at TCO Performance Center well after midnight. The Minnesota Vikings coach was stressed, sleep-deprived, and even jet-lagged from the first five games of the season. Not even a bye week and a beverage of choice could allow his mind to stop racing.
The NFC North race was getting tighter even after the Detroit Lions lost to the Kansas City Chiefs on Sunday night. With the evil overlords from Wisconsin (the Green Bay Packers) climbing to the first place in the division, the decision of which quarterback the Vikings will start in Sunday’s game against the Packers was consuming. Should O’Connell go with the upside of J.J. McCarthy or the reliability of backup Carson Wentz?
Just as O’Connell was about to doze off, his office began to shake. This wasn’t the product of building a training facility right next to the airport, but rather a voice to help him make his decision. Bursting through the wall like Superman, a figure stood in his office.
“I heard you have a quarterback problem,” the figure said.
It wasn’t the ghost of Bud Grant or Denny Green. Nor was it an angry Mike Zimmer trying to reclaim his job. It was the only man who could help O’Connell in this moment: Captain Hindsight.
As is his way, Captain Hindsight started with the past and landed on the first quarterback they should have kept.
“You should have signed Sam Darnold! Have you seen him in Seattle??”
Of course, Darnold was the quarterback who had made O’Connell’s career to this point. Plucked from the scrap heap, Darnold guided the Vikings to a 14-win season and had a strong case to stay in Minnesota until McCarthy was ready to take the job. That idea went out the window when the Seattle Seahawks gave Darnold a three-year, $100.5 million contract (aka “The Sam Darnold Deal”). Darnold has balled out ever since, leading Seattle to a 4-2 record while throwing for 1,541 yards, 11 touchdowns, and just three interceptions.
Becoming the North’s version of Baker Mayfield still sounds appealing for Vikings fans, and having a heavily discounted version of Darnold would have still allowed Minnesota to add Isaiah Rodgers in free agency and give McCarthy more time to win the job. But it also wouldn’t have allowed the Vikings to upgrade their offensive and defensive lines.
While injuries foiled the plan for the offensive line, the defensive line now has more depth than ever after signing Jonathan Allen and Javon Hargrave. They’ve had issues stopping the run, but it’s still one of the league’s best defenses and can raise the floor of a team without an identity.
O’Connell didn’t feel like Captain Hindsight’s analysis was rooted in reality, so he took another swing on what O’Connell should do.
“You should have tried harder to keep Daniel Jones around!”
Like Darnold, O’Connell plucked Jones out of the quarterbacks bin at Goodwill and threw him into his QB rehab school. After the New York Giants cast him aside, the Vikings made Jones a significant offer to return to Minnesota, but it was to serve as McCarthy’s backup. Jones chased a chance to start with the Indianapolis Colts and, like Darnold, has become one of the league’s best quarterback redemption stories.
Jones doesn’t have quite the gaudy stats that Darnold does, throwing for 1,502 yards, eight touchdowns, and three interceptions. But he walked into a similar infrastructure led by running back Jonathan Taylor and standout rookie tight end Tyler Warren. With just enough pieces to get the job done, Jones has led Indianapolis to the top of the AFC South with a 5-1 record.
The Vikings could have upped their offer for Jones. However, he likely saw how invested they were in McCarthy and recognized the better opportunity in Indianapolis. With another hypothetical shot down, Captain Hindsight went to another theory.
“You should have signed Aaron Rodgers.”
Of all the scenarios, Rodgers may have been the most realistic. Rodgers reportedly threw himself at the Vikings even as the Pittsburgh Steelers were lighting up his phone. The teen drama dragged out into June as Rodgers had to pick his team for the season.
There were many concerns about adding Rodgers to the room. Still, O’Connell has a personal relationship with the enigmatic quarterback and may have been able to reel him into his culture. Working in Pittsburgh under Mike Tomlin, who’s also built a strong culture, Rodgers looks like himself. He has thrown for 1,021 yards, 10 touchdowns, and three interceptions while leading the Steelers to a 4-1 record and first place in their division.
But, as the Vikings know, not all divisions are created equal. Pittsburgh’s path to the title has resembled the 2024 version of the AFC South. The Cincinnati Bengals and Baltimore Ravens have lost their franchise quarterbacks to injury, and the Cleveland Browns are more focused on their third-string quarterback than the one who’s starting on Sundays.
That has put Captain Hindsight into a bind. He suggested that the Vikings should have upped their offer for Drake Maye in the 2024 draft, even though the New England Patriots were never, not ever, even for one second, going to accept their offer because they (rightfully) loved Maye that much. He suggested they should have re-signed Kirk Cousins, which probably would have gone as well as trading for Adam Thielen.
At this moment, Captain Hindsight realized he was going up against “The Quarterback Killer,” and a funny thing started to happen — he started trying to predict the future!
He said McCarthy shouldn’t start against the Philadelphia Eagles, but you also couldn’t start him against the Los Angeles Chargers because it’s on a short week against his former college coach. He also said you shouldn’t start him against the Detroit Lions because “Did you see McCarthy’s first two games?” and suggested the Vikings ride out Wentz and take a quarterback in the 2026 draft. (This draft was highly regarded a few months ago until Arch Manning, Cade Klubnik, and Drew Allar completely fell off the wagon in the 2025 college football season.)
Captain Hindsight then tried to suggest Max Brosmer should start because he’s the next Kurt Warner after a few good preseason games. It became increasingly apparent to O’Connell that Captain Hindsight had lost the plot. Knowing his work was done(?), Captain Hindsight took off into the night, adding one last helpful comment on his way out the door: “Nobody knows what will happen at the quarterback position and the best thing for the Vikings to do now is to let everything play out!”