The narrative changed. The road map has not. The Vikings brain trust played the situation correctly, and because of that, the organization still is positioned firmly in win-now mode while transitioning to a quarterback who is essentially a rookie.
Unless, of course, the Vikings turn the NFL world upside down again with a Brett Favre reenactment and invite the circus to town [by signing Aaron Rodgers,](https://www.startribune.com/minnesota-vikings-aaron-rodgers-russell-wilson-nfl-free-agency-jj-mccarthy-qb/601234834) which is juicy speculation from national media that just won’t die.
Seriously, can this organization ever enjoy a drama-free zone with the quarterback position?
While envisioning Kevin O’Connell clubbing Rodgers over the head with his culture shield, let’s assume that the scuttlebutt remains just that and not the organization’s path forward for the sake of understanding where the Vikings reside as of Wednesday evening.
Plans don’t always work out perfectly, but they need to make sense when putting them together. The one that began last offseason makes sense.
A 14-win season came out of nowhere, enthralling in its unexpectedness, as if O’Connell, Sam Darnold and the entire operation got doused in pixie dust.
It wasn’t a fluke, but it wasn’t something that even those who put the wheels in motion could have forecast. There is zero percent chance that Kwesi Adofo-Mensah and O’Connell sat back in their chairs after signing Darnold to a one-year bridge contract and thought, “Yessir, we just signed a quarterback who is going to lead us to 14 wins.”
Crazy things happen in the NFL. Success might be linear in other sports, but the NFL has too many variables involved to predict with a high degree of certainty how a team’s season will unfold. Injuries cause teams to crater. Older players reach the physical cliff. A quarterback who was labeled a bust finds a career renaissance with a new team.