Vikes sign Sam Darnold

I doubt that their investment would be cast aside so easily. KAM and KOC have been looking for the right QB prospect in multiple draft prospects, identified McCarthy through a rigorous process and then traded up to get him in the organization, then spent the offseason working on him to the point where he was outplaying Darnold in training camp. That isn't worth nothing, they absolutely believe in him. Yes, QBs at that range bust at around 50% of the time but is that single statistic really going to overrule everything they've done to prepare McCarthy to be the franchise QB?

If they wanted to avoid the risk of the 1st round QB prospect, they would have re-signed Kirk and continued going down that path.

Not to mention, Darnold's success isn't surprising the organization or O'Connell. Heck, at times I think Kevin is frustrated with Sam because he knows he can do better. (he has incredibly high expectations for him). We had a report stating that they expected Sam to start the whole year and while most of us (including me) laughed that off, but now we are seeing that come to fruition.

Maybe Sam takes a massive discount, but we've talked about QB discounts for years here and still never seen any. Agents are pushing players to take the biggest deals they can. There will be a narrative that Sam has to prove he can be a legit QB outside of O'Connell, etc. There is no reason not to expect he will ask for a contract that will hinder our offseason spending (he has every right to).

The entire plan of drafting a QB in the first round was to evade the pitfalls of paying a non-elite QB big money, and I don't foresee this regime hedging their bets on McCarthy and invalidating their own plan. And it's not as if McCarthy needs another season on the bench, he needs to go out and play ASAP next year. You only do the Rodgers/Love plan if the Rodgers part of the equation is a MVP/future HOF and Sam ain't that.

If anything, Sam playing at this level is all the more encouraging that O'Connell can get McCarthy to play above the average outcome he'd have with any other team.