With 2024 the potential renaissance of Sam Darnold, how that could impact J.J. McCarthy?

We are a week away from the Minnesota Vikings starting their 2024 season and there are a lot of interesting elements to look at with this team and the roster.

Over the week leading up to the Vikings' season-opening game against the New York Giants, we will take a look at each position in-depth and see what the Vikings are looking at for this year and beyond in our state of the roster series.

Sam Darnold is the entrenched starter

The biggest talking point among the Vikings franchise is at the quarterback position. The Vikings selected J.J. McCarthy with the 10th overall pick in April's NFL Draft, but he is going to miss the entire 2024 season due to a torn meniscus. He had surgery to get the full repair with a focus on the future.

Even with his presence, McCarthy wasn't set to be the focus. That was going to be with Darnold. He was the presumed starter from the get-go for the Vikings. Once training camp started, Darnold was getting all of the first-team reps at quarterback. The week of the first preseason game, McCarthy started to slowly integrate with the first-team and it was an up-and-down process. Both players had good and bad reps, but the consistency with Darnold was growing by the day.

What stood out to me during practice was the developing chemistry he had with wide receiver Justin Jefferson. You could tell that Darnold was getting more comfortable understanding where Jefferson was going to be on any given play and it showed in throws down the field.

What if Sam Darnold is really good?

This is the million-dollar question for the Vikings. I dove into that on an episode of The Real Forno Show this summer and related it to Drew Brees in 2004 with the San Diego Chargers.

"I want to relate it to a scenario that happened with the Chargers 2001 NFL draft. They had the first overall pick and hey weren't 100% sold on Michael Vick. Now, in today's day and age, I think everybody would have been sold on Michael Vick the player, but 2001 it was a very, very different league so they traded back to fifth overall and they got a decent package and then they took LaDanian Tomlinson and with the first pick in the second round, they took Drew Brees. And Brees we know and he's going to end up being in the Pro Football Hall of Fame, but at that point, Brees his first couple years he was okay and very up and down. And in the 2004 NFL Draft, they had the first overall pick again they took Eli Manning, traded for Philip Rivers, got extra draft capital from the Giants and the rest is history. So 2004 Drew Brees is in a contract year, balls out and I believe he made the Pro Bowl so now the Chargers are looking at themselves okay. We've got essentially the first overall pick here because that's the pick they had Rivers was taken for do we go with Rivers or do we keep Drew Brees after he just absolutely balled out and he looks to be like a legitimate quarterback. What do we do? And I think that scenario is something that you can kind of look at for a comparison point if darnold just all of the sudden takes off because he just turned 27 years old."

That's going to be a fascinating watch for the Vikings. If he's truly great, do the Vikings move on from him? It's hard to say goodbye to a good young quarterback. Yes, his resume is a complicated one for the Vikings to parse out, but it was that way for Brees and the Chargers. They kept him for one year on the franchise tag and an injured shoulder in 2005 forced the Chargers hand and they went with Rivers.

The Vikings could do the same thing, but it would be a tough pill to swallow in terms of the salary cap for the Vikings, as his salary would be over $40 million. It still can't be ruled out, even if it's unlikely.

Backup depth is a priority

After a disastrous season at quarterback in 2023 where the Vikings started four different quarterbacks, they didn't want to take any chances that they might be unprepared again.

Even after a good preseason, the Vikings moved on from Jaren Hall to sign Brett Rypien, who has starting experience in the NFL as well as in this offense. Hall could be brought back to the practice squad to continue to fortify that depth. Hopefully, the Vikings don't have to use that depth, but they will be ready if they do.

The future is bright

This is a group that might not be super exciting in 2024, but it's about the future. McCarthy is going to get a lot of opportunities to learn about how to be a professional quarterback and handle your business.

Darnold could be the guy to take over and have a renaissance season but that might be asking a big too much. Either way, enjoy the ride for the Vikings.

Related: "We're always trying to learn" Vikings HC Kevin O'Connell and GM Kwesi Adofo-Mensah open up about 2022 NFL Draft and beyond