{"id":707347,"date":"2026-01-26T22:01:13","date_gmt":"2026-01-26T22:01:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/707347\/"},"modified":"2026-01-26T22:01:13","modified_gmt":"2026-01-26T22:01:13","slug":"the-darnold-maye-super-bowl-highlights-two-flaws-in-minnesotas-roster-building-philosophy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/707347\/","title":{"rendered":"The Darnold-Maye Super Bowl Highlights Two Flaws In Minnesota\u2019s Roster-Building Philosophy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Two years ago, T.J. Hockenson<\/a> looked exhausted after the Minnesota Vikings\u2019 Week 2 loss to the Philadelphia Eagles. He slumped next to his locker, with grass stains on his white uniform and bags under his eyes. Still, he believed the Vikings could salvage their season.<\/p>\n

\u201c0-2, it\u2019s a tough way to start,\u201d he said<\/a>. \u201cBut there\u2019s a lot of football ahead of us. There\u2019s an unwavering belief in this locker room that we\u2019re going to come out with a win every week.\u201d<\/p>\n

Only 11.5% of teams<\/a> that have started 0-2 have made the playoffs. The Los Angeles Chargers beat the Vikings 28-24 the next week, sending them to 0-3. Since 1979, only six teams have lost their first three games and made the playoffs. Of the 158 teams that have started 0-3 since 1990, only four<\/a> have made the playoffs, and none have reached the Super Bowl.<\/p>\n

Minnesota didn\u2019t buck the odds that year, despite adding Dalton Risner<\/a> and Cam Akers<\/a> after Week 3. Justin Jefferson<\/a> and Kirk Cousins<\/a> suffered non-contact injuries in Week 5<\/a> and Week 8<\/a>, respectively, that kept them out for most of the season. Joshua Dobbs<\/a> only had so much magic<\/a>. However, because the Vikings didn\u2019t tank in 2023, they missed out on Drake Maye<\/a>, who led the New England Patriots to the Super Bowl this year.<\/p>\n

Tanking is controversial because it creates rifts in the organization. Front offices and ownership want to tank to get a higher draft pick, especially with a team that doesn\u2019t have a franchise quarterback, but players and coaches don\u2019t.<\/p>\n

Ultimately, the Vikings don\u2019t believe in tanking. Brian Flores is suing<\/a> the Miami Dolphins because their owner allegedly was going to pay him to tank. Kwesi Adofo-Mensah has called tanking \u201cunconscionable<\/a>.\u201d Ownership always wants the team to be \u201csuper competitive<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Players never want to do it because they play through injuries and often have short careers. Coaches don\u2019t want to risk the front office firing them for losing, even if it\u2019s intentional tanking. Losing records also tarnishe their r\u00e9sum\u00e9.<\/p>\n

Still, tanking would have been easy to execute and more justified in 2023. The Vikings could have told Jefferson to shut it down after his hamstring injury and tried to trade Cousins. Some instances of tanking are less painful than others.<\/p>\n

Conversely, franchise-tagging Sam Darnold<\/a> is easier to justify<\/a>. The tag would have cost the Vikings $40 million, preventing them from splurging<\/a> in the offseason. Still, Darnold was coming off a season in which he threw for 4,319 yards, 35 touchdowns, and 12 interceptions. He probably beats out J.J. McCarthy<\/a> in camp, allowing<\/a> McCarthy to have an extra year to work on his mechanics.<\/p>\n

If Darnold had faltered this season, they could move on to McCarthy. If he had succeeded, they could trade their 2024 first-round pick.<\/p>\n

Darnold\u2019s final two games, Week 18 in Detroit<\/a> and the first-round playoff game against the Los Angeles Rams, likely spooked<\/a> the Vikings enough to pass on him. He looked panicked against the Detroit Lions in the final game of the season and finished 18 of 41 for 166 yards in a 31-9 loss. Darnold was 25 of 40 for 245 yards with a touchdown and a pick against the Rams in the playoffs, but he took nine sacks.<\/p>\n

Still, Kwesi Adofo-Mensah is an analytics-forward<\/a> former Wall Street trader. Shouldn\u2019t he see Darnold\u2019s final two games as an outlier, or at least noisy variance? He also emphasizes versatility<\/a>, which is related to optionality. Good rosters have enough depth to move players in and out based on the situation. What better place to emphasize optionality than at quarterback?<\/p>\n

Ultimately, Kevin O\u2019Connell<\/a> probably wanted to<\/a> develop his own quarterback, rather than turn a reclamation project into his franchise player. Darnold reverted to his old footwork in Detroit and against the Rams in the playoffs, likely a product of his lousy development<\/a> with the New York Jets and the Carolina Panthers. In J.J. McCarthy, O\u2019Connell has a blank canvas.<\/p>\n

However, we know what has happened since. Joshua Dobbs threw a hospital ball<\/a> to Justin Jefferson in Vegas, ending his run as the Passtronaut. The Vikings lost six of their last seven games and missed the playoffs. Still, they had already won seven games, putting Drake Maye out of reach<\/a>. Instead, they drafted<\/a> McCarthy, who experienced significant growing pains<\/a> in his first season.<\/p>\n

Ironically, O\u2019Connell and Adofo-Mensah leaned too much\u00a0into their strengths<\/a> this year. O\u2019Connell turned Kirk Cousins into a winning quarterback and revived Sam Darnold\u2019s career. Still, asking McCarthy, 23, to take a 14-win team to the next level was too much for the league\u2019s youngest quarterback. Meanwhile, Adofo-Mensah had previously been successful in free agency, but this year\u2019s class<\/a> mostly flopped.<\/p>\n

Now, Sam Darnold and Drake Maye will face off in the Super Bowl, while Kwesi Adofo-Mensah and Kevin O\u2019Connell haven\u2019t won a playoff game since the Vikings hired them in 2022. The lesson is that it\u2019s okay to tank in a lost season and always choose optionality over fixating on a single path. Because, no matter how much faith a team has in its players, we all know that the best-laid plans often go astray.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Two years ago, T.J. Hockenson looked exhausted after the Minnesota Vikings\u2019 Week 2 loss to the Philadelphia Eagles.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":707348,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2073],"tags":[833,7,1519,6192,9864,233,259,2529,6,1878,234],"class_list":{"0":"post-707347","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-minnesota-vikings","8":"tag-drake-maye","9":"tag-football","10":"tag-j-j-mccarthy","11":"tag-kevin-oconnell","12":"tag-kwesi-adofo-mensah","13":"tag-minnesota","14":"tag-minnesota-vikings","15":"tag-minnesotavikings","16":"tag-nfl","17":"tag-sam-darnold","18":"tag-vikings"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115963657409384831","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/707347","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=707347"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/707347\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/707348"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=707347"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=707347"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=707347"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}