The dumbest, most short-sighted strategy of them all

[The ghost formerly known as PG]

If the Vikings do want Sam back (IMO only as a backup for JJ) then wouldn’t it make sense that they would be telling Sam he’d have to compete with JJ for the starting job? If I’m Sam, unless I am scared to play anywhere else why would I want to come back and not be the presumed starter after the best season of my career and a pro bowl nod? And if so, wouldn’t it have to be a 1 yr deal because there’d be no way in hell JJ wouldn’t be starting by yr 3 of his contract, right?? Given the above, to me it makes no sense that all this smoke has any backbone to it. Like it was said above, maybe it is doing Sam a solid. At this point that’s the only thing that makes any sense to me.

I have watched videos of KOC talking about how fired up he is for JJ this upcoming season. Does he think he’ll be red hot sitting on the bench?? I don’t think he does.

[medaille]

But having Darnold and JJM on the roster is just an invite to a mess.  Some bad play and the fans demanding JJM and what have you got?  A mess. 

In what world should Sam who is now allegedly way more valuable than he was a year ago (pardon me but I'm skeptical) supposed to take a deal where he gets to maybe sit on the bench collecting a big check while a kid takes all the snaps?  What is he, Kirk Cousins?  Are we the Falcons now, just doing some dumbass shit and hoping it works? 

It's super low odds that Darnold comes back.  Someone else will almost certainly pay more, but the Vikings should 100% have a price in mind that they would bring him back for.  We have yet to see JJM on the field.  There is some amount of uncertainty there.  There is some price that is worth it to lock in the floor of Darnold.  Like has been said, some desperate team will offer him life changing money beyond what we can realistically offer, but I think it's almost a certainty that the Vikings offered him something like 1 year, $25M contract to compete with JJM, and said something like, "Hey, we know this isn't realistic for what you'll get, but if the market goes weird for whatever reason here's what we can do for you."

Having more good QBs is better than having less good QBs if it isn't hamstringing your ability to build a roster.  If your coach can't handle a little pressure to keep the better QB in, and the lesser QB on the bench, that's on him.  You shouldn't build a shittier roster because your team is scared of having to say which QB is better.  The Falcons didn't do dumbass shit.  They slightly overpaid to ensure that they had access to a QB in case the draft didn't work out the way they wanted.  The real dumbasses were the Giants, Titans, and Jets.  All teams that had suspect QB rooms and should have taken a QB in the QB rich draft, but didn't.  Now here they are.  High draft picks in a draft that we all knew would be limited on QBs and probably have worse options than what was available to them last year.