Souhan: Now is not the time to rue the Vikings’ quarterback decisions

If you listen to the national talking heads, you will notice a trend. Just about everyone thinks the Vikings erred in handing the quarterback job to J.J. McCarthy and allowing Sam Darnold and Daniel Jones to leave, while refusing to sign Aaron Rodgers.

At first glance, or listen, this can seem to make sense. The quarterback position is one of the many problems that have plagued the Vikings this season. McCarthy played poorly in seven of his first eight NFL quarters, then missed five games because of an injury.

If you listen closely, what the talking heads are saying is a logical fallacy.

What they keep repeating is that the NFL is suddenly filled with quarterbacks who were done wrong by the organization that drafted them in the first round, then mishandled their development. The list includes Baker Mayfield, Darnold, Mac Jones and Daniel Jones.

So the same talking heads who love to point out that NFL teams frequently give up too early on first-round quarterbacks now say that the Vikings should give up too early on their first-round quarterback.

Help me make that make sense. I’ll wait.

When the Vikings traded up for the 10th pick in the 2024 draft to take their quarterback of the future, they did so because they wanted to build around a young, affordable player who would be with them for a long time. If everything goes well, maybe 15 years.

When they drafted McCarthy, they were guaranteeing that he would begin playing by at least the beginning of his second year. After seven bad NFL quarters, they should ditch that plan?

I don’t think so.

Now let’s look at the alternatives:

Rodgers is playing remarkably well for the Steelers, but he’s 41 and we don’t know whether he’ll be able to keep this up all season, or accomplish what he was signed to do: win a playoff game.

Signing Rodgers would have meant that McCarthy might not take an NFL snap until his third season.

If you watched the second half of the Seahawks’ game on Monday night against Houston, you saw Darnold, playing with a lead, make two plays that provided reminders of why the Vikings let him leave in free agency.

He threw late and poorly over the middle for an interception, a reminder of his collapse in Detroit. In his own end zone, he spun away from pressure up the middle into more trouble, yielding ground and fumbling. The Texans recovered the fumble for a touchdown, a reminder of his panic in the playoff game against the Rams.

The Vikings’ goal is to win a Super Bowl. Darnold showed against the Lions and Rams last January that he can’t handle that kind of pressure. Let’s not give him a passing grade in Seattle until we see how he handles big games.

There are two things wrong with the general analysis of Jones:

1. That Kevin O’Connell should receive credit for the way Jones is playing this season. Shouldn’t we give Jones’ actual coaches, who spent the offseason, training camp and this season coaching Jones, more credit?

McCarthy is going to play. McCarthy has to play, so he can develop, and so the Vikings can make an informed assessment of him.