Grade the Source: Absurd Vikings-Rams trade would be disrespectful to Sam Darnold

The Minnesota Vikings suffered their first loss of the season on Sunday against the Detroit Lions. It was a hard-fought battle that went down to the wire, but in the end, Jared Goff made his impression on prospective MVP voters and launched Detroit into first place.

The NFC North is absolutely loaded, but Minnesota has an easy upcoming schedule and a metric ton of talent. This loss should not define the Vikings' season. If anything, it's a nice wake-up call, a source of motivation. We don't need to overeact to a two-point loss against arguably the NFL's best team.

That said, folks like to overreact, and one "source" has the Vikings considering a substantial change. According to Jack Settleman of Snapback Sports and Underdog Fantasy, the Vikings are in "serious trade talks" for Los Angeles Rams quarterback Matthew Stafford.

Vikings and Rams are allegedly considering a Matthew Stafford trade

This ain't happening.

For one, if these talks were truly "serious," we would've heard it from Adam Schefter or Ian Rapoport, one of the NFL reporting heavyweights. The Vikings are also 5-1 with a clear runway to stack more wins. Darnold has exceeded expectations and given Minnesota a ton of flexibility due to his affordable, short-term contract. It can be difficult to integrate a new quarterback midseason. Why take the risk? The Vikings are already a Super Bowl contender.

That said... I'll gladly eat my words if this happens, because it's a fun concept. Matthew Stafford is intimately familiar with the Kevin O'Connell offense. They're former collaborators in LA. Half the league is running that Rams offense at this point, so the learning curve shouldn't too steep. The same goes for Sam Darnold in LA. The Rams are allegedly interested in signing him to a long-term contract after the season.

Stafford has been out of whack in LA this season, but we can't really blame him for the Rams' disastrous offensive line or injuries to both of his top wide receivers. Plug Stafford into the Minnesota machine and he ought to produce. Stafford's longevity is certainly a fair sticking point at 36 years old, but he's one of the sharpest processors and the most aggressive gunslingers of his generation. Stafford is the poster child for what the Vikings want to run offensively.

He won't stick around more than a couple years at best, but the Vikings did select J.J. McCarthy with the 10th pick a few months ago. Darnold is not going to be Minnesota's quarterback for the indefinite future. He was always a rental. Now, Darnold has vastly outperformed his contract and changed expectations a bit, but McCarthy is still the future of the QB position in Minnesota. That does not change with Stafford.

We tend to overreact to small sample sizes as fans, which is fine. It's in our nature. I'm willing to roll with the assumption that Stafford is better than Darnold, or at least more beloved in the Vikings' coaching room. But it is hard, ultimately, to imagine the Vikings trading the guy with 12 touchdown passes through six games for the guy with three. Especially since Darnold is almost a decade younger and much, much cheaper.

It's a fun concept, but there's too much risk and uncertainty baked into a Stafford trade. So, we can safely cross this off the list.

Source grade: A for entertainment value, D for believability