Believing in Vikings has gone too far with absurd Sam Darnold bet
By Jake Beckman
You can spend your money however you want to. You worked for it, so you’re in charge of it. That being said, if you decide to spend it in a really dumb way, you should be publicly flamed.
Fortunately, society tends to follow that rule. If you fall for an MLM scheme, you eventually oust yourself because we see you trying to hock a bunch of Invigaron berries or something like that. If you place a truly terrible bet on an NFL MVP future, the sportsbook will tell someone about it.
We have a good case of the latter here. Someone put some cash down on Sam Darnold (who now plays for the Minnesota Vikings) to win the NFL MVP.
MVP chants for Sam Darnold will only come from one person in 2024
Come Week 1, Sam Darnold is going to be one of those, ‘Oh I didn’t realize he’s on a different team this year’ guys. So just for posterity’s sake, on March 13, Darnold got signed by the Vikings on a one-year, $10 million deal. The idea is largely that he will be a placeholder while rookie QB and 10th overall pick, J.J. McCarthy gets NFL-ready.
And that makes a bet on Darnold even funnier.
Luckily, it’s only a $250 bet, or this would be about the economic effects of delusion. Instead, this is about how a bettor (who is definitely Darnold’s Mom) doesn’t understand her son’s job this year.
The Vikings are just builders, not contenders, in 2024. All Minnesota and Vikings fans want out of Darnold is to make it to the bye week in Week 6 and maybe a few more games so McCarthy doesn’t get thrown directly into the ninth circle of hell to start his career.
Now, that’s not an easy task. To start off their 2024 season, the Vikings have San Francisco in Week 2, Houston in Week 3, Green Bay in Week 4, the New York Jets in Week 5, and Detroit in Week 7. That’s five straight games against teams in the upper echelon of the NFL. In all fairness, if Darnold can even navigate those games it’d be worthy of a single MVP vote.
Maybe that’s what Mrs. Darnold was thinking when she put money on her baby boy. After all, he’s the grandson of the legendary Dick Hammer, so he can do anything.
Either that or maybe it was some guy from Duluth who spent his holiday weekend pounding Hamm’s on the shores of Lake Superior when he drunkenly convinced himself that Sam was ‘The Guy.’ Who knows?