Vikings QB decision brings concerning amount of irony along with it

Kwesi Adofo-Mensah makes decisions. Because the general manager of the Minnesota Vikings makes a lot of them, that leads him to believe that he is great at making them. Not so fast, my friend... There is a major holdup between making decisions and believing that you are good at making them. That requires making "good" decisions. It's like a person with nice things does not mean they're cool.

So, as we get into the dog days of the NFL offseason, it has become so abundantly clear that the Vikings view Sam Darnold as their starter, J.J. McCarthy as their future starter, and Nick Mullens as a Viking! While I understand the plan in place for McCarthy, the irony of starting a former first-round bust over a player who the Vikings want to prevent from busting is not lost on me. What are we doing?

Darnold may have never had a chance playing quarterback for Adam Gase in New York, but his ensuing Carolina tenure went about as well as David Tepper's ownership is going. After getting some polish from Kyle Shanahan, Darnold is ready to be an NFL starter again. He might play well for his new head coach Kevin O'Connell, but he is only keeping the seat warm for McCarthy. What can go wrong?

There are ways to transition from one quarterback to another, but the Vikings are making a lot of assumptions here thinking that Darnold is a changed quarterback, one who is not inherently reckless.

Minnesota Vikings are tempting fate with their J.J. McCarthy decision

The last thing you want to do when you draft a quarterback this high is to create down within the organization that he may not be the guy after all. Bias aside, this is entirely different from what is going on in Atlanta between Kirk Cousins and Michael Penix Jr. We are talking about a top-10 quarterback in the game today in Cousins, not a guy who has failed everywhere he has been before.

If he went somewhere else, Penix might be able to start there. All six first-round quarterbacks have the necessary talent to start games this season, assuming the right landing spots for that to happen presented themselves. Ask yourself this if you are the Vikings. If they had been able to trade up for Jayden Daniels, would he be asked to ride pine behind Darnold? No, he would be starting Week 1!

And that is my big issue with this. The Vikings moved up a spot to slightly reach on McCarthy, only to let him ride pine for most of this year, and possibly some of next. There seems to be a lot of hand-holding for a former five-star prospect coming out of Chicagoland. We don't see that with Daniels in Washington, Caleb Williams in Chicago, or even all that much with Drake Maye over in New England.

Darnold might be a good teammate, but McCarthy is not going to have a risk-free NFL experience.