[Cactus Jack]

Man, Minnesota went from 14-2 with a chance to be the one seed in the NFC, to getting blown out two straight weeks, season over. Going to be interesting to see if they run it back with Darnold, who was bad these last two weeks, or turn it over to JJ McCarthy.

I'm thinking that they have to let Darnold walk unless they plan on trading McCarthy or are worried about his recovery from injury. I think the whole point in drafting him was to have a QB locked in on a rookie contract since they'd spent so much on Jefferson.

I'll assume that the Vikings won't do a "tag and trade" the rest of the post.

Darnold performed well overall, but the taste of the last two weeks probably won't be enough to entice someone to overpay him.

Given the type of season that they had and some of the duds Darnold laid, I'd think that looking to sign an Aaron Rodgers or Kirk Cousins at a discount for one year might be just as, if not more, likely than them trying to resign Darnold first.

I'd think Darnold would be a better investment for a Tennessee or New York-- someone affordable that's good enough to see what you have around the rookie QB that you just drafted, but not so good that you can't ultimately yank him when it's time to play your rookie. Pittsburgh or Las Vegas may be other places looking to use him as a bridge-QB.

If I'm Darnold, I'm probably taking a little less to return to a good situation in Minnesota. If I'm him and Minnesota won't pay me, I'd strongly consider sitting out until I found a great fit. Someone with a solid team will eventually have their QB go down, and when they do, he's good enough to step in and keep the team afloat if they have a good line and some offensive weapons.

Since I've digressed, I'll take this post back to the original topic of the NFL Playoffs. The remaining team's QBs are: Mahomes, Stroud, Allen, Lamar, Goff, Daniels, Hurts, and Stafford. The more highly regarded QBs are generally going to be favored in each round from here on.

I'm not saying that Darnold will never be fit into a list like this, but he's still got a ways to go and would still probably require being in a good situation.

There's a pretty exclusive list of QBs who've won a Super Bowl over the past 10 seasons-- Mahomes, Brady, Peyton Manning, Stafford and Nick Foles.

Every decade, there's usually 1-2 QBs that aren't considered first ballot Hall of Famers who'll join the list, but other than maybe Roethlisberger, you won't see any of their names on the list more than once.

Going back to the early to mid-80's, you have winning QBs that are in one of two groups:

Group A:
Mahomes, Brady, (Peyton or Eli) Manning, Rodgers, Elway, Favre, Roethlisberger, Young, Aikman, and Montana;

OR

Group B:
Stafford, Wilson, Flacco, Brees, Brad Johnson, Dilfer, Warner, Rypien, Hostetler, Doug Williams, Simms, and McMahon;

Of Group A, all but Rodgers have at least two rings. Of Group B, Stafford still has a year or two to add to his legacy, and you might argue about where a Warner or Brees ranks on all-time lists, but you largely see a lot of above-average talents that relied on some of the generationally-great defenses (e.g. Flacco, Dilfer, Johnson, Simms, McMahon), offensive lines (e.g. Rypien & Williams), or skill position groups (e.g. Wilson's Legion of Boom & Warner's Greatest Show on Turf).