It makes sense for one reason
It took the Minnesota Vikings a little while to shore up their quarterback situation this offseason, with the team eventually making a trade to acquire Sam Howell from the Seattle Seahawks on Draft weekend. Howell joins expected starter J.J. McCarthy and backup Brett Rypien on the depth chart at the game’s most important position.
It sounds like one free agency move from the past couple of months may have thrown a bit of a wrench into the Vikings’ quarterback plans. On the Ross Tucker podcast, Tom Pelissero of the NFL Network stated that the Vikings apparently thought that Daniel Jones would stay around to serve as a backup to McCarthy and potentially compete for the starting job, but he instead decided to leave for an opportunity with the Indianapolis Colts. Pelissero even says that Jones took less money to go to Indy than he would have earned in Minnesota.
“It sounded like the Vikings thought Daniel Jones was coming back…he ended up taking a little bit less in terms of guaranteed money from the Colts.”@TomPelissero with an interesting tidbit about the Vikings QB room: pic.twitter.com/ZXqXk9sKk3
— Ross Tucker Podcast (@RossTuckerPod) May 7, 2025
“It sounded like the Vikings thought Jones was coming back, but then they just got the sense right at the end that he was not convicted about coming back to Minnesota and ended up taking a little bit less in terms of guaranteed money from the Colts to end up in Indianapolis.”
From one perspective, it makes sense that Jones would have wanted to make his way to Indianapolis rather than staying in Minnesota. My assumption is that Jones understands that he has a significantly better chance of being named the starter in Indianapolis than he would have had in Minnesota. The Colts already seem to be disenchanted with their current starter, Anthony Richardson, as they showed by pulling him out of the lineup and replacing him with Joe Flacco last season. On the other hand, the entire Vikings’ organization has made it clear that they’re behind McCarthy 100% and, even if Kevin O’Connell won’t officially name him the starter, the prevailing wisdom is that McCarthy is going to get every opportunity to be the guy going forward.
That and Anthony Richardson is. . .well, he’s kind of bad. So that helps Jones’ chances of becoming a starter again, too.
Jones, who was a starter for several years with the New York Giants before he was released last season, feels that he has a lot more to contribute than being a backup quarterback. I can understand his thought process, but given that two of the Colts’ best offensive linemen are now with the Vikings, he might still have a rough go of it in Indy.
The Vikings got a wrench thrown into their plans at the quarterback position, but it appears they’ve pivoted and recovered in decent enough fashion.
