Could the Colts pursue one of the top free agent quarterbacks in this year’s market—who’s seemingly hitting his prime?
NFL Network’s Daniel Jeremiah speculated on Tuesday that the Indianapolis Colts could be a free agency suitor for Minnesota Vikings’ projected free agent quarterback Sam Darnold:
If Darnold gets to the market, I’d be very curious to see if the Colts got involved. I think he’s a clear upgrade for a team that needs to win right now.
— Daniel Jeremiah (@MoveTheSticks) March 4, 2025
Minnesota has reportedly elected not to use the franchise tag on last year’s starting quarterback.
The former 3rd overall pick of the 2018 NFL Draft (which the Colts originally held before receiving a king’s ransom in a trade down to the #6 overall spot with the New York Jets) had a career revival with the Vikings last season in his Minnesota debut.
Specifically, the still 27-year-old Darnold completed 361 of 545 pass attempts (66.2%) for 4.319 total passing yards, 35 passing touchdowns, and 12 interceptions during all 17 starts.
While Darnold faded a bit late in the season—including a mediocre passing performance in the Vikings’ wild card loss to the Los Angeles Rams, he was a big reason why Minnesota was able to make the playoffs in the first place—especially after the franchise lost veteran Kirk Cousins in free agency and rookie top pick J.J. McCarthy to season-ending injury.
Having a big arm, improving accuracy, and progression in his reads—with some added mobility, Darnold assuredly makes sense for an NFL quarterback needy team out there, but I’m just not sure it’s the Colts right now.
Colts longtime general manager Chris Ballard wants an offseason quarterback competition—and rightfully so, as Richardson needs to be pushed to be his best self throughout training camp.
That being said, the hope for the Colts franchise still has to be that Richardson ultimately wins the job outright on the merit. The Colts have to see what they have with Richardson entering Year 3, for what figures to be a critical ‘make-or-break’ season for the franchise’s top leaders.
From that standpoint, Darnold may be both too good and costly to be the provided competition for Richardson this offseason, whereas cheaper veteran free agent options with starting experience such as Justin Fields, Daniel Jones, or Jameis Winston may better fit that bill.
Right now, the Colts have a projected $34.7M of projected team salary cap space. While the team can certainly free up more by cutting a few high-priced veterans, Darnold would still eat into a significant amount of that salary cap space (and really reduce any team benefit of Richardson still playing on his rookie contract, especially for Darnold, who’s not a surefire penciled QB1—although he’d very likely beat out Richardson for the job).
