Could you see Sam Darnold in an Indianapolis Colts uniform? The former USC star will be the top quarterback free agent this offseason.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s a chance Darnold will re-sign with the Minnesota Vikings<\/a>. However, the team might choose not to retain him and start J.J. McCarthy next season instead.<\/p>\n Several teams will be interested in Darnold if he leaves Minnesota this spring. The Pittsburgh Steelers, New York Giants, and Las Vegas will all likely pursue him.<\/p>\n But what about the Colts? Their quarterback situation is in question<\/a>. Anthony Richardson<\/a>, who the team drafted fourth overall in 2023, has struggled mightily. Should Indy end the Anthony Richardson experiment and go out and get Sam Darnold?<\/p>\n Sam Darnold played college football with the USC Trojans. During his final season, he threw for 4,143 yards and 26 touchdowns. He also produced five touchdowns on the ground.<\/p>\n The New York Jets<\/a> selected Darnold third overall in the 2018 NFL Draft. He would only play three seasons in New York before being traded to the Carolina Panthers in 2021.<\/p>\n After two seasons in Carolina and one with the San Francisco 49ers, Darnold signed with the Vikings last offseason. He was supposed to hold down the fort until rookie J.J. McCarthy was ready to take over. However, McCarthy suffered a torn meniscus<\/a>, forcing him to miss the entire season.<\/p>\n Darnold went on to have a great 2024 campaign. Passing for a career-high 4,319 passing yards and 35 touchdowns, he was selected to the Pro Bowl for the first time. He led the Vikings to a 14-3 record although they lost<\/a> to the Los Angeles Rams in the playoffs.<\/p>\n During his season-ending press conference<\/a>, Colts general manager Chris Ballard said the team will add competition to the quarterback room. But by adding Darnold, there really wouldn\u2019t be a quarterback competition with Richardson.<\/p>\n Darnold would be pretty much guaranteed to be the starter in Indianapolis. He\u2019d undoubtedly be an upgrade over Richardson, who completed just 47.7 percent of his passes this season.<\/p>\n Yet, Darnold isn\u2019t the quarterback the Colts should pursue this offseason. He has only had one good season and could prove to be a one-year wonder. Yes, Darnold is good, but he isn\u2019t a long-term answer who will lead a team to a Super Bowl. Plus, it will cost a lot of money to sign him.<\/p>\n Ballard was right. The Colts do need to give Richardson some competition. It could push him to become the star he\u2019s supposed to be. Instead of going after Darnold, though, the Colts should sign someone like Justin Fields<\/a> or Daniel Jones<\/a>, who can compete with Richardson for the starting job.<\/p>\n Richardson\u2019s career hasn\u2019t started as the Colts had hoped. However, he has the potential to become a superstar quarterback. The Colts need to be patient with the former Florida Gator. If he doesn\u2019t progress any by the end of next season, though, they should look to move on. Sorry, if you’re a Colts fan hoping to land Sam Darnold.<\/p>\n He isn’t the answer.<\/p>\n Main Image: Brad Rempel-Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Would it make any sense for the Indianapolis Colts to sign free agent quarterback Sam Darnold this offseason? <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4890,"featured_media":210691,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[54,12],"tags":[33071,9564,56,1535],"class_list":["post-210516","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-editorials","category-colts","tag-2025-nfl-free-agency","tag-anthony-richardson","tag-indianapolis-colts","tag-sam-darnold"],"modified_by":"Drew Crabtree","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210516","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4890"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=210516"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210516\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":210692,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210516\/revisions\/210692"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/210691"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=210516"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=210516"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=210516"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Should the Indianapolis Colts Pursue Sam Darnold?<\/h2>\n
Darnold\u2019s Career Thus Far<\/h3>\n
Colts Need to Stay out of the \u201cSam Darnold\u201d Sweepstakes\u201d<\/h3>\n