Big news broke on Wednesday that the Vikings have added recently released former Giants starting quarterback Daniel Jones to their practice squad. It’s a fascinating step that leads to many questions. Here at Vikings On SI, we have answers to all of these questions (eight, to be exact). Let’s dive in.

Jones was the No. 6 overall pick out of Duke in 2019 and didn’t actually end up with the Giants. He struggled the first few years before breaking through in 2022, totaling almost 4,000 yards, 22 touchdowns, and just 5 interceptions. The Giants went 9-6-1 that season and defeated the Vikings in a wild card playoff game after a big performance from Jones against a defense whose coordinator would be fired four days later.

He earned a four-year, $160 million extension this offseason but played poorly in 2023 before tearing his ACL. He struggled through 10 games again this season while benched for Tommy DeVito. Last week, Jones requested to be released, and the Giants granted his request, despite eating up a lot of dead money in the process. That gave Jones the freedom to choose his next team.

For the Vikings, signing Jones is a move with little risk and potential upside, both this season and beyond. They add a 27-year-old quarterback who is a former top ten pick with 71 games of NFL starting experience. Once he gets to Minnesota, they will teach him the offense and coach him, with the possibility that he can provide a higher floor and ceiling than Nick Mullens as their backup throughout the season – just in case something happens. happens to starter Sam Darnold. They could also evaluate Jones as a potential backup or bridge option for 2025, when currently injured rookie JJ McCarthy is their only quarterback currently under contract.

It almost certainly has a lot to do with Kevin O’Connell’s reputation as a coach who takes quarterbacks to the next level. Just look at what KOC did this year with Darnold – another former top ten pick who played with a New York franchise. Last season he had Kirk Cousins ​​play the best football of his career before his injury, then immediately won a few games after trading for Josh Dobbs. O’Connell’s resume speaks for itself, and he has a relationship with Jones dating back to the pre-draft process in 2019.

Jones could have gone to a bad team like the Raiders, where he would have had a chance to play right away after Gardner Minshew’s injury. But he reportedly wanted to sign with a contender, learn in a high-quality football environment and have the opportunity to serve as a backup. The Vikings check all these boxes. They are 9-2 and they have everything a quarterback could want in terms of coaching staff, offensive talent and organizational stability. In the short term, Jones likely sees a way to replace Mullens in the backup role. And we’ll get into this in more detail soon, but he may also see a way to stay in Minnesota next year and possibly even start competing.

Not much at all. It will be around $100,000 if he remains on the practice squad for the rest of the year, or up to $375,000 if (or when) he lands on Minnesota’s active roster. But in the meantime, he’ll still be cashing big checks from the Giants.

You can, but the player must agree to sign with that new team’s active roster. Jones choosing the Vikings means he wants to be there. That said, as long as he is on the practice squad, he will have the flexibility to sign with another team. The only scenario in which that could become relevant would be if an injury presented him with a great opportunity to take on a starting role on a winning team. But even then, it’s not entirely clear whether Jones wants to be thrown into the fire again anytime soon. He opted to attend O’Connell’s quarterback school, so it would be surprising if he doesn’t spend the rest of this season in Minnesota.

That shouldn’t be the case. Darnold, who is coming off a stellar two-game stretch against the Titans and Bears, is the Vikings’ unquestioned starter moving forward. He was a top ten QB in the league this year in passer rating, passing touchdowns, yards per attempt and PFF grade, among other metrics. Even when he turned the ball over six times in a two-game span against the Colts and Jaguars early this month, the Vikings’ confidence in him never wavered. Unless he completely falls apart three or four weeks in a row — which would be very surprising considering the way he’s played 11 games — there isn’t a situation where Darnold loses his job to Jones without getting hurt.

Certainly. The implications this has for the 2025 season should not be overlooked. Barring a late-season collapse, Darnold has played well enough to earn a significant multi-year contract from another team in the spring. The Vikings were never going to give him that deal after this season, no matter how well he played (the possibility of Darnold coming back can’t be 100 percent ruled out, though it remains highly unlikely). But they will still need a high-quality backup or insurance option to pair with McCarthy, especially with this year’s No. 10 pick from Michigan dealing with a major knee injury.

That’s why Jones could make sense for the Vikings after this year. He won’t command starter money as a free agent, so he could play for Minnesota at a relatively cheap price. The Vikings hope a fully healthy, 22-year-old McCarthy takes their QB1 job next season and lasts for the next decade. But they also need a contingency plan if his knee problem persists or if he simply needs more development before he’s ready to take the reins. By bringing in Jones now, they can evaluate him as a candidate to fill that role next year. Whether he would be a bridge QB or a true backup would all depend on how McCarthy looks.

If Jones finishes the season on the Vikings’ active roster, which seems likely, he will be eligible to be part of the compensatory draft pick formula next year. The Vikings will have room to sign some free agents next spring, but they also have plenty of pending free agents of their own (Darnold, Aaron Jones, Camryn Bynum, Byron Murphy Jr., Cam Robinson, Stephon Gilmore, Shaq Griffin , Dalton Risner, etc.) who could sign elsewhere and cancel the additions, perhaps putting Minnesota in line for a comp pick or two. All they would have to do to add Daniel Jones to that mix is ​​sign him to their active roster before Week 18, if not sooner. That’s another reason why this move made a lot of sense for the Vikings.