2025 NFL offseason: QB market dominoes for Sam Darnold, more - ESPN

With 30 of 32 NFL teams eliminated from the playoffs, the 2025 offseason is quickly approaching. New coaching hires are just settling in and free agency is still six weeks away, but we're getting closer to a ton of player movement that will happen around the league via signings, cuts, trades and draft picks.

With that in mind, I took a look at the 2025 quarterback market. Who are the biggest movers and shakers of this offseason? What is the potential fallout from their decisions? Could a passer signing with one team drastically change things for multiple other franchises? And what are the QB-needy franchises' backup plans?

Unlike in past offseasons, when myriad shoes could have been the first to drop, it seems clear the biggest domino is Vikings quarterback Sam Darnold. He approaches one of the most interesting free agency decisions of the past few years. Once his intentions are clear, the remaining teams looking for QB help will turn to secondary and tertiary options in a thin free agent market, a largely option-less trade pool and a rather poor draft class.

To examine all the quarterbacking dominoes for the next few months, I began with riddling out the Darnold dilemma and saw how things fell from there. Once I sorted out Darnold's options, I mapped out four potential scenarios for the rest of the QB landscape, with dominoes falling across the league based on where he might end up:

Jump to a section:
Darnold's situation | Darnold's suitors
The other QBs potentially available
Darnold to LV | Darnold to PIT
Darnold to NYG | Darnold back to MIN

If every quarterback who could become available in this cycle does become available, the one most likely to command big free agent money is Darnold. He's still relatively young, having