The guess here is that Sam Darnold will end up with the Las Vegas Raiders.

The Raiders, 4-13 this season, are desperate for a quarterback and under new coach Pete Carroll, who turns 74 early next season, intend to be competitive as soon as they can. The Raiders have the No. 6 pick in an underwhelming quarterback draft in April.

Among Raiders’ QB options, Darnold makes the most sense. Whether the Vikings will use the franchise tag (deadline March 5) on him, at a cost expected to be nearly $40 million for 2025, then trade him for draft picks, is to be determined.

On the free market, Darnold, 27, the Pro Bowler who led the Vikings to 14 victories this season, can expect a three- or four-year deal in the $35 million per season range. He can become a free agent on March 12.

>> The health of Vikings rookie QB J.J. McCarthy, who missed this season with two right knee procedures, and whether he could become a reliable starter next season remains unknown.

>> No doubt the Giants, with their No. 3 pick in the draft, would be interested in trading for McCarthy. The Vikings would be less interested, though, especially after Darnold tailed off at the end of the season.

If McCarthy were moved, though, which remains unlikely, free agent Daniel Jones could be a one-year Vikings bridge for between $10 million and $15 million.

>> There’s been some speculation that another free agent quarterback, Russell Wilson, 36, of the Steelers, could be reunited with Carroll, with whom he won the Super Bowl after the 2013 season with Seattle. But that’s not going to happen. The pair had a falling out when Wilson was traded by the Seahawks to the Broncos. And Wilson’s nowhere the player he once was.

>> Don’t think the NFL’s move to flag football for its Pro Bowl on Sunday in Orlando, Fla., rather than the physical contact version isn’t related to the regular game’s violent nature and its future. In 2028, by the way, flag football is going to be an Olympic sport for the Summer Games in Los Angeles.

>> Before the season, Gophers athletic director Mark Coyle proclaimed the men’s basketball team would rank in the top 25 if everybody returned.

He was probably right. The problem, though, is that a half-dozen impact players didn’t return.

Pharrel Payne from Cottage Grove bolted for Texas A&M and a $40,000 per month name, image and likeness (NIL) deal. He leads the Aggies in blocks.

Elijah Hawkins, with a NIL package said to worth about $30,000 a month, leads Texas Tech in assists and steals.

Cam Christie, 19, opted for the NBA draft and the Clippers, where he’s playing in the G-League and averaging 13.5 points while making $1.2 million.

Isaiah Ihnen is averaging 10.4 points starting for Liberty.

Braeden Carrington from Park Center left Minnesota for Tulsa, where he leads the team in steals.

Joshua Ola-Joseph from Brooklyn Park is averaging 18.1 minutes and 7.6 points for California.

Had those players stayed, no doubt the Gophers this season (11-11, 3-8 Big Ten) would be a NCAA tournament team. Meanwhile, the NIL price tag for a top-25 team now is in the $4 million a year range, and the Gophers aren’t close to even a third of that.

What Minnesota doesn’t have is an agent who can deliver impact players to the program. Incoming 6-foot-9 freshman AJ Dybantsa, the No. 1 high school prospect in the country at Utah Prep, has committed to Utah for a $7 million NIL deal. And that’s excluding apparel endorsement deals. Dybantsa turned 18 last Wednesday.

>> Junior guard Kiki Rice of the UCLA women’s basketball team that hosts the Gophers on Sunday afternoon has gifted each of her teammates player-edition pairs of signature Jordan shoes by way of her NIL deal, per si.com.

>> The 3M Open isn’t until July 24-27 at the TPC in Blaine, but the PGA Tour event already is in pursuit of Blades Brown, the Nashville, Tenn., 17-year-old who made his PGA Tour debut last month at the American Express tournament in La Quinta, Calif. The high school junior missed the cut by three shots, but in his second round made 10 birdies en route to a 64.

>> North Oaks native Frankie Capan, 25, has made $215,172 from his three PGA Tour starts this season. He’s averaging 302.4 yards in driving distance, which ranks 87th on the Tour.

>> Among college goals of Gophers junior golfer Bella McCauley was to someday play in the Augusta National Women’s Amateur tournament at the famed Masters course. A few weeks ago, the former state champion at Simley opened a large UPS Masters green envelope with the invitation that only the top-30 American women’s amateurs received. McCauley ranks No. 22.

The tournament is April 2-5. She has NIL deals with the Stifel and Waggle companies.

>> Longtime Edina Country Club head golf professional legend Marty Lass is retiring. Successor interviews have been underway.

>> Had dinner several times with Bob Uecker, who died at 90 the other day, when he would come to town to broadcast Brewers-Twins games, and couldn’t stop laughing the whole time. When guests would make appearances on Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show, Uecker said, Carson would prep them before with questions on index cards he planned to ask. Never, Uecker said, during 93 appearances, did Carson ever give him a card — it was always just right off the cuff.

>> Hall of Fame former Twin Rod Carew, who underwent heart and kidney transplants eight years ago, is recovering from a recent knee replacement and plans to attend spring training in Fort Myers, Fla., in a couple weeks. An avid golfer, Carew has had seven holes-in-one.

“Trying to get my knee back to where it can play again because I miss it,” Carew told the Pioneer Press on Friday from his home in Irvine, Calif.

A .328 career hitter, I asked Rod what he thinks he would hit if playing today at age 79. “About .300,” he said.

>> For the first half of the NBA season, Anthony Edwards’ No. 5 jersey was the sixth-most sold among players, and the Timberwolves, the eighth-most in team merchandise.

>> It’s two more national golf writing awards for St. Thomas Academy grad Judd Spicer from the International Network of Golf, announced last month at the PGA Show in Orlando, Fla.

>> Marcus Freeman, who coached Notre Dame to the NCAA football championship game this year, losing to Ohio State, is paid a reported $9 million annually, $2 million more than Gophers coach P.J. Fleck’s deal. In Ara Parseghian’s final season at Notre Dame in 1974, after he coached the Irish to two national championships (1966, 1973), his salary was $35,000, per the newly released Parseghian biography, “Ara.”

>> In the Dominican Winter League, ex-Twin Miguel Sano, 31, at one time considered among baseball’s top prospects, is hitting .265 with five HRs for Estrellas Orientales.

>> It’ll be a full Church of the Assumption in St. Paul on Tuesday morning for the funeral mass of beloved Tom Perrault, the St. Thomas Academy Hall of Famer who passed away from pancreatic cancer. Late University of St. Thomas Hall of Fame basketball-baseball coach Tom Feely called Perrault the best youth athlete he had ever seen.

>> The Mancini’s St. Paul Sports Hall of Fame will be May 12 at the Char House.

>> The gloves that ex-Gopher Phil Verchota from Duluth wore when his 1980 USA hockey team defeated the Russians en route to the Olympic gold medal are on display next to Rocky’s Balboa’s “Italian Stallion” boxing robe from the movie at the Smithsonian Museum of American History in Washington, D.C.

>> Twins infielder Brooks Lee is switching jersey numbers from No. 72 to No. 2. He wanted No. 22, which he wore in college and which his mom wore as a college softball player. But Twin Griffin Jax wears No. 22.