O'Connell spoke with Paul Allen and Pete Bercich during an interview that aired on KFAN and Vikings.com Wednesday and noted McCarthy is taking advantage of being healthy this offseason, participating in workouts with private quarterbacks coach John Beck, a 2007 second-round pick of the Dolphins.
"He's going to have a healthy offseason, which with his journey up until this point, he's gotten 10 starts where we've been able to see a lot of the things that we really, really liked about J.J. when we drafted him," O'Connell said. "We've seen some growth, some of that development over time, but we're still talking about quite a few opportunities of that growth and development phase \[that have been\] missed.
"He knows this is a big offseason for him. He didn't need anybody to tell him that. He certainly didn't need me to tell him that, but what I've really enjoyed about our conversations early on is he is hungry," O'Connell added. "He's out in California right now working with John Beck and some of the guys that he worked with pre-draft, very detailed in what he wanted to decompress after the season and go through layer by layer: 'What do I need to individually work on to make sure I come back ready to roll in April?' He's working on those things.
"His continued growth in our offense and schemes will be a natural thing. He's a really smart player. I think he's going to be able to use a lot of that experience of those 10 games in the journey so far to get himself in position to have the best 2026 he can. We've talked about it, we want him to be in a competitive situation because of some of that time lost," O'Connell added. "We've really got to push the gas pedal down and not replace development and coaching and teaching with anything but really enhance it with a really competitive situation that I think our whole team will benefit from. \[We're\] pretty early in that process, but I'm excited about it."
Brzezinski said QB is "the most important position on our team" and compared the focus on competition to every other position on the roster.
"We have a ton of confidence in J.J. McCarthy. He's been through a lot of adversity, and guess what? This is a really, really hard job with a lot of pressure," Brzezinski said. "I think even in our organization and with our history, everybody's yearning for that young franchise quarterback."