J.J. McCarthy of the Minnesota Vikings.
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The Minnesota Vikings ended the 2025-26 season on a high note, but news is emerging about the status of quarterback J.J. McCarthy.
The Minnesota Vikings ended the 2025-26 season on a high note, with riveting 16-3 win over the Green Bay Packers back on January 4. Quarterback J.J. McCarthy has been with the team for two seasons now, but there are questions surrounding how long that will last.
The Vikings drafted McCarthy as their No. 10 overall pick in 2024, just months after McCarthy won a national championship at the University of Michigan. But, he was injured ahead of his rookie season, and instead, the Vikings had to bring on quarterback Sam Darnold in March 2024. Darnold led the Vikings to a 14-3 record before jetting off to the Seattle Seahawks to bring them a Super Bowl.
When McCarthy was back for the 2025-26 season, his showing was hit and miss. He ended up playing in just 10 games during the season and missed time due to multiple injuries. Now, there’s talk that the Minnesota Vikings may not be comfortable with him starting for them until he shows that he can handle the franchise quarterback gig for the long term.
Minnesota Vikings Quarterback J.J. McCarthy Needs to Take a ‘Leap Forward’ to Secure His Position With the Team, Expert Says
The Athletic’s Alec Lewis reports in a Monday, March 2, feature that the Minnesota Vikings know that “McCarthy must make a leap forward on and off the field.”
“The word used by more than a handful of team sources to describe McCarthy’s play was inconsistent,” Lewis stated. “That was the theme of his 2025 season. Even during his best stretch, the four games he played between Weeks 14 and 18, the Vikings staff did not know what to expect during the week or on game day. This resulted in visible stress for O’Connell in interviews and privately around the TCO Performance Center.”
He added that the Vikings knew McCarthy was going to be young and green, but “what they did not envision, especially following an encouraging first training camp that preceded his torn meniscus, was the challenge posed by some of the more elemental aspects of being the face of a franchise. These growth hurdles have become widely known among NFL executives and coaches, and they were frequent topics in Indianapolis.”
So, that said, it’s not surprising that the Minnesota Vikings have been linked to a bevy of veteran quarterbacks as possible starters for the season, including Geno Smith and Aaron Rodgers.
It’s Now or Never for Minnesota Vikings Quarterback J.J. McCarthy
In a feature for NBC Sports on Monday, March 2, Matthew Berry describes things he overheard and NFL Combine, and one was that the Vikings are “not sold” on McCarthy and don’t know if he can be “the face of a franchise.”
“They will keep him on the roster and try and coach him up, but they want a veteran that has had success in the NFL that will ‘shock J.J.,'” Berry stated about the Vikings. “In other words, someone who will be in camp and let J.J. know that the starting job next year is not guaranteed.”
He continued, “In fact, if I had to bet today on ‘Starting QB for the Vikings in Week 1 of 2026,’ I would take ‘the field’ over McCarthy. Part of the reason for the Vikings wanting to bring in viable competition is that, supposedly, by midseason, they had to scale back the playbook as McCarthy was struggling to pick up the entirety of the offense.”