The Minnesota Vikings are in a predicament right now. They will likely retain J.J. McCarthy but will also have a new quarterback on the roster next season. They’ve been linked to signal callers like Geno Smith, Kyler Murray, and Kirk Cousins, to name a few. They are set to release aging players with high cap hits because they entered the offseason $40 million over the cap.
The front office and coaching staff have been noncommittal when talking about who will start under center next season. If they sign a veteran like Smith or Cousins, the job is theirs to lose, and they’ll make the money to justify their starts.
Still, head coach Kevin O’Connell should adhere to his adage about young quarterbacks, because it’s too early to give up on McCarthy.
It’s an all-too-common phenomenon. A team uses a high draft pick on a highly touted college quarterback. They give him a couple of years, and if he isn’t successful, they let him go for the next young QB to take his place. Often, they are right to cut their losses. The QB bounces around a couple of teams before settling in as a backup or falling out of the league altogether.
However, sometimes the team moves on from the quarterback prematurely, and he makes a name for himself on another team. In 2024, O’Connell explained this perfectly on The Rich Eisen Show.
“Organizations fail young quarterbacks,” O’Connell said, “before young quarterbacks fail organizations.”
McCarthy’s underlying numbers weren’t great last year. He was 40th out of 42 qualified QBs in passer rating, 39th in completion percentage, 37th in success rate, and sixth in interceptions despite playing just 10 games.
Not much went right for Minnesota’s 2024 first-round pick. He didn’t produce the way the Vikings hoped for after they traded up in the draft to get him and cleared the way for him to start last year. After tearing his meniscus in the preseason the year after the draft, last season was basically McCarthy’s rookie year, and injuries have plagued him nearly every week he’s been in the NFL.
Now that he’s played 10 games, McCarthy knows what he needs to work on and what the team expects of him. He’s never had to deal with adversity like this while playing football. He lost only three games combined as a starter in high school and college. How he bounces back will be the key to whether Minnesota’s investment in him was worth the risk.
O’Connell laid out McCarthy’s issues earlier in the season. He wasn’t getting to the top of his drops in the same position every time, and his feet would often drift outside the framework of his body. That led to some of the accuracy issues.
Another noticeable aspect when watching McCarthy is the speed at which he throws. He doesn’t seem to have a lower gear, so he’ll need to learn how to put touch on the ball depending on the situation he’s given. Luckily, he has an entire offseason to get to work and a “QB whisperer” of a head coach who can help him get where he needs to be.
That isn’t to say the Vikings shouldn’t sign a QB this offseason. Competition is good for any position, and if it turns out McCarthy still needs a few months to get acclimated, Minnesota can fall back on a reliable bridge while retaining its future. Last year was a fiasco, and O’Connell and the Vikings are going to make sure it doesn’t happen again.
“It’s about consistency,” O’Connell said regarding McCarthy at the NFL scouting combine, “and inevitably, it’s going to be about that competition being a catalyst for making up on some of that lost time.”
The NFL world just watched Sam Darnold transition from first-round bust to Super Bowl champion. Considering Minnesota’s role in Sam Darnold’s rise, it’s surprising how many fans and people in the organization want to move on from McCarthy. It’s only been one year, and he has barely had any time to improve without getting the injury bug.
There are plenty of other cases similar to Darnold’s around the league, like Geno Smith and Baker Mayfield. Adjusting to the next level is hard, and for some, it takes longer to get comfortable. The Vikings need to listen to their head coach and continue to develop McCarthy.