The Vikings are aware that they're taking a major leap of faith this year. In letting Sam Darnold leave in free agency and not adding another starting-level quarterback, they're putting the weight of an organization that wants to take the next step towards contention on the shoulders of a 22-year-old quarterback who hasn't yet played in an NFL regular season game.
But J.J. McCarthy is no ordinary 22-year-old QB in their eyes. They've been around him enough, from the pre-draft process through the start of this summer, to have all kinds of confidence that he will rise to meet this moment. It's why they selected him tenth overall in last year's draft. It's why they felt comfortable letting Darnold leave after he helped lead them to 14 wins last season.
That belief in McCarthy comes from both his physical abilities and his mental makeup, GM Kwesi Adofo-Mensah said this week in an interview with the Minnesota Star Tribune. And because they have that belief, they've spent this offseason trying to continue building the pieces around their young quarterback to set him up for success.
"It's a lot of projection," Adofo-Mensah said. "But it's projection with other things that might be a little bit more known. We think about the team around him, right? So how do we support J.J.? We provide a really good offensive line in front of him to protect the passer, also be able to run the football and set our whole offense up in down and distances that make it easier on him and make it easier on any quarterback. With J.J., the bet has always been the talent and the football makeup. Football makeup, to me, is the gap. Anything that you think he can do and hasn't shown, to me, the football character is what gives you belief to take that jump. That's the jump that we're willing to take in this organization."
Last year, in a short time period, McCarthy validated a lot of the things the Vikings came to believe when they spent time with the former Michigan quarterback in the lead-up to the draft. He displayed immense growth from the time he first stepped onto the field for rookie minicamp to the first couple weeks of training camp and his lone preseason game.
Unfortunately, McCarthy's rookie year came to an abrupt end when it was learned that he suffered a torn meniscus in that preseason game. But he showed the Vikings enough to make head coach Kevin O'Connell declare publicly, after the injury happened, that the team had found its franchise quarterback.
"We had constant dialogue and conversations about what we wanted for J.J. that year, and he started exceeding them pretty quickly," Adofo-Mensah said. "We were pretty clear, I think, publicly that we didn't want him to play. Not because of how he would've played, but we just thought for the better success of his career, it's better to sit and watch. He was pushing a little bit, in terms of maybe even becoming the backup or different things like that, but just the day-over-day growth that he would show, he's so coachable. You give him a coaching point, he's going to go home and make sure that that coaching point is received. And then you saw the arm talent and different things like that, the ability to move in the pocket."
It's now been over nine months since McCarthy's injury, and the Vikings' belief in him has only grown. Adofo-Mensah said he was impressed with the maturity of the way McCarthy handled the injury and his recovery process. He remained active and involved around the building, trying to soak up as much information as he could while supporting his teammates. And ever since last season ended, McCarthy has continued to spend all kinds of time at the Vikings' facility, doing everything he can to prepare for this opportunity.
The Vikings feel confident in who McCarthy is as a player and person. They also feel confident that there's no one better to maximize what he can be as a quarterback than O'Connell, who Adofo-Mensah joked is a "QB Nobel laureate."
"I think we have maybe the best QB incubator in the NFL," he said. "And so, when you put a person in there with all that ability and all that mindset, I just feel so confident about what's going to come out the other end. ... Ultimately, in this job, you have to make bets. You have to be willing to believe something before other people see it. That's a lot of what gives me confidence. It's the belief I have in this building, it's the belief I have in this player."
Adofo-Mensah admits there may not be "a great (historical) comp for this." This is a team with a loaded roster and Super Bowl aspirations that is relying on a young quarterback, coming off an injury, who has yet to make his NFL debut. There's risk involved with that. But there's also a lot of reason to have confidence.
"He's going to go home, just like Kevin, just like myself, just like leaders in this organization, and give every single thing he can to the accomplishment of our goals," Adofo-Mensah said. "And I can sleep at night with that. I talk about minimizing regret all the time. I am never going to regret going into battle with people like that."