The beginning of the J.J. McCarthy era received more clarity Wednesday when it was reported the Minnesota Vikings rejected trade offers for their rookie quarterback. They likely won’t sign Aaron Rodgers, showing the team’s confidence in McCarthy for the 2025 season and beyond.
People will naturally compare McCarthy’s rookie year to Sam Darnold’s 2024 season. However, the reality is that McCarthy doesn’t need to compare to 2024 Darnold, at least not yet, because the 2025 Vikings are built differently.
Darnold threw for 4,319 yards and 35 touchdowns while leading the Vikings to a 14-3 record last year. Unfortunately, the impressive record wasn’t enough for Minnesota to win the division, and they played their worst two games at the end of the season. Darnold was largely blamed for the losses, posting passer ratings of 55.5 and 77.6, two of his five worst performances of the season.
The Week 18 loss to the Detroit Lions in the unofficial NFC North Championship game was the biggest stage of Darnold’s career. A win would secure the division and a first-round bye in the playoffs. A loss would send the Vikings on the road to play the Los Angeles Rams.
A series of failed red-zone attempts in the first half compounded in the Lions game and led to a critical drive early in the second half. The drive encapsulated Minnesota’s deficiencies on offense, showing that the quarterback-friendly offense could only operate at a high level when the quarterback was at his best.
Darnold didn’t play a great first half, but the Vikings were in position to take the lead early in the third quarter. Down 10-6, Cam Akers ripped off a 58-yard down the right sideline, setting the Vikings up with first-and-goal on Detroit’s five-yard line.
The Vikings got inside Detroit’s 10-yard line on their third drive. The previous seven plays consisted of one run for two yards and six passes, all incompletions. Receivers were getting open, but Darnold was missing touchdown passes, leaving points on the board.
That drive was pivotal if the Vikings were going to win. Instead of going to the air again, Kevin O’Connell called for a run play out of shotgun. Darnold took the snap and handed it off to Akers, who the Lions immediately stuffed for no gain.
Perhaps fearing that the Vikings couldn’t bully their way into the end zone, O’Connell again called three more pass plays. Darnold completed one pass to Aaron Jones for two yards before throwing incompletions on third and fourth down. The Vikings turned the ball over. They would lose 31-9, but their missed opportunities made the score more lopsided than it should have.
The narrative coming out of the game was how poorly Darnold played after having the best season of his career. It was fair criticism, as the moment appeared too big for the seven-year veteran who hadn’t played many big games.
Still, the Vikings didn’t have a run game to help the team in its lowest moment. By moving on from Darnold, they signaled they didn’t trust him in big games. However, the money saved allowed them to allocate resources to sign players to bolster their run game, which will take pressure off McCarthy.
The Vikings added former Indianapolis Colts center Ryan Kelly and guard Will Fries. Kelly and Fries were good run-blockers in Indianapolis, with Pro Football Focus giving Kelly a 64 run-block grade and Fries an impressive 84.9 grade in five games. These two also combined to allow only 17 pressures in 477 pass-blocking snaps, an area of concern in the loss to the Rams when the Vikings gave up nine sacks.
The Vikings also re-signed Aaron Jones and traded for San Francisco 49ers running back Jordan Mason to provide a better one-two punch. Minnesota’s coaching staff seemed to lose trust in third-year back Ty Chandler, leading to the acquisition of Akers for a second consecutive year. And although Jones started all 17 games, he missed large chunks of games, including the Week 18 loss to Detroit, with nagging injuries.
Mason averaged plus-1.4 Rushing Yards Over Expected (RYOE) per attempt in 2024, the third-highest mark in the league among running backs. The metric measures what was actually gained versus what an average running back would be expected to gain in a similar situation. That means the Vikings are looking for Mason to make plays on his own when blocking breaks down and when he gets through the line of scrimmage. That could lead to scoring opportunities inside the red zone, as opposed to Minnesota running for the sake of “balance.”
As a result, the Vikings will be asking less of their quarterback. Only four teams threw more touchdown passes than the Vikings in 2024, but only three ran for fewer than Minnesota’s nine. Relying on any quarterback to overcome the lack of a run game in the red zone again in 2025 would be a tall task. That becomes even tougher when that quarterback is McCarthy, who is entering his first year as a starter.
That may mean McCarthy doesn’t throw for 35 touchdowns. He may not even pass for 4,000 yards, the new standard for quarterbacks. The Vikings may not win 14 games.
But having a more well-rounded team could help give McCarthy a safety net that Darnold didn’t have in Minnesota’s biggest games of the season. That could make the Vikings more effective and able to counter teams that look to take away their biggest strengths. They lost to the Lions and Rams by a combined 12 points in Weeks 7 and 8. They lost to the same teams by a combined 40 points in the final two games of the year.
It may not bring fantasy owners the same joy that Darnold did in 2024. However, it could lead the Vikings to a deeper playoff run and help their quarterback when he’s having an off night.
