The Minnesota Vikings haven’t come out and declared J.J. McCarthy the quarterback of the future, but they haven’t cast him aside yet either. Half of the fanbase is ready to declare him a bust, while the other half believes the young signal-caller can still turn things around. Where the Vikings sit in all this hasn’t necessarily gotten any clearer this week at the NFL Combine, but there are some clues as to how Kevin O’Connell and Co. view their former first-round pick.
For Minnesota, they already know they can’t walk into 2026 without assurances at quarterback. The roster is built to compete now, and another year of mediocre-to-painfully-awful quarterback play will almost surely doom what could be a promising team. McCarthy has already missed a lot of time in his young career due to injury and is obviously behind the schedule Minnesota intended for him.
Still, O’Connell seems, at the very least, open to letting McCarthy take another swing this season. But he admitted to KFAN’s Paul Allen that this offseason is probably the most important one of McCarthy’s life.
Obviously, 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 liked about J.J. when we drafted him, we’ve seen some growth, we’ve seen some of that development time over time. But we’re still talking about quite a few opportunities of that development phase and growth phase missed. So he knows it’s a big offseason for him. He didn’t need anybody to tell him that. He certainly didn’t need me to tell him that.
It’s no secret that McCarthy needs to improve in 2026 for fans to feel confident about him running it back in 2026. What’s interesting about O’Connell’s comments about it is that he mentions McCarthy missing a lot of growth and development time. Yes, he did sit out the 2024 season with a knee injury, but Sam Darnold was going to take all the first-team reps regardless. McCarthy was still in all the meetings and was healthy for a full camp last summer and a majority of the 2025 season.
Injuries can certainly slow growth, especially for a young player, and he might be further along had he been getting some reps with the second team last season. But it feels odd for O’Connell to go the “He was hurt so much we couldn’t develop him” route on all this.
The head coach has never been one for excuses, so for him to point out one here feels … different. Maybe he’s protecting McCarthy by saying the lack of development is no fault of his own, and just some bad injury luck. Either way, everyone can agree that a full offseason of work can only help.
But with the uncertainty around McCarthy’s development, O’Connell also made it clear the Vikings would be adding some competition to the position.
I think he’s gonna be able to use a lot of that experience of those 10 games and the journey so far to give himself a position to have the best 2026 he can. And we’ve talked about it, we want him to be in a competitive situation because of some of that time lost. We’ve really gotta push the gas pedal down. Not replace development and coaching and teaching with anything, but enhance it with a competitive situation that I think our whole team will benefit from.
A “competitive situation” is a vague phrase on its own, but maybe with some context, O’Connell’s comments may become less nebulous. His wording would seemingly eliminate the big swings for Joe Burrow or Lamar Jackson. Those guys are not coming in to compete with anybody. It’s their show the second the plane lands. And while the Vikings may not be opposed to kicking some tires, those long-shot options feel even farther away now.
It really does make it seem like the Vikings will go the boring route here. Kirk Cousins, Geno Smith, or even Carson Wentz are probably the most realistic players that fit O’Connell’s comments: cheap veterans who could potentially win the job outright, but more so are players who can come in and keep the boat afloat if McCarthy misses any time.
While none of those guys are franchise-altering, the Vikings may not have the time, resources, or will to trade for a Mac Jones, to develop in tandem with an Anthony Richardson, or to affix every chair at TCO with a booster seat for Kyler Murray.
O’Connell wants to see his quarterback succeed, and challenging him every day with a solid veteran is a good plan to make that happen. If it works, you have your franchise quarterback and a reliable backup. If it doesn’t, Cousins (or some Cousins equivalent) could still go out there and win nine games in 2027, then it becomes the reset. The bottom line is that this reads more like an encouraging sign for McCarthy than a team desperate to replace him with any quarterback with a pulse.
Ultimately, short of a shocking trade, the job is still McCarthy’s to lose. And injuries and whoever the team brings in to compete aside, he still seems like he controls his own destiny with the Vikings.
