Imagine, if you will:
After a long day of work, Minnesota Vikings head coach Kevin O’Connell needed a beer. He just finished his end-of-season meeting with J.J. McCarthy and dissected everything from footwork and proper ball placement to leadership. A promising 2025 season had become a disappointment months ago, and O’Connell just wanted to go somewhere to take the edge off.
O’Connell stumbled into a local establishment and bellied up to the bar. Playing with the cap of his Mich Golden Light, a stranger came up and sat next to him.
“I can give you an autograph,” O’Connell said, “but I’m not signing it ‘QB Whisperer.’”
“I didn’t come here for an autograph,” Derek Carr said. “You looked like you needed a quarterback. And your scheme is the hottest I’ve ever seen.”
O’Connell instantly realized he had stumbled into the wrong establishment. Kirk Cousins was in the corner looking for the next team to be his sugar daddy. Geno Smith was in another corner, just catching the vibe. Aaron Rodgers was in a booth, looking like he wanted to run plays that are only legal in foreign countries. And Kyler Murray? Well, O’Connell had to look down to talk to him.
While this place is purely fictional, the Vikings have been there before. It is the Cougar Bar of NFL quarterbacks, and O’Connell has become the belle of the ball.
As with much of Vikings history, you have to wonder how we got here. Just one year ago, Minnesota was so eager to kick off the McCarthy era that it didn’t franchise tag Sam Darnold, who won the Super Bowl this year. Darnold is the best-case scenario as a quarterback they took out of the Cougar Bar, with long-term potential. But the shift to McCarthy didn’t go as planned.
For a franchise that is continually rebuilding, McCarthy’s success late in the season could have been seen as a foundation for growth, despite his disappointing year. However, for a team with the eternal goal of staying in the hunt and keeping Justin Jefferson happy, moving from Darnold to McCarthy could put them on the path to becoming the Cleveland Browns.
McCarthy may eventually become a good quarterback, but it looked like it until O’Connell finally changed his offense to get above .500 for the season. Doing so may have temporarily saved his job, but it also put pressure on him to get the quarterback decision right in 2026.
The other quarterbacks saw this young cub walking into a cougar den in the southern suburbs of the Twin Cities. They need a situation like the Vikings to prolong their careers — or, in the case of Carr, they need someone to revive it.
Carr retired after the 2024 season and used last year to get healthy. At age 34, he may have some productive years left. But he said on his Home Grown podcast that he wasn’t going to come back for just any opportunity.
“Would I do it? Yes. Would I do it for anybody? Absolutely not?” Derek Carr said when his brother, former NFL quarterback David Carr, asked him if he would come out of retirement. “I told you two things: I’d have to be healthy, and I would want a chance to win a Super Bowl. And, obviously, that’s a tough thing to find. That’s hard to do. That’s not easy.”
Carr is the safe floor the Vikings have seemed to be seeking early in this process. But his ceiling has rarely gotten to .500. You could attribute that to the ineptitude of the Oakland/Las Vegas Raiders and New Orleans Saints. Still, Carr has produced just three winning seasons in 11 seasons and has made just one Pro Bowl (2022), after making three straight from 2015 to 2017 with the Raiders.
However, Carr’s play falls into the “B to B-plus” range that former NFL GM and ESPN analyst Mike Tannenbaum believes would turn the Vikings into a Super Bowl contender. But it also brings all the wrong quarterbacks looking to revive their careers under O’Connell’s guidance.
Murray is probably the most exciting of the group as a former No. 1-overall pick and popular midseason trade candidate in fantasy football. While he’s completed 67.1% of his passes and thrown for 20,460 yards, 121 touchdowns, and 60 interceptions during his career, he’s also had just one winning season with the Arizona Cardinals and hasn’t made a Pro Bowl since 2021.
Perhaps some of those numbers are the result of dysfunction in Arizona. However, it’s also concerning to pair O’Connell, who seemed irked that McCarthy had a child during the season, with a quarterback who needed a study clause in his contract because he was playing too much Call of Duty.
Kirk Cousins is the romantic favorite at quarterback, but Vikings fans know he comes with some warts. The Pioneer Press’ Charley Walters reported over the weekend that Cousins is seeking a guaranteed starting job and a salary “in the one-year, $20 million range with incentives.” Cousins, The Head of the Negotiation Table, is willing to hang up the cleats and do television work if he can’t get it.
The further down the list, the more thorns the Vikings encounter. Geno Smith could be the house of cards J.J. McCarthy needs to topple, but may not have the upgrade the Vikings are seeking over Carson Wentz and Max Brosmer. Jimmy Garoppolo is in the same category. His missed throws drove Davante Adams out of Las Vegas and to the verge of insanity.
Mac Jones is a popular candidate and would be the instant starter. However, his previous track record makes him look like a younger version of Cousins, and the Vikings would probably have to give him a hefty contract extension after trading for him.
Ultimately, the options appear to be short-term commitments rather than a long-term solution. The Vikings have gotten by just fine being the NFL’s bridesmaid all of these years, and they may want to move on from McCarthy after he struggled in his first season.
However, it’s also a love story that’s been told too often in Vikings history and could lead them to another underwhelming result in 2026.
