Well, it looks like this offseason will be another fantastic debate about the QB position. It has already started with folks settling into their respective camps and very very few willing to change their position (er., mind). I’m not sure what the team is actually going to do but if the people in charge want to keep their jobs then they had better have a viable alternative to JJ McCarthy. It will be very tough sell to the owners and fans if they try to run it back with JJ, Wentz, and Brosmer. That is the definition of insanity although each player could and should be better with another year in the KOC offense.
I am onboard for any move or no moves at all. It doesn’t really matter to me because this season has been a disappointment. Any time the team misses the playoffs is a disappointment. Not really looking forward to watching any playoff games to be honest. I will watch the Bears, Steelers, and Seahawks this weekend.
Minnesota Vikings News and Links
Injured J.J. McCarthy made tough but ‘right’ call to exit game
McCarthy had been attempting to play with a hairline fracture in the hand, one of three significant injuries that has cost him playing time this season and the fourth since the Vikings made him the No. 10 pick in the 2024 draft. Sunday, he completed 14 of 23 passes for 188 yards before walking to the sideline after the first play of the second half and summoning backup Max Brosmer, who played the rest of the game.
McCarthy called it “one of the hardest choices I’ve had to make in my life so far,” but said he was heeding a lesson he learned after ignoring pain in that hand in Week 16 against the New York Giants. On that day, McCarthy didn’t inform the Vikings until after he dropped the ball on an aborted screen pass. In subsequent conversations, coach Kevin O’Connell implored McCarthy to be more forthcoming in real time.
“I was happy I made the right decision,” McCarthy said. “I learned from something from the prior week, feeling the momentum of the game, how well the defense is playing. When it gets to a point where you feel like your body is going to say, ‘No, you can’t do that. You’ve got to put your ego aside and understand you’ve got to do what’s best for the team.’ And it’s a similar situation that came up today, and it killed me to pull myself out. Never done that before, but I got to do what’s best for my team.”
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NFL players rarely take themselves out of games, and McCarthy said he had to make a “grown-man decision.”
He added: “I got one person on my shoulder saying, ‘Go in there, you got this, it’ll be fine.’ And then another person [on the other shoulder saying], ‘Hey, maybe this is a test, that you’re being tested to make the right choice.’ So I listened to the one that was on my right shoulder and went from there.”
McCarthy missed five games earlier this season because of a high right ankle sprain and one because of a concussion. Sunday was his 10th NFL start, but he has failed to finish two and has missed a total of 25 games, including playoffs, because of injuries in his career. All four injuries have occurred when he was attempting to extend a play beyond its original design, either inside or outside the pocket, and he said Sunday that he thinks he can minimize them by improving his overall performance.
“I feel like just playing allowed me to gain the experiences, metaphorically and literally, in terms of the pain I would feel,” he said, “getting a little too close to the pocket. Not getting the ball out on time. Being bad with my eyes. Having the defense disguise something and not react instinctively. There’s all these things that happen before the injury that could be the difference in you not being in that vulnerable position. So I just need to continue to work on everything that it is to be a good quarterback in this league, and I feel like the injuries will slowly fade away with just more situational awareness and presence.”
McCarthy played 52% of the Vikings’ snaps this season and attempted only 243 passes, a relatively small sample size for the Vikings to evaluate him and craft a plan for the position in 2026. Sources have told ESPN that the Vikings are unlikely to replace him entirely but almost certainly will acquire a quarterback, via free agency or trade, who can credibly start for them in 2026 if McCarthy fails to make significant improvement.
O’Connell avoids question about J.J. McCarthy’s future as Vikings’ QB1
“I think every year, you’re coming back to build a team throughout the offseason, throughout the draft, leading into training camp,” O’Connell said. “I think he’s improved throughout the season. I think he’s grown, like a lot of young quarterbacks do. Today was his tenth start. I can’t wait to work with him in the offseason and absolutely look forward to the continued development and improvement.
“I’m excited about where he’s ending the season and know that there’s some things we can really dive into as a group, J.J. and myself. I look forward to the challenge of being the best version of myself for not only J.J., but this entire team.”
That non-answer, while perhaps not surprising, feels at least somewhat notable. O’Connell could’ve said something along the lines of “we’re going to take things day by day this offseason but yes, I would be comfortable with J.J. as our starter in 2026.” How much we should read into the specific way he answered the question is open to interpretation.
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McCarthy said he believes he’s earned the trust of the Vikings’ decision-makers, but he also realizes the future is now out of his hands to some degree.
“In my opinion, I feel like I have, but at the end of the day, they have their own opinion, they have their own perspective,” McCarthy said. “I just feel confident going into this offseason and content with where I’m at, because I feel like they know who I am as an individual and the potential and capability that this offense could have with me at the helm.
“But at the end of the day, it’s all about the guys (on the team). And from here on out, if I’m here, if I’m not, I love every single one of those guys and had a frickin’ blast playing for them.”
Justin Jefferson ‘would love’ for J.J. McCarthy to return as Vikings’ starting QB in 2026
“That’s not my job,” Jefferson said Thursday, speaking of player personnel decisions, via ESPN. “[But] of course I would love for him to be here. Of course I would love for him to be the quarterback. Especially off this year. I feel like he needs to show everybody and prove to everybody that he is that top-tier quarterback. So I would love to have him. I would love to work with him and show everybody that he is that No. 1 guy.”
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Still, once the Vikings were eliminated from playoff contention in December, the only remaining value in the 2025 season could be found in remaining reps shared and the lessons learned from the trying campaign.
“I had to learn myself how to be patient, how to not really show my emotions, to lead as a captain of this team,” Jefferson said. “And there are definitely things I can take from this year going forward. But I would say going forward, requiring more for everybody. Having this type of season, we ain’t trying to have this type of season again.”
Why Vikings’ plan for J.J. McCarthy failed — and what’s next
Internal concerns about McCarthy’s style of play, accuracy, mechanics and even his personality spilled into public. But no hands were left clean.
Coach Kevin O’Connell’s pass-heavy scheme was picked apart by NFL pundits, most notably Hall of Fame quarterback and NFL Network analyst Kurt Warner, and the coach eventually geared it down for McCarthy. General manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah committed nearly $350 million to the Vikings’ 2025 roster but missed on some key bets while trying to build a team that could support the NFL’s youngest Week 1 starting quarterback.
What made the Vikings think McCarthy was prepared to lead a playoff team? Why did they spend $350 million on the 2025 roster but end up with a thin quarterback room after having veterans Sam Darnold and Daniel Jones on their roster and receiving interest from Aaron Rodgers? Why did McCarthy play so poorly earlier this season — and what will become of him in 2026?
ESPN has tracked the transition since it began last spring and spoke to league and team sources about it. One of the clear takeaways is that Jones’ decision to sign with the Indianapolis Colts upended the Vikings’ plan far more than previously known. There is also widespread agreement that the Vikings overestimated McCarthy’s floor as a first-year starter.
The most optimistic spin, Warner said, is that McCarthy needs more time before a full judgment can be made.
“He hasn’t shown me that he’s going to be great at this point,” Warner recently told ESPN. “But I didn’t expect that. It’s fun when a guy can do that early in his career and show you, ‘Oh man, I’ve got the potential to be great.’ But that’s unique. It doesn’t happen very often.
“And he hasn’t really gotten a fair shake, from them being expected to be a Super Bowl team, and with comparisons to Sam Darnold and Daniel Jones or Aaron Rodgers. It was never going to be that good this season. With J.J., there are some lumps being taken. … I don’t see enough to have a real good feel on what he’s going to be.”
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The Vikings could have used the franchise tag to keep Darnold for one more season — and another year to develop McCarthy — but they thought Jones provided a more efficient path.
As they did with Darnold, the Vikings envisioned Jones as a starting-caliber hedge against McCarthy’s inexperience and health. Team officials sensed strong positive vibes from Jones throughout the fall and winter, and they believed he would sign their offer, which was competitive with the $14 million deal he ultimately signed with the Colts.
But the Vikings had misread Jones’ level of interest in their scheme and culture. He liked the organization and the people in it, but business was business. A league source said the Colts offered the best “fit.” In other words, Jones wanted to be on the field in 2025 and thought he had a better chance of overtaking the Colts’ young quarterback — third-year pro Anthony Richardson Sr. — than McCarthy.
The Vikings then turned their deliberations to Rodgers, who was a free agent and had contacted O’Connell to express interest in signing with them. There were multiple reasons why the Vikings passed, sources said, but one of them was the front office’s internal assessment that at 41, he was no longer likely to play at a Super Bowl level. Making the playoffs with Rodgers, but not winning the Super Bowl, wasn’t an equitable trade-off for delaying McCarthy’s ascension, they concluded.
Another was the off-schedule nature of Rodgers’ playing style, at times assigning routes to receivers at the line of scrimmage by using hand signals or other means. McCarthy wouldn’t benefit from watching an offense that he would not be asked to run in future years.
At that point, the Vikings had run out of starting-caliber options and viewed most of the remaining available quarterbacks in similar ways. Given that assessment, sources said, they delayed acquiring a QB until after the post-draft deadline for free agents to count against the 2025 compensatory pick formula.
That represented a significant shift down from pairing McCarthy with a player of Jones’ caliber, but the market had spoken. By default, the Vikings had made McCarthy their unquestioned starter. When the Seahawks made veteran backup Sam Howell available via trade on the final day of the draft, Adofo-Mensah took the deal.
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McCarthy had his worst game of the season in Week 2. Playing through a high right ankle sprain, he threw two interceptions and was sacked six times. Based on QBR, McCarthy’s performance ranks 501st out of 512 starts made by quarterbacks through Week 17. His floor had proved much lower than the Vikings anticipated.
Internally, the Vikings assessed the damage. McCarthy’s still-forming mechanics had fallen apart, especially after the ankle injury, exacerbating accuracy issues that had surfaced during training camp. He had also failed to develop variation in velocity on his passes, in part because he was still in the beginning stages of learning the Vikings’ “pure progression” style of deciding where to throw the ball.
During McCarthy’s five-game layoff when he was injured, and in the ensuing weeks after his return, O’Connell began detailing the mechanical issues in public. He said the Vikings were working to put McCarthy in a consistent “posture” at the top of his drop, to align his “feet and eyes” for proper base and balance and to minimize a leg kick that McCarthy often uses when firing passes downfield.
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All of it contributed to the biggest issue McCarthy faced: far too many off-target throws. The Vikings thought they had surrounded him with receivers talented enough to overcome those imperfect throws, but if anything, the inconsistency of his passes seemed to have the opposite effect.
Receiver Justin Jefferson’s drop rate this season is a career-high 3.2%, nearly twice his previous career average. Tight end T.J. Hockenson’s drop rate (7.6%) more than quadrupled, as did receiver Jordan Addison’s (9.3%).
The Vikings tied for No. 30 in the NFL in completion percentage above expected (-3.5%). McCarthy and his receivers share responsibility for those numbers, but Warner said it demonstrates his view that McCarthy isn’t a “natural thrower.”
McCarthy’s arm strength is NFL-caliber, Warner said, but his tendency to throw maximum-velocity passes decreases the time that receivers can adjust to inaccurate throws in the air. And Warner said it is a “very hard and very rare thing” for a player to dramatically improve accuracy at the pro level.
Buffalo Bills quarterback Josh Allen is the “poster boy” for doing so, Warner acknowledged, but he is the exception to the rule. Allen completed 52.8% of his passes as a rookie in 2018 but improved that to 69.2% by his third season after polishing his mechanics.
“The beautiful thing about Josh is, yeah, he’s got a big arm, but he doesn’t overthrow it very often,” Warner said. “He does a great job of taking something off, of throwing what I call a firm but soft ball, a nice little arc on it, easy for his guys to adjust to and catch the ball.
“That’s another factor when you engage your body and not your arm, that shows itself in something that J.J. struggles with right now. And so I’m not a proponent that believes a lot of guys get dramatically better with accuracy over time because it takes so much work, and it’s understanding those little nuances.”
OF THE 71 quarterbacks whose careers began with at least six starts over the past decade, McCarthy ranks No. 67 in QBR (25.6) when comparing their first six starts.
But by Week 14, he had taken a clear step forward. In wins over the Washington Commanders, Dallas Cowboys and New York Giants, he completed 65.6% of his passes, dropped his off-target rate from 20.6% to 13.1% and accounted for six touchdowns. He also cut his turnover rate nearly in half, committing three during that stretch after totaling 11 in his first six starts.
It’s fair to question those trends because of the poor defenses he faced. They rank No. 28, 31 and 32, respectively, in the NFL based on EPA per play. But it infused energy throughout the locker room. Right tackle Brian O’Neill said multiple players pushed through injuries in the second half of the season “because we want to be out with him.”
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In sum, though, O’Connell said that McCarthy’s 250-yard, three-touchdown performance against the Cowboys “just felt like the guy that he can be for us.”
“It felt like it was repeatable,” O’Connell said.
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THERE IS DANGER in overreacting to the poor play of young quarterbacks and being fooled by incremental growth. Hall of Fame receiver Cris Carter said last month on the “Up and Adams Show” that the Vikings’ community has “lowered our standards so much to accommodate” McCarthy.
“I still believe he can be the franchise quarterback,” Carter said, “but let me tell you something. Right now, today, we don’t know.”
McCarthy endured many of the struggles most young quarterbacks face. It was the biggest reason the Vikings will miss the playoffs, but he indisputably played better at the end of the season than he did at the beginning.
Is that enough to merit another season atop the Vikings’ depth chart? Can Adofo-Mensah and O’Connell commit another season to his development?
Vikings will reportedly ‘explore established options’ at quarterback
According to Dianna Russini, who connected with Vikings fans last offseason during Minnesota’s alleged interest in Aaron Rodgers, the Vikings plan to “explore established options via trade or free agency to strengthen its quarterback room.”
At the same time, Russini says the Vikings have “no plans to move on” from J.J. McCarthy, who will start his 10th game of the season in Minnesota’s Week 18 game against the Green Bay Packers on Sunday.
Potential Vikings Defensive Fit Was Fired Sunday Night
Why Raheem Morris Fits if Minnesota Loses Brian Flores
Morris is out in Atlanta, and that means something to the Vikings.
The Kevin O’Connell + Raheem Moriss Connection
O’Connell worked for Sean McVay’s Los Angeles Rams in 2020 and 2021, winning a Super Bowl with Matthew Stafford and friends in 2021. That championship paved the way for the Vikings to hire O’Connell, a relationship that has now lasted for four seasons.
Guessed who coordinated the Rams’ Super Bowl-winning defense in 2021? Raheem Morris.
If not Morris — Then Who?
The would-be list for Flores’ replacements is obviously subject to change, but here’s how the candidates might look in addition to Morris:
Daronte Jones (Vikings Def. Passing Game)
Jonathan Gannon (Cardinals HC — if fired)
Patrick Graham (Raiders DC)
Jim Schwartz (Browns DC)
Jerod Mayo (Former Patriots HC)
Todd Bowles (Buccaneers HC — if fired)
Jeff Ulbrich (Falcons DC)
Wink Martindale (Former Michigan DC)
Vikings QB Options Soon to Gain Several New Players
3 QB Trade Ideas if the Vikings Go Deep Sea Fishing
Cap Space Work
2026 Cap : (-$38,288,060)
Cut or Trade Hockenson
Cut Jones
Cut Hargrave
Cut Kelly
Extend O’Neill 3 yr 66M
Restructure Jefferson (max)
Restructure Greenard (max)
Extend Ryan Wright 2 yr 6M
Give Zavier Scott, Taki Taimani, & Bo Richter the ERFA tender
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Updated 2026 Cap : $35,554,440 (43 players under contract only)
2027 Cap : $30,095,773
Possible 2027 moves … Cut Allen & Metellus would take 2027 cap to $55,940,773
What free agents would you target with about 35M in cap space?
Yore Mock
Trade Partner: Titans
Sent: 3.97, 7.234
Received: 4.101, 6.184
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Pick 18. Peter Woods DL Clemson 6’3″ 310
Pick 49. Dillon Thieneman S Oregon 6’0″ 205
Pick 82. Deontae Lawson LB Alabama 6’2″ 228
Pick 101. Davison Igbinosun CB Ohio State 6’2″ 195
Pick 161. Nick Singleton RB Penn State 6’0″ 224
Pick 184. Justin Joly TE NC State 6’3″ 263
Pick 196. Pat Coogan IOL Indiana 6’5″ 311
Pick 244. McKale Boley OT Virginia 6’5″ 316
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