Sad News: Minnesota Vikings head coach has just announced his departure due to……..
Albert Breer on the Possibility of Shedeur Going #6 to the Raiders
Why the Vikings Are Betting Big on J.J. McCarthy
Before his knee injury, the former Michigan star was pushing Sam Darnold to be the starting quarterback. Now it’s his team and his show in 2025.
Albert Breer | Apr 14, 2025
McCarthy did enough in one preseason game against the Raiders in 2024 to provoke a discussion on whether he was ready to be the starting quarterback as a rookie for the Vikings.
McCarthy did enough in one preseason game against the Raiders in 2024 to provoke a discussion on whether he was ready to be the starting quarterback as a rookie for the Vikings. / Brad Rempel-Imagn Images
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Minnesota Vikings
Kevin O’Connell can’t say with any level of certainty what would’ve happened had the meniscus in J.J. McCarthy’s right knee held up. But he does know what he was looking at just before McCarthy sustained the injury, as his then-rookie quarterback ascended on the practice field, before translating his steps there into the Minnesota Vikings’ preseason opener against the Las Vegas Raiders.
McCarthy had done enough, at that point, to at least provoke discussion in the Minnesota building.
McCarthy was, first and foremost, demonstrating the talent that O’Connell and GM Kwesi Adofo-Mensah gambled on when they traded up a spot to take him with the 10th pick in the 2024 NFL draft. He improved steadily, took coaching points from the spring and continuously applied them, hit goals the coaches set for him for the break between OTAs and camp, and gobbled up whatever else they put on his plate.
“It started showing up more and more,” O’Connell told me Thursday. “And that’s always a real positive from my perspective, when you can really start stacking coaching points on to things that he’s showing improvement on or ownership of. His overall understanding of our offense, the comfort level, even in the reps, whether it was versus the No. 1 defense or in competitive situations in practice, you were starting to see him play faster but under control while still maintaining the principles that we’re coaching.”
