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Kevin Seifert
EAGAN, Minn. — Many NFL fans were surprised on the night of Jan. 5, when the Minnesota Vikings‘ quarterback of the future got considerable air time during NBC’s broadcast of the team’s 31-9 loss to the Detroit Lions. J.J. McCarthy, who missed his rookie season because of a torn meniscus in his right knee, appeared thinner than usual as he watched the game from the sideline in a T-shirt and shorts.
Listed at 219 pounds at the start of training camp, McCarthy dropped more than 20 pounds this fall, following a pattern familiar for many football players who put strength workouts on hold during the rehabilitation process. McCarthy has plenty of time to regain the weight before OTA practices this spring. But his appearance was a visual symbol of the neutral terms Vikings general manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah and coach Kevin O’Connell used last week in discussing his immediate future.
McCarthy is one of two quarterbacks the Vikings have under contract for 2025 (veteran Brett Rypien), but he only recently began on-field training and has plenty of work remaining to return his body to football condition.
National discussion has framed the Vikings’ looming quarterback decision as whether they should re-sign veteran Sam Darnold, who is set to become an unrestricted free agent. But their first priority is to assess McCarthy’s capacity for a quick ascension.
“He is … right where we hoped he would be at this point,” O’Connell said, “to have the type of offseason to be able to answer that question.”
Said Adofo-Mensah: “We’re really confident in him, his work ethic and his preparation. But I can’t sit here and tell you I know anything for certain.”
There isn’t much precedent for projecting McCarthy’s next step. He was the first quarterback in the NFL’s modern draft era (since 1967) to miss his entire rookie season because of injury after being selected in the first round.
But realistically, the Vikings have 40 days before they will have to tip their hand. The NFL’s deadline for using the franchise tag is March 4, after which the Vikings would not be able to stop Darnold from agreeing to a free agent contract with another team when the negotiating window opens March 10. They could always sign Darnold before that point, if he is willing to forgo a trip to the open market, and trading him after applying the franchise tag is another option.
Assessing Darnold for a possible 2025 starting role carries its own challenges. He earned his first Pro Bowl honors in 2024 after throwing for 4,135 yards and 35 touchdowns in the Vikings’ first 16 games, at which point he ranked No. 12 in the NFL with a 63.8 QBR. But his performance then cratered in the Vikings’ two most important games — losses in the regular-season finale to the Lions and wild-card round to the Los Angeles Rams — as he threw a combined 23 off-target passes, according to NFL Next Gen Stats, and took 11 sacks. His QBR (14.8) ranked 31st out of 32 qualified quarterbacks during that period.
In the immediate aftermath, O’Connell said it will be “very important” to consider Darnold’s full “body of work” rather than focusing on the Lions and Rams games. And according to Adofo-Mensah, the Vikings discussed the possibility of Darnold upending their timeline for McCarthy even before the season began.
“I always ask Kevin [O’Connell] before the season starts, ‘Hey, what information would you need to kind of change your mind?'” Adofo-Mensah said. “And to say it beforehand so that you’re not kind of whipped around with what potentially could happen. And we had those conversations beforehand. We thought there was a chance Sam Darnold could play at a high level. Just seeing what he had done at previous stops and what Kevin’s infrastructure and our infrastructure here has done for other quarterbacks that have played here, we thought there was a chance for a high level.
“Did I know it was going to be a Pro Bowl? I’m not going to sit here and tell you that. But I think that there was some part of us that all believed that Sam was going to have a really good season, and so when we made the move, that was part of the calculus.”
McCarthy turned 22 earlier this month and is younger than most of the top quarterbacks in 2025 draft. If the Vikings decide he needs another year of seasoning, re-signing Darnold is a realistic option. Anything short of that, however, could spur a third option: pairing McCarthy with a different veteran who could give them a credible on-field showing until McCarthy is ready. And the Vikings already are deep into evaluating the likeliest candidate for that role after signing Daniel Jones to their practice squad in November.
Jones spent six weeks learning O’Connell’s scheme and was added to the 53-man roster for the playoffs. The Vikings made that move primarily to add Jones to the Vikings’ 2026 compensatory pick formula, but Adofo-Mensah acknowledged the larger truth about Jones’ presence this season.
“It was just giving ourselves options depending on what potentially could happen this offseason,” O’Connell said of adding Jones. “It’s not the talent, because obviously you can watch film and see the talent, although it does help to see it up close at times, but really just how he is in meetings, the types of questions he asks, the dynamics in the room, different things like that. And that was a great opportunity for us and for Daniel … to see if this is the building he wants to be in. … I think he’s a potential option for us going forward.”
If nothing else, this season provided a clear glimpse at Darnold’s ceiling. The Vikings know how well he can play in their system, but they saw his limitations as well. They’ll pair that information with their best projection of McCarthy’s progress and, in the next six to eight weeks, their plan at the position will be clear.
