The J.J. McCarthy era may already be over with the Minnesota Vikings
. He will, barring a shocking roster move, be part of the team in 2026 and 2027. But, barring a shocking leap forward into competence, he will not be the homegrown franchise quarterback for which the Vikings have been searching since Daunte Culpepper was winging deep balls down the decidedly non-hallowed halls of the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome.That's because McCarthy, even before Minnesota's first preseason game of the season, has been demoted. There was no hemming and hawing when it came to specifics of competition. There's no "-or-" designation on the depth chart. Head coach Kevin O'Connell understood people paid enough attention to see Kyler Murray was taking the lion's
share of snaps with the starting offense in practice. He understood the frustration that came with averaging nearly 11 wins per season without a single playoff victory under his belt.
Thus, he made the logical decision most people expected.
A new QB 1 in Minnesota 👀The Vikings have named Kyler Murray their starting QB per @AdamSchefter 🏈Their win total is set at 8.5 (-110) Odds via @mgmbet.bsky.social #SKOL #Vikings #NFLTrainingCamp #NFL #NFLNews
— BetFTW (@betftw.bsky.social) 2026-08-11T16:27:36.873Z
It's another brutal blow in a brief career filled with them for McCarthy. He missed the entirety of his rookie season due to a knee injury. In his stead, journeyman backup Sam Darnold went from "veteran mentor" to "stud quarterback" in a 14-win season. O'Connell opted to stick with the quarterback his front office drafted 10th overall in 2024. That was two slots ahead of Bo Nix, a different kind of flawed-but-intriguing passer who was arguably an ankle injury away from leading the Denver Broncos to the Super Bowl last winter.
Waiting for Nix in the big game? That would have been Darnold, who went on to sign a modest three-year deal with the Seattle Seahawks before leading them to a world championship.
Meanwhile, McCarthy's rookie season was a disaster. He held the ball too long. He threw passes to nowhere. He got outplayed by Carson Wentz. His 66.5 percent on-target throw rate was second-worst among all NFL starters since the league began tracking the stat in 2019. Justin Jefferson languished, then proved he may be the only superstar wideout with a normal brain by avoiding the temptation to cryptically tweet about it.
Now McCarthy will take a back seat to another veteran revival. Murray faded from a Pro Bowl start to his career, but he proved he can handle a low-impact offense and get the ball to his receivers. Between 2022 and 2024his bad throw rate was only 12.6 percent -- significantly lower than McCarthy's 21.3. Granted, that came with an average target distance of 6.9 yards downfield, but it also came with a significantly worse receiving corps. Now he gets to play with the same group McCarthy failed to maximize last season.
Murray is also known for the one thing McCarthy did pretty well last season. The first-year starter was an efficient scrambler who could diagnose defenses in RPOs and create some wiggle room with his speed and athleticism. But his 1.7 rush yards over expected (RYOE) per carry last season pale to Murray's 2.6 in 2024. This was all reason to sign Murray to a one-year revival deal at the veteran's minimum, and now O'Connell will get to see if the veteran can run his offense the way his young gun could not.
C'mon man, say something nice about J.J. McCarthy
Ok, here goes.
McCarthy is 23 years old. He was always a curious choice for an air-it-out offense because that was never the focus of his Michigan teams. His national champion Wolverines ran the ball more than 60 percent of the time -- a balance that was not going to be replicated in the NFL, but still could have been useful for a team with a bellcow RB1. While the Vikings have two nice pieces in Aaron Jones and Jordan Mason, they lacked the kind of ground game that would have freed up more single coverage. This would have created an easier path to the contingency plan of "heck, Justin Jefferson's down there somewhere."
McCarthy too often got lost cycling through his reads and defaulted to scrambling too early. This led to a long time in the pocket (3.02 seconds, fourth-highest in the NFL) and the on-the-run, off-balance tosses to nowhere. It's troubling, undoubtedly, but it's not unfixable.
McCarthy led the Big Ten in completion rate in his final season. His lack of touch may never bring him back to those heights -- dropping a ball in between layers of defenders has never been a selling point -- but he has the mechanics to execute an offense that plays to his strengths. The fact he couldn't do that as O'Connell's guy with Jefferson and Jordan Addison at the ready is even more troubling, but one year isn't enough to totally write him off.
The other plus is that he remains an effective scrambler who could use that athleticism to have a Malik Willis-type second act. Willis wasn't a viable NFL starter until he landed under Matt LaFleur's tutelage in Green Bay (and even then, benefitted from small sample sizes and a lack of game tape to plan against him). Willis' bad throw rate his first two seasons was a robust 22 percent. That was down to 5.7 percent in 2025, where he was given the directive to flip through reads with urgency, then take off as a runner if there was no obvious throw to be made in the first two seconds after the snap (22 carries in 98 offensive snaps last fall).
That's the blueprint for McCarthy. He may not have a second act in him as a Viking, but he's not beyond repair. He needs a simplified game plan to correct the overthinking and frustrating risk involved in his throws (a 4.9 percent interception rate last fall).
The odds aren't in his favor. He seems destined to follow the Willis path, and there's a reasonable chance his NFL legacy is "the guy who served as the launchpad for broken NFL veterans to thrive again." But Tuesday's demotion isn't the end of J.J. McCarthy. Even if some Minnesota fans may not mind if it were.
This article originally appeared on For The Win: J.J. McCarthy isn't cooked in Minnesota, but it sure doesn't look good
