EAGAN, Minn. Many NFL fans were surprised on the night of January 5, when the Minnesota Vikings quarterback of the future got considerable airtime during NBC’s broadcast of the team’s 31-9 loss to the Detroit Lions. . JJ McCarthy, who missed his rookie season due to 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 to many football players who discontinued strength training during the rehab process. McCarthy has plenty of time to regain 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 to discuss his immediate future.
McCarthy is one of two quarterbacks the Vikings have under contract through 2025 (veteran Brett Rypien), but he recently began on-field training and has a lot of work left to get his body back to football condition.
National discussion has framed the Vikings’ looming quarterback decision as whether they should re-sign veteran Sam Darnold, who will become an unrestricted free agent. But his first priority is to assess McCarthy’s capacity for rapid ascension.
“He’s … right where we expected he’d be right now,” O’Connell said, “having the kind of offseason to be able to answer that question.”
Adofo-Mensah said: “We are very confident in him, his work ethic and his preparation. But I can’t sit here and tell you that I know anything for sure.”
There isn’t much precedent to project McCarthy’s next move. He was the first quarterback in the modern NFL draft era (since 1967) to miss his entire rookie season due to injury after being selected in the first round.
But realistically, the Vikings have 40 days before they have to tip their hand. The NFL’s deadline to use the franchise tag is March 4, after which the Vikings would be unable to prevent Darnold from accepting a free agent contract with another team when the negotiating window opens on March 10. They can always sign Darnold before that point, if he’s willing to give up a trip to the open market, and trading him after applying the franchise tag is another option.
Evaluating Darnold for a potential 2025 starting role comes with 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 time he ranked No. 12 in the NFL with a 63.8 QBR. But his performance then opened up in the Vikings’ two biggest games — regular-season-ending losses to the Lions and the round of wildcards to the Los Angeles Rams — as he threw a combined 23 passes off-target, according to NFL Next Generation Stats, and took 11 sacks. His QBR (14.8) ranked 31st out of 32 qualified quarterbacks during that period.
Immediately afterward, O’Connell said it will be “very important” to consider Darnold’s entire “body of work” rather than focusing on the Lions and Rams games. And according to Adofo-Mensah, the Vikings discussed the possibility of Darnold flipping their timeline to McCarthy before the season even started.
“I always ask Kevin [O’Connell] Before the season starts, ‘Hey, what information would you need to change your mind?’ “said Adofo-Mensah.” And say it beforehand so you don’t have to deal with what could potentially 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 in previous stops and what Kevin’s infrastructure and our infrastructure here have done for other quarterbacks who have played here, we thought there was a chance at a high level.
“Did I know it was going to be a professional bowl? I’m not going to sit here and tell you that. But I think there was a part of us that all believed that Sam was going to have a very good season, And so, when we made the move, that was part of the calculation.”
McCarthy turned 22 earlier this month and is younger than most of the top quarterbacks in the 2025 draft. If the Vikings decide he needs another year of seasoning, re-signing Darnold is a realistic option. However, anything less than that could spur a third option: pairing McCarthy with a different veteran who could give them a credible outing on the field until McCarthy is ready. And the Vikings are already deep into evaluating the most likely 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.
“He was just giving us options depending on what could potentially 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 helps to see it up close sometimes, 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 it’s a potential option for us in the future.”
If nothing else, this season provided a clear glimpse of Darnold’s ceiling. The Vikings know how well he can play in their system, but they also saw his limitations. They’ll combine that information with their best projection of McCarthy’s progress, and over the next six to eight weeks, their plan at the position will be clear.