Kevin SeifertJan 3, 2026, 06:00 AM ETCloseKevin Seifert is a staff writer who covers the Minnesota Vikings and the NFL at ESPN. Kevin has covered the NFL for over 20 years, joining ESPN in 2008. He was previously a beat reporter for the Minneapolis Star Tribune and Washington Times. He is a graduate of the University of Virginia.Follow on X
Vikings DC Brian Flores is near the end of his contract (1:05)Kevin Seifert breaks down the latest on Brian Flores and his contract with the Vikings. (1:05)
There is no better symbol of the Vikings’ season than fans wishing for a new quarterback only four months after the team installed 22-year-old J.J. McCarthy — the talented and charismatic 2024 first-round draft pick who had the fan base swooning this summer.
McCarthy’s performance, when he wasn’t missing seven games because of three separate injuries, was at times so concerning that it was reasonable to suggest he should be replaced after one season. The more likely outcome is the Vikings having a renewed interest in adding a starting-caliber veteran to pair and possibly compete with McCarthy, according to league sources. That potential move would create a more robust quarterback room than the one that doomed them in 2025.
McCarthy demonstrated some progress during a December winning streak, but it came in games against three of the NFL’s worst defenses. Entering Week 18, McCarthy’s QBR (33.9) ranks 46th out of 58 quarterbacks who have made at least one start. He has had only two games with more than 200 passing yards.
“At times, I feel like I let my teammates down and my coaches down,” McCarthy said, “and that’s the hardest thing for me. But the most encouraging thing is seeing them pick me up and understand the culture.”
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?
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.”
MCCARTHY MISSED HIS rookie season because of a torn right meniscus and lost nearly 40 pounds in the ensuing months. He later connected the weight loss to his inability to work out rigorously during his recovery.
The Vikings thought they had a head start after signing Jones to their practice squad in Week 13 of the 2024 season. Jones had requested and received his release from the New York Giants, and Darnold was in the midst of a breakout year. With McCarthy set to return in 2025, the Vikings thought Darnold merited more than they could offer him: a long-term starting role.
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.
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.
Wentz won two of the five starts he made in place of McCarthy before undergoing season-ending surgery on his left shoulder. Wentz’s QBR (45.3) ranks No. 34 of the 58 quarterbacks who have started at least one game, but four of the Vikings’ top offensive games this season — based on total yards — came in his starts.
Darnold signed with the Seattle Seahawks and became the first quarterback in NFL history to lead two franchises to 13-plus victories in consecutive seasons. Rodgers has the Pittsburgh Steelers one win from their first AFC North championship in five seasons. Jones had the Colts tied for first place in the AFC South when he tore his right Achilles tendon in Week 14.
THE FRAGILE NATURE of the arrangement surfaced two weeks into the season. McCarthy won his first NFL start, beating the Chicago Bears in a fourth-quarter comeback on “Monday Night Football” in Week 1, but then he missed a day of practice the next week to be with his fiancée for the birth of their son, Rome.
O’Connell has referenced the event publicly at least half a dozen times, not to begrudge the decision to miss practice but to lament the inopportune timing. 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.
Noting McCarthy’s tendency to have passes batted at the line of scrimmage — he leads the NFL with an average of 2.13 per game — O’Connell said: “There was also some times where I think we’re moving pretty aggressively, churning up, eating up some space and the friendliness of the pocket, and we’ve got to continue to find that balance and that posture and then maintain it without chewing up too much grass.”
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.
“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.