EAGAN, Minn. — Vikings fans were watching warmups in December when an in-house camera began panning the crowd at U.S. Bank Stadium. It stopped at a group holding a homemade poster.
The top of the poster read: “All I want for Christmas”
On the bottom was an image of Cincinnati Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow, whose late-season musings about his future have sparked speculation that he could change teams during the offseason.
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.”
The Vikings hoped first-year starting QB J.J. McCarthy would lead them back to the playoffs, but they enter Week 18 at 8-8 and are looking ahead to next season. Cooper Neill/Getty Images
Internal concerns about McCarthy’s style of play, accuracy, mechanics and even his personality spilled into public. But no hands were left clean.
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?
ESPN has tracked the transition since it began last spring and spoke to league and team sources about it. One of the clear takeaways is that Jones’ decision to sign with the Indianapolis Colts upended the Vikings’ plan far more than previously known. There is also widespread agreement that the Vikings overestimated McCarthy’s floor as a first-year starter.
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.”
Daniel Jones didn’t play during his brief tenure with the Vikings last season, but the front office planned to re-sign him for 2025. Bailey Hillesheim/Icon Sportswire
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’ bigger issue was the team’s need to construct its quarterback room before the club would see McCarthy in a full offseason practice. The Vikings had been excited about his future before the injury, and planned to increase his first-team reps when it occurred, but a long period of inactivity had passed since then.
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.
The Vikings then turned their deliberations to Rodgers, who was a free agent and had contacted O’Connell to express interest in signing with them. There were multiple reasons why the Vikings passed, sources said, but one of them was the front office’s internal assessment that at 41, he was no longer likely to play at a Super Bowl level. Making the playoffs with Rodgers, but not winning the Super Bowl, wasn’t an equitable trade-off for delaying McCarthy’s ascension, they concluded.
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.
Similar to J.J. McCarthy, left, Carson Wentz didn’t stay healthy in 2025, eventually undergoing season-ending shoulder surgery. AP Photo/Jessie Alcheh
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.
“There’s a lot of things we saw in his film that we were excited about,” Adofo-Mensah said at the time about Howell. O’Connell never warmed to him during a rough training camp. At O’Connell’s behest, the Vikings replaced him 12 days before the season opener with nine-year NFL veteran Carson Wentz. The swap was far from ideal, but O’Connell trusted his ability to have Wentz ready if needed.
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.
Fair or not, comparing McCarthy with Darnold, Rodgers and Jones has been inevitable.
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.
J.J. McCarthy’s floor as a first-year starting quarterback wasn’t nearly as high as Vikings coach Kevin O’Connell had hoped. Melissa Tamez/Icon Sportswire
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 fiancĂŠe 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.”
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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.
“The beautiful thing about Josh is, yeah, he’s got a big arm, but he doesn’t overthrow it very often,” Warner said. “He does a great job of taking something off, of throwing what I call a firm but soft ball, a nice little arc on it, easy for his guys to adjust to and catch the ball.
“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.”
The Vikings want J.J. McCarthy to strike a balance between his youthful exuberance and a professional mindset. Matt Marton-Imagn Images
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.
But by Week 14, he had taken a clear step forward. In wins over the Washington Commanders, Dallas Cowboys and New York Giants, he completed 65.6% of his passes, dropped his off-target rate from 20.6% to 13.1% and accounted for six touchdowns. He also cut his turnover rate nearly in half, committing three during that stretch after totaling 11 in his first six starts.
It’s fair to question those trends because of the poor defenses he faced. They rank No. 28, 31 and 32, respectively, in the NFL based on EPA per play. But it infused energy throughout the locker room. Right tackle Brian O’Neill said multiple players pushed through injuries in the second half of the season “because we want to be out with him.”
Asked what he would have told himself before the season, based on the events that followed, McCarthy said: “Give yourself some grace. Understand this is one of the hardest positions in the world and you’re 22 years old. It’s going to take some time, and really just keep taking those punches and keep getting up. At the end of the day, it’s just about showing up day in, day out.”
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Throughout it all, O’Connell was pushing McCarthy to balance his emerging personality with the demands of being a professional quarterback.
McCarthy has always had an exuberant aura, one that his longtime quarterback coach Greg Holcomb has said can “almost look obnoxious” to people who don’t know him.
In Week 10, McCarthy referred to a competitive alter ego he called “Nine,” creating what will likely be a lifetime social media meme. He also tested the coaching staff’s patience by launching into a touchdown celebration 5 yards before scoring in Week 15 against the Cowboys. Days before, he had bobbled the ball during a similar celebration in practice and was told not to try it in a game.
In a news conference afterward, McCarthy admitted he was actually “more enticed” to celebrate after hearing the warning.
Speaking specifically about “Nine” during his weekly appearance on KFAN-100.3, O’Connell said an NFL quarterback needs confidence and a “comfort” in themselves.
“And if it’s authentic in the moment,” O’Connell said, “fire away. Have at it. But we don’t need to exhaust any energy. Our jobs are hard enough already. Trying to be somebody else or trying to play to some sort of persona or whatever it may be, let’s just go back to work, man. Let’s just go back to work and try to get better every single day.”
In sum, though, O’Connell said that McCarthy’s 250-yard, three-touchdown performance against the Cowboys “just felt like the guy that he can be for us.”
“It felt like it was repeatable,” O’Connell said.
A series of injuries limited Vikings quarterback J.J. McCarthy to 10 games during the 2025 season. Patrick McDermott/Getty Images
CONTINUED ON-FIELD GROWTH is a reasonable goal, but McCarthy’s health is a second and no less important challenge.
Within the organization, many admire McCarthy’s toughness. He has finished three of the four games in which he suffered injuries. In the fourth matchup, Week 16 against the New York Giants, he did not seek medical attention for what turned out to be a hairline fracture in his throwing hand until he dropped the football on an aborted screen play.
All four of McCarthy’s NFL injuries — a torn meniscus in his right knee, a high right ankle sprain, a concussion and the fractured hand — came as he tried to extend plays beyond their original design. He took an average of 10 hits per game this season, 10th most among the 58 quarterbacks who have made at least one start.
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Jefferson viewed McCarthy’s play style as more youthful exuberance.
“I feel like he plays his heart out, and he plays with just that attitude to want to just win, no matter how it happens,” Jefferson said. “It doesn’t matter if he’s risking his body jumping into the end zone or on that third down, running into that first down.
“He’s a kid, at the end of the day. He still has that motor to want to just run into people and have that ability to have that type of effect on the game. I mean, I don’t mind it, but definitely he needs to be a little bit more careful about being safe, and of course, we need him for the entire season.”
Rewriting those instincts can be difficult. It was one of the most important lessons McCarthy could have learned from watching Wentz’s five-game stint, which ended because of a torn labrum suffered after absorbing a hit from Cleveland Browns linebacker Carson Schwesinger.
“It’s definitely something you think about,” Wentz said. “It’s just in the heat of the moment — how do you think? How does your mind work? What instincts take over? And so it’s always something I come back to and watch film, and it’s like, ‘That was probably dumb. I’ve got to be better. I’ve got to learn.’ I hate to say it, but I’ve been saying that to myself for 10 years.”
THERE IS DANGER in overreacting to the poor play of young quarterbacks and being fooled by incremental growth. Hall of Fame receiver Cris Carter said last month on the “Up and Adams Show” that the Vikings’ community has “lowered our standards so much to accommodate” McCarthy.
“I still believe he can be the franchise quarterback,” Carter said, “but let me tell you something. Right now, today, we don’t know.”
McCarthy endured many of the struggles most young quarterbacks face. It was the biggest reason the Vikings will miss the playoffs, but he indisputably played better at the end of the season than he did at the beginning.
Is that enough to merit another season atop the Vikings’ depth chart? Can Adofo-Mensah and O’Connell commit another season to his development?
The Vikings likely will be connected to every rumor about possible trades for an established starter, be it Burrow, the Baltimore Ravens’ Lamar Jackson, the Arizona Cardinals’ Kyler Murray or others. No one ESPN spoke with would rule out that possibility, but they noted that O’Connell’s push to get McCarthy on the field for Sunday’s season finale against the Green Bay Packers (1 p.m. ET, CBS) suggests a desire to continue working with him.
What almost everyone agreed on, however, is that the Vikings can’t fail again to acquire a veteran quarterback who can provide what Darnold delivered in 2024 and what they hoped Jones would give them in 2025.
McCarthy provided a fitting epitaph to the season in December, posting a series of photographs on Instagram that concluded with this text: “You are not behind; you are on your own timeline.”
Laid over the photo carousel was a verse of Frank Sinatra’s version of “That’s Life”:
Some people get their kicks
Stomping on a dream
But I don’t let it, let it get me down
‘Cause this fine old world, it keeps spinning around.
—
ESPN senior national reporter Jeremy Fowler contributed to this report.
