Talking about the Minnesota Vikings quarterback competition is a fascinating discussion with a lot of nuance.
The quarterback competition for the Minnesota Vikings is fascinating to look at.
After playing in just 10 games during his first two seasons, J.J. McCarthy has not played well enough to warrant being given the job outright going into his third season. It's why the Vikings chose to bring in Kyler Murray and retain Carson Wentz for depth.
There have been a lot of questions surrounding the quarterback competition, especially from the perspective of whether it's legit or not.
One of the interesting elements of the Vikings' quarterback situation is keeping McCarthy versus trying to trade him. There were some good moments for McCarthy, who finished 6-4 as a starter, including winning his final four starts. Tom Pelissero on The Rich Eisen Show highlighted an interesting aspect behind why the Vikings are likely to stage a real competition: they haven't traded McCarthy .
"You watch him play some of the games down the stretch, even though he's dealing with a hand that was messed up. He had the baby early on in the season. There's so much going on in his life and with his body through the course of the season that it's hard to get a read, and that's not to say JJs, you know, he's a success, and you got to give him the job. No, it's to say there's enough there, and he's young enough that they're not just going to punt on him. If this were just, it's Kyler's job, and J.J. is competing with Carson Wentz to be the two. You would have traded J.J., you would have gotten whatever you could get for him already, because the longer you wait to trade a guy like JJ McCarthy, the less his value is other teams trade for untapped potential and traits. You trade something of value because your grade you had on JJ McCarthy coming out in 2024 and listen, it was not consistent, but the longer he's in the league, and the more you don't see what you thought he could be, the harder it is to justify trading something of value for the guy, not to mention the fact that you're further into his contract, and now that value on a rookie contract isn't there, so I fully anticipate they're going to give J.J. McCarthy the opportunity here to come in and compete with Kyler [Murray].
It is an interesting discussion point that Pelissero brings up. If the Vikings were really done with McCarthy, they would be way more open to trading him. The longer he stays in Minnesota without playing, the worse his trade value gets. There is also the variable of the Vikings actually believing he could be saved by sitting for a year. We shouldn't be using the off-field stuff as an excuse for McCarthy, but with so much change happening during his first season, it's fair to wonder if he will get better with those changes being ironed out.
Now comes the real reason why the Vikings likely kept McCarthy while bringing in McCarthy: quarterback injuries. In two of the first four seasons under head coach Kevin O'Connell, he's had to start at least three quarterbacks. Having multiple starting caliber quarterbacks has been a major priority for O'Connell. Even if it means costing the Vikings a round or two of draft picks, that's worth it to O'Connell.
Essentially, the competition is both legitimate and not, but we won't know how much it is until late July at the earliest.
