Kevin O’Connell Sets the Stage For His Quarterbacks
Credit: Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports
The biggest question of the upcoming Minnesota Vikings season is, without a doubt, if and when J.J. McCarthy will take over as the starting quarterback. Since the draft, consensus has been that the Vikings will see how far Sam Darnold can take the team, while letting McCarthy learn behind the veteran. Would that be for, say, six games? Most of the season? Until next year? No one knows, but most expect Darnold to start the season under center.
So it’s at least a bit surprising, and more than a little intriguing, that Kevin O’Connell appears ready to have an open competition for the starting quarterback role. “My message to those guys is I want a really competitive situation,” O’Connell said on Monday. “Sam will be taking the majority of his reps with [the starters], but I think you’ll see J.J. maybe get some as well.”
Translation: Show us what you got, kid.
The move is at least a touch surprising, given that up to this point, the Vikings have been almost fanatical in pumping the brakes on their rookie. Moving up to sneaking first-team reps in training camp is a jump from where he was as short as seven weeks ago in minicamp, taking third-string snaps behind Darnold and Nick Mullens.
O’Connell opening up the door to McCarthy, at least a little bit, indicates that he wasn’t blowing smoke when he told the media Monday, “J.J. came in here after being drafted and had a really productive spring.”
With training camp practices being more open to the media and public than OTAs or minicamps, putting a spotlight on McCarthy now shows some confidence that he can flash his potential with all eyes on him.
It’s probably still a long shot that McCarthy would start on Opening Day, especially as Kevin Siefert of ESPN noted last week that O’Connell’s history would suggest caution with McCarthy. Siefert points out that while in Washington, the then-quarterbacks coach got a first-hand look at a rushed quarterback in Dwayne Haskins.
Haskins, the No. 15 pick in the 2019 Draft, perhaps didn’t get particularly rushed into duty, at least by regular rookie quarterback standards. He filled in for a struggling, then injured Case Keenum in Weeks 4 and 8, then started seven games from Weeks 9-16. But even that normal-seeming timetable was too fast for O’Connell’s liking, a belief backed up by the fact that Washington released the quarterback after his sophomore season.
“When we selected [Haskins], we had a lot of confidence in what he could become under the right circumstances and development and timetable,” O’Connell told Siefert. “And that didn’t exactly end up being the mindset just a few short months later.”
That experience comes with a vow that in the position of head coach (Jay Gruden, not O’Connell, had the final say with Haskins’ development), O’Connell won’t make a similar mistake with a young quarterback. “I will not allow any factors outside of what’s best for J.J. and what’s best to help the Minnesota Vikings win.”
That kind of statement makes the wrench the Vikings tossed in on Monday even more interesting. After all, not every quarterback is going to have the same ideal timetable for development. Some quarterbacks can take their lumps right away and handle it, other players might need to be eased into the NFL. Perhaps Haskins needed to simply sit for almost the entire season, but McCarthy could be best served with a more accelerated timeline.
We don’t know when that timetable is, but we can be reasonably sure that O’Connell and Kwesi Adofo-Mensah are in lockstep with adhering to what they believe is McCarthy’s ideal development plan is their top priority. Based on Monday’s announcement, it might be a little closer than we think. We’ll get to find out a little bit more as training camp and the preseason go on.
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