JJ McCarthy’s Importance Will Determine His Timeline
Everyone knows the quarterback position is the most important in sports. The right one can lead you to glory, the wrong one can put you in sports poverty. Whether you’re a general manager, coach, or even a player, the QB determines whether you swim or drown, win or lose, and most importantly: keep your job or don’t.
Kwesi Adofo-Mensah and Kevin O’Connell are coming face-to-face with this reality as they enter the JJ McCarthy Era. Drafted No. 10 overall in 2024, Michigan’s National Champion could either end up being their crown jewel or the knife in the heart of their careers. O’Connell’s announcement of Sam Darnold as the Vikings’ starter to begin training camp is a sign that the team takes that seriously. McCarthy’s development is simply too important to rush.
Standing at 6-foot-3 with a strong arm and 27-1 record as a starter with the Wolverines, McCarthy is a decent player to bet a career on. He looked good in the Michigan offense, but his flaws stuck out like a sore thumb. Namely, he struggled out of structure, and he was poor throwing to the left side of the field. These are just two of the things he will work on before the Vikings can allow him to take over the starting job in July and beyond.
Why? Because the idea that a young quarterback will enter the league and steadily improve year-over-year is a myth. Once a quarterback steps between those lines and gets behind that center, the guy you see is pretty much who you’ll get. Sundays in the NFL aren’t an on-the-job training program, or at least, not at quarterback, so when they step into game action, they have to be 100% ready.
Obviously, there will be fluctuation in play in anyone’s rookie year, and coaches can still iron out some minor fixes to a young quarterback. But it is extremely rare to see someone look lost playing that position and do a complete 180. A true physical freak like Josh Allen might be a rare exception, but for almost anyone else, a fast start is imperative.
Look at the rest of the top quarterbacks, Patrick Mahomes, Justin Herbert, Joe Burrow, Dak Prescott, and more performed instantly and never looked back. The confidence gained from a good start is almost as vital as their skills. In a sport where overthinking leads to failure, not having to waste mental energy doubting yourself is a massive advantage.
The name of the game with McCarthy is simple: he will either step onto the field 100% ready to run the offense, or the entire organization is in trouble. This idea is exactly why McCarthy will be stashed on the bench until the Vikings are certain he is ready. The most important thing is to allow McCarthy to refine his abilities and fix his flaws in no-pressure practice situations, not in a game where Aiden Hutchinson is coming full-speed at him.
Luckily for the Vikings, once McCarthy is ready, the team has one of the most stacked offenses in the league in place for him to step into. With the likes of Justin Jefferson, Christian Darrisaw, Jordan Addison, Aaron Jones, and others, McCarthy will be surrounded by players he can build confidence with early. O’Connell also loves play-action, which plays into McCarthy’s strengths, as he thrived doing similar things at Michigan.
The clock for GMs starts counting down once they’ve drafted a quarterback, and Adofo-Mensah is no exception to this rule, especially since he even traded up to get his guy. Adofo-Mensah has already raised eyebrows with questionable trades and picks, highlighted by a 2022 Draft which has seen nearly all 10 of their picks run their course with the organization already.
Those missteps are small potatoes in comparison to a Quarterback of the Future not being the future. Misfiring with McCarthy would almost certainly be the end of his tenure with the Vikings. He should demand patience and timing with his new prize. Kevin O’Connell might have a longer leash, but the quarterback guru’s job could still be in jeopardy almost immediately.
Luckily, it sounds like McCarthy is making good time in minicamp and OTAs. O’Connell has praised his progress so far, noting that he’s “had a great spring” and is “working his tail off.” The team seems prepared to take the right approach to prosper with the most important piece in the organization.
From this point forward, the Vikings’ future will be determined almost solely on the back of J.J. McCarthy. If McCarthy doesn’t turn out, a lot of people will be walking out of TCO with boxes of their stuff, leaving behind empty offices and locker rooms. For that reason, they will take their time with the QB, leaving Darnold to hold it down for as long as necessary while they groom the next Golden Boy from Michigan.
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