Kevin O’Connell Perfectly Shuts Down The JJ McCarthy Doubters
Credit: Brad Rempel-USA TODAY Sports
As fans and media continue to play the guessing game of which veteran the Vikings will put in their quarterback room, the head coach has a message for those doubting JJ McCarthy.
Appearing on a brand new episode of This Is Football from Omaha Productions and ESPN, Kevin O’Connell responded firmly to a question about why some of his fans who might be doubting McCarthy should believe in him
“I think the biggest thing for me is, when we went through that process last year, and a lot of the things that you mentioned, I noticed. His ability to throw the ball in windows over the middle of the field, to be accurate in the weighty downs. He was really effective on third downs. I think he had a pretty historical clip on seven pluses, red zone passing. Like everybody can say that percentages of attempts. He didn’t throw a lot of bubble screens, he didn’t throw a lot of RPOs. He didn’t do a lot of those things. He was in a pro style offense where they were running the football. They were marrying the run and the pass on early downs. They needed high quality execution on some of those weighty downs. And that’s really what we’d like to be with our offense”
“And then the other thing I would say is… that same player has had a year now of being around a guy like Sam Darnold going through his journey, a one year journey with the success Sam had. He got to watch it. He got to see what meetings were like. What’s it like when I install third down plays and we talk about the reads, and we talk about the detail of how we’re going to play against this opponent who plays like this this week? I think he’s been around all that, so he’s not a rookie. He’s been able to have that pseudo red shirt year, albeit without the reps we would have wanted, but I’m really confident and really excited to see him hit the ground running. He’s had a great offseason, and I can’t wait to get going with him when OTAs actually get going.”
“Really what I would say for him, he’s not hearing anything for the first time. He now can hear us follow a play or a concept or a run play, or we can it for this reason, and he’s heard all of those things before. So… what I would equate it to when you go to your undergrad for pre med, pre law, then you hear a lot about the things you’re inevitably gonna have to have mastery of. That’s kind of where he’s at right now, and also not putting any pressure on him to be anything more than he’s not. What I thought was really cool about this year also was seeing some of those non on-the-field traits we knew we had of him. He’s a locker room energizer, changer. The guys on the team really love his energy. They love his youthful enthusiasm, but yet he’s got kind of an old soul to him. Really, really excited about him.”
I asked Kevin O’Connell what he’d say to a Vikings fan who asked to be sold on JJ McCarthy. Awesome answer on what JJ does well.
“I’m really confident and really excited to see him hit the ground running. He’s had a great offseason.”
Great This Is Football drops tonight. pic.twitter.com/lA2aUBIiQD
— Kevin Clark (@bykevinclark) March 30, 2025
Strong words from a head coach who clearly believes in his young quarterback. O’Connell has earned the leash to prove to everyone that his quarterback is going to be every bit as good as he says he is.
The full interview is fantastic.
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