Two years into J.J. McCarthy’s NFL career, the early returns have been rough enough to make people wonder whether Minnesota ever gave him a real shot to become what it hoped it was drafting.
The former Michigan quarterback arrived in the league with the 10th overall pick in the 2024 NFL Draft, but his first season vanished because of a meniscus tear. Then came 2025, when he finally won the starting job and still struggled badly enough to draw mockery from fans after he described a Bruce Banner/Hulk-style split with a version of himself he called “Nine.”
And yet two years is a short runway, especially for quarterbacks. Jared Goff, Baker Mayfield and Sam Darnold all shook off the “bust” label and rebuilt themselves elsewhere, and that is the path that feels most plausible for McCarthy too. The bigger issue, as it looks now, is that Minnesota may not be the place where his best football ever shows up.
The fit looked ideal before the draft. Minnesota had a roster built to win, a receiver group headlined by Justin Jefferson, defensive playmakers, and Kevin O’Connell running the offense. From the outside, it seemed like McCarthy was walking into a setup that had everything he needed.
But the timing never quite lined up. When the Vikings drafted him in 2024, the organization was treated like a team in win-now mode, one quarterback away from a Lombardi.
McCarthy, though, was never sold as the most polished passer in the class. The general read on him was that he was a project, someone who would need time.
That left him in a strange spot: expected to be the answer, even though he was drafted like a long-term bet.
That mismatch is why a clean break starts to make sense. Minnesota’s roster is aging, and the team has brought in Kyler Murray as an attempt to get the most out of a defense that can still be fearsome and an offense built around Jefferson, Jordan Addison, T.J.
Hockenson and Christian Darrisaw. O’Connell is heading into his fifth season without a playoff win, and the pressure is growing if that doesn’t change.
For both sides, an amicable divorce may be the simplest answer.
If McCarthy lands somewhere else, the next stop should be a place where he does not have to start immediately. Sitting a quarterback for a year has worked before - Carson Palmer, Aaron Rodgers, Patrick Mahomes and Jordan Love all benefited from that kind of setup.
McCarthy, though, didn’t get the clean version of that experience. The meniscus tear turned his first year into something closer to survival mode, with meetings and film study replacing the physical development he should have been getting.
That matters. Watching tape has value, but it is not the same as building footwork, poise and the other mechanics that come with real reps and healthy practice time. A fresh “year zero,” this time with a veteran to learn behind and no rehab cloud hanging over him, might be what he needs most.
Scheme matters too. Minnesota’s West Coast-style offense under O’Connell does not look like the best immediate match for him.
McCarthy has an NFL arm, but his ball placement and touch need work, and he has a habit of throwing with too much force. His pocket presence and vision are also still developing.
Right now, the best version of him probably comes in a play-action-heavy, run-first system closer to what he ran at Michigan. His mobility is his best trait at the NFL level, and an offense that uses his legs without asking him to live in tight-window short passing could help bring him along.
There are a few places that could make sense. Atlanta stands out as a team in a long-running rebuild with a volatile quarterback picture, and a trade for McCarthy could put him behind Michael Penix Jr. or Tua Tagovailoa for a year before handing him the keys to a Bijan Robinson-powered offense in 2027. Indianapolis is another possibility, especially if the Daniel Jones experiment has run its course by the end of the year.
The biggest concern, though, is health. McCarthy came into the league with a relatively lanky frame, and the injuries have piled up faster than expected.
Last year alone, he missed time because of three separate injuries, which kept him from building any rhythm. That is the clearest red flag in his profile, even if it is also the hardest one to measure from the outside.
So the verdict is still open. The first two years have been ugly, but the evidence points to a player who may have been drafted into the wrong timeline and the wrong offense. If McCarthy gets traded to a team that can let him sit, develop and play to his strengths, there is still a path for him to salvage this and become the quarterback Michigan fans thought he could be.
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