Kevin O’Connell had a simple chance to shut down Cris Carter’s claim about J.J. McCarthy. He didn’t take it.
On Monday, the Vikings head coach joined KFXN-FM’s “Bumper to Bumper with Dan Barreiro” and was asked about Carter’s recent podcast comments that McCarthy was a quarterback former general manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah wanted to draft in 2024, but not O’Connell.
O’Connell never flatly rejected that idea. Instead, he talked around it, saying there was “a lot of momentum, from me included, to draft a quarterback and to try to go get a quarterback that we felt like we can hopefully develop and build around under the premier development of what we thought we can do with time on task.”
He added that once Kirk Cousins had moved on, “it felt like the right time and place for a lot of people that we needed to add a young quarterback.”
O’Connell went on to explain that Minnesota was focused on finding a quarterback it could develop, while also pointing to Sam Darnold and the confidence he had in him. He said the team believed it could sort things out afterward, and that after entering the draft, “We still feel so strongly about who J.J. is and what he's made of and where his upside can get to, all while having lost an entire calendar year of development where we tried.”
He also said, “We tried virtual reality, we tried, but nothing quite can mimic what you go through when you go through the ebb and flow of playing quarterback in the NFL.”
The exchange only added to the awkwardness around Carter’s claim. O’Connell could have simply said, “No, that's not true,” but he didn’t. He also never specifically said McCarthy was the young quarterback Minnesota wanted at that moment, even while discussing the push to bring in a young passer after Cousins left.
The backdrop here matters. Before the 2024 NFL Draft, it was widely apparent that Drake Maye was the prospect O’Connell had interest in. The Vikings even hired Josh McCown as quarterbacks coach in part because he had coached Maye in high school.
Minnesota also reportedly made an offer to the New England Patriots to move up to No. 3 overall for Maye, but that deal wasn’t accepted. The Vikings ended up taking McCarthy instead.
Since then, McCarthy’s path has been rocky. He dealt with injury trouble as a rookie, then struggled once he finally got on the field in year two. Meanwhile, the man who drafted him is no longer with the team.
And after Monday’s radio appearance, the situation around McCarthy only feels messier. O’Connell had a chance to defend him directly. He didn’t.
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