The latest revisionist spin around J.J. McCarthy doesn’t hold up.
Cris Carter stirred the pot on his "Fully Loaded Podcast" earlier this week, saying the quarterback was the general manager’s guy and implying Kevin O’Connell wasn’t really part of the decision. Carter also said Kwesi Adofo-Mensah never got a contract extension, which is off the mark - the Vikings did that in May 2025.
But the broader idea that O’Connell was just along for the ride on McCarthy? That’s tough to buy.
Minnesota’s quarterback hunt started the moment O’Connell and Adofo-Mensah arrived. The team extended Kirk Cousins before the 2022 season, but the long-term plan was always to find a franchise quarterback. When Cousins left for the Atlanta Falcons in free agency in spring 2024, that search kicked into high gear.
O’Connell’s fingerprints were all over the process. Ahead of the 2024 draft, he clearly had interest in Drake Maye, even bringing in Josh McCown as quarterbacks coach after McCown had coached Maye in high school. Maye went third overall to the New England Patriots, and that shut down Minnesota’s trade-up hopes.
O’Connell also made it clear he had already been steering the Vikings away from quarterbacks he didn’t believe in. In a church in the Twin Cities area, he said:
“For a couple years, I’ve been kind of known as the quarterback killer when it comes to the draft in Eagan. Because the feeling that I feel from our fanbase is when we get this next guy, he’s gonna be the guy. And I feel it; I know you guys all feel it.
So I have had to fight off some mistakes from being made, mainly because [of] the evaluation process I go through.
I think about the things that are fixable. I think about the things that are coachable. And then you think about the things that, you know, you could coach another 15 years with a player, and you might not be able to fix.”
That came after he had already identified Sam Darnold as his quarterback, a move that helped fuel a 14-win season. A few weeks later, the Vikings took McCarthy, a Michigan product whose run-heavy offense masked some rough mechanics. O’Connell believed those issues could be cleaned up, and he said he saw real progress before McCarthy tore his meniscus in the 2024 preseason opener.
“As our fans either have already come to find out or will in the future, this guy is so motivated and dialed in. As excited as I was to draft him, he’s confirmed everything that I hoped to see.
Our fan base and everyone should be excited about the fact that we’ve got our young franchise quarterback in the building.”
Since then, the path has been messy. Darnold put together an MVP-caliber 2024 season.
The Vikings flirted with Aaron Rodgers the next offseason. McCarthy then had a rough first year as a starter, one that may have been shaped by Adofo-Mensah’s broader roster-building vision.
Still, O’Connell hasn’t backed away from the idea that McCarthy can be the guy.
“A lot of those feelings are still the same. It’s just the timeline is in a different place for all of us than it was [in 2024].”
There may be one area where Carter’s read has some footing: O’Connell and Adofo-Mensah may not have always agreed on when McCarthy was ready to play. Before McCarthy got to Minnesota, O’Connell pushed to keep Cousins, according to ESPN’s Kevin Seifert, before the price got too high. And a joint report from The Athletic’s Alec Lewis and Dianna Russini said that “many executives, coaches and even key players supported” the idea of bringing in Rodgers last season.
O’Connell may have been in that camp, especially after it surfaced that he had been texting with Russini during a viral traffic stop last January. It’s also possible Adofo-Mensah shut that door to keep his own plan intact.
But that’s a far cry from saying O’Connell had nothing to do with McCarthy. He’s built his reputation as a quarterback whisperer, and the idea that he didn’t sign off on the pick is hard to square with everything he’s said and done. Even now, with Kyler Murray on a veteran minimum deal this offseason, it looks like he’s still trying to find an escape hatch.
If Adofo-Mensah didn’t want O’Connell’s input, that would have been a major problem. And with O’Connell later playing a big role in the search for the GM’s replacement, the notion that McCarthy “wasn’t his guy” is one of the more outlandish takes floating around. If McCarthy is the one who has to start next season, that debate isn’t going away anytime soon.
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The bigger takeaway for Vikings fans is how that young talent stacks up inside the division. Minnesota is sitting ahead of the Lions and Packers on ESPNs list, but still trails the Bears, which keeps the NFC North race for long-term roster strength interesting even before anyone gets to the field. The next question is whether the Vikings can turn that promising group, which also includes names like Caleb Banks, Jake Golday and Jordan Addison, into something more than a respectable ranking. [Read more 🡒]