Kevin O’Connell has built the Vikings into a winning machine, but the quarterback spot keeps getting treated like a temporary fix instead of a foundation.
That problem was thrown into sharper focus Monday, when Minnesota sent J.J. McCarthy to the Giants and got only a 2027 fifth-round pick back.
McCarthy, the No. 10 overall pick in the 2024 draft, is already out of the Vikings’ picture in the third year of his rookie deal. In New York, he’ll back up Jameis Winston behind Jake Haener with starter Jaxson Dart sidelined for the season with a knee injury.
O’Connell is in his fifth season in Minnesota and has the résumé to match his reputation. At 41, he’s one of the NFL’s best head coaches and one of its sharpest offensive minds.
But unlike his mentor Sean McVay, O’Connell has not had stability at quarterback. That’s the gap.
McVay had Jared Goff, then Matthew Stafford. O’Connell keeps starting over.
Since taking over in 2022 and leading the Vikings to a 13-4 record and an NFC North title, O’Connell has used nine starting quarterbacks. Kirk Cousins, Sam Darnold, McCarthy and Murray have been the four opening starters across four-plus seasons, while Carson Wentz, Nick Mullens, Joshua Dobbs, Jaren Hall and Max Brosmer have all been needed as backup starters.
The Vikings are 3-0 in 2026 and 46-25 under O’Connell, a .648 winning percentage. Even with that success, they still haven’t won a playoff game, going 0-2 in their two postseason trips in 2022 and 2024 despite a combined 27-7 record in those seasons.
The McCarthy trade only deepens the uncertainty. Minnesota has Murray under contract for just one season, Wentz is signed only through 2026, and now McCarthy is no longer an option for 2027.
The bigger issue is that this latest move fits a pattern. From Cousins to Murray, the Vikings have repeatedly moved on from quarterbacks too quickly or failed to lock them in long enough to give O’Connell real continuity.
In 2022, the Vikings signed Cousins to a one-year, $35 million deal instead of a longer extension. At 34, Cousins still looked like a quarterback worth building around, especially with his background in O’Connell and McVay’s systems. He then delivered a huge season, including a league-leading eight game-winning drives and fourth-quarter comebacks.
Then came 2023, when Cousins was playing on the final year of that contract and tore his Achilles after eight games. Minnesota finished 7-10 and missed the playoffs, and the bigger mistake was not recommitting to him for 2024 and beyond. The source points out that Cousins, now 38, is thriving in Klint Kubiak’s adjacent Raiders system and could have had a Darnold-like run with the Vikings.
The next year brought another pivot. Minnesota let Cousins walk and brought in Darnold on a one-year, $10 million deal as the bridge to McCarthy.
But once Darnold started thriving in O’Connell’s offense, the Vikings should have pushed to keep him longer. Instead, McCarthy’s rookie year was wiped out by a knee injury, and Darnold was left as a short-term answer rather than a real investment.
The draft move for McCarthy now looks even shakier. Minnesota had already signed Darnold in March 2024, yet still paid a steep price to move from No. 11 to No. 10 for McCarthy after Caleb Williams, Jayden Daniels and Michael Penix Jr. were already off the board by pick No.
- Bo Nix went to the Broncos at No.
- The source says the Vikings got desperate, and that McCarthy may not have fit the offense from the start.
There was another chance to steady the position in 2025, but Minnesota didn’t extend Darnold again. He left for Seattle and helped the Seahawks go 14-3 and win Super Bowl 60. That decision left the Vikings settling for Wentz as the backup-level fallback behind McCarthy.
And even in 2026, the warning signs were there. The source says the Vikings were already out on McCarthy as a long-term answer by the middle of his second season, but still failed to swing for another first-round passer.
Ty Simpson should have been the target after Fernando Mendoza went No. 1 overall to the Raiders. Instead, the Rams took Simpson at No. 12, while Minnesota stayed at No. 18 and missed its chance to trade up with the rebuilding Dolphins to No.
Now the Vikings are staring at another uncertain offseason. Murray and Wentz are both without long-term security, McCarthy is gone, and there is no clear answer waiting for 2027. The question is whether Murray proves enough to earn another contract in Minnesota, or whether the Vikings finally commit to a better process at the position and target a quarterback in the loaded 2027 draft class.
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