The Vikings spent the spring of 2025 weighing a move that could have changed everything at quarterback, and the choice they made came back around fast.
Aaron Rodgers had real interest in Minnesota, and the team spent days considering him after he pledged to play for what Lewis described as “a minuscule amount of money.” But the Vikings ultimately decided to stay with J.J.
McCarthy, their 2024 first-round pick, believing the younger quarterback could grow into the job over time. According to Alec Lewis of The Athletic, that call wasn’t just about Rodgers’ fit.
It also came with a major concern: McCarthy’s camp might ask for a trade if Rodgers arrived.
The organization moved ahead with McCarthy, hoping a carefully built structure would speed up his development. At the time, that meant betting on a quarterback who had spent his entire rookie year recovering from a full meniscus repair and was still something of a mystery.
That gamble never paid off in Minnesota.
Lewis wrote that “McCarthy’s inability to stay healthy or play with consistency” ended up sinking his run with the Vikings. Injuries limited him to 10 regular-season starts in 2025, and his play over that stretch pushed the team to sign Kyler Murray early in the offseason. By this past Monday, the Vikings had moved on completely, sending McCarthy to the New York Giants for a 2027 fifth-round pick.
There was also frustration inside the building beyond the injuries. Lewis reported that McCarthy’s “youth and defiance” rubbed some people the wrong way.
His comments about his “Nine” alter ego drew internal eye-rolls, and he also confused members of the organization when he said he ignored his coaches’ advice by dancing the “Griddy” before reaching the end zone against the Cowboys in Week 15. Lewis said those habits, both in public and around the TCO Performance Center, were “troubling for Vikings executives and coaches.”
Still, all of that might have been forgiven if McCarthy had taken a step forward this summer. Instead, O’Connell named Murray the Week 1 starter before Minnesota’s first preseason game in August, then later dropped McCarthy to QB3.
Now McCarthy gets a fresh start in New York, where first-year Giants head coach and franchise head of football operations John Harbaugh will try to show the Vikings got this one wrong. If McCarthy flashes in a big way later this season, the questions around O’Connell’s ability to develop a young quarterback are only going to get louder.
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Vikings Win Streak Is Hiding A Bigger Kevin OConnell Problem
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The issues only look bigger in the wake of Justin Jeffersons absence, since Minnesota has struggled to generate anything consistent without its top target. The most recent game brought the Vikings lowest offensive success rate in 20 seasons, and the club now sits last in the league in total yards per game, leaving OConnell with a much tougher problem than the win-loss column suggests. [Read more 🡒]