Sam Darnold just won Super Bowl LX. He did it in Seattle, one year after the Minnesota Vikings let him walk to hand their offense to J.J. McCarthy. That backdrop framed the harshest debate on PFSN’s Football Debate Club: is the jury still out on McCarthy, or were the Vikings wrong to take him 10th overall in the first place? CBS Sports’ Mike Renner and The Ringer’s Austin Gayle did not wait for more evidence.
NFL Analysts Weigh In On J.J. McCarthy
Gayle went first and went hard. “I don’t think that they were right to draft him at 10,” he said. “This is a clear, clear bust.” His rule of thumb: when a prospect’s own fan base, the people who watch him every week, never quite talk themselves into him, believe them. Michigan fans, he argued, carried that quiet doubt about McCarthy all along.
Renner agreed and pushed further. “There’s no jury being out,” he said. “The jury has come in with their decision, and it’s his cheeks.” His real gripe was the gap between the scouting report and the player. McCarthy arrived billed for his work ethic and intangibles, yet Renner sees a project whose flaws have not been fixed.
“All the work ethic, all the meditation, all the whatever can’t change the fact that there are glaring flaws to his game,” he said, calling the selection “a very gross mis-evaluation.” Host Cam Mellor did not separate them. He agreed with both.
The on-field record is thin and unkind. McCarthy missed his entire rookie season after tearing the meniscus in his right knee in the 2024 preseason, the only first-round quarterback since 2000 to lose his debut year to injury. His 2025 went wrong in a different way. An ankle sprain, a concussion and a broken hand cost him seven games. In his 10 starts he threw 11 touchdowns against 12 interceptions and completed 57.6% of his passes.
McCarthy graded out at a 64.3 QB Impact Score in 2025, a D that ranked 37th in the league and 808th overall, per PFSN’s metrics. Across his 10 starts he completed just 57.6% of his passes, finishing 39th in completion percentage and 30th in net yards per attempt while throwing 11 touchdowns against 12 interceptions. The number that defines the season is that interception total, which ranked 5th-worst in the NFL despite his missing seven games.
The Real Misjudgment Was Letting Sam Darnold Go
Here is the part that should sting in Minnesota. In 2024, with McCarthy navigating the facility on a scooter, Darnold went 14-3 and carried the Vikings to the playoffs. They let him leave anyway. He signed with Seattle, went 14-3 again, and won Super Bowl LX, becoming the first quarterback to win 14 regular-season games in back-to-back years with different teams. The bridge the Vikings discarded turned into a champion somewhere else.
And Minnesota is not waiting around to be proven right. This offseason the Vikings signed Kyler Murray, who is expected to compete for, and likely win, the starting job. When a team that drafted a quarterback 10th two years ago is already paying a veteran to take his place, that is a front office telling on itself.
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None of which makes McCarthy a finished story. He is still 23, he lost his rookie year to a fluke injury, and his 2025 sample is small and warped by three more. He even strung together his two best pro games late in the season before the broken hand ended it. The jury on the player can reasonably stay out a while longer.
The jury on the decision cannot. The Vikings passed on certainty, bet on a project, let a 14-game winner walk into a Super Bowl, and spent this spring shopping for his replacement. McCarthy may yet prove the analysts wrong. The pick already looks like it proved them right.
