The Minnesota Vikings won 14 games with Sam Darnold as their starting quarterback. Darnold had a career resurgence after Minnesota’s first-round pick, J.J. McCarthy, suffered a season-ending injury before the season began. Now, the team has a dilemma on its hands.
On one hand, sticking with Darnold makes a ton of sense. Though he stumbled late in the season, the Vikings’ signal-caller played at a near MVP level. He won 14 games and brought the team within a win of the No. 1 seed in the NFC and the NFC North division title.
Darnold is in the prime of his career at 27 years old. However, there are concerns over his ability to replicate this success over the next few seasons. As a result, turning to McCarthy could be the move. He has his entire career ahead of him at 22 years old — and he arguably has more potential as a long-term starter than Darnold does.
NFL Analyst Urges Vikings To Sign QB Over Starting JJ McCarthy
What the Vikings decide certainly remains to be seen. It’s a decision that will have a lot of ramifications for the roster. However, one NFL analyst strongly believes the Vikings should not start McCarthy this season.
Craig Carton, host of FS1’s “Breakfast Ball,” has urged the Vikings to look elsewhere. He believes Minnesota is better off signing a quarterback this spring. He went so far as to say that McCarthy is “average.”
“They got so damn close this year, winning [14] games, blah, blah, blah, before they crapped out in the playoffs quite famously. I’m not gonna hand over the keys to J.J. McCarthy,” Carton said on a Feb. 18 broadcast of the show.
“I don’t care what they see out of him in practice. ‘He’s got a howitzer for an arm!’ The guy was an average quarterback at Michigan — won a championship, not gonna take that away from him, [but] it was a run-heavy offense that Jim Harbaugh ran, it was a really good defense,” Carton said.
.@craigcartonlive doesn't think the Vikings should hand over the keys to JJ McCarthy next season:
"The Vikings were a team that was good enough to win 15 games last year and you want them to turn the keys over to a rookie QB coming off a torn ACL? No thank you sir." pic.twitter.com/XbLRrtjdRZ
— Breakfast Ball (@BrkfstBallOnFS1) February 18, 2025
“Now, we’re a team that was good enough to win [14] games last year and you want me to just turn the keys over to what essentially will be a rookie quarterback coming off a torn SCL? No, thank you, sir,” Carton said, reflecting on McCarthy’s season-ending meniscus injury that ended the Michigan star’s rookie campaign in the preseason.
“I would rather go get Aaron Rodgers for a year or two. I’d rather bring back Sam Darnold — as bad as he was in the playoff game and that final [regular-season] game for the No. 1 seed and division title against Detroit — because I know what he is. And I’m not in the business of trading a known quantity for someone I’ve never seen play an NFL game,” Carton continued.
Seeing Rodgers in a Minnesota jersey would certainly be a sight to behold. The future Hall of Famer is set to be a free agent after two seasons with the New York Jets. He played one full season with the team as he suffered an injury in his team debut in 2023.
Both Rodgers and Darnold could do the job for Minnesota under center in 2025. According to PFSN’s QB+ metric, Darnold was the 12th-best quarterback this past season with a 79.0 (B) grade. Meanwhile, Rodgers was the 21st-ranked quarterback with a 72.2 (C-) grade.
However, the Vikings have their quarterback of the future in McCarthy. It’s hard to imagine the team moving on from him this spring, especially a year after making him the 10th overall pick in the 2024 NFL Draft. No matter what they decide, Minnesota is one of the most interesting teams to watch this offseason.