Shortly after a report revealed that Minnesota Vikings head coach Kevin O’Connell had named free-agent signing Kyler Murray the team’s starting quarterback, some understandably wondered if the Vikings could make 2024 first-round draft pick J.J. McCarthy available to interested teams.
While speaking with reporters, O’Connell confirmed that Murray is his QB1. O’Connell also hinted that McCarthy won’t be going anywhere this summer.
Kevin O’Connell: J.J. McCarthy is still an “incredibly important member of” the Vikings
“Kyler will begin the process of really looking at things now as our starter,” O’Connell explained, per Kevin Patra of the NFL’s website. “We’ll still be getting J.J. a lot of work, a lot of reps, because it’s very important that his development and ongoing growth and arrow up, that we feel very positively about, continues.”
McCarthy spent his entire rookie campaign recovering from a full meniscus repair. The Vikings said plenty about how they felt McCarthy played over 10 starts last season when they signed Murray to a team-friendly one-year contract earlier this offseason.
“Nothing changes as far as J.J. being an incredibly important member of our quarterback room and our team,” O’Connell added.
It has repeatedly been suggested that McCarthy has little value as a tradeable asset. That said, Murray’s injury history could lead one to think that O’Connell may have to turn back to McCarthy this coming fall. Murray made just five starts last season before he was shut down by the Arizona Cardinals
due to a foot injury.
Why the Vikings chose Kyler Murray over J.J. McCarthy
According to Josh Alper of Pro Football Talk, O’Connell said on Tuesday that Murray has “shown enough to really project…that we can get the rhythm, the timing, the mastery of our system and this year’s system” to where O’Connell wants it to be.
“There’s comfort from Kyler in the scheme,” O’Connell continued. “He had some really high completion days where he was able to show some really, really good understanding of just putting the ball in play, playing with great timing and rhythm. …As you continue to look at the body of work really through those 10 days, what jumped out is what could be.”
It remains to be seen what will be for McCarthy following Tuesday’s developments.