Minnesota Vikings quarterback J.J. McCarthy will not be the starting quarterback for the team heading into the start of the 2026 season, barring injury or any sort of material change in circumstances. Although the writing was more or less on the wall since the arrival of now-confirmed starter Kyler Murray back in March.
Over the past year, McCarthy’s accuracy, vision and arm strength have all been questioned after the 2025 season took a big detour on offense after the Sam Darnold-led 14-3 year back in 2024.
However, according to the ‘Go Long’ Substack’s Tyler Dunne, what may have been McCarthy’s undoing â at least in the short term â was not any of those things. Dunne instead points to his own source, a player on the Vikings, who claims the lack of coach-ability of the 23-year old presented a problem for the offense.
“When OâConnell made coaching points, sources say, McCarthy too often pushed back: Why donât we do it this way?. An acceptable rebuttal for a veteran quarterback with a full library of game reps to his name. Not so much for a novice who barely threw the ball in college. The head coach doing all of the teaching has pelts on the wall, too.” Dunne wrote on Aug. 11.
“OâConnell can point to Matthew Stafford, Kirk Cousins and Darnold. âYou donât really have that latitude,â one teammate says. âJust execute as good as you can.â In 2024, sure, Darnold would occasionally ask for a different route on the backside of a play. Even then, he was more diplomatic about it. There was an understanding that OâConnell had a bigger-picture why to everything he was dialling up.”
J.J. McCarthy Constantly Questioned Kevin O’Connell – Report
Perhaps what McCarthy perceived as youthful intellectualism and an inquisitive mindset rubbed O’Connell the wrong way and came off as lacking respect, according to Dunne’s player-source.
Being able to take on advice, mature and grow are some of the most fundamental tenets of being good young quarterback that coaches want to deal with it. Constantly questioning the “why” behind the play-calling or intended execution â especially as an underperforming first round pick â can both become tiresome in the short term, and can have negative effects on development in the long term.
If; as Dunne alludes to in the piece; McCarthy had been slinging it and throwing for 300 yards per game, the former Michigan man’s antics may have been tolerated to a far greater extent. As it stands, he is certainly not in a position to be aggressively querying coaching.
It is also more than possible that McCarthy would have been ousted from the position anyway. But in all likelihood this certainly did not help.
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