{"id":666216,"date":"2026-01-10T13:36:12","date_gmt":"2026-01-10T13:36:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/666216\/"},"modified":"2026-01-10T13:36:12","modified_gmt":"2026-01-10T13:36:12","slug":"what-if-j-j-mccarthy-ends-up-in-the-uncomfortable-middle-next-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/666216\/","title":{"rendered":"What If J.J. McCarthy Ends Up In the Uncomfortable Middle Next Year?"},"content":{"rendered":"

When the Minnesota Vikings decided to move on from Kirk Cousins<\/a> after the 2023 season, it felt like an effort to avoid the middle ground he occupied. He could operate the offense but rarely drove winning. Without the ability<\/a> to move up for Drake Maye<\/a>, they traded up<\/a> for J.J. McCarthy<\/a> and took him 10th-overall, hoping he\u2019d become their franchise quarterback.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re really excited about what we were able to do tonight,\u201d Kwesi Adofo-Mensah said<\/a> after the draft. \u201cObviously, there was a lot of things outside of our control, so we wanted to make sure that we were ready for every scenario.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Vikings initially signed<\/a> Cousins after their defense led them to the 2017 NFC Championship. He was supposed to be their Trent Dilfer<\/a> or Joe Flacco<\/a>, a reliable non-star quarterback who could win a Super Bowl with an elite defense.<\/p>\n

Dilfer and Flacco won championships with the Baltimore Ravens despite not being among the league\u2019s best quarterbacks in 2000 and 2012, respectively. Cousins didn\u2019t need to drive winning for the Vikings when they first signed him. He just had to run the offense effectively and keep the defense from tiring out.<\/p>\n

However, that dynamic changed by the time Kevin O\u2019Connell took over in 2022. Mike Zimmer\u2019s once-stout defense had fallen apart by 2021. The Vikings hired O\u2019Connell to change the culture<\/a> and supercharge the offense, and O\u2019Connell felt a veteran like Cousins could run his complicated offense<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Still, Cousins was mainly a Tier 3 quarterback in Minnesota, according to league insiders. Every year before the season starts, The Athletic\u2019s Mike Sando asks 50 NFL coaches and executives to rank every quarterback into four tiers.<\/p>\n

The coaches and executives whom Sando spoke to placed Cousins in Tier 3 this year. That\u2019s where he resided through most of his Vikings tenure, aside from when Netflix\u2019s Quarterback<\/a> show gave him a bump<\/a> to Tier 2.<\/p>\n

Tier 3 feels fitting for Cousins, given how he played and why the Vikings originally signed him. However, O\u2019Connell likely wants a quarterback who can drive winning \u2013 someone who can elevate the players around him.<\/p>\n

O\u2019Connell was the Los Angeles Rams\u2019 offensive coordinator before Minnesota hired him. In 2021, they traded<\/a> Jared Goff, a Tier 3 quarterback, for Matthew Stafford<\/a> and went on to win the Super Bowl. Stafford was one of only five Tier 1 quarterbacks, alongside Mahomes, Burrow, Allen, and Lamar Jackson<\/a>.<\/p>\n

McCarthy doesn\u2019t need to be a Tier 1 quarterback for the Vikings to win the Super Bowl. They have weapons around him and a talented defense, albeit one that will decline if Brian Flores leaves<\/a> in the offseason. Still, they likely want McCarthy to become more than a Tier 3 quarterback.<\/p>\n

Cousins divided the fanbase because he was good enough to run the offense, but he couldn\u2019t drive winning. He was as good as the talent around him, and so conservative with the ball that he famously<\/a> threw short of the sticks on fourth-and-eight in Minnesota\u2019s final play of the 2022 playoffs.<\/p>\n

Ultimately, the Vikings moved on from Cousins because he had a career-altering Achilles tear<\/a> in 2023, and the Atlanta Falcons overpaid<\/a> for him. Still, they were likely looking for a Tier 1 or Tier 2 quarterback to replace Cousins.<\/p>\n

Last year\u2019s starter, Sam Darnold<\/a>, began the year as a Tier 3 quarterback and likely will move to Tier 2 next season. Meanwhile, McCarthy will remain in Tier 4. Perhaps he\u2019s a bust. Then again, it\u2019s more likely he moves up to Tier 3 but stays there \u2013 at least early in his career.<\/p>\n

If that\u2019s the case, then the Vikings are back to where they started. They\u2019ll have a quarterback who\u2019s good enough to run the offense but doesn\u2019t drive winning, only potentially without a Flores defense. They\u2019ll have a player who occupies that uncomfortable middle ground that divides a fanbase again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When the Minnesota Vikings decided to move on from Kirk Cousins after the 2023 season, it felt like…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":666217,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2073],"tags":[7,1519,6192,294,9864,233,259,2529,6,234],"class_list":{"0":"post-666216","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-minnesota-vikings","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-j-j-mccarthy","10":"tag-kevin-oconnell","11":"tag-kirk-cousins","12":"tag-kwesi-adofo-mensah","13":"tag-minnesota","14":"tag-minnesota-vikings","15":"tag-minnesotavikings","16":"tag-nfl","17":"tag-vikings"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115871074668989041","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/666216","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=666216"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/666216\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/666217"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=666216"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=666216"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=666216"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}