{"id":908159,"date":"2026-06-02T17:45:16","date_gmt":"2026-06-02T17:45:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/908159\/"},"modified":"2026-06-02T17:45:16","modified_gmt":"2026-06-02T17:45:16","slug":"panthers-great-steve-smith-sr-savagely-rips-vikings-qb-competition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/908159\/","title":{"rendered":"Panthers great Steve Smith Sr. savagely rips Vikings’ QB competition"},"content":{"rendered":"

No NFC team fell off harder last season than the Minnesota Vikings<\/a>, who the Carolina Panthers<\/a> will be visiting<\/a> this coming season. After letting quarterback Sam Darnold<\/a> walk away to Seattle<\/a> off the heels of a 14-3 campaign in 2024, they fell to a disappointing 9-8 in 2025.<\/p>\n

Their quarterback conundrum has bled into 2026, headlined by competition between 2019 first-round pick Kyler Murray<\/a> and 2024 10th overall pick J.J McCarthy. The former is trying to start fresh and prove he can still be a dynamic dual-threat passer while the latter hopes to kickstart his sluggish pro career.<\/p>\n

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Either way, consider Panthers legend Steve Smith<\/a> Sr. is unimpressed. The franchise’s all-time leading receiver ripped into Minnesota’s options on last Friday’s episode of Get Up on ESPN.<\/p>\n

\u201cJustin Jefferson<\/a> probably needs to read that book that A.J. Brown<\/a> was using on the sideline. I don\u2019t see a chance,” Smith stated. “Do you know who can beat J.J. McCarthy<\/a>? Anybody with a heartbeat . . .<\/p>\n

“And Kyler Murray, good luck. I hope things improve for him. I hope he stays off the Call of Duty and starts getting to his playbook.\u201d<\/p>\n

Well, Smith wasn’t too nice . . . but he’s not wrong, either.<\/p>\n

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Carolina will be seeing the Vikings, Murray and\/or McCarthy in Week 13 from U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis.<\/p>\n

Follow @ThePanthersWire<\/a> on Twitter\/X for more Panthers content.<\/p>\n

This article originally appeared on Panthers Wire: Panthers great Steve Smith Sr. savagely rips Vikings’ QB competition<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"No NFC team fell off harder last season than the Minnesota Vikings, who the Carolina Panthers will be…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":908160,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2075],"tags":[8694,235,260,2567,7,1519,2780,4827,259,6,236,1878,237,6151],"class_list":["post-908159","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-carolina-panthers","tag-a-j-brown","tag-carolina","tag-carolina-panthers","tag-carolinapanthers","tag-football","tag-j-j-mccarthy","tag-justin-jefferson","tag-kyler-murray","tag-minnesota-vikings","tag-nfl","tag-panthers","tag-sam-darnold","tag-seattle","tag-steve-smith"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116681763983789634","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/908159","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=908159"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/908159\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/908160"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=908159"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=908159"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=908159"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}