Friday Mailbag: Projecting McCarthy

Vikings fans are interested in what the new QB can be this season and beyond

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By Matthew Coller

Welcome to summertime, everybody. The time where we attempt to glean everything we can from OTAs and spend the rest of the time speculating about what will come this fall. It’s a great time to have questions about the Vikings so let’s dive in…

Drew S…. Pie chart of JJ McCarthy outcomes: Bust, Journeyman, Solid Starter, Pro Bowl, Hall of Fame

To answer this question, I would probably have to take a shot at the baseline for first-round quarterbacks in general. Rough estimate for any QB taken in the top 15 is 40% bust, 10% journeyman, 25% solid starter, 20% Pro Bowl, 5% Hall of Fame. In trying to guess what McCarthy will become, we have to lower the bust rate here because — as we’ve seen from Sam Darnold — environment plays such a massive role in the success or failure of quarterbacks.

We can’t eliminate the possibility of bust because injuries are always possible in football and there’s always a chance that a player just doesn’t ever reach their potential because they can’t process or can’t throw accurately etc. like a Trey Lance or Josh Rosen.

With that in mind, I’ll go 20% bust, 10% journeyman, 35% solid starter, 30% Pro Bowl, 5% Hall of Fame.

My question is: How good does he need to be for the Vikings to compete for a Super Bowl? It’s probably Pro Bowl level. People bag on Alex Smith but he was one or two drives away from a Super Bowl with San Francisco when that team was stacked. Matthew Stafford is another Pro Bowl-level QB who isn’t likely to make the HOF. Same with Matt Ryan.

A few years ago I started thinking about QBs through the lends of how many chances they will give a franchise to win a Super Bowl. Guys like Tom Brady, Drew Brees and Peyton Manning will give you 10 shots in a career or more. QBs like Ryan, Stafford, Eli Manning, Philip Rivers, Cam Newton etc. will give you three or four shots at it. Then you get the good starters who will probably give you one chance like a Kirk or Kyler Murray, Derek Carr, Baker Mayfield. And then there’s a huge group that you’ll never win with. For McCarthy to be a huge win, he needs to be at least in the second category. If he’s in the third, they gotta make it happen on that one shot.

Eldon… With flag football becoming an Olympic sport which Vikings legends in their prime would you put on the team?

Thomas H…Levi D-R reportedly played a lot at Wednesday’s practice. Did he line up at all 3 Inside DL positions or did he primarily replace Harrison Phillips in the middle?

I can’t say that I was at the best angle to see which technique he was playing on each down but I respect you wanting to know where the 4th string DT lined up during an OTA practice. That’s a neckroll worthy question. It looked to me more like it was in the middle than at the 3-4 defensive end spots.

I’ll say this about LDR: Last year we saw some flashes from him during training camp and his physical traits are really impressive. He’s a huge dude who can move and he’s very strong. He should get every opportunity to take a big step and get chances as a rotational player. I like his odds to make that happen.

I should note that we can’t take too much from the OTA lineups in the same way we look at training camp depth charts based on practice reps. Sometimes guys are put into a spot to learn something specifically for one day.

Florian K…What's the deal with KAM's contract? Suspicious minds are starting to churn. Which new free agent do you think will have the biggest impact on overall team success? Which NFL stadium, besides US Bank, do you like the best and least?

Every week you guys ask about Kwesi’s contract and every week I say that nobody really knows and we have to wait and see. We are still six weeks from camp. That should be a pseudo deadline because once camp starts then they need to have the GM locked in. If it’s not done by then, we will have entered very strange territory.

The free agent that I think will have the most impact on team success is Ryan Kelly. As much as PFF grades are illuminating — and his are excellent — there’s no quantifying the impact that Kelly can have on JJ McCarthy. The center position is way more valuable these days than the paychecks would imply because the complexity of defenses keeps increasing and increasing.

Jonathan Allen would be the other obvious choice. He might end up playing 600-700 snaps for them or more. That’s a lot of value over what they previously got from that position.

Kip N…

Will there be reports of red ball, blue ball, any cool new tools for training camp this year ?

If you could build a flag football team of the reporters? Who would you pick and what positions? I’m assuming you are FB and CC is the LS?

Actually I’m glad you asked about apparatuses. They were doing one of my favorite football drills during OTAs where guys run and jump onto a large mat. I took a video of it. Looks like a ton of fun.

I would probably put myself at QB because I can throw the ball but I’m very slow. Ben Goessling would be WR1 because he’s the fastest deep threat on the team and it’s not close. Dane Mizutani would make for a good slot receiver. Jeff Wald and Ahmad Hicks from FOX 9 are both good athletes. Hicks in the backfield, Wald as the fade-route specialist at 6-foot-5 or whatever he is. We could have a pretty quality group.

Mark T…Matt, What is your take on the chances that Jalen Ramsey ends up on the Vikings? Are you in favor of him starting? I would believe that you would agree that the Vikes can hang with any team in the league, but will depend on the injuries that happen during the year. I thought we were lucky to not have any major injuries last year.

I like the idea of Jalen Ramsey. The logistics might be a little tricky. His contract is big and it isn’t easy to get out from under in the future without using a June 1 designation. At the same time, elite corners often age pretty well. Pat P, Stephon Gilmore. Ramsey has no serious health issues. His numbers last year were still pretty darn good — 8th best corner by PFF and top-15 in man coverage.

The Vikings have already made three versions of this signing with Ryan Kelly, Jonathan Allen and Javon Hargrave. Why not Ramsey? Put him and Byron Murphy with Rodgers and Blackmon rotating in and you’ve got yourself a really good secondary. And this is the time for all-in type moves. They’ve poured everything into this roster to win right now. Go for it.

I think the Vikings have a top 3-5 roster outside of quarterback. That’s not just my take either. ESPN’s Mike Clay ranks every position group in the NFL and he gave the Vikings a top-five defense and elite receiver and offensive line grades. It’s hard to find a weakness outside of the cornerback group right now and we’re not really sure whether that’s actually weak or if Flores’s guys Rodgers and Blackmon are going to be good.

I’m with you on injuries. My thing is that I’ve seen young teams get hurt and old teams stay healthy. You just never really know.

Eric… Nate Tice dropped a Rich Gannon, Oakland Raiders edition comp for JJ McCarthy. Does that check out from a play style standpoint from what you’ve seen? Also it’s terribly unfortunate Ty Chandler not looking like he’s gonna be our Napoleon Kaufman.

Big fan of Nate Tice. I can definitely see the stylistic comparison. Gannon was so good at that point in his career at getting the ball out quickly to the right places but he was also a playmaker. He ran for over 500 yards at age 35 in 2000. Gannon had a great coach and perfect offensive system for him and really good, experienced weapons with Tim Brown and Jerry Rice.

The only thing I would say to disagree is that Oakland Rich Gannon was elite elite elite. He made the Pro Bowl four straight years (back when that mattered), was first-team All-Pro twice, MVP once and had a 33-15 stretch with 81 TD, 30 INT and a 95.3 QB rating when the league average was 78.5. Plus an awesome 5.2% sack rate. That’s asking a lot of McCarthy.

I’m going to go with a rookie Matt Ryan comp. Similar size. Ryan was a playmaker early on in his career. As a rookie he didn’t have an insane stat line with 3,440 yards, 16 TD, 11 INT, was only sacked 17 times and led the team to an 11-5 record. If we did an era-adjusted, 17-game adjusted season for McCarthy, that would be like 3,800 yards, 20 TD, 8 INT. Definitely good enough to compete for the division.

Robert S…Roster strength question: Are we thin in terms of depth compared to the Lions or Eagles? Thinking particularly about CB and interior pass rush.

I’m not sure the Eagles are all that great this year in terms of depth. Behind Jalen Carter they have Moro Ojomo, Jordan Davis and rookie Ty Robinson. Their entire D-line is really not that inspiring after they lost Milton Williams and Josh Sweat. What the Eagles do have is Jalen Carter.

The Lions interior is pretty deep now that they took Tyliek Williams in the first round. They have Alim McNeil, Levi Onwuzurike and DJ Reader. That’s a nasty group. I might put the Vikings a shade behind that unless we see someone like LDR or Jalen Redmond set up.

At corner, the Eagles are great at outside starters but their CB3 is Adoree Jackson. The Lions have a very, very physical trio but we’re not sure how good Terrion Arnold is going to be. It really depends on him.

I’d put the Vikings’ front seven against anybody in the league. The secondary is going to have to prove it.

Bradley P.. What are your thoughts on the Brock Purdy extension? I think he’s a very good quarterback so this isn’t necessarily about him but how hard is it for teams like the Cowboys, Dolphins, Jags and maybe even the Packers? Huge deals with middling players.

Have you ever witnessed in your career more desperation than the Steelers are showing?

Purdy reminds me of Jared Goff. Nobody ever thinks the guy is good but when he has the right circumstances his teams can compete for a Super Bowl. How many QBs can we really say that about? Maybe a dozen? For me, if you can compete for Super Bowls with great coaching and great rosters, you are worth paying and battling through some lean years to rebuild like Detroit did. But the key to Detroit’s rebuild was drafting a bunch of hits and then dealing with Goff’s expensive contract by having everyone else on rookie deals. Can San Fran do that? I’m not so sure.

Still, if you let Purdy go, you might get stuck on Steelers Island where you have no answer at QB. It’s always better to pay a good QB and work around the cap hit than end up like the New York Jets or Giants in no-man’s land.

The Steelers letting Aaron string them along like this sounds a lot like the Vikings with Favre in 2010, doesn’t it?

I see Pittsburgh getting ripped every day for their lack of answers at QB in recent years but I’m not sure what their answer was supposed to be. Which QB should they have picked or acquired that would have made things different? Baker Mayfield? Geno Smith? Sam Darnold? Well, they probably should have gone after Darnold this year. Not doing it last year was understandable.

They never draft high and the QBs that come available in free agency or via trade are rarely favorable options. Always having a good defense and grinding out 10 wins has been a curse for Mike Tomlin. Coincidentally it was that way with Bill Cowher in his Neil O’Donnell/Bubby Brister/Kordell Stewart days too.

Ben B… We need a TE3 update!

There are three dudes battling for TE3: Gavin Bartholomew, Bryson Nesbit and Ben Yurosek. They were all in attendance at OTAs. I can’t tell you what they did because I was watching JJ McCarthy. I probably won’t have a feel for that until camp.

Jason… Is there a metric for how successful mid to late round rookie corners have been in the nfl? Was their draft capital too low to finish the offensive line and get another corner? I am mostly responding to espn rankings which as we know decide home field advantage throughout the fantasy football season.

I don’t think there’s any metrics on middle-round corners that are going to tell us anything in particular about the Vikings picking a wide receiver in the third instead of a corner this year. There were two corners, Jaylin Smith and Upton Stout, who were taken after the Vikings moved down from 97 to 102, so I guess they felt like it was better to get the receiver. Obviously I agree with that decision since I wrote an entire article about why it’s smart to pick a receiver (short reason: you can more easily find other positions in free agency than good receivers). Still that decision to move down might be something we look back at.

Any time you’re trying to pick a third-rounder to save a position group right away, it’s probably dubious anyway. Overall I don’t mind where they are at with the CB group. Blackmon was going to be CB2 last year before he got hurt and they have some interesting depth with McGlothern. It’s not like DB PANIC LEVEL MIDNIGHT as it was back in 2020 when they had two rookies starting and a UDFA. I want to see it play out in camp before we decide what it’s going to be. After seeing Griffin and Gilmore play well, there’s some confidence that they can be OK.

Dan…Where would you place McCarthy in your own personal QB situation rankings heading into 2025?