How good do the Vikings need to be around JJ McCarthy?
A look at how recent supporting casts have set up young QBs for success
By Matthew Coller
Speaking with Kay Adams at the NFL Players Association golf outing in Mexico on Tuesday, Minnesota Vikings quarterback JJ McCarthy said that the team has not officially told him that he is QB1. However, as long as Aaron Rodgers remains in the darkness rather than in purple, we can very safely say that McCarthy is going to be the Vikings starter in 2025.
What comes along with McCarthy beginning his career after a one year delay due to a season-ending knee injury is uncertainty. The last time he threw a pass in a game that mattered was the NCAA national championship, which took place on January 9, 2024. If McCarthy starts Week 1, it will be over 600 days between meaningful tosses of the pigskin.
McCarthy takes over an extremely experienced team that is coming off a 14-win season and just spent enormous sums of money in free agency in order to beef up the roster with hopes of returning to the playoffs and competing for a championship. No pressure, kid!
While nobody knows what McCarthy is going to look like once the real footballs start flying, one thing we can say for the former Michigan quarterback is that inexperience has not been a death knell to competitiveness in recent years in the NFL. In the last four years, 11 teams with starting quarterbacks either in Year 1 or Year 2 have made the playoffs.
How did those teams set up their young QBs for success?
Let’s have a look at the strengths and weaknesses of the teams that made the postseason with rookie or second-year quarterbacks and then compare them to what McCarthy will be inheriting in Minnesota. Here is how those teams stacked up in terms of PFF pass blocking grade, receiving grade, rushing grade and total defensive points allowed (with the strongest and weakest areas highlighted):
The first thing to notice is that the 49ers were the only team to reach the Super Bowl and they scored in the top two in three of the four categories. They were able to overcome a shortage in elite pass blocking because their receivers were so effective and playmaking Brock Purdy produced a 90.5 passer rating when pressured in 2023. Unsurprisingly that dropped to 78.6 last year when his receivers got banged up.
The next most successful team was the 2024 Commanders with Jayden Daniels. They did not have any particular area of extreme strength like the 49ers but they were solid across the board. Washington also got better and better as the season went along and produced their fourth best blocking performance and third best receiving game in the divisional round against the Lions. Daniels’s fast development and rushing ability also raised the ceiling for the Commanders in his rookie year.
The other clubs that made the playoffs with first or second-year QBs tended to do one thing really well and overcame being either middling or poor in other areas. The Broncos protected Bo Nix and played excellent defense. The 2023 Texans saw Nico Collins and Tank Dell emerge as top receivers for CJ Stroud. Cincinnati’s Joe Burrow thrived with his elite duo of Tee Higgins and Ja’Marr Chase at receiver despite issues with blocking and defense. The 2021 Eagles blocked well for Jalen Hurts and pounded the football on the ground.
When we look at the average supporting cast across the board, every area ranks in the top half of the league. Stunningly, being good at everything is the best way to succeed.
How close are the Vikings to being between good-or-great at everything?
Last year they ranked 14th in pass blocking, 4th in receiving, 20th in rushing and 5th in points allowed.
Anyone familiar with the team would be aware that the pass protection eventually broke down as the season went along after being rated toward the top of the league with star left tackle Christian Darrisaw in the mix.
You also don’t need to be delivered stats to prove Justin Jefferson’s impact on quarterbacks but just for good measure: Per PFF, out of 725 throws in the direction of Jefferson since he entered the league, Vikings QBs have completed 70% with 14.9 yards per completion, 40 touchdowns and a QB rating of 110.6. He has also caught 51.4% of contested catch opportunities.
Jordan Addison added to his resume last year as a quarterback amplifier. Remember he only played half of his rookie season with Kirk Cousins and spent the rest of his career to date with Jaren Hall, Josh Dobbs, Nick Mullens and Sam Darnold. With those QBs tossing the majority of passes his way, Addison’s QB rating when targeted over two seasons is 105.3 and his 47.7% contested-catch rate is close behind.
Jalen Nailor was only targeted 47 times but Sam Darnold posted a 136.3 rating throwing mostly deep shots his way.
You get the picture: Any healthy version of the Vikings’ receivers is a lock to finish in the top five of PFF’s grades. But they can actually improve in a few areas. They will expect to have TJ Hockenson for the entire season rather than fighting his way back halfway through the year from ACL surgery. In 2023, Hockenson’s QB rating when targeted was 108.3.
The Vikings also added Rondale Moore, who could become a factor if he’s healthy and bounces back to the early Cardinals version of himself. And retaining running back Aaron Jones allowed them to keep one of the elite pass-catching runners in the NFL. Only seven running backs had more receptions than Jones in 2024 and six had more yards.
You might have noticed that the highest ranking on average out of all the categories from our teams that succeeded with rookie or sophomore QBs was at the receiver position. That bodes well for McCarthy.
On the defensive side, the front office made moves to sustain the Vikings ranking as a top-five team by keeping Byron Murphy Jr. and adding Jonathan Allen and Javon Hargrave to the mix. They will likely need to be better in 2025 than 2024 in order to keep the top ranking because the schedule is expected to increase in degree of difficulty. The opposing QBs feature two-time MVP Lamar Jackson, Super Bowl champion Jalen Hurts, rising star Jayden Daniels along with Joe Burrow, Jared Goff, Jordan Love, Dak Prescott, Justin Herbert and Sam Darnold. If young QBs like Caleb Williams and Michael Penix Jr. improve, it’s going to be a murder’s row.
It is interesting that the teams that made the postseason with Year 1 or Year 2 quarterbacks generally needed good defenses to do it. Only one of the nine teams ranked below 20th.
The two areas the Vikings have the most opportunity to improve based on their offseason moves are in rushing and pass protection.
Jordan Mason’s presence alone as a hard-nosed runner that ranked toward the top of the NFL in Rushing Yards Over Expected should give the Vikings a boost from where they were last year. The addition of Ryan Kelly and Will Fries should also help in adding more of a push in short yardage from undersized Garrett Bradbury and Dalton Risner.
Whether the commitment to the run increases is a different question. The Vikings were only 14th in rushing attempts despite playing from ahead on more snaps than any other team in the NFL. Is it a chicken/egg problem? Have the O’Connell Vikings not run the football as much as other teams because they haven’t been effective or have they not been effective because they don’t commit to it? I guess we’re going to find out. The truth is probably partially that passing is still a more efficient play and the personnel up front and in the backfield didn’t always lend itself to sticking with the ground game.
Kelly and Fries should help in that area along with pass protection. It would be difficult for Fries to be better than Risner in pass pro as Risner graded as a top-10 pass protector last year but Kelly could be an enormous upgrade if he remains healthy. Over the last three years, the former Colts center has allowed 43 QB pressures in 1,537 pass blocking snaps. That’s one pressure every 35.7 snaps. The player he’s replacing Garrett Bradbury allowed one every 21.5 snaps since 2022 and 37 last year, which led the NFL by eight over the next center.
Context does matter when it comes to the interior O-line improvements. Because the Vikings boast exceptional offensive tackles, opponents ran an inordinate number of stunts that attacked the interior so life might be more difficult on Kelly and Fries than it was in Indianapolis. At the same time, if they handle the rush plans in the middle, the Vikings could elevate themselves to one of the top offensive lines in the league around their inexperienced quarterback.
You can probably put together the conclusion that the Vikings have the potential to give McCarthy a better supporting cast than almost any other team with a first or second-year quarterback outside of the 2023 49ers, who set the bar incredibly high.
You might also be wondering about how teams with bust quarterbacks did in terms of support for their struggling young’ins.
Well, let’s just say that O’Connell’s statement that teams fail quarterbacks more than quarterbacks fail teams might have some validity:
As you can see, the average team with rookie or sophomore QB that failed to make the playoffs in either of their first two seasons was dealing with — on average — a poor pass blocking unit, horrendous receiving, poor rushing and awful defense. Bryce Young in particular should file a lawsuit. Zach Wilson also might have a pretty good malpractice case.
While the conclusions may be clear, there are caveats and asterisks to everything. No matter how much PFF’s grades and defensive scoring totals can help us separate the supporting cast from the quarterback, we know that the best QBs elevate everything around them. Getting the ball out quickly and understanding defenses helps the pass protection. A dangerous passing game should make it easier to run the ball. Turning it over fewer times and sustaining drives helps the defense. Making the right reads and throwing accurately helps the receivers.
If you were projecting the Vikings across the board right now, you might end up with a top five blocking unit, top five receiving unit, top 10 rushing and top 10 defense but that’s not easy to achieve. There will be obstacles that McCarthy must overcome in order to make the playoffs and beyond. How that goes, nobody will truly know until we get there.
However, what we can say is that if O’Connell and GM Kwesi Adofo-Mensah set out in 2022 when they were hired to ultimately build the best foundation possible within the past few years for a young quarterback to succeed, they have come just about as close to doing so as possible and the final touches to that have been put on the roster this season. The process is there. The results, we’ll see…
Excellent read! You’re the only person I subscribe to anywhere and this article is why.
Crazy that it’s been 600 days since McCarthy played a real game. Can’t wait to see him out there. The pieces are in place.