Which factors will determine JJ McCarthy's timeline to start?

The rookie QB will be brought along slowly but what about his summer will decide when he debuts?

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By Matthew Coller

When the Minnesota Vikings finish rookie minicamp, the main question is going to be: How far away from starting does JJ McCarthy look? When they wrap up OTAs, hey, does he look close? Minicamp actually be our best precursor to training camp and, of course, the main topic will be whether McCarthy looked like he was gaining early ground on Sam Darnold. And then in training camp, every single practice will be dominated by the progress of young Mr. McCarthy.

But how will the actual decision be made? Head coach Kevin O’Connell has made it clear that he wants to be methodical in McCarthy’s development process and avoid tossing him to the wolves. However, there is a real possibility that he simply could be good enough during the offseason to play. Will he make it tough on KOC to keep him on the sideline?

Let’s have a look at the factors that will go into the decision and what we’ll be looking for through the offseason program as rookie minicamp is set to begin this week…

How Sam Darnold looks

The Vikings signed Darnold to a $10 million contract for a reason. He has started 56 career games between three different franchises so the former Jet/Panther/49er has battled the new playbook learning curve many times. Darnold has shown enough flashes along the way to set a high bar for McCarthy to beat. In his last seven starts Darnold has gone 4-3 with nine touchdowns, four interceptions and a 90.8 QB rating, which would have ranked around 20th last season.

The Vikings want better QB play than that but it suggests that within O’Connell’s offense — and with the weapons they have — Darnold could be pretty good. That means if McCarthy is going to beat him out over the summer, he’s going to need to be legitimately better. This doesn’t have the feel of a horse and pony show QB competition.

There will be a key moment later in the summer when the Vikings have joint practices. Those are the closest the offense is going to get during the summer to real football.

If Darnold wins the job, it’s unlikely O’Connell will treat it as totally week to week. He shouldn’t overreact to a bad performance and push McCarthy if he isn’t ready. But there could be a time where Darnold’s play wains and McCarthy is showing in practice that it’s time to give him a shot. If Darnold is strong all season, it could give O’Connell the option to let McCarthy watch a veteran QB chase the postseason.

There is an unlikely world where Darnold is so good that we are questioning whether he should remain as QB1. That would make things very, very interesting. That’s also a very, very long way away.

Step 1 is to get a look at practice reps during OTAs and minicamp. Does McCarthy work exclusively with the twos? Does he see enough action with the ones to raise an eyebrow?

Simplifying the offense vs. waiting until McCarthy masters it

While last year’s Dobbs Mania turned into a Dobbs-bacle, it shouldn’t be used as evidence about how the Vikings’ offense can be adjusted for a new quarterback. It would have been difficult to swap out an entire scheme in the middle of the year. But it did offer a little insight into the team’s philosophy. O’Connell and offensive coordinator Wes Phillips talked about how the entire scheme is needed to get receivers open and it’s more difficult for a quarterback to have covered receivers in a pared down offense than mastering the whole playbook.

You could make a case for either side of the coin but if that’s the way the Vikings see it then we shouldn’t expect for them to be running the kiddie version. That could slow down McCarthy’s starting date. In Year 1 of KOC’s offense, Kirk Cousins struggled at times during minicamp and training camp to get all the receivers on the same page. It seems much more likely that McCarthy will need to have all the details of the scheme locked in before he gets under center.

Chemistry with receivers

Captain Obvious here: The most important person on the Vikings roster to McCarthy’s success is Justin Jefferson. It’s hard to say when Jefferson will sign a multi-year contract extension but we can say pretty safely that he isn’t going to practice until he does. If that doesn’t happen until the middle/end of training camp, it might be more difficult for McCarthy to be fully prepared to start.

You could argue that Nick Mullens had big numbers when passing to Jefferson too but Mullens is also fluent in the offense and knew where Jefferson was going to be at all times.

Not that the other receivers don’t matter. The chemistry between Cousins and TJ Hockenson became downright deadly after a slow start to last season. There are options built into the tight end’s assignments that require a certain backyard element. Hockenson isn’t likely to start the season due to his recovery from an ACL injury.

Will preseason matter?

In the last two years under O’Connell, the preseason has not weighed as heavily in the evaluation as camp practices. Will that change this year with McCarthy? How much will he play? Last year we saw Jaren Hall get a decent amount of work but he didn’t start an entire game until the final preseason game.

Would they prefer that McCarthy only play behind the starting offensive line and with the starting receivers or would it simply be in his favor to get as many professional type reps as he can? Would it matter if he lights up opponents in preseason action?

Fastballs and risk taking

One thing we can say with a high level of certainty is that McCarthy has thrown very few passes at a Division I level, which means he will need to grow significantly when it comes to “layering” the ball over defenders and becoming comfortable with throwing into NFL windows.

But it shouldn’t be a total holdup if he makes mistakes doing those things. The decision shouldn’t be made as much on the back of whether he makes young QB mistakes like forcing the ball into a tough spot or trying to whip it through a defender’s facemask, it should be more focused on the overall operation, getting in and out of the huddle, getting players liked up correctly, throwing the ball on time with the play and knowing when to escape the pocket and when to hang in.

O’Connell will need a strong sense for McCarthy’s overall confidence when he makes the decision… whenever that will be.

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