It was learned on Sunday that the Minnesota Vikings were keeping 2024 first-round draft pick J.J. McCarthy and 25-year-old Max Brosmer in their quarterback room along with fellow backup Carson Wentz and starter Kyler Murray.
During a Sunday appearance on Fox 9 Minneapolis-St. Paul, former NFL player and current Vikings Audio Network analyst Pete Bercich shared a strong message for McCarthy regarding the signal-caller’s situation.
J.J. McCarthy “has to be ready” to potentially replace Kyler Murray
“I think it leaves a lot of room for questions because he’s not the starter right now; Kyler Murray is,” Bercich said about McCarthy, per Eduardo Razo of Heavy. “I’ve said this before: J.J. McCarthy’s life is different now. He has to be ready. He has to be ready to play No. 2 against the Green Bay Packers (in Week 1), to jump in there, take that spot and then never give it back. So it’s a different attitude. Gotta get himself back on the field.”
Previous whispers suggested that Vikings head coach Kevin O’Connell was prepared to name McCarthy the team’s third-choice quarterback behind Wentz and Murray. However, Alec Lewis of The Athletic mentioned on Sunday that “Minnesota had not finalized who would occupy the” primary backup spot as of that time.
“It would be unusual for the Vikings to proceed with four quarterbacks during the 2026 season,” Lewis wrote, “and it’s an open question whether they will.”
Vikings could still make major J.J. McCarthy move
It’s widely assumed that McCarthy has no value as a tradeable asset after he spent his entire rookie campaign recovering from a full meniscus repair before he largely failed to impress across 10 starts last season. That said, history shows that a team in need of a signal-caller could take a flier on McCarthy at some point before the in-season trade deadline arrives in November.
For now, McCarthy is on track to be with the Vikings when they open the campaign with a home game against the rival Packers on Sept. 13.
“We’re one of 14 teams in the league that kept four quarterbacks,” Bercich continued during the segment. “We only kept eight offensive linemen. And I look back in the last 10 years, and nine was the lowest number of linemen that we’ve had. So a lot of times when you have players that you really like, that you really think if you cut and put out there for waivers will get picked up, but you really want to keep them, then yeah, you might go through a week of the season with a lower number at a different spot. As the season goes on, you have injuries and things, and you may have to make some adjustments. So does it mean we’ll have four all year? I don’t know what their plan is, but I’ve seen it before, and that’s a lot of times what teams will do to protect the player that they really like.”
Whether or not McCarthy is the Vikings’ QB2 will say plenty about how much or how little O’Connell trusts the once-promising prospect to play in the event that Murray were to become unavailable.
