No coronation needed: Vikings QB J.J. McCarthy says, ‘I know I’m ready to start’

Vikings players came back to the team’s practice facility in Eagan for the start of offseason workouts on April 21. Soon after linebacker Jonathan Greenard returned to the locker room, he was greeted by a face that had been around the TCO Performance Center for months.

“A lot of people are just saying, ‘How you doing?’ just to check off a box. I mean, he genuinely wants to know,“ Greenard said. “[It’s], ‘Hey, how are you doing? How’s family doing?’ And that’s what you want in your quarterback, a younger guy as well, especially when he has this grand opportunity for him.

“We’re all behind him. I mean, we’re all standing 10 toes [down] with J.J.“

The Vikings have not officially named J.J. McCarthy their starting quarterback for 2025 and might not make such a designation for months. But inside the team’s headquarters, no announcement seems necessary.

The Vikings are preparing as if McCarthy will be their starter in 2025 and plan to give him the majority of first-team snaps during their offseason program. The second-year quarterback stayed in Minnesota to work out all offseason, beginning on-field sessions in January, and he said Tuesday he feels better now than he did before he tore his right meniscus in August.

Whether throwing more passes in a workout than coach Kevin O’Connell estimates he’ll throw during a spring practice or connecting with veteran teammates on a club coming off a 14-win season, McCarthy seems to be operating as if the job will be his. He made it clear Tuesday he has no doubt about whether he’s ready for it.

“I know I’m ready to start,” he said, “because of all the work I’ve put in and just the confidence in my skills and abilities and just being able to do my job and simplify things to the best of my ability, every single day. I have a tremendous coaching staff, a tremendous group of guys around me that I can lean on, and they can lean on me.”

McCarthy, who became the highest-drafted quarterback in Vikings history when the team drafted him 10th overall in 2024, is well-acquainted with the pressure inherent to a starting QB job on a contending team. He led Michigan to the College Football Playoff in his final two years there, winning a national championship as a junior in 2023.

On Tuesday, he referenced a quote he found when learning about his ADHD diagnosis. “People with ADHD, they find calm in the chaos and chaos in the calm,” he said. “I’ve always felt, ever since I was a kid, just any competitive environment I was in, I felt like I was at home. Playing at Michigan, there’s 110,000 [people] and you’re at one of the most prominent universities out there. That’s where I feel most comfortable, is when the lights are the brightest, the stage is the biggest stage out there. And I know it’s going to be a lot more of that to come.”

McCarthy returned to team meetings last season once his rehab schedule allowed him to do so and augmented his study with the Vikings’ virtual reality system, watching clips from the GoPro camera the team mounted to starting quarterback Sam Darnold’s helmet. During his on-field sessions this offseason, O’Connell said, McCarthy has ”been able to push it on the field with his throws,” both in terms of the routes required in the Vikings offense and the sheer volume of work he’s done.

“I don’t know if he’ll have a day where he throws as many balls as he was throwing during a two-hour rehab session, when he was pairing that with running and lifting and all the work he was doing with our folks here,” O’Connell said April 21. “So I think he’s already there now. It’s just a matter of applying it with teammates, with detail and with repetition.”

McCarthy threw on Tuesday to receiver Jordan Addison and tight end T.J. Hockenson and said he looks forward to throwing with Justin Jefferson when the receiver arrives in Minnesota. “We’ve talked a little bit here and there, but nothing as of right now in the building,“ he said. “I’m excited to get him here.”

He sat in on the Vikings offensive line’s meeting, right tackle Brian O’Neill said, to go over the team’s huddle mechanics and cadences with new center Ryan Kelly and right guard Will Fries, who joined the team from the Colts this offseason.

“You kind of want to build it from scratch every year,” O’Neill said. “It’s been fun to start that process with him.”

O’Neill said he can tell that McCarthy “wants it really bad.” He has the same effervescent personality safety Josh Metellus remembers from 2019, when McCarthy was a high schooler on a recruiting trip to Michigan and Metellus was “a senior ready to get out of here and take the next step. You always felt his energy, but to have poise the way he does, I think it goes a long way, especially for the leader of a team,” Metellus said.

It hasn’t taken long for the Vikings to regard McCarthy as such.

“For our quarterback not to even step on the field [for a practice] yet, he already has that poise when he walks through the building,” Metellus said. “It’s special.

“I could talk about his abilities on the field all day, if I could. But for a guy just to be the person he is in this building is something to look forward to, for him and his career moving forward.“

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