McCarthy to open season as Vikings' No. 3 QB

EAGAN, Minn. -- J.J. McCarthy will open the season as the Minnesota Vikings' No. 3 quarterback, coach Kevin O'Connell confirmed Wednesday, a notable but unsurprising outcome for the No. 10 pick in the 2024 draft. McCarthy lost his starting job to Kyler Murray during a training camp competition, and O'Connell chose Carson Wentz to be Murray's backup for Sunday's season opener against the Green Bay Packers. The depth chart at the position will be revisited weekly, O'Connell said. Wentz started five games last season for the Vikings while McCarthy recovered from a right high ankle sprain. "Carson has got almost a hundred career starts," O'Connell said. "What he was able to do last year from a standpoint of very limited repetition, but being able to apply a career's worth of experience, that's kind of what you need to do as a backup quarterback, especially early on when so much of the emphasis is going to be on getting Kyler as comfortable as we can possibly get." McCarthy missed his entire rookie season in 2024 because of a torn meniscus in his right knee, but the Vikings bid farewell to starter Sam Darnold and then were unable to re-sign veteran Daniel Jones after the season. That made McCarthy their 2025 starter by default. McCarthy played poorly enough -- he ranked 36th of 40 qualified quarterbacks in Total QBR -- that the Vikings signed Murray to a one-year free agent contract in March to compete for the starting job. When he announced Murray as the winner of that competition on Aug. 11, O'Connell said that McCarthy was the No. 2 quarterback at that moment. But McCarthy was erratic in two preseason appearances, completing 9 of 17 passes. After missing multiple open receivers in the end zone during an Aug. 22 game against the Baltimore Ravens, he departed early because of an ankle injury. The Vikings wanted him to play in their third preseason game Aug. 28 at the Denver Broncos, but a source said he told staff members he did not feel comfortable playing. By then, it was clear to close observers that Wentz had moved ahead of McCarthy on the depth chart. The Vikings kept quarterback Max Brosmer on their initial 53-man roster, later moving him to the practice squad, and his presence spurred speculation that McCarthy could be moved off the roster altogether. But general manager Nolan Teasley said last week that he expected McCarthy to be with the team when the season began, and O'Connell said he has had multiple positive conversations with him. "There's always a big picture," O'Connell said, "that's probably a larger scale and a larger mentality than the Week 1 depth chart. But at the same time, I thought he's been incredibly professional, the conversations that him and I have had both pre, during and post that. He's excited to continue to grow and get better. He's still a young quarterback in the NFL with 10 starts and a bunch of talent and a bunch of things that make him a guy that we want to pour into every single day. And the best part is he's going to work as hard as anybody, and that's where it's at."