NFL offseason power rankings: No. 6 Minnesota Vikings put their trust in J.J. McCarthy

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The Minnesota Vikings won 14 games last season. Their only losses were to two division winners: the 15-2 Detroit Lions and the Los Angeles Rams. Had they won in Week 18 at Detroit, they would have been the No. 1 seed in the NFC and one of nine teams in NFL history to win 15 regular-season games.

Not that the Vikings' breakout season has been forgotten, but it has been dismissed. The Vikings, after a good offseason, find their win total at BetMGM to be 8.5. A team that went 14-3 a season ago without a bad loss, then had a very good offseason, is expected by oddsmakers to be .500. Everyone must think Sam Darnold, who the Vikings moved on from, is a no-doubt superstar who can't be replaced, right? (No, in fact, nobody is saying that this offseason.)

If you believe Darnold is below average and also believe the Vikings are going to come crashing back to mediocrity, you must really, really dislike J.J. McCarthy. There's no great reason for that either.

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The Vikings traded up to draft McCarthy at 10th overall last season. They obviously liked him. He injured his knee in the preseason and had his rookie year wiped away, but that doesn't mean he's bad. The rest of the 2024 quarterback draft class has been pretty good. The brief glimpse of McCarthy we saw in preseason was promising, for whatever that's worth. He has the same exceptional environment, with great coaching and all-world receiver Justin Jefferson, that helped Darnold to a fantastic season far beyond his career norms. McCarthy is an unknown. But so were Jayden Daniels and Bo Nix last season. And for all the concern of a drop-off, what if McCarthy is better than Darnold, who had a career passer rating under 80 before he landed in the warm Vikings cocoon? It's not out of the question.

"I want him to be just as confident as I am of him to make the plays out there," Jefferson told Yahoo Sports' Jason Fitz.

Maybe McCarthy falls on his face and Vikings fans can pine for the salad days of Darnold. The quarterback switch isn't guaranteed to be the right move. But mostly, the Vikings are being brushed aside after a fantastic season and should feel a bit disrespected for it.

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The Vikings showed last season that their foundation is strong. Kevin O'Connell has shown he is one of the NFL coaches who can elevate whatever roster he is given to work with, especially at quarterback, and his 2023 hire of defensive coordinator Brian Flores changed Minnesota's defense. Justin Jefferson, Jordan Addison (who could face a suspension after pleading to a lesser offense following being arrested on suspicion of DUI), T.J. Hockenson and Aaron Jones are very good skill-position players around the quarterback position. The offensive line got some huge upgrades in free agency, and getting left tackle Christian Darrisaw back from a knee injury will be big, even if the Vikings take it slow with Darrisaw and he misses the beginning of the season.

There are some tangible reasons, aside from the quarterback change, to believe the Vikings don't come close to 14 wins again. They won eight of nine games decided by one possession, which was a bit lucky. The schedule gets tougher. Maybe opponents finally have a plan to beat Flores' hyper-aggressive approach.

But the Vikings were a good team last season. Assuming McCarthy isn't a total bust, they should be pretty good again, even if nobody seems to be projecting that to be the case.

J.J. McCarthy takes over as the Minnesota Vikings' starting quarterback this season. (Photo by Adam Bettcher/Getty Images)

Offseason grade

The Vikings had a clear plan for the offseason. They chose to let Sam Darnold leave and use the cap space that would have been slotted for him to improve the roster around J.J. McCarthy. The Vikings clearly thought they needed to upgrade the interior of the offensive and defensive lines. They signed two standouts from the Colts' line to fix the offensive line issues. Guard Will Fries got a five-year, $87.7 million contract and center Ryan Kelly signed a two-year, $18 million deal. That's a big help. Then the Vikings used the 24th pick on offensive lineman Donovan Jackson, who will likely start at left guard. The defensive tackle position got two new, expensive pieces. Jonathan Allen was signed to a three-year, $51 million deal and Javon Hargrave got $30 million over two years. Minnesota was also able to keep cornerback Byron Murphy Jr. after his career year, signing him to a three-year, $54 million extension. Other than Darnold, the Vikings lost cornerback Camryn Bynum, offensive tackle Cam Robinson and outside linebacker Patrick Jones. The Vikings' draft was thin, with only one pick in the top 100, but overall Minnesota executed its offseason plan very well. Their offseason got one of my three A or A- grades across the NFL.

Grade: A-

Quarterback report

J.J. McCarthy's talent shouldn't be much of an issue. He was the 10th overall pick in a really good, and potentially historic, quarterback draft class. He could be a bust, because almost all prospects have that risk, but there's no real reason to believe it based on his skill level. Health is a factor though. McCarthy had surgery in August to repair the meniscus in his right knee, which ended his season before it started. Then he had a second surgery in November to address swelling in the knee, which was alarming. The offseason hasn't brought any bad news. McCarthy had no limitations at the start of the offseason program in April. There hasn't been any word of a setback. But until McCarthy shows that he can hold up over a full season in the NFL, it will be a lingering question. If that part is answered, there aren't many other reasons to doubt McCarthy's ability to succeed in a very good offensive environment.

BetMGM odds breakdown

From Yahoo’s Ben Fawkes: “Coming off an impressive 14-3 season that no one outside the organization (and maybe inside it as well) saw coming, the Vikings identified the biggest hole on the roster and attacked it: offensive line. By drafting Donovan Jackson in the first round, and signing Ryan Kelly and Will Fries, Minnesota now should have one of the best O-lines in the NFL — to go along with Brian Flores’ defense. Cornerback has some question marks, but how J.J. McCarthy plays will be the deciding factor in how well Minnesota goes this season. The Vikings have a win total of only 8.5 at BetMGM and are favored in just seven games."

Yahoo’s fantasy take

From Yahoo’s Scott Pianowski: "Obviously J.J. McCarthy is all over this preview; let me quickly add that I expect him to beat his global ADP of QB20. I'd follow Kevin O'Connell into a burning building, and Minnesota's pass-catching rooms are brimming with talent.

"Another value target is Jordan Mason, the new backup running back. Mason is about five years younger than Aaron Jones, and he's 15 pounds heavier. It's possible Mason could become this team's short-yardage specialist, and Mason looked like a potential feature back during his time in San Francisco (5.3 YPC). The depth chart is thin after Jones and Mason — the Vikings probably envision Mason holding a notable role no matter what becomes of Jones. Mason isn't cheap (his Yahoo ADP is just outside the Top 100) but he's still a proactive pick for me."

Stat to remember

Vikings defensive coordinator Brian Flores has no brake pedal. The 2024 Vikings were the most aggressive defense in the NFL. They used a four-man rush at the lowest frequency in the NFL, and by a wide margin. Flores sent only four rushers just 53.1% of the time, via FTN Fantasy. No other team was below 59.4%. The Vikings' rate of sending five or more rushers was 38.8%, which topped the league. The crazy part was the Vikings' blitz rate dropped dramatically from 2023, Flores' first season in Minnesota, when they blitzed 50.7% of the time. The Vikings were effective blitzing last season, as their DVOA on blitzes (-12.3%) was the sixth best in the NFL.

Flores' approach isn't a mystery. He'll send extra rushers at a league-leading level and it will make quarterbacks uncomfortable. The NFL had an offseason to adjust after that outrageous 50.7% blitz rate, and the Vikings were still among the league leaders in blitz effectiveness while blitzing the most of any team in the NFL. This season, Flores is going to send many blitzes, even with two good interior pass rushers added in Javon Hargrave and Jonathan Allen, and the Vikings will be pretty good at it. That's what made the Vikings' defense one of the best in the NFL last season.

Burning question

Is Justin Jefferson the NFL's best receiver?

It's still astonishing that 2019 LSU had Joe Burrow, Ja'Marr Chase and Justin Jefferson (among others) all on the same team. Burrow is one of the NFL's best quarterbacks and most impartial observers would have Chase or Jefferson ranked as the best receiver in the league. Jefferson had that title, at least when he won NFL Offensive Player of the Year in 2022, but last season Chase might have passed him by winning the receiving triple crown. Jefferson was still excellent, dealing with a change in quarterbacks and still putting up a 103-1,533-10 line. He's the best reason to predict success for new Vikings quarterback J.J. McCarthy.

Jefferson just turned 26 years old and Chase will turn 26 next March. Chase told CBS Sports he believes someone will produce the NFL's first 2,000-yard receiving season, and he had an easy answer on who he thinks are the best bets to do it.

"Me and Justin, of course," Chase told CBS.

It's hard to pick between the two as the NFL's best. Perhaps the first to a 2,000-yard season gets the tiebreaker.

Best-case scenario

Even in the Vikings' dreams, repeating 14 wins is a tough goal. Those types of seasons don't come along often. But it shows Minnesota has the ceiling of winning the NFL's toughest division and being the NFL's No. 1 seed. They were extremely close to doing both last season. It's fine to predict the Vikings fall off, but you haven't heard the counterargument often this offseason: A fantastic coaching staff is back, the Vikings' roster got better in key places, they did win 14 games last season (even if many have chosen to selectively ignore that part). And there's a scenario in which J.J. McCarthy is a better quarterback than Sam Darnold. Every great run by a team had to start somewhere, and it's usually with a big growth season when nobody was expecting it. Maybe what we saw from the 2024 Vikings was the start of a sustained run. As long as McCarthy is good, Flores doesn't get a head-coaching job and the roster stays mostly intact, why can't the Vikings remain a top-10 team?

Nightmare scenario

The regression argument for the Vikings starts with J.J. McCarthy. We haven't seen him play an NFL regular season game and maybe he isn't good. Perhaps we will look back and see that 2024 was the beginning of Sam Darnold being a star, and the Vikings made a mistake letting him go. Who knows? More realistically, the Vikings' record in close games can't repeat. They were 8-1 in games decided by seven points or fewer, and 5-1 in games decided by three points or fewer. If this season's Vikings find normal luck in those games, Minnesota can quickly drop two or three wins from last season. And the schedule, while it wasn't easy last season (14th toughest in DVOA), is definitely tougher this season (fifth toughest via Sharp Football, which uses win totals to project schedule strength). That might bring Minnesota down by a couple more wins. Then, suddenly, the Vikings might be hovering around .500 and find themselves out of the playoffs. The NFC North is the toughest division in the league and someone has to finish last place. There's an argument that it could be Minnesota. If McCarthy looks like a bust and the Vikings take a big tumble from 14-3 to out of the playoffs, it would make 2024 look like a mirage and that would be tough for hard-luck Minnesota fans to take.

The crystal ball says

The Vikings should be getting a lot more respect. That's why they're pretty high in these rankings. What they did last season was not fluky. The same people believing the Vikings will fall way back are also skeptical of Sam Darnold in Seattle. It's hard to reconcile that. Assuming J.J. McCarthy won't be good is strange, too. He's not some fifth-round pick; a smart Vikings front office liked him enough to trade up and draft him 10th overall. Maybe we'll look back and see that last season for Minnesota was a weird positive blip and they fall back to the middle or worse of the NFL, but I have no reason to project that now. Their coaching staff is excellent. McCarthy was a good prospect. They had a good offseason, including a clear-eyed plan to invest the money many teams would have thrown at Darnold into the rest of the roster. The Vikings aren't going 14-3 again. But they will go to the playoffs and be a contender in a very tough NFC North all season. I have no reason to believe otherwise as we head into the season.

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