J.J. McCarthy not focused on winning starting job, Vikings QB emphasizing progress

It’s only a matter of time before the Minnesota Vikings hand the keys of the offense to J.J. McCarthy. When that new era is officially ushered in, however, is a bit of a mystery. On top of adding McCarthy with the No. 10 overall pick in the 2024 NFL Draft, Minnesota also signed veteran Sam Darnold, who has been working with the first-team offense as the presumptive starter to begin training camp. 

While we may all be pondering when McCarthy takes that leap up the depth chart, the rookie is simply keeping his head down and embodying the team’s new mantra for the 2024 campaign: “The process is the progress.”

“I feel like I’m not focused on the outcomes of each day,” McCarthy said Friday, via ESPN. “I’m just focused on learning to get better, and improve the weakness that I have with my game and learn my teammates’ strengths and try to amplify them every chance I get. We’re off to a great start so far.

“My ultimate goal is to get the most out of every single day. When the time comes [to start], it comes. I’m just training every single day so that when that time does come, I’m going to be ready.”

Because of the presence of Darnold, the Vikings do have the luxury of being patient with McCarthy and allow him to ease into the league. The rookie had remained in Minnesota throughout the summer break where he focused on cleaning up his ability to call plays in the huddle. 

“In OTAs it was very hard for me to get out a play call,” he said. “Everyone thinks they can play quarterback, but try getting out of the huddle. That was my biggest goal going into this training camp, being able to hear it one time and execute it and regurgitate it to the guys with confidence, and I’ve been doing that so far. We’ll see when we get down to third down and red zone, when they get really long, but they’re going pretty well so far.”

Those positive steps, however minute, will ultimately lead McCarthy to the starting job, but how long that road ahead is until reaching that destination is still one of the big questions looming over the Vikings.