NFL Combine Buzz Suggests J.J. McCarthy May Already Be Out as Vikings' 2026 Starter

Can we reduce the chance of J.J. McCarthy being the Vikings' Week 1 starter in 2026 to about 10 percent? Based on a conversation between respected beat reporters at the NFL Scouting Combine in Indianapolis, that might be too high.

While they didn't put specific odds on McCarthy's starting chances, Purple Insider's Matthew Coller and Ben Goessling of the Minnesota Star Tribune, don't think McCarthy's chances of being the starter in 2026 are very strong after listening to what head coach Kevin O'Connell said on Tuesday.

"The idea of 'competitive room' means starting quarterback for 2026 is not on the team at the moment," Coller told Goessling on the Purple Insider podcast. "The money quote was when he said the timeline has changed. I thought, for a lot of people, not just KOC, people in the front office, and that guy who wears No. 18, it's a very pivotal year for him. Feels to me like someone else is the starting quarterback Week 1 other than J.J. McCarthy."

For context, O'Connell's "money quote" came when he was asked if he thinks McCarthy is still the franchise quarterback he thought he was a year ago at this time: "A lot of those feelings are still the same," O'Connell said. "It's just the timeline is in a different place for all of us than it was at that point (in 2024)."

Goessling thinks McCarthy has to make huge strides to convince the Vikings that he deserves QB1.

"If it is J.J. McCarthy, he will have to have looked so drastically different that they will have changed their impressions of him. He does not have the benefit of the doubt anymore," Goessling told Coller.

"I think if he gets that job back, it's because he comes back and says, 'All of your concerns, all of your questions about me, I have answered. Decision-making is good. I have shown I'm a little bigger, I'm a little more durable. I'm more accurate. My mechanics are better.' All of those things that they were trying to get him to fix last year, that they eventually said, 'Let's just wait for this happen in the offseason,' he has to have that all fixed in a way that he can get the benefit of the doubt back on his side," Goessling continued.

"If it's him, there has been a massive change. Short of that, I think it's somebody else. Because the timeline thing, and the Jefferson thing, I think it's exactly it."

If McCarthy is so far in the doghouse that his chances to start are as slim as Coller and Goessling suspect, then who will be the starter in Week 1? Barring something crazy like a blockbuster trade for Joe Burrow or Lamar Jackson, there appear to be seven quarterbacks who could find their way to the Vikings.

Mac Jones
Aaron Rodgers
Derek Carr
Kirk Cousins
Kyler Murray
Geno Smith
Malik Willis

Murray, Smith, and Cousins are expected to be released before the start of the 2026 league year next month. Willis is due to become a free agent, but the price for him is reportedly going to be in excess of $30 million annually. Rodgers hasn't announced if he's returning or retiring, and Carr is essentially a free agent, though any team that signs him will have to technically trade for him since the Saints still have his rights after he sat out last season in unofficial retirement.