True Competition or Not, Vikings Were Never Going to Trade J.J. McCarthy

It just wouldn't have made much sense for the Vikings to give up on McCarthy this early.

Dec 21, 2025; East Rutherford, New Jersey, USA; Minnesota Vikings quarterback J.J. McCarthy (9) practices before the game at MetLife Stadium. | Robert Deutsch-Imagn Images

The Vikings, via the NFL's top insider mouthpieces, have tried to send the message this offseason that they are going to have a true competition between Kyler Murray and J.J. McCarthy for their starting quarterback job.

Consider us skeptical of that idea — or at least of McCarthy's chances of winning it. Murray has played seven seasons in the NFL, made two Pro Bowls, and displayed high-level play for periods of time. He's never had a passer rating below 87.4 and was at 93.5 in his most recent healthy season. McCarthy, in the ten games he played last season, had a rating of 72.6. His inability to reach a baseline level of competent play was a major reason the Vikings' season did not pan out.

In order for McCarthy to win a competition between the two players, assuming both are healthy, he would have to take a truly massive leap from where he was last year in so many areas: mechanics, processing, decision-making, accuracy. It's not impossible and shouldn't be ruled out, but it does feel highly improbable.

As ESPN's Dan Graziano wrote in a new article, "the expectation is that Murray was brought in to start." The Vikings needed to go out and get a veteran quarterback to either compete with McCarthy or serve as a clear upgrade, and logic suggests that their Murray addition falls into the latter boat. That they were able to land a QB of Kyler's ability for just a veteran's minimum salary was quite the stroke of luck for Kevin O'Connell and company. Plugging him into a talented roster figures to give the Vikings a chance to make some noise in the NFC in 2026.

One obvious question raised by the Murray addition is what happens to McCarthy if, as expected, he is relegated to a backup role in his third season. Does that end his future in Minnesota? And if so, why wouldn't the Vikings have traded him this offseason while he still has some value and some time left on his rookie contract?

J.J. McCarthy | Kevin Jairaj-Imagn Images

No matter what you think of McCarthy's chances of turning his career around, a trade was never going to be something that made sense for the Vikings, as Graziano explained.

"The Vikings have already paid 70% of McCarthy's rookie contract. There's no way they could get anything in return that remotely approaches what they spent in terms of draft capital to acquire him in the first place. They're less than a year removed from believing he could be their starter, not just now but for years to come. And it's not like Murray is some automatic fix, either. He has had one fully healthy season in the past five, and the Cardinals are paying him almost $36 million this year to play for another team.

"People I've talked to who are close to this situation insist that the Vikings haven't given up on McCarthy — that part of their hope is bringing in Murray sends some sort of shock to McCarthy's system and gets him refocused on whatever they think he got away from last year. It's probably a long shot, but again, there doesn't seem to be much they would gain from trading him at this point."

That last sentence sums it up well. What would the Vikings have gained from trading McCarthy? A fourth-round pick, maybe? The upside of that does not nearly match the upside of keeping him around and giving him a chance to show that he can be more than his 2025 season. This is a guy who has only played ten NFL games and mixed in some real flashes of upside amid the struggles.

The health point is another huge one. Murray has had some injury issues, playing 55 of a possible 85 games (65 percent) over the past five seasons. O'Connell and the Vikings have seen how bleak things can get when you don't have quarterback depth, from the Dobbs/Mullens/Hall carousel of 2023 to playing Max Brosmer last year after McCarthy and Carson Wentz went down. That's why they were never trading McCarthy, and why they went out and brought Wentz back as well.

QB depth matters. Upside matters. There's a world where Murray struggles or gets hurt this year and McCarthy steps in and becomes the player the Vikings hoped he would be when they drafted him. That may not be a likely outcome, but it's a possibility Minnesota was never going to throw away by trading the former tenth overall pick before his third season.