The Minnesota Vikings are entering a new era with J.J. McCarthy taking over under center after an impressive 2024 season from Sam Darnold. Nonetheless, the Vikings decided it’s time to let McCarthy take the reins and be their signal caller.
Although the Vikings are in win-now mode, considering they made the playoffs last season and tallied 14 wins, naming McCarthy means they’ll take the bumps that come with a young quarterback to ensure that the foreseeable future is secured with the Michigan product leading the way.
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Moreover, Kay Adams, host of the “Up & Adams” show, dropped a comparison that she was given on McCarthy that has led to her buying into the second-year quarterback having a successful season.
“I think I love to hear how other people speak about a young quarterback and when you have a Case Keenum, when you have some veteran quarterbacks telling me, even Adam Thielen—the local boys—saying he’s the real deal and then, when I met him, he has aura; there’s no question about it he’s a winner,” Adams said while speaking to the Vikings’ official YouTube channel.
“We know he’s competitive, he’s cerebral. I trust the words of somebody like Aaron Jones, who’s been around Aaron Rodgers and him likening them when we haven’t even seen an NFL snap.”
Nonetheless, while she is high on McCarthy, Adams does mention that the young quarterback still needs to go out onto the field and display the talent that made him the 10th overall pick in the 2024 NFL Draft.
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“I know we don’t want to speak too highly of a player who, you know, he’s got to earn it,” Adams said. “He has a lot of work to do. And I think [Kevin O’Connell has] done a really good job of sort of being the guy who’s in front of the camera and not having J.J. do it so he can focus on the task at hand.”
Minnesota will face the Chicago Bears, Atlanta Falcons, and Cincinnati Bengals to open the 2025 season, so three opponents that missed the postseason, and it will be interesting to see whether the Vikings can get off to a 3-0 start.
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