The Minnesota Vikings were projected to finish in fourth place in the NFC North during the 2024 NFL season. However, Minnesota exceeded expectations, and they finished with a 14-3 record.
In 2025, the Vikings will now be faced with high expectations and some think that Minnesota could be a dark horse Super Bowl contender in the NFC. Minnesota has one of the best rosters in the NFL. One player who will either make or break the Vikings season in 2025 is quarterback J.J. McCarthy.
NFL Analyst Believes That Minnesota Vikings Quarterback J.J. McCarthy Is One Of Several 2024 NFL Draft First-Rounders Who Need Big Seasons
Nick Baumgardner of The Athletic wrote about many different players who were drafted in the first-round of the 2024 NFL Draft who need to have big seasons in 2025. To no surprise, one of the players he thinks that needs to have a big year is McCarthy of the Vikings. Baumgardner said,
“After trading up one spot in the 2024 draft, the Vikings made McCarthy the highest-drafted QB in franchise history. Unfortunately, McCarthy suffered a torn meniscus during his first preseason game and missed his entire rookie season.
There would’ve been big-time anticipation for McCarthy’s sophomore season either way, though, because Minnesota never planned to start him last year over Sam Darnold. But instead of getting to work in practice with QB ace Kevin O’Connell, McCarthy was mostly limited to mental reps.
McCarthy’s situation in Minnesota is a bit different from most quarterbacks selected inside the top 10, as he’s now likely to be leading an offense with Super Bowl aspirations during his first full year. Winning has been the most consistent item on McCarthy’s resume to date — he never lost a high school start before going 27-1 with a national title at Michigan.
Still, much of his work at Michigan is hard to translate to the NFL game. The Wolverines were a run-heavy, ball-protection outfit that didn’t ask him to take chances at the rate he’ll need to now.”
McCarthy is going to benefit from having an offensive minded head coach in Kevin O’Connell. O’Connell was the coach of the year during the 2024 NFL season as not many people expected Minnesota to have a great regular season. The Vikings will have a lot of offensive weapons for McCarthy to work with.
Having Aaron Jones in the backfield, Justin Jefferson and Jordan Addison at wide receiver, and T.J. Hockenson at tight end is a good group to work with. There is a reason why Minnesota also wanted to fix its offensive line in the offseason. If the offseason line isn’t good, then McCarthy will not be able to perform well. As long as the offensive line holds up, then the former Wolverines quarterback is going to be just fine in this offense for the 2025 NFL season.
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