Kwesi Adofo-Mensah Peels Back Curtain on Vikings’ Hot-Button QB Issue
Last offseason, the debate about who was going to start in Week 1 — Sam Darnold or J.J. McCarthy — was one of the Vikings’ key hot-button issues. An injury undermined the debate in the preseason, fully clearing the path for Darnold to move ahead as the QB1.
Per Kwesi Adofo-Mensah, seeing Darnold start was the desire all along (minus the McCarthy injury, of course).
Recently, the Vikings’ GM jumped into an interview with the folks from The Star Tribune. The conversation lasts for more than twenty-five minutes as Emily Leiker, Ben Goessling, and Andrew Krammer take turns tossing questions and topics at Minnesota’s top executive. One of the most fascinating insights rested in Adofo-Mensah’s open acknowledgement of the team’s desire to see Sam Darnold be the starter in 2024.
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Watch and learn, young fella. Originally, that was the message being sent to McCarthy.
Darnold, after all, was widely-regarded as a bridge starter. Come in for a season and put together a strong year of work. Doing so can lead to a hearty payday — something that did happen — while helping the Vikings to achieve short-term success as they simultaneously plan for the future by developing McCarthy away from the spotlight.
Goessling pushes on the topic, reflecting on the season-ending injury while steering things around to where the quarterback competition was trending. To start, Adofo-Mensah kicks praise to Kevin O’Connell, referring to the head coach as a “QB PhD or QB Nobel Laureate.” Apparently, the pair concluded that McCarthy “started exceeding [expectations] pretty quickly.”
Even that improvement, though, didn’t disrupt the broader vision: “We were pretty clear I think publicly, that we didn’t want him to play. Not because of how he would have played, but we just thought for the life, for the kind of the better success of his career, it’s better to sit and watch.”
Adofo-Mensah does say that McCarthy’s improvement meant that the youngster “was pushing a little bit” while making a case for “maybe even becoming the backup.” The conversation then shifts into reflecting on the positives that popped up in the Raiders tilt in the preseason.
Step back a bit to digest what’s being said. The GM insists that he has a quarterback expert in Eagan — Coach O’Connell — so the two chatted frequently about the rookie passer’s development. Sensible enough.
There’s then an acknowledgement that the young arm started to outperform expectations, doing better than Adofo-Mensah and O’Connell were anticipating. That’s a reality that the GM may refer to as a “champagne problem” (check out a recent discussion of a different, more recent one).
Even while acknowledging those things, though, Kwesi Adofo-Mensah offers a pretty decisive word on the debate that was raging last July and August: the plan was still for McCarthy to be the team’s backup quarterback. There’s even a bit of a hint that he could have been the QB3, operating behind Nick Mullens (presumably).
The idea of being able to “sit and watch,” as Adofo-Mensah phrases things, certainly has plenty of merit. Patrick Mahomes did so. Tom Brady wasn’t a starter to begin his career. Neither was Aaron Rodgers. Look around the NFL a bit more and one could certainly find other instances of all-time great passers taking some time before becoming the starter.
What’s striking about the commentary from Kwesi Adofo-Mensah is his blunt honesty, the open acknowledgement that J.J. McCarthy was overcoming expectations and yet still being looked at as a depth option.
A lot of Vikings fans (and writers) felt that the Michigan alumnus could unseat Mr. Darnold — someone who had accomplished very little at that time — by the time Week 1 arrived. Still others felt that Mr. Darnold would flop during the regular season, leading to McCarthy’s insertion into the top spot.
In the end, neither outcome occurred. Sam Darnold had a mostly excellent season; J.J. McCarthy was constrained to watching and learning due to his injury. By no means was that the specific route that the GM desired — a healthy depth quarterback would have been far better, for so many reasons — but McCarthy seems to have made the most of his time in the infirmary.
Elsewhere in the conversation, Kwesi Adofo-Mensah acknowledges that the Vikings are entering an uncertain situation with J.J. McCarthy — referring to it as a “bet” and “jump” — since the sophomore hasn’t yet played a real NFL snap.
The GM understands that there are risks but he nevertheless sounds confident that his new QB1 will be up to the challenge.
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K. Joudry is the Senior Editor for Vikings Territory and PurplePTSD. He has been covering the Vikings full time since the summer of 2021. He can be found on Twitter and Bluesky (@VikingsGazette). If you feel so inclined, subscribe to his Substack, The Vikings Gazette, for more great Vikings content.
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