The Vikings Leaders Have One Escape Hatch
At least within the confines of the 2025 regular season, Minnesota Vikings general manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah and head coach Kevin O’Connell utterly struck out at the quarterback position. Now, with some serendipity, the pair has a single escape hatch left in 2025: undrafted rookie passer Max Brosmer bailing them out.
The Vikings’ leaders may have one escape hatch, and it’s tied to Max Brosmer playing well enough to reshape how the season moves forward.
Brosmer is tentatively on deck to start this Sunday against the Seattle Seahawks. The man could be a job saver.
Vikings QB Max Brosmer Last Line of Defense in 2025 for Purple Brass
It’s Brosmer or bust. Literally.
Brosmer Can Save Reputations of Adofo-Mensah, O’Connell
In the three seasons, Minnesota has drafted J.J. McCarthy and Jaren Hall. Hall, a 5th-Rounder, did not pan out and is temporarily out of the NFL. McCarthy, through six starts, ranks as one of the worst quarterbacks in NFL history — with no exaggeration for effect. He’s been awful.
Then, the two guys who produced steadily in Minnesota — Sam Darnold and Kirk Cousins — earn big bucks elsewhere, no longer playing for the Vikings.
Fast forward to Week 13 of the 2025 campaign, and the Vikings are begging for efficient quarterback play. It’s out there, just not in Minnesota. Darnold is cooking in Seattle, with only a few exceptions. Minnesota also let Daniel Jones escape last March via free agency. He’s playing decently as the Indianapolis Colts’ QB1.
The men that the Vikings have bet on have not worked. The ones they’ve let go are working out in new places.
Brosmer is the last chance, at least during this season, for Adofo-Mensah and O’Connell to save face. If Brosmer cooks immediately, the quarterback scouting for 2025 won’t look entirely dreadful.
J.J. McCarthy Has Struck Out to Date
According to TruMedia, J.J. McCarthy now sits 851st out of 852 qualified quarterbacks in EPA per dropback dating back to 2000 — a placement so deep in the basement that only JaMarcus Russell keeps him from the very bottom. A month ago, the entire debate centered on patience, growth curves, and the idea that he simply needed reps.
That framing no longer fits.
Minnesota has drifted far below the “let him learn at his own pace” stage, and the conversation has turned into something more uncomfortable.
The real question now is when McCarthy can elevate himself from outright unplayable to merely struggling, because only then can an actual developmental runway begin. Rookie passers are supposed to bounce between progress and setbacks, but McCarthy’s valleys haven’t looked like normal valleys. They’ve swallowed the field.
His rough stretches haven’t just been bad — they’ve produced numbers that put him in the same statistical neighborhood as the bleakest quarterback seasons the league has tracked. At this point, he isn’t fighting through typical rookie turbulence; he’s trying to climb out of a hole that threatens to define his career.
Brosmer Will Also Face “The One That Got Away”
Meanwhile, to add even more intrigue, Minnesota will face its 2024 quarterback on Sunday: Sam Darnold.
Darnold is on pace for 4,304 passing yards, 29 touchdowns, and 23 interceptions + fumbles. He’s not the league MVP — that’s probably Matthew Stafford — but he’s guiding the ship on a 7-4 team. Darnold and the Seahawks will visit the postseason barring a seismic collapse.
It’s Brosmer’s job to slow down the Seahawks. In a fairy tale, he’d even show the moxie to defeat them.
Although Brosmer has absolutely no connection to Darnold, he can steal Vikings fans’ hearts by winning this Sunday and pumping the brakes on the widespread Darnold jealousy that is rampant in the Twin Cities.
What about the Long Term?
Here’s the upside for Brosmer. This truly is his chance to be the Vikings’ version of Brock Purdy. A 1st-Round quarterback in Trey Lance that did not work out in San Francisco led the 49ers to a little-known quarterback from Iowa named Brock Purdy.
A 1st-Round quarterback in J.J. McCarthy, who has not worked out in Minnesota, could lead the Vikings to a little-known quarterback from Iowa named Max Brosmer.
While it’s an extreme long shot for Brosmer to do so, there’s a far-off world where he takes the QB1 job Sunday and keeps it for a half-decade.
Hot seats would cool for Adofo-Mensah and O’Connell, and fans really wouldn’t care that Brosmer turned out to be good and McCarthy did not.
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