On Mon, Sept 28, the Minnesota Vikings made an early season trade as they shipped off J.J McCarthy to the New York Giants in exchange for a fifth-round pick in the 2027 NFL draft. The Giants had lost their franchise starting QB Jaxson Dart to a knee injury suffered in a Week 2 game against the Los Angeles Rams that is expected to sideline him for the rest of the season and their QB depth behind Dart was lacking as Jameis Winston was installed as the starter for Week 3. Winston has not led a touchdown drive for New York thus far this season and the Giants barely managed to defeat the Tennessee Titans 12-7 on Sunday. Now Big Blue acquires another young QB in McCarthy, who went from being an anointed starting QB in Minnesota to an injury-plagued inconsistent starter who lost his job as the QB1 to Kyler Murray and wasn’t even able to secure the backup spot.
McCarthy’s time as a Viking has come to an unceremonious end following a stretch of injuries that kept him sidelined and poor play on the field with plenty of turnovers committed over 10 starts. The stats for McCarthy in Minnesota were poor as his QBR ranked among the lowest for quarterbacks in their first ten starts and his inaccuracy with throwing wide incomplete passes to receiving targets such as Justin Jefferson, Jordan Addison and T.J Hockenson didn’t help matters either. Injuries faced by McCarthy include a torn meniscus that forced him to miss his entire rookie season in 2024, an ankle sprain that kept him out for five games last season, a concussion and throwing hand injury as well, and a knee injury that kept him off the field for the final preseason game against the Denver Broncos. Carson Wentz looked better in his time on the practice field and playing field running the second-team offense and Kevin O’Connell decided to make the QB drafted with the 10th overall pick in the 2024 draft the third-string QB on the depth chart. McCarthy was elevated to the backup spot when Murray suffered a concussion in Week 1, with Wentz leading the offense in a steady fashion to two victories. When Murray returned from his concussion, McCarthy returned to his QB3 role as he cheered on his teammates one last time in a 23-16 Vikings win over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
McCarthy is just four months older than Dart, who was taken with the 25th overall pick in the 2025 NFL draft and started 11 games in his rookie season, which were allayed with concerns about his durability due to his high number of concussions that he took with his risky style of scrambling up the middle. Dart was the established starter in New York as the Giants made a coaching change from Brian Daboll to John Harbaugh, whose brother Jim Harbaugh coached McCarthy at the University of Michigan from 2021-23. There were trade rumors regarding McCarthy after he lost his starting job and was demoted to the emergency third QB for the opening week roster. Plenty of teams short on QB depth such as the Los Angeles Chargers, Arizona Cardinals, Cleveland Browns and Giants were on the list of teams interested in acquiring McCarthy. Now the QB who crowned himself as “NINE” after an amazing 27-24 win over the Detroit Lions in Week 9 of last season will be heading to a new team seeking to improve its outlook after losing its star QB to a devastating knee injury.
McCarthy was unable to handle the weight of the expectations on him to be the franchise face for the Vikings and part of that was due to his maturity issues. McCarthy had problems with following orders such as not celebrating exuberantly on a touchdown where he did the “Gritty” against the Dallas Cowboys before crossing the goal line. McCarthy also made an auspicious statement regarding him and Murray at team minicamp in June, when he said that their relationship in the QB room was like “two guys in a classroom. He sits on one side, I sit on the other, and it’s the coach’s responsibility to teach us and coach us”. McCarthy said that statement to the media reporters and in spite of his efforts to look good in practice against defenders from the Brian Flores defense, he still did not translate those reps into positive results in preseason games. Even though the Vikings won seven of the ten games that McCarthy started, they won with great defense and good enough offensive execution that was provided by the running game. Unfortunately, the QB carousel will continue for the Vikings, who have been looking for a consistent franchise-level starter for a very long time.
With McCarthy no longer on the team, Max Brosmer will assume the emergency third QB position behind Murray and Wentz. The Vikings also have some injuries to deal with in Jefferson sustaining an ankle injury on the opening drive of the game in Tampa and Josh Oliver suffering a torn bicep injury that could require surgery. Along with Jordan Mason still being on injured reserve with a torn thumb ligament, the Minnesota offense is banged up while the defense is mostly healthy. Heading into their Week 4 game against the Miami Dolphins at U.S Bank Stadium, the Vikings have now officially entered a new era as they moved on from Jonathan James McCarthy, who will seek to start anew in the Big Apple as a backup behind another former first-round pick in Famous Jameis Winston.
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