Major quarterback struggles have Minnesota Vikings under fire after 3-3 start, and it’s getting ridiculous
The Vikings quarterback process is under fire right now, and it shouldn’t be.
When you sit back and look at the first six games of the Minnesota Vikings’ season, a 3-3 record feels incredibly disappointing. Yes, the Vikings have been decimated with injuries, but the three losses come with an insane level of frustration because they were competitive in every game.
Throughout the entire season, the Vikings have dealt with subpar quarterback play. It’s especially frustrating after seeing Sam Darnold dominate last season and lead the Vikings to a 14-3 record. Their struggles so far this season have brought up a lot of discussion.
Vikings receiving unfair criticism for their quarterback process
This year has been a struggle on the offensive side of the football, with J.J. McCarthy having one good quarter out of eight as a starter, and Carson Wentz has struggled mightily in a multitude of situations. It’s brought out a lot of criticism from fans, but the interesting criticism is coming from the national media.
This kind of criticism is void of any context. Yes, the Vikings did choose to settle with their backup quarterback, but it wasn’t due to them not prioritizing it. They offered Darnold and Daniel Jones contracts to return, including offering the latter more money than he ended up getting from the Indianapolis Colts. They both said no because they knew that the Vikings loved McCarthy, and they didn’t have a future starting in Minnesota.
Once they both spurned the Vikings, they didn’t add a backup quarterback until Day 3 of the draft, when the Vikings traded down 30 spots for Sam Howell. He didn’t work out, so they traded him to the Eagles for a positive swap of draft picks. After that trade, they signed Wentz, who was a target back in March, but he chose to wait it out.
They could have signed Aaron Rodgers, which Dan Hanzus didn’t mention above. He wanted to play for the Vikings, but they decided to go with McCarthy. This is where things get really weird in terms of the Vikings’ quarterback process, and why the criticism is rough and unfair.
The biggest reason for the criticism is it hasn’t worked. It’s completely valid to be frustrated about how they have performed to this point, but it’s the reason why you are critiquing that matters the most.
McCarthy suffered a high-ankle sprain on a tackle that was akin to a hip drop tackle. Yes, McCarthy has two injuries in his first 18 months in the NFL, but how he got those injuries just happened. It’s not that McCarthy is putting himself in harm’s way. It stinks that things haven’t worked out to this point, but the process the Vikings used was good.
- They tried to have a bridge quarterback
- Ignored a last ride for Aaron Rodgers
- Put all of their resources into trying to make their top-10 quarterback good
If the Vikings had prioritized anyone else at quarterback, the entirety of the discussion would be how the Vikings are wasting the rookie contract of McCarthy, or how they are treating him like Josh Rosen. This is a fluid situation that deserves patience. We are watching a backup quarterback start a long string of games, and guess what? It looks bad like a backup quarterback is playing!
The reality is simple with the Vikings: they used the right process to get their quarterback of the future. Will the results come? The only way we will truly know is by seeing McCarthy get a long line of starts.
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