NFL 2024 season - Minnesota Vikings team preview

Yahoo Sports' Jason Fitz and Frank Schwab discuss expectations for rookie quarterback J.J. McCarthy and whether the Vikings can challenge for a playoff spot this season. Listen and subscribe to the “Zero Blitz” podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen.

Video Transcript

Give me your one big thing that you're thinking about from Minnie.

Yeah, my one big thing for the Vikings is can jj mccarthy win offensive rookie of the year and I don't think it's that crazy.

Yeah, it's a stacked field with a lot of quarterbacks, obviously, but not many rookie quarterbacks step into such an advantageous situation.

You look around him, obviously.

Justin Jefferson is still to be the best receiver on the planet.

Addison had a great rookie season.

Lester will be back from an AC L at some point.

They added Aaron Jones to help with the running game.

I think Kevin o'connell is a really, really good coach and I think he's going to help get the most out of jj mccarthy.

Now.

They're playing this whole game of a Sam's our guy right now, Sam Darold.

He's gonna be, you know, he's got the lead for week one.

I don't think he holds that job very long if he does it all.

I, I don't know that he is their guy week one and I think at some point very, very soon in the season jj mccarthy takes over and I don't necessarily love JJ mccarthy talent wise, I think he's a good solid quarterback, but just stepping into that situation is gonna be so good for him that I think he can be the type of player that's in the rookie of the year conversation all year long.

Obviously, voters love quarterbacks.

So if you're gonna go some long shot right now and not even that much of a long shot, but somebody who's not one of the top two or three favorites and jj mccarthy has a real chance to have a, a good rookie season.

And as crazy as it sounds, maybe have the best rookie season out of all of these guys in this really star studded offensive loaded draft class.

Now, the more you break it down, the more I, I really do sit here and think about what a glorious situation to be drafted into for a young quarterback to have these weapons that have this experience too.

Like JJ from my limited interactions with him and from the people that I've talked to is brilliant.

Like he's just if, if football brilliant, there's no two ways about it.

He soaks in the game from people, uh borderline photographic memory from what I've been told, he sees it once he can execute it.

He remembers plays from film from years ago.

These are all things that I think are gonna make his transition a little bit faster, but just having somebody like Justin Jefferson to beat your sort of safety net, but also having the experience with a teacher like Kevin o'connell, I, I mean, I this is why going into the draft, we all said the one place who, whichever quarterback got drafted by Minnesota was going to be in the best position that hasn't changed because it's JJ mccarthy, you're 1000% right?

And you're also right because if things break right for the Vikings with all that talent, they really could be a playoff contender.

There isn't a team in the NFC North that I think you can write off today as saying, this team's got no juice.

I think all of the teams in that division could be fighting for the playoffs this year and that if you're fighting for the playoffs with that much talent around you with a quarterback, that's a brilliant teacher and you've got the mind that JJ has, why not rookie of the year candidate, why not offensive rookie of the year candidate like that?

That makes a ton of sense.

The only path to winning the Super Bowl is to really believe that you can have the best quarterback in the league with the best head coach in the league.

I, I think that's a tall as for anybody, but I do believe you need this perfect tag team when you talk quarterback and head coach, two guys that are on the same page that have personalities that are able to mesh two guys that understand and they see so much about football the same way if JJ and Kevin o'connell can be that out of the gates.

I think it puts them a step ahead and Vikings fans then suddenly can feel differently about their team than they have in a minute because Vikings fans didn't buy into Kirk Cousins the way they can buy into this experiment with this quarterback because of the combo of quarterback and coach.