Kevin O’Connell had a nice, tidy piece of quarterback philosophy that he liked to reach for back in September of 2024: organizations fail young quarterbacks before young quarterbacks fail organizations. It’s a good line. It’s exactly the kind of thing a head coach says to protect a rookie who just tore his meniscus in the preseason and is about to miss his entire first year without playing a single regular season down. Nobody blinks at it in the moment.

Two years is a long time for a line like that to sit out in the world unchallenged.

On Wednesday, O’Connell announced that Carson Wentz will back up new starter Kyler Murray in Sunday’s opener against Green Bay, which means J.J. McCarthy, the quarterback that quote was written to protect, opens year three as the No. 3 guy on his own team’s depth chart. Not in a competition. Not the backup. Third string, with a real chance he doesn’t even dress on Sundays. O’Connell’s explanation this time around was a lot more blunt than the 2024 version: “This gives us the best chance to win.”

So here’s the question worth actually asking, and I’ll admit I’m asking it as a Packers fan who’s watched this whole saga from the outside with something close to fascination: did the Vikings fail J.J. McCarthy? Or is it the other way around?

O’Connell didn’t back into that quote, either. Around the league they call him the quarterback whisperer, and the résumé holds up. He was the Rams’ offensive coordinator the year Matthew Stafford won a Super Bowl. In Minnesota, he once took Josh Dobbs, who’d been traded to the Vikings five days earlier and barely knew the offense, and got a game-winning touchdown drive out of him in his Vikings debut. That’s the only coach McCarthy has ever had in the NFL.

Because look at the runway this kid actually got. Minnesota traded up to grab him 10th overall in 2024 and handed him a fully guaranteed rookie deal. Then they let him redshirt behind Sam Darnold, who used the year to have the best season of his career (14 wins, 4,319 yards, 35 touchdowns, an actual MVP conversation in December). That’s a genuinely strong situation to inherit, real proof the infrastructure works. When Darnold left for Seattle the following spring, he kept it going: another 14-3 record, another Pro Bowl, a Super Bowl ring by February. Same coaching staff, different quarterback, same outcome. Whatever Minnesota is doing on offense, it turns competent veterans into stars.

McCarthy got the same staff, the same scheme, and a receiving room most rookies would trade a kidney for: Justin Jefferson, arguably the best receiver in football, and Jordan Addison next to him as a legitimate second option. He didn’t have to win a competition to play in 2025. Darnold was gone. The job was McCarthy’s the moment he walked into the building.

And it just never stuck. He tore the meniscus before his rookie season even started, the first quarterback picked in the first round to lose his entire debut year to injury without playing a down that counted. He came back in 2025 and had a genuinely great debut against Chicago (two comeback touchdown passes, a rushing score, the kind of tape that gets a rookie declared a franchise guy by halftime). The following week he went down again with a high ankle sprain. A concussion cost him a game in November. A broken bone in his throwing hand, on a play where an unblocked rusher blew him up and it wasn’t remotely his fault, cost him more time in December. Four different ways to miss snaps in two seasons, and that’s not counting the ankle injury that cost him the final week of this year’s preseason too.

When he did play, it wasn’t good. Ten starts, 57.6 percent completion, 11 touchdowns against 12 interceptions, a 72.6 rating. He finished 35th or 36th out of 36 qualified passers in completion rate, third down conversion, EPA per pass, and passer rating. Not bottom five. Bottom two.

Jefferson and Addison both turned in the worst statistical seasons of their careers throwing to him, and not by a little. Jefferson went from 1,533 yards and 10 touchdowns catching from Darnold in 2024 to 1,048 yards and two scores in 2025. Addison’s touchdowns dropped from nine to three. When McCarthy got hurt again in December, the Vikings turned to Max Brosmer, an undrafted rookie who finished the year with a 53.0 passer rating. The starter was bad enough that the emergency option was worse.

To be fair, McCarthy did go 6-4 as the starter, so this isn’t purely a story about losses. The process numbers underneath that record were just genuinely rough.

None of that reads like an organization that failed its quarterback. It reads like a guy who got about as clean a runway as the league offers, got hurt trying to use it more than once, and then didn’t play well in the games he did get. Minnesota went out and found him real competition this offseason in Kyler Murray, a two-time Pro Bowler who beat him out for the job in August. Then Carson Wentz, McCarthy’s own former backup, beat him out for QB2 too. That second one might be the more damning of the two. Losing to a former No. 1 pick is understandable. Losing the backup job to a 33-year-old journeyman who blew out his shoulder last season is not a great look for anybody.

Now, is this actually over? Not necessarily, and it would be dishonest to pretend otherwise. Murray missed most of last season with a foot injury of his own. Wentz has been hurt more than he’s been healthy over the last half decade. McCarthy’s rookie deal keeps him under team control for two more years regardless of what happens this month, and the Vikings carried four quarterbacks into final roster cuts, which tells you nobody in that building is fully closing the door yet either. If Murray’s foot acts up in October, or Wentz’s shoulder goes on him again, McCarthy is one phone call from getting his job back. Eight competent starts down the stretch and this whole column reads differently.

But as of Wednesday, on the record, the Vikings have had two separate chances this offseason to hand the job back to the guy that quote was written to protect, and they gave it to someone else both times. I’d genuinely love to hear O’Connell asked about it again this week, not the deflecting, thirty thousand foot answer he gave back in 2024, just a straight yes or no. Does he still believe it? Two years later, the organization did its part. McCarthy’s the one still auditioning.