The Minnesota Vikings saw long-time starting quarterback Kirk Cousins depart in free agency this offseason in a shocking move that saw him ink a big deal with the Atlanta Falcons and leave Minnesota with a pressing need at the most important position in football.
The Vikings addressed it in the 2024 NFL Draft with their selection of Michigan signal caller JJ McCarthy and Vikings head coach Kevin O’Connell discussed why the team was impressed with the quarterback by sharing a story of a meeting between McCarthy and some of the Vikings staff had lunch at a local Ann Abor deli during a pre-draft on-campus visit.
“It was pretty crowded at the time, which I liked because it allowed me to see him in a setting around fans, other students. He was very popular, obviously, and super-engaging and friendly—comfortable in his own skin. I thought that was really cool,” O’Connell said, according to Sports Illustrated.
“If you’re going to draft a quarterback you hope is one of the faces of your franchise—and there’s no real evaluation to that—there’s a lot of positives that can come out of it watching them in that setting. J.J. was absolutely that…I left campus that day thinking that we could build around J.J. McCarthy,” O’Connell continued.
McCarthy is coming off a championship finals season in college football where he threw for a collegiate career-high of 2,991 yards and 22 touchdowns for the Wolverines.
