Stephen A. Smith Slams Vikings for Ignoring Sam Darnold for J.J. McCarthy

This series of changes raised more red flags for Smith.

I’m like, why? I know [Wentz has] won a National Championship… The brother has got a good pedigree. I know he can play… I’m just saying, no experience in the NFL whatsoever, and all of these quarterbacks out there, and Kevin O’Connell is like, ‘Nah! This is the dude. This is our future, now.’ And I’m like, really? What is he seeing that none of us have seen?

Smith wanted the Vikings to retain Sam Darnold. O’Connell took a chance with the former first-rounder.

The once front-runner of the NFL bust discussions threw for 4,139 yards and 35 touchdowns to end the season with a 102.5 passer rating. NFL pundits even considered Darnold a part of the league MVP race before the Los Angeles Rams exposed the Vikings in the playoffs.

Darnold found himself on the market once more. This time, he signed with the Seattle Seahawks while McCarthy won the Vikings job.

J.J. McCarthy receives generous praise from retired NFL quarterback

There are always two sides to an argument. Smith may not be sold on McCarthy, but his friend and former NFL quarterback, Dan Orlovsky, defended the Michigan graduate.

Orlovsky argued that it’s perfectly fine for the Vikings fans to get excited about McCarthy because O’Connell’s system helps to elevate quarterbacks. Darnold experienced it. So, it should not come as a surprise that O’Connell can get the same results out of McCarthy as well.

It’s totally okay for us to have unrealistically high expectations of how [JJ] is going to play on this team. If he were the quarterback of a significantly depleted roster, [it would be a] different conversation. This was a team that was in the 1-seed all the way up into the final weeks of the season last year. J.J. has a track record; it’s not like it came out of nowhere. I really believe he should have, production-wise, numbers-wise, very much so rival what Sam [Darnold] did last year.

Orlovsky told KSTP-TV’s Darren Wolfson

O’Connell and Orlovsky aren’t the only individuals to show faith in McCarthy. Star wide receiver Justin Jefferson backed his teammate to be a hit in the Twin Cities.

The Vikings open their 2025 season with a trip to Soldier Field to face the Chicago Bears. According to the latest odds on USA Today Sports, the Vikings are slight (1.5-point) favorites to defeat the Bears.