The Minnesota Vikings are heading into the season opener against the Green Bay Packers with a handful of well-known players not at their disposal.
Chief among them is third-year quarterback JJ McCarthy, who is the team’s third-string quarterback. He will serve as the emergency QB, meaning the Vikings can call upon McCarthy if both starter Kyler Murray and backup Carson Wentz are unable to play for some reason.
Also inactive is sixth-round running back Demond Claiborne who struggled in the pass game during training camp and the preseason. But the young RB has explosive-play potential, so Minnesota kept him through the 53-man cut down a couple of weeks back in a move that ultimately cost the Vikings Zavier Scott, who signed with the Chicago Bears following his release.
Alec Lewis of The Athletic published the full list of Minnesota’s inactive players on X ahead of the team’s Week 1 game in Minneapolis.
• RB Demond Claiborne • CB Zemaiah Vaughn • S Jakobe Thomas • C Nick Samac • T Caleb Tiernan • DL Elijah Williams • QB J.J. McCarthy (emergency 3rd QB)
“The Vikings’ inactives vs. Packers—
• RB Demond Claiborne
• CB Zemaiah Vaughn
• S Jakobe Thomas
• C Nick Samac
• T Caleb Tiernan
• DL Elijah Williams
• QB J.J. McCarthy (emergency 3rd QB),” Lewis wrote.
JJ McCarthy Will Likely Remain Trade Candidate for Vikings Throughout First Half of Season
McCarthy has plummeted from being in a competition for the QB1 role in early August to not even on the 53-man roster roughly one month later for the team’s opening game of the year.
As such, McCarthy has become the subject of renewed trade discussions, though ESPN’s Adam Schefter suggested last week that the best path forward for both McCarthy and the Vikings is to play out his third season together in Minnesota and examine trade options next offseason.
But things in the NFL can change quickly given the volatile and persistent nature of injuries across the sport. The trade deadline this year is November 10.
JJ McCarthy Has Maintained Positive Attitude Through Multiple Demotions
For his part, McCarthy has taken his double demotion well, at least publicly, by maintaining a positive outlook despite his hardships.
“I just feel like being the best quarterback I can be for this team and, you know, whatever aspect that entails is what I’m working on every day,” McCarthy said.
Those hardships included an ankle injury that led the QB to sideline himself ahead of the team’s final preseason game of August, which all but cemented his position on the third-string unit behind Murray and Wentz.
McCarthy missed the entirety of his rookie campaign with a knee injury that required surgery. He then suffered a high-ankle sprain, a concussion and a hairline fracture in his throwing hand that limited the QB to 10 starts in his second season.
Minnesota was able to sign Murray to a league minimum deal valued at just over $1 million, as the Arizona Cardinals will pay the Vikings’ Week 1 starter roughly $36 million not to play for them in 2026.
That proved a stroke of bad luck for McCarthy, who lost the job to Murray before the first preseason game and continued to fall down the depth chart in the following weeks.
Vikings’ JJ McCarthy Among Several Big Names Who Won’t Play Against Packers