Kevin O’Connell Drops Major Hint on QB Vikings Will Target in 1st Round

The Minnesota Vikings are being careful not to tip their hand on the exact QB they’re targeting in the NFL draft, but context clues rolling in indicate one player is the clear favorite.

Head coach Kevin O’Connell spoke with media members on Tuesday, March 26 at the NFL Owners’ Meeting in Orlando and described the team’s ideal quarterback prospect.

I think a quarterback in the NFL will always need to be accurate, first and foremost. In most NFL offenses, you have to have a certain level of smarts and football intelligence.

I think there’s a level of toughness that goes into playing the quarterback position — mentally and physically tough. Guys that can really overcome some real adversity, both during a drive, during a play, during a season [when] you hit a rough patch. And then, in 2024, you talk about the ability to maybe have some athletic traits to impact the game.

Maybe the leadership traits in the locker room. It’s a unique place, it’s somewhere that we feel very strongly about — our locker room in Minnesota. We want to make sure whatever quarterback we’re adding to this team has some real traits to only take that and make it better.

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Vikings’ Top Target is J.J. McCarthy Based on Need, Projected Pick Range

After listening to O’Connell’s description of the Vikings’ ideal quarterback and assuming that the Chicago Bears will select Caleb Williams of USC with the No. 1 overall pick, the pertinent question becomes who will the Vikings target?

Jayden Daniels of LSU is clearly the most athletic of the remaining QB crop, and his explosive dual-threat playmaking ability would be dynamic alongside arguably the best wide receiver in the game in Justin Jefferson. However, Daniels figures to go second or third after his late-season glow up in the eyes of NFL scouts everywhere, which ended with the quarterback grasping the Heisman Trophy.

Drake Maye of UNC makes a ton of sense for the Vikings considering his high school connection to Josh McCown, the team’s new quarterbacks coach. Maye is also at least a decent bet to fall into the pick Nos. 3-5 range, which is likely the best Minnesota can do in terms of trading up.

Yet O’Connell’s description sounded eerily like J.J. McCarthy, the former Michigan QB and current national champion whose college coach Jim Harbaugh — now the head coach of the Los Angeles Chargers, who select No. 5 overall — has said repeatedly is the best signal-caller in this draft.

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Vikings Likely to Try and Trade Up to Pick Nos. 3 or 4 in NFL Draft

Adam Patrick of The Viking Age also interpreted O’Connell’s comments as a sort of shout out to McCarthy.

“Between … Jayden Daniels, J.J. McCarthy and Drake Maye, McCarthy is the one who seems to fit just about everything O’Connell is looking for,” Patrick wrote on Tuesday. “McCarthy was the most accurate of the three in 2023 (72.3 completion percentage), he never missed a game in college due to injury, he showed off his impressive athleticism during his pro day and during this year’s NFL Scouting Combine, and he was described as an ‘elite leader‘ [during] his career at Michigan.”

The Chargers may be willing to trade out of the fifth pick, though basic math dictates that Minnesota can’t guarantee itself a top-four QB prospect in that spot. Beyond that, getting to fourth or fifth doesn’t afford Minnesota any options, leaving the franchise to take whichever player remains.

That may be acceptable to the front office considering the depth of talent among the top four QBs in this class. However, given that the Vikings made the aggressive move of forfeiting future draft value to the Houston Texans in order to pick up a second first-rounder (No. 23) and how desperate the team is for a legitimate long-term option to replace Kirk Cousins, pursuing the No. 3 pick (New England Patriots) or No. 4 pick (Arizona Cardinals) are the most likely and ideal scenarios.

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