Vikings say McCarthy to be No. 3 QB, Wentz No. 2 for Week 1 - ESPN

EAGAN, Minn. — J.J. McCarthy will open the season as the Minnesota Vikings' No. 3 quarterback, coach Kevin O'Connell confirmed Wednesday, a notable but unsurprising outcome for the No. 10 pick in the 2024 draft.

McCarthy lost his starting job to Kyler Murray during a training camp competition, and O'Connell chose Carson Wentz to be Murray's backup for Sunday's season opener against the Green Bay Packers.

The depth chart at the position will be revisited weekly, O'Connell said. Wentz started five games last season for the Vikings while McCarthy recovered from a right high ankle sprain.

«Carson has got almost a hundred career starts,» O'Connell said. «What he was able to do last year from a standpoint of very limited repetition, but being able to apply a career's worth of experience, that's kind of what you need to do as a backup quarterback, especially early on when so much of the emphasis is going to be on getting Kyler as comfortable as we can possibly get.»

McCarthy missed his entire rookie season in 2024 because of a torn meniscus in his right knee, but the Vikings bid farewell to starter Sam Darnold and then were unable to re-sign veteran Daniel Jones after the season. That made McCarthy their 2025 starter by default.

McCarthy played poorly enough — he ranked 36th of 40 qualified quarterbacks in Total QBR — that the Vikings signed Murray to a one-year free agent contract in March to compete for the starting job. When he announced Murray as the winner of that competition on Aug. 11, O'Connell said that McCarthy was the No. 2 quarterback at that moment.

But McCarthy was erratic in two preseason appearances, completing 9 of 17 passes. After missing multiple open receivers in the end zone during an Aug. 22 game against