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On Sunday, the Vikings will hand back the keys to their future to young quarterback J.J. McCarthy.
The final 10 games of this season can still be defined by wins and losses, but the 3-4 Vikings are long shots to make the playoffs (especially if they can’t pull off an upset at Detroit). The rest of the year, more than anything, is an exercise in clarity and information.
Is McCarthy, who has only been healthy enough to play in two of 24 regular-season games since being drafted No. 10 overall in 2024 and was uneven at best during those two games, on track to be the Vikings’ quarterback for years to come?
Ben Goessling and I unpacked all that is at stake for the Vikings during Friday’s Daily Delivery podcast.
The beginning of that episode, though, was given to another question and an acknowledgment: The Vikings have tried to identify a quarterback of the future several times in the past three decades, but often they have turned back to (and had more success with) a quarterback of the past.
A colleague suggested that I rank these veterans, starting with Jim McMahon in 1993 and ending (for now) with Carson Wentz.
My methodology for choosing who made the cut and where they fell on the list was fairly subjective, but let’s take a spin through the ranking from top to bottom in today’s 10, er, 14 things to know today:
