Souhan: Vikings are right not to tank; here are three reasons to support that stance

ARLINGTON, TEXAS – Social media is a petri dish for bad ideas. One of the worst sprouted recently, and went something like this:

“The Vikings should lose the rest of their games to improve their draft position.”

Let me get this straight: Some people wanted the Vikings to enter the offseason without having the opportunity to see whether J.J. McCarthy can run a winning team, so the Vikings would have a slightly higher draft pick they would be forced to use for a quarterback to replace McCarthy, because McCarthy hadn’t been able to prove whether he could run a winning team.

How about this, instead: Use the relatively meaningless games at the end of the season to help McCarthy prove he deserves a chance to be the Vikings’ franchise quarterback, so they can enter the 2026 season with some optimism, and use their 2026 draft pick to help their aging secondary?

Here are the apparently-not-obvious-enough reasons the Vikings were right to play to win:

If high draft picks are so valuable, how come so many bad teams wind up with so many of them? Meanwhile, powerhouse organizations like the old Patriots dynasty, the Rams, Eagles, Chiefs and Ravens routinely have later draft picks but find winning players.

The Vikings’ plan for 2025 was to have McCarthy lead a veteran team to the playoffs. It wasn’t a bad plan; it was just poorly executed, either because McCarthy wasn’t ready or because of the ankle injury he suffered Week 2 against Atlanta.

McCarthy has produced many troubling moments and throws this season, but this never felt like the Christian Ponder experience.

Even when Ponder was winning games, you couldn’t find people in the organization vouching for him. He was winning because of Adrian Peterson and a strong defense in 2012, and everyone knew it.

McCarthy’s performances could make everyone cringe, but you could see arm talent, athletic ability, mental toughness and a positive attitude.

Giving up on a 22-year-old quarterback with those traits would have been silly, especially since the NFL is now filled with former first-round draft picks who thrived once given a chance to play for quality offensive coaches.

The Vikings had little choice but to spend the rest of 2025 giving McCarthy every chance to solidify his position as this team’s starter. At the moment, he appears to have done just that.

If that had happened, the Vikings would have been forced to either draft a competitor at the position, or spend money signing a veteran to compete with him.

McCarthy has more to prove, but he is on his way to giving the Vikings every reason to build around him. That would mean not spending big money or a high draft pick on another quarterback, so the Vikings can invest in their secondary.

Don’t forget the people who decided to trade up to get McCarthy in the 2024 draft hold positions with short shelf lives.

To give up on McCarthy would be to admit a grievous mistake, perhaps a career-altering mistake.

General Manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah and coach Kevin O’Connell have a lot of reputational equity tied up in McCarthy.

O’Connell earned that nickname by working with veteran quarterbacks Kirk Cousins and Sam Darnold. McCarthy represents a chance for O’Connell to develop a quarterback.