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Hall of Fame wide receiver andVikings legend Cris Carter drew a specific line between J.J. McCarthy and the man who drafted him during an appearance on a podcast with Shawn Meaike, saying that internally, McCarthy was Kwesi Adofo-Mensah’s quarterback, not the coaching staff’s.
“Internally, you know what we hear and from the people I talked to, he was the general manager’s guy,” Carter said when asked who J.J. McCarthy belongs to within the organization. “Not the coaches’ guy.”
Adofo-Mensah was fired by the Vikings in late January 2026
The distinction carries weight precisely because Adofo-Mensah is no longer with the organization. The Vikings fired him on Jan 30, 2026, citing it was “in the best interest of the team to move forward with new leadership” in the ownership’s official statement.
At the time of his dismissal, Minnesota had just completed a 9-8 season, a collapse from the 14-3 campaign the year prior under Sam Darnold, with McCarthy posting 57.6 percent completions, 1,632 yards, 11 touchdowns, and 12 interceptions across 10 starts.
Per ESPN’s Kevin Seifert, Adofo-Mensah’s mostcostly failure was allowing Darnold to leave, with the veteran subsequently leading the Seattle Seahawks to Super Bowl LX and then leaving a difficult situation for a 22-year-old who was not ready.
McCarthy was the 10th overall pick in the 2024 NFL Draft. Adofo-Mensah committed nearly $350 million to the 2025 roster in an attempt to build a team capable of supporting the league’s youngest Week 1 starting quarterback.
Adofo-Mensah was clearly a strong believer in the young quarterback while at Minnesota. A subsequent observation from CBS’s analysis was pointed, noting that a new GM, however, won’t have the same ties to him.
Carter’s comment surfaces directly into the current state of the Vikings’ quarterback room. Minnesota signed Kyler Murray in free agency and now has an open competition between Murray and McCarthy, with Kevin O’Connell declining publicly to signal a preference. O’Connell was already managing a training camp competition that most observers see as tilted toward Murray in practice, even if not in stated preference.
Carter’s characterization of McCarthy as primarily the GM’s choice adds a layer to why O’Connell’s public neutrality may reflect something more than diplomatic caution.
Zone Coveragenoted the counterargument in March, pointing out that O’Connell’s own behavior before the 2024 draft, where he dubbed himself “The Quarterback Killer” in what looked like a hint about trading up, and his involvement in subsequent quarterback decisions suggest the coach was more attached to McCarthy than Carter’s framing implies. Still, there is no dispute that Adofo-Mensah was the most publicly and explicitly committed voice in the building on McCarthy’s behalf.
McCarthy is 23 years old and has 10 NFL starts. Adofo-Mensah is now the Vice President of Personnel & Strategy with the San Francisco 49ers. Minnesota enters training camp next week in Eagan with a quarterback competition and a coaching staff whose level of belief in the player they drafted, per Carter, was always one step removed from the belief of the man who picked him.
The post Cris Carter reveals J.J. McCarthy was Kwesi Adofo-Mensah’s guy at Minnesota, not Kevin O’Connell’s appeared first on Gridiron Heroics.
