J.J. McCarthy was selected by the Minnesota Vikings as the 10th overall pick in the draft after the team moved up one position to choose the quarterback, giving up a fourth and a fifth round pick in the process.
Although Minnesota received a sixth-round pick back from New York, the move still came at a high cost because the Vikings only advanced one pick. Nevertheless, the team performed far better than Field Yates and Mel Kiper Jr. of ESPN projected, who said that Minnesota would have to give up the Nos. 11 and 23 picks in 2024 along with a 2025 first in exchange for moving up six spots to No. 5 with the Los Angeles Chargers and selecting McCarthy there.
Overall, the Vikings’ first-round victory on draft night was enormous. Not only did they select their quarterback, but they also retained the 23rd pick, which they later traded to move up six spots to No. 17 and select Alabama edge defender Dallas Turner, who is currently the overwhelming favorite to win the NFL Rookie of the Year Award (+400).
But that didn’t stop Denver Broncos head coach Sean Payton from celebrating his team’s victory by reportedly tricking the Vikings into trading up for McCarthy from No. 11 to No. 10. Payton made this suggestion at a press conference on Thursday night, April 25, following his team’s selection of Oregon quarterback Bo Nix with the 12th overall pick in the first round.
Payton stated, “I actively participated in attempting to pretend we were moving forward.”
Ben Leber, a KFAN analyst and former Vikings linebacker, repeated Payton’s remarks on social media along with a sharp rejoinder.”What an idiot,” Leber penned.
It’s unclear exactly what Denver gained by trading up, even if Payton and the Broncos succeeded in scaring the Vikings into doing so.
With the Jets, an AFC team that will challenge the Broncos for postseason berths in the years to come, Minnesota, an NFC franchise, effectively gave up a fourth-round pick and exchanged a fifth-round pick for a sixth-rounder. During the course of the previous season, New York and Denver have also developed a mild rivalry, ever since Payton last opened his tongue and made a mistake.
Nathaniel Hackett was the head coach of Denver for less than a full season in 2022. According to Bleacher Report, Payton sharply criticized Hackett, calling his tenure “one of the worst coaching jobs in the history of the NFL.”
For the 2023 season, Hackett—who had been the offensive coordinator for the Green Bay Packers the three seasons before—reunited quarterback Aaron Rodgers with his team in New York, where they are now currently.Rodgers and the Jets squad as a whole took issue with Payton’s remarks.
In Week 5, they defeated the Broncos in Denver by a score of 10 points (31-21), which raised some awkward issues for Payton in his first season of what seems to be a fairly drawn-out reconstruction.
However, regardless of what Payton created or did not build, the Vikings have their quarterback of the future.
The team does not want to push McCarthy into a starting role, according to general manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah, which is why Minnesota signed Sam Darnold to a one-year contract this offseason.
McCarthy’s development won’t be hurried, Adofo-Mensah stated on Friday, as reported by Kevin Seifert of ESPN. “There are often many unclean hands involved when we look back in history and say, ‘These quarterbacks have missed,'” Additionally, we’ll make sure that our hands are clean and that we give him every chance to excel as a player in this offense.
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