RandBall: In doing the right thing with J.J. McCarthy, the Vikings embrace uncertainty

However murky the Vikings' messaging about their quarterbacks has been this month, it has grown substantially clearer in the past 24 hours.

Did they want to keep Sam Darnold? Maybe, sort of, but only for the right price and terms (and not the ones he ended up getting from Seattle).

Were they interested in 41-year-old free agent Aaron Rodgers? It was discussed, certainly, but for about a week it was hard to gauge just how serious things were.

The narrative of what-ifs, though, has given way to a clear path forward: second-year QB J.J. McCarthy is their guy, and he will be given every opportunity and resource to be the Week 1 starter in 2025.

There are hedges against that. A veteran QB will be acquired at some point, and Rodgers can’t be completely eliminated from our thoughts as long as he remains unsigned. But it’s clear the Vikings want their faith in McCarthy to be communicated to the masses.

They are settling into their own plan, which will necessitate their decision-makers to be uncomfortable at quarterback in a way that hasn’t happened within the organization in a decade.

Veteran QBs are almost always safer, with higher floors but lower ceilings than unknown commodities like McCarthy — an idea explored on Thursday’s Daily Delivery podcast.

The last time the Vikings committed to a young quarterback was the middle of the 2010s. They drafted Teddy Bridgewater, gave him plenty of seasoning as a rookie (12 starts) in 2014 before turning things over to him for good in 2015.

In an alternate universe, Bridgewater (who is only 32 years old) might still be their starter now. He went 11-5 for the division-winning Vikings in 2015 and there was great confidence in a Year 3 leap preceding his catastrophic knee injury just before the 2016 season.

Since then, it’s been a parade of veterans and the dependability they bring: Sam Bradford, hastily acquired after Bridgewater’s injury, in 2016; Case Keenum, filling in admirably after Bradford was injured, in 2017; Kirk Cousins for six seasons between 2018-23; and Darnold last year after McCarthy’s preseason knee injury erased any thought of a competition.

It’s a good way to remain consistently relevant; the Vikings made the playoffs in four of those nine seasons and never won fewer than seven games in any of them.

But it’s also a hard way to be elite in the current NFL structure. Super Bowl contenders tend to either have an experienced quarterback who is one of the three-to-five best in the game or a starting-caliber young quarterback on a cheap contract who allows for the building of a great all-around roster.

The Vikings have had neither since Bridgewater’s injury. They don’t know if they will have it in 2025 since it is impossible to predict just how McCarthy will perform when the lights come on.

But if the tradeoff is giving up the certainty of being good for the possibility of being great, it is a risk worth taking every time.