Which Minnesota Vikings player is poised for a breakout in fantasy football?

USA Today

08-07-2025

Fantasy football is the second-best thing about the game of football; first, of course, is the actual game we all enjoy every Sunday. The game of fantasy football, though, allows fans to put on their general manager hats, and it requires them to think ahead and find diamonds for their teams.
One of the ways to find those fantasy diamonds is to find players coming off disappointing rookie seasons. One of those players is a Vikings player who we saw in the preseason but not in the regular season: J.J. McCarthy. PFF's Nathan Jahnke wrote up second-year players who could have a breakout, and he couldn't leave out the former National Championship-winning quarterback.
Jahnke writes, "McCarthy will be surrounded by a strong receiving group in Minnesota, withJustin Jefferson andJordan Addison at wide receiver,T.J. Hockenson at tight end andAaron Jones Sr. at running back. The Jefferson and Hockenson duo has been around for multiple seasons and is part of the reason the Vikings quarterbacks always perform better in fantasy than they do in real-life quarterback rankings. Even if McCarthy struggles like most quarterbacks do in their first year, the supporting cast and coaching staff should be enough to make McCarthy a top-24 fantasy quarterback. There is a chance McCarthy plays better than past Vikings quarterbacks, in which he could be a top-eight option."
For fantasy football, it is always best to wait on a quarterback. Getting someone like J.J. McCarthy is very likely in the back end of your drafts in the coming weeks. If you want to think about league-winning picks, McCarthy going into 2025 could be the epitome of that.