It isn’t a coincidence that trade discussions surrounding J.J. McCarthy have picked up, and everyone should be taking notice.

The future of the Minnesota Vikings is a very fascinating one to parse out.

New general manager, Nolan Teasley, coming in creates a lot of interesting variables. We know the history he has with the Seattle Seahawks, but there is one key piece on context we need to understand: he wasn’t making the final decisions.

That creates an interesting dynamic moving forward, and that’s going to come into play over the course of the next few months.

Minnesota Vikings being linked to trading J.J. McCarthy is no mistake

Earlier in the week, NFL Network’s Tom Pelissero appeared on KFAN’s Power Trip Morning Show and hinted at the idea that the Vikings might trade quarterback J.J. McCarthy.

The timing of Pelissero’s comments are interesting. They came less than 24 hours after Teasley was officially introduced as the Vikings’ general manager before he had seen both McCarthy and Kyler Murray throw in practice. It does raise an interesting point on an overall level: Teasley isn’t attached to any of these players. I talked about that on The Real Forno Show this past Thursday.

It’s really interesting to see the tonal shift, and it raises fascinating questions. Will Teasley end up making serious moves with the roster over the next few months? Could he swing a blockbuster trade with McCarthy or someone else on the roster? It’s certainly a lot easier to make a trade when you don’t have any emotional investment in the roster. Without that element, you can see a clearer picture of what needs to happen.

That could be why the Vikings end up trading McCarthy or anyone else, and it could happen at any time.

Anything that happens with Minnesota Vikings quarterback J.J. McCarthy is going to draw attention, whether fair or not.

The Minnesota Vikings quarterback competition, or lack thereof, is going to be the biggest talking point of the offseason. Because of that, everything that both Kyler Murray and J.J. McCarthy do will be heavily scrutinized.

That happened after practice on Thursday when the media was there to watch for the second time during OTAs. One aspect in heavy focus is going to be the discipline of McCarthy. His consistency has been questioned within the building, something The Athletic’s Alec Lewis highlighted in his latest piece.

J.J. McCarthy leaving practice quickly causes a stir

When practice ended, McCarthy made a relatively quick exit, something that Lewis noted in the same piece.

Normally, something like that wouldn’t be a very big deal. In a competition, even the smallest of details can end up being meaningful. That paragraph was all over social media with many criticizing McCarthy for leaving practice the way he did. We did get some additional context from Lewis about why he was so quick to get off the field.

There are multiple ways to look at this. You can take the angle that McCarthy leaving practice early is a bad look no matter what. If your biggest competition is sticking around after practice, maybe you should be doing the same.

On the other hand, he was apparently rushing to make a get together with teammates. That certainly flies in the face of the idea that he would be a bad teammate or isn’t taking this seriously. Sure, golfing won’t help him win football games, but he’s building camaraderie with his teammates, which is an important element of a successful franchise.

Overall, this really tells us everything and nothing at all about McCarthy. Whatever your position on him will likely determine what you think about this.

Essentially, it doesn’t mean anything.