The Vikings announced they have hired former journeyman quarterback Josh McCown as their new quarterbacks coach on Tuesday.
McCown joins Minnesota after spending part of the 2023 season with the Carolina Panthers as their QB coach. The 44-year-old was fired by Carolina alongside head coach Frank Reich after the team’s 1-10 start.
McCown had an 18-year NFL career playing for 12 teams, including the NFC North’s Chicago Bears and Detroit Lions. Despite playing for nearly a third of the teams in the league, McCown never had a stop in Minnesota.
“McCown is one of those guys who everyone knew was going to be a coach when he came out,” Purple Insider’s Matthew Coller told Bring Me The Sports. “He has an unbelievable amount of experience with tons of different offenses and could be the type to talk on the same level as a veteran QB or help mold a rookie”
While McCown never played for the Vikings, he did cause Vikings fans pain when, playing for the Cardinals against Minnesota, he threw the game-winning touchdown pass to Nate Poole in the Week 17 game that knocked the Vikings out of the playoffs in the 2003 season, sending the Green Bay Packers into the postseason.
McCown will now head up a QB room in the midst of potential change, with longtime starter Kirk Cousins out of contract in March and the potential of the team drafting a QB high in the upcoming draft.
Before he joined the NFL coaching ranks, McCown was an assistant coach at Myers Park High School during the 2019 season. Myers Park was quarterbacked at the time by current top draft prospect Drake Maye. The Vikings have been rumored to be interested in moving up in the draft to get their QB of the future. Maye is widely considered to be a top-three pick in the upcoming draft.
