Apologies in advance for disappointing nearly everyone on earth, but we are not yet past the threshold where it’s appropriate to have a take on J.J. McCarthy, who is now—checks notes—three games into his professional career.
The Vikings beat the Lions on Sunday, which is neither a cause for celebration nor a cause for concern given McCarthy’s performance. In the box score, he finished 14-of-25 for 143 yards, two touchdowns and an interception (plus a nine-yard rushing touchdown). The McCarthy file is more of a ledger at this point, on which there is a line down the middle bisecting his good points from his bad. Ideally by the middle of next season, when a proper sample size has given truth to those points, we’ll be able to sacrifice him to the talk show gods with a higher degree of confidence.
For now, though, I think we can all agree that McCarthy is, at the very least, serviceable. And, while we cannot count on the Vikings’ defense logging a season high in sacks every week or a nearly 50% pressure rate and an interior rush from Javon Hargrave that had him looking positively Aaron Donald–like (thanks to an increasingly brittle and injury-ravaged Lions offensive line), we can count on Brian Flores’s unit lifting its fair share of the weight and tilting the score every few weeks. That defense is paired with a very good Vikings special teams unit, which blocked a critical kick and nearly returned it for a score this week. Given all that, we have no reason not to believe McCarthy can’t at least keep Minnesota interesting.
Sunday was about our ability to believe that for another week. Nothing more. In that way, the 27–24 win over the Lions was highly consequential, not only for Minnesota’s 2025 playoff hopes but for the increasingly fragile idea that Kevin O’Connell can take almost any warm, sentient human at quarterback and make foie gras out of the most basic ingredients (which is worth tracking, given that Minnesota passed on re-signing Sam Darnold and Daniel Jones, in addition to stiff-arming Aaron Rodgers this offseason in favor of a McCarthy–Carson Wentz tandem). There was the growing sense that McCarthy was being boxed out of playing in recent weeks in favor of a dangerously banged-up Wentz, which the outside public could easily take as an indictment of McCarthy’s playing ability. Regardless of what is true, we could’ve shaped our own reality if McCarthy had crumbled against a very good Lions team.
Now? It looks a little less thorny. The Vikings have won two of the three games in which McCarthy started, which included a fantastic fourth quarter in a Week 1 win over the Bears that seems much different contextually now that Chicago is 5–3 under Ben Johnson. It also now includes a game on Sunday in which McCarthy seemed to have sprinkled in some situationally great throws atop the prebaked ones O’Connell expected him to make.
If we go by the Bill Walsh scripted threshold of 15 plays, McCarthy has gone from 2-of-4 passing for nine total yards against the Bears, to 4-of-4 for 25 yards in Week 2 against the Falcons, to this week, where he completed 5-of-6 passes for 68 yards and two touchdowns. According to a study done by SumerSports, about 60% of NFL teams have a better EPA per play total on their first 15 plays. The Vikings were undoubtedly at their best offensively during that time on Sunday, as they got out to a 14–7 lead in the first quarter.
In short, McCarthy is getting better at the plays O’Connell believes match his personality, strength and ability.
As for the rest of it? This is where McCarthy gets fun. At his lowest, McCarthy had a little Blake Bortles (too hot and too high) and Zach Wilson (too behind his receivers). It didn’t help that his former Michigan teammate Aidan Hutchinson became unblockable and the Lions continued to dial up pressures that forced McCarthy to immediately retreat from the pocket. At his best, McCarthy had some fantastic touch throws that allowed his receivers to settle underneath them and make catches, like a pass to Jordan Addison with 4:47 to go in the fourth quarter.
Ultimately, with the game on the line, O’Connell trusted McCarthy with a touch throw—a kind of back shoulder ball to Jalen Nailor—to clinch a first down and kneel the clock out. And, much like the other direct commands O’Connell gave him on Sunday in isolation, McCarthy did it well.
It doesn’t mean he has perma-ice in his veins, as the highlight shows would make you believe. It also doesn’t mean he is simply being puppateered by O’Connell exclusively, which seems to be the position adopted by the Wentz conspiracy theorists. Instead, McCarthy remains a work in progress, but the kind of progress Minnesota can work with.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as J.J. McCarthy Showed Progress in One Key Area as the Vikings Beat the Lions.
