Pick a play, any play, in any game, in all the games and all the quarters, in this Minnesota season that grows gloomier by the week. The Vikings in 2025 cannot be described as a “work in progress.” That would require progress. And those moments, dozens spread across 11 contests to select from, add up to an obvious conclusion: Minnesota is a mess.
Like in Week 11, at home against Chicago, in one simple but not determinative sequence: The Vikings, despite their offensive line’s high pressure rate (37.7 percent, fifth-worst in the NFL), get Aaron Jones moving. A renewed ground game yields immediate defensive adjustments from the Bears. McCarthy turns those into two crisp passes that whistle toward intended targets. Minnesota puts a promising drive together—exactly how decision-makers expected this and future seasons to unfold. But on a third-and-3, nearing midfield, pass aimed at arguably the single-best receiver in pro football, McCarthy rams another attempt so high, with such velocity, it zips over Justin Jefferson’s head. It zooms past the sideline before striking the barrier below the stands, like a missile hitting miles beyond its intended target.
In Week 12 at Green Bay, the Vikings open with another capable offensive possession. This time, they cross midfield, threaten to score and extend the drive with a third-down completion from McCarthy to Jefferson. Progress? Maybe. This drive recalls Minnesota’s offense last season, when it ranked ninth in scoring at 25.4 points per game. But this is 2025. Another stall nets a 52-yard field goal from Will Reichard.
Minnesota is a mess.
At halftime of the Packers game, Green Bay led, 10–3. But it felt like the Vikings had already lost. Such dwindling confidence in basic competence speaks primarily to their quarterback. But it also illuminates the pressure mounting on their head coach and his offensive staff, who have publicly defended McCarthy. But they don’t seem to trust him after only six starts, another round of injuries that have contributed to the panic around him, them and this already lost season.
His line against the Packers was the antithesis of noteworthy: 12-of-19, 87 passing yards, two interceptions; 15 yards, net, for the entire second half. In each of Minnesota’s past three games, McCarthy threw at least two picks, matching Christian Ponder for Vikings’ infamy—they’re the only two Minnesota quarterbacks to do that over the past three decades.
McCarthy will spend this week in concussion protocol, the team announced after its third consecutive loss and fifth in six games. With at least one pick tossed in each of his first six starts, McCarthy tied Zach Mettenberger, Blake Bortles and DeShone Kizer for another slice of NFL history every quarterback wants to avoid.
Minnesota’s uncomfortable juxtaposition
The juxtaposition cannot be ignored. What Minnesota did do this past offseason vs. what its brass chose not to do and how both apply to 2025. Comparisons hover over every poor decision, play and moment, ready to descend like storm clouds that spark not lightning but criticism and debate.
It’s fair and unfair, this juxtaposition. Unfair to apply it yet to McCarthy. And fair to consider when examining those decisions in light of the Vikings brass.
Everybody knows the basics. Minnesota used its first-round pick on McCarthy, selecting him 10th in the 2024 NFL draft, fresh off a national championship at Michigan. They also signed Sam Darnold, the third choice in 2018. Opinions of Darnold had plummeted throughout his three seasons with the Jets, then inched upward in two seasons with Carolina and another in San Francisco. One source there told me years ago that Kyle Shanahan adored Darnold, his skill set and his cognitive skills especially, and from that ’18 draft through the ’23 season they spent together.
Minnesota’s current uncomfortable juxtaposition began right then, through no fault of anyone, in ways that few saw coming or could have anticipated. McCarthy was injured before the 2024 season, which he missed entirely, after undergoing knee surgery to repair a torn meniscus. Darnold lifted the Vikings back into the playoffs and resurrected his career, leaving general manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah and head coach Kevin O’Connell with two options and one decision. Whom to keep or both? They chose McCarthy, while Darnold signed with the Seahawks.
Offseason decisions backfire
Anyone who examined the Vikings’ quarterback calculus over the past decade wouldn’t have predicted how those specific, early 2025 decisions would reverberate, nor would they have anticipated their season-shattering aftershocks that continue without end. The regime before this one—GM Rick Spielman and coach Mike Zimmer—signed Kirk Cousins in ’18, and he provided stability, focus, intelligence and two playoff appearances, including one conference championship game loss, from that season through ’23. Cousins also played on a series of fully guaranteed contracts.
Chaos ensued after his departure. Minnesota tried to trade up in the 2024 draft and select Drake Maye, now one of the favorites to win league MVP this season—in New England. The Vikings signed Daniel Jones, then thought to be on his way out of pro football, in addition to Darnold. They considered Aaron Rodgers and another late-career Brett Favre-like pivot from Green Bay to its most hated rival, Minnesota, and passed.
The Vikings entered this offseason with a league-leading $343 million in cash spending. Many crushing their decision-makers don’t incorporate this fact. It’s true Minnesota could indeed have signed McCarthy, Darnold and Jones, then made another playoff run. To do that would also have required tons of logistical and contractual maneuvering, each move fraught with long-term implications, each quarterback paid with money the Vikings didn’t have, money they had to create.
That Darnold and Jones have played their way into MVP consideration only heightened the juxtaposition. McCarthy’s first six starts did the same, with exponential impact on existing fears and dread throughout the Gopher State. Minnesota lost more games by Halloween in this frightening football campaign than it dropped throughout all of ’24.
Which of course meant they’d made the wrong decision.
Did the Vikings make a bad decision on choosing McCarthy?
Not necessarily. Professional football is a game grounded in the development of players, offenses and schemes, of counters to existing skill sets and counters to those counters. This development cannot be summoned with ease, or even talent alone. It must be grown and cultivated, which takes the one thing fans never have—time—to assess any decision, but especially the ones Minnesota made last offseason.
Those decisions, for anyone who’s into nuance, don’t look great or prescient or even viable at present. They’re also understandable, in the logic behind what the Vikings did. They bet on a quarterback selected in the first round that they believed in. Darnold had played so well for them that Minnesota could realistically deem the price he commanded as too high. Darnold hadn’t played well in the regular-season finale, as the Lions won both the NFC North and the No. 1 playoff seed. So, in free agency, the Seahawks agreed to a three-year, $100.5 million deal with Darnold, including $55 million in guaranteed money.
That this contract now looks like the biggest bargain of last offseason doesn’t change the sound nature of the decisions the Vikings made. Especially in light of their broader cap issues.
Yes, yes, yes, they could have signed Jones, too. But that’s not on Minnesota, either. Per two sources, he chose to play for Indianapolis, and his logic centered on his thinking—belief that McCarthy wouldn’t be a disaster and that the Vikings would remain committed to him. The team, per one of those sources, believed that McCarthy couldn’t fully develop with Jones lurking behind him every time he played poorly. Which, so far, has been every time out. (In fairness to McCarthy, his season, with five games missed for a brutal high-ankle sprain, has been spent unevenly, partly on the sideline and entirely out of rhythm with the offense.)
Exactly zero quarterback decisions Minnesota made this past offseason have worked well, so far, with a high enough sample size to raise concerns. But the right-wrong part of this particular equation last spring cannot be answered by anybody, not yet, including those who work at Vikings’ headquarters. It’s simply too early to tell—on Darnold’s sustained success, or Jones’s career resurgence, or McCarthy’s ability, period. Right-wrong depends on what happens in this and future seasons.
Here’s an example: In that Week 11 defeat to Chicago, despite all the criticism and alarm swirling like a Minnesota winter, McCarthy didn’t play that well, but the Vikings still only lost on a last-second field goal against a quarterback who, not even two weeks earlier, had been billed as roughly the same level of disaster that McCarthy presented every week. Now, many over-bill the very same Caleb Williams, as the young savior of a Super Bowl contender. We don’t know that yet, either. That Vikings win marked Williams’s 26th NFL start, 21 more than McCarthy had made at that point this season.
What we need to keep in mind about McCarthy and the Vikings
- Many lauded Minnesota for its organization in recent years, for moving on from Spielman, Zimmer and Cousins and creating something new and fierce with O’Connell, one of the most respected offensive minds in professional football, at the helm. He didn’t suddenly forget how to coach this season. Peers respect Adofo-Mensah immensely, too. He built a stout defense and loaded the offense with a bevy of skill-position stars: Jefferson, Jordan Addison, T.J. Hockenson and Aaron Jones.
- McCarthy isn’t losing Minnesota games all by himself. In that Week 12 nadir in Wisconsin, the Vikings put together a solid fourth-quarter drive. Then, Hockenson dropped a pass that hit him in the hands. McCarthy spent the rest of the game under intense duress, another theme in this season of bottomed-out offensive line play in Minnesota.
- Don’t mistake that for McCarthy being free of issues. There are many. He throws too many passes into areas defended by more than one defender, according to a personnel scout who works for a team in the same division. McCarthy has made an alarming number of poor decisions on attempts, this scout says. He holds onto the ball longer than he should sometimes, which makes the offensive line look worse.
- These things don’t work in vacuums. They work together. Or they don’t work at all.
- McCarthy has started six NFL games. Six! How good were you, Vikings critic, doomsday deliver, on your sixth day at your first job?
- Not unfairly, but still, McCarthy’s role in Minnesota’s offense appears to have declined in recent weeks. Against the Bears, per ESPN Research, only five of McCarthy’s throws traveled beyond 10 yards past the line of scrimmage. Two of those were intercepted.
- McCarthy, fairly, expressed confidence after the Bears’ defeat, before the Packers’ one. Would anyone have expected otherwise? He turned his rough NFL beginning into an analogy; his progress, then, was the cork that would pop from a bottle.
- Then McCarthy and the Vikings offense played ... even worse. Afterward, McCarthy told the reporters who crowded all around him, “I’ve got to be better.” Also honest. Also true. He didn’t need any more proof, with 10 interceptions thrown, against only six touchdown passes, this season.
- It’s not too early to be deeply concerned about what’s happening in Minnesota.
- It’s far too early to be definitive on any sentiment beyond the Vikings play this season and McCarthy’s role within a stunning collapse and an offense known for making quarterbacks play better, not worse.
- It’s still way too early to draw any definitive conclusions on McCarthy. It will still be too early until Darnold or Jones wins a Super Bowl and Minnesota pursues its first championship. Even if the Vikings move on from McCarthy—which isn’t likely to happen until after his quite reasonable rookie deal runs out—it will be too early to conclude that McCarthy cannot start at quarterback and excel in the NFL. Proof: Darnold. Or Jones.
“I was taught to play quarterback in a very different way.”J.J. McCarthy
- Whether O’Connell continues to start McCarthy in 2025 depends on many factors outsiders won’t know until an anonymous source spills the details three years down the road. Sports Illustrated tried two sources who would have some understanding of how the Vikings really view McCarthy, and neither responded. If he’s considered green but capable and firm in constitution, the play is to start him for the rest of this season, to prepare him for ’26. If they’re so worried about his play in, again, six NFL starts—which strains things like common sense—they might try out his backup, rookie Max Brosmer, who sources say they’re high on, hoping for less of the same. If they’re worried about his ability to handle criticism—which doesn’t seem to be an issue, based on his answers in public settings—they might also sit him; this sitting, then, is more of a break.
- McCarthy recently acknowledged the learning curve’s trajectory for him this season, saying, “I was taught to play quarterback in a very different way.”
- So few immersed in raging debates about McCarthy, O’Connell, the Vikings offense and the direction of the organization at present land on what would seem like the single-largest factor in all this: Jefferson. The wideout long ago entrenched himself as one of the NFL’s best players. His contract can be voided in 2029, when he could become an unrestricted free agent. In the three seasons between this year and that one, his cap hits and dead cap numbers are astronomical, ensuring Minnesota will do all it can not to trade him. But Jefferson is such a star that he is also the rare player who can leverage a trade before it makes sense for the team that would be forced to trade him. Or he can try. Most go through these days. The Micah Parsons extension did not. Jefferson has handled another lost season in his transcendent career in ways other superstars should take note and emulate. He has supported McCarthy and said he has not done enough to ease the young QB’s integration. And yet, “I hate to lose,” Jefferson told reporters after the Green Bay game. “I hate to be in this type of situation. I hate feeling the way we feel. I hate coming into this locker room, seeing the down faces and the down energy.” Will that get worse? Will such sentiments, eventually and fairly, land on McCarthy’s shoulders?
- Should Vikings fans be worried about their team, the one that traded Randy Moss, Percy Harvin and Stefon Diggs in their respective primes? Yes.
- Should that factor into the decisions made for the current Minnesota team? No.
- McCarthy’s body of work, slim as it is, per the NFC North scout above, is “too limited to really judge. “But if you’re judging (anyway),” the scout says, “There’s not much besides doom.” Like after 11 weeks, when McCarthy’s completion percentage (52.9) ranked second-to-last in the NFL, ahead only of Shedeur Sanders in limited action.
- The concussion protocol will allow McCarthy the break from football he needs.
- Minnesota owes McCarthy $2.775 million next season and $3.775 million in 2027. To cut him would be as short-sighted as assessing him in full after six NFL games.
- Can’t everyone relax and see how all this goes?
- Of course not!
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as Why It’s Way Too Early to Draw Any Definitive Conclusions on Vikings QB J.J. McCarthy.
