'It needs to be better'
JJ McCarthy struggled with accuracy again. Where does the loss to Chicago leave the Vikings?
By Matthew Coller
MINNEAPOLIS — A lot of stuff happened in the Minnesota Vikings’ 19-17 loss to the Chicago Bears but nothing else feels like it’s worth talking about when JJ McCarthy finishes 16-for-32 with 150 yards, one touchdown and two ugly interceptions.
The young QB summed up his play in his opening comments:
“I need to do a better job in my decision making and accuracy,” McCarthy said sharply. “I need to change. It needs to be better.”
The performance was concerning from the outset, when McCarthy missed a wide open downfield pass to Jordan Addison on a play-action pass. He dropped back, stepped into the throw and bounced it 10 yards short of the target. The early parts of the game looked exactly like the previous week against the Baltimore Ravens when he struggled mightily to throw the ball accurately with any level of consistency.
“At the end of the day, there are a lot of things I have to improve on and accuracy is one of them,” McCarthy said. “I promise you I’m going to wake up tomorrow and get working on that.”
The number of passes that were off target did not decrease as the game went on. He stepped up into pressure and under threw an interception. He had TJ Hockenson wide open down the sideline and overthrew him. He was late on a deep throw into the end zone for Addison that was picked off.
There was a third-and-7 where Justin Jefferson got wide open on an out route and he flew the ball into the stands. McCarthy highlighted that play after the game.
“You just can’t miss those, this game is too hard,” McCarthy said. “There are five decisions/plays that I want back more than anything and that’s one of them. It’s an opportunistic concept and I have to deliver.”
What was the cause?
“There’s a bunch of different things, mechanics is a part of it,” McCarthy said. “It’s always a work in progress with everything at the quarterback position.”
To make matters worse, head coach Kevin O’Connell couldn’t have done anything more to make life easy on his quarterback. With the whole world calling for him to run more, he pushed heavily on the run button and had a lot of success doing it with 22 carries for 115 yards from Aaron Jones and Jordan Mason. The offensive line was also as good as we have seen it all year. McCarthy was not sacked and was rarely under duress. There were opportunities in favorable situations abound and McCarthy could not put enough passes together to score against the 28th ranked Bears defense.
Throughout the game, O’Connell said that he kept telling McCarthy to focus on his feet and eyes.
“I’m trying to call things that give him the best chance to get rhythm throws and find different types of throws that I’ve seen him hit,” O’Connell said.
To McCarthy’s credit, he didn’t get a ton of help. Early in the game, he threw a perfect ball to Addison going over the middle and it bounced off the receiver’s hands. There was a third-and-2 where a high throw bounced off Jefferson’s paws. There was a quick out that hit Addison in the gut and he couldn’t bring it in.
“It felt like we were one or two pitch-and-catches away from having a little bit different dynamic of the game,” O’Connell said.
McCarthy also found his accuracy and poise late in the fourth quarter when the Vikings still had a chance to win. Down 16-10, he hit Hockenson and Jefferson with strong throws and beat an all-out blitz for a first down. And then when they needed to get into the end zone, he ripped the ball to Addison for a go-ahead score.
“I felt extremely prepared going into this game, I felt super dialed in physically, it’s just something that I need to figure out and make sure I keep this thing rolling for 60 minutes consistently,” McCarthy said. “The way we can operate when it does look like [the final drive] is a lot of fun.”
Normally it wouldn’t make much sense to make every game into an existential crisis for the franchise but in this case the five-game sample of struggles with the same technical issues and low completion percentages are enough to push us to the point of asking how quickly these things can be improved.
“With a young quarterback there are going to be a lot of things that we will pinpoint and continue to highlight…it’s part of the young QB journey, especially when you’re able to fight through it all and get the lead, you’d like to be making a lot of those coaching points after a 1-point win,” O’Connell said.
To say the “QB journey” has been a rocky one to this point would be like saying the Grand Canyon is a pot hole. Through five games, McCarthy has completed just 52.8% of his passes and has as QB rating of 61.8. In the last 20 years, there have been 105 quarterbacks to throw at least 100 passes in their first five games. McCarthy ranks 94th in completion percentage and 92nd in passer rating.
While McCarthy has shown enough flashes to still be intrigued, it’s become clear now that he was in need of more development than the team could have imagined when they turned the keys over to him this offseason. If the season doesn’t get turned around quickly, the goal posts are probably going to be moved to 2025 being framed as a development year. All part of the QB journey. But we know that the offseason spending and 14-3 season in 2024 set the bar much higher than being a glorified Tennessee Titans.
But they may have to settle for the consolation prize of increasing the sample size of McCarthy games/throws. It would be a victory if, by the time they put a bow on this season, there are concrete conclusions on McCarthy.
For that reason, O’Connell shouldn’t shy away from any passing situation. He shouldn’t chop down the offense to use only the route concepts McCarthy is comfortable with. He shouldn’t run on every third-and-2. He should ask his QB to play the way the Vikings QB needs to play in order to win and see where the chips fall by Week 18.
McCarthy said he expects to work through the adversity because of his approach to the game.
“I’m obsessed with growing and getting better,” McCarthy said.
There certainly needs to be a lot of that in order to squeeze something out of this year.
“He shouldn’t run on every third-and-2.” -I mean if he did it would fool the defense every time. 😂
He shouldn’t run on every third-and-2.”