Murphy: If only the Vikings' season had looked like Sunday
JJ McCarthy managed, the defense dominated -- like we all expected from the 2025 Vikings, just not this late
By Brian Murphy
An old Quaker poet once wrote, “the saddest song of tongue and pen, what might have been,” a pitch-perfect and devastating line about lost love and the regret that haunts those who don’t pursue it.
It felt that poignant watching J.J. McCarthy finally deliver on his promise and guide the Vikings to a 31-0 cakewalk over the reeling Washington Commanders Sunday inside a strangely subdued U.S. Bank Stadium – a crowd seemingly too bruised by the last 90 days to fully trust what it was witnessing.
And it felt no less devastating wondering how different this tortured, misshapen, profoundly exhausting season might have looked had they been treated to even intermittent doses of this secure, poised and productive version of their unpredictable second-year quarterback.
Minnesota fans haven’t exactly been spoiled by competent quarterbacking, but even by this franchise’s baroque standards of heartache, the campaign has been a masterclass in what happens when a team can’t get even replacement-level play under center.
Three passing touchdowns, zero turnovers and palpable confidence go a long way when you’re trying to determine whether McCarthy can still fulfill the Vikings’ eternal quest for a franchise quarterback. At the very least, he kept his name in pencil on the long scroll of failed and vexing experiments at the position.
It was a bookend to his most recent Lazarus act in Detroit a month ago.
McCarthy’s scrappy comeback against the Lions briefly jolted the Vikings to .500 and gave them permission to dream again. Four consecutive losses, each one uglier offensively than the previous, set a four-alarm blaze at TCO Performance Center that threatened to engulf coach Kevin O’Connell, general manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah and those whose fingerprints are all over McCarthy’s drafting and development.
To be sure, Sunday’s stat line -- an efficient 16-for-23 for 163 yards and three scores in his seventh NFL start -- wasn’t explosive, but it was blessedly normal.
After McCarthy sat out last week’s fiasco in Seattle with a concussion, the Vikings were shut out for the first time in 18 years. A week later, they returned the favor and snapped a three-game home losing streak that had turned U.S. Bank Stadium into the Land of 10,000 Grievances.
“It’s just something I feel like should’ve happened a lot earlier,” McCarthy said afterward.
Yeah. Get in line.
“I absolutely love those guys for the grace and patience they’ve had with me, but we’ve got to continue to do it again.”
Grace and patience are indeed vital when evaluating a 22-year-old quarterback who lost his rookie season to knee surgery, spent five more games on the shelf with a high ankle sprain and spent the rest of his brief tenure looking overwhelmed and overmatched. But there is only so much grace you can extend when confronted with serial incompetence and historically awful results, from McCarthy and his replacements, Carson Wentz and Max Brosmer.
But No. 9 looked sharp from the jump, leading a crisp six-play, 61-yard touchdown drive on the opening possession, Minnesota’s first touchdown in nine quarters.
Later, he spearheaded a 19-play, 98-yard odyssey that devoured 12 minutes of the second quarter. Minnesota routinely converted on third down, ran for 162 yards and were only flagged for three penalties one month after committing nine false starts and being booed off the field in that hideous Ravens loss.
Even the math cooperated for once. The Vikings entered play with a league-worst minus-15 turnover margin but somehow protected the ball while forcing two Washington giveaways that became 10 points.
Dare we say, complimentary football? Too bad they don’t get to kick around the Commanders anymore.
Very little has gone right for Washington 11 months after playing in the NFC championship game. Or for McCarthy’s draft classmate Jayden Daniels, who returned from a three-game absence because of a dislocated elbow only to re-injure it midway through the third quarter.
Marcus Mariota, hero of no one, entered and immediately threw an interception and lost a fumble as the Vikings’ defense stalked, swarmed and flashed like it was 2024 again.
Washington even attempted to throw to a backup guard on fourth-and-goal from the 2. You cannot say they aren’t creative.
You cannot say they are any good.
“It felt good to play to the standard our fans expect,” O’Connell said afterward.
Sigh. Pen, meet paper.
The grimmest part of Sunday’s blowout was that it hints -- loudly, tantalizingly, cruelly -- at what might have been in 2025.
The Vikings didn’t need McCarthy to be great this year. They just needed him to be composed, protected and decisive like he was in Week 14. Not implode.
Had that happened even sporadically, Minnesota wouldn’t be sifting through the soot of a wasted season, wouldn’t be having existential conversations about its GM-coach-quarterback triumvirate, wouldn’t be reduced to performing postmortems after every three-and-out.
Yet for the first time in weeks there was something resembling genuine hope simmering beneath the cynicism.
Maybe McCarthy’s story isn’t doomed to join the long catalog of Vikings quarterbacks whose careers stalled out before they ever began.
Maybe this 31-0 win was a small, overdue step toward competence. Maybe it was the tiniest glimmer that turning the corner isn’t science fiction.
Or maybe it was just one clean, convincing performance in a season that hasn’t had nearly enough of them.
Either way, it leaves the Vikings staring at the same haunting refrain:
What might have been.
I'm looking for a repeat performance on Sunday night against Dallas. I can't look any further out in the schedule.