By Brian Murphy
There comes a time during every Vikings season where misguided expectations, reality and denial become a toxic cocktail everybody has to choke down.
Sometimes it’s needed Week 1. Sometimes it’s mixed after a catastrophic injury. Sometimes it’s guzzled while cursing the injustice of another playoff loss.
But it’s always poured.
Seven games into the 2025 season, Minnesota is a case study of ambition colliding with attrition, when a retooled offense and defense fail to complement each other despite massive investments in both units. Now’s the time to accept fate and redefine success for a backsliding team whose laser focus must be developing and vetting its supposed franchise quarterback.
Playoff aspirations at 3-4 are just that – pie-in-the-sky musings that keep the masses engaged just enough to click and spend through January. These are no longer table stakes.
If the Vikings happen to chisel 9 or 10 victories from the boulder that they’re shouldering uphill and crash the postseason party, fantastic. That means J.J. McCarthy is not only staying upright but learning the hard lessons and earning the battle scars every 22-year-old quarterback must to succeed in this cutthroat league.
Progress cannot be judged on Minnesota’s final win-loss record but on McCarthy’s cumulative experiences and his overall progress -- or lack thereof.
We have spent 18 months talking ad-nauseum about what McCarthy could be, how he measures up against the rest of his 2024 first-round draft class and what that means for a hotshot head coach and general manager charged with accomplishing here what no one has managed in 65 seasons – hoist a Lombardi Trophy.
None of it means anything if McCarthy can’t take the field, command it and stay there for more than 15 minutes. Stash the training wheels forever and break out the bandages.
No protecting McCarthy from dangerous defenses or himself.
No safe scripts.
No gaslighting.
Thrust him into the lineup and leave him there to take the reins and whatever abuse may come. The front office, the locker room, the fans – perhaps McCarthy himself – need to know if there is a future with the 10th overall pick or whether it’s time to start over again.
Settle for what he can learn from and grow into, not demand McCarthy save a season that was lost without him. The Vikings spent more than $300 million trying to build a fortress around McCarthy, only to see the walls collapse before he ever settled in.
Injuries have a ravaged an offensive line in which their preferred five starters have not shared a single snap. Ten different linemen have played, wrecking a rushing attack neutered by early deficits offensive ineptitude.
Backup Carson Wentz played up to his diminished expectations with familiar receipts – untimely interceptions, head-scratching decision making and physical deterioration borne from being under constant duress.
A defense that was supposed to ferociously protect McCarthy has woefully underperformed and ranks among the NFL’s worst run defenses. There are no indications that Brian Flores’ unit will suddenly snap back into the same wrecking crew that tormented quarterbacks and offensive coordinators throughout 2024, giving Sam Darnold the time, space and confidence to spearhead 14 wins and resurrect his career.
Despite the thumbnail sample size, we’ve seen glimpses of McCarthy powering through adversity and seizing the moment, like his three-touchdown rally in the fourth quarter to pull out a Week 1 comeback win over Chicago at Soldier Field.
We’ve also seen him look completely overwhelmed and incapable of meeting the moment like in the other seven alarming quarters McCarthy has played for the purple.
Coach Kevin O’Connell has shielded McCarthy from all the negative energy he can and made it crystal clear how important it was for him to completely heal from the high ankle sprain that has kept him off the field for more than six weeks.
At this point, there is nothing left to protect except McCarthy’s development. Knee and ankle injuries have sidelined him for 22 of the 24 games Minnesota has played since drafting him out of Michigan.
No practice reps and starting assignments to expose McCarthy to the speed, pressure and pain that comes with playing quarterback in the NFL. Every read, sack, and misfire is just as important as the completions, third-down conversions red-zone efficiency that ultimately will define him.
If the Vikings are going to climb out of their salary cap pit and avoid another teardown, they have to learn exactly who McCarthy is when everything around him appears to be burning.
We need to know what we don’t know yet.
And we need to know it now.
Nailed it. Bring it on!
Yikes