By Brian Murphy
Ok, so now what?
J.J. McCarthy’s distressing performance Sunday night and all but 15 minutes this season dimmed the halo that perpetually glows around the Vikings’ unproven commodity, never mind the forces in motion that have detoured the team down a prickly path.
Hyperbole is unavoidable when you analyze Monday’s news bomb that McCarthy reportedly suffered a high ankle sprain in Minnesota’s dreadful 22-6 loss to Atlanta and is expected to be sidelined several weeks.
Time for another amendment in the Vikings’ bedeviled quarterback past after eight whirlwind days on the emotional spectrum for McCarthy, whose nascent career is back on ice again as Carson Wentz enters stage left.
The former MVP candidate and (injured) Super Bowl champion has been in town all of three weeks, but the Vikings’ aspirational season suddenly rests in Wentz’s rusty hands – all in Week 3.
I don’t say this lightly, but the next month could be the most consequential in-season timeline in the franchise’s recent history. Tectonic plates are shifting. Aftershocks are coming.
Once again, coach Kevin McCarthy has to perform triage in his quarterback room, with no telling which way the tension pulls decision makers during Wentz’s performances and McCarthy’s recovery.
We’re a long way from a quarterback controversy but probably closer than you think based on McCarthy’s ghastly showing in seven of eight quarters and Wentz’s chance to ignite a stalled offense and carry a star-studded team through its latest crisis.
The stakes are too high in the front office and locker room to butcher the process. Winning now might come with the price of marginalizing your anointed one just when McCarthy needs as many reps and votes of confidence that he can get.
The water he walked on during a miraculous debut in Chicago led straight to a plank for him to trudge Sunday night at U.S. Bank Stadium.
And the air raid sirens howling across Minnesota threaten to drown out the Gjallarhorn after McCarthy has looked overwhelmed by professional football.
Fuzzy narratives are easy to construct when your 22-year-old franchise quarterback erupts for three touchdowns and scripts a comeback victory for the ages. However, McCarthy’s fourth-quarter mastery of the woebegone Bears covered up a multitude of Soldier Field sins that manifested in the loss to the Falcons.
Fans, media and the blindly allegiant must reconcile with the reckoning NFL franchises all face when developing a talented but inexperienced and untested quarterback behind a veteran and well-compensated roster that lost its baby teeth long ago.
The Vikings are all-in on their No. 10 pick from 2024 and the team’s latest Super Bowl crusade. They walked away from Sam Darnold’s 14 wins and a prohibitive contract to fulfill the mission of swaddling McCarthy with protection, playmakers and a punishing defense.
The early returns are problematic at best, chronic at worst, as injuries have rapidly depleted their revamped offensive line and blitzing defense.
If McCarthy can’t put together four quarters against Chicago, hold onto the football or complete passes to open receivers in two games, how is he going to improve on crutches again while Wentz consumes all the practice reps, game snaps and oxygen in the room?
Offensively, the status quo is unsustainable.
No team that averages 226 total yards per game is heading to Santa Clara in February, let alone the postseason. And godspeed bringing that butterknife into an alley fight with Detroit, Green Bay or Philadelphia. Or Baltimore, Washington and the L.A. Chargers.
Minnesota’s 2025 schedule is a broken-glass crawl across the NFL’s elite and ascending clubs, flattening McCarthy’s learning curve and baptizing him by inferno.
In his first two NFL starts, only completed 24 of 41 passes for 301 yards. His two touchdown passes in Week 1 are tarred by three interceptions, two non-contact fumbles among three total and nine sacks, including six Sunday night.
Trumping Minnesota’s league-high five turnovers is their paltry 30-percent third-down conversation rate. Only three teams are worse.
Analyzing McCarthy’s struggles after Sunday’s game, O’Connell could have grabbed a sledgehammer and started swinging. Instead, he fired up a belt sander to dull the sharp edges and challenged the rest of his players to up their collective performance and steel themselves for more adversity.
“This is going to be a process for our team,” O’Connell said. “Sometimes, the fundamentals are going to be right, the technique is going to be right, but he’s learning on the fly right now.”
Flying aimlessly above a safety net already frayed by key injuries on both sides of the ball, with McCarthy now topping the infirmary list.
Safety Harrison Smith and linebackers Andrew Van Ginkel and Blake Cashman are sorely missed from coordinator Brian Flores’ swarming defense, which is being gashed against the run while missing tackles left and right.
Christian Darrisaw’s glaring absence at left tackle has already forced the Vikings to deploy third-stringer Walter Rouse, who was promptly flagged for holding on his first snap against the Falcons after back-up Justin Skule was lost to a concussion.
Also in protocol is veteran center Ryan Kelly, whose career has been marred by concussions. The Falcons easily exploited that crumbling wall to chase McCarthy, who sometimes ran into his own trouble.
More alarming was McCarthy mishandling a snap from back-up center Michael Jurgens that thwarted a fourth-down gamble. And how play-calling and protection communications among O’Connell, McCarthy and the huddle have been a mess through two games.
“We’ve got a lot to do,” McCarthy acknowledged before his injury was reported. “I’ve got a lot to do personally. This is a long season. Everyone is telling me this is a frickin’ journey, and I believe them wholeheartedly.”
The destination is clear – Super Bowl LX. But no one can predict where the driver is headed, how long it’s going to take and whether the passengers have the patience for these engine troubles and the detours ahead.
Like most head coaches and general managers, O’Connell and Kwesi Adofo-Mensah have staked their job security on drafting McCarthy. They upped the ante by jettisoning Darnold and vowing to develop the former college national champion into a competent playmaker and confident leader who commands the locker room.
There are only so many pep talks McCarthy can give on the sideline after another three-and-out punt or ghastly turnover before they fall on deaf ears.
Smith, Brian O’Neill, Jonathan Greenard, Justin Jefferson or the recently returned Adam Thielen. Pick any one of these established veterans.
None are interested in playing wet nurse for someone else’s NFL future when theirs is dwindling. Not with Wentz suddenly in the huddle and a monstrous schedule looming after the Week 6 bye.
As Yogi Berra said, it’s getting late early.
Minnesota caught a huge break with Cincinnati star quarterback Joe Burrow facing toe surgery that will sideline him several weeks beginning this Sunday at U.S. Bank Stadium.
QB2 Jake Browning is no Burrow. But he’s no bum either. In December 2023, Browning roasted the Vikings and daggered their playoff hopes as their quarterback carousel spun through Kirk Cousins, Josh Dobbs, Jaren Hall and Nick Mullens.
A victory against the Bengals is crucial if the Vikings hope to stay relevant with the Lions and Packers in the uber-competitive NFC North before traveling to the UK to play the Steelers and Browns.
Three winnable games, theoretically. Like the prevailing theory that McCarthy is the face and future of this franchise.
This is obnoxiously dramatic in a way I have come NOT to expect from Purple Insider. Disappointing. “Analyzing McCarthy’s struggles after Sunday’s game, O’Connell could have grabbed a sledgehammer and started swinging.”…???
What kind of franchise coach would KOC be if he “took a sledgehammer” to his plan for his (yes, essentially) rookie two games in? That’s the exact kind of failing he means when he says franchises have failed QBs more than QBs have failed franchises. Listen to Bruce Arians, the OG: the only path to growth for McCarthy is reps. He won’t really have a chance to progress until he gets actual play. So why would KOC panic and cut bait before that meaningfully occurs?
I also thought you would provide more context thus far in your coverage. You (Matthew Coller)
noted repeatedly throughout the preseason that there would be ups and downs throughout the season because you witnessed those in camp: there were ups and downs as he was relearning footwork, knocking off the rust, learning real game speed. I’ve been hoping that, per your reporting all throughout the preseason, you’d remind us that McCarthy has bad days and good days but seems to possess the internal makeup to keep learning and progressing, and the ability to show amazing flashes. Surely you didn’t mean only a missed throw here and there when you said ups and downs. Two games in, I would say we have in fact seen some major head scratching moments, good plays and bad, and some flashes to be excited about. I keep waiting for the very faithful reporters like yourself who participated in every practice and saw him preseason last year to remind the freaked out fans that he HAS demonstrated impressive skills and abilities, including in last year’s preseason game, and the best question now is how to help him leverage those into the context of real game play.
In addition, people who have spent time on his two-game tape tell a story of a QB who has some bright moments, some very dumb moments, but is making in-game improvements and who is hardly exclusively to blame for the mess.
More alarmingly to me, this inexplicably constipated offense is what we have seen now from KOC’s design for about 4 games. Were the (now very familiar) collapses against the Rams and the Lions late last year McCarthy’s fault? Seems like there are serious questions to explore beyond the mistakes or perfections of the raw rookie.
Oh boy. Hope nobody in Ireland sees you calling them the UK.