Musing about quarterback whispering
Coaching and supporting cast are major factors in success but there is no magic wand. JJ McCarthy's success will have to be because of the steps forward that he takes
By Matthew Coller
When you think of all-time great quarterback whisperers, the No. 1 name that comes to mind is Bill Walsh. After all, he drafted Joe Montana in the third round and helped him become one of the greatest QBs in NFL history.
In 1997, in search of a predecessor to Steve Young, who Walsh also acquired in 1987 from Tampa Bay, a man with the greatest eye for QBs who has ever walked the planet selected Jim Druckenmiller with a first-round pick. He ultimately started one game for the 49ers and finished his time in San Francisco with a 40.4% completion percentage, one touchdown and four interceptions and never started an NFL game after his debut season.
Funny enough, Walsh brought in a fella from the CFL named Jeff Garcia following the failure of Druckenmiller. He went on to have three straight Pro Bowl seasons.
The all-time QB mind missed on his only first-round pick quarterback, yet banged the table for the 49ers to give the San Jose State standout a try at 29 years old… and it worked?
Sure, why not.
How about the other coach who has been dubbed a “QB whisperer,” Bruce Arians? After all, it’s the title of his biography. Arians had an unbelievable run working with QBs, from Peyton Manning to Ben Roethlisberger to Andrew Luck to Carson Palmer to Tom Brady. Whew!
Of course, there’s a couple No. 1 overall draft picks that aren’t talked about as much in Tim Couch and Jameis Winston, whose stories are told less often than the ones about Big Ben and TB12.
These stories could go on forever. A couple of current examples:
— Kyle Shanahan traded the farm for Trey Lance and went to the Super Bowl with Brock Purdy.
— The Eagles, who had current QB whisperer Shane Steichen as their OC at the time, tried to trade for Russell Wilson to play over Jalen Hurts before the 2022 season.
— Zac Taylor is 40-30-1 with Joe Burrow and 9-28 without him
— Brian Daboll whispered Daniel Jones into a 9-6-1 record and $40 million contract, only to go 11-33 after that
— Kevin O’Connell is 31-11 with Kirk Cousins and Sam Darnold and 7-11 without them.
The point isn’t that nobody is capable of maximizing their quarterback’s capabilities, it’s that nobody has a method that is iron clad. It’s true that organizations often fail quarterbacks but sometimes quarterbacks do fail organizations.
How does this apply to the Vikings and the situation with JJ McCarthy?
A lot of the Vikings’ decision to move on from Sam Darnold and roll with McCarthy in 2025 was built upon the principle that they were the exception — that they had the magic formula. Hey, they made Nick Mullens competitive. They took Darnold to the next level. Kirk finally believed in himself and became Captain Comeback. Why not this guy?
When McCarthy was drafted, a common sentiment from the analysis world and within agents and players was that Minnesota was the place to be. O’Connell’s offense was thought to be QB friendly and those guys who wear No. 18 and No. 3 make everybody look better than they are. Invest a first-rounder and $17 million per year in the guard position and you’ve got yourself a fool proof situation.
So far, the only proof has been that nothing in football is guaranteed. Through four games, McCarthy ranks 38th of 38 in clean-pocket completion percentage, 34th of 40 in PFF passing grade, 40th of 40 in traditional QB rating and 38th of 40 in turnover-worthy play percentage.
Justin Jefferson, whose QBs have a 106.2 QB rating when targeting him over his career, has 84 yards in the last two weeks and 209 total in four games with McCarthy with 1 TD and 4 INTs on throws targeting him.
The scheme that helped push Sam Darnold into the top 10 in QB rating and top five in passing yards has not had the same impact on McCarthy, who has looked overwhelmed and erratic at times. While Darnold dominated downfield, McCarthy is 23-for-46 on passes over 10 yards downfield with 5 TDs and 5 INTs.
Per PFF, 22.0% of McCarthy’s pressures have been caused by him, which is the fifth highest rate in the NFL. He has the second highest pressure-to-sack ratio in the league, only behind rookie Cam Ward.
O’Connell alluded to the fact that he wants McCarthy to check down more often and that he’s trying to add “easy button” plays into the mix to help him “see the ball go through the hoop.”
From his comment, it sounds like sometimes the QB just has to find those throws.
“Maybe those layup throws have to be backside-in cuts or underneath routes to Adam Thielen or to just kind of progress and put the ball in play,” O’Connell said.
Of course, that sentiment is going over like a lead balloon.
Folks want the answer to be KOC running the ball more.
Or KOC to change the complex scheme or the play calling
Or more short passes (though he’s averaging 3.5 yards per attempt on 33 throws between 0-10 yards).
Or Jefferson trying harder.
Or Hockenson doing… something different.
Or the offensive line.
In an offense that produced a top-10 QB season last year with a better offensive line in front of McCarthy right now than they had with Darnold in 2024, it’s tough to believe that the gameplans or supporting cast are causing the QB whisperer to become mute.
Running more, yeah, sure.
More stuff behind the line of scrimmage? Yes. He’s 23rd of 36 in percentage of behind LOS throws.
Yes, Jefferson should have caught that one pass near the end zone. It’s hard to blame Hockenson for being wide open. It’s impossible to blame the O-line, which had its second highest PFF graded game as a unit in two years.
The other stuff is hard to tell because we’re really seeing the offense through a keyhole when we don’t know where McCarthy was supposed to throw the ball on any given play.
It seems like we isolate one or two moments per game as evidence that the coaches are doing everything wrong. A pass on third-and-1 that turned into an interception. A strip sack in empty protection against Atlanta.
The frustrating tendencies of a head coach (like having the third worst first-down percentage while passing on third/fourth and short since 2022) who is always going to place the onus on his quarterback are not evidence of malpractice. Stubbornness? Possibly. Malpractice? Probably not.
If the good QBs weren’t good in this offense and McCarthy was KOC’s first QB, it would be much more plausible that he was botching everything.
The best argument might be that those guys were veteran QBs and this offense asks too much of the quarterback with formations, motions and a lean toward 60:40 pass:run ratio. Fair enough.
Maybe that speaks to different philosophies. If you put training wheels on the young QB, is he really going to learn? On the other hand, kids who use training wheels do tend to figure out how to ride bikes eventually.
Are we sure this isn’t a training wheels version of KOC’s offense? Maybe the throws are late because this is McCarthy’s first time playing at this level. I’m not really sure. Ravens safety Malaki Starks said after the game that McCarthy telegraphed his throw and was late and that’s why he was able to pick it off.
If your head is spinning, so is everyone else’s.
Here’s the problem that we’re all dealing with, from the team to the media to the most casual fan: Four games doesn’t tell us much, historically speaking. Alex Smith, Matthew Stafford and Eli Manning were terrible in their first four games and turned out to be really good QBs. Many other QBs were terrible in their first four games and turned out to be duds.
Nobody knows what’s going to become of McCarthy, no matter how loud they talk.
At the same time, the team didn’t plan on things being this rocky. If they fall out of the playoff race, I’m sure the goal posts will be moved in terms of what 2025 was supposed to be but when players wear “more is required” shirts and ownership spends enough money to build a tower in New York City on free agency, we can safely say that this team expected to win. Fans were right to set the bar high and expect McCarthy to lead this team to a lot of wins right away because that was the signal they were sent by the Vikings moving on from Darnold and not signing Jones/Rodgers.
But just because everyone had a year to invent MythCarthy — a flawless instant franchise QB — doesn’t mean it was ever a lock to come true. It’s clear now that there are a lot of steps that need to be taken and just having a good passing scheme and Jefferson doesn’t allow you to take an elevator to the top.
You can’t force someone to develop at a faster speed than they are capable of developing just because you want/need them to get a lot better fast. You can’t whisper it into existence. It happens at its own pace for every player and sometimes it happens through failure. They didn’t have time for it to happen through failure, so games like the loss to Baltimore are extra painful.
At 4-5, the Vikings aren’t in great position to make the playoffs and the numbers suggest that the improvement would have to be incredible to win six of the last eight. However, with the Bears getting away with close wins and struggling on defense and the Packers sputtering and games against Washington, New York and Dallas on the way, it’s not insane to think they can turn things around.
A big win over Chicago this week would have everybody talking about McCarthy turning a corner and getting hot down the stretch. We have never been more prisoners of the moment when it comes to the NFL and that makes the life of a young QB even more difficult.
We don’t have to spend each week crowning McCarthy and the QB Whisperer or trading/firing them. There has to be a better way.
After all of this, what’s the bottom line? What should we really think of McCarthy and the way he’s been handled?
Five things:
— Nobody has all the answers to QBs, not even the GOATs in NFL history. It was always a roll of the dice to go with a QB that had no sample size.
— The story is nowhere near written on McCarthy yet, even if the early returns have been concerning.
— Had this been a rebuilding team, we would be nowhere near the amount of panic about the way he’s being handled. Having him learn in trial by fire would probably be praised.
— There are reasonable critiques of the play calling and scheme but a lot of the overly harsh analysis falls apart upon closer inspection.
— Everything could look different next week.
ADDITONAL NOTES
— Before offensive coordinator Wes Phillips began his press conference, he offered a rare opening statement regarding the offense’s eight false starts.
“That’s not winning football,” Phillips said. “I personally am embarrassed by it. We got the unit together. We have a plan going forward to make sure none of that happens again. Each one is kind of its individual story, but regardless of where it’s coming from, what it’s doing, we’ve implemented some things that we think can help that going forward that I’m not going to get into granular detail about, but feel confident that going forward we got the right group of guys.”
Whatever happened, it shouldn’t happen again. If it does, then there’s something really wrong.
— Defensive coordinator Brian Flores said that he has seen progress from Bears QB Caleb Williams since the Vikings and Bears faced each other in Week 1. Williams has a 92.2 QB rating and has only been sacked four times in the last four weeks.
“I think you could see major improvements just from mechanics, command of the offense,” Flores said. “He’s still one of the most elusive and big -time quarterback mobility and arm strength and can make throws from every angle. But certainly a lot better at just sitting in the pocket and making throws. Everybody’s playing well for them. The receivers, the O-line’s playing well, tight ends, running backs. They’ve got balance within the offense. They’re doing a lot of really good things from that standpoint.”
— Matt Daniels said that following the loss to the Ravens, O’Connell affirmed his belief in kick returner Myles Price despite his costly fumble.
“K .O. really kind of singled out [Price] in his post -game speech, just to reassure him and the confidence that the team has in him,” Daniels said. “[Price] kind of shook his head. K .O. reaffirmed to really say, ‘no, I want to hear you say it.’ [Price responded] ‘yes, sir.’ Just a really emphatic, ‘yes, sir.’ And I think that was a really unique moment that really needed to be had. I’m really glad that KO did that.”