The Vikings 2025 quarterback play has been unacceptable
Whether JJ McCarthy plays Week 18 or not, his 2025 performance leaves major questions for the Vikings this offseason
By Matthew Coller
On Sunday Night Football, Caleb Williams and Brock Purdy went to battle in a epic 42-38 contest for the ages. The game came down to the final pass, which came up just short in the end zone as Williams was under pressure.
In total, Chicago’s second-year quarterback finished the game with 330 yards passing, two touchdowns, zero interceptions and zero times sacked. His counterpart, the 49ers’ star QB, went for 303 yards, five total touchdowns, one INT and one time sacked.
As the Minnesota Vikings head into the offseason and spend the coming weeks analyzing what happened in their 2025 season and formulating their plan for 2026, the 49ers-Bears shootout should be front of mind.
Last offseason, general manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah said that the team was built to win “any kind of fight.” When they break down this year and look into the future, they should be asking: How far away are they from being able to win that kind of fight?
As the season is set to come to an end with the Vikings playing the Green Bay Packers’ practice squad in Week 18, whether Vikings QB JJ McCarthy plays or not should not matter to the final evaluation of his season. If he does suit up, it’s a preseason game. If he lights up the Packers, ask Matt Flynn how much that really matters. Or Drew Lock cooking the Colts for 309 and four touchdowns last year. Or Jarrett Stidham throwing for 365 and three TDs vs. the 49ers in 2023. Or Davis Mills posting 301 and three TDs versus Tennessee in 2022 and on and on.
The evaluation of his 2025 season should end with the first half of the game against the Giants.
The Numbers
If we look at his 8.5 games, the Vikings appear to be eons away from being able to hang in a game like the one Williams played against Purdy.
Here’s how McCarthy’s number stack up to the rest of the NFL after 17 weeks:
— 35th of 35 in passer rating (min. 200 attempts)
— 34th of 44 in adjusted completion percentage for drops (PFF)
— 29 of 32 in points added by QB (ESPN)
— 31st of 32 in ESPN’s QBR stat
— 4th worst in pressure to sack rate (PFF)
— 3rd worst in sack percentage
— Worst in INT percentage
Here’s a chart from TruMedia looking at how McCarthy stacked up versus every other QB in the NFL with at least 200 passes when it came to Adjusted Net Yards per Attempt and Success %:
If you are wondering, Brock Purdy, Matthew Stafford and Drake Maye are up there at the top.
If the Expected Points Added stat doesn’t resonate with you, think of it this way: Matthew Stafford’s performance was worth 138 points over replacement level. JJ McCarthy’s was worth -44 points. That’s 182 points better. If they had Aaron Rodgers’ play, they’d be 43 points better.
The Vikings are 25th in points scored this year with 328. How far is that away from Super Bowl caliber teams? The last 10 teams that reached the Super Bowl scored 463, 385, 491, 371, 496, 477, 460, 460, 492, 473.
If you’re doing the math at home, that’s 457 points on average. So the Vikings have to improve by 129 points to reach an average Super Bowl team’s level. (Last year they scored 432).
The Decision
Certainly McCarthy was showing signs of improvement over the last 2.5 games he started but the Commanders, Cowboys and Giants make up three of the league’s five worst defenses by EPA.
In terms of opposing QB stats, here’s how those clubs add up:
Commanders: 3,895 yards, 32 TD 7 INT, 106.8 QB rating
Cowboys: 4,057 yards, 33 TD 6 INT, 109.7 QB rating
Giants: 3,499 yards, 25 TD 8 INT, 95.9 QB rating
If McCarthy had been healthy against a roaring Lions defense or had the Packers game been meaningful, those would have been good test cases for whether his gains were based on confidence, offensive adjustments and time on task or if it really was just Washington, Dallas and New York’s doing.
The final two games could have given the coaching staff and front office a couple more peaks at where McCarthy stands in order to help them forge a plan for the QB position this offseason. Had he played very well against Detroit and motivated Green Bay and stacked a solid five-game run following the rough stretch versus Baltimore, Chicago and Green Bay, then it would have given some confidence to the idea that he could turn a corner and give them consistent chances to win next season.
Alas, we did not get the best possible scenario for evaluating McCarthy. Now much is left to the imagination, as so often has been the case since he was selected 10th overall in 2024.
Before we move forward, let’s get the obligatory explanations out of the way: Yes, he had to deal with injuries across the roster early on. No, it wasn’t his fault that he was dropped into a situation with high expectations from the jump. Yes, KOC could have “dumbed down” the offense earlier. Yes, they could have run the ball more/better. No, he did not often have a healthy offensive line. Yes, the wide receivers dropped more balls than usual.
All of those things are real and should be factored into the final evaluation, as well as his remarkable lack of experience in comparison to other QBs like Caleb Williams, Drake Maye and Bo Nix, who played much more in college football and didn’t have injuries as rookies.
But we can’t forget the things working in McCarthy’s favor. He was still taking over a team that won 14 games the previous season, had the 2024 Coach of the Year on the sidelines, and Justin Jefferson, Jalen Nailor and TJ Hockenson did not miss any time and Jordan Addison did not miss time after he returned from suspension. The banged-up offensive line is still 13th in pass blocking PFF grade.
The Vikings’ top three games in terms of passing yardage were quarterbacked by Carson Wentz.
Recent history is not kind to quarterbacks with McCarthy’s 2025 numbers.
Heading into a meaningless Week 18 game, McCarthy’s QB rating is 71.2. Since 2010 there are 77 QBs who started their first nine games within their first two seasons and McCarthy ranks 62nd in QB rating.
There are QBs on the list who have turned out to be quite good like Trevor Lawrence and Jared Goff but those guys were No. 1 overall picks who took over teams that were in horrendous situations.
If we take out the top-five picks out of the list, here are the first-round QBs from the list who performed similarly to McCarthy’s nine games in terms of passer rating (included are the number of starts that they got with the teams that drafted them and their age when they were let go:
Dwayne Haskins: 76.1 (13 starts, age 23)
EJ Manuel: 75.4 (17 starts, age 25)
Kenny Pickett: 75.1 (24 starts, age 25)
Ryan Tannehill: 73.2 (88 starts, age 28)
Christian Ponder: 72.3 (36 starts, age 26)
Josh Rosen: 68.9 (13 starts, age 21)
Blaine Gabbert: 64.4 (27 starts, age 24)
Josh Allen: 62.8 (MVP)
(It should be noted that Allen ran for 631 yards and eight touchdowns in his debut 2018 season).
Clearly most QBs that were first-round picks got more opportunities than McCarthy has had thus far but it’s not unprecedented for a team to move on after a small sample size. Overall QBs rarely get three years when they perform at this level unless there are serious mitigating factors and the only team that was rewarded for staying behind 20 starts was Buffalo with Allen.
What the Vikings’ offseason hinges on almost entirely is how much better they believe McCarthy can get by next season and whether it can reach the level of a serious contending team.
There are QBs who haven’t performed like Greek Gods that are going to make the postseason this year. Guys like CJ Stroud, Bo Nix, Bryce Young/Baker Mayfield and Jalen Hurts won’t be making posters out of their Pro-Football Reference pages this year.
Still, only two are below 20th (of 35) in Adjusted Net Yards per Attempt and one of those two is Justin Herbert, who has taken 54 sacks this year due to his O-line being decimated. He’s still played really, really well. The other is either Baker Mayfield or Bryce Young… of the NFC South, where nine wins gets you into the postseason.
The bar doesn’t have to be set at Matthew Stafford or Drake Maye. But it has to at least be where some of the other solid playoff QBs are this year.
The unfortunate reality is that we are two years into McCarthy and nobody can say with 100% certainty where he will go from here.
How much the decision makers weigh the totality of his performance this year versus potential development in Year 3 will reveal itself in whether they get another QB to truly compete with him next spring/summer.
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We also shouldn’t let it go unsaid that the performance from the Vikings backup QBs wasn’t good enough either. Carson Wentz graded by PFF 42nd out of 45 QBs with at least 100 passes. He was 34th in QB rating, 5th worst in pressure-to-sack rate and had a -8.0 Expected Points Added.
Max Brosmer in 63 pass attempts has 271 yards (4.3 YPA) and four interceptions.
Are there a lot of good backup QBs in the NFL? Nope. But if they choose to roll with McCarthy, there has to be a more reliable option behind him from the jump.