In a rough first three quarters for the Minnesota Vikings on Monday night in Chicago, perhaps the ugliest moment came in the third quarter, when J.J. McCarthy launched a pass for Justin Jefferson that was intercepted by former Vikings’ practice squad member Nahshon Wright and returned 76 yards for a Chicago touchdown. The pass was nowhere near Jefferson and it appears that either McCarthy and Jefferson weren’t on the same page or McCarthy just threw an awful pass.
Well, Jefferson talked about the play after practice on Thursday, and he pointed the finger directly at. . .himself.
Per Ben Goessling of the Minnesota Star-Tribune, Jefferson took responsibility for the play that resulted in the pick six, saying that his route wasn’t what McCarthy was expecting.
J.J. wasn’t ready for me to be out that soon. That’s why the ball was thrown inside of me, where it needed to be outside. So it’s mostly on me, on that play. I’m just happy that J.J. really didn’t think about it too much. J.J. was on to the next play.
Now, obviously, we don’t know all of the ins and outs of that particular play. If you watch J.T. O’Sullivan’s outstanding analysis of McCarthy’s MNF performance, it wasn’t quite as big a disaster for McCarthy as it appeared to be at first glance (although it still wasn’t great, obviously). But Jefferson has shifted, or at least attempted to shift, the burden onto his shoulders from those of his rookie signal caller.
It’s nice to see a player of Jefferson’s caliber take responsibility for a mistake, particularly one of this level of significance. At a position where there are so many diva types, Jefferson is about as far from that kind of persona as you can be. Thank goodness for that.
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