The Bears loss was especially tough since it put the odds for the playoffs very low. The Vikings have a 5% chance to make the playoffs. If they win it goes to 11% and if they lose it goes to 2%. Not good. Not what many were expecting even with a “rookie” QB especially after the moves they made in the offseason. Not many observers thought the moves were made to rebuild. I do not believe the Wilf’s are interested in rebuilding. There will be some splainin to do this offseason by KAM and KOC. In the end, with many roster positions improved over the offseason, the one position that was a roll of the dice was Quarterback.
JJ McCarthy’s play is getting analyzed out the wazoo. Some folks are even wondering about benching him. The question is “for who”? Brosmer? IDK about that.
Many fine folks are preaching the it is only 5 games and look at what Josh Allen did in his first 5 games. The Josh Allen comparisons is particularly, how can I say, ill-informed at best. Allen is a unicorn and is able to run very well.
Here is a video/podcast from Matthew Coller talking with Jeremiah Sirles talking about JJ. At the 5:45 mark, Coller talks about the completion percentage and interceptions over the first 5 games and how the history suggests it is going to be tough. He also says it is early. Sirles asks will he ever be elite? He could be good but will he get to elite level? Coller talks comparable players at the 9:00 minute mark. He syas there are so few of the QBs that have perfomed this poorly over the first 5 games and rightfully dismisses the Allen comp. Allen is the outlier. What about the other ones? Coller goes to to talk about how Sam Darnold struggled early but brings up the fact that Darnold was on a horrible Jets team while JJ has been provided with an outstanding supporting cast. You would be hard presses to find another “rookie” QB who had a better supporting cast.
It’s tough to judge JJ right now because he has shown a couple of drives in the 4th quarter that were clutch.
It looks like it is going to be quite a finish to this season round here and the offseason should be bonkers! I love it. The DN has had some really intense QB debates over the years and it looks like we are off on another one.
Let the games begin!
Minnesota Vikings News and Links
It’s impossible to look at McCarthy’s numbers and project much success. Outside of his willingness to push the ball down the field, every other metric is a failure.
J.J. McCarthy has been mostly inefficient (35th among 35 QBs in adjusted EPA/play), inconsistent (34th/35 in success rate), and hasn’t taken advantage of the scheme (35th/35 in completion percentage over expectation), via RBSDM, and last in passer rating.
Taking a look at qualitative tools from PFF, it doesn’t get much better. He’s 37th of 41 qualifying QBs in passing grade, 38th in passing grade, dead last in turnover-worthy play rate.
McCarthy doesn’t make the life of his offensive linemen easier, being 33rd in pressure to sack ratio and 35th in average time to throw.
If there’s one area where McCarthy is good at it’s creating explosive plays. He’s first in average depth of target and third in big-time throw rate, despite his struggles.
The latest instance comes from the McCarthy development, as head coach Kevin O’Connell did his latest episode of X’s and O’s on the Vikings’ website and YouTube channel, and it led to a lot of negative discussion about their development.
“I think we’re all just looking for continued evidence of the growth that he can take some of the things he’s working very hard on the practice field to make [happen on gameday],” said O’Connell. “As the phrase I’ve been using with him, we got to start seeing this cement dry on some of the things that we’ve really worked hard to make football habits for him, from a fundamentals and technique standpoint.”
We’ve known for a while that McCarthy doesn’t have a good foundation underneath him. He’s struggled mightily to have a solid base and having his feet under control. You can see it all over the tape, and it’s the main cause of his misses.
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“Whether it’s just the initial posture, where we’ve just learned that when he has great posture, you know, at the top of drops, he throws the ball really well,” said O’Connell. “He did it Friday. Did it Thursday. And I even referenced on Friday, the type of practices we had.”
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“I think something Vikings fans can look for is, you know, when he gets to the top of his drops, we’re really trying to see if we can get him to be a little bit more in a repeatable body position. And what I mean by that is the posture of, you know, a firm but athletic kind of lower half. We don’t really like it when his feet get too far outside the framework of his body. And that happened a couple of times the other day that contributed to some of the accuracy [issues], his feet got a little bit wide. His base got really wide.
“The other thing to really look for is when he looks decisive and in the ground compact, where he’s not taking up a lot of space with his movements, as he kind of goes from 1a to 1b or one to two before finding his check downs. When he’s done it consistently, it’s normally got to look to it of firmness, but yet not tight and not rigid. And it kind of has a fluidity to it, where he’s then able to activate the arm talent, from a standpoint of taking out a lot of variables, and I’ve talked to J.J. A lot of the movement and a lot of the lack of stability to his lower half adds to the variables of the play, where you’re trying to make this thing right with the ball leaving your fingertips.
“I would equate it to swinging a golf club, and sometimes you swing it with your left foot on the ground. Sometimes you don’t, sometimes you widen your stance. Really, you’re never going to hit that golf ball the same way. And playing quarterback is about the variables that you can control. You’ve got to try to make it the same and repeatable every single time, because the difference between golf and any other sport is these guys are trying to rush 1000 miles an hour and rip your face off, and you’ve got to stand in there and make some throws, sometimes take some hits. But all of the things before those scenarios start to take place throughout the rhythm of a play, where we don’t know what defense they’re in always, and we don’t know exactly where the completion is going to be. So, you’ve got to control what you can control by doing your fundamentals and techniques repeatable the same way, and take out some of those variables that really are making J.J.’s job harder than it has to be when we lose some of that focus throughout the game.”
Kevin O’Connell says J.J. McCarthy is ‘tying a hand behind his back’
Social media, the epicenter of overreaction, may be clouding the truth about McCarthy. Is he as bad as some of his incompletions and interceptions make him look, or is he as good as he’s been late in games when the pressure is really high? Vikings head coach Kevin O’Connell explained Tuesday how fans can gauge McCarthy’s progress without overreacting.
O’Connell says that when McCarthy loses focus on his fundamentals, he instantly makes his job harder than it has to be.
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“It’s just a matter of applying those things with discipline every single snap,” O’Connell said. “Fundamentally, he’s tying a hand behind his back at times with giving himself an opportunity to be as accurate as he can be.”
“You can’t be thinking about your fundamentals and techniques in those moments. If you are, that’s going to be pulling away from your ability to play fast and be aggressive with your arm, because it’s going to slow everything down in the process,” O’Connell added. “So we’ve got to continue to try to make that habit, and let the concrete dry, as I say.”
Justin Jefferson showing remarkable patience through Vikings QB J.J. McCarthy’s struggles
“You definitely have to have patience,” Jefferson said when asked about McCarthy on the second day of training camp. “He’s pretty much a rookie.”
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“When the quarterback is struggling,” Vikings legend Cris Carter said Monday on KFAN-100.3 FM, “regardless of what they say in the press conference, regardless, (Justin) is going to take the high road because he’s the leader of that team and he’s not going to show any negativity to the quarterback because he’s committed himself to take care of the kid and help the kid in his journey. But when you can’t do your job, it creates frustration.”
Multiple NFL Teams See Bad Quarterback Choices Ruin This Season And Cloud Future
Want to tear apart an NFL franchise? Want to delegitimize the coaching staff and the personnel department, and set the players on today’s team against Hall of Famers from yesteryear in a battle with no winners? It’s quite easy.
Blow the quarterback decision.
Screw up the most consequential call on the game’s most important player and suddenly NFL legacy franchises become clown shows. Fans and owners get tired. And people get fired.
It is a nightmare, and it is all over the league this season. Again.
Look at the Minnesota Vikings, Arizona Cardinals, New York Jets, Cleveland Browns, Atlanta Falcons, Las Vegas Raiders and Miami Dolphins and you can plainly see the troubles that come with failing to get the quarterback position right.
Vikings Got It Most Wrong
Let’s consider the Vikings first, because they are the team that parlayed the biggest opportunity to make their quarterback situation right before they got it so horribly wrong – at least in the short term.
The opportunities the Vikings had to combine what is otherwise a playoff-caliber roster with a good QB decision were the most of any team in the NFL looking to make a choice last offseason.
It’s well chronicled the Vikings could have re-signed Sam Darnold, or kept Daniel Jones on the promise of letting him compete for a starting job. They even could have added Aaron Rodgers in free agency.
And faced with all those possibilities, the Vikings decided their starter must be second-year quarterback J.J. McCarthy no matter what.
Except McCarthy, who missed his entire rookie season with an injury, struggled as the starter. Then got hurt. Then returned and has continued to struggle.
So the Vikings could have danced with the prom queen, but instead chose the girl with the big wart between her eyes.
What happens after that failed decision is a team that won 14 games last season has sunk to last place in the NFC North.
Suddenly, coach Kevin O’Connell, who had a reputation as a quarterback whisperer, and general manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah, who seemed to do no wrong adding quarterbacks to the roster, look foolish having picked the unproven McCarthy over everybody else.
The Buzzards are already circling …
Could J.J. McCarthy eventually be the Rams’ next reclamation project?
Unless Matthew Stafford stumbles off a cliff, the Los Angeles Rams won’t be in the market for a new quarterback anytime soon. However, whenever the need for a new signal caller arrives, could J.J. McCarthy one day become Sean McVay’s next QB reclamation project?
It’s entirely possible, as McCarthy has had a rough start to his NFL career. Through five starts with the Vikings, the Michigan product is 2-3 as a starter with a 6-to-8 touchdown-to-interception ratio and has completed 53% of his passes, the worst mark in the league. Six QBs were taken in the first 12 picks of the 2024 draft, and fair or not, McCarthy is quickly pulling away as the worst of the bunch.
It also doesn’t help that already, he is getting compared to another Minnesota bust.
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Quarterback development is a delicate balance, since you want the guy to do everything possible to succeed immediately, but you also cannot do anything to wreck his confidence. Right now, McCarthy seems to have happy feet in the pocket, which would explain his alarming rate of off-balance and inaccurate passes. Take, for instance, his most recent game against the Bears. Several passes sailed over the receivers’ heads, illustrating his struggles perfectly.
Behind enemy lines
Packers’ inconsistent group holds the key to slowing down Brian Flores’ newest defensive strategy
Brian Flores has been with the Minnesota Vikings since 2023. Therefore, the Green Bay Packers already have familiarity with his scheme, with his principles, and what he intends to do as a defensive play-designer and play-caller.
But don’t expect everything to feel the same on Sunday, when the Packers face the Vikings for the first time in 2025. It’s a different version of the defense, with more emphasis on the interior.
How the Vikings have changed on defense
There is a significant difference for the Vikings this season. Last year, the team didn’t have much production from their defensive tackles — just four sacks from interior defensive linemen in 2024. This year, Jalen Redmond himself, who is arguably the best story in the division, has that amount, and the unit has 11.5 of the Vikings’ 26 sacks.
They use a lot of base 3-4 looks and send all five players on the line of scrimmage, plus they use simulated pressures with the edge rushers and don’t send anyone from outside of the tackles, putting a lot of pressure on the interior. The key with this unit, as it is with any Flores’ defense, is preventing pressure.
The Packers lost center Elgton Jenkins, likely for the rest of the season, with a low-leg injury. The team is still adapting to the new formation and had mixed results against a strong New York Giants’ defensive front.
Overall, amongst 77 qualifying guards, Aaron Banks is 37th in PFF blocking grade, and Jordan Morgan is 41st. Sean Rhyan still qualifies as a guard, and is 75th, but he’s now moved to center and has had a much higher blocking efficiency in a limited sample size.
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