The Minnesota Vikings entered the 2025 season with playoff aspirations and a first-year starting quarterback in J.J. McCarthy — a dynamic still rare to be realized in the NFL.
Since the 1976 merger, 19 rookie quarterbacks who have played five or more regular-season games have made the playoffs. While McCarthy is not a rookie, he is the youngest quarterback in the league at 22 years old and missed his entire rookie year with a meniscus injury.
While the Vikings maintained that McCarthy’s redshirt rookie year was impactful for his development, the young quarterback still has a long way to go after his first five starts.
McCarthy looked rattled for a second straight week in a 19-17 loss to the Chicago Bears on Sunday, November 16. He completed 16 of 32 pass attempts for 150 yards, one touchdown and two interceptions. Sunday was a new low for McCarthy, whose development has been far from linear.
Through 11 weeks, McCarthy has the lowest completion percentage (52.9%) and quarterback rating (61.7) among 35 qualifying quarterbacks.
And after a loss to the Bears, the Vikings’ playoff chances sit at just 2%, according to The Athletic.
Head coach Kevin O’Connell continues to throw McCarthy into the deep end in his efforts to accelerate the young quarterback’s growth. However, the plan to develop McCarthy has entered a different timeline, one that is opposite to the Vikings making the playoffs this season.
“The Vikings entered the season hoping to compete for a deep playoff run while developing McCarthy in real time. It’s now possible that those goals will cannibalize each other. Their postseason outlook is bleak, and McCarthy has shown few signs of progress over five starts. Seven games remain to salvage one or the other — but not both,” ESPN’s Kevin Seifert wrote.
Kevin O’Connell Addresses JJ McCarthy Frustrations
After the loss on Sunday, O’Connell addressed McCarthy’s emotions throughout a frustrating game that saw the young quarterback booed by fans during the third quarter.
“He was frustrated. I just kept telling him, ‘feet and eyes, feet and eyes,’ and the things that we saw throughout the week on the practice field. Make it about that,” O’Connell said.
“With a young quarterback, there’s going to be a lot of things that we’ll pinpoint and continue to highlight and tie that preparation throughout the week and our plans to what he does well, and continue to coach the things where we feel the emphasis needs to be on. It’s part of the young QB journey, just results like today. Especially when you’re able to fight through it all, get the lead, you would love to be making a lot of those growth coaching points and development coaching points with a one-point win, but credit the Bears in the end.”
JJ McCarthy Makes Feelings Clear After Being Booed
Falling to 2-3 as a starter in the NFL, McCarthy took full blame for the struggles in his postgame news conference.
“I need to do a better job with my decision-making, accuracy — it needs to be better — and the overall execution of the offense. I need to be better on doing my job at a higher level,” he said.
McCarthy, who had lost three games in his entire football career before this season, is navigating uncharted territory.
“Adversity is one of the greatest things for growth. It can separate teams or bring them tighter together. This team is being brought tighter together,” he said, adding that the desire to succeed has helped the Vikings push past licking their wounds after a loss.
“We’re just sick of losing, we want wins every single week, and we’re just going to do everything we can to get those,” McCarthy added. “Adversity is inevitable in this league, I understand that coming into it. It’s just about how you respond.”
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