Ed. note: This article was published before the Vikings announced that J.J. McCarthy’s meniscus injury requires season-ending surgery.
The long offseason wait for Minnesota Vikings football is over. The preseason Week 1 showdown with the Las Vegas Raiders offered a prologue to an exciting new era of Vikings football, complete with our first real look at rookie QB J.J. McCarthy. Unfortunately, McCarthy injured his meniscus in action and will undergo surgery to determine whether his meniscus needs to be trimmed or repaired. The extent of his recovery time remains uncertain.
That doesn’t change what we saw out of him over the weekend, which was a bit of a mixed bag, but overall quite impressive.
McCarthy bounced back from an early pick to put on an electric performance, going 11 for 17 for 188 yards and two TDs plus the INT. He also added 18 yards on the ground in two carries.
His TD throws had Justin Jefferson shouting in celebration on the sideline:
McCarthy’s stats looked good, particularly the 11.1 yards/attempt, but sometimes numbers can overstate empty calories. I had to take a closer look at the film for myself, and what I found on the game tape absolutely backed up the numbers. McCarthy still has plenty to work on, but his overall performance was great for a rookie in his first live-action.
Let’s break it down.
poise under pressure
In limited reps, McCarthy showed the ability to stand up to pressure and make plays. In the compilation below, the first play is the most impressive. He stands in, takes a hit, and delivers an accurate pass to his left. The refusal to wilt in the face of a defender coming at him is admirable.
The next two plays are situationally critical. On the second, he remains calm when his intended target, Nick Muse, slips on his route. He’s able to pull the ball down and spins out of contact, when Kene Nwangwu was driven right back into his lap. After the spin, he finds open space and scrambles for a first down, getting down without taking further contact.
On the final play, he identifies a matchup advantage for Muse and makes a throw against man coverage with the pocket closing in. The ball is slightly high but very catchable and leads Muse into open space, creating a first down.
Overall, these plays are absolutely what you want to see from a young QB. The ability to make accurate throws facing contact and create instead of panicking when something goes wrong downfield are critical for success in the NFL.
Obvious arm talent
If you’re taking a QB in the first round, you want him to have elite physical tools. It’s obvious that McCarthy has the arm talent to justify being a top-10 pick. Of his 11 completions, four went for 20-plus yards, and all of them were impressive throws outside the numbers, including his two TDs.
The first throw to Trishton Jackson, also highlighted above, was the shortest of the bunch. However, it was made impressive by the velocity and pinpoint accuracy with pressure in his face. He also hit Jackson on a toe-tapping sideline catch on the next drive.
McCarthy followed that up with yet another long completion to Jackson on a 45-yard TD. The throw was a laser that hit a wide-open Jackson in stride and led to an easy TD. It’s also notable that McCarthy had two accurate throws to the left, which was an area he struggled with in college. When I charted him, he came out well below average throwing left, as can be seen below:
McCarthy’s deep-throw prowess continued with a TD to Trent Sherfield on McCarthy’s last play of the day. Minnesota’s use of play-action caused the Raiders to bust the coverage, and Sherfield ended up wide-open, a situation you definitely don’t want to miss. McCarthy delivered with another accurate pass.
Here’s a compilation of the plays:
Clear growth
McCarthy’s flaws throwing to the left partially stemmed from a footwork issue. Kevin O’Connell was adamant that footwork is fixable, and it’s obviously something he was working on with McCarthy over the offseason. We got to see that in action against the Raiders, like on this throw to the outside shown below. This quick throw in a three-step dropback is right where it needs to be. You can see from the end zone angle that McCarthy’s front foot is a little closed and then pointing directly toward his target as he follows through.
In college, he had an issue where he would step too far wide on throws to his left, opening his hips too much and causing throws to sail wide. In the below clip, look how his foot is pointed almost perpendicular to the sideline instead of at the receiver as he follows through:
Hopefully, his footwork improvements stick. It’s a good sign that his footwork held up for that throw, which was on his 16th dropback of the game. The more tired you are, the more you start to lean back on old habits, so avoiding the pitfall of reverting back to the college footwork by the end of the game is a positive sign.
processing reads
One of the differences between the college and NFL game is how often the QB has to access reads that are later in the progression. The superiority of a program like Michigan over most of their opponents means that McCarthy — or usually any other highly drafted QB — did not have to progress across the field in the same way he will in the Vikings offense.
That’s not to say there weren’t progressions or full-field reads for McCarthy at Michigan. There certainly were in one of the country’s most pro-style offenses. Instead, it’s something he will have to prove he can do with tighter coverage than he often saw in college.
On his first dropback, he showed that ability with this throw to Jalen Nailor:
McCarthy opens to the right, which is a smash concept covered by the Raiders’ Cover 3 zone. That means he has to progress through the read, and he does so with two edge rushers collapsing the pocket around him. He finds space to move up and progress to the dig route simultaneously, delivering an accurate pass that converts for a first down.
Oh, and did I mention that he did all of this on a first-and-15? He wasn’t rattled by the offense taking a pre-snap penalty on the previous play and looked to attack downfield instead of checking down.
That’s not to say McCarthy’s day was mistake-free. He erred on his interception, where he trusted his receiver too much and didn’t anticipate the DB, Jack Jones, undercutting the route. There was increased difficulty on this play because he had to escape the pocket after Nwangwu got run over by the blitz. Still, he probably should have played this safe and thrown the ball away on third-and-long.
On top of the pick, McCarthy was nearly strip-sacked. On that play, he progressed across the field from right to left before finding a dig route. You could argue that he’s a tick late to start his motion, and that ends up leading to his arm getting hit. He also had space to step up in the pocket on the play.
McCarthy also turned down one potential first-down throw. On another third down, McCarthy opens to the right, and the hi-low concept is covered. He works back left, and I think he sees the dig route. In my opinion, he has the opportunity to sit the receiver down with a completion, but he decides not to throw it. Instead, he bails to his left and gets a completion to Nwangwu. However, it’s short of the sticks, and the Vikings have to punt.
This play may not be a negative, but he had the potential to turn it into a positive with an aggressive decision.
McCarthy also scrambled on a later third down instead of throwing a potentially contested comeback route, which led to him getting tackled short of the sticks. The ultimate result: a blocked Vikings field goal. Given some of the other aggressive throws, including the TD to Jackson, I don’t think conservative decision-making will be a major issue for McCarthy, but it’s something to monitor.
Something to work on
McCarthy is still struggling with one type of throw. On rollouts, he twice missed the receiver in the flat, creating an incompletion.
On the first play below, he overthrew C.J. Ham. On the second play, he failed to get his body all the way around and missed a throw inside to Trent Sherfield.
Despite being short, these throws are surprisingly difficult for a QB. You have to quickly get your body squared to the target and often get the pass off with immediate pressure in your face, like McCarthy had in both plays. They require layering the ball over the defender’s arms but down into the receiver’s hands.
In other words, they’re touch throws. McCarthy struggled with touch in school, and his throw to Sherfield has way too much juice on it.
Kirk Cousins was great at this, especially moving to his left; it’s part of what made him so effective on play-action rollouts. Hopefully, McCarthy can calm down his arm in these situations as he continues to adjust to the NFL.
conclusion
J.J. McCarthy had an impressive first preseason game. Obviously, it’s not the true test of a regular-season matchup, but McCarthy clearly belonged on the field from a physical perspective.
McCarthy’s arm talent and athleticism shone. He made accurate throws and beat pressure with his arm and his legs. He remained calm under pressure, which led to two impressive third-down conversions. McCarthy’s deep ball was the star of the show, and he showed off it on two long TDs.
He also showed some growth from his college days, particularly on his accuracy throwing left. McCarthy was impressive throwing in that direction during the game, an area of the field he consistently misfired toward in college.
From a decision-making perspective, it was good to see him be able to progress through reads, although he will likely need to speed up his progressions and make sure he is staying aggressive with his decisions on third down. He obviously also needs to work on the decision-making that led to his interception, forcing the ball into tight coverage. Notably, though, he bounced back mentally and threw the two TDs after the pick, which is a great sign.
Finally, McCarthy was left with something to work on, with two misfires on rollout throws. He’ll have to put that progress on pause for now, although the duration of the hiatus remains uncertain. News of his injury is frustrating for eager Vikings fans, and no doubt for McCarthy himself. But the good news is, we finally got some limited NFL data on the rookie QB, and it’s not just the numbers that look promising.
