In August of last year, the Minnesota Vikings acquired Nahshon Wright in exchange for Andrew Booth Jr. They waived Wright before the season in late August and signed him to the practice squad. He only played in one game and didn’t record any stats. The Vikings released him last April, and the Chicago Bears signed him in the offseason.
Think of where you were when Wright intercepted J.J. McCarthy on a Cover 0 look and took it 74 yards for a pick-six. You had to feel a sinking feeling. McCarthy had just hit Jalen Nailor for a 28-yard reception, setting Will Reichard up for a field goal to make it 10-6 before the half. Reichard’s 59-yard strike was a personal and Soldier Field record.
The Vikings had hung on in the first half, despite producing only 80 yards of offense. McCarthy was five of eight for 48 yards. Aaron Rodgers’ 22 for 30, 244-yard day hung over McCarthy’s performance. Sam Darnold’s 4,319-yard, 35-touchdown season haunted everyone like a specter.
Should Minnesota have gone with Rodgers, the veteran who wanted to play for O’Connell this year? How could they let Darnold walk after the season he had last year? Why were Kwesi Adofo-Mensah and Kevin O’Connell so confident O’Connell could tread water as a first-year quarterback on a team with championship aspirations?
Such questions hung in the air like McCarthy’s ill-fated third-quarter pass. Justin Jefferson was his intended target, but a practice squad player whom the Vikings only elevated to the active roster for one game swiped it from the sky. An errant pass against a blitzing defense with no safety help dissipated all that effort to maintain the surface tension.
“He learned how to play pretty good vision zero coverage here,” O’Connell said in jest after the game before giving Wright for making an impressive play. “When you have a pick-six with the way that first half went, normally that’s enough for a lot of teams to go ahead and pack their stuff up and head home.”
ESPN gave the Bears an 82.5% chance of winning the game after that play. Chicago’s odds rose to 94.5% by the end of the third quarter. McCarthy looked muddled. O’Connell had been in his headset for 15 seconds before every play, the longest time permitted by league rules. McCarthy continued to can plays late, rushing the snap, and failing to convert third downs.
It would be easy to spiral after watching the first three quarters. What if the Vikings start 0-1? Would they fare any better in primetime next week? How about against Joe Burrow and the Cincinnati Bengals in Week 3? Or in Europe in Weeks 4 and 5?
What do they do if McCarthy is a bust?
McCarthy grew up in La Grange Park, a Chicago suburb. He only lost two games in high school at Nazareth Academy and one at Michigan. He said his dad estimated that there were 200 to 250 people in the stands supporting him, and McCarthy threw his first-ever touchdown pass for a Bears touchdown.
That’s great news for someone who grew up a Bears fan. It’s less so when you’re the quarterback of the Minnesota Vikings.
“It’s one of the worst things you can do as a quarterback,” said McCarthy, who said the interception brought him back to the Fiesta Bowl against TCU in 2023, where he threw two pick-sixes, his lone loss at Michigan. “You can’t do anything about it. You’ve gotta focus on the next play.”
At one point, the Vikings were zero for eight on third down. They didn’t convert a third down until scoring their first touchdown to make it 17-12 in the fourth quarter. Still, McCarthy said he was in the huddle on the previous drive when he told his teammates, “Where else would you rather be?”
The Vikings might as well have been 20,000 leagues under the sea at that point. They had to be experiencing the kind of pressure that gives you the bends. They were rapidly descending into Lake Michigan like an unstable cruise liner. How would they resurface? It looked like the kind of loss that could sink a season.
Still, McCarthy promised to be present at Soldier Field. Take things one snap at a time, one throw at a time. Let the past go, don’t focus too much on the future. McCarthy locked into the present and found the perfect thing to say at the perfect time.
“I’ve never actually said that before, but I feel like it was the perfect time,” McCarthy said. “Guys were just in their heads a little bit. Well, a smile goes a long way.
“There were a lot of smiles after I said that, and just a little bit of a perspective shift.”
Everyone was grinning ear to ear after the Vikings escaped Chicago with a 27-24 win.
“Days like this,” said O’Connell, “kind of affirm a lot of the things that we feel are important with our organization.”
O’Connell said he told McCarthy at halftime that McCarthy would win the Vikings this game. McCarthy believed him and became the first quarterback in league history to account for three touchdowns in the fourth quarter of his NFL debut.
McCarthy was sitting 25 leagues under the sea, with enough pressure to shrink his 6’3”, 200 lbs. frame. He smiled and told his teammates to enjoy the moment, and then took them to the surface.
