When people look back at the 2025 season, they’ll remember J.J. McCarthy’s growing pains in his rookie year. Should the Minnesota Vikings have tanked for Drake Maye? Why didn’t they franchise tag Sam Darnold? Did they overevaluate McCarthy, the highest-drafted quarterback in Vikings history?
However, Minnesota’s botched kickoff return stands out as the butterfly moment in a season where a lot went wrong.
It’s convenient to believe that the season came down to that one play. Cover the kickoff, and the Vikings and the Chicago Bears finish 10-7, with Minnesota holding the tiebreaker after beating the Bears twice. The Green Bay Packers end the season 10-6-1 after tying the Dallas Cowboys (lol).
That’s wishful thinking, though. That’s assuming that the Packers wouldn’t have started Jordan Love, who cleared concussion protocol, over (checks notes) Clayton Tune in Week 18. The Vikings needed six (six!) defensive turnovers to beat the Detroit Lions on Christmas, because they only had three net passing yards.
The more pertinent questions are more difficult to answer.
Why did J.J. McCarthy follow up his immaculate fourth-quarter performance in Chicago with a dud at home against the Atlanta Falcons?
Carson Wentz outplayed Aaron Rodgers in Dublin. Why couldn’t he finish off the game-winning drive there?
What if Kevin O’Connell hadn’t thrown on third-and-one against the Baltimore Ravens when Aaron Jones was running all over their defense?
Blaming special teams coordinator Matt Daniels and the kickoff coverage unit for this season is convenient but assumes too much. Many Vikings players and coaches share the blame for this lost season.
Certainly 2023 felt more excusable. Kirk Cousins was an ironman until he tore his Achilles tendon in a non-contact injury in Green Bay. Joshua Dobbs looked like he could take the Vikings higher until he crashed back into orbit in Vegas. There’s only so much that a team can do with Dobbs, Nick Mullens, and Jaren Hall under center.
Minnesota’s greatest fault that season was not tanking for Drake Maye after it started 0-3. Almost no team starts 0-3 and makes the playoffs. Cousins was 35 and had won one playoff game; it was time for a new quarterback. Maye was attainable in the draft.
The New England Patriots took Maye third-overall in 2024, seven spots ahead of J.J. McCarthy. Maye led the Patriots to a 14-3 record this year, albeit against a historically easy schedule. He’s second to Matthew Stafford for NFL MVP.
Still, Vikings ownership doesn’t want to tank, and it’s easy to look at Maye’s success in hindsight and assume he’d pan out in Minnesota. Plus, there are more significant front-office mistakes that cost the Vikings this season.
Chief among them is that they didn’t franchise-tag Sam Darnold. A year after he threw for 35 touchdowns and 4,319 yards, Darnold has led the Seattle Seahawks to 14 wins and the No. 1 seed in the NFC.
Even if Kevin O’Connell wanted to develop his own quarterback, McCarthy would have benefited from spending a year practicing behind Darnold. It would have given him time to hone his mechanics to become more accurate next season.
McCarthy has a weird leg-whip motion that indicates he’s throwing with his upper body too much. It’s likely because he couldn’t fix his mechanics while recovering from a meniscus tear last year, then they got thrown out of whack again when he suffered a high ankle sprain in Week 2.
In his first year under center, McCarthy finished the season with a 57.6% completion percentage. For context, Drake Maye had a 72% completion percentage this season. Daniel Jones had 68% completion percentage for the Indianapolis Colts; Darnold finished with a 67.7% completion percentage.
The Vikings enter next year coming off a winning season, but they had no shot at making the playoffs in the second half. There is uncertainty at quarterback. Brian Flores could leave, taking his defensive expertise with him. Minnesota could be 10-7 or 7-10 next year.
In 2021, the Vikings told us they needed a new coach.
A year later, they told us they needed a better defense.
After the 2023 season, they needed to move on from Kirk Cousins.
When Sam Darnold flopped in the playoffs last year, the Vikings wanted to develop their own quarterback.
As this season concluded, we’re left to wonder who will start under center next year. Will they need to overhaul their defense if Flores leaves? What will they get from the free agents they signed long-term last offseason?
2025 is the season that the Vikings told us nothing.
