J.J. McCarthy says that he doesn’t know when he suffered the concussion that kept him out of the Seattle Seahawks game in Week 13.
“Every single game kind of feels like you get kicked in the face by a donkey,” said McCarthy, who self-reported concussion symptoms on the plane ride back from the Minnesota Vikings’ Week 12 game in Lambeau. “So, it’s kind of like, it’s just like you got the whiplash, you got the headaches, and all that.”
McCarthy suffered that concussion after his worst performance this season. In Minnesota’s 23-6 Week 12 loss to the Green Bay Packers, McCarthy finished 12 of 19 for 87 yards and threw two interceptions. His 34.2 passer rating was the lowest of the ten games he played this season.
Minnesota’s season ended in Week 12. The Chicago Bears didn’t officially eliminate them until Week 15’s game in Dallas, but the Vikings had less than one percent chance of reaching the playoffs when they left Lambeau. Their attempt to reach the postseason with McCarthy, the league’s youngest starter, had failed.
The Vikings will have to do some self-assessment in the offseason. They ended the year on a five-game winning streak and finished 9-8. Still, they should focus more on their 4-8 start, which made them irrelevant in December, than on how they finished. They picked up wins against three poor defenses at the end of the season and the Packers, who started Clayton Tune in Week 18.
To understand what went wrong, the Vikings must ask tough questions of themselves. To start, why didn’t they franchise-tag Sam Darnold, who led the Seattle Seahawks to the best record in the NFC this year?
Darnold’s final two games last season created uncertainty about his performance in big moments. Meanwhile, the Vikings drafted McCarthy to be their franchise quarterback. Still, they could have given themselves the option to roll with Darnold and trade McCarthy if Darnold played well this season.
“There’s those nights that you wake up and stare at the ceiling and ask yourself (why he made a particular decision),” Kwesi Adofo-Mensah admitted at his end-of-the-season press conference, “but I always go back to the process and what we thought at the time.
“It’s easier to kind of go and be revisionist and results-based, but going to really think through what we had at the time. I still understand why we did what we did.”
Even if the Vikings believed McCarthy was their franchise quarterback, why didn’t they have Darnold start while McCarthy worked on his mechanics?
In that case, if Darnold petered out at the end of the season, they could let him go and turn things over to McCarthy next season. McCarthy would be in the third year of his rookie contract, but he would be better prepared to start in the NFL.
Fans also would have been more accepting of the change. Most people were out on Darnold after he had a 43.9 passer rating against the Detroit Lions in Week 18 and took nine sacks against the Los Angeles Rams in the first round of the playoffs.
Imagine what the sentiment would be if he faltered two years in a row in the postseason. It would have been easier to turn to McCarthy if Darnold didn’t look like a viable option. McCarthy also would have had more time to prepare to be a starter. Conversely, the Vikings could have flipped McCarthy if Darnold played well in the playoffs this year.
A rebuilding team like the Tennessee Titans needs Cam Ward to pan out because there isn’t any infrastructure around him. Meanwhile, Minnesota has a contending roster. They just need better quarterback play. Retaining Darnold, 28, who’s in his prime, probably fits their timeline better.
Ultimately, the Vikings chose McCarthy. Kevin O’Connell and Kwesi Adofo-Mensah emphasized McCarthy’s final four games of the year to highlight his process. Still, neither committed to him as Minnesota’s starter next season.
McCarthy averaged 154.8 yards per game, threw 6 touchdowns and 10 interceptions, and accumulated a 57.9 passer rating in his first six games. However, in his final four games, McCarthy averaged 175.8 passing yards, threw 5 touchdowns and 2 interceptions, and had a 100.4 cumulative passer rating.
Still, the Vikings played poor defenses in their final four games. The New York Giants, Dallas Cowboys, and Washington Commanders have bottom-5 defenses in the league. In Week 18, the Packers rested players and were missing Micah Parsons and Devonte Wyatt due to injury.
McCarthy also missed the end of the Giants game, the Detroit Lions game on Christmas, and the end of Week 18 with a hairline fracture in his hand. Detroit has a league-average defense, so facing them would have provided more clarity on McCarthy’s progress.
In total, McCarthy has played in 10 of 37 games since the Vikings drafted him. His injuries, 57.6% completion percentage, and 11 touchdown passes to 12 interceptions are meaningful concerns heading into next season.
Had the Vikings kept Sam Darnold, they could have leveraged the lack of data on J.J. McCarthy. They could have either extended Darnold and traded McCarthy as a first-round asset if Darnold played well this year. If Darnold played poorly, they could have let him go and capitalized on the excitement of starting a better-prepared potential franchise quarterback.
Instead, the Vikings may have started McCarthy too early. As a result, they’ve left everyone wondering if he’ll live up to being the 10th-overall pick, given what we’ve seen from him this year.
