For most of the Vikings’ 19-17 loss to Chicago on Sunday, J.J. McCarthy looked like a young quarterback whose confidence had cratered, out of sorts since the opening whistle.
On the Vikings’ first few drives, McCarthy overthrew Jordan Addison and threw behind Justin Jefferson on plays that would have moved the sticks. He later threw a pair of first-half interceptions, his seventh and eighth of the season, the first on an underthrown pass under duress that the Bears turned into three points.
Making his fifth NFL start on Sunday at U.S. Bank Stadium, McCarthy looked tight, indecisive, crushed by expectations. Unready.
Whatever the Vikings expected McCarthy to be in his first NFL season, it was too much for a 22-year-old who missed his entire rookie season because of a knee injury. More than halfway through the season, the Vikings are 4-6 and last in the NFC North, and frankly getting worse.
Nearly everyone who cared could see this coming. Why Vikings management didn’t is a mystery.
Sometimes you can know too much.
General manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah and head coach Kevin O’Connell look at McCarthy and see a 6-foot-3, 220-pound quarterback with a strong arm and the mental acuity and drive to absorb the intricacies of an NFL offense. They see a kid who has everything he needs to succeed.
But McCarthy is barely completing 50 percent of his passes and has more interceptions (8) than touchdown passes (6). Against the Bears, he was 16 for 32 for 150 yards, a touchdown and two interceptions.
Asked afterward why he thinks his accuracy has been so low, McCarthey said, “I think it’s just growing.”
Yes. Absolutely. No doubt.
Who knows what plans are made in the back rooms of team headquarters in Eagan? Who knows what Kwesi, KOC and the Wilfs tell each other in full candor? One would assume that a team that went out and spent more than $300 million on free agents last spring expected to win this season, even with a quarterback playing his first NFL season.
It was easy to criticize that approach before the season started, and it’s even easier now. But one can’t make that argument without acknowledging that NFL quarterbacks require a long landing strip, that it’s a remarkably difficult job and rarely clicks in the first season.
McCarthy absorbed his first boos from fans at the Bank on Sunday, just one indication that this season is becoming a referendum on J.J. McCarthy, at least outside of the bunker. After the game, O’Connell was asked how bad his quarterback would have to play before he would replace him.
“I’m not gonna get into that,” the coach said.
Expecting a playoff season was too much to put on McCarthy’s shoulders. Everyone knows it now. It was unrealistic and unfair, and it would be a mistake to give the young quarterback just this one season to prove himself.
It’s too early to start turning the page on McCarthy.
For one thing, it would be a complete waste of this season. For another, NFL teams are generally too quick to pull the plug on young quarterbacks, as we have learned by watching Sam Darnold excel here and in Seattle.
In some ways, handing McCarthy has been a disaster, but he also has on occasion shown us why Minnesota has been so high on him, as he did while going 5 for 5 for 55 yards and a touchdown pass on what really should have been a game-winning drive after the two-minute warning had sounded.
“There is a huge growth and learning opportunity in front of us,” O’Connell said. “That doesn’t make this any easier, but it’s the truth.”
If O’Connell and Adofo-Mensah truly believed what they have been telling us about McCarthy, they need to stick with him. They threw him out there this season and asked him to either be great, or make all make all his mistakes in front of 70,000 people on Sundays.
They owe it to him to not give up.
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