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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The most obvious benefit of having solid goaltending is it relieves your team’s goal-scorers from having to carry too much weight.

Simple math tells you that when you give up three goals, you need to score four to win. And for a Minnesota Wild team for whom the offense has not been clicking – even when starting November on a 5-1-1 streak – that’s likely too much weight to expect them to carry.

So with Jesper Wallstedt breaking out of his backup role and allowing no goals – not one – in his previous two starts, the trickle-down effect it has on the entire team’s confidence can be seen on the faces inside the winning locker room.

“It feels good when you have him playing this well. It makes the group a lot [more] confident. I mean, he’s incredible right now,” Wild rookie defenseman Zeev Buium said following Wallstedt’s 28-save shutout of the Anaheim Ducks on Saturday. “I don’t know how many goals we’ve let up in the last couple games, but it’s a few. It almost feels like we’re gonna shut out every team when we play them. That’s a good thing to have.”

For the record, entering Sunday night’s game with the Vegas Golden Knights, the Wild had surrendered a NHL-best four goals in their previous four contests, split between Wallstedt and Filip Gustavsson.

Wild coach John Hynes joked following the Anaheim game that a goalie controversy caused by two men both playing well is the best problem a coach can have.

“You need strong goaltending to win, and we obviously have a good tandem,” Hynes said. “I think both guys are competing, and that’s what you want when you have two guys that can play and they compete for the net. That’s usually what drives a lot of things, is if you have competition.”

Strong goaltending also allows some teams to play a more free game, willing to take risks and make plays, secure in the knowledge that mistakes won’t automatically end up in their own net. The Wild took a pair of penalties late in a one-goal game versus Anaheim, then watched their penalty-killers – Wallstedt chief among them – negate the Ducks’ man-advantage and close out a win that was much-needed for team confidence.

The high-risk, high-reward play prompted one Wild player to express some mild concern, while praising Wallstedt.

“I think sometimes too much (confidence),” Minnesota penalty-killer Yakov Trenin said. “Giving up a lot of 2-on-1s, we need to settle down the confidence a little bit on that. A little too confident.”

In blanking the Flames and Ducks in his past two starts, Wallstedt became the first rookie goalie in Wild history with back-to-back shutouts.

Briefly

Wild veteran forward Vladimir Tarasenko missed a second consecutive game due to a lower body injury on Sunday.

“I would classify it as day to day right now with the information I have at this point,” Hynes said following the Anaheim game.

Tarasenko, acquired from Detroit over the summer, has two goals and eight assists in his first 18 games with the Wild.

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The boo birds rained down from the home crowd on Sunday afternoon at U.S. Bank Stadium as J.J. McCarthy slowly trotted off the field. It was the first sign that the fan base has started to grow frustrated the development of the young quarterback.

Who could blame them?

The growing pains of McCarthy were once again on display as the Vikings struggled to get anything going against the Chicago Bears. That said, McCarthy saved his best for last, leading an impressive drive in the final minutes.

Not only did McCarthy show incredible poise while leading the Vikings down the field, he then showed a clutch gene by delivering a strike to Jordan Addison to give the Vikings the lead with 56 left.

That wasn’t enough to earn the Vikings a win, as the Bears got into field goal range following a long kick return, which set the stage for Cairo Santos to play hero with a 48-yard field goal as time expired.

It went down as a heartbreaking 19-17 loss for the Vikings that has left them with more questions than answers.

There was some foreshadowing on the opening drive of the game as McCarthy underthrew Addison deep downfield off play action, then airmailed Justin Jefferson near the sideline for what would’ve moved the chains.

It was a sign of things to come as McCarthy looked overwhelmed for prolonged stretches while only completed 16 of 32 pass attempts for 150 yards. Though he mixed in an good throw over the middle here in there, he more often made routine throws look like trying to solve a Rubik’s Cube while blindfolded.

It simply wasn’t good enough from a guy the Vikings selected with the No. 10 overall pick with hopes of him being the franchise quarterback.

That said, the Vikings still managed to take an early lead in the game, as McCarthy put together a solid drive that stalled out short of the end zone. That set up a field goal from Will Reichard that made it 3-0 in favor of the Vikings.

That prompted a good response from the Bears as they put together a lengthy 15-play drive that ended with a touchdown run by Kyle Monangai to make it 7-3.

The struggles of McCarthy started to rear their ugly head from there. He threw an interception on the next drive after climbing up a little bit too far in the pocket and getting hit while he released the ball.

Fortunately for the Vikings, the Bears couldn’t deliver the haymaker, settling for a field goal to make it 10-3.

There was still a chance for the Vikings to score some points before halftime, until McCarthy made yet another mistake, this time throwing an interception on a pass intended for Addison the end zone.

After a pair of field goals from the Bears made it 16-3 after halftime, the Vikings finally got a spark they desperately needed thanks to some complimentary football.

They got a couple of sacks by Dallas Turner and Andrew Van Ginkel on defense, a 42-yard punt return by Myles Price on special teams, then a touchdown run by Jordan Mason to cut the deficit to 16-10.

That set the stage for McCarthy to put the Vikings ahead in the final minute with his most impressive drive of the game that make it 17-16 with 56 second left in the game. That proved to be too much time as Devin Duvernay provided a 56-yard kick return that put the Bears on the edge of field goal range.

After a few runs up the gut, Santos walked onto the field, and put the ball through the uprights to finalize the score at 19-17.

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Frankie Capan III logged the best individual finish of his young PGA Tour career on Sunday in Southampton, Bermuda. The Tour rookie finished in a tie for third at the Bermuda Championship, which provided valuable points heading into the finale of the fall season.

Capan, a North Oaks native and the lone Minnesotan on the PGA Tour, shot a 1-under round of 70 in the final round. That was tied for the seventh-best round on the course on a day where wins hovered around 30 miles per hour, with gusts swirling north of 40 MPH.

Adam Schenk finished 12-under par to win the tournament, edging Chandler Phillips by a stroke via a four and a half foot par putt on the 18th hole.

Capan was in a tie for second, just one shot back of Schenk, when on the 16th tee on Sunday. But he bogeyed No. 16 and No. 17 to fall out of contention for the win before making par on the 18th hole.

But his finish moved Capan up 18 spots on the season-long points list to No. 124 heading into next week’s fall finale — the RSM Classic.

Golfers in the top 100 after that event secure their PGA Tour cards for next season. Those in spots No. 101-125 earn conditional status and will probably get eight-to-12 starts on golf’s top tour next year.

So Capan still has work to do, but he’s given himself a chance via improved play this fall. Sunday marked his second top-six finish in his last four events.

He could sure use something similar again next weekend.

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