J.J. McCarthy didn’t go into Sunday’s game knowing the Minnesota Vikings would choose to take the ball if they won the coin toss.
“We found out maybe 10 seconds before the coin toss,” McCarthy said. “But, no matter what, we don’t let that dictate how we’re going to attack each and every play.”
The Vikings were methodical on their first drive, marching 61 yards in seven plays over just under four minutes. However, the two drives immediately after built a foundation for their 31-0 win over the Washington Commanders.
Washington responded with a 15-play, 83-yard drive. Still, Minnesota’s defense forced three straight incompletions at its two-yard line, turning the ball over on downs. McCarthy narrowly escaped a safety on the next play, then led the Vikings on a 19-play, 98-yard drive that took 12 minutes off the clock.
McCarthy was playing free. He looked like the quarterback who led the Vikings on a fourth-quarter comeback in Chicago, or who delivered a victory in Detroit as 9.5-point underdogs. For 60 minutes on Sunday, he left the muddled quarterback who threw for 87 yards and two picks at Lambeau Field in the past.
It was the first time since Minnesota’s win in Detroit, previously the Vikings’ only win after the bye, that their offense took flight under McCarthy.
The Vikings spent $300 million on their roster in the offseason and entered the year with Super Bowl aspirations. However, those quickly dissipated after McCarthy’s two-interception game against the Atlanta Falcons in the home opener and subsequent injury.
After a plane crash, an electronic recording device allows investigators to review the accident and incident. Known colloquially as the “black box,” it will often survive the wreck. The late comic George Carlin once asked why they can’t make the entire plane out of the black box. Ultimately, it’s the box’s size, not the material, that allows it to survive the crash.
In what’s becoming a lost season for the Vikings, there will be echoes of McCarthy’s heroics in Chicago and Detroit saved in the black box. Kevin O’Connell did what he could to salvage the best elements of those games, allowing McCarthy to play freely with a quieted mind.
It started with simplifying the game plan and creating mental bandwidth for him. On Sunday, McCarthy showed his veteran teammates he could bounce back from his game against the Green Bay Packers and operate O’Connell’s offense.
“Feeling it afterwards from the guys, it means a lot,” said McCarthy. “It’s just something I feel like should have happened a lot earlier. I absolutely love those guys for the grace and patience they’ve [shown] me.”
Justin Jefferson has had a down year by his standards this season. Against Washington, he finished with only two catches for 11 yards, behind Jordan Addison (four catches, 62 yards), Jalen Nailor (three, 30), Josh Oliver (two, 24), and T.J. Hockenson (two, 11). Jefferson only had seven more receiving yards than his career-low four in Seattle last week. Still, it felt different in a win.
“He’s a young quarterback, I don’t think people really understand that,” said Jefferson. “They forget he didn’t really play last year. So this is really his first year, really playing and being with his team.
“So there’s gonna be times where there’s gonna be adversity, and things might not look the greatest. But him just keeping on that road and bouncing back today is definitely a great game for him.”
McCarthy spent last season in the Vikings facility, learning Kevin O’Connell’s offense. However, he could practice his footwork and mechanics while recovering from his meniscus tear. To bring out the best in McCarthy, O’Connell asked McCarthy to focus on making the right reads and protecting the football instead of the mechanics of throwing the ball.
“It’s purely about decision making at this point,” he said, leading into Sunday’s game. “There will be time to ultimately fundamentally focus on things and continue building kind of this layer of a foundation that will be important for him in the future.”
Instead of overloading McCarthy with information, O’Connell asked that he understand the game plan and make the right reads. During the game, O’Connell focused his attention on using various personnel groupings to keep Washington’s defense off-balance.
“We just wanted to be versatile in how we kind of attacked on the early downs,” he said. “[We] tried to see if we can have some early-down success running the football out of those groupings, and then pairing that with some kind of just schematical ways of trying to get some easy completions.”
During the week, running game coordinator Curtis Modkins and then O’Connell told the players to play like they were 16 again. McCarthy tried to revisit the mindset he had at Nazareth Academy in suburban Chicago, when playing in the NFL was a dream.
“The big message of last night’s team meeting was, you know, play for that 16-year-old version of yourself,” McCarthy said. “Understand what got you into this game, what made you fall in love with this game, regardless of the record, regardless of where we are this season. Just go out there and have fun, play fast, play free, and I feel like we all did that today.”
McCarthy played free and delivered his best performance since Week 9 in Detroit. It felt like he had salvaged the season after the Los Angeles Chargers had routed them 10 days earlier. Those notions are long gone. Still, McCarthy salvaged the belief that he could lead this team into the future if he builds on this win over the next four games.