Daily Norseman
It’s been a week of firsts for Minnesota Vikings quarterback J.J. McCarthy. On Monday, he made his first NFL start, threw his first NFL touchdown pass, scored his first NFL rushing touchdown, and got his first NFL victory.
And now, he has his first NFL award.
The announcement has just come down that McCarthy was named the NFC’s Offensive Player of the Week for Week 1 of the 2025 NFL season.
McCarthy certainly got off to a rough start on Monday night against Chicago, as he threw a 74-yard pick six in the third quarter to make the score 17-6. However, he and the rest of the Vikings came roaring back in the fourth quarter, as he became the first quarterback in NFL history to put up three touchdowns in the fourth quarter of his NFL debut and the first quarterback since 1985 to overcome a double-digit fourth quarter deficit in his NFL debut to lead the Vikings to a 27-24 victory.
The award makes McCarthy the eleventh Viking to win NFC Player of the Week honors in Week 1 since 1984, and he’s the third Vikings quarterback to do so, joining Daunte Culpepper (2004) and Sam Bradford (2017). He’s also the second member of the Vikings to win such a weekly award following his NFL debut, joining Blair Walsh, who was the NFC’s Special Teams Player of the Week following his debut in 2012.
I’m sure there will be much gnashing of teeth and rending of garments from lesser fans of lesser NFC North teams. . .which is all of them. . .about McCarthy’s award. But that’s really just too bad for them, given that most of them were running victory laps about the Vikings drafting McCarthy by halftime of Monday night’s game. They’ll just have to find a way to cope, I reckon.
Congratulations to J.J. McCarthy on being named the NFC Offensive Player of the Week!
