Daily Norseman
Well, look at it this way: The 2025 Vikings’ championship hopes lasted just as long as the Kansas City Chiefs’.
Honestly, I’ve never felt so good on a day when the Vikings were officially eliminated from the playoffs. J.J. McCarthy is improving by leaps and bounds before our eyes. After playing his best game so far last week against the Washington Commanders, he followed it up Sunday Night with an even better performance on the road, during primetime, against a desperate Dallas Cowboys team.
Aside from a couple of issues, like the initial interception (the batted balls need to be addressed in the offseason), a bad miss to Jefferson, and a Griddy that apparently annoyed KOC, McCarthy was excellent. His QBR reached a season high at 85.6, along with another traditional QB rating over 100 (108.0). Over the past two weeks, his numbers have been impressive: a 73.3% adjusted completion percentage, 448 total yards, six total touchdowns to just one interception, and a 120.3 passer rating. According to Pro Football Focus, he’s tied with MVP favorite Matt Stafford for first in the NFL in “Big Time Throw” percentage at 7.2%. This is defined as “a pass with excellent ball location and timing, generally thrown farther down the field and/or into a tighter window.” Apparently, 16 of his 246 passes fall into this category. Oh, and he’s the only player in NFL history to throw two touchdown passes and run for a touchdown three times in his first eight games. Not too shabby.
Here are some observations as we approach the final stretch of the 2025 season.
HATERS RUNNING FOR COVER
I feel great for J.J. McCarthy and hope the final three games further cement the progress we’ve seen, setting us up for an eagerly awaited 2026 season. It’s impossible not to root for the guy. Well, some can. The haters are out there in the sports media and across social media. We all know who the bloviators are. Even some Vikings fans were throwing around the dreaded “b” word after five or six starts. Oh, and I can also live without seeing that stupid locker room meme again.
As a staunch supporter of McCarthy, I was hesitant after the Packers game. I need to be honest. The situation was tough, and some of the numbers were historically bad. These weren’t just expected developmental hiccups; they were five-alarm fires. If he didn’t improve significantly by the end of the year, the Vikings would have no choice but to consider other options. That doesn’t mean trading him or anything like that, but this is a “win now” roster, and the risks are too high not to have an active QB competition next summer.
Fortunately, we can all breathe a sigh of relief. Even if there are some mixed results over the final three weeks, the last two games, along with some other notable clutch moments, give me confidence that things will be just fine moving forward. Given his injury history so far...
