The Minnesota Vikings took a big risk at quarterback in the offseason.
After losing their final two games last season in disappointing fashion, the Vikings opted not to re-sign quarterback Sam Darnold — who led the team to a 14-3 record — in the spring. Instead, the team handed the starting job to 2024 first-round pick J.J. McCarthy, who missed all of last year with a knee injury.
For three quarters Monday, McCarthy made Minnesota look foolish for handing him the reins of a Super Bowl contender.
Then he made the risk pay off.
McCarthy led the Vikings to a 21-point fourth quarter and a 27-24, comeback win over the Chicago Bears on “Monday Night Football,” overcoming a slow start and a pick-six before his clutch final frame.
Coach Kevin O’Connell told his quarterback at halftime that things would improve with the team losing 10-6.
“You are going to bring us back to win this game,” O’Connell said he told McCarthy.
“The look in his eye was fantastic,” O’Connell said. “The best thing was just the belief I felt from the team, from the unit, and ultimately, that doesn’t get done without him in the second half.”
McCarthy was spectacular when it counted most. He spearheaded three scoring drives in the fourth, the first two ended with touchdown passes.
The third possession was the most impressive. Minnesota took nearly five minutes off the clock in a drive that salted away the game. On 3rd-and-1 from the Bears’ 14-yard line, McCarthy scampered into the end zone on a designed run to give the Vikings a 10-point lead with under three minutes to go.
In his first career start, McCarthy finished with 143 yards on 13-of-20 passing with three total touchdowns. He also threw an interception that was returned for a score in the third quarter, part of a disastrous sequence in which Minnesota followed up a pick-six with two three-and-outs.
But McCarthy regained his composure after the terrible stretch to steal the game for the Vikings.
“It’s surreal,” McCarthy told ESPN’s Lisa Salters on the field postgame about securing his first career win.
“Honestly, we were just figuring it out,” he added when asked about his early struggles. “We just executed at the end of the day.”
McCarthy’s performance stood in stark contrast to Chicago quarterback Caleb Williams, who went first — nine spots ahead of McCarthy — in the 2024 draft.
In his first regular-season game under new head coach and offensive guru Ben Johnson, Williams led Chicago to a touchdown on its opening drive and completed his first 10 passes. But after the 10-for-10 start, Williams completed only 11 of his next 25 throws, and the offense scored only 10 points after the first possession.
McCarthy had his own struggles for much of the night.
Through three quarters, Minnesota had scored only six points. Outside of two field-goal drives, every possession ended in either a three-and-out or an interception.
Overall, the offense looked much less potent than last year’s version, which finished fifth in passing yards per game and 11th in total offense.
But the Darnold-led group went cold in the season’s two most important games, scoring only nine points each in a de facto NFC North championship game in Week 18 and in a loss to the Los Angeles Rams in the first round of the playoffs.
McCarthy still has a very long way to go before he proves the Vikings right for making him the starter after he played zero snaps as a rookie.
For at least one quarter Monday night, McCarthy rewarded Minnesota’s faith.
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