Progress Ain’t Linear — for J.J. McCarthy or Anyone Else
It has been rough. Despite all the expectations we had as a fanbase for J.J. McCarthy, we’ve only seen one good quarter of football. There are a few reasons to be concerned, but it’s also important to note that he’s a 22-year-old player who had 601 days between his last game in Michigan and his debut as the Minnesota Vikings’ quarterback. He is fully healthy from his meniscus injury, but it’ll take more than two games to get the rust off, and training camp/preseason are a lot different from the real thing.
Some are being too quick to quit on J.J. McCarthy. Having a young QB means ups and downs, and it’s not because he had a good game that the next can’t be bad.
In my opinion, he had a good game against the Bears. His final stat line wasn’t flattering, as he had some bad plays, but he also had some great ones. Against the Falcons, though, he was bad. And this brings me to the title: progress ain’t linear. It’s no one’s fault, but sometimes we (and I mean that as sports fans in general) think life is like Madden or NBA2K.
You upgrade your stats, improve your overall, and the player gets better. Although it’d be great if real life were the same thing, developing players will look good and bad, even during the same game. They will make head-scratching decisions and throw bad passes; it happens. Everyone wants a QB on a rookie contract until it’s time to have a QB on a rookie contract.
The Development of J.J. McCarthy Will Be a Process
Kevin O’Connell had a viral statement, saying that “organizations fail young quarterbacks before young quarterbacks fail organizations.” Did he anticipate a game this rough? Probably not. But I doubt he was naîve enough to think McCarthy would run the offense as smoothly as other veteran QBs he had in the past. This means the Vikings should’ve signed a veteran QB to start? Absolutely not, this would only push the problem to 2026 – at some point, you’d have to put McCarthy in.
I saw a tweet yesterday (can’t remember who posted it, sorry) that really hit me. The person said they were ready to freak out about McCarthy’s game, and their mother said that it’d be good for J.J. to face adversity and learn from it.
I, of course, don’t know J.J. McCarthy, so I’m unable to talk about any adversities he faced at a personal level (apart from his ADHD). But looking only from a football perspective, this is the first time he struggles. This is a QB who lost only three games between high school and college, won a state and national championship in high school, was a two-year starter at one of the most prominent college programs in the country, beat Ohio State every time, balled out against Nick Saban’s Alabama, and finished it off with a national championship.
The idea of benching McCarthy, or that his injury is “made up,” is madness to me. First of all, go back to what I just said about O’Connell’s belief about organizations failing young QBs. He’d be a total prick to say everything he said about McCarthy for the past 18 months just to soft bench him after one bad game.
Secondly, if you think this is a made-up injury because he finished the game, you probably don’t play sports or haven’t been hurt while playing. Adrenaline is a powerful thing, but when it wears off, it hurts like hell. When McCarthy’s ankle is better, he’ll play. Because of the timing, with two international games coming up, followed by a bye week, this will likely be against the Eagles, but he’s the starter.
Again, progress ain’t linear and every story is different. It can take more time for things to click for some players, while others get it together quickly. If we ruled out players based on their first two games, or even their first season, Peyton Manning, Tom Brady, Lamar Jackson, Josh Allen, Joe Montana, and many others would never reach the level they did. I’m not saying J.J. McCarthy will have their level of greatness, but I won’t rule it out because of one bad game in his second game in the NFL.
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