J.J. McCarthy Falls on the Sword for the Vikings
Sunday’s loss to the Baltimore Ravens put the Minnesota Vikings at 4-5 on the season.
Blame certainly can be spread around for the Vikings after Sunday’s game. Kevin O’Connell didn’t have the greatest game in terms of playcalling, there were false starts galore for the offense, Justin Jefferson was a non-factor for much of the game, and the defense gave up 18 second half points to allow Baltimore to pull away down the stretch.
However, Minnesota’s young QB J.J. McCarthy fell on the sword for his team on Sunday, taking the majority of the blame for the loss.
J.J. McCarthy Says All the Right Things After Loss to Ravens
In particular, McCarthy took the fall for pre-snap penalties made by the Vikings.
“It was there; we just kept shooting ourselves in the foot,” McCarthy said during his postgame press conference. “I take full responsibility for the pre-snap procedural penalties.”
By the end of the game, the Vikings had been penalized 13 times for 102 yards with eight of those penalties being false starts on offense. It was the most false start penalties by a home team in the NFL since 2009.
“As a quarterback, you’re the orchestrator of the orchestra. I take full responsibility for anything that happens on that field, and at the end of the day, it’s just the little things that we gotta keep focusing on,” McCarthy said. “The focus, the competitive stamina, it’s all gotta be there, but I take full responsibility every single time something goes wrong.”
Those penalties proved to be back breakers on a number of drives. Three of those false starts came on either third or fourth down, and the other five came on first downs, meaning the Vikings either were starting sets of downs from behind pace or making must-convert situations even harder on themselves.
On top of those penalties, the Vikings had three turnovers on the day with two of them being by way of interceptions thrown by McCarthy. The young quarterback also had a number of passes batted down at the line of scrimmage.
“I think [Baltimore] did a great job defensively. I feel like they used the big guys up front to give a little push and then just get eyes up ready to swat the ball down, and I gotta do a better job of making sure that I’m aware of that. And when I step up in the pocket, don’t get too close to those guys and work on all the different arm angles.”
In McCarthy’s defense, despite a horrific start to the season for the Ravens, their defense has really come on strong in the middle portion of the season. Over their past three games since the bye week, the Ravens have now given up just 41 points. It’s a big reason why Sunday’s win marked their third straight.
At the end of the day, despite a showing that will go down as an ugly loss for the Vikings, now is not the time to give up on McCarthy.
These types of games are inevitable for a quarterback who is playing his first NFL season as a starter, and hopefully, they will prove to be learning experiences in the years to come.
Editor’s Note: Statistics for this article were found via Pro Football Reference.
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