No Quarterback Mystery This Week for Vikings
Last weekend, Max Brosmer took the baton at QB1 and fired up one of the worst quarterback performances in the history of the Minnesota Vikings. He will not get a sequel, as the club has already named J.J. McCarthy the starter for Week 14, as McCarthy has healed from a concussion.
There’s no quarterback uncertainty for the Vikings this week as the team commits to its starter and prepares for a late-season matchup.
It’s Brosmer out, and McCarthy back for the purple team.
J.J. McCarthy to Start for Vikings vs. Commanders
Maybe something will finally click.
McCarthy Clears Concussion Protocol
McCarthy is back. NBC Sports‘ Michael David Smith wrote Monday, “Vikings quarterback J.J. McCarthy should clear the concussion protocol this week and start on Sunday against the Commanders.
“Minnesota head coach Kevin O’Connell said today that McCarthy is symptom free and just needs to have a full practice to have fulfilled all the conditions of clearing the concussion protocol. O’Connell expects that full practice to come on Wednesday. McCarthy has started six games this season and missed six more with injuries.”
Barring a freak practice injury, McCarthy will be under center this Sunday against Washington.
Back for a Meaningless Game
There was a time not long ago when fans yearned for McCarthy back in the lineup, especially when Carson Wentz’s brief stint as a starter went through some woes. Most assumed — hoped — that McCarthy would work through the kinks of early-career jitters.
Fast forward 13 weeks, and McCarthy’s so-called jitters look more like a foreboding sign for the future. His mechanics, footwork, and processing speed have a long way to go — if they’re fixable at all.
And because the Vikings have experienced such poor quarterback play this season, they have a 4-8 record, with less than a 1% chance of reaching the postseason. McCarthy returns to a game that is meaningless for the playoff picture and is instead the next chapter in his development.
This season was supposed to feature Minnesota contending for the postseason and Super Bowl well into December. No cigar.
Vikings in Disarray
Minnesota has lost four consecutive games for the first time since the end of the 2023 season. It hasn’t lost five in a row since 2011.
General manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah spent the last four seasons rebuilding the roster while keeping the team competitive. Until 2025, the strategy worked. With mostly healthy quarterbacks, the Vikings won 13 games in 2022 and 14 in 2024. The winning ways and roster cultivation, mainly through free agency, created hope that the Super Bowl window would fully open this season.
But the quarterback play has doomed the plan. McCarthy returns to a team hoping to avoid its first five-game losing streak in 14 years.
The Vikings’ longest losing streak in franchise history is seven games, all the way back in their first season of existence (1961). Sadly, that bad record feels within reach.
Suddenly Low Expectations
There’s another strange aspect of McCarthy’s return to the lineup. Almost no one expects him to play well.
Since Minnesota drafted him in 2024, a waiting game always accompanies McCarthy — waiting to see him the 2024 preseason, waiting for his meniscus to heal, waiting to see him in 2025 preseason, waiting to see him in Week 1 at Chicago, waiting for his high ankle sprain to heal, and waiting for to see if he turns the corner into a franchise quarterback.
But in Week 14, with McCarthy’s return just five days away, folks aren’t much waiting for much of anything. McCarthy will likely struggle against Washington, and that’ll be that.
The expectations for McCarthy have nosedived in the last few weeks, primarily because he’s performed so poorly.
CBS Sports on McCarthy
Ryan Wilson of CBS Sports wrote about McCarthy on Sunday, “If you’re looking for a glimmer of hope, Jared Goff might be it. He is the only quarterback in the past 10 drafts to get off to a slower start over his first six games than McCarthy, according to EPA per dropback.”
“And like McCarthy, Goff struggled with completion percentage (53.5%), interceptions (seven) and passer rating (61.7). To understand how first-round quarterbacks overcome early struggles, I compared their first six starts to their next 11 — which works out to a full 17-game season. Goff didn’t truly become ‘Jared Goff, one of the NFL’s best quarterbacks,’ until his 2021 breakout in Detroit, his sixth year in the league.”
Fans would be utterly delighted if McCarthy had a lightbulb moment like Goff or Josh Allen.
“But even in starts 7-17, he showed significant progress compared to his rocky first six outings. Across those next 11 starts, Goff posted the largest EPA per dropback improvement of any of the 35 quarterbacks studied — nearly a half-point jump,” Wilson continued.
“Only Lamar Jackson (+0.35), Bo Nix (+0.33) and Baker Mayfield (+0.24) were even close. His completion percentage climbed from 53.5% to 61.5%, his TD-INT ratio improved from 5-7 to 16-4, and his passer rating skyrocketed from 61.7 to 97.9.”
The Commanders are expected to topple McCarthy’s Vikings by a point or two on Sunday.
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