November was a booming month for the cottage industry in the Sports Hot Take Industrial Complex to write the career obituaries for Minnesota Vikings quarterback J.J. McCarthy. It was fascinating to watch these folks, amidst the central storyline this season of the resurrection of the retread quarterback (Baker Mayfield, Sam Darnold, Daniel Jones, and, heck, even Jacoby Brissett), that some were so quick to close the book on a 22-year-old first-year starter after five games. As they did with Baker and Darnold and Jones … and Troy Aikman and Josh Allen and a slew of others who do not meet their precious standards. Some folks wrapped themselves into a pretzel to conclude that the wide receiver drops that have reared its ugly head with the Vikings this year were exclusively the fault of McCarthy. I appreciate the argument that when a quarterback’s timing is off, it throws off the rhythm of the receivers. But no one is making the argument that Michigan wide receiver Roman Wilson is better than both Vikings’ wide receivers, Justin Jefferson and Jordan Addison. An unintentional byproduct of the Hate J.J. Brigade has been unearthed since he entered the NFL draft: just how little college football the supposed NFL experts actually watch. It is clear the JJ Haters never watched a Michigan game … or have no recollection of McCarthy playing in games against Ohio State and Alabama. No time for that, because the Hot Takes have to be served up with the four jokes to one point of substance ratio. Long before JJ McCarthy, I had found the Shit on Bad Quarterbacks genre the laziest of endeavors. It is so easy to make fun of bad quarterback play. Psychologically, it takes on the same form as bullying, not because it impacts the target in question, but because it is simply a manifestation of mob rule. It is taking the safest position in the world (because no one wants to defend Mark Sanchez after the butt fumble) while feigning some sort of superiority over this professional athlete. It’s pathetic. And there is no accountability. The guy who wrote the Buffalo Bills preview for the Football Outsiders declared Josh Allen an official flop going into his third season. Like, that dude should be banished for being so effing wrong. But he will keep Steven A. Smithing because the Hot Take Industry must be fed.Thankfully, successful sports handicapping does not require Hot Take artistry. I can give JJ McCarthy five years — as Sam Darnold got. Maybe he can get as many second chances as Steve Sarkisian. As if these Hot Takers never had a bad day at the office ….I was high on McCarthy entering the season — and I will be just fine if he turns out to be a lemon. I get stuff wrong all the time. And he has to play better to avoid getting pushed into the Josh Rosen career death knell. But I am not making it up that he completed 240 of his 331 passes (72.3%) in his senior year. And the Hate JJ Brigade can’t have it both ways that the Wolverine players on that team were overrated (Colin Cowherd) AND McCarthy is so wild that his receivers are too befuddled to catch his balls. Something else is going on in Minnesota. The vibes are all wrong. I have really liked Kevin O’Connell in the past. I am puzzled by the play-calling. He is coaching McCarthy as if he expects monster performances. That tells me either he has not lost any faith or that he is failing to adapt to put his QB in a position to succeed. McCarthy had zero rushing attempts in one of his November starts before suffering his concussion. He needs a designed run in his first ten snaps. I don’t know why they are throwing fade routes to 5’11 Jordan Addison when he is being covered by a 6’4 cornerback (that was the second interception in the game against Chicago). I will plant my flag on this: the best measurement of the potential of a young talent is from their highs rather than their lows. O’Connell’s job is to discover what was different for McCarthy in his game-winning drive against Chicago (and his final drive against them in the rematch) and begin replicating that. The dude didn’t win a National Championship by handing the ball off, despite what you may have heard Kirk Herbstreit utter between his swooning over the latest Megyn Kelly interview. He engineered the last-minute game-tying drive in the semis against Alabama (Nick Saban’s Alabama). Gil Brandt preached that young quarterbacks cannot be accurately assessed before 20 starts. That may be a naive expectation in the modern game. But take a look at what they were saying about Drake May at this time last year. Or take a look at Bryce Young's development this month — I thought he was officially buried in October of 2024? Yet he just led Carolina to an upset win at home against the supposed best team in the league, the Los Angeles Rams (BTW Bryce, where was anything of that last week in the pathetic loss at San Francisco? OK, baby steps …), and implicitly projecting superiority. There is plenty of blame to spread around. But after Max Brosmer completed 19 of 30 passes for 126 yards with four interceptions, including a pick-six, it is clear the problem is not exclusively McCarthy’s. It is ironic that some critics are pointing fingers at Minnesota for having two first-year starting quarterbacks throw pick-sixes in their first career start this season. In other news today, Matthew Stafford threw a pick-six in what was a game-deciding play given the score in their upset loss to the Panthers. I’m so old, I remember the fact that Stafford threw four pick-sixes in the 2021-22 season when he led the Los Angeles Rams to winning the Super Bowl. That little nugget failed to get mentioned in the finger-pointing Hot Takes this evening after Brosmer’s game.Earlier this month, I listened to Kevin O’Connell discuss his process on McCarthy. He’s asking for a change in his mechanics. I find that a bit fascinating, because while they are both ex-quarterbacks, Jim Harbaugh, McCarthy’s head coach at Michigan when they won a national championship, was more accomplished as a player and as a coach. And I like O’Connell. Maybe he’s right! Maybe he is asking him to make changes at 22 that you don’t ask of a 20-year-old, when Harbaugh was his mentor? But if McCarthy is spending 3/4ths of the game trying to mediate a change in fundamentals as he learns defenses, that explains both his loss of accuracy and his sudden improvement in the fourth quarter when he is put in two-minute mode, and there is less “thinking.” McCarthy was good under center at Michigan — a skill that many have already concluded he is simply lacking at the next level. I don’t know why he is not more under center as he did with the Wolverines to set up play-action passes. O’Connell deserves more scrutiny for how he has handled this. I concede that injuries on the offensive line have not helped the situation at all — and because there are not enough skilled offensive linemen in the world to stock 32 NFL teams, the margins are thin. But that is a better excuse for McCarthy than it is for O’Connell. From my vantage point, O’Connell adapted his play-calling when Carson Wentz briefly took over when McCarthy got injured after taking too many sacks in his first two starts. I have not seen much of that with McCarthy. Earlier this month, I did not see many O’Connell taking any shortcuts with his play-calling. I appreciate the zeal to coach talent up — and if the expectation is that they are smart enough to make the breakthrough, then why can’t they make the jump this season? Jayden Daniels did it last year by reaching the NFC championship game. But for O’Connell, it would have probably been to devolve to the B+ offense in early November to make it look better. Where are the short passing routes? He’s either stupid, stubborn, or he thinks force-feeding the Calculus curriculum now may trigger the breakthrough just in time for the playoffs this year. Because he thinks they can win now? But then suddenly, his offense took a 180-degree turn where it was run the ball, run the ball, and then rely on McCarthy on third-and-long. Well, if McCarthy’s “fundamentals” and comfort operating in the pocket were so lacking, then why did O’Connell opt to pull him after one successful drive in his preseason games? Those answers don’t’ jive. Admittedly, McCarthy has looked completely out of place at times. He seemed nervous in his first two starts, which were both in front of nationally-televised audiences in primetime. At this point, giving him more snaps in preseason games seems an undeniable mistake by his head coach. Once we accept that, then the mistakes in his stewardship are part of the problem.I will not be surprised if we later hear the ole Aaron Rodgers “I was playing through injury” excuse when it comes to McCarthy. The Vikings need to upgrade their offensive line. The culture may be rattled in O’Connell’s locker room. But what we know is this: Harbaugh stewarded McCarthy to lead Michigan to a national championship. Plan A in both showdown games against Ohio State was to win the game with McCarthy’s arm — and both those games can be watched on YouTube for those who had been relying on Colin Cowherd’s boozy recollection of those games as the gospel. We have seen McCarthy operate at a high level in clutch time this season. At a certain point, it is the job of the coaches to identify why a player is having success and replicate those conditions. O’Connell is failing in this regard. After losing one game at Michigan and allegedly just three times in his entire football career before getting drafted by the Vikings, McCarthy is facing true adversity for the first time in his career. Yes, he has thrown pick-sixes before (twice, in fact, in the college football semifinals against TCU) and handled that short-term adversity. But this is the first time he has endured the day-to-day, steady criticism that he is a failure. And it is no guarantee that he can recover from that beatdown — despite the plethora of examples suggesting otherwise before they reach their 20-game threshold for Brandt’s measuring stick. In the meantime, the Hot Take Sports Industry continues operating like the frat boy dude hitting on everything while wearing the “Big Johnson” t-shirt: keep throwing out the vibe, because one of these Hot Takes is due to finally turn out to be right. Best of luck — Frank.
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