Inside The Vikings

J.J. McCarthy's accuracy must improve. The Vikings believe it will

McCarthy needs to make strides in the second half of the season, but the Vikings aren't worried about his slow start.
Will Ragatz|
Oct 19, 2025; Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA; Minnesota Vikings quarterback J.J. McCarthy (9) throws a pass during warm ups before the game against the Philadelphia Eagles at U.S. Bank Stadium.
Oct 19, 2025; Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA; Minnesota Vikings quarterback J.J. McCarthy (9) throws a pass during warm ups before the game against the Philadelphia Eagles at U.S. Bank Stadium. | Jeffrey Becker-Imagn Images

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You've probably seen some of the numbers and charts by now. Four games into his NFL career, J.J. McCarthy's statistics — both the simple box score stats and various advanced metrics — paint a picture that mostly matches the eye test. McCarthy has struggled mightily with accuracy, consistency, and overall production as a thrower of the football.

Let's run through a quick summary of the data anyways. McCarthy is 58 for 108 for 692 yards with five touchdowns and six interceptions. He also has two rushing touchdowns and a lost fumble. Among 37 quarterbacks with at least 100 dropbacks this season, McCarthy's 53.7 percent completion rate and 65.8 passer rating are dead last. He's 36th in adjusted EPA per play, ahead of only Cam Ward. He's 36th in success rate and completion percentage over expected (CPOE), ahead of only Dillon Gabriel.

Just about any quarterback chart you can find has McCarthy in the bottom left corner (and, in a somewhat cruel bit of irony, has Sam Darnold all the way up in the top right).

Is that ideal? No. Is it something to panic about, or evidence that McCarthy won't eventually become a quality NFL quarterback? Also no. Four starts is not nearly a big enough sample size to make any sweeping declarations about McCarthy's future. That can start to happen after this season. He's not the first QB to struggle early in their career, and he certainly won't be the last.

Despite the numbers, it's not all that difficult to take an optimistic view of McCarthy's four-game start. The Vikings have managed to go 2-2 in those games, with both wins coming over division opponents on the road. He already has a pair of three-touchdown outings in the two wins. Importantly, McCarthy has shown plenty of flashes of very high-level play, which can't be said of every young QB who goes through growing pains. On a small sample, he has the fourth-highest rate of "big-time throws" in the NFL. BTTs are a PFF stat that are defined as passes "with excellent ball location and timing, generally thrown further down the field and/or into a tighter window."

Additionally, McCarthy's CPOE numbers are weighed down by two brutal halves, both of which may have been impacted by injury. He had an awful second half against the Falcons in Week 2, but he was playing through a significant ankle injury for at least part of it. He was similarly bad in the second half of last week's game against the Ravens, but he bruised his hand on a teammate's helmet before completing just six of his final 17 attempts.

That's the glass-half-full case. The reality is that the Vikings need McCarthy to be a lot better, quickly, if they're going to stay alive in the playoff hunt this season. They need him to slow down his mental process and his frantic footwork. They need him to stop climbing the pocket so aggressively and winding up with batted passes. They need him to deliver accurate throws, both inside and outside the pocket, especially on the "layups" when his targets have plenty of separation.

The Vikings believe McCarthy is capable of making all of those fixes. Kevin O'Connell has said multiple times that he thinks everything his young quarterback is dealing with right now is normal.

"Thought he had some good pocket movement," O'Connell said on Monday of McCarthy's game against the Ravens. "With a lot of young quarterbacks in this phase of where he's at right now, where we're getting a lot of these snaps on the fly, it's not just that subtle climb back to that safe spot, because I did think we had some good pockets for him. It's the subtle climb and then come into balance, instead of two or three climbs and then all of a sudden, that push or the blocked shot comes into play. I just think it's all normal, in my opinion, part of where he's at and his development, which is something that's very encouraging."

In theory, the more McCarthy plays, the more the game should slow down for him, and the more he can learn from his own mistakes, not to mention O'Connell's coaching. One element of that is being willing to take what the defense gives him. McCarthy currently leads all qualified quarterbacks with an average depth of target (ADOT) of 10.9 yards. He's shown no hesitancy to rip the ball downfield, which can be a good thing. The Vikings also need him to know when to take the checkdown or the short, in-rhythm throw for the sake of stacking completions together and staying on schedule.

J.J. McCarthy
Brad Rempel-Imagn Images

"What I look for is the consistency of being able to put some routine things in that category of 'I can expect them every time,' and it becomes second nature," O'Connell said on Wednesday.

The players around McCarthy also need to give him more help than they did against Baltimore. The Vikings have to run the ball effectively and avoid self-inflicted wounds — for example, false starts — in order to make life as easy as possible on their quarterback. They need Justin Jefferson to be the all-world receiver he usually is, which wasn't the case last Sunday. They need their defense and special teams to play complementary football, like they did a couple weeks ago in Detroit.

And yes, above all else, they need McCarthy to play better. But even if growing pains will continue down the stretch of this season, the Vikings are confident that they'll also see a lot of growth from their young QB — ideally as soon as this Sunday against the Bears.

"The last two days, he maybe had two of his better practices throwing the ball all season long," O'Connell said on Friday.

Let's see if that translates to success for McCarthy in career start No. 5.

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Will Ragatz
WILL RAGATZ

Will Ragatz is a senior writer for Vikings On SI, who also covers the Twins, Timberwolves, Gophers, and other Minnesota teams. He is a credentialed Minnesota Vikings beat reporter, covering the team extensively at practices, games and throughout the NFL draft and free agency period. Ragatz attended Northwestern University, where he studied at the prestigious Medill School of Journalism. During his time as a student, he covered Northwestern Wildcats football and basketball for SB Nation’s Inside NU, eventually serving as co-editor-in-chief in his junior year. In the fall of 2018, Will interned in Sports Illustrated’s newsroom in New York City, where he wrote articles on Major League Baseball, college football, and college basketball for SI.com.

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