McCarthy Takes Down the Commies

The Minnesota Vikings and J.J. McCarthy demolished the Washington Commanders 31-0. Flipping the script this late in the season may not mean much for the playoffs, but it could for Vikings fans.

The Minnesota Vikings and J.J. McCarthy put in their most dominant performance of the season with their 31-0 drubbing of the Washington Commanders.

While this was one of the better defensive performances of the year for Minnesota, what really stands out is the complete reversal of play for J.J. McCarthy, who not only put in his most productive performance thus far, but the most productive performance any Vikings quarterback had for quite some time.

The Vikings have moved themselves firmly out of the conversation for a top-three pick in the draft and may not end up picking top ten. That may not matter to Vikings fans now, though many do complain about it after the fact — often years after the fact — so it’s worth noting.

Right now, the Vikings have another win under their belt. And the ability to win might be more important to their overall talent level than a draft pick in the future; after all, the frustrations building up in the locker room don’t go away because a team picks high.

They might go away with some wins.

There are still some elements to keep track of; the Vikings didn’t feed Justin Jefferson the ball in the way that commenters have suggested might be necessary. They pitched a shutout on defense but seemingly could not secure tackles. But… they dominated another team. Even putting away a bad team felt far away before the game had started. Now, it’s a reality.

The Arrival of McCarthyism

The question for Vikings fans when consuming evaluations of McCarthy is what they’re looking for. Should it be pure affirmation? After all, Kevin O’Connell implemented a new focus for the week, no longer asking McCarthy to think about his footwork and instead playing free.

That seemingly worked. McCarthy had, by far, his best game of the season.

This was, in addition to his season-best EPA per play, his best passer rating of the season, best adjusted net yards per attempt (accounting for sacks, interceptions and touchdowns) and his third-highest yards per attempt, third-highest net yards per dropback.

This also felt good. And many of those feelings are well-supported by relevant data. McCarthy was decisive. It also happens to be the game where he had his highest rate of throws under 2.5 seconds (37.9 percent). His average time to throw (3.19 seconds) was longer than in one other game (Week 11 against the Bears, 2.84 seconds), but his time to throw in this game was inflated by a small sample of scrambles under pressure.

McCarthy also looked like he was throwing well with touch. Well, he also varied his speed on throws quite a bit more. His average throw speed was 29.2 miles per hour. Generally speaking, faster or slower speeds don’t tell us much about quality, but they can help validate a finding we see on film.

In this case, we had been worried about his lack of touch and the fact that he had the fastest average throw speed in the NFL validated that concern. This game, the first game he’s had with an average throw speed below 32.4 miles per hour, tells us touch is possible.

He seemed more accurate. This was, by adjusted accuracy (eliminating spikes, throwaways, receiver drops, throws while hit and batted throws) his second-best mark of the season (77.3 percent), falling just behind his Week 1 performance against the Chicago Bears.

This game appeared to be in more control. It was, in a sense. In addition to fewer throws wildly off the mark — with pressure or direct contact on some of the most “egregious” examples — McCarthy wasn’t big-game hunting. His average depth of target of 7.6 yards downfield and his combination Big-Time Throw Rate and Turnover-Worthy Play rate of 0.0 was his second-lowest and lowest of the season, respectively.

The offense responded in kind. This was their best performance by EPA per play (0.28) and success rate (50.9 percent). They dominated in drive success rate (89.3 percent, their best of the season) and points per drive (3.88).

The Vikings scored on 5 of their 6 meaningful possessions, with only two kneeldowns marring the total.

If that’s what you need, take that and run. The mechanical inconsistency didn’t matter, and the throws, while not Drew Brees-like pinpoint passes that maximized yards after catch, were, by and large, accurate enough to score points (a lot of them).

On top of that, it ended an astonishing streak of bad quarterback play. Not long ago, I had been asked to see if this was the worst 14-game stretch in Vikings history.

While it was tough to use the same production metrics going back beyond the year 2000, it’s clearly the case that the previous stretch — going back to Darnold’s ill-fated performances against the Lions and Rams — was the worst the Vikings had seen.

Even against other franchises, it looked tough. Here is, to the best of my ability, the worst 14-game stretches of quarterback play I can find going back to the year 2000.

Not only did this pull the Vikings out of it, it careened the Vikings performance dynamic into the other direction. This was one of the best Vikings performances by EPA per play since Week 14 against the Falcons last year. Before that, only Kirk Cousins’ Week 8 performance in 2023 against the Green Bay Packers qualified as better.

We take those.

OK, But Then What?

What is the more cautious take?