Film Study: WHAT JUST HAPPENED: How J.J. McCarthy and the Minnesota Vikings beat the Chicago Bears

Film Study: WHAT JUST HAPPENED: How J.J. McCarthy and the Minnesota Vikings beat the Chicago Bears

All right, how about JJ McCarthy and the Minnesota Vikings? I mean, this was a game that uh first it just looked like it was kind of like, okay, not going great, you know, young quarterback in his first start, but nothing horrible either. Then it was horrible early in the third quarter, but somehow things flip in the fourth quarter and they’re able to get the win here. Uh crazy game. Let’s just get into it. I’m going to start off with the kind of the the you know, uh what went wrong, uh what went really wrong, and then what went really right. Uh yeah. Uh let’s let’s just get into it. Let’s start off with this play. This is going to be a third down and two situation early on in the game, first drive of the game. And this is what, you know, Dennis Allen is going to do. And honestly, I really like uh kind of an underrated hire getting Dennis Allen, a guy who not only has a lot of coaching experience, but a really good X’s and O’s guy, especially when he can just simply focus on defense, not have to try and be a head coach as well. You look at this, this looks like it’s going to be a blitz. It looks like it’s going to be man coverage. Pton Manning on the Manning cast said that he thought this was man coverage when he first saw it. Instead though, JJ McCarthy takes the snap. As of right here, you see the receivers he wants to look towards, but a lot of these are more against man coverage type of routes as opposed to zone coverage type of routes. You especially those kind of crossing routes over the middle tend to be very good against man. Against zone doesn’t really matter that you’re running, you know, cross each other almost like a rub route or a pick play because it’s zone coverage anyway. Like, you know, you don’t have a pick that can be made there. This is tough because for McCarthy, he goes, you know, with a plan here. Now, it is something completely different. And, you know, you can try to simulate this as much as you want in practice. It is just different in an NFL game. Again, Tom Brady has talked about how challenging it is going up against a Dennis Allen defense. It’s tough for a firstear player to do it. He’s not a rookie, but basically a rookie, right? McCarthy is going to decide to scramble, which I actually don’t hate that call at all. Although, I don’t think he would have gotten there even if he got out of the defensive line. There just there wasn’t much open. Uh, and you know, it’s zone coverage, so there were players preparing for him if he did decide to scramble. So, very good defense. Not a lot McCarthy could have done on that play. Also, we definitely saw some uncharacteristic Justin Jefferson plays. Um, this is a third down and eight. So, you know, important play trying to tie the game down seven. Uh, you do have a chance after a big pass interference penalty. JJ McCarthy is going to take the snap. Looks to the one-on-one matchup for Justin Jefferson. And as of right here, there is a window. This is a a welltimed throw. Although I I would say I think you would actually want to lead him a little bit more towards the sideline. You have a little bit of sideline to work with. That being said, Jefferson adjusts to it and just drops the football. I don’t think they’re getting the first down, but it’s fourth and inches there. They’re probably going for it at that point. So, you know, you would have had that opportunity and you know, uh, unfortunate that Jefferson couldn’t come up with that play. Usually, he catches everything in his vicinity. So, kind of a rare drop by him. Going over here though, we definitely saw some plays that are like this is this is the NFL and this is you know you how you have to adjust where on this one you see how once again Dennis Allen this is difficult right second down and 20 selling as though there’s pressure McCarthyy’s going to take the snap he looks down the field and I’m going to pause it right here this is when you have to be making your decision I know that seems incredibly quick but it it’s true this is two and a half seconds into play this is when plays often break down you have know where you’re going with the football this quickly. And it’s so hard for rookies where in college you get probably an extra full second to make these decisions. And you see he continues to hang on to it, hang on to it, then you know gets hit as he’s thrown. That was dangerously close to a strip sack right there. You just have to be careful and like you have to just get that internal clock running faster. Uh a lot of young players struggle with this early on. This is just kind of how how it works. This is something that it’s weird when a quarterback comes in and plays their first start and doesn’t, you know, uh isn’t a little slow in getting this stuff out. Nothing to be concerned about, but you know, uh definitely something that at least for the time being, he’s going to have to improve on. Also, this moment was weird. So, this is a third down and 20 here for the uh Minnesota Vikings. And watch what JJ McCarthy does. So, the clock is running down. 4 seconds left on the play clock. McCarthy here you see that he is going to you know uh ask for more time ask for the clock to be reset which it was uh but uh you know obviously you can’t just get the clock reset like that doesn’t it’s not how that works. They throw a flag for a delay of game. Not exactly sure why uh you know it was a normal play 40 seconds ran off the clock. I don’t know what happened there. Kevin Oonnell was also asking for it. So I’m willing to believe there was some reason why uh he was asking for it. wasn’t just like, you know, hey, can I please have more time? But nonetheless, you can’t let these mistakes happen. This is five yards, which on this play didn’t matter too much. Third and 25 versus 20 isn’t that big of a deal, but nonetheless, you don’t want to make these mistakes. McCarthy didn’t want to go into the half without any highlights. So, he did have this one here. 19 seconds left. The Vikings only with one timeout in this situation, so you want to try and preserve it if possible. It’s a first down and 10. And so for the for the Bears, they’re going to be playing a man coverage concept, which I actually always kind of like, you know, sometimes these teams play zone, you can actually have some big windows that way. But if you do that, everyone has to be able to make their make their, you know, cover their guy. JJ McCarthy takes a snap and you’re going to see Jaylen Naylor on this play. You see it’s not not totally open, but it’s open. There’s a window here down to field. We know McCarthy can push it down to field. We know he has the arm for that right here. And watch what happens. wellthrown ball. Now, Jaylen Naylor, you gota got to make sure you get out of bounds on that play, those extra few yards aren’t worth it. I I kind of get it because if he can like fully get around, I think he was trying to get out of out of bounds, but also get as many yards as possible and just misjudged it a little bit. Uh had a chance to get closer ultimately to kick the 59 yard field goal anyway. So, still worked out. But yeah, uh really good throw from JJ McCarthy on that one. But then we got to go over here. This was a really rough sequence for JJ McCarthy. Um third down and eight. first a lot of communication going on. Um Troy Aman was saying this is kind of not a great thing. I honestly like yes it takes too long but I thought he did a good job at at least getting the right play and getting his protection set. Like watch what he’s going to do. You see he alerts he, you know, make sure he gets the protection set by communicating with the offensive line. Ultimately, he is going to take the snap right here. And you see again, pause it right here. Like the protection is set on an allout blitz. That’s not easy to do. Like yes, it’s a little bit slower than you’d like, but at least you’re getting the protection set. not that concerned about that. Here’s the issue. I mean, he sees, you know, again, a guy who was on the Vikings practice squad uh last season is covering Justin Jefferson one-on-one. So, I I get why he wants to throw in that direction. But when he does, I mean, the you even practice squad guys are way better than college players. I doubt he realized that defensive back was going to be able to make that play. I’ve heard quarterbacks say the biggest surprise when they enter the league is just how good NFL defensive backs are. It’s a bad mistake. It’s also a rookie mistake. These things are you don’t you hope they don’t happen. They don’t happen to everybody, but they do happen to a lot of rookie quarterbacks. And it happened to McCarthy here. Again, not a rookie. I get it. But like basically a rookie, but then things went kind of from bad to worse on the next possession where it’s uh you know, second down and six here. You see you have the backup left tackle and that that should be mentioned that instead of having your star uh left tackle Christian Darasaw, you have to you know, have your backup tackle in. But still, McCarthy is gonna run this play fake and very quickly sack. You can’t really, you know, that’s not really his fault. The play action takes a little bit longer to develop. Sack happens right after. Like only so much you can do there. He tried to get out of it. Just couldn’t quite happen. Like not his fault. Now you’re at third and 13. To make matters worse, you know, they can’t get the play off. I mean, the crowd is probably going nuts. It’s hard to communicate. He was clapping for it, but the center probably just didn’t hear the clapping because of how loud the crowd is. That that’s home field advantage for you right there. Uh so yeah so so you know rough followup to a rough play as well. Sometimes the nice thing about a pick six is you can kind of get momentum back right away. Although the downside is if you are a bit rattled after a pick six you can’t you know sit back and you know get get your bearings a little bit. That’s kind of the downside and maybe that happened on this drive. So now let’s go over here. This is the uh you know early on in the fourth quarter we were kind of thinking okay this is going to be it. The Bears are going to run away with it. their their running game started getting going, but they miss a field goal. Some nice uh you know, nice Aaron uh Aaron Jones run. Not Aaron Judge, he’s a baseball player. A nice Aaron Jones run got them to here. Third down, though. And you you knew at some point Justin Jefferson was going to make something happen, right? One-on-one matchup here. McCarthy is going to take the snap. He’s looking Jefferson’s way. Why not? He’s He’s still Justin Jefferson. And you see down the field again. Is this open? Kind of. It’s about to be open, but you in the NFL, you got to be able to throw with ant anticipation. You got to be able to see how plays are about to work. And that’s exactly what McCarthy does here. Watch him make a really nice throw and they get the touchdown on that play. I mean, that’s that’s a really nice play and something to definitely get your confidence up and all of a sudden you have a ball game again when it seemed like it was over and it just it gets the confidence up, right? And then heading over here again, you have to give JJ McCarthy so much credit for not melting down after that, you know, really rough stretch in the early in the third quarter, be able to, you know, keep going. Give the entire Vikings credit. They get another stop. Uh they, you know, a long pass interference penalty, which I’m going to be honest, should not have been pass interference, but you know, hey, sometimes you get the call, sometimes you don’t. Uh, you know, can’t control the refs, so can only, you know, try to control what you can control. And right here there is Aaron Jones running a a route that’s going to end up being a deep route. And again when these halfbacks run uh routes that go down the field. A lot of times it just fools linebackers. Watch how Jones runs it too. Watch this little kind of like uh stutter step he has. You know make it seem as though he’s going to be cutting more over the middle. Instead goes down to field. And look at how open he is. I mean it does not get more open than that. Still going to make the throw though. And McCarthy throws it a little bit underneath, you know, doesn’t quite push it down the field. And I think that was intentionally so. I think that what he saw was this is open. I don’t need to make a perfect throw and I got to avoid the safety. Let’s just take a little bit off to guarantee that we get at least a completion here. And they still end up getting a touchdown. Beautifully thrown football by JJ McCarthy. And all of a sudden after everything is a disaster, now they’re leading. So yeah, those are my thoughts. I mean again, what a performance. And the biggest thing more than anything is just like the mental resolve of this team, right? like it would have been so easy for them to just kind of throw in the towel and say, “Hey, it’s a young quarterback having his first game. What are you going to do?” The way to continue to fight and end up pulling off this victory, I mean, you can’t help but just be impressed uh with them, you know, more than more than the throws themselves, just that. But yeah, th that’s what I think. What do you think? Let me know in the comments below. Always love hearing from you.

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