Minnesota Vikings head coach Kevin O’Connell has done a lot of talking this season, and it definitely hasn’t helped his young quarterback or his floundering 4-8 team overall.
Vikings fans have learned more about J.J. McCarthy’s “leg-whip throwing motion,” for example, than how their team plans to attack the next opponent in recent weeks, and it’s helped create a swarm of outside narratives that aren’t entirely fair (or rooted in reality).
We know this for sure: McCarthy’s a self-described over-thinker. He expressed relief this week after being instructed by coaches to focus less on his throwing mechanics and footwork and more on executing each individual play.
“That just frees up a lot of space mentally to be instinctual, react, and respond to what the defense is giving me,” McCarthy told reporters on Wednesday.
After Minnesota’s disaster of a game against the Seattle Seahawks last week, O’Connell vowed to self-evaluate as the play caller and see what he can do to simplify things to produce better execution overall. That makes sense, as the Vikings’ offense enters Week 14 ranked 29th in the NFL in EPA per play, per Sumer Sports.
McCarthy didn’t even play in the Seahawks game after experiencing concussion-like symptoms after Minnesota’s Week 12 game against Green Bay. That hasn’t stopped the masses from running with the idea of a “dumbed down” offense for McCarthy going forward, a notion his teammates have been quick to refute.
Aaron Jones scoffs at the notion of Minnesota Vikings going vanilla on offense
Vikings running back Aaron Jones answered the question the best he could, but it was a little awkward.
“No, it’s not just vanilla. But some of where it gets complex, where everybody might not have the same deeper understanding of each play concept, is kind of where we’ve made it… I guess, in a way, dumbed it down, kind of took the meat of it off — but you’re still getting a lot of everything.”
That was a bit of word salad, but it’s hard to blame Jones for that. The offense has had no rhythm whatsoever this season, and the revolving door between three very different quarterbacks, in terms of age, experience, and draft status, has been the obvious culprit.
But those linking Jones’ comments specifically to McCarthy are taking it too far. It’s just the opposite, actually.
Again, this whole conversation was kick-started after a disastrous start by Brosmer. The only mental struggles on McCarthy’s plate seem to be related to an overload of fundamental coaching points, rather than issues with the complexities of the offense as a whole. O’Connell actually raved about McCarthy’s acumen during a rookie year spent mostly in the classroom in 2024.
The “dumbed down” approach, as Jones put it, is more related to the volume of plays in the game plan, and O’Connell’s goal to try and dial in and simplify the details of each play to help the team execute better (and stop feeding the ball to the opponent).
Yes, the quarterback play has been abysmal this year, but the Vikings haven’t made it easy on themselves, and it starts with the head coach.