{"id":509025,"date":"2025-11-08T08:38:44","date_gmt":"2025-11-08T08:38:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/509025\/"},"modified":"2025-11-08T08:38:44","modified_gmt":"2025-11-08T08:38:44","slug":"the-vikings-must-abandon-the-plan-to-have-success-against-baltimore-and-beyond","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/509025\/","title":{"rendered":"The Vikings Must Abandon ‘The Plan’ To Have Success Against Baltimore (and Beyond)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Since Kevin O\u2019Connell<\/a> took over as the head man of the Minnesota Vikings in 2022, he\u2019s emphasized winning the turnover battle. We\u2019ve all seen that famous stat: O\u2019Connell is 33-4 when the Vikings tie or come out ahead in the takeaway margin.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s [turnover battle] going to be the No. 1 thing for many of the games we play, if not all of them,\u201d O\u2019Connell said<\/a>\u00a0ahead of the season. \u201cBut it is a statistic that\u2019s really been a winning stat for us since I\u2019ve been the head coach here, just purely breaking even or possibly doing better. The turnover battle normally gives us a pretty good chance to do the things required to win.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s something O\u2019Connell constantly preaches, and the success of his system is undeniable. But now, it\u2019s time to take that plan, crumple it up into a neat ball, and toss it into the trash.<\/p>\n

In past seasons, the Vikings employed an offense that relied on timing, accuracy, and methodically breaking down defenses. Kirk Cousins<\/a> and Sam Darnold<\/a> were both highly accurate pocket passers who limited big mistakes. Despite some flaws as a quarterback, Cousins averaged just nine interceptions per season in Minnesota while also boasting a 68% completion percentage. Limiting negative plays and playing within the offense\u2019s confines were a winning formula for the personnel at the time.<\/p>\n

Enter J.J. McCarthy<\/a>, who has already displayed some deep lows but also some incredible highs<\/a>. His raw numbers don\u2019t look good. McCarthy is completing only 57% of his passes, averaging over 3 seconds to throw, and has 4 interceptions on just 66 pass attempts. On paper, this should set off every alarm bell at TCO, and a huge, glowing red \u201cAbort Mission\u201d button would emerge from KOC\u2019s desk. But the reality is that McCarthy makes plays and wins games.<\/p>\n

McCarthy has run or thrown for every single touchdown the Vikings have scored in each of his three starts this year. Half of those scores have come on third down and in the fourth quarter. He also just beat the Detroit Lions, a division rival and Super Bowl contender, with an incredibly clutch throw to Jalen Nailor<\/a> to ice the game. The stats haven\u2019t painted a glamorous picture, but people often chastised Cousins for his poor play despite strong stats on paper. McCarthy is much more than what the numbers say.<\/p>\n

Take perennial MVP-candidate Patrick Mahomes<\/a>, for example. I can feel the eye-rolls already, but bear with me. Over the last four seasons, Mahomes has thrown 11, 14, 12, and 13 interceptions. His completion percentage is 66% this season, or about league average. He\u2019s averaging 7.4 yards per attempt, and the league average is 7.1. And yet, once again, people will mention Mahomes\u2019 name in the MVP conversation. Why? Because he makes plays and wins games.<\/p>\n

For players like Mahomes, people couldn\u2019t care less about his yards per attempt, his completion percentage, his turnover rate, or, frankly, any other stat besides the W\u2019s in his win column because, well, none of it matters. He passes every eye test, and all the man does is win Super Bowls. McCarthy is still light-years away from becoming an MVP-caliber player. Still, after only three games, there\u2019s no question there\u2019s a lot more to him than some mediocre-looking statistics.<\/p>\n

What does this all mean for the Vikings? It\u2019s time to rethink the old ways of playing it safe. Minnesota has long been a team that, many fans can agree, occasionally played more not to lose than to win. Things are different now. They have a playmaker and a winner at quarterback. So, turnovers be damned, O\u2019Connell would be doing McCarthy and the team a disservice to try to force him into the same type of thinking from the Cousins years.<\/p>\n

There will definitely be growing pains with McCarthy, but the Vikings have a real chance to unleash a potentially potent offense if O\u2019Connell gives it the green light. The Vikings have the best receiver on the planet, and letting Justin Jefferson<\/a> make plays far outweighs the potential for added miscues.<\/p>\n

Jefferson has constantly been touted as \u201cquarterback proof,\u201d and both of his scores this year have come at the end of a McCarthy pass. With a healthy defense, turnovers also shouldn\u2019t be the kiss of death that they had been earlier in the season.<\/p>\n

Minnesota has benefited from having hyper-accurate pocket passers over the past several years. Now, with McCarthy, the Vikings are left to either fit a square peg into a round hole or embrace his uniqueness and leave their comfort zone. While his negative plays like sacks and turnovers loom large, his ability to make plays and win games is too great to ignore. After all, nobody has ever gone broke taking a profit.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Since Kevin O\u2019Connell took over as the head man of the Minnesota Vikings in 2022, he\u2019s emphasized winning…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":509026,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2073],"tags":[7,1519,6192,294,233,259,2529,6,499,234],"class_list":{"0":"post-509025","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-minnesota-vikings","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-j-j-mccarthy","10":"tag-kevin-oconnell","11":"tag-kirk-cousins","12":"tag-minnesota","13":"tag-minnesota-vikings","14":"tag-minnesotavikings","15":"tag-nfl","16":"tag-patrick-mahomes","17":"tag-vikings"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115513177244438844","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/509025","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=509025"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/509025\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/509026"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=509025"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=509025"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=509025"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}