J.J. McCarthy ignites Vikings in thrilling comeback win over Bears: ‘That was sick’

CHICAGO — Once J.J. McCarthy barreled into the end zone, the Vikings’ eruption reached volcanic levels. The sideline was chaos.

First, a camera positioned in Kevin O’Connell’s face caught him hollering. Then, Justin Jefferson patted McCarthy’s helmet and screamed: “Yeah, boy! Yeah, boy!” When McCarthy reached the benches, everyone flooded the 22-year-old quarterback: offensive linemen, equipment staffers, nutritionists, quality control coaches.

They hugged him. They patted his chest. They yelled in his face.

Pandemonium does not tend to be present in Week 1, but it was here at the climax of the Vikings’ 27-24 victory against the Chicago Bears. The noise of McCarthy’s introductory play made its way through television speakers. So many of the Vikings were celebrating that they almost drowned out the Soldier Field crowd.

“That was sick,” said right tackle Brian O’Neill. “That was so cool. We were just going f—ing nuts.”

It was as if all the grinding, all the energy required to turn what seemed like a potentially disastrous debut for the 2025 team, needed to be discharged.

That McCarthy, who finished with 143 yards and two touchdowns on 13-of-20 passing, provided the kindling for the fire could not have been more perfect. He had kept a zone read run, dashed to the right sideline, and scored the third of three fourth-quarter touchdowns to give the Vikings some breathing room, finally.

The reaction almost evoked a coronation. Not as in some grand statement about what McCarthy might be. But more an expression of joy from others for what it’s taken McCarthy to get here.

McCarthy noted Monday night that he’d waited 609 days between football games. He may have always sat out the 2024 season behind now Seahawks starter Sam Darnold, but the torn meniscus was not planned. The injury altered his development plan and detached him from the center of the Vikings’ solar system. That takes a mental toll.

The team could have gone several different ways at the position this offseason. Instead, it stuck with McCarthy, who gave every fiber of his being to absorb the playbook and refine his touch this spring and fall. The work made this type of moment, fewer than 20 miles from where he grew up in La Grange Park, Ill., possible.

“At the end of the day,” McCarthy said afterward, his voice cracking a tad, “we’re so blessed to be able to play this game. Every snap we get is a blessing.”

As rosy as the Vikings’ teammates and coaches have been about his impact internally over the last few months, McCarthy’s play on the field was always going to be the most crucial measure. Until the fourth quarter of the highly anticipated matchup on “Monday Night Football” between McCarthy and Caleb Williams, two young and unproven quarterbacks, Minnesota’s offense was a disaster.

The Vikings didn’t convert their first eight third-down attempts. McCarthy was not the only culprit. Veteran receivers like Justin Jefferson and Adam Thielen dropped catches they were expected to make. Left tackle Justin Skule, who filled in for a still-rehabbing Christian Darrisaw, was frequently turnstiled. The run game stalled. The play-calling wasn’t allowing McCarthy to air it out.

It was, for all intents and purposes, a total malfunction. Case in point: McCarthy had 48 yards passing in the first half, which ranked as the fifth fewest in a first half in O’Connell’s time as the Vikings’ head coach. Two of those five instances were with quarterbacks Josh Dobbs and Jaren Hall.

“For a while there,” O’Connell said, “it felt like everything that could go wrong, did. Many, many times, teams will wilt in those circumstances. Ours did not.”

O’Connell said that he told McCarthy at halftime: “You are going to bring us back to win this game.” Even Jefferson noted that as the Vikings trailed the Bears 10-6 at halftime, the offensive skill players looked at one another before the wooden lockers and sensed possibility.

And then, on the Vikings’ first third down in the second half, the Bears displayed an all-out blitz look. McCarthy checked effectively into max protection. With the heat coming, he disposed of the ball quickly to Jefferson near the sideline, but Bears cornerback Nahshon Wright jumped the pass, intercepted the ball and raced the other way for a facepalm-inducing pick-six.

O’Connell met McCarthy before he’d even exited the field. McCarthy had already begun to think about the first interception he threw against TCU in the College Football Playoff. The coach and QB discussed the play. O’Connell said he told him: “Just like the whole day, keep playing the next snap, you and me together. And I promise you, we’ll find a way.”

McCarthy’s response was less about words than his facial expression.

“He’s got an unbelievable look in his eye on gameday,” O’Connell said. “That’s belief and trust in himself.”

McCarthy said he glanced toward the family section before trotting back out and noticed his father’s college roommate, Adam, looking downtrodden.

“I was like, ‘You know what? I’m going to say something about that after we come back and win,’” McCarthy said. “It’s all good. I love you, Adam.”

Back in the huddle, according to running back Aaron Jones, McCarthy asked the 10 men circling him: “Is there any place you guys would rather be?” They smiled, according to McCarthy, and it was around that time, at the beginning of the fourth quarter, that the Vikings’ success snowballed.

It began with a defense that kept a Ben Johnson-led offense off the scoreboard nine times in 10 drives. Defensive tackle Javon Hargrave, in particular, feasted in his one-on-one matchups down the stretch. Special teams joined the party, too. Returner Myles Price wiggled his way between blockers and offered maybe the best punt return field position since O’Connell arrived. Once running back Jordan Mason, who tallied 68 yards on 15 carries, received touches, which set the Vikings up with optimal downs and distances, McCarthy feasted.

He lasered a 13-yard touchdown pass to Jefferson over the middle. He dropped a beautiful 27-yard touchdown to Jones. He found Thielen for a key two-point conversion. The avalanche was happening by the time O’Connell sent the zone read play into McCarthy’s helmet.

Quarterbacks coach Josh McCown had mentioned the play earlier in the day at the team hotel.

“He was talking about running Wanda Bear — that’s what we call the play — in 2013,” McCarthy said. “I was probably running it in seventh grade somewhere. But that was the perfect play-call.”

In the offensive staff’s scouting processes, it felt as if the Bears would crash their edges, opening up the possibility that McCarthy could catch the edge. As long as the offensive line held up, which it did, and tight end T.J. Hockenson blocked, which he did, McCarthy would have a shot at scoring.

O’Connell’s thoughts on the frenzied aftermath?

“This team has a lot of confidence in itself,” he said, “and there were moments where maybe that confidence was tested. But it was absolutely not broken. That moment was like what was keeping it together.”

Dating back to the spring, the head coach has talked about McCarthy in similar ways. It’s about checkpoints. It’s about focusing on the minutiae. So much of this, it would seem, is to guard against the topsy-turvy ride that can come for all young quarterbacks. He toed this line Monday night, acknowledging the almost awe-inspiring levels of fortitude. It’s not that winning these games is new; these comeback wins should almost be nicknamed “O’Connell’s.”

It’s more that McCarthy was able to lead this charge in his first-ever NFL game, and that the rest of the team was behind him every step of the way.

(Top photo: Patrick McDermott / Getty Images)

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