It's rare to see a young quarterback look efficient right out of the gate, and this is even truer for rookies and de facto rookies, like J.J. McCarthy is. Losing his entire rookie season to a knee injury, McCarthy already entered 2025 a year behind, and even though he is still 22 years old, there's been a lot to catch up on.
McCarthy has unfortunately been in and out of the lineup due to injuries, and that has also contributed to being a bit behind the eight-ball. Right now, McCarthy has made six total starts in the NFL, and while the 2-4 record is just fine, the on-field product hasn't looked good.
And at times, it's looked like a total mess. However, this should be expected, as playing quarterback in the NFL is the single hardest thing to do in sports, and developing that quarterback is nearly as hard.
While some Vikings fans might want to already pull the plug on the McCarthy era, the team must have patience with their young signal-caller, just as the Denver Broncos did, for example, with Bo Nix.
Patience is a must if the Minnesota Vikings want to truly unleash the J.J. McCarthy era
You might not see how the Broncos being patient with Nix has anything to do with Minnesota doing the same with McCarthy, but both franchises could be in similar situations.
Denver entered the 2024 NFL Season with a very strong roster overall - much better than the outside world thought, but a shaky 0-2 start really had people thinking that Nix was the wrong pick.
And he faced a lot of that music in the pre-draft process, as many had said that he was simply a low-ceiling, Day 2-caliber quarterback.
Well, after that 0-2 start in which Nix threw zero touchdowns and four interceptions, the Broncos have since, through Week 11 in 2025, gone 19-7 in the regular season, and Nix has since thrown for 47 touchdowns against 16 interceptions. It's been a total 180 since those first few weeks of the 2024 season for Nix.
Heck, Nix didn't throw his first NFL touchdown pass until his fourth career game. Well, through six games in McCarthy's de facto rookie season, he's thrown six touchdowns against 10 interceptions.
There has been some 'good' that we've seen. McCarthy seems to be quite clutch late in games, as he already has a fourth-quarter comeback and a game-winning drive.
And the 'bad' that we've seen is all correctable, coachable things.
If you went back and compared the first five games of other notable quarterbacks, I bet the results are similar. But, let's compare the first six starts from Nix and McCarthy since both signal-callers come from the same class and are in similar situations:
Bo Nix: 3-3, 121/198, 61.1%, 1,082 yards, 5 touchdowns, 5 interceptions, 73.7 passer rating
J.J. McCarthy: 2-4, 86/159, 54.1%, 929 yards, 6 touchdowns, 10 interceptions, 57.9 rating
Their starts are similar, and here in year two, Bo Nix and the Broncos are 9-2 and atop the AFC West. Unless McCarthy totally goes off the rails, which feels unlikely, having patience with his development could pay off in the long term.