J.J. McCarthy Made My Week Better
The last couple of weeks, and the entire season to be quite frank, have been a tough go for all Vikings fans. It’s been a down year for the franchise, and until Week 14, it looked very bleak for its future.
Off of Week 13, it was a brutal comedown (if that’s even the right word) from being shutout in Seattle against Sam Darnold’s Seahawks. I don’t know about you, but seeing Max Brosmer perform as he did, and seeing the J.J. McCarthy we saw up to that point, didn’t inspire a ton of hope in the future.
If you’re anything like me, you (for some reason) allow this football team that has no actual bearing on your true day-to-day life to control your mental state for any given week. It’s a good thing when they win, but it’s awful when they lose. 2024 was a finer high, but 2025 to this point has obviously been quite the pit of despair.
The Feeling of Walking to Work Knowing J.J. McCarthy Played Well
I don’t get to feel this exact feeling anymore, given that covering the Vikings for multiple outlets is my full-time job now, but I do remember the euphoria of walking into the ol’ 9-5 with a building full of football fans of different teams and being one of the ones that gets to call themselves victorious. It’s a canon event for football fans everywhere, and it can’t be duplicated.
I, myself, have to take my victory laps amongst friends and peers in real life and via various internet avenues. Did yesterday prove that McCarthy is, in fact, the future of the Vikings? No, it didn’t. He didn’t throw for many yards, but a performance with three touchdowns, no turnovers, and a 129.2 passer rating is definitely a step in the right direction. A little relief from the trouble that Dave from accounting has been giving you about “Nine” is always welcome.
Going throughout the week knowing that your team and your young quarterback played well is like a treat. That’s why it must be awesome to be a New England Patriots fan going from Tom Brady to Drake Maye rather immediately. Regardless, everything that goes on during the work week is a little bit easier to deal with when your developmental signal caller shows promise.
Heading Into Next Week With J.J. McCarthy
Next week, the stakes will be even higher. The Vikings are heading to the Lone Star State for a primetime matchup on Sunday Night Football with the Dallas Cowboys. I’m willing to bet that we all know multiple Cowboy fans, as there is still some truth to the “America’s Team” nickname since the team still has a fan base that runs deep throughout the entire country.
There’s a good chance that there’s one at your work, and forgive me for making generalizations, but there’s also a good chance that they don’t know much about football. Is there anything worse than being a die-hard fan of a team that loses to a team that has a fan who you know doesn’t know much about the game, but will gloat all about how their team beat yours? It’s painful.
Here’s to another week of giving our moods to McCarthy and the Minnesota Vikings. Surely it won’t be a rash decision again.
