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Vikings Souhan: J.J. McCarthy breathes life into a stale Vikings season After three starts and two clutch wins, McCarthy looks like he has the the ideal attitude and personality to be a franchise quarterback. By Jim Souhan The Minnesota Star Tribune November 4, 2025 at 12:00AM Vikings quarterback J.J. McCarthy dances in front of a camera in a hallway at Ford Field in Detroit, where on Sunday he led his team to its first victory in the Motor City since January 2021. (Elizabeth Flores/The Minnesota Star Tribune) That kid who played quarterback for the Vikings on Sunday — the 22-year-old with the frizzy hair, baggy clothes and unspoiled grin — could change everything. Let’s not leap to dreams of Super Bowl championships. That’s an unfair burden to place on someone who looks like he spends his spare time searching under his couch for a PlayStation controller. Let’s view the belated-yet-sudden rise of J.J. McCarthy in a different and better way. Let’s view him through the prism of fun. Fun. Isn’t that what sports are supposed to be? An entertaining escape from reality, an escape from the mundane to the sublime? We don’t know what the future holds for McCarthy or this Vikings regime. We already know, after three games, that the kid who doesn’t comb his hair is more fun than tax refund day. He needed to produce a game like the Vikings’ 27-24 upset of the Lions in Detroit to highlight his likeability. Christian Ponder was likeable, too, and that didn’t matter when he revealed that he wasn’t an NFL quarterback. Now that McCarthy is 2-1 as an NFL starter, with his victories both coming in NFC North road games under difficult circumstances, we can appreciate the whole J.J. McCarthy vibe. ADVERTISEMENT Watch the latest episode of Access Vikings: Jim Souhan Columnist Jim Souhan is a sports columnist for the Minnesota Star Tribune. He has worked at the paper since 1990, previously covering the Twins and Vikings. See More
