Despite being 2-1 on the season and coming off a blowout win over the Bengals, the Minnesota Vikings have a rocky go of it so far in 2025. Much of that rests on QB J.J. McCarthy‘s shoulders, a second-year player and former first-round pick out of Michigan in the 2024 draft. He missed his entire rookie season with a meniscus tear, but he entered the 2025 offseason as the undisputed starter.
A Minnesota Vikings legend, WR Adam Thielen, back with the team after two seasons in Carolina, came to his quarterback’s defense. Ahead of their Week 4 matchup with the Steelers in Dublin, Ireland, Thielen spoke with an Irish sports talk show about McCarthy’s poise and ability.
“Yeah, I mean, he’s built for that. He’s built for that,” Thielen said in reference to McCarthy. “And I say that because of his attitude, his mindset. He has that ‘it’ factor. I think it’s something that’s not tangible, it’s not something you can see at the Combine, it’s something that you just feel and you see day in and day out.”
Through two games, McCarthy has struggled mightily. He led an exciting comeback win over the Bears in Week 1, with a scintillating fourth quarter in which he accounted for three touchdowns. But the following week against the Falcons, he 11/21 for 153 yards and a pair of interceptions, and was sacked six times.
McCarthy missed Week 3 with a high-ankle sprain and will not play against the Steelers in Dublin on Sunday. He could return as soon as Week 5, however. In his place, veteran QB Carson Wentz has taken the reigns.
Minnesota Vikings WR Adam Thielen on Why He Returned to Minnesota
“And that’s what made me excited to come back here — is guys like [McCarthy], just that have that ‘it’ factor,” Thielen said. “Doesn’t mean that everything’s always going to be perfect, it doesn’t mean that it’s going to be pretty all the time, but as you saw in that fourth quarter of that Bears game, he’s going to find a way. And he’s going to find a way to handle adversity and overcome it.”
“And at the end of the day in this league, it doesn’t matter who you are, it doesn’t matter how good you are, you’re gonna have adversity. Individually, as an offense, as a team, you’re gonna face adversity. And the more guys you have that are set up and built to handle that, the better you are. Especially as your leader and quarterback.”
Minnesota Vikings WR Adam Thielen on QB J.J. McCarthy’s Moxie
“Yeah, no, I get what you’re saying,” Thielen said on if McCarthy settled down in the fourth quarter against the Bears because he wasn’t thinking as much. “I think he’s just a gamer. I think there’s just that point in the game where he was like, ‘all right, let me just go game. And let me just go let it out and whatever happens, happens.’ He was the most positive guy in that huddle the entire game.”
“And that’s not just coachspeak, right. That’s real. It’s not easy to do that when things aren’t going well as an offense, things aren’t going well as a team, and you naturally want to go to those negative thoughts, and he didn’t allow that to happen. It just says a lot about his mentality. And again, those are the guys you want to fight for, those are the guys you want to go to war with, you want to try and find a way to win a championship with a guy like that.”