Analysis: With J.J. McCarthy playing free, Vikings claim a cathartic victory over Commanders

Some fans were still finding their seats, and some had decided not to use them, as the clock approached noon Sunday at U.S. Bank Stadium. Six Vikings captains — C.J. Ham, Aaron Jones Sr., Andrew DePaola, Josh Metellus, Jonathan Greenard and Brian O’Neill — approached midfield with instructions coach Kevin O’Connell had previously delivered only three times in his tenure: If the Vikings won the coin toss, they would take the ball.

They would choose to start the day with an offense that had last produced a touchdown on Nov. 16, before scoring a combined six points in two road losses that imperiled their playoff chances and infuriated their fanbase. They had told J.J. McCarthy, who had thrown for only 87 yards in his last start and returned from the concussion protocol this week, to play free and stop the ruminations about his mechanics that the quarterback admitted had become counterproductive. When the Commanders lost the coin toss and the Vikings chose to take the ball first, an anxious fanbase would quickly see whether McCarthy had made any progress.

The quarterback found out “about 10 seconds before the coin toss” the Vikings would take the ball if they won. He said to the coach, “Let’s go, ‘K.O.’ ”

“That was our pillar to the game, starting fast,” McCarthy said. “For Coach O’Connell to say the offense is going to start it off for us, that was a tremendous honor. I was happy we were able to go and reassure him we’re able to do that.”

The Vikings’ 31-0 victory, over a 3-10 Commanders team that played with some indifference on the way to its official postseason elimination, will only do so much for the curriculum vitae of a 5-8 team that had lost four in a row. But as a soothing balm, the win couldn’t have been much more effective.

McCarthy’s first victory at U.S. Bank Stadium was his most professional outing in the NFL. He completed 16 of 23 passes for 163 yards and three touchdowns while hitting eight receivers. He went 4-for-4 for 46 yards on the game-opening touchdown drive that ended with him hitting Josh Oliver up the seam.

When the Vikings stopped the Commanders at the 2-yard line on the next drive, McCarthy completed three third-down throws and ran for another first down on a 98-yard march that lasted 19 plays and 12 minutes, 1 second, or 46 seconds longer than any drive in the NFL this season.

The victory followed the kind of straightforward formula, short on flash but long on efficiency, the Vikings hoped might carry them to the postseason in McCarthy’s first full NFL season. It likely arrived too late to clear a reasonable path to the playoffs, but it provided a dose of relief to weary fans that had watched three home losses in a row.

“It’s been a few weeks since we gave them the type of performance that the best home environment, the best fanbase in football, deserves,” O’Connell said. “We wanted to start fast with the ball and put a touchdown on the board. And then defense gets the stop, and then we can keep the ball for the next 12 minutes. Third-down conversions. Thought J.J. had some phenomenal plays on third down, and then just continued to play within himself. So, very proud of him and a lot of guys.”

Two NFC East road games against facile defenses in the Cowboys and Giants will give the Vikings chances to continue what they did on Sunday, before a pair of home games against division rivals fighting for playoff position. Even if the playoffs are nearly out of reach, the leadup to Sunday underscored how much the Vikings still have at stake.

Ticket prices for this game dipped below $30 on the secondary market on a frigid Sunday morning, as empty seats speckled the upper levels of U.S. Bank Stadium while those in the announced crowd of 66,810 remained subdued before kickoff. The Vikings, who had been shut out for the first time in 18 years last week at Seattle, were at risk of losing four in a row at home for only the seventh time in franchise history, with games against the Lions and Packers to close the home schedule.

O’Connell and offensive coordinator Wes Phillips talked this week about continuing to simplify the offensive game plan for a group plagued by inefficiency. The head coach, who had talked throughout the season about adjustments to McCarthy’s mechanics, said he was done with that, wanting the quarterback only to focus on his decisionmaking. McCarthy, who said again this week he can be an overthinker, agreed.

“Understand what got you into this game, what made you fell in love with this game,” McCarthy said. “Regardless of the record, regardless of where we are this season, just go out there, have fun, play fast, play free. And I feel like we all did that today.”

Watch the postgame Access Vikings podcast:

McCarthy threw in an average of just 2.56 seconds, his quickest of the year, according to NFL Next Gen Stats. He found short throws early in the game, before driving the ball downfield to Oliver for an 18-yard score once he saw the tight end had inside leverage on Mike Sainristil with safety Will Harris too far away to break up the pass.

On the 98-yard drive in the second quarter, McCarthy fit a third-and-8 pass to Jordan Addison between Sainristi and Quan Martin, nodding his head as Addison slid for the catch before the safety arrived. “You’ve got to layer that ball up and over,” O’Connell said. “The layering of the ball, feeling that space, finding it in rhythm, that’s what I loved about that.”

The quarterback said afterward there will be plenty to revisit about his technique, and the back leg whip the Vikings have tried to eliminate showed up on his first touchdown to Oliver. But when McCarthy is working efficiently, like he was when he scanned from left to right before finding Oliver for a second TD, the Vikings aren’t at a point to nitpick.

Jayden Daniels, selected eight picks before McCarthy in the 2024 draft, returned from a three-game absence for Washington, but he played each snap behind by at least a touchdown. At first-and-goal from the 4 in the first quarter, Vikings pass rushers chased him toward the sideline while he threw the ball away on two straight plays before Deebo Samuel dropped a fourth-down throw in the end zone.

With the Vikings up 14-0 seven minutes into the third quarter, Daniels tried a screen throw to Terry McLaurin on fourth-and-3 from the Vikings 19. Andrew Van Ginkel rushed unblocked off the left side, but widened his angle when he spied the screen, deflecting the ball to himself before intercepting it. Isaiah Rodgers pushed Daniels to the ground as he pursued Van Ginkel, and Daniels fell on the left elbow he had dislocated Nov. 2. It would be his final play of the game, as he became the latest QB victimized by Van Ginkel’s uncanny intuition.

“It was the classic ‘Gink,’ ” safety Harrison Smith said. “He’s probably the best I’ve ever seen do that. The awareness for the whole formation, what his job is on that play, it’s really high-level, and it looks like nothing. I don’t know how he sees the field that well from up there.”

On the next Commanders drive with Marcus Mariota replacing Daniels, Smith swooped in to get his first interception of the year, and the 38th of his 14-year career, on a day when the Vikings brought the 36-year-old out of the tunnel last in pregame introductions. Anthony Barr, Smith’s teammate for eight seasons in Minnesota, wore Smith’s No. 22 jersey as he led the Skol chant before the game.

“Getting a chance to play in the NFL is fun, so make it fun,” Smith said. “It’s what we do.”

Wins, even to a veteran of more than 200 games, bring a certain catharsis. For a Vikings club that hadn’t reached the end zone in two weeks and hadn’t won at home in nearly three months, this one definitely did.