J.J. McCarthy had a horrible, no-good, very bad game on Sunday night against the Falcons. It wasn’t simply a game that failed the eye test, or brought him back to earth — but the worst QB performance on the weekend by a massive margin.
Some of that is just a factor of being a rookie. It’s expected that he’ll take his lumps. The problematic part is that we saw none of the playmaker who showed up against the Bears on Monday Night Football, and was instead replaced by a lost, often scared QB whose decision making was nonsensical. The issues started up front with the Vikings being unable to establish the run. As soon as the Falcons knew they didn’t need to respect the Minnesota running backs it removed play action from the Vikes’ book, which is where McCarthy had so much success the prior week.
This still isn’t the major issue with McCarthy. This is:
For the second straight week McCarthy has been both unable to consistently throw to the left side of the field, and unwilling to do so. Through two games he has an incredibly pronounced split difference when it comes to which area of the field he is throwing to.
Moreover, all eight of McCarthy’s left field completions either came off the RPO or out of play action. It’s a sign the QB just isn’t comfortable playing in structure to his left, which is a big problem when that’s Justin Jefferson’s side of the field unless the Vikings play bunch.
The obvious question is “why can’e he throw left?” The answer isn’t dissimilar to another ghost of NFC North’s past: Mitchell Trubisky. So pronounced was Trubisky’s inability to throw left that The Ringer took a deep dive into the issue back in 2019.
Here’s the rub with McCarthy: It’s about how he likes to throw the football. If you watch his mechanics he’s a huge fan of drive throws. Stepping into the pass and dealing a fastball is his preferred way of getting the ball downfield. McCarthy loves this throw so much that he’s developed a baseball-esque wind up in his mechanics to deliver the ball with as much force as possible.
This throw comes naturally when he’s looking to his right. His feet are properly lined up, and he has awareness of any frontside pressure that could take away his ideal motion. However, when he needs to scan left it requires a reset of his feet, and he’s not comfortable with that yet because it drastically increases his time-to-throw when paired with his windup and delivery.
It’s here we need to wonder a little about the pre-draft criticism about McCarthy’s arm talent. We haven’t seen him work out of platform much, really for the majority of his football career. Michigan’s protection was good enough that he had all day to be comfortable under center. What worries me is that he’s now in year-two under Kevin O’Connell, who is a QB guru — and O’Connell hasn’t had McCarthy drop that wind up throwing motion. Is that because he simply wants his QB to get comfortable, or does J.J. lack the arm talent to make NFL-caliber throws when he doesn’t use that motion?
We truly don’t know. What we do know, however, is that McCarthy drastically favors one side of the field, and is mediocre when he throws to the other. This is especially bad, because in games like Sunday night against the Falcons, when he needs to fire the ball in there and make plays, the defense knows one side of the field is basically worry-free. Atlanta were able to cheat safeties over the right, bracket receivers in bunch, and generate incompletions and turnovers because of it.
It’s ludicrous to say McCarthy is in trouble, but he needs to fix this problem to take the next step.
