J.J. McCarthy leads fourth-quarter comeback

Minnesota Vikings quarterback J.J. McCarthy (9) speaks with head coach Kevin O’Connell before the start of the second quarter. (CARLOS GONZALEZ/The Minnesota Star Tribune)

O’Connell and quarterbacks coach Josh McCown, McCarthy said, quickly debriefed him on the interception, telling him he’d done everything right at the line and walking through the throw. He thought back to Michigan’s playoff loss to TCU during his first year as a starter, when he’d had two interceptions returned for touchdowns, and resolved to move on.

“It’s one of the worst things you can do as a quarterback,” McCarthy said. “But you can’t do anything about it. You’ve got to focus on the next play. Defense kept us in it the whole time, so it’s just on our shoulders to move on from that.”

GAMEBOOK: Vikings 27, Chicago 24

NFL standings

The Vikings’ defense kept Williams in the pocket in the second half and started producing punts when the quarterback couldn’t find his receivers. And at the end of the third quarter, the complexion of the game changed.

Chicago had a first-and-10 on the Vikings 24 when a holding penalty wiped out a 12-yard completion to D’Andre Swift. Williams threw incomplete on second down, and on third down he was called for intentional grounding.

“I feel like it was at the perfect time,” he said. “Just a little bit of a perspective shift; yeah, things weren’t going our way, but we’re here, doing this together. And the boys, they responded perfectly.”

He told himself he would say something to Uncle Adam after the Vikings came back and won, and McCarthy turned his sloppy start into a prologue for a spellbinding ending.

Maybe there will be a hundred more moments like this for McCarthy as a Viking; maybe there will only be a handful. For NFL stagecraft, though, the quarterback’s debut at Soldier Field will be hard to top.

To get exclusive analysis on the Vikings by Ben Goessling in your inbox every Friday, sign up for the free Access Vikings newsletter. Email your Vikings questions to accessvikings@startribune.com.

Click here to read article