On Sunday Night Football, the Minnesota Vikings had their home opener against the Atlanta Falcons. Sadly, the game did not go as planned for J.J McCarthy and the offense of the Vikings, who couldn’t score a single touchdown in this game. The Falcons defense swarmed McCarthy big time and sacked him six times along with pressuring him out of the pocket and making him throw erratic passes. The running game for Minnesota wasn’t much better either as a 22-6 loss was what occurred in the home opener at U.S Bank Stadium, which is in its 10th season hosting NFL games. Under Michael Penix Jr, the Falcons offense wasn’t much better but they stacked up drives that ended in field goals and used that momentum to eventually finish off the Vikings with a backbreaking touchdown right at the end of the game. Atlanta avoided an 0-2 start in a weak NFC South division that already saw two teams fall to that fate on Sun, Sept 14. Simply put, this was a defensive game that had very little character or scoring for the most part. It wasn’t a masterpiece like other primetime games usually turn out to be. This game was an ugly, old-fashioned grinder on synthetic turf.

Going into this game, the Vikings were already down three important defensive players. Linebacker Blake Cashman had been placed on injured reserve with a hamstring injury suffered in the team’s Week 1 game in Chicago, another linebacker in Andrew Van Ginkel had suffered a concussion and was ruled out instantly and safety Harrison Smith was still not fully recovered from the illness that kept him from practicing with the first-team defense. On top of that, Christian Darrisaw was still not ready to make his season debut at left tackle and Jordan Addison was serving the second game of his three-game suspension due to drunk driving charges that he was accused of in July 2024. So, it wasn’t going to be easy for J.J McCarthy, who had to leave the team on Thur, Sept 11 to see his fiancée Katya Kuropas give birth to their newborn infant son, who they named Rome Micah McCarthy. A very touching moment there following the incredible performance in the fourth quarter of the Monday night game just a few short days before. Now, the older McCarthy had to prepare for his home opener at U.S Bank Stadium against the Falcons, who had lost their season opening game at home against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. In spite of Penix’s efforts, the Falcons were robbed of victory due to a couple of critical errors, including a missed game-tying field goal attempt by Younghoe Koo, who has had kicking issues since the middle of last season. Due to that fact, Atlanta decided to sign free agent kicker John Parker Romo, who had kicked in four games last season for Minnesota while normal kicker Will Reichard was on injured reserve. Romo was a big reason why the Vikings won a couple of their fourteen victories last season and he was now returning to kick against the team that gave him a chance to shine in the middle of last season.

So, this Sunday night game also had the narrative face-off between two first-round picks who either only played in limited amount of games last season or didn’t play at all due to injury. Both Michael Penix and J.J McCarthy played against each other in the 2024 College Football Playoff National Championship Game and McCarthy’s Michigan Wolverines triumphed over Penix’s Washington Huskies. Now, after both were drafted in the top-10 of the 1st round of the NFL Draft the same year, Penix and McCarthy were finally going to face off in a rematch that was 20 months in the making. Whose team would triumph this time? It turned out to be the team that the left-handed QB of the two was on.

The Falcons started off the game with possession and Bijan Robinson had a couple of big runs through the Vikings’ defense to set the tone early on. A 25-yard run followed by a scamper of 17 yards gave Atlanta an instant chance to score. Going into the red zone, the Falcons had a couple of penalties stop them from gaining another first down. Specifically, after Penix completed an 8-yard pass that came up a little short of the line to gain, they were going to attempt an early fourth down conversion. But the crowd noise of the Vikings fans inside the stadium(energized due to Jared Allen blowing the Gjallarhorn and leading the Skol chant before kickoff) compromised Penix’s ability to effectively communicate the play call on fourth down. Atlanta had to take a delay of game penalty and bring out its field goal unit. It turned out that was a blessing in disguise as John Parker Romo came onto the turf and made a 38-yard kick that barely sneaked through the left upright. Many fans in attendance thought it was no good, but the officials under the goalpost deemed the kick good. An early three points would be the symbolic meaning of this game, where points were scarce and defenses reigned supreme.

For his first official drive on his home turf, McCarthy did not do as well as he wanted to as he completed a short two-yard pass to Jalen Nailor and then did a design scramble on third down. It appeared that McCarthy had picked up the first down on the scramble, but Kevin O’Connell did not bother to throw the challenge flag on the play. Replay assist could have confirmed that McCarthy was barely tackled short of the line to gain by Falcons safety Jesse Bates. Instead of punting it on fourth and short, O’Connell decided to leave the offense on the field to go for it on fourth and inches. Unfortunately, McCarthy botched the snap from Ryan Kelly and had no chance to sneak through the trenches to get the first down as he was stonewalled by Kaden Elliss to end the drive. The Falcons would take advantage of their great field position by getting back into the red zone and settling for another field goal by Romo after the Vikings’ defense did its job by not allowing a touchdown. But an early 6-0 hole would feel much larger than the margin indicated due to the offensive struggles all game long.

The second drive resulted in a classic three-and-out, with McCarthy getting split sacked by two Atlanta defenders to end the drive. Thankfully, the Vikings came through on the defensive end as a completed pass by Penix to Drake London resulted in a fumble forced by Eric Wilson(starting in place of Cashman at middle linebacker) and recovered by Theo Jackson, who went forward nine yards. This turnover occurred near the end of the first quarter and it was the first one forced by the Vikings this season. Now the offense had a chance to provide some points off the turnover in changing the momentum of this game early on. The first quarter ended with a Jordan Mason run on third and short that resulted in a first down. Another scoreless first quarter for the Vikings would point to some potential hope for a score at the beginning of the second quarter.

After a couple of short yardage plays to start out the second quarter, McCarthy completed a clutch pass on third down to Nailor, who had a 12-yard reception for a first down in Atlanta territory. Another first down was gained on the ground by Mason and that got the Vikings’ offense into field goal range. But McCarthy was sacked by Leonard Floyd for a loss of eight yards and that set the offense back. McCarthy threw an incomplete pass towards T.J Hockenson on 2nd down and on third down a potential conservative play call was in order to just get the ball into comfortable range for Reichard to kick a field goal. Instead, O’Connell drew up an impressive play call that had McCarthy throw a pass to the right outside of the numbers and Adam Thielen was there to catch it. Thielen gained 19 yards on his first official reception back in Vikings purple and back in the stadium that he played seven spectacular seasons in. The fans definitely loved that one and on the next play McCarthy hurled another big throw to Nailor, who caught it and went out of bounds at the Falcons’ 2-yard line. It was now 1st & goal and the Vikings were on the edge of scoring a touchdown. However, things went south on this drive and fast.

After receiving the first and goal snap from Kelly, McCarthy lost his grip on the ball and had to dribble it up in order to recover it himself. When he regained the ball, McCarthy had to get rid of it and he threw a fast pass aimed towards Justin Jefferson in the end zone. The ball sailed high over Jefferson’s head and was incomplete. On 2nd & goal, matters only worsened when the Falcons were trying to sub in defenders and the umpire of referee Adrian Hill’s crew was not allowing McCarthy get into snap formation. Also, due to their inability to reset the play clock to 25 seconds(something done routinely in NFL games), the play clock ran out right after the substitution period was done and the Vikings offense was called for a delay of game penalty, backing them up five yards. O’Connell could have called a timeout to prevent the infraction, but he did not do so. The officiating crew is partially to blame for this situation, due to their unwillingness to reset the play clock when it was about to run out. But it was also on O’Connell for not burning a timeout with the offense being still two yards away from scoring. This delay of game penalty proved critical, as on the next play McCarthy was sacked by Jalon Walker for a loss of seven and then split sacked on 3rd & goal. The field goal unit came onto the field and Will Reichard made a 33-yard field goal to give the Vikings their first points of this home opener. But they could have scored seven points on this drive and poor execution at the end of this long drive would come back to haunt them.

On the next Falcons drive, the defense finally forced a punt as they got through the opposing offensive line and Dallas Turner sacked Penix for his first sack of the season. The punt by Bradley Pinion pinned the Vikings deep in their own territory, and that proved to be problematic. With a few minutes left in the half, a potential long drive could help boost the team with some momentum heading into halftime as they were going to receive possession to start out the second half. A run by Aaron Jones for six yards and a McCarthy completion to Thielen for seven yards was a good beginning to this drive. But then, everything went sideways as McCarthy threw a ball heading towards Nailor, who tried to kneel down to make the catch. But Atlanta rookie cornerback Billy Bowman Jr leaned down to intercept the ball and stay in bounds with possession of the ball. A huge mistake there by McCarthy, who threw his second interception of the season. Now right before the two-minute warning, the Falcons offense had a chance to turn the score massively in their favor.

The two-minute warning occurred and after an offsetting penalty situation, a couple of big runs by the two main Atlanta running backs(Robinson and Tyler Allgeier) got the opposing offense back into the red zone. The Minnesota defense held its ground again and the Falcons had to settle for another field goal by John Parker Romo, who made a 33-yard kick to increase the lead up to 9-3 with 25 seconds left in the half. The Vikings had two timeouts remaining and could have used one of them to stop the clock after the run that resulted in a first down in the red zone. Thankfully, a situation similar to last week’s “two-minute drill” occurred. The kickoff return by Myles Price didn’t go far and the offense started this drive where they could have had McCarthy take a knee and head into the locker room, since they would get possession to start out the second half. But instead, the offense was in shotgun formation and McCarthy was prepared to pass the ball. Instead he got sacked by Brandon Dorlus of the Falcons for a loss of three yards. So, this appeared to be the end of the half. However, that was not the case as the clock had to be stopped due to an injury suffered by another Atlanta defender. Cornerback A.J Terrell was down on the field and had to be helped off as a timeout was charged to the Falcons. With only 12 seconds left, it was very unlikely for the offense to get into field goal range with two timeouts and a lot of field to cover. But thankfully, with J.J McCarthy, anything is possible as another shotgun formation was shown. McCarthy received the snap from new center Michael Jurgens(who came in for Kelly, who was in concussion protocol) and threw a deep pass towards Jefferson, who ran a double-cross route that fooled the secondary defenders. Jefferson caught the ball and ran into field goal range for Reichard, going down with enough time for O’Connell to call timeout. A 50-yard connection between both “JJs”. Almost similar to a deep pass that McCarthy completed to Nailor on the Monday night game and that play was followed by Reichard kicking a career-long 59-yard field goal at Soldier Field. This upcoming kick would be a little shorter than that, but still long at 51 yards. Reichard made the field goal to end the first half strong again and the Vikings were down 9-6 in this field goal game. Hopefully momentum would result as McCarthy completed 8 of his 11 passes for 111 yards and that one interception. With some good completions and a couple of bad mistake(the failed fourth down sneak that led to three more points for the Falcons), McCarthy was finding his way in spite of the pressure being applied by the opposing defense. Now, the all the offensive line had to do was wall off the opposing defenders and things could potentially swing in the Vikings favor. The start of the second half was critical to establish some form of order for the home team.

The opening drive for the second half did not go the way that the Vikings had hoped as a strong run by Jones for eight yards was followed by an incomplete pass to Thielen and then a ball that was nearly intercepted again by Billy Bowman. Replay assist ruled that the pass was incomplete and the drive was over as another three-and-out occurred under McCarthy’s leadership. A long drive by the Atlanta offense ensued, as strong runs by Robinson and precise passing by Penix to receiving targets such as Darnell Mooney got the Falcons back into the red zone. The Brian Flores defense held their ground again as Raheem Morris opted to bring the field goal unit for his team onto the field yet again. Romo made his fourth kick of the game on another 33-yard chip shot, doing something that he did in a game for the Vikings last season against the Jacksonville Jaguars when Reichard was on injured reserve. With the Atlanta lead back up to six points, the pressure was back on the Vikings’ offense to do something good.

On their next drive, Minnesota picked up a first down on a fourth and short sneak by McCarthy that resulted in a first down. A big 18-yard run by Mason was negated due to an offensive holding penalty by new left tackle Walter Rouse, who had to come in for Justin Skule due to another concussion protocol situation. That holding penalty essentially killed the drive, as an incomplete pass to Jones was followed by a crafty scramble by McCarthy, who gained 16 yards. That run was in vain as Brian O’Neill committed a false start foul that made third down a harder prospect to convert on and McCarthy threw an incomplete pass towards Jefferson to end the drive. To end the third quarter, the defense forced the Falcons into a three-and-out and the punt by Pinion was not a good one as Price caught the ball near midfield and the ball was going to be there to start out the fourth quarter. This was a last chance to gain momentum for this feckless Vikings offense, which somehow generated three touchdown drives in the fourth quarter of the Monday night opener against the Bears. Something similar needed to happen with the deficit being just six points instead of double-digits.

The first play of the fourth quarter symbolized how bad this game was for the Vikings as McCarthy got swarmed again and Zach Harrison not only sacked J.J but forced the ball out of his grasp. It was a strip-sack fumble and Devine Deablo recovered it for Atlanta. Now a second turnover had occurred for McCarthy, who had very little time to work with on that forced error by the opposing defense. The Vikings now needed to prevent the Falcons from scoring any points, period. A couple of runs by Robinson garnered an immediate moving of the chains but a good tackle by Isaiah Rodgers on Robinson and a sack of Penix by Jalen Redmond fueled hope that the Vikings could prevent a field goal attempt from happening at all. On 3rd and 21, Penix completed a short pass to Kyle Pitts, who gained only three yards as Joshua Metellus tackled him down right at the edge of field goal range. The Atlanta field goal unit came onto the field and Romo would attempt his fifth field goal of the game from 54 yards out. The ball was snapped, the hold was solid and the kick by Romo went up and through the uprights. The Falcons now had a 15-6 lead and had basically gotten three field goals kicked off of turnovers by the Vikings(one of them a turnover on downs). That was basically the difference in this game along with the offense’s inability to execute in important situations. Down by two possessions, the Vikings desperately needed a touchdown and fast.

A couple of runs by Mason and a deep ball thrown by McCarthy that barely fell in front of Nailor are what defined the next drive for the Vikings, who opted to punt instead of go for it on fourth down deep within their own territory. That would be the proverbial dagger decision as Atlanta’s offense went on a strong and long drive that resulted in O’Connell burning all three timeouts and then the defense let Tyler Allgeier score a touchdown from five yards out to preserve time. The PAT by Romo was made and the Falcons now had a 16-point lead. It was basically game over at this stage. To top it off, McCarthy had a couple of solid completions to Hockenson and Jefferson but then threw a deep pass towards the end zone that was intercepted by Xavier Watts, who waved good night to the crowd of exiting Vikings fans from U.S Bank Stadium. A tough defeat was also topped off by a meaningless muffed punt by Myles Price. Making matters worse, a couple of other defensive injuries occurred as Jonathan Greenard had an oblique scare that he healed fast from and Gabriel Murphy(elevated from the practice squad) was injured late in the game. Also, the concussions to Kelly and Skule forced a couple of inexperienced offensive linemen into the game and that spelled disaster for McCarthy, who also had to get his ankle taped up after he appeared to turn it in one of the second half drives that yielded no points for the Vikings. A scoreless second half was the opposite to what occurred in Week 1. Overall, McCarthy completed eleven of his twenty-one passes for 158 yards and was sacked six times. Also, throwing two interceptions and getting strip-sacked for a lost fumble, McCarthy did not look anything like the QB he proved himself to be in the fourth quarter of Week 1. Only one big scoring quarter so far for the Vikings’ offense. And the news gets worse.

Update: McCarthy Suffered Ankle Sprain That Could Keep Him Out For Two To Four Weeks

That’s right, J.J McCarthy reportedly suffered an ankle sprain in the second half that will cost him a chance to play in the next three games for the Vikings potentially, according to ESPN’s Adam Schefter(who usually isn’t wrong when reporting on injuries to NFL players). This means that Carson Wentz will have to step in and be the starting quarterback for Minnesota going forward. Max Brosmer will be elevated up to being the backup QB for Wentz, who has started the majority of his games for the Philadelphia Eagles in the first five seasons of his career. Having been the starting QB at the beginning of the 2021 and 2022 seasons for the Indianapolis Colts and Washington Commanders respectively, Wentz has also made appearances for the Los Angeles Rams and Kansas City Chiefs. Wentz was signed after the final cuts to the roster were made and Brosmer was the only QB to make the roster out of the three QBs competing for the backup role behind McCarthy. No doubt that a new QB might need to be added in the short term to be the emergency third QB in case McCarthy’s absence stretches longer than the next three games, which are all against AFC North opponents with strong defensive stars.

The Cincinnati Bengals(the next opponent for the Vikings) are also dealing with a QB injury crisis as Joe Burrow had to exit Sunday’s game against the Jacksonville Jaguars with a turf toe injury that could keep him out for the rest of the season. In Week 3’s game against the Bengals at home, the Vikings will have to start Carson Wentz at QB while facing Jake Browning, who started a Week 15 game for Cincinnati against the Vikings after Burrow suffered a season-ending right hand injury in November of that season. In Weeks 4 and 5, the Vikings will be playing back-to-back international games against the Pittsburgh Steelers in Dublin, Ireland and the Cleveland Browns in London, England. Jordan Addison will return from his three-game suspension after next week’s game, but the offense is also going to be without Aaron Jones, who suffered a hamstring injury in the Sunday night game versus Atlanta. Jordan Mason will have to be the starting running back going forward, with Zavier Scott as the only available backup currently. C.J Ham and Ty Chandler are both on injured reserve(Chandler was placed on there after the game in Chicago), so the offense is really banged up. Not to mention the O-Line woes with Christian Darrisaw’s return to the playing field yet to happen and Ryan Kelly being concussed along with Justin Skule. The defense is still waiting on Harrison Smith to make his season debut and Andrew Van Ginkel and Jeff Okudah both need to clear concussion protocol as well.

The Vikings are injured and in a dire position right now. A next-man-up mentality needs to occur in order to lift this team up in a tight division. The Green Bay Packers are currently in first place in the NFC North, having won their first two games. Meanwhile, the Detroit Lions blew out the Chicago Bears, raising their record to 1-1 and Chicago’s down to 0-2. McCarthy didn’t look too good out on the field, so more preseason game reps could have been beneficial to him. For now, the Vikings will be sailing on without their young starting QB and whatever happens next, there will definitely be a lot of heat on Kevin O’Connell to prove that he can lead this team in a positive direction. The defense is doing well, but the offense has to step up big time, no matter who is in at QB.