We still really have no idea when J.J. McCarthy will return to the Minnesota Vikings.
Will it be in Week 7 after the bye, when the Vikings take on a Philadelphia Eagles team that the Denver Broncos just tripped up? Will the Vikings have some skepticism about setting him loose against a team with such a tenacious defensive front?
Will it be in Week 8 when they face the Chargers, who are also coming off a similarly difficult loss? Would the Vikings really bring him back on a short week?
Will it be in
Week 9 when they head to Detroit to take on the Lions? Or will they also take umbrage with putting McCarthy out there against the defending NFC North champions?
All of these questions come at the expense of wondering when he’ll even be healthy for sure. There are a lot of people yapping about how severe the injury was vs. what the initial thought was, and there are even more people jawing about if the Vikings are somehow hiding behind the “injury” as an excuse to give Carson Wentz a longer look at quarterback.
But what I wanted to examine was relative to other quarterbacks of his experience level, what can we reasonably expect from McCarthy when he returns?
For this piece to resonate, you’ll have to accept just one premise that I’m laying forward.
That is, that McCarthy is functionally to be considered a rookie. If you are unwilling to accept that premise, you are unlikely to accept the findings — and that’s okay. But just know that it’s the basis for this research, and how the conclusion will be shaped and formulated.
What I set out to do was to see what the average production was from rookies under center across a few different scenarios.
First, I set out to establish a few different appropriate “eras” by which to compare McCarthy. As we all know, passing has changed considerably in the last few decades. As noted in this piece on The Phinsider back in 2012, only eight quarterbacks completed 60-plus percent of their passes in 1983. Twenty did so in 2010. This season, only three of 32 teams have completed fewer than 60 percent of their total passes — the Browns (58.4 percent), Jaguars (58.3 percent) and Titans (51.8 percent).
This year, NFL passers have completed 65.9 percent of their passes — the highest mark since the forward pass was legalized. Unsurprisngly, the last three years are three of the sixth-highest seasons in that time frame for completion percentage.
We’re clearly in an era where passers are more efficient than ever, which would make comparisons too far back inapt.
Similarly, passers have a touchdown-to-interception ratio of 2.37 — the highest in the forward-pass era with the 2024 season ranking third (the 2020 season is in between the two).
So we look for gaps where leaps happened.
In 2007, quarterbacks completed 60-plus percent of their passes for the first time — and have passed that threshold in each subsequent season. That’s probably one fair dividing point.
Another point of reference that might make some sense is 1993. That season, teams threw for 200-plus yards per game for the first time after a three-year dip under that mark from 1990-92. They have never averaged fewer than 200 yards in the 33 seasons since.
Finally, passers have a combined rating of 93.7 this season, the highest mark in NFL history. That mark crossed 90.0 for the first time in 2015, and has consistently been within 3-to-4 points above or below that mark since.
So for the purposes of this exercise, our quarterback “eras” if you will, are 1993-present, 2007-present and 2015-present.
In that case, I’m going to pull up rookie quarterback stats in those time frames and make the comparison. I’ll also do it for McCarthy vs. his first-round contemporaries. Also, for highs and lows, I will exclude this season because we don’t have a large enough sample size to draw a sufficient conclusion.
Further, I won’t do highs and lows for first-rounders in seasons, as there are a few years where first-round quarterbacks barely played, if at all (they played a total of one snap in 1996).
Era 1: 1993-Present (all rookie QBs)
- 57.7 completion percentage
- High: 64.8 percent (2024) | Low: 45.8 percent (1994)
- 1,444/1,366 TD/INT ratio (1.06)
- High: 97/45 (2.16) in 2024 | Low: 20/39 (0.51) in 2005
- 3.4 passing touchdown percentage
- High: 4.5 percent (2015) | Low: 2.2 percent (2005)
- 3.2 passing interception percentage
- High: 1.9 percent (2024) | Low: 6.8 percent (1997)
- 75.1 passer rating
- High: 89.9 (2024) | Low: 54.5 (1994)
Era 1: 1993-Present (1st Round QBs only)
- 58.3 completion percentage
- 940/818 TD/INT ratio (1.15)
- 3.5 passing touchdown percentage
- 3.1 passing interception percentage
- 77.1 passer rating
Synopsis:
I’m not sure this range is all that helpful for analysis. There’s just too wide of a range of outcomes over the long haul, with how much the game as changed and how the handling of rookie quarterbacks has gone from draft and sit to throwing them right in the fire.
I am not terribly surprised that this data was not super helpful, but it’s at least something to look at.
I do like the first-rounders as a group by themselves as a comparison; as we saw, it narrows the band of players to those selected who were expected to be difference-makers early in their careers, as opposed to end-of-the-bench guys who got into games when the team had lost all hope.
Era 2: 2007-Present (all rookie QBs)
- 59.7 completion percentage
- High: 64.8 percent (2024) | Low: 54.1 percent (2009)
- 1,048/854 TD/INT ratio (1.23)
- High: 97/45 (2.16) in 2024 | Low: 38/69 (0.51) in 2009
- 3.5 passing touchdown percentage
- High: 4.5 percent (2015) | Low: 2.3 percent (2010)
- 2.8 passing interception percentage
- High: 1.9 percent (2024) | Low: 5.7 percent (2009)
- 79.3 passer rating
- High: 89.9 (2024) | Low: 59.2 (2009)
Era 2: 2007-Present (1st Round QBs only)
- 60.3 completion percentage
- 709/532 TD/INT ratio (1.33)
- 3.6 passing touchdown percentage
- 2.7 passing interception percentage
- 81.2 passer rating
Synopsis:
Unsurprisingly, this feels a lot more apt than the era before it. And again in unsurprising news, the first-rounders tighten things up a bit. It seems as though first-rounders can safely be expected to see a 2.0ish point jump in passer rating, a slight bump in touchdown-to-interception ratio and very slight bumps in touchdown and interception percentage.
My gut says we’re getting close to figuring out rational expectations, but not quite there yet.
We move onto the third era.
Era 3: 2015-Present (all rookie QBs)
- 61.3 completion percentage
- High: 64.8 percent (2024) | Low: 56.5 percent (2017)
- 640/447 TD/INT ratio (1.43)
- High: 97/45 (2.16) in 2024 | Low: 44/50 (0.88) in 2017
- 3.6 passing touchdown percentage
- High: 4.5 percent (2015) | Low: 2.9 percent (2022)
- 2.5 passing interception percentage
- High: 1.9 percent (2024) | Low: 3.8 percent (2017)
- 82.5 passer rating
- High: 89.9 (2024) | Low: 72.1 (2017)
Era 3: 2015-Present (1st Round QBs only)
- 61.8 completion percentage
- 463/295 TD/INT ratio (1.57)
- 3.8 passing touchdown percentage
- 2.4 passing interception percentage
- 84.2 passer rating
Synopsis:
Just for fun, if we did the era from 2020 to present for first rounders, we’d be looking at a completion percentage of 63.1 percent, a 1.76 touchdown-to-interception ratio, 3.6 passing touchdown percentage, a 2.1 passing interception percentage, and a passer rating of 86.0.
In a way, I wanted to illustrate how the standard for rookie quarterbacks has increased over the eras, and then add another wrinkle to it by singling out the first-round picks from each year.
Now I’d like to compare these marks to qualifiers from recent seasons to get a sense of what a full season of these marks would look like.
To approximate a completion percentage of 61.8, last season that would have fallen 32nd among qualified passers, behind Caleb Williams (62.5 percent) and ahead of Jameis Winston (61.1 percent).
For the touchdown-to-interception ratio, 1.76 would have ranked 22nd among qualifiers last season, sandwiched between Kyler Murray (1.91) and Joe Flacco (1.71).
A 3.8 passing touchdown percentage would have been tied for 30th in the NFL with Geno Smith and Caleb Williams last season.
A 2.4 passing interception percentage would have been tied for 19th with Bo Nix and Daniel Jones.
Finally, an 84.2 passer rating would have ranked 29th in the NFL, right between Trevor Lawrence and Cooper Rush (83.8).
The average qualified passer threw 424 passes last season. I don’t know if this is a good comparison or not, but it’ll at least give us a flat number to get some data from. McCarthy won’t attempt that many passes this season, but it’ll give us at least a reasonable full-season baseline for what would have been fair to expect from him based on this exercise.
Using the data from 2015-present, our quarterback would finish his rookie campaign throwing 424 passes (based on averages for qualifiers last season). With the average touchdown and interception rates, this puts us at 16 touchdown passes and 10 interceptions. It would also come out to 262 completions and again, a passer rating of 84.2.
Using the data from 2020-present, our quarterback would finish his rookie campaign throwing 424 passes, completing 268. With the average touchdown and interception rates, this puts us at 15 passing touchdowns and nine interceptions.
In other words, to the naked eye those seasons would be largely indecipherable.
Now to draw and widespread and definite conclusions with regards to McCarthy vs. this data would be foolish, but I think there’s some value in collecting this data and seeing what might be fair for him once he returns.
Through two starts, he’s completed 58.5 percent of his passes with a touchdown percentage of 4.9 percent and an interception percentage of 7.3 percent. That comes out to a 67.2 passer rating.
My hackneyed conclusion here is that while McCarthy has a ways to go, we all may have had unfair expectations for the — for all intents and purposes — first-year quarterback.
Yes, he was given the keys to a Ferrari. Yes, he has fallen short through two starts.
However, for him to match the rookie baseline the rest of the way, he really only needs to have a passer rating of 84-85ish at the end of the season with 16 touchdowns and nine interceptions.
Are fans going to be pleased if he only reaches those marks (prorated to however many games he plays)?
I would suggest the answer is no — and that’s probably unfair to McCarthy. But at the end of the day, the Vikings have little choice but to put their faith in the quarterback hand-picked by Kevin O’Connell once he’s healthy.
It may not be pretty, but nothing worth doing is easy.
As a parting shot, here are some rookie quarterback seasons that didn’t necessarily indicate how a player would look in the future (or in the case of the first one, might show that a second-year leap as a starter is certainly in play):
- 2024 Drake Maye: 88.1 passer rating, 15-10 (1.50) TD-INT ratio, 4.4 percent passing TD/3.0 percent passing INT, 66.0 percent completion percentage
- 2021 Trevor Lawrence: 71.9 passer rating, 12-17 (0.71) TD-INT ratio, 2.0 percent passing TD/2.8 percent passing INT, 59.6 percent completion percentage
- 2018 Josh Allen: 67.9 passer rating, 10-12 (0.83) TD-INT ratio, 3.1 percent passing TD/3.8 percent passing INT, 52.8 percent completion percentage
- 2016 Jared Goff: 63.6 passer rating, 5-7 (0.71) TD-INT ratio, 2.4 percent passing TD/3.4 percent passing INT, 54.6 percent completion percentage
- 2014 Derek Carr: 76.6 passer rating, 21-12 (1.75) TD-INT ratio, 3.5 percent passing TD/2.0 percent passing INT, 58.1 percent completion percentage
- 2012 Andrew Luck: 76.5 passer rating, 23-18 (1.28) TD-INT ratio, 3.7 percent passing TD/2.9 percent passing INT, 54.1 percent completion percentage
- 2009 Matthew Stafford: 61.0 passer rating, 13-20 (0.65) TD-INT ratio, 3.4 percent passing TD/5.3 percent passing INT, 53.3 percent completion percentage
- 2008 Matt Ryan: 87.7 passer rating, 16-11 (1.45) TD-INT ratio, 3.7 percent passing TD/2.5 percent passing INT, 61.1 percent completion percentage
- 2008 Joe Flacco: 80.3 passer rating, 14-12 (1.17) TD-INT ratio, 3.3 percent passing TD/2.8 percent passing INT, 60.0 percent completion percentage
- 2005 Alex Smith: 40.8 passer rating, 1-11 (0.09) TD-INT ratio, 0.6 percent passing TD/6.7 percent passing INT, 50.9 percent completion percentage
- 2004 Eli Manning: 55.4 passer rating, 6-9 (0.67) TD-INT ratio, 3.0 percent passing TD/4.6 percent passing INT, 48.2 percent completion percentage
- 1999 Donovan McNabb: 60.1 passer rating, 8-7 (1.14) TD-INT ratio, 3.7 percent passing TD/3.2 percent passing INT, 49.1 percent completion percentage
- 1998 Peyton Manning: 71.2 passer rating, 26-28 (0.93) TD-INT ratio, 4.5 percent passing TD/4.9 percent passing INT, 56.7 percent completion percentage
In other words, I think it’s totally fine to be displeased or uncertain about how McCarthy has played, but any sort of widespread panic about who he’ll be as a future NFL quarterback is incredibly misguided.
The Vikings need to stay the course, even if the waters are a bit bumpy this season. That’s the only way to develop a franchise quarterback.
