The last time J.J. McCarthy squared off with Michael Penix Jr., it was in the National Championship game of the 2024 College Football Playoff. McCarthy’s Michigan Wolverines got the best of Penix’s Washington Huskies that night. Little did both sides know that it would be the convergence of their NFL careers.
A few months later, Penix was drafted by the Atlanta Falcons and McCarthy was drafted by the Minnesota Vikings. Both quarterbacks are in their first full year as a starter, and they’ll meet again when McCarthy hosts Penix on Sunday Night Football.
This is a game that had enough to convince national television executives to throw it in front of a national audience. But the one thing the Vikings can’t afford to do is let Penix turn this into a revenge game.
Penix has a right to feel scorned over his pre-draft process. An oft-injured but electric quarterback at Indiana, he hit another gear when teamed up with Kalen DeBoer at Washington. In two seasons with the Huskies, Penix completed 65.4% of his passes for 6,544 yards, 67 touchdowns, and 19 interceptions with a 25-3 record.
That résumé would be good enough for anyone to believe he’s a franchise quarterback, including the Vikings. Months after Penix officially entered the NFL, SKOR North’s Judd Zulgad said he heard “rumblings” that the Vikings “love him and they liked his arm.” He even went as far as to say that they liked him more than McCarthy, which opens up an entirely new universe.
Instead, Penix wound up being the surprise of draft night. The Falcons had just signed Kirk Cousins to a four-year, $180 million contract in free agency, but that didn’t stop them from taking Penix with the eighth-overall pick. Some draft pundits believed that Penix would have been selected toward the back end of the first round or in the second round, but the Falcons took Penix for a chance at long-term stability at the position.
McCarthy was taken by the Vikings two picks later, seemingly giving Penix some measure of revenge. But the situations were not equal, especially with Cousins moving from Minnesota to Atlanta.
Penix waited behind Cousins for most of the 2024 season until head coach Raheem Morris decided to bench Kirk in December. Over five games (and three starts), Penix completed 58.1% of his passes for 775 yards, three touchdowns and three interceptions. While it wasn’t enough to help the Falcons break out of a late-season swoon and make the playoffs, it inspired optimism that carried over into this season.
The Falcons lost the game to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, but Penix’s season debut went about as well as anyone in Atlanta could have hoped. After throwing for 298 yards and a touchdown, Morris spoke glowingly about his young quarterback and how he could use it as a building block going forward.
“I can’t say enough positive things about him,” Morris said during Wednesday’s press conference via ESPN’s Marc Raimondi. “Him going out there and not turning the football over, getting us to the right read, the right protections, throwing the ball in the right areas, making the right plays at the right times. I mean, he was lights out and we got to help that kid and win games.”
A solid season debut could have made Penix the big story here. But like most of the 19 months since battling for a national championship, McCarthy has stolen the thunder.
Vikings fans know about McCarthy’s journey well. He tore his meniscus before his rookie season ever got started and watched his team fight off Aaron Rodgers’s flirtations before officially becoming the starting quarterback. Even as he took the field on Monday night for his first career start, nobody knew what to expect.
The first three quarters went as bad as you could have expected, but several former quarterbacks turned tape gurus such as J.T. O’Sullivan’s QB School YouTube Channel, noted that McCarthy played well during that frame, making the occasional mistakes you would expect from a rookie quarterback. While the ride was bumpy, McCarthy stuck the landing, leading the Vikings to 21-straight points in a 27-24 comeback victory over the Chicago Bears.
Perhaps this is the victor getting the spoils, but nobody is talking about Penix going into Sunday’s game. McCarthy even won NFC Offensive Player of the Week honors, and most national analysts are spending their time wondering if it was a fluke or McCarthy is the next clutch quarterback to take over the NFL.
So while Cris Collinsworth likely opens Sunday’s game screaming “Now here’s a guy” over a shot of McCarthy warming up, Penix could be on the other sideline plotting his revenge.
Penix is going up against a team that didn’t pass on him but absolutely loves their new quarterback that emerged out of a similar shadow. Penix also played well in Week 1 but didn’t get any of the hype that McCarthy is getting right now. There’s also a team aspect where Penix is surrounded by young talent like Drake London and Bijan Robinson but they’re not considered on the level of the Vikings thanks to the veteran additions they were able to make this offseason.
It has the Vikings facing a very motivated quarterback and one who could seek revenge on Sunday night.