On Sunday Night Football, Sam Darnold went out and showed the Minnesota Vikings another reason why they should miss him.
Darnold was nearly flawless on the road to the Washington Commanders, who made the NFC Championship game last season. He went an absurd 21 for 24, tossing four touchdowns, with the Seattle Seahawks going up 31-7 before his first incompletion of the day. It was the kind of efficient but explosive performance Vikings fans were accustomed to seeing last year.
Hours before Darnold steamrolled the Commanders, J.J. McCarthy was supposed to prove why the Vikings would miss their old signal-caller. Vegas favored the Detroit Lions by almost double digits, and Dan Campbell‘s squad was 5-1 all-time against Kevin O’Connell‘s Vikings. The rookie McCarthy didn’t have a particularly efficient performance, going just 14-for-25.
Everything pointed to Monday being yet another day where Vikings fans would suffer through another round of Non-Buyer’s Remorse over letting Darnold slip to Seattle. And if the final score had been Lions 27, Vikings 24, that likely would still have been the case. The Vikings got so close to stealing a game on the road in Ford Field. Imagine if they had their MVP from last year in the huddle!
But the Vikings didn’t have to imagine it. The result on Sunday looked an awful lot like what McCarthy must have visualized while meditating on the sidelines pre-game. The Vikings didn’t just save their season with an upset on the road that few saw coming. They did so because their quarterback was McCarthy, and not Darnold.
That feels bold to say, with Darnold hurling over 6,000 yards with a touchdown-to-interception ratio of 50 to 17. At the same time: scoreboard. Darnold won 14 games for the Vikings last season, but the Lions were one of two teams he couldn’t solve last year. Say anything else you want about McCarthy, but he figured out the solution to beating them in his third NFL start.
That has to mean something.
He missed several throws, too. But it's hard not to get excited about the upside when you see a guy do stuff like this, in career start No. 3, against one of the league's top teams.
J.J. McCarthy's best plays vs. Lions: pic.twitter.com/Kvl8M6Rj0N
— Will Ragatz (@WillRagatz) November 3, 2025
A cynic can easily point out the myriad of things that broke McCarthy’s way, and there were plenty of opportunities for the Vikings to seize. Detroit was unusually undisciplined, drawing 10 penalties. Blake Cashman turned a first-down run by David Montgomery into a fumble, off of which McCarthy punched in a 35-yard touchdown drive. Levi Drake Rodriguez blocked a field goal that turned the score from potentially 24-20 to a 27-17 Vikings lead in the fourth quarter.
Did McCarthy need all those breaks? Absolutely. But the thing we forget about Darnold’s games against Detroit last year is that he also got plenty of breaks.
Those are easier to recall in their Week 7 matchup at U.S. Bank Stadium, and none was bigger than Ivan Pace‘s fumble recovery touchdown to put the Vikings in the driver’s seat, up 29-28, giving Darnold a chance to put Minnesota up by a field goal. But the quarterback couldn’t take advantage, missing Justin Jefferson on the two-point conversion, and the Vikings lost 31-29.
Darnold arguably had more go right for him in Week 18, despite the eventual 31-9 drubbing. Pace gave the Vikings offense another gift, with an interception resulting in first-and-goal at the seven-yard line. Darnold threw three incompletions and came away with three points.
On Detroit’s next drive, the defense got another stop with a turnover on downs that gave them the ball near midfield. Darnold stalled out in the red zone, with an incomplete pass on third-and-five at the Lions’ 13. Another field goal. In the third quarter, a Harrison Smith interception gave Minnesota another short field to drive for a touchdown that would erase a 10-6 deficit.
You guessed it: The Vikings settled for another field goal, thanks largely to Darnold getting dinged for intentional grounding. After that, the defense stopped getting stops. However, for over two quarters, they did everything they could to put Darnold in a position to take command of the game. He couldn’t do that, not against Detroit, and not against the Los Angeles Rams.
Meanwhile, McCarthy joins Patrick Mahomes, Josh Allen, Jayden Daniels, Jordan Love, and Baker Mayfield on the list of quarterbacks who’ve bested the Lions over the past two seasons. Is that an accident?
The stat sheet might suggest that, but McCarthy made plays in big moments. Starting with a 7-0 deficit, he nearly threw a touchdown pass to Jordan Addison on his first attempt of the game, only to actually toss one to Justin Jefferson two plays later. On his next drive, he went three for three with a touchdown to take the lead. His touchdown scramble made Alex Anzalone look silly.
Then, of course, there’s the throw to Jalen Nailor that iced the game.
J.J. McCarthy is simply a gamer.
He's 2-1 as a starter, with both wins over division rivals on the road. Vikings stun the Lions in Detroit.pic.twitter.com/vxWE2yUxvK
— Will Ragatz (@WillRagatz) November 2, 2025
It’s not just how big the moment was, even though that’s significant. The thing required for McCarthy to seal the game was his biggest weakness throughout: throwing with touch. A howitzer would’ve been defendable, or may not have agreed with Nailor’s hands. He took as disadvantageous a spot as you could think of and stepped up despite being asked to play against his strengths.
Can he do that over a full season? That remains to be seen. But we know McCarthy can do that, because we just saw it. Knowing what we know, having seen what we’ve seen from Darnold, is that in him?
You’d have to say no. And while a Week 9 win, no matter how big, can’t single-handedly justify Minnesota’s decision to go with McCarthy over Darnold, getting this specific win against this specific team goes a long way to turning the argument in McCarthy’s favor.