Instead, one final game-wrecking mistake — this time a 61-yard kick return allowed by the Vikings’ special teams — foiled any chance JJ McCarthy & Co. had of stealing a home win they didn’t deserve, against a Bears team that was trying to give it to them.

The Vikings’ obvious issue Sunday afternoon was under center. Early and often against the Bears, young quarterback J.J. McCarthy struggled see open wide receivers.

Even when he did, the 22-year-old former first round pick couldn’t hit them most of the time. He rocketed balls that needed touch, an issue that has plagued him going back to his days at Michigan.

Did JJ McCarthy hit rock bottom vs Bears?

But that was far from his only problem in week 11, where he was all over the place, missing high, missing low missing to and fro. McCarthy has laid some duds this season, but against Chicago, let’s hope he hit rock bottom.

On Sunday, KOC tasked McCarthy to throw the ball 32 times. His QB rewarded him by completing just 16 of them (50%), sprinkling in a couple of terrible interceptions along the way. 98% of the redshirt rookie’s performance this weekend looked like a slow car accident.

⚠️JJ McCarthy on the @Vikings Opening drive
– Underthrows a wide open Jordan Addison
– Overthrows a wide open Justin Jefferson#Skol pic.twitter.com/XwLpcwp9LY

— Intrinsic (@intrinsicvalyou) November 16, 2025

Related: Former Gopher Calls for Vikings to Replace JJ McCarthy

And then out of nowhere, the final drive happened. With all the money on the line, when the Vikings needed it post, JJ drove the offense 85 yards on 10 plays, completing 6-of-8 passes. His final throw of the game was a touchdown to Jordan Addison that gave Minnesota the lead with just 50 seconds left to play (see below)

Tough love from Minnesota Vikings legend Cris Carter

And that’s where former NFL linebacker-turned FOX Sports analyst Emmanuel Acho wanted to shift focus after Sunday’s loss, posting a video of JJ’s last-minute TD pass on X, along with the caption “J.J. McCarthy got that clutch gene!!”

Well, MN Vikings legend Cris Carter was having none of that Acho’s positivity. Shortly after his colleague at FOX posted about McCarthy’s final drive, Carter quote tweeted it saying, “Did you watch the first 59 minutes”. Yikes…

Did you watch the first 59 mins ? 👎🏾 https://t.co/vziZ8y2BQN

— Cris Carter (@criscarter80) November 17, 2025

Carter is a Hall of Fame wide receiver. He’s certainly going to side with guys from his position group. As a Minnesota Vikings legend though, he knows there is little benefit to tearing down the team’s talent. The problem is that the reality has become to glaring to overlook.

For weeks it has seemed as though Kevin O’Connell’s playcalling has been a problem holding the Vikings back. On Sunday, however, he was in over his head in an offense that was clearly simplified to make life easier for him.

When asked after the game how poorly McCarthy would have to play for the head coach to replace him with former Gopher Max Brosmer, KOC declined to answer the question.

Q: Is there a level of performance that [J.J. McCarthy] would need to get to for you to consider whether he should be replaced in a game?

Kevin O'Connell: "Yeah, I'm not going to get into any of that right now."

— Kevin Seifert (@SeifertESPN) November 16, 2025

Cris Carter backs the Minnesota Vikings to Stephen A. Smith

Sam Darnold has seen his stock rise with strong play in recent weeks. The Minnesota Vikings are among the hottest teams in the NFL. Hall of Famer Cris Carter has certainly been watching, but it’s worth wondering if Stephen A. Smith has been. Carter opened his appearance by asking Smith why he doesn’t talk about “The Purple.”

Former @Vikings Hall of Fame WR @criscarter80 putting @stephenasmith in his place regarding the #Vikings 🗣️

Smith still isn’t buying the Vikings because of QB Sam Darnold… 🤔

🎥: Stephen A. Smith Show / YT pic.twitter.com/FXOHAp0ggX

— The Purple Persuasion (@TPPSkol) September 24, 2024

“Why should I? You forget who your quarterback is. We talking about Sam Darnold ok. You can bring up what we’ve seen over the first three games. You giving me three games, I could give you six years of ineptitude on his part before these three games. What’s the issue?”

Stephen A. Smith on Sam Darnold (YouTube)

Carter quickly keeps Smith in check by noting his willingness to “change his stripes.” Both Geno Smith and Baker Mayfield have been given a new outlook. Both of those quarterbacks struggled early in their career only to find success under new regimes. Carter also talks up just how much of an impact coaching makes, and notes the job Kevin O’Connell is doing this season.

The reality, as Carter also astutely points out, is that neither Mayfield or Geno Smith have the same offensive weapons that the Vikings do. Their ability to sustain success is less likely with the talent around them than it is for Darnold. Stephen A. can only muster up “a little bit of credit” though.

Related: That ESPN Guy is Still Doubting Sam Darnold and the Vikings

It’s beyond clear that Carter still is in sync with what Minnesota is doing and has seen Darnold operate on a weekly basis. Stephen A. has made a career out of shock value, and there’s no reason to believe that he’s going to change that reality now.

This is such a good throw. Sam Darnold man pic.twitter.com/I4vl5YKLT9

— Matt Throne (@Matt_Throne) September 22, 2024

Sam Darnold must continue to prove it on a weekly basis if the Vikings want to run with their newfound playoff aspirations. That being said, at some point it will be just a given that he truly is a good quarterback. Bill Belichick recently talked about the New York Jets being the only organization that didn’t know what to do with Darnold. It’s becoming near-impossible to argue with that.

Related: Sam Darnold’s QB Stock on the Rise Again

The more positive steps forward that Darnold can take with the Vikings, the less that any doubters of his performance will have a leg to stand on.

Ask any middle-age Vikings fan (35-55) which NFL wide receiver has/had the best hands of all time, the answer will be the same. It was Cris Carter. No doubt, no room for argument. Second best hands of all time go to Randy Moss… but that’s for another article.

Cris Carter might’ve had the best hands in NFL history pic.twitter.com/nkEIiUZ99F

— BetMGM 🦁 (@BetMGM) July 26, 2024

When Carter’s 16 year playing career finally ended, he took to analyzing the NFL for ESPN. There, the Vikings legend worked on NFL Countdown, hosted a radio show and did guest appearances on various weekday morning shows, including First Take, back when it used to have the infamous Skip Bayless on it.

For those who don’t know, Bayless was the original star of ESPN’s First Take. He started it on its current path, before bringing on Stephen A. Smith. Together full time, from 2012 to 2015, Skip and Stephen A. built First Take into the daily powerhouse it still is.

Minnesota Vikings legend Cris Carter does not like Skip Bayless

Cris Carter, much like many sports fans around the world, is not a fan of Skip. His dislike for the now 72-year-old Bayless dates back to (likely) 2011 or 2012, when he appeared on First Take with Skip and Stephen A., and the discussion turned to Tim Tebow.

It’s important to note that Bayless got famous as a sports media personality, in part, due to his willingness to die on take hills, rather than admit defeat. For example, Skip came up as an NBA reporter during the Michael Jordan era, so he has refused to admit that LeBron James is good at basketball, since James was in high school. To this day, he still hates on James every chance he gets.

But nothing will ever top Skip’s stance on Tim Tebow. Unlike with LeBron, Bayless his professional reputation to the success of Tebow, and he was willing to ride Tebowmania into the NFL Hall of Fame or die in his vehicle, as it crashed and burned into the annals of NFL history.

As we now know, it took three years for the latter to happen. Skip Bayless, however, still believes he was a great QB. And during that time, he was Tim Tebow’s No. 1 fan and he let everyone know about it. Even back when Tebow magic had taken over America, Carter wasn’t having it.

Carter threatened to punch Skip in the face of Super Bowl comment

So, he supposedly told Skip on air that Tebow doesn’t throw the ball well enough to play QB in the league. To that, Skip said the one thing to Cris Carter that nobody can ever come back from. ‘that’s why you didn’t win a Super Bowl’. I’ll let CC finish the story, on what happened next (transcribed below the video).

“I’m gonna be honest with you, Skip Bayless is not one of my favorite people. I’m on there doing the show, I do the show and everything. This was when the [Tim] Tebow phenomenon was going on, and he was a huge Tim Tebow guy.

“So, I come on there on a Monday and we’re trading barbs and everything, we’re going back and forth. I just leveled with him and said, ‘listen, if throwing the football is important in the NFL, Tim Tebow will never be a starting quarterback in the NFL’.

So, he got defensive and he came back and said, ‘well that’s why you didn’t win a Super Bowl’, which has got nothing to do with nothing. We went to commercial, I took my ear piece out and I told him, ‘I’ll never be on this show again and if you ever say anything like that to me again, I’ll punch you right in the fucking face’.”

Cris Carter (Fully Loaded Podcast)

Related: Does Kirk Cousins Regret Leaving the Minnesota Vikings?

The now infamous First Take was actually spawned from a much larger ESPN project called “Cold Pizza“, which ran on ESPN2 from 2003 to 2007, before ESPN First Take replaced it. Now, it stars Stephen A. Smith, but it was Skip who put the show on its current track.

Cris Carter was really good at football

During his NFL career, Cris Carter hauled in 1101 receptions for 13,899 yards and 130 touchdowns. He played 12 seasons for the Minnesota Vikings, where he produced more than 1000 of his career receptions, over 12,000 of his receiving yards and 110 of his career touchdowns.

And as Vikings fans, we know exactly what it’s like when every football argument ends in not having a Super Bowl. Skip should’ve known better.

How good were they?

According to The Athletic, the 1998 Vikings were the best NFL team without a Super Bowl appearance in the last 50 years. The 1976 Vikings just barely missed the cut landing a spot in the “On the Fringe” category. The scary 1998 Vikings came in at 16th on the list of 25.

Take it for what you will, it obviously does not compare to making it to the Super Bowl and winning it all. At least we can hang our hat on the fact that we are the best non-Super Bowl participant in recent history.

16. 1998 Minnesota Vikings (90.53)

How they fared: Lost 30-27 in overtime to Falcons in NFC Championship Game

Record: 15-1 (.938)

While reaching and winning Super Bowls helped teams in this ranking, the 1998 Vikings proved it was possible for a team to factor despite falling short of that standard. Minnesota set a league record with 556 points (since broken) and became the only team to score at least 24 points in every regular-season game during the 16-game era (since matched by the 2018 Chiefs). Counting playoffs, the 1998 Vikings and the 2018 Chiefs are the only teams to score at least 24 points in 18 games during the same season. They led the NFC Championship Game 20-7 at halftime and led by a touchdown with less than two minutes remaining.

The Athletic – The 25 most dominant NFL teams of the last 50 years

The 1998 Vikings were led by a lethal offense featuring Randall Cunningham, Randy Moss, Cris Carter, Jake Reed, and Robert Smith. The Vikings outscored their opponents 556 – 296 and finished the regular season at 15-1, with their only loss coming against old NFC Central rival, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

This team had no shortage of awards come their way, as to be expected with 10 players making the Pro Bowl and 7 making 1st Team All-Pro. The two biggest honors the 1998 Vikings received were Randall Cunningham winning the Bert Bell Award (Player of the Year), and Randy Moss earning the AP Offensive Rookie of the year. 

via GIPHY

The 1998 Minnesota Vikings truly were the greatest football team the Twin Cities has seen since the likes of the Purple People Eaters, and maybe even beyond that. It is a shame we couldn’t have a Super Bowl parade down South 5th Street in front of the Metrodome.

We can only hope that we have the privilege of seeing another Vikings team that is half as exciting as this team was, but this time getting the job done. 

Cam Thompson | Minnesota Sports Fan

Excitement has been building and the red blood normally flowing through the Minnesota body is slowly dulling and darkening into the deep, thick purple that flows through a Vikings fan for 6 months of the year. Scrolling through Twitter, as social media tries its best to bring me down like the rest of society, I can’t help but notice all of the Vikings’ record predictions I’m seeing. Naturally, Minnesota fans are tempering expectations. It’s the easy argument this year. Nobody is calling for an epic collapse, with the Vikings returning 19 of 22 starters plus Kirk Cousins, but you’re seeing a lot of rational thought around the idea that a 13-3 season is just a difficult thing to bring to fruition, especially two years in a row.

Fair.

Plus, we don’t have to look any farther than our own recent history to give even more credibility to that difficulty. The Vikings have had 3 NFC Championship Game runs since their dominance in the 70’s (which also ended in heartbreak as most know). The three seasons that followed those heartbreaking games ranged anywhere from disappointing to downright disastrous.

So, let’s look back; shall we?

The Disappointing (1999-‘00):

Following the great 1998 season, where an infamous missed FG (one of them) in the NFC Championship proved to be the only force that could stop Randy Moss & Co. that season, the Vikings entered Training Camp 1999 as bigger favorites than Hillary Clinton at the start of the 2016 election season. Both scenarios also ended quite similarly. After beating the Falcons in a Week 1 revenge game, the Vikings lost 4 of their next 5 and were bitch-slapped by the reality of life in the NFL. You need to bring it every game and every season. Nobody walks through that league.

However, the team would rebound to make the playoffs and even secure a victory in the Wild Card round over the Cowboys. But, that’s all the further they’d make it as the St. Louis version of the “Greatest Show on Turf” outscored them in an epic dome shootout that ended with a ridiculous playoff score of 39-47.

I started with the letdown of the ‘99-‘00 season just to get you lubed up. Because, it gets a lot worse from there.

The Disastrous (2001-‘02):

After the frustration of the season referenced above, the Vikings came back for vengeance in the ‘00-‘01 season. The focus out of camp was much more evident as they started the season with a perfect 7-0 record. However, they finished in frustrating fashion, losing their last 3 games, but still backed into a first round bye with an 11-5 record.

After disposing of the Saints with ease in the Divisional Round, we all know what happened in New York the next week vs the Kerry Collins-led Giants…

41-DONUT

Returning most of the key pieces from that NFC Title game squad, the Vikings had high expectations again, entering ‘01-‘02. When you have Randy Moss, Cris Carter, and Daunte Culpepper coming off of 4K yards and 33 TD’s the year before, that’s what happens. This time however, the disappointment of a year that fell far-short of our expectations didn’t linger into the playoffs. It sucker punched us like a bad WWE script.

The team started 1-3 and it didn’t get much better from there. After a 5-10 start, Dennis Green was fired and so we began the Mike Tice era. He would only go on to ruin the rest of our time with Randy Moss, coaching 4 seasons, and finishing over .500 only half of the time with uber-talented teams (9-7 record both years over) and only making the playoffs once (2004 | 8-8).

2010 Brett Favre (2010-‘11):

And that, of course, brings us to the Brett Favre saga. He came in the most dramatic of fashion to play Jesus for a wine-thirsty franchise he once despised for a legendary 2009 season that will forever live in Minnesota infamy for many reasons that we don’t need to live through again. Favre should have done two things after that Saints game. He should have called the New Orleans police and charged their football team with multiple accounts of assault and attempted murder (among possible other charges), AND he also should have retired FOR GOOD. Instead, he popped some more pain meds and let his teammates drag his old ass onto the field for one more comeback season. I mean, it was most of the same characters so what could go wrong, right?

Brett should have realized his mistake and slipped back into hibernation after the first game vs New Orleans, when the offense was only able to muster nine points in a loss. It didn’t get much better from there. Favre would lose his consecutive games started streak after getting beat to shit for 13.5 games and the team would stumble to a 6-10 record that would bring an end to Brad Childress’ head coaching career and result in the drafting of Christian Ponder and the free agency signing of Donavon McNabb…

Minneapolis Miracle to Philadelphia Letdown (2018-‘19):

And here we are again. Another life-changing Minnesota Vikings season, that ended in another mind-numbing NFC Championship embarrassment, brings on a new year with most of the same team and VERY lofty expectations. Are we in for another heartbreak season after an entire offseason of hype and….. hope?

You’ll have to wait until tomorrow to find out. I’ll drop my record projection in part 2 of this article. Come on, this is already almost 1000 words. Nobody wants to read more than that in one sitting.

See you tomorrow…

Eric Strack
Minnesota Sports Fan @RealMNSportsFan

I don’t want to date myself. Despite the cash I’d save on Valentines Day, being my own significant other wouldn’t be a good look. (That was a play on the two different meanings of the word “date”, in case you missed it.)

As for how old I am, with the Minnesota Vikings being founded in 1960, the organization is more than twice my elder. With the first several years of my life being almost as much of a blur as college, my memories of the Purple prior to the 1998 season are few and far between. If the topic of conversation relates to events that occurred before number 84 hit the NFL scene, I’m as uneducated as certain Philadelphia Eagles’ fans.

Well, maybe not that uneducated, but still. If I had to breakdown the Top 10 Vikings of all time, it would be a disservice to those I either never saw, or don’t remember seeing, play. Rather than crash my proverbial car while trying to navigate down that bumpy ass road, let’s dissect the results of those who already made the voyage.

Our @AccessVikings team, and lots of others from the @StribSports staff, tried to do what’s nearly impossible — rank the Top 10 @Vikings of all time. How did we do? https://t.co/HdrdYxkm8A pic.twitter.com/ETrJHbk7go

— Access Vikings (@AccessVikings) January 31, 2018

Per the link in the above Tweet, 12 Star Tribune staffers ranked, in order, their top 10 Vikings of all time. With my brain telling me that’s a total of 120 selections, here’s my brain telling you how said selections break down:

This shows how many of the 12 writers voted for each player (Only 3 players received votes from every writer):

• Alan Page (12/12)
• Randy Moss (12/12)
• Randall McDaniel (12/12)
• Carl Eller (11/12)
• Adrian Peterson (11/12)
• Fran Tarkenton (10/12)
• Cris Carter (10/12)
• Mick Tingelhoff (10/12)
• John Randle (9/12)
• Paul Krause (6/12)
• Ron Yary (5/12)
• Jim Marshall (5/12)
• Joey Browner (2/12)
• Chris Doleman (2/12)
• Gary Zimmerman (1/12)
• Bill Brown (1/12)
• Fred Cox (1/12)

Out of the dozen participants, half had Alan Page as their top Viking of all time, while four had Fran Tarkenton. In regards to the two outliers, Jim Souhan gave his top spot to Randall McDaniel, while Michael Rand went with Carl Eller.

Anyone know if Alan Page ever hung out w/Lebron’s mom? Just curious. pic.twitter.com/NEARp4nZjK

— Johnny Minnesota (@TheJohnnyMN) January 7, 2018

On top of that, as you can see, Page, Randy Moss, and Randall McDaniel were the only ones who made all of the top 10 rankings. I know I’m a novice on a the first 35+ years of Vikings history, but shouldn’t those three be joined by Fran Tarkenton and Carl Eller? What did the fans think?

That’s what I thought. The above is comprised from over 5,000 lists submitted by members of Skol Nation.

The most glaring difference between the fan’s G.O.A.T. Vikings and the Star Tribune’s version is that the fans omitted Mick Tingelhoff. On the opposite side of the fence, the HOF center made all but two of the Star Tribunes’ lists. Whoops! Our bad. It could have been worse. At least we didn’t pull a Souhan and leave out Carl Eller.

When someone completes this exercise twenty years from now, which current Vikings have the best chance of bumping Chuck Foreman from the fans top 10? Harry the Hitman? #RhodesClosed? One of our UCLA LBs?

Hell, maybe Stefon Diggs or Adam Thielen can join Moss and Cris Carter as the only WRs to make the cut. In order for that to occur, we’re going to need John DeFilippo to live up to all the hype surrounding his hiring as the Vikes’ offensive coordinator.

It may be overkill, but here is another reason to get excited about the John DeFilippo hiring: pic.twitter.com/ChVXyYmFjX

— Johnny Minnesota (@TheJohnnyMN) February 9, 2018

Johnny Minnesota @TheJohnnyMN
Minnesota Sports Fan MinnesotaSportsFan.com