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+--- Thread: Strib's Souhan: After 2 clutch wins, time to appreciate the JJ vibe (/showthread.php?tid=22133)
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Strib's Souhan: After 2 clutch wins, time to appreciate the JJ vibe - StickierBuns - 11-04-2025
Souhan: J.J. McCarthy breathes life into a stale Vikings season
'After three starts and two clutch wins, McCarthy looks like he has the the ideal attitude and personality to be a franchise quarterback.'
https://www.startribune.com/souhan-jj-mccarthy-breathes-life-into-a-stale-vikings-season/601448677
Can someone fact check that this is indeed Jim Souhan, local Minneapolis newspaper dinosaur and card-carrying curmudgeon?
![[Image: VWT2ZB5F6NFFRKOLLN6TCKU7ZQ.jpg?&w=1080]](https://arc.stimg.co/startribunemedia/VWT2ZB5F6NFFRKOLLN6TCKU7ZQ.jpg?&w=1080)
RE: Strib's Souhan: After 2 clutch wins, time to appreciate the JJ vibe - MAD GAINZ - 11-04-2025
Lol, he's won over the hearts of the local media and it happened after the Chicago comeback. Even when he and his fiance had their kid mid-week during the Falcons game and he played bad, they pitchforks didn't come out.
They had time to interview him and get to know him last year and this year. Everyone that meets him talks about how impressive he is and say he's wise beyond his years. Very humble, has that charisma, and swagger.
The people who write about the team for a living realize he's different than any other young QB we've had come thru this building in a looooong time. He just needs to keep proving it on the field.
RE: Strib's Souhan: After 2 clutch wins, time to appreciate the JJ vibe - purplefaithful - 11-04-2025
That kid who played quarterback for the Vikings on Sunday — the 22-year-old with the frizzy hair, baggy clothes and unspoiled grin — could change everything.
Let’s not leap to dreams of Super Bowl championships. That’s an unfair burden to place on someone who looks like he spends his spare time searching under his couch for a PlayStation controller.
Let’s view the belated-yet-sudden rise of J.J. McCarthy in a different and better way.
Let’s view him through the prism of fun.
Fun. Isn’t that what sports are supposed to be? An entertaining escape from reality, an escape from the mundane to the sublime?
We don’t know what the future holds for McCarthy or this Vikings regime. We already know, after three games, that the kid who doesn’t comb his hair is more fun than tax refund day.He needed to produce a game like the Vikings’ 27-24 upset of the Lions in Detroit to highlight his likeability. Christian Ponder was likeable, too, and that didn’t matter when he revealed that he wasn’t an NFL quarterback.
Now that McCarthy is 2-1 as an NFL starter, with his victories both coming in NFC North road games under difficult circumstances, we can appreciate the whole J.J. McCarthy vibe.He’s a nice kid. You can see it in the way he treats teammates and staff, and writers from Michigan, and the way he handles himself when under scrutiny.
But “nice” can be a meaningless compliment if that quality isn’t paired with other football necessities, like talent, toughness and charisma.
After three starts and two clutch wins, McCarthy looks like he has the goods.This isn’t an exhaustive analysis of his football skills. He has much to learn, and he hasn’t earned the right to be compared to the best quarterbacks in the game. Let’s let him throw for 200 yards in a game before we start searching for comparables.
This is more about McCarthy becoming an air freshener for what was becoming a malodorous season.
McCarthy’s personality is a shot of oxygen for a franchise that, since Fran Tarkenton, has spent decades trying out the wrong young quarterbacks and defaulting to the best available veteran quarterbacks.When the young quarterbacks fail and the veteran quarterbacks come with expiration dates, optimism about the position always felt forced.
With his physical talent, winning pedigree and buoyant personality, McCarthy is something unique in recent Vikings history: a young quarterback who has a chance to be an ideal franchise quarterback, for the long haul.
Rich Gannon wasn’t Rich Gannon when he was with the Vikings. Daunte Culpepper had a moment. Ponder failed. Teddy Bridgewater was never a supreme talent, just an admirable game manager, until that awful knee injury altered the arc of his career.
McCarthy is different. He’s a top-10 draft pick in a league where young quarterbacks can thrive. He has a strong arm. He can run. Perhaps much more important, he seems to have the ideal attitude for a public figure.
The NFL is all about tough results — big losses, little losses, big hits, injuries, constant roster change. McCarthy hasn’t let any of that diminish his personality.
McCarthy has the ability to express optimism and joy without sounding fake or programmed.
He seems to hover above all of the daily worries that infuse an NFL franchise.
Sunday afternoon, after he led the Vikings to an upset of the Lions in Detroit, McCarthy almost cried when talking about overcoming injuries. He raved about his teammates, and his time at Michigan.
So often, in the NFL, structured interviews feel scripted. You can see them checking off the talking points. The more clichés, the better, the league seems to believe.
When McCarthy speaks, you sense that he’s a happy guy who actually loves playing football and has no use for excuses. While the entire organization chafed at the silly conspiracy theories about the Vikings inventing an ankle injury to take McCarthy off the field, McCarthy himself seemed unfazed.
After one of the Vikings’ practices in London, McCarthy walked the path from the field to the locker room, bumping fists with everyone he saw, whether he knew them or not.
We can’t know where McCarthy is headed, but we’re probably going to enjoy the ride.
RE: Strib's Souhan: After 2 clutch wins, time to appreciate the JJ vibe - MAD GAINZ - 11-04-2025
That's exactly the authenticity and charisma people talk about when they meet him. He's not fake. He's genuine, a leader, and people are drawn to him. Ultra competitor. If he can keep himself healthy and get more experience, we'll be in good hands for the next decade or more.
RE: Strib's Souhan: After 2 clutch wins, time to appreciate the JJ vibe - StickierBuns - 11-04-2025
(10 hours ago)MAD GAINZ Wrote: That's exactly the authenticity and charisma people talk about when they meet him. He's not fake. He's genuine, a leader, and people are drawn to him. Ultra competitor. If he can keep himself healthy and get more experience, we'll be in good hands for the next decade or more.
And I knew this is exactly how it would go down. This kid is inevitable as far as a stranger liking and respecting him, especially teammates and Viking fans. As a player said, 'JJ glows....and when you are around him, you glow too'. Sounds corny and romanticized....eye roll material. But in a world of contrived speech, melodramatic feelings and self serving false modesty there's JJ McCarthy: a genuine article in a world so missing in that department.
RE: Strib's Souhan: After 2 clutch wins, time to appreciate the JJ vibe - MAD GAINZ - 11-04-2025
(10 hours ago)StickierBuns Wrote: And I knew this is exactly how it would go down. This kid is inevitable as far as a stranger liking and respecting him, especially teammates and Viking fans. As a player said, 'JJ glows....and when you are around him, you glow too'. Sounds corny and romanticized....eye roll material. But in a world of contrived speech, melodramatic feelings and self serving false modesty there's JJ McCarthy: a genuine article in a world so missing in that department.
The way he quickly won over veterans like Greenard, Aaron Jones, Justin Jefferson, etc. Guys who made it in the league and they're talking about how impressive he is as a person and a leader in his rookie season... It makes your ears perk up. Then you have former players like Dan Orlovsky, Tom Brady, etc that are raving about the type of kid he is before he's even done anything on the field...
He's made of impressive stuff. Glad he's our QB.
RE: Strib's Souhan: After 2 clutch wins, time to appreciate the JJ vibe - StickierBuns - 11-04-2025
![[Image: ubpznkzouwyf1.gif]](https://i.redd.it/ubpznkzouwyf1.gif)
Too soon?
RE: Strib's Souhan: After 2 clutch wins, time to appreciate the JJ vibe - MAD GAINZ - 11-04-2025
LOL
If you got nipple piercings, go ahead and give'em a twist, Sticky.
RE: Strib's Souhan: After 2 clutch wins, time to appreciate the JJ vibe - StickierBuns - 11-04-2025
![[Image: G42Hk4qWUAIRJX4?format=jpg&name=small]](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/G42Hk4qWUAIRJX4?format=jpg&name=small)
RE: Strib's Souhan: After 2 clutch wins, time to appreciate the JJ vibe - Zanary - 11-04-2025
I'd say some pitchforks came out after the bad Atlanta game and he was re-injured. We had a growing number of the "quit-b*****s" lining up to babble about "soft benching" and other (purple?) tinfoil hat nonsense. Some of the sports bobbleheads were pretty quick to put the brakes on yesterday, too, and pointed out both the relatively (and bizarre) identical stat line with Week 1, but also that the kid has now played 12 quarters of NFL football.
One thing that's increasingly clear: when this season's done, he might have missed less time than a number of other QB1s.