USA TODAY National
J.J. McCarthy only has one setting: turbo.
That was on full display as his Minnesota Vikings flailed against a Chicago Bears defense that ranked 21st against the pass coming into Week 11. McCarthy stepped into almost every throw, blasting lasers downfield in front of his home crowd.
The second-year quarterback — in his fifth game as a pro thanks to injuries — had a chance to stake the Vikings' claim in dense NFC North race. A win would push Minnesota to 5-5 and chip away at Chicago's place in the divisional standings. A loss would put McCarthy's team 1.5 games out of the NFC's final playoff spot with a daunting schedule to wrap up 2025.
McCarthy opted for the latter. He sprayed passes across the turf at U.S. Bank Stadium but, for three quarters, rarely where he intended.
McCarthy was, plainly put, a mess in Week 11. His self belief — or belief in his alter ego, Nine — led him to launch balls into tight windows downfield. Many of these sailed over his targets' heads into into the sideline. Some were hero throws that instead made Chicago cornerbacks look legendary.
Credit where it's due — that's a modest underthrow and one heck of a play from Nahshon Wright. The interception that preceded it, however, well...
These would be tough plays for reigning MVPs. McCarthy didn't back down from them and looked like the quasi-rookie he is in the process. He completed only half his pass attempts. He needed 32 passes to throw for 150 yards. He threw 10 passes on third down and completed two of them.
Sunday's performance wasn't entirely on McCarthy. He did have some modest bad luck from the receiving corps built to prop him up. Still, a couple extra catches wouldn't have smoothed over the kind of performance that can lose a fan base five starts into your career.
McCarthy was good for -19 expected points added (EPA) in three quarters Sunday afternoon. Every four of his dropbacks resulted in a field goal's worth of lost offensive value.
Then, the guy who shined hard enough to derail the Bears in Week 1 bubbled back to the surface. The first-year starter was good for a touchdown's worth of excess value in the fourth quarter alone. The laser beams that created trouble earlier found their windows; Minnesota took a 17-16 lead with 50 seconds to play on this beautiful throw to Jordan Addison.
That wound up a moot point; Minnesota gave up a 56-yard kickoff return to open up the ensuing drive. Chicago escaped with a win. Vikings fans were left to wonder what, exactly, their team is — both this year and into the future.
McCarthy's all gas, no brakes passing attack creates vulnerabilities for a team that had one drive that gained more than 40 yards in the first 56 minutes of Sunday's game. It also generated the 85-yard march that gave Minnesota the lead with 50 seconds to play. McCarthy threw eight passes that traveled more than 15 yards downfield. He completed as many of those to Bears defenders as he did his own teammates. Nearly half his throws (15 of 32) went to targets at least 10 yards beyond the line of scrimmage. He turned those into only 76 yards (and the Addison touchdown above).
Lest you think this is a one-game issue, it is not. There's no better contingency plan for an NFL quarterback than "just chuck it up to Justin Jefferson." But the hyperactive quarterback seems to perpetually do too much even when he should have simple pitch/catch game with a probable Hall of Famer meant to make his life easier.
McCarthy is not a good quarterback. He could be down the line, but for the vast majority of Sunday's game he appeared overmatched, jittery and generally a poor bet. Then, like in Week 1, Chicago let him stick around long enough to mount a comeback. Eventually, the game comes to the young QB — the question is whether or not it happens before things are out of hand.
That's going to be the story of his career. McCarthy needs to mitigate better, accept checkdowns and rein in his tendencies toward hero ball when they no longer work against NFL defenses. There's still good to be mined there. There's also a whole layer of slop the Vikings have to drill through to get to it.
The silver lining? McCarthy improved just enough at the end of his game to miss out on an official place in this week's grossest quarterbacks.
To get a better idea of who performed best relative to expectations in Week 11, I've compared every starting quarterback's expected points added (EPA, found here in real time thanks to some exceptional work from The Athletic's Ben Baldwin) to their 2025 average. The players who sunk below their own standard the hardest? They're the ones who get written about.
But before we dig into the passing schadenfreude, let's talk about the quarterbacks who exceeded their standard in Week 11.
Jameis Winston, New York Giants
- 2025 EPA/game: n/a
- Week 11 EPA: 8.8
- Difference: 8.8 points better
Don't let the numbers fool you. The Packers dropped at least four interceptable passes Sunday before finally picking Winston off in the fourth quarter. Some were bad luck deflections. Others were low-key hilarity.
Mason Rudolph, Pittsburgh Steelers
- 2025 EPA/game: n/a
- Week 11 EPA: 9.6
- Difference: 9.6 points better
In terms of EPA, Rudolph had the highest per-snap value of any Steeler quarterback this season. The only performance that came close was Aaron Rodgers in Week 7... against this same deficient Bengals secondary. Maybe there will eventually be a QB controversy in Pittsburgh, but it won't be from Sunday's result.
Cam Ward, Tennessee Titans
- 2025 EPA/game: -11.8
- Week 11 EPA: 1.3
- Difference: 13.1 points better
Josh Allen, Buffalo Bills
- 2025 EPA/game: 6.3
- Week 11 EPA: 19.2
- Difference: 13.1 points better
Bryce Young, Carolina Panthers
- 2025 EPA/game: -5.6
- Week 11 EPA: 14.9
- Difference: 20.5 points better
Now let's look at the guys who couldn't live up to even modest expectations.
5. Caleb Williams, Chicago Bears
- 2025 EPA/game: 2.3
- Week 11 EPA: -2.2
- Difference: 4.5 points worse
What could have been a preview of a budding division rivalry between two quarterbacks drafted in the same class instead landed with a resounding thud in the Twin Cities. Week 11's Bears-Vikings showdown was a sea battle between ships with misaligned cannons and sun-blind captains. We hit McCarthy above, but Williams can't escape blame on a Sunday where he spent most of his afternoon avoiding pass rushers and struggling to find openings downfield.
To his credit, Williams' escapability was vital to avoiding negative plays on a day where he was blitzed every three out of four dropbacks. Look at this nonsense. This is the kind of play that gets furniture broken back in a defense's locker room.
While Williams is an established dual-threat asset, his downfield accuracy could be the flaw that keeps him from reaching his potential as a franchise quarterback. 13 of his 32 throws traveled at least 15 yards downfield. Only two of those were completions, leading to 32 net yards — or under 2.5 yards per attempt. That's how Cole Kmet wound up leading his team in both receptions (five) and receiving yards (45).
Behold, Chicago's longest play of the day — on a pass that traveled five yards beyond the line of scrimmage.
Still, accuracy can develop over time. The Josh Allen-type scrambles out of danger? Those are much tougher to nurture. Williams isn't perfect, but he remains encouraging even in a lackluster passing day.
4. Matthew Stafford, Los Angeles Rams
- 2025 EPA/game: 7.7
- Week 11 EPA: -4
- Difference: 11.7 points worse
Stafford added two touchdown passes to give himself a 22:0 TD:INT ratio over his last seven games. He also completed only 53 percent of his attempts and needed 28 passes to throw for 130 yards. That left him a lofty perch to be knocked from, putting his name on this list despite a 21-19 win over a Super Bowl contender (well, maybe. See Darnold, Sam below).
Head coach Sean McVay implemented a playbook of short, quick passes to limit the impact of Seattle's top-three pressure rate. That worked wonders; Stafford wasn't sacked and only hit thee times. It also meant Stafford only threw seven passes that traveled more than nine yards downfield. He completed two of those and generally struggled to get anything going to the left side of the field, creating a blueprint the Seahawks studied to limit LA to only seven second half points (and even that was after taking over at the Seattle 25-yard line following a Darnold interception).
Stafford completed one of four third down passes in the second half. He didn't convert a single third down. That nearly created the leverage for the Seahawks to steal a win.
But they didn't. Now the Rams are 8-2 and in control of the NFC West. They can handle a slightly underwhelming game from their MVP candidate quarterback.
3. Shedeur Sanders, Cleveland Browns
- 2025 EPA/game: n/a
- Week 11 EPA: -14.1
- Difference: 14.1 points worse
Good news, Shedeur Truthers; your prized rookie finally got meaningful snaps in an NFL game. Bad news, Shedeur Truthers; he looked like a player rightfully buried on the saddest quarterback depth chart in the league.
Sanders has ostensibly been squaring off against one of the league's most accomplished pass rushes in practice, yet seemed woefully unprepared for the pressure produced by the Baltimore Ravens. His first three third downs in the regular season? Sack, interception, sack — and, true to preseason form, Sanders managed to lose double-digit yardage on those two sacks.
He converted a single third down in two quarters of play. Late in the fourth quarter of a 19-19 game he took an intentional grounding penalty on third-and-long, backing up his punt unit and allowing the Ravens to start a game-winning drive from inside Browns territory. He gained 20 net passing yards on 18 dropbacks. He completed four of 16 passes. One of those completions traveled more than five yards downfield.
Even against the soft expectations of Cleveland Browns quarterbacking, this was rough. Sanders did nothing to prove he's even an NFL-caliber backup quarterback, let alone a franchise building block for a needy team. Any modest notes of optimism — like a game-tying touchdown knocked away at the last second:
Were washed away immediately after. Like, say, by throwing a fourth down pass with the game on the line short of the sticks (after running backward away from pressure, naturally):
There's still time for Sanders to improve, but these are the same mistakes we saw from him in the preseason. He generates far too many negative plays, creating the leverage for a flawed team like Baltimore to rally from a 16-10 fourth quarter deficit for a win. The Browns have nothing to lose by throwing him back into the fire next week if Dillon Gabriel remains limited by the head injury he suffered Sunday. But the most they're likely to gain is draft position next spring.
2. Justin Herbert, Los Angeles Chargers
- 2025 EPA/game: 2.2
- Week 11 EPA: -12.8
- Difference: 15 points worse
The Chargers announced their arrival by beating the Kansas City Chiefs in Week 1. The football gods reminded them who they are by thoroughly thrashing their roster with injuries. Los Angeles has been forced to protect Herbert without either of its All-Pro caliber tackles (Rashawn Slater and Joe Alt) and trapped in a quick-release passing game the Jacksonville Jaguars had no issue stopping.
Herbert only threw three passes that traveled more than nine yards downfield despite trailing the majority of Sunday afternoon (he completed one). How bad did things get? Bad enough for Trey Lance to get a dozen dropbacks late in a 35-6 game.
Herbert's lone interception wasn't the product of heavy pressure — the Jags were mostly content to drop into coverage and get home safe at this point — but instead just a bad overthrow late in a lost game. Jacksonville either hit or sacked him on 40 percent of his dropbacks despite that litany of short throws. With his tailbacks combining for 20 yards on 10 carries, the young QB was stuck throwing into crowded passing lanes against a Jags defense that knocked down seven passes on a day the Chargers only threw 26.
Yep, each pass LA threw Sunday had a better than 25 percent chance to get knocked down before its target could get to it.
Things were generally awful across the board for the Chargers in a very predictable way. Watch as Josh Hines-Allen sets the Jaguars franchise record for career sacks while eliminating a potential touchdown drive despite a three-on-five disadvantage up front on third down.
This was a demoralizing dismantling, but a familiar one for Herbert — he's now 0-3 against Trevor Lawrence all time. At least this one didn't come with a blown 27-0 lead in the playoffs.
1. Sam Darnold, Seattle Seahawks
- 2025 EPA/game: 6.4
- Week 11 EPA: -11.3
- Difference: 17.7 points worse
That sound you hear are Darnold's MVP hopes crackling apart in the flaming wreckage of Sunday's four-interception performance. Two of those interceptions created short fields and immediate Los Angeles Rams touchdowns.
The final one came on the brink of field goal range to take points off the board in a 21-19 loss.
While the Rams didn't sack Darnold and only hit him three times, their pressure forced him into the kind of rushed throws that had been relegated to his New York Jets game film as his recent rise put ghost vision behind him.
When Darnold couldn't step into his throws, bad things happened. The Rams were able to create pressure without blitzing, leaving seven players in the defensive backfield to step in front of the wobblers those back-foot tosses created.
Darnold had thrown four interceptions in his last seven games before whipping four Sunday. Those were four of the five most impactful plays of the game in terms of EPA added or lost. Combined, they dropped the Seahawks 23.4 expected points in the hole.
Seattle's lack of receiving depth was on full display as well. Jaxon Smith-Njigba had nine catches on 12 targets for 105 yards. Every other Seahawk wideout had five catches on 12 targets for 50 yards. The Rams dared someone other than Smith-Njigba to beat them and while AJ Barner made a solid effort (10 catches, 70 yards) it ultimately wasn't enough. Darnold kept forcing the action and paying for his football crimes.
Still, he came within a few yards of rallying Seattle for a comeback win, on the road, with a walk-off field goal. These teams meet again in Week 16 on Thursday night. If Darnold stinks again that night, then it'll be time to worry.
This article originally appeared on For The Win: J.J. McCarthy's lasers, Shedeur Sanders' sadness and the grossest QBs of Week 11
Reporting by Christian D'Andrea, For The Win / For The Win
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