“They Get Paid For That Reason”: Justin Jefferson Backs J.J. McCarthy as Rookie QB1 Goes Viral on NFL Debut

The last time we saw J.J. McCarthy play a full game of football, he was putting up 34 points to crown Michigan as national champions. Unfortunately for the former Wolverine, the Chicago Bears’ defense is infinitely more gifted than that of the Washington Huskies.

Making the jump from college to the pros is certainly no easy feat, especially when you’re playing at the quarterback position. Neither coaching staff nor fan bases have much patience for bad QB play, and a brief series of mistakes is all it can take to ruin a reputation.

Nevertheless, the current face of Minnesota, Justin Jefferson, was willing to give his quarterback the benefit of the doubt prior to the team’s flight to Minnesota. “It’s a hard job,” Jefferson noted during his last visit with the media.

“They get paid they way that they do for that reason. But my job is to always help J.J. and making sure that, if he has any questions he needs, anything that he’s not really sure about, he can always ask me.”

It’s not often that a first-time starter has access to the one of the best wide receivers in the NFL, but McCarthy will need to make the absolute most of having Jefferson at his disposal if he wants to justify his 10th overall price tag from the 2024 NFL Draft. Through the first half of his debut, however, he failed to do so, and the internet let him know about it.

Heading into the half, Will Reichard seemed to be the only member of the Vikings who showed up to score. McCarthy completed a lackluster five of eight pass attempts for a total of 48 yards.

On the first play of the game, he fed Jefferson a pass behind the line of scrimmage, which ultimately proved to be good for a gain of four yards, but that was it for him in the first half. Apart from an 11-yard rush, there’s next to nothing for McCarthy to write home about while in the locker room.

The Vikings look like a far cry from the ninth-highest-scoring team in the league that they were last year, but thankfully, there’s another football legend besides Jefferson who is offering some support as well.

The Bears managed to fool McCarthy early on by showing man coverage at the line prior to dropping back into a zone at the last second, but according to Peyton Manning, that likely would have worked on him, too, so the debutante shouldn’t take it seriously.

Even if things do go wrong at first, McCarthy will obviously get plenty of tries at his new divisional rivals, but for now, this Week 1 is the one that matters most.