MINNEAPOLIS — It can sometimes be hard to accept, but beauty exists in the struggle.

J.J. McCarthy stood behind the lectern in the U.S. Bank Stadium depths Sunday afternoon, his face flush with emotions that matched up with his performance this season — namely confidence and uncertainty.

The finale of McCarthy's first year as a starter was never going to be as important as the ending of Harrison Smith's 14^th season or the likely swan song of C.J. Ham's decade-long run as a homegrown Viking. But Week 18 of the 2025 slate was supposed to offer a good look at McCarthy's skills and his punctuation of a body of work in a roller-coaster campaign in which he won 60 percent of his 10 starts.

It's true, McCarthy had plenty of positive moments in the 16-3 win over Green Bay. It's also true that people outside the organization might overlook them and focus on another game impacted by injury.

After making a quick pass to Justin Jefferson in the third quarter, McCarthy let Head Coach Kevin O'Connell know he was experiencing difficulty in his throwing hand. Instead of trying to play through the pain and risk not gripping the football properly, he made a hand-off of the huddle to Max Brosmer.

"I feel like I had to make a grown-man decision," he emphasized in his postgame press conference.

Admittedly more aware of the game situation than he was two weeks ago when he ignored signs of the injury that prevented him from effectively clenching the football and stayed in the game at the Giants until a sack-fumble returned for a TD led him to the locker room, McCarthy sided with caution Sunday.

The 22-year-old considered it one of the toughest decisions of his life so far, but the correct one. Brosmer wound up replacing him and playing the final quarter-and-a-half of Minnesota's 9-8 campaign.

"I was happy I made the right decision," McCarthy said, harkening back to the Week 16 wisdom he gained. "Feeling the momentum of the game and how well the defense is playing, when it gets to a point where you feel like your body is going to say, 'No, you can't do that,' you've got to put your ego aside."

"I had to do what's best for the team," he added.

O'Connell appreciated the quarterback's mental and physical improvements.

"I think he's grown like a lot of young quarterbacks do," the coach assessed. "And I'm excited about where he's ending the season and know that there's some things we can really dive into as a group, and J.J., myself. I look forward to the challenge of being the best version of myself" for him and the team.

"He had some snaps where there was some real conviction to where he was going with the ball, finding the voids and vacancies, eliminating some things in rhythm, sometimes pre-snap, and then working his way through some coverages," O'Connell remarked. "The only negative was really just the (taunting) penalty that kind of stalled us out. And that's just the competitor that he is. Appreciate everything about him as a competitor, but we just need to avoid ever setting ourselves back like that, especially post-snap.

"But the way he ran the show," O'Connell continued. "Throughout the practice week, even though maybe early on he wasn't feeling 100 or so, he was able to work himself to a place where he absolutely wanted to go, and he took that preparation into the game, and I thought did a lot of good things today."

McCarthy was sharp on the opening series, connecting with Jefferson for 18 yards after Jordan Mason got the ball rolling with a run for 13. The phenom receiver sprinted toward his sixth consecutive 1,000-yard season with 10 more on a shovel pass in the backfield, and then McCarthy charged out of the pocket, away from pressure, and scrambled for 6, tenaciously stiff-arming Packers linebacker Ty'Ron Hopper on his way to the sideline when he dropped his shoulder and blasted cornerback Keisean Nixon.

It was an awesome display of athleticism and toughness, except McCarthy lost control and barked in Nixon's face afterward. He was flagged for taunting, and Minnesota was pushed back to Green Bay's 38.

That flag reversed momentum — McCarthy called it "selfish" and said he got "carried away" after thwarting a tackler in that manner for the first time in his career and "felt so bad" because he knew he let his teammates down — and the Vikings eventually opted for a 43-yard field goal by Will Reichard.

Unfortunately, McCarthy's inaccuracies stagnated the offense on its next three opportunities.

First, on a possession that began at the Vikings 2, McCarthy targeted Jordan Addison near the right sideline but was too high with his aim, causing the receiver to elevate and bring him down several yards short of the sticks. On the subsequent snap, Mason was stuffed for no gain — and Minnesota punted.

The following drive featured a 12-yard delivery to "Jets." But soon after, McCarthy was flushed to his right and tried for tight end Ben Sims on an intermediate route coming across the field. His pass wasn't particularly close, and two plays later Ty Chandler was tackled for a loss of 1, prompting another punt.

Likewise, McCarthy looked for Sims on the first play of the fourth series but didn't put it in a favorable spot; the ball deflected off Sims' hands, which were stretched out to make a spectacular grab, and it was nearly picked off in Vikings territory. Minnesota had to punt, again, after a short carry and incompletion.

It's worth mentioning McCarthy dealt with a degree of pressure on each of those inaccurate passes and he either embraced it in his face, like on the out-breaker to Addison, or he used his legs to buy time and release the rock outside the tackle box. Hurried up or not, though, his misses were a bummer because teammates were open. To McCarthy's credit, he avoided a sack on every of 24 drop backs in the first half.

The fifth and sixth series better resembled the first in that McCarthy made a couple brilliant plays that helped him finish 13-for-22 passing (nine throws for first downs) with 174 yards in the initial two frames.

Starting with eight-and-a-half minutes to go in the half, McCarthy hit four passes in a row, the first one going to mammoth tight end Josh Oliver, who wowed the home crowd with a 22-yard catch-and-run. Then, McCarthy spun 17-yarders to Jefferson and Jalen Nailor. The former connection pushed the global star past the 1,000-yard benchmark for the sixth consecutive season and linked him to Vikings Legend Randy Moss and current Buccaneers receiver Mike Evans as the only players in NFL history to begin their careers with that many. The one to Nailor was a strike over the middle that required great anticipation.

Moments later, McCarthy went back to Nailor, but "Speedy" was stopped just shy of the line to gain. McCarthy achieved it with a sneak on the ensuing snap, and then Mason pranced around the right side for 13 and a first-and-goal. From there, inaccuracy crept back into the 22-year-old quarterback's play.

McCarthy overthrew Addison in the end zone; then he threw the ball at Chandler's feet on an interrupted screen; and he missed Jefferson on an out-breaker to the right, which led to Reichard acing a chip-shot field goal for a 6-0 advantage. It was the kind of outstanding-and-not-so sequence of events that shadowed McCarthy for pretty much the duration of his first season leading the offensive huddle.

Minnesota and McCarthy got one more shot before the intermission, assuming possession at the 1:47 mark — and made the absolute most of it. In succession, Jefferson got 3 on an end-around, Oliver caught a 7-yard pass (but unfortunately picked up an ankle injury and left the game), Chandler nabbed one for 2, McCarthy couldn't link up with Jefferson, and then on third-and-8 with 54 seconds remaining, he waited patiently and let Nailor peel open; McCarthy placed it on the money for a tremendous gain of 26.

McCarthy executed perhaps his best throw of the game in an awfully clutch moment, threading one to Sims, who secured a tight-window pass racing out of bounds at Green Bay's 3 with 42 seconds on the clock. One play and a timeout later, the beloved fullback Ham inspired his hometown fans with a 1-yard TD run.

"That was just something where I've been working so hard and so vigorously and trying so hard to make those throws on the run," McCarthy said regarding his laser beam to Sims, one of his favorite flicks of the game. "You've just got to kind of trust the spot and put it there, and I feel like I did a good job with that."

Ultimately, McCarthy did what he's done consistently over his first 10 career games: battled adversity, created beautiful moments, persevered through pain, risen to the moment, and left a lot to be desired.

His lone pass in the second half — his 14^th completion and 23^rd attempt of the game and his 140^th and 243^rd of the season — went for 8 yards to Jefferson, who managed to top 100 for the first time since the Week 5 game in London when he posted 123 (eight catches for 101 yards). Immediately after, McCarthy motioned to the sideline, knowing he couldn't grip and rip it the way he needed to support the offense.

Although his exit was less than ideal, there was an element of comfort to his performance and how everything unfolded. McCarthy and Jefferson looked more in sync Sunday than they did in the quarterback's first nine starts. And McCarthy's willingness to prioritize his future over his pain tolerance — at the expense, maybe, of an offseason of unwanted narratives — confirmed his real-time maturation.

His handling of it added context to his comments on Wednesday this week — that trying times have formed a "beautiful picture" and "beautiful story." The meaning and reasoning of it, he elaborated, were in focus. McCarthy's mentality after the game emphasized he has come a long way in six short months.

"Narratives are something completely out of your control. I can't change [them] no matter what I do. I can go out there, grind through it, and maybe fourth quarter happens, something fluke, and I screw up a lot of my offseason [goals]," McCarthy said. "But at the end of the day, you can't deal in those what-ifs."