For most of quarterback J.J. McCarthy's NFL debut, the lights appeared to be too bright for him.

At halftime, he had completed five passes. The offense didn't reach the end zone until the fourth quarter, after he had already thrown a touchdown to the other team. He seemed to be constantly struggling to get plays off in time. 

But the faith of his Minnesota Vikings coaches and teammates stood firm, and one of them can even point to the exact moment the comeback that ended in a 27-24 win over the Chicago Bears began.

"We're down, we're in the huddle and J.J. runs into the huddle, think it was after one of the TV timeouts or something, and he looks at all of us and he's like, 'Is there any place else you guys would rather be?'" running back Aaron Jones said. "And we're like, 'Wow. Effing right this is where we want to be.'"

McCarthy said the line in the huddle came to him in the spur of the moment.

"Just a little bit of a perspective shift, yeah, things weren't going our way, but we're here doing this together, and the boys, they responded perfectly," he said.

Jones caught one of McCarthy's two fourth-quarter touchdown passes. The other went to superstar receiver Justin Jefferson, who was as impressed as Jones with McCarthy's mini motivational speech.

"Not every time you hear J.J. be that type of guy, but today, game day, when the lights are shining, he knows how to come to work and he knows how to have that dog mentality," Jefferson said.

And he needed that mentality after a pick-six in the third quarter seemingly sounded the Vikings' death knell. O'Connell, though, said the play wasn't as bad as it seemed on the broadcast.

"It was a all-out zero pressure, [McCarthy] got to his protection — I mean, that was a veteran quarterback play, it just happened that the corner knows it's an all-out zero," O'Connell said. "I just told him, I said, 'You did everything right, they made a play.'"

"At the end of the day, yeah, it sucks. It's one of the worst things you can do as a quarterback, but can't do anything about it. You gotta focus on the next play," McCarthy said. "I was really grateful the way [quarterbacks] coach [Josh] McCown and coach O'Connell handled it and it was everyone on the same page — alright, that happened, next play."

Like Jones and Jefferson, O'Connell said there was something preternatural in McCarthy on Monday night. The head coach said his quarterback has "an unbelievable look in his eye on gameday."

"For him to make some of the plays he did. I told him at halftime, 'You are going to bring us back to win this game.' And the look in his eye was fantastic," O'Connell said. "The best thing is just the belief I felt from the team and the unit, and ultimately that doesn't get done without him in the second half, two passing touchdowns and then the critical rushing touchdown at the end."

And though the comeback seemed shocking from the outside, McCarthy's teammates said they knew it was just a matter of time before he turned it around.

"J.J. was poised the whole time, I didn't really need to say anything to J.J.," Jefferson said. "J.J. already had that look in his eyes that he was going to go out there and keep fighting."

"I always speak on it, he's different up here," Jones said, pointing to his head. "He's a special guy and I'm blessed to have him here."

So while McCarthy's debut started as one to forget and ended as one to remember, it hasn't dented the team's confidence in their would-be franchise quarterback.

"We don't win this game unless J.J. plays the way he did in the second half," O'Connell said, "and most importantly kept the belief of his football team behind him."