Vikings quarterback J.J. McCarthy was smiling, eventually, after Sunday’s win over the Lions. During the game (and during coach Kevin O’Connell’s post-game speech), he was not smiling much.

McCarthy flashed a hard edge. A mean mug, if you will. He explained his facial expression to reporters on Wednesday.

Via Kevin Seifert of ESPN.com, McCarthy says it’s his alter ego. He refers to it as “Nine,” after the number on his jersey.

“It really kind of started to show up this year, and it came about last year during IR,” McCarthy said. “Just never had a full season, where you want to be out there so freaking bad, but you can’t. It was just this built-up anger that was kind of ready to just explode , and I chose to harness it instead of letting it go into a self-destructive kind of way.”

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