Vikings QB1 J.J. McCarthy Gets His Marching Orders
Help out during practice, young fella.
Vikings QB1 J.J. McCarthy is working through an ankle injury, an ailment that has kept him off the field for both of Week 3 (a 48-10 win) and Week 4 (a 24-21 loss). He’ll take a step in his recovery leading into Week 5. Unable to play, Mr. McCarthy will work toward soaking up practice reps. Doing so will mean seeing him more involved in the weekly preparation.
Vikings QB1 J.J. McCarthy Takes a Step
The word arrived courtesy of the Vikings’ website.
Craig Peters relays the plan from head coach Kevin O’Connell: “As we get into Thursday and Friday, I’m hoping we can at least get [McCarthy] out there and get him taking some drops and starting to get back in the normal rhythm of the practice week.”
The head coach proceeds further, explaining, “Because you’re really going back to, he had a ‘fast Friday’ before that Atlanta game, but you’re really going all the way back to the Chicago game, to when he had a normal circumstance of practice to be able to stack days together. It will all depend on kind of where he’s at with the benchmarks of being able to go out there and start moving around a little bit.”
In fact, O’Connell was recently asked to clarify his level of commitment to seeing McCarthy back into the game as the team’s starter. There are a pair of factors that will determine when the young passer gets back into action.
“Yeah, I think, first and foremost he’s got to get healthy,” O’Connell said. “And then throughout that process, it’s not just, I don’t think it’s one of those things where it’s, hey, the day he’s healthy and if he’s healthy the night before a game, we’re going to just throw him out there.”
O’Connell’s point is that McCarthy’s health needs to get to a point where it allows him to prepare properly. A scenario where McCarthy is cleared medically just before a game isn’t good enough. O’Connell believes that his sophomore needs to see get practice aplenty moving into a game.
The criteria that O’Connell has previously established suggests that Week 7 is a distinct possibility. J.J. McCarthy will be tasked with practicing more going into the Week 5 game. The Vikings QB1 can then keep building his body back up during the Week 6 bye. Afterwards, McCarthy should get the full runway so that he can take flight versus the Eagles in Week 7.
Upon returning, J.J. McCarthy is going to be confronting a cruel reality: he needs to become a playmaker.
To a certain extent, the quarterback’s offseason mandate is going to remain consistent. Distribute the ball to high-level playmakers and just allow the skill guys to take care of the rest.
But then there’s what we saw in Week 1. Overcoming Chicago doesn’t happen unless McCarthy himself turns into a playmaker. Pull the ball out of the runner’s gut to instead bring the ball across the goal line with his own legs.
Now, the obvious counterpoint: if J.J. McCarthy did an effective job of managing the game, then there’s no need to elevate to such a level late in the 4th. The point has its merit and will be applicable to subpar teams like the Bears, but pulling off wins against some of the better teams on the schedule — the Eagles, Ravens, and so on — is going to require him to play very well.
McCarthy is sitting on a 58.5% completion rate. He has 301 yards passing across a pair of games to stand alongside 2 touchdown passes and 3 interceptions. He has rushed for a score and fumbled the ball a trio of times.
The Vikings QB1 is only 22.
Editor’s Note: Information from Pro Football Reference helped with this piece.
