Matthew Coller: Uber'ing around Ann Arbor in search of truth about J.J. McCarthy

Taking Uber rides in the college town where the Vikings QB played college football turned into quite a journey...

Michigan fans with "I heart JJ" body paint watch warmups before a game against Northern Illinois at Michigan Stadium in Ann Arbor on Saturday, Sept. 18, 2021. USA Today / Junfu Han via Imagn Content Services,

ANN ARBOR, Mich. — Sometimes I get an idea for a story that I cannot get out of my head. Once the thought crawls inside my noggin, there is nothing I can do to shake it. If I don’t at least give it a shot, I’ll be haunted by the regret that I could have produced some stellar journalism and let something stand in the way.

A lot of these ideas fail. They mostly die on the vine because I simply can’t get someone to call or email me back. But recently I had a concept for an article buzzing around my brain that I thought was a total lock. Pulitzer worthy? Maybe. Thousands of shares online? Most definitely.

Here was my genius plan for the feature piece to end all feature pieces: Spend a day in Ann Arbor, Michigan and take a bunch of Uber rides and then write about what the drivers had to say about J.J. McCarthy.

OK maybe this isn’t “Best American Sports Writing of the Century” worthy and Red Smith’s face would turn green at such a concept but I thought it was clever.

What made me think of such a silly plot for an article was a trip to Cincinnati in 2021. I went a few days early because I was working on my book about Pro Football Focus, (cheap plug: Football is a Number’s Game), which is located in Cincinnati. I usually don’t rent cars on trips that only last a few days so I took Uber rides everywhere. No less than seven Uber rides resulted in long discussions with the driver about Joe Burrow.

Remember, he was coming off a serious injury following a decent start to his career in 2020. Nobody knew what he was going to be as an NFL quarterback. Well, except these folks. Drivers of every gender and age group wanted me to know prior to Vikings-Bengals that Burrow was the next great QB in the NFL and he was going to throttle the Vikings. Just a bunch of fanboys, right? Maybe but they had specifics. Stuff that they saw from him in 2020, things they had heard in their journeys around town. It was legitimately great insight. I distinctly recall on my long trip from downtown to the Cincinnati/Kentucky airport, the gentleman broke down every quarterback he would take after Burrow and all the reasons.

Hey, if I can get the same type of intel from the locals in Ann Arbor about McCarthy, that would make for some kind of story, right? What do the people who know Michigan football best really think he will do in the NFL?

So I flew to Ann Arbor, thanks to our friends at affordable Sun Country airlines. I wasn’t going to do something this goofy if it cost $1,000 for a plane ticket but this trip was very much in my price range and hotels give away rooms practically for free in college towns during the summer. I’ll fly in, ride around, talk ball, fly out.

Let me tell you, it did not go exactly as planned.

I figured that I would stay about 10 minutes from the area around campus where there are restaurants and bars and go back and forth, stopping for a while each time to have something to eat or whatever. That would give me enough time to strike up a conversation organically rather than just jumping in and demanding comment about the Minnesota Vikings’ new quarterback. I would tell them I was from Minnesota, maybe mention that I’m a football reporter and take it from there.

My first ride did not bear any football fruit. The gentleman, call him Abe, was in his 20s and had a Michigan hat on. Perfect, right? Well, he was talking on the phone.

He stopped to say, “Mister Matthew, are you good with the air conditioning?” and then went back to discussing how he planned to approach a young lady that he was interested in. I’ll admit, it was rather compelling to hear his confidence in “spitting game” and how he considered himself to be rather irresistible to this woman. I was more skeptical than the person on the other side of the phone.

About six minutes into the ride he hung up and asked about my day. My big chance. I stuck to the script, hoping to turn the conversation to football. Alas, he wanted to talk about fishing.

“You guys have crazy ice fishing in Minnesota, right?”

“Do you have rainbow trout there?”

“All those lakes everywhere, do you have access to them?”

He noted that he was was a semi truck driver and had come through Wisconsin and Minnesota occasionally and wanted to start his own business. Then the ride was over. Five stars for drama, driving and friendliness, zero stars for football talk.

Alright, I should have known that I wasn’t going to hit on every ride. Try and try again. Next up a middle age driver Chen. She was quiet at first.

“I didn’t think it was supposed to rain today,” I said.

Floodgates opened. She talked about the strange weather this week, when it was supposed to rain heavily in the evening and then turned the conversation to her post-drive plans. Pizza was on her mind. Little Caesars, to be exact. I told her that we don’t have as many Little Caesars restaurants in Minnesota and none were by my house. She was aghast. After she talked about its greatness for a few minutes, I became incredulous as well. Six bucks for a pie?!?

There was no spinning this into football. She explained that she only ate cheese pizzas because she had given up eating meat. Years ago she worked at Wendy’s and she suggested that I shouldn’t order the chili. Did she tell me why? Not really. Now I’m worried. I always order the chili. We discussed the fast food menu and recent price hikes and attempts at cheaper menu items to win back the public and then I arrived at my destination.

I did not expect to go 0-for-2 in a town where the Wolverines dominate everything. I saw a bar called the “Brown Jug,” a reference to the rivalry with Minnesota, and thought that I would find some McCarthy opinionists in there.

Silly me, it’s summertime. There were three people inside. I ate a “Dylan Larkin Hogie” and looked around. TMZ was on one of the televisions and they were breaking down a video of somebody’s butt crack. The other TV had golf channel with a dude giving lessons about how to take bunker shots. There was a replica of the jug and tons of football-related photos, including a picture of Adam Schefter and a newspaper from the Miracle in the Metrodome — a miracle that Minnesota was on the wrong side of, for those under the age of 45.

Time to ride back. This has to be my shot at glory. Otherwise I’m giving up.

As soon as I get in the car with James, I know that football isn’t his thing. Within seconds of pulling away he began discussing how climate change has caused more rain in Michigan. It devolved from there to his thoughts on the rising temperatures of the ocean and its long-term impact on our earth. While disappointed that there was no way to bend the coral reef talk into whether McCarthy was a product of Jim Harbaugh, it was still interesting. I thought maybe he was an old college professor with a hobby. Fail as I might with my story, I could come back with a new appreciation for our globe.

I thought wrong. My guy James explained that the government was behind climate change because they want the world’s population to decrease. He told me that he had a ranch in Montana and that the property contained a shelter. He built this shelter to have renewable energy resources so he could grow plants and he was raising buffaloes and elk there in order to save as many of the animals as he possibly could from the forthcoming end of days.

While the movie The Day After Tomorrow might make you think James is onto something, I’m fairly convinced based on his age that he won’t be around in time for climate change to engulf the globe in flames. Who knows. That’s for another reporter to figure out. I’m trying to get insight on JJ Freaking McCarthy.

I’m not giving up. I’m going for ice cream.

John is up next.

I struggle to figure out how the door on his Tesla opens and then pop in. This looks like a football guy to me but he doesn’t appear all that chatty. We get stuck in construction and I try cracking a joke about how there are only two seasons “construction and winter.” Nothing. Pause. “That’s what everyone says in Minnesota anyway.”

Now I have his attention. He’s interested in Minnesota. I’m going for it.

“What should we think of JJ McCarthy anyway? You think he’s going to be good for my hometown Vikings?

Yes, indeed, John is a football guy. Here’s what he said:

“I think you’re going to be happy with him, quite honestly. The idea he was limited because he didn’t throw as much as the other quarterbacks was a good thing because he was always winning. The guy has had one loss in how many games in his career? That’s pretty damn good. That’s better than the other college quarterbacks, better than Caleb Williams. Not that Caleb Williams won’t be a great player but I think JJ is going to be the steal of the draft. I might be biased.”

Say more, John! How about his intangibles?

“Oh yeah, especially at that position. At wide receiver you can be an a**hole but at quarterback you need everyone on the team to want to play for you and he gets that. There are just certain things that personality wise he has and he’s pretty selfless. I saw him a lot last summer, he was over at Schembechler Hall every single day working out and throwing and working with the coaches. That’s not stuff that every player does. I drive these guys a lot and the ones who are working the hardest are the ones who play the most.”

I tell John that McCarthy does indeed seem like a hard worker. He asks if McCarthy has signed his contract yet. No sir, not yet.

We come to a stop and I hop out and say, “good talking ball with ya!”

That’s what I was looking for.

Is it particularly new information? Not really. Controversial? Nah. But it’s like bringing a girlfriend to meet mom and having her declare that “she seems like a nice girl.” You would much rather hear from a guy who drives players that he saw McCarthy hard at work than, well, lots of other potential options for things he could have witnessed.

Over the summer I’ve been asking anybody and everybody who has connections to McCarthy about what they see in the new Vikings QB. Later in the evening I planned to take a 30-minute Uber to meet someone for dinner who worked with the Michigan team recently but I was a little shaken up from the previous end-of-days conversation so I elected to rent a car for that trip. We talked McCarthy and he unearthed less new ground than my Uber driver John. He thinks the kid works hard, cares a lot about football, has some flaws that he’s going to have to overcome and has a great chance to do that in Minnesota.

It just seems that no matter where you look, the takeaways about McCarthy are the same. What he told us about “editing” his life to focus on making it in football from the time he was in fifth grade seems to be exactly how he’s carried himself everywhere he’s gone. Are they going to make a 30 for 30 documentary about that? No. But it seems like a pretty good thing for the organization.

On the flight back I added up the expenses of the trip — shoutout to my accountant Ralph — and thought about training camp. We will definitely be watching a competition but probably not a controversy. And if McCarthy makes it, it won’t be for lack of effort.

I also wondered: Am I recycling enough?