Matthew Coller: Small sample, huge impression left by J.J. McCarthy

Minnesota can say with confidence that it has a franchise quarterback on the roster.

Aug 10, 2024; Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA; Minnesota Vikings quarterback J.J. McCarthy (9) scrambles against the Las Vegas Raiders in the second quarter at U.S. Bank Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Brad Rempel-USA TODAY Sports / Brad Rempel-USA TODAY Sports

CLEVELAND — Kevin O’Connell and J.J. McCarthy have only known each other for a few months but it has already been quite a journey for coach and quarterback.

From the NFL Combine to their meeting at a deli on the Michigan campus to picking McCarthy on draft night to putting a development plan in place for the young quarterback to seeing him start to click in practice to watching him soar against the Las Vegas Raiders on Saturday, McCarthy and O’Connell have worked together closely to get to the point where he was nearly ready to start in the NFL.

Now they will go through another phase together as McCarthy spends the rest of Year 1 sidelined.

Before hitting the field in Cleveland for joint practices with the Browns on Tuesday, O’Connell announced that McCarthy’s knee procedure to repair a torn meniscus would cause him to miss all of the 2024 season.

What KOC said right after breaking the news is demonstrative of the impression that the young QB has left on him.

“Our fan base and everyone should just be excited about the fact that we've got our young franchise quarterback, I believe, in the building,” O’Connell said.

What did McCarthy do in a short period of time to be declared the “franchise quarterback” by O’Connell? He kept getting better.

“For some of you guys that saw him from day one back in the spring until Saturday night, the transformation of a really, really good player had started to look like an NFL quarterback,” O’Connell said.

Following practice against the Browns, teammates talked about what they had seen since McCarthy arrived in Minnesota.

“He’s got a lot of swagger, he’s confident, which you love to see, but he’s also eager to learn,” center Garrett Bradbury said. “I don’t know what offense they ran in college but I know it’s not this. It’s a big step up learning wise and understanding scheme.”

“What I learned about him is that he’s a dawg in every category,” receiver Trishton Jackson said. “He’s a leader, he’s a dawg on the field, when things don’t go his way he’s still the same, he’s poised. He shows great leadership skills when things don’t go his way, which speaks volumes about him.”

While the entire organization will have to wait until next season to see McCarthy back under center again, a common sentiment among teammates was that he would still have an opportunity to make progress in his development this season.

“He’s so young, he has so much ahead of him and even though he won’t be out there getting reps he can still do a bunch of stuff like the film room, meeting room, studying plays, it’s just a small setback,” Bradbury said.

For O’Connell, McCarthy’s injury is an unexpected turn in the HC-QB journey. Rather than formulating plans for more first-team reps and preseason time and ultimately figuring out the right time to put him into regular season games, now KOC has to form another outline of how he can prepare McCarthy best during his recovery for his age-22 season.

“It's now the stress mentally above the neck… how many ways and different sequences and different environments can we put him in that we can get as close to those reps as possible so that he has a seamless transition when that time's right,” O’Connell said.

The time won’t be right until 2025 but it’s massive to the future of the organization that McCarthy showed in a small sample that they can buy into him as the future at quarterback. It means they can continue to carry out their plan to build the rest of the roster around his rookie contract.

“I think that's why we all can be very, very confident about the future, because I would not stand up here and tell you that a lot of boxes have been checked in my mind and in J.J.'s mind if that was not true,” O’Connell said. “As disappointed as I am that J.J.'s not going to be taking a bunch of reps out here today against the Cleveland Browns, he's confirmed a lot of the things that… a lot of people and J.J. himself needed to confirm.”

ADDITIONAL NOTES

— Jordan Addison went down early in practice with an ankle injury. O’Connell said after practice that he expects Addison to be OK but he wouldn’t practice on Thursday. KOC said that they needed to get a “picture” of the ankle before having a better idea of the timeline. In the best-case scenario he wouldn’t miss any games.

— Addison’s absence was felt by the Vikings’ offense. With Jalen Nailor stepping up into the WR2 spot and Brandon Powell WR3, Sam Darnold struggled to complete passes on time. The Browns “sacked” him several times and he threw an interception along the sideline. His lone highlight-reel throw came on a deep ball to Justin Jefferson.

— On the other field, the Vikings’ defense caused havoc for Deshaun Watson and Jameis Winston. Their offensive line struggled, jumping offside multiple times and allowing free rushes for “sacks” from Blake Cashman and Andrew Van Ginkel.

— From a health perspective, Gabriel Murphy, Robert Tonyan were not participating. Griffin did some warm-ups but was not in gear. Dallas Turner, who missed Monday night’s practice, was out there.

— KOC gave Nick Mullens a vote of confidence as the backup quarterback.

“I think he learned that he could be an explosive driver of our offense and also had some lessons of taking care of the football and trying to make sure we're playing aggressively but not over the line to where you put the ball at risk of being turned over. I think the team's excited about Nick [Mullens] because like many of us, we've gone through the ups and downs, but he's in a position to really be a guy we can rely on.”