J.J. McCarthy’s rookie season is over before it ever truly got started after Wednesday’s surgery revealed he needed a full repair of his meniscus.
After announcing the news, Vikings head coach Kevin O’Connell said he was “crushed” for the quarterback.
“But as our fans either have already come to find out or will in the future, this guy is so motivated and so dialed in,” O’Connell said. “As excited as I was to draft him, he’s confirmed everything that I hoped to see, not only early on through training camp, first performance last Saturday, but he should — our fanbase and everyone should just be excited about the fact that we’ve got our young franchise quarterback, I believe, in the building.
“And now, it’s just about the unique aspect of continuing a very critical development process for him where maybe the physical reps aren’t going to be there in the short-term. But this is going to be a small bump in the road. Other quarterbacks in our league have gone through similar things early on in their journey and come back stronger and better than ever. And that is not only my expectation — I know that is going to happen for J.J.”
O’Connell said McCarthy should be back in the building to begin his rehab process and the team will have a plan in place to keep the young QB progressing from a mental standpoint this season. While O’Connell hadn’t had a chance to speak with McCarthy before his presser, he noted that he had texted some with the young QB on Tuesday night and Wednesday morning.
“He’s just been of the mindset that this is just a temporary thing — regardless of what news he woke up to, as far as what they did to make sure he was healthy moving forward,” O’Connell said. “He’s just excited to get back in the quarterback room, get back around the guys. And, really, outside of the physical reps, ther’s just so many ways that now that the physical side and the path to physically playing the position the way we want is clearly there, it’s now the [need to] really stress mentally above the neck where, how many ways and different sequences and differnet 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 is right.”
McCarthy had a solid outing in his first preseason action, completing 11-of-17 passes for 188 yards with two touchdowns and an interception last Saturday against the Raiders. He also rushed twice for 18 yards.
That plus what O’Connell has seen in the building has given him full confidence in what McCarthy’s future will bring for Minnesota.
“Checking the boxes of the physical part of it, there is no question in my mind the physical talent that J.J. has. And even just for some of you guys who saw him back from Day 1 in the spring until really Saturday night, the transformation of a really good player — had really started to look like an NFL quarterback.
“I really believe that J.J. has kind of confirmed to me and a lot of our coaches and players that we’ve got the right guy in the building for the future. And he did it in a short amount of time. So, it’s what makes this news hard — because you know just how exciting it would’ve been daily, minute-to-minute process moving forward. But I think that optimism should be felt by anybody in our building and hopefully our fans, although they’re not going to get to see him for a short period of time now.”