McCarthy's injury opens up many possible paths going forward
When will McCarthy return from his ankle injury? The schedule makes that tough to figure out
By Matthew Coller
EAGAN — Again, Vikings?
On Monday, Vikings head coach Kevin O’Connell announced that starting quarterback JJ McCarthy suffered an ankle sprain in the team’s 22-6 loss to the Atlanta Falcons and would not be starting next week’s game against the Cincinnati Bengals. ESPN’s Adam Schefter reported that McCarthy is expected to be out 2-4 weeks.
“I don't anticipate it being a short-term IR type situation,” O’Connell said. “But we do need to see how he responds here early this week to treatment. And then we can kind of start projecting what his ramp back up will look like. He's obviously disappointed.”
First, let’s get this out of the way: There is pretty clear evidence on the all-22 video that McCarthy was taken down on his 16-yard run with 2:52 remaining in the third quarter. He was treated on the sideline and finished the game but there were other moments were he could be seen fighting through it.
The “shadow benching” concept is great for internet fodder but it doesn’t make much sense to have McCarthy lead a game-winning drive in Chicago, struggle in one game and then have the team take a drastic measure like benching him. It is, however, reasonable to think that the team wouldn’t want him trying to fight through injury when he’s already been struggling.
O’Connell addressed the question of whether McCarthy missing the next few games was due to performance.
“No, no, not at all. In fact, it was pretty crushing this morning to hear that for me,” O’Connell said. “For JJ, he's in a long process, a long journey right now, where there's going to be some ups and downs. And as a team, I think our ability to play a little bit more consistent around him on the offensive side, these one-off kind of critical errors that end up being totally out of JJ's control…This is a purely medical -based thing that we're dealing with right now.”
In two games, McCarthy has completed just 58.5% of his passes, been sacked nine times and gained just 301 yards through the air. This comes along with having the league’s second worst pressure-to-sack ratio and holding onto the ball for the fourth most time per throw (three running QBs are ahead of him).
“It's crushing because you just want it to be a daily process of activating every aspect of the development and learning,” O’Connell said. “Because you've seen it out of him and in game, his response to find a way to win that opener in Chicago. We weren't able to get that done yesterday and there were some plays that maybe could change the game there at different times and it wasn't always J .J. McCarthy that the reason why those plays didn't happen.”
No matter who was to blame for the problems against the Falcons, it’s fair to say that in the short term, Carson Wentz is more prepared to lead the Vikings to victories than McCarthy.
While Wentz hasn’t played as a regular starter since early in the 2022 season, he does have multiple quality years as a starter. In 2021, he led the Colts to a 9-8 record and threw 27 touchdowns to seven interceptions. He also had a three-season run with the Eagles where he went 25-15 with a 98.3 rating.
Experience at the QB position alone should help the Vikings get the ball into the hands of Justin Jefferson, TJ Hockenson, Adam Thielen, Jalen Nailor and eventually Jordan Addison.
“He was really impressive last week,” O’Connell said of Wentz. “Kind of stepping in, you felt the veteran presence and the command. He's really smart. Guy that's played a lot of football and he's been able to get himself to a place where he's felt very comfortable these past two weeks had he needed to go in the football game. And now he'll get a week of preparation to get ready to go play.”
The Vikings have three very winnable games coming up. On Sunday they take on the Jake Browning-led Bengals after superstar Joe Burrow suffered a significant injury. Then they take on the Pittsburgh Steelers, who suffered a loss at the hands of the Seahawks this week, and the Cleveland Browns, who are the Cleveland Browns.
In the quickest recovery time scenario for McCarthy — two weeks — the Vikings would be in London going against Cleveland. Would they choose to bring him back on questionable turf? Or would they prefer to get him back in the lineup when they return after the bye week in order to make sure he’s 100% healthy.
The post-bye schedule isn’t exactly ideal for a quarterback who looked over his head against Atlanta. They take on the Super Bowl champion Eagles, whose D-line demolished Patrick Mahomes in the Super Bowl, and then travel on three days rest to face the Los Angeles Chargers.
There doesn’t seem to be a favorable time to bring him back until November 2 against the Detroit Lions — though even that game is at Ford Field, which ate up Sam Darnold last winter.
McCarthy’s return likely depends on how things go. If the Vikings drop the next two games, then there is no reason to hold the young QB on the sidelines. He needs to play and they need to start finding out if he can really play.
But if they go 2-1 or 3-0 with Wentz in the next stretch, then the water becomes much murkier.
A 3-2 or 4-1 overall start with decent-to-good quarterback play from Wentz would be tough to pass on considering how raw McCarthy looked in his two games. The Vikings have far too many weapons to have the quarterback missing easy looks and taking sacks constantly. A couple wins over the next stretch would give them the chance to be the team that they expected, only not with the QB that they expected.
This is, after all, a team that has extremely high hopes for 2025. The team wore Jonathan Greenard’s “more is required” mantra on its sleeve this offseason. The owners spent crazy cash in the offseason to put a squad of veterans on the field. This isn’t a developmental season. Not after winning 14 games and walking away from Darnold.
So if Wentz gives them the best chance to win, they have to stick with Wentz. But the question of if/when McCarthy returns will loom over the entire season. Nobody is more popular than the backup quarterback and any struggles whatsoever will draw “JJ! JJ!” chants from the crowd.
It has the possibility of turning into a QB controversy situation. That’s not exactly what the Vikings had on the drawing board for 2025.
If they stay in the race and McCarthy doesn’t get to play anywhere near as much as expected, then what? It feels odd to be talking about the future when it’s a short-term injury but this absence has the potential to change the franchise’s course. It wouldn’t be the first to have something like this happen. The 49ers expected Trey Lance to be their guy. The Colts expected Anthony Richardson to be the future. Sometimes the NFL has other plans.
Or sometimes quarterbacks hit some early snags along the way and come through it. This might be something that we forget ever happened when McCarthy is leading them into the playoffs.
The path seemed incredibly clear last week. Now we have no idea what is going to happen next. We can only wait and see how Wentz performs, if/when McCarthy returns and whether he bounces back from a rough beginning to his career. It wouldn’t be the Vikings if we weren’t wondering what happens next at quarterback, would it?
I really love football. I really dislike some football fans. The calls of busts and wasted year and all that after the second game is just garbage takes.
On the bright side... No need for Sam Howell questions