Vikings Camp Journal: Day 8

A bounce-back day for JJ McCarthy and Christian Darrisaw talks about his recovery

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By Matthew Coller

EAGAN — Oh, welcome to the dog days of training camp, friends. The Vikings have four straight practices and then head into their first preseason game a week from Saturday. Let’s take a look at the takeaways from the start of this stretch on Friday…

What I heard

In an effort to keep the world from overreacting to every single training camp throw, Kevin O’Connell is giving us a real window into what goes on between himself and JJ McCarthy during practices.

“I think what I've loved is just the dialogue after some of the plays,” O’Connell said. “Even as simple as maybe the defense has made a couple plays here and there and it's the next competitive period and did you change? Did you change your fundamentals? Did your footwork look the same as it did an individual [drills]?”

O’Connell used an example from Thursday’s practice in which McCarthy completed back-to-back passes to Jalen Nailor in a final-drive drill and then tried to do too much and nearly threw an interception when attempting to throw back across his body while on the move.

“What I care about [is] when I can say, ‘hey, great job, but let's talk about not only your decision, but what was in your mindset?….Why risk potential ending the drive by a tip or overthrow back in the middle of the field? And that's what I'm so excited about this time,” O’Connell said.

One of the biggest storylines of camp has been the domination of the defensive line and the amount of pressure that McCarthy has faced. O’Connell offered insight into his advice for the young quarterback when Brian Flores’ defense is putting on the heat.

“I have to talk to JJ daily about, ‘hey, you're playing a really good defense and this is a great challenge for all of us and we can't get too wrapped up in the minutiae of the minute to minute play to play analysis as much as doing your job,’” O’Connell said. “Technique and fundamentals, eye progression, plan of my decision based upon the situation and then after all that let's start talking about the result and then most importantly how we can improve for the next rep.”

O’Connell noted McCarthy’s competitive desire to react to frustrating moments but said that the main coaching point is to avoid changing anything about his process from down to down.

“I don't need to see any reaction in the moment to it,” O’Connell said. “Just move on to the next play and do your job and implore the other 10 guys in that huddle to meet the moment and do their job. That's competition. And that's why I thought last Wednesday was great, great learning for us.”

O’Connell also provided an update on left tackle Christian Darrisaw, who has been working in with some 11-on-11 reps for the first time in the last couple practices.

“It's a matter of conditioning for both Will and Christian…getting their technique and fundamentals dialed in…and it's going to be a great challenge and a real runway for them to feel like they're game ready based upon what they're practicing against on the other side of the ball every day,” O’Connell said.

Darrisaw talked with us after practice and couldn’t have been more pleased to be back on the field.

“These first couple of days went really well,” Darrisaw said. “Able to get back into the flow of things and get back to full team. I haven’t [practiced] in full yet but everything is going really well.”

Darrisaw said that they have goals laid out for him every week and they will judge his recovery on how his body reacts but thus far there haven’t been any setbacks.

O’Connell has repeatedly praised his franchise left tackle for his work ethic during the rehab process to get back to this point.

“I feel like it’s instilled in me, this is what I’ve been doing my whole life,” Darrisaw said. “Being away from the game and knowing that things aren’t over yet and there’s a lot of football still yet and fighting through…trusting trainers has led me to this moment and it’s really a blessing to be here now.”

Darrisaw added that his body has responded well to the times that he’s pushed himself more and more.

“You question yourself a little bit but going out there against guys like that you can’t have any hesitation,” he said. “I’ve talked to a few guys who have dealt with knee surgeries and they said you have to trust it and I trust it and it’s feeling good.”

I asked him how it felt to move his first opponent.

“It felt good, I haven’t done that since October,” Darrisaw said.

There is no specific timeline yet because O’Connell said that he didn’t want to put a date on Darrisaw’s full return and then have “disappointment” if he didn’t meet that date.

The offense needs as much of their starting LT’s presence as possible because the right outside linebacker Jonathan Greenard has been eating the offense alive since camp started. It shouldn’t be any type of surprise since he finished in the top five in QB pressures last year, yet O’Connell mentioned feeling a sense of extra motivation or urgency from Greenard. He expounded on that on Friday by saying that Greenard’s fit within the scheme is growing as well.

“When we brought him here last year…there still was an element of a different scheme and there's a lot there's some moving parts to the way our defense can be,” O’Connell said. “It's different than what put him on the map for us by watching him come off the ball as a rusher in Houston. That tape was just the relentless style of play snap to snap whistle to whistle, I think now he's comfortable. He knows exactly what our scheme is.”

It is an interesting thought about the defense as a whole. In 2024, Greenard, Van Ginkel and Cashmen were new to the system. This year, they are returning almost the entire defense under Brian Flores except Isaiah Rodgers, Jonathan Allen, Javon Hargrave and Jeff Okudah. That familiarity is one of the reasons they have been ahead of the offense early on.

Speaking of Okudah, O’Connell had an eyebrow-raising comment about his chances of making an impact on the defense this year.

“The best part is I see a clear role for him,” O’Connell said. “Not all corners in our defense play the same spots, play the same roles. So to think that we're going to have him in a role we feel pretty strongly about.”

We would have assumed that Okudah was in the midst of a competition for the starting position while the defense was playing nickel but Mekhi Blackmon has played the vast majority of snaps with the second unit and O’Connell’s comment seems to indicate that it’s going to remain that way.

It may be risky based on his past but we do have to factor that Shaq Griffin played a similar role last year and he previously had been cut midseason by the Texans. Something about this defense just works for corners.

Also on the defensive side, it’s become downright silly how often Theo Jackson gets interceptions in camp. He had one on Wednesday and two more on Friday. Sufficed to say, the team is pleased with its decision to give him a contract extension and put him into a dime package role in clear passing situations.

“He's always kind of been an ascending player,” O’Connell said. “Coaches have identified that having Theo in the game and some of those three or four safety grouping defenses over the past couple years, we've had some real positive things happen. And then as you guys have seen him, anytime he's around the football in the deep part of the field or getting a getting a vision or a key to break on something underneath he's normally if he's around it he's gonna make the play.”

The other day O’Connell referred to Greenard as “The Closer” but he was informed by the players on defense that “The Closer” is their nickname for Jackson, which may have started following his interception to seal the win last year against the Seattle Seahawks.

What I saw

There were two major situational drills in Friday’s practice: Red zone and two-minute.

The red zone drill gave McCarthy fits on Wednesday but one of the reasons the Vikings like him as their QB1 is that he often bounces back and shows improvement after tough reps or practice periods. That was the case in the red zone on Friday. With starters facing starters, McCarthy had a tremendous throw in which he stepped up in the pocket out of pressure and threw across his body to an open Lucky Jackson for a touchdown.

The defense still did their thing in terms of creating pressure but McCarthy responded to it (mostly) well. During the two-minute drive, he took O’Connell’s advice and scrambled for a first down and then hit two underneath passes to get his team into scoring position. And then McCarthy nearly made his best throw of training camp. From somewhere around the 20-25 yard line, he dropped a dime to Jalen Nailor in the end zone that would have been a touchdown and sent the fan contingent on hand into pandemonium but Nailor was grabbed and couldn’t bring the ball in.

The ending of the situational drill didn’t turn out well. McCarthy was sacked and then threw a quick pass to Jackson that was supposed to see him go out of bounds with only a couple seconds remaining. Instead Jackson was “tackled” in bounds and time ran out.