When will JJ McCarthy take first-team reps?

Kevin O'Connell talked about the distribution of snaps in practice as Sam Darnold has been with the first team exclusively so far

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By Matthew Coller

EAGAN — Imagine you and a co-worker agree to separately watch the same show on Netflix so you can talk about it at work but there is one rule: Only one episode per day, no skipping ahead. How many of you would watch five episodes in one day anyway? From the reaction to JJ McCarthy’s solid start to Vikings camp, it seems like a very high percentage of you would break the rule.

After one padded practice in which Sam Darnold threw an interception in a two-minute drill and McCarthy was able to get the team in field goal position, Vikings fans (and maybe some media too) have gone from fully buying into Kevin O’Connell’s patient plan for McCarthy’s development to demanding that McCarthy take over first-team reps immediately, start against the New York Giants in Week 1 and Darnold be traded to the Memphis Showboats.

Where’s Allen Iverson when you need him. One padded practice? One padded practice? Not a preseason game. One padded practice.

Nothing seems off kilter from the way O’Connell laid out The McCarthy Plan back in minicamp. He said that he wouldn’t consider playing the first-round draft pick until he checked off all of the boxes. That probably means locking in play calls, checks and changes at the line of scrimmage, footwork on every route combination and being able to do it under duress.

It’s OK if we wait until padded practice No. 4 to see if he has all that set in stone before declaring him QB1. It seems that everybody likes talking about how Mahomes sat his first year until they see a few rockets thrown in practice by the new kid.

Sarcasm aside, McCarthy has looked about as good as the Vikings could have hoped for his first six training camp practices. He appears to be checking some of KOC’s boxes, like getting in and out of the huddle and getting the footwork down to the point where he seems much more comfortable and accurate than in minicamp.

But that doesn’t mean there should be a rush to throw him in with the first team. You all remember who the defensive coordinator is, right? The same guy that frustrated 10-year NFL starter Kirk Cousins last summer?

O’Connell was asked about when we might expect to see McCarthy getting on the field with the likes of Justin Jefferson and Jordan Addison.

“You will, at some point, see J.J. be consistently getting a little bit more one reps,” O’Connell said. “But at the same time, I feel like Sam earned the right to take the bulk of those reps early on here without getting into depth charts and things like that.”

The head coach noted that he wants to see the QBs’ footwork look similar in full-speed padded drills as it does in 7-on-7s and that the team is still working through the install and they will “get to a place” where they are confident on McCarthy’s comfort in the offense.

“A lot of work to be done before we get to a place where we're ready to start determining what that room's going to look like,” O’Connell said.

McCarthy seems to be on board. Just the other day the rookie professed his love for O’Connell’s plan. He even quoted O’Connell’s phrase “progress is the process” …though the 21-year-old apparently got it backward in his press conference.

We don’t have to be Bill Walsh to see how things could play out. Install the offense, put together a sample of high-intensity practices over the next two weeks and start to work McCarthy in with the first team. See how they look in preseason action and then plan to have the answer to which QB is going to start Week 1 by the time they walk off the practice field in Cleveland following joint practices with the Browns.

For now, one episode at a time and we’ll see how it plays out.

“Both guys have done a lot of really, really good things and some, more notable visually than others,” O’Connell said. “I also think both guys have made some mistakes with the football, learning mistakes where they're trying to either see if they can squeeze a ball in over the middle before safety can step in front, or maybe not taking a chance down the field in a one -on -one where maybe that's our best option.”

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