Kevin O’Connell is typically as warm as the California sun, but he was a bit of a bear on Wednesday.
He typically starts press conferences by addressing the state of the team. However, he began Wednesday’s by saying, “Alright guys, fire away.”
When a reporter asked who would start Sunday’s game against the Philadelphia Eagles, he responded by saying, “They stand in the same place they did Monday when I answered that question.”
For the record, he said J.J. McCarthy had a “plan of attack” for the week, and that Carson Wentz was still working on his injured left shoulder. “[I’m] not ready to say yet exactly where he’ll be at towards the end of the week. Want to see how this week plays out first.”
The question is whether the Minnesota Vikings are ready to give McCarthy a second chance to make a first impression, or if they want to give him another week to recover from his high ankle sprain.
If Wentz starts, he will play against the team that drafted him second-overall in 2016 and traded him five years later. Wentz has only faced Philadelphia once in his career, losing to them as the Washington Commanders’ starting quarterback in 2022.
Wentz says the Eagles are just “another opponent” if he faces them on Sunday. Either way, the Vikings are less concerned about Wentz picking up a win against his former team and more invested in McCarthy.
The former represents Minnesota’s floor, while the latter is its future. Wentz is a serviceable backup at this point in his career, but there’s nothing O’Connell can do to turn him back into a franchise quarterback.
However, he has the power to decide when the best time is to allow McCarthy to resume his quarterback journey. The Vikings are evaluating, among other things, how firm he is on his back foot and how he handles pressure in practice.
“[Quarterback] is the easiest [position] for folks to be able to see a kind of plus or minus world they live in: completion or not, first down or not, touchdown or not,” he avers.“[But] there’s a little bit more that goes into it. Each rep tells its own story. So what you can do as a quarterback is hold the pen, and at least control the controllables of doing your job.”
McCarthy says his ankle “is getting there” but hasn’t fully healed. “I wouldn’t say it’s 100% right now,” he said, “but we’re striving every day to get there as fast as possible.”
He added that he’d want to play if it feels “off or not,” but that “we’ve got to be smart here.”
“At the end of the day,” he added, “I’m just going to do what I’m told and get better as fast as possible.”
Few players would play through a severe high ankle sprain. Still, the Vikings have additional factors to balance.
McCarthy has only completed 58.5% of his passes in his first two games. He sprained his ankle in the third quarter of the Atlanta Falcons game, and it may have affected his accuracy. He only completed 52.4% of his passes in that game, down from 65% in Chicago.
The Vikings also must manage McCarthy from a mental standpoint. McCarthy has taken ownership of his mental health by meditating each day. Still, quarterbacks like Sam Darnold, Baker Mayfield, and Daniel Jones often become reclamation projects because coaches mismanaged them at their first stops.
O’Connell has successfully maximized Kirk Cousins, Darnold, and Jones after their first (and in Darnold’s case, second) teams moved on from them. However, O’Connell doesn’t want to send McCarthy down their path, so deciding when to start him again is crucial.
McCarthy won’t succeed if he’s afraid to fail. He’s also more likely to succeed if he’s close to fully healthy. McCarthy will never enter a perfect situation, no matter how much the Vikings want to handle him with clean hands. Still, the Vikings are wise to create an optimal situation for him.
J.J. McCarthy must write his own story. However, it’s incumbent upon the Vikings to know when to hand him the pen.
