Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - JJ McCarthy has torn meniscus, will have surgery

Episode Date: August 13, 2024

Kevin O'Connell announced that JJ McCarthy is having knee surgery, it could be short or long term. What does it mean in either case? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here. Just got off a Zoom call with Kevin O'Connell, head coach of the Vikings, in which he announced that J.J. McCarthy has a meniscus tear and the timeline for McCarthy's recovery is not yet clear. So the way that it is laid out by Kevin O'Connell was that there are two potential ways that this could go when JJ McCarthy has surgery, but they are only going to really know once they open up his knee and take a look at his meniscus, whether it needs to be cleaned up is the way that O'Connell phrased it or whether it has to be a full repair so this is a common thing with meniscus tears Carl Anthony Towns went through this

Joel Embiid went through this so you do end up seeing it a lot Adrian Peterson in 2016 and Adrian Peterson had the full repair whereas there's also something called the the shaving of the meniscus generally the thinking is that if you have the shaving that there is a more likely chance of re-injury down the road but I don't know that that's the case with what they're talking about with JJ McCarthy and the full repair usually requires a pretty long timeline. If he were to have the full repair, I think he might be able to be back before the end of the season. If I remember correctly with Adrian Peterson in 2016, when he had the full repair, he went out in week two against the Green Bay Packers and then came back.

Maybe it was week 15 or 16 against the indianapolis colts so that was kind of the timeline for the full repair if that's what jj mccarthy has to do so it can go one way or the other if there is just the cleanup procedure then i would imagine mccarthy's recovery won't be too long at all. And he could be back in not too long, maybe even by the start of the season. I can't say for sure about that, but it wouldn't be a super long timeline for his recovery if it is the cleanup procedure and he would be on track to potentially be the backup at some point fairly early in the season, if not from the very beginning. And it would be considered not too serious. And the other side of that is that if it goes the full repair way, you are talking about the majority of the season for J.J. McCarthy to be out.

So there is the update from Kevin O'Connell. Obviously, he is not making the trip to Cleveland. He will not play in the next preseason game. And I imagine even if he has the cleanup procedure, he would not be playing in the third preseason game. So those TV ratings for preseason Vikings action, I think just probably went down quite a bit because you'll be seeing a lot of Nick Mullins and Jaron Hall the rest of the way. So that's where we stand as far as his actual surgery. Now we should get into what the implications are for the long-term and the short-term potential

for both options, whether it's the cleanup or whether it's the entire repair. So if McCarthy were to have the cleanup, then I think he mostly stays on track where he is right now, that it doesn't change a whole lot because I never thought that JJ McCarthy was going to start week one. I did see some television this morning where ESPN shows were debating, should they start McCarthy? Forget about Sam Darnold. But I don't think that Kevin O'Connell ever viewed this as it's JJ McCarthy's job from week one, and he was going to come up and steal it this week at joint practices, we were just starting to get into the discussion of McCarthy, even taking first team reps and he most certainly earned them. I will talk about his performance and everything in a moment, but he certainly earned the opportunity to be in a position to get some first team reps against Cleveland this week. Had he not come out of this game with an injury, but I don't think that he was going to go to Cleveland,

take a handful of first team reps, and then O'Connell was going to scrap the entire plan, say, sorry, Sam Darnold, we're trading you away. JJ's starting. I don't think that that was going to be the case. It appeared that they were always planning to give Sam Darnold his opportunity to start and revitalize his career and make something of this that has not gone that well.

I think that O'Connell always wanted to give him that shot. And plus, O'Connell was extremely happy with the way that Sam Darnold played in the game during his drive and has been happy with Sam Darnold's performances throughout training camp. If Sam Darnold had really struggled in camp, I think this would be a little bit different. I think it would feel a little bit different because they would seem like they were totally up a creek without a quarterback at this point if Sam Darnold had had a bad camp. But Sam Darnold has had a very good training camp on a daily basis hitting Justin Jefferson on balls down the field and you got to see the rhythm and

timing of the way that he played on Saturday I know it's pre-season but his timing with his wide receivers was good you saw the arm, you saw some of his mobility and how he can make plays. And I think that he could be a fit with Kevin O'Connell and Kevin O'Connell's offense and Justin Jefferson and Aaron Jones and so forth. So I don't ever, I did not ever get the feeling that Darnold was going to lose this job before week one. Because when you look at the, just the timeline of the off season, we're only a couple of weeks from the beginning of the year. It would be, it would have been such a huge change to just say, Sam Darnold, you're on the bench because McCarthy played really good in a preseason game.

And even if he had played well against Cleveland, I still don't think that was going to do it because O'Connell has just been so steadfast in the idea of developing McCarthy slowly and giving him every opportunity to be a hundred percent locked in before he was going to be ready to start. So from that perspective, this injury doesn't really change what was already going to happen ready to start. So from that perspective, this injury doesn't really change what was already going to happen in the early part of the season, which was Sam Darnold was going to start week one. This locks him in, of course, to being the week one starter.

But I think he was already 95% locked in anyway, unless JJ McCarthy did something completely insane in Cleveland and won over the entire team. And they threatened to walk out if he wasn't going to start or say it would have taken something extreme, or of course an injury to Darnold for JJ McCarthy to start right away where this could have implications is when we get into the season, depending on the surgery, if we get into the season and he's had the longer surgery, it's just Sam Darnold. It's the Sam Darnold show.

And that is it. And if he has the longer surgery, because there is no button to push to go to JJ McCarthy, when things go sideways, or if the team loses a handful of games to start the season and they feel like they are, uh, you know, out of the playoff race fairly early, then you would want to go to JJ McCarthy. But if he's recovering from a surgery, they won't have that option and it could get pretty nasty as a season. If they actually did have the cleanup,

then I would expect that JJ McCarthy would still be in line to potentially start when we thought, which was if they got off to a slow start and they go to the bye week, they come out of that by week. If it's not going well with Sam Darnold, if he has the cleanup, this should still keep him in line for that. So that will really be the determining factor of what happens in 2024 for JJ McCarthy. If it's not serious and it just gets quickly dealt with and then he's right back on the field, then off we go and nothing

really changes uh if it's the longer surgery then we're talking about not having that option until maybe the very end of the season when he is fully back now the the thing about the meniscus is that when we talk about the cleanup type of surgery versus the longer repair, they're going to have to figure that out when they actually go in and look at his knee. But it's not a bad thing for JJ McCarthy's career if it ends up being the full repair, because at least historically, the full repair has meant long term. It's usually not a problem if the person ends up having the full repair has meant long-term it's usually not a problem if the person ends up having uh the full repair so there is kind of a a yin and a yang to this thing where if it's the shorter if it's

the shorter cleanup then you are a little more concerned about this cropping up again down the road. But for the immediate in 2024, it doesn't really change his timeline. If it's the longer surgery, then you feel a little bit better about the long-term, but also that means you're not going to see him very likely anytime soon. And even then, even if he was recovered and ready to come back, that would be a long time without making any progress and playing

any football. And so that's kind of the entire prognosis. Now, the other part of this is just the gut punch that everybody feels right now with JJ McCarthy. You could hear it in Kevin O'Connell's voice yesterday that he was concerned. certainly could hear his disappointment uh today when we spoke with him and he said you know that the the doctors and the medical people are going to decide the best route for jj mccarthy and do the best for his long term and so forth um so i i don't want to say for sure about what the long-term prognosis will be cleanup versus uh the full repair it's just that historically that's kind of been the difference between the two but there is a gut punch to everybody right now after watching jj mccarthy on saturday you just can't say enough how good he was on Saturday.

I thought to myself after the other day, was I going too far on the post game podcast? Was I, was I putting McCarthy in Canton a little too early because I was excited to see football back. And so then in the light of day, I went back through the tape and then I watched JTO Sullivan's breakdown of JT or JJ McCarthy and JTO Sullivan, former Viking quarterback does the QB school great in-depth super football

analysis. And he did a breakdown and liked a lot of the things that he saw from McCarthy and also talked about some of the things that he still needed to fix with his footwork and and stuff like that but i don't think that anybody who was over the moon about the way that mccarthy played was overreacting i i don't think you can overreact to a performance like that that matches up with what we saw in training camp, which was the massive improvement of JJ McCarthy's accuracy, him looking in command of the offense, him being pretty good at getting rid of the football and knowing when to scramble. I mean, just every thing that they would have hoped to

have seen for JJ McCarthy to start this training camp in preseason, this was the best case scenario. I mean, if you laid out up until this point, what is the best thing that you could hear by August 11th? What was the best thing you could hear about JJ McCarthy? We would have been saying, I mean, we would have been saying, this is it. This is exactly what we would have laid out because I think our expectation would have still been that there would be rookie moments like his interception or a couple of throws

that maybe he was a little behind on, but to show all the tools to make huge progress, to be galvanizing the team around him, to have the head coach seem pretty giddy about what he was seeing with JJ McCarthy and for him to have, head coach seem pretty giddy about what he was seeing with JJ McCarthy and for him to have, I think more impressive physical tools than he had in college because he's still young and he's still growing and developing even just from a body perspective. And he's much bigger and stronger than I expected. And what I had seen from him at Michigan, all those things are check, check, check. Everything had been right on point with JJ McCarthy. And so I think that there's just a massive disappointment here that he plays the one game and has this meniscus injury that's

going to require surgery. And you can hear it in o'connell's voice i see it in the comment section that you guys uh are pretty uh you know beat up about this uh because you want to see more jj mccarthy you want to have him keep making progress and that is the one part that is if he ends up having the longer surgery something that i'm not saying you would be worried about, but is not great for him is just missing the reps, missing the opportunity to go to Cleveland and have the joint practices against one of the best defenses in the NFL. I thought, and this is why I'm flying there later tonight, because I thought this was going to be such a great opportunity to see JJ McCarthy against another team, get some first team reps and look at him in practice under some circumstances that are a little bit different and see where he stood in not preseason, not vanilla defense, but rather Cleveland throwing their real defense at JJ McCarthy. I was pretty interested to see that. And I think that would have been good for his progression.

If he ends up having the bigger full repair surgery and is out for the entire year, then he misses a lot of stuff that I think could have helped him, including more preseason action, joint practices, and just even the preparation for games and and what usually quarterbacks who are not playing because I I've gotten this question before well how is he going to get better if he's not playing in the regular season but what usually happens is the quarterbacks will work with uh the quarterbacks coach after practice so they'll go through the practice they do Scout team you learn a lot that way and then after practice. So they'll go through the practice. They do scout team. You learn a lot

that way. And then after practice, they're working on a lot of the details. They'll have the practice squad receivers out there. There's a ton of opportunity to get better and better and better that unfortunately would be delayed for JJ McCarthy. If he ends up missing a lot of the season, I think that's the biggest downside to that. At the same time, let me just bring it back a little bit and put the whole thing in perspective. J.J. McCarthy for this season, 2024, depending on how Sam Darnold played,

may not have been getting into games anyway until toward the end of the season. And this is still an opportunity for him to get to know how game planning works, to be inside the quarterback room, to watch Sam Darnold operate and to learn and grow from a mental perspective and from an experience perspective to grow and grow that way and he is 21 years old and this is a year where he has been through a lot as far as the whole draft process and jumping right into the mix with this team and trying to learn a very complicated offense and having the weight of being a top 10 draft pick on him. So he has learned a lot so far and shown a lot so far.

If this happened before McCarthy was able to get out there for preseason, if it had happened in practice early on or something, then you would have, I think, a lot more questions. But what he goes into this process of recovery, whatever it's going to be, short or long term, he goes into it with a lot of confidence that when he comes out on the other side of it, that he knows that he could play in the NFL. He knows he could be a starter for this team. The team and his teammates know that he can be their franchise quarterback going forward because he's

shown enough to give them that belief that that could be the case and all of that matters too so this isn't like he got hurt on day one and missed all of training camp and didn't have any of that experience and then is going to have to go into next year feeling like a rookie or something. And again, we don't know if it's the short or long-term surgery. So this conversation about everything that he's going to miss could end up being moot because he might end up being back in a couple of weeks. And for someone who is his age at 21 years old, you don't worry too much about how this is going to affect him long-term. It is not uncommon for football players, basketball players have this all the time to have a meniscus tear. It's a random thing that happens that could not have been expected

or prevented. I'm sure that it was just a twist of the knee on whatever play that went sideways. But as far as injuries go, I see a lot of you, of course, making the comparisons to quarterbacks of the past. But this isn't like that. I mean, this is a this is a thing that happens pretty much all the time in athletes. They have meniscus tears, they have surgery, they get back out there and they play. And I remember even talking about this with Michael Pennix going into the draft, like that football players have injuries. It happens. And you really can't predict them going into a draft or whatever else. Football players sometimes have things go wrong with their knees and he'll have it repaired.

He will recover. He'll play football going forward. So when you talk about the franchise being cursed, why can't we have nice things? Like I get it. This is such a, a gut punch is the right word because it's not devastating to the franchise.

It's not career over or anything else like that. It's a handful of weeks that he could be out in the short term, or it could be for the majority of a season where he was probably going to stay behind Sam Darnold anyway and develop from the bench until he was completely ready. So it could push him back from maybe if he was going to start in week six, he ends up, you know, being start, you know, end up starting later on and not until next season, but it's really year two, year three, like that's when young quarterbacks take off anyway.

So it's, it's a setback and it's really incredibly disappointing to everybody after watching the way that he played but it's also not the end of the universe the vikings franchise quarterback is still in place whether it's four to six weeks or six months that he's out or, you know, whatever it ends up taking. I don't know the cleanup, how long that's going to take to recover or the six months or whatever. I don't know the exact timelines, but just for example, whether it's the short or long timeline, the fact remains that JJ McCarthy showed exactly what he has and will very likely pick up where he left off and get right back into being the Vikings franchise quarterback for the future. I think we were all

looking at 2025 anyway, as a year where they could spend a lot in free agency, take another step as, as a roster, and then have McCarthy coming into his own. Because even if he played, there were going to be a lot of rookie moments, like what we saw with the interception. So yeah. And I do think Mike brings up what happened with Kyrie Jackson really should put a lot of perspective on these things. I know it does for me that there's certain language that I would use all the time that I've tried that I've tried to avoid because when we talk about things being devastating, crushing all those things, like what happened with Kyrie Jackson was truly that this is a step back for JJ McCarthy, where he won't be able to make the

progress that he was making and missing out on that is unfortunate, but it is also not the end of the franchise, and it's not the end of the world. So that's where we stand right now with J.J. McCarthy. If you're just joining, there's two options for a knee surgery here for a torn meniscus, and they have two different implications on this year, but no implications so far as I could tell for the long-term future. Folks, U.S. Cellular noticed that the way we use our phones has gotten ironic.

We try to put our phones down for dinner, but the menu is on a QR code. That's ironic. We hit like on social media posts that we don't actually like. Ironic. ironic we hit like on social media posts that we don't actually like ironic which is why us cellular created us mode to help us reconnect with each other and use our phones less ironically a phone company wanting people to use their phones less ironic let's find us again with us mode from us cellular visit us cellular.com slash built for us to get started I think we should turn the conversation a little bit over to Sam Darnold poor Sam Darnold so I'm

at the stadium last night TCO uh Stadium watching the night practice and all those things. And I'm looking around and I see a hundred, 200 JJ McCarthy jerseys. And, uh, there is not a Sam Darnold Jersey to be found. And I understand of course, why? Because he is a bridge quarterback, a one-year option that is supposed to be here for this, for exactly this. If Sam, dar this is why sam darnold was a really really good signing for the vikings because what happened today does not have to mean find something else to do on sundays at least from what i've seen in training camp i don't believe that at very least this could be entertaining that the arm talent that sam darnold has the all the talents that justin jefferson has so even if they don't win a million games it's gonna be wild there's gonna be ups and downs there's gonna be crazy throws

there's gonna be jump balls and and sam darnold doing everything he can uh it might be a jamis winston type act where it's this crazy roller coaster uh so you know i think that signing sam darnold right now looms so large for this team as an off-season move that we all kind of went oh okay yeah i guess that makes sense get the bridge quarterback and maybe there's something there too oh this guy's your quarterback and even if uh he has the cleanup surgery this is setting him back as far as learning the offense as far as mastering the details and so jj mccarthy would not be uh ready you know anyway even if he has the cleanup surgery to be the starter so sam darnold is your quarterback for a while i'm not saying buy the sam darnold jersey but i am saying uh that you should get used to the idea

that he is going to be your guy for at least a while here to start the season and maybe for the entire season and i think that uh he deserves a lot of credit for the way that he's handled this situation so far. We have seen no sign at all of frustration from Sam Darnold about J.J. McCarthy. They've bonded together. They've gone on golf trips together. They've practiced well together, it seems. And I think that Darnold has been a good guy to have around J.J. McCarthy, because regardless of what he's done

in the past, as far as his win loss record, his quarterback rating, my observation of Sam Darnold is that he's been extremely professional about the way he handled this. And even with Kevin O'Connell, he told a good story. When I asked him yesterday about Sam Darnold, he said that he threw a call in there on a third down that they hadn't prepared for just to see if Sam Darnold would react to it well. And that's what you do with preseason and why we can't always judge the results, but he said, and then they converted on the third down, Darnold got it in. There was headset issues in the game. Darnold took care of it. Like the one thing that you know, is that, uh the game Darnold took care of it like the one thing that

you know is that uh Sam Darnold is going to be able to run this like a pro quarterback and is going to give them at least a chance to score some points he went eight and seven with Carolina his last whatever number of games he had a 90 quarterback rating I think since 2022 this is someone who in his most recent performances has not looked like the horrendous player he was early in his career. And if he carries that over with Kevin O'Connell, with Justin Jefferson, it's not the worst thing in the entire world for Sam Darnold to play this season and then have JJ McCarthy come back a hundred percent healthy. It's more of the feeling of this than it is the actual result. The feeling of remembering what

it was like to have Teddy Bridgewater go down for, I can 100% feel you on how crushing that is to feel like you had somebody there that was your franchise guy and now the future is uncertain. So that's what happened with Culpepper and Bridgewater and neither one was ever the same again. So having gone through that, all of you

as Vikings fans, and then you hear knee surgery again, it's like, this can't be happening. This franchise is cursed. What is going on? Scotty says, I hate everything. Right? Exactly. I mean, that is a totally rational feeling based on all of your history. Um, at the same time, I don't think that this falls anywhere near in the category of the seriousness of what happened before. And, uh, you know, when we look back at, uh, Carl Anthony towns, you know, he had this same exact thing happen. Carl Anthony towns came back and he, you know, just played just fine, uh, played like Carl Anthony towns. I mean, it's even with, uh, Adrian Peterson, even at his age, when he had the, uh, repair for his knee, I think we all thought after 2016, Adrian Peterson was probably

done. And then I believe he played until 2021 and never had any issues ever again. The meniscus surgery and repair should be, should be, uh, fairly routine. Uh, and, uh, they should be able to go forward with this thing and it should be okay. Uh, so that's why I think that we shouldn't go too far in overreacting to this news and look at it for exactly what it is. And of course, the next comment is that the franchise is jinxed. I mean, look, if you would tell, I will say this, I will say this. When I first arrived here in 2016 and the thing happened with Teddy, I was like, OK, guys, I mean, you're all saying the franchise is cursed or whatever. I don't know about that. And, you know, but there is a remarkable number of things

that have happened to this franchise. And I completely have come along to understanding exactly why you guys feel this way, because you've been through so many of these throughout the years and he plays one game and now he's already down it's like come on and uh for for everyone i mean this goes this isn't just you guys this is uh you know everybody i mean everybody who covers the team i think was enjoying watching the progress of a young player it had been so long since we saw something like this.

I mean, the, the really Teddy is the last time, uh, for a lot of people who are young Vikings fans. Uh, so I was standing in line yesterday and, uh, a fan of the show. I kind of broke the news to him that McCarthy wasn't going to practice. And so he turned around and he told his son that was maybe 12 years old or something, 13. And the look on his son's face, like, come on, like he already understood it. He was only, he was only a kid, but he already got it. Like, oh, you gotta be, you gotta be kidding. He didn't start crying or anything. He just understood that this is the type of thing that's going to happen to you sometimes. But, um, I, I don't look at this like, uh, it's any sort of devastating thing. And, and yeah, I did think of what happened with Sheree Floyd. So, you know, there, there is that, I mean, that was, I've never heard of anything

like that ever before where Sheree Floyd had a messed up surgery and his career was ended. I just, I didn't want to bring that up because it's, it's the only one that I've ever heard of from that actually happening. And the 99% plus is that JJ McCarthy ends up having a routine surgery and he's back and he's going to be ready to go either early on in the season or after the season. So I don't, but that is another freak thing that's happened in Vikings history was that Sheree Floyd thing. It's just, if you, if you told me that one quarterback for out of the six who were drafted got banged up in preseason and you didn't say any other information. I'd be like,

it was the Vikings. It was the Vikings quarterback, uh, because this is a thing that does tend to happen to this franchise. So, uh, I'm a little bit, um, afraid to put it out there for your thoughts on this because, you know, I, I know how upset, uh, all of you are about this injury, but Mark says, how long is the time frame for these types of injuries using a baseline? So this is a thing that being responsible in general, I don't want to totally guess because I am not a physician or a medical analyst of any kind, but just having covered both sides of that meniscus, the cleanup versus the full repair. If he has the full repair, I wouldn't expect to see him back anytime soon. It would probably be very late in the season if he ends up having the full repair.

And that would be unlikely. I think at that point that he would be like good to go because he would still be working his way back. And then he would have to, you know, practice and get locked into the offense. And he was still sort of making, you know, slow progress in doing that week after week, gaining more and more knowledge of the offense and the timing and the footwork and getting all that down. If he has the full repair, it's just not very likely we see him this season. Maybe at the last week of the season, I think he'd be recovered enough to practice toward the end of the season. As far as the short term, the cleanup surgery, I would guess that by week one he is uh fairly recovered from that and by the middle of the season would be okay to play if they have to do it that's the difference and some of you

are saying four to six weeks and then three to six months for the full repair um so yeah i mean i i figured that some of you in the comments were probably more medically inclined than me uh and i know there's some doctors that follow the show and so forth so i appreciate all of you guys for that it's just you know this does happen enough that where we get a general it's just i don't want to set like expectations that oh no he actually will be okay for week one if he has the cleanup or he'll be back in the middle of the season. None of this is ever 100 percent clear. But given his age and the recovery for young people like this, the medical science that we have at this point in the world,

you know, that's kind of the expectation is that the cleanup surgery could still put him in place to start when they need him in the middle of the season. And that really doesn't change a whole lot, except for he's going to be missing some of these important reps that they really could have used over the next couple of weeks. If it is the full repair, that's harder to see him playing in 2024 but going into 2025 he was going to be the starter anyway so uh yeah i don't think i don't think that this changes everything as much as it's frustrating because he was on such a good path and where it does hold him up is with making that progress of getting more reps because you only get so many.

There's only so much practice time. There's only so much, you know, joint practices and preseason snaps that you can take. And now he has to miss some of those. But 2025 was always where we were really looking for JJ McCarthy. And a meniscus surgery doesn't really change any of that. Um, so I think that on the whole, the big takeaways here are you should prepare yourself to watch a lot of Sam Darnold because more likely than not, you're going to be having Sam Darnold as the quarterback for at least at even in the best case scenario with the surgery,

at least half the season. And in the worst case scenario with the surgery, the whole season. So get used to the Sam Darnold is as QB one. And the other part of it is that this does not fall under the same category as your previous knee riddled quarterbacks that were promising in Vikings history. So we don't need to do that. I think you can walk around today feeling down, but not as if the entire franchise's future has been sent right into the tank. Like I don't think that it's that. And Mo says that he's not confident in Sam Darnold, nor should you be based on his history. Uh, I mean, Sam Darnold has been a wild

ride throughout his career, uh, where he's had, I mean, even go back to the start of 2021, the first three games of his season in 2021 were downright unbelievable. Uh, and yet, um, you, then he fell off the face of the earth there. And, and it's just been a trend in his career where he's had some strong stretches and not been able to maintain it. But I am still, I am still super interested in what happens with Darnold, especially because, and this is the thing that I get to do. And I'm lucky to do is to be out of practice every day and watch Darnold. And so I think that from where I stand watching Darnold at practice, I'm a little more on the side of like, this could be, this could be something like this

could be a lot of fun watching him throw the football throughout this season. Uh, if you're, you're not in that seat and you just watched him take 12 snaps and look pretty good, but have seen his previous performances, it's probably a little harder to get around to that until you actually see it. And that will start in week one. But, you know, I do think that Sam Darnold is the starting quarterback for this season does kind of set up for maybe one of those wild years where everybody was coming into it saying the Vikings were going to win six games. Sam Darnold is terrible.

And then suddenly it's a lot different than that. And, you know, I think they should still try to sign Stefan Gilmore. They should still try to take advantage of this defense that Brian Flores has built and the signings that they've made. There was good injury news last night on Jonathan Grenard and Aaron Jones, who came back from injuries that had kept them out for a few days. And that was more of the knots. That was more of routine soreness, I guess, for them. So they have this talented defense. They have talented wide receivers and they have a good pair of tackles. They have a very good play caller. They have a much better running back.

I don't look at this and say this should be a disaster if Sam Darnold is the quarterback. I could be wrong, but it's looked a lot better in practice than I thought it was going to. That doesn't mean I'm telling you you're wrong if you're skeptical and wanted J.J. McCarthy to start week one, of course, I mean, until Sam Darnold actually does it in games, then it's hard to believe that he's going to be a completely different person. I guess what I'm saying is withhold judgment for now, just from what I've seen in training camp practice,

withhold judgment on Sam Darnold, pretend that you don't know anything about him and you're only getting introduced to him for the first time as your 2024 quarterback and then go from there. So as far as some other questions getting asked, do we know when he hurt himself? We do not. Kevin O'Connell said that they went back and they looked and they tried to figure out when it was that he might have gotten hurt. What play is it? The stadium turf. I wouldn't say that either. I mean, I don't know these things just sometimes tend to happen. Somebody just plays a football game and doesn't get hit. And what, and it just, this is what happens. Yeah.

Routine soreness turns into meniscus tear. Yeah, I know. And yesterday, but this is what happens with meniscus tear. Like this is what happens almost every time is the guy's knee hurts and he doesn't really know why. And then the next day realizes that something actually might be wrong. And it sounds like McCarthy during the game realized that there was maybe an injury there. And then they took him out when they were going to take him out.

So he may have played through a couple of snaps with the injury. But this is how it usually goes with a meniscus tear so i don't think that kevin o'connell was being like disingenuous when he said he came in with some soreness because um you know it's just uh like this is how it goes normally it is the guy will come in he's feeling some soreness, maybe longer than he would normally expect. And then ends up, Oh, we put his leg in an MRI machine. We got bad news back. And that's how I took it. So yeah, of course, routine soreness can become a meme. Now, you know, somebody breaks an arm on the, Oh, it's just some routine soreness that that's okay. We have fun with that sort of stuff, but I don't think I thought that there was concern in Kevin O'Connell yesterday.

And that's what we talked about last night. And there was a lot of comments that were, uh, unhappy with me suggesting that it might be more serious because of his body language and the way he talked about it. But anytime you're talking about testing, it means an MRI. And anytime you're taking an MRI, that means that something could possibly be, um, you know, a problem. And it turned out to be with the meniscus. And then we'll find out how big of a problem it is. Uh, George says Matthew is being, uh, or is Pollyanna. I can't believe he said, uh, back a couple of weeks. That's a Joe that McCarthy could be back in a couple of weeks. What Matthew doesn't understand.

This means the 2025 season is a bust. It's that simple. So I think what you mean maybe is 2024 season because the 2025 season is next year. I also don't know like what Pollyanna is. Is that what is that like being too positive about this? I don't know like what pollyanna is is that what is that like being too positive about this uh i i don't know i can't believe he said he could come back in a couple weeks but that's actually what kevin o'connell said about the cleanup procedure which i've seen a number of athletes have over the years so just one by one i don't think I've ever been called too positive about anything. So thank you for

that. Usually it's been the other side of it throughout my career. So I appreciate that. And as far as just medically speaking, he could be back in a couple of weeks if they do the cleanup procedure. And I also don't think the 2024 season has to be a bust because we never put the expectation on like, Hey, this is going to be a super bowl type of season. We always put the expectation on if Sam Darnold plays, it's a development year for JJ McCarthy. And it could be pretty fun because Sam Darnold has a great arm and Justin Jefferson's really good at football. And they almost beat the lions twice last year with Nick Mullen. So I don't know. I don't think that's crazy to say that this team and,

and anybody who's been around and watch this team for years has seen Wade Wilson, Jeff George case, Keenum, Gus for rot, like all sorts of quarterbacks that you wouldn't expect end up. Thank you for all of you telling me what Pollyanna is, including Jonathan Harrison producer. Pollyanna is to be excessively cheerful. Jonathan says, okay, I don't think that I'm being excessively cheerful about a meniscus surgery.

Trust me. I really don't. I think what I'm being is excessively realistic about it, which is to say that this he might come back in a few weeks and then we don't talk about this again. And he could be in line to still start at some point. That is one of the potential outcomes. The other one is that he's out for quite a while. But as far as having watched Sam Darnold throw the football day in and day out, have him throw with anticipation. You saw it to Jalen Naylor on one of the throws, but to throw to Justin Jefferson, there was a throw in practice to Justin Jefferson where he's not even out of his break yet.

And Darnold puts the ball up. Jefferson shakes off the defender, rises up and brings in the football in just an all world type of play. Like, let's not totally forget how good this wide receiver is and what he could do for quarterbacks. So I don't think that's Pollyanna rather than saying, hey, I've seen this work before. And if you don't throw four interceptions, which, you know, maybe Darnold will at times, but I don't think it'll happen every time. Uh, then it could be a season that is entertaining and is a bridge to the point where they're really trying to compete with JJ McCarthy for a Super bowl. So, you know, I, I think, um, just when it comes to my outlook on this and the cursedness of the team and the sky is falling, who's the is that chicken little who's the sky is falling one.

I know there's the wolf who cried something. No, someone cried wolf. I don't think that's this either. Like which which silly child book comparison can we make into this situation i don't think it's any of them i think it's if you were oh it's chicken little who said the sky is falling it's neither one and the boy who cried wolf thank you it's been a while it's none of those it's like the sky is not falling with j McCarthy and his knee surgery, because this is something that happens with pro athletes pretty often. And they have surgery and they recover and they go back to

playing. Uh, it's also not Pollyanna because it's not great. No one says that i'm not saying it'll be fine my whole point is that that him missing this practice time is is not good uh this is time that would have been big for him and i wouldn't have flown to cleveland if he wasn't gonna be there i promise you but i can't i gotta go in a few hours i can't do this now uh Uh, so nobody's more disappointed than the guy who spent hundreds of dollars to fly to Cleveland and stay there to see what JJ McCarthy looked like against Cleveland's defense. Trust me. Uh, I, I, I wanted to see it. I was excited to cover it and now it's a little different, but that doesn't mean we have to act like this is the end of, um, JJ McCarthy as Minnesota Vikings quarterback. He will still be Minnesota Vikings quarterback. And, uh, some

of you are bringing up who are maybe medically knowledgeable that it might be a better idea for him to have the full repair. And that is harder for me to say. I just know that the way that it's usually talked about is the full repair means a longer term health for the meniscus. And that could be something that they consider when they go in there and say, all right, well, it's actually going to be better if we just fully repair. And then he comes back six months from now, a hundred percent healthy healthy as opposed to having to deal with this maybe potentially in the future um but i don't think it changes really a ton um except for you know maybe they were planning on playing sam darnold a little

in the preseason game let's not uh that's probably a bad idea so So here every time. So I'm going through this. I'm talking about the most rational way to view it. And then we get shades of Teddy Bridgewater. No, it's no shades of Teddy Bridgewater. Teddy Bridgewater was in an ambulance being told he might lose his leg. This is the same injury that Carl Anthony Towns had last season came back and played. I mean, it's, it's a little bit different. It's a little bit different. Uh, so, you know, I just, I think that,

um, where, where we stand right now is they'll go to Cleveland. They'll have the joint practices. Yes. Bubble wrap Sam Darnold because they're in big trouble. If Sam Darnold were to get hurt, a good thing, Nick Mullins is still on the team. We know he can play in the NFL, but he's really not exactly someone that you want starting over multiple games. And those of you talking about it's a five win season now. Well, that's probably if Sam Darnold gets hurt. I think that they can still be in the playoff race with this version of the team. And this this is the backup quarterback who has gotten hurt here compared to the starting quarterback, Sam Darnold, who's been the starter since day one that he got here. It's just that everybody wanted after that performance to see McCarthy win the job. McCarthy start week one,

McCarthy get in as fast as possible. Uh, so, uh, that's funny. Uh, Wrigley, our next, uh, rookie quarterback, um, needs to be kitted out like a roller blade or knee and elbow pads at all times. Yeah. That's funny. That's funny. Yeah. I mean, yeah. So, uh, fair enough. Not the backup quarterback, my child. Yeah. Fair enough. I just, all I mean is that it doesn't really change the timeline of where things were unless he has the full repair. Then it might change when they could push the button. The really unfortunate part is that I just wrote the other day and I probably said it on the show that it's so it made it so much easier on Kevin O'Connell to have McCarthy play like this, because then it was like, whenever you want to push the button and go to McCarthy, you can, and everyone's going to feel good about it because he looked good. And, you know, you get buy-in from the team, buy-in from the fans.

All right, it's time. Push the button. He's going to go in. Darnold has struggled. Here we go. And now the button gets a little more difficult to know when it's going to be pushed for one. And even if he comes back from missing four to six weeks, then he didn't get the extra reps that we were projecting

for him to actually get there for week one. That's kind of where we're at with this right now. So if there's anything else, yeah, I know. I know. At least where I am proud of you guys in the comment section is I only saw a couple of times that McCarthy is soft. So that's good. Meniscuses happen, everybody. I don't think Adrian Peterson was soft. In fact, he was downright indestructible, but he had a meniscus injury and he came back and he had five more years in his career and still played.

And that was a guy who was already 30 years old when it happened. As far as Jim, why are the Vikings so cursed? I don't know if I want to put this under that category just yet of being cursed. Maybe we save it for things that, now if this turns out to be worse than this, maybe we'll go there. But just since we're here

and talking the way we are about this, uh, that I did have at one time, a guy who investigates conspiracy theories, look into whether the Vikings were cursed. That's an old episode of the podcast. Uh, the host of the crackpot podcast looked into it, not a conspiracy theorist himself, but an investigator of conspiracy theories. And his, his conclusion was that the Vikings, when they won the NFL championship way back,

when that they lost the trophy. And then since then it has been cursed. So if you're talking to your friends about it, that's the thing you can bring up. So do they know when the surgery is going to happen? No, uh, not yet. Kevin O'Connell said he did not know, uh, when the surgery was going to happen. I can't imagine it's going to be, uh, for too long. So that Ken, Ken has been around a long time. Appreciate you can, if you remember that podcast, because I think that was like 2021. So shout out to the OG listeners of the, uh, the purple insider podcast.

Um, I am, uh, around for a little while longer before I have to fly out. If you guys have any thoughts and questions that you want to throw out there about this. Um, but, uh, I guess what we have here is two potential paths is the bottom line for JJ McCarthy, where he could, you know, be back fairly soon and things aren't really changed or where it's going to be a long time before you see JJ McCarthy. And nobody wants to wait to see JJ McCarthy. But I always thought that you were going to have to anyway, because Sam Darnold has done well. And he was the guy that Kevin O'Connell wanted to give every opportunity to be his starter.

So there you go, Jim, we need to invade the packers trophy basement and get that stolen trophy back yeah there was some isn't that the the rumor is that the packers have it and somehow they got it uh tim just needs a hug somebody give tim a hug uh you know this you're you're right uh true flight that there's been some very serious injuries throughout the past history that um we can't compare this to and immediately that's where your brain goes but it's not the right direction to go into ej hend. I mean, that was just awful. Um, how about, uh, Hassan Reddick? Uh, that's an interesting one. Oh yeah. Uh, Dallas, I think Dallas Turner is fine. He was just not practice. Well, I'm saying that now he wasn't practicing last night,

but he was still out there, which makes me think it wasn't super serious. Uh, Hassan Reddick doesn't make a whole lot of sense for this team um a few people have asked about matthew judon i don't know where you'd play another edge rusher because the edge rushing position is really good so um you know i think that they're pretty much set there with the cornerback position that's where I would like to see them still go out and look for improvement, even if it's not Stefan Gilmore, even if it's somebody who gets cut at the last moment that gets beaten out by a younger player or something like that. Jason, what courses are you playing in Jacksonville? That is the plan for my road game in Jacksonville is to play golf with

Paul Hodowanek, hopefully Dane Mizutani as well. But I'm not familiar with Jacksonville. I'm just going to trust Paul on where we're going to play. I have never been to Jacksonville, so this will be the first time I did not go there in 2016. I did not go on the road to Jacksonville. And I believe that's the last time they played there. BS stuff. He heard anything lately about the Gilmore visit. Just yesterday, Kevin O'Connell sounded to me, my takeaway from what Kevin O'Connell said to us about Stephon Gilmore was,

Stephon, we want you, we like you. We got a tattoo that says Gilmore. Can you please come play for us? Because we're really not happy with our corners. That was the takeaway from his comments. Didn't say that exactly, but he said that they were selling Stefan Gilmore on their culture and their building and their atmosphere. And it all sounded like, please, have you seen our corners can you please come here that's what it sounded like and uh stefan gilmore left town i got the feeling if you're being a little cynical that maybe um stefan gilmore was using the vikings to try to get some other interest drummed up

knowing that it would make the headlines that he visited them and probably getting a price from the Vikings that they're willing to pay and taking it to other teams and saying, will you pay me this teams that have higher Superbowl odds? I would not blame Stefan Gilmore that's business, but if nobody else is willing to pay him. And I did ask someone with another team, what they thought of Stefan Gilmore. And,more and it sounded to me like most teams are looking at a 34 year old cornerback is being a little too risky to bring in and that is valid and it's not like I think that he would completely solve the entire defense but if you could get 600 snaps out of him that were quality maybe Maybe it's a Patrick Peterson like season, either one 2021 or

2022, where it's not what the guy once was, but it's still ends up, you know, being okay and being useful. So, you know, I will see on Stefan Gilmore. I guess I don't have, oh, the comment on Redick was that other teams have bigger problems sorry i just saw his name flash up there and a few people have asked about players that they could potentially trade for that are out there and i just i don't think that an edge rusher is exactly the position but you know we'll see on that uh mark wants to see nudie more i'm sure you do mark i guess that's dwight mcglothern's nicknames nudie and um no one has quite explained that to me yet someone said i didn't understand it because i'm too white that might be a thing so feel free if anyone wants to understand explain where the the nudie

thing comes from i think that dwight mcglothern's had a really good training camp and has shown that he could be a guy for the future, but doing it right now, putting in an undrafted free agent to be on the outside. I think that would be a lot to ask. That's just for an undrafted free agent. It would not be easy for him to just start against some of the best wide receivers in the NFL. That would be pretty difficult. Mike says, as sad as this news is, maybe it will actually help in the long run. Sam was going to start early on. JJ needs to grow. If it's the shorter surgery, then come back and be great for years. Yeah. I mean, I don't think that there's any way to spin it in a positive way as in like oh it could be good for him like that it's no uh because he was going to get all these reps in training camp practices and in pre-season that were going to be really useful for him and his development i think the way to put that is just in the long run it's not devastating to his career or to the outlook for him and what he's shown. It doesn't take away from what he's shown already. Uh, so that it's, it's not, it's not great that

he's going to miss this time, but it's also not ruining his career because he got enough of this training camp. And that was the point about the timing is that the biggest part of this off season for him, for his growth and development has already happened. What you're doing right now is you're putting the salt on the food, right? Like the, the, the food has been cooked and you're putting the seasoning on for JJ McCarthy, but had he gone out in OTAs, minicamp or missed time between minicamp and the start of preseason, or if he had missed early training camp, those are big development times where we saw him just take huge leaps in minicamp. I would have said there is no way we're talking about this guy for week one

i mean i i just if you would ask me after watching a minicamp practice where is he i'd say we'll see him in 2025 um but having seen him through this section of the most important install of the offense and then a preseason game, he is close to being ready to play in the NFL. And he doesn't have to unlearn that because he's having a surgery. So all the things that he's learned, he gets to keep and we'll go forward with, and he'll just have to get back on point with some of the stuff. And this does hurt as far as getting into a game early in the season. But once he gets back to practicing, if he has the cleanup middle of the season, still potentially on track there. But if he has the entire surgery, there will be a lot to kind of relearn and refresh his body on how the steps are supposed to go, when he's supposed to hitch, things like that.

And he may end up sitting out for the entire season um intrepid fool says i have a lot of belief in jj's mental fortitude but it would have been nice to continue uh committing the changes that he's made to his muscle memory yeah yeah i agree with that hopefully not too much regression when he's able to work yeah no i totally agree with all that um his ability to keep plowing through things interceptions bad practices you know i i don't think that a surgery is going to set him back so far i mean he is uh i think a pretty mentally stable and tough uh quarterback and we've seen that already with just even, you know, you put them on the stage

in front of all of Minnesota and U.S. Bank Stadium, and he throws a terrible interception to start off his career, comes right back, has a phenomenal game. And it was, I think, PFF's highest graded rookie quarterback in preseason. All of that stuff is all good signs for him in the way that he's dealt with any ups and downs throughout training camp, all that stuff. So we don't have to worry too much about the way he'll come back. It's just an unfortunate bad break that if he misses three to six months, then he will have to relearn a lot of that stuff that he had gotten into his, as you said, muscle memory before. But we already know he can do that.

Like, we already know that at 100 percent, he can do all those things and he'll get back to them. It just it just could delay the timeline of his first season. So, yeah, that's where we stand. I figured it would be better to do an emergency podcast today there will be another podcast coming with judd zelgad as i have teased for weeks uh he and i are going to record in a little bit here i got a pack i got a flight that i got to catch so um the best way to end this is with someone calling him a bust because why not but don't overreact anybody uh aj when did this happen

we're not sure um kevin o'connell wasn't sure and meniscus tears can be that way where you're just playing along and and there you go so uh as far as who's going to cleveland it's just four of us actually it's me alec lewis dane mizzutani, and Mark Craig of the Star Tribune. And hopefully now I haven't had Mark on the podcast. I really should. I don't even know if Mark does podcasts. So we'll have to teach him what a podcast is. Just kidding, Mark.

But definitely we'll get, you know, some of those guys on the pod. Supposed to meet up with a couple of the reporters out there. So live streams from Cleveland, it'll be the best time we can make it. I was really looking forward to talking to you guys, taking you through every JJ McCarthy throw in Cleveland and the joint practices, but there's a season to be played. Jason seasons over career over move the team. Yep. That's I under that's, that's where everybody is at mentally, I think at this moment, but, uh, we'll go to Cleveland. There'll be joint practices. There's a season to be played.

Hey, Justin Jefferson's still on your team. So anything can happen. And, uh, it could be still one of those wild seasons that we never see coming. And I'm always prepared for that. Um, thanks everybody for jumping on here in the middle of the day to break this down. Hopefully it helped you a little bit that I was chicken little Pollyanna and the boy who cried wolf all in one podcast. And we'll talk to you soon. Keep your eyes out for that collar Zulgad crossover. That's going to happen later on, later on tonight.

I think we'll probably post the video and audio. So then look for me in cleveland and we will pray for hotel wi-fi on there in cleveland so thanks everybody again and we will talk to you all very soon football