Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - JJ McCarthy misses night practice with knee 'soreness'

Episode Date: August 13, 2024

Matthew Coller talks about the Vikings' night practice and JJ McCarthy coming away from his first preseason game with a knee injury. Will he go to Cleveland for the joint practices? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here, and I have just returned from TCO Performance Center, where the Vikings held their annual night practice. And they did it with a lot of reps for Nick Mullins, because J.J. McCarthy was not available for tonight's practice due to routine knee soreness, is the way that it was phrased by Kevin O'Connell. And they said that they were having more testing being done to JJ McCarthy's knee, but that he arrived at the facility with some knee soreness coming out of the game against the Raiders. And I guess there are some questions about how why you're still having to do testing when it's routine but I suppose that you would want to take every precaution possible for JJ McCarthy and then we'll see what happens with the practices in

Cleveland but the fact that Kevin O'Connell was coming out and talking about not being sure whether he was going to be able to go to Cleveland does sort of maybe hint that he's not going to be able to go to Cleveland because O'Connell talked about how the plan was to start working him in a little bit with the first team which i know he has said before but considering the way that mccarthy played it seemed like slash seems like the right time would be in cleveland to give jj mccarthy those opportunities if he indeed is able to go because of whatever happens from his knee now i don't think it's going to be a long time before we find out

because the team is going to take off in a plane. And I think that it wouldn't be a surprise if we got an update from them before they leave with or without JJ McCarthy. And then I am flying myself in a plane to Cleveland as well. Dane Mizzutani will be there from the Pioneer Press. So we'll get a podcast in from Cleveland and we'll see if JJ McCarthy ends up being there, but, uh, not that it's ever

really seemed like JJ McCarthy had much of a chance to be QB one in week one, but to not participate in the night practice. And then if he is not able to go to cleveland then it would be much less likely that he would be able to come back to practice and take the job away from sam darnold because after this that's when the game planning really starts to kick in and i imagine even some game planning probably gets started this week in the joint practices because you're asking another team to maybe give you some looks that you're trying to work on. And that's part of the reason that these teams do that. So you would think that they're starting to look toward week one already. And then after this week, it is really all in on the phase of getting started for the season.

And so if JJ McCarthy stays back in Minnesota and can't participate, then that's really tough for him to be able to, you know, try to get ready for week one, if he was going to do it or to make any more noise in a quarterback competition that hasn't so much been a competition as of yet, as far as JJ McCarthy's actual injury, we really don't know anything outside of Kevin O'Connell telling us that it was soreness and that he came to the facility and that he had some issue with his knee coming out of the game and that they were doing some testing and that they were being cautious to try to make sure that it wasn't something serious, that they put him back out to, uh, you know, practice with

soreness and then maybe re injure or further injure, whatever the problem is. And as of right now, uh, you know, there isn't anything to be overly concerned about aside from when you come out of the game and you go this long with, and then still need some testing and still have soreness because the game ended on Saturday and we're all the way at Monday night. And you're still talking about not being able to practice that does raise the question of what is going on with your knee. If that is the case and of course because of the player that it is jj mccarthy and because of the history with knees in this state uh you know there there is a maybe a tendency to jump to conclusions with something like this and i don't

blame any of you who are feeling very anxious tonight with J.J. McCarthy not practicing in the night practice because you've seen this movie before with several young quarterbacks who were promising and it hasn't gone so good after that. But I would not jump to conclusions yet. If he misses the week because of this knee injury and does not travel to Cleveland, then it raises more of an eyebrow. Uh, and then anything past that, as a Roberto brings up at one point, we were told by Mike Zimmer that it was just the tweak for Daniil Hunter. And then Daniil Hunter missed the whole season, but we don't have to go there just yet. We can wait and get the information of what's going on with, uh, McCarthy. Let's see see first whether he goes to Cleveland and then we'll figure it out from there.

What this means for J.J. McCarthy, if it is a non super serious or non surgery requiring injury that still keeps him from Cleveland. Well, that may mean that he just got it banged up or literally tweaked it, not jokingly tweaked it and that he'll return to practice after that and it will be fine. And then we'll go forward and he probably wasn't going to start anyway. So it's not like it sets back his career at all. Uh, but it's hard not to go down the road of other scenarios that exist when this happens. Because it's McCarthy, because it's a young quarterback coming out, still having an issue after the game, this far separated from it, two days separated from it, your alarm bells definitely go off

any time there's an injury to the knee with something like this. You start thinking about, well, some of these injuries that happen, they don't seem like something at first. And then they go down the road of a surgery or whatever else when they get the testing and do the MRI. But I don't think we have to go there yet just because of the history of Minnesota sports. And trust me, I saw all the tweets. I see all your comments now, classic Vikings, it's over his career has done all those things. We don't have to go there just yet, but it does have potential implications depending on how serious this is. If he cannot go to Cleveland, then this was the last frontier of potentially competing with Sam

Darnold. Now, when you watch how they dealt with the quarterbacks on Saturday, one drive for the starting quarterback and that's it. And then 30 snaps or so for JJ McCarthy, all of that points to Sam Darnold is set as the starting quarterback anyway. So it doesn't maybe really push McCarthy farther back, but it would have been nice for his progress to get some reps against the first team defense like Cleveland that has an argument for being the best defense in the entire NFL. If he does not go, he does miss out on that opportunity to get some full speed practice against the team of that caliber that is not his own team and is also not backups. And with the Raiders, as well as he played, he was playing against a lot of backups out

there. It would have just been a plus if he doesn't end up going. That's what you'll miss is him getting maybe a chance to go up against, even for a handful of reps, the Miles Garrets of the world, the Owusu Koromoas, the Denzel Wards, those great players on Cleveland's side. Otherwise, it doesn't have to be, if he just misses this and then returns, it doesn't have to be that big of a deal. We'll probably never remember it.

And maybe whatever issue is happening with the soreness disappears we all move on we never think about it and we go forward that is the scenario that if he misses the practice if he if he practices in cleveland then well we'll just you know it doesn't mean anything and must've just been whatever football. And if you're JJ McCarthy, it's probably for the best that you tell them that you've had, you've got some knee soreness just so you can deal with it and work through it. But then it'll have been a night of freak out for absolutely nothing. I think that's what, of course,

all of you are rooting for is that this whole, well, I missed the night practice ends up being nothing. He practices in Cleveland. We all move on. It feels like though, the way that O'Connell was talking that it's more likely that he doesn't go. And I'm saying that right now, we may find out 12 hours from now.

So I'm not a hundred percent sure where this is going, but I was thinking about my hotel and plane tickets and all those things that I booked for the final frontier of the quarterback competition. And if he's not there, then it does take a little bit of a shine off of the hotel live stream that is planned for Cleveland at night. But we just don't know that yet and the way that o'connell was talking at the podium he it seemed like it just from his tone that there was some so maybe disappointment of course that he wasn't able to practice uh but if you're picking apart his words and what he had to say it's very hard to tell and maybe they are not 100 sure yet when he was talking to us where JJ McCarthy's knees stands.

But there's no reason to go way down the road here on this to, Hey, this is Teddy Bridgewater again, or something like that. Some things do happen that have some soreness, some swelling, and then require surgeries and keep players out because it's football. And, you know, we talked all through the draft about Michael Penix and his knees. And then JJ McCarthy is the first guy, the guy with the youngest knees to miss some time because it's football and people get banged up. There isn't a reason at this moment to feel like, oh man, this is, this is bad. This is going the wrong way already.

But I don't blame anybody for doing that. And also the way that everything was framed by McCarthy, or I'm sorry, by O'Connell about McCarthy's knee, it was not clear when he's using the word routine, but he's also saying that we're still doing tests and trying to figure out what's going on. I mean, that doesn't really add up to routine. I don't know if you have to usually test if it's just a little routine soreness coming out of a football game. I would imagine that most people who play in a football game end up with a routine soreness. That's what makes you a little

hesitant to say, this will be fine. It's no big deal. Uh, but the reality is that we just don't know yet and we have to find out. So if he doesn't go to Cleveland, you can pretty much count out any last hope of JJ McCarthy sweeping in and winning a job that he probably wasn't going to win anyway and he will miss out on an opportunity to make some progress in Cleveland if he doesn't go that's really about it if that is the extent of the injury if we are talking about something more serious then it does become a little more concerning even though Sam Darnold is in place but it's not what you want to see is one game. And there's already an injury to JJ McCarthy. You could tell how excited Kevin O'Connell was about the way that JJ McCarthy played.

He ran through multiple plays at the podium. He, I saw that he was on like McAfee show. He did a thing with Albert Breer. It's like you have your quarterback has a day like that. You want to get out in front of people and you want to start talking about it. And you could tell that he was, he was pretty excited about the way that he played and was maybe a little downtrodden that he couldn't follow that up with a night practice. And I especially feel bad for all the people who came out to TCO Performance Center for the night practice.

They already had to wait an extra week because it got delayed. And then they come out tonight and there's no J.J. McCarthy. So if you're just joining the live stream and you saw the headline and you're saying, what the heck? What do you mean? It was actually funny. I was in line at a food truck before the practice to get a burger. Uh, and there was a person standing behind me who said that they subscribed to the newsletter, uh, Ryan shout out to Ryan. And so I said, Oh, that's great. And I said, did you hear about McCarthy? And he had not yet. And so with him and his wife and his kid there i said sorry jj mccarthy's not

going to practice tonight and he looked at me like are you messing with me are you like no i'm not messing with you unfortunately jj mccarthy did not practice tonight because of soreness and it was called routine but yet we're not sure how routine it is because they were testing him. And they said part of it was that everyone showed up later because of the night practice. So maybe they would have more information if they had done a test in the morning and we should know at least something by tomorrow.

I imagine the team will send out something to the reporters about whether McCarthy goes on the plane or not. I think I'm only guessing, but I think that they are going to be leaving in the morning. I suspect to go to Cleveland and get settled there before the two practices against the Browns. So we should have tomorrow and on Tuesday some sense of what is happening, at least whether McCarthy is going to Cleveland or not. And then myself, Dane Mizutani, Alec Lewis, we are all the ones that are going from the local beat. It's four of us, Mark Craig from the Star Tribune as well. So there's four of us that are going. So we will update you on what Kevin O'Connell has to say about JJ McCarthy status when we

get to Cleveland and we'll find out maybe a little more about the testing and what has happened there. And that's if he's there or if he's not there, we'll find out what they were able to discover about JJ McCarthy's knee. But I think if there's any sort of percentage at all chance that it could be risky to further injury to him if there's even the tiniest little tweak just don't just don't take them right just go with sam darnold get some really good reps there get nick mullins a couple reps because he might end up being qb2 to start the season and then go from there with JJ McCarthy.

So this is, I will say, I feel quite bad for everybody involved because it is the type of gut punch that you guys Vikings fans have taken many, many times of you think something is going a certain direction. And then it is Charlie Brown in the football. I remember going to the Minnesota history museum and the discovering that the peanuts cartoon, all that Charles Schultz from Minnesota. And I thought, well, now this makes sense. This makes sense that the guy that came up with pulling the football out from under Charlie Brown was from here.

But I don't think that we have to go all the way down that road just yet. If there is something that ends up happening with McCarthy and his knee, uh, then there's plenty of time to work through that. And also this is why you get Sam Darnold in the off season is that you don't have to just put all your eggs in, in one basket of a rookie, but also Sam Darnold is ready to start. Looked really good on Saturday. We barely talked about how good Sam, Sam Darnold was, but when I looked back at the tape, I thought that he was honestly excellent in that game, uh, and has had a really good training camp and is prepared to, um, uh, to go out there and start on week one. So, uh, I think that no

matter what Sam Darnold was going to start in week one, it just would have been nice to go to Cleveland. If the, and this is if McCarthy misses, it would have been nice to go to Cleveland and see how things were playing out there and how he was looking. But i can't even tell you for sure whether he's going or not it just felt like i'm only giving you the vibe it felt like kevin o'connell was hinting a little bit toward maybe not going because the way that he talked about uh just the the reps that he had planned to give to jj mccarthy that was sort feeling of, oh, it sounds like he was talking about as if he was going to go, then I was going to give him these reps, but now I can't.

That at least was somewhat layered into the phrasing, but it's just, it's never easy to figure these things out because I don't think that O'Connell wanted to say definitively or was even able to say definitively what was going to happen with JJ McCarthy. So, you know, this is where we stand right now and we will find out where it goes from here, but it is a bit of a gut punch for everybody because I saw, I think it was Seth Kaplan today tweeted out the ratings for Saturday's game of the Vikings game versus the Olympics.

And the Vikings game blew the Olympics out of the water, as you might expect. I mean, this was the introduction of the new first round quarterback, the highest drafted quarterback that the Vikings have had in their history. And his first game is just absolutely terrific. And I watched JTO Sullivan's recap of it today. And there were a few quibbles that he had. And I thought it was very interesting the way that he broke down some of the footwork and maybe being late on a throw or two here or there because he hitched up a little too much and so forth. And you could see some of the moments of like, this is what O'Connell's talking about.

This is what he has to work on. But to have a game like that and to just sweep in an amount of excitement to the Vikings fan base only the day later to find out that he has knee soreness. I mean, you just kind of can't make that up and uh the only thing that of course everyone is hoping for when it comes to uh jj mccarthy's knee is that it's totally fine and uh we all go forward and he's in cleveland and i'm there in cleveland and uh we'll talk to him and whatever. That's that's what that's what everyone wants, including me, because I would never want an injury for a player.

And of course, the entire state wants to see another preseason game of J.J. McCarthy playing against the Cleveland Browns. It doesn't feel like that's going to happen as I sit here right now. And then, you know, we'll go forward and find out if it does. If it does, then that's going to be a much more calm chat, I think, from you guys when it comes to the next emergency podcast that we're going to do. So we'll find out tomorrow. But that's the big news today. Questions, comments are certainly welcome on this. Although, you know, if every comment is thinking that they should put him maybe on IR or announce his retirement right now because he's a Vikings quarterback with a knee injury, then that's

probably deep breath territory at the moment. It just, when you hear routine soreness, but we're doing tests, like which one of these am I supposed to think is what's actually going on? And I guess the test part is some of it. So I have now prepared myself for just the possibility that McCarthy is not going to be in Cleveland when he would have had, it sounds like, an opportunity to take first team reps. And even a practice like tonight, it was not the most intense practice I've ever seen, but it's under the lights and it's a really fun opportunity. So he didn't get to have his first ever night practice. You know, maybe he'll have plenty more after this, I would assume, but to not have his first ever night practice uh you know maybe he'll have plenty more after this i would assume but to not have his first night practice is disappointing as well for jj mccarthy so

everybody went home with a bit of a feeling of man really really this this again this already with uh jj mccarthy after the way that he played, but we can only just go day by day and see what comes of this. If it ends up being something like a required surgery, that's going to keep him out X number of weeks. Well, they have Sam Darnold and they'll have to just go from there. If it ends up being something even more serious than that, then it could hold him back as far as making progress in his first season. But I just don't want to go down that road yet until I have to, until they announce something is really bad has happened with JJ McCarthy's knee. Then we're going to assume that it is something that won't keep him out maybe that long when we

can't even say for sure sure as we sit here right now whether he's actually going to cleveland or not for the joint practices then i really don't want to go all the way into speculation i mean of course me being human like you i've thought of it i've thought of okay what happens if he's out for a long period of time but we just don't really have any indication of that yet so it's impossible to say how bad this is going to be for mccarthy whether it's just a day whether it's a couple of uh you know a couple of weeks or or what it's going to be. And with Kevin O'Connell and his updates with injuries, I have found him in the past to usually be optimistic at the podium,

not always perfectly accurate, which I don't require, but optimistic. Like when he talks about Shaq Griffin sort of talked in a way that Shaq Griffin would be right back. He has not been back yet. That kind of thing. This happened with a few other players last year. So it's sounded like even TJ Hawkinson the other day, always ahead of schedule. We want it back. So maybe even saying he's not sure if he's going on the flight to Cleveland

was potentially being a tad over optimistic. That could be the case. Uh, we will find out again tomorrow. So, yep. Um, uh, you know, I, I think, um, I get it. I get it. Uh, all of you who are, uh, worked up about this and upset, uh, you know, there's really nothing we can do, but just wait and find out what ends up happening with jj mccarthy so here we are following the night practice and uh i'm sorry to everyone who came out tonight it was hoping that they uh would see jj mccarthy up close at practice tonight and i wanted to see that was really the main thing that i went out hoping to see was does

jj mccarthy take first team reps and then we don't see him at all and then you know it just it doesn't feel like he is going to be going to cleveland which really solidifies sam darnold as the starting quarterback of this team that's okay because that was going to happen anyway uh but you would have liked to have seen him get a shot at playing with the first team and just see how it goes and get a little more to add into the pot of analysis with jj mccarthy so i i there's not much else i could say about it other than i understand everybody jumping to the immediate worst case scenario i i don't think you need to do that just yet and we'll just have to find out uh what happens next if he does end up missing any time into the season if it ends up being just a week just a day

anything seems on the table when you're talking about doing testing and things like that. So anyway, uh, Mark, uh, did the practice happen? Well, would you like me to talk about Jerry Tillery returning or the franchise quarterback getting hurt? Which would you prefer my friend? Uh, Jerry Tillery was back. So do you want me to give the breakdown of each rep instead? Would that be a smart content decision or would you talk about the quarterback? Come on. But there is other things to talk about, like Stefan Gilmore. So Stefan Gilmore visited the Vikings today and Kevin O'Connell sounded to me like he was selling Stefan Gilmore on the Vikings

building, the culture, the people there, the atmosphere, having worked with Brian Flores before when they were both in New England. That's what it sounded like. What it did not sound like was he signing a contract today. We got no indication of that either. How long will McCarthy be out? I don't know. Will Stefan Gilmore sign? I don't know. Back to you. That's what we got right now. That's where we stand. I personally think that signing Stefan Gilmore makes a lot of sense because the defense outside of the corners, and maybe I think you could question the interior defensive line as well, but outside of the corners has a lot of talent and looks like a defense that could be in the top 10, but you can't be in the top 10.

If a Caleb Evans can't manage man coverage, or you can't be in the top 10 if you're giving up a ton of passes underneath like they did last year because they had to play everybody in deep zones all the time because they didn't really trust their corners. If you end up signing Stephon Gilmore, and even though he is on the older side, it would feel much more like

solidifying the group to where you have Fabian Morrow who's a veteran Byron Murphy is a veteran these guys have played a lot of football throughout their careers and then somebody who's been above average even recently would be Stefan Gilmore so um you, if he ends up signing, then it just would feel like there's more, um, of depth there and they could at least have less massive weakness. Like right now it feels like any injury there, like, Oh, it's already weak, but any injury there would send them tumbling down into where they've been the last couple of years at the cornerback position. And, uh, you know, when it comes to getting someone like Stefan Gilmore, even if he was playing like 60% of the snaps, that would be a pretty big improvement. And, uh, Ken says,

isn't Gilmore more of an all in kind of move? I mean, yes and no, no because i mean you're not really all in in the way that it would have any long-term implications like you've got cap space to spend and if you sign him to a one year deal then you get the cap space back when he hits free agency or i guess you could try to resign him uh and yes i am aware stefan gilmore is the older side, but he's also been good into his older age. He's been an above average player. He's been over the last couple of years. He's been better than Shaq Griffin. He's been better than Fabian Morrow. There have been some corners to go into their thirties and play pretty well. as in they would be saying we like what we've seen from Darnold we like what we see from Aaron Jones Derisaw and Jefferson are locked up and they can can put together a good offense here potentially and I mean a solid offense not unbelievable but a solid to good offense and on the defensive side you have star edge rushers. You have terrific safeties. You have very good linebackers.

And you're missing this one thing that's very important. So why not try to shore it up for a couple of million dollars? That makes sense to me. Also, if Mark Wilf is saying that they're not getting extensions right now and not having extension talks, Well, that might be an inspiration to try to add one more player to the mix, to try to do as much as they possibly can to make this defense good. Like they, this is not a rebuild year. They are trying to build on what they have,

but it's not like a tanky type of year where you're just playing young players. They have a lot of veteran players who are trying to win. It sounded to me like, Dennis, that Stephon Gilmore did leave town without a contract, which sometimes they come back and sometimes they don't. If I had to venture a guess about Stefan Gilmore, then I would probably tell you that Gilmore came here to try to ramp up interest. And he told Josina Anderson that he was coming here before he did it to try to ramp up interest and to get an offer from the Vikings

to take to other teams that he wants to sign with and say, can you pay me more than the Vikings want take to other teams that he wants to sign with and say, can you pay me more than the Vikings want to pay me? And can you bring me in to a potential Superbowl contender? That's what I think Stefan Gilmore was doing by coming here. But if he doesn't get any other offers, he may just end up coming here anyway. And I think this team could use it because again, this is not just a, let's throw everybody at the wall and get you know see if dwight mcgothern can start or something like there's too many good players they spent too much money they have too good of a defensive coordinator to just go eh you know

whatever right so did i get the ad read in thank you you know what i hadn't thought of it yet oh gosh and i'll i'll work on calling that up. I had not thought of it. Thank you. I appreciate that. I needed to take a breath there anyway, but I still think that Stefan Gilmore would be a good signing for the Vikings, but I just didn't get an indication that that's something that's going to happen right away for them. So there wasn't really almost any good news at all. It's from today, except for the fact that both quarterbacks played well. And there was a big, you know, breakdown from Kevin O'Connell about how he really liked what he saw from both quarterbacks.

And when I watched the game back, I did too. Just a couple of quick things on, I mean, I could tell you about the night practice, Sam Darnold threw an interception to Andrew Van Ginkle, who I think is going to be really good. There were a lot of reps from Nick Mullins, as you would have expected. And they looked like Nick Mullins reps. There's not much to get into there. He had a good drive at the end of the game and i know what you guys want to hear about is the kicker will reichard hit every single kick again tonight as he continues to be very good so uh alex yeah i know that gilmore was not good against green

bay in the playoffs his overall season was good and he graded 10th by pff in man coverage so i think that he can still play at least based on last year it's just you know how much do you want to spend on him uh how much is he willing to take will he actually come here it sounded to me more like the vikings were trying to convince him to come here than they were just trying to consider it that's what it sounded like with the way that kevin o'connell was talking is hey come on man why don't you come here we they were just trying to consider it. That's what it sounded like with the way that Kevin O'Connell was talking is, Hey, come on, man. Why don't you come here? We got a great culture. You'll enjoy it. Why don't you just, you know, be a Viking. That's how it sounded. And you know, all of you are saying Gilmore's game is going to drop off and he's no good. And he's old. Is that because he left town? Cause if he signed, I think you guys would be saying that you were happy he was here.

I don't know when someone is going to drop off based on their age. Running backs are easy to predict. I think every other position is difficult. All I know is that Stefan Gilmore, in comparison, the way that he has played recently to the other guys that they have on the team is a better choice than most of them. And that's just the reality of this guy's career is that he has been around for a long time and he's had a lot of success. And I understand he's 34, but when he was 33, he played a thousand snaps and was a top third of the league, top fourth of the league corner by PFF last season, which, which one of the other corners is going to be able to put up that type of performance.

I mean, yeah. McClother, a UDFA, an undrafted free agent. Like, come on. I mean, let's be realistic here. They bring in Fabian Morrow. He's been average for his entire career uh they have a caleb evans who was i think ranked 71st out of 80 corners by pff last season i mean there just isn't a whole lot of options here and when you have a defense

that was good in every other area or that is good in almost every other area, except for one, it makes sense to take a shot there. It's the fun Gilmore. So as of this moment, no Stefan Gilmore, as I mentioned, Jerry Tillery did return for practice. I said it in a somewhat of a, a snarky type of way, but he is back and that's good because you know he got that cut on his leg when he got cleated so um you know what about charlie what about trades for young talent which team is it that gives away young talent which is there a team out there that's like you know we've got some young talent would you like it it's not how it works nobody trades away their their young talent uh as far as Shaq Griffin uh yeah he is he's still out I mean that's look they didn't do enough for the cornerback position and

that's what put them there uh what put them here also a guy tore his ACL that also put them here and then another guy had another injury that we just don't know about when he's going to come back in Shaq Griffin. So this is really all you can do. But I don't think they could sit here and waste an entire season not being able to cover everybody when they have all this other talent and they play a lot of good offenses and they feel like Sam Darnold can play competent to good football with this team. I know that he hasn't before, but all the sample we have right now would indicate that he's going to be

a better version of himself. So that's why you add another player. And there's no downside to it. You'd be adding him likely on a one-year contract. If the team is bad at the beginning of the season, you trade them away. There's really, there's no bad thing that comes from Gilmore unless he's just so washed that he can't get on the team.

Um, so it's just, you know, I think that it would be a fine decision if they were to sign Stefan Gilmore. I'm not saying it's the difference between making or not making a Superbowl. And I also don't think that there's anybody who qualifies as we need to find out about the young guys. Once you send Andrew Booth away, uh, that means they already found out and they've seen a lot of a Caleb Evans. This is his third year. And if there's no belief in him as being that guy, then that would really indicate that there's probably no reason to think he could be that guy if they're still going out there and trying to get other players. You know, Michael, I think

I said probably when at the beginning of the free agency or training camp that I wanted to see it play out with a Caleb Evans and Andrew Booth jr. But the thing is about life, as you go along in time, things change. It's crazy like that. And when new information comes up and things change, then opinions change. Now that we've seen them get a chance because they didn't sign Stefan Gilmore right away and they had a chance and they didn't perform in training camp and they traded one of them away. Now things are different. The other thing is too, at that time, we didn't know Sam Darnold would look this good. And we also didn't know the rest of the defense would look as good as it has. So at that time, then it

felt like, well, let's let it play out. And they did. And then now they need to go do that. So that's just kind of how it works, right? As things change, then we change our viewpoints. So how did Darnold respond to the interception? I don't know. Fine. It was a fine practice. It wasn't anything spectacular.

It wasn't some sort of hardcore practice. There was one deep ball that was thrown today and it was going toward Johnny Munt. This was, this was just in previous years. There are a lot of night practices that have been either memorable or intense, but this just wasn't one of them. This was a practice that would be pretty normal after a game two days ago, more of a ramp up practice that had some exciting moments with, uh, Will Reichard kicking his last field goals and Andrew Van Ginkle getting the

interceptions, but, or the interception for a touchdown. Uh, but you know, yeah, I mean, it wasn't, it wasn't, uh, Jake Browning, that's for sure. It wasn't, uh, uh jake browning that's for sure it wasn't uh jake browning um uh having his amazing night practice this one was like okay not a whole lot really different there harrison smith participated uh aaron jones participated that's good news that aaron jones was back in there because he had missed the game and didn't dress or even warm up for the game. And he had missed some practice time. So him being back, that just tells you little bumps and bruises.

So is it Kwesi's fault the cornerback room isn't good? Well, kind of. He didn't anticipate that the third rounder he drafted, who they had high hopes for, would tear his ACL on the first day. But, I mean, there's only so much draft capital that they had and it went into a quarterback and an edge rusher. Uh, I, I, I mean, I don't remember the free agents who were out there, but I also know that free agents are pretty risky when it comes to signing them as far as corners go. So, yeah.

But let me circle back just for those just joining because we do have a big crowd here tonight. Welcome, everybody. It is one of those days, isn't it? Just one of those days where, you know, everyone in Vikings land has something good happen and immediately has to sweep in some sort of news that sounds very daunting. Let me do the ad read as was suggested, and I appreciate that.

I will do that. And then we will get back into it with J.J. McCarthy. So let me tell you, this here show is presented by U.S. Cellular, and U.S. Cellular noticed the way that we use our phones has gotten ironic. We try to put our phones down for dinner, but the menu's on a QR code, which is ironic. We hit like on social media posts that we don't actually like. That's ironic. Which is why U.S. Cellular created Us Mode to help us reconnect with each other and use our phones less ironically.

A phone company wanting to people to use their phones less is ironic. Let's find us again with us mode from U.S. Cellular visit U.S. Cellular dot com slash built for us to get started. And I know that it's summertime, but it's a good time to make a quick trip to Vegas to visit Circa because the million and survivor contests are back in the survivor contest. You pick one team straight up to win each week. You go 20 and O or you are the last person standing and you can bring in massive prize money for people that won last year split

a $9.2 million costs a thousand dollars to enter. if you win you are a millionaire and of course the millions contest is where you pick five teams against the spread every week and winner takes home a million dollars go to circa las vegas.com for more and brian murphy and i later in the month will be going out to circa uh to uh do more with them and with those two contests. So very exciting. Let me take a quick sip of a diet. Dr. P here. Catch my breath. Ah, well, one of those days, uh, where you head off the TCO performance center thinking, well, this should be a,

just a pretty exciting night practice for everybody involved. thinking, well, this should be just a pretty exciting night practice for everybody involved. And I was planning as I was driving out there, I'm thinking in my head, what can I do tonight on J.J. McCarthy? Maybe what I'll do is I'll watch every single throw that he makes all night and I'll chronicle his evening from start to finish and from the sideline view of TCO performance center. And we get out there and we go to Kevin O'Connell's press conference. And the minute he walks up to the podium, you just get the sense that something's not right here. He doesn't have his usual swag

going up to the podium. And he announces that JJ McCarthy has knee soreness. That's why he didn't practice tonight. Was not sure yet if he was going to go to Cleveland. It feels like JJ McCarthy is not going to Cleveland. That was just my feeling. This was not something that I am reporting or that I heard or whatever they were waiting to get the test back and he called it routine soreness which as was pointed out earlier in the show uh once upon a time a season-ending neck injury was called a tweak so we can't really do too much with that with the routine soreness and my main message is that we'll get a sense of whether there's any seriousness to it at all tomorrow whether he gets on the plane to go to cleveland or not and i imagine the team will let some of us know uh what's going on, um, as far as, um, as, as, as far as, uh, as far as JJ McCarthy goes.

So we're going to find out. And, uh, and that is about it. So we'll see what happens from there. And I deeply apologize to you guys who are complaining about more, less breakdown of the night practice. It was barely a practice. I mean, I don't know how that would be less important to talk about than what's going on with this. And then, uh, Stefan Gilmore too, but I guess I could take you through every short throw that they converted tonight. If you want to, I don't know. Um, it seems like it's less important to me, but what do I know? So anyway, um, they, they practiced without JJ McCarthy tonight. Of course, Sam Darnold was fine as he always is in practice.

I didn't think that anything that Sam Darnold did tonight, which was a limited amount of work really in comparison to intense practices would change anything in the world that we already think about sam darnold uh so he is going to go to cleveland as qb1 and if jj mccarthy does not go with him then the implications are quite clear that sam darnold is uh okay i'm sorry comment section is having some struggle tonight i I think I, I think you're overreacting to JJ. I've literally said this entire time that we're going to wait and find out. I don't know what it's over. It's over. His career is over. That would be overreacting to JJ McCarthy. Anyway. It's usually, usually pretty pretty a pretty good group here but i think we're struggling

tonight um in the comments section anyhow so we'll see uh we'll see what ends up happening but if he does not go to cleveland then there really isn't any way to um to you know for him to come back and compete for uh the, the QB one there just, there just isn't. Uh, and I don't think he was ever actually competing for that anyway, but if he was going to get first team reps, uh, then it was going to happen this week against Cleveland. That would have been maybe the one time Kevin O'Connell would want JJ McCarthy to go out there and compete with Sam Darnold and have even somewhat of a battle. Now, Sam Darnold has taken the first team reps from minicamp all the way till tonight. So it was unlikely, especially with how much he played or how little he played on Saturday.

It was unlikely that he was ever going to be unseated by JJ McCarthy anyway, as much as the, uh, you know, internet people seem to be pushing every single thing to try to force the team to start JJ McCarthy. It's like not how it works that the plan has been all the way through to start Sam Darnold anyway so this doesn't impact that too much but I think that you wanted to at least see the first team reps and how he looked out there and how he looked against another team if he does not go that's disappointing but whether this becomes anything more than just disappointing that he didn't get to go to cleveland or out for an amount of time that is still yet to be seen and it's only concerning just because of that it's

it's only concerning just because when you hear an update like this and you hear testing you start to think do do we are we going to get into surgery, are we going to get into surgery land? Are we going to get into they discovered XYZ? Because he was still dealing with soreness quite a bit after the game, not just the day after, but really two days after. So there you go. That's pretty much the update with JJ McCarthy. And there just wasn't a whole lot that was different from the night practice

from what you already know about the team. Aside from a couple of guys who were banged up, uh, ended up back out there tonight, which is good news for Jerry Tillery. Good news for Aaron Jones. Those were probably the two most important ones. And I, uh, watched back, um, you know, I, I watched back, um, the film from, uh, from the game. And I thought that was pretty interesting to take a look at where JJ McCarthy really shined, uh, which was the, you know, the deep ball was excellent, but where he is going to have to

speed up and sharpen up a little bit on a couple of those plays, the one where his arm was going forward, the ball got knocked out, maybe a little bit slow getting the ball out of his hands. And, you know, just a couple of those plays where there might've been an extra hitch where there didn't need to be one. And I and I would employ you to go look at J uh, JTO Sullivan's breakdown of McCarthy, but after watching it back, I mean, I thought it was as good as, uh, they could have asked for from his, uh, his, his start. Um, yeah, we, we didn't get an update on, on Dallas Turner and, uh, why he was not practicing. So I, I don't know about that. But I noticed that some of the players that hadn't practiced in a few days were back, but we didn't get an

update on that one. That'll be another one we have to see. I guess the fact that it wasn't brought up immediately to me made me think that it was just whatever coming out of the game, but to have both rookies not practicing tonight, not exactly ideal for the Vikings. So a tense situation, I guess, as we wait to find out what is going to happen with JJ McCarthy, but I don't have a lot else to say about this evening's events. So that's,

that's really all I got. What we're going to find out and I'll be in, uh, Cleveland tomorrow and, and that's where we're going to go. So, all right, well, I'm going to call it a night. So, uh, good stuff guys. Thanks for popping in for this update after the night practice. And, uh, we'll do it again in Cleveland. I'll see you guys there. I plan on doing a live stream from Cleveland to recap and a couple of podcasts as well so we'll catch you after that thanks everybody for watching and we'll see you later you