Anything that happens with Minnesota Vikings quarterback J.J. McCarthy is going to draw attention, whether fair or not.
The Minnesota Vikings quarterback competition, or lack thereof, is going to be the biggest talking point of the offseason. Because of that, everything that both Kyler Murray and J.J. McCarthy do will be heavily scrutinized.
That happened after practice on Thursday when the media was there to watch for the second time during OTAs. One aspect in heavy focus is going to be the discipline of McCarthy. His consistency has been questioned within the building, something The Athletic's Alec Lewis highlighted in his latest piece .
O'Connell hasn't said this publicly, nor has any other Vikings staffer, but the lack of consistency from McCarthy in this vein contributed to the team signing Murray. McCarthy's day-to-day disparity first became apparent following his torn meniscus in the fall and winter of 2024. It forced many inside the TCO Performance Center to push for the team to sign Aaron Rodgers.
After trading fourth and fifth-round picks to move up one spot, the Minnesota Vikings selected McCarthy at 10th overall.
Despite having a dynamite performance in his preseason debut, McCarthy tore his meniscus and missed the entire 2024 season.
In his first start, McCarthy had three very poor quarters before a dynamite fourth quarter earned him NFC Offensive Player of the Week honors.
McCarthy missed seven games due to three separate injuries, bringing his total games (regular season and playoffs) missed to 25.
When practice ended, McCarthy made a relatively quick exit, something that Lewis noted in the same piece.
O'Connell's perch provides him with the details behind these snaps - behind everything. He knows the degree of difficulty of throws in his scheme, and he knows whether or not it matters that McCarthy stretches away from the other three quarterbacks before practices like Thursday's, or that he jogged off the field Thursday before the other three, who stayed behind together.
Normally, something like that wouldn't be a very big deal. In a competition, even the smallest of details can end up being meaningful. That paragraph was all over social media with many criticizing McCarthy for leaving practice the way he did. We did get some additional context from Lewis about why he was so quick to get off the field.
There are multiple ways to look at this. You can take the angle that McCarthy leaving practice early is a bad look no matter what. If your biggest competition is sticking around after practice, maybe you should be doing the same.
On the other hand, he was apparently rushing to make a get together with teammates. That certainly flies in the face of the idea that he would be a bad teammate or isn't taking this seriously. Sure, golfing won't help him win football games, but he's building camaraderie with his teammates, which is an important element of a successful franchise.
Overall, this really tells us everything and nothing at all about McCarthy. Whatever your position on him will likely determine what you think about this.
Essentially, it doesn't mean anything.
