EMERGENCY POD: J.J. McCarthy OUT For 2-4 Weeks

EMERGENCY POD: J.J. McCarthy OUT For 2-4 Weeks

JJ McCarthy is out two to four weeks with a high ankle sprain. So now we got to figure out what happens next. Welcome to a real quick emergency pod here on the Locked On Vikings podcast. You are Locked on Vikings, your daily Minnesota Vikings podcast, part of the Locked On podcast network. Your team every day. What’s up everybody? Hey, welcome to a quick emergency edition of the locked on Vikings podcast. Look at that. I don’t even have my wall set up yet. And uh players are already dropping like flies. The injury bug has hit the Vikings so bad. And now the biggest blow probably is that the quarterback is down. High ankle sprain for JJ McCarthy. Out two to four weeks according to Adam Shfter’s reporting. Um Kevin Oonnell said they don’t anticipate having him for Cincinnati but didn’t say anything beyond that. So now it’s Carson Wentz time. Uh the for the the second time in three years, the Vikings and Bengals will square off with just their backup quarterbacks. It’s weird that this keeps happening. Um so what I wanted to do is I I just wanted to go live. All right, let some people in the chat get their uh get get their their vents out. Nathan Feather says there is a non-zero chance that JJ won’t start another game for us. Um yep, you are dooming. You’re being crazy. Um, and just try to kind of reorient where we’re thinking. This emergency pod on the Locked On Vikings podcast is brought to you by FanDuel. Right now, new customers can bet us $5. And if your bet wins, you get 300 bucks in bonus bets to use across the app. Um, so if you’re live, if you’re in the chat, let it all out. All right. Uh, I also have I’m going to do a real full town hall Tuesday later. uh tonight. So that’ll be up in the morning as well. Um but yeah, it sounds like two to four. It sounds like that’s gonna basically take JJ McCarthy to the buy. So we’ll have Carson Wentz now for the whole Europe trip. I’m I’m going to fly across the pond to see Carson Wentz play. I’m not super thrilled about that. But I will be over there. That’ll be fun. Um and we’ll see if things are a little bit different. Here is what I’m thinking. I mean, obviously this freaking sucks. Uh, I don’t want to watch Carson Wentz play football for my team. We’ve seen enough of that and he’s been a backup for a couple of years now and for a pretty good reason. But as a veteran, a lot of the problems that happened last night are kind of based on like the inexperience. Carson Wentz can like operate a huddle. We know that there’s lots of problems with Carson Wentz. That’s not one of them. So maybe Kevin Oonnell can like avoid the need to simplify the offense a little bit and you can hopefully get things down. The problem is that’s not a long-term solution, right? Yes, you can now call your 35word play calls because Carson Wentz knows how to do a huddle. Uh but that you’re going to invite way more problems, right? Like you don’t want to make this the long-term starter. And you certainly don’t want to just like quit on JJ McCarthy because he doesn’t quite get the doesn’t quite have the the rhythm of things down yet in his second ever start. Um but the I guess like the silver lining is that maybe your offense can look a little bit more normal here and then you just have to kind of take in stride whatever Carson Wentzness comes with it now. the the stupid interceptions, the the balls that he can’t that he he can’t force anymore. I I remind you that the reason he flamed out in Philly, outside of all the off-field stuff and like locker room stuff that people complained about, but the the onfield reason that he flamed out was because he no longer could hit the tight windows that he used to when he was healthy. Um, and he didn’t change. He didn’t he didn’t back off of it. As a backup, you got to make that different. You have to try to get him to just do the safe things, just do the the nice easy stuff. He also has only been here for a few weeks, so I don’t know if he has the 35word play call in thing in him. So maybe it’s the opposite. Maybe it this is going to force Kevin Oonnell to fix up his uh or to sort of pair down his offense into something that’s actually like usable. Um but yeah, this throws the whole thing in. Uh yeah, Hank Lee says season’s definitely over. The only silver lining was that McCarthy would get reps. Man, he’s gonna be back by the by-week. Relax. Season. It’s week two. Okay, relax. If you could beat Jake Browning and then go one and one in Europe and you’re three and two and McCarthy’s coming back. You call that season over? Go pour some cold water on your head or something. Um, andrew C says something that I’ve kind of been thinking may this feels like I’m coping like big time, but uh JJ Mccarthy maybe being forced into more development time. Not necessar like I don’t think more time on the bench watching and taking mental reps is what he needs. He’s had plenty of that, but maybe a bit of a break to like reflect on what exactly has gone wrong here might be good for both him and Okonnell. I think the pairing is just not working right now. Um yeah, and we’re going to get a whole bunch of of stuff like what we’re getting from anti-gravity here. Uh yeah, we could should have kept Don Jones. Should have kept Sam Darnold. Should have kept Kirk Cousins. Should have kept should have kept. Should have kept. Should have kept. Should have kept. Take your shoods and stick them where the sun don’t shine. Man, it’s it Do you think this is a oneweek injury? Yeah, the reporting is that it’s two to four weeks, Aaron. Uh so this is probably going to take him to the buy or close to it. He’ll maybe be like questionable for the last game in London uh against the Browns, but I’m going to guess the buy. Um if it’s a high ankle sprain, th those tend to be pretty long injuries. Um th those are those are like a month or so for sure. And then you have the by week. So you’re actually going to have like five weeks. Um so look, nothing that has happened in the last 24 hours is good. The vibes have shifted quite a bit. But I want you to think about think about it this way. Um the Vikings have totally fallen apart from the way you felt on Monday night. Think about the way you felt on Monday night. how different you feel. Now, it’s pretty stark contrast, right? The NFL season has a way of flipping it right back around all the time. It is a long year. By Thanksgiving, this will all be in the past and we’ll be whatever the record will be, we’ll be talking about the upcoming game against the I forget who’s that week, the Cowboys or whatever. And we’ll move on from there. And after this season, we’re going to go, “Wow, that was a weird developmental year.” But the narrative after that season is going to be like, “All right, let’s see what he does in the second year.” Okay, well, here’s what he needs to learn. Here’s what we need to do. That’s what that’s it’s what it’s going to be. Zoom out. Don’t be a prisoner of the moment, and you’ll find out that all this stuff it I mean, when it rains, it certainly pours and we all got gut punched. And I’m not going to uh begrudge any of you for dooming really, really hard like Hank Lee is. Uh you I will let you have your moment, Hank. Absolutely. But there this is a very weird moment in time that will ultimately wash away in the grand scheme of everything. Um it’s the Vikings. I guess we’re doing an injury bug here. That’s not how regression works. I wish they could just have like an average injury year. They’re either like so healthy that people use it to just to like dismiss the fact that they’re winning a lot of games or or or the injury bug hits them so unbelievably hard that it’s a preseason team by the end of the year. I like can we have like one normal year please? Please can the Vikings have a normal year? Um but now with Carson Wentz at the helm here’s the other thing. Um I am still kind of keeping an eye on Max Bromer. I’m not a 100 percent convinced that Carson Wentz is is the best backup here. Bros looked pretty good. I don’t think he was ready to play at all. Um I a and for a lot of those same reasons McCarthy wasn’t. Like things were just a little bit too slow. There were still like some really like inexperienced mistakes. And I’m seeing Carson Wentz as like a veteran, right? That’s somebody that’s going to be a little bit more not even like he’ll take risks, stupid risks that he shouldn’t take. It’s going to turn into turnovers. get ready for that. Um, but he’s going to be able to like time the snap properly. You know, these basic details that um are are so so vital that you kind of take for granted when you’ve we’ve been watching veteran quarterbacks in Minnesota for 10 years from even before Kurt Cousins to Sam Bradford and Case Keenum and like guys that know how to do this, right? We haven’t seen a true rookie since 2014. It’s been 11 years. Um, and and and I think part of that’s with Bromer, too. But if Carson Wentz struggles, man, it’s gonna we’re gonna start talking about it. Um, okay. I’m really glad you asked this, Barack Broama. Love that. Uh, says, “Is it fair to begin questioning team prep, medical staff, etc. outside of dumb luck?” No. Injuries are dumb luck, and there’s been unluckier There are unluckier teams in the league right now with injuries. Uh, I think you can only really start blaming the the the team if there’s like a specific report about it like with the Chargers and Tyrod Taylor a few years ago or if it’s like the 49ers where it’s like a pattern over and over and over and over and over again. But the Vikings have had very healthy seasons as much as they’ve had very injured seasons. Um, so I do believe that this is this is just dumb luck. I know that’s not like a satisfying answer, but sometimes yeah, you just got unlucky and there’s literally nothing you should change about it. You just got to win the coin flip next time. Um, I’m going to wrap this up real quick. Next on Locked on Vikings. This episode of Locked on Vikings is brought to you by Mazda. Uh, Mazda delivers confidence with every ride with more IH IIHS Top Safety Pick Plus awards than anyone else as of August 25th. You can feel the Japanese craftsmanship in every detail from the metallic accents to available Napa leather upholstery. We’ve been talking a lot about how much the details matter in something like an NFL game, and Mazda takes that philosophy to heart. Their all-wheel drive is standard in every crossover SUV, and you can make everyday drives feel like anything but. From their smooth handling to intuitive controls, all those little details lead to really noticeable effects. Like NFL players, Mazda sweats every detail because when you make every move count, impossible becomes irrelevant. Mazda, move and be moved. Okay, I’m going to wrap out this emergency pod. This won’t be a full length show or anything like that. Um, but I do want to quickly uh circle back to one of the kind of problems that we saw in the preseason. We saw really bad depth, right, Nathan? Feathers all over it. We saw really bad depth in the preseason. and we saw them getting totally worked by the Patriots and stuff. Um and and yeah, a lot of the guys that were like responsible for those things did get cut. Like one of those guys is Mayavon’s not on the team. Like they got cut, right? Um but I think it’s still fair to say, you know, we’re getting injured a lot. There are questions about the depth, but I don’t think there’s all questions. I I think like, hey, they made a mistake at who the backup left tackle was. That they that was not good enough. And like we have seen we’ve been on the wrong end of it. I I was looking at I I was so worked up last night I forgot to do this, but um you know the I’m remembering the Thursday night game against the Rams last year. They had like three backups on their interior and a third string left tackle. The Vikings couldn’t get pressure. It you can overcome it. You can do it, but you you can’t do it if you’re just going to leave that guy with very little help and let him just kind of get worked by the best edge rusher on the other team all the time. Um, you know, they they have a draft pick in Michael Jurgens that they’ve been very very adamant is good enough for a backup. Um, the four concussions that’s a four that’s Ryan Kelly has had quite a bit of uh concussion history. And that’s really the thing if you don’t want to chalk it up to dumb luck. That’s not a satisfying answer to you. You can say they played into it. They played into it by signing players with concussion histories, players with injury histories. Um, bringing in old and injured players and then watching those players become more injured. Um, that they kind of played into the injury thing. I don’t think it quite lines up though. Like one of those guys is Will Fry who’s still around. One of those guys, both two of those guys, Javon Harra and Jonathan Allen, not on the injury report right now. Um, and some of those guys might be coming back. We’ll see if we get Van Ginkle back, Harrison Smith, Daras. So, so some of the those injuries might be running their course now as the new ones start. Um, but you know, it’s it’s just not all that common to watch a team get healthier as the season wears on and beats the crap out of everybody. So, we shall see. Um, I’ll ask I’ll answer one last question from Nathan, right? If Wentz does well, do you think they’ll let JJ start again this year? Yeah, absolutely. Uh, Carson Wentz has been here for like three weeks and JJ McCarthy is still the future of the franchise. They’re not going to give up after him. They’re not going to give up on him after two bad games. If they do, I think everybody involved in that decision should be fired post taste. And I think people suggesting it should be fired too from their jobs. Just, you know, if you’re like warehouse job or, you know, if your office job, your boss should be like, “Yeah, that was a really bad take on that podcast.” You’re out. That’s it. All right. Uh, I will see you guys all in the morning for a real town hall Tuesday. Get your questions in. The link is in the show notes to this or any other podcast episode so you can get your questions, your hot takes, your bold predictions. I will see you all tomorrow. And as always, skull.

The Minnesota Vikings are set to lose J.J. McCarthy for a few weeks thanks to a high ankle sprain. Where do we go from here?

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