J.J. McCarthy, Handling Adversity & Injuries, Playing Eagles | X’s and O’s with Kevin O’Connell

J.J. McCarthy, Handling Adversity & Injuries, Playing Eagles | X’s and O’s with Kevin O’Connell

Good morning. How are you? I’m doing great. Now that I Now that I know by me showing up a couple minutes late, it’s Nordo’s time. I I might uh I might let you shine a little bit more from time to time. Oh, that’d be great. I try to be at my best when my best is that’s all we need around here. Clap. Somebody’s playing fast right now. It’s the producer, John. Good to see you. How are the wife and kids? Excellent. Um talkback Tuesday and uh the talkback that uh we that we have chosen today is a perfect way to start festivities. And here it is. Hey, Coach Mike from Saul St. Paul here. Thanks for having me. Just wondering what does an NFL head coach of your ilk do on a by-week for some old rest and relaxation? The old RNR. What do you do KOC? Thanks. I’ll hang up and listen. Well, Mike, that is a great question. And you’re so relaxed right now. It is a Well, that’s because I’m I’m about to tell you why. So, uh, the beauty of the by-week is our players get rest and recovery. I I get quite a bit of time to, uh, still come into a quiet building and get quite a bit of work done, um, with myself and some of the coaches. I like to get those guys out of here as well. But, uh, I did, uh, let’s see, last week I did three or four days of school drop off in the morning. Um, which I was not prepared for. uh you know either uh the stress, the decision-m, the timing, the rhythm. There’s a lot of things that coincide with uh you know, my day job here, but I did that. Um and then I did pickup a few times and and you’re not necessarily rewarded for being early for school pickup um when you’ve been beaten out by 30 or so cars to get in line, as they like to say. So, yeah. Um and then, uh you know, we had some great weather. I got to take my son golfing one day. Um, and then we had a lot of sports to get to, so I was driving around all weekend doing that and stressed out watching flag football and girls volleyball and gez, all of those things. But it was fantastic. My, you know, the thing that uh you always have in the back of your mind throughout every season is just the idea of uh the time we are away from our families and and the sacrifice our families make. And I love being uh a dad more than anything and and and being a good husband and all those things. You just don’t always get to be totally present to do that. Y um and puts a lot on the family. So these these moments that you do find uh you know Friday, Saturday, Sunday getting that time totally uninterrupted time to just go do that. It it’s it’s very therapeutic for me to come back and uh you know hopefully have you know a great run here knowing that how blessed and fortunate I am to have the family I do have and getting the time that I did get with them and and being able to come back and I will say this much after all those stresses I was ready to come back to Egan. Yes. Monday morning I could tell they were ready for me to go too. So yeah, it’s it’s it’s, you know, whether that final Friday press conference you had at Hamberry Manor uh into the Browns game, whether you knew about the Addison stuff at that stage or not, it’s you know, I mean, you and I do this weekly. We we record the pregame interviews sometimes in hotel rooms or field houses. I’ve gotten to know you in press conference and interview type settings quite well. And and when you said two more sleeps, thank God, I was like, “Holy cow, this the duration of this whole thing, you know, I don’t want to say has gotten to you, but it’s it clearly it was a long time.” And, you know, then the Addison situation, which was self-inflicted, kind of piles on top of some other injury related things with which you were dealing. So, it um you know, I just wonder if the NFL is going to give the Vikings a one-year respit or break from the worldly escapades next year. What do you think? Between you and I, I do a lot more than wonder. Um, if you if you uh understand what I’m saying there, coach of the year, though, very much looking forward to uh hopefully those nine home games next year at US Bank Stadium. But you never know. You absolutely never know. And I will say we’ve uh you know, it felt like uh we we’ve been the road team twice now um in at Tottenham Stadium and both times it felt like we were the home team. compliments to all the Vikings fans who made that trip. And then our, you know, our fans there abroad that show up in in great numbers for us when we do go over there. It always feels we’ve had a lot of success there and our players have a lot of confidence playing, you know, in that stadium knowing the environment it’s going to be and and and we always love seeing the purple when we go. Well, and and you know, I mean, it’s a 24-hour business as you guys will say. So, so say you beat Cleveland. Well, you can feel good about it or celebrate it. see you at a game the next week for 24 hours metaphorically speaking, then we got to move on to the next one. Well, that that’s great to say and hear, but you’ve heard me say it before. Human nature gets to win, too. So, I mean, you’re a week and a half away from the family. Yep. FaceTiming, got kids events going on, time difference is weird and everything, so you probably miss some things, which which might eat at you. Uh, because I know how much you care about your family and your kids. But but the the as as as as the situation rolls on um you will look back at like say the Pittsburgh game. I mean I’m like you know I think I said it to you just in passing because that’s how we chat. If O’Neal plays the game you win the game. And that’s no disrespect to the replacement. It’s just so much change has taken place during these games. So the ones you have lost, the Falcons game was antithetical to really anything offensively that you’ve done here in three years and change and then the Steelers game out of nowhere the sucker comes down to the wire. Yeah. You know, so do do you let those eat at you a little bit or are you able is it easy to move on? I think the because when you’re away from home it can be worse. That’s the point. Yeah. And I I think the biggest thing with you know really both those both those games is it’s been the ingame um you know level of trying to figure it out and find enough plays to try to give ourselves a chance to win. You know you lose uh Brian in the Steeler game. you know, we’re preparing all week long. Like, you know, we’ve got Brian O’Neal playing right tackle and we’ve got some issues that we’ve got to make sure personnel-wise on the other side we account for, whether it’s TJ Watt or Hayward or or any of those guys along that front. They had some good blitzing linebackers as well. Uh, so a lot of the time leading into the game, uh, where we spend so much time planning and and trying to articulate to our players how we’re going to need to play, uh, a lot of those things get thrown out the window. when we lost two linemen against Atlanta in that game. Um it’s almost easier sometimes when you have a situation like we had playing Cleveland where yes maybe the best defensive front if not defense in the whole NFL but we had the benefit of knowing our circumstances going into the game because it’s not like you can have these 200 plays if you stay healthy and these 150 plays if you don’t. It’s not really how it works, especially with the moving parts of, you know, some new players and some younger players at certain critical positions and things like that. But all of that being said, like nobody’s going to feel sorry for us. We still get the same 60 minutes that everybody gets to try to figure it out. And I thought we came pretty darn close to doing something really unique and special considering the circumstances in Dublin. But guess what? That clock ran out. We had less points than our opponent. So, you can throw all that out the window, too, and it still eats away at you. Uh, I’ve I’ve shared with you before, the the joy of victories compared to the misery of of losses. And that’s just the way that my chair is with uh my role here with this team is it’s always going to be more uh when it’s, you know, when it’s not that celebratory time for all of our players. I put it on myself as much as anybody to try to lead uh from a a place of uh a place of overcoming my own adversity to you know make sure I portray the vision for our team and our organization that you need to do through times like that. And I thought us winning that game against Cleveland was a great example of a lot of people, you know, not at their not at their home circumstances, not sleeping in their own bed, not eating the the food that they like to eat, and just finding a way to uh count the sleeps, make the sleeps matter when you could. And ultimately have good preparation days and go find a way to win a game, which we did. And all of that seems like it was six months ago now. And and now we move on to a heck of a challenge this week. Uh Kevin Oonnell X’s and O’s each and every week nine to noon. Um man, there’s so much off what you just said. Holy cow. I mean because Wentz. All right. So we we we have we have a bad shoulder. Uh the left shoulder, but it’s still probably hurt at the end of the Cleveland game. Yep. Nine for nine including the final three to Addison. So like I’m calling the game and I’m thinking to myself, all right, well what’s going to happen here if Jordan wins it? So I said touchdown Vikings Jordan Addison. He’s the man of the match. Give it a little England flare. Yep. Almost said went from the outhouse to the penthouse because that’s kind of what happened in that. But Wentz nine for nine with that with that wounded wing. That’s crazy. Yeah, he uh he did a phenomenal job of really uh you know, putting the ball in play, throwing a bunch of completions. We had some great yards after catch, you know, during the uh during the different unique plays that came up in that drive. We we tried to have a plan for Miles Garrett and some of the pressure looks that we were getting. There was a lot of football going on in a short amount of time that uh you know our guys executed and we had some guys make some big time plays and Carson uh just making it come to life from a standpoint of the power of completions. I’ve talked to you about this before. We talked to our team about it a lot. Um, every every completion will have a negative impact on the other side as long as we continue to just uh not force the ball and and try to find uh find those completions with some we call them runner balls where you’ve got a chance to do something with it after the catch. And I thought Hawinson had some big catch and runs on some underneath catches on on that drive. We had some big third down conversions and then once you get a defense like that that’s used to kind of dictating the terms, you get them on their heels for uh you know the the tail end of that drive. We’re not really thinking field goal anymore. We’re thinking of trying to put the ball in the end zone. Uh through through five uh 14 offensive line combinations, two quarterbacks, um no showtime for a fair amount of it, Aaron Jones, no gank or cashman for several of them. Uh and a winning record. a winning record uh up into the buy. Now you got the final 12. What What has collectively what has held this group together through everything we just mentioned? Yeah, I think it’s like dealing with adversity is is things that you build your culture for. It’s not to to have really fun post games when you win and everything’s going your way. It’s to handle the moments that require uh the type of emotional and physical and and and all the commitment that goes into it. Then and Nord just said it, being at your best when it’s required. The saying is not being at your best when it’s easiest to be at your best. Um those are what teams that tend to be uh a little bit more frontr running do in this league. and and there’s examples of teams that overcome adversity time and time again and they do it with what has been built long before you ever get in those moments. And I know for fans out there, they probably scratch their head and what what the heck is he talking about? But I can promise you it’s a real thing. Um and and you know, winning in the NFL can be very difficult. Um even when you’re totally 100% healthy, a lot of things you have to go out and do well uh to win football games. And when you’re not, that doesn’t mean you get any kind of excuse to, you know, you you can mention all those names and O line combinations and two, you can mention it all, but to me, the only thing that matters is we’re three and two. And what did we do in those two games to not find success regardless of the injuries? What things can we coach better? What things can I do to lead our team better? And how does this team need to play week in and week out against the opponents we’re going to play against? That uh that can change sometimes. You might have to play different styles of games to find yourself in the win column again and again and again. And that’s what we’ve made it a habit of trying to do around here. And habits can be a powerful thing when you do it the right way. And I just I’m I’m so excited to go to work with this team. And as we get these guys back and you know, we we we’ve have the ability to continue to forge ahead and get stronger and stronger and stronger throughout the season, which has always been the goal, PA, is to be playing our best football um in the latter half of the season. But that doesn’t mean you uh can allow the games to slip away from you early on in the season because then the end of the season won’t matter. So, we’ve got to continue to literally attack every single opportunity, whether it’s tomorrow’s practice, uh the game on Sunday, a short week next week. It’s all opportunity to me for us all to go figure it out together and go win games. What uh with JJ McCarthy, what are you hoping to do this week? Yeah, it really started last week because we were able to get some really good work in. I I felt like it was my uh time for JJ, myself, Josh, M. We went out there and and and just really, you know, breaking a lot of things down to um core principles of playing the position and then repping things and drilling things and uh figuring out where he was still what was causing him to maybe still feel that ankle, you know, more often times than other things that he was doing. and we were able to kind of really try to use that as part rehab, part um you know getting that football acclamation back going because it’s been I said this yesterday and I I think I caught people by surprise a little bit but he’s practiced one time since he played the Bears on Monday night which feels like it was seasons ago at this point and bunch of slapes. So there’s just there’s just a lot of time on task of uh the muscle memory of our offense and playing the position that we’re trying to make up for that time lost. And he’ll get a great opportunity this week to, you know, get back into the the team reps and and and start, you know, getting himself to a place where we know he’s going to go out and play well. It’s not just getting him back and throwing him back out there as much as it is getting, you know, getting him to a place. And that could be PA, that could be this week. That could be uh something where a lot of things go in in a direction where it leads that way. I’m I’m not trying to There’s no, you know, mystery here, subtuge, like it’s really not that. I hope people understand it’s a little bit more real than that. it’s a little bit more um you know me trying to do what’s best for our team, but also this player is very important and important to me and I feel obligated to make sure um I always am doing the things to help him stay on the path to to where we think he’s going as a player and why we brought him here. Uh, you know, it’s it’s in in all your years coaching here, you know, I don’t think like like say right now you have an inclination maybe the complete answer is to who your quarterback’s going to be Sunday at noon. Um, and then you practice. Well, it’s I don’t, you know, recall you like knowing exactly who it’s going to be and then and then not sharing all the way up to the game. And you have no obligation to share. Obviously, talk to Fangio or the Eagles, they’ll probably be okay. Okay. Well, we well, I’ve heard you say it. We we prep for scheme and then work off that. Yeah. Uh okay. But uh nevertheless, I mean, is there a chance you don’t like share who your quarterback’s going to be with the public before the game Sunday? No, I don’t think so. just because look look we haven’t been we got out on the practice field yesterday and it was um you know a lighter workload compared to what it’ll do be tomorrow when we put the pads on and have a you know a full session you know working uh game plan plays on you know against the Philadelphia Eagles and our defense working against the the looks from their offense and then we’ll have Thursday and Friday you’re you’re talking a significant amount of time as we prepare our team but also you know work through you you know, allowing these guys to get the the reps that they need, both JJ and Carson to get them both ready uh from a standpoint of uh also understanding they’re both still not 100% healthy and they’re both working through uh their individual things and and that’s part of the NFL season as well. This is uh very rarely do you get the opportunity to choose your circumstances, if ever. Um outside of the first game of the season, and even then depending on how your training camp goes, you’re not choosing much, right? So, it’s look, I I you know, I’m very I’m excited for this week for a lot of reasons. I think we’ve identified some ways as a team, offense, defense, and in the kicking game, we can improve um and and laid some of those things out for the players yesterday, and the coaches follow that up in their meeting rooms, and then we just systematically attack it this week and and go try to get a win against a really good team. Jayvon Hargrave gets doubled a lot, doesn’t he? Well, I think he, you know, he is he is such a force from a standpoint. If he does get those individual rushes, even on those early downs, those, you know, I’m defending the run, but then it’s a play action pass or drop back pass and I can transition and go sack the quarterback. They need to have two bodies on them then. Um, but in the run game, you know, a lot of core principles of these good run games that we’ve played, uh, they’re trying to get two bodies on them and move the line of scrimmage. And that’s where we’ve got to be a little bit more connected as a group of 11 to uh you know get back to what we do really well which is a year ago we stopped the run. We got people in long yardage situations and then the turnover started whether it was Grenard uh getting to the quarterback whether it was you know uh you know one of our guys getting their hands on a ball and intercepting it and changing the game. We’ve got to give ourselves more opportunities to turn the football over as a defense, uh, you know, against who we’re playing by generating more ops where the scales are tipping in our favor and allowing Flo and and his group to call the game in a way where we can be the aggressor. Um, and and not so much playing a lot of manageable downs for the other side. And that’s one of the things we got to try to do. But but I mean, to a certain extent, discretion has to be the better part of Valor, too, at times. In other words, if you’re down Van Genkl and Cashman, Yep. arguably two of your three maybe four best runs stoppers period. Yep. They both blitz very well. The assumption from afar, I’m not an elite football mind. You are. But if those two are out, well, we’re probably going to double 58. Yeah. And probably take care of 97. You figure like start there. Yep. So it I mean when I say discretion has to be the better part of valor. You’re like, well, we want to do it the way Flo wants it done. But if you get overly aggressive with backups, I would guess who have now played 70, 110, 150 snaps, you get a little vulnerable, right? Yeah. You’re just exposing yourself to, you know, matchup problems and some things where the strength of your opponent can then, you know, take precedent over even what, you know, all 11 of your guys are trying to do as a team defensive group. Um, one of the things we’ve done really well here is tackle as well, PA. And I think there’s been some missed tackles and there’s been some um opportunities to get a guy on the ground for a gain of three or four and force that third and six. Instead, it’s seven or eight and it’s third and two and then the whole playbook at that point is open and you’re not dealing with as much stress of having to play against Flo’s defense as you possibly could be in some of those longer yardage situations. So, it’s it’s a combination of a lot of things, but certainly um getting cash back and and Van Ginkle working his way back in there as well hopefully. um will give us, you know, just continued examples of the intent of what we put our roster together to feel like this year. Um just a few uh more for Kevin Okonnell xis and no Tuesday’s Twin Cities Orthopedics Performance Center, KFANVikings.com. Good morning. U Squan, he he’s yet to explode in a game this year. Why? You know, I don’t know. I I think they’re uh you know, I think they’ve got one of the best O line coaches in football in Jeff Stoutland. They’ve they’ve uh you know had one of the premier rushing attacks for a long time since he’s been there. And um I think they’re going to try to run the football. I think they’re going to try to run the football to establish uh the line of scrimmage, get into those efficient kind of staying ahead of the chains type of down and distances. And uh that doesn’t change the fact that they’ve got those weapons on the outside. And I know they haven’t quite been able to unlock the the same level of passing game that they had a year ago, but it’s always available to them. And we’ve got to make sure we don’t give them any easy paths to getting back to where they want to be offensively. And that’s where the X’s and O’s and all those things have to be in alignment with uh what we go out in there and do from a play style standpoint against a team that wants to play physical. They want to it’s not just the tush push. They, you know, they they they have some pretty elite players up front, the ability to win the line of scrimmage. And if you give them uh angles and you give them easy access to space, you know, Saquon Barkley’s the best in the league at going to find it. Um uh two to close, uh Chris Cooper, your offensive line coach, was um uh he was here to start the show at 9:00. Great to chat with Coach Coupe, and I was really excited to share with him that, you know, I I will watch some practice occasionally. You guys are kind enough to let me do that. I don’t exactly know what I’m watching, but like, you know, when we were in London andor Dublin to a certain extent, I mean, it’s it’s the most I’ve ever watched. And I found myself morphing to where the offensive line was with Cooper and Keith Carter as assistant. I mean, it was unbelievable watching those guys last week. It’s like we got like they’re moving Joe Huber by themselves, putting him in a spot, doing a drill. Then one of them leaves and they’re like with Brandell and they’re working on head nods. It’s just the nuance and and what must have gone into that week to get all those guys ready. And you don’t know school’s going to flip spots during the game, but Ralph knows he’s playing, but he doesn’t know like when or what the game situation’s going to be. To watch those guys work individually with all it. It was a work of art. It was fantastic, man. Yeah. And you see that across our entire team. You know, the the the beauty of the game of football is it is it does take people hear me say it a lot, all 11 guys doing their job. But within each one of those jobs, there is, you know, a massive level of detail, fundamentals, techniques, uh, understanding how footwork and and hand placement and your your aiming points. And, uh, it really is along the line of scrimmage. It’s like, you know, you’re watching basically five to six separate UFC fights going on at one time where everything’s tactical and everything’s, you know, the is a leverage thing and and and we we’ve tried to build uh that O line group, not only just the starters, but the the depth players as well as as guys that are powerful and guys that are strong and can handle themselves, not only working in combination, but a one-on-one um as well. And that’s how you’re able to get through a situation like that is guys rising to the level of uh what is required in that moment. And then Carson being able to kind of run the show and and and one one thing I know for sure is our receivers have played outstanding. Um, I think what TJ Hawinson and Josh Oliver have done, maybe not necessarily blowing up the stat sheet, but they’re doing so many little things that have helped us kind of sustain, especially over these last three weeks where we’ve really been, you know, 350 plus yards and and gotten a little bit more plays, gotten a little bit more of a rhythm at times, and really the only thing and and that we have to continue to try to have our our finger on is the the penalties, the self-inflicted things that move you backwards where the defense had nothing to do with it. And that’s where uh our scoring rate and our successful rate of drives when we don’t have a negative play andor penalty. Um we’re right up there at the top of the league. And that’s what we’ve got to continue to search for is how many of our drives can be like that? And I’m glad you uh mentioned wide receivers. Last one, I promise. Has Jefferson elevated himself even more as a team leader? and and and here here’s the it’s like he handles business differently than maybe in the past when the ball’s not coming his way and it he seems calmer. He just seems more, you know, and and and young men are going to mature naturally, but it seems like he’s elevated his already solid leadership role. Yeah, I think he’s been fantastic. It goes back to training camp. Even when he was, you know, taken, you know, had to take a few days there in training camp to get healthy early on and and his role changed a little bit. It wasn’t the daily uh igniter on the field by the plays he was making. And it was his leadership and in that huddle and and stepping in and talking to JJ McCarthy or talking to uh Jaylen Naylor or letting TJ know, hey, when TJ made a bunch of plays in training camp, like he was as much of a leader as I’ve ever seen him in those moments and that’s carried over to the season. And and then I think the other part of it is, you know, we’ve we’ve spent some time together over these seasons and Justin has a bunch of confidence in what we’re going to do, um what the plan’s going to be. Obviously, we want to make him a a featured focal point of our offense every week, he knows that. And he also knows whatever we find, whatever we meet on game day from a scheme to take him away, that we’re going to find ways of getting him involved in the game. And I think we’ve seen that over these last few weeks against some really good defenses that he’s had his impact and he’s made plays that have helped us find that successful rhythm that has led to points. We’ve done a good job when we’ve gotten down to the red zone and we’ve got to continue to find as many drives as we can where we get down there and put the ball in the end zone. Great chap. Yeah, thank you. Appreciate you, ma’am. Kevin Oonnell, head coach of the Minnesota Vikings. Weekly 9 to noon. We call it X’s and O’s. Back after this.

Minnesota Vikings Head Coach Kevin O’Connell talks with Voice of the Vikings and KFAN’s Paul Allen ahead of the Week 7 game vs. the Philadelphia Eagles about the team’s two game trip to Dublin and London, handling adversity as a team, quarterback J.J. McCarthy’s recovery process, the offensive line’s work ethic and versatility, and more

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