O’Connell spoke in depth with traveling Vikings beat reporters about McCarthy’s status.

Firstly, the coach was curious how the young quarterback’s ankle would respond to the long flight; he wants McCarthy to get through the weekend on his normal rehabilitation schedule. O’Connell shared McCarthy will “truly be day-to-day” next week in London and hopes to ramp up his work around then.

“We want him taking drops and experiencing getting the feel back for the consistency of where he had his fundamentals and technique coming out of training camp,” O’Connell said about the possibility of McCarthy practicing on a limited basis next week, adding he hasn’t considered anything more than that.

McCarthy will be exposed to the offensive game-planning as usual.

O’Connell stressed he wants to get him completely healthy because mobility is key to how he plays.

“I think he moves a lot better than people give him credit for, especially when he is healthy. And then it also has an application to his ability to be as accurate as he can possibly be, being that it’s his plant foot, drive foot, whatever you want to call it,” O’Connell said. “It’s not going to be just OK to just be close, because then you risk, obviously, a setback, or him taking more reps when he’s not truly 100 percent.”

The high-ankle sprain that McCarthy fought through late in the game against Atlanta but forced him out of action against Cincinnati hasn’t slowed down his progress from a mental standpoint. O’Connell retold how the 22-year-old was texting him after the rout last weekend to share his impression of the offense.

“I spent an hour on Sunday night texting back and forth with [J.J.], and finally I just called him,” he said. “I’m like, ‘Dude, I’ve got four kids’ – a phone call sometimes helps me go in the other room, versus just my wife asking me why I’m on my phone so much: ‘I’m texting J.J.!’ … A lot of that was triggered by him – of just, ‘Hey, man, watching that was really cool for me to see what it can be like.’ And, specifically, after playing two games, this isn’t like – we’re not still talking about 2024 where it’s ‘Hey, watch and learn.’

“This is experience, you know, have the club in your hand, and then you’re just not the first guy on the tee box, but your swing is coming soon,” O’Connell explained. “I think that was the cool thing. It wasn’t like I went into it like, ‘Hey, J.J., here’s what I want you to take out of it.’ I wanted to organically see what [he thought about] how Sunday went for Carson, both the things he did well, the things that we maybe could have been better at, play calls I could have been better at, and just kind of see the full circle. And then I just loved how engaged he was with Carson, with the quarterbacks, with the whole unit; you can see him on Isaiah Rodgers’ touchdown return. A couple times I looked at him like he’s almost at a jog.”