meniscus in his right knee<\/a> in last year\u2019s preseason opener, led a scoring drive in his only series against the Houston Texans on Saturday.<\/p>\nMcCarthy finished 4 of 7 for 30 yards on a 13-play, 58-yard scoring drive that was capped by Will Reichard\u2019s 48-yard field goal. The 10th overall pick out of Michigan last year also scampered 8 yards for a first down on fourth-and-4 at the Texans 43 to keep the drive going.<\/p>\n
The performance came a day shy of the one-year anniversary of McCarthy\u2019s ill-fated Vikings debut. In that game, he threw for 188 yards and two touchdowns before suffering the injury that required season-ending surgery.<\/p>\n
With Sam Darnold under center, the Vikings finished the regular season 14-3 before falling to the Los Angeles Rams in the wild-card round of the NFC playoffs. But Darnold departed for the Seattle Seahawks this offseason in free agency and head coach Kevin O\u2019Connell has turned the offense over to McCarthy.<\/p>\n
The quarterback received a rousing ovation from the home crowd as he stepped under center for the first time Saturday.<\/p>\n
The Texans then took a 10-3 lead on a 14-yard touchdown pass from Davis Mills to Braxton Berrios on their first possession.<\/p>\n
McCarthy was replaced by backup Sam Howell when Minnesota\u2019s offense took the field for its second possession.<\/p>\n
\u2014<\/p>\n
AP NFL: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/nfl<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MINNEAPOLIS (AP) \u2014 J.J. McCarthy\u2019s return was short and solid for the Minnesota Vikings. The quarterback, who missed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":275417,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2073],"tags":[13781,6050,24165,7,253,1519,6192,957,233,259,2529,20187,6,498,1878,2336,261,9,51,5557,234,23890],"class_list":{"0":"post-275416","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-minnesota-vikings","8":"tag-athlete-injuries","9":"tag-braxton-berrios","10":"tag-davis-mills","11":"tag-football","12":"tag-houston-texans","13":"tag-j-j-mccarthy","14":"tag-kevin-oconnell","15":"tag-michigan","16":"tag-minnesota","17":"tag-minnesota-vikings","18":"tag-minnesotavikings","19":"tag-mn-state-wire","20":"tag-nfl","21":"tag-nfl-football","22":"tag-sam-darnold","23":"tag-sam-howell","24":"tag-seattle-seahawks","25":"tag-sports","26":"tag-texas","27":"tag-tx-state-wire","28":"tag-vikings","29":"tag-will-reichard"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115001284964272033","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275416","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=275416"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275416\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/275417"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=275416"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=275416"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=275416"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}