Mike Florio ,
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Vikings quarterback J.J. McCarthy is a work in progress. But he believes he’s making progress.
“I feel like, for me, I kind of make an analogy of just, like, you know, a cork about to come off a bottle,” McCarthy told reporters on Wednesday. “Just understanding that it’s, you know, one to three little things that I need to change about my game that is gonna make a huge difference in the outcome of every single drive in the game. So, yeah, I feel like it’s really close, but it all comes down to the consistency of the fundamentals and the little details.”
Part of the reality is that he’s not simply getting an advanced degree in playing quarterback. He’s basically taking the Billy Madison approach, starting school from scratch.
“Coming in here, I was taught how to play quarterback in a very different way, and that’s, you know, expected going into the league, going into any new team, any new system,” McCarthy said. “You’re rewiring neurological pathways, and that’s not something that happens overnight, so just understanding and giving myself that grace, that patience that, you know, I might not have it today, but it’s something that I’m gonna continue to strive after day after day, rep after rep, and get to the place where we all want me to be, and, yeah, it just comes with all those reps, because, you know, anything new, like tying your shoes takes time, and, you know, especially playing at the level of the National Football League, you know, the urgency to it is something very important, but no matter what it is, it’s gonna take time.”
The challenge, as McCarthy explained it, is allocating mental bandwidth. As he focuses on new concepts, he can lose track of important fundamentals.
The problem is that the Vikings set a high bar last year with a 14-3 season. It’s compounded by the fact that they let both Sam Darnold and Daniel Jones leave in free agency.
We’ll see where it goes. But there’s no longer a five-year plan for quarterbacks. The clock ticks loudly. And it could be that McCarthy is, for now, overloading himself with thoughts.
It’s possibly no coincidence that, as the clock runs out in a given game, McCarthy quits thinking and lets instinct take over. As the Vikings teach him how to play quarterback at the NFL level, they need to try to capture that same mindset earlier in games.
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