The Minnesota Vikings wanted JJ McCarthy to tough out an ankle injury and play against the Denver Broncos in the team’s preseason finale last Friday, but the third-year quarterback had other ideas.
Ben Goessling of the Star Tribune reported on the Monday, August 31 edition of “Access Vikings” that McCarthy removed himself from action after sustaining the injury against the Baltimore Ravens the week prior.
“My antenna has been up, and I think it will continue to be up, because four quarterbacks on the active roster — it feels like something that may not stay that way,” Goessling said. “And everything you heard, this was not something that the team thought would go this way necessarily.”
McCarthy took part in practice sessions on both Monday and Tuesday of last week and wasn’t visibly limping due to his ankle problem, according to Goessling’s account.
The quarterback sat out Wednesday’s session ahead of Friday’s game, but head coach Kevin O’Connell told reporters during his mid-week press conference that the team intended to play McCarthy against Denver.
But then McCarthy flipped the script.
“It was clear from the people I talked to that it was him not being comfortable playing in the game,” Goessling continued. “It was not the team saying, ‘No, we don’t think you’re ready to go.’ It was him saying, ‘I’m not comfortable doing it.’ That could be with any number of motivations. We don’t have any way to say definitively what would have led to that decision.”
JJ McCarthy’s Actions Could Indicate Pending Trade Talks
O’Connell told reporters following the game that the team intended to start McCarthy and keep him under center for the first two quarters.
Thus, the head coach’s comments both before and after the Vikings’ preseason finale indicate that McCarthy and the team were not on the same page, and also could potentially indicate some type of rift or looming development.
“It now means [McCarthy] won’t have taken any meaningful reps really the last week of the preseason,” Goessling added. “And if there was an effort to trade him, he would not have done anything to increase his value by taking that game off. Maybe there was a legitimate reason that he felt like, ‘I don’t wanna go do this.’ And it could be that he doesn’t wanna put his trade value at risk or something.”
Carson Wentz Likely to Start Season as Vikings’ QB2
Goessling ended this segment of the conversation by stating his belief that more changes are coming to the Vikings’ 53-man roster, namely in the quarterback room.
“The fact that it went the way it went, just makes me think, especially given the fact there’s still four QBs on this roster, I don’t know that we’ve heard the last on this QB depth chart,” Goessling said. “I’d be very surprised if it looked this way by Week 1.”
Adam Schefter of ESPN reported on the Pat McAfee Show Monday that McCarthy’s ankle injury could sideline him for multiple weeks. As such, Carson Wentz is liable to begin the year as QB2 behind Kyler Murray.
If Wentz wasn’t already in line to win the backup job, which most analysts believe he was, then McCarthy’s health issue all but seals Wentz as the Vikings’ QB2 in Week 1.
Goessling pointed out that Minnesota typically only carries two signal-callers on the active roster come game-days, which means a third QB on the practice squad.
All of that points to Minnesota moving on from a quarterback sometime soon, and the only logical options at this point appear to be waiving second-year player Max Brosmer or trying to trade McCarthy.