On Tuesday, the Minnesota Vikings announced that rookie quarterback J.J. McCarthy will miss the entire 2024 NFL season after undergoing surgery for a torn meniscus in his right knee. On Wednesday, following the medical procedure, the team announced its top pick needed a full repair of the meniscus. With this development, Sam Darnold now is the presumptive starter for the Vikings this coming year.
Head coach Kevin O'Connell said McCarthy underwent surgery Wednesday morning with their team doctor and confirmed a full meniscus repair was "necessary." Per CBS Sports Research, McCarthy is the eighth quarterback to be chosen in the first round of the NFL draft in the Common Draft era (since 1967) to miss his entire rookie season, but the first ever to do so because of an injury.
"As crushed as I am for our team and the excitement we had in our building, and our fanbase felt the same way ... I am the most crushed for J.J. But as our fans either have already come to find out or will in the future, this guy is so motivated and so dialed in," O'Connell said Wednesday about McCarthy. "As excited as I was to draft him, he's confirmed everything that I hoped to see, not only early on through training camp, first performance last Saturday, but he should -- our fanbase and everyone should just be excited about the fact that we've got our young franchise quarterback, I believe, in the building. It's just about the unique aspect of continuing a very critical development process for him where maybe the physical reps aren't going to be there in the short-term. But this is going to be a small bump in the road. Other quarterbacks in our league have gone through similar things early on in their journey and come back stronger and better than ever. And that is not only my expectation, I know that is going to happen for J.J."
McCarthy came into the facility Monday and reported knee soreness, leading the team to hold him out of practice. Coach Kevin O'Connell said, via ESPN, McCarthy had "some kind of routine soreness that a lot of guys after their first preseason game sometimes come in with, and it was something we wanted to be smart about."
"Out of precaution, we're going to continue an evaluation on him and get some more testing done," O'Connell said. "[He is a] very important player, obviously, so we want to make sure we're smart before he participates, making sure we have a good understanding of where he's at."
Obviously, those tests revealed bad news.
"He's just been of the mindset that this is just a temporary thing, regardless of what news he woke up to, as far as what they did to make sure he was healthy moving forward," O'Connell said Wednesday. "He's just excited to get back in the quarterback room, get back around the guys. And, really, outside of the physical reps, there's just so many ways that now that the physical side and the path to physically playing the position the way we want is clearly there, it's now the [need to] really stress mentally above the neck where, how many ways and different sequences and different environments can we put him in that we can get as close to those reps as possible so that he has a seamless transition when that time is right."
McCarthy played in Minnesota's preseason opener two days before reporting soreness, making a strong debut by completing 11 of 17 passes for 188 yards and two touchdowns (one each to Trent Sherfield and Trishton Jackson), along with an interception. He has been operating as the No. 2 quarterback behind Darnold throughout the offseason. For his part, Darnold went 4 of 8 for 59 yards during the preseason game.
"Checking the boxes of the physical part of it, there is no question in my mind the physical talent that J.J. has," O'Connell said. "And even just for some of you guys who saw him back from Day 1 in the spring until really Saturday night, the transformation of a really good player, had really started to look like an NFL quarterback."
According to SportsLine's Stephen Oh's projections, Minnesota's total win projection without McCarthy has since dropped a half win to 6.5. The Vikings' odds to win the NFC North dropped 2.2% and their odds to make the playoffs dropped 4.7% to 10.3%.
Minnesota is already dealing with the absence of one important player early on this season, as tight end T.J. Hockenson is still working his way back from an ACL tear suffered late last season. The Vikes could also be without wide receiver Jordan Addison, who is expected to receive some sort of suspension after his DUI arrest earlier this summer. Addison suffered an injury in practice on Wednesday as well, but it's not believed to be serious.
