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Kevin Seifert
DUBLIN — As most Vikings players practiced Friday at the Sport Ireland campus, quarterback J.J. McCarthy joined a smaller group on a side field as he continued rehabilitation from a high right ankle sprain.
It marked the end of a second consecutive week of McCarthy missing practice since suffering the injury Sept.14. He won’t play Sunday against the Pittsburgh Steelersand coach Kevin O’Connell said he has “not even thought about” whether McCarthy’s recovery could speed up enough next week to give him a chance to play in Week 5 against the Cleveland Browns as the Vikings complete a two-game European road trip.
“First things first, we wanted to get him here through the flight and see how he did with that flight,” O’Connell said in an interview with Minnesota-based reporters after speaking with members of the international media.
“And as we go through the weekend, and then on our way in making the trip to London, he will truly be day to day and we’ll see where he is at [and] if we can start ramping up his workload and at least getting him involved maybe on a limited basis, and allow us to get him on the grass and work some technique and fundamentals, and start building that back up.”
O’Connell reiterated that he won’t consider playing McCarthy in a game until the ankle is fully healed. ESPN’s Adam Schefter has reported that the injury would sideline McCarthy from two to four weeks, and the long end of that timeline would have McCarthy available for their Week 7 game against the Philadelphia Eagles. O’Connell said earlier this week that he didn’t need to have an answer yet as to whether McCarthy would remain the starter at that point, after backup Carson Wentz played well in a 48-10 victory over the Cincinnati Bengals.
“I really meant it the other day when I said I want him to get 100 percent healthy,” O’Connell said. “I think it’s a part of his game to be able to move. 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. … It’s not going to be okay to just be close because then you risk obviously a setback or him taking more reps when he’s not truly 100 percent. As we look forward to getting him back in there.”
In the meantime, O’Connell has maintained constant dialogue with McCarthy and said they texted for nearly an hour after Sunday’s victory over the Bengals. Eventually, O’Connell said he called McCarthy to continue the conversation.
“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,'” O’Connell said. “We’re not still talking about 2024 where it’s, hey, watch and learn. This is experience, to 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 and he’s watching. 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 kind of what his take on 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.”
