The Minnesota Vikings defeated the New York Giants 13-10 in the team’s first preseason game, and it also marked J.J. McCarthy taking the field as the backup after losing the QB battle to Kyler Murray.
During his time out on the field, McCarthy went three-for-four on his pass attempts, leading to 34 passing yards. Moreover, the Vikings’ QB2 was also sacked. The former first-round pick will have to make the most of his time out on the field this preseason to stay ready for when a chance arrives.
After the preseason win over New York, McCarthy spoke to the media and shared his thoughts on his limited time out on the field.
“It’s awesome,” McCarthy told reporters. “Anytime you’re going against someone else and, obviously, doing that for the first time, it was just a lot of fun with the guys. A lot of things to clean up, but that’s what preseason football is all about.
“I think just the familiarity in the system, familiarity in the system, seeing everything clearly and just going out there and operating with a lot of different guys. It was just a lot of fun being out there playing a football game.”
J.J. McCarthy on Transitioning From College to NFL
Moreover, while McCarthy is entering Year 3, it’s technically Year 2 given that the QB missed his entire rookie season due to injury. The Vikings QB also spoke about the transition going from college to the professionals now that he has one NFL season under his belt.
“I would say the transition is just everyone’s bigger, faster, stronger, but the technique, the fundamentals and the scheme that you’re going against every single day is at such a high level,” McCarthy added. “There really is no being a playmaker out there and leaning on that.
“It’s really just sticking to making the right decisions, and every time the ball’s in your hand, you’re thinking about the team. It’s pretty awesome to be at this level, and the more you just go back to this is football, do my job, do it consistently, then the rest takes care of itself.”
Vikings Face Criticism Over Handling of J.J. McCarthy
With the Vikings recently naming McCarthy QB2, Nick Wright of FS1 did sort of criticize Minnesota for how they’ve handled the young QB’s development after deciding to go with Murray.
“I hate everything about their process from the moment they drafted J.J. McCarthy to right now,” Wright said on the Aug. 11 edition of “First Things First.” “And it’s borderline unprecedented. For their entire MO to be, we can win 11, 12 games with Kirk Cousins. There’s a ceiling there. It’s not good enough. We’re going to draft a quarterback. We then, after we draft the quarterback, he gets hurt. That was before they had soured on him at all.
“He’d played a preseason game, played well in it, got hurt. Sam Darnold, we win 14 games with Sam Darnold. Doesn’t matter. We want the upside of the young player… You drafted an incredibly raw, very young first-round pick, had 10 starts, and you’re just out on him. For me, in service of, in my opinion, a very limited player, the process of it to me is disastrous.”
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