Why J.J. McCarthy’s knee surgery doesn't mean a lost season for him or the Vikings (2024)

Several months ago, I spoke to a former New York Jets assistant coach about Sam Darnold’s rookie season in 2018.

The assistant, a longtime position coach named Jimmie Johnson, recalled his initial impressions of Darnold in training camp before segueing to Darnold’s first season. There was the debut. There were the early struggles. There was the injury. And then there was the finish.

Johnson fixated on the injury. Darnold sprained his foot in a Week 9 game at Miami. He missed three games and was replaced by backup Josh McCown.

“Sam ended up having a setback,” Johnson said, “which I thought was great.”

An injury was … great?

Why?

“It gave him a true opportunity to watch Josh operate,” Johnson said. “When he had to just sit and watch how Josh did things, how he ran the huddle, all of that, I thought that paid a lot of dividends.”

When he returned, Darnold produced the best four-game stretch of his rookie year. He completed 64 percent of his passes for an average of 233 yards per game. He tallied six touchdowns against only one interception. Despite finishing 4-12, the Jets were close in three of the four games.

Johnson fixated on Darnold’s time on the sideline because it allowed the rookie QB, who had been the No. 3 pick in the draft and was hyped for months as the franchise’s savior, to breathe. To relax. To sit back, observe, put things into perspective and learn.

The most optimistic view of Tuesday’s news from the Minnesota Vikings parallels this period from Darnold’s rookie season. Rookie quarterback J.J. McCarthy has been diagnosed with a meniscus tear in his right knee. The 21-year-old underwent surgery on Wednesday and will miss the entire 2024 season.

There is no way around the fact that this is a bump in the road in McCarthy’s developmental path. It was just a few days ago that he threw an interception, responded impressively with two long touchdown passes and confirmed what he had proved for weeks in training camp: that he was ahead of the curve. The hope now is that this speed bump will someday be viewed as a minor blip, an unfortunate but temporary setback that stoked McCarthy’s fire even further and added perspective before he took the reins as an NFL starter.

So just how long is temporary?

“That’s totally, totally a medical decision,” Vikings coach Kevin O’Connell said Tuesday. “What’s best for the long-term health of J.J. McCarthy will be the priority.”

Long term.

The Vikings have used that phrase countless times since McCarthy’s arrival this spring. In drafting a quarterback, O’Connell mandated that Minnesota’s investment be matched by a process. The former quarterback who has coached many young quarterbacks himself (Marcus Mariota, Johnny Manziel, Dwayne Haskins, etc.) believed that college-to-pro quarterback transitions often go so poorly because teams cannot resist the urge to play their young signal callers immediately. He vowed to the Vikings that he would guard against that approach.

See, McCarthy is only 21 and had just 713 collegiate pass attempts. By comparison, fellow first-round QBs Jayden Daneis and Michael Penix Jr. nearly doubled McCarthy’s college passing attempts, while Drake Maye had nearly 200 more. As a result, O’Connell was fine with the idea of allowing McCarthy to sit and learn behind Darnold.

“I don’t know if it’s the former quarterback in me,” O’Connell said, “but I will not allow any factors (to affect my decision-making) outside of what’s best for J.J. and what’s best to help the Vikings win.”

That’s partly why the Vikings signed Darnold. That and the fact that — poetically — they felt like Darnold’s first couple of teams had not matched O’Connell’s investment in the process. Darnold received most of the first-team reps during the spring and early in training camp. He was always the likely starter in Week 1 no matter how impressively McCarthy performed in the preseason. This injury eliminates whatever drama or urge to “play the rookie!” might have arisen. If anything, it’ll probably allow McCarthy to spend more time than he otherwise would have mastering the verbiage of O’Connell’s system and the play concepts.

Regarding McCarthy’s timeline to return, O’Connell did not speculate. Meniscus injuries vary widely, as those who have followed Minnesota sports in recent years know. Almost three years ago, in September 2021, former Vikings tight end Irv Smith Jr. underwent meniscus surgery. He missed the entire year.

Timberwolves forward Karl-Anthony Towns is another relevant example. Earlier this spring, on March 12, the Timberwolves announced that he’d had meniscus surgery. He returned on April 12.

Whether McCarthy’s timetable is a couple of weeks or the whole season, his mindset is clear. He tweeted Tuesday afternoon: “Love you Viking nation. I’ll be back in no time. Amor fati.”

Love you Viking nation. I’ll be back in no time. Amor fati

— J.J. McCarthy (@jjmccarthy09) August 13, 2024

Amor fati or “love of fate” is a Latin phrase used to describe an attitude of viewing whatever happens as necessary. It’s all just part of the process in which he’ll transform from the Vikings’ hope of the future to the long-sought-after, dynamic franchise quarterback.

(Photo: Stephen Maturen / Getty Images)

Alec Lewis is a staff writer covering the Minnesota Vikings for The Athletic. He grew up in Birmingham, Ala., and has written for Yahoo, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and the Kansas City Star, among many other places. Follow Alec on Twitter @alec_lewis