Saturday was a beautiful afternoon in Minnesota Vikings land. The team won its first preseason game since 2019, in comeback fashion in front of a massive U.S. Bank Stadium crowd vs the Las Vegas Raiders.
Even more importantly, both Sam Darnold and rookie 1st round draft pick JJ McCarthy performed above expectations. McCarthy got more snaps in his preseason debut than any other rookie QB who was drafted on day one this spring.
But as we’ve seen happen far too often in this market, that Minnesota sports high didn’t last long. JJ was held out of the team’s annual night practice on Tuesday, after it was revealed that he suffered some sort of knee injury on Saturday vs the Raiders.
When first revealed to media on Monday, KOC called it general “soreness”, but did note the possibility that he may not travel with the Vikings today, when the team boards a flight to Cleveland for two joint practices this week and the second of three preseason games, on Saturday.
And that’s when bad JJ McCarthy news turned horrifying
Then, news was broken by KFAN Radio (Paul Allen Show) that Kevin O’Connell had scheduled an impromptu Zoom press conference for 11:30 AM, just before the Vikings bird takes flight toward Ohio. That got the entire fanbase worked up into a frenzy of what was coming.
Then, prior to O’Connell opening his virtual press conference, Adam Schefter (ESPN) broke the news. JJ. McCarthy needs knee surgery.
It was later relayed, during O’Connell’s press conference, that the specific injury is a tear in his meniscus. That’s the best of all knee ligaments, to have a tear in, but it’s still devastating news.
According to reports , doctors will decide at the time of surgery whether they to trim the meniscus, or repair it. Trimming it has a standard recovery time of 3-5 weeks. A repair would cost him the entire season, and months of recovery.
Minnesota Vikings did this to JJ McCarthy (by drafting him) and we celebrated it…
I’d like to apologize to JJ McCarthy. He thought he was being drafted into this great situation with the Vikings. QB guru for a head coach, offensive-geared system, lots of weapons around him. Unfortunately, nobody told him about the curse that was sure to make success here much more difficult than in other NFL markets.
Related: Sam Darnold Struggles at Vikings’ Night Practice
We will update this article with any more information, including anything else that comes from Kevin O’Connell’s Zoom press conference.
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