Vikings Fans, Media Doing JJ McCarthy No Favors.

Longing for a savior and a championship, pressure and expectations soar for a 22 year-old QB, coming off a serious injury, who hasn't played an NFL regular season down, and it's not helpful.

Vikings QB JJ McCarthy with HC Kevin O’Connell

It wasn’t always this way, but it sure is this way now. And not just in hockey, where I see my local team media gush, fangirl, and step in front of moving trains for favored players. As clicks, views, and impressions rule the day, attending sports media covering local teams stay away from controversy and even criticism and embrace getting on the same page as fans. It’s good for business sure, but there’s more to it than that. Acceptance and validation seem to be a big part of the equation for too many.

As a former NHL extreme insider turned objective and critical outsider, (I was in the Stars - Dallas/Minnesota booth for 25 years, and in the NHL for over 30) clicks and likes come for me now (and even back then) when I jump in and join the chorus. If I change tack, or have a different take, look out. Critical pieces are largely ignored, and the mob comes for my throat. Good thing I don’t care about metrics - and to be fair - I don’t have an employer to answer to. Getting clicks, views, reads, isn’t my job, and not anything I’m seeking.

Which brings us to my football team, the Minnesota Vikings (both me and the Vikings were born in Minnesota in 1961 and it’s been a crazy trip…) and their current situation, and how fans are reacting and media is responding.

Here’s what you have to understand about Vikings fans - we’re fatalists, and we come by it quite honestly. We’ve had more epic kicks to the crotch than most. If your team has won a Super Bowl in your lifetime - you can’t possibly relate. This is year 65 of no championship, and it wears on a fan base. The Vikings have 22 division titles (yes that’s more than the Packers, the Lions, or the Bears), are in the playoffs pretty much every year, have been to nine NFC title games, and are 0-4 in Super Bowls.

As prelude we also have not had much luck drafting a franchise quarterback. Dante Culpepper is as close as we got recently, and he was 2-2 in the playoffs. Whoopie… Fran Tarkenton, taken in the third round in 1961, is a Hall-of-Famer, and took the purple and gold to three of their four Super Bowls, but failed to get it done. And number 10 now - was a million years ago. Most Vikings fans today weren’t alive to see him play.

Mostly, the team has patched, plugged the hole, and worked around the problem, without ever getting it quite right. The list of QB’s that have come through those doors includes big names like Randall Cunningham, Kirk Cousins, Jeff George, Sam Bradford, Brad Johnson, and Brett Favre. None of them could get it done.

In 2024, with the 10th overall pick, Minnesota grabbed JJ McCarthy, fresh off leading the Michigan Wolverines to a National Title.

McCarthy’s NFL career so far - he played two quarters - just two - in the first preseason game of 2024 against the Las Vegas Raiders - the Las Vegas Raiders…. in the first preseason game.

In that game, McCarthy suffered a torn meniscus in his right knee and never hit the field again. But that’s not what fans took from that game. They saw a couple big throws, ignored the pick, the opponent, and the circumstances, and started planning the parade route and getting bids from sculptors for the statue.

Meanwhile, Sam Darnold put together one of the best regular seasons by a QB in team history, guiding the Vikings, a team expected to finish at the bottom of their division, to a 14 win-season, and a playoff berth, while making the Pro Bowl.

Yeah - Darnold spit the bit in the final two games, including the regular season finale in Detroit with the #1 seed on the line, and the Wild Card game in Los Angeles, but he leaves a very high bar. The Vikings engaged in contract talks with him, but were unwilling to give him the guaranteed money the season in Minnesota had set him up to get. Seattle signed him for three years, and $ 105 million dollars, with $ 55 million guaranteed.

How does Minnesota media respond to this? Here’s our first example of media homerism:

I know and like Judd, but he’s pretty deep into this fan pathology, proffering that the Vikings would a) offer Darnold a contract they didn’t want him to sign, and b) that Daniel Jones couldn’t possibly compete with a kid who’s never played an NFL down.

Here’s the thing - teams I’ve been with and covered over the years do not routinely offer contracts knowing the player won’t accept… that’s not a thing. The post also refers to Daniel Jones, another busted out first-round pick, who should serve as a cautionary tale for Vikings supporters. Jones, was selected sixth overall by the NY Giants in 2019, and the Vikings scooped him up after NY moved on.

We need to be measured here, and media could be reminding Vikings fans that this is the hardest and most demanding position in sports, and that the NFL is a place where heralded first-round drafted college QB’s go to die. Daniel Jones is on that list, so is Bryce Young, Matt Leinart, Tim Tebow, Trey Lance, Johnny Manziel, Tim Couch, Ryan Leaf, among them. Most struggle in their first year or two - most don’t figure it out right away.

Vikings media could be pointing out that JJ is a 22 year-old first-year player, who missed all of his rookie year with a serious knee injury, and that we have to keep an eye on that.

Instead, Vikings media has not only hopped on the train, they’ve taken over the engine and are driving it.

Here’s Alec Lewis, the Vikings reporter from “The Athletic” in June during mini-camp, a time for a guy like McCarthy to get loose, start integrating back into things, and start to get comfortable after rehabbing the injury. Instead of getting reports on the ups and downs of a young guy coming off an injury and into (potentially) the starting job, we get - whatever this is.

He’s not struggling…? Well - he’d be the first then, wouldn’t he?

It’s funny, because a month later, Lewis still feels he didn’t make the point clearly enough - this is from the other day - where he feels like he needs to set someone with the handle “Caleb Williams Fan Club” straight.

What a platform - and what a world indeed, but it’s telling he mentioned the metrics. Because here’s the problem - we have a young man who has enough pressure on him without fans and media getting on rooftops and shouting to the world that this kid is the next Tom Brady or Joe Montana, and that any and all criticism of a guy who hasn’t played a down in the NFL is totally unwarranted.

This is local media these days and it’s crazy and unfair to young players like McCarthy - and there seems to be no end in sight. I think these folks feel like they’re helping the player or the team in some twisted way.

They’re not.