Loss of Vikings rookie QB J.J. McCarthy a heartbreak, but anguish will pass

Kevin O’Connell chose the right word.

“Crushed,” the Vikings coach said in announcing that rookie quarterback J.J. McCarthy underwent season-ending knee surgery Wednesday morning.

The timeline that led to that news hit like a sucker punch. The mood swung from euphoric to deflating faster than a bowl of ice cream melting in a microwave.

On Saturday, McCarthy dazzled in his preseason debut, raising hopes not just for his future but for what might possibly come this season.

On Monday, he reported to work with pain in his right knee.

On Wednesday, see you next season, J.J.

This was cruel even for a fanbase as calloused from bad news as this one. Yes, there are knee injuries worse than a torn meniscus, but silver linings are hard to espouse when a rookie quarterback drafted No. 10 overall suffers a season-ending injury in training camp.

This represents a pause to McCarthy’s development timeline. No one realistically expected him to start Week 1 or maybe even Week 9 or beyond, but everyone assumed he would practice and gain valuable reps from doing work on the field.

Process means everything in a player’s development, especially at that position. McCarthy will still take part in quarterback meetings and film sessions and benefit from watching and learning from the sideline. What he will miss is that next important step of applying all that knowledge he gains on the practice field.

McCarthy has looked far more comfortable and polished in training camp than he did in spring workouts, which underscores the step-by-step nature of learning to play the position. What impact this injury hiatus has on his development will be determined months from now.

“From Day 1 back in the spring until Saturday night, the transformation of a really good player had really started to look like an NFL quarterback,” O’Connell said. “I really believe that J.J. has kind of confirmed to me and a lot of our coaches and players that we got the right guy in the building for the future, and he did it in a short amount of time. That’s what makes this news hard because you know how exciting it would have been daily minute-to-minute process.”

O’Connell has gone to great lengths to fend off any outside perceptions or chatter about McCarthy’s timetable. The organization had no plans to put the rookie on the field until O’Connell and his coaching staff determined that he was fully ready. That is their one and only timeline.

The best-case scenario even before McCarthy’s injury was for Sam Darnold to play so well that McCarthy’s timetable did not become a daily discussion.

That remains the case, though any visions of McCarthy replacing Darnold at some point the season is no longer an option. It’s now Darnold or bust.

Darnold serves as a $10 million bridge to McCarthy’s tenure, and McCarthy’s injury shouldn’t prevent that passing of the baton from happening after this season. But again, the team likely won’t be able to gauge his readiness to take over as the starter until next spring.

Vikings General Manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah was chatting with a small group of reporters at the end of the offseason workouts when he mentioned a document that he and O’Connell had scripted two years ago.

That document was basically a to-do list designed to guide the organization on a new path. Adofo-Mensah had successfully checked off a handful of big-ticket items that revealed a clearer vision for his plan.

“Ultimately, we knew we had to get to this place,” he said in June.

That overarching plan hasn’t changed, but McCarthy’s injury is reminder that unexpected obstacles often arise.

The news on McCarthy is a bummer for many reasons. His arrival has sparked hope and excitement, and the first glimpse of him in action Saturday did nothing to dampen those emotions.

This is a setback, not a doomsday injury, and that’s one positive that comes from this situation. McCarthy is still the team’s quarterback of the future. A little more patience is just required now.