Kevin O’Connell’s quote about J.J. McCarthy’s mechanics is taken wildly out of context, and it highlights a harsh truth
Nothing can ever be normal with the Minnesota Vikings.
There is nothing normal about how the Minnesota Vikings are covered nationally.
From trying to find a schism with wide receiver Justin Jefferson before he signed his contract extension to the incredibly negative coverage of quarterback J.J. McCarthy, it feels like they are always searching for something.
The latest instance comes from McCarthy’s development, as head coach Kevin O’Connell released his latest episode of X’s and O’s on the Vikings’ website and YouTube channel, which led to a lot of negative discussion about their development.
Kevin O’Connell’s comments about cement drying with J.J. McCarthy are a nothing burger
When you look at the words “cement to start drying,” that raises a major red flag. However, aggregation has led to this being viewed in such a negative light. Here’s the full quote.
“I think we’re all just looking for continued evidence of the growth that he can take some of the things he’s working very hard on the practice field to make [happen on gameday],” said O’Connell. “As the phrase I’ve been using with him, we’ve got to start seeing this cement dry on some of the things that we’ve really worked hard to make football habits for him, from a fundamentals and technique standpoint.”
We’ve known for a while that McCarthy doesn’t have a good foundation underneath him. He’s struggled mightily to have a solid base and to have his feet under control. You can see it all over the tape, and it’s the main cause of his misses.
Here’s where things get really interesting. You can see McCarthy has a good base and footwork at times, but it’s not very consistent. O’Connell talked about that and how he’s doing it in practice.
“Whether it’s just the initial posture, where we’ve just learned that when he has great posture, you know, at the top of drops, he throws the ball really well,” said O’Connell. “He did it Friday. Did it Thursday. And I even referenced on Friday, the type of practices we had.”
The one area where the Vikings had success keeping McCarthy’s feet in a good spot was the final drive, when they ran tempo.
How can the Vikings get that consistency out of him? That’s the million-dollar question, isn’t it? Well, the answer isn’t simple. Patience is required of McCarthy and the coaching staff working to bring the best out of him, but the flashes are there. What fans can do this Sunday and beyond is look for different elements of growth, something that O’Connell emphasized as well.
“I think something Vikings fans can look for is, you know, when he gets to the top of his drops, we’re really trying to see if we can get him to be a little bit more in a repeatable body position,” O’Connell said. “And what I mean by that is the posture of, you know, a firm but athletic kind of lower half. We don’t really like it when his feet get too far outside the framework of his body. And that happened a couple of times the other day that contributed to some of the accuracy [issues], his feet got a little bit wide. His base got really wide.
“The other thing to really look for is when he looks decisive and in the ground compact, where he’s not taking up a lot of space with his movements, as he kind of goes from 1a to 1b or one to two before finding his check downs. When he’s done it consistently, it’s normally got to look to it of firmness, but yet not tight and not rigid. And it kind of has a fluidity to it, where he’s then able to activate the arm talent, from a standpoint of taking out a lot of variables, and I’ve talked to J.J. A lot of the movement and a lot of the lack of stability to his lower half adds to the variables of the play, where you’re trying to make this thing right with the ball leaving your fingertips.
“I would equate it to swinging a golf club, and sometimes you swing it with your left foot on the ground. Sometimes you don’t, sometimes you widen your stance. Really, you’re never going to hit that golf ball the same way. And playing quarterback is about the variables that you can control. You’ve got to try to make it the same and repeatable every single time, because the difference between golf and any other sport is these guys are trying to rush 1000 miles an hour and rip your face off, and you’ve got to stand in there and make some throws, sometimes take some hits. But all of the things before those scenarios start to take place throughout the rhythm of a play, where we don’t know what defense they’re in always, and we don’t know exactly where the completion is going to be. So, you’ve got to control what you can control by doing your fundamentals and techniques repeatable the same way, and take out some of those variables that really are making J.J.’s job harder than it has to be when we lose some of that focus throughout the game.”
Everyone wants to jump to a rash conclusion and have the biggest hot take regarding McCarthy. The reality is that we don’t know anything yet. He should have a much stronger base with him right now, but it’s not a simple answer, especially after having an entire season and a portion of his first full offseason spent rehabbing an injury.
They know what needs to be done and will continue working toward making it happen. Until then, it will be a roller coaster where he just needs time. Stay patient, and continue to hope for the best.
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