The Minnesota Vikings seem to have done everything possible to prepare J.J. McCarthy as their starting quarterback next season, including eliminating the threat of competition.
The threat was eliminated with the recent signing of Sam Howell as McCarthy’s backup. Had the Vikings signed, for instance, a veteran such as Kirk Cousins, it could have made an uncomfortable situation for McCarthy.
Howell, 24, has much to prove to warrant consideration as starter.
>> If McCarthy were to get injured, a trade for a veteran — maybe even Cousins for the right financial deal — could be a possibility.
>> At the very least, Vikings coach Kevin O’Connell, whose QB expertise helped Sam Darnold reap a $100 million contract with the Seahawks, is getting another chance to prove how good he really is at developing QBs.
>> McCarthy, 22, regardless of repeating the cliché last week that “pressure is a privilege,” will be under intense pressure to succeed.
“Personally, I think the more pressure the better — that’s something I thrive off of,” he said. “That’s something you sign up for when you play in the National Football League, especially at the quarterback position.
“I feel like pressure, all it does is just bring out what’s inside of you, and I feel pretty good about what’s inside of me.”
McCarthy practices meditation daily.
“Extremely (important),” he said. “It’s something that just keeps me neutral, somewhere I can come from a response, not react-type of state. It’s always there for me whenever I need it, times like this, times on the field. When things aren’t going great at home, you can use it everywhere.”
>> McCarthy has 10-1 odds to be NFL comeback player of the year next season, per SportsBetting.ag. Twin Byron Buxton — batting .254 with six home runs — is 18-1 odds to be American League comeback player of the year, per BetOnline.ag.
>> NBA analyst Charles Barkley after the Timberwolves in 2022 traded four first-round draft picks and five players to Utah for Rudy Gobert: “Worst trade in NBA history. That was so stupid, that trade.”
Last Wednesday in Los Angeles, Gobert scored 27 points with 24 rebounds to propel the Timberwolves into the second round of the NBA playoffs.
>> The Wild’s per-game attendance average (18,430) for the regular season tied for first in the NHL with Las Vegas in percent of arena capacity (102.7%).
>> Zach Parise, 40, was paid $7.37 million by the Wild this season while coaching squirt hockey in Edina.
>> Twins Authentics, which sells authenticated game-used memorabilia at Target Field, had the baseball that fractured promising rookie Luke Keaschall’s right arm the other day against the Angels for sale for $150. It’s the same ball on which Byron Buxton first struck out.
>> Word within the NFL is that the Vikings did exceptionally well in signing undrafted free agents and are paying more than in past years.
Among signees, ex-Gophers QB Max Brosmer received a guaranteed $246,000 contract plus a $10,000 signing bonus, regardless of whether he makes the 53-player active roster. The NFL first-year minimum salary next season is $840,000.
Among 19 other undrafted free agent signed by the Vikings, linebacker Chaz Chambliss from Georgia was guaranteed $220,000; tight end Ben Yurosek from Georgia was guaranteed $254,000; offensive lineman Joe Huber from Wisconsin gets a guaranteed $210,000 plus a $10,000 signing bonus; running back Tre Stewart from Jacksonville State gets a $10,000 signing bonus and $160,000 guaranteed; wide receiver Dontae Fleming from Tulane gets $135,000 guaranteed and a $10,000 signing bonus; safety Mishael Powell from Miami has a $55,000 guaranteed deal and a $5,000 signing bonus, and defensive end Tyler Batty from BYU gets a $25,000 signing bonus and $234,000 guaranteed.
Among current Vikings, Ivan Pace Jr., Eric Wilson, Ryan Wright, Dwight McGlothern and Taki Taimani were undrafted free agents.
>> Former Twins great Tony Oliva, 86, and Kent Hrbek, 64, said Friday they’re doing OK after each suffered minor strokes a month ago. Hrbek is also recovering from a second knee replacement.
>> Jake Guentzel, 30, the former Hill-Murray star with Tampa Bay and son of ex-Gopher Mike Guentzel, who scouts the NHL for Utah, has 41 career goals in 74 NHL playoffs games. That’s why he’s the fifth-highest paid ($13.3 million) player in the NHL this season.
>> Simley grad Michael Busch hit his first career grand slam for the Cubs in their 10-2 victory over the Brewers on Friday. Busch, 27, playing for $800,000, is hitting .278 with six homers and 22 RBIs.
>> Nearly 100 baseball players coached by Dennis Denning at Cretin-Derham Hall turned out for a wonderful tribute Friday afternoon at the St. Paul school, which bedecked left field with a large No. 18, the jersey he wore during an iconic career.
>> The high-end Tepetonka golf club, with a membership initiation fee of $100,000, is scheduled to open a year from now near Willmar. Fourteen holes are completed.
>> That was 6-foot-10 Notre Dame-bound Tommy Ahneman of Cretin-Derham Hall and parents dining at J.R. Mac’s in St. Paul last week. Ahneman leaves for early classes and basketball workouts June 6 in South Bend, Ind. The Irish, he said, were by far his first choice during recruitment.
>> That was a dozen local hockey luminaries, including Gary Gambucci, Murray Williamson, Mike “Lefty” Curran, Jerry Melnychuk, Dave Metzen, Larry Johnson and Art Miller, lunching at Willy McCoys in Bloomington the other day.
Curran, 81, recalled the 1974 season when he was goalie for the World Hockey Association Minnesota Fighting Saints in St. Paul.
“If we had played the Broad Street Bullies (NHL’s Philadelphia Flyers) then, I’d say they might have beaten us about 7-2,” Curran said. “But when the gloves came off and the fighting started, you never would have heard of the Broad Street Bullies. We would have beat the crap out of them.”
Best fighter on that Saints team? Jack Carlson, Curran said.
>> Retiring Wild future Hall of Fame goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury, 40, has played for Pittsburgh, Las Vegas, Chicago and Minnesota during a 21-year NHL career, and has chosen to live in Edina with his family in retirement. A six-year-old son, James, is a goalie. “He likes to dive around,” Fleury told the Pioneer Press.
>> Former Gopher Max Meyer, 26, of Woodbury, after Tommy John surgery nearly two years ago, leads the Miami Marlins in strikeouts (47 in 34 innings, tied for sixth in the National League) and ERA (3.18).
>> Red Wing’s Tim Droogsma, 68, who was press secretary for Sen. Rudy Boschwitz and Gov. Arne Carlson, has been an usher at club level at Xcel Energy Center since the Wild’s first game in October of 2000 and recently received a team-signed jersey for being the first usher to work 1,000 games at the St. Paul arena.
>> Steve “Stone” Schneider, the former Cretin-Derham Hall star, will be the basketball representative for the Mancini’s St. Paul Sports Hall of Fame banquet May 12 at the Char House.
>> St. Thomas Academy president Brian Ragatz last weekend received two distinguished leadership awards; one from alma mater St. John’s University, the other for contributions to private education.
>> Chansey Willis Jr., a 6-2 freshman basketball guard leaving Western Michigan for the Gophers, is ranked the 13th-best player in the NCAA transfer portal, per Hoops HQ.
>> The recent Masters golf tournament was the 19th worked by former Gophers-Vikings linebacker Mark Dusbabek, who is chief PGA Tour rules analyst for CBS-TV.
>> Wilmis Castro, younger brother of Twins utility star Willi Castro, is a sophomore outfielder at St. Cloud State, where he’s hitting .325 with 13 doubles and nine home runs.
Don’t print that
>> Don’t be surprised if Grand Casino Mille Lacs this summer succeeds Xcel Energy Center after 25 years as the Wild arena’s corporate naming rights holder.
>> There is only a slight chance, about 5%, that Glen Taylor — after having lost in arbitration — will be able to retain ownership of the Timberwolves and Lynx. That chance will depend on whether NBA owners determine that principal buyers Marc Lore and Alex Rodriguez, by themselves, don’t have the wherewithal to buy the teams for the original $1.5 billion price.
The problem for Taylor is that Lore and Rodriguez were able to add Michael Bloomberg and Eric Schmidt to their purchase package, and they certainly have the resources — Bloomberg, the former New York mayor, and Schmidt, the former Google CEO, have a combined worth estimated at $125 billion.
>> It could be interesting, though, if Bloomberg and Schmidt ultimately end up running the Wolves-Lynx.
>> At the recent playoff games against the Lakers at Target Center, Taylor and wife Becky were in their regular courtside seats near the Wolves bench. The pair will retain those seats for 10 years, as well as ownership of an arena suite, as part of a sale arrangement with Rodriguez and Lore.
While Taylor and his wife attended the first-round home playoff games, Rodriguez was highly visible across court in suit and tie. Lore wore jeans, a crew neck shirt and sneakers.
>> Among celebrities at some of the playoff games were Kevin O’Connell, Kwesi Adofo-Mensah, Dave St. Peter, Niko Medved, Dave Thorson, Justin Jefferson, Napheesa Collier, Josh Duhamel, Ice-T, Aaron Jones, Jordan Addison, Christian Darrisaw, Josh Metellus and P.J. Fleck.
>> Pssst: Taylor, 84, who will be worth nearly $4 billion if he sells the Timberwolves-Lynx, has received several calls seeking his interest in buying the Twins. First, though, he wants his basketball transaction to be finalized.
>> Also in attendance at the Timberwolves playoff was Bill Beise, the Minneapolis stockbroker who, for the first 21 years of the Wolves franchise, was very visible at courtside banging a game program on the floor, encouraging the home team.
>> There are several reasons Cretin-Derham Hall grad Tre Holloman opted for North Carolina State rather than remain at Michigan State for his senior basketball season.
The 6-2 point guard, who had a splendid junior season for the Spartans, didn’t enjoy being a backup. And a $1.5 million name, image and likeness (NIL) deal didn’t hurt.
By the way, Holloman didn’t hear a peep from the Gophers when he opted for the NCAA transfer portal five weeks ago.
>> Nolan Groves, the Orono basketball star who decommitted from Yale, has switched to Texas Tech with a $500,000 ($125,000 per year) NIL deal. It was Texas Tech that lured in ex-Gophers guard Elijah Hawkins with a $30,000 per month deal.
>> A little birdie says Jimmy Snuggerud, recently signed by the St. Louis Blues, had a $125,000 NIL deal his final season with the Gophers. Most impactful Gophers last season received NIL stipends of $3,000 a month.
>> The University of St. Thomas’ Kendall Blue is getting a $400,000 NIL deal from Nebraska for his senior season, while teammate Mike Barnstable is leaving for $200,000 from Tulsa.
Meanwhile, the Tommies, coming off 24-victory season, have landed 6-3 Nebraska redshirt guard Nick Janowski, 6-5 Tommy Humphries from Furman and 6-6 Isaiah Johnson Arigu from Miami as transfers.
>> The NCAA men’s basketball portal window for next season recently closed after more than 2,000 players had entered. Coaches who know say now it costs between $8 million and $10 million to buy players skilled enough to get to the Final Four.
>> Don’t think that Gophers athletics director Mark Coyle and St Thomas’ Johnny Tauer didn’t chat about the head basketball coaching job that went to Niko Medved this spring.
>> Twins shortstop Carlos Correa ($36 million), the 10th-highest paid player in the major leagues this season, is off to a 25-for-116 (.216) start.
>> Vikings coach Kevin O’Connell next season will have 27 assistants on his staff. Bud Grant, who coached the Vikings to four Super Bowls, had eight assistants.
>> No departing Gophers, including star Dawson Garcia, are among the 75 players invited by the NBA to its Draft Combine May 11-18 in Chicago.
>> Fans criticized the Twins’ February signings of Ty France (.271, three home runs) and Harrison Bader (.267, three home runs), but they’ve been the club’s best hitters.
>> Ex-Viking Adam Thielen, 34, has restructured his Panthers contract for $7.95 million for a final upcoming season.
>> Prayers are welcome for Ron Docken, 76, the former Minneapolis Roosevelt and Gophers goaltender undergoing treatment for a stroke. Docken, who acted in the cult classic Slap Shot film, became a good friend of the movie’s star Paul Newman.
>> Hopkins grad Paige Bueckers, whose NIL deals total more than $1 million, as the No. 1 pick in the WNBA draft by Dallas will play for $78,831 this season.
>> With the bulk of free agency complete, the Vikings are 4-1 odds, tied with the Bears, to win the NFC North next season. But the Lions are favored at 5/4, the Packers next at 5/2, per SportsBetting.ag.
>> St. John’s-Collegeville hit a grand slam with the naming of Dan O’Brien as interim athletics director the other day.
>> The Vikings are focusing on getting the NFL draft for 2029 in Minneapolis. Minnesota Sports Events, intent on acquiring the roving draft, had its group in Green Bay for last week’s event. The NFL will decide on the site of the 2029 draft in 2027.
The 2029 Ryder Cup is already scheduled for Hazeltine National in Chaska.
>> In Green Bay for the draft, some residential businesses near Lambeau Field were charging $300 to park, and a church in the neighborhood was getting $150 per Sportico.
>> Guy to watch: University of St. Thomas junior and Cretin-Derham Hall grad Zach O’Connor, 21, who the other day in St. Cloud won the Upper Midwest Golden Gloves boxing championship at 165 pounds, fights in the national tournament in two weeks in Tulsa, Okla.
“Boxing makes me confident, strong, disciplined, keeps me in shape, and I just enjoy punching people,” he said.
Overheard
>> From a noted former NHL executive on Wild star Kirill Kaprizov, who will be eligible for a contract extension in July: “They should just give him Xcel Energy Center, then buy it back.”
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