The Minnesota Vikings say they consider J.J. McCarthy their quarterback of the future. But they really don’t know how that’s going to go. Neither does anyone else. The 21-year-old rookie remains unproven.
McCarthy is out for the season after surgery last month to repair a torn meniscus in his right knee. Should the Vikings suffer a disheartening season, which appears likely, and end up with a top-five pick in next spring’s draft, it wouldn’t be a shock if they were to choose another quarterback of the future.
The Vikings took McCarthy with the No. 10 pick in April’s draft. Georgia’s Carson Beck is considered the top QB in next year’s draft, probably a top-five pick.
>> When Jimmy Johnson was in Dallas, he had Troy Aikman as his quarterback. But he also spent a first-round pick in the 1989 supplemental draft to take Steve Walsh from Miami via St. Paul. Once Aikman won the starting job, the Cowboys traded Walsh to the New Orleans Saints for first-, second- and third-round draft picks.
Nothing is certain.
Had McCarthy been healthy and able to play this season, the Vikings would have been better able to project his future.
Now it’s still uncertain.
>> In 2008, Gophers QB Adam Weber had surgery to repair a meniscus tear in his right knee. Six days later, Weber led Minnesota past Illinois 27-20 in Champaign, Ill.
>> None of the three QBs the Vikings have to start the season — Sam Darnold (age 27), Nick Mullens (29) and Brett Rypien (28) — are young enough to be developmental projects.
>> The Falcons, who host the Steelers in the season opener next Sunday, are favored to win the NFC South division with ex-Vikings QB Kirk Cousins, 36, and his $180 million contract.
>> Ex-Vikings pass rusher Danielle Hunter, 29, now playing for his hometown Houston Texans, still drives a Nissan car despite having earned more than $90 million during his 10-year NFL career, he told si.com last week. The Texans are a legitimate Super Bowl contender after hitting on QB C.J. Stroud with the No. 2 pick in the 2023 draft.
>> The Vikings’ release of QB Matt Corral was no surprise — he was signed only because they needed an extra arm for a couple weeks after McCarthy’s injury. The same for ex-Gophers running back Mo Ibrahim — the Vikings needed an extra running back for the final exhibition game against the Eagles because they couldn’t afford to have others get hurt.
Ibrahim was expected to get about $3,000 for his exhibition week with the Vikings.
>> Ex-Viking Josh Dobbs, 29, has made the 49ers roster as third-string QB and will play for $2.3 million this season.
>> QB Kellen Mond, 25, drafted by the Vikings in the third-round in 2021, no longer is in the NFL.
>> There was no chance the Vikings would sign Cowboys’ No. 3 backup QB Trey Lance. The Marshall (Minn.) High grad, 24, in his fourth season in the NFL, has a $34 million guaranteed deal.
>> Until last week, it appeared ex-Viking Greg Joseph would win the preseason kicking job with the Packers. Then he was released.
>> Ex-Vikings coach Mike Zimmer, the new defensive coordinator for the Cowboys, last week lured ex-Vikings DT Linval Joseph to Dallas to go along with LB Eric Kendricks, who the team signed in March.
>> The Vikings are still hoping to host a future NFL draft, which next year goes to the Packers in Green Bay.
>> The touring Waterford Crystal College National Championship football trophy, which costs $30,000, was on display Thursday at the Gophers stadium before Minnesota’s 19-17 loss to North Carolina. This week, the trophy heads to Ann Arbor for next Saturday’s big Texas-Michigan game.
>> Within six days last week, with a goal of raising $350,000, more than 3,200 well-wishers donated via a GoFundMe account $376,648 for courageous former football Gopher Casey O’Brien, 24, who has had a cancer relapse that is not covered by insurance. Michael Jordan has been the top contributor with $10,000.
>> There were 180 participants, including three females, who attended last week’s free baseball umpire seminar at the Saints’ CHS Field. Eight former major league umps, including Bethel University grad Jeff Nelson, headed the four-hour session.
>> Les Jepsen, 57, the 7-foot former Iowa and NBA center, each Thursday hosts a classic car display in the parking lot of the A&W restaurant he owns in Inver Grove Heights.
>> That was ex-Twin Corey Koskie, age 51, hitting a three-run, two-out, 10th-inning, 450-foot home run to advance the Loretto Larks to the state amateur baseball tournament. Koskie wears jersey number No. 47, the same number he wore with the Twins, Brewers and Blue Jays during a nine-year major league career.
>> North Oaks native Frankie Capan III is averaging 311 yards in driving distance on the Korn Ferry Tour, but that ranks just 56th overall. At No. 57 is Van Holmgren from Wayzata at 310.7 yards. No. 1 is Aldrich Potgieter from Pretoria, South Africa at 339 yards.
>> Thomas Lehman of Scottsdale, Ariz., son of former Gophers golfer Tom, was in a tie for 149th place after shooting 75 on Friday in the CRMC Championship in Brainerd, Minn.
>> Good guy former Gopher Kevin Hamm, who played split-end (1969-71) for Murray Warmath, passed away Friday due to leukemia.
>> At a memorial gathering last Sunday for Roger Erickson, some 150 admirers of the beloved Cretin-Derham Hall flexibility guru, including Joe Mauer, Matt Birk and Steve Walsh, turned out at Mancini’s Char House. Erickson died the other day at 71 of an apparent heart attack.
He was an amazing guy.
“Roger healed the body but also your mind,” said Mauer, the Baseball Hall of Fame former Twin.
Birk, the six-time Vikings Pro Bowl center who finished his career with the Baltimore Ravens, convinced Ravens coach John Harbaugh to hire Erickson for the Ravens’ 2013 Super Bowl championship season.
“In three days (after being hired by the Ravens), Roger had every single player totally bought into his philosophy,” Birk said. “That entire year, we did not have one soft tissue injury, not one pulled hamstring, not one pulled groin. Roger was absolutely the best at what he did.”
>> No, in case you’re still wondering, Gophers offensive coordinator Greg Harbaugh is not related to Chargers coach Jim Harbaugh.
>> Minnesota high school hall of fame basketball coach Tom Ihnot, 76, suffered a stroke in February and underwent double-bypass surgery and heart valve replacement in May and is back shooting in the high 70s on the golf course. If Ihnot returns to coaching at St. Thomas Academy next season, it will be his 57th straight season on the bench.
>> Tom Mee Jr., 69, the former Gophers and minor league outfielder and son of late Twins Hall of Famer Tom Sr., was at Target Field for last weekend’s Twins-Cardinals series in his 37th years as St. Louis’ TV director.
Don’t print that
>> Pssst: Even though a November arbitration hearing to determine majority ownership of the Timberwolves and Lynx is theoretically binding, don’t count on the result being a final resolution.
The delay in scheduling the hearing (Nov. 4) has been to find dates for three agreed-upon judges to meet together. Meanwhile, the Timberwolves in November already will be into their regular season after five preseason games. Team budgets for the 2024-25 season already have been approved and completed by Glen Taylor with plans for him to continue as owner throughout the season.
>> The Vikings visit the Giants in their season opener next Sunday. The game is considered a toss-up. But Minnesota will be an underdog in six of its ensuing seven games. A victory in East Rutherford, N.J., against the Giants is paramount. Otherwise, a 5-12 season is not an unreasonable forecast.
>> Next year (2025) will be a pivotal season for the Vikings. Depending on circumstances (dire season), the Vikings could be a sleeper team for Bill Belichick, despite his age (72). But the future Hall of Fame coach is first expected to be the next Cowboys’ next coach.
>> The Vikings currently have only three picks — one in the first-round and two in the fifth-round — in next year’s draft. They’re likely to receive a compensatory pick, probably late in the third-round, for losing Kirk Cousins.
>> The Vikings are now worth $5.05 billion, a 9% increase over last year, ranking No. 21 among the NFL’s 32 teams, per Forbes’ new valuations last week. Owners Zygi and Mark Wilf easily could get more than $5 billion if they put the team on the market. This is their 20th season in Minnesota, and there is no indication that they would be interested in selling.
The Packers rank No. 13 at $5.6 billion, a one-year change of 22%. No. 1 is the Cowboys at $10.1 billion, helped, in part, by the Vikings’ trade for Herschel Walker in 1989.
The Vikings receive nearly $380 million from the NFL’s new national media rights deal.
>> This is the 40th season that the Pohlad family has owned the Twins. Glen Taylor has owned the Timberwolves for 30 years, Craig Leipold the Wild for 16 years.
>> Hall of Fame former Viking Paul Krause was in Canton, Ohio, recently for Pro Football Hall of Fame festivities. Some current NFL defensive backs were astounded to learn that Krause has a still-record 82 career interceptions.
“I told them that’s what the book says,” Krause, 81, said.
To what does Krause attribute his record?
“To be able to run, jump and catch,” he said. “And, we had a head coach, Bud Grant, who told me, ‘I can’t tell you how to play free safety because you do it better than anybody.’ Bud said you can do anything you want to out there, just don’t get beat deep.’”
Krause laments today’s defensive backs getting beat deep.
“These guys, they’re getting beat deep all the time now,” he said. “That’s probably because their coaches haven’t told them how to play their spot. My goodness, you’ve got to know your own ability, and if you’ve got to take off a step early, you’ve got to do it.”
Krause resides in Lakeville. He was an exceptional golfer, a 2-handicapper, but no longer plays.
“My hips hurt, my back hurts,” he said.
>> The release of Vikings QB Jaren Hall, 26, on Thursday and the signing of QB Brett Rypien, 28, who was released by the Bears, was no surprise, despite Hall and Rypien having played well in exhibition games. Coaches rate players more on daily practices than exhibitions against vanilla defenses with no starters.
Rypien is a nephew of Mark Rypien, who quarterbacked Washington to the 1992 Super Bowl victory Buffalo at the Metrodome.
>> A little birdie says junior Pharrell Payne gets a check for $10,000 every Friday from his name, image and likeness (NIL) deal for leaving the Gophers last spring for Texas A&M. Ex-Gophers teammate Elijah Hawkins’ Texas Tech NIL deal is worth $400,000.
>> One former Gophers football season ticket holder suggests rerouting revenue from extortion fees for preferred seating to players for NIL deals.
>> A prominent former Gophers basketball player is quietly picking up the $8,000 cost of the funeral of beloved Gophers-Timberwolves assistant Jimmy Williams, who died of Parkinson’s disease at age 77 and whose service was Thursday in Quincy, Fla.
>> Venerable former football coaches Gerry Brown of St. Thomas Academy and Rich Kallok and Mal Scanlan of Cretin-Derham Hall will do the honorary coin flip before the Cadets-Raiders rivalry game Sept. 21 at the Vikings’ TCO Stadium in Eagan.
>> Don’t think new Seattle Mariners manager Dan Wilson, 55, wouldn’t have given consideration to replacing recently retired Gophers coach John Anderson at his alma mater.
Wilson, said former longtime Gophers associate coach Rob Fornasiere, “is the finest person I have ever met.”
>> The University of Minnesota, that lost 19-17 to a mediocre North Carolina football team on Thursday, paid the Tar Heels $200,000 to come to Minneapolis. Meanwhile, Wisconsin paid Western Michigan $1.5 million for Friday night’s 28-14 victory in Madison, Front Office Sports points out.
>> A parking lot several blocks from the Gophers stadium was charging $50 for the game Thursday against the Tar Heels.
>> People who know pitching find it interesting that Twins’ closer Jhoan Duran, whose fastball has reached 104 mph, lately has been throwing more breaking pitches.
>> The Gophers baseball job pays about $200,000 a year. Meanwhile, Tennessee just signed its baseball coach, Tony Vitello, to a $3 million per season deal.
>> The Twins’ chances of making the playoffs are 87.4 percent, per fangraphs.com.
>> Former Minneapolis Laker Frank Selvy died at age 91 the other day. That leaves former Gopher Chuck Mencel, also 91, as the last surviving player from the Minneapolis Lakers franchise. Mencel played for the Lakers from 1955 to 1957.
>> Ex-Gophers left-handed pitcher Connor Wietgrefe from Prior Lake received a $247,500 bonus to sign with the Pirates, who drafted him in the seventh round in June. Another ex-Gophers lefty, Tucker Novotny from Cottage Grove, received $125,000 as the A’s 18th-round draft pick.
>> Unknowingly, a Twins infielder tossed Joe Ryan’s 500th strikeout milestone baseball into the crowd in San Francisco because it was the third out of the inning.
>> Former Wild winger Jason Zucker of the Sabres has sold his Minneapolis home near Lake Harriet for $3.5 million.
>> A personally-designed Nike basketball shoe, retailing at $190, that Paige Bueckers from Hopkins will wear for her senior season at Connecticut will have two area codes _ 860 for Connecticut and 612 for Minnesota, reports soleretriever.com.
Overheard
>> A former basketball recruiting competitor at Florida State, speaking Thursday at the memorial service for Gophers ex-recruiting whiz Jimmy Williams, 77, on Jimmy’s response when he asked how he was able to get star Mychal Thompson out of warm weather Miami to come to freezing Minnesota: “Jimmy said Mychal had never been to heaven, but he had been to Minnesota.”
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