INDIANAPOLIS — J.J. McCarthy skillfully navigated his media availability on Friday morning at the NFL Combine. As a top quarterback in the 2024 NFL Draft, he had to know he was going to get peppered with questions from beat writers far and wide about which teams he has had formal interviews with this week.

His answer about the Vikings stood out above the rest. He confirmed that he had a formal interview, then raved about getting a chance to talk shop with head coach Kevin O’Connell throughout the allotted 18-minute session. There seemed to be genuine excitement in his voice.

“Everything they want out of a quarterback aligns with what I want,” McCarthy said. “Just being able to get on the board with them and go through their plays was something really special.”

It’s impossible to ignore that McCarthy’s personality checks a lot of boxes with the Vikings contemplating their future. He loves the game more than anything and has a selflessness about him that doesn’t go unnoticed. That is exactly the type of person O’Connell has described in the abstract whenever he has been asked about the position.

“I’m not going to start being selfish now because I have to sell myself,” McCarthy said. “I’m going to sell myself on how much I care about my teammates. It goes hand in hand with who I am as a person. Just being selfless and caring about the guy next to me more than myself is something that’s innate, and I really can’t change.”

After garnering praise for his selflessness while leading Michigan to a national championship, that trait has almost become a knock on him throughout the predraft process. The biggest criticism of McCarthy is the fact that he wasn’t asked to throw the ball very much. He completed 240 of 332 passes for 2,991 yards and 22 touchdowns for the Wolverines in 2023.

His rebuttal?

“The only stat I cared about was W’s,” McCarthy said. “We did pretty good in that category.”

That said, McCarthy knows he has something to prove on Saturday afternoon at the NFL Combine, and he’s looking forward to putting his talents on full display. He confirmed that he will throw during the workouts on the field at Lucas Oil Stadium, while adding that he will not run the 40-yard dash due to some hamstring tightness.

Asked if he had any specific goals in mind, McCarthy noted that he’s trying not to put too much pressure on himself.

“I’m more of a process guy,” he said. “Just worried about focusing on my fundamentals.”

Though it’s still unclear who the Vikings plan to take in the 2024 NFL Draft, if they considering a quarterback, it wouldn’t be surprising if McCarthy is near the top of the list.

“I’m a tough and gritty guy who only cares about winning at the end of the day,” McCarthy said. “Just pretty much everything a team would want in a starting quarterback.”

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By MEGAN JANETSKY (Associated Press)

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Campaigning formally starts on Friday for the biggest election in Mexico’s history.

Voters will choose the president, along with the winners of 628 seats in Congress and thousands of local positions. Elections will occur in all 32 jurisdictions, with more than 20,000 positions up for grabs, making it the country’s largest election, according to the National Electoral Institute.

The country of 130 million people has often been marked by its “macho” culture. Now it is almost certain to elect its first woman president.

Also at play are issues such as escalating cartel warfare, the political legacy of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador and the long, often tumultuous relationship with the United States.

When is the Mexican election and how does voting work?

Parties selected their candidates well before the official start of campaigning for the presidential, congressional and municipal elections. On June 2, millions of voters will turn out at the polls to vote for their new leaders. The winner of the highly anticipated presidential elections will serve a six-year term.

While most eyes are on the presidential race, Mexicans will also vote for 128 senators, 500 congressional representatives and for tens of thousands of local government positions.

Who is running the Mexican elections?

Leading presidential candidate Claudia Sheinbaum has enjoyed a comfortable lead, with around 59% of the vote, according to a February poll. The former mayor of Mexico City, Sheinbaum is seen as a continuation of populist leftist leader López Obrador and is backed by his Morena party.

Senator Xóchitl Gálvez is in a not-so-close second with around 36% of the vote. Gálvez is a fierce critic of López Obrador and is running under the Strength and Heart for Mexico coalition. Trailing behind both is little-known Jorge Álvarez Máynez of the Citizen Movement party.

What are other risks in Mexico’s elections?

In swaths of the country eclipsed by cartel violence, many have raised concerns about a security crisis that has spiraled under López Obrador. In the first two months of the year, a handful of candidates were slain before the election season officially began. Watchdogs warn that this year’s elections could be Mexico’s most violent on record.

For critics, the election has become increasingly about democratic concerns, which fueled massive February protests against electoral reforms made by López Obrador. However, the leader remain highly popular for many in Mexico’s working class, López Obrador’s base. With high inflation rates, such voters are likely to stick with a candidate that they feel will advocate for them. A great number feel that the president and his Morena party have done that.

Has there ever been a female president in Mexico?

A female president would be a huge step in a country with soaring levels of gender-based violence and deep gender disparities.

Mexico still has a famously intense “machismo,” or male chauvinism, culture, expressed in its most extreme form in a high rate of femicides, but also daily in hundreds of more subtle ways.

While Mexican women have advanced to positions of political power in public life — in part because of required representation quotas for public office — women suffer from high levels of gender violence. Femicides, or the killing of women because of their gender, have been a persistent problem for decades.

This story has been corrected to show that Mexican presidents serve a six-year term, not a five-year term.

Follow AP’s Latin-America coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/latin-america

Teams with an abundance of salary-cap room first look to invest in their own players. It’s always more sound to build from within than to chase veterans in free agency, where teams wind up overpaying for players who, in many cases, are available for a reason.

The Chicago Bears head into a seismic offseason with a healthy cap situation. They have the eighth-most “effective cap space,” according to overthecap.com, at $36.6 million. Effective cap space takes into account where a team will be after it has met what’s called the “Rule of 51,” for offseason bookkeeping purposes, and signed its projected rookie class. For the Bears, that includes the first and ninth picks in the draft.

The Bears’ figure is expected to rise. Releasing free safety Eddie Jackson and offensive lineman Cody Whitehair would create an additional $21 million in cap room. So general manager Ryan Poles has more than enough flexibility to accomplish his goals for the next phase of roster construction.

That process figures to begin with negotiations to retain cornerback Jaylon Johnson, who was voted to the Pro Bowl Games and was a second-team All-Pro after a banner season that included a career-high four interceptions.

“Jaylon’s not going to go anywhere,” Poles said last week, a sure sign the Bears are prepared to use the franchise tag if they’re unable to hammer out a multiyear contract before the window closes. Teams can apply the tag from Feb. 20 through March 5.

The franchise tag for cornerbacks is expected to be about $18.8 million in 2024, and that would set a floor for contract negotiations and buy another five months to work out more than a one-year deal. The Bears have used the franchise tag twice in the last decade — on wide receivers Allen Robinson in 2021 and Alshon Jeffery in 2016 — and placed the transition tag on cornerback Kyle Fuller in 2018.

Johnson is aiming to become the NFL’s highest-paid cornerback, a distinction currently held by Jaire Alexander of the Green Bay Packers or Denzel Ward of the Cleveland Browns, depending on how you measure it.

“The ball’s in my court, the ball’s in my favor,” Johnson said Wednesday when he appeared on the Fox Sports podcast “All Facts No Brakes” with Keyshawn Johnson. “I think it’s just a matter of time and when it happens. Going into the negotiations I don’t think there’s too much to try to talk about.

“I feel like there’s no reason why I can’t be the highest-paid corner in the league. That’s what I’m aiming for. That’s what I’m shooting for. That’s what I think can be done and should be done.”

Alexander received a four-year, $84 million extension in 2022, with the average annual salary of $21 million setting the bar atop the market. That same year, Ward got a five-year, $100.5 million extension ($20.5 million average) with a record $44.5 million fully guaranteed. Jalen Ramsey of the Miami Dolphins is the only other cornerback in the $20 million club in terms of annual average, having signed a five-year, $100 million deal in 2020.

Two years after the Alexander and Ward contracts, with Johnson having bet on himself, it stands to reason he is shooting to reset the market considering his performance and accolades and the rising salary cap. Whether he gets there remains to be seen.

Poles was reluctant to consider a market-setting deal for inside linebacker Roquan Smith in 2022. While he hasn’t spoken specifically about numbers for Johnson, cornerback is considered a more premium position and the Bears could maintain a strength by retaining Johnson with developing second-year cornerbacks Tyrique Stevenson and Terell Smith and third-year nickel back Kyler Gordon.

The cornerback market took a slight dip since Alexander and Ward were paid, but that probably had more to do with the available talent than a shift in thinking about positional value and budget allocation.

Some defensive coaches place a greater premium on cover men than pass rushers with the philosophy that it’s easier for offenses to scheme around a defensive end than an elite cornerback, especially one who isn’t a liability against the run.

That’s not to say you can play great defense without top-tier edge rushers — you can’t. It all goes hand in hand, but if forced to pick an elite cornerback or an elite edge rusher, some coaches would go with the guy who can mirror top-tier wide receivers.

That’s why it is paramount the Bears keep their talent. Johnson turns 25 in April, and he’s only eight months older than Gordon despite having two more years of experience.

The Bears love Johnson and his makeup, and he’s wired exactly how you want a cornerback to be with a desire to face the best receiver every Sunday. The only issue they will have when considering whether to make him the highest-paid cornerback in the league is durability. He missed three games this season, including the finale against the Packers when a minor shoulder injury sidelined him. He missed six games in 2022, two in 2021 and three as a rookie.

That doesn’t take away from what Johnson accomplished this season, meeting the challenge of delivering more on-the-ball production. It’s important to recognize Johnson was having an elite season before Poles acquired defensive end Montez Sweat at the trade deadline. So it’s not like his ascent was the result of a suddenly enhanced pass rush.

The front office has a lot to work through with its attention being pulled in many directions. The Bears need to fill out Matt Eberflus’ coaching staff while preparing for free agency and draft meetings.

Confidence should be high that the Bears will resolve matters with Johnson, but it could take some time. The last three players on whom the Bears used the franchise tag — Robinson, Jeffery and defensive tackle Henry Melton (2013) — played out their one-year deals. The Bears secured running back Matt Forte with the franchise tag in 2012, ultimately leading to a four-year contract.

The goal with Johnson has to be a multiyear agreement.

“We’ll work through it and get something done,” Poles said.

It’s a matter of how high the dollars — and more importantly the guarantees — go.

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