A redshirt year could prove to be a big-time blessing in disguise for McCarthy

https://www.si.com/nfl/takeaways-jayden-daniels-earning-commanders-starting-job

I feel terrible for J.J. McCarthy—but really do believe that having a redshirt year could prove to be a big-time blessing in disguise for the Vikings rookie. I don’t think Kevin O’Connell was embellishing when he said, after delivering the news that McCarthy’s rookie season is over, that the Vikings have their long-term answer at quarterback. I don’t think it was done out of sympathy for McCarthy or to placate a fan base that feels forever jinxed.

O’Connell saw what he saw this summer.

And before McCarthy got hurt, and before McCarthy looked athletic, decisive and talented in the Vikings’ preseason opener against the Raiders, O’Connell opened a window for me into how he sees his young quarterback, in ways that aren’t discoverable to the naked eye.

“It’s more of, I know what I called,” he says. “I know what you did, every single snap. I also know what was not exactly right, what was a little shaky. It might be little things. It might be calling plays in the huddle. It might be cadence at the line of scrimmage, remembering to send your motion. Every single time one of those things happens, that has nothing to do with your ability to play the position.

“That’s purely the comfort of making sure that 10 other guys in that huddle can break the huddle and run the play and be held accountable for the details of their job because I can do the baseline of mine, long before you have a ball leave your hands or make a check or an audible. That’s where I’ve seen the growth and development with J.J. He is getting better.”

Now, he’ll get a full season to watch someone else do it. To see the highs and the lows, and watch the trial and error of playing the position, and building an offense, while sitting next to Sam Darnold in what, by all accounts, is a really healthy quarterback room. (“We spend so much time together,” Darnold told me. “We have a lot of similarities.”)

You can ask Jordan Love or Patrick Mahomes about the benefit of that.

It’s a hell of a silver lining that McCarthy will now get it, too.