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Thank you to Christopher Gates of our sister site the Daily Norseman, which covers the Minnesota Vikings, for stopping by and answering a few questions about his team as they get ready to play the Green Bay Packers on Sunday. If you want to find the pairing piece to this article, where Gates asks me questions about the game, you can find it HERE.
We gotta talk about J.J. McCarthy. What is the temperature like in Minnesota right now?
The answer to the McCarthy question depends almost entirely on who you talk to. There are people in the camp of wanting to give McCarthy some leeway because he’s only had five NFL starts and that he needs time to develop, and there’s the crowd that’s already decided that he needs to be cast to the Spartan hillside and it’s already time to move on to another option at quarterback. I find myself quite firmly in the first camp, if only because I have faith that Kevin O’Connell can develop McCarthy into what he thinks he can be and, on a personal level, I’m tired of the Vikings having to rely on one and two-year stopgaps at the quarterback position and I want this to work out. I don’t know if we’ll have a definitive answer on the subject by the time of this season, but the job is McCarthy’s for the rest of this season and probably next season at a minimum.
Should the team have just signed Aaron Rodgers this offseason?
I wasn’t a fan of the idea of signing Aaron Rodgers, to be honest. Sure, the Vikings might have a couple more victories this season, but it’s not as if Rodgers has really been killing it or anything. He’s getting a lot of yardage after the catch in Pittsburgh and the Vikings’ offense has largely been structured around longer-developing plays and pushing the ball downfield, so I’m not sure if Rodgers would have been a great fit in this offense regardless. Plus, if you go the Rodgers route, you still have the same issue with McCarthy of not really knowing what you have because you haven’t put him out there in any live game action, so it’s just delaying the inevitable for another season. Getting an answer on your young quarterback sooner rather than later is probably the best way to go, so I’d lean “no” on the Rodgers question.
There are a lot of moving parts on the Vikings’ offensive line right now. Left tackle Christian Darrisaw was a non-participant on Thursday because of a knee injury. Right guard Will Fries went from a non-participant on Wednesday to a limited participant on Thursday because of a knee injury. Center Ryan Kelly is back to being a full participant in practices after suffering a concussion. How is it looking up front, right now?
The five players that the Vikings had envisioned being the starting o-line this season (Darrisaw, rookie Donovan Jackson, Kelly, Fries, and Brian...
