It appears that the Minnesota Vikings may have avoided the worst-case scenario with their young quarterback, but his status for their next game is still cloudy at best as things stand right now.
During his post-game press conference following the Vikings’ 16-13 victory over the New York Giants, head coach Kevin O’Connell told reporters that x-rays on J.J. McCarthy’s throwing hand came back negative, but at the present time that’s the only information anybody has.
“Apparently it happened before his touchdown run. I asked him if he was alright and he said he was. Then, when he went out for the next drive, that’s when he seemed to have some discomfort there. So we’ll evaluate it and make sure we find out what’s going on there.”
. . .
“The only information I have at this point is that X-rays were negative. But obviously, the hand, there’s a lot going on there, so I don’t wanna speculate one way or the other. Just crossing our fingers that we’ll have him back out there.”
The touchdown run put the Vikings ahead by a score of 13-3 late in the second quarter. After the Vikings’ defense generated a three-and-out, McCarthy got crushed by Brian Burns on what looked like a wide receiver screen, causing a fumble that was scooped up by Tyler Nubin and returned for the Giants’ only touchdown of the afternoon to make it 13-10 right before halftime. McCarthy then came out of the game in favor of Max Brosmer, who played the entire second half after McCarthy was ruled out.
Prior to the injury, McCarthy had completed 9-of-14 passes for 108 yards and an interception, but there were key drops by several receivers, including what would have been a 25-yard touchdown pass to Jordan Addison on the first drive of the afternoon. The interception went off the hands of Jalen Nailor as well.
Thankfully for McCarthy, it appears that he avoided any sort of broken bone in his hand, as something like that would have certainly ended his season with just two games remaining. His status for the Vikings’ game on Christmas Day against Detroit at U.S. Bank Stadium is in doubt, but we’ll start getting some answers sooner rather than later. With the game being played on Thursday, both the Vikings and the Lions will have to submit their first injury reports of the week on Monday afternoon, so we’ll see what the Vikings have to say about McCarthy’s initial status at that point.
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