Left tackle Christian Darrisaw called it “swagger.”
Right tackle Brian O’Neill joked that McCarthy was “crashing out” in the postgame locker room celebration, when after the Vikings’ 27-24 win over the Detroit Lions, McCarthy yelled, clenched both fists, flexed his arms downward and chest-bumped Greenard before moving around the room.
McCarthy’s intensity, in-game and postgame, has given the 4-4 Vikings a little jolt as his return from injury coincided with another NFC North victory.
“A switch that gets flipped,” McCarthy said Wednesday. “I call him Nine. Nine comes out, and I got to understand like, ‘O.K., he can’t be at his peak performance over 3½ hours.’ I’ve got to find little ways on the sideline, get back to my breath, get back to my visualization that can kind of maintain that intense competitive stamina throughout the whole game.”
The Vikings are rallying around the raw emotion and work-in-progress playmaking of their 22-year-old franchise quarterback as McCarthy embarks on the second half of this season trying to do what he did in the second halves of his two NFC North road wins: finish strongly.
No other veteran quarterbacks are coming to help.
From trying to recruit Daniel Jones in March to signing Carson Wentz in August, the Vikings wanted a veteran to pair with McCarthy. Despite reportedly shopping around for an experienced arm before Tuesday’s NFL trade deadline, the Vikings didn’t make a move at any position.