There will be times in a young quarterback's growth and development when it's one step forward, two steps back, and other times when it's two steps forward and one step back.
McCarthy is well aware that growth is "not a straight line" but added he's trying to maintain a "trajectory of going up." It can of course be easier said than done if a rough patch hits.
"I definitely get down on myself just being the perfectionist that I am," McCarthy said. "Failure is inevitable in sports, and you've just got to learn from those little dips and not be attached to them emotionally, so that's what I've been working on."
McCarthy said he considers himself blessed to be able to learn from Darnold, veteran Nick Mullens and second-year pro Jaren Hall, as well as quarterbacks coach Josh McCown, while learning the verbiage of the offense and spitting it back out coherently.
"Coach McCown sometimes will go through the script and say it in his phone and then send it to us, and that's always great to do, but I'll have my fiancée just read it back to me and then I'll go through it the whole play," McCarthy said. "And we'll do that almost every night, and that helps out a lot. Plus, you know, writing down the plays every single time we get the script and having that you know, you read it, you read it, you write it, you see it and then you start hearing it and then all that stuff.
"Once you really dive into it and start compartmentalizing some of the concepts and the formations and the verbiage of the play calls and regurgitated in the huddle, then it becomes smooth because everything makes sense," McCarthy added. "There's always a why behind everything. And that's something that I really appreciate because you play that much faster when, 'OK, say the whys.' I'm not going to say the whys and all the things that I've compartmentalized, but you know, a lot of things that led up to just play more instinctual, and it is difficult, but you know, everything's difficult. If it was easy, everyone would do it."