SKÖLIOSIS WEEK 2: DADDY ISSUES — Falcons 22, Vikings 6
If anyone knows what it’s like to be a loyal fan of the Purple, it’s the readers of SKÖLIOSIS — your weekly reminder that being a Vikings fan is bad for your health.
It’s fair to say, J.J. McCarthy had one hell of a week. Starting Monday with his NFL debut on primetime Monday Night Football, J.J. grinded out a gutty comeback win that had Viking nation giddy doing the gritty and resulted in NFC Offensive Player of the Week honors for McCarthy after only one start. Just a few days later J.J. and his fiancé Katya Kuropas welcomed their first baby into the world, Rome Micah McCarthy. An inspired name choice that had some of us wondering if our new QB is so hyper competitive, he’s resorted to naming his spawn after guys drafted before him (i.e. Rome Odunza, WR drafted one pick ahead of him by his home team Bears). Perhaps Papa J.J. is collecting trophies in the form of babies and one day we might expect to see a whole brood of 9 more (like some sort of Philip Rivers procreating monster) little bundles of joyful revenge with names like Caleb, Jayden, Drake, Marvin, Bo, etc.
As it happens, J.J. got to close out his pressure cooker of a week with a second primetime game on Sunday Night Football against another one of those guys drafted before him in Michel Penix Jr’s Atlanta Falcons. Penix was drafted 8th in last year's draft, two spots ahead of J.J. Adding to the stakes this also set up a rematch from J.J’s Michigan Wolverines National Championship victory over Penix’s Washington Huskies, the last game Father J.J. played before being drafted into the NFL.
Talk about a baptism by primetime.
DADDY’S HOME
In fact, some of us might say J.J. became a daddy twice last week. The first as the Purple fan faithful’s new daddy, the newly anointed patriarch of our purple positivity after he helped give birth to a new form of optimism resulting from his thrilling 4th quarter comeback victory under the primetime pressure of Week 1. Although the start was slow, the conclusion was electrifying with a comeback victory that helped shed some of the bad taste in our mouth left from our previous “stepdad’s” (you're not our real Dad Kirk!!!) inadequacies, particularly a failure to be there when we needed him most, and especially in primetime games.
Making things even more intriguing, “Clipboard Kirk” and his Kohl’s would also be back in town Week 2, this time on the sidelines with his new family, his moxie-dectomy procedure complete as he mentored young Michael Penix Jr. on how to check down his gender reveal passes while new proud papa J.J. made his hometown debut. So, how did it go you ask?
DADDY ISSUES
Let’s just say, we might have some daddy issues to deal with.
According to my AI Overview, "Daddy issues" is an informal phrase describing emotional or psychological challenges in adulthood that stem from a problematic or absent relationship with one's father figure, leading to behaviors like low self-esteem, trust issues, difficulty in relationships, fear of abandonment, and a craving for external validation or approval. Leading to the kind of psychological damage that causes people like the Wordle lady to ambush fathers everywhere with the word LOSER on Father’s Day. Yep, true story.
Meanwhile, if you substitute the word Quarterback for Daddy, you get a pretty damn good idea what it's like growing up as a Viking fan. Trust issues, check. Self-esteem issues, check. Fear of abandonment for larger contracts and winning teams, check. A craving for external validations and approvals from fellow fans and sports analysts, check, check. Yeah, most of us Vikings fans use LOSER as our wordle starting word.
So, is it any surprise that after only one game we needy Viking fans were already asking J.J. to adopt us, clinging to his pant leg and asking for endless helicopter rides around the yard?
Nope. It wasn’t a surprise. But then Sunday night's game pulled all of our emotional baggage out of the attic and dumped the contents all over the floor. J.J. was a hot mess. It didn’t seem like his processor was working at NFL game speed as he dropped three and outs like he was trying to hurry back to check the baby monitor and delivering another primetime clunker we’ve become all too accustomed to. More concerning was J.J’s ball security issues, tossing interceptions at inopportune times and being curiously clumsy with the little bundle of pigskin that was seen slipping and bobbling around in his hands frequently throughout the game like it was covered in amniotic fluid. Was holding an 8 lb. football sized baby all week throwing off his sensory system, causing him to overthrow deep passes because the ball felt unusually light?
BACK TO SKULE
But let's not panic here. Sunday’s game was effectively J.J.’s second preseason game. Perhaps Coach O’Connell is as much to blame for playing it too safe with the kid, keeping him sidelined most of the preseason like one of those parents that breastfeeds a kid until he’s 9. Those of us being honest knew this would not be a smooth ride. The kid is playing behind a new O-Line that is just learning to play together and is only at 60% strength, with the Skule of Hard Knocks subbing for Christian Darrisaw still recovering from last year's knee injury. Center Ryan Kelly also left almost as soon as he arrived, doing an Irish goodbye early departure with a concussion. As a result, J.J. was hurried and sacked 6 times. Clearly, this is a team still learning to be a family.
A WARRIOR IN A GARDEN, OR GARDNER IN A WAR
In my deep dive of all things J.J. McCarthy last week, one of the quotes he apparently lives by is that “it’s better to be a Warrior in a garden, than a gardener in a war.” Which somehow also feels like a veiled jab at Gardner Minshew maybe? Now I don’t know anything about this Miyamoto Musashi who the quote came from, certainly he was probably a much more accomplished man than me, a guy writing a sports blog read by 18 loyal readers, but I can’t help disagreeing with the sentiment on first pass. Afterall, if we don’t have creators and growers, those who build and nurture and teach, what is there even for warriors to protect?
So, as a 52 year old father of two of my own, If I had one piece of advice to a young J.J., it would be to first learn to be a gardener. Learn to grow and build this Purple garden of ours, and grow and nurture that new child of yours, then focus on being the warrior to protect it. And if you do it right, by just showing up and making sure they know they are loved. And keep showing up, even when things are at their lowest, even when you haven’t been able to sleep and all your nerves are frazzled. Even when the fans and baby are crying at the tops of their lungs, and it seems like by trying to be there for everyone, you’re somehow there for none of them. Just keep calm, and keep showing up, and keep putting in the repetitions and maybe, just maybe, the next generation of Wordle ladies will use the word “CHAMP” on Father’s Day!!
Because as you should know better than anyone, Daddy McCarthy. There are no roses without gardeners!!! Until then, get healthy and enjoy your sprained ankle paternity leave. We’ll see you in a few weeks, unless we really take a liking to mom’s “new friend” Carson, and start calling him dad!
Congrats and Skule Baby!!
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SKOL!!
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