"I'm not bought in all the way," is what The Athletic's Dianna Russini said about second-year Minnesota Vikings quarterback J.J. McCarthy in a discussion with Colin Cowherd on Tuesday during an appearance on FS1's "The Herd with Colin Cowherd" show.
Yeah, Dianna, we know. You haven't been "bought in" to the Vikings moving forward with McCarthy as the team's starting quarterback ever since they ruined your "massive" scoop about Minnesota talking with Aaron Rodgers earlier this year.
For whatever reason, ever since the Vikings made that decision to pick the young passer who they selected 10th overall in the 2024 NFL Draft over a washed up quarterback who spends more time complaining during weekly appearances on the nationally televised "Pat McAfee Show" that he doesn't like being in the public eye, it has felt like Russini has made it her mission to publicly bash McCarthy whenever she has had the opportunity.
Bitterness fueling Dianna Russini and Colin Cowherd's disdain for Minnesota Vikings QB J.J. McCarthy
Tuesday's conversation between Russini and Cowherd began with the host stating that what he's heard from his (hashtag) sources "does not instill confidence" in him about McCarthy.
He then asked Russini if he has a bad source (easy answer here is yes) and what she makes of "the whole elevation of these stories" about being patient with Minnesota's second-year quarterback.
Russini starts off her answer by referencing what Alec Lewis, who covers the Vikings for The Athletic, has told her, and she said that "it sounds like it's just up and down" at this point with McCarthy in training camp this summer.
Based on everything that's come out of Minnesota's training camp in the last few weeks, that checks out. McCarthy has had a number of impressive moments this summer, but he's also made plenty of mistakes that one would expect from a second-year NFL quarterback who sat out his entire rookie season.
But that's just all Russini really needed to hear. Essentially, if McCarthy hasn't looked like the second-coming of Patrick Mahomes so far in Vikings training camp, then he's clearly just on a fast track to becoming the next Christian Ponder.
After talking a little more about McCarthy having both good and bad moments in camp, she once again remembers that Minnesota ruined her giant scoop about Rodgers and decides just to go full bash mode.
"I think what you're pointing to. It sounds like what you've noticed is maybe something that I've noticed too is that there is a lot of lifting up of J.J. McCarthy, right?
And some of that's good because you want to give this young quarterback coming off a very serious injury, who obviously struggled with sitting out, right, we saw the fact that he lost all that weight, and I know the Vikings don't want to make a big thing of that because that just is part of the process of dealing with a significant injury.
But it's also difficult to be sitting there when you're supposed to be the guy, and Sam Darnold's out there, at one point, looking like the star of the show."
Before we get to the rest of what Russini said, let's just unpack some of this because she said a bunch of things that are just flat out ridiculous.
First, the "a lot of lifting up" part. Anyone who has even paid a second of attention to the approach that Vikings head coach Kevin O'Connell takes to his job, it's incredibly easy to figure out that he uses a lot of positive reinforcement, and he attempts to keep the optimism as high as it can be.
You know who needed "a lot of lifting up" when they joined Minnesota? Oh yeah, that so-called "star of the show", Sam Darnold. Before O'Connell rescued his career in 2024, Darnold was viewed by many as a gigantic bust, and unsurprisingly, his confidence took a big hit because of that.
O'Connell did this for Darnold, he did it for Kirk Cousins, he's doing it for McCarthy, and he'll likely continue to do it with whatever quarterbacks he coaches in the future. It's his approach, and guess what? After Darnold threw for 35 touchdowns and over 4,300 yards last season, it seems like that approach is working just fine.
Moving on to Russini claiming that McCarthy "obviously struggled" with not playing last year because we saw that "he lost all that weight."
Excuse me?
Whether it was intentional or not, it seems like an assumption was made that McCarthy was in some sort of depressed state, and he lost a bunch of weight from not eating due to that.
Without any legit evidence of that being the actual reason for his weight loss last season (and not, you know, the fact that he couldn't be in the weight room for multiple months while his knee healed), that's an incredibly irresponsible claim to make.
After these head-scratching group of words, Russini went on to raise questions about why the Vikings are rolling with McCarthy as their starter, which, again, ruined her scoop about Rodgers.
Well, let's see, a young signal-caller with a cheap contract who they drafted 10th overall and could possibly develop into a great franchise quarterback.
Man, that was just so incredibly difficult to come up with that answer.
Lastly, Russini ended her word soup of garbage by implying that any coverage from reporters or outlets that cover Minnesota is making it seem like McCarthy is basically Fran Tarkenton reborn into a different body.
"If you follow anything Vikings related, you would think this guy is the next biggest quarterback to play, and I think they're going to be disappointed. Because there's going to be a natural period of time where he's just got to catch up and feel comfortable in this offense.
So, I'm with you. I'm not bought in all the way. I just think there's going to be some time here before we can get to a point where we can have a serious conversation here and go, "Is he the guy or not?"
How dare Vikings fans get excited about their favorite team's young quarterback, whom the team selected with the highest draft pick that they have ever used on a signal-caller!
There's no point in being excited, guys. Nope, just go home. You're just going to be disappointed if McCarthy isn't throwing for five touchdowns and rushing for two more scores in every game.
He's got some serious catching up to do because there definitely weren't any reports of him being at the team facilities all the time during his recovery process in 2024 to learn as much as he possibly could about the offense.
Nope, in fact, O'Connell didn't even give McCarthy the playbook until the kid checked in for training camp this summer (Oh wait, that's not true).
It's also incredibly ironic that Russini started her comments with "the Vikings are doing too much lifting up and telling everyone to have patience with McCarthy", and then essentially ended with "people are going to need to face the music and have patience with McCarthy."
It's almost as if she has no idea what she's talking about (gasp!).
Cowherd isn't getting off clean here either, though. He's been bashing McCarthy ever since the kid declared for the draft in 2024. But in this specific conversation, his role was just the enabler.
He left the candy on the table and walked away, knowing that Russini wouldn't be able to just let it sit there.
The best part of all of this is that you'll never guess the quarterback who, right after ripping on McCarthy and Minnesota, Russini raved about as someone who is getting a similar uplifting treatment from his current team, but has already proven to be good and talented.
His name rhymes with Shmo Shnix.