Out of action for the team's last five games, it seems like the Minnesota Vikings will have quarterback J.J. McCarthy back in the starting lineup when the team returns to the field in Week 9 to take on the Detroit Lions.
On Sunday, NFL Media's Ian Rapoport shared that McCarthy is expected to be back in action for the Vikings when they take on the Lions next weekend, "assuming" his health doesn't endure any setbacks in the days leading up to the matchup.
Minnesota's second-year quarterback has been sidelined since he suffered a high-ankle sprain in the team's Week 2 loss to the Atlanta Falcons. In his absence, the Vikings only won two of their five games while Carson Wentz filled in as the team's starting signal-caller.
Minnesota Vikings not doing J.J. McCarthy any favors by having him return against the Detroit Lions
For those who put any ounce of belief in the theory that Minnesota has been "soft benching" McCarthy for the last few weeks, choosing to bring him back on the road against a 5-2 Lions team would seem to debunk all of those thoughts.
Having him start against one of this season's top teams in the NFL wouldn't make a ton of sense if the Vikings wanted to make his return as easy as possible, would it?
But that's never what McCarthy's absence was about. From the very start of his recovery process, Minnesota head coach Kevin O'Connell emphasized over and over again that he wanted his 22-year-old quarterback to be 100 percent healthy before starting again so that his injury wouldn't have any impact on his mechanics and fundamentals.
McCarthy's health is clearly where the Vikings want it to be, and next Sunday, they are hoping he can help get the team's season back on track with a win in a state where he spent making a name for himself during his college career at Michigan.