Inside Vikings' Euro trip: Lack of sleep, 'Terrible Towels' and what's next for J.J. McCarthy

Inside Vikings’ Euro trip: Lack of sleep, ‘Terrible Towels’ and what’s next for J.J. McCarthy

EUROPE — Minnesota Vikings coach Kevin O’Connell recently found a way to succinctly describe his team’s 10-day international road trip. “You’re almost to the end,” a journalist remarked during a news conference last Friday. “Two sleeps,” O’Connell interjected, mimicking the phrasing parents sometimes use with restless children. “Two sleeps left. But who’s counting?” Vikings players,…

EUROPE — Minnesota Vikings coach Kevin O’Connell recently found a way to succinctly describe his team’s 10-day international road trip.

“You’re almost to the end,” a journalist remarked during a news conference last Friday.

“Two sleeps,” O’Connell interjected, mimicking the phrasing parents sometimes use with restless children. “Two sleeps left. But who’s counting?”

Vikings players, coaches and staffers were more than ready to head home two sleeps later. A trip that began with confidence proved to be a challenge, one that would test any NFL team’s routine-oriented process.

The Vikings’ medical staff was taxed by a rash of injuries, and their personnel department had limited options to fortify the roster. Some players and coaches took advantage of the free time abroad to see the sights, first in Dublin and then in London. But many said they felt out of sorts while away from their families and admitted they were much more tired — because of the change in sleep patterns and limited recovery tools — than they feel during a normal NFL week.

The excursion included at least one disciplinary action (benching receiver Jordan Addison for one quarter after he missed a walk-through practice) and was headed for a complete bust Sunday until the Vikings took their first lead with 25 seconds remaining for a 21-17 victory over the Cleveland Browns. They finished the trip 1-1, having looked unsettled throughout a 24-21 loss the week before to the Pittsburgh Steelers.

“It was tough,” tight end T.J. Hockenson said. “You’re not eating the way you normally eat. You’re not getting the recovery you normally get. You’re not seeing the people you normally see. You’re not getting the ‘juice’ you usually get. There’s so many things that go into it. But we talked about it all week. There’s so many excuses. You can point to one. You can point to two. You can point to 20. At the end of the day, it’s like, ‘Let’s grind. Let’s not seek comfort.'”

Hockenson precisely paraphrased the weeklong message delivered by O’Connell, who said he’s a “big believer that if you’re looking for obstacles and excuses, you’re going to find them.” It was O’Connell’s way of asking everyone in the organization to move past a suboptimal working environment.

Receiver Justin Jefferson, the team’s emotional heartbeat, tried his best. He said Sunday that “it definitely was a great trip, even though it was very long and a little tiring.” Soft-spoken safety Theo Jackson bluntly said “it sucks” to go so long without seeing his family, and trying to navigate a six-hour time difference for video calls.

“They understand it,” Jackson said, “but it still doesn’t take away how much it sucks.”

No one on the Vikings’ football staff is more no-nonsense than defensive coordinator Brian Flores, and even he found himself vacillating between the benefits and detriments of so much time away.

“I’m not a homebody, but I certainly miss my family,” Flores said. “They were here for Ireland. That was great. Once they go, it’s just, the boys had a game [that I missed]. We had a lot of FaceTime. But it’s good to be here with the team. There’s certainly some team building and camaraderie happening. … Guys are out catching up, spending time together. That’s good from a team bonding standpoint.

“Overall, look, you get an opportunity to go overseas, to go to London, to go to Ireland, see the world, that’s great. It tells you what football can do for you.”

‘Terrible Towels,’ frustrating flags

As the NFL finalized its 2025 schedule, the Vikings accepted an offer to become the first team in league history to play consecutive international games in different countries. They believed it would neutralize the advantage for the Steelers and Browns in games that otherwise would have been in their home stadiums, given what their market research suggested was strong fan support in both Dublin and London. And they trusted the plan they had developed for overseas acclimation that led to victories during both the 2022 and 2024 seasons.

They followed their same routine for the game in Dublin, practicing in Minnesota on Wednesday and Thursday of that week before taking an overnight flight that landed Friday morning. O’Connell said one of his highlights of the entire trip was seeing players come back to the team hotel Saturday in Dublin armed with souvenirs and other keepsakes. But the team faced headwinds when it reached Croke Park and realized it would be much more of a Steelers crowd than they had projected.

As a majority of Irish fans waved NFL-provided “Terrible Towels” and sang wildly to the traditional playing of “Renegade” by Styx at the start of the fourth quarter — a Steelers staple back at home at Acrisure Stadium — the Vikings were clearly impacted by the unfamiliar surroundings.

They committed nine penalties, including a false start on a silent cadence by normally reliable left tackle Christian Darrisaw. Right guard Will Fries inexplicably ran downfield to block on a passing play, wiping out a third-down conversion to the Steelers’ 6-yard line. The Vikings settled for a 41-yard field goal. Two defensive players, cornerback Byron Murphy Jr. and linebacker Dallas Turner, responded to post-play provocation from the Steelers and received personal fouls.

“You play certain teams and you know what you’re kind of signing up for,” O’Connell said. “That’s not to take a shot at anybody, but that falls in direct alignment with playing the game that they wanted to play.”

Quarterback Carson Wentz, meanwhile, was thrown off by a last-minute change in the position of the play clock on the north end of the stadium. NFL officials noticed that the game and play clocks on that side weren’t synched. The solution was to turn off the field-level play clock and instead display it on the scoreboard. But when the offense moved toward the north end, Wentz looked backward to the south-side play clock. That appeared to slow down the offense’s operation during a furious fourth-quarter comeback and led to a delay of game penalty on the Vikings’ penultimate play.

“It was weird,” Wentz said. “I’m not going to lie. It was weird looking behind me, looking over my shoulder on the side. I thought we handled it okay. Obviously it got us at a very bad time of the game, unfortunately. But yeah, that was a little different.”

It also took some time for some Vikings players to get comfortable with the grass surface. Jefferson slipped after making a downfield catch late in the second quarter. The play went for 29 yards to the Steelers’ 13-yard line, but Jefferson said he “for sure” would have scored had he stayed upright. The Vikings again settled for a field goal, this time from 28 yards out. O’Connell had conducted a walk-through practice at Croke Park the day before, and Jefferson said afterward that he didn’t think spending more time there would have helped.

“That’s something to think about,” he said, “but that’s not really something that I put blame on or I criticize. At the end of the day, whether it’s raining, snowing, we’ve still got to go out there and run good routes and get open for the quarterback.”

Free time and a different routine in London

Then it got weird. Instead of boarding the team plane and flying home, as they would for any other road game, the Vikings returned to their hotel in Dublin, where they spent the night and then participated in meetings Monday morning. They made the short flight to London on Monday afternoon, and then faced an unfamiliar question for the next 36 hours: What to do?

During a typical week in Minnesota, players would have Monday night and all of Tuesday off. In London, the team was encamped at Hanbury Manor, an estate that dates back to the 16th century and once served as a convent before it was converted to a hotel. The Vikings had the entire facility to themselves, except for golf club members who used the course that week. It is a beautiful setting in the English countryside, but multiple people in the organization said it was less modernized than the other estate that NFL teams typically stay at, called The Grove. (As the “home” team, the Browns had the first option for hotels and chose it.)

Of more relevance during time off was Hanbury Manor’s distance from downtown London, where the team’s designated family hotel was located. It took one to two hours by car and was about a 50-minute ride via public transportation — a trip that included a taxi or shuttle ride to the local train station in nearby Ware, England, and then a transfer from the train to the London Underground.

Many players made that trip while coaches worked on game planning for the Browns. Receiver Adam Thielen attended a Chelsea FC soccer match Tuesday night. Veteran defensive lineman Jonathan Allen, who had never played in an international NFL game, said he walked nearly 10 miles downtown on Tuesday.

“When you first get into a trip like this, you’re excited,” Allen said. “Then you’re like, ‘Wow, I didn’t realize how much goes into it.’ But it’s a cool experience.”

International ailments

Tuesday is also a day for injured players to focus on their recovery, and the Vikings coincidentally had one of their longest injury lists in recent memory — especially at offensive line. Two starters, center Ryan Kelly (concussion) and right tackle Brian O’Neill (right MCL), suffered injuries against the Steelers and had already been declared out for the Browns game. Kelly’s backup, Michael Jurgens (left hamstring), had also been injured and was not able to recover in time to play the Browns.

Eight of the Vikings’ 53 active players sat out practices on Wednesday and Thursday, and six missed the entire week.

The Vikings had also brought most of the players on injured reserve on the trip, making for a crowded temporary training room. The NFL installed one 100-yard practice field at Hanbury Manor, but most NFL teams have a second field at their home facilities for injured players to work on their recoveries while the rest of the team practices. That arrangement was part of the reason why quarterback J.J. McCarthy, who has missed the past three games while recovering from a high right ankle sprain, never practiced in London.

Acquiring reinforcements was a geographical and administrative challenge. Any player the Vikings signed would have to have a passport and be ready to jump on a transatlantic flight on Tuesday to be ready for Wednesday practice. The Vikings ultimately added one practice squad lineman, tackle Matt Waletzko, just to give themselves an adequate number of players for a normal practice.

O’Connell later suggested the NFL should make roster accommodations in the future.

“Like anything the NFL has done from an international standpoint, anything is possible,” he said. “I think they’ve tried their absolute best and we’ve got a great group of people that work for us in-house that have made the trip very much one that I think is absolutely doable. I think there’s going to be some factors in the future if this is something that is going to become a normal reality.”

By the end of the week, most players had had their fill.

“I’m definitely ready to go home,” Allen said Thursday. “We’re creatures of habit. Not being able to have my routine isn’t as fun, but it is what it is.”

Of spending the week in London, O’Connell said: “It should feel as normal as possible to our guys while dealing with not sleeping in your own bed and all that stuff, but that’s kind of little stuff to me.”

Sleep is an important part of physical recovery from one game to the next, and for some players, the little stuff proved more difficult than expected.

“I think everybody’s handled it pretty well,” Jackson said. “But that’s the biggest challenge out here is sleeping.”

QBs in the spotlight

Underpinning it all was a delicate balance the Vikings tried to strike at quarterback as they navigated McCarthy’s short-term availability. The question hanging over the entire franchise was clear: When would they resume the work of developing the 2025 No. 10 draft pick into their long-term starter?

Upon arriving in Dublin, O’Connell began referencing McCarthy’s status in recovering from his high right ankle sprain as “day-to-day” and said he hoped to get him some on-field work in London. That timetable was eventually pushed back to Oct. 3, the team’s final practice of the trip, but O’Connell reconsidered when a steady rain made for slick footing at Hanbury Manor.

Had they been at their home practice facility, they likely would have practiced indoors. In London, however, their indoor option was at the Tottenham Hotspur club’s training center. Depending on traffic, it was a 30- to 45-minute bus ride. For a 90-minute practice at the end of a long week, such a trip wasn’t practical.

The decision was relevant because O’Connell made clear that he wouldn’t begin projecting McCarthy’s availability for games until the quarterback is healthy and ready to participate in a full week of practice. O’Connell has repeatedly referenced the practice McCarthy missed on Sept. 11, when his fiancée gave birth to their son, and in London he said: “You’re really going all the way back to the Chicago game [in Week 1] to when he had a normal circumstance of practice to be able to stack days together.”

Wentz, meanwhile, has played better in his three starts than McCarthy had in Weeks 1 and 2. Although Wentz’s QBR (41.4) ranks 27th in the NFL over the time period he has started, weighed down by a 10.2% sack rate, he has functioned admirably given his late-August arrival in Minnesota. And it was only natural to compare O’Connell’s analysis of Wentz’s performance in the context of McCarthy’s struggles. Like many young players, McCarthy had appeared to move slowly through his progressions, compounding the pass protection issues created by an injury-ravaged offensive line.

“We’ve had some success as of late with some of the quick passing game,” O’Connell said in London, “and I think that’s a credit to Carson’s discipline of getting the ball out of his hands, trusting progressions. In some cases the ball’s coming out to a third or fourth progression in the same amount of time that another player might spend on number one.”

Through it all, O’Connell seemed to want McCarthy back on the field — but only after he advanced through a predetermined set of landmarks. That left the impression that Wentz could remain the starter after the Week 6 bye, when the Vikings will host the Philadelphia Eagles on Oct. 19.

Wentz suffered an injury to his left (non-throwing) shoulder against the Browns, protecting it with a harness during the second half, and O’Connell said that the injury will require further evaluation.

Asked to sketch out his plans for the position Sunday night, O’Connell said: “Yeah, I’m just excited we got the win today, and we’re going to move forward in this bye and get as healthy as we can at all positions and attack this thing through the next few games.”

Time to go home

The best word to describe the Vikings in their postgame locker room Sunday was “relieved.” They took the lead for good with 25 seconds remaining when Wentz hit Addison on a 12-yard touchdown pass. Addison’s benching had extended only through the first quarter, but its significance was notable. In four seasons with the Vikings, O’Connell had never disciplined a player in public.

The Vikings’ offense had slogged through much of the game with a center (Blake Brandel) who had never played the position before and an undrafted rookie (Joe Huber) playing left guard. It got weirder when Darrisaw took himself out of the game in the fourth quarter, as the Vikings have empowered him to do as he regains his conditioning following October 2024 surgery to repair the ACL and MCL in his left knee. That forced the Vikings to move O’Neill’s replacement, Justin Skule, to left tackle and insert third-string lineman Walter Rouse at right tackle the rest of the way.

Darrisaw had taken all 76 of the Vikings’ offensive snaps the previous week in Dublin, his second game since returning to the lineup, and could be seen repeatedly getting up slowly between plays.

“Those [76] snaps that I took last week was a lot,” Darrisaw said. “My body is just getting used to it.”

With only one of their anticipated five starting offensive linemen on the field (Fries), the Vikings drove 80 yards in 2 minutes, 40 seconds for the winning score — with a more pro-Vikings crowd cheering them on than they had experienced in Dublin.

“We couldn’t go home on that plane 0-2,” Jefferson said.

Linebacker Jonathan Greenard said afterward that “I’ll be the first to say I would not like to do back-to-back [again],” and added: “It was taxing. I think ultimately we’ve been out here for 10 days. I’ve been away from my daughter for about 10 days, but she hasn’t forgot who I was. She keeps blowing [my phone] up every second. Man, it’s a tax. Ultimately, this is what we signed up for. We’re the first team to do it. We could sit here and make a bunch of excuses that, ‘Oh, man, we’re just exhausted. We are tired.’ But at the end of the day everybody is tired. We understand this is the expectation.”

The Vikings released a social media video of O’Connell’s postgame speech to the locker room, which they do after most wins. This video was more heavily edited than most, and did not include his presentation of game balls, as it typically does. It did, however, incorporate an acknowledgement of what the entire organization had endured.

“I know how long this trip has been, all right?” O’Connell said. “I know how long it’s been. But let me just give you some good news, by the way:

“Zero sleeps!”

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