EAGAN, Minn. \u2014 Minnesota Vikings quarterback J.J. McCarthy returned to practice on Wednesday, with his injured throwing hand improving enough to give him an opportunity to play in the final game of the season.<\/p>\n
McCarthy suffered a\u00a0hairline fracture\u00a0in his right hand during Minnesota’s win over the New York Giants on Dec. 21. He was sidelined just before halftime of that game and held out of the\u00a0victory over the Detroit Lions\u00a0last Thursday. The Vikings (8-8) host the Green Bay Packers (9-6-1) on Sunday, a matchup with\u00a0no impact\u00a0on the playoffs.<\/p>\n
McCarthy had a \u201creally positive throwing session\u201d with the coaching staff and athletic trainers on Tuesday, coach Kevin O’Connell said, and was on track for significant work with the full team on the field on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe plan as of right now is to give him as much as possible just so we can determine where he’s at,\u201d O’Connell said.<\/p>\n
McCarthy has started nine games this season. After missing his rookie year with a knee injury, he lost more time in 2025 to a sprained ankle, a concussion and, most recently, a broken hand.<\/p>\n
\u201cWould love to get him another one, but obviously only if he’s medically cleared and can 100% do his job,\u201d O’Connell said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"EAGAN, Minn. \u2014 Minnesota Vikings quarterback J.J. McCarthy returned to practice on Wednesday, with his injured throwing hand…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":380273,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[436],"tags":[49,48,514,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-380272","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nfl","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-nfl","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/380272","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=380272"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/380272\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/380273"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=380272"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=380272"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=380272"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}