Hey, everybody, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider, presented by Fandul.

Matthew Collar here, along with Andrew Kramer of the Star Tribune.

Normally, what we do here is our hardcore breakdown, and we'll definitely get to that,

but it will be with a different quarterback than we might have expected.

J.J. McCarthy is out with a hairline fracture in his hand, meaning Max Brosmer will start against the Detroit lines.

We will get into what this means for Max and the opportunity he has to bounce back.

But of course, Andrew, we have to begin with reacting to what I think we already had a pretty darn good sense for coming out of the Giants game when an injury looks like that.

When a guy can't grip the football, when he can't come back into the game, it's pretty unlikely that in three days his hand will just go,

whoop, and I'm all set.

And I can play quarterback

against the Detroit Lions. So McCarthy is out for this game. Kevin O'Connell left the door

open for the possibility of him returning week 18 and said it depends on just whether he can

grip the football or not, pretty straightforward there for J.J. McCarthy. But what does this mean for

him missing another game now chalk it up to five for an ankle, another game for a concussion,

and a half a game plus one, one and a half, and possibly two and a half due to a hand injury?

Yeah, I believe this will be his 25th game of his career affected by injury in terms of availability.

24th, obviously being last week when he left it before halftime.

So 25 of 33 possible games he has not been able to play or been pulled out of in that one last week.

It just means that more of the same in terms

of lack of development time on the field. It has to be just incredibly frustrating for J.J. McCarthy,

for the Vikings for Kevin O'Connell, who puts so much time into developing and then changing

the plan and altering it and then seeing results. And now here comes another injury. So this wasn't a moment

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