Former Vikings Defender Posts Conspiracy Theory about J.J. McCarthy
Erin Henderson played for the Minnesota Vikings from 2008 to 2013, and in 2024, he’s serving up conspiracy theories about his former team on X, the app formerly known as Twitter.
Former Vikings Defender Has Conspiracy Theory about J.J. McCarthy
Vikings rookie quarterback J.J. McCarthy tore his meniscus last weekend and is scheduled to miss all or most of the 2024 season. And according to Henderson, the team’s leaders, general manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah and head coach Kevin O’Connell, purposely maximized the length of McCarthy’s injury recovery to hedge their bet on job security.
“They were going to be fired this yr. They shut JJ9 down to buy another yr. Yall not ready for that conversation yet tho,” Henderson began the conspiracy rounds on Thursday with a tweet, the first of many similar posts.
To believe the hypothesis, one would have to buy into coordinated sabotage between Adofo-Mensah and O’Connell while the pair totally kept their bosses — ownership — in the dark.
Henderson also inserted former Vikings passer Kirk Cousins into the equation: “They never would’ve let Kirk walk. Numbers don’t lie. They paid he produced. They would’ve paid him again. KOC and Kwesi said no. So now the Wilfs expect to compete without him. You don’t compete organization goes to find someone new to lead.”
Minnesota reached the postseason twice in Cousins’ six-year tenure and won one playoff game.
Henderson also ignored the varying degrees of a meniscus injury, pigeonholing all such injuries as the same: “So you want me to believe that there’s been people that have had complete repairs on their meniscus and got shut down before surgery or before the season even started?”
The former Viking also claimed that his theory would come to fruition and that he would be considered a “genius” for recognizing it first.
In McCarthy’s stead and regardless of Henderson’s musings, the Vikings will turn to Sam Darnold at QB1 in 2024, and in fact, his performance may be more of a threat to Adofo-Mensah’s and O’Connell’s job security, if either man is on the hot seat at all. If Darnold performs miserably and Minnesota only wins a few games, national media will question the Vikings leadership’s job security.
Per Henderson, though, when Adofo-Mensah and O’Connell realized that McCarthy tore his meniscus, the duo decided to milk the injury for their personal gain — which is about as outlandish as it gets for gridiron conspiracy theories.
Henderson last played in the NFL eight years ago.
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Dustin Baker is a political scientist who graduated from the University of Minnesota in 2007. Subscribe to his daily YouTube Channel, VikesNow. The show features guests, analysis, and opinion on all things related to the purple team, with 4-7 episodes per week. His Vikings obsession dates back to 1996. Listed guilty pleasures: Peanut Butter Ice Cream, ‘The Sopranos,’ Basset Hounds, and The Doors (the band). He follows the NBA as closely as the NFL.
All statistics provided by Pro Football Reference / Stathead; all contractual information provided by OverTheCap.com.
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