Minnesota Vikings quarterback J.J. McCarthy, who has missed 22 of 25 possible starts in his career due to injury, won't be on the field when his team takes on the Baltimore Ravens on Sunday.

Instead, he insists, it will be his alter ego running the offense.

"I call him Nine," McCarthy said. "Nine comes out and I gotta understand, like, OK, he can't be at his peak performance throughout three-and-a-half hours. So how do I find little ways on the sideline, get back to my breath, get back to my visualization, that can kind of maintain that intense, competitive stamina throughout the whole game? It's just the pure will, determination to get the job done."

Like all great alter egos, Nine has his own origin story.

"To be honest with you, it really kind of started to show up this year. It came about last year during IR, just never had a full season where you want to be out there so frickin' bad, but you can't," McCarthy said. "It was this built-up anger that was kind of ready to just explode, and I chose to harness it instead of letting it go into a self-destructive kind of way. And it's unique and I love feeding that wolf, because my entire life, at Michigan, it was the smiley face on my hand and smile and you have fun, you're going to play better and all that, which is true, but I also think there's a lot of power that comes from that built-up anger that you can transmute into your performance."

McCarthy, whose intense gameday demeanor has been celebrated in Vikings postgame locker room videos and mocked on social media, said it's not easy to slip out of his analogue.

"It's a gradual comedown," he said. "My fiancee, she definitely doesn't like when Nine comes home. She does a great job keeping me levelheaded and understanding there's the football player and then there's the fiance, father part of me that I obviously gotta make priority 1a, 1b in both areas."

Through three starts, McCarthy has been far from great, but there have been impressive throws, six total touchdowns and, most importantly, two wins. The young quarterback himself admitted he needs to get better, particularly when throwing on the run. Head coach Kevin O'Connell mentioned touch on passes and adjusting his throwing speed as other areas of improvement.

"I think it's all part of his development, I think it's all normal," O'Connell said. "The best things about J.J. are, in the biggest moment of the game the other day, he had a very, very, a really good rep with Speedy [Jalen Nailor] to put the game away and ice it."

For his part, O'Connell isn't so convinced McCarthy's gameday persona is a true metamorphosis.

"Look, you look around the locker room, I know I did, not only when I'm talking about him, but after when he's saying a few words, and you just see the guys look at him, the guys see J.J. McCarthy being himself," O'Connell said. "And that's all I've ever really thought quarterbacks in this league need to do."