AJ McCarron will be on standby again on Saturday when the Cincinnati Bengals play the Minnesota Vikings.

McCarron was ready to go on Sunday when Bengals QB Jake Browning left the field because of a thumb cramp on his throwing hand.

McCarron made his first appearance in an NFL regular-season game since Jan. 3, 2021, and his first for Cincinnati since Dec. 17, 2017. The former Alabama All-American spent his first four NFL seasons with the Bengals working as a backup for Andy Dalton.

“I felt comfortable,” McCarron told Elise Jesse of the Cincinnati Bengals Talk YouTube channel, “and it was awesome just to hear the crowd cheer and give me the welcome. It was surreal. Just awesome. I love playing for his organization, being in this city, so it brought back a lot of great memories, and I wish we would have had that touchdown right there.”

McCarron played five snaps while the team’s trainers took care of Browning. One didn’t count – a touchdown pass to wide receiver Tee Higgins that was nullified by a penalty for offensive pass interference.

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Cincinnati settled for a field goal with 11:14 left in their 34-14 victory over the Indianapolis Colts.

“It is what it is,” McCarron said. “It’s football. You got to drop it quick and go on to the next play. I knew we were in a third-and-long situation at that point, so we were probably going to call something safe, and we ended up just handing the ball off. At that point, it’s big just to get points, but it felt good either way.”

McCarron joined Cincinnati’s practice squad on Sept. 23, and he and Browning moved up a line on the depth chart when Joe Burrow sustained a season-ending wrist injury on Nov. 26.

With Browning in the lineup, the Bengals beat the Jacksonville Jaguars 34-31 in overtime on Dec. 4 before topping Indianapolis, when McCarron got back to NFL action after working as one of the XFL’s top quarterbacks earlier this year with the St. Louis Battlehawks.

“I felt great,” McCarron said. “The hardest thing is just not having any reps with the guys because Jake’s taking all of them, and I’m scout team. But other than that, I knew where I needed to go and how I needed to read them, it just comes down to a timing standpoint. But I felt confident.”

The Bengals and Vikings square off at noon CST Saturday at Paycor Stadium in Cincinnati. NFL Network will televise the game.

Both teams have 7-6 records with four games remaining on their regular-season schedules.

As one of the five NFC teams with a winning record in 2023, Minnesota is currently penciled into a wild-card spot in the conference’s postseason projections. But with 11 AFC teams owning winning records, the Bengals are 10th in the conference’s playoff pecking order.

Cincinnati’s drive for the playoffs will continue with road games against the Pittsburgh Steelers on Dec. 23 and Kansas City Chiefs on Dec. 31 and a home contest against the Cleveland Browns in the regular-season finale on Jan. 7.

“That’s what the goal is, right? To make the playoffs and give yourself a chance,” McCarron said. “(Bengals coach) Zac (Taylor) says it all the time: We have everything in front of us to be able to do that. You’ve got to stack the days and be successful when you have the opportunity. We’ve been doing that so far. We got to just keep it that way.”

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Mark Inabinett is a sports reporter for Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter at @AMarkG1.