Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - After rewatch, how much is J.J. McCarthy to blame for loss to Ravens? (Part 1)

Episode Date: November 11, 2025

Matthew Coller discusses his thoughts after rewatching Sunday's loss to the Ravens. Plus, Brian Murphy and Manny Hill join for the Monday round table. The Purple Insider podcast is brought to you by FanDuel. Also, check out our sponsor HIMS at https://hims.com/purpleinsider Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hey, everybody, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider, Matthew Collar, here. The show is always presented by our friends at Fandul, and we will have a Fandul question of the day coming up pretty soon, along with your questions, thoughts, and comments. But I have spent the day working through the Vikings All-22 film, all the data that I can find and was out at, Kevin O'Connell's press conference as well. So we are going to deep dive into the Minnesota Vikings loss to the Baltimore Ravens at U.S. Bank Stadium, how it happened, what it means, what conclusions we could take away. And then, you know, we put the word blame in the title. But I think what you're going to find from all of the research is that blame is a really

tricky thing sometimes when it comes to the NFL. It's one of those, I forget what it's called. but the more you know, the more you dive into it, the less you feel like you really know. So let me get into that in just a moment, but we'll also be answering your questions, comments, thoughts, concerns. The Vikings are four and five that does not end their chances to go to the playoffs. It does not end their season. But what it does mean after losing yesterday to the Ravens is that they have a long way to go if they are going to be in the postseason.

and that starts with the Chicago Bears, and we'll have plenty of lead-in to that after we deconstruct what happened yesterday. So why don't we start this? I've got a bunch of notes here. I'm going to go through them from all of the resources that we now have at our fingertips. And I just want to start with the one thing that needs to be said

about J.J. McCarthy is that the high-end stuff that we saw against the lions that we saw in the fourth quarter, against Chicago and even a little bit against the Atlanta Falcons is there every single game. And what I mean is the arm strength, the wow throws, the athleticism, the things that you would call the raw elements of a young quarterback. So he's got five or six throws in this game where you go, whoa, boy, did he put some velocity on that? Boy, was that a dot? And even some like the Jalen Naylor throw, two at Jalen Naylor throws, actually. Wow, he actually had some really, really great touch.

When you look back at the 62-yard throw, it's a little slot fade type of route. It's kind of a pick element to it. And Nailer goes out toward the sideline. He's not fully past the corner yet, just really past the kind of point where they're setting the not-pick-pick, and the ball is up in the air. And Nailer can look back full speed,

catch it over his shoulder. It's a great, great throw. And then the touchdown in the back of the end zone, Nailer is just coming out of his break. Doesn't even really have leverage, but McCarthy throws it to the only spot that he could catch it and the defender's not going to be able to get all the way around and make a play on the ball. It's a dot. It's a great throw. It had anticipation. It had the right velocity, the right touch. And then some of the scrambling stuff, There's a throw where he's rolling to his right. Once again, finds Naylor where putting that much velocity on the throw across your body is a really, really difficult thing to do. And this is something that McCarthy really has in his bag, which is this ability to be on the move and yet create a lot of power throwing the football is very similar to when he threw the touchdown to Hawkinson.

It's in traffic in Detroit. right. It's in traffic. He's rolling. Woof, you know, right? He's got a lot on it. The scrambling ability in terms of his speed, his pure speed, and even on the trick play, where, you know, look, if they do, it is true that if they block one more person, it's a huge gain. But on that play, you know that I'm not the biggest advocate of the trick plays. But on that play, being able to have your quarterback catch the ball in space, make people miss, that kind of thing, I wouldn't want to see him get hurt.

by doing it, but that's some next level athleticism. He had some very good scrambles, was successful on a lot of the times that he took off and ran, and those are things that J.J. McCarthy did very, very well in this game. There are a few times on the tape where it looks like he progresses extremely well, and he climbs the pocket, and he lets it loose, and it's to the right target. It's a completion to Addison, or the ball we'll get into with Justin Jefferson, where he can't bring it in at the goal line, that's a really good throw. That's a step up in the pocket and let it go. And right there in the bread basket, did Marlon Humphrey get a hand on it? I was trying

to figure that out with the all 22 tape. I couldn't really tell, look to me like a ball that Justin Jefferson usually catches. And maybe there's a detail there of him flattening it out a little bit. If the ball's not coming as fast, I'm not really sure. But either way, it looked like a really good throw. So there's 10 plays on tape where you go, okay, first round draft pick, there's no doubt about it. There's no doubt about the raw talent that J.J. McCarthy possesses. So when we talk about how to deconstruct the game and how we view it from a J.J. McCarthy perspective, if you're still looking at him as a first year starting quarterback, as a prospect, and you're focusing on the things that he is capable of doing, we've seen that.

them every single week. Now, when it comes to the URA starting quarterback that can win games consistently in the NFL, that's where this breaks down, because they end up with a below 50% completion percentage in the game for McCarthy. And a lot of the throws are just nowhere near where they would need to be in order to move the offense. Throws that were to open receivers, Justin Jefferson had several of these. And again, we'll get into the Jefferson part of this, several of these that are just simply wide open and he has no chance to go get. There's a throw down the sideline where Addison's kind of going deep and maybe if you put it up

over the top and give him a jump ball in the end zone and the ball sort of just flies out of bounds. Like maybe he meant to do it that way, but I don't think so. There's just too many of those throws that from a simply throwing the football, drop back, get your feet right with the everything lined up and let it go at the right amount of velocity there's too many and put it in the right area too many that are just far off not a little off not oh well maybe it was a 50 50 ball or something but not really particularly close uh there's one toward the end of the game where jefferson is running kind of in and then back out toward the

sideline and he's in between a cover two in the right spot maybe you hit him on the sideline, and the ball goes upfield as he's turning back the other way, and he's just got to play cornerback where he jumps and it flies over the top of his head. I mean, balls like that are not catchable. They're not even circus catchable. And there were way too many to have success in an NFL game. And I look this up. This tells you how rare it is to not complete 50% of your passes. Only 44 times since the start of 2024 has a team not completed 50% of his passes. That is about 5% of NFL games. And when you consider that they were at home and they were in a dome, so you could probably take a handful of those games would have been in weather.

Maybe a handful are on the road in really tough environment or something. But at home and at a dome to complete 50% is extremely rare. And teams are on. almost never win. So only 11 out of those 44 times did the team win that threw for less than 50%. I think that that tells you right there that the quarterback was not accurate enough, no matter how much, and we will, trust me, I'm headed there, so be patient. But we'll talk about the system. We'll talk about the targets downfield and the play calling and all that stuff.

but to not be accurate enough to get at least half of your passes completed is basically a death knell to your chances to win. I mean, if you play 100 Sundays and complete 40-something percent of your passes, you're only going to win about 20 to 25 of those. And some of them would have to be in Cleveland or Pittsburgh or Buffalo when it was snowing in order to have a chance to win those types of games. So that is something that has to vastly improve as J.J. McCarthy goes forward, it's to me the throws that are just right there

that are clean pocket and this was another observation that I had is there's a lot of these throws that I'm referring to where he has time and he can set his feet and he can see his target there's one where Jefferson is headed toward the sideline on the right side and he's just wide open it's a route combination with Addison

where the safety takes Addison going deep because he's thinking don't want to give up and over the top this was toward the end of the game and Jefferson is wide open at the sideline and it just flies over him by about 10 yards. And this to me is this quarterback needs to throw more footballs. And as much as you can try to work through some of this stuff in the regular season, there's only so much practice. There's only so much coaching the head coach of the franchise can work with McCarthy. And it's something that they're going to have to find ways to deal with, which does lead us down the road of how they can

try to deal with this because when I looked up a stat today, my eyes kind of popped out of my head, but it matched up with what I thought. So J.J. McCarthy has the deepest average depth of target in the entire NFL so far this year, the deepest, meaning he is throwing the farthest downfield on average of any quarterback in the NFL. Now, this is a little bit of chicken and egg issue when it comes to is that the system is that McCarthy and I've got some KOC to play you with some thoughts on that a couple of different quotes that he had today breaking down that very issue but one way or another if you are asking a quarterback who is struggling with accuracy or a quarterback himself who is struggling with accuracy is

deciding whichever of the two it might be to throw down field that often it's going to result in having a 50% completion percentage or whatever he is right now, I think overall 53% completion percentage because even historically the great quarterbacks, the more you throw down the field, this is like shooting a basketball, the farther you get away from the rim, the lower your shooting percentages. And the farther you get away from your target, the lower your completion percentage is. So when you are leading the league in average depth of target, the chances that you're going to complete 70% of your passes are not very high unless you are

Tom Brady. He could do it. I don't think that J.J. McCarthy is ready to be Tom Brady at this moment, that he is accurate enough of a passer to be throwing the ball on average, 11 yards through the air almost. That's a lot. And to give you some comparative numbers on that, Mack Jones, who has been thriving this year with Kyle Shanahan 7.7. J.J. McCarthy is 10.6. so almost three yards farther than Mac Jones. Justin Herbert is in the same ballpark. Jordan Love is in the same ballpark. So a lot of these quarterbacks who are not perfect

and maybe do have, Mac Jones doesn't have a big arm, but you can tell they're trying to protect him. Jordan Love has a big arm, but isn't always the most accurate still, even though respect to Jordan Love, but it's a similar issue of they are reducing how far he is throwing down the field because if you ask him to sit in there and throw time and time and

again into the intermediate areas, that's very hard for someone like Jordan loved to do. Justin Herbert is a little more out of just the fact that they don't have offensive linemen, but nonetheless, there's a good amount of quarterbacks who are living in the space below 10 yards and then taking their shots up over the top. That's not what J.J. McCarthy is doing. Now, the question there is, is that a matter of the scheme or is that a matter of the decision making from the quarterback? So there's two different things that O'Connell said to address that. One, he was asked about trying to keep McCarthy calm because it seemed yesterday as the game went on, because he started out looking great. As the game went on, especially when they were losing, that he was trying too hard.

And that includes trying too hard to hit targets deep down the front. field. And this does play into the better to say, whoa, than go, as I mentioned before, like, better to have to rein him in than have to try to push him to try to win the game and do something crazy down the field. But O'Connell talked today about how that's a balance. With JJ's development, how much are you finding yourself kind of reminding him, like, throughout games or the week to not press or to kind of stay calm? He brings so much intensity a lot. I think it's a factor, I really do, you know, because he's so competitive and he's a very, you know, he's a high football IQ guy and wants to make the play. And as many young quarterbacks have to learn over time, sometimes I thought he had some great checkdowns, you know, one to Jordan out in the flat on a tempo play, one to Aaron Jones on a play action play, you know, out of the out of the 21 grouping where he just kind of gets to the top of.

of his drop feels the defense lifting a little bit. And we end up with 12, 13 yards on a very simple play. And it's just production moving the ball forward, where it should not be a worldly lift, a moving heaven and earth. The defense plays what they play. Sometimes there's some throws there down the field. Sometimes there's great opportunities to put the ball in play

check down wise that are either right in front of you or you've got to work through a progression, you know, when protected. And you know, there was some really good examples of that too it's just when you're in you know you get 17 of these things and you're in an NFL game that how the circumstances of the game play out many of which we directly let ourselves into you know you got to play that game to try to win and and that doesn't always puzzle piece fit hand in hand with where you would like the game to be for for the ascension of his development

so if we work our way through that comment there the back part of it is look I mean when you're down 14 points late in the game against the Baltimore Ravens, and you're trying to come back, then yes, you are pushing it down the field and you're not taking checkdowns and things like that. That would be things that we did see from a longtime Viking quarterback that would get frustrating at times at certain parts of his career in those big moments. And that's not what JJ McCarthy is going to do. So that was clearly part of that low completion percentage was at the end of the game.

It's just firing and fire and fire and fire and fire in. And again, I would much rather have that and trying to win. I think I've mentioned this before that one of my favorite games that I ever covered was that random game in the soccer stadium with the Chargers and the Vikings, and the Vikings blew them out. But I loved that Philip Rivers just kept firing. Like, Rivers did not care about his stat line. He didn't care how many picks he threw. He was going to try to win the game. And, you know, my friend Sage Rosen fell, so I bring up regularly on the show. He told me about Eli Manning had a lot of interceptions where he was down in games.

Hey, we're down two scores in the fourth quarter and I'm just going to go for it. I don't care what my stats say at the end of the day. I'm going to try to pull back a comeback win. I'm going to rip it down the field. And if McCarthy's going to play that way, then great. I don't want him to not play that way. I don't think that that's entirely to blame for him wanting to push it down the field a lot because I also think that this scheme gives the quarterback

a lot of options on a given play and a lot of those options are downfield. And so when Kirk Cousins was the quarterback and the numbers backed this up in terms of his average depth of target in 2022 and his time in the pocket in 2022, neither were that high because Kirk would get to a certain look

and decide, am I going to try to put it in this pocket of the defense or not? and a lot of times he would say, you know, what's a better option is T.J. Hawkinson right here underneath. Now, I think that O'Connell wanted him to stick with some of those reeds more and trust his arm a little bit more when he was the quarterback in 2022 and sometimes in 23. But it's sort of proof of the idea that the reads are there. You have to get to them. Do I expect J.J. McCarthy to 100% be locked in on exactly the timing of how you go through those

reads and get to those checkdowns and fully understand those ideas that Kirk had thousands of NFL passes in his pocket where McCarthy is still not what has he reached he hasn't reaches 200 pass yet so a very long way to go when it comes to that and I and this is where there are two sides to the coin because the checkdowns and the underneath stuff they're built in and they succeeded with them even with Sam Darnold. It's actually a crazy stat. I can pull it up for you. Sam Darnold last year pushed the ball down the field a lot for the Vikings, right? We know that.

We all agree with that, that that was KOC's offense, and that's what he did. However, when it came to actually throwing underneath, he was one of the most successful quarterbacks in the league last year throwing underneath passes. He didn't do it as often as some other quarterbacks,

but he completed 84% of his passes and had 113.9 quarterback rating throwing underneath, which was fourth. in the NFL. So when Sam Darnold did throw underneath, he was the fourth best short passing quarterback, and I can get his PFF grade,

just to add to all that together. Yeah, fifth, fifth in PFF grade, fourth in quarterback rating when throwing underneath. But he didn't do it a lot because he wanted to push the ball down the field. And we know that Darnold has the arm and we know that he also hung on to the ball too long sometimes as well. But speaking to the idea that those receivers are, there within the offense.

And McCarthy, I think, as you're going to hear him talk about KOC in a second, I think what McCarthy wants to do is he wants to hit the first read or second read the way that the play is designed, which a lot of them are designed downfield. So the argument would be, all right, so if it takes getting through to a third or fourth read to the point where you make the right decision, is that a little too much to ask right now or is it just something that he's got to learn on the fly and once he gets it, he's going to get it. But when we talk about, you know, the blame for this game and how it went and so forth, I mean, there is an element of if you have an offense that's going to push downfield,

push down field, and then you say, well, you're supposed to get back to the checkdown because Darnold was able to do it and Cousins was able to do it and Mullins was at times able to do it. that might be a little much for J.J. McCarthy right now. And you may have to instead have plays for him more plays that are not pushing the ball down the field and not saying, hey, hit, you know, Justin Jefferson 22 yards on an out route. That's your number one. But hey, like, feel free to check down if you want to. Well, the young quarterback, how is he supposed to figure out this is the right time? That's not the right time when he's on his.

his fourth game. So I think there's an aggressive element to this offense that works so, so well when it works. And you see receivers open all over the field against Baltimore and some of them got left out there and some of them got overthrown and some of them turned into great throws. But the balance seems off to me. And I think what KOC is saying there is, hey, you know, he's got to get to those checkdowns and I'll praise him for those checkdowns. But maybe the first look shouldn't be that for him right now because he's going to want to execute the play the way that it's supposed to be executed. And what happens in college is you can just stand back there until you get the guys open. And this is not college, although I've got another note on the

offensive line. I thought they played great. So, Connell was asked today about trying to get easy button stuff for J.J. McCarthy rather than, you know, putting too much on his plate. And here's what he said. Quarterback is such a rhythmic thing. Seeing the ball go through the net can help. But at the same time, it's also, you know, the difference being, you know, the defense plays a lot into the things they're going to take away. Maybe those layup throws have to be backside in cuts or underneath routes to Adam Thielen or to just kind of progress and put the ball in play. And, you know, obviously with some of the unique things we see coverage-wise with Justin, and it can't always be, you know,

it can't always be just a simple proposition. Sometimes it's going to require saying no to something, which hopefully by design, we've put eligible in his vision or checkdowns in place so he can see the ball go through the net. But I think to Mark's question earlier, that's where TJ comes into play. The running backs on some of those checkdowns can be great options to kind of steal the rhythm

in a lot of ways if it's been lost for a sequence of plays. So it seems what Kevin O'Connell is emphasizing here to J.J. McCarthy is that those options, especially T.J. Hawkinson, are there and don't be afraid to take them, that you don't always have to push it into the most challenging throw, which I've thought at times he's done a really good job of. The one that stands out the most was really to me in Detroit, where he checked it down to Jones on the first play of the game or second, maybe his first throw of the game. I think the first play of the game was a run. But the first throw of the game was just a completion where he could have taken a shot

and he said, here's a check down to Aaron Jones and then off you go. It also might be a matter of really mastering a playbook. That mastering a playbook is a thing that takes a while. And even with Kirk Cousins, he didn't feel fully in command of this thing until I think the second half of 2022. I would say the same thing for Sam Darnold. And then when it clicked, both guys played really, really good football, but it might take longer than this. And I was thinking about a Jordan Love and those first eight games that he played after several years with Matt LaFleur and how long it took him to have the right balance of aggression versus, you know, throwing into coverage, checkdowns underneath stuff.

And what LaFleur has ultimately done with him is taking the keys away on a lot of plays and worked the underneath. a lot and then said, hey, every once in a while, let's take a shot downfield. And that seems to be the trend for a lot of these play callers, but that's not how KOC won the Super Bowl in 2021 with the Los Angeles Rams and Sean McVeigh. It's certainly not how the Rams are playing these days. The Rams are pushing it downfield and Matthew Stafford is playing MVP caliber football. And when this thing works, it works. But I don't think it's the easiest thing to just say, all right, I got it after a couple of games.

and you're good to go. So then we get to a question about, well, do you need to pair it down? Do you need to have stuff for him to get those easy buckets? And even if you are not getting the explosives that you want and that you believe in philosophically, can you have nine play drives where it's five runs, three short passes and one shot or something like that?

But I don't think that that's in the philosophy of Kevin O'Connell. I think that he wants to have this idea of, stretch the defense deep with Jefferson and Addison and then use those underneath options to have that churning of the offense. And Darnold did it pretty well last year. I thought Kirk in 2023 did it especially well, but those guys who are, they've just played a lot more football than J.J. McCarthy. So then we get to another thought, which is, would you rather him, I'm trying to think of a metaphor here. Like, would you rather a prospect baseball? player go to the majors and hit off 97 mile our fastballs or would you rather him go to

double a and probably hit really well against double a pitching but is that really getting you enough maybe you know triple a is there is there something in between having a the guy have trial by fire with the 97 mile on our fastballs and sliders and split fingers and all that sort of stuff. Maybe there is or maybe there isn't. I think with McCarthy, what they're going to do with O'Connell in this offense is they're going to keep putting it on him and say, trial by fire, work through it. And once it clicks, it'll work for you. It'll be good for you. And the aspect that's probably not going to fix itself is how he throws the football. That is something that he needs an offseason for. That's not going to change. And they're just going to have to work

through those issues if they're going to win games. Now, if it gets a little bit better and they can complete 60% of their passes, well, now you're starting to have more consistency. And if you have two or three fewer of those balls that fly out of the back of the end zone and hit the usher or whatever, you need to make incremental improvement. But the idea that he was going to come back in two games and be perfect and be super insanely accurate, he wasn't against Detroit. it's just that that game played out a lot differently.

If this game plays out differently and the Ravens fumble a kick return and you score and you get ahead, then maybe we're talking about another 150-yard game for J.J. McCarthy, where he was just as inaccurate, but he won. I think that the accuracy thing is going to take breaking it down in the offseason, having a full off-season. We have to remember that he did not have a full off-season. And until then, you just have to power through some of these issues. I do want to say a couple other things here.

The Hawkinson thing is, I think it's very legit, by the way, that he's getting hammered. The fantasy people are very mad at T.J. Hawkinson. Tight end is often a product of the quarterback, the scheme, where the ball's going. Hawkinson is there. There is a play where McCarthy rolls out to his right, ends up throwing it deep down the sideline,

really kind of not close to Jordan Addison. Hockinson, it's a third down, is just standing there. and he's probably two yards away from the first down. If he catches it, he can kind of just fall forward. McCarthy's just not looking there. And he ends up throwing it away. And I think that that's been the story of T.J. Hawkinson, that, you know, Carson Wentz was playing it a little bit safer.

And he was, you know, throwing a little quick pop passes and things like that. McCarthy is not getting there. And I think he's scrambling before he gets there. And that's really impacted Hawkinson. I don't think he's doing a whole lot different. I wanted to say that the offensive line, I thought, was overall fantastic. McCarthy had a lot of pressure overall, but it was a lot of pressure from sitting in the pocket. He is the fourth slowest thrower from snap to release.

And there were a few plays where they got to him. They had to pass block 52 times yesterday. But overall, they did a fantastic job. I think this is a really good offensive line. He had tons of time to throw. The average pressure, the average dropback pressure was 3.67 seconds. I mean, that's almost four seconds to sit back there and figure out where you're going with the ball. And Darisaw was really good.

O'Neill had a rep early that wasn't good and then recovered from that. He's clearly playing through some stuff, I think. The knee injury earlier this year, Donovan Jackson was credited with five pressures allowed, but is PFF grade. And this is why we use them together, right? His PFF grade was over 70 because when you pass block 52 times, know, five pressures, if they're slow pressures, which some of them were, then, you know, you still end up getting graded pretty well.

And Blake Brandel, for his second straight week, did a really good job. That Ravens defensive line was not that dangerous. And I think you're going to see this offensive line do really, really well against the Chicago Bears. I wanted to talk about the run pass ratio. This was probably commented about 400,000 times in the post game show. Well, why aren't you bringing up the run pass ratio? So I did a little work on it.

And after the Ravens got up by 14 and they went into panic mode, I counted up and if maybe I'm off one here, sorry, because there's a bunch of, when you look at the play-by-play, there's a bunch of penalty, penalty, penalties. So it gets a little muddy. 19 passes in one run after they were down by 14, which is not surprising. They were not running the ball that well in the first half.

Now, look, I'm not defending, not running the ball and leaning on the run game because we want them to do that. We want them to build off of that and so forth. But when you look at that part of the game, score affected that run pass ratio wildly. And also the lack of success early in the game, I think they came out in the third and had some really big runs. But one of the 12-yard runs is when they're down 14 and the Ravens are playing everybody in the parking lot. It's just like, okay, well, Jordan Mason gets a big run here. that's not really something that they're afraid of giving up at that point. Overall, though, I think the way the offensive line is playing and the running backs and

Aaron Jones looked good and he looked healthy, that is something that is getting, I mentioned yesterday, a little bit old to beat into the ground time and time and time and time again about run the ball, run the ball, run the ball. But I do think they have the offensive line to do it. And that's something that maybe Kevin O'Connell has not been able to trust in the past that I think he could trust a lot more, especially the left side with Jackson and Christian Darrasaw. But the run pass ratio in particular is not the smoking gun that you think it is because of the way that the game played out and they had to throw over and over again. Also, if you get eight false starts and five of them are on first down, guess what that does to first down play calling. first in 15 is not a good idea to run.

You have to pass first in 15. So I think that those things have to be considered when everyone has got their, you know, pitchforks and so forth, a KOC's house because he didn't run enough times because of the run pass ratio. Like, let's think it through a little bit here more than just saying it was this many passes

and this many runs. So he's the dumbest person alive. No, I think there was a lot of stuff that affected that. Now, here's the other person. point. Let me go back the other direction, which is that the third and one play in particular, I would defend all day long. I agree with the third and one philosophy. If you're going for it on fourth down, then taking a shot one-on-one to Jefferson deep down the field on third and one

when you get the right look makes a lot of sense. That play, no problem with it. The next sequence where they passed on third and two and fourth and two, that was the one where I'd, thought, okay, well, this is not what we're talking about anymore, is the zero blitz. It was because it turned into an interception that there was so much rage about it. KOC said he would defend it all day. He would do it again every day. I agree with him. Let me do my Stephen A. Smith.

However, however, the bigger picture here, I did a little research, as I do, the bigger picture here, is that the Vikings have run, this was going into yesterday. It wasn't updated yet, but I'm sure this is still the same. The second most pass plays on third or fourth down and three yards or less in the NFL since 2022. Number one is the Kansas City Chiefs. They have Patrick Mahomes. You have had Kirk Cousins, Nick Mullins, Josh Dobbs, Jared Hall, Sam Darnold, who's good? and a guy who's essentially a rookie.

And the success has not been the same as the Kansas City Chiefs. In fact, they have been one of the least successful teams passing in terms of first down percentage. They have converted 48.1% of those first downs, which is the third worst since 2022. So that particular play in a nutshell, they got the look. Jefferson's there. They were going for it on fourth down. Okay, good. All right.

I'm good with that. Jefferson falls. What are you going to do? Sometimes that's football, right? I don't think it was the greatest throw I've ever seen or that it was going to be a completion. But all right, that's fine. Take that shot.

Overall, though, it's something you got to look at. It's something you have to look in the mirror at some point and say, we got these dudes up front. You paid Will Fries all this money. You drafted Donovan Jackson. Darisaw's back. You got Jordan Mason. It's third and two.

Hand the ball off. So I think that going forward, they have to acknowledge that the numbers say this is not working. And you're doing it too much to the point where you're probably getting predictable. Where if is third and two, the other team is like, well, they've got a pretty good chance to run because they got analytics people too. Now, the Ravens got analytics people that are telling them,

here's your tendency. They will pass more than, almost anybody else on third down, they prepare for it. So this is where you got to go back the other way. I think that's a very reasonable criticism based on the numbers. Let's talk about Justin Jefferson. Eight, I counted eight of the incompletions toward Jefferson that went paths, the line of scrimmage, in total.

So there was like, you know, downfield at least, you know, 10 yards or so. Eight incompletions there. and there was only one that I counted that was accurate. That was a good pass. And I think that Justin Jefferson for the first time since maybe 2020, there was a viral clip where Jefferson yelled, you know, something like throw at Kirk or something like that. And that was way back when he was, maybe it's 2021.

I remember something in San Francisco where he got frustrated. That was where Kirk lined up under the guard. And they were frustrated in that. game, 2021 was a very tense year. But to see him on the play, and I may have mixed it up a little bit because there were the two interceptions, both were in his direction. But the interception where Humphrey catches it on the third and one, to not have him hustle after it was really surprising because, and maybe he might have been frustrated with

the referees, and I'll play you what Kevin O'Connell had to say about that. Maybe he thought he got interfered with. Maybe he thought he got knocked down. It's really hard to tell on the tape. did he trip over his own feet? Was there something, some sort of contact there? Like, not really 100% clear. But either way, there were several incompletions where he often will get up and have a like,

you know, man, I'm so mad at myself for not bringing that in or something like that. There was a little bit of a dejected kind of vibe to him throughout this game. And Kevin O'Connell did mention that, I mean, look, they ran a lot of pass plays. and at some point you get exhausted and don't have the maybe mental or physical energy to after every one of these get up and be like, rah, rah, let's go. But even there was a, you know, and you start to like hyperanalyze these things. Everyone's frustrating a game like that where you feel like you should be winning and you're not. But even after the interception and McCarthy's kind of trying to go over to him and he's just kind of walking away,

it's like that's not what we're used to, but also these numbers are not what we're used to and not what he's used to either. And the accuracy is not what he's used to. I mean, Kirk Cousins was an accurate quarterback. Sam Darnal is a very accurate quarterback. And McCarthy, it's unpredictable where that ball's going when it's coming out toward Jefferson. And they're trying easy button stuff to get him the ball, but you can't throw Jefferson 14 bubble screens. I mean, maybe you can. Maybe they should. But not really likely that that, that's a great idea. Maybe some, maybe they do have to increase that number of stuff to make sure he's got the ball more. And the dropped pass, that was a hard one to tell also. Was there

a hand in there? I would call that a drop. I wondered about the timing when it came to getting out of the break, the way O'Connell talked about it in this clip I'm going to play you. Sounds like he thought it was a drop by Jefferson. It's one that we expect him to catch. There's been a couple of those this year. And it just, it was surprising to me because I haven't seen him like that. And I think that when you look at this team ranking fourth worst in the NFL and team quarterback rating, so Wentz and McCarthy. And you think about the number of quarterbacks he's played with. And you think about the fact that this team hasn't won and it's not looking like they're going to make the playoffs. I mean, that's, that's where you get somebody like him who puts a lot

on his own shoulders to be pretty frustrated. But here's what KOC had to say about Jefferson. I'm just curious how you kind of saw his body language on a few of those plays, especially after the interceptions. Yeah, I think there was some frustration and maybe with the, you know, not having a couple calls go his way from a, from a, you know, a referee standpoint. But that's all part of the game and got frustrated there a little bit.

He's so competitive. He wants to make those plays, especially when he is, you know, I'm not, I think he had 12 targets. in the game and wants to make the impact, you know, we've got competitors and sometimes that thing can present itself differently when you're talking about this guy to the next guy, but I have no concerns with Justin. If anything, you know, this time of year I am always thinking about plays a lot of snaps and just where can we, you know, where can we find, you know, those times, maybe even throughout the week to make sure that, you know, we're taking

taking care of him so he could be at his best on Sundays as we roll into kind of the second half of the season here. But no, I, you know, whether it's the, the chances to get him the ball on his hands, I thought JJ made a great throw on another one where it was a bang, bang, play at the goal line. And, you know, we just didn't connect. And it was kind of like that in some critical moments of the game, but we'll get back to work and nobody will leave the charge more than Justin. And we did speak to Justin after the game. He acknowledged, that that catch that he feels like he should make it also did put a you know a lot of it on himself as he always does even though in this game I did not think outside of that one play there were a ton of

opportunities for him to make catches though it was his let's see lowest graded game by pff since week 18 against Detroit that's what it reminded me a lot of but I would also say that Jefferson in terms of how he's handled himself in front of us, how he's handled himself behind the scenes, in the games, all those things for many years now is as a plus as it gets. And to see yesterday, you know, fans questioning him and everything else, it's like, okay, let's, yeah, that that interception clip for the guy that once ran 30 yards to recover and Nick Mullins fumble, that interception clip was not what I expected to see. I expected to see him going after it.

Now, you may have been completely gas, but I would have expected him to see him going after trying to make a tackle there as opposed to the actual effort that was put in there. But I think that's unfair. I mean, he has been as high class through all the changes and everything else as you could ever ask a star wide receiver to be and look, around the league for the number of star wide receivers who have not been this way over the years. So, like that, it was a bad day

and it was a frustrating day with so many throws that were just not even near him that were targets. And he wants to have the numbers and he wants to have the success and all those things. So I think that if the most that he expressed his frustration was some, you know, zoom in camera angles that we saw of different things, you know, That's a two out of ten on the scale of frustrated wide receivers.

But let's not do that. Let's not do that thing. We're like, oh, this wide receiver, he's digs now. Like, come on. That to me is ridiculous. I mean, I saw what you saw, but I'm saying that's too much. The one thing that is there to monitor would be where does this go from here? If they continue to have days like that.

That's worth raising the eyebrow, as I like to say. Just a couple more things. Dallas Turner was good in this game. It's unfortunate that his best pass rush, maybe a little bit over enthusiastic. I know people hate the rule. It is what it is, my friends. You could say whatever you want to say about it.

I saw all sort of the league is soft. Why don't you put scutored? Look, look, the rules are the rules. They practice it. They know the rules. And you can't do that. But it was a. hell of a pass rush.

It was a great pass rush. And I actually thought for the first time that Dallas Turner looked like he was in the role that he was supposed to be in. He made a couple other plays in coverage. He had a negative. He had a tackle that went for a negative play by Baltimore. He looked like he was flying around. He looked like he was pretty confident.

And to have Van Ginkle back and him playing 27 plays and doing things like that with, I think it was maybe a stunt or something like that, that's what they were. expecting to use Dallas Turner to do, and that looked pretty good. So that was on my notes. They have to tackle better. I think we all know that. The other team does have a lot of really good tackle-breaking players.

They have definitely fixed something with Javon Hargrave. He had a great game. He was after Lamar. He was stopping runs. The defensive tackles in general were really good. And also, KOC said that they avoided major injury with Jvon Hargrave. So I know it's a lot that I just threw at you, emptied the notebook. But put in a lot to that today.

So let me give you a Fanduel question of the day. We'll get to Brian Murphy and Manny Hill for the roundtable, as we always do, in short order here. And also get to some of your questions and comments as well. The Fandual question of the day for today is that the Vikings are opening on Fandua's three-point favorites over the Chicago Bears. Should they be favored over the Bears and why? Three-point favorites, I was a little bit surprised considering

the results. So, all right. Friends of Taz, as Lamar probably weighs more than Dallas Turner. Look, I mean, you can do what, you could say whatever you want. You can yell at the sky. All you like, the rules are the rules.

And they're meant to protect quarterbacks. What happened to Aaron Rogers when Anthony Barr pretty clearly let all of his weight fall on Rogers was that the league lost one of its best quarterbacks for the entire season, and, or did he, like, try to come back and then not, whatever it was, maybe it was the entire season, lost Aaron Rogers, and they don't want that. They don't want Lamar Jackson lost for the season because Dallas Turner drove him into the ground, which he blatantly did. It's the rules and they work on it and they know it.

But let's not forget about what a really good play it was by Dallas Turner. And KOC pointed out today, I totally agree with him. It was a great rush, and that's what you want to see. And when we talk about Turner, that's kind of been my point about Turner is, I think he got tossed into the deep end with some very difficult circumstances where he's having to set the edge and playing 60 plays. And I don't think he's there yet in his career when Van Ginkle goes out. And it also wasn't what he practiced all year. That play was what he practiced in training camp, was kind of getting ahead of steam and rushing the way that he did. So I just want to see stuff like that going forward from him.

And I think as long as he doesn't slam, you know, body slam the guy into the turf, then he will get more of those, more of those kind of flash plays. And I also think that he's done a really good job in some of the coverage plays recently. He had a very good one against Detroit where he tracked somebody down. I think it was a screen or swing pass or something. And he may have to play, and I'm very interested in this, if Grenard can't go, he may have to play in more of a Grenard role, which I think is very different from Van Ginkle. and he might just get to rush a lot this week against Caleb Williams. There could be a chance for him to have a good game. So, you know, that's, that is a young and, you know,

rookie type of mistake or second year player type of mistake. You know, but it was a great pass rush. Adrian, no reason they only ran the ball 13 times. So I can both agree with you and explain a lot of it, right? like I agree with you that if you get third down in two and it's a nine point game, you should be running the ball. Like that's they were leaning into the past. I think also you have to factor that McCarthy looked really good at the start of the game.

So I think they started to lean in. And I also felt this way about Detroit, where in the second quarter they got away from the run because I think they thought, well, he's looking great. So we need to lean into him a little bit more. But also you have to acknowledge that when you get down, 14 in the run pass ratio is 19 passes to one run. They didn't do it wrong.

So if you take that part of the game out of it, it's much more like 20 pass plays to 13 runs, which is still not where you want it, but it's a little bit different. That was my main point is like we need to not like it was so far pushed toward the past, but we need to be like intellectually honest about this. I still think that when you have this quarterback, you do have. have to lean into the run. It was not succeeding all that much early in the game, but when it was, was into the third quarter,

that was another part of it. And you also have to acknowledge that first and 15 is not a good time to run. So I can both say that, yes, this quarterback, this situation, this offensive line being 100%, Jordan Mason, Aaron Jones looks really could still, run. You know, you can do it. I believe in you. But if we're making it, oh my gosh, they passed 40,

whatever times and they only read yeah look we know why that is uh the other thing i didn't mention was the the balls that were batted down and i don't have a great explanation other than that i think the other team planned to do that i think that it was a major part of their game plan they had their hands up all day long and the trajectory in which the ball comes out of his hand is very low and it's it's not flying up over these guys he needs windows to throw and several different times he sort of stepped out of a or into a window where he was looking like down the field, but then was going to throw left or right and it just goes right into somebody's hand. Yes, there were some open receivers behind him.

Would he have completed it? Like, we'll never know. But he was making some good decisions there that didn't work out because of that. But it's something that he's got to think about. He also has a tendency to climb and to move up and closer to the offensive line. I think maybe to consider pass or scramble. and the closer you get and the lower you throw, people are going to bat them down.

But I don't know if I've ever seen five batted down in a game. That seems like a lot to be batted down. So deplorable Neanderthal, yes, if the Vikings don't fall start eight times for the Fanduel question of the day, these flashes of brilliance will lead to a 17 point victory over the fun but hapless bears. I don't know you could be calling anybody else hapless at this point

when you're last in the division. but I do think the bears are a lot of a lot of 2020 Vikings kind of fake, you know, right at the end of games they've pulled off like four different wins that they probably shouldn't have. So I am going to have Courtney Cronin on the show later on in the week, no doubt about that, to talk about Caleb Williams and all this, but they've gotten away with it a lot for sure. Adrian can the batted passes be fixed?

that I think the answer is yes but I don't think they're going to go away this year because of those things learning to throw the ball at a different trajectory is going to take time it is so clear that he is a line drive thrower and you see the ball come out and sometimes I mean this is the thing with McCarthy

sometimes just like dude you have a strong arm why are you throwing it 10 million miles an hour but when he's done this for his entire life and it's just now he's learning how to not do that, I think that's an adjustment that's going to take a lot of time with other players that we've seen with strong arms who do this same sort of thing. Josh Allen is the most notable and where when he came into the league, he threw it so freaking hard. And even now with Josh Allen, sometimes you see him trying to be like, eh, like let me try to, can I just touch the, and it still goes, you know, like sometimes he does that too.

so I don't think it'll ever disappear. But I think he can understand the pocket a little better, pocket depths a little bit better, that, you know, if you keep stepping up and stepping up and climbing and climbing into the space that you are getting closer to the offensive line. And if you throw it low, you can hit a helmet, you can hit a hand, that kind of thing.

You can end up hurting your own hand by doing it. So all of these things are details that he's going to have to work on. But I think yesterday was pretty random and also part of their game plan, because that team doesn't get home. They don't create a ton of pressure over this season. They don't have a ton of rushers who just snap and rush. So they're telling their defensive tackles,

get your hands up, and they were able to do that. So, let's see. Okay, we've got. And, you know, the one thing I did notice is that, you know, everybody goes off the rails after a loss. suggesting they trade him for Shradur Sanders is a new standard. So I do appreciate for in terms of like being off the rails. I do appreciate that Viking Scholar.

That's a certainly a new one. But, you know, I did think that the, some of the reaction was was way too much yesterday overall. Like they deserve to have every game broken down and analyzed and looked at and everything else. But with J.J. McCarthy, I'm going to keep saying it until I feel like, like I'm comfortable with the sample size is the roller coaster is real. Tried to prepare you for it. Tried to prepare them for it. I don't know that they were prepared for this kind of ups and downs entirely.

If they were, they would have probably not started J.J. McCarthy this year. They probably would have had him develop for a year behind the scenes. But we're here and you can't go back in time. So what you're going to have to deal with on a. week-to-week basis is the ups and downs of what it's like to have a quarterback this young. And you're still seeing it from Bo Nix is getting destroyed. They won a game and he's getting destroyed in Denver. Michael Pennix, gosh, he had a pretty good game but had a key fumble and, you know,

they lose to Indianapolis. And now they've got, what, three wins and a bunch of them are close, but he's not playing that great. And they're getting ripped up and down. And this, you know, with Caleb Williams, he's still a work in progress. I don't think he's been incredible. I can look at where Caleb Williams. He's been much better, but I don't think that he's been at all flawless

or is taking over the league like everyone said he was going to. Let's see. Where does Caleb Williams? Yeah, he's 10th. Let's see in passing. Okay. 15th in passing grade by PFF. Well, you know, that's ups and downs, right?

For Caleb Williams. So everybody and, you know, Jane Daniels has had a really tough year and is hurt. Really, everybody except for Drake May is taking their lumps from last. last year's draft class because it takes time. So there's a lot of panicky, freak out of, you know, but I'm also not telling you that this won't be a problem long term. I'm telling you that we just don't have enough sample size to know. We've seen quarterbacks go both ways.

And I look this up. Here's four-year information. If it makes you feel better that over the last 25 years, this is how much I was using pro football reference and, you know, PFF and all the numbers and stuff over the last day or so, over the last 25 years, the worst quarterback rating of all young quarterbacks in their first four starts went to a guy who had a 10-year, really successful NFL career, Alex Smith, that he had the worst first four starts of the last 25 years turned out to be a good quarterback.

There's other guys on that list who did not turn out to be good quarterbacks that were first-round draft picks. we just don't really know. Eli Manning was on that list at the bottom as well. As a guy who had a really poor start over the first four, we just don't know. It just is going to take much more than this. So you don't have to. You can if you want because it's America

and you're free to say whatever you like on the internet. But you don't have to every single week make these declarations of, well, he's a bust. KOC doesn't know what he's doing. He can't do it. We just don't know yet. I mean, I guess that's how we've been taught in recent years to talk about sports is every single game, whatever just happened is the absolute truth about every single

player. And when a player goes, I don't know, 14 and 3 with 35 touchdowns, 4,000 yards, but has a bad playoff game, they're suddenly garbage to some people. But, you know, look, I don't think that's how it should work in sports. Sports analysis is whatever we just saw is the absolute truth. It happens in the NBA all the time. Somebody loses a playoff series. It doesn't play great.

They're garbage. And the other guy is the best player ever. I mean, look, I guess it wouldn't be sports if we didn't overreact. But some of the stuff that I've seen our last two days is just so absurd that maybe some folks need to take, you know, a deep breath. So you are right, 86 Chrysler, that Alex Smith. wasn't considered good till year five or six. That's the concern. I think if there's going to be one concern for me,

it's that this is going to take time. How quick can you get it to the point where you could consistently win with McCarthy? Because if you're completing under 50% of your passes, 75% of the time you're going to lose, as I had the stat earlier in the show. And if you're flying passes over just to Jefferson like that, it's just not likely that you're going to be consistent enough week to week. to have a winning record to win your division, that sort of thing, right?

How fast can you get it there? By the end of this year, can we feel like it's almost there? That's the goal, I think, now for the Vikings. I mean, look, they could beat the Bears, B-500, go two-and-two in this really tough stretch, and then play teams. The Giants just fired their coach. Washington is terrible. The Cowboys are bad.

Like, there's opportunities to still win games. But in terms of being like a real Super Bowl contender, getting Super Bowl caliber consistently see from your quarterback, how fast can you get there? Because I think you make a very fair and correct point that with a lot of these players, you know, a lot of these guys who, like I even mentioned, Eli Manning, like it took a while for those guys. Matt Ryan took a little time and he was pretty good right away. So, you know, I think that's the biggest question. How fast can you get J.J. McCarthy to the point where you can have him be on a Super Bowl caliber roster succeeding, completing 65% of his passes, throwing for 250 yards a game and not 140 in your wins.

That, to me, looks like it is right now quite distant, but we might feel very differently in six weeks because the NFL, kind of works that way. So time once again for Brian Murphy and Manny Hill. Let me get these guys into the show here. And then we will have a good discussion as always. So, but those were all of all of my notes and hardcore breakdowns. And you can, you know, continue to ask questions and comments in the comment section as we go forward with our typical roundtable. And a reminder, as always, the show is presented to you by Fanduil. And the Fandul question of the day is the bears are three-point underdogs against the Minnesota Vikings, despite, let me slide over,

having a better record. Do you agree with that? Do you think that they should be, the Vikings should be favored?