Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - After rewatch, how much is J.J. McCarthy to blame for loss to Ravens? (Part 2)

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.

This episode of Purple Insider is presented by Fandul. All right, Brian Murphy, Manny Hill. Everybody say I, if I've got you in the room here. I, I, I, I, aye, aye. All right, good to see both of you guys. Why don't we begin with this? I saw Manny backstage there. I don't know if Murphy heard what I was talking about.

So let's start with Manny. about the timeline of J.J. McCarthy and the ups and downs we've seen, some have been really excellent, some great moments for him so far, and even yesterday some great moments for him. And yet, you know, some moments where it's very clear how far he's going to have to go. How does this match up with where they need to be? Like, when you watch him, do you think it's right around the corner? Do you think it's got a long way to go? that's a great question um i think certainly the potential is there um we know j j mccarthy's very talented

but i am wondering if this if if we're a little further away from really getting a good idea of how good he's going to be that we maybe initially thought and the more i think about it it's it shouldn't be that surprising because he is 22 years old and he has frankly not played a lot of football yet. So he just hasn't had a lot of reps. And he was coming from a situation at the University of Michigan where he wasn't really asked to do a lot. He wasn't asked to sort of carry this offense and be productive from a number standpoint. He wasn't asked to throw for 300 yards in a game against Ohio State. He had some games like that, but it wasn't the basis of how they were going to run their offense. They had Blake Corum in the backfield who was running for 120, 130 yards

a game, and that kind of opened things up for J.J. McCarthy. So he wasn't really asked to do a lot at Michigan, and I think that that, when you compare to some of the other guys in his draft class, when you compare to Drake May, who was on a roster at North Carolina that just didn't really wasn't really a lot to that roster outside of him. He had to carry a lot of weight on that team. And obviously, that team wasn't as good as Michigan was with J.J. McCarthy, but Drake May was asked to do a lot. And so you can kind of see he had a little bit more experience of carrying the weight

of having to really command an offense and be productive and throw for a lot of yards for his team to be successful. He was asked to do that a lot more, and J.J. and McCarthy hasn't. So that doesn't mean that McCarthy can't get to that level, but I think it's just going to take some time. And he just, he's just going to have to continue to play. And I think that we're in a situation now where he's just going to have to keep playing and he's going to have to take his lumps. And you just have to hope over the course of certainly for this season, but going into next year and the year after that, that he continues to get better and better. Murph, your thoughts? I don't think it's around

a corner at all. I think there's a few blocks he's got to travel and maybe a bridge to go over. What worries me, well, that doesn't worry me, but what I think we're losing sight of a bit is, I remember posing this question a year ago, even before Sam Darnel left. I mean, would you be content with J.J. McCarthy going seven and ten and eight, nine in his debut season, because those seem to be realistic expectations to put around. Let's face it, he's still a rookie quarterback. And what I think yesterday showed, what Atlanta showed, the Atlanta game showed, is all of these kinks, all of these hiccups, all of these mistake prone or happy feet or indecisive kinds of results. And it's not across the board because as you mentioned,

Collar, he has had some shining moments and had some nice balls yesterday. But I think what we're seeing is the maturation and development of a very, very young quarterback and what's unfortunate, I'm guessing he doesn't get a snap behind Sam Darnel too much last year based on the way Darnel played, obviously. But all of that, that he wouldn't be able to vacuum up on the sidelines, all of the work that he's basically a year behind. He's a year behind his peers in the draft class of 2024. And, you know, Bo Nix had some awful games last year. He's looked awful a couple of times this year, but I still feel like he's on an upward trajectory. Drake May had some flashes last season, but was dumped on and piled on by a

bad, or, you know, allowed to be dumped on and piled on by a bad New England team. So these are lumps that all young quarterbacks are going to take. What we've been saying, though, for quite a while is that it's the tension between a roster and coaching staff, that is conditioned to win now versus the development curve and the obvious growing pains that a young quarterback has to endure and has to grow from, they're not on the same parallel tracks. And I think that's what's causing the Vikings friction right now

is you have a team that still just doesn't seem to have its identity. We know what works for them because we've seen it in games against Cincinnati, Detroit. It's like, wow, that's the blueprint. If you could put that in Tupperware and unseal it every Sunday, they'd be great, but it hasn't been that way. And yesterday was a prime example of an opportunity lost where the defense actually really did come to play and the offense just couldn't get out of its own way.

And, you know, part of that's McCarthy. Some of its play calling, some of it's just ineptitude and it kind of came to a head yesterday. Well, and we talked about this a lot last week that the way that the game plays out is going to mean so much and just in terms of who scores and when. If I told you that the Vikings got down 19 to 10 in the third quarter against the Baltimore Ravens, you guys would not have said, oh, they won because we all know this, right? We all know that that is going to take away the run game. And it's going to put McCarthy in a situation where he has to drop back and throw and throw and throw and throw. And it's going to also probably lead to

O'Connell trying to push downfield and the quarterback trying to push down. Like we've seen this happened time and time again. Really, it was only, you know, that the defense was really good that they were able to stay in the game, getting a huge stop and also Baltimore. That's somebody else's podcast to talk about, but like, that's what the heck. There were about five different what the heck moments for them, including rolling out Lamar in a situation where if you just hand off, the Vikings are out of time. I don't even know what the heck they were thinking with some of their play calling and some of their circumstantial stuff. But they kept the Vikings in the game more. and that came down to a lot of miscues and whether it was the right call or not by the theory of calling a third and one play, the result was that interception was huge and the return was huge because it got them to midfield and they took advantage of it.

And then Miles Price fumbling, Miles has been fantastic this year, but that fumble to me was the total wind out of the sales. And I mean, I thought that the crowd disappeared after that and just. didn't have a whole lot of juice. And it felt like everybody was looking around going, oh, man, how are we supposed to win now when this just happened to us? And when you have a young quarterback, that's how it's going to feel. It's not going to feel like, oh, we're down to scores, like snap your fingers. It's a 50 yard pass from, you know, Kirk to JJ or something. And then, you know, you go forward from there. We never felt like the game was over at that point. But in this particular situation, it's got to be that way. Now, the, the play calling,

thing, Manny, is always a challenge for me. What I've noticed from comment sections is if I don't say Kevin O'Connell should be tard and feathered at the center of town square after every single loss for play calling, that if I nuanced, in a nuanced way, break down the different ideas and thoughts that I have on the philosophy and how they've managed it, then I should be fired. But no one can fire me. So I'm still here. how do you process when it comes to the play calling?

Because I think it's one of the hardest things to evaluate overall. When I looked at the All-22 tape and listened to O'Connell Talk today, I saw a lot of opportunities there. I saw a lot of opportunities to get to checkdowns. But I also thought, can he get to the four-three there? Can he get to the checkdown at this point in his career? Maybe that's the position you have to start inward. and move outward with the offense rather than starting with downfield

and trying to get the quarterback to move back in toward the line of scrimmage. But how did you deal with that as you were watching yesterday? Yeah, I mean, I don't know it's play calling. I'm kind of like you. I just hate the conversation about play calling because it's so easy to say, well, that was a bad play call when quarterback there was an interception, or if a sack happens, or if a fumble happens, or if you just have a bad day offensively,

the easy thing to do is just to say, wow, the play calling was bad. And all the, you know, the, the head coach needs to give up play calling duties. And, I mean, we saw that Mike McCarthy at the pack with the Packers and with the Cowboys. We saw he would be the play caller. And then, you know, after a couple bad games, then he would hand over play calling duties to somebody else and then a couple bad games and then he would take over again like it's i don't know how you really even measure that to me it just i think what it comes down to is

you you dial up certain plays that you believe you have the chance to have success with and i do think that there there there does come a time though when especially when you have a very young quarterback there does need to be that time where you start calling plays that are, I don't want to say easily executable, but, you know, plays that you know, I know J.J. McCarthy can make this throw. I know that he can make this read at this amount of time because we've seen him do it in practice and execute it. You know, I, but again, it's hard to tell if that's what's going on through Kevin O'Connell's head as he's dialing up these plays throughout a game, you know, and, you know, and, So much of it is situational. You know, you talked about earlier when you're when you're down 19 to 10 in the second half, you're not going to run the ball that much because you're down. You're down by two scores.

You got to push the ball down the field. You got to get the ball into the end zone because you just don't have as much time. So that's going to change things as well. But you do also have those situations where, okay, if it's third and one, yeah, I understand the taking the shot down the field if you've got a one-on-one. one with the best wide receiver on the planet. But occasionally turning the ball and handing off to Jordan Mason

because you went and traded for him this offseason because he's really good in those situations. Sometimes that's not a bad idea either. You know, but, you know, you look at the first interception that McCarthy threw, it was third and six, and he took a deep shot to Jefferson. He had nine, ten yards of turf in front of him

where he could have just tucked that ball and ran. And does that, was that a bad play call? No, not necessarily. You know, I mean, that where you kind of look at, I think, the decision making by the quarterback in that, in that instance. So there's, I think, I just, I say all that to say there's so many different factors that come into play when you're talking about play calling that I don't know that it's, it's not an easy thing to analyze because there's so many different things that can happen on any

given play, you could have the perfect play call. And if your left tackle gets beat, you know, or if your center gets beat and your quarterback comes under pressure, is that a bad play call or was that just bad execution? So it's a really hard thing to sort of figure out. Where did you stand on it yesterday, Murph? Well, for the first time, I did sense a, with myself thinking, why, why this now and why not that then? And I've never been one to do that, mainly because I just don't I feel like I have the base of knowledge. I don't have an encyclopedic knowledge of play calling and pass protection, run blocking situation. I never played.

I never coached. So look, I'm going to lay that out there. I'm your average fan here. But there are times where there are feels for a game. And there are times where I wonder if, you know, O'Connell subconsciously is still thinking he's calling a place for Sam Darnold and Kirk Cousins. Because I don't see McCarthy being quite there. yet to be in a position to put the ball in his hands, take them down field. And what concerned me most yesterday was we didn't even talk about the throwback play,

which was also on third down, and it was third and long. And it looked like a circus. And it was also like, why are you putting your quarterback into the meat grinder of a defense at midfield for a trick play? It felt a little too cute. No harm, no file there. They got rid of the ball fine. But then facing third and one at midfield, you had just had Aaron Jones, I think, I think it was him for two straight runs of 20 plus yards.

And it always seems like just as the running game gets going, that's when, you know, O'Connell likes to grab his bag of tricks and say, I'm going to go over the top, literally and figuratively of what the defense may be thinking right now. He gets tempted because he sees a one-on-one matchup with Jefferson. And yes, Justin Jefferson one-on-one, I would take him. in any, against any defense in any game-breaking situation. First half, maybe, maybe not. And it didn't even look like Jefferson was as plugged in yesterday. We might get into that a little bit later, too. But I just thought this was the first time I kind of thought, why not just hand the ball off?

Get your first down. He says he was in four-down territory. That's fine. Get your first down. Take your shot down field. Now, there's obviously subterfuge with the defense on third and one. They may not be looking for a deep ball. I get all of that.

But it feels like he quickly abandons the run in favor of trickery. And if the trickery doesn't work and the defense isn't playing great, and suddenly you're down two scores, you're never going back to the run game. It always feels like the run game can never really quite get over the hump. Now, you know what they did in Detroit, but where you feel like it's going to be complementary. And that's been a product, I think, of the Vikings falling behind so many times in their losses and then having to put a young quarterback in a position to go downfield and make plays. These lessons and battle scars are going to come in very handy for McCarthy later.

Maybe next year, maybe two years, maybe five years from now when he's lifting his second Lombardi, you might want to look back to these kinds of games and go, see, this is what it's all about, this is the journey. But I do just wonder if O'Connell could just make it a little bit easier for his quarterback. By trusting the running backs, they went out and got, both with Mason because they loved what he could do and then Aaron Jones who's

aging and banged up but can still when he's on deliver so if you if you're willing to go out on that limb with these two guys in belief then I don't understand sometimes why it runs a ground during the course of a game so that yesterday

was the first time I thought what is he doing yeah I think I agree with you overall in the bigger picture with O'Connell they have never, ever in a game that I can remember, just leaned on the run. It's happened so rarely that I even remember the moments where it happened. Like, they were ahead in Cincinnati or against Cincinnati by 30-something points, and they ran two times or three times in a row and they're like, oh, there it is.

Or at the end of the Atlanta game last year, where they pick off Kirk Cousins and then, you know, they hand off a bunch of times and get some big runs. but it just has not happened very often overall. And I think that as a general philosophy, Kevin O'Connell thinks that you set up the pass with the run, and that means passing a lot, running a little and passing a lot. And on the bigger picture, that is a more efficient way of playing football. And as a analytics enjoyer, throwing is more efficient than passing is.

Explosive plays are one of the most connected things, two scoring points in the NFL and pushing the ball down the field absolutely works if you've got the quarterback to do it. And I think that the conflict a little bit here is when you get a 13 win season with Kirk Cousins, an overall finish with Kirk, 17 and 8 with him as your quarterback. And then, okay, all right, Dobbs, Mullins, those guys are career backups. And here comes Sam Darnold. And you win 14 games.

So now we're talking about that's 31 and 11. with those two starting quarterbacks and then you're like I should change my philosophy after right I mean everyone's saying that I should change how I approach this when I have won 31 games out of 42 with my starting quarterback playing and I think that that's fair to think about but I also think manny that you kind of have to roll with the horse that you have not the horse that you want So if the horse that you have is better, I don't know why he went with horse as opposed to just quarterback. But like his skill set at this moment may not be conducive to do all those things that Sam Darnold was able to do as a seven or eight year veteran or however long he had been in the league. He came in at 20 and he was 27.

So maybe year seven for him last year. That's a lot of football playing. And for Kirk Cousins, he was 32 or. We're 33 years old when KOC got here. That's a lot of football playing. And we're just not there yet. So the question is, do you just let him push through? Because if you get to the other side, this will work.

And we know it works. But in the in between, it feels like there's going to be a lot of like moments where we're all yelling from press boxes or couches. Why don't you just run Jordan Mason more? Well, and then the question becomes, well, how long, if you are going to push through this with J.J. McCarthy, which it seems like they're, you know, which seems like they're going to do that.

How long do you have before you really start to need to, before you start to need to see the growth and the improvement? You know, I mean, is this, he's 22, he hasn't played a lot of football the last couple of years. You know, is this going to take two, three, four, five years? I mean, it took Sam,

I mean, Sam Darnold was in a very similar situation with the Jets. Now, he didn't have the resources that J.J. McCarthy. I didn't have the best wide receiver on the planet and another really good strong number two wide receiver and a pretty good offensive line and a head coach who I think is still pretty good. I mean, Sam Darnold had, had Adam Gase with the Jets. I mean, that was a disaster. It was a completely different situation. And it took Sam a while before he became.

what he has now been for the last season and a half. It took him bouncing around to Carolina and then going to San Francisco and sitting behind Brock Purdy on a team that went to the Super Bowl. Does Kevin O'Connell slash Quasi Adolph-Menzza, do they have that kind of time? Is it going to take J.J. McCarthy

four or five, six years to really get to a level where you can win at a high level with him If it's going to take that long, does, does COC and Quasi, do they have that sort of patience, you know, to be able to do that and see that through? I think that's going to be the big question here. And again, I'm not saying that it's definitely going to take J.J. McCarthy that long, but Sam Donald is a pretty good example of, yeah, it can take a little while sometimes with these young talented quarterbacks to really kind of see, see them be productive and see them be very good. and there's a lot of growing pains along the way. So it's going to be, that's going to be what, you know, what we're going to have to see.

Well, and that circles back to what Murph said at the beginning, which was, hey, is everybody comfortable with the idea they could win seven games? And I think the answer is already very clearly, no. No, that is not where the fan base is at. They are not comfortable with that. Now, you can move the goalposts around. And look, the Vikings never came out and said,

Super Bowl or bust. It was very clear they were creating a window for J.J. McCarthy with this veteran roster. A lot of guys under contract, a lot of them that are in their primes. They're not all old. I mean, you know, Grenard's not old. Jefferson's not old. Derisaw, right? There's a lot of superstar talent on this team that is in its prime.

So it's more of a window than it is a one-year Super Bowl or bust. However, when your ownership goes out and doles out that much money that, I mean, hey, they could have built a new apartment building in New York City for that much cash that they spent in defensive tackles and extensions. And instead, you are four and five. Like, that is not where anybody expected this to be. The other part of it was that built into the decision, and I remember saying this in the summer, built into the decision was the idea that we trusted them to make it. So you've seen McCarthy a lot more than we have coaching staff, front office, et cetera. If you're telling us he's ready, then the assumption is he's ready.

And then we watch him and go, oh, well, he's got a hell of a lot of talent and he's got a hell of a lot of moxie and energy and vibe and whatever. But there's also a lot more work than maybe you guys thought there was going into this that has to be done to get to the point where he can run the offense, the way that it's designed to be. So KOC, I think, is at a crossroads of, do you just change this? this thing to get the offense, to just get completions? Or do you say, we are going to sink or swim with this?

And then we're really going to know when we get to the end of the year how far he's able to come along. And I think there's an argument for both of those things. Murph, can I just shift the discussion a little bit, which is after last week, I think we all reasonably, it's a very good win against a really good team against Detroit. We went, well, I mean, maybe, maybe there's something here with this season. did yesterday crush your spirit with that or are you looking at it like well you know there's still time it didn't crush my spirit as much as it really felt disappointing and let's not

let's not sugarcoat there's they're one and three at home that's one of the best home field advantages in the league and they've played pretty poorly at home other than a Cincinnati blowout they've looked pretty bad and I just I don't I wonder if, and we didn't even get into the eight false starts, which I don't understand how you do at home with a friendly crowd, I just wonder, yeah, I do think that there's hope. If it's going to be this win one, lose one, win one, lose one roller coaster with McCarthy, they have to be able to hang on tight and be prepared for that. It still hasn't been kind of framed that way, though. And I don't expect the O'Connell or the brass to come out. and say, look, we told you we weren't sure we were going to make the playoffs. I mean, no, that wasn't the case. And everybody is always more optimistic based on what said during the off season. But I also think the four weeks of the six weeks McCarthy lost with the high ankle sprain was not built into the summer discussions of setting up expectations for this season.

So not only is he one season behind, he's six weeks behind this year in his development. And you wonder if some of the hiccups that we saw yesterday and, you know, against Atlanta were, you know, could those have been shaved down with a little bit more practice time, with a little bit more experience? I don't know how good the Vikings record would be. I don't think it'd be much worse. I don't think he could have been much worse necessarily than whence. I just feel like the team hasn't really responded as well around him. And maybe they got lulled into a little bit of something last week, like, hey, look at us.

We just walked into Detroit and took down the division champs and look at our quarterback. I mean, this is our guy. He's healthy finally. You know, let's get on the rocket ship. I mean, their performance collectively yesterday, other than the defense, I thought was left wanting. And I thought that kind of failed McCarthy a bit, too. So especially the offensive line, for once, pass protection was not an issue. I mean, that's a moral victory in and of itself.

But the inability to go from a big play to get a first down to constantly being first and 15 or second and 18, it just there was no real mechanism or way to get into any kind of a rhythm to put McCarthy in a better position to succeed. But then he then he throws an absolute dime to Naylor in the back of the end zone in the waiting minutes and you're like, well, they're still in this thing. This is unbelievable. maybe he's got a lightning bolt in his back pocket that he can pull out. And that's all we'd be talking about today. So there's just a lot to iron out with him. And, you know, we talk about adjustments all the time in the NFL. The big question is, is Kevin O'Connell going to be willing to adjust not just his play calling, but sort of his possession by possession expectations for what McCarthy can do? And what's going to be driving those decisions. Am I motivated to develop McCarthy? Am I motivated to win? And can those two co-exist? So that's where we're at. And until they show me anything differently, you know, you'll get to the fan to a question. But I don't, I don't see any reason why they should be favored against Chicago right now. Mani, just we don't have to pick the schedule. You got to save that

for Thursday. So don't tell me how many wins you're going to pick. But in terms of the expectations, did it change? Because I believe last Thursday, when you did pick, the schedule. I think you had them losing this game. And the thing about the thing about picking the schedule is that when you look at this section, Detroit, Baltimore, Chicago, Green Bay, Seattle, I think we could all agree that if you get three wins out of that, that you go into the next section where Washington is melting into the earth. Dallas is not good. The Giants just fired their coach. I mean, finally. And then you've got division games. I think that we can sit back in the broader picture and be like, well, we kind of thought that they might lose that game. And then

you've got to get a win here, which I think you can. And then you go to Green Bay and it feels very vital in Seattle. And we got to get one of those out of the two. It's so much different that when you see it and they commit a false starts and the accuracy percentage is very low. And the risky play call turns into an interception. It's just our pets heads fall off. It feels so different from how it actually played out to just writing down. If you just wrote down a piece of paper, they lost 2719. It would be like, oh, that was probably a pretty decent game.

But then when you go back and look at it, no, that's not really how it was. I think that's the hard part is that it felt so much like they should have won that game. I thought that they were out playing Baltimore in so many ways. So you could argue, well, actually, if you outplay them, then maybe we should have more confidence or, man, if you get out to play a team like that and still not win, then where are you going to be? I'm ping pong and back and forth.

So where are you at? Yeah, I mean, you kind of feel like if the Ravens had played better than they did yesterday and the Vikings, you know, were right there in the end with a chance to win, you can kind of live with that a little bit more and still feel pretty good about where you're at. If McCarthy had had a better game than he had yesterday and you just lost because, you know, Lamar Jackson is just that great

and the Ravens just played a terrific game. Kind of like what we saw against Philadelphia a couple of weeks ago where Jalen Hurts just played fantastic. The Vikings had some issues on defense, but that team with those receivers and that quarterback, you know, they're going to do what they do. we didn't really see that from Baltimore. The Ravens gave the Vikings some opportunities to win this game,

even to the point where the Vikings played terribly offensively, and they still had the ball in their hands in the final minute with a chance to go down and score and potentially tie the game. And so the Vikings left, I think, some opportunities on the table. You know, they kind of shot themselves in the foot too many times with the false start penalties and the inaccurate throws from McCarthy and the interceptions and the decision-making

and all of that. And so now it kind of puts me back in a position of, for me to believe that they're going to get through this strategy, this trio of games that are going to be tough, I think we've got to see more. I think we've got to see better from McCarthy. We've got to see better from a, you know, cleaning up the penalties standpoint,

you know, I thought the defense was overall fine yesterday, you know, kicking game is still really good. That's a positive sign. But I think just overall as a unit offensively, it's not just McCarthy. I think it's everybody, but it starts with him. I think you just have to see more. And, you know, they're going to have another opportunity in Chicago. The Bears are six and three.

they're playing well. They got out to a bad start against the Giants and had to come back and sort of win that game. They're a better team than the Giants. But, you know, the Bears are a team that feeling really good about themselves, but they're not this unbeatable juggernaut. And you have them at home.

You know, and I know, Murph talked about the Vikings need to play better at home. And I think part of this is just going to be a law of averages type of thing where they can't possibly play this poorly at U.S. Bank Stadium all season long. Eventually, they're going to have to get back to more in the direction of how they played against Cincinnati, not expecting 48 to 10, but at some point they're going to have to start playing better at home.

And if they're going to have that opportunity, I think, against Chicago on Sunday. So I haven't moved my bar for what I think would be pretty successful, which still remains going to the final two weeks in the In the Hunt graphic and have a chance. to win those two, and I don't think they will, but I have a chance to win those two to get a chance and maybe get tiebreakers or something like that. Make those last two games relevant to me, and you've done a pretty good job considering everything you've gone through with the injuries at the beginning of the season, McCarthy being out, missing all that time, and, you know, not being able to get over 500, that

Chargers game really looms large, where you just, if you get that win, it feels a lot different with McCarthy coming back and so forth. But if you can get to 9 and 8, if you can be 8 and 8 going into the last week and maybe you don't beat the Packers, but you feel like at least you were there, that that means that McCarthy played well enough to have you there. And if McCarthy plays you well enough to have you going into the final two weeks with something to play for, then I will say considering the circumstances, not where we started in week one for expectations, because that feels off the table at this point, unless

they go crazy and win two playoff games or something. Weirder things have happened, but unless the normal way of playing this out is they probably go a loss, a win, a loss, a win, two losses, two wins, and they end up with something like eight, nine, or nine and eight, but I think that they have to at least get to that point. Murph, I want you to talk about Justin Jefferson. I did earlier, and I think that there's a yesterday discussion and a, bigger discussion. Don't turn Justin Jefferson into that guy based on who he's been. But

yesterday, you could see it. You could see it all over his body language that he was feeling extremely frustrated. What did you make of that? Yeah, I'm not one of these that's rooting for the ultimate diva meltdown that seems to be building. I think there's a sense of why hasn't Justin Jefferson popped off, not locally per se, but maybe in the national debate. Why isn't, how is it that he's, you know, still keeping it together and not throwing his helmet and, you know, you know, jawjacking O'Connell on the sideline about getting targets and whatnot. But it was a, I'm not going to make assertions that he was mentally checked out. That's not fair.

And I would never do that. But I do feel like he played poorly. And whether that was because he's sensing some things that aren't going well and is sensing it in a bigger picture way, we'll never know. I don't necessarily think that. I'm willing to say he just had a bad game. You know, superstars are allowed to have bad days. Maybe a little bit on the effort. I wasn't around him. I wasn't sure what he said about tripping up on that first interception. You know, I give him a chance to come down with a contested ball any day, but also prevent the defender from doing anything with it, too. So you could see it on one of the false starts.

He was in motion, and he could see, I believe, the right tackle move or the left tackle or left guard. I think it was Darazaz. And you could just see his shoulder slump before he was even finished with his motion to get to the route. Now, that's what we all felt after the seventh and eighth false start. It was just that sort of, you've got to be kidding me, not again. So, you know, there was some body language. You know, he talked afterwards, and I don't think he said anything. in Cinder area or really even intimated that he's unhappy.

I just don't think he's going to do that. So I think it's dangerous now to start looking for those signs because it's sort of baked in that it's got to happen, right? I mean, the best receiver in the league is on a team that hasn't won a playoff game and he's had 15 quarterbacks throwing to him and he's probably staring down the barrel of another 500 or, you know, scramble to the end season that doesn't bode very well. I'm not willing to buy into that narrative at all, unless I see some real concrete evidence of that. I would expect maybe Jefferson to have one of his best games this Sunday against the Bears.

It's kind of one of those where this is where he goes off for 12 catches and 208 yards. Maybe. The Bears, as you touched upon, they're playing well, but they've always been an easy target at U.S. Bank Stadium or even the Metronome. Prior to that, you got to make some hay with them. and you've got to get a victory here for obvious reasons, but also to just maybe serve notice that they're not dead yet in the north. I'm not totally bought in on Chicago, but we said during the offseason when they made all of their moves,

and, you know, they brought in Johnson from the, Brad Johnson from the Lions, we thought, you know, is there star rising where maybe the Vikings is leveling off? This is one of those Lippman's test games for that. I mean, if they win, they're up, they're seven and three, and they've essentially shoved Minnesota out of any playoff picture that's possible. So there's a lot riding on this. I'm not totally buying in with the Bears,

but I also feel like this is a game of redemption because as we see week after week, if you look awful collectively or individually, what's going to allow you to overcome that and kind of whitewash that? And it's always the next week. So I think the Bears are an opportune opponent. But you have to take, you can't fall to one and four at home. and expect to be relevant. And I expect Jefferson to really have kind of a bounce back game because he's a pro.

He knows it's probably more beneficial for him in the overall to bite his tongue and go forward than it is to even intimate that there are any issues. I mean, you don't want him loitering like AJ Brown and just kind of this dark cloud, right? So let's just see how that plays out. But it is something to bear looking at because it's just. It's just, it's very rare that you see, uh, Jefferson not involved and maybe, you know, not as passionate on the field as you normally would. I also think, too, that I would just like anybody to walk up two flights of stairs and then

back down and then back up and then back down again. And then let me ask you some questions and see where your heart rate is and everything else. Try running 52 routes. Like there, now, now that doesn't excuse not going after him, uh, on the interception. which I was, that was the one I was very shocked to see because normally he would do, you know, something about that rather than kind of just walking. Maybe he was, I don't know, I think KOC maybe indicated, could have been upset with the refs or

something like that, thinking that he got knocked to the ground. I don't know what it was. That's something we don't expect to see from him. I think toward the end of the game, it's exhaustion. You are out there for every single play running route after route after route after route after route. and when the ball flies over your head by 15 yards, I mean, you're probably way too tired to be like, let's go, JJ, come on, buddy.

Like, it's, I think that we underestimate how much mileage gets put on somebody like Justin Jefferson and the fact that he just does it week in and week out every single week. And when you're playing from behind, that's what happens. Wasn't that the throw from Favre in 2009, the one against San Francisco, The guy who caught it was, what was his name, Manny?

Greg Lewis. Greg Lewis. I think he was only on the field because somebody else was gassed and just was done and couldn't run routes anymore at that point. And that's why Greg Lewis was on the field to make that catch because he didn't really do a lot. Other than that, like that just, it just kind of demonstrates what they ask of Justin Jefferson to do out there. And I think when you are that gassed and also you've had so many inaccurate passes, I mean, when I went back and watched the, tape on this. I mean, there's six or seven different throws to Jefferson that are hospital ball level or just not even really all that close. And if you're him, I mean, you want to make a

play there. You're going to, your stat line's going to look a heck of a lot better if he hits you in some of these wide open throws. And he did, I think, drop the one in the end zone. I think that's one that we absolutely expect him to catch. And there's no, there's no excuse for not making that catch and then maybe the game is different if he grabs that and goes down at the one or gets into the end zone. So like that's, it plays that we expect him to make. But you also have to have the ball in his general range sometimes for him to be able to go up and get a catch. And I don't know what receiver wouldn't get upset when they have that few receptions on that many targets and yet, you know, this many balls that are coming nowhere close. So let's talk more about the

bears, and it would be Ben Johnson, Murph, not Brad Johnson. Did I say Brad Johnson? Yeah, I got Brad Johnson. Of course you. Well, it's very, very understandable to say Brad Johnson. But no, indeed it is Ben Johnson. Mani, when they tanked and the Vikings didn't, I wrote something, and I think Detroit was tanking as well, that this is really a battle of the builds. Let's see who is going to come out on top over the years, is it going to be Chicago by tearing it all apart and going all the way to the bottom or is it going to be the Vikings of their competitive rebuild? As of right now, the Vikings had last year in a landslide with their competitive rebuild look genius.

And as of this year, the Chicago Bears look like they've nailed it. However, I understand it, the fan duel question of the day was, should the Vikings really be favored in this game? And I think the reason why their three-point favorites on Fanduel, I think the reason why is because when you look at these games from the bears, it's just comical how they've been able to pull out a bunch of games at the end. And this, to me, I make fun of the one-score thing. Like, oh, the Vikings lost by one score. It doesn't count yesterday.

They are the definition of the one-score thing, which is barely escaping with a bunch of wins that they shouldn't have. So how good are the bears really, Manny? Well, not only are they barely escaping with these wins, but they're barely escaping with wins against teams that are not very good. I mean, you know, they kind of blew out Dallas at home. Dallas's defense is terrible. We know that. You know, but they barely squeaked by in a road game against a bad Raiders team.

You know, they found a way to win against Washington, who we're starting to see now is not very good, especially without Jaden Daniels. They beat up on a bad Saints team at home. They barely found a way to win against a bad Cincinnati team. And that, you know, they had to overcome Joe Flacco lighting up their defense to get back into that game. And then even yesterday against the Giants, they didn't get off to a great start. And, you know, they were down at halftime. I think they were down by 10 at one point.

And they had to kind of come back and win. And the Giants are kind of a disaster. and they just fired their coach. So you do kind of wonder, like, the Bears don't have to apologize for being six and three. But when you look at the six and you look at the three, you're looking at wins over Dallas, Vegas, Washington, Cincinnati, and the Giants. Okay.

But then you're looking at losses at home to the Vikings. You get the doors blown out of you against Detroit. You go to Baltimore a few weeks ago and get you in. and get your butts whipped. How good are they really? I don't know. Again, they don't have to apologize for being six and three, and they're in the conversation for the playoffs.

But you see their schedule is going to get a lot tougher, you know, depending on what happens with the Vikings on Sunday. We've got Pittsburgh at home. Then they're at Philadelphia. They're at Green Bay. Maybe a semi-by week against Cleveland, but then they're taken under Packers again. You're at San Francisco, and then you're finishing up at home against Detroit.

So schedule is going to get a little. a lot tougher. And are they going to be able to escape some of these games? It's going to be interesting to see. But I honestly, with all of that said, I'm not, I'm a little surprised that the Vikings are favored. But when you look at how the bear season, how, where they've gotten the six and where they've gotten the three, it's actually not that surprising. And again, like I said before, eventually the Vikings are going to have to play really well at home. I think this is a big opportunity for them to do that. So it sounded like from what you said, Murph, that, uh, any Whoever it is named Johnson is running that Bears team,

better have them really ready because it feels like the way that the NFL and teams bounce back and forth, back and forth is look at last week's teams. The bills get this huge win against Casey, totally overlooked the Miami Dolphins, and whoopsie, the Vikings get a huge win in Detroit, come back and are not the same. This feels like it happens all the time.

Chicago is getting all of the, hey, Caleb's turn in a corner and they're so great and they just got this big comeback win and they're so clutched and everything else. The Vikings feel like they're going to be the more desperate team here because what we were talking about before was survive this run of tough teams at three and two and you've got a chance to make a season of it. Any scenario of them going three and two going back to the Detroit game and then through the Seattle game has to include them beating the Chicago Bears.

and it feels like everybody on this team has to have another, like, come to Roger Goodell moment and figure this out against Chicago. So, I mean, I would agree with them being favored in this game because they are the much more desperate team to try to save their season here. Yeah, they better be the more desperate team to save their season. Maybe it's worth, you know, another Saturday night meeting with everyone. I don't know how many times you can go to that well. but it does feel like, yeah, four and six would be the death now,

not only because of the numbers, but now you're one and four at home and your three games behind Chicago, who if you don't think should be seven and three, then you need to be taking care of business. I would, yeah, this is absolutely a more revealing game, I think, for the Vikings than it is the Bears, because, you know, the Bears can, you know,

wander out at six and four and figure themselves out. The Vikings have to win this game. And the Vikings have to comport themselves with the team that expects to beat the bears. So the desperation level had better be a 10 or 12 on a scale of 1 to 10 because right now it's that you can sense them not just falling away from their division rivals, but, you know, even in the NFC. And I don't think anybody's thinking much at all about the Vikings being maybe other than Vegas odds makers that they're going to be relevant here in this. the second half of the season because they have had so many missed opportunities and have looked so disjointed week to week, quarter to quarter even throughout this season. I'm not sure anybody really has a firm grasp on who the Vikings are, what they can be.

We know what can make them successful, but they haven't been able to use any of that success to build momentum, stack up victories, and eliminate some of the problems that have plagued them all year. I mean, we know how they can win and we know what has plagued them when they lose. poor quarterback play, suspect play calling at the wrong time, losing the turnover battle. We didn't bring that up. 3 and 0, 0 and 3 yesterday. The defense didn't produce one.

And then special teams, of course, cost the ball up at the worst possible time. These are the things that, you know, all teams can leverage into success. But this Vikings defense in particular has been able to, the last couple of years, use those to change games. And that really hasn't happened a ton this year. And so I think this is the, this is really kind of, we're going to all look at what does O'Connell do and how does McCarthy recover? What is the rest of the club going to do? How's JJ going to, Jefferson going to look?

What's the crowd going to be like? What's it going to be staring at, you know, your, your four and five going into a game against your typical little brother rival, especially at home? And suddenly they're on the rise. If you're not able to take stock of where you're at and come up with your best performance of the year this season coming off of such a mistake-prone game, that's going to tell us everything we need to know.

So, yeah, they better be the more desperate team because it's not going to get desperate after a loss. It's going to get funeral. This feels like, to me, the potential for, and I'll probably project this. Then if it goes right, I could be like, aha, I told you. because that's what sports analysis is about being able to say I told you so. Oh, wait, I'm not on television.

When it comes to this game, though, against this defense with Chicago, there is an opportunity, and I will probably predict this for the Vikings offense to get going. And this feels to me like everybody's got to get in a room with the offensive staff and look at the sample size they have a McCarthy. This is working. This is not working. and also figure it the bleep out when it comes to the false starts. That is a laughing stock.

That was an absolute joke and is completely unacceptable. And yesterday there was about people have asked, well, what happened there? It seems like everything happened. But no matter what it is, get it together. My God. Like that was so, that was embarrassing. I remember when I was doing play by play for baseball when I was just out of college and the team that I was doing it for a single A,

and they batted out of order. And one of the reasons that I ultimately got fired from that job, as I said, my little league team batted in order. My dad was a great coach. So we were always knowing who was going to be the next batter up. I felt like that yesterday. I felt like pee-wee teams get the snap off. High school teams get the snap off and don't jump eight times.

This is laughable. So there's a lot of everybody's going to have to look at themselves. And if they don't come out and play like I'm projecting them to, then whatever this week feels like in terms of the freak out, which is a little bit high, I think, for fans, multiply it by about a thousand for next week. Let's talk just before we wrap up here about what happened around the National Football League. And I noticed something today, just looking at the Fanduil Super Bowl odds, which we do each week. Kansas City is still the Super Bowl favor, which is very funny. that they're still the favorite. They're not even in the playoffs right now.

And yet I can't blame Fandul for having that. The Los Angeles Rams have moved into second place at plus 700. The Rams are my NFC team to make the Super Bowl. Then you have Detroit at plus 800 that reminded us they are still Detroit and Washington is terrible. Philadelphia plus 850. The bills dropped after yesterday to plus 900 after their horrendous showing in Miami. And we've got a team peeking through after.

a big victory yesterday for the first time that I've seen them this high in the Super Bowl odds, the Seattle Seahawks at plus 1,100 are now in the top four, five, six of Super Bowl odds on Fanduil. So, Manny, give me your biggest big picture takeaway or something that, you know, what did I say last week made you go, hmm, or whatever, from yesterday? Like, what was the biggest thing you took away watching football? I'm going to go with Seattle. You mentioned them.

What really stood out to me is, I mean, they just kicked the crap out of the Cardinals. And, you know, the numbers that Jacoby Berset ended up with for the Cardinals was all in garbage time because they were down 38 to 7 and it was just bad. But I think what stood out to me about Seattle's win and their performance yesterday was they didn't have to rely on San Francisco. Donald to do a lot in that game to really dominate and win that game running away. I mean, Sam kind of had a kind of a pedestrian game. I think he was, I think he only threw 12 passes and he got a pick and he lost a couple of fumbles. And, you know, so it was a very mundane pedestrian performance for Sam Darnold. And they still just absolutely own the Cardinals.

And I think that shows that they can now, you know, that that's not a recipe for winning in the playoffs. certainly they're going to need more from Sam Darnold, I think, to be able to do that. But I think it showed that this is a team that's really, really talented on both sides of the ball. And they're going to be a real strong force to be reckoned with, I think, come playoff time. That division is, you know, it's a cluster with those three teams at the top with the Rams in Seattle and in San Francisco still hanging around, you know, despite their injuries. So, you know, maybe whoever ends up actually winning that division will probably have a bit of an edge. But, you know, Seattle, they continue to play like this. They're going to be a really, really tough out come January.

Murph, what made you go yesterday? Well, I don't think I'm alone in saying why, how in the world do the Buffalo Bills, you know, take down their arch nemesis in the regular season game of the year and wander down to Miami, a team flailing around and lost with one of the worst defenses of the league and get Shalak 30 to 13. That's alarming because, you know, the bills are flawed. We know their defense was flawed, but I don't know if they're that, you know, they don't seem to have consistent receiving play. Their running game goes and fits and starts.

And, you know, if they're one dimensional, they're very beatable. So Josh Allen being who he is. So that's kind of alarming to me. that this is the kind of the Bill's moment, right? This is their season to really kind of crawl through that rapidly closing championship window. And, you know, again, the success you've had and the moments that Allen's had against Mahomes don't really add up to anything unless you get it done in January.

And I don't know what they're, you know, the chiefs we've been nitpicking for a couple of years too, but they always seem to be there at the end. I don't know where, you know, this is one of the. those losses where you got to see how Buffalo responds because if they still win and look sloppy doing it and don't sort of correct some of the things that have been really plaguing them most of this season. I worry they're going to be kind of wounded and lost of it going into January. They're not going to have as much momentum and confidence. That can all be wiped away very quickly, as we know in this week-to-week league. But that, I think, might be the most stunning loss of the season.

the manner in which they lost to the team they lost to the manner in which that Miami team had been playing all year. It's the classic overlook game, but they should be better than that. They've been around the block a bit. You shouldn't get caught where you're the pants down if you're the Buffalo Bill. So how they respond to this is going to go a long way. Again, we keep admiring why are the Chiefs in Mahomes still at the top? Because they rarely have games like this.

look bad in a 17-14 loss on the road with some injury problems, but they're not walking down to a dead team. They're not going down to a dead team walking and getting shellac like that. So that was my things that make you go, hmm, kind of moment. What I will never understand, and I have probably, I can't imagine my friends in Buffalo who are doing sports talk about them not acquiring wide receivers for every year or every moment since Stefan Diggs left. They drafted some. Keon Coleman is just not good.

Their tight ends pretty good, but we know that a tight end can't really drive an offense unless it's Rob Grunkowski, and they just don't have guys who get open, which means their offense is going to go up and down a lot based on whether they are able to run the ball. And the crazy thing to me is

that Josh Allen's not throwing the ball down the field at all, which is weird, because this is one of the best arms that we've ever seen in the NFL, and they are not even and trying to throw the football down the field. Their defense has also been spotty. I mean, they had an amazing game against Mahomes, but it has been very spotty.

And their losses are bad. They got killed by Atlanta. They got killed by Miami. These are weird losses for a team that feels like it can be beaten on any given week. And they're just another average contender. And yet, you look around and go, well, they got Allen. And the other great team is the Colts who have Daniel Jones, who started to look very Daniel Jonesy the last couple of weeks.

A lot of turnover worthy plays. And Denver's got Bo Nix, who, you know, can't throw at 10 yards in the air for a completion this year. I mean, the strongest and most dangerous team looks like it's actually New England right now, but they aren't proven enough for anybody to buy them in the Super Bowl odds, but maybe they might want to start because that team's found some ways to win. And all of a sudden, Trayvion Henderson, welcome to the National Football League. What a game for him. So it is, I think it's a lot of teams that are B plus type teams in the AFC and it is very much up for grabs.

And I kind of think the NFC is Philly in LA and then kind of everybody else. So a lot to be determined as we go forward in this week to week national football league. Reminder to folks, if you're watching the replay, jump down in the comments. Make sure you answer that fan dual question of the day. Vikings are favored against the Bears. Do you think they should be? Mani Hill will be back on Thursday night to pick the schedule as we always do.

Murph, go check out his column over at Purpleinsider. Football and Murph will be back for the trio on Monday night as always. So thanks everybody for watching slash listening. Thank you gentlemen for joining and we will see you all very soon. Football.

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