Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Andrew Krammer previews JJ McCarthy vs. Packers, Vikings QB future decisions

Episode Date: January 3, 2026

Andrew Krammer of the Minnesota Star Tribune joins for our weekly hardcore preview, breaking down all the important factors in this weekend's Vikings season finale. Plus, a discussion on the future of the QB position in Minnesota. 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, presented by Fanduil, Matthew Collar here, along with Andrew Kramer of the Star Tribune. One more hardcore preview, and I am hunting the Packers' depth chart and looking for practice squad players that may make an impact in this game. It is going to be Clayton Toon, which we actually have a mile, amount of familiarity with he once started a preseason game. So we're going to go through all the tape of that preseason game back in 2023. We're not going to do that. But J.J. McCarthy, though, Andrew, it was pretty unclear after he fractured his hand against the New York Giants, whether he would

get another shot to play again. What do you make of J.J. McCarthy getting back on the field for one more swing at playing National Football League football? Well, I thought, JJ even talking about it yesterday, or on Wednesday of this week, mentioning that, you know, he was asked about when the injury happened against the Giants, the hairline fracture that you're talking about. And he kind of had to, he stopped and he asked, well, which one, you know, referencing hand injuries? Because he's had a few of them now. He hit his hand on Donovan Jackson's helmet and the Ravens game also injured his hand, I think, earlier in September as well. So this has just been a year of injuries for him nonstop, not to mention the concussion, the ankle.

So getting to 10 starts this year has been such a battle, just getting him out there. And so Kevin O'Connell's talked about that, saying that this still matters, as much as, you know, no one's going to be paying attention to this game. It's shoved into the noon slot where no one pays attention on Sundays where you put all the games that do not matter. It's going to matter in terms of just seeing him out there, seeing him continue to take steps forward in terms of the footwork, the playmaking, and the decision making, all those things. So I think that is their number one priority. There's a number of other things that they can gain from this game. but I do think J.J. McCarthy's development is obviously number one. I don't think it's going to change a whole lot, though.

Even if he throws for three touchdowns and 400 yards, you set it yourself. It might be against some practice squad defenders. Well, this is my struggle because like everyone else, I want to see more of J.J. McCarthy. Every person who paid for a ticket to see the game wants to go to the stadium and wear their number nine jerseys and watch the starting quarterback of the Minnesota Vikings go have a good game. throw the ball to Justin Jefferson, make some plays, score some touchdowns, and beat the Green Bay Packers. And those things are fundamentally good for J.J. McCarthy.

I don't think there's any way if he had a really good game, which I'm guessing he will, against the Packers, that you could come away saying, oh, well, that's not bad, or that's not great or whatever. It's good. It's good. But I also think that we have to weigh it properly when you're talking about a team that not only is going to play backups, but also Jeff Halfley, they're about. to go to the playoffs. They're not going to put anything on tape for anybody else. One team is playing

a regular season game that they really want to win and have some serious goals for. And the other team is, let's make sure our practice squad guys develop a little bit. And that's it. That is our really our only goal. These games tend to end like 35 to 2. Just historically, when you have that battle of one team that's underachieve, but it's trying to get back to 500 or over 500, another team that's in the playoffs. We saw this last year with, I think it was what, the Denver against the Kansas City Chiefs, where Bo Nix threw four touchdowns. And look, Nix has had a good year, but he looked like Peyton Freakin Manning in that game

against the Chiefs because they were not trying. So how much can we really take out of this? Like, is there something concrete that you could say, this one thing right here matters for this game for JJ McCarthy? Just for JJ, yeah, I really can't unless, you know, I suppose the one thing you want to see that you haven't seen yet in terms of the win streak in terms of the stats looking better, all these things is the connection with Justin Jefferson. You just have not seen that look smooth, look effortless like it should with the best receiver in football. So Jefferson's going to get his yards, they're going to, or at least going to, they're certainly going to try to get his 53 yards to get him over a thousand. and can JJ overcome that pressure of throwing to him

that seemingly short circuits his brain and causes these inaccuracies and these issues with everything in his throwing motion and footwork and all that. So to me, if you can see him look calm, throw to Jefferson effortlessly, make it look smooth and easy, maybe that'll give you that extra step to build on going forward because we just haven't not seen that in these games leading up to it.

That's the one thing and the biggest thing that I think has been missing. outside of them playing to their philosophy because they have not done that either. It's been so much shotgun, so much throwing from shotgun, running from under center, just not marrying the run in the past the way that O'Connell talks about. Any less than 40 pass attempts to me is a failure. You need to get this guy as many throws as possible because we can talk about the start numbers if we want, but in one of the games, he only plays half of the game. In the Green Bay game, he ends up not completing that football game either.

And when we look at the actual dropback numbers, I think it's about 250 dropbacks, which is less than half of most the starting quarterbacks in the NFL. And even the wins, there's not a game in there where you drop back to throw 35, 40 times and go win the game. It's mostly had to be like winning against Washington or the game against Chicago to start the season. And there was the one game against Baltimore where he threw a lot of passes but was so ineffective. and I don't even think got to 50% completion percentage. Well, that's not really what you're looking for there either. So I think a lot of actual throwing would be good for this game, working on the timing, treating it like a joint practice in some ways,

but working on all those things. And I know that throwing out the fundamental talk was something that Kevin O'Connell discussed with us a little bit. But if you're going to work on your fundamentals to go into the offseason, and the things that you've been taught throughout the year, this is certainly a time to do it. I mean, go out and play free was fine for the Dallas game, and I thought he did that.

But you also want to see some of those get rid of the ball on time, on a dig route, hit someone over the middle, because even some of those plays in the good games that he had, you can go back and look at the tape and go, and that was the timing that you needed. That was the accuracy that you needed. This is the read that you needed to find Justin Jefferson. so I'd like to see him get 40 opportunities to throw the football.

But a listener brought up on the live show the other night that there's way more bad outcomes here for J.J. McCarthy than there are good outcomes. The most likely that I would predict is 25 for 33 with 295 yards and 130 go to Justin Jefferson and everybody walks out of the stadium feeling pretty good about themselves. That's my prediction. But if it doesn't go that way, it's going to feel very bleak. If it's 12 for 24 with 175 yards and Jefferson gets 54 receiving yards to just get him over the 1,000 yard mark and there's two picks in there, you're going to walk out going, what do I even do with this? Or even worse, if there is a further injury.

Yeah, that obviously would set them back and be not the worst case scenario. If he has to miss time in the off season, which, again, they're talking about, the off season is the time to focus on the fundamentals, get back to the basics, all those things. He needs some time just being healthy, which he didn't even have, obviously, much of last year. So I do think this will be interesting to see when you talk about the passing numbers. How will O'Connell manage this game? Is he going to just try to get that ninth win to be nine and eight at the end of the year?

Or will he lean more into, you know what, this is more about getting more out of McCarthy? If I had to guess, I would guess he's going to treat this like he's treated the past four games, which is it might be more like 14 of 24 and, you know, 50 yards for Jefferson or whatever. I just don't think this is going to be something where he says, you know what, we're going to treat it like a preseason game. Would you say a joint practice? Yeah, joint practice. And just throw all over the yard because we want to, you know, get the most out of this kid in terms of reps. I just don't think that's it. They want to win this game. They want to end on a high note. And maybe that's not the correct way to go about it. I don't know. I don't get paid to be

an NFL head coach and figure those things out. But I do think that they're going to have plenty of opportunities to evaluate JJ. I just don't know if they're going to do what you're saying, which is pivot so much and turn it into kind of an aerial attack. I think it's fine if you play to win the game. I mean, the difference in draft might be 17 or 18 is not going to be a huge difference. And if you are Kevin O'Connell, I'll say this over and over. And I know Mike Zimmer felt this way about these final games that were meaningless, too.

When they look up your record at the end of the day, they don't ask in your final win loss. Was one of those a meaningless football game at the end? No, they don't. They just look up your win loss. And to go into the offseason with five straight wins, I think is a serious feather in the cap of Kevin O'Connell, even if there is a defensive coordinator and a kicker who may have driven the success a little bit more than the offense. But the fact that you got to within a kick return here that maybe you could have stopped against Chicago of competing for a playoff spot was something that we did not see coming, that they would be in a position where we could get to the end and they could say, man, you were, you were one play away here,

one bad game away there, one injury away there. But getting to nine and eight, you really can say that. And I also think that it's funny because we never would have expected the way it got there. But if you had told me before the season, hey, I went in a future machine, Zoop, and I just came back and the Vikings went nine and eight. I'd be like, okay. Yeah, I mean, I could see that. Like that's not a shocking result. It's a little disappointing. It's the way that it happened. And then when you get to this point, you then look back and go, man, there's even more regrets here about the backup quarterback situation, not really being addressed during the off season. And then, you know, McCarthy getting hurt. And who knows if he eeks out one more win or the Sam

Darnold thing, if you could get to nine, then you could get to 12 with Sam Darnel. And all those things sort of flood in. But I think from O'Connell's perspective, to say, I've been here for four seasons. Three of them are winning years. The other year, Kirk Torres Achilles. I think that's, that's decent, even if it's not where we set the bar, which is playoff wins. Folks, as you know, Purple Insider is always growing and changing, and I'm looking to take steps forward in 2026, just like your business. Now, I'm lucky to have a great crew, but as a business owner, I am well aware of the challenges of trying to find quality people to add to the roster. So if you're hiring for your company in 2020,

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if and when they do finish 9 and 8 of, oh, they were just a kick, you know, cover away from making the playoffs. Like, if this game were to get them in, the Packers would be playing their starters. The Packers would be playing to keep them out. The Packers might very well be the better team, even without Micah Parsons,

who they saw, you know, ravaged them back in November in their first meeting. So, and also this is a game that we've seen it. Like, I remember a few years ago when the Vikings went to Chicago, for a similar situation where Chicago was trying to lose. Oh, yeah. You could just, I don't, not sourcing that, but you could just look and watch and see. Because when Nathan Peterman suddenly started doing well, he gets pulled for Tim Boyle,

who boom, throws two picks, and then suddenly the Packer, or excuse me, the Vikings end up winning that game. So Clayton Toon might mess around and make this a game, make it interesting for J.J. McCarthy. Maybe that forces things, you know, in terms of the pass the numbers up, in terms of O'Connell actually trying to push the ball down field, which, again, they haven't done. They've turned this into a layup offense, a layup passing game because that's what the quarterback play has necessitated. So does that change? Do they try to take some shots and maybe up his confidence a little bit on the deep balls? Like all these little elements I am interested to see because, yeah, outside of that, there's not a whole lot there to it.

And getting to 9 and 8 would be nice, but it doesn't mean you were just one play away from the playoffs. It really doesn't. Oh, I completely agree. At least you would have been playing for something if there was one more play here or there. But in terms of what level of disappointment this season was, it doesn't change a whole lot for me if there's seven and ten or nine and eight when you are eliminated several weeks out. And then you're just playing through the rest of the stretch and the pressure is off of everyone at that point. So this season was an enormous disappointment and it shouldn't be treated any other way. I've seen a handful of people, well, their Vegas over under was, oh, is that how we're doing this now?

because that seems like taking the little goalposts and moving them all over the place to try to make it seem like it wasn't that bad. Oh, it was. You were four and eight at one point, and that was nowhere near where you were supposed to be. Not to mention that if we add up all 32 teams and we look at the quarterback play by whatever metric you like, expected points added, quarterback rating, whatever you want, they were one of the worst teams in the NFL from their quarterback performance. And what do you think, because now they've got a chance to put up 300, four touchdowns and, like, adjust those numbers a little bit for J.J. McCarthy. But I think the evaluation ended in New York with his injury in terms of his stats and what they should be looking at for his performance. Don't include this as part of it.

But what do you think they think about where the quarterback situation stands? going into the offseason. Yeah, and they've kind of told us in so many words by, or not in any words, by just changing the offense and changing some of the philosophies of what they want to do. Again, go back to week one. Like, if you want to see what this was supposed to look like. Go back to week one.

See how often J.J. McCarthy is under center. See how often he's operating in play action. See how often they're asking him to push the ball downfield. That's what this is supposed to be. Instead, it's turned into this spread kind of dink and dunk offense where they will occasionally, you know, jumbo up and run the. football, but they're not turning those into deep explosive passing plays downfield with their great wide receivers because the quarterback can't hit them.

So to me, that is what says what they think. And O'Connell can go up there and say all the right things about protecting McCarthy's confidence and protecting their franchise asset that they're still going to have under contract for at least a couple more years. But you can see the frustration, you can see, obviously see the lack of production on the field. And to me, the changes on the offense to get just, and it's not even like they're throwing all over the place. It's not like he, you said this or somebody said this the other day that their top three passing games have been all by Carson Wentz. That was my stat.

Yeah. So according to Matthew Colley, like the point is though that they haven't, it's not like these changes have led to like this grandiose production. So I imagine it's got to be incredibly frustrating for them to open this thing up, the autopsy they've had to do midseason on this offense and still not even get much out of it. Like, I can't fathom that they're thinking McCarthy is going to be, you know, this bona fide starter going into week one next year because of all these issues he's shown in various offensive setups. There's a lot of different ways you can use the numbers to tell the story of this production

this year versus what would be acceptable to get you into the playoffs. And let's keep in mind, the defensive performance has been so fantastic at times and the kicking has to be mentioned too when you can make kicks from 60 yards anytime you want at soldier field at lambo because you drafted an alien well that's changed the math a little too i mean he's made 30 field goals this year and 11 of them have been from beyond 50 yards so you're not even getting to the other side of the field that often and still getting points out of it but when we start to add up what McCarthy did in terms of not only the efficiency numbers the success rate, the adjusted net yards per attempt, but let's look at the times he was sacked.

I mean, way too many. The turnovers, way too many. The turnover worthy plays, way too many. And the question is, how far are you away from having playoff level where you can win quarterback performance? And if we try to use like an expected points added or whatever, think of it this way. Like the Vikings this year, I believe I have 325 points, something like that. The average team that reaches the Super Bowl is around 460. So you are 140 points of offense away from being a real contender going into the playoffs. I looked up the last 10 teams that went to the Super Bowl, how many points they scored in the regular season. It was around 460 on average.

So you are way, way away. And by expected points added, McCarthy was negative 44 this year, which means if you had had replacement-level quarterback play, that you would probably be in the playoffs and be a bad playoff team, but you'd at least be in the playoffs. That is so far away. I remember when they signed Desmond Ritter, we looked up his numbers

in his first nine starts or 10 starts, and they were better. And Atlanta bailed on Desmond Ritter almost immediately. So, you know, there's a lot of explanations. There's a lot of flashes that we've seen that we like from J.J. McCarthy, but the team can't be the Minnesota McCarthy's.

They have to be the Minnesota Vikings and do what is best for them as a Fran. to win, which is what, Mr. Kramer? Yeah, that's a great question, because when you look at this roster and you talk about getting above-average quarterback play would just get them, or even just average quarterback play would get them into the playoffs, it's because this roster was so veteran-filled, so expensive, so talent, so talented, and it was one of the oldest teams in football going into week one. So this is going to be a dramatic transformation this off-season, one that when you go all-in,

kind of the way they did on this year. And it's all in on a window. They didn't necessarily pin it all on 2025. But a lot of these pieces are going to have to change. I don't know if Harrison Smith will be back. C.J. Hamm, I don't know if he'll be back. I don't know if any number of J. Vaughn Hargrave, a contract they can get out of. Ryan Kelly, obviously, if his career is going to even continue.

Hawkinson is an interesting one, but one that they might just restructure and keep around. But, yeah, there's a number of guys here that this is going to have to change. Like it does every offseason, but we're talking about key play. players that they bet on that just didn't either didn't pan out or going to be aging out of this window for them right now. So how does it change? I don't know. But to your point, this is McCarthy shown. He's not going to walk in here and nobody expected him to walk in here and be a Josh Allen type quarterback who just transforms things because he's not built like that. That was never his game, obviously. He needs to be more of that Brock Purdy style quarterback who can fit into a system,

fit into a great team that is full of all that talent. It's going to be a juggling act for Kwayze Adolfo Menson in this front office to figure this out moving forward because they thought they had it. They thought they had the right 21 people around the quarterback to make it easy enough on him. Did they? Do you feel like that? Because I thought this was Justin Jefferson's worst year independent of the quarterback play. I thought guys like Will Fries played horrifically this year. Christian Derisov was not the same player coming off that knee injury. Like there's a lot of questions about is this roster good enough to achieve what they thought, even with the pieces that we can expect them to keep going into 2026. So I think the answer is still yes, and horrifically seems

harsh for Will Fries. I think he's been an average guard. But, sorry, maybe I'm just saying, yeah, horrific is versus the money. It is overstating. I am saying based on his, yeah, pay. But I like it. We like hyperbole on the show. I was hyperbole. Aggressiveness. Horrific just jumped out at me. But so when it comes to, like, reviewing how the supporting cast was not able to just put J.J. McCarthy on their shoulders and carry him the way that we had expected and the way that they had expected when they built this, I think is fair because when you look at the beginning of the season and how many injuries they had and you're playing week two with Justin's school, week one and week two with Justin School at left tackle, which was not something we necessarily

expected. Aaron Jones gets hurt. The defense is not at the beginning of the year healthy and doing the same things in terms of pure dominance that it's done when it got. healthy at the second half of the year. And Jordan Addison misses those three games. Adam Thielen comes back is not the Adam Thielen that we remembered. However, what you notice about quarterbacks is that there are those around the league who are able to work their way through that. Now, you could say, well, how could you expect McCarthy to do that in his first year? And I think that's a fair question. But he didn't make anything better. Yes, you're going to have drops. I mean, drop numbers were higher than usual, but not to the point where it was so far over the top.

His adjusted completion percentage for drops is still 34th out of 44 in the league. So it's, you know, miss throws. The bad throw percentage on pro football reference is as high as Nick Mullins was when he started and how many balls do he fly into who knows where when he was starting. I mean, that has nothing to do with the wide receivers or the drop. So, well, I do think that. I also think that if Jefferson, every time he's going to catch him, pass doesn't know where it's going to be located, how fast it's going to be going, whatever,

it throws off guys. And I think quarterbacks do impact the wide receivers in terms of drops. But no. And that was really their biggest, I think, miscalculation. Because when you add up, I always compare this to taking a trip. So if you and I were going to say after this, we're going to get our families together and we're all going to go to Hawaii, right? And, okay, that's great.

We'll just, you know, go to the airport and we'll fly to this other area. airport, and then we'll go there to Hawaii, and we'll go to, and we'll plan it all. What are the chances that all of it goes right, that we don't run into any delays, any zero, right? In the NFL, what are the, which team in the NFL this year had completely healthy offensive line for the entire season? Every wide receiver performed to their absolute maximum. Every running back stayed healthy and was fantastic.

I don't think you can come up with pretty much anybody who had all those things go right, and their defense performed at an elite level every single week all the way through the season. I mean, Denver, like one team probably has had a lot of these things happen. So if you can't work through them, then you're not really playing NFL football because a major part of NFL football is working through them. And what's so wonderful about football is that so many things go wrong in a season, it gives everyone excuses to say that's why the numbers were what they were. Yeah, and J.J. McCarthy has shown at least at this point that he cannot transcend and lift a team

above its mistakes or its errors right now. In that quarterback position, we've heard the GM here say it. The reason why that's the position that's value the most is because it can save everybody in the building on every single play. You can make everybody right. If the play calls wrong, if your other 10 guys are wrong, that quarterback can still make it right. And you just have to your point, you have not seen McCarthy show that.

So how far are they away? Yeah, I want to talk about the team like we did. But when it comes to McCarthy, that is the biggest area for growth they obviously need, is to show that he can play the smart ball control kind of smart decision-making ball control offense that they need, but then also make the plays on third and medium, third and long, first and 10, play action, deep shots, all those things, the game-changing plays that we saw Sam Darnold, any number of quarterbacks make, just to get to the point where you can say, well, can we win with this guy? Can we win a Super Bowl with this guy? No, you just need to know,

can you win in October with this guy? They still don't know that at this point. And that's the frustrating part being two years into it. And I'm sure fans are, that's why the impatience level is probably through the roof because fans have been waiting for two years. And at the end of it, into his 10th straight start here, not 10th straight, but into his 10th start, you're still not necessarily going to know. And not even like 10 starts is supposed to be 40 quarters of football. And you're not even talking about 40 quarters of football. 10 starts should get you around, I don't know, 350, 300 plus passes.

It's not going to get him to that point. And let's talk about that connection, though, with O'Connell and the office. and McCarthy because I think what they decided to do at some point was like let's put all the big people on the field and let's just try to eke out enough with the way the defense is playing against these bad teams to get us these wins to get over 500 because also I will say you know the ramifications of going nine and eight versus four and 13 are serious when it comes to where you draft and what your schedule is like and those types of things but who gets fired and also I think it would be pretty bad for all those veteran players in there who've had some of them who had great seasons.

You know, Brian O'Neills had a great season. The guy's an absolute warrior. He deserves to win some football games. So I respect and appreciate that O'Connell did do some things to try to get them just to squeeze over that finish line, you know, to get to a point where you're eight and eight. But can you play 17 games of offense with J.J. McCarthy next year the way that they just did, over these last four games going into this one, my answer would be absolutely not. I just don't think that you can win that way.

The Houston Texans kind of do. Like, we can point to one or two teams that do, but usually they have to have about the best defense in the league. And even if Flores comes back, it's not like every single game. They just gave up six points. Right? So, like, you're going to have to do better than that offensively

in order to compete, especially in a division where Caleb Williams is rising. The lions are going to be very, very, upset after this and they're going to get serious about rebuilding their offensive line they're going to be back Jordan Love the Packers they're going to be back I think the standard is is high for the quarterback play here so the question would be then does Kevin O'Connell either change some offense to be more like this next year can J.J. McCarthy get to the point where he can run the full offense or is

somebody else running the offense this yeah this system is proven like this is a system that you go back to 2000, all three years before this year with Kevin O'Connell, they have ranked as one of the most explosive offenses and football passing attacks. Even when they had four different quarterbacks in 2023, you mentioned Nick Mullins. And I mean, he was still connecting deep down the field, maybe to a fault where he was pushing the ball down field. But this is, this system is proven. And it's on the quarterback. It's incumbent on the quarterback to step into it. And if he can't, then that's a failure on the front office and the coaching staff in terms of finding the

wrong guy in picking the wrong guy who couldn't step in to do it. So they're not giving up on that. They talked about this off season being the time to really focus more on the basic stuff with him, get back into the fundamentals and hammering that stuff because clearly hammering that stuff midseason screwed up his head. It clearly messed with his ability to just see things clearly to make accurate and smart decisions on time. He couldn't do those things when he was thinking about his steps and his foot and his feet. So no, I don't think they're going to go into next year and say, you know what, this needs to become the, what can we get the most out of McCarthy offense? No, it's going to be, this is the Vikings, Kevin O'Connell-led offense,

and you're going to need to find the quarterback that can step in and do it. So if it's not McCarthy, it's going to be somebody else. And I think they're going to, you would think they're going to learn from their mistakes here and not under address the backup quarterback position, or just, I should call it, QB1 position, too, considering the competition there should be next summer. You're really speaking to Kevin O'Connell's core philosophy about explosive plays, which he applied by hiring Brian Forrest, that he said, like, I want Sacks interceptions, I want big plays, I want aggressiveness, and I'll give up some big plays in order to have a game like you have

against the Detroit Lions. We've seen that same philosophy burn them. We've seen that same philosophy succeed. And I think he feels that way offensively, too, which is really why Sam Darnold was such a great fit for the offense. But I want to make one more point on the quarterback thing, too, because with McCarthy, you mentioned his getting to 10 starts, you know, the lack of, you know, only what was a 250 attempts or something like that.

There's a natural curve for these things, too, that once you put enough on tape, defenses start seeing you, they start figuring out, hmm, that's a lot of sideline throws from Mr. McCarthy. Right. Hmm, that's a lot of outside the number stuff. Not a lot to his left. I wonder why that is. Hmm.

So then you start tilting your coverage of certain ways. And then it gets even harder. So that's the thing that he's going to run into next year if he's on the field. They're going to test him and see, did you get better at throwing over the middle? Can you layer passes 10, 15 yards in between the numbers? Those are not things that we've seen a whole lot this season. Right. Usually we talk about the sophomore slump because of that, not the sophomore massive step forward.

But, you know, history is muddled with guys who have either jumped up or dropped back in their second year. I think that it is incumbent on J.J. McCarthy to learn how to play. true quarterback in this offense, which is going to require a lot of fundamental work in the offseason. But because of his age and experience, I wouldn't close the door on a huge step forward. I think that they have to decide, though, are you so desperate to win next year, which you know, they should be that you're going to do something more aggressive and just say, sorry, JJ, but we can't wait for you. Or are you going to go get a quarterback that is relative competition for J.J. McCarthy and then see who wins. And one of the benefits of

doing that is you can always trade the guy who loses. I mean, the Cleveland Browns brought in Joe Flacco, and then they traded him. And in fact, the Vikings have a fifth round pick from the Eagles for Sam How? How in the world did they do that? I think that maybe that evens out the Thielen trade. The Thielen trade's horrible, but that trade is shocking. Like, what? That guy? Like, there's always rumors of, like, did another team send scouts into the fans or whatever? Not the Eagles, I can tell you that. They didn't send any scouts into Vikings camp. But, you know, the point just being that, you know, if you, let's say you trade for Mack Jones, for example, and you give a, I'm just throwing out whatever, a third round pick for Mac Jones.

And he comes in. And then McCarthy's great. And he outplays him decidedly in camp and they're ready to go forward with him. you can either just keep him because he's pretty decent as a backup or some other teams probably had their quarterback get hurt by then and you can get whatever draft capital back like it's it's almost like buying a house instead of a car like it's always appreciating with a quarterback like that so i mean i'm for that idea but if they went out and got kailer murray because they want somebody who could get him to the playoffs throw down field be aggressive do what kevin o'connell wants

experienced and be a guy that O'Connell gets to turn around and get the most out of. I can't blame them. I just, this is the hard thing is that every argument against doing something like that is like, yeah, but he's young. Yeah, but he, this, that, and the other thing. But none of it is concrete, like, show me the numbers, show me the evidence, show me the games where you can say, all right, there's clear evidence that it's going in the right direction and he's going to take that step.

I just wouldn't blame them for being hyper-aggressive if they do not believe that step is there. No, and I don't think, too, they should be going into this worrying about JJ's feelings or trying to protect his status in any single way because, like, O'Connell said it, was it the August of his first training camp of like he's our franchise quarterback. And you take, duh, you take the guy 10th overall, he's going to be. But, you know, that rhetoric has not been heard since then. And for good reason, because you just haven't seen it yet. So, yeah, to your point, I wouldn't be shocked if they do that.

And fans shouldn't be either. I think the only crime at this point would be under-addressing the situation. If over-addressing it, even by trading for Mack Jones or signing, Kyler-Murray, whatever it's going to be, you need multiple options here because JJ has shown that even if, even if, let's say, best-case scenario, he looks great next summer. It's like, oh, man, he's taking strides. He's hitting deep balls. He's got some touch arc.

He's throwing over the middle, all these things. He won the job. Even if he has shown he cannot stay on the feet. The number of injuries this guy has gone through early in his career, I'm not blaming him. I'm just saying that you can't bank on it. And this is a team that just started four quarterbacks not that long ago. I'm surprised they under addressed it so much last off season.

And I do think some of it was hubris in thinking that, well, Daniel Jones is going to come back. He was here. Or thinking that, oh, we can just sign Joe Flacco or whatever. Like they got outbid by multiple teams on certain situations. And in Daniel's case, he just chose to go to Indy because he saw the better opportunity. So I think they're going to learn from that and certainly want to over-address this like you're talking about and not fall victim to under-addressing it.

Yeah, I agree. I mean, you have to have a certain level of someone that you believe could get you to the playoffs, even if McCarthy wins the battle. And, you know, Kirk Cousins just fits this, like he's got the Falcons playing decently. He looked pretty good the other night. He actually really did. Under center, running out.

Last year, I truly felt. bad for Kirk because he didn't look like he can move at all. Yeah. And he looks like he can actually, like, get the handoffs off and run the play actions and the bootlegs. And if he's not able to do that, he's just not the same quarterback, but he's looked pretty decent. Anyway, let's move back to this game here. Oh, yeah. Which is just not even worth talking about most things. But I am interested if you have opinions on who would be worth seeing. Now, talk about Fool's Gold. We once saw Alexander Hollins have a great one of these games and we were like oh man they might have their future deep threat um they

did not but uh is there anyone on the youngish or unprovenish side that because the way i see this playing out is they get up like 17 nothing first half and then they bring in other players so is there anybody that you are thinking you know i'd like to see so and so well those guys we've seen in small roles that i'd like to see in bigger roles for the future um to see how Jay Ward fares in a game like this where you would imagine Clayton Toon is going to put some balls into play. You know, he should have some opportunities to make some plays, the secondary should.

So Jay Ward's a guy like they need a Josh Mattelis type development from somebody. Yep. Jay Ward fits that bill in terms of the versatile defensive back. Maybe it's too on the nose of a comparison to Mattelis, but to expect that from him. But just you didn't see it from Theo Jackson this year to the point where Jay Ward has now usurped him as that number three safety. And I don't think. At this point, it doesn't seem like Harrison Smith is going to come back,

but who knows? Plenty of people have been wrong about that in years past. So if he's gone, that's going to be a gigantic hole that somebody has to fill. And you didn't get the answer from Theo Jackson this year that you maybe were expecting if you were the Vikings. So I want to see more out of J. Ward. Tierium, Ingram Dawkins in the front, I think has been very interesting to, in terms of the initial, like, fight you've seen the get-off, the punch that he's got. You've seen the talent, and you're just not seeing him finish plays. You're kind of seeing him lose the secondary efforts and battles right now. But I want to see more of him, certainly.

At wide receiver, why not get Ty Felton more involved here? Like, that's a guy that as a third round pick, you'd like to see some screens. Like, this offense has actually been kind of changed to fit what he can do. What they did at Maryland was just dump it off to him 100 times and watch him catch and run. So I want to see some of that with Ty Felton, too. I still like Ty Felton.

I mean, I think that it's a route we've seen a lot of young guys take. Naylor, KJ. Osborne, and it feels like when any rookie doesn't produce right away, the response is, oh, that's a bust, or whatever. Jay Ward's a good example of someone who's been grinding behind the scenes has become a good special teamer, if not one of their best, and then finally gets on the field, and you see it. But it takes time for these guys, which is why you try not to judge drafts for a couple years unless they cut all the players. Then you can judge it. Then it's just fine. Then it's over. But even with someone like Naylor, who I think has become a terrific player and deserved better in the stat sheet this year. It really took it till

this year that he was a complete wide receiver. So give Felton another offseason, let him, you know, grow and develop. But I judge special teams a lot. And the way that he's played as a gunner has been really impressive to me. He's shown some serious toughness and ability to fight through contact and all that that maybe I wasn't sure about. So I like where he's at. I'd like to see Miles Price touched the football. If he's healthy, I think he's not going to be. But next year, maybe, touch the football a little bit more. Yeah, if he were still available, that would have been fun to see him on offense. It's hard to come up with too many other guys. I mean, I think the Dwight McLeathern ship is kind of sailed. Kind of is what he is. This is not a team built for a game

like this to have a lot of fun looking at the younger players. This is about the veteran players getting Harrison Smith a win in his final game. Maybe if he could get someone volley it up to him. If you get an interception, flip it over to him, so he gets his 40th interception. This is about Justin Jefferson getting 1,000 yards. Maybe we see a little more Zay Scott, who I liked earlier in the season, but when Aaron Jones came back,

you're obviously not playing him. But I'd like to see him. Yeah, and I want to throw out there, too, again, this could be C.J. Ham's last game. I talked to him this week. He is mulling retirement. This is his last game under contract. So it will be interesting to see if he decides to walk out,

like Harrison Smith, those two guys who have been around Those are the two longest tenured players on this team. And if you're a diehard Vikings fan and if you're 38 minutes into this podcast watching, I know you are, you're going to have to appreciate the fact that C.J. Ham and Harrison are doing it one more time. And it could be it for both of those guys.

So you're right. This is a veteran-laden team, not a ton of young talent that's fighting to get out there. But there's still going to be storylines and interesting things to watch for. I'm going to make a promise. If C.J. Ham retires, I will do an emergency podcast on C.J. Ham.

One of the players I respect the most, and really showed this year that the fullback will always have an impact in the National Football League. So on Fandul, we've done this every week, so the Minnesota Vikings are seven and a half point favorites in this game at U.S. Bank Stadium. What do you think happens? I think the Vikings win, and I think they even cover it. Not that I'm some great prognosticator, but the Packers just don't seem real interested in. Why would they be? Like you said, this is a Vikings team that is, they want to win this game really badly.

A lot of players, certain free agents want to make a lot of money, chase incentives. Brian Flores wants to make a lot of money and continue to look very good. So I don't imagine Clayton Tune is going to get any kind of easy version of this Vikings defense. So I think the cover, I think the defense looks as good as it did against Jared Gough. Maybe they get a few turnovers as well. So, yeah, I like their chances. I was hoping that we would see Malik Willis. But if you're Malik, I mean, you should be like, no.

I want the last impression before I hit Free Agency to be, we didn't mention him as one of those names, but I think his name should be in there. No, I'll just stick with it being the game against the Ravens where I broke the PFF system or whatever

in that game. He was so good. It's not against Brian Flores' defense with none of your linemen or receivers or anything else. So Clayton, tune it is I'm going to say 28 to 3. Vikings when one team cares and the other team doesn't, it should be a blowout and anything short of that would be a pretty big disappointment. So we'll see what

happens. We'll have a postgame show. And well, this is our last hardcore breakdown. It won't be our last podcast that we do. There will be many into the offseason with Mr. Kramer as well. But Andrew, I can't thank you enough for coming on every single week and breaking down these games through the journey that has been the 2025 NFL season. And I look forward already to doing it again in 26. Yeah, thanks for having me on. It's always a pleasure being on here every week. And this has been quite the season to navigate and find hardcore footbally things each week. But I think we've done a pretty good job. I don't know. I think we, you know, we're better than a nine and eight show on every Friday or Saturday, right? Yeah. I mean, there's been a few meltdowns along the way

and a few vibe checks that went wrong around the way and everything else. And I think I went 17 for 17 or 16 for 16 prediction wise. Yeah, I think you did too. Yeah, me too. For sure. Yeah, definitely. Don't check that. Definitely did. All right. Thanks everybody for watching and listening. We'll catch you later. Football. Football.