Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - AP's Dave Campbell hasn't changed his mind about McCarthy after minicamp

Episode Date: June 7, 2024

Matthew Coller is joined by Dave Campbell of The Associated Press for the first ever Purple Insider Podcast from the Porch. Coller and Dave discuss their takeaways from Vikings minicamp and why Dave hasn't changed his opinion on rookie QB J.J. McCarthy despite some rough days. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider, Matthew Collard here along with Dave Campbell of the Associated Press, returning to the show, and we're on my porch. Because one of the things I wanted to do this summer was a porch podcast, so we just left TCO Performance Center. It's a nice day here, so we're outside talking a little bit about football. And I'm glad to have you, Dave. You are in this similar neighborhood to me, so I thought this was perfect. On your way home, stop by, do a little podcast, and then we carry on.

So great to have you here on the porch. Always good to be here. Richfield, Minnesota, what better place to broadcast from, right? My dad actually grew up half a mile from here. Oh, really? It's all coming full circle. Literally, he'd know I'd be podcasting. Little did he know.

I mean, as you were being raised i mean 70 years later dreamed yeah that this would be and it is it is a dream to be podcasting on my porch but definitely uh i showed you the studio it's nice down there but in the summer we'll try to do more episodes out here with uh some guests so we'll call it the porch podcast and for this one i have made a list of five different things that i want you to rank because that was your request. I say, can you come on the show? You know, whatever. You said only if we rank stuff.

Yeah. So I have stuff to rank. But first, before we rank, I do want to ask you about minicamp, which just wrapped up. Mandatory minicamp. And what a time it was to watch them out there slowly practicing and learning things and so forth. But I do want to get your opinion on the quarterback situation, how you felt that Sam Darnold and J.J. McCarthy have looked during this thing and where you think they stand. Yeah, that's a good question.

I think it's really funny how the offseason has been shaped so much by the McCarthy draft pick, who they they were going to pick what they're going to have to give up to to get him but like now that that's been established it could be several months before McCarthy becomes at all relevant to the to this team multiple months it's definitely Sam Darnold to start and for obvious reasons um there's not too many i think downsides in the history of the league uh where a rookie quarterback sat and and then that ended up being detrimental like i don't know if you could really come up with the scenario it where it was like oh you sat too long you just got rusty i mean that's just not gonna happen it to happen. It's a sharp transition from college to pro,

particularly coming from a team like Michigan where they didn't ask him to do a lot. That was certainly one of the things around his draft profile. But, you know, Sam Darnold has become a little bit of a meme here or there for football fans, fantasy football players, draft Knicks. But it's not like he's a complete disaster. There's, I think, some kind of secret, not secret, but under-the-surface kind of attributes that I think he can bring to the situation. And he's going to have to because it's his job to start.

I think we've sort of seen that young J.J. has got a ways to go. It's such a narrow window that's open to us in practice, so always hesitant to draw any types of conclusions. But it's pretty obvious during the portions of practice that have been open to us, there's been some accuracy issues. And he's the third-string quarterback right now. So it will be interesting to see how that changes as time goes on. Somebody even asked me this, not from an official media capacity,

but you could sort of see a scenario where he's the number three quarterback on the roster starting in early September for the regular season. And then, you know, at some point they're going to decide he's ready to start. Let's assume that's this year. He could just go from three to one. There's nothing to read into that if he's not the number two in a given week, Nick Mullins dressing as a number two for some of those early games would be the decision because that's just going to give him a better chance to win that game.

And it's hard to tell even from the reps that they're taking in minicamp who is QB 1, 2. You can't even really put together a depth chart. Today in the final day, there were way more reps for McCarthy than Nick Mullins. Nick Mullins took hardly any when they were doing their team stuff and when they did the final kind of drive and red zone and everybody's gathered around that sort of thing it was mccarthy and darnold were the only one taking those reps right makes you think uh more of qb2 ish but again there's no depth

chart excuse me right now so how are we even supposed to put that together yeah sorry and i think that that's the hardest the hardest part is trying to give takeaways when we really responsibly shouldn't give too many takeaways but yet the world demands to know how he looks and so when you say you know he's definitely had some accuracy issues out there it's been a discussion in the media room of how do we present this to the world because people ask us to be guests on their shows and things like that and then when you go on and you say well you know the accuracy's not there yet and then it becomes a thing when i'm not saying he'll never be accurate or that that's not even going to come along and

improve day by day in training camp all i'm saying is our first impression is that there's a lot of work to be done here and it was really his tools were why they drafted him but i mean you love the history of this team dante culpepper didn't play for an entire year when they drafted him people went huh why are you drafting him aren't you in super bowl or bust mode and so forth and then he comes in and immediately you go oh that's why you drafted him that's why he had a year to develop yeah and it might be the same exact thing with McCarthy it's just we live in a world that is not tolerant of patience and wants to know the answers right now and wants to get hyped about something in June when most of the time fans would have been just tuning into the twins but thanks Bailey or whatever your name is now. I can't even do that. Right. So, uh, yeah,

I think that there's a responsible way to talk about this. And that is that they told us from day one, they wanted to be patient and they're living up to that right now. Very true. I remember, um, well just think about 1999 to 2024. That's like another planet. I was just trying to flip back my mind to the Vikings then and bringing Culpepper in. I think drafted one slot later than McCarthy.

11th, right? 11th, yeah. So those are all great points. And I think this doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the way he's picking up the game uh grasping the offense where he'll actually be on the depth chart when he'll start but one one interesting thing sort of gleaned from being around minicamp is from the vikings perspective some of their their media people um he is i think very much seeing himself as the humble kind of,

I got a lot to learn rookie. Part of this is the Vikings, they're not going to be putting him on season ticket packages. They're not going to be putting him on billboards. He's not going to be doing a lot of promo stuff right now because he's not the starting quarterback. There's other reasons for that too but and he's fine with that he's not he seems to be much more committed and and uh deeply desiring to to learn how to play nfl quarterback well than he is about being a brand um living up to the status type of thing that's right and the personality element of this and character element is one of the reasons that you draft him because you believe in that like you believe that he's not going to come in with an arrogance and he's not going to come in and say i'm qb1 and

whatever yeah that they connected with him it seems like on a good level of communication when they met with him and probably told them if we draft you we've got this other quarterback who's been around the block and we think could actually be pretty good and my observation from minicamp is that sam darnold sure looks like a starting quarterback yeah it's not quite on the same level of kirk cousins where he could have a minicamp practice where the ball never hit the ground but he's completing a lot of passes making a lot of good throws uh he had one today where he threw it a lot of passes, making a lot of good throws. He had one today where he threw it a little behind Justin Jefferson, and he went back and grabbed it with one hand.

And you're like, well, that's going to help him, I think. And he seemed pretty pleased about that. And I also think they picked the right guy to be in that position as well, that Sam Darnold seems to be a very matter-of-fact person and does not bring, again, that attitude of like, yeah, well, I'm not going to help this little kid or whatever it's not like that at all they seem to have a connection out there but i did notice today with every jj mccarthy rep almost josh mccown is talking to him right after and

there was one where he threw where it was an out route and the timing was wrong lucky jackson was running a little out route and the throw would have been accurate had the timing been right but it was just off and right after josh mccown is over there and he's doing the you know showing them well your feet are supposed to be like this or you need to hitch a little different or whatever that's just where we're at right now and uh you talk about quarterbacks who didn't start right away some didn't start right away because they were really bad and i don't think that's going to be the case i think it really is because they have a plan here yeah and kevin o'connell has taken it personally to develop him the right way and i think that's the treatment that you don't see a lot that a quarterback gets so this is just different it's almost like with quesia da fomenta and sometimes

where his press conferences have just been different from GMs in the past, and you have to get used to that. And when we saw our first training camp practices with O'Connell, and they were so weak compared to the Zimmer intense practices that were super physical and everything, and we went, what is this guy? Does he even want to play football out there? And then the first week they beat the Packers and everything. Oh, okay, it's just a different plan. So I think we've had to get used to that there's just different ways of doing this which includes the way they're handling jj mccarthy for sure i think um if cousins was like the

foreign exchange student that moved in with the o'connell family and it became super tight and they're like friends for life uh you could think of McCarthy as almost like a firstborn son. It's going to be because he's starting at the ground level with him and his NFL career, and he's a former quarterback. He's got a mind for offense, and now they've hired a guy like McCown, which is interesting to mention that. I think one thing the Vikings will have to be careful about is too many guys in his ear, you know, too many cooks in the kitchen, overcoaching.

By all indications, they drafted the kind of player who could handle all that. And I think these are smart people telling him smart things about how to run an offense. But human nature is human nature and you know both sides are going to have to be careful about about that i think as it goes forward we'll never be able to see all the little intricacies of what that looks like but there are little hints out there that you can observe during a game in press conferences at a practice things like that the other thing about sam darnall i just think about is what if we just don't know if he's any good? He doesn't have a track record of carrying anyone's fantasy

football team, but he's been in some pretty rotten situations and probably just never got a really good chance to get his footing under him as a quarterback. So I think it would be really interesting to see. It would be a test. So I think it would be really interesting to see. It would be a test for him, but it would also be a test for O'Connell and his offense and the coaching staff. You know, I think they've got a pretty good body of work out there for how they can produce a productive NFL offense. But this will be another big test this season.

It certainly will. And I think that having two former quarterbacks that are working in lockstep with him, they could keep the message right. Like both of them understand this isn't someone who didn't play the position and has elevated themselves through coaching into a quarterback coach position, which is what they had with Chris O'Hara. Instead, these are two guys who have played in the NFL and understand the technique of throwing a football.

They understand combination. I mean, think about how many offenses Josh McCown played in. He understands every defense, every offense, how every play is supposed to be set up so he can be an extension of Kevin O'Connell and be responsible for a lot of the development. And it might kind of be where McCown is doing more development and O'Connell's doing more game planning with Sam Darnold or some distribution like that that I could see it working out pretty well. But I think it was an important hire. Normally they hire a quarterback coach.

You go, okay, I don't know, some guy who's trying to go up the ladder or something. This one I think is a little more unique. I want to get to our list of things that you have to rank because you have notes there as well i do but i i want to i want to give a conclusion like a final statement of the podcast after minicamp because for all intents and purposes this is it for the off season there's another ota practice that is going to be you won't be there so it won't exist i i won't be there i'm actually going to be away for that one i'll get dane mizzitani to give the full breakdown from that one on the podcast but uh the final statement i would make

is that nothing changed for me from the start of any of this from rookie camp to now from what i thought of jj mccarthy i mean it's good to see how hard he throws the football the athleticism good to talk with him and kind of see his professionalism at a young age but i expected all that yeah and i expected some rocky moments as well during this you know learning period it didn't look like wow this guy's peyton manning out there or something right away but it also doesn't look like he's throwing the ball into the stands or anything or that he's lost out there it looks like there's going to have to just be an improvement in consistency touch on the football all the things that we knew and so i haven't changed at all i think this was for them a quarterback that we're going to have

to be patient with a little bit but still exactly the type of quarterback that they were looking for to pair with kevin o'connell and go forward in the future the person who's changed my mind a little is darnold i just think he's looked so excellent out there on a day-to-day basis that I'm buying that a little bit more as much as one can at this moment but if we you know don't have to couch everything I just think it's looked quite good from him sure and I would I would agree with that nothing really seems to have changed uh nor really should it unless there's a major injury or something. But Jefferson is now signed, but that was expected. You know, once it was finally determined for the world

who their next quarterback was going to be on that Thursday night in late April, now they're sort of set, and now we get to kind of just watch, watch the ups and downs, see what they're made of, see what these players are made of, and that's, I guess, the fun part for everybody. It will be. This is going to be the most interesting training camp. I remember you and I had a discussion last year.

We ranked it. I think it was, was it training camps or just off-season? I think it was off-season intrigue was the actual category. It was probably mini-camp time. This would be number one, though, right? For a long time. At least definitely in my time.

You were trying to sell me on last year, and I was cool on that one. And I came around. In hindsight, it looks worse. But this year, I'm much more interested. About the different parts. And even you go further down the roster, all the new defensive players, they're plugging in

and mixing and matching and moving around. Aaron Jones in the backfield, what's he going to do for this running game that's been pretty poor for the first two seasons under o'connell staff i was thinking about how if there was no jj mccarthy this one would still yeah it'll be up there i mean aaron jones is here right he's going to be one of my questions like aaron jones yeah the guy who has absolutely slaughtered this team he averages 5.8 yards per carry against the vikings in his career yeah that's like barry sanders like every time he goes out there against the vikings and they just have him on the team and we're like oh yeah well aaron jones but quarterback

jonathan bernard talked to him you know yesterday really interesting guy yeah that's a 20 million dollar pass rusher that we're all kind of being like oh yeah well they got it what's his first name again john jonathan yeah is that it's yeah it is kind of funny because those would be the huge players in camp if not for the quarterback situation so that's a good transition into the first ranking i have five the first ranking i wanted you to do was the five most off-season hyped quarterbacks of your career covering the Vikings, which began what year? For all intents and purposes, 2001. What's great about this is that I always get to look at you and be like, wow. You thought you were old.

I feel like I'm getting on the older side, but 2001. Well, I'm going to add a little bit of curveball to the way you introduced that just because I was thinking more Vikings history about this particular category. So I'm going to stretch a little bit further beyond before I started covering the team to when I was even following the team as a kid. Sure, that works. So I'm going to start with number five. And it'll work way up to one. I'm going to go with Warren Moon.

Oh, yeah, of course. That's the one outlier I had pre-professional career. 1994. That was such a monumental thing. He was a big name. He put up huge numbers with the Oilers. And here was a team, the first two seasons under Danny Green, had a Tony Dungy-led, excellent, dominant defense.

Could run the ball with Robert Smith or Terry Allen, depending on who was injured and who was not. But they really couldn't throw the ball. And they had Chris Carter. And here comes Warren Moon. And, you know, it didn't quite go as awesome as maybe fans thought or people who follow the league nationally because he's a big name. 94, their offense was actually the worst it was in the three years

that they were here, or at least it started pretty slowly. They had some, I think it kind of caught fire down the stretch as Jake Reed kind of emerged as a really solid number two. But I remember, I believe the first game that Orn Moon ever played, I think they lost to the Packers like 10 to 6. It was like, oof. So it took a little while. Can you imagine what that would have been like now?

Oh, man. Just going to be an entire week of like, is this the worst trade ever yeah exactly um but there was you know for for the for 1994 standpoint that was kind of a big deal yeah um him coming in number four um i went with jj mccarthy just because for all the reasons we just laid out. Ooh, quarterback over there. Even though this guy – But highest drafted quarterback in franchise history. Correct.

Correct. And also kind of at this point where not just the draft pick height, but this really major turning point in the franchise's trajectory from the Cousins era to this new one, it's the internet age. So that plays into these rankings, fair or not, right? There's constant speculation. Even just, I mean, just leading up to the draft with so many prospects, how was it going to shake out?

Who are they going to trade up and get? Anyway, a lot of hype because we're talking this much at this length about someone who's going in as clearly as a backup, at least to start. And also, he will define Kweisi Adafomensa and Kevin O'Connell's time here, which always feels unfair that one draft pick will do that, but that's life in the NFL. And so knowing all the potential options the trade options the different opinions on each quarterback you know each one had something

to like something you were worried about you know how's draft night going to play out how quesadilla flamenco was going to handle all that and then landing him without having to trade up other than one spot the amount of just attention even to that draft adds to it. Yeah, right. Because 25 years ago, you're talking about the draft was read in the morning paper who they picked. Right. And now it's so much more than that. Definitely.

So I consider ranking Christian Ponder. He was drafted in a similar range at the same type of point when they needed a quarterback and they were transferring or transitioning from farv to the next guy um but i don't think he came with quite the same cachet didn't win a national championship right even though he played a program like florida state and they also brought in down mcnabb all right at this you know as sort of the presumptive starter that offseason but they they reached on him according to everyone yes which i think now we would not have looked at it like that maybe as much because drafting a quarterback and having that guy work and we all know that we can't predict quarterbacks yeah now right but when mike mayock went on tv and said

they reached that became the thing from yeah i, I wasn't even here and I remember that. Wow, I can't believe how much they reached on Christian Ponder was the entire narrative. That took away from the excitement level, whereas J.J. McCarthy comes in with the national championship. Right. And no one thought they reached. They thought, well, they actually got a deal because a lot of people thought they were going to have to trade up. So it's a different narrative from him. So that's not your number three.

It's not. He's not ranked. I just thought it was worth part of the discussion. I think Christian Ponder is still in the water, and I think that even caused a lot of people to even think about McCarthy. Are they going to reach on this guy because he's just from a big-name school and he's still kind of the number four consensus prospect down from the top three? But anyway, number three, Kirk Cousins.

Super Bowl or bust. Super Bowl or bust. First fully guaranteed deal. Established starter. Came into a team with huge expectations, having just made the NFC Championships game the season before. I think that kind of stands for itself. So number two is Teddy Bridgewater.

Okay. That's above Kirk. I put him above Kirk. I think there was just a lot of hype around the whole team that offseason for the Vikings in 2018. They were starting to assign these guys to extensions like Diggs and Daniil Hunter. And it was more about fitting a piece into the team. I know there was a lot of attention around him.

How was he going to look? How was he going to fit with the offense, all these things? But that team just had a lot of stars. Right. And I think even though maybe some people were talking themselves into him being better than he might have been, I think generally people, you kind of knew what you were getting. I think most offseason quarterback hype especially comes from the unknown. And a lot of times with a rookie, but sometimes it can be a newcomer. No, I agree with that narrative, with the idea that a rookie has more intrigue just based on the fact that you don't know anything about him.

With Kirk, the only argument I would just have is since they went to the NFC Championship, he was supposed to be the reason they went to the next level. Right. And that did not come to fruition right away or ever but that was the the whole logic of it made sense at the time yeah i did which was all right well they went this far with case keenum but you know now they've got this probably two-year window to go even farther and i remember even zimmer who clearly was not the most thrilled guy in the world the day that they announced them, saying something like, if the defense fails, we need someone to pass us through it, which was clearly a shot at Case Keenum. They didn't think that he could do that.

I know. Careful what you wish for, Zim. Yeah, I know. There was. And Kirk couldn't do it either. But there was NFL Network and Peter King and every major writer reporter was showing up at the training camp every single day at that camp. So that,

that did have a ton of hype. I think as far as me covering the team until now, that would be a number one, but okay. Bridgewater. Number two, the reason I had Bridgewater up, there's a,

I think a lot like McCarthy's centered around the draft, you know, going in the ponder era was already effectively over and um there was another decent crop of quarterbacks now none of them turned out to be but you know he had the Blake Bortles and Johnny uh Johnny Manziel and the later ones the later ones turned out to be better Jimmy Garoppoppolo, Derek Carr. Right, exactly. But they had gone through, you know, they got their Anthony Barr and they'd gone through the draft and all of a sudden they, like,

moved back up to 32 and he officially becomes a first-round pick. There were, you know, in the combine and pro day season, like there was a lot of, of buzz around Teddy Bridgewater as, you know, being more of a top 10 pick and there are certain things, you know, his pro day wasn't very good.

I think if I remember correctly and the whole thing about wearing the glove and you know how those things work, it's just ebbs and flows and narratives are narratives. And, but, but I do think there was, you know, this sense of excitement around him that only built once they saw his personality. And realizing it was also a team on the rise.

You know, it's going into the second season of Zimmer. You know, they had some good young defensive players. And that's the offseason when the phrase, how's Teddy looking, was invented. And so here we are, nine years later, whatever quarterback people want to know about in practice, I think it was all fueled right then and there, that offseason. And then it returned. That's part of the reason I ranked him so high. It returned after he came back from his injury. Yes.

How steady looking. Came back. Number one is so easy. Yeah. Brett Favre. Yeah. It's almost no explanation. You know, if you had to boil it down to one, two words, chicken suit.

The day he came. Do I not know this story? Well, chicken suit. The day he came... Do I not know this story? You should. Your viewers and listeners should too. They sign him. You remember it's the circus the day that Childress picks him up from the airport.

He's coming after he had said no a couple weeks earlier and got a few extra coins out of the Wilfs. Childress picks him up and like it's all everyone knows he's in this like it's almost this OJ like kind of procession to Winter Park. I've heard of the helicopters. The helicopters. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's hard to describe, but Winter Park was located on this frontage road on 494 near 169.

And we had this workspace in an office building across the street. And there was sort of this curve. It's Washington Avenue or Washington Road or something that turns into Viking Drive. And anytime there's a big story, that's where the satellite trucks would always set up. And, you know, it was a big controversial day in Vikings sort of season if you saw satellite trucks on this berm there. But that day, it wasn't just the satellite trucks. It was just fans coming out of the woodwork, like lining up. And there wasn't really hardly any space between the road

and the chain link fence that separates from the highway. But there's just hundreds of fans trying to catch a glimpse, including one guy dressed up in a chicken suit, who I think was advertising for Treasure Island Casino. I never got the full story on that, but all you have to do is say chicken suit and I think of that day. Okay, I didn't know that. I didn't know that someone in a chicken suit was there. I am also trying to envision, having covered many practices there before they changed facilities, how people could fit where you're describing.

Because there is no area for fans to gather around that place. In fact, I was always very scared of the road where we would have to run across. And when we had an overflow media area during the NFC Championship, they put us over in ITT Tech, which was around the corner. We had to walk down by that fence and then slide down the hill in order to go to the locker room. So I can imagine that. Yeah, I mean, just there are very few of these that would have captured the entire minds of the nation right but and even to some extent jj mccarthy when there's four other quarterbacks drafted ahead of them uh then it's you know drake may how's he looking caleb williams is by far the number one hyped quarterback it's not

even close yeah in fact that's good for mccarthy he could go under the radar and oh if he's not why he's a fifth quarterback but with brett farve i mean that whether you were in buffalo new york or antarctica you knew brett farve was joining the minnesota vikings which was just insane for him to be joining the arch rival everything else knowing that they would play each other and and all that and what and wondering what's he got left because with the jets he had started off so hot and then completely come apart at the end yeah and i don't remember my expectations being all that high, but just thinking this is crazy that this is actually happening. Yes, especially living around here and knowing the history of the two teams

and how hated he was by the Vikings and Vikings fans, even though there's maybe a sort of a healthy respect there for his ability and his sort of competitiveness um but i think that was also pre like before the nba became uh like before the uh the super team type stuff and you know a lot of the player movement in the nba is not necessarily from rival to rival but to me um i think that that wasn't even going on in any league back then, like this kind of huge superstar going to another team, like sort of surprisingly.

He didn't become a free agent. It's like, where is he going to go next? It was like he's going to retire, and all of a sudden he wants to come back, and it was this huge mess so all that you know soap opera behind it really really made it the clear slam dunk number one pick i mean at that point there were a handful of examples throughout history but there weren't that many quarterbacks who had changed teams and especially but not going to their right yeah like going to someone in the division yeah montana goes to the chiefs so yeah okay that's interesting because they were a good team but uh maybe reggie white

well deon sanders and charles haley going to uh dallas cowboys but defensive players a different animal than than a quarterback it would be like steve young going to play for the cowboys yeah i mean it was that intense speaking of which talk about more transitions um excuse me uh aaron jones is a minnesota viking which again very weird uh because he has demolished them so i wanted you to tell me where aaron jones ranks in terms of packers to vikings now once again farve is your number one i'm sure yes packers to vikings so we don't have an obvious we don't have to throw that one out there. So we'll start at one. Actually, take me the other way until we get to Aaron Jones

because Favre is clearly one. So who's number two? Who is before Aaron Jones on your list of Packers who became Vikings? Well, I'd love to see how the season plays out to fairly rank it. I mean, let's say he has hamstring trouble in October. Well, we can't do that, Dave. We've got to do it just right now. We can only do it right now.

Okay. We can't wait for him to play. I'm going to give – Assume he plays well. That's fair. I'm going to give Ryan Longwell still the number two slot. Really? It was a vital position.

He was... He still, I think, you could make the argument, was the best kicker in Vikings history. Considering how he never... There isn't any terrible misses at the end of games where they just kind of tarnished a good season

or a good game. Did that happen? He was so clutch. Was somebody in Vikings history? A few. Oh, okay. The names are escaping me right now. I have to look it up on Football Reference. Maybe someone can leave it in the comments.

But he was so consistent. The more that YouTube shares it, so I'm hoping people take that seriously. Comment. Get a lot of comments on that. But he also, despite he was getting that um but he also you know despite he was he was getting older but he still could go like he said his career long like no pun intended long well um a couple of times if i remember you know he had a 53 yarder to to beat the giants in 08 to clinch the division um so he was you know it was a little underrated because he's a kicker, and there's so much else that went on with that team from the period of, like,

06 to 2011 when he was here. But, you know, that's a six-year run of really, really accurate kicking. So I'm still going to put him at number two. If they don't have the 12 men in the huddle and Favre just throws an incompletion, he makes it he makes it he sends him to the super bowl yeah exactly he was a great kicker yeah it's not it's not hot though it's not a hot opinion no that kicker who was real good yeah revenge it's not it's really hot okay but i'm gonna slide aaron jones at number three i mean you just you real

left the stats earlier in the in the show um not just a Vikings killer, but like, you know, a premier type of running back who was, he was sort of like, all of a sudden he's available. And then like, you know, because there's still talk the Packers were going to, they said it publicly at least, they wanted to bring him back. And then, you know, of course, money always talks in the end. But I know he's for a running back old but the way he produced down the stretch last season after he came back from injury for the packers was like whoa

you know it was i don't remember the number off the top of my head was like four or five straight 100 yard games into the playoffs including the playoffs so i think he's got a lot of juice left and it played no i mean no small part in jordan love success i mean it was huge right to have him he caught passes he passed protected he uh you know set up all the play actions by running so effectively he's one of those guys that i don't i don't know how you feel about this but there are just some players who kind of walk in the room and you're like that guy's a superstar man there's just there's like a different gear yeah to certain players where there's there's really there's really good players who have certain sort of

you know they're good and we all appreciate that and then there's the one percent and through his career he is in the one percent he's in the top five for yards per carry ever that's amazing is that crazy that's quite a stat and he's just shows up here all of a sudden yeah right and the peckers loved him like obviously management didn't love him enough to give him a certain number uh as running back at his age but his teammates and coaches just love that guy. He was like a no-nonsense kind of low-maintenance, no-drama, play hard, and obviously produced. And he can catch the ball out of the backfield too. So that's going to be another really intriguing player to watch for the Vikings.

I think there's so many unknowns. I think there's a pretty wild fluctuation for how the season could go. Okay, Dayton Jones, Shannon Sullivan. Those are great names. By the way, Dayton Jones actually never even appeared in a game of the Vikings. We did a press conference with him. We did.

I took the liberty of doing some important research before this category came up. 63 players in history of the NFL, which is 64 years since the vikings became a team uh have played for both franchises 39 of those were with the packers before the vikings not all those went directly but sometimes it feels like there's been hundreds but so it boils down to 39 39 made that sort of jump. But that's still not an insignificant number.

And the percentage of those who are high-profile players is, I think, quite stunning. So number three, hesitant to put him on the list for how things unraveled for him after his career ended, but Darren Sharper. He had a very productive career with the Vikings after having a productive career with the Packers. The game that jumps out to me was in 2005. They're at the Meadowlands and they intercept Eli Manning I believe four times. He had, I believe, four times. And he had, I think, two of them.

One of them returned for a touchdown. And they didn't end up making the playoffs that year, but it gave them this late burst where they almost did. And Mike Tice got fired. I remember that game, yeah. I mean, that was one of those where is eli a bust because it was not really established that it was great yet second year yeah and he you know threw all those picks with darren sharper it's it's very hard i remember

this came up a couple years ago somebody said well he should still be in the hall of fame or whatever which i'm totally fine with not yeah it's kind of like how i feel about barry bonds i don't need him there you know it's fine if you want to throw the statistics and make your arguments. I'm also not going to cry any tears for the guy not being in the Hall of Fame. Heck of a ball player. He really was. You can just leave it at that. The other stuff, pretty gnarly.

Great nose for the ball. Was a really good player. So let's move on to the next one. We'll move on. Number four, maybe a little controversial considering it only lasted one but zedaria smith he was fantastic he was and they got him for pennies on the dollar basically um strange cat strange cat didn't really like the um attention i think it seemed to boil down to that for me um i i've gone over to green bay a handful of times to help cover big games over there and i remember covering the 2019 season playoff game where they played the

seahawks and it was a great game um and going to the packers locker room and realizing that that was his first year with the packers he did every single interview sort of in a tandem with Preston Smith. That's right. Because he just didn't want the attention or whatever. I never got the full explanation. I thought it was a little strange, but sort of that same perspective or attitude carried over to Minnesota. We very rarely got him to talk about how he was playing

or how he was fitting in. And when he did talk, it was very much like he was smiling but he was like i can't wait to get this over with he did an interview in mini camp i think or just at the start of training camp where he had said something that maybe didn't make the packers look the best and it made the rounds and we never heard from him again yeah and i think it speaks to exactly what you're saying he was just not fond of that but also maybe not trusting of that and if i remember it wasn't even one of us but they don't know the difference sometimes between whoever like he had just gotten here he doesn't know the different reporters so he had said he had made

some comment that blew up in green bay and people got upset with him or whatever and we just didn't hear from him but he was another guy similar to aaron jones where the health is going to be a thing and that became a thing but when he was playing well at the beginning of the season yeah there are few players everson was like this where every down was something he was the pressure a tackle for loss just pushing the pocket or getting a sack it was like every play whether it was run or pass it didn't matter uh we don't really think of that much because that defense was so bad and sometimes i can't believe how bad it was because i know the players that they had right with hunter and uh zedarius smith there and patrick peterson and

eric kendrick's like it yeah i've never seen someone drop the bag so badly schematically as Ed Donatello did. But Zedaria Smith belongs on the list even though it was one year. I agree with that. And then my number five pick, I went way outside the box in this, Jan Stenrood. Oh, wow. The Kansas City kicker. Yeah. Funny little Vikings full circle moment.

He was the kicker for the Chiefs when they beat them in the Super Bowl, the Super Bowl IV, the Vikings' first Super Bowl. Has Patrick Royce ever told you a story about that? I'm sure he has. I can only remember so many of Pat's. Because Patrick said that when they arrived for that Super Bowl and they were watching warm-ups, and when the other team's kicker was making 50-yard kicks in warm-ups,

they went, we're screwed. This team's going to beat us. And they were. Yeah, that's funny. That's a great story. So Jan had a little Packers stint after the Chiefs, which he was with for decades. But then he wrapped it up with the Vikings, and in 1984,

he led the league in field goal percentage. Not a very good Vikings team, but, you know, hey, if I got Longwell on the list, let's be consistent. Two kickers on the list I feel like is a violation of some kind. Maybe. Not Greg Jennings. You know, no. That's fair. He came to mind right away but like oh that team that team could not pass the ball and he

you know i know he was working with a lot of a lot of shuffling and some you know poorer to average at best quarterbacking and you know offensive strategy back then was you know not what it is now uh but yeah it there wasn't there wasn't enough um on the field or are on his stat line now it's preserved forever from from jennings in minnesota for me to put him on that top five okay congratulations to john stenerud on his number five spot as opposed to Greg Jennings. But it is a fascinating effect. And I think part of it is any time – I remember Anthony Zettel,

by any chance? Yeah, I do. Where he had one crazy good game against the Vikings. Yes. And then they signed him, and he was just horrendous by the time he got here. He was dumb. He had that one big game. Two and a half sacks, I think.

And they were like, okay, let's sign him. I feel like there's that same thing within the division. It's like we see these guys all the time. Yeah. And so we're so familiar with them. We're going to just bring them over because we know that they're good players. All right, here's the next question for you. This is more of a one-word answer rather than a ranking,

which is if Sam Darnold plays, what date will ESPN have a headline for a debate show should the Vikings play McCarthy? October 8th. Okay, why October 8th? Well, it's a Tuesday. I looked this up. It's during their bye week.

Okay. They'll be five games in at that point. So maybe two and three or one and four. Coming off. It would have to happen. Yeah, and the start is against some tough defenses. You've got San Francisco and Houston and Green Bay in September, and then the Jets in London.

The Jets can play some defense. At least we think they have the last couple years under Robert Sella. We'll see if Rodgers has maybe decided to go live in a tree or something by then, find out. Yeah, that would be fascinating. So that seems to me the time when, you know, he may have had, Darnold may have had a couple of tougher games against some tougher competition and the people need something to talk about.

And that's that's my best guess. I have targeted a very similar time. Yeah. That's when the schedule came out. My first thought in looking at it was that the bye week is set up just perfectly. It is. It really is. Yeah.

They're playing Detroit coming out, which will be a difficult game. But it's at home. They also play Jaron Hall on a Monday night football or whatever, Sunday night football against the Packers with the playoffs on the line last year. So they're not afraid of the division opponent. But I could be wrong about the defense. Defenses change from year to year. The lines don't terrify me defensively.

No, no. And if Nick Mullins could put up 400 yards on them last year, again, I know they've changed. I know they've got D and carlton davis and so forth but they're not a complex defense where you think oh if i put my quarterback in there and i think that's why kirk ate them up is because they were pretty straightforward yeah and so he could throw the right spots he didn't have to add as much against them he didn't have to figure a lot out after the snap yeah I felt like, with that Detroit defense.

When Kirk played against Belichick that one time in 18, he was just baffled, which most people are, and we see it with Flores as well. But if you're putting a rookie quarterback in, that's probably a time to do it. I like that. Makes sense to me. I don't even think there's a huge debate over that. No. It's really just that's where they'll first start talking about it,

and maybe the team is talking about it, unless Sam Darnold is 4-1. And if he's 4-1, then nobody will be talking about J.J. McCarthy. But that's a pretty tough sell considering who you have leading up to that bye week. Yeah, and so this is how it'll go. It'll be the speculative talking head fodder will be out there, should they play McCarthy. And then by the end of the week, my son will come home from, it'll be fourth grade then, and be like,

Dad, I heard McCarthy's going to start on Sunday. Yeah, son, it's not actually true yet. Well, we'll see if it is. Maybe it will be. Maybe it will be. But, yeah, are you suggesting that the debate topics are not always reflective of reality? Yeah, and it's scary times for our youth out there now that they know how to Google search. Media literacy needs to be something that is probably, it's actually more important than science, history.

Honestly. No, that might be exaggerating, but it is important because there's a lot of BS out there. Not anything involving Justin Jefferson's contract. No, not at all. Just all straight across the board. Just all facts. Okay, two more, and we'll make them a little bit quicker. But all-time wide receivers, one through five, how do you rank them?

And really, this is a question directed at do you think Justin Jefferson is already on this list? Oh, we're talking Vikings or NFL? Vikings. That was the next. Oh, yeah. He's already on the list, and he's actually number one. No. I'm serious.

You think Justin Jefferson right now is the all-time Vikings receiver? I'm serious. I believe that. Over 84. I had to pause. It wasn't a slam dunk knee jerk but randy only was here for seven seasons and a couple of those were a little iffy for injury wise or uh running over someone running yeah off the field stuff so field stuff. So I actually, you know, I think, I guess we're projecting out a little bit.

But I've seen enough in four seasons to actually put him number one on the list already. Okay, now you waited 49 minutes into this podcast. Congrats if you're still watching at this point. Oh, they are the folks the folks love it um and i'm and i'm not like this is that would be a typical take from someone younger than me like yeah you know it's like the lebron versus mj because i'm i'm the mj generation you know uh but here's the old guy taking taking younger pick. So the way I would think of it is that we could certainly project out that if he continues to do this, he will put up bigger numbers than Randy Moss did. The 15-1 season, the historic opening to his career was iconic within that offense.

Yeah. And they won a lot right away with him there's the fact that i think that a lot of people became minnesota vikings fans or cared about the minnesota vikings because of randy moss the way that he played was so like uh notable i mean the stylistically it's sort of like thurman thomas might have been a better running back than Barry Sanders but you'd rather watch Barry Sanders right there's some of that but if you start to factor it in of the consistency element and the personality element where and Randy Moss's upbringing is so insanely different than Justin Jefferson's that we have to give him grace on that. Oh, yeah, we do. But it matters that the play what I want to play and the different things that happened along the way

versus you have this just pristine character with Justin Jefferson, even the way that he handled this negotiation. He didn't give any fuel to any fire with nonsense that was going on around it. And he's just so impressive that way. I think maybe there's also a, it could be a product of how football is played now. Where Jefferson, if he doesn't have catches for a quarter, you're like, what happened?

Where did he go? The coaches did something wrong. Where with Moss, there was this three catches for 150 yards kind of yeah person is more of a force it's more of a beating drum that just never stops as opposed to a circus act that when it's spectacular it's so spectacular yeah but you feel like a good way to put it if you were an opponent you could survive it if he made a couple of catches yeah whereas jefferson there's no surviving it it's just like it's going to keep beating you over the head under all circumstances so it's a little bit of a different way of playing the game here you thought it was a hot take but you just spent 15

minutes supporting my argument i'm trying to work with you here because the comment section although the comment section you know could be uh pretty exciting after that one okay well then is moss number two oh yeah like the one, that's not even really – and that's considering how many other really good receivers there are in this Vikings history. But, you know, I hate to say steeped off because that makes the number three person look like chopped liver. Right.

But, you know, it's really a one-two kind of thing just based on all the things you laid out about their impact and, you know, the way they hooked people and kids on Vikings football. Right. But number three, Chris Carter. I mean, consistency, just amazing in and of itself. But the circus catches. You know, Randy had a circus element to him from the way he'd just blow by a defender

and just rack up these gaudy statistics in particular games. But Chris Carter, I mean, the catches, the sideline catches, I mean, he basically invented that as a... The toe tap. The toe tap as a skill or as a sort as a sort of a life hack for, for football players. It's, it's almost a crime that Randy Moss's highlights every day gets circulated on the internet and never Chris Carter's. Yeah. That's a good point because a lot of them are 10 yard catches, right?

But they were just astounding. They're on third and eight and in a key moment in the game, would you say the best hands of all time? I mean, as far as modern receiver, I think he was, I think he had the best hands I've ever seen. It's hard to come up with anything different. At least he'd be tied with whoever. The fourth is hard. Fourth is really hard, as is five, because I think there is.

Drake Reed, Diggs, Anthony Carter, and Adam Thielen. I think there's four guys realistically in in competition for those final two spots you could throw sammy white in there if you want to throw sammy yeah it's hard sometimes you know in madrashad the the era becomes a really tricky thing um but even though they're they're in this era of you know competent to dominant passing i I still think the more recent Vikings as receivers were just a little bit more star kind of impact players than the ones in the Bud Grant era. So nonetheless, for number four, I went with Anthony Carter.

I like it. There's, like, just the 1987 playoffs alone, catching, like, 224 yards, I believe is the number, to beat the 49ers and go to this. That game, one of the great receiver games ever. Yeah. And, you know, here's this kind of upstart team in a strike year that goes on the road and beats a decent New Orleans team.

Then they go on the road and beat the 49ers and then go to the NFC Championship game. You could trace a lot of that back to him. Then he was still a really solid 1-2 with Chris Carter

for a little while. Not a super long Vikings career, but a really, really good receiver with some ups and downs at the quarterback spot from Tommy Kramer, Wade Wilson, a little Rich Gannon mixed in there, Sean Salisbury. He was banged up a lot. Yeah, he had injuries. But I think he was kind of an often overlooked star performer in Vikings history. No debate there.

Now, number five, that's a real debate. Yeah. Jay Greed was wonderful. Jay Greed was great, and he's unfairly punished for being the number three for a couple years behind Boston Carter. I think I'd still go with Thielen as my number five. Maybe some of that is the way that he's sort of self-made. I mean, Jake Root is an underdog too, you know,

comes from grambling and things. So really a really kind of heartwarming story too. And he also had like eye issues. Like you remember that he he was actually blind in one eye and had to like train himself how to catch and overcome that which is amazing in and of itself but dealing even setting aside the the uh you know underdog story you know he he was with the team for 10 years, right? 2013? 13, rookie practice squad through 22.

So 10 years, and even though toward the end he had injuries and he was less effective, when Jefferson and Diggs were in the picture, he was a little bit more of the number two, but the consistency was amazing. The third down, red zone, and, you know, he did it for a long time. And, you know, he set records at times. Yeah. You know, like four-game stretch or whatever else. He had the most yards and different things

like that throughout his career and the unforgettable catch against uh new orleans in the minneapolis miracle game doesn't get its shine but when he went up over right marshall latimore i think injured his back falling down but uh he had a great points so many just breathtaking catches that you have no idea how the ball got to him in his 2017 season is one of the most insane kind of breakout on improbable breakout seasons maybe in nfl history because he was good in 16 yeah and you thought like okay this looks like a guy who could play in the league but But then in 17, everything that was thrown his way from Case Keenum, who he was making catches on, and part of the duo. But it was 1A, 1B, more than 1-2.

We always, because of fantasy, want to make it 1-2. But it was a real duo. And just one of those defining players, I think, of the Minnesota Vikings, where he won't make a Hall of Fame, but he's a guarantee ring of honor. There's not even a question about it. Right. I agree with you there. The way Diggs left probably knocks him off a little bit.

It has certainly the numbers, the Minneapolis miracle and so forth. But it's just hard to put him there when the skip practice, the truth to all rumors that just got ugly kind of at the end there, which I think knocks him down a peg versus it you know feeling everybody knew it was kind of over and it was over the way that it normally goes in the nfl right uh okay last thing this has been a very fun first porch podcast uh and we've avoided too much a plane noise which is uh native prime time in the afternoon yeah that's native to where i live here but i want you to rank these items in most likely to least likely sam darnold makes the playoffs and people talk about keeping him darnold plays half the season and gets benched but mccarthy is not great he gets benched and mccarthy is great or mccarthy wins the job out of camp. So most likely to least likely, 1, 2, 3, 4.

Number one is the most likely. Number four is the least likely. I'm going to start with least, 4, 3, 2, 1, if that's okay. That's perfectly fine. And I think that's the easiest choice for least likely. McCarthy wins the job out of camp. I agree. There's just no reason to give him the job, even for week one.

Unless he's spectacular spectacular training camp. Sure, I guess. There's always our friend Derek Wetmore always used to say there's a non-zero chance. So that's certainly true, but they're not in this position where anyone would need to be desperate. I guess

if Sam Darnold broke a collarbone in practice, it could happen. It could happen. Then maybe it's a different story. I think knees are the thing we're always focused on here, you know, and so forth. So that would still be my number four. I think most people would probably peg the same.

The two and three, I waffled a little bit when I thought about this. And I ended up going with Darnold starts, yields to McCarthy, who is really good. That's three. That's actually my number three. Okay. Because it's just going to be an uphill climb for a rookie in a tough division. Even with Justin Jefferson, even with the smarts I think he's bringing

to the position, it's a complicated offense. And I think being good is much different from being okay. I think he could well be okay, but I don't see a C.J. Stroud type of performance ahead, but that's why we watch the games. It's hard. It's very hard. What C.J. Stroud did is a pretty big outlier to what even good quarterbacks

have done in their first time starting it. Even Jordan Love had his first, what, eight games? It was pretty rocky. It was. If it looks like that. So if McCarthy only gets eight games or ten games, then much less of a chance of being really good so then i assume so my number two was that they they eat into the playoffs with darnold and oh okay i they i hesitate to say people are really

going to be talking about keeping them but that would sort of be part and parcel with that type of result everyone needs something to talk about so keeping him. But that would sort of be part and parcel with that type of result. Everyone needs something to talk about. So that would be something you would talk about if they made the playoffs with him. So that's the second most likely is that he makes the playoffs and plays pretty well. Yeah, we talk about all these things that are unknowns from Aaron Jones to Jonathan Grenard. And, you know, like I think most skeptical Vikings fans or just people around the league have sort of just assumed they're the fourth best team in the division. Yeah. You could certainly make that strong argument.

You could certainly make an argument that the futures for like the next couple of years of the other three division teams are brighter than, than the Vikings. But we just also have a really small sample size on this coaching staff. Some of these new players who haven't even played a game for the team. Who knows? That's why this league is what it is. You just don't know. So you really couldn't say that it's farfetched for that to happen. When we go look at the standings and what we thought projecting them versus how they end up it's never like that never like um and with darnold the more that we've watched him in these practices the more i think that

this result is possible except for the second part if people are talking about keeping him which i know is vague like people talk about keeping him but the bar is very high if he goes if they go nine and eight and he throws 23 touchdowns 14 picks like no one's talking about keeping him no if he goes but if he goes 33 touchdowns eight picks or so well but how likely is that yeah it's not that like not that likely um but i might have i guess this one's this one's a hard one. It's a hard one. From a general standpoint, though, if he played well enough and the team was overall, like, good enough, you could see people saying, okay, let's give this another year. Franchise tag him or something.

Yeah, right. But, like, for McCarthy, well, oh, one more year to sit and watch? What's the harm of that? He's 21 years old. Right, right. If you just look at what the Packers did, mean no harm in that um so anyway so that number one is that darno plays half the season gets benched to mccarthy struggles yeah i think it feels just knowing the learning curve for this this position knowing that they you know even though they're they're playing a

third place schedule it's they've got it's a and we don't know how teams go from year to year, I think you could still safely say it's a tough schedule. It is. There's some pockets where they could probably really make some hay and get some momentum. But they're all on the road. Have you noticed that? It goes from very hard to then on the road forever.

Three straight road games is no joke. Then back to hard. Yeah. It's a hard schedule. Yeah. I seegas has them at six and a half right so it's not an easy schedule and it's not easy for anybody to come in halfway through the season i don't remember too many quarterbacks who did that if it looks like 2018 josh allen where yeah it wasn't good statistically but you saw the highs of it that's really what you'd be looking for for for year one right you in this circumstance you do have to temper expectations had they drafted Bo Nix we'd be saying this guy better play I mean he better be out there pretty

fast yeah exactly it's like a grown man very true same as Penix when the guy is near it's weird to say for me but he's like near half my age, which has not happened to me too often before in my career covering. Especially how funny is it with you and I, where when we're talking with Kirk, we're like, hey, remember those Baltimore Orioles with Cal Ripken? He'd be like, yeah, that was pretty great. Yeah, exactly. Albert Bell and Harold Baines. You're like, yeah, that's right. He's a big baseball guy growing up just like us.

Yep. And now if you said that to J.J. McCarthy He'd be like What the heck He had people talking about Yeah Like you know Oh with Kirk last year

Oh yeah Creed I always grew up Listening to him Like oh yeah Creed whatever This guy What is it What is his band

I don't even know What music he listens to So We'll have to find that out Yeah Well anyway First Porch Podcast I hope you all enjoyed it

Success and Sun even came out And it did And I felt like This was a This was a very pleasant have to find that out yeah well anyway first porch podcast i hope y'all enjoyed it success the sun even came out and it did and uh i felt like this was a this was a very pleasant experience except for me fighting the allergens that are just annihilating every person who has allergies in the world but other than that uh it was great i'm really glad you could come over glad to be invited and i do think there's a sponsorship opportunity there for you with some sort of allergy. Oh, like Claritin or something. Yeah. Shoot me a note, Claritin.

You know, I saw that Dr. Pepper has emerged. It's like climbing the soda rankings. And for some reason, they still have not sponsored this podcast. Does it make any sense? All I can say is no. Just got to keep asking. Just got to keep asking. I got to keep asking. But I think single-handedly this show has pushed up, has elevated.

The way that Jefferson is going to elevate Sam Darnold is like me with Diet Dr. Pepper. Can't rule it out. Who says no? Who says who can prove otherwise? Thanks so much, Dave Campbell, Associated Press. And I am going to be away for a few days on the podcast, so I hope you enjoyed this one. Watch it twice.

And we will catch you all. Go back and just catch all the hot takes you dropped here. It's not your thing. It's supposed to be my thing. There was a couple. A couple. I appreciate it, Dave. Peace.

Football.