Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Asante Samuel Jr. to visit Vikings and Aaron Jones misses practice (Part 2)

Episode Date: November 6, 2025

Matthew Coller talks about the Vikings looking at Asante Samuel Jr. who has interest from multiple teams. Aaron Jones did not practice. Plus we heard from KOC and JJ McCarthy. The Purple Insider podcast is brought to you by FanDuel. Also, check out our sponsor HIMS at https://hims.com/purpleinsider Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

This episode of Purple Insider is presented by Fandool. Like a dog in the street. There you go. It's already catching on, I guess. Do you think the touch passes are there? Seems KOC thinks they're the long way to go. Oh, yeah, there's a long way to go. Yeah, for sure.

I mean, it's a lot of these quarterbacks, like even you see with Michael Pennix. Michael Pennix is a good example. Bo Nix is a good example. These two guys came out the same time as McCorm. McCarthy. They've got a lot more experience than McCarthy. And yet still, you will see Michael Pennix throw a ball where you go, the heck happened there, man. Or you'll see Bo Nix for sure, have accuracy issues at times where there's somebody open and he just flat out misses him. And you're like, okay, now those guys might be closer to their ceilings, but they're still developing

quarterbacks. How about Sam Darnold with, I went back and watched all the Carolina Panthers games from Sam Darnold, and I saw a lot of times where Darnold was doing stuff that he didn't do in Minnesota, where he was making mistakes that he didn't make in Minnesota or missing throws. Like we talk about his arm talent and accuracy, he was inaccurate at times in Carolina and in New York. In fact, sometimes terribly inaccurate. And what would be the defining feature of him in Minnesota and Seattle is how accurate he's been. So you think about how long of a road. it is to get to that point.

Now, you could still win during that time. And McCarthy showed that you can win with the high-end plays. You can win with the feet. You can win with playing great defense, running the football, controlling the ball. But there's, it is, it takes a really long time unless you are insanely natural as a thrower. How many guys are like that? Like how many guys came out as young quarterbacks?

I think Stroud was like this. and now Stroud, unfortunately, has a concussion and seemed to be broken by his offense and broken by his offensive line and now just doesn't play with the same confidence that he did. But Stroud was probably the last guy where you went, ooh, yeah, that guy is a very natural thrower and is super accurate right out of the box. But most guys have to learn and improve. So, yeah, I think he does have a long way to go. But I also think there's a corner to be turned where you start playing full. four, five, six games, and you get into a rhythm. And I've seen this happen with Kirk, too, over the years.

And that was a veteran quarterback where, and it happened last year with Darnold. Darnold's a better example. It's more recent. So with Darnold last year, he had a terrible, terrible game against Jacksonville. And he came back and then against Indianapolis and Tennessee. I think it was Indianapolis first, then Tennessee. And those defenses were fine. They weren't trash defenses.

He got into a rhythm. and hit a couple of throws where you could see it start to click for him, and then it just took off for Darnold, where it was a little spotty early in the year, and then it just clicked in. So I think that there's that for McCarthy, a version of that. Now, he's not going to be Sam Darnold. It's going to take longer, but what you'd be looking for is get to a point where you're going into next year, where you get that full off season, not a recovering off season,

where you're starting to throw in January, but you actually never have to, to stop and you just keep getting better and better and better by the time you arrive as a old gray-haired 23-year-old put him in the nursing home by next year you're starting to really see that feel improved. But for this year, it's probably going to be a week-to-week grind where, yep, that throw went flying on him and then it's back to the next one. But the fact that he doesn't get down on himself and he just goes to the next play, I think is really big for that. Jacob, thank you for the super chat. Really appreciate that.

Like a dog in the street, you guys are really into that. Mama says our quarterback is a psycho. You have to be. You think Tom Brady's normal? Tom Brady just cloned his dog. Did you guys see that? That's crazy. I mean, I guess he's like an investor in some company that clones dog.

Bro, just adopt a different dog. He's a nutcase. But Tom Brady's a complete psycho. Total lunatic. But, you know, in the way that helps you be amazing. sports. Society's lunacy and sports lunacy sometimes don't always cross paths. I mean, think about how motivated, I mean, how crazy does Tom Brady have to be?

And I mean this, when I'm talking about psychos, I mean, this is why we love sports, because none of us are this crazy. Like, I might be a little crazy. I'm competitive. You might be competitive. We don't even register on the scale of guys like this. Tom Brady, it sounds like, I don't want to, oh, overstep here because I respect this man so much.

But it sounded like at the end of his career that he was given an ultimatum by his wife. Like if you go play football again, we are toast. And he was like, ah, I got a football. I got to give it another shot. I mean, that's how crazy the guy is, right? So, like, I think that there's a lot of shades of that with J.J. McCarthy where you dedicate your life to being, I mean, he said today, this is how loony some of these guys. He said today, like, well, yeah.

I mean, he didn't say, I want to be a, uh, a fiancee and a father first and a quarterback second. He was like, you know, one A, one B. It's like, okay. Hey, that's, again, that's the dedication. Think about this. Kirk said this once. He's exactly right. And Kirk is, Kirk is crazy. They're all crazy. Kirk said that it's a 24-7, 365 being a quarterback. There's no turning it off. There's no shutting it down and just saying, you know what, today, I'm not QB1. It's, it's every single day. It's, it becomes every part of your life. And when you see the great basketball players, the Jordans, the Kobe's, the KGs through the years, it's the same kind of deal. Like they're, they all kind of live on that, teetering that line. Somebody compared

him to, uh, Philip Rivers. When Philip Rivers was young, he was a nutcase too. So, uh, there's a lot of that. Yeah. I mean, I like, I like to see it. I like to see it. It's energy. Uh, it's something that's very hard to defeat. If you have a guy that's going to keep fighting because he's kind of nuts and he's never going to let up and he's never going to, you know, give in when he's had some bad throws or get down on himself when he's out there because he's just super driven. You can win sometimes when you don't have a chance when you're nine and a half point

underdogs or, you know, when things have gone poorly or you've been injured for five weeks and you've got to get back out there for the first time and you just immediately run to the sideline and get decked and get back. up like it takes a lot of guts it's not easy but i like all that stuff from j j mccarthy speaking of which fandule question of the day mccarthy's over under 205.5 yards against the ravens once your projected stat line for j j mccarthy thank you for uh to like a dog in the street uh for uh hitting me with the super chat really appreciate that um thank you very much uh b ms as Kirk had that dog in him to, it was a bassetown that didn't like going for walks past

dusk. Oh, that's funny. Well, look, where Kirk Cousins was crazy is his dedication. I mean, when he first came out, I did a story with Kirk one time, and he was great with stuff like this, where I talked to him about his first ever start. And here's the crazy thing about Kirk. He remembered the plays. He didn't, he wasn't preparing for our interview. He remembered the place. He was like, oh, yeah, on this one, I had an interception, but I had to make a tackle. And we ran like 60% bootlegs. And I was like, how do you, you know the data from this game?

It was, it was wild. Like his, his mind worked in a different way. And his dedication to get, when you watch his first start ever, you're like, okay, that guy's a backup quarterback. You never would have said this guy will someday get the most guaranteed money. The amount that he worked to get to that point. To understand, I mean, he had, he got made fun of for some of the stuff, but he had an office in Washington and he was there, you know, night and day, learning the offense and, you know, getting to the point with his throwing technique where he could be an above average starter in the NFL. He took, he made more out of less than, you know, 99.9% of quarterbacks ever do. So he was, he was nuts in his own way. It was just a little different. I think he was never really truly, like his personality is just very. very different than McCarthy, and you could tell that. And I think he was, he didn't have the same type of personality that we kind of attribute

to starting quarterbacks who are like the leader guy. And I, and sometimes that didn't jive so well. And other times it did. Like with O'Connell, it did. And some of the Zimmer players, it didn't. So that was a little different. Calling a Gen Z or Gen Z is a millennial thing to say, look, I don't, I don't know anything. when it comes to when it comes to anything outside of talking about sports and

Tom Brady's clone dog what do I know I don't know how you're supposed to refer to Gen Z people the youths these days I don't know whatever that's I don't know anything about them I don't know what they're doing out there on their TikToks come on I'm still look I'm still watching football games from 1997 like I did the other day on the plane to Detroit So I'm not, I'm not, I'm not locked in on how the young people are talking about stuff. Let's see. Tommy says, am I the only one Vikings fan thinking that Blake Brandel is quite possibly the same level of center as Garrett Bradbury? So he's not, he is not on that level.

And the reason that he's not on that level is the run blocking. As far as a past protector, yes, I would say it's possible that he's actually better. he is certainly bigger and if he gets some patience which I think he showed against Detroit and West Phillips broke this down for us that he could be impatient at times where as a guard you want to just fire off the ball where as a center you need to kind of drift and like where's stuff coming from you kind of have to have like bird eyes or whatever where you can see peripherally and deal with stuff and help right as a center where you're not just, oh, I see it's over there. I'm going to go over there. I need to be a little more

patient. So he's learning that. I think he's okay in past protection unless he's facing Jalen Carter. In all games, not Jalen Carter related, he's been fine. But the run blocking six, seven centers is really hard to do some stuff run blocking wise. Usually these guys are like six foot two, six foot three maybe. Garrett Bradbury, I mean, I'm six one and a half. And I think I was kind of looking Garrett Bradbury in the eyes. And he was really, really good in certain run schemes. Now, was he the best at just getting under someone's pads and driving them back? No, but if he had to get a reach block and he had to get moving, uh, 2019 would have been his first year. He was really good at the, their run scheme that year. So, um, you know, he's a much better

run blocker. And Bradbury's been good for, uh, New England. Let me look. Let me look where he's been, uh, at New England. And it might be Drake May getting rid of the ball. It might be, The schematics, like I'm not, you know, sure. I haven't watched a ton of their tape. Where does he rank? He also had this thing where from year to year, he would tend to have a good start. So he's 20th, 20th in the league by PFF. And when it comes to pass blocking 10th, he would have this issue sometimes where he would

be, he'd be 10th in the league by PFF and we'd be like, oh, Bradbury's playing well. And then he would give up five pressures and just have a bad matchup. And that's what a lot of it came down to. I always wanted to give Bradbury more credit. And I think that certain systems that ask the quarterback to hold onto the ball for three seconds are not really built for Garrett Bradbury. So this year, though, he's only allowed eight pressures. He's having at this moment, oh, so that, okay, so here's the thing.

At this moment, he's got his second highest PFF pass blocking grade. His last two games, though, 42 and 39 grades against Cleveland and Atlanta, a probably matchup based probably will end up similar to where he was. So Brando's like in that ballpark though and maybe a little bit more consistent because he's bigger. But if he faces Jalen Carter, he's going to lose. And that's just most people do. And that's how it's going to be.

But at least I think what he proved last week is that he can stabilize the offensive line and not be such a weak link that you could just attack, attack, attack. and then it's game over. And also, it helps that McCarthy can scramble. It's just a big deal that he can run away. And when you watch some of these games, whether it's Lamar or Mahomes or Allen, that scrambling element is just so big. You saw it with Justin Herbert and how he could get out and get moving.

It's enormous because nobody has time to throw anymore. There's so many blitzes, so many different schemes that teams are using. Nobody has time. In terms of Fandul question of the day, Justin has 215 yards, two touchdowns, maybe an interception. I think that's a very fair stat line. And if you can run the ball against Baltimore, throw for 215 yards, get a couple of touchdowns, especially early in the game.

You're going to give yourself a chance to win. If you get in a shootout with Lamar Jackson, it's going to be pretty tough. Boogie says, did Eric Wilson take some snaps away from Dallas Turner? I've seen Wilson lined up at outside linebacker. Absolutely did. Yeah, absolutely did. And this is where Eric Wilson is, I think, such a unique player. He came up, I believe, early in his career as a safety maybe, and because he's not the

biggest guy. He is the most jacked guy. I think if we were doing jacked guy Hall of Famers, DeNeal Hunter is the number one on the podium, can't be knocked off. Eric Wilson's pretty close. He's very, very strong. And you saw that against Jemir Gibbs. but I think they also said I mean this guy's powerful and strong and like let's got burst to

him put him on the outside if he's forced to guard a tight end he could do that if he rushes off the edge he could do that if they stunt with him and he comes inside if he drops back in coverage like he's a very unique player but I think the answer is yes that those snaps were originally designed for Dallas Turner and Turner still ended up taking 14 I think but they end up putting Ivan Pacemore in a middle linebacker type of role, I think that you're just talking about another weapon here to use. And if we just sort of stay in the here and now and don't have to get into the whole front office draft capital thing that we can discuss another day, I think Wilson's experience just plays so well with this defense. And we are getting to a

point where we have to acknowledge that it feels like Flores just needs that. Like he needs guys out there who really understand football, like, to the deepest level. And that's Eric Wilson. Eric Wilson is one of the most high IQ players you're going to run across, has seen a lot of stuff, has been with this team, two separate times, impressed multiple coaching staffs. Like, he's a good fit to be dynamic. I think that Turner is still trying to learn that.

I shot you 99. Do you think the Panthers and Vikings are in a kind of a similar situation with Bryce Young? for some reason they feel like almost the same team this season. Well, they feel like it in part when their backup quarterback play, they got killed. So that probably was similar with Andy Dalton. I think with Bryce Young, he got set back a year also by just a bad, bad situation where he had to play right away and should not have played right away, whereas McCarthy couldn't play right away, but both felt like rookies in year two.

there were setbacks. I mean, this is a similarity. Like last year, Bryce Young got benched. He was bad. And, you know, we didn't see enough of J.J. McCarthy for him to be benched. But, you know, it was a really ugly start to the season for Bryce. He looked like he couldn't play at all. And then they figured some things out with him.

He figured some things out. And they started to gel. They started to get close into games. And then the corner that I'm talking about got turned by Bryce Young. and he's come in this year and he's played well. He is not a megastar quarterback, but when you're talking about, like, how you can win, I think it is similar to what you're talking about

with J.J. McCarthy, where you just need your quarterback to do certain things for you. You don't need him to do everything for you. I'm curious. Yeah, Bryce Young, yeah, not grading super high, 5.7 yards per attempt. Like, definitely not showing. This would be the difference between him,

and McCarthy is that he's showing game manager type, and he's had some comebacks, and he's had some, you know, exciting wins for the Panthers, but he's showing game manager type level quarterback play where, hey, look at like Jacoby Brissette, that's the kind of level you're talking about. And do you find another level with a player like him? The answer is usually no, because the raw talent is not there. like he can go out there and manage an offense and he can make some nice throws he's got decent accuracy but his size and his arm strength are issues whereas with j j mccarthy like those

things are strengths for him and i remember somebody who was it that said oh mccarthy is kind of slight i was like have you seen him i oh it was uh an executive said that to mike sando like when was the last time you saw the guy He was slight when he was recovering from his knee issue and lost weight. He is not slight now. I mean, and his arm talent, like clearly the velocity on the ball. It's actually a problem. It's literally his biggest problem is he keeps throwing the ball too hard.

Like that's, I mean, you see the whiz on that thing. And you're like, yeah, the arm talent has never been an issue for him. But for Bryce Young, the bones aren't there of the how big, how hard do you throw a football? I know that O'Connell said that arm strength wasn't at the number one top of his list for arm talent and for things he looks for. But at some point, you have to have an arm where you can make plays and, you know, he doesn't have speed to run away from people. Like, he is a guy that you can only go so far with, probably, whereas McCarthy right now is playing sort of on that same level and sort of similar type of football at this moment. and you can win that way. But what you're looking for is next step, next step, next step.

And I don't think that next step is really there for Bryce Young. I think he's going to be a good quarterback. And maybe someday he'll play for the San Francisco 49ers. And he'll throw for 4,000 yards and 30 touchdowns and two interceptions. And we'll say, wow, man, it was always right there. But for now, they're building everything off of their run game and bigger personnel and defense. And it's working for them. but the Vikings have fallen into, when you're talking about the Panthers,

this same sort of tier of teams that any week, the Panthers destroyed Atlanta, got killed by the bills, beat the Packers, like, what is this team? And we felt that way with the Vikings. What you're looking for is now the full roster. The full roster of the Vikings is better than the full roster of a team like Atlanta or a team like the Panthers that you're looking to kind of leave behind, ultimately in the playoff race.

But, you know, Carolina, I think, is really well coached. I think Dave Canales has done an awesome, awesome job with that team. So that's a help as well for them elevating their talent. They have a good game plan to build off for Bryce Young. But, you know, I think one player has a little bit higher ceiling and potential long term. Also, the Vikings have Justin Jefferson, which will help them throw the football as well. Mama says we need Aaron Jones to play. totally agree totally agree that is j j mccarthy's best friend there brett has 184 yards two

touchdowns two turnovers four sacks that might be a little bit tough to win if you have two turnovers and four sacks that's a lot of negative plays and not enough production but it's not unrealistic considering the type of defense that the carolina panthers play that was an answer to the fan duel question of the day and two oh five and a half is a J.J. McCarthy's line there, so you'd have them a little bit below. The sacks need to stop, need to come down. You just, you can't always try to be a playmaker. Like, you've got to get those sacks to come down. Ahmed says Brady made a great point in the broadcast. The Viking scoring on the first drive was so crucial as it let Flores get into his aggressive play, game plan.

A thousand percent agree with that psycho Tom Brady. Totally agree. He might know a thing or two about football and I would completely agree with that and I think that it's huge this week as well where the beginning of the game, it feels so far from the ending and yet it sets the tone for the ending. It sets the tone for every other part of a football game. You get the ball and immediately tie the Detroit lines. This is where Miles Price was enormous. You immediately tie them and it's like, okay, you're not playing from behind. But the other night when I think it was Brian Murphy on this show said that he felt like if they had gone three and out and maybe, man, they're in field goal range, but let's say they go three and out, don't score, or even if they

do. And Detroit goes and scores another touchdown. And you're down 14 to three. Now you're asking JJ McCarthy to bring you back and scrambling and you're afraid to stick with the run because you're thinking if you go three and out, then you're in big trouble. Like those first two drives, those first 20 plays, 15 plays for Kevin O'Connell, J.J. McCarthy are enormous. And Here's the benefit. I was thinking about this today is, you know, the Vikings have some weird weeks a little bit at some point. You know, they play on Christmas, national TV game against the Dallas Cowboys. But for the most part, they will get normal weeks to prepare their team to run their opening scripts.

And it has been a strength of Kevin O'Connell's since he's been here to dial up that opening script that gets them in the end zone or gets them into the, at very least, into the red zone and puts points on the board. They need that badly against Baltimore. Let's see, Zumer K.O. This is 230 yards. Two touchdowns, one pick and one rushing touchdown would be a great day for them. I think they can win there. And I don't think it's an unreasonable expectation.

Son of Beaver says, I say we sign Christian Wilkins. Well, we're added to help the run defense. Could be really scary, the back half of the season. So I don't know what the deal is with Christian Watkins. Wilkins, Christian Wilkins. Something happened there that was beyond okay in the locker room. And I don't even really want to go there with that discussion. But the fact that there doesn't seem to be any conversation about Christian Wilkins makes me think that whoever is making decisions around the league is not really comfortable with that person.

So I don't know. I don't want to go into any weird. spots with that but just this is a really good player and a player who got a lot of money from the Raiders you would think that there would be interest if he was healthy and I don't know how long he's going to be out if he was even approaching full health that a lot of teams would be talking about a player like that and yet you've heard nothing makes me think that there's an off field type of concern with somebody like him I like where they're at a defensive tackle the last couple weeks obviously the Chargers game just went off the rail

but the way they stopped Barclay, the way they stopped Gibbs, putting Jalen Redman and using a real three, four, it's kind of fun to see when you go, wait a minute, that's what I used to use on Madden 1999, right? The three, four, where the two overhanging outside linebackers, two inside backers, two inside backers and three, you know, the defensive linemen, but they're on the inside shoulder of the tackle or they're playing that kind of five technique. uh, over the tackles instead of wide of them. And it's like, that's, that's three, four stuff to push Redmond out a little bit,

to push Allen out a little bit has been an interesting strategy and then having those linebackers come downhill using three linebackers with Eric Wilson and Pace and Blake Cashman. It's interesting. It's, it's an interesting strategy. And I wonder how it'll, uh, eventually be attacked if they're using that type of personnel a lot. But I think that that's kind of their plan at defensive tackle. Maybe we, I don't think there's a real other answer other than like Blake Cashman and Andrew

Van Ginkle being out there just makes such a big difference in terms of stopping the run. Let's see. Marauder says expected speedy to be traded for some capital. Are we extending him or walk and hope for conditional as well? I mean, I think you mean the compics is what you mean. Yeah, so with Jalen Naylor, I wouldn't take any piece out. Now, look, if they had gotten killed, if it was 38, three lions and you're three and five, okay, get, get Felton in there.

If you got to use Thiel and use them, get Miles Price in there, like, let's see some other guys, right? But when you get a win and your chance to make the playoffs is 30%, and you're looking forward and you're going, well, Jaden Daniels is out. Cowboys stink, giant stink, you just beat the lions. Like you're going to play the Packers. You always play them pretty tough.

Like, why not us is probably what you're saying? Why give away a piece that's helpful for you and that J.J. McCarthy has chemistry with? That's the other part, too. If we're going to say, got to do everything to find out about McCarthy, well, then you can't lop off somebody who he gets along with really well. So I think it wouldn't have made much sense there to have Jalen Naylor traded away for a conditional sixth or something. I mean, that just, what does that get you? You'd much rather just play him and then he'll sign somewhere else to get a compick down the road.

That's, that's kind of how it would, I think it would go. KFT, what about Chas Chambliss and Edge? They're just not going to play guys like that unless they have to. I mean, I like their guys that are the backups at outside. linebacker, but I like Eric Wilson a lot more than those guys, somebody who's been in the league for this long. I asked Eric Wilson today if he had played outside linebacker before and he said sometimes, you know, along the way, a little bit for Green Bay last year, I think. Eric Wilson's a proven longtime NFL player. So that's the guy you want out on the field. I know

everybody, like we like the young players and so forth, but the undrafted guys, they need to develop. We said this about Levi Drake last year. It was like, hey, why is and Levi out on the field. They have, well, give him time. Chambliss, Richter, Murphy, those guys, batty. They're all still kind of figuring it out in the NFL. You want Wilson out there. So they've used Chambliss a tiny bit.

They've used Richter a tiny bit. But you're going to see the veterans play for sure. KFT says there were a couple times where McCarthy did the overstriding thing through short 100%. Yep, 100%. And when he does the overstriding thing, you could see it right. away because it just doesn't come out with the same juice. The ball doesn't come out the same way. And you can actually see when his shoulders, trying to make sure that I sort of think

about this the right way, like his shoulders will actually like go down. They will actually dip. And then it feels like the ball goes way down with it. And then he's coming back up. And I think it's hard to throw a football accurately or put every, all of your weight into it. If your head is sort of moving around, your shoulders are moving. around like you would much rather when I did that story with Kurt Warner over the summer

and Kurt was telling me that everything started and this is why you hear O'Connell say base all the time. It's got to have the right base. But Warner was saying it starts in the feet and you're driving into the ground and turning and driving off of that back foot as you're turning and then the arm just comes along with you. He was saying he never felt like he was pushing the ball with his arm and shoulder that his arm was coming along with his whole body that was rotating, and that was creating the velocity.

So when you see the ball come down, the shoulders dip, and then he's pushing it, that's when it's not going to be accurate. So look, they're rebuilding somebody's throwing motion on the fly while asking him to win football games. It's not the easiest thing. But when he gets it right, gosh, it's good. It's very, very good when he gets it right. So I think you just have to accept that sometimes, just like with your golf shot,

where let's say you're doing a lot more practice and you're out there working with Tiger Woods and he's showing you how to do it just because you're working with a great coach doesn't mean you're going to get it perfect but what you're looking for is getting it better and more consistent and you're still going to pull your head sometimes as a golfer but you're not going to do it anywhere as much as you originally did and that's what they're looking for for him. KFT says Bow Nix has the same limitations he had in college. Denver has designed their offense around his limitations. He is no Drew Bruce. Well, nobody's no Drew Breeze. Drew Breeze is a top 15 quarterback in history. So,

yeah, it's a tough comp. Yeah, Nick's is one where, uh, had a friend who used to come on the show a lot. Eric Eager used to be with PFF now works for an NFL team. And he used to talk about how everyone was wrong about Cam Newton. And it was a, it was a good line because he, was right. You know, people just either hated Cam Newton or loved them. They treated him like he was flawless or they treated him like he was garbage. And both people were wrong. He was not flawless, but he sure as heck was not garbage. He was an excellent quarterback who had the capability when he got hot throwing the football of being the best quarterback in the league. But he was not the best quarterback in the league. He was not untouchable. And he had one MVP season and he had a lot of

other 500 type years where it was up and down and that's cam newton right you can love cam newton and admit that he has flaws and the same way kind of goes for bo necks where it seems that people think because he's a winner and he is third in the league in touchdowns with 17 that he is just this superstar that is untouchable and that's not the truth right now by pf let me see here guys with 50% of snaps. He's 18th by PFF. Littlehead of Jackson Dart right behind Trevor Lawrence. I think Trevor Lawrence is kind of a good comp for him. Same ballpark as Caleb Williams. The touchdown stats help him. He is a good scrambler. He's just not the most consistently accurate, but your point is exactly right. They've worked that offense to just be right around, right,

right around him. It's how he needs to play. He was a quick pass guy who never, never took any sacks in college, and that's what they've got him doing now. Marauder says, used to do Patriots youth camps. Matt Light told me that Tom couldn't even play chess in the locker room without being ultra competitive to the point of throwing the board if he lost. Yeah, that's right, man. That's right. And you hear this about a lot of people who are total freaks.

Now, you don't have to act like that, although even the top chess players sometimes lose it. And they've played hundreds of thousands of games, but even they still flip a board from time to time. But that's the thing, right? Like, even at any sport, the elite chess players are psychotic. And I like to follow chess tournaments and top players and stuff like that. Total nut cases about chess. Hundreds of thousands of games. There's a streamer who will play for eight hours straight on his live stream. I mean, like, what, what? I streamed for two hours and I'm like, man, you guys warm me out while it's football.

This guy's out here playing chess on, you know, chess.com for eight straight hours and doing crazy. Like, that's how football players are, though. There was a story somebody told, and I'm trying to think it was a Dominique Foxworth, might have been Dominique Foxworth, somebody, that they had gone to a wedding in, I don't know, Maui or something, right? And everybody stayed up all night at the wedding, partying, you know, after were and all that at the reception and till morning, right, watching the sun come up

partying in Maui. And the guy said it was like six in the morning. He's still awake from the night before, I've been partying all night, and he sees on the beach, Tom Brady throwing with somebody and like really throwing, dropbacks, like letting loose, not just tossing for fun, but like going through his entire workout after they had just had this wedding and it was Maui, it's the offseason, whatever, and that's what Tom Brady's doing. That's what you're looking for in your quarterback. So if your quarterback seems really well adjusted, he might be putting on, you know, maybe a face in front of the media

or he might not make it. You know, there's just not too many. Even when you, even when you see like Eli and Peyton talk to each other about football, like the energy in that room when those guys talk football and the passion for that is just through the roof. That's why they're fun to watch. Like, they're funny and joke around, but they're nuts. They're nuts about football. Zoom or K.O., did you see Kurt Warner say the Felkin's offense makes him want to crash out? How can you have Bijon Robinson have the lowest play action league?

Yeah, well, also, how can you know, Zach Robinson, who I interviewed for my book, actually, football is a numbers game, worked at PFF. And I do think that, you know, with Michael Pennix, you want to run out of the shotgun because that's what he's most comfortable with. but Zach, you know, comes from the Sean McVeigh system and just, I don't know. Like, it might be a feel thing, a play calling thing. It might be a forest through the trees or trying a little too hard to be creative thing. I don't know.

I haven't watched all of Atlanta's games. I have watched maybe two this year so far. So I haven't studied their tape, but that is really surprising. Let me take a look at where, and Pennix is not graded very well this year. I think because he has not had the number of big-time throws that he did last year. So are they trying to, like, protect him with quick stuff all the time when he's really a downfield type of passer? I don't know. That's an interesting question.

Let me look at drop-back percentage with play. Yeah, lowest in the league. Lowest in the league for Michael Pennix. That's usually a system from McVeigh that has a lot of play action. I don't understand that. It's a great question. Mama says Anthony Edwards is a psycho. Oh, yeah, totally.

Yep. Anthony Edwards and J.J. McCarthy, you know, McCarthy keeps the language in check, unlike Anthony Edwards at times. But there's similarities there. Yep, there's definitely similarities there. Let's see. Marauder says, is O'Connell getting Ingram fired, or are we going to the NFC Championship? Who is Ingram?

I don't know. I don't know who that is. Are you going to the NFC championship? Maybe this would be the year. You'll have to tell me who you mean for getting someone fired. Justin says, I survived the L.A. game. Thank you, Vikings. Thanks for calling me tough last week.

Yeah. Well, hey, look, this is why I knew that you guys wouldn't disappear. I heard this from a lot of you, and I saw it. I'm checking out. I just can't take it anymore. And you are so freaking back. And this franchise knows exactly how to do that, exactly how to, right when you're about to bail, right when you've had enough, then they're like, oh, but what about this?

It's like, I don't know, 2009 to 2010, you have Farve do the thing. And maybe you're like, I can't do it anymore. And then Farv says, I'm back and you're like, we're so back. look it's Minnesota Vikings fans this if you're still here that means you're here like don't even pretend you're not I think the biggest difference though is the amount that you feel like hearing about it I could see being different so I'm not saying I'm not saying if you don't download this show you are not a real Vikings fan I understand that if the team is three and and Carson Wentz just

Carson Wentz and you lost by 27 points and it seems like the season is over it's like yeah I don't know if I want to listen to a two hour show I get that and some of you are also psychos who want to listen and talk about the front office and everything which is great and I'm glad to have you

but I get the sentiment of just feeling broken by this team but the new energy that has been pumped into this team the locker room the franchise the fan base by that win in Detroit. They got to build on it. And I think you got to win at least two out of the next four.

But suddenly, no matter what happens going forward, it became interesting again. It became, oh, this is watchable every Sunday. Even if it doesn't go perfectly, this is something you want to see. Zoom or K.O., what do you think of a Baker-Mayfield comp to McCarthy, mobility and competitive energy? I like that. The big difference there is pretty simple.

simple. Well, McCarthy's a little bigger. The big, the big difference is that Baker Mayfield is from day one, from college, super accurate with the football. Now, he hasn't always been flawless with that in the NFL. And I think that his size has something to do with it, but actually throwing the touch, the downfield passing, the fitting it into windows, the anticipation. I mean, he's, he's kind of more of a marksman than J.J. McCarthy. So that, but the competitive energy and stuff, yeah. I mean, I don't know that he, like, I think Mayfield came out with too much of a chip on his shoulder

where he was just kind of being a bit of a jerk early in his career. Maybe, you know, look, when a quarterback early in his career, and this is like the rewriting of Baker Mayfield is like, oh, he was always cool and it was just his teams, not always. And he's grown up, but I think he's admitted that, you know, he would come out and say some stuff early in his career, we'd be like, dude, what? Like, what are you doing?

It wouldn't go over well in the locker room, wouldn't go over well with the team. I think there was some entitled elements to him. That chip on the shoulder could be too big. And so I think McCarthy is farther ahead when it comes to that, like in terms of his overall attitude, where Mayfields has changed to be more like McCarthy, actually, these days. Let's see, KFT, hoping the O-line is better this week. Hopefully they are getting healthy. So I thought the O-line did a really good job last week.

I honestly think that McCartner, Well, I don't just think this is also the grading as well. Like, I think he walked his way into a lot of those pressures last week and a lot of those sacks last week. And not to say that they didn't get beat at all up front, but if, I mean, if you're looking at for last week, and I'm going to try to pull this up here in week nine, yeah, McCarthy was given two of his own sacks. and maybe there were free runners and nobody was assigned some of the other ones. But I thought that he was responsible for a couple of the sacks and a couple of the pressures, get rid of the football.

Overall, they played well enough to win up front. And they need to be at that level. But you're never going to expect someone to be perfect as far as the offensive line. I thought they were much closer to the version we expected them to be. And they're playing Aidan Hutchinson. That's the Ravens don't have Aidan Hutchinson. that's like a complete different type of dude um um a med uh or yeah um med uh j j stat line for the fan dual is over unders 25 yards on fan duel a hundred and ninety seven yards two

touchdowns no picks uh one heart in mouth runs that ends with him barely avoiding a big hit yeah yeah probably uh son of beavers what game was i watching from ninety seven who's actually Vikings and Lions at Detroit. So I didn't know what the result was. I like to just look at, I go to YouTube, type in what I'm, you know, a matchup or something. Sometimes it'll be just, hey, Monday night football 2003, something like that. So I just typed in before I got on the plane, Vikings Lions 97. I didn't remember what happened in that game.

And it was a complete blowout. The Vikings lost. It was a terrible game. I didn't know that though. So I watch it and you learn something every single time. You learn about the seasons for the teams and how down Detroit was that year. And they came back and watching Barry Sanders go off was fun and Herman Moore and that, you know, those guys. So it was fun to watch and listen to the broadcasters talk about the different storylines from that point in the season.

It's probably my favorite thing about watching old games is to be like, oh yeah, right. Like that was happening. Brad had gotten hot. Brad Johnson had gotten hot. So they were talking about how Brad Johnson's been amazing. amazing coming into this game and then kind of melted down in that game. So, yeah, it was, it was interesting, but not one that you would remember, I think. Marauder says, JJ's going under 230, but three touchdowns again.

Could see that. Jay has 175 yards, two touchdowns, one interception. Nicholas has, for the Fandual question of the day, 234, two touchdowns, one touchdown run and an interception. Yeah, there's going to be, there's going to be probably, you know, a mistake mixed in there. But you can't have multiple mistakes. You can't have a bunch of them. You can't get like a little bit out over your skis there like I thought he did in the second quarter and kind of got away with it. Not a twerk.

Bird eyes wonder what that helmet would look like. Well, a lot of guys with the bird eyes, a lot of them have such amazing instincts that they just sense stuff. They just, they know it's there. They catch the tiniest little micro glimpse of something and understand it. Andrew Van Ginkle today said to us that when he got knocked down, now imagine you get drilled by somebody running full speed, you get thrown to the ground. He still saw where the linemen were and was like, oh, this is a screen.

So I know that the runner might be coming my way and turned himself around and made the tackle. that's that's having eyes in the back of your head that's just being completely freakish when it comes to your instincts so that's what you have to be I think when it comes uh to being a great player in the NFL you have to have instincts where you just understand and everything with talent is like this way you know great musicians you can I can teach you how to play guitar in two weeks but great musicians have some sort of instinct that's built in and hardwired into them that no one can really understand.

Great golfers. I know every person knows that person who that when they were eight, I have a friend who's a sports writer in Buffalo whose son is like a prodigy golfer. And from the time that the kid was like six, he was better than me. Like who knows? Why does that happen? What in his DNA? You have to have that, I think, with football to be great at this game.

not just speed, not just, you know, pure power and stuff like that. Let's see. I got to start pumping some Purple Insider merch. Yeah, you know, it's hard. It's like keeping up with everything. Keeping up with, you know, going out to the press conferences, doing the show, doing the articles, Purple Insider.com football. If you want to support the show that I, designing T-shirts is pretty far down.

on the list, but maybe someday, maybe in the summer. Zumer K.R. The Packers cooked without Tucker Kraft. I cooked would be a little bit too aggressive for me. I think they could still win the division. Tucker Kraft, I don't want to say, look, to say that Tucker Kraft's success was all scheme would be wrong. He's great with the football on his hands.

His average depth of target list was like four and a half yards. So they were getting him the ball really quickly. And then he was creating after the catch and some of that was schematic. I don't think it's impossible to recreate some of that. I do think they're going to miss, I know it's weird, but miss Ben Sims a little bit as there is some of their depth. It will hurt them. I don't think it will destroy them.

They still strike me as like a 10 or 11 win type of team. Aaron never forget when someone said in training camp that Eric Wilson would be cut before the season started. He's been a top five. Yeah, I don't remember who said that. Did a commenter say that? I've always been an Eric Wilson guy. We demand eight-hour live streams that go for your entire workday.

Yeah, well, you'd have to bring buddy downstairs. Yeah, I'd have to bring you on walks with buddy. I'd have to bring you out to the TCO Performance Center. I guess, you know, maybe a vlog someday is what I need to do. An eight-hour vlog and then I'll just run it on the live stream. Sam says Tom Brady was every Vikings fan when he said when the Vikings got first down and goal at the three. Now, the Vikings should give the ball to Jordan Mason and then watched as, perplexed as K.O. went past, past. Yeah. And O'Connell, look, he is right that McCarthy

needs to get down in that spot. That's an inexperienced type of mistake. But I think it does say that like the play is designed to either throw it to T.J. Hawkinson or basically kneel down and then kick the field goal. It's not designed to run out of bounce. Um, so maybe, you know, sometimes when we talk about play calls, this is a hard thing. This is why I hate going down that road of play calls sometimes because I'm like, well, the play is designed to throw it to Hockets Center or slide down, right, and then kick a field goal and you'll be fine and keep the clock running. But then the player runs out of bounds.

And it's funny because the Jerry Burns rant, if you've never seen it, the Jerry Burns ran from 1989, came up today because it happened on this day in 1989. And one of the things that Jerry Burns is ranting about and going crazy and saying, it's not Bob Shelker's fault and, you know, using the F word about 300 times is the offensive coordinator getting blamed for stuff where players make mistakes. And he's saying, well, this, you know, this guy made a stupid play and this guy threw the ball low on this. And that's where, you know, with the play calling, sometimes a player makes a mistake that we

don't even know about. And we go, why did you call that play? And maybe, you know, the quarterback sought wrong. Receiver ran a wrong route. Something happens. Or there's some bad luck on the play. In that case, J.J. McCarthy just needed. decide and he didn't and then it looks bad on the on the play caller uh Aaron says the

Pennix and London connection is crazy good yeah no it has been and that's where if they I think could push the ball down the field Atlanta's offense could be dangerous but they seem to want to be going with this really short type of stuff and I don't really fully understand it I think him running play action out of the shotgun would probably be a little bit better. Jay saying you, you're enjoying the content and you followed the Vikings for a long time. It's great to hear. Great to hear.

Really appreciate that. I really appreciate all of you dropping by big audience here tonight for the stream. Thank you very much for that. Hopefully also you saw that I talked with Steve Palazolo from Check the Mike podcast. Great breakdown of the NFC North, the front office kind of thought process going back to the offseason with the Vikings and how it looks right now and how all of it's. changed and you know things like that really good conversations these one of i think the smartest people out there talking about football so we did that earlier you can uh go check that out see kft if k o c oc has a good game plan for j j he will be okay especially if the o line is good the first

i'll say it again i'll probably say it all week i'll probably say it the rest of the year first 15 plays if you can execute them and get on the board play from ahead j j j mccarthy will be okay if you're asking him to play from behind, if there's mistakes early, if you're asking him to throw you back into games, that's going to be a lot, a lot harder. In three years, maybe even next year, yeah, you could probably do that. Right now, I don't think he's in a spot where he can do that. Mike says you were bang on about Wilson this summer,

thought he'd be good depth, definitely left his mark. Yeah, I mean, I had the advantage of covering Eric before, and he was just widely, widely loved and appreciated by the Vikings before. And there's a few teammates that are still around and remember him. He's a quiet guy. He's not the most talkative. He's not going to be out there, you know, having a lot of press conferences and, you know,

on whatever, social media hyping himself up or anything else like that. It just goes about his business. But he's a very good football player. And there's a lot to be said for guys who can do multiple things. And that's Brian Flores' philosophy. And that's kind of why he's here. uh zoomer kho the jerry burns ran is so good they can't show it on ESPN no there's just too many beeps it would get annoying with the number of f bombs that he dropped uh did we fix the

the the kickoff i don't think anyone's talking about it's great to have it back i think so yeah i think so you know it looks a little different it looks a little different and i think at first people were like i don't i don't like anything new and then i understand this i don't don't like change either. They changed the Halloween baking championship and I almost lost it. If somebody knows what I'm talking about there, I would love that. But, you know, like no one, it's the game you love. You don't like a whole lot of change. But once you kind of get used to how it initially looks, the play just starts and it's a kick return and what, 70% of kicks are getting return these days? Kick returners are back. I love the fact that Miles Price is a player on the

Minnesota Vikings. It's great because that guy wouldn't be here. They would just throw Ty Chandler or whatever running back back there. They cut Kenny Wongwood. They didn't care about it. And it's like, why should you? The guy's going to get 10 returns a year. Now that's a real player with real value. And guys who are special teams tacklers are going to matter too. Players are going to develop more because they actually could get out there and make plays. It's great. I love having it back. Is it perfect? Probably not. But you know, there's that whole like perfect. Perfect. and enemy of good kind of thing. This is good.

It's good to have this be a real play. And you can't just, you know, run to the refrigerator and make an entire meal while you're waiting for football to come back anymore. KFT did Samuels leave Carolina, at least from the reports, it sounds like he's scheduled to meet with five or six teams. I don't have the whole list.

Green Bay was on it. The Vikings were on it in front of me right now. But I think he's going to do the whole tour first and then make a decision. decision. That's at least what it sounds like. So, oh, okay. Oh, not a twerck says the comment earlier about firing or NFC championship game relates to every time we've lost to the Ravens, we fired a coach every time we've won NFC championship game. Okay, okay. That I was, I was just not following that one. Yeah, I did see that. I did see someone brought that up to me that there's

been that coincidence i gotcha yeah okay marauder you know what i'm talking about the the baking championships they've just they changed them and i just didn't like it as much i didn't like it the same way yeah the sudden death thing it's like you don't you didn't i like the initial challenge it's not quite nine o'clock yet that was our rule right after nine it's the initial challenge and then somebody gets an advantage and then they have the real bake off but then they did it opposite way where you have all the best bakers standing around watching as two of the worst bakers or three of the worst bakers bake off and you're like, I don't want to watch these people. These are the bad people. Just get rid of them. Didn't like that. Didn't like that. I don't

know if you've watched the holiday one yet. But if it's the same way, that's going to be really annoying. Anyway, if you're rewatching and have not thought about that Fandual question of the day as you've been listening along, leave it in the comments. 205.5 for J.J. McCarthy is the over-under for him for this game. And what do you think his stat line is going to be against the Ravens? Garrett says, is Josh Oliver and C.J. Ham available for the Baltimore game. Does not seem like Josh Oliver, C.J. Ham seems possible. Huge for the offense. I think it's huge for the past pro to have C.J. Ham back. Yeah. Oh, okay. I haven't seen the S&L bake-off stuff. I have not, I have not seen that.

Not a whole lot of time to watch anything except for football these days. The Broncos are wearing their throwback uniforms. Let's just leave it that way. That's when you talk about change, ultimately, good things will just always come back. The Broncos Unis, the Tampa Bay Unis, just leave it that way. Anyway, let's see. So tomorrow night we'll have Manny Hill picks the schedule.

And I'll probably go live again. I'm assuming tomorrow night, continue to answer questions. bring you updates from TCO Performance Center. I'll be out there for coordinators. So we'll see what we could take away for them. Hey, the kick return and the penalties. I did ask about that last week and we got a full breakdown, but, you know, I'm sure we'll discuss it more again with Matt Daniels,

West Phillips, Brian Flores on how the defense was different, the return of Andrew Van Ginkle and how much of a difference that made. Lots to discuss usually Justin Jefferson talks on Thursday. So we'll hear from him about McCarthy's first start. I'll bring you a lot of that from there. the injury report, any more updates and things that happened around the league. So we'll have a good time then. But can't thank you guys enough for a great chat.

It's fantastic. Great questions, great comments, thoughts. And, you know, that's why I enjoy doing this is nights like tonight, where we can have a really good conversation and mix in a little bit of holiday baking championships. So anyway, thanks for watching and listening. Can't make this an eight hour one. Got to go right a little bit. Purple insider dot football, make sure you check it out if you have.

not yet so far. And we will see you all tomorrow night. Thanks for watching slash listening everyone. See you then. Football.