Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Brian Flores interviews for Commanders DC job, Thielen retires (Part 2)

Episode Date: January 15, 2026

Matthew Coller reacts to the Vikings DC Brian Flores interviewing for a "lateral" position for the first time. What are the chances he leaves? Also the Steelers will interview him for their HC job. And Adam Thielen called it a career. Plus some strange new details on Jordan Addison's arrest. The Purple Insider podcast is brought to you by FanDuel. Also, check out our sponsor HIMS at https://hims.com/purpleinsider Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

This episode of Purple Insider is presented by Fandul. A reminder about that Fandul question of the day, which was, which one of these games do you think has the best chance to come down to the final play this weekend? The Bills and Broncos, the line is shifted on Fandul. The Broncos are now one and a half point favorites. The 49ers are seven and a half point under, or no, seven point underdogs to the Seattle Seahawks. England Patriots, three-point favorites in New England against the use of the Texans, and the Rams are three and a half point favorites against the Chicago Bears, which one of those games comes down to the final moment. That's your Fandul question of the day. Let's get back

to your questions here. Let's see. Score one more says, unfortunately for Adam, he got the same treatment that made him leave in the first place, very few touches. Well, contract was part of that to. His contract was signed when he was an elite wide receiver. And after 2022, that really just wasn't the case. I mean, age kind of comes for everybody. Receivers after 30, very dicey. Like, I mean, it's really hit or miss receivers after 30. Or if you're Jerry Rice, it's 40. But that's not usually how it goes. So, you know, Thielen certainly was not the same by 2022. Played pretty well in Carolina. I thought it had a good Carolina career. Help Bryce Young a lot take the next step. But then I go back to what was said to me by a hockey goalie,

Marty Barron, great guy, a long time ago, he said that once you think about retirement, you're retired. And I think Adam Thielen probably wishes now once he was thinking about retirement in the offseason for Carolina that he just called it a day. But he got to play in one more playoff game and just didn't work out. But you're right. Yep, he didn't get a lot of touches here. and it was, it's just, it just wasn't that big of a deal. I mean, Mr. Mayor says, you know, he could have had the heroes send off. And, and that's right. Like, he didn't, he cared about trying to get to the playoffs and getting a bigger role

down the stretch of his last few games. If you're going to go out, go out in a playoff game. But the hero sendoff would have been nice for everybody in Minnesota. I don't, I don't disagree with that. I just think, you know, Farv went back to Green Bay and like time heals all wounds. I think I, no one will ever. think of that when they think of the legacy of Adam Thielen. Modern Moose says for me personally, he once had a special place in my memory as a hometown

guy, but after the back and forth stuff, the memory faded average player with average moments. Good story. No, no, no, no, no. Come on, man. See, that's what I mean. It's like right now, if you're mad at him, which I don't really see that, I just don't see that as egregious.

He didn't go to the Packers. Like, he went to Carolina and the Steelers. This is how careers often end in the NFL. There is so many, I mean, when I watch playoff games, old playoff games, I am always amazed to remember random guys that played for random teams. I'll give you a great example. So the other day, I'm watching Baltimore play against Miami, I think in 2001.

And the running back is former Viking Terry Allen. And he was with the Vikings in like 93 or something. And he's still playing in 0-1 for the Baltimore Ravens. And they've got Shannon Sharp at tight end. You're like, oh, yeah, that's right. Super Bowl champion Shannon Sharp for the Baltimore Ravens. It happens, right? Guys go to other teams.

They try to hang on for a little bit longer. You only get one life and you only get one shot to play in the NFL. And the way he looked at it, let me go get one more playoff game if I can. And he did it to call him average. I mean, we're talking about, you know, putting him in that Mount Rushmore, of great Vikings wide receivers are at least in that ballpark. So no, he was not average. He was a pro bowl caliber player, part of the,

maybe the best duo in the NFL at the time, guys who got them to the, you know, NFC championship game, ton of passing success while they were there. Adrian, who contributed more digs or Thielen? I think digs, but I could be wrong. The, you know, the Minneapolis Merricko is huge. Diggs in 2019. Remember, they went to the playoffs.

Thielen made an incredible catch in the playoffs to set up the game winning score. But over that season, struggled with injury. And Diggs was healthier over his career. I mean, I remember hearing from some people about, like, Diggs versus Thielen, that there was a little more shifting of the coverages. Like, he got more respect. But Thelan made them pay for the respect of Diggs or made them pay for one-on-one coverage. I think that they were one-a and one B. you know, if you were talking about, like, who was more gifted,

I think it was, you know, I'll tell you the way that it was described to me once by a wide receiver's coach. Now, I can't remember who it was, who their wide receivers coach was when they were here. But I did a story one time about those two being, like, the best duo in the league. And whoever the wide receivers coach was at the time said that Diggs was like a Ferrari, like you, you, like run super hot and you got to kind of like throttle them back sometimes. take him out the field sometimes, get it, you know, and Thielen was kind of like a truck.

Like he would just play after play after play, like a little more consistency, you know, like play with more power than he did finesse, which, you know, Diggs was a very finesse type of player. They were both great. I mean, they were great. A dream for a quarterback to have those guys. Let's see.

Raymond says things that Danielle Hunter gets in the Hall of Fame. Very possible. Very possible. Jay, welcome to purple purgatory. See, you can never, this is what I find funny sometimes about when we're in a situation like this, where it looks like, there's so much unresolved, right? And I don't want, I'm not the person saying, no, trust them, it'll be fine. Because, of course, like, I don't know.

Like, why trust them? They haven't want to play off game. But I never want to be definitive because sometimes Sam, Darnell wins 14 games. Like, having been here, I will tell you, I spent the entire 2017 season the whole time arguing with people that Case Keenan was just not good enough. And what I got at the end was they were, they were in the NFC championship and then he was not good enough in the NFC championship.

And I'm like, okay, so was he good enough or not? Like, I mean, he gave away the Minneapolis Miracle game, but then won it at the end with that throw. So was he good enough or not? Like, but the things that we've seen, I mean, Sam Bradford didn't have a great resume, came in and played really, really well. And Keenham had been a backup who almost got cut for Taylor Heineke and he played really well. I mean, I just, you know, who could ever tell the stats on Sam Darnold.

If you looked really close, you could see it. Like when Darnold had good opportunities, he played well in his past. So you could see it like on play action or on clean pocket passing or, you know, that sort of thing. But I mean, look at those overall numbers. Look at the overall record. I think he was 2135 when he got. here. So that's why I'm always fascinated by people who have seen this entire thing play out for the Vikings and then are like, no, that would never work. I don't know. Sometimes it does. And even with

J.J. McCarthy, like, you can't say for sure that there's no turnaround there. Mr. Mayor, how many people can be in the ring of honor? How big is the ring? I don't know. I mean, I assume the franchise is going to go on for a very long time. So I don't, I don't think that there's a limit. But if you start putting in, this is a little bit of the trouble you run into is if you kind of throw in, you know, your Anthony bars, your Xavier Rhodes, your, you know, your Delvin Cooks or Kirk Cousins, those guys, I mean, then you're opening the door to a lot of other guys from other areas like, hey, wait a minute. I had as many probles. Like, are we throwing Henry Thomas in there? You know, like I had as many probals. It has, it has to be the upper echelon. That's why I mentioned.

and DeNeil, because I think he's got a good chance at being in the Hall of Fame and Harrison Smith, those might be the only two guys. It would be setting the bar. And like, these are great players. These are great players. But where's the bar got to be? I mean, I think the bar has got to be like guys who are right there for making the Hall of Fame. But with Thielen, that's a little trickier because he's, you know, he's the Minnesotan and was one of the best top five in franchise history. but is not really like a borderline Hall of Fame player.

So I don't know. Marauder says Broncos Buffalo will be a field goal game. So the biggest difference will be Seattle and the 49ers because Darnold chokes and throws three picks. Hey, man, you guys, you guys just make real, real jerks out of yourself with the Darnold stuff. I don't get it. I've said before.

I don't understand it. What did he do to you? Sam Darnold did nothing to you except for just play really, really well. until the team got beat. You know what's never mentioned about the Detroit game is that they had the ball, like the two-yard line couldn't run in? I don't know.

I'm not saying he didn't play poorly, but it's always, it's with certain quarterbacks, like Justin Herbert, it's always his team's fault. It's always the coach, whatever, but when Darnold lost last year was entirely his fault.

It's weird to me. It's weird how we do that. Some quarterbacks get a free pass when they lose. Other quarterbacks are big chokers, and it's all their fault. I don't really fully understand how we do it. Maybe someone will have to let me know. But as far as that game, I mean, I think it's going to be very hard.

If the 49ers win the game, then it's a last second win. I don't think the 49ers can win that game by, like you're saying, like the big gap. I think that's just you being a hater. But when it comes to Buffalo Broncos, I think that's a really good pick for the fan duel question of the day. Scamping around says more excited for Kyler season than JJ at this point. Well, I mean, because Kyler's played well before in his career. I feel like that the people who are so against Kyler,

I mean, how many truly, how many truly games have you watched? Or did you just see one report about video games, which I'm sure 80% of the league plays video games? I mean, or that like it was written into his contract, how much film he had to watch or something, which I think was leaked out there by a GM on his last legs who wanted to hedge if the contract went bad. I mean, I'm not saying he's a great, great quarterback. I don't know that he's a very good fit necessarily for Kevin O'Connell. I just think that under scrutiny, the arguments don't hold up very well.

If they got his last full season here, they would have been a really, really good team this year. They would have been scary going into the playoffs if they had him. He's played much, much, much better football in his career than we saw this year by any Viking quarterback by about 50 miles. So that's the thing for me. I think that there are, you know, Mr. Marrises, I could see a world where it works. That's the point that I make about Kyler. At least you could see it. At least you can imagine it.

If you told me that Aaron Rogers came here, it's like, I don't even at this point, can you imagine? that that would work. Like, I can't. If it's a Jimmy Garapolo, can you even imagine that that works when the other quarterbacks in the division are Caleb and golf and love? Like, no.

But, I mean, all of those quarterbacks have played really well, but they're not perfect. And I think that's the case for Murray. I think it's a lot about his contract, a lot about where that franchise is at. They tanked. That franchise is terrible.

They are at the absolute bottom. So, of course, they're not going to pay a quarterback who's 12th to 15th best in the league when he's healthy. Kerpupi says, my problem with Kyler isn't Kyler. It's KOC's ability to amend the playbook. Now, see, that is a fair assessment right there, is how would that relationship work with how they want to play football versus his limitations? The height is a serious limitation.

I mean, he did have a very, very good season throwing the ball to the Yondre Hopkins. Let me look it up. What did he do throwing to D'Andre Hopkins? Let me take a peek at that. So it's not, I mean, if the main goal here is to get just the Jefferson, the ball, a hell of a lot more, let's see. In Arizona, we had one season while he was hurt. So 2020 was the season where he was the most healthy and played with Kyler.

This is DeAndre Hopkins. He had 115 receptions, a 74% complete. completion percentage, 1400 yards. And Kyler Murray's quarterback rating when throwing to him was 110. So it's not like, it's not like he can't throw the ball to a number one wide receiver when he put up numbers like that throwing to DeAndre Hopkins. Those are superstar numbers. 75% completion percentage 110 quarterback rating when targeting Hopkins. I think Jefferson is better than Hopkins.

So, you know, I don't know. Like, that's a, it's at least compelling. It's at least interesting to talk about. That's the trouble with someone like, you know, Mac Jones. Is it's just not interesting to talk about? Is there a high end for Mac Jones? No. Like, there's, he, this year, what he did with San Francisco, he went five and three.

And he had a 97 quarterback rating through a lot of successful short passes. Great job for a backup quarterback. Love that for him. You know, we're the connoisseurs here of journeyman quarterback. We love the journeyman quarterback. We support the Josh Johnson's of the world and the Josh McCowns. We love that. But as far as if that guy's going to be your starting quarterback,

you're limited in where you could go. At very least, what you could see is Murray getting hot and going crazy and doing some wild stuff and having a really fun season and throwing to Justin Jefferson, 110 times like he did with DeAndre Hopkins, at least you could see it. Dave says, Kyler Murray's a good quarterback, not for K.O. You're obsessed with that guy.

I'm not obsessed with anything. I want to know what quarterback idea you have. Do you have a better idea? If they feel, here's the amendment on the Kyler Murray thing or the asterisk in italics or whatever, is this is only if they're out, that I would say that's the best option. If they're still in on J.J. McCarthy, then yes,

Mack Jones is fine. Yes, Gino Smith is fine. Yes, I don't know if, I don't think I could get, you know, Malik Willis because he's going to have options, but that would be fine if they could and have it be a competition. Maybe the league's not as high on Malik Willis as, I think they are. And what he did in Green Bay. Okay.

it's not an obsession. It's a lack of options. I would love to give you 36 quarterbacks that we could break down one by one. And I could look at their numbers and I could interview other reporters about, oh, all these quarterbacks, there's not 36. There's nobody in the draft. As far as I could see, Ty Simpson or like, that's not for me. And the guy who's going number one, Fernando Mendoza, he's going number one. so you're not getting him. Dante Moore's not coming out. You're not drafting a quarterback to develop

them anyway. So there's only so many options I can give you. And when I look at all of them, I think, okay, Lamar, Burrow, and Herbert, yes, yes, yes, but likelihood is probably about 2% that any of those guys are available. So who's next? If they're out, Kyler is the next best guy. Because do you want to make a case for Kirk? Do you want to be the guy, Dave, who's obsessed with Kirk? And, I mean, there are Kirk people still, I'm sure. Do you want to be that person who's talking to, do you want me to talk about bringing back Kirk the whole time? Kyler Murray's interesting because Kyler Murray's been really dang good at times.

And he's a number one pick and he scrambles all over the place and he's got a big arm. And when he played the Vikings in 2021, it was crazy. He had an 80 yard touchdown. He had a horrible interception. He ran away from Daniel Hunter. It was, it was a barrel of fun. It was a circus watching. him play against the Vikings. I don't know. Does that, like,

are, if you're talking about taking me to, uh, some sort of, I don't know, ice cream shop that has all sorts of different flavors and they make their own ice cream and they're trying all sorts of different crazy combinations, some of them are probably awful, but I'm much more interested than going to a place that's serving vanilla chocolate and strawberry. And to me, vanilla chocolate and strawberry is Mack Jones, Kirk Cousins, Aaron Rogers, Jimmy Garopolo. And the other place that might serve crap, but it also might be amazing,

is Kyler Murray, Gino Smith, because at least there's a wide range of potential outcomes for those guys. Yurtle says, what about Baker? Only has a year left on his contract. I just, if they're keeping Todd Bulls, I don't think they're getting rid of Baker. That's how I would see that.

But sure, your argument about like, as far as like stay in the pocket. The problem with a lot of these arguments is that like I can look it up. That I think just like I was saying with throwing to D'Andre Hopkins where he had 154 targets and 115 receptions, 75% completion percentage throwing to D'Andre Hopkins. That sounds like that'll work with Justin Jefferson. And even when we look at last year, I'm going to pull this up, look at last year, time in the pocket. I'll pull this up.

And next time I'll do a better job at sharing the screen. So it's like cropped correctly. So you guys can see this. But I'll pull this up from 2024. And how many passes Kyler Murray through in under two and a half seconds? Let's take a look. Kyler Murray. And this is the problem with facts because they sort of blow up some narrative sometimes.

And by problem, I mean, why I use them so much. Kyler Murray, in terms of his percentage, can I get this on the screen? Okay. Maybe I can move this around to get it on the screen. Okay, maybe not. You could see that percentage, though, right? Okay, you could see the percentage. Now I'm going to move my cursor down and find Kyler Murray.

It's right there. 48% of the time he was under two and a half seconds, which was 12th in the league. So he had the 12th most passes. under two and a half seconds. I'll check what percentage were screens or behind the line of scrimmage. And I'm sure it was a good amount because they were trying to throw the ball quick. So we'll look that up.

Behind the line of scrimmage, only 16% of his passes. So short and intermediate passes. I have this here with me with the data for Kyla Murray. Short and intermediate passes made up 66% of his throws, short and intermediate passes. and he was 12th in throws under two and a half seconds. So this idea that he just takes the ball and runs all over the place, I think that was probably true for him as a rookie. I don't think that was true for him last year.

There was a lot of discussion last year about how they did a good job with him. And Drew Petting did a good job. It's just this year he got hurt and they decided to lose every game with Jacoby Reset. Jay says Caleb Williams doesn't stay in the pocket with Ben Johnson's offense. Gough did and they were, well, that's a fair argument. Yeah, it's a fair argument. But my point is, my point is that that's just, it's just not true by the numbers that he was just taking the snap

and running all over the place when 48% of his passes were coming in two and a half seconds and he wasn't throwing a lot behind the line of scrimmage. Adrian says, why does KOC need to run, need a QB to run his offense? Why can't he adjust his offense to the QB like Harbaugh, McVeigh, Shanahan? I mean, look, we, I feel like we've been over this. he did. He just, he did. Halfway through the season, it's, it's right there.

I mean, they come out of that by week and McCarthy's in and they're running a lot more than they're passing and the Ravens game, they were doing it, but then they get behind and they have turnovers and then he's throwing a million passes. And the rest of the season, it is a balanced offense that's more run than pass. They switched to bigger personnel groupings. They had CJ Ham out there playing career highs for. for snaps, or at least career highs under KOC for snaps. They started throwing everything to the outside.

They weren't using the middle of the field anymore. Like, there's a lot of things that we could point to that they changed. But it's very hard to know at the beginning of the season when the guy comes out of training camp, running your full offense, has a good training camp, plays one game and wins, plays one game and loses, and then is out for five weeks. Why didn't you adjust the offense? I mean, when? He was out for five weeks.

they came back. They won the first game he returned with a run first offense. They fumble a kickoff against Baltimore. He throws some interceptions against Baltimore. They get behind two scores. They throw all the time. They were down in Green Bay. They throw all the time. Chicago is a run first game.

The rest of the way is run first. And it's a lot of, you know, play actions and rolling them out and stuff, throwing to the outside. Like, I don't know, man. Like, really what it is is like, Why didn't it work? Awesome. And when you talk about like Shanahan or McVay, when John Wolford played for McVay, look that up. When Nick Mullins played for Shanahan, look that up.

I mean, Harbaugh, I don't know. Do you love that offense? They just fired their OC, assuming you're talking about Jim Harbaugh. The quarterback wasn't ready to play in the NFL. I think that was really the answer. That was the answer. Big yuck says nobody's worried about Jordan. If he keeps it up, we'll cut him or trade him.

McCarthy is still our quarterback. Oh, well. I mean, yeah, I mean, I think that, uh, I think there is concern about Jordan Addison, but you're right. Like this, this is maybe a breaking point for everybody with Jordan Addison. Because it looked like it was a, a turnaround type of story. And it looked like he was headed in the right direction toward getting himself, like, on the straight and arrow. And this, let's be clear about this. He did not commit a homicide, he was trespassing and seems like maybe not going along with the people throwing him out of a casino. It's not the worst thing I've ever heard. But when you have this pattern of behavior, you just can't lock yourself into somebody long term. That's the issue right there,

is that when they have this many incidents, then you cannot be certain where they're going to be, when they're going to be. And if he, I mean, this, this feels like a thing that just gets dropped. I mean, it's just such not a serious crime that is unlikely to get Jordan Addison locked up for life. Okay. So it feels like a thing that probably is not a lot. But it's more about the pattern of every offseason, every time you're away from the facility,

you have no idea what's going to happen with the guy. I thought, in terms of. egregious, can we rank Jordan Addison, egregious mistakes? The DUI and the driving 140 is a death wish. If you've ever gone 92, like, you know how fast that is. That's a death wish. DUI is a death wish. I mean, those things were really scary and disturbing.

This is just what's going on. This is much more of a, like, throw your hands up. All right, this, there's no controlling this situation. There's no trusting this person. That's more of what this is than, some sort of egregious crime that he's committed. And innocent until proven guilty, of course, though, you know, whatever it is will be on tape and there will be, but there's no way this is going to turn into like some really

serious thing. It's much more about the trust. Can you pay someone who makes another headline and has already had these problems happen? But is it an issue? Oh, you bet your ass it's an issue because this is a guy who's really darn good at football. And he had a down year. this year, didn't catch some passes that he usually catches, which I scratched my head over.

But even with a down year, he's still averaged 14.5 yards per reception. He is tremendous at contested catches, going up and getting it, route running all those things. So losing that potentially for a fourth round pick to trade him away or cutting him or whatever, I mean, that's just not where you want to be. He's a, in terms of talent evaluation, I mean, they nailed it. He's a great, great talent would be a number one wide receiver on a lot of other teams. But, you know, Mr. Mayor says Naylor's good enough to be a quality wide receiver two. We could survive without Addison.

Yep, I agree. I agree that he is a very solid wide receiver. And I think that he can absolutely take on wide receiver two duties in this offense. With golf a worse record. How many, how many, little trivia here. What's the last, I guess I might have to look this up myself. What's the last top five offense the Minnesota Vikings have had? So Jared Goff, I think, has done it five times in his career.

What's the last one the Vikings had? 0, 9. I don't think they've had this is 0.9. I don't think you could be trashed. I don't think you could be trashed talking Jared Goff, man. your quarterback play over the years has dreamed of being uh jared golf uh has anyone told you that they don't care for a coach you mean like players uh no no i i i didn't have that happen this year in the past i've had that happen but no

no i i think that the players overall this is i can't speak for every player but i think the players or do you mean oh are you saying oh i think you're reacted to when i said that the players have told me that they like Chris Cooper. Has anyone ever told you they didn't care of her coach? Oh, you bet your ass they have. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Yes.

Oh, yes. Yes, they have. Yes, they have. Have they ever? Have they ever? Oh, yeah. Yes, they have. But in this instance, they have not.

So as far as I know, the offensive linemen, if they changed offensive line coaches, I would get it. Because they've been sacked. a lot and they had to deal with a lot this year of changes, but they didn't deal with it, maybe always the best. I don't know. I think they've had much better offensive lines under Chris Cooper in the last few years overall, and they just dealt with a lot this year.

That's my take on that. It feels like just looking for someone who has to be thrown into the volcano. That's my feel on it. But as far as how the players see it, um, I have had conversations with players, not necessarily for the record on Chris Cooper. And I think they really appreciate his playing experience that has gone along with it. I think that how was it described to me by Garrett Bradbury? He said that they're given like the tools to do things the way they think that they should be done while they're out there,

which is kind of how Flores coaches the defense. If you have Ryan Kelly, it's awesome. And if you don't, it's a lot harder. So I guess that goes for just about anybody. But I'm sorry. You may be laugh because I can't tell the stories there because it's off the record. But that is funny. There have been some disliked coaches along the way.

Collar is trolling with the Murray talk. Look, dude, they got Sam Darnel. I promise you that you were the guy in the comment section when they signed, before they signed Sam Darnel when I was having. Go back and watch. watch the episode where I presented the Sam Darnold idea in 2024 to Jeremiah Surles and he he hated it. Like these things are realistic, man.

It's, it's not trolling. It's right there for you. Everything that people try to blow up with Kyler Murray seems to not really match up with how he's actually played. I mean, he's played well. Has he played great? No, that's why he's available. But he's played well.

when he's been in. He's had some injuries, and that's really, you know, a major part of the problem. Zoomer says, I think the talk about explosive plays answers the third biggest question of the offseason about toning down the passing aggression. More conservative play calling is trending and passing numbers are down and they think they're different. It's not working across the NFL, but it will work for us. You know, I think that you could say that, but then what's the explanation for last year? Last year passing numbers were down. Last year, teams were more conservative throwing the ball. Still, that trend was happening.

Last year, Mel Kiper went on television and demanded that two high safety defenses be banned. That's how much the passing games were down. And the Vikings led the NFL in explosive plays in 114 games. This offense knows how to get guys open against too deep. They just need a quarterback that can throw the full. ball. Is Murray more hurt than McCarthy? Murray has had injuries that are part of the equation, for sure. Tor the ACL came back, played 17 games, 24, and then got hurt this year.

I have no doubt that he could have come back, but they were like, why bother? They're losing every game, and they could draft high. Some teams do that. Sometimes it works out. Sometimes it doesn't. Rache says, honestly, think Kyler, like Kyler more than most, always been a bit of an apologist for him, but I don't think he's a good fit with KOC's system. So that's where I go back to the, the DeAndre Hopkins stats.

Like he was able to get him the ball a lot. I mean, I, I guess I just, is there proof that KOC needs a guy to stand? I mean, I don't know. Is there? Like, didn't they get J.J. McCarthy in part because of his wheels? Didn't they praise the heck out of McCarthy for his playmaking outside of the pocket? it like i don't understand this isn't one of the reasons kirk isn't here is because he couldn't make a dang play right is it isn't it like i just i don't know uh philip says gno's a better

fit than murray and has much less personality work ethic baggage and that might be true i don't know what gino's like his team decided not to stick with him in seattle but i guess i also didn't cover kiler murray so i don't know how much of that stuff is true you guys have decided that, you know, he has major personality issues based on a small amount of stuff. But, I mean, you could be right. I think that's a concern. It is because that's out there. But I don't know how both of them are to work with for coaches.

I think Kyler's had two coaches, Cliff Kingsbury and Drew Petzing. And that was it. Well, you know, that was his offensive coordinator. That's it for his career, right? Just those two guys. But as far as Gino being. a fit. I, here's why I like, here's why I like Gino. I like Gino for this because J.J. McCarthy might be able to beat him out. J.J. McCarthy's not beating out Kyler Murray. He's coming

here to start. So I don't really love the idea of it just being over for J.J. McCarthy. So I'd prefer someone that he can compete with, but if that person wins, they could get to the playoffs. Ron likes the idea of signing Malik Willis. If Malik Willis, so you guys are, You guys are like talking about Kyler and being short. This isn't the draft. He's played in the NFL guys. This isn't the draft. Like he has a sample size of NFL play that has its ups and downs.

And the last time he played a full season, he was a top half of the league starting quarterback overall. Like he could play in the NFL at 5 foot 9. It's just not, that's not really a discussion. Now, your question about whether he would be able to play in Kevin O'Connell's system as a, you know, maybe you're talking about playing a lot more from the pocket. Now, he is a really good anticipation thrower sometimes. And then other times gets wild and comes off his first read and scrambles around and

can be very frustrating. So I don't know how good of a fit that would be. I think that's very fair. Malik Willis is, I think Malik Willis is a really good idea. But can you convince Malik Willis to come here if, there's competition. Now, that depends on how people feel about Malik Willis. I've talked about the number of snaps. Malik Willis hasn't even thrown 100 passes since he left Tennessee.

But I like that idea of a competition between those two. If you're Miami, if you're Arizona, are you just like throwing a bunch of money at him to see if there's something there, though? That might be more attractive to Malik Willis than having to compete with J.J. McCarthy. That's really the question for me. Raymond, I believe Flores is looking for a stable team with a quarterback, which is not this team at the moment. That's my guess. I think it's a very reasonable guess that not having any idea what's going to happen at quarterback is a little scary. If you're the defensive coordinator, because you might have to carry the team through the whole season.

You've got to be perfect. Zumer chaos is the Cardinals being so inept as one of the most interesting things about Kyler. I agree. I agree. I totally agree because that's where it comes back to that Sam Darnold thing or the Baker Mayfield thing. There is precedent here with these top draft picks that they have enough talent, right? There is precedent here with the top draft picks that if they find the right organization

with some stability, it can work a lot better. Arizona is garbage as a franchise. They're one of the worst franchises in the NFL. And I'm not saying it hasn't been his fall, some of it. But how much, I mean, when he didn't play, have you seen, I had this stat, somebody else tweeted it, and I looked it up and, you know, confirmed it, put in an article. I believe Kyler was like under Jonathan Gannon 13 and 17, you know, like a little under 500 on a bad team. When he didn't play, they were two and 19.

Like, that's how bad they were. And Jacoby Preset's not that bad. And they lost every game. They're absolutely terrible. And they've been that way. It's Cliff Kingsbury just got fired again. folks, right? Is Cliff Kingsbury? Great. He just got fired again. So I don't know. Like, if you're, if you're telling me, if you told me that, hey, you got to win a playoff game or you are toast, you can have Kirkback, Gino Smith, Kyler Murray, Mack Jones. I'd be like, well, give me Kyler. It's either going to be great or terrible. Let's go. That's, that's how. I see it.

Because if you give me Gino Smith, look at Gino Smith's career, right? Good franchise, as we know, from Seattle. Nine wins, 10 wins. It's not bad. But then you want to talk about bad? He played worse last year than Kyler has ever played. It's not even close. So I'd probably take my chances there.

Arons says Will Fries didn't practice halfway through training camp, could he have a big bounce back year? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I thought, and I thought in the middle of the season, Will Fries was playing legitimately well, but that wears on you when you don't have that full training camp. So I expect better from him next year. It's really, we knew when it happened that it wasn't going to be a $17 million guard, but it coming short of Dalton Rizzer just looks bad. Is Davis Mills an option? I don't think so. Davis Mills, to me, is a great backup quarterback, phenomenal backup quarterback. But there's never been anything there from Davis Mills that says to me,

oh, yeah, he's really a starter who's been developing, possibly, but he never pushes the ball down the field at all when he plays. Zumer Chaos is Bradbury, one of the biggest reasons why I like the Texans versus the Pats. I think that's fair. That's definitely fair. With Sheldon Rankins, who is a tough guy to match up with, Will K. Campbell. But C.J. Stroud's got to figure out what he's doing with that football.

That's the thing. Stroud's got, I mean, that was a mess. Just couldn't even take the snap the other than. I don't know what was going on with Stroud. He, did he get anxious or, you know, I don't know. Was the pressure? Was the crowd? But he got bailed out in that game. But the Texans could win the Super Bowl with that defense, though. That is like a Trent Dilfer. We always make that comparison of Trent Dilfer or Peyton Manning's like once a decade, though. once a decade somebody goes to the Super Bowl with just their defense and the Texans could do it. Rache says Flores is kind of a unique case because of the lawsuit, also the Tua drama,

not saying it's a lock that Flores comes back, but it's a unique situation, no idea what will happen. Perfect, perfect summation. None of us have any idea what's going to happen with Flores. And you talk about a unique case, it's extremely unique. It's unique that he's available. it's unique that he's suing the league. It's unique that his former quarterback said he was a bad person, which is a wild thing to say.

But is also they're about to get rid of that quarterback. So, yeah, there's so many layers to it. Phillips says, Matt, dang Matt, you did the work. Hey, that's what I do all day, man. That's what I do all day. Look into stuff and then write about it and come here and talk about it. That's what makes it fun, right? Phillips says we better use all the picks.

I mean, I know that trading down, now the words trading down makes people very upset because of what happened. This would probably be a year to do it, though, to trade down and try to get as many picks as you possibly can because you need to find, as we were talking about earlier, you need to find depth. You need to find the next, I don't know, Stefan Diggs, you need to hit on a random pick somewhere, sometime. Pizza Gary. We should be planning for two to three years from now with a new center. KOC, Quacey, JJ, all of our picks, dumping everyone else. Yeah, I mean, so I look at that as a if this goes wrong, yes. But you can't really do that now.

Like you've already gone this far down the road. So I'm saying, yeah, you need to trade down, get more picks and everything. And I think that's the right thing to do for the first. franchise, but would you be surprised if they just trade to picks for somebody? Like, I wouldn't. You've already gone this far. That's how I look at 2026 overall is you've already come this far to build the team this way, to have these players. You've got Jefferson and Darrisaw in their primes. Darisaw, let's assume he comes back healthy. You've got, you know, I was going to throw Addison out there, but we'll see about, you know, where that goes. But they've got a lot of players on

the defensive side. They've got an offensive line that I think is a center away for being really, really good if it could stay healthy. And they've got a coach that here's what you can at very least say about Kevin O'Connell is that when I talk about Kyler Murray, what am I really referring to? It's really variance. What I'm saying is that when Miguel Sinoz stepped up to the plate, he struck out a lot more than he hit a home run, but when he hit a home run, it went really far. And if you could give me a pop gun shortstop hitter who's going to roll one through the left side enough times to hit, you know, 280 versus a guy that can show up every once in a while and swing for the fences and crush it. Well, I'm probably just going to take the guy who could crush it because at least there's

one good outcome if it works. And actually, O'Connell aiming for explosives, Flores, aiming for blitzes, it all matches up with that type of philosophy. And pushing the chips to the middle of the table also, most of the time doesn't work. Most teams don't win the Super Bowl, but you might as well go for it. Like you might as well push the chips to the middle of the table. When they moved on from Kirk,

that was my argument. I don't know if J.J. McCarthy's going to be good, but I'm willing to take the chance. And then what changed it, you know, really was Darnold, who I think that the NFL is the most reactionary league in the entire universe. And maybe there was a little overreaction

there. But they caught the right side of variance with Sam Darnold. That's the point, right? Like I think we said last year, why was Darnold the better pick? I mean, 2024 offseason. Why was Darnold the better pick than Joe Flacco? Because there's no world where Joe Flacco gets you anywhere.

But there is a world where it works with Sam Darnold and it works. So I don't know. I'm willing to take those shots. Zumer K. Fandul question of the day, which was, looking at which game is likely to be the closest. Says I'm most intrigued by Bill's Broncos.

I'd pick the Broncos if I had to, but feeling most unsure about this game, something about Josh Allen, maybe the injuries to Josh Allen. Phillips says, you're making more sense tonight than I'm used to. Been hating on you recently, but you're making sense.

Well, that's kind of you, Philip. You know, what ends up happening, here's the thing about this show. is you're not always going to like the approach. It's a little more aggressive than some from the Midwest because I didn't grow up here. And I've actually brought it down about five notches

from when I was in the east, I think. And you're not always going to like the ideas that I bring to the table. And they're not always going to do them. Sometimes they do. Sometimes they don't. But what you can count on is that, I'm going to look it up.

That's what we can count on. That no matter what the take is, I'm going to look it up. I'm going to have the numbers. I'm going to have, you know, thought out for you. I don't show up and sit on the chair and just sort of make it up. I think these things over. And I look up the data and I let it guide me and I always have and I wrote a book on the numbers. It's right behind me.

And that's how I do it. so sometimes you don't love it, but I think you have to respect it. I think that's probably where you're at, Philip. You have to respect it. I looked into it, whatever it is that we're talking about. I went to every single press conference this year. I went to the owner's meetings. I went to the combine.

I went to every KOC availability. I went to every single open locker room. And I have every single data subscription from true media to fantasy CFTN with DVOA to PFF to whatever, like, I'm trying, I'm trying my best. So that's why I kind of laugh when I get the, like you're trolling or whatever. Like, hey, I'm the, I'm the one that went and asked Quasi Adolfo Menza at that press conference. I asked him about how he evaluated that decision last year. And when the answer came, it didn't sound like we feel good about it.

It didn't sound like we can't wait for JJ to take the next step. It sounded like we regret it. so then we start looking at other quarterbacks. It's not always right. Certainly not. I wouldn't expect it to be because I've said this before. If I was right all the time, it would be really boring. And it's not always being, you know, I try to be right as much as I can,

but that's not how I grade the show. I grade it on how much fun we have talking about football. If it's, if it's energetic and interesting, P.Y, thank you so much. much for the super chat. Really appreciate that. Keep up the content. Thank you.

Thank you for that. AP Carlin says they've talked about adding a lot of talent to the QB room. I see a world where they would add Gino and Kyler. How about a world where they add? How about this? How about this? How about a world where they trade a fifth round draft pick for Anthony Richardson and add Kyler Murray.

And it's just a circus. It's just a car. It's just a cartoon when it comes to the training camp next year. Man, can you imagine those recaps? I get in here after those recaps. I've been out there for like 90 degrees and I'm sweating. And it's been, you know, I've been out there for whatever number about. I'm just like, all right, here's all the throws McCarthy made.

He had a deep out route. Like, can you imagine that if that was the quarterback competition? Gino, Anthony Richardson, J.J. McCarthy. and how about Josh Johnson just for the hell of it? How about Cade McNown shows up or something? Friends of Taz, Vikings running backs were mid-level, but no breakaway ability. Totally agree with that. Yep, totally agree with that.

Vikings pass more because they have some of the best receivers in the league. JJ needed more time to start. He'll be fine. The last part, I have no idea if he'll be fine. I mean, it probably feels good to say it, but none of us have any idea. if he will or not. But your point about a breakaway running back is something that I did write about the other day. And everything feels like silly to talk about.

It's not the quarterback or Brian Flores. But I did write about the running backs the other day. And something that you brought up, the, the explosiveness was just not there. And I do think that we're talking about a different running back, looking at Aaron Jones's contract, looking at his production last year. It just age 32, none of it. makes any sense. Philip, JJ being, see, this is where you're not going to like me now, Philip,

JJ being six and four. I mean, so QB wins in a big, bigger sample is pretty decent as far as, like, you can use it to look at a quarterback and say, well, you know, the guy started 30 games and they're not winning a whole heck of a lot. But six and four, you didn't even make it through two of those games. I mean, you could give him the wins if you want, but he didn't even make it through two of those games. I don't know how you, and six, six and four is like,

let's just say he gets half of wins. And it's, I mean, that's not great. There's nothing to take away from that. Here's the reality. Once again, the reality is, and you can look this up if you want, the first 10 starts of J.J. McCarthy's career, have the same quarterback rating as, Christian ponder exactly the same. And I'll get you one, I'll get you one worse. I came up with

this yesterday. So there's, there's a worse that I got to look it up because I had it yesterday in my article. There's a stat that will really kind of hit home with this. And I'm still saying, by the way, I'm still the one that's saying, like, don't, don't throw this out. Don't get rid of JJ. Give him a chance. He really cares. He's got a lot of talent. We saw the flashes, like all those things.

But as a numbers person, it's really hard to justify. So let me get you the number. I actually took a picture of this one and sent it to my wife. This is how concerning this stat was. I'll read it to you. McCarthy's adjusted net yards per attempt. So that's yards per attempt. but adjusted for Saxon interceptions, okay?

His adjusted net yards per attempt is 4.3 so far. Since 2010, there are 12 quarterbacks who were drafted between picks 5 and 64, so not top three picks, 5 and 64 who averaged under 5.0 adjusted net yards per attempt. So he has 4.3. There are 12 quarterbacks who have averaged under 5 in their first 10 starts. the only one that got a third season of starting was Justin Fields. And the other ones are Brock Osweiler, E.J. Manuel, Kenny Pickett, Johnny Mansell, Christian Ponder, Blaine Gabbard, Dwayne Haskins, Deshawn Kaiser, Jimmy Cawson, and Josh Rosen.

So once again, in terms of adjusted net yards per attempt, the guys under five, Will Levis was over five. the guys who were under five did not get a lot of chances. So that's why, well, I am very willing to say that they should have a situation where McCarthy can compete. They also have the numbers about what history says when you play like this at the beginning of your career. It's just not a likely outcome. And everything to me is just percentage chances. What's the percentage chance that that when all those other quarterbacks who were similar, did not work out turns into them buying fully into him.

It's not high. What's the chance of it turning around to the point that you could really win in the playoffs next year? That's a hard one to do too based on the just amount of time that you have to get better. Do I think that there is a chance because of who he is and how hard you know he's going to work and the physical talent and the competitiveness and all that stuff? Like the flashes that we saw. Yeah.

I mean, it's all, it's all. It's all on the table. But the history of this points to you're probably looking at extreme competition. How did they phrase it? I got to memorize this to use it all offseason. What was it deep? Deep and talented something competition. Definitely deep was the competition.

Friends of Tas says cousins has at least four of the top eight passing seasons in franchise history would be cool if he retired in Minnesota. I mean, I wouldn't be shocked if Kirk came back. I certainly wouldn't. If he does, then that's probably it for J.J. McCarthy. So that is probably my issue with it, is that if he comes back, he's coming back to start. And then you know that McCarthy's not even going to get really a chance there. They'll say that it's a competition, but he won't take any first team reps.

It would be all Kirk Cousins coming back to be the starter. and the ceiling on that's just not that high. That would be my issue. Is the ceiling on cousins several years later, the ceiling in his prime wasn't that high. The ceiling several years later is definitely not that high. Jay says I'm an Oregon fan. Glad our quarterback's coming back now.

The Jets have no draft options. Yeah, you know, you're right. They don't. But the Jets is, they've been doing the same thing forever, which is being all the way at the bottom with an organization that's not working and then draft a quarterback to save them. This is actually better for them.

It's better for them that they're ready to have a full team when they get their quarterback, as opposed to we're drafting Zach Wilson to save this thing. We're drafting Sam Darnold to save this thing. You don't want that. Aaron says, who's the case Keenham of this offseason? Malik Willis? I don't know. I think that's Davis Mills, probably.

It would have to be somebody who was a career backup and really never got to start. learn to swim i always get this wrong because there's too many letters weren't to swimify uh perhaps giving up on the dream is to say too much but if b flow leaves he will invariably have to start over and risk underperforming yeah no that's that's a risk i'm sure for him if he's talking about going somewhere else is if you go to washington and you finish with the 23rd best defense you go oh yeah jimmies and joes right van ginkles and grannards and cashmonds matter a lot. But he is a guy that is risky by trade and might be willing to do it.

Phillips says Seahawks are too good in balance. Top two defense in the league, one of the top running games, top wide receiver. Darnold doesn't have to drop back 40 times against the team he knows is dropping back 40 times. That's really good analysis. I think that San Francisco here is going into this game with kind of a you know, a knife to a gunfight kind of situation where the Seahawks are maybe the most complete team in the NFL. The issue they do have is, I think, in past protection, when you're talking about straight drop, if they get into a straight drop back game, I don't believe they have a great straight drop back offensive line.

Their interior, their guards can be suspect. You know, they've got a rookie in Gray's Zabel. The other guy is really bad at pass protection. Their tackles can be beat. and we know that Darnold, in that sort of straight dropback game, has a tendency to take too many sacks, to scramble backwards and take a 20-yard sack. He did that early in the San Francisco game.

But what the Seahawks need to do, and I remember this used to be a conversation with Fav, how he would get like too jacked up at the beginning of games. I think that Darnold has that happen in some of the big games. It gets too jacked up at the beginning. They can slowly build into that with their run game. But they are very, very complete. uh philip i could see a world where j j works out before kyle you mean like it beats him in a competition

maybe maybe i think if you're signing him though you're signing him to start uh j go sam darnals shove it up the vikings blank show them you were a good leader good qb i mean he's already done it we are we are past the point we are past the point where we're saying, can Sam really do it? He won 14 games again, won the week 18 game, hosting a home playoff game. Even if they lose, he was in that big of a game while you sat home and watched him. Like to me, you're past the point of, oh, yeah, we're going to use every single game to judge a guy who's gone 286 in the last two years as a starting quarterback. Like that, to me, that's just gone.

I know that everybody moves the goalposts on him like no other quarterback I've ever seen. It's, well, he has this amazing drive, a game-winning drive against the Rams in overtime. Well, you know, they got lucky because the Rams did this. Let's see what he does in the week 18 game. Well, then he plays well, well, you know, the Seahawks are a better team. And now it's this where it's a playoff game. You could lose. But if he wins, it only throws for 150 yards.

Well, you know, he just had this good team. He's not actually good. I mean, it's very clear that the 2025 Minnesota Vikings minus $41 million of players would be at least a 10-win team, if not more than that, if Sam Darnel was playing here. They made a mistake. And had J.J. McCarthy been ready, then it wouldn't have been a mistake. It would have been like, good for Sam, good for you. But they mis-evaluated how far along J.J. McCarthy was. He needed a year behind Sam Darnold.

And they jumped the gun. And when Quasi Adolfo Mensa says, well, we had to make the decision on incomplete information. Well, not really. You had complete information on Sam Darnold. And you didn't have to do that. You made it sound like you had to do that. I know, that's not what he said. But it's like, it makes it sound like, well, you know, we just had to take that, take that risk.

You didn't. You could have split the difference. You could have said publicly, I know everyone loves J.J. McCarthy, but he's not ready yet. He's just that year. destroyed his progress and we need to rebuild him. That was there for you. Ron says how many times has Murray been to the playoffs? Why take on that contract?

Very important here, Ron. Not taking on the contract. Not taking on the contract. This would be only under a situation where they release him and you could sign him for like 10 million bucks. 20, probably 20 is more realistic like Justin Fields got. Not taking on the contract. No, no, no, no.

And as far as like how many times he's been to the playoffs, the answer is he has been to the playoffs in his best season. He was in the postseason, 2021, played the Super Bowl champions, did not play well in that game, lost to the ultimate Super Bowl champions, but did make the playoffs. How many times did Sam Darnold make the playoffs before he got here? Not many. Aaron says how many first round quarterbacks drafted in the first round with Dante Moore going back to Oregon? I'm going to say one.

I am just not a believer at all in Ty Simpson. I mean, how much, how much is the draft analysis world just in tears right now? Because they don't have any quarterbacks to talk about. Friends of Taz, I agree, they need a young running back, explosive running back. Jay, why are the Vikings owners holding on to Quasi? Proven record of four good signings out of 30? I don't know what you mean. Are you talking about draft picks or I don't know what you mean good signings, but because they have a ton of good signings.

As far as why they're holding on to him, I mean, they went that, look, this year was a total failure. They went nine and eight. It's, they're not in a position as a franchise to me where you're just lost and you need to fire people and it's falling apart and it's a mess. I, I just don't think that they're in a spot where you should just be firing. everybody. I think fans always wanting to fire people is probably why some guys get fired. But I don't think they're in that spot. I think that the pressure is now on, though.

The heat is turned up for 2026. They have been a healthy franchise that players want to sign with that has been very competitive under Quasi Adaf Omenza and Kevin O'Connell. And now the rubber is meeting the road. They made their big decision. It did not work out. here we go. Like now it's,

now it's, I don't know. I usually stay by FCC rules. Is nut cutting time FCC? But that's kind of like, I don't even know where that comes from. Does that have to do with walnuts or something? I don't know.

Jay says, what would you offer for Justin Herbert? I would go, considering the contract you're taking on, that's where it's hard to say multiple, like many firsts. I would probably go at least Grenard in a first. and maybe a second that could become a first if he wins a playoff game.

How about that? He'll wence and stick with the plant. Look, I mean, you can like that idea. You can like that idea to have a regular old backup and stick with McCarthy. And I don't even hate it because I think you drafted him, you develop him, you make it work. And if it blows up in your face, then we'll have somebody else clean up the wreckage. But that's just not realistic at this point. What type of ice cream with Josh Allen and Joe Burrow be.

They'd be ice cream that you guys have never tasted. A-O! Unless, although the OGs, there are a lot of OGs who listen to the show, who did see Frantargeton play. So I shouldn't say never. Some of you have. And I appreciate all the folks who watch this team play in the 60s and 70s that mentioned, you know, Fran Targiton and the old history, too.

Corey says, I hope to see, let's see, trying to make sense of the first sentence there. Oh, I see what you're saying. You're hoping to see them team up McCarthy with someone who studies the game and is always working on improving that maybe there's just not enough of those guys out there. Yeah, I mean, I think that like not having Carson Wentz in there the whole time probably heard him. Sam Howell was just, that's just an awful idea. That's just a god awful idea. The guy couldn't play and I never got the impression in the slightest that he and JJ McCarthy were like working together on stuff or the, he was like 25.

He couldn't offer any insight. That's just a terrible idea. I thought it's probably, you know, when they got him, I was like, okay, I mean, I guess. It just means that they're all in, but it turned out to be a very bad idea. And then they get Wentz, they needed Wentz in April to help McCarty. from day one. Hunter says, I feel frustrated when people say something is wrong without actual evidence to back it up, such as Matt Daniels, KOC, not adjusting and complaining about the play calling. Well, yeah, I mean, I think some of that Hunter is just when you have things go wrong,

that it stands out so much more. Like, if you, if you went through your day, this is just how our brains are wired, right? If you went through your day and everything went totally fine, but you hit your shin when you woke up and your wife or partner asks you, how, how is your day? You're like, man, drilled my shin this morning. Well, how was everything else? That was all right. Well, that's kind of like the special teams.

It's, I mean, top punting unit, top kicking. I had, and if you think, well, those guys, what are those matter? Well, I mean, he stuck with the punter for years, played a role in drafting the kicker, found the kick returner. They were a really good punt coverage unit with a rookie wide receiver in the punt gunner spot. I mean, goodness. Like there's a lot there of success. But those couple of moments are bad.

You know, some called back long returns. The fumble against the Ravens is pretty tough. Case goal on Addison, not a diva but makes bad choices that hurt the team. I mean, I thought that Quasi Adolph-Menzza laid it out really well. really, really well, which was, I think he is a good teammate. And I think he is on point with mostly with his playing and how he acts when he's in the building. But you just can't trust him outside of it. You just can't trust him outside of the building.

And I don't know. How can you go farther? Oops. Says Malik Willis, are you high? No. No, I'm not. This would be, I ran out of Diet Dr. pepper, though. So we're just rolling with water tonight.

It's terrible. I hate it. Malik Willis is a very interesting option because he has the raw tools and now experience with a very, very good coach who probably won't get fired, Matt LaFleur. And part of the reason he won't get fired is because even when Malik Willis had to play, he looked so prepared. was the thing I really loved about Malik Willis. He came in and just stepped under center. Like, I got this.

Ran the offense, got guys lined up, ran his plays. It was like, whoa, he looks like a real true pro quarterback. He threw the ball extremely well. He gained like 100-something yards rushing and only, you know, a little bit of playing time. But it's a very little amount of playing time. The talent is there. It's he might be a guy that just had the experience. Sometimes you have to, you have to roll the dice.

ideally it would be great to have him his competition for McCarthy. It's just that there's too many teams out there that are going to need a quarterback. But I mean, you heard it from Kevin O'Connell when I asked him about at the end of the year, he spoke very glowingly of the way that Malik Willis has developed. Is this Kalin? Sorry, if I got that wrong. Do you think JJ McCarthy has a legitimate shot of being good? It seems like from listening to you have very skeptical view of him,

which I think is fair, but I can also see upside on the, like most rookies. So legitimate shot, if I think of everything in terms of percentages, if it was like a needle, let's say with the, after week one, the needle would have been on, like with the comeback win and everything, it would have been on like 70% chance that I think that JJ McCarthy could be really good after that game. And after the Atlanta game, it came back to life a little bit,

but I wasn't at all giving up on him. After the game, I said they could still win 11 games with McCarthy. This was just a bad night. Then he gets hurt and the needle goes back because you're not developing five weeks away from the game. Then he wins against the Lions and he looks like, hey, there's all the flashes we were talking about. He showed everything that we liked about him back to 70%. Reset the meter. And then those next couple of games, the inaccuracy was so troubling that I think the meter would have to go down that if you're not even completing 60%

percent of your passes in 2025 that you got and you're turning the ball over and taking sacks. J.J. McCarthy, this is crazy. Took more sacks this year than Bo Nix. That's insane. That tells you a lot.

Like the negative plays tell you a lot. So as that was happening, taking sacks, getting another injury, think about his numbers we talk about. He didn't even play Seattle. Like, what happens if he plays Seattle? So the numbers go back. after that, they drift back to what, what's the percentage chance with a performance like this and injuries like this that it still works out? And it's sub 50%.

And then it's probably going quite a bit down because after the first six starts, you're talking about some of the worst numbers that we've seen in the last decade. Then at the end of the season, progress is made against bad defenses and some even in just, you know, exhibition style type of play in the last game. He gets injured again. I think the needle, and then the way that the team talks about him, the needle has to be somewhere like 30 to 40% at best. And then as I read you that stat, guys with similar performances,

I mean, the Blaine Gabberts and the E.J. manuals. And I mean, they often, their teams often move on pretty quickly. They don't even wait around to find out. So skeptical is a great way to put it because there's also a lot throughout this season that I saw individual plays where I went, Yeah, that's the type of throw. Yeah, that's the type of scramble that Anzolone touched out where he, you know, juks out the Lions linebacker.

That's phenomenal. I'm always an advocate of the scrambling quarterback, the running quarterback. But just from a number's perspective, it's just the percentages are just not in his favor. And that's always where I'm going to be is with what history tells me. And if you go back and look at the Sam Darnold article, I wrote of like, this is how you get talked into Sam Darnold was maybe the name of the article. It was looking into, hey, when he had good circumstances, how did he perform? And you could actually see where he performed pretty well.

When he threw to a good receiver, when he had play action, like things like that. So, you know, that that's what I think is always going to guide me. And my thoughts is just what the percentages are. But can you see stuff there? that if it came together, my, my concern about it coming together is not that it couldn't happen. It's that when is it going to happen? Because let's say he was playing for the Raiders and he played like this. You go, well, the Raiders are terrible, but the Vikings are not terrible. They won 14 games the year before. So, okay, well, you know, he, okay, if he played for the Raiders,

then he, if he had played 17 games this year for the Vikings and went nine and eight, and had some rough stats, I'd be like, well, at least we saw 600 passes and he could build on that. We saw 250 passes. That's less than half a season. When did these games and these throws, when do they happen to get better and better and better? Ashley, heard you talk about Kyler Murray. How do we create the cap space? The assumption is that they would cut him, Ashley.

That's that they're going to cut him. Like Kyler Murray got cut by the Broncos. And then the, I don't know if he has offsetting. language, but remember when the Steelers signed him for like 800,000, or whatever, whatever they paid, they paid very little out of his contract because the Broncos had to pay it with the offsetting language. So it's, it could be a little bit on the complex side, but I, I would never do it for his current contract.

No way. That, that I should always mention it. For his current contract, absolutely not. son of beavers do you think the Vikings looked ahead and saw the free agent market was going to be very good and planned ahead with Cap Room because they knew they were not going to be high impact players you mean last year yeah I think last year that was part of it was looking ahead to this year's free agency probably not that special um but more it was more we won 14 games last year we got to do everything to take advantage and do that again

And oftentimes, teams that do that in free agency get burned by it. There's a reason teams gave away Javon Hardgrave and Jonathan Allen and things like that. So if you're chasing the top free agents, a lot of times, it can be suspect. Good point by Rache, virtually every quarterback drafted early shows flashes sometimes. That's true. That's true. And that's why, you know, when I go through that other list, someone asked me not too long ago, like, hey, did E.J. Manuel ever have games where he was great?

Like, the answer is, yeah, he did. I was there. He did. He had games where his, I think it was his second start where he had this, this great comeback win against Carolina and everyone was all in. Philip, I had a half hour phone calling. You're still rolling. Yeah, time's gone by quick tonight. I've got to finish up my article, guys. I've got an article I'm, you know, writing, recapping the Flores thing. And I'm looking at wide receivers, the wide receiver situation. So I got to get back to work. The dog, where's the dog? He's asleep. Oh my gosh. I wish I could show you guys the dog.

He's on his bed and he's dead asleep. He has no takes on Kyler Murray. I mean, I see his tongue hanging out. He's just, this is great. Sometimes he gets a little like worked up during the show. I think because he thinks I'm talking to him. But I guess I wore him out.

I took him for a walk right before the show. I guess I wore him off. Oh. KFT, you can deny it all you want. But Josh Allen's the team. was fairly similar to J.J. McCarthy. So I know I've been through this a million times, but let me just do it one more time for you. Here's the issue with the Josh Allen thing.

Let's put aside that Josh Allen is way more physically talented. And it's not even remotely close. Let's put aside the fact that Josh Allen is a top five greatest running quarterback of all time, which J.J. McCarthy will not be. put let's not even pay any attention to those things when did josh allen become a good thrower i'm pulling this up right now because i'm always going to go with the facts for you josh allen became a good thrower in the year 2020 his pff grades for his first two seasons were 65 and 64 oh his passing pf grades were terrible they were well kind of similar to mccarthy they were

58 and 62 out of 100. Not good for Josh Allen. When did he take his jump? 2019, correct? So that's in year three. J.J. McCarthy is going into year three, correct? So, all right, I can see where you're coming from with that. What you have is a raw quarterback with technical issues who takes the next step.

He goes into an offseason and he works on his throw in and he gets the quarterback guru and the physics master. and AI and who knows, right? But here's the trouble. Josh Allen's first season, he attempted 320 passes. Josh Allen's second season, he attempted 461 passes. Now, let's even move that number to dropbacks,

so including scrambles, including sacks, those things. So if we just look at under center or shotgun, Josh Allen went, hike, took the football. How many times in his first two years? That answer is 545 plus 396, which adds up to 400, 941. Okay? 941 dropbacks in his first two seasons.

Let's have a look here. J.J. McCarthy is not a rookie this year. He's in his second season. it's unfortunate that he got hurt, but he's in his second NFL season. They didn't adjust the contract, and he was here. He has dropped back to pass.

So 941, remember that number? He has dropped back to pass 291. So that is three times as many dropbacks after year two. And even if he were to play a full season and throw 600 passes, he still wouldn't even be close. So that's one of the major. or problems, aside from the fact that Alan is 6 foot 6 and 250 pounds and probably has the best arm of

anyone to ever play along with Jeff George, John Elway. I mean, aside from those things. And his second year, he did make progress, 20 touchdowns, nine interceptions. It's, there's a lot of problems with the metaphor. So you can keep going back to it. It's not against the rules, but it's just a tough one for me. It's experience. That's why I keep saying, I think that it's possible. But I also think that it needs time.

And where do you get that time? That's what I don't know. Time for a mock draft. Okay, we'll save that for, uh, oh, maybe we'll, oh, no, manny and I tomorrow. There's a lot, there's a lot still coming up on the show, by the way, this week. I should probably call it a day. I haven't gotten through all your messages.

So if I don't get to the bottom, then I'm sorry. You guys have been, Judd says not content. Okay, well, if Judd says it, then I can say it. I have to look up what it means. There have been times before where I've said some common saying. And then people are like, do you know where that comes from? Like, oh, there was one recently someone said to me.

And I was like, oh, that's okay. I guess I've heard that saying before. And my wife was like, look that up. So I looked it up. I won't say what it is because it's just, I was like, oh, oh, what? Why did that person say that to me? But some of the common phrases, we don't even know where they come from. So I have to look up that one.

Adrian KOC adjusted the offense once it hit rock bottom. He adjusted, look, I mean, we have been through this, but I, if we go to the Detroit game, what week was that? Week nine? How many times did they run in the Detroit game? They ran 29 times for 142 yards. I mean, that sounds like to me that they were running a lot. I was there.

I remember it. They were running a lot. They were building everything off the run that day with McCarthy. It's just that in other games, they got down and threw, and then everyone said all KOC does his throw. And he ran a third and one play action deep shot, which I was fine with, but it turned into an interception. Anywho, great stuff tonight.

Yeah, I mean, you guys, you guys were so energetic that we end up going almost three hours in the live show. I'm good. I'm good with that. I got the new setup going on. Feeling good about it. There's a lot of things to work our way through with this off season. So, but I was going to mention that Lindsay Rhodes, former NFL network personality, now works for the analytics company, Sumer Sports. she's going to be on thinking tomorrow.

Mani Hill and I will preview the games for this weekend, kind of hardcore in depth. We'll talk about more of this stuff, answer more questions when we go live tomorrow night. Tomorrow's Thursday, right? And Friday, I'm going to connect with Ahmad Hicks from Fox 9 to do nine questions with Amad Hicks. So a lot still to come.

And then over the weekend, I may or may not be in a different location. to be doing a Sunday night recap with many of the games over the weekend. But I will not leave you high and dry to react to everything that happens. Of course, if there's any breaking news, you know where I'll be. So thank you, everybody. Really appreciate your time. Really enjoyed this show tonight. And I can't wait for a lot of this.

Once the dominoes start falling and we get to really break things down, if Flores comes back and what it means or if he doesn't, and, you know, playoff reactions and all that stuff. It'll be interesting. It'll be interesting. So thanks a lot, guys, and hope to see you on a lot more of these. Take care, everybody. Football.