Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Can KOC's adjustments save JJ McCarthy? (Part 1)

Episode Date: December 4, 2025

Matthew Coller talks with Vikings fans about Kevin O'Connell adapting the offense -- or as Aaron Jones called it "dumbing it down." Is that going to get McCarthy on track? Plus, what do we think of KOC's message to 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.

Hey, everybody, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider, presented by Fandul, Matthew Collar, here and got a lot on the show. Some very interesting comments from Kevin O'Connell and one from Aaron Jones that made me wonder, what's my face doing? Like, how did I just react? What did my face do when he made that comment? So I'm going to bring you that in just a second. Really, the subject of the day has a lot to do with how the Vikings will approach J.J. McCarthy through the rest of this way. I mean, it feels like after the game against Green Bay, everybody threw their hands up and said,

all right, that's it for me. And then Max Brosmer last weekend, our discussions leading up to Brosmer starting, I think it drew some folks back in, especially since there had been a lot of lot of interest in Max Brosmer. It was like, all right, okay, I'll watch the Seattle game. And then, of course, you were wildly disappointed, as has happened maybe a couple times throughout Vikings history by quarterbacks. But here you are with five games to go.

When you think about by percentages out of 17 games and think about J.J. McCarthy, who's only started six, there's like a half a season left for J.J. McCarthy if he could stay healthy, and there's a little less than a third of a season left to go, which I feel like the South Park meme of, I ain't heard no bell. Well, that's how it is on the show, is that I ain't heard no bell. We'll continue to break all of this down and have a discussion that really starts with the headline of this here podcast, which is about Kevin O'Connell and the adjustments that they have talked about making West Phillips discussed yesterday. O'Connell talked about it and how his message now is different to J.J. McCarthy than it was.

So I want to get into all of that, your questions, thoughts, and comments. And also, let's get into a mock draft. I promised it. And I know I did kind of more of a joke mock draft the other day. But you know what? This is a real. This is a real mock draft. And I'm going to dive into that as well.

actually did three rounds and four draft picks today. I don't know the players yet. I'm going to be honest. I watch college football, but I only kind of sort of watch college football. You know, I'm cleaning up the house or, you know, whatever on just relaxing on a Saturday or finishing up a story, which is usually what ends up happening. So there aren't too many times that I'm actually like trying to draft scout on Saturdays. I usually leave that until, you know, maybe later on in the,

NFL off season because there is a long, long lead up to the draft. So, uh, but since the Vikings are sitting here with the record that they have at four and eight, well, we need to start our research a lot earlier than we expected. So why don't we, uh, get into what Kevin O'Connell had to say. Also, I, I pulled up some of my old predictions and I want to toss those out there, maybe a little bit, uh, as well. So let's get into what KOC said, also an injury report today that had a lot of names, but not clear who's going to miss the game exactly. And Ben Standig, who covers Washington, I asked him about Marcus Mariotta and the chances that he becomes a Viking for next year. So there's a lot going on here.

There's a lot going on here. All right. Let's fire up and start throwing those questions and thoughts and comments into the chat here because I have promised. and I will stay to this that I will grade your quarterback ideas for 2026. And look, if they have a great last five games and J.J. McCarthy is dominant and looks great and looks like the guy for next year, then we'll stop the bit. But until then, your quarterback ideas will be graded. And one, thank you real quick, since it is December, a lot of those Spotify or Apple or YouTube things that tell you what you listen to most,

all year have come out. Some of you have sent them to me on Twitter. I just can't thank you enough. If you are the person who's listened to thousands of hours of this podcast, much respect. I appreciate you. That means that you can't be defeated, that you also heard no bell that you're going to keep listening,

no matter what, of the analysis of this here football team. So thank you so much, as always, to everyone who supports this show. Well, why don't we get into what KOC had to say? So I asked him today,

about the final five games of the season and what he wants to see in terms of progress from J.J. McCarthy. And here's what he had to say. Kevin, just over these last five games, what would you like to see in terms of progress from JJ? Yeah, I think, you know, even talking to him this week, you know, I think we've talked a lot about plenty of moments that you guys probably have logged away for eternity of fundamentals and technique and all those things. I appreciate the questions and the interest and the understanding of the quarterback development process. But as I talked to him this week, it's purely about decision-making at this point.

And, you know, there'll be time to ultimately, you know, fundamentally focus on things and build, continue building kind of this layer of, you know, a foundation that will be important for him into the future. but now it feels like between he's got enough experience. He kind of knows a lot of these principles that we've talked about. You know, I want him to have a clear head and a clear mind to just go play, but play with an understanding of the decisions that I make with the ball on my hand, the decisions that I make as a passer and as we've learned very important as a runner to protect himself and make sure that we can keep them in there. All of those things have to be the most of the utmost importance

because we've learned, you know, our turnover number is where it is and it's it's it's not a winning formula i thought that was very very interesting and dain mizatani and i also did a breakdown of this subject and some other things as well uh on the youtube page that you can check out later where we talked about this comment and to me it's essentially a look there's only so much more we can do you got to start making good decisions with the football like we've gotten to the point where it's the final third of the season. We've coached it up all we could coach it up. You have to stop turning it over. And a crazy stat that I ran into just doing a little math was that McCarthy has either had

an interception or a sack on one of every six dropbacks this year. One of every six. That is insane. I mean, that's one every other drive or really if it's a good drive, that's one every drive. I mean, that's, because you would expect, I think the average plays per drive is like five something. So, yeah, it's like one of those every drive, either a sack or an interception. That's just a shocking amount of mistakes that J.J. McCarthy has made in his first six games. And O'Connell turning the leaf from, hey, we're going to teach in the buy week, hey, we're going to focus on feet and eyes and things like that, to buddy, it's production time. It's time to stop giving away games by throwing interceptions and making it almost impossible to win.

And O'Connell does have a point later on in that answer. He talked about, you know, the fact that this team tends to win when they don't have turnovers because, well, you know, they do have a pretty explosive offense to look at in the past. And they do have a pretty darn good defense. And they have a good kicker and a good punter that if you don't turn the ball over, you've got a pretty good chance to win that goes for all things uh which is you know in the NFL which is oftentimes like we you know the bad teams turn it over a lot because they're bad right so that means a little bit of that of well yeah I mean usually if you have a good record

um you probably didn't just give the ball away all the time because that's fundamentally part of being good at football but I just think the messaging very clearly changing for J.J. McCarthy, it says something to us. It says something to us about how I think O'Connell and the organization are viewing J.J. McCarthy here. Like, yes, he's young. Yes, he's still developing and growing. And O'Connell mentioned he sort of didn't say it, but kind of said it. Like, fundamental stuff's got to happen in the offseason. It's time to play safe, productive football for J.J. McCarthy that this whole like QB school thing that he was talking. about early on in the season, it's a little bit out the window when you get to four and eight

and everybody's looking at you and saying it's big boy time. So I think these five games really do create. And I talked about how like this team just has a tendency to have things to talk about no matter what, right? But like it does create kind of a five game section that we can look at put up or shut up for J.J. McCarthy. Now, there's a lot of gray area when it comes to put up or shut up, which is, well, what if he has some good games, some bad games, what if he's just okay? And they win some because they get five turnovers like they did against Cincinnati or whatever. There's a lot on the spectrum of how he can play in the last five games. But here's one thing that we know for absolute certain. If J.J. McCarthy throws seven interceptions in

the last five games, he won't be the quarterback of the Minnesota Vikings next year. or at very least he will be competing with somebody who has a better chance to beat him in the competition. If McCarthy throws one interception in the last five games and eight touchdowns and gets the offense going and they finish the season eight and nine or, I mean, even seven and ten would mean three wins in five games and performs pretty well,

then there will be progress made in at very least he's competing in next year's training. training camp and has made enough progress to keep that discussion of J.J. McCarthy interesting. And I think that that's the message there, which is, it's time, brother. It's time to take that next step up as being an NFL quarterback. Otherwise, you don't get to play in the NFL if you are giving the ball away. And they can manage a lot of other things. If you are playing a possession type of game, you saw this against the Packers. If you're playing, playing a possession type of game against a bad team like Washington,

you might win without a special quarterback performance. You might win with one deep shot down the field that you hit, some screens, some slants, which they never throw, but maybe some underneath stuff. And then you run the football extremely well. Washington stinks it stopping the run. So you could win a game like that, right? Now, that's where it gets a little bit complicated is if the adjustment from O'Connell,

and I've got his answer to my question about paring down the offense as well for you. But if the adjustment for O'Connell is similar to what they did in Green Bay, which is run, run, run, and occasionally pass until you're down two scores, and that works against the Washington commanders, and it works against the Giants and you win games like that, which you certainly can, and he doesn't turn the ball over, but that's how you have to play to win. Where does that leave you?

Does that leave you still feeling like, well, he survived the first year and he threw two touchdowns and no interceptions the rest of the season and completed 51% of his passes, but they found some ways to win with some scrambles, some interceptions on the other side, some really good kicking from Will Reichard. Like, where does that put you? That doesn't put you in a spot where you're convinced about J.J. McCarthy. It puts you in a spot where it feels like you salvage some stuff from the season to not look like a truble. travesty, but all you did is really hurt your draft status by paring down the offense for McCarthy. I mean, I will stay with this, that it is a better plan, and I probably mentioned this at some point, to just have everything on the table for McCarthy, sink or swim, throw 40 passes, and if six of them are picked off, then at least you know he's going to throw six picks, right?

But you'd rather find out. That's how I view it because it's not my win-loss record that goes on pro football reference. It's Kevin O'Connell's. But for the bigger picture, is it better to just find out whether he can, by volume of throwing, improve in these next coming games? Or is it better to play it like they did against Chicago and Green Bay, where you're treating it like he is a real true, like, backup level quarterback that you just want to hand. handoff. You just want to keep it simple. And that's what leads us to our next topic, which is about O'Connell and the adjustments that he's been talking about of pairing down, simplifying, was used by West Phillips. I don't believe that that word was used so much by Kevin O'Connell, but I think

he said about the inventory, which just means how many plays do you have on the play sheet? There's a great video if you want to go watch it by John Gruden, even if you don't love it, John Gruden. It's great insight of how a play sheet is put together. So good. And if you look at it, it'll kind of blow your mind a little bit of how much players have to be prepared for on a given week. And it sounds like they want to pair that down for the number of plays. But so I asked O'Connell, was this something that maybe he looked back at his whole process for the whole, you know, going back to the off season of putting in too much? Or was this? something that's just more of a week-to-week basis.

You'll hear my exact question. I don't remember how I said it. And his answer about the inventory that they are going forward with offensively and kind of the adjustments. Kevin, when you were talking about just the inventory of the offense, is that something that you kind of look back at yourself through the off-season? Or is that something that's sort of developed as you've gone along with a lot of the stops and starts and different personnel that you've had to use?

Yeah, I think you get so wrapped up in the game week, and for much of our season, it's been, the conversations haven't necessarily started as, for a lot of the season, as what's the best way to attack? It's been more so how do we mitigate some of the issues we're working through and give guys a chance to play well with our scheme. And that might be helping areas up front. That might be trying to run the football a little bit more. That might be trying to be explosive to see. if you can generate some of those plays that have historically been huge parts of our offense. So it's a lot of different things, and then you get into what you're doing well or have the capability to do well as an offense versus that opponent and what they do well. And then you try to craft a game plan for each week, but it is important, and I don't think it's an off-season thing of being able to take a step back and look at in totality, knowing the reasons why each week, but then ultimately how did those games play? out, you know, whether it was the, you know, the way we had to play in London against Cleveland

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limited time offer. Uncommon goods were all out of the ordinary. So I guess what I meant a little bit more was maybe about, about like last off season, if it was sort of a thing that he looked back to last off season and thought, well, I have a little too much here, or I must have had too much going into the season. I don't know that, I mean, that's kind of what I was thinking, but his answer is good there of having to deal with certain things he called mitigating each week.

And that's what it has felt like over the last couple of weeks is that they've been trying, especially with Chicago and Green Bay losses, like they were just trying to, you know, to mitigate J.J. McCarthy overall by not having him throw as much. And some of the breakdowns from former quarterbacks were like, why are they running here? And that kind of thing is like, well, because they really are not trusting the quarterback to do a whole lot. Now, I mentioned that there was a comment from Aaron Jones where I wondered what my face was doing. Like, did I go like, oh, like, I'll make a noise too for those audio. Like, did I go, oh, oh. Or did I go, oh, or did I go, huh or oh like what did i do i don't know uh i need a a cam on me and on him to see what i did

but uh here is the comment from aaron jones about that coaches have talked about too maybe simplifying the offense a little bit whether that's just a smaller game plan whatever i'm not sure how if that's you've noticed that or if that's manifested to you at all but have you seen any changes off of this one practice yet that would kind of indicate to you that Things are getting pared down a little bit? Yes and no, because you don't want it too vanilla, you know what I mean? So from that aspect, no, it's not just vanilla. But some of the where it gets complex, where everybody may not have the same deeper understanding of each play concept

is where we've kind of made it, not I wouldn't say dumb it down, but kind of made it less. I don't know with kind of how to put in the words, but yeah, I guess in a word, dumped it down, kind of took the meat of it off, but you're still getting a lot of everything, though. So it's, it's give and take. Complicated, maybe.

I mean, to me, it's not complicated. I've been playing football all in my life, so. But to everybody, to some people, it can be, like, it's like learning a new language. Wow, you know, to Aaron Jones, he's like, don't have to dumb it down for Aaron Jones, which of course is true, he's one of the smartest football players I've been around. So if we go through the offense, you know, you probably don't have to dump it down for Ryan Kelly. Probably don't have to dumb it down for Justin Jefferson.

I mean, I would guess Jordan Addison, who, you know, may have some things with dumb next to him. But usually those are offseason away from. from the football field things, not on the football field, never thought of him that way. In fact, I think he's kind of a kind of a football savant. So let's see, uh, Hawkinson, pretty bright dude. He showed up here in 2022. Don't think you have to dumb it down for him. Let's see, Naylor has learned, you know, the offense pretty well over the last couple years.

Will Fry's as a veteran. He's been around. Who might we be talking about when it comes to taking the meat off of the play and understanding the concept and you know it's like talking a different language i mean right so i don't want to put words in his mouth but uh when talking about the offense didn't exactly seem like erin jones was super pumped about the vanilla ishness of what is to come here but i think that with this offense in general kevin o'connell had to do this he had to pair it down to the point where just like what he's talking about with the turnovers, where at some point as a coach, it becomes

not on me anymore and it's entirely on the player. It's, I have coached you up as far as I can coach you up and now you have to do it. And I think that that goes for the scheme as well. I've paired it down as far as I can take it. I've dumped it down for Aaron Jones's words. As far as I can possibly go, now you have to run it and make it work. work. And if you can't, and we've taken it down all the way to the brass tax, there's no more why, there's no more deeper understanding. There's no more meat on the bone. There's just a play I mean, I don't know what we're going to see against the commanders here. Are they just, are they not running checks? Are they not, like, what are they? I mean, he was, he, he really can't tell us exactly

what that means. He's not going to pull out this week's playbook and be like, so you see, we used to do this and you need to do that. But it may be in part of, I don't know, adjusting protections or progressions or whatever it is. But however that adjustment works, I know that West Phillips mentioned the number of formations and possibly the number of motions as well. Now, all those formations and all those motions, they have a reason for them. There's a thing called the defense that is prepared and what helps you create. edges on a defense is motions and different formations and different looks that maybe you ran something else out of knowing they're preparing for it. But it sounds like a lot of that's going

to be taken out. It's down to brass tacks of the plays. And here are the concepts, can you run them? And can you throw the football without turning it over? And can you get an explosive play? And can we lean on the run game and just try to win some football games against some absolute garbage teams. It is the bare minimum of what's being asked here. I'm trying to think of like a like a comparison. I guess it would be like if I had an intern and all of my interns have been great. So I, you know, if I had an intern where it was like, all right, turn on your microphone and just talk a little football without falling off your chair. And if you could do that, we could do a podcast. Like I'm not asking you to break down the analytics. I'm not asking

to break down the X's and O's. Can you read me some football news? Like that's what it feels like. And then we can do a podcast. Can you get everybody lined up? Can you call a play? Can you run it? Can you throw it without a turnover? And then we can build on that. But Aaron did not seem like he was too excited to talk about the complexity of the offense being taken down. T.J. Hawkins said something as well. He said, you know, for us, it's like a bad look. It is a bad look. It is a bad look, when the coaches have to start saying, let's get rid of the complex, some of the complex elements or the deeper understandings of how this stuff works. And so the question really is for you guys and, you know, just to toss it out there, like, is this going to work? Is it going

to work? Because when stuff like this happens, usually, I bet if we did this, if we went through And let's say we use some of the most powerful AI that exists in the world to gather all the times that a offensive mind has said that they need to pair things down or that anyone has mentioned something like what Aaron Jones just said. How many times was that followed with success? and I'm guessing that our robots would find out probably not that many. So this is the, it's the last frontier of can J.J. McCarthy run Kevin O'Connell's offense in any form. And I do think that this also reflects on O'Connell because I'm putting a lot of this as we talk about it on J.J. McCarthy. Like, buddy, I'm passing the buck. It's over to you.

If you can't run this, then I don't know what to do. Like, that's the feeling here. kind of from everybody there was clear frustration i think in aaron jones and t j hawkinson when having to answer questions about a dumb down offense because they're like we're we're like we're like the we're like pro bowlers bro we're as smartest players in the world here like it's not about us and we know that guys it's certainly not about them but uh it's a little bit of passing passing the buck over to hey it's it's on you but i also think that there is some part of this that O'Connell needs to show that he can adapt to his quarterback because I think of all the, you know, accusations, if you will, about the failure and everything else that are tossed to O'Connell of being responsible for it, that the complexity of the offense has merit and the leaning heavily into the passing game, it has some merit.

And when you look at, you know, the past, I looked at this, the pass ratio, even when the score is between zero and eight points, the Vikings who are averaging one of the least yards per pass play in the NFL still have one of the highest pass ratios, even when it's a one score game. So that's really not simplifying it for the quarterback to be leaning on them all the time. And, you know, when you're talking about, like, different things of motions and formations and concepts and dropbacks that require a lot of very specific rhythm, timing, I'm not saying the progression should be hard. I don't know what the progressions are, but if you're talking about distance of the ball traveling under 10% of their plays are screens, which is kind of crazy to me for a team that has a quarterback of this. level of youth, the play action rate was only 14th in the league per PFF. It should probably be high. Like, they haven't made it the simplest because it's not simple. And all the quarterbacks and wide receivers who have played in it before have said that it's, it's not the most simple thing. But also to O'Connell's point, when it works, it works. It works really well. They were seventh in

EPA, total EPA passing in 2022, 16th and 23. which is, you know, I mean, considering who was playing quarterback for half the year, decent, and then last year they were 10th in total passing expected points added. So he can look back and say, well, you know, it has worked for this guy. It has worked for that guy. They would have been, I'm sure, in the top 10 had Kirk Cousins kept playing in 2023 and not gotten hurt. So that's maybe his point is like this offense does work from a passing perspective. but also as he talked about like the game plan in Cleveland,

they ran a lot, they did a lot of short stuff with Carson Wentz. I remember talking about how I thought it was the most impressive game plan they had had for Carson Wentz because he was not murdered by a guy who now has 19 sacks on the year. They actually slowed down Miles Garrett with the game plan. And yet other times I have felt like there goes McCarthy again, dropping back, you know, nine steps or whatever and trying to hit a guy who's breaking on a post route behind a linebacker 20 yards from here. And, you know, there's been a lot of other times where guys are open and they've just been overthrown. So picking these things apart, I think,

is very difficult. But this, this is the final frontier for both of them of can you operate an adjusted offense and can you really adjust it to the point where it helps McCarthy? You don't, If you're O'Connell, for me, here's the bar. Like, the bar for O'Connell for adjusting the offense is not that McCarthy becomes a megastar immediately. If you can't throw the ball, you can't throw the ball. But can it look like he can run it a little better? Can it look like he isn't swimming?

Can it look like he isn't dying out there at times? Like, that's what I think you want to see from an offense of being a little bit more pared down. And if it is so the case that this doesn't work either and we walk out of this season saying you better get a veteran quarterback because either McCarthy wasn't good enough or he couldn't adjust it enough. Well, one, I guess I wouldn't be shocked, but I would also say that then that's where we're at. Then that's probably what they're going to do. So very, very interesting stuff. Very interesting stuff.

There's a lot of people with a lot to show. a lot to prove and a lot for us to learn about over the final five weeks. But really, the guys under the hottest of lights here are McCarthy and O'Connell. And I think that this right here today was O'Connell basically saying, I'm doing as much as I can for you. Now stop throwing it to the other team. So, all right, thoughts, questions, comments. I can give you guys the mock.

I can also give you guys the, I won't mess around with you with the mock. I'll give it to you. Then we'll get to questions and comments. And Ben Standag, who covers Washington, will be up a little bit later. But I want to give you the fan duel question of the day, which is the over, under for this game is 42.5 total points between the two teams. How many points do the Vikings have to score where you would start feeling better about J.J. McCarthy? So this pared down offense, this lighter inventory, more vanilla, dumbed down as Aaron, Jones said it how how many points would they have to score for it to inspire you put it that way

about McCarthy and O'Connell 42.5 points is the total on Fandle so let's look at a mock you want to look at my mock here is my mock I did one pff mock draft simulator here's what I came away with for the Vikings first four draft picks and this won't be the first mock and I don't know a lot about these players, but this is what I came up with. So with the 11th overall pick, I took Germad McCoy. Now, if you're a complete draft not who's been paying attention to college football and you want to pick apart these actual players, please give me time. I didn't expect to be here right now, okay?

These are more about positions and ideas than they are. And then these ideas will develop. Dermad McCoy, who is a cornerback out of Tennessee, I picked him with the 11th overall pick and his big board selection spot was 10th overall. My thought was they need a lockdown special corner to go with Byron Murphy Jr. And to pair them together going forward. I know Murphy is not at the year we expected, but a young player who can play man coverage,

which you've been asking for, we've been asking for forever. They haven't been able to do. They need that tool in their bag. Somebody special on the outside. So I went with him, Maude McCoy from Tennessee with the 43rd pick. Imagine the Vikings having a second round pick. It's been a while, but here we are.

Ian Strong, a wide receiver from Rutgers, my thought is that the future of Jordan Addison is not completely clear that he's going to be here on a long-term contract. No matter who plays quarterback for this team, they need more weapons. It's likely Jalen Naylor is out. Ty Felton is a nice pick to try to develop, but no guarantees there. so get another pass catcher. I'm always going to draft a wide receiver. Don't yell at me.

That's part of my philosophy. And a safety in the third round from Toledo. Emmanuel McNeil Warren selected him instead of a couple of quarterbacks that were there. But I'm not doing that. I'm not doing the Kellyn Mond third round pick. So I went with a safety. Harrison Smith, likely his last year. You've got Theo Jackson to continue developing, but I don't know what the ceiling is there.

And then I got to run stuff and beast named Daryl Jackson, Jr. from Florida State with the 97th overall pick. So I promised the more thought out mock. And there was my more thought out mock. So you could give your your draft grades. What did PFF give me? They gave me a B plus. Okay. So I got a B plus from PFF for that mock without knowing any of the players yet.

So we'll get to trust me. I'll get to work on that pretty soon. So let's get to your, your questions and comments and thoughts on what is going on. And a reminder that, yes, I will grade any of your quarterback ideas for 2026 until they make me not do that, until the team gives me a reason not to. So we'll start with that. Zoomer, K.O. says quarterback in the draft is a greater than 0% chance of happening. So I did take a look today on Fanduel at the odds. of who is going number one and at the top of the draft.

Right now, they have plus 170 Fernando Mendoza. Ty Simpson is plus 210 and Dante Moore is plus 500. I've seen these guys play, and I would say more is the most impressive to me. Mendoza looks like very much a pocket quarterback, but I could see KOC liking Mendoza. The issue is that, I mean, do they have time to draft another quarterback? and develop them that I don't know they might need an immediate contributor like a cornerback instead for the long term of the franchise though it's a better idea to draft one it's more

of a philosophical thing so I will give if that's a quarterback idea I mean I'll give it a solid B plus because if you're not sure then draft another one is the right philosophy but in terms of so I'll give you a B plus in terms of the idea but in terms of the real to it, it's probably a D. I mean, it's probably not that realistic. So that's the two grades you'll get with your quarterback ideas. Kerplupi says, give me Winston, give me Flacco, give me Mariotta. Well, everybody's looked good in comparison to the Vikings quarterback play this year of those three.

Or maybe you want all three. Oh, that's an idea. Realisticness is maybe like a C minus. And also probably a C. for how good that would be. Mariota, I think, would be the one that gave them a chance to win games. And KOC actually talked today about his relationship with Marioata and said that, you know, he's known him since the draft process, that even when he got hired by the Browns,

that they let him continue to work with Marioada on the side because he had made a commitment to him. So those two know each other extremely well. And I wonder if there's ever a quarterback that KOC doesn't know very well. It seems like he knows that he has a connection to everybody. but Mario, of those three, Mario is my favorite because I think he can actually play and get a team to the playoffs he has before, whereas Winston will throw 30 picks. Flacco, I mean, Flacco's always good for a couple of exciting games because he's still got a big

arm, but that one, that one wears out pretty quickly. Dan says Vikings need to go run heavy offense, Trey Jefferson, who wants out. Okay, let's not say that. We don't know that Jefferson wants out. And trading Jefferson makes no sense at all because unless you're planning to, I mean, if you talk about run first, are you going to run every play? Is that what you're going to do? Passing is still going to drive the success in the NFL, like to make no mistake. It's great to run the football, but passing is still going to largely drive success.

So I'm not into that idea, not unless you were in a full, ridiculous, complete. tear down to purposefully lose, which after 2026, maybe you might be in that spot, but I don't think you're in that spot next year. Most of the guys here of the core are on the team still. And with Dallas Turner and proving, I had a good chat with him today. I'm going to write about that at purple insider dot football. But Grenard, Van Ginkle, Cashman, I think Wilson will probably get an extension and Derisaw and O'Neill and Jefferson and Edison and Hockett. Like, all these guys are coming back. Like, these are good players. and it hasn't, they haven't given it to him enough, but he's a good player.

And then the offensive line that they've built probably needs a center. But aside from that, like, if it's healthy, they've got a good offensive line. We've seen it at little spurts throughout this year. This is not the moment to do that to trade because you want to trade Jefferson. You want to trade Addison like, no, I don't think you're doing that. Draft offensive linemen like what for why? I mean, you have a top notch, right tackle, a top who hasn't faded. I think O'Neill's still great.

A top-notch left tackle. You might now, you do need to spend more on a backup left tackle. But I also think that it's just been a brutal year of a guy recovering from something really difficult. Jackson's in good standing. Fries has been a little more up and down, but I think he's a solid starter in the NFL. You really just need one offensive linemen. So, I mean, you want to play, I don't know, like the triple option or something. To me, that's an overcorrection.

It's still a good thing. if you have someone who can execute it to have an offense that's built on throwing Justin Jefferson the ball. Like, let's not get so caught up in the moment of them struggling to do this and say, no, no, no, it's all bad. You need to be, I don't even know. I mean, the Eagles last year, but that is such an anomaly. It gets such an anomaly. Most of the time, it's the teams who are passing the ball successfully. I mean, maybe Buffalo this year, but they have Josh Allen. So, you need a running quarterback same with jalen hurts running quarterback same with lamar jackson if you're going to be a run offense that's how you have to do it um ds v1c says

james winston next year would be entertaining for a little you know you say that it would be entertaining for a bit for like the first six weeks you'd be like this is insane he threw four touchdowns in the first quarter and four picks in the fourth quarter he's the first player to ever do it like yeah that would be fun for a couple weeks but then now this comes from somebody who and all respect to this gentleman but when i was in buffalo ryan fitzpatrick was the quarterback and that's kind of how it went and it was fun for a little while fits magic but then you want like to win and you have a quarterback that has high variance and it's very difficult to win that way so you you'd think it was great for a while and then when your team

won seven games you'd be mad because it's usually the negatives and end up piling up. But, you know, I get your point. It would be fun. Let's see. JJ 3-227. Let's go get Tanner McKee and save everyone's job and make several Super Bowl runs. Tanner McKee.

Let's see. Realistic possibility, I'm going to go with a B-minus. Seems like, you know, somebody else's backup that they've developed is a possibility. But is it a good idea to compete? with J.J. McCarthy. Now, I think from, uh, in a philosophical world, the answer is, is yes. Because like, why not get unproven quarterbacks? This is how back in the day, this used to happen a lot, actually all the time, where some other team would have a backup quarterback and they would just get picked up because they played a lot in the preseason or something.

So I'm thinking of a Matt Hasselback or a Mark Brunel, uh, teams would see other teams backup quarterbacks playing in preseason and they would say well we don't have a quarterback so let's go get them we're the jaguars let's go get brunel and it worked out for them hey that team develops quarterbacks well let's go get one from them uh doesn't really work that way too much anymore but mckee is a guy who's done well in the preseason so i like that idea of grabbing other teams backup quarterbacks and seeing if something's there but i think in this case they need someone who's a little more proven and a little older more likely uh let's see dante jeremiah love would help cut down the turnovers for sure.

I love that you guys want to draft running backs despite the fact that they have an expensive veteran and a guy they traded for and they don't give the ball to either one of them. And they've been, they've actually, they deserve, where they deserve credit is they have been more successful running the football in terms of yards per carry than ever before under KOC. But they still don't lean on it. I mean, outside of, you know, Chicago and Green Bay.

overall, and they, you know, certainly couldn't run successfully against Seattle. So, uh, I think investing when you're a team that needs desperately young talent at a lot of positions, investing in a running back would be very bad. And, and I look at like the Raiders, who I know are a joke and it's not the same as this, but, you know, the Raiders, Ashton Genty, oh, man, this guy's different. This guy's different. You got to take this guy. How about Bejohn Robinson?

Like, what, what is that? done for Atlanta. Bejohn Robinson is amazing. What is that done for Atlanta? Not a whole lot. I mean, it's a great, it's a great thing to have when you're great. If you're already awesome on offense and you have, and for whatever reason the Eagles haven't been this year, but they were last year, and you have Saquan Barkley, you can be awesomer. If you already have an amazing offensive line that's great and a great scheme and everything else, that guy's going to make you look sick. but if you don't and you need other positions like corner i think you know run stuffing defensive tackle that's a little later on but you know safety they're going to

have an open wide wide receiver three spot like it's really hard to justify a running back in this type of situation if i mean i don't know if they were in a spot where you felt like just for example if mccarthy had been amazing this year and riah rod had been amazing and Theo Jackson had been amazing, then you might say, you know what, like, it's time, like draft that freaky running back. And that, and that might make sense. But I don't think it makes a lot of sense where they're at now when they need multiple, like, key positions for a long term. I mean, even, even edge rusher, look like Turner's been really good. But Van Ginkle, he's only got one more year on his contract after this, I think, right?

after the extension. So, you know, that's not, I mean, that's not a guarantee either. So let's see. Parker said, uh, don't want to put any weight on these next three games. You know, I think that you're being very fair, Parker in saying that. In fact, it feels like it's more wrought for a fool's gold than it is for getting the right answers on J.J. McCarthy. But I'm in, I'm in two camps on that. So, all right, you play Green Bay at Lambo and they kill you, but they're pretty good. Like, they're really good defense. They've killed other quarterbacks this year.

So, all right, and that was then, look, that was a true, like, worst offensive performance you ever going to find. So, you know, you don't get any, like, excuse for that. You've got to go play good defenses and beat them in order to be good in the NFL. But if McCarthy were to just put it this way, if you were to play the next three games, win two out of the next three and say, play well against Dallas. And this is a high bar I'm setting based on what we've seen so far. But just say with me, let's say that they play, they beat Washington 2410.

McCarthy's very good. They go to Dallas. They lose 3427. Again, McCarthy's good. And then they beat the New York Giants faces in. Again, let's say 27.10. So they have these three games. They win two out of three.

And McCarthy puts up 20 plus points each time and throws eight touchdowns in the three games, two interceptions. He's averaging 200-something yards a game. Is it a little bit pumped up by the fact that those defenses aren't good? And I know Dallas has improved. Yeah. Yeah, it would be. But it would be progress. And then you get two tests at the end of the year versus.

very competitive teams, and you start seeing maybe confidence build, and you start seeing this now pared down offense to expand a little bit as he gets more confident, more comfortable. I mean, I think that it's a very thin line to walk of trying to use a couple games to evaluate, especially when they're against bad defenses, versus maybe this is what he needs to gain some confidence and get going and then feel like he could turn a corner because I don't want to write that off yet. I mean, it just feels like, man, we're saying it's over, right? Like the entire internet is just, it's over, it's done, he's toast, he's cooked. But that's happened with a lot of other quarterbacks through even recent history.

And Bryce Young is the one to probably bring up. But I don't think you could you can do that just yet. I think you've got to see the whole picture before we start saying those things. But yeah, I mean, I get, I get what you're saying. Like, if those next three games, they play well against these terrible defenses. Well, congrats, you do not win a medal for that. So it's dicey. It's dice.

Score one more. I'm going to get a vet to challenge JJ McCarthy, drafting a quarterback to challenge him. No more red carpet treatment. Yeah, no, I agree with that. I agree with that. And that's probably something. If you ask them about regrets, they would probably say that they loved McCarthy coming out of the draft. So you can't really have regrets.

when you bought into a guy fully. And that's fair. Like, that's fair. You never know when you draft someone how it's going to work out. History tells us that too. But if there is a regret, it might have been not even having what they would call in my eighth grade science class a control.

So what a control would have given you is a comparison. If you had Daniel Jones in camp, it's a control where you would see McCarthy running the same stuff as seeing Daniel Jones. and if he can't perform as well as Daniel Jones, then it tells you about where he's really at, and it also gives you another option. They didn't have that.

Sam Howell was not a control. That was just a nothing. That was, they might as well have just had JJ take the first and second team reps, as opposed to having Howl incomplete every pass. So, yeah, I really did go that bad. I feel he's gotten a lot of run on this show this week as a talking about going back

to that camp. They didn't even, they didn't even meet that level. And I think even Carson Wentz would have met that level to, because he ran the offense in at least two out of the four, three out of the four games pretty effectively. Cincinnati was pretty good. Pittsburgh was not. Cleveland was pretty good.

And even Philadelphia get one or two plays down by the goal line and you probably win that game. So, and then of course the Chargers thing is a disaster. But, you know, at least that would have given you, hey, this is what a veteran backup looks like. And you should look better. that do you or you should look like you've got it you know resolved of a lot of the offense do you uh and that might have helped them out a little bit i guess but to your point what i don't really want

to see and i wouldn't be shocked by is drafting a quarterback in the third round it's just most of the time it's just a waste i know brock purdy we did that last week with brock purdy what a week it was for him brock perry it shows you how rare it is with uh with max brosmer and i still think Brosmer can grow and develop. That was a horrible place to start your career. But I mean, it's super rare that anybody from beyond the first round becomes a quality starting quarterback in the NFL. And it's become more and more and more rare because there is no real development time in the NFL anymore. Whereas there used to be with a lot of preseason games, two a day practices, all those things. They just don't exist anymore. So it's first rounders. Don't do

that. If you wanted to draft one in the first round, then, you know, I feel you philosophically. That's not something I could see coming. But yeah, I get you there. Parker says it would be so Vikings to win these next three games into a worst draft spot. Yeah, that's, that's true. That is true. But if they, that's the thing, right? Like, you have to decide when, if they win the next three games, I guess you'd have to decide, how real is this? Like, is this something that it really tells us where they're at and that a lot of the things that have gone wrong were just sort of a, you know, a mess up on special teams here or, you know, one drive there against Pittsburgh that they didn't convert or something. Or is it, A, these teams can't

play defense. And sure, you took advantage of that, but is that really what you're looking for going into next year? That's, that is what makes football so dang. interesting, isn't it? Is that we're always dealing with these small, tiny little sample sizes of things. And you have to decide, is this something that I actually build off of? Or is this something that kind of faked me out because it was just a lucky type of thing or circumstance and even full seasons are that way? The Patriots are deserving of all the attention.

but their schedule has been a cream puff. And the same thing goes for Indy. Once they started playing harder teams, they started losing to them. I mean, this, even the Vikings last year, I mean, they played two games against top 10 defenses.

They played the AFC South. It was still a good team. They were plus 100 on the year. Like, that's good. But, you know, how real was some of this stuff is always a question. Even Chicago that we're answering about last second wins and stuff like that that's what makes it so hard can you really judge off three games no but

yet we like we will judge off preseason games still just to show we need to react to football that's why we're here um but these next three games if you take them for too much you may end up tricking yourself into thinking that maybe McCarthy is farther along than he is which is why i've said it's really the levels of type of player you're trying to bring in if he plays awesome in the final five games. Go ahead and bring in a veteran to compete, have a control, but maybe you're looking at somebody who's more of a career veteran backup, a Tyrod Taylor, just that level. Doesn't have to be him, just that level. But if it's mediocre or worse, then you're talking about trying to bring in a Gino Smith or, you know, somebody who could potentially start. I keep bringing him up because I like

that idea for KOC. I think it would be like a better James type of thing. He'd throw a bunch of picks. he throw a bunch of touchdowns, but he did win 10 games two years ago. So I don't know. That's the best I could come up with. But you know, that caliber of players, someone who is a legitimate starting quarterback. But, you know, that's the unfortunate nature is that you have to make the decisions based on small samples. You can't have JJ go play another 50 games and then look at it into the future. Let's see.

Honest question. Tell me what Zimmer says to himself about this current debacle. uh, Zimmer should have nothing to say about anything regarding this current debacle. Because Mike Zimmer didn't win and lost his job for good reason and the whole culture of the organization kind of fell apart during him. And, uh, I would say, though, that right now he has had, well, maybe not quite as many regular season wins. He has two more playoff wins than the current regime. So there is that. But I mean, I don't know.

What can you say? Where would they be with Mike Zimmer? I don't know. And I like Mike. I like Mike a lot more than a lot of other people like Mike. I got along with him well when I covered the team. And I thought a lot of his gruffness was sometimes necessary. Like sometimes it was necessary for somebody to scream their head off or to call people out and things like that.

You know, I like a little bit of that. And, you know, I didn't mind when he answered one of my questions. actually, I learned a lot from the questions that he completely shot down. So I was got along good with Zim, but, hey, if you're the guy who was here, had your chance, got fired, you should have nothing to say about the team and what it's doing right now. Let's see. Plus, not to mention Flores' defense has been great. So, you know, if we're talking about the defensive side of it, that's been good.

Let's see. Oh, O-M-E-H, we'll just go there, says, I think the situation for quarterback next year is get a better quarterback and have a competition. If JJ wins, then JJ wins. And I don't see that happening. I'm not calling him a bust, but I think he's going to be a good backup. Well, you know, that's the thing. We really don't know what he's going to become in the long term.

And in a fair world, what you would love to be able to do is play J.J. McCarthy for three years. And this is where, you know, when West Phillips is talking about this yesterday, I fully agree with West, like, it's an unfair world that, you know, what the best thing is for, you know, if you find a good coach. And I've said this before, and I've always thought this, that if you find a really good coach, you should just keep pushing through and not let the outside world or not let the ups and downs maybe influence you too much and the rage of fans and media and stuff like that because, you know, a lot of times if you found a good guy that when you get the right roster, you're going to have a chance. and you shouldn't have a, you know, take a bad season like this and then just throw everybody out the door. That does, it's just not good management. I don't think riding waves up and down and sort of chasing all the time is a good way to do anything. Um, but it's also not a realistic thing where you can just have J.J. McCarthy play for three seasons. And at the end, you can look

around and really know what you've got in J.J. McCarthy. We just don't have that much time. You know, Justin Jefferson and Christian Derriss, like these guys' primes are right now. They're built for right now. They're built for next year. They're built maybe for 2027, but I really don't see it that way. I look at really 2026. And so you can't really do that. But, you know, I agree with the competition.

And I think that's the best way to do it. And then if he wins, then that means that you've found something and he's developed. And we also need to leave the door open for that potential as well. well that's i think there's way too many people who have just decided it's completely over that doesn't make a lot of sense for me uh let's see but you know look i i think it's going to come down to next camp fan dual question of the day just a quick reminder over under for this game 42 and a half points how many points would help you start to feel a little more confident about where this could go in the final five games not saying they're going to win all of them and they probably wouldn't make

the playoffs even if they did but just like can they bring you back in? How many points would it take? And I can imagine there might be some snarky answers to that, but let's see. Derek says if he only plays slightly better the next five games, is it safe to label him a bust? That's why I'm saying it's not, it's not safe to label him a bust. But it's safe to say, all right, they need to have somebody who could start 17 games for them in training camp with him. If he's just mediocre over the next five games. then yeah, just look, bring in, that's why I mentioned, I'm just going to keep saying

Geno Smith, because you know what I mean when I say that, someone who's a clear cut starter in the NFL. When we talk about a James, that's a backup in the NFL who can start if you are totally desperate. So you can see kind of the levels of that. And then there's guys like Carson Wentz that are just backups and that's it. So, you know, maybe you're looking at those options based on what you see in the final five games. But under your option, it's clear cut. Go find it. You have to go find a starter.

Max says, could we get a behind the scenes media tour of the media rooms at TCO? Maybe a day in the life of a beat reporter. I could tell you that. I mean, look, we have amazing, we have an amazing circumstance for our media room and everything. It was maybe not quite as good at Winter Park. It's really nice. But there's not, if you've seen an office building, then you've pretty much seen the media room at TCO performance. And we've got some nice rooms to do podcasts in that were kind of built for us when they built the new thing.

That's really nice. But it's there's, there's carpet and there's a sink and there's a refrigerator. Like it's not, you know, it's what we need. We got, I got a little cubicle. That's about it. A day in the life is a lot of standing around. That's what that is. It's do do something and then wait, you know, sit at your laptop, make snarkycom.

and then go up and do something else. But maybe, yeah, maybe I've never tried the vlog life. I have never tried. But really, that's probably the part of the job that, you know, people don't see because you see our interviews and everything else. It's like these things are kind of spread out. So there's a lot of like, all right, we're just sitting on our laptops typing. That's why I mean it's not, it's not exciting.

Like, none of this is all that exciting. It's, you know, we're not water skiing with Justin Jefferson before, you know, summer press conferences or something. But maybe I'll try to do something like that someday. Score one more says the Panthers appear to be running a simpler offense, but they're also sticking with the run. That is absolutely true. They are, I mean, simpler is hard to say because I don't know.

Dave Canales's offense. I haven't looked at their tape. I haven't talked to people to try to break that down. But the run first element of it, they have two backs and they rotate them. and they've got a pretty good blocking offensive line. One of their biggest plays last week was a really well-designed screen that hit for, I think it was a touchdown.

And, you know, stuff like that has helped Bryce Young. But also at some point, Bryce has to, you know, he's got to take it to another level himself because right now he's hovering around being just kind of mediocre. But, you know, fair point of like building off the run. There are a lot of teams in the NFL right now who are building off run first. And the Vikings are not one of them.

Seattle is. and I think Carolina is too. It does get hard and you can argue this to do that when you're kind of losing right from the outset. But there have been plenty of games where the game has still been close and they haven't really been that. So I think if you are talking about simplifying, becoming truly run first is one of the things you have to do.

And this would be a week to do it. Not against Seattle. That D line is disgusting. They're going to have, I mean, you talk about what Sam's going to do in the playoffs. Seattle's got the type of D line. that has caused some problems in the playoffs for some teams. So that's something to watch.

Parker says, let him try to play NFL quarterback. We have no playoffs. Only having him throw 15 times a game isn't going to teach us anything, despite fans crying about KOC being mean. Look, I tend to agree with it. So there's two conflicting things, right? if you are the head coach of the team your record at the end of the day

is going to be what people look at including the owners of the team and I could say this for sure that the wills care a lot about and this goes for every ownership but I think that they care a lot they know what they have in US Bank Stadium they know how beautiful it is

they know how great of a fan experience it is they know it gets all the top rankings and everything else they get they want to win there And if you're one in four at U.S. Bank Stadium and you finish this season with two terrible losses because you were trying to throw 100 passes against the lions and the Packers, it's going to be a pretty tough look. So if you're O'Connell and you've got a home game here coming up against Washington, you want to win this game. It's not so much about for you, for the coaching staff. It's not about, hey, we got to find out what we got in McCarthy, throw 40 passes. No way, no way.

The owners are up there. They want to see a win today. they want to see the fans who showed up here and paid all these dollars to be in this stadium, this palace, those owners want to see a win. They, you know, right? So that's the conflicting thing because you're right, like finding out seeing McCarthy throw 40 passes, finding out his better long term. And also he needs to just throw more passes.

Like that's, you're not going to get better at golf on the driving range. You're going to get better at golf in the game now, or on the, course, right? Now, I've made this comparison before that if he had sat for a year and you spend you know, a month on the driving range before you take it out of there, you will be better out to the course and you can work on technique there that you can carry over. But now we've gone past that. We're not there anymore. That was a, that was a before thing. If he needed to sit behind Darnold, if he needed, heck, there's a different world where Wendt stays healthy and just keeps playing. That would have been okay with me. If he had,

had to develop behind the scenes for a year. But we've gone past that. We're just not at that point anymore. Now we're at the point of like he needs to just keep playing because he's already played this much and he needs to keep throwing in real games to get better. So I agree with you. But I also think it's not realistic because they're trying to win a game. Paul says my QB idea is Trevor Lawrence. So here's the thing, Paul. Trevor Lawrence has been kind of good lately. I can try to find this because I had that idea too. I thought, what's better for KOC than Trevor Lawrence, right? Somebody's got to be a high draft pick and it's got to be, you know,

somebody who could be a project and you could turn them around and that kind of thing. But Trevor has been improving his game. So just in the last since, I don't know, we want to make it week eight, week seven, what do we want to make it? Week seven, week nine. How about week nine? Since week nine, Trevor Lawrence is 14th by PFF and has thrown for the 12th most yards, or yeah, 12th most yards. Now, that doesn't mean he's been great, but he has improved recently and played some pretty good football over the last four or five weeks.

And I think that, you know, that, of course, as we said, can be tricking you, but it also might be getting Jacoby Myers. may have helped him a lot. Opponents certainly help you. They play Tennessee, so it looked better during that game. But at the end of the year, Lawrence might look like he might have win enough games

where they just can't do this. Even though overall, Trevor Lawrence is still, let's see where he's at here by, he's still 21st by PFF, which is a pretty tough place to be, 6.7 yards per attempt, It's 81 quarterback rating, which puts him at 35th.

I mean, that's pretty brutal. But just from an organizational standpoint, if you get into the playoffs, you win games. If you win a playoff game or something, then they're not going to get rid of him because they want him to be their franchise guy. But, you know, if they melt, I wouldn't put it past the Vikings to think about that. Let's see, Skoll 357, McCarthy might throw for 30. 300 and run for 80 this week. Well, Washington is bad, but let's try 240 first. And then we'll go from there. Guard guy is Aaron Jones calling out his rookie guard. No, I don't think Aaron Jones

was calling out anybody, but he was making the point that it ain't Aaron Jones that this is being adjusted for. That's for sure. And I believe him when he says that. But nice to see you, guard guy. You've been relatively quiet since they got better guards. It's just everything else. See, I was told the whole time they just needed better guards. It didn't turn out to be true. Nathan's is pretty sure that not including World War II seasons, that there are five other teams in history that have lost seven or more games than they did in the previous year. Wow. Yeah, that's, that's pretty shocking. This whole thing is shocking. That's why, you know, every once in a while. And I don't mind this if, you know, I mean, this is why I, in part, I brought my predictions

with me after we chat and Ben Standig will come up a little later in the show who covers Washington. And I'm going to ask about 2026 starting quarterback for the Vikings, Marcus Mariotta. But, you know, I'll get every once in a while, I'll get you guys, you guys, you reporters, you watch training camp and you told me they were going to be good. You lied to me. It's like, well, you know, they, I mean, did look pretty good. good in training camp and that's why it's so shocking because a lot of times a lot of years where you know we would go to camp and you'd see sam bradford looking really good and the team looking really good in 2017 you'd be like okay this is interesting like maybe there's something

here or the team would look like kind of a mess in 2018 you'd be like something's wrong here and a lot of times it was predictive of what was on the way 2021 camp was kind of a circus and the whole was kind of a circus. This is the farthest away. Last year, Sam Darnold, when he turned the corner, he started looking really good. And I remember saying it. And that ended up turn out to be right.

This year's the farthest off ever for me that I've been based on where they were going to be just in general. I think I had them last year, 10 wins and like crush. I was, I think I was saying, like I would go with six and a half, man. I would go way over that. And, uh, yay. Purple Insider was right, but I mean, who would have thought

that this would happen? And as you bring up, like, this is historic so far of missing by as much or has the potential to be historic by missing as much the following season as this. And normally what would have to happen is you would have to have everybody get hurt like Washington, but that

is not the case. That's what's crazy about losing these last two games the way they did is they've had a full team, not these two games, these four games. I didn't think they would these four games. I thought they could be Baltimore. I thought they could be Chicago because they've had a pretty much full team. Yeah, okay. You know, they're missing a couple linemen and that's always brutal for you and that stinks. But I mean, they've had a lot of their starting players. And

it's, it is crazy in the second half of the season. It's crazy that they are where they are. So yeah, that's a good fact to it. I appreciate that because, you know, I feel I feel like I'm taking crazy pills sometimes with like, yeah, I keep thinking that they should win this next game. And then they don't. I'm like, okay, I didn't think that last week, but you cannot predict ball. I'll just call you got dang says, honestly, how the hell are they favored to win on Sunday? Well, the other team is three and nine. So, but they're only barely favored, which tells you a lot.

On Fanduil, they're 1.5 point favorite, 1.5. I mean, that's just, that's not really being much of a favorite. At home, actually, it's like being a favorite. underdog. I don't know if the, I don't know if teams still, or if, you know, it used to be the three point rule was kind of the automatic. And I think that's changed a little bit. So maybe it's one and a half points. Okay. Let me go back to your comments here. Let's see. Yeah, Matt, Matt, with that, the quote from Aaron Jones, it makes sense to me because I've been playing football in my life. Yeah.