Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Carson Wentz undergoes surgery -- JJ McCarthy expectations vs. Detroit (Part 1)

Episode Date: October 28, 2025

Matthew Coller talks about Carson Wentz having to undergo surgery and then talks with Brian Murphy and Manny Hill about expectations for JJ McCarthy the rest of the way. 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, Matthew Collarback, here in Minnesota. Of course, the show always presented by Fandul. We'll get to a fan duel question of the day in just a little bit. And in the second hour of the show, Brian Murphy and Manny Hill will join. But we have to begin with the news of the day surrounding the Minnesota Vikings. came out not too long ago that Carson Wentz will undergo surgery and will be out for the remainder of the year. Now, the reporting on this, we know essentially when he got hurt against Cleveland when he tried to lower the shoulder into a couple linebackers and suffered a left

shoulder injury. We did know that, but from Ian Rappaport says more details. He suffered a dislocation that tore his labrum and fractured the socket. So he gutted it out for two and a half more games. I guess it was maybe even I would call it a little more than two and a half, which we will get into here. Because since this news came out, I have been chatting with some folks with, let's just say, knowledge of the National Football League.

And I want to get into some takeaways here of Carson Wentz now being out for the year, which absolutely shines a spotlight into the handling of Carson Wentz against the Los Angeles Chargers. So let's go back to the game and the exact situation, because I think that everybody now and the comment section already having this conversation is talking about how Kevin O'Connell should have taken Carson Wentz out earlier when he was clearly suffering in pain and had this very, very serious shoulder. injury that he was able to play through, but as he was getting knocked around, as he was getting beaten up, looked more and more painful for Carson Wentz.

So I went back through the game, and I was looking just for, well, when would it have made sense? I mean, because he had played through the other game against Philadelphia, and he had come close to winning that game. I mean, they were in it for the entire game back and forth with the Eagles and was able to survive that through some pain and through some big hits and through some scrambles so I could see where they would think, all right, strap him up again with the shoulder thing. It looked like it was an even bigger, even thicker harness that they had thrown on him. But when the score

got to 31 to 10, so here's how it kind of went. It was 24 to 3 and already at 24 to 3. It's pretty questionable to still have Carson Wentz in this football game because the chances of you coming back from 24 to 3 on that night on short rest with neither tackle is almost zero and we've seen this team pull off some pretty incredible comebacks over the last couple of years but 21 points down with your backup quarterback in nothing working the quarterback is injured neither offensive tackle is in the game right there it would have probably been enough at 24 to 3 but when it was 24 to 3, he got sacked by Khalil Mack, and I don't remember every single time he got up wincing in pain because that was every single time that he left the field,

but he got sacked by Khalil Mack and they had to punt at 24 to 3. But Justin Herbert immediately threw an interception after that. It was the first play, throws a pick, and then they have the ball at the 26-yard line. So, okay, you leave Carson Wentz in because you know. never know when the game could turn on a dime. This was still into the third quarter. All right, they score a touchdown. They get it to 24 to 10.

And you could see where right there, even though your chances down two touchdowns in the third, that you would not want to take Wentz out of the game, even if he was battling some very serious pain because you never know. It is the Chargers. The Chargers do have a reputation for blowing games in insane fashion. They're not a perfect team. they don't have a great record. Maybe this game will flip on the dime.

You'll get another pick, a fumble, something happens on a kickoff, and then you score a touchdown and you're right back in the game. And then you're down by seven. So you can see there when it was 24 to 10 why Carson Wentz would still be in the game, despite being in a lot of paint. And what Kevin O'Connell said after, and I'll get to the rest that happened, what he said after was that he was asking the training staff and they were saying he's not going to do more damage to it more likely than not. He's already knocked it out of its socket and torn it.

So what more can you do? So it was really about a pain management thing. Now, had the Chargers, say, fumbled the next kickoff and the Vikings got the ball back and they score a touchdown, then you would say, hey, this might be one of the guttiest games we've ever seen from a quarterback for the Minnesota Vikings battling through this shoulder injury. And wow, what a night if he had gotten them back in the game. But here's where things change for me is the next drive, the chargers go down with very little resistance and score to make it 31 to 10. Now, that was late in the third quarter, midway late in the third quarter at three touchdown game. With the way things were going offensively, with the amount of pain that Carson Wentz was clearly in, that was the point to wave the white

flag. Take him out of the game. Live to fight another day. put in Max Brosmer, and look, as much as I understand where Kevin O'Connell was coming from, not wanting Max Brosmer as a rookie quarterback to have to come in as Khalil Mack is just feasting and feasting, and their defensive line is throwing stunts and twists, and there's different coverages and they can't run the ball and all that. As much as I get that, when you are down 21 points late in the third quarter to a great quarterback, a really good coach, a defense that's whooping you, a run game that's whooping you, the ESPN game cast had them down under 10% chance to win.

I think we all could have said it was down under 1% chance to win, considering who was actually on the field. Like those win probability things do tend to factor in which team is favored, but they don't always factor in everything like what's happening in the middle of a game. So we have to use our brains to adjust the win probability. let me tell you, it was nothing. There was no chance whatsoever of coming back in that game. That would be the point late in the third quarter, down 31 to 10,

where you take out Carson Wentz, not just for further damage, but for cruel and unusual footballing. At that point, it was becoming so far out of hand that the only thing they were going to be able to do was throw the ball down the field and try to get some big plays to come back, which would have led Carson. and whence to continue to be in the pocket, continue to take more hits, and guess what, that's exactly what happened.

So at 31 to 10, he goes back out there, he throws an interception, and at that point, the game is super duper stupendously over. And yet still, he comes out for the following drive after that, throws a bunch of incompletions, takes a bunch more hits, and leaves the game in extreme pain and extreme frustration. And then here we are, just days later, having season-ending surgery. And for O'Connell to say, hey, it was just a pain management thing. That's why we left him in. Well, I mean, there is a level to where pain management goes way beyond to the point where,

yeah, sure, okay, I guess he's not going to rip his labor anymore. But is it really safe to make a human being play out there? and I give a ton, a ton of respect to Carson Wentz. He refused to go down. He was taking punches and taking punches and said, I'm going to go back out there. I'm going to keep giving it my best. I'm going to keep playing no matter how many times they hit me.

I don't care. I'm going to fight for this team. He grew up cheering for this team. He signs a contract kind of last day. Could have said, hey, I'm a mercenary. Get me out of the game right now. And no, he wanted to continue to fight. And there will be teams in the future, I promise you, who signed Carson Wentz as their backup quarterback because of what they saw here, that he was able to win a couple of games, fight through an injury, do his best for the team.

And the way he handled himself overall from the minute he got here was extremely, extremely professional, working with J.J. McCarthy, accepting what his role was, being very humble about the entire thing, even right down to winning a couple of games and getting the question. Hey, do you think you should keep being the quarterback and saying, guys, I'm not going to go there. Handled things A plus for Carson Wentz. And he put himself on the line out there. And they could say that he wouldn't have done further damage. But when you can't protect yourself, it's not just the shoulder. It's everything, right? It's not just, hey, well, his shoulder can't get any more injured or any more in need of surgery.

But what about the rest of the guy that's getting absolutely pummeled out there? from head to toe. It was not just a shoulder. And it became to the point where it felt like a hockey coach leaving in a goaltender who's given up eight or nine goals. And it's just time to take him out. Like, let's have some mercy here. Let's get the guy out of the game.

Protect him from himself a little bit here. In the goalie's case, usually just protect him from embarrassment. Like, just get the backup in. And they didn't do that until much too late. until at least two drives too late in that game. I think that that is extremely clear now that they've had the surgery. It was extremely clear that night, but it makes it so much worse that his season is over after this.

And so because I don't like to go too far down the rabbit holes of injuries, I'm not a doctor, not a physician, I haven't examined anybody, and I tend to think that my expertise when it comes to me, medical stuff is is quite small that look I just don't I don't know injury recoveries I that's hard stuff to talk about and even when you guys asked the question in the off season like should they sign some of these players they have injury histories and my thought was I don't know because I don't know those injury histories nor would I really know what to do with those injury histories that's an area that is very tricky and very dicey to get into but regarding this

thing. And I know the internet also likes to overreact to pretty much everything. So I spent the last couple of hours just talking to a few people that I know. And I'll just say in the league a couple of people that I know. And your reactions are a lot like their reactions. Folks, this year is the year that I actually get my holiday shopping going early for all of my friends and family. And there's only one place on the internet that's going to help me best. It's called Un-Colns. Common goods. Uncommon goods makes holiday shopping stress-free and joyful with thousands of one-of-a-kind gifts that you cannot find anywhere else. I just went to their website. I typed in football gifts. And let me tell you, so many amazing and unique options popped up. I found helmet-shaped coasters, football bingo, personalized team history books, all sorts of stuff, some of which was really cool, like college football stadium blueprints that are made by artists.

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a locker room everyone is going to be in the cold tub saying what the heck are we doing so i think that when something like this happens it does have a reverberation to where other players see wence handled this way and they go why are we not taking him out of this game because he's just getting killed it doesn't give you a better chance to win because there's no chance to win anyway you can bring in Brosmer, you can hand off, you could throw little swing passes, you could throw a little checkdowns. And I understand fully Kevin O'Connell's explanation where he said, I don't want to put a rookie in a situation where the offensive line is getting crushed like that. I'm paraphrasing, but that's basically what he said. And I get that, but Brosmer's on the team.

He's a professional football player. He played in the preseason. He had been in a game against Cincinnati. I don't think he was going to just take the snap and fall down. I think that he could have taken snaps, handed it off, checked it down, and just gotten to the end of the game with fewer players being hurt, including Carson Wentz having to suffer at least two more drives than he ever should have had to be out there. And it does, as the one source said, open the door for a little bit more conversation about a lot of different players this year. I have always been a believer that injuries are bad luck and there's nothing you can do about

him. It's the most frustrating thing in the entire NFL that sometimes people just get hurt and you can't do a darn thing about it. You can't, you can't prevent it. And look, there's plenty of examples around the league of guys who are coming off injuries that are having good seasons that are older players. Stefan Diggs is an example of one, ACL injury last year. hey, he's older, hey, he's coming off an ACL, it's having a good season.

Like, sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. Van Ginkle got here with an injury history. Jones got here with an injury history. Cashman got here with an injury history. And yet, even Grinart, all of them last year. And yet, all of those worked out. So last year, there was a lot of discussion. There was high grades for the training staff, a lot of conversation from Aaron Jones,

who had told us that he loved the way that he was managed. and the plan that they had laid out for him, they have talked about the individual plans for players and things like that in the past to give the full picture here. This staff has graded very well from the players in the NFLPA survey. But this year, the way that I would best put it is that they've left a lot of questions, a lot of questions about Andrew Van Ginkle playing eight snaps against Cincinnati, and then we don't see him again.

and why did they think he was available to play then? Was it a reaggravation? What happened? Because he had missed a lot of time, started the season, got hurt, came back, once again, not able to play. And with Christian Derisaw, that's been one of the more mysterious injury recoveries that I can remember, where it's coming back and then alleged pitch count overseas. And then it's coming back, but it's for nine snaps. after he plays an excellent game against the Philadelphia Eagles.

And Derisaw has insisted that he was way ahead of schedule to ever get out on the field. I don't know if that's ever the way it was really presented it to us that we thought maybe there was a chance he could even get back on the field in week one. And I'm not saying they have to lay out a dossier. But when the player is taken out of a game in Cleveland, end late in the game in the fourth quarter and then it's a pitch count that doesn't quite add up. And then this game, he goes out there and gives it a try. He's out for nine snaps and then he's back out of the game. Well, should he have been active to begin with? And Brian

O'Neill goes into a game, plays against the Philadelphia Eagles, then can't play the following Thursday. Ryan Kelly had an injury, came back, got re-injured again with this another concussion after coming back fairly quickly from the first concussion. And the way I would like to put it is just it leaves a lot of questions. I don't have the answers to those questions because I don't have the information, nor would I know entirely what to do with it. But for this season, there has been numerous players, including the quarterback, JJ McCarthy, who suffers an ankle injury, stays in the game, and then ends up traveling with the team overseas, deals with some swelling, isn't ready to play, and then still isn't ready to play on Thursday night, where they're saying,

well, if it was a Sunday, then maybe he would be ready to play. Again, questions. I can't make accusations. I can only say questions. And I know some of you have said, well, why is it the media asked about it? I mean, we ask about these injuries every, that's why we have timelines. That's why we have, here's what they said this time, this time, this time. Every single press conference has gone along with questions, including after the game about whence being left in.

So I've seen a little of that. Why didn't you guys grill him on the, I mean, we got the answer from him. It was the first question that was asked in the press conference. So I'm not sure what the disconnect there is. is. Now, they don't have to tell us all the details that is not in the agreement between the pro football writers of America and the Minnesota Vikings. We don't shake hands on it. Hey, you guys are going to tell us every single thing. So that's not how it goes. But when a player of Darisaw's caliber has this in and out, in and out, when a player of the magnitude of J.J. McCarthy

and the initial sense for the timeline was two to four weeks. And then here we are many weeks later, seven, seven weeks later that he's finally going to get on the field. When we have Carson Wentz strapped up with all sorts of crazy gizmos on his body to get out there down 31 to 10, still taking big hits and hanging out of the ball and trying to get rid of it and get smacked down and just suffering on the field, you do start to have some questions, even with Mackay Blackman and his recovery and wondering where some of these things are at

with the connection with the coach, the training staff, how the players are being managed. But I think what's what is it did stick out to me when I talked to one person in the league and they said a when the players don't have that trust and this has been a big thing for COC that he's talked about himself, and he knows that, having been in the league, he knows how

important it is to have the trust between the training staff, the coach, and the player. And if this degrades that trust, that is pretty concerning because I would have to think that if you're on that field watching Wentz go through that when you're down 21 points in the third and fourth quarter, you've got to be asking yourself, what are we doing here? the source said to me, like that guys will be asking each other, what are, what are we doing here with Carson Wentz and what are we doing here with some of the other injuries that they have gone through? But again, commend Carson Wentz for his effort to go out and give everything he could to this franchise, not a franchise that he's been with for very long, just only a couple of months

and one that he clearly admired from afar. But I also think the fact that, that, you know, he went and had surgery. The minute that J.J. McCarthy came back is also probably telling as well. Like, I'm not going to mess around here that I think, and Ian Rappaport put this out, that he said, like, look, you know, Carson Wentz wants to have a future in the NFL still. So he's just going to have this surgery now and not risk ending up being thrown back in the game with this shoulder injury is how I read what Ian Rappaport was reporting. which I assume would come from Carson Wentz's side when it included details about his family

and stuff like that, that he wants to continue to play in the NFL, he's not going to risk being thrown back in there to a similar situation. So now the Vikings have J.J. McCarthy, Max Brosmer, no veteran in the room. We'll see if there is a veteran who ends up back in here because now you are one J.J. McCarthy ankle tweak away from playing Max Brosmer. Now, at least it looks like going forward, you'll be playing Max Brosmer with the offensive tackles that you expected. But that has been a week-to-week question in itself. Did O'Neill come back too early?

Did Darrisaw try to force himself out there too early? Did he hear too much of the noise? Did he feel pressured to get back on the field? Or did he feel like he was at 100% and just has not been able to get back to a point where he can play every single week? We saw this with T.J. Hawkinson last year where, yes, Hawkinson came back, but when you don't have the full training camp, it's very hard to get into football shape on the fly. And it took another four weeks or so before Hawkinson could really play the entire time.

And I think there's still some question about whether his burst has ever quite been the same since that injury. But it took him time coming back. And the same thing makes sense for Christian Darry. saw. But when you're having guys come in and out, it's really difficult for the team to deal with because now all of a sudden you have a Justin School who spent the entire time getting ready to play right tackle and then all of a sudden he's playing left tackle. And already Justin School is a guy who's kind of barely hanging on in the NFL. And now you're asking him to do something twice as hard. I think it's really piled up on this team. And the tension right now,

I'm thinking with the three and four record, the defense struggling. O'Connell not really wanting to answer a question about the defense after the game when clearly they've been run out of the building the last couple of weeks, something that we never saw coming. And now the other part of it, too, is you look around the NFL and Daniel Jones is in the MVP race. Sam Darnold, who's going to play later tonight? Is that right? No, not tonight.

Who's playing tonight? Washington? Anyway. Well, anyway, Sam Darnold is playing really well. And then you have Bo Nix, who they didn't draft, who is now 16 and 9 in his career and just blew out the Dallas Cowboys. And even Aaron Rogers has played good enough to win some games that Pittsburgh's horrific defense has not been able to hang on. So you have a lot of other quarterbacks that the Vikings passed up on that are doing well. And now they're finally getting back to J.J. McCarthy.

So there's pressure. There is a lot of pressure and a lot of questions right now about the Minnesota Vikings. But today with Wentz undergoing the surgery, just a few days after being left on the field far longer than he should have been, it absolutely draws some questions about the handling of that entire situation. And just judging by your responses, I mean, I feel like what happened on Thursday for Vikings fans was just empathy, just feeling very upset. set by what you're seeing. And I certainly was myself in the press box. I mean, you don't want to see anybody get hurt or suffer on an NFL field. I know it's part of the game. And I know

gritting through it is part of the game. But there is a line that gets crossed of what is the risk versus reward here. And the reward was nothing to keep him out in the game. So I, I agree with those of you who have said that it was, you know, just, you know, borderline cruelty to leave him in the game with the way that he looked and some of the images from that game. I mean, when you're talking about a guy who's as tough as they come, having those reactions and then being asked to go out there at 31 to 10, it just didn't make a whole heck of a lot of sense. And really unfortunate for Carson Wentz and, again, just much respect to him and what he was

able to do coming in as a backup winning two out of four games gritting through it then you know they lose this one wasn't able to keep the season on the tracks but I can't say how much of that is on Carson Wentz when they couldn't protect him couldn't get the ball out of his hands into the receivers couldn't run the football couldn't stop anybody I think that under different circumstances they could have you know maybe even beaten Philadelphia could have beaten the chargers but couldn't make a stop on defense so and not that I'm saying the game against the Chargers was close. I just mean if it had played out differently and the defense was what they

supposed it to be, maybe things look a lot different or the running game was what it was supposed to be. Maybe things look a little bit different. But right now it feels, who was it that said dysfunctional? It's kind of how it feels at the moment. And there's really only one guy who can make it feel functional. And that is J.J. McCarthy. So let me give you the Fandul question of the day, which would be connected.

to J.J. McCarthy, of course, and then we'll get to some of your thoughts and comments. And then at 7.30, it will be Brian Murphy and Mani Hill. So, fan dual question of the day is this. The Vikings Lions line moved from 9.5 to 8.5 today. Maybe it was news of J.J. McCarthy being the starter with Wentz out that moved it a little bit closer. How many points do you think the Vikings have to score with J.J. McCarthy for them to be in the game against Detroit. So how many points does J.J. McCarthy have to put up offensively for them

to have a chance against the Lions who are favored by eight and a half points? So that's the Fandul question of the day. And the first comment I see from KFT is JJ is going to get hammered behind the putrid line. Well, it shouldn't be. It shouldn't be. It should be the regular line that we expected. It should be Christian Derisaw. Brian O'Neill, Donovan Jackson, Will Fries, and then we'll see about the starting center. Michael Juergens and J.J. McCarthy worked a lot together earlier in the season when Ryan Kelly was out. I guess in the Atlanta game, maybe they worked a little bit in training camp together when Ryan Kelly was out. He's never worked with Blake Brandel.

Now, you might want Brandel's experience as someone who can identify blitzes and things like that, but I'm not sure the last couple of games have offered any evidence that you want. want to continue to go forward with Blake Brandel, backup center. It's a really tough spot. Maybe the guy who's played it for a lot longer in Juergens makes sense to go back to. It does feel like just you don't really know who's going to play better because, you know, Brandel did have a decent game against the Cleveland Browns, but the last couple of weeks have been really, really rough at the center position, including that snap against Philadelphia.

It's just, it's just been a tough go. So I don't know who's going to be in its center. but if you can have four out of five of the projected offensive line healthy, then at least J.J. McCarthy will not have to go in there with Justin's school and Walter Rouse. But that, of course, also goes along with if those guys are capable of playing the entire game with some of the injuries that they have battled through. The Baron says answering the Fandual question of the day, they'll have to score more than 40 to be in the game.

I mean, yeah, look, I don't know if it's 40. but to be in the game, it's probably pressing 30 the way that the defense has played. Now, so often in the NFL, just when you think you've got something figured out, it goes back the opposite way. Teams tend to throw kitchen sinks. You've got the mini by week here to look into some things, but the way that this team has been performing overall against the run, it's been brutal, against any receivers with talent.

They have not been able to cover them. So here you have Amman Ross St. Brown, who is truly one of the best Jared Gough, who's truly one of the best in the NFL, it is hard to see unless you can sack and pressure Jared Gough that they're going to be able to slow down the Detroit offense. So, you know, 40 is a little aggressive for the Fanduil question of the day, but I don't think you're crazy far off on that. Adrian, do you believe the rumor speculation about KOC not playing Brosber because he could

cause a quarterback controversy? I think that's ludicrous. It just is people being bored and making up stuff. I mean, it doesn't make a lick of sense. He was going to put in Max Brosmer in the third quarter of a complete blowout game and he throws a few completions. And suddenly it's a quarterback controversy. I don't think so. That doesn't, it really truly doesn't make any sense.

His explanation makes sense that he didn't want to put in Brosmer as the offensive linemen were getting destroyed. But there's a clear thing. that you can do to protect Brosmer, which would be just start handing the ball off, just start throwing little swing passes or screen passes and make sure that the ball is out of his hands and then just get to the end of the football game without Max being hurt. Don't start calling passes that are 27 yards down the field when you're down 31. I mean, that's kind of, they were still throwing regular passes within the offense when they're down 31 to 10 with Wentz in there. So they could have done it with Wentz. And that's the other part of it.

too. If they had just had wends, throw screens and hand off the rest of the game and said, hey, let's get out of here alive. But they didn't. I mean, they were trying to get him back in the game. And that didn't make any sense either. So with Brozmer, no, I don't have any thought whatsoever that they were afraid that Brosmer in one quarter of football would be so magical. Now, I mean, maybe, maybe there'd be a controversy if he came in and threw four touchdowns and pulled off what Bo Nix did a couple weeks ago, but I don't think that was very realistic for the game. So, no, I don't think that at all.

Okay, some of you guys' answers are funny. 60 points. 28th from Marcus to the Fandul question of the day is reasonable. 33 from scoliosis. Where do you guys come up with this stuff? Those answers make a lot of sense, 28, 33 to be in the game against the Detroit Lions who have an improved defense this year as well, even though they've dealt with some injuries.

JP says there are growing questions about KOC's common sense, not just with injuries, but inflexibility on offensive scheme when it's not working. You know, and look, this is what happens when a backup quarterback plays. And I'll say it time and time again that when a backup quarterback is in, it breaks everyone's brain. I was watching a meltdown today that an Atlanta radio host had after they got blown out that this Atlanta host went crazy about it's been eight years and this franchise is a disaster from top to bottom and et cetera, et cetera. And I saw Jason Lock on four, I think, who was calling for the offensive coordinator of Atlanta's job. He should be fired.

Guess what? It was a backup quarterback in there who has had, you know, a very serious Achilles injury that he never seemingly recovered. from and hey look it broke everyone's brain watching him play i follow some carolina media and there was some little hints of soft binging because that's like the words of the year and guess what now they're arguing with each other of well who who thought it was really a good idea to play and et cetera et cetera because again backup quarterbacks break people's brains and it broke us also in 2023 when they had to play Mullins, when they had to play Josh Dobbs. But there is some smoking gun to what you're saying.

There are games you can point to. There are moments you can point to where, like just for example, it's third and one. You're just starting the game. And your quarterback has his left arm dangling off of his body. And on third and one with Jordan Mason on your team, you put Jefferson in the back field. you try some sort of rollout thing. Carson Wentz at this point in his career, cannot run. I mean, he tried against Philly and got a first down or two when there was no one around,

but he's not a throw on the run, bootleg in, like moving around, run. That's not who he is. That's a common sense problem. I saw Alec Lewis tweeted out some stats that the Vikings have thrown more on third and one than anybody else again, third and short, again this year. when you have Mason, and I know the O line's been banged up, but here we are, again, you can't be the only O line that's banged up. So not really changing that philosophy, despite having one of the more physical backs in the NFL.

You know, I just, I've gone back in my mind at times this season to win Josh Dobbs through 35 passes in a game where they were averaging five yards of carry and he had three interceptions. And yeah, I mean, I think that there's some of that for sure. that's that's popping up and even when you're talking about you know leaving him in the game i mean are you thinking that there's a comeback there are you thinking uh i mean his explanation was that he didn't want to put the rookie in so okay but uh then why continue to even try to throw the ball down the field which is what they did continue to try to do uh with you know so um contra past and so brosmer is a

guaranteed forfeit um do you mean like if you put them in against the chargers the game was already over so uh if you put him in against the chargers the game is over it's a 21 point game going into the fourth quarter and you can't block anyone or stop anyone if the game is over just put him in handoff get carson wents out of there the guy is suffering it's really not that hard um so ned says maybe o'connell was waiting for wence to let him off the hook by tapping out well yeah i don't know i don't know i don't know i mean wence can to go back in and say that he could play, but that's usually what players do. Players usually don't go and say, hey, take me out of the game.

Zoomer, K.O. It was hard to watch. It was. Yeah, it really was. Let's see. Justin, I think two things can be true. Should commend Wentz. And KOC did not want another quarterback to be crunched behind that beat up O line, which you can avoid by just handing off. I mean, you have one quarter to go. The game is over. You're getting destroyed. You don't have to run the entire offense for Max Brosmer and try to go win the game. You don't have to. So that premise, I think, has an issue with it, which is you can just go, you can just wave the white flag. You could just throw bubble screens. You could just get the ball out of his hands. Like, he doesn't have to, you know, drop back nine steps or something and try

to go win it when you're already down, uh, 21 points. So, uh, yeah, I mean, uh, A lot of you are saying the same thing that, you know, that people wanted Brosmer to start the game because of how injured Wentz was. Now, that, I think, would have been a mess. I mean, it was a mess regardless, but I don't think that would have been good for Max with Christian Darisaw not being at 100%. Let's see, the whole set of mental gymnastics to defend him requires Brosmer to be dramatically worse than whence. Now, look, I mean, yeah, I get what you're saying for start. I mean, now that we know the results, sure, we could say it could not have been worse if Brosmer had started. But we also didn't know exactly how injured. Now, he was injured. We knew

that, but he had played pretty well against Philadelphia at times. Not, I want to want to say great. I missed some open throws. But they had scored points and they were in the red zone six times. They failed, but they had moved the ball and hit some throws. I wasn't in favor of starting Brozmer, especially when you find out that O'Neill and Derrissar are out. It's really about, you know, get him in late in the game when it's already over. When the starting pitcher has given up 10 home runs, take him out of the game. Don't wear his arm down even more, right? That's, I think, kind of the point about putting in Max Brosmer.

I mean, some of you so desperately want to see something else than what was happening as I'm talking about breaking brains. I think Brosmer in that situation, it would not have been any good for him to be in that. that environment either. Not any quarterback, not J.J. McCarthy, not Justin Herbert, not Patrick Mahomes. Nobody would have done great, I think, in a situation with the office of line losing so quickly. And I look this up. The average pressure to Carson Wentz in that game was only three point two seconds, which is really fast for an average pressure. So he was getting it, you know, right away. Man Juice with the super chat. Thank you so much for that. Are the Vikings becoming

dysfunctional. Well, I said this on last night's podcast, I'll probably say it about 10 more times as we go forward this season. But usually your functioning as a franchise is about as good as your win loss record. And nobody's immune to that. That's how it is in the NFL. Not even Mike Tomlin. If you follow some Pittsburgh folk who are destroying rightfully, Mike Tomlin, after the way their defense that they spent a bunch of money on has fallen apart. But I will say that this is the first time, the first week or two, that I felt shades of Zim, whether it was a tense press conference, which really wasn't a thing at any point during O'Connell's time, sensitivities to some things that were written in the local newspaper, which is not something the head coach should be concerned about at all. the handling of injuries becoming a conversation it absolutely was during zim's time behind the scenes through a lot of his time in minnesota the discussion of the players trust in zim to handle those

things properly uh was talked about quite a bit and then you know here we are kind of having that same conversation so yeah i mean that there's feelings of that and also when it all goes wrong that's where the fingers get pointed that's where it's hey it's your fault for me missing on this draft pick. It's your fault for, you know, going all in on, you know, this player or believing that this was the defensive change in philosophy. And what I will say is that it's everybody. If you're going to say we have a culture of collaboration, then you all get blamed. Uh, you know, and a lot of times, the only way we know how to talk about blaming people is just by saying someone should be fired, which is maybe how we end up

as a society paying so many college coaches not to work, uh, because just, someone's head has to roll all the time. But I think that we can say in this situation, that's not on the table at three and four, but it is, I think, in terms of accountability, where you start pointing fingers, well, it's really at everyone. It's what's the relationship between the front office

and the coaching staff when it comes to player evaluation, when it comes to roster building? Because Brian Flores has gotten a lot of credit for free agent signings that work. worked, but hasn't gotten any criticism for free agent signings that haven't worked. So how many of those signings are, you know, the defensive coordinator pushing for certain things? How many are the front office pushing for certain things? And what happens is when stuff goes wrong, that's when they point fingers at each other. And how much, you know, is Kevin

O'Connell expecting to have an elite defense? It doesn't have it. And, you know, expecting to have his young quarterback that I'm sure he wants to be on the field and hasn't been able to have it. and all those things. And there's only one thing that can make this look more functional. And that's playing really good football against the Detroit Lions with your young quarterback to quell some of this discussion. I mean, you think about in Miami, it's kind of the same way. It looked like it was all over.

They get a win. And at least for another week, the Miami discussion is not there. And that's kind of how the things end up working. Don't forget the trade for Sam Howell. Ned, well, they actually, didn't they end up on the plus side of? draft capital for that? I think that they did. KFT Jackson, Addison, the only high draft picks some others may develop, but most teams over three, four years have more than two draft picks contributing after those two, it's men. So that's what I mean is that what all these discussions

end up always turning into is it's their fault, it's their fault, it's their fault, it's their fault, and really it's everybody's fault. But when we look at and try, instead of just pointing fingers to try to trace back how you got here to a team that's three and four, but also doesn't seem to have, like, what's the light at the end of the tunnel? Well, the light at the end of the tunnel is if J.J. McCarthy plays well. So I don't want to get to a point where I'm just pointing at things and saying that they stink because that doesn't quite make sense or saying that the team did everything wrong. because when you look at the structure of the Vikings offense at even 80% health

and what it can provide to a quarterback, now it can't provide it to a quarterback who has his arm barely dangling off of his carcass and doesn't have either one of his tackles. Now, that doesn't apply. It doesn't apply when Nick Mullins was in. It doesn't apply when Josh Dobbs is in. You have to have a certain level of quarterback for this thing to work. and I think we found out last year that level is fairly high because Sam Darnold's pretty good and Kirk Cousins is pretty good

and they've won a lot of football games when those guys have been in and this is why it all connects back to J.J. McCarthy because right now they have received overall bottom five quarterback play in the NFL. I mean, heck, Justin Fields and the Jets have had better quarterback play than the Minnesota Vikings this year

because at least they've had two or three games that have been pretty good. The Vikings, I mean, really none. I don't think that there's an impressive game on the resume. When you look at what everybody else has done to Cincinnati, I mean, even that was just okay. Like, you know,

anybody can kind of do that against Cincinnati. The rest of the games, I mean, Pittsburgh's getting torch left and right. Atlanta, it's not special. They haven't gotten good quarterback play for all season. So if McCarthy comes back in and writes the ship, even if the defense is still messy,

that's easier to turn around in a year than it would be the offensive side. So we can't look at it and say they've done everything wrong because they extended Darisaw, they extended Jefferson, they have Addison, they have Jordan Mason who's going to be here at least a couple of years, a young and talented back. They signed, I think a pretty good right guard. I mean, when you sign him for a lot of money, you expect that he's the next Steve Hutchinson, but that's not how, that's not realistic. That's not what he was in Indianapolis.

but I don't think Will Fries has been the issue. Donovan Jackson looks like a pretty good draft pick. You have a lot to work with there for your quarterback. It's really the defensive side where you're going to have most of the questions about the thought process of bringing in different players, keeping different players, extending guys, or letting certain players go. And that's where the draft picks have really crushed them.

I got a note from somebody the other day that really since, I mean, you might even say 2015, but let's even go a little bit earlier than that. Like even 2020 through two regimes, the number of players that they have drafted or developed that are making a difference on this defense is not very high. So I thought that the idea made a lot of sense in the off season. I thought the concept of getting pass rushers on the interior

of bringing in a little bit of a raw type of player who had kind of been around, but maybe you get a reduced deal because he had a gambling suspension, Isaiah Rogers. But, you know, when you look around the defense, so many players have underperformed. I mean, when Josh Mattel is signs his extension, we all agree with that. And look, it's only been seven games, so I don't think you could throw that out. My point is that a lot of the things have gone wrong on that side of the football, and then it's playing a backup quarterback and injuries at tackle, which are the worst thing

that you could possibly have on the offensive side. But the offense's future is pretty. bright with the supporting cast, if not extremely bright with the supporting cast, considering who you've got there. And defenses can get turned around fairly quickly. So I don't want to just say, hey, the future is completely ruined because they missed on these certain bets on that side of the football. But I think that the fact that they haven't had very many draft picks and that they have

traded away a lot of those draft picks to get players to try to help them in win now seasons, like T.J. Hawkinson for a second round draft pick, for example, they have not been willing to trade down. So you draft Addison, you draft Jackson, but you don't trade down in those drafts. Well, you get fewer draft picks. And I really think this stat is quite telling. So I'm going to keep going back to it.

They've picked eight top 100 players since Quasi Adolfo-Mensa got here. How many do you think they should have hit on? If they hit on, if we call it three of the top 100. And then, you know, you have some other injuries. you have some go completely bust. But if you're only drafting eight players in the top 100, where the Detroit Lions are drafting 15 and the Packers are drafting 16, you're probably going to have a lot less hits.

And if you say, well, they should hit on fifth, sixth, seventh rounders. I mean, that's just those are complete rolls of the dice. And what happened with Kobe King, where you draft a guy that you kind of like and then he doesn't stick around? Like, that's how it goes with fifth rounders, sixth rounders all the time. So, you know, I think that the strategy has been so much to go all in on certain players that were proven commodities and trade draft picks for them and not trade down because you wanted your guy that they haven't had that many bites at the Apple, which results in not having that many good draft picks. Now, my argument has been if you find a way to make up for that by finding a Jalen Redman, by developing a Josh Mattelis, by developing a. by developing previously a Cambinam, or what was supposed to be Theo Jackson and has not

worked out this year, if you develop players over a couple of years, and if you sign players that can come here and step right in when you have a rookie quarterback contract, all of that, I mean, all of that philosophy tracks for me, that we've seen teams do that before. We've seen them stack defenses through free agency. The 2017 Philadelphia Eagles did this. They were starting Ron Darby, Patrick Robinson, veteran players, Chris Long, not the local TV person, but the football player. They did the same thing. They stacked with veteran players on defense, and it paid off for them.

It has not paid off for the Vikings this year. It did pay off last year, where they bring in, you know, a Stefan Gilmore, a Shaq Griffin, and it works. And they, you know, and Van Ginkle and Cashman, and it works. And when it works, you're a genius. And when it doesn't work, you're an idiot. it. And that's always in forever the case. But their philosophy has been to try to go with more proven players rather than rolls of the dice in the draft.

And so they have not had a lot of draft capital. You don't give very many comp picks when you're signing players all the time. So that has hurt their ability to draft and develop. It's not as simple as just they can't, they just can't see any good players. I mean, if they hit three out of eight, that's about the expectation. But other teams are getting six out of 16, seven out of six. I mean, if we look, if we just look at the, since the Vikings are playing the lions, at the draft history of the lions, I'm going to take a look here.

How many of their players over the last few years have hit or missed? Let's see. This year is hard to say with just top hundred players, hard to say just yet, but I have to look at how the rookies are doing. But Terry and Arnold from 2024, it has not worked out. And it's Rake straw, not sure that he's. become a great player for them. Jack Campbell and Gibbs and Leporta and Branch all crushed it. Hendon Hooker was also a top hundred pick for them. Broderick Martin, who I am not familiar with,

top hundred pick for them. James and Williams took a while to come along. Josh Pachel is kind of just a guy. And then they hit it on Kirby Joseph. So as we go through those, and I can look at their rookies so far this year, as we go through those, we get some hits and some big hits. especially guys that were drafted high. We get some misses. Terry and Arnold hasn't done a thing for them. That's a big miss. And yet, where are they at?

Well, I mean, they've got a million of those picks. So they end up hitting on a fair number of them. And that was their philosophy. Their philosophy was to go to the bottom. Ty Leak Williams has not made any impact at all in terms of run defense, pressure, nothing. Two of their first round draft picks are their two worst graded players on defense. Not something you really noticed, though, because they've just drafted a million other players

because they tanked in stack draft capital. Now, we wouldn't be bringing this up at all if the Vikings had hit on Allen, hit on Hargrave, and that philosophy had worked. So that's my point is that, you know, what worked for them last year, they went back to the well and it didn't work again. I don't think it's as simple as just saying, well, they missed on some draft picks or bringing up Kyle Hamilton's name for the 500th time. Like, I get it.

Like, I don't disagree with you that it's made a major impact, but they had a strategy that worked in 2024 to fill their roster that was built around a rookie quarterback contract and it worked. And this time, it did not. But it was also brought up to me and I tend to agree with it that, you know, some of this stuff, even if you look at like yards per carry running last year, it's pretty similar to this year, but they've run a lot more because they've been behind because your offense can't do anything. And there's a major trickle-down effect of a defense

that has to be a certain way. Mac disagrees with Ty Leak being a stud. Well, you know, that's great. But in terms of the overall impact that he's made, I mean, maybe you're right. Maybe it is a guy like that doesn't always. show up as well on the PFF grades, the guys who stuff gaps, but still, I mean, a first round draft pick, defensive tackle, okay, like even if we just say juries out, the point is Detroit is drafted well, but they've also drafted a million players at the top. And the Vikings have not drafted hardly any players. That, that's the entire point. Anonymous, why doesn't KOC run the ball? Well, one reason is it doesn't work. It has not worked this year or any

other year, which certainly draws a lot of questions about the running scheme, but the offensive line has been a problem. And I remember somebody saying to me, it was kind of mind-blowing at one point, like, you realize run games are also dictated a lot by the quarterback. I was like, you know, that's actually true. Because if you're throwing the ball well, then teams have to play too deep. And there's more opportunities to run the football, right? But, I mean, if you're playing from behind, you can't really just sit there.

and run and run and run. Now, I think there are certain situations. Yes, they can. But I don't think that this year, that's really the discussion that we're having, which is just, you know, like, why doesn't he run? That feels a little bit more like last year when they were winning a lot of games. I get why they're not running when they're down 31 to 10, although maybe they should have been.

Hendon Hooker might be good. He's like 35 years old or something. Let it go. Move on. he's not not the guy uh chris you think that uh dallas turner draft pick was bad uh could have had bow nicks well i mean yeah i guess they no i don't think they could have drafted both uh mccarthy and bow nicks with those two picks but i think i understand what you're saying um yes they could have drafted bow nicks instead of j j mccarthy and maybe considering their timeline uh that was a thing that should have been

more considered. But I think that they went with more upside with somebody like McCarthy that they felt like the upside was limited on Bo Nix. Now, I was a Bo Nix appreciator. So, you know, I mean, when he's 16 and 9 has been to the playoffs and is on his way there again, it's hard not to look at that and be like, but we have to let J.J. McCarthy play first before we just pointed every other quarterback and say that would have been a better idea. But Nix is playing well, no doubt about it. The Dallas Turner thing's complicated because overall Dallas Turner has been okay at times. He's been asked to take on a role that is more than he probably should have. He's got 18 pressures so far this season. That's not nothing. He's got a couple of run,

you know, run stops. He's played okay against the run as graded well as a tackler. Hasn't played well against the run in terms of setting edges because he's not. not that guy, but in terms of making tackles, it hasn't been the huge step, though. It's kind of looked a lot like last year, and I think that that is concerning. And that's what I mean about the bets that you make. If you make a bunch of bets that have a 50% or less chance to work out, sometimes it all goes snake eyes. And this one is another one that I wouldn't say snake eyes.

He's a contributor, but it's kind of close to that. Just out of curiosity, wonder where he ranks in pressures overall. So the top guys have in the 40s. Oh, look, Aidan Hutchinson has 48. That's who the Vikings play this week. Turner is 46th in pressures. That's not where you would want him to be based on how much he's played so far this season. Also, the other teams have been ahead and haven't had to throw the football.

So there is a cascading effect to a lot of different things this year going wrong that have made things worse. worse like that have played off of each other and it truly is one of those everything that can go wrong has gone wrong for the Minnesota Vikings this year and the one thing that could go right for them finally gets to start this week and that's J.J. McCarthy. So in a few minutes, I'm going to have Brian Murphy and Manny Hill drop by and we're going to talk about expectations for J.J. McCarthy. They're going to give their opinions on Carson and whence and what happened on Thursday night as well.

But I do want to remind you of the Fandul question of the day. The Vikings and Lions line on Fandul moved from 9.5 to 8.5 favorites for Detroit. I guess maybe that's because of the news of J.J. McCarthy starting this week. How many points do the Vikings have to score to hang with the Detroit Lions? So how many points from J.J. McCarthy would be necessary? B.M. Dallas Turner sucks at coverage. I haven't thought that he has adapted to that very well either. And this is where we got to bring up why everyone being responsible. Because the thing that's really surprised me about the Minnesota Vikings, the way they've

handled things. So I've defended a lot, the timeline, the idea, the concept of this is when you start your win now window. It's probably two or three years. with the key players that you have, I like the idea. It's worked a lot of times. And I can throw the examples at you for the hundredth time, right? But we all know that. We know that it's worked a lot for teams to have the rookie quarterback contract.

It's what we were looking for, you know, many years with Kirk Cousins of, hey, this is how teams are winning in the NFL. So this is what you got to do, you know, et cetera, et cetera. But there have been some moves that just have not been on the analytical side. that have surprised me for a front office that is led by someone with an analytical background. And Dallas Turner is one of them. Now, I wrote about the Dallas Turner move when it happened. And a lot of these things, what I like to try to do is instead of guessing what the outcome is going to be, lay out the outcomes.

Like, here's what, this is why we do pie charts. Like, here's how it could go. Here's how it might not go, right? and when you slide the chips to the middle of the table on a player like Dallas Turner, it is nothing but a fact that that player has to be great. To justify the draft capital given up, that player has to be great. And I've always said it's unfair to Dallas himself, the person to say that, but from a analytical perspective, like he can only be that player.

He can't, you know, live with that hovering over his head all the time. They gave up X amount for you and so forth. but from a perspective of analyzing front office moves that was a chips to the middle of the table it's time for us to win now let's get the perfect guy for Brian Flores scheme let's go all in on this type of play and in terms of your percentage of outcomes the percentage chance that they were going to justify that draft pick was not super high not in a bubble not in a vacuum now in the greater context of the defense that's where I thought well this might make sense if you've got a lot of other pieces that are veterans you're spending in free agency you're

hitting on a lot of guys the final piece idea it does make a lot of sense but if the guy just becomes another player in the league as opposed to a star which if you look at the history of pass rushers drafted past top 15 there's a lot of just another guys there's a lot of Adafay always around the league or what was the guy's name Joe Tri-on I mean there's like a lot of different guys who have been drafted in that back end is chop Robinson has been somewhat good maybe not a superstar like there's a lot of those because they're usually drafted with some flaws that they have to go along with you know the the good parts of their game so that it's not like the Vikings

traded up to number one and picked Dallas Turner there and he was a mile Garrett level prospect. He was always a prospect that was going to need work and that was dealing with shortcomings from a girth perspective. But the amount that they gave up made it only justifiable if it was a huge production from Dallas Turner. Now, he could still get there. There's a lot of pass rushers, Trey Hendrickson, Melvin Ingram, who haven't taken a step until their third or fourth year. So it does happen. It's a slow developing position. But like that's another one of those moves where the same with Hargrave and the same with Alan like this one only works if either the whole defense is great and they are complimentary or if these guys are absolute

their peak for how much they paid them. I mean, peak Javon Hargrave is probably a $25 million player. But Jonathan Allen with that price, I mean, you need to be great. You can't just be good. So a lot of these things in terms of range of outcomes have clicked on the not so successful of that and that's that's one of the reasons that they're in the position that they are right now um so let me give you uh actually i'll give the fan dual question of the day again a little later to uh brian murphy and manny hill want to get those guys rolling here and uh just say thanks everybody for watching along and um you know i i do feel for you guys that you get so excited about you know the national tv

game and boy this franchise does know how to punch you in the face so