Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - CBS's Mike Renner thinks JJ McCarthy is still the Vikings future

Episode Date: December 5, 2024

Matthew Coller is joined by Mike Renner of CBS Sports and "Push the Pile" podcast to talk about how well Sam Darnold has play, whether JJ McCarthy would still be his top option for the future, and potentially playoff matchups Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here and making his 100th appearance on the show. Mike Renner, now CBS Sports. Formerly, you probably know him from the PFF days and the Pushing the Pile podcast with Kyle Long. Renner, I enjoy seeing you. Did I even say your name? Mike Renner.

Seeing you thriving out there in this life, talking football. And how about this NFC North? How many years have we come on compared to Vikings? You are a Packers follower, and here we are, the best division in football, just like we all expected with the Vikings at 10-2. I don't know if it was with you, but it may have been,

it was earlier this season. I think I said, I expect NFC North to be the best division in football next year. It goes 2025. I was like, everything is setting up that this would be the best division football then little did I know I was there a year ahead of schedule. I mean, everyone in that division, the top three in that division, at least then even the bears, I think, obviously, the record, I don't think, reflects how good they've been and competitive they've been. But it's a dogfight. And it's great that we'll get to see

them all play yet again here down the stretch. Yeah, I mean, the Chicago Bears could very easily have seven wins this year if they knew how to throw up the old tee or maybe if Tyreek Stevenson understood when the play starts on a Hail Mary or whatever other number of little things that they could have done not try to hand off to their guard an unforgotten great moment from the Chicago Bears season right uh but we'll focus on the teams that are, you know, good here. We did have a conversation about Sam Darnold before the season, and I was circling back with all of my favorite draft people to try to remember, hey, what did we think of Darnold back when he came out of the draft? Is there a scenario where this could actually happen for the Vikings with Darnold or has everybody just given up? And the answer that a lot of you folks, uh, draft analysts kept coming back to was, I don't think it's quite over with Sam Darnold, but what has been your opinion about the way that he has performed to not just a good

level, but actually an elite level among quarterbacks this season yeah it's been pretty much night and day right from any other point in time that we've seen him now i do think you've still seen the really boneheaded plays that are kind of his mo whether it was in carolina whether it was in new york like the wow what was he looking at their throws that you know at the nfl level i think especially of late have seemingly gotten few and far in between. I feel like those were throws you saw a lot in the 90s, the 2000s. That was commonplace. But nowadays, I think you don't see a quarterback just throw into a linebacker's chest too often.

So he still has those to his game. But the aggressiveness, the ability to attack down the football field, he's, what, second in deep completions this season in the nfl like he has that to his game that's perfect for the offense right it's perfect for the talent they have around him there's no gun shyness to him he's a gunslinger i mean he's going to keep you alive in every single game you saw this past week like you're down two scores and he can play the type of football that can bring you back from a hole. And we can also dig you a hole, but he can bring you back from it.

And that's with their defense. That's a brand of winning football. So it's been awesome to see. Now, if you're signing him in the free agent market and you're like the Raiders, and you're like, can he transform our team? I'm not so certain he can. I'm not ready to put him on that level yet, but for the Minnesota Vikings, I think we all expect this massive drop off from Kirk Cousins and what he was doing last year, but just hasn't been the case.

No, it has not. And I think a major part of that is that Kevin O'Connell brought over an offense from Los Angeles that was built for Matthew Stafford, who is a reckless gunslinger with a monster arm who led the entire league in interceptions when he won the Super Bowl in 2021. And we've seen a lot of the same types of things from Sam Darnold. Sometimes he's scrambling out of the pocket and he throws it right into the arms of a linebacker who may catch it or may not. But other times he has fit the ball into windows that I think maybe five or six quarterbacks in the entire NFL can do. And I think playing the high variance game with this offense can be very

frustrating at times because it doesn't have a consistent lion's churn or even a Josh Allen churn. That's just where he could get first downs with his legs, but it's explosiveness makes it especially dangerous. I guess, I mean, how good can they be here with this strategy? Yeah. I mean,

it feels, it feels different from last year in that, or just when they had Kirk cousins. And then I think when, you know, when you went up against a really good team that Kirk was probably going to be overmatched, right? But this year, it feels like, yeah, Darnold could be horribly overmatched, but you face a really good team. It's like, Darnold could go out there and play lights, play a brand football that could go out there and win

you that game. So I think this team, more so than maybe maybe even past feels like one that could upset the lions and the plants could upset the eagles in the playoffs should that be the case or even could get the one seed if they keep winning out here so it definitely feels like a different like you said i think the word you said higher variance the phrase you said higher variance is very apt and it's truthfully once you get to the playoff time you kind of want to be on that side, right? You want to be on that Nick Foles side, that Eli Manning side, where they can corner run, man, which I fully see Sam Darnold being the type of quarterback that could do something of that nature.

I mean, Eli Manning is not the craziest comparison for a big dude who throws the ball down the field a lot and sometimes can look like the worst quarterback and you're frustrated and other times can have his receivers go make great plays or make the greatest throws into tight windows. Uh, the one that he made to Jordan Addison last week was maybe the, one of his definitive throws of the entire season to be able to, cause it's not just whipping it down field. It's also layering it in there, putting it into tight windows, throwing with anticipation, like he did on that 69 yard catch from Addison in Chicago. There's a lot of high level throwing things that

he's able to do. And it has led them to this point where they are a very serious contender. They're not the number one team going into the playoffs or down the stretch, but they are a serious contender. And the whole season, Mike, I was was saying i'm not going to talk about the darn old future thing until i have to even when they're five and oh like we're not going to talk about darn old verse mccarthy i think we're getting pretty close to i have to and so i have been recently if he plays like this this is a quarterback that you can really win a lot of games with and keep going with, but this was not your plan. How would you approach this? It's tough because I think you've, I trust your take. You,

you saw more of JJ McCarthy and training camp. You say he looked awesome for a rookie, right? And when that's the case, it's like the, you'll have to pay Darnold a lot coming out of the season, not franchise, franchise quarterback money, but more than any other position player on your roster sort of money. Right. So it's going to be like 35. It's going to be like Justin Jefferson's contract. So it's like going to be in that range that you're going to have to fork up

where, you know, if you can get same out, JJ McCarthy, and now it's a big if obviously he has not started in the NFL. You have no clue how that's going to go, but if you think you can or get similar, it's like that's a lot of cap space to burn through

just for that sort of insurance. So yeah, it's tough. I think there's a viable scenario where you could tag and trade him going forward. But I just don't see if again, like if they really believed in what they saw last uh training camp with jj mccarthy i just don't i don't see a world where you can even extend them like because any extension

is basically taking you through jj mccarthy's rookie deal and just saying hey that pick that we made he's a backup now right so the hard part for me is and it and it's like a good problem to have that you have two quarterbacks that you're very impressed with and one that you definitely know you can win with. The thing for me is when it comes to the salary cap, what we all know is that you can dig your fingernails into the window and pry it open when you use whatever is at your disposal for all the tricks of the trade with the salary cap. And anybody can pry that window open as New Orleans did for years with Drew Brees for a couple of seasons. The other thing I know is that you could speak to Green Bay's approach with Jordan Love. It's not perfectly ideal, but it didn't destroy their franchise to have Jordan

Love wait and then take over. And yes, they paid him, but amazingly, they didn't have to move the team to Los Angeles. Like they're still there and they're still in the hunt and they're still in the mix. Is it in a short window of this conversation? Is it overstated to talk about what Darnold would do to them as far as the salary cap goes? That's a good question because I do agree that one contract, especially at the quarterback position, especially when it's Sam Darnold, who would probably, I'm not going to say take a hometown discount, but it's like he would take less in Minnesota than he would elsewhere, I would think, just because he knows the situation there, the offense there. Again,

if you're signing with him, he knows how the other half lives, uniquely so, with what he did with the Jets, what he did with the Panthers, and now what he's doing in Minnesota. So you could say, I might get $10 million per year more elsewhere, but I want to go where I'm a starter with, where I can put up good numbers, where I can win a championship. So I don't think you'd, maybe from that perspective, maybe it could be like a really backloaded sort of deal where you know it's a big signing about you know the cap tricks that you can do to do so so i do think yeah i think there is a world where um that is overstated and also because sam darnell's been banged up this year too

and we it's not like every quarterback in the nfl makes through a season fully healthy um that you you do need a good backup. And if you just treat J.J. McCarthy as the backup, it's like, I don't think that's the worst thing in the world for him developmentally or for your franchise to have two options. So I do agree that it's not untenable if you wanted to fit Sam Darnold there. You still have a championship caliber roster that you can build around him. So what would the bar for you be to where you,

you just feel like you have to do that? Because I think as, as we're sitting here right now, they could still go. Oh, and five the rest of the season and end up with 10 wins and be like, what the heck just happened there? And Darnold's history does have a lot of ups and downs.

Hasn't had too many downs so far this year. So they did fall apart clearly you're not keeping him but what would be the level where everybody walks into the front office into the meeting to talk about what they're doing the quarterback and they all say yeah we just can't move on from this quarterback I do think it comes back to turnovers down the stretch here if he really can protect the football more because he's still his turnover where they play rate according to pff still top five in the nfl it's still very high and we all saw the jaguars game it was like what the heck was that like that can't happen in a playoff game you know if you see that guy come out in any of these big games down the stretch, it's just like we've seen enough at this point. And even in your best year, the best you've ever played, you're still turning the ball over a little too much for us to where we're not going to commit to that big deal.

And we have a guy in James McCarthy on the bench that we like a lot. So I think that's the biggest thing. Can he really prove that those games are so fluky that you don't have to worry about them come playoff time? If he does that, we can talk. There's another question here, too, that is if you can take Sam Darnold, whose career quarterback rating was 78, and he's had every game except two this year over 100. I know there's other metrics, but PFF, I think he's seventh if you sort by just all the starting quarterbacks.

His big-time throws are top three in the entire NFL, but he never did that really before. And you have J.J. McCarthy who impressed the heck out of them. And when you talk about what it looked like in training camp, I would say whatever your best-case scenario was in your head of how he could look in his first year, it was probably better than that. That he was making so much fast progress. He had grown, he was bigger and stronger than he looked in college. There has to be an immense amount of confidence that just like when Philadelphia drafted Jalen Hertz and everyone went, wait a minute, you already have Carson Wentz and they move on

to Jalen Hertz. And then a couple of years later, they're in the Superbowl. There has to be an incredible amount of confidence from Kevin O'Connell in himself that JJ McCarthy can be whatever the ceiling or peak of what they thought he could be. This was almost the test case. It wasn't Kirk Cousins. It wasn't someone who had put up big numbers ever before. This is kind of the, let's roll this out and see what we can really do.

Yeah, I do think Kevin O'Connell is reaching levels of, you know, Kyle Shanahan and what he did in San Francisco, where it's like, yeah, we could pay Jimmy G a lot of money or we could just get this guy who's a seventh round you know Mr. Irrelevant to do the same stuff and now it's not saying everyone can do that in an offense not saying that Sam Darnold's going to revert back to the old guy we saw if he goes elsewhere but I do think you have a good and even seeing Kirk Cousins this year and obviously like there's injury there but like you have a good handle that I am elevating the play of the quarterback,

me being Kevin O'Connell is elevating the play of the quarterbacks in this offense to a degree that others around the NFL can't. And so when that's the case, yeah, you go with the cheaper option because you are confident that you will elevate his play to a level that is way, way higher than the circle than what you'll get out of the contract value in terms of like surplus value from that rookie deal.

And when they go into the off season, you want to be able to get Brian Flores another corner. You want to be able to get the offensive line, a right guard who could be trusted and things like that, which may be restricted if you try to keep Sam Darnold. But I like your point about if JJ McCarthy ends up being the backup quarterback for another year or even two more years, there's a likelihood at some point your quarterback's going to get hurt and Darnold does get banged up throughout his career. They've been very lucky

this year that he hasn't because the next option is Nick Mullins. And now Daniel Jones is a Minnesota Viking as well. Weirdly, I want to just get your opinion on the rest of the team though here, because I thought that the defense would be a lot better than people believed, or at least, you know, just from seeing last year, how Brian Forrest got the most out of them. But I didn't think they were going to be top five necessarily, which is where they've been. Compare them to the other teams in the NFC. We've really seen the separating, as I smash my mic, sorry about that,

the separating of the C's here of Philadelphia, Minnesota, Green Bay, Detroit, maybe Washington still in this conversation. But where do you have them in that mix? I think I see it almost right now that there's two tiers at the top of the NFC. And then it's just like, I think that's it. I think those are the teams and it's the tier ones, Detroit, Philadelphia, because I think you have unquestionably the best offense in the NFL and then unquestionably the best defense in the NFL with absolutely lions being the offense, Eagles being the defense. And then more than enough on the other side of the football to call yourself.

And I think the lines actually like even have allowed lower points per game this year than the Eagles, even if I'm not sure I trust their defense much, but like the results have been awesome for them. So both those teams are in kind of, I think they're the two best teams in the entire NFL actually right now, as it stands right now, it's hard to argue. They just haven't lost in two months. So those two. And then after that, it's Vikings Packers.

They're flawed. They haven't been consistently dominant on either side of the ball the way those top two teams have but they're more than talented enough and have i think with they have like elite talent at the places you want to have elite talent vikings whether it be vikings at vikings at wide receiver impact like they have those two receiving cores that basically any defense they face, they can put points up against, I believe. So I think that's how I see it. It's outside of those four.

Everyone else is just too flawed. Everyone else has, whether it's the commanders, whether it's the bucks, whether it's whoever comes out of the NFC West. I just think those are very flawed teams that come play off time. If you run up against one of those top four, I just think you're not going to win that game.

The one that scenario that I would be most concerned about for the Vikings is if they had to ever go to Philadelphia in any way, I was there in 2017 and last year when they played that, it's just not an environment you really want to go into. And that's also a team that I think with their O-line could make life very, very difficult on Vikings. They're a patient offense. But when it's Detroit, they've played each other so many times.

They know everything Detroit does, but they know everything the Vikings do. They also play a lot of man coverage, which I think is a problem for them against Justin Jefferson and Jordan Addison, TJ Hawkinson being back in this game where he was not, or when they play the lions again, it's really Philadelphia that I look at. And the other ones are a coin flip ish when it comes to the potential matchups. Yeah. Philly is really built on a team that if they get the one seed, it's going to seed, it's going to be almost impossible to upset just because they're so stout in their front seven now. I mean, so good the way their linebackers are playing as well.

And then their offensive line plus Saquon Barkley is just like they can just run the ball every single play. And then obviously Jalen Hurtson as well. Option runs with that offensive line, it's just they are built to grind out low-scoring games and just smother you. So that's a tough team right now. That's why I put those two in kind of their own tier, the Lions and the Eagles, just because you're not going to overmatch those offensive lines

and their defenses are playing really well right now. So I want to circle back to the North and its future because you mentioned 2025 in a moment, but I have to ask you about the Atlanta Falcons and their situation at quarterback. Some folk are already pounding the table for Michael Penix to play. Of course, if you're the Falcons, you can't play Michael Penix against Minnesota. You have to let Kirk have his shot. And the weird thing about Kirk is that every time you declare him in his grave, it's over. Kirk's done. And then he rises from the ashes and returns to a high level of quarterback play as he's done so many times in

his career. So I think Vikings fans should be more concerned about this game than maybe they are because of that. But at the same time, that draft pick of Michael Penix now looks pretty darn genius from the Atlanta Falcons. It's almost like maybe they knew that an Achilles injury for a guy that old could be a problem. Should they turn to Pennix to try to save their season if it doesn't go well against the Vikings? I don't love that. I mean, I think you just give Kirk this year. Now, if you're out of it week 18, 17, yeah, I'm fine turning it over to him. but I just think like the guy's the rookie to ask him to save your season is a lot of pressure to put on and only can really, I mean, not only can you go South, but like he doesn't do it all of a sudden he started his career on a pretty bad foot in a

pretty negative manner. Whereas, and then you put yourself in a real pickle of what to do in the off season with Kirk Cousins. If he, if Penix doesn't look good, right. Then it's like, oh man, we've had this weird situation on our hands where we benched him but now we're like hey come back and play but I do think you watch Kirk Cousins this season and you've obviously watched him far more than I have the past few years but his arm strength's gone like it's it's the worst arm in the NFL right now bar none he can't attack down the football field he can't attack outside the numbers if you took away the two games against the Tampa Bay Bucks this year, who I watched those game plans,

and I could not believe what Todd Bowles was doing, just playing like the most vanilla spot drop defenses to let him just pick them apart underneath. I'm like, you let so much space over the middle of the field. That's all he has right now is just that ability. If you take away those two games he has 12 picks nine touchdowns averaging like six yards per attempt it's awful or seven yards per attempt it's just awful there outside of those two games where he just went off and so i don't know i don't i don't see

it turning around unless it's just at his age with that injury with the way his arm looks there's no second act with Kirk now he can play better than he has of late right I mean four picks in the game he's gonna bounce back from that but there's no secret formula to get him back to who he was in Minnesota unfortunately that's just the nature of 36 year olds with cash traffic injuries so yeah I, I do. I worry about the Falcons going forward, but I do think if you're trying to keep your mic appendix, it's next year. You know, as I was thinking about this game, I think it really shines a light

on the front office for the Vikings. And you and I over the years have talked many times about different front office plans and trying to figure out where Kweisi Adafo-Mensah was going to take this. His first draft has been comically bad as has been talked about ad nauseum over here, but the rest of the plan and the way it's come together faster than maybe

they expected. I think the biggest thing that he did was upon arrival, create a succession plan from Kirk Cousins. And they didn't know he was going to tear his Achilles, but how much different would it even be if he didn't? It's not like he had a rocket before that. It's not like his teams were above 500 before that. So as you see him playing the way that he is, it just to me says, this is a rarity in the NFL where a general manager can come in and fully over three years, have the time, the space, the coaching to execute a plan from start to now a position where they can be successful in many years. I think that this is one of the best moves that's been made in the NFL recently was to say, we love you, Kirk, but we're not extending. Oh, 100%.

I mean, in retrospect, the Packers moving on from Aaron Rodgers, the Vikings moving on from Kirk Cousins, calling, I don't want to say calling their bluff, but having the foresight and the fortitude to make that move when it's hard to, you know, when you have a guy who's playing well, so few, so few teams in NFL history have been willing to just say,

that's fine. You can walk out the door. We know we're going to be okay. And been proven, right. A lot of teams wait for that shoe to drop for Carson Wentz to really be horrible, right. For like, for someone really to turn into a pumpkin before they're willing to

let them go. Even if everyone kind of knew before the day that they were going to turn to a pumpkin was coming, right? Everyone's kind of know it's like, ah, it's going to happen. But we have this contract that we're going to have to give them because we're too scared of how the other half lives. Vikings did it masterfully in the package as well let's uh jump into 2025 and beyond i want to know what you think the bears are supposed to do at their head coaching position they fire maddie reflux just just wreckage just total wreckage to have not done that and the locker room was lost last year there was no real real reason to bring

him back yet. They did. And now they're in a position to do the Trevor Lawrence, where you go from a really terrible coach to know this guy has got to come in here. And now he's got to teach Caleb Williams an entirely new system. At the same time, having seen Caleb Williams in person, I was pretty wowed. I got to tell you, I was pretty wowed by the talent that exists for that man. I'm sure in the comments, they'll tell me he's not that good, but I think he's pretty good. What do you think that they are going to do and what they should do? Man, what they're going to do is difficult to predict because they are such a poorly run and cheap organization. And that's why you brought Eberfluss back, right? It's because you didn't want to shell out more money for a Jim Harbaugh or

whoever would have been a top coaching can on the market. Because when you have the number one overall pick and a guy like Caleb Williams is available, shoot, you're going to get a top coaching talent. Someone wants to work with a guy like that. You just mean you get to be tied to a talent like him for your entire career.

Basically that's how it works with head coaches if it goes well with quarterback usually you're not getting fired anytime soon so a great opportunity and i think still a great opportunity so they'll get maybe not necessarily the exact person they want but they'll get one of the top coaches obviously i think if you're just looking at caleb who would you want to pair him with i think ben johnson is like the obvious now would ben johnson want to pair him with? I think Ben Johnson is, like, the obvious. Now, would Ben Johnson want to go into the division with his ties to the Lions and whatnot? I don't know.

I think the name I keep coming back to that if he were to go there outside of Ben Johnson, that would really sort of scare me as a Packers fan and I would not want to hear is Mike Vrabel. Just because, I mean, just see Tennessee before and after Mike Vrabel just because I mean just just see Tennessee before and after Mike Vrabel right like horrible before horrible after he is a culture-changing head coach he sets a tone that would be exactly what Chicago needs right they're so much more talented than they play in the football field because there was and you saw it in their interviews and every week the finger pointing you just knew that was a team in disarray that would never fly under Mike Frable. None of that stuff would have been happening.

And so you would get all these superstar players in Chicago and such a talented roster to fall in line. And if that's the case and you, you know, have a guy who can assume the leadership role kind of on top of Caleb Williams, who probably isn't everyone's cup of tea. I mean, I think we can all admit he's a little bit of a weird guy. I don't think he's going to be similar to like an Aaron Rodgers where not everyone's going to look up to him as this face franchise guy. Well, you get Mike Frabel to be that guy. And so that's the one who would worry me the most. Um, if he ended up being the head coach there, I think if they were to hire Mike Vrabel, the broad reaction would just be like, Oh, a guy who's what do they say? Retread or retread in the league. But I think that they

need someone who knows how to coach a football team. They just have not had that. Is John Fox the last guy who they had who knew how to coach a team? And then they're bringing in other people who have just been coordinators. Cliff Kingsbury is an interesting idea to me, considering the connection with USC. Do you need someone that connects with Caleb Williams on a personal level to bring the best leadership out of him. I don't know if that's the case, but also I've seen, you know, Kevin O'Connell do a really good job at this

of manage the emotional element of the game as much as the X's and O's. And I think Cliff Kingsbury could be good at that. I would be worried about just what happened with Kyler Murray, but I think that Williams is probably a better player than Murray is. Yeah. And just, I think Kyler, the height is like a real thing. Like just there's things that often you can't do.

Now I do think Caleb's also suffering from the fact that he's not that tall. And like, there's issues that when you are six foot six, one, that is more difficult than when you're six, four, six, five.

But yeah, I'd be interested. Cliff Kingsbury would be interesting to me um just because the connection from usc even if it's like the year he was at usc was not caleb's best year was the year before that and we're kind of seeing the second half cliff started to rear his head but but the whole back to the retread thing i mean like dan quinn was retread and was probably the best coaching hire of this past or him and Harbaugh, both retreads, the best coaching hires of this past cycle. So like, I don't know.

I don't think retread gets a bad connotation, but I don't think it always is. Yeah, I think so too. And even I would have used Mike McCarthy as an example with the Dallas Cowboys if we had done this podcast last year, but I won't bring that up this year. But it was the same thing, though. It was like, how could they hire this guy who failed? And then they had top offenses a couple years in a row

and just fell apart in the playoffs. Bill Belichick was retread, and he's going to be again. So, I mean, it happens. I don't know. What about, no, the Bears, they can't do that, right? No, that one doesn't make any sense to me. I mean, I think for him just i think it's dallas i just think he's gonna be he's gonna be dallas head coach i just think jerry wants

that to always be associated with his brand then he got the best head coach of all time to be a coach the cowboys i just think that's where it's gonna happen that's probably true but i want him to stay in the media he's really good he's really. If Belichick's talking these days, I'm like, click on the YouTube or on TV if he's out there talking. With Jordan Love and the Packers, I have it circled on the Vikings calendars, the biggest game of the year, December

29th. I think they'll be fighting for playoff position, but also if the Vikings beat the Packers, then Vikings fans will go into the playoffs believing their team can do something. And if the Packers beat them, then they will not. And I've seen that play out a number of years with the late season game with these two teams.

Has Jordan Love proved anything to you this year after last year, it was going into the season. The whole thing was, well, he's got to show that he can do it again. Do you feel like you're on solid ground with what Jordan Love is? Sadly, I don't see a much different guy now. A lot of injuries, right? And that can't be understated that he was, you know, going from MCL to a groin and having to play through it. It's like, what tape is, do we really trust?

But, you know, halfway through the season, he was kind of statistically at the same point he was after through his first season. So, but I do, I do think of late been a lot better.

And it's like, we still had a really high opinion on it. And it was more just like people thought he could join the stratosphere of like Josh Allen, Joe Burrow, Patrick Holmes, find that he's not right. You can win championships with a guy at his caliber of play so it's not the worst thing in the world

but i i don't think we're seeing a different guy i still think a lot of the issues that he had last year are still there on tape and unless we really see the second half guy where he just doesn't you know cleans it all up it's like we'll still be looking at again a probably tier three-ish quarterback uh around the league seems like sam darnold and jordan love are kind of a similar quarterback this year which they feel like darnold goff love it's hard to pick between the three right now in terms of who you would want to have for one game because I think all can go in the tank for a game and all can light it up. Like there's, all are just like a little up and down

with their performance. Obviously golf probably is the best. OC, best weapons probably go to Minnesota. Maybe the best combination of those two though goes to, just like of all supporting cast goes to Jordan Love. So it's like really tough to say uh who has who's the top in that division who you'd want about the most end of 2025 you know that you and i will be doing this podcast december 4th 2025 you know what's happening uh although i said that i might shut down purple insider if the vikings win the

super bowl so i'll just go cover some other team. Well, yeah, we've, well, no, but like I've, I've covered the journey.

They won the Super Bowl. What else is there to do? I haven't thought that through, but when it, when it comes to 2025, December 4th, when we do this podcast, what are we talking about with the North?

Are we talking about how Ben Johnson has made the Chicago bears the best team? Are we talking about Dan Campbell's club falling apart or getting somehow stronger jj mccarthy's an elite quarterback like what are we talking about i think we're legitimately talking about is this the best division of all time because it's setting up just when you look at their cap situations when you look at these uh the talent that they have when you look at their cap situations, when you look at these, the talent that they have, when you look at the young talent, when you just look at everything, they'll all be better next year. You're like on paper, be better next year than they are right now. Right. There's good reason to believe that. So in that perspective, I think we're just discussing, you know, is this the best division? One of the best divisions in NFL history because it's all setting

up for that to be the case now I do think we're also discussing some coordinators how big their impact has been felt whether it's Ben Johnson whether it's Brian Flores but after that it's just like these teams are built to have success not just this year. No one's all in for this year. They have success for the next three to four years. So it's a unique time to be an NFC North fan. And I just don't think it's random with any of them. I mean, it's not random when you draft the number one overall quarterback. And then if they get a good coach, we know how much that can mean to an organization.

But the ones that are already winning, it's not like a Case Keenum season. It's not like somebody just had every bounce go their way and all the Packers are randomly good. Like this was kind of the expectation other than the Vikings, but the Vikings have earned these wins, the point differential. If you like the DVOA, all those different statistics that still point to them as a top five to seven team in the league yeah it's three organizations specifically the lions the packers the vikings bears obviously we talked about them but it's those three organizations are it's top down that's why we're talking about them in long-term success it's like they are doing

things the correct way in building this in their championship windows. So that's why I think the championship windows aren't just this year. It's like, it's going to be a while for these teams. They're just again, doing it the right way. Okay. Do you have any questions for me?

Oh, I was going to say, what do you do if you win the Superbowl with Sam Darnold, but the, do you Sam Darnold win Superbowl? Is there any way you can let him walk out the door? You just can't, right? Well, I guess I was thinking that Sam Darnold winning the Superbowl might make it easier to have him walk out the door. Like what, what, well, he, they did it. He won the Superbowl. That was the goal. Like what, uh, you know,

you're never going to get better than that again. Uh they would just do it in the Joe Flacco way of, well, we have to keep this man as our quarterback. I guess another part of it too, is for a franchise that has struggled to get to the finish line since forever of its existence, you just build the statue out front of the stadium and who cares what happens next? I mean, really the harder one to me is what if he gets to the NFC championship and doesn't play well, that one is harder. If he went to Philly, just like case Keenum and he didn't play well. I mean, imagine even if case Keenum had gone to Philly played well and they lost by a field goal or something. Like I think that losing 38 to seven made that decision for them but if they lose 35 to 38 to the philadelphia eagles in the nfc championship game on a blocked

field goal or something because it has to be and he's put up top five numbers and he was a baller in the playoffs to me there's no way you can let him walk out the door after that. Yeah. Now it's, it's going to be an interesting conversation going forward, but I think if I had to bet right now, I just don't think he's quarterback next year. I think they'll let him walk in some way, shape, form, obviously maybe trade them, but I don't think he's going to be there. Okay. One last thing you guys on your podcast pushing the pile. I think one of you is probably better at that than the other one.

Kyle long. podcast push in the pile i think one of you is probably better at that than the other one kyle long uh what has been your biggest debate about this nfl season like is it teams is it some sort of topic what are you guys fighting about that's a great question see he agrees me i'm too much stuff that's the problem i'm like dude you gotta need some more anger on this podcast um what does he disagree the most with me about how about even just the chiefs it's the chief so i am notorious chiefs hater apparently i went viral like a month it was it was before what game is it before it's before the bucks game i was like this is people are talking about going undefeated i'm just like there's no chance to go undefeated this is not that good football team this felt like it felt like the 2020 steelers or was it 2019 steelers whenever the steelers yeah 2020 i was like

like this is not this isn't even like a top three team in the fc in my opinion and i was like people did not like that but and he obviously didn't either he played for the chiefs and he knows all those guys and so he He always pushes back on me. I watch a team go down the wire with the Panthers, win on a fluky fumble to the Raiders, win on a fluky block kick to the Broncos. It's like, this is a good, not great football team. This should be a wild card team this year. It is not the best team in the NFL NFL the way they keep getting held up to.

Now, they keep making everyone look dumb come playoff time. Sure, they know how to win games. That's the thing in the NFL. It's real, and it usually comes down to coaching and stability. But they will not be your AFC representative. They're not going to be that, and Kyle still believes they will be. So that's our biggest debate. I don't blame him because last year after they lost that game to the Raiders,

where the Raiders, I think what they didn't throw a pass in the second half of the game, I thought we all kind of did the same thing. But this has been like the gas pedal has never gone down this year for them. It seems like everything is hard. It's a struggle. I'll show my my age and uh you know you're catching up to me here mike and in your old school throwback but the when i was a little kid the bills went to the super bowl every single year so i just assumed that that's kind of

how like life went they just went to the super bowl and then they reached a point where jim kelly got older and it everything everything was hard. Like they were still good enough to make the playoffs, but Thurman didn't have the juice. Andre Reed was getting banged up. Bruce Smith wasn't putting up 15 sacks and they could still beat out like a lot of teams, but it just wasn't quite there. It feels like the transition that we expected from them last year has kind of actually happened this year, but they've gotten away with it. Yes. That's a great point. Like it just. People are thinking this is a different team than they are right now. And last year, even compared to last year, last year's defense was awesome. And you could hang

your hat on an elite cornerback duo, Jarius Snead, Trent McDuff. Those guys were great. And so it was going to be difficult to move the ball against that defense. I don't think that's the case right now. I don't see a top five defense in the NFL, probably top 10. But to win the Super Bowl, you've got to be number one. To make it to the Super Bowl, you have to be top three. So I don't think it's happening. I think this is a very flawed football team right now that is sneaking by by coaching and the fact that they've been there and the stability they have.

But talent-wise, they are behind the eight ball in the AFC. The only thing is if I was to join Kyle side of this debate, here's what I would say. Okay. Buffalo, right? But who else, who else? I mean, the Ravens, we keep saying, we keep anointing those Ravens and then they let you down and Pittsburgh. I'm not sure I'm buying this kind of cartoony offense with Russell Wilson, where they run four verts or screens and that's all they do. Uh, and what Houston could get hot. What I mean, it's the easiest thing. It's like, I just put them in that tier of those teams. I'm not saying they're, you know, any too much worse than any of them. I just think that's of those teams. I'm not saying they're, you know, any too much worse than any of them.

I just think that's where they belong. You know, that's where they are. One loss though, you see one loss on the record and you think, okay, they're the best team. It's like, no, they're more just like in that mix. Right. How dare you? Pittsburgh Steelers fans.

I remember that. I remember the PFF debates of 2020. Talk about the internet going crazy. And then when Baker Mayfield lit up the Steelers in that playoff game. Oh, man. That was amazing. Oh, football. It always gives to us.

Well, pushing the pile, CBS Sports, you're doing a great job over there. Love to see the success. And it'll be before December 4th, 2025 that we get together again. Maybe we'll do a little playoff previewing. How would that feel to you? Happy to come on whenever, Matthew. Always happy to join. Even though I can't believe 100 episodes.

You have a Packers fan on for 100 episodes? It's got to be up there from all the radio years and everything else. It does have to be up there. But anyway, well, it'll be interesting to see how things play out in the north from here. Definitely not settled. Mike Renner, appreciate you, man. We'll talk again soon.