Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Darrisaw DNP? How many games can the Vikings win in 2025? (Part 1)

Episode Date: October 31, 2025

Matthew Coller talks with Manny Hill about setting the bar for JJ McCarthy's return, the offensive line situation, whether the Lions are a rival of the Vikings and Manny picks the schedule. The Purple Insider podcast is brought to you by FanDuel. Also, check out our sponsor HIMS at https://hims.com/purpleinsider Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hey, everybody, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider presented by Fandul, Matthew Collar here, along with Manny Hill. And we have got a lot to discuss tonight, including Manny Picking the Schedule. And, well, that should be quite a thing that we're going to do later on in the show. But we're going to get into Vikings, Lions, expectations for J.J. McCarthy and Manny, unfortunately, we got to start in a place with an injury, which is Christian Derisaw not practicing today. And there has been a little confusion on that because Derisaw was using Thursdays as a recovery day at times throughout the season. But I will

read you the Kevin Sefer tweet. He said Christian Derisaw has taken rest days most weeks this season, but today was not an official rest day. He didn't practice because his knee is not 100%. This wasn't for maintenance, no setbacks, no deep concern about his availability, just an accurate reflection of his condition. And by deep concern for his availability, I'm not sure what that means.

We'll find out tomorrow from Kevin O'Connell, whether he is active for the game or not, but not practicing on a Thursday because the knee is not 100%. Mani, this. This is just toss a cherry on top of a season that has had a lot of these types of things go wrong. But not having Derisaw, we've seen the impact of it and not having him back at 100% by midway through the season. We are now talking a year from the time where he tore his ACL against the Los Angeles Rams.

It does raise the concern about Christian Derisaw getting back to 100% this. year. Is that going to happen? And if it doesn't, then how do we get an accurate view of what J.J. McCarthy really is if he has to play without his left tackle at full strength. I mean, because the drop off in what you can do is an offense, like, there's a reason you pay this guy over $30 million a year because he's that important to the team. But if he's playing nine snaps and having to take himself out of the game, missing practices, not able to get back fully. I mean, this, this, it just feels very Vikings calamity year to have Christian Derasaw look like it was going to be a routine ACL recovery and come back at the beginning

of the year. And now we're still asking these questions. It's like 2001 or 2010 or 2013 or 18, 2018, 2016, like all over again. It's like all of those seasons, really. combined. And the I think the reason why caller this is especially concerning is because we've already kind of seen what the impact of not having Christian Derisaw is going to have

potentially on J.J. McCarthy because we've already seen it. First two weeks of the season, Christian Derisaw didn't play. He was still coming back from the major knee injury that he had last year. And we saw J.J. McCarthy for seven out of eight quarters in those first two games really

struggle. And the offense really struggle as a whole. And Dara saw's impact, what he does certainly as a past protector, as a left tackle, is we know that as well. But I think what kind of gets forgotten as well is how impactful he is in the running game as well. And when you have, again, a young quarterback that's trying to develop and trying to get better, we're trying to figure out how good J.J. McCarthy is.

Everything, it just feels like a domino effect. If you don't have your left tackle, kind of impact is that going to have on your running game as well. If you're running game struggles because you don't have your left tackle, what kind of impact is that going to have on J.J. McCarthy? Oh, we already know as a, you know, in past protection, that's going to make things challenging. And now if you can't run the ball, it's going to make it even harder for J.J. McCarthy to really kind of lead this offense. So it's, it's concerning. And I, I don't know if there's enough words to really describe how concerning this actually is. Yeah, because you are talking about

a true franchise player, probably one of the five best tackles in the NFL. I was just in the locker of today chatting with Josh Mattelis about, I was actually talking with about tight ends and we were talking about how Brian O'Neill chose to be a tackle and how a lot of guys who are great athletes are probably saying, you know what, I should slim down and catch footballs because it's more fun than playing offensive tackle. And we were just talking about how there's only 10 of these guys in the league, 15 of these guys in the league who can really make a difference on your team. And Christian Darisaw is one of them. And this is where I feel bad for Justin's school. I mean,

right now he is the 65th out of 79 on PFF, pass blocking grade for offensive tackles. When it comes to sacks allowed, he is number one in the NFL with six sacks allowed this year, pass blocking efficiency. I've got to scroll 74th out of 79. Of course, I mean, I mean, this is a guy being asked to do something to go be Christian Darrasaw. And no, he has not even been able to play at a replacement level. But that's kind of what you're looking at when you have backup tackles coming into play. You're not expecting to be in the game. Oh, I'm a right tackle.

And then, excuse me, Justin, actually after nine snaps, can you just like scoot, scoot, scoot over to the hardest position to play in the National Football League, left tackle? and having a young quarterback like J.J. McCarthy have to deal with that or an injured Carson Wentz have to deal with that in the middle of a game. I think you see the domino effect that happens where all of a sudden that pressure is coming from your blindside time and time again. And there was a study that was done about how quarterbacks perform after getting hit. And there was only a handful of quarterbacks that were not impacted. And one of them was, I'm sure you would have guessed, Matthew Stafford,

because he is gigantic and a lunatic. But even Tom Brady, like, as you saw in the Super Bowl, but in this study, most quarterbacks right after getting hit are not performing at the same level. And so just, or J.J. McCarthy goes out and he struggles to get rid of the ball on time. And then he gets a few quick hits. And then it tumbles down against Atlanta. Well, there is a gentleman who was just paid $180 million by the Detroit Lions who will be lining up over Justin school if he's in this game. I've noticed from Hutchinson that he basically

lines up over whichever offensive tackle is weaker. That's what it looks like on paper, but he'll go on left or right side. So you can't hide anybody. And if Darisaw's not in there, well, that's where he's going to be. It just makes it so much harder to figure out, hey, can J.J. McCarthy play? Because this wasn't supposed to be the plan. And if you don't have time to throw, then you have to change your game plan, which Kevin O'Connell doesn't always want to do, and that's where the domino effect is. And I don't, when we deal with something like this, it's so much harder to look for wrongdoing than with X's and O's. Like if we, oh, a guy missed an assignment. So, well, it's his fault. Or you made a draft pick that didn't work. Well, we know what happened. We know

who did it. When it comes to this, it just feels like it's been a bad break for Christian. And, I see people he's soft and this and that. I mean, I don't know. I don't know how we can say. That's ridiculous. Yeah, I don't know how we can say stuff like that. Yeah. Yeah.

I think, well, and the other part of this, too, is you're also dealing with your right tackle or Brian O'Neill who has been banged up at times this season as well. And I saw he was limited in practice this week, too, because he's dealing with a knee issue right now. I mean, you're talking about two, two of your best players on offense, you know, and, you know, like you said, your franchise left tackle just can't seem to stay on the field right now because of this knee. And it's concerning because, again, how do you, how can you really properly? And we talk about, you know, at some point, JJ McCarthy is just going to have to go out and play and showcase what he can do. and you can't possibly expect every, you know,

the conditions to be perfect for him week in and week out. But at the same time, how do you truly evaluate what he is as a quarterback and how he's developing if, you know, 40% of your offensive line is banged up or just completely out of the lineup altogether? I mean, how do you even properly evaluate how good he's going to be, what you actually have in him? Now, look, if he comes up, out and he still plays well despite all of that, then that's a really good sign that he can

operate under, you know, adverse situations. But if if he's kind of, if he comes out at Ford Field on Sunday and he's so-so and he's largely so-so because the protection just isn't great, how do you really fault him for that? Because if Dar esau doesn't play, it really blows up everything that they're able to do offensively. Folks, maybe you haven't started your holiday shopping yet, but those holidays sneak up on you fast. So let me give you some advice. Check out uncommon goods. Uncommon goods makes holiday shopping stress-free and fun with thousands of one-of-a-kind gifts that you can't find anywhere else. Uncommon goods looks for products that are high-quality, unique, often handmade or made in the USA, many of which are crafted by

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restrictions and safety information. And this is a challenge of evaluating just about everyone, including the head coach and his connection with the quarterback and his play calling that people love to talk about a lot and all that sort of stuff. It becomes, well, when we second guess everything, which, look, it's deserved when you perform like this. I heard J.J. McCarthy say the other day because kids love the process and not results things. So he's like, well, you know, it's not about wins and losses. It's about how we, you know, go out and execute every play. That's just the thing that the kids have been taught to say. But, oh, no, the results are everything. They're everything in the NFL. I don't care.

No one wants to hear about your process. No one wants to hear about your excuses. No one wants to hear about your injuries and the bad luck and all those sorts of things. if you lose, then everyone was wrong, and that's how football is. And I get it, right? And I feel like it's part of our job is to kind of break through that and look into, like, how we got here, what happened, what they should be doing differently. I like to say it's a solutions-oriented podcast where we look for the answers when things are going wrong.

But when you don't have Christian Derisaw and Brian O'Neill is, you know, playing banged up as well, I don't have solutions for you. And I also really struggle to be able to evaluate you. And the same thing goes with Carson Wentz playing where, yeah, I mean, I think that you should hand off on second and one with Jordan Mason when you're in the red zone, but the entire play calling of the game against the Philadelphia Eagles where they're moving the ball, but then Wentz is just throwing it into the stands. And you're like, well, it's, it's not even just Carson Went.

It's Carson Wentz at like 60% of Carson Wentz, which is just not even really a starting caliber quarterback and you're going what and I don't what am I supposed to do here and the same thing goes for the front office now I I see the comments and be oh you're just the quasi apologist if I this is what happens right if if things go wrong and you ever look for explanations then you're you know you're apologizing for them but even with the front office and the build the idea was that you can put an offense around a quarterback that is so stacked with elite left tackle, elite right tackle, expensive guard, first round guard, veteran center, and the center one, I think you asked, you could have maybe seen injuries

coming. But even then the guy played like 700 snaps last year. That's a great offensive line. And we've never gotten to see it. This is a quarterback. We've never gotten to see. I mean, it's a quarterback who is supposed to have one of the best receiving running backs in the league, who we haven't gotten to see after he had a great touchdown in the first game, to Aaron Jones. It's just so much of this is frustrating from an analysis standpoint, man, because what am I supposed to do with this? What am I supposed to say that people did wrong? I'm sure they did stuff wrong and we could try to point it out. But when we can't even look at the team that was supposed to be here, I guess maybe I'm expressing the frustration

of, you know, looking at some of the comments. But like, I just don't really know what to do with this other than to say for Christian Derisaw's sake and for this franchise's sake, they need to get this figured out. And if that takes sitting him for several more weeks to get the final five games healthy and go into next year and this offseason healthy, then do whatever you have to do. If he plays and he plays 10 snaps again and comes out of the game, I think we're all going to say, what is going on here? Yeah, 100%. He is so vital to everything that this franchise is going to be able to do. I mean, we talk about how great. great Justin Jefferson is.

We talk about how outstanding, you know, some, you know, when you're talking about, you know, the running game and how important it is to have for a young quarterback. And we know, you know, the development of J.J. McCarthy is so important. Christian Derasaw is such a huge, huge part of that. And you, in a lot of ways, you have to kind of treat him the same way. You treat the quarterback position because it's so vital to the quarterback's. long-term success. If you don't have Christian Darrasaw,

it's going to be really hard for J.J. McCarthy to have significant long-term success as a growing, developing quarterback. And so to me, it feels like if he's not ready to be out there, if he's not in a good enough physical condition to be out there, you don't want to put him out there

because if you do put him out there and something goes wrong and it gets worse than what it is right now, oh boy, oh, bleep, you are in deep, deep trouble because now what do you do with that? You know, you've got him signed to a big contract, a contract that he deserves because of the elite level talent that he is. But now it's like if you make, if you don't play this right and it impacts the rest of his career potentially, now you've lost him and now you've got to go find a another left tackle. Right. Good luck.

Christian. Yeah. Christian Darisaw does not grow on trees. Those type of players, you don't find them. It's not easy to find those type of guys at all. So they really have to be careful with this. If he's not ready to play on Sunday, it's going to suck for J.J. McCarthy against the Detroit Lions, but I think long term, it might be the right play. If he's not ready to play. The point that I was making the other night, well, when I got a text from someone in the league and I brought it up, and of course it was aggregated completely wrong from what I was saying, but, you know, such as life, uh, was that there are conflicts sometimes between players and teams when it comes to the handling of injuries. And it's a, it's a dangerous game. Like when, and this is nobody's fault. Like this is football. This is how it works. Teams want players on the field. Players need to do what's best for them. And those two things don't always click into place, right? And the point that someone was making was, was that when this happens, the trust between player and team, even if the team did handle it the best they could, can be degraded. And not that I'm making this comparison, but just sort of a

point about this would be, I brought up Anthony Barr and how that kind of went with him in 2016. We know Trent Williams and the Washington staff had their issues. And that's how Trent Williams ended up out of Washington like this this happens and you don't R3 in Washington yeah exactly like you don't want this and again I'm not saying the Viking staff is like that and I acknowledge all the praise that they've gotten from players in the past but individual situations can cause a lot of tension when it comes to health because that's more of a hey you're talking about my money you're talking about my long term career so are we handling it the way that I think is right even if the player isn't right

Right. That's the point is that it can cause conflict. And with Derisaw, you just sort of see from afar, like this can't be right when the player is trying to play on a Thursday and then has to come out of the game or when he's over in London and he's playing X number of snaps and then just has to come out and doesn't look like himself. That's where the concern would be. So this is one of those we're going to be watching situations. It also feels like the roof is about to collapse. I mean, this, Mani, are we too soon here to start making comparisons? Because the season's not over and it's three and four. It's not one in six. But I have felt like this year, 2016, it has sent me back a lot to my first year covering the team where around every corner there was, now it hasn't been as comical. It's just been more sad. Like it's just been more, like injuries and players, you know, not performing as well. or mostly just injuries.

2016 had Matt Khalil, Andre Smith, Adrian Peterson, I forget who else. Like everybody else, everybody just getting hurt right off the bat. And obviously Teddy with the devastating injury. And we were just sitting there like, what are we supposed to do with this?

As the team falls apart, I remember writing in 2016 after they lost to Washington and poor Jake Long, who was trying his best, gets carded off in that game. And I remember writing like, how are you supposed to win? if you just don't have any of your players.

And that's how it's felt this year. So I don't feel like we're in the category of talking about 2010, 2016 included a protester in the stadium and an eye falling out and an offensive coordinator quitting. But I would say to Kevin O'Connell, don't let, well, your eye, who knows. But like, don't let it get out of hand. Don't let it get out of hand with the way things are handled behind the scenes because very successful men in the past of this franchise have had that happen to them,

where it gets away from them. What do you think about a comparison? I mean, obviously it was a different situation kind of with the quarterback situation, but what do you feel like a comparison to 2018? Because there were so many expectations. Now, that team was coming off in an NFC championship game appearance. And they signed Kirk Cousins to the fully guaranteed deal. He was supposed to come in and be like the last piece.

This was a little bit different from that and that you're dealing with a young quarterback, but you made a lot of moves. You spent a lot of money in the offseason. There was an expectation that coming off a 14-win season that was very successful, that yes, you were changing quarterbacks, but you were, in theory, providing him with infrastructure that was going to allow him to have success, and it just hasn't worked out. Now, that team didn't really have the injury bug that this team is facing,

but I think with just all of the hype going into that year, it feels like the same kind of vibe where it's just like, no matter what they try to do, they just can't seem to get out of their own way. Yeah, let me just answer a couple of the questions of the comments and feel free to react, respond. I'll get you a Fandul question of the day. just a minute. But as far as playing Walter Rouse instead of just at school, I'm for it.

I think Rouse has played better than school so far. And at this point, you're in your talking experience. Well, I mean, Rouse has now been in the league for a year and a half and is younger and I think more nimble. And as far as performance has been better than just at school. So I think that's a possibility. Steve, how about moving Brandel to left tackle and Juergens back to center? I don't know if Brandel could play left tackle at this point, especially against elite players. He hasn't played there in a long time. And when he did, it was very, very poor. So I think he's probably just going to stay at center where they need a veteran player to help guide J.J. McCarthy that even as much as Brando's been attacked and hasn't had success there as a blocker, at very least you have someone who can help him identify blitzes and stuff like that because he's been in the offense.

now the comparison to 2018 i mean as far as how the offseason felt to like the way that they were talked about to what actually happened i yes i have the exact same feeling and i think as we're going through the off season that's in the back of your mind like training camp and everything else of all right the last couple times that i covered really good viking teams the following year has not gone the way that we expected it to go. And one of the big differences are similarities, but the difference between 17 and 18 was health. Linval Joseph got hurt and was playing injured.

Xavier Rhodes got banged up. I think Trey Wayans, I remember he had a concussion against the Los Angeles Rams in that game that Jared Gough had a perfect quarterback rating. And so some things kind of went wrong. And then where we haven't had visual evidence of this, so I don't know that this is happening or not. But, you know, with Zimmer, it was pretty clear the tension between the

offensive coordinator and the defense because I think Zimmer still believe they had a top notch defense. They lost Everson early in that season. That was another bad, really bad break for them that was totally unexpected. And then they made some hubris moves in the off season where you thought, is it okay to let that guy go? Are you sure that, you know, this is going to, you know, this isn't going to sort of upset the apple cart.

There was a lot of those this year with this team. But the tension between offense and defense, I mean, there has to be, I think, in the Vikings, I'm not saying in the locker room, meaning between the players, but just a general feeling within the building of, if you're Brian Flores, hey, look, I know that our defense isn't playing this well, but we've also been on the field for X number of plays more than anybody else in the entire NFL. And it's pretty darn hard for us to stop Bijon Robinson when he gets to run the ball. 40 times like what are we supposed to do here so the that separation between the two units in 16 and in 17 or in 16 and 18 we're both there uh at this season though neither side has played well

so i don't even know how you could point too much fingers because on the offensive side you're like hey man we were supposed to be able to win some of these tight close games if you could shut down x team and they haven't been able to do that either so but as far as like general feeling how they were talked about in the off season. I think with 18, there was less skepticism from the national media where it was most people saying, hey, this is Super Bowl team, Kirk is here, he's better than Keenum, they should go deep in the playoffs and everything else. This year was a little more of, like there were some people questioning, not going

with Rogers or bringing back Darnold. There were, I think that on Fandul, the over under was eight and a half to start the season, which it must have been like 10 and a half in 2009. 18. So I think that there was a little bit, it felt more of a sure thing where this year, it felt like, yeah, there's a real scenario where that's just, this just stinks. Like that felt real and possible, even though I didn't think it was going to happen. And it makes me wonder to that you bring that up with like the Rogers situation. Because I don't know how much of a difference inserting Aaron Rogers in a quarterback would have made for this team considering how the defense is played. Yep. Obviously, Aaron would be, he'd be an upgrade over certainly what we've seen from McCarthy in two games and absolutely what we've seen from Carson Wentz overall. Aaron would have been an upgrade over that, but how much of an upgrade would he have actually been to make a significant difference? Maybe they would have one more win. I don't know.

Maybe they'd be four. I think four and three. But like, even then, how are we still really feeling about where this team is at and how they're doing if they had. like said, like if they don't lay a complete egg against Atlanta because Rogers plays certainly better than what McCarthy did that night, okay, they're four and three, but at that point they would have gotten up to a three and no start and they were still talking about them maybe lost three of the last four games. And we're probably still questioning like what's going on here. And then we've kind of seen historically what happens when Aaron Rogers is,

things aren't going the way that he wanted to go and how that can have an impact on a locker room as well. So I, yeah, I don't know, man. This is just, this situation is disappointing because I thought that this, everything that they did in the offseason seemed like it made a lot of sense. And I thought it was going to work.

Didn't necessarily think they were going to go to the Super Bowl, the NFC championship game, but I thought that they were going to be, a playoff team that could potentially win a game if things go their way in a favorable matchup in the postseason and they don't look like a team that is built to go to the playoffs at all right now. Right. And they've put themselves in such a hole that that doesn't seem possible anyway. I think if Aaron Rogers was here, that they would be four and three and his performance would be just okay at times and probably poor at times with the pass rush. I think we've

seen how he handles the pass rush when they played micah parsons the other night which is nope i'm getting rid of and the same against the vikings where he was just like nope i am not throwing that ball down the field whether i'm winning or losing it was what like a third and 13 and he just throws a four yard pass to the titan like i am just not taking these hits he didn't even want his own offensive tackle knocking him down after a touchdown like nobody touched me and uh i think in this offense maybe that would have been a little more successful at times than it's been because it's been one of the worst, at least successful passing games in the NFL. So I'm sure it would have been better for someone who could identify stuff quicker, understand where the weaknesses were on

the line and just be like, whoop, I'm getting rid of the football. But I don't think that's a way to win when your defense is struggling. Are you beating Philly? Are you beating the Chargers? Are you even beating Atlanta who held onto the ball all day? No, probably not. So you would be sitting here. Oh, by the way, your franchise left tackles been in and out of the line because he's not healthy. Right. So he would just have to be throwing short passes all day. And we would probably get frustrated with that and everything else. And, you know, each hit, you'd wonder if he's getting up. I think at this point, if you were four and three and it's looked the way it's looked and J.J. McCarthy was developing behind Aaron Rogers. We would all be right now saying it's time to play J.J. McCarthy and trade Aaron Rogers. That's where you would probably be. And I don't know who would be buying Aaron Rogers at this point. But that that's where I think we would have been. is, okay, it's not really going to be a great season. You're unlikely to track down these other NFC behemoths. So sit Rogers, trade Rogers, and play J.J. McCarthy.

And maybe that would have been more exciting than where we're at. But one way or the other, we got around to McCarthy hasn't played basically all season. And now he's coming back against the Detroit Lions. Just for his own personal safety, we will hope that Christian Dersaw is going to play because I think we all want to get a legitimate sample size on J.J. McCarthy. And as you said, it can't be perfect, but this part of it, the protection at least needs to be average. And it has not been with him out. Deante says, no one wants to say it.

So I'll be that guy. This is the year you lean into the tank, get McCarthy experience, come out with one of the best players in the draft. So what I call this, Manny, is the natural tank, which is you don't mean to do it. you're trying to win you're not even trading away assets not that i think there's a lot that they can actually do with the contracts that they've signed but it just happens because you're not all that good and everything's going wrong for your team so i i mean right now well we're going to pick the schedule later so i don't want to say where i would put them right now in terms of expectations for wins the rest of the way but after that game against los angeles i turned the page to

uh this feels like there's no way out and this might be the difference or it might be a similarity between 2018 that you brought up because there was a minute there where it looked like everything was going to be fine in 2018 they won some games we were even I remember even sitting at a table with Rick Spielman at the buy week where he was saying well this is why we think you know Mike Zimmer is one of the best coaches in the league like imagine Rick saying that a few years later but you know he's saying this because he's made adjustments and the defense Remember, the defense picked it up.

It got a lot better. They had a win over Detroit that was pretty dominant. And, you know, it seemed like they had gotten back together. Was that even that was that even the 10-sack game of Matthew Stafford? I mean, so they had sort of figured it out and then hit the skids again with the offense and the wheels came off. Maybe that will be this year with J.J. McCarthy or maybe not. I think that we do need to talk about the expectation for J.J. McCarthy now it's on a curve of what they could be as a team.

But this is my fan duel question of the day. So right now, the Vikings are plus 160 to win at least eight games, which means they are not favored to do that. Mani, I want you and everybody else to give me a McCarthy stat line over the final 10 games that would get them to eight wins. So I know this is a little tricky. You could do some math in your head. But if you just want to do average passing yards per game and then a touchdown

to interception ratio, a quarterback rating, a DVOA, a PFF grade, a QBR, a EPA per play, use whatever metric you want. But how good does he have to play to get them to eight wins? I think if he is throwing for 200 to 230 yards a game and maybe a touchdown and a half, you know, 1.5, if he averages 1.5 touchdown passes in a game and he can keep the interceptions down, I think you're

probably, over the course of 10 games, that would be, that'd be what, that's 15 touchdown passes in 10 games. That's not terrible. You know, and then you're talking about you know, 22, 2, 2300 yards passing over that stretch.

I think if you can get that, I think that can be enough. The caveat though is I think that's also going to require the defense to start playing better as well. Yeah. And because if the defense doesn't improve, but McCarthy plays like that, I don't think that's going to be enough to get to eight wins. You're going to need him to be able to kind of throw you back into some games if the defense is just not getting stops and not getting off the field enough. But I also feel like if the offense can find some consistency and get going and get off to better starts, get a lead early, I think that can

possibly help the defense as well play a little bit better. And then it's kind of like a help me, help you, help me help you type of situation between both both sides of the ball for this team. Like they just have to play, they just have to help each other out. You know, the defense does need to get off the field on third downs in certain situations. They do need to be able to finish sacks, not just get pressure, but finish some sacks once in a while. But at the same time, the offense also needs to, I think, get off to a good start so that that defense can, for once in their lives this season, play with a lead, you know what I mean? Because we still have not really gotten a chance to see them do that yet.

And you kind of wonder if that's going to have an impact on them as well, the defense, I mean. So they, I think they have to start getting more of a complete performance from both sides of the ball. That's the only way they're going to be able to really compete in these games because if the offense doesn't get off to a good start, it's going to put a lot more pressure on the defense that's already struggling and it's not going to how it matters at all. If they, you know, it's almost like if they kick off and the defense allows the offense to march right down the field and score, you're in trouble. Right. Especially on Sunday against that team, you are in big, big, big trouble. But at the same time, okay, if you receive the opening kickoff, you know what would really help? If you just go right down the field and score a touchdown.

Because that would take some pressure off of the defense a little bit as well. If you can get Detroit in a situation, now look, we know they're passing offense is fantastic with Jared Gough. But if you put them down by a couple of scores and you take that running game, you take kind of the, ability to just turn around and hand the ball off to Jemir Gibbs, you kind of take that out of the equation a little bit. That puts a little more pressure on Jared Gough. Now, he has the ability to kind of throw you back into a game. But to me, that's really your best chance of being able to win this game against that

opponent. And really, I think anybody else that you face the rest of the season. The biggest thing is the connection between the defense and J.J. McCarthy is the number of plays. Like, he has to be on the field. And even through the first two games, three and outs hurt this. But when Atlanta is running and running and running with Bejohn Robinson and just getting into the red zone every time. And that game could have been a horrific blowout if they had finished some drives.

But the way that they were able to run the football and have long drives, it's not like J.J. McCarthy had too many chances to get into a rhythm, even if they had gotten going. And that's been the impact of the defense on the offense, the offense on the defense, is that defense goes back out there, gives up a 12-play drive, and the offense is just sitting there watching, like you need J.J. McCarthy to average 30 passes a game here. He can't be throwing 22 passes at the end of the night

in a, you know, 24 to 10 loss or something against Detroit or whatever other team they're going to play. For me, the final 10 games, the touchdown interception ratio, and I know, like, you know, sometimes running back steal touchdowns and stuff. So it's not always perfect. But what came to mind to me was like, 17 and 6, like 17 touchdowns over the final X number of games.

That's a good touchdown per game type of rate, 1.7. And then six interceptions, meaning you got to have some clean slate type of games. I would also throw in sack percentage needs to be under 8% because that's kind of like the line of demarcation. If you're getting sack close to 10% of the time, you are screwed. You will not win. But if you're under eight, like that means it's going pretty well. and at some point, if the offensive line's not 100%, it just goes on the quarterback to get rid of the football.

And as far as yardage goes, I think you had a good number, 230 yards per game. Then, look, you've got Chicago at home. You're going to face Dallas. That's not a great team. You're going to go up against the Giants who are minus a couple of their best players, and they're not a great team. I don't think they're that well coached.

I mean, there's opportunities here, but you're going to have to win some games that you're going. going to be eight and a half point underdogs on fan duel as the Vikings are against the Detroit Lions. And I think it would change a lot for the entire, just to talk about this last 10 games to win five more. It would change so much for our feeling for that chance to pull off an upset and beat the Detroit Lions. I don't see it. It's a really low percentage chance for that to happen. But everything can feel different, even if there's a good performance against the lions about the idea of at least having an eight win team. I will say to what Deante said,

yeah, winning five would be better for your draft status. There's no doubt about it. But you're going to feel if you win five, you don't have a quarterback. More likely than not, you don't have a quarterback. And then, you know, in the chat, they're getting into a conversation that I am not ready to get into yet, but I understand why people are going there this week. And we had a mini by to just give us more opportunity to rip this whole thing down. But I did joke with my wife that I'm already getting ready to cover Bryce Young next year and the quarterback competition with J.J. McCarthy. I mean, that has to be in their minds in the front office and coaching room is what does J.J. McCarthy got to do? What markers does he have to hit? To not go into next year

contested. And I think that that line. probably is. And I know QB wins, whatever, but it probably is like win five games, throw 17 touchdown, six picks, get 230 yards per game. Like look like, hey, this is quarterback stuff that you can win with going next year and feel like you can, if you're winning five out of 10 games when everything's burning down, hey, if you fix a lot of this stuff, you're going to win more than that. And if he develops and if he improves. But I think, I don't you think the bar has to be fairly high for J.J. McCarthy in terms of like, no competition for next year.

I don't think with a team with this much talent and veteran players and money invested that you can say, oh, well, if he looks like Cam Ward the rest of the way, it's fine. He's the quarterback for next year with no competition, no discussion through the offseason. I mean, this is kind of how fast the wheels churn in the NFL because you can already feel the heat getting turned up a little on Kevin O'Connell, on Quasi Adolfo Mensa, when you have a falloff from 14 wins. So I think we do have to have a pretty high standard or we are saying, hey, there's probably another quarterback out there first rounder or something who

will be on the market and they're going to have to look for competition. Oh, 100%. I mean, listen, they used the number 10 picking a draft on this kid. They had high hopes for him. And they went through this past off season, spent a lot of money in free agency with the idea that he was going to be. the quarterback, they let Sam Darnold go in free agency and

they made a decision to go with this kid and say that we're just going to hand the keys to the car to him. We've got all these, you know, we've made all these moves in the off season. We've got the best wide receiver on the planet. We got one of the best left tackles in the league. We invested in the

offensive line. You know, we put everything around this kid to be ready to go. They went into this season with that idea in mind. So yeah, now it is time to show and prove. It really is. It's time for, you know, J.J. McCarthy's going to get a chance to play now. Obviously, health permitting. He needs to stay healthy. That's first and foremost. But yeah, I think we need to see him perform and we need

to see him perform well because it's going to tell us, you know, rather not Kevin O'Connell can actually develop a young quarterback, which I think people think that he can do, but we got to see it. We actually have to see it to really believe that. And this franchise needs J.J. McCarthy to perform well. If he doesn't perform well and we have question marks going into the next year, now you're like, well, where are we going here? What are we doing here? And again, me and Murph talked about this on Monday.

Justin Jefferson's been real quiet. He's been a great, great. leader on this team. He's been a great teammate. But if we start getting into a situation where there's question marks about the quarterback position and developing the quarterback position year after year after year, eventually I got to think a guy that won a national championship playing high-level college football with playing with one of the best quarterbacks in the NFL now as a teammate during that time, I got to think at some point he's going to get really frustrated and start voicing some frustrations. And then if that happens, now you are in

real super trouble. It is pretty wild, Manny, how it was not that long ago that we were talking about the Minnesota Vikings beating the Green Bay Packers week 17 to go to 14 and 2. One of their best franchise seasons ever, really, I mean, one of the best records in NFL history. When you get up to 14, you are in rare air of 0.001% teams that have ever stepped on a football field. And at that point, we're saying Kevin O'Connell is brilliant. And Quasi Adolph-Menza has nailed the timeline. And they have just hit on all these free agent signings and gotten everything right. And Brian Flores, like, sign them up to be the D.C. for life. And the turnover coach is great. And the training staff is great. And everybody's flawless, right? And since that

moment, I mean, it is, it is just felt like, uh, one thing after the next, even with the J.J. McCarthy drama in the offseason with the reporting and the Aaron Rogers stuff and felt like, well, what is happening to have that stuff out there even within your own building? Because remember, these reporters don't tell themselves the scoop. Somebody tells it to them, which means that the reason that it was out there that the Vikings were considering Aaron Rogers is because someone in their building told those reporters that that was happening. and that felt uncharacteristic a bit of where the organization had been. And then, you know, I think there was plenty of reason to talk about, well, look, you know, recent drafts, okay, like they've been small and that's, you know, the 2022 one is kind of in the past, but you've got opportunity here with Dallas Turner if he takes a step and all those things.

And it's an exciting couple of days in the off season to sign all these players and bring them in. And you can see the ideas. And I remember talking about how all the things that we had considered. distantly criticized about them. They addressed a physical running back, defensive tackles, you know, even some of the positional value stuff that now I think in hindsight, losing Bynum is big. But, okay, Theo Jackson is a guy that they really believe in.

So they're going to sign him to an extension. They're going to go that way. And then all of these things, it's every single one of these moves, it feels like, has not clicked for them. And everybody badly needs J.J. McCarthy to be the one that clicks because in the light of day, everything will look so much different in that case because right now and every comment section for every single video that I do, every podcast, every article that I write is all the same. It's just fire the GM. The coach can't call plays. Everybody sucks at their job. No one

knows what they're doing. Everything is terrible. The franchise is awful. They should shut it down. They should blow up the gallhorn. They should put this in a spaceship, rocketed toward the sun, and eviscerate every single person who's ever put on the color purple, right? except Prince. That's what the most of the takes, right? If J.J. McCarthy beats the Detroit line is going to be like, yeah, well, who cares about defensive tackles? It's good because there's so much foundation here that still is good.

And this is kind of how like the, the ebb and flow, where they go 13 and 3, then it's a 7 and 10, and everybody looks dumb. And then it's a 14 and 3 and everyone's a genius. And this is kind of the ride that we've all been on for a really long time with this. team. And that's why I try not to go crazy and overreact about, you know, what, what happens on even on a week to week basis and just, you know, calling for people's jobs and everything else. Because if McCarthy plays well, then you're going to go, well, they've got Jefferson and he's happy, as he said. And, you know, Addison, look, if he can keep his nose clean,

but the hell of a player. And if McCarthy plays well, that probably means T.J. Hawkinson is playing well. And in the future, you still have the offensive line that you've built. You need to get a center, but your team looks pretty darn good for next year on offense. And then defense is a lot easier to fix, generally speaking, than, than offense is. It's a lot easier to, you know, get rotational pass rushers to find some veteran corners like Stefan Gilmore or Shaq Griffin than it is to say, like find Justin Jefferson. It'll all look different. And it's just crazy, crazy how that works in the NFL. So that's just a point I wanted to make. make before we pick the schedule is that I need to avoid even myself, like getting sucked down

that road. And I think that some of you guys do too of just are we just pointing at everything and everyone and saying that they should, it should all be fired and everyone should be, you know, sent packing. Because I, I don't think that you're in that type of spot. But I do think that so much of it rests on McCarthy because if he's not good, then the other side of that is, what are you doing a quarterback. How are you fixing this? And you're going to feel right back in the purgatory that you've lived in for a long time. So why don't we, I'm just going to say that Fanduel question of the day one more time. Plus 160 right now on Fanduel to win even eight games. So not favored to do so. Give me a McCarthy stat line over the final 10 games that

would get them to eight wins. And I'm sorry, I scrolled by one person who had, let's see, it was 15 touchdowns and just over 2,000 yards, I think is probably a pretty good number. But you might need more than that with the way the defense is playing. So every week on the show, we do the same bit here of picking the schedule. And what it really tells us is, one, what's happening with other teams on the schedule. And two, how the general feeling is about this team. and I'm guessing that the second part of that's not going to be ideal. So this week, they will play the Detroit Lions.

I will be there, maybe get some Detroit-style pizza. Hopefully that's good because I don't know how the game's going to go. But do the Vikings, in your mind, win this game against Detroit? I do not believe they're going to win this game. But what I will say is that if they can be competitive, They can keep this close. If J.J. McCarthy can come out and play well and they can stay in this game and they lose, you know, 28 to 23 or something like that.

And they look good and they're competitive in the game. I can live with that because it means that McCarthy played a decent game and gave them a chance and they still had an opportunity. But if this is, if this resembles anything like what we saw in Los Angeles last Thursday, Ooh. And there's a pretty good chance based on what we saw in Los Angeles last week. There's a decent chance that it could happen again this Sunday just because of the opponent that they're going to be facing. So I will say, though, that the Lions are going to win this game, but I'm just hoping that the Vikings can keep it close. I don't know what the best Detroit-style pizza is.

I've never had Little Caesars. And I also have had, I went to with my friend, Tage Seth, who's, uh, analytics expert. We had lunch one time there, and I can't even remember the place, but it was pretty good. The squares, you know, I don't know. It feels like going to the lunchroom for me in high school, but it was pretty good. I wouldn't say that, you know, maybe I needed a couple of laps around the track after that. It's very heavy, not quite Chicago level heavy, but very heavy. Anyway, yeah, I don't, I don't think they're going to win, but my prediction for this is going to be 27, 21, that the Lions will move the ball.

They will score, but it's not like they'll completely steamroll. I think Brian Flores will throw a lot at them. And everyone's, like, I think realizing this is kind of it for the season. Like, you've got to be competitive here. And I also think that McCarthy is not going to just fall apart, that some things are going to look more like week one. And with Addison back in the lineup, that's the biggest thing, the fact that he had a great camp throwing to Addison and then never got to do it and then got hurt.

I think that's going to be a big deal for him. So I think they'll score and rip off some big plays and we'll walk out saying, oh, okay, well, that was bad, but like at least McCarthy had his moments. That's how I see this game playing out. So after losing to the Lions, three and five, they will play against the Baltimore Ravens. As of right now, I believe the Ravens are up 14 to 3 on Miami. Miami stinks, but Lamar is going to be back at U.S. Bank Stadium. The Ravens defense looks like it is back over the last two weeks.

So do they beat the Ravens at U.S. Bank Stadium? With Lamar back and the Ravens defense playing a little bit better, all I can say is, uh-oh. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I think this has a chance to, I think, be similar to what the Philadelphia game was like where the Vikings will move the ball okay, but they're just not going to have enough on defense to stop Lamar and stop that running game. And Baltimore ends up winning kind of a higher scoring game, 30 to 23 or something like 30 to

24 or something like that. So I got Baltimore winning this one. Willis Reed, thank you for the suggestions. I will have time because people don't need to care about my travel. but I didn't want to book this flight to Detroit until I was sure that J.J. McCarthy was playing because if it was Carson once again, I was just going to take the option and stay home. And that may happen on some other road trips this year that are generally very expensive. So to save a little cash, I am arriving in Detroit much earlier than I want to.

So I'm just going to be like hanging out. So I will take suggestions on how to kill some time in the great city of Detroit. but I agree three and six that it's going to be very difficult to beat the Ravens. You know the Ravens as long as they have Lamar still believe in themselves to be a championship caliber team. And there have been teams that have started off really poorly with great quarterbacks, the RELAX, Aaron Rogers team. It's happened plenty of times. So three and six, the Bears then come to town on November 16th.

Do the Vikings get a win against Caleb Williams and the Bears? I'm still not 100% sure how good the bears actually are because they won some games against some lesser opponents and barely won those games beat up on a really bad New Orleans team a couple of weeks ago and then they go to Baltimore on Sunday and they get their butts whipped.

Right. So I'm just not sure how good the bears are. and three, one game better than the Vikings. I'm going to give the Vikings a win here. I think J.J. McCarthy will come out and play well against the defense. And I'm still not quite sure is all that good yet in Chicago. I do think this is a chance for Caleb Williams, though, to have a bigger game because he seems to be playing a little bit better, certainly than he did in week one

against the Vikings. But I think I'm going to give the Vikings a win here in a very close game at U.S. Bank Stadium. Okay. Four and six, I can definitely buy that. Also, Chicago's defense has gotten banged up. They weren't that great to begin with. And I am curious about the progress of Caleb Williams. He looks better because he's not getting sacked every single play. Like he's reduced the sacks by a lot. And I think that's been impressive for him. But then he still has pre-snap penalties, stuff that just doesn't look like he's really seeing the field very well. That interception was horrific against Baltimore that cost them the game. So I think that he still has his shortcomings, even if he's eliminated some of the sack problems. So, okay, four and six, down to Lambo on November 23rd to face the fantastic Green Bay Packers. Yeah, that team seems like they're really finding their groove, doesn't it? Yeah, this is, that's going to be tough. That's going to be tough.

Again, I think this is going to be another one of those games where similar to, Ford Field on Sunday where you just hope McCarthy goes out and plays well and that they're competitive and that they can kind of stay in the game. And maybe you can find a way we saw a bad Bengals game or bad Bengals team going to Lambo and kind of stay in that game and you felt like if they had better quarterback play and everything that they would have had a chance to win that one. So maybe the Vikings have a chance here, but I'm going to give Green Bay the win just because it's at Lambo. Yeah, I think this is a tough one. I think think you're just overmatched and we'll see where the offensive line is at but even playing one guy

who's not a starter did you see how they were taking micha parsons on third downs and lining up at linebacker and running him just straight up the middle and taking up three guys i all the all the coping that was happening after that trade it was it was tough to see people try to downplay how good micha parsons is i'm sorry folks he is one of the best players in the entire NFL and that team is a legitimate top three or four Super Bowl contender in the NFC, it's the facts or the facts. That's where they're at. All due respect to Michael Juergens and Blake or Blake Randall. Can you imagine Michael Parsons lining up over the middle of one of those two guys?

Eyes, eyes are just lighting up, I think. I mean, he's just licking his chops. I think if he sees that. Yeah, I think you're talking about three guys that he's going to run into. It'll be C.J. Hamm in the backfield and it will be Donovan Jackson or Will Fries trying to help. And then they just pray that the rest of the group doesn't get to the quarterback. But Parsons has been phenomenal. If he's playing in the game, they're in a lot of trouble.

So that would be four and seven out to Seattle to play Sam Darnold and the Seattle Seahawks.