Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Darrisaw, O'Neill questionable; TNF's Sam Schwartzstein joins! (Part 1)

Episode Date: October 23, 2025

Matthew Coller talks about the surprising news that Christian Darrisaw and Brian O'Neill are both questionable for Thursday's game and Andrew Van Ginkel is out. Thursday Night Football's Sam Schwartzstein checks in with an analytical preview and Guilty as Charged podcaster Steven Haglund gives a position vs. position analysis. The Purple Insider podcast is brought to you by FanDuel. Also, check out our sponsor HIMS at https://hims.com/purpleinsider Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hey, everybody, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider, Matthew Collar, here. And we are just hours away from the Minnesota Vikings taking on the Los Angeles Chargers in Los Angeles. I'll be flying out tomorrow. That's why I'm still here in the studio. So pray for flights being on time. But everything else should be okay. the number of times I've gone to Los Angeles. The biggest challenge is usually, for me, not even traffic.

It's finding my way in and out of that press box in L.A., which is maybe the most confusing that there is because it's built deep down into the ground. So you leave on the top level, which I don't think there's any other stadium like that in the NFL. But that's a me problem, not a you problem. Big show coming out tonight around 7.30, we've got Sam Schwarstein, who is a friend. is Thursday night football's analytics expert. It is a really good conversation. We talked a little earlier just about the analytics of this game,

how we now have a lot of data insights into how these two teams are going to play each other. And we identify some key factors. And then later on this evening in the 8 o'clock hour, we will have Stephen Hagelin from the Guilty's Charged podcast. So very excited about that conversation as well. We go position by position matchups. but the one thing about it is who's going to be playing in some of them position by position matchups because the injury report took me a little bit by surprise today when it came out

and keep in mind that the Vikings didn't really practice this week. When you have Thursday night football, you don't really have time to have a real actual full padded helmets on and pads popping type of practice to get ready. for Thursday night football. So you have walkthroughs where they try to implement the game plan the best they can while allowing the players to do their mostly normal recovery and try to treat it like a normal week that way, but not straining everybody's body and still trying to get everything schematically ready to go for Thursday night.

So estimating how much of practice somebody did is not the easiest thing to do for the coaching staff. But it was a surprise to see Brian O'Neill and Christian Darrasaw show up as questionable on the injury report. Now, we know that Brian O'Neill coming off of that MCL injury has been fighting to get back early because usually that takes a little bit longer than even what we would have expected. So him getting back against Philadelphia was a bit of a surprise. Even for me, I thought maybe he would come back Thursday night. Maybe he might not even be back until the game against the Detroit Lions. So he gets back there and plays an excellent, excellent game against the Philadelphia Eagles.

But you know, it's unlikely that O'Neill was at 130%, as Kevin O'Connell said the other day and yet still put on a really strong performance. And then Christian Derisaw and this recovery from his ACL injury has, I guess drawn a lot of questions about the timeline and how much he's been able to do and whether he's back to 100%. And he did tell us, Kevin O'Connell did tell us that he would be missing some practice just as a basic recovery tactic each week. But to be questionable and miss this practice today was not something that I would have expected, but I don't know if that's just because of the regular scheduled him missing some practice to just sit out as part of him coming back from the ACL injury because if it is, well, then no big deal and he's

going to play. But if something else came up with the ACL recovery, then it's maybe unclear if he's going to play, if he's going to play the entire game, you recall against the Cleveland Browns, Darisaw came out late in that game and O'Connell said it was because he was. he was on a pitch count. There have been some, including our good friend Jeremiah Searles, who said, I don't know if it really sounds like that, or possibly Derisaw was worn down or wasn't feeling it 100%

and decided it was better if he didn't continue to play in that game. We're not really fully sure there, but still did not play that full game. And then against Philadelphia, he does play the full game. He's, again, absolutely terrific in that game. The both tackles were excellent at Keith. keeping Carson Wentz clean, and now they're both questionable going into this game. So there's a little bit of mystery when it comes to both of these tackle positions. Is this just routine rest and you have to put it down as questionable?

Or maybe you just put it down as questionable because you can because he sat out some of the practice and why not make the chargers think about whether they're facing O'Neill and Darisaw. But O'Neill didn't practice twice this week either leading up to this. So both are questionable for the game. And clearly this is a massive, massive factor for the Minnesota Vikings because those two playing last week, I could call this up the numbers wise, but they were really, really excellent.

And this was as close as we've gotten outside of the center position to the Vikings having their full offensive line. Brian O'Neill allowed one quarterback pressure and graded 81.5 by PFF. Darisaw's 79 grade and allowed two pressures. So when you're facing the Eagles and you give up three total pressures to your quarterback throughout an entire game, that's what we've come to expect from O'Neill and Darisaw. But that, I mean, that's a cheat code right there. And if they could have blocked a little bit better on the interior at the center position,

they would have had the best game, I think, at a long time because Will Frye's played very well in that game. And Donovan Jackson gave up two pressures in his return, but he's still working. working his way back to 100%. So I would be surprised if either guy does not play with the fact that they were playing against Philadelphia, but it is a short turnaround. And if neither one of them came out at even close to 100%, or they came out of that game really banged up and can't get fully healthy by the time that they step on the field for Thursday night football, then we are talking about this team going back to Justin's school

playing or possibly even Walter Rouse, I would assume that it's going to be just in school. And if for some reason, neither of them can play, well, then it's a Walter Rouse and Justin's school matchup. And this is not a team that is dominant as far as pass rush goes for the Chargers, but they are good enough with Khalil Mack continuing to come back, that they can create some problems, at least if you're talking about playing with backup tackles. So the difference in the gap between those two playing and those two not playing is, as you've seen this year, absolutely enormous. And the Vikings really need this game, really, really need this game.

So I wrote about this yesterday over at Purple Insiderdot football, just how badly the Vikings need this one. Because if we do a little game of what if you win, what if you lose? if you win the game with Carson Wentz, you're going to feel like you got away with something because I did a little exercise and I looked at a bunch of quality backup guys we consider quality backups from last year, the Andy Dalton's, the James Winston,

the guys that we consider to be like pretty average or above average QB2s. And they went something like six and 28 combined last year. Like your win percentage when you are a backup quarterback or as a team when you're playing a backup quarterback, I did this from a few years ago and added up two or three years. It's about 30% across the league. And if you can get away with winning three out of five and then McCarthy comes back

and the team is getting healthier and you've got a mini by week to prepare for the Detroit Lions, you're going to feel like this was a hard reset of the season, but it's very much still on and off we go and survive all of the calamities that struck this franchise with injuries over the first six, seven weeks of the season and all right, well, it's not the best position anyone's ever been in at four and three. But okay, like, you look, look around. A lot of teams have four wins, five wins. They're going to play each other and you're right in the mix and you've got a chance. But if they lose this game and go to three and four, then you're talking about really feeling like you're falling way behind a lot of the

other top NFC teams, the Packers, the Lions, but not just them. There's a lot of teams in the NFC West with the Rams and the Seahawks and the 49ers all playing good football. The NFC East, I mean, Washington is still not, it looks like, going to play Jaden Daniels, but the Giants aren't a joke. And Washington could get Daniels back and get going and Dallas is pretty good. And Philadelphia clearly is playing extremely well. Like, it's a tough NFC, even though no one is.

special. There's a lot of good. You need to be right in that conversation coming out of this game. And if it just got harder for Carson Wentz with the injury report, that could be tough. Also, Andrew Van Ginkle is not going to play again. And this just becomes more and more concerning that he has returned to practice. He's only been limited in practice, has not been able to fully practice at really any point since he played a couple of snaps against the Cincinnati Eddie Bengals, racked up two sacks and then hasn't played since. And you start to wonder, is there going to be a point this season where Van Ginkle will be 100%.

And when we talk about the defense, which is going to lead me to the Fandul question of the day, when we talk about the defense, I mean, one of the major factors is they just have not had their most dynamic player, a guy who was the highest awarded of a second team all pro all of last year in Andrew Van Ginkle. it matters a lot. Like there's been some discussion this week about Dallas Turner and how he's performed so far, which I think has been okay and hasn't been special. I don't think it's been terrible.

He's gotten a good number of quarterback pressures. He's got a couple of sacks. He's made some nice plays in the run game. He's also been washed out too much in the run game. And gosh, when you play Lane Johnson, you're talking about the gold standard of playing Lane Johnson. So I saw people, some people tweeting out some clips of, well, you know, Dallas Turner really got taken out of this play. And like, that's the greatest, man. Like, that's like you are fighting up against Mike Tyson there. That's the best of the best. So that was a tough

matchup for him. But also, I think about how this wasn't supposed to be his role. His role was supposed to be three outside linebackers on the field at a lot of times with Andrew Van ginkle and playing a lot of different mind games with opposing teams offenses that they just haven't been able to do. So he's had to go from here's how you practiced all summer. This was how you practiced to, hey, actually, can you do that other guy's job? I mean, that's a, that's a bit on the tough side. And I know that every time his name comes up, uh, that it just turns into, you know, he's a bust and he wasn't worth it and all that sort of stuff. And I get that. But like, let's move on from, uh, that part of it. Just talk about.

him as a part of this defense is getting him to his full level of effectiveness is harder to do when you don't have Andrew Van Ginkle and the threat of short passes turn into pick sixes is gone and where's that guy rushing from? Well, you can't really do that when you don't have any backup outside linebackers. And last year and what was supposed to happen this year is a lot of, hey, where's that guy, where that guy come from? And, you know, they had Pat Jones. last year and they had jihad ward last year they had these other outside linebackers who were coming in the game and dallas turner to where hey what why is andrew van ginkle on this side or why is he rushing from the middle or they did a lot of that a lot of stunts and different looks

that they just haven't been able to do so that will be a factor also joe altz is questionable for the chargers if he plays uh that will be uh even tougher for the vikings to get pressure But I think that's really the main story here for the defense is, can you cause Justin Herbert to turn the ball over to get sacks to do things that we just have not seen this Vikings defense do, which leads me to the Fandul question of the day. So that is Justin Herbert's over under for this game on Fandul is 255.5 yards. From what you've seen of the Vikings defense, what's your trust level that they can hold him underneath that. number. So give me a 1 to 10 trust level or however you want to frame it. But 255 and a half will the Vikings keep them keep Justin Herbert under that number and how confident are you that they can do it? My confidence would only be about a four, but it doesn't

have to be a bad thing if he throws for more than 255 if the chargers are playing from behind. That's what the Vikings need. They need a game, just one game to look like the Vikings from last year on defense. The only game where they've really looked that way is against Cincinnati and at times against Chicago, where they chased around Caleb Williams and Jonathan Allen and Javon Hargrave added up to 11 pressures, which is the most that I could find going back a ways on PFF for two defensive tackles for the Vikings. But they just haven't had those opportunities since when you go through the games.

Bejohn Robinson ran all day long. and then the Bengals game, they just took the ball away from them and scored touchdowns and so forth. But since then, Pittsburgh got to run all day and throw short passes. We saw Cleveland do the same thing. They ran Quinn John Judkins constantly. And then even against the Eagles, where they were up and they took shots and they hit big shots down the field, but they didn't throw a lot of passes. I mean, if you only drop back to throw 26 times, it's hard to get a ton of pressures, a ton of sacks, and to get in the quarterback's head. But if Herbert has to throw all day,

if they could slow down the L.A. run game, which, you know, I think some confidence from that from last week against Saquan Barclay. But if they could do that and force Herbert to play from behind, if they could score early, then you might be talking about seeing Jonathan Granard get his sack total up. Dallas Turner have a bigger game pressure-wise.

It should be no surprise that Turner's best game was against Cincinnati. They're playing from behind. They're throwing all the time. Like that's, those things are factors. Folks, this year is the year that I actually get my holiday shopping going early for all of my friends and family. And there's only one place on the internet that's going to help me best. It's called Uncommon Goods. Uncommon Goods makes holiday shopping stress-free and joyful with thousands of one-of-a-kind gifts that you cannot find anywhere else.

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Featured products include compound drug products which the FDA does not approve or verify for safety effectiveness or quality. Prescription required. See website for full details, restrictions, and important safety information. So if Herbert throws for over 255, it doesn't mean the Vikings lost, that might mean that they were playing from ahead. But your confidence level that they can face off with a team with a great quarterback, with really excellent weapons and a struggling offensive line against this defense. So I've got time for questions, comments, thoughts going into this game. But now we just added a new game time, a big storyline with the injury report today and both

tackles being on it. There was some good news, which is Donovan Jackson came out of that game. Must have been fine because he was a full participant. And it sounded like Aaron Jones is likely to. play in this game from the way that Kevin O'Connell talked about it. He kind of talked around it a little bit. Like, we don't really need a big ramp up from the 21 day window, but how much Aaron Jones is going to play would be hard to say. I don't think you want to put a big workload on him. Yet at the same time, you want him out there. Xavier Scott is questionable. You've only got Cam Acres

otherwise. And then Jordan Mason. And this is a game where they're going to want to run the ball. We continue to pound that drum. We continue to talk about, hey, you need to run. Last week, I understood why they didn't because they were having success on a down-to-down basis with throwing the football against the Eagles. But against the team that just got run out of their building by Indianapolis, I think you do want to run. That could depend, though, of course, on what they have health-wise at the tackle position.

And we also don't know whether it is going to be Blake Brandel or Michael Juergens at center, I think that you would prefer that they just stick with the veteran and say, look, that was Jalen Carter. He is the best player in the league at defensive tackle. The reason the Philadelphia Eagles won the Super Bowl is truly shocking. It's that they've got a bunch of freaking amazing players. And Jalen Carter is up at the top of that list. I mean, he's right there, Devante Smith, A.J. Brown, Carter.

that these guys are elite players in the league and when you're playing a backup center versus an elite defensive tackle, that is the way it often goes. So I don't think that the Chargers have that caliber or anything even close, anything even in the stratosphere of Jalen Carter. So they should stick with Blake Brandel, I think. But, you know, maybe what they saw last week made them a little frustrated. I don't know. I mean, Juergens, I think, is better when it comes to like the run blocking and getting

outside zone and reaching, reach blocking against three techniques and things like that. So that may turn into a factor. Also, the snap that went back to center field also has to be concerning as well because Brandl had snapped the ball well. But even one mistake that's that bad that cost you 20 yards has to be worrisome. Not that Juergens was perfect with that either. So there's a lot of factors going into this game. Pizza guy says, what a bummer about that report. Yeah. I agree. I mean, I was surprised to see it, but, you know, when you don't have any real practice, it's hard to say, like, how serious is that that they're questionable? Or is it just that why would you practice Brian O'Neill coming off of his injury? And it could be also

typical rest for Christian Darrasaw. So I don't want to sound the alarms. Like, hey, this is, they're going to miss the game. And this is a big problem. That was me sounding an alarm. alarm. I don't know what do you, whatever. So anyway, but it's with a short week like this, it's just really hard to get a read on it. But the fact that they're on there, even opening the door for the possibility of Justin School being back in there is significant because the drop off and the concern that you would have especially is that both of these players are coming off injuries. So what you want to see is them come out of the Philadelphia game, practice the entire week and be good to go on a Thursday, but it makes you wonder about their long-term health

for the entire season of, can they get Brian O'Neill back to 100%, can they get Christian Dar esau up to full health? Because the way he played against Philadelphia, there was a rep or two where he got beat where he didn't look like the typical Christian Darisaw, but we've just come to expect perfection from him all the time. But overall, it was stellar. And the run game, to the left side behind Christian Derisaw or, I mean, look, you can go to the outside either way. I don't think Fries has been quite as dominant in the run game as I expected. Another guy that's coming off of an injury last year, he's actually been good in the past protection, but maybe not quite pushing people around or as explosive as he was last year early with Indianapolis.

Maybe that will come back as the season continues to carry on. But are you going to get 100% Derisaw, 100% Brian O'Neill, are anywhere close. And with Derisaw, especially, I mean, again, leave the door open for maybe it's just the routine rest that they always plan for him, but it was only a walkthrough. So what would you be, I don't know, like this is a hard one. We don't deal with this too often with the Thursday night games. But with Derisaw injury and recovery, it has been a little bit murky the entire time, where

it seemed like maybe it was even possible for week one or two. And then Derisaw comes out after playing week three. and says, yeah, guys, I wasn't even supposed to be back till, like, after London. And so we're all like, you weren't, what, huh? Okay, that's interesting. And that, because that never came up before, but all right. And then the pitch count thing, and it's just been a little bit mysterious of, is he really back up to full strength where he's going to play game after game after

game, or could this be another situation where on the short week, he wants to play it safer or didn't come out of the game feeling as good? So all of these things are things to watch when we get into this game against the Chargers. Zumer K.O. CD is arguably the most important offensive player. I mean, I don't disagree with you there. I mean, we've seen that when he's not in. Even with someone like Justin Jefferson, when you have Jordan Addison, you still feel like you have a wide receiver one in the game.

But when you go from the top five tackle in the game to a replacement level backup, who gets beat fast a lot, that's such an enormous difference. And Carson Wentz under pressure has made a lot of big mistakes so far. It's not something you want to see because that's how you get pick sixes. That's how you have, you know, interceptions against the Pittsburgh Steelers is just when the pressure starts to ramp up and he will take sacks and he will try to scramble and get strip sacked. It's, that's really who Carson Wentz is. and if you have his blind side completely taken care of

and you feel like you're good. Not that facing off with Khalil Mack ever makes you feel like you're good, but at least you have a chance there. And Max not what he was in 2018 or something against the Bears. You still feel pretty darn good about it. But not if Justin's school is in there. The difference is enormous. I don't disagree at all.

Let's see. Yeah, a res runner, he did get injured last year in the Thursday night game, right? I don't know if that would, you know, make you think at all about that. But that was really a random injury. So I don't know. Jackie says, Herbert is the ultimate prototype quarterback size athleticism. Absolute KOC fit who would be an MVP caliber quarterback with KOC and our weapons. Confidence level is also a four that the Vikings will keep him under 255.

He's an, he's an excellent, excellent player. And I agree with you that if you could give him, Jefferson and Addison and push the ball down the field. I think that Herbert lives in a very interesting space of the same exact tier or bubble of someone like Dak Prescott, where when the Vikings play Dak Prescott or Jared Goff, you know what I'm going to do. I'm going to say, hey, this quarterback's really good. And you've just seen way too many huge games from them over the years.

But that doesn't mean they're, that they're perfect or that you just cannot beat them. Like, there's no way. There's no kryptonite at all. They all fall under that same tier of, I used to talk about this when I was trying to kind of frame what Kirk Cousins was in the NFL, like where he existed among quarterbacks. And the thing that I landed on was that if you have Tom Brady or Patrick Mahomes, I'll even toss Josh Allen into this, you're going to have, or Lamar Jackson or Peyton Manning, Drew Breeze, you're going to have 10 shots over a career, if not more, of winning a Super Bowl.

Now, that doesn't mean they'll win more than one. You know, Aaron Rogers is only one-one, but if you go through his seasons, there were 10 different chances for him to win the Super Bowl. If you have a guy like Matt Ryan, for example, or Eli Manning, you might get one or two chances where your team is that good and the guy is hot, playing well, and the weapons are around him and the coaching is good. You get one or two shots. And Ryan didn't win his. Eli won his. Philip Rivers didn't win his. Like there's a lot of those types of quarterbacks through NFL history. Matthew Stafford is that type of quarterback where you get

one or two shots to really win a Super Bowl and you better do it that year. And Stafford did. And then there's like the level down where you think it's going to take kind of a miracle. And I always sort of put Kirk in that category where he's very, very good. But it's going to kind of take a little bit of a miracle. When I think of Justin Herbert, I think of him in that Matt Ryan, Matthew Stafford type of tier of he'll probably get one or two chances to win a Super Bowl. He's that talented. He's that good. But year in and year out, it's not going to be like Aaron Rogers in his prime. It's not going to be like Tom Brady or something where every single year, no matter what's going on around him, he's got a chance to win the Super Bowl. And earlier this season, it looked like

Justin Herbert was going to have a great chance this year. It looked like this was going to be one of those years. And it turns out that with all the injuries they faced, they look like just another team in the league. And he looks destined. And this is why I've made the Kirkbert joke before about Justin Herbert, who I do believe, and we all know. Like this is, we all know it's a bit. We all know that Herbert is more physically gifted. But his team has never been good enough and he hasn't been able to drag them over the finish line like some of the great quarterbacks do. This feels like another one of those years that he's going to hover around 500. And that's why he's more Philip Rivers, Eli Manningish to me, because if you look at their

careers, when their teams were great, they were great. And they could win 12 games and they could have a chance to win the Super Bowl. But Philip Rivers had a lot of years where his team was around 500 because he was great, but he wasn't, he wasn't perfect. He had imperfections that you could take advantage of. And I think that, you know, we're going to see that for the Vikings trying to do that against him, which to me, they didn't do very well last time just blitzing him. I think making him stand in the pocket as long as they can to sort through the defense might be the way.

I'm, you know, I don't know. When you have a guy that big, I was reminded that there was a report that the Vikings did call Jim Harbaugh just in case, and then the Chargers, just in case. Like, hey, I don't think you're trading him, but can you just tell us for sure when Harbaugh took over that you guys don't want to trade us, Herbert and draft J.J. McCarthy. So we know the respect that the Vikings have for this team. Pizza guy, Derisaw, scene of the crime, maybe a little hesitant. I mean, I don't think that's it, but it has been a big thing about his. recovery and him not, I think, wanting to play if it's not a hundred percent, which is smart

because you've got a long career in front of you. And if you're not feeling right, then you shouldn't just keep fighting through it because I would rather have Derisaw. And again, the official statement from Kevin O'Connell was that he was on a pitch count, why you would set up a pitch count to take him out of the game in the biggest moments. Doesn't quite make sense. Typically how you do that. But if Darisaw did take himself out of the game, game. You would rather have him do that than re-injure his knee and then be without Christian Darisaw. You'd rather have him miss this game as terrible as that would be or not play the entire game than you would have him be out for the rest of the season. And we know that that's been the

Vikings philosophy. Fanny says two out of ten. They have Keenan Allen. He's a Vikings killer. He certainly is. And he's beaten Byron Murphy like 70% last year when he played for Chicago. Great, great route runner, great route runner underneath, especially in short area, just understands defense is so well, brilliant player. I'm a very big fan of Keenan Allen's game. And it's one of those guys that if everybody says he's underrated, like he's not. But yeah, I think that he doesn't get the same sort of shine as a lot of other guys. Will says Walter Rouse over Justin's school.

That may be true. And personally from the snaps that they've both. taken this year. I would rather have Walter Rouse in there. He's more physically talented. Really, when Rouse was coming out, everybody knew he was a top pass blocker. I think that there was maybe some concern that he could be a run blocker and he's not the level of athlete that somebody like Christian Derasaw is. But his pass blocking was his forte. He's a former basketball player. He's got, you know, I think some really good feat that helps him out. I would rather see him as well, but I, I don't know, like, would they go with the experience on a

Thursday night that that might be the case? Fake something says Mason rolled up on his repaired knee on a play in the Browns game, seems as no one else noticed in the game, but scared the hell out of me when it happened. Yeah, I mean, stuff like that does kind of happen a lot where people fall on someone. And maybe you're right. Maybe that play was what caused him to want to go out of the game, that somebody fell on his knee and he was concerned that there something could be wrong but I think just even in general overall like they have been very cautious with this and he's been cautious with it and he said

that he pushed it to get out there and he's wearing the brace and everything I don't think he wants to be wearing the brace it's hard you know sometimes with these ACLs you just go hey it's just an ACL he'll be back and every single time like it's not that easy just because Delvin Cook came back well but you know cook got hurt too Just because Adrian Peterson did it, you know, that's, it doesn't mean that everybody's ACL recovery, especially a guy that big is going to be exactly the same. Will says, imagine the conversation two weeks from now. If we win this game, then JJ goes into Detroit and gets the win.

Right. No, great point, Will. And that's why when after the Philly loss, and I know that this is football and I know that every loss is pitchforks and torches and burn it all down. fire every person and everything. I understand like that's people invest so much heart and soul into this team when they disappoint you and make huge mistakes in a game that like that's the reaction. But these seasons can turn so fast. And I learned that after I massively overreacted to a loss that the Vikings had against Detroit in 2017, where Delvin Cook tore his ACL in that game

and they lost, I think, 14 to 7. Case Keenom played really badly and may have gotten picked off or fumbled on the last drive. And it was just really ugly. And it came out of it saying, oh, man, do they need to trade for a quarterback? Like, this thing looks like it's over. This season is toast. I told my program director at the time at 1,500 ESPN, like, I don't think we should spend the budget to travel. We should spend it on, you know, owners meetings and, you know, combine and stuff like that.

because this team is cooked. And instead, they win 13 games. So you're absolutely right that you win this one, and it could take you down a different path very much if J.J. McCarthy can come back and the offense can start looking the way it's supposed to look. And in terms of that level of optimistic viewpoint, if they get a win, JJ McCarthy would be throwing his first ever pass in a real game to the guy that he played the best with in training camp, which is Jordan Addison.

and he would be blocked for, assuming that all is good with the health for the first time from Christian Derrissau. And those things do matter. Detroit's defense has impressed me this year with Kelvin Shepard. I thought early on I was a little worried about Kelvin Shepard's press conference where he was kind of really intense. I was like, I don't know, man. But he has, I think, enhanced that defense so it's better schematically. But they're still missing a lot of players. So they're not perfect either.

and I think there is that that opportunity to start being what you thought you were going to be. There may be a little bit in terms of getting too far behind at four and three to win the division. I would say that, especially with Chicago playing well. But you could be in the discussion for a wild card if you can come out of this at four and three. If it's three and four, then I have a much more difficult time believing that they'll be able to make up that ground with J.J. McCarthy's learning how to play quarterback. Jarrett's two teams with brutal injury luck so far. Huge game for both.

Right. Yeah, I mean, this is, the loser comes out of this game feeling really horrible about themselves. And the winner feels like we survived for sure. But yeah, it's been, it has been such a really tough schedule, really, really tough schedule. Just for overall for the Vikings,

having the overseas games and then a Thursday night right after that. I mean, it is caused, I think, a lot of challenges when it comes to the injuries and the recovery. And we even see that when it comes to J.J. McCarthy, that if they had just had a bunch of noon games on Sunday at U.S. Bank Stadium or in Green Bay or Chicago as opposed to going all over the world here, then, you know, I think that it would have been a lot easier for J.J. McCarthy to get back to 100%. So reminder that Fandul question of the day, Justin Herbert's over under 255.5 yards. From what you've seen from the Vikings defense, what is your trust level that they can hold him underneath that number? A lot of you've been at 2, 4 doesn't sound like there's a lot of belief there. And I think that that's understandable, considering the secondary has been spotty at best when we're talking about them playing against good quarterbacks so far. Still a small sample size.

The one thing I think, though, is that the yards aren't so important. It's sacks, interceptions, fumbles. If you can get five of those things, either a sack, a fumble, or an interception from Justin Herber, then the Vikings defense can help them win this game. If you get less than that, if you don't get sacks, if you don't get interceptions, if you don't get fumbles, at least a couple. I'm not saying all of them, not saying five of each, but four. or five total. Can you get three sacks and two fumbles or a fumble and a pick?

If you can rattle him with, you know, he's, he's a big guy. He'll take the hits. He'll stand in there. But if you can cause him to make those mistakes, then you've got a chance, regardless of how many yards he throws for. But it's also an interesting over under number. So we bring it up. All right.

I got a very special guest for you. I think one of the smartest football minds in the entire universe, a friend of mine, Sam Schwarzstein. The Amazon broadcast Thursday night football begins 6 o'clock central and Prime Vision begins when they kick off. So I was lucky enough to be joined by Sam Schwarstein to give an analytical preview of this game. We also talk about how teams are using analytics and he is also the inventor of this here kickoff that the National Football League has been using. So a great conversation here with Sam Schwarzstein and

well we'll fire it up. This is a good one. Here we go. All right. Now we welcome in a very special guest. First time ever on the show, but not the first time ever we have talked. Sam Schwartzstein who is Thursday night football's analytics expert and a wizard behind

Prime Vision, which of course for analytics nerds like myself is just candy every single week. So I want to get into that but also a man who used to snap footballs to Andrew Luck and play for one Jim Harbaugh, Thursday night football. Jim Harbaugh is on TV. You're involved with this broadcast, Sam Schwartzstein.

This must be pretty cool, my man, for you to be seeing the former coach and you're involved with this. Maybe you'd rather be snap at footballs, but this isn't too bad, eh? Hey, much less painful doing the broadcast for Amazon Studios and Culvercy. Thanks are having me on. Yeah, I mean, this is always fun for me, Harbaal week. It's always fun. I get to reconnect with coach.

He's still part, you know, messages me and my wife every year, birthdays and things. And so it's very fun to get to interact with them. Also, Officer Coordinator Greg Roman, who I'm close with, he was our offensive coordinator for multiple years in Stanford. And then, yes, covering their games is very fun because it's all very similar play calls and mentality. You know, I'm assuming there's going to be a lot of Hound 2, Kill 2, Jet, getting ready for this blitz expectations here. So it's very fun for me in those weeks. All these weeks are fun with Prime Vision. I think what's cool about the people who have seen the show,

it's different every single week. And our coordinating producer, Alex Strand, producer, Scott Carpin, Jeff Butler, our director, everyone puts so much time and effort to make sure that we can have a unique show each week, and it's been very fun. So I want to dive into how that all works, but let's talk a little bit of Vikings and Chargers here. One of the things that you're doing is using next-gen stats

to provide insights to the game, which it's just been so interesting how we went from, I don't know, five, six years ago, the first time you and I ever talked where we were with numbers. We had our DVOAs, we had our PFF stuff, and everybody in the league was talking about,

you know, what do we do with this tracking data? And now I think we're able to shine so much more light on how football works. Apply that in your preparation to a game like this where you have a team that's struggling with some offensive line injuries, a team with a backup quarterback, like, how are you in your preparation using that next-gen data to preview and then analyze this game in real time?

Yeah, I think for us, it's, we never want people to feel like they're watching a spreadsheet. Yeah. But we'll use analytics to give you a guided view and experience, right? So something that we know about Carson Wentz is he loves to target outroutes in the red zone. So in the red zone, we're going to, we're going to see them condense those formations and then go out. And what's great is the teams have same access to this data. So you'll see, are the, or is Jesse Mintz are going to play more outside leverage?

Also the car, the chargers, one of the highest zone defenses in the NFL, running zone coverage. But when they get to the red zone, they go to man 40% of the time, one of the highest rates of man. And so are they going to continue to do that because you have two number one wide receivers? I think what people get caught up a lot of in the traditional yards world is yards, accumulating yards, it can be high usage, which is what we see. see from Justin Herbert. He has 40 more dropbacks on the next player in the league right now. So, like, his yards are not as effective. But as someone who's a very big Justin Herbert person loves him, his interceptions, he's doubled from last year already. Six interception versus three. We can actually measure that in EPA. And I think when people get caught up in this expected

points metric, I think probably the easiest thing as I've changed how I've explained it to people every single year is what if you could count interception yards as negative yards for quarterbacks. And what if we could say a interception in certain parts of the field is more detrimental than other parts of the field? And that's what EPA is doing. And so you look at his EPA numbers, he isn't playing at the MVP level that his passing yards might tell you he's doing. So I think it's going to be an awesome matchup. I'm really looking forward to see how Justin Jefferson is going to be included into this game because he is not at the same height that he should be. And I'm waiting for Carson Wentz to kind of figure out he doesn't need

to be the same level of open as any other player. So if you do see man coverage, which Carson Wentz is time to throw over his zone is super low versus it's super high against man. Let's get him the ball. Like just throw him the football and we'll see what happens. And that's the next step once it takes it take to be like, hey, every Kevin O'Connell reclamation project that takes its time. interesting because we can really paint a much more detailed picture of how these things actually work. And what we've talked about a lot is that time to throw metric, I think has been a real game changer for understanding sacks, but also understanding how teams want to play, pair that with average depth of target. And somebody like Justin Jefferson has always been such a great

target down the field for all of his quarterbacks. And last year, Sam Darnold, I believe, held the ball longer than anybody else in the NFL. They don't want Carson Wentz to do that. most of the offensive line has come back and the chargers are not a super dangerous past rushing team, but they do mix up a lot of coverages. And I wonder like that coverage data is so interesting, like what that tells you about how defenses play. Because I think with Carson Wentz, what we've seen is if he can get it to that first read real quick like you're talking about against zone coverage, it's been working and it's been on time. I think it is when the coverage it doesn't present itself right away that you see a little more of Carson Went saying,

is that what I'm really seeing? And then when there's that ever so slight delay, that's where problems crop up. But I'd love to hear you talk more about how that coverage data works. It's awesome. And Next Gen stats provides all of that to us. But then in game, you'll get it on high leverage downs. And you might get it more often this week, too,

because of the unique coverage that both teams will play. Both teams are going to bring non-traditional rushers, pass rushers. So we used to say offball pass rushers, watching film this week that Vikings walk everyone up in the line of scrimmage. And so it might sound weird to people, but non-traditional pass rushers,

you're going to see. So you're going to see a lot of defensive alert, red orbs indicating that the player are likely to blitz. But then with coverage, it's so interesting because if a quarterback can get a pre-snap read, and this happens a lot for Wence in the red zone. He's going to look to one side of the field.

He's going to look for the hook defender, and he's going to say, if he takes the slant, I'm going to throw it to the flat. If he takes the flat on my throat. And he makes that really, really quick decision. On our show, we're going to be able to show you that coverage prediction before the snap. And so it's going to be up to you and Carson Wentz to kind of see, is he going to make that read? And if you see Mann show up in that red zone prediction,

know that that's going to be the harder play for for Wentz. And that's going to be a fun little element layered. I wasn't super keen on it this week on that side of the ball because of so much zone, but it really is a coin flip for the charges in that red zone. And then the same for the Vikings. The Vikings, they're going to run the most crazy stuff. You know, as people who make models, Vikings Week is always a hard one. Because they're going to do the trickiest stuff, the most unique things. And it's so fascinating now to be able to take all the different coverage. And next gym stats released coverage responsibilities. And so we know that Isaiah Rogers plays the deep half of the field the most of any other corner. It's about 9% of the time. That might not seem like

a lot, but hey, anytime you can trap a coverage, so we call that two invert, when the corners play the D-Path and then you have the safeties play the flat defender, that's actually really important to know that this team will put that player in that deep path. Normally, quarterback can recover two, but not all cover twos are created equal. And we've seen that now from these coverage models. So I wonder how you apply that with specific things like injuries. And when you look at the Los Angeles Chargers, I mean, my thought on this. week is the Vikings might not blitz as much as you think. Now, look, if they complete two passes with no blitz, you know, Brian Flores could be like, give me that blitz button.

I'm going to, that's what he did last week against Philly. They make one big play with time in the pot. Give me that. Give me that blitz. Uh, but at the same time, the four man rush has been able to get home against the chargers and, uh, Justin Herbert is taking an inordinate number of hits. So does that mean, uh, Rondea Gadsden is all the sudden a guy underneath and Ladd McConkey and Keenan Allen, who has killed the Vikings, like, are these underneath receivers? Like, how do we kind of factor for those things combined with what we know about how much Brian Flores loves the blitz? Well, it's funny, you said that my, Keegan Abdu at Next Gen Stats sent me this note late last night. The last time Brian Flores in 2023 played

Justin Herbert, he blitzed on 82% of the snaps, one of the highest in the next gen era. And that was the fastest Justin Herbert. I was able to get rid of the football. And so Justin Herbert, a lot of the highlights we see are him scrambling around and throwing an arm. And that's why he gets the social media quarterback label because some of the stuff he does is otherworldly. It's why people like me have him rank so highly. But he is able to process at a high level. And so he's able to process. So I will be fascinated to see what the answers are going to be. Like you're saying, you can get home with four if you're going up against the seventh tackle for the chargers, right? If they end up getting.

going down, again, to Foster Sorrell, Stanford Legend, at tackle, like, that could be something, an issue for them. So I will never predict what Brian Flores will do, because that's how you get in trouble. Yeah, right. He's going to have a game plan. Like you said, it could flip on a dime. I think most importantly is with Andrew Van Ginkle out, how do they replace his kind of leadership up front there. And how is that good? Because, you know, he was a guy who I had as an all pro last year because, and I'm partial. If you are a guy that is a tweener and you mess with traditional football, that makes me think you're amazing, right? Scott Matlock on the other side of the field, listed as a fullback is a offensive lineman that just plays in the backfield.

Similar type of guy, but not to the level of Andrew Van Ginkle is. So those kinds of things, how do we make up for some of our stalwart players in the offense or in the defense? That's and it's really hurt them too to not have the dynamic pieces really all year with Harrison Smith just playing 50 snaps for the first time and that caused them to kind of reshuffle but not everyone can do that then Josh Mattelis

was having to play more traditional safety so Mattelis up in the box I think changes a lot of things especially with the Chargers team that you know wants to run but they were so much better with him on the field against Philadelphia he had a bunch of key stops that's really his strength is playing up in the box.

So having at least Harrison Smith back, I think helps you with the pre-snap deception. But that game you mentioned, I mean, Justin Herbert was incredible. He went 40 for 47. He ripped them apart. He is the type of quarterback who can just sit in there and have 21 play drives like they did last week. I think it's really a battle of two different philosophies with that because the

Chargers want to stay on the field. You know, Harbaugh wants to stay on the field forever. whereas the Vikings, despite playing two different quarterbacks, one young kid, one journeyman backup, are sixth and explosive plays this year, which I don't think anybody would have been able to guess based on who's playing quarterback. So it seems like the Chargers are going to want to complete these short passes, hold on to the ball forever, whereas the Vikings should look at their defense and say, it's been pretty porous the last few weeks. Can we hit play action shots downfield? Absolutely. You have the perfect read on it. And I think what,

What will be interesting is on the short week, will Carson Wentz be more of the Kevin O'Connell type of quarterback or will they stay playing his game? Because they're missing some of that under center play action with him at quarterback. And I'm all for playing to your quarterback strength and your player's strengths. You'll see me on social media saying it's not a quarter, it's not the coordinator's job. It's the quarterback's job to score points. But I'll say that with, they were so good in rhythm last year, between two and a half and four seconds. And that's getting the ball out at the right breaks

that let you have even more explosive plays. And I think that's what they're going to want to get to against this defense. That with Khalil Matt coming back, that should help the pass rush of the chargers, but it's still not what expecting. What is interesting is the sim pressures that defense of coordinator Jesse Minter brings

creates a lot of unblocked pressures, unblocked blitzers. And so it'll be this offensive line, which is coming into its own, I think it's, is Ryan Kelly going to play? I'm just trying to make sure. No, he's not. It's going to be, it's either Blake Brandel or Michael Juergens.

Right. So they'll have most of this offensive line that wanted to retool coming in this game. So it'll be close to what they imagine coming into the season. But, you know, there are going to be some really big communication issues. And with Ryan Kelly out again, that's going to be a big one, knowing who is actually going to be that fourth blitzer. Because not every time does four down linemen come with this two. They're not going to bring five and six and seven a lot. but that fourth might not be the traditional rush

or you think that's going to be. Yeah, we only got two games of watching Ryan Kelly pick apart, stunts, twist, blitzes, and it was mind-blowing to watch back on tape. And like, how does this guy do it? It's just not the same. Like, there's a reason that he is a pro bowler. And when you look at the pick six,

that's what got them. It was a simulated pressure. And he didn't identify Jalick's hunt dropping back, pressure up the middle, panic. And I'm sure that the Chargers caught that play on tape and saw that. Carson Wentz, when he gets pressured, will panic and just throw the ball or try to make a play that he can't really actually make at his age and with the number of injuries. And I think that's going to be a major thing for the Chargers to try to cause him to make plays out of structure.

I want to talk about identifying these blitzes with the orbs because you love the orbs. I love the orbs. And it really, it actually allows you to sort of play quarterback at home. And I think what it directs my eyes to when I'm watching Prime Vision is, hey, how are they going to block this? Like, so you're lighting up who is the most likely to blitz. Who's going to be in the backfield? Are they going to go out? And you're kind of directing your eyes away from just quarterback with football.

How does that work, though? Like how? Because the orbs are right so much. I'm like, the orb, it did it again. How does that happen? What will be super interesting this week is when we don't light everyone up, that's all walked up because the double mug look, which is two middle linebackers inside the A gaps is something Brian Forres loves to do.

But he'll play cover two out of it. You could have Harrison Smith walked up as an edge rusher and play the deep half on a play. But we won't let those players up. So even the players we don't light up, sometimes I'm going, what are we? This clearly cover zero, and it's not. What we're doing is we're analyzing thousands of plays and then in real time sending those signals. We process it super, super fast. And our team in Israel that works on these models that make sure we have to fine-tuned stuff.

And I think something I love about what we do at Amazon is we're never satisfied. So every year we're getting better, adding more, adding more into the system to make the system smarter. And so what you would have seen year one is we would have highlighted everyone walked up on the line of scrimmage. And now we're getting better at identifying who are those true players that you need to identify. And it's fun because now we have even more tools to work. I can review plays of going in. So now I have a good idea of which players will light up, who's going to light up, when they're going to light up for the chargers. because they run some of the complicated.

It's the flip. Everyone shows for the Vikings. No one shows for the chargers and how do you spot those players. And so it's definitely going to be a fun one this week. It's definitely the cross my fingers, you know, I make sure what it works. Well, also maybe gives you a window

and how hard it is to identify those things, even if you're trained. I am curious, and I'm sure a lot of our audiences, too, where teams are at with this in the NFL, because we've seen this mass hiring of analytics people coming a lot from the big data bowl where they use next gen stats to study all sorts of different subjects. And as the internet debates whether PFF grades matter or not, which is maybe a 10 year old conversation, I have the coaches and teams that I've talked to about

this, I mean, they're using every single minute of every day with data paired with the film to learn about what coverages they might face, what Russia, they might face and how to teach their players better to identify these things. It's a part of every single game plan for every single team these days. Yeah, and I'll go back to a quote I had from a professor in college, Jeremy Balancing, when I was studying this stuff, he said, best versions of AI is when it's helping us ask questions, not answering questions. And that's what a lot of this has done so far, where teams will watch our broadcast,

and now with defensive alerts on main broadcast every week. They're seeing it and they're learning from it. And a lot of the teams that have reached out to us have asked, how can we use us to help teach us football, right? And these are people who know football better than everybody asking, how can I use this to teach them? And I think it's not that it knows more. It's just it can process more.

It's seen more than what the coaches have. Or it's not as reliant on priors, right? A very simple thing is what's everyone say, oh, here's the man coverage indicator. If a player goes in motion and the defense follows in motion, it's always man. Well, that's not the case. Mattieberfoo started doing that years ago where, oh, we're going to have a motion and we'll have a zone coverage check on top of it. And the models can figure that stuff out.

I can't give you an exactly why every single time. But it can help you learn where the key indicators might be for how we can process some of this information or how do teams handle motion and break down the data. think teams are catching up to us. I work on NASCAR as well, and the NASCAR teams are much further ahead using analytics than the football teams are. But the teams are getting there. I think the demystification of analytics is helped by the proliferation of the words AI. They're in the same family, but AI lets you interact with the data a little bit differently to where it's more of a companion versus what's this random number that you're telling me. So I think it's helpful now that

AI is kind of making it more digestible for teams. And I think always in forever, the best coaches are always going to say, what's the next thing that can help me stay ahead of everybody else? In my book, I write about the New York Giants to just adopting PFF and people are shocked. Like, wait, Tom Coughlin, I thought he was an old school coach, an old school coach who wanted to win and wanted to get an edge in any way possible. So it feels like it's not just a schematic race. It's not just a front office race.

It's also an AI and analytics race as well in the NFL, which has made it so much more interesting. The last thing I want to ask you, Sam, is the first time we ever talked to is when I was doing an article, begging the National Football League to adopt the XFL kickoff. And I thought they will never care about me or you and how much we want this game, this playback, all the great kick returners of the past. But we've arrived and it's ruined football. No, I'm just kidding. But it is changed.

It has changed football significantly going from two, three years ago where, man, I think the Vikings had like 10 returns the whole season to now, you got to be returning that ball. And it's been fascinating to watch the impact of that for big returns, big mistakes on returns, and then just the fact that teams are starting with better field position now. I would love to hear what you think of as the person behind the XFL kickoff, how you've seen it implemented to the NFL. and change the game? Yes. I think one, I think that field position isn't that much big of a difference. It's about one yard from last year, from the 28 to the 29 now. And then it's like five yards from the years before. So there's, it's not as big of difference on field position as people might have

expected. I know that was my fear when I first started it was, oh my goodness, what if this is a touchdown every time or what if this? And it's really very similar. And that's because the play is starting where all those coverage and return guys are where they normally would be when the ball was caught. So you're just starting the play instead of sprinting 35 yards to get there, you're starting there. And so that's why it's a very similar play. I think what's important is we've had games decided on it, Monday night football Vikings choosing to return to get to the two-minute warning. It is always going to have now an impact on the game. And if you can be one of the teams that can gain 10, 20 yards, you talk about expected points, you're starting

your field position is massive. So if you can gain the 10 extra yards, be a team that can return to the plus or to the 40, and be one of the teams that can limit return. So the line drive kicks where you tend to hit the ball hit the ground to start the play early. Those are a huge massive advantage if you can do those consistently. And we've also seen when teams fail to do that, that can win games for their opponent. And so I think what's happened now is the big impetus the NFL wanted is keep the play, make the play safe, then the traditional kickoff. And also, let's make sure we have plays. So many people are saying, let's get rid of the kickoff or, no, it's 100-yard play.

It's exciting. We had untimed downs last year where we would just kick it. It was ceremonial. We'd watch the kick. But now you're having a lot more excitement into the game because if there's variability. If everyone just started on the 25, it's uninteresting. Now we don't know where, after every touchdown, we don't know where the team's going to start. That's exciting.

No, I totally agree with you. and it allows players like Miles Price undrafted free agent who I don't believe even had a signing bonus and came into camp and now he's making big plays that make a difference in Minnesota Vikings games. Those kind of stories were left behind for many years when it wasn't so much of a play. What I'm looking for is the next level of this with teams and getting a little more schematically creative. It feels like they're still figuring it out. But there will be, I think, more to go as we go forward in the future. Yeah, I think, you know, we still haven't seen our first reverse in the NFL. There's got to be a team that's willing to try that. And I think that, well, the NFL has

allowed three blockers to not be on the set-up zone line. And I want to see more teams instead of just catching and covering there, see more teams trying to play more cross-blocking. What it really turns into is a giant running play. And I don't know if every team's figured that out, we still have some teams facing backwards like they're on a normal kickoff return yeah but it's a really a giant running play so cross blocking trap blocking zone double teams all of those work and I think the big thing for all the people listening because I know every special team coordinator is going to listen to this get to the edge there is so much more value you can turn an 11 on 11 play into a 4 on 3 play if you just get to the edge so that's that's my call to all the people listening well we will see

if Vikings and Chargers is impacted by the kickoff and I will be thinking of you and Prime Vision. I'll be in the stadium, of course, but if fans have a chance to check it out, I absolutely implore you. If you are an analytics person or interested in a different version, feel free to check it out. Sam Schwarstein, I admire you a great deal, my friend, an innovator in football, and a great follow on Twitter. And also, you know, you're still an offensive lineman at heart. So you got a little bit of that in you as well. But an honor to have you on the show. I really appreciate you taking the time to do this. Have a great broadcast, man. Likewise. Thanks so much. Sam Schwartzstein there. One of my favorite people in the NFL space,

Thursday night football, Prime Vision. If you get a chance to check that out, really cool, really unique and innovative spin on an NFL broadcast tomorrow night. The pregame on Amazon starts at six and then kickoff and when Prime Vision starts, of course, at 7 o'clock. And there will be a post game pretty late a central time, but it will be on this channel with myself and Dane Mizatani from Los Angeles should be a fascinating game. So we've got some time to take some more questions, comments, and I've also got another conversation with Stephen Hagland for a hardcore breakdown of the matchups for this game, which, you know, it really feels like, oh, let me give you the Fandual question of the day.

First, get back to that, and then we'll talk about what this game feels like. The Fanduil question of the day is Justin Herbert's over under for this game, 255.5 yards. From what you guys have seen for the Vikings defense, your trust level that they could keep him under 255.5 yards. So if you're just joining, you haven't answered the question yet. What's your trust that the Vikings defense can go to battle with a really good

quarterback and a lot of weapons and at least contain Justin Herbert? They certainly did not do that last time. So this feels like. I gosh how do I put this it feels like when you go to the last day of school and you know that summer is on the way but you still have a test that's what it feels like because if Carson Wentz goes in and wins this game then the outlook for this team and they're even just watchability and I've seen some of you say in the comments like I just want to watch jay mccarthy play football even if they don't make the playoffs, it is what it is, or even if there are ups and downs, it's a roller coaster, just want to start seeing what the 10th overall draft pick in the 2024 draft has to bring the Minnesota Vikings. And to also, like a lot of you who are Vikings fans have gotten very, very good over the years

at thinking from a bigger picture perspective, thinking about timelines, thinking about front office sort of style way of analyzing where your franchise is that, which is great for the show because we can have these higher level conversations. But I think everybody who thinks that way, not just sort of week to week, are you going to beat this team or not? But really on the how the front office has to think about things, the coaching staff is the bigger sample you can get of J.J. McCarthy, the better you can understand of what's going to happen at the quarterback position. Because if J.J. McCarthy gets in and place 10 games by the end of that 10 games you should be able to look at it and say here is

generally what you have and there's three things that it could be it could be absolutely terrible it could be up and down 50 50 or it can be absolutely awesome those are usually the only way it goes uh maybe there's some gray area in between those three things but i think we we could all probably by the end of the 10 games, put J.J. McCarthy's first performance in one of those buckets. And I saw the other day, and gosh, I'm sorry. I forgot who said this, but there's so many good analytics people that are posting stuff all the time. I forget who said it. But someone posted a chart about young quarterbacks and how quickly they show signs of being good. And is it within a couple games? No, not really. But as the sample size starts to grow, there should be signs.

And Bo Nix is an example of this. I'm not sure he's great, but at least he's good enough to win games with for the Denver Broncos. But a good example where last year, early on, very, very ugly. And then it turned that corner and he played very well. And that's where your team in Denver is deciding, hey, we're going to go forward and build around this kid and everything else, right? If J.J. McCarthy has a similar thing, then we could put it in the absolutely awesome category of

all right, well, that means you're good. And if you put it in the 50-50, then maybe you want to have somebody competing with him next year in training camp. And then if it's absolutely awful, then you might know that you better go find the next Sam Darnold because this could go sideways pretty quickly. And we've seen all phases of that from different quarterbacks. I mean, even Drake May, for example, you get to the end of last year and it was not absolutely awesome last year. It was probably under that 50-50 category. They had games where he was great, games where he was. terrible the circumstances were really bad of course but they knew that drake may was not

absolutely awful so you could at least eliminate that because they got enough of games to say it now with michael penics it's still very much up in the air right now but at least from their team standpoint they saw enough games to say all right he's not absolutely awful we're going to go forward it's more of a 50 50 that's who he's been so far but usually you get a sense from 10 to 12 games which if he plays that many of and it's also a feel thing for everybody all of you have watching a football i've watched enough football where if the ball's coming out which i talk about all the time making the right reads making plays out of structure even if you lose some of those games and even if you come out with three interceptions one day but you made a bunch of plays and you fought

your tail off and it looked like the ball was coming out but just some bad things went your way Well, that usually can be analyzed in the bigger picture as being good, even if it's a bad moment for a young quarterback. But you got to start to see it and all of us feel that way. The media feels that way. The fans feel that way. The front office, the players, everybody. Everybody wants to see him get back and start finding out. So with Kevin O'Connell more or less suggesting that against Detroit, I mean, when he said if it was a Sunday game,

this week, he would probably have a chance to play. So the fact that he would say that really strongly indicates that he'll play against Detroit. That's why this feels like the last day of school, where you kind of got to take your medicine, eat your vegetables, and watch Carson Wentz play for one more game. And I know there's a lot of Carson Wentz fans in the Dakotas. And you guys know, not disrespecting Carson at all. He's done a phenomenal job to go two and two. And two good teams beat him, two bad teams he beat.

that's what you expect. And this is a mid-team. Can he beat a mid-team, get them to three-and-two? Then he's a hero of the season if he could get them to three-and-two. And then it's summertime again, and you can start getting excited about a Vikings game instead of what has been a lot of dread leading up to this and a lot of stuff on the interwebs that's made it, I think, even worse

with the speculation about McCarthy and the injury. And do they want to play them? Is it a soft benching? It hasn't been any fun. It has not been a lick of fun. I mean, Cincinnati was, I don't think the Cleveland game was fun at all for fans to watch. I think that one was pretty miserable. And then, you know, oh, okay, the season's not over.

They found a way to win. But it wasn't a fun game that you're going to go dig up on YouTube 20 years from now. So there hasn't been a whole lot of high entertainment value from this team or even a lot of intrigue because you know exactly what Wentz is. all of the sudden those things are back on the table of the intrigue goes up to 10 out of 10 with J.J. McCarthy and Kevin O'Connell's quarterback whispering, well, he can whisper again instead of wanting to scream watching Carson Wentz intentionally ground the ball or throw it against the sim pressure for a pick six. But that connection of McCarthy and O'Connell and it starts

to, you know, kick up again that conversation of can he get the most out of this young quarterback and how can they set up the offense for him and how can they scheme and you know what's he going to look like with deris on add us all those things that we talked about leading into it and then it was just sort of slam the door in everybody's face and said well no sorry you've got to stay in the dark for a few more weeks so it does feel like uh school will be out after this but if you fail the test then you're going to have to repeat the grade and then they cannot fail the test uh so let's get back to your question's comments in about maybe 20, 30 minutes. We'll bring in Stephen Hagland, who covers the Chargers for the Guilty is Charge podcast.

Really, really good analyst. So that's coming up a bit later. Will says the Vikings are 0 and 7 in Road Thursday night football games. I did not know that if that is indeed a correct statistic. I've always thought, and you remember, if you go back to the beginning of the schedule when it was released, and we do our, hey, we're going to pick every game and so forth. I mean, I think I pick this as a loss and I may have declared it the hardest game on the entire schedule.

Now, that's changed a little bit because of who the Chargers have been. But I think that the actual challenge of playing a super physical team like the Philadelphia Eagles and then three and a half days later saying, hey, you got to go play another team that loves to play physical. Now, they haven't been that this year. I thought that they would be more so. that than they have been for the Chargers. But you have to go play in Los Angeles.

I would expect that there will be a good amount of purple, but I don't think it's the same as if it's a Sunday game. If it was a Sunday game, you could fly out and make it a little vacation, fly out on a Friday, stay there, fly out after the game on Sunday for all the Vikings fans. It's a little harder for people to fly out. And there's a lot of expats out there. There's a lot of people who are Vikings fans in California, who I'm sure have

circled this game and Chargers fans have to be down. So I'll be really interested about just what the crowd is going to look like for this game because last year, I remember thinking when I first got there into the press box and I'm watching the stadium fill up and I'm like, man, that's a lot of purple. Like, they're going to take over this stadium. But what I didn't realize is that the locals, they get stuck in traffic. So they get there halfway through the first quarter. And it was a, it was a Rams crowd. And I think the Vikings were surprised that it was. I don't think that they expected to have so much trouble with the noise. So I'll be curious now that the Chargers are a better team and Harbaugh is their coach and Herberts or quarterback.

Like they're a worthwhile franchise to go watch. It's not like Vegas where that's just a disaster and you get 90% purple there. Like what the percentage split is, I might guess maybe close to 60, 40 chargers. But I just don't know if the Chargers have the same connection as the Los Angeles Rams. used to before they moved to St. Louis and then came back. Like, there's a lot of lifelong fans there. But as far as just going on the road on Thursday night, it's not an easy thing to do. It's a short week.

And when Carson Wentz is saying, well, you need every minute, every second of preparation, but you just don't get that many minutes or seconds of preparation when you're, you know, when you're talking about playing on the road on Thursday. Now, here's another one. Is this true that Carson's, and Wentz is 7 and 0 on Thursday night. Are you guys making these up? Because that sounds,

uh, these sounds fake, but maybe it's not. I mean, I'm trying to think if I remember a Thursday night game that I've covered for the Vikings on the road that they've won. I guess I would have to think about that. Um,

I mean, I remember the home ones like against, wasn't Washington when Case Keenham came back a Thursday night. They lost to Dallas when Mike Zimmer poked his eye out. That kind, I mean, there's, there's been some memorable ones of these Thursday night football games.

games, but I can't confirm on the fly whether those statistics are real or not. NTV Res Runner says three and four going into Detroit would be not the best of circumstances. I think three and four going into Detroit feels like a disaster. I mean, there's a very good argument that Detroit is the best team in the NFL. And I don't think they're flawless because I don't think any team in the NFL is flawless. but if we look on Fan Duel, I'm curious, as of right now, after that very impressive win the other night. Yeah, Detroit is plus 700 to win the Super Bowl. The only team ahead of them is Kansas City.

It tells you a lot about what people think of the Detroit Lions, and that's the next opponent. But, you know, their defense is not flawless by any means, hasn't been so far this year. So J.J. McCarthy playing against them, you feel okay about that. They've been rushing the passer a little better than maybe I expected them to this year. but still like you feel okay all right your division opponent like go play right but if you lose that game and you're still 500 well again you're still sort of in the race but if you're three and four and you're dropping to three and five i that feels like the season has just completely gotten away from you um also wanted to shout out and even realize the enormous super chat from pizza

guy thank you so much for that uh i always say like those those super chats you know i'll answer any question. You don't have to feel like you have to. I know some YouTubers do that. Like, they'll only answer the questions where people pay. I don't ever want to be that guy. But a man, just, wow, can't thank you enough. Little things like that go a long way when, you know, I'm running the whole business here myself. So really, really appreciate that pizza guy. Will, uh, Fanduel, but you didn't, you know, you could have just given me pizza. That also would have helped. Uh, anyway, Will says Fanduel over Hunter on diet. Dr. Peppers this week for me, well, I've already got, I mean, I've just, I'm, I've racked up like a

bunch of them here. I actually was trying to mix in a little bit of water because I feel like I've had too many diet Dr. Peppers this week. But these, these travel games are, they're long. They're fun, but they're long because it's a flight out there tomorrow morning. And then kind of right to the stadium, get a little food, go right to the stadium, five o'clock, local time out there, kick off. And then after the game, come up from the locker room, record the podcast, write, you know, the reaction article from the locker room and all that sort of stuff. And then the drive back home to some family that's out there is a little bit of a ways in LA traffic. So it's a long day. But, you know, we'll get. And actually, LA, this is the details

that don't matter at all. And I'll get back to the football talk. L.A. has metal cups. And let me tell you. Metal cups, diet, whatever they have out there, put a little ice in it. It will just stay cold and you can use the same cup as opposed to plastic cups. Use the same cup all night. It's ice cold, taste delicious. So those of you who drink a lot of diet soda like I do, you might know what I'm talking about when you get it cold like that. So, hey, you asked, you asked uh zoomer zuma zuma co the prime vision uh broadcast is goaded love the field goal percentage lines oh yeah yeah yeah no that's that's really good i wonder about those field

field goal lines if they've changed it all this year with just how much better kickers have been if that it changes the percentages because you know a lot of times i mean even the kickoff you know we had that conversation with sam schwartzstein about the kickoff I mean, that ball is really bouncing because it looks like a soccer ball out there. They're pumping it up so much these days that it feels like it's bouncing like crazy. And Miles Price has to play shortstop half the time if they're kicking it that way. Northern Pride says just want to see McCarthy play good or bad.