Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Data scientist Sam Bruchhaus projects JJ McCarthy after he returns from injury

Episode Date: August 19, 2024

Data scientist from SumerSports Sam Bruchhaus joins to discuss all the 2024 quarterbacks and their early returns from training camp and preseason action, especially JJ McCarthy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

hey everybody welcome to another episode of purple insider matthew collar here and returning to the show the brick house sam brookhouse former division one linebacker turned nerd data scientist at sumer sports second time on the show here i enjoyed our conversation so much last time sam that i had to have you back also you wrote about rookie quarterbacks and since um the one here got hurt and uh won't be for a year. I want to have a conversation about where all the rookie quarterbacks stand with you and some more things. So welcome back, man. How we doing? Thank you, Matthew. Doing well. I was really excited when we first booked this to come talk JJ McCarthy.

He looked great preseason note news and notes was looking fantastic for his performance. And unfortunately the injury bug catches him, but you know, maybe, maybe there's a silver lining to this. We'll see. Okay. So you said before we went on that you have had a meniscus tear. I'm not trying to make you a medical scientist, but the fact that you've gone over this before in your own career, what is that like with the torn meniscus? What's JJ McCarthy going to go through here? Yeah. At least in my experience, the meniscus is the more painful injury to have of the tendons in the knee, but it's because it quote catches, you know, so when you're running around, it's the thing that's providing padding. And so when the joints hit it, it's a little painful. However,

it's the one that's, you know, quick to get around if you don't fix it. And obviously McCarthy's going to repair it, which is good in the long term. And so obviously a setback, but I wouldn't look at it as something like an ACL or a full knee dislocation or an Achilles or something like that. I think it's probably just a minor setback. Maybe he can make it in the back half of the year if Darnold performs well, I think it's a situation where he just gets real healthy and we kind of re-up it next year. So which did you have? Did you have the full repair or did you have the kind of shaving or cleanup with your meniscus? So I tore my ACL as well at the same time. So I'd have to, yeah, I'd have the ACL reconstruction reconstruction but they just left the meniscus

so they just shaved it a little bit um and i haven't really had any problems since so if i have any indication i'm about the same size as mccarthy uh in terms of height and weight so uh hopefully that's a good sign if if one man's testimony can be anything well you must what happened there? Was it on a play that you got hurt? Non-contact. Yeah. Playing football, coming off the edge, non-contact, which it seems like it's similar to McCarthy.

I mean, like there hasn't been a pinpoint of when the pain started, to my knowledge, at least. So the assumption there is it's non-contact or perhaps it was an existing thing that they just missed in the preseason or something like that. the old age of 22 years old when he starts for the Vikings next season. So give me your take on his one game that you were able to see and your thoughts before about JJ McCarthy versus what you saw from him on an actual NFL field. Right. McCarthy in this draft was the true intangibles prospect. You know, he was the guy who had always won. He was the guy who had always risen to the occasion, no matter what the scene or setting. He had won on the biggest levels at the best high schools,

the best college that he could basically attend in terms of football. And we saw the intangibles kick in with him in his preseason snaps. You know, he throws a kind of wild interception. He comes back and really leads the team well and performs well over the course of the game. And that's why you drafted him. That's why there was a lot of interest in him. The idea that he could overcome mental hurdles and overcome adversity and continue to be a strong mental quarterback, you know, puts him on top of some of the even more physical strength elements of the game.

And so I think you got what you paid for, at least for the one game and the, you know, 20 or so attempts that he went for. You know, I was having a conversation one time with George Iloka, former NFL safety, and I asked him about quarterbacks and I said, what, what makes a quarterback difficult to play against? And I was expecting him to say, well, you know, if they could throw into tight windows and that kind of thing. And he said, when you can't break them, uh, because he had played for those Mike Zimmer tough defenses in Cincinnati and he used Ben Roethlisberger as an example he said there were

games where we picked off Ben Roethlisberger several times we sacked the heck out of him and we would still lose at the end of the game because he would find a way to make plays and it is the tiniest sample of things for J.J. McCarthy it's only one interception but the way that he came back even from difficult practices the next day and that wouldn't carry over time and time again, that is a thing that stood out to me. Because when you're a rookie in the NFL, it could be really overwhelming to come out. The whole stadium was full. This wasn't a preseason game that nobody cared about. Everyone wanted to see J.J. McCarthy.

And your introduction to the league is a terrible interception. Whoops. And then to come right back out and throw introduction to the league is a terrible interception. Whoops. And then to come right back out and throw the ball the way he did. The other thing that I've been saying on the show, Sam, that I think it was really undersold the physical talent that J.J. McCarthy has, because the way that he was talked about and the way that I was expecting him to look was like a game managing type. Maybe he'll, you know, make a play here or there, which we saw in Michigan. But what I did not realize is how big he is in person. I must've put on some weight between college and the NFL, but also the arm talent that he has.

And you saw in the long touchdown down the sideline, it was a no effort type of throw for him. Hit the back foot, let it go. And that's a line drive right into the hands of Tristan Jackson for a touchdown. Did you know that about him? Because when I saw him up close, even during rookie minicamp, but especially as we went along, I was really taken aback that he was more physically gifted than he had been painted during the draft. Right. I in, and I don't even view this as like, you know,

these aren't the best quarterbacks in the league, but physically they're great quarterbacks. And my comp kind of for his, you know, expected, obviously bell curve, I'm a data scientist. So I'm always kind of hedging to keep it in that range of values. But it was Ryan Tannehill and Desmond Ritter. And you look at those two guys, and those are two of the better physical quarterbacks in the league in terms of being mobile, being able to throw the ball where it needs to be thrown, being able to run the ball and scramble. And I saw those things kind of pop up in the film at Michigan and obviously also in the analytics. But, you know, in the Kevin O'Connell offense, we saw KOC utilize Josh Dobbs, who's a great athlete, to his full capability. And I'm glad that we kind of got to see that, you know, deep throws,

scrambling around, extending plays. We kind of got to see the full menu, and especially in the NFL now where that's absolutely necessary. I'm excited to see how that grows, obviously, as McCarthy's career moves on. I don't think this injury will inhibit any of that, but it is something to consider. So when you say Tannehill and Ritter, you mean like a physical perspective from how he performed at the combine, the size, and that sort of thing. Because I'm sure when you say Desmond Ritter, people go, ah.

Well, look, Desmond Ritter, Cincinnati product. Obviously I had to watch him for four years at Tulane. I watched a lot of film of him. And then when I went on and got my master's at Notre Dame, they beat Notre Dame in Notre Dame Stadium, and he tortured us the whole game. And so it was really a compliment because when I say that, this is a guy who is mobile, who can make the throws. And particularly, I mean, Tannehill was a wide receiver in college for a period of time. These are guys who are real athletes across football, across positions.

And I think McCarthy fits into that mold pretty well. And what was really impressive to me throughout this time was that when he arrived, his accuracy was kind of all over the place and then it just improved and improved and improved. And that's something that you will never be able to know if someone is going to do when they arrive in your building, whether they're going to get consistently better. But I think this is part of the reason, and we'll get into these other quarterbacks too, and their early returns, but it's part of the reason you pick a 21 year old quarterback who just turned 21 years old, because I mentioned how much bigger he looked, but also I think it's

easier when you are 2021 to get better quicker than the older you get. And by the time you have reached 38, you can't get better at anything ever, including your golf swing, which is what I struggle with. But I think that that type of improvement, we have to remember this dude is still growing at this point in his life. Yeah. And this gives you the leeway, especially when the unexpected happens, because you can still kind of count on him to improve at least mentally getting the mental

reps and seeing an NFL practice despite being injured. And I think that's a big boon for players. I mean, we saw it work for Patrick Holmes. There's no, there's no inherent evidence to show that, you know, sitting as a first player, as a first round quarterback really leads to anything great. But as we all know, generally, like the more reps you get, the more you get to see something, the more comfortable you feel. And that's just kind of inherent to the process. And obviously I would have loved to see McCarthy start week one, but I think the reps, given that what we've seen will help him at least go to whatever his potential is, which is still unknown. I think the issue with trying to study

a quarterback sitting is that you don't know the reason why with Patrick Mahomes, it was part of the plan. And I'm sure by midway through the season, they thought, okay, this is going to be great. Wait till everybody sees this but alex smith is winning you're not gonna bench alex smith in the middle of a winning season in fact i think he led the league in quarterback rating that year so he was keeping patrick mahomes on the bench had he struggled they probably would have gone to patrick mahomes at some point and maybe he might have four superbowls uh now if he had gotten in at that point, they kept him on the bench because their veteran quarterback was winning. They, I'm sure, kept Paxton Lynch on the bench in Denver because he was bad. And when you look at that, you can't really know exactly what the reason is or how high

the team was on him or the progress that they've seen. But I do agree with you that the silver lining to this is that J.J. McCarthy does not have to get sent off to Antarctica and live in a hut and not watch any film or whatever. He gets to be around the NFL experience, watch Sam Darnold go through it this year, right up close, be in every meeting and everything else. It shouldn't take his progress and make it disappear. It's bad, but it's not the worst thing that's ever happened to anyone to have this. Now, if this was, in fact, if this was next year, if they didn't address the meniscus thing, and then it was next year, they're turning it over to them. Now that would be really bad.

I'll knock on wood after that. So now, of course, you know, that if you come on the show, you have to answer questions that you don't really want to be definitive and answer, because that's part of the deal that you sign when you come on Purple Insider. Based on this tiny amount of information in the discussion we're having right now about J.J. McCarthy, project his future. Tell me what he should be, what people should expect from him based on only this tiny amount of information. And if you're wrong, it doesn't matter because that's how sports work. Matthew, last time you put the gears to me and asked me to project McCarthy's stat line, and I went, if he's successful, obviously good coach, all that stuff. I went pretty high and it encouraged me. It made me want to write a whole 1500 word article about what actually

the rookie quarterbacks we can expect from. And generally, I was really surprised when I looked at that and to see that they do average 10 starts a year for basically three years. When you draft a rookie quarterback in the first round, you can expect them to be a part of your life for a good three to five years and i think you're seeing that in new york right now uh with danny dimes dana jones um who's like still like a lot of controversy people talking about him he's had good years he's had really bad years he's been injured he's been healthy and and he's still a member of the team and is still contributing and is probably going to start this year and so i think vikings fans can certainly look forward to

McCarthy being in the building until for for a good portion of the future at least four years it's tough to project anything else other than that you know you look at kind of the career of what these quarterbacks do and on average it's like a Mitchell Trubisky like in terms of average impact like a Joe Flacco it's kind of on average but we saw Joe Flacco win a lot of games and he was in great situations and I think McCarthy is is in a great situation as well and so if I was to project you know just straight down the the line he has good wide receiver he has good offensive line that definitely will boost him up a little bit I I think the offense will probably be good. I think you probably see him land the

second contract, certainly. That's kind of as far as I'm willing to go, but I mean, expect Edgy McCarthy to be part of your life for the next six to eight years. Folks, U.S. Cellular noticed that the way we use our phones has gotten ironic. We try to put our phones down for dinner, but the menu is on a QR code. That's ironic. We hit like on social media posts that we don't actually like. Ironic. Which is why U.S. Cellular created UsMode to help us reconnect with each other and use our phones less ironically. A phone company wanting people to use their phones less? Ironic. Let's find us again with Us Mode from U.S. Cellular.

Visit uscellular.com slash built for us to get started. Well, and when you think about the quarterbacks who just recently got second contracts, NFL teams know that if you have a certain baseline, you can figure out a way to win around them. And if you don't have that baseline, you are absolutely fired. I wish the, I wish Antonio Pierce the best seems like a really fun guy, but if you're starting a no Connell or a Gardner Minshew, I guess Minshew won the job. Good luck, man. I mean, so you've got to stick with somebody like Trevor Lawrence someone like Tua

even if there's some question about how elite they are so the bar is kind of there for that second contract and now I think you look at Miami as a team where Tua is not a perfect quarterback I don't expect JJ McCarthy to be a perfect quarterback as as much as I've liked what I've seen from him but if you can execute the offense and then add even this shade of playmaking that he has with what's around him, I think you can be talking about a top-notch type of executor. I think we could put things into categories of like quarterbacks who are super dynamic, like Josh Allen and can survive just about anything because of how physically freakish they are and then the executors where it's the the head coach

playing video games with his quarterback out there and mccarthy they want him to be that but if you add this extra playmaking this scrambling ability even like we saw a little bit in the preseason game assuming he doesn't tear any other meniscuses in doing that, then you could win a lot of football games that way. Right. And I think two is a great example because I have kind of a working theory that two of $51.5 million a year, whatever it ended up being that comes out and immediately there's thousands of people on the internet and folks at work saying oh that's ridiculous like why are you

paying a quarterback that much money when you really weren't even in gross contention for the year for the for the Super Bowl last year and I I just think that the surplus value, quote unquote, that as analysts like to use on those contracts is so negligible because if you don't have a quarterback, that player's touching the ball every single time. It shuts down everything else. It's just like not having a solid offensive line. Offensive line doesn't really need anyone else to do well.

Same token is the quarterback has the ball in his hands. If they're not scared of the quarterback, they're going to load up against the run, then you can't throw or pass. And so you look at these contracts and you look at obviously beginning to evaluate someone like McCarthy and you're trying to see if he puts you in contention and then try to figure all the other stuff out. And maybe if you can upgrade,

like we talked about with Alex Smith, Mahomes, you take a shot at it. The Packers have obviously done that several times. The Falcons are looking to do that, I suppose, by drafting Pennix in the first round. So it's sticky in the national football league because at the end of the day, you have to have someone who sets the baseline for your team. And that person is almost always the quarterback. Right. And I do think though, we can still talk about how McCarthy could take advantage of that rookie quarterback contract, which they're going to need to do because they don't really have any draft picks for the next draft. And they'll have to spend that money in free agency. Where I was thinking about Tua is the relationship between him and the head coach.

And at some point on the show, I will talk about what Tua said about Brian Flores. We don't have to get into that right now. But when it comes to McDaniel and the way that he and Tua have acted together and they have built that offense as if it's theirs. That's what Kevin O'Connell is searching for with JJ McCarthy. And we just saw the connection there early on. And this is becoming, and it's always been this way, but I think it's even being exaggerated now, the coach-quarterback relationship for how that guy performs might be the most important thing in the sport.

And that even does apply to someone like Patrick Mahomes, where the relationship with Andy Reid cannot be understated when it's talking about his success. Of course, it's throwing passes behind his back. That is the reason he's great, but he has to execute an offense. He has to have a coach who believes in him. And O'Connell and McCarthy just vibed together

extremely well from the start. And it was a full buy-in from the quarterback. And that to me projects well. If we're trying to throw all the things in the pot that we can figure out to decide, is it going to work or not? That might be one of the things that I would weigh the heaviest is how that coach and quarterback relationship is. Right.

You, the quarterback probably across sports is the true chief executive of the team. You know, you can't set the front without the quarterback. You can't hand the ball out without the team. You can't set the front without the quarterback. You can't hand the ball out without the quarterback. And then obviously, corollary from that, you can't run play action without the quarterback. You can't get the wide receivers the ball without the quarterback. And when that chief executive has to work with the person who's putting all the gears in motion, that's absolutely key. We've seen someone like Jared Goff really profit from this in his career, obviously, with Sean McVay,

who KOC is in that tree, obviously. And then going and working with Ben Johnson. Now he's a well-regarded quarterback, a veteran, a guy who's won a lot of games. And, and hopefully we can see JJ McCarthy grow like that with KOC as well.

All right. Here's what I want to do. I want to force you into projecting everyone. Now you wrote about it. You brought this on yourself. Okay. If you didn't write about it, I wouldn't invite you on the show and well, you could just go do whatever you want, but since you did now you're here and now you have to guys. All right. So let's talk about these other rookie quarterbacks. Here's what, here's what I want. I want you to tell me what you think they'll do this year and then how you kind of look at their their track for the future so let's just start with the last quarterback picked in the first

round bo nicks that everybody in denver believes is now going to win the job after a very good performance in preseason action yesterday uh i think bo nicks right away seems like a guy who will complete a lot of passes. But in the long term, I don't know if there's a ceiling, if you will, that is as high as somebody like J.J. McCarthy. So where do you stand on Bo Nix now and later? as I'd done in the piece on Summersports.com, at 30 starts over the first three or four years. I think Bo is probably going to be on the low end of that. So I'd probably put him where he was drafted. The reason, as you outlined, is that I think he'll complete a lot of passes, but Gardner Minshew completes a lot of passes.

And Sean Payton is a guy who has been blessed with great quarterback talent, and even when he wasn't blessed with great quarterback talent, won games. And if the games don't come, then Nix is going to have to move on. We'll see how he obviously is another intangibles-type quarterback, which is hilarious having played against him and watched him at Auburn in the sec when he was, you know, Bo Nix running around like a wild man. But in terms of projection, I'd put him pretty low. I I'd be giving him the lowest probability of getting a second contract of any of these quarterbacks.

Does Daniel Jones, and I know he did get a second second contract but does he just become the go-to guy for everything where someone can clearly play in the NFL but they're just not good enough because that's how I think of it when I think of a yards per attempt type of thing with Bo Nix maybe it's close to seven maybe it's a little under that Daniel Jones although maybe now he's going to air it out to Malik neighbors, every play, I doubt it, but that was Jones's reputation is there's a lot of underneath stuff. There's a lot of checkdowns. There's a little bit of running ability mixed in there, especially the one year with Brian Dable. But as far as just being a drop back passer, he even it all over the yard, that just doesn't seem like what Bo Nix is going to be doing. I don't know if maybe

the physical capabilities are quite high enough. And I also don't think that the players around him are good enough to do that. We're talking about pretty average receiver room and maybe that's even being polite. Yeah. I think the examples of Jones and then separately, it was kind of like this for a while with Jared golf, obviously particularly when that made their when they made that trade it was just like I don't think you can win long term with this guy the difference I think is those are two you know physically gifted guys tall you know stereotypical quarterback arm so forth and so on Nix is is like not necessarily that obviously has has some mobility to him, but the arm strength. Nate Tice talked beautifully about this this week.

He doesn't have the physical acumen, really, and that's been well-documented. So he's really going to have to have the mental acumen, and if that doesn't come along, obviously, it looked better this week. Week one, it was hit or miss. He just has such a small margin in terms of succeeding in this league and getting to that mark that I think the Broncos and Sean Payton want that it it's tough to say that he'll be immensely successful in the next, you know, six to eight years. Right. So when we talk about guys that aren't physically impressive, that have to be the extreme executors of their offense, we kind of come back to a Brock Purdy.

We come back to Tua. I think that both of those guys have superpowers that maybe Bo Nix doesn't have. The superpower with Tua is his accuracy. And for such a little guy, I think he sees the field pretty well or understands accuracy is weird. If you understand exactly where the ball is supposed to go exactly when it's supposed to go there you can look very accurate even if you don't even see it all that well but you just time it out and throw it to that space and have good receivers who can catch it

so that's something that he has to do and purdy how do i put this the guy has some boulders like he just right makes it so it's a you know kids show sometimes but uh he just has this playmaking mindset he doesn't care that he's a seventh round pick he just goes out there and balls but he also i think has lightning quick decision making that you don't always see from quarterbacks and nicks has to have those things in order to succeed with michael pennix apparently played so well he didn't have to play in the preseason which i was fine with i saw the internet being very upset coaches don't care about the preseason all that much anymore we just have to accept it raheem morris was out there with sean mcve. That guy laughs at the preseason. Who needs it? So not shocking that Michael Penix wouldn't play to me anyway. I think, though, that he was pretty impressive in his first preseason appearance.

I wouldn't be shocked if we do see him faster than expected when he was drafted. A lot of people thinking, oh, he's not going to play for two or three years. I don't know about where Kirk stands physically and how many more years he can actually play. And if they like Pennix as much as it sounds like it just might not be terribly shocking if he got in a little quicker than expected. Yeah. And, and that's another team with, with studs. Uh, you know, you have, you have highly paid, well-regarded offensive linemen. You have Drake Lunden on the outside, who's a physical monster. And obviously, you have Dijon, who projects to be one of the

better, if not the best, running back in the league this year. And if you think you have a player in Pennix who is accurate, is incredible at avoiding negative plays and avoiding sacks, and you think that he can sling the ball across the yard, like he did at Washington. And that's something that Kirk can't do. You have to pull that trigger, uh, especially given he's on a rookie contract, you know, you have the dead money considerations with Kirk, but like you said, he's an aging and, and massively injured player with a massive Achilles rupture last year. That's a lot of risk. I think as time has gone on, people have kind of warmed to the idea of selecting the quarterback there. They just

didn't necessarily believe it was the right quarterback. But when you have big wide receivers and you have Kyle Pitts and you have guys who could go up and get the ball, you have to have a quarterback who will sling it. You talked about Brock Purdy unlock Brandon Ayuk last year just by his willingness to chuck it down the field. I mean, Jimmy G, obviously that's the reason why he had to go out the door. And if that's the move that they want to make, I think the Pennix option, in play maybe late this season if they're, you know, fighting for a playoff spot. Like you said, a lot earlier than normal. That being said, older, you know, difficult to know lots and lots of injuries. He probably has the widest distribution of what could possibly happen of any quarterbacks here. So I'm comfortable with saying, you know, maybe he's a guy that

plays for 15 years and is a great quarterback, but there's also a probability that he gets injured and we never see him period. Yeah. It's funny about injuries in college because JJ McCarthy didn't have any, and then he gets injured right away. And Michael Penix had ACLs, but guys get hurt sometimes in football. If you're 24, by the time you're coming out, you've probably had some injuries. It's just so hard to figure out whether that's going to matter. There was really two minds about Michael Penix. I was in the bucket of he's one of the best quarterbacks in this draft. I thought if he had gone to the Vikings, it would have been a tremendous fit with him

hucking the ball downfield to Jefferson. But I also thought everything that I had heard about his mental makeup and you think about going through adversity as he did with all those injuries to come out on the other end with a program that never makes it there to take them there was so impressive to me with Michael Penix. And then when he comes out in preseason action, he just looked in charge of the offense and the arm that travels, like being able to throw it at that level of velocity that quickly that works out. I'll be curious to see if we see him at all this year. I wouldn't be shocked if we do though, because of Kirk's age. And if he gets banged up again then pennix goes in and i also think that from atlanta's perspective they kind of did the

trade for russell wilson thing here that denver did they probably knew there was a chance that this could blow up and that's why they decided to get michael pennix now look at it drake may after three practices drake may was a bust. He was the worst quarterback anyone's ever seen. Uh, he was going to fail completely in new England, but stunningly, I can't believe it as we've gone along. Then now the reporters are talking about a rookie quarterback looking a little bit better and starting to get his footing, but I haven't seen yet whether he's going to start. And it seems like the Patriots reporters think that he's not. So what should we expect? This seems like a team that could lose a

bunch of games with Jacoby Brissett four or five games and just say, okay, it's time to throw in Drake May. Right. Yeah. So again, the average for these quarterbacks, particularly the first round quarterbacks is 10 starts a year. So it would be pretty – he certainly will play some games. And if not, he is in the minor, minor, minority, which in theory J.J. McCarthy will be a part of, and that's because of the injury. So I would expect him to at least start one game. It's really interesting i i was a lot you know have my analytics brain and i have my i played football and have seen a bunch of quarterbacks brain and sometimes those collide and that's okay

like sometimes the brain picks up stuff that the numbers can't just because it's hard to observe things and and chart them down and it was very interesting to me that it was coming out of patriots camp that he was having footwork problems because that is I didn't couldn't put my finger on it at the time. I'm not a quarterback guru. I've watched a lot of quarterbacks obviously play like it's a lot of quarterbacks, but they kind of nailed on the head what my problem was with him and why I put him below Caleb and Jane Daniels was there was just like a laziness there. But now that they've said it, it wasn't a laziness. I just think he wasn't trained to have the distinct quick operation that quarterbacks that perform at the highest level in the NFL have. And if they can improve that, then he will be a good quarterback.

If they can't improve that, I think he will struggle. And maybe he overcomes it because he's such a physical specimen a la Josh Allen, but he will have similar struggles where he's staring guys down. His footwork operation is slow. And some of those edge rushers that are immaculate athletes are getting to him what seems like almost immediately, but it's just because the operation was slow. So I'm not incredibly shocked to have seen this, but given the pedigree of May, I'd be shocked if he doesn't end up being a functional starter, if not this year, at some point across his rookie contract. The footwork thing is hard for me because I think in college

footwork is very vibes. It's drop back and see how you feel about it. And you've got a lot more time. Although at North Carolina, he didn't have a ton of time, but that also may have thrown it off as well. And when you watch their offense, it was just sadness. Uh, there felt like there weren't a lot of answers for him. It was just drop back. And if the first guy falls down, you run and make a crazy play. And sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn't for him last year. But it seems like it's such a learned thing at the NFL level for everyone that nobody is going to come out.

And I think that college footwork will fool people into thinking Jake from is something like, oh, this guy's right. Guy's real footwork down in that office. That's not what is going to make the difference. What's going to make the difference is whether the guy can learn to do the NFL footwork. And that's what we saw from JJ McCarthy, where it was a disaster in OTAs. He was bouncing warmup passes, trying to work on the footwork. And then by the time he got to training camp and halfway through it, he was getting it and it was really working.

But even then, even in this great preseason game, there was a four hitch there were, you know, there was like a, uh, come on, JJ, throw it. There was a slant route that he took an extra hitch on that wasn't right. That, know jto sullivan pointed out and his breakdown all these guys have to get that stuff down because the nfl is so timing based with everything that no matter who you are if you have the best footwork ever you're you're gonna have to learn uh so much with drake may i'm just curious about his circumstances because talk about being of two minds so i'm sitting here talking about how it can help JJ McCarthy so much to have everything around him. At the same time, I'm also

of Drake may, Hey man, if you're going to be good, you should be able to be fine as much of a disaster that offensive line is those receivers are. If you can just figure it out and battle through, like that's how I knew or had a sense of Joe Burrow and how good he was going to be because that team was horrible and Joe was out there battling so go show that you got the guts but I don't think we can really see that until he actually gets in actual games not preseason and training camp yeah for sure and uh what about Jaden Daniels what about Jaden Daniels so I went in person to the Jets Jaden Daniels game and about Jaden Daniels? So I went in person to the Jets' Jaden Daniels game, and not a lot to see.

I think he attempted like four passes, one of which was kind of a miscommunication screen pass. But in that small sample, you see why they drafted him. You know, big bomb throw, third down check to De'Ami Brown, on the money, completes the pass, ends up being a touchdown on a little read option play where he beats a safety to the pylon and squeaks in. And that's why you draft him. You draft him because he's dynamic, throwing on the perimeter to fast guys. Obviously, they

have a Terry McCorn, who's a starting wide receiver, probably not elite, but a starting wide receiver in this league. Guys like Deami Brown, who seems to be doing better this year. I liked him as a player just because I thought he could make the difficult throws that need to be made, and he's mobile. And I thought that Cliff Kingsbury and Dan Quinn would be able to manage kind of his more Wiley E. Coy, tendencies. And so I still like what I see from Daniels. Um, I still think he's probably going to be the second best quarterback in this draft. Yeah. I was hoping to see more from the preseason because it's my only real look at Jane

Daniels and him dropping a dime down the sideline is what he did in college repeatedly that's another one with the circumstances i wonder about i'm not a big cliff kingsbury believer uh based on his history with kyler murray where it was very hot and cold but you talked about the wide variance of how things could turn out that's that was more jaden daniels to me where you could see him being the best quarterback in the entires to me where you could see him being the best quarterback in the entire NFC or you could see him just not being really good at all I think they do have a good enough offensive line and receivers for him to survive they sort of made something out of Sam Howell for about a half a season that one is just a little harder to project

based on what people are saying out of DC it seems seems like they're fairly high on him, but he might not start right away. But I don't have like a ton more to say about Jaden Daniels because I just need to see what it's going to look like in real circumstances with the scrambling, with the decision-making, because it didn't seem like it was really fast at LSU. It seemed like he had to see guys come open first. And if that's how it ends up going in the NFL,

then he's going to throw a lot of interceptions and struggle. Yeah. And talking about the decision-making, Cliff Kingsbury did lead Kyler Murray to offensive rookie of the year nod, but he also led Kyler Murray to one of the most insane sacks here of any quarterback in the history of the NFL. And knowing that Daniel struggles mightily with pressure to sack ratio, that will be a key to mitigate from head coach to offense coordinator, quarterback all the way down.

That is going to be the thing that could kill Daniels this year is, is if he just starts getting smoked back there and, and getting sacked all the time. And that could become a major, major problem. That is the key metric to look at weeks one to week five or six to see if he will be a successful quarterback in this league because that's a stable stat. And that's something you'll see throughout his career.

Okay, so you understand why we've been filibustering on other quarterbacks, right? Because no Vikings fan wants to hear what they're going to hear about Caleb Williams. It was awesome. And it just was those throws are super unusual people. Human beings are not meant to twist their body that way and still throw it accurately. He was creative within the pocket that in the first game, there was that crazy screen that he threw out of kind of nowhere. All the physical stuff is there.

Am I feeling any differently than you about Caleb Williams that Vikings fans should be pretty scared? I think the second preseason game was definitely not as pristine as the first, but then he let a touchdown drive. So it's like, pick your pick your poison. I'm terrified of Caleb Williams as well. I watched him absolutely demolished by Tulane Green Wave, and luckily, somehow, by the grace of God, we came away with the win. But it took a divine power to beat him. He's a special player, and I think outside factors are the inhibiting thing with him because it it looks like what's

on the field is what's on the field and that's what it's gonna continue to be and what what that's been is pretty good. So, what this year? What can he do this year? Um if if he lives up to the hype. Uh like like that Kyler Murray-esque season, offensive rookie of the year nod type season is expected, I guess. If he has all the tools, he has the wide receivers, he probably has two blue chip wide receivers certified with Keenan Allen, a guy who's done it time and time again.

And then obviously DJ Moore, who did it with Justin Fields, did it with quarter, you know, you name the quarterback, you name the system, he's been successful. A decent offensive line and then a defense-focused head coach with some talent. The thing is, is it's a difficult division, and that's really another inhibiting factor, another outside factor, obviously,

is that the Vikings are a pretty good team. And he'll be facing Brian Flores twice a year, literally throwing the kitchen sink at him. He'll be facing a Packers team, which seems to be able to score a ton of points and a Lions team that's hard as nails and won a lot of games last year. I could see them struggling in the division, but I'd'd expect him to have, you know, a quality. I'd expect him to be the best quarterback in this draft this year and moving forward. So Aaron Rogers, his first year as a starter and with the physical capabilities, you throw around names like that with Caleb Williams. He had a good offense and they won like six games because it was a I think it was a tough division year. Their defense, they lost some close games at the end. I wouldn't be shocked if Chicago only won

six or seven games based on what is happening in the division. And as you mentioned, I think the Vikings can throw a lot of different things at rookie quarterbacks that is going to cause sacks and interceptions. And so for this year, it may not be that scary. It's really into the future. When you see things like that, you've only seen stuff like that from Josh Allen, for Patrick Mahomes. And that's really about it. Recently, that's not something Vikings fans wanted him to come in and lose the locker room right away and maybe have his meniscus get torn.

But instead, Caleb Williams is looking pretty darn good. And it's going to make for a fun division going into the future with McCarthy coming back next year, Caleb Williams, and then, you know, the Packers and lions still being quite good. Sumer sports.com is where you can go read your breakdown of these

quarterbacks. I'm excited to see this season and where these guys go, because it's very rare that we have this many rookie quarterbacks to track that it takes this long to break them all down. Usually it's one or two. So really glad that you could come back on the show and do it. We'll definitely have you back again very soon to break down. When we have real data, we will have new numbers.

We've been looking at the old numbers for eight months or something. Now we're going to have real numbers the next time. I'm sure you come back on the show, Sam, Sam Brookhouse, which is spelled with two H's for some reason. So make sure you find what's your Twitter? Uh, Brookhouse sports, B-R-U-C-H-H-A-U-S sports. There you go. Thanks for coming on, Sam. Really appreciate your time, man. Thank you very much.