Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Did the Vikings avoid disaster when Ryan Poles picked Chicago?

Episode Date: July 17, 2025

Matthew Coller answers your Vikings questions, including whether the Vikings avoided disaster when Ryan Poles decided to go to Chicago instead? Should we expect to see McCarthy in the preseason? What it would take for the Vikings to have a top 10 or top 5 run offense?

Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Coller here and yes, I am on the road, but that doesn't keep me from talking a little football with all of you good folks. So I got a lot of great questions from Vikings fans to get to here. If you want to jump in on the show on one of these episodes, Matthew Coller at Gmail or hit me up on Twitter at Matthew Coller. Sign up for the newsletter, folks. It's a great time to be doing that.

Purpleinsider.football. All of my written camp reports will come from there. So let's dive right in to our questions. First one comes from Nick. Says, back before we hired Kwesi Adafo-Menta, Ryan Poles was seen as the best option and when he chose to go to Chicago it seemed like Quacey was the runner-up that we settled for. Did the Vikings luck out with the better GM or is Poles simply a victim of the Bears environment? I think that both of the GMs did not really start in the exact same

place. So they were two very different plans. And I actually remember when Ryan Poles chose Chicago and the Vikings hired Quacey writing an article basically saying like this is a battle of the rebuilds that both teams are in a position where they need to find a way to a lot of different things in the roster, but most notably the quarterback situation. And then the Vikings are in a spot where they don't want to go all the way to the bottom. Their ownership doesn't want to go all the way

to the bottom, but Chicago was in much more of a position, see they didn't have Justin Jefferson, much more of a position to just tank, tear it all apart, sell everything that wasn't nailed down, and then completely rebuild from the bottom. So naturally the Vikings had more pieces in place that they could work with and slowly transitioned from the Kirk Cousins, 2022 Vikings that still had players hanging on from the previous era and then move on from a lot of those players, use free agency, spend a lot of money, get a lot of veteran players

versus what Chicago tried to do was stack up a lot of draft picks, draft a bunch of guys, including of course Caleb Williams. But trading out of that number one overall pick for Bryce Young certainly helped Chicago do that as well because they got the future first with Caleb Williams and then they got additional draft capital as well. So, you know, they did a real full tear all the way down versus what the Vikings did in the competitive rebuild. And Quasidafo Mensa as general manager has overseen, I think one of the more difficult things to do,

which is try to remain competitive while you are rebuilding a roster. And they've done that excellently. And a lot of it has to do with the hire of Kevin O'Connell. And we can't leave that out of the equation here where the Chicago Bears hired a bad head coach in Matt Eberfluss and certainly not the type of coach that was able to create a positive culture for his team.

Whereas Kevin O'Connell has turned into the coach of the year and is one of the best coaches in the NFL. A quarterback whisperer, if you will, was certainly proven to be true with what they did with Sam Darnold last year, but also somebody that gets players to buy in and now players around the league hear

that this is someplace you wanna be. Agents want their players to buy in, and now players around the league hear that this is some place you want to be. Agents want their clients to be in Minnesota, and I think a lot of that connects back to Kevin O'Connell as well. Whereas you hire Matt Eberfluss, he does not manage very well, and does not have the players' trust or players' belief, and it's not just a roster thing, but also doesn't seem to understand offense very well. Hires an offensive coordinator that did not work out for them with Caleb Williams in his

first year, and it looks a little bit like a calamity. But I think when you look at this year, that both general managers, now they both have their second contracts, and both have removed themselves from the previous regimes in the previous rosters that were built and the teams really belong to them. Now, there's been a lot of bumps along the way for Ryan polls, of course, with Caleb Williams first year being really difficult. And I mean when you go to all the way down to the bottom

and you tank things get ugly and that's one of the the anti-tanking arguments is like yeah, it's easy on paper to just say hey, why don't you just lose every game, but people lose their jobs and there's a lot of drama and there's a lot of issues that go along with losing and losing and losing and for O'Connell to set the standard right away winning 13 games. I think it earned him a lot of cache with people like Brian O'Neill and Justin Jefferson that were going to be here for a long time. Christian Derisaw would throw his name in there as well.

Harrison Smith, the key leaders of this team, learned right away, oh yeah, this guy is a winning head coach and it's just starting in such a different position than oh hey Matt Eberfluss, lose every game and then get the players to trust you and believe in you when you've done nothing. So I think that the Bears have gone through a lot more sludge to get to this point where they feel like

their winning window is opening, whereas the Vikings have had things go really well in routes to feeling like they're in that same window. But whichever GM's plan works out the best will probably be decided in the coming years and not in the past years, because neither team has a playoff win since either general manager was hired.

But if Caleb Williams takes that big, huge step forward, well then all of a sudden, we're gonna look at the hire of Ben Johnson, we're gonna look at the rebuilding of the offensive line. We're going to look at the weapons that Ryan Pohl's brought in and some of the defensive players that he drafted and signed as being brilliant.

Oh, look, he's done such an amazing job of tanking and bringing this team back from the doldrums of the NFL. And with Kwesi-Rafo-Mensa, if JJ McCarthy works out, then this entire plan will look incredible, genius, brilliant, magical. Wow, best GM in the league. But if JJ McCarthy struggles, are we gonna look at it that way

or is it going to be much more? Wow, they put all their eggs in this competitive rebuild basket and they moved on from Darnold and they didn't sign Aaron Rodgers and they let Kirk go and they put it all on the kids shoulders and it didn't work out he must be a dope right so I think that what will really truly tell us about these general managers and whose plan was better is this year next year

the year after that well these guys are both in their rookie contracts we're going to see if either one of them turns into a true Super Bowl contender. I think as of this moment, of course, Quacey has done a much, much better job, but had Ryan Poles come to Minnesota and had his plan be signed off by the Wilfs and they tore it all the way to the, to the bottom and they got rid of Kirk instantly in 2022 and played, I don't know, Nick Mullins

for the entire season and won three games. Like how would things have been different? I don't know, because the Vikings would have stacked up a lot more draft capital. They probably also would have been looked at as a joke. And that makes it a lot harder to sign Jonathan Grenard, Andrew Van Ginkle, Blake Cashman, Jonathan Allen,

Javon Hargrave, Aaron Jones. It makes it a lot more difficult to get all those players and extensions for Darasaw, Jefferson, Hawkinson, again, would be very difficult, all that stuff. You wouldn't even have Hawkinson probably if the Vikings had been a laughing stock and torn it all the way down. Doesn't mean it wouldn't have worked,

it just means it would have probably been through the draft and then they would have had to have proven themselves first before they could start signing free agents the way that they have. So you have a free agency rebuild, a lot of veteran star players, the window might be a tad bit shorter, but with the rookie contracts for both teams,

they're gonna be big spenders, and they were this off season. And now here we go. So it's almost been like the qualifying for both of these GMs. And now the race begins between Quasi-Dalfo-Mensa and Ryan Pulse. So I think that, you know, the Bears environment,

yeah, it comes along with a lot of pressure and it has been difficult and you hire the wrong coach and you're gonna end up with major problems as Chicago did. But I don't think that we can judge Ryan Poles yet. And I think that that five-year contract extension that he just signed is pretty telling that their ownership thinks the same exact thing, that they knew there were gonna be some pretty bad seasons

and getting Caleb Williams is their ticket to being a Super Bowl contender. It all rests on his shoulders. So far the sample size doesn't look great, but it's only one year and we've seen that from a lot of quarterbacks. So I again cannot judge this one quite yet. As of right now though, if we were doing a qualifier, Quacey would be in the pole position and Ryan Poles would be in 37th, but the race has just begun, my friends. Guys, if you watch the show all the time, you know that I'm a hat guy,

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Results vary based on studies of topical and oral minoxidil and finasteride prescription products require an online Consultation with a health care provider who will determine if a prescription is appropriate Restrictions apply see the website for full details and important safety information Next question here, Bradley says, the Check the Mic podcast listed their 16 best positional units, and the Vikings had three of them, whereas none of the other North teams even had one. Oversight or should we play in the parade?

Yeah. I think when you go through and you look at this Vikings roster, and I also was laughing the other day thinking about how we spend a lot of time talking about, you know, Dallas Turner and where he's gonna fit in, or, you know, the cornerback room being a little bit weak. And the reason we spend so much time on those things is because the rest of the roster is so settled with quality proven veteran players,

where you know more or less what they're going to bring to the table and then it just comes down to Something like health. I think it tells you a lot about how strong the Vikings roster is that we're only talking about one position group is having Potential issues and even then it's not like Isaiah Rogers and Mackay Blackman have never played they've both played well in small samples in their career. And the other guy is a 16 million dollar per year veteran cornerback. So it's, you know, very telling, I think, the offseason discussion

about how strong this Vikings roster is. And sometimes I try myself to look around to different places and cross-check me. Like, if I really like or really don't like what's happening with the Vikings, I try to go to people like Sam and Steve or go to Mike Clay from ESPN who ranks all the positions. And when I looked at Mike Clay's rankings for the positions, I took quarterback out of it and looked at his rankings for running back, offensive line,

weapons, receivers, tight ends. And he had the Vikings, if you just add all those up versus every other team, as a top five, I think top three offensive unit, and then defense, the only unit he had questions about was the secondary and the rest were at the top. So it's not just you and it's not just me, and it's not just Sam and Steve

from the Check the Mic podcast, seeing that this is one of the most complete rosters in the entire NFL. And I think that those positional groups that they ranked, they threw in offensive line, which does have some questions for sure. I mean, is Will Fries going to be 100% coming off his injury? And then it is a fairly small sample size of Fries

being a really good offensive lineman. He had been okay, like pretty good and ascending in 2023. And then 2024, it's a smaller sample size of being great. Donovan Jackson, we don't know yet what Donovan Jackson is going to be. I have a fair amount of confidence that he can step in right away based on his skillset, his previous experience, but you never really know until a guy gets into the NFL and starts playing.

So there is some question about that. The defensive line, the age of the unit with Javon Hargrave and Jonathan Allen, both coming off a lot of missed time last year. So there are questions about these units that they ranked high. I think probably a lot less with the pass catchers slash weapons, having Justin Jefferson in the mix. Even if Jordan Addison misses three games, I'll take 14 games of Jordan Addison and TJ Hockenson, I think will bounce back and be excellent.

And even in the depth, Jalen Naylor proved last year that he could step in as well. Josh Oliver just got a contract extension. Like there's a lot going on there. But that's not exactly your question. It's did they miss out or do the Vikings just have the best roster and we should play in the parade? Well, think about it this way.

I mean, if the Vikings get good health and good quarterback play, I don't even mean great quarterback play, just good quarterback play, then yeah, parade is a little aggressive because you have other great teams in the NFC. You have the Philadelphia Eagles who might still have the number one roster in the league. You have Washington is ascending.

Like there are other teams that are going to be dangerous. You can't write off the Detroit Lions just because they lost an offensive coordinator. They're still going to be a very good team. So, you know, there's lots of competition there in the NFC, the Rams, I mean, they beat the Vikings in the playoffs, brought back that entire team, added Devontae Adams,

they could be a Super Bowl contender as well. But when you stack it up, is there any of those teams that I mentioned that when you look at their rosters on paper, you would say, oh, well, the Vikings are screwed if they play that team. I don't think so. Again, as long as they get good quarterback play

and good health. As far as the rest of the NFC North goes, I do think there were probably some units that got a little bit left out of the party here. One of the things is it depends on whether Detroit brings back Zedarius Smith. If Detroit gets Zedarius Smith back, their defensive line is as nasty as anyone in the league

because they have Aiden Hutchinson returning. He's got defensive MVP caliber talent. They just drafted a nose tackle in the first round in Tyleek Williams who could be an instant impact player. They've got DJ Reader there. So there's only really that one question. Allay McNeil is an excellent player who has smacked the Vikings around quite a few times. So they have a lot of talent there, but do they get Zedarius Smith back? Because if they don't, then, you know,

Josh Paschal is a good player for them, but do they get elite defensive line play like we expect from the Vikings front five, we can call it, including the outside linebackers. That might be a little harder to say if they don't get Zedarius back, but doesn't it feel like he's kinda just waiting around because he doesn't wanna go to training camp,

Stefan Gilmore style? So I think that would probably be deserved for them. The other thing is too, that when you rank position groups, if you included all weapons, so running backs along with wide receivers, tight ends, and not just the receivers and tight ends. I'm pretty sure Detroit also has a case for that. Jameer Gibbs was the third best running back in the NFL and the other two guys had historic seasons

last year, and then you look at Sam Laporta who, ESPN, just did their executive rankings and he was up at the top at tight end and rankings and he was up at the top at tight end and Amon Ra St. Brown, Jameson Williams took a huge step forward last year and was a thousand yard wide receiver and they even have some guys like Tim Patrick and Khalif Raymond who are nice contributors. So I think that that supporting cast around Jared Goff for weapons in total would be among the best, but I think that they didn't include the backfield. Also, if

we were just doing backfield, the Green Bay Packers have one of the best running backs in the league in Josh Jacobs. But you're right that there isn't another unit that you would say is an AA plus outside of what Detroit has and maybe just the operation of this ranking. So Detroit and Minnesota I think are very close rosters overall. And then there's a step down to Green Bay where they have some ascending players, they have some B plus players,

but it's hard to look at any one of their units and go, oh my gosh, like watch out this D line or this O line. I mean, if Lucas Van Ness takes a huge step forward, maybe the Packers could be in that conversation for D line if Kenny Clark is still good. And then Rashawn Gary just didn't have the same season last year as he had had in the past, so you could see where they would be left out of that as well.

But yeah, I mean, when you talk about planning the parade, of course, you know, Vikings fans know that you can never, you know, count your eggs before they hatch, or whatever saying you want to use. But it's a really good football team that's been put together here and they do have a chance at great things this year if they get good quarterback play. Next comes from Elden.

Do you think that the preseason reps will be, oh, how do you think the preseason reps will be broken down among the Vikings quarterbacks? Do you think we see a lot of J.J. McCarthy? I don't think that you'll see a lot of J.J. McCarthy, but I do think you will see J.J. McCarthy. So this would be my guess for J.J. McCarthy in the preseason.

So keep in mind they have joint practices against the New England Patriots, so he likely won't play in whatever game that is like a preseason game, I forget the order. But he's probably not gonna play against the Patriots, so he likely won't play in whatever game that is, like a preseason game, I forget the order. But he's probably not going to play against the Patriots in the preseason after he's already had a very tough week with a lot of reps in those joint practices, which Kevin O'Connell has considered more valuable than actual preseason reps.

But when they start the preseason, just going by the past, they have had Kirk Cousins play a series, Sam Darnold played a series. I wouldn't be that shocked to see J.J. McCarthy play an entire quarter. I would not expect a lot more than that though. Maybe a quarter in two different games. It's just hard to see with the philosophy of Kevin O'Connell. And the other part of it too is if you play JJ McCarthy for more than a quarter, then you're going to want to play a lot of other players

for more than a quarter. You're going to want to play Brian O'Neill, you're going to want to play Ryan Kelly, you're going to want to play Will Fries, especially Justin Jefferson, who they do not want to play in the preseason. Jordan Addison, they do not want to play in the preseason. I've strongly agreed with Kevin O'Connell's

philosophy of viewing those preseason games as for the second third and fourth teamers guys who are trying to make the team and let the starters do their best work in practice and you know, they've come out in these seasons and played well right off the bat in 2023. They struggled at the beginning of the year. And then of course he got second guessed, but then the other two years, I mean,

they came out and started the season, what, 5-0? So, and then in what, in 2022 came out and destroyed the Green Bay Packers right away. So we haven't seen this lack of reps in the preseason actually hurt the Vikings looking rusty or anything like that. It's actually probably just kept them healthier through the season. But I do think that you have to get JJ McCarthy in a uniform under center at

US Bank Stadium again, get some play before he has to go out there for the very first time to just kind of shake off those nerves and shake off the rust and maybe get through a preseason game without getting hurt I think would probably feel pretty good for him to have a preseason game where he didn't get injured and then he was ready to go and just you know get that knee actually back in some game action but I would not expect that we're going to see like full halves or anything for JJ McCarthy I wouldn't be surprised if it's two to three series and then they put him on ice for the rest of the preseason.

Now, as far as the other quarterbacks go, that is an interesting discussion because Sam Howell does not know this offense. And I think he probably needs a lot of work to try to get as many opportunities as he can to play in Kevin O'Connell's system. He's not gonna get a million reps in training camp. I mean, it's gonna be for every five reps

JJ McCarthy takes, it's gonna be one for Sam Howell and it's going to be probably zero for guys like Brett Rippon and Max Brosmer or very, very little for those guys. So I think when it comes to the pre-season, you wanna get Sam Howell as much work as possible. If I had to guess, I would probably say that he would play the first half of games,

and then it would be Max Brosmer after that, and a little bit of Brett Ripon. I mean, the thing about Brosmer versus Ripon is, and I apologize for the sirens outside of my hotel window here, but the thing about Max Brosmer is, I mean, this is a guy who's shown some legitimate promise for the Vikings in OTAs and minicamp.

And he's been talked about as somebody who really understands what he's doing. He's intelligent. He picks up the offense pretty well and he could throw the football well. So you already know what you have with Brett Rippon. He's been on this team for a couple of seasons and there's limitations there. He's played in the league, but he's, he's not a young quarterback.

Whereas Max Brosmer is a young quarterback just coming out of college. I think everybody would much rather see what Max Brosmer can bring to the table in the second halves of these games rather than, you know, Brett Rippon going out. And I think if, if Brosmer maybe struggled to run the offense and you're trying to evaluate players, sure, you want Brett Rippon to get in there, but otherwise I think it should be split McCarthy,

a couple of snaps, and then you go to Sam Howell for the rest of the first half. And then as much Max Brosmer opportunity as you can get for him in the second half, he has to earn it in practice, but there's just not going to be a lot of those reps that are going to Brosmer in practice. So we'll see, I think that's an interesting thing,

but I think a lot of Vikings fans, and I would throw myself in the same bucket, are interested in seeing Max Brosmer. I know that I certainly am after seeing him in OTAs and minicamp, and I think the familiarity with Vikings fans and watching the Gophers have one of their best seasons in years from a quarterback position last year.

I mean, I don't know. Like there was the one Tanner Morgan year that was great. And other than that, I mean, that was some of the best quarterback play we've seen. So there's some potential there with Max Brosmer. I think they should get as many reps for him in the preseason as they possibly can. Next question comes from Ryan T. says,

talk me into the Vikings having a top 10 or top five, whichever is more fun, run offense in 2025. So top 10 or top five run offense. Well, of course a top five run offense would be more fun to watch because it's been a long time since the Vikings had a run offense that was truly dominating. But I did a little research on this one, Ryan.

I try to answer most of the questions off of the cuff, but I needed to look at some numbers here with this one for what it would take for the Vikings to actually get into a top five running game. And it's hard to make that actually work considering how good some of the running games are in the NFL. If they wanted to crack the top five, if things go similarly to last year, they would have to be around 2500 yards.

And when you start adding it up, so last year the Packers were just under 2,500 and they were the fifth best running team in the league. And what that took was 1,300 yards from Josh Jacobs, another 500 from Emmanuel Wilson. And then Jaden Reed, Jordan Love, and Malik Willis took up the rest of that. And of course with Willis, that's a running quarterback.

Jaden Reid is kind of a bit player that does a lot of running with the football on jet sweeps and stuff like that. That would be pretty hard. So the Vikings would have to get something like a thousand yards from Aaron Jones, another 800 from Jordan Mason, and then get three to 400 from JJ McCarthy and a number of other people whoever it is, Ty Felton, Rondale Moore, Jefferson, Cam Akers if he comes back somehow in a trade, Ty Chandler. That's just a lot.

That's just a lot. I mean, if you got, because that, I mean, you get 1800 from the running backs and then another 300 from McCarthy. Then the rest goes to those other guys to try to get another, you know, 400 yards out of other players. I think that's hard and that would be a great season. If Aaron Jones and Jordan Mason ran for 1800 yards combined,

that would be an incredible season for those two. And if McCarthy runs for 300, that means he's a legitimate threat as a runner, because that would put him even in the top 10, maybe even a little bit better than that for running quarterbacks, which I'm not sure that I think is really going to happen with J.J. McCarthy. I would put him at about 200 to 250 yards rushing if I had to guess right now. So top five, without a running quarterback, it's pretty hard to do. Top 10 is much more feasible.

So the Falcons last year ranked 10th in rushing and they had 495 carries for 2,219 yards. That's 4.5 yards a carry, which the Vikings should be able to achieve. And again, if you got even 1 even 1600 yards combined from Mason and Jones, then you're in striking distance of 2200 yards with some rushing from McCarthy and from some other people out of the backfield.

That's much more plausible, still is a little bit high for me because of that carry number that I said. 495 carries. The Vikings last three seasons for carries, 457, 393, and 404. That's not a lot of rushing in comparison to the league's best running teams.

So unless Kevin O'Connell is really going to commit a lot more to running on second down and leaning heavily into Jones and Mason, you're probably looking at if it's top 15 in total rushing yards, you're in a good place. But I think the way I'm going to evaluate it is not so much can you be top five or top 10, it's really can you produce when we need you to produce?

Put it that way. I think about the goal line situations, think about the third and short situations, think about the spots where you're up by 10 points in the third quarter and it would be great to get a 14 play drive. Well, it's pretty hard to get a 14 play drive throwing every single play.

So can you run, and you know, they did this a couple of times last year, but you would have liked to have seen them do it more. Can they run eight times out of ten plays on a drive and hang onto the ball and beat the other team down? I would even say, I mean, that's the situations that I focus on a lot. I would even say right out of the gate. Like, can they come out on a first drive? And I know this is where O'Connell, like, loves to cook up his best stuff,

but what if they came out on a first drive and ran seven straight times? That would take some people by surprise. That's stuff that they really just haven't done, save some of those other great plays for a little later in the game from the opening script. So I don't know. I mean, if they're going to lean into those things a little bit more, then yes, they could crack the top 10. It still seems like a little bit of a reach, but we'll probably evaluate it much more on does the running game cause problems for the defense? Does it drive the offense to some extent? And does it finish off some drives where they could just pound the football into the end zone?

It's so many problems with that last year. So yeah, it would be, it sure would be entertaining if they were a top five run offense. They haven't had that in a while, but I can't, I can't quite see it. We'll see. Ramsey says, given how present play action is in the NFL these days, why aren't teams running more flea flickers? Granted, they take longer to execute, but it isn't just run game equivalent of the play action. Yeah, I guess you could say that.

How many times should teams run flea flickers in a game? I say at least twice per game. Well, Ramsey, I love a good trick play, and that's been something we haven't seen a whole lot of with the Vikings is great trick plays. I do love a good trick play though. I think if I had to guess, the reason why flea flickers aren't used as much as they used to,

the other thing that used to happen all the time is running back passes. Running backs, like they would pitch it to the outside, the running back rolls out, throws to somebody wide open downfield. There's a few different reasons I would guess. The number one is probably how often teams blitz, because you run a flea flicker one is probably how often teams blitz because

you run a flea flicker and the other team sends a blitz and that running back was the guy that was supposed to pick up somebody, you're pitching the ball right back into your quarterback getting destroyed and you don't really want that. So I mean if you're playing as a Brian Flores defense and they blitz 50% of the time or 40% of the time, your odds are that you might get smacked with your quarterback. So that's concerning.

Quarterbacks set overall safety is very important here. And we know that like in the 80s, they cared a lot less about that, it seemed, for quarterbacks and their health. So that's number one. Number two, I think that teams have gone to a lot of underneath stuff. Now that's not the Vikings,

but average depth of target in the league is down. It's a lot more quick passing game and it's maybe a little bit harder to run something like that with a deep shot when a lot of your offense is based around short stuff. That could be it. Maybe that teams do not collapse on the run the way that they once did, you know, with linebackers and safeties flying up toward the line of scrimmage.

I don't know. I mean, that doesn't, that shouldn't preclude you from running it once in a while. Maybe teams have just done a good job of figuring some of that stuff out and putting in rules to make sure that they're there. But if the NFL decided to run a lot more flea flickers, because I guess, you know, when I think about the connection with the run game, the safeties should be collapsing hard when you hand it off because the boxes are lighter. So you would think that they would be flying down, but it's also possible having two safeties back there that it's easier for them to recover if they identify it and cover downfield.

I don't know. I mean, maybe you're onto something, man. Maybe you're onto something and there should be a lot more flea flickers in the National Football League. We'll see. Maybe they'll take this idea from you, Ramsey, and we'll see a massive increase this year.

Okay, last question. This one comes from Josh. We know that JJ McCarthy did a lot of winning on stack teams as he came up as a quarterback and that his Michigan offense was predicated on running. So given the pressure and difficulty passers face weekly in the NFL, and given how KOC's offense is predicated on throwing,

what are the best numbers and analytics from McCarthy's college days that can speak to his ability to perform in adverse situations? So there is a little bit of a connection over the years between throwing under pressure and success in the NFL. And JJ McCarthy actually did play pretty well under pressure

when he was in college. I pulled this number up as well. 9.3 yards per attempt and a 75.8 PFF grade, which put him in the upper quarter of college quarterbacks for that year while he was throwing under pressure. And you could see where it would be different because pressure in college,

I mean, it's kind of like a normal play in the NFL where even when you have a clean pocket, it's not flawless. I mean, there are guys coming in and at least pushing the pocket back on a lot of downs in the NFL. So if you can handle in college getting a little heat in your face, then you can handle a down to down in the NFL. The other stuff that was situational for JJ McCarthy was brought up at some point by either O'Connell or Quasi-Dalfal-Mensa.

They said that they really tried to study closely a lot of the stuff that he did in those true quarterbacking situations. So call it third and long, even though it's a little dubious just because it's a small sample size of third downs and third and longs when you play for Michigan.

There's not that many of them, but they tried to identify some of those true passing situations and how he performed and his numbers in those spots were ultimately pretty good. But I think probably the best situation that you could use to try to point to how he's going to play in pressure situations because that can mean a couple different things. It can mean the pressure of an actual game and the hype and the other team being really

good and you know stuff like that or it can mean pressures coming at you and how you're performing. So the other part of it the big game the hype the all that sort of stuff that would probably be the game he played against Alabama in the college football playoff where he stepped up his game and outplayed one of the best defenses in the country that year. He was phenomenal in that game, led them down game winning drive,

didn't seem at all the crack under the pressure. And then in the national championship, they basically didn't even need JJ McCarthy, but that was the one where they did need him. And Alabama was equal or close to Michigan that year. And he just outplayed the Crimson Tide. That is the biggest stage. That is the most pressure. That is, you know, Jim Harbaugh, his big shot to win a national championship, a program that hadn't really,

I mean that had been good, but had not been quite on that level in some time. And so there was a lot on his shoulders that day. And also the Ohio State game where he played pretty well as well. And you know, anytime you're talking Michigan, Ohio State, it's pressure. But I don't think that in either way, in either capacity, there's anything we can really, truly look at in college and say, well, this positive stat says he's going to succeed in the NFL. A lot of times college stats are more about what are the red flags. So just for example, Caleb Williams was terrible under pressure at USC in his last year, and that turned out to carry over to the NFL where he was not very good in his

last or last season under pressure. In fact, he was quite bad and got sacked 68 times. So I don't think that there's anything red flag wise for JJ McCarthy in his numbers at Michigan that would say to me, oh my gosh, like how's that going to work out when he goes to the NFL? Other than the small sample size that he just hasn't thrown a lot of passes

in any sort of organized football, just even in his lifetime in comparison to a lot of people that are getting their first start ever, that would be maybe the only concern. But there's no way to replicate, and I came up with an example of this, of just the amount of pressure and challenges that NFL quarterbacks face going back to 2022. Remember the game against Buffalo where Kirk Cousins led a crazy comeback.

All that stuff happened. Josh Allen through the interceptions in the end zone. Think about the emotional strain of that game for the Minnesota Vikings. I mean, even for me, I was exhausted after covering that game. And then they play the Dallas Cowboys on national TV right after that and they get crushed. And so everybody goes from calling them, you know, championship contenders to frauds, just like that in a snap. And then after that, they had to play four days later. So think about this, 11 games, three days, or three games against three good opponents.

It was an average Patriots team, but they were still competitive on Thursday night, Thanksgiving night, the whole nation is watching. So all these games have tons of national attention and pressure and Kirk Cousins led them to a win that night, played a really good game against the Patriots. But that's 11 days, three games, all huge games for the result of your season. And the roller coaster of going from the highest high and the craziest win we've seen in a long time

to the worst loss we had seen in a long time to then a big victory that propelled them into the second half of the season. I mean, that's the NFL, man. There's nothing to replicate that in college because a lot of times after you have a bad game in college, you play ITT Tech after that and you crush them and then you move on with your season. So there's gonna be a lot that JJ McCarthy has to learn along the way.

And this is why I talk about how it's just so important. Last year was just so important for JJ McCarthy and why I get so frustrated when I hear he's a rookie. He's not because he got to see Sam Darnold go through that and deal with that where one week Darnold is being talked about as the MVP and the next week it's, oh, he turned into a pumpkin, same old Sam, he's a loser now.

It's a really difficult thing that NFL quarterbacks have to do when it comes to the pressure of the National Football League. I mean, think about the game against Jacksonville and how Darnold bounced back after that and played so well in that following stretch. Like he got to see that up close, the adjustments that they were able to make

with the offense and the way that he stayed even keel through a lot of pressure. I think that will all turn out to be very good for JJ McCarthy. But is there any stat that's gonna magically tell us how it's gonna work out? Probably not. So anyway, thanks so much for all these great questions.

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