Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Do the Vikings have regrets about their offseason moves?

Episode Date: October 10, 2025

Dane Mizutani of the Pioneer Press joins the show to look back at the Vikings' offseason and whether there are any regrets over how they handled certain things. 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 into another episode of Purple Insider, presented by Fandul, Matthew Collar here, and fresh off of two weeks overseas with the Minnesota Vikings, Dane Mizatani of the Pioneer Press. And we're going to have a little bit of kick our heels up here on the by week and have a bigger picture conversation. It will also include the quarterback situation. but we've just spent a lot of time on that. So I want to look at a little more bigger picture of the decisions that this team made in the off season and how they have reflected onto the season and where a lot of those things

are going. But first, Dane, I'd love to hear about the trip. Did you have a good time? Did you see Big Ben and things of that nature? Or like, what, uh, what'd you do over there? Yeah. Well, um, my paper decided at the last minute that originally, we're supposed to go to just London and three or four days before the team was leaving for Dublin

upper management at the paper said hey we should go to Dublin too and I was like okay we talked about this in June and we decided not to but long story short go to Dublin on Saturday and I didn't really feel settled until I got to London it was just felt like kind of rapid fire hamster wheel throughout Dublin. I did manage to get to a pub with Alec Lewis from the athletic, have a couple Guinness, enjoyed that, but really enjoyed the experience in London. I thought it was unique to kind of see it firsthand, to kind of understand, like, in my head, I understood that they didn't stay in London. But until you're on a bus, an hour and a half up north on the countryside, an hour and a half back down south to the city, you don't really understand how far away the team stays from central

London. So that was a good experience. I think for me to like kind of open my eyes to this isn't necessarily the most glamorous trip for the players. It's not like go practice and then go out and see the London eye. It's like go practice and live on this compound that was built in the 1800s. So for me personally, I'm glad I got to stay in London. I got to do some of the sightseeing. I got to see Big Ben and things of that. And then I think to kind of bring it full circle after watching kind of the disaster that was Croke Park and the almost disaster that was Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, it was kind of cool to see like the just genuine relief and joy and the players in the team in that locker room after they beat the Browns kind of like, we get to go home and the season itself is not ruined because of this trip. they would have loved two wins they got one five week comes at a good time but i yeah overall really enjoyed the trip glad i got to go this sounds to me a little bit like something that in

theory when you plan it out it all sounds great and it is a huge accomplishment for the entire organization everyone deserves credit for that for getting the equipment over there there's the the stories about shipping the equipment over and uh the number of people that had to be involved to make this happen is absolutely incredible. So it speaks to just the quality of the Minnesota Vikings in general that they were able to pull this off. But I think the thing when you're planning it and you're saying, yeah, we've won overseas. This sounds great is that you don't get to go home to the kiddos. You don't get to go home to the family.

You don't get to, like you said, just do the things that you would normally do for a long time. And it's kind of like when maybe you plan the family vacation, you're like, we'll go here, we'll do this and we'll do that. And then by day three, you're like, oh, man, I need a nap. Like it's a, it just was such a deviation from normal life that when you pop over and then pop back in a few days, that's way different from making your life over there for an entire 10 day span. Yeah, I think it sounded like it was going to be advantageous to them when they accepted this unprecedented challenge when they said, yeah, we'll do it. We'll be the first team to play back to back. international games in two different countries. We have the team behind the scenes that's going to set us up for success. And while that's really true, I do think, you know, guys like Paul

Martin, who books all the travel and basically makes sure that the Vikings as a whole get from point A to point B. Like, he's outstanding, unbelievable at his job. Mike Arson, who is the equipment manager, and that's not even, like, to call him just an equipment manager is not giving him enough credit. He's transporting everything to make sure that they can run their operation overseas across the Atlantic Ocean. You have guys like that, Tyler Williams, who we talk about all the time, you know, Vice President of Player Health and Performance. They have all of the infrastructure within their organization that when you look at a trip like this on paper, you say, we're going to be fine. We're good. We got it all figured out. And then you lose to

the Steelers in Dublin and then you go live on the English countryside for seven more days and I think we started to see like just the grind and the mental taxing it started the toll that it started to take on these guys if you beat the Steelers in Dublin and you go to England and you get to live in the English countryside with your with your buddies and you hang like you can kind of dress that up is this is a really good team-building experience. And while I still think it was a good team-building experience in the aggregate, I think when you lose to the Steelers, all of a sudden, heading into the week against the Browns,

you're looking at it like, God, we got to win this game or the season could be done. And I think you compound that pressure with the fact that you are living so far out of your normal routine. I think it explains why there was so much, I think relief and exhaustion and excitement to get home after that Browns game. But I think that's probably a good way of describing it like you did. It sounded good in theory. It sounded like we'll knock out two road games and we'll neutralize that home field advantage and we'll go to Dublin and we'll play the Steelers and we'll win and then we'll go to London

and we'll play the Browns and we never lose in London and we'll come back and we'll show everybody that it can be done. I think by the end of the trip, the Vikings would probably be the first to stand on the table and say, nobody should have to do this. We should not do something like this again. They looked at it like a challenge, like an opportunity to do something that's never been done. And they did it. But I don't know if any team will do the back-to-back games in separate countries ever again. Right. And that's why, you know, make it clear what an incredible accomplishment it is for all those people behind the scenes who deserve credit and a lot of you guys wrote about them and that's amazing and then but there's people who got to play football games and

it's a lot of mental and emotional strain not just we only ever talk about well the time zone's different and they'll be used to it by then but i didn't realize either how far away from london that they that they actually stayed which is just so far out of your comfort zone for nfl players to be uh almost in some sort of, I don't know, like a college type of town atmosphere all of a sudden. I mean, it's, that's kind of crazy. But they get through it. I also didn't know when they were going over that this was still a home game for the Pittsburgh Steelers, that their ownership and their franchise, this was the premier moment of their season. For the Vikings, it's a game against the Steelers that they didn't have to play in their house. But for Pittsburgh, I had Andrew Philipponi on,

who's a host over in Pittsburgh, and he said that if you asked their ownership, would you rather win in Dublin or win a playoff game, said they probably would say Dublin. And they gave a big speech to their, like, this was huge for them. And I'm sure that that played some sort of factor for their fans, for how many Pittsburgh fans were over there as well, that it did turn into a home game for them, which I thought was advantageous for them with their pass rush against Carson Wentz,

that they had some of the advantages that we wouldn't have expected when we were just talking about this being like, oh, it'll just be a neutral game. It really wasn't. Yeah, I thought it was going to be because I, like you, me and you have been on the flights on, call it like a Saturday evening flying to Seattle. And we see a plane full of purple.

And it's like, wow, Vikings fans travel. And I was under the assumption. And like, to the fan basis credit, they did travel to Dublin. There was, there were a lot of Vikings fans. roaming the streets. But what you realize very quickly, and I didn't know the backstory

with the Steelers and the Rooney family and how invested they were in bringing the game to Dublin. So it does make sense that this was considered such a marquee moment for the franchise that the fan base turned out. The fan base from Pittsburgh turned out to Dublin and the Dublin fan base that they

have built, you know, kind of into the fabric of their franchise was so excited about this moment. But when we're walking the and you see some purple, but then you also see just the vast amount of black and gold roaming the streets. It was pretty clear when I landed Saturday that it was not going to be a neutral site game that the Vikings hoped for, but I didn't realize until I really got to Croke Park on Sunday morning, Sunday afternoon, I guess, Dublin time, just how advantageous it was going to be to

the Steelers. And I'm not sure the Vikings realized that until it was too late. Like, yeah, we're going to have a great game here and then it's like this feels louder than it was in Pittsburgh like I don't know if it would have been that loud in Pittsburgh as it was in Dublin you know I hear stories like the Steelers invested so much into that game they sent terrible towels to like local schools like so kids like could feel like the energy and just the entire production itself was was fantastic from a Pittsburgh standpoint. But yeah, I think on paper when this game was planned out or when the Vikings accepted this invitation,

maybe they didn't really understand what they were getting themselves into. Maybe they thought, like, our fan base travels, it'll be okay. And while it did to a degree, there's just no fan base on the planet that was going to even put a dent in the numbers that the Steelers had going to that game. it was pretty cool to be a part of I'm not sure the Vikings would say that though I don't I it it felt quite like an avalanche when the game started to go sideways for them pretty much from the time D.K. Metcalf got loose got for that 80 yard touchdown the stadium was lit it was the Vikings were up against it and I think they felt that pressure all the way until the end of the trip until they beat Cleveland and came back to Minnesota of one and one in Europe so the way I would say it for the Europe.

trip is they survived it. They did not dominate it, but they survived it, and they almost didn't. They were very, very close. They were maybe a Kevin Stefansky, another handoff or two or a first down from not surviving it. I think the win probability was under 20% or under 30% for the Vikings when they got the ball back with under three minutes to go, especially considering that defense. And to say it was a season saving drive is not an exaggeration in my mind.

But let's get to the main subject here that we wanted to talk about, which is going back and looking at the decisions they made in the off season and how they have reverberated into the year and where they can go. Because we don't have the answers. It's just a good time to talk about it at the by week because I still feel like overall, I don't really fully understand who the 2025 Minnesota Vikings are. Not only the trip we just talked about in depth and how unique that is, but also, they've played running teams without solidified quarterbacks. They've played from behind. They've played two different quarterbacks. They played without Darrisaw.

Then they played with him. But then he was out of the game. And then Jackson was out. And there's four backups there. And someone else is at center that never played center. And hey, Jordan Addison's back. And weirdly, the passing game looks a lot better with him in the lineup. I mean, they just have not played in the version of the 2025 Minnesota Vikings.

But the only place to begin a discussion. And here's how I want to do it. Regrets or not, and we can go back and forth, is the quarterback situation. Sam Darnold's playing great for the Seattle Seahawks. I know Vikings fans put their fingers in their ears and they don't want to talk about this. But regrets or not for the way the quarterback situation was handled with Rogers, Darnold, his options, and they trade for Sam Howell, who does not make the team. Carson Wentz shows up at the last minute.

J.J. McCarthy was unlawful. uncontested through the entire offseason, and then now there's a potential for who's going to be the quarterback, but should they have regrets for the way they handled it? Folks, maybe you haven't started your holiday shopping yet, but those holidays sneak up on you fast. So let me give you some advice. Check out Uncommon goods. Uncommon goods makes holiday shopping stress-free and fun with thousands of one-of-a-kind gifts that you can't find anywhere else. Uncommon goods looks for products that are high quality. unique, often handmade or made in the USA, many of which are crafted by independent artists and

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restrictions and safety information. That's a tough one because I think if you were to just give Kevin O'Connell a time machine and say, hop in in March 2025, and let's fast forward into the future to October 2025. And you could show him how well Sam Darnold was going to play this season. They probably just tag Sam Darnold. So in a vacuum, like the way that Sam Darnold has performed would inherently suggest, yeah, the Vikings should have regrets about the way they conducted this entire quarterback shift turning of the page from this chapter into a new era that was now led by J.J. McCarthy. So I think the easy answer would be to say, yeah, they probably regret the way they moved throughout the offseason at that position.

What I will say is, I think you always had to find out. And I think the floor of this team on paper, we thought, was probably very, very high. And injuries have certainly played a role in that. But the floor of the team is probably not as high as we thought it was going to be heading into this season. So I don't know if they eat down regret not tagging Darnold because I think the name of the game was always. let's find out what we have in J.J. and McArthur, we need to find out what we have in J.J. McCarthy, and we need to find out sooner rather than later what we have in J.J. McCarthy. So I don't know that they regret the decision itself. I think there are parts of it that when you see it play out in

real time, like, yeah, you're going to say, well, they could just be playing with the same team with the guy in Sam Darnold, who, by some metrics, has been the best quarterback in the league this year. But I think they made a bet on J.J. McCarthy. They thought he was ready. Seven of the eight quarters, it looks like he wasn't that he's played so far. But at the end of the day, I think the bet was let's find out what we have. We think he's ready. In one way or the other, we need to find out if he is ready. So I don't know if they regret it with the way they kind of moved throughout this off season. I think they had to find out, and now they're in the process of finding out. I don't think they've even found out. For us to sit here and say through two games,

like J.J. McCarthy's a bust, like send him to Siberia. Like, no, that would not be a genuine way to analyze the way he's played quarterback so far. It's certainly left something to be desired. It's certainly raised some red flags about, like, who is this kid? What is he capable of down the road? But I'm willing to give him more time than he's gotten so far. Eventually he's going to be back starting for the Vikings. And then we can kind of do the big picture at the end of the year when we have all the information. Was this a good decision? Was it a bad decision?

But to sit here and say they, I think they regret their decision because Sam Darnal is playing well, I don't think that's looking at kind of all the pieces of the puzzle because at the end of the day you took the kid number 10 overall you handed in the keys you said here's a Ferrari drive it and I still think right now we're in the process of figuring out you know what he is is he capable of this if he's not that that was wrong yes they regret it but I guess what I'm saying is I don't know that we can say it was totally wrong yet even though Sam Donald and Daniel Jones are playing as well as they are. Well, I'm not surprised.

Well, Daniel Jones does surprise me, but Sam Darnold does not surprise me that he's playing well. Seattle is a good organization with a top-notch wide receiver. They drafted a pretty darn good guard, even though their offensive line isn't perfect. They've got a Kubiak run in the offense. We know that that's quarterback friendly, always in forever, the Kubiak style of offense. And hey, by the way, when you throw, I mean, go back and look, and I did this, go back and look how many quarterbacks have thrown 35 touchdowns and over 4,000 yards and find me how many guys were actually terrible who were able to accomplish. The answer is not very many. If you can

reach that pinnacle of winning that many games, throwing for that many yards, leading an offense that didn't really run the ball very well and didn't really block very well in the second half of the season and still put up those numbers, you're probably a pretty darn good quarterback. But if the answer was just, is good, should play, then it would have been an easy but the NFL has this thing called the salary cap, which makes everything a lot more muddy. And the other problem is, too, with bringing back Darnold, not only do you have to put $41 million down because he was not going to sign a short-term contract extension with McCarthy waiting in the wings. So if you wanted to do it the ideal way, you'd have to trade McCarthy, which I don't think they wanted to do.

And if you wanted to do it the unideal way, then you have to do a lot of shuffling with the roster. And that's where the regret is difficult for me is because we just don't know what everyone's going to do this year. So far, Jonathan Allen, to me, has not been worth what they have paid him, but it's through only a few games. Like, there's time to go here. He was great against Chicago. I don't think he's been great since then. And Aaron Jones, you pay an old expensive running back. That's 10 million bucks there.

And that is not. So now we're up to like 31, just between those two players. and now we're approaching 41, if you take those two guys off, are you less of a roster? You know, I think Will Fries is still coming back into play, though I would not regret a guard at all. But, I mean, just the point being that, I mean, there was ways to do that that would have had some sacrifices in the roster. And in order to have zero regrets, all those guys that you spent on as your justification for letting Darnold go, they had to turn out. But then there's like the bigger sort of like a meta type of thing to this that goes way beyond where if Donald struggled, everyone would be asking for J.J. McCarthy to play. The roster last year stayed healthy around him. He had Addison most of the time. There was an injury mixed in there.

The schedule was a lot easier, et cetera, et cetera, like a lot of things were going for Sam Darnold last year to have that season that maybe have not gone the same way for the Vikings this year. I do think they would be a very legitimate Super Bowl contender with Sam Darnold, but the most likely outcome still would have been a 10-win season where you're not quite good enough. And I think you had to roll the dice of trying to play that card of what worked with Gough, what worked with Hertz, what worked with Purdy, what worked, you know, across the board of the rookie contract example or advantage to go with J.J. McCarthy. and the longer you sit and wait and wait and wait, then you get to the end of that and you go, okay, I guess we've got maybe one year or, I don't know, right? So there was definitely a case for bringing back Sam, but there was also, if he did regress

and you win eight games and then you didn't play McCarthy all year, then you're looking at it going, where did we even go as a team? We didn't compete and we didn't develop our quarterback or start to find out about him. that was a very real possibility. Also, Sam's only played five games. So it's not like this is decided yet either. But as we stand here today, I maybe think that there's some regret.

I mean, I don't know. Did you have to pay Carson a little more to get him here earlier or what had to happen? Spending an entire summer with nobody competing with him to where as he was practicing against Sam Howell, we watched all summer. It's like, okay, well, there's no competition whatsoever. here. And I mean, but I still, you would have started in week one either way. So I, even if

Carson Wentz was here the entire time. So I don't know what regret they would have other than they're probably very sad that he had to miss those games and they couldn't get a bigger sample size on him so far. Yeah. And so like, I guess that's probably where we land on this is that like, do they regret the decision they made to hand the keys to J.J. McCarthy this season. No, I don't think they do. I think they probably thought he was going to look better through two games. They probably didn't think he was going to suffer a high ankle sprain and miss three games. But I think when you are constructing this roster and we'll get into the other pieces that they added through the off season, you do it with intentionality, you do it with a plan.

This goes back to the conversation that Kevin O'Connell and Quasi Dauvinza had when they first collaborated together, when they first took their jobs and said, and projected out to the 2024 quarterback draft class and said, that's when we're going to get our guy. That's when we're going to start, you know, this clock on probably both of our jobs. I think it was all leading up to this offseason, handing the keys over to the guy you think is going to drive the car for the next decade. And so I don't think that they can just sit here and say,

like, we regret that because this guy's been good for a month. Look, I think Sam Donald's going to be good all year. I think he's probably proved enough over the last, I guess, 17 games with the Vikings or 18. He was bad for two games with the Vikings. And now five games with the Seahawks, he's probably earned the benefit of the doubt of like, yeah, he's just good. Like he's not going to just turn into a pumpkin and, you know, that was all a flash in the pan. He's just good. But, you know, I think still with that being said, like they were convicted enough in their decision.

to move forward with J.J. McCarthy, I don't think five weeks of watching somebody else succeed elsewhere has now crept in and said, like, crap, we screwed that up. Now, if the season plays out, and Darnold's great, and he's an MVP candidate, and McCarthy does not get any better, does not develop, then yeah, probably by week 18, you're going to say, like, shoot, we did screw that up. But it's too early.

Like, it's too early to say, like, definitively, Yeah, they regret that. I will say about Sam Darnold going back to 2022. If you look at all of his numbers going back to 2022, I mean, let's see, 17, 2027 since 2022 as a starting quarterback. I mean, we are getting a growing sample size that he is just good at this. In a different world, this would have big regrets. And I think that world would be if you were, say, like the Detroit Lions and the way

they're constructed or even the Green Bay Packers. The reason that those two teams can make it work salary cap wise is that they have not the rookie quarterback contract, but rookie contracts everywhere else. And the Lions have just signed a bunch of these guys. So those contracts are still cheap, but they won't be soon. And their window is closing because of that. And Green Bay, if they hit on a bunch of these guys, will have the same challenge. The Vikings were not built that way.

And it even pertains to just when you decided. to do this because Jefferson and Darrasaw, guys that your franchise drafted, they were about to hit their big contracts and then get a lot more expensive. So when you look across the roster, even just a franchise tag makes it very dicey to try to work that in. And then maybe if you don't perform great, if Darnold does regress, there's that huge risk of just wasting a year of everybody with a quarterback that you weren't fully sold on going forward with. At the same time, man, I mean, there's also on the other side of it where it's like,

you get a quarterback that good and you let him walk. You are playing with fire. And at the end of this year, if we walk out with no answers really on McCarthy and Sam Darnold is playing in the divisional round, then yeah, I think you would be lying to yourself if you didn't say, would that have been us? But there's a long way to go on this decision. And we might be talking about McCarthy versus Darnold in the playoffs at some point. So where else would you like to go on the roster? I mean, they did so much this offseason to talk about regrets or not. Yeah, I think offensive line is probably like the natural like progression from the

quarterback. Like because you moved on from Sam Darnold, because you did not commit all of that money to him. And because J.J. McCarthy is still on his rookie contract, it allowed you. to build out different areas of your team. And like when you go back to the playoff loss of the Rams, the one area of the team that you could say, like that needs to change for whoever is under quarterback or under center

was the offensive line specifically the interior of the offensive line. So because you had all that money, because you did not commit to the franchise day, because you did not have to shuffle around different, you know, money making buckets on your roster. And then you could just hit, the money and apply it somewhere else they were able to build out a theoretical improvement

in the trenches on the offensive side of the ball I think they probably have some regrets with kind of the way they went about it and I don't want to make light of the situation that Ryan Kelly is going through right now because like we're not just talking about a career like this is two concussions over three weeks five documented throughout his career probably more that were undocumented just when you look at just how concussions were handled even 10 years ago to how they're handled now. But he was a guy who existed as a bit of a question mark when they committed money to him because he was a guy who had at that point three documented concussions who was coming

off in injury, you know, in his final season with the Colts, who some people thought an injury plagued or someone who is classified as injury prone can sometimes flippantly get grown around but Brian Kelly was probably

in that classification when you committed a bunch of money to him and you said you're the center of our football team we're going to trade Garrett Bradbury I think there's probably some regret there because at the time it was a calculated risk and at the time, like, you thought you were going to end up on the better side of that.

And very, very quickly, you're on the wrong side of that. And I don't know when Ryan Kelly is going to play again. So I don't think this is in the same conversation or the same vein as the JJ McCarthy versus Sam Darnold. Do you regret it? Because, like, that string needs to still play itself out. The Ryan Kelly string might have already played itself out. Like, we might be talking about Michael Jorgans or Blake Randall as this team. center moving forward, certainly through at least the next month while Ryan Kelly's on

IR and it's his life, it's his decision, and it's not mine to say what he should or shouldn't do. But I would be pretty surprised if he's just back starting at center at the end of that that stint on injured reserve. So I think when you just look at the way they were intentional about building out the trenches on the offensive side of the ball, they're probably is a little regret on who they bet on at center. Will Fries now people will say like he hasn't been great, whatever, like, I'm going to give the Will Fries thing more time. He's coming off a broken leg. He's a giant, you know, behemoth of a man that basically didn't play football or do anything athletically with his leg for the last nine months. I think it's going to take a little bit of time.

I think that one's still going to end up looking okay for the Vikings. Donovan Jackson, he's been good some games he's been okay some other games and now he's dealing with the wrist um but like the one thing i think that they might have regrets on in the way they built out their their their offensive line is is who they picked to be their center yeah when it comes to will fries just pulled this up uh 17th in pass blocking grade right now among guards and that is out of 56 so 17th out of 56 i would take that all day long and yeah oh well you paid too much for Well, that's how free agency works, and that's why you have McCarthy and the contract and all that stuff we just talked about is so you can overpay Will Fries, but those results are pretty good. Let me just touch on the center thing.

I think the regret is not Ryan Kelly, because when you look at the price tag, then you could say, look, I mean, you were giving him a very small contract. And if it clicked, that guy is amazing. Like, watching the first couple of games, watching the tape back, I was like, this is what great. center play looks like. I mean, working his way through stunts and twists and there's the touchdown that McCarthy throws in week one to Aaron Jones down the sideline, he picks up a stunt and freaking buries the guy. And I'm just like, that is a Pro Bowl center, my friends. We haven't seen that in quite some time in Minnesota. The talent was there. If you got 750 snaps out of him, that would have been very much worth the price tag. It is easy to look back and say, because we always

evaluate these things through the logic of it and, you know, so forth. So obviously they have a regret about the result. But when we evaluate the regret, it's like, could you have seen it coming? Yes. Concussions, you can't always, you know, who knows about that. But the price tag has to factor into this. Like when we're talking about Allen and we'll get there, but like the price tag matters to this. You take a flyer. I think where the regret is that Blake Brandel could play center. And Blake Brandel should have been, and this is very much a hundred hindsight, like, I didn't know this. You didn't know this. They probably didn't either until they were forced to do it. That guy can play center. And I think all summer, they would have if they had

known, or maybe it was something that you should have had more of a competition at the backup center spot to find out because I think it's hard to find great veteran backup centers. They just don't really exist. But the fact that you had a guy on the roster who could do it at that sort of level that maybe they regret not giving Blake Brandel a lot more snaps and then he likely would have just won that job. So having someone who had never played before as the backup, as a seventh round pick who has limitations, and that's your only plan. I would say you have regrets there. I don't want to say that yet about Will Fries. Hasn't played like an all pro. Certainly hasn't been the problem. And in the draft, I'm very sold on Donovan Jackson. It stinks that he had

a wrist injury, but in, and everyone was bad against Atlanta on the offensive line. But when it came to the way he played against Cincinnati, the athleticism he's shown, we know his character that we've seen him and how he interacts with the guys, a very intelligent, very mature person, great attitude, great improvement that he made after getting killed all summer long by Javon Hargrave and then battling his way through that. So I think that that kid checks so many boxes. that is a good first-round draft pick, at least as of the way I'm seeing it right now. Maybe the biggest regret, I think, would be another hard thing to say.

But the left tackle position, I think maybe Walter Rouse should have given more of a chance against Justin's school in a battle in training camp. There was no battle whatsoever. Rouse has looked competent out there. School has really not. And otherwise, maybe you just pick the wrong. swing tackle or maybe there's just not a lot of swing tackles in this world to go sign. But that is one they probably have regrets because I did, I saw a chart the other day of the quickest beats.

And we already know this. Like he was toward the top of the league and the guys who have been beat the fastest, which clearly impacted J.J. McCarthy against the Atlanta Falcons. So I think there's some regret there. But also there's probably just, hey, what do you want us to do? Every player's not supposed to get hurt. But they knew at least. the way Christian, see, this is what makes me think, though.

Christian Derisaw told me and Andrew Kramer after his first game that he had not planned to come back until maybe even overseas, that that was his original plan. And he came back early, which means to me that they knew they were going to have to play someone else at left tackle. And there was no competition for that backup spot. That's where I think the regrets would be. Yeah, I think, yeah, when you see how much of a turnstile, just in school was at times while they were waiting for Christian Derrissau to come back.

Yeah, I think you probably regret the guy you brought in to effectively start X amount of games while Christian Derrissau continued to get ready. I think the Vikings probably knew deep down, even when we saw Christian Derrassah on the field in the spring, and it was like, there is Christian Derrassau. Like, he's practicing. They probably knew then, like, he's not going to play week one.

And if you knew that then, then you probably should have addressed that swing tackle position with a little bit more fervor with a little more intentionality. I mean, I will say they probably didn't think Justin's school was going to play as poorly as he did or they wouldn't have signed him. But I think when you look at it, it's probably maybe we could have done something different knowing at the time. This is not hindsight, probably knowing at the time that Christian is likely not going to be ready for the start of the season. It's hard, though, because when you look at the offensive line in the aggregate so far, the theoretical projected offensive line that was supposed to be a strength of this team may never play together. Like all five guys, Christian Barrasaw, Donovan Jackson, Ryan Kelly, Will Fries, and Brian O'Neill, the starting five that you thought was going to give j j mccarthy and the offensive as a whole

the best chance to succeed has not played together yet and maybe will not play together we'll see what happens with ryan kelly i would like to see all five of those guys play together before i make a blanket statement of like did they regret the way they went about it before, you know, hopefully at some point we see that. But right now we can only go off what we have seen and what we've seen is the guy who had some injury concerns early in his career in the middle is not playing because of injury concerns. But you're right, concussions is hard.

They could not project, okay, Ryan Kelly has dealt with some injuries. He's probably going to get concussed twice in the first month of the season. They didn't know that. It's impossible to know. It's also probably not fair of me to say, like, he's injury prone because he got concussed, playing, going to war every single snap in the trenches. But overall, what they projected or what they thought the offensive line was going to look like has not looked like it yet. Let's hope at some point it does look like it at some point this season. Let me throw you a stat.

Actually, I'll ask you on this. Where do you think the Vikings rank by PFF in pass blocking grade so far this year? I guess pretty low. Out of all of all the teams? Out of 32. Yeah, where do they rank? Go on. Let's 22.

They're 12th, which tells you a pretty clear story about offensive line play in the NFL right now. I think it has not been this bad in many, many years. or defenses have not dominated this, but I should put it that way. Defenses have not won this battle like this in many, many years. And it shows up in a lot of different numbers, whether it's, you know, yards per pass attempt, sack percentages, pressure percentages, and injuries are part of that across the league. But it just sort of shows you that you can never really go into a season thinking, oh, our quarterback is just going to be able to drop back and look down the field.

And we also probably underestimated at times just how much Sam Darnold was willing to get himself smacked in the face last year to hang in for three seconds, just how many times he took hits after right after releasing the ball or with guys in his face that you can't always do that in the NFL. Not everybody can put the torque on their, you know, midsection to throw the football with no space whatsoever. Like Carson Wentz has to step and throw. So does J.J. McCarthy. and new quarterback. And so I think they did everything that they were supposed to do. We're kind of nitpicking away at some of these other things around the edges, which it's hard to find backup left tackles.

I just think it tells a story that every week you go into, you might have a disadvantage against if you're playing Pittsburgh or Atlanta has a great game plan against you and they find your weakness or whatever. You've got to find a way to overcome it because you're not the only one in the league who's dealing with something like that. how about this one i think that if you're the carolina panthers right now you feel pretty good about the decision to trade away adam feeling do you think that the vikings are regretting the decision to bring back adam feeling probably at the price that they paid i think

yeah they end up sending a fourth round pick to the panthers was it you add it all up when when you add it all yeah because there was some some maneuvering across drabs but I think it probably averaged out to a fourth or a fifth round pick. Like, yeah, I mean, he hasn't produced at the level that I think when the trade was made, people thought he was going to produce that. I think he was supposed to be someone that buoys this offense or buoys this ass-catching group until Jordan Addison is back. And Jordan Addison is now back and Adam's numbers aren't anything to kind of write home about.

I don't want to fall into like the coach speak. trap too much. But I will say, like, if you go back and watch Adam, Adam Thielen has been asked to probably block more than he was expecting to, when he had to, when he got traded here, I think the entire offense probably didn't produce at the same rate that we thought they were going to produce that through five weeks. So if you look at the offense as a whole and say, like, that wasn't as good as we thought it was going to be, then Adam Thelan's piece of the pie in that offense as a whole. It probably makes sense that it was not as good as we thought that was going to be. But yeah, at the price you paid for Adam Thielen, you probably thought the production was going to be

there. Now, looking at what he brings and like the unseen part of it that goes beyond the box score, like, does he help certain guys level up over the course of their career because he's a veteran presence, will we feel that veteran presence in week 10, 11, 12, when the season's starting to feel like a grind. Like maybe that will be something that evens this out. But through five weeks, yeah, the production hasn't been what I think any of us thought it was going to be, probably hasn't been what Adam Thielen thought the production was going to be. So at the price point, yeah, there's probably a little bit of regret there. think so many of the answers here are like let's wait and see because the offense didn't start

out as a whole what we thought it was going to be in Chicago, Justice Jefferson had the worst game. I think I've ever seen him play in Chicago or one of the worst. We've ever seen him play. And they didn't move the football at all. They never had the football. In the first two games of the year, they were getting completely, what did they run? Less than 100 plays. He made a really nice catch on the sideline on a drive that ends up failing because McCarthy just fumbles the snap and some bad luck there. So there's been some circumstances that have been part of this that then you get Addison comes back after the, you know, a blowout game.

You play Cincinnati. Like, when were you really going to throw the football in that game a million times? And then Addison comes back and you're like, okay, well, guess who we're throwing to? The all world talent who's 23 years old, of course. and you saw that over the last two games. And Naylor, I think, has low key been really good. And man, there's been opportunities, times where he's been open and hasn't gotten the ball. You talk about blocking.

He's done a lot of that. He had an end around that I was really in favor for. And I would like to see more of Jalen Naylor just hand him the football. Man, that dude can, he looks like a running back a little more with the reshaping of his body in the off season. So I think it's been a lot of circumstance for why he hasn't. played a bigger role. But I could also see, I mean, imagine Jalen Naylor tweaks an ankle. Remember there was injuries as part of his history or Addison has had some ankle injuries before. He flies up into the air. He comes down on somebody's foot, turns an ankle and all of a sudden

Adam Thielen's back in. And I just have a feeling if this season is going to go somewhere that there will be a few games where, hey, maybe he ends up with 15 to 20 catches this year, but there'll be a few games where there's a big catch there's a big third down there's a big red zone play and having that extra guy there could matter a lot to them as of right now yes you would not go back and do that in fact you'd go get kendrick born who just had a huge game for san francisco probably uh or but i mean sometimes if we know the answers already like you wouldn't sign rondale more if you knew he's going to get hurt on the first play of a punt return he would have been this guy i just think that this is one that, oh, 100% right now, that was not worth the price. But if there's three times the rest

of the season where he makes a big play versus the odds of a fourth round draft pick becoming anything, uh, I might take it because this is not a rebuild type season still for me. I've still got this as you guys got to win type of season. Yeah. And I think that's why like the price point is an important part of this. Like I don't think they regret trading for Adam Thiel. I think they probably regret in that jockeying back and forth, how much are we going to give you, how much are you going to give us that happened between the Vikings and the Panthers that they landed on the trade package that they landed on. But I don't think that they're sitting there like, shoot, like Adam, Adam can't play anymore. Like I think everyone knows, like he still has

juice. He still has the ability. Like, obviously he's not in his prime anymore, but I think he has the ability to make an impact and probably will make an impact at some point in a big moment. And I go back to like the veteran presence. Like what is the value of that for a guy like Jordan Addison, Jalen Naylor, I felt in watching it kind of comes like to have not just Justin Jefferson showing you the way, but Adam Thielen, one of the best receivers in franchise history also showing you the way. So I think in a vacuum, do they regret trading for Adam feeling no do they regret the trade package that they landed on maybe a little right now okay one more to talk about and then i got a little rapid fire type of game for you uh the defense on the whole i think

the focus would be on the defensive line and trading away harrison phillips uh i'm actually going to go with no that they should not regret trading away harrison phillips i think that that after watching a lot of the tapeback of their run struggles is more narrative than truth The guys that replaced him have been good. Levi Drake Rodriguez, Jalen Redmond, and I like the tie in Grub Dawkins is playing. I think that guy's got potential, and he played great against Cleveland. I also think that Blake Cashman and Andrew Van Ginkle and Harrison Smith, three of the best tacklers in football being out, has been more of the reason

and teams knowing how to take advantage better now these days of Ivan Pace when he doesn't have Cashman out there with him. I think that's most of the run success and good game plan. the Pittsburgh Steelers putting six offensive linemen out there. That's what it is for me, not the fact that they moved on from Harrison Phillips, where I would say that you're probably not regretting having the person here, but you are wondering about the prices, Jonathan Allen,

and even to some extent, Javon Hargrave. I would say less for Hargrave because even though his snap count went down, he was a monster pass rusher in that game, a situational pass rusher at DT for 15, million bucks give them to me all day long. I'll take, I'll take 500 snaps and 35 pressures for $15 million when the top players at that position make almost 30. But with Allen, they paid a price for a pro bowl caliber player. So far, I have not felt that it has been pro bowl caliber play. That being said, they've also been playing in situations where the other team was running

a lot with a rookie quarterback with a lead in Atlanta. That's not playing to. That's not playing at Jonathan Allen's advantage, where he is going to be much more of an impact player against the past. But as of this moment, I would not say I regret, or they should regret, I regret nothing. This has been great for me. But I would not say that they should regret the move to move on from Phillips. But they are probably wondering about Jonathan Allen and where this is going to go with him. Yeah, I mean, they need more from Jonathan Allen from a past rush perspective. Dave down Hargrave has been a demon at times this year from a past rest perspective. You've seen what he can look like at the peak of his powers.

I thought Jonathan Allen was pretty good against the Bears. And then we just kind of haven't seen him since, at least make that same level of impact. But I think the game scripts matter in that. Yes, he is going to be at his best. When the Vikings get out to an early lead and the other team is chasing and you can just say, all right, you two guys who have done this at a high level, Jonathan Allen, J. Bon, Hargre, pin your ears back and go. They have not been in those situations very much this year because of gestures at everything, like the injuries, at times the quarterback play.

So it is hard for me to sit here and say like Jonathan Allen's passed it because like, is he past his prime probably? But is he now incapable of making an impact? like no i think he is still very capable of making an impact in situations that are conducive to his strengths and so far the vikings have not been in many situations like that i also think when you look at jonathan allen and jvon hargrave and what they do well and what they don't do well that's where you can fall into the how could they have traded harrison smith he was such a good run stuffer Phillips, yeah. Yeah, Harrison Phillips, yes.

Like, how could you trade Harrison Phillips? He was such a good run-stopper. The reason you're run-stopping or your rushing defense has struggled is because you made that short-sighted decision to move on from him. And that's where I agree with you. I don't think that is fair. I don't think that is, like, looking at the big picture. Why they moved on from Harrison-Philips is because Jalen Redmond is a dog. is because Levi Drake Rodriguez has shown, like, yeah, he's going to be pretty good value as a seventh round pick.

And to a degree of even Tyrian Ingram Dawkins, they didn't move on from Harrison Phillips because they were like, screw it. Jonathan Allen and Jayvon Hargrave are going to be able to stop the run. They didn't make that decision knowing that that was their weakness and hoping that those two would just get better at something that they have not been great at for long portions of their career. They made that decision because the young guys forced their hand throughout the training camp practices and the preseason. So I think people who are going to fixate on, I think they're a bottom 10 run defense right now and just chalk it up to if they didn't trade Harrison Phillips, they would be a top 10 run defense. I don't think that's true. I think right now they don't regret making that move. I loved covering Harrison Phillips thought he was a great guy, but I think right now they understand those young guys.

were ready for more playing time. And in snapshot moments this year, you've seen Jalen Redmond pop, you've seen Levi Drake Rodriguez pop, Turing Ingram Dawkins had a sack the other day. I don't think they regret that. But I do think they are going to want more, or they certainly want more, but they're going to need more out of those veteran defensive tackles, Jonathan Allen, Jayvon, Hargrave. They need more out of them moving forward. But we'll see.

They need to play to a game script that is conducive to those two guys. Yeah, I mean, the reality about Jonathan Allen is when you sign him to that contract, here's the situation you're envisioning. It's third down and eight. You're in the fourth quarter. You're up by seven points and you want to rush four. And he needs to beat his guy one on one. How many straight dropbacks on third down and eight and long developing routes and things like that? I mean, how much have they even faced of that?

Rogers got rid of the ball the fastest in like the entire next gen era. against them and he was just throwing the ball instantly to get rid of it and they were running well enough. Dylan Gabriel, they didn't even want him to throw the football. And a few times that he did, Hargrave got after him pretty successfully, but they were running two-man games with those two guys. Hargrave ended up getting there. And Atlanta, how many times did Pennix even throw the ball? You know, the same thing even goes for. And then they played one game where the quarterback is throwing a lot. And Alan was great against Caleb Williams. So I mean, yeah, I mean, Jake Browning obviously was just getting killed in that game. So there hasn't been too many of those circumstances that they signed

him for. So we'll have to see whether that's worth it. Just to finish off this point, right now in the by week, Jalen Redmond is 21st and Levi Drake Rodriguez 25th in PFF grade against the run. That is out of 134 defensive tackles. They have two in the top 25 who are young developing players. Much prefer that to an older player who, by the way, didn't grade that well. And I know that's not everything. You don't have to tell me. And I know that there was certain things

that went into that with Phillips and how he was asked to play, that sometimes it's like, I'm going to get pushed away here, but I got to make a lane for Blake Cashman. So he's better than what those grades say. The point is just that those two guys have done their part. And I think we're going to see more of them on the field.

And it's okay with me if Javon Hargrave is only in on second and 10 and third and 10. That's okay. You'll be worth the money, I promise, if that's the case. So here is the game for you, unless you wanted to go with anything else. We've kind of covered everything. I'm sure there's some people, they should regret signing KOC to an extension or something, but we're not going full idiocy on this one. So here's the game. Fan duel, our sponsor here on the show, has odds that teams will win six plus, eight plus, 10 plus and 12 plus games. So I'm going to give you the odds and where that kind of generally ranks.

And you tell me whether you'd make that bet or not. Okay. Do we follow? I do. Yes. Thumbs up if you follow. Okay. So the odds for the Vikings to win at least six or more games is minus 900.

Of all the teams not in the playoffs right now, they are actually the best odds or the highest odds to win six plus games of all the teams that are not currently in the playoffs. Would you make that bet that they win six or more at those odds? Yeah, I mean, they're going to win six or more. Now this is going to get in the weeds of betting. Like, is that a good value bet for me to make at minus 900? No, but like if you're saying you're going to make money,

even if it's a marginal amount on this high minus 900 number, like, yes, I'll take the bet. I think they're going to win six games. And even though it would probably, with those odds, be a larger risk for me because I'd have to put a lot more money down to make it worth my while, like, they're going to win six games, 100%. Yes, I'm making that bet. The Panthers last year won five. I mean, you should, you're going to win six games.

I totally agree, even if the odds are not generally considered favorable. Now, here's where it gets a little more complicated is eight or more games. The Vikings are currently minus 160, so they are favored, but it's almost even money for them to win eight or more. And just to put it in context, the Falcons are minus 200 right ahead of the Vikings. The bears are minus 120 just behind the Vikings. So they are chunked with the Falcons and the bears of teams that are slightly favored to win eight or more. Would you make the bet that they win eight or more? Yes, I would still make that bet, too.

I think the next month is going to be extremely telling and whether I would win that bet or not the next four games against the Eagles, the Chargers, the Lions, and the Ravens, like the games that were always going to define this season, like this chunk of the schedule that was always going to define this season, if I make the will they win eight games or more bet,

like that chunk of games is going to define that bet. But that chunk of games, of games is suddenly not as hard as I thought it was like the Ravens if Lamar Jackson's hamstring is still acting up and they're just a complete disaster all the way there like at what point do you say like let's not push him back like do I think Lamar Jackson is going to play in that game in a month or in five weeks probably because like I would assume his hamstrings better by then but he still has in practice so if you're getting a beat up Lamar Jackson you win you should win that game you're going to beat the Eagles probably not

like they're they're very good at running the ball you have struggled to stop the run are you going to beat the i would venture to guess no like the detroit lions even though we all wrote them off after week one are one of the best teams in football if not the best but i look at that chargers game now short week i understand can be wonky and i say like no marian hampton who looked like it was the engine of that offense no even nazi harris like now they're playing hassan haskins and kamani by Dell. That's a winnable game. So if I can project out two wins, which I am doing in this long thought exercise over the next month, if they can go two and two over the next month, which I think they might even be favored in a couple of those games, then yes, they'll get to eight

wins by that nature. If they can win two games in the next month, honestly, if they can even steal one game in the next month with the way the schedule does, I guess however you want to look at it, soften up down the stretch. Yeah, just find me five wins over the next 10 weeks or 11 weeks. They're going to win eight games, I think, at least. Okay, next one here on Fanduil is the Vikings are plus 250 to win 10 or more games. And it still is in the same range as the Falcons, still in the same range as the bears. The Cowboys are right there in that ballpark.

Seattle is slightly favored to win 10 plus, same with Washington. So they are not favored to win 10 plus games, but it's also not some supreme long shot. Like just to tell you, like the longest, the Tennessee Titans are plus 11,000 to win. So it's not at all any kind of long shot for the Vikings to win 10 at plus 250. Yeah, finally seven wins between now and the end of the year. That's going to be tough. I don't know if I make that bet. I just think like the injuries have taken its toll.

And I don't think like even though Kevin O'Connell said Monday that they're getting a handful of guys back for practice, that doesn't even necessarily mean those guys are going to play against the Eagles. I think in order to win 10 games, it is a requirement to win at least two games over the next month. I just went down that rabbit hole of ways they could do it, beat the Chargers who are probably going to stagnate on offense without a viable running game and beat the Ravens if Lamar Jackson is not back at that point in the season. But then, like, even if you win those two games, in order to get to 10, you probably have a pretty slim margin of error the rest of the way. and I just think with the way this team has been beat up to this point with the quarterback play still existing very much as a question mark I'm the guy who sat on your porch and said they were going to win 12 games like I'm our like I think 10 is going to be pretty tough I think nine like they probably would finish at minus money for that like I think nine is

probably like what you're what you're shooting for there nine might get you into the playoffs with how weird the NFC is, but another win is hard to find or is probably going to be something that would deter me from making that bet. It's why the loss to the Falcons and or the Steelers is so damaging because you should have won both of those games. If they're sitting four and one heading into the buy week, I would assume the odds for them to win 10 or more games would be they would be slight favorites. I would assume they would probably be in the minus money of that. But to find another win, like that you then kind of let fall by the wayside over the first month and a half of the season, that's tough. So I don't know if I'm making that bet. I love a plus

money bet. I love putting money down and doubling it up. It's at times like something that I probably shouldn't like as much as I do. But I don't think I'm going to go there with the 10 wins, not with what we've seen to this point. And if you were curious, a plus 900 is actually not that bad for a 12 plus win season. I assume that you are not taking that bet, although it does get into the range of the Kevin Malone theory from the office, where he said if anything is 10,000 to 1, he would just take it. So I guess he would be the one that was betting the New Orleans Saints at 30,000 to 1

to win 12 games. I don't think that that's going to happen for the Jets, Giants, or the Saints. the way that it could happen for the Minnesota Vikings, we've actually seen it where they get off to a slow start, there's injuries, they kind of bumble around at the beginning of the year, like 2017, and then something just clicks and the C's part.

It's not the craziest thing, but it plus 900 on Fandul, I would say, yeah, that's not enough for me, but it goes under the category of crazier things have happened in Vikings land over the years. it's just really hard to see. To me, the most likely outcome for this season, regardless of who plays quarterback,

is that they're playing for their lives at the end of the year. But why don't you just answer, why don't you just answer this? How could they win 12 plus games? Like what has to happen? Give me the short version of what, don't go through every game. What has to happen for them to have this bet pay?

Yeah. I'll give you an insight in my mind real quick. I would maybe take the bet for 12 wins before I took the bet for 10 wins. Oh. And that's because of a gambling addiction in my head. Sure. Of like, it's worth the value for the money I would be putting down like to because what I'm about to say is like there are pathways to them winning 12 games and it might be worth

my money. Again, that's probably, I have lost money betting over the years because I would maybe take a longer shot than the one that naturally logically. makes more sense. How do they win 12 games? J.J. McCarthy starts against the Philadelphia Eagles and looks good. Yep. It's that the last three weeks of watching Carson Wentz get the ball out on time,

having felt what it feels like to not get the ball out on time, against the Atlanta Falcons, he had held the ball longer than I think any quarterback in the league held the ball that week, the time to throw. And then you see the way that Carson Wentz had success against the Bengals, I get it. Like that game, me and you might have been able to play quarterback if Isaiah Rogers scores two touchdowns. But you see the way Carson Wentz had success against the Bengals

and you see the way he had success against the Browns and eventually led that game-winning drive. The ball came out on time and the offense functioned the way it was supposed to. If J.J. McCarthy starts against the Eagles, I don't know that he will. But if he starts against the Eagles and you see market improvement, you say like okay that's what it was supposed to look like let me try to apply that and he goes out and applies that if he can beat the if you can beat the eagles at home and j j mccarthy can look good doing it that would give me a it's possible like here's the ramp way i think the way to get

the 12 wins is winning at least three of the next four and i think the reason it's so hot like the odds are such a long shot in the viking's favor is because winning three of the next four is going to be extremely hard. But I think if J.J. McCarthy comes back next week and looks the part of the quarterback that was ready to drive what they thought was a Ferrari, you could quickly convince yourself, like maybe they're going to figure it out.

Like if they beat the Eagles and J.J. McCarthy looks competent. You're going to go into the Chargers week and say, oh, they're going to beat the Chargers. And, oh, man, if they beat the Eagles and the Chargers, man, could they beat the Lions? It's a week-to-week league. we joke about it every week but people thought that new england patriots freaking sucked and then they went out and they dominated the the carolina panthers and then they beat the

buffalo bills and now people are looking at drake may and the new england patriots is are they are they guys are they a team in the afc that can make some noise it doesn't take much to get that belief meter turned up so i think the way to get to 12 wins it falls on the shoulders of J.J. McCarthy. I don't know if even Carson Wentz going out and beating the Philadelphia Eagles would be enough for me to say, like, there is the pathway. I know we've seen it with Case Keenum. I think it has to be with J.J. McCarthy,

and it has to be J.J. McCarthy raising this team's ceiling in a way that they thought he was going to be able to raise it from the beginning. There is still a wide range of outcomes on this 2025 NFL season, though. you know, I felt some folks started to slip a little bit on the year after the Pittsburgh loss.