Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - ESPN Cardinals reporter: Work ethic questions about Kyler Murray are 'ridiculous' (Part1)

Episode Date: March 14, 2026

Matthew Coller talks with ESPN Arizona Cardinals reporter Josh Weinfuss about his years covering Kyler Murray and brings light to some of the discussion about his work ethic and breaks down how he was massively different in 2024 under Drew Petzing and Jonathan Gannon. The Purple Insider podcast is brought to you by FanDuel. Also, check out our sponsor HIMS at https://hims.com/purpleinsider Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hey, everybody, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider presented by Fanduil. Matthew Collar here, and we're going to start off the show tonight with my conversation with Josh Weinfuss, who covers the Arizona Cardinals for ESPN. And we're going to go through all of the Kyler Murray narratives, what is truth and what is fiction that in just a second. And then later on tonight, Mani Hill will stop by to give his reaction, not only to the Kyler Murray signing, but to the lack of other signings, as free agents have continued to come off the board.

In terms of the interview coming up here, Josh was in a little bit of a noisy room, so we tried to do the best to clean up the audio. Apologies for a little bit of that. The connection was not flawless, but you can definitely hear Josh's breakdown of Kyler Murray. So let's just jump right into that conversation myself and ESPN's Josh Winefuss. All right, we welcome into the show from ESPN covers the Arizona Cardinals. Josh Weinfuss, who has covered the entirety of Kyler Murray's career, every up and down that has gone with Kyler Murray.

And I've been hitting that retweet button every time you share one of the old articles to let Vikings fans know what they are getting. But I want to talk with you, Josh, about some of the things that get said about Kyler Murray. and there's a phrase that we have here that Stefan Diggs once said, truth to all rumors was what he said about, you know, potentially wanting a trade once. So I'm curious how much truth there is to all rumors about Kyler Murray. Maybe we could start out, Josh, with just you explaining why Kyler Murray is a Minnesota Viking and not an Arizona Cardinal.

Yeah, it's a good question. It's a really good question when you kind of look at where the Cardinals are right now. I think it was a situation where it was time for change, right? It was time for both sides to move on. Arizona fired Jonathan Gannon after last season. Gannon was a big proponent of Kyler's. They got Michael Floor. We have really no idea if Michael Floor was a Kyler believer or not.

He said kind of all the right things, but obviously by them getting rid of him, that kind of showed that he wasn't. But at the same time, might not have been his decision either, right? This could have been something that came from above. I've heard a lot of rumblings that the Cardinals owner, Michael Bidwell, is a big fan of Kyler's, but yet that still didn't stop him from getting rid of him after he paid him, you know, was it $36.8 million of which he'll now have to pay $35.5 million of because the Vikings signed to a one-year league minimum $1.3 million project.

So it just seemed like it was time, right? Like things have not gone smoothly here. It's been a roller coaster. You know, it's a love fest all over for Kyler. things were not, it was not gravy, right? It was there was a lot of, it was more like Rocky Road instead of straight vanilla. And it was just time for both sides to find the new place. And I think that Kyler could, he could flourish in the right system, in the right place,

and the right organization, and the right building with the right people around him. And I think that's a distinct possibility this year with the Vikings. Josh, my assumption has been that what they were going to do there is do, a complete franchise rebuild, which wouldn't make a whole heck of a lot of sense if you were doing a rebuild with a quarterback that could win you seven games, right? And it's kind of, I mean, even in 2024, I think that the team was decent and they played against the Vikings and that was a very good and close game. But last year, it just became clear how many holes they had after spending in free agency and trying to patchwork together. And it seemed like they've decided they just have to live in

reality here that his timeline with his contract did not add up with the roster build. What adds up better is Jacobi Berset versus Gardner Minshue and then see if you end up with Arch Manning or whatever other quarterback might emerge. That kind of makes sense to me, but I want to go back to something that you said about Jonathan Gannon because I had heard here just in asking around about Murray that Gannon liked Kyler Murray and the Drew Petzing got along with him actually very well, which goes kind of a some of the way that he was thought about with Cliff Kingsbury and his coachability and how much, you know, those two were on the same page.

Can you kind of explain the compare and contrast between Cliff Kingsbury era, Kyler Murray and Drew Petzing slash Jonathan Gannon era, Kyler Murray? How much time do we have? Because this is not a succinct conversation. So, oh, there's so much to impact here. I'll say this about the last version. Kyler Murray and Jonathan Gannig, like you said, like you had heard, you heard correctly,

they got along very well. They lived near each other. Kyler had gone to Jonathan's house for the Super Bowl a couple of years, like watched, you know, he'd go hang out. They'd call each other on the way home from games and kind of debrief what had just happened. Like, they were very close.

That's a stark difference from how Kyler's time with Clip Kingsbury ended. I mean, those two hardly taught, if at all, the last year and a half of King's very time in Arizona. King's very was the offensive coordinator. They had a quarterback coach, but by the end, like, Cliff stopped going to quarterback meetings because of his relationship with Kyla. Like, it was not good. And I think there's, there's, you can blame both sides, right? Like, I think everyone who wants to pin it on one or the other, it's not fair, it's not accurate.

I think the situation was He had been a college head coach And I think he's an incredible offensive mind I think he's creative I think he knows what he's doing offensively I just don't know if the head coach aspect of his I don't think of the personality to be a head coach And I think what it came down to what I had heard multiple times

Is that Kyler Murray loves to be coach He loves to be yelled at Like his high school coach MF him his college coach MFed him. Cliff never did it, right? And which is weird because NFL coaches love to MF players, right? They love to get on their backs.

And Cliff handled him with kid gloves. He put on the white gloves and just everything was very soft. And Kyler wanted to be coached. And I think having that type of situation as Kyler's entry to the NFL, I think that was kind of the root of some of the issues that Kyler dealt with. They didn't have a true, like, veteran presence to be. behind him, I think that they needed to have a veteran quarterback who can be like, hey, listen to what I'm saying.

Let me show you how to do this thing. Like, Tyler came in, number one pick. He's a trophy winner. I think he lost four games in college, five games, something like that after going undefeated for three years in high school. Like, there was, he had his own accent. He knew where he was. He thought, you know, this is where I am.

And I think he needed the right to. in the NFL, and I don't think the Cardinals put him in the right situation. I think looking back on it, right? Like hindsight is obviously 2020, but Cliff was his OC, and they had kind of an old school coach who can get on him and they could play the good cop, bad cop. I think it would have been totally different. I think we would have seen a totally different side of Kyla Murray. That wasn't the case.

Obviously, it peaked Thursday night football in 2022 before he got hurt. He basically yelled at Cliff on the sidelines. Like, you never see that. And I think this kind of showed everyone. This is what their relationship is right now. And Cliff, you know, he did the right thing. And he took it on the sideline and he dealt it afterwards. But like, that's just, that was emblematic of their entire time.

Firecliff. Tyler's hurt. In comes Jonathan Gannon. He has his own courts, right? He's, uh, he's very eccentric. He's very just upbeat all the time. But him and Kyler headed off. I think Kyler wanted a fresh start.

I think that injury humbled him. It changed him. He was a totally different person in my eyes after the injury in 2022. And then he was running an offense that wasn't a college-based offense. Like, I'm sure this will be talked about forever in the day. But like the whole study clause, I was putting his contract in 2022. I mean, that's a whole other topic. But like, he was studying an offense that he hadn't run since he was in the eighth grade.

Sure, there were wrinkles and tweaks here and there to make an NFL proper. But, like, he knew that inside and out. and then comes through petting's pro-style squeeze, and he actually sat down and he learned it. And he, they changed his footwork, they changed his dropback. He went under center more.

Like he became more a pro-style quarterback, and he embraced that. He loved it. He's a football donkey. Like, he really doesn't do much else besides, at least during the season. Like, he played video games.

We all know that, but that's kind of his way of decompressing, just like every player has a way of decompressing. But he really loved learning in these system and getting into that and kind of watching it from the sidelines, from the sideline as he recovered and then when he got into it, like, he played really

well at times. So, so it's, that's kind of everything in a nutshell, right? Like, he really got along with Kingsborough, I'm sorry, they're not going to along with Kingsborough. Got along with Gannon, got along with pets, and they

have their conversations. I was told they never had heated arguments. They never yelled at each other, but they'd have debates. They'd go back and forth because that's what coaches and quarterbacks do, right? Like, Drew would want to do one thing. Why don't we do this? Well, here's why I want to do this. Here's why I think she'd do this.

Kailler would say, you know, what he thinks. Like, that give and take is what makes NFL relationships work. And they were, they did that. And it worked well. And Drew's probably a very bright coach. He knows what he's doing. And Kyler recognized that. He recognized the intellect in the room.

And he was able to bring his own football IQ. And, you know, they had really productive conversation. And I think 2025 was, it was interesting, right? And here's why. because they had wanted Kyler to check down a lot in 2025. And that was kind of, they worked on that, kind of going through his progressions. It didn't always work. And things just did not, things were not as smooth in those first five games as they should have been.

They, and here's the thing, like they are, the carnivore, Amari DiMocardo, fumble out of the end zone against the Titans away from beating them. There were a couple other plays. Like, they should have been, they could have been four and one, five and oh, and all of a sudden, Kyler's still the quarterback this year because they're making a run for the playoff last year.

And it just showed me like, it's not all out of his control. Like I was like, oh, they were one play away from losing the first couple of weeks against the Saints and the Panthers, but where it's the defense?

And nobody wanted to blame the defense. Everyone wanted to blame Kyler, which is part for the course, right? Like, you're an NFL quarterback. You're going to get the blame, but it wasn't all his fault. So back to your initial question. Yes, he got along very well

with Gannon and Pence. Obviously, the relationship soured with Kingsbury. But, you know, I think the one thing that was telling was his goodbye post again. Like that said everything people needed to know. And I think that that kind of, I don't know say shut people up. I think that kind of got some people by surprise. So when it comes to the narrative about him and the work ethic and all that, I mean, I'm sure you've heard every single joke. I was doing a, you know, radio hit myself.

And the first thing is, hey, it's one. 1.3 million in a PlayStation, am I right? And it's like, all right. Well, first of all, the other night, Jamar Chase was live streaming and reacting to something in free agency. No one ever says anything about that. Justin Jefferson plays video games. I think actually Kyler was just ahead of his time a little bit.

Like he was live streaming before other people were. And before, I mean, athletes have always played video games, but before they were kind of putting it out there and where, you know, you could go play someone call of duty who plays in the NFL, which our technology allows now. But I know this, and you wrote a great story about Kyler-Marie and chess,

because I'm a huge chess fan. I've seen him play in Blitzchamps. Shockingly, athletes can do other things outside of just playing football. But it is something that has really stuck to him. And this is why I wanted to ask you about it, because when Sam Darnold got here, what do you think everyone said to me, he sees ghosts?

And you're like, okay, well, that was when he was 21 playing Belichick's defense and it wasn't even supposed to be aired anyway. It always frustrates me when these things kind of stick to guys and never go away. But is there some element of truth to that? Or do you think that that was just kind of a narrative that ended up getting out there and not going away? Folks, you may have noticed by all of my old football references that I have reached the age where my friends and I are complaining about hairlines as much as we talk about football

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restrictions, and important safety information. I have two parts of an answer to this. So the first is, if someone close to him wants to tell me, would you rather him be the player that goes to the nightclub or goes to a strip club or goes out all the time? And, you know, is in the news, gets arrested.

Like, that's how they decompress. Or would you rather them go? go home, throw on the video game, play a little bit, watch some TV. Like, he's not getting in trouble. So, like, if you were to get in trouble, what would people say? Like, oh, you could have been home playing video games. Why is he playing video games? Like, the problem with the public is no one's ever happy.

And fans are fans are fans, right? Like, they're never pleased because it fits whatever narrative. They find whatever fits their narrative, right? So that's one aspect to this. The second aspect is, someone explained this to me recently. Like the offensive he was running under Kingsbury was like the equivalent of him studying addition, subtraction, multiple locations, basic stuff. Stuff like I explained.

He had known he started running this offense in eighth grade. His eighth grade coach in the Kingsbury's camp in Texas Tech learned the system, brought up back. And that's what he ran in high school and college. That's what he ran at. Actually, I don't know if he ran at A&M. But that's what he ran at Oklahoma with Lincoln Riley. Like, kid knows the air rate inside and out. So he would spend hours studying at the facility and then not study at home.

And the Cardinal saw that. But like, is that a bad thing? If you get all your work done, do you need to take it home with you? And I know there's this whole thing like, oh, you NFL player's always been doing more. But at some point, I think everyone's different, right? I think everyone's study habits are very different and how they learn. it was very different. Like, I think he was the type of person

where he just needed to step away, right? He did his work. All right, I'm going to take a break. I'm going to let it process. I'm going to let it marinate. I'm going to go to bed, get up early, do the whole thing in the morning.

Like, this is who he was. And people just couldn't, people didn't like him for a lot of reasons that didn't make sense. I think that just, when Drew Petting gets to Arizona, he studied hard.

He had to study hard. It was something he had never done before. It wasn't math. It wasn't addition. It wasn't subtraction. It was a multiplication. It was, I'm sorry, addition.

It was math. But it was like pre-calc. It was algebra. It was all these advanced techniques and all the advanced level football. And he had to go and study for it. So this whole work ethic thing, it's ridiculous. I'll never forget. After it came out that it was happening,

four days later, or after it came out that this contract had the independent study class, like four days later, they took it out. and he shows up to a he is an impromptu press conference during training camp 2020 and he's like guys and this will this has always stuck with me

he's like do you think I could play quarterback at the NFL about studying he's like honestly do you think so? And I was like no he's like no kidding he's like obviously I study everyone's study he's like my habits might be different than others but I study and like

people just didn't accept that I'm like, do you really think he's going to go out there? And now that looks at what the end's going to do or the safety. Like when the guy comes up, takes two steps into the box, you know, the Kiley knows what's going to happen. Like, it's ridiculous. It was utterly ridiculous. And I think the other thing about his work ethic, I'll tell you this.

Like, I've watched a kid every day for seven years. After he got hurt, he was out there training with a cardinal, strength, and conditioning guy coordinator, buddy Morris. He did his post practice. work, he did his pre-practice work, like, he was in the weight room, like, he put him in the work to get back on the field. And people who say, even when he's back, he still did his work. Like, we walked by him on Fridays and he was doing his work outside in front of us.

You know, like, the work ethic thing is just, it's mind-blowing, but it's just people who aren't there who don't see him make these assumptions, and you create these narratives, and they run with it. And like, I don't know, I'm not going to be like, oh, I'm there, you're not, but like, literally, I watch it happen. And I'm not trying to fendicate. I'm trying to explain what I see. And what I see is someone who does things that are against what everyone else is saying.

No, I mean, it's literally true that you are there and other people are not. And one of the things that I've said probably 20 times over the last month is that no one has watched the Arizona Cardinals play football in a long time. And I feel bad for you because you do great work cover in the Cardinals. I've enjoyed covering for a long time. But you might be getting more clicks out of cover in the Phoenix Mercury. then you are out of the Arizona Cardinals sometimes. It's just been unfortunate for you, Josh.

And especially that 2024 season that the odd thing to me when Vikings fans talk about like, oh, well, you know, he runs the college offense or you got to dump it down or all he does is scramble. He played against your team. And he did a good job against your team. Do you remember the football game? And so I've gone back and watched now the all 22 for the first five games of last year and all of 2024. And the observation that I've had is that under center really stuck out to me because

that was something I didn't think that he did. And you see him running traditional bootleg rollouts that John Elway was running for Mike Shanahan in 1997, but he's doing some of that. And there's a lot of motions. There's a lot of pre-snap stuff that's going on. And it looks to me like there's more similarities to a Kevin O'Connell offense than people would expect. It looks like a lot of Shanahan type stuff that he runs with Brock Purdy, which doesn't surprise me because petting was under Kevin Stefansky and Gary Kubiak in Minnesota. Can you talk about that fit, though, because I have some observations of my own about Kyler sometimes bailing, well, there's a receiver there and deciding to like, now I'm just going to run and take what's there.

The checkdown thing actually makes sense because watching back 2025, it was like, okay, the ball is definitely out of his hands really fast in some of the. these games where things could progress. Maybe the offensive line had something to do with that. But explain your view on that fit between that style of offense that was sort of Shanahan inspired down the line and Kyler Murray. I'll be, here's a disclaimer. I don't really, I hardly watch the Mike is offense.

I don't want to get into, I don't know it enough to talk about it in detail. I will say this. Tyler he can do a lot he can do everything right you want him to run the west coast you want him to run the air raid he can do it he could go into shopton

he can go under center like but here's something interesting and I don't know how this is going to work in Kevin O'Connell's building in his system player told me last year Kyler

every week knows that he's either the best athlete on the field or the second best athlete on the field. And he said more often than nine, he will go through his first progression, maybe get through a second progression,

and if it's not there, he's out, he's gone. I don't know how Cameron's title is going to react to that. I don't know. But also, I don't know if Kyler is going to be doing that in that system, right, in love with that offensive line. So I think that's something to watch. Like, Kyler, his game needs to include running. Like he, and if you don't take advantage of his life, you are, you're wasting an aspect of his game.

That's extremely dangerous. That can create a lot of things. We've seen it. You want to have never understood. And with petting and Kingsbury is why Eiler doesn't get out his run. Which is in the first five, six place of the game. Make a defense be like, okay, this is going to happen today. Then you put him on their heels.

it opens up everything, right? Like, even if it's a five-yard boot and just let him go or, you know, whatever it is, like get him out in space, let him do his thing early on to get everyone to think. So to go into like the West Coast scheme, like, he can run it. He has, the other thing, he has the arm. Like, everyone's like, oh, his arm doesn't work anymore. I'm like, why doesn't the arm really work anymore? If anything the first thing that's doing, go on a player like, Kyler, are his legs.

Like, his arm's always going to be there. We saw how he played with the arm. And Andre Hopkins. Like, we saw how he was with Larry Fitzgerald. He saw glimpses of it with Marvin Harris and Jr. Like, the kid has touched, the kid is timing, the kid has power. Like, if he truly wanted to be a dropback passer, he could do it. You want, he has the arm to do it.

I will say this, and this is going to come up at some point is his size. He has admitted that sometimes he can't see over the offensive line. That could be an issue. That's why he kind of moves a little bit. more than obviously it's why he kind of shifts the pockets so we can kind of see a little bit Chuckin works with that, you know, can counter that.

But he has to admit that in the past that it is an issue. But if you spread things out with him and kind of let him start to fling it, like you're going to start as one of the best receivers in the NFL. He will get the ball to it. Like we have seen him

figure out how to put that touch on the ball to get it just outside the reach of a defense and back. Like he will do it. He can do it. And I'm actually very, intrigued with kind of with a line that the Vikings have with the run game they have with the other weapons like how big of a season does a difference is going to have because Kyler does have the arm that people have have questions in terms of the numbers throwing down the field

deep ball is that receiver related or was something off with the offense or was something off with the way he threw it because when you look at the 2021 deep numbers I mean it's incredible PFF gives him a 99 grade throwing over 20 yards down the field. And what I did notice is that his grade is different from his statistics. The grade is better, which usually means that wide receivers are involved. And I was looking at some 20, 23 and 22 receivers that he was throwing to. And I was like, I don't know who these people are, which is maybe a little different from having D'Andre Hopkins.

But what was the story? with him and Marvin Harrison, Jr. Because there are some insane drops that happened from Marvin Harrison Jr. last year. And there's plays where it looks like maybe the route depth isn't right or they're not on the same page. There's at least two or three in 2025 where Murray drops back, throws the ball. And there is literally no one there. And it's like Marvin Harrison looking around like, wait, was that me? Was I supposed to do that?

Why was it? Give me the deep ball and the Marvin Harrison Jr. why those things didn't click. So let's start with Marv. Like, I still don't have an answer to this. I have asked everyone in their mothers. I said on the record, off the record, tell me how everyone tell me.

Nobody will touch it. So the drops are interesting. To me, the miscommunications are way more interesting. I mean, I can't tell you. You watch like Marv goes this way. The ball goes that way. And you're just like, what's going on here, guys? Like, it happened more often than it should.

And what was interesting to me is going into Mars work a year and going into last year, all we heard was, oh, we spent so much time together this off-season, kind of took everyone to L.A. twice to, like, work out and get, you know, get their timing right. They threw all off-season. And then it was still happening. So what was the issue? Was it a quarterback-driven?

Was it receiver-driven? Was it both? My guess it was both. Like I said, nobody will talk about it. So it was clearly an issue inside that building. And it was obvious. It was embarrassing to a point, right? like to have that once or twice i get it right like things happen to have that many mistakes on

not just like it's not like marv ran the route two yards shy of where the ball says it was he turned one way in the ball with the other like it was wild um the deep ball thing's hitchers right so obviously when you have a receiver who's d'andre hopkins you can do a lot of things you know he will he will make you right a lot and kiler also can throw he knows how to throw guys open. So the combination of having a guy whose hands are, what, 3xl, I think it was 4XL, who can go and just make all,

catch radius is massive, which combined with a quarterback who can put the ball anywhere, things work. But you made a good point. Look at the guys Kyler played with. The line he played behind. It just, you put all that together,

coupled with kind of them instructing him, like, let's try to get that check down and keep the ball moving. like, wasn't going on the field this month, right? Like,

especially, I think the one thing about him is, he can be erratic at times. He can make bad decisions at times. He makes, some of his picks are just really, really bad.

And even he will admit that. I think that that was their way of kind of trying to count to that last year. Let's not make that a hero play. Let's, let's try to check it down and keep the chains moving, keep the ball in our hands.

Because on third and eight, or third and five, even, you don't need to go, and try to squeeze in between four defenders. To Marv, you can take, you know, James Connor in the fight and get the first down, and then on the first down, we can make that, you can try to make that play, right? Like, there are a lot of those types of things.

And I think when you take a step back and you look, it's a combination of the offensive directives, the receivers he was playing with, and the offensive line. Like, if you're not given a lot of time and you're on the move, like, I don't care how athletic you are. Like, the plays aren't going to come together, like these shit. There's definitely times where he also passed up some opportunities, I think,

to push down the field like you're talking about. There's a play in the New Orleans game where he decides to scramble. But if he reads it for just one beat more, his guy's got a beat. He can throw it up over the top. And I also noticed that what he has done recently, and I don't know if he always did this, is he will guide the ball out there to a spot. And there are a couple throws on his tape, one from the New Orleans game, where he glides the ball, like 40 yards down the field to Harrison. And it's just beautiful. It just like it's almost like someone just delicately laid it right into his hands. But that takes the ball tracking, the separation. Like he's going to deliver it to a spot. And then it's kind of on you to figure it out, like how to

track the football and to get to it. He's not going to rocket laser it in there, which is kind of what Sam Darnold did a lot of times. So it's going to be. be a little bit different where there's going to be more jump ball opportunities. And one of the things I noticed for Marvin Harrison is the separation ability. It's just not really there. And I think that you need to be able to do that. And Justin Jefferson, of course, is a masterclass in that. And so is Jordan Addison.

So I think that those played into it. How about the throwing over the middle is another subject that comes up a lot? Now, when I looked at his numbers from 2024, throwing in between the hashes, his stats are fine. he just doesn't do it that much, but it's overstated versus kind of what you think about a smaller quarterback and throwing over the middle. I don't think that he's going to like her cousins did live between the hashes. But I also think that from what I've seen, I just don't feel like that's this massive problem. But how did how did you see that?

Like was that a discussion during his time about getting the ball over the middle and seeing the field? No. I don't think about there's a lot of topics about Kyle Murray that we covered and now honestly was not one of them like seeing the field is obviously a thing right

that was a topic but specifically going over the middle it never really came up I think for place to work over the middle which as everyone knows like this is all about timing right you gotta have that extra beat

to let the guy go plans are different but like if you guys truly come like I don't know It was never something that came up. So, but him seeing the field, like he has, like I said earlier,

he has a bit, like sometimes he just, he can't see it. Some of the throws that he misses are a product of usually two reasons, right? Like, he's on the move and he can't see something across the field. Or he just misses it because he doesn't see it. And could have six, six quarterbacks see it? Maybe. And it's, but it's kind of the, what do you want as a coach?

do you want the guy who can get out of trouble, scramble, like he can make a lot of mistakes on the offensive line right because he can, he can get away from trouble. Or do you want that 6-6 quarterback who's stand in the pocket, like a Justin Herbert, make the throws,

that guys crumble around his knees, he's not moving? Like, what do you want as a coach? I think Kyler, obviously, he can't do that, right? He's 5'10. I'm basically the same. I'm a little bigger than a little taller than them.

But it's, it's, what do you want out of the quarterback? Do you want a guy who can do that? I think Kevin O'Connell is going to have to decide, like, to what degree do you want that? But in terms of over the middle, honestly, like, that's not something that ever really came up, seeing the field came up, but not specifically over the middle. Yeah, no, that's interesting because, I mean, that's a thought that you have with Kevin O'Connell wanting to attack the middle. But I think, I think attacking the middle is more about. rhythm and timing and being on the same page, then it is about necessarily seeing the field because if you've ever watched

Steve Young's a football life documentary, he talks about how he turned a corner in the NFL when he realized he wasn't going to be able to see stuff. He wasn't a tall quarterback and he was just going to have to trust and believe in the timing and the footwork and everything else. So how about this, Josh? If Kevin O'Connell gives you a call, he should. You know, Kyler Murray inside and out.

He should give you a call. And he asked you, hey, Josh, I know you're a Minnesota guy. You're one of us at heart. You may live in the desert now. You may not have to deal with the foot of snow that we have on our way, Josh. But, but you know Minnesota. You know the culture. And you know Kyler Murray.

So if KOC called you and said, how can I make this work? Give me one piece of advice that will make my. relationship with Kyler Murray and the Minnesota Vikings work, what would you say to him? So I've had to tell him it's 83 degrees here right now. Let's start with that. And then I would tell him, I'd say two things, actually. Coach him hard, right? Like, he truly is receptive to coaching.

He can read through the BS. And also I would say, hey, take advantage of Justin Jefferson being the face of the franchise. Don't put that on Kyler. like letka he's a naturally quiet human being okay he's not the rah-rah type he's not the guy that's gonna break down the huddle he accept him for who he is as a person and kind of let him do his job that way but like don't put don't put too much on his play in terms of leadership like he can lead but he also again if you have someone who's louder who will be that rah-rah guy let them do that. Like, Kyler just do his job, especially in a one-year situation. Like, maybe long-term you have those conversations,

but like just kind of let him be who he is. And I think if you can do that, if you can coach him hard, don't BS him. I think that it could work. I think it could really work. So, Fandu is a sponsor of the show.

They're over under is eight and a half for the Vikings after this Kyler-Murie move. Which way would you go? Not asking you to advocate to the audience, but just throwing that number out there for you. I don't know what you guys did in free agency. So that's the big thing, right? Nothing.

The answer is literally nothing. So whatever you think they had last year, they still have outside of two defensive tackles. I mean, will those do two defensive tackles affect the third-ranked defense in the NFL? Maybe a bit, but they did not perform to the level that they were supposed to, which is why they're not here anymore. And Brian Flores came back. so the assumption is that they're going to have a top 10 defense.

I think I can see them winning more than boys at 8 and a half. I didn't see them winning more than 8.5. That division's tough though, right? The division's that easy. We also knows how to win. Like, here's the thing. I don't realize around the country. He had the Cardinals in first place in the NFC West at week 11 of 2024.

Granted, they fell off a cleft, no pun intended. after that they never recovered like they're still free fall but like he can get teams to height and I think if he has the right people around him they can go like they can keep going up so in the I mean it's a tough division don't get me wrong

I think that deep I know from when I hear that offense is very hard to pick up like that's very complex and it might take him a little bit to get it but I think there's a possibility eight and a half wins he can win more than eight and up games. I think that the word to describe the entire situation with Kyler and why you do it is

upside, that the upside is higher than eight and a half games. And I'm not sure anybody else could have given that. Even Gino Smith, who I think is talented, but is such a turnover machine that it's always around 500. Okay, one more thing, Josh, and I hate to do this to you, but the Arizona Cardinals over under on Fandul is four and a half. So since you brought up your 83 degrees. agree whether I'm going to ask you about what the Cardinals are doing.

I'm going to tell you the truth, though. I think that they are living in reality for the first time in a while, and they are accepting their fate, and man, they're accepting it super hard. That division, there's no chance for them with the three teams that they're playing against. And I think you're going to be covering a top three draft pick quarterback in 2027, and that will be great for you and your content. That seems like the plan.

but can they get to five? Here's the thing. I don't know. I'm not trying to side step this, but like this schedule has a lot to do with it. Like you want to come back to me in May we can have this conversation. I don't know.

I don't know. Like, here's the thing. You have three very good receivers. Chairman Pride's all pro. Michael Wilson had a thousand yards. Marvin Harrison. Like he still pulled up 800 yards last year, right? You have the pieces.

This running back room when, you know, they added Tyler Algier. I think it's how you say his name. James Conard is, it'll be healthy again. You have Trit Vincent's like, they have the pieces. I think what they've done in the offensive line adding a lot of experience, I think was a good move. I mean, I don't know.

Wait until we see the schedule. And then obviously I don't play as a lot. And it took it like last year, they should have been six, five and oh. And then who knows what was going to happen? Obviously, they didn't. But like, that schedule is very favorable. They just didn't live up to it. So I don't know, all depends on how, kind of how, how those games play out or how the schedule plays out.

But I don't know. The talent to do to win more than five games, I think offensively at least. If Gardner Minshu or Jacoby Preset can get the job done or whomsever else arrives there. But here's the thing. Like last year, the offense wasn't, I mean, it took office with Jacoby. Jacoby Rosset was the top rate quarterback in a lot of categories from week six. on, but when your defense is giving it 40 points, multiple games, 37 points, like, I don't care who you are.

Like, you're probably not going to win those games. So they brought back the defense coordinator. So the, and what's also fascinating about this team is they spent last season, last off season rebuilding their defense. And it didn't work. So this year, they're also rebuilding their defense. Let's see if it works. So that's a question.

I would call it. Here's what I would call it. And I know that, I know that you don't want to go here. I would call it since this is the way we're talking about. We're talking about basketball is ethical basketball. I would call it ethical tanking. It's they're going to put out a football team that if people show up to the stands, is not just going to fall down and lose 40 to zero because you have pro quarterbacks and pro players,

but they also would prefer probably to have them go three and 14, but not look like the jets, not have it be like that. But remember, I mean, the tank for 2O when they had Ryan Fitzpatrick, that team won like five or six games. They were in a lot of games. They were pretty fun. But it's just hard when you have to play Seattle, the Rams, and the 49ers two times each. It's just hard to see them winning too many of those games.

Two things. A, if I had 70 points with nine minutes left ago, I'm going for the record. I don't care what anyone says. I don't care. Let me shoot 85 free throws. I don't care. I still got the points, right? Like, it's ridiculous.

Secondly, I'm not going to touch the T word. I don't think players take. I don't care what anyone says. I've been around these guys long enough. Like, you can't take in the NFL. You're going to get yourself extremely hurt if you take to the NFL. Well, you're going to lose your money because it's not guaranteed contracts. I guess I think a little, like, if you take on your own, like, you're going to get, whatever.

I don't touch a T word. I'll let you handle that. Yeah, you'll let you handle all that. Well, from a front offices do. Players do not. Those guys are obviously going to give everything they have. But front offices that maybe bench their star quarterback, they tend to do that a little bit more. But Josh, I can't tell you enough, man, how great the insight is here.

And this is, this is all I ask of people is to just read the stuff that you've put out there. I've been reading your stuff for years because we've talked a number of times on the show over the years when I was used to do radio. bring you on then or when it first started with the podcasting before we did video, uh, you know, I've had John then. And I, I just don't think it's too much to ask because there's a lot of these things that people just parrot when it comes to Kyler Murray that aren't necessarily true. And then there are shades of truth with some things about criticism because he's not a Super bowl champion quarterback at this moment.

So there have been reasons why they failed that are connected to him. But it's been difficult for me as someone who's read your work to be. be like, well, actually, like, some of this stuff just exists on the internet because, well, the internet is right about everything. You know, they know every right play call. They know every right move to make. They know, they know every single player inside and out. And all their jokes and all their memes are all perfectly accurate and fair.

Right. So anyway. 100%. Yeah. Exactly. At least in their own minds. So anyway. And, you know, all the draft analysts, they always perfectly nail it with Chudor Sanders and

so forth. Every time. Every 100% hit rate. Um, not that I'm cynical about any of this, but, uh, no, not at all. I can tell Josh. No, you really do, you really do phenomenal work. And I appreciate for you. I'm rooting for you that the cardinals prove everybody wrong and then people get to read your

stuff and you get some of those, those sweet Kevin Sefer hits on TV that make you look all great on ESPN. I hope you get some of those for Arizona very soon, man. If not, uh, the mercury I know will be relevant again. but I really do appreciate your work, man. And thank you for all the time coming on here and breaking it down. Absolutely. Thank you for having me.

I appreciate the kind words. All right. Take care, Josh.