Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - ESPN's Courtney Cronin previews Bears-Vikings

Episode Date: September 5, 2025

ESPN's Courtney Cronin joins the show to preview the Monday Night Football matchup between the Bears and Vikings. The Purple Insider podcast is brought to you by FanDuel.

All right, folks, you've waited for it. You've dreamed about it. You've hoped for it. And it has finally come true. Like Christmas morning, ESPN's Courtney Cronin, returning to the show for the 1,000th time to preview Minnesota Vikings and Chicago Bears. Courtney, I've been reading about this Ben Johnson training camp and Caleb Williams. And it sounds like there's medieval weapons being used.

and there's meltdowns, and he's like Will Farrell throwing a chair. All sorts of things are going on. It's crazy in Chicago, as it always is. How you been? Been good. That's actually a completely accurate representation of what's happened here at training camp. I like the medieval weapons. I was the jowster.

I come out on my horse every day with my big, like, jousty sword thing. And that's my role, you know, in training camp. I don't know if I, like, intimidated anybody enough, but, you know, I tried. Well, it depends on how good you are with the horse. I think Ben Johnson, what he was using every time that there was a false start was the big ball with the spikes on it, that you swing over your head. Yes, like that's the way he's gotten Caleb Williams to run this offense. Well, look, I mean, we can mess around because that's what we do usually when we get together. But everyone wants to know, what was it like with Ben Johnson?

Because truly, every time I would see a story, it was like he just pulled the entire offense off the field. He's screaming like a lunatic. Like, what was really going on with Ben Johnson coaching Caleb Williams this summer? So that whole first day thing that you just referenced where, like, we're watching practice. And this was before fans were out there. So the first day of camp. And the offense couldn't get lined up in a team drill. And Ben blows the whistle dead and has some choice words and says, like, get out of here.

He didn't kick them out of practice, but they were still there. It wasn't like, go to the locker room, hit the showers. I've always wanted like somebody. I've always wanted to hear somebody say that. I've never heard it actually. I just want to say it to somebody. Hit the showers. Like, I'll be like, I just got out to practice.

I don't need to shower yet. Anyways, he took them off the field for like one drill here because this was at the time where they're early in camp. They're trying to get reps for both Bajent and for Keenum. So for the second and third team units, the first team offense screwed up. So like all they did was get removed from the field for one play. But it was emblematic of, you know, this guy. is not messing around when he when you know every coach says or every good coach you hear oh they're really

into the details like okay like obviously if you're coaching if you're a head coach in the NFL like you did something more times than not um to stand out and to have a really detailed scheme and to have really like a lot of success with the players that you have and the plays that you run so like naturally details fall into that but he's and I got to give Ben credit he's been consistently the same every single time it's somebody's lined up a yard off of where they should be like cole comette was getting it from all angles like in the in the spring and we're all there witnessing ben like blow the whistle dead lay in the dudes because they weren't lined up properly and i think what i appreciate about that is that that happened in may the same amount that it happened in

late august and probably not a good thing that some of the same sort of things keep popping up delay of games um quarterback not breaking the huddle at the right time not getting the line of scrimmage and everybody's set. But like the way that those things are handled has been like there's the through line there is from first team all the way down to like the third string unit, Ben is letting them know if it's not right. And, you know, when when you have a quarterback who was clamoring last year, coach me harder, I want to be held accountable, I want to be coached and taught because I was

in an offense in college that basically let me run around and do whatever I want, like now you've got to deliver on that. And I think to Ben's credit, he has done that so far in a way that was not akin to what Shane Waldron and Matt Eber Fluse were doing last year. So it sounds to me like you think that this is what they needed, what the Bears offense needed and what Caleb Williams needed. So I guess my question is, as he is coaching them to the point of complete lunacy, is, but is this going to actually resonate with Caleb Williams? because I agree with Ben Johnson and I would have been a screaming maniac too with the way that he was bailing on clean pockets, the way it seemed like he didn't know where to go with his reads. There was a lack of detail on that team. And certainly the culture was a joke last year

under Matt Eberflos. It wasn't just this timeout usage. It was even the small things that you saw coming out from the players, how they responded to adversity, the way that they even acted toward the media and the things that they said, they kind of didn't even care about coming out and saying, yeah, this is a mess. This is embarrassing. And I mean, the new sheriff in town thing that does happen a lot, even going back to when Mike Zimmer was hired in Minnesota. Why? Because he was the guy who was going to whip these boys into shape. And you know what? For a while there, that was what they needed and it worked. So how much progress did you see in training camp on a day-to-day basis from Caleb Williams.

I would say over the course of six weeks from where he started and they had 12 installs, which, you know, naturally it's not going to look great when it's day 10 and the coaches are pulling up something and calling a play from day one of install. Like there were a lot of mistakes. And there were a couple days where I remember one red zone period, probably three days into camp that it was like, this was bad. Like he didn't complete a pass for night, like until his 10th attempt on a certain, on, like, when they were doing this red zone period from like seven on seven to team stuff and you like

I know it was like one of those moments where you try not to overreact but it's like damn here you go again is this guy like does he have the capability of processing a lot of information because in an offense like he ran at USC in in Oklahoma he didn't have to process that much he was able to rely on natural athleticism not have as much and when you think about this playbook the amount of motions and shifts that ben in like implements into his offense to throw the defense off Well, sometimes it throws your freaking quarterback off too and the rest of the offense. So it took a while to get all of that to a place where, okay, they can actually start, they can move faster with it, but they can start operating it the way that Ben wants them to.

Because what didn't happen, there was no dumbing down of the playbook. They would still, like, it might have been information overload and it might have been a challenge to a point where even times where Caleb wasn't ready for stuff that they still ran. through. And I remember like Ben said something before the Buffalo joint practice. He's like, I went back. I looked at our game plan. I looked at the game from week 15 last year. And there's plays that we ran against Buffalo that we are nowhere near ready to run right now. And I thought that was a very self-aware moment of a head coach to say something like that because no kidding. Like that offense was three years in to the point where you were running, you know, I mean, that was one of the highest scoring games we had seen of last season when they played the Buffalo

bills but it was just like a heads-up thing like oh okay like this coach gets it like it's not going to be you're not going to be able to operate the full ben johnson offense right away from week one and i think players started to pick this up pretty early that that's not something they're going to master in year one roma dunes they said it on the first days that he spoke during training camp so about a weekend he's like yeah like this is not something we're going to all be experts at week year one i'm like to have that expectation it's not an excuse it I think it sets a fair expectation of what the bear should be and not any of these grandiose expectations

that they're going to be a 10-win team year one under Ben Johnson, even though they feel they're in a better position to win this year. Boy, if you're not in a position to win 10 games in the second year of your young quarterback and today's national football league. I know. They're punning you real quick. But the NFC North, I don't think, is in a position to allow the bears to be in this conversation. So what I wonder about, well, let me stop real quick. could just say, let's all give Jared Gough some credit, my friends, because it sounds like this

offense is the PhD level quarterback detail. And Jared Gough mastered it and thrived in it and won a lot of games and had top ranked offenses where a different quarterback, who's the number one overall pick is struggling to pick this stuff up. So let's shift this from the summertime to the fall time, which is on Monday night and what this means to Monday night. Now, right now, Caleb, Williams over under on fan duel is 218.5 yards for Monday night football. What are expectations in this new offense? Because I think we all want to find this out of, well, Ben Johnson has had success against Brian Flores. He's kind of the only guy who's been able to do that multiple times other than I guess you could say Sean McVay last year. But aside from that, I mean,

Ben Johnson has been kind of the guy who has the antidote to what Brian Flores does. But if Caleb Williams can't do all the things that Jared Goff did, then he doesn't have the antidotes. So, well, how do you feel about that over under? But also, like, what are expectations going into this game for Caleb Williams? I think the 218 number is fair. I might take the under on that because I think, you know, I was trying to figure out, like, what is it going to, what are they going to look like when they come out? And like I had mentioned, nobody motioned or shifts, like, used shifts, like, more than

Ben Johnson's offenses. do. And so if you're thinking about the script, the first 15 plays of this game, I don't think you're going to be trying to get cute with eye candy. You're trying to like hit him with a deep shot early on and go for the jugular when you have a quarterback who was still having issues late into training camp of getting the ball snapped, not killing a play with two seconds left and then getting a delay of game. Like you can't expect that it like given how it looked late in training camp, given how it looked in that Chiefs game, like Ben Johnson did not sugarcoat anything. I think that's another thing I very much appreciated where it was Matt Eberflus,

who might not have said the most truthful things about, you know, the real, what was going on about the team at the podium. Ben said, like, it's not good enough. It's not good enough. I thought we'd be further along. It was sloppy. It was just jointed. Like, all things that he said during training camp, like, you saw that in Kansas City two weeks ago. That's, like, I think that's something that they've got to guard against to where you don't get in second and 19 because Caleb holds onto the ball for six seconds and runs into a sack because it's the rookie tight end false starts and you guys move back because you know he's missing wide open receivers or receiver you know him and rome and dunseh had that one time

like i think i still think obviously rome's most talented receiver in this offense but like there's just stuff that was like god this is so disjointed what is what's up with them there's six weeks into this it should look better than this so i think in a way it will not Certainly for the first month of the season, it's not going to look like its most complex form, as it shouldn't. This is a brand new offense. It's a complex, complicated offense. It's not just, you know, rhythm and timing offense, which obviously that's one thing you have to master. Now this guy is going under center. He had 84 snaps under center total last year, like 525 in the gun. Are you asking him to do a whole heck of a lot of that? Are you going to play to his strengths, which is in the shotgun? Is it dropping, you know, dropping back in passing? I don't think for as much as like training camp was, we're going to push all. all of this at you that we want you to learn, I think that week one will be a portion of that, not a complete course correct, where they're still going to do things that he's comfortable

with that he's proficient in to be able to get this offense in a routine and get him some confidence. Because one thing I noticed the coaching staff do, whether it was in joint practices, whether it was in the preseason games, they wouldn't let him purposefully end on a drive that looked like, this is not good. We don't want to have that sour taste in your mouth. I think that Ben's not going to put him in that position to where, you know, even with the running back situation right now, as injured as they are, I still think that they're going to try to lean on that element of the offense as much as they can and not have Caleb, you know, feel like he has to beat you with his arm in week one. Folks, I know a lot of you out there either own your own business or you are in a management position where you have to hire people. And it can be such a headache. You have to sort through all sorts of resumes of people who aren't qualified. And you end up overlooking some of the. the best candidates. It's tough, but what is not tough is using ZipRecruiter for your hiring need. ZipRecruiter finds amazing candidates for you and fast. And right now, you could try it for

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this sounds a lot like the Caleb Williams we saw last year though the guy that you're describing which is not in full and complete command of the offense and then just having to bail out and scramble and try to make plays which when we were in Chicago last year he bailed out and scrambled and made some of the coolest plays that you will ever see on a football field and I do not doubt that Caleb can go off script and win games sometimes just by doing that But in this offense, if you don't have the details down, I mean, it just sounds like this kind of looks like who Caleb Williams is. And it may be on Ben Johnson to try to figure out, well, what actually works for this guy.

And there's got to be some of your chatter in the Chicago media room. Doesn't this sound like deja vu? Wasn't there another quarterback not so long ago that we were talking about? You know what he really needs is just a different system. You know what he needs is a little more confidence. You know what he needs is to use his athleticism more. Actually, he needs to run the boots. Actually, he needs to whatever.

It all sounds a lot like Justin Fields to me. I think the difference, though, I mean, the armed talent there from Caleb, the off-schedule plays. I mean, Justin could make some of those. But when Caleb's at his absolute best operating outside of the pocket, what do Ryan Poles call it? The surgeon and the artist. Like when he can be the artist, that's, that is what's Heisman trophy winning Caleb Williams. But, you know, one thing he's learned in this, and it's something actually, like, really wanted to get your opinion on

because, like, playing in structure is such a huge thing in this offense. And that is something that the coaching staff has talked about at every turn. We want him to, we don't want to write out the best part of his game, best part of his skill set, the God-given talent, like all of that stuff that makes him great. But he's got to know, like you mentioned, bailing out of clean pockets, not feeling phantom pressure and freaking out, waiting, you know, giving your receivers, the guys who are running those vertical routes, the guys who were really freaking good at contested catches in college like Roma Dunezay, reason he was drafted ninth overall,

give that guy a chance. Instead of thinking that you have to put it all on yourself because that's what you revert to because that's what made you great up until this point. So it made me think because realistically he had, especially the first game, I know that They lose in overtime because he takes that sack, which was just ridiculous in overtime, which something you have to guard against. But up until that point, what was he doing that was beating Flores's blitz? He was getting the ball out quickly. Can he do that?

There are ways to scheme those quick passes to give your guys, like, you know, because what they were really good at in a Ben and Johnson offense in Detroit is that the receivers, pass catchers, any of them, the yards after the catch. And it wasn't just that you had really good receivers, is that they had time, time to do that, time to put a move on the defender. If they get the ball out quickly and they can do that, can that be what Caleb leans into for this first game, quick passes because you're doing it against a defense that,

you know, has been very proficient at throwing wrinkles that, like, take a little bit of time for teams to figure out. Now, one thing I am curious about, though, So Caleb keeps talking about, you know, pre-snap weapons, wanting to use the cadence to his advantage. Some part of me feels like it's not disingenuous is the right word, but it's like you're really going to use the cadence against this defense. Like they're going to, I mean, unless you're forcing them basically to blitz from a standing position because of all the motions and the shifts and maybe that does force them into that spot where like they aren't getting much of a jump on it as they as they would before, then maybe it works to your advantage. to me, him talking about that this week almost feels like we're putting cart before the horse. So, like, I think that what you expect from him early on is try to do the simple things really,

really well, because you're right. Like Justin, we talked about, hey, do X, Y, and Z, not A, B, and C, and F, and Z and all, you know, all these other letters, just do the three things really well. Because that, the couple times, and I mean, like, yeah, he was a running quarterback. like let's be honest about it. Caleb's not. Caleb can win from the pocket if he's not bailing too early. He's shown he can do it. And I think it's just getting, you know, taking taking all of that in stride, but also knowing the offensive lines better. You can actually trust your protection this year. Like you can. The left tackle spot obviously is a little sauce right now, but you can trust

that Drew Dalman is going to be able not get bull rushed into your lap. You can trust that Joe Tuni and Jonah Jackson are better than, you know, Nate Davis and Tevin Jenkins or whoever, Matt Pryor, whoever the heck else. I think he's actually starting night for the Philadelphia Eagles. But it's, I just, I think it's going to take some time before he's comfortable with that. And there will be this thing that we go through here in Chicago where they're going to start calling for the backup quarterback. I promise you.

If it doesn't look good, you know that people are going to be like, well, Tyson Bayesian just got a contract extension. he seems to be able to operate the offense so we saw in preseason games it's going to get loud and I think that for Caleb it's almost going to be having to be guarding against that and knowing that you're working through an offense that might take a month to look normal when you're in real games but feeling the pressure of like I don't want to rush myself through this it's a long term approach but I also need to hurry up pretty quickly and get it in games I mean this is I think a game that carries a massive amount of pressure for Caleb Williams because while it's it's on TV. It's on ESPN. It is the island game. The entire world is going to be watching this one. And it's going to set the tone for how people talk about the bears for this entire first quarter of the season as they adapt to Ben Johnson. If Caleb looks great and Chicago wins the game, then it's going to, I think, have a momentum effect of, well, maybe he's getting it. Maybe, you know, it's not like he had the worst rookie season we've ever seen.

Correct. I mean, like, he was fifth all time. And I know the bar is low. in Chicago. They never had a 4,000 yard passer. We've been over this thousand times. He still threw for 3,500 plus yards, had 20 touchdowns and six interceptions. That's not awful. Right. Sometimes we've talked about this rookie season, even myself included, as if it was as bad

as like Bryce Young's or something from a couple of years ago. It definitely wasn't. The potential was shown in a lot of different games that they didn't finish because Maddie Refluse was their coach or because Caleb didn't have the confidence himself form a little tee for a timeout. But this is also, so there's a, but there's a ton of pressure on him because I think it sets the tone for Chicago's entire season and the narrative around Caleb. I think it's also the worst defense he could possibly face because, well, we think that maybe he thinks he can use the cadence to get a read on which guy is blitzing.

I promise you, you can't because he's, Blake Cashman, I don't know if Harrison Smith's going to play, but Josh Mattelis, like those second level blitzers, they're too good at this to just get some easy tell like it's high school or. whatever. But, you know, I think that he's going to see something that's very different than what he looked at on tape from last year. Because of Jvon Hargrave and because of Jonathan Allen, they don't have to do the blitzing all the time. So if Ben Johnson is thinking, well, we'll just drop in these little crossing routes, you know, behind the linebackers when they come on a blitz. I don't know if they're going to do that a lot. It would be very Flores to just blitz like 4% of the time. Like I'm the guy who blitz is 90% of the time. But for this game, yes, right, on this night, although let's talk about because there are other people on the Chicago Bears, then Caleb Williams, believe it

or not, it's crazy. I am really interested. Ben Johnson had all of his success with a great backfield and a great running game. And to stick with the theme of the over unders here, DeAndre Swift's over under for running in this game is 52.5 yards. If DeAndre Swift runs for 52 yards, The Chicago Bears lose this football game, right? There's just absolutely no way they win if he hits the fan duel over under right on the mark. I know that they do not have much faith in D. Andre Swift, based on what we saw last year, he averaged 3.8 yards for carry. It's a career low.

Did not. The first four games of season, he was averaging under two yards of carry. It was bad, bad. But I think that the problem here is that, yes, he's bad. in a Ben Johnson offense. He had career highs in a Ben Johnson offense before they clearly felt some type of way. And we're like, we're going to trade you to Philadelphia. We're going to use that pick to go get somebody else at running back. He had a good offensive line in both of those spots when he was really successful. The offensive line between the tackles is a much better

spot for DeAndre Swift to be in. So I'm a little surprised to hear that figure being that low. But yes, he's going to have to, he didn't have a great season in terms of like rack and up multiple hundred yard rushing games. If he can have a game like Washington, which got them back in that game when he rushed for over 100 yards and some of those were breaking off big runs, that's what they need from D'Andre Swift. Because the problem is with the run game right now, Roshan Johnson, your RB2 has not practiced in like three and a half weeks, more than that. That was another thing. Did you hear about the legendary Tuesday practice of the second week of August? I forget what the date was. I swear to God, dude, this was the most.

most physical practice I have ever seen in my life. I did. Were they like fully tackling? Yes, for the whole, it was two and a half hours. I have never witnessed something like this. I remember like, you know, people think Zim was a hard ass and everything. I'm like, I don't know. He seemed to like know how to protect his vets. Like they did not have physical practices like this. Not like that. The only time I've ever seen something this physical was the day that Roquan Smith got back to practice after they pulled him off the publicist and they're like you're fine like this is a contract like we're not doing the contract thing like you're back at practice and he laid david montgomery out the first play of this practice i have never heard pads pop that hard in my entire freaking life

and like i remember hearing that again and again and again and again it was like rochon i bring this all in because he's been injured since that practice um and he has a foot injury but that that was building to ben johnson's legend i remember it's like oh we're going to like look back at this one day and be like, see, guys, that's when it all started. That's when the culture shifted. But it shifted to a point where your backfield is completely screwed right now because you don't have your number two back. Kyle Munn, guy, who is their seventh round rookie, who they're pretty high on.

Like, they found a guy who was really good in past protection, did not fumble the ball at all at Rutgers. Like, was one of the more, you know, lathered up backs. They used him a lot. Like, he had a lot of carries over the last two years, but he didn't fumble. They like him. He's also got a hamstring injury. He was limited today.

So right now your backfield is, you know, you've got Travis Homer on injured reserve right now for the first four games of the season. It's very, very thin. So that's where I'd be really worried if I'm the Bears where it's like, I want to lean on the, like just like they're going to do in Minnesota with Aaron Jones and, you know, the backfield that they have there where they're like, oh, we're really comfortable here. We don't have to put it on JJ's shoulders. The Bears want to do that too. They just don't have enough bodies to do it. So if DeAndre Swift can all of a sudden become your workhorse back the way that he was not at any point last year on a consistent basis, then great. But I don't think that that's a realistic thing that like based on like how unhealthy they are and based on what he, what he's shown last year.

So for those fans of arrested development, there's a scene where he says, and that's why you leave a note, very memorable scene. That's why you don't tackle and practice because people get hurt. That's why Kevin O'Connell has a lot of unpadded practices, why he has a lot of walkthrough practices, because he realizes that when you go into week one with everybody at 100%, they'll never be healthier than that. If you walk into the season with half of your team banged up by your own players, that's not going to help you in the long run. If they can't run the ball, the Vikings are going to wait for this one, pin their ears back. Oh, watch out if the ears get pit. No, but seriously, it's going to be insanely bad for Caleb Williams if they are in those situations.

And that's tough. Like, you know, I'm looking at the depth chart right now. Literally everybody behind on the active roster, everybody behind DeAndre Swift is injured and their availability is in question. In the practice squad, they signed a guy named Britton Brown who, you know, was got here, I want to say like a week and a half ago right before Cutdown Day, they signed him. is a part of this and now they've got one running back on the practice squad one um i don't know what you're doing like it's a weird thing but caveat here you know dj more is now running back

he is he lining up in the backfield or is that no he's not gonna do that that's that's something that they do one time in practice so everybody reports it's like lining up the running back in the slot where they'll be like so everyone's like you know they're lining up their running back in the slot. I know. I believe it. This is fake. Because they're, dude, I've seen it more times than not. And this is a situation where they are so freaking desperate right now that I think they're going to have to, at least for this first game. Because everybody wants to know, is DJ the odd man out? Because Rome is the new number one in this offense. Alamedes, the key is got here. And it's just immediately

established chemistry with Caleb. Like, it's been pretty cool to see a dude, like, reinvent his career last year in Washington after it was like up and down in Atlanta, the first couple years. He came on really strong. And then there's Luther Burden who missed a bulk of time in the off season, because he had a soft tissue injury. And he comes back. It's like, whoa, okay, this dude, I understand now why they said he could have been a first round pick. He's very talented, but can you trust him? Can you not? Because he's a rookie. Like, DJ, it's going to have a role in this offense. That's not just the number two receiver, not just being in the slot. Like, I think they're really going to use him in the backfield because they have to. I think they should

sign Stephen Ridley. I think that's the only. Do we know where Stephen Ridley is now? I would assume he's just living his life. Wasn't Stephen, didn't Stephen Ridley do a video, a viral video with Kevin Hart where he raced, this happened, where he raced Kevin Hart. He was like, oh, this former football player, I'm going to race him. And Kevin Hart like tore two Achilles or something like that. This really happened with former brief former Viking Stephen Ridley.

What was your favorite memory of the Stephen Ridley era? It was the press conference that we all asked him about taking over for Adrian and Peterson, I think, or Delvin Cook, which Delvin Cook. Delvin got injured. Right. Week 4. Early in his rookie, yeah, early in his rookie season and Stephen Ridley, who had been picked up, was he with the Patriots before that or something? He had been with like five different teams. I want to say the Steelers.

And then, so they sign him, we all interview him for a long time. I think we talked about 15 minutes. It was, it was a day. I remember there were like coordinators outside at the old Eden Prairie facility. And it was like, Oh, God, I got to get that. I'll have darn, I'm going to miss Stephen Ridley. And then, like, I go back inside. You guys are still talking to him.

And then they cut him, like two days later. We all wrote, like, he's taking over for Delvin Cook. And he was, he was not taking over for Delvin Cook. So I don't think that he is an option for the Chicago backfield. Now, what is J.J. McCarthy looking at with this defense? Because as we're recording this, Jalen Johnson did practice in a limited capacity, which makes me think it's very possible he's going to play. the rest of the defense,

I have described them as having a lot of good players. I don't think they have a lot of great players. I think they're going to have a really good scheme with Dennis Allen. And I don't think this is a game where you just walk in with J.J. McCarthy and you're like, ah, bears. And you just run

them over. I don't think that's been, I don't think, ah, bears has been said at any point in these meetings. But how, like, how good are they as a defense? Well, I think there's still questions, very fair questions about the formidable, what's the word I'm looking for? Formidability? Yeah, that's the one. Formitability pass rush. Like, Montes Sweat is a good player. Is he a great

player? We haven't seen it yet in Chicago. And I know that that's been talked about a lot with him and what's motivating him this offseason and trying to get, you know, trying to show that, okay, I'm a guy that is worth $25.5 million, which they paid me before I ever played a freaking down of football in Chicago. It's like, I just find it, I feel like there's something missing up there. And Dio O'Dangbo, the new past, new edge rusher that they signed this off season, they're betting on his ceiling. He's a young player who had a decent career with the Colts, didn't get the second contract, but they view it as this, like, we'll take his game to the next level. He didn't really do much in the preseason. Like, nothing that really

stood on, be like, wow, okay. Like, they finally have a good, like, compliment to sweat. So he's not getting doubled and chipped all the time, which they said, that was what they want to do this off season, find some peace to free up Montes' sweat on the other side. It doesn't really seem like that's happened. Where the biggest difference will be is on the interior. Getting Grady Jarrett, I know a lot of people scoffed at that. Like this dude had an ACL tear two years ago. I scoffed.

Like, and I get the skepticism, but I think it's the way that they're going to rotate guys on the interior where the past rush is probably going to start from inside. It's not going to just be your edges crashing, but like the work that they do with him, Jervon Dexter looks really good year three like he's you know that was the big big fish defensive tackle that they got in the draft three years ago now um I think it took him a while to put like put it all together because he went from like you know two gapping to one gap like it's it was a big you know and honestly like their new defensive tackle they got from uh Texas A&M had a very similar like progression and he was hurt most of camp but um I think that that's the change that is actually going to allow the back end to cover better than they did last year.

And, you know, he brought up Jalen Johnson. This one, I guess, such a hard time. I don't, I mean, will he play? If he does, he's on a pitch count. Will he shadowed Justin Jefferson if he's playing? No. How could you? The guy missed two months of training camp because he had a groin injury.

And then today they put him on there with a calf injury. So it's more than just what we saw. And maybe I don't know if that happened in practice yesterday because we didn't get an injury report from being out there. but I think a limited Jalen Johnson is a is not I wouldn't play that you need him all you need him all year and so you know what does that do when you know secondary here super banged up you've got a fifth round rookie who's on who's missing the whole season because he's on the NFI with a personal issue you've got a strong backup in Terrell Smith who's also gone for the year with a knee injury. Kyler Gordon's been dealing with the hamstring injury Jalen Johnson's been injured you've got Nashon Wright who you know from Minnesota You know, he's had a good camp, but there have been moments. I mean, my God, the Kansas City game did not look good at all.

He gave up like 50 yards of penalties and, you know, nearly gave up one of the biggest plays of that game. I think the secondary is the liability of this game. I really do. And so they're probably going to be using, you know, they play a lot of dime, which is new here. You know, I would imagine they're going to try to get the safeties are healthy right now. They're going to probably try to have three safeties on the field quite a bit just to overcompensate for some of the injuries. they have. Really sounds like you shouldn't hit your players with a battle axe during preseason and training camp and then they won't all be injured all the time. That does not

sound promising against a receiver group that has Justin Jefferson, but also Adam Thielen is here now. T.J. Hawkinson, out of the backfield, Jordan Mason and Aaron Jones. This is where they are expected to carry a lot of the load with J.J. McCarthy. Now, I know that you haven't seen McCarthy at camp. You were covering your own 2024 draft prospect. But what do you think about McCarthy facing this defense? You know, the fun thing I think here is like, this is obviously a quarterback matchup that people want. It's the reason that they got the Monday night game to begin with. Two guys drafted a couple picks apart from each other in the first round and two coaches who are supposed to be these quarterback gurus. And everybody's got something they're dealing with.

Like Caleb has 17 games experience, but he's learning a brand new offense. This is year one for him. J.J. McCarthy doesn't have that experience. He's coming off an injury, but he's also been with Kevin O'Connell now for two years, and he knows this offense. And it's been tailored to him, and he's been learning it behind the scenes for more than a year. So, like, who has the advantage there, the guy who has the experience, but is learning a new scheme that is throwing so much more at him mentally than anything else,

or the guy who doesn't have any real playing experience outside of a preseason game or two. and but has the institutional knowledge of the offense so i'm really excited about like that to get to see what that yields because you know we don't typically get like openers i just kept thinking about this like two quarterbacks at very similar stages of their career i think sets the table nicely for for what the season's going to usher in not only in the nfc north with a division game but like for the rest of the rest of the year but what i've like you know I heard about, wow, look at him like torching the Patriots defense in this joint practice. And he apparently looked incredible from that.

And then there's like days where it sounds very similar to Caleb, where there's operational issues and stuff that you expect with a young quarterback. What I'm most curious about, though, and just knowing the whole rhythm and timing element of this Kevin O'Connell offense and what like what Kirk did in it, what Sam Darnold did in it, and now what's expected of J.J. McCarthy, how much of this like, pre-snap is going to fall on him? Or are there ways that KOC is trying to simplify it to not put that on the shoulders of a young quarterback that could then, you know, get the ball to Justin Jefferson and how healthy is JJ going to look? I mean, obviously, excuse me, that JJ. J.J. McCarthy has the knowledge of Adam Thieland because Thielen has played in this offense, but they also spent time together during the offseason working out. Like, I feel like he's set up to succeed in a lot of ways that are similar to how Caleb's set up to succeed in a lot of ways, but the caveat here

is he has a healthy backfield and two, you know, two strong running backs that I think will be the difference maker in all of this because their, their off seasons kind of mirrored each other in a lot of ways. Vikings flip their offensive line, you know, three fifths of it. The, excuse me, the bears flipped their offensive line, three fists of it. The Vikings then got free fries, fries, what are we calling him? Fries. Yeah, fries. He's a guard. You're calling him fries. I don't know why I thought it was freeze, but then they got him. They got the other dude from the Colts as well. Ryan Kelly.

Ryan Kelly. Like they like the, the whole idea this off season felt very similar to what the bears were doing from what the Vikings were doing and vice versa. So all of it's done to help a young quarterback take away the like the vulnerable areas like the pressure up the middle to try to help them both set up for success. So I'm, I'm very curious to see how JJ looks under those circumstances based on the fact that we've only seen them in limited preseason games.

So the only difference. I think in the description, because ups and downs for sure until the end of camp and then it seemed like McCarthy turned a corner. I thought McCarthy was in command of the offense pretty quickly. It was really throwing the ball where you're just talking about a guy who has had to sit out an entire year and had to relearn a lot of the footwork and stuff that he had down last year and developing that touch, which they talked about over and over layering the ball and and working it over the linebackers. I did a whole thing, a whole story with Kurt Warner

about how to layer a football. Then we threw footballs at each other and it was great. But by the end of camp, that was starting to come together. But I don't think there was ever a lack of understanding or lack of command. And there wasn't that, there wasn't like that many operational issues

where they weren't jumping off sides all the time. Guys weren't looking around being like, JJ, what the heck? Where was that? It was really just like there was a seven on seven against the Patriots where he completed eight straight passes and then the ninth one flew 20 yards over a guy for an interception. It was like, I guess that one slipped out of your hand, but there was a little too much of the accuracy.

But I think in KOC's offense, if you can run all that other stuff, you will succeed. So this matchup will tell us a lot about how much he was able to learn as a passer. But I think he's going to get guys lined up and run the plays on time. Now, I only have a couple of minutes before I have to do a radio appearance. So this is going to put a lot of pressure on you. Maybe more pressure on you right now than is on Caleb Williams maybe on maybe more than Caleb Williams or J.J. McCarthy in week one. This is a speed run pie chart from you. Here's there's four potential outcomes of this football game Monday night. There is a Vikings blowout. There is a Bears blowout. There is a close win by the Bears and there is a close win by the Vikings. I want

you to give me the percentage chances. You've got a large calculator. computer that takes up most of your apartment just for these pie charts. Okay. Blow out Vikings. Blow out Bears. Close win Vikings. Close win bears. It's very simple, very straightforward.

Very simple, very straightforward. Yet you're talking to me when I'm in the middle of this. Okay. Sorry. I don't walk and talk at the same time. So there we go. Do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do. It's a pie chart.

That's what you do. You only got 30 seconds because I got to go soon. Well, you should have thought about this and like planned out your show a little bit better. Oh, wow. Lashing out. You know, okay. All right. 30, that adds up to 40.

All right, let's see. 30, 40. What is the math here? You look like Jonathan Granard is about to sack you right now. Can you imagine? I look. I'm Braxton Jones in this moment. All right, here we go.

on national television all the time. I'm not supposed to do math on national television. Like, if this doesn't add up to a hundred, that's your fault. Okay. Well, just like, just like Caleb Williams blaming everybody else for his problems. All right. Here we go. Vikings blow out.

I put it at 30%. Okay. The way that I look at that is this defense gets the, gets the jump on Caleb Williams. They're playing in third and forever. They're off the field. like negative plays from, you know, from that respect, but also the operational issues we talked about. Like, is that going to be a problem for the bears?

Like, you know, the pre-snap stuff, does it carry over in the regular season? Bears blowout. I put it at 10%. I think that's that's my lowest number I have here. It does not feel realistic based on how complicated this offense is. I know I really haven't talked to you much about the defense outside of like a little about Jalen Johnson and like Montes Sweat and like what this defense has. the reason I put it at 10 is because they're missing T.J. Edwards right now.

They're, you know, when you think about someone who's going to be stopping Aaron Jones, if he's not out there, you know, stopping Jordan Mason, that worries me. That worries me. Who plays for the Bears right now? Like no one. No one or Ruben Hippolyte is that second linebacker to be next to T.J. That would be next to Tremaine Edvins. So I said, Bears blowout to 10%.

That's a lowest outcome. A close Bears win. I put it 20%. Cairo Santos has kicked really well in the preseason. and he had a 57-yard field goal at Soldier Field against the dolphins. I think if it comes down to what we saw in overtime last year, and it comes down to a field goal to win, if the bears were able to put themselves in position,

they won't be blocked this time. Okay. And then close Vikings win. This is 40%. Okay. Did it add to 100? I think you did it. Oh, my God, I did it.

I did it. 30. Okay, let me go through them. Let me go through it real quick. 30 plus 10 is 40. Yeah. Plus 20 is 60. Yep.

Plus 40 is 100. This is so great. So you've got the Vikings at a 70% chance to win this game. This sounds cliche. I think it's going to end up being like 27, 24 Vikings. I think it's going to be a close game because like the thing I was talking about the quarterbacks to me, that's probably where it swings like a little bit in favor of Minnesota. Because I don't think when you're talking about the operational stuff, the stuff that kills you

before the ball's even snapped, you're not hearing that same sort of thing with Minnesota. And I think bringing Adam Thielen in will be huge. I think they're going to lead on the run. I don't think it's going to be a huge passing night for J.J. McCarthy either way, for either quarterback, but certainly not for him when he can lean on that backfield. Yep. McCarthy in the props is at 220.5, which I think it's like right on for me. If he throws for 2.15, 220, they run for over 100 yards.

I think that they can win that game the way you're describing it. I agree with a 70, 30 type of split for this. The Vikings are experience of playing in this system, both offensively and defensively. It's not a complete overhaul like it is. And they're the healthier team. I don't know about Darisaw yet, but they're the healthier team.

And I think that they should go into Chicago and win. But we will see, and I will be there with you at Soldier Field on Monday night. Real football. We're back together then. Thank you so much, Courtney, for coming on the show. you are very welcome i'm so proud of myself in my pie chart you did a great job okay we'll see you monday football bye