Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - ESPN's Kalyn Kahler talks Darnold, McCarthy, and Williams

Episode Date: December 19, 2025

ESPN's Kalyn Kahler joins the show to react to Sam Darnold's incredible comeback win on Thursday night and discuss the Vikings' QB situation. 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 Fandul, Matthew Collar here. And joining me on the show to talk some quarterbacks is ESPN's Kalin Kaler, who we have to really appreciate the footballing nature of you grinding through a cold to still do this football podcast. So I really appreciate you coming back on the show. And Kaelan, I think the best place to start is what we just saw last night. Rams, Sam Darnold finds a way to come back and win in overtime.

And, you know, the QB wins people. I mean, he gets a punt return. He gets some defensive stops. Matthew Stafford goes for 400 plus. I mean, what, what a, what a way for Sam Darnold to slay a dragon by bouncing the ball of somebody's head for a two point conversion. The only way it was going to happen. That was crazy.

I still, like, I haven't had time yet this morning. I was looking last night and I didn't see anything on Twitter or anybody tweeting any quotes. I need to know if Zach Charbonnet knew what he was doing or if he was just like absent mindedly, oh, yeah, I'm going to go like, you know, pick up this ball because who knows, right? Like, I just want to know how much actual strategy and thought was going on in his mind because I'm sure players are being coached to do that. scenarios of like, you know, if it's an incomplete past, but you're not really sure, like, just, you know, just go, go get to the ball, whatever.

Like, I would just love to know. And I haven't had time yet today. I'm sure somebody asked him in Seattle, like, what was going on? Because when they panned to him on the sideline, he did look like, like, really self-satisfied, like, yeah, yeah, yeah, I knew what I was doing that on purpose, you know? Like, because to me, I was like, it did look backward to me. It looked genuinely like they got this right. I think the part that was so confusing was, and now we're not talking about Sam Darnold

really anymore, but it's fascinating. But like, the part that was so confusing, I think is the delay of like how could the officials on the field didn't recognize that in the moment. They didn't see it in the moment. And I will say it was, I think it was kind of hard to see in real time. But I think the replay got it right. I do think the recovery was like a little, you know. Yes. Yes. It was recovered, but it, you know, but it was a little bit, um, loose on the like, yeah, yeah, yeah, X Charbonate totally meant to do that. So I do want to know. I really need to know if he really meant to do that or like what was going on in his mind in that moment.

Well, I do seen anything from him. I have not, but I did see Wade Phillips say that you should always coach defensive players to go pick up the football just in case. Right. And that goes for. even when a quarterback's arm is hit and the referees are saying no, no, no, you know, it's incomplete pass. But if you're the guy who just wanders over, picks up the football, then if they go back and review it, you might have a fumble recovery. So that's exactly what happened. And, yeah, the grin on Zach Charbonnet's face was just tremendous camera work by the folks at Amazon, just that little like, yeah. Yeah. I also was like, I was at a Christmas party. We had the game on but not with the sound and I was like what is happening like oh my gosh like I'm trying to figure out what is going on this replay with no sound and then I watched it with sound and it really

wasn't that much more helpful to be honest so um yeah I was just like what is that this is crazy um but yeah I mean what a game from San Arnold I mean just to come back from what had been some tough against L.A. this year and win in overtime and get that last two-point conversion right over the middle to the tight end. That was awesome. And it does make you think, like, I mean, I'm working on a Raider story right now, and Sam Darnold has come up a couple times in the reporting of the Las Vegas Raiders, because if they wanted to, they could have pursued him in the offseason as well, in the same way. that Seattle did. And, you know, would he have picked Las Vegas over Seattle? I highly doubt it.

However, who knows? Money talks, right? Like, so, and that was a team that had some, I believe they had significant cab space at the time. And he's come up a few times of like, you know, Diana Rossini reported, I don't have the reporting on this yet, but Diana had reported that Tom Brady didn't want Sam Darnold. And that is why they opted. to trade for gino because brady didn't like sam and i can kind of see why brady wouldn't because they are not the same style of quarterback whatsoever um and honestly like now we're also not talking about sam darnald again but this is just another tangent like it's going to be interesting to see what happens with brady and vegas because and again i also still don't know

the degree to which he's actually involved like that is still a bit of a mystery to me however let's say he is as involved as mark davis has publicly said he is i could see this becoming a john elway scenario where john elway keeps looking for himself as as the quarterback and is never able to find it and i just i could see brady doing the same thing where it's like these guys that were just so elite who had the the mental prowess to play the game that way that that's what they're looking for in a quarterback and they're missing guys like Sam not to say that Sam Darnold is not intelligent he definitely is but he doesn't play in that same way he's more of a post snap operator than your pre-snap operator so he does really well in

the Shanahan style offense whereas a quarterback like Brady like wouldn't you know it's not the same fit and so it's really interesting to see you know how he's fitting in and Seattle and like, how the Raiders just were not, didn't pursue him at all. Isn't it amazing how one game, I guess you could call it two with Detroit and Los Angeles, but everyone would have forgotten the Detroit game if they had beaten the Rams and they had gone to the NFC championship or something. So it's really one game in Glendale, Arizona, a game that was moved because of wildfires where the Vikings go to play the Los Angeles Rams.

And the Rams were not that good of a team during the regular season. season, but they got a week off before that because they had rested their starters so they could solidify the matchup against the Vikings so Sean McVeigh could prepare for Sam Darnold for two weeks, whereas the Vikings went to Detroit, played Dan Campbell's ankle biters and came into that game, I think pretty banged up from a very physical game. And the offensive line didn't have Christian Darrasaw and they just get destroyed by Kobe Turner and Young and verse and some great blitzes by the Rams and everything kind of goes wrong. They get wildly outcoached in that football game.

And everyone says about Sam Darnold, oh, it was fake. He's not actually good. It was just Kevin O'Connell, coach of the year. It was just Justin Jefferson. It was just their system. And the Vikings are just so well set up that any quarterback could do this, what Sam Darnold did. And the problem with things like this is we would expect that the football people would

not be immune or would be immune to these narratives, but they're absolutely not. And I think that a lot of the league watched that game was like, ah, yeah, Sam's not worth it. Can't really win with that guy. Let's just draft our own guy. Let's just not, you know, if you're Tennessee, like, let's not bother with that or if you're the giants, we'll just draft our guy. Sam's not good enough. It was just Kevin O'Connell. And I think history really does show us though, Caitlin, that those narratives often don't hold up with players. I can't win the big one. And last night's game, does anything display better how ridiculous that can be? Because the Rams were the way better football team in that game, punt return for touchdowns, some crazy stuff.

And then Darnold comes through with this brilliant drive and brilliant throw at the end to get it for the two point conversion. And then all of a sudden, you're the winning quarterback. And it's like, well, how many quarterbacks were losers because they lost 28 to 3 lead to Brady or the Panthers, Jake Delome, almost a Super Bowl, champion, a guy kicks the kickoff out of bounds and gives them field goal position. Like there's so many things that happen in a game. And yet we paint a guy who threw for 4,300 yards and 35 touchdowns as like, well, the entire evaluation of Sam Darnold comes down to these games. And I felt like Thursday, it was, that was what people were going to do too. Like if he lost to the Rams and halfway through the game, look at everybody's tweets,

this is why you don't buy into Sam Darnold, everyone says. And it's, like with what other quarterback do we do this as harshly with darnold i guess it's because of the seeing ghost thing or whatever but in the regular season the guy is uh 30 and nine in his last 39 games and we're still saying oh yeah he's not good enough it's just a weird thing and i feel like applies to him more than almost anybody else in the NFL yeah and i think i would say like from conversations that i've had about sam and it's just like another just there was one other team this off season that um i was talking to a coach there who was like yeah what a love to snag sam darnold now they said that in october so did they really want sam darnold in the offseason i don't know

but just from i you know this is sort of just the anecdotal reporting but like to vegas and this other club like it was the coaches who were interested in sam darnold and it was the office that said no we're not going to we're going to draft a quarterback or we're going to trade virgino smith like so it's interesting seems with him in particular at least just anecdotally it seems that there's like a coaching slash front office divide on how people in the NFL view him and i think that the coaches view him more charitably and are more like yeah we like what we see in sam Donald, like, I don't think coaches necessarily, at least the ones I talked to didn't seem like they wrote him off after that Rams game last year, that playoff game.

I think it was more of a front office sense of like, well, we'd rather just draft a quarterback and then we'd, when actually you could just have done both again, although I don't know if he would have picked that scenario, right? Like maybe he's going to pick a scenario where they're not. also drafting a quarterback at the same time. But, yeah, it's really interesting, and it's going to be interesting to see. I think Daniel Jones is in a similar camp of Sam,

where one bad game, everyone's like, it's over, it was an illusion, he's not good. Unfortunately, he's injured now. So I actually think for Daniel Jones, that's going to be the bigger hurdle for him to overcome, is can he actually stay on the field furniture? entire season because he's had an injury history in New York before he went to Indianapolis. And I think that's going to be, it's going to be really interesting to see how the Colts

handle extending him, how long, you know, his future there because, you know, had he not been injured, it seemed like that was going to be their guy for the, you know, for Sierra Bill future. But now that's entered a lot of questions into the equation. I feel like for Daniel Jones, it's sort of a similar scenario of Sam Darnold where they're constantly having to reprove themselves, reprove themselves win a big game, win a big game, win a big game, win a big game to be considered, you know, like an actual starter and someone who should be in the league. And it would be really interesting. What do you think would have happened on the Vikings end had they won that game? I think if the Vikings win that game, they end up, let's just say they lose the next week to Philadelphia and it's not great.

I think that they end up franchise tagging Sam Darnold in that case because I don't know that there was ever a scenario unless let's say they won the NFC championship. Okay, then you're signing him to a five year contract extension. But this is how crazy it is. Like you're dealing with if this game works out, then we do this. And if this game works out, we do that. And it's like, wait, what? that's how that's how we're making decisions here. But that's really what it has to come down to sometimes in football.

And I think that they would have franchise tagged him had he beat the Los Angeles Rams in that game. And then that would have been the best case scenario because if he came back this year and they ended up winning 12 more games, all right, you've got your franchise quarterback. You extend him. You trade J.J. McCarthy for a top, probably top 10 pick if he hadn't played at all, right? Because of the amount of desperation around the. NFL for quarterbacks. So you trade J.J. McCarthy, then you use that draft pick to help build around and supplement

some of the issues with the salary cap. But, you know, even then, like, you're probably talking about him being expensive, but you can, if you, you know, it's a four year deal or whatever else, then you manipulate the cap for the first couple years. You get, you know, still Jefferson, Darrasol, all those players. And if it blows up in your face, then you just turn to J.J. McCarthy halfway through the season and then you go from there. That was the perfect sort of split the different scenario that even if you were still kind of sort of trying to find out how good Sam Darnold is, you had that built in.

But what they decided to do was because it was so bad, they decided to stick with the plan. And I think for Sam Darnold, well, clearly this has worked out great for him. It worked out great for him. But he's never had to have a situation where he's thinking about someone else. Like I remember this is one of the funny things to look up is when reporters asked. their coach if Jalen Milro had a chance to win the job. And he was like, excuse me? Like, do you guys think that little of a guy who threw for 4,300 yards and 35 touchdowns?

And I also, I mean, I think what the Vikings were really focused on was their plan. Their plan through the entire time that Cuezio daff, Almenza and Kevin O'Connell had been here, was to draft the quarterback and take advantage of the rookie quarterback contract. I'm not sure they ever considered a scenario where he wouldn't be able to be coached up, wouldn't be ready, wouldn't be able to connect with Justin Jefferson. And they just thought if we build a strong enough team around him, we'll just coach it up, make a couple of plays a game and we're right in the playoff race again.

And what they missed was with young quarterbacks, you have no idea. No one ever does. I don't care how many training camp practices. I don't care. I mean, even with a good number of games, sometimes we have no idea. And I think that's the one that they, that they didn't really think through maybe enough was they never believed it was possible. It seems that there was this scenario where he was just going to start out and not be anywhere close to ready. Yeah, that's so interesting.

So you would you have then, you would have advocated for what you just said of franchise tag him, give J.J. McCarthy another year of learning if he has to play, he has to play, trade him. If it goes, well, yeah, I mean, that makes a lot of sense. I did. I would love to truth serum. I would love to truth serum O'Connell right now and be like, what do you, what are you thinking? Like, yeah, so I, I did. And I was mauled by angry killer bees. So this is one thing that has to be mentioned is that like there, there was this, I've called it

Mithcarthy, which isn't meant to insult. It's not meant to insult him, but like, Kevin, O'Connell, after he got hurt, said, oh, we know we've got our franchise quarterback here. So they gave, and they still might. And we're going to talk about that. But they gave the impression to the fan base, like, oh, oh, we're good. And the fans didn't even fully enjoy the 14 win season because they were like, yeah, but wait till next year when we see McCarthy.

It was like, you guys understand that this kid hasn't played yet and might actually have some tough times in doing it because this is the NFL? Yeah. I know, and it's crazy because, like, they really did sell that because, I mean, I thought the Vikings would be, I thought the Vikings would be like the Bears this year. I did not think the Bears would be in the position that they are fighting for the top of the NFC North with a very good chance to win the division that in the first year of Ben Johnson. Like, I thought that would be next year for Chicago. I thought the Vikings were going to be in a position to be that team. as you said even if

McCarthy was not stellar out the gate like I thought they would they had enough pieces mostly Levi-Drake Rodriguez my guy no but I thought I thought they were going to be the team

to be you know battling Detroit and Grey Bay and so Detroit has surprised me as well a little bit with some of the struggles that they've had which I would put a lot on on their offensive line injuries like i mean so much of their offense depends on on that offensive line being just perfect and amazing and top of the league and they've just had some issues there this season and uh the frank rag now retirement on retirement that was so exciting

for like 30 minutes and then it was like no he's got a hamstring tear that was so sad that was going to be an amazing story. I was, I was really excited about that one. Yeah, that was a bummer. But yeah, I think, like, I expected the Vikings to be the Bears this season. And instead, the Bears are the Bears this season. So that's been, it has surprised me, I would say. So the question that I have pertaining to McCarthy, obviously, we're trying once again to use small sample sizes, hey, what is he doing these next three games? And that will decide. What do you think of if they get to the end of this and are not feeling great about where McCarthy stands. I have been on the side of, oh, no, no, no, no. You don't get to go get another

quarterback. Like, you guys did this for Sam Darnold, who might be watching the first round of the playoffs waiting to find out his opponent if things go right. Like, you better make it work. That's how, that's how I felt about it. But what do you think about the potential of available quarterbacks this offseason. I'm trying to, I should have done my homework to see who's available in terms of free agents. It's not great, but you have like your Kyler Murray. You have your. Oh, Kyler, right.

Oh, God. Jeremy Fowler, your teammate floated that for the Vikings the other day. Interesting. I mean, I guess I could see how maybe that pairing would be interesting with O'Connell and Murray. I don't hate it but I don't know I kind of think I agree with you

I well I don't know I mean everything Kevin O'Connell says about J.J. McCarthy not to say that he would be like stubbornly invested but I would think he would be like stubbornly invested to develop him and make it work and I do think that as where we are right now I think there's definitely still a lot of potential with J.J. McCarthy and a lot of good stuff going on to build on for next year to the point where I would absolutely not write him off at this point and make any, you know, major quarterback moves right now.

Now, who do they have? Giants, Lions Packers. Lions Packers, obviously, that's, you know, going to be a tough end to your season there. So those games will be interesting to see how he does against those two defenses. But, yeah, I think I would, I think I would stick with, like, I don't know that Kyler Murray is necessarily an up, an upgrade to that much of an upgrade. Yeah, who else, who else are the free agents? I mean, like, I mean, Mack Jones is a possibility for a trade. Oh, right, Mac Jones. Yeah.

That could be, that I would do, I might do that. Like, I could see that happening. Similar system, obviously. Mac, I think, has shown a lot this year. I mean, the grittiest QB2 performance of possibly all time, recent memory. That was nuts. Like, there's actually been a couple, I was thinking about it. I'm like, there's actually been a couple good Thursday night games this year.

That was a Thursday night game. That went to overtime. That was also the Rams, right? Niners, Rams. Rams have had two really crazy Thursday night football games. You know, Mac Jones puking on the sideline. Like, I mean, that's, yeah, that's a good one. That I could, I could entertain that. Although, again, is it a huge upgrade?

I don't know. I mean, like, if you're going to bring in another quarterback, I feel like it's got to be someone who's like, definitely, definitely an upgrade. And I don't know that someone like that is going to be available, really. I think what you're looking for there would be if four games into next season, it's just going awfully and you're one and three. You need to be like, uh, to the bullpen. Who do we turn to?

Yeah. Right. And somebody solid. Carson Wentz is not going to be that guy. No, no. But you, you mentioned, uh, Caleb Williams, though. And that's interesting as it applies to McCarthy because that could not have been worse that situation last year. And now it's like every year is a new year in the National Football League and Ben Johnson. Holy cow has done a great job there. What do you think Ben Johnson and Caleb Williams have connected on to make this work as well as it has? I mean, I think the biggest thing, the most obvious thing that Caleb has fixed this year is getting the ball out.

and not taking sacks and that i mean that was obviously the biggest problem for him last year he led the league in sacks i think he had was sacked like 60 something times um it was bad it was really bad and obviously they made some big changes to the offensive line that have really helped a lot so it's partially on changing your offensive line bringing in several free agents there that have been really an upgrade and improved that offensive line a ton but also I think Caleb is just more confident in knowing I got to go somewhere with this I cannot you know and honestly he's a little bit less fun to watch if we're being honest like I mean there's been some amazing throws and some amazing you know throws on the run that you're like how did he throw that off of one

foot side arm you know some really really really impressive physical throws that are really awesome to see because you're like that is why they drafted him that's it and we didn't see a ton of that last year we saw a lot of him scrambling and doing some um you know kind of magician like scrambles but this year we've seen a lot more of the impressive on the move throws off of one foot that are i think are going to become hopefully like a trademark of his game going forward so but i think he's more confident now in where he's going with the ball now he still struggles with accuracy his accuracy ben jonson came into the season saying we want him to hit 70 percent he is i don't know where he is right now i could look it up let's see um it's not 70 percent it was like high 50s last time i

checked 57 i want to say but um so he still does struggle with accuracy and i think that's 58 58 okay um i think that's something that they're going to have to that's going to be a next season like all right this now we're going to fix this right okay we fixed your tendency to take sacks and hold on to the ball too long and try to do too much now we need to get you more accurate um which is i mean That just takes time. We saw Josh Allen make that transformation. Took him a few years. So I think Caleb, I think he'll get there.

But yeah, I would say the biggest thing is just he's not taking sacks unnecessarily. He's not taking unnecessary sacks anymore. And that's huge. I mean, he's not killing drives anymore. And now they're winning games because of that. And so I also would say he said something earlier this season that, was really interesting i'm just paraphrasing because i don't remember exactly what he said but it was something along the lines of like because he now feels more comfortable with this offense

as opposed to last year and like feels like he knows what he's doing he said hit the bears go into the games thinking they can win and beat anyone and he said last year that was not the case which i think is a huge change i mean that's just a mindset Just aren't even necessarily, but that comes from the actual coaching changes that Ben Johnson has made. So, like, you know, we could see in the way they were playing last year. They didn't think they could win. And they didn't win. And they fell apart in the fourth quarter consistently last season.

And this year, now they've won games this year that they should not have won, which is a good sign. That's a sign of, hey, these guys believe, right? Like, they're fighting until the end. And actually, when I was at the Packer Bear game two weeks ago, Josh Jacobs, the Packers running back, I asked him, I was like, hey, because he was on Green Bay last year as well. And I said, hey, what is the biggest difference that you see in the Bears this season? And he said, they actually believe they can win. Like, that was literally his answer. They actually have a belief that they can win games.

And I'm like, wow. And I'm like, well, how do you notice that as like an opponent playing? them and he was like I mean guys are giving more effort he literally was like they're trying harder and he said I you know we see what Ben Johnson is saying like we hear what he's saying in the media we we hear the players saying what he's saying like we see his message extended through the players and what they're saying to the media and he's like we listen to that and like it's obvious that the players are believing what Ben Johnson is preaching so I thought that was really an interesting comment from like a division rival about their opponent of seeing the growth

in a year's time. Yeah. And I think you can see the confidence of Caleb Williams running the offense, something that I notice. And I think that Caleb needed somebody to come in and grab the bull by the horns and say, I am the captain now. Like you, you don't run this franchise. I do. And because, you know, usually it works the opposite way when it's like not your guy. it's sort of like, oh, well, you know, but when in this case, not being his guy might have actually been a benefit. Like, I'll get rid of you. They hired me for this many years.

I'll just find another quarterback. If you don't get it, there was like a vibe there. And when they would not get the call in right, not get the cadence right, I mean, it seemed crazy at the time to be just yanking your first team offense off of the practice field. But at the same time, it's probably what Caleb needed because he's been coached so softly for his entire career. Hey, hey, if you just want to scramble around, do whatever you want is cool. You know, and then there was, you know, Tyler Dunn's story, our friend Tyler about how, you know, the coaches tried to like give him the USC offense and his cadence, which of course,

everyone figured out immediately in the NFL because Lincoln Riley is not an NFL coach. And it's like Ben Johnson, no, no, no, no. I have a history. I have credibility of getting elite offenses. And this is how we're going to do it. And I, and I also think it can't be underscored. that offensive line and how they run block. No one wants to go against that. No one wants to have the ball pounded down their face a million times. Then Caleb just has to do a couple great things. Interesting.

I was looking at Super Bowl odds on Fandule. And the Chicago Bears are plus 2,200. They're essentially like the last team that's there in the playoffs right now. The only teams that are in the playoffs below them for Super Bowl odds would be the chargers and either the bucks or carolina and that's it so the betting universe is not buying the chicago bears should they for the super bowl yeah no i don't think so either yeah um now would it be so fun for at first time head coach to take a team to the super bowl yeah now i mean unless there's epic collapses on the Rams front on I mean Seattle's front I think Seattle's

probably a better team um the Bears still just don't have a if they had a better pass rush I might have more faith in and that but they as at this moment in time they do not and it's going to be like I'm excited to see this Green Bay game again because the game at Green Bay first of all, Micah Parsons, so disappointing because he, I mean, my dad was like, Micah didn't even touch Caleb in that game.

And I go, no, he didn't. However, like, I actually spent the majority of that game, I was like, I'm just going to watch Michael Parsons. Like, I just want to watch Michael Parsons. I want to see what he's doing. I mean, he was double-teamed more than any other team. That was his highest double-team rate against the Bears. And he was forcing,

I mean, Michael Parsons dictated their entire offensive game plan. Now, their offensive game plan was successful. So that, I mean, sure, but, like, they had never run that much boot action up until that point. Like, he completely determined how they were going to play, and they were going to play away from him, essentially. So now that you don't have a player like that, it's going to be a total. different game this Saturday. It's going to be a completely different look than two weeks ago because he was, you know, without impacting the stat sheet, he was all over that game and doing a ton to change the way they were running their offense. So where was I going with this? Oh, and the bears

on the other side did had like no pass rush to speak up. Their secondary had a tough game, that game as Walt and they've had they've had some injuries on defense um they're getting some they're getting um i think they're getting edmonds back this week right um anyways some players are coming back for the bears on defense i think if they are able to generate more of a pass rush it's more believable to be like yeah yeah they could be in the super bowl but i'm not buying it right now i think they're going to have maybe a playoff win i could see them winning a playoff game for sure and that's i think that'll probably be it i also think that the rams who by the way are still Super Bowl favorites at plus 490.

Well, they should be. I mean, they all played Seattle in the game. They should be. And Matthew Stafford just casually throws for what, 457 or something. And it's like, you lose the game. So crazy. But that's not something that I think Seattle can really repeat or probably

anyone else against the Rams. But I did want to get your quick thought on Jordan Love and just where he stands right now. because he's in the MVP conversation. I think it's Stafford running away at this point. But totally, at least he's put himself in that discussion. Do we just have to, as a society, acknowledge that Jordan Love is just a really good quarterback at this point or where are you, where are you standing on that? Yeah, I think we do.

I mean, I think he's grown a lot over the last couple of years. He still will throw a bad interception on a kind of a regular basis. But, you know, I think that just kind of kind of calls. comes with um comes with who he is as a quarterback and when he's in when he's in it he's in it like when he's in his like flow state or whatever it's called like he's kind of unstoppable um so i do think it's time to recognize he's a really good quarterback and i mean again going back to that bear packer game two weeks ago uh i almost said bow nicks that's not his name melting the cornerback sometimes receiver like had a 45-yard touchdown gets like they're always

doing that the backers are always the backers with their quarterbacks that they have are always able to like just hit a deep crazy touchdown with someone who like barely touches the ball and you're like what like where did this come from so um I'm excited to see who that player will be on Saturday as well, because it's going to be somebody that you don't expect. And it's not going to be Romeo Dobbs for everybody. One of my friends has Romeo on his fantasy team. And he's like constantly just like, God, yeah. Like, you know, he's always cussing because he's like, Bo Melton.

What? Like, why couldn't that have been Romeo Dobbs, an actual receiver? Anyways. No, I do think it's time to acknowledge that Jordan Love is. is good and um you know i think the conversation is is changing around him for sure because it was like when do they extend him two years ago now yeah um and at the time it was like you know there were actually genuinely some questions about about that and um it's clear that they uh made the right decision there Kaylin Kaler ESPN I think this is the 18th different job

you've had uh yeah we've brought you on to the show show, but this is the big one, ESPN. But no, great to get together with you again, always great thoughts and insight. Thanks for breaking this down. And you know, what we do know, though, is however we feel right now might change completely. Yes. In six weeks when we know all the results in the NFL and who we're calling elite and what team should do in the off season and all those things. So we will definitely be checking in with you again soon. Thanks for battling through the cold. thought the voice got stronger as you went along and i don't know i thought i was breaking down a little bit there you were you were fighting but that's what you are uh no thank you so much again

for popping on and we'll definitely talk soon thanks matthew have a good have a good weekend