Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - ESPN's Kevin Seifert breaks down the Vikings QB conundrum

Episode Date: September 24, 2025

ESPN's Kevin Seifert joins the show to discuss the Vikings' QB situation. Then Maggie Robinson helps close out the show with our weekly Robinson Rundown of all the important stories across the NFL. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hey, everybody, welcome into another episode of Purple Insider, presented by Fandul. Matthew Collar here, along with ESPN's Kevin Seafurt, inside TCO Performance Center, where we have just listened to Matt Daniels and Brian Flores, actually give us a full breakdown of how to punch the football out. So I guess we could talk about that if we want. There are more pressing subjects, I feel like.

Matt Daniels offered to show Dane Mizzatani how to do it himself, and so I'd like to see that. I'd like Dane not to have to end up in the hospital, so probably not a great idea. Daniels thought he had some wiggle, so. I mean, I've played actually basketball with Dane. He's not a bad athlete. No, absolutely. Compared to these guys, though, I don't think he would survive too many punches at the football. Anyway, we've got a situation here, Kevin.

and I've been talking about it and now I need you to talk about it because we need to, I think, be rational about where we stand with the Vikings quarterback situation and the realities of what this may become and also the options that the team is going to have as we go forward. So yesterday we spoke with Kevin O'Connell and I would love to know your interpretation of his comments to us about where they stand with Carson Wentz and J.J. McCarthy. Yeah, I mean, I asked Kevin O'Connell directly, like, whenever the moment comes that J.J. McCarthy's ankle is fully healed, are you 100% committed to playing him? And a pretty straightforward direct answer, and he gave an answer that was not straightforward or direct, which is totally within his prerogative. He went in a lot of different areas. At one point, he said, you know, it's not even a question that has to be answered right now, which is totally fair and within his rights. And so to me, the only objective way to take this totality of what he said is that he's really not committing to anything. By definition, by not answering it, he's not committing to it. It doesn't mean that J.J. McCarthy is benched for the rest of the year.

It doesn't mean that he isn't going to play in two weeks against the Browns for all we know, even though that would be on the early side of the timetable as we sort of understood it. It just means that they came into the season with a plan to develop him on the field in real time, surrounded by a team that was good enough to sort of support that. And in the first two games, I would say, I can't say for sure that the team is good enough to support the level that he was playing at. They won one with a great comeback in the fourth quarter, and they lost the other one in kind of really disappointing fashion in a lot.

of ways. And then he got hurt, and the first game in, they scored was 34 offensive points. They win by, you know, 38. And the quarterback does exactly what I think the Vikings were hoping J.J. McCarthy would do is just make the plays that are there. Don't turn over. You know, don't take too many sacks. Carson wins to take a few sacks. But that was sort of the vision that we had for what we thought the Vikings were going to try to be. And so it's very tempting to, I would think, you know, to keep that going for as long as possible. They're in the business of winning games now, as is most NFL teams. And they're in a little bit of a sticky spot in terms of how they mesh that with

developing a player who, in the first two games, at least, didn't necessarily show us that he was ready to play at an NFL level. So that's why I asked the question. a lot of people will say, well, of course, what's he going to say? What's he going to tell you? No, we hate J.J. McCarthy or yes, no matter what happens. If Carson Wentz throws for 900 yards in two games, we're still going to start J.J. McCarthy. Like, no, he wouldn't necessarily say that.

But it doesn't mean you don't ask the question and doesn't mean you don't evaluate the answer. And so the answer right now is we don't know. And they might not either. At the same time, if Sam Darnold had gone down last year and a backup had come in and played okay, there would have been no question who the quarterback was or if it was Kirk Cousins before or any franchise quarterback that is truly locked into their position even if they had a tough start to the season.

If Joe Burrow became available, he's playing over Jake Browning no matter how much he plays. So the fact that it is noncommittal at least opens the door up for Carson Wentz being the starting quarterback for a long time. Now there's several different conundrums that Kevin O'Connell is going to have to navigate. And I think the biggest one is

trying to develop J.J. McCarthy if there is still belief, and there's no reason to think after two games that there shouldn't be belief. But if there's still belief in him as the long-term quarterback of this team, but Wence continues to play point guard, as O'Connell has said over and over, how do you develop J.J. McCarthy? And there was just a lot of hints in the press conference about where they stood, including, hey, you know, J.J. McCarthy can learn a lot from watching Carson Wenz get the football out of his hands. Okay, well, he learned. a lot last year watching somebody else throw the ball. But at the same time, historically, there's been a number of quarterbacks who have been on the sidelines carrying a clipboard

for a few years. Several of them reside in the state of Wisconsin, where it's worked out really, really well for them. Last year, he couldn't practice at all. I think that would be a huge difference of being able to practice for this year. But if he doesn't get out there and you don't play them, then the only impression you have is those two games, and one of them, you know, Darisol wasn't in, all the context that people have added to, you know, Addison's not in there. I think the Falcons had a really good game plan for them. They didn't run very well. One of their best run plays was called back by a holding, you know, et cetera, et cetera. So there was a lot that went into them losing that game that was not just the quarterback playing

poorly. So are you building your whole evaluation off of those eight quarters for him? Like how do you get to see more well watching? Carson Wentz play the type of football that Kevin O'Connell wants to see. Yeah, I don't know if it's so much as evaluating. I think they, I mean, I think they know based on training camp, based on practice, based on those two games, like where he is. Like we may not have seen all of those things, but I think they have a pretty good idea. The one thing, and people will probably laugh, but the one thing that, and you've referenced

it, is that even if he's not starting, once he gets healthy, if they come to a point where it's going to be Carson Wentz for a while and McCarthy is healthy, is running the scout team, and again, people are going to laugh. But I talked to Josh McCown in the quarterbacks coach this spring about all the things that they did to try to not make last year be a complete lost season and all the game plans and studies and whiteboards and all that, which were great. And I said, like, what is the thing that he couldn't do and where is the deficit? And he said, like, running the scout team is actually,

and he knows from a career of being a – a borderline backup starter, that running the scout team is where you learn how to make NFL throws, or at least as a place where you can learn to make NFL throws, and you're not necessarily doing it with the game on the line. But you call this play where there's these routes. Where do you have to put the ball to make sure the DB doesn't get to it? Where do you have to put the ball so that this particular receiver

can get it in his comfort zone? And it's just doing it over and over. and over and over again. And that's why the backup quarterback doesn't necessarily get a lot of first team reps with their offense, but they get all the scout team reps. And that's where the development can happen. And so that's where Aaron Rogers spent two or three years

doing. I'm not sure where he was at as a rookie, whether he was the number two or the number three. But that was where he did, Jordan Love. The scout team is, there is something to be said for spending a lot of time on the scout team, getting the muscle memory. of different routes, getting the footwork and timing, which I think maybe we'll get to this.

Like I think some of the lower body fundamentals and footwork are things that he's still working on. That's where you can work on that. There is a benefit to be had. It's still better to be playing, and this guy needs to play. But if it comes to be that he doesn't play for an extended period of time, it's not as big of a loss as it was last year. Well, and I think that the world we live in has created a lot of this with a young quarterback, not just media and the 365 nature. And when someone gets drafted, the hype that goes along with that. And then all the time that the fans waited and heard about J.J. McCarthy and all the features we wrote about how he's going to be the next great quarterback and stuff.

Like, we're all part of the problem. But I also think the rookie quarterback contract is part of the problem as well because you get Jordan Love developed for three years. I think we all know that that's good, but yet the minute that he's good, he gets paid $50 million. And then now Green Bay somehow still fit old Micah Parsons under the salary cap, which is interesting. But the point just being, like, we know how problematic it can be if you have the very expensive quarterback. So I think that cousins being here really informed a lot of people about how the salary cap works and how you manage timelines. And the whole idea of this front office was to have this young. quarterback paired with this great roster. And we've seen it work in Philly. We've seen it work in

San Francisco, the teams that are the cream of the crop with team building. So that all makes sense. That makes it so much harder, I think, for the team and for the fans and for the media to say, hey, why don't we just give this guy two more years and have him run the scout team? And then 2027, it's JJ time. Back in the day, I feel like this would have happened a lot more slowly with someone like McCarthy, but now there's a lot of pressure to win within that window. It's wild that he was still the youngest starting quarterback in the NFL in week one, and he wasn't a rookie, and he's younger than Cam Ward, who was the number one pick this past year. This is an aside, but I went to University of Virginia.

I was watching their game over the weekend. Their quarterback is like 24, almost 25. So he's like three years older than JJ McCarthy, and he's still in college. So just to put it all in context, you know, he's still very young and very inexperienced. And the, again, the plan was to support him, but, like, ultimately there needs to be a floor of performance for that support to be productive and functional. And we saw it a little bit, but just not enough. And so maybe, you know, they just have to eat that and just deal with it.

But it's a tough. It's, you know, the other part is it's a tough thing to go to the locker room and say, like, hey, we need your guys' cooperation here as we do something. It has nothing to do with you. You know, it does in the big sense. But, like, if you're a player here who wants to win and you want, you know, whether because you're just competitive or it leads to more financial opportunities or whatever you're, the reason that you want to win, it would be hard, you know, to go to the locker room and say that we're going to go back to J.J. McCarthy, if Carson went. has been playing really well. And I think that it's a very reasonable question with Carson Wentz at quarterback. Now, we just saw this team win 14 games last year with Zam Darnold. So I don't think there's any doubt that they can win games with a quarterback that hasn't necessarily played great recently or was even a backup recently, as long as that guy meets a certain threshold. And there was a breakdown by West Phillips just now of a particular play where Justin Jefferson gained 36 yards. I was looking at this one on tape last night. And before he's even out of his break,

there's four defenders in the general area. But the anticipation that Wentz through with, he breaks and the ball hits him right in the chest, which is not what was happening with J.J. McCarthy. And I think when we look back and we go, well, I can look around and go, there's no open wide receiver. But in the NFL, you have to learn to throw those guys open to spaces, which is exactly what Wentz was able to do. But if fans are asking, well, what's really our ceiling for this year with Carson Wentz? Because you've seen it with whatever other quarterback journeyman quarterback comes in here. And whether it's Keenum or whether it's Darnold, oftentimes the magic sort of runs out at some point eventually.

And I think that that is a reasonable question to ask is how good can you really be versus if it clicks for J.J. McCarthy, he is younger. He is physically gifted at this point. We've seen the running aspect from McCarthy, which is. a necessity and we also saw that Wentz maybe doesn't have as much skip in his step as he once did as a young quarterback. I think that that also has to be part of the discussion is can you really compete for a championship if you are just riding it out with Wentz? Yeah. And is that the only, should that be the only goal that you're building towards a championship, whether it's this year with Carson Wentz or if you're not going to be able to

do that, then following years with J.J. McCarthy or barring us big, turn around. I do think that, like, some of this discussion, you know, globally, or at least Upper Midwest-wise, has glossed over the fact that it's been a long time since Carson Wentz has been a good starting quarterback. And so it's not, like, this is not like a fade accompli that he, that he just steps in here, that this is the next case, Keenham, that this is the next Randall Cunningham, it's the next Gus Ferrat, next Wade Wilson, whatever, like, Joe Cap. Like, yeah, similar examples, but irrelevant, completely irrelevant. to this situation, just because this always happens with the Vikings.

Like, I mean, Carson, I guess there's been stories that Carson Wentz turned down other teams' contract offers, but the bottom line is that at the end of August, he was sitting at home. He's been on six different, this was a six different team in six years. NFL starred for quarterback play. So, like, we need to at least, I don't say pump the brakes, but we need to understand that, that, you know, all the discussion about what if, you know, you know, You know, Carson Wentz has him nine and two in November or whatever.

Like that would be a big departure from what he's been able to do for a long time. It doesn't mean he's not capable of it. It doesn't mean he's not in the best situation that he's been in a long time. But, and I don't believe in the thing of like, well, these things always just work themselves out. You don't have to get worked up about the possibility because most of life, most of football, most of life is in that gray area where the answer is not obvious. But I would say that, like, it's a little bit early. to start assuming that because he had a good game as a point guard the other day and

threw for 170 yards, that that automatically means that he's going to exceed the usual backup quarterback thing of basically being a 500 type quarterback. That's the tricky part about evaluating the situation is that if you tell me, if you went forward in the future and told me, yeah, Carson Wentz is in the NFC championship game, I'd be like, yeah, okay, that makes a lot of sense. Or if you told me that he didn't play, more than three more weeks, I'd be like, okay. I mean, I think that the range of outcomes once this happens becomes so much wider. Last year, we all sat here and watched Sam Darnold, a guy that not very many teams wanted that got paid $10 million

that had been a backup, just go out there and win 14 football games. And it can't be ignored either that this team has an elite defense that takes the ball away like crazy, that stopped the run really well against Cincinnati showing some improvement there, but just has great ability to rush the passer, great ability with this guy's in the secondary to make plays, as we saw from Isaiah Rogers, but we've also seen that from Harrison Smith, Mattelis, Theo Jackson, like all their guys,

Byron Murphy, who led all corners with interceptions last year. They're going to be good on that side. Jonathan Grenard's on a warpath this year. He's just been unbelievable these last couple of games, and Van Ginkle comes back, plays eight snaps, gets two sacks, or whatever. I didn't. And like the eight snaps thing, I didn't even realize until O'Connell mentioned it because I, you know, I don't look at all the snaps. I knew he had two sacks.

It never occurred to me that he had two sacks on eight snaps. That was crazy. And then, you know, Turner's playing better. And Redmond and Levi Drake are developing. Like, it's all coming together on that side, which makes it more plausible that you could just play point guard if you're Carson Wentz with this supporting cast that now gets back one of the probably, what, 30 best receivers in the NFL drops in? one of the five best tackles in the NFL drops in and it becomes believable, especially in a year when you look around and you go, Philly's good, Rams are good, you know, Washington's probably good, but is anybody blowing you away where you say there's no reason to think that you can win? I mean, just, you know, to throw a fan duel in there. Right now, the Vikings are plus 470 to win the NFC North and the Lions clearly were amazing last night. The Packers have been amazing at times. But would you be terribly shocked? if those teams have their inconsistencies throughout the year and all three teams are jockeying at the end if you have consistent quarterback play. So that's what makes it really hard to project. And I think it

has to be a decision tree for Kevin O'Connell. Like if X happens, we just stay the course. And if Y happens, then we go back to J.J. McCarthy and see where this thing takes us. That's how I think he can play it right now. And that was kind of the sense that I got from him talking to us yesterday. Yeah, like there is no reason for him to, you know, probably to say publicly or decide in his mind, like, what he's going to do whenever McCarthy is ready. But it is clear that, like, they're not even, like, when we asked him and he said, you know, first and foremost, he's got to get healthy. So it's almost as if, I'm not even going to think about this until the athletic trainers tell me, like, he's good to go and he can have a full practice week and let's see how that goes. So he's definitely not in a rush to get to put him back on the field under the theory of, like, he needs snaps, he needs to play, he needs to play, he needs to play. Like, it doesn't seem like he's following that path.

Maybe that's one decision he's already made. I'm certainly not going to, like, feel pressured to put him back out there. But then you also have to think, like, and coaches don't think this way. They're not supposed to. It's for the front office and maybe the ownership. But like, okay, if Carson Wentz gives you the best chance to win these individual games, is he going to give you, like, how are you going to make a playoff run with Carson Wentz? Or is it another, would having a good regular season be the better outcome than getting as many snaps for your young quarterback, even if one leads to the playoffs and the others makes it much harder to get to the playoffs? those are the questions you have that I don't like I don't think the coach should have to make those

decisions and I don't know if a general manager and owner can impose that on them but if you're just thinking as a coach you know you're just thinking about the next game the next game the next game and in the biggest pitcher possible it's a little bit harder to say like what's the right path I think that they have to as far as the front office and the ownership they kind of have to follow Kevin O'Connell's lead on this because he's the guy who has the most knowledge, the most understanding of how it works with that quarterback position. The best path is probably the one he chooses, I mean, I would guess, right? But at the same time, if you're the front office and you're looking at those spreadsheets a couple years down the road and thinking about

where this is going to go with McCarthy and if your ownership that we sat down in Florida with Mark Wilf and he was really thrilled about J.J. McCarthy and all those things, there's probably a lot of excitement. But I think that what they do have here that's a benefit is they don't have Dan Snyder. They don't have Jerry Jones. They don't have a crazed ownership that's going to be irrational and say, no, I want to see my toy, my Christmas present. And we've heard stories like this before of, hey, this kid was definitely not ready to be in there playing yet and need to develop. Yes. But the owner says, sorry, too bad. He's playing. I don't think they have to deal with that here. It's the other way around. It's almost like here, to the extent that

there's any like marching orders or any pressure it's don't do anything that gives us a less of a chance of winning this week you know and so and the other you know so there's it's almost the opposite of of you know sort of the the owner that nobody wants owning their team to be doing and the other part you know if you really want to get into the weeds of it is Kevin O'Connell signed a long contract extension I think it was five years so I think he's he's signed you know through basically the end of the decade or around there. And so if there was ever a time when a coach could say, I'm not sacrificing the year, but there's two paths

and I'm going to take the longer term path, like this would be a year for him to do it. Yeah. And yet there's also the other side of that, which is what is the narrative on Kevin O'Connell, which is he's been great in the regular season, he's gotten 13, 14. It's time for him to win in the playoffs.

I think we all look at this roster and say, you should be there. I mean, you guys put all this money in, but they're super talented. And now we're seeing development players like Redmond, like Rodriguez, like Theo Jackson, these guys are showing up. And so now you're kind of having a lot of things come together. Jordan Mason is the best running back they've had since 2021 here. And with all those other parts working, if one part isn't working and you're putting that, prioritizing that over all the other ones, I think you make some risks there, especially with number 18, which I think, I think Jefferson's feelings on who plays quarterback would be very relevant to me as a coach. We know how close Jefferson and O'Connell

are. Those first couple weeks, I know that his Chicago game was not too good, but it hasn't gotten the ball a whole lot. And then all of a sudden it's getting the ball on time. And I thought you saw a little enthusiasm from Jefferson about even in practice having Carson Wentz back and having those anticipation throws and the right reads, that has to be factored in. It's not easy to be a head coach, and that's why Kevin O'Connell got such a big contract, I think, is because of decisions like this. But I do want to ask you about the rest of the landscape here, because what a whiplash it was to go from 22 to 6, the 48 to 10.

So much for those one-score games, folks, I guess these were the true outcomes. I don't know. These actually count. The ones that, right, they count when you get the two touchdowns, offensively or whatever. But when you see the team play the way that they did overall against Cincinnati, I felt like, yes, this is what it was supposed to look like. The first two weeks very wonky, you know, at times not being able to stop open wide receivers against Chicago, which was surprising, not being able to stop the run. I think to that extent was surprising.

And then I know it's a backup quarterback, but total and complete domination from the defensive side from the running the football side. I think that all of this has to be factored into the quarterback situation, but I think it also factors into how strong do we think this team is really as they go overseas for two games and then they come back and they have this nightmare run of opponents. But if they play like that, and I don't mean 48 to 10, I just mean the repeatable things, take the ball away, run the football very well, block very well, pressure from the inside. This team could be really good.

Yeah, and like one of the hard parts about the beginning of a season is getting the context of the opponents. We don't, I mean, the Bengals didn't look very good, and so maybe that what we saw from the Vikings was an aberration based on the fact that they played a really inferior team that just lost its starting quarterback and was reeling a little bit. You know, I would have said that, you know, after week one, that was a pretty good win against the bear's defense to score. 27 points and then the next week they give up 50 the lions but then the next week they give they hold the cowboys was a 14 that they had and so who like it is really hard to to judge the Vikings based on the context of their opponents which you should always do but if they're able to put together if that formula that we saw on sincey against sincy is repeatable then yes this is a pretty decent team I've been surprised at sort of the assumptions that

that going overseas, they're so good at these overseas games that they have a huge advantage over the Steelers especially. I think Steelers are potentially still pretty good. The Browns are the next week in London. Their defense is clearly very good based on what they did to Green Bay, who we thought was going to be undefeated and win the Super Bowl after two weeks. And so a lot of things still to be found out about who the good teams are, who aren't the good teams, and how to judge wins and losses against them. So I've been surprised that people are kind of assuming that, oh, they'll go out for two weeks

and they'll be together and they'll have Kumbaya and they'll just go beat the tar out of these two AFC North teams and come out ahead because they didn't have to go to Pittsburgh and didn't have to go to Cleveland. And that might end up being what happens. It's just so early in the season still to know what these wins mean.

But I do agree with you that if that formula that they showed against the Bengals is repeatable, then that's a pretty good formula. Even against stronger teams, if Mason and seven yards of carry is pretty tough. Like, they were the extreme level of that. But if you can get two takeaways and if you can get a couple pressures on the opposing quarterback and you can tackle the way that they did. And a lot of those things, you know, kick 60-yard field goals all the time at the end of halves.

Everything worked in that game. Even just to get that attempt, I mean, they worked hard at that. They could have easily just gone into half without it, but they were aggressive in that regard. And they've been good so far with the special teams, the game management, I think for Kevin O'Connell has gotten better each year. And they talk a lot about that middle part, you know, between the half time and coming out, the middle eights, yep. But they've done well at that overall. And that's where I feel like O'Connell is reaching a point in his career as a coach where it's not a new guy anymore. He's really got it with a lot of the different things, whether it's game planning or whether it's game management, managing the culture.

I think, excuse me, he's always been really, really good at. But, you know, even Adam Thielen said he has felt growth with Kevin O'Connell over these years. So you get to that point. I think there's an argument for Flores as the best defensive coordinator in football, what we saw against Cincinnati, but, I mean, even just, you know, the bigger picture of consistently putting together performances like this. But I also think that these two weeks are going to tell us a lot, which is weird because they could be a little random.

It could be strange turf. It could be rainy. whatever, the whole trip and all the other things. But if they come out of this four and one, then we're saying, okay, yeah, you're going to play the Eagles, but you're a four and one team. You're going to play the Chargers, but you're a four and one team. You should be able to match up because so much has been made of that schedule, but if you win against the teams you're supposed to win against, then why aren't you just as strong as

every one of these teams that you're going to go against going forward, even if it is a backup quarterback playing? Yeah, and so, like I said, maybe they'll end up four and one at that point. We'll see. I think that gauntlet is pretty tough. Like if that comes after that, the Eagles, you know, chargers and then a bunch of, you know, the lions, I think, come up. So with that, and based on the lions beating the Ravens, if the Ravens are as good as they normally are, that's a really good win. And so there's a lot yet to be determined about how good they can be.

But, again, just to kind of bring it back, like the question for this whole season is going to be, are they good enough to support a young quarterback in development or do they don't think they can be that? Okay, before we wrap up here and then you pack for Dublin, I want to talk about maybe the things that have caught your eye the most around the National Football League for three weeks because this week was just a complete madness. Like someone ran the simulation but they pushed the wrong button or something. Oh, wait, Panthers were not supposed to beat the Falcons. 30 to nothing. What do you think is, I'll give you a mind. You can think about this for a second. My biggest intrigue is whether suddenly defenses are winning championships again. And I know

I'm saying this just after the Detroit Lions completely destroyed two teams with their amazing offense. And hey, some of us have been saying Jared Goffs are really good quarterback. I guess that that still remains true despite having new guards. But just the way that defenses are having these huge games, the amount of turnovers that they're causing, the amount of sacks that we saw from the Detroit Lions, I think it's thrown me back to the Chicago Bears that make the Super Bowl on their defense, the Carolina Panthers with Jake Deloom. Steve Palisolo had this great stat about how yardage is its lowest per game since 2005. It feels like 2005 in the NFL. I want to see where that goes if that changes as guys get hurt or there's adjustments made. But I think the Vikings

are on the right side of where the NFL is right now with defenses being ahead of offense. Interesting. When you first say that and I have these nerdy special teams rules in my head. And like the thing that's jumped out to me about this season, because I think that there's always a point in the beginning of a year where like we said, we don't know who's good and we don't know who's bad. And so it's shocking to see one team beat, you know, this team and then lose to the team that beat the other team that kind of thing in the very beginning, and then it kind of all proves out to be the case. To me, like special teams has had, like,

a very big impact on the beginning of this season. The kickoff return, we're seeing almost 80% of kickoff returns, or kickoffs return this year. Last year it was like 30%. You know, the year before that, it was 20. So we're seeing much, you know, I think it's like a five-yard jump or so in field position to start drives.

So, like, that impacts things. We're going to start seeing, in week two, at least, we saw a ton more points scored, not necessarily yards, but points because of the better field position and people, because of the extra returns or getting explosive returns into the flipping the field. We're seeing kickers with 60-plus yard field goals. It's not even, like, always a desperation thing.

Like, people are playing for 60-yard field goals. And so that and the fact that people are making them adds another layer to what we normally had seen in NFL football forever in terms of field position where you're in scoring position and where you aren't. And then this past week we saw some really creative ways to block field goals and whether to score touchdowns or to prevent what looked to be a clear win happening with a block. And so that's where my mind goes to the beginning of the season, is that special teams, it's not always exciting to everybody. I think the kickoff return is, and I'll be very interested to see what the injury numbers are to make sure that they're not just going back to where they were

when this all started, when they started reducing kickoff returns. But I think, and this is all going to probably continue throughout the year, and if offenses are being less explosive, from a yardage standpoint, special teams can make up for that. The block kicks, the kick returns, the long field goal, you're totally right, that special teams for a few years there felt like, is it even really a factor outside of just whether kickers make it? But even punting the football and the decisions that teams are making around that,

because now if it's fourth and three at the 50, they're just going, which you're seeing wild wind probability shifts based on fourth downs as opposed to that. And I almost wonder, talk about going back in time a little bit. I almost wonder if you're the team that goes, you know what, actually I am going to make them travel the length of the field and try to cough and corner. If that suddenly is a good play versus going for it, which I'm like missed or go for it all the time, but circumstantially, like you can really, you can really swing a game like crazy based on that. And so aggressiveness is not always the right play. What are your travel plans? Are you going to go see something cool?

You know, what's in Ireland? Golf? I feel woefully unprepared for this trip from a tourist standpoint. It's a business trip, but the Vikings have some access that we'll have on Friday, but I get out there Thursday. So we'll spend some time downtown, check out a few pubs. Apparently Guinness is headquartered there, so I guess I could go check out Guinness, the Guinness Brewery, which every single person in the state of Minnesota said,

make sure you go to the Guinness, you know, if a more person says that. Is that how they said it? That's exactly how they say. It's how I hear it. least. And so we'll, but what's cool about it is that it's not a place I've ever been before and I don't know if I would have gone or not. So it's very cool that work is bringing me there and I'm going to make sure I enjoy it and then head off to London next week. That is great. Well, I will see you when you return. Thanks so much for the time. I know you're a little crunched

here as you get ready to go, but I really appreciate it. Yeah. Purple Insider Show presented by Fandul. Kevin Seifert. We'll catch you all later. Football. Folks, I know a lot of you out there either own your own business or you are 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 best candidates. It's tough. But what is not tough is using ZipRecruiter for your hiring needs. ZipRecruiter finds amazing candidates for you and fast. And right now you could try it for free at ZipRecruiter.com slash audio. It's just so easy that you have to try it. You can use

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the smartest way to hire. All right, we welcome back into the show, Maggie Robinson, for our weekly Robinson rundown here, where special contributor Maggie Robinson of now ACC Network, along with Syracuse student, formerly NFL producer. If you keep going this way, I'm going to have to add way too many things for the introduction. But we look at different storylines around the National Football League and try to have a good time while doing so. So what is on your mind this week, Maggie? What's going on? What was on my mind was last night's game and I can't get it out of my mind. The Lions, guys, I'm saying it's at the top of the show, so no one comes after me. I was a hater in the off season. I said verbatim. I don't

think they're going that far. I think them skipping preseason workouts for the Hall of Fame game is a mistake. I said it. You can go back and watch the tape. No, they're actually really good. They're actually like really freaking good. And I, I fall on my sword here. I made a mistake. Well, I think that you were reasonable, not with the preseason thing, but your other points about their offensive line and with changing offensive coordinator and so forth that we have seen this before be problematic for a team when they lose their OC. But I think that what we saw over the last two weeks is that the identity starts with man Campbell with their aggressiveness, the trick plays, a lot of creativity in that game and how they play with these running backs. And I also think, too,

that there should be some concern in Baltimore because they got run over by Buffalo with their running game and now against Detroit. And they look like they're struggling as a physical defense to slow some of those things down. But I also will just continue to go back to Jared Gough is just a really, really good quarterback. I don't think he's as good as Lamar Jackson overall or Josh Allen, but he's really, really good in the way that he executed that game against a defense that's generally complicated, the adjustments that they've made over the last two weeks, they start with having a veteran quarterback who can deliver the football and the throw to Amin Ross St. Brown in the end zone over his shoulder was absolutely fantastic. Yep, the Detroit Lions are back. And I think it's really

funny, Maggie, how the Vikings, lions, and Packers, all being two and one is probably what we would have expected at this point. Like, yeah, they're even. It's going to be neck and neck. It's just how we got here that was a little bit weird, I think. The way we got here was so unprompted and could not have been thought of by anyone. This is truly cooked up out of nowhere. This is why NFL NFL football is so great. And back to your golf point, he is so slept on. And I know, like, everyone acknowledges that he's good, but no one actually acknowledges. is like how good he is he was 20 to 28 passes for 20 and two yards this past game one score and he just looked so comfortable out there like one he's tall like I know it's a genetic thing

but like the guy has such good vision of the field and can see plays so well because of his height and just the way he processes he looks so comfortable he was throwing dimes he looked like kind of my homes having fun out there doing some like trick plays like okay go ahead Jared like let's go yeah the one time he tried to throw on the run and threw it straight into the ground. He didn't look as much like Mahomes, but no, no, your point, your point about how he processes, I think is extremely right because just executing the plays as they're drawn up is very, very hard

to do. And sometimes when guys don't have a lot of wow factor to their physical ability, I don't think he throws the hottest fastball in the league. I don't think he's the most flawlessly accurate or the most athletic. It's like, ah, yeah, it's kind of boring. Oh, it must be the run game. It must be the receivers. it must be the offensive coordinator, but when you've done it this many times over and over again in your career and lead top scoring offenses, especially against the complex Ravens defense, I think we just have to acknowledge that the Detroit Lions have one of the best quarterbacks in the NFL, which is driving their offensive success over the last couple weeks. And the question really is for them, especially with their defense playing like that, is how high is their ceiling?

because I think that after seeing that, the sky is kind of the limit for that team. But then again, we overreact every single week to every single results. So I guess we're going to find out as we go forward. Nothing is new. One other fun fact that I threw in here for my reporting is that did you know David Montgomery and Jemir Gibbs have nicknames? I do.

And I've seen all the movies that they're based on. Oh my gosh. Okay. This was news to me. So maybe I'm living under a rock very probably, but they're known as Sonic and Knuckles. Also, I'd look up what an echidna was because Knuckles the echidna, that's the animal.

Didn't know what that was. I don't know if I still do, but like... Is it an animal or is it an alien? But when I go on flights, when I will travel to wherever, you know, Seattle, Chicago to cover games, I don't like to watch really intense movies on flights. I like to watch movies that are very chill and relaxed

because one time I watched a documentary about a clip, guy who climbed cliffs. Yeah, you've seen it. Free Solo is amazing, but also very stressful to watch well flying. Not a plane movie too. Not at all. So I decided after that, you know what I'm going to do? I'm just going to pick like silly movies to watch and just sort of kill the time.

So I have watched all of the Sonic movies. But that, that duo is incredible for them. And what I think was most impressive is their interior offensive line that we reasonably questioned, they opened up some huge holes in that game. And if they've got the running game going, then they could play off it with Jared Gough. Then he can get more time to throw. And that's what you end up with. Yeah.

I was very impressed. However, I was very unimpressed with Cincinnati. Oh, clearly. Getting their doors. Said so. Oh, by the Vikings, which leads me to my point is Kirk Cousins going to Cincinnati? Yeah, I think that there's a couple of options there. One of them is probably just to ride it out with Jake Browning because he has

played before. He usually doesn't look that bad. Brian Flores and U.S. Bank Stadium do have a tendency to do that to less experienced quarterbacks. We've seen it many, many times where quarterbacks will be fine in their home stadiums. Then they come to U.S. Bank. They play a very complex defense. Their offensive line is pretty horrible. And the Vikings just steamrolled them all over the field. And so I think that they could probably still survive to be a 500 team. There are two and one. It's not like their season's over. But if you are Atlanta, I think the idea of trading Kirk maybe went off the table last week because as much as I've thought Michael Pennix has a bright career, he was

awful against the Carolina Panthers. He wasn't that great against the Vikings and they've got to be feeling a little panicked themselves about where their quarterback situation is at at one and two. So I don't know if Kirk is getting traded. There is a different quarterback that they could consider though to throw bombs up to T. Higgins and Jamar Chase, which is Russell Wilson, after he was benched for Jackson Dart. So I don't know. Maybe Cincinnati has to consider something when they know that Burroughs going to be out for the entire year. Yeah, I do wonder what's going through the minds of that front

office right now. Like, is it full panic mode or is it like, okay, we're kind of comfortable with Jake Browning? We'll sit on this for like two more weeks and see how it plays out. Or is it like, no, we're full panic. We got to figure this out. I'm so curious on the psyche of that front office. I think it should be full panic because they can't even protect Jake Browning. And it's not like he's any type of great athlete. He did the week before lead a game winning drive against Jacksonville. He has won games before. And Russell Wilson looks so bad that I don't see how that's an upgrade. And even as you mentioned, trading for Kirk Cousins at the end of the year, last year, Kirk Cousins was just throwing balloons up in the air and people were catching

them. I think that they got to ride it out. And this is just the unfortunate reality of the NFL, as you can all summer long build your team around a superstar quarterback and feel like, hey, we're going to compete this year. And then two weeks in, your season is just over. I think Cincinnati, what they have to do is really consider trading Trey Hendrickson because you're sitting on a guy that you haven't signed long term that they just sort of reworked his deal. and for what because this year this was supposed to be a competitive year but now it's not going to be it. That was made very obvious on Sunday. Yeah. Yeah. I think they got to already be looking ahead and just this is like a figure out how to maintain and then not drop the bar too far this

season and just like ride it out and stay as healthy as possible. But let's go to New York. You talked about it. Russell Wilson Jackson Dart is here. And you know what this feels like for me though? this feels like Dable's like last ditch Hail Mary effort to keep his job and stay in New York City. You are, you are dead on. You are 100% right. It's a panic move. And it was a panic move to sign Russell Wilson in the first place. I don't, you know, who should feel the worst is probably James Winston. The fact that he's right. Like he's there and they he's not even the guy that's up next. Now, Dart was exceptional during the preseason for whatever that's worth. And they had tried to throw him on the. field sometimes and mix and match, but the whole idea of getting Russell Wilson is just to try to save his job. And then once it became clear, that wasn't going to happen. Then it was, all right, well, we might as well play the kid, hope that the kid shows signs of life and that the ownership says, you know, even though you went five and 12, we really liked how Jackson Dart

played. So I guess you can stay and develop him. And here's who I feel bad for with this. Jackson Dart. That team is bad. Their offensive line is in. a tough spot. Andrew Thomas couldn't play the whole game the other day. And I think Dable is freaking out right now, thinking his job's going to be eliminated. And how many times have we seen this where you get a young quarterback? Chicago's had this happen many times. You've got a coach there. And then it's a different coach the next year. So then the young quarterback has to learn an entirely new system. So I think that New York should decide within the next three or four weeks, whether they're going to fire Brian Dable or not. They shouldn't wait. They shouldn't

wait until the end of the season and have Dart learn all this sort of stuff from Brian Dable and everything and make it look like he's going to be the coach going forward and then can him and then put DART into that position. But there's no way to avoid it now. I guess they've gone too far down that road. They probably should have just fired Brian Dable last year and still drafted Jackson Dart. Yeah, I was going to say, Davele's offense has ranked 31st in scoring since the start of 2023. 31st in the league of 32. And he's still sitting here with his job and his paycheck. Make that make sense. If you suck that bad at any other job, you are getting fired immediately. I've made the joke before about when you draft a

quarterback to try to save a coach's career where it's kind of like having a kid to save the marriage. It just is not something that usually works. If you're, if you're thinking about firing a coach, just fire them. Move on, draft the quarterback with the next coach and let him pick his guy. There's no guarantee. They might try to stick it out like Cleveland is sticking it out with Kevin Stefansky, but that situation feels very tenuous. Yeah, absolutely. And the thing that stuck out to me about, about Wilson this past weekend, that red zone, fourth quarter play of him just like lobbing balls into the air, I could throw a ball like that. Put me on the field at that point. Like, you're just throwing them into the

stands. What are you doing? Yeah, it's, uh, it's kind of sad because Russ was one of the best quarterbacks, the NFL in his prime, like hands down. He was a top five quarterback, elite playmaking ability, was a great fit for that Seattle offense and put up great numbers, one of the most efficient quarterbacks in history through, you know, whatever number of years. He just can't play anymore. And that, that happens. Like, it's the NFL once you get to a certain age and your athleticism starts to

decline. He used to be able to just run around and make plays and he's not a pocket quarterback. So now his strategy seems. to be just, yeah, I feel like that was, I'm just going to throw it up in the air and hope and see what happens, which of course got Malik neighbors heard. And it was definitely time. But you don't ever enjoy when somebody takes it too far and plays for too long. And that's really what's happening here. Yeah, that leads you to my final question on this point. Do you think Russell Wilson is going to live the backup quarterback life or is he going to step away from football?

I think that when you sign your contract to play for the team, you should play for the team for the of the year, regardless of what happens with your role, and you want to get your paychecks. So that's part of it. But I don't think that he can continue to play. And I think that the league after this is not going to view him as a starting quarterback, that there were moments in Pittsburgh where maybe you could talk yourself into that a little bit of, hey, you know, his quarterback rating wasn't that bad. And he completed a lot of deep shots.

But now, having seen this, I think it's just the end of Russell Wilson's. great career, but it's gone out in a pretty unfortunate way. Yeah, I agree. You never want to like overstay your welcome. And it feels a bit like that here. There's been a lot of negative in today's show. So we're going to end it with some positives, the good, which were some plays and players that I was impressed by, starting off with the dog, Jordan Davis, blocked field

goal for the Philly late game win, electric last play of that game. It reminded me, Linval Joseph was a 340-ish pound gentleman who once against the Eagles got an interception and ran for a touchdown and then was shown on the sideline like with the air mask on and it went so viral he eventually decided to tattoo it on his shoulder. Like there is nothing better in pro sports than a fat man running with the football. There's just not. It's great. Everyone loves to see it. Jordan Davis, though, very impressed with his development over this show. year. He's played much better. And what I'm really wondering about this year is these blocked

kicks. If this is going to be a factor, because there were several that had massive impacts on the game. And I think last year, we started to see that midway through the season with some huge block kicks. Is this a thing that special teams units have figured out or something? Because it was wild the way it played out at the end of Sunday's games. Yeah, I was going to say, I think I saw a clip of a red zone screenshot and it was like if you turned on red zone at this very moment it was like two blocked kicks in a row and another field goal what is happening like what is this if anyone in the comments knows like what do we think is going on with these blocked funds blocked kicks i'm not really sure i mean even we asked uh matt daniels today the special teams coordinator about just all the

block kicks and he was talking about them just having a good strategy and sort of sticking to it and I think that some of it comes down to how much how bad you want it how bad you want and when you get to those end of games ones you know a lot of times you're putting on the field maybe better players who have a chance players who are they may be gassed at that point but they're like we're going to lose if I don't block this thing so they give 110 and maybe have a chance at it but I'd be very interested for a special teams expert to explain how all of that worked for maybe it was just random I don't know maybe it's not they're not being blocked at a higher rate.

It just sort of came at the same time. And then we all go, what, what was that? But what a time to be alive, though, at the end of those games. As I was sitting at U.S. Bank Stadium with the score 48 to 10 and like, when do we get to go down in the locker room? Everybody else is watching Red Zone going crazy. Yeah. Oh, that's funny. How was the atmosphere in U.S. Bank Stadium?

It was actually at the beginning of the game, I wondered how it was going to go, you know, because it's Carson Wentz. It was a J.J. McCarthy. and I thought it was really good. I felt like there was a ton of energy there, which impacted Jake Browning from the start of that game. But, you know, in WWE, they talk about like a pop of the crowd. I don't know if you watch any wrestling at all. But it's like the when the crowd goes crazy,

when here's someone's music and everybody goes nuts, that sort of pop is what happens when a guy gets a pick six. Like there's nothing quite like it because it's so shocking when it happens. If Jefferson catches a touchdown, the crowd's like, yeah, I mean, that's great. That's a touchdown. But when Isaiah Rogers picks it off and then you realize he's got a lane and he's going to go, there's like a shock factor that goes along with it and it is as loud as it can be in the NFL there. So I mean, and then it turns into a party, you know, after you realize it's 34 to 3 at halftime,

like the second half is just everybody hanging out and, you know, just treating it like a relaxing situation, which doesn't happen too often in the second half of Vikings games. Let them have that. They deserve a half off, you know. A lot of stress for this fan base. Yes, that's for sure. Absolutely. My gosh.

Okay, let's wrap it up here with my final big player. Daniel Jones, three and no start for the Colts. He was labeled as a reclamation project. I saw that in an ESPN article, which I thought was funny. He's having a great season so far. Like, I don't think this is a flu. I think he just had to get, talk about dable. Maybe it's a curse.

He had to get out from under him. It is crazy. It's crazy right now on Fandul, the Indianapolis Colts are plus 1,100 to win the AFC, which is the fourth best odds. I don't think anybody had that when the season started. That is really insane. You know, after a while, you just get to a point where you're like, I don't know, because I remember when the Vikings signed Daniel Jones to have him on their practice squad and he never

played a game for the Vikings, but spent just a few weeks with them at the end of last season and looking at what he had done in New York in his last 16 games. And it was like more interceptions than touchdowns. He was three and 13. It was just atrocious. And then he goes to Indianapolis and now it's great. And you know what I've been thinking a lot about is just how much better quarterbacks look when they have a run game. And Indianapolis is running the ball so well. And I think that applies to the Vikings, too, with Jordan Mason and how well they ran the ball with Carson Wentz.

But I will say that Daniel Jones, I didn't talk to him a lot when he was with the team. They were winning 14 games. We focused on Sam Darnold. But I thought he handled that situation in New York with a ton of class, considering how bad the team was, how bad the coaching was, how bad the supporting cast was, and then came to Minnesota, answered all the questions that we asked him and has gone to Indianapolis. So it just sort of shows you how much circumstances can impact a quarterback, even though we tend to act like, and maybe we're seeing this with the homes, too, and it not being that great, we tend to act like, oh, well, you know, the quarterback, he just does it all. And, like, that's how it works.

But with Daniel Jones, circumstances certainly playing a big role. Let me just add one small thing, though. They did do it against the Titans in Miami. I know. Just saying. And they have the Rams coming up. So, like, this is the make or break. Is he actually legit or is he just playing bad teams?

We shall see. Yes, yes, we shall. And the Titans, your hometown club. Sorry. I get a text every weekend for my parents. It says we're like crying, watching the Titans. Every weekend without fail. Like, they're bad.

It's bad again. It's painful. Yep. Yeah. It's tough. Well, you know, it was not bad. It's your segment here, as always, which is a lot of fun. and we do it every Tuesday night,

so I appreciate you, Maggie, making the time and you're now very busy schedule there at Syracuse University. Syracuse got a big W this week against Clemson, and they faked a lot of injuries and got fined for it. A lot of drama there, but heck of a win. Steve Angelly, though, blew out as Achilles.

That's not a fake injury. I don't even know, I'm not going to speculate. I don't know what they were seeing. I don't know what all these fake injuries were. feels a little targeted. I don't know. I plead the fifth. I think Clemson was maybe a little sour grapes there. I'm just going to guess. Anyway, Maggie Robinson, thanks so much for your time. And thanks, everybody, for watching Purple Insider presented by Fanduel.

And we'll catch you all later. Football. Football.