Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - FansOnly: The 5 toughest games for JJ McCarthy

Episode Date: May 19, 2025

Matthew Coller discusses the five toughest games for JJ McCarthy and an interesting quote from NFL.com analyst Bucky Brooks about McCarthy. Coller also answers a handful of your Vikings questions.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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Matthew Coller here, and this is somewhat of a fans only episode. I'm going to have some fan questions to answer in just a couple of minutes. But when there's not a whole lot of news cycle and acquisitions and trades and signings and things like that going on, I always think it's a good time to make some lists and help us put in perspective some different things about the Minnesota Vikings. So here's what I started with today. The five toughest games for JJ McCarthy on the 2025 schedule.

So this isn't the toughest just for the Minnesota Vikings overall, but the most difficult opponents, circumstances, and so forth for a first year starting quarterback. So I'm going to run through the list that I've also got an interesting couple of quotes from Bucky Brooks from NFL.com and another list of the best rookie seasons in recent memory. And there's two that stand out that could be similar to JJ McCarthy. So I'm going to get to all that.

Well, right now, here we go. So here's my list of the five toughest games on the Viking schedule for JJ McCarthy. I think number one on that list or let's count it down from number five to number one. So I'll start with number five. That is the opener versus the Chicago Bears. The toughest game is always the first game for a young quarterback, right? He's never done it before. He's got to go on the road and play at Soldier Field, which in Vikings history, maybe you've heard has a little

bit of lore to it. Although Kevin O'Connell has seemingly had no problems beating the Chicago Bears at Soldier Field in recent years, but even last year, it got a little bit weird and Caleb Williams looked like a different quarterback in his friendly confines. Then he looked at us bank stadium. There's the bright lights. There's the ESPN attention. There's everything surrounding this game that to me would make

it more difficult than if it was a noon game against the New York Giants to start off the season like Sam Darnold got last year. So I've got that as my number five game, but I don't think that the Bears defense is projecting to be crazy difficult and there's still a team that has a lot of questions about them. So I wouldn't put it any higher than that, even though it will be his debut. The next game on the list is the Pittsburgh Steelers in Dublin, though I think

it's easier for JJ McCarthy to play against the Steelers in Dublin than it would have been in Pittsburgh. There is extenuating circumstances here to some extent because he's having to start a couple of games in the NFL. Several of them are at nighttime and then he gets a game against Cincinnati, one of the toughest quarterbacks in the league to try to beat in Joe Burrow. Then it is pick up the entire franchise in a week, send it overseas, and then deal with all of that circus that goes on with the international media and everything else. And Oh, by the way, go play a defense that's still projecting to be one of the tougher defenses

in the entire NFL in the Pittsburgh Steelers. They've got superstar players. They've continued to load up even more and they have a great defensive coach in Mike Tomlin. So even though they are not exactly the same defensively at home as they are on the road, or I guess in this case in a neutral site, they are a worst defense on the road and sometimes it's been by a significant margin over the years. That is still a lot to deal with logistically for a young quarterback. Now, when it was Sam Darnold, he struggled in his first year in the system, going through all that,

even Kirk Cousins in his first time, he did not play all that great going overseas. And neither of those two guys were playing the toughest teams. It was the Saints and it was the New York Jets. And we've seen a lot of quarterbacks have tough performances overseas. I think just because of all the things that you go through now, the second game against the Browns,

they'll have been over there for a week and they know what's going on and they'll be adjusted time wise. But I think just overall a team that always makes the playoffs on its defense facing them in a place you've never been before. That'll be a little bit on the tougher side. So I'm going to go that for number four number three the Chargers on the tougher side. So I'm going to go that for number four number three the chargers on Thursday night football If you asked your friends, hey who had the number one defense in points against last year in the NFL?

I think a lot of people would be like wait was it let's see. It wasn't the Vikings. Was it the Baltimore was it? You know, there's some other teams that have had really good defenses in the NFL. Was it Philly? Was it? No, it was actually the Los Angeles Chargers. And I think when you're going on the road, not only in a short matchup, a short week matchup versus a team that has been together with its quarterback and its defense now for a year and has a lot of talent on that defensive side, including Khalil Mack, who can still play in a game where, you know,

that Jim Harbaugh's team is not going to turn the ball over much. That's one of the reasons they had the best defense in the NFL is that the margin for error when you play the Chargers is not very high because they don't turn the ball over a lot, or at least in the regular season, they certainly did in their playoff game against the Houston Texans. Also, Harbaugh is very familiar with J.J. McCarthy. There's going to be a ton of storylines and for a young quarterback to prepare for a Thursday night game, it's hard enough for a young quarterback to prepare

for any game, much less one where you have to just jump right in the plane, go out there to L.A. and with the Chargers playing better these days and it's a Thursday. I think it's going to be harder to make that a pseudo home game for the Vikings as they've done at times in the past in some of these places that don't have the most raucous fan bases. But if you look at last year at the beginning of the game, it seemed like it was going to be a lot of purple there. But once the later Ivan crowd got there, the Rams did actually have more fans and made a lot more noise than the Vikings fans, probably because it's hard to fly out on a Thursday night

for that type of game. So I think that one's going to be very challenging for a young quarterback. Number two is at Detroit. That's where Sam Darnold melted down last year. That is in week nine and it's going to be a great test case. But it's also him going home, going back to Michigan home ish. Like he's not from Michigan, but he played his college football there. So there's the drama of that. There's the

storyline of that. And also to go along with I think a lion's defense that will be even better than it was last year. A new coordinator might inject some different coverage looks than they had under Aaron Glenn and just the simple fact that they can't be more hurt than they were last year. I mean, you never know what's going to happen with injuries. Are they really going to be different than they were last year, but they were the most injured defense in the entire NFL.

So if by week nine, they have Aiden Hutchinson, that is still going to be an incredibly hard matchup for JJ McCarthy to now a building at Ford Field that we have to talk about is one of the tougher places to play and this is how it goes, right? For a long time, Seattle is a great team and they were a hard place to go. And I thought they were to some extent last year, but not in the same way that it was during the Legion of boom and a lot

of the connection between are you a hard place to play or are you not is also how good your team is. And that comes along with extra energy. Even we could say this about US Bank Stadium 2021 US Bank Stadium didn't scare just about anybody last year. Oh, yeah, it was pretty intimidating because when the fans are juiced up some of these places get crazy loud and I think we saw that last year from Ford Field and that was one of the

main reasons that Sam Darnold didn't have it from the beginning of that game. So I'm going to go with that as the number two most difficult and the number one, I considered saying going to Lambo because it's historic. It's Lambo. It's the biggest rivalry that the Minnesota Vikings have, but I changed my tune and this one's a little risky to pick as the number one most difficult because it might not actually matter.

But I think it's going to. So I went with week 18 against the Green Bay Packers at US Bank Stadium. It is the biggest rival and if we all are projecting this NFC North correct, this could be for a playoff spot. This could be for winning the NFC North. I think the pressure will be immense. It could be for just even getting into the playoffs. And then you add the fact that it's them, it's Green Bay. There's a different level of juice in that building. There's also a lot more green and gold in that building when it happens, when the Packers come to US Bank Stadium.

They've had a lot of classics through the years against Green Bay, but I think this is the first time we've seen them face them in the last week of the season where everything could be on the line for JJ McCarthy. I also think that Green Bay will have a pretty good defense and you know that they are always a well-coached team by Matt LaFleur. So there is my list, just to go over it one more time, the opener versus the Bears,

Steelers in Dublin, Chargers on Thursday night at Detroit and home versus the Packers and put a little asterisk and say if it means something. But I think the way things are setting up for this division, there is a very very good chance that it will mean something. Which ones did I forget? Which ones did I leave off? Leave in the comments, let me know what you think of that list. All right, a couple more things regarding JJ McCarthy. So I was reading nfl.com the other day,

Bucky Brooks, former NFL player, always has interesting perspectives on stuff. And he wrote an article about how JJ McCarthy is the one that kind of can swing the NFL the most, the player that can swing the entire league the most, was the basic impetus to his story. And then he looked at some other games on the schedule and so forth. And here is what Bucky Brooks wrote, quote,

with a pair of schematic wizards in Kevin O'Connell and Brian Flores, pencil whipping opponents with deft play designs and love this already. The Vikings should be considered among the top candidates to supplant the defending champion Philadelphia Eagles as representatives in the Super Bowl if and he writes it in capital letters and italics JJ McCarthy can hit the ground running as the new QB one. It's a small sample size to be sure, but McCarthy flash impressive skills as a rhythm passer in his loan preseason game last year,

he dropped a series of dimes on in breaking routes and showed superb timing and anticipation. This makes it easy to envision O'Connell building a call sheet with crossers and deep overs at intermediate range. I mean, the football in this article was fantastic. Uh, in addition, McCarthy's athleticism on impromptu scrambles gives me Alex Smith vibes when thinking about how the Vikings can integrate green, the green quarterback skillset into the playbook. Guys,

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Bucky Brooks from NFL.com saying that if JJ McCarthy is good, the Vikings can go to the Superbowl, which is a, I mean, that's a big old statement there from Bucky Brooks for the middle of May. I don't really disagree. I also think that maybe just reaching out a little bit on that take because the NFC is so strong and the Philadelphia Eagles deserve to be considered the top contender in the NFC. And I think that Detroit also deserves based based on last year, to be there as well.

But right after, I think Washington, the Vikings, Green Bay, the Rams, are all in this second tier conversation of teams that could prove it and that could be there. And McCarthy is the biggest wild card for sure, because all those other teams have quarterbacks that we know what they're going to bring to the table. We even think we know what Jaden Daniels is.

Uh, I think he could be even better, but second year we'll see. That's really the only one we know what Jayla hurts is. He's a super bowl champion. Jared golf has won 15 games, led number one offenses. Even Jordan love has given you a big enough sample size to say that he's up and down and is probably a shade above a 500 quarterback at Los Angeles, you know exactly what Matthew Stafford is. I think that Sam Darnold is a bit of a wild card here because

Seattle could be pretty good. If he's the same quarterback as last year, I think we're all projecting a little bit of a decline from Sam Darnold in his new location. But if he's still that good, they could be a team that is very much in the hunt and then the Caleb Williams factor, the Michael Pennex factor. You could even throw Bryce young out in that mix for who's competing for these playoff spots.

So I think that there's a lot of X factor type of quarterbacks that JJ McCarthy isn't the only one, but a lot of the teams that were projecting to be at the top have proven quarterbacks except for JJ McCarthy. The second part of that was the Alex Smith vibe thing, which I can just hear you cringing right now. Are you cringing with the Alex Smith? But you know, I think that there's something to what he's saying with Alex Smith. Now, first of all, just just Google Alex Smith's career because he's the guy that they moved on for for Colin Kaepernick once and then for Patrick Mahomes.

He's kind of had this reputation as the most mid bland milk toast type of quarterback. But if you look back, he won a lot of football games and was really this close a couple of times to deep playoff runs and whatever happened circumstances, and I think some limitations kept him from being that guy. But I actually where I would divert a little bit on Alex Smith versus JJ McCarthy. And I think the decision-making I mean, if he brings Alex Smithy in level decision-making and doesn't, if he brings Alex Smithy in level decision-making and doesn't turn the football over, you're going to win a lot

of football games because of that. So I think that's where some of that comes from. But on the actual ability to use the athleticism, I don't really see the exact same thing because I think Alex Smith kind of struggled to throw on the run that he was good enough to put his head down and scramble for some first downs, but I don't think he was the type of guy that when stuff broke down, he was shifting through guys rolling out like a baseball player shortstop

throwing it at different angles. I think that JJ McCarthy can do that. So if he can combine some Alex Smithian type traits with a handful of those other plays that Alex Smith really couldn't do, that can put him in a pretty good situation. And that leads me to the next thing I wanted to talk about, which is in the athletic. My friend, Alec Lewis wrote an article about JJ McCarthy and expectations versus other rookie quarterbacks we've seen in the recent past. And they had a graphic in this article and the graphics label was recent successful rookie quarterbacks. And there's a whole list even going back to Oh four Ben Rothesberger,

Kyle Orton, who threw more interceptions than touchdowns, but still ended up with a 10 and five season. So I guess they mostly went with quarterbacks who were rookies that led successful teams is really what we're talking about here. And I think we all agree that JJ McCarthy stat line doesn't really matter. It's how many wins can he lead them to if he throws for 172 yards, one touch one pick and they beat the Detroit Lions 23 to 21.

I don't think any of us are going to be like, I don't know, man. You know, I really think he should have had more yard like that. That's fine. You know, he doesn't turn the ball over. He manages the game. He comes up with a few big plays and then maybe that grows and grows as the season goes along. But a lot of times those early bumps, those first half of the season bumps

lead to these young quarterbacks, not having crazy big stat lines. And that may be the case with JJ McCarthy. So this list was the guys whose teams had success. And that's what everybody here is really looking for. Now, two names on the list stood out to me as realistic for JJ McCarthy. So I'll give you the ones that are not that realistic. As I mentioned, Kyle Orton, I don't think they're making the playoffs. If JJ McCarthy throws nine touchdowns or Joe Flacco who threw for under

3000 yards and they went 11 and five because they had a great defense. But there are a couple RG three, another one, a guy who ran for a million yards, Andrew luck throwing for 4,400 yards right off the bat. That's a lot to ask from him, but a couple that I think could be similar. One was Matt Ryan, 2008. And you have to remember 2008 statistics are not quite what we expect from this year, uh, type of numbers from 2025, but he threw for 3,400 yards, 16 touchdowns, 11 picks and won 11 games on a really stacked and veteran team with Atlanta that had been kind of through it after the Michael

Vick stuff, but they had a lot of good players on that team and you could see something very similar from JJ McCarthy here in 2025. The other one Russell Wilson. It wasn't elite defense. I think we also expect this to be an elite defense with the amount of talent that they have the players they brought in the players. They brought back that 2012 26 touchdowns 10 interceptions 3100 yards. So the yardage total was pretty low.

They played a pretty conservative offense and then work down the field. I don't think it'll be exactly like that for JJ McCarthy based on what we've seen from how Kevin O'Connell has run this offense before, but I do think there's that 26 touchdown, 11 win type of number. That kind of sounds in the ballpark. And there's another one that stands out that I almost don't want to say, because it could be taken the wrong way. And that's Mac Jones. Now, hang on before you said he's not the next Mac.

OK, no, no, I I totally agree, because his skill set, I think is better than Mac Jones. He is faster. He's more nimble than Mac Jones, and he clearly has a stronger arm. That was a main thing that got Mac Jones in the end. However, if we look at Mac Jones rookie year where he won 10 games, 10 and 7, 3800 yards, 22 touchdowns and 13 interceptions. I think that had Mac Jones ended up with the San Francisco 49ers,

that he would have been a pretty darn good quarterback. And again, this is not to compare him. It's just that his rookie season, they got into the playoffs on a pretty good Patriots team that still had players left over from the Brady era. And also Belichick had not lost his marbles yet and brought in Matt Patricia and brought in Joe Judge to try to run his offense and everything fell apart. And then, you know, the Mac Jones we saw last year was with the Jaguars.

Again, not making a one-to-one comparison. He's going to be him. It's more of what could his rookie year look like in the regular season? 3,800 yards, 22 touchdowns, 13 interceptions and 10 wins. That sounds like a pretty darn good first season for JJ McCarthy. Just throw in a couple hundred more rushing yards than what Mac Jones was able to get and something called upside, which Mac Jones never actually had. And the other one, the absolute best case scenario comparison,

the perfect universe. Whoa, but I could actually see it. And this is, I think a better comparison as an actual quarterback is Dak Prescott. So Dak Prescott, and if again, if you're groaning, you need to look more into Dak Prescott. I mean, sometimes people just dislike the Cowboys so much that they're not really very objective about their quarterback because he's had some clear meltdowns in the playoffs.

But if you look at him as a processor, as how well he understands football and throws to the right places, the accuracy that he's got, the way he runs an offense. Like I could see it and the mobility that he used to have that just went away after some injuries. I don't think it's a terrible comparison for JJ McCarthy. 23 touchdowns, four picks, 3,600 yards and a 13 and three rookie season for Dak Prescott. That would be the dream scenario. But the similarity is now they had an amazing offensive line, but the Vikings have a pretty darn good looking offensive line to

start out with a couple of weapons to work with potentially a run game. They had an amazing run game that year. So potentially a good run game and a good defense. The Vikings have the potential to have a great defense. Dak Prescott is one that we look at Brock Purdy, another one where we say, this is the best setup that we have seen from a young quarterback and what's been put around him in a long time. And Dak Prescott is pretty darn close to what the Vikings are bringing to the table.

So just the thought there on how he compares and might be similar to some of these other quarterbacks that have won a lot right away as well. They're doing rookies here, but as first year starters. It would, you know, I've made the difference in comparison. We've talked about that, but as first year starters. So, all right, let me move on to a couple of other things. Rule changes. The NFL owners are going to be in Minnesota this week, and

they are going to be discussing the tush push, changing the playoff format, and if NFL players should play in the Olympics. I will just say that I would love to see practice squad players play in the Olympics with flag football, but I would not want to see real NFL players, even if we're talking about quarterbacks that you can't touch, even if you were saying, well, you know, Hey, they're not going to, but it did that a lot. Anything that's not these guys playing NFL football, but if it was practice squad players, that might be fun.

Oh yeah. Hey, look, that's, you know, Max Brosmer out there playing for USA. I'd be good with that. I would not be good with anything else. The tush push, stop it. Just stop it. I don't care how ugly it is.

There's only one team that succeeds with it. Barely any other teams actually even use it. And when they do, they're not as successful. Figure out how to stop it and maybe litigate it a little bit better. As far as the line of scrimmage, as far as the guy messing with where he sets the football, some of that stuff and the spotting of the football,

you're gonna have to figure something out there that's a little bit better because it probably did cost Buffalo a game. But the quarterback sneak has always been a play. It's never a nice play that everybody loves and gets excited about, but whether you're pushing or not, I think the Eagles are still going to succeed with the quarterback sneak. I think that's actually about the quarterback in the center

as much as it is anything else. So if they ban it, well, I guess it's not the end of the world, but it would to me if you were on the wrong side of that Where if the Vikings had figured something out and they're like, you know what Randy Moss you can't jump. Sorry, man You just you can't moss people anymore. It's unfair You're just doing it all the time and you're Barry Sanders stop juking, you know This feels the same way like what rule are they breaking? What are they doing wrong? Oh, they're just they've got a quarterback Who's crazy strong and they're pushing him. I mean, I don't know

if you want to ban all players being pushed anywhere. Well, it used to be that way. And maybe that's the right way to do it. Now, maybe we shouldn't be able to catch a football and have a lineman screaming down the field and push a wide receiver into the end zone or something. Maybe that's the right thing to do. I don't know. But as of right now, there's really no justification because I don't think there's any proof that any of this has been dangerous for the quarterbacks or even defensive players.

So we'll see how that goes. I am against banning it because I think, okay, if it's the Eagles, we all they won the Super Bowl and nobody likes the Eagles outside of Philly. So you want to see them get penalized and have it hurt them more than anybody else. But if you're doing something with your team that is working and the NFL just goes out of its way to ban it, that feels wrong to me. And the last thing is the playoff seating. Now I've heard a lot of people say that, oh man, I just need to have these divisions, division champs, they deserve to have that spot. I understand where you're coming from, and you can always put up your banner and

there's no way that games against the Packers and the Bears and the Lions now are not going to be special. It's that you play them twice. It's great to win your division, but I just want to know if there's anyone who would trade a division championship for a playoff win for a single playoff win, would you have traded last year a playoff win for winning the division? Like, well, they didn't do either one of those things. So what year did they 2022? Okay, great example.

2022. They win the division and then losing the playoffs. Which one of those things really matters to you? Do you care at that point that they won the division? Was that really that special to you? It's great. But to me, the playoffs are what matter the most and for years now, the NFL has had a simply unfair playoff system.

It's unfair that you can win 14 games and have to go on the road that you can have the second best record in the entire freaking conference and have to go on the road. It just doesn't make all that much sense. It makes so much more sense to seed by the records. So the best teams play the worst teams. This is not complicated, my friends. If you win 14 and the Rams win 10, they should fly to your place.

I don't see any other justification for forcing a team. And this would go for any team like when the Saints had to go to Seattle and that great run by Marshawn Lynch in Seattle upsets them. Why did the Saints have to travel to Seattle? Why did you even play a regular season if it's not going to matter? I hope that they do make that change and I promise you that you won't care that much the next time you win your division and it's not celebrated that much because it doesn't impact the seating, but you go to a playoff game and you get it at home or something, you know, or whatever you finished second with a great record and you get it home and then you have a better playoff game like that's going to mean more to you and especially

in a tight division like the NFC North, the Vikings should want this. It's a tight division. You want to be able to finish second with 12 wins and host a playoff game because the NFC South is a bunch of bumbling fools. Right. So that's my thoughts on that. OK, now let me get to some fans only questions. These have been submitted.

Actually these were for from subscribers to the Purple Insider newsletter, which is fun. If you want to go over to purpleinsider.football, feel free to check that out. And it is actually fifth anniversary week of Purple Insider. It has been five years since I launched Purple Insider. I'm very, very proud to have made it five years, but also very, very, very grateful for all of you who have supported it to make it work for five years because I promise you it would not do a thing

without everybody who listens, everybody who watches. So truly from the bottom of my heart, I cannot thank all of you enough for supporting this. And if you want to support it just a little bit more, go over to purpleinsider.football and check out my, I was just working today on my top 10 games of the last five years of me covering the Vikings for Purple Insider.

So check that out. All right, but all these folks here that I'm gonna read you these questions, they are all subscribers to that, their newsletter. The first one comes from Elden. He says, what are the odds with an 11 and six record that the Vikings would be able to clinch the NFC North and at least one home playoff game?

I think that's a coin flip. I think that when we look at the season last year and the win totals that the Vikings and the Lions and the Packers put up, you might as well take at least two away from everybody because the AFC South was so cheap and bad. And look, I will say that we didn't know that going into the season. And this is something I'm working on a little bit I asked one of my analytics friends Tej Seth about the schedule and how much there's a correlation between

preseason predicted Difficulty of schedule and then the actual and the answer is not a lot So we think the NFL is gonna play out one way and then it throws us a curveball every time. I mean, imagine if last year you were going into the season, you were saying, well, okay, we've got Washington on our schedule. You know, obviously the Vikings didn't, but another team, uh, that's a win. And then Jayden Daniels is fantastic. And suddenly they, they're way better and they're in the NFC championship. Well, they were probably predicted to win seven games last year

by most people and the Vegas over unders are just not that accurate. I mean, nobody is a wizard or a genius when it comes to predicting football. If they were, then it would be so much less fun than it is now. So that's a little bit of an aside, but I do think it's impossible to be easier than it was last year with the AFC South where you had multiple teams that were drafting in the top five in one division that gave away free wins. I mean, the number one overall pick,

the Titans, free win, the Jaguars, any other team in the league almost beats the Vikings on that day, and the Jaguars still found a way to lose it. Indianapolis was collapsing at that point. Those are free wins that are going to be harder to come by for everybody in the NFC North. And there's just natural regression anyway. I mean, the Detroit Lions lost their offensive coordinator. Are they going to be the number one offense?

Are they going to just be a really good offense and not unbelievably great like they were last year? Well, that seems likely right and even for the Vikings the health last year. They had unbelievable health. I mean, Granada Van Ginkle. These guys played every single game almost every single snap doesn't always happen. Even 17 every single snap, doesn't always happen. Even 17 games from Aaron Jones doesn't always happen.

17 games for your quarterback doesn't always happen. So I think that 11 wins just based on how regression generally works is a coin flip to be the top record because they're playing the NFC East and I doubt Philly's going anywhere. I'd be surprised if Washington's going anywhere and the Cowboys could be even tougher by the time they go against them. And then, you know, on the north side, like at very least, you know, you're playing Borough and Lamar Jackson.

These are great quarterbacks. So unless they're hurt, but that's the other thing you can never predict is what quarterbacks are you actually facing versus what quarterbacks are you projected to face the last time the Vikings played against the Bengals? It was Jake Browning as the quarterback. So there's a lot that's unpredictable But I think you're barking up the general right tree that if you target that 11 win mark as we go through the season There's a good chance that you win the division with that based on the tiebreakers and stuff like that. Next question comes from miles.

Will the first portion of the schedule particularly overseas games be an advantage or disadvantage for JJ McCarthy? I don't think that it's an easy start to the season, even though I had them winning a lot of games at the beginning of the year. I don't think playing at Soldier Field is the easiest thing in the world. I don't think playing on Sunday Night Football is the easiest thing in the world. And you could say, hey, look, McCarthy won the national championship. He's been in the bright lights.

I'm not saying he's going to see Chris Collins worth and then just melt with fear. But there's an extra amount of pressure that comes along with those Sunday night games. So I think it'll be trial by fire for him. Is it advantage a disadvantage? Well, just projecting defenses. I don't think you're facing tough defenses for the first three weeks until you get to Pittsburgh.

And it's hard to say on Cleveland. I think they did have a pretty good defense last year that was just ruined by horrendous offense, but you won't face at least how we project a difficult defense until week four and that defense is a little bit hindered by being in Dublin rather than in Pittsburgh. I think there is an advantage there overall, but just on this schedule, there's nowhere where you go through it right now and go. Oh, well, you know Win win win just cruise through that like we did last year. I mean they came out of that game against the Rams

What were they five and two I think after the game against the Rams we went Well, there's like three wins coming up so you can just start them at eight and two or whatever it went maybe it was nine and two, whatever it was. But I don't see that right now on this schedule for JJ McCarthy. So I don't think it's bad. The beginning of it, there's a little bit of, hey, the pressure is going to be big. The narratives are going to be big. And if you lose the first one, then all of a sudden, the second one feels like, all right, the season's kind of hinge in on this because you don't want to try to beat burrow next week. But, you know, that's how every NFL season goes. Anyway, you're going to have to play national TV if you want to be a great quarterback.

So you better figure it out today. I don't I don't think it's too bad, though, because I think degree of difficulty for defenses is probably the number one thing that pushes stats in one way or the other outside of certain quarterbacks. And there were years where with Kirk Cousins, it just depended on did they face a bunch of good defenses with good pass rushes or not. You've got a little more escape ability, obviously, now, but you understand the point. I think facing the Bears who are OK on defense, but I don't think that they're great.

And then the Falcons that are going to have to prove it. They did a lot this offseason, but they've got young players on defense that they're counting on who will just be starting their careers like James Pierce and then Cincinnati. I mean, I don't know. Their defense could be horrific. So I don't think it's too bad as a way to start. And the overseas stuff is chaotic, but it's also a team that's done it.

Kevin O'Connell has done it. It's not the first time the organization has ever gone through it. So I think they've got a blueprint at least for JJ McCarthy to work with. I don't think any of it's perfect. I don't think you can ever lay out a schedule that's just so glorious and wonderful for your team and terrible for everybody else Like I'm not sure that's possible. So good question Next question comes from never played Madden per ESPN. Apparently Caleb Williams told his dad

I need to go to the Vikings before last year's draft. Is McCarthy a better fit for KOC? Would you trade McCarthy for Williams and a late round pick swap? So this is one of those like theoretical versus practical that I think that the answer could actually be both. From a theoretical standpoint, if you just tell me, well, you can trade someone who is the 10th overall pick for someone who is the number one overall pick. And this matters because this is really the grade of raw talent

that the NFL put on these players. Atlanta picked Penics over J.J. McCarthy and other teams picked receivers over J.J. McCarthy, right? And nobody picked anybody over Caleb Williams. But knowing what we already know, I think I would just stick with JJ McCarthy and say, well, there's no question about it that Caleb Williams, his ceiling, his best case scenario based on the talent he has, is this guy could be a megastar.

I mean, truly could be one of the top five quarterbacks in the league. He could be everything Jaden Daniels is. And think about Jaden Daniels where he was a couple of years ago. He's at Arizona state throwing as many interceptions as touchdowns just a few years ago when he was Caleb Williams age and he developed and then became the great young quarterback that he is, but he's going to be 25. Caleb Williams is only 22 and is just starting to get into the league. So we really don't know yet.

But the thing that is super concerning to me about Caleb Williams is number one that he drops his eyes. He does not keep his eyes downfield. And I wonder, can you fix that entirely that somebody's first thing to do is panic and look down and then try to scramble? And I don't know. That's really concerning there. I didn't see that from JJ McCarthy in practice or in the preseason game.

It'll be different when the lights come on, but he's always been good at staying in the pocket until it collapses and keeping his eyes downfield, even in college. And he didn't take a ton of sacks because of that, or at least not sacks where he was just looking scared and then getting hit, maybe sometimes trying to extend to play a little too much. I think the personality fit is absolutely flawless with J.J. McCarthy and Kevin O'Connell, just tremendous. I mean, when you listen to J.J. McCarthy talk, you're like, well, that guy's 37,

he's gonna sound like Kevin O'Connell, right? I mean, and even now, I think he's incredibly mature. It's so funny the number of people that I've seen defending Caleb Williams for using the excuse about not watching film. I mean, my gracious, how long is JJ McCarthy been watching film, right? How long is he known how to watch it since he was in high school? I mean, people have so much access now to all sorts

of things to quarterback trainers to former NFL players to YouTube channels to all sorts of stuff. If you want to learn something like that, you can find it now. I'm sure there's been other quarterbacks in past history who didn't know how to watch film and they got to the league and had to learn from some veteran. But I think that is a very poor excuse to give a free pass to Caleb Williams for saying something like that. I think that with KOC, you need an X's and O's junkie nut job. I love football more than anything else and not somebody who's maybe more concerned with themselves or their brand or whatever it might be with Caleb

Williams. He just has a very different vibe to JJ McCarthy. And sometimes it's not always about raw skill. So in practical terms, I would still say JJ McCarthy that take in. Whatever six months from now might seem terrible. I'm not sure. None of us really know. As of right now, though, you're asking about who's who's going to be the perfect fit for KOC. I think it's JJ McCarthy.

I think they found the right guy in the draft. I think Pennex would have worked great. Nix maybe would have been okay for him. I think Nix lacks that freak arm that Michael Pennex has. I think Jayden Daniels would have been perfect, Drake May. But I don't know with Caleb Williams, can you coach that part out of him being a dog? Because there's not a lot of dog in that guy that I can see so far. Okay, two more here. Let's see. Dermoman,

I'm not sure if that's the right pronunciation. Says, I read an article today that Blake Cashman is the most underrated player on the Vikings roster. I think we have rated him highly since he signed. I think that the most underrated player is Josh Metellus. Who would you go for? So you're right about that because when they signed Blake Cashman, he was coming off a year where PFF had him as a top five linebacker. So I kind of lost my mind.

Like I can't believe they got this this guy for that price. Like the world doesn't know how good Blake Cashman is. And that was proven to be correct last year and maybe injuries were some of why his price wasn't as high. But yeah, I mean, he is a I think a top maybe 10 to 12 linebacker in the entire league. But is he thought of in the same way as like a Fred Warner? Now, I don't think he's quite Fred Warner. That's the premier.

That's the number one. But I don't think when you go into a broadcast, a national broadcast that they're going to spend a ton of time with the camera up on the cashman's eyeballs like this before the play and talk about him with every tackle like they used to with Ray Lewis. I think he remains underrated. The thing about us though. I cover them.

You love them is that we know what everybody should be rated. And so when I hear overrated or underrated, I think of from the outside world's perspective, and I think Blake Cashman is still underrated. Josh Mattel is actually probably gets a little more attention because broadcasts have figured out that he gets used all over the place. And I think that that helps him a little bit as far as the actual impact though.

It probably does go under appreciated because last year Mattel is slid into a linebacker spot. The guy's about 210 pounds at best and playing linebacker at that weight. Are you serious? I mean he was able to do it because he's tough enough and he's smart enough and strong enough, but that was really impressive. And I don't think it got enough attention. Just what he was able to do last year before I might've said Byron Murphy,

but he got paid. So now there's going to be more attention on Byron Murphy underrated to the outside world outside of those two guys. Hmm. Yeah, that's a good question. I don't, I don't know who else it would be other than those two. Uh, I guess maybe, uh, we'll see if Mackay Blackman can answer that question. If Dwight McClother and can answer that question or Theo

Jackson could fly under the radar for sure But I think you've got the right two guys who don't always get the most shine But are very very valuable to the Vikings roster Let's see one more Angelo Vikes has given the high TV coverage that the team will have this season How much will KOC have to shield McCarthy from scrutiny or the scrutiny that he will be under? Well, that's the thing about what I was just talking about with Caleb Williams and JJ McCarthy is there's no shielding anybody in the NFL.

Can't be done. JJ McCarthy will have to talk in front of us every single week of his career that he starts every single week. And those press conference answers will get played on ESPN and they'll get played on NFL Network. And when he has a bad game, he's going to get talked about a ton and there's no way that Kevin O'Connell can come out and throw his carcass in front of J.J. McCarthy and say, please, though, Mike Greenberg, stop criticizing J.J.

like that doesn't work that way. I mean, in college, they hide these guys away. Caleb Williams was one of them after a bad game, always not available to the media. You can't do that in the NFL. You have to talk every week as a quarterback and you have to talk after every game as a quarterback and now that's you know, that's that's the job like that's part of the job is that you are a major leadership position on your team and you should be available.

It's one of the reasons the NFL is so big and so wonderful is that these players make headlines every week and every day from their press conferences, and it's always staying, you know, accountable, I think, to the fans. And so I'm sure some of you think like, oh, they shouldn't have to do that or whatever. But I also think how much do we learn about the team from hearing from the quarterback every week? A ton, right? We get their perspective on everything. I think that's what you want when you pay as much as you do

for jerseys and for tickets and everything else. That's a different rant. Cause sometimes I see when somebody like Rory McElroy skips the media, he doesn't owe you anything. And you're like, well, he doesn't owe me. I didn't pay to be here. He owes you. You're the one that paid to be here.

So when he has a meltdown, you want to hear what he had to say about it. What happened out there? You want context, you want information. Uh, that's a different rant though. I McCarthy's not going to have any problem with any of that. You've seen what a good talker he is. He's been in the limelight forever.

And I think that the mental toughness will be tested and he's going to have to learn a lot along the way about the strain that it takes to just get through an NFL season. But that's what he's here for. He was drafted a lot on raw athletic skill and mental toughness. Now's the time to be mentally tough. So I don't think Kevin O'Connell has to do anything. I think he has to be there for him when he's having problems, if it is with some of the scrutiny, because remember, you know, at some of our ages, we could say just get off the social medias. But like that doesn't work that way for a 22 year old quarterback. He's grown up in the darkness of

social media his entire life. It's a part of who he is. So that would be like, I don't know, telling So that would be like, I don't know, telling people from the 1960s, like, don't watch TV or something and be like, what? Or who grew up in the sixties, right? They you should keep your TV off. Like you'd be saying the same thing. He's going to see it if they have bad games and he's going to have to work through it and he's going to get questioned on everything that he does, just like Kirk did and it drove him crazy sometimes and

Just like Darnold did when he had bad games. It's all part of the job So JJ McCarthy has been preparing himself for this for a very long time including playing for Jim Harbaugh including playing at one of the biggest universities and He got a great experience seeing Sam Darnold last year I cannot tell you how important that is just to see a quarterback deal with it, go through it. And I will say this whenever anyone asks me about Sam Darnold, the number one thing I'm going to say is what a great pro, like what a great pro he was last

year in front of us dealing with the media criticism, one bad game. And you got people saying they should play Nick Mullins or go sign Ryan Tannehill or whatever. The scrutiny that came after the Lions game, I know he failed the following week, but the way he handled it was professional to a tee. That's what JJ McCarthy got to see last year. So I think it'll be okay.

I don't think that anybody needs to try to shield anybody. And you know that KOC is always gonna spin positive on quarterbacks anyway. Like he's not gonna Mike Zimmer the kid, you know that. So, all right, great stuff, great questions. Again, purpleinsider.football fifth anniversary of Purple Insider and the articles this week will all have a sale in there as well,

if you want to become a subscriber. So thank you all again, appreciate all of your time today and we will talk to you soon. Football!