Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - First impressions of JJ McCarthy at rookie minicamp

Episode Date: May 10, 2024

Matthew Coller and Dane Mizutani of the Pioneer Press break down what they saw at TCO Performance Center from JJ McCarthy in his first practice Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here along with Dane Mizutani of the Pioneer Press. And we just walked off the field at TCO Performance Center after watching about an hour and a half of J.J. McCarthy intensely throwing footballs. That's pretty much what rookie minicamp is, is the quarterback throwing the football around. There's not pads, there's not contact. In fact, Kevin O'Connell said they have a rule that they don't want anyone to land on the ground at any point, which is quite different from actual football. However, that will not stop us from having

takeaways from JJ McCarthy. And we also spoke with O'Connell and McCarthy after practice so we have a lot to say about that but I will give the floor to you Mr. Mizutani why don't you tell me first just your immediate impression I mean there will never be a second time we get to see JJ McCarthy for the first time it's a special day yeah how lucky are we that we get to sit here in the room at TCO Performance Center and talk about a guy who could end up being the starting quarterback for a decade, maybe two decades, maybe 10 Super Bowls, who knows?

But we'll always remember this day. What I'll remember first is he's bigger than I thought. I get it. He's listed 6'3". I think Kevin O'Connell said he's put on weight since the combine. I think he's probably about 210 now. I think that's about the weight they want him at maybe a little less. Um, I think anything more. And they said like his dynamic abilities go down. Um, if they just balloon him up with, with muscle and weight, um, that is me saying, I watched him at Michigan hand the ball off a lot, throw on third downs efficiently.

And in my head, he was kind of just a smaller guy. I don't know why. He's listed at 6'3". But when I saw him today, he looked like an NFL quarterback to me. And we're standing far away. And, I mean, he still looked big. I mean, there's certain guys I can't name off the top of my head, but when you looked at them at practice, they looked small.

I think about Kellen Mond. He looked skinny. He looked frail. Jaron Hall looked little. J.J. McCarthy looks the part. And then you see him throw the ball, he looks the part there too. He throws everything about 110 miles an hour, which is something he's going to

have to work on. You don't have to throw the ball at all times as hard as you possibly can trying to break the fingers like your Brett Favre. There are times to do that. There are times today where throwing the ball fast lent itself to making good decisions and being good throws. There are times today when throwing the ball fast lent itself to sailing the ball 15 feet over his target's head on the outside. So biggest takeaways today, he looks the part, both at least aesthetically as an NFL quarterback and throwing the football. I don't think that's going to be an issue for him,

just how it jumps out of his hand. It's very hard when you see someone play on TV in college football to get a sense for how big they actually are. And I don't know why this is, but listings don't always equate. And I'll give you an example even with Ivan Pace Jr. where his height, of course, you see and you notice, but you don't feel like this man is super tiny in person. And I don't know why that is. Maybe it's because he's beefed up or whatever. He's built like a a fire hydrant but there's something about getting to see him in person and the thing is that we've done this for a number of years and we always stand in the same spot so you can sort of reference like

how big does he look from here not up close because most football players look big up close kirk cousins is pretty jacked up close right because he's an nfl player but how does he look from my usual view and that was the first thing that i thought as well is okay like this is not any type of small quarterback this is a big guy who is going to i think height and weight wise be above average in the nfl for his position right off the bat the other thing is too that there are guys who throw hard with a ton of effort to throw hard. And then there's guys where the ball jumps off of their arm. Think about a pitcher where that has kind of a slow windup and then the ball is going 97. You go, what the heck?

And then there are other guys that look like they're throwing from the outfield because they're putting everything into it. I think he was closer to comes jumps off his hand than he was and that was another thing that i wanted to see because in college it looked like it was a high effort throw at times it did look like he was trying to put everything into it and maybe some of that is when you're a kid growing up and you're getting training on how to throw a football you have to put your whole body into it and so there's probably some mechanics of that to just even as a kid get the ball to go that you start to make it easier as time goes by like when a little kid shoots a three-pointer and they just have to heave it versus when you're

grown up uh but i didn't feel like this guy was having to just go you know to even get the ball out there it seemed to me like it had a lot of very easy and quick jump and they had to make a lot of throws in practice that were high difficulty throws like deep out routes and stuff like that, where you could really get that sense for the, how about this word, the parabola of the ball. So does it look like it's dipping? Does it look like it's kind of like a duck and I thought there was a ton of velocity on his football yeah and and I think that is an important thing to see in the first day um I don't want to speak ill of the dead but Kellen

Mond we could tell right away in his first practice that it just wasn't going to be easy for him it looked hard it looked funky when he threw the ball it looks pretty easy when JJ McCarthy throws the ball now that doesn't mean he had the best day today I think he struggled at times I think but to your point they were making him I think they were pushing him I don't think it was a download the entire offense and let's go all around and learn it all today and throw everything at him. But I think the throws they were asking him to make were high level NFL throws. And I think he made some of them and I think he missed some of them. But the fact that to your point, and like I talked about earlier, that he can just

throw the ball and it doesn't look hard. I think that's important. And maybe that's something that we're really starting to talk about more as his career progresses, just his arm strength and his arm talent. Because I think when you're in college and you hand the ball off a lot and you don't get a lot of reps, you kind of get this reputation of being a guy with a noodle arm. And he doesn't have a noodle arm. He has a very strong arm, at least upon first impression. I also think back to Kirk Cousins.

When he was trying to rip the ball downfield he was rearing back and he was throwing it with his all his hips and his you know he's planted into the ground it just it does look easier for JJ McCarthy that doesn't mean he's going to be the starter week one um but I think it is an important distinction right now just to look at him and say like yeah he looks the part the part. Right. And the other part of it, of course, and if you reference Kirk Cousins, watching him versus a rookie is quite different. It's quite different because Cousins at his point in his career had so many reps in practice that you just expect the throws to be accurate. I mean, when Cousins was throwing the ball deep down the field,

he was super good at leading his wide receiver anticipating and we saw mccarthy today drop back and he's supposed to throw it maybe 25 30 yards down the field i think it went about 50 and it was a little windy out there but i don't think the wind was at his back and it just it just sailed way over the guy and he kind of went like oh it's on me uh he had a couple other plays that stood out to me. One of them was it was a slant route to Malik Knowles, who is mildly interesting, actually, is a guy that they brought back. He was here last year. They called it kind of a medical red shirt. He had been injured.

Anyway, it doesn't really matter who it was, but he was running a slant route and McCarthy dropped back and just let it go. And the ball hit the guy in the hands. He looked like he had been hit by a torpedo. He was just like, whoa. It just showed that velocity on the ball, the way that it bounced off of his hands. He was pretty shocked at how hard he threw it. And then after, and we'll talk about his press conference and what everybody said more in a minute,

but he threw an interception. There was a pretty bad pick six. And so I asked him, i said like do you want to want to get your first pick six breakdown out of the way like there will be more interceptions at some point in your career for sure but do you want to get the first one out of the way and he said he kind of just misread something they didn't have quite lined up right and that's really how far we have to go in this whole thing is we got to start with lining people up correctly and making a very simple read and the guy who intercepted it talked a lot of trash on the way into the end zone

so it looks to me like a rookie quarterback who has a lot of talent but also is going to have a lot of work to do if it had looked like a veteran i would have been totally shocked if he was running the same way that someone like kirk cousins was so there was a mix of work to do if it had looked like a veteran i would have been totally shocked if he was running the same way that someone like kirk cousins was so there was a mix of impressive tools that you could see very easily in your first impression and hey this throw that's an out route it flew over the guy you know this deep ball wasn't there the timing looked wrong on something kevin o'connell very hands-on in this practice with J.J. McCarthy so that made it pretty interesting today yeah and I do think that's a good point because I think when a guy goes number 10 overall highest drafted quarterback in franchise history like in a way

I'm thankful that fans weren't allowed to be here today because I think there would have been people just expecting that guy to make every throw because he was the number 10 pick and they traded up to get him and he's supposed to be the franchise quarterback of the future he's a rookie and this is his first practice and I do think you have to kind of take the highs and the lows here and truthfully it's probably going to look like that through training camp. Like when real football players, like top-notch starters in the NFL, and he's having to throw against them, like it's at times probably gonna look hard. He's probably gonna have some bad days. But I think we talked about it right after the draft, like patience with this

kid. I promise you the Vikings are going to be patient. I do think it's probably worth saying right now on May 10th that not every practice is going to be a referendum on what quarterback J.J. McCarthy is going to turn into in the future. Today, if you just took all the bad plays he made, there were enough to create a reel of, you know, oh my God, is he going to look, is he going to be a good quarterback? And there were probably enough good plays to say, like, here's a highlight package of a guy making NFL-level throws. It's somewhere in the middle right now. And I think even Kevin O'Connell mentioned that in his press conference.

Like, they care about the results. They care about the completions. They care about the results. They care about the completions. They care about the interceptions certainly. But right now it's just about kind of seeing how much he's learned, seeing how much he can intake and seeing how it translate onto the field. And then just coaching them up from there. So this is, this is so much day one. It is obviously like literally day one, but right now we're in like the early, early stages of this kid's career. So I think it needs to be kind of taken with a grain of salt both ways. And there isn't a sink or swim type of attitude from them. They want to bring him along slowly. They want to be patient with him. And what kept coming up in today's press conferences was Josh

McCown and his role in this entire thing it is not the sexiest topic to discuss that their quarterback coach is good for JJ McCarthy but I do get this impression so McCarthy told the story this was another question I asked him about just that you know working with Josh McCown and McCown well McCarthy told us that McCown told him a story about when he was in the league and he made tried to make a certain type of throw and fit it into a certain window and it got picked off by a keep to leave and he had to tackle him in the end zone or whatever but the immense amount of experience from Josh McCown that can be transferred over to McCarthy and what I liked about that little

anecdote is that he's clearly paying attention like this is it's just somebody who you're almost annoyed with is this young and this well grounded in this mature where you're like how did that happen like what was what were any of us like at 21 years old i know kids are different i know he's been raised for this and everything else but just to even be asked that question hey so what's it like to work with mccown he could have easily just said like oh you know it's good i like him or whatever but he immediately sort of dialed up the here is the immediate lesson that i got from this guy based on his experience whatever else and you can see those wheels turning of jj mccarthy and you get why someone could go into a room with him ask him a couple of football questions and come away and be like you know that guy like that's

the thing when we do the draft analysis and everything else is that you don't get an opportunity to spend time with them as they did and they also talked about the other thing was specifics about how meeting with the vikings transferred over to his practice and to his routine and what he needed to learn so So just being able to take things that they said to him months ago and say, yes, this is something that I worked on and whatever, like everything aligns toward, if he doesn't work out, it's not going to be because he didn't put enough effort or he didn't listen or he didn't, you know, do everything that he was supposed to do. Yeah. This is the kid who on draft night said he edited his life at the age of 10, 12, whatever fifth graders are,

to be an NFL quarterback. And it really does show, like that anecdote you talked about with Josh McCown. Like, yes, that's an example of not only taking coaching, but listening to it and being able to then take the coaching that you had on the field and explain it to somebody else, because you were asked about it. He used the term today, like he was asked, do you have to dial yourself back at this point in time because you want to learn everything, you want to know everything, you want to keep pushing yourself to do this play or that play. He's been studying the playbook pretty much since he got drafted.

And he said he's been a victim of paralysis by over analysis throughout his life. And I think just those little things that you hear him say these little like quips, and I was like, I've never really heard that term. You can tell he's just he's a thoughtful guy who is going to put a lot of effort and time and blood, sweat and tears into this, you know, job that he has. And if it doesn't work out, it's not going to be because, like you said, he isn't ready for the moment. He's certainly going to prepare, over-prepare,

to make sure that whenever he does see the field, he's going to be ready for it. And I think already you're starting to see that, which is a good sign for the Vikings. So one thing I like to do on the show is to uh be level-headed and reasonable and then at other times i like to be totally ridiculous so let me ask you this ridiculous question yep and and here's what i want to do you and i are going to be podcasting a lot so i want to keep track of this number as we go forward yeah what is the percentage chance in your mind as of this date and recognizing

where we are and how far away that JJ McCarthy is the starting quarterback week one of the 2024 NFL season? 10%. That's right now. May. I look at my watch again, May 10th. I'm saying 10%.

I think there's, it's not, it's not zero because I think even today, like I said, there were ups, there were downs, but there were ups. You can see he's capable of making the throws. The ball comes out of his hand. He looks the part. That's why I'm ahead of zero.

I'm capping it at 10% though because I just keep going back to listening to Kweisi Adolfo-Mensel and Kevin O'Connell talk about this. I think the way Kweisi described it on draft night was like a lot of times when quarterbacks fail, a lot of people's hands are dirty in that process. And he said, we're going to make sure our hands are clean. I think he also said something, or maybe it was Kevin O'Connell, that like teams fail quarterbacks before quarterbacks fail teams. I don't think they want this guy to be thrown into the fire week one.

And I think there's a reason they went out and they were in a bidding war with the Broncos over Sam Darnold because they wanted a guy who has played football, started football games in the NFL, so they didn't have to rush this rookie along. But if he looks better than Darnold in training camp and in preseason and the train is on the tracks and it's rolling, I suppose there's a chance. And maybe in mid-July I'm going to be sitting here talking like 75%. He's a week one starter. It's ridiculous if they don't start in week one.

The guys believe in him. Maybe I'm there. I'm willing to eat those words that you know two months from now if that is the story but right now I just and it really doesn't have a ton to do with with McCarthy and his talent as far as I'm concerned or his skill set or if he's ready for this or not I just don't think the Vikings want to rush him well that's why I wanted to ask I mean that's why I want to keep track of this percentage throughout and my own right now after seeing him today and gathering heaps of and mounds of

information that i gathered off of his handful of throws in seven on sevens uh i will go 25 i think it's about one in four because the amount that he, and my brain is referencing Bruce Arian's book. If you haven't read it, it's really good. I think it's called Making a Quarterback or Quarterback Whisperer, something like that. Bruce Arian's biography where he writes a lot about Peyton Manning and all the quarterbacks that he worked with through the years. And he talked about when they drafted Peyton Manning how Manning that day they used to have to get a projector or something like wanted the projector installed in his house with the you know Indianapolis Colts stuff and Manning was so single-minded about

football and this is not me making a Manning comparison it just he's got that vibe to him of someone who is so singular minded about this was his goal he said it even today dream come true to walk out there and that is a thing a lot of people can say but maybe not always true in this case i believe that it is true for him and so to look like he has been putting so much effort into this from draft night from even before draft night when he just met with them of trying to understand what their goals were in case he became a viking all that says to me that he might be farther ahead when we get to the end of training camp than we ever expected him so i'll give it one and four but i also agree with everything you said that they want to be patient they would much rather

wait too long than throw him out there too early and I think Sam Darnold will probably look okay once Justin Jefferson gets here especially because he can throw the ball a lot harder than maybe Nick Mullins can and he'll you know be able to start if they need him to let me ask you about Dallas Turner so we got a chance to talk with Dallas Turner for the second time and if you're looking for takeaways for defensive linemen let me tell you don't have them because one i didn't take my eyes off jj mccarthy the entire practice the other thing is the d lineman don't do anything uh they do drills and stuff off to the side but they don't want the last thing that kevin o'connell wants is for dallas turner to get banged up because some old linemen's trying

to make the team or whatever in his first practice so they keep it very very safe when it comes to that but as far as a dallas turner and how far we expect him to come along i would think because of alabama this is what he talked about the alabama defense and learning the mentality of brian floris's defense that the expectation should be and the approach should be quite different like he should be and the approach should be quite different. He should be expected to right away be a very key piece in this defense. Yeah, I don't know if that means starting edge rusher or if that just means a guy who rotates in, but I do think Dallas Turner will be an impact player for Brian Flores' defense week one.

If we're talking percentages, 100% I think he will be. I'm at 10% J.J. McCarthy starting week one. If we're talking percentages, 100%, I think he will be. I'm at 10% J.J. McCarthy starting week one, 100% Dallas Turner having a prominent role in the game plan. And I do think it's because, like you touched on, at Alabama, I really think those guys are trained for the NFL. They're ready for it. It's something Dallas Turner said on draft night that everything like being coached by Nick Saban prepares you for the next level. You don't have to look much further than how Will Anderson dominated for the Houston Texans on his way to winning rookie of the year for a guy who can be like a tangible example of what you hope Dallas Turner can be. And then you just hear him kind of talk about just like the different ways that he's learned defense over the years and how that seems to line up with a lot of the things Brian Flores wants. He still has a relationship with Will Anderson and he said Will Anderson's hyping him up saying like, you know, I don't need to say anything. You're ready

for this. Like this is what we're built for here coming coming from Alabama and you just get like a sense of like confidence about him that he knows he belongs on the field um the quote that stood out from draft night to me was they told me to be ready to rush the passer when you get off the plane um I think he will be like I think there there's nothing we're going to take away from training camp on the field with Dallas Turner I mean from rookie mini camp on the field with Dallas Turner. I mean, from rookie minicamp on the field with Dallas Turner just because, like you said, they don't do anything right now. But I think you can get a sense into his mentality just talking to him. He used the term today. We asked him about, you do have to dial it back.

You don't want to get hurt. He said it's like when the parents put a leash on a kid and the kid's running around the store and they keep pulling the kid back and be like, nope, get back here. Dallas Turner is that kid and Brian Flores, Kevin O'Connell, the coaching staff, they're the leash. They're pulling him back in. They're reining him back in. But I think when this kid gets to play and when he gets to actually go full in pads against other players trying to block him or trying to stop him from getting to the passer, when he gets to kind of go take it all and go 100% in preseason games,

I think he's going to stand out. Just watch some of his film at Alabama, and I'm not going to say I was someone pre-draft process grinding Dallas Turner film but I have seen now since they drafted him just certain clips of him rushing the passer he's got it all and and he's got it all against guys like SEC type level talent so he's not beating up on mid-major talent like this is a guy who is going up against some players who, frankly, went in the top first round of the draft. He's going to be ready for this, I think, week one right away. And I'm just excited for when we can actually see him play football.

So what I'm going to have to get used to is, after covering Everson Griffin and Daniil Hunter as the pass rushers, those guys were huge. He's not as huge he is smaller more linebacker size what a linebacker used to be as sized and kind of is he like a little smaller than Anthony Barr would you say Anthony Barr's taller yeah maybe about the same long weight or maybe less weight but you could tell yeah the lankiness the athleticism so he does have a different look as more of an outside linebacker than the big giant 4-3 defensive end that was daniel hunter and just i'm only talking about his size because we talked about mccarthy's size and

how your first impression of them is pretty interesting but with him as well he's less chatty than mccarthy we're grilling him less honestly than jj mccarthy about uh all the fascination of becoming a quarterback but you really do get a sense from him as well of maturity and we can usually tell pretty fast if someone isn't taking this seriously maybe i'm wrong about that but i think there are i've been years past where you get your first sort of conversation with the guy and you kind of go all right i think he's gonna have to really start to understand what this is actually like i don't get that sense from dallas turner either so my expectation is very high that he'll step in right away the problem for us is that otas doesn't have

much contact minicamp a little bit they start going but not a ton and even with training camp it's not until the pads come on that we're going to be able to say hey whoa dallas turner's got it or you know he hasn't really made the same impact that we thought what is for you your biggest intrigue through the rest of the off-season program this was something i talked about on my live stream last night just the things that were on my mind for the entire offseason program of course mccarthy how he looks in every practice is worth a podcast that we get to see because we only get to see next week i think we got nothing and then the week after we get a practice there's one the following week and then three for minicamp so this is not a ton we're gonna get like five and every single one of them gets a full breakdown for you guys but uh what through this spring if

you will are you looking for well i'm gonna give two because one's gonna be kind of cheating and the other one will be actually answering your question the the first one like i'm looking forward to seeing sam darnold throw the football And that's the one that feels like cheating because we're going to be interested in J.J. McCarthy, so of course we're also going to be interested in Sam Darnold. I think we're going to see a lot of footballs flying fast now. This is going to take an eyeball adjustment with those two and the arm strength they have. They are going to zip it. But I'm just excited to see Sam Darnold and how he looks on the practice field.

Kevin O'Connell has lauded the time he spent in San Francisco last year and how it's changed him as a quarterback, just kind of getting to learn in that system with that coaching staff. So I'm excited to see what that looks like on the practice field. Because if you just go back and you pick a game that Sam Darnold started in the NFL, you might find a really good one or you might find a really bad one if you just picked at random. So I am excited to kind of see like, does he look that much better than JJ McCarthy? He should. Like if we're saying he's going to be the week one starter and he's started X amount of games in the NFL, he should look night and day ahead of J.J. McCarthy. Will he?

That's what I'm excited to kind of look into, lean into. This is more answering your question. I'm excited to see, is Lewis seen a part of the depth chart? Because I know for a fact, I guess to that degree, I'm looking forward to seeing, like, the secondary, how that plays out. Kyrie Jackson, the rookie they drafted out of Oregon, enormous man. Humongous. He legitimately looks 6'4 on the outside. Huge.

That should have been the whole show is go through the roster and just go, did he look as big as I thought? And the answer for is mostly today, yes. But Kyrie Jackson is freaking huge. Huge. So I want to see where he fits in. I want to see how the cornerback depth chart plays out because I still don't think that's going to be a strength of the team, but I think it should be improved.

But I say Louisine because I think there's a chance that guy gets caught, and that's not going out on a limb, but I think when you just kind of look at the depth chart and you kind of just try and project out what the secondary is going to look like, the corners are going to interest me, but where the safeties fall is going to probably be a thing I'm keeping an eye on. Just because you wouldn't think that a first-round pick two or three years into his career is going to be cut, but I was doing a projection of the depth chart because it's May and you got to find things to write about and I was having a hard time finding Luis Luis seen a spot on the roster so look maybe he took

the offseason really seriously and he comes back and he surprises all of us and he does look the part of once upon a time a first round pick but I'm excited to follow his path and trajectory because I think we'll know right away I think we'll know right away did Louis seen take this offseason seriously is he going to be a player on this team or is he behind and this is no slight at Theo Jackson because he is he's a good player is he still behind Theo Jackson on the depth chart I think we'll know right away if Louis seen is going to be a part of the team or not. If you have to say this is no slight on Theo Jackson, I mean, look, I think Theo Jackson is impressive that he's on an NFL team where he was drafted and he made a play in Philly last year and seemed to be fine when he was out there.

But your first round pick should be playing over him. We thought that initially about Cam Bynum, and then Cam bynum has actually become quite good and then we thought maybe lewis scene would become what josh metellus became and they just keep proving that drafting safety is that high is probably not the best idea because a lot of them come from the middle rounds or free agency because it's fit it's the scheme that you're in and it's a real iq position more than it is physical freakishness and my confidence isn't high i had written him off to the point where

when you said lewis c and i went like oh yeah i guess that's a thing are we making that a thing because i gave up on doing the well will treadwell take the next step after year two after year two I went I don't think so I yeah I think we're good here and I guess year three we should give him that courtesy if he's gonna be here it is so far behind it is farther behind than anyone I've ever seen that's a first round draft pick that I mean that's not an insult it's just a fact I've never seen a first round draft pick who would just be passed by five different players in front of him and not even active on game day and never active on game day like never play so if he does he does emerge and that's what i was going to say is just the lineup in general

is going to be pretty interesting i would say today that no wide receiver even slightly impressed so no no they really didn't uh usually in rookie minicamp there's one or two guys that we go like oh you know not today so uh the the wide receiver battle i think is very very interesting do you think they're going to bring in more people on this football team because I want to write like here's the remaining free agents and you know that always does clicks but should is that worth it or are we is this what we're going to see here that's that's why Lewis seen came to my mind is because I do think a lot of the if you just and depth charts just kind of fresh in my mind because I just did a projection on it for the pioneer press but like I don't know if they're

gonna bring in a ton of new blood into this equation come OTAs mandatory training camp like I I think there's a chance they might bring in another body at receiver because right now I think your number four receiver is probably Trent Shurfield um Jalen Naylor, maybe. Jalen Naylor, if he can stay healthy. So I think you're going to probably want a little bit of competition. Look, maybe these guys that performed today at rookie minicamp that at least underwhelmed in our eyes, maybe they start to pop as they get more comfortable moving forward. But just judging off of today, I don't think there's anyone who's going to push for roster spots, at least from this crop of characters. So I guess I'm also interested in, like, are they going to bring in another left guard?

Or is Blake Brandl just going to be the guy blocking on the interior? Like, the coaching staff likes Blake Brandl, but should Blake Brandl just be, like, guaranteed a starting spot on the offensive line? But overall, the roster is kind of set. We know who's going to play for the most part. There's going to be, obviously, position battles throughout training camp that we're going to keep eyes on. But I think as long as they get Justin Jefferson signed quick, and I think he will sign at some points here, hopefully before training camp, so we don't have to follow that story every day um I don't know there's just not a ton of like intrigue on like the inner workings of of the roster because I think kind of

who you think's gonna start is probably just gonna start yeah I don't think we can really pick up from OTAs or minicamp how far Ty Chandler has come along since last year. I think he's got a lot to learn. How much the coaches yell at him might be a thing that we just watch. Like, does he look like he's running the right direction, and does he look like he's blocking the right person? It can be pretty hard to figure out from the sidelines.

So I usually look at this position coach and see, like, okay, is he over there? Okay, I'll give you one that's super obvious. Like you said, it's almost cheating as a subject and, you know okay is he over there okay i'll give you i'll give you one that's super obvious like you said it's almost cheating as a subject and uh you know it's very clear and then i'll give you another one that is super interesting to me and maybe about five percent of the rest of the world so the obvious one is just a jefferson's contract i'm thinking at this moment it is a matter of when and not if that he will sign. What's your percentage on him signing before the end of minicamp? I think it's 50-50.

I think we're pretty close. I really do. I just think the way you hear Kweisi talk about it publicly, the way he talked about it after the draft, it did seem like a matter of when not if um the way he said like justin deserves a week to celebrate um makes it seem like when they do make it happen it's not just going to be some regular press conference it's going to be a celebration of sorts i mean i don't think you you let your mind go wander into that direction unless you think it's pretty close to happening i'll say

50 50 because i could just see like it getting pushed out to training camp because sure if he misses mandatory mini camp will that be a story yes because it's mandatory mini camp i believe you get fined if you're not there um but if he misses three days in the beginning of june whatever like if he starts to miss training camp, then I think it becomes something that is at least a cause for concern in the sense of he's losing valuable reps with whoever is going to be his quarterback. But I'm 50-50 on before minicamp's over just because I think there is still a chance that

if we're grasping at straws trying to get an extra dollar here or there, you might use that leverage and just push it out another month. I like 50-50. I don't like it because it's not hot for like, oh, if you go 10%, there's a, whoa, Mizutani thinks it's only 10% that McCarthy, like aggregators, here you go. But 50-50, you know, I feel like it's a little better than 50 50 that it it feels too perfect and i could be totally wrong and this could go to september 7th but that's just how negotiations

work right uh we'd be better at reporting on them if anyone was actually in the room with them but we're not so uh as we saw for tj hockinson and how weird that got last year but as far as the percentage chance minicamp a lot of times legends show up in minicamp so they have it i think the last day of minicamp is open to all the legends so paul kraus will be out here and you're like whoa that's like john randall or you know whoever else is just wandering around watching practice and that feels like the perfect time to have a press conference with i don't know chris carter or something here just watching and him talking about it just feels right so i don't know if they want to if they're talking about making a birthday party for him then like this is great uh we should do this for like a lot more

stuff when things happen like a guy kicks three field goals in a game, and we just celebrate it for a week as an organization. I don't know. Was the kicker here? I didn't even look. He was here. Was he kicking? I did not see if he did or did not kick the ball.

I was pretty focused in on McCarthy, but I did see the specialists just hanging out on the other field. They exist. I feel like i've let you all down with not paying attention to if he had any reps at all did they have a long snap i don't think they had a long snapper here was there i don't think there was a rookie long snapper here so sorry no takeaways from the show on will reichard and his first uh we'll get there oh the other one before we wrap up uh the kick return i really want to see

what they do in otas and minicamp to start preparing this is a huge deal this is going to be a play that happens 50 60 70 times in a year where kenny wong wool or whoever the hell else is got the ball back there with a chance to go score a touchdown. I mean, this suddenly becomes, instead of a who cares, eye roll type of thing, ah, well, kick it out of the back of the end zone. I'll go to the restroom while they get lined up again, whatever. Now it's must-see TV for these kickoffs, and every team in the first few weeks of the season is going to show how prepared they really were.

So I want to see just what it looks like matt daniels is trying to teach them we're going to hear from matt daniels uh we're going to hear from josh mccown at some point who i'm really interested to hear talk and it will be a very interesting um program that will mostly be centered around us talking constantly about the quarterbacks but i will be watching for that and next time i will try to track how many uh kicks will reichard does i i mean the kick return is i you got to give the the people a little more you said five percent of people i think maybe ten percent of people are going to be going to be excited about but like it is a big play now like it's not just like i think we're going to have to untrain our minds at some point. Kickoff returns now really matter

and probably are going to change a lot of games over the course of a season across the NFL because just the fundamental logistics of the kick return are completely different. I also think there's going to be people who watch a preseason game, see a kick return, and what the hell is going on out there? Why are they all lining up like that? I don't think everyone's going to be super locked in on all the rules

that have changed about the kick return and probably won't be privy to it. NFL teams will be. The Vikings will be. Fans watching, though, I think it's going to be a little jarring at first to be like, what's going on. Why are they all lined up 10 yards from each other? I think Kenny Wong was going to have a spot on the roster for sure. And it will be interesting to kind of see it all play out. Two funny,

quick things for you to end the show here because it is the spring. And even though I, we were intense at the beginning, we've become less intense as the show has gone along because it's may, but I asked Dallas Turner or or no someone asked dallas turner what he had been up to in between the time he got drafted getting here and he basically said grinding and playing video games so i asked what video game and he said madden and then he said do you want to play me do you think i could beat dallas at Madden? The new Madden?

No. Because I've played the new Madden, and I know for a fact you have not played the new Madden on PS5. I don't even have a PS5. I know you're a PS2, PS3 maybe kind of guy. N64? Yeah. So I think the new school, like, it's hard to play Madden now. Like, the movements, they don't make sense.

Maybe I just suck at Madden now. The movements, they don't make sense. Maybe I just suck at Madden now, but once upon a time, I was pretty good at it. I think the new school, new generation gaming system and how that translates, I think it'd kick your ass. I think if you had to play PS2 Madden, you would destroy him. He would not know what happened. I don't know, whatever Madden O blank was your best.

O5, yeah. Okay. Yeah, the year of the hit stick. Yeah, that was the year. Ray Lewis covered, right? Oh, he'd be fumbling left and right with my hit stick. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.

The number of hours into Madden O5 is incomprehensible because that's when I was in college. Yeah. So the grinding part didn't happen, but the video game part happened in college. But now I do too much of this. And so there isn't as much time. I don't know if Dallas Turner is married.

I don't think so. I am. So that also kind of plays into it. If you gave me 100 hours of work on the game, though, I could, I think, at least be competitive against Dallas Turner. And the other thing was, I heard you guys talking today because we have these silly conversations sometimes when we walk back and forth for the field of about what Austin Rivers said, where he said that 30 players in the NBA could go immediately to the NFL, but not the other way around. So that was his statement, right? That he thought that there was at least 30 guys in the NBA who could just go play play in the nfl and there's not 30 nfl players who could go play in the nba uh what was your take on that

that became very hot on the internet it became so content people got angry and i think people were misunderstanding what austin rivers was saying i don't think austin rivers was saying if you took 30 nba players they could create an NFL team. Like, no, an NBA player could not play linebacker in the NFL. No, like an NBA player could not play quarterback in the NFL. But I think what he was basically saying is like athleticism translates on the field at times. And if you put it, I think we can agree or I hope we can agree that NBA athletes are the best athletes just as far as the traditional what you think about like athleticism running jumping being big and then being able to do both at the same time I think the athleticism translates from the NBA to the NFL I think if you put a guy

who's 6'7 230 out at tight end and receiver, I wouldn't ask them to block and play tight end like a real position, but I would put Rudy Gobert on the field, split him out wide, and the goal line fade would all of a sudden become a really efficient play. He's jacked. He's huge. I think it's a silly argument. It's fun. It is an argument made for May and us to go back and forth about.

But I think the biggest thing that people missed in all of this was that, like, I don't think there are 30 NFL players that could go play in the NBA right now. There are so many levels to basketball. And I think just, like, a lot of people think think like, oh, he was good in high school. Like so were every single player in the G League. And a lot of those guys have no chance of being in the NBA. Just because you can shoot outside does not mean you're going to be able to play against Anthony Edwards if he's trying to D you up,

Jaden McDaniels if he's trying to D you up. Like I don't know. I think it was a silly thing of Austin Rivers to probably say, but I think it was an even sillier thing of like the NFL people to pro clutch and be like, oh, how dare he think doesn't think we're good enough athletes to go the other way. I agree with that. I think that if NBA players had been trained to play football as opposed to basketball they would have their bodies in shape i think if you just grabbed 30 nba players and said you're on an nfl team now you would have no chance whatsoever you would not i mean you wouldn't last one practice get hurt build your body for that i mean there's no when you talk about athleticism there are not nba players very many who would match up to the strength per even like the height. Like there are dudes who are six foot three that are insanely,

insanely strong in the NBA, which I don't think you even want to do that. Or I'm sorry, in the NFL, you don't want to do that in the NBA because you need to be at your quickest, your most agile. So you build your body differently. Even in the Michael Jordan documentary,

he talked about building his body differently for baseball than basketball. So there's that element to it. I don't know that basketball players, one of the things that's very hard about playing in the NFL is the level of courage that is required. So could you make a great catch? Probably. Could you run by people? Probably. But how crazy are you really like the things that we see justin jefferson do rising up in traffic i mean just getting hit in the ribs

last year and going to the hospital because his lung popped or whatever i mean the level that they put their bodies through all those things is not for regular people. My thought is probably that neither could do either. I don't think any of you could go out and do any of this either. There's probably some NFL players who were great at basketball, but it's a lot safer. So why wouldn't you do that? I mean, I don't know. One of these, one of these games makes more money basketball makes more money if you're a great nba player it's really not even close and uh also you don't get like your entire body pulverized so i don't know if if you got a sore foot you're like no

not today not today in the nfl it's the well we're gonna shoot it up and you gotta tape it up and run out there and if you die you die it's a little different when it comes to that but i don't think anybody could do each other's jobs i really don't i thought y'all looked ridiculous uh in talking about it as these nfl players you could never learn our playbook or something i don't know man i we'll see uh but um anyway there have been college football or basketball players who played in the nfl not too many the other way around of football players who went and played in the nba so tony gonzalez maybe has something to say about it anyway i just thought it was fun i'd ask you about it dane mizzutani pioneer press gets to go cover a wolves game tonight which is pretty

freaking awesome to be inside that building so i'm happy for you and of course we'll be rolling on with the show at all costs so um take everybody football