Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - How can J.J. McCarthy thrive in Year 1? Former Vikings QB explains

Episode Date: May 8, 2025

Matthew Coller welcomes back former Vikings QB Sage Rosenfels to discuss Minnesota's offseason and how J.J. McCarthy can thrive as the team's full-time starter this season.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of purple insider Matthew collar here and joining me on the show, his triumphant return to purple insider, former NFL quarterback, former Viking sage Rosenfels, my friend. It is great to catch up with you again on a podcast. How are you? I'm doing well. Uh, staying very busy. Uh, somehow, you know, it's, it's spring time. So it's working a lot in the yard and planting flowers and just now having the

sprinkler guys come over and readjust my sprinklers cause I'm changing, changing some things. I got to have some more area covered. So, uh, just got back from a golf trip to Scottsdale, which is a lot of fun desert mountain. They have seven golf courses. Uh, which is a lot of fun, Desert Mountain. They have seven golf courses. They're a little member guest. I'm not the member, I'm the guest. But I don't know, staying busy.

I own a little grocery store in Austin, Texas, which trying to get off the ground, trying to build out a deli, that's the next step, I think. So, you know, staying busy. That is the most journeyman stuff. You know, it's funny. You had the journeyman career, but also journeyman post career, uh, and going on a golfing trip is also, if you're a backup quarterback and you can't golf,

you might as well just pack it in. Like, it's not going to work for you. I think it is an absolute requirement of a journeyman quarterback to be a great golfer. Yeah, not all quarterbacks are good golfers, but I would say more often than not on an average football team, the quarterbacks and the kickers kickers a lot of times, kickers, punters, pretty good golfers. And so I didn't, that was one of the sports I didn't play in high school, high school, but when I was maybe 13, 14 years old, my summer, we made up of going playing basketball in the morning and then playing golf right after that. And it was 50 bucks, all you can play all summer, like in the mornings, you know, so I go play nine holes or whatever. And

did that a lot as a kid, worked at the Iowa State Golf Course when I was in college. And I shagged, you know, when you're the guy doing the range, once you clean up the range, if you don't have another job to do, at least they didn't ask me to do up more jobs, just clean up the range, which meant I'm gonna go take 100 balls and go down to the end of the tee box

and hit a few out there. So golf's a great sport. It's actually for my body. It's been really, really good because of all the twisting. And so now I'm gonna like, I can't really grow anymore. I got a bad hip. And so trying to find ways to move around and twist your body and do things.

Oh, then going for a walk and are going for a job for some people, uh, you know, trying, trying to stay halfway young years as I get to my late forties. Yeah. I think, uh, for once you hit a certain age, everything is just sore when you wake up, no matter if you played in the NFL or you're a professional podcaster. And golf is the perfect sport to where that doesn't really matter because you're just swinging a club and hitting the ball. Uh, but the reason that I, and I could talk golf with you all day, of course, but the reason that I wanted to connect with you is that the Minnesota Vikings

have a new quarterback in JJ McCarthy. And while he was behind the scenes last year, he has never played before in the NFL. So I want us to go through what your advice would be in laying out what it means to be an NFL starting quarterback and not only do you have your own experience starting in the NFL, but we're lucky enough to be on the same team as Brett Favre, Eli Manning, threw footballs to Andre Johnson.

So that's a similar experience that JJ McCarthy is going to have thrown balls to Justin Jefferson. So let's just start out with that broadly. He's getting his first chance, but he's getting his first chance on a team that really wants to win and has a lot of veteran players on this team. This is not like a young five year plan type of team. They have very high expectations coming off of a 14 win season.

What do you think JJ McCarthy's mentality should be going into the spring into training camp, knowing that he's got to lead the team, but he also has a lot of guys who have been leading the team. Yeah, it's, it's an interesting situation that he's in. Maybe the best or one of the best situations, I think, for a young quarterback to come into. And no one wants him to tear their ACL or is that what he tore his ACL?

It was the knee. It was the meniscus. Tore the meniscus. OK. But looking back, that's one of those silver linings where I tell you what, playing your rookie year in the national football league is a lot. You're trying to learn offenses, you're learning defenses,

you're learning how games work, you're learning situations. For him to sort of redshirt, like for me, going to college, the best thing that I ever did was redshirt. The best thing I ever did. And I, generally you see a lot of successful quarterbacks come out from this sort of redshirt year. They don't play for a year or two years in like a Jordan Mub or Aaron Rodgers situation.

And so you've seen that, the fact that he got to learn from a veteran quarterback who had the best season of his career. And learn about an offense, learn about the offenses and all the game plan that goes into it and sort of see a guy prepare for 20 weeks over there and how he handles himself. So perfect veteran quarterback for a perfect guy that was a rookie put into a situation where one, the head coach is obviously an extremely good offensive mind. He's a former quarterback himself. Former quarterback head coaches, in my opinion, seem to have a lot of success. Not always, right? But Garen Kubiak had plenty of success, right? Even Jason Garrett had a fair share of success.

So former Corbex, he's serving the perfect coaching staff per se. And as what you said, a talented veteran footballer. This is the opposite of like David Carr back in the day. He has not come there trying to save some organization. This organization is in a great position for the long run, by the way. I mean, Vikings fans been around for a long time. I don't know what 1960 something or other when this when the team started. But the ownership where it is now, the investment they have in the people, the facilities, the city, the stadium, you know, the Viking experience right now compared to 40 years ago for players,

I'm sure for fans is astronomically better. And so these this will family, they, you know, they're not perfect, but they make a lot of right moves. A lot more than these other teams, you know, God bless the mayors have owned the team since 1925 and it's done them no money years They haven't made mistake after mistake and like rookie mistakes, you know overpay a quarterback and not pay your All-pro MVP running back, you know, it's doesn't make a lot of sense. And so They're sort of he's sort of in the perfect situation from head coach, from team, and from ownership, that he could really, you know, ever ask for from a young guy. So his mentality is probably going into it is, I don't know, I mean, just do your best. I mean, that's all you can really do. Do your best. Play free. I think the last thing you want to do is, that expectation can make you feel a lot of pressure. Like I have to play really well because everything is set up for me to succeed. And if I don't, I'm a failure. So probably to try to go out there and just be a part of the overall outcome of the game.

And that's not to try to do too much or play overly conservative, just play. And I think that what Kevin O'Connor will do is he'll, he'll find what he's good at, find what he's bad at. He'll give him, you know, some games he might give them more, uh, more the reins other games. It's like, let's call it and run it because maybe this is a more confusing team. The coach wants to have a little more control. Right. And so I think, but I think what he got to see that rookie year, uh, is absolutely huge for him not to not play last year.

Let's talk about that a little more in detail about what you can learn in a year where you're not actually playing because you didn't play right away in the NFL. You were drafted to Washington. You had time to develop there and ended up really getting your chance in Houston to play just going behind the scenes a little bit from last year. Now, there's some more technology than when you played. So he was doing virtual reality stuff where they put a little camera on Sam Darnold's helmet and he could hear the play call and stuff like that. But, uh, other than that, I think it's probably a pretty similar experience of just seeing how the operation works.

And one of my thoughts was that when you get to see how hard it is from Sam Darnold, because that's something you cannot prepare yourself for going from college to the NFL, just how much strain there is mentally, emotionally, physically, the number of injuries that Sam Darnold was playing through, an ankle, he had his hand wrapped, but wouldn't talk about what exactly happened there to his thumb, but I think that may have affected some of his accuracy down the stretch. I just think that when you come from college and you won a national championship with Michigan,

you really don't understand what adversity is until you see it up close, but having seen it, he knows it's going to be there and can prepare himself mentally for it. Yeah, there's that and probably knowing Sam Donald's career leading up to it, right, and sort of, you know, rooting for this teammate to have the most, you know, the most successes he's ever had. I mean, I think there's that's a learning experience. I go back to my career. You know, how many core backs I played with. Every year's a new room. It is. Rarely do you have like the same three to four guys, really never, going into training camp. Right? You might end up with two with a practice squad or three or whatever. But you know, four or five guys. My year could be a Jeff George. Alright, 34 year old Jeff George, still a cannon and

Marty Schottenheimer. The complete opposites. How is this gonna work? And it didn't. Two games in, the starting quarterback gets fired. We had added Tony Banks, who had gone to Dallas, hoping to be the starting quarterback in Dallas out of nowhere in the military camp, gets released. We signed him, it was Jeff George, Todd Hussack and myself, and we signed Tony Banks. Todd Hussack, the standard quarterback quarterback ends up being the odd man out This is all happening and that doesn't happen in college football guys could write like, you know, there's Bruce Smith and Darrell green as you're at as you're you know in practices to your your Taking in these experiences

That are just very different than the college football experience and so, you know as as I said, games unfold and wild endings happen and the clock, you know, we all watch a lot of college football. The clock is terribly managed in college football compared to the pros, right? Even some of the better, you know, Nick Saban, he probably was one of those guys who was very, very good.

But I see it all over college football, mishandling clock situations, end of the half, end of the game, when they go for it, when they do this. Holding on the ball and cover zero and the team's obviously gonna give you cover zero, why weren't you thinking about that? It's just such a looser game and so, yeah, the details of the NFL game, but yeah, all those experiences, so now they're not hitting them every single time. Going into Lambeau, it's not hitting them.

Oh my God, I'm playing Lambeau Fields. He sort of bend through it. And as far as reps, I mean, that's another thing. He's getting all the one reps now. And that's gonna be huge for him, where he was sort of, you know, probably splitting them last year, when he started his third quarterback, I believe, and sort of worked his way up, which is naturally what you want to sort of slowly work your way into. He's getting all the reps. And he has all those experiences. And so I'm sure he learned a lot from Sandor and, and from the head coach and the coordinator and all that.

And it's like he already has the answers now. He has seen it and now nothing is really new. And as you're talking about that technology, that VR technology, before you back up quarterback, you stand behind the starter or the backups are all... And they're watching and they're trying to... But in this situation, you are visually getting those reps. You're not physically getting them, but visually now with the cameras being the quarterback's head, you're in the pocket.

And I can't even tell you the price tag of a rep, like the value of every rep that you have and how that can help him from watching last year's reps from sort of visually through the pocket but also as he goes into this year and it's him rewatching himself you know in those videos and so I think I manage that technology is huge I'm very visual in that element and there's so much you can do you know 15 yards back staying behind to get back coaches trying to sort of see you know what the quarterback is seeing and there's nothing that beats the the time and the thought and the feeling of being inside a collapsing pocket. So something I wanted to ask

about last year McCarthy was able to learn the footwork and improve his accuracy because of that between the spring and the summer. And this is just another element of he's not a rookie because he's already had an entire spring and summer of learning Kevin O'Connell's footwork. I remember last year they were talking about how even just the way that he stood in the shotgun, where his feet were positioned, they were going to have to change because that doesn't work for the timing of a lot of these routes. I would love you to explain like how, how that works, like why that is so vital to get that down, like what the footwork means, how hard is it to learn? Like, how does it, how does it all sync up differently and what it would mean for him to have already understood that from last year?

Well, he does have the fortunate, um, history of college football where he did play for an NFL coach in hardball at Michigan. And so a lot of the footwork, he had done probably most of it, right? When Andrew Luck came to the NFL, also under hardball, he was sort of NFL ready. And I assume McCarthy is way ahead of the people who are always in shotgun. I called two Michigan games a couple years ago for radio. And they're under center, probably more than almost anybody in college football. It's like, my God, we're under center.

I have a state we go under center when we quarterback sneak it, or kneel it down. And so he has that traditional element already worked in, five step drops and things like that, thrown on time, thrown with rhythm. He has a lot of that. In the pro game, you just do more of it. I think that type of footwork just expands, right? And of course, you know, you might have two types of play actions in college and pros, you'll have 10, but they're all maybe similar footwork, right? And from a shotgun standpoint, we could have a 30- minute conversation about right foot forward, left foot forward,

or even with your feet, right? Peyton Manning, even. Drew Brees, right foot forward. Kurt Cousins, right foot forward. Tom Brady, left foot forward. Brock Curdy, left foot forward. Love, left foot forward. Jordan Love.

And what are the strengths and positives of that right I Played mostly right foot forward. Eli Manny was right for it. I Believe he like in his career change left foot forward and I was convinced I'm going to a few camps actually a conversation with Kyle Shanahan as to why they do left foot forward and why it makes sense for them and What the reasons were. And so, I'm now a left foot forward guy. So when I teach kids, it's left foot forward. And you're like, well, why? What's the difference? It's like, well, let's just start off. When you throw a football, which foot is forward? The left foot. So why wouldn't you start there? So you can catch

it and just go, right? I mean, that's really the number one reason why. So if you go right foot forward, you catch it, now you have to bring that right foot behind you. So that time right there, you can't throw a ball. And it's just taking an extra half second, quarter second of time to do that. But that quarter second can be everything in the National Football League. If you ask every quarterback throughout the year, you can have an extra half or quarter second can be everything in the national football league You know if you ask every quarterback throughout the year, you can have an extra half or quarter second

They would say yes every single time and so But it said Drew Brees the Hall of Famer right foot for us all clear because the right foot forward really mimics more under center Drop, you know, you're here and then you're You're shifting your weight back into the other side and that's sort of like how it is in your center. So that rhythm would stay more of the same. But I'm not even sure what you guys do in Minnesota up there with Kevin, but I imagine he has copied Sean McVeigh and that tree who all sort of gone in this direction of left foot

forward. But the reason is, well, you throw with your left foot forward, so why don't you just start with your left foot forward if you're gonna have one. And then it's a little bit more of a shuffle and less of a drop when you go left foot forward. So you know, maybe that type of thing, those might seem small. Finding each, you know, I'm in the gun and what would it be a three step drop? What does that feel like for me? Like what is that timing where it's not three step drops in the gun, it's you turn in sort of a one step drop, right? Because it's, the time it takes to snap you the football is

like the first step and a half of a regular drop and so you can't take a three step drop in the gun for a three step drop on your center. So you just like a three, one, five turns into a three, a seven turns into a five. But what do those look like? What does a three from the gun with left, or a five step from the gun look like with your left foot forward, right?

And so trying to probably learn that and learn what feels right and timing is right. Those reps are invaluable to just, so you can literally do with your eyes closed, you know, so you're not thinking about it. And if he did something different in college, those are like habits you have to retrain yourself and it feels completely new.

My guest is talking about those shotgun drops. So this is the point about the level of detail that exists in the NFL versus, you know, I mean, not to say that college. This is all you do. No classes, no classes, right? No, uh, you know, this is it. And it's the, this is it in the off season, you know, there's no winter conditioning. All right. There's the, you keep, you keep working on it and then you know, you the coaches

Corvass coaches and if you you know back in the day used to be March you would get there and start having meetings you only can watch so much film of opponents we ought to turn a film of ourselves and Really getting into details of you know Even the handoffs you wouldn't believe the little things that go into hand the ball off of where your eyes are, how you're showing the ball where your opposite hand is. What you do if you don't hand it off and you pull it back, pull the string on the back of your elbow. That's the coolest trick in the game is this sort of, it's like the ball just sort of sneaks

out of the belly of the running back and into your lap and just imagine pulling the string on the back of your elbow. You have to do this over and over and over because those runs have to look just like the passes and so they get super super fine detail of literally every step. Every step, you know, could you get two or three more inches on that first step from under center, you know, or this one, when it went a little bit too far around, when you drop back, they just, they did get so detailed and all that stuff for maximum efficiency. And it's one of those things that's probably not really noticed by most fans because it's all done so well by, by everybody, you know, for the most part.

Yeah, right. And it is incredible detail and also from JJ McCarthy's perspective in an NFL playbook and there have been some that people have published like their old playbooks and stuff. So just poking through every one of those things is in there. And last year imagine this he's just arriving now and he's having to learn every one of those details for every single drop, every single play action, even just getting the huddle together is probably different

than it was in college. So him having all of that experience is a lot different too. Now you played with two of the greatest quarterbacks to ever play in the NFL. One of them I would say would be a model for JJ McCarthy. The other one I wouldn't suggest anybody try to copy. Uh, Brett Favre is his own thing. No one can ever be Brett Favre. Maybe Patrick Mahomes is as close as it gets, but then he doesn't turn the ball over as much. Uh, Eli Manning though,

I think would be a great model for a quarterback to follow because think about the pressure that he faced in New York. It was not a success right away for him. It only became a success a little later on. And even then there was a ton of pressure on him as he went through that and to become a franchise Superbowl winning champion quarterback. I know there's debates is he Hall of Fame? Is he not? What? Whatever, man, you beat Aaron Rogers, Brett Favre on the road in the playoffs. You go and win two Super Bowls like you are. If you, if that's what JJ McCarthy becomes, then the Vikings fans will be as happy as it gets. But I'm just curious about your experience and what you learned about Eli Manning as that true franchise type of quarterback in one of the pressure cookers of the NFL. Yeah, very unique there. And you know, you know, you brought far first, you know, he had a unique skill set.

He had an insanely strong arm, and he was insanely strong. You know, he had extremely like thick wrists and thick fingers and he's like he'd been doing hay bales his whole life, you know. McCarthy's not built like that, right? He doesn't play like that. By the way, Favre and I one time talked about Dan Marino being the greatest thrower that ever played in the National. No one threw the ball like Dan Marino, right? I saw Dan Marino being the greatest thrower that ever played in Ashley. No one threw the ball like Dan Marino, right? I saw Dan Marino at Zach Thomas' Hall of Fame induction a couple years ago in Canning.

And you'll love this. Jim Kelly standing there, Damon Heward, Bernie Kozar. It wasn't just Miami Dolphins, There's my hurricane element to this thing, too You know, of course Dan Marino and at some point the conversation I said Dan That's want you to know. I think you're the greatest throw of the football that the NFL has ever seen Very serious like that. He goes he looks at me and he goes I know That's the most Dan Moreno thing. That's the only, that's the best way to describe him on a personal level is that sort of mindset and that attitude.

Anyway, going back to Eli. Eli, yes, I got Eli maybe year nine for him. I think it was 2004. Maybe it was more like year seven. I was in 2010. And they had built up this playbook. Gilbride had been there for a long time. And so they had such a stranglehold

on this giant menu of a playbook. When you stay in that same system, you can run the same system as the year before, but then you add another 10%. Then you add another 10%. Then you add another 10%, and then you add another 10%. Hey, we got this really weird blitz. We're going to sort of invent this protection for this AA gap blitz. And then next year, you add an element to that, and then you go off of that. And so they had built up a lot.

So I got traded there September 3rd. And for for me, I'm like walking in like this is the hardest playbook I've ever seen. And you know, Eli can do whatever he wants. Everything has a code name. And it was just a lot to, to handle. But what made Eli different, and I don't know when this started. I'd never been to where the quarterback took, would go in, I believe it was on Thursdays or maybe Fridays. There's Thursdays, we would go into the running backs room in the morning, you know, morning, morning meetings, lunch, and then practice after. But we would go in there with the running basketball coach, who wouldn't say a word, unless he was sort of called upon. And Eli ran the meeting. Completely. And on Friday after our practice, same thing with the receivers and tight ends. Eli completely ran the meeting. When we see this look, with this play called, or this is what I'm thinking, and so I'm at Audible 2, you know, quarterback's coach Mike Sullivan, who I adored, he wasn't even in there. This was Eli's. And that's the, like, the

most ownership I've ever seen a coaching staff allow a quarterback to have. I used to think, Man, if I was empowered that way, how would I play? And that, like, that responsibility. But, you know, Eli had his own clips that he made up. You know, if he did them at night or did them at some time, but in both meetings, he would have put together these various clip reels of what he wanted to show the running backs, where he wanted to show the wide receivers. And I know that didn't happen right away, but at some point, the coaches gave him that ownership. And I think that made Eli, that makes all the difference. Now you're almost like, there's ownership, there's front office, there's coaches, there's players.

Now you're sort of like, I'm in the coach world. And, but the coach has so much faith in me that I'll make the right decision more often than not. And, and, you know, Eli would audible a lot and throw touchdown passes. You know, sometimes it wouldn't work out, but, you know, they knew it was better than that touchdown pass not occurring because he had on a hitch route, you know. And Eli saw something and we get to the right thing.

And so they made a lot of hay on Eli's audibles. And so when I get in there, I'm like, I'm a call and run it guy. Give me a play, I'll find you the completion or try to, or I'll hand the ball off the right way. But for me to sort of go beyond that, I had moved as a player into the role of deciding, I didn't want to call the plays during two minutes. Because I called the wrong one, now it's my fault. So it's going to take two seconds.

You call the freaking plays. You guys got to, I'm out here trying to figure out where the ball's spotting if you're lined up. The last thing I can think about is the down in distance and time on the clock. Too much to call the right play and So something but Eli wanted that he liked calling those plays. He'd sort of look around and he had he had the playbook down so well That he you know, and also was empowered by it. So I think that's probably what made him this or special

New York Giants quarterback and you know, I don't know how many special New York Giants quarterback. And, and you know, I don't know how many, it's a great stat for you, how many quarterbacks played for one franchise for what 16 years or something like that. I mean, very, very few, I would say less than 10 in the national football league, maybe five, but for one franchise that long.

Well, and this really speaks to the Vikings plan of having Kevin O'Connell and JJ McCarthy hand in hand doing this for a long period of time. Because when you look at the Chicago Bears, for example, they draft a quarterback fire coach, draft a quarterback, fire coach, draft a quarterback, fire coach. I mean, how can any quarterback really get comfortable with the guy he's working with when that guy's on the hot seat right from the minute that they draft Caleb Williams. Matt Eberfluss is a defensive head coach and he's on the hot seat. And the other problem is when you are a defensive head coach, you're hiring

offensive coordinators and then they get jobs if you have success and then you have to replace them, right? Right? If you're a defensive head coach, you're hiring almost all your coaches. Don't have jobs. All right. They have been fired or they're at the end of their contract. And that's why they're available. If they're great coaches, they've probably been locked up for a couple of years and they're on a winning staff.

You can't just, Hey, I'm going to take your linebackers coach and make him mine because I think he's great. You get the coaches that are available. When you're Kevin O'Connell, he's got himself at the very minimum. Ben Johnson's that way now. By the way, I gotta give a shout out to priority sports in Chicago, Rick Smith, my old agent. shout out to priority sports in Chicago, Rick Smith, my old agent, Ben Johnson, Dan Campbell, Dan Quinn, had a heck of a year last year all around. And, you know, I'm sure in those coaching worlds go that you'll probably get a few more coaches onto his roster. But yeah, I think Ben, I think Ben Johnson's the perfect hire. Right. You and I talk about, we love talking about various things of quarterbacking in football and offensive football, play action and bootlegs, how effective they are. Eric Eager sent me a text randomly like three

months ago. Yep, we are again bootlegs and play action, most effective plays in football, you know, still are based off of you know, the few amount of turnovers and that you know, all these things that go into it, still the most effective. And Ben Johnson coming from Detroit, that Jared Goff, that's all he did. I mean, they were the play, I don't know, they're probably top or the top two or three play action football teams. And I think Jared Goff is a good quarterback, but I don't think he's great. He's very long, he gets a lot of balls stripped, he throws a knuckler a lot. But the offense was sort of set up in the perfect way with two really good

running backs, a really well taught offensive line, tight end group. And under center, outside zone, bootleg and play action. And, you know, quarterbacks, Jared played great. And I'm hoping that, you know what I don't like as coaches? I get there's an element of like, well, you killed him as a neat skill set. So I was like, well, just in case he can run around, doesn't mean you want him to run around. I, you know, sometimes I was like, well, he, you know sometimes like well he you know we can run plays zone read or some sort of deal where the quarterback's running the ball just because he can run doesn't mean we want to we need him to run to win

football games because Jared Goff doesn't run to win football games and Tom Radent didn't run to win football games and so what I hope they do with Caleb is make him a more traditional quarterback. He'll end up running around when he needs to but don't't have, don't try to create those situations. And if he can play as well as Jared Goff did in which he has a stronger arm, throws a better ball and probably moves around a lot better and smaller in the pocket with all of that, why couldn't he be just a much better version of Jared

Goff? I'm sure the Chicago Bears would happily take. I think for both of these young quarterbacks, what those under center plays do. Well, first of all, they make the defense think about the run game. So already you're at an advantage there. But then also, I think they just structure really well for a quarterback

where it's after the play fake. You have these options kind of right in front of you. And I know defenses have taken away some of the bootleg stuff because they're sending edge rushers upfield. But even if it's a straight drop back play action, it's sort of right there laid out for you where it's this, this or this. And then you can scramble if you want to scramble. And a lot of times, you know what the defense is going to do

based on how you've scouted them versus some of these play actions so you know where the open spaces are going to be and it doesn't have to be so much. All right, now you've got to go through if this then that then this this this like it just I think it makes it a lot clearer and you saw it last year for Sam Darnold how well he was one of the best pastors in the NFL with play action and under center And that's what I wanted to talk about a little more here is just the setup for JJ McCarthy. You said earlier that it's about as good as it could possibly get. You had a chance to throw to Andre Johnson. He's in the hall of fame now.

JJ McCarthy is going to throw to Justin Jefferson. He will someday be in the hall of fame. What, what does that do for you? And I'm also curious about the pressure of that too, because I would think it's a little intimidating when you come in and you have somebody that's like, you know, if I don't get a hundred catches and 1500 yards, that's a problem, right?

So I wonder what that experience is like or going to be like for JJ McCarthy to throw to one of the great receivers of the decade? Yeah, I mean, I think the big mistake is always trying to get a guy a ball more than you need to. You know, the head coach and the coordinator and probably includes a little bit the quarterback's coach and my receivers coach, their whole job is to come up with ideas to try to get your best players the ball. That's not the quarterback's job, right? His job is to come up with ideas to try to get your best players to ball. That's not the quarterback's job, right? His job is to go through his reads, make sure the protection's right,

deliver the football on time, right, to whoever's open because of the structure of defense and the play design. But it's the coach's job to make the play design to where if JJ, the receiver, is not number one, then he's number two. You just don't put him on the backside, we're on the comeback for the love of the game, as they like to say. We used to put Andre Johnson all over the place.

You put him in that tight end position. We put him in a three point, the tight end position just try to hide him every once in a while. So maybe a linebacker would pick him up and rather than a receiver. Right. And so it's just moving people around deal. You know, it's also an element of like going to say to empty and putting a running back or tent on the outside.

And if you see corners on the outside, now we're in zone coverage. We're in zone coverage and we put our receivers on the inside, now our receivers in some way are working against linebackers or safeties. We want that, right? And so those are like little easy completions can add up. But creativity, you know, that's really what, there's a lot that, but of course one of the main things is just

high quality plays run bootleg play action all the passing game of stability to One isolate your best players on not their best players but to You know design plays to where okay after in zone We're gonna have our best receiver on the inside working linebacker. But if it's a man coverage and the linebackers go out there and the running backs and tight ends, now we have a man play. So they might have their best corner on JJ in the slot,

but he's running a deep crossing route and he's gonna look them on that deep crossing route, right? And so that creativity is huge as far as getting your best players. Yeah. And with Justin Jefferson, he can really do anything. And I think that this is going to look quite a bit different than it did with Sam Darnold. Like there will be a lot of the same ideas, but I don't think J.J. McCarthy is as much of a drop back and wait till everything develops

deep down the field and let it rip like Sam Darnold 3540 yards down the field as often as anybody in the NFL did that last year. I think they're going to want to get the football out of his hands a lot faster and let him develop that deep ball. That's something that was a work in progress last year in training camp. And if you have Jefferson, I think we saw it with Kirk Cousins where cousins would throw the ball up to Jefferson sometimes, but a lot of times it was

slants, out routes, little things like that to get him the football in his hands. And that's something I think that we're going to see a lot more with JJ McCarthy. But the key there for me is he's open when he's not open and Sam Darnold really bought into that. And I think JJ McCarthy is going to have to adapt to the fact that guys in the NFL just aren't that open. And you're, I mean, if you expect them to just have 10 yards around them, this was always a Kirk Cousins problem.

I give somebody wasn't wide open, but I think he's got the mentality to throw tight window stuff, but he's going to have to just learn from that with Jefferson. Just, just give him a chance and he's probably going to make you right. And a lot of ways in the NFL, uh, when a guy is covered, he is open. If only one guy's covered him, if two guys are covering him, that's when he's not open because then someone else has singled up and that's where you're like, I mean, everyone's covered basically in some way. Uh, it's just sort in some way. Uh,

it's just sort of who and how many of them, right? And so I think what defenses do when they get great receivers or great tight end is they sort of have, you know, wherever that guy is, the coverage starts to lean in that direction. You know, we're going to go cover two over here. It's back in the days of like Randy Moss or Andre Johnson. But if Andre goes in motion to the other side, we'll shift it to the other side. Cuz we're always wanna deep safety to that side cuz we're so worried about that deep threat. And so again, stuff like that in college you just don't get.

That complexity of smart defense too. They're not just bigger, faster, stronger. Some of these guys are 32 years old with 10 years of Edanaphal experience and all the looks they've seen with thousands of you know offseason training camp practices and of course the entire season all the practices that go into it all the film sessions that wealth and knowledge is so far beyond you know a 21 year old what they have seen and what that what their demons a coordinator could sort of teach them and limit my time.

And so there's just so much more that you, again, you just learn over time and, you know, this 24 year old version of this kid is not the end game here. You know, we'll know a lot more in two years because, you know, you have to sort of keep that thing about Brady and Breeze. I know Drew always had this thing of just getting the edge. He had this thing we talked about, just getting the edge, and it was just always a little bit more here, or is it maybe something I'm eating,

or is it something, the way I'm stretching, is there some new machine out there that can help with my shoulder, like a little more shoulder flexibility, or this or that, just you know is it Pilates, is it this? Drew is always, I know Brady was in the same deal, always looking to get an edge because that's the only way to improve. And you know if this kid has that type of mindset that really you know gone are the days of smoking cigarettes at halftime back in the 60s right? Or having a cigarettes at halftime back in the 60s, right?

That's, you know, or we're having a beer at halftime in the 70s, right, or even 80s probably. But there's so much now, like, knowledge out there of, like, peak performance for the athlete, physically, mentally, and emotionally. Eli Manor, go back to Eli real quick. We play our, we're going into the first game of the year. I had just been traded there a few days earlier. I go in on the Sunday morning, right? You have that Thursday preseason game back in the day, and then you've got like sort of a weekend off, and then you know, come back Monday for game week. I went on Sunday, because I'm I'm just trying to learn this playbook.

I walk in the quarterback's room and Eli's sitting there with this guy in the suit. He was a sports psychologist, I would assume, some sports psychologist, psychologist. All the walls that had the boards on them were all filled with various things. I just peeked my head in for a couple seconds. Oh, sorry guys, said hi, you know. But I remember vividly looking at the board and it said, Archie's son, Peyton's brother, New York City.

Big pressures, big expectations, like these things. They had talked about all of that. How does that make you feel? How should we think about that? Aren't you with your dad and Peyton's your brother and you're in New York City? And how do we turn that into what's the best way to view all of that?

That wasn't around in the 80s, that type of thinking. But that is around now. And so hopefully, he's really maximizing his time to, and this is stuff that he'll probably learn as he goes forward. He can't do everything in a day. He'll learn these various processes that really maximize him as a player and overall as a career,

maximize his overall value and net worth, you know someday because you know what's fifty million dollars a year now and Three years when his contracts up is gonna be it's gonna be 65 probably or something like that So I'm sure he'd love to get that huge second contract. Well when you talk about that I mean that sounds exactly like JJ McCarthy because he's discussed with us. I mentioned the virtual reality, but also meditation, sports psychology, a lot of different stuff. And I'm sure that some of it goes over the top and is unnecessary, but I

think it says a lot about him that he wants to be in that world of everything that he does is about him being the best quarterback he can be. And I think that's a major part of what holds some guys back is understanding that it's 365 24 seven is being a QB one in the NFL. If I mean, okay, eventually you can have other stuff. It's a lifestyle. Right. Exactly.

It doesn't mean that you can't, you know, in the offseason go on some fun trips and you know Do whatever you do, but you know for you know, but the whole time you're you can't escape it You know, I mean you've got it is You always have to you can't make big mistakes. You can't make life mistakes And a lot fewer than other positions And so you in some ways you can enjoy yourself and you still have to be on. About the only time you ever see a drunk quarterback is after they win the Super Bowl, it seems like to me.

Because these QB ones, they know what they're doing. And there's so much on the line that you have to make constantly good decisions and decisions that are, I said there's just invest in yourself. I think as I look back I invested so little in myself as a quarterback. I rarely got a massage. I didn't do sports nutrition. I drink protein shakes that were in the weight room

that were free, but a lot of guys are taking various supplements and this and that and the other, and I just didn't do that. And you know, sports psychologists looking back, all that probably would have been very, very good for me. Good for me, may extend to my career and maybe have me play a lot better. Yeah, well, I think there's just a lot more information on that too.

I mean, even when JJ McCarthy was saying that he decided when he was like 12 years old or something that he wanted to be an NFL quarterback and he used the words edit his life for that. Like he just has taken this path completely, uh, to be here, which I think matches up with being around a lot of veterans. That's the last thing I want to ask you is when we talk a lot about quarterbacks, you and I, we always have these discussions about different styles and different offenses and all

these things, but there's something that is so captivating about the quarterback position because you can't define it. It's an it factor. It's something that's there. And I think I saw it with JJ McCarthy last summer in the way that the team was already gravitating toward him, even though he wasn't even the guy that was taking first team reps. And even when we watched him the other day and this again, like that doesn't

mean they're winning the super bowl and it doesn't mean he's going to the hall of fame, but even the other day we got to watch him throw 10 minutes of warmups. And if you didn't know who was the starting quarterback and who was the guy, you knew who was the guy. Like just out there with the way that he carries himself, having played with Favre, to me he's the ultimate all time great. He's the guy. What is that? What is it that I'm trying to describe here?

I don't know. There's probably, you know, people call probably confidence or, you know, there is like an it factor, I do believe. There's a likeability element to being a quarterback. Back in the old days, quarterbacks would take the line out, the whole offense out for beers and have a good time, have a guys night. That sort of got the guys to like you. So there is definitely an element and I know some quarterbacks really struggle with this. They're not comfortable in that role of, you know, and there's different versions of it for everybody. You don't want to be

disingenuous. You want to have this authentic version of yourself. You have to sort of find little ways. And sometimes it's just in the practice field or say in something in the locker room or in the lunchroom or even with different people. You have to sort of spread the wealth around the whole organization, around the whole team, even to talk to the equipment guys or the video guys. It's just element of because you're so important to everybody and so you make everybody else important to you.

I think the guys that sort of have that it. I think Breeze, since physically he didn't have a big arm and he's only six foot tall. His accuracy was incredible, decision maker was incredible. He's a great athlete, but he had so much it. And a lot of that is grit, and a lot of that is built over time and hard games and tough losses, right? As we're thinking about McCarthy and what his career is so far and what it is might be this year

and what it might be in the future, sort of brings me to that scene with Matt Damon from Air, the Michael Jordan movie about the shoes with Nike. And he gives that speech to Jordan about, you know, he'll have success and then he'll fall down. And then he'll win a championship and then, you know, something bad will happen. Right. And there's that great scene in the offense that, you know, sells Jordan on why to go with Nike instead of the other brands. But that is another thing that I learned from Eli, But that is another thing that I learned from Eli is that Eli was in the for a marathon game and

He knew that that losing the game here or choking here or a big win here It's all relative to this like career He did not sort of get too high did not get too low. He just sort of stayed at this consistent Level, you know, every single day. And that's hard to do when you're a young guy because every game is so meaningful. My God, I just lost the game at National Football League and we were up 10 points in the fourth quarter and we lost it. You just feel terrible. Happens all the time.

It's the NFL. You have terribly accrutiating losses every single week in the national football league that can tear your heart out. But you can't let it. It just happens. And hopefully you get some of those on the other end where you come back and you're going to tear someone else's heart out. But the games are so close.

A field goal here, a turnover here. They're so close. They always say their NFL games are really hard to win and really easy to lose. And I think for him to, uh, have that mindset of this is a marathon. I'm going to have bad games. Right. And, but I'm going to have good games and never really get too high on the good games and never get too bad on the bad games because sometimes things just don't

go right, you know, you're not feeling not feeling it receivers this that the lineman's taking advantage of when you're lesser backup offensive lineman you know that right. There's so many elements to it. You have to sort of stay the course and, and you know, it's like as the great Matt Campbell, but they obviously cycle and say trust the process. Just keep trusting the process. You just keep doing it. You just keep chipping away and keep chipping away.

And Tom Brady in year 18 and 19, I promise you, he was still trying to find little things to make him feel a little harder or make him reach for me faster. He was still on that, to that grind. And if you wanna have a Hall of Fame career, that's where you have to be as a quarterback. Yeah, I think, I mean, that's kind of where we started was the resilience

that's required, and that is the one thing that we don't know about J.J. McCarthy until he actually gets out there. It's sort of like the everybody's got a plan to get punched in the face. And we'll see how he deals with that, because you're right. I mean, I think about Kirk and the number of things. This is what I always respected about him is that he could shrug off anything and go to the next week. Uh, you and I were there in Chicago in 2019 when he had about the worst game.

You could possibly have Khalil Mack sacked him three or four times. Strip sacked him the next week. He had a great game, got the season back on track. They made the playoffs like that sort of stuff is what keeps Kirk in the league because he's able to put that behind him and then move on to the next week. And that I think is going to be something that McCarthy has to learn to do on the fly. One more thing I want to know from you who your favorite current quarterback to watch is the NFL today. Who is your favorite? The one you enjoy the most, not the best.

Doesn't have to be the best, just somebody you like. Yeah, that's a good question. I mean, for a lot of people, I think Mahomes has the ceiling and makes these throws that are so simply incredible. That's like, for me, I don't even almost enjoy it because it's like, it's not even real. The throw is that he's made over the years. Now I do think he has to change his game by the way, to not be, he can't get away with that forever. There's like, there's a youth ability to be that creator. And as you get old, it gets a little harder.

Who do I love to watch? I love watching Jordan Love play. I, He's the way he sort of bounces around and you know he sometimes makes incredible throws. He's got a quick release. I love the Packers offense. You know it's I think he's going to be really good. I think he watched Aaron Rodgers obviously for a couple years and learned a lot. He's in a quarterback friendly system. Learned a lot. He's in a quarterback friendly system. I do enjoy watching That Packers quarterback Jordan love I love watching so night my train kids like right now I should say train I watch it I do zoom calls with some of these top high school quarterbacks kid here in Omaha gonna go to our state currently and

Jonas wins at Chicago current going to USC. I love watching Kevin O'Connell's film. Kevin O'Connell's film I can teach off of so well. The technique is so good by the line, by the tight ends, by the quarterbacks, the receivers, the route depths. It's a very like well structured offense and so it's something not you know, I feel like I can sort of see, okay, I see what Kevin's doing here or west the offensive corner. I can see what they've designed here. And so as far as watching film, I love watching that film from last year. Are they anything in this

offseason? Of course, I love watching Brock Purdy play, you know, my Iowa State guy. I love watching him play. He's a lot of fun. But I don't know, that's a good question. Jordan Love is up there. Stafford's pretty fun to watch, I guess. I don't like watching Russell Wilson. I think Drake May will be a good quarterback. I've known him since he was 17. I think he'll be really good. Jared Goff, I don't, you know, there's a lot about his game, the way he throws the wobbler, just not great, but the dude seems to come through,

you know, a lot of times. Known in the state of Texas, that I really love watching that play. Who do you like watch play? Maybe you'll pick somebody that I haven't thought of. Well, I think after last year, Jaden Daniels is a guy that I'm going to be watching for a long time. Of course, that kid.

By the way, his dad was a teammate of mine in college. Oh, really? I did not know that. I got an old DM I got on Twitter. This is like January right before COVID hits in March. I get this DM from Javon Daniels, teammate of mine in college, he says, hey, I got a son, he's a freshman at Arizona State, love to get together with them, sometime in the off season.

And I said, yeah, let's do it, let me know a good time and boom, COVID hits before we know it. Obviously that disappears, never have a DM like that guy. The middle teammate again is Jayden's dad. But then to see him go from Arizona State to LSU and such a fantastic player last year, he's really good. He throws a beautiful ball. He can throw it hard.

He can put some air on it and level the ball. He can throw it hard. He can put some air on it and level the ball over the linebackers, under the safeties. His quickness and his sort of slipperiness, he has a slipperiness about him. Or when he runs, he seems to sort of get through there without taking a bad hit. You know, RG three was fast, but he was not slippery. And there's a he protects himself. So record back to protect themselves. And so he's a lot of fun. He's a lot of fun to watch. Yeah, I he's probably up there.

What I like about him is that, you know, Sam Darnold went into that Detroit pressure cooker and did not do very well last year. And Jayden Daniels, it looked like it didn't bother him at all. And even when he played against Philadelphia, their defense gave up 50 points because their defense was horrible and Philadelphia obviously was a machine. But Jayden Daniels never stopped fighting in that game. And I always like to see that of how is somebody handling when it's not going that well.

This was a Justin Fields concern I had or Caleb Williams concern. Those guys seem to give up if it's not going my way. It's yeah, yeah, whatever. I thought Jayden Daniels was was a fighter in that game and nothing seems to shake him. And when you can be that way, that's when all the ups and downs. We were talking about all those hard things. That guy's going to guide an entire franchise through all that stuff. That's really special when you can find that.

So not only is he electric to watch play, but also I did not know about him because you never know till they get in there just what type of mentality he has and his personality. And I just think like that's franchise. That's exactly what you're dreaming of when you draft the top quarterback And I'm sure Chicago was watching it last year going Maybe we missed that part a little bit with Caleb Williams that there's a different, you know mental makeup I think between those two. Yeah, the maturity of Jane Daniels is really exceptional for young guy in all the ways you know, that's the way sort of holds himself off the field and in press

conferences, but just the way he handles himself after a loss or after an ungood he just stays steady. And that's really hard for a young guy to do. So yeah, he might he might be right now than you know, Josh Allen and Pat Mahomes are sort of like, they have physical characteristics that almost seem unfair to me. And so they're fun to watch in those ways. But Joe Burrow, I enjoy watching. He diagnoses things really fast. We watched a half of his about a month ago. And he in the first half, he never took a second hitch one time. It was back foot hits, plant throw, one hitch throw. Getting it out, getting it out, getting it out, getting it out. And when you can diagnose stuff that fast as a quarterback and then be extremely accurate. And, you know, I, you know, people always have their opinions where these quarterbacks and how they sort of are. And obviously, Joe is enjoying, he goes to the fashion shows and sort of has this flamboyancy or sort of, but there's a moxie to it, which is sort of like, sort of in joy, you know, it's like he

doesn't take himself too seriously. But like, wouldn't you do the same thing if you were not a starting quarterback? Like, wouldn't you go to the Paris fashion show and, and check it all out and be on the, you know, watch the people on the runway? Why not? Right. And so I sort of, there's something about that sort of that little bit of that Dan Moreno confidence of, you know, he knows he's one of the best quarterbacks in the world and and uh sort of I sort of like the way he carries himself off the field uh with all that because uh it looks like a lot of fun to me. Joe Burrow is the

quarterbacks quarterback. I feel like because of the the IQ that he has sort of like Kevin O'Connell's offense is the quarterbacks offense. Everybody like I remember Peyton Manning last year going into the playoff saying if he could have any play caller and offense in the entire playoffs, he would take Kevin O'Connell's. You see the, the JTO Sullivan breakdowns just showing and the intent, the detail, how clear it is for the quarterback or Lovsky loves to break it down. Our friend, Bobby Peters, who, you know, uh, wrote an entire book about the

Vikings offense from last year. Now, if we can just get Kevin on the run game a little bit, maybe just pull them out of one of those passing meetings, just get into the run game. Uh, you know, then they'll have a complete offense, but this, uh, this was great Sage always, you know, you and I, the, the, the journeyman, uh, and, uh, I don't know what I am, but what, what we used to call it something, right? Journey, something with the journeyman and I don't know what I am, but what we used to call it something right. Journey something with the journeyman. I forget what the one shining moment we had. I thought we had like a name for when we first started doing a podcast together. This was like must have been 2018 or 2017 and it's something with journeyman and me and I don't know what it was.

We used to do on, I believe on Wednesdays, we would do the journeyman quarterback of the week. Oh, that's right. That's right. It was great. It was like whoever the Vikings were playing, we'd go back in Wikipedia and look at all the back of quarterbacks and just we pick one and go from there. And you know, you go into these guys, you remember these names from the 80s or 90s,

and it's like, well, what happened to him afterwards? It's like, oh, he was arrested with a felony of something, and 2004. But like all the things you don't know, because everyone sort of disappears and falls off the planet, but great names. Steve DeBerg, names like that. Berline, there's just, there's a journeyman quarterback.

So the criteria was four teams. Yep. Um, uh, you had to have a shiny moment, which was, which is a big deal. A lot of, there's a lot of guys who try, I was thinking about Charlie Whitehurst the other day. It didn't really have a shiny moment, but definitely a journeyman quarterback. Uh, and then you got extra credit points if you were on a team two different times, two stints. Because that meant that you were probably a pretty nice guy because they wouldn't have you back if you weren't.

And so, you know, we got to have nice guy journeyman quarterbacks. There were all these, we had a system of bonus points for getting like, if your Wikipedia had post-career something really funny that the guy was doing, or you mentioned, I can't remember who we ran into that got arrested for some felony, but I remember that happening. So I'm not going to say his name. He was a teammate. Oh, okay. All right. But, uh, you know, either way

and, uh, just a shining moment of my career was having you and Brooks Bollinger on the air and quizzing you about former journeyman quarterbacks that you had played with. You had to guess that journeyman stuff. Yeah. So, yeah, on the rare occasions I get around other journeyman quarterbacks, it's it's like it's on, you know, just flow. And of course, that turns into coaches and offenses. What you didn't like about that offense, you didn't like about that coach or throw into

this guy or or you know, I mean there's so many, the height of your center, and this guy really had to squat down, Chris Myers had to squat down basically on the ground because he was so low, and the only guy should basically stand up, throw your hand right there. So there's so many things that quarterbacks can talk about, and so you'll remember if you back up, journeyman backups get in the same room together, you know, like I was at Zach Thomas's event. It was it was a lot of fun talking with stats. I love that the show is going to end with you saying

I was thinking about Charlie Whitehurst the other day. Like, that's such a great that's just a great place. You know why? Because. We with the Giants was right back to be alive. We played out in Seattle. We were up 35, seven or 35-0 in the halftime. Eli was just on fire. And Charlie Whitehurst started for the other team.

If he was still half the back or if he was out or what. And I got thrown in the fourth quarter. You can look this up. 14 minutes and I believe 17 seconds left in the game. We got the ball on our own 5 or 10 yard line. We go 17 plays. I kneel down to end the game on the 5 yard line on the other side. Did not throw one pass on the drive. 17 handoffs and the game I believe was the longest drive, 17 handoffs and the game, I believe was the longest drive,

maybe the longest drive in NFL history, and I did not throw a pass. So your stat line is zero for zero and three runs for minus three yards. That's right, that's right. And now that is, now that, here's the funny story at the end. You know, the coach calls Neil down, and they go, okay, I'm gonna kneel down,

no victory punch. Rich Soybert, who's our center, looks up at the stats on the screen, you know. We have exactly 200 yards rushing. And he goes, if you fucking lose a yard on this, I'm gonna kill you. So I, you know, I, you know, snap and try to like, not, you know, kneel down next to his foot basically.

And you know, the defense didn't come off or anything. I did that three straight times. It didn't matter. They lose the yard every single time. So we had over 197. So that's the funny story of that game. So yeah, somehow I was talking about that game the other day to somebody

and Charlie Whitehurst came into my mind. But the reason he doesn't get that journeyman backup staff is because he did not. I don't believe really have a shot. No, yeah, there's there's levels to this. You know, we did do it for a while, though, or married her or something like that. So I think that would I guess if you marry a recording artist, maybe that counts. I don't know. I don't know. That's just shining.

That's perfect. Sage Rosenfels, you are the best man. I'm always sometimes when we talk off the air, I think like that should have been an entire podcast because people would have loved it. So I'm glad that we could do this now and we will definitely connect very soon in the future. Thank you very much my friend. All right thanks for having me on.