Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - How good could JJ McCarthy be? How quickly will he grow into KOC's offense?

Episode Date: February 28, 2025

From the Combine, Matthew Coller is joined by Arif Hasan of Wide Left to discuss the Combine and how good he thinks J.J. McCarthy could be. Then, analyst Bobby Peters joins the show to breakdown everything he learned about the Vikings offense while writing the Vikings offensive manual, and how quickly he thinks McCarthy could grow into the offense. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey everybody, welcome back inside the NFL Combine in the Indiana Convention Center here at Radio Row. Matthew Coller along with Arif Hassan from the Wide Left Newsletter. Although we don't really know what he does. Is he a Vikings writer? Kind of. Who's to say? Is he a national NFL writer?

Kind of. Does he do say? Is he a national NFL writer? Kind of. Does he do exposés on failed companies? Sometimes. But for now, you're going to be a front office analyst. How do you want to do that? Is that good with you? Yeah, sure. I didn't know what I was going to do when I showed up here. Okay, so the Jaguars front office... No, I'm just kidding. I just talked to Solek. They are kind of interesting, but not for this podcast. We're going to talk about the Minnesota Vikings front office. And something that I like to have conversations with you about over the years, Reef, we've

probably done, I don't know, a hundred podcasts of some kind together over the years, is always the bigger picture of the Minnesota Vikings franchise. Because we've watched it go through lots of iterations from the hey they drafted Teddy and that's cool to oh my gosh the thing happened to Teddy. Now what do they do? And I think maybe our first podcast ever together was talking about the Sam Bradford trade. Oh that might be, oh my gosh, yeah, holy crap.

Right. I hated that trade. You were very much against it. I was more on the side of it because he had a multi-year deal And I think we were assuming that Teddy would survive it right and my thought was like he'll play in 2017 and then he Yeah anyway, so We've seen the full arc of the Minnesota Vikings and now here

We are sort of standing on the ledge of the thing that we have always talked about that was the pearly gates, the rookie quarterback contract. Is it real? Can it happen? The rookie, five million dollars and not 15% of the cap. So here we are standing on the edge of that. Within days, that could actually come to fruition.

Do you think that we get there? What's your feeling on how they are going to handle the quarterback situation? Yeah, I mean, I think Kevin O'Connell's made it really clear, Koisi's made it pretty clear. In as many words as they can make it clear, they're kind of allergic to being direct. But in as many words as they can make it clear. They're kind of allergic to being direct. But in as many words as they can,

they've basically just said, I'm really happy that Sam has found the way to make some money, right? And that's clearly just an indication that he won't be here. It wouldn't shock me if they offered him a deal. It also, if they did, I think it would be just an egregiously low number.

And he'd be able to use that as leverage somewhere else to where he's actually gonna go, So if they did, I think it would be just an egregiously low number. And he'd be able to use that as leverage somewhere else to where he's actually going to go, which I don't know, that could be Las Vegas. There are rumors that now the Los Angeles Rams are interested, now that Matthew Stafford has kind of forced his way around. So Vegas trades, we saw that report I think last night that Tom Brady contacted Matthew Stafford. So if the Raiders get Matthew Stafford now the Rams could potentially

get Sam Darnold it's a whole deal I don't know I don't think the Vikings want to have the horses to compete in that race and honestly they kind of don't so I don't think they're going to go after Darnold and I think that's gonna be a win-win for everybody yeah I think if the world played out a little bit differently, it's something I think about all the time. Like, if Darnold goes to Detroit and wins that game and plays really well, I have no idea

how they could move on from him at this point, even if they lost in the playoffs, because it would have been the divisional round, even if he didn't play well. You would have been talking about a 15-win season and beating the Packers in Detroit and back-to-back weeks. And look at all the numbers he put up. In a lot of ways, and I actually mentioned this too,

there's a rule on the show, if you talk to somebody, you already have to learn about it. If you talk to someone in the league, you have to lean in and say, in the league. So. Oh, yeah, okay, yeah, for sure. I was mentioning to someone in the league. Oh, yeah. OK, yeah. For sure. I was mentioning to someone in the league yesterday about how if the Vikings had lost to the Seattle Seahawks, it's

very possible the Seahawks win the division, and the Vikings go to Tampa Bay and play a pretty mid-Bucks team and beat them. And Sam Darnold plays really well, and then they go to Philly with a chance to do something there. And then it snows, and then who knows? And then we're talking about Sam Darnold as the quarterback for next year. You know, it feels like Darnold did them a favor by completely falling apart in those two games.

That's how it feels at this moment because of the rookie contract, what they can do in free agency, the potential of JJ McCarthy. Do you think that that's a safe feeling to have though? And throw out all the damage done from the Vikings over the years with quarterbacks. But is that the right feeling we should have of Sam Darnold with his sample size of actually playing in games, not imaginary games that we we think J.J. McCarthy will play, that he did them this favor by playing so poorly and now very likely moving on.

I mean, I think they'd rather take the wins, but no, I get what you're saying. You know, being able to kind of reveal all of the sides of Sam Darnold that you'd be buying into with a long-term deal, getting a preview of that beforehand, yeah, that's nice. I think what was it, Quazy said like you can't you can't overweight the fact that he played poorly against the same two teams twice, but you can't like ignore it either. He said something along

those lines, which I thought was a pretty harsh statement and I think think that it is in their minds that he doesn't always have all the tools in the bag for every situation. It might just be that these kind of teams have something against him, or it might just be that the lights are too bright in certain situations, whatever it is. Now we know that there's this other element to Sam Darnold

that you don't have to buy into when you're constructing a contract, whereas if before you don't have that exposure, now you're buying a contract where you don't know like all of the features of this product, right? You don't know you know what the goods are. And so in that sense, yeah, like I think that he did do them kind of a favor by kind of revealing that element that was always going to be available. But at the end of the day, I think they would have wanted the wins and and like if they'd gotten all the way to the NFC Championship game and then offered a bad contract I think they

wouldn't kick themselves too badly. We're also assuming that it would be a bad contract and the hard thing about the NFL which makes it both fascinating and wonderful and also impossible to figure out is the small sample size element. Because if you go through the playoffs, let's take a look at how all the quarterbacks performed. Oh, a lot of them had the same exact thing happen to Sam Darnold. But Sam Darnold is the only one where we go, uh, turned into these able guy. I saw a few Justin Herbert hot take artists trying to do that thing. And I get it because I've called him Kirk Burt before but Even then like that's a guy who's a clear franchise quarterback and

CJ Stroud is a clear franchise quarterback I think my homes is gonna stay with the Chiefs for a while and yeah I get the same exact thing happened to all of those guys even when Matthew Stafford had a chance to go tie up the game Against the Eagles. What was it that happened? Oh yeah, pressure took apart his biggest moments in that game. And I think more than ever, we saw defensive lines dominate offensive lines and have enormous impacts. I mean, I even go back, history is so on the side of being forgiving to Sam Darnold.

Like if you look at the, how about the early Eli Manning playoff games where he's atrocious and then he has two of the best runs ever Joe Flacco We think Joe Flacco's clutch as hell in the playoffs right not in his early games. They were surviving Joe Flacco They didn't even offer Joe Flacco a contract going into 2012 He was using a lame duck contract the year he won the Super Bowl and so they were Put into a situation where they had to offer me which I don't think they minded But like put in the situation where they had to offer like this which I don't think they minded, but like put into a situation where they had to offer

like this enormous contract because they didn't think that he'd get it done. That's how difficult this is to figure out. Because if you say, well, obviously Sam Darnold showed who he really is. It's like, I'm not sure that's obvious based on a lot of the history of other quarterbacks in the Super Bowl two times.

The greatest QB of a generation has completely come apart at the seams when his offensive line couldn't block so anyone is capable of having this happen and I think that that's what we would be saying a lot if JJ McCarthy did not exist and you go back though and look at this darn old season you go man there's a lot of good there there's a lot of good numbers there and everything else so the bet that they're making is this sort of mathematical formula on JJ McCarthy plus X number of dollars is worth taking a risk of not knowing what we actually have in JJ McCarthy. And then they're taking a sample size of he's been in our building, he's been in our training camp practices, which we've talked about a lot, were really, really good. But that is still not a lot of information to work with. And that's why this whole decision until I got here and until I talked to people.

In the league, in the league and honestly at the podium to those guys, you can go and watch them at Vikings dot com if you want to see what they said. But the fact that they were not talking about giving McCarthy patience, not talking about Darnold in any way that would insinuate that he's coming back and like, thanks for the memories, was kind of my takeaway from a lot of the stuff they said. So now I feel pretty confident in what's

going to happen here. But I also think about when you have certainty of, this guy is capable of winning 14 games and having a top 10 PFF grade and having a top 10 QB rating and top 10 in touchdowns and he played with a backup left guard a terrible left guard a terrible center situation for pass blocking no running game really to speak of half of his tight end for the season when he's not even a hundred percent and then you're like oh McCarthy will be better. It's a weird, it's like a little weird to me to just to just make that jump an assumption. I think we're giving a lot of credits of

two people on this and you can tell me how right it is to give the credit to those two people. One wears number 18 and the other is the coach of the year. Yeah, no and I think that's it. I I think, you know, when people have asked me, like, what should the Vikings do? You know, obviously, you give your take, but at the end, it's just, it's difficult not to give Kevin O'Connell a lot of leeway on quarterback decisions, right? Like, whatever decision he ends up making,

I'm just going to say there's probably a really good reason behind it, and that he's got a lot of this under control. No one's going to bat 1,000. No one's perfect. And maybe he got lucky, you got lucky with the way he's handled the quarterback situation so far. I kind of doubt it, I think he's good, but there's always a possibility, right?

And so I think that you trust him implicitly when it comes to your evaluation of what is possible with JJ McCarthy, right? Which I think is reasonable, but that's also the only kind of information we have to go off of. We have leaks from inside the building, sorry, inside the building? I'm not.

You can do it. Okay, inside the building, about how much they love this guy. They rave about this guy, right? Like they won't stop talking about how much, even part way through, during the rehab, they're talking about how much they love his dedication, his work ethic, how quickly he's picked up the offense and stuff like that.

And they're excited about this guy. And we've been through a lot of situations where teams have been excited about a guy that turns out to be do-do, right? And you develop a healthy cynicism about that kind of talk, but when it's coming from somebody who's had a lot oficism about that kind of talk, but when it's coming from somebody who's had a lot of success developing quarterbacks, yeah.

And then the second thing is, obviously Justin Jefferson. He's going to make a lot of people look good. Not only is he the most double-teamed receiver in the league, he's also the best receiver in the league against double teams. That's insane, right? If there's a guy that you can throw to who doesn't have to be open, and that's a good decision,

it's, I'm not going to say it's hard to be a bad quarterback, it's actually really easy, but if you've got a baseline or a floor of talent, it is a lot easier to kind of figure out answers to problems when you've got 18. So yeah, I think that's fair. And there is something that is very strong in terms of a data set that we can't see about inside the building. Like around him every day. That's what you hear about all the time. Like, well, they're around him every day. That matters.

I mean, they see his work ethic. They see what he understands. So Kevin O'Connell went into great detail. And this was another one of those, like, strong hints that it's J.J. McCarthy, which was he went into great detail about all the things McCarthy would do last year. And O'Connell said something to the effect of, this isn't an exact quote, but something to the effect of, we treated him as if he was starting the game

in his preparation. Like, oh, well, so to bring that up today seems pretty important, doesn't it? Right. It seems relevant. And he's like, yeah, it was great. He's ready to start games or something. You know, he's kind of like, oh, I

think it was actually Quacy who said, like, well, mentally, he knows our language. And he's ready to go play free when he gets out there. And you're like, is he getting out there? Is that today? What's happening? You guys aren't protecting this information as well as maybe you wanted to.

But just in general, when it comes to being around someone and seeing the progress, what I was most impressed by last year with McCarthy was in rookie camp and OTAs and minicamp, it was rough. It was like, OK. And he said that. That's just not even me. That was our last conversation with him before the break.

He came over and he said, yeah, there's been some hard days here and I, you know, I got to go back and be pretty hard on myself and everything else. He came back for training camp so well prepared and when he had bad days in training camp, the next day was great. And when he threw an interception in the preseason game, the next drive was great. And it was just like this guy has the thing that they say that he had, and that's, to me, all the draft stuff, they always know what you might have. They can identify that the certain skill sets

could be there in the NFL if it works out. In fact, if you go back and look at any star player and they're scouting report, you're like, that's exactly who they are. There's never a star player scouting report where they're like, no, that was way's exactly who they are there's never a star player scouting report where they're like no that was way off he doesn't do that at all like that's other than maybe Jefferson being a slot guy but like aside from that so all the character and stuff all that

work ethic all that stuff that sounds cliche and could be anybody but it's all so real leadership for that position and what I was impressed by last year was his physical skill set, because he's growing and developing. So I think to me the big holdup was I need to know how he's doing physically before I can say that I'm like 90% sure that he's gonna be the starter.

And they went out of their way multiple times to say, guys, he's good physically, we're good to go. So there's that. But I think it's actually a data set of what the coach has had in terms of conversations and how they've seen him work and how they've seen him lead. So if Kevin O'Connell believes in all that, because that's hours and hours and hours

of those two together, then I buy it completely that he should be the guy and they're good to go and that I think there's a good chance that he can thrive in this environment if KOC with all those more hours than I have buys into that. Yeah, no, I think that that's real information to work off of.

You know, it's something where like, if I'm asked to make a bet, I'm not pushing all my chips or anything like that because there's always a degree of uncertainty, but I think that that, it's easy to discount that kind of information because we don't have access to it. Like, we always prefer the information that is more available to us and we tend to weight it more

and sometimes that can lead us into mistakes, right? And I think that, you know, it's important to consider all of that as we go in, especially like, as Kevin O'Connell was talking about McCarthy's off season, heading into training camp, he was talking about how, you know, with McCarthy, we wanted to kind of bring him into the offense. I don't think he used the word ease him in, but I think like bring him into training camp, he was talking about how, you know, with McCarthy, we wanted to kind of bring him into the offense. I don't think he used the word ease him in,

but he was like, bring him into the offense, not like hit him with a fire hose immediately, and it turns out that was the wrong approach. He needed it, and he adapted to it, and he thrived to it, and he learned the offense way faster than we expected, and we already thought the world of him when we drafted him, right? You know, that kind of thing that we don't have access to,

you know, his knowledge of the playbook, his command, probably an even better way to put it, his command of the playbook and what they're trying to accomplish with each play, and having an intuitive sense for the way this play should feel out. Like, that stuff that we're not going to have that much information about,

we can evaluate the individual throws at training camp. There's a huge limitation to that. There's the obvious limitations, but there's also the less obvious limitations of, hey, the defense said that they weren't going to blitz in the practice sessions and then that's all they did. You know, that kind of stuff, right? Where we don't have,

there's just so many complicating factors. And so, it is important that that information be treated with some level of seriousness. It's also important to important that that information be treated with some level of seriousness. It's also important to understand that that information comes from people who have an obvious bias for it to be the case. Because, you know, when you read and like the McCarthy profiles are outstanding, like there's a bunch out there. You know, shout out to my former workplace, the Athletic, they've got some incredible ones. But like...

We don't give Alec Lewis any... So hopefully you mean someone else. Yeah, obviously, of course. Purple Insider wrote one. But yeah, shout out Purple Insider. I hear that they write some good stuff. I mean, I don't read, so I don't... That's purpleinsider.football.

Sign up for the newsletter, you can get my written work. Go on. Yeah, there you go. But like the profiles are genuinely interesting and outstanding, and they speak to this character. But I've also read a lot of profiles of players that were outstanding, exciting, speak to their work ethic and character, and those players did not work out, right?

So there's always some veneer of cynicism I'm applying to a lot of this stuff, but it is just difficult not to buy in to the way that this organization, who has a proven track record of figuring out what to do with quarterback, the way this organization has been thinking about, talking about, and treating JJ McCarthy.

And so I think that there's probably something there. Is it a 14-win upgrade, or is it like another 14-win quarterback? I don't know, but maybe with those additional cap dollars that you save, it could be there. Who's to say? Well, that's the whole point of what they're trying to create a bumper there for that is even if he's not as good as Sam Darnold right away, that he whoops he's got guards, bump back into the middle, right, knock over the pins. Oh, their running game is actually not

ranked 28th in EPA, which if someone really wants Sam Darnold to be the quarterback, whoever that person is, I don't know, based on conversations with fans all off season, but let's say one guy wants Sam Darnold back. I think he might say, right, but Darnold didn't have guards and didn't have a running game, and even if you sign him to a three-year contract,

the first-year cap it is $7 million, and you get those players for him, can't he recreate or better what he did last year? And that is something I think about too, because there is, if they didn't have McCarthy, we would be saying, all right, sign that three-year deal, 120, get Trey Smith, get this, Will Frye, get whatever other guards you could get, you know, stack it up and just, you know, bump all that money down the road for when Amazon buys the NFL and

there is no cap or whatever. We'd be saying that because Darnold played well enough to justify and without, I think, I think with a clear number one and number two wide receiver, but to me without one of the five or six best supporting casts in the league, once Christian Derrissaw got hurt, because now you're talking about four flawed offensive linemen and one good one, and you're talking about really one great wide receiver,

half of the TJ Hockinson we've seen in the past, Jordan Addison was the same player as last year, Naylor was not much of an impact player, and Jones didn't truly change what they had in the backfield the way that they wanted him to. So I think it wasn't the greatest situation. He still thrived that much. And so you kind of go back and forth between like,

there was an argument for bringing back Darnold if they didn't feel really good about McCarthy. What I'm very curious about though is stylistically how the two could be different. Because Darnold was so much of a... it's kind of like I think of them... this is from one training camp. Also I wouldn't believe it so much had I not seen it in camp myself with the throwing and everything else. But I want to make a baseball comparison here of like Darnold swings for the fences and that's what gets him killed sometimes and

that's what makes him great sometimes. Where I think McCarthy is a lot more discerning about where the football is supposed to go and I feel like if you're Kevin O'Connell you're like I love that you took all those deep shots and that's great but also you tried to scramble backwards like 43 times. And I just, and that's the whole hard thing. It's like, I love that you made that play against Seattle, but I hate that you took that sack like eight different times in key situations throughout the season

where I don't think McCarthy's gonna take that many sacks. I think he's gonna see the middle of the field better and he's going to get to check downs faster and get through reads faster and see the field better. This is just from watching in training camp every day. But I don't think he's gonna rock throws like Sam Darnold. I mean, Darnold did stuff I've never seen before with the football up close.

And so I think there is like this kinda, it's going to be a little bit safer maybe and less variance. Yeah. And then I guess the ceiling's gonna be figured out by the rest of it, how much he can grow with the skill set that he has. Yeah, no, I think that it's fair.

I mean, it would be foolish, essentially, to think that the offense is gonna look the same or that it's gonna be as explosive. I think the Vikings led the league in explosive play rate last year. Impossible to imagine that that's gonna happen again. And I think that what I think a lot of people forget is, A, it's hard to build an offensive line in one offseason.

Like, they have to potentially replace three interior offensive line positions, right? And then B, you know, having the capacity to do that with, you know, maybe that additional cap space gives you more license to scheme up those explosives as opposed to have a guy run around for a little bit and generate an explosive. And you might find yourself in a situation where you can increase both the safety

of the quarterback play and the explosiveness just from improving your play opportunities because of that change in the offensive line and stuff like that, and then T.J. Hawkinson's healthy and all that right like that is a possibility but I think it's more likely that you've got maybe a higher floor from play to play and a lower ceiling from play to play and you just kind of hope that that median is shifting upward as the season progresses and then maybe you can throw in like additional opportunities to create

explosives and things like that you're always gonna have Justin Jefferson available on some of these throws. You're always going to have Jordan Addison shrieking deep on a lot of these throws. So I think that they're all going to be explosives, but I think it's just going to be impossible for us to expect the same rate of deep balls, explosive plays, outstanding, like, oh my gosh, there's eight players in the backfield, he spun out of it, now he's scrambling, and then he threw it 40 yards to a guy that's been running for five seconds. You You're probably not gonna get as much of that as good of an athlete as McCarthy is I think he's just more likely to take you know Quicker safer throws when those opportunities, you know appear right and I don't want to make it sound like he doesn't have a good arm

Because I was very impressed by his actual arm strength deep ball touch and accuracy We're improving but they're not where I mean Darnold's 27 has got one of the best arms in the league so I just don't expect that. That whole dance to do for Kevin O'Connell because you know he wants to hit big fast. He loves it. I mean everybody loves it I kind of want to see him like run the ball successfully sometimes and then hit the big pass but understanding that like that's not gonna go away but it could be parsed out a little bit differently I

think and to have him it's like because when you say you don't want to say like well it limits their ceiling or it makes them safer they could have a better offense overall right yeah what I've always thought of with when people rank quarterbacks which makes me want to self-harm. I look at sorry, that's a bad joke. I shouldn't have said that, but makes me want to throw salt in my own eyes. How about that rather than read another quarterback ranking? But whatever.

When I think about those rankings, one of the things that they always seem to miss is that it doesn't matter like the offense and how many points you score It's like well, I ranked Jalen hurts the 23rd quarterback in the league. Congratulations They had one of the best offenses in the NFL overall with the way they play to his strengths. That's what really matters here This isn't some sort of all-player draft where everybody like this isn't some sort of imagination land, it's real football team. So with JJ McCarthy, if they possess the ball more, and I'm sure Brian Flores would like that, and if they have higher success rates on their plays, but lower explosive, well you could still score a heck of a lot of points in doing it that way if they play off the

run a little better, and you know, all sorts of things. What do you think he needs? Like this is so funny because we've not seen him play any football and we and again we have an imagination land based on just you know very small sample but they're gonna go into free agency here potentially if they moved Arnold with a hell of a lot of money. We know he needs guards. What do you like? What kind? How much, how do you do it, how do you get there? Isn't that funny with this off season now, if we have this clarified, it's not what, it's how.

Like everything is, how do you move Darnold, who do you move him to, how do you get these guards, we know what they wanna do, but how do you get there? Yeah, I mean like I think, well the biggest problem is that the Vikings have a lot of areas to fill, right? Cause it's not just an offense, right? They have to worry about the three cornerbacks. I mean it sounds like the Byron Murphy deal

may get done, I don't know. But like, they still have to figure out a cornerback. They can't just hope that Blackman is going to fill in that slot and that's good. You need another cornerback. You need to figure out the safety situation. Whether or not you're going to see a retirement, whether or not you can bring back,

can't buy them, like all of that. And then on top of that, like you maybe want to make some improvements at defensive tackle. Like you're missing players at some positions, and then there's some positions where maybe you want to make an upgrade, and then you have to figure out like what's the guard situation.

And then I think on top of that, like I think they want to reevaluate what the run game looks like, in addition to making sure that they've got the horses to carry a run game, I don't know that they've been moving in the correct direction as the run game has moved away from zone-style work to more gap-style, duo-style work, inside-zone type stuff. They were a really successful outside-zone team with..., I mean really successful, maybe that's not, but you know it's, there was a lot of opportunity when they were doing outside zone stuff and I don't know that they need to move away from that especially because it's not as

if McCarthy doesn't have experience running play action off of those types of plays. So I think it's like building a little bit more cohesive of a run game. It's a very cohesive offense in terms of the way the passing game works. I think like one of the things that I would have wanted in an offense for someone like McCarthy is a lot of options available to him at all three levels and all nine quadrants of the field or whatever. Like I think that giving him opportunities to throw in all those areas, that's good, but their Vikings are gonna have that, so I'm not worried about that. I think it's making

sure that that run game works and then making sure that the offense doesn't have to save the game all the time, right? If you've got a well-built defense that has the ability to allow the offense to just run the ball for four-minute drills a bunch of times, I think you're in a good spot. So I think it's like on top of making sure

that you've got a cohesive run game, on top of making sure that you add the right personnel, I think they need to be really smart about their defensive acquisitions because that's going to drive a lot of what's going to be placed on McCarthy's shoulders. He can't live in the two-minute drill the whole time where he's always in shotgun, always effectively in third down, opposing pass rushers can pin their ears back, they know it's going to be a pass, they've got like their NASCAR package or wherever you want to

call it out in the field, they've got their NASCAR package, wherever you wanna call it out in the field, they've got four edge rushers. No matter how many guards you get, that's gonna be a bad situation. So you wanna create good situations for him where he's not always playing hero ball or being forced to play hero ball on top of making sure that the offensive cast

is good around him. The outside pitches and stuff were good for Aaron Jones. The thing that was lacking, it was like in the middle of the field, if it's first and 10, you could get five yards from Aaron Jones. It was everything else. It was a lack of explosiveness from the running game. They had, I've been using this stat for everybody. Everyone loves it. They go, wow, okay, interesting.

So you got to act excited. They, in the last three years years have the fewest explosive run plays in the league of all 32 teams. That's terrifying. There are some bad teams out there. That's awful. The fewest. I mean, that's interesting. Wow. Yeah, there you go. I think it was, but you did have a real reaction there. It was 20 plus I think. The fewest 20 plus yard runs over the last three years and that was what was lost with Aaron Jones in the second half of the season as he wore down they just you couldn't get freebies I feel like when you I mean

imagine if you're Jalen Hurts you're like all right we got this big game plan here going out and it's first down and they got 75 yards to go and I hand it off to so touchdown I did nothing and I like, right, they have not had that. Remember Kirk in 2019? I mean, how many times did he throw a screen to Delvin Cook and was like, oh, there's 30 yards? I did nothing. That was wonderful.

And they just haven't had that. And I think with J.J. McCarthy as an inexperienced quarterback, I mean, we've talked about it with other quarterbacks. Hey, it can help them get in second and short, run, play, action, that kind of thing. But what about if you never have to pass on some drives? What about if you just get a 40-yard run? And that's where you need a different running back,

you need different linemen, you need, like this is a, this is like a, should have, okay, like don't be inappropriate. Say something not inappropriate. I was gonna say they should have like an upside down flag of Gary Kubiak like signaling like a warning for the running game, but that's just not right. And I said it anyway.

There you go. What's better? There's like red lights flashing, sirens, like this is a panic situation. Your run game was so bad over these last three years. And we kept hearing in the off season, like, yeah, we need to improve that. We need to improve that.

And I'm kind of to the point where I'm like, it's, now's fine. Like, right, right bleeping now. Or I don't think you're going to get out of this offense what you think. It's going to have a limitation. When you go up against the Rams and they send four guys upfield,

you gotta have an answer. And they just didn't. And okay, now you can make the excuses for that. Well, we missed on Ty Chandler. Well, we missed on Ed Ingram. Well, we yadda yadda yadda yadda. It's like, okay, well, now you got all the cap space. That was your whole thing.

So now go make this happen. Yeah, I mean, one of the things that really struck me this year is is just seeing fan feedback on Twitter, which is of course the best way to learn about the game, is when the Vikings would struggle in the red zone, it was always, it was one of two things. It was, man, I can't believe they didn't run the ball, they should run the ball more. Or, if it was a different game, I can't believe they're running the ball so much that never works for them in the red zone. Which is like, yeah, they can't win, but that's their own fault. If they can't run the ball in the red zone, that's going to create a lot of big problems for them.

And I was thinking about, when you mentioned Delvin Cook, I was thinking about the fact that there were a lot of red zone possessions that didn't happen for the Vikings because it's a 25-yard run right outside the red zone. And that would have been nice, right? To have to avoid red zone plays because you scored. And I think that like having a bunch of opportunities or options for how you're going to attack, you know, the red zone aside from like running a bunch of slants

and hoping Jefferson gets open, that's going to be huge in terms of scoring, right? I mean, the Vikings were not a bad scoring team, but they could have been an outstanding scoring team if they had been just a little bit better in the red zone. And of course, yeah, they had injury at left tackle. They had to move around members of their offensive line. Yeah, of course.

But like you mentioned, this is like a three-year problem. Yeah, like they made mistakes. Like you said, they've had an opportunity to fix these mistakes. They don't really have a lot of wiggle room when it comes to that anymore. They have to make sure that they fix that, you know, sooner rather than later. But yeah, like I think finding ways to just offload, you know, burdens from McCarthy is going to be the way that this offense is going to actually evolve and move into a place where

instead of, you know, winning Coach of the Year accolades, you get Super Bowls, right? Like that's the goal. So there's a crazy thing, you bring up the Super Bowl, there's a crazy thing about the Super Bowl, that usually the best football team or the best quarterback wins it, it's wild. That's nuts. It's just insane, and that tends to happen

through the history of all sports. You either have the best player or the best complete team. Knowing that and making it just realistic that JJ McCarthy will probably not be Patrick Mahomes. Unlikely. I know there's some people who think that he's already that good, but you know, we'll see him play a single game and not against Raiders backups first before we kind of decide that. So let's just assume that he isn't that just yet. That means you got to build the best team.

Which leads me to the question of, we know what the best team looks like, and looked like last year in the Eagles, and that's one of the most complete rosters I feel like we've seen in the last 10 years. How far can they get? Not how far away, we know how far away, we just talked about it for 30 minutes.

How far can they get in a single offseason with McCarthy in that cap space and the limited draft capital, but maybe more with Darnold along that line toward being the most complete team in the NFC? Yeah, I don't think they can do that exactly in one offseason. I think that two successful offse seasons puts you in that category potentially. But you take a look at how the Eagles built or in previous years when you've looked at best teams or whatever, how they've built.

And they hit on a single off season in a big way. The Eagles did, a lot of these other teams that have been successful have. The Eagles off season was outstanding, especially the way that they handled that rookie draft. But you take a look at some of their key players and their guys that have been on the team for five, six, seven, eight years. You know, Milton Williams came up huge for them this season.

He was a draft pick for like four years ago. He's about to hit free agency, right? And so, like, these complete teams are built from years of team building with probably one or two meteoric offseasons that have, you know, really boosted that. And if the Vikings have that kind of meteoric off-seasons that have really boosted that. And if the Vikings have that kind of meteoric off-season, if they get three rookie starters out of this draft, which would be crazy because they barely have three picks, but if they get three rookie starters out of this draft

and they nail a couple of their free agency swings and they shore up some things here and there, they're not going to be a complete team. There's just so much work to do to get there but I think that they could get close enough where you could talk about them as a top 10 roster in the league they already have a bunch of great pieces like we talked about Jefferson and Hawkinson and Darasaw and Addison that's all true but you take a look at you know what's happening with that edge unit that's a fantastic unit

Harrison Phillips is still playing really good ball you know the way that they handle the linebacker situation is fascinating. I think Blake Hashman is an outstanding player, right? They've got a lot of really good players that come from what just happened to be a successful offseason. They have a meteoric one that are in the conversation for having one of the better teams in the league. But I think it's gonna take a couple of off seasons from where they are now to potentially be the best complete team or what is it, like player for player rosters in the league.

All right, before we wrap up, I wanna throw one totally off the wall thing of you, not completely, he's still in the Vikings realm, but not related to any of this conversation that much. And then I wanna know one thing that we haven't talked about that you're just very interested in the Vikings offseason. Okay, how do you feel about Dallas Turner? I don't think you and I have talked about Dallas Turner

in any capacity. We went to Lynx finals games, but I don't recall us saying, hey, Atlanta Smith's drilling a three. What do you think about Dallas Turner? Yeah. Yeah. I don't think we talked about that quite.

Where do you stand on that? I mean, I'm not bothered or worried. It is frustrating to see someone like Jared Verz have the season that he had, but you know, they have different responsibilities, so it's not exactly one for one. I think that there's a great opportunity for him to be a really important designated pass rusher

or third edge rusher, something like that. I don't think he's on a great path, but I don't think that that's dispositive. I think that people very easily react very quickly to some of these things, and I think that they kind of threw a lot at them Obviously everyone's gonna say hey, he's like two all-pro edge rushers ahead of him or whatever and yeah, sure But like also Patrick Jones who played really well I don't want to knock him or anything like that

But like you would hope that you know a first-round pick, you know The way that they reacted in the draft room to being able to trade up for him, you know the way that they reacted in the draft room to being able to trade up for him. You would think that you would have a bit more of an immediate impact, have the ability to get ahead of somebody like a Patrick Jones. And so I think that he is behind the curve of where you want him to be,

but a lot of players have been behind the curve of where you want them to be and have turned out to be outstanding players, even first round picks. So I'm not bothered, I just think that, you know, pay attention to how that kind of develops and turns out. I looked at this maybe a few years ago about edge rushers and how much we know about them after one year, because there's some positions that if someone's bad after one year, they're

in trouble. But there are a lot of positions where it's like, oh, by year two you better know, by year three. And I think Edge Rushers is a year two position. And when I say I looked at this, I think I mean PFF's Timo Risky did a really good. Yeah, so shout out to him. Offensive lineman, you got to wait like three years. I mean, I just came up with this brilliant thing

I thought of that I clearly read online. So no, but Timo does incredible work over there and the data science side, but he had a very, I mean, it was very distinct, like when they hit their, start to hit their peaks, and I think Ed Drushers was year two, but it definitely wasn't year one. And we saw, I mean, Cleo Mack had like four sacks his first year and then becomes great.

And I think part of it is the physical nature of it, where Dallas Turner was not this huge Hulking dude who could just step right in and defeat tackles with his strength, so it's going to have to be something else I also think that Brian Flores is a bit of a mad scientist here with Dallas Turner And I think he sees him as being like Van Ginkle. Yeah, he's dropping back in coverage a ton He's moving around a ton, which is what I mean by like it's not a Jared Verst situation. Right, and if he's Van Ginkle, look at what that can do. But even Van Ginkle, I know he wasn't a first-round pick, but he didn't become that for a couple years. Like that takes

longer, and I think Brian Flores, and Dane Mizzetani made this point the other day, and I really liked it. Like if you wanted to cook the books and put him in and blitz him every time on third down, could've got him five or six sacks. What is that worth versus developing a true player for that position? So I think this year we'll be really telling about how far he can really come and what the value can be,

but we should not make a lot of judgments after this year. What else you got? You got something random for me? I didn't know I had to bring anything for you. Well, you could direct it toward me. Just think of something. Sure. Do you think the Vikings will continue to invest in fullbacks?

It feels like they had more fullback snaps this year than we've had in a long time. I like that. I like that question. Well, I like the concept, and maybe this is biased because I wrote a story on it, but I like the concept of a third down pass blocking fullback because what you can't do with Josh Oliver or TJ Hockenson is help on the inside. So it was very clever of Kevin O'Connell to say to CJ Hamm, you're essentially a chipper

of guard. Like you're helping the guard in the center positions by chipping those guys or stepping up and look where all these teams blitz and I heard a statistic somewhere from someone in the league that the Vikings were stunted more than any other team. Like stunts, twists, because they wanted their top rushers heading to the inside. So using CJ Ham, he's getting those stunts, twists.

He can help in there. Those blitzes that they sent on third downs, that is a very good talent to have, and he's good at it. And it was an impact play. On the running thing, he's never understood how to use a fullback in the slightest, and it didn't help last year, I don't think, when CJ Ham was in there running. He should still have a position. He's a great special teamer, he's a great veteran player,

he doesn't cost much money, and that pass block thing will be irrelevant because you don't wanna get Aaron Jones hurt if he comes back. And if you've got Quinchon Judkins, or Trevion Henderson, or someone's name that I'm 100% certain on how to pronounce it, like guys aren't going to know how to pass block for this year. So I think that's a very clever usage of an extra blocker in there for third downs.

But as far as the fullbacks role in this world, I'd love to see it come back. I'd love to see some neck rolls. I'd love to see that position. I just don't know that it's ever coming back in the running way, because you have to run play actions off it. I mean, you watch old games, I watch old games. Those wide receivers, they're standing out there like this. Yeah, it's crazy.

They're not moving, the corners aren't moving, the defense isn't moving, and then play happens, and that is just not football today. There's so much movement, so much pre-stamp movement, you need four or five options for the quarterback. You can't just run an I-form. Can you believe, I watch Cordell's through our game sometimes.

And I'm like, I can't believe this. There's so many bodies right there. Steve McNair is running out of the I-form with two wide receiver options on a play. And you're just like, how did he even do what he did? So I think that the advancements have made that kind of not that possible because you need everybody to be a threat. But what does he, I mean, it's $2 million or something.

I mean, plus he's an outstanding special teamer, right? Yeah, a real leader, like captain, special teamer, yeah, for sure. OK, well, ending on that was like, after such a good conversation you know well anyway we've got a W season coming up again and we'll be doing that and so many changes dude I don't know I know like who's on whose team we're gonna have that feeling in a couple of weeks and I'm sure you and I will get together throughout the offseason again very

soon or if itan, the wide left newsletter. Since it was my idea to start it I deserve all the credit. I have been given no money whatsoever but this right here I feel satisfied that we're even. So no it's really really good a lot of great writing on there and I hope you check it out and we'll talk to y'all soon. Thanks for coming on man. That's good thanks for having me. Football. Folks, I'm trying a new thing in order to stop ordering from fast food restaurants all

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It's been years we've been trying to get Bobby Peters to write about the Minnesota Vikings offense. He would come on the show and be like, oh yeah, I wrote a book about the Lions, I wrote a book about the Packers and be like anytime now is fine Bobby Well, you have written what a dozen books about offenses in the NFL. They are the most detailed and insightful breakdowns of NFL offenses and I have loved your insight on the show for a very long time But now you got a Vikings won the 2024 Minnesota Vikings complete offensive manual and you are doing the alert the post newsletter as well that people can go check out. So guess what we're going to talk about the Minnesota Vikings offense. Bobby, here's

a great place to start. If JJ McCarthy is the quarterback and not Sam Darnold for next year, how good is that for him? How good is that for JJ McCarthy in terms of this offense? How can it make life easier? What are the challenges for a young quarterback? Give me the, if J.J. is the quarterback, what does it look like with Kevin O'Connell's offense? That's a great question. Thank you for the nice intro.

Great question and I think we gotta look back to all the great coaching that he's done the last two years, two plus years really. Obviously, Kirk Cousins was playing fantastic before he got hurt last year. You know Dobbs comes in place fantastic. Obviously Kevin O'Connell adjusted his system for the new quarterback coming off the street and then this year you know with Sam Darnold he's never he's never really had a good season right. I mean he's been cast off he's a backup for a few years back up in San Francisco the year prior and he had a fantastic season so I think Kevin O'Connell has

shown the ability to adapt the offense to the quarterback. Obviously it helps having you know two outstanding wide receivers and an outstanding tight end that they like to feature early and often in progressions as well so that that's gonna help and I think the bones of the offense will probably be the same I think probably 70 80 percent of the concepts will be the same but I think where they pick and choose the next 20 to 30 percent will be very specific to JJ McCarthy and then I think where they pick and choose the next 20 to 30 percent will be very specific to JJ McCarthy And then I think within that that 70 to 80 percent also

I think McCarthy's gonna find different receivers than Darnold was just you know just seeing the field differently right every quarterback sees the field feel differently I definitely thought that in training camp that JJ McCarthy saw the middle of the field better and the underneath stuff better And I think we'll be more willing to check down because sometimes I felt like Sam it's okay dude just check down to TJ Hawkinson or Josh Oliver or your running back and everything will be fine and he seemed to always want to hunt that that deep shot which is also KOC as well wanting to hunt the deep shots and explosives but let's go back to what you said about changing the offense from

Kirk to Sam Darnold. What did you feel like was different there? Because I thought that Kirk was good at finding his underneath stuff, and he had this great chemistry with Hockenson, which didn't really exist with Darnold, but Darnold down the field to Justin Jefferson was so willing to take those shots into tighter windows down the field. I think it was an overall philosophical coming from the top down. I think the offensive design,

four to five times a game, they would tweak base concepts to take advantage of what defenses were doing and make throws, and attempt throws that, like a lot of teams, the NFL just wouldn't attempt, right? Or by design or whether the quarterback would be limited or not. But I think there was a clear attempt

from within the offensive structure to take those shots downfield. And I think, and obviously my book goes into great detail on the specifics of it, but they would take a base concept that McVeigh and Shanahan and those guys would run, and then they would tweak it and add a different route to take advantage of certain things.

And it was a lot of fun to study from that standpoint. They were incredibly explosive with their five and seven step pass concepts. No, I know. And that's the thing about the way that the season ended versus the way we saw it play out in the regular year, because what Kevin O'Connell was able to do with Sam Darnold's arm talent

was nothing short of spectacular for the vast majority of the season. And eventually the wheels came off because they couldn't block it up. And because Darnold didn't play very well against the Detroit Lions but when we go through the majority of the season finding Jefferson downfield was their go-to that's how they won football games I do wonder if that changes quite a bit with JJ McCarthy for where Jefferson is deployed and I've always been

fascinated between the relationship between KOC and Jefferson because that's his that's his cheat code. That's his thing that he can do that nobody else can do because he's got the best in the world. Do you think it'll be different? Like, what did you observe? Because he was so a downfield receiver that at times I got frustrated. I was like, you just need to get the ball in his hands. But then other times he's catching 97 yard touchdowns from the goal line.

So how might that advance with a different quarterback? So one thing that I think will carry over, and I think this kind of informs the discussion, is what Kevin O'Connell does is within any given play call, he will move Justin Jefferson, for the most part, depending on the concept, from receiver X, Y, Z, F, whatever, right? Like he moves him around really well within the concept. So a lot of times, obviously, if you've got a receiver like, Y, Z, F, whatever, right? Like he moves him around really well within the concept.

So a lot of times, obviously, if you've got a receiver like Justin Jefferson, you want to make him the first read in the progression. You want the quarterback looking at him first when he gets to the top of his drop. Other times, you want to use him as like a backside receiver. So that way, when Darnell or McCarthy gets to the top of their drop,

they're getting the ball out quicker to a receiver who's getting single covered. So if you're playing, you know, I think it was the second matchup against the Lions, the Lions were playing a ton of man coverage, but they were cheating their safety over to Jefferson. So in that case, okay, if we know we're getting this look, let's make Jeff, let's put Jefferson on the backside or have him run a check down or something of that sort and make one of the other receivers

the primary. When you do that, now the ball's getting out quicker, right? Because if you, if you always made Jefferson the first read for Darnold and he's getting double teamed, well now Darnold's holding the ball longer, and as a quarterback you have that mental clock, and it starts to frustrate you if you're not getting the ball out to your first read in your progression often. I guess I want to know how flexible you think that this is within a game.

Because something that comes up all the time, and I can't decide whether there's validity to it, or if it's really just a standard football thing we think when something doesn't work out which is did he adjust in real time because I have felt at times through Kevin O'Connell's time here that there has been a little bit of even if something's not working they're gonna keep going back to it down the field even though that is their best thing that they do so I go back and, like am I just judging the results

and not really the process, or do they need to be better in their quick game and things like that? And I think it's one of the hardest things to parse out, is were they doing the right thing, can they actually be flexible, or is it better to just keep, just for example, in basketball, I think we would all say, especially you and I are about the same age, like shoot a mid-range jumper man, stop missing the three every time.

But then a team gets hot for three and then they rip off 48 points in the first quarter. You're like, just like I told him, just keep shooting those threes. How much of that do you look at when you're breaking down this book with Kevin O'Connell? I think it's a little of both. I think when it comes to in-game adjustments, right?

If you have a game plan coming in to do one thing, and you're expecting the defense to do that thing, and if the defense does that thing, you're going to stick with your game plan, right? Because you're like, okay, we practiced this all week, eventually it's going to click, right? And it's something, you might get a holding penalty on the first drive or something might happen where, you know,

it kind of derails you early in the game. So in that case, it's like, yeah, let's stick with the game plan. But if they come out and do something different, you better switch up what you're doing, right? You better adapt to what the defense presents to you. So I think, you know, within each game, you definitely have to take a look at that, right? And I think in general, it was a little bit of both.

From when we take a step back and like my book is broken down by concept, when you look at the different concepts the Vikings use, they have a full menu. So they can adapt in game, you know, they can take those deep shots. They also have a quick game menu, which they've adapted to the modern NFL really well. And then one piece that I really like about their downfield concepts, you know, their five and seven step stuff where they're really trying to push the ball is their check down distribution underneath.

It always made sense. It always gave the quarterback answers underneath if that deep shot wasn't there. And one element in particular, something that I've studied with Ben Johnson the last couple years too, is off play action, a lot of times teams will keep six or seven in to protect and you're really limiting yourself on where your quarterback can put the ball. What Kevin O'Connell and Ben Johnson do really well is they'll get four or five out every single time. And it really allows the quarterback

to read a full field at that point. Right, because that's the thing we never really know when we see the results, is what was the quarterback supposed to do and did he do something different than Kevin O'Connell would have dialed it up and like when it comes to a check down or something it's like would Kevin O'Connell have said hey you got to just get rid of that football on some of those sacks at the same time Darnold was trying to make plays out of structure which as I'm sure you saw on tape he did

spectacularly a bunch of times until he couldn't anymore when Jared verse and Kobe Turner and the blitzes and stuff were getting them with the Rams. But that's always a discussion that I go back and forth on. And in some ways I'm like, I agree with if you're sticking with the same thing and it's not working, then you have to make an adjustment. But also this is what you do best as an offense. Let's go back to J.J. McCarthy, though.

How complicated is this? You look at, there's a stack of books over here of all the offenses that you have charted and written about. In comparison to other teams, how much of a mountain is it to climb for J.J. McCarthy to learn this knowing that he has a year of understanding that the X's and O's? If you want to show the camera, the front of it, see you got the J.J. McCarthy understands the this,

but he doesn't have a lot of experience doing the that, the throwing of the football, the footwork, the details, the full speed stuff, the getting hit part. How tough is this gonna be? I think it definitely takes time. I think obviously the coaching staff will pair what he does well in camp to the game plans. You know, there's gonna be, you know,

definitely carry over there and you know, you wanna make your quarterback comfortable. I don't think that full menu will be there obviously. Like Darnold has a lot more experience than McCarthy but I mean who knows like McCarthy you know he's just you know from what I've heard he's an intelligent guy you know so I think what you what you touched on is is the is the real crux of it right can you take that classroom knowledge and can you bring it to the field and I think you know studying you know comparing Kevin O'Connell's offense to

all the other offenses I think like the language structures and you know the different the you know the menu I think like the language structures and you know, the different, you know, the menu, I think is pretty similar from those standpoints. And it's just gonna be how you fit it to the specific skill set of the quarterback. I wanna ask you about something that makes me sad, hurts my heart. It's the 2024, 2023, and 2022 Vikings run game.

If you grew up in the 90s and you watch a run game like this, you just shake your head, you feel sad. It hasn't been good Bobby. It just hasn't been good. And this is always another difficult thing to work through. They also haven't had a great interior offensive line as I'm certain that you noticed. And they have not had running backs who are explosive. Delvin Cook had lost the step very clearly and then Alexander Madison was just a bad decision and Aaron Jones was good last year. There's no question he was good. But he didn't have very many of those home run type of runs and

I think the jolt isn't quite the same as it was early in his career. The ineffectiveness in the run game, how much was Scheme? How much do they need to improve Scheme-wise? Or is it legitimately just you need better players? I think a big chunk of it is Scheme. I think, you know, obviously Kevin O'Connell comes from McVeigh and the Rams, right? So like you've got the 11-person L-Duo mid-zone base, and he carried that over.

But the multiplicity within it is nowhere near what Sean McVeigh does. And I think what the Vikings have done is and my book I wanted to focus on it is those five and seven step pass concepts they really expand on that like that's their identity right that's who they want to be and it's hard to be really good and really multiple within every aspect of your offense right and it you know you a lot of it is you know Kevin O'Connell you know he's darn good at coaching the five and seven step stuff and he's darn good at getting his players in different quarterbacks to see it well and to create, you know, explosive, create an

explosive pass game with it. So I think some of it is like there's so much, there's so many eggs in the pass game basket that like the run game is kind of like, okay, we just do it to keep the defense honest. We're going to run duo, we're going to run some mid zone. And outside of that, there's not a ton of multiple, within that there's not a ton of multiplicity. But then even outside of that, like other gap schemes, other different zone variations, there's not a ton of, within that there's not a ton of multiplicity But then even outside of that like other gap schemes other different zone variations There's not a there wasn't a ton on that standpoint so when they're game planning They're game playing the pass game, and I think the run game obviously they're game planning too

But I think it's to a lesser degree When I talk to people about this offense one thing that keeps coming up is we knew when they were gonna run Because they just had limited amounts of formations personnel Very true very true if Josh Oliver was on the field, if Trent Sherfield was on the field, it's like, they're running. And they would do a lot of, all right, we're going to run kind of out of a bunch, and then we're going to run the same play action out

of that bunch. But at times, it seemed like, especially the Rams, understood exactly when they were going to do those play actions and then sent corner blitzes off the bunch, which you know works really well. And I thought when we do this discussion about predictability, pass a game, I don't think they're that predictable with their routes. You see all sorts of corners and safeties like scrambling, but I don't see too many

people scrambling when they're running the football. And I think that if you're just, if you're going to be simple and straightforward think that if you're just if you're gonna be simple and straightforward that's fine if you have beasts if you have giants of men pushing human beings around then you can say all right we're gonna line up and you can't stop it the Vikings have not had are you gonna line up you can't stop it I think there does need to be a little more misdirection is maybe that's way too basic of a word but fair just it's fair. Just eye candy. Just, hey, look over there. And the run goes that way.

It is a simple game, right? I just feel like it was an obligation. We have to run, I guess, because we can't pass every play. So fine. And here's another thing, too. This has been a complaint, as you've noticed. First down, run. Maybe 55% of the time. Second down, absolutely no chance.

No world where we're running on second down. If you can only run on one down ever with the same personnel, it's just way too predictable, I thought. Yeah, no, the biggest thing that stuck out to me was, writing the book, I go game by game and I clip every play, so I've got a library of cut-ups at the end Which is awesome from the coaching standpoint, but I think but the biggest thing that's true about ways

Everything you said is true But the biggest thing that I want to really focus on is the formation tendencies and you can see that in the book too like When they get into condensed three by ones whether it be 11 or 12 personnel There's a very very high percentage chance that it's gonna be a zone run either way or duo. And they have a couple play actions off those, but their play action stuff kind of branches out into other formations too.

So it's like, if you're the defense, you see those formations pre-snap, there's a darn good chance that it's gonna be one of those three runs. And the thing is with NFL teams, and I wrote a book too, Bobby, Football is a Numbers Game, and one of the things I learned while writing it was teams have so much data,

they know every single formation, every single tendency, every single percentage, every single route combination you run out of a certain thing, they have all that data right there. So if you go into a game and they know, hey, they run 90% of their stuff out of these three formations, every time you see them, you know there's a really good chance at that.

But I also try not to complain too much because they just had a 14-win season and a top-10 offense with Sam Darnold. But I think that this is... But when we're talking about a championship standard for the team, I don't think you can go into the playoffs and you start getting beat with a team's pass rush and they're getting upfield they're thinking upfield upfield upfield attack the quarterback and you have no answer to be able to run the ball against them and try to keep them honest I think that's really what happened in LA or Arizona against LA was that they just had no counterpunch to what LA was doing best. No you're exactly right and I know we were kind of texting back and forth too

about what exactly happened in that game as far as what did the Rams do to the pass game, why were all these sacks? And you look at each one, and I could point to one of them was Sam Darnold's fault, one of them was the O-line's fault, missing a block, or one of them was the coverage, took away the first three receivers,

and then the pocket got pushed onto Darnold. And another one is, obviously the corner blitz we talked about about the offensive line just goofed up the slide on that one So it was kind of like it was it was one bad thing after another and people were taking turns messing up And that's kind of what that looks like in the playoffs right if you're gonna you when you lose a playoff game unless it's like Super close down to the wire. You know it's it's gonna look sloppy like that, but yeah to your point if they want to take it to that that level, pushing the envelope more with the different run schemes and then their ability to do so and have answers for when defenses want to, hey, we got to pressure the quarterback. That's very spot on.

Now let me just throw a scenario at you. Let's just say that they signed Trey Smith, and I know everybody wants Trey Smith, but let's just say run blocker, top-notch run blocker, and they drafted Tyler Booker, who is a big, giant guard. How good could they make this thing? How good could this offense be if you had two dudes at the guard position who were monsters? Yeah, if you've got awesome personnel, you can run mid-zone.

You can run outside-zone strong in duo and just live with it, right? You don't need all the bells and whistles. You don't need all the adjustments when you, you don't need all the adjustments when you can just say, hey, if we're gonna, if we know this double team is gonna get up to the mic, if we know we're gonna be able to push, you know, get to the perimeter out when we run outside zone to two-side ends, like, you're, you don't have to do all that stuff, right? If you have, if you have elite personnel. So that

would certainly help. I mean the whole offense, like, what's the ceiling for the whole offense if they have a good, like, top, it's so hard to build an offensive line. If they had a top notch, top five offensive line, how good can the offense be? Oh, best in the league, there's no doubt. You're gonna just drop the mic after? I own these mics, don't drop them. Yes, yeah, I figured you'd want me to do that.

That's a great way to walk off, though. Bobby Peters, the 2024 Vikings Complete Offensive Manual, it's coming out soon. Take a look for that. Might be out by the time this podcast runs and Alert the post is your newsletter if this let me tell you this for extreme football. Okay, like you are this is as deep As a dive I have given one of your books to Kevin O'Connell literally So that's how in-depth that they are So I appreciate your work, your insight,

and maybe he'll check out some of your observations on the run game possibly when he gets ahold of this book. So thanks, dude. I really appreciate you stopping by Indianapolis, and best of luck with all the work here. Appreciate that. Always good to catch up. Football.

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