Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - How good was JJ McCarthy vs. Cowboys? Greenard out for the year (Part 1)

Episode Date: December 16, 2025

Matthew Coller talks about his All-22 tape takeaways from watching back the Vikings and Cowboys. Jonathan Greenard is out for the year. Then the round table with Brian Murphy and Manny Hill. The Purple Insider podcast is brought to you by FanDuel. Also, check out our sponsor HIMS at https://hims.com/purpleinsider Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hey, everybody, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider, Matthew Collar, here, and a lot to discuss. The show is always presented by Fandul. J.J. McCarthy's game against the Dallas Cowboys, the Vikings approving to six and eight. They had to face the New York Giants on the road next week. We've got a major injury that the Vikings will be without Jonathan Grenard for the next three. games and i had a chance today to go through all of the all 22 tape i've got a bunch of takeaways a bunch of thoughts but here's what i would like from you guys in the comment section is to fill in the blank here bottom line about j j mccarthy's last two games is blank so

if you want to fill it in in the comment section bottom line blank like what is the bottom line of J.J. McCarthy's last two starts and the way that he's performed against Washington, are you looking at it as serious progress, mild progress? Your bottom line is that you're still tentative, but you're excited. Bottom line, he's the goat. Bottom line, what is it? Probably that last one might be a little on the aggressive side, but how are you viewing it in a sentence, essentially? Because I'm going to be getting deep into the weeds on this performance. so I want to hear your guys kind of final thoughts on it. Let me begin with my overall, like big picture, 30,000-foot view takeaway.

And then I will get into individual plays that I saw, thoughts that I had about the game plan, how J.J. McCarthy executed it, and of course, Justin Jefferson as well. And I've got a few things from Kevin O'Connell from today's press conference. So my big takeaway is that there isn't a whole, lot that would change my mind that J.J. McCarthy did from my takeaway right after the game that I watched. I didn't see, and sometimes this does happen, I didn't see something where I suddenly went, oh my gosh, this was a way better game than people thought. Or, oh, this was not anywhere near as good. No, I thought that your viewing at home, my viewing of just watching

this game play out. I think it gave us the proper picture, which was a lot of very good decisions, a lot of good plays to create explosives for J.J. McCarthy aggressiveness. He had extremely good protection. We'll get into why the game plan was so good against Dallas, but he executed it very well. He did not execute it flawlessly. I don't think anybody would say that. It wasn't, you know, 22 for 23 with 400 yards, but it was still executed very, very well. I did have a number of shaking my head moments about the way that the Dallas Cowboys played defense.

I was pretty astounded with their lack of aggression defensively. I think they're so afraid of how bad their secondary is that they think the answer is more players and coverage and less blitzing, but when they blitzed, that's when they had the most success, yet they thought that it was a bad idea to blitz. I'll get the number here for you. because I didn't write this down, but I had it somewhere earlier today. The number of blitzes from Dallas was really, really shockingly low. They blitzed eight times.

And McCarthy went four for eight, 59 yards, the interception. That's it, though, for a young quarterback like him who had struggled at times against the blitz. There was, so the Dallas defense absolutely played a role in the success of this game. And I also came away thinking that, well, there were a couple of passes that had touch on. them. We're still seeing a one speed, which causes some problems. And I'll get into exactly where that causes issues. But I do think that Kevin O'Connell has adjusted to the one speed thrower and rather than try to kind of hope that he works his way into touch passes. He's just said, I'm going to dial up plays that for the most part allow him to just let it rip. And we've seen

a lot of the success over the last two weeks with that. And the pocket presence, the the aggressiveness, the decision making, I think was all very, very good. And I really want to highlight the decisions. KOC laid out the decisions pretty straightforwardly for him in this game. There were a lot of play actions, a lot of bootlegs where maybe there is only one option or two options on the play, but not throwing the ball away to the other team, not sort of wildly flinging it anywhere and not trying way too hard to make a play if one wasn't there, which I think has been an issue for J.J. McCarthy where we've seen him in other games, try to play

hero, try to force that ball into places that it didn't need to go. And he did have one instance of this, but for the most part, he was not trying to play hero in this game. He had some excellent checkdowns, which I know Kevin O'Connell has praised every time he's done it so far this year. But the big picture kind of grade for this game was, you know, I think he had a lot of really, really high moments and very few, very low moments in this game. So I think that it was progress and I think it was overall a quality played football game where there was some stuff that was left on the table in part because of something that can't be changed this year.

It's probably going to have to be changed into the future. If you listen to Chris Collinsworth, I thought they did a great job of discussing the mechanics. And mechanics are very, very important. to play quarterback. Now, they're not having all the same mechanics. Every quarterback is not something that you need. Lamar Jackson throws the ball different than Josh Allen, who throws the ball different than Patrick Mahomes, who throws the ball different than Justin Herbert. Right. Throughout history, there's been lots of different types of throwers, but they all have to check off certain boxes. And they made the Josh Allen comparison last night on the broadcast

with the leg whip and, you know, always trying to throw the ball through a wall. and then having to, over a couple of years, rework the amount of touch on the football. And that's something that is absolutely a requirement for J.J. McCarthy to get to another level from where he is at right now. And there were times in this game where if he does have touch on the football, if he does have a little more anticipation, I mean, he's easily going over 300 yards in this game. So let's get into the specific plays. I want to start out with the interception of what happened there. kind of a good example of J.J. McCarthy not making a bad decision. Now, this one did not work out because it popped up and then it bounced off someone and then Quinn and Williams just

found football into his hands. Not all interceptions are created equal. Some interceptions that McCarthy's had this year have been, hey, I'm going to make this late and very bad an overaggressive decision. And, uh-oh, they picked it off. That was definitely not the case with this interception. They sent a blitz from his right side and the hot for that blitz was Justin Jefferson who did a great job of settling down into a spot for McCarthy. I'm assuming that Jefferson has an option on the route to, and I don't know this, like what the play is, but it'd be sort of typical to, hey, if there's a blitz there, then this is where you're going to sit down or how you're going to handle it. And so he gets to his spot. He's there and JJ's trying to throw in the ball. It just gets

tipped up in the air. Now, there is something to J.J. McCarthy in getting balls tipped that he drops down when he throws. The arm is down here. It's not up over his head. And if you're Philip Rivers it's six foot five or six foot six and you throw it a sidearm, well, you know, that's going to be just fine for you. But if you are six foot two and a half or whatever J.J. McCarthy technically is, that's not going to be as great because that's where guys can get their hands. up. It is a game of inches when it comes to getting the football over defenders, and that's one where he's got to release it a little bit higher or just not at all if he wanted to dodge the guy and try to scramble or something. But he just kind of threw it right into his hands.

It's got to find a way to get that ball up and over that defender into Justin Jefferson. I think if he had, it's like a five-yard completion and everybody moves on and they start the football game. but that is something just mechanically of where O'Connell has said he wants him to stand tall into the pocket and he he wasn't he was kind of doing the slide and the low throw and that was why it got deflected there it might have no matter what because the guy was free running it was right in his face but that's just something that has been sort of discussed a lot and it was I think a factor on that play but it was bad luck that it turned into an interception it was just purely bad luck that ball normally 90 times out of 100 it pops up and it hits the ground that's why fat guy

interceptions are great because they're so rare and i think that the decision was exactly what it was supposed to be and maybe it needed to come slightly faster but the ball needed to get out faster that's another thing is that when you wind up and you have this kind of slide and the ball comes back down you're just not getting as much as much of the ball coming out quick and you saw it with Carson went sometimes where he'd get it and then it would just be like out he wouldn't do a full wind up. It would just be, I'm just pushing that ball to my receiver. It's probably what he needed to do there. But I, but I didn't dislike where he was headed with the football. That was actually a good read from him. The game plan overall looked a lot like some Gary Kubiak stuff. There was big

personnel a ton and I'm always going to be in favor of that. I think it works. I just have always been a believer in getting those big guys on the field. 34 snaps for Josh Oliver, 16 for C.J. Ham. They used Ben Sims nine different times in this game. And they had four tight ends active. I mean, they were ready to go out there and use the big dudes in this game. And it really, really worked with play action. So they went six for seven for 87 yards on play action. And even though they didn't have a ton of success in running the football in this game, they built off it really, really well. And I think that if you were banging the drum for earlier this year, Kevin O'Connell, hey, even if the run game isn't working, like just keep pounding and

then build those play actions off it, that maybe they could have done that a little bit more earlier. They did against Chicago. They were doing it in the first half against Green Bay. But in some of the games earlier, maybe not quite as much. I thought they did a good job of it against Detroit, but there's been times where you can build off the run game a little bit more. And I felt like this was a good example of you might only be getting three yards of carry, but the defense is having to respect what you're doing with the big personnel and with, you know, the Jordan Mason and Aaron Jones, like these are good running back. So they're having to bring guys up. The guys at linebacker who have really struggled this year for Dallas, like they're

jumping at plays, and you saw that on a number of the play actions. So it really felt like a deep shot or check down type of offensive game plan, which is very much in the Gary Kubiak realm of things, a lot of under center and a lot of play action and stuff like that. It worked really, really well to use those big personnel. We saw C.J. Hamm completely bury a guy. We saw T.J. Hawkinson have some good reps as a blocker in there, and then one where he's blocking and then leaks out.

So well done on a lot of those play actions. Now, one of those was the touchdown to Jalen Naylor. And what that is is it's a bootleg left and he's rolling to his left. And then he's kind of got to flip the hips and put the ball in a spot for Nailer. Now, if you freeze the tape when he gets ready to release the football, Duran Bland is in good position to go get that ball. And there's no other receiver that J.J. can really throw it to. So he could scramble and go out.

of bounds for a couple yards, or he could just take a shot at it. And this is where with J.J. McCarthy, his personality can be off-putting to some people. I saw Chris Carter talk about that a little bit, but I also think that this undying belief that he has in his own arm and his own playmaking, it's the old saying of it's easier to say woe than go, like it's easier to kind of rein that in a little bit as he grows than it is to try to be like, all right, come on, be more aggressive. Come on, throw it to your receiver. And that's a good example of it because he could have said,

ah, the corner's got position and I'm just going to run out of bounds. But instead, he says, I'm going to put this ball up to a spot and see if my guy can make a play. And Jalen Naylor makes a great play. But these are good receivers. This is what you need to be doing is saying, all right, my guy's one on one. Let's go put it up. If it gets picked off, it gets picked off. And that's how it is.

it's not a perfect ball location probably, but Naylor is able to undercut it and makes the play. Maybe ideally you're kind of putting it a little farther to the back corner of the end zone, but it's hard to complain about that one. And that's just a good example of building a play action throw from McCarthy to push it down the field where he's very comfortable doing that and to do it in a way where he has essentially just one look. If it's there and he's one-on-one, give him a chance,

and if not, then scramble out of bounds or throw it away or something like that. And he made a good throw or at least a good enough throw. And that's all that's required when you have a good receiver to make the play. So that was, I thought, an example of McCarthy and the scheme coming together nicely against the Dallas Cowboys. And then them, Dallas just doesn't have great players. And that's another thing too. If you know they don't have great players, like take your shot.

And that's exactly what they did. Duran Bland's nine interceptions a couple of years ago seemed like a million years ago. He is just not the same player that he was. The deep shot to Jordan Addison, what I really liked about that play, the 58-yard catch, was J.J. McCarthy released the ball before Addison was fully by the defender. So meaning he has oftentimes this year waited until he sees someone break open and then he's throwing it really hard. But instead, this one, as soon as he gets to that defender, you see the arm come up to throw the football. And this is a play that the Vikings used, I think, very, very similar

last year in week 17 against the Green Bay Packers. They probably use it 100 times, but that's where it really comes to mind, where you have Naylor breaking across the middle and Addison going deep. And if the safety breaks down on Naylor, you just go up over the top. And if he's goes back then you hit nailer like this is the concept the Vikings use all the time one guy running a go another guy breaking off that into the middle you put a defender in conflict and he sees it and throws it and it's ever so slightly behind him but i mean it's enough to make the completion and get them into a position where they can easily score a touchdown i don't think you want to nitpick away of oh what if he throws it two more yards in the air then he catches it walks in like you're

you're looking for a completion there. That's a good throw. That's a really good throw from him. It had arc on it. He dropped it mostly in the bucket there. But it was the decision to me again and the timing of the play that worked out really, really well because Addison, and I don't actually understand what happened. This is another example of, okay, Dallas, though, what was that? Because I don't really understand what Dallas's corner is doing. It seemed like he was, maybe this is just Jordan Addison roasted him, but it seemed like he was, was sitting on something or thought he was supposed to be on an underneath route and then he just stood there and Addison ran right by him. Maybe he thought he had safety help. Maybe he thought

it was a cover too. I don't know. But that was it was very helpful. There's a few things in this game that Dallas is very helpful. So we can't discount that element of it. The Dallas's defense was very poor and they helped on that. But you don't get the chance unless you time it out well, throw an accurate ball, and it was a good job by McCarthy there. There's a screen pass, and this is an example of Kevin O'Connell really having a good game plan for J.J. McCarthy and having some great details. So there's a screen pass to Aaron Jones that goes for 18 yards. Now, this is like, depending on how you do explosive plays, like if you cut it off at 15 or 20,

but, you know, call it 15, this is an explosive play that requires nothing from the quarterback. This is a good design where, Last week, they ran a pop pass to Jalen Naylor, where he comes behind the line of scrimmage, McCarthy catches it, flips it over to him, and then he runs for a first down or whatever it was, eight yards, I don't remember. This time they fake it, and you see all the Cowboys defenders flow that way because they think, oh, there's that pop pass that they want to use, and then Aaron Jones goes out the other direction. There's nobody around.

The defender has already come too far to the other side. They wall them off, and you end up with an 18-yard gain. just an example of a very well-designed play that gets you going with no real ask of the quarterback. And I think that was something that, you know, they've been trying to do stuff like that throughout the season. But there's a little bit of me that's, hey, more of that. Like more of you don't have to ask your quarterback to do everything. Just for example, that's the only screen in the entire game. Like, it doesn't have to be that way. That doesn't have to be the only screen in the entire game. And McCarthy's screen pass percentage is quite a bit lower than some

other quarterbacks in the league. And you think it should probably be about the highest of anyone in the league. And I know they don't have yak guys, but still, like, they have one of the best running backs at this. So that was just a really nicely designed play. Let's get into the Jefferson stuff. And I can bring you what Kevin O'Connell had to say about it today. So my thought on the Jefferson stuff is it's it's all it's all very close there were a few instances where it's close one of them Jefferson is one on one and he doesn't burn his guy but it's a ball that he often gets to and he gets interfered with just very blatantly interfered with no question about it and it's not called okay that would have looked like a great play if they had gotten

an interference call there is a a deep overpass which I know that O'Connell talked about where it's just when you throw the ball as hard as J.J. McCarthy does, because there's two plays that really stand out to me with this. When you throw the ball as hard as McCarthy does for every pass, it gives your receivers no leeway whatsoever at all. And this was something that before the season, when I did a story with Kurt Warner, who's now been like a main character in Vikingsland recently

because of his critiques of their offense. But, you know, when it comes to Kurt, he was one of the best throwers of the football in history, right? And we talked about this. He said that if you can throw a light football for your receivers, let's say you're a yard off here, a yard too deep there, a little bit too out in front of it. They can cut an angle. They can take an angle back. They can reach out and grab it with their fingertips. The reason there's been so many fingertip drops, they're all the same drop, is because the ball is freaking heavy.

Did you see the play where he whipped it to Josh Oliver, who might be the strongest man on the team, like catches it and is pulled, like it's like someone threw a boulder to him. He was pulled forward. So it's hard to make those catches off your fingertips when the ball is spinning as fast as it is and is thrown as hard as it is. And that doesn't excuse like the touchdown drop. That's one that Jefferson needs to grab. But if you're trying to catch it with your fingertips, I mean, it might just bounce right off. and the deep over that he overthrows Jefferson. He does take a shot on that play.

Donovan Jackson got beat by a great player. I think it was Kenny Clark. And he releases it a little bit on the high side. But if it has any touch to it at all, Jefferson is so wide open that he's just going to glide into it or take a step back on a deeper angle and grab it. Also, the throw was a little bit late. And this is always the tendency.

He hitched one time for no reason. And then it's, oh, I'm whipping that ball. and that's how you end up with a not getting caught. Timing is so important with throwing to Jefferson. It's a little less so when you're just heaving a bomb to Addison or you're throwing it up for grabs for Naylor for when Jefferson's coming out of his break, that ball has to be gone and you have to anticipate at least a little bit

as opposed to, oh, now he's wide open. I'm going to a hitch again and then rip it. Like that's just not the way to do that play. Like that was as perfect as it gets. and I think you heard a little maybe frustration even in KOC's voice as he was breaking that one down because it's like, I can't do much more for you there, man, like you got to make that throw. There was another, there was a back shoulder at the goal line where the timing is off and he throws it so hard that, I mean, Jefferson turns around, the ball's going whew, right over his head, it's like, whoa.

So, you know, that issue still continues to come up. And it's something that he's going to have to put so much work into in the offseason. And, you know, I've mentioned this. It's time to get a new quarterback coach. The other guy kind of, you know, on the internet showed that he's not really. And plus the current mechanics, like this is not it. So I'm sure that he'll be changing QB coaches. But whoever he's going to be working with, that's the number one thing is being able to put some touch on that football.

That's why when you were talking about like, oh, KOC needed to. to tell them to stop doing mechanics, just go out there and play football. It sounds great, but it's actually bogus because you need your quarterback to execute some of these things at a high enough level to get these completions. And it's against the Cowboys, so they win anyway. But those are plays that you can't leave out there. So that's just a thought on Jefferson. Here's what O'Connell had to say about it.

What's been the challenge this year of trying to get Justin the ball and trying to balance like the way coverage is playing him, but also just wanting to get him as involved as he and everybody credits. Yeah, I think, you know, there's, but I'm not sure the number 51 maybe plays, and 27 those are rushing attempts, and you're trying to activate some things.

And those plays, just when you don't have the normal volume of plays, and now we had a really good yards per play last night and had some chunks and some explosives, but a lot of those came, you know, at the, you know, with how they were playing. And we can, I did think we had some good ops. You know, we talked about Justin in the end zone there.

You know, we had them against man to man on a kind of a deep crossing route. Another time that, you know, you'd like to see those, those have been kind of plays that when we get that one chance, that sometimes can be the chance for Justin for a sequence of 20 to 25 plays where there's not a safety lean into him. them. There's not a double team. There's not a cloud coverage rolling to him. So, you know,

when those, when those aren't, when you're second and 10 after those plays, it does feel a little bit more significant than just, you know, a standard get back on track play. But like I said, Justin's still doing all the things required for us to win. And nobody wants to make those plays more than Justin and nobody wants to make those throws more than JJ. And we just, and we just got to continue to try to find ways to allow Justin to impact the game. I thought we found them, you know, we created four by one one time and got them a look in the red zone. We, you know, we tried to, you know, have a couple alerts to them in the process of maybe then throwing some screens. So we're just going to always try to find ways

where we're not going to miss an eye. So there you go. I mean, you can tell it's like O'Connell trying to say, I'm doing everything I can out there. But, you know, if you just put a little more air, time it out a little bit better on that overrout and he gets it. It feels a lot different than it did last night where those two guys were just not really connecting timing wise. And, you know, I do think based on how open Jefferson was, there were some opportunities. And then, of course, he does have to catch that one in the back of the end zone, which did not have to be thrown that hard.

It's like there's, let me, let me stop and get to some of your questions. And then I'll continue with the rest of my notes. But as of right now, there's just not a lot you can do about that. It's like something that he's going to have to fix when it goes into the off season. But it is a cause of some of the problems with getting on the same page with Justin Jefferson overall. And with other receivers, you can sort of say, all right, he's good at throwing route X. So let's do that with this guy or that guy. Jefferson, you have to do very specific things to get him open when the coverage is always going his way.

so let me get to some of your questions i've got some more notes but i don't want to leave you guys hanging with uh your thoughts and questions and answers uh let's see uh phenom says speedy doesn't have a problem catching the footballs i mean how like how many catches does jelan nayler actually like have this year it's it's not that many um and he's done an amazing job this season but a lot of the throws exactly what i was just talking about a lot are and are we suggesting that he's like better than Jefferson because that's crazy. I think there has been some people who have wanted to just blame Jefferson for this. And I, there's a couple of catchable balls this year that he could have brought in that he didn't. That I would agree with, including

the one in the end zone. But it's not Jefferson's fault. If Carson Wentz can get 200 yards games to him, if Nick Mullins can get 100, 150 yard games to him, it's not Jefferson's fault. but my point was about the Naylor thing is that it's great of you to bring that up because that's exactly what I'm saying is with Naylor and Addison and Hawkinson and Oliver you can kind of lay out hey this play right here

this is a route that he's throwing really well and we're going to do it you can't do that with Jefferson it has to be this is what is required to get him open against NFL defenses that are focused on him. clearly it's possible to be done, but it has not been possible yet for J.J. McCarthy, which is what still should be holding everybody back from completely going over the top

over these last two games. So that's one thing. Matt Vrick, good to see you, says the TV crew kept referencing Josh Allen during the game. Did he have to overcome similar issues with his throwing mechanics? Yes, he did. The thing about that comparison that I've always been really hesitant about is, I mean, number one, Josh Allen still flies a lot of balls and darts a lot of balls, but is probably the best running quarterback. I mean, let's just put him in an echelon of the greatest running quarterbacks of Randall Cunningham, Michael Vick, Steve McNair, Lamar Jackson, like, he's, he's there. J.J. McCarthy's going to gain 15 yards game running. Like, Josh Allen can gain 150 yards running and just take over a game that way.

And then if his throwing is up and down, you can win any game because of it. If you have a mostly pocket quarterback who's throwing is that far up and down, even still, even years later, it can be for Josh Allen. And if that's the case, you're going to just lose some games because of the mechanics. And he worked incredibly hard on it. He's also, I mean, he's just a better athlete. So that's the thing that holds me back a little bit is Allen is like the 1% of 1% in of all football players who have ever stepped on a field, but you can improve it.

That is, I think, an absolute fact. And that's why they're making that reference is he had the leg whip thing. He threw every ball 110 miles an hour. I mean, after 2018, there was a lot of trepidation in Buffalo about Josh Allen. I know that, you know, there were a lot of fans who thought that he had showed a ton that year, and I think that he did. But the actual throwing, I mean, he was completing like 50% of his passes. So he is, is evidence.

that you can improve this stuff by putting in the work. And he's improved leaps and leaps and bounds from his first two seasons. So my point is just that even somebody who improved that much still has his days where his throwing just seems a little off. But yes, I mean, that's why they bring it up. The problem is that there's not too many other quarterbacks to bring up that way. I mean, I guess Mahomes, but again, you know, it's Mahomes. Let's see.

Lenny says, why do we move the goalpost each week? the Cowboys were a 500 team fighting for the playoffs. I'm glad you asked. I'm glad you asked, Lenny, we're not moving the goalposts. We're going to have to work on that definition. That's not what moving the goalposts is, but at least this is a breakdown of individual plays and everything that we can take away from a football game.

So no one's moving goalposts. Maybe you're referring to other people in the comment section. So here's why it's not, though, and you have to contextualize a win like this and a performance like this. I saw this stat from a Cowboys writer today that eight teams out of the 13 that they've played

have their highest scoring output against the Cowboys of the entire season, including the Minnesota Vikings. Eight teams, seven other teams have had their best offensive day against that defense. And not only that, but six quarterbacks have

their number one yardage output in terms of passing. Like everyone, Justin Fields, Jacoby Brissette, Caleb Williams, Bo Nix, everyone who's played this team has just lit them up, except for the Las Vegas Raiders a couple weeks ago. I mean, it is as bad of a defense that's ever existed in the NFL. It was truly that awful. So when that is the case and Duran Bland has an edge on Jalen Naylor, can't make a play, or there's another person.

play I want to talk about with a floating football up in the air that a good safety probably ends up getting a hand on or picking off and their guy just can't get there. And when the quarterback is basically never pressured the entire night, you have to contextualize it. It doesn't mean it wasn't good. It was good. It doesn't mean that he, it was, it was fake or something like it was a AI recreation of a football game.

It was real and the progress was real. But we have to take into account that Shadur Sanders dropped three. 60 on the Titans and then looked like an absolute joke when he played a team that was trying. Like, this happens all over the league. You know, people have decided after the last three games that Trevor Lawrence is suddenly like this great quarterback. And I think their scheme is good. I think Jacoby Myers is good.

But he did it against the Jets. They fire their defensive coordinator. Like, you have to factor these things in, especially in December. In reference to the quarterback coach, I mean like a guru guy, not Josh McCown. Josh McCown, if he wants to continue being the QB coach, will continue to be the QB coach. I think Josh McCown is a great guy for JJ to have there. And a few people have said like, oh, you know, he's not doing his job or something.

It's like, come on, you have no idea what he's doing. But there's nobody better with their experience, I think, to work with J.J. McCarthy on a week to week basis than McCown. It's just that, you know, when the results aren't right, we just want everyone fired. Let's see. Phenom says, I'm glad that he's not throwing lollipops up there. Well, it's good to have arm strength. Yeah, arm strength is important. Kevin O'Connell, though, has said, this is an exact quote from him.

You can go find it. He has said, when you're ranking things about a quarterback that you like, actual ability to throw the ball fast is not one of the top things that he talks about. It has to be a requisite thing, and you certainly benefit when Darnold can do it or Matthew Stafford can do it, but there's a lot of successful quarterbacks who don't have the strongest arms of all time. Brock Purdy is still out there playing good football. And, you know, he's not anywhere close in terms of velocity. I agree with you that, yeah, if it was Nick Mullen's arm, this would be pretty hard. But, you know, actually just like whipping the ball in there is great

under certain circumstances. And I saw another comment that he throws it like Favre. I don't think he throws it like farv at all i i mean i think that there are throws that travel through the air yes that are like farv esk in the sheer velocity and that's what he was famous for breaking receivers fingers and stuff like that but if you go back and watch a farv game i know a lot of you saw a lot of bret farv there are throws where he has to fire it into a couple of defenders and he lets it loose and you know that that's the typical farv there's a lot of touch passes in there there a lot of, you know, where he would get on the back foot and just kind of flip it up like sidearm, let his receiver run underneath it. Those little screens used to run, a little touch

to him. He had all, I mean, come on, you can't. Farve had everything in terms of arm talent, absolutely every single throw in the bag all over the field. This is one throw, but he needs to perfect the other ones or you're going to have misses like you did even last night when it was, you know, overall a really good game. Lenny McCarthy had an elite PFF grade. He absolutely did and he deserved it. Big time throws are going to push that needle and he had several excellent ones. I mean, the, the throw to Addison is an excellent throw.

The one to T.J. Hawkinson, which I wanted to talk about as well, is in my notes, where that is, Hawkinson is getting to the defender and he gets right into that space and he lets it. You want to talk about a far-of-throw. like that's a far of that is a far of classic velocity let it rip into the seam that is a advantage throw for j j mccarthy and that's my point about how you can dial up some of those throws for these other receivers that's a great pass it's just step back woof let that thing go and uh hit some and knock some over like a lot of these throws have been doing to the receivers this

year but that's see that's where you can use that it's better to have a guy who can throw it really hard. So, I mean, I agree. You don't want lullipop throwers, but when it works, it really works. And that's a good example of that. And he was deserving of a very, very good PFF grade in that game. I would

you know, totally agree with that. Derek says Chris Carter can't get over the Michigan thing. I mean, I don't know. I don't know Chris Carter what he's thinking. Here's what I would guess Chris Carter is that his thought, and it's only a

guess because I don't know him and I have not asked him about this personally, but I would guess that 250 yards and a win over a mediocre football team and the worst defense in the league to go to six and eight just doesn't impress a Hall of Famer. And he's, he's in his comments, he said, like, we're going to set a standard or is this the standard that we have? And it's like, well, you know, you can only work with what you got for last night and evaluate last night's game, which was definitely progress. But I mean, I don't blame a Hall of Famer who every single year went into the season thinking our passing offense is going to be the best in the NFL with, you know,

whether it's him and Jake Reed or three deep for saying, you know, 250 yards, congratulations. Why don't you raise a banner? Like, that's, I mean, that's, it's, that's OG stuff for sure. It's OG stuff. I don't know if it has to do with Michigan and Ohio State, but that's kind of, that's like, you know, old school football player kind of stuff and I don't think that I mean I don't really I've talked to you guys about this a little bit before with like the gritty thing into the end zone I have that in my notes as well and here's what I liked about it when I initially saw it was hey the kid having

fun is good right like it's been a hard year it's been a really hard year and one thing that is tough and I remember worrying about this when Caleb Williams came out but he hasn't faced a lot of adversity this year is how does he deal with adversity how do you deal with losing how do you deal with challenges and maybe caleb williams has moved on from that and he's grown up and all that sort of stuff or maybe this year has kind of had everything go right for him but last year you know we saw i think calip williams get really down on himself and you know flopping around on the sideline that kind of thing and you would rather have too much of that arrogance or that cockiness from a young quarterback uh i also think that if your coach tells you not to do

you need to not to do it. I mean, you can't, because that's a little bit of a fine line. Like, yeah, sure, it's just a fun thing. And, you know, the Vikings put out on Twitter, their graphic was him, you know, doing that. So it's exciting. The fans like it. I liked the confidence of it of like, yeah, this kid's still out there, like having fun playing football, even though he's kind of taking a lot of licks. But if your coach told you not to do it, you need to not do it. uh, because if you start applying that to other stuff, meaning if you start to say, well, you know, KOC said to throw this play, but I threw this anyway, uh, that's Farrv stuff, but Farr went to the Hall of Fame. So most of the time, I think you need to, to follow along

what your coach said, but it's kind of 22 year old stuff. Most of it is. And I feel like I'm at a point as in terms of my age where if I start making fun of a kid for calling himself nine or whatever, uh, I'm going to feel very old because when I, was growing up watching football i i loved all that stuff i loved dion sanders you know i loved players with style i love players with cockiness i you know enjoyed uh you know the the popcorn bit or the jo horn on the cell phone thing like i i liked all that stuff so you know i wouldn't want to rob anybody else from enjoying someone's personality even if it's a little bit much for right now but that to me is uh is young guy stuff i do agree with o'connell though when he

He said, like, hey, you got to, like, make sure you're not too amped up when it comes to the nine stuff. I think that that's a fair point. That's definitely a fair point that you want to make sure that you're not, like, over-the-top amped, and then you're making, you know, bad throws. Let me talk a little bit about, and I'll get back to your comments just a second. T.J. Hawkinson, one thing I know that comment sections love is the word washed. People love it. They love to say it.

It just, it must feel really good. It's sort of like diva. Diva and washed, there must be some dopamine hit that people get when they type them in and hit comment. But it's not very accurate most of the time. And I think it was very clear early in the season that T.J. Hawkinson is a product of what's going on with the quarterback position. And they've found him in the last couple weeks in a couple of really good ways. That seam pass is fantastic.

It's a tough catch. And then the throw later where McCarthy tries to put air under it, but actually puts a little too much, but Hawkinson still goes back, back, back, back, and reaches up and makes a great catch on it. It's just a fantastic ball or ball tracking example for Hawkinson, because I think he believes that the ball is supposed to be led to space out in front of him, maybe to his left, flatten him out a little bit.

And then it's like, oh, that's not going there. And he has to go back and make a play. he still has really good hands he catches a lot of stuff that goes his way he's he's moving out there i think pretty well he's blocking his butt off he made a great block on that erin jones screen t j hoggiston is still a good player he's not going anywhere i mean i looking at his contract i think they'll probably have to restructure it but um they're gonna they would be i think making a mistake to judge off kind of box score stats rather than what t j hawkinson can actually still do uh let's see Hunter says I feel relieved seeing proper play from the quarterback position.

Yeah, I mean, that's the thing about the bigger overall takeaway from this game. And I'll give you what O'Connell had to say about this. Did I already do that? If I did, I'm sorry. I thought I just played the Jefferson thing, right? But I'll tell you what he had to say about it. And my feeling was when you talk about like, what was the phrasing? Let me get the phrasing right.

You said, proper quarterback playing. Yes, yes. I felt the same way. Like dropping back, getting to your read, getting rid of the ball. There were some very good checkdowns in this game. There's a blitz where he gets it to, I think, Addison or Naylor, one of the two. And it's just drop back. Oh, there's a little bit of heat coming.

There it is, completion. There's another one to Aaron Jones. There it is completion. And again, what you're seeing is Kevin O'Connell coaching points come to life. And that's why I always hesitate when people say, oh, he was overcoaching him. I'm like, well, but isn't he, I thought he was, isn't that an example of, okay, I don't know, but, you know, a throw like that on that blitz where it's just kind of like, oh, there's a blitz, I'm going to just get this eight yards. That's proper quarterback play. And there was a lot more of it in this game.

There's a lot more of it the last two weeks. And it feels like he has settled himself a little bit when it comes to that. And it helps that, you know, the defenses have not been very effective. We don't say fat for guys that are 320 pounds, we do. I wouldn't, I wouldn't say that about you, but I'm definitely going to say that about a six-foot-five nose tackle. We love to see the fat men making plays. I love a good fat man interception. Okay.

bottom line from S camping around or scamping around can't tell which that is. Bottom line is the last two games were major progress feeling excited that we're not going to trade for Mack Jones. Well, you may not so fast. I mean, let's see the last three. But I've got something for you on that. You guys are leading me right into all my points. This is great.

This is why you guys are the best comment section in the world. Let's see. So one of one of my points here that I wrote down was I looked. at all the playoff teams that are in right now. So I don't know how, you know, some of the races are going to work out, but right now. And there are 14 teams that are in the playoffs. And I counted them, and you can tell me if I counted wrong, but I think I counted right, that there are 10 of them who drafted, let me make sure I've got the count right,

because now I'm like second guessing myself, 10 of them who drafted their quarterbacks that are in the playoffs right now. So you have Denver, New England, Jacksonville, Los Angeles, Buffalo, Houston. That's six. And then in the NFC, you've got Chicago, Philadelphia, and San Francisco, and Green Bay. So that's, yeah, that's 10. 10 out of the 14 teams drafted their quarterback. And the other ones are like rare examples, Aaron Rogers.

Or, and if Lamar is in, then that's actually 11 out of 14. if Lamar ends up getting in. So Aaron Rogers, okay, all time great. Sam Darnold, top three overall pick, Baker Mayfield, number one overall pick. Stafford and Gaufer traded for each other. Those are number one overall picks. I don't know that it's an effective model

to trade for Mack Jones because you didn't like what you saw in the first year. Now, here's the addition to that. Bryce Young, if he gets in, that would make it 12, by the way. Here's the, what, for that Panthers game. Holy cow. But so here, here's another point, though, is that, let's say that Bryce Young gets in and it's 12. Half, more than half of those got someone fired at some point. Like, if we go through these teams that are in the playoffs, Chicago, someone fired, right? Up to the AFC, Patriots,

Jaguars, Texans, these teams all at some point, Chargers. someone got fired. Now, not all because of the quarterback like Justin Herbert was good and Brandon Staley was bad as a, you know, defensive mind. But the point just being that all of these or a lot of these had growing pains. And there were times where people weren't sure if Josh Allen was good. There are times where people aren't sure if Jordan Love is good. And there was talk of LaFleur being on the hot seat earlier this year.

Like, it's a thing that happens is quarterbacks that are, drafted and developed the best case scenario is that they stay with their team over a couple of years and they improve and they build the team around them and they get into the playoffs, even if they're not perfect. Like Philadelphia, Jalen Hertz is not perfect. It's brought up every single Sunday how not perfect he is. They won the Super Bowl last year. Denver, Bo Nix is not perfect.

Played great yesterday, but he's not perfect. They're in the number one spot. I mean, so the model of drafting and going forward with that quarterback and pushing through the tough times is probably the right way to do it. So should they trade for Mack Jones? Probably not. Should they have someone unless if McCarthy over the next few weeks regress is so hard that he throws eight picks, six picks, two touchdowns, it's a mess.

And it was like, oh, okay, those defenses were really that bad. All right, then you might have to do something. But if it's similar to this, if it's, hey, this game was 150 yards, this game was 250, this game over the next three. And you end up with a sample size of him playing pretty flawed overall football in his first year. But with a decent number of highlight games, you have to go forward with him because getting Daniel Jones off an Achilles and less Burroughs available. I mean, these are just not good ideas. Like, whoever else is out there, they're not good ideas.

Joe Flacco, are you bringing back Drew Breeze? Like, there are not good ideas out there. So I think that that stat was pretty darn telling. about just how to get there. Also, I did want to mention from the tape that the defense was fantastic on third down. Actually, it was brilliant on third down. And Harrison Smith was an artist.

If, you know, if you get a chance, if the game's rerunning on, you know, NFL network or something, just look at 22. He's playing mind games with Dak Prescott. a great stat. Let me see here. Where was it? I thought I had this stat.

Oh, yeah, here it was. Prescott was pressured on 51% of his dropbacks, the most since 2022 and he was 9 for 19. And so much of that is just blitzing. So much of it is Harrison Smith deception. It was a masterpiece from him in that game. And I wanted to mention as well that Jonathan Grenard is going to be out for the season. He's going to have surgery.

And this will give Dallas Turner. more opportunities to over these last three games, you know, show some more. I mean, he's just, again, when it's everyone is healthy, he just hasn't been the same player as when filling in for Jonathan Granard. He's been much more effective as a guy who just lines up and rushes the passer. And, you know, that might present them with an interesting problem, I guess, for next year of how do you figure out where he needs to be when one of the best players on your team plays the same position as him.

so we'll get three more games of that and I do want to say Jonathan Grenard I know that his sack numbers are not like last year his pressure numbers are his leadership off the charts he is a tremendous teammate and he I mean look you where this team was at he could have gone on IR weeks ago and just said all right I'm out screw this I'm just going to collect my paychecks this guy fought through his injury fought his butt off played a hell of a game seven pressures two sacks he's somebody that that you want to have as a franchise player going forward. So I'm intrigued to see more Dallas Turner in that spot. But man, Jonathan Grinard, like what a gutsy season he put together. If he makes a couple more tackles, I think one of the issues, they faced a lot of scrambling quarterbacks. But he's every bit as good as we think he is. I thought he had a great overall season, didn't finish on sacks like we usually expect.

But everything else is there for Jonathan Granard. So there you go. Uh, coming up in a few minutes, we're going to have Brian Murphy and Manny Hill join, but I want to get you the fan dual question of the day, which I've just been, uh, chatting away here and have not gotten to. The fan dual question of the day is the Vikings open as two and a half point favorites in New York, what needs to happen for a victory over the very poor giants to be impressive to you? So what would need to impress you or what would they need to do to impress you in New York,

where the Vikings are favored. All right, let me circle back here. Adrian says, how do we feel about KOC continuing to take little shots at JJ this year when he said he didn't like JJ dancing around the end zone? You just don't go out there and say that about your player. Oh, that's a reminder. I need to play you what he said about J.J. McCarthy. Then I'll answer that.

I thought the explosive side of things, you know, I think we might have had seven plus 15-yard gains that they were kind of a little different if you're looking at it. You know, there were some examples of some coverage being rolled to Justin on a third down. And we get, we get Addison over the top for a potential touchdown chance there. They got them down there inside the five.

But then there were some, you know, some unique things with some bigger groupings to try to activate, you know, some different, different types of things that we've done in the past, but just kind of seemed to, you know, kind of be a scenario where it was a balance, right? That's a really talented front. You're trying, you don't have your left tackle in the game, really talented interior. So you're kind of play-to-play, kind of trying to navigate a world where you get those plays

and you have a chance to have some of those, you know, chunk completions to kind of stack some positives. But at the same time, see if you can take some significant chunks and not have to drive it against that front, you know, 12, 13, 14 plays. And that's what I thought we did well. I thought we ran it just well enough to kind of weather, kind of the snap-to-snap storm and not have to be totally, you know, off balance one way or the other run or pass. And then I thought there were some great examples of just decision-making from JJ, you know, trying to activate some play passes down the field. He checks the ball down a couple times Aaron Jones for gain of eight, gain of five,

just little things like that that allowed us to continue to kind of use some of those completions as extensions of our run game in a lot of ways and doing it out of different groupings. Yeah, I mean, I think that KOC really hitting on it. That game was deep shots and checkdowns, and you can win a lot doing that. That's kind of what Jalen Hertz has done in the past. This offense is a little bit more built to attack the intermediate areas,

and you still want to see that consistently from week to week with success. but he said basically that was our game plan is we knew we could hit shots and then check it down if it's not there and JJ the key is decision making over and over you just have to say it over and over because if you make good decisions with the football even if you don't throw it perfectly all the time

you're going to have success in the NFL even if you're not a flawless thrower. Let's see. Oh, back to the comment about little shots at JJ. You know, one thing I think with that is the specific one you're talking about with him dancing into the end zone. I think that KOC wanted Brian Schottenheimer to know like that, hey, that disrespect didn't come from me because Brian Schottenheimer's done an amazing job.

They had a player die this year and their coaching has been, especially on the offensive side, really good from Schottenheimer, but his leadership has been even better of that franchise. And when we know, as last year, when your team goes through something like that, is, it's incredibly traumatic and it takes great leadership to work through it with everybody dealing with the emotions of something so tragic. And I think that when you go up against somebody who's been such a class act like Schottenheimer for a long time and has been dealing with something really hard, like, you're not trying

to dunk on that person. You're not trying to like, oh, we're going to dance in their end zone and really show up the cowboys. I think that was the important part there. I also think that what Kevin O'Connell is, is a coach. And what coaches do is they, this is going to sound like incredibly silly, but stay with me. They coach. And with someone, how about that for insight, right?

This is why you subscribe. What coach, he's a coach and what coaches do is coach. But listen, what I mean is O'Connell is a very talkative person naturally and at the podium. And I think when he gets asked questions, what he wants to do is to give an answer that the fans will understand where he's coming from on certain things. And sometimes that could come across as shots at a player, but it's just coaching. Like when he's talking about all this stuff, we've been able to feel like we're in the QB room because of how insightful O'Connell's been about the coaching.

It's not shots, it's coaching. And now, now that was, you know, something that if your coach tells you not to dance into the end zone, because he doesn't want to disrespect the other coach, you should not dance into the end zone, like, period. But when we're talking about all this. other stuff like hey you know the nine stuff is great but you need to make sure that you're in control that's not a shot at someone that's just coaching and i feel like this happens maybe maybe this would be a generational thing a little bit of this idea that everybody's a hater

it's probably the worst vernacular they ever created is calling people haters it's like oh kOC's out there he's talking about mechanics talking about how to win football games it's not i mean it's not hate if if your kid plays on a hockey team travel hockey team and the coach is trying to teach them how to do something they're not hating on you they're not hating on your kid they're trying to get them to improve their game but i feel like this does happen a lot with youth sports where you know coaches are are seen as uh haters for trying to improve their game but o'connell i think really cares this is something i know i think he really cares about the fans understanding what's going on. He said this before. He was asked about those sideline interviews, those useless coach

interviews coming out a halftime. It's not with him. He'll give you something because I think he was a broadcaster for a bit. And I think he knows that it's a very passionate and engaged fan base. And he wants you to understand like what's happening. So I don't think there's shots. I think that they're just him wanting that. He wants you to know kind of what's going through his mind. and what their process is and what they're doing. Bottom line from Rob, I'm sorry, Ron. Optimistic, we'll be curious how he does New York, Detroit, and Green Bay, for sure. AP Carlin, so we're showcasing JJ to trade for Borough.

Yeah, maybe that's it. Maybe that's it. I shot you 99. Sounds like 2022 Vikings defense secondary was so bad. They just sat back in coverage. Yes, that's what it looked like, didn't it? that that that is exactly what it looked like but yeah i mean some of you are a bunch of you are asking about that particular thing of him bringing up that he didn't want jay to do that i think

that's it's all about brian schottenheimer it's a guy that everybody has so much respect for and you don't ever want it to come across for a guy who's been through what he's been through this year like hey we're just showing you up i think that was the point and that's maybe not something that the 22 year old brain really thought about he was kind of like I'm going to do it. It's going to be cool. We probably all did that stuff like that as kids, I'm guessing. Let's see. Crits, oh, oh, 2, 2.

The bottom line is JJ's progress is pretty, pretty good. Love the reference. Pretty, pretty, pretty good. Love that reference. That is my, I would say that's, I would say curb is probably my favorite show of all time. That's good. I like that you brought that into the mix.

Hang on here, we will, Melkills says bottom line is skeptically intrigued. I like that. I like skeptically intrigued that the bottom line coming out of Green Bay was like, and now it's, oh, okay, all right. But I think that's exactly the right way to put it. Because if you, if your bottom line is, here comes the Super Bowl, I mean, that would be a little bit too much. Hunter says, bottom line is they were good, but he's got to do it against better teams.

Tim tentatively optimistic. You guys are good with the thesaurus here today. That's good. Dance is making tremendous progress. I would say that's true over the last two weeks that it's been, it's certainly been progress. Tremendous might be a little bit aggressive for me, but certainly progress. That's what I mean. When we're factoring the defense, we also, we can't just say it doesn't matter at all.

that's kind of the point. It does matter. What happened to Grenard? Grinard was already dealing with a shoulder injury and when he grabbed Dak Prescott, it aggravated it and they just decided like, look, there's three games left. You're not in the playoffs. You're eliminated. So why don't you just have surgery? Because if you hurt yourself more trying to play through it, then it could affect next year. Let's see. Mr. Mayor says, to be fair, the quarterback is different than a wide receiver or a defensive player. quarterback represents the franchise and everything they do. And for KOC, the quarterback is an extension of him. Stevens says, I agree. K O'Connell has been picking shots at McCarthy all year because he's coaching the classroom and not on the podium. I'm not sure fully exactly

what you mean there, but he's, I'm telling you, he's not taking shots. He's not taking shots at him. He's giving you explanations. And here's the thing, right? We ask a million questions about the quarterback. If we asked questions every single week, about Donovan Jackson. What did you think of his game? What did you think of this play? What did you think of that block? And Jackson, who I thought played well in real time,

did have a couple of bad beats against great players yesterday. Did not grade well by PFF because of that. But still, like if we asked about anybody, hey, Fabian Moreau, what did you see in practice today? Next day. Hey, would you see in practice from Fabian Moreau? Hey, next day. I mean, eventually he's going to have a bad game

and it's going to be an exploit. of what they're working on there with any, any player. We just don't do that with other guys. And I think that that comes along with critiques and it comes along with also just, just an honest assessment of what they're looking at. I think that that's really it for J.J. McCarthy and what Kevin O'Connell's talking about. So Jim says my thoughts were KOC was telling JJ that he's not earned the right to dance yet. I don't know about that.

Yeah, I don't know about that. I just took it as you don't want to be. disrespecting that other that other coach but it could be that could be some people I heard people say that um phenom says the swagger just comes out now in this case that wasn't the case it wasn't just like natural uh this was McCarthy kind of brag into the media after the game that he ignored his coaching point so it wasn't just like a natural swagger thing it was kind of a I'm going to do this anyway and I don't don't love that don't really love that um Tyson and says KOC makes adjustments week 12 or 13.

See, this is the point about using the Dallas defense and contextualizing it. These adjustments were made weeks ago. They just didn't work as well because, I mean, you could see them clearly weeks ago after the Baltimore game. But even the Lions game, they threw for 143. They ran a lot. I don't think that that's really true. I think it's just worked.

So anyway, all right. Let's get Adrian, do I think Drake May. is good. Yes, I do. Yes, I do. Look at the defenses he's played against. Well, you know, I think that's helped them. I think that's helped. But Dallas and Washington are like another level, though. Dallas and Washington are not like, oh, you know, Miami was having the tough time or something. No, no, no. This is like the worst of the worst. Is the defensive schedule for May helping them get to the point where they're at? Yes. He also had a lot of great moments against Buffalo to get up by 21.

And he checks all the boxes for the playmaking, the arm, all that sort of stuff. He did not play defense yesterday. And when you're up by that much, you're not going to throw and throw and throw and throw to put up a bunch of stats. But I mean, Drake May is the real deal. But there's no question that it's that it's helped that they've had an easier schedule. And I think we're always trying to do that. We're always trying to factor for, you know, the opposing team schedule and what it means.

Okay, so let me give you that Fandual question of the day one more time, and then it'll be time for the round table. The Vikings Open is two and a half point favorites in New York. What needs to happen in a victory over the Giants to impress you about J.J. McCarthy?