Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - How good was JJ McCarthy's game against the Commanders??? (Part 1)

Episode Date: December 9, 2025

Matthew Coller talks about watching the All-22 tape and looking at the advanced numbers. Observations about KOC's gameplan and what it means in the bigger picture. Brian Murphy joins in Hour 2. 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. The show, as always, presented by Fanduil, and we've got a lot to talk about tonight after a quality showing from J.J. McCarthy in a decided victory over the Washington commanders. I spent a good portion of the day today watching back McCarthy every third. throw and the offense and defense just got a bunch of takeaways from both sides of the ball. But of course, we're going to spend a lot of time focused on McCarthy's performance. How good was it really along with what it means going forward into these next couple of games? And the big question of did they make some mistakes in the past with how they handled J.J. McCarthy and did they find answers or was it really just the Washington commander?

I would love your guys' thoughts. I want to take a lot of those as well. And in one hour, Brian Murphy will join. No Manning Hill tonight for a roundtable, but Murph will be here, and we're going to go back and forth on this as well. But I would love your thoughts and really connects to the fan duel question of the day today,

which is the Cowboys opened up against the Vikings for next week. Six and a half point favorites, Dallas is in that game. Did the Vikings performance against Washington make you think they can beat Dallas? and here's the main question, what does J.J. McCarthy have to do to convince you he should be the guy next year. What does he have to do to convince you in these next four games or can it not be done? Let me know in the comment. I will get to your thoughts momentarily, but I got a bunch of notes that I'm going to run through here with J.J. McCarthy and then I'll give final thoughts

and we can have a good discussion. So let's just begin with this. The game plan, I felt like was one of the best of the year, and yeah, the results certainly showed that, but one of the best of the year versus what they were facing and what they're working with. It actually made me think a lot about what happened in London against the Cleveland Browns and how Kevin O'Connell worked to the strengths of Carson Wentz throughout that game. It was kind of back and forth, bloodbath at times. It was ugly. There was a lot of running. there was a lot of short passing, and they were doing that to mitigate what Cleveland had defensively in terms of their ability to create pressure.

Well, this wasn't the same game plan, but it was in the same vein of working really strongly to the strengths of the quarterback, where in that game, Wence was doing a good job of getting rid of the ball quickly and eventually it kind of broke through in that final drive. And in this game, J.J. McCarthy was getting rid of the ball. ball a lot faster than in the past. His average throw was 2.56 seconds, which is his fastest of the year. And I thought a very positive sign for just how he was seeing the field because there's only two ways that you, well, I guess there's three, three ways that you end up with a slow

time to throw. Number one is that you're scrambling all over the place. So that's Caleb Williams. Number two would be the Sam Darnold way, which is you are willing to stand in the pocket for a very long time to see if things develop and take a lot of hits. And that's what Darnold did last year or number three is you're not really seeing it. You're kind of panicking. You're fidgeting around in the pocket, looking, looking, and then making mistakes, which is often what was happening with J.J. McCarthy. He does scramble, but there was way too much of that early in his

first number of starts. And he was taking a lot of hits because of it. He was late on throws because of it. He was not late with his timing very often in this game. There were a couple things that we'll talk about with the pocket presence that I noticed. But for the most part, he threw in a very timely fashion. And the reason for that is that a lot of the concepts that they were using presented themselves very clearly. So let me give you a good example of playing to not only being able to see it very clearly for J.J. McCarthy and be decisive, but also. working to his actual way he throws the football. So this is something that we've talked about.

KOC has talked about time and time and time again about how J.J. McCarthy is developing his touch, right? And learning to layer the football. Well, in this game, they didn't ask him to layer the football pretty much ever. It was really just to drive the football. And they used a lot of concepts where if you throw it 100 miles an hour, you're probably going to be fine. And I'll give you the example right here, which is the first touchdown to Josh Oliver is a vertical concept from Oliver, who's lined up as the either in line or in the

slot. I can't remember. I think he was in line, in line, tight end. And the commanders are running a very clear cover three, which they did not have any deceptiveness whatsoever really in this game. And we'll get to that part of it. But you could see it. It's a single, high safety. Dan Quinn is known for this. He comes from the Seattle Seahawks school of that cover three that they had so much success with there, but maybe has gone out of Vogue. The team still use it, but not like all the time like Seattle did. So you can see it before the snap. It's a single high safety, which means if you have two tight ends running vertical up the seams, there's a good chance that that guy's going to be open. So McCarthy drops back. And as soon as the

defender goes into the flat it means yep it's cover three it's exactly what you thought it was going to be and he throws the heck out of the ball it's an absolute rocket it's probably eight feet off the ground the whole way and it just sticks right to josh oliver and he goes in for a touchdown now that is a perfect type of situation for j jay mccarthy in the way he's throwing the ball which is to fire it up the seam to a guy where there's not a line backer in the way. You're not too concerned about layering or putting it over someone. It's into a window that he can just stick it on his guy. And he did exactly that. He led him perfectly into the throw. It was on time. It was back foot, step up and fire. And that's what you're looking for for

McCarthy. And that's a good example of having a really good play call versus that defense. And it's not because a lot of folks were connecting simple to short and when you look at McCarthy's numbers throwing short this year it hasn't really been all that successful and one of the issues is not being able to put so much touch on the football and a lot of the short game is timing and it is taking the velocity off of it like you can't have a guy running five feet at front of you and then rip it to him like he did you know a couple games ago to Aaron Jones and we all went, well, that's a drop. Yes, it is a drop, but also it's hard to catch the ball when the quarterback throws it that

hard and you're standing from, you know, across the room to somebody. So there wasn't a lot of those throws in this game. A lot of them were in the intermediate areas, which is where J.J. McCarthy really thrived in college. If you look at his numbers in Michigan, where he was hitting on a lot of his high percentage stuff was between 10 and 20 yards. So this throw is a good example of drop back, hit the back foot, let it rip through a window, and then bang, you get Josh Oliver for a touchdown. There were a few others that stuck out to me for similar reasons, and they were ones where, and this is where McCarthy, he really does have a very strong arm where he's in the pocket on the right hash, but the throw is going deep out to the left, two different times to Jordan Addison, where he drops back and again doesn't have to put it up over anyone.

just throws it into what Kevin O'Connell calls a void where defensively the commanders were playing way back. I mean way back. So Addison is running straight up and they are just falling way back. They do not want to get beat over the top and then breaks out toward the sideline. He's got a ton of room because it's on the right hash. So the left side of the field and breaks it off. and McCarthy is able to throw it all the way across with a ton of velocity on it and twice hit him on those throws. One, he had to lead him back a little bit. It was very accurate. And then there was another one that was just a smoked football to the sideline where he caught it and didn't even have to come back for it.

Both excellent throws and something to keep in mind with both of these throws and the vertical one for a touchdown were that McCarthy had absolutely. terrific pass protection in this game. There is one or two times where Will Fries gets beat. I'm not sure anybody else got beat on this day. I mean more than once. And Christian Darisaw was as dominant as you will

ever see Christian Derisaw on past protection. He was outstanding. Donovan Jackson, who was playing through an ankle injury, did a terrific job. Those two worked together really well. At one point, McCarthy drops back to throw. And I think it's the deep out to Addison, the second one that went for maybe 25

yards where they're trying to run a stunt and Derisaw just shoves one guy into the other guy and knocks them both out of the play. And McCarthy has all day to just step up and throw perfectly to Jordan Addison, can see everything. And I think when you can give any quarterback a pocket like that, then they're going to have a great chance to have a lot of success. And for a lot of these games, McCarthy has not had that. you've had different guys coming in and out in the Packers game.

Derisaw leaves, Jackson leaves. You got Brandel and Justin's school. And earlier this year, we talked a lot about that Atlanta game where you've got backup linemen coming in and the difference between this line. And I also want to shout out Ryan Kelly. I mean, just a absolutely phenomenal performance.

Ryan Kelly was exceptional in this game. He was sticking guys. He was dealing with any sort of stuff. hunts, twist, blitzes, just taking them out. He's a great player. You can see why the Vikings wanted him to work with J.J. McCarthy and this five, and this is why when we talk about, well, it's this person's fault, it's that person's fault, and so forth, the roster, as we saw it yesterday, was a very, very good roster, and it was also

healthy. It's got to be one of the healthiest rosters in the league now when it was one of the most injured rosters in the league early in the season. This is what the offensive line was supposed to look like. And McCarthy's got all day back there to work and get rid of the football. So that really, really helped him finding those lanes. There were also some really, really well-drawn-up plays. I'll give you an example.

On the 98-yard drive, they ran a play where Justin Jefferson looks like he's going to have a little screen pass into the flat, that that's his route. And it ends up where he goes and looks like he's going to stop for the screen. And then he just runs into the middle of the field, well, everybody else goes and blocks. It's a very clever design by Kevin O'Connell and it got them a first down. The throw was a little bit on the high side. But it was a really well-played design because it looks like, all right, one person's got to have Jefferson on that little screen pass on their defense. And then suddenly he's going into space.

Hockinson's blocking. C.J. Hamm is blocking. They get a first down there. Jordan Edison's blocking on the backside. and they just end up with a very nice play to set them up. And then on the touchdown, the second touchdown to Josh Oliver, he's blocking the entire way. They send a deep cross with Jefferson and Addison.

And then he just sneaks out into the flat. He's right there. It's as easy as pie for J.J. McCarthy. And that was kind of the story of the day is that there wasn't really a lot that J.J. McCarthy faced that was challenging. He didn't face a lot of pressure. their blitzes were pretty well picked up by the Vikings time and time again. They did blitz maybe more than I thought they did.

But the reason I didn't think in real time that they blitz that many times is because they weren't getting home with it. They weren't causing confusion with it. So everything was kind of picked up. I thought that there was less going on before the snap. And this might be just confirmation bias, right? Like we heard all last week. And Kevin O'Connell made a comment today.

about how, well, if it was simple, I wouldn't be in my office all night long or whatever, something like that is like, no one said, no one said that you needed to have a high school offense and no one expected that. They expected an NFL offense, we all did, but maybe just a little less in terms of moving parts, which was how West Phillips had described it last week, maybe a little bit less in terms of all sorts of different formations and multiple motions and shifts. and things like that before the snap to simplify it. There were plays in this game where no one motioned at all.

They just lined up. They ran their concepts. And there was a completion early in that 98-yard drive where nobody motioned. They lined up and they just ran their concepts and somebody was open and he completed a pass. And there were other times where maybe one guy was motioning. And that was it. And then they just got it off and they went from there. That may have been some of the simplification.

I mean, it's hard to know because I don't think that O'Connell loved the word simplification and Aaron Jones couldn't think of another way to put it other than dumbing down. But maybe in a different way of phrasing would just be that they took some of the fat off of all of this and kind of got down to brass tacks with the offense and focused on some of the things that J.J. McCarthy has done best and tried to create the windows for him. where he could just let it rip and they weren't saying, oh, all you've got to do is layer it over this linebacker perfectly and guide it into your wide receiver. How about you just throw it as hard as you can like 20 yards and that guy will be there and he'll make a play and they were able to do that.

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So there were times in this game where I was pretty shocked at what Washington did not do. Pretty shocked that they didn't rotate defenses. They were easy to read. I thought, man, I mean, if you even know a little bit about coverages, you can identify all of this stuff before the snap. And I sent a message to my friend Cody Alexander who runs match quarters to me, a brilliant defensive mind. And I said, am I crazy or do I think that any quarterback could read these pre-snap things?

Like, why was there any deception from the commanders? And he said, no, you're not crazy. That he said that their game plan last week was much better against Bo Nix than it was against J.J. McCarthy, which I found interesting, but one of the issues was for the commanders is they were getting run on. And this is where the Vikings deserve a lot of credit as well. Their offensive line in the run game, both running backs were just outstanding. And if you can pound away, pound away at the run, wear down the opposing defense, these are things they have not been able to do, and then have a play set up for McCarthy on third down,

all right, well, here's all you have to do is complete this pass. And third down is not the easiest, but they complete a couple of third down passes. And you've got a whole drive for yourself or scramble one time. And you've got a whole drive for yourself. That is easier than saying, hey, you've got to bring us back in a game down by two touchdowns to Baltimore or down by 10 points or whatever it was to Green Bay. Was it 10 points to Green Bay? How many ever points it was? It was 17, 6, maybe 11 points to Green Bay.

Hey, now it's all in your hands to bring us back. Throw, throw, throw, throw, throw from the shotgun. Maybe not exactly what you're looking for there. So circumstances run game, a Washington defense that is super, super limited. And some of their coverage stuff was just odd. I mean, you have one play where Addison is the lone receiver on one side of the field. They blitz. And they've got two guys.

covering Addison, but the outside guy doesn't cover the boundary and he just runs an out route on one guy like it was one-on-one and he gets a big completion. You're like, commanders, what are we doing here? Like the details were not exactly very good from a defense that is giving up a QB rating over 108 for the season, which is insane. They're basically turning every quarterback into the best quarterback in the league, which I think we could see a lot of that. So, what does this kind of bring us to some conclusions here about J.J. McCarthy versus the commanders. I was texting with Manny earlier today. And he said, you know what it looked like was the preseason game that he played against the Raiders? I was like, yeah, except for, you know,

he didn't have any turnover worthy plays. Oh, which I wanted to mention zero turnover worthy plays by PFF, two big time throws. But the zero turnover worthy plays is really, really big. It's the first time in his career where he has not had a turnover worthy play. And let me, I forgot to also get to kind of the one critique that I would have, which is in the pocket, there were a few times where you just needed better management of the pocket, where he drops back and it's, there's a check down there. You could just kind of fling it out to Jordan Mason on one play. There was a downfield option for Josh Oliver.

You know, you could see it on tape. way better than when you're down on the field. But the checkdown is right there. There's a little bit of pressure coming. And he just waits and then tries to run away. And as he's running away, there's nothing. And he instead takes a sack rather than throwing it away. Like he's got lots of room to throw the ball away and then just runs out of bounce

and doesn't quite take a hit, but it was really close to him taking a hit. There were a few things like that where you thought, ah, this is young quarterback stuff still with maybe trying a little too hard to make a play, maybe putting yourself in a little bit more danger. There's another, he's, he also is still trying to understand what open is in the NFL. And this sort of speaks to his lack of experience where T.J.

Hawkinson is running a little out and in or sort of, I mean, really just kind of a turnaround type of route. And, uh, it's maybe eight yards away from him, takes the snap. He's looking at Hawkinson. He's got him there out of his break.

but he waits and then the defender closes in and then he kind of panics and just hurls the ball toward Justin Jefferson. It goes out of bounds incomplete. Now, it's not a travesty. That's not bad. I mean, he threw a ball that wasn't going to get picked off. And if anyone was going to catch it, it was Jefferson. It was sort of a him or nobody type of throw. But he threw it off balance, not on time very well, because he didn't really identify that coming out of his break, if you put the ball right on T.J. Hawkinson. It's a free eight yards. This is what Kirk Cousins was really awesome at getting with T.J. Hawkinson was you drop back. As soon as he's out of his break, stick it on him, and there you go. Oh, I also wanted to highlight the play in the end zone from Hawkinson or the one that ends up in

the end zone. He threw it one yard short and then he pounds it in. Kind of the commanders ran into each other there, but still a touchdown, where it's a nice detail from Kevin O'Connell that Justin Jefferson has an outside release on a fade, and that takes the defender away from T.J. Hawkinson where he's going to catch it. But the biggest thing is, I think O'Connell said that the first option is to throw the fade to Jefferson. We all know, I think by now, throwing fades is not the best statistically. Like, that's been gone over a million times by the analytics people. But McCarthy saw the look that Frankie Louvre was a little late on Hawkinson, and he made him late with his eyes.

You can actually see him do it on the tape where he's kind of focused on the middle of the field and then turns to throw, not like a no look, but just a hold the defender with your eyes and then throw nice little detail and he makes it really quickly. And I think that was the biggest thing for J.J. McCarthy is that it felt like he was playing fast for the first time really ever. Even when he had the comeback against Chicago, there were still some plays where you're like, Come on, come on. The same goes for Detroit, where early on, there were some plays that were in rhythm.

And then it was like, come on, come on, get rid of the football. This one felt like four quarters of playing in a timely fashion with strong decision-making and getting rid of the football quickly and not turning it over or putting it in harm's way. That to me is progress. So this brings us to sort of the conclusion. The conclusion is Washington should be ashamed of themselves, number one. I mean, that's, that is as pathetic of a defense as I can ever remember, but then another team gave up like 400 yards to Shudur Sanders in the same day.

So I don't know. Like, when it's bad, it's really bad on defense in the NFL these days. But no offense to Shadur Sanders. It seemed like he played well. I wouldn't have taken him off the field for overtime. That was insane. Kevin Stefansky. Uh, but the point on, on McCarthy playing against this team,

it was a stunningly simplistic. game plan against him, maybe they thought, oh, this kid's bad, we'll just line up and he'll throw us the ball? I really don't know. Their blitzes didn't get home. Their defenders did not win any one-on-ones. Their coverage was horrendous. They played in the parking lot way off and gave tons of opportunities for J.J. McCarthy to complete passes to wide open wide receivers with clean pockets. However, so that's just the facts of the matter. However, All of this stuff is really nice progress for J.J. McCarthy coming back from a low moment in Green Bay, from getting really whooped by one of the true best defenses in the NFL in the Green Bay Packers, missing a week against the Seattle Seahawks, coming back, and really needing to get back to playing the way that he expected to play. And the funny thing that I thought was, I got so many questions.

over the last couple weeks where people said, what was it that you guys thought you saw in training camp? And what I wanted to say yesterday was that, that's what we saw. That was what we saw. That's what it looked like. Not perfect in a few throws where you went, what happened there and a few times where he was waiting too long. But that's what it looked like.

It looked decisive. It looked, I mean, unspectacular at times, but also some really strong throws at times. And great athleticism. and good decision-making. And then against, I think, some of the more complex defenses and when they can create pressure, it is either sped him up or slowed him down or got him over-anxious or, you know, he makes a mistake and feels like everybody's watching.

I think we were all waiting to see if the boo-birds would come out if they struggled, but then they never struggled. So the boo-birds never arrived. But they might have because early in that game, everybody was on edge in that building. It was the quietest. I think I have heard it in a really long time. Last time I could think would be 2021 final game of the season was probably the last time I heard it that quiet to start a game.

And then the crowd came along as the game was going on and as McCarthy was playing well and so forth, as the crowd will do. But I was curious about like, oh, you know, if he makes his first mistake, takes his first sack, makes his first bad throw, like how's he going to respond? And it kind of never came. I mean, there was a sack or two.

There were two sacks that added up to, like, minus three yards or something. It was a good, get your confidence up, reminder you can play in this league type of game. It was not a game that I would say that was a true test. Wow, folks, he's figured it all out. KOC finally discovered what he can do. I think that there's shreds of truth in all of that. There's nuggets of truth in all of that of, hey, KOC maybe realize that there's some words he could take out of the play call that'll make it a little bit faster of an operation.

I didn't feel like they were in the huddle forever. I didn't feel like he was making a million checks at the line of scrimmage. It felt like they were playing faster, which is a really good thing for McCarthy in the offense. And I felt like his decision making that he was seeing things really well for the first time in a while. and that's a good that's a good step and as you go to play dallas they're playing better but they're not good they just got destroyed by detroit last week you're going to play the giants on the road my

gosh the giants just a complete garbage team there's opportunity here to pick up some steam pick up some momentum find things that work get some confidence back for j j mccarthy going into those final two games which if they are meaningful will be really really really good tests for how far J.J. McCarthy can come along. And the truth about the first six games is still the truth about the first six games. All the things that are concerning through the first six should still concern you. Like, how far can he get? Can he get some of this stuff?

When teams are actually throwing deceptive coverages at him, when he is getting pressure, like how is this going to respond? Is it going to be all of a sudden catastrophic mistakes again, trying too hard again? You will get down seven points in a game, 10 points in a game, and you have to keep your composure and not just start, you know, whipping the ball down the field, right? So I think that it was almost like having, and this is, it's so condescending to the commanders, but they deserve it. It was like having a joint practice in the middle of the season.

That's what it looks like, which is good. for him. It's exactly what he needed to get to, as he said, something, I'm paraphrasing, like a reminder that I can do this, uh, was the way JJ had put it. And it had been a while since he had had something like that. So, uh, he also acknowledged that, hey, this was way too little too late. Uh, and they have to build on it. But, um, I think that at least something that we've gone back to time and time again has been with young quarterbacks, you just really don't know and history tells you that and it's okay to say that it's it's okay to say i don't know what's going to happen here this is not a sports world where that often is acceptable uh the people

who get paid the most don't ever say i don't know they always say i know better than you so i am not one of those people but i try to be as honest as i can and base everything that i have as an opinion on data and history and what I believe about evaluation or the game or quarterbacks or whatever it might be. And what I generally believe based on the history is that six or seven games are beginning to become predictive, but they're not perfectly predictive. And we're going to get somewhat of a sample size if he remains healthy through the rest of the season, but certainly,

not enough and considering who they're playing to feel on really solid ground about what J.J. McCarthy is going into next season. And the Fool's Gold thing is very real. Like, you go back and it's funny to use this guy now because it was always in there somewhere, but you go back, Sam Darnold once upon a time had this, and maybe I can find it real quick. He had this incredible run one year at the end of a season where he just went crazy for the jet. and they thought they found their guy. But it was a really similar thing to this, where it was like the schedule. I think it was, okay, I think it was 2019.

Yeah, 2019, Sam Darnold, in his last week 11 through 17 had let's see, 6, 8, 10, 11, 12 touchdowns, four interceptions, numerous games with 250 plus yards, with 75 or greater PFF grades, with all sorts of big-time throws, three straight games with three or more big-time throws. Like, that was the end of 2021, or I'm sorry, at the end of 2019, but then, you know, 2020, he has a really brutal year and ends up with nine touchdowns and 11 interceptions at the end of the year. So, like, sometimes these things can fool you in these, you know, small sample sizes. And I think that that's also possible with these three games.

So they're likely going to get to the end of the year. and really not be sure because I think McCarthy has shown enough flashes and if he could put several good games together to have the inkling that if you go forward and maybe have other things go right and I saw my friend Jace Frenrick from the Pioneer Press point out that regardless of how many wins the Vikings get for their draft status, they've already solidified a fourth place schedule for next year, which could be really important.

Look at the San Francisco 49ers. they won six games last year they get an easy schedule it's helped them get back into the playoffs for this year and the look the 49ers are great but schedule is a huge deal they had a very tough schedule this year how many backup quarterbacks did the vikings face this season um is it any have they faced any backup quarterbacks all season long they faced a lot of very good quarterbacks throughout this season that makes a difference they had early on they had injuries that makes a difference as we all know but just even who you play, having to play the Seattle Seahawks in Seattle is not an easy game. And now they're hitting a very weak point in their schedule with three horrendous defenses, which could shift our viewpoint of something maybe farther than it should go. So where I continue to stand is, if you guys want to ask about future quarterback options and have me grade them, I will. I'm absolutely willing to do that because we should.

just throw that all off the table because it was one decent game against a truly horrific, probably the worst past defense in the entire NFL. So I don't think that it resolves all problems or washes away anything that's happened so far or where this organization is going to be or, you know, it takes pressure off people for a week. But if you lose 27 to 10 to Dallas, that pressure goes right back up to where it is or where it was before they beat the Washington Commanders. So there you have it. There is the kind of total and complete analysis of J.J. McCarthy's game against Washington.

A reminder, if you just joined the Fandul question of the day is the Cowboys opened up as 6.5 point favorites against the Vikings for Sunday. What does J.J. McCarthy have to do to convince you that he should be the guy next year and did their performance against Washington convince you that they can beat Dallas and get on a bit of a run here. So let me get to your questions, comments in about a half an hour, we will be joined by Brian Murphy, as always.

Let's see, Brian says it's Washington. Let's see the last two games against the Lions and Packers. I mean, I agree. It's not that you can throw out these games against bad teams. The way I've always looked at this when trying to analyze what a team is when they play a bad team is when you play a bad team, you should play better than them consummate with how bad they are. So you were 31 points better.

Like, that's a really good win for you. And what I thought yesterday was, and like, there's a lot of good players on the field right now for the Minnesota Vikings. If this roster was playing against the Atlanta Falcons in week two, was playing against the Pittsburgh Steelers over in Dublin, maybe you get some wins there because they could block much better because the defense is much more stout. They've really figured out how to stop the run. They've really given quarterback's fits lately since Andrew Van Ginkle gets a big pick. He was out. Blake Cashman was out. Harrison

Smith was out. There's a lot of guys that were missing early in the season. Now, where they don't have an argument about that is that they were at 500 and got everybody back and then lost, loss, loss, loss, and then you end up with where they stand now. So there's no excuses with that. But I was thinking about that yesterday. Just like there's a lot of talent on the field. If you get a little better quarterback play against Chicago, a little bit better against a very flawed Baltimore team, then we're still talking about this team in the race as opposed

to, hey, maybe they could get to seven, maybe they could get to eight. But generally, I agree with you, it might depend on where those teams are at going into the end of the season. You know the lions are going to play hard no matter what. But Green Bay, I mean, if Green Bay has locked up the NFC North by the final week, they don't have to play anybody. They don't have to play Micah Parsons. And so we might not get too many real games against decent teams the rest of the way.

So, I mean, it's a, could it be a glorified preseason for J.J. McCarthy? Well, then you're talking about a lot of reps, a lot of opportunities. for development, which is what you want. And if you come out of that feeling good, then you go into next year with him as you're starting quarterback and competition. But there was evidence today in the National Football League of the dire situation facing football at the pro level at quarterback. Philip Rivers, if you haven't seen this, you're going to think I'm joking, but I'm not.

Philip Rivers flew to Indianapolis to do a workout to potentially come back and play with the Colts. That's how bad quarterback play is that their starter now, Riley Leonard, he's banged up and might not be able to play, but even then, probably going to lose. Brett Rippin is actually their backup. Yes, former Viking Brett Rippin is their practice squad quarterback. I mean, you look around the league. Daniel Jones is now out and will very likely not.

play it all next year. I mean, what are the options? A few people have asked me to bring up Kyler Murray. I think that's a little, I need a little bit more of a deep dive for that of how that would work, how that would even fit. My first thought is, I just don't see how Kyler Murray really gels with Kevin O'Connell and what he needs to do within the system. And would he, you know, change it up to run more with Kyler Murray? Kyler's so hit or miss. Although there was a stat yesterday, that Jonathan Gannon is 13 and 16 with Kyler Murray and like two and 11 with anybody else starting. So, you know, Kyler's a good quarterback overall and had one year where he was great for about 11 games. But is he really a solution that's going to help you win the NFC North?

I don't know about that. The money situation is really dicey. There's a lot of other guys that you could talk about of like, well, that guy would make a good backup, you know, a Joe Flacco and, you know, guys like that, Joe Flacco will have two or three good games. People will be like, Joe Flacco, and then, you know, it's not that good after that, and he ends up back on the bench or whatever. So, I don't know, like, there's not a lot of really good options to compete with J.J. McCarthy. So the best possible outcome is probably, unless you're doing something like going to get a Gino Smith, which I mentioned, has kind of been my idea if they have to have a starter.

Like, if this is the lone blip on the radar of him playing well, And then it just collapses the rest of the way. And you absolutely need a starter. That's who I would be looking at. And for a trade, the Mac Jones idea has been brought up repeatedly. But San Francisco, if I'm them, I'm like, I'm not giving you a lot because, you know, we like having two good quarterbacks. Why should we give them away?

I wouldn't give away Mac Jones. He's under contract. Mariotta, I think, did not really make an impression yesterday on me with him coming into the game and just looking really bad. Nice interception by Harrison Smith, but a terrible throw. So, yeah, that's not a viable option. They've played Mariotta this whole time, Mariotta, and he's lost all the games. So the same thing goes for a Brissette.

It's like, yeah, these guys seem nice to have, oh, you just need this veteran, but it's just like Carson Wentz. They'll play fine for a little bit. People will get excited. They'll lose a bunch of games in a row, and that's kind of it, because that's what backup quarterbacks are. So you might end up more or less, unless you have a really good option or somebody like trading for Kyler or, you know, getting Gino Smith or whatever, which, you know, Gino did win 10 games just last year. So it's not, I know that no one wants that, but, you know, like he's got the arm to make the KOC throws. There's not a lot outside of that with, because Daniel Jones was one of those, hey, maybe, you know, he'll kind of fade down the stretch.

and they'll let him go where the Vikings could make a bigger offer. That was tossed out there. I never saw that. I figured that they would probably just, you know, franchise tag him or something, but now he's out with the Achilles. So now they're going to be looking for a quarterback for next year, too. This league has no quarterbacks.

Maybe a reason to franchise tag Sam Darnold. I don't know. We'll find out. I guess we'll see if that would have been the right move. Edwin says, can KOC stay with this game plan? That is a great question because I don't know that you can, stay with this game plan as in do it all the time against everyone because you would need the other team to absolutely stink every week, which might happen in the next two weeks.

So the answer is 100% yes over the next two weeks. And I have not been wowed by Detroit's defense either this year, even though they've got really good players, half of them are heard. Kelvin Shepard's done a good job at mixing things up a little bit more, but they still play a lot of straightforward man coverage stuff for McCarthy to sort through. And then, you know, Green Bay, we'll see what kind of effort they're putting in at the end. It might be a big time effort to make it or it might be none because they don't have to. So he may not face another team that is throwing Jeff Halfley and Micah Parsons and Rishon

Gary stuff at you. It might just be all AAA teams the rest of the way. And yes, you can stick with this. And I think that there's a lot of elements that you can. stick with, which is one is building off the run first, big personnel, absolutely, aiming for what Seattle is done with Darnold, which is a higher efficiency, lower volume type of offense. I think if you're aiming for that, then that's the right way to go. And if you run this effectively, like I know Kevin O'Connell doesn't want to be in third down.

I totally get it. Why would you, no one wants to be in third down. So running on first and second down is not some. something that the analytics people would often tell you to do, but sometimes you got to play to who's on the team and you might have to only be asking McCarthy to make some big time throws on third downs, do it three, four times a game. And then the rest of the stuff is sort of laid out straightforward for you. That's what they did yesterday and it worked. So I think that's the type of game that you want to try to play. I also will say that it is all, this isn't,

it wasn't wildly different than what they did again. against Green Bay in Chicago. They got pummeled with it in Green Bay, and he was laid on a lot of throws that were right there for him because the defense was throwing a lot of deception, a lot of pressure. And it's just a different ball game when you don't get all the answers pre-snap, which is what I think Washington gave them. I thought every defense that they were putting out there was pretty straightforward to pick through.

That's really helpful, and that's not what you're facing against Green Bay. But in these last couple of games, playing two strengths, limiting numbers of attempts in favor of trying to aim for high efficiency, those intermediate throws that he's comfortable with, trying to create windows where he can fire it just how he wants to throw it, not trying to teach him to layer in the middle of the season, try to work on that going into the off season. But if your offense has to be built for him to throw into places where he can throw line drives, well, that limits what you can do it certainly does and it won't work against every defense but it'll certainly work more than trying to have him do it all the time and just having him throw picks like so yeah no i mean i think i think that he can stay with this game plan in the coming weeks i think it can work but i also don't think that it's like a championship type of game plan i think it's like a training wheels type of like let's get him on track game plan let's get him some confidence

game plan and some not to take away some of the throws are great some of the throws are great so it's not like it was just all the easiest stuff in the world playing football in the NFL is never just a walk in the park but this was this was close this was as close as it gets so you can't generally do this over a 17 game season but you know we have seen some teams and in the past. Like, there are versions of this. Alex Smith with the San Francisco 49ers. If you go back and watch 2011 season,

how many really tough plays does Alex Smith have that year? And he was great. And they went to the NFC championship. Bo Nix currently, I mean, how often are they really asking Bo Nix to play a ton of real straight drop back, pick through a bunch of stuff,

layer of football? Not that much. I mean, that's why he averages six and a half, half yards per pass attempt because it's mostly stuff that's kind of right there in front of them. And then every once in a while, scramble and make a play, you can win games by doing it, especially if you have a defense like this. My gosh, the defense was freaking dominant. So if you could do that, then you can win all the games. You could, I mean, if they had a defense that was crushing and they, you know, didn't have any injuries and they had offensive line like

this in a running game every game. But the reason why QB wins do tell a story, And not always the perfect story, but they direct us in certain ways to ask, well, why are you winning that way? When certain quarterbacks like Josh Allen pull off what he did yesterday and some of the throws, you go, okay, you are winning under all circumstances with this quarterback, no matter what's happening, who's playing, what's going on, how much snow there is, how much Joe Burroughs throwing touchdowns on the other side, you could still win that football game. or are you talking about you can only win a certain type of game right now they can only win a certain type of game and we saw it yesterday with this game plan but he's 22 and it's his seventh game ever so you know you can potentially build up to that you can potentially take these very basic

things that he's doing in a game like that at a high rate of success and grow with them how much can i i'm not really sure uh i shot you 99 says uh can both things be true mccarthy could be historically bad qb but also not historically bad uh to play terrible against the commanders yes yes well and and this is this is absolutely a fact that if you go back through a lot of bad quarterbacks games there are there are moments there are flashes like these guys are drafted high i mean i'm pretty sure ryan leaf had like a game like i mean i mean Jamarcus Russell had a game there there's this is why we don't really know because there are quarterbacks Carson Wentz is one of them who played I don't know jaden Daniels if he's going to

not stay healthy he might be one of them there are quarterbacks who played really well to start and then went totally sideways there are quarterbacks who played really bad at the start and then skyrocketed now with McCarthy the biggest concern is that in the last 10 years still after this game his quarterback rating is like a 67 and even if you look at the last 10 years there's not too many guys who played like that over a seven game stretch and ended up turning out to just magically have the light come on this might be I've and I've always left the door open for this I don't think this is just reacting to what we just saw this might be a unique situation because of the injuries because he did not have last year and because

he missed half of this year with injuries. I mean, he sat, what, five games and he's played seven. So that's a lot of stopping and starting to his career. It might be a little bit different compared to history. And most of the quarterbacks that we talk about when we go through historically, most of them that were this bad played for tanking teams, played for like, you know,

the Lions, Matthew Stafford, and he turned it around or Alex Smith, the 49ers. Remember how terrific that team was when he got there. They drafted him number one. You know, a quarterback like this is coming into a situation that is very good. So those numbers are a little bit different. And against Chicago and Baltimore, two teams that use a lot of coverage deception, they blocked really well for him.

And just, you know, the reads weren't there, the throws weren't there. And I think there was a lot of hesitation because he wasn't seeing it pre-snap. well in this situation there were a lot of his throws where he didn't have to look anywhere else and most throws in the NFL are first or second read so sometimes that's i think that's over criticism sometimes well this guy doesn't go through or in the draft analysis world you'll see this guy going through his progressions i mean that's fantastic but you know you're only talking about a handful of plays a game where you really are going one two three four back to one it's usually a levels concept on one side of the field and one guy goes deeper and one guy

goes shorter and you have to make a decision there and if it's not there you check it down and that's most of football right so that's the type of stuff that they were doing really well against the commanders and if he continues to do that and he does it against Dallas and he does it against New York and he stacks some games here then we could walk out of this season saying all right 12 games and let's say he ends up with a and I like to use quarterback rating because people kind of get it like you know there's a lot of different metrics he could use I just like that one because it's been used forever to sort of give a a very clear snapshot of what I'm talking about let's say he ends up with a you know an 84 quarterback rating 86 something like that well then

you're at least saying he did enough to recover from that horrific start to gain confidence to show that he can do a lot of things to the starting quarterback and that you're not in a complete freak out panic in the off season to find a starting quarterback. You're looking for more of somebody who can push him and be a little bit of competition and who could come in if all things go completely sideways or he gets injured. I think that's what you're looking at as a best case scenario is to build on this and play a lot of the same way. But yeah, I mean, like the facts are the facts through six games it was historically bad through seven games it's still even with the seventh game being really good we're still only talking about you know like 150 yards type of

performance so yeah i mean i i think it's it's some to be encouraged but not to say it's all fixed it's all solved it's all you know perfectly fine uh kfts says McCarthy was good he has things to work on, but all the mechanics coaching gave him paralysis by self-analysis. See, I think I have a lot of trouble buying that narrative. I really do. I mean, coaches are going to coach throughout the season and they're going to coach every position on all sorts of different stuff throughout a year. The difference, I think, is that Kevin O'Connell, and based on his comments today, I think

Kevin O'Connell thought perhaps I've said too much just throughout this season. And I've enjoyed it. I've learned a lot from it about what you're looking for and how to do a lot of different things and how to coach a lot of different things. But I wonder if he felt like maybe last week as we were all talking about, you know, simplification, decision making, throw mechanics out the window and all that. Maybe he thought maybe I've, maybe I've just been a little too revealing about this. because that that was turned back against him. And I didn't think that that was fair. You have to have mechanics to throw the ball.

I mean, you have to. Yesterday, every throw that was completed, he was allowed to just whip a BB in there to a wide open guy. And you could get away with that for a game. But at the end of the day, this is the NFL. You have to throw a certain kind of way to be a winning, consistent quarterback. And Kevin O'Connell teaching that is not, a thing he should stop doing or a thing that like he screwed up by trying to work with his

mechanics. And by the way, it wasn't just in the season. He's been working with him on this since day one, these messages with him. So what I just, I don't know. I think that that to me is that's like trying to rewrite what happened and be like, nope, it wasn't his fault. It was KOC's fault. He overcoached him. That was the real problem. I don't. I don't think so. I don't think that he overcoached him. I don't think he paralyzed him with analysis or anything like that. I think the Ravens and the Bears and the Packers were way better in their game plans against

J.J. McCarthy than Washington was. And it all fell perfectly, including Washington failing on that first drive. They could play with the lead the entire time. They get a 12 play drive. But how many were even passes, five of them? I mean, they were able to run and run and run. and then convert some third downs and get a 98-yard drive. And then you're just in the driver's seat for the rest of the game.

It works really well for you. But in order to play the complete game at quarterback and win with a team that has expectations, you have to be mechanically at least close. And you should not stop teaching it. I think that his idea was we've gotten to the final couple of games. It's going to be just sink or swim. I've done all the teaching on mechanics. because there's only a couple of games left.

It's not like we can improve there now. So just get after it. But I'm not one to go back in time and talk about, oh, well, he must have overcoached him. Because I think that that is, I think that's trying a little too hard to make it, to take all the responsibility off of the person who is throwing those interceptions and making those mistakes. Joe says the Cowboys are playing more man-to-man coverage. It'll be different look for McCarthy.

Interesting. They also have this gentleman named Quinn and Williams, who no matter how good you're playing as an offensive line, is a dominant player, one of the best in the NFL. They didn't have that before. And what really, you want to talk about, I mean, I don't mean, look, he played well. So Washington wasn't physical with the Vikings wide receivers. at all. It was seven on seven out there. I don't understand it. And you talk about the man on man. Like, that's what a lot of teams have done against the Vikings wide receivers, go back to Los Angeles last year, is play very physical with them. And Washington was just like,

nah, we're going to play in these deep zones and just chill out back here and not give up 50-yard bombs. I just, I don't know. Let's see. tautist pigeon. I don't know what that means. JJ looked like a top 10 quarterback yesterday. I mean, I don't know. I don't think so. I think that it was fine. I think that everything was as good as it's ever been. But when we talk about top 10 quarterbacks, to me, the top 10 quarterbacks can lead their wide receivers, can throw with touch, can deal with pressure, can make lots of different.

changes at the line of scrimmage, have total command of their offense, they're not throwing for 150 yards in a game like that. They're throwing for 250 or 300. I mean, that, like, what it looked like to me was a young quarterback with a young quarterback game plan who had everything really laid out for him well and took advantage of it and played well. So that's why I don't want to take away from it, but I also think we need to be realistic about what that game really was. Let's see, Harvey, I think, with a J, maybe. or Javi Javi sorry it's little letters

Havi maybe Still need Mac Jones or a competitive starter for next year That's where I'm at right now I haven't changed that at all One game does not change kind of the reality Of where they're at But I agree with you I mean I think that if that's out there

It's just finding it is the hard part Finding who that would be is the hard part right now first name, last name, I think even if this isn't repeatable, seeing more live game reps of something that works should hopefully give coaches ideas to build back up to the full complicated KOC offense. Yep, I agree. And that's, I think that's why, you know, KOC was maybe a little offended by it being called simplified, even though he said pare down the inventory, which then Wes Phillips said simplified and Aaron Jones said dumbed down. And it was like, okay, well, I think we've got the idea here. But maybe it was presented.

by some as like, oh, now they're going to run, like a really super simple offense that they should have been running all the time. It can't ever be that in the NFL. It can't ever be, hey, let's have three different plays that we run and they're called A, B, and C. And we've got over on the sideline, a picture of Wario, and that's like a run play. And then we've got a picture of Mario and Luigi, and that's a pass play. Like, it can't be like that. It's still going to be have its own complexity and he's still going to read and identify what he's seeing KOC, you know, in the terms of the other team and implement some of that stuff. But, you know, I do, I do think that when it comes to that game plan,

it played really, really well to his strengths and they need to learn from that. That's, I think, your point, and I agree. Drew says horrible Washington lost to terrible Denver by one point. I mean, Drew, I think that you're smarter than that comment, right? Like, this is Washington has given up a quarterback rating to opposing quarterbacks that would make someone an MVP. Just because they had one game that was decent against the mediocre Bo Nix does not mean that they were suddenly good.

They're horrific. They had lost seven games in a row coming in. They gave up an easy game-winning drive to Denver on that night. Bo Nicks threw them the ball a couple times. That was the only thing. Like, I mean, come on. That's, we, I think we know that. Like, who they were playing is a AAA team.

That's what I called them last week. And that's what they were. One more reminder, we'll get to Brian Murphy here. We'll continue to answer your questions and comments. Of the Fandul question of the day, the Dallas Cowboys opened to six and a half point favorites over the Minnesota Vikings for Sunday's game. Did the Vikings performance against Washington make you think that they can beat Dallas

and what does McCarthy have to do to convince you that he is the guy?