Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - How Kevin O'Connell can elevate JJ McCarthy's game

Episode Date: July 9, 2025

Matthew Coller is joined by Bobby Peters of Alert The Post to discuss Kevin O'Connell's Vikings offense and how KOC can help elevate second-year QB JJ McCarthy.

Hey everybody. Welcome to another episode of purple insider Matthew collar here and we are launching something very special on the show. It is called tape guy week and what we're doing is bringing on some of my favorites X's and O's analysts talk, Minnesota Vikings and the big picture in the national football league in 2025. And there's no better place to start with tape guy week than one of my favorite tape guys ever. Bobby Peters,

the author of the 2024 Vikings complete offensive manual. I have it here in my paws, but also many other leather bound books about the national football league, the lions offense from 2023, the Miami Dolphins offense. There are many of them that you should go check out. Alertthepost.com is a great place to find all of Bobby's work and even additional X's and O's analysis. And what we're gonna do here today, Mr. Peters,

is we are going to go position by position around the Vikings offense, talk about how Kevin O'Connell shapes this offense and how it can impact JJ McCarthy. Sound exciting? How are we doing, Bobby? Really good, Matt. Thanks for having me on.

And it's always fun chatting. General NFL stuff, but obviously Viking stuff this year. I know you've been kind of giving me some hard time the last couple of years about why a Vikings book has not come out yet. And this was finally the year. And I dedicated this one to you individually. So definitely excited to chat about it. Well, I really appreciate that.

And I highly suggest if you are into the hardcore analysis of the Minnesota Vikings and want to understand Kevin O'Connell's brain to get the 2024 Vikings complete offensive manual. So let's dive right into it. I think there's no better place to begin when discussing the Vikings offense and Kevin O'Connell than the whispering portion of the quarterback position. So last year he has to whisper to Sam Darnold the offense. Now this year he's got to shape it with JJ McCarthy.

Why do you think it is that he gets this label? Like what does that mean to you? Cause it's such a broad kind of quarterback whisper thing. They said the same thing about Bruce Arians. That's the name of his book. And you know, he worked with a lot of very talented quarterbacks. But if we're trying to take it from this broad concept of like, well, KOC works with quarterbacks and he's great at it. And that's the facts. Like what would be the first thing that comes to mind for you of the reason why he is able to have success

with quarterbacks? So just taking a step back, like generally speaking, like the term quarterback whisper, it can mean a lot of different things. And I think KOC is my favorite kind of quarterback whisperer. So what he does is, or what he's done is he's taken a lot of quarterbacks, you know, in the last couple of years, you know, famously the Josh Dobbs run of last year and obviously Sam Darnold and, you know, Kirk Cousins had some fantastic years with him too.

He takes, he takes the quarterback and they have, they just play, they seem to play confidently. They seem to get the ball out on time and they just, things work, right? Just generally speaking, thing score points. Um and what that happen is what is wh a lot of different ways a get to that. But I think I talk about plenty in my

and seven step pass game. no easy, there's no easy side of it, right? He's n run game. They're doing t're doing this through the air. And that's, that's a lot of fun to study when you're, you know, trying to, you know, get the most out of these quarterbacks every year. So I think that the quarterbacks just understand it.

Like it is communicated to them what they need to do on each individual play, what the route concepts are, but not just that, but the defensive side of it. If I was to pinpoint one thing other than his general belief in his quarterbacks and like you said, instilling confidence, I think that when he was a quarterback, he was not given so much confidence by a lot of his coaches and he goes out of his way to let these quarterbacks know that he believes in them. There's that clip of him against the Packers where he says, hey, come on, Sam, like, let's make this play.

I love you, baby. Let's go. Like things like that, like that energy, I think transfers from Kevin O'Connell to his guys. But I also think that his ability to communicate and being able to see the plays through the quarterback's eyes, I just feel like Sam Darnold knew where to go with the football.

And after Kirk Cousins got it, he knew where to go with the football. I mean, that doesn't so much apply to Josh Toms, but even Nick Mullins. Like I think that that ability to explain what the defense is doing, why these concepts are what they are helps the bigger picture for these quarterbacks. And I just don't see a lot of standing in the pocket looking confused when it comes to KOC quarterbacks. Yeah, that confidence that you're talking about stems from the offensive staff's ability to get the ball out at the top of the quarterback's drop.

So like, say we're taking a five step drop from gun, right? The quarterbacks can take a five step drop at the top of the drop on that fifth step, the ball's coming out. And that's the number one job of designing a pass game in the NFL is finding ways to open up the number one receiver in the quarterbacks progression. And that receiver, that timing for that first receiver and the progression is tied to the top of the drop. So when that ball's coming out, that's the first read that

the ball's going to the quarterback doesn't really have to look, you know, he doesn't have to read the whole field at that point, right? We're making his job easier. We're simplifying things for him. But at the same time if the defense takes that away We have options to to spray the ball elsewhere. But obviously I'm sure what we'll get in some of the examples so that's of that specifically but When you're as an offensive coach when you're designing that first guy in the read open as much as you are the quarterbacks like I can Just get to the top of the drop and just let this thing rip and it's just playing quarterback becomes a lot of fun If that's the case.

Well, and O'Connell has also talked about having his quarterbacks look for areas of the football field and landmarks and spaces and not so much one to two to three to four to back to one and all that sort of stuff. But understanding if the defense does X, then this space is going to be vacated and there's somebody coming there and I also think he really understands how to I don't know what the right terminology for this is but just how to overload a certain player like if you think about because that's a chess concept is overloading a certain piece. I can't defend everything at once. I think of that with what he does with linebackers and with safeties where a lot of linebackers and safeties get into position.

I was looking at one of the concepts that you broke down in the book and how there's an underneath route that's holding a linebacker, but then just the Jefferson's coming behind, but the safety has to deal with somebody who's going vertical. Like there really is no way to guard Justin Jefferson with everybody. And that's what I want to start with going position by position other than we'll, we'll circle everything back to the quarterback. Obviously, uh, JJ McCarthy's connection with Justin Jefferson will dictate whether this offense is really, really good or not.

And I think that one of the remarkable things about O'Connell is that no matter how many different ways teams try to defend Justin Jefferson, we've seen all of it. We've seen just straight up double. We've seen trying to keep somebody over the top. We've seen them clouding. We've seen all sorts of stuff and it never works. Justice Jefferson is still elite year after year after year. Why do you think schematically? Because I know why it is with Justin because he he's a freak. But why is it schematically that O'Connell has been able to continue this success with Jefferson? So it's twofold. And first, I want to talk about the concept that you're kind of alluding to there, which is there's a few different ways they run it. But generally speaking,

I think you're referring to the dagger concept. And what that does is, like you said, there's a vertical clear out that takes the safeties out. And then most often, KOOC would have Jefferson on kind of that 15 to 18 yard dig route, which is the receiver running downfield and breaking over the middle at that depth. And then the Vikings, what they did an incredible job with was controlling those linebackers with the check down distribution, right? They would use over the ball routes, they'd use grab routes, they'd use check flats to control the mic. If there's a Tampa too and the mic was trying to run back and get into that dig window, obviously with Dagger, we need to control the hook, the strong hook window too. So if there's a Tampa 2 in the mic, let's try to run back and get into that dig window. Obviously, you know, with dagger, we need to control the hook, you know, the strong hook window too. So if there's a nickel out there in space, we need to find a way to control them with,

you know, a check grab router shallow coming from the other side. And a lot of teams when they run play action, you know, play action dagger concepts or dagger in general, they'll try to keep extra guys in protection and kind of sacrifice on the check down distribution. Well, good defenses, we're going to, you know, they're going to get those linebackers back into that dig window and kind of beat the receiver to that spot because they know that daggers one of the most common, you know, route concepts off play action. So Kevin O'Connell's ability to adjust his protections to allow those guys to get out is critical, specifically with that concept.

And then generally speaking, I think we've talked you and I might have talked about this in the past a little bit. But when he does recognize that Jefferson's getting double teams, like he finds ways to make other guys the first read in the progression. So that way the quarterback is still able to get the ball out in the top of this drop. Right. So like if we make TJ Hawkinson and Jordan Addison the first read and put Jefferson on the backside and have him working across the field, that's like the back is the backside receiver. Now, if we get a one on one to one of those guys, that ball's coming out on the top of the drop. So we're still what we're doing when we're getting the ball out of the top of the drop like we talked about earlier. It's building confidence in our quarterback that that you can get rid of the ball on time. And

number two, we're not asking our offensive line to protect for an extra second or two as the quarterback has to read back to the other side of the field. So we're helping out the big boys up front when we do that, too. Yeah, I think just to like slow all of that down a little bit, what you're saying is that there is an answer to each answer. So if the defense and when you talk about that Tampa to linebacker, what you mean is that sometimes the linebacker will just run straight back into almost a safety position as opposed to staying down by the line of scrimmage to handle the underneath stuff. And that's a way that they could try to defend against routes that are breaking into the middle. So the Vikings have seen a lot of this, but there's always an answer of a TJ

Hawkinson coming underneath. And if you wonder why there was a difference between Hawkinson with cousins and Hawkinson with Sam Darnold, it's probably because cousins would just take that you're like, all right, well, the guy's wide open. I'm just never going to go broke, taking a profit here. Whereas Sam Darnold would be like, let's just wait an extra minute here and see if that break. And a lot of times because of Darnold's arm strength, and this is where

I want you to tie it into JJ McCarthy, because of Darnold's arm talent, his anticipation and strength, there could be a very small window in between a linebacker dropping back, a safety over the top and a corner one-on-one and he'd be like, I could do this. I could get this to Jeff and he often would. Now, how do we think that that should apply to McCarthy? Because he has arm strength and he throws to the middle of the field extremely well, but I don't know how much you want your first year quarterback just letting it rip into every tiny window. I think this will be an area where they want to have

Jefferson sometimes be the decoy here to work the ball to TJ Hockinson and Aaron Jones underneath. Folks, as you know, over the last five years I've built up Purple Insider into my own small business, but I realize as a business owner that I still have a lot to learn. That's where IDOU comes in. I'm learning to jumpstart my company's growth through IDOU courses and how to be more innovative and use their award-winning methods to help me lead Purple Insider confidently in a changing media landscape.

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So go to IDEO you.com slash purple insider. That is IDEO you.com slash purple insider 15% off again. IDEO you.com slash purple insider 15% off again, i deo u.com slash purple insider. Yeah, I think the answer to kind of being able to, to fit those balls into those tighter windows, like at the intermediate level is the answer to that's reps. Right? So you can get so many of those reps in the off season training camp, it's going to take some game reps.

Like you said, I think that's, that's a fair, that's a fair thing that we can kind of let McCarthy right? Because obviously bounced around a little b of reps in the NFL where throws on Sunday afternoo and you always had experi I think there definitely

uh you know, some reps th of build with that. Um, s was really interesting wh the ball down the field, with that assertion and Ke he did was he tweaked some more traditional concepts to attack further down the field. And obviously my book goes into more detail on some of the specifics on that. But that's stuff that I've found very interesting as someone who studies a lot of tape. And you just don't see a lot of that throughout the league. And I think some of that obviously

was Sam Darnold's ability to do so. And Kevin O'Connell, once again, it's his ability to adapt the offense to his quarterback. So what those adaptions are gonna be for McCarthy as the season kind of goes on will be really interesting to see. Do you think that it actually helps Kevin O'Connell that he knows how opposing defenses are going to start?

Like they're going to start with two deep safeties. And you will see sometimes that they have what is called a robber, which is where one of the safeties breaks down, you know, kind of into the middle of the field. But for the most part, because they run so many vertical concepts and I was thinking about you and your your computer tool that draws up the plays like you used posts a lot and you use, you know, straight down the you used, you know, straight down the field routes, you know, nine routes a lot in this book because you could see the idea of Kevin O'Connell, where if you have three guys going deep and you're breaking

somebody across the middle of the field, like how do these two deep safeties deal with that? And a lot of times they're kind of looking around like I can only take one of these two guys. He really seems to utilize the clear out a lot when it comes to finding ways to get specifically just to Jefferson open. And I feel like poor Jalen Naylor was running routes for the love of the game all last year. But at the same time, there was a lot of like really important routes that Naylor is running. He's just not getting the football because it's all designed to work Justin Jefferson open against those two deep safety situations. Definitely, especially when we're talking about attacking those intermediate windows. That's very true. Yeah. So let's move on to the second, third wide receiver part of this, because I feel like we touched on the Hocketson a

little bit there, but him as well. How does everybody else play around Jefferson to get the football? Because you have Jordan Addison, who's one of the best deep wide receivers in the entire NFL. And it I think can be sometimes maybe frustrating for Addison to not get the ball as much as Jefferson when he's open a lot. But I feel like Bobby, that Addison's real talent here that KOC understands is he's going to be one on one and He can beat people one on one and actually for a slender guy We always think of contested catches is like you got to be Megatron doesn't have to be Megatron He is one of the best at contested catches as well

So what did you notice watching back this season just about the way that Jordan Addison was used? So they seem to find ways, like y know he's going to be one you want to do is that re be one on one. You want t moves for them and you wa over the top for them. Ri getting that one on one,

defender, you're gonna, y type of double move, you' gonna try to break his le over the top. And there w at the home game, I belie season against the Packer they were, I think the Vi. And there was one particularly at the home game, I believe it was later in the season against the Packers that, you know, when they were, I think the Vikings hosted that game.

And there was one like in the high red zone. That was just a beautiful play design, very timely, because it was in the high red zone. So they were able to score off of it too, where, you know, they use Jefferson on a dig route behind him to kind of grab that cover for safety and that corner back to stay, you know, stays over the top of Jefferson, you know,

trying to effectively create a bracket, like we were talking about, right? Like a double team on him. That Addison one on one with the nickel underneath. And that was, um, that was a fun one to see on tape. And there's, there's a lot of different examples of that. And the answer, and then some, some of it too is, um, in the quick game, the stuff underneath, right? If we know we're going to be one on one, let's throw that quick slant, let's throw that quick hitch. And then, you know,

if the defense wants to take it away, you know, with some sort of double team, cause they think that the ball's going there. Okay, well now Jefferson's running across the field as the next read in the progression one-on-one with a guy trailing him. So kind of building, you know, like we talked about a little bit earlier, you don't want Jefferson

always to be the primary. And there's ways you can design other receivers and tight ends to be the primary to kind of take that. You just, cause what we're trying to do is we're trying to find these one on ones. Right. With Addison, that play was against the Packers and it was where he ran and people will remember this. It was one of the highlights, I think of the season.

He ran inside, kind of just straight up stopped and then flipped around and went back toward the back pylon and was wide open. It was, I mean, that was, I think one of those definitive like, oh yeah, Kevin O'Connell is really good at designing these types of plays. Now with Jalen Naylor, he's interesting to me this year because one of my bold predictions of the season is that Naylor is going to be a bigger part of the offense than he was last year. I think in part because of his own progress, but the wide receiver three three it does get a little left out of the party here though

Bobby like how do you think that they can utilize that a little more than they did last year because so much of it is centered around Jefferson Addison and then those underneath routes the Hawkinson But Nailer to me proved that he belongs and he can play and he's a guy that can be a legitimate weapon But they had a long stretch where it seemed like he just kind of disappeared in the offense. Yeah. I think, and I think that's kind of the nature of his position. I think week to week, we're going to see huge fluctuations in his production because he seems on the

downfield stuff, like the five, seven step stuff. He seems to be the guy that's running what I call the alert route in the, in the concept, right? So an alert route is, okay, if we get this specific look, we're going to take advantage of it with this, r route is okay, if we get post route, this this hi route. Um and and typica specific coverage, he's j

he's not part of the rea if you get a certain look changes week to week to d the defense, depending on is trying to do, um, that you know, as far as like a production, right? Like if you're seeing a lot of cover too, a lot of Tampa too, that alert route's not getting thrown much. But if you're seeing some quarters teams or some man coverage teams, that alert route might get tested a few times. And I think there was one specific play call I remember where I think it was once again that same home game against the Packers where

it was a three by one look and to the back sides the single receiver side Jefferson ran a dig route and that weak safety drove it and if and then you and the alert on that place okay if we see the weak safety low or if we see him flat-footed at the snap okay now we have what I call a deep over route coming from the slot from the other side and it was a big touchdown early in the game if I remember correctly that the Vikings were able to score on you know a little outside the high red zone I think it was kind of like in the shot zone like the 30 30-ish yard line, maybe somewhere around there. So like against any other coverage where that week safety is not rotating down,

that route is off limits. And now we're reading the high low with Jefferson on that side. So I think it's gonna be, assuming he's in the same role next year, I think it's gonna be feast or famine, depending on the week. Yeah, I could definitely see that.

And yeah, what you're talking about in that play, Jefferson breaking across the middle. And this is where KOC again knows how to put those guys in a bind, because if the safety drops back on Jalen Naylor, then Jefferson's going to be open over the middle. And if he goes and tries to anticipate and jump in front of that route, then Jalen Naylor gets over the top. And then, you know, the broadcast is, oh, look at this big coverage bust. It's actually just a play that worked, I think, against the Packers. Now there is a new dynamic though on the

roster that I'm very interested in your opinion, which is the Vikings have brought in Rondale Moore and they also drafted Ty Felton. And both of these guys are sort of yak monsters. And I thought against the Rams in the playoffs specifically that they didn't have a short answer to counter when their offensive line was getting beat and that even happened a little bit against Detroit. Although I think they all kind of just melted against Detroit and week 18, but specifically against the Rams that D line was winning and they didn't have a quick game to be able to counter

it. And we'll get to the run game as well. What kind of layer would that add? And I know that they're not going to throw 400 passes to Rondale Moore or Ty Felton, but what kind of layer would that add to an offense like this that has so many downfield concepts? If they could have someone who can succeed in a bubble screen, can succeed in a quick underneath, quick slam, because they just did not really have that yards

after catch guy last year. Yeah, so the way the Vikings kind of build their quick game is what they'll usually do is there's the kind of, there's a few core concepts that they'll run. So it's like Omaha is one of them. So it's where the outside guy will run like a four step speed out. And then you got your traditional stick concept

where you've got a quick arrow and then the inside guys could run like a six yard stop kind of turn out or turn in based on leverage. And then they'll run what I call a stitch. So it's kind of like a stick hitch concept. So the inside guy will run that stick route that we talked about, out to the guy will run a hitch. And they had a decent amount of success with that.

But what they would do is they would pair it with kind of like a backside mini dagger. So we already talked about dagger, right? guy will run a hitch and they had a decent amount of success with that. But what they would do is they would pair it with kind of like a backside mini dagger. So we already talked about dagger, right? It's that three level stretch over the middle of the field. So if they didn't get the look that they wanted on the front side, they wouldn't check into a quick game concept that you would like to see against that certain coverage. They would just say, all right, Donald, let's work to the backside. So that was kind of their catchall for it. And they had success getting to the backside, but the, their average yards per attempt on those concepts still could have been better

So I think kind of like you said a reimagining of a quick game if we've got guys underneath that we feel better about You know with certain concepts, maybe they maybe they try to game plan those concepts a little bit more But when I when I think of those guys coming in I think of them I love to see KOC use those guys kind of how like Liam Cohen used like Bucky Irving in Tampa last year, right? Like some, you know, some swing screens out of the backfield kind of the jet sweep guy, you know, kind of running those those constraint runs out of the backfield too.

Like just kind of the gadget guys, if you will, right? You know, always hear on broadcasts them talk about the gadget guys. And I think there's a lot of meat on the bone for coaches for smart coaches to take advantage of skill sets like that in that sense. To me, that just says if a team specifically is really trying to create like an umbrella, which when they played the Jaguars,

I think the Jaguars blitzed zero times in the game and just dropped everybody back and sat there. And it kind of messed with Sam Darnold. But if you had a Rondale more, if you had a tie felt in where you could just get them the football and then there's a bunch of space out there, you can rip a couple of 10 15 yard plays and then force that team to be a little bit more aggressive They just didn't have that I want to talk because we talked about Hawkinson and where he fits in and some of the underneath stuff

But also Josh Oliver, they signed him to a contract extension. They love Josh Oliver Where do we stand with bigger personnel in the NFL right now? I mean, last year, a lot of the discussion was about, okay, running is back. Teams are really leaning into the run game, which I think some was true. And some was kind of just, you know, Derek Henry and Saquon Barkley being amazing. And then everyone's saying that running was back. But I think with 12 personnel and 21 personnel, the Vikings have something that most teams don't often have to defend against, and that they can lean into this

as much as anybody in the league with their personnel. But what does that do for them to have Josh Oliver and TJ Hockenson be able to be on the field at the same time? I think, and this is something, you know, studying the book, there's a lot of meat on the bone with the Vikings run game. I think when you got when you see as much of the too high cover two looks that you do when you've got a guy like Justin Jefferson let's bring in that second tight end let's bring in a Josh Oliver and let's let's run duo let's run outside zone and

and they need to they need to be better at that. I think what they did was I think they spent a lot of I mean you can tell based on what on the tape that they spent a ton of time game planning the past game. And I just think there's not enough time and energy to get, you know, to kind of, you know, game plan everything perfectly, right? There's very few offenses, you know, historically over the last 20 years that are just really good at both.

So I think, but when you're getting those looks, I think you need to be better at it. I think that'll allow the offense to get to the next level. And I think that's where it needs to go. So in your opinion, watching it back, was that an offensive line issue? Was that a scheme issue? I don't think it was a running back issue because Aaron Jones was good for a major part of the season. But how did you divvy that up?

Because they've revamped this offensive line. I want to talk about that in pass protection as well, but they've revamped this offensive line to have some serious mauling capabilities. That's what Will Fries does well. Donovan Jackson is a top notch 95th or whatever percentile athlete or better than that stepping right in as a rookie and Ryan Kelly also, you know, kind of a mauler mentality in the run game as well. But also I felt like it was on the predictable side when it came to the run game.

It was usually first down. If it got to second down, they're probably not running, right? And so how did you break that up to what was the skill and what was the coaching with the run game? So their run game is very simple in the sense that it's a lot of 11 and 12 personnel duo, mid-zone, and then full flow outside zone to the tight end side. And like you said, a lot of it you can determine based on formation, especially on early downs, what you're going to get. It's going to be one of two, maybe three things out of those looks. And you know, a KOC would do his best to try to tie some play action stuff to that. But sometimes the play action looks wouldn't quite marry up. But I feel like teams could have figured out run game tendencies with that. So I think, I think scheme wise, they need to they need to kind of tie it in a little bit better with what they're doing in the in the play action

game and the drop back game to kind of make everything look the same, right? Kind of that Sean McVeigh route, right? Everything make everything look the same, you know, the pre snap. And then I think scheme diversity wise too, I think they can, they like I talked about before, like some of those gadget concepts, like Liam Cohen, you know, I wrote a book on Liam Cohen's offense and you know, him and KOC come from the same tree, right? You know, they come from the Sean McVeigh tree and he really went down the run game rabbit hole and he really found ways to create space underneath in the run game. And obviously, Mike Evans is really talented, but they don't have a Justin Jefferson type where they're getting those juicy run looks every snap.

So I think scheme wise, there's some meat left for them to kind of go after there. But I think personnel wise, I think when you keep your scheme really simple like that, your personnel has to be better than the defensive personnel. And when you don't have that, that makes it harder. So when you upgrade your personnel to now where you're just as good, if not better than the defensive personnel,

okay, yeah, you can be a little bit simpler. And if you combine that upgraded personnel with a little bit of scheme diversity, I think the Vikings could really be, like a top two, top three offense next year. Yeah. And when you talk about the personnel mattering so much, I mean, they were averaging five yards carry when Christian Darasaw was in there. And then when he got hurt, they went from maybe a top three left tackle in terms of run blocking in the league to a bottom five,

Cam Robinson, who's always been a decent pass protector, but has not ever been a good run blocker. Then you have a left guard who was a former tackle and he's trying to make that adjustment. And it just didn't really work all that well in the second half of the season. In terms of pass protection, how much do you think that those five guys impact the quarterback? Because last year, Sam Darnold did some crazy things in the regular season to escape and I don't doubt that JJ McCarthy can play off schedule but when I look at those PFF numbers Bobby between a pocket that's clean and a pocket that's muddy I mean Jared Goff is the best example of the

league right if he has a clean pocket the guy plays like an MVP if he has a muddy pocket or he's under pressure he plays like a below average quarterback. But that kind of goes for almost everybody except for really Josh Allen, sometimes Lamar Jackson. For the most part, that to me is the key to this thing is if you want to throw downfield, and I don't think they're going to change that, this group has to be as good as advertised upfront. good as advertised upfront. Yeah, I think past protection in general falls on a lot of people's shoulders. I think it falls on the design of the past concepts as well as the construction of the protection plan, right? The scheme itself, like who the offensive line is working to, who the running backs and tight ends are responsible for. And then obviously the skill set of the offensive lineman too, right? That's obviously a huge part of it. And then, you know, the

quarterback is a huge part too, right? Like you talk about, if guys are too quick to run out of the pocket, well, you know, if the quarterback's not where the offensive lineman expect them to be And then, you know, the quarterback is a huge part too, right? Like you talk about, if guys are too quick to run out of the pocket, well, you know, if the quarterback's not where the offensive lineman expect them to be, then, you know, the defender can just turn and run the other way and the offensive lineman has no idea what's going on. Right? So there's a lot of, I think the best example of this was, I believe you and I were texting after the playoff loss to the Rams and we were kind of like, Hey, I think you were asking me like, Hey, like what, you know, what, what happened? Like, was this all on Darnold? Was this, was the offensive line terrible? And I remember I went back and I looked and I'm like, well, I think it's kind

of like everybody kind of took a turn. Like one of them was, was, uh, uh, they just got out-schemed by the Rams defense. They were able to scheme up, uh, up a free rusher. One of them was on Sam Darnold for holding the ball way too long. And then another one was, I believe that one of the tackles of the guards busted, you know, and, you know, maybe, and maybe the other one was like the running back missed his assignment or something, right? And, you know, this is me watching it on tape with years, you know, years of experience doing this. And, you know, obviously I do have some playbooks I can reference to kind of cross check some stuff to kind of try to put together the pieces, right? And I'm, you know, if I could look at this and I think that, you know, everybody's kind of taking

a turn, right? I think it was hard to just put it on one group. And I think that's a great way to look at pass protection in general. I think if you've got teams that are really good in pass protection, everything fits in order. And I think if the Vikings can do that, I think they can keep McCarthy clean and allow him to do his job. So one thing that I noticed in the second half

of the season, I'm sure you did too, and it really started in the Arizona game, was second level blitzes from opposing teams. And it seemed like Sam Darnold and the offensive line really weren level blitzes from opposing teams. And it seemed like Sam Darnold and the offensive line really weren't very good at picking them up. And also stunts and twists that I think there was a stat out there that they faced more stunts than anybody else in the entire NFL. And they were basically saying like your left tackles do your left guard is new to this position and your center's not that great

at this. Like, let's just throw a lot of movement at those guys. How can Ryan Kelly specifically at center with all the experience he has help JJ McCarthy deal with that? Because I think that was one of the biggest trends that I saw in the entire league last year was some of the stuff we talked about is being unique to Brian Flores and having him like, you know, run all these different blitzes and, you know, simulated pressures that Chris Collins worth loves to talk about on the broadcast and things like that.

I just thought that teams turned up the dial on the blitzing and we're looking for big, you know, turnover plays and things like that. How can an experience center help the quarterback deal with more complicated blitzes coming his way as a first year starter? Oh, it's it's it's a huge help. And I think the biggest thing in his job, I'm not sure how the Vikings are going to delegate this. But with the first year starting quarterback, I would imagine a lot of this would be on the center is the center is

responsible for identifying and pass protection to the offense line should work for right like some protections, it's the mic, sometimes it's the wheel, sometimes they'll push out to the nickel or the SAM, depending on the call. And getting that right is critical. And getting the offensive line to work to the most, the five most dangerous rushers is what you want.

Just trying to keep it simple. And if you've got a center, if the offense isn't doing that, okay, well now your running back's got a block, a blitzer off the edge or somebody cruising up the middle. And it doesn't put your offense in as good a position out of center. You know, doing that. Okay, well no got a block, you know, a or somebody, you know, cr middle. Um, and it doesn' as good a position becaus

getting blown back into y now he doesn't have any r get forced off his spot a pre snap, if you can ident guys probably coming, the chance that he's coming v other guys. All right, let that way. Let's pick him

back to get down to a check down and create those high lows in the pass game that we're talking about, allow the running back to occupy that hook defender, allow them to occupy that linebacker so we can push the ball down the field. So that's presnap communication for the center is the most important part. And then what you were talking about

with those stunts post snap is if you've got guys coming in out of the offensive line, when you see a stunt, they have to kind of pass, the know, the guards and the tackles have to be able to pass these things off, right? You have to be able to seamlessly kind of close the gap and then pick up the other guy as the other guy's picking up your guy. And you know, if you haven't had a ton of time

working with the guy next to you, that's gonna be really hard to do. Okay, one more thing. And I think everybody's football in mind just kind of probably exploded with that last answer. I want to know in your opinion how much the year for JJ McCarthy on the sidelines in the meeting rooms meeting with KOC should have helped him or could have helped him because this keeps coming up on the show when people call him a rookie quarterback.

He's not a rookie quarterback. You learn a lot. But how, how much can a previous training camp and OTAs and mini camp and so forth that he's had for this year, how much can that really prepare him for what is about to happen in the NFL for JJ McCarthy this year? It helps, it helps to a degree, right? It's not gonna, you know, it's not gonna solve every issue. He still needs to see stuff at game speed, right? He hasn't played that regular season game yet. He hasn't seen what that's like in the NFL because that's totally different even than preseason, right?

That game speed is just different, but it allows him to understand, like we kind of talked about the protections, right? If he, you know, if he, and I have no idea what or how he, you know, was studying this past off season or even during the season, but if he was kind of, you know, oh, okay, like there's based on how the defense is lined up here, this linebackers over here,

there's, you know, like I said, 80, 85% chance he's coming. Well, now he can tell the center, hey, we're gonna redirect to that guy. Like if he's gonna do, if he can do that kind of stuff from the year he sat off, that stuff you can learn in the off season, right? You can kind of watch tape and see, oh, guys are doing this, guys are doing that.

You can kind of put yourself in better position to succeed there, but he is obviously gonna need some reps reps to. But I think I mean, you know, Patrick Holmes is the great example, right? He set out that year, kind of learned kind of the basics of the Matanagi system, how to operate as an NFL quarterback, because he came in super raw, right? That text, I remember watching that Texas Tech tape and you know, I was, you know, watching that at the time, I'm like, I don't know if this guy will translate. He's kind of got

some Brett Farve, he's kind of running around backwards, you know, that, that, that doesn't always translate well, but he had that off season to, or that one full season to kind of study and say, okay, this is, okay, work on my footwork, do these sorts of things. So I think every quarterback's gonna, it's gonna be different for every quarterback.

Every, you know, some quarterbacks need a year or two. Some guys can just jump in and contribute right away. So I think you having the year is better than not having the year, right? I think, you know, to learn and kind of study and, you know, there definitely will be some stuff he's got to learn on the fly, but I think it's kind of a mixed answer. It's so rare, this situation where you have a guy that has a lot of knowledge in his brain about how this all works, but doesn't have his arm actually doing the things, right?

And his feet actually doing the things. So that's why this training camp is incredibly vital to JJ McCarthy to just get his body doing the things that his brain understands and that he's been watching on virtual reality and all the other stuff. So you are right though, that I had bothered you for years to write the Minnesota Vikings offensive manual. I had given you a hard time about that. Did you have fun? Did you like it? What did you, how did, when you were done with it, what was your big takeaway about like the Vikings

under KOC and what they do? That's a great question. I think the biggest thing was I really enjoyed the, like we talked about the five and seven step pass concepts. They execute them at a high level. They find ways to get that number one receiver in the progression open for the quarterback. And they Kevin O'Connell did a really good job of like, not just running like classic stuff that he ran with McVeigh or stuff that he's seen on tape, like he found ways to push the ball down the field and get guys open that,

you know, they're okay, you can tell that their staff takes a critical look at what they're doing and wants to find ways to be explosive. And their willingness and desire to push the ball down the field was a ton of fun to study. Yeah, for sure. And I have enjoyed deep diving into it. And even though there is a lot there that you have put into it, I learned something every time I open it up and it's great for me to watch the all 22. And this is what I mean.

Like if you're a real football nut and you're into the X's and O's, having this to watch the all 22 and understanding what's going on is really, really enlightening. So Bobby Peters, I highly suggest people who love that part of the game, check it out and check out alertthepost.com where you're always writing about new concepts,

how different coaches view things. And there's so many different layers to the National Football League. It's what makes it great. So thanks again for another awesome appearance on the show. I guarantee that we will do it again. And at some point we'll check in and talk about how the offense has changed under JJ McCarthy because it does seem to have shape shifted from Kirk to Darnold. So now, you know, what's coming next, but thanks again for all of your time and we'll definitely do it again soon.

Of course, always love chatting with you.