Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - INTERVIEW REPLAY: Jeremiah Sirles talks about what worked in J.J. McCarthy's debut

Episode Date: September 10, 2025

This is a replay from Tuesday night's livestream on the Purple Insider YouTube channel. Former Vikings lineman Jeremiah Sirles joined Matthew Coller to discuss J.J. McCarthy's victorious debut. What worked for McCarthy? What didn't? How does what we saw on Monday night project forward?

all right welcome in to the first Tuesday morning left guard of the year with myself matthew collar jeremiah surles former minnesota viking where we break down a football game and my understanding mr surles is that you got a little bit of mixed emotions about this football game i don't know how to feel matthew i i don't i honestly don't know like i woke up this morning being like, did that, did I watch three quarters of Iowa football and then one quarter of NFL football? Like, I'm so confused of what I witnessed last night. And like, talk about a 24 hour shift of watching Sunday night football, Josh Allen and Lamar Jackson exchange haymakers. And then the first three quarters of just a pillow fight between Caleb Williams and J.J. McCarthy.

Like, it was just one of these things. It was like, am I buying this? Like, am I willing to take the 12 minutes in that fourth quarter and go, oh, I'm all in on this? I think this is going to be great. Or am I going to take the first three quarters and be like, what am I watching? I'm just, I'm so torn from a what to expect from this offense going forward. Well, why don't we, why don't we work backwards with this? Because the headline is the last thing that we saw. The most important thing is the last thing that we saw that they won the football game. One and no, apologize to no one for victories in the National Football League, Jeremiah. What was it about the fourth quarter in your estimation that worked you know i kind of i went back and i watched again this morning and there was a turning point

and the turning point was unfortunately for bears fans misery the terrible holding call on darnel right like that is not a hold in any stretch the imagination that is a beautifully executed trap technique where you knock his hands down like from that point on the vikings hit the gas pedal and the bears imploded and so for me i look at that moment and go okay there's bad calls in every single game. Every game has an up and down of bad calls that go one way or the other. The teams that can overcome those bad calls are good teams and the teams that can implode are bad teams. And you saw last night the difference between a 14 win team last year that went into the playoffs and a team that won five games. And I think that for me shows a culture and it shows that Ben Johnson has a lot

of work to do in that building. And it shows the belief that that team has in Kevin O'Connell and what they built there in Minnesota. And so you look from that moment on, the bears were anemic. Like they were completely inemic on offensive. It's like it just zapped the sales because it went holding, intentional grounding, missed field goal, right down the field and scored. And that just shows me a resilience from this Vikings team as a whole, not just J.J. McCarthy of just finding a way to hang in there when things aren't going well. And then when you finally get a rhythm, gas pedal down and go. Right. So I think that we can all acknowledge that if the opponent is not the Chicago Bears and it is the Green Bay Packers instead or someone else who's

good at football that the Vikings lose that game by a lot. Like you can't play that game again and expect to win. In fact, late in the third quarter right before that play, I looked up their win probability on ESPN's game cast 5.8% chance to win at that point. You can't play that way where you have to just like the bills the other night, where you're just giving up all these bleeding, all these points, and you have 1% chance to win and come back, which, you know, it happens a lot more these days in the NFL, but still, that means you got thoroughly outplayed up into that point. And if you do that week in and week out, you're not going to win a lot of games. I thought the turning point, so I totally agree with that because then you get the missed

field goal and then, you know, the wheels kind of come off for them and you could see the panic in the Chicago Bears. You could definitely see the panic in Caleb Williams, where in one sequence, after running around and scrambling and making a lot of great plays, he just sort of stopped doing that for one for one series and then just got sacked and made a bad throw and then they punted away. And also Ben Johnson, I think freaked out a little too and didn't run the ball because if he runs a lot more clock out and they weren't having a ton of success with DeAndre Swift, but if he wears them down a little bit more, but he kind of did the KOC thing like

we're up and I'm going to put the gas pedal down and then bang, bang, bang, you got the football back. Miles Price gets a great return. I thought the turning point, though, was Jordan Mason's back-to-back runs to start the, I believe that was early fourth quarter where he gets a seven-yard run and an 18-yard run. And then all of a sudden, you're looking around going, you just got 25 yards without doing anything because that guy is the beast that we thought he was going to be. I saw the stat. We'll have some more.

What does that stat mean? but but it was like 90% of his yards were after contact for Jordan Mason and that really matches the eye test and that sort of got them like oh we're moving and then they run a play action and then that works and Chicago's kind of selling out because they're getting beat up but the fact that McCarthy was able to like latch on to that confidence and then put the gas pedal down I think it does say a lot about him I don't think you can just go Hey, all that stuff that happened in the first three quarters, like men in black, just forget about it, right? Like, you didn't see that.

You only saw the end. But we can chalk up, I think, some of it at least to the nerves, the fact that Jefferson didn't have an entire training camp. I would be shocked if he drops two passes again for the entire year, right? Those two drops matter. They didn't help with JJ's confidence. But I think the bigger thing is that he never lost the confidence. He never lost the leadership. and the group around him, I mean, you football players, I mean, you know how to talk about another guy and

hype him up and be like, oh, yeah, he's got it. I see it. I know it. I know it. But until you actually see it on the field, and I know this from you, because every young player, you're like, he's in the blue for me until he proves it, even Justin Jefferson after he had 175 yards. Yeah. Yeah, people don't forget, Jeremiah. So the, so the point, the point is that the players seeing that is so, important that I think it does supersede some of the stuff that we saw that was pretty gnarly early in the game. And I'm willing to give the kid

Grace. He hasn't played an entire football game since he won the national championship, right? I mean, he has and I think that that goes a little bit too of the philosophies of the preseason, right? You're seeing a lot of teams play starters deeper and deeper and more and more into the preseason and you saw

some of the teams start offensively hotter this week, the teams that did that versus Kevin O'Connell took the opposite of of like, hey, 12 snaps, we're not going to get them a ton out there. We're just going to get them to the season. And I think that did play a big factor into the start of this game, just getting into a rhythm. And then when you can't convert first downs, you're clunky on rhythm.

Like, you never saw them really get into that rhythm. The thing I liked about what he was able to do, though, is so many quarterbacks that we've seen throw that pick six in the third quarter and it's just toilet bowl, right? It is complete toilet bowl. And one thing that Kevin O'Connell did is he didn't let the anger sharp. in his head, swim around and just unload on McCarthy as he came off on that thing. He was able to be the player, right, the players coach. I've been in that moment.

I've thrown a pick six before. And the last thing I need is my coach on the sideline just coming down on me because of it. And he puts his arm around him. He coaches him, hey, when we get this look, this is where we're supposed to go and we're going to be okay, right? And that allowed McCarthy to stay in the moment, stay in the rhythm and not fall into the, oh, my gosh. I just threw a pick six on Monday night football in my hometown and my first NFL start and let the spiral begin. He was able to overcome all of that.

And I agree with you. Guys like Ryan Kelly and Brian O'Neill that have been part of games like this, they needed to see that from him because you don't know if that guy actually is in there. Right. It's easy to throw a pick six in practice and go, all right, horn, next period. Right. Like, it's easy to do that and just move on. It's a lot harder to do in real time when Troy Aikman's up there breaking it down and you've got sweat starting to feel it coming off the edge. like you have to see those guys in that moment have it.

And I can't put a quantification on what it is, but you can feel it when the guy has it, right? And on the vice versa side, you can feel when a guy doesn't have it, a la Kayla Williams, right? And so I'm not ready to, again, I'm not anointing McCarthy King or anything, but he showed me enough of that it factor

in the clutch moments of the game to make me believe that he has what it takes to be a big time starter in the national football league. And that is such an easy thing to say of, like, we'll never quit. We'll fight till the final whistle. It is a lot harder to actually do, especially on that stage.

And with Soldier Field, it was lathered last night going into that. Oh, yeah. I mean, it was, it was extremely loud. I mean, you know how hard that atmosphere can be to play in as a quarterback, even as an opposing quarterback.

Caleb Williams was getting booed, which I think also maybe got in his head a little bit. But with JJ McCarthy, I mean, after that pick six, that place is about to explode, right? I mean, one more three and out, and they're going to go nuts and they're going to have a party the rest of the night.

And for him to be able to eventually get it, I mean, yeah, they didn't immediately score right after that. But you know what I mean? Like not allow that atmosphere to intimidate him, not allow that mistake. Because think about how embarrassing that must feel when you throw that pick six, especially when, I mean, if it was a tip ball,

you can be like, oh, not my fault. Yeah, you throw it right to him. He sat on the route. He knew exactly what you were doing. The guy played for the Vikings last year. And he just waited for that football to be thrown right in his lap. And that's what you did. And you go over to the sideline.

And there is Aaron Jones pro bowler, just the Jefferson best player in the game. Adam Thielan, pro bowler, Ryan Kelly, pro bowler, Brian O'Neill, T.J. Hawkinson, there's all these guys who have proven it in the league, time in and time out, won so many games. And you just had the biggest mistake. It would be very easy to shrink right there. And then they, like I said, they didn't immediately, like, come out and score a touchdown right after also would be easy to get really frustrated after that. And the fact that he had that resilience and that fight to him, it reminds me of when I first saw Joe Burrow play, this is different because his team was horrendous, his first year. But there were three or four games where they're down, you're like, ah, they're hitting Burrow.

He might die out there. And he just kept fighting and fighting and fighting. And you know, McCarthy took a few hits, pop back up, ready to go. like his energy never changed throughout the game like these things are projectable going forward so that's why i i'm like looking at the early part of the game as nerves for everybody including the head coach and the play caller and o'connell when i asked him about a mason he admitted i should have been running more early in the game i should have just leaned on jordan i know right and he said something like i've got to look in the mirror like how about use the mirror that works this time keb

but like the one that has the run play sheet posted on the mirror or you'd be like look at yourself look at the run sheet look at yourself look at the run sheet it's okay to run the ball three times in a row it's okay so all that stuff though I think it means so much to the bigger picture with j j.J. McCarthy yeah and I also taking it one step further how many times we've seen quarterbacks throw that pick six and then compound it with

another mistake right that I have to overcome this bad pick six that I just threw, I have to overcome that mistake and show that I'm still this guy and force a ball in where it shouldn't go or make something happen, hold on to the ball for too long because I'm waiting for that long and get strip sacked, right? He didn't allow the big time mistake to compound into multiple mistakes. And that shows a maturity factor. But I don't know if that's from him being super mature or him being in the league, kind of for a full year and watching how Sam Darnold did that last year and learning from Sam, right, learning from a guy like Carson Wentz, who's throwing a lot of pick sixes in his. life right like in understanding that so that just shows me a maturity factor for him so i agree with you the arrow is pointed where we wanted to go there was a lot of question marks those first three quarters of like man did we make a mistake right did we make a mistake letting sam darnald walk out of here did we make mistake me if aaron rogers not wanting to come here like you could have spiraled quickly about down those first three quarters but he did what he needed to do in the fourth quarter and like

you said unapologetically i'll never apologize for a win in this league but it is one of those things where you understand that if that guy in the first three quarters shows up again against better teams, the game will get out of hand way more than it will against the Chicago Bears. Well, I think another part of it when we look at what does that stat mean? The fact that the short passing game was incredibly bad in this game, which I tend to think that the short passing game is about the coach. The intermediate passing game is about the quarterback and the deep pass the game is about the wide receivers. And they threw three screens, which I had expected more screens than that when you have Aaron Jones and other guys who can make plays

with the football in their hands. I thought maybe they'd use Mason on one of those. And they just really didn't. Even the tight end screen, we despise so much. They just, the screen game was not really part of the game plan. And the underneath stuff where it seemed like O'Connell was almost trying a little too hard to bring him along slowly and baby him a little bit from the outside. set, but it wasn't giving him great answers in that short game. And maybe a part of it is just like that's playing left handed for Kevin O'Connell. It's not who you are. And the fact that McCarthy nailed the intermediate part, let me pull this up for his intermediate passing last night. Between 10 and 19 yards,

he was three for four, 58 yards in a touchdown, that dot to Justin Jefferson. And then deep, he was one for two with 27 and then the Aaron Jones, big pass interference. So the throws that are more quarterbacky and less manufactured, he was really good on. And the velo on the touchdown to Justin Jefferson, to me, was the most impressive play of the entire night because even at that point, he hadn't thrown a touchdown yet. They're just starting to get going. The last time he was in the red zone, he threw a pick six. All right, let it loose.

And it was an anticipation throw, too. He's coming across and you have to throw that to a spot and it hits him. So I thought that the things that we could sort of project for. forward, what he's going to be like in tough situations, how he's going to manage his veteran teammates, is he going to shrink, and how he throws the ball from clean pockets into intermediate and downfield areas, all of that stuff checked boxes for me. Agreed, right? I agree completely. And that's where the war in my chest is at is like, you see all those things and you're super excited about all of it. But can we just forget the first

three quarters? Like, can we sit here and go, that's not who he is? Right. Like, can we truly just write that off. I think I can't. I can't just write that off and go, you know what, that was just nerves. It was just first game. Like, he didn't see the field. He didn't see things. He panicked inside a clean pocket at times. His timing was off. Like, I need to see him never do that again, right? Like, because he looked like Caleb Williams. Like, he looked like Caleb Williams and like, his feet were jittery. He wasn't settled. He wasn't sure where he wanted to go. He was timing. like he wasn't a good decision making. I need to see that piece completely get away from him.

And I think the way to do that is lean on Jordan Mason. I lean on that guy. You paid fries. You paid Kelly. You have O'Neill, right? You have a very good left guard in Donovan Jackson who played very well in his first start. Lean on those guys. Let them take you where you want to go and take the short passing game out, turn it into a run game,

and then live in that intermediate and deep area. like that's where I would like to see because I think there's a fallacy of well the short passing game really just gets the quarterbacks in rhythm I don't think that's true I think if you have an extremely good short passing game that is true but we don't have a great short passing game right Jefferson's not who you want run in the five yard slant the six yard out like Thielen's like a little bit more of that guy because he's not as fast but this team is built to push the ball down the field that's what they're built to do let the run game take over for that short passing game and not think we have to get a six yard out route here on first down where let's get four or five yards on a run game and then have our pick of the poison. I really think if we can get that hand holding, let's get McCarthy in a rhythm on a short passing game and just let him rip it down the field and build on this run game, that's where the success of Jay Z McCarthy is going to continue to go. And for KOC's perspective, I don't think any of us knew the right way to handle it or where he was going to be at and that sort of thing. But what you're saying, as far as like you can't look like that again, it probably will.

at some point, but what last night did was when J.J. McCarthy has these, I haven't played a lot of football moments. Well, there's two things that that stick out to me about that. One is that everyone will be like, it'll be fine. No one's going to be going, oh, no. Oh, no. And look, there was a previous quarterback here, number eight, who when things started to go a little bit wrong, especially in the Zimmer era, not so much in the KOC era, but in the Zimmer era, if he had that look in his eye, everyone in that locker room was going, oh, no. Oh, no. It's one of those days. We're going to lose to a bill's team that has, you know, got beat by 40 the week before or something because he's got that look in his eye. Now, if they get down, if he struggles, if he makes a big mistake,

they're like, he'll be okay. We already know that. We've already seen that. I think that's a big development. But can you say that that's never going to happen again? Of course not. I mean, it's a long season and the teams that they're playing in the future are better than this. Like, not maybe necessarily the Falcons, but I promise the Eagles are going to bring more. I promise the Chargers, the Packers, the, there's going to be a lot harder challenges than this and there will be bad moments. But what I thought was really important, you alluded to it earlier, I checked it on the numbers. He had one turnover worthy play.

It was a horrible turnover worthy play and it turned into six points, but one, he didn't compound mistakes. He didn't make, you know, another turnover worthy play. So when he's struggling, And I think he lost six yards on sacks. So when he's struggling, he's not running backwards like Sam Darnold and losing 15 yards. He's not losing the huddle. He's not all of a sudden forcing throws into bad areas.

He stayed within himself, I think, in those tough moments. And that, I think, projects really well as we're trying to figure out what is week one actually mean for him. That it's said a lot. It's also 20 passes that the guy threw, right? So, you know, watching a little ESPN on my flight, you would have thought that, you know, J.J. McCarthy was Peyton Manning and Caleb Williams was Ryan Leaf. And that's, that's how it turned out. So let's. 46, 46 plays is not okay. Right. I mean, time of possession, completely on the other side. We didn't convert a third down in the first half, I think. Like those,

those are the type of things that you're looking at going, okay, this is, this was bad. Like, I don't know if I've ever watched a game that the pendulum has swung so far, right, to where I mean, we are talking atrocious football to, wow, how did that happen in a matter of like an hour where the pendulum went from couldn't move the ball to just doing whatever we want, moving right down the field. That for me is coaching and I think that is Kevin O'Connell being able to truly pivot, even though he didn't fully pivot to the run game, but being able to just pivot enough to go, okay, I got to do something different. Like I got to go away from what I know, away from what is my whole brain's

telling me to do. I got to do something different to change this rhythm and this what we've got going on. And then we can get back to what we're doing. I feel like that was a really nice job by Kevin O'Connell. At some point with O'Connell, we have a big enough sample size to say that his quarterbacks respond extremely well to adverse situations. Yes. We are now on three quarterbacks who have gotten down in games, who have been in tough spots or who have given up leads and have to go figure out a way to close out a game. And when his starting quarterback plays, he is 32 and 11 now after last night. So when you see, well, it's a one score. And look, and look, from a statistical perspective, that's a lucky win. It just is. Like, that's not one you're going to

win very often. But there's also something very real to what Kevin O'Connell brings to his quarterbacks and his teams when it comes to these these spots also you know he was helped out by a lot of bears things including them not kicking it out of the back of the end zone which made life a lot easier than it needed to be so anyway let's talk about the offensive line i think when you come out of the first game ever played by donovan jackson the first round draft pick of the vikings and you sort over here on pff by pass blocking and he has the highest pass block in grade and he has zero sacks, zero pressures, zero QB hits allowed in this game. I think that really says something about Donovan Jackson.

I know, again, this is not the 85 bears, some of whom were in the house last night. Ryan Kelly also zero pressures in this game, 78.8 pass blocking grade. And Will Fries, such a disappointment allowed one loan pressure and a 74 grade. I mean, this might be one of the best performances we have ever seen from an interior offensive line for those three players. Yeah. And it helps when you only throw the ball 20 times. Yes. Right. Like that that really helps the stat sheet for an offensive lineman when you're not throwing the ball 50 plus times a game, which will happen at one point this year. But you take with what you have and you look at what you got, they were very efficient up front. Right. And what I mean by that is I watched a lot of ball this week where centers are moving the wrong way. there's free runners up the middle. We're not IDing things correctly. Oh, the Lions game.

Yeah, the Lions game. Yeah, you watch the same game that I did. Right. And so when you're watching that and you're going, hey, three new brand interior interior players, one of which is a rookie, how do these guys all work together? How are they go through?

Now, it helps that Frye's and Kelly came from working together in the past, right? But new system, new snap count, new quarterback. I was thoroughly impressed with the way the communication went up front. Now, the communication from Pressbock, coach, McCarthy, up to the line of script, image has to get better, right? But that comes with a veteran center of being able to be like, hey, we got to go, right? We got to go. We got to get on the line. Here's the point we roll.

Like that was a very good showing from those three from a logistical standpoint, from a communication standpoint, and then from a technique standpoint, they were very buttoned up on their past protection. And when Donovan Jackson specifically, you know, every training camp of my life, someone says, you know, iron sharpens iron. I'm like, is that I like, I like, I need a black. Smith. I'm so tired of this phrase, but this is actually true in this case. He was able to practice against Javon Hargrave. Who will get to? Uh, inter, reintroduced to Minnesota Vikings fans after whipping them every single time he ever played the Minnesota Vikings, but practicing against those guys, those veterans with, that's why during camp, when people are

asking, well, how's Donovan Jackson looking? Well, he's kind of getting killed, but also what I noticed though and this sort of goes back to j j mccarthy in some ways in young players is that he never gave up he never gave up these easy lunge oh i'm just going to fly right by you and you walk to the quarterback it was always like someone like hardgrave getting by him eventually or pushing him back into the quarterback and we know this from it's like the dalton risner theory if you can hang on for dear life uh you can do a lot in the NFL and there was some of that last night but i thought overall and i know he's not facing the toughest competition here. It's not Jalen Carter, but still, that is a pretty darn impressive debut. I think he did learn a lot from playing against guys better than who he was

facing last night. Yeah. I mean, anytime that practice is harder than the game, you're getting, you're feeling pretty good about yourself. And that's going to happen with a lot of our offensive linemen. I mean, very rarely you're going to be blocking a Grenard and a Van Ginkle and a Hargrave and a Jonathan Allen. Oh, yeah, Dallas Turner's still around too. You know, like when you practice against those guys for six weeks of training camp and you still get that good one-on-one reps when you do two-minute at the end of practice on Thursdays. Like, it keeps your skills sharp. And I guarantee you, Donovan Jackson came off that field last night after the first couple

series and was like, oh, these dudes are not Jonathan Allen and J. Vaughn Hargrave. Like, I can beat up on these dudes. I'm not going to survive against these dudes. I'm going to contribute, right? And that's where you start to take jumps. And he's so naturally gifted. I mean, he's, I mean, God built that dude to play offensive line. Long arms, big body, big ass.

like looks great right and so when he can use those god-given abilities and they continue to develop because you you know one will develop more than in their rookie year right when you go from even at ohio state and you're playing against j t and jack sawyer and those guys like those are good players but your development takes such a huge jump when you're starting to practice every day against all pros or pro bowler level players you take huge jumps and so i'm so excited to see him continue to grow because he's just going to keep developing throughout this year and i mean the sky's the for what this dude can do because he has all the physical tools. The other part about Donovan Jackson, too,

and this is one of those first impression things, but being around him just a little bit, it's a very bright guy. I think he's a very aware person. So when Ryan Kelly says, hey, actually you're supposed to do this, that he does it. And Kevin O'Connell has talked about how,

if he lost a rep in a certain way, he wouldn't lose it again. And these are little things, but they tell you something about the players football IQ. And then you get to know him a little bit. you're like, oh, this is a bright kid. This is somebody who's going to learn from mistakes and pick up on things and grow throughout the season.

So even if the strength isn't quite at the same level as someone like Will Fries, who's been doing this for a while, I think he's going to find a lot of ways because he has this ability to learn quickly. And also a very, for a guard, I could see why they want him to play tackle last year in a pinch. For a guard, he's a very chill guy. It's kind of concerning, actually. Yeah.

Like, you, like guards are usually a little. Right. They're a little crazy or a little Alex Booney. Yeah, right. Exactly. I saw, I'm not even joking. I saw a man in Alex Boone jersey at the game. I'm not joking. I was like, am I seeing the right? Like, is that guy's name Boone? But yeah, like that crazy in their eyes. But I think that he kind of has like a little bit of tackle calmness to him, which would help on that stage, which for him, I know everyone is looking at the quarterbacks, but for him, that's his first NFL game. And he had the pressure of anybody else. So a tremendous debut for him. And also he's not playing against one of the next to one of the best left tackles in the NFL yet. Right. Right. I mean, you pair him now next to not just in school, which we can get to if we want to,

but that was a problem, right? You say, hey, now we're going to put Christian Derriss on next to you. And it's going to be even more. You can talk about two chill guys, right? Darisov from everything I've heard of and talked to is one of the chillest human beings ever to walk the earth. right but the thing i also love about donovan jackson is so many times first rounders have an ego to them right i was a first rounder i know what i'm doing i know how to get here right there's a reason i was picked in the first from what i've been told he doesn't have any of that right and you see it

right to be coachable and then to have the gift of playing next to a guy like ryan kelly who i believe was also a first rounder right yeah and he was able to look at you and go like listen bud you don't know what you think you know i played with the greats i've been around a long time just trust me. And him to go, okay, I'll just trust you. You're like, that doesn't happen often with first rounders. I don't care what the position is, right? Those dudes just usually have a little bit different mindset to him. But for him not to have that, that's why I think the needle for him is pointed so far up.

Because if you can have that mindset and have the skills of a first rounder, that's how you get all pros. That's how you get Provo level caliber players out of the first round. And as someone who has sat here and talked about many troublesome offensive line and on the interior over the years, I think it's okay to have your eyes get wide with what this interior can be and what it can mean. Because if McCarthy isn't rushing

as he was early in the game and they can run like they did with Jordan Mason later in the game, if those things are consistent, the protection he got in his first contest and some of the run blocking later in the game, that can be a difference making offensive line. And when we were trying to project it, we're like, well, if Donovan Jackson is good,

then you can have a difference making offensive line, just one game, but he was very good. You mentioned Justin's school, though. I don't know where Christian Derisaw is at. If Christian Derisaw wants another two weeks or three weeks, he is a franchise player. That would be the right thing to do. You should not push him back at the same time. I mean, can we get, can we get Walter Rouse warming up on the sideline there in the bullpen? I mean, he gave up four pressures, which you're like, well, force, you know, not too bad.

on 20-something dropbacks, that's like having eight pressures in a normal game or seven pressures in a normal game, which is an untenable number. Justin School is a veteran player who's been around, but he was overmatched, and he wasn't overmatched by someone who's actually great at football. That's really concerning going forward here. Yeah, I mean, that was the glaring problem. And, you know, it's one of those things, too, where I'll give Justin maybe, I don't know, I wasn't at practice.

Did CD take all the one reps this week and then be like, hey, I don't. I don't feel like I'm ready to go, right? Like there's a lot of factors that go into that. But we saw glimpses of this in the preseason, right? And you saw glances of this during training camp. More than glimpses, yes. Right? Like Gernard and Van Ginkle, it wasn't dying a slow death.

It was destroy, right? Seek and destroy. And so at one point you are who you are when you're at the age that is just in school. Like we know what we're getting out of him. But what's going to happen now is you've got the rookie in the weak link on one side. That side's going to be tested until Christian Darasaw gets back. Right. they're going to see one thing I didn't think that the Bears did last night,

which surprised me was a bunch of stunts and twists. I really thought that they were going to test this interior, the new guy were going to stunts and twist. I mean, they didn't do that. I would fully expect to see some stunts and twists if Dar esau's not out there to test how well can Justin's school and Donovan Jackson work together on this side when Justin's really struggling just to hold his own in one-on-one matchups. Let's go over to the defensive side of the ball.

I'm going to throw this out there. If Caleb Williams was 5% slower, he's got nine sacks in the game here is a what does that stat means special for you 13 pressures between jvon hargrave and jonathan allen and i know that like allan has been really good he's been really good in training camp i cannot stop watching javon hargrave because he's so huge and he's so fast and some of those pressures just came so quickly i don't know when the last time the vikings two interior D-Linman had 13 pressures. I know, I'm sure Tom Johnson and Linvall, maybe Shreve Floyd and Linvall, but I don't

know if they would have gotten to 13. That's two superstar type performances. I mean, just to kind of put it in context, if you get three or four, you've had a pretty good game. If you get five, six, you've probably had a great game. Seven is like elite. That's like 99th percentile. And Hargrave had seven and Allen had six.

Now, thanks to Caleb Williams hanging on to the football for sure. that was the dream scenario of that interior D-line, and it made a massive difference in the game. Yeah, and the biggest reason for that is, you know, when you have two really good edge rushers, right? A lot of times it's like, hey, we got a slide to the edge rusher. So it's like, hey, shock the three technique and then guard, get your butt out there. When you have guys that can create pass rush from the interior like that, like the Aaron Donald's, the Fletcher Cox is back in his day, the Kenny Clark's when he's playing really well, you can't escape as a guard. real quickly. You need to really sync that guy up, make sure your center's really fit up, and then I go. So that's going to allow guys like Grenard and Van Ginkle to feast on the edges. Like that's really going to make a difference because you can't just bypass that guy and think, hey, he's just going to be one-on-one with the center and the center will be fine.

That's going to be a problem. And so that's just going to continue to bode well for this past rush. And I really thought it allowed Brian Flores to not have to blitz much. He still did. It's a little bit in his DNA, much as like throwing the football is, for Kevin O'Connell, right? But I loved what I saw from those two interior guys of it wasn't fancy. It wasn't manufactured off of stunts and twists. It was true just ass kicking. Like it was just, I am more powerful than you.

I am going. And I really think that the interior of that offensive line for the Bears is good. Drew Dahlman, Jonah Jackson, Joe Thuny, like those are really good players. And they handed it to him multiple times in the pass rush game last night. And it really helped once we able to start putting the pressure on offensively, our defense is built to rush the passer. right like it's built that way it's speed it's fast as quickness and so when we were able to finally flip the switch and get our defense the green light of hey ears back and go that's when you really start to see those guys being true difference makers in the end part of that game 45% of dropbacks for Caleb williams were under pressure in this game a good number is probably like 35 to 38% for a defense so that again is like a 98th percentile type of performance and a lot of those are certainly on Caleb Williams. as a playmaker, but I also think that a lot of it was what this defense is going to do, which

Caleb would drop back and he would look for his first read and he would not see it. And I think it was their goal to, all right, you know, we are going to send some pressures. And they've got here 40% of the time sending at least like one extra guy, which is about how Flores does. And I think he wants five on five matchups. But we're going to make him quickly get to the second, get to the third and stand there and figure it out. And as Caleb Williams last year was doing and once again this year doing, he's not going to get to that second, third read all that often and make the right play.

And that allowed this D-line to just absolutely feast, which is kind of funny because they're playing the exact opposite quarterback next week in Michael Pennix, who gets rid of the ball extremely quickly, hardly ever takes sacks. And it's going to be a totally different challenge. And I promise these numbers will not look like this. They will not have 50% pressure against him but for for this game though i mean they took advantage of the type of player and they just couldn't catch him except for you got to admit when hardgrave cornered him yeah that was kind of amazing he kind of like did like a basketball move like just try it man just try it and he just i don't know i ain't part of that and threw it away uh what what do you want to say about

kaleb william's performance i thought it was really interesting you know starting the game 10 for 10 i was going okay he's turned a corner right he's turned a corner ben jonson his guy him going where he needs to go. But then as it started to deteriorate, as the game continued to go on, I realized what happened. The scripted plays ran out, right? Because every single, I mean, you look at across the league, all the offenses in their first few series, we're looking pretty hot, right? Because those are scripted plays. We know what the defense is going to give us in this formation. We know what we're going to get out of this. This is what we're to go to. And you drill those plays on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, right? You just continue

to get them in. And so when you walk out there and you can just go, oh, I know what I'm doing here, bang i know what i'm doing here bang i know what i'm doing here cool and then all of a sudden okay get to the sideline the defense goes all right here's what they're doing here's our adjustment right and then okay Caleb williams now has to go okay this is what they're doing we have to adjust when the adjustments started to happen the play started to get slower the the brain turned on for him and his processing speed is just not there it's just not there to be able to like you said boom one two right boom one two okay three right it's like this pause where he has to go one okay what is okay two is now that like that half a second or quarter second pause where in his brain he has to think what is the route that is number two not i know what the number two route is is what causes him to hold on to the ball for an extra second which an extra second in the NFL is an eternity for a pass rush and that's where i started to see he just the processing speed up in between the ears is not there the arm talent unbelievable the athlete unbelievable but if you don't have it up between the years as a quarterback in this league you can only get

so far with the intangibles of an athlete when you don't play on schedule. I also think that his accuracy is probably one of the most overrated things about him. And we saw that, like, coming out, it was like, oh, he's got all the tools. He's super accurate. Is he really from a, from a pocket, from a clean pocket? He's actually crazy accurate running 19 miles an hour, right? The throw to Roma Dunezay was disgusting. It was like, running out of bounds, throw you're like, oh, if this is the Caleb, we can get

when he's off schedule and he can be good on schedule. I mean, that's what you draft a guy one, one for. But the on schedule throwing, which is where you need to live at as an NFL quarterback, just isn't there with him. Right. That was like Kerry Wood velocity throw. But then he also has Ben John, I also think Ben Johnson's good at his job. I think Ben Johnson did a great job in this game.

As I'm watching back, some of the tape in this game, I'm like the opportunities are there. Right open. Yeah. I mean, that's, if you're concerned about something for the next matchup, it's that Ben Johnson did have guys wide open and one of those is going to click you know you get a fourth down a guy's running an in breaking route it's wide open i mean that is a 99 out of 100 you need to hit that that's a seven on seven throw and he just airmails it and that happened numerous times and his accuracy on easy throws was quite poor in this game and i don't think it's ever been

particularly great yeah i mean and even to the one achman pointed out and i actually pointed out to to my wife when we were watching when it happened i go he has to get dj more there so much when they have Zakias breaking to the flat and the corners flat-footed facing forward and D.J. Moore runs that slot fade. That ball's got to be gone immediately. But that's where I go back to like he couldn't get off of like completion, completion, completion, and see the field of what's happening with the other 10 players on the field. Right. Like he is so locked in on that my first read is I must get the ball to Zakias and to get the ball out of my hand. He's a like if he sees that, DJ Moore walks into the end zone. Right. He puts it out there. But then again, to your actually point, he threw it out of bounce like ball can't be caught if it's throwing out of bounds man like give it to him and then he throws a hospital ball to dj more and almost gets him killed like that's the other piece of you've thrown these high balls to cole comment and dj more and roma dunezate over the middle these receivers are going to kill you man like they're going to be super upset with you because they don't want to get their ribs exploded they don't want to get their knees blown out like

he's got to get the ball down this ball's the ball soaring on him are going to be a huge problem going forward uh let's uh you know the show brought to you by fan duel i got a question for you based on the fan dual odds here for the nfc north we saw the green bay game we saw the detroit game so it's kind of like well if green bay is just what detroit was and detroit's just what green bay was then you just switch them in positions different jerseys same sort of stuff uh let me give you right now the order on fan duel in terms of the odds green bay is the favorite to win the division Vikings are second. The gap is pretty significant.

Minus 120 to plus 290. Detroit plus 400 in third place. And the Bears, after last night, now plus a thousand, not even close to the other three teams. Is that the correct order? And also, you know, for you non-gambling community here, pretty big gap between Green Bay and the Vikings, not a huge gap between the Vikings and Lions. Do you agree with that layout of projecting the NFC North after this weekend?

I don't. I think that we're pretty quick to ride off a really talented Lions team. Now, I will say they've got some serious issues up front, three new starters, a rookie, a guy in his second year who only started a few games last year in Mahogany, and then Glasgow at center is not Frank Ragnow. It's very apparent. They're going to miss Zeitler and Ragnow in a huge way. But I also think Detroit ran into a bit of a buzzsaw, right? I mean, Packers, just signing Micah Parsons. Like, I'm sure Lambo was on. fire right and then and they focused all year on yeah we were a good team last year but we barely won any games in our division right and so they're so focused all year probably there's a big sign i guarantee you somewhere in the packers locker room that says win the division right like win your divisional games and so i do think Detroit ran into a bit of a buzzsaw they've got some clunker things to figure out from a defensive side and from an offensive side but i do think it's not even close the packers of the odds on favorite i still with the performance that j j jay gave in the first three quarters last night. I'm still going to say that I think the lions are second favorite here and then

the Vikings are much closer. I think the gap between the Vikings and the lions right now is razor thin, right? It's razor thin and that thing's going to move week to week depending off performances. But I do think the battle testedness of the lions is a good thing that's going to help propel them through and they'll figure out their lives here going forward. I think it's a little bit of an overreaction. I think the Packers deserve all the credit that they got for that weapon that they laid on the Detroit Lions. I'm not ready to, as Denny Green said crown him. You know, you want to crown him Vegas Fandul, go ahead and crown it. Well, look, I mean, there's a long way to go. And

Jordan loves performance is going to dictate just as much as that defense. And the Lions, they have good offensive line coaching. If they come along through the season, it's a long year. And with J.J. McCarthy, I think we walk out knowing a lot of things that he's not. He's not a guy who's going to give up. He's not a guy who can't lead a football team. He's not a guy who can't make the throws downfield, but we still don't know what he is fully, and we're going to need a lot longer for that. I would still have Green Bay, Detroit, Minnesota, very, very close stacked together, and then Chicago at plus 1,400,000, like that's just not happening. Like, it's not happening.

Your kicker can't kick out of the back of the end zone. You're giving up three touchdowns in the fourth quarter. Your players are all banged up because you had them tackle each other all summer long. I just, I don't see it with that team having any chance to compete with the big boys. Let me give you one more and then we'll get to love to see it, hate to see it. The Minnesota Vikings on Fandul are four and a half point favorites at home against the Atlanta Falcons. What are you feeling about that line? Do you think that too much, too little, too hot, too cold? Just right. I think a lot of that has the fact that Drake London's probably not playing this week, right? You know, I think Drake London being out is a huge piece of Michael

Pennix's game, right? Bejohn Robinson, I mean, first play from scrimmage just looks like he's on a different planet from an athletic. He's going to be a problem all year long, right? But that offensive line is very good. I think that the Falcons, I mean, they were a kickaway. Young Koo couldn't put it through the uprights. And now they're bringing in someone to compete against him. Like, I think that this game is going to be closer than that piece there. A lot of because what does JJ do? Does he build off of the fourth quarter? Is there a little bit of a ramp up period again because the Falcons are good enough that if they play like they did in the first two quarters, this is not going to be, this is going to be they're up 21 to seven, right?

They're going to put points on because I think Michael Pennick's taking a big jump in the offense for the Atlanta Falcons is so much better than what the Chicago Bears was. Yep, yeah, we'll get into that. I think that their quarterback can execute what their coach asks, if you put Ben Johnson with Michael Pennix, I think he would be incredible. But, you know, you're putting it with a guy who can't see the guys who are wide open. So, but Pennix, if guys are wide open, he's going to make the throws. I thought he had a really, really good game against the very good defense and a tough coach in Todd Bulls. Love to see it, hate to see it.

My love to see it was that the National Football League offered a beautiful potpourri of different things. It was like you had teams melting, you had great games, you had magical comebacks, you had superstar performances, you had drama, you had every, just every bit of magic that the NFL offers in week one. It was a beautiful week of football. Oh, my gosh. I mean, you couldn't have asked for a better week one, right? And I think that this goes back to what I talked about last week. I think the disparity gap between the haves and the have-nots in the NFL has closed, right?

Like, I mean, you've got the Bengals having the Browns drag them into the deep water at the beginning part of the game. You've got the chargers laying it on the defending AFC champs and saying, hey, we're here for a staple there. you've got the Broncos trying to find ways to gut things out in the last minutes like it just shows that these teams the gap from last year to this year I think has closed in a long way and so yeah I'm very excited for what the NFL is going to bring this year what's your love to see it yeah so my love to see it is the fact that I think the aFC West runs through LA like I think that what LA has built what they have done right everyone was talking about hey Omari and Hampton's going to come out here and just run all

over the field and Najee Harris and this. And then all of a sudden they're like, oh, okay, you want to take the runaway? Well, we've got three unbelievable receivers apparently, right? Keenan Allen comes back and just does bet things, right? Catch the ball, be in the right spot, be a security blanket for Justin Herbert. And then you've got, if they can figure out the way to continue to have Quentin do what he did, that's a problem because Ladd McConkey is one of the better slot players in this league too.

So you're talking about Justin Herbert, who for the first beginning part of his career, was just a throw it 60 times a game guy and has the. ability and the talent to do that what do you take away from this offense right do you load the box and say hey gero you're not you're not going these cool run schemes and throwing it on me okay well i'll just let justin herbert be a top five quarterback in this league and throw it all over the yard to these receivers that team is going to be really tough to beat this year my hate to see it is if you're going to schedule a team that you know you can beat and maybe you give them a little money out of your wallets to do it.

Two things are required here. Number one, they have, it has to be safe for you to be on the field with them. For the gophers, like they played my community college, man. That's not okay. That's just not. They're like, well, you know, they were playing their back at, look, you got like four stars backups, okay? Yeah.

What are we doing here? If you're going to schedule the tomato can team, make sure they can keep it within 50 in the half, just so no one gets hurt. on the other team. Those kids are like, I'm missing biology for this. And no, man, this is not okay. They got guys who are going to the NFL. So next time, PJ, let's work on a team that's a little bit closer in talent. And the second part is, um, you have to beat them. And, uh, not all the college teams found ways to beat the tomato cans or at least even like, uh, Clemson letting it be close with Troy, uh, you know, you got to make sure you take care of business with that. So,

kind of hated to see one of those weeks of college football where we get so amped from week one. And then it's like, oh, this is the preseason now starts. It's like how the NASCAR, tune up, tune up games, baby. Right. You get, you get the indie, or not the Indy 500. You get the, Daytona 500. And you're like, man, I love racing. And then they go to somewhere you never heard of it. And, you know, it's like, what? Come on, man. That was college football this week. Yeah. I mean, that is the definition of the haves and the have-nots. I mean, Nebraska laid six. 69 on a team from Akron who hasn't scored a point in 10 quarters and, you know, it's what you're like, yeah, that's what you're supposed to do, right?

I mean, I remember the press conference. I don't know if you saw the Grambling State head coach when he went in earlier in the year or the week there in Plano House City. He's like, well, I think our bands could compete with one another. And he's like, we know what this is. Like, that's the thing. He's like, you know what you're walking into with these. But there also is that fine line of playing it safe, but also not playing it too close to

where you're going to be touched by the sun, right? Where it's one of those things where it's like, hey, let's schedule a North Dakota State, right? Or let's schedule Army, Kansas State. Like, you can't flirt too close with the danger. There's this perfect middle zone where you're like, hey, we want like a seven win FCS team, right? Not a 10 win, not that we want that seven win FCS

or like that middle of the range MAC team, not the upper echelons of those lower ones or else, you know, you flirt too close to the sun. I'll give you one more hate to see it, which is when a player who was really, really good in the National Football League keeps playing and it goes bad, it hurts my, my football soul. When you talk about some of the famous ones in sports, like Emmett Smith playing for the Arizona Cardinals, the Toronto Raptors version of Hakeem Elijah Juan, the Willie May is playing for the Mets, it's always sad. I think that's Russell Wilson over the last three years. I just don't, I don't enjoy it. Watching it on Sunday was painful.

I don't think he should be playing in the NFL anymore unless he just wants to be a backup. It looks sad. He can't get the ball to his wide receivers. He looks flustered constantly in the pocket. He looks kind of afraid a little bit at times in the pocket. He does not want to push the ball into any sort of window. The guy has lost all of his physical tools except for he could still throw the ball hard. And I just don't want to watch any more of it.

Like put in Winston if you don't want to play the dart, at least it'll be fun and hilarious. And Millieck neighbors will get 400 yards a game or something. Like just, just stop doing that. When Brian Dable said, no, he's our quarterback. I'm like, stop, stop. I hate this. He wasn't the answer for the Broncos. He wasn't the answer for the Steelers.

It's not like all of a sudden you're like, well, he's going to come to New York and be the answer. Like I think it needs to be Jackson Dart season in the giant. world right now right put butts in the seats get the first rounder on the field you see see what you have in that room there like i agree with you russell wilson is completely washed unfortunately and i agree you mean you talk about a guy that was at the pinnacle at the top at one point in his career you just it's not fun to watch it's it's a it's a painful process and of course it's happening i feel bad it's happening to the giants who have a very but i thought good defense but you know i'll give you my last hate to see it to his brain is broken oh from

more standpoints than one. Yeah. Not just the concussions thing, but he is throwing bad interceptions. He's not seeing the field. Like, you talk about a guy that has fallen off the cliff and I mean, the concussions probably play a part in this, but to attack about Loa is he's done, man. Like that is a really, really tough thing to watch right now as well. It was.

And it's also like, you know, I have no feelings about the Dolphids organization. Like I'm glad there's a team in Florida. But, I mean, it's tough for teams when they have their window and they miss it. And you just know it's going to be suffering. It was for the Vikings. Like that 2019 team was the last chance they had. And when it went to the other side, it was just suffering for several seasons. And Miami, when they had that season where Tua was healthy and he played so well, that was it.

That was your year. And once you miss it and you try to hold on to that rope and it's being pulled out of your hands, it's just brutal to watch. And they're going to end up with a fired coach. Two is going to be playing quarterback somewhere else next year. That thing is set to implode. Love to see it, though. Us breaking down a football game.

Oh, we're back. Let's go. Jeremiah Seals. A win. A win. We need more wins. More wins. You talk about someone suffering.

We suffered. Like, you and I suffered through some tough times. And like, we're ready to come out on the other end. We're ready to, we're ready to ring the bell. We had to get used to it. with Kevin O'Connell, breaking down wins. And because a lot of the wins would be not ones that you loved. And so at least, at least this one was extremely entertaining and folks will never forget

J.J. McCarthy's first start. Jeremiah Searle, thank you so much, my friend. Absolutely.