Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Is Blake Cashman on his way back? NFL Writer Tyler Dunne talks Vikings, Cashman

Episode Date: November 8, 2024

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Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Purple insider matthew collar here and joining the show tonight tyler dunn of go long has uh just written a very very good piece on blake cashman and now is crossing his fingers we can't see your hands but you're crossing your fingers that uh blake is gonna play this week he has been limited in practice the last two days, so I think that's a very good sign for Blake Cashman getting on the field. Normally you're in Manny Hill's seat, but Manny was busy tonight, but he did submit his five favorite Jaguars of all time, which is something that we will get into, and I would love to see people in the chat also with your favorite Jaguars.

It is a little bit sad, the state of the Jaguars compared to what they once were. But how are you, man? How you feeling? Great to have you on the show here live. You're looking good. You got the mic set up. I'm very proud of you. I've brought you along a little bit on the audio world, and I'm very happy with how this looks and sounds. Man, that means a lot, Matthew Collar, because as you know, I've had my technical difficulties over the years, but I figured, you know what, let's take it up a notch. I trimmed the beard, shaved the head, got a quick workout in, kids are accounted for, we're ready to go because this is serious business. If we're talking Jacksonville Jaguars, I mean,

my mind has been racing all day going back to 96, 97, 98, because you don't, I mean, you can't go Mark Brunel. You can't go Keenan McCartney. Those are the go-tos. We've got to dig deep for that segment later. I've got a great one that's maybe connected to where you did some of your collegiate work, but I won't say it just now. So usually on the show, Manny and I answer questions,

talk about things going on with the team, and then have some bigger angles. So our bigger angle is going to be talking about your piece on Blake Cashman, but you have been compared in the comments to Rocco Baldelli. And if, I mean, you're also every bald guy with a beard. Let's be honest. You're every strength and conditioning coach. Okay.

This I'm not, I'm not making this up. So before I was born, uh, my dad said, and they were trying to figure out names for a boy. It was either going to be Tyler or Rocco. So maybe not too far off. And we have since thrown that in the bucket of potential names for a potential future child, if that ever happens. So you know what? That's an astute listener, viewer here.

Okay. I didn't see that coming. You might as well tell the story. You've probably told it before on the podcast of how you became a bald man and the result. It's a great story, and it involves the Minnesota Vikings. So please tell the story of how you became a bald beard guy. So 2016 Vikings started strong. That was five and oh, right? Sam Bradford looking good, feeling good.

I was at the bleach report at the time. Just started off as a national features writer at BR. And so flew out to Minnesota, wanted to get to know that defense that was just rampaging through offenses. Terrence Newman is a key member of that secondary. So kind of arranged through the excellent PR department there that the Vikings have to chat with, you know, a whole host of players, Harrison Smith, who's still on the team, which is amazing. But Terrence at his locker, you know,

I think I went to shake his hand and while he's shaking, my hand is just looking at me and goes, dude, LIG, let it go. What are you doing? What? And he's like, you know, feel it up my head because I'm hanging on for dear life. I've got strands at that point when I went to the barber, they would just kind of like cut the sides.

And we're just hanging on to the top like it's the last ancient, you know, remains of a great society, as George Costanza once said. So I'm hanging on for dear life. And, you know, you don't really notice it when you're looking at yourself every day that you're bald as hell. I mean, it was it was rough. So he was just reaming my ass out up and down in front of all the players, the media. And he said, look, Tyler, you're from Buffalo, right? I said, yeah, here's what you're going to do when we're done here. When you're done in Minnesota, you're going to fly home. You're going to shave your head.

You're going to meet a nice, good looking girl. She's going to, she's that's all she's going to know. She's going to know shaved head and bearded Tyler done. That's it. And you're going to meet a nice, good looking girl. She's going to, that's all she's going to know. She's going to know shaved head and bearded Tyler Dunn. That's it. And you're going to be fine. He's like, don't be afraid. Let it go. And he, you know, he threw some curse words that I can't repeat here.

So I said, okay, Terrence, that's the nudge I needed. Went home, got myself a, is it wall? W-A-H-L, those big razors. Just shaved it all off and didn't look back. Felt good. Met my now wife. Now we have two children a week later. And Terrence was right.

That's all she's, that's all Gina has ever known. She met a bald man. She's never seen me with hair. She doesn't know what she could have had, right? Who knows what happens if, you know, she's seen the decay. It could have been bad news, but I always credit Terrence Newman for, you know, in a roundabout way, setting me up with my wife and setting up my life for good. Maybe your personality had something to do with. I don't know, but probably this is a better look.

This is a better look than fading on what was on top. So I love that connection, though, between Vikings veteran corner and you meeting your wife. So it's a great story. And if you know Terrence, you can't imagine how funny he would have been doing that. So David wants to know, given the Vikings history with backup quarterbacks, which quarterback do you prefer to see start?

So this is one of the great myths of Vikings lore is because they've lost some notable games to backup quarterbacks. It's one of those things that always terrifies fans when they know that they're going to play a backup quarterback, but this is actually a good backup quarterback. If Mac Jones has to play for the Jacksonville Jaguars, why don't we get into that a little bit? Vikings and Jaguars. It is so much a game that Vikings fans are thinking, just, just win this game. Like, I don't really want to talk about this too much, but I am

fascinated by how the Jaguars have not been able to make anything out of Trevor Lawrence outside of one playoff win where they were down what 28 points or something and came back to beat the chargers but aside from that they have let it slip away and now he is going to be expensive in the future and here they are they've gotten him banged up a number of times because they've never built an offensive line for him and mac jones is likely going to have to start against the vikings they are as down bad as any franchise in the entire NFL. Life happens fast, man. The Jacksonville Jaguars last year at about this time, even a little later into the season,

were eight and three. I am the number one seed in the AFC, right? I mean, it was ugly at times, but there ain't three in the AFC. I mean, the bills are six and six and somebody out in Western York's writing a series on the McDermott problem. Not sure who that is. The chiefs are dealing with all kinds of issues at wide receiver. I mean, it was a conference to be had. And then they played Cincinnati.

I believe it was a Monday night football game. Christian Kirk, you know, tears his groin apart. We talked about it. It just sounds brutal. The feeling that he had that, I think it was the first play of the game, the first drive of the game, that point on completely fell apart. Offense fell apart.

Defense really hit rock bottom. You know, the defensive staff bites the bullet. They're all let go. They bring in a new staff, great mustache on their new coordinator, but usually good mustaches don't all, not always once in a while, they'll lead the great defenses. And it's just been ugly all year. I mean, Great mustache on their new coordinator, but usually good mustaches don't. Not always.

Once in a while, they'll lead the great defenses. And it's just been ugly all year. I mean, I covered the game here in Buffalo, and it was embarrassing. I mean, really. You wanted them to implement a running clock. Jacksonville just couldn't stop anything. So it's a weird team at a weird time, right? One of those teams where you know everybody's going to get fired.

I mean, if you're Doug Peterson, would you rather just get let go now or i mean i mean you want a job i mean you want to finish out the string i i suppose but i don't know what they could really do to keep their employment at this point the wheels are just coming off uh also you could trace back to overthinking the draft when aiden hutchinson was by far the best player and they went with no actually we love this guy's combine and no trevon lawrence or trevon walker is a freak and we're going to develop him over a couple of years he'll be the next daniel hunter which has gotten people into a lot of trouble over the years drafting guys who are unproductive in college,

but have great NFL combines versus Hutchinson who had a great combine and produce like a madman. And then he ends up with the Detroit lions. It just seems that around every corner, there's mistakes from them. And I thought that they did some good things in bringing in someone like Kelvin Ridley last year, but that didn't really work out. Christian Kirk is an okay receiver. They finally look like they've got a number one receiver, but then they don't have two, three, four after Christian Kirk gets hurt. It just, it's never really come together. And I also think too, that when you hire somebody who had success in the past and they go to another place, It feels like it goes one of two ways. It either goes, they reinvent themselves and they're a new man and it's new results. And wow, this guy learned from his first time or it's, oh, he's still trying to do those

things from five years ago. And they don't really work anymore because the NFL has changed. And I feel like that is Doug Peterson. Don't you? You know, I've been fascinated by Doug Peterson because I think that he was what they needed. We're not talking X's and O's. If we're not talking offensive innovation, none of that. Just being the head coach of a football team,

leading a football team, knowing what to say, when to say it. You couldn't really swing to a better coach than Doug Peterson after Urban Meyer. I mean, I spent some time around that team, you know, hearing the old Urban Meyer stories. We obviously know he kicked his own kicker, but Dewey Winger, the safety, said that, you know, they had a players-only meeting at one point, and Urban heard that Dewey referred to him as a rookie head coach

and was just pissed off that he called him a rookie head coach and threatened to cut him over over that so it was really really bad behind the scenes and with Doug Peterson guys coaches love him players love him and they needed that like when they're what were they three and seven at one point and he gave that speech that he looked in the crystal ball they're going to win that they're going to win out it's going to come down to the last game they'll win the division and they'll get in and that's exactly what they did that season so there's a lot of good there but from what I've heard and I want to dig into this a little bit more into the offseason I

I don't think he's really that involved with the offense I'm not sure he ever really has been. I think he really has tried to take that CEO approach and oversee everything. And for better or worse, his hands really aren't dirty with the X's nose. And I think he's going to look back and wish that maybe he was a little more involved. Well, if you have Ben Johnson calling those shots and the Lions offensive line, then maybe you can do that and be Dan Campbell. But if it's's is it still press taylor who's like his guy kind of forever and always ends up under the microscope it feels like everywhere he goes i like press too i really do yeah but but the offensive line it's bad the

offensive line is another big part of it though i mean they just traded away their left tackle so they're not getting better there they've never really built it around Lawrence. And I think he has some flaws there as a quarterback that have, that have to have better weapons that have to have better offensive line. And then there's the realistic possibility that he might just not be that great. He might just be an inconsistent middling quarterback that can never really escape this and trying to figure out what's what there is an impossible task so when people jump in the comments that are like this vikings team they're not that great they're kind of a mess the gm missed a missed a pick please look at the jaguars this week and the titans next week that's what you could be uh If you guys got questions for Tyler Dunn, go along td.com.

We'll take you to his great piece on Blake Cashman that I want to get to. Through the Storm, Blake Cashman is the Minnesota Vikings maniac in the middle. And I really love this headline because I think when you and I were having breakfast when you were here doing this story, I think I probably used this word, like that Blake Cashman is a maniac. And I think that the defense is so much different without him, not just because he's the guy that calls it, but he also plays with his hair on fire. He plays with reckless abandon, which I think has gotten him hurt a few times,

but it's also so valuable. You were talking about going through his all 22 and looking for different plays he made. I came up with a bunch of them right away. It's like this play against San Francisco, this blitz, this, I mean, it can't be overstated how much they've missed him these last couple of weeks. And if you're looking for a, and you made this point as well. I mean, if you're looking for a middle linebacker, that's going to be an extension of your defensive coordinator who wants to unleash blitzers at angles.

I think I wrote that other coordinators are only thinking about if they're, you know, drunk. You want somebody who is going to be throwing his body in harm's way without thinking twice. And, man, that's been Blake Cashman his entire life. I mean, we kind of jump all over in the story, but I mean, this is somebody in high school who he's thinking about not even playing in college at all.

Like he had some D2 interest, but I mean, he was injured all throughout high school, right? Surprise, surprise, stress fracture in the back with the way he's playing, all this stuff. But eventually does get that shot at the University of Minnesota. I'm sure a lot of viewers know his story, but it took him like one week to realize,

yeah, I belong in the Big Ten. I'm athletic enough. I'm physical enough. I got the temperament, and I just think that everything he went through with the Jets, and we can get into it, but I mean, what a cluster, you know, what of a franchise the Jets are. I feel like every time I catch up with a player that has any connection to the Jets, they have a story related to the stuff that Blake Cashman talks about. I mean, related to the training staff, not even knowing you're on injured reserve. So they're like pushing the hell out of you in your rehab, right? Related to, oh, you know, the first year he gets thrown on IR with

an injury he played, he played through in college or he came back from in college. So nobody's on the same page. It's a mess. The second year of COVID when he is on IR in 2021, they don't even, they don't even want him in the building. Anybody that's on injured reserve, just for the fear of COVID, just the fear that you might get it and you might give it to somebody else. It's you can only come in the building after everybody's done working out, get your stuff done and get the hell out, which leads to isolation, which leads to more anger. And he got to a really, really bad place where, yeah, he almost stormed out of the building and almost quit football at one point as a New York Jet. So I think going through all of that, he gets to the Houston Texans. He gets a real shot with D'Amico Ryans.

I mean, they win the division. He's a big reason why. He gets the big contract with the Vikings. He gets with Brian Flores, and it's just a match made in heaven. I mean, you've got a coach who wants to play violently, who wants to blitz, who wants to take chances, and this is a player who brings all of that to life. And I don't know, to take a big picture, man,

I mean, we've talked to so many players in both of our careers. It always crystallizes just how many guys just get lost in the sauce? How many guys just are really, really talented, but they disappear because they're with a dysfunctional franchise or they get hurt, they don't get the opportunity. Everything has to match up perfectly. And I think it really has for Blake in Minnesota. This is something that Kevin O'Connell understood when he got to Minnesota

that I think not all coaches understand. The training room is one of the most important places for players. They have to trust the training staff. If you have a smart training staff, they'll communicate with players, keep everybody on the same page, keep the coach on the same page, not lie to players, push players back too early. Don't tell them the truth about what their injuries are. I feel like there's a lot of belief and an organization and its culture that starts there. And O'Connell knows that from being a player.

And I think that that's made a big difference with the Vikings in general, from a lot of other teams that you hear about where players will say, Hey, get your own treatment, man. Do not be in that room. And if you're in that room, the coach is going to find out. And the GM doesn't like guys who are in that room and they're going to cut you that I've heard of cultures like that before, that it could be really, really bad and really destructive and make players not want to stay in places or hurt their careers long-term when they get pushed back out there from Cashman though, grinding through, he finally gets his chance in Houston to show off what he can do. And Jared says,

my perception of Cashman is a roaming coverage guy who's a smart guy and a decent tackler, not someone who's rushing the passer. But that's the thing is even with Houston, they didn't have him rush the passer a lot. When he did it, he was good at it. He was actually good at it with the gophers, but then he comes here with Flores. He's like, okay, I like this because Cashman is actually a huge linebacker by today's standards. So he's a little bit of an in-between. He's not quite an edge rusher, but he's not quite one of those undersized linebackers that you see that are basically the old school safeties. So he can, he can really do everything.

I think that's been what I've been most impressed with Blake Cashman is if you ask him to blitz, he's going to get there. If you ask him to drop back in coverage, he covers so much space and he's about as high of an IQ guy as I've come across. Then the amount that they put on his plate to change coverages, to change alignments, to read quarterbacks, to be paying attention to when that clock is ticking down and when he can make his last adjustment. It's a cat and mouse game that he's played with quarterbacks that every time he's been out there, the Vikings have won that

cat and mouse game. I wonder where you found out that all that kind of comes from, from him, because he, like you said, he didn't get much of a chance at all with the New York jets and then has become this, I think, premier player top 10 by PFF at his position. Yeah, I think he's played all of the linebacker spots through all of his injuries with the Jets. They had him replacing ZJ Mosley at one point in the middle. They had him starting on the weak side at one point. He's played the Sam, so he has kind of had experience at all these different spots, even if you didn't see it

in the games much, he had to prepare for that opportunity and then he would get hurt. I mean, it's crazy. I lost track of how many times he hurt his hamstring, hurt his groin. It was just one after another and another and another. And he learned with the Texans why he just was, he wasn't stretching enough. I mean, he thought he'd be overdoing it if he stretched too much. And the Texans are like, no, no, no, you're a tense runner you're you know you're not a loose track runner you're so tense and they studied it they made it really a science and figured out how he's suffering these injuries and I know he had the turf toe not exactly uh what he was dealing with with the Jets but he's really confident that he's in a good place with all that but in terms of

the intelligence I think it's playing all those different positions. And when they signed him, Brian Flores didn't immediately slap the green dot on his helmet. According to Cashman, he indicated like, look, he Flores challenged him. Like he basically said,

okay, OTA OTAs, mini camp training camp proved to me that you can be this guy. And he's somebody that's always kind of loved that challenge. And so I think that he took that on head on but also he's the first to admit he's got a lot of help I mean Harrison Phillips is brilliant on the defensive line he thinks he really could have been a starting NFL center if he wanted to he's that smart on the back end you've got a future hall of famer in Harrison Smith who's making all those calls and a lot of these defensive players

I mean they they played together before. Think about how many Texans are on this team from Shaquille Griffin to Blake Cashman, Jonathan Grenard. I think, and Stefan Gilmore has been with Flores in new England. So you've got a lot of different layers of familiarity to where season starts and they're on the same page in a way most defenses aren't with so many new pieces and a coordinator like this yeah and it's uh really built around the intelligence of the players i think because they give them so much latitude to make all these changes and they didn't use quite

as much against the indianapolis colts which was interesting to me i talked with harrison phillips for a story that i did for today about how they more have played kind of straight up against the Colts because they didn't want to be moving too much and just get shoved off the ball. So it was a little less complicated, but I think against, you know, potentially a backup quarterback in Mac Jones, they could cause a lot of havoc and confusion if they do get Cashman back, which it seems like it's tracking that way. The fact that he was out there for warmups, both the last two days limited in practice today,

which I think is a good sign for him. That turf toe is just kind of a bad luck type of thing. David says his intelligence, anticipation, and instincts are old time quasi neck roll level. I do think of him as one of those guys, like the Hardy Nickerson's of the world. They used to have the linebackers that could do everything and they would be the centerpiece of the defense. We've kind of seen that go by a little bit, but I think Cashman really is that guy. How I want to know though, and feel free to jump in the comments, ask Tyler and myself, any questions you got Vikings, NFL, whatever's on your mind. I want to know though, and feel free to jump in the comments, ask Tyler and myself, any questions you got Vikings, NFL, whatever's on your mind. I want to know though, beyond Cashman, you've seen this defense operate.

You talk to people in the Vikings locker room about this. How good do you think it is? Because it's kind of going back and forth today for an episode that's going to air tomorrow with Andrew Kramer, the Star Tribune about how good we think the defense really is. It has its flaws. It can be beat and we've seen that it can be beat, but we've also seen it take a sledgehammer to teams that aren't as good. And then also slow down some teams that are good, like the Texans and like the 49ers when they have been at their full group of players how good do you think that they can be boy that Detroit game Cashman wasn't out there so I mean

there's a major factor um but you can't just say you know one player's out everything should change that much but I thought it was telling that Jared Goff in his press conference after the game and granted this is a quarterback like, like most quarterbacks. It doesn't say a hell of a lot. He was asked about Flores, his defense, the Vikings and all the different stunts and pressures and simulated

pressures. And he just kind of smiled and was like, yeah, we were, we were prepared for, for all that stuff. And they looked like they were prepared for all that stuff. That,

that was shocking to me. I, even without cash, when I thought the Vikings would force a turnover, create a little confusion, a little havoc. I mean, they did have a turnover. But, like, just there was no detour from the calm and composure that Jared Goff has had all season long.

I think he's the MVP of the league. And so that is troubling. Now, Cashman should help, should help change that. And you're going to get that team again. You might even get him a third time, but I think that they are the best defense in the league for the simple fact that it's, it's a league that's rigged toward the offense.

We all know that every game makes us want to throw a remote directly through the TV with 30 flags and the bills jets game. Some of these games are unwatchable. And just speaking to a ton of guys on that defense, and so we'll have another story I'd go along over the next couple days getting into this a little bit, but I just feel like they don't give a damn. They're going to play fast. They're going to play violent, and they're going to force the officials

to throw that flag 30 times. And I love that, and I love the confusion. And I think if you're going to force the officials to throw that flag 30 times. And I just, I love that. And I love the confusion. And I think if you're going to win in January, you better have an element of confusion. You better be aggressive. And maybe it's a product of living here in Buffalo and seeing Sean McDermott's Bills defense in January when they're really, really good in the regular season.

I mean, it's a good defense. Look at the numbers. They're always really good. But you get against Mahomes but you get against my homes. You get against Joe burrow and the best quarterbacks in the NFL. And if you just sit back and try to keep everything underneath you and play conservatively and force teams to go 13, 14 plays in a drive,

they're going to pick you apart. I mean, they're going to make you pay. I think you have to be aggressive. I think you have to take a chance. And we know the Vikings are going to take that chance. So we'll see if anything's different against golf next time. Yeah.

So the thing about the Viking schedule is that the next time we really get to find out test wise is in December against maybe Arizona. I mean, Arizona is very hot and cold as far as their offense, December 8th against a Kirk cousins led Atlanta Falcons, but it's really, I mean, they're a good offense. Atlanta is a very good offense. They have a lot of weapons and they could beat the Vikings defense because they have so many good players. That's really been the tendency Puka Nakua, Amin Ross, St. Brown, Jameer Gibbs, uh, Kyron Williams is a good players. That's really been the tendency. Puka Nakua, Amin Ross St. Brown, Jameer Gibbs, Kyron Williams is a good player. It's not like the Indianapolis Colts have that level. I mean,

especially with Joe Flacco throwing the football, they did do a good job shutting down the run and ranked number one in terms of rushing yards allowed. So that's big for them. If they can stop the run, then they can deal with people throwing underneath passes and things like that. But that aggression, it is interesting to talk about whether it's a playoff type of defense or not, because it does have some flaws that I don't think can be corrected. One of them is they can't really play man-to-man coverage with their older corners very much. Like Steph Stefan Gilmore can't really press dudes like he used to. So they play a lot of zone. They give up a lot in the middle of the field

and kind of say, you sort it out, figure it out with our blitzes, but they don't have anybody outside of Jonathan Grenard. That's just a line them up, go get the quarterback type of guy. Like I think of the bills is having the same problem. They don't have Bruce Smith or Chris Jones for Kansas city. Who's always been that guy. The Vikings have Granardi's top in the league of pressures, but they don't have anybody else. That's just a lineup. Go beat your guy, cause a game wrecking play.

And I wonder if the teams that they play that are better in the playoffs will have better answers with their personnel for the blitzes. Like how much can you trick and confuse? The answer was not very much against Jared Goff and Matthew Stafford, but the answer was a lot versus less experienced quarterbacks, especially at us bank stadium. Yeah. When, when Blake Cashman was, was first thrown into this defense and he's learning it, lot versus less experienced quarterbacks, especially at U.S. Bank Stadium. Yeah, when Blake Cashman was first thrown into this defense and he's learning it and he's on the field and Brian Flores is breaking it down, he was really confused on one play. He's like, what? All right, so who has this wide open receiver on the far side of the field?

And Flores told him, don't worry about that guy. We don't care about him at all. The quarterback isn't't gonna have time to look over there because the pressure is gonna beat his face and i love the bravado i love the swagger and you can get a feeding frenzy going i'm thinking of that first half against green bay right i mean it's 28 nothing before you blink there's gonna be smart quarterbacks and smart coaches. I would assume that might be able to take advantage of that opportunity from time to time. We'll see, you know,

I mean, I, I like living that way though. I would rather have a coordinator on a contender who's going to roll the dice. And like I said, I've just seen what sitting back gets you. The corner thing is interesting, though.

I didn't really know that. I haven't covered Gilmore for so many years, back to Buffalo here. He's another potential Hall of Famer. I mean, you really look at his career, it's amazing. But like any corner, you get older, you just can't stick guys man-to-man, and that could limit you pressure wise, or at least, you know,

add a, add a little worrisome wrinkle there for Flores. It's we're in a bit of a weird spot here because the next couple of weeks they play against probably Mac Jones, maybe we'll Levis, if not Mason Rudolph, and then Caleb Williams, who is new to the league.

And none of these guys should have any chance against Brian Flores. They just shouldn't based on who the Vikings have and how much confusion they can throw at them. So as we go along, the numbers are going to be good and probably the performances, some of them will be great and will just blow away the other team, kind of similar to how they shut out the Raiders last year when we don't even see shutouts in the NFL anymore.

But then trying to say, how is this going to be different? Because I don't know how you feel. I feel like the gap between good and bad has never been wider in the NFL between the best teams and the worst teams. And I look at even Indianapolis last week and I thought to myself watching the game this team has wins in the nfl this year they're bad were they were all their

wins against you know teams in the afc south it's really pathetic so when you're trying to evaluate all right okay you beat you know mason rudolph or something, or you beat Mac Jones and you slow him down, or you slow down a rookie quarterback, how is that really going to look? And I don't think we're going to have the answer. And the answer also might depend on their health. They just so badly need to be healthy on defense because the next layer down,

even when Cashman has been out, has not been perfect. How do you compare the Vikings in the NFC to the second tier of teams behind Detroit? Detroit's in a tier of its own. They're going to be there for me until proven. Otherwise I've been accused of wearing this blue hat to cause of lions bias, but then they keep winning. So I don't know what, I don't even know why it's just the blue hat honestly came up as, so you must love the Lions. No, I just think that they're winning more than other teams, but the Washington's, the Phillies, the San Francisco's hanging around, the Rams are getting some guys back and can

be dangerous. Where do you put the Vikings in that mix? And just to your first point too, Matt, a lot of bad teams, a lot of bad football, and there is something to that. And I'll be getting into this more in that story I referenced earlier, but Stephon Gilmore, we were catching up in the locker room, and he said, he used those words, there's a lot of bad football because there's a lot of frankly,

soft coaching, you know, and you've got a deal with a different athlete in 2024, right? You can't go full junction boys on these guys who have got NIA, NIL deals at 18, 19 years old. Like they don't be told,

but if you can thread that needle and coach hard and hold guys accountable, I think that that's a virtue. It's going to stand out in today's football. So the Vikings have something there that could help them in that group of teams that were referenced. I don't know how you sort it out. I mean, I'm with you. I think the Lions are in a class of their own right now.

They've proven they went into Lambeau Field and just beat the snot out of Green Bay. It wasn't as close as that score looked. So it's Detroit, and who's next? I would say Minnesota. I mean, that game was a toss-up. Now, Minnesota was a lot healthier than Detroit in that game, and that would concern you if you're a Lions fan like Matt here, right? If you're a big Lions diehard, you'd be concerned about these injuries

piling up. But I think the fact that Minnesota's healthier and getting guys back, TJ Hawkinson, Blake Cashman, like they're right there. But I was around the commanders too. They believe. I mean, this is – I know Houston is that comparison that comes to mind right away because of what CJ Stroud did and what Jaden Daniels is doing right now.

I don't know. I feel like they might be able to go further than Houston because Daniels is that much more dynamic with his athleticism and his running ability. They've got a really good coaching staff on that side of the ball, from Kingsbury to Anthony Lynn to what about David Blau? Lions, here I am thinking you were, you cover the lions,

but he, he was quarterback, but he was there too. He was a Viking. Yep. So they've got a lot of young, innovative and experienced minds on that side of the ball. And I think the defense is only going to get better.

I mean, if, if that's your head coach, if you've got Dan Quinn, I know that they had a rough September, but you know, like the Vikings have a good mix of young and old. They did sign some guys, Bobby Wagner, but, uh, I feel like the commanders, I would put them maybe a notch below Minnesota, but that's probably where I would go next. Yeah. That's an interesting discussion between like, is there separation between the Vikings and

commanders Vikings and Packers? The Vikings were up way up on the Packers and let them come back in garbage time, but outplayed them significantly when they went head to head. Jordan love was banged up in that game. That might be a reality of Jordan love all season long though. Also, by the way, I bought this hat. It's kind of a very bright, dark blue, if that makes any sense, because I oftentimes hit the golf ball into the other fairway when I'm driving off the tee. And I wanted a hat that people could see when I'm on the golf course. That is why I bought this

bright kind of looking hat. Uh, anyway, just don't golf. There you go. Just don't golf. Well, I, you know, that's, that's what I do in the summer. I, what else am I going to do other than to rank quarterbacks on the show, which everybody does through the entire month of July. But maybe the separating factor is just that they have a rookie quarterback and rookies are up and down. But then when you think about Jaden Daniels, the guy's not really a rookie. When you look at how old he is, the number of football games he played before coming into the NFL, he just has a maturity that we haven't

really seen. I think what the Vikings have that everybody else is wishing for is the weapons on offense. And that is what, when you go into a playoff game, no matter who you are playing, I think Atlanta would try to make a case, but it's not this, it's not best receiver in the league. It's not top three tight end. It's not top five running back rising star. I think still Jordan Addison. I just don't know that there's any other team outside of Detroit that can go into a game and say, all right, we can go back and forth with you with the number of weapons we have. And that's the Vikings edge for me. We haven't even talked about Cam Robinson to, um, you know, Bob, Bob, Bob McGinn breaks the film down for us here at go

along. He's covered the NFL since 1979. I think he's really innovated, invented film review. He really went deep on Robinson this week and was really impressed. Like, you know, Bob, he's going to be critical, very critical. And he thought that he couldn't believe that he played that well that soon, was engaged. I mean, you saw him out there after some of these first downs, you know, very demonstrative.

Think about him. You're on this team where everybody's going to get fired, you're losing every week, and now you're on a Super Bowl contender. I would think, like, spiritually that would be a great thing. So that was the injury that could sink a season. I mean, the Giants can barely function on offense without Andrew Thomas, and it was troubling to see what the Vikings were able to do without Christian Derusaw when he went down. So to bring him in, even if he's serviceable and you can keep this thing moving to your point, there's weapons everywhere.

Yeah. The Cam Robinson game can't be understated either, because when we talk about like the trade deadline, one thing that always comes up is, well, like how fast can this guy get into the offense? I mean, he's just going to have to come to a new building and that has to be a huge challenge, even for a left tackle where it's kind of you versus the other guy. And he came in to play his butt off. He was good in the run, which he hasn't always been in Jacksonville. And I think about this for Vikings players, when we've discussed Kevin O'Connell and the environment he creates, and I like to call it environment more than culture because culture is just such a cliche that it just means nothing at this point. It's really environment. He played a motivated football game. I've got to think for

himself. Well, if he plays great and he's in the playoffs, he's going to get a big contract. But also, he's been playing with this bad franchise for so long that you get here and go, all right, we've got a chance to actually do something. That has to be new life breathed into this man, I would think. I sure would think so. I mean, as a human game, we want to view these players through spreadsheets and all 22s. But what's going on between the ears those other six days of the week, right? I mean, when the alarm blares at 5 or 6 a.m. and you got to go to work, are you going to be pissed and miserable and dreading your existence like players were for Mike Zimmer? Or are you going to be excited to go to work for Kevin O'Connell and the Super Bowl contender?

All of that stuff matters, and this team has gotten it from day one. So you do a fair amount of Packers coverage at go long because you are a former Packers beat reporter. How good is that team? I'm having trouble figuring it out. I think they have a much better defensive system, and they have some weapons that are dangerous. No one's just a Jefferson, but Jane Reed's a pretty good weapon for them. They run the ball well, they're coached well,

but if Jordan Love cannot be on the field enough at a hundred percent to operate the way that he needs to play, I don't know how much progress he's going to make in his career from where he is, which is a very good quarterback. In any game, the Vikings go in against Jordan Love, you know, he can make some absurd throws and you know that he could beat you. But at the same time, they started lumping Aaron Rodgers, Brett Favre, Jordan Love, and I don't think it's quite that. Yes, you are partially responsible. I don't think that's –

Where's Drew? Get Drew on here. That's just not fair. That's just – I know Drew McGarry was annoyed at you for that. I don't think that's fair to Jordan Love to just ask somebody to be as good as those guys. But where do you think they're at in comparison to the Vikings? You know, I think they're thrilled to be 6-3 at the bye.

Right? 6-3? Mm-hmm. Yeah, 6-3. Because this could have been a Miami Dolphins situation. Your quarterback goes down. You don't have a backup plan. You lose three games, and your season just gets away from you before the midway point.

I mean, really. I mean, they traded for Malik Willis last minute because they knew Sean Clifford wasn't any good. And you've got to be so impressed with what he's been able to do. Granted, they're not throwing the ball 30, 40 times all over the field with Malik Willis. They're running it with Josh Jacobs, and they're trying to play downhill, and they're playing some inferior teams.

They're playing some of those teams that the Vikings are going to beat, Stan. So things kind of matched up pretty good for green Bay there. But I think number one, they're, they're happy to be where they're at because of all of these other issues. I mean, Jordan love the groin, the first,

the knee and then the groin. And then how much is that affecting this play? He's making a lot of the mistakes that his private quarterbacks coach, Steve Calhoun got into this off season. When we chatted thrown off the back foot, like fade awayaway jump shots, Kobe Bryant, Michael Jordan style. It looks fun on the highlight reel when you complete the pass

and score the touchdown, but you can't sustain that game to game to game to game. I mean, you've got to keep it simple, compact, and climb the pocket. You haven't really seen that. So that's a problem. The defense, I think, is encouraging overall. I mean, they have played a lot better, but the pass rush has just kind of been eh. Rashawn Gary hasn't really given you much, and he's a $96 million man. You got to get more out of him, and he was kind of a project coming out of Michigan to begin with. So I think there are some, some real problems, real concerns for the Packers,

but I think that would get, what gives them a lot of hope too, is at this point last year, it looked like their season was over. I mean, they, they did look like that Dolphins team and they were, they traded Rasul Douglas to Buffalo for, for a pick. They were gently kind of thinking of 2024 and 2023. So maybe Jordan Love is a quarterback who just figures stuff out and that's how he's described by coaches by teammates by everybody who knows him he's not going to make the same mistake twice so you saw it last year I think you're going to see it this year they're not necessarily Justin Jefferson TJ Hawkins and Jordan Addison but they do have a ton of weapons that they've drafted and they've kind of brought up with Jordan Love it's a three-team race and I

mean that's why the NFC North is the best division of football it ain't even close it is uh it feels like it's setting up for the end of december week 17 those two teams for playoff position we'll see how that goes but i know vikings fans always kind of looking over at their neighbor in green bay so before you go because you got kids to put to bed which is why we started a little bit earlier than I usually start here. Thank you. I appreciate it. Yes.

No problem. And Eastern time is just terrible and should be. I'm surprised not have made an appearance by the way. We we've actually been good there. Uh, Manny Hill, who normally hosts this, uh,

co-host the show on Thursday night submitted to me. Cause he had another engagement this evening, his top five favorite Jaguars. Anytime the Vikings play an out of division team he does his five favorite players from their team's history and I'm gonna I'm gonna read the list and then you can give uh be yours outside of his list number five for him Jimmy Smith and and keep in mind Manny likes to go chalk and then throw in someone random. So Jimmy Smith, one of the greatest receivers of all time, should be in the Hall of Fame. But I wonder if off-field stuff a little bit keeps him out of it.

Fred Taylor at running back for him. David Garrard, he listed as one of his favorite players. That was the one I was surprised by. I don't know how many people think Jaguars and think Garrard because he was kind of game manager ish for them when they had a great running game and great weapons. They want to play off game against Pittsburgh with him. Keenan McArdle, who is here number two and is the premier wide receivers coach in the entire NFL. I think with the way that he's worked with guys and Mark Brunel, number one, like I said, Manny likes to go chalk a lot with his top five lists.

So outside of those very, come on, man, I know Manny's very obvious favorite Jaguars, who would be on your list? So one name that comes to mind, these aren't in any order. I just remember being a kid and starting a fantasy football league at like 11

years old. So right around the time, the Jags started to exist. And I remember my brother was in our league. So we, you know, five, six, five, six, you know, just family league. I think it was called the TFL because I got, I just called it the Tyler football league, you know, as a little kid. And it's still the TFL to this day. 14 teams, all family. It's a lot of fun.

I swindled my brother really bad. I just absolutely destroyed him in a trade. And I knew it at the time. And he's just a little kid. He's probably eight or nine years old at the time. I traded him James Stewart for LaDainian Tomlinson. So let's throw James Stewart on the list. He's not really a kind of a bland name. Stewart for LaDainian Tomlinson. So let's throw James Stewart on the list. And you know, he's not really a,

you know, kind of a, kind of a bland name. Right. But I do have a good one to come back from, from that nature on means. Oh yes. See,

there is a pre Jaguars are great Jaguars, which is Desmond Howard. The trial means James Stewart, Steve Berline was their quarterback before Mark Brunel went in there. And that's a list. That is a very, them in the original Panthers are a very funny collection of players. The Panthers had all those old bills guys like Pete Metz, a Lars and the Jaguars, the Jaguars had Andre rising for a little bit.

It was just as such a random, like if you go to Madden and add all the free agents to your team, that's what they were like at first. And then those guys got whittled away, and they ended up with the really good team. I would throw in a Syracuse guy for you, which would be... Donovan Darius, right? Donovan Darius, yeah.

The headhunting safety, got a lot of picks. How about John Henderson? An absolute monster in the middle. They were also on it. John, the, the, the famous clip, right? Somebody just smacks him in the face before a game. Oh yeah. Right. That was insane. Everybody should find that clip. It will get you right in the morning. Marcus, you got Marcus Stroud. You got Tony Brony brackens another great jaguar and byron left which it didn't work out but i always wanted byron left which to be good

he had that super long throwing motion that everybody could just jump passes because of uh but he had a lot of heart that thing with uh marshall where he stayed in the game with the broken ankle or whatever always was rooting for uh byron leftwich so when i used to get the new man game or even uh espn 2k5 as a as a my must have been a teenager i would go and i would get day uh i would go get byron leftwich and i'm like i'm gonna i'm gonna make him a great quarterback it didn't work out in real life. Maurice Jones drew comes up as well. One of the great speedy running backs of all time. They've got a great history. It's a really pathetic sack of existence now, but they had, they had a lot of great players through the day.

Can I throw one more name out there? A deep cut. You can always love it. La Brandon Tofield. One of the greatest NFL names. La Brandon Tofield. And we didn't mention Tony Buscelli, Hall of Famer, who still to this day argues with Bruce Smith about whether he shut him down in a playoff game. They're still mad at each other about that. Because it helped Tony Buscelli

become a hall of famer that he played so well in Jim Kelly's last game and Mike Hollis made a long field goal to uh win that one but Tony Buscelli yep that was one of the things that put him on the map and Bruce Smith is still like you didn't shut me down I love it I love it I love it when they hold on to those grudges it's it's it's, it's amazing. Football's made the best sport on earth. You know, here's 30 years later. I was talking to Bruce Smith about that a couple of years ago and it drove him nuts.

Like it's like, dude, you have more sex than anybody in NFL history, Bruce. Like who cares? I know that's yeah. It's a great story. Well,

uh, speaking of great stories, I dropped yours in the chat, uh, about Blake Cashman. You call him a maniac. That's perfect great story. Well, uh, speaking of great stories, I dropped yours in the chat, uh, about Blake Cashman. You call him a maniac. That's perfect for him. So go long td.com,

go check it out or use the link that I put in the chat. Um, Tyler done. One of my favorite people. Great to see you when you were out here and maybe we'll see you again around playoff time. If you got a trip to, uh,

come out here. So thanks so much, man. And, really appreciate you coming a trip to uh come out here so thanks so much man and i really appreciate you coming on pleasure is all here matt thanks so much as always for for having me inspiring me you know once upon a time with this whole substack thing you built up uh quite an empire that uh is the envy of beat writers across the country so it's an honor well and i am uh maybe looking at that bald head thinking I'm either going to become a hat guy or I'm, you know, losing a little bit there myself. We'll see. Maybe you'll be my inspiration there. I can have Terrence give you a pep talk. It could work.

I don't know. I can't grow a beard. Anyway, well, we'll talk soon. And thanks so much, Tyler. Hey, thank you. I'm going to hang around and continue to answer questions, comments, thoughts, Vikings, Jaguars. But again, make sure you go check out that awesome story by Tyler Dunn on Blake Cashman. I know that when he was here in Minnesota, he had dinner with Blake. They had a long conversation, took him through his whole story. It's really, really great. So make sure you check that out. So what's on everybody's mind? The Vikings are mostly healthy. If Blake Cashman comes back, they have a game that everyone just expects them to win. And now they might be facing it looks a lot like they're going to be facing off with the

uh bust quarterback mac jones in jacksonville which makes this even more of a you absolutely have to win this game and each week when i have done my the picks with manny for the rest of the season i've always made him do a letdown game, but this one seems far-fetched to be a letdown game. Before I get to questions, comments, and thoughts, we got a new message from US Cellular here, folks. I know you enjoy those. Gifting is hard, but here's a hint.

Give the gift of connection from US Cellular. If you're not sure what that means, well, here's a slightly more specific hint. You can choose four free phones and get four lines for $90 a month from U.S. Cellular. Your family wants new phones. How do I know? They told us. The good news is that compared to wrapping presents, you're great at taking hints. So take a hint and get four free phones and four lines for $90 a month from U.S. Cellular built for us. And also would take a fantasy question if anybody has one. So I can give our shout out to Underdog Fantasy.

I did take a look at some of the hires and lowers, which we can go through if you like as well. Scott says Super Bowl get together in New Orleans with Bills and Vikings. It has to be, right? Not it has to be Bills and Vikings in the Super Bowl, but in order for either one of those franchises to actually win the Super Bowl, it would have to be against somebody random, somebody bizarre, something like that, right? Two teams that have never won it. It can't just be normal. It can't just be a regular Super Bowl where the Vikings or Bills go up against someone good and then beat them. It has to be a battle for we get sucked into a black hole because one of these franchises wins a Super Bowl.

Jared says, I watched a lot of Davidrard as a kid growing up in the south all the afc south games would be on i saw all the jonathan grenard era i'm sorry david gerrard not jonathan grenard era and all the shab era in houston yeah i mean those were at least uh competent and fun teams. When you're talking about Gerard and Matt Schaub, I always wonder if Houston had a better quarterback because they had so many great weapons with Andre Johnson and with Arian Foster and a great coach in Gary Kubiak.

And if Matt Schaub was raised up but never could quite get them over the top, and the one year they had their best team, he got hurt, tj yates had to go in and play quarterback in the playoffs i always made the comparison of the kirk vikings to those houston texans where they were fun and they played a lot of fun games and put up big numbers but were never quite enough to be great but it really shows when you have an all-time great wide receiver, the type of level that you can push your quarterback to. Jared says, have any of your best ball teams worked out decently?

You mean best ball teams from underdog fantasy, the easiest place to play fantasy sports, and also the fastest growing app in the industry where you can sign up with the code purple to claim your special pick and first time deposit offer up to $1,000 in bonus cash must be 18 or older terms apply concerned with your play call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit ncp.org and we always appreciate underdog fantasy sponsoring the show uh to your question not really really, no. This is my first year playing fantasy football in a really long time. Just like Tyler was talking about being in a family league,

I was in leagues with friends. We would go to Yahoo or ESPN and just do a draft and then go through the season and somebody would be the commissioner and it would be a lot of fun, but I didn't put work into it, research into it to try to really compete. I thought I'm going to dive in. I'm going to do my best. I'm going to take my best shot and see what happens. But unfortunately, I haven't done all that good. My understanding is though, as the season goes along, you still have chances if you get hot at the end of the year.

So maybe that'll be the case for me. I can't really identify what exactly I did that didn't work out because there are people who are consistently good at fantasy. I also think who could ever predict this leak? How would you ever figure out what certain guys are going to do uh in a season and you know i don't know i've always struggled with that um so i would go with players who were a little more predictable but a lot of times those players are drafted high or they get banged up because they're older and it's just it's difficult difficult. So, uh, I will take, I'll take some of my L's here

and next time maybe I need to do the fantasy show, uh, more in the lead up to be better at, uh, my best ball drafting. We'll see. We'll see if any of them get hot and work out. Uh, Scott says Mac Jones should make all of us pause before we want to appoint McCarthy as a franchise quarterback. I don't really see the similarity. I mean, the thing that you just can't overstate is how much the situation impacts the quarterback. When you're talking about Mac Jones, I don't see the similarity between JJ McCarthy. In fact, they couldn't really be farther away. Mack Jones was a limited quarterback in terms of his physical ability, limited with his arm strength, limited with his scrambling ability, actually has no scrambling ability, and played for a great team that threw the ball all the time and had great wide receivers in college and put up huge numbers. Whereas J.J. McCarthy has physical tools that are much better than Mac Jones.

He has a much, much stronger arm than Mac Jones. He has an arm strength that rivals Sam Darnold. When those two are on the practice field, they're going back and forth with lasers. Mac Jones, that was the biggest critique of his game is that he did not have the type of arm strength that belongs to somebody like JJ McCarthy. And the other thing is too, that McCarthy is very mobile. He was a runner in Michigan. And we saw even in his first preseason game that he has a mind to be a playmaker as well. and not just somebody who's going to stand in the pocket the other thing is too that i remain convinced that mac jones would have been okay had he not

followed tom brady and been at the start of the collapse of the new england patriots organization where they lose josh mcdaniels they make a ton of terrible decisions roster-wise, and Bill Belichick was not the same type of leader of the organization as he once was. And who was Mac Jones' best wide receiver the entire time he was there? If you're talking about J.J. McCarthy being placed into this situation,

we're talking about being given the greatest receiver on earth. You cannot say enough about that. And I don't know what Mac Jones is like behind the scenes. I didn't cover him. I do know what JJ McCarthy is like behind the scenes. My understanding is that there's a pretty big difference there. Again, I don't know Mac Jones, but the way that he handled some of the things in New England were not that impressive. And J.J. McCarthy has been extremely impressive. So I think from some people's view,

you have one preseason game to go off of. So you're going to say, well, how can we judge him off one preseason game? But when you think about Kevin O'Connell's view of JJ McCarthy, it continues into today. And it started way before they drafted him. Kevin O'Connell's sample size of JJ McCarthy started at a deli in Ann Arbor. When was that?

In the middle of winter. And then slowly progressed to OTAs mini camp, the rookie mini camp all the way through an entire training camp. And I know that Kevin O'Connell could not have been more impressed and more confident in JJ McCarthy from where he stands. I mean, listen to O'Connell talk about him being the future franchise quarterback. That's not a bunch of fluff for the way O'Connell feels about what JJ McCarthy was able to do. So I think that that conversation is going to happen as we go forward. You don't have to pick one or the other. You don't have to pick sides here. You can feel like JJ McCarthy has a great chance to succeed with this team

and also love what Sam Darnold is doing. I couldn't be more impressed with what Sam Darnold is doing. Do you know how hard it is to get whooped and made fun of by national TV shows and social media and everything else after every bad game for years and years, crushed by the New York media, and then have to go take a backup job in San Francisco after you were a top draft pick in the NFL and to get through that to the other side and to find your place, find a coach, find your wide receivers to be able to be a good quarterback that's at the

top of the league like Sam Darnold has. It's incredibly impressive, but that doesn't mean it's the right move to keep Sam Darnold here in the future. We need the whole picture before we could really know what way they're going to go with that. But I just don't see it being very easy for the Vikings to keep Sam Darnold at the price that he's going to require. If he continues to play this well, I just don't see how that's possible with the other decisions they made that they didn't. They anticipated that Darnold would be pretty good, I think, but I don't know that they anticipated that he would play like a top five to seven quarterback in the league this year, as his numbers would indicate so far. That's something that maybe is a little bit beyond the expectation and they might get to the end of the season and

they might be in the NF of the season and they might be in the NFC championship game and go, okay, what do we do now? Uh, maybe we do have to find a way to keep Sam Darnold around, but, uh, I think that that bar is still, still incredibly high for, um, for, for Sam Darnold to stay here and he's going to have offers somewhere else for a lot of money and i i just don't know um how they would pay him what other teams would be willing to pay him i see every time in the comment section that we talk about this yeah what if we offered him like 20 million bucks it's not gonna happen not if he plays like this 20 million ain't gonna happen it's gonna be much more than that from someone else look at how many pathetic franchises there are that are totally

lost at the quarterback position. I mean, I don't think he would go back to New York, but the Giants are going to need an answer. The Raiders are going to need an answer. There's probably another five, seven teams that might be interested. How about Carolina? I know that he, again, might not want to go back to Carolina because of because of the bad memories there but there's a lot of teams in the league that don't have any answer cleveland is another one that i don't know how they would throw the money at him but they need a quarterback so i i just think that this is a really good year for jj mccarthy to develop but the vikings got enough of a sample size to see that he's the guy they very likely want to go forward with. Jared says, Mac Jones is an anticipation-based quarterback, much like the other Alabama

quarterbacks. His game isn't based on physical traits. No, exactly. Yeah. I don't, I don't think he's similar. I wouldn't talk about him at all as a similar type of player to J.J. McCarthy. I mean, McCarthy, the thing about Jones is that he has good touch and he has good accuracy. And you're right, he does throw with very good anticipation. And I feel like if he had landed in the right spot, that he could have been effective. If the 49ers had drafted Mac Jones once upon a time,

he probably would have won a lot of games with them. I don't know if he would have been the same level of a playmaker as Brock Purdy, but he would have won a lot of games because operating an offense, leading guys out in front of them, make it short and underneath passes, then every once in a while hitting in the intermediate. He does not have a cannon, though, to go deep down the field, but that's not what the San Francisco offense really asks anybody to do with new England. They just had nothing. They couldn't block for him. You can't have a quarterback like

Mac Jones if you can't block for him. And that's what new England had. And it was kind of sad. And that's what Jacksonville has. Jacksonville is going to run out there, back up linemen against this Vikings defense. And it's going to be very hard for him. But I do wonder if someone will give Mac Jones another chance next year in this search for quarterbacks, if there will be kind of a rehab year for him to go play for another team and see if there's something there because we have seen it with these other quarterbacks. So we'll have to see how that all plays out. I think that we can live in two worlds though, of knowing how impressive McCarthy was. And that's the sample size that matters. I remember talking about this when people would discuss what McCarthy was in college after he had already

gotten to the Vikings. And I was like, that doesn't matter. It doesn't, it's all that's over that ended. We don't have to talk about what he looked like in college at all, because he's now on an NFL field practicing against NFL players. And so that's the sample that matters. He also grew a lot. I mean, I don't know if you guys all remember when you were 21 to 22, but you grow a lot as a person in those years. And he grew physically. And I think mentally as well, after coming from a place that had a lot of chaos and an NFL style head coach and his, his work ethic, his approach, all those things check so many boxes for the Vikings. But for me, the biggest thing was how much he improved his accuracy

from the time that he got here, he improved his accuracy greatly. And then you combine that with the arm. That's somebody that, uh, you, you really want going forward. So I think they're, they're still as high as they could be on JJ McCarthy. Scott says, I would like to see Kwesi Daffel-Mensah take the path as the Eagles did with Bradford and Wentz that netted them a first round pick. It's you're you're, you can't do that.

I don't see how they could possibly do that. I think franchising him and trying to trade him for a first, I can't see it happening. I can't, I mean, the Vikings trading a first. I can't see it happening. I can't. I mean, the Vikings trading a first for Bradford is pretty insane, but they thought, and I think we would go crazy if they did it.

Now we thought at the time that the Vikings had a Superbowl caliber team. And that's why they traded that first, because they felt like, why do we need a first when we've got our team already built? But when you think about it now, I mean, at the time, I think when I first, it was when need a first when we've got our team already built? But when you think about it now, I mean, at the time, I think when I first, it was when I was first getting here, legitimately my first day on the radio at ESPN 1500 was when they traded for Sam Bradford. I went out to the fair and met Patrick Royce out there for the first time and was on the air with

him. And he, that was his first question to me, you know, like, what, what do you think of this trade for Sam Bradford? And my response then was definitely different than it would have been now. Then I thought, well, this is a good trade. I mean, you get a quarterback who can operate your offense and throw to these good wide receivers and, you know, hand the ball to Adrian Peterson and play with great defense and they should get in the playoffs. But now I would probably look at it and go, that's not a good enough. And Bradford was great for the Vikings, but it's not a good enough quarterback or a good enough team for anybody to come in and play quarterback and go to the Superbowl. So that was maybe a little too risky. It did end up, I mean, if it had worked out in 2017,

I think that was a big part of it being a first round pick. This is why it's not similar with any trade you can concoct with Darnold for franchise tagging him next year is because Bradford had multiple years on his contract and that allowed them to make the argument, hey, Teddy's not coming back. So you need a quarterback for multiple years. It just didn't end up happening, but I don't see that as the same. I also don't know that a friend like franchise tagging and trading him is the right move as opposed to just letting

him go and getting the comp pick. But you know how much I don't like comp picks. Maybe, maybe that's a way to do it is to, to try to make a trade for him. Could be, I don't know, is someone giving up a first round pick? Maybe they would, maybe they would, if they believe that they could get a higher offer, then I suppose that is possible. I just don't see it as quite being the same. Maybe, maybe they'll pull that off. Uh, Jason says defensive touchdown this week. It seems like they always do. It seems like they always get a defensive touchdown against these bad teams or a huge interception or the Colts just fumbled.

Yeah, I think that there's turnovers in route this week. Definitely think that. KMAC 850 says, I really want to see the Vikings roll through these next two weeks against inferior teams. Clunking through these games two weeks against inferior teams. Clunking through these games and going one-on-one or worse would be unfortunate. Yeah, I think it's got to be a fear out there at TCO Performance Center.

It has to be a fear that if you lose one of these games, it's just going to feel like, come on. Now it makes it so much harder the rest of the route. You can't fall on your face against teams that are this bad. And that does, it does make you a little nervous. I'm sure. I mean, all of you have showed up at your couch on a Sunday thinking, oh, the Vikings are favored. They should run over whatever team every year. There's one game where you go, what the heck was that? And the ultimate one was Buffalo 2018 with a rookie Josh Allen, who we didn't know would become a premier quarterback in the league. But at the time the Vikings were something like 17 point favorites and they completely disappeared in that game. So we have seen this turn into a loss before. I'm trying to think of though, maybe you could tell me if you guys remember one in the Kevin O'Connell era, have they had this game?

Have they had the game against the bad team where now they've had narrow escapes, narrow escape in Carolina last year, narrow escape in Chicago, but have they had a game where it was against a really bad team? I'm thinking 2022 where they, no, was it? No, I guess it was 2023 with Kirk where they kind of saved the season by beating Chicago and Tyson Bajan, but just barely. And last year, it's hard to count a loss against Denver or Chicago when you're playing a backup quarterback, Josh Dobbs. Is there a game where they played against a poor team where they didn't

at least eke out a win the Raiders game. Yeah. The Raiders game was disgusting, but they still found a way to win. I don't know if I can really count things that happened against teams with backup quarterbacks in, but even, even then Denver had Russell Wilson and they were a borderline playoff team. They weren't horrendous like this Jaguars team. I'm just honestly trying to think on the fly. If there's any of these games since O'Connell took over where they've played someone who was really bad and just did not show up for that game. Um, doesn't seem like that's something that's happened too often. Uh, David says having an argument with a friend is the Vikings offense good? Well, uh, if we put it, if we put good on a scale of, let's say there's four different things you could be in the NFL, you can be horrifying.

You can be decent, good, or great. Then I would say the Vikings offense is good. They are not great. The great offense in the league is the Lions and the Ravens are up there as well. Washington has been a great offense so far this year. But when you look at the metrics for the Vikings offense, I would say it's good. All the metrics would say they're good. They would put them, I didn't check their expected points added for this week where they rank. I'm guessing it's 10th to 12th, somewhere around that ballpark. It can definitely get better with TJ Hawkinson and the opponents that they're going to face. We do have to remember that they've faced some pretty good defenses along the way this

year. They're going to have to prove that they're great though. I think when I looked last, they were 10th in passing expected points added, which has been the most telling statistic offensively for how far you can go. But it's definitely not, it's definitely not, it's beyond decent. You have the best wide receiver in the world. It's beyond decent. And your quarterback is top five in rating. It's beyond decent. your quarterback is top five in rating it's beyond decent it's definitely good but greatness would mean repeating what they did against the colts and scoring more than 21 and i know they missed a couple field goals but still in that game against the colts the way that they handled the football how they ran how they threw

the ball uh consistently completing a ton of passes in that game. If you could take out the turnovers and the sacks, you could be great. I don't know that they could do that, but that's always been a Jared Goff cheat code, by the way, is that he doesn't turn the ball over that much and he doesn't get sacked that much. And if you can protect the football

and then move it consistently the way that they did, they could be a great offense. I am curious to see over these next few games that Chicago does have a good defense overall. So over these next few games, if we are saying, Hey, this is a great offense by the time they're midway through the season,

because Hawkinson truly changes everything. They paid him what they paid him for a reason because he is a game changer. So I think good would be where I would put them. And then great is possible still. Scott says Lions are a gigantic problem and will be for years. They even have the almost identical 2025 cap space to the Vikings. Yeah. When Jared Goff becomes a little more expensive in that contract, uh, and they've really paid everybody, there will be some limitation, uh, but they're going to do what the saints did, which is we've got a window to win, use every single cap hack that we could possibly find to push money down the road.

And they will have a window of the next three years probably to win. But the thing about the lions and the NFC, and there's other teams, I mean, Washington's going to be there for years with Jane Daniels. And now that they're run well, they're run by a guy who came from the 49ers and a guy who coached an Atlanta team to a super bowl.

Like they're run by good people. Now that is going to be a problem. I don't think Philly's going anywhere as, as a good team for years to come. And then you look at, you know, maybe Arizona has built really well on what they did last year. They have a lot of young players. They could be pretty good. I don't think that green Bay is disappearing last year. We heard about how young they were, their quarterbacks good and their coach is good. But what I would say is when you look around the conference ever, any year, any time, there's no free pass to the Super Bowl ever. There's always going to be other good teams that you have to get through if you're going to get there and you just

have to be as good or better than them or win a playoff game you're not supposed to win i mean the lions are going to be tough for the vikings to match but they're going to be expensive soon enough and the vikings at the quarterback position if they're inexpensive can continue to spend they have the edge of their environment and they have a cap guy who is well versed in every trick in the book to manipulate the cap. It's a great race. And then Chicago, who knows? Chicago is such a tough one. They should be able to build around the rookie quarterback contract, but I think that they have to fire Matt Eberflus and probably should have done it last year. And the fact that they kept Eberflus here was a mistake. They should have tried to find their Kevin O'Connell

to pair with Caleb Williams. And instead they're kind of bumbling a little bit. Jason says when the Lions lose Ben Johnson, they will drop off a bit. I mean, I think that that's probably true. It is hard to repeat. I think of the Vikings in oh four and then to oh five where they lost their offensive coordinator was at Scott Linehan because they didn't want to pay him. Ownership has changed a bit since then, but it is, it is different. And we saw that with San Francisco's defense. It wasn't quite the same after they lost Robert Sala and D'Amico Ryanans has dropped off a little bit. It is hard to repeat when you have this exceptional relationship. It does sound like from the report that I saw today that Ben Johnson is only considering jobs

outside of Detroit. If it's his exact specs, which probably means a quarterback, the right money, the right amount of power, probably over the roster, I would guess. Maybe that is in Chicago, but Ben Johnson doesn't seem desperate for a job as a head coach because he's with a team that's going to be competing for a Super Bowl. I mean, I think that that's a great place to be if you're a coordinator and he knows they've had so much success that any year he can decide, hey, I'm just going to go and be a head coach. So he's in a really good spot. There's no doubt about it. The Lions are going to be good for a long time, the next at least three to four years, as long as Jared Goff stays healthy and the fact that he doesn't get hit a whole lot helps him stay healthy as he has been

mostly for his entire career. So everybody knows my respect for the Detroit Lions, but where the Vikings are right now is a team that's a year ahead of where we thought they would be. And they have a lot to build on and a lot of cap space to do it with and the rookie quarterback advantage to try to do it with and the offensive mind and the defensive mind to do it with. I love the race of the NFC North. It was annoying when those teams were bad. I know that a lot of you, we've had this conversation before. A lot of you just want the NFC North teams to fall on their face and be terrible and the Vikings to steamroll them. And I get that. And I feel you on that. But for drama purposes and for intrigue, for me, I'm always fascinated when there's multiple

good teams or teams in good positions. And it's kind of like, let's see who can do this the best because you go back to the hiring of Kweisi Adafomensa and Kevin O'Connell and these teams were put in different positions. I mean, Chicago said, we're going to tank. We're going to go all the way to the bottom. They hit the lottery by getting Caleb Williams in the number one pick away from Carolina. Carolina picks Bryce Young. It just couldn't have gone better for Chicago. Detroit got started a year earlier on that with their tanking effort.

And then they rebuilt through the draft. They really nailed a lot of draft picks. I see Jack Campbell has come along. They also had a ton of draft picks, which helps you nail a bunch of draft picks. I was thinking about this the other day, by the way, when it comes to evaluating who's good at the draft, uh, because that comes up on the show all the time. And when we look at Detroit, you remember when they picked Jameer Gibbs and Laporta and all the draft analysts said, what are you doing? You're drafting positions that don't matter. Why would you draft all these players that the linebacker, the tight end, these guys don't matter. Why would you draft all these players that the linebacker, the tight end, these guys don't matter. And, uh, they've become like the biggest players

for that team. Uh, so we, we never, you never really know what's going to happen with the draft, but it does help if you're Detroit and you had a million picks and then you kind of hit on a million picks. And a lot of them were really high though they haven't really hit on jameson williams just yet so the vikings they can't build that way they were not directed to build that way which we always have to keep in mind when we talk about the trading way of picks and things like that which most of you guys can't stand i am less concerned about it because usually it results in getting players, getting a higher caliber of player. If you're trading away your pick and getting TJ Hawkinson, I'm like, okay, well, that seems pretty good to me. But everybody is in this race and the Vikings

have to next year, go into free agency and have to lure more day one free agents here and have to be able to spend the money. That's the thing about Darnold. When we talk about whether he can stay here long term, I mean, you can't really franchise him and use three quarters of that cap space that you have. And I mean, if you sign him to a two, three year contract, that eventually is going to be a problem as well. They signed Grenard Cashman Van Ginkle to contracts that get more expensive because they were assuming they were going to have more cap space. And they've got positions to fill. They're going to have a first round pick, as we know. But how Kweisi Adafo-Mensa navigates this roster going forward will be really interesting in comparison to a team like

the lions and a team like the bears for sure so anyway uh well i have to uh yeah no this is this is a great point and this is what it has to be sometimes um kmac says i'm in ross st brown in the fourth round a great lottery ticket to hit has to be that way sometimes i mean the 2017 vikings were built that way with a couple of lottery tickets and stefan diggs and eric hendricks and daniel hunter just turning into great players that's how it has to go so they're betting a little bit more in the future on guys that are going to be proven and have past histories of performance that they can easier project going forward. But I think we, I think we all know that they have their centerpiece franchise players just because Casey did not draft just the Jefferson or Christian Derrissaw

doesn't mean he has to give them back. Like they have those players. And I I'm going to include Grenard in this. Grenard has to be the best signing. The Vikings have to have three of the best or four of the best signings in the entire NFL last year. Van Ginkle, Grenard is leading the league in pressures. Sam Darnold, $10 million for a top five rated quarterback. I mean, that's as good as it gets. Aaron Jones, who's been a top 10 running back in the league. Cashman's been a top 10 linebacker. I don't know. Can you repeat that in free agency? It's probably easier to repeat a good free agency than it is to repeat a good draft class. I think because at some point the lions will have a bad draft class and we'll go, what did Brad Holmes forget how to draft? No, he just got a lot of

picks early on and they tanked and he lucked into some stuff like Amon Ross St. Brown. You know, if anybody knew he was going to be better as good as he is, then he would have been picked way higher. So it's, you know, I'm allowing some leeway here on a Thursday night for discussion about the future because it's Vikings Jaguars and that's life. So, you know, it's, this is definitely one of those games where I'm kind of interested in the Jaguars and just how they got to this lowly position. Uh, but as far as the matchup goes, it's very much a just win baby type of, uh, game in Jacksonville. Anyhow, I anyhow i gotta go on wcco radio shortly so look for that if you're by your am radio or you want to stream that online talk a little vikings with henry lake so i gotta run but it's been a fun week i'll be in jacksonville for the game so right

after the game it's gonna be a little bit tight for me because I'm going to be doing the postgame podcast and then I got to run to the airport for a flight. So that should be some tense moments maybe for me trying to go to the locker room, come back up, do the podcast. But nonetheless, I will be there in Jacksonville right after the game, maybe 45 minutes after the end of the game, we'll kick up the postgame podcast. So make sure you look for that. Thanks so much to Tyler Dunn. Read the article on Blake Cashman. It's really terrific. Go long TD.

Really fun catching up with Tyler tonight. Thanks for the great questions, comments, so forth. Another great week. And we'll do it again very, very soon. So thanks, everybody. Yeah, I don't know if I'm going to get to play golf. The flight situations, I don't know if some of you guys are going down to Jacksonville. The flight situations were not ideal for this one.

And we wanted to set up playing golf, and it still may be possible, but there's not a whole lot of time there from when I get in to game time, and then I'm right out after that. So we'll see. We'll see. It won't be tough on me, though, to go to Jacksonville. I'll have a good time. So I'll see you guys there in the Jaguars press box after the game.

Thanks again. If you haven't subscribed, make sure you do. Check out the newsletter, purpleinsider.football or purpleinsider.com. Both will take you there. Thanks, guys. Football.