Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Is there a structure of Jefferson's contract that fits the Vikings timeline?

Episode Date: May 28, 2024

Matthew Coller answers Vikings fan questions, from JJ McCarthy's age playing a factor in his development to the structure of Jefferson's contract to a comparable for Dallas Turner Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here and this is another fans only episode in which I take your emails that you've sent to purpleinsider.com and to contact us or your tweets and direct messages at Matthew Collar and we talk about them on the show. If you can't make it for any of the live streams, a great way to get your question on the show. Still lots of great stuff from Vikings fans. So why waste any time? Let's just jump right into it from Evan to start us off here. How significant is it that McCarthy is so young and has the opportunity to be developed at the NFL level for two years before he reaches the same age as other top quarterbacks taken in the draft. I think that this

can go either way, Evan. I really liked the way that Kweisi Adafo-Mensa phrased this issue when I asked him about it at the NFL Combine. I said, how do you evaluate these guys when there's one guy who's going to be 24 and another guy who just turned 21? How do you deal with that? And he said that, you know, he looked at some of the quarterbacks that were coming out later as kind of having minor league years. So they were able to develop their craft like Michael Pennix, like Bo Nix

under a little easier circumstances. But I think there is an advantage for J.J. McCarthy coming out as early as he did to get in the hands of Kevin O'Connell and the hands of Josh McCown and to really focus on one system with one set of teammates. Largely, this offense is going to stay together for the next few years and develop in the way that Kevin O'Connell wants him to develop, to learn the footwork, to learn the offense, to learn the verbiage in his first year.

And I also think that there is something to it that it's like if you learn a language when you're six years old versus when you learn it and when you're 40, that it's a lot easier to learn when you're a kid than as you get older. And I think that there is even something to that in the NFL that when someone comes out as being pretty raw in their early twenties and gets the coaching to develop at that point where you're still getting your motor skills down, I think that it helps a lot to be on the younger side, to master some of those things and ingrain it in yourself, how you're being taught to do something, especially when it comes to improving

the accuracy, improving the footwork, like all those types of things to lock it into your brain and your muscle memory and those things they talk about. It is easier because you don't have as many habits that have been developed yet. Whereas if you're 24 years old and you've been playing college football this time, then you do, I think, have more habits to the way that you play, the way you drop back, you're throwing motion, that it's easier to correct some of those things if you are on the younger side. The other part of this too is that college coaches, and we saw this from Jim Harbaugh with not having JJ McCarthy throw the ball a lot, but college coaches are going to play to win. So if you're Bo Nix and you're in Oregon, they're designing their offense to throw a lot

of short passes because that's, what's going to get the ball in the hands of their playmakers. That's how they thought was the best way to win football games. They were not trying to teach Bo Nix how to better throw a deep out route. And the same goes for Michigan. They were not trying to teach Bo Nix how to better throw a deep out route. And the same goes for Michigan. They were not trying to develop JJ McCarthy for the NFL. They were trying to win a national championship so Jim Harbaugh could go get hired by the Los Angeles Chargers, right? And that matters that the Vikings will be focusing much more on that than you would have ever seen a college team. If he had played a couple of more years, you would have ever seen a college team. If he had played a couple of more years, he would have continued to play the way that

Michigan's offense wanted to play rather than coming into the NFL and learning how the game is played at the highest level when he is still developing some of those talents. So it matters. But I also think this permeates some other parts of the J.J. McCarthy analysis, which would be we need to be a little more patient because he does not have as many reps underneath his belt as some of the other quarterbacks that might be ahead of him. Bo Nix might look good right away and J.J. McCarthy might not even be playing, but that doesn't mean that Nix was a better draft pick. We're going to find that out over a number of years. I also think that by year three and year

two to some extent, but historically year three for everybody, by that point, then everyone has the same amount of coaching under their belt and we can move on from that whole, how old was he when he came out and he's still developing, but it might take two and a half years, three years for him to be the fully formed quarterback, which I know might scare some of you, but that doesn't mean he can't be good. It just means reaching his peak as we see in almost every sport doesn't happen until a quarterback's mid twenties anyway. So, you know, McCarthy is going to have a lot of work to do in training camp, in preseason if he plays, in the joint practices, and we need to evaluate it all through the lens of somebody who is just learning all of this stuff and is still learning how to play the

position of quarterback. It's important to keep that age factor in mind as we evaluate where he's at. Wrigley asks, it seems that the Vikings coaches have been working with McCarthy on footwork. How important is footwork versus working on reading defenses and blitzes? I think everything starts with footwork for a player like JJ McCarthy. The entire offense, and we heard this a lot last year with Josh Dobbs starting, but it is built on rhythm and timing. So just for example, if you're running a double move that goes to 18 yards, the footwork has to be exactly right.

It has to be three-step drop, hitch, fire, because if it's not, then you're not going to throw it on time. And those windows in the NFL, they close very quickly. You can't just be kind of figuring it out by yourself back there. Footwork wise, everything begins with that, the entire foundation of an offense. And you even go back to the old West coast, the bill Walsh, the Joe Montana, every single step really needed to be perfect in order for Joe Montana to be great. And then when things broke down, they needed him to make a great play here or there. And of course, Joe Montana was able to do that. And that's what

they're going to ask from JJ McCarthy. It's one of the reasons that we have to give it time for development because you have to have so many reps to get these things down. But it's not just the timing of where the receivers are going to be. It's also the accuracy element as well, that these things are plotted out. They're timed out. They're tried and true and tested by Kirk Cousins, by Matthew Stafford over the years in this offense. And those guys are pretty darn accurate quarterbacks.

And if you're not doing the footwork correctly, that's when you get those balls that look like something that I've done off the tee with my driver, where it's going into the woods this way or going that way, because you don't have the footwork exactly right of how you're supposed to drop back, when you're supposed to hitch, when you're supposed to step up, when you're supposed to shuffle one way or another. And then the other part of it, too, is that J.J. McCarthy is not a quarterback that you're going to be hoping can just make it up as he goes along. He's not a Caleb Williams. He's not a Patrick Mahomes, a Lamar Jackson.

And those guys also have to be good with their footwork. Make no mistake, probably six out of every 10 throws of theirs is still on time to their first read. As someone breaks open, they're hitting their back foot, releasing the football into a window. But if they get it wrong, they can just run away and make a play. McCarthy is much more of a throw on the run guy from time to time bootlegs or maybe a scramble here there and run for a first down when things break down he's not someone that four out of every 10 plays is going to be doing something crazy with his legs he's just not that kind of speedster that we see or playmaker that we see from some of these other quarterbacks. So it becomes more and more important.

And the other part of it too, is the drops need to be in the right spot because of the pass rush and the blocking scheme. This all ties together the receivers, the blocking. If you start drifting in the pocket, then you're going to run yourself right into edge rushers that Christian Darisaw is trying to push by or trying to send

in front of you because he thinks you're in one spot, but you're actually in another. And this was why I always had a theory about Kirk Cousins that he made tackles lives easier because they always knew where he was going to be in the pocket that if they were running somebody by, they knew he wasn't going to move. So there are some benefits to being a statue, but it all starts there. And you have to learn the defenses. You have to identify the blitzes, all those things. I mean, everything has to be done up to par in order to be a good quarterback, but I don't think that you can do any of it without at least understanding in general and mastering close enough the footwork that's required for an offense because every single play has a specific footwork to it that goes along with the route combinations,

the blocking and everything else. So it's a, it's a pretty big deal. And that's the part that may take the longest for him to completely master as it would for anybody is just getting those steps down. Doug asks, how much per year will it take to sign Justin Jefferson? The number that I have in my head is 34 million per year. If it's 35 or it's 36, I guess he could aim to be the highest paid non-quarterback player in the NFL. And I know what everybody's thinking when you say 35 million is what trade him to the chargers. I mean, I, I get that a lot as you might expect, but we also have to keep in mind. And it was brought up in another email to me about what happened with TJ Hawkinson last year, that Hawkinson became the highest paid tight end

in the NFL. And every time he dropped the pass, of course, everybody threw that out there. Oh, I guess that's the highest paid tight end in the NFL. But then when you actually looked at his salary cap hits for the first few seasons, he was not the highest salary cap hit in the NFL, which is really the thing that matters the most. As long as your ownership is willing to pony up the actual cash to the player, you can manipulate the way the contract is structured to not have that high of a salary cap hit at least for the first couple of years and then restructure it down the road. So for Justin Jefferson, maybe it's something in the ballpark of 20 million over the first couple of seasons. And then it shoots up later. if you look at aj brown's contract the way that was structured or even nick bosa that might be what they use as

more of the standard here it's not great to have to pay someone that much like you'd rather have them on their rookie contract but it's also something that you can work around i mean if you think about it the v the Vikings once upon a time signed Kirk Cousins when they also were paying Diggs, Hunter, Kendricks, Barr, Rhodes, all of those guys, and they did everything that they could to mess with the salary cap. But that's what you do when you get in a position where you are ready to actually win. And the Vikings were in 2018 and they used everything at their disposal to make adjustments to those contracts and schedule them in a way with their salary cap hits that would allow them a window to win. And what you're going to do with Jefferson is that same

type of structure, I would assume. But also when they have a rookie quarterback contract, it doesn't hurt as much. And quarterbacks now are getting paid 50 million. If Jefferson is 35, still a big gap there. And the longer they can make the contract, the more flexible it is going to be. So if they can make it five years on top of his fifth year option, then they can spread that out quite a bit. And then a couple of years in, they can restructure, they can extend, they can do a lot of different things. So the NFL salary cap is very much real as we've seen in the past, but it is only as real as you

want to make it in terms of restructures and how you just design the contract. So that will be the most interesting part when it comes out. the main headline will be Jefferson becomes the highest paid receiver, but the structure is going to be the most important for how they deal with it going forward. And one other thing that I thought of that I didn't mention the other night on the live broadcast was that Brandon Iuke and CDeeDee Lamb also have major contract extensions coming up. And it might be one of the reasons that there's a holdup is for them to see where those land and then try to top that to make sure Justin Jefferson is the highest paid receiver. If he goes first, then CeeDee Lamb might top it.

There might be some competitiveness there. That's what happens when you have literal months to go before any type of deadline. So we'll see if those contracts impact Justin Jefferson at all. On to the next question. Brian Flores said that his comp for Dallas Turner is Dante Hightower, who was not a full-time rusher. What can we take from this? Well, I think that you're right that Dante Hightower was much more of a versatile linebacker that sometimes was a rusher, sometimes was an inside linebacker, sometimes was a defensive end on the line of scrimmage. And there might be a comparison there because Dallas Turner was used in different spots at Alabama. He wasn't a rover. He wasn't moving

all over the place, but when you watch his tape, you'll see him standing up. You'll see him down in the dirt. You'll see him occasionally on this side, on that side, over the guard for one play to rush. So he could do a lot of different things. Versatility wise, it just gives them every so ever so slightly more options than just having a Daniil Hunter that's mostly in one spot and that's valuable so there might be a comp there with the fact that they believe that Dallas Turner is going to be able to move around the other part of it is size wise Dante Hightower was not crazy tall even though his name is Hightower didn't really match up he was closer I think to six foot three,

which is around the ballpark of where Dallas Turner is. When you see Dallas Turner, you're impressed by the length, which I believe Hightower had crazy length too, but you're not wowed by the height. Whereas with Daniil Hunter, you're like, oh my gosh, the height and the length and the muscles and all that was very impressive. But with Turner, it's more the length that you see that stands out to you as a guy. Okay. I can understand why everyone would like him as an outside linebacker prospect. Also Turner, I believe is known for his intelligence. And if you think about Dante Hightower, one of the most intelligent coachable players of the last decade, I think one of the most underrated probably, but not by people with

the Patriots. And maybe he's making that comparison to Turner being a high IQ, intelligent, versatile player who can handle a lot on his plate. So if one week you need him off the edge and the next week you need him in a rotational role because somebody else is a better matchup there. He can do whatever he's asked to do. That's likely what Brian Flores was getting at, but that also sounds like a question that maybe at some point I should ask Brian Flores what he meant to expound on that a bit. This next question comes from Alex JJ Larson, says, from what you've seen, how will Sam Darnold handle the pressure of having McCarthy waiting in the wings?

I think totally fine. What I've seen so far was Sam Darnold talking about taking JJ McCarthy to a Wolves game and going together to get to know each other. I think what we saw last year from Sam Darnold going out to San Francisco, being Brock Purdy's backup quarterback, thriving in that role, being ready to play when he was called upon in a game and then got a start and played pretty well, being prepared, being a good teammate. All those things are reasons why the Vikings brought him in. And I believe that Kevin O'Connell talked about having familiarity

with Darnold. And of course there's connections between San Francisco and the Minnesota Vikings that they would know how well he was able to deal with the fact that, you know, Brock Purdy was a much less experienced quarterback that had had success and was QB one for them. But there was a bit of a camp competition and everything there. Darnold could have handled that badly. He could have had more of an ego about it as a former top draft pick, but I don't get that sense at all from Sam Darnold that there is going to be any type of thing like Brett Favre not helping Aaron Rodgers or whatever else. It appears that Sam Darnold full well understands that he likely has one year as a Minnesota Viking. And if he is really good in his time as a Viking, that he's going to have a

chance even to start that he will get a job somewhere else. You saw what happened to Baker Mayfield. He was on the outs of the NFL. Baker Mayfield looks like he might end up being a backup in the league and he gets a chance with the bucks. He wins the job there over Kyle Trask. And then, you know, he gets paid whatever it was, 30 something million dollars this off season. Well, Darnold understands that if he's a good teammate and if he plays well, that it might not be here, but somewhere someone is going to sign him to a significant contract. And so there is a certain amount of incentive to be a good teammate to JJ McCarthy. But I get the feeling that it's not something that is impacting Sam Darnold. He's been through a lot more difficult things

in his career than having another quarterback with him that's competing in the room and that everyone knows is the guy for the future in fact it kind of takes some pressure off i remember when alex smith after they drafted patrick mahomes he kind of went like all right i guess i'm just gonna throw down the field now and had a career season and maybe that will be the case for sam darnold that there isn't that pressure it's hey this is your last chance let, let it all loose because you're probably not going to be here after this. So chuck that ball to Justin Jefferson, I guess. Uh, but I think you'll handle it quite well. It's, it's part of his value. It's the reason why you pay him $10 million to come here is because you know, that it's going

to be a good relationship with JJ McCarthy. I think when we were ranking our favorite ideas for a journeyman type quarterback or filler or bridge or whatever you want to say for a year, Sam Darnold kind of went up to the top of my list because of those reasons. Cause I felt like he would be able to deal with that situation pretty well. Hey, us cellular customers. I've got some good news. So do not hit that skip forward button just yet. I'm talking about their special customer event, Us Days. What's Us Days? It means exclusive offers just for their customers, just to say thanks, like $1,200 off any phone plus $300 off any tablet. No, I did not misread that. They must really like you all.

Us Days at U.S. Cellular. Exclusive offers just for you, just to say thanks. Right now, U.S. Cellular customers get $1,200 off any phone, plus $300 off any tablet. Terms apply. Stock Market Skull 1 says, Choose two Vikings legends from the past non quarterbacks that you could put on this 2024 team and make them a Super Bowl contender overnight. Well, OK, I mean, there's very easy answers here that would be like Randy Moss and Alan Page or John Randall and Randall McDaniel. So maybe I can try to think of some players that were not necessarily hall of famers that

could fit into some type of role. Although if there was a Randall McDaniel here, you guys would lose your minds because we are very obsessed with guards, but maybe, you know, how about, what about an Anthony Carter for this or a Jake Reed for this right now, the Vikings have a duo of wide receivers. And then after that it's Trent Shurfield, it's Brandon Powell, it's a Jalen Naylor, depending on where that thing goes with him. If you instead replace Trent Shurfield would say Anthony Carter as a deep threat, somebody who averaged, what was it? 16 yards of reception or something for his career. One of the best ball trackers, maybe in NFL

history, deep down the field, that would really be something for this team. And I know that I have moved away from, Hey, you need to draft a receiver, add another receiver, like we obsessed over for a couple of years there. But that number three spot can be pretty darn valuable. And as you saw from three deep, if it was Jake Reed, that was a total difference maker. And I'll give you another one that maybe some of you thought of already, but Antoine Winfield. Antoine Winfield, if he was playing cornerback for this team, he was capable of playing outside or inside. He could play nickel, he could play outside, whatever. But the level of toughness, his ability to cover people,

that would be a total game changer. This defense would be legit if they had that. I'll throw another one at you, a little old school. Henry Thomas, maybe a Linvald Joseph. The defensive tackle position is on the lighter side. If you put Linval Joseph from 2017 here or Henry Thomas, a penetrating defensive tackle here with this defense, they are pretty, pretty, pretty darn good. So yeah, that's a great question. That's a fun question. I would love to hear people's answers in the comment section or shoot them to me on Twitter or something because that's a great question. I changed

it around a little to go non-Hall of Famers because this team's Hall of Famers are so incredible that you could just pick them. Like Carl Eller. Okay, well, they would be a Super Bowl contender at that point. Randy Moss, Chris Carter, that'd be pretty good. Robert Smith too, by the way. Robert Smith deserves a shout out here as well that, you know, the Vikings running back situation is improved, but Robert Smith may be forgotten hero a little bit because the receivers were so good in those teams from the late nineties, early two thousands. But if he's your running back, he's giving you 1400 yards, 40 catches out of the backfield 4-3 speed that would be pretty good as well uh mac jaw 68 says uh darnold's main problem uh that he had was between the ears what's stopping koc from doing what he did with

dobs last year and talking darnold through everything pre-snap. So Kevin O'Connell does talk to the quarterback inside of his headset as he's giving him the play. So he will say, yeah, red, right, 42 Fox tribe. What, you know, whatever it might be, whatever words that he's throwing out there. And then he might say, keep it locked on number one for an extra beat, or if they're playing cover to make sure you do this, he could get the, you get one extra sentence in. I remember he talked about telling Kirk cousins, look for some read where he found Adam Thielen in 2022, right before the headset cut out. So there are things that you can throw out there to Sam Darnold, but he shouldn't have

to do that. Like that's an emergency situation only. He's going to give him helpful tips, but you, if you have to do that like that's an emergency situation only he's going to give him helpful tips but you if you have to walk him through the offense on every play then that likely means that sam darnell didn't learn the offense he should be able to just give him the play call add a little bit of extra for what he should be looking for something to keep in mind or a little helpful tip and that's it uh And then you should be good to go because he's going to have it already mastered at that point. And I don't think that Sam Darnold's

problem is being able to hear a play call and understand what the play is. I think from what I saw on film, looking back at Sam Darnold, his main issue was one, trying to play hero. That was number one for me is that there were too many times where there wasn't anything there. And he said, and look, this is fun to watch when it works. He said, you know what? I'm making this throw anyway. I'm just going to take a shot at this.

I'm going to, with no platform, just flick my wrist and let that ball go 25 yards down the field, back shoulder to DJ Moore or something when he was with Carolina. And it worked a few times. It was amazing. But there were other times where he went, I'm going to do that same thing. The ball floats, it gets intercepted. It's a mistake. He tries to scramble around too long. He takes a hit. There were things like that on his tape that were really the main reason that he was not able to become a quality starter, I believe. And then just generally his accuracy as well was a little erratic and it resulted in turnovers. It resulted in lower completion percentages.

Maybe that's something that's improved over the years, or they can focus on where he's best to try to improve that. But there were some interceptions where also he just didn't see the field all that well. And it's not something you can really coach. I mean, there's going to be a lot of times where you take the snap and the defense changes what it looks like. And that was where I saw a lot of struggles from him was, all right, it looks like it's going to be cover one. Oh, now it's cover two. And Darnold doesn't exactly know where it's supposed to go after that. That's not something that O'Connell can really get in his headset, but you can try to play to his strengths as much as possible when it comes to play calling. And maybe with Darnold, he's never had the type of

communication with a head coach that he's going to have. He's never had the type of receivers that he's had here, but I think that will still remain somewhat of an issue. Those two kind of fundamental problems and the margins thin man, the margin is very thin the margin between having a 90 quarterback rating as he did over that small stretch and having a hundred quarterback rating which makes you a good quality starter it's a couple of throws and uh we've seen before in the past where a quarterback masters those couple of throws for a small sample and ends up playing well or maybe they can at least reduce some of the mistakes that he made if they do that then he's got a chance to be pretty good here. Lee's CVN 72. Should the Vikings front load a JJ extension so by the time McCarthy possibly comes into his prime, they would have the

cap to spend for a Super Bowl push? Well, the way that I look at this as far as structure goes is that year two, three, four of McCarthy are the most important. And you could try to go about it a couple of different ways. Yeah, you could try to put all of the cap space into this year and next year. So then down the road, you have cheaper years, although we don't see that very often. It's usually the big money cap hits are moved down the road and then they restructure or they extend at that point. That's more likely to be how it's going to go. And what JJ McCarthy's contract gives you is it allows you to have a big

cap hit for Justin Jefferson and still spend elsewhere. And a lot of this team is not very expensive yet. Certainly Christian Derrissaw will be at some point, but aside from that, there are a lot of players who are not that expensive. I mean, Jonathan Grenard, but Harrison Smith will retire at some point. I don't get the sense that Cam Bynum is going to be that expensive. Right now, the cornerback position is not that expensive. So I look at it as the way that they want to make sure they have the most cap space is next year, next off season to be able to chase every free agent they can to begin their winning window. And then they'll adjust going forward after that. So have a big giant free agency next year, bring in all the final pieces to your roster.

Well, Jefferson is not that expensive. And then have those pieces there for a couple of years that matches up with McCarthy's small cap hits. And once you get to the big cap hits for McCarthy, well, what you hope is that you're paying him $200 million because he's been so darn fantastic that you just have to extend him at that point. And you'll deal with it after that, right? If he's been so darn fantastic that you just have to extend him at that point. And you'll deal with it after that, right? If he's so good, you have to extend them. Then you're fine with it. But year two, year three is where the Vikings window to truly chase a Superbowl begins with McCarthy at quarterback. So they want to make sure that they have enough to spend through those years, but they're going to push everything down the road in this window to try to win. Because if you're Kweisi Daffo-Mensah and Kevin

O'Connell, you aren't looking at this as a five-year plan. You have to look at it as two to three-year plan because that's the way the NFL works. You have to be winning by year two or year three of this competitive rebuild part two or the new age or whatever the heck we're calling it, this two or three year plan, you got to win right now fast. So front loading that doesn't really help you winning right now in that beginning of that window with McCarthy, because if you don't and you have seven and 10 seasons, then we're going to be talking about somebody else coaching and managing the team. You're holding off that cap space for the future for somebody else.

We have to make sure that we keep that in mind as well. So I would expect it to be pretty low cap hits compared to what his average annual value is for the first four, 2024, 2025, 2026, probably explodes after that. It's part of my point about how this is

really reasonable to be able to make that extension. Moscow Stoic says over under 1.5 kickoff returns for Kenny Wong. Oh, this is a great question. I love the kickoff coming back. You could see the joy and terror on Matt Daniels face when we talked to him about it the other day, because he knows that all of a sudden special teams coordinator guy is a lot more valuable to the organization because that could be 60 plays or whatever it's going to be for this year. But also nobody knows what the heck they're doing yet. He said that he was going back and studying the XFL kickoffs. There's some nuances that are different.

It's similar, but it's not exactly the same. And he was looking at those. And those started to get pretty intricate after a few weeks. At the start, I think no one knew what they were doing. They just kind of tried to catch the ball and run a little bit. But then teams started coming up with plays and started scoring touchdowns. And then the league got shut down because COVID and XFL and whatever. But as far as Kenny Wong, I have no idea if this helps his chances to score touchdowns. I would think

that it does though, because if you can get even a little bit of space in this kickoff where you have everybody lined up pretty close together, that's a tackle or two broken. That's an assignment or two missed. That's a little bit of misdirection from a team that if you create a gap for Kenny Wong Wu, he may not be a running back that they trust, but he sure is a runner. And if he gets a little bit of space, we have seen him explode for touchdown returns before. I don't know if I could go to on that because you just can't predict guys scoring multiple kick return touchdowns. So if I were a betting person on this specifically, I would say that he maybe scores one touchdown this year, but is it possible that he gets more than that because

he's perfectly made for this type of kick return? Absolutely. Could totally see that and cannot wait for this thing to be in action and the return of the great kick returner, the celebrity kick returner, the kick returner, whose baseball card you want. That's what we got back now. A West one says, what might we see as far as quarterback play in the preseason? Yet we are a long way away from that. So it will depend of course on just where everybody stands in general. I mean, is JJ McCarthy QB one at that point? Is he QB two? Is he QB3? Still as he is during the offseason? We don't really know the answer to that yet.

But let's just say that under the current structure, it's very similar, where Nick Mullins is the backup, Sam Darnold is the starter, then I would expect that J.J. McCarthy would play the first half of all three games and maybe the entire third preseason game. You don't want to get them hurt. And that's always a risk that you run when you're talking about going out there and playing against guys that are backups, guys that are fighting for jobs and maybe playing a little harder than you want them to. But the first half, it's usually the starters. I don't know. I guess they're treating the third preseason game like the old fourth preseason game. Maybe that's not one that you want them out there for as long. And you play Jaron Hall instead.

It's just all backups. But the first two are usually taken fairly seriously. And even by this team and by this team's standards, it's not like Mike Zimmer before. But the first two games, if he were to get 30 passes, 40 passes in there in the preseason, that would be ideal. Now, of course, if he's QB one and he's just dominated Sam Darnold and run away with the job, but that seems pretty unlikely. If that was the case, then yeah, you don't want him starting more than a series or two.

Otherwise give him a lot of work because there's nothing quite like being out there at us bank stadium or going on the road or whatever. So you have to start getting that experience at some point. And to use an example of a quarterback who sat Jordan love play a lot in the preseason, got a lot of reps there. And I think JJ McCarthy should too, even though Kevin O'Connell is not the biggest fan of the preseason that we know and has become quite clear over the years. But I think that he deserves a lot of playing time and then have Jaron Hall play at the end of the game and do it that way. Last question here from Nick Cowherd.

Are there any members of the 2022 draft that are tradable as opposed to cut? If so, what players and what is their value? As far as the 2022 draft goes, it really would come down to Lewis scene as the only guy that we should be talking about as potentially getting cut. I suppose if Andrew Booth jr. Can't stay healthy, which has been an issue in the past. It was not a problem for him last year, but just historically has been an issue for him. If Andrew Booth Jr., well, if he's hurt, of course, then they can't trade him. But if he is on the chopping block and they think that they want other corners there ahead of him, I suppose there would be another team that plays a certain kind of system that might give you a pick swap for him or might trade you a fourth round pick for him. I look at Andrew Booth Jr. as still having some potential with this team that he could grow into a role, maybe not as a starter, but maybe as a rotational player, maybe a situational player. And with Lewis scene, would anybody be

interested in trading for Lewis scene? I just can't see that because you're talking about a guy who couldn't get on the field at all as a first round draft pick all the other teams in the league. They have eyeballs. They know where everyone else stands. They know everybody else's roster. They know everybody else's usage and playing time. And in a Brian Flores defense, I imagine he's got to have a lot of respect around the league that everybody else would be saying, well, look, if Brian Flores is not playing that guy at all, why would we give up even the smallest asset to trade for that player? Unless they had him super high on the draft board and felt like we might as well bring them in for a sixth round draft pick. But if you're the Vikings,

would you rather just not do that at all? As opposed to the embarrassment of trading away a first round pick for a sixth rounder, that's not exactly going to be a good look after three years. This year is more likely to just let it play out. I don't know if Lewis Seen will make the team or not. There is some cap penalty that goes along with cutting him. There's also a general manager who might want to make the argument to give him another chance, give him as much opportunity as you can. That's what goes along with being a first round pick is usually you get a lot more opportunity than everybody else. So he may get more chances this year in training camp and so forth to prove that

he can hold down any role, even if it's special teams to just keep that door open for him, potentially turning it around and having a role on this team. And I'm good with Andrew Booth Jr. as being depth and seeing what's there for Booth Jr. and not just bailing on that. And as far as the other draft picks go, Brian Asamoah, they need him for special teams. Ed Ingram is your starting right guard. Ty Chandler is your backup running back. So no, I would be surprised if there were any trades regarding the 2022 draft class. In fact, for this team in general, what they need to do is hold on to everybody and look for those trades. If they're not in contention at the trade deadline, that would be the time where you're really looking to make moves or you're looking to acquire talent

rather than give it away. When you're a team in transition, you want to give your young players every opportunity to emerge. We even saw with someone like Trey Wayans or Mackenzie Alexander, it took until their third year until they really proved that they belonged on the field in the past. So maybe that will be the case. This is the year with the 2022 draft class. I've tried a little bit to say, let's wait, let's wait. And then after last year, it's like, okay, well, you know, maybe we don't have to wait

as much, but one more training camp for everybody to have their last shot to prove that they can be on the team and hold down some type of role that includes Louis scene and Andrew Booth jr. That's probably a better idea than giving them away and then letting another team take a swing at a very cheap asset. If you were on the other side of that, you'd say, oh, that's a good trade. If the Vikings traded for some second round pick for almost nothing. So I don't think you want to be on the wrong end of that.

All right. Reminder that the Vikings have an OTA on Wednesday. So we'll have reaction from there. You want to keep it here to this channel. Really enjoyed people's reactions to our rookie minicamp and OTA videos slash podcast. So I appreciate that purpleinsider.com where you can email me if you have a question or at Matthew collar on Twitter, happy to answer whatever you got. There's going to be a lot of opportunities to answer your questions here going forward. So thanks so much again for the time, everybody, and we will catch you next time.

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