Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Jeremiah Sirles is (almost) a JJ McCarthy believer now

Episode Date: September 4, 2024

Jeremiah Sirles and Tuesday Morning Left Guard (on a Tuesday evening) are back! Sirles and Matthew Coller discuss the upcoming Vikings season, Sirles' thoughts on the Vikings offseason moves and what he thought of the limited sample size we got to see of rookie QB J.J. McCarthy. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Now wait a minute, it's not just another episode. Tuesday morning, Left Guard is back recording in the afternoon, as you might expect, with former Minnesota Viking Jeremiah Searles. And Jeremiah, we've got football this week. I am extremely jacked up. Nebraska thinks they've got a quarterback, so I know that you are through the roof for football this year. But you know where we need to start, though, because the listeners have been waiting.

They've been waiting for you to come on and admit that JJ McCarthy is awesome and that you were wrong about the draft. So what have you got to say for yourself? I will say in the 33 snaps in which I got to watch JJ McCarthy's NFL career, I may have been wrong. I may, but hey, he still has not proven to me that he is the next coming. He showed glimpses, but then his knee exploded, unfortunately. But I'm not sad that he's going to miss this year. And I hope that's not taking the wrong way.

It's going to be good for his development. You know, because I do think with as well as he played in the preseason, there was a really good chance we were going to see him out there really early in this season. It was just going to happen. And that could have been good, but it also could have gone really poorly for his development. So serendipity, you're paying Sam Darnold $10 million. You can now let JJ rehab, learn the system, be around.

This is not a wasted year as much as I've seen some people like, oh, it's a wasted year. He's going to learn a ton this year. He's going to get to understand the ins and outs of how the NFL season works. He's going to get to understand how guys study, how the prep goes, all of that. And then he's going to be primed to come back and take the reins for year two. I may have been wrong. Time will tell.

But from what I saw from him, he was playing lights out ball in that first preseason game I think if you had seen practice and the way that he interacted with his teammates and how much he grew in such a short period of time you would feel more wrong because I was even more impressed with that than the preseason game which he showed all the tools that he has he showed that the arm strength that we saw at Michigan, when you get it technically right, your arm is even better and you can throw to your left. Like he couldn't really do in Michigan, but then all of a sudden it's there. And when you see the way everyone just interacted with him, the way he ran a two minute drill, which was in total command of the offense, that's very hard to do for anybody,

much less somebody who just got there. And in mini camp, he couldn't throw it 15 yards to a completion because he didn't know the footwork. He stayed in town. He worked through that by himself out there with the lights staying on at TCO performance center, probably throwing into a net or whatever he was doing out there during the

summer, that stuff you just can't figure out. And that's what I wanted to ask you about, because this is why every time we talked about McCarthy and our skepticism going into the draft, I can't just pin this on you. I was saying it as well, but I always finished it by saying, as long as they draft somebody, I'm good because I have no idea what it's going to be like. I want you to tell me about that with guys when they show up at the facility after being drafted, why it's so different from what you saw, sometimes in a great way and sometimes in a bad way. Yeah, I think a great example of this is Dalvin Cook, right?

So we saw him in Florida State and you knew like, man, this dude's special, right? Like he's got the talent, he's got all those things. We drafted him in the second i believe and i can remember the first ota practice just the way he kind of brought himself into the huddle and it wasn't this wide-eyed like oh my gosh what's going on but it was more of like yeah i'm here and i'm gonna run the football and he just did it like there was no like oh there was really not a lot of growing pains with you there like you just kind of walked in here and ran with it and then he got better every single week in otas and then through training camp and then at the start of the season you're like dude

this dude's gonna be a guy for a long time and you contrast that with i'll say laquan treadwell right who went in the first and when he walked into the building, he had this kind of aura about him of like, Oh, I'm just, I am who I am. And it's not going to matter. No, one's going to guard me. No one's going to do anything. But then when it got out onto the field, you just didn't see it. And the difference. And I mean, just the being able to see both of Dalvin and Laquan and just the difference in the way that they performed on the field for me was the like you could tell one guy had it you could tell one guy didn't and the other way too is the way that Laquan would and I'm not trying to throw guys under the bus but like the

way that he would carry himself of like I don't play special teams I don't do this where Dalvin just didn't talk he just shut up and ran the football and as a rookie you can really respect a guy that's doing that and then he was also a sponge, always asking questions. He'd sit in the old line room for our third down blitz protection meetings. You'd be like, okay, young man's in here. We didn't even have to ask you to be in here. You were just in here. Right. And just the way that he carried himself, you can tell he was a true professional. And that's a hard thing to do when you're walking in as a rookie, because you're still trying to figure out what day-to-day life looks like. Like, where do I get my food? Where do I go get my ankles taped? Like, do I, is my locker here or where is it? And you're still trying to figure out what day-to-day life looks like. Like, where do I get my food? Where do I go get my ankles taped?

Like, is my locker here or where is it? And you're just trying to figure that out. And so when you have young guys that can just assimilate into that system, it just shows that they have the right mindset. And if you have the talent paired with the right mindset, that's how you start having incredible NFL careers. If I remember correctly, they put his locker next to Terrence Newman as well, just to like put you next to the most veterinary veteran ever. And I did a story on that actually about how Delvin had made such an impression so quickly on everyone.

And I remember talking to Terrence about that. And it's the same thing of having a, is it a, is it a humility? Is it a curiosity about the game as well? A passion for the game that in college, because you're probably more physically gifted than everyone else. There are shortcuts that could be taken that absolutely cannot be taken in the NFL, unless you're Lawrence Taylor. Maybe I guess you can show up late to the game and still get a couple sacks, but that was in the eighties. So if if you're gonna do it now you're playing against all other guys who are drafted in the first round who have relative athletic scores of 99 percentile who jumped 40 inches who ran four fives like everybody else did

the same stuff that you did to dominate and that's what i really saw with mccarthy was he said to the coaches i want it all right i i want to understand every bit of it. I'm going to take all the coaching. I'm going to listen to Brian Flores and he would meet with Brian Flores. I'm sure he still does. And, uh, I'm, I'm going to listen to Josh McCown. I'm going to listen to Kevin O'Connell. I'm going to buy completely into what these coaches are doing. I'm not going to say, Hey, well, I did it this way in college. So that's the way I should be doing it. It was much more. I want to do it the way you guys say I should do it because you know what leads to success.

Because Kevin O'Connell has a ring that he won with Matthew Stafford, probably for a reason, running that McVay offense, and you just have no idea how someone's going to react to that environment, and I think it couldn't have been better for J.J. McCarthy. I also think it helps coming from Jim Harbaugh, right? Like you came from an NFL coach system that has played at the highest level, has coached at the highest level. It was coaching at the best college football team last year. He ran his program like a pro program. So when he showed up to the Vikings, it probably wasn't that much different on like a day-to-day how things should be run.

And, you know, we all know about Jim Harbaugh. He's a cult leader and he's got everyone that buys in and does all that stuff. So if you come into the mentality of, well, this is what I did with Jim and we won a national championship. Why don't I just do the exact same thing with KOC and this crew here, then you're going to come into it with the right mindset versus there's definitely schools out there and colleges out there that don't have that mindset where it's just the inmates are running the asylum and people are just going over and if you walk in the nfl with that type of mindset it can take a full year to adjust that mindset because the game doesn't slow down for you the nfl season forges on no matter what the train keeps rolling on and if you're not on board

it's going to take a while to get caught back up to speed and so he approached it definitely the right way from everything i read me talking with you i think after the first preseason game you text me like stick to all line picks i was like yeah that's fair no but i am excited for the growth of him and what he can do with jefferson being locked up for a long-term deal now addison still on his rookie deal hawkinson's going to come back you know what he could do in year two could be really special um it's unfortunate what happened we won't see him in year one but i do think that longevity for his career this was a good thing i yeah i think uh it would have been fine for him because he's what i noticed about him too is he's resilient and this i would love your perspective on because even in that first camp you just get whipped every single guy and no matter i, even Delvin cook, they were hitting them because used to hit a little more under

Zimmer and used to hit a little more in 2017. And it did not matter. And I remember Terrence telling me, yeah, I ran into him at the goal line and I said, you got some weight behind you. He was not afraid. And think of the players who were on that defense was the number one defense in the NFL. There was no fear in him from the outset. And I saw that from McCarthy where in practice, he had a practice that was so awful one day that he said he didn't even take off his sweats after he just stayed at home and sulked in his sweats after, which must've smelled disgusting. But that like, that's how upset he was after the practice next day. It was his best practice of the the year he throws the interception to start preseason first drive 60 000 people in the stands they didn't show up in cleveland to watch dorian whoever they have is playing the

quarterback yeah but they 60 000 pack into u.s bank stadium can't wait to see our new quarterback pick that must have felt horrendous and then the next drive or it's touchdown the next drive to that touchdown that seems like one of the hardest parts to this is adjusting to the fact that you will get whipped way more often than you ever have in your life yeah i mean i tell my rookies all the time like when you're in the nfl you're gonna get got it just happens it's it's everything you laid out beforehand everyone's really good everyone's getting paid a lot of money to play this 0.001 percent of people do this job you're gonna get got at one point but the question is how do you

respond because the guys that can't respond to getting beat don't last longer this league right because if you can't if you let one thing compound into two and then three and then four and then the whole thing starts spiraling off the rails you just can't compete in this league you have to have the goldfish brain right okay that didn't work out that play i gotta move on to the next one and then once we get in the film room then i can correct it you can't live in that moment while the game is still going on and keep going back to that moment of, oh my gosh, I got beat. Oh my gosh, I have people thinking about blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You have to be able to flush that in the moment and then have the mindset when you get back

into the film room the next day of, okay, now I can learn from it and make the adjustment. And, you know, for him to bounce back like he did after that pick, I, as soon as he threw that pick, I was so curious. Okay, now what? Right. He goes out and throws another one. We're talking the world is going to be falling in US Bank Stadium. As soon as he threw that pick, I was so curious. Okay, now what? He goes out and throws another one. We're talking the world is going to be falling in U.S. Bank Stadium.

But he came back and showed that resilience, and that for me was more impressive than anything else he did that day. The ability to say as a rookie, as the ninth overall pick, as a guy that maybe people thought the Vikings didn't want me and they wanted someone else, and so much of that came into his story to go out there and have the resilience to bounce back from that and throw the touchdowns and have the performance he did just shows that he has the pro mindset. And from that game, after that first game, I was, I was sitting there going, I'm probably was wrong about this kid. I think this kid really has a chance to have a very bright NFL future. And everybody that I've talked to after Kevin O'Connell

made a declaration, we've got our franchise quarterback and O'Connell is known for his extreme effusive praise of people. Uh, but everything that I've heard and everyone I've talked to, it's like, no, that was, that's legit. And that he probably was going to be playing pretty quickly into the season. I think Darnold would have gotten his opportunity. And if they had won a lot of games, case Keenum style or something that of course, you know, he would have kept playing.

But as soon as the wheels started to come off, then JJ McCarthy was, they felt, I think was going to be ready to go. And maybe even sooner than that, depending on how he had done after, which really says a lot because the first two weeks of training camp, he didn't look anywhere close to me.

And then all of a sudden we're having that conversation before he ends up getting injured. One more thing on, on McCarthy. It stood out to me and I don't know what this is. When a guy has a natural vibe to him that people gravitate to. I think if you could put your finger on it, you'd make millions of dollars. when a guy has a natural vibe to him that people gravitate to. I think if you could put your finger on it, you'd make millions of dollars. If you could understand what it is, why it is, but it's something that you know when you see it and it was there. And this is when we talk about checking all the boxes to say he's their future guy.

But that was something that I noticed right away. There's an energy about him. There's an enthusiasm about him. There's an enthusiasm bottom. He connects with people. He relates with people really well. But you played with Philip Rivers, Cam Newton, Teddy Bridgewater, Sam Bradford, a lot of really good quarterbacks who have that. Josh Allen, right?

Explain to me what that is. What am I seeing when it comes to that? Yeah, you know, it's hard to explain. It really is hard to explain because it's just, let's call it the it factor, right? Guys either have it or they don't. And it's more for me of a confidence thing. Like when a guy walks into the huddle at the quarterback position specifically, and there's 10 other guys

standing there and all eyes are on him, is the moment too big for him? Or is this just another day at the office and all the guys that have had the it factor? It's just another day at the office. It's just showing up. This is what I do. This is what I was made to do. This is what I've been my whole life. This is why I'm here. This is how I'm going to handle. This is what I have been my whole life. This is why I'm here. This is how I'm going to handle this. Versus some of the other guys, and I'm not throwing guys on the bus like Keenum or Sean Hill or, you know, Kellen Moore, who I, not Kellen Moore, Kellen Clemens, who I played with in San Diego. Like, they just didn't have the it factor of being the guy. And I think that just comes with when you're a starting quarterback in this league, but to have it as a rookie is really different. And that comes from your teammates looking at you going, you got it. Like I can feel it because I'm that guy,

right? Every superstar, every starter in the league has it factor, right? I'm the guy. I'm the best at my position out of these 53 guys. I'm the guy. And so when you see a rookie that comes in and you can feel that from him as a 22 year old kid or a 21 year old kid, you then want to rally behind him and you want to push him because you're going, if he's got it and I've got it and the trigger man has it, let's roll. Like, let's, let's go pedal down. Everyone get on board. and if all 22 starters and all 53 guys can feel that and rally behind a guy like that that's when you really start to see guys take huge successes in the rookie year so i don't know where this is gonna go over the next five

years because nobody does and uh you're fair enough to still be in the blue maybe with your with your needle moved a little a little bit after what he showed uh but the reason i've enjoyed talking about it so much is one because uh i was shocked at the gains that he made but another thing is too that you never get another first camp and it's so interesting to watch a guy and see it come together for him because if if two years from now, he is leading a team deep into the playoffs. That's a great moment for everybody. That first preseason game where the entire state of Minnesota is watching

and the training camp practices where we're reporting, he's coming, it's happening. He's making this progress. So I think that that's what Vikings fans are going to have to hang on to for a while until they can really see it come to fruition in 2025. But we have a 2024 season to play.

And this is the awkward position that I have found myself in being like, but next year, and we haven't played yet. So that's why the theme of the week is stuff that you are jacked about to watch with the Minnesota Vikings and just overall the NFL. Where would you like to start on that list what are you most pumped about to find out about the 2024 Minnesota Vikings you know for me and as weird as this may come for me I'm excited to see what Brian Flores year two

defense looks like you know so many times you and I sat here on this show going he is squeezing every drop of juice out of that roster that he has to be competitive and he's blitzing and sending five like 40 of the time and he's doing all this crazy stuff how much growth can we see from the additions that we got through dallas turner right through, I think that's Ed Rush room got better, even though Daniel Hunter left, but there's still enough holes. I'm going to say interiorly on the defense, right? That can this defense be better than it was last year, or is it going to start slower? Because the last four weeks of the year, last year, people figured it out. And it was very apparent that people figured out how to attack this Flores defense so what does this look like going into year two for him because I'm really not super concerned about the offense I think they're going to score points I don't think it's going to be

quite what it was with Kirk Cousins but I'm more concerned about this defense being able to week in and week out not make it a shootout not make it a race to, not make it a race to 35. And so I'm excited to see what Brian Flores year two defense looks like. And maybe it's more anxious than excitement because I think it could be really good, really bad, or not. I don't think it's going to be somewhere in the middle. I think it's either going to be a feast or famine type of thing. Folks, U S cellular noticed that the way we use our phones has gotten ironic. We try to put our phones down for dinner, but the menu is on a QR code. That's ironic. We hit like on social media posts that we don't actually like. Ironic. Which is why U.S. Cellular created UsMode to help us reconnect with each other and use our phones

less ironically. A phone company wanting people to use their phones less ironic let's find us again with us mode from us cellular visit us cellular.com slash built for us to get started well something that's important is that aside from mckay blackman tearing his acl on the first day everybody else goes into this healthy, which is a big deal. And Kevin O'Connell once again has done a good job of keeping everybody healthy throughout the preseason. I've always been for not playing veteran players in the preseason because they know how to play football. They don't need this. And I would easily exchange the health because this came up last year when they fumbled sometimes at the beginning of the season.

But I would exchange the health for whatever 15 reps you're going to get all day long. And they come into this with everybody ready to go. How do you think Flores is going to manage that outside linebacker unit? That one is the one I'm most interested to see. Dallas Turner, where does he fit in? Andrew Van Ginkle is such an interesting player. Jonathan Grenard is more of a stay on one side in one place. He's not really the versatile guy, but at 12 and a half sacks last year. And one thing that I've really noticed about him.

And I asked Brian Flores about this today and he sort of looked at me like, you don't know what you're talking about, but you kind of are getting at something here. Granardus has a toolbox. He has a lot of different types of pass rushing moves that he's able to use. I love this combination for them as an upgrade because it really was the Daniil Hunter, just push on a dude until you fall into him kind of pass rush. And now it's three of them that can be more of a moving parts type of situation. I'm really curious which one moves inside in the nickel pass situation, right? You see it more and more in the NFL now of they call it the NASCAR package or whatever it is, where it's third and eight and you bring in your four best pass rushers.

Well, which one do you line up over the guard? Which one do you line up outside? Or do you have one standing up? And that's where the creativity of Brian Flores is going to come into this. My center, John Michael, plays them week one for the Giants. And so he's like, hey, let's watch some tape. And we're going to watch some tape together. And it's kind of you just flavor the week.

And I don't think it's going to look the same as it was last year. There might be some pieces to it, but you just kind of have to go in as an offensive line. If I'm going against a Brian Flores defense, I'm going in going, here's my base rules, right? Here's what I know my base rules are, and then we're going to have to adjust to them as the game goes on because I don't think we're going to get a pulse on anything right away.

But with that outside linebacker room, you now have options, right? And that's what we didn't have laster room, you now have options, right? And that's what we didn't have last year. We didn't have options, right? We knew it ran through Daniel Hunter and everyone knew it ran through Daniel Hunter. So you can scheme that up. But going into this year, you're going to have to make a decision. Who do we slide to? Who do we trust to be able to block one-on-one? Who do we not trust? Who do we have to make sure we're looking for? Where's Ivan Pace lined up, right? All this stuff plays a huge role into it but for the first time in the KOC and Flores I mean I know it's only year two they have plenty of options and plenty of fun new toys to play with that can put a lot of stress on an opposing quarterback did you ever play a Belichick defense because

it's okay so you know what this is like how how different is that from a defense that you can get a pretty good read on what they're going to be from week to week because i think that what flores has now is players who can handle this where it's going to be a new game plan every week but they can do it this is really a veteran defense we think of them as a team that's almost there and maybe next year but on defense it's all dudes who have played a lot of NFL football before and I think that this allows Flores to do a week by week type of game plan so when you can't get a great read on well they just play this system or whatever how much different is that from preparation yeah you know from a

preparation standpoint it all comes down to first down. And I know that's weird to think, but the key piece of keeping a defense that wants to be exotic and moving around is winning on first down so that you don't put yourselves in their hands, right? If you allow a, and I remember when Buffalo used to talk to us all the time, if you allow Belichick to get you behind the sticks on first down, you're playing catch up from the rip, right? Cause now they have the the upper hand they can decide what they want to do they know your tendencies as an offense when you get into second and 11 or second and 10 versus if you're sitting at second four and second and five they're now playing you going okay they

now have the whole playbook open right and so so much of what's going to be the success determiner for this defense is going to be on first down but you're right year one under Flores so much of what's going to be the success determiner for this defense is going to be on first down. But you're right. Year one under Flores, so much of it was install, right? Because his playbook is very large. There's a lot of checks, a lot of calls, a lot of blitzes. And you're talking about a middle linebacker that was an undrafted free agent that's wearing the green dot. That's a lot to put on him.

And I thought he did really well as a rookie. But when you go into year two as a scheme with the guys that have a lot of NFL experience, you're now not as much worried about install as much as adding wrinkles to your base install right you come into the season into into training camp going yeah okay we're going to go through install one and install two and all that but you guys know that so let's say okay and install 1a right so we have install one but now if they line up in trips we're checking to this or if they line up in doubles we're going to get to this or if they line up here we're going to move to this and then this week when we play the Packers we're going to do this and you have to have trust that your players can handle that in order to do that and I think you nailed it with a veteran group you have that

trust but then it just comes down to can all 11 guys execute at all at each time and he played so many guys on defense last year that i'll be more curious too is is it still that kind of rotating get everyone on the field as much as we can or do we settle more into we'll have that 11 to 19 players that kind of play majority of the snaps from what i've seen there's going to be a couple of dudes who i think are the main mix it in type of players. Jihad Ward is somebody who, when he was a role player early in his career was effective as a starter, 700, 800 snaps,

not as much, but you talk about that NASCAR package. He's this gigantic dude who is kind of a tweener between a defensive end and a defensive tackle that they could use rushing inside. Theo Jackson is somebody I think they would like to have on the field and they can actually play a nickel package this year with their corners, at least for now, at least as long as people are healthy. Going into week one.

Right, going into week one. All statements made about week one may not apply in week two, but they can have Byron Murphy in the nickel, and they don't have to have Josh Metellus playing 1,000 snaps. So even though you're not playing maybe 22 defensive players on a given game you're playing your best 14 or 15 out there and it is a stronger group and it's going to have to be in order to survive the first part of the season i think there's a ton of pressure on brian flores to be able to do that they could be a way better defense and the results won't be

much better because you're facing Purdy and Stroud and all these good quarterbacks to start the season. I want you to put your offensive coordinator hat on for me and speak to something that's on my list of things I'm most interested in is Aaron Jones. I have watched this man commit crimes and U.S. Bank Stadium against the Minnesota Vikings. He has done horrible things to this team over the years he averages like six yards of carry in his career against the Vikings it's unbelievable and so watching him in camps oh okay I get it I see it up close why this happens but do we trust this coaching staff to really design a run game so I want you to design

a run game for Aaron Jones for me right now in like five minutes or less. Yeah. I mean, the number one thing that I'm doing with Aaron Jones is I'm going between the tackles. I'm going between the tackles. That's where in green Bay, he made his money. He's so good at setting the blocks up with one cuts and goes right. The, where he doesn't excel in my opinion is those big tosses and get them outside on the edge. He's not your burner. That's going to outrun the corner with the pursuit angle. But what he does such a good job of is understanding and trusting his offensive line of when to push it to the point, get those linebackers to commit, put one foot in the ground and get North and South.

Right. I talk about it a lot with running backs, four clouds, four yards in a cloud of dust. I'm okay with, right. Putting your head down and understanding, okay, this isn't going to be the home run shot, but just going after it, going after it. So if I'm KOC and I'm looking at what do I want to do from this run game? I want to be a downhill running football team. I want to line up in 12 personnel and get two tight ends on the field and run duo, getting double teams at the

point of attack, run some mid zone, run some inside zone, and then sprinkle in a little bit the outside zone. But I don't want to see a lot of shoulder pads going to the sideline with Aaron Jones. I want to see him crossover roll straight downhill, let him make one guy miss, and then break to go one-on-one with the safety. But that comes down to trusting the interior of your offensive line a lot, right? The interior of Green Bay's offensive line has been really good for a long time, right? And that's where they made their run.

That's where they made that running with Aaron Jones so well. So if I'm designing this, I'm putting a lot of trust in my guys up front and saying, we're going to be downhill. We're going to be smash mouth. We're not going to scheme up guys open we're not going to scheme run lanes open we're going to create run lanes open by denting the defense and getting to the second level and then letting aaron jones do his thing just one time i am calling upon kevin o'connell to put in josh oliver johnny munt cj, and Trent Shurfield, their best blocking wide receiver,

and run it five, six, seven times in a row. And just see if anybody can stop the run. I don't know if he can do it. I don't think he can. I think he'd start having a mini stroke if he called four run plays in a row. It's just not in his DNA to be able to do. But I think it's going to be very important this year.

If you want to win football games, you're used to having Kirk back there who you can rely to throw the ball 60 times a game. Maybe Sam Darnold can, maybe he can't that's TBD, but for success and to not get into track meet type games, you have to run the football. And I think with the signing of Aaron Jones, that became maybe a point of emphasis this off season and maybe a point of, Hey, let's adjust and pivot and have a little bit more of that 12, that 13 personnel, like you're talking about bigger guys on the field and downhill run style. I just, until he can prove to me that he can physically do it as a play caller. I'm not sure he can. To your point, here's a stat for you. What does this stat mean? You know what this stat means? Actually, 16 of Kirk's 25 starts for Kevin O'Connell had 40 passes or more. If you ask Sam Darnold to do that, I think you're going to

be in trouble. I think that means you're losing in games. And the thing with Kirk was at least in those two seasons is when you were losing in games with Kirk, he could pass you back into it. That has not been the case with Sam Darnold's career. Darnold has 16 games in his career, over 35 passes, 16 games. His record is two and 14 when he throws 35 or more, which means he's not just bringing you back with the cannon. He's probably going to turn the ball over when he's trying to do that. Kirk was masterful actually at keeping his team in games. When the other team would start to play those deep zones and stuff, he would find Justin Jefferson all over the field and even got better at creating explosives. It's just not who Sam Darnold is going to be,

which means you have to run. And I also want to see if I'm doing my offensive coordinator hat. I just want to see if a defense can really stop the run in the NFL today because they all build themselves now for pass rush. And okay, the giants we're going to get into uh have a particularly large human being in the middle run the other way away from him but somebody like cave on tibeto like prove it to me prove it to me linebackers who are all drafted to cover prove it to me the safeties who are smaller than ever prove it to me just sometimes in a game that you can consistently stop all these giant human beings doing the blocking and uh oliver is a great blocker he was one of the highest graded last year use it use it more uh

when you say between the tackles it's like what about between the tight end and the tackle that that whatever go go through that one yeah give me a josh oliver josh oliver christian derisaw double team right go go run behind that i mean that that's against a cave on Thibodeau. Like you said, right? Put those two dudes out there, and if you beat those dudes up on first and second down, they don't quite have as much go on third down. They don't have quite as much go with the two-minute drill at the end

when they've been getting driven off the ball for 30 plays. Right? It's true. It's something that you see guys wear out, and then all of a sudden they tap out and they need a blow. And now it's third and eight. And they're like, oh, shoot, he's not on the field. Right.

Those type of things compound of the game within the game when you're talking about personnel stuff. So I would love to see it. I'm not sure we're going to, but I sure would love to see that out of the Vikings with Aaron Jones this year. This is it's my most analytical thing is how much I love when a team runs over another team. They just hand off and you can't stop us. And we're just going to do it over and over again we saw it we saw it last year eagles versus vikings right we knew it was coming koc knew it was coming everyone in in that building knew it was coming and the vikings couldn't stop it and as an offensive lineman no better feeling in the world no better feeling in the world when you line up and go,

hey, we're going to double team you to that guy over there. We're telling you, and we're still going to do it, and you still can't stop it. There is no better feeling. And can this offensive line group do it? I think so. I think they can. Do we want to ask them to be a jack-of-all-trades

when it comes to the run game, which I feel is what the Vikings have been the last couple of years, is we don't really know what we are one week we're pin pulling one week we're trying to run a duo out of 11 the next week we're running power out of 22 and you're just like what are we doing right but i hope that they found okay we signed aaron jones here's what he does u5 up front plus u2 line tight ends here's what we need to be masters of and here's what I don't care if they line up in five down four down three down whatever it is we're going to be masters of this play of our own craft and make them stop us and if we do that as an offense then we have a chance something I found interesting there was an article about pitching

and why it's better than it's ever been in major league baseball and one of the funny things that they discovered was that pitchers are just throwing the same pitch over and over again, more than they used to. And they think about even golden state. What if we just always shot the three and then they just did. And it worked like, what if, and this is Gary Kubiak. What if we just always ran outside zone? And then they did. And it worked.

Find what you do best. Keep doing it until they stop it. I think it's a good sports philosophy in general. What else you got? Give me another Vikings one. I'm excited to see Justin Jefferson after he got paid. You know, he was a guy that was always incredible and watching a little bit of

the snippets of like, Hey, this is how I went about my business. I didn't want it to be this big thing. And I wanted to get paid and do it the right way. He's a guy you sometimes worry about guys when they get paid, do they shut it down a little bit? Did they stay in shape enough? I think he's still going to be one of the most dominant receivers in the NFL for a long time. And so I'm super excited to see the connection that he can build with Sam Darnold to be the security blanket, right? Because Hawkinson forever and always a tight end is always the number one security blanket for a quarterback, right? Big body standing over the middle, big target hit me right in the head, right? But

without having Hawk there, it's going to have to be Jefferson that is the security blanket for Sam Darnold. So it might be more of the, hey, an 11-yard slant route or a 10-yard hitch route. Get the ball in his hands, let him do something special, and then we'll take our chances with the shots of the big over routes and the big deep crosses that KOC loves. But I do think that we're going to see a different version of Jefferson this year and hope some more yak yards out of him. Some harder yak yards out of him over the

middle and earn that contract because it's going to be very different than lot them up full max protect and just throw it down the field all the time so i am wondering if it goes the opposite way a little bit with him remember uh 2019 digs where he caught like 60 passes for 1100 yards or something. Darnold throws the ball down the field with his arm talent really well. Will they try to run a little bit more and hit on deep shots? I just wonder about this distribution of passes and runs with Sam Darnold and how you could maybe pick your spots to use the cannon with him as opposed to trying to have him play point guard that's what everybody says like i don't think this guy is a point guard i i think he is a how do i even describe it like he's somebody who gets hot and just makes five fade

away threes in a row because he's crazy talented and then does something insane uh but in camp i think we saw a little more of the him and jefferson down the field so i'm curious if they that would be a total change and shift in philosophy but it goes to the same thing with can they run the ball a little more can they play a little more like 2017 vikings as opposed to what they've been doing previously with her cousins i'm curious about that i don't know the answer to that. I'm just curious if does, do they lean on the short passing game and trying to get yards after catch, or do they lean on the run game and try to hit bombs to Justin Jefferson, which could be hard to do because everyone knows that. But just to your point, I think Jefferson

missed two practices all summer for veteran days and such trying to manage the hamstring, make sure that doesn't happen again. He seemed irritated about it. And then he demolished everyone on the practice field again. And last year I was impressed with it last year because he was negotiating the contract. And unlike Jamar chase, who I totally respect what he's doing, like you got to get paid, don't get hurt. Jefferson didn't care about that and went and practiced the whole time. And then this year has come back with the same sort of, I'm going to, you know, leave a trail of sad cornerbacks behind me, like hard to evaluate the corners when they're getting mossed by Jefferson over and over again.

He just takes a different approach. And I know, and I heard at least that he had told his agency, I don't want to see any of this in the media through this whole thing. And even with a bunch of stupid rumors around and trade things that everybody was posting, they should trade him for this draft pick or whatever. Never said a word about it. So I think the way he went about his business was very impressive. How about, how about for week one, be excited about for week one around the national football league. Do you have a game that you're circling saying this is the one, this is the one I can't wait for. It's giants Vikings. There it is. Daniel Jones, Sam Darnold.

All right. Great to have you Searles. We'll catch you next week. Uh, you know, for me, it's LA and Detroit. And I think that this could be, and this might be a hot take, this could be a Super Bowl, not Super Bowl. No, it can't be a Super Bowl. This would be an NFC championship game caliber. Yeah. Like, I think both these teams are very good. I think both these teams are right there.

They added pieces in the offseason. They didn't lose. I mean, you lose Aaron Donald, and that's going to hurt. But you talk about a defense last year that every single player besides Aaron Donald was either on a minimum deal or rookie contract and still had the success that they had. You have Matthew Stafford, you have healthy Cooper cup. You have Puka Nakua. I am very excited about this Rams team. I think they could, I think that they probably win their division over the Niners this year. And so I'm looking at this game going, this is, this could be a Superbowl contending team,

whoever wins this game and to kind of springboard them. That's the number one game I have circled on, on the week one roster here. You and I are in the same place with being high on the Los Angeles Rams. The way that Matthew Stafford played last year, I thought was different than I've ever seen him play before. Even when he won the Super Bowl, he was out there playing like Tom Brady. Just he was doing the point guard thing, making the right reads. I mean, of course,

he's making his crazy arm throws, but he was calmer in the pocket, it seemed. And it's almost like sort of how Kirk was looking looking in that offense where once you really get it and lock into it the answers are there it just seems like it's not the easiest thing in the world to completely get it i i agree with you that that could be nfc championship i'll give you one that's uh it's a noon game won't get a whole lot of hype, but I'm curious to, I guess, go back and watch at it. I'll be in East Rutherford. But Texans and what? There's the you're not excited about me going to East Rutherford to see all the sites of East Rutherford. Well, I'm in the Newark Airport Hotel.

So, oh, there you go. Get to watch the airplanes. Yeah. Anyway, Texans Coltsts i'm really jacked about texans colts stroud anthony richardson coming back what's that gonna look like richardson scares me dude he did not look sharp in the preseason i felt like he looked a little lackadaisical from a footwork standpoint from a command command standpoint, you know, I just didn't love what I saw out of him. And then also ever since he made the comment that the NFL is easier than

college football, I've kind of just been sort of rooting against him as terrible as that is to say, because that's just the most unlogical thing I've ever heard come out of a quarterback's mouth in the NFL for a couple of reasons. One, it's not true to you painted a target on your back. Now you painted a target on your back. Everyone goes, oh, you think this is easy. Didn't you break your shoulder in week three last year trying to run over a linebacker? All right, let's see if you want to do that again. Right. So I'm very curious to see there, but I mean, the Texans are going to be so fun to watch this year. I mean, Stroud and Diggs and Nico Collins, Dalton Schultz, they got Joe Mixonon i mean the texans are this this game

could be coming down to tiebreakers for who wins that afc south division but yeah that's another game that's going to be lights out and i'll be glued to the texans a lot this year the only thing i could say to defend richardson's comment was that his florida team was very bad very bad so he may have been pointing out that the coaching is better. The receivers are better. The running backs are better. He's playing with Jonathan Taylor and Michael Pittman and dudes who can play as opposed to one of the saddest looking offenses around a quarterback that I can remember.

And while it's gone great for Florida since then, so maybe that's where he was coming from i i've been a believer and i try to just erase everything for preseason i did have the same thought watching him but it's like this preseason i know it's preseason but you don't want to you don't want to put stuff out there like that no i agree bad picks bad interceptions bad reads missing things like that's the type of stuff i was like you just don't look sharp right like versus joe burrow had one preseason drive one and he went boop boop boop touchdown and that was it we never saw him again and you're like he's got it he's sharp he's locked in same thing you said about the giants daniel jones didn't look sharp right couple really bad

plays and you're just sitting there going you just don't put a good taste in my mouth for me to put a lot of faith in you going into week one that's how i feel about anthony richardson right now yeah i feel the same way it should look for the starting quarterback even sam darnold look great in there they're not throwing pressures at you and you should be able to go through whatever reads you got and for him to not look more accurate was that was the concerning part because my expectation was that his accuracy was going to take a big jump with this entire offseason if it hasn't then there are limitations to what he can do even if he's going to run the ball prolifically uh two more things before we wrap up one is this

show jeremiah is now presented by underdog fantasy oh yeah oh oh we're rolling yeah yep underdog fantasy so we have a little little bit of a fantasy segment here for you okay okay so uh this week underdog fantasy is discounting the dogs this saturday do you know what that means that means literally the dog related college football teams they have a special special promo going on where you get four different discounts on players from all of your favorite dog-related college football teams. How about that? So if you go on to Underdog Fantasy where it says Pick'Em, click the little CFB, go to Promos.

It's right there, right in front of you. Can't miss it, so you want to click that. And that is going on from midnight Eastern to game time on Saturday. Dog- related teams. So naturally I looked at the dog related matchups and I am curious about one in particular. That is a, a pick them here on,

on underdog fantasy. Now you go higher or lower with these picks. Grayson McCall, who must be older than us. Grayson McCall, who must be older than us. Grayson McCall is still in college football. I McCall him playing 20 years ago, but he's still here. His higher or lower number is 237 and a half yards playing for the Wolfpack of NC State versus the Tennessee Volunteers.

Would you go higher or lower with him throwing for 237 and a half against tennessee 15th ranked team in the country i'm gonna go lower nc state didn't look very sharp this past week they were playing a no one football team too if i recall and it wasn't wasn't thrilling it wasn't something that i was really excited about i think tennessee is going to be decent this year. I don't think they're a great football team, so I'm going to take the under. I'm going to go lower than 237. Okay, beautiful.

And if you want to go to Underdog Fantasy, use the sign-up code PURPLE. Helps the show. You get a special pick and first-time deposit offer up to $1,000 in bonus cash. Must be 18 or older. Terms apply. up to $1,000 in bonus cash must be 18 or older terms apply concerned with your play call 1-800 gambler or visit ncpgambling.org all right for love to see it hate to see it there's only one thing we can talk about just real quick mike zimmer because both it's both it's both it's 100 both i mean i will say when i first saw it i thought it was a parody account i thought i thought it was a mike zimmer parody account

when i first saw it because in no way shape or form did i think that an active nfl head or defensive coordinator active nfl coach would say these things, right? Would come out a week before the season and just lay it all out there and just shots across the bow, line them up, right? Spielman next Zimmer next. Like it just, he just was just everyone. I mean, like, Hey, you want to address the team? Got me fired. I don't want to talk to them. I haven't watched a Vikings game in two years. It was just the most baffling thing that I've seen come from someone. I thought, I thought that he kind of buried the hatchet. He moved on, but he even says it. I hold grudges. I hold grudges. And it doesn't sound like this grudge

is going to get let go anytime soon. Oh no, he is hanging on to that hatchet. It's hung behind him. If he had the podcast set up like I did, it'd be hanging right here underneath the Vikings helmet. Just a nice hatchet right there with a bunch of names on it with Spielman being the first one. I was laughing with a Vikings player in the locker room yesterday about Chris Boyd getting it.

Chris Boyd. What? Here's what I want. Here's what I want for you to tell me. And then you got to give a Super Bowl prediction. And that's our first Tuesday morning. But one thing about Zimmer and it's all unhinged and it's childish and it's petty and it's totally not understanding the landscape of how much noise this is going to make right before your team season, et cetera, et cetera. It's also funny as hell. It's so funny. And one thing about Zimmer just covering him, I thought he was hilarious.

I thought that things he would say about players were incredibly funny. And a lot of them were critical. One time I asked him, I told him one time that on Madden, I never punt. So I was curious about how he decides because I hate punting and I never punt on my video game. And he said, I don't play video games like that Madden or Game of Thrones. I'm like, Mike, that's nope. We'll just move on there. See, he could be super funny. I want you to tell me the funniest thing that you heard Mike Zimmer said.

Oh gosh. So there's so many, I mean, the immediate one that comes to mind is the fat cats get slaughtered. Like that's, that's the immediate one that comes to mind because I remember we all walked in the locker room and there was all the stuffed animals with like lipstick across like ripped heads off and none of us knew what was happening. Like we all just kind of walked in like, what the hell happened? Did a toddler get loose in here? Like what happened?

And then we're all going to the team meeting room just so fascinated, right? I was like, okay, he's got to bring it up, right? This wasn't. And then he's like, men, up right this wasn't and then he's like men don't forget fat cats get slaughtered we're like okay god i now fully understand what what you are speaking about here uh from that standpoint there um and then another one it's probably not funny for blair walsh but when we were going into i can't remember what game it was and blair had missed a kick and we're going in he in front of the entire team guys

we're rallying behind blair he's our guy we believe in him everyone in this building believes in him you guys should believe in him he's our kicker we're going for it and i was like yeah blair we're with you did a next week misses an extra point cut gone right and so all of us just sit in the team meeting room on that monday going you thought he was our guy like seven days ago but apparently not anymore right he just had a lot of those kind of contradicting moments as a head coach where he'd say something and then three or four days later he'd be like but that's not what you said on monday like and, it kind of became a funny joke, but he had a lot of those where you're just kind of like the fat cats get slaughtered.

One definitely takes the cake. Yeah, that's, that's a good one. I think we made one day in the press box, we made a list of like our top 10 craziest Zimmer quotes. One of my favorites though, was, did you see the game? It was the Daniel Carlson misses the field goal. So what went into the thought of cutting Daniel Carlson? Did you see the game it was the daniel carlson misses the field goal so what went into the thought of cutting daniel carlson did you see the game or kellen mond i see it every day at practice see it every day in practice every day in practice i i texted courtney cronin who was the one who

asked him the question about did you want to get a look at mond and i said i said when i'm on my deathbed i'm thinking about best moments that I had as, you know, be getting married and things like that. Do you want to get a look at mom? It's going to come into my head. It was so good. It was so good. Say it to myself all the time. Want to get a look at mom?

I see him every day in practice. All right. Who's going to win win the super bowl you think kansas city i got kansas city playing detroit they are better listen they are better than they were last year they added more pieces and they won the super bowl last year why wouldn't i assume that they're just gonna run it back and do the exact same thing the nfl somehow allowed them to get the fastest wide receiver imaginable who's now just going to run as far as he can as fast as he can mahomes is going to throw it to him at 70 yards and you still have travis kelsey who i know is aging but antonio

gates played this game for a long time and caught 9 11 10 yard passes till he was like 40. so travis is still there i think they upgraded at the left tackle position moving on from donovan smith they have kingsley um the byu kid who i think is going to be very very good as a second round pick creed humphrey highest played center like the list just kind of goes on isaiah pacheco is hitting his realm i can't bet against the kansas city chiefs this year because i think they're going to be the best football team again well i hate it but uh i understand it because they just keep winning i've got the cowboys and texans all texans cowboys yeah even with everything that's going on that's it we always make way too much we make way too much of all the offseason stuff

that team is stacked and as crazy as mike zimmer is he's good at what he does. Oh yeah. He can coach the bleep out of that defensive football and he's got all the talent to do it. And eventually my theory is this, I don't believe in them. It's that if you knock on the door long enough, one time it'll work out for you. And that doesn't always work. But I mean, even remember when Peyton Manning was a choker and there's like lots of good

quarterbacks, Matt Ryan, for example, just couldn't get, I think Dak Prescott, Matt Ryan's good comp for where they stand. It's like one time it'll come together. They'll get through. And I think they have the talent to do it. And all of the noise that's created by Jerry Jones at this point, no one can take that seriously. So, and i don't

think their division's good this is another thing too i do not believe in the eagles i i don't think the giants are all that good and washington's playing a rookie quarterback i think they could win 12 13 again i think the eagles are going to be better this year oh okay i i think i think saquon if he stays healthy has a better year than christ McCaffrey. Oh, wow. I do. I mean, he's playing behind the best offensive line he's ever had. Makai Beckton just won the right guard spot for them. He's 6'8", 360 pounds, playing next to Lane Johnson. And then you've got Landon Dickerson and Malata on the left side. It could be the Saquon show up there for a long time,

sprinkled in with deep shots to AJ and all over the place I think that Eagles offense is going to be disgusting this year I'm a little concerned about their coaching and how they're relating to that's the x factor can Sirianni pull it all back together now that Kelsey's gone and all of that too but it'll be curious but I also I kind of hope you're right and that the cowboys do it go to the super bowl because then you have to sit there and decide what you do with dak prescott right because everyone right now is like pay cd pay micah parsons move on from dak bring sugar sanders in right yeah but if dak leads them there you can't let him walk out of the building so then what do you do

that'll be a curiosity thing no one can do it better than jerry jones oh that's for sure he's he still has his absurdity fastball that's for sure uh jeremiah searles every tuesday sometimes it might be a wednesday sometimes it might be a morning sometimes besides the hunting trip still going on the hunting trip still going on the hunting trip okay still go on the hunting trip. Still going on the hunting trip. Okay. Still going on the hunting trip. So we'll have one. We'll have one out of there. So kick it off. Back again week two. Yes.

Not week one. Week two. Because of the hunting trip. We'll be back next week. I leave the 20th. I'm gone the 20th through the 28th. So whatever week that is. I'm here next week.

You can tell we talked this over about your schedule for this year. For sure. Okay. So then we'll react next week. Yes week to the New York Giants game. And there will be a week somewhere to be determined where you're on a hunting trip anyway. Well, I'm looking forward to it, man. Another year.

This is year five for us. Five is a five already. 2020. One, two, three, four. Let's go. And we have this many playoff wins that we've covered so let's see what we can do uh thanks thanks for your time as always and we will see you next week again very soon football football