Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Jeremiah Sirles needs Vikings to find their identity around JJ McCarthy (Part 1)

Episode Date: September 3, 2025

Matthew Coller talks with former Vikings offensive lineman Jeremiah Sirles about the Vikings' offensive identity and how Kevin O'Connell and JJ McCarthy will find that. And then they preview Vikings-Bears from the trenches perspective. Maggie Robinson then joins for a rundown of predictions from NFL executives. The Purple Insider podcast is brought to you by FanDuel.

Hey, everybody, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider, Matthew Collar, here. And yes, Tuesday morning left guard with Jeremiah Searle's is back. So we'll get that to you in just a moment, but just want to lay out the show for you tonight. You'll hear from Jeremiah Searle's great conversation. And then we'll jump in, answer your questions. We'll go over the Vikings' unofficial depth chart. that is up on vikings.com as we go into the week. And then Maggie Robinson is back to go through the Robinson rundown

where she's going to look at some predictions by executives around the league for this season. A couple of them are pretty interesting, but not going to waste much time here. Let's jump right in to Tuesday morning left guard with myself and former Minnesota Viking Jeremiah Searle. Hey, everybody, we are back with Tuesday morning. morning left guard. It is year five. Jeremiah Searle, Matthew Collar, we have been doing this for

since 2020. And you know, I remember our early days, Jeremiah. And I got to say it was not the best. Those first couple of weeks of 2020, we've been through the roller coaster of a fraudulent 13 win season, a somewhat fraudulent 14 win season, a coach firing, a quarterback drafting to arrive at this moment, sir. And I got to tell you, this is the most exciting year yet heading into the season for week one of Tuesday morning left guard. Welcome back, Jeremiah Searles. Hey, I could not agree with you more. I mean, you look at cross the landscape and there's exciting veterans that you're super sure about, young rookie quarterback, that there's still a lot of question marks, but also really excited about what the future could hold for him. You have one of the

best wide receivers in the world, all the weapons around. you've got a suspension looming still with one of your best receivers. Like, what more could you ask for from a content creator for the Minnesota Vikings than what we have walking into week one right now? It has been one heck of an offseason too for the Vikings and training camp every single day. I've never done it before where I tracked every single pass. You did not. Oh, I absolutely did.

No, no, no, no. Don't be that guy. No. You had to be that guy this year. You could not be that guy. Now, I tried to keep everything in context and stay rational about this and not overreact to every single incompletion and interception and all that when it came to judging McCarthy. But how could you not? If I, you know, if I'm out there practice, I got to keep track of everything that's going on with the quarterback.

And my final takeaway, though, was that it was overall a very good training camp for J.J. McCarthy. And I think that if you were every single throw that wasn't completed in the red zone losing your mind, you were probably. probably going too far with this year's camp. Yeah, I mean, it's just one of those things with young quarterbacks in camp. You know, I've always been on the side of like, you don't know what the coach wants him to work that day or you don't know what the purpose of the period, but hey, it's third down and short here. We want to really work the tight end today or we really want to work Jefferson Deep today or whatever it is.

So I do always kind of laugh at the train camp charting because it's just one of those things where it's like I love getting on Instagram. It's like, Shadur Sanders went 12 for 25 today and I don't know what happened. like, Kenny Pickett, 9 of 11. It's like, oh, my God, please stop. Like, I just, I just can't with you people all the time with that piece of it. And then when, like, the ESPN grabs onto it, it's like, look at what happened in training camp today.

That being said, I have so much faith in what McCarthy is going to be able to do, not necessarily because of what who and what McCarthy is, but because of what Kev O'Connell's done with every quarterback that's been in his system. And you look at what he did with Josh Dobbs. He'd look at what he did with Nick Mullins. Look what he did with Kirk Cousins. Now he's got this shiny new toy in McCarthy and feels like he has a good handle on what he can and what he can't do. I'm very excited to see how far Kevin lets him run early on or how far Kevin tries to hold him back early on.

But again, it's just another fascinating storyline. Well, that is a great lead into exactly what I wanted to talk about with you because you go back to the best team that you played on 2017 Vikings. I felt like that that team had a very clear identity. They knew exactly who they were. It was a run the football first, play action off of it, throw it up in the air, like, we'll see where it comes down every once in a while. And usually it was in the hands of Thielen or Diggs. And then it was play the heck out of defense.

And I think every single game that the Vikings went into that year, we knew exactly what it was going to basically look like. But it's always hard to pin down those things sometimes, you know, does a team have an identity or not? And I think when a team doesn't do well, that comes up. Well, this team lacks identity. I want to know what, like, what your definition of that is. And then what you think it will be or should be around J.J. McCarthy this year.

Yeah, that's a great point. No, anytime you hear a team talk about the identity of the football team, when I hear that word, I go to, okay, if the identity is we're a run football team or a past football team, that means that no matter what our opponent does to us, we should still. be successful with the things that we do great, right? If you're a rush for play coverage in the back end identity defense, it doesn't matter what the other offense is. We're going to do that and we're going to be successful at it.

And, you know, you hear a lot about the running run game identity. I think this is where you can really get yourself in trouble or be really solid. The Vikings in the last three years haven't had a true identity run game. It's been a little sprinkle of pinpole, a little sprinkle of inside zone, okay, maybe a little duo power in the middle. Like there hasn't just been a, hey, we're going to line up in this formation and we're going to run it, whether it's four man, three man, five man front, whatever it may be. And so I do think that you talk about the identity of this football team.

They have the best wide receiver, if not a top two or three wide receiver in the world there. So you know that the identity is going to run through 18. Rightfully so. Right. The problem is it's not like when you have a Sequeon-Barkley where you can just turn and hand it to 26. Like there is a middleman piece there that requires the identity to get through 18. And that's where I'm very curious to see if O'Connell's going to really say, okay, we have to

get 18 going early in the year. We're going to make McCarthy, get him rolling, and that's going to be our identity. Or is it going to be, hey, let's roll on more Jordan Mason and Aaron Jones and this new revamped offensive line that we brought in with Will Fries, Donovan Jackson, Ryan Kelly, and get the run game going to allow 18 to become part of our identity. And that's where I think this team needs to start is, hey, we pay guys up front, right? We draft the capital. We pay guys up front. We have two of the best tackles in the NFL.

Let's start our identity with not putting everything on number nine because that can go feast or famine. And if it goes great, great, but if it goes really bad, trying to revert back to, okay, now we're going to run the football is a lot harder than starting the ball, starting the season out with, hey, run the football, get up in front of the sticks, put ourselves in third and manageable, and then let nine do his thing instead of putting so much on number nine to start the year. And I think last year they had a very, very clear cut identity, which was Sam Darnold, you throw that football down the field. Like that's it. Ball, that way. That way. 500,

500 mystery package all the way down all the time. And sometimes that meant Sam Darnold, you're going to get sacked for a 14 yard loss because you're trying to make crazy plays and crazy throws downfield. And he took too many hits and they didn't run successfully in the second half of the season and etc, etc. But at least, you know, they knew who they were and they figured that out as they went along. I think with this offense, well, first of all, what I'd like to see is them run a true outside zone running game. Because when you look at the histories of both of these running backs, and I think that hiring somebody else from the outside to come in that used to work with Derek Henry, the assistant offensive line coach, I think that that system was more outside zone based

when he was there with Derek Henry. And that, that, fits Jordan Mason. That fits Aaron Jones. It's their histories with LaFleur, with Shanahan. Like those guys are rooted in that outside zone. I think it's better to play off of for play action because you get J.J. McCarthy on the boot legs, on the move sometimes, where even if the other team blows it up, usually you have a checkdown for five yards to a tight end. And if they don't, you get a shot play. And you can also scramble off of those. So there's a lot of really good options there. But if you're running like inside stuff all the time, then, I think it becomes a little harder to get him on the move, move the pocket, get him away from

pressure. But overall, I mean, we know that, you know, O'Connell is going to push the gas pedal down with the quarterback. They're not going to play it super safe all the time. What I'd like to see their identity is we can do anything that you're telling us we can. Oh, you're going to take away the deep passing game. Well, we're going to have Adam Thielen and T.J. Hockettton underneath. Oh, you're telling us that you're not going to pay attention to our run game.

now we're going to have this rebuilt offensive line, slam it down your throat, put Josh Oliver on the field and like, here we go. That's what I think they've built in terms of the group of weapons. I guess the big question is, will Kevin O'Connell fully buy into that? Or is it going to be, well, the passing game's not working, but it will eventually. So I'm going to keep, you know, this reminds me of a basketball team with good three-point shooters, but they're not just three-point shooters. You can also go into the paint.

You can also make mid-range, so why not do all of them? it yeah and i agree with you there's enough weapons on every piece every position on the offense that we should be able to take what the defense gives us on any given sunday i just know from covering kevin o'connell it's in his dna that if at first the past won't succeed try and try again right like that's just that's just how he's always worked because we've seen it with okay okay downs is in we're going to throw we're going to run the football nope send it right Nick Mullins is in, okay, we'll probably rely on the rolling. Like, you can't tell Nick Mullins, he can't put that football anywhere.

Like, he's going to send it. I just, that's my only concern is that when things get hard or when things get hairy in an opener, right? Kevin O'Connell is going to go to the playbook that he knows best, right? And I'm also super interested to see in the opener in the first couple of weeks. What are defense is going to try and take away from us? Like, are they going to come into the game plan and go, hey, we're going to make nine beat us? Right.

Like, we're not going to let Mason. we're not going to let Jones, we're going to get big up front, and we're going to make number nine beat us with his arm, or are people still so worried about Justin Jefferson being able to go psycho mode and T.J. Hawkinson and Adam Thielen that they're going to be like, maybe we shouldn't make nine beat us, right? It's just really going to be very interesting how teams play this Vikings offense initially and make us adjust in real time.

Because that's the other piece of it is, like you said, if, hey, what are they doing to us? How do we go? Well, how do you get a young quarterback to be able to, hey, throw that game plan that do we just put on Wednesday and Thursday in? We have to adjust and adapt right now because they're giving us something completely different. You take that for granted a little bit when you have guys like Kirk Cousins and

Sam Darnold that have seen a lot, been through a lot versus this is JJ McCarthy's first time through the ropes here of a starting quarterback. So if all of a sudden you're coming into a game on Sunday and you have one plan and you've got to try and adjust and adapt on the run, how well can McCarthy do that? That's just something we're going to have to

figure out as time goes on. Well, and as far as it pertains to Chicago, the opponent it. They will actually play a football game against soon, which is very exciting just in itself. Jalen Johnson's status is up in the air for this game, which makes a big difference just in itself, because they can't just have Jalen Johnson try to cover Justin Jefferson. Not that anybody ever does one-on-one exactly, but he has more capability to do it than most corners in the NFL. And if he's not there, then they do have to throw the house at Jefferson. But there's this delicate balance that I feel like Every quarterback has struggled with with Justin Jefferson.

And of course, it's way better to have him than not of how risky do you want to be? Because in this offense, you don't really have to be. And I think there's a lot still there with Adam Thielen. I think that Jaylon Naylor can be effective down the field. We know that Hawkinson is a monster underneath. You have Aaron Jones coming out of the backfield. They had good chemistry throwing the ball. There's so many other options.

But also any quarterback who throws the ball to Justin Jefferson and his career has 111 quarterback rating. It's good to throw the ball to him. And without the benefit of a training camp together, I do think this is a feeling out process. And if I'm Kevin O'Connell, what I'd like to see them get is a couple easy buckets, a couple, like, five yards slant, little quick hitch.

Like, just get the ball from McCarthy to Jefferson to get them connected early in the game. And then you can work that out as it goes along. Yeah, and we're very lucky that Jeff. is not your classic all-star receiver where he's going to come back and go, hey, I'm always open, right? Because that puts so much pressure on a young quarterback when, I mean, we've seen it where receivers come off and they slam their helmet because they're not getting

the ball. And it's like, dude, you were double coverage. He's like, don't matter. I was still open. But I've never met a receiver that was never open. Like no receiver never. Like, I was covered on that play, right? They're always open.

And so I think it's really good that we have the humble superstar and Justin Jefferson to help McCarthy go along where it's like, hey, bud, look my wife. way right like but it's not this overbearing like get me the football right and that's a big piece there because you're right without the chemistry there that they've had all of training camp there is a bit of a feeling out process but that can also work to jefferson's way where if Jefferson's not getting the ball early and it's hawk and it's nailer and it's the run game that's getting the ball that's just going to open him up right and you all he needs is half a step and see a strike up the gallo horn right and that's really where you're going to want to go and i think honestly matt

you're not going to see the slants and the hitches early for him because there's going to be such a focal point on him it's going to be the deep shot it's going to be the over the top when a safety bites on a play action or he bites on hawkinson who's hooked up at 12 yards and then there's that open shot and then let it eat that's where i think you're going to see more of the success with justin jefferson early because he's going to be such a focal point right on offense when we play against like micah parsons or erin donald you walk into the meeting room on wednesday and there's a star around that player. And you go, we're not letting him beat us. Well, if you look at this offense, you're going, okay, 18's the star. We're not letting him beat us. We'll worry about everyone else.

That's where he's going to have to pick his times to get the ball to 18 and not try and force it into him. Right. I think you want to go where everything takes you if you're JJ McCarthy. But that is something that's hard to figure out early on. I think even Sam Darnold probably needed a couple weeks to really get fully comfortable with that. And by the end of the season, he had played with everybody long enough. But I think walking into this spot where you haven't thrown to Thielen and you haven't thrown to Jefferson in training camp, you've thrown to Naler, but that's not a guy you want the football to go out to enough. If you end up with 12 targets for T.J. Hawkinson, kind of like last year's Bears game where they just entirely forgot to cover him, go go toward who

they forget to cover. And you'll work through the other things with Justin Jefferson. But for the first game, just make sure you're keeping the train on the tracks, and you'll have to make that decision of when is the right time to force the ball in. I mean, if you're in the high red zone and you're taking a shot to the back of the end zone for Jefferson, knowing he's probably going to break it up if it's not perfect, well, that's a great time to take a shot to him. If he's breaking in between two defenders, there's a linebacker sinking into the zone and there's a safety coming down on it, well, maybe in week 15, you want to fit that in when you're comfortable with the timing, but he's never played at this speed outside of a joint practice

and outside of practice against Brian Flores' defense. And I mean, I guess you could call the eight snaps or whatever it was in the preseason, but that's definitely not it. So here's what I want to know from you. You were in Minnesota when Teddy Bridgewater in 2015 took his second season and he had had starting experience the year before. You were also in Buffalo with Josh Allen when he was a young quarterback. What is your advice from the offensive lineman's perspective for young McCarthy as he steps out on the field in Soldier Field, which will be, that's going to be quite an atmosphere out there, I think. It doesn't matter.

I mean, it didn't matter how bad Chicago was. Soldier Field's a hard place to win, like, especially in a prime, like, first game of the year, everyone's undefeated, everyone's excited, new head coach, but so much excitement in Chicago right now, you know, as a young offensive lineman or as a young quarterback, First of all, I'm telling the offensive line, do not let this do get hit early, right? That is priority number one is we cannot let McCarthy in the first two series take a big hit because I've seen it too many times with young quarterbacks. They get hit early and they get hit often.

Their processing speed, it just skyrockets, right? What they think is two seconds or that route's going to be there in their brain, it's 1.5. Now the ball's out early or they're not ready for it. And then the ball's out late. Like it just completely rewires a quarterback's. brain when they get hit early, regardless of their age, but more on the younger side of, man, you get that quarterback rattled early, not a good thing. And so for me, if I'm talking to McCarthy, it's kind of like what we've been talking about, hey, don't be afraid to take what

the defense gives you, right? Don't think you got to light this thing up in the first quarter. Games in the NFL are not one in the first quarter. They can be lost in the first quarter, but games in the NFL are rarely, rarely won in the first quarter. It's about managing this game and putting yourself in a position to win it in the fourth because so many of these games come down to one score games with four minutes left on the clock you need to put yourself in position to go capitalize on that moment and that means not throwing turnovers early taking what the defense gives you not taking a bad sack knowing it's okay to throw the football away and live to fight another down because our defense is so good right a punt's not always a bad thing when you have a really

solid defense like the viking tap so it's more about just hey you are okay not feeling the pressure of I was the ninth overall pick, right? Like I was the guy they picked to come in here and save the franchise. You're in a very unique position where that is not the case for you right now. Like you're here to two hands on the steering wheel, keep it between the white lines and we'll allow to take the throttle break off here as we keep going. That's more what I need to see out of McCarthy early in his first couple games here. And if he can do those things, that's when COC can go, okay,

taking the blinders off, full pedal down, but it just can't come out of the gate. the wrong way and set him on a trajectory that's a scare thing we saw with Caleb Williams. We've seen with the young quarterbacks across the whole league. If they don't start the year strong, it's really hard to dig them out of that hole because then the pressure comes on social media, the national talking heads. And like, excuse me, it's just impossible to get away from. You just want him to have, yeah, it's a pretty solid first outing. Like that would be my goal for him coming out of Chicago.

The Bears in particular, let's dive into the trenches here and give a little trench preview. the bear's defensive line to me is me and that really depends though on how good Grady Jarrett is right now. Now, if you look at his numbers over the last two years, that has not been the Grady Jarrett that was terrifying for centers and guards for the Minnesota Vikings every single time. They faced off against him. This is much more of a middling type of player, but new system, new place. I don't know how that's going to work out. Montes Sweat has become a very good player for them, did not have a great season last year,

but still somebody that can mess up your game plan. I think if you're the Vikings offensive line, which at this moment completely healthy as far as I understand, we're going to see what happens with Christian Derisal when we get out there for their first practices and when they put out an injury report and whether he's just 100% good to go or if there's some question. I mean, I think if you're the Vikings,

you're probably like, oh, questionable. Limited, limited reps. missed one stabs, right, exactly. Yeah, right. But I don't, I don't know as of this moment. I'm going, so let's go on the assumption that Christian Derisaw will be back for week one. I think that this is an ideal defensive line to start against. I do want to highlight one Chicago bear, though, that gave him a really hard time last year. It is not a household name. Gervyn Dexter Sr. Remember that name. This guy is actually quite good. He had 39 pressures last year. five of them came in the game against the Vikings.

We just didn't care because Caleb Williams was getting sacked left and rights. It was like whatever the offense did is fine. But Gervin Dexter Sr. is a former second round draft pick who's got some talent in there. He's a guy to watch. But overall, there's not a Michael Parsons. There's not an Aidan Hutchinson here. There's a lot of decent or good.

But for this offensive line, I think it should be a clear advantage Vikings. I would agree. You know, the only reason I might push back. back tiny on that is this the first week of the year yeah right everyone's fully ready to go no one is dinged right like the guys like grady jarritt and you know sweat they're a little older in the teeth right so when you catch them in week eight or nine way different than catching everyone in week one right right now is going to feel the best they're going to feel all year long so you're going to get everyone's best shot right so i think that if we're having this conversation whenever they play again

i'm not sure when that is obviously it's probably going to be if everything's same same and everyone's healthy than really big advantage back towards the Vikings offensive line it's probably more 6040 in my opinion right now just based off of we have seen what sweat and grady jarrick can do when they're in the prime of their playing career we're going to get it for at least two quarters right those first two quarters they're going to be primed up and ready to go and if things start going their way they're going to have more juice but it's also one of those things or if things go oh badly those dudes have been around long enough they're like oh boy here we go again like they'll have that little bit that taper down. But I'm just really excited to see how the rookie and the vet on the left side

of the offensive line with Ryan Kelly and Donovan Jackson handle something like that, right? Do they let Donovan out there like, hey, bud, that's Grady Jarrett. Good luck, right? Or is it like, hey, we're going to help you along here. Will, we paid you a lot of money. You handle yourself over there, right? We're going to really help this offensive line break in slowly on the left side here. Like between Kelly and Darisaw, I mean, you've got two great bumpers next to you. But I am just really curious how they're going to handle the Donovan Jackson piece with this in pass protection and run blocking. When you came into the league, now you're a strong gentleman overall, but how much stronger did you have to get before you could face those types of guys? Because what

I've seen from Donovan Jackson is I think he's a fighter and I think he's a hang on for dear life guy. If somebody gets an edge on him, he doesn't just like, I'm out of the play, which I can name on two hands the number of guards I've seen do that over the number of. of years here from Tuesday morning left guard. But he's a guy where even if you watch that one preseason throw where McCarthy overthrew Lucky Jackson coming across, Jackson's in his lap a little bit, but he's not getting beat. He's just getting moved back. I think that's okay. You can survive that. Your quarterback can figure that out if he's got pocket presence. What you can't have is just getting steamrolled. You can't get run over. You can't lose quickly. I think he's got that in him. But how much

stronger do rookies usually have to get before they can really anchor against the best of the best. Yeah, I mean, it's very rarely you can do that in your rookie year. And a lot of that is because of the bull crap that is the pre-draft process. Right. If you allowed these dudes to, hey, your senior season's over, train like you're going to go play in the NFL right now. They're in completely different body shapes. Then when it's like, hold on, we got to take three months here to go run the underwear Olympics and not be a football player. And then we'll get you ready to go. Like, so many of your strength gains when you're playing college football come in winter conditioning, right? Because you're not training for a game.

You're not training for season. It's just about eating food and lifting weight. And when you take that away and you're like become a track star, slim up your body, right? Look good on to, like look good at that. It just changes the offensive lines complex where we have to work really hard to get all of our play strength back after we run a 40 for 4.12 seconds, whatever. I hate it so much, Matt. Anyways, it really takes a long time because your body gets so beat down. Right, you go right into senior season, right into preying, right into bull prep, right into combine, right into OTAs.

Like you just don't have a chance for your body to recover. So you kind of just are stuck with the strength that you're at. That being said, you can get stronger during season, but it's not super likely. You don't really see guys take that big jump strength wise until their second year. Now, you can survive and you can be a dominant player with based off technique and fundamentals and that piece there. But you're going to get got. I can think of our very first play against the Bengals in 20, I want to say it's 2016. We're playing against Gino Atkins.

And all week long, we're like, Pat, F-line, rookie, listen to me. This dude is different. Like, he's a freak, right? You've got to be ready to go when he slants in. First play of the game, he slants from a three technique. Steam rolls, Pat Eflin takes a sack. And it's just one of those things where you can prepare guys for that that are young. But until they realize it in a game, it's totally different.

So I think there's going to be some moments like that for Donovan Jackson this year, based off of the players that we play in our division and every week you're playing against a guy that has a chance to be a pro bowler. That's just going to happen but I agree with you. I've liked what I've seen in the small sample size from him so far. The guard position just keeps getting harder

and harder and harder because teams are making their defenses more complicated. They're sending rushes from everywhere and we were talking about even with Parsons. This guy is not just going to line up off the left edge and everybody is going to have to deal with Micah Parsons when the Vikings face the Packers eventually.

A team like the Bears, they like to blitz their linebackers. Like they have linebackers who have unique speed and size. So you might end up with, you know, stunts and blitzes and things like that that that you have to pick up. And then there is when you get steamrolled, not letting it get down on you, there's been a few offensive linemen over the years where when they lost a rep really badly, it was kind of over for the rest of the game. and that I think people don't understand the mental toughness that it takes at that position to put that

behind you because you can feel like you're drowning real fast out there. And I think that that is a benefit of Donovan Jackson, but you never really know until they actually get out there and start playing. So that's something we're going to be watching very close. It's also something that I can't tell you from seeing training camp practice. How does it feel the first time you get got at Soldier Field on national TV, Monday night football? But at least he's prepared from that. having been a national champion a little bit from that standpoint.

Yeah, you know, I would agree with that on that front there. The other piece of it is you don't really know what it feels like until you're picking your quarterback of off the turf for the first time. Yeah. Right? Like you get beat in practice and I'm sure it's happened. I'm sure he's gotten beat by Hargrave or he's gotten beat by those Jonathan Allen and like they run by and they do the sack as they run by the quarterback. And that's one thing when you're in the meeting room like, hey, buddy, we got to clean this up.

It's another thing when you're watching McCarthy's helmet pushed over his face and you're helping him up pulling the grass out of his face and going, I'm sorry, buddy. Like that's a different feeling where you're like, okay, this is real now. Like this is, this is big time real boy football that they're trying to hurt that dude. And that's the other piece where you have to understand like there are real live consequences in live games now. And you've been in practice mode for so long. Getting out of that takes a second, but it won't take long.

Now let's flip it around to the other side. The Chicago Bears revamped their offensive line. Joe Tuny is still one of the better. offensive linemen in the NFL. There was an issue with his salary cap hit and age for Kansas City to move on from him, but his numbers were terrific from last season. The rest of this, though, Jeremiah, you're going to have to tell me if you agree, I'm just not really buying that Chicago's offensive line is miraculously better. They had a left tackle competition, which does not sound great for them going against Jonathan Grenard, who murdered everything in front of him

during training camp. And Drew Dalman is much more of a run blocker than a pass blocker. Jonah Jackson was let go by his own team. I think that this team has some shortcomings that the Vikings should be able to attack. And I also think that this is going to look way different. This is going to look like when you have, you have to go back to like Sharif Floyd and Tom Johnson, you'd have to go back 10 years the last time. I mean, a little bit of Sheldon Richardson as well.

But you have to go back a long time before you have two dudes. on the interior who are penetrating defensive tackles. Yeah, you know, I'm going to push back. I think the Bears' offensive line is actually a top five, top six units. Wow, really? Okay. I really do. I mean, Drew Dalman was incredible in Atlanta, right? He was phenomenal, and he fits that scheme that Ben Johnson wants to run so well. If you think about what Frank Ragnow was able to do with the Lions, I mean, Joe Tuni's

already wearing a gold jacket, right? Like, he already has that on. And I agree, the Jonah Jackson one, he's been injured so much. but when he's in his prime, he's very well. Darnell Wright, yeah, first round talent put it together last year. I think they're going to showcase him a little bit more. But I really liked Ozzie Troopiol kid. If he's starting, I think he was one of my favorite tackles in this year's draft when I was watching. And so I do think that they're going to have a much better offensive line than people may even give them credit for based off with the experience with the young youth on the edges.

But I still do give advantage Minnesota Vikings, right? Like I don't think it's as big of an advantage as we would want it to be, but I agree with you. The two interior guys and then also what that's going to do is free up Ivan Pace so much, he's going to feel like Mattelis so much like there's just going to be so much more that the linebacker room can do because these two guys up front are going to command so much attention, right? Last year, I can remember there was multiple times that I think about the Eagles game, right? Landon Dickerson is climbing Scott free to go cover up Ivan Pace and that's not going to be a good thing for anyone involved. Well, now, if Landon Dickerson has to worry about Hargrave,

or has to worry about Jonathan Allen and Pace can use that quickness, get over the top, Advantage Vikings, right? So super excited to watch how these two defensive tackles contribute. I'm also really interested to see how Brian Flores uses them. Is this, hey, we want them good for 35 snaps a game, or is this a, hey, we need you for 60 snaps a game, and then we'll take you off because you just don't want those guys being older veterans taking 60 to 65 snaps a game if they don't have to.

I just think I have probably more questions about inexperience at left tackle against the Vikings' nastiest rusher. And then we'll see about, you know, Drew Dalman. I think that Dolman is, at least by his data, a tremendous run blocker and maybe more along the average lines of pass protection, which if you're facing Javon Hargrave and Jonathan Allen, could play into it, especially if you have a quarterback who holds onto the ball for seven seconds, which will ultimately determine whether the offensive line looks great or terrible. That's so true. Very much with that. Now, with Allen and Hargrave, and as you mentioned, you know, how are they going to use the depth here?

Because Jalen Redmond is behind them, Redmond had an incredible camp to allow them to trade away Harrison Phillips. But is there concern about you're facing a coach who has had a prolific run game in recent years? DeAndre Swift is not a household name, but has had some big games against the Vikings in the past. how do you feel like they will manage that of penetrating defensive tackles very different than gap stuffers than they've had before in the past? And also, I haven't talked to you about the Harris and Phillips trade, like how you felt about that. That was super, I'll start the Phillips thing, super interesting to me. I mean, that was one that I did not anticipate seeing. I don't know if it was a cap issue related. I don't know if it was just a depth issue in the room related or,

hey, we want to keep all these guys, but we can't. So let's get value for one of the guys that we can get rid of, right? Because obviously value for Harrison Phillips could be higher than for a guy like Redmond. So I don't know all the pieces of winning of that, but he is such a good run defender that I feel like that's going to be a very interesting thing to keep an eye on if we start getting the ball ran on us a little bit, right? Hey, do we miss big Harry, horrible Harry in the middle there? That being said, I am slightly concerned, Matt, about how Brian Flores comes against. this Ben Johnson team because historically speaking, Ben Johnson has known how to beat up on a Brian Flores defense. Now, Caleb Williams is not Jared Goff, right? He doesn't understand

when this guy plugs, you throw right behind it, right? At least I don't think he does yet. He could prove me wrong. But I've always felt that he's done a great job of knowing how to hurt Brian Flores with his aggression. And so my hope is with these new additions that we have up front, Brian Flores can taper the aggression a little bit and rely on his front four to go create the pressure that he needs to go create because that's where the lions hurt us last year, right? We blitz Ivan Pace, we send a safety off the edge and there's Amonra St. Brad. There's Sam Laporta, right? They're just, they have answers to our problems that we're creating. It's a lot harder to have answers to those when we're only rushing four and we're getting home and we're still creating. So I do think

with the penetration and that disruption that we're trying to create up front, it allows for us to sit back a little bit more and wait for hey what does ben jonson do with this new group and how can we attack it instead of being the aggressor and allowing the bears then to have an answer to our problems so much of it just comes down to whether kaleb williams can do what he's supposed to do right what what jared golf is so good at is he drops back and he looks at a zone right let's even say they're playing split field coverage different coverage on the this side That, oh, yeah. Come on, Matt.

Talk 30, baby. Oh, maybe a little palms coverage on one side and cover two on the other side. Oh, yeah. Football, football, football. But Jared Goff, I think, could look at that. His brain diagnoses it quickly. He understands the play. He understands the read.

He hits the foot. The ball comes out. I did not just describe you, Caleb Williams, in any way, shape, or form from what we saw last year. But the thing is that I tend to think that guys who can't see the field can't see the field. I don't think that they invent a, oh, now I do. Now I identify those coverages. Now my brain works that fast. But I want to leave the door open here for the system last year being bad for him and the teaching being bad because that whole coaching staff seemed like it was just a mess and the organization was a mess. And this offense having some answers against Brian Flores.

I think the key here is how much they could create for pressure up front. Because if they can't, and then they feel like, oh, I got to send Pace. I got to send Cashman. I got to, you know, bring in Dallas Turner with Andrew Van Ginkle, send more rushers five or six. I think even Caleb Williams can find these holes. But if they can rush with four or five all night long, I don't think that he's going to have too many answers for this Vikings defense.

The only reason I think he might have answers is his receiving core is awesome. It's very, very good. And so much kind of what we talked about how, yes, the identity is going to run through McCarthy to get to Justin Jefferson, very similar. The identity has to run through Caleb Williams to get the ball to Roma Dune's Day, to get the ball to DJ Moore. And then I think it's the keyist, right, who came over from Washington, who had a really nice first preseason game.

And Swift has caught a lot of balls out of the back field. So, and Cole commence still there. It's just you look across the board and you're going, okay, Ben Johnson's got equally, if not slightly better toys on the outside to play with here in Chicago, if he can even get Caleb Williams to take five steps forward from what he was last year, this could be a very dangerous passing game. I do think they're going to rely heavily on the run that's in their DNA. But if he can get the passing game going with Caleb and in rhythm and have answers for him,

like he said, built in answers to the test within the play, I worry about this wide receiver core for the for the bears kind of having guys, running wide open if they can hold up in protection. I think they have almost everything that Caleb Williams needs to be a star quarterback. It's really just comes down to can he do it and can he deal with it if Javon Hargrave squishes him a few times. Remember the whole picking the grass out of the helmet thing? Like that's going to happen again this year.

Oh, no, no question about it. And we've also seen the other side of that where Caleb Williams dances around and makes unbelievable breathtaking plays and wears down your defense to the point where, in the fourth quarter, everybody is just completely exhausted from chasing this guy. So I don't doubt the ceiling with Caleb Williams. I just need him to show me he can find those receivers because I saw Keenan Allen getting open last year. I saw DJ Moore just kind of walk off the field one time out of, it seemed like he said he

was injured, but I don't know, usually injured players don't wander off the field. Oh, I'm hurt. I'm just going to you guys carry on, carry on. That doesn't third and eight, DJ. I know it backs a little tight. good. I'm good. I'm just, just going to, he's going to be run around for at least 11 more seconds. I just need to get to the sideline. You don't see that very often. And that makes me wonder about whether he can find these guys as consistently as they're going to need him to. So here's, we got the new

sponsorship, Fanduel, by the way. And so here's the Caleb Williams question. Caleb Williams this year on Fandul, his over under for passing yards is 3,625. Do you think that he gets close to 4,000 yards there, 3,625 for Caleb Williams. The only reason I say yes is because I think they're going to be playing from behind a lot. Yeah. I think, you know, I think that they're going to be having to throw the rock

in the second half to catch back up and you're going to play against defenses. Where if you're up by a couple scores, they're just going to keep everything in front of them, right? Not letting so it's going to be 10 yards here, 15 yards here, and then the occasional deep shots of Roma Dunesay and whatnot. So I'm going to take the over. I think because of them not being a double-digit win football team,

they're going to be playing from behind a lot having to throw the rock and not be able to do what the Lions did last year, which is control the clock and run the football. Okay, so here's the question then. How many games do you think these two teams win? I think I did this exercise on a O-Line committee, and I think I had the Bears at like five or six wins. Like, you know, it's just, it's one of those things where until,

I'm with you. Until Caleb proves to me that he is not who we think he is, I can't give him the benefit for the doubt. He's not a C.J. Stroud where he had a great rookie campaign, took a step back in your subway and you're like, hey, that, that rookie guy's still in there. We're still waiting to know, is the Caleb Williams that we think we want to be in there, actually in there? Or is this a Christian Ponder situation all over again? Like, what is it? And so until he proves to me that Ben Johnson can get what he needs out of him, probably five or six wins. for this bear's team with the upside being eight, right? If they can put it all together, like probably an eight win football team. Yeah, I mean, on Fandul, they're about, they're plus 105 to be under seven and a half wins. And I think when you look at the rest of the NFC North,

that is perfectly, perfectly reasonable. Are we both picking the Vikings for this game, by the way? The Vikings are favored on Fandul and probably everywhere else. I would pick them for this game. I would, too. I would pick them strictly out of the first year head. coach thing for Ben Johnson, Caleb Williams still trying to figure it out versus going off of a huge year for Kevin O'Connell. Only real change in the whole guard there was the quarterback on

offense. You revamp the O'Line. Like I think if you went position by position, you would nod a lot of them towards the Vikings. And overall, I think just as a culture, the Vikings have a better team right now. I think so, too. I think the Vikings are a year ahead of where Chicago is. And whether they end up having a work out or not will depend on their quarterback. But I think roster-wise, they don't have enough on defense yet to make a real argument to run with the Bulls here with the other teams. Okay, before we get to the fifth season of Love to See It, Hate to See It, Anthony Barr announced his retirement.

We had a press conference with him where he revealed that he used to puke before every game, which is, I didn't need to know that. I did not need to know that. And also, I think you guys are crazy. just insane things that maybe should stay behind closed doors. But what was your takeaway from playing with Anthony Barr for those years? Yeah, you know, I had the unique chance to, I actually got to play against him in college at UCLA.

And then to play with him at Minnesota was super fun because he was truly, he could do two jobs unbelievably. He could rush the passer and he could play the linebacker position and that range and the speed that he had was just so fun to watch. And it was super hard to practice against because you never really knew, hey, is he coming or see drop and I got to climb on him on the screen or whatever.

And then with that double mug linebacker system that Kendrickson Barr had with that Mike Zimmer era where they had such synergy of playing chess when the other team's playing checkers and how do we switch and making sure, hey, Barr's going to be on the running back. Well, that's a win. And that piece, he was just such a heady up football player

and also just a great dude, fantastic teammate to be around, always did his job was never a distraction in that realm there i have nothing but glowing remarks for anthony bar anthony is such an interesting test case because every player that you talk with every coach that you talk with is like anthony bar was awesome he was a nightmare to play against his size speed combination uh there was a play in the minneapolis miracle game where it was a maybe a screen to elvin camera and that like that's his rookie year he's got crazy jolt and bar just runs him down like sideline to sideline just runs him down and makes a stop there and you're like that is crazy for a linebacker of that size to move that well and the leadership on the defensive side the play calling the blitzing the cat and mouse game and i also think on the outside fans always thought he should have been more and i mean for me you know a four-time pro bowler is a pretty darn good career but i think he was a little bit of like the people who know know on him and that's why zimmer would always be super defensive about anthony Anthony Barr. But if you're on the outside, you're like, well, how many sacks? How many strip sacks?

But I don't think that his value to those teams was exactly something you can quantify in a statute. I completely agree, right? Because he wasn't, he was a Swiss Army knife, right? He wasn't just a pass rusher. And he wasn't just a linebacker. I mean, he was in a racer, right? He was, hey, we have this issue that we're going to be dealing with this week. Anthony, that's your assignment. And it might not show up on the stack sheet because he took that job away from whatever we told him he needed to take away so they didn't throw the ball to that guy or they didn't throw him to the tight end or hey we need you to rush the past week and it's like oh there's the six tackles because that's what we asked of him to do that week that's the privilege you get to have when

you are one of those players right it's i think back to the isaiah simmons pick from clemson right that's who they wanted that's who they envisioned him to be was like that anthony bar but he couldn't do it he couldn't do the jack of all trades thing and that was what made anthony so special was his ability to adapt and do whatever was needed week in and week out whether it was brushing the pass or getting the sacks

whether it was forcing the fumble or stuffing the run or blotting the A gap he was just the Swiss Army knife that could do everything so well that's why he was a pro bowl player not because he could just rush the pass or just do one thing.

All right, love to see it, hate to see it. I'm going to start off with I hate to see that I have to watch Dallas like right off the bat. Do I have to? Look, I'm going to get a, A flood of Dallas. Dallas, every national TV game is going to be all up in my grill. And if they win six games and they're mediocre and I'm watching, I don't even know who their backup is, it used to be Cooper Rush. I'm just not going to be too thrilled. And look, it's, you know, Philadelphia should be on TV. They won the Super Bowl. But did it have to be Dallas? Did it really have to be Dallas to start my football watching experience? So I love to see football is back. I hate to see that I have to begin with Dallas and Philly.

what's the what's the, what's the fan duel over under for the amount of times Micah Parsons is, uh, is talked about on the broadcast. Oh my gosh. It's going to be nonstop, right? Philly, Philly hits a deep shot to A.J. Brown. I can only hear it now. Well, you know, they're really missing Michael Parsons is able to go and make that, make that disruption there for Jalen Hertz, right? And, and that whole piece there. So I agree with you. It's one of those things where Jerry, Jerry's playing chess when we're all playing checkers, apparently where he's just trying to

worry about getting that 15 million up to 16 million. billion or whatever his team's valued at but yeah i mean this dallas team every year we talk about it they're super overrated like this dallas team everyone thinks oh you know we went out and got george pickens and we have cd land and every you're going to be the exact same you were last year and i think that philly might steamroll them like it might be a bloodbath to start the year and if that's the case good luck jerry because it's not going to be a fun time down in dallas i believe philly is a seven and a half point favorite too that which is pretty big to start I mean, usually you don't want to see that.

Right. If you're the NFL, that's not what you wanted to see was a game. Because you're looking for Super Bowl champ type matchups and the close games. And that's not really a good sign. But just an overall general hate to see it is Dallas finding their way into the football conversation right up into the last minute. And I saw a friend of mine, Ian Hartett's tweet today, like, I think I've got enough Micah Parsons analysis. I think I'm good. now maybe we could talk about the rest of the games and so that is my first hate to see it of the year

that's fair my first hate to see it of the year is my man bill bellichick hate to see it what are we doing why are you doing bad why why did you think this was a good idea like did your ego are you talking about taking the job or the girlfriend taking the job and the girlfriend and the whole thing the whole thing is just like what happened did you lose it did did a couple screws come loose where you felt like, hey, I can go to North Carolina in this era of college football and be just fine. I mean, watching him get dog walked on Monday night football, not what you want to see for a six time in the argument of the greatest head coach in the NFL, every single loss that they have like that, Andy Reid creeps closer and closer and closer of being called

the go as Bill Belichick's legacy continues to get more and more damage. I just don't think this was a good idea. And I don't like seeing it. Like love or hate the guy. I don't like. I don't like. seeing a Hall of Fame coach like that just get dragged up and down the field. Oh, so you weren't being sarcastic. See, I don't like it. I don't like it. Okay. I thought this was a sarcastic hate to see. Like, oh, what a shame. This psychotic egomaniac who deflates footballs or whatever and spies on the other team. What a shame to have it further proved that Tom Brady was the reason that you won all your championships. That's too bad. I mean, look, if this happens to a lot of coaches where they think they were the reason, and I promise you, you're not.

I mean, there's great schematic coaches. There's coaches that get the most out of guys. And look, Kevin O'Connell, look what he did with Sam Darnold. Also, look what he did with Nick Mullins, where they just lost every game. Like, every one of you that's a genius, I'm proud of you, and there are great coaches that are way better than others. I think the Vikings get a huge edge every Sunday they walk into with a little. O'Connell and Flores, most Sundays, not against Sean McVeigh, but most Sundays they walk into, they have an edge, right?

But if Tom Brady is your quarterback, that's why you won all the championships. He goes to another team. He throws for 5,000 yards. He wins another Super Bowl. It was him, Bill. You can't. And also the college environment way different. I thought this was a great point.

Somebody brought up was that in the NFL, the edges are so small. Like, even bad teams can beat good. teams on a on a week to week basis any given sunday exactly it is not any given saturday if your if your team has less talent than the other team you get crushed 99% of the time in college football and it was just clear like that team wasn't very talented they couldn't stop a thing doesn't matter what you draw up if he's in there going like oh i've got the best matchups or right it doesn't matter if you do because your guy can't stop their guy their guy will just crush you and run over you and run for a touchdown, which is what happened.

I am not sad to see it. I think Belichick has been one of the most arrogant, egotistical, intolerable people in sports for a really long time. And I respect the F out of Tom Brady. And that's how I felt about Belichick for the whole time, the whole Patriots legacy outside of the very beginning. So congrats to Tom Brady. You look even better today.

Yeah, 100%. Tom woke up with a little glimmer in his eye going, oh, Billy, Billy, it's going to be a long year in Chapel Hill. That is, that is absolutely right. My, uh, my true love to see it. Well, shout out to the gophers and, uh, looking like their quarterback played pretty well, uh, love to see it a great weekend of college football. I love to see several of the week one matchups that just cannot wait to watch.

And that starts with Buffalo and Baltimore. Thank you schedule makers, Sunday night football. Let's go. Lamar Jackson. Josh Allen, two teams competing for a Super Bowl. I think I'm going to try it. This is the year that one of them makes the Super Bowl and not Kansas City. Gonna dip my toe in that water.

But that's as good as it gets, man. Like there's about five matchups in this first week, even like Texans, Rams. There's just a lot of good football for week one. Yeah. I mean, I think the NFL is getting smarter and smarter and knowing, hey, we got to come out of the gate hot with our ratings. But I also just, I'm hopeful and my love to see it this year. is I'm really hopeful that the gap closed from last year of the haves and the half-nots. Yeah. Oh, yeah.

Right? Because last year was like, it was either 14 wins or like six. Like the midfield of the 10, 11, 8, 9 type of season. It just didn't really exist. And so my hope is with the off-season moves that were made this year, it seems like a lot more teams got a lot more competitive. I just hope that there's just better football throughout the entirety of this year and that you're seeing a lot more close games and not having the five teams, with 14 wins and it's going to be, hey, a team with nine wins might make it into the wild card

this year because there's so much up and down and disparity across the league. Looking at it from an outside in, I think that's the case because I do think a lot of those teams went out and got new coaches, they got better players, that piece there. Now you're always going to have the teams that win three or four, whatever might be. I just hope it's not as big as it was last year. All right. My last love to see it is that there is an internet out there that tries to talk things into existence, right that tries to talk Shadur Sanders into being a franchise quarterback that tries to talk

Bill Belichick into the greatest college coach also that tries to talk Arch Manning into being the best prospect to ever play college football but you know what's so good about football Jeremiah is that's why they play the games so we can find out and there's just some like small justice in this world to all these people trying to make Shadur a victim and I don't mean to make it about him. This is more about you can't tweet something into happening in the NFL. No. You either earn it or you don't. It either happens or it doesn't. You can't make it happen in college football either. You can't just have enough TV segments on Arch Manning to make him a great quarterback from day one. And I like that about football. So now what we're going to do is we're

to take that pigskin, we're going to kick it off, and we're going to bounce it around to the kickoff return, and we're going to play these freaking games. That's what I love to see. 100%. No more talking, no more bull crap. It is all about playing, right? And if you play and you do things the right way, then it's going to happen. If you don't, you're going to get exposed. And guess what? There's going to be a lot more mean tweets coming your way. That is for sure. Tuesday morning left guard, send your mean tweets to Jay Searle 71. Anytime you disagree with something on the but no, I'm so happy to be back with you every week going forward here and covering every inch of this wonderful NFL season 2025.

It's great, man. Great to have you back. Thanks for your time. We'll talk soon. Football. Football. Jeremiah Searle, my friends, football is back. And so is Tuesday morning left guard.

So every Tuesday, former Viking will be on here. And it's been a great ride with him covering all of these years. leading up to this season, which I think is the most anticipated year that we have ever had in Purple Insider and Tuesday morning left guard history. So questions, comments, thoughts, reactions to everything that Jeremiah said there. Maggie Robinson coming up a little bit later and want to get you the Fandual question of the day, which is your, the over under for Vikings and bears this week is 44 and a half on Fandul, would you rather have that be a grind fest and hit the under for the Vikings? Or would you rather have it be a shootout for just for the better chance for the Vikings to win over or under 44 and a half points?

If I told you that those results carried a win and a loss over and under, which would you think was the better one for the win? Would you rather see Grind Fest or shootout with the over under 44 and a half? That is your Fandule question of the day. Also want to remind you of our sponsor, ZipRecruiter. I know a lot of you either own your own businesses or make decisions in management where you have to hire people and you know what? It can be very difficult. It could be quite a headache, in fact.

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Will he have a good feeling for, is it time to lean into McCarthy in the passing game? Is it time to dial it back and play it a little more safe? Last year, I didn't think that he had the greatest, you know, foot or what do we want to call it?

Foot on the pedal or finger on the pulse. How about finger on the pulse sometimes of the game where there were situations where they kept throwing and throwing, where the running game was working or whether they're up in a game or you get into the red zone and Darnold keeps throwing interceptions, but you keep dialing up plays that are having Darnold throw toward the end zone.

Or, you know, there were a number of examples throughout the season. And I thought it got better as the year went on. At the end of the Falcons game was really good from the perspective of just pounding their face in and finishing off that game. But there were times where it felt a little bit rocky. So will that be something that they do better now that they have a more dynamic group of offensive players, especially in the backfield, especially in the interior line. But I even think the addition of Adam Thielen, if he stays healthy all year, could be really

big for this team of having another underneath weapon. It's funny because when they signed Rondale Moore, I remember talking about this in the way that, hey, this is a different type of weapon. And then when I talked to Keena McCartle, this offseason before Rondale Moore got hurt, he said that they had the intent when signing more of getting someone who could be an underneath wide receiver. Now they were thinking explosiveness, yards after catch, you know, maybe throw a two yard pass and it turns into 20. That's not Adam Thielen. But that's still the general concept and idea remains that they needed somebody that offered something a little bit different than

Jefferson or Addison or Jalen Naylor, maybe more similar to a tight end. But you can't just ask a tight end to be a wide receiver. It's not the same job. So Adam Thielen, I think, brings that different dynamic where if you are leaning into McCarthy at times, he doesn't necessarily have to be super aggressive in order to still be getting a lot of passes and still have that pass to run ratio be 60 to 40. But you'd also like them when they do get ahead in a game to remember who's in the backfield, remember how much money they spent on that offensive line, and also be able to, you know,

to read the situation and adapt. So the say the bears are taking away your run game, go to the short passing game. Say they're taking away the deep game, run the football, like force teams to bring up a safety so you can get better matchups with your outside wide receivers. They have the players to be able to do all this. And I think they have the coach to be able to take advantage of it as we've seen in the past. It's just can he fully maximize all. of that, especially with some longer drives for J.J. McCarthy because when I was watching him in

training camp, my biggest, one of my biggest takeaways was I think J.J. McCarthy came up in a world where a 10 play drive, a 12 play drive is really good. Stay on the field. Keep your team humming offensively. You don't have to hit a bunch of deep shots down the field in order for your offense to be a success. That's just how he was taught to play football by, you don't Jim Harbaugh, and I think he can carry a lot of that mentality over, where if he's only throwing 10% of his passes over 20 yards, which was kind of a little bit more than Kirk, but right in that Kirk range, that's okay. With this offense and the way that it's set up, that is a good place to be for J.J. McCarthy. So that's one of the biggest questions, I think,

of the year. And Jeremiah, with a really interesting answer, if you missed that, you can go back and give it a listen. So what is, what is on your guy's mind? So what are you thinking, What are you, we're heading into only a few days away now, less than a week, but also the Vikings are going to start practice. That means we'll hear from McCarthy. We'll hear from O'Connell. We'll hear from Aaron Jones tomorrow. Then Justin Jefferson, T.J. Hawkinson on Thursday and the head coach on Saturday.

So what do you want to know from those folks as we get into this? And I also wanted to look at the Vikings depth chart. Let me see if my screen share is working. Let's see. We can get this up there, Vikings depth chart. There we go. So this is the unofficial Vikings depth chart. It is extremely unofficial and should be noted as such that it is unofficial.

However, it looks pretty darn accurate to me. And if it was official, I'd be okay with it. So clearly as starting quarterback, J.J. McCarthy, Carson Wentz the backup, Max Brosmer, QB3, Aaron Jones, you're starting running back with Jordan Mason RB2. Right off the bat, week one, I am extremely interested to see how the carries are divvied up between Aaron Jones and Jordan Mason. Ty Chandler is RB3, Xavier Scott, RB4. I think that's fair based on their experience. As far as the wide receivers go, Jefferson and Addison, the starting outside receivers, and I would assume Adam Thielen pops into Jordan Addison's role. And behind them, Ty Felton and

Miles Price are the other receivers to fill out the depth chart. Hawkinson and Oliver, Ben Urisack, your tight end three. Your starting offensive line is exactly what you would think it is. Backup left guard is listed as Joe Huber, but I think that if Donovan Jackson were to get hurt, it would probably still be Blake Brandl who plays both sides. Michael Juergens, your backup center. No surprises there. The backup right tackle is listed as Walter Rouse, though I still think Justin's

school would be the first guy off the bench there. on the defensive side, Grenard, Allen, Redmond, Hargrave, and Van Ginkle, your front. Jalen Redmond being listed as the starter in the base package makes a ton of sense because he had a great camp. He's the reason I think they were able to get rid of Harrison Phillips and Hargrave and Allen clearly the starters there. Levi Drake, Elijah Williams and Ty Ingram Dawkins, the backups. I think Levi Drake would be the first guy off the bench there. And as far as the outside linebackers, you have Bo Richter. Dallas Turner as the backup outside linebackers to Van Ginkle and Grinard.

And then while Tyler Batty is on IR, but Chas Chambliss is another guy at outside linebacker there, how much Dallas Turner plays is of very much intrigue going into week one, starting linebackers, no surprise, Cashman and Ivan Pace with Eric Wilson and Kobe King and Austin Keyes behind them. And then at corner, Byron Murphy and Isaiah Rogers with Dwight McCluthern and Jeff O'Coo Huda listed as the backups there. I would assume that they're going to elevate Fabian Morrow for this game off the practice squad.

And then Harrison Smith, Josh Mattelis, the starting safeties. We will see what we can find out about Harrison Smith and his health tomorrow. But Theo Jackson clearly going to play a lot. If Smith does not play in week one, then does Jay Ward go in? Does Mattelis play traditional safety? So there are some questions there. And as far as the official kick and punt returners, Miles Price listed as the kick and punt returner, not Ty Felton, who is listed as the third string kick returner.

So Miles Price and Ty Chandler and the backup punt returner is listed as Adam Thielen, which if Adam Thielen returns a punt, my friends, I'll give you all 50 bucks. There is no way that Adam Thielen is returning any punts this season. and I don't think he's really the backup punt returner, but that will tell you exactly where they are, I guess, when it comes to the punt returning situation. Miles Price, man, it's your show. What a preseason for Miles Price. And, you know, the preseason generally doesn't matter

for a lot of different things, but it certainly matters for a battle like that where Price went from a guy who was not really talked about at all by us until all of a sudden you get to those preseason games and bang, he is on the scene with an 81-yard kick return. He had multiple 20-yard part returns. One was called back, but he had a good return in that last game. And then there you are.

I mean, talk about like small sample sizes, right? He just had, what did he, how many returns did he have five in the entire preseason? And guess what, buddy, Soldier Field, your number one on the depth chart. They really must see something in Miles Price. Uh, so looking at your guys, uh, score predictions, uh, thinking, Brian's thinking the over there. Tom wants 45 to three for the Vikings, of course, uh, going over there. Uh, Jay Deasy says, uh, the under because I'd be upset that Flores defense got shredded. That's, that's, that's definitely true that if they won a game 31, 28, we'd be talking a lot

about Flores defense or 38 to 34 or something like that. it would be a big surprise if that were the case. Seldom Seen says, glad you asked about Donovan Jackson's anchor. Yep, that's something I'll be watching for because it's one of the toughest things. I think the mental part is the hardest, but the next hardest is the strength.

And can you anchor against these monster beasts who play in the NFL? We're talking about, oh, Grady Jarrett, you know, he's older, he's not as good. I mean, it's still Grady Jared. That guy is an all-pro talent. not quite Hall of Fame, but I mean, one of the best players of the last decade. So good luck, you know, you got to play against him.

And then, you know, that interior of the Bears D-line, if he's good is still could be a problem against the Vikings and sell them seen as, what's your gut on Van Ginkle and Harry. Well, let me, let me get the, um, the injury report tomorrow is a lot easier for me to say at that point. I mean, I would assume that we didn't hear anything about Van Ginkle's injury being serious, but we just, it's better to wait. until tomorrow, we get that first injury report, then we can look at it and say, okay, well, if Harrison Smith doesn't practice at all, then the odds are not good. Or if Van Ginkle doesn't practice at all, then the odds are not good because they've had some time to rest and recover here from training camp. But as of right now, I would just be taking a wild guess at where those guys are physically.

And we'll get an update from O'Connell on Harrison Smith and his health situation and so forth. Son of Beaver says how many cowboy games get flexed out of prime time if they get crushed in week one. I hope all of them get flexed. Hey, look, you know, it's the NFL. We've been surprised before. Maybe Kenny Clark gets 10 sacks and Dak Prescott wins MVP and we're all going what dopes we were at the beginning of the season. The biggest surprise I think I've ever had was when the Vikings won, well, the biggest surprise was the 2017 Vikings, but the biggest non-viking surprise was when 2021 Vikings play against the Bengals and they lose that game and we just, we just torched them after the game. How could you lose to the 2021 Cincinnati Bengals? This team

stinks. They're young. They're not that good. Maybe three years from that and then they went to the Super Bowl. So you never really do know. And I can't count out anybody, but the Dallas Cowboys just so many national TV games. I get it. They've got an enormous fan base. but do we have to talk I look they trade micha parsons yes you have to talk about that every day for a week of course you do do we have to do this every year with dallas where it's endless national tv games endless contrived conversation on tv we don't we don't have to do that uh oops says 2117 i think that's a fair assessment there that having it be like a kind of middle in the middle not a shootout, but definitely not a total grind fest.

James has got 2720, son of beavers 30, 27 and OT because it's Chicago. Jay Deasy says, don't think O'Connell will be able to help himself. He is who he is, pass, pass, pass. I mean, I don't blame you for thinking that, and I don't disagree. And we'll see when they said that they wanted to build a team that could win a lot of different kind of fights, well, we'll see if they actually want to fight a lot of different kinds. of ways. Are they a boxer that just relies on the haymaker or can they work the body? Can they outgrind teams? That is what we are going to see because there's not going to be all

that many games where it's Jacksonville and you can just play badly and still get away with a win where they had quite a few of those last year. Sam says in Jaden Daniels' first game in 24, he only had three passes that went longer than 10 yards. I mean, everybody is, everybody's different. That offense there, well, I think that they didn't really know what they had in Jane Daniels as a passer early on. And that offense started out built to throw a lot of screen passes, get the ball out of his hands, and then have him do some special things. And I think Cliff Kingsbury only realized after a little while that, oh, this guy can actually really throw some dots. And the other part of it, too, is that, you know, J.J. McCarthy is not

a rookie. It's his first time playing in the NFL, but he's not a rookie. And I've heard it all offseason. He's basically a rookie. And every time I push back, not really because a rookie would have shown up here in May, whereas McCarthy started here in offseason workouts and was leading this team all the way through. He knows the offense. He has developed as a passer to throw the football down the field. So I don't think they have to have total kid gloves. Bitter Bruce says, don't have nearly as many worries about McCarthy having rookie struggles. The kid's stats under pressure situations have been outstanding.