Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - JJ McCarthy has 'come a long way' with mechanics

Episode Date: July 27, 2024

Matthew Coller recaps JJ McCarthy's talk with the media for the first time in training camp and what Wes Phillips had to say about his progress and the split of reps. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

🎵 Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here, just getting back from TCO Performance Center, another day of Vikings practice, but it was a little bit different today because Kyrie Jackson's funeral was taking place in Maryland. So Kevin O'Connell, Brian Flores, Dallas Turner, there were a few people not present at today's practice. And so instead of Kevin O'Connell running things, it was Mike Pettin and Wes Phillips that were taking the reins today. And without the entire staff there, the team decided to do more of a walkthrough. So there wasn't super competitive 11 on 11, seven on sevens. It was a very different look to practice.

And Harrison Smith didn't even put on a helmet the entire day because they were not moving at any type of high speed. So that means that there's not a lot of takeaways i can't tell you about a bomb that jj mccarthy or sam darnold threw or who caught passes because there weren't really any passes to be caught in any high speed reps however that does not mean it was a waste of fuel to drive out to tco performance center today because jj mccarthy had a chance to talk to the media. And I will say for the first time in training camp, it's only been three days. So it's not like, well, you know, we've been waiting for weeks for JJ to finally get in front of the mic, but it has been a while

since we spoke with him last. It was the end of mini camp when we talked to him the last time. And I will tell you the truth, JJ McCarthy is always a pretty confident guy, but looked at the end of minicamp like he had just tried to drink out of a fire hose. And he had kind of a like, okay, wow. All right. This is going to be very, very complicated for me to play in the NFL. But that is why he decided to stay around Minnesota and continue to work on his own at TCO Performance Center, stay in town, not go on vacation, not go to Cabo. And he did have a chance to work out as well with Adam Thielen and now back. And I have felt like at the beginning of training camp only two practices in that JJ

McCarthy has looked fairly confident and looked like he's been in charge of what he's doing out there of course it hasn't been near perfect it's not going to be for his first training camp but McCarthy has gotten off to a pretty solid start we talked about last night that he had a good practice on day two and that will really start to ramp things up once those pads come on. They will practice again tomorrow. I imagine with the full staff back in place, it will be an intense practice for everybody. Normally, the third practice of the year is not a walkthrough, but this is not a normal training camp by any means. So what I do have for you, rather than a rundown of a bunch of notes, and I can say one thing that did not see Shaq Griffin out there

after he tweaked something in a leg, ankle, knee yesterday, didn't see him out there today, which we don't know what that means yet because Kevin O'Connell was not here to ask what the availability of Shaq Griffin is tomorrow. We'll see if he's out for a full practice or if he's limited or if he's not practicing at all. And if he's not practicing at all, then the cornerback room is going to be quite short. Now it did not appear that it was serious when Shaq Griffin went down, but they want to be, I imagine, as precautionary as they possibly can be with him because they are going to need him once the season begins. So no Shaq Griffin today, but there was no other real report when it came to the actual practice because it was a walkthrough. And in a walkthrough, we're just standing there

watching them slowly go through their plays and talk about the details, but there's not anything else to really glean from what we saw today. So Jonathan Harrison, the producer of this show, chopped up some of J.J. McCarthy's most interesting comments. So I figured we would go through what J.J. McCarthy said, and then we could talk about that but this is also a big one for you guys to ask questions so get in the comments section ask all the questions throw out all the comments opinions takes what you're looking for for the rest of training camp whatever you got on your mind go ahead and do that because after we go through

these clips from jj and from Wes Phillips, I'm just answering questions because we didn't get a whole lot of new information from today's practice. So off we go. I mentioned that JJ McCarthy had worked out with Adam Thielen in the offseason, which led to a flood of questions. Are we getting Thielen back? No, you're not getting feeling back however it seems like jj mccarthy actually gleaned a lot uh from working out with adam feeling hooked up with adam feeling during that that uh period and what'd you get out of those workouts with him and whoever else was out there uh papa ham cj ham hooked me up with him. Adam then got my number and asked me to come out,

and I was working with him twice a week, and it was so great to work with him because he's someone familiar with the offense, so I could work on that and be able to call the plays and him actually going out there and running it and him telling it from his perspective on certain concepts. It was huge, and ultimately he's such a great guy too. He's one of those receivers where he makes a bad ball look like a good ball every time. And, uh, you know, I wish nothing but success and, uh, health and abundance for him in the future. I don't have a hot take from this just to say good choice, my friend, a good choice. And when

you listen to JJ McCarthy more and more, as as he explains and we'll go through a couple other comments that he has his mindset and his way of thinking. It is impressive for someone of his age and getting together with Adam Thielen. Also, Adam Thielen being willing to get together with somebody else's quarterback and throw in the offseason. That was very nice of Adam Thielen. I guess he still wants his hometown Minnesota Vikings to succeed. But McCarthy understanding that working out with a veteran wide receiver who was in Kevin O'Connell's offense for an entire year and getting his feedback on the different types of throws and having him run the routes and simulate what he was going to run into when he got to training camp is just a really good idea.

No criticism for that one. And I think that just speaks to J.J. McCarthy trying to access every resource he possibly can in order to improve as a quarterback. So where does he stand as a quarterback? Well, he talked about his approach leading into training camp and how prepared he felt once he got here after staying in Minnesota through the summer. Comfortable do you feel now with the footwork and the mechanics and just this offense as well than maybe in the spring? I honestly feel like I've been here for a year already. You know, I stayed back this entire summer to just not take my head away from it and just continue to dive into the playbook and just, you know, focus on the little things like drops, like progressions, like the different defenses that Coach Flo throws at us every single day. But I feel like just being around this building every single day, my comfortability in this offense is growing exponentially. I'd say in OTAs, it was very hard for me to get out a play call.

Everyone thinks they can play quarterback, but try getting out of the huddle. That was my biggest goal going into this training camp, was to be able to hear it one time and execute it and regurgitate it to the guys with the confidence. I've been doing that so far. We'll see when we get to third down and red zone, when those get really long, but they're going pretty well so far. You know, I think that this is an important mindset for JJ McCarthy, where it is unbelievably difficult to play quarterback and he is viewing it like that. He is approaching it. Not, I got this, it'll be fine.

No, it's really hard. It's really hard to learn all this offense, especially as a rookie. And he has taken the steps the best that he can in order to try to do that, which included staying around for the summer. It included working out with Adam Thielen. But every time we hear him talk, the gravity of the situation is always something that comes up of you're a rookie. It's very tough. There's so much to learn. There's a lot of pressure, but every day trying to take another step to improve. There have been

many other players who have come through and a lot of them have not succeeded where their mindset is, oh, you know, we did this in college. I'm fine. No, you didn't. There's nothing like this in college. It's not the same way. And Wes Phillips even talked about that a little today, that the level of detail, the caliber of things that you have to know is 50 times more than what it is in college,

just because this is the pros and this is your only job. So you have to know so much more and McCarthy is never flippant about that he always seems to be very serious about that and want to talk about here's how I'm getting from point a to point b but also it can be intimidating when you get in and there's so much that you don't know it can be intimidating for young players and they can feel like they're very much in over their head, especially at the quarterback position when they're trying to learn all this stuff and they have the pressure of being a first round pick.

And the way that he seems to balance it between, I understand how much I have to do, but I'm not overwhelmed by it. There's a confidence to what he's saying, but also knowing what he doesn't know. That's a very important skill. If you are in the NFL to know what you still need to learn in order to get to the place you're trying to be. So that was a very mature sounding comment as it always is by JJ McCarthy. And when you listen to him talk, I'll show you the next clip. I think you guys are going to like this quite a bit. You fully understand why people went into rooms with JJ McCarthy and came out feeling like they would be comfortable in drafting him with a first round

pick and making him the franchise quarterback, despite the fact that he did not have insane numbers in college. And he wasn't throwing 700 passes last year for Michigan for 5,000 yards. But when you listen to something like this, I think you get it. So he's asked here by Mark Craig at the Star Tribune about bad plays. And there have been a few that we've seen out there, but without any hesitation, you'll see it, he or hear it, he immediately recalls a play in his head in practice that he didn't like the result of, even though it was a complete pass, which can be why it's a little hard from the sideline. We see the results, but we don't know that he kind of misread something

or didn't throw it exactly the way that he wanted to. So here he explains that. Wes talked about the key being bouncing back from the downs. I know it's only been three practices, but what's maybe a down moment you had here that you came back from? On one of the passes the other day, it was third and five, and it was a little high-low concept with a choice route and a bench route. And they were playing some sort of palms-y cover four It was third and five, and it was a little high-low concept with a choice route and a bench route.

And they were playing some sort of palms-y cover four where they have the ability to either cloud that corner to cloud and stay in the flat or drop back underneath the bench. And I was kind of playing in between, and I wasn't decisive enough. And I tried to rip the bench, and I kind of pulled the string where it's like you feel like you got a lot on it, but the ball's not coming out with much heat at all. And I got lucky, and it was a completion, but I should have just, you know, got it down to the underneath guy, third and five, first down, move the chains, and not get greedy. So to interpret that, or to explain what he's talking about,

the Vikings use a lot of these high-low concepts, which you could just consider the most simple way to look at that would be a five-yard out route and a go route. So you have your high, which is the go route, and then your low, which is the five-yard out. And I'm trying to explain this as simple as I can. So if there's football coaches watching, I might be sorry for this. And there's a couple different ways that cornerbacks can approach this. The outside corner can stay down or he can cover the out route or he can carry. And it might depend on what the rules are for that type of situation. And there's different types of coverages, the cloud coverage, the

corner stays down. And there's a bunch of different details here about how they deal with these types of high low concepts and nick saban is really well known for the palms coverage and i don't need to get too deep into that but when you're the quarterback you have to identify quickly what type of coverage they are dealing with these two outside wide receivers slot receiver and the outside wide receiver and their uh what their route combinations are and the corners will sometimes try to maybe sell it a little bit differently or present it a little bit differently at the snap i don't know if they did that or not on this play that he's describing but he didn't feel like he correctly identified it in time that it sounds like the way he described it that he figured it out maybe a

little later than he wanted to and didn't connect the feet with the arm so even though he moved his arm hard if you're not torquing from your bottom half because it's timed up correctly with the read then you're not getting as much jolt on the football and this is very specific and very detailed and it didn't take him any time at all to have this play i mean this was not a question he would have prepped for in the meeting with the pr group of what the media was likely to ask him and yet it was right there and the recall is so important but also what recall is and this i'll apply this to myself when you ask me the san francisco 49ers quarterback in 1994

now I'm sure a lot of you know it because you love football but the reason that it takes zero seconds for me to come up with it is because I watched so much football then and I still re-watch games from 1994 and boom it's right there the more that you put passion and hours and joy into something, the more it sticks and it is there in your head. And that recall is there from quarterbacks that dedicate to it and make it matter to them. And something like that, that's a correction that he can now make after making a mistake. That's why he's taking second team reps. And that's what he's learning right now is how to get all of those combinations down i think there's a a thousand permutations of that

same situation where you're reading a coverage you're reading a concept and then you just have to to let it go but i it was just impressive right i mean everything about jj mccarthy it comes across extremely well and the more that you learn about him and the more that you hear him talk, you think this, this is it. This is the reason. This is the reason why teams are so sold on him other than just the physical tools. Now, one other thing that I found to be pretty darn interesting was so JJ McCarthy probably got a lot of coverage on this. I don't know if he wanted it or not about how he would meditate before games in college. And we, even when they're in the national championship, he was sitting in the goal, uh, underneath the goalposts,

I think in the end zone and doing his thing that he always went through that same process. Now, normally there wasn't a ton of cameras around, but he went through that process. And so it was talked about a little bit more how much emphasis he puts on his own mental health. Now, from his perspective, he could very easily, when asked about this, say, oh, yeah, it's something that I like and that's it. But instead today, he went into more detail about where that came from and was open even about something that he had gone through during high school. And I found that to be quite interesting. So my senior year at IMG Academy, it was during COVID. I went through a period of depression and, you know, I just was in a really dark spot. You know, I had a blessed upbringing, never really knew what depression and anxiety was

all about. And, you know, going through that alone and being isolated at a boarding school, I didn't have, you know, too many resources to help me out with mental health. And I started looking up things to help promote better mental health. And meditation was the first thing that popped up. And I started learning about it, you know, studying it, researching it. And I never really got anywhere until I started practicing it. And then once I started doing it over a period of time, I started experiencing the benefits. And then, you know, I'll have a period of one week where I don't do it.

And then I experienced the, you know, how I feel without it. And now I just, you know, won't go a day without doing it. So it's a really interesting answer and a window into the mindset of J.J. McCarthy that he went looking for a solution. How can I make this better for myself? And I don't think anyone had a good time during those pandemic lockdowns. And a lot of people probably struggled during that time, including JJ McCarthy. I can't imagine how difficult that is that he had been in his own bubble in the Illinois area. That's a whole state Chicago area. I forget exactly where his high school was that he moved from the IMG

and he had won a net, you know, a state championship and everything had gone well. And then the whole world is flipped on its head. And we are talking about someone at the time who's 16 into 17 years old and finds a way to work through this and has carried over that type of thing to help him during difficult moments. And where most football players, I think this has changed a lot recently, but most in the past probably would kind of blow that off. Wouldn't want to talk a whole heck of a lot recently but most in the past probably would kind of blow that off wouldn't want to talk a whole heck of a lot about it you don't come want to come across as yeah well that one time i i struggled there's the very few people who want to talk about that and uh impressive that he was willing to do it but also the other part is that the the NFL brings about a lot of mental strain.

That's an understatement, a ton. And this is something that people wondered about with Caleb Williams, for example, and how is he going to deal with the pressure and everything else after there were some times at USC last season where he had a tough time with losing a game or with leading his team. And with JJ McCarthy, the fact that he is thinking about this being important as well to him, what works for me, what gets me in the best mental space? Well, a lot of what derails players in the NFL is the adversity and not being able to mentally deal with it.

Every single one of these comments, you just, again, kind of come back to this. This is somebody who really cares about looking for answers to all the problems that could potentially befall him, whether it's not knowing the offense or whether it's the mental strain of playing in the NFL or just going through life and has found solutions that work for him. I think that's a really good way to approach the quarterback position. As far as another perspective on JJ McCarthy, got two more clips and continue to throw your questions into the comment section. And I will jump right on those after we're done talking

about this, but Wes Phillips had two things that really stood out to me one of them was talking about J.J. McCarthy's mechanics because this is a big subject with McCarthy we still see a little bit of the as the touch quite there a little bit of the is the timing quite there he's is getting them out of the huddle getting getting them lined up and has, you know, excuse me, looked fairly comfortable when it comes to running the offense so far in these first couple of very light days in comparison to what's on the way. But mechanics is something that takes a long time to be able to resolve. And Wes Phillips explained where he is at right now with that. What are McCarthy's mechanics, just from the standpoint of the day he stepped in here

in the spring to now? How far have they come? He talked about it at one point, you did in shotgun, putting his left foot forward instead of the feet being the same. Like just from a mechanical standpoint, how far has he come or how happy are you with his mechanics?

He's come a really long way. A lot of it is when you change something, it's not necessarily that it looked bad or he wasn't doing it right. It's the comfort level. It's not thinking about it anymore. Doing it enough times and some of that work that he put in over the summer, you can tell there's just a comfort level with some of the things we're asking him to do not just with footwork about where his eyes are and the acceptance of the snap about getting a hip open to to his left potentially on certain reads throwing off a plant throwing off

a hitch on certain concepts so there's a lot of little details that he's much more comfortable with and the more, the less you're thinking about footwork and technique, all those types of things, the more you can just see his arm talent show up. I think it stands to reason that accuracy is a combination of two different things. On one side, it is your natural, can you have the touch? so think about it this way when i get near the green and i need to chip it onto the green i don't have the touch i don't have the magic tiger woods freakish synapses in your brain to your hand eye coordination thing that allows me to beautifully rest that golf ball right next to the hole although i appreciate people send me chipping tips

and I have gotten better throughout the summer at it, but I will never be great at it. I don't have that natural there. I could work as much as I could. And with JJ McCarthy, he is a naturally very good athlete, but I don't think it comes super easy to him where he is going to have to work on that a lot more. But that's part one.

Part two is if you time it right, you can look very accurate because the plays work. And so if you throw it to the right spot at the right time with the right footwork, it's going to look like you threw a brilliant pass. That was Joe Montana dead eye, but a lot of Joe Montana's accuracy was hitting the right footwork and I was watching this old video on YouTube of Bill Walsh teaching how the footwork worked for the quarterback and Joe Montana's just perfectly you know young Joe Montana how old is this show dropping back hitting the back foot throwing it it was really honestly pretty cool to watch because he was the goat at it along with someone like drew breeze but all those details can make

you look pretty accurate and i've thought that with jared goff for example i don't think jared goff has the exact ideal perfect touch perfect spin on the, but he's got great timing and he understands every detail of his offense and that's why he's able to succeed. So that's the part with JJ McCarthy. As we go along in the summer, if he starts to look more accurate, it's probably because those things are coming along. It also could be the explanation for him not looking as accurate as maybe he's capable of being during minicamp. All right, one last one. Wes Phillips admitted that it's not easy or as easy to figure out how the reps are going to be divvied up as when, say, Kirk Cousins was the quarterback, because then he got all

the reps because he was the quarterback, and that was an easy choice. But in this case, there is at least somewhat of a quarterback competition going on, but there is twofold one quarterback that is starting at this moment and another quarterback that needs every rep to develop. And if you add up at practice, now I've mentioned that McCarthy is taking the number two reps, but if you add them up for how often each quarterback has been out there, it's not a humongous difference between Sam Darnold and JJ McCarthy. What used to happen with Kirk Cousins is he would take the one reps and the two reps, and then whatever was left went to Jaron Hall. But in this case, the one reps are going to Darnold, then the twos are going to McCarthy. So they are working in and out,

in and out. And often they have the ones versus twos on either side of the ball. He's getting a lot of work. And Wes Phillips talked about how they're going to approach divvying it up as the summer goes along. What's the challenge, Wes, of trying to develop a quarterback probably or work with a quarterback probably to start opening day and develop one too? Because, you know, for six years here, it was basically Kirk took the reps and then you mixed some in.

It looked like, for instance, yesterday with different teams, Sam and JJ were very close in snaps. So, like, what's that challenge from a coaching standpoint of trying to split things up to do right by both people? It can be a challenge, you know, in the situation we're in where you're, you want to give a young guy some opportunities to grow. He's got to make some mistakes. He's got to have some opportunities to go in there and play with live bullets per se. So it is a little bit of a challenge, but we have a plan. We talk through every day. What are the reps going

to look like? Even when is Nick going to get in there, when can we get Jaron a couple reps. They are limited, as you know, but they're going to get more limited, obviously, when we get into game week, those types of things. So now's the time to try to make sure we can also, from our evaluation process, get a chance to get him out there and actually see him. You know, so far it has been pretty close, pretty close as far as rep allocation. But who's going with twos? Who's going with ones? It's not as important right now.

We want to get both guys, some of those reps throughout camp. But but obviously Sam's starting it off. Yeah, that's probably the easiest way that we will figure out what they think of J.J. McCarthy's summer is that trying to identify each pass and whether they threw it to the right place can be challenging because we don't know the exact assignments. But if J.J. McCarthy starts getting first team reps, then we sound the alarms of the quarterback competition. By the way, Wes Phillips looks like a 1994 left-handed reliever who is 39 years old and has been throwing 86 miles an hour for 14 years for a half an inning to get out the big lefty or something, doesn't he? Feel free to drop in the comments what Wes Phillips looks like he does for a job but I was thinking a Paul Ossenmacher type since I already referenced Steve Young and Joe Montana

why not just throw that out there as well uh okay so there's the rundown of everything that J.J. McCarthy and Wes Phillips had to say we'll do that a little more often from the press conferences talk about those in detail when the time is necessary so real quick we will prove that this show has actual sponsors and then i will get to your comments so leave questions comments on anything that you heard from jj mccarthy and west phillips in the comment section well i first tell you about us cellular usular noticed 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 is ironic.

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las vegas henderson or reno uh or you have to and you have to do this before the season starts that's kind of obvious right september 7th is the last day that you can enter for more information go to circle las vegas.com now i expect to click on the comments, a knuckle baller. Totally agree. Totally agree. Wes Phillips looks like a 46 year old knuckle ball pitcher from 1999. That's good. I like that. Edwin says Vikings are way overdue for a quarterback. They drafted to become a franchise championship caliber player.

Uh, yeah, that is correct. I mean, they've been trying so many times over the years and knees kept getting in the way. I mean, Teddy Bridgewater had a lot of the same exact vibes of JJ McCarthy. They remind me of each other quite a bit, a guy who is more mature than you would think someone at his age should be that people just gravitate to that put in the work that have a passion for football i mean these these two are are similar and you go back to dante call pepper well there's some similarity

some difference the similarity was that uh dante call pepper sat for a year behind Jeff George and Randall Cunningham in 1999 and then didn't play until 2000. I imagine during that 99 season, people were saying, oh man, we really could have used that Javon curse. We didn't need that Culpepper. Let's get defense. And then they did great with Culpepper in a couple of the seasons. And then there were some down years, but I think that as they had come into the Wilf ownership and grown the roster and they were on their way with Culpepper had he not gotten injured because they had some good teams even just a few years after Culpepper got hurt in 05 but as drafted quarterbacks go yeah I skipped over christian ponder because that just didn't work out at all those are the only ones i mean we can't really count kellen mon that failed before it even started tavaris jackson was another guy that maybe in a different time in a different age if he played

now that he would have had more success than when quarterbacks running with the ball was not as, I don't know, should I say acceptable or utilized or whatever you want to say that quarterbacks were still being asked to kind of be in a box in when Tavares Jackson was around and he turned out to not be the starting quarterback they looked for. So here you are, your quarterback draft history is pretty light. You're not like the Jets or the Bears who've been trying and trying and trying and keep failing there just hasn't been all that many opportunities for the Vikings to have a quarterback this young like J.J. McCarthy and even from my own perspective going from let's see Teddy Bridgewater very briefly uh but sam bradford a veteran case keenum a veteran sean hill veteran and then here comes kirk cousins i've only really covered here very um experienced quarterbacks in the past so

now watching in this training camp someone develop in front of our eyes even seeing him do things better than he did in minicamp is like, Oh, okay. We're seeing these signs of progress right away. And I'm not going to say that over two days in shorts, well, it's really clicked folks. He's a star, but there's a lot of, I think positive signs, even just from you get the guy in the building. And now what? And there have been stories of the past of they go through the whole process. They draft the player, they get them in the building and they go, what?

But this is not the person that we researched and spent the first round pick on with J.J. McCarthy. It's the opposite of that. I mean, everything that they said, every reason that they explained that they wanted to draft JJ McCarthy, we see in his mindset and his work that he's putting in early on and where that takes us. Uh, we're going to find out. Evan says, uh, did JJ learn how to speak to the media at IMG because this 21 year old kid had a really impressive, really great response to someone asking about a down moment and then says stuff like rising tides lift all ships.

I think it comes easy to him. J.J. McCarthy, what I, and I talked to his coach who was his offensive coordinator, I think is now the head coach at IMG for a story right after he was drafted. Purpleinsider.com, if you want to dig that one up that was pretty interesting and the angle of my story was exactly what he's talking about was that he led img to a national championship during a very difficult time for the world but i think that mccarthy has been planning for this for a really long time i also think that he naturally connects with people you heard it from his teammates at Michigan. You saw it pretty quickly on the first couple of days of rookie minicamp practice that he's

out there. He's making friends. He seems to get along with people. There's a little, and I don't want to make this comparison because as soon as you say this name, people get all worked up. But in his personality, it's sort of Mahomes-like as somebody that just seems very personable, very naturally personable. There is not some sort of plan that comes across or these lines that he wrote down and he's trying to be a certain thing in front of the podium. It seems very natural because even when he gets

questions that he didn't expect, he doesn't seem to have any trouble with them. I think he just communicates really well. And that's kind of how Kevin O'Connell is. Honestly, they have, I think, similar personalities in that way. So let's see here. James says, can you please expand on who is actually taking reps on what teams? Uh, I think, uh, that with a walkthrough that can give us some insight. Yeah, sure. So, um, I guess I can, let me, uh, make sure I could, let's see, can I do this off the dome?

Can I do this without looking at the roster at all? The first team, let me think, let me see. Can I be like JJ McCarthy? Can I just recall on this? So first team offensive line is Derrissaw, Blake Brandel, who's taken all the reps at left guard, Bradbury, Ingram, and Brian O'Neill. The wide receivers are Justin Jefferson and Jordan Addison. And wide receiver three has been a split between Brandon Powell and Jalen

Naylor, but there has been a shade of Tristan Jackson. They like Tristan Jackson. They've liked him for years. He just hasn't gotten many opportunities and he tends to be one of those guys that shines every year in camp. But when we get to the season, he got in a little bit, had a chance to maybe catch a touchdown from Josh Dobbs, didn't quite get it. But once again, no surprise, the guy knows the offense. So he's been working in a tad there. Aaron Jones and Ty Chandler have been the top running backs. And then when you go to the defensive side, Jonathan Bullard, Harrison Phillips, and Jerry Tillery are the defensive tackles slash defensive ends of the 3-4. A lot of base that we've seen out there so far with the 3-4.

The edge rushers, Grenard, Van Ginkle. Van Ginkle on the defense's left side, but Dallas Turner, of course, has been in there with Van Ginkle slowly coming back. So 11 out of 11 reps have been Dallas Turner. Linebackers, Blake Cashman, Ivan Pace Jr. The cornerbacks, you all know, Ivan Pace, Jr. The cornerbacks, you all know a beleaguered group is right now. It depends on the grouping,

but Byron Murphy and Shaq Griffin with Byron Murphy. He moves inside sometimes into Caleb Evans on the outside. And after that, Andrew Ruth, Jr. Jalen Williams, et cetera, after that. And then the safeties metellus bynum harrison smith so there's your entire starting group second and third team is not as

clear people mix in and out uh but you know if you have somebody you're you're curious about specifically you can assume that anyone i didn't mention has not been with the first team so there's your entire first team group how about that i? I don't think I stumbled. I think I got them all. I don't think I stumbled over any positions there. Flick says incredible decision from McCarthy. I hope that he keeps his energy and momentum throughout his career and never gets satisfied. Yeah. The energy of JJ McCarthy, it just stands out. It really does. He gets to the podium, and before that, he's joking around with Wes Phillips. He just has always done that. Even when he got to the podium, I think as a rookie right after he was drafted, had a small conversation with somebody on the side, He's always talking to people. That's his superpower in part is that he really seems to be a personable person who understands what it's going to take to get from point A to point B and is willing to chunk that off incrementally and try to check off boxes

of what he needs to improve to try to get there. None of this guarantees anything. You can have the best attitude in the entire world and throw too many picks and then you're on the bench. But as far as players that I've seen come in as 21 year old players or younger, there are not that many that have this level of maturity and preparedness to take on something like this. And if he continues to grow throughout the off season, then he might be ready week one, or it might just be better to play Sam Darnold and let him get the feel for the NFL and play it by ear from there.

How many games do you win? How does it go? But if they get to the end of training camp and feel like he's not far away and then get off to a bit of a rough start, you can go to him pretty quickly if they feel like he's completely ready to start because he has taken this mature approach but if they also look at it as it's great that he's taken this tact of trying to succeed but he's still got a ways to go to master all those details then they they can just continue to play Sam Darnold. They have options here to be able to manage this in multiple different ways, depending on the way it plays out.

And I think what you hear from Wes Phillips is we come on every night and talk about, oh, you know, I don't know what's going to happen. Could it be this? Could it be that? They don't know what's going to happen. They don't know how far J.J. McCarthy is going to make it by the end of training camp. They don't know how good Sam Darnold is going to continue to look through training camp. They don't know what McCarthy is going to look like in the preseason or in those joint practices. And everybody's kind of finding out together. And that's why it's malleable with these reps in practice.

And that's what we're going to be looking closely at to get the feedback, because that's why it's malleable with these reps in practice. And that's what we're going to be looking closely at to get the feedback because that's the most obvious and clear. Okay. This is what the coaching staff thinks based on those reps. But feel free to ask about anything. Anybody wants to continue to throw questions in the comments. I'll try to get through. What usually happens is I go until I get to the bottom. So if you ask the

question, you know, a few minutes ago, I'm working my way through them. So stay patient, but I'll answer all of them that make any sense to me. Uh, Alex says, uh, how secure is Quacey's job? If the team gets off to a horrendous start due to the brutal schedule, the lack of quality depth on the roster and draft record. The draft record we'll see because the draft record depends a lot on two fellas that were drafted this year, right? Jordan Addison, despite the off field problems is a big hit. And also Makai Blackman, I felt was a pretty big hit. And we're waiting on the answers on Ed In ty chandler even potentially andrew booth jr point being that the answer with quesida fomenta of how good of a gm is he or how well has he

competitively rebuilt in my opinion they checked off all the boxes that they needed to check this off season for me to feel like they completed the competitive rebuild. And now this is a transition season. And 2025 is when real expectations begin. That doesn't mean that you could be horrendous, as you said, and you shouldn't be because they spent a lot of money to keep these players and sign these players, but maybe a little more grace when you're dealing with a quarterback situation such as this one. I don't think that the Wilfs would see this team play four games and they've been more patient than this in the past when it was win now in 2020, for example, where they let them keep the team together even last year where the Wilfs didn't tell them to just sell off to Neil Hunter and

they probably should have, but they they didn't do it then they believed that they could get back into it I imagine they are feeling like this team should be competitive this team should be in the playoff race it shouldn't go the way that you're describing it but if it does if it does go one and four two and six they're not just going to go, all right, all right, get out of here, you general manager, and not give Kweisi Adafomenta time to see his quarterback pick through, his edge rusher pick through, or how about even the cap space that they have? They set up this timeline at the beginning of the era. And the only thing that would make this come apart completely is if there was dysfunction, that is what would get in the way. The organization from

the outside has not come across as dysfunctional. In fact, when you have your megastar left tackle, which I can get into a little bit, but I was going to talk with, uh, didn't get to record with Alcaloose today. We're going to do that tomorrow from TCO Performance Center. Talk a little about the details of that Derrisaw contract. But when you have players like Justin Jefferson and Christian Derrisaw who are signing up to stay with you long-term, it also doesn't scream toxic, right? It doesn't scream dysfunction. It screams functional is everything about this with kevin o'connell getting the high grades from the nflpa and then even as you see them work their way through a tragedy from a coaching perspective brian floris is here he's one of the best defensive

minds in the nfl this organization is not running like it's out of a train, out of control, ready to crash. We saw that in 2021 and we all just hung on for that crazy ride. I don't feel that at all with this team right now. It would have to be something biblical for this team to start talking about, hey, should we look for a new general manager? And the other thing is too, that when you lay out a plan at the beginning of a hire

of Kweisi Adafomense and Kevin O'Connell, and then you execute the entire thing to the end, everybody's in on this plan. This isn't just the GM said, we should competitive rebuild. And the owners went, okay, man, hands off, this is your competitive rebuild. No, owners went, okay, man, hands off. This is your competitive.

No, they all worked on this together. That was the entire concept was the Wilfs don't want to tank. So come up with a plan. That's not tanking. The Wilfs wanted to see if it was Zimmer in the culture and if they could be much more successful with all those old players before they moved on from them, they were with 13 wins. But everybody knew that was short term. They were not going to stick with Kirk Cousins for that much longer.

And the Wilfs already paid Kirk Cousins enough money to either barely get them into the playoffs or not at all. Matt said, oh, yeah, Matt says for a second. I went, wait, I'm Matt. Um, my question is, uh, has Dallas Turner stood out so far and did Daniel Hunter stand out when he was here in training camp? Oh yeah. Oh yeah.

Daniel Hunter definitely stood out when he was in training camp. Daniel Hunter walks by you and you start shaking in terror from seeing a human being that could be that big and chiseled. Daniel Hunter is the single most impressive athlete I have ever seen in my entire life, any sport, anywhere, ever, and also a very nice guy. But he was not nice to any offensive lineman that was lining up over him, and the battles that he and Brian O'Neal would have were unreal throughout training camp. But I remember O'Neal looking very shaken after his first couple practices

where he had to take a couple reps against Daniil Hunter. Daniil Hunter was astounding to watch in training camp. But the pads had to come on, and Everson Griffin, maybe even more impressive for his speed to be on the sideline and see the speed of Everson Griffin was just craziness. The pads haven't come on yet. What I could tell you about Dallas Turner is that first of all, he's much smaller than Daniil Hunter. So I'm getting used to that, that he is more along the Vaughn Miller size. Randomly, I was at the combine and Vaughn Miller walked by me. And so like, that's what

sticks in my mind for, Oh, that's an outside linebacker, not a defensive end. But, uh, Dallas Turner has great movement, very fluid movement. He could be a basketball player. He could be a track runner. He could, there are some guys that there's a stiffness to them. They might be powerful, but they're not bendy or fluid. He is all of that. He's a very flexible type of player, and you can see the movement skill. But, I mean, not until those pads come on and he really goes up against the offensive lineman. And even then, the offensive lineman are two guys that are making a lot of millions of dollars to be really good. Those things are going to be fun to watch When Dallas Turner goes up against the Vikings tackles I mean, so far though, it's clear why he was a first-round pick

Because his athleticism is really something And when the pads come on, then you get to see those reps They do one-on-ones which are wild to watch That's an offensive lineman versus a pass rusher And everybody's basically gathered around a circle. That could be a sport in its own. That's fascinating. Shane says with the concerns of corner,

does this open the door for Dwight McClother? Well, that would entirely depend on Dwight McClother. And I mean, most undrafted free agents are not very good and they usually don't make it. And sometimes if they like something, they saw anything, anything. I mean, even, okay, there's this one thing the guy does pretty well. Okay.

Put them on the practice squad because you never know who's going to be the next Anthony Harris or Adam Thielen or whatever. Or if they just like how the guy's work ethic is and think he could improve. But with someone like Dwight McClother, there's been 50 Dwight McClother who have come through and we never see them get off the third team. If he starts taking any reps with the second group or consistent reps with the second group,

I have not taken note of where he's been so far when the pads are on is always the most important because these reps against corner, the corners can't do anything when they don't have their pads. It's awesome to see the highlight real throws, but the corners, they can't play physical at all. They just have to run next to the guy and they don't really even want to make too much of an effort to make a play on the ball. You don't want to guys get tangled. So when the pads come on, that's when we'll find out. Maybe they do feel somewhat confident in McLaughlin and that's why they wouldn't go out and get someone else. If they like him, that would be a huge find for them. Another huge

find UDFA. These things progress throughout the summer. If they like him and if he shines, then he could be someone who does become a backup player for this year. I also wouldn't be shocked if they still consider looking at the free agent market and bringing somebody else in because it's hard to rely on an undrafted free agent until they really prove it to you. Monster says, do you know which players and coaches went to the funeral service? I do. I either got an email or a text with that answer. Uh, maybe it was a text. So let me, let me check on that. Mike Patton was the one that was running practice. So it was definitely, uh, okay. I do have the list here. It was, uh, Kevin O'Connell, Kweisi Daffo Mensah, Brian Flores, Matt Daniels,

Durante Jones, the defensive backs coach, Dallas Turner, Taki Tayamani. I mean, he's a defensive tackle that went to Oregon. So he would have been his teammate and Jashon Jones. Jashon Jones is from Maryland.

And those two would have known each other very closely. So a couple of players who were close to Kyrie Jackson and the Vikings brass and the defensive backs coach were the ones that went to his funeral, but that's not going to be the end of it. His family is going to come out to Minnesota in a couple of weeks, I believe, and they're going to meet with all of his teammates and speak with them and they're going to do everything they can to show the family that they're there for them. And the way that they've handled this, not that I expected anything less, but it, I think really speaks to the head coach.

And we're going to have criticisms for the head coach on the Jordan Addison thing. I certainly did. And his trick plays haven't been good and maybe punts or something and all those things but what we've seen in a situation like this with a tragedy that the team needs a lot of leadership and a lot of empathy and they they need to see their head coach caring deeply about what happened here and for him to leave a training camp practice to go to the funeral and to go with the defensive coordinator, the general manager, and just leave a walkthrough practice kind of behind, I think it really sends a message of how much Kevin O'Connell cares for his players. And it was mentioned by J.J. McCarthy that the way that they've dealt with something that is so traumatic for an entire organization is important.

Everybody notices and it matters to players. It matters that you do the right thing, because if you do, then it's like, hey, if if something happens to me, then my coach will be there, that kind of thing. So it's been it's been important for Kevin O'Connell. I think to, to do something like this and go to the funeral in Maryland. What about Bob says, well, at Michigan, McCarthy was part of a secret program that tested AI software implanted to give reporters perfect answers. That's funny. Well done, Michigan science. He's good at it. He's good at it. It's not his first time. That's what it comes down to a lot of times is just experience there have been some players Christian Derrissaw is one of them Christian

Derrissaw you know I mean he's never talked to media really and then his first couple press conferences is pretty quiet and you saw him the other day being very excited about being at the podium and and just gotten used to it after talking to the media for a few years. McCarthy's been doing this for a while. He's been giving interviews for some time. And in college, you're doing it every single week at Michigan. You're answering questions. The more you talk to people in general, the more you get in front of the media, the better you are at it. But also it doesn't come across. And again again i'm sorry for how old the reference is already it doesn't feel old in my head but derrick jeter had this certain way of giving absolutely nothing

for answers and i thought that a lot of athletes for a while copied that like oh i'm just gonna give all these cliches and screw these guys right i don't think that a lot of athletes do that as much anymore you see a lot of athletes who anthony edwards is one very much himself at the podium like i think a lot of players because of the world we live in with youtube with tiktok with podcasts and all those things a lot of younger people are just more comfortable talking to others, whether it's broadcasting on the internet or having microphones in their faces or just as being themselves. And McCarthy comes across like this, who the kid is. He's obsessed with football, but also willing to say, yeah, who I am. Part of my story is that during that year at img which he won a national championship

by the way uh i had some problems and i i sought ways to solve them i think that you just see a little more comfort um now with athletes that are younger uh alex says best guess on the starting five offensive line it's exactly what it is now i mean someone could get hurt but blake brandle looks like he's going to start at left guard we've seen nothing to indicate that he won't and then everybody else is the same from last year uh peter says which undrafted cornerback looks really good i heard that there is one that has a chance to make the team. I assume you mean Dwight McClothern. The corners are one of the toughest positions to watch before they get pads on, but there aren't any other undrafted corners, I don't think, outside of Dwight McClothern.

So that's probably the one that you saw somewhere had a chance. I mean, with Makai Blackman going down, everybody has a chance at this point. They brought in someone, but not a veteran player kobe francis every the door is wide open if you're a cornerback if you are wandering in egan maybe going to jimmy johns or something and they might just walk over and be like are you a corner you look kind of flexible could you possibly wade says a KOC insinuated this plan would not allow JJ on the field. If he didn't hit a certain initial milestones, the fact JJ is getting as many reps at number two tells me he already has passed some of those milestones. I don't know about that.

I don't know if that's completely the answer to that question because you drafted him in the first round, you were going to give him reps they weren't going to say you know what we should just have nick mullins out there i mean they were going to give him a lot of reps whether he was ready to take them or not and just fight their way through it if he was struggling and there will be some struggles i imagine along the way and they're just they're not going to take them away from him because the development plan is so important and part of that development plan is giving him a ton of reps as the number two that was the the only way to do it because you have nick mullins as your number three quarterback you have jaron hall as your number four quarterback you weren't going to put jaron hall

ahead of someone that you spent the number 10 overall pick on. However, I do think that the work that he's put into it is showing and it doesn't make them want to take reps away. If it shows there's a long way to go here, but I feel like the start of this was the predetermined kind of plan of it's going to be Sam Darnold that is getting the, the most reps as QB1 with the first team. And then here's the JJ McCarthy development plan. And we will change it and move it around if we have to or when we have to.

If McCarthy earns first reps or if Darnold needs to just take more because we're getting closer to the season. We are so far away from the season they can split them like this as we get closer then if Darnold is really QB one it's gonna trend toward him getting more of the reps uh this is a funny question does Zulgat ask the best questions on the beat uh well Judd is an OG I mean Judd covered the team going all the way back uh the far of year I feel like if you can cover the far of year then you can ask just about anything to anybody after not far of years I should say the 2010 you talk about having to ask some uncomfortable questions I imagine there was a lot of that uh I think that we have a group that always gets a lot of insight out of the coaches. Sometimes I'll see in the comment section, why didn't you yell at them? Or why

didn't you hold the feet to the fire or something more, but we're in Minnesota here. You don't just scream at the coaches. But if you look at today, I think it it's it's more of a group effort it's more like we all work together to get the most information we can when we're talking about these press conferences it's not so much can i ask a better question than you or whatever but i mean judd is the og so of course of course he is uh tied to skull says any guests at a length of suspension for addison is there another similar example well there were when it came to the old dui policy which i think was three games but my understanding i believe that they have changed it a little bit as far as off-field stuff goes and maybe there's less of a boilerplate for something like this length of a suspension

guess for this year i don't even know if there's going to be one i i really don't it was more about the team not sending a message to jordan addison that he won't have a football career if he continues to do this that was what was more important to me, more on my mind, because when you look at the legal part of this, very tricky for it to become anything legally that is going to even rise to the level of the NFL coming down hard on Jordan Edison. I wouldn't be shocked if he is suspended for zero games,

just period, and it just goes away. We never hear about it again. Hopefully it doesn't happen again, but we just, the NFL just moves on. They have become far less punitive than they once were over Roger Goodell, where it seemed like any player that jaywalked was getting the big suspension from the commish.

There was some, what do they call him? The warden, I believe that they called him early on. He hasn't been called that in years it seems like they've backed off trying to litigate everything that happens off the field if he uh this turns into a conviction i guess i i bad with the legal term someone gonna have to help me here then it it's very possible. It becomes a three game suspension when that would actually happen. That is completely up in the air. I've seen these incidents end up a year out. It happened. And then it went through the legal process. And then the next year they did something, or they just said, you know what? Everybody forgot about it. Why don't we move on? So my expectation isn't a huge suspension for jordan addison from the nfl it's more that the idea is to prevent it from happening in the future and wrap our arms around him i hope i hope so but

i don't know that is not a strategy that worked last time uh aaron says do you think the vikings are most likely to look for cornerback depth from cut down day casualties. Seems like the, this particular front office has found some good depth in that way. I was thinking about who was the guy that they signed Tremaine Brock. That was who in 2017, when they signed him in 2017, I remember some people saying that, Oh, they got Tremaine Brock to take Trey Wayans' job. I was like, buddy, they're not picking up some guy who's been cut by another team on the last day to take a starter's job unless you are in big trouble. And Trey Wayans turned out to be very good that year. And Tremaine Brock basically did not play. It's very, very hard to get cut and then come to another team

and start or be a difference maker. But I do think that the answer would be yes. That might be their approach because David Questenberry is a good example of a guy that when the Vikings picked him up, we went, okay, you know, he's been around. I guess it's fine. And then David Questenberry had to play in some big games because they got people hurt.

And that is an important role is that swing tackle. It might be an important role from cornerback depth. Do teams cut cornerbacks who are in good shape? Now with offensive linemen, sometimes they do cut a guy who is competing for a starting job because they prefer to keep some development player behind that guy jesse davis is a good example the vikings had him they decided you know what let him go get a starting job somewhere else we're going to keep another younger player does that happen as much with corners they're so hard to find there's so few of them but i think that the overall answer to your question is probably yes. If they don't like what's on the market now,

or the player likes to find Gilmore is not going to sign with the Vikings because he's looking more to championship chase than it. Yeah. It would track that they would look for cornerback depth from someone who gets released from another team. Maybe a veteran gets beat out by a younger player and a team says, all right, you know, go look for another job and the Vikings can pick someone up. I would not be surprised at all. If that does end up being their approach. And then instead of signing somebody now, they let this play out, let the guys get a ton of reps and then go from there. I do think that they need somebody. They definitely need somebody that is more than Kobe Francis, who, you know, has only played a little tiny bit of special teams in the NFL. Brian says, what are you looking for in practice

tomorrow? What's the pink? Anybody ever watched pinky in the brain? You know, that show pinky and the brain pinky. If you haven't, then you think I've lost my mind. Uh, what happens every time in the show is one of them says to the other. Oh yeah. Yeah. So, uh, pinky says to the brain, what are we going to do tomorrow? And he says the same thing we, Oh, what are we going to do tonight? And he says the same thing we do every night. We try to take over the world. And then

the one mouse always tries to have some crazy plot and it goes wrong for taking over the world. Anyway, that's me with training camp. What are we looking for in practice? The same thing we looked for yesterday, pinky. Uh, we're looking at the quarterbacks and how they progress and how they perform we're looking at wide receiver three we're looking for any sort of lineup changes we're looking for outstanding performances we're listening for anything coaching wise that can give us any type of insight but this training camp is let's call it uncomplicated it is two quarterbacks that everyone is very interested in and i am watching and sometimes you guys will ask like little warning you'll guys you guys will ask well how's this guy look and it might not have been paying as much attention to a left guard

or defensive tackle because we're watching these quarterbacks so closely. I'll try my best. I will definitely try my best to keep track of how everyone is doing in training camp, but it's always, how are these guys coming along? How comfortable is Darnold? Is he showing off the big arm? Is he looking like he's turning the ball over or is JJ McCarthy getting it? How's he coming along? Is he actually pushing Sam Darnold? All those things are always on the list. And then if anything else comes up, then it does. By the way, we've got a little breaking news here. Jordan Love and the Packers have agreed to a four-year, $220 million contract.

How do you guys feel about your quarterback being very cheap as larry david would say pretty pretty pretty good four years 220 million dollars there's only so much bogusness that there can be to that right when you're paying 220 million dollars there's only so much you can spread it out only so many couch cushions that you can hide all the cap space in when it reaches that type of dollar figure. And while the Green Bay Packers do have a young team, as was mentioned on every single broadcast last year, they now have created a window for themselves. They have a space where they have a chance to build around Jordan Love, even if he is expensive,

because they have guys on rookie contracts. But that's a couple years. And then it gets tricky, as we have seen. And even with a team like Buffalo, with Josh Allen's big contract, it got a little tricky. And you can't tell me that part of the reason to move on from Stephon Diggs wasn't his contract. I'm sure that it was that Josh Allen's contract made everything more complicated the Detroit Lions have the same thing going on with Jared Goff right now it's fine next year it's fine after that when Aiden Hutchinson has to get paid Sewell St. Brown golf's you know cap hits up. That's when it will become a lot more tricky for a team like the Detroit lions to add to their roster or to keep all their star talent that will eventually happen to the Packers. It's not going to happen today and it's not going to happen next year,

but now there's a little more of a defined, you better do it in the next few years, or that could be difficult unless he becomes Mahomes, and then nothing matters. But even Mahomes had to take a little less, a little more flexible of a contract. This is not taking less. 220 mil for half a season of being a great quarterback. And the other half, I thought he was maybe serviceable. And if he does the same thing,

that gives them a chance to win a lot of games. But that's a lot of money. Highest paid quarterback on a per year basis, Jordan Love. You think the NFL needs quarterbacks? Nobody can play this. It is so hard to play quarterback that that's the type of money you get if you're Jordan Love when you are not even really truly completely proven, even if I have annoyed Vikings fans this

offseason by thinking that he's pretty good so there you go Jordan Love very expensive as expected and you know what they got it signed again they were going through the same thing in Green Bay and everywhere else where if someone hasn't signed their contract yet it's like moth to flay must talk about what if he never signs and they have to trade him? No, you don't. You really don't. This was always going to happen. That will be something to really watch how they manage the rest of that roster around that cap hit and how good he really becomes. Because my prediction on Jordan love is that he's going to be the same quarterback, not way better.

He's not going to play 17 games like he did the last eight, that he's going to have eight great games, a couple of average games, a couple of down games because he is pretty reckless with the ball. And at times, I don't mean all the time, he didn't throw a million interceptions, didn't have a super high turnover worthy play rate. He's aggressive. I should say he's aggressive, not as much reckless, but he is aggressive. There will be some down games from him, but that shows you also why the Packers, their model when they did it for Rogers was more beneficial than when they did it this time

because they got one good season out of love and then had to give them a ton of money. Highest paid quarterback in football. Wow. Wes says, I've been a fan since 1970. Love the Vikings as a child. You just want to win as a teenager. You want to compete.

And as adult, you want a championship. The Vikings hold true. And when we're close. Yeah. I mean, I always get get there's different eras there's there's basically two different sections of vikings fans there's people like

yourself who started watching in the 70s and then there's people who started watching when randy moss was playing and that's 90 of everybody that i ever run into who watches the vikings you're either an og who watched when they were an early franchise and went to the Super Bowls, or you watch Moss. And then there's going to be a next wave that talks about, I was five during the Minneapolis Miracle or something. Oh, okay, I'm a million. But that's most of the listenership of this show.

And it's probably two, a little different viewpoints. And one is the folks who watch them reach those super bowls and then go through all these things along the way are a little more, I think harder. I shouldn't say harder to please, but like a little more pessimistic because they've seen so many things go wrong.

They're like, Oh, is this the guy? I don't know. We've always been sold on it. Whereas if you started watching for Moss and then the transition to Adrian Peterson, and then right after that is NFC championship in Minneapolis miracle and

Favre is mixed in there and an NFC championship, you might believe more or feel more like this franchise is always right there and will eventually break through. There is a difference between the two sections of fans that have been noticeable. Sklintpack, sorry if I'm saying that wrong, says, I think Kweisi learns from his mistakes. I'm impressed with him. I think we're in good hands it's you know some teams probably have a general manager that is the czar and he's the guy and he's the the roster is his and he tells the coach how it's going to be and the coach works for him and that's life this is more of a a combination

or even the trio with the wilfs i never used to factor the Wilfs into any discussion. They would never really get brought up on the show. It was Spielman and it was Zimmer. It was Rick's moves. It was Mike's everything. But now with Kweisi D'Affomensa and Kevin O'Connell having drafted the quarterback together, and that's like you're dating and you have a kid, right?

I mean, it's like, you got to raise it together, fellas. But they've really gone hand in hand through this entire thing with the bigger plan, with all three of them, with the Wilfs and with the head coach and with the general manager. It's the trio that seems to be on the same page. Now, if at some point it becomes not on the same page, then the opinion will change. As of this moment, it feels more like 2014 when Zimmer was brought in,

where Zimmer, Spielman, and ownership were all on the same page of how they needed to get through being as horrendous as they were under Les in 2013. How do we get out of that and back into relevancy? And they all had the same vision. It was to build around Zimmer's defenses. And they did. And they put all the money and the draft capital and everything,

except for the one quarterback draft pick. They put a lot of investment into the defense. They built a great defense. And it worked pretty quickly. And there was trust there. And then when they signed Cousins, it was not thematic to what they had decided on in 2014. It was to not have the expensive offensive side

and cobble together on defense or barely hang on for dear life with the defensive players that you have and not have depth and all that. That's where it changed, is when they did something that was a little out of the ordinary for what they had planned to be their identity. And with this, it was always to compete, to create a player-friendly environment, to start that at first and then take down major parts of the roster, draft the quarterback, spend in free agency.

That's the timeline. And that's where we're at. And then next year, it's very clear. McCarthy is starting free agent dollars are getting spent like crazy. So we will have this plan right in front of us play out through 2025. And then we'll see what happens as we go forward after that. So you can see, so that's the way I look at it. It's not just about one person making all the decisions. It's kind of about this entire trio, triumvirate of power with the Vikings. I was going to mention, oh, how funny is drafting, by the way?

The 2020 draft, every quarterback was good to assign today as well jordan love herbert signed burrow signed jalen hertz signed everybody signed the very next draft 2021 everyone's a bust except for trevor lawrence can never figure it out, but you got to draft if you want to win. Wayne says is a joint practices against Cleveland. I believe that week will answer a lot of questions in a big hurry. Yes. The joint practices are in Cleveland in the middle of August. I haven't booked my travel yet.

I don't remember. I think it's the 14th and 15th are the two days I will be there. Hopefully I can get the hotel with the good internet so we can do the same sort of live streams from there as well and we'll do a uh you know podcasts with i know some people from cleveland we'll we'll get some cleveland people on we'll uh you know do this kind of thing from there but i completely agree with you that it will it will solidify what we with you that it will, it will solidify what we think. That's probably it. It will solidify what we think.

If we think that, if we think that, okay, Darnold's got it locked in, he's QB one by that point. If they go and then suddenly JJ McCarthy's taking a lot of reps, then, oh, okay, this is big news. This is very different. But if Darnold continues to play QB one, then it locks it in. That's it.

That's exactly how it's going to go. That's, it might confirm a lot of things. The starting offensive line, if they play Blake Brandel the whole time against Cleveland, that's your starting offensive line. This is your final dress rehearsal is against that. We used to be able to figure out by the third preseason game of Mike Zimmer, because he would play the starters for the whole first half, which now seems kind of crazy that that used to happen. But whoever was starting in that third preseason game, whoever was second team,

that was, that was your team right there it was not that hard to pick out the 53 and it will likely be the same way with this where instead of the third preseason game then it's the joint practices in cleveland uh ty says what do the vikings do next year if they make a deep playoff run with Sam Darnold. Yeah, the franchise tag would be an option there. And don't think I haven't thought of this. I have. It could be one of those crazy things that if Sam Darnold throws, let's just put it out there. 32 touchdowns, 13 picks, 4,750 yards quarterback rating of 98.6. And they win a divisional round playoff game. What's deep in the playoffs, by the way, is that just one playoff win?

So sometimes a team will win a playoff game and people will say, well, they're on a playoff run. I think it's got to be two to be a run. That's just a single win. So if they win a play, but let's just say they win a playoff game lose a heartbreaker maybe a kicker misses in the divisional round just saying it could happen uh and then you come back and go yeah that's actually the kind of quarterback play that we drafted jj mccarthy for so now what do we do uh with the ph when Nick Foles did the thing they just went back to Carson Wentz but it seemed to hover over Carson Wentz at all times that he wasn't the one that won

the Super Bowl if Darnold puts up those type of numbers continuing to play him and franchise tagging him is an option but you're still not going to be able to build that mega team that you're looking for at the same time we kind of saw this with Baker Mayfield. Do you actually, does anybody think that the Bucs are good or in a good position or like that idea? Baker is a decent enough quarterback, but if the Bucs could have drafted a quarterback, we would have all said, you guys should probably just let him go and get paid by somebody else rather than knowing

that your quarterback play is going to be just okay. Now, I think the bar is higher when we're talking about Darnold because they do have the number 10 overall pick behind Sam Darnold. It's not, well, if he throws 20 touchdowns and they rank 21st in offense and barely get into the playoffs like the Bucks, it would have to be top five to seven offense and then maybe i mean i don't know that is a difficult one but it would likely be the franchise tag and then they would try to move money around to sign free agents and it would suddenly shoot them into the win now stratosphere because the expectation for darnold would be that he does it again or is even better the following

season doesn't always work that way but that um that scenario is real but it's real unlikely uh Justin says stop coddling the kid being smart about development is not coddling it's trying to it it's a former quarterback who played in the NFL and another former quarterback who played a lot in the NFL who have put together a plan that they think will best help a 21 year old quarterback become a star. That seems better than just saying, yeah, figure it out.

You'll be fine. Just go out there and football. I would prefer that the guys who have played the position, one of them won a Superbowl. Kevin O'Connell is an offensive coordinator and worked with Sean McVay and has had younger quarterbacks in the past that got pushed into the mix. Dwayne Haskins, most notably with Kevin O'Connell. He's been through this. He has a lot of knowledge about the situation. It's definitely not a coddling situation as much as a development situation. Think of it this way. If you are drafting in Major League Baseball and there are two draft picks that you take, you take one of them who has five years of college play at what's good at college football,

Stanford. So you take your Stanford guy who's played for five years, and then you take Billy Johnson out of who cares high school in Oklahoma. You're going to treat those two differently. The Stanford kid can probably get called up to the big leagues pretty fast. The Billy Johnson out of Oklahoma high school is going to need to go to the minor leagues. They're not coddling him by having him pitch for the Auburn double days, which is a, was a real minor league team. They're developing him. They're bringing him along the path. Uh, so we, we can be impatient,

but I don't think we can say that they're, uh, wrong for the way that they're going about this. In fact, I think that they are doing, uh, really, really well, actually. I mean, this is a smart approach. It's not panicked. The key to this approach is that it's not panicked. If you draft a quarterback to save your butt, then you panic and you got to force him in. This happened in Chicago a couple of times where you draft Mitch Trubisky to try to save John Fox's job. He doesn't play well. And then all of a sudden, you know, you're fired. And then Justin Fields, although I think they didn't want to play him right away, but he still ends up being tied into Matt Nagy's future.

And then he's fired. Those are bad situations that they're trying to resolve by drafting a quarterback. It doesn't usually work all that well in this. It was a fine situation over the last two years, culture wise, job security wise, locker room, veteran players, and you can be more patient and ownership and being on the same page with ownership. You can be more patient. I think every person in the NFL, every single team, every single coach, every single GM,

if you said, here's a new rule, when you draft a quarterback, you have five-year job security, unless you do something off the field that's bad. Every one of them would wait until like year three to play their quarterback. Every one of them, except for the Texans and CJ Stroud. But unless the guy is an absolute freak like CJ Stroud, every one of them would give plenty of time for that quarterback to develop. So the Vikings being in a position where they can do it is quite good. Christian says rumors about Bynum playing corner.

And if he's far from an extension, doesn't that seem unlikely when you guys tell me that there are rumors of stuff. And I appreciate that. What, what, what does this mean? Like what,

like who, where is this a report from someone? Or is this some jackal throwing something on the internet for attention? Like, I don't know. Like what's the, what is the caliber of rumor?

Um, as far as give, actually give me some sort of like range in the future. This is a nine out of 10 believability. Tom Pelissero said it, or this is a two out of 10. I saw it from some wacko on YouTube. Um, give me an idea of where this lands in that because i don't see how or why you would even think about cam bynum at cornerback now they do play differently so josh metellus is not a corner

but he plays in the nickel sometimes and And technically you would say, all right, he is a corner on this play. He played in the slot for a hundred something snaps last year. And he was a corner on those plays. There are sure some plays where Cam Bynum comes up and plays corner because of the way that everything is designed. Oh, he's lining up in the slot in this particular situation. Can't bind him, came out of kale and then instantly switched over to safety because he's just not a corner.

He's a safety. You have to be definitely bigger as a, a safety, which can bind him is bigger. You, you design your body in the off season, your workouts differently. I mean, then he hasn't played corner at all he would have to learn a whole new position after learning this new position

why don't you just go get a corner um so i don't see that as being an option other than the fact that they're just versatile and they can move guys around but last year they dealt with less if they were going to move cambion into corner again, to me would have been wacky. They would have done it last year. Jawan Williams was CB2 for a good portion of training camp. Jawan Williams basically didn't even play here. They're in it still. Weirdly, they have a better spot because they have Shaq Griffin than they were from last season at the cornerback position.

So I don't see much reason to talk about that. Yeah. Devin, where have you been? Devin announcing that Jordan love just signed a big deal. Devin, you can't just, you can't just drop in here and break news.

We've already broken it down. Do you want to hear the breakdown again? We'll do it for Devin. Here's the breakdown. Whoa, that's a lot of money. They're going to need to work around that, but they probably will be just fine for the next couple of years.

There's the breakdown of the entire Jordan law. Thank you for joining Devin. And I do actually appreciate you guys because a lot of times I can't look at my phone during the live stream. I'm reading your comments. So you do break news to me quite often. I appreciate that. I'm just giving you a hard time. This has been good. It's been a lot of fun, kind of a chill chat here tonight because there wasn't a intense practice today. I imagine there will be one, especially tomorrow. I think the fans show up tomorrow. Someone also asked when they put on pads. They usually will tell us maybe a day before in the past, like, Hey guys, pads are coming on tomorrow.

But I don't know or remember exactly which practice, which number practice. It usually comes three, four, five days in. I don't know if that's going to be tomorrow. I don't think so, but they'll have an off day on Sunday. It's been a pretty emotional start to this training camp. Everyone probably needs to take a deep breath. And then I would figure that they come back. Christian says probably not a reliable source, but maybe feel like that made no sense as well. You're right. Your instincts were good on that from, from the future. Now, if that is the new rule though, of the the live chat if you tell me

that there is a rumor of something you don't have to tell me the exact source because maybe you just saw somebody retweet it but you have to give me a credibility rating give me the credibility between give me between one and ten this is a oh ian rapaport just tweeted it that's a ten and a one would be yeah you know you know all those people uh matt says uh do all these cornerback injuries affect where byron murphy plays this season thought he was going to move back inside he was by my expectation going to be moved inside more often uh the way that they play it with josh metellus on the field a lot it wouldn't mean he is a purely nickel corner.

But at some point, I believe it was the owners meetings, Kevin O'Connell talked about liking the idea of taking Harrison Smith off the field sometimes. Josh Metellus, who with the second team, on the first team, he plays his role. And then on the second team, he plays the deep safety role. So put him back there or like a tradition i should say traditional safety not deep but traditional safety spot where harrison smith would play so move him back there move byron murphy into a nickel and you could do that or you could also take um sometimes off the uh the field josh metell, in a true passing situation.

Because last year, Metellus is out there for third down and 10, trying to track some slot receiver who's really fast. Well, that's not easy to do. For him, it would have been more beneficial. And they could still do this. The guy that we shouldn't completely throw in the garbage is a Caleb Evans. A Caleb Evans last year had about the worst ending to a season that he could have had got throttled, but they also had lost Murphy and they also had lost DJ Wanham and they were in a bad spot. That was also a top five offense in the

league in Detroit that annihilated them in a couple of games. I'm not out entirely on a Caleb Evans. I was just higher on Makai Blackman as the idea of being maybe a very good outside corner. Whereas I think Evans has a ceiling, but they had a good defense last year with the Caleb Evans playing a lot, especially through the first 15 weeks. What it, the situation is right now is, I mean, if they lose anybody else, then you're talking about Andrew Booth, Jr. Jalen Williams. We mentioned Dwight McClothern. I mean, you're, you're going way down that depth chart at that point, if they lose anyone. And I don't remember, there's not too many seasons that have happened. Maybe there was maybe 17, maybe 18 where the corner stayed completely healthy. No, not 18 because they had to bring back Anderson day home and start them in the slot

in the playoff game. The corners get, get banged up all the time. Oh, this is funny. Oh gosh. Says sources say we may need another corner. I'm sources credibility four out of 10. Uh, well, you know what? Your information is good. Your information is very good that they could use another corner. So, all right, great stuff, guys. Really enjoyed this as always.

Hope you guys like the format of running through what JJ McCarthy had to say. We will do that a little more often. Jonathan was on vacation. So now he's back and he's hitting the grindstone and working behind the scenes very hard, as he always does for Purple Insider. We'll do more of that as we go forward, as we go through the notes. We'll get some clips from press conferences when necessary. That was really good.

And your questions, as always, very fun. Tomorrow, another practice means another live stream, 7 o'clock as always. And then Sunday, take a rest, take a little break on Sunday and then back to it. Cause Sunday there's no practice. But after every single practice in training camp, we live stream Alec Lewis is going to be on the show.

Kevin Seifert, Dane Mizutani, Will Regetts, big guest lineup for next week. Lots coming up. So thanks everybody for watching. And we will talk to you all again very soon. Football.