Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - JJ McCarthy looked good at OTAs -- What does it mean? (Part 1)

Episode Date: May 30, 2025

Matthew Coller talks about seeing JJ McCarthy at OTAs and how much we should take away from the conclusions. Plus answering Vikings fan questions and previewing the next time out at Vikings OTAs, which will be Monday. And, Jalen Ramsey picking up steam?See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider, Matthew Coller here. And you know, the last couple of episodes we have led up to Minnesota Timberwolves games and it's been exciting to talk about, hey, you know, they could go to the NBA finals and let's see how it goes and maybe they'll come back in the sea No, they didn't so, you know Timber Wolf season is over which means now it's officially Viking season Okay, the Minnesota Twins are playing and are actually pretty good, but it's a long summer when it comes to that So here we are now again to talk some football after a grand total of one and only one OTA practice, but it was an interesting OTA practice and a lot of takeaways starting with the quarterback.

So what I want to get into tonight is just how much we're supposed to make of what we saw from JJ McCarthy. We've had a day to process it. If you missed the entire breakdown with me and Dane Mizzittani from TCO Performance Center, you can go back and you can check that out from yesterday. And my write-up over at purpleinsider.football where I created a criteria to try to protect myself from overreaction when it came to this one OTA practice. You can see that as well.

And, uh, so yesterday as I was reporting on this and everybody else to the other beat reporters reporting on how JJ McCarthy looked, and then I'm looking through social media and I see back and forth because I follow a lot of different beat reporters, the Vikings play a lot of different teams. So I want to make sure that I'm up to date on what's going on with the other beats in the NFL. And then I see some other people who are analysts and talk show hosts and things like that.

And, uh, there was a very big, I think, difference of opinion between the things that beat reporters were reporting on from these practices versus a lot of other folks saying, this means nothing. This means nothing. And, uh, I saw my friend Tyler Dunn who, uh, is great and does go long, uh, make sure you go check that out. His newsletter is awesome.

And he's been a friend of the show for a long time, but he was talking about, and he used to be a beat reporter covering the green Bay Packers. He was talking about how one of his colleagues, when he first got on the beat in Green Bay, taught him to never make too much of what you see in OTAs. The problem is with that. And certainly that is true because we are a very long way away from anybody playing a national football league game. And yet the issue is that a lot of folks want to know how JJ McCarthy looks. And so I was just going over some other OTA reports to see how some of my friends around

the league covered their OTAs. And I saw that my friend Nick Underhill, who covers the Saints, he was talking about Tyler Shook and how he showed some interesting traits for the Saints. And I think what everybody is clear on at this point is that nobody who's covering the practices is saying that JJ McCarthy is about to enter the Hall of Fame and is going to win six championships because he had a good OTA practice. And sometimes it's treated like that. If there's reports that it looks good in OTAs, then it's treated by some folks on the outside like, Oh, these reporters again,

just hype it up this quarterback. Cause he looks good in OTAs. Let's see you come September. Well, none of us want to wait until September to make our conclusions. We all know that we'll get there eventually, but the way I want to look at it is in terms of markers along the way. So you have to get to certain places,

call it like a race. And in this race, you have to get to certain levels of the race before you can really do the final sprint. Is that how the Olympics work? Like they have the what do they call them the qualifying heats right that's what they call them they have the qualifying heats along the way. Now the person who does really well in the qualifying heat just makes it to the next level. And then they have the real race where they race for the gold medal. So we're

in the qualifying heat type of area of JJ McCarthy and the evaluation of him where what we're trying to do is look at how he functions in the environment that he's given. So OTAs, if you go out in OTAs, and I had somebody send me a message yesterday that said, oh, no one's ever looked bad in OTAs except Kellen Mond. Or Kellen Mond always gets brought up in this conversation. That's probably partly my fault. But that's not true at all.

I mean, over the years, there have been plenty of situations where it didn't look very good in OTAs. And I brought up the 2018 example, which I think was probably the best one where even Kirk Cousins and Mike Zimmer and John D. Filippo weren't exactly gelling and something seemed a little bit off there and they seemed at odds. And I remember Kirk talking about Adam Thielen having a pity party. And, uh, you know, I mean, sometimes it doesn't look super smooth,

but then once Kirk was locked in as the quarterback and had been there for a few years, and once he was set with Kevin Stefanski or Gary Kubiak, then those things started to look a lot smoother and you could really tell the difference. That didn't mean any of us thought during OTAs with Gary Kubiak that, uh, well actually I don't think we had OTAs in 2020, but with Kevin Stefanski, nobody said, Oh my gosh, Superbowl, this is going to be the best offense ever because they're functioning.

But it was way different in terms of the vibe and in terms of just how the offense looked working with Kevin Stefanski's offense versus John D. Filippos. So little hints You got to get to the first checkpoint before we can get to January where everybody's got the bar set extremely high for JJ McCarthy and the very first OTA is passing the very first checkpoint or winning the very first heat. The other thing is too, that we haven't seen McCarthy do anything in such a long time that it's all very new and fresh.

So around the league, maybe you've seen your quarterback, whoever, whatever team you're covering for a while and like, okay, well, you know, he's doing this or that or the other thing. And you can kind of just shrug it off. But when it comes to JJ McCarthy, we haven't seen him since last August. And when we last left off, McCarthy was looking really good and was making his case to get first team reps in the joint practices. That's when we last left off our story. It's kind of like if you used to watch old TV shows before you, we had everything

on demand on Netflix, Hulu, and everything else where you would watch the season finale and then it would be reruns all summer and you had to wait until the next spring or whatever to see how it picked back up with the story. Well, that's kind of how this feels like. Well, last fall, when we last left off with our hero, JJ McCarthy, like, you know, from those old shows, here's where he was dangling off a cliff to potentially be the starter, right? And things like that.

And then we go this whole time and he loses the weight and he's going through the surgery. And then there's a second procedure and then all these sorts of things until we can actually see him again. So it did feel monumental in a way to see him back out on the field looking the same as he looked when we last left off. So JJ McCarthy, if you were doing like the old school TV show voice and be like, when we left, left off, his knee was torn to shreds and how our hero returns, like something like that, right?

And we wanted to get a look at how rusty he might look or how smooth he might look coming back. Does he look like a guy who is a top 10 drafted quarterback going into his second year? Does he look like he's running the practice in the same way that we would expect from a starting quarterback in the NFL? And there are things, it's almost easier to identify the bad things than it is the good things because yeah, the receivers, if you throw up a 50 50 ball, the cornerbacks are trying not to make contact with the wide receivers.

They're trying to play the football a little bit, but you don't want anybody going up and shoving Justin Jefferson to the ground or Jordan Addison to the ground. I think Kevin O'Connell has said in the past, like, Hey, nobody hits the ground in OTAs or in mini camp or in rookie camp. And when that's the case, you're going to have a lot of completions and good throws. So to some extent it is right for those analysts to look at OTAs and completions and incompletions.

I saw the, the crackpot Cleveland media trying to keep track of Joe Flacco and Chider Sanders and Dylan Gabriel and all their completions and incompletions. And just, I wish them the best of luck with all of that. That's pretty ludicrous at this time of the year to try to be really creating that competition in terms of performance because everybody's

learning the new offense. And even with JJ McCarthy, Kevin O'Connell said they're starting from very much day one. Like they don't want to assume anything about JJ McCarthy that he knows anything in particular that they don't want to assume that they want to teach it from the very start and then build it up from there. And so we have all these qualifiers that we put on it, but if you see a quarterback in OTAs that is dropping back and looking around and looking confused about what he's supposed to do on the full team, seven

on seven reps, that's a red flag. If you see a quarterback who is dropping back and he's got open wide receivers down the field and he's air mailing or he's throwing it in the dirt or it just looks confused and flummoxed. And what I'm describing is JJ McCarthy last year. Now last year at OTAs he had just arrived and he was learning new techniques. He was learning the new offense and because so much of the offense is tied to the feet and eyes, as we hear Kevin O'Connell say all the time, but the rhythm and the timing, these are things that need to be built up over a long period of time. And if you don't know for sure, if you don't have it locked in to your footwork and where your eyes are supposed

to go, it's going to look pretty nasty and it looks pretty nasty when Kevin, uh, Kevin O'Connell and Kellen Mond, there was a practice for them in training camp a couple of years ago. I think Kirk was sick and Kellen Mond had to run the practice and he just didn't know where his eyes were supposed to go or when the ball was supposed to come out. We didn't see any of that from McCarthy. What we saw from him was it looked like the rhythm and the timing and the feet and eyes were matching up and the ball was coming out where it was supposed to go. We don't know officially where it's supposed to go, but we know when it's

supposed to go, right? So you can just, just picture this inside of TCO performance center. I wish it hadn't been a crappy day outside and we would have been outdoors, but unfortunately we were inside. So we're in there and just think to yourself about what it looks like when a quarterback takes a snap drops back, looks, looks, throws. We all know what that's supposed to look like, right? This isn't some sort of incredible scouting that we're all doing from the

sideline. We all know it's supposed to look that way. And that's what it looked like in the majority of reps from McCarthy. And the other thing too, was how is that football going to come out? And I saw my friend, Kevin Seifert talking about today on Twitter, how there were some analysts going into the draft process last year that had questioned McCarthy's arm strength. I think Greg Cosell had questioned it. And even if you go to McCarthy's NFL.com draft profile under weaknesses, some of it is talking about his lack of arm strength. Now here's the hard part about evaluating quarterbacks when they're in college

and not throwing a lot of passes versus where in the NFL, think about how much you changed. If you're an adult, if you're a kid, this will happen to you. How much you changed from age 18, 19, 20, 21 and into your early twenties. Now for some of us that might've meant, 19, 20, 21, and into your early 20s. Now, for some of us that might have meant putting on a few more LBs as we don't exercise as much and drink too much Dr. Pepper or something, but for pro athletes, that process is happening quicker, that growing process. And that's why oftentimes in the past, before the NIL and stuff like that, there was always a lot of discussion about,

you should really draft younger players because younger players are still growing and still getting better just right in front of your eyes. It's kind of like if you've ever had a puppy, you know what this is like if you have a puppy, you'll have them and then two weeks later, he's like almost a dog and then two weeks after that, he's like, you can't even carry him. I'm picturing a golden retriever here for whatever reason, but

you've seen that before, right? Like that's how it is with younger players sometimes. And I think with JJ McCarthy, when I watched him play at Michigan, he didn't look particularly big or strong to me just watching him play college. Now he could get a lot of torque behind his football. You know, he's strong in the upper body, but he didn't look huge to me. And I remember last year when we arrived at rookie mini camp, because there's so few things you could take away from that for how JJ McCarthy was going to look.

The number one takeaway I think was that he looked big. And, you know, he's back to the same size that he was at last year, and he still looks big. Like he looks bigger than he was in college. And you can improve your arm strength as you continue to grow. The other part too was, I think McCarthy's deep ball was very poor at Michigan in his last year

I don't have the stats in front of me But I think his deep ball was problematic that he had a lot of the balls sort of Die like dying quail on him or that he tried to throw it too much line drive and not enough Arc and drop it in there. I think that was a big problem for him and I could see where if you were doing analysis, trying to figure out what a guy's arm strength is, that you would use deep balls as something that would tell you the story. But when you watched him throw in breaking routes, when he was winding up and firing it, and I thought there were

too many fastballs when he was in college, but he could really let it rip. And over this last year, what we saw even yesterday, and I think we started to see in training camp was him figure out that he doesn't have to always throw it with all of his might. And that could be another thing too, is that just his way of throwing the football in college was to throw it as hard as he could, like get every bit of his body into it. And so you didn't see a lot in college where he would just be flicking it with his wrist and letting it go. And I think that might be just from growing up. Maybe that's how he's always done.

Like think about yourself with a golf club in your hand or me with a golf club in my hand. What is one of my biggest problems when I'm golfing? I think that I have to swing the club super hard to get that ball to fly because the first time I ever swung a golf club when I was 12, I put it in my hands and went, I'm going to swing the bleep out of this thing. And that's how I hit it far.

Right. And that's, I've always had to try to shake that out of my head and I think that that was a little bit McCarthy like I'm gonna show this arm strength all the time in college and just let it rip and there wasn't as many layered footballs in there but we did see him do this a couple times yesterday so circling all the way back to JJ McCarthy looked good there's no doubt about it there we all talked to each other on the sideline. Like, are you seeing what I'm seeing? Do we all agree on this? Like, this is looked pretty good today. I all it means to me is that the first heat is a pass for JJ McCarthy, that we've gotten to the point

where here in OTA is here in the spring. He looks like a QB one for an NFL team. That is very good. You know, you see Justin Jefferson running routes out there. That's special. You see Jordan Addison, you know, the offensive line is revamped. They didn't have everybody yesterday, but we know the offensive line is good. Jordan Mason's out there looking like a beast. The guy is absolutely enormous. And I think they'll be better in the red zone because of him and all those things. So you're looking at it and you're going, okay, they've got so many things on this team

and we know they have a system that makes the quarterback better. Does he look like he is a guy that's going to be able to operate that right now? I was fully ready to go into this practice and say, okay, guys, he's rusty. Like let's not over judge. Hey, there's a few balls that flew over receivers heads or a few were in the dirt, but I mean, let's give it time.

I don't have to do that. And that was farther along than I actually thought it was going to be. So it doesn't mean that anybody is making big pronunciations about what JJ McCarthy is going to be. But I think this is an important step for him because it was very unclear throughout the time of his recovery. What's he going to look like when he finally gets back on the field? He hadn't thrown for the entire season. He didn't start throwing until January again. He had lost weight during that process, was able to put it back on because of course he's 21 years old and when he

talked to us yesterday he was coming from a lift so he was all sweaty you know and that just you know these guys at this age are able to do stuff like that that you know maybe you wouldn't expect and I wondered about myself like is he going to be able to put back on that weight in time to get himself ready to go in OTAs? And he has been able to do that. I think it is significant. I think it is important that he is here and operating the offense already in a way that looks fluid

and does not look confused or flustered because even though I don't think the Aaron Rodgers thing would happen regardless. I don't think that that would happen even if JJ McCarthy had struggled in the spring, but it would linger if we got to the end and like, there's more practices to go. Dane Mizutani and I will be out there on Monday and we'll evaluate that one and we'll talk about it. But this one was the biggest one because it's the first time. It's the first impression of seeing him operate. And then we'll get a really good look during mini camp.

That's three days in a row for us. The way that the first two weeks of OTAs go are one day, one day, and then mini camp is three days in a row. And what normally happens in a season where you'd have Kirk Cousins and experienced quarterback who knows what he's doing, or for example, Sam Darnold, I remember last year, Sam Darnold got Justin Jefferson back after the contract thing and they had very good practices. And the same thing goes for, uh, Kirk Cousins most times is that, uh, he

would have very good practices by the time that mini camp ended because they'd been working on stuff. They've been implementing base stuff and then they were getting it and that's where the team wants to pick up. So if he's at that point, then to me, everything will be on schedule exactly how they planned it out. Not just this off season, but going back for a long time for how they planned it out. And so that's where we stand today is they are on schedule. They are on point for where they expected to be. Think about even when they draft JJ McCarthy and you say, where do we expect to be by May 28th, 2025?

We expect JJ McCarthy to be QB one and looking like he knows the offense Looking like he's developed his arm developed his touch developed his body and despite all that time missed It looks like it's on track. So I think that's the biggest takeaway. There you have it Questions comments thoughts feelings. What's on your mind tonight? JJ McCarthy looked good. What does that mean to you? I just told you what it meant to me What does that mean to you and what else are you thinking about with the Minnesota Vikings and the NFL? Feel free to toss that into the chat. We can have a fun conversation here The New York Knicks gotta earn my love back

after Losing the other night. They just some of those games have been really good. They're tipping off at seven, but they got to get back in that series for me to work the podcast around Knicks games. We do that for Wolves games, but not for Knicks games. So jump in, questions, thoughts, comments. I'm interested in how you guys are feeling

after one day of OTAs. And I had some other takeaways yesterday if you guys want to talk about those, uh, in the meantime, while you get your comments in the chat, also I've noticed that suddenly there's a little more buzz with Jalen Ramsey, which I think is kind of interesting. Uh, the other night I started the podcast by saying that I hadn't really thought of Jalen Ramsey as an option for the Minnesota Vikings because they have already done so much this off season.

They've already done so much. They've made so many different moves and they've spent so much money and all that stuff that are they really going to go into the trade market and add another player? They've talked about how much they like Isaiah Rogers, who was not in attendance. We didn't get an update on whether that was injury related or something else, but he was not practicing. So we saw Jeff Okuda out there, a lot of McKay Blackman.

And then as I went through it and just kind of broke it down from his contract to his fit and all those things. What I ended up landing on was I actually like this idea. Now I know that Jalen Ramsey is older and I know that he has not in the last couple years played the same way that he did back in 2021 or 2022, but his numbers are still good. And the best test of a corner, I think as far as is age taking its toll on them is how they perform the previous year in man coverage.

And Jaylen Ramsey was a top 15 PFF graded man coverage corner last year. And it reminded me a little bit of Stefan Gilmore, who I don't know if he wants to play again or not. Um, maybe he's waiting till the last day before, uh, the season or when training camp ends, uh, so then he can join a team. But with Ramsey, he is younger than Stefan Gilmore. We have also, I think made it very clear that age here and raw speed quickness is not necessary in the same way for the Vikings as it is some other defenses because they play so much zone defense which of course jalen ramsay is very good with because they play so much zone.

It doesn't usually ask wide receivers to be running seventy yards with a wide corners to run seventy yards with a wide receiver at full speed on a post route. It just doesn't happen that much. Usually there's somebody over the top and a lot of times it's, can you make a play on the football when it comes? That's why Byron Murphy got so many interceptions. And also can you blitz? Can you identify stuff at the line of scrimmage route combinations, different things like that?

Are you able to mentally process what you need to do and then make a play on the football when it comes? Well, Jalen Ramsey to me seems to feel like a fit for the Vikings. The contract is not easy. There's no doubt about that, but it's also not impossible to work around if it doesn't work out with Jalen Ramsey. And then we were talking over the other night, I was just kind of spinning wheels, trying to figure out what would it cost. And somebody threw out there like a fourth and a seventh. I think that was what Marcus Latimore went for. I'm sure I'm sorry. Marshawn Latimore went for, and I mean,

if that was the price, okay. But it sounds like they have to move him. So I'm not even sure that that's going to be the price. Maybe it's something similar to when Amari Cooper was traded for a fifth round pick. Like would you give up a fifth if you can make it work with his contract? And okay, I like the idea of Isaiah Rogers. I like the idea of Mackay Blackman. But once and we know that this

has happened last year with Steph, uh, Stephon Gilmore is once you've seen, again, one OTA practice, but once you've seen JJ McCarthy looking the way he's looking and you see this defense out on the field and how much talent they have, my thing would be why not one more? And maybe there's better offers out there and maybe there's teams with a little bit more salary cap space and all those things, but they've already gone so far in on all of these veteran players. Why not one more? Why not one more Jonathan Allen, Javon Hargrave caliber type of player that may not be the best version that they've ever been of themselves,

but are still really darn good football players. And if you're giving me a choice between Isaiah Rogers being a depth guy and working in and Mackay Blackman continuing to develop and working in, well, Jalen Ramsey shows up across from Byron Murphy Jr. I think that that's a pretty good strategy for this year's team. So, you know, I'll get to all of your comments in just a second and questions in a second,

but that seems to be picking up steam. I saw Jason McCourty mention it. I've seen a few other people say, hey, maybe it would make sense for the Vikings. If they do it, I'm gonna be all for it because the way that the salary cap is going up, there's way more flexibility for moves like this. And with JJ McCarthy year two, it's go time.

They've treated it as if it's go time with the rest of the roster. Why wouldn't you do it for one other player if they can get a move like that done? So we shall see if that's on the table. Uh, it seems like once June 1st hits, Jalen Ramsey is going somewhere. And it would be better if he went to the Vikings for Minnesota than say like Chicago. And that's another way to test yourself. Like do you want Jalen Ramsey to go to Chicago? Um, you know, I don't know if any of us are truly taking Chicago seriously,

but that's a good player in your division. And they've been a team that's mentioned Pittsburgh has been mentioned. That's a team that's on your schedule. He's still an impact player. I think you'd rather have them on your team than somebody else's. All right, let's get to some questions. Comments here. JP North says, it seems like the consensus that McCarthy look good, but how may not be our QB2 solution thoughts. Well, I didn't think that Sam Howell had a very good practice. It's also his first ever or second ever I guess it was QB it was OTA day two technically. So his second ever practice with the team I would be willing to give a little leeway there. I think for Sam Howell it was rough

I mean he overthrew some receivers it kind of had it was actually a great juxtaposition Because when I've been talking about this like how do you even figure out if it's a good OTA practice? Well when you watch Sam Howell throw and then you watch JJ McCarthy and you watch how they ran the offenses It was like, okay One of these guys looks a lot more comfortable but also one of these guys had a year in the system already. So judging that I think is a little much the way I'm looking at it with howl is he is competing against himself. The fact that we did not see Brett Rippon take basically any

reps at all in this practice, maybe a couple, uh, really tells me that it's Sam Howell versus Sam Howell. And if he proves to them over the next couple of weeks that he's ready and he proves to them in training camp that he's good to go and he's going to get, I would guess a lot of preseason action as well. I don't expect a lot for JJ McCarthy, but we will see Sam Howell quite a bit. That in that process, he has to prove that he belongs as the QB too. And if he does not prove that he belongs as the QB too, then they'll find somebody else. Howell has a resume that is

basically one really bad season of starting with the Washington commanders. And in the middle of that season, he had a run where he played pretty good. And then he got into one game for Seattle and it was a horror show. So it's not like we're talking about a guy who's been around. It's not a Josh McCown. It's not a Ryan Fitzpatrick where you know exactly what you're getting. He's still on proven and he's not very old himself. He hasn't even turned 25 yet and they don't really have a true backup mentor type of guy in this room. So if how old does not show that he can sort of be that with JJ McCarthy, then

they will go and look somewhere else. But I would definitely not judge Sam Howell on the very very first OTA practice, but he did he did have I think some tough throws out there. So Matt says McCarthy look good at OTAs hang the banner I know and no matter how many times you say it people are still going and I know you're kidding But people are still going to do that. Like, Oh, congratulations Vikings when you're fake banner. But this is an important moment for him coming back and getting on the field as the guy, and I think he knows that.

And when you listen to him talk about his process and how he's dealing with this entire situation, I think you become more confident in JJ McCarthy. The reason why you draft him is because of his character and his raw skill is raw talent that needs to be honed, but it can only be honed if he works super hard at it. And when you hear him talk about how he would go and do the recovery process from practice and watch the tape back and then go home and study every single rep and look at where's his feet, where's his eyes, where's he looking, where was I supposed to go with the football and evaluate every single play

and then come in the next day with feedback to give to Josh McCown, Kevin O'Connell, go over that, then hit the practice field again. Already you're like, that's, that's going to work. Like that's the way to do this. That's the way you need to approach this and him having that attitude, that humility to know that there's so much work to be done, even if it's off to a pretty good start is important too, because that makes you believe that he can actually get there but just Seeing him back on the field and knowing that he looks like a QB one is a big step in this entire process So even though nobody is hanging a banner

No one's calling him the next Joe Montana or anything like that except for that super funny Twitter account That has him throwing 50 touchdowns and OTAs every day or whatever. Shout out to that person. I laugh every single time I see that. Uh, I think what was the, the stat was like, he's leading all quarterbacks and OTA touchdowns or something. That was good. So whoever runs that account, you are super funny. And I appreciate that, uh, the craziness of that account, but, um, no one's really doing that. No one is really anointing anybody.

And I think we're all like grown up enough in football. We've all watched enough, seen enough, covered enough that we know that this means something, but it certainly doesn't mean everything. So no banner, no banner yet. Uh, Freddie says, who's going to be Q a wide receiver three. Uh, I think Jaylen Naylor is pretty well locked in to that position. And I remember we had this conversation about Jalen Naylor who had more defenders than I knew about earlier in the off season. And one of the things that I was saying is that another draft pick like Ty Felton who's here or the fact that they brought in Rondale Moore

If you have my attention as guys who can contribute in different ways Rondale Moore is not ready to go yet. We'll see him in training camp I don't know whether that's gonna ever work out or not But if it does that's the playmaker with the football Ty Felton is the playmaker with the football The fact that they drafted Ty Felton really means that Rondale Moore is a roll of the dice and not really, Hey, this guy is guaranteed to be the answer, but a roll of the dice, which I think is a good one. They paid almost nothing for him. He's got a lot of talent and Felton is a very young player. He does not have a ton of college experience. He had 96 catches last year

Phenomenal raw skill you can see the speed you can also see that the route running is not super smooth yet And there's going to have to be Progress that's made over the next couple years when anybody is drafted past the second round That means that there's things they're going to have to work on so I think Felton will be a part of this means that there's things they're going to have to work on. So I think Felton will be a part of this, but I don't think that he's going to take Jalen Naylor's job after Naylor has worked for what, three years in this offense and shown what he can do last year. I do expect Jalen Naylor to have a good year this year and be a big part of that wide receiver room, but at least with Ty Felton, it brings you a different element.

It brings you someone who you could just get the ball in their hands on a quick pass and maybe they'll take off and make a play where that's just not really who Jalen Naylor is. Now what I would love to have seen them get with somebody who could really catch the ball and also block, uh, Ty Felton on his tape, you know, he tries, but that's something that the Rams really took advantage of with Cooper Cup and really took advantage of with Robert Woods that the Vikings just don't have. So those short passes are a little harder to pull off.

If you don't have other receivers who can block, but Felton is somebody who broke a ton of tackles in college. He's got some size for a guy who runs a sub four, four. Usually guys are not quite, you know, six foot one. Usually it's those shorter guys who are really, uh, you know, knocking out those crazy times. So I think that it's a deeper group potentially, but Jaylen Naylor is still the one that's really in line to be wide receiver.

Three, uh, Pete's, what do you think would be a reasonable expectation for Hawkinson this year? Jaylen Naylor is still the one that's really in line to be wide receiver three. Uh, Pete's, what do you think would be a reasonable expectation for Hockinson this year? Seems like he might be a larger part of the offense with McCarthy starting. I agree with that. And I don't think he was not a part of the offense with Sam Darnold. He had a phenomenal game against the Chicago bears in Chicago where they do not win without the way that TJ Hockinson played.

And I was a little surprised to see some fans that were down on TJ Hockinson after last year like he paid too much or whatever it might be because I thought for what he was doing, he was doing it right. And he was there and making plays and catches when the ball came his way it just was not really Sam Darnold's MO to look underneath for TJ Hawkinson first a lot of times it was hang with the read hang with the read hang with the read and I don't think Hawkinson was a hundred percent coming back that I don't think he had quite the same burst that he had the year before and we can can expect to see that this year, but just the way that JJ McCarthy plays football and you even see that it's important to him and even these OTA practices to get through those reads quickly. And that might mean, and this was, you know, this was a Kirk thing, and I'm not making that comparison, but Kirk sometimes would come off of a read pretty quickly

and get the ball to Hawkinson as opposed to hanging with it to see if a window was created. And there were a few times last year where Sam Darnold and one in Chicago came to mind for me where, and this is just KOC, the KOC runs these guys downfield. It's very Bruce Arians like where you will see Jordan Addison come all the way from the left side and he's gonna go all the way to the other side of the field 25 yards down the field in a deep crossing route or a deep post and Sam Darnold in that game against Chicago. He waited and he waited and even with David Quesson Barry

I think was playing left tackle at that point. He still hung with it and let that go It was one of the things that Darnold deserved a ton of praise for was that guy was gonna hang in but sometimes it hurt him Right and we all saw that that it did hurt him Especially against the Rams and a little bit against the Lions at the end of the season That he was always waiting on that and I think McCarthy wants to and this is just how he was trained in college as well. If you watch him play in college, he's not usually firing at 25, 30 yards down the field on deep crossing routes. A lot of times he's getting to his underneath stuff and he's continuing to just move the chains. And there's a saying that guys like Jim Harbaugh really love, which is

don't go broke taking a profit. So if you get a seven yard completion to TJ Hockinson, you're not going to go broke taking a profit. And that's going to be a balance for him that he has to learn throughout the season. But especially early on in the year, I think TJ Hockinson will be a really nice option for him week in and week out where if you're not comfortable with pushing it to a certain window because you're not sure if you can make that throw or that it's going to be there. And for young quarterbacks, that's the hardest part.

And McCarthy was talking about anticipation yesterday. I think it's the hardest part is you have to see into the future. You have to see where the defenders are going to be and where your receiver is going to be and then throw to that spot. And that's why the timing and rhythm and all that's so important, but there might be some anxiousness early on to try to throw to some of those spots. Just because he's getting his feet wet and he's trying to game manage a bit. And I think that's a smart strategy to do early on in the season is hey,

if you're getting it to TJ Hawkinson, even if you didn't take that risk downfield to Jordan Addison, you're still making a play. Go back to it later if you feel like you got that look, that kind of thing. So I agree with you that Hawkinson will be really big for JJ McCarthy to start. Matt says Ramsey feels more like a trade deadline type of move to me if things are going well. I would agree with you in general

if they hadn't made so many of these moves this off season. Like think about this. If they had acquired J von Hargrave, Ryan Kelly and Jonathan Allen in the year 2021. I mean, we'd be losing our minds because those are three pro bowl, Superbowl caliber leader type of players. Now they got all of them a couple of years later at a discount and probably a

discount in performance from where they would have been a couple of years ago. But Jalen Ramsey falls into that category, the sort of hey if it was 2021 this guy is your franchise player But it's 2025 so he's more of an addition for you That's going to move the needle, but it's not going to be the biggest game-changing move of all time My point is that they've already made this move multiple times over the off season. So why wouldn't you do it one more time if you can afford it? And that's a key part.

And maybe they would need Miami to take some of the money back or keep some of the money. I don't know how that works exactly. In that situation, there is a good amount I think of guaranteed money left and it's probably a main reason why Miami wants to move him. Miami also seems like it's on fire. I don't know how you guys look at this, but I saw a headline that Tyreek Hill said he doesn't want to be voted captain because he hasn't acted like it. Like that's a weird thing to say in May, isn't it? But, uh,

that team just looks like it had its chance that one year and it probably won't again. And, uh, they maybe don't want to pay Jalen Ramsey. He's got a pretty big contract. It doesn't seem like he's very happy. Doesn't seem like he thinks they're a contending team. I haven't got a good read on exactly what the problem there is, but since they've made this type of move, I think a lot of you are uncomfortable a little bit. And there's another comment I'll get to in a minute on this, but a little bit uncomfortable with the idea that like, it's go time.

It's just go time. This is when you do this. And I know what you're saying, like things going well, things have to go well. You can't really wait around. I mean, this is not a team that is tiptoeing a line and they're saying, well, if things go great, then we can acquire players.

And if they don't, we'll just ride it out and draft high next year. Like that's not what they've done here. And that's why Aaron Rogers entered the conversation because they had done so much that it's like, you're in man, you're in, you're ready to go. You're coming off of 14 win season. It is go time. And I think that there's probably some just Minnesota sports hesitation to

think in that terms because it's easier or just Minnesota sports hesitation to think in that terms because it's easier or a little safer feeling to be like, well, you know, it's a couple year window and that kind of thing. But every move that they made this off season says to me, they're in, they're ready to go in a ham Darnold. I feel good about the corners they have, but you can add ramsey i don't hate on it one bit dude shouldn't cost much in a trade and can still ball right that's exactly the line of thinking for me is that he still played really well last year was not quite the megastar that

he was before but he's uh you know but it's, he's still playing pretty well. And if you were ranking all corners in the NFL, you'd probably put them in your top 30 still top 25 still. And if you can bring in a top 25 corner, even if there are repercussions, salary cap wise down the road. But this is the thing about the McCarthy cheat code is yes, if you look at over the cap.com right now and you go to 2026, it's going to tell you it's a little scary. It's going to tell you, oh my gosh, the Vikings are over the cap for next year already and

nothing has even happened yet. But once we get into the restructure land, which they have not done with some guys extension land, if the new Orleans saints can continue to have a salary cap period without being penalized by the league, then we know that everybody, uh, is going to be able to get under the cap. Now there was a report from Ben Gessling on something Roger Goodell said about potentially changing how the salary cap works. I guess I could see some of that, but the players, I would not

expect want much changes to the salary cap because teams are giving them big bonuses upfront to make a lot of this happen and a lot of cash to make this happen. And they're spending some teams more cash than their actual cap number. A lot of some teams are spending a lot more cash than their actual cap number, which is what matters to the players. So I don't know if that would impact the Vikings in the short term. The point just being that you can make it work salary cap wise, because it's time to try to make it work. And if that guy can put you over the top as a secondary, I mean,

if they had Ramsey and Brian Murphy starting with their backups being Isaiah Rogers and McKay Blackman Where are they weak on this entire roster? I mean, we don't know what the O Jackson is yet. But other than that, like where are where are they weak? Where are we looking at saying? Well, that's a pretty big concern. I Can't find a spot if Jalen Ramsey What are we gonna talk about if Jalen Ramsey ends up here? Maybe I just want the emergency podcast to you guys have to let me have that