Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - JJ McCarthy looked good at OTAs -- What does it mean? (Part 2)

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.

Seldom Seen says, listen to a lot of OTA talk, but not one mention of Ty Felton from anyone. I get it. What do you say? But did he attend? No, he was there. Yeah, he was there. There's just not a lot to say about the way the Ty Felton looked. We saw throws going to such players as Justin

Jefferson, Jordan Addison, and to tell you the truth, I mean, I did mention that Sam Howell didn't look super sharp, but when they broke up into two different groups, Howell on one side and McCarthy on the other, I was watching JJ McCarthy and normally the younger players are over on that side. So I think Ty Felton was on that side I can't be a hundred percent sure but Hard to get a real feel for the wide receivers at this point because most of it's about Addison Hockinson Jefferson and Jaylen Naylor because those guys are the starters So Felton's gonna be one that has to come along. He's gonna work with the second team unit

I think he did pop in a couple of times, but you know, this is one of those that gets very early for a wide receiver like that. And it's going to take some time. Um, so I, I thought it was really funny, uh, in the rookie mini camp practice, I think, uh, Alec Lewis from the athletic tweeted something like Ty Felton looks really lanky and I saw some people picking it up like, you know, he says this guy looks really really lanky and like what? Yeah, he is I mean he is but that's that's the level of takeaway for some of these players that we can get if you're not really seeing

Them running with the ones all the time Lanky so he was there but you're gonna have to give him time. And I think that that in general for Ty Felton, like remember when they drafted Naylor and we heard that they liked Jalen Naylor, KOC kept mentioning it, but then his first season he had nine catches. And then it wasn't until later that he developed

and got more opportunity. Jalen Naylor is a free agent after this year. They don't really have any other depth. We're going to find out more about Jordan Addison this year, but I, I think it's probably going to be a year for Ty Felton of development before he's a huge part of this offense. Seldom seen ads too many old free agents in the history of team building.

This is not normal. If you don't know what you have as a quarterback now, you're gonna have to show your work there though show your work on this Is that true? Is that really true? Because I don't think that that's really true. I think that most teams with young quarterbacks Try to go all in and get as many veterans as possible And if you look this up, if you look this up, you'll find that Super Bowl winning teams are often old. They're usually veteran teams. And that makes sense, doesn't it? Like guys who find a way to stay healthy throughout full seasons, guys who know the league, who are smart, who are in their primes or post

their prime. But even think about like, uh, Carson Wentz when he won 13 games in 2017. Think about that team all, I mean, veterans everywhere. It was what Elshon Jeffrey, Torrey Smith or wide receivers on that team. They went and got Chris Long, the football player, not the TV guy. I th they had veteran players all over the field. Patrick Robinson was the guy who got the huge interception. So, you know, I even look at the Chicago Bears and what they did last year, they went and got Keenan Allen. I think this is pretty standard for when you

have a young quarterback. Hey, here's another example. Joe Burrow, they got Chadovia, a do a do Z a do Z a they got he was from I think Dallas, right? And so they got him and a couple other veteran players on that defense. It was Eli Apple. Is that his name? So they went and got veteran players on their defense. This is just this is what you do. You stack up free agents, you spend your money and you get veteran players around the young quarterback. And I would say this for Philly getting someone like AJ Brown or the 49ers getting Trent Williams.

That's an older guy. They got Javon Hargrave. They got Christian McCaffrey who was already starting to be like an older running back. I think this happens a lot and it's pretty standard. The other thing is to quasi a da Fomenta has said, and I agree with him. You can only ever really look two years into the future. So if you're looking at McCarthy and you're looking at his window, you can only really look at it for this year and next year because so much changes in the NFL with age, with injuries, with contracts, with

drafts, all that stuff that you can't be saying, what's it going to be like in 2027? What they've done with this roster is they've put together a group that's good enough to win in the next two years. And that's all you can really do is do that. Uh, Evans says, what kind of draft compensation or players would you trade for Jalen Ramsey? Yeah, I was trying to think about that. I was trying to think about like, what would it cost?

What would make sense? And with a player that clearly wants out, I mean, do they trade him to the team he wants to go to? Just, I don't know, like, is that a courtesy to Jalen Ramsey? Or are they mad at him and they don't want, and they trade him to maybe the worst possible spot where he wouldn't want to go to? I I don't know how like that relationship is actually working

But if you're if you're putting an offer, I think the Marshawn Lattimore offer is fair If it was a fourth and a seventh, I think that's fine It might be less than that though because when you have to trade a player and they're very expensive You very rarely get anything back. So I might be saying, Hey, I don't know, I'd give a fourth and a seventh and then the trade compensation might be a pick swap in the fifth. And I'll be like, I don't know. Okay. I guess I would have paid more than that for somebody who can start and who could play a thousand snaps. And that's really important for me with Jalen Ramsey is that he's been very healthy throughout his career. So if you could start and you could play a thousand snaps, then I think it's worth

something. I'm not sure exactly what though. I mean, I'm not talking a second round pick. I'm not talking to third round pick probably, but a third is not the craziest thing I've ever heard. I think it has to go day three though. Her puppy thoughts on Caleb Williams Presser. I'm going to tell you the truth. I think it has to go day three though. Her ploppy thoughts on Caleb Williams Presser. I'm going to tell you the truth. I did not see it. I read what Courtney Cronin wrote about it.

I don't know. Like what more can we really say about Caleb Williams? At this point, the whole first year of Caleb Williams has been pretty odd. The guy comes in, has hard knocks right away. The vibes even on hard knocks are kind of weird. Then, I mean, his coach is talking about like changing his haircut and that makes him better in front of the media, which is, I don't know the connection between those two things and even just wanting to be so much better in front of the media, like I think you need to get better at coaching football. And they didn't bring in a veteran quarterback for him as a backup.

That was also odd. And I think with Caleb Williams, he was the guy that needed to sit for a year, but there was just no way they could have. So they put the entire history of the Chicago Bears quarterback situation on Caleb Williams with a bad offensive coordinator that also felt like he was asking too much of a young quarterback and he starts out pretty well, has some good games against good teams, but then the wheels come off and he was not the guy to save

it. He melted down more than he kept everybody going and I thought that that said something about him. It never concerned me really that he wanted to be a Minnesota Viking. I thought it was certainly interesting and kind of spicy that he wanted to be a Minnesota Viking because now when the Vikings play the bears on the first night, like you wish you were over here, huh? Like if you're the, if you're the Vikings, that's your trash talk. It's handed to you right there on the field. Like you wish you were on our team. Uh, I'm sure that he'll hear that from the defensive lineman and everybody

pre snap for saying that. So that's, that's like interesting, uh, that he would even consider not playing for Chicago. And that makes you think, okay, do you really believe you're the guy that could turn around a franchise or do you believe that you've already got this built in excuse with Chicago? And then the film excuse was weird to me. So yeah, I saw that he said he wanted to be a bear, which, you know, we know he's all is lying, but what else are you supposed to say? The words are not going to mean anything more after this.

I think there's plenty of reasons to have red flags and skepticism on Caleb Williams, the sacks, the struggles with leadership already, even just throwing the football inconsistently was not consistently accurate last year. All those things, they're red flags. Can you solve them or not? Like that's really going to be the thing. Can you solve them or not? That will be the biggest thing for Caleb Williams and I and none of us know that yet And his coach is going to be a big part of it Evan says we got to talk about quasi's contract extension. So they signed him during this podcast Yeah Well, I feel like I do so many podcasts these days that anything that happens is going to be right after a podcast

Because i'm just doing it all the time. So maybe that's changed a little bit, but, uh, when it comes to that, I can't say anything new on quasi at our Fulmenza's contract. We haven't heard anything new. We haven't talked to quasi recently. There's no update that I can give you. Uh, all I can say is that usually deadlines make deals and we have about six weeks here and If they can't get something done in the next six weeks with quasi da flamenca, then I'm gonna be honest. It's gonna be weird. I Mean for a team to be in a position like this and for a team to go, you know all in on

a team to go, you know, all in on their team building this off season to try to win this year and then have the GM not under contract would be very strange. I mean, I don't know any other team who has won this many games. Where do the Vikings rank in wins over the last three years? The Vikings have 34 in the regular season. They've got to be in the top five in wins over the last couple of years where you put in all this work to go from 2022 where your cap is messed up. Your team is old. You don't have a long-term answer quarterback to having that guy here with a team that you've completely rebuilt with your hands and in collaboration with Kevin O'Connell, and then you're just going to not keep working here. Uh, that, I don't know if we get there, that will be very, very bizarre to me, but we're not there yet.

Training camp is really the mark in the sand. Now I thought based on where, you know, KOC had signed his, I thought it was odd that we got to the NFL combine. But then after that, it made sense, right? Okay. They're just doing all this free agency stuff. They're all in on the draft. You're having meetings every single day. Maybe you're not really getting deep into those negotiations, but now, now is the time.

Now is the time. It's a lot more unless they're trading for Jalen Ramsey right now. Now is the time. Now is the time. It's a lot more, unless they're trading for Jalen Ramsey right now, now is the time to negotiate. I don't see any reason that they would not go forward with this leadership group. It's been really, really good. And whether it happens or not, I will just wait and see. Surly Vikings says, too long that we went for building to go all in. Ramsey maybe a long shot, but I totally agree with

just go for it mindset. Yeah. I mean, so it is part of the mindset and it's the right time to do it because there have been other moves in the past that the Vikings made that were kind of go for it type of moves that it just wasn't time for that. And I'll give you a good example is Yanni Kengakwe. When they traded for Yanni Kengakwe out of sheer panic, now it didn't turn out that bad. They gave up a second, they got a third back. They probably spent that third on Wyatt Davis or something.

So maybe it was that bad. So they have Daniel Hunter get hurt. And then they trade for Yanni Kengakwe. And my assumption is like, okay, they must believe this guy is a long-term option because why would you do this for one year and the guy is here for five weeks and somehow I think still led the team in sacks that year. But that was a complete misread of the room.

You think you're going to be good, even though you've completely overhauled your defense. Are you serious? And at the time we didn't even know what Justin Jefferson was going to be good even though you've completely overhauled your defense? Are you serious? And at the time we didn't even know what Justin Jefferson was going to be, what do you really have on offense, replacing Stephon Diggs, and then they just throw out a second for a guy who wasn't really all that good, who was kind of just somebody who chased sacks but didn't impact the game in any other way, and he was supposed to replace Denial Hunter. That was, and they, they had lost Everson Griffin.

So they didn't really have another answer. The whole thing made no sense. That would not be the case here for Jalen Ramsey because it all lines up. It lines up with your salary cap situation, your timeline and your quarterback. In year two, we've seen a lot of quarterbacks take big steps.

Even if he didn't play last year, we've seen quarterbacks come in year two right away and play well, especially when they have circumstances like this, Brock Purdy, Jaylen Hertz, I think took until a third year, but was in the playoffs in his second year. So it's, you know, young, young quarterbacks are no longer, they need five years before they're gonna be any good a lot of times

It's you got a win on this rookie contract, and this is the type of thing that you do Rich says how is Donovan Jackson is he getting first team reps? I'm glad you asked the second part because they're not blocking anybody in OTAs They don't have pads on or anything so large would be the answer, but he's an offensive lineman. So, you know, he should be. Yes, though he was getting some first team reps and that is also notable because in years past, a lot of times we would see rookie offensive lineman. It went for Pat Elfline, Ed Ingram, Ezra Cleveland. I think, well, Brian O'Neill didn't start right away.

A lot of these guys at this time of year would not get any looks at all at being on the first team. And so Jackson, I think did rotate a little bit with Blake Brandle and left guard, but he was getting first team reps. And the expectation is very clearly that he is going to be the starting left guard. I don't think there's really any doubt about that. Like they draft him to come in and start right away and be a difference maker right away.

Even if he's not the best version of himself yet, he can be better than what Blake Brandle was last year. Uh, seldom seen says a few draft analysts said JJ's deep passes die. I think even Kuyper repeated it. And he thought on this, are wide receivers waiting on deep balls from JJ? No, they, they did though. I mean, if you go back and watch at Michigan, his deep balls did have this dying quail element to them. And you know who else's did in his first NFL season was Joe Burrow, uh,

because there is a technical way to throw a deep ball and it's not to just hook it as hard as you can and I think that McCarthy started to really get a hold of that last year At the end of training camp was when he started to understand that Like if any of you are basketball players You know that you can't if you're gonna get the ball in the hoop from the three point line, you can't throw it at it like a dart. You can't shoot it like a dart. You can't just go right at the rim because it's not going to,

it's not going to have an angle. It's not going to go in. You need to put it up in the air and drop it in. And that's what JJ McCarthy has gotten better at now until he really does it in real games. This is harder to say until we see him really doing even in training camp, a lot of these deep balls where he did some last year and it improved and it improved, but until it's real pressure, real guys coming at you and trying to kill you and launching it down the field and keeping your technique at that point.

But that's something that even Sam Darnold with his great arm and deep ball, he struggled with early in his career with that accuracy for deep balls and it got better as he went along. Um, but there's no question about it that when JJ McCarthy was in college, a lot of those 30, 40 yard passes down the field, 30, 40, 50 yard passes. They didn't always come out on time and they certainly did not have that nice parabola and arc to drop the ball in. And especially if it's windy or something

and you're just trying to throw it line drive, unless you're Jeff George, unless you're John Elway, Josh Allen, it's not gonna work. That's where you have to learn to throw with anticipation down the field where you're throwing to a spot Up over the top rather than just line drive

Rich says how's Eric Wilson? He's there. He was definitely there. I Mean seven on seven linebacker, you know, it's Eric Wilson. We know what Eric Wilson brings to the table I think that's actually a low-key very good Acquisition is bringing in eric wilson because they were very short on linebacker depth And now they have someone who's proven that if he has to play 400 snaps Think about the drop off last year when like cashman was out now. That's a lot less So how's he doing? Well, I haven't said hello to him yet, but I'll find out

As far as the new tight end call it new tight ends Because I think Ben you're a sec and Bryce and nesbit will also get their chance to Compete and surly Viking was asking about Gavin Bartholomew as well when in this environment these guys are going to be working with the backups kind of like Thanksgiving table style. Like here's the starters, they're over here and the younger guys are learning on another field. And that's why it really isn't until you get to the point of training camp, where we start to see them mixing in and we get a sense for the younger players because they are really just learning at this

point. So Gavin Bartholomew, Durasek, Nesbit, like these guys aren't working in too much. I did notice I thought Nesbit looked very fast, but they're not working in too much. And this was also only one practice. So there's also that as well. Garrett says, after playing corner for us this coming season, what about Ramsey moving back to safety after this year? So step one would be acquire Ramsey and then he moves back to safety. Yeah, I mean, Darren Woodson did do that. That's true. And Rod Woodson did it years before. Do we have many other examples of guys going from corner to safety? See, I think that it's similar to, um, with Patrick Peterson. I think Ramsey is going to be similar to Patrick Peterson where,

and Peterson did play a little bit of safety out of sheer panic for the Steelers so he could do it. And Terrence Newman did this once, but Newman's another example. When you have guys who in their prime were special elite 99th percentile athletes like Terrence Newman and Patrick Peterson, they're still athletic enough later in their career to stay at corner. And they're smart enough to stay at corner as well. I don't think that Ramsey has to be a guy that moves positions. I mean,

maybe it could be something that they consider. I think he's going to age okay though. There's not that many corners that age really, really well, but there are definitely some guys that are exceptions to that rule. And Patrick Peterson was one of them. Stefan Gilmore was another one of them. So I actually did a study on this last year because I went looking for trying to project Stefan Gilmore and my question was okay, how many corners over the age of 30 have played well? And actually the answer

was if you made it to 3132, 33, 34 years old, see, think about like the selection size or whatever it is, selection bias of that. If you actually made it to that point, those players all played pretty well. Most of the time though, if a guy was 30 years old and he had lost it, then he just wasn't on a team and he was out of the league and he was retired. But the Stefan Gilmour is I think Josh Norman had a great season, past 30 years old. There's been a number of them through the years that have been really good past 30. And so for Jalen Ramsey, you've already gotten to 30 years old, but he's still very good

and very healthy over his career. I think you can expect a decent age curve from him going forward. That's different from what we would normally expect. But I mean, yeah, I guess that would be a potential option if that was something they wanted to do. He's a little expensive For moving to safety, but I don't know. I think he could still play corner for a couple more years Shadow wolf says the cap will go up 30 million dollars minimum next year And as long as the 5050 revenue sharing in the CBA holes the salary cap is an issue For this team currently with the new TV contracts coming. I think that what people are talking about, and I've only just picked up on

this a little bit was the void years. And Jason mentions that the void years. So some of the hacks that teams have used to sign contracts and they put all, and really it's a Philadelphia Eagles thing. They have crazy void years on their contracts They have so many dummy years that it's really cap Circumvention at that point as long as you can pay it So maybe they might want to do something with that but restructures probably I can't see restructures changing

Because those are written into the contracts and they really don't change a whole lot. So You know, I think the Vikings from their situation will be fine going into the future, as long as they have JJ McCarthy on his rookie quarterback contract, it's really the hack that makes it all possible and then you can start restructuring and so forth. The only thing is if you trade for Ramsey now next year, it's kind of like, think about if you're somebody that is born in February, if your birthday is in February and you have a big Christmas, you know that you're not

getting a lot of presents in February. Well, it's kind of like that with this year and next year free agency. This year, our March was crazy. I mean, it was emergency podcasts left and right, signing this guy, signing that guy like, Whoa, our, uh, you know, the heads are spinning with all the different moves. I wouldn't really expect that for next year with the way that their cap is set up. If they do something like trading for Jalen Ramsey and right now they have, uh, at least from over the cap, somewhere in the ballpark of 14 million in cap

space, and then Ramsey is 16 million. There would have to be some adjustment there already just to make that work. So that's really a holdup and then fit would be a holdup if they feel like he's a fit or not. I like the idea in theory and we'll see if it happens in execution. Uh, VA Viking 33, how different is that O line looking? If they're even out there? I'm excited about this group.

Yeah, they're not complete right now. So it's just in school at left guard. And then Blake Brando was playing right guard because Will Fries does not look like he's going to be good to go just yet. He, Kevin O'Connell said that he might be able to participate a little bit in mini camp, but if not, then we'll see him in training camps. So the offensive line and plus again, they're not blocking anybody in OTAs. So it's not something you can really evaluate, but, uh, even what it told me though was, you know, school was a pretty good backup left tackle last year for

the bucks and Blake Brandel at very least for half a season was a pretty good backup left tackle last year for the Bucks and Blake Brandel at very least for half a season was a pretty good offensive lineman for the Vikings last year that the depth on this offensive line is very valuable and very important to have multiple guys. And then we see Walter Rouse out there. He's another guy they're developing. We see Michael Juergens out there. He's another guy they're developing.

They might have some of the best depth on the offensive line, not just the starting lineup. Uh, Garrett says, can we expect a true one, two punch with Aaron Jones and Jordan Mason? I don't think it's going to be exactly that way. How about like, uh, one, two and a half punch, uh, or maybe one, one and a half punch or maybe one one and a half punch, half punch. Okay.

I'm not sure how to do that mathematically, but I don't know that Jordan Mason is going to play the same amount as Aaron Jones. Aaron Jones does more things than Jordan Mason. Jordan Mason is good at running the football and was not really used as a wide receiver, not really used as a pass protector. You go look at his pass protection numbers in San Francisco. He basically never did it. And they didn't ask him to pass protect very much. And it didn't go great when they did. Aaron Jones is a guy who can do anything and everything on the field. He's a receiving option. So passing downs are going to go to Aaron Jones. They're not going to

go to Jordan Mason. I expect more of Aaron Jones than Mason. And if Jones gets banged up, this is where the RB three position that I'm curious if it's still Ty Chandler. If Trey Stewart makes a run for that, if they go out and look at other veterans, potentially who could be a part of it, because if one guy gets hurt, I'm not sure that Jordan Mason is as much of an all around running back as Aaron Jones. I think they want him for certain situations. Like just say, you know, last year this drove us crazy when they were up 14 points and it's the third quarter and you need a 10 play drive.

Put in Jordan Mason, run the ball, run some play actions, kill some time. That's what you're looking for from him where Aaron Jones is a guy that a it's second down in ten You need somebody to come out of the backfield or even you know first and ten you're looking for an explosive play I could see Mason working in on first down though, so I think it'll be more Jones than Mason, but he's gonna be a part of it Skippy says how high are you on Levi, Levi Drake Rodriguez being a rotational player? I remember him having an impact on the few plays he had. It's a good memory because it really truly was only a few plays.

It was like it was in Seattle. And I think he had a run stop and a deflected ball at the goal line against the Seahawks. And that was it. That was all he played for the entire year. But we knew that going in and this is always the difficult part about guys who come in with excitement and they've got an interesting name and long hair and they came from Texas who knows what. And it's like, Oh, this is a great story. But it's a story that's going to take a while to play out because this player

was not at Alabama or Georgia where they could step right into the NFL. But now that he's had an off season to work through that, and I think that's probably why he's getting a lot of reps, is they have a high standard for him going into this next year. I think that there is a very realistic possibility he's in the rotation, that on rund run downs he could start getting into the mix. Maybe maybe some passing downs if you're talking about hard grave alan and leave i drake rodriguez might be a part of that. I just i just don't know i mean we can't really start to get a feel for it until the pads come on all we can really say is that he's in the mix. until the pads come on.

All we can really say is that he's in the mix. Takita Imani is in the mix. Jalen Redmond's in the mix and that's going to be a really interesting battle. But I think he does have fairly high upside to the point where if he takes that step, if it does click in that he can be an effective player. I don't think he's going to be the next John Randall, but he can be an effective rotational player. Uh, Ham Darnold, Ramsey has a lot of money due. He won't cost us much.

I'd be shocked if you had to give up more than a fourth. Yeah, that's right. That's right. With the amount of money that is due to Jalen Ramsey, the price should not be super high for him, but if it was a fifth round pick and you do have to work around like a lot of issues with the salary cap, it does get a little bit dicey there, but the Vikings are in position to be able to do that. And that's, you know, maybe Miami deciding to bail. Maybe a big part of it is that is, you know, they know that they signed to a, to that big contract. And once you do that, you know how it goes.

Shadow Wolf. I'm amazed. Keenan Allen is still a free agent. He isn't what he was, but still a red zone threat and third down, uh, threat, at least third and short. Uh, I don't know if Keenan Allen's going to play, if he's going to keep playing or if he's going to call it a year. And some of these guys, I mean

You know, I wouldn't suggest if you're Stefan Diggs and you're partying on a boat that you allow Cameras anywhere near that. Can you guys imagine what the Vikings boat? once upon a time would it look like if there were cell phone cameras going out that those videos would have been insane but The Stefan Diggs point is to a sort of laugh that Diggs already has drama in New England, but also that some of these veterans who have been around a while, you don't necessarily need to make a decision quickly. Like a guy like Keenan Allen, he can show up and he's already going to figure it out very quickly. I mean, he's just been in the league for so long. It's not going to be a problem. That was the same with Stefan Gilmore last year.

Stefan Gilmore shows up and we're like, Oh, is he going to play week one? I guess we'll see. And he plays the whole game because he already knows everything that he needs to know to prepare to play in the NFL. Once you've gotten to 10 years in, it's not like you're having to learn a ton. And I think Keenan Allen might just be waiting for the right situation. I was intrigued by the idea of Keenan Allen before they went and drafted Ty Felton and went and got Rhonda Moore. And, you know, if somebody got hurt, that might be what he's looking for too, is you kind of hang out, see what happens. And if somebody gets hurt, then know, he's gonna sign there. I don't but I don't know

I mean he might just decide he's not gonna play come back halfway through the season What did Chris Carter do did Chris Carter like take a year off and then play for Miami or show up in Miami? Halfway through a season sometimes you see that stuff from older guys Pete says how do you think the team will use Jordan Mason? I wonder if they would use any two running back sets with Jones and Mason serves as a quasi fullback. I'd be surprised at that. It always sounds good and it always is something that I definitely do on Madden. Let's get two running backs, put them in the backfield, run that pro set if I can or I form strong eye, swing pass out to the fastest running back in the league playing fullback and then he just scoots around the edge because the linebackers on him.

I think it's genius and the NFL should do it more but they don't you just never see it you never see two running backs in the backfield together I actually don't know why that is. And maybe it's something I should ask around and find out like, why doesn't this happen anymore? Why don't they ever use the, they used to be on Madden. It used to be called the pro set where you had the two running backs. You'd have Tom Rathmann and Roger Craig, or even when far was playing for the Packers, they would have Edgar Bennett and Dorsey Levens, the two running backs they would have on either side of him coming out of the backfield. And you just don't see it anymore. I would be shocked if all of a sudden they did that with Mason. I think where they're really going to use him is first downs, play action off of him

when he's in the backfield. And then a lot of short yardage stuff, third and one, third and two, you got Jordan Mason out there. Sometimes a decoy, sometimes he gets the ball red zone stuff and then just rotating in. So Aaron Jones does not have to have as many reps as he did last year. And I think they want Jordan Mason to be more of an all-around player than he was for San Francisco last year. But even if just your, instead of handing the ball 17 times to Aaron Jones, maybe it's 12 and five or six go to Jordan Mason.

That's better than it was last year where I mean, can makers at the end of the season made some impact, but more or less it was. I mean, you couldn't do anything outside of Aaron Jones in the backfield, so taking some of the pressure off of him. Jones in the backfield. So taking some of the pressure off of him. First down is a great time to do it because you can run play action off that, or you could just hand him the ball and get the offense going with Jordan Mason. But that's all I think it's going to be. I don't know if there's going to be some like galaxy brain next level type of thing.

Um, Oh, it was Patrick Jones that they picked for the Yankee and Gakue pick. Thank you for looking that up. Hey, that was their best pick from that third round because the other ones were Mond, Wyatt Davis and Chaz Surratt, whose name I think just came up the other day, maybe signed with San Francisco. Kerpluppy said anything on this Searls, Surliss. I think think it's sirless, right? Is that it? Sir you mean uh, oh the line lineman Oh Searles this guy. Okay. I thought you meant like Silas Bolden is the part returner. Yes Searles guy Logan Brown

Yeah, I mean, I don't know. It's an undrafted free agent and OTA is like there's nothing I can really take away from somebody like that, uh, until they actually put pads on and get going. Sorry. I was confused cause I was thinking of Silas Bolden, who, if you have, you have asked about and really quick and was doing some punt returning kind of has my attention a little bit. Um, be just because of the quickness and the punt returning. It reminds me of other

part returners we've seen have success in the past, like Marcus Sherrill's. And he was actually catching the punts from Ryan Wright. I didn't drop any from what I could tell. And I think that they might be intrigued by him. He had a great return against Arizona state when he was playing for Texas. But I know that's not who you're asking about. It's just anything in the trenches is going to be hard because they just aren't blocking each other.

They're pretending in years past, they were going at each other and OTAs under Zimmer, but that's something that Kevin O'Connell just does not believe in. Uh, Anthony says, Judd said Howell's arm strength looks awful. What is your take? I thought that, uh, Sam Howell did not have a very good one OTA practice that we saw and that's all I can really say. I mean, this is a guy who just got here to this team. He was traded on draft day.

He's trying to learn the offense and my expectation for Sam Howell is not that high anyway. I mean, the guy who matters is wearing number nine and that's who I'm going to be watching most of the time. I mean, I'm not going to spend a lot of time paying attention to how strong Sam Howell's arm is because I don't really care. I, that's just the truth of it is I know backup quarterback is something we always want to talk about.

And if somebody goes out, you know, but Sam Howell was a late round draft pick for a reason, he's a four and 13 quarterback for a reason for his career. Four and 14. Uh, no, I guess it's 13. I don't think he got the loss officially in that Seattle game cause he didn't start it, but he sure took the loss. I don't care. It's just, you gotta have somebody's your backup and having someone that is a

little bit on the younger side and has started before is fine but I'm not I'm not gonna be evaluating throw-by-throw on Sam Howell I just think we've seen him play in real NFL games. We know what that looks like and That is that oh Thank you, Jason for the reminder that they gain a couple million bucks from Garrett Bradbury from the June 1st designation I mean I you guys can debate I thought he had it he just didn't have a good practice and his arm is not JJ

McCarthy's it's definitely not JJ McCarthy's. But again, we've already seen him. We've already seen him in games. He's not very good. You just need somebody to be able to come in and go two and two. If you need him for four weeks and maybe that Sam Howell, I'm not fully convinced yet we're going to have to find out in training camp and in preseason, if that's something that is going to work for them or not.

Right now, I wouldn't expect him to get it. I wouldn't expect him to be confident. I wouldn't expect him to know anything about this offense. McCarthy's been in it for a year. This guy's just trying to learn. Remember, like what we talked about with McCarthy, we didn't judge him too harshly in OTAs last year because he just didn't know the offense. And so we'll wait on Sam Howell and see, but it's I'm telling you, I mean, if you ask for Sam Howell updates

in OTAs and training camp, I'm probably just going to be like, I don't know. I'm watching JJ McCarthy. Certainly Viking says all in on McCarthy still feeling that Rikard is going to be a pivotal part of our success. Thoughts? What about his backup? I was disappointed after Rikard's y to be a pivotal part of our success thoughts. What about his backup? I was disappointed after Rikard's yips after last season John Parker. Romo. You mean John Parker. Romo was great for them last year

I don't know where he is this year. They do not have another kicker in camp. It is Will Rikard's job. They do have another punter, but they do not have another kicker Will R Reichard is stupid talented. I mean, the most talented kicker I've ever seen in a practice environment. And then before he got hurt, he made every single kick. The only concern about Reichard is just that he did also have some injuries in college. And if he gets hurt again in the NFL, then you're starting to talk about having serious worries about him. But other than that, I think that they have got themselves a very, very,

very good kicker here who could be a difference maker. The other thing is if you ask anybody to try to project a kicker, kicking can be so up and down. It could be so random at times. That's hard to do. All I know is what we've seen from him. His first season was good. It was great at the beginning when he was fully healthy. I think he might've rushed himself back a little bit because John Parker Romo was kicking so well. And every time Riker talked about his injury, he seemed really mad.

Like he seemed like he was really upset that he had gotten hurt and had to be taken off the field when he was having such a good season. He's a very competitive guy. So that's where you actually get concerned because you want, if he's got an injury for him to tell the coaching staff, I've got an injury, there's a problem here. That's my only concern. His actual talent, his leg strength, his accuracy, all that stuff is phenomenal. And that's what we were talking about last year during training camp. I think he might have missed like two kicks the whole training camp. Where is Kellen Maan these days? He was in the UFL, but he lost his starting job in the UFL. Sometimes

it just doesn't work in the pros I don't know why He was a good college quarterback, but the pros are just so much different John says is Max Brosmer going to even get a chance to compete for the third quarterback. Yeah for the third quarterback He will I would expect that he does the most likely thing for Max Brosmer is that he's QB for All Ramos with the Patriots. Okay. Good kicker. I thought he was good and actually had to make some really clutch

kicks for them last year. But, uh, yeah, Brosmer. I mean, the thing with Brosmer is if you cut him out of camp, no one's going to sign him, so he'll be a guy that you can put on your practice squad. And then you can have three quarterbacks. They like Brett Rippon enough as QB three. It's really, it's just Sam Howell versus himself. If Sam Howell looks good in training camp and really locks in and is a good

teammate and everybody likes having them around, then he's your backup and you feel okay about that if he struggles, then they're going to have to find another answer, uh, time for a word from our sponsor. Well, in this case I was going to wrap up and go watch the basketball game because it's been a really fun chat with you guys, but I will add that we're starting to put together our sponsorships for the football season. So if you are in charge of a thing like that or own a

business or whatever, feel free to reach out to me. I will put my email on the screen. There you go. Matthew Coller at Gmail can also DM me on Twitter at Matthew Coller and sign up for the newsletter. Purple Insider, football. Like I said, Monday will be out there again.

I think it's Monday. They will be out there again in another OTA practice. We'll have more chances to glean things and see how JJ McCarthy is progressing throughout the off season. That'll be exciting. And again, if you missed our very serious breakdown from TCO performance center, I'm not even being sarcastic. We were very serious, uh, about how he looked yesterday. Go take a look, uh, there,

um, at that video. So thanks again, everybody. Monday night also I'll be live. So we're going to do a podcast from out there, but I'll do the live show. We'll have Mondays with Maggie as well. And we will go from there. Look forward to also,

I had a fun conversation with ESPN's Mike Clay that is coming out tomorrow afternoon on the YouTube channel. It might be just a good idea to subscribe. I'm just saying. So thanks everybody for the fun chat and good conversation. And we will talk to you all again very soon. Football.