Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - JJ McCarthy practices, what can he gain from playing???? (Part 1)

Episode Date: January 1, 2026

Matthew Coller talks about McCarthy returning to practice and the chance he can play against the Packers. They won't play starters so what can JJ gain from playing? The Purple Insider podcast is brought to you by FanDuel. Also, check out our sponsor HIMS at https://hims.com/purpleinsider Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hey, everybody, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider, presented by Fandul. Matthew Collar here, and happy New Year. It is New Year's Eve. There's lots of college football coming up later on tonight. So I figured that we would fire up the old live take machine a little bit earlier today to make sure we're getting your thoughts, feelings, opinions on the Minnesota Vikings. they get ready to play the Green Bay Packers and the news today, J.J. McCarthy back at practice. Naturally, after he fractured his hand and missed last week,

it was pretty unclear. Is he going to have a chance to play again? And is he going to have an opportunity to fight through it and get one more shot at playing in the year 2025? I mean, technically early 2026. But in the season of the 2025 year, is he going to have one more shot to play? So that is the question here tonight is what do you want to see from J.J. McCarthy if he plays. Now, I have said it. I'll say it again. It's preseason. The Green Bay Packers said today, Matt LaFleur, that they are not going to play every starter in this game. So you are going out there with a motivated Minnesota Vikings team versus a unmotivated Green Bay Packers team. A Packer's team, a Packer's. A Packer's, team that is motivated to just get to the playoffs with as many human beings healthy as they

possibly can. So they are not going to play anyone of consequence unless there's nobody left at that position, which does open up the door potentially for, you know, big numbers for J.J. McCarthy. So what can you take out of it? It's not are you going to take anything out of it, but what can you take out of it? What are you looking for if J.J. McCarthy starts getting back to practice. Now, it was on a limited basis, but that makes you think that there is a pretty darn good shot of him getting back in. I'll bring you what he had to say along with what Kevin O'Connell thinks that McCarthy can gain in just a minute. I do want to remind everyone, I started looking up the numbers, because I know we're going to do this, we're going to want to react

strongly in some way or another, but I'm just sort of trying to pull that e-break as the car is going be sliding out of control with must have take on football game we do this every preseason right somebody has a good preseason game and we're like yeah yeah yeah that that that means something and a lot of times it doesn't and it feels the same way uh i made a list of recent performances in the final weeks of the season including drew lock uh two years ago the famous matt flyn one there's been a number of them over the years that it doesn't give you the answers uh uh on what someone is, what they're going to be, what decisions the team is going to make.

I think if the Minnesota Vikings don't already know what their plan is going to be for quarterback going into this offseason, if they haven't already done that evaluation throughout this year, then what are you doing if you're waiting for the final week of the season to see how he responds to then decide if you're going to stick with J.J. McCarthy or not, that would be kind of nutty for me. I don't think that that's what they're doing. I'm certain that they've been keeping a running tab on how they feel about where they're going into the future and next season at the quarterback spot, which we could talk about some of the politics of that and a couple of odd sentences in a pro football talk article today that I want to read you.

And a couple other things. Grant Bills is coming up from Wisconsin. We're going to talk to him in a little bit. And I wrote an article about the unacceptable quarterback play from the Vikings in 2020. And I figured, you know, since it's New Year's Eve, we can have a little reading there of what I wrote over at Purple Insider dot football. But let me bring you what J.J. McCarthy had to say first. Then we'll get to your questions and comments. And I also asked Kevin O'Connell about Malik Willis. And I thought that his answer was quite interesting. So let's begin with McCarthy and his chances to play this weekend.

I practice clinch whether you think you'd be able to go Sunday or not or still wait and see tomorrow. Day to day. Day to day. I felt really good today. Obviously, a little limited participation, but I felt like the ball is spinning, and yeah, we'll take it day to day. How long did it take for the hand to kind of subside a little bit, the pain of it? It's a difficult question to answer. Just kind of, you know, week 18 in NFL, you're going to be feeling stuff left and right. You know, there's a perfect examples all around this locker room, all around this field right now. guys get an extra work and they're all hurting and uh you know it just speaks to our culture speaks to what everyone's about in our character in that locker room and you know it just it's up to me to follow suit and you know going there regardless of the pain if it's stable it's stable and let's ride so that sounded that last part especially if it's stable it's stable regardless of

the pain let's ride i mean that to me says that he with a fracture in his hand still and just doing a little googling here not a doctor but if you are one like let me know if you agree with this. Not something that just goes zoop in a week and then heals right back up. It's going to be painful for him. But his point is, A, you know, you're the leader of the team as the starting quarterback. And when you have other players, I mean, Aaron Jones, think about what he went through a couple of weeks ago with his ankle injury and fought through it in the game against the New York Giants. Brian O'Neill has been battling for weeks with something foot, ankle, whatever related. And, you know, he had to miss last week, but clearly he was fighting through this season, Jonathan

Granard with the shoulder, Josh Mattelis with the shoulder. There's plenty of guys who have been dealing with injuries. Look around the NFL. Other starting quarterbacks, Justin Herbert has got a robo hand on his left hand has got nuts and bolts and screws and whatever else to hold that thing in place and he's playing. So it is part of the National Football League to have to play through some sort of injury, there is a positive and negative to the potential for him playing. The positive is throwing passes in an NFL game.

That is the positive. Because there's so few times where he's actually gone out onto a real football field and thrown real footballs. I mean, when you think about the sheer lack of passes, even this year, when we go through the top quarterbacks,

I can pull this up, the top quarterbacks in the NFL, in terms of pass attempts this year. Just let's do dropbacks. So it includes scrambles, sacks, and those sort of things. Dak Prescott has the most in the league at 648. Bow Nix's second with 646. So about 650 dropbacks is what you expect in a season from a starting quarterback over 17 games.

And J.J. McCarthy has 265. So he's at less than half, well less than half, well less than half of even though he's played eight and a half games he is not even close to half of the share of the top quarterbacks for actually throwing the ball or dropping back to pass so getting more opportunities for that is more potential to rep what you need to do into the future which is play quarterback it's more throws to just in jefferson which you know kevin o'connell and jj didn't want to go so far as to say we absolutely need to get this man to a thousand yards but you could sense it in their comments that they need to get it to get him to a thousand yards,

but more throws to Justin Jefferson, more throws to Jordan Addison. We'll see what T.J. Hawkinson's status is for the game. But regardless, all of that experience is good. And this kind of goes back to how I was talking earlier in the year about the NFL machine and how it's moved away from preseason games, how they don't, nobody plays any starters. they've chopped one entire preseason game off. And if you were coming up in the NFL in, say, 1998, you would be playing, if you were a young quarterback like this,

you'd be playing a ton of preseason football against a lot of other starters because other teams would be playing their starters as well. But now if you're playing J.J. McCarthy, you're not going to see too many starters in a preseason game. I know you won't in this game either, but at least it is a regular season game. And it's closer to, what the preseason used to be like, I think, for what he's going to be facing if he plays

in week 18. And so those guys used to get a couple, I don't know, I don't know how many exactly, but you could probably get 75 passes, 50 passes by the end of a preseason. If you were a young and up and coming starting quarterback, well, what did J.J. McCarthy throw this year? Seven. And I did suggest going into the year that they play him more preseason and that you can't just put him in a bubble, but then he did get hurt several different times during the season. And also, I think it's fair enough to say, who were you playing around him and who were you playing against? Because teams used to play their starters in the third preseason game. I feel like I'm 100 years old, but when I first started covering the league, Mike Zimmer was still doing this. It was the dress rehearsal game. So you don't get that. And the amount of practice. practice time and everything else has been very litigated and cut down. So every rep that you can get going into the off season, whether it's through pain or not, is going to matter. It's calling plays.

It's lining up and it's dropping back. So that is useful for J.J. McCarthy. As far as anything to actually build on into the off season, I do think there's some element of confidence because if you're playing a team that's got nobody left on it, slash is playing all of their backups and calling up guys from, you know, the practice squad or whatever it might be because they don't care about this game, then you are talking about the potential to put together a final four games or three and a half games that show a lot of progress. And so I asked Kevin O'Connell, like what J.J. McCarthy can gain from playing in this game.

Oh, that's the wrong one. Okay, okay, this one. If JJ can play, what do you think he can gain from this game? JJ? Yeah, I mean, it's just getting to that 10th start and with some of the stuff he's been able to do, thinking back to the Dallas game, you know, moving the team in the first half of the Giants game

and Commanders game. I mean, there's just been, you know, a ton of stuff during this win streak has been about stacking plays, stacking for our, team, just positives of complimentary football and finding a way to win, you know, by any means necessary every single game. And that's credit the players. That's what they've done. And JJ's been a huge part of that and his continued, you know, really looking at starts 7, 8, 9 and would love to get him another one. But, but obviously only if he's medically cleared and can

100% do his job. There you go. Kevin O'Connell talking about what gains can be made. And I think that it's right to just say that it's just trying to stack together multiple performances that look like NFL quarterback play and try to build off of those going into the, you know, with some confidence into the off season to say, I can do this. I can win four straight games. I can have some games where I'm the reason that the team won, which I would say about the Dallas game is probably the only one, but Washington was pretty good. The first half was a little more disjointed.

against the New York Giants. The, the tough part of all of this is what to make of it. And, you know, that's, I think, as far as I would want to go, is just the confidence that you get from playing well under any NFL circumstance. If you go in, complete passes, walk out with, hey, over the last four games, he had X numbers, whatever, which again is faulty and can be fools gold and is not the way it works. You don't get to just pick the games you like and say those are the only ones that matter. I'll go over some of the statistics later. And it's kind of a horror show now that we have

the complete picture of where J.J. McCarthy ranks and finishes and all those things. And he can improve it in week 18. But these are the games that have already happened that should make up the evaluation going into the offseason. And it will make your eye twitch when you look at where some of these numbers finish up against the rest of the league. McCarthy was asked, it has been a rough ride for him because here he is answering more questions about injuries and missing time and all those sorts of things. And Kevin Seaford asked him about if he could talk to himself from the beginning of the season after he's lived a whole couple of years of age.

You can see, you can see why it's really hard to have longevity in the NFL for what these guys go through in a single season. But if he could talk to himself at the beginning of the year, what he would say. What? You could talk to yourself from the beginning of the season or the beginning of training camp. What would you tell that person? Give yourself some grace.

Understand, you know, this is one of the hardest positions in the world. And you're 22 years old. It's going to take some time. And really just keep taking those punches and keep getting up. At the end of the day, you know, it's just about showing up day in, day out. What do you feel like has been the hardest part of this season for you? At times, I feel like, you know, I let my teammates down and my coach is down, and that's the hardest thing for me.

But, you know, the most encouraging thing is seeing them pick me up and understand, you know, the culture, the type of guys that we have in that room in that locker room is something special. So, yeah, it's been a tough year, but we learned a lot about each other and a lot about ourselves and me personally. so there's McCarthy on kind of what he would take away and man it is is true that you are forced to mature very quickly in the NFL as a starting quarterback because everybody I think this has been my experience throughout covering all rookies is they all show up and everyone's always told them through their entire life they're the man I mean the organization picked him over Sam Darnold and had declared him the franchise quarterback and everything else and then the reality of the NFL sets in, which is that the other teams are really good, too. And there's a lot of great defenses and there's a lot of great defensive coordinators and

injuries. You know, a lot of guys hit hard in this league and things like that. You have to play a certain way to stay healthy. And I think that McCarthy has learned a lot over the season, but the question that the Vikings are facing here is pretty straightforward with him. I think we all would agree that J.J. McCarthy, given X number of years to continue on this path, to learn from what happened this year, to go into off-seasons and to develop and things like that, I think that there's a quarterback there

that can be a starter in the NFL that wins games. But the question is, how soon can that happen? Because I promise you, the Viking schedule next year is not going to be just made up of the 31st best teams in terms of defense. And Micah Parsons will return. he will not get to more likely than not face the Green Bay Packers with nothing on the line in a game like this next year early in the season because all the games are going to matter how much progress can be made.

And I'll just pull up the numbers historically. The guys that I came up were comparable from my article to his performance through his first nine games. And what I did was I took out all the guys who were top three picks because, that's different. Like, if you're the number one overall pick, it means your team was worse than every other team in the NFL. So if you're Jared Goff going to the, well, where the Rams? Did they trade up? Maybe the Rams trade up. So, but they were still absolutely awful. And they were coached by Jeff Fisher. If you look at almost any team, Cam Ward, what he's dealing with,

with the Tennessee tights, almost any team who's drafting number one is drafting from a position of being horrendous and not like the Vikings coming off of a 14-win season. So I looked at the quarterbacks who were drafted after the fifth pick, but somewhere in the first round, and the ones who perform similarly, how often their team stuck with them. So the guys that I came up with were Dwayne Haskins, whose team did not stick with him. I know absolutely tragic what happened with Dwayne Haskins, but if we're just, you know, talking about what Washington did in dealing with a quarterback that didn't perform right away. They moved on after 13 starts.

E.J. Manuel and the Buffalo Bills, they moved on after 17 starts, and he was 25. Kenny Pickett got almost two years, but not two full seasons. Ryan Tannahill got a long time with Miami and then eventually went to Tennessee. 88 starts with Miami. Christian Ponder got 36 starts with the Vikings. Josh Rosen got 13 with Arizona. Blaine Gabbard got 27, and then Josh Allen was also on this list, and he's one of the best quarterbacks in the entire universe.

But the Josh Allen comparable just doesn't really sit for me because, number one, in his second season, he won 10 games and took a huge leap forward. And this is J.J. McCarthy's second season. You could say rookie all you want, but it is his second season. And also he ran for eight touchdown. downs at 630 yards and their team was truly awful as well and they had torn apart everything and when they played other quarterbacks that year they got blown out so josh allen showed all the signs early where mccarthy it's been a much more this here that there but then a lot

in between to be desired also he's six foot five and 250 pounds and probably the most prolific running quarterback of all time uh if it's not cam or if it's not vick or if it's not Cunningham, but he's in that circle, which I would not put, you know, J.J. McCarthy. So that's the only outlier for those, for quarterbacks who have performed that well. All their teams, other than Josh Allen, eventually moved on and many of them within the first two seasons. So it is very fair to wonder how much longer, if at all, the Vikings are going to ride with this, knowing the pressure that is on them for next season, knowing the pressure that's on the head coach and the roster to succeed and all of those things that we've talked about a lot.

This game shouldn't have any impact on that necessarily, but the injuries and the fact that we're going into another game, not entirely sure if he's playing, it just further highlights that. But in doing some of that research, these teams, when the quarterback did not perform past a certain level didn't stick around forever. So that does bring me a little bit to Malik Willis because he's one of the guys we'll be talking about. He was limited in practice today for the Packers.

Jordan Love practiced in full. Cannot see any world where Jordan Love plays might see a world where Malik Willis plays. Although, I mean, I think Malik should sit this one out and let Clayton tune play because he wants his last impression not to be against Brian Flores' defense, but instead of tearing up the Baltimore Ravens. but it is within the realm of possibility that the Vikings could be interested in Malik Willis this offseason. So I asked Kevin O'Connell about where he has developed the most. Kevin, I don't know if Malik Willis is going to play or not, but you were talking about him the other day.

I'm curious about what you see now from him in terms of just his growth. Like he got in a little bit with Tennessee and then last year and then now kind of doing everything. Yeah, I think you see his field vision, you know. Seeing it and throwing it has, you know, clearly last Saturday. I mean, you know, he's making some pretty high-level throws with accuracy in the pocket. And you also always have known about Malik. He's got, you know, kind of very high-high-level creativity and his ability to avoid negatives and be a problem through the echo of the whistle, whether he's running the ball,

getting in space and keeping his eyes up and finding those guys down field. and they all probably, you know, Jordan, you know, has a lot of those characteristics too where he can extend plays. So it's kind of ingrained in the fabric of how they play that when when Malik gets out, those players know how to uncover. They know how to space out within whatever the concept was. And now the second play starts and there's a lot of big plays happening there. I think Malik has done a really nice job for him. I mean, something to consider. Let's get the Fanduel question of the day.

Give you a little ad read because the show has some sponsors. And then we'll take your questions. So the fan dual question of the day is this. The Ravens are a 3.5 point favorite against Pittsburgh on Sunday. The loser of the game may have serious consequences. Do you think Brian Flores will be a candidate for either the Steelers or Ravens? And what other fallout do you think could happen from that game? And I guess we need to talk about Lamar Jackson and the Vikings at some point since it was

floated by someone, and we know if that happens, then we're going to discuss it. So let me remind you about a friend over at ZipRecruiter. As you know, Purple Insider is always growing and changing and looking to make another step forward in 2006. Of course, lucky to have the great crew that I have. But as a business owner, I am well aware of the challenges of trying to find quality people to add to the roster. So if you are hiring for your company, let me give you a little advice.

Check out ZipRecruiter with new goals in 2006. You may be looking to add to your squad as well as, thankfully, there is a place that you can help conquer the challenges of your upcoming 2026 goals. And that is by ZipRecruiter. Try it for free now at ZipRecruiter.com slash audio. It's not a run-of-the-mill job website. My friends, they have tools and data that separates them from the pack. ZipRecruiter's matching technology works fast to find top talent so you don't have to waste your time or money. And you can find out right away how much.

job seekers are in your area that are qualified for your role. So let ZipRecruiter help you find the best people for all of your roles. Four out of five employers who post at ZipRecruiter, get a quality candidate within the first day. So see for yourself. Go to ZipRecruiter.com slash audio. That is ZipRecruiter.com slash audio. ZipRecruiter, the smartest way to hire. Benjamin says, let's do a mock.

Okay, we can definitely do a mock. mock. I'm interested in that. Let's see. Let me see if I could screen share. Okay. Let's screen share it up. We can do a mock. We can do a mock right now. This is what happens. You ask for a mock. You get a mock. At the moment, the Vikings are drafting 17th. Okay. Let's see. We want, we just want normal stuff here. We want normal little rankings. We want it to work fast. And we're not going to do any trades. Let's just load it up and see what's on the board. Now, keep in mind, that I don't really do draft research until the season is over. So let's take a look. Who's on the board for the Vikings? I'm curious about the top. Fernando Mendoza is at the top of the draft number one overall pick to the Raiders, which does make me think about Gino Smith.

I'm just saying on the board for the Vikings in the first round, Sonny Stiles, who is a great linebacker, kind of intrigued by that, but linebacker not my favorite. favorite position to take in the first round. Monsour Delaney, I think is how it's said. Again, give me some grace on this with the pronunciations and some of the players. I don't know everyone yet. I'm very interested in that.

Caleb Banks, a defensive tackle from Florida. You can definitely talk me into that. Avion Terrell, corner from Clemson. You can always get me interested in a wide receiver, but probably not now. Guard, edge rusher, only if they were making a trade. I'm not that interested in drafting a tight end, but Kenyon Sadiq is very good. I've seen him play. Okay, there's, there's certainly a lot here on the board.

I think that I will take the cornerback from LSU, Monsour Delene. Let's do that. Because I think a top corner is really necessary, no matter who is calling the defensive shots. Second round here, I'm looking for a center in the second round. Can we get one? Connor Lou, who I think has had maybe an injury. Jake Slaughter is in here. Not too many other centers.

Logan Jones from Iowa. Parker Brailsford. Well, actually, those guys are way down the list. So as far as second rounders, Jake Slaughter and Connor Lou. Let's see what else we got on the board. Tackled interior D-line. I mean, are we going two defensive picks with the first two? If they lose Flores, it feels like they have.

have to. Amari, Washington from Oregon is a defensive tackle. Got a linebacker, Anthony Hill here. Another corner, wouldn't hate that. Jermaine Bernard, wide receiver from Alabama is interesting. Another corner. Running back, because I know a lot of you want Jeremiah Love as a running back. What about the second round, though? I like the second round for running back a lot more. Jonah Coleman running back from Washington. Again, going to have to research these guys. Safety is definitely, let's look at safeties here. Dylan, Thinman, Thineman, and Camari Ramsey from USC. These guys both look like slight reaches, but, you know, that might be a position we can look at. Good coverage

grade. Okay. Well, there's a lot of options here. I tend to like the idea of drafting a center in the second round because it's just so important. So let's go with Jake Slaughter from Florida and see how PFF likes our draft. I get an A4. the first pick and a C for the second one. And overall, somehow that adds up to A minus in the top 50% of drafts. Okay, so there you go. A mock. Just for you.

Who was it that asked for that? Just for you, Benjamin. Appreciate it. I enjoyed that. There will be plenty more to go mock drafts into the future. But I think it's just fine to start into mock season when this game means nothing. Let's see. The magician or the magic man says there's nothing left to see this year.

Just shut him down and be done with it. Benjamin says I see him every day. Yeah. I mean, well, you know, Kellyn Monde, I know he was a third round pick and not a first round pick. But another piece of evidence there that teams do not hang around forever. And that's kind of my point is when I put out my article, I got a lot of responses that were like, oh, I see how. it is. He's a young kid and you're going after him and you're not going to let him develop.

And it's like, hey, you know that everything on this show is rooted in the research, right? Like, no matter what it might be and if you like the take or if you hate the take, it's like last week, everybody hated the take that it was worse for them to win against the lions in the long run. But it's just the research. The fourth place schedule matters. And right, so that, like, that's what I do here, I think, is always put the work in to see what history tells us, see what the numbers tell us, and then I tell you,

and sometimes it's stuff that you don't love. What was the question? Oh, just, oh, the Kell, yeah, that was the Kellynmond kind of rant there. But in terms of shutting him down, I think that if there is, so there's two schools of thought there, because I don't think what you're saying is illegitimate about shutting him down, because if he does go out there and have somebody hit something of his, is and is injured going into the offseason, then, holy cow. I mean, if you're starting out your offseason from behind when this is maybe the most

important offseason of his NFL career, because he needs to take enormous gains in terms of his technical playing of the quarterback position, the footwork, the throwing, all that stuff. I mean, it needs to vastly improve from where it was this season. And if he starts out from behind, if he hurts a wrist, hurts a shoulder, whatever it might be, then that could set you back. And we would be saying, for what? For what?

For some practice passes against the Green Bay Packers? I mean, is that worth it? And so I see your argument. I have gotten to the point where he's just got to play and you can't put him in bubble wrap. If he can play, then let him play. And you know who else deserves him to play Jefferson? because, well, he has not had a great year getting the ball to Jefferson. What we saw for Max Brosmer was way below NFL caliber play.

And all you got other than that is Brett Rippin and John Wolford. Like the starting quarterback has the best chance at getting just the Jefferson. The football, all those guys who are veteran players who put in so much work all year long, they deserve to win this game. And again, you know, it's my job to point out the facts about. about winning the game. But still, when you think of it from a Harrison Smith perspective, winning the final game over the Green Bay Packers,

regardless of circumstances, is important. So go out there and play, get through the game, make some progress, even if it's small, have a good game, stay healthy. If you get hurt, tell somebody, I mean, all these things, right, go do them. We've moved past the point of, like, protect the merchandise. It's like the merchandise got play. At some point. And, you know, every time O'Connell said, he said it three or four times now about, well, you know, he'd like to get him that 10th start. And there's just a little bit of like, you all right? I mean, can you imagine the frustration of a head coach when they're starting quarterback can't stay healthy. I mean, it's not his fault. But I'm sure it drives him crazy that he hasn't been able to get to 10 starts in two seasons. That's just, it's unprecedented for a guy that they actually wanted to play. But a healthy offseason is important. important. Benjamin, can we substitute this game for one less preseason game next year?

Well, they might, they might need the preseason games to have a quarterback competition between J.J. McCarthy and somebody else. I don't know. They might need all the preseason action that they can possibly get for next year. It is, it is a little sad what's happened to the preseason because there's, and you guys know this, you feel it, you show up at the stadium. When you get through, And I need to talk about this right now because the temperature is dropping under 10 degrees. So this will help me. And I, the dog still requires walks. He no matter what, like, he doesn't understand that it's cold outside and it's terrible

until we get out there. So he goes crazy and demands walks. And then we walk out. And he's like, nope, didn't want that. Like, buddy, what are we doing here? Figure it out. It's winter. Anyway, the point is that, uh, you get into training camp and,

the season doesn't feel real until you get that first preseason game and you know showing up at the stadium when it's 80 degrees out at night or whatever 75 degrees or maybe you get just that little bit of cool air that starts to sneak in for that first preseason game it's a great feeling and it used to be that if you showed up at the stadium and sometimes i don't want to be the like think of the children person because it's right to not play your starters but sometimes i think of, like, if you used to show up at a preseason game, you got to see people play. And I think that's another part of JJ playing, too, is that people are going to pay to come to the stadium and watch you play the Packers.

If you can play, then you should play, right? Don't make them watch backup quarterbacks and everything else. Like, they're paying to come see the Minnesota Vikings, be the Minnesota Vikings. So that's where I can't get fully into the, like, oh, just protect him and make sure he doesn't get hurt or whatever. Like, it's football, man, you got to go play. So don't make people, at least, at least put on a good show. Don't make people watch complete garbage if it doesn't have to be.

Rob, I guess it's, I've been calling you Rob forever. You never corrected me, but I guess it is Robe. Every snap for JJ is an investment. JJ is Jets best shot at getting the 53 yards for 1,000. No question about it. Yeah, no question about it. And if you're just tuning in, we're talking about J.J. McCarthy practice today. And what can he gain?

I asked that question to Kevin O'Connell. I'm asking it to you. What can he gain in this game? And I definitely agree with, even though it's gone badly in terms of getting the ball to Justin Jefferson, and they might need to activate, if it's into the fourth quarter and they're not close, activate Carson Wentz, sign Cam Acres, and get somebody to throw in the ball. Let me toss another crazy stat at you that, and this is one for the water cooler when you guys get back to work, if you've got tomorrow off, is the top three passing performances this year by the Minnesota Vikings

in terms of yardage were all quarterbacked by Carson Wentz. And Justin Jefferson's two out of his best three games, I think. Yeah. So Carson Wentz might need to go in there with a sling, which would only be slightly different from what happened in Los Angeles and get the ball a couple of times to Justin Jefferson. but I generally agree with you. The Magic Man says, I remember Joey Harrington completing like 90% of his preseason passes before his final year in Detroit.

That's exactly right about a game like this is what I will try to do and I'm promising myself for Sunday is everything I can to manage the here's what happened and what we saw versus here's what we could take away from it. And even if it doesn't go that well, I guess I would still feel the same way. Like, what difference does it make? If he, I would prefer him to try to take risks. I would prefer him to throw two interceptions because he's finding out what types of routes he can throw because too many times this year, there's crossing routes over the

middle where the ball's not coming out and he's taking sacks. Just let loose, my friend. Do everything you can out there. But your point is 100% valid that when there's nothing on the line, it's different in terms of the effort. And when it's backups, it's not just backups for Green Bay. It's backups to the backups. They're already playing.

It's assistant regional manager to the assistant regional manager because, I almost got that out, because you're talking about a team that's super banged up already. And then they're going to be putting in guys from their practice squad to get them a little bit of experience here. So this is truly like preseason action. And my favorite, in terms of how much. the preseason means. My favorite ever is, and I think I saw this in the old takes exposed book, there's a book, there's a Twitter account called Old Takes Exposed or Freezing Cold Takes, I think it's called, and he wrote a book. And it's really funny about all the opinions about

new coaches, new coach hires, or draft picks or things like that that ended up being crazy wrong. And Ryan Leif outduled Peyton Manning in a preseason game one time. And so, of course, course. It was, wow, Ryan Leaf outplayed Peyton Manning. Here we go. And that one didn't turn out to be super close. Hunter says, I guess the only thing that you can get out of this game is bad. You can't get anything that makes you feel better about McCarthy, but you can feel worse. I mean, that's a fair point because if he goes out and he struggles a lot with an injured hand, by the way, I mean, when he's talking about like, oh, just, you know, play through the pain or whatever. And again, you know, I'll say it a million times I'm not a scientist here or a doctor or a

biologist or anything, but it would seem to me that it's not like a leg injury where you can kind of use some medical enhancement to limit the amount of pain involved. A hand would be more challenging because you have to hold the ball and grip it. And if you can't feel your hand, then that I don't think works. So if he's in a lot of pain trying to throw the football and it's not coming out right and he's throwing it to the other team or flying passes over people's heads or whatever for four quarters and he comes out of it 12 for 26 or something, it's not going to feel very good. No, I agree with you there. I don't mind a couple interceptions if he's taking risks and trying to make plays. But if we're talking about struggling to complete passes and just looking like he's regressed.

I don't think that Jeff Halfley is going to put a whole lot on tape. I think he's just going to go out and play regular coverage. But maybe they signed Desmond Ritter. Did you guys see that? So maybe they're trying to get the Vikings playbook from Desmond Ritter and do everything they can to stop. I don't think that's the case. They probably just are not going to play either of their top two

quarterbacks. So they brought in somebody to be an emergency. But I'm just saying that if he has a poor game, I'm going to vow to go either way. needle doesn't move. If it's a poor game, we'll break it down. We'll talk about what happened, but I'm not going to change my take if he doesn't play great in this game. And if he goes, you know, 12 for 26 with 147 yards or something, I'm not going to suddenly say, oh, wow, now they need to go out and look at other quarterbacks. I've already been there. The most recent

injury changed my mind. And I've had a few people ask about that. Like, hey, a couple weeks ago you said they should just, you know, sleep in the bed that they made and whatever is the other metaphors are, go to the dance with the girl that you brought. Or no, wait, you're at the dance and you're dancing with someone you brought. Either way, that was my take, but then he got hurt again. And after he got hurt again, the take changed to, I just don't know how you can go into next year with no other option. And, when I started doing the research on how other teams had handled similar situations, there's a lot of spots where they just change quarterbacks.

And E.J. Manuel is probably the closest to this. And I was there for that in Buffalo. But statistically speaking, manual showed some good stuff. But through two years, there was a lot of injuries. He missed a lot of games. And he had a 76 quarterback rating. And they just replaced him with Kyle Orton. And then they moved on.

He was still on the team the next year. and then they replaced them with Tyrod Taylor. So it does happen. And that's where now I want to leave the door open for that possibility. I think that they need at very least someone to be serious competition for him and make him earn the job. It is no longer everything is about J.J. McCarthy with this organization. It's everything is about winning football games in 2026.

And whoever it takes to win those football games, you've got to do it. And one of these days we're going to have to have. have a more serious talk about Kyler Murray because everyone keeps getting really upset when I bring him up. But I mean, the numbers on that I don't think are as bad as people think. But I can just, I can hear the teeth grinding every time I mention his name. Anyway, Rob says perhaps we should be blaming the O line for being soft for the quarterbacks getting beaten up behind them. While the O line has been banged up a lot, but also if you want to blame them, we should use the numbers as we always do. And looking over here, considering how bad the Vikings have had it in terms of

injury luck on the offensive line, they have the 15th highest graded offense pass blocking this season by PFF. And right behind them is the San Francisco 49ers, who last time I checked are pretty good. And behind them is Carolina and behind them is Seattle. And behind them is Baltimore and behind them is Houston and behind them is Green Bay and behind them is the Rams. I mean, there's a lot of playoff teams who, and of course the Chargers who are just, the Chargers

are at a level where you can't, you just can't really function that well. But all those other teams are in the middle tier with the Vikings in terms of overall pass protection. This league kills quarterbacks. This league has crazy blitzes and wild pass rushers and

freakish defensive tackles and you're probably going to be under pressure. you have to find a way to deal with it. And we saw last week what happens when you can, which is Jared Goff. So every quarterback is human. But at least by, you know, PFF's grading, this is an average season for the offensive line, which is, you know, kind of a miracle considering all the injuries. But when you think about, you know, cross the line, for a while, they had good play from Ryan

Kelly. But they didn't, two of their better games that they've had since I've covered the team as an offensive line were when they had four out of five guys healthy against Baltimore and Chicago and they didn't get good quarterback play. So I don't think we could just pin it on them. There's been moments, yes, the game against Atlanta for sure. There's several plays in that game where Justin's school just gets straight up beat. There's a couple of plays in the game with Max Brosmer where Aiden Hutchinson just roasts Will Fries. It does happen, but it also happens in most every game.

Let's see. There's five offensive lines that are difference makers and everybody else is trying to survive. Let's see. Is this class G? Is that what that says? Happy New Year. Happy New Year to you. Sad that this year they've continuously been playing guys, but fully recovered from injury.

I think the team has grossly mishandled injuries and recovery. Not typical of this team, am I wrong? So I think that it's been an unblembrose. unbelievably challenging year for the training staff. And when you're having to deal with concussions, those are insanely tricky with the recovery from concussions because there's no system. There's no, oh, let's put it under an MRI and scan it and see what happens, right? Oh, it's a broken bone.

That'll take six weeks to heal. That's not how it works. And Ryan Kelly came back with a new helmet and the guardian cap and everything. and that just doesn't, there's no perfect way to avoid something like that happening. It's just bad luck for Ryan Kelly. The Christian Derisaw situation was incredibly unique. It's unlike anything I can remember seeing before with the player's recovery where he has an ACL tear. It looks like he's going to come back.

Remember, I mean, what we didn't know until Kevin O'Connell mentioned it was that it was more than just your regular run-of-the-mill ACL tear because when we saw him getting back on the field at mini-camp, it was like, oh, okay, this seems right. I mean, you know, in training camp, this seems right because Delvin Cook had the ACL and I think week four came back by the beginning of the season. I think it was week eight for Christian Derasaw. And like, okay, maybe it might take a little bit longer. And then once he came back, he was so darn good against Cincinnati.

You're like, all right, well, good to go. Off you go. on to the future of Christian Derisaw being freaking awesome. And then it just failure to launch for his season. I mean, it kept getting the stops and the starts. And I don't know what, because I wouldn't even begin to be able to guess what it was, what discomfort, what swelling, whatever else was causing him to have to come out of games. And then sometimes think he's going to play all week and then not be able to play.

I mean, it's extremely concerning. but that's a hard one to pin on the training staff exactly when you have some injury that's been unique. Now, I don't know what communication has gone on behind the scene. So I can't really say. I can't say, is it Derisaw not trusting it? Is it his side, his representation saying, hey, don't play if you're not perfect? Is it, you know, the Vikings in their communication with him, not maybe having some sort of disconnect or so I don't know. But it's a very strange situation. from anything that I've seen with an injury before. And then some of the other ones, you know,

a hamstring for Cashman, a health issue for Harrison Smith. Andrew Van Ginkle was another odd one, though. He came back and then went out. There were early in the season. And then you have to go overseas, which was another problem for them because you had to go overseas. And then no matter what you could do, your operation is different.

But I do think that when this team got more healthy, we started to see a little bit more of what they could be. as an offensive line, as a defense, when they finally did get healthy. I think it is one of the toughest things in, in toughest jobs in the world is probably being on a training staff in the NFL, but I think it has been a really, really difficult year for them. J.G. Don't say let's ride. Yeah, I know.

That's the, that's the Russell Wilson thing. Hey, once upon a time, Russell Wilson was a pretty darn good quarterback. So, Jim says, win or lose, we have just one goal, get Jets the yards he needs. I know. If they can't get him 53 yards, everyone goes to jail. Everyone should be arrested and spend a night in prison if he doesn't get 53 yards. Because you're not going to be talking about the starters for the Packers. Anything should work in this game with Jefferson.

If you get into the fourth quarter and it's not at 53 yards, Every play should be a pop pass, a screen, a slant, anything. Try any court, like, you just cannot have this happen. It's important to him. He said that it matters. He wants to keep up this streak. Mike Zimmer already screwed him in 2021 out of whatever record it was. He set so many, I forget what it was.

I think it was maybe the most yards. Was it in a single season for the Vikings? Maybe it was a single season yardage record for the franchise. maybe beating Randy Moss. I'm just guessing it was five years ago. But that was shameful of Mike Zimmer afterward to say, I don't play for records. I play for wins.

It's like, what? I mean, if he wasn't already fired by then, it was like, that is so petty and so low to not do that. And with Kirk Cousins, too, you're the one with the ball. Just call a different play and throw it to him, bro. What are we doing here? So you can't have that situation. He deserves that.

And he has been a good soldier all year. And you could say, oh, well, he's, you know, ego or something. Now, not for him. You can't say that for him. He's just deserving of fighting through this to still be able to say, despite the 31st ranked quarterback play in the NFL, I was still able to get a thousand yards. But man, it's been, it has been such a tough ride.

But I agree with you, Jim. That and I do think getting a win for Harrison Smith would be nice. Get him his 40th interception if you can. Class G says, I get people need to play eventually and even at 80 to 90%. But I think players got in before the tip. period. I'd rather see healthy roster backups on the field than crippled roster of starters. Again, that's a very difficult

thing to figure. Now, with Ryan Kelly, after his second concussion, I said, I don't want to see him again because it concerns me deeply as a human beyond just football or whatever else. And he came back and I was scared every game. Is it going to happen

again because you worry about this guy's long-term future? He's a great leader. He's an incredible football player. And then it happens again. It's just, It's very sad. It was crushing to see that that happened again. But that is another hard one because you're talking about a guy that desperately wants to come back and play. And he's an adult and can make decisions for himself, right?

But there's also a, like, you've got to take the keys away at some point, right? So they went to independent neurologists or whatever and tried to get every opinion that they can. But you just, it's football. You can't eliminate the possibility of going out there. but I understand what you're saying. And it happened more times than I've seen it happen before where guys early in the season where they came back into games and then like the Van Ginkle situation, there was a number of things kind of like that, very frustrating early in the year.

The Magic Man says, I need to explain how a hairline fracture is more likely to become broken than an appendage without a hairline fracture. We're beyond hope already in this chat. Oh, if you need to explain. Well, please do. I mean, I'm not a, I am not a doctor. And this is why talking about injuries, every time we talk about it, I say, I can't stand it because I'm not. And I don't know the difference between, you know, the possibility of a hairline fracture becoming, what did you say?

Becoming a, becoming broken. If, I mean, if that's a high possibility, see what he was saying in that clip, when he he said, let's ride was he insinuated that, you know, if there's not a chance that it could become broken. But if it can and if it does, then you are talking about setting him way back. It seems that they think it's more of a pain management issue with this particular thing. But it's a tough, it's a tough ask. I mean, I spend most of the time with X's and O's, analytics, salary caps, sometimes even those competitors. compensatory draft picks from time to time.

Those are where I spend most of my work, not on hairline fractures. So if you know more than I do, I'm certainly willing to listen. Let's see, Cade, give him reps, reps, reps, reps, whether meaningless or not, reps, reps, reps, fair enough. Fair enough take. I don't mind that. Let's see. Cade says, don't play any starters because of the risk of injury, never play another game

because of the risk of injury. okay you know you know what you're where you know what everyone's talking about i mean you're you're i know what you're doing there but this game does not have any implications and it is a serious concern for someone who has gotten hurt so many times that they could get hurt again and be set back in their off season when it is an incredibly important off season he needs to start day one not go to cancun day one back at tCO performance center or wherever he could throw a football with a brand new quarterback coach, maybe somebody who's had development success before. There is a local gentleman who's had success and has a documentary on Hulu.

I don't know if he'll be the guy or whoever it's going to be, but somebody who has coached NFL quarterbacks and throwing technique needs to be working with J.J. McCarthy every single day. There are rules. Kevin O'Connell can't have him come over to the house and take reps, I don't believe. So, you know, he's got, he's got to figure it out. And it goes back to what Kirk Cousins told me years ago. You have to develop yourself.

This is not a development league. And that's kind of my point about the numbers on J.J. McCarthy, which I can get to in a minute. But it's not a development league. It doesn't wait for anybody. It's not fair. It's not giving everybody as long as they want to figure it out. You kind of have to show it pretty quickly or, you know, teams move on. And sometimes, like when Malik Will,

I don't know. Tennessee looks kind of stupid for moving on because maybe they had their guy and he needed more time. And maybe, you know, if the Vikings bring in somebody else and that person wins a competition and, you know, way down the road, McCarthy makes him look stupid. Maybe like Sam Darnold. But even if you go back to the Jets where they were early in Darnold's career and the performance that he had, they couldn't stick around with that. They couldn't wait forever for him to figure it out. That's the unfortunate thing is that we all know that given a certain amount of time, given a certain amount of reps, given a certain circumstance, certain coaching, whatever, that someone like J.J. McCarthy could become a very good NFL quarterback. And that was really

standing out to me as Alex Smith was talking to Brock Purdy the other day. Brock Purdy played college football till he was 24. Alex Smith wasn't good until year five. But that opportunity to play college football more went out the window when McCarthy decided to come out for the draft to be the 10th pick, and Alex Smith, there was three different coaches during his first five years. And the Vikings don't want to have to do that. I mean, this year felt close enough. You were flying pretty close to the sun at 4 and 8, so, which I've got something on that, too. But, you know, you just can't wait around. So that's, it's something they have to consider. But, you know, your snarkiness about, you know, playing players.

It is risky to play anybody in an NFL game, but I think we all know that, you know, all these guys, if you get a hurt ankle or something and you're a linebacker, you'll probably be fine. But J.J. McCarthy needs to take massive steps forward in certain areas and cannot afford to be on the rehab table again. So that, I mean, that's another thing where, you know, Hunter's. said earlier, playing him has more bad results than good. And I think that that is true. Rob, remember 2022 when the Lions finished strong and 2023, the Packers finished strong.

Jordan Love's first season. This is the same thing. Well, I suppose you could make some argument about 2022 in the Lions because they started 1 and 6. But the thing about the Lions finishing strong, here's why it's not the same thing. The Lions tanked the previous year. Like, we need to contextualize these things. They tanked the previous year. And then they were really bad to start the season. And it looked like, man, this is just not going well.

This tank of theirs is this rebuild. And then a lot of things turned a corner for them. Ben Johnson started calling plays, I think, in the middle of that season. So they found their guy there. A lot of their young players had it click in. And their wins at the end of the season and beating the Packers at the end of that year was a proof of concept thing. Like, see, we are on the way up on the rise.

The Minnesota Vikings are not a team on the way up on the rise. They're not a team that tanked and is rebuilding with a bunch of young players who are spunky and all trying to figure it out. Not even close. This is a team of veteran star players across the board with a couple of young guys. Like, I'm excited to watch Jay Ward more

because he's actually done some pretty darn good things recently. I've really liked watching Jalen Redmond get better, and Dallas Turner has taken huge steps forward and maybe can close the season out on a strong note. But that's sort of it, man. Like the rest of these guys, Donovan Jackson is young, but the rest of these guys are veteran players who expected to be on a winning team.

And I've seen some goalpost moving and coping with, well, Vegas only had us at eight and a half. Oh, please, come on. Sure, they did because of quarterback uncertainty, but all of us expected this team to be on the final day of the season, at least competing for a playoff spot. And if they lost it, if McCarthy had a good year and threw 500 passes and in the last day of the season, they lost to the Packers, we would have said, darn, but at least it's going in a really good direction, right? That's not the feeling here. And 2023, is that the year that the Packers were like a playoff? away from the NFC championship, so that doesn't feel similar either.

I mean, look, all there is for this type of game is that these are a bunch of pros who want to win football games and getting above 500 looks better than being below 500 for the head coach. It feels a lot better for Kevin O'Connell to say I won the last five games, and I finished with a positive record despite some of the worst quarterback play this franchise has ever seen. So that's, that's all you're really playing for. and it's important to win for Harrison Smith

because if Harrison Smith is done in the NFL, you'd like him to go out in a victory over the Green Bay Packers. And the difference in draft slot, I think, is 17 or 18. Maybe they could be 18. Well, it doesn't matter. Like, you've already gone past go for, you know, the tanking type of stuff. But let's not pretend there's magical momentum for the end of a season. That is, I mean, I could show you a ton of teams that won their last X number of games

and it didn't carry over. There could be a new defensive coordinator. there could be 10 new players. There could be, like, it doesn't stand to any reason that the end of a season will matter for the beginning of the next season. Let's see. Jim, how many yards does Jets need? 53. 53.

So the counter will be on for 53. Adrian, the takeaways for this game. Get Jefferson is 1,000. See potentially the last game at 22. Right. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, these are important things.

These matter. Getting Harrison Smith, a pick would be awesome. Like, you know, picks are hard to come by, but jump any route, take any risk, whatever you need to do. Do the Van Ginkle thing, whatever you need to do. Try to do it in order to, you know, get that 40th interception. So I want to talk about something else a little curious to me. Let me give you that Fanduil question of the day again. The Fandual question of the day was,

excuse me, that the Ravens are three and a half point favorites against Pittsburgh on Sunday. Loser of the game may have serious consequences. Do you think that Flores is a candidate for the Ravens or Steelers job should someone lose their gig for losing that job? I tend to think the answer would be yes, that he would be for the Steelers. For the Ravens, I'm not as convinced, but if the Ravens lose and Lamar plays, it seems like a real possibility that they could move on from Lamar Jackson. I just don't think that that makes any sense at all, but the tension there is really interesting and pretty bizarre. Now, let me get to something that I saw today.

It was kind of buried in a pro football talk article about how many open head coaching positions there would be and making the case for different ones.