Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - JJ McCarthy trying to 'rewire' how he plays QB (Part 2)

Episode Date: November 20, 2025

Matthew Coller talks about JJ McCarthy's latest comments about relearning how to play the QB position at the pro level. KOC also addressed his throwing motion and Maggie Robinson joins to look around the NFL. 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.

This episode of Purple Insider is presented by Fandul. Let's see, Josh says his mind is right. He has the physical abilities. It's been five games, not sure how anyone could be out at this point. Well, I don't want to say, I don't want to say I'm not sure. I know how you could be out at this point. It's that you watch the game. As Chris Carter said on Twitter, do you watch the 59 minutes?

Yeah, I mean, if you watch the 59 minutes, you could be. be out on J.J. McCarthy. I mean, it's not fair to him to call it after five games. Of course, it's not. But we also can't be like, eh, I didn't see anything. Did you see anything? I mean, when the numbers are what they are, you have to feel like red flags are up. There's no way for me not to. To just, we can't just stick the head in the sand and be like, I don't know, wake me up in the end of 2026. I'm sure this will be okay when you're talking about performances like this with this many turnovers, this low of completion percentage, you start to get into a world of comparable quarterbacks where there's not a lot coming back from that. It's sort of like when a team

drafts a guy that weighs 140 pounds. You're like, could that work? Um, yeah, potentially. But what are the odds at, at some point, right? Um, reminder about that fan dual question of the day. The Vikings are 6.5 point underdogs. Would a win get you back in to thinking about the playoff race, the season back on? Would it get you fired back up for this team? Or are you just sorry, guys, we've gone too far. K. Plupy, my biggest fear is that JJ is too alike KOC.

Pre-draft KOC always mentioned, oh, no, that disappeared on me. I got too far behind the comments. Just, okay, to the point about being too alike, no, I mean, I don't think that that's the issue. I could see what you're saying is, okay, they're in a pre-draft meeting and they're just throwing footballs at each other and drawn on white boards and I'm seeing the same things you're seeing and you seem very coachable and you're really good with, you know, as a talker, communicator, which McCarthy's really good at. And so maybe you'd favor that versus someone like Bo Nix who's a little less talkative.

I get that. I mean, I think that the draft process of picking McCarthy instead of Nix, I mean, it makes a lot of sense still, even in hindsight, as well as Nix has the Denver Broncos playing. It still makes a lot of sense in hindsight to take the much, much younger player who you feel like his personality clicks with yours. And that's the thing, right? If it was working, then we would probably.

probably say, man, look how well they work together. And you know who else sounds like KOC is like a lot of quarterbacks. There's a lot of quarterbacks who are very similar to him and, uh, he's a quarterback himself. They speak the same language. They view things the same way. I think overall it's a positive. But I also think that today was the day where J.J. McCarthy kind of acknowledged. Yeah. I'm being asked to do a lot of things I've never done before. And, it's a struggle and that's what we're all seeing and I think living in that reality as opposed to denying that that's what's happening. I have definitely seen that before where you not necessarily here, but a quarterback gets asked about what's happening and they're like, I don't know what

you're talking about. It's going, you know, it's going fine. It's not my fault. Like if that's, if that's your attitude, that's going to be very tough for a young quarterback to succeed. But in this situation, that's not McCarthy. And I think that he's listening to KOC and I, you know, when you hear him talk, you hear a lot of those same coaching points the KOC's bringing up. That's all good to me. That, to me, that can't be bad. To me, that is, that is a good thing that he is listening to those coaching points and

understanding what's being coached, but it's probably just too much of having to improve on this, this, this, this, and this all at once. If it's just the top of the drops, if it's just the leg whip, if it's just the timing, if it's just the situational awareness and decision making with the football, if it's just the throw to the left side in a particular technique or something that he's using. But all of those at the same time, fixing them all at once in the middle of a season is really hard to do. By the way, Michael Parsons plays here in this league. for the team you're going up against next.

That's tough. That is quite tough. All right. Let me scroll. I got a little bit behind. I let the, you guys are great in the comments. You're asking great questions,

great comments, but sometimes hard for me to keep up. Try my best. Let's see, Joe says if KOC knew the issues, why don't you play him in the preseason? KOC failed the organization and fans by knowing he had bad fundamentals.

Okay, that's a little aggressive there. I mean, when it comes, look, a lot of guys come into the NFL with fundamentals that need to be changed. That is just the truth. And the plan when they drafted him was to have him work on those last year on the bench and in practice for an entire year. And he was not able to do that. So they had to make a decision. they got to a fork in the road and they had to make a decision. Do you tag Darnold, do you sign Rogers, or do you tell Daniel Jones your QB1?

Because I think Jones, if he knew that, then maybe he would have signed, although I think he understood if he goes to Indianapolis, he's winning that job because fans were completely out on Anthony Richardson. So, you know, I don't know, maybe whatever. Or even just bring in Joe Flacko or something. Like Joe Flackle in this offense is probably winning a fair number of games. Anybody that would have been more of the ilk of a starting quarterback. or with experience before, I mean, if,

if Lackos the quarterback last week, he throws for 300 yards, like everything was right there for him. Early in the season, though, you probably would have lost some games with the offensive line situation. But the point just being like, they had Sam Howell here. And then they grabbed Carson Wentz at the last minute. I don't know what you expected. But in terms of the preseason, so my thing on the preseason is,

I wanted him to play a full half in the preseason. Does that change where he's at now? No, no, I don't think so. I think in the past 10 years ago, 20 years ago, maybe you're from that era, we would have seen a young quarterback play a ton in the preseason, but they also would have been playing against ones and twos. Now, you throw JJ in there against twos and threes. Does that do a lot?

I mean, maybe, maybe a little bit. Does that help a ton? I doubt it. And then the other part is if JJ went and played a bunch in preseason and got hurt, then everyone would have lost their minds. And they had no net. That's the other part of it too is maybe they could have played him in preseason if Sam Howell wasn't the backup or if they knew that they were going to bring in Carson Wentz. Like those are not real backup options to actually try to compete. So that's another place where I think you could reasonably criticize and say, I mean, to have

no legitimate backup here that had any real, I mean, Wence, I thought, was probably as well as you could have done in August. Would have been nicer for him to get the whole offense under his feet if he had had the entire offseason. But they just, you know, there was no competition there. You couldn't afford for him to get hurt. And I don't know that preseason was going to change the fate. Now, as far as getting a guy that had fundamental issues, well, that's, there's been a lot

of quarterbacks drafted that had fundamental issues. In fact, I can't think of too many who've been drafted who were just flawless. You know, I thought Baker Mayfield fundamentally was really, really. good and he struggled as well early in his career. So I don't think that you can say, oh, well, you know, he had fundamental issues, so you shouldn't have drafted him and you failed the organization. I think what they thought was that they could take these fundamental issues and identify them properly, which I think from KOC's comments, very clearly, they did identify them properly and with the right plan that they could work with them.

And I will say that from the time that he got here until the time he got hurt in 2024, there were very large gains in that area. And that includes the preseason game that he played against the Raiders. There were very big gains. And then you hit the stop sign and went back to square one. And it still was, you know, OTAs, I think, where they decided to say or somewhere in there, where they decided to say no to Aaron. and Rogers, who knows how that would have ended up playing out here if Rogers was a Viking,

but they had seen at least something there that made them feel better about where the mechanics were headed. And that's the whole practice versus in the games type of thing. The fact that it's happening in practice makes you think it's possible for it to happen in the games with more opportunities. So I don't want to say yet that everything has been a total failure or something like that. Folks, maybe you haven't started your holiday shopping yet, but those holidays sneak up on you fast. So let me give you some advice.

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Prescription required. See website for full details, restrictions, and safety information. Lori. What role does KOC Wes and Josh have in JJ's development? Maybe they need a new QB coach. I promise you they don't need a new QB coach. They've got, I think that one of the best guys in the world for this assignment, which is Josh McCown. He's been around so many quarterbacks in his time, knows quarterbacking inside and out and is working hand in hand with Kevin O'Connell.

When it comes to this, you can't do, you just can't do much better than this for a coaching staff. That's also how I look at it too. If it was Cam Ward, I'd be like, fire somebody, which they did. but because you don't have people with any real track record and it's the guys out there drowning and it's a huge struggle and okay like they just move on and see what you could find for next year to pair them with somebody better example probably is uh chicago with iber flus like this guy doesn't know quarterback play they brought in a coach who decided he was going to try to implement usc's offense and that was a mess and all that sort of stuff right uh this is not that group

This is the same group that won 14 games last year with Sam Darnold. So I would not be thinking about, oh, well, it must be the QB coach. And that's what happens when you struggle is we start looking around for all these different things. Well, what happened in the draft? Well, who was coaching him? What happened? This is actually the hardest part of this whole discussion is that the answers are really simple. They're right in front of us.

McCarthy in the games cannot execute based. stuff that starting NFL quarterbacks get 90% of the time. And he also has done it enough in practice for them to think that he can. And we've only seen five games of it.

So we wait. And we find out if he can or not. And some of us do podcasts every single day. So we try to break down as best as we can with some patience. But we're going to look at every

single game through the lens of did you get closer or farther away or the same to that spot of where you need to be when it comes to those basic NFL quarterback things. Kurt says I have a feeling that when it clicks, it's going to click to be mid a great production. I still have a lot of hope. Yeah, I mean, that's the point I think overall is that we don't know. if it's going to click. And if it does, we've seen the flash stuff that he's able to do with his athleticism, with his ability to run the ball,

with his ability to even layer a ball into the back of the end zone for Jalen Naylor or, you know, drop one in 60-something yards down the field or hit into a tight window like he did on that throw over the middle to Justin Jefferson. I don't know if there's really a tight window necessarily, but it was a tight coverage. and he made a really good throw there. I mean, you've seen those things that you can circle on the tape and go, hey, this is it.

But does it get more consistent? That's the thing that we just won't really know. KFT wondering if McCarthy's hand played a part in his accuracy when he hit the helmet against the Ravens going forward. It hasn't been good. You know, I don't know. If, I mean, guys hit their hands on helmets. Like, I don't know.

I can't say that because I didn't think he was accurate against Chicago the first time or against Atlanta or really against Detroit. I mean, there were some plays where he was and some plays where he was super erratic. I think maybe, but I didn't see that as really the problem is the even the actual throw. It was you could identify so clearly where the technical problems were on the tape that it didn't look like it was the hand. it looks like it's the feet the timing the timing to me is something that anybody can see footwork that might be a little out of my depth sometimes unless it's obvious sometimes it is timing though timing anybody can see just that you've seen kirk throw 50 passes this way you've seen darnold throw 50 passes this way we saw nick mullen throw 50 passes this way a guy

comes out of his break he's almost out of it carson wents hit a bunch of these throws the ball goes up in the air. The guy hits his break. It lands in his hands. I mean, those are the ones that are the straightforward. Everybody knows that's when the ball is supposed to come out and it's not coming out. So I don't think that has a lot to do with the hand. KFC says Tom Brady said that when the ball still sails, it's from his hand coming forward and that message deleted on me. Yeah, well, like when it comes to just the, even if we look at the way Tom Brady through the football, shoulders were usually square to his target, not always the case with McCarthy,

the stride. Actually, Tom Brady could over stride sometimes, but the stride was pretty short for Tom Brady, and we're seeing a very long stride. But the biggest thing for him for Brady when he became really great was those anticipation type of throws. And that's just, that's something that does take a lot of time,

the anticipation throws. So, uh, Digit says the mechanic. and touch will take another year. This was known at the draft. It was known at the draft, but I also think that the expectation when you get drafted is that it gets better. Just because it was known at the draft doesn't mean it's going to improve. It means that it's going to make or break you. That's what it really is. I mean, this was this was Mahomes.

When Mahomes came out, it was either the footwork, which was really poor at Texas Tech, was going to make or break him. He was either going to fix it and figure it out and learn how to play in the structure or he was going to fail. And he learned how to play in the structure and succeeded. But that was why he wasn't the number one overall pick is because his footworks and mechanics were really messy and he fixed it. Maverick says the Vikings need to stop saving, trying to save money at the quarterback position.

Who gives a F about the rookie scale contract? That would be, that would be me. That was kind of my thing for many years. notice they didn't win with a decent quarterback play that was very expensive. It's the right plan. The right plan the whole time was to draft a quarterback and build this roster. And now that you've seen it healthy, I think it's very evident how good this roster actually is.

The O line? It's fantastic. The D line's been improving. Alan and Hargrave, I think once they figured some things out there have been a lot better. Van Ginkle comes back. They're fantastic. Cashman comes back.

They're fantastic. like it's a really good roster that you could win with with average quarterback play. Their bet was that they would have average quarterback play and they haven't. It's really not that complicated. Paying a gazillion dollars at the quarterback position restricts that. Now, I think the conversation might be different if you were talking about a one-year franchise tag for Sam Darnold. Now, that's different because then if you want to sign people,

you could kick money further down the road and fit in a franchise tag the way you structured some of the contracts. You could do that. And I can also find you $41 million that they spent this offseason on guys who have not performed to the level that they expected. So, but in terms of the idea, the plan has worked so many times in the NFL, this was the right way to go from the minute they got here, but it's not working right now. It's also not over.

The entire thing is not over yet. For me, the entire thing is over. probably next year. If they don't make this work next year, then this group will get broken up to some extent. I mean, you're still going to have Darrisaw and you're still going to have Jefferson in their prime. But trying to look three years from now,

you know, Donovan Jackson has been very good. Will Fries, you know, but trying to look three years from now is almost impossible. But for two years, this was the window that they created. And so far, they are 0 for one. but I don't think we could declare it after 10 games of the of the first part of the window. All right. Let's see. I mean, KFT, you know, I did ban the use of Peyton Manning and Josh Allen, for examples.

I didn't ban the use of Brad Johnson, but Brad Johnson is a pretty bad example to try to compare J.J. McCarthy because first of all, he was a basketball player in college. Second of all, he was like a ninth round draft pick or something. And he got all sorts of time to develop behind other quarterbacks just in a totally different era. The problem with trying to use examples, I would actually suggest not doing it. Just don't do it. Just don't try. Because the problem is that for every one guy who took massive accuracy issues and turned them around, there's 15 guys that didn't so that's a hard road to go down the road that you have to go down is this guy in particular when you hear him talk about what he needs to do when you hear the self

awareness the self-assessment that he goes into practice and he gets it and these are the things that he has to do in order to get there and each week when he goes out there he's going to be focused on those and they're in his head of don't try to do too much 80% on the football, high posture, situational awareness, and if he knows all those things, and he's aware of them, and he's got the raw skills to be really good, that eventually it'll start to come together. That's what you have to hope for, because the comps right now are not good and not good. So you can reach for whoever you want to reach for if you want, but that's a, that's a, that's a losing

game, I think, overall, especially when you have a situation around him that is like this. uh jack says you'd rather go five and twelve than seven and ten the hard part about that is that if you go five and twelve well look actually you know let's let's work our way through this let me give you the fan dual question of the day to those who may be just joining which is the vikings are six and a half point underdogs to green bay would a win in green bay bring you back to the minnesota vikings of 2025 would it make you buy in again to the chance of them turning this season around. Let's work through this. It's an interesting comment. Would you rather go 5 and 12 or 7 and 10? If you go 5 and 12, it means J.J. McCarthy was horrible. In that outcome, you know that you cannot go into next season with him locked in as your starting quarterback. He could be in a competition, but he cannot be. That's Anthony. Richardson, that's Trey Lance territory, that's Josh Rosen territory, where it's so poor that you just need to be looking for other options this offseason. It probably means a lot of other people

didn't play that well, which is not great. It probably, you know, if there's injuries or the defense struggles, but those things, those things can be dealt with. The quarterback position, nothing is more important than that. That would give you a lot of clarity if they were five and 12. It would make it crystal clear that you need to be looking for another quarterback and then that's what they're on the market for and we see what happens from there. If they go 7 and 10, what it really depends on is how it looks because that means 3 and 4 the rest of the way. I think 7 and 10 comes with asterisks. There's no way you can go 5 and 12 and only win one game the rest of the way and your quarterback was decent. That means it's horrible and you know what

you're going to do. If you were talking about them going 7 and 10 and a scenario where they lose some close games, let's say it's a shootout against the Cowboys. It's a shootout against Detroit and you lose 34, 31. And in the last game of the season, you fall to Green Bay, 2724. J.J. McCarthy goes for 240 yards, two touchdowns, one pick, runs for 40 more yards, looks really good. good. Well, then that's still a good outcome to go, yeah, it drops you in the draft, but who cares? Your quarterback looks like he's your guy, even if he lost some close games toward the end. If you're 7 and 10, and the only reason you get there is that you pick off, I don't know, James Winston five times, and you win in New York, and you get a game-winning

field goal to win 14 to 13 against, that would be a, uh, an interesting situation, but let's just say it. 14, 13 against the Packers. I mean, then where are you at? You're like, okay, some good things, some bad things from McCarthy. Mostly just the turnover luck changed in the middle of the season and mostly the defense was good, but he had this game and but he had that game. And then you're having the same conversations that they had during, you know,

Christian Ponder. So a 7 and 10 would have to really depend on how. it actually looked. Jack, I guess KOC isn't a quarterback guru. I think you guys should all appreciate how much you've learned about quarterback play from KOC this year. I've said it a million times. Kevin O'Connell knows as much about quarterback play and thinks as much about quarterback play and has been in worlds that you guys, us don't even sniff the air of.

just, you know, he's friends with Tom Brady, just for example, right? I think it's the first thing that he thinks of when he wakes up. I think it's the last thing when he goes to bed. I think it's the thing that he talks with most people about. He is in that universe that is in the 99.99.999 percentile of understanding this position. But he is not a miracle worker. It's just like, it's just like doctors. They understand biology way better than you do.

But if you're not going to make it, you're not going to make it. That's how it is with the quarterback. I think that no one's going to give him a better chance than Kevin O'Connell. But I went through this in one of my articles. Bill Walsh, the all-time quarterback whisperer, drafted Jim Drunkabiller. and the guy who named his book, Quarterback Whisperer, left out Tim Couch. And he coached Tim Couch, left him out of the book.

Weird. He included Carson Palmer. He included Andrew Luck. But he didn't include Tim Couch. That's interesting. Nobody's a miracle worker. Kyle Shanahan drafted Tray Lance, not a miracle worker. It doesn't work that way.

There's only so much. you could do. And I think now, this is where I got to today. I got to this point today. And I want to get to more of your comments. I do. I know what happens to me. I get a good comment and then just run away with it. I got to a point today where I felt like this. Kevin O'Connell, Josh McCown, the offense, the players, the linemen, the defense. They've given J.J. McCarthy, everything he needs and it is entirely up to him whether he takes the ball from here and becomes a good quarterback or whether he does not and it is really unfortunate that there is so much pressure to do so in seven games the rest of the way and show that he could be

the guy or in two years which is probably what you really get in the NFL to show your first franchise and if it takes any longer than this year and next off off season, then you're probably talking about him playing for another football team. That is the unfortunate reality of how this thing has to work, but it's really on his shoulders. You either are going to make it or you're not. You've got all the tools to work with here. You've been given all the training lessons. We have sat there through the classes that Kevin O'Connell has put on about here is how

a quarterback is supposed to throw the football. Here is how it's supposed to happen. Here is when it's supposed to happen. Here is the posture you're supposed to have. here is the the eyes you're supposed to have and here is the decisions you're supposed to make and all those things and he has laid it out for us. It's on one guy, whether it's going to click or not. And none of us really know right now, but that's where I got to today.

There's no more, well, what if he schemed this or what if Justin's school wasn't playing? Or what if they, you know, got rid of their quarterbacks, coach. No, no, no, not anymore. Not anymore. We've seen every different iteration and scenario. now it's on to the next seven games and whether you can actually get there or not. I shot you 99.

I know this is a little unrelated, but Shadur Sanders never got first team reps as a backup. Is that normal? Is Brozmer getting first team reps? No, Brosmer is not getting first team reps. And yes, that is a gazillion percent normal. Yep. Every backup quarterback and one of my very good friends,

say Drozenfels, who gets shouted out in this show all the time. I learned so much from him about quarterback play. Sage was a backup for most of his career. Nope. You do not get first team reps. I mean, every once in a while, but not like half of them or a ton of them. It's going to depend by the team. I'm sure if it was Joe Flacco is the starter. If they had a young quarterback they were trying to develop, they would mix them in. But most likely, no, you're not getting those starting reps. And the quarterback that's the backup is working with the scout team. So what Max Brosmer is, doing is he is taking in the opposing team's offense and trying to learn their offense so he can give the defense a look at what their concepts are. So let's say, hey, this is a team that loves to run, you know, I don't know, double slants or something, which is make up whatever. This team loves running double slants on third downs.

So we're going to practice that. So Max Rosmer has to come in and that week he has to learn, oh, they love to run double slants. We're going to practice this a lot. Here's the key core concepts to that play, and you have to learn them, and you're going to show the defense. And that's what you're doing for most of the practice. You're not going over and taking first team reps with Justin Jefferson. The first time you talk to Justin Jefferson would be in the huddle when you win in the game. But if you're a great backup quarterback, what you're doing is you are also learning, and you have to, obviously, but you're learning inside and out your own game plan.

and you are taking the mental reps when you watch the tape back, because they get all the tape of the practice, so they could go back and watch the starting quarterback, take all those plays, and you got your reps when it came to training camp, and so you are prepared to go when you get out there. There is no excuse for Shradur Sanders. Every backup quarterback who's ever had to come in the game

has had to go in there without a bunch of first team reps during practice. And Sage one time came back from down 21 points, as a Miami Dolphid to beat the bills. It is possible. Shardur is also a fifth round quarterback who is a rookie, and I think the expectations for him were just grotesquely high because his name is Sanders and the media people who yell about stuff know that his name moves the needle.

I think it's unfair to him a little bit. It's a little bit of the bet he made. He didn't look very prepared to me. That's on him to be prepared. But no, Brosmer's not getting first team reps. And if he becomes the starter, than he will. Weird controversy to me, though. Weird controversy. Just kind of a, there's people who, and this goes for McCarthy, goes for every quarterback. Uh, this happened a lot with Kirk, where no

matter what happens, it's not their fault. And that's not, this is not one of those shows. This is not one of those shows. Maverick signed Mack Jones in the off season. His stats are great this year. Mac is not a free agent. So that is the hard part about it. is Mac is a, under contract with San Francisco. He does have good numbers this year in terms of PFF. He's 11th best quarterback by PFF. We do know that that system is very helpful, but also Darnold was good there.

Darnold was good here. So there, you know, it's probably a crossover. So, you know, I think that there is no better option that I can find. than Mac Jones, but it would require them trading something over there. And I guess that will be really dependent on how they feel about McCarthy. If you have to, because there will be other offers for Mac Jones to the 49ers, if you have to trade something fairly significant to get Mac Jones, if they do that, it tells you everything you need to know.

But I'm guessing that we'll already know everything we need to know by the end of this season of where it stands. Aaron says too early to tell McCarthy's only played five games. It's bad. Let's give it a few years. I can't give it a few years. There's just not a few years to give. That's the problem, right? There's just not a few years to give.

In a theoretical ideal world, what you would do is you would take this roster and you'd freeze it. And you'd say, JJ, you'd freeze them in time. Play with these guys, a bunch of games. 30 games and just keep getting better and keep getting better. And no one age, turn injuries off, turn age off, keep resetting the system. Can you do that still? Keep hitting the reset button and Justa Jefferson stays 26 years old forever. You can't do that.

There's only so many years you get Justa Jefferson on your team in his prime. So you have to make decisions based on timelines. If you could get, it would be great. Look, I was watching a thing on Warren Moon the other day. And this is just how unfair the situation is. I was watching the thing on Warren Moon. He went to the CFL first, and he won like five championships or something absurd in the CFL before he ever came to the NFL.

And even then, it wasn't right away that he was the megastar. It took some time. For a guy who had played in the CFL, how about the USFL, Jim Kelly? I think he came into the NFL at 26 years old. How about Kurt Warner, playing a bunch of different? different places, practice squads and Iowa born, barnstormers or something. I mean, whatever it was. And then he comes into the NFL, I think it, what, 27?

Steve Young, USFL, Tampa Bay Bucks, gets to San Francisco. He's the backup for a while. There's so many examples of this. And if only you had the time to do it. But they really don't with this situation. Now, in a different world, if you kind of knew where this was going to be at, that's why you would try to have someone else be the starting quarterback for this I also think that that situation is not as realistic as even you could talk about

because if you had another quarterback here and they struggled at all through this season with all the early season injuries, that the pressure is going to ramp up there to put in McCarthy. So, I mean, I think that would have. Now, of course, you can't let, you know, the pressure make decisions for you, but that comes from all places that, you know, that might come from up top, that might come from the front office. Like, all right, okay, well, when are we, you know, when are you going to get the kid in there? Everyone wants to see the kid. Everybody loved this decision to move on from Sam Darnold after he struggled in the playoff game. And now it's like, wait a minute. What were they doing?

Well, you know, I think at the time, they probably had some of the same reaction as you, but they also thought we better get to find it out. We better get to find it out because if you don't and you you franchise tag Darnold, let him go after this year and then turn it over to JJ next year and it doesn't go well, well, then, I mean, that's a different world that if you wasn't ready then, what are you looking at? Then you're looking at wasting the whole thing. At least now, I don't think the whole thing's been wasted. I just think the first 10 games of it have not produced what it was supposed to, but it's not like everybody has to retire after next year. If you only, my point is J.J. McCarthy, if he had five years, this is the

hard part about being him. It's, it's the unfair, unfortunate truth is that, You just don't have that long. That doesn't mean he has to retire in his career someday might not work out if he struggles the rest of the season. But it means the franchise has to do what they've got to do. They're just too good. They've got to look at other positions or other players because of the position that they're in. So anyway, let's see. Mayfield like Darno played for horrible teams.

McCarthy hasn't experienced that. Well, right, that's the thing is when we're, that's why. I'm sort of like let's just ban the comparisons because they're they're hard to make work any of the comparisons are hard to make work if someone gives me a really good one we'll go with it but I'm having trouble finding one that's that's similar enough to this where it works out because like you said mayfield when he had a good team won a playoff game and was very close to winning another one he was really close to beating kansas city chad freaking henny had to convert a fourth down in order for mayfield not to have another playoff win in Cleveland.

So, you know, he was, and by his second year, he was pretty good. So it's not like he never showed anything. John, who gives a crap about his age? Who are we talking about here? Oh, are we talking about Brozmer? Oh, okay. Yeah, John advocating for Brosmer about the age. Look, you're not going to get.

me to say a bad thing about Max Brosmer. I've been so impressed. But J.J. McCarthy, the tools that he possesses is the stuff of a franchise level quarterback. And you got to find out whether you can bring that all together and have him play like a franchise level quarterback. With Brosmer, the physical tools are not of the same level. Now, that doesn't mean he can't someday be a started quarterback and be good in this league. There have, you know, the purple purdy people. But again, with comps, like good luck finding too many more of that. But I like Brosmer as much as everybody.

I think that he could be a quarterback in the NFL for a long time. But you've got to see with McCarthy because if it clicks, that athleticism, that arm talent, it puts him in an echelon that is different, that is with the better quarterbacks in the league. he has the tools that match up with top guys. He has to bring them together. And unfortunately for him, he's got to bring it together pretty fast. Let's see, NTV, are you giving him 30 games?

I don't think it's, I mean, look, I'd love to give him five years. I'm not the one giving. I'm not the one giving the games. It's the people who are upstairs that own a lot of stuff. And that includes the Minnesota Vikings that, that can't sit here and write checks at this level for players like Derisaw and Jefferson and Grenard and Van Ginkle. Van Ginkle's, you know, 31 years old.

And Jefferson, I mean, he's going to be good for a long time, but you can't, 30 games is like, you know, two full seasons. I don't know if you could give him that many. When he's, when he missed five this year already. So when is 30 games, it's like the end of next year. If he plays every game, is it how let's see if he played the rest this year it would add up to 12 and then yeah it's 29 the end of next year i don't think you could do that if you get to the end of this year

and they go 5 and 12 then you got to look at quarterback competition for next year in training camp you're already there you're already there because even though yes he gets the excuse of missing the time the explanation of missing the time it's also year you know year three already and this is the year you timed out to have this really good roster also hey by the way there's a number of teams who have won a lot of games without great quarterback play this year san francisco is one of them good quarterback play great defense good weapons bow nix is one of them some people act like nix has been horrible this year or something i don't see that 14th by pff but indianapolis i mean i

I mean, Daniel Jones has been really good, but he's 18th by PFF, 15 touchdowns, seven picks. He's got more turnover worthy plays than big time throws, but his team is great. This is happening around the league where you've got pretty okay players who are leading teams to a lot of wins because of the roster and because no one is just crushing the rest of the league. I mean, Jalen Hertz, has he been good this year? Where is he? he must be way down there jalen hertz hasn't been good they're winning games with a great defense i don't think golf's had a great season it's good but it's not it's not MVP level so 30 games is tough to give i think you give the next seven games and then you decide on a fork in

the road you either go the direction of competition other options and you're not getting rid of him or you're going to the direction of, hey, he's our guy. And those are the options. 30 games would be fair, but it's not a fair world, unfortunately. Yeah, we're still trying Josh Allen comps, just going to move on from that. It just doesn't make Trent Dilfer won a Super Bowl. Now we're just getting sad.

Now we're just getting sad. Same as Brad Johnson. Yep, 25 years ago. Come on, guys. Yep, that's tough. That's tough when we're getting to the extreme outliers. The thing is, though, that Brad Johnson is way the hell better than what we're seeing here. This isn't even close to Brad Johnson.

I mean, this isn't, this isn't, this isn't starting level play. It's not even close. This is closer right now. this, I don't, I don't mean to be insulting. The facts are the facts. This is closer to Jimmy Clausen that it is Brad Johnson. That's just the facts of five games. Doesn't mean it needs to go that way, but we got to be realistic here when we're trying

to make the comparisons about what, you know, they need. But your point about, you know, Brad Johnson or Trent Dilfer is probably valid if we're looking at for next year, where do you set the bar? Like, what does he need to be? What does he need to convince you he needs to? to be. It's not perfect. That's a good question is like how good does it need to be by the end of the seven games? I mean, much better than it is now. Enormous gains to get to that point. But it doesn't need to be perfect. Out of seven games the rest of the way, in order to not bring in somebody

else, you'd need like six of them to be great. In order to bring in somebody else to compete with him, but still leaning J.J. McCarthy is probably four really good games with major technical improvements, but if it's, if it's two good games, I know that he won in Detroit and I thought he played well in a lot of ways, but there hasn't been a good game yet, not by true NFL standards. There hasn't been a 250 yards, three touchdowns, no picks, 120 quarterback rating, 24 to 10 win. There hasn't been one of those.

in five games. So that makes it pretty tough to sit here and say, oh, well, you know, he could just get to average pretty quickly. That's hard to do. But maybe you guys were talking about, you know, something else in there, too. So anyway, does anybody want to talk about my upcoming Donovan Jackson article? Probably not. But I am impressed with Donovan Jackson.

it that's you know i that's one of the things about this season that is now hard is it's going to feel like talking about anything else on the team talking about the matchup they play the packers this week you guys thinking about the packers like it just it feels like everything now is funneled toward one person because it's so important to what happens next and that makes sometimes these weeks are going to be filled with a lot, a lot, a lot of of J.J. McCarthy talk. So that's why every week is going to be a new amount of information and we'll see what we come up with after this game in Green Bay. Thank you so much, John, for the super chat. Really appreciate that says thank you for vocalizing that the Vikings are expected

to win with McCarthy and that anything else is a lie. Honestly, that goes a long way. Well, I mean, I, in this offseason, the way that they acted, there was not a whole lot of, hey, guys, this could be a slow progression type of year. That was last year. And I think we all accepted that that was last year. They weren't supposed to win 14 games. But if they had won seven with Darnold and McCarthy was developing behind him and then came in at the end of the year and didn't play well, we'd be like, fine. That's fine. Last year was the development year, not this year. That doesn't mean that this is the only year, though. There we go. Donovan is the best draft pick they've made under Quasi. There we go.

I comment about something else. Thank you. Who is this? T6. I salute you. So impressed with Donovan Jackson. You want to know what I talked about with him? This is what we'll end the show on.

I had a really good conversation with Donovan about his personality and how he, I think, really enjoys the learning process and of going back through what worked and what didn't work and building on that. And so what we were talking about was how when you look at mistakes that you make on tape, he said that he'll see some plays he makes and go, hey, man, that's not me. That's, I got to be better than that. I got to fix that. And he's been very, very good. KOC said this about him today, very, very good at taking anything that he needs to correct and just fixing it and fixing it and fixing it. And that's what the great offensive linemen are. I kind of made a joke to Brian O'Neill today after I was done interviewing

him like, a lot going on up there in the offensive line. So much technique, so many different looks, so many types of different players. And it takes a really long time for a young offensive lineman to just see those things, right? But if you have this intellectual approach, which, let me tell you, don't ever talk trash to an offensive lineman. They're usually the most clever guys up there on the field. These are the smartest guys in the NFL a lot of times because, and they're also the biggest and the scariest sometimes. But they're usually like the brightest guys because they have to see so many things

and they have to have so many techniques and they have to understand all the things that are going on in the field, all the things about defense. I swear some of these offensive linemen could coach defense because they know so much about it. They might know more about it than some defensive coaches. It's because they have to understand everything that's going on over there in order to do their jobs, which requires a studier's type of approach. And Donovan Jacks is that kind of guy. And I also asked him, he had a very interesting question or a very interesting answer to my question.

I asked Donovan, and this article is going to come out, Purple Insider, dot football a little later this week. and I asked him about he's a very friendly person. It's very polite, very nice to deal with. I mean, great guy to talk with. And I said, you know, Donovan, you seem pretty nice. Like, your tape's not nice, though. Like, you're nasty.

You're knocking people over. You're playing super physical. I'm like, what's the, is there a light that goes on? Or like, what is that? He had a great answer to this. Might be the best answer I've ever heard to this. Because I set him up with an easy. he could say, oh, I'm a different guy when I go out there.

I go crazy, like, but that's not what he said. He said that if you do it right technically and you play the way you're supposed to be coached to play, so you're using your hands aggressively, violently, and you're in the right position to use them like that and to create power, it'll look like you're nasty out there and you're finishing blocks the way you're supposed to. It will look like you're taking your, game to a different level of violence when you're really just doing it the right way. And I was like, that is a very interesting answer, my friend. So he said, you know, I'm not a crazy person.

I'm just trying to do it right. So that's paraphrasing, but that's kind of what he said. I've been so impressed with Donovan, so impressed with him. There's going to be some tough games coming up here. Holy cow, the Seahawks, Interior D-line. They got monsters. There's beasts on the way. Detroit's got some beasts.

but I this is this is a dude that I think is really built for this Donovan Jackson and you know that whole wrist thing that was tough too but you got to be a fighter up there as well through through pain and stuff so yeah I mean that's a that's a good draft pick for them and it the way that he's developing could be a great draft pick for them but I think that's the one thing is personality plays big into it and to tie it all back to McCarthy you know we heard from him today being aware of what you need to fix a change is a big step. And that was kind of my main takeaway from today. So tomorrow, Ben Gessling will be on the show.

This is going to run on the YouTube page and on the podcast tomorrow morning. Ben Gessling, Maggie Robinson's got her rundown. We had to readjust her timing for this week because she's actually doing really, really well in her grad program. So we had to readjust for great reasons. And let's see, we got... manny hill picking the schedule that will be interesting and then our friday hardcore breakdown with andrew kramer so a lot still to come on the show i really appreciate the respectful chat um i think uh you guys

in this world in this purple inside or little space have done a phenomenal job in my chat of being reasonable sharing your opinions and viewpoints and asking good questions and things like that i know social media can be a horror show especially if you're a cuby guru but uh a lot of you, unlike that fella, we're able to contain yourselves and offer some really good stuff for tonight. So thanks for that. I really appreciate it. Makes this job a lot more fun when I know that things in Vikings universe could not be described presently as fun. So thanks for that. And go over to purple insider dot football. I'll have that Donovan Jackson article coming pretty soon, a little later in the week. Got to work on it. And some thoughts on J.J. McCarthy and

what he had to say today, and we'll go from there. So thanks again, everybody, for popping in, and we will catch you all later. Football.