Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - JJ McCarthy will return to practice -- What happens next? (Part 1)

Episode Date: October 7, 2025

Matthew Coller talks about Kevin O'Connell's comments regarding JJ McCarthy coming back to practice and what he wants to see from his QB. Plus 3 other players will return. 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, Matthew Collar, here. And I was a little bit surprised this afternoon when, or I guess it was this morning when we received an email from the Vikings saying Kevin O'Connell was going to talk. I thought that they might give the man a chance to catch a nap after coming back from London. But we've got a lot to talk about here on Purple Insider presented by fans. Duel as always. We've got Kevin O'Connell's answer to my question about what he wants to see from J.J. McCarthy as he returns from practice also or to practice. And also Blake Cashman and Donovan Jackson as well are expected to practice this week. And Michael Juergens will be back, although it seemed like the door was left open, potentially for Blake Brandel to continue at

center, which is something that I want to discuss. So for the first hour, we're going to talk about the comments from Kevin O'Connell, what it means to have beaten the Cleveland Browns and the outlook as we go forward into the by week here. And then at 7.30, I will be joined, as always, by Brian Murphy and Manny Hill. So let's have a good conversation. You could jump in, start with your questions and comments into the comment section, but I don't want to waste too much time here. I want to bring you O'Connell's most, I thought, insightful thoughts about what

he needs to see from J.J. McCarthy as he gets back into practice. And just to spoil today's press conference, he did not come out and say, guys, I'm starting McCarthy or Wentz against the Philadelphia Eagles because you know what? He doesn't have to at this moment. He doesn't have to tell us what he's going to do. And I actually thought from listening to these comments that it's quite possible that he doesn't know yet what he wants. to do. So tell me if you have the same interpretation. Here is O'Connell on J.J. McCarthy returning to practice. Just in terms of J.J., getting back to practice, what are you looking for from him over these next week and a half, two weeks? Yeah, I think it's a good opportunity

to get back to, you know, the, he's had some real moments of growth through this time. I think watching Carson, I think watching the way Carson's kind of gone through progressions quickly, just the value of putting the ball in play, even when it's not your first progression, even when it's not the most exciting completion of all time, and you're getting to TJ off of a little nudge and a protection to help here or there. And TJ's kind of a checkdown element.

TJ's catching some of those balls. He had one on the touchdown drive at the end, where he caught just a simple ball over the middle and went for 14 with some really good run after catch. So I think he's kind of taken a lot of that of just watching it closely in my dialogue with him. But I think it's going to be the most critical part is going to be technique and fundamentals of playing the position, the way he worked so hard to build up throughout the spring in the summer, getting him back into kind of the mandatory nature of certain things from a fundamental standpoint

that will only help him perform at a high level. So I think it's going to be more about the physical side of his lower body, mechanics and then just trying to put together a game plan for him throughout the practices of like how much can he do? What's the soreness level coming out of practices to be able to try to have the most consistent level of a ramp up we can with him. So there you go. Kevin O'Connell, I think with a lot there to break down. I mean, he starts out by talking about how J.J. McCarthy can look at what we've seen from Carson Wentz and learn quite a bit. And the biggest, area that I think we all identified that he needed to learn from with Wentz is getting rid of

the football. That once again, and this is in part because of the head coach's scheme that was, I think, much improved last week against the Cleveland Browns. But when we look at Wentz, two of his games, he's getting rid of the ball at around or below two and a half seconds. And that is the standard in the NFL for if you could get rid of the ball in less than two and a half seconds, you can beat the pass rush. Normally when it comes to sacks, it takes at least 2.753, a little over three to get sacks in the NFL. Just think about someone in the shotgun and how long it takes unless they immediately blast through. So if you could get rid of the ball quickly and we saw this from Wentz and from KOC's play calling in this last game, Miles Garrett had two pressures in

this game two pressures and was that because miles garrett could not beat just in school uh i don't think so they they lined him up over school on the right side even sometimes to get him away from christian derisal or try to get him away from where the tight ends were aligning and here he would go right around the court and the ball was out time and time again in that game and some of it of course does go to o'connell reading the room and realizing we're in a lot of trouble if my guy takes a nine-step drop-back and looks for a comeback route 23 yards down the field. So we better get it out of his hands. But also, Carson Wentz, as we've seen from the last couple games, was pretty good at seeing

things and getting rid of it, especially if he could identify the coverage pre-snap and have a good sense of where the ball was going. There were many times where he hit the back foot, released the football. I was just watching the tape earlier today. and Justin Jefferson's not even out of his break yet, and then he's turning and the balls hitting him. That is all rhythm and timing, which Kevin O'Connell talks about all the time,

but you have to be able to execute it, right? You have to be able to see where you're supposed to go, and you have to be able to get the footwork. And as you heard O'Connell say, and I'm going to play it again so you can listen closely because sometimes there's a lot of words in O'Connell's comment. So I want to play it again just for everybody to hear. hear it because he really went into great detail there, like sometimes, and I remember saying

that when an offense is functioning well for Kevin O'Connell, that means T.J. Hawkinson is getting the football. And even though he was chipping all day long yesterday, Hawkinson still contributed on a couple of big plays. And the one he's talking about, he gives a nudge to, I think, Miles Garrett, and then he leaks over the middle. And there's a quick little checkdown that ends up going for 14 yards. This is just good decision making, getting through reads fast, identifying where your open places in the defense are going to be, which is what J.J. McCarthy has to do if and when he comes back. And I got the sense from those comments, at least the feeling, and this is only from O'Connell's way of speaking about this, that he wants to watch first what

J.J. McCarthy is taken away from the last few weeks and where he's at with the footwork and the fundamentals. When he called it critical about the fundamentals, that means as they get him back into practice, focusing, hyper-focusing on those things for McCarthy before making this decision. Now, I don't know that if it's already made or not of what he's going to do, whether he's going to put him back in or whether he's going to stay with Carson Wentz, but at least from the way that he skated all of those things that he wants to see from McCarthy, it sounded to me like, let me see where he's at. That's what I was hearing from that. Let me see where J.J. McCarthy is at with learning from Carson Wentz, watching how he operated the offense, which at a lot of times

over these last three games has been really excellent. And there's been some other times where he tries to go one on two against two linebackers and he gets slammed in the shoulder and has to leave the game or he holds on to the ball too long or whatever it might be. There's been some ugly moments, some throws behind receivers and all that. They didn't go three and oh. But there's also been a lot of really good stuff that's just veteran quarterback play. And when you look at the breakdown of the, just for example, the PFF grades versus how many yards they were able to pick up in these last couple weeks, Wence isn't blown

anybody out of the water with his grade. Yet his expected points added is above average in the NFL for starting quarterbacks. What does that say to us when the production is higher than the grade? It probably means that the receivers are open and the scheme is working and the throws are there, but you have to see them and you have to get rid of it. And I think all those comments right there are why coming out of the Atlanta game that we talked about this of it wasn't just, just, oh, well, they were missing a player on the offensive line. So whatever, sorry, it gets a big pass. I mean, I was never going to be that way regardless.

But I think what you heard from O'Connell is all the things that he wanted to see from him coming out of a game against Atlanta the last time he started where he didn't show a lot of those things, where the pressure got to him because he did hang on to the ball too much. I look this up today of quarterbacks with 50 dropbacks or more. McCarthy is fifth in terms of time to throw. And the other four ahead of him are all running quarterbacks. It's Justin Fields. It's Caleb Williams.

It's Lamar Jackson, all guys who are going to scramble all over the place. And that's not how he's going to play his game. So the ball has to come out earlier. It has to work with the rhythm and timing. The footwork has to be there. The reeds have to be there. and the decision making has to be there too. And whence making some really great decisions against the Browns,

some of those turned into nothing. Some of those turned into three yards. Some of those turned into five yards or an incompletion. But he had zero interceptions, only a couple sacks on the day and did not throw that game away, gave them a chance to grind it out and then eventually win on a really excellent final drive that was called so well by Kevin O'Connell

to understand the amount of time that he had to work with, the situation, how they could dink and dunk down the field a little bit, and then give them a chance to go after Justin Jefferson. And really, as we saw yesterday, the thing about Wentz that I would be most complimentary of his last three games that J.J. McCarthy has to learn from is throwing to Justin Jefferson. How you do that, how you utilize a true number one wide.

receiver. He's got one-on-one coverage with Denzel Ward. They've been waiting for it all day. Here it comes. One-on-one down the sideline. He makes a play. Or there were times where he just had to execute something simple. There was a play where it was two guys on the left side. It was him, Jefferson, and maybe Jalen Naylor. And they ran a little kind of two-man thing where it's a little bit of deception and then he snaps out of a route and he's open. But the ball is already in the air. So Wentz already knew what he was looking at from a coverage. They were playing off coverage. So he was going to be able to push vertical, force the defensive back to respect the possibility that he might go deep and then break off an out route. But if you break off

that out route and the throw comes slow and the timing and the footwork isn't right, that ball is getting knocked down or it's getting picked off. And that's where all of this with O'Connell works together with his system and why when it's executed properly, you you could get two wins in three games and pretty darn good statistics out of a quarterback who's been a backup for the last three years and has played for six teams in six years. And yet Wentz played well enough to win two out of three. That's why they talk about it as the quarterback friendly system. But you have to make it that way by executing it with the footwork and with the timing.

And this is my sense is that what Kevin O'Connell is going to do here is they're going to go into practice this week and they are going to, well, this week, McCarthy's going to work this week. Not everybody's going to work this week out at TCO Performance Center, but they're going to go into these practices. And he even mentioned at another question, he mentioned the fact that they're going to have that extra Monday, because everyone's going to come back and they're actually going to practice Monday. Normally, if you play on a Sunday, if you are in Cleveland or in Pittsburgh or something and you play on a Sunday, then, you know, you're not going to practice on Monday or have

any sort of significant practice because everybody's so banged up. But in this case, they can have a real practice on Monday and he can start to get an extra look at it. So that was my feeling is that O'Connell at this moment may not know yet how he's going to handle this situation. It also might play into the left shoulder of Carson Wentz because he described them as pretty sore and said that they were still evaluating Carson Wentz. And that may be an.

issue as well with his left shoulder. My injury expert, Jeremiah Searle, who's probably had all the injuries out there, said he thought, you know, maybe an AC joint or something, always want to stay away from being a doctor. But that looked like it hurt a lot. And that might linger for Carson Wentz, which could play into the decision if it's really problematic for him as well. But I suspect if it's not, then it will come down to J.J. McCarthy is supposed to be your

QB1. he's supposed to be your long-term quarterback. You're not bailing on him after two games. We all know that that Kevin O'Connell did not throw up his hands after the game against Atlanta and say, I'm done with this kid. It's over, folks. Don't ever talk to me about J.J. McCarthy ever again.

That was not what happened. But if you're going to believe that someone is ready to start for you and ready to win games against the Philadelphia Eagles, and the Los Angeles Chargers who both now look a lot more beatable than they did two weeks ago. There's a lot of guys on that D-line for Philly who have exited or there's some injuries

and Bo Nix was able to come back against them. And the Chargers just put O'Mary and Hampton on IR. Like, there's their running game. And that would have been my biggest concern for the Viking. Sequin Barkley now has a knee injury. He has not played well at all. These are winnable games. If you guys have been wearing hats

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Because otherwise, if he is not, if he doesn't love what he sees in practice, then it would be wise to shelf that decision and go with the quarterback that's going to give you a better chance to win. So let me play you the comment again by Kevin O'Connell because I just thought it was very insightful of all the things that he has seen from Wence in running this offense that he needs to see from J.J. McCarthy. And he also included the health as well.

And that's going to matter because as much as we're going to make this into QB controversy, McCarthy versus Wence, if he goes into practice this week and the ankle is not ready to go, well, then it's not, I keep saying this week, but next week he's going to work out this week. If it doesn't respond the way they wanted to respond, then, of course, that's going to set this entire thing back anyway. So there is a lot to look at here,

but I just thought this was such a great answer of here's what he has to understand and also recognizing that McCarthy is in the very infancy here of his career. and learning how to play in the NFL, and it may have ended up benefiting him to step back, having now gone out there and tried to run the offense. It's not the same as sitting there and watching Sam Darnold run it and seen someone run it more the way that he has to. And it may have actually been not the best to watch Sam Darnold do it

because Darnold hung in the pocket forever. Darnold had the farthest average depth of target in the league or the most explosives, most downfield passing yards in the NFL. Well, that's not really the situation now. And it's also not really the way McCarthy has to play. McCarthy has to play that if he's a little bit of a checkdown merchant, that's okay. And if you look at games around the league, that's actually succeeding. And I've talked about this a few times where I feel like the league is gone back to 2005.

And I'm like, am I crazy? Am I just getting old? And I'm like hoping it goes back to 2005 because I have Mad, no five sitting over here. And I'm not. I am not crazy because I looked up the numbers on pass yards per attempt, net yards per attempt, sack percentage, all these things. The throws are getting shorter. The sacks are getting higher.

And the last time it looked like this in the NFL was literally 2005, 2006. So it has gotten harder to play quarterback as a downfield passer. That's when that's the type of era when somebody like Rich Gannon had a lot of checkdown passes and went to the Pro Bowl and one MVP throwing a lot underneath and quick. And then every so often hitting something downfield the way that Carson Wentz did yesterday against Cleveland. And I don't mean to make it sound like it was Joe Montana or Steve Young, but he just did a lot of things that were right for Kevin O'Connell's game plan. And he's going to need to see those from J.J. McCarthy.

So I'm going to bring it to you again, Kevin O'Connell on what he wants to see from McCarthy, when he comes back to practice. Just in terms of JJ, getting back to practice, what are you looking for from him over these next week and a half, two weeks? Yeah, I think it's a good opportunity to get back to, you know, the, he's had some real moments of growth through this time. I think watching Carson, I think watching the way Carson's kind of gone through progressions quickly, just the value of putting the ball in play,

even when it's not your first progression. Even when it's not, you know, the most exciting completion of all time, you know, and you're getting to TJ off of a, you know, a little nudge and a protection to help here or there. And TJ's kind of a checkdown element. T.J. is catching some of those balls. He had one on that, you know, the touchdown drive at the end where he caught just a simple ball over the middle and went for 14 with some really good run after catch. So I think he's kind of taken a lot of that of just watching it closely.

and my dialogue with him. But I think it's going to be the most critical part is going to be technique and fundamentals of playing the position the way he worked so hard to build up throughout the spring in the summer, getting him back into kind of the mandatory nature of certain things from a fundamental standpoint that will only help him perform at a high level.

So I think it's going to be more about the physical side of his lower body mechanics and then just trying to put together a game plan for him throughout the practices of like how much can he do what's the soreness level coming out of practices to be able to try to have the most consistent level of a ramp up we can with him so i think there's something else to observe there as well which is one of the most commented things that i've gotten over the last couple of weeks is you guys in the media you told us that mccarthy was going to be so great and you lied to us

which is sort of funny because you can only go to the practice and see I am not a fortune teller. Surprisingly enough, I bet there's YouTube channels out there that are that you could look for and maybe that will help you, but that is not me. However, I think you heard it there where he was talking about how McCarthy was able to execute with those fundamentals that he's talking about and the footwork and the reads and all those things that we did. see throughout training camp, that we did see throughout mini camp from McCarthy. But I think we can all put our heads together and figure out what happened in the first two weeks, which is the game is not the same on the practice field as it is in the real

world when the other team has game plans that you've never seen before. They have great players that you've never gone up against before. and I think what happened against Atlanta was he got pressure quickly and you don't need to remind me that Derisal wasn't playing. He got pressure quickly. He took hits early in the game

and that sped up things and then all of a sudden all that technique and fundamentals it kind of went away. And I think you could see some of that on tape and I think that he's alluding to it there and that's what happens. That's why as you're a defense, you want to hit the opposing quarterback early, right?

that's a game plan thing for every team, hit that opposing quarterback early and get him off his game, get him sped up, get him feel in the rush, all those things. That's why a lot of times you see quick passes early in the game so quarterbacks can get in a rhythm. And I also think that O'Connell, when he's talking about the T.J. Hawkinson play, he should also be happy with himself over that because there were so many successful passes that went between zero and nine yards. I was looking at the stats today. I think that Wentz average something like seven yards per attempt on throws that didn't travel any farther than nine

yards down the field in the air. And that scheme, and that's the ball coming out and quick passing offense that we were talking about looking for from O'Connell. And it took him playing against the nasty Cleveland Browns, but also probably an adjustment to the O line, an adjustment to what had happened against the Pittsburgh Steelers to stick with that and have options for Carson Wentz to give him an option right in front of his face, T.J. Hawkinson, while the pressure is coming, well, that's what we'll need to happen for J.J. McCarthy as well is I think that O'Connell has to shift with the league, where the league is now getting into a lot more short passes, getting into a lot more yards after catch to try to negate some of these complicated defense.

some of these great pass rushes. And what is it that always beats Brian Flores? What is it? All say it together. It's the quick passing game in the middle of the field. We saw it against the Steelers. We saw it against the Rams. We saw it against the Lions about five different times with Jared Gough

and his ability to pick those things apart. Even there were plays that should have been there that Ben Johnson drew up in week one that Caleb Williams didn't make. But that's the way. And so when McCarthy comes back, if when he comes back, KOC also has to have it in his own head of that's the type of offense that you should be running with J.J. McCarthy. But there was a lot of interesting comments there about sometimes just taking what's there easily for you, getting through the progression quickly, getting the footwork and fundamentals back to where he had had it during practice.

This team didn't put J.J. McCarthy in a QB1 and have him. mostly uncontested through the whole summer and pick up Wentz at the very end, if they were watching practices and thought, oh, my gosh, this guy can't play. That's not what was happening. What was happening is he was getting it. But when you get into the real games, sometimes it doesn't always stick the way that you wanted to and circumstances play into it and other mistakes play into it and backups play into it and all those things.

So as they go into these two weeks, it seems, seems like it's going to be a pretty hard evaluation for Kevin O'Connell. I mean, a very serious evaluation of what he is seeing from J.J. McCarthy before he makes this call. For me, I would not factor in who you're playing, when you're playing them, any of those things. Yeah, I know the chargers are coming up in four days. I get it. But then the lions are after that. And the lions are a really hard team.

And Ford Field is a really hard place. when are you going to do it if you're not going to do it now, right? I would only factor in, does he look like he's ready to go back and play and does he physically meet the check marks to go back and play to where he can use his legs and be more of a playmaker as well? But does it look like he is getting the understanding a little bit better of how to deal with the lower body stuff that O'Connell's talking about, the footwork and the technique of this offense, and does it look like he took away some things

from the way Carson Wentz handled it? Because if he played like Carson Wentz and added his playmaking, you've probably got really good quarterback play at that point. I mean, we know that McCarthy's not going to be flawlessly accurate. We know it's not that he's never going to make a mistake or anything else like that. But we've seen from these last couple games, you can have imperfect quarterback play with this team around you, which is now getting healthier, by the way, as O'Connell mentioned today, Donovan Jackson and Blake Cashman are going to practice along with Michael Juergens, and you're going to get the full group with Derrissau, with Addison, with Jackson coming back, and every opportunity is still there.

He did not mention Aaron Jones, which is kind of concerning, but every opportunity is still there to put together the season that you thought you would, especially with the flawed nature of the NFC. So this decision sounds to me, at least as of right now, until I get further information, sounds to me like it's kind of up to J.J. McCarthy. If he can prove to the coaching staff that he's good to go and that he can lock in on some of these things that they're looking for,

then he should be back starting a quarterback. Now, there's other politics at play. What does Jefferson think? What does the leadership group of the team think? They're playing Carson Wentz's former team. know if that factors in at all. Their evaluation of Carson Wentz. They may look at the tape and say, boy, this is a hard guy to bench because he's been this good according to the play calls we had and we think we can win with him. But I don't think that he set the bar so high that you can't put

J.J. McCarthy in. And I think if McCarthy had played these three games, we probably would have seen a lot of the same. An easy win against the Bengals where you're playing from ahead all day and it feels great. Probably a very tough day against the Steelers where they mess with your mind the entire game and beat you up. And then a tight win against the Cleveland Browns. I would have expected that from J.J. McCarthy. So we will see. But it sounds to me more from these comments like it's in his hands. And I think that's the right way to do it for McCarthy. Show Kevin O'Connell, show Josh McCown that you're ready to get back in there and play because the last time it wasn't up to the standard that it needs to be to give your team a chance to win.

So that's only game two, though, of a career that we expect to be a lot longer than two games. I think that that's where we're at. So questions, thoughts, I do have a, let's see, I got a fan dual question of the day for you guys as always. And the fan dual question of the day here is the Vikings are now plus 265 to make the playoffs. I want to give you the NFC teams that are ahead of them in the odds as of right now. Dallas, Atlanta, Seattle, Washington, Green Bay, Detroit, Tampa Bay, and San Francisco.

So the Vikings at plus 265 on Fandul, the Cowboys, Falcons, Seahawks, commanders, Packers, Lions, Bucks, and 49ers are ahead of them in the odds. Do you agree with that list of teams or are there one or two teams that you think the Vikings still should be better than to make the playoffs? because that is one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. So they've got the Vikings as the ninth best team and they need to at least be the seven. So who on that list do you think the Vikings should be better than? All right. Let's get to some of your comments here. I'm going to have to scroll back up in the comments.

And we can have a conversation here for the next half hour. And then we'll get to Manny and Brian Murphy and we're going to break all of it down. uh let's see two dog dad says uh it feels like the cars and wents offense is still building well uh you know i do think that they had a better game plan with cars and wents than they did against the pittsburgh stealers i also thought that wence seemed to understand it a little bit better and wasn't trying to do crazy stuff uh like i thought there were a few times that he tried way too hard to be a playmaker against pittsburgh and they made a pay where Cleveland kind of didn't. There were a few times where he still tried to escape as opposed to

throwing the ball away or maybe sliding as opposed to going straight in with your shoulder. But at the same time, he was very safe with the football. He threw it into spaces where there weren't going to be a lot of defenders around, a lot of traffic. And then when he needed to go downfield, he did. And you may be right that if you kept playing Carson Wentz and you kept building with this offense and his strengths, that you can win games. And I think we've seen enough of Wentz against the Bengals at times against Pittsburgh and then against Cleveland that you could sell me on being able to win nine or ten games with Carson Wentz if he starts the rest of the way.

But my concern there would be that J.J. McCarthy at this point in his career as a top 10 draft pick quarterback who has mobility. And I think it's very hard to win in the league with no mobility. I would want that as a higher potential ceiling. And that's why I kind of leaned that way toward get McCarthy back in there because it has a higher potential outcome of things clicking for him. And then he can do all the same stuff that Wentz has done. Wentz has done a great job, a great, great job.

But there's also nothing insane that he's done. It's not like, oh my gosh, it's Drew Breeze Wentz back there, just dropping dime after dime after. die like that hasn't been how it's been it's really been a game manager type offense with a couple of great throws including the game winner and he deserves all the credit for winning two out of three games wonderful wonderful job by a backup quarterback but what you're looking for is to do all that and then add 25 to 50 yards per game on the ground with j jay mccarthy add some special throws from j j mccarthy and you've got yourself a pretty darn good offense i mean if

If they can be 13th and expected points added, as of right now, with Carson Wentz in there, your expectation is if it clicks for McCarthy, it could be even better than that. It's not going to be easy, but it never is in the NFL. So I agree that if they kept going with Carson Wentz, they could be fairly successful, but can you really be dangerous? I'm not so sure that you can with Carson Wentz over an entire season. It feels to me more like it would be a year where you'd go into the, the final week of the season, kind of hoping for a bunch of breaks and maybe you make the

playoffs. And that's about as good as it could possibly get. But we'll see from O'Connell's comments there, because I thought they were really well laid out of his thought process and what he needs to see from McCarthy. But if he doesn't play against Philadelphia and he doesn't play against the Chargers, then I think we have the idea pretty clearly that he's going to want to see more development behind the scenes from McCarthy. And if that's, that's what he ends up wanting to see, then I'm okay with that because he should do what's best for J.J. McCarthy and his overall development and not just what we all want to see, which is McCarthy back under center. Everyone wants to see that because there was so much

buildup. There was so much attention on this quarterback situation. The whole couple of years built up to this and him getting out there and being the quarterback. So when that happens and when you spend so much time thinking about what this could be with the unknown, the great unknown prospect quarterback, and then you don't get to see him, and then you don't get to see him again after that really special night in Chicago, it's tough. Everybody wants him back out there. But if O'Connell thinks that's not the right thing to do based on what he sees in practice,

it just sounds to me like the ball has been handed to McCarthy. it's in your core show me that's that's how that's what it sounded like there that might not be what the message is in the building i don't know but that's what it sounded like there it sounded like there this is what i need from you and if you do it you're going to be back that's what it sounded like but the results are going to tell us this uh brett says uh feel great about this win the o line will get healthy and the skill positions are awesome kOC needs to play call like he did yesterday. Yeah, I mean, I definitely agree with that,

that the play calling was very, very good. And now we see with Donovan Jackson, now if Donovan Jackson gets back to 100% and he's playing. And this is what I want to talk about as well because O'Connell left the door open for Blake Brandl continuing at center. Now, his PFF grade didn't blow my mind. It wasn't actually that good because he had the holding that negated a play. And, you know, that's always a tough thing to explain that the PFF

F grades hammer these offensive linemen for penalties, and they should. It's a 10-yard negative play that should have been an explosive pass. And we never got another look at that play on the replay. I didn't go back and look on the tape. I should have to see how bad that was. But it sounded from O'Connell's comments like he was extremely pleased with the way that Blake Brandl played in this game. And he said that Brandel had fun out there and really loved it. And he's a guy who's been in this league for much longer than Michael Juergens. I don't think that Jurgens fell apart when he was asked to play center, but I think that Brandl's probably more experienced, more prepared for this,

has seen a lot more things in his day. And the fact that he could snap the ball effectively, I don't think that this is where it might be a bit of a struggle. I don't think they can run outside zone stuff with Brandl as their center and you didn't see a ton of it because that's just really hard to do. So they may want Jurgens back. Juergens is an outside zone type of center. He's quick.

He's a little undersized. He can get to, they did a lot against Cincinnati with Jurgens in there. That might make a difference that he has been pegged as the backup for this entire time and he can run differently with him in there. But whether it's Jurgens or Brandel, you're still going to deal with some weakness, but neither guy has been horrible. I think both of them have been reasonable over the times that they've been in for Ryan Kelly.

So if your offensive line has one guy with question marks about it and then Fries played really well in past protection has not been the body mover in the run game that we expected and maybe that'll click in. You know, he was coming off that horrible injury. So I've wondered a little bit about that, about the explosiveness and whether that's not quite back yet. But he had a good day in past protection yesterday.

And then Brian O'Neill didn't get an update on him today, which to me will be something we ask later on leading up. up to the next game, but as far as we knew, the MCL usually takes a little while. That's not an easy one. You don't just pop back up after an MCL. So even though it is, it was reported as week to week, typically those are like four weeks somewhere in that range. So I'd be kind of looking more at Detroit for him. But look, even Justin's school, you got to give Justin's school a ton of credit. There were some reps where he's one on one with Miles Garrett and Garrett doesn't get to the quarterback. So if your line for the next two games has three out of five and school isn't

playing left tackle, but instead right tackle, which theoretically should be a little easier, then you can win that way with that offensive line. And I'll be interested, but I mean, I really like the way that Blake Brandel played at center in this game. So I, you know, I think that there's a good chance that he does continue to be the center, but it might make a difference for how they can run. Let's see. the Nas Nasaj, says, seems to me PFF grades should be taken with a grain of salt, not the gospel some people refer to. Well, I wrote an entire book about it, my friend, and it's right over here that anybody can read if they want to fully understand how the PFF grades work. But I think when it comes to offensive line grades, there is good as you're ever going to get.

And let me know if you have some better way of doing it. but I'll tell you what, the grades over the time that I've been covering this team have matched up really, really well with the team's decision-making. Who they play, how much they play them, how much they pay, and how long they pay guys for contracts often matches up really closely with the way that PFF is grading their players. So I do think that you can take it with actually a lot of value. and I would go as far as to say a ton of value, knowing how it's done.

Is it perfect? No, but you know what's also not perfect is coaches grading their own players. A coach loves a player, loves him behind the scenes, great guy, their families have dinner together. Is he grading it the same way as someone objective? So also I know from my book and from interviewing Quasi Adafo Mensa for my book that the Vikings use the PFF grades, they have certain ways of a adjusting them to things that they know, and they also use them comparatively.

So they are being used within the NFL, and we have 10 years of data and contracts to prove how much they match up together. So, yeah, for a single game, what can happen, though, here's the problem. It speaks to your point. For a single game, a penalty could knock somebody's grade down quite a bit. Two penalties can crush somebody's grade, which is pretty tough. or one play, it doesn't factor for matchups. So if you're playing Malik Collins, who is a fantastic defensive tackle and he gets by you and creates a pressure on the quarterback, you're going to get a minus.

If you were playing, I don't know, Shamar Stephan, who never got a pressure ever like Shamar, but he didn't, maybe you're giving up no pressures and you're getting a great, great. I also think what we saw yesterday that's important to remember too is if you get the ball out faster, the guys get better grades because they're not giving up as many negative plays. So single game grades can be really swung on a handful of plays. If you give up one or two pressures, that might hurt your grades significantly or have one or two negative run. So that's why you need much bigger samples. And using single game grades to say this is the absolute truth about Blake Brandl would not be fair.

So I agree with you there. So they carry a ton of value, but they also need us to use our noggins and our context and understand that Blake Brandel was going against one of the best D lines in football. If he had not so good of a PFF grade against, I don't know, the Raiders or somebody who stinks, the Cowboys, they can't pressure anybody. Well, then it would be a little bit different. So that is kind of your little tutorial about how to contextualize. some of those grades. But a former, see, yes, the wrong guy about this, a former offensive line coach, Paul Alexander, told me in the book, guys are going to the Hall of Fame these days because of their PFF grades. And he explained to me how he not only used them for his own teaching when

he was an offensive line coach in the NFL, but also how he helped shape the grades to PFF and get their grading system as accurate as they could possibly get it from the outside. there's your there's your little breakdown and you could buy the book uh if you want to know a little more than that so you know uh and there's always the i know there's always the they don't know the assignments um number one they they there's only so many different ways to block certain things uh like outside zone runs and so forth and the other thing is that teams they evaluate free agents as well and players on the other teams and they don't know their assignments so they should just not try or they should take every single thing, every single bit of

information you get about the other team. You don't know the assignments. You should just not should not do it. So anyway, we don't have to go too much farther down that road. But the point is that the single game grade for Blake Brandel was impacted by that holding penalty, which I thought may have been a little suspect. And overall, I thought he did an excellent job of managing the competition that he was playing against and he might be somebody that they decide to stick with at center because of that he also snapped the ball well and seemed very confident so those things matter as well that's what i'm saying we have to we have to use our brains uh when it comes to uh that sort of thing uh let's see um not sure how you guys got on to randy moss

but KFTS, any news why Darisaw left the last game? Yes, they said that he was on a snap count because he had played 75 snaps the previous game and they did not expect that to happen. Nobody would have expected 75 snaps and that they didn't want him to have 150 snaps overseas when he's still coming back. and Derisaw said that he wants to make sure he's communicating with them after the game. He told the reporters who were there that he's got to know his body, right? And I wonder if he communicated with them, like, hey, this might be a lot to put on the new knee.

And they decided overall that playing him for four quarters was going to be a little bit too much. It also may have been a thing that they say, like, yeah, we always wanted to do that and play safe with him, but they may have been in a wait and see. Like, let's see how he feels through a couple of quarters and then go from there. But that was the official explanation was that it's not an injury or a new injury. It's just that he was on a snap count for overseas for those two games. And remember, he didn't play the full game against Cincinnati. We didn't see a full bevy of work from Harrison Smith.

In fact, I didn't check. How many plays did Harrison Smith play? in this game. So they're clearly taking it a little bit slower. 29. So that's kind of the ramp up. We saw that last week. I think it was only 17.

That's just how this group does it. They play it a lot more patiently than maybe a previous regime. AZ Vikes's school definitely stepped up. I was impressed. Me too. Me too. And, you know, that's why we shouldn't write someone off after one bad game. Maybe it's a bad matchup or new offense.

or whatever, but Justin's school was huge in this game. Another situation where was his pass blocking grade, great? No, it wasn't, but we also have to consider who he was going up against and that he's a backup tackle and you just need to do enough. You know, he allowed three pressures on 41 dropbacks. I mean, just, just do enough. Just do enough. And that's what he was able to do in that game.

And that's why you have to contextualize those things. Kevin's outdoor buzz says O'Connell said the same thing about J.J. watching Darnold. I don't think watching another quarterback play helps any quarterback. Reps help a quarterback play at a high level, not sitting on the bench. Well, if that were true, if that were totally true, then I don't think that it would work so well to develop quarterbacks not playing, which historically it really has, whether it's Jordan Love or Aaron Rogers or Patrick Mahomes, or there's a bunch of other examples. of quarterbacks who have needed a little more time before they were ready to play

that have worked with the scout team and have gotten reps against the first team defense during the season and watched and studied and seen how the starter does it. The problem with what you're saying is that when he was watching Darnold do these things, he had never done them before himself and he couldn't even practice them. He was watching them, yes, take him in. And also, Darnel had some pretty bad habits of sticking in the pocket too long, trying to scramble out the back, staying with the first read for too long. Like, it wasn't exactly the perfect technical way of playing the position.

It was kind of the, yo, I'm a baller way of playing the position. I'm going to stand in here and get drilled and make a 30-yard throw down the field. And it was awesome to watch, but it was not the way Wence has done it, which is Wence has been very smart with the football on a lot of plays. he's gotten it out quickly. He's thrown to the underneath options. He hasn't just stayed on his number one option and tried to let that come all the way open down the field. It's also played with really good anticipation at times. Now McCarthy can see these things and then apply them in practice. But I don't disagree with you that playing is going to be the best thing for someone.

At the same time, is it always? Because if J.J. McCarthy comes back and has two, more games like Atlanta and the first three quarters of Chicago because he doesn't have the fundamentals down. Is that helping him? Does that make it better for him if he can't do at this moment in his career? Doesn't mean he's a bust. Look at Mayfield. Look at Daniel Jones.

Look at Sam Darnold. Look at Mack Jones. Just because somebody can't do it effectively right now when they are 22 years old doesn't mean that it's over. And that's kind of how we're treating it. Like if he doesn't play against Philly, it's over. Goodbye McCarthy. Like, that's, that's not how it needs to be treated. But if O'Connell feels like he can't do those things, he's going to get hurt. He's going to hang out of the ball too long as he did against Atlanta. He's going to get hit. He's going to get hurt. And then he's going to end up like Anthony Richardson or Trey Lance where those guys needed to develop

behind the scenes. And I think that's the biggest fear is if he can't get the fundamentals down, then there's a possibility of another injury and taking a lot of hits and putting a lot of mileage on that body in his first couple years, and it's not always the easiest to recover because you can't develop well you're hurt.

You can develop behind the scenes while you're practicing and while you're studying how Carson Wentz is starting quarterback in the league is playing. You can get better doing that. You can't get better if you're having another surgery or if you're rehabbing or, you know, things like that. So I think that would be their fear. So I don't totally disagree with you.

And yet I think we've seen enough examples where behind the scenes work is actually, is actually really good for these quarterbacks. Sean says we'd love to hear a breakdown on Tuesday morning left guard of the chances of 64 sticking its center long term or is it just a nice one-off performance. So I was talking with Jeremiah. last night. And to give you a preview of tomorrow's show, because we'll absolutely talk about it, he was impressed as well. He was impressed with Blake Brandel and I think believes that he should go forward for sure. Let's see. Nassage. Hopefully, if I'm not saying it right, please correct me.

Says, I wonder if Hargraves low snaps happening in a game he played well means that's the goal going forward. So I'm very, very noticeable. And let me bring that up. Very noticeable. And I appreciate what you said about PFF. I know you're not hating. I just thought, let me explain the whole thing, because that comes up a lot. Yeah. So Jonathan Hargra, or J. Von Hargrave played only 33 snaps, but only 12 in run defense and 21 in the pass rush and got four pressures and the highest PFF grade because he crushed it in pass rush. He also made a couple of tackles against the run. I think this is the way going forward.

I think to use him as a more situational pass rushing defensive tackle and have Levi Drake Rodriguez and Jalen Redmond in there. That is the way. And, you know, those guys have gotten blamed a lot for the run defense. The gap and look, I respect the hell out of Eric Wilson. But the gap between Eric Wilson and Blake Cashman, who's one of the best in the NFL, it's pretty big when it comes to run defense. When you look at their run defense grades, it's just a big difference.

Cashman is so fast and so violent and so instinctual and so good at beating blocks, it plays into it that other teams have been able to run with Blake Cashman out. And we saw last year that other teams were able to run against the Vikings when Cashman was out as well. Jemir Gibbs, I know, is always good against them, but he crushed them in that game where they didn't have cashman. So I think that's a big deal for him to come back. Let's see. Let's see.

Skywalking McCarthy. He had a whole season on the bench to watch Darnold. He needs two seasons watching L.O.L. I mean, look, do we need to do this? Do we need to use Google? Don't you folks use chat GPT all the time these days or whatever the hell that is? look up how many quarterbacks weren't ready to play in their first year or how many quarterbacks played right away and then struggled and then got benched and never got another

chance. If Kevin O'Connell thinks it's the right thing to do to wait on McCarthy because he doesn't have the fundamentals right to run this offense, then it's the right thing to do, period. And if you want to call him a bust because he's not ready to play at age 22 when he started two games, well, I guess that you can, if you want to, if you just want to be that person. It doesn't make any sense, but you can if you want to be that person. And there seems like there's a lot of people who do, but it doesn't, it doesn't click at all with any history whatsoever or even logic in my eyes when you have someone who already was coming out of college as a raw quarterback.

And he spent a year where he couldn't practice those things that he was seeing. So he's taken in a lot mentally, but it's way different to actually go, out there and get it in in your body right in like this would be if you're a musician you can know the song but that doesn't mean you can play it unless you have enough practice doing it right and just playing on a stage in front of 60,000 people might not be the best you might need to practice in your bedroom a little bit more before you're ready to do that and there's so many freaking quarterbacks over the years so many there's a bunch of them in the NFL right now whose teams gave up too early, who pushed them too fast. Sam Darnel was 20, and the Jets just threw him out there

and said, just go get it, Tiger. Now he's a great quarterback. And he's been a really good quarterback since he was like 26, but it took a while. And I mean, you know, I don't know what happened in New England, but even Mac Jones, like getting, you know, kind of thrown to the wolves there, made the playoffs in his first year, kind of had a disastrous situation. But Baker Mayfield, bad situation thrown in too soon, you know, a lot, like a lot of these guys have had this happen over the years. And I could tell you historically, I mean, I don't know how many, historically. Alex Smith is one that comes to mind that was thrown in too early, struggled, took a long time. But you all know with Rogers, go back and look at college tape of Rogers and how he throws the

football. Tell me that he didn't benefit from watching Brett Farve. Tell me that Jordan Love didn't benefit from watching Aaron Rogers. If this is a good, what they think the right thing to do is long term with J.J. McCarthy, then they should do it. But I think what O'Connell said there was that the door is open. Show me. Show me that you've learned some things over the last couple weeks from watching Carson Wentz. And now you get to go out and do it in practice, as opposed to just watching it from the rehab room last year. So I think it is a pretty big difference. But I know because it's football, because it's quarterbacks, a lot of people like to try to get in early. And they like to

like to put a stake down and they like to say he's a bust or even after one game with like Jackson Dart. He's he's great. Look what they did with Jackson Dart. He's great. And then the next week he stinks. You know, we a lot of times don't know with quarterbacks. And I'll give you a great example of that is Baker Mayfield. If Tampa Bay knew with Baker Mayfield, he was going to be this good, they would not have given him kind of a half-hearted contract extension. Remember that Baker Mayfield played for the Panthers along with Sam Darnold. And they had two of the best quarterbacks in the NFL on their roster and got rid of both of them.

Does anybody, and I know you could say it's the Panthers, but I mean, the 49ers, they extend Brock Purdy and then Mack Jones plays just as well. They draft Trey Lance and then Brock Purdy plays much better. Who knows? It's hard to figure these things out, even when you have sample sizes, much, much less of two games. So I think that the concept that he may, O'Connell, watch McCarthy practice

and say, I just don't feel like it's ready to play against the Philadelphia Eagles who have, I don't know, how many games have they won? There was a stat yesterday, maybe Jason Garrett threw out there. They won like 21 of their last 24 games or something. Maybe he's not ready to play against them. Maybe he's not ready to play against the complicated defense like the Chargers. If O'Connell decides that, then that's the right decision.

But it sounds like it's on the table that he could earn his stripes here in practice. J.P. says, can Kevin keep this offense for JJ and do more different stuff, such as running back screen, slants, et cetera? If yes, our offense will show it can be complete and not only pass downfield. Well, that's what I was so impressed with. Now, the running back screen stuff, I think you need Xavier Scott in there. You need Aaron Jones in there. you could do it a little bit with Mason.

I think he could catch the ball to some extent, but you need him to run. He's really a little bit from Scott the last two weeks, but it's really like he needs to be running all the time as RB1. So you're asking a lot of him to also be a big part of the passing game, but they actually hit on a tight end screen yesterday. That surprised me. They hit on a slant.

That surprised me. They did a lot of things in that game, lining up Jefferson in the backfield, running him out into the flat. There were two plays that were four and five-yard plays to Jordan Addison toward the end of the game, which I thought were terrific. I think it's a great play to run a little bubble screen and get five yards. Second and five, what's your odds of converting? Pretty high, right?

Keep the sticks moving. Keep the ball in the hands of Jefferson and Addison. So I totally agree with you that when McCarthy comes back, yes, there's big, plays down the field to be had to just to Jefferson, but there's also easy buttons that have been there and were there and that, you know, I think they haven't quite utilized enough. KFT says Harrison Phillips is one guy that impacted the run, all the current line struggles. So I think that there's truth to that, but I also do want to point out that he didn't win the camp battle against the other two guys that are playing.

and that would matter to the evaluation. I also want to pull this up because I don't really think it's been the two guys who replaced him who have been the problem in run defense. So Jalen Redmond has a 69.3 grade. He's fourth best on the team other than Harrison Smith and Jonathan Grenard.

And Levi Drake Rodriguez is 67.4. So keep those numbers in your mind that so far Redmond and Rodriguez are in the upper 60s, right? for run grade last year Harrison Phillips was let me find it where's Harrison Phillips where was he in the run grade I'm looking I'm looking I'm going to have to use control F 52.7 last year in the run defense I think that the reason they were so good in the run defense last year was actually Jonathan Bullard graded much better than Harrison Phillips did and this is not a disresby. respect to Harrison Phillips, who I think was a great guy and worked his butt off.

And I don't think, and I don't think, by the way, let me add this on, I don't think the PFF grades told the full story with Harrison Phillips. And I actually had a conversation and wrote an article about it, how sometimes he would be jumping gaps and moving bodies where he's getting pushed back, but sort of intentionally to create lanes. And they don't always give him good grades for that. But they're playing the same system here. And he did not grade the same way that he did early in his career.

career. And I think that that may have mattered to that decision. But really, when we look at the run defense, the issues, I think it's Hargrave has been a lot of it. And they corrected that. And the other part has been the linebackers and not having Van Ginkle, Dallas Turner has not been as good as Van Ginkle. I wouldn't expect that. And certainly Cashman, I mean, Cashman last year, how good was Cashman in the run defense? I'm going to guess it would be really good. Yes, 76.3 grade. That's an elite grade for a linebacker last year. You know, who else hasn't played a ton that would make a big difference is Harrison Smith.

Harrison Smith is one of the best run defending safeties over the last 10 years in the NFL. It's not just the defensive tackle position, even though I overall agree with you that it would have helped to have Harrison Phillips, but I don't think it's the guys who have replaced him who have actually been the issue here. So really interesting first couple of weeks of the season. So I want to now switch over here. Let me remind you first, though, of the Fanduil question of the day, which is the Vikings are plus 265 to make the playoffs.

The NFC teams ahead of them and the odds are Dallas, Atlanta, Seattle, Washington, Green Bay, Detroit, Tampa Bay, and San Francisco. That's eight teams. So right now, Fandulah plus 265 have the Vikings ninth in the NFC. Do you agree with that list of teams? Who do you think that they could be better? than or have better odds than in the NFC playoff race. So make sure you answer that.

And I also want to ask that of my cohorts who will be joining here in a second.