Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Lindsay Rhodes thinks Vikings should roll with JJ McCarthy

Episode Date: January 16, 2026

Lindsay Rhodes of SumerSports joins the show to discuss the Vikings' offseason decisions and what the team should do about J.J. McCarthy and the QB position. The Purple Insider podcast is brought to you by FanDuel. Also, check out our sponsor HIMS at https://hims.com/purpleinsider Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hey, everybody, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider presented by Fanduil, Matthew Collar here, and returning to the show, former NFL network personality and now host of the Sumer Sports Show. You've heard her on the show before. Also, Sam Brookhouse makes appearances on the show as well. Lindsay Rhodes, welcome back. Great to be with you, Lindsay. How are you? I'm great.

How are you? This is a fun time of year. I'm sorry it's not as fun as it has been in the past for you in Minnesota. I do wish I was traveling somewhere. Yeah, I wish I was headed to somewhere for a big game or something, but that's not happening. But that doesn't mean we don't have a lot to talk about. So I was thinking about, like, how can I ask you about so many different subjects

that are going on with the Vikings and the NFL? I thought, why don't I put you in the shoes of the people involved? So that's the game here, all right? So this, we're going to call it, what would you do? So we're going to put you in different positions with the Vikings. or other people with the Vikings to end in some of these games. And you've got to tell me what you do. Okay.

Let's start with Brian Flores. If you were Brian Flores, so say you're a defensive mastermind. You have authored the last two Vikings' brilliant defenses. And everybody's talking about your round league. You're getting interviews. What would you do if you were Brian Flores as a free agent defensive coordinator? Something that I don't know if you can think of another example of this, but I can't remember a coordinator who's highly sought after and is completely on the open market.

Would you return? Would you look at your options? Would you like the Washington commanders who he interviewed with? Do you like your prospects as a head coach? Like, how are you feeling if you are Brian Flores? His situation is so interesting to me as a head coaching candidate because I actually think that he did it right. And he didn't, I mean, in all fairness, he didn't have a choice. Like nobody was banging down his door after the way things didn't do in Miami to go be a head coach immediately.

But I kind of think of, like the way I'm looking at Mike McDaniel, he could probably get a head coaching job this cycle. But I actually like him taking an offensive coordinator job for a stable franchise to kind of build himself back up and get his pick of the litter to a degree. Like build that that reputation back up as a play caller, I think his strong. strength is in that kind of stuff. I think if he went to Detroit, he'd be sorry again. But I think he would crush it. And I think we would team would be clamoring over themselves in a couple of years to hire him as a head coach. I also think that there's something to, and this is how it ties back to Brian Flores. I think there's something to taking a minute and actually just going back to a coordinator role that you were good at before. But now that you've been a head coach,

watch someone else be a head coach. It's just a different. perspective than you have when you're trying to be a head coach the whole time, right? And so now you have a different set of knowledge and things that you've observed and challenges that you've run into as a head coach. And now don't be that guy. And watch how someone else handles it in a ideally successful franchise where you are a coordinator and you're set up to succeed. I think that there's also something to be said for taking a beat to actually get some

clarity on what went wrong and where you went wrong. and to develop some self-awareness. I talk about P. Carroll a lot and his path. And this is just because I know this from personal interactions having covered him at USC. He was so clear. Like I could write a book, maybe even did, about what he learned from his time with the Jets and the Patriots and how he would be different as a head coach moving forward, like took time met with Wooden, thought about like, what are my philosophies, what do I believe in, and just dug in hard on what he thought matter.

And I think that was really valuable time for him. And I think that coaches who can take a step back, not that being a coordinator is, you know what I mean, it's still a big job, but and think about those things. And really articulate in the next cycle when you go back to interview. Okay, here's what I've learned. And make it really clear, I think, in that interview process, how this time's different.

And so I think that he did it the right way in a lot of, ways. And again, it wasn't his choice, but I think it's going to be really beneficial to him. I don't know him personally enough to know what the answer is. There's an if here. If he actually has the self-awareness that's necessary. And if he did take that time to look at the situation with some like retrospect and some degree of like maybe this part was my bad, you know. And so I think he's really interesting in the sense that his interview matters so much in this cycle because you know what you're getting defensively. And some teams might just want an offensive guy or a young offensive guy to work with a quarterback. Like he might not be on the table for them in that way.

But for teams like, you know, like the Raiders and there was all this buzz early on about him and the staff that he would bring. I think that that's appealing. And it just there's this huge, how will he do in the interview? Because if I'm the one interviewing, I need to hear a real clear, concise, you need to pitch me and make me feel like this time's very different. I'm getting a much different and better version. And I don't know the answer. And I also wonder, because we're not hearing his name that much for head coaching openings now that the cycle is kind of underway as much as we did right out of the gate. And I wonder if that's because the answers are not coming the way that people would expect them to come. That's just speculation on my part. I literally

have no idea. But I do think. that in terms of the job openings that are available, I think if he has a chance to be a head coach in a situation where he thinks he can succeed, then I think he should probably make that jump. There are some jobs where, I mean, can you succeed? Or like, if you go to, if you go to Arizona, are you set up? Like, is that, I don't know.

You know, I don't know that you are. I mean, in Cleveland, he would have so much fun defensively. Like, that doesn't make sense because Schwartz is there, but let's say Schwartz wasn't there and that they went like there are but are you going to be set up like do you have a quarterback are you getting a quarterback do you have a path to get a quarterback that's my concern about the Falcons John. Okay great you got a lot of pieces like agreed your roster is competitive but where are you going to take that next step like Rahim Morris just got fired from that same team with that same roster and I mean is Pennix going to be a lot better next year because you don't have a first round pick and you don't have any cap space. So where's that quarterback coming from? So I think if I were him, I would look at the head coaching openings. I would be picky because I would not want to set myself up to fail again.

If you fail twice, they're not coming back to you. So this one has to work. I think that the Steelers don't have a quarterback, but I think that for whatever reason, just like his vibes, this is a very vivy answer. But like, doesn't he feel very Pittsburghy to you? like even the ways where he's kind of a little bit rough around the edges like that actually works there that plays there so um that's a very long-winded answer of saying like that's how i would prioritize things there from a him perspective i don't know that i would go laterally as a defensive coordinator i just don't know that that makes much sense you have pieces that you know will work for you in minnesota that have got you to this point where people are bringing your name back up like don't break you. what isn't fixed unless you just hate living there or don't like the people or whatever, like whatever this, you know what I mean?

But otherwise, I don't see a reason to just take another job to take another job. Washington makes no sense to me. The recent weather here may be an interesting as he's negotiating these contracts. It is going to be 78 degrees in Los Angeles today. So, I mean, there are there are perks other places, I suppose, in other guys. So the two teams that have interviewed him, or at least Pittsburgh has requested and the Baltimore rapids have, they are the two teams that make the most sense. Because as you mentioned about those interviews, one thing, if you're a completely rebuilding team like Arizona or Cleveland, you're

saying, how are you going to get us a quarterback? Who is your plans? And the Tua thing is going to loom. Now, Flores has said openly how much he's learned from Kevin O'Connell. O'Connell is one of the top culture coaches in the NFL. And even last year when the Tua thing came up and he called him a bad person, Flores's players came to the podium that day to stand with him to kind of like say, hey, this is not our experience. We're behind him, that kind of thing. And, you know, I talked to many players about Flores over the last three years.

And it's a different approach from some other coordinators. But certainly I haven't heard that anyone shared the experience that Tuo was talking about. And I also think that he went from linebacker coach to headman of entire organization. And there's no practicing that. There's no simulating that. Like it's really, really hard. And then you have an owner who wants you to lose. And you might want to play the other quarterback, but they tanked for that quarterback.

And there were a lot of politics there at play. But if you're going to Baltimore, it's turn around this defense and let Lamar cook. And that's what you have to do. And with Pittsburgh, it might be we don't. don't think we're going to have a quarterback, but we need an innovator on defense because I felt that their defense became pretty stale under Mike Tomlin. And I remember, maybe he was a Viking somebody after a game said, yeah, like, we know exactly what they play. And that's not what you want to hear. That's, I've never heard that about Brian Flores that they know what he's going

to play. Let me make one small case for the lateral move. Number one, Josh Harris is worth $11 billion in Washington. So that is a lot of money to be able to give out to your defense coordinator. Number two is that there is a fellow who plays quarterback there who might give you a chance to win a Super Bowl. Now, I didn't this year, but he certainly did the year before. And if you're Flores, I wonder if you look at the Viking situation as being unstable. Like, how long is this regime going to be here if J.J. McCarthy does not take a next step and they're going out to get Jack Jones or something, and that's a competition.

And I think if your Flores throughout this year, you had to look at it and go, man, I'm doing everything to get us to win these games. And it's got to be all on my defense all the time. Maybe I could go to a place where there's a quarterback. And I think D.C. or Dallas, Dallas has not asked for him as a D.C. So far as we know, but there's been rumblings of interest. These are places that get a lot of attention. And I also wonder about that.

If you go to Washington, D.C., you turn around their defense, you play in the NFC championship. I mean, he becomes undeniable as a head coach, right? Or at least as a defensive coordinator, because the questions that I brought up and the point that you made about being a head coach being a totally different job, those could still remain. And I kind of think that we've seen enough from him as a defensive coordinator to know that. Like, I don't think he needs to go anywhere else and win a Super Bowl or anything like. like that to make us respect what he does as a defensive mind anymore. I think we're already there. Now, that said, owners are different.

Owners are like, and I actually, we have a lot of conversations about this, not about owners, but just at Sumer sports. Like, we talk to each other a specific language. And I think that there are even more and more in the last, you know, five to 10 years, um, football conversations had become kind of siloed and like they fall into factions. And I think there are two primary factions of football fans. And one is like they're having conversations. And they sort of understand that like just is a basic measure that like EPA is a stat.

And it's a it's a stat that tells you a good story. And then there's another one that watches the games and will still cite like passing yards tells you which quarterback is the best. Like it's never before been so obvious to me that there's two types of football conversations that are happening. And one is casual. and I don't mean that disparagingly. It's just it is. It's not paying attention to the developments that have happened in the last five years, which have been massive and plentiful and are super confusing and hard to understand.

And I get it. But owners fall into that bucket in a lot of ways, right? So do broadcasters. Like if you're going to go talk to, you know, Fox about what to put on their pregame show, they're talking to a different crowd than we are on Twitter and YouTube and that kind of stuff. So you have to almost speak different languages. And so that's a long-winded way of saying, I think, that owners might, you're possibly right. But to convince an owner that he is this defensive mastermind, they might need to hear it in the playoffs and in a Super Bowl.

And having all the broadcasters like tripping over themselves. But I mean, from a football community standpoint, people who are in this space that live in football, everybody knows what Brian Flores brings is a defensive coordinator. so I don't think there's anything more for him to prove in that department. And I would argue with regards to Dallas, you could hurt yourself. Because the way that Dallas gets attention and the way that Jerry Jones is unpredictable, I mean, I would feel like that's unstable. It could set you up to turn around this franchise and be the person that they're talking about on ESPN every day because they're always talking about the Cowboys.

But it might not be good if they lose because one of your. your guys makes a defensive mistake, that's going to be under the microscope in a way that it wouldn't be in other places, even if it's not your fault. And by the way, half of what's discussed on TV isn't actually what happened. But like the narrative takes hold and that becomes the story that people believe. So I think that there are some downsides to going to Dallas in particular. I could see your point about Washington. Yeah, I think either one would be a big roll of the dice for him. And that's the other, the upside of the Dallas thing. And this is where you start to get into like Brian Flores psychology.

Like this guy blitzes every play. So is so the risk reward is not something that he's afraid of. If no risk, no risk, yeah, right. If you go to D.C. or Dallas with these terrible defenses and you turn them around, you're a legend. And everyone is talking about you the entire season. And that the owners watch TV.

And they should listen to Sumer Sports Show with you and San Brookhouse, but they watch TV, right? And so if every morning that Washington has been on TV and they're coming back and talking about Brian Flores did it again. Another great defensive performance. He's turned them around. They're leading the division. Then that's if he doesn't get a head coaching job because I think clearly if that opportunity

arises, you just take it because you only get so many shots in this life to do that. But the lateral move is is intriguing from a guy who needs to get over some specific hurdles to get a head coaching job that no one else ever has before. no one else has ever sued in the league and, you know, no one else has had their, their quarterback come out and say they're a bad person before. I don't think I can remember a time that's happened. So Brian Fitzpatrick said some stuff too, right?

About from his time in Miami, and this was more recent where I saw a clip of him talking about him. And he was like, there was nobody. You're not going to hear people who are there in Miami that defend him. Like it's like a later on. And he was really specific about how Flora has changed over that time period in a way that I think was potentially damaging. So the point that you made about the Vikings players coming to his defense and saying

that's not our experience here, I think that that's very, very valuable. And he probably needs that to be known. Yes, I agree. And, you know, I have seen even ex players who aren't here anymore tweet out, like, you know, that they're supporting him and so forth, which they don't have to. They could just say nothing if they didn't want to. So I think the experience here was very positive. But again, nothing to simulate what it's really going to be.

like again all I know is even when he was in Miami with all that drama they still won a lot of games uh despite you know having to rebuild the entire team what would you do if you were Kevin O'Connell and you're having meetings right now about J.J. McCarthy and the future of the quarterback situation and let me provide a little context because you cover all 32 we just had our press conference to end the year and we asked bluntly uh is J.J. McCarthy. the Sardi quarterback, and we were told they want a deep and competitive quarterback room. So there was no, I always go back to Lovie Smith. Rex is our quarterback.

There was no Rex is our quarterback for this one. This was a, there's absolutely going to be competition for J.J. McCarthy. How would you be talking about the quarterback situation if you were in his shoes in those meetings? So in terms of what I want to do at quarterback there, I will start this with, I think, to a degree, the organization probably has to stick with JJ for one more year unless they absolutely know in-house. Like, there's nothing we can do about this.

You know what I mean? Like, if it's not just a development issue, it's like a, like, I think that it got to a point in Indianapolis where it was probably like, we can't do this with Anthony Richardson. and the ways that he's not developing and the mistakes that we're seeing made continually over and over again the same mistakes. Like these are problematic and we have to move on from them. Only people in the building will know where that line is, right? So that being said, I don't.

I think you got to give if you take a quarterback as high as you took J.J. McCarthy, you're on the hook for three years. You just, you have to be. You have to see whether he can develop or not. And I know this year was not particularly great, but then the other option becomes, what are you replacing him with? And I think we've seen Sam Darnold obviously had a lot of success. This feels like the obvious place where like your retread, Jordan Palmer called them Phoenix quarterbacks, which I think sounds slightly less like deprecating.

So I think I like that. But that style of quarterback, this feels like an obvious landing spot for someone like that to maybe just plug in and have some success with the pieces that are already there. But who are those guys this year? And that's the problem that you're sort of running up against. While we could put people there, who are they obvious? Like if you, like Malik Willis, for instance, I think is a name that you could potentially bring up for this job.

I think he's a guy who is probably a candidate to be that retread quarterback this offseason somewhere else. I think that he is at a point in his career where things have slowed down for him. And every opportunity he's had in Green Bay in the last two years, he's been really impressive as the backup and has kept them afloat. And so I think that there will be teams that will be considering him. But how do you pay him? Because the Vikings don't have any money.

And he will probably be the guy who's not like high end, but what are you like 20, 20 a year? Like are you, you know, you got to give them something because there are other teams. there are a lot of teams that need quarterbacks this offseason, and there are not a lot of obvious options for them to bring in. So I think he will have suitors, and I think you're probably going to need to look at like a, you know, a two-year deal that maybe is in actuality a one-year deal.

But even then you're still paying him in the $20 million. And like, you're in the red, right? Like, I don't know where that money is coming from. And if you have other suitors that can potentially drive that price up, because they don't have that financial problem, and then I just think, I wonder if he's even on the board, you know? And if why would he choose Minnesota, if McCarthy's still there? And I don't know how Minnesota comes out and says, we are moving off of McCarthy because voila, we bring you Malik Willis.

Like, I don't know that that's that, you know? So I don't necessarily see him as a viable option. Maybe it will turn out to be. Daniel Jones coming off in Achilles That feels very, very risky for this particular situation. I see him going back to Indianapolis. Aaron Rogers,

I think he'll probably retire, but even if he didn't, he wasn't that much better than McCarthy this year. We have a sumer score rating that we've taught a model to grade every player at every position

for every frame of every play in a bunch of different ways. And we have them graded on a scale of 1 to 10. And we have him as a 6 on the season and McCarthy was a 5. So while he is the type of 6 that is not going to make stupid mistakes, like up here is all still working, right? And he's going to put you in a position where he can keep your head above water

and he's not going to be the reason that like, oh, boneheaded interception at the worst possible time. Like that's not what you're going to get from Aaron Roder. So in that sense, it could possibly work. But then you're literally band-aiding a situation, whereas McCarthy, who wasn't that much worse, and I know people's minds are blown because Erin is Aaron and the Steelers got where they got, he didn't play that great list here. I'll just tell you that. So McCarthy could still improve. Aaron's at the peak.

Like that, that six is what you are getting from Aaron Rogers. You're not getting better than that. He's not going to suddenly improve. His arm is not going to suddenly get better. Like it's a very specific thing you have to do with him. And that's a long conversation about something. I don't even think is an option, right? But even if he was, I just don't like it here.

I would rather develop McCarthy and see if he could do the things that Aaron did this past season in Pittsburgh and be the one that keeps him afloat. Kyler is expensive. I don't think he's worth the price. Like what you would have to give up to get him, I don't think that he brings enough to the table. Like, could he keep you afloat? Yeah. is he a guy who might be good enough? But I just, he's going to be expensive for, for good enough.

Maybe. And I just don't. Maybe he's expensive. Is he expensive? This is interesting because I've been looking at this like what Kyler, I don't know if there's offsetting in his contract if they cut him. Like with Russell Wilson when he went to Pittsburgh and Pittsburgh paid nothing. And Denver had to pay, like if there's that, then he becomes maybe potentially

not expensive. What is not expensive in this scenario? Well, I mean, if there's the offsetting thing, then don't you pay the minimum or whatever? But if there's, even if there's not, they just cut him because who's trading for that contract? And everyone knows, right, everyone knows you're getting rid of him. You are cutting Kyler Murray. So are, is it like a Justin Fields contract? I think that his reputation is bad.

And that most people see him as just being like someone who can't get you any more than 500 type of play. I was looking at it like a Justin Fields type of contract, which is, you know, 20 million, but really it's a one year type of deal with not that much guaranteed. And if you're Kyler, though, you've probably, and I don't know how he thinks at all. I've never met the guy. I don't know anything about him personally. But if you're thinking what's better for me to sign a three-year contract with a bad team for the most possible money or a one-year contract with the Minnesota Vikings and try

to be Sam Darnold, I. or Baker Mayfield, I'm thinking if I'm Kyler, give me the best possible location more than give me the most possible money. Possibly, yes. But I still think that the fact that he, again, we're looking at it.

I don't think people are clamoring over themselves to get to Kyler. I think it's a musical chair situation. They're juster. There are more opening. than there are quarterbacks. And so that will drive the price up to a degree and make the choices more plentiful than they should be

based on the talent that's being presented. And also the things that you said about his reputation, how people don't necessarily think he's good, is because we've seen that a lot. And so why? Why are we like going, let's pay money that we don't have in order to bring in that? We don't know if the prediction is,

like, how do you explain what? we've seen from him in Arizona in the last few years. Is it, are you of the mind that Arizona was just, they had nothing. He had nothing to work with. I don't necessarily agree with that. I think that he's part of the reason

that they didn't succeed. And although, I think from a win-loss record standpoint, I think it was worse for them with Jacoby Brissette. Wildly worse. Yeah, wildly worse. Yeah. Their passing game was better.

And so if you are looking for, I mean, I liked what I saw from Jacoby. I'd be interested in that. I mean, you've got to pass the ball if you're the quarterback. Like, I get that you have the rushing component, but like, what are you doing through the air? And so, I mean. So last year, last year he threw for 3,800 yards.

And quarterback rating in the 90s, ran for 500 more and was an 8-9 quarterback. And Arizona may have some pieces, but they're pretty bad. They're not well-coached. they fired their coach, they're not well run. And I think that like all these things sort of remind me of Sam Darnold conversations or Baker Mayfield, where you're sifting through the pro football reference, the PFF, the Sumersports.com, you're looking through all these things and you're looking through trying to find, is there a reason to believe in this?

And it's not the easiest thing to find. But his 2024 play wasn't that bad. He threw from a pocket a lot more. And what you would have to believe in. is that just the Jefferson, Kevin O'Connell's offense, the offensive line that they've built would work here better than it would work in one of the garbage fires of the National Football League. And I think that that argument's reasonable.

The other thing for me, Lindsay, on this, for Kyler, is there's only two quarterbacks that I see that you could put in Minnesota and tell me they won 11 games and I would believe you. And that's Kyler and that's Gino Smith. I could see it working for Gino Smith. And you bring up Malik Willis. I love the Malik Willis idea. I think in theory that makes the most sense to have another young quarterback and have the two really compete and duke it out. But if I'm Malik, why am I duking it out with somebody when I can go be the starting quarterback somewhere else?

So if we're looking at if we're looking at retreads, washups, Phoenixes, whatever the heck you want to call them, it's like you kind of get down to Aaron Rogers, Kirk Cousins, Gino Smith, Mack Jones, Kyler Murray and everyone makes the same face you're making when these names come out, right? It's like there's nothing promising. Which is what points me back to JJ. Yeah. You know, the retrain, he's not actually available. He's under contract for one more year.

But the name that I think would have been interesting in this situation and maybe there's a way to make it interesting still is Will Levis. We did a podcast about quarterbacks and specifically about retread quarterbacks and why these guys are having success. and what is the situation in the NFL that leads to quarterbacks not being developed and being put in that position. How is this possible? We talked to Jordan Palmer, who develops quarterbacks and some of the biggest and, you know, best that we know at every level. And he specifically pointed to Will Levis as a guy that I was like, predict the next one. And he said it's Will. And he said it was largely because, you know, when he came into the league, he has so many traits.

and then he came into, you know, a not great situation and still needed to develop. And the NFL doesn't develop you as a starter. Like, that's just not what happens. And which is why when people talk about taking a quarterback in the third round in developing him, I'm like, that is so cute. The only way, like, he's not going to get developed. He's just not. Like, once you draft that guy in the third round, you have a starter.

Right. And if the starter is someone else, they're getting all of your attention. And that guy's also taking reps. So he's gotten developed himself on the side. And then the only way he's getting in is if the starter gets hurt. And then you just hope and pray that he has developed himself enough to that point to actually pan out. But I think Will Levis is a guy that maybe is interesting in terms of if you do take a beat and it does slow down for you. And maybe you have a chance to like process some of these things and have conversations about why did they do that?

Why do you do this when they do that? Like that's not stuff you have time to do as a starting quarterback. You better understand that all already or else it's like you're just on the hamster wheel trying to keep up. So I think that he is somebody who's a little bit and he splashed, right? Like there are things that we know he can have me through five touchdowns in his first NFL game, which I'm not saying is like the be all end all, but like he has the physical tools. So if you could say let's let's talk to him now and see if he kind of gets it more. And if it does slow down, I think we'll love us as an interesting game.

But again, neither here nor there because I think he's under contract for one more year. But, you know, I mean, there's situation clearly soured there with him. I think they would trade him. The trouble with quarterbacks like that, which I think it's a great idea, I talk about all the time, like in a theoretical world versus the real world, in a theoretical world that makes total sense to trade for Will Levis and draft a third round quarterback and just roll a football and be like, all right, best man wins like that scene in Batman with the pool sticks, right? And that would be great.

But the Minnesota Vikings have a veteran offensive line, a veteran defensive line, a coaching staff that is not won a playoff game that's going into year five. We just saw Tomlin step down and John Harbaugh get fired and two-time coach of the year, Kevin Stefansky get canned. Like this is a league that doesn't sit around and say, you know what? Why don't you take three, four years with J.J. McCart? It's not 1961. Like they can't do that like they would have bad.

in the day. But what's your other option? You have to do that. That's where the pressure is on for them. And I will say the difference between Sam Darnold and every other one of these quarterbacks is when I talked to some people about Sam Darnold from Carolina and maybe not as much the Jets, but even some people that were connected there to when he was with the Jets, everyone said they could see it.

Every single person was like, yeah, I could definitely see him being great. And with Kyler, I've never heard someone say, man, And like there's like another layer to this. There's another level to this. And with Gino Smith, like he just played about the worst football you could play a quarterback. Like is there something that clicks there? You know, he's kind of his 35, 36 years old. And it's kind of tough.

The problem with Gino right now is that if you bring him into Minnesota, Vikings, like that's a hard sell coming off the season that he was just in. That's not fair. Right. But it just is what it is. Like, I mean. And is he going to save you? Like is Gino going to save it?

That's the problem with all these quarterbacks. None of these options are saving. Right, right. What they are. And I think what we learned about Gino and the Raiders this year is like, this is the difference. So if you put them in a good environment, which is what we always say, like Sam and Minnesota was in a good environment, Gino in Seattle was in a good environment. Those guys have to go to good environments. He cannot, he's not the tide that lifts all boats.

He is the guy who is good enough. the tide's already high, right? And so the Raiders was not that. And I don't even, I mean, people around the Raiders or Raiders fans are like, Gino was terrible. And I'm like, you were terrible. Yes. You were terrible as a team.

And therefore, Gino was terrible. If you weren't terrible, Gino wouldn't have been terrible. You just, it's like a chicken and the egg situation at quarterback. Admittedly, Gino is not going to be one of the best quarterbacks in the NFL ever. Like, we're not going there. Is he good enough, though? I think he still is. I think what we saw this year was a product of nothing else being good enough around him.

The needle threading has to be someone who, and this is why I don't love the Kyler idea, but I think it's realistic. If, as you said, if they're done, if they're like, we just can't do this with him, then Kyler, he goes to the top of the list. If they internally felt that way, if they don't feel that way, the best option is to thread the needle where you have someone who could save your bacon if JJ does not win the job out of training camp, it doesn't make any progress. But also, JJ's still in a training camp battle.

Like if you sign Kyler, he's just your starting quarterback and JJ's your backup. And that's not the story. Right. So that's why if you sign or if you trade for Gino or they cut him because they're drafting Mendoza, well, then he's your backup. Well, he's been a backup in the league before. It's a great backup if McCarthy gets hurt again. but also he should be able to beat that guy for the starting job

if he takes the steps that he needs to take. I think the name that you said, and I actually didn't even have him on my list, and I, is he available, Mac Jones? That is hard to say, yeah. Well, he's under contract with San Francisco as their backup, but. So it's a very Will Levis, like, yeah, you'd have to trade for him away.

Okay, okay. Because I don't, I don't hate that idea, to be honest with you. I think the thing that as we're talking of, about this that feels like I'm landing on with Kyler is that the thing that's necessary for the retread to do well is like you said about Sam, it's not so much can I see it. It's okay, the physical tools are there and are you working really hard to get better and to learn from everything? Like, it's the work that you put in behind the scenes. It's the, and I only know this in retrospect now that Sam is, but I mean, Jordan Palmer raves about how committed he is. And,

has always been and his ability mentally to flush all of the and the ways he's gotten better in that department too like okay you think I sucked you know like on to the next like the ability to remain focused and that type of mentality I think might actually be the key to this and if the problem with Kyler that we're hearing through whispers I don't know any of this personally is that maybe he's not committed enough and maybe he's not putting in the work and the, like, oh, physical tools are there except for the fact that he's short, but like, just didn't really ever figure it out. Like, doesn't, if the work ethic isn't there, that's the one thing that would make me go,

that's not my retread. Right. Because you have to be able to continue to develop and you have to be able to be willing to sit in meetings and ask other quarterback questions and talk to defensive coordinators and say, why did you do that? And offensive coordinators about, like, they talk about, you know, Sam, when he was in, when he was in San Francisco and the fact that he was able to just be around those football minds and hear the conversations while it was slowed down because he's only a backup.

And so I think that that's specifically what I would be looking for. If I'm Kevin O'Connell or the Vikings is like in those conversations, like how can you do when we talk about coverages and what you're looking for and, you know, your pre-snap reads and all of that stuff? I want to hear some detailed thoughts. Well, I'm pretty sure that Kevin O'Connell knows Cliff Kingsbury very well. well. I think they were on the same, were they in the same roster with New England or whatever. There might be a connection there. But I think he knows, kind of tends to know all the

quarterback people. So he will have intel on that that's better than any intel that we have. And I always balk a little bit at stuff like that because when things don't go right for an organization, then they will leak things to try to make themselves look better. Right. And I'm not saying Cliff, but maybe like Steve Kheim or whoever else it might be as the general manager when that contract is signed, someone who had the contract leaked out that there was things in there to watch film. And I'll tell you, it wasn't Kyler who leaked it out. So why did the team put that out there to try to cover their butts, right? So if this doesn't work. Right. And when we talk about personality issues, I mean, Baker Mayfield is another

example you would bring up that right location, right coaching staff. I don't know. Those narratives always make me feel very uncomfortable because unless someone said it to me, that I trust, then I am like, is it, or I can tangibly point to it. Like, where can we say within his play or within his comments or within whatever else that this has been the case? So, uh, anyway, we got a bunch of games coming up, you know, it's pretty big, pretty big weekend here, national football league football. I would like to know, since we're saying, what would you do if, uh, Roger Goodell came to

you and he said, look, we're going to try something pretty fun this weekend. We're going to put Lindsay Rhodes in as the head coach of one of these teams. Just because, yeah, because I'm crazy. Because I don't know, I did bath salts and that's what I'm going to do this weekend, right? Okay. And, but he says, but he says your choice. You get to choose which head coach of which team that you would like to be this weekend. Oh, my gosh.

Yeah, Rogers lost it. He's gone nuts. He's totally crazy. He lost it. Yep. I don't know why he picked you, but he did. I know. It's weird.

So without getting too deep into strategy here, I think I might choose the Seahawks. I think I like that matchup the best for the Seahawks. Like, because I want to win. Right. My, you know, first time as a coach. And the Niners are super. banged up. So I think that and also I would just copy everything that McDonald's done this season because

he's been brilliant. I think the Seahawks are one of my favorite teams to talk about this year because obviously what they've done on defense is one thing and that's his area of expertise like we talked about with flow. But what they do offensively is just so incredibly fascinating to me in the sense that they run the ball so frequently. Yeah. Like they run the ball all.

all the time, but plot twist, they're not good at it. And people would be like, what are you talking about? Because the volume number ends up getting up there. And you know, you hear those running backs names in fantasy and they produce and stuff like that. But from an efficiency standpoint, I think they're 29th in Rush EPA in the league. Like they're literally one of the least efficient run games in the NFL. But they do that to say, up the pass. And the way that they do that with their 12 personnel, they put their 12 personnel

on the field, it's like all specifically to get you out of those two high looks that have become so popular in the last few years where everybody's just trying to stop the pass. And so I think that they have very specifically put their offense in Sam Darnold in the situation that says like, okay, wait for the right look. We're going to run. Wait for the right look. Wait, run. Wait for the right low. Oh, you got the right look. Boom. And then he has, and I don't have the number in front of me and I wish I did. I think he has the I mean he's like he's he's like

the eighth best EPA per pass or something like that as a team which and they throw I want to say they have like the second fewest pass attempts during the season. So they're not throwing but when they throw it's so efficient and they're moving the ball

and they're hitting their explosives and the run game and the way that they just call those plays to set up the pass in my opinion is just so smart. And then the 12 personnel, I think, helps sell the run game, right? Like you put a couple of tight ends on the field.

Now all of a sudden, the defense has to come out of that too high look and account for what's closer to the line. And I just think that they've done such a good job. They've been fascinating too this season, the way that we talked about them in the preseason. It was like no one thought that they were going to be, I mean, maybe a playoff candidate,

but like certainly not the way that they are. and it was because of the offense. And people thought, like, oh, they got rid of Gino and they got rid of D.K. And now they're lost. And the thing that I was not to pat myself on the back, but even then I was like, no, they didn't lose those players. They asked them to leave. Like, they made those choices, right? They could have kept in there.

So that tells me they had something else in mind. And I will never write off somebody who pivots purposefully. Like there's a plan here. You don't know what the plan is. I don't know what the plan is. But they have a plan. And there's a reason they went and got these guys. And oh, boy, have we seen the reasons this year, right?

Well, and the biggest hire was Clint Kubiak for them because it fits so well with Darnold and those two were together in San Francisco. So Kubiak understood Darnold. And I think he really understood some of the shortcomings of Sam Darnold. The sack number, when Clint Kubiak was the Vikings offensive coordinator, her cousin's sack number went down significantly. And then here it goes down significantly. So I think he understands how to set up his quarterback to not.

I mean, Sam's always going to throw picks because he's going to take risks. He's got a huge arm and everything. We know that. And he doesn't see things as fast, I think, is some other quarterbacks, which has caused him problems in the past. But when it comes to kind of protecting him from himself a little bit, by, as you said, setting up for specific looks that makes, It's exactly how the Vikings had success in 2019 when Gary Kubiak and Kevin Stafansky were running the offense.

It's like this family of Shanahan, Kubiak, like they really believe in this strategy. And if you're deciding what team that you're going to coach, it's not only which game you have the best chance to win, which, you know, on Fanduil, they're seven point favorites. So that's by far the big, the next biggest favorite on Fandul is the Rams at three and a half. So there's a huge difference between this one game and every other game. So you want that. You want to win. You want to be Lindsay Rhodes Super Bowl champion.

But I think also if we're going to be tossed into a situation where we're way in over our head, understanding very clearly the philosophy of the team would be the easiest to be like, I'm the coach now, but I know exactly what their identity is. And I think that of all the teams, I don't know if you agree with this, but I think of all the teams, they probably have the clearest identity of any team that you could just like very specifically point out. I do. I do think so. And it's simple.

And it's not super complicated either. I mean, if I can understand it. Because there's a lot, you know, I feel like it's sometimes the story is understandable. You know, like this, we're doing this because of this and that. And like sometimes football just gets so in the weeds that, like you have to. really, really understand layers. Like, and there are obviously things like that that are happening in Seattle for sure. We're just saying in terms of like, oh, from a concept standpoint, what you're doing and why you're

doing it is, I think it makes sense. And it's easy to understand, but hard to, hard to react to. It's not like, oh, just because I know what you're doing and why you're doing it doesn't mean that I can handle it intensively or that I'm built to handle it. And I think that that's the fascinating part. Okay. The other game that I'm really interested in, I got to tell you, the Rams bears, I was very confident about the Rams in this game at first. And then the more that I dove into it, the more nervous that I get from my LA fans who are rooting for the Rams pretty hardcore this weekend.

The Ben Johnson part, I found some numbers that I'd love to pass along to you in terms of like what we might see, which isn't to say that we will. but we dug into a lot of coverage numbers at Sumer. And we have a new product, by the way, called Sumer Live that allows you to dive into these numbers that I'd love to tell you about later. But first, so Caleb is best against cover three. It's the best coverage he's faced this season in terms of the EPA numbers and his success and stuff like that. It was the best coverage that he faced last weekend in terms of, What he did versus all the different coverages that he saw. He had a plus 14 EPA against cover three.

Went 10 for 13 for 60 yards. The way that you get a team to be in cover three is by showing 11 personnel. So you line up an 11 personnel, the Rams, by the way, 78% of the time that the Rams are in cover three, it is against 11 personnel. It's typically a 416 dime. Rams, by the way, are in dime more than any other team in the NFL. they love that look.

They love to put all those cornerbacks on the field or dvies. And for the record, the Panthers against the Rams had their most success last week, passing and running against dime. And they had their most success in 11. As for the way the Panthers had their success against 11, it was hitch routes was one of their few positive EPA routes against L.A. You know who's real good on hitch routes against cover three? I want to take a guess for the bears.

who that might be. Do you mean what wide receiver or just Caleb Leaves? Throwing them. No, I mean the receiver. The pass catcher. Did I just give it right? Well, I mean Luther Burden, possibly? Actually.

Luther Burden's yards per route run versus cover three is 3.86, which is wildly good. So I do think that he's an interesting, like if they decide to go, we're going to go 11 personnel, we're going to try to get you into cover three. This is the look that Caleb has the most success against. I think Luther Borden's a name I'm keeping my eye on, but Colston Loveland. Oh, okay. Yeah. 75 on hitch routes against cover three has a 75% catch rate and 95 yards this total.

He has a 2.34 yards per route run versus cover three on the season. Romadun's A171. So that's not as good, but it's not bad. So I could see a Loveland burden game maybe in that situation, some in breakers to attack the middle of the field. I think we can all picture the ways that those have worked against the Rams. And finally, play action is a thing that I would pull out if I was Ben Johnson a lot in this game. Rams are 28th in the NFL against play action since week 13.

I could see Caleb hitting a few explosives downfield off of those plays. So I feel like 11 play action, Colston Loveland, keeping my eye on Luther Burden, maybe a little bit in that one. So you took us down the road. I was going to, the last question was going to be which game would you use Sumer Live with if you could only use one game, right? because you guys launched a fascinating new tool where you want to talk about a way to watch along. Well, you can watch along on Twitter with everyone's hot takes. That's one way to do it.

Or also watch along with a call it. Like I often, when I'm covering a game, we'll have like the ESPN box score and it'll just play by play. And because I then it can go back like, wait, was that the third play of the drive, the fourth play of the drive, when did something happen? This is that only with,

way, way, way, way more data, right? That tells you so many more things that happened on a given play. So you can see a play happen and then coverages different personnel, like so many more Rouse specifically. Run gap. Right. Like it's wild to me. So I love all the tools that we've built at Sumer.

This is the one where I'm like, this speaks to me the most. Yeah. In terms of the way that I watch games. and what I did not have access to when I was watching games that I wanted. And the Rams are a perfect example. They run all this 13 personnel. I can't tell you how many times they've played the Seahawks. And I'm like, what is the rate?

Like I want to know if they're running it as much as I thought that they would. Or we talked about it all week long that we should see this. Like I just gave you a bunch of cover three and 11 personnel. But like, I mean, who watches a game like that? Who's like how many tight ends are on the field? You know, unless it's Prime Vision on Amazon, which like has the identifiers, by the way I love. But otherwise, it's really hard to track that kind of stuff.

Like is what we thought was going to be a key to this game actually even happening? I don't even know unless the broadcasters are also tracking it and half the time they're not. So the Sumer and my colleagues who are really smart behind the scenes technologically and developed, like developed this product that is a live dashboard. So for every play, it will not only give you the play by play, like your normal play by play feeds, do, but every play will have underneath it, the personnel grouping that it came out of, whether the box was heavy or light, whether what coverage was on the field, is it cover three, is it cover zero, whatever?

Was there play action present? Was there motion present? I mean, anything you could think of that puts it into a specific filterable bucket will show up literally on the, in the box with the play-by-play of that. And by the way, that box will be populated before you actually. actually see it on TV. So spoiler alert, it is going to spoil some plays for you. If you're, if you don't want it to be spoiled, you're going to get the data before the play happens. And then also it will go, there's a teen tendency side where it will start to bucket all of these things

into, it'll count it up. Like how much have they been in all of these different things that we've talked about? The run gap one is my favorite because I just have never seen anything like it. There's literally a picture of what the run gaps look like. And so you can say if you don't know what the A gap is or the D gap or whatever, then it gives you a picture so you can follow along. And then underneath it, it will tell you how many times have they run through the A gap? How many times have they run through the C gap? And what's the EPA per play?

We're changing it to EPA per play this week, by the way. Last week it was total EPA. We've done several modifications for this week's to make it even better than it was last week. And those numbers, usually you have to wait a day, like half a day after the games are over in order for those stats to become available because they're charting data. We found a way to automate that. And so it will all happen. You'll have all of those numbers updated before the next play happens. So it's, I, if you can tell, like I'm so excited about the product because as a user, it's literally what I wanted to be built by somebody.

And so I'm so proud that it was us. And I think everybody should go try. Use it as a second screen maybe, like for fun. And if you want to test it out before the games happen, just to kind of see like, where would I look for what I'm interested and am I interested in having this open? You can go to sumersports.com slash live. That's S-U-M-E-R, like summer, but without the extra M.

And the dashboards are all still up from last week. So you can kind of get familiar with where things are and what you might have in store for you if you choose to go down this road with us. I also Googled it real quick, S-U-M-E-R live, and it's the first thing that pops up. So if that's easier, that's easier too. And you guys got Sumer Brain going on as well

for, you know, nerds to look up like me every... Which is where I found all the cover three data for the Rams and the Bears. Yeah. So you guys are doing a lot of fascinating things over there. Great, great to catch up with you. Lindsay Rhodes. I'll be interested to see if Brian Flores decisions, the Vikings quarterback decisions match up with what you're thinking for those spots. So thanks again. It will

definitely catch up very soon. Thank you so much.