Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Mark Wilf says JJ McCarthy has "gravitational pull" as a leader

Episode Date: May 22, 2025

Matthew Coller talks about Vikings owner Mark Wilf's comments about JJ McCarthy's "gravitational pull" as a leader. Plus, he answers your questions and reacts to your 'What I'm looking forward to' comments.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hey, everybody, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Coller here. And this is an episode that will feature several fans only questions. So you can always jump in on that if you don't have a chance to join those live chats by shooting me an email, Matthew Coller at Gmail, or hit me up on Twitter at Matthew Coller. My DMS are always open if you want to jump in. So before we get to that though, a couple of notes from today

around the NFL. Oh, the tush push it will remain which means guys, there will be more opportunities for teams to have players like Brandon Powell pushing the tush of quarterbacks like Nick Mullins that those special moments in NFL history will remain through our future. Oh, and I guess it seems like the Philadelphia Eagles are pretty happy. And I guess this is a little bit of a surprise. It seemed like most reporters thought that the NFL was going to ban the tush push and I've always been for leaving it as a play as much as nobody wants to Philadelphia Eagles to keep succeeding with

this obnoxious tush push that gets mentioned 37 times during every Eagles game and every other team that tries it sometimes makes it work, but not like this one franchise that has a cheat code. And it always seemed like it was just invented because they couldn't stop one team from doing it. And really one quarterback from doing it, who seems particularly built for the quarterback sneak. But my issue was we can't just ban things because one team is good at them like Dante Culpepper can no longer throw the ball this high in the air because it's too easy for Randy Moss

to catch it when it comes down or Adrian Peterson. No, no, you're too fast. You get out ahead of everyone. You just run away from them. You have to wear a 20-pound jacket. So you're not as fast. I mean, it's not exactly that way. I know, but that's how it felt is we're so annoyed and not being able to stop

this thing that we're going to try to change the rule. So I am glad to not see it be changed. I'm even more glad not to hear about the possibility of it being changed, which was the talk all the way through this off season and they didn't do it. But something came to mind for me today and you guys have heard me rant about the re-seeding, which is not happening. And I don't understand why you can have a 14 win team travel to a 10 win team. And also I discovered something even more egregious that I had forgotten about

when Tom Brady's Bucks had to travel to the seven and ten Washington football team and or maybe it was seven and nine at that time to I think they were Washington football team at that time They had to travel and play Taylor Heinecke in the playoffs after that team and had Alex Smith Then he got hurt then they played two other quarterbacks and somehow they hosted a playoff game. And yet the NFL is totally fine with that, but really put its efforts into trying to get rid of this tush push thing and almost did it. So great stuff, but it did come to mind for me.

Has anybody ever thought about this process? Like we really take it for granted how this works. A team throws out a proposal, then all the owners talk about it and they're the ones making the rules. Now I get it. It is their league. They own it. They made their billions to buy football teams so they could do stuff like make rules for the league. So I understand why they would think that they would be the right people for the job, but it is They would think that they would be the right people for the job, but it is

comical that it's not referees or rules people. It's just a bunch of owners in a room yelling at each other about a tush push. And apparently this comes from several different reporters. I read it at the athletic with Diana Rossini. She reported and I think Seth Wickersham had this as well for me. SPN that, uh, Jeffrey Laurie told some sort of lewd story or made a lewd comment as he was expressing his pure love and joy for their tush push. I just, this is how we're making the rules for a 50 bazillion dollar league.

And that blows my mind that this is the process. So I shouldn't be surprised that sometimes it turns into a circus and they still cannot figure out some of the simplest stuff like, hey, I was watching a UFL game the other day and they had the entire process of a review be fully transparent. Imagine this. They showed us the review being done. They showed us the communication between Mike Pereira and the referee. And then Pereira, the guy who changed the call, turned around, went on TV,

and explained it to the broadcasters. We could be living in this world, folks, where we would know why they did stuff. And they won't let us, because they're yelling at each other about a tush push. What a world we live in in the National Football League. Never a dull day even in late May. So there's thing number one. Number two is that Mark Wilf did a little interview with Paul Allen of Vikings Entertainment and the Play-by-Play voice and Mark Wolf had an interesting comment about JJ McCarthy. He said that he feels that McCarthy has a quote gravitational pull as a leader. And I think I've probably brought this up enough times through the past that I listened to the specifics that people use in their commentary, not just the kind of broad quotes sometimes can be word salad and that kind of thing.

So I always try to pick apart. Well, what's just PR speak or that kind of thing? What are the, what's just feeding you a line or saying something to say something and what is specific? Now gravitational pull sounds pretty specific. I've probably never said that about anything before. And I think that the way Mark Wilf has talked about JJ McCarthy at the owners meetings in Florida and then now with Paul Allen in this

interview, it really stands out how effusive he's been in his praise for JJ McCarthy that he has not hedged at all in his comments. And I know, of course, like, do we think he's going to come out and go, I don't know, we'll see. Like, no, that's not what I'm saying. When Mark Wilf can be as specific as he is in pointing to a particular thing that they would know inside the building as the franchise about JJ McCarthy that stands out to me and what I'm always trying to pick apart is what we think about something. What's our perception of a player versus what is the actual truth about a player and sometimes when you hear, you know, the guy's a leader and that kind of thing. Well, it's been true and not true through the years where some guys have sort of self declared themselves leaders of the Vikings when really behind the scenes. I don't know. Maybe it wasn't quite that way.

And other times you'll never hear a thing about somebody. And they actually are some a player that's been looked to a lot inside the locker room. A quarterback, of course, is going to be out there for all of us to see. But with J.J. McCarthy, the way that he was discussed coming out of the draft is all right. Well, he's got raw tools and those are not refined yet. But the thing that everybody's going to like about him is the way he connects with his teammates, the way he leads that gravitational pull is

a really great description now that I can't avoid that there is a magnetism. I think I probably used in the past about JJ McCarthy, and this is one of the reasons that they are buying into him and that they were willing to move away from Sam Darnold to go to JJ McCarthy and to use that specific language makes me think that's what they are seeing already. And even just the little tiny bit that we've seen, and by the way, we have an OTA schedule, nobody panic, it's actually gonna happen, and a mini camp schedule.

So it's the next week, I think the 28th, and then it goes into June, in the middle of June for mini camp, you know, typical sort of stuff But I know that a lot of you are waiting to find out What is JJ look like you know TAs but the little we got to see in workouts You just see a guy who has so much joy for being on a football field that it does have An energy that rubs off on everybody else. I think we saw that last year at training camp. We saw it just in our small little sample of seeing him throw a few

passes during the workouts. And with the owner saying this, it also makes you feel like that everybody's on the same page with this decision that the way that everyone has talked. It has not felt like there has been any discussion of, well, you know, I guess we'll see and we're all wondering what it's going to look like. Uh, it does feel like, especially at the very, very top that the Wilfs felt like this was the right decision to go with JJ McCarthy and not that other guy that we don't discuss anymore on the show.

And that's just based on some small comments from him. But this one really stuck out a little bit to me. So as we go forward with JJ McCarthy, this is going to be our life in analyzing McCarthy until he actually plays games, which is trying to pick up on little hints about where he's at. Look guys, I am just about at the age

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So the off season leadership, how do you come back into the building? Now this doesn't mean a whole lot when we're in the middle of fantasy football season in October or something, but it does to them. Like even the players talking about Dallas Turner and saying, well, I really liked the way he came back into the building and was working out and doing all those things. Those are the things that players will see with each other. They know is this person putting in the work? Does this person have the leadership, even just going to meetings, going to workouts, things like that?

And this makes me think that the early results are probably that. Is that trying to make a little too much out of it? Yes, it is, but it's all we got and it's the only way we can do this. And I just think that part is paying off and we saw it start to pay off last year. And if that part works, the part that they bought into so much when spending the 10th overall draft pick on JJ McCarthy, a lot of the other stuff can be helped. Accuracy can be helped.

Understanding of an offense can be helped. And this is some of the skepticism on Caleb Williams. And there's a tiny little update on him as well, but the, uh, some of the skepticism on Caleb Williams is can this guy with this personality and all the talent in the world, can he lead an entire franchise and entire city? Because when you take over, you take over much more than just, hey, I'm the guy that's supposed to throw the ball to player X or something.

When you are that franchise quarterback and you think of Kansas City, you think of Buffalo, you think of Baltimore, the first person you think of is their leader and the person who's out front. So if they check that box with McCarthy and there's buy-in and there's belief because of that, there's a lot of other things that can be nudged, that can be helped, that could be taught. But being the guy, that's something that you don't teach. And I remember with Josh Allen specifically in 2018 before that disaster of a football game between the Vikings and the Buffalo Bills, somebody that I

knew from the Bills, I was asking them like, Hey, what do you think of this Allen guy looks like, you know, is he not ready to start really? Or what's going on there? Because they had started, I think Nathan Peterman. And I was like, I don't know, man. I'm kind of skeptical about his stats and stuff like that and that person said to me like but he's got it like he's got the he's got that leadership element and he's gonna learn and he's gonna get better but that is

the irreplaceable the competitiveness that everybody can be galvanized around so that's your first review from the owner on that part of JJ McCarthy's game kind of interesting so Ben Johnson by the way the coach of the Chicago Bears did take the he did he did I will give him credit for this He did not try to hide away from Caleb Williams saying he'd rather be a Viking I mean isn't aren't they lucky that the opener is not at US bank stadium with the Vikings and the Chicago Bears? I think that they are lucky because otherwise there would be so many, you know, signs and people yelling stuff about

Caleb Williams wanting to play for the Vikings and not wanting to play for the Bears. So, but I mean, I don't know. I think Chicago is so sold on that idea of him that it's not like Philadelphia. Their fans will still be nice to Caleb Williams. If it was Philly, I think they'd show up with signs that said, go play for them then. But he's lucky he's there in Chicago with a maybe friendlier fan base than Philly, which is everyone. So here's what Ben Johnson said about Caleb Williams. He said, I love the opportunity to come in and change that narrative.

That's where great stories are written. So we're looking to write a new chapter, 2025 Chicago Bears and looking forward to the future. So he took on the questions, didn't hide away from them, but that's kind of cheesy as far as his answer goes. The reality of Caleb Williams or any franchise quarterback is that they always take over a bad team. In fact, Caleb Williams has had one of the better teams last year despite the head coach. But if you just look across the roster and compare that to what Josh Allen took over,

compare that to what, well, I guess my homes and Lamar Jackson probably did luck out. Uh, but Jaden Daniels is another good example. Jaden Daniels arrives in Washington and they scramble to try to bring in anybody who could play football around him. And they're throwing out this guy or that guy just with hopes that they could put together a, a competitive team. And he takes them to the NFC championship. I think that if you swapped Jayden Daniels and Caleb Williams last year, it's just as good of a result for Jayden Daniels, despite the bad coaching, despite

whatever offensive line issues and the running game and all that, some players just have a way of pushing through these things. Nobody ever takes over a great team when you're drafted number one. So my question remains with Caleb Williams. It seems like Ben Johnson has the right approach to this with Caleb and they're going to run the ball better and they're going to have more open guys and they're going to run more play action. They're just going to do a lot of things better.

Shane Waldron was clearly a very poor fit. But when push comes to shove, is Caleb Williams going to be able to handle the heat of the entire organization on his back? Because when somebody comes out and says, man, I wish I was in Minnesota instead of the place I'm getting drafted, that doesn't sound like a Joe Burrow to me who came in with the attitude. And there was some talk, Hey, is Burrow not going to go there? They're so bad. Came in with the attitude of, well, now that I'm here, the franchise is going to be different. And that's not Caleb Williams. So Ben Johnson, I think, has his work cut out for him in maybe trying to nudge forward

someone into more of a dog type of approach. But the thing is, there's always a saying in sports. It's easier to say, whoa, than go. And what that means is it's a lot easier to tell somebody to take it down from 11 to nine in terms of their intensity and their competitiveness. Now, are they a little over the top? Do they burn a little too hot like Baker Mayfield, right? Too much of a chip on his shoulder to start his career. Whereas it's harder to take a guy from a three and push him up to a seven and say, come on, be intense. Come on, be competitive. Come on, be a fighter. Like

that's harder to do. So I think that's one of the challenges that Ben Johnson is facing. But we'll always go back to this will mean nothing if all of his physical talent comes to fruition. But at very least, I think Ben Johnson passed a test there because there were times with Matt Eberfluss where you would see his press conferences and just go, I don't know, man. I don't know if that guy's got it as the leader of a franchise, but at least Ben Johnson was willing to say, I know what I know it was said. Here's how I'm going to approach it. Fresh start. We're going to change the narrative. Like I think that's the right way to go about it. So we will see where it goes from there with Caleb Williams.

So let's get into some fans only questions that you guys have passed along to me. And again, email, Twitter, whatever way you want to reach out is good with me. So this one comes from Berndt. He says, do you think JJ McCarthy will be more like ant or cat? I never thought about it before that the two biggest stars in Minnesota, basketball and the men's side, over the last, what, five, seven years,

one is named after an insect and the other is a mammal. I did not think of that until this moment. But Anthony Edwards or Karl Anthony Towns. So Berndt goes on to say in his email, the Wolves and Vikings both have an extensive history of not making it out of the first round despite having amazing season long performances from their top players. That's I think that's sort of true. I think the Wolves, when they've been great, they've gone deep

in the playoffs many times. But, you know, nonetheless, watching Ant, I've realized that there's something different about some players beyond great stats. Seems like Philly has it, they outperform in the postseason. Washington may have it. I'm actually a big cat fan,

but he strikes me as more like cousins than Jaden Daniels. What's your expectation for McCarthy, aunt or cat? So I think what you're getting at is passengers and drivers. And that's a way to look at quarterbacks as well. Is he going to be somebody that has to have everything line up correctly, which is really Kirk Cousins. We talked about that many times that everything in the universe had to all align at the same time. It had to be good luck with the schedule. Good luck with injuries play the right teams in the playoffs, the right type of matchups, make sure they don't have a good defensive tackle because not only was he not able to take it to that next level physically from a pure athleticism and playmaking

standpoint, but also they were never able to put together the full team. And sometimes I think that that contract and the rest of the team part of it got weighed a little too much in comparison to it's a playmaker's world in the NFL and he was not. So we always had a kryptonite. And I think that's sort of what you're getting at with Carl Anthony Towns that even though Carl Anthony Towns is great, there are some limitations to his game and part of that is just what it means to be somebody who isn't Jokic that's seven feet tall in the NBA.

There's two guys who hit Jokic and Embiid who over the last number of years have shown they can truly dominate off the dribble at that size. Well, that's two out of 30 teams. There's not many guys who can really do that. And I think that's the difference is an Anthony Edwards can just take the basketball and take over a game where a Carl Anthony Towns is not fast enough, not good enough off the dribble. So the ball has to kind of come to him and he can do it but he can't do it all the time and defensively he's i think you got a lot better what is never a all nba type of defensive player so there's weaknesses in the game.

With JJ McCarthy, one thing is I'm not sure yet because McCarthy is still a very young quarterback and he has a playmaker's mindset. And you could see this at Michigan where sometimes they get a little bit caught up. We get a little caught up on that. They ran the ball a lot, but they also did throw the ball. It's not like they ran it 90 you know, 90% of the time and he threw four passes a game. So we have a sample size of some of the natural athleticism plays that he made. And I can't remember exactly how the play went

that stood out to me when I was watching him in the pre-draft process, but it was a trick play where the receiver threw it back to him and it was a terrible throw and he had to make a really athletic play and then spin around and maybe throw it or run for a first down or something. And I went like, wow, like that is a natural athlete type of play. I don't think that JJ McCarthy is going to be like Anthony Edwards in that Edwards can just dunk from the free throw line.

He can jump over other human beings and just slam the ball in the hoop. I mean, I don't think that McCart, that's Lamar, like that's Josh Allen. Like those guys can just dunk on anybody whenever they want. Allen can just run for a 30 yard touchdown. Lamar can run for a 30 yard touchdown at any given time. I don't think that is quite JJ McCarthy, but I think that he's more of a playmaker in the form. And it's really on my mind because of the podcast the other day with Joe Goodbury, who covers the Bengals, but the, the Joe burrow style of a playmaker where,

and I'll put this for CJ Stroud as well, where these guys, when things break down, they don't freak out. They can get out of the pocket. They can make a play. They can make a smart decision and not have a turnover worthy play, but do something on the run. And where I've been really impressed with JJ McCarthy is his ability to throw while running.

But he can flip the hips when he's running to his left. He can especially throw when he's running to his right, like a shortstop, kind of making that throw across his body if he needs to. So I think there's enough playmaking there that if he executes the offense at a very high level, he's got the arm strength to fit the ball in windows, which is another part of it too. Arm strength.

How hard is Josh Allen and Mahomes and Herbert throw the football? Well, I don't know if McCarthy is quite on their level, but he throws the ball very hard. It was comparable to Sam Darnold last year. He has a very strong arm. So if he has tools that are an eight out of 10 arm and a seven out of 10 athleticism and playmaking and it's not Lamar and it's not Josh Allen, then well, I'm not sure we could call him Anthony Edwards because I think I would draft Anthony Edwards over just about any player in the entire NBA. So that's I wouldn't quite go there But I also don't want to say well, it's sort of like her cousins because it's not it's more of like a

Jalen hurts maybe Mmm, maybe he runs too much to be that way But Brock Purdy comes to mind. Maybe he doesn't run quite enough I don't know if there's a perfect fit for this other than the playmaking of somebody like burl where there's creativity or Stroud where there's creativity mixed in but Execution is going to be the Stroud may be the best example because execution is really gonna be the thing now Stroud Throws an incredible football It's something that McCarthy is working on and improving, and we're going to see

the consistency and accuracy at that point, but the way he's going to play quarterback, I think will have a lot of similarities to that. So it's probably somewhere in between. It's not quite a, I don't want to say he's like a Shea Gilder's Alexander because everyone is mad at him right now for taking all those fouls But when you think about Gilder's Alexander in the regular season, he scores a lot of points But in the playoffs he has had to be a playmaker He's had to be more of a facilitator and then score when it came to him I think that's like McCarthy has some an element of that where it's gonna be a point guard

It's gonna be a distributor and when the time comes go do something special. That's how I would describe him in basketball terms that it's kind of like a point guard that would average eight assists per game and maybe 17 points, but then you get into clutch time. All right, you got to go score. You're going to go score and otherwise you're leaning on a lot of your teammates probably going to be something like that, but go score. And otherwise you're leaning on a lot of your teammates.

Probably gonna be something like that, but we just don't know yet, because there's a lot of room to grow for JJ McCarthy. So I don't wanna say that he's going to be just like this or just like that, because we're gonna see it come to fruition. But if we're just going on raw physical tools, very, very good arm, very, very good feet,

but neither one of those are, wow, he's just going to fly over somebody and do the most incredible things every single week. He's his brain, his leadership, his execution, his consistency, the way he sees the field, like those things are going to have to be a huge part of his game. And that's why Burrow Stroud, maybe Herbert, like those guys are more along the lines of what you would expect from him. All right, Matt sends this one says, it seems like the NFL is against making drastic changes

to the current postseason schedule setup. Do you think that the owners would be more willing to make a smaller change like keeping current seating unless a division winner is below 500 Then they become the wild card. I I don't know. I do they like banners? I mean is that part of it? Do they like banners to be able to say we won the division? I don't understand why as an nfl owner you wouldn't want to say

If i'm better than you, I host the game. And if you want to host the game, then you'll be better than me. Like it's really the most simple thing. And I'll continue with this mind experiment for anybody and everybody. It's very simple. Ask yourself, do you want a playoff win or a division title? Which would you rather have? And everyone says playoff win then.

Okay. We know what means more, but to your point, I like your proposal. Your, I would sign rather have? And everyone says playoff win. Then okay, we know what means more. But to your point, I like your proposal. Your I would sign your proposal. Okay, if they're below 500, I still think that it should just be the team with the better record. Maybe there would be some acceptance to if a team is below 500, then they don't get to host. But then that's that to me is just not going too far. So you're saying, could you soft launch with the owners? It feels more like to me, this is just how it feels like the owners watch a lot of TV. And if they're debating something on TV, then they're

going to talk about it as a rule change. And if they're not, then they won't. There was no outcry. Like they get their feedback from the ESPNs, the NFL networks, that kind of stuff. And so they're going to TV and saying, well, they're talking about the tush push. We got to get rid of it. Let's get rid of it. That kind of thing. That's how it feels. It feels a lot of times like they will address stuff that is in the news or is debatable, but isn't necessarily something that needed to be addressed like the tush push, but we'll see if it ever happens. I understand what you're saying.

Could you sort of take like with the kickoff, take a little bit of a step. Then can you take the big step? I don't know. They need to just make that change. It doesn't sound like it's off the table for the future, but maybe it was too drastic for them right now. I just don't fully understand the logic of how any of this works of making decisions for NFL rules. Next question comes from Jake, which second or third year defensive player,

excluding Dallas Turner, would elevate the defense the most if they were to make the jump this season? I think that's a pretty clear- cut answer is Mackay Blackman. Mackay Blackman gets off to a good start to his career. I can't even call up his numbers. I haven't looked at it in a while. I just felt like it was a good start to his career. And then he has the ACL and we don't see him for a year. So we kind of forget like, what is Mackay Blackman? We don't know. And you're coming back from an ACL.

It's not always a perfect guarantee, but for the most part, players are able to come back from them. Just look at his PFF numbers right now from twenty twenty three. He had a seventy one point eight grade for PFF, which is pretty solid. Four hundred and thirty four snaps ninety grade grade tackling and 71.8 as a cover man. And when targeting him, let me see here, opponents had an 87.8 quarterback rating did have a very notable catch over him in the end zone in a game against Denver. But aside from that, I mean, those numbers are pretty good.

Those numbers are an above average player as a rookie right away and played a decent amount for a rookie that season. And when he was targeted, teams were not taking advantage of him. And then the aggressiveness and tackling was part of who he was coming out. So that kind of checked that box. If Blackman is good and Isaiah Rogers, he's got some of the hype because of what Kevin O'Connell said that Brian Flores had passed along to them. Like, Hey, this is a guy I really want. Well, I think all three of them are going to play just

the same way we saw maybe not always on the field at the same time, but we saw Shaq Griffin and Stephane Gilmore and Byron Murphy Jr. They all played last year. So I expect that McKay Blackman is going to play quite a bit as a guy who was a fairly high draft pick for them. And they were ready to start last year. They were not going to go get Stefan Gilmore. They were going to start McKay Blackman and see if he took the next step. So his early results were good.

We haven't seen him in a while, but if he comes back and plays well, if he even plays like that for a full season, that's a real big impact on this defense to have cornerback depth to have, maybe he's just starting and is playing across from Byron Murphy. And then you could have that for several years with those two guys paired together. So that could be a big one. Uh, what is, what year is Theo Jackson in 22, 23, 25? He said, I think Theo Jackson's maybe too far down the line for this, but we know that that's going to be one too, that could have a big impact. I would toss Dwight McClothern out there.

I would toss Taki Taimani or Levi Drake Rodriguez or Jalen Redmond. I don't know which one, but there's going to be a real battle between those guys for playing time. But you have Javon Hargrave and Jonathan Allen who are pass rushers. There are going to be situations where you have to put someone on the field to stuff the run and where maybe a team is up in a game late. Then you need that sort of thing. So who's going to be the guy that emerges there and starts making plays. And then. Gabe Murphy and Bo Richter, they're going to battle for maybe rotational positions.

We know that Brian Flores with his outside linebackers really likes to rotate those guys in. So there's lots of different options there on the defense for players who could this year in training camp, take that step and then earn spots that we didn't really anticipate Going into it. Good question Jake. All right. So earlier this offseason a couple weeks ago I threw it out there once the dust had settled for Vikings fans And I would love to hear more of these if people want to send them to me Just what are you looking forward to and if you saw, or heard the last episode of my intern, Clay Petri, that was his last assignment was to tell me, what are you looking

forward to in 2025? Like what's the biggest thing that you just can't get off your mind. So I threw that out there on Twitter and I got a bunch of responses. So I wanted to read some of those as well. Uh, at the Thomas family one said, it's all about the O line for me. How much time will this version, uh, be able to give JJ McCarthy to throw? And will they finally be able to run the ball well enough to balance out the run pass ratio a little better?

Is it, is it over dramatic to say that how the offensive line comes together, how healthy they stay is always a factor. How they come together, how quickly, how well Ryan Kelly brings them together and gels with JJ McCarthy. Is that going to be the number one factor of how far this team can go outside of the obvious? How does JJ McCarthy play? But they are going to impact JJ McCarthy. And every time I look at this, it just blows my mind up.

I'll pull it up for you again. I'll read you the numbers again, but I just can't believe the difference between quarterbacks throwing with and without pressure. It just tells you how important the blocking is and the scheme to get the ball out of the quarterback's hands. That's also important. But in this scheme, I think we are all aware that there are some, you know, plays that go down the field for Kevin O'Connell and the numbers are just so different. Let me pull them up here. Just for example,

under pressure last year. Let me pull them up here. Just for example, under pressure last year. Let me get the quarterback ratings. Joe burrow was the only quarterback over a hundred quarterback rating under pressure. Lamar Jackson was the only quarterback other than him over 90. Sam Darnold believe it or not people was third in the NFL in quarterback rating under pressure during the regular season with an 87.1 quarterback rating and there was only five guys over 80 under pressure. Nobody's good under

pressure. Go to the clean rating Lamar Jackson 131.6 Jared Goff 122.3 Jalen Hurts 116.8. golf, 122.3 Jalen hurts, 116.8. Basically when these guys weren't pressured, they played like MVPs. There's bad quarterbacks who played great when not under pressure. Russell Wilson, 107.4 quarterback rating. I wouldn't say Gino Smith is a bad quarterback, but it had 109.2 quarterback rating.

I mean, Bo Nicks, 103.1. That's superstar level play when not under pressure and when under pressure, very, very poor. So the answer is, is, uh, well, I mean, it's something you're looking forward to, but when I say, is it too much to say that the offensive line is going to dictate a lot of how this team succeeds or fails? I don't think it is too much to say. So that, that could be way up there on that list of most interesting team succeeds or fails. I don't think it is too much to say so that that could be way

up there on that list of most interesting things to find out and plus you just waited so long. You just waited so long for this and if they come out even in the first, you know first week and have a drive where they hand off and they just run over somebody on a drive. And I know they had a good running game through the first, maybe six weeks of last year. Christian Derrissa injury really took that away, but they never imposed the

will and if the will is imposed folks, then we got something different here than we've seen in a long time. CJ McCauley on Twitter said can't wait to find out where the Lions and Bears be significantly different for losing and gaining Ben Johnson. Yeah, that's a that is one that will really shape where this division is going to go. Because if Ben Johnson suddenly has the keys to the Brian Flores defense and understands how to beat it with Caleb Williams, and then all of a sudden the Vikings are playing shootouts with the Chicago Bears all the time and the Detroit Lions don't have the same type of offense

as they did. There's another thing too, that's beyond Ben Johnson with Detroit and they have a really good offensive line, but do they have now that they've lost Zitler? They've had some injuries there, either drafting a guy to maybe potentially start like, is it going to be quite as dominant for this next offensive coordinator and is the play calling going to click because teams change play callers and we're like, I don't know what, you know, we'll see every team doesn't like their play caller except for like three teams that are really great on

offense and they always think the play caller is screwing up. But it's that's the person in the headset of Jared Goff. So Ben Johnson's there for several years, several of the best years of his career. And then all of a sudden it's somebody else that could make a difference. And the other part is just that scheme with Caleb Williams. If that scheme gets people open and he starts seeing the field and I mean, think about where Jared Goff was when he arrived in Detroit and when Ben Johnson took over the play calling, Goff had been down bad with LA and then his first year they're tanking

and they're not using Ben Johnson as the play caller and then all of a sudden he takes over and up goes Jared Goff's career. Now a lot of players went into that as well, but Chicago has some weapons. So this I agree with you. That is something I can't wait to see. And we'll get it on opening night is just what does it look like there with Ben Johnson? Next one comes from at red and purple 77. If Jordan Addison will cement his future with the team. This is a big opportunity for Jordan Addison this year. Now it's not his contract year and they'll have a fifth year option in their pocket as well.

So, but you're right that the first two years of Jordan Addison were. Very good play. I would not call it elite wide receiver play in the NFL. I would say he was elite at going up to get the football on deep throws, but it was really good wide receiver play and off the field to very concerning incidents from Jordan Addison driving at the speeds that he drove at is really, really concerning because it just lacks so much common sense. And then last year to have what happened with Kyrie Jackson followed up very

shortly after with, uh, being charged with DUI, uh, again, a common sense, really man type of thing that has happened with him. So if he has grown up, if he has figured it out off the field, that it's time to understand that actions have consequences and maybe not enough consequences within that building. But they have consequences in the form of, are you the guy they want to give a contract to and three strikes if something happens again with you. Like, does he understand that that it cannot ever happen again to him off the field?

Because if it does and they can't trust him, then there's no way you can start thinking about giving him $28 million a year, which is sorry, it's what he's going to be worth when they actually get there or more than that potentially with salary cap going up every single year. So he has to earn their trust truly off the field. And then I think he's also got to grow a little on the field. I think he's a tremendous wide receiver. He's got a ton of talent.

He can run routes with the best of them. He is got crazy, like spectacular catchability of going up, making a one handed catch or the one in the back of the end zone with one hand absolutely freakish Well, sometimes I have felt like there's a little bit of a lack of consistency from week to week With him at times or maybe a lack of focus at times and then he was banged up a little bit last year So yeah I agree with you that I am looking forward to that as well because he does have a chance to take that

that I am looking forward to that as well, because he does have a chance to take that sort of next step to being a consistent, excellent number two wide receiver in the league. And if he does that, then you are talking about having him here for a really long time. All right, the last one is funny. Nerple Perp says, who is the Browns quarterback week one? Can't wait to find that out.

And the reports this week for that. It's Kenny Pickett with a bullet. Like Kenny Pickett's the guy and that's going to be such a circus. I mean week five. Like what are we talking about with the Browns week five? Are they like one and four with three different quarterback

starting? Have we reached the Dylan Gabriel portion of the program? Are they so bad? They're just like, let's play the guy that everybody wants to see play because whatever. Intradurah Sanders. And some of the reports in Cleveland are that he looks good in OTAs.

So I don't know. I don't know. I agree, yeah. Who's gonna play quarterback for the Browns when they face the Minnesota Vikings in London is a great question. I guess if you were putting down a pie chart of that, why not?

Why don't we do a real quick pie chart? And then I'll wrap up. I would give it 50% that it's Kenny Pickett. I'll go 25% that it's Joe Flacco. 10% that it's Dylan Gabriel. And 15% that it is Chedur Sanders. Add it up 25, 20, yeah. I don't know, we'll see.

That's a tough place to live for the Cleveland Browns. Anyway, make sure, since we have plenty of time in the off season for all of your questions and thoughts that you reach out anytime. MatthewColler at Gmail, again, MatthewColler on Twitter as well. Feel free to shoot me a DM. So thanks everybody for watching slash listening and we'll catch y'all again soon. Football.