Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - O'Connell non-committal on McCarthy's return, Jackson has surgery (Part 1)

Episode Date: September 23, 2025

Matthew Coller talks about Kevin O'Connell's comments on JJ McCarthy's potential return and Carson Wentz's play vs. Cincinnati. Plus Donovan Jackson will miss the upcoming games due to wrist surgery. The Purple Insider podcast is brought to you by FanDuel. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hey, everybody, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider, Matthew Collar here. And we have a lot to discuss tonight. So for the next hour, going to go over everything in Viking land here that we heard from Kevin O'Connell and, of course, have a lot of discussion about the quarterback situation. And then Brian Murphy and Manny Hill will join for a roundtable at 7th. 7.30, and we'll get their breakdown of this game and expectations going forward for the Minnesota Vikings after a 48 to 10 win over the Cincinnati Bengals. And I got to say in all of my years covering the Minnesota Vikings, I have never, ever done a postgame podcast after a win that was so definitive from the Vikings. and then had everybody in the comments rip me apart and call me a fool.

So this was a first. This is a first of me reacting to the comments after last games postgame podcast with myself and Dane Missatani in which we talked about how good Carson Wentz played. And so I want to go through all of that. What it means the way that Carson Wentz played, what Kevin O'Connell had to say about it, what he had to say about J.J. McCarthy and also the Tracy Wolfson reporting as well. But I do want to start out by talking about a little bit about the biggest

news of the day today because I don't think any of us thought that J.J. McCarthy was going to start against the Steelers in Dublin. So he's not. It's going to be Carson Wentz. And clearly they are taking it slow from a physical perspective with McCarthy. But the biggest news that Kevin O'Connell dropped on us today was that Donovan Jackson has a wrist injury. And we knew that last week because he was limited in practice, but a lot of guys have a lot of things that limit them in practice, where you know, all right, the guy's going to play,

practiced in full, didn't have any designation going into the game. So none of us thought that Jackson had a wrist injury that was serious enough to keep him out. He did get bopped in the face in the game, but stayed in, played, he was fine. Well, they played the backups later on, but there was no issue other than, you know,

just getting, you know, duped in the face. but, you know, when it came to his wrist, especially if you watched him play, then there was really no thought that there was an issue because I thought Donovan Jackson had a phenomenal game after rewatching the All-22 film this morning. I highlighted in the article I'm working on for tomorrow several plays from Donovan Jackson where he had reach blocks, got to the second level, used his movement skill. I saw he got a Baldi's breakdown from former NFL player Brian Baldinger about how well he played.

and it turns out that he was playing through a wrist issue that they thought wouldn't get worse if he played in this game and then flew to Los Angeles to have surgery and now he's going to be out for several weeks. So the Vikings just cannot get five on the field. After Christian Derisaw comes back, looks really good. Ryan Kelly expected to come back and now Donovan Jackson is out. But luckily for them, they do have Blake Brandel to be able to step in.

And if you recall, the way that Brandel was playing last year with Christian Darisaw next to him, should be a competent starting left guard with a lot of experience. If you're going to ask somebody to be a backup and come in for the guy you drafted in the first round with the freaky athleticism and all that stuff, Blake Brandel's about as good as it gets in the NFL with the amount of experience and how he played overall last year when Derisaw was there. When he had Cam Robinson, it was not as good. And we really saw that as it went down the stretch of the season. But if you go back and look at the beginning of the year, I would describe

it is being pretty solid left guard play. So he is not a difference maker. He's not going to be quite the body mover that Donovan Jackson is, especially in that outside zone. That's where he was great yesterday. When they were running that outside zone and he's able to use his speed, athleticism, quickness, flexibility, he was really good. And I think Donovan Jackson overall's gotten off to two out of the three games

has played really, really well. The Atlanta game we know was a pretty big mess for just about everybody. but Jackson has shown a lot of promise over these first couple of weeks and grinding through an injury there to play like that. Very impressive stuff from young Donovan Jackson. It's not season ending. And it appears from the way that O'Connell talked about it. He's not even going to go on short-term I-R.

And they expect him to be back after the by week. So when the Vikings play, the toughest possible opponent with the interior pressure, the Philadelphia Eagles, they will have, it seems, as of right now, the way that O'Connell talked about it, Donovan Jackson. So there is that. That's off the agenda. It's unfortunate, surprising news today, but the start that he's off to with his career,

the fact that's not going to keep him out for too long is a silver lining for Donovan Jackson, though it doesn't make things a lot easier in the coming weeks where they are going to have to play a good Pittsburgh defensive line and a great, great Cleveland defensive line was reviewing a little bit of that Packers game. Whoa, it is going to be a problem in that game. That Cleveland defensive line is as good as it gets.

Mason Graham, the guy they just drafted, Miles Garrett, so that they will face a very serious challenge over these two games overseas without Donovan Jackson. So it's a bad break, but they do have one of the best backup left guards in the entire NFL. Now, let's get to the quarterback situation here. I want to start with what Kevin O'Connell had to say when he was asked directly, if J.J. McCarthy is his 100% committed quarterback when he is healthy. So here's O'Connell.

So when J.J. is healthy or be you 100% committed, that he's going to be back. Yeah, I think, you know, the first and foremost, he's got to get healthy. And then throughout that process, it's not just, I don't think it's one of those things where it's, hey, the day he's healthy. And if he's healthy the night before a game, we're going to just throw him out there and say, hey, you know, go figure it out type of thing. I think we saw, you know, as phenomenal as he was getting prepared for the Atlanta game,

he did mispractice that week. And when you're in the phasing of building up the 10,000 reps and 10,000 hours of what it takes to play the position at a very high level, which we know J.J. McCarthy is going to do. You can't cut corners on that. And that also doesn't require an answer on that question today. I think we're our goal was to win a football game yesterday. We're in the day after of that. We've had our players in.

We're preparing for another, you know, top tier opponent. And I think we've got to have another really good week of preparation. And then you add on the layers to travel and making sure our players have the utmost confidence in how we're handling the trip and building it, you know, progressively throughout the week until we get another opportunity, which we're really excited about. So there's Kevin O'Connell and did not commit to. to J.J. McCarthy absolutely being the quarterback. That's not a criticism of mine of O'Connell that he didn't commit. It's a fact. But I don't think he's in a great position to do that because if you say, oh, yeah, dude, he is our quarterback. There's no question about it. Carson is our backup. JJ QB1. And then Wence puts up 35 points a game over the next two weeks against two stacked defenses. I know Pittsburgh hasn't been that great, but they are talented. And then, Cleveland, apparently is that great on defense.

If that happens, then you can't just go back to J.J. McCarthy if your team is winning and the veterans doing great and all those things. And the other thing, too, is if you say, well, JJ, he's going to be our quarterback when he's back and ready, that does put a lot of pressure on him, maybe to push it out there and not fully recover from the injury and try to get on the field faster than maybe he would want to do that. And it sort of sounds like, hey, yeah, get back here, kid. you're our guy. At the same time, there wasn't anything there to suggest that even a hint of,

oh, yeah, like he's, yeah, he's our guy. But Carson is doing a great job, but that's QB1. And you could say, well, you know, what's he going to say and everything else? But if it was Kirk Cousins and Nick Mullins, there would be no question about it, right? If that was fully and completely locked in, just 100% facts, this guy is QB1, and there's no discussion whatsoever in the building, then you would probably say it straight out. So I understand why he didn't because the scenario has presented itself, especially with the way that this team plays defense, that if you have a quarterback on the field who can just

guide the ship the way that Carson Wentz did yesterday and not make big mistakes and throw on time and play with good rhythm and all those things that you have a defense that can win you a lot of games and you have a lot of supporting cast in terms of the run game, especially from what we saw yesterday, where it was committed to the run game. There may not be commitment with the quarterback situation, but there was commitment with the run game. And I think a lot of us were probably having the same thought myself and you guys of, I present you, Jordan Mason, everyone, yesterday. But when you added all that up, Carson Wentz played really good football for them the way that Kevin O'Connell wanted him to play. And so I asked O'Connell about a stat that

really popped out to me, which was that Carson Wentz from snap to release, only 2.55 seconds according to PFF, which was the second fastest of the week. The only guy that was faster was 2.53, and that was Matthew Stafford. So even in that sort of Rams offense. So I asked O'Connell about that. And here's what he said. Kevin, the numbers had Carson getting rid of the ball in about two and a half seconds. Just what do you think was working for him in terms of getting rid of the ball quickly? Yeah, I thought going back over the tape, it felt like it in the game, but I thought he was very sharp fundamentally. There was quite a few reps where the ground is the quarterback's

friend from a standpoint of keeping your foundation or your base balance and body position in the ground. And so you can make quick decisions. I thought he progressed multiple times. I thought he threw with anticipation. I thought he really got into, once we got into the meat of the game, which can be hard sometimes, which will take when the defense is scoring points on the other side. But the first drive was fantastic. Then we had some kind of early, you know, third down, third and shorter where we had a penalty to push us back and they were able to get us off the field. And then as the game went on, I just thought he did a really nice job of playing point guard, throwing completions, allowing guys to win.

and then, you know, when number one wasn't there, he progressed and found open players. But, yeah, I was really happy with the way Carson kind of maintained and continued and even grown or grew his, is, you know, efficiency and how he's looked on the practice field. It showed up in the game. That's why I was not surprised in any way, shape, or form. Folks, I know a lot of you out there either own your own business or you are in a management position where you have to hire people, and it can be such a headache. You have to sort through all sorts of resumes of people who aren't qualified and you end up overlooking some of the best candidates.

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He's used it with Sam Darnold, where when things are going the way that he wants them to go as a head coach and play caller, that's, usually what he says is one of his biggest compliments that the guy is out there playing point guard and that's what it looked like for Carson Wentz. And when we get into the debate and the conversation about what they should do and what they're going to do and all that sort of stuff, I keep in mind the comments from Kevin O'Connell there

about playing point guard later on. He said if you have a lot of experience, then that helps you get the ball out on time and that helps you progress through your, reads and all those things that Carson Wentz has done many times. So he was very complimentary of that. And so the conclusion that I've come to, and from yesterday, look, I had every person in the world tell me that I don't realize how much Christian Derisaw helped.

Well, thanks for telling me the left tackle is important. I've only been saying that for two weeks and said it constantly yet last night on the podcast. I mean, my gosh, how many more times could I say it over these first couple of weeks? I think everybody knows that. I'm glad that Tony Romo pointed out that T.J. Hawkinson didn't have to chip as much on that side. And that's correct.

And I think everybody realizes that you don't have to give as much help and all those things. But we also have watched enough football to know what it's supposed to look like. And it looked like what it was supposed to look like yesterday with Carson Wentz playing quarterback. So I don't need to be informed about all the different factors that went into. the Falcons game. I was there. I watched it. I rewatched it. I watched a bunch of different people's takes on it. I got it. I'm good. I understand it. But if you saw what happened yesterday with the timing of the throws and the way that Carson Wentz was releasing the football before the receivers even got out of their breaks, that's all clicking in to how this offense is

designed to work. The quarterback has to time it right. The ball has to come out at the right time. and the receivers will be open. KOC didn't use the bad plays for J.J. McCarthy and the good plays for Carson Wentz. I promise you, he was using the good plays for all of that. So there was a lot of gaslighting, I thought, from Vikings fans yesterday about what we had seen in the Atlanta game versus what we saw in the game against the Cincinnati Bengals. And everybody knows that there were a lot of factors that went into that to make it better for Carson Went, as there will be this week when he gets.

it's Jordan Addison back. But here's what you have to remember is that the fans and the team might end up on two different planes when it comes to this conversation about J.J. McCarthy versus Carson Wentz and what they're going to do. Because all of you want J.J. McCarthy to play. You want to see him. You were promised you were going to see him. It would be like going to a movie with Brad Pitt.

and then instead of Brad Pitt, like 10 minutes into the movie, I'm playing Brad Pitt. Like, it's not the same, right? You're like, wait, wait, I didn't sign up for this. I signed up for a Brad Pitt movie. Why is Matthew there? He's not, it doesn't look like Brad Pitt, right? That's how that feels.

I know exactly what you guys are going through. I know because we spent the entire summer tracking every single pass, breaking down every single practice. I have talked about this for, I don't know how long, long. I'm going to say probably five years of the young quarterback with the rookie contract and building up the franchise around him. And they had a three year plan to do this. And we talked about it endlessly. And through the summer, they showed no signs of wanting anybody else a quarterback. They brought in Sam Howell, who was terrible. And at the last minute, they bring

in Wentz, you're like, okay, well, he's a better backup. But there's no signal at all. They declined to franchise tag Sam Darnold, which we talked about that option for, I don't know how long. They did not get Aaron Rogers, which he was calling them and begging them, please come let me play for the Vikings. And they said, no, we've got J.J. McCarthy. We're good. And then they didn't even get a backup quarterback right away. Even Sam Howell took until the draft. There was no signal with this team that they had any other thoughts other than.

J.J. McCarthy, 2025, LFG, he's our dude. And there was also very few couching statements or excuses or even preemptive. Well, you guys have to remember, you know, he's just a rookie. We didn't hear that a lot. We heard he's getting better. He's progressing. He's ready to go. But the thing about quarterbacks is you can't predict them.

You can't. There's too much evidence to prove this. You can't predict them. The best quarterback of all time in the history of the National Football League only got to play because Mo Lewis hit Drew Bledsoe. And you're telling me you could predict quarterbacks, right? They didn't know what J.J. McCarthy was going to look like when he got out there. They truly didn't. You could try it in practice.

You could try it in preseason. you could try to figure out, but they didn't know. They didn't know where he was going to stand versus where they thought he was going to be. And in those first two games, for the vast majority of those first two games, that didn't look like NFL starting quarterback play. And when you make all the excuses,

and a lot of them are valid, well, it was Justin School's fault, it was the receiver's fault, it was KOC's fault, and there's validity to all of that, all of it. Having Derisaw back, having a running game, having your defense dominate, like all those things played in Carson Wentz's favor. He didn't look like Aaron Rogers in his prime out there, but we've all been watching this long enough to know when somebody looks like they're not ready for this. And that's how J.J. McCarthy looked.

And so the team may, and I'm not saying they will. I'm saying they may. They may decide, as this goes forward, that Wentz is going to give them a better chance to win. and this team with this coach and this locker room and this ownership, which does not accept missing the playoffs as being fine. You remember, they were not happy when this team missed the playoffs with Nick Mullins and with Josh Dobbs and all the excuses in the world and actually got set up nicely to draft a quarterback.

And yet, Mark Wilf said to us, I believe it was Kevin Sefert sitting right next to me that asked Mark Wilf in the owner's meetings 24. Before the draft, he said, well, hey, like last season, you kind of get a pass, right? Your quarterback gets hurt. And Mark was like, no, that's not how this works. We expect our team to be in the playoffs. And if the coaching staff feels like J.J. McCarthy does not give them a better chance to make the playoffs with this team, with Jonathan Grenard playing like a monster, and with Harrison Smith back, and Derrisson is prime and Jefferson, if they don't feel like he's ready, then they're not.

going to play him. They're going to play Carson Wentz. And here is something that I will stick with is that when you draft J.J. McCarthy, everybody is totally fine with whatever measures are necessary and whatever Kevin O'Connell decides. You're all perfectly fine with saying, oh, well, if you got to develop him off the bench and you got to bring him along slow and it takes time and everything else, well, that's great. Just do the best thing for JJ. That's just KOC. You know what you're doing.

You're the quarterback whisper. You got this lockdown. You're good to go. Everyone's good with that in the off season. Everyone's good with that when he's drafted in 2024. But now if you see it in play, and that's how they go, now it's not okay. Because you were promised the young superstar and you want the young superstar and give it to me now.

I don't care if he's not ready. I don't care if we lose every game. I just want to see J.J. McCarthy. That's what I heard from a lot of fans yesterday. And I understand that perspective. And I'm not telling you you're even wrong. Because I think we all have that same thought of Carson Wentz. Does he get him to a 10 win record?

They make a playoff. Maybe they get lucky and win a game, but probably not compete for the Super Bowl. Although I got a crazy stat that might change your mind on that. But I mean, I get it. You've been through this. You've seen it. You've had it a hundred times.

You've been promised the journeyman quarterback, the Sam Darnold, the Case Keenum, the Sam Bradford, and they get you all excited for a couple of weeks, and then it comes crashing down. And last year, I thought Darnold was different because he was a top draft pick. And look how freaking good he is and everything else. He's playing borderline MVP, and it still have the same result. And when you have that same football pulled out from under you, the Charlie Brown thing,

time and time and time again. And you've seen backup quarterbacks with the Wade Wilson and the Randall Cunningham and all throughout the history. No matter what age you are, you've been through this. There was a Gus Farad season or two in there. You're tired of it. That you're looking at these other teams

that have young franchise quarterbacks and you're saying that should be us. We drafted J.J. McCarthy. That should be us. I get it. And I get where you'd rather say, let him play through his lumps, let him lose games, let him have more Atlanta games if he has more Chicago moments and go into 2026, even if it's bad, even if he's much farther behind than any

of us thought, including me, by the way, including me. I thought coming out of training camp, this is going to look pretty good. And it mostly didn't. So I think I get all of that perspective from Vikings fans. But if you're the coach of the team and you're the owners of the team and you're the players on the team, you're probably going to lean toward the guy who gets the ball out of his hands to the playmakers and lets them make plays. If you're Justin Jefferson, how are you feeling about this situation? Now, Jefferson has had J.J. McCarthy's back. I think he loves J.J. McCarthy. The way that they've worked together has been great to see with even during camp when he was out. And those two are talking after every play. I think that they believe in him. I do. I believe

that. But at the same time, if you're just a Jefferson and there's a play where he gets 36 yards where Jefferson is running up the field and he's just getting into his first move where it's like a fake outbreak and then back inside, the ball is already in the air. As soon as he breaks out, he catches it and runs for 36 yards. That's a veteran quarterback. It's a veteran quarterback play. So you're just on two different islands, potentially, potentially on two different islands. When I listen to those comments from KOC, I think you're on two different islands. I think that Kevin O'Connell was pretty excited about the way that Carson Wentz played and the way that the offense held the ball. They stayed on the field. Yes, the defensive

touchdowns helped. They stayed on the field. They were effective. That's what he's looking for. And he knows his offense works when the guy gets rid of the ball. And we've seen that plenty of times before. And you guys want your future franchise quarterback. Now, the reality might end up somewhere in the middle, as it so often does, or it might end up somewhere where we never understand, you know, never understand how we got there because that's football, right? But J.J. McCarthy might be a little bit closer. He might, and I'm not guaranteeing this. He also could come back against the Eagles and then just play the rest of the season after

Carson Wentz goes one and one overseas, right? That could happen. Cleveland's defense is amazing. They just beat the Packers. Like the Wentz could look horrible against the Eagles, they get a buy week and JJ's back in. They go, oh, and two, JJ's back in. A million different scenarios, okay? I'm preparing you for the one that you least want, which is that Wentz keeps playing from my understanding after looking at the comments yesterday

and being slaughtered for daring to say that a guy who had 129 quarterback rating might have played well. I know, it's pretty crazy, right? Versus a guy who had a lower quarterback rating against the Falcons than if you just threw it in the ground, the mighty falcons who lost 30 to nothing against Carolina. Anyway, the point is, there's different paths from here.

And I don't know which one it's going to go on. It might be a Jordan Love path. It might, and I know you don't want that, but that might be, that might be how it goes. Remember, Jordan Love got in a game second year, maybe his first year. I think it might have been second against Kansas City. He was terrible.

It was totally lost. And then he started. that season in 2023 and was up and down and then eventually it clicked but it took what three years everybody loves the idea of developing a quarterback until you actually have to be patient and do it and so we might be in a situation where they have to be patient and really do it and let me get to that Tracy Wolfson tweet which was very interesting because Tracy Wolfson had reported that he was not coming back until the Eagles game and that And that was strange to me because based on this injury, if a guy can finish a game with a high ankle sprain, it's usually not five weeks.

That's pretty unusual. That's pretty unusual. And I mentioned this on the show that I had talked to people about this injury last week. And I'm not his doctor and I'm not examining him, but just asked a little bit around about like if a guy finishes the game and with this particular injury, stuff like this happens all the time. and what I got back was, you know, it should, four weeks seems like a really long time. And again, that's, I haven't examined him. We all know that. But it just, that's a long time. And it sort of seemed like they were giving themselves that leeway to find out how

Carson Wentz looked. So she reported that he was not going to be able to come back until after that game or after the buy until that game. So here's what she tweeted today. Because I think clearly some folks inside the building, maybe said, we're going to have to clarify with Tracy here, because this is getting aggregated everywhere, which is another thing I have to talk about tonight. But, so here's what Tracy Wolfson said.

And this is long, but I'm going to read the whole thing. And then you guys can make your own conclusions here. Tracy Wolfson of CBS said, a little more on the JJ McCarthy conversation. Speaking with people inside the building, they really feel confident about what they have in JJ. Remember, this season was supposed to be last year until he got hurt, a year of green. growth for a rookie quarterback. Can we stop right there? This, where it's, okay, this year was last year. It's supposed to be a year of growth. That there's no, there's no indication of that by all

the Vikings other moves that this was supposed to be a year of growth. Okay. There's not. You don't sign Javon Hargrave and Jonathan Allen when you're just like, this is supposed to be a year of growth. It's just like, just a year, you know, that's why you spend more money than anyone else in the off season and load up your team and give a center, a veteran center who might be on his last year. That's why you give him a contract. That's what, I mean, we, I think we've been over that, but that's not the case, right? This is not year of growth. This was supposed to be winning. Let's see. So they are a year behind. The reminder is that he is coming off of a serious injury did not practice once last year during training camp. One of the main guys he had to build a

rapport with was Addison, who has been suspended. Jefferson had a hamstring. They've been out without their left tackle and have not had their five starting linemen out there yet. They believe in JJ. That's why they drafted him. They know as fans, it's hard to be patient, but COC and the Vikings plan to be because they believe that this is what's right for the long term. Now, clearly, you know, this message, she said it came from inside the building. So that's what she said. And if we review that last part. They know as fans it's hard to be patient, but KOC and the Vikings plan to be because they believe that's what's right for the long term. Again, that doesn't sound like as soon as that ankle goes like this back and forth without creaking that he's good

to go. I mean, it just doesn't read that way. It reads like everything is is hedging. Everything is couched. Everything is setting up for the possibility that Carson Wentz is your quarterback going forward so here's here's my my thing for you guys is none of us know where this is going okay i don't have a clue j j could be in the game by london he could be in the game by the opener next year he could never be in the game again i have no idea i have no idea where this is going i buy that they have loved a lot of signs that they've seen from j j mccarthy his physical tools his arm strength, his athleticism, the way he carries himself around the building, all those sorts of things. And a lot of that projects really, really well for a franchise quarterback. But that doesn't

mean he's ready today. And I think that might be how they feel at this moment. And that's why they're telling Tracy Wolfson, again, it says from inside the building, so they're telling Tracy Wolfson that fans need to be patient. So none of us know where this thing is going. And I'm, I'm going to ask politely. I know this won't happen because the internet is the internet. It is what it is. And it's the life I chose. But like, we don't have to spend every single game that Carson Wentz plays rooting against you guys, Carson Wentz, and hating any person who praises anything that Carson Wentz does because you like J.J. McCarthy and want him to play. In fact, again, I've never seen a four.

48 to 10 win go over so poorly with fans that it was weird it was very weird because usually people are excited about that uh but you don't have to spend every single day rage tweeting about this Carson Wentz and JJ McCarthy situation because I promise it won't change anything they're going to handle it inside the building with what gives them the best chance to win games and at some point they may feel like that's JJ McCarthy at some point you may reach a, well, look, Carson Wentz is a backup over the last few years for a reason. So now it's time to get JJ back in there, get a spark, or the thing is falling off the rails or whatever it might be.

Or they might just feel like he's 100% healthy. Wentz hasn't really moved the needle. Like maybe they hoped he would. So off you go back to JJ McCarthy and then you're going to see him. But I just want a little bit of history, though. I went through the quarterbacks who had thrown, and I know you guys love when I say this, but I'm going to say it anyway,

about 700 or less passes in their college careers. And you know what? You're going to be shocked. A lot of them needed time to develop. It took several years for Alex Smith to be a good quarterback. It took several years for Ryan Tannahill to be a good quarterback. The jury is still out on some other guys, but they got put back on the field too early,

like Trey Lance and Anthony Richardson. and it didn't work for them because they got thrown back out on the field too early. And I don't know what the answer is because every one of you is going to say to me, oh, well, how's he going to get better if he doesn't actually play? And that's fair. And that's why it's so freaking hard to figure out this quarterback position. That's a fair comment. I don't have an answer for you.

I don't know. But if he gets back out on the field and he gets sacked nine times while Darisaw's back, look at this Donovan Jackson's hurt is that going to be the next one well you know you're going to get some pressure if he goes out there and gets sacked again because he's holding on the ball too long and he's not seeing stuff and he's not throwing with anticipation he's not he's just playing like a young quarterback with this team then the potential exists again to get hurt if you're not seeing it that's how you get hurt and I've seen that with trust me I was from Buffalo my friends or I'm still from Buffalo originally.

And I saw it happen with J. P. Lossman, with E.J. Manuel, with lots of different young quarterbacks who struggled to see stuff early on and ended up getting hurt. Trent Edwards has happened with, I mean, it's, you don't want that. And so what it sounds like to me with them through Tracy Wolfson asking for patience is that they're going to want to try to develop him as carefully as they can. And we don't know what that looks like yet. and they don't know what that looks like yet. So we can talk about the Minnesota Vikings

and their 48 to 10 win without raging out every second over this quarterback situation because KOC probably does know how to handle it for one. But also, history just tells us that sometimes these guys need more time. That might be the case for J.J. McCarthy. I don't know if it's the case for J.J. McCarthy.

We're going to see, but it might be. prepare yourselves. I'm not saying you have to tattoo Carson Wentz's name on your face, but if your team wins 48 to 10 with Carson Wentz playing great, you don't have to spend all day fighting with everybody on the internet or commenting or whatever on the YouTube video that I don't realize that Christian Derisaw coming back was helpful to Wentz. You can't tweet things into existence.

I'm sorry, guys, you can't. This is going to happen on its own timeline. J.J. McCarthy will play again for the Minnesota Vikings, I promise. We just don't know when, and we just don't know what that's going to look like. So strap yourselves in, and one day at a time, we will break this down as it goes forward. That's the message, one day at a time. I mean, let's go one and all this week as a group of people having a conversation about a football team. How about that?

That's what I think. And just one more thing on that before I get to comments, questions. thoughts. One more thing on that is what Jonathan Grenard said in the locker room the other day. Yesterday. Feels like it's been a week. Andrew Kramer on my show said that he felt like the vibes were off in the locker room for last week. And of course, I shouldn't be surprised. Some folks who do this decided to grab that one sentence that he said and put it out there. and obviously Jonathan Grinard saw it. Okay.

Now, we did a 40-minute conversation about the game, and I think both of us picked the Vikings to win the game, by the way. But, okay, fair enough. I guess it's on the internet, so you can steal it for your own content if you want to. Somehow that's legal, I guess. But anyway, so that happened. Grenard saw it.

And in the locker room in his post game, he was kidding around with us after the win. and he said that he did not agree that Andrew, you know, with what Andrew said about the vibes not being good, which is fair. And he said that it was probably misinterpreted as the team being focused coming off of their 22 to 6 loss to the Atlanta Falcons, right? And that's a fine explanation, right, of why reporters that are in there for a half hour, 45 minutes a day might sense that the team.

is down, but maybe just, you know, not as up as they would be had they beaten the Falcons and gone to 2-0, right? So just maybe a misinterpretation. I think it's very hard to interpret the locker room vibe sometimes because I've just seen it go either way. Sometimes I feel like, oh man, this place is so dead in here this week and they win. And sometimes I feel like, well, this is a big old party and they lose. I don't know, right? It's tough to figure. But that was his interpretation. Jonathan Grinard picked on him a little bit. The other thing is that Jonathan is a, he's a chip on the shoulder guy, real chip on the shoulder guy. And I mean it in the best, most complimentary type of way is one of the best pass rushers in the NFL. He's a third

round pick. If you read his recruiting story, he was kind of left out to dry with recruiting and then just ends up at Louisville, like, this guy's had to fight for where he is. He's one of the most intense people I've been around. He's going to take anything that he sees on the internet, He's going to turn it into a chip on his shoulder. So to me, all of that's not anything unusual. It's just not, like, anything unusual for what we see on a day-to-day basis. But usually what ends up happening is it doesn't end up on the Internet. So his statement, Andrew thinking the vibes were not that great, that winning 48 to 10 has led to a ton of abuse for Andrew on social media.

And I just, you got to, you got to just, that's ridiculous. It's just ridiculous. I mean, I would have preferred that Jonathan just said to Andrew in the locker room privately, which is usually how these things go. Like, hey, man, you know, the vibes were fine. Like, maybe don't try to, you know, overinterpret how we act around you guys or whatever. That would have been a conversation. It's very normal between reporters and players.

He happened to say it in front of the cameras. He's amped up. They just won 48 to 10. But the stuff that was said about Andrew and toward Andrew about his reporting and all that sort of stuff, just assonine, just completely. ridiculous and you know what it made me feel like that you know i bring people like him on the show and he gives great analysis and he works hard he's there every single day and everything else and then only hit one sentence he says just of a general feeling it was it was an innocuous sort

of comment and he's getting trashed it just it made me feel like i don't know if i want to do this anymore if that's what's going to happen to my guests over one pretty normal uh interaction but that was i was very very unhappy to see that so why don't we get into speaking of normal why don't we get into a normal show that talks about a 48 to 10 win if we can't why don't we try to do that and we'll get a fan dual question of the day we'll get a sponsor we'll get murph and manny in here manny wants to talk about isaiah rogers imagine that guy plays the best defensive game of his career and uh you know we just haven't had a chance to talk about it a whole lot so that's what we're going to try to do here for the rest of the evening but you've got my thing

thoughts, which is we don't know where it's going, but you can't tweet it into existence and it might just take more time. And everybody, the team, me, you, everybody was ready to follow JJ McCarthy this season, everybody. And everybody was excited about it, including the team. I promise you, they were. But sometimes football has different plans. And that might be the case for this year. So you might have to just prepare yourself for that. And it also might might be the case that he could be back in two weeks and playing and then off we go from there. We just really don't know. That's, that's the overall thing. My overall takeaway was that KOC seemed very pleased with how Carson Wentz played. And a lot of the comments sort of sounded

like it wasn't what we were doing last week. And I know he didn't, he actually did kind of say that. He referred to the 10,000 hours thing. And you add that with Tracy Wolfson's tweet. I'm just saying, prepare yourself for the possibility because that's what some of the signals are telling us that they want to be more patient now that they feel like Carson Wentz can get in there and play. It's not what you wanted. It's not what you got, uh, you put on your Christmas list, but could be the Bengals. I thought yesterday's comment section for the post game podcast, might as been, might as well been from Cincinnati, the way that it looked. So the Fandul question of the day after yesterday,

Yesterday's results, the Vikings are still third behind the Packers and Lions on Fandul to win the division. They are plus 470 to win the division. Green Bay, still minus 150 despite losing to the Cleveland Browns. I want you to give me a 1 to 10 how confident you are that the Vikings will still win the division or that they can win the division, even though they are third if plus 470. And I want to tell you about our friends at ZipRecruiter. I know hiring is hard. Luckily, this is kind of an operation of Matthew and friends. So I don't have to do too much searching through resumes and things like that.

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About 20 minutes, Manny and Murph are coming our way. So Sarah says we drafted a quarterback for him to sit on the bench three to four years. Then why the bleep did we waste that pick? So when you drafted J.J. McCarthy, what you did not think was going to happen is him to tear his meniscus in his first preseason game. The plan when they drafted J.J. McCarthy, and as you all know, in life and in sports, the best laid plans do not always come to fruition. So they had planned to sit J.J. McCarthy behind Sam Darnold.

And then maybe five, six weeks into the season, the way they felt about his first training camp was really strong. So five, six weeks into the season, they thought, well, you know, Darnold will probably hit his rocky times and we'll feel good about McCarthy. Like, think about exactly what the Patriots did with Drake May, where it was start Jacobi Berset, halfway into the year, Berset is just not enough. And then you go to the young guy and he's had some time to acclimate himself to the NFL. And then by year two, he's your guy, right?

Because he's had experience from the first year, two training camps, etc. That's what they plan to do. They did not know that his first scramble in, the preseason was going to tear his meniscus and he was going to be out for an entire gear. So as Tracy Wolfson said, that set back the timeline. Now, I didn't think that it set it back as much as people acted like. And so this was just me trying to project, thought, well, he's got this full year learning. And the hardest part is to understand how everything works, right? Like, that's the most difficult part of all of this stuff, which is just to understand it,

first of all, and then be able to get it in your brain so you can go out there and do it. It's so complex. Like, that's all that's really tough. So I thought, well, he's not really a rookie. You probably heard me say it. He's not really a rookie. You had a whole year of watching Sam Darnold. That's not being at Michigan.

Okay. And then he came out and he had some rough practices and he had some good practices. And by the end of camp, I felt pretty confident. I said it that they could win 11 games with J.J. McCarthy. And I still thought it after they lost to the fellow. I said it on that post game that I was not ready to toss him over the Viking ship and call him a bust like I saw a lot of people doing and everything. I was like, well, you know, this kind of happens with young quarterbacks.

They have bad games. Bo Nix and Michael Penix are in their second year and they're having bad games. Jaden Daniels had bad games. C.J. Stroud, man, wins the next time he's going to have a good game. Like it happens, right? Brock Purdy, King of the Mountain next year, it's pretty tough. circumstances matter they matter a lot who was playing around him it matter there's no question about it but at the same time when he shows signs of not seeing how things are up are playing out

on the field and is not able to operate it the clock is counting down because the plays aren't getting there and the checks aren't happening and of course you know we're questioning KOC and why isn't the play getting in faster and why did he got all this complicated stuff that you're asking him to do and et cetera, et cetera. Well, we know this about Kevin O'Connell. He doesn't believe you could play quarterback unless you got all the tools. He doesn't think you can walk into the kitchen and cook with a fork and a spoon. Like you need to have all the ingredients if you're going to go to that line of scrimmage in this offense. That's how he feels. And that's, it's a lot. It's not a fork and a spoon. It's not the old Kubiak offense where you're running

wide zone and play action off of it and then a bunch of screens. It's an offense that requires, you know, I criticize them for being an empty and then getting sacked. Like it requires that, though. And you saw Wentz out of empty on a number of occasions getting rid of the ball within his clean pocket snap to release was under two seconds. So you saw that ball coming out, which helps the offensive line, by the way. always in forever like chicken and egg if you hold onto the ball too long it's pretty hard to block guys for three and a half seconds uh but uh you know just the the point being that you can't really simulate how this is going to look when someone actually gets out there and if

they can't get rid of the football then it puts their health at risk because they're getting smacked into the ground over and over again like j j mccarthy was um so you know i don't think that the plan was ever to sit him for three, four years. It clearly wasn't. They, they were emphatic that it was not the plan to sit him behind Aaron Rogers or whatever. It's just that this was always, this was always a potential outcome. It was always a potential outcome that he just wouldn't, when he actually got out there, wouldn't be entirely ready. We also don't know what it would have looked like if he played against Cincinnati. And I think the people who make that point are being fair that Cincinnati's not that good. And he

probably would have won the game if Isaiah Rogers gets, you know, two touchdown returns and you're up 24 to 3 before, you know, people have sat down in their seats, okay, that's, that's a fair point. And it would have been a great get right game for him. And maybe he gets on track and maybe he gets going. But that's not the message that we heard from Kevin O'Connell today. And I thought, I was willing to say about yesterday's post game. I was willing to say if Kevin O'Connell came in and said, look, you know, JJ's our guy, he'll be one. If he had played yesterday, he would have been great. Everything was, you know, we got Derisaw back and like he would have been, but that's not what I heard. It's just not what I heard. I heard Carson

Wentz did great. And that's what exactly what we want from our quarterback. So that, and then I heard, well, he's a young quarterback. Oh, he needs 10,000 hours. hours. Oh, tells Tracy Wolfson, somebody tells Tracy Wolfson, you know, fans got to be patient. None of that sounds like, hey, we can't wait to get them back out there next week against Cleveland, right? So that's where I feel like my job is to take what I see and tell you what I see and also talk about the options and where this thing could go. I haven't, I don't have a hot take on this i really don't if they feel like the guy needs to develop i don't know what you're supposed to do but also i agree with the people who say well how are you going to develop of them

but if you think that they had planned when they drafted him to not play him for three years well i promise you that wasn't the plan so uh star tracker says kosey did not give up on j j i didn't say he did i did not say he did he wants him to be ready before uh he gets on the field y'all are thinking too much into this i mean listen to the press conference listen to the just listen to the press conference and look at and look at this what tracy wolfson reported from inside the building and she's saying exactly what i was saying yesterday and i'm still saying today uh you're right that they don't want to send him out there before he's ready physically to get back out there and play i mean i agree with that of course it's just that he didn't come off of a game where he threw for

320 yards at four touchdowns and they're saying well okay wents played great congratulations it was one of the worst games of the last 25 years by a quarterback and i'm sure that other quarterbacks throughout the last 25 years had offensive linemen her right it's just that matters the context of how it looked in the first two weeks it really matters quite a bit um so you know i nobody but nobody said yeah i mean uh let's see uh yamcha's corpse i don't know what that is is, but a reasonable comment sometimes comes from the strangest names, but anyway, KOC hasn't given up on JJ. He doesn't think he's ready.

I mean, I don't know how you couldn't take that away from what he said today or from the Tracy Wolfson report. That's what it sounds like. I don't, I've never said he's to give up on McCarthy. I've never said he's a bust. I've never said, you know, this is a Carson Wentz podcast now that I'm going to replace the flags that keep falling down with Carson Wend's pictures, which I, I will fix soon enough. I'm going to need time. But haven't said, no one has said that. No one has said that they're

done with J.J. McCarthy or that he can't do it or that those two games are evidence he'll never play. No one has said that. No one thinks that. It's, it's the idea of you built a team full of guys that were ready to win. And if your quarterback's not ready to win, then you have to play the quarterback who is ready to win. And even though Carson Wentz, I know is not the person that anybody was dreaming of. I mean, it's not like he can't win games in the NFL. He's certainly done a lot of it. I mean, he's had really good seasons with the Philadelphia Eagles before. He played really well in his game with the Rams when he started. Last year, Kansas City wasn't playing any starters. But it's not like this guy has never won or never played well or anything else before.

So I think a lot of people in the organization, in the locker room. I mean, if you're, it met, Jeremiah Searle said this last week. And again, sort of no one wanted to hear it, but it was just a fact of the matter. Jeremiah, if you remember, was part of a team in 2016 that could not score offensively. And the quarterback kept getting sacked and it was miserable, right? But the defense was amazing. You guys remember this season. The defense was amazing.

He said it was miserable in the locker room because the defense was looking at the offense like, guys, what are we doing here? Like, what more do we need to do? And if you don't have a quarterback who's ready to move the ball and stay on the field and compete and you're just asking the defense, I mean, they all wanted to say it, but they didn't. The reason Bejohn Robinson ran for 200 yards was, yeah, some lack of execution, but because they were asked to be on the field all day.

So if you, I mean, it's really, it's not just KOC and what's best for J.J. McCarthy, which matters and all that sort of stuff, but it also matters what's best for everybody. because you've got a lot of superstars making a lot of money. And if Justin Jefferson is running routes for the good of the game and not to get the ball and get 36-yard completions, he's not going to be very happy. He didn't sign for $35 million to not get the ball. So they need to also take into consideration how everybody feels about this.

And it could change very quickly. You could end up with in two weeks from now, J.J. McCarthy coming back and getting a mental reset, it's been a lot for him, and that's very true. And that's what I mean. Like, I'm not saying, hey, J.J. McCarthy, you stink. No excuses. No, there is a lot of explanations for why he struggled. Never played before. He has a baby in the middle of the week. He's playing without Christian Darrasaw. The Eagles had a good, not the Eagles, the Falcons had a good plan for them. They didn't run as effectively. There was a lot, they weren't on the field that much because the Falcons ran well. Like, there was a lot of

lot of reasons why it did not go as well as you would have hoped for J.J. McCarthy. And I think they realized that. And that's why we might see in a couple of weeks he comes back with a mental reset because it's just been a lot. It's been a lot for him the first week and how it ended in Chicago. And that was very emotional. And how many times have we seen this where a team has a very emotional last second win? You guys have seen it a million times. And then the next week. They come out. This happened when they beat Buffalo in 2022. This happened when they had the Minneapolis miracle. Like, it's happened many times where the team has a crazy, crazy win. And everybody is super pumped. And they spend the whole week talking about it. And then they come out and lay an egg the next

week. I mean, is that kind of in a way like what happened to Green Bay? I don't know. But same sort of thing. They had this huge national TV win. Everybody was so jacked up about Green Bay. And then they laid an egg the next week. It happens. It's a long season. And that's why I wasn't after the Falcons game being like, done, he stinks. Of course I, of course I wasn't. There was a lot of factors that went into that. But there is also the reality that when you rewatch the game, there's plays to be made that are, that are just generic, you've played quarterback in the league plays.

I'll give you an example. And I mentioned this yesterday, T.J. Hawkinson getting the ball. And yes, he didn't have to chip as much. I know that. But there's a couple of plays where T.J. Hawkinson goes into the flat and Carson looks somewhere else. And then he's like, no. And then he just gives it to Hawkinson. Just like, no, that's not there. Or I'm sensing a little bit, something up front. Here you go. 12 yards. They needed stuff like that for McCarthy. And he doesn't have the experience yet to get there.

And maybe his mind's not working fast enough to get there. Maybe when the other team is throwing crazy coverages at him. He can't get there. That's just right now. Maybe it needs more growth. So we'll see. Something else I wanted to bring up, by the way, is a Steve Palazzolo tweet. Steve Palisolo pointed out that, and look, this could change very quickly, but he pointed out that the yards per game, and it may be impacted by the kick return, it probably is. But yards per game is the lowest it's been offensively since 2005. What do we know about the early 2000s? What do we know about the NFC right now?

Matt Hasselback went to a Super Bowl. Trent Dilfer went to a Super Bowl. Defenses are winning this year. They just are. We're back to that era, like the era where everyone's throwing for 5,000 yards and everything and going crazy offensively seems to have passed us. by, and defenses are winning versus offenses. The Vikings are well built for that.

So all of that has to be factored into the discussion as well. The Vikings have a nasty, nasty defense that can do a lot, as we saw yesterday. And if that's what's winning in the NFL and you have a lot of teams struggling offensively, then they might weigh that as part of this. If you could just have a good offense and not even a great offense, but you can have a great defense that's you know that won the super bowl last year uh you know the eagles offense was also good but you know their defense won the super bowl we saw it in the playoffs numerous times the texans won a playoff game this way the chiefs dominated offensive uh the offensive line so i don't know

i don't think that carson went's playing has to mean that it's just going to be uh you know a lost season for you uh this roller coaster could take us just about anywhere uh joe says can the Vikings stopped the run or just against the Bengals though it's a good question but i'll tell you who i was so impressed with on the tape was Levi drake rodriguez and jalen redmond those two guys had a great day and they may need to rotate in a little bit more uh early downs they just they just might be needed out there Levi drake was fantastic he was in the backfield numerous times uh there was a play where Cincinnati's coming out of their own end zone they ended up getting that 12 yard run on third down i don't know but

but where they got pinned back and Redmond's initial punch sends the center flying back into the running back. I think it's just a matter probably of those guys being on the field more, getting Cashman back, Van Ginkle was only out there for eight plays, but got two sacks somehow. I think the Bengals did play a role in that. They have a very, very bad, very bad offensive line. But, you know, I do think that they can do better with their rotations to stop. the run. I don't think it's any guarantee that they're going to be great at it because, you know,

they're going to play against some of the best run teams in the entire NFL. They're going to play against the Ravens. They're going to play against the Lions. They're going to play against the Packers. So that'll be when it's really proven. I don't think it's really proven right now after a game against the Bengals. Really good eight plays. It was a really good, really good eight plays. Rach two says, honestly, I feel like the jury's still kind of out on the run defense got gashed by a good running game and then handled one of the worst running two of the worst running teams in the NFL and the Bears and Bengals totally agree totally agree and the Falcons we need to keep in mind we're in a favorable situation to run as well whereas the Bengals and

the Bears maybe the Bears a little bit and they didn't do it great but the Bengals were not in a favorable situation to run because they got down in the game so fast that they mostly had to pass the ball. Score one more says they better get feel in the ball. For some reason, they put the camera on Adam's wife when Hawkinson caught the touch. I didn't know that. I didn't watch the TV copyback. I only watched the all 22, but that's funny that they did that.

So, you know, he was close. He was close. I think he's still going to play a role on this team. Just over these first couple weeks, they haven't had a ton of plays. And he's had a couple opportunities, hasn't worked out. He'll still play a role. I think we all know getting Jordan Addison back is enormous for this team. Mr. Mayor, it's hard to overstate how rough this injury is for J.J. McCarthy.

He might not get back on the field as much that much this year. So next year could be rookie season attempt three.