Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - POSTGAME REACTION: JJ McCarthy BREAKS OUT vs. Cowboys (Part 1)

Episode Date: December 15, 2025

Matthew Coller talks about JJ McCarthy's big game in Big D. He played his best football of the year on Sunday night in a victory over the Dallas Cowboys. What does it mean? The Purple Insider podcast is brought to you by FanDuel. Also, check out our sponsor HIMS at https://hims.com/purpleinsider Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hey, everybody. Welcome in to the Purple Insider, Minnesota Vikings post-game show presented by Fandul. The Vikings win 34 to 26 on a night where J.J. McCarthy had his best career performance. So let's break it down every part of what J.J. McCarthy did tonight. Some of the other things that have. happened throughout this game. The Vikings defense very much bend don't break. And actually the Dallas kicker who has seemed invincible was not so much tonight. But I'm not sure that made a huge difference with how well J.J. McCarthy and the Vikings offense performed. So let me tell you something that was on my mind as I was watching McCarthy tonight. And we'll get into Dallas's defense, what they were bringing to the table today and how we feel. factor all of those things into evaluating this performance by J.J. McCarthy. But something that came to mind for me was all the way back against the Cincinnati Bengals in

week three for the Vikings. So if you recall, they won the first game with McCarthy and you know, beating Chicago. Second game was a disaster. And then he got hurt. And Carson Wentz came out and performed really well against the Cincinnati Bengals. But it was making me think tonight about J.J. McCarthy and if he hadn't hurt his ankle, and he would have gotten to face the Bengals who have a defense that's about as good as Washington's or Dallas. And what that game might have meant to J.J. McCarthy had he gotten to play against a defense that was pretty poor, the confidence he might have been able to build up, the connection with some of his receivers, and the corner that he could have potentially turned earlier than right now.

that when we think about J.J. McCarthy, and we are about 600 days into his Viking career, which makes all of the evaluation a little bit tougher. But when we think about the stops and starts that have happened, the injury last year certainly set him back. But I think that that ankle injury, which forced him to be out as long as it did for five weeks in the middle of the season, I think that prevented him from getting to a point like right now where he could string together games, where he could build confidence, where he could work on different types of throws, which he made tonight. I mean, it was a lot of fastballs, but there were also a couple of touch throws, one of them

to Jalen Naylor in the end zone for a great catch, another one to Jalen Naylor on a fourth down conversion that was very similar to the play that ended the game against Detroit. And man, Jalen Naylor is pretty darn good at football. and the Vikings might have to restructure some contracts or something to try to get Nailer to stay in Minnesota. We'll get to that. But in terms of McCarthy, that setback meant that when he returned against the Detroit Lions, it was like setting the clock back again, just like after he got hurt last year in camp and it stopped his progress. And then this again, stopped his progress.

And he comes back and a lot of things were not really clicking. and it was only in little peaks that we would see the things that got J.J. McCarthy drafted 10th overall and the things that made the Vikings buy into J.J. McCarthy as their quarterback for this year, rather than sticking with Sam Darnold. And the last two weeks, it's felt much more of what they expected it to look like because we had a lot of conversations going into this season of, hey, this is the reason that they did this is that they've seen a lot of McCarthy and they think that he can perform at a certain level that will give them a chance to win a lot of football games. And they don't really know, but that's what they've seen behind the scenes.

And then after the Green Bay game, it was fair based on the performance and based on the fact that they had fallen out of the playoff race entirely for us to say, what exactly was it that you saw there? and over the last two weeks there's been a lot more of that now against washington that game was over so fast as soon as they had the 19 play drive it was like all right this this isn't going anywhere and they had us bank stadium and it was a defense that was quitting on them and it just it was a disaster for washington i called it a triple a game the entire week but this was not like that uh this was a game where calamity struck

right away for J.J. McCarthy. He tries to throw hot off of a blitz. He throws it right into a guy's hands. It's intercepted by Quinn and Williams. And right off the bat of this game, you're going, oh, no, is this going to crush his confidence? Is this going to get him behind in the game by a couple scores? And then you feel like you're scrambling, trying to come back and throw it all over the place. And is he going to turn the ball over? Is he going to take sacks? Is he going to freak out? is it, et cetera, et cetera. And so Dallas finds a way to score. They get a fourth down.

They pound it in. And then the Vikings come back. And I thought that it was one of the more important points in the game, if not the most important after they had to punt on the next drive, but then they forced a punt. And then J.J. McCarthy hit a deep shot or, well, kind of back to back balls that one of them was to Aaron Jones. And then the other one was the deep shot to Jalen Naylor that went into the end zone. It was a great catch by Naylor. I mean, just an absolutely fantastic, like boxing the guy out. And then he uses his body, manipulates it to bring in the ball, kind of a basket catch a

little bit, a great, great play, but also a nice play design where it was a bootleg to his left. So it's got him on the move. And that's somewhere where in college, McCarthy was extremely comfortable booting left and right so far in the NFL that hasn't really been the case but there he was able to get his body turned around and yeah they made a big deal out of how he's flying off the ground and the legs coming up and all that sort of thing NBC had a whole package ready to show the the Josh Allen leg whip and you know then they were comparing it to McCarthy and so there was a lot of discussion throughout the night from chris collinsworth about his mechanics and so forth but that ball right there was a toss it into a place,

let your receiver get a chance to go make a play. And then Naylor, who it seems every time he's gotten an opportunity this year to make a play, he has done that with J.J. McCarthy. And that felt like it was a click into place type of moment. Like, oh, yeah, this is, this is what it looked like last week. We can do that again. We can get rolling. And after that, they gave up a touchdown, then came back and responded again.

and that was where he hit the 58-yard pass to Jordan Addison. And another example of, hey, this is why they stick with Jordan Addison and why they like him so much, because he absolutely roasted the corner. But another example of it doesn't have to necessarily be perfect to work if you're confident enough to throw it, if you can see it. And sometimes you just have to put the ball up. It was not a flawless dime that dropped into his hands and he walked into the end zone. Maybe it was like a touch underthrown.

but it ends up being a 58-yard completion. And, hey, another example of the KOC offense does work if you get the ball out there. But here's what really impressed me on that play is, you know, you look at the blocking that he's had and he kind of took a hit on that play, but got the ball up there, I think, unless I'm thinking of a different throw. He gets the ball up there. No, did he take a hit on that? I guess you'll have to correct me if he didn't.

But the pass protection was really, really terrific throughout this entire, night. And I think it really stood out to me throughout the game when they could give McCarthy a pocket just how good he was able to be within that clean pocket. He seemed to be seeing the field very well. He seemed to be extremely decisive, which that has been such an issue for him in previous weeks of just being decisive, just dropping back, hitting the back foot and throwing. And throughout the year, a lot of you have asked when we've had these down moments from McCarthy like what was it that you silly reporters saw during training camp you guys need glasses for next year's training camp no we do not because that's what we saw during

training camp but it seems to have taken this long to get back to the point where he has that confidence in throwing a lot of these routes that Kevin O'Connell is drawing up and in practice you don't have people coming to kill you but neither in Dallas do you either because there was nobody around J.J. McCarthy. There was one time he took a hit, and that was about it for the entire night. And the rest of the evening, he was perfectly clean in the pocket and made throw after throw after throw. And it's sort of the proof of concept of, yes, this is possible for J.J. McCarthy to do this.

Yes, J.J. is a talented player. He also had a couple good scrambles. I thought that just to go continue going through the game. It was also really big on the fake handoff when he walks into the end zone, for me at least, the fact that he grittyed into the end zone with the ball, just walking in dancing. And it's like, that's right. Because you do have a concern over a young player when he gets punched in the mouth a bunch of times and he takes a bunch of criticism from, you know, myself, everybody else who watch the games against the Ravens, against Chicago, against Green Bay especially. but to still have that little bit of, and I mean it in a good way,

the cockiness to dance into the end zone right there, that's where it felt to me like, yeah, I think that this is going to be a good night for him. The first half overall, I think he went eight for 13, and there was a touchdown that got nullified to Justin Jefferson. There were a couple throws. He had Hawkinson that probably should have been a touchdown on one of them. He had another one to Jefferson that he just straight up missed.

and I thought, no, it's like a B, it's like a B half. You know, you get a kind of a bad luck interception, but still another knockdown ball that's been a problem for him, a couple of misses, a couple of really nice hits. Like, okay, good job. But the second half, I thought, was excellent from J.J. McCarthy. The first drive, he spiked one into the ground. And once again, there's some moments in this game where you're going, all right, what's going to happen here?

Because Dallas gets ahead. and you have to credit the defense a ton tonight. That is the number one yardage offense in the NFL. They were going to move the ball. It wasn't like Flores' defense was going to just come and shut them out. They have too many good players, too great of a quarterback, and they got huge stops that forced field goals, including making sure that they did not go down.

Let's see, at the beginning of the half by too much. So coming out of the half, they made a soft. stop to allow it to only be 17 to 20. Then there was a bad drive and then they got another stop and another field goal to make it 2317. If the Vikings defense doesn't get stops there, then you're talking about, you know, maybe being down 10 points or being down 14 points and then you're really scrambling. But at no point did McCarthy really have to feel super uncomfortable, which is just kind of how the game circumstances play into his performance. We've talked about that a lot throughout his beginning of his career

in how, well, you make a special team's mistake and then you get behind and then he's got to scramble and he's trying to make throws that he doesn't need to make and things like that. Well, that wasn't the case because of these huge defensive stops. And over the last couple weeks, Flores's blitzes off the edges with Harrison Smith, up the middle with Eric Wilson, these zero pressures that he's been sending. they've just been working against everybody. They messed with Jaden Daniels last week.

Dak Prescott didn't have any fun with those. Where was George Pickens tonight? The Vikings completely shut down George Pickens. He didn't seem like he even dressed up for the game. There were a few times where people were open. There was some successful running from Dallas. Again, it's a very, very good team. They're great in all areas offensively.

So you knew they would have to get big stops. And after they got that stop to make it 23, 7,000, I think this was the best we have seen J.J. McCarthy maybe in his career. So I'm talking about the drive late in the third quarter. It's 2317. He comes out and absolutely smokes a football to T.J. Hawkinson. And this is what I feel like Kevin O'Connell has found over the last couple weeks is these are the throws that really work for him. Do those throws.

Now, I'm not saying you didn't do that before against Green Bay. and they were just a way better defense, who, by the way, lost Micah Parsons for the season today, which is insane for Green Bay and really craters their chances to compete for the Super Bowl. And it changes maybe potentially week 18 for the defense the Vikings are going to be facing. But going back to that drive, it's the same exact throw that he made to Josh Oliver last week for a touchdown, where that was a cover three look. I don't know what the defense was on this. this play, but Hawkinson is flying down the seam and McCarthy could just step back and throw that

thing as hard as he wants to. And it's smoking at 110 miles an hour, but he grabs it because it's 25 yards down the field, 20, 25 yards down the field. And it's kind of right in front of him. He doesn't have to throw all the way out to a boundary and he just lets it rip. And it's a great catch by T.J. Hawkinson, still good, by the way. Can we just point that out that over a lot of the season, And it was his Hawkinson washed. Can he not play anymore? No, you just need to get him the football. And he made a great catch there.

And again, that was sort of another confidence type of moment. They ran a couple of times. And then the biggest, maybe the biggest play of the entire game for J.J. McCarthy comes a little later in that drive was it maybe right at the end of the third quarter. 2.49 left in the third quarter. It's fourth down. You could do anything on, on the, on the third quarter. this play. I mean, you could hand off if you wanted to. It was fourth and three. You could run some

sort of trickery. They scored a touchdown with CJ Ham tonight, which was awesome. You could do a pitch. You could do a screen. You could do whatever you want. And it's a straight drop back pass. And this is what we have to say for Kevin O'Connell is that even if the guy wants to not trust his quarterback, you know that on a fourth and three, he's still going to do it. And he's going to keep mashing that button. And I was making this point earlier this year when he had McCarthy throw a bomb and it got picked off on third and one. And it was like, you know what? I'm just not going to fight this anymore.

This guy is going to trust this quarterback and it's going to be for better or worse. And in this case, it was for way better. He drops back to throw. Naylor is breaking out on maybe a little slot fade type thing. And he puts it right on his back shoulder with touch. And Naylor just goes up, turns his body, makes a great cat. Again, like, I don't know what it's going to cost. but, like, find a way with Jalen Naylor.

This dude is good. And some folks, you know, mentioned like, hey, baby, trade Addison and keep Naylor. That's off-season talk. But what if all of them? Because this receiving core is really, really good. And Naylor makes a great catch, but it was a great throw.

It was a confident play. There was no hesitation. And what I liked about the throw was that he didn't try to, like, feel it, like, touch. like touch sort of pass intentionally. It just kind of came out. It was like, take the snap, find the read, let go with the ball. That is something that we've seen way more in the last two weeks than we saw for about

four weeks straight. Everything looked like it was, I'm just going to try to feel into this throw or is that the right read? I'm kind of hesitating. And some element might be that Dallas's defense is very straightforward. It's not as complicated as Chicago. It's not who destroyed shoulders. Sanders, by the way, today. It's not as complicated as Jeff Hathley's defense in Green Bay,

where they do all the Flores stuff. So that may have helped. And also knowing that these guys can't make a play on the football may have helped as well. I believe they have five interceptions all year. So you're not too worried about them picking off passes. But still, even if we have the proper caveats for, oh, maybe it was this, maybe it was that with, you know, he didn't get pressured or maybe this helped him. All of that is true. But that type of confident throw, that'll travel anywhere. Any week, any time, any team, it's a very typical NFL play, a slot fade, the guy gets

open, put it on his back shoulder, first down conversion. And that was really a, okay, he's cooking now. At that point, he finally converted a completion to Justin Jefferson, which is another subject to touch on, and we might as well right here. The Jefferson McCarthy thing is still not resolved. They threw a touchdown to him. It got called back. That would have been a real confidence builder.

But still, they have not been able to get on the same page. And then they finally do. And McCarthy makes a good enough pass. And it goes off the fingertips of Justin Jefferson. And you could say, well, it's a little high. It's a little fast. But, I mean, that's one that he usually catches. And there was, I mean, there's been way too many of those this.

year where we say, well, he usually brings that in. He usually brings that in. And there's been a few, you know, throughout the year where other receivers have had to grab, you know, something coming at him at 110 miles an hour. We saw Josh Oliver actually made a great, great catch on a bootleg that McCarthy was trying to throw it through his soul. And he caught it. And, you know, the one with Hawkinson earlier, there's just something that's not clicking. And I will stay with it until it does. you can't say, oh, well, it's all perfect because that's not perfect. But in terms of actually finding him, delivering it on time, hitting him in the hands, that's something that I think McCarthy has been struggling to do with Justin Jefferson.

And that play is a positive for the quarterback, but also a what the heck is happening here, Justin Jefferson. I don't expect Justin Jefferson to have forgotten how to catch balls, though. I think he will catch them eventually coming from. from McCarthy, but the issue in previous weeks is not even getting targeted. So at least he was targeted tonight. And I think that those receptions are going to come eventually. But that still remains like hovering over this.

But in the drive we're talking about here, the one I thought was the most important of the game, he did make a catch that set up at the goal line. Jefferson then drops the ball and they run it in with CJ Ham, which is just a great, great play design. and somebody in our Purple Insider subscriber chat that I do each week, if you want to get in on that, jump in at the newsletter, purple insider dot football. But, you know, in the chat, somebody said like,

hey, when, you know, KOC does something like that, it's clever if it works and it's still, you know, it's too cute if it doesn't, which is sort of always in forever football. But I think we're all in favor of a CJ Ham handoff. The reason we haven't seen a lot of clever plays at the goal line this year, is because they haven't been at the goal line this year. And in this game, they were able to have a couple of really nice designs inside the Red Zone to get in.

And that's where they took a 24-23 lead. Again, a shocking miss to start the fourth quarter by Brandon Aubrey. But you can't have shocking misses unless you have stops on defense. Even if Aubrey had made these kicks, they still don't end up scoring as many points as the Vikings. There were just a lot of big plays. Jonathan Grenard, who got banged up in the game, a great pressure on a key down to stop a fourth down late in the game. Dallas Turner, there was a screen pass that he ended up scrambling and running down

that Byron Murphy kind of redirected the guy and Turner ran it down. Hard to say, like, which guys had the most pressures and things like that. I thought it was really that there wasn't a lot of pressure on the early down completions. And then when times got tough, then it was. Flores, okay, we're going to get Eric Wilson coming after the quarterback. We're going to be, you know, playing some games with the quarterback's mind. And that's where they did a really good job. And you think about, I mean, the secondary they're playing with right now is not one that you

would put up in the top 10 in the NFL. And they were still able to keep, you know, when you look at Dak Prescott's numbers for this year, they've been, you know, astronomical. and he ends up with zero touchdown passes, 294 yards, but only 23 for 38 passing. Pressured a lot, a lot of throwaways, a lot of dirt balls, stuff like that. So they get that stop in the fourth quarter.

And then McCarthy comes back, and this was another extremely confident type of drive from J.J. McCarthy. They run a couple times. But then he finds Josh Oliver for that rollout pass that I was talking about, Oliver, another great play. And then there's one where I guess you could debate it. It is definitely a touch pass to T.J. Hawkinson.

It looked like the ball hung up in the air a little bit and had the safety played it correctly. Maybe he could have knocked it down or picked it off. But Hawkinson tracks it again, still good at football. T.J. Hawkinson just got to get it there. And he makes a huge catch to set up the score that put them away. And that was another Jalen Naylor touchdown there to put them away. and then, you know, that the Vikings end up winning. So, I mean, when we go through that second half,

first half is a, hey, a couple nice throws there. You know, a guy got wide open. You threw it up in the air and he caught it. That's good. You should be able to find Jordan Addison as a pro quarterback if he's that open, right? But the second half to me had a lot of high pressure type of situations at the goal line, needing a score,

needing a fourth down conversion. and he was able to come through time and time again. And the running game today had its moments, but it wasn't like they just leaned on the run time and time again. 28 carries for 77 yards overall. Aaron Jones went 12 for 34 and Jordan Mason went 10 for 29. I mean, they were not really running the ball very effectively. Now, you might snark, hey, even if it's not the most effective,

it does set up the passing game. and you would probably be right. And we've seen that over the last two weeks. But the point just being, for the first time, I think we can truly say J.J. McCarthy won this football game for the Minnesota Vikings. You could go back to Chicago, but he kind of started the fire and then put the fire out by getting down with a pick six, down 21, and then coming back. You could say in Detroit that it was a complete win, but Flores got a lot of credit for that

one for stopping that amazing Detroit offense, and he threw for 140 yards. And then last week, it was a shutout. I mean, literally anyone could have quarterbacked that win. This was national TV. Everybody's talking about, you know, what's the Vikings going to do with J.J. McCarthy and all that sort of stuff. And you're in a big stage. And he really came through for them.

And that, to me, has the chance to be. And this is where I want to go with this conversation. It has the chance to be a moment that we remember for J.J. McCarthy, a moment of turning a corner. Because we talked about this a lot early in the season where, you know, before the season starts of, all right, can you grind through some wins? Can you find just enough out of J.J. McCarthy? And then middle late part of the season, that's where he gets it. it clicks and then he's playing confident quarterback and then we made that bow nicks comparison

bo nicks was awesome today by the way uh the bo nicks comparison all off season long hey if he struggles but they still win some games with defense and uh then you know you get him to turn that corner then you know you've got a chance uh to make the playoffs to compete all that stuff well that went down the drain when he had to miss a bunch of games for an ankle injury and then come back could kind of reset the clock again. But is this it? And this is where you could kind of go back and forth. Because something that I said two weeks ago was these defenses that he's about to face,

they're not just struggling. They're atrocious. They're worse than the Titans. They're as bad as the Bengals. They are absolutely awful. And did any edge rushers, like they were playing just in school tonight. I thought he was fine. this team made just in school look like a totally fine left tackle.

I wouldn't have even known that he was a backup just watching the game. And Brian O'Neill got hurt at the end of the game, which is a little concerning there for next week against a team that has some serious edge talent, but not much else in the Giants. So they are bad. Like their coverage was terrible. I mean, you're also talking about a defensive coordinator, Matt Iberfluse, who I don't know if he ever had a good defense in Chicago

and then got fired there and brings it over to the Cowboys. The Vikings ripped them apart last year in Chicago, so it's not like they don't know this defense. They can't cover Trayvon Diggs. I don't even know what happened there. He was supposed to play, and then all of a sudden wasn't. And then Jordan Schultz is reporting that he's got issues with the team. So they don't even have a guy who can make plays.

And receivers were very open. So no pressure. Lots of opportunities, and we have to factor that stuff. And I use the term fools gold because this league can be like that. I mean, think about the, and I'm not comparing these two quarterbacks because one is a first rounder and the other is a fifth rounder. But think about last week, Shadur Sanders throws for 360 against the Titans who have just, you know, essentially quit. And it's like, oh my gosh, there was the words franchise quarterback used about should. Der Sanders today in the lead-up to today's games by Ian Rappaport, that the Browns think

that he's got a chance to prove he could be their franchise quarterback. He said, franchise quarterback about Chedurr Sanders, a fifth rounder, right? Okay. And then he gets stomped by a pretty mediocre Chicago defense, and it's like, maybe not, because everything is just week to week, right? The truth is whatever we just saw, and that is the whole truth and nothing but the truth. And that's what we try to do here on this here show, which is put it all in context. What does it all actually mean that J.J. McCarthy played like a very good starting NFL

quarterback this week and last week as well. I would say last week was one where I just didn't want to put a whole lot of stock into it, even though there was progress and there was confidence. But I think there's a lot more stock to be put in a game like this. because when you look at clean pocket performance, he was not performing very well before this with a clean pocket. And tonight, when he was protected, he was very good. He stepped into a lot of throws and he was accurate enough.

There's always going to be times where, you know, somebody throws it into the stands. Like that's going to happen with great quarterbacks. But 15 for 24, that's a lot. That's a good amount of completions. I know that the other day I was kind of ranting. about like, okay, he needs to throw for some yards. He needs to be the reason they won, like some of these games.

It can't just be well, you know, they got 150 yards. Well, that was tonight. That was exactly what he did. And I think where you have to say, yeah, okay, I mean, it is Dallas for sure. This is a defense that got lit up for 44 last week. So, and the week before that, I mean, even this horrible Kansas City offense, which Patrick Mahomes tore his ACL today. a horrible Kansas City offense had a field day with this defense in that stadium.

So it's not like they're actually remotely close to being competent as a defense. But there were moments where there is a guy with some coverage near him. And it's a good throw. There is a lot of moments of good decisions. And all right, it's a tipped ball interception. Maybe there's an issue with balls getting batted down. for him. Maybe it's random. I'm not sure. Probably is a little bit of something there. But aside from that, which is not a bad decision, he was trying to hit the hot on his right side

because that's where the pressure was coming from. The guy sticks his hands up, knocks the ball in the air. A lot of times that ball hits the floor. This time it didn't. But think about through this entire game. Was there a point where you said, oh no, JJ, do not make that throw. Are you out of your skull, I don't think so. I don't think that there was. I think that we're going on two straight weeks. And was he sacked? How many times was he sacked? That's a huge number for him. Zero sacks. And one interception on a tip ball. And that's it. That is something that you can say, all right, regardless of who you're playing against, regardless of who they have on their D-line and their secondary, whatever, I mean, if you're making good decisions with

the football and you're giving receivers a chance to make plays by putting the ball in the right spots and then you're ripping some, then you're scrambling some, that goes week to week. That is progress. Regardless, the hard question is, regardless of how much progress. Now, that's the hard question. Like, did a light just come on these last two weeks or did you play someone terrible? We're going to know probably in hindsight. But, But what I would say is, if you can string together a five-game section of this season where you actually play all five games, you throw fairly accurately, you make good decisions, you make throws on the move, you set up receivers with a chance to catch the ball, and the last box you have to check, well, don't take sacks. And then the last box you have to check is get the ball to Jefferson, and that's a work in progress. but if those things are happening on a consistent basis week to week,

then we are talking about having the potential to get to the end of the season and saying, all right, on to 2026. And there's an opportunity here to find out if McCarthy with a full off season, presumably a new quarterback coach trainer who's going to work on those fundamentals every single day through a healthy January, February, March, April, and then come back and build on what you've done here, then 2026 can be the season that you thought 2025 was going to be. And don't forget, you're going to get a last play schedule.

And that's going to help as well. And we see that all the time. I mean, San Francisco is a good example. See, I don't remember the last time they played somebody hard. Like, it does matter. It does matter. which reminds me the Fanduil question of the day. And I want to talk about this scenario.

The Fandul question of the day is the Vikings are now plus 190 on Fandul to get to eight wins. What's your confidence considering how well McCarthy played that they can get to eight now that they have six? Can they get two out of the last three is the question? One against Detroit on Christmas. One against Green Bay. And I think next week, I did, I did joke a couple weeks ago that I wouldn't pick them to win the rest of the year. I think I'm going to have to break that because after this, I think they should go to New York and beat the Giants. But, but that's, that is really the true test is, or as true as we're going to get is can you string together enough games to the point where you're saying, I think eight, nine, there is a chance where you.

string together enough games where you say, you know, this can win in 2026. If you build a little bit on X, Y, and Z, this can win. If you get a first round corner, if you get a maybe a free agent safety, if you get a healthy offensive line. And I don't know if Justin Derisaw should play again this year. I mean, Darisaw having a good game against Washington and then needing to sit the following week. It's not right. It's clearly not right. Like, just don't play him because it's not worth it. He's too important. He's too valuable. If something goes wrong in these last three games, you will regret it. Just play Justin's school the rest of the way. Put him on IR. I don't know why, you know, they really don't seem to believe in Walter Rouse, but, you know, maybe activate him instead.

Whatever it takes. Just I don't, clearly something with this recovery did not go the way that they expected it to go. So Darisaw, I would just say, it's just time. Show him down. It's all right. It's a lost season for him. Come back at 100% 2026. But everything will look very different if you finish eight and nine after getting to four and eight where it just looked so lost and it looked like there was the potential for this thing to crater. Like they needed last week to kind of get some of that I think weighed off everybody's shoulders. But this week was a real win. Like that's a real team that was six, six and one that their tie came against the Green Bay Packers. They went toe to toe last week with Detroit. Like that's not a, it's a bad defense,

but it's not a joke team that they just beat. And, you know, you put it together and you've got a couple of wins over good teams, Chicago, Detroit, and now Dallas for J.J. McCarthy. That's three out of his four wins are against at least reasonable teams two of them playoff teams at least reasonable teams get another one of those either against Detroit or against Green Bay and you're just going to feel a lot better now that's where you stop yourself and go am i being the sort of prisoner of the moment here and the answer is i don't know i don't know if i'm being the prisoner of the moment or not all i know is that he's given this this route a chance that's the biggest thing that J.J. McCarthy has done over the last two weeks, because if he couldn't

beat Washington, if he couldn't play well tonight going toe to toe with Dak Prescott and having to actually match somebody and not just being a Brian Flores won the game for you and you kind of had everything laid out where you really, I mean, you're down, you're down 2317 in the second half. You got to go make some plays and he was able to do it. Like these, these are, these are real quarterback things that he did tonight. This was not a, hey, he just, you know, threw a couple screen passes and the guy went for 60 yards. Like, these were clutch throws, big moment type of throws,

and also more evidence that he was able to work through absolute hell to get to another side and win games. That what happened in Green Bay and what happened in Baltimore, Chicago, those things did not destroy J.J. McCarthy, that he's been able to get himself back on track. And I also think, you know, Jefferson's been a big part of that with the fact that he's, you know, taking the pressure off JJ and hasn't pointed the finger, although after this week, you know, can't really do that when the ball hits him right in the hands. And I also think that O'Connell as well is part of this.

Now, there's maybe a little bit of, let's look back and say, oh, they tried too hard, to fix his mechanics. Well, I get where you're coming from with that. I also think that you as you have to be able to coach a player. Like I think what they got to was kind of a, all right, we've coached as much mechanically as we can for this year now work with all that stuff. And the thing is that, you know, the ball, the leg coming up off the ground and stuff like that. But you do see improvements of some of the things he's doing mechanics. that they've talked about and they've worked on time and time again.

It doesn't look exactly the same as it looked against Chicago or against Atlanta. And one of the biggest things that I think is really working is the decisiveness of however O'Connell has made this offense the last couple of weeks for him. I personally don't see like major differences. I still see a lot of their core concepts being used. maybe there's a little less motion. Maybe there's a little less asking stuff of him to do at the line of scrimmage. Maybe that's, you know, the simplification or whatever.

You could say, oh, you should have done this or he should have done that. Well, one of the things that's hard with coaching McCarthy and figuring out where he's at and what he could do is that they missed five games in the middle of the season. Like those two figuring each other out was a process that was, you know, kind of hard to get to because they had so many stops and starts. And so that's also a question here is that did these two finally start to click and start to get on the same page and some of the hellaciousness that they had to go through to get to the other side.

Yeah, it's too late for this season, but maybe it's not too late for J.J. McCarthy who is going to turn the sickening old age of 23 going into next year. you know, still about, still technically half of Philip Rivers's age at this moment. So there's a lot of, it opens up the door. That's the whole point is that if they had struggled here and the ball was still crazy and accurate and he was still kind of panicking in the pocket and it just looked like it's not going to happen here, folks. But now there is several different avenues that you could still go down.

you can have another few good games and feel like, all right, well, you're still going to get another quarterback for next year. I mean, you're not going to throw out what you saw in the first six games for sure. You're still going to go out and look for a backup quarterback who can play, but you're not necessarily into, and this is if it continues down this road, if he continues to do all the nice things that he did tonight, especially to me the decision making with the football, that the risk management.

of the ball, but also being able to go down the field. I mean, he averaged 10 yards per attempt. Like, that's, this kid is going to be aggressive. And that's that one thing that with these playmakers, if he can be accurate and aggressive and timely, it can be good. And it can actually be a good fit for Kevin O'Connell because you know that he wants that to be the case.

I mean, it's fourth and three and they're throwing a 23-yard pass. Like, that's who the Vikings are going to be. And tonight it worked. So if that continues to work, Then you're going down that path of saying, all right, well, you know, I don't know, Carson Wentz come back to be the backup next year or whatever, right? Like get somebody who can win two out of four as Carson Wentz did or somebody like, you know, Gardner Minchew is playing for Kansas City, someone who's played a full season

before if they had to. But you're not really thinking putting assets into that backup quarterback spot. That's if it continues down the path of all the things that went well tonight against the Dallas Cowboys. There's another road that's more murky, which is if it's a little bit of good and bad in New York, and, you know, maybe it's a, who knows, right? Like, maybe it's a shocking loss in New York or something. And then, which Jackson Dart again got looked at for a concussion today.

I don't, I don't know if we're getting him or James Winston. They should shut him down and play James Winston. And then you play Detroit and it goes, all right, but you lose. And then you play Green Bay and they're not playing anybody. And then you'd feel like, well, what does this all mean, right? Everybody was super high on it after Dallas, but like, what does this really mean? And then there's another route where it just, this was completely fake. And they play really poorly the next couple weeks.

And that's the end of the season. And you're still out there looking for other quarterbacks. It's not the best way to do it to put it on the last couple of games and say, hey, you're going to make a decision based on that. But what other option do you have? You've only got these games and none of us really know whether what we saw tonight can continue on a week to week basis. But stringing two weeks together where he played really good football is maybe another example of, hey, you know, these guys need time to actually play football and we want to judge them and we have to because it's what we're seeing. And when you get to six games that are, you know, historically bad, like what else are you supposed to do with that?

but also there's so much conversation about patience and so much conversation about developing and everything else, while the Vikings being out of the playoffs, which is, don't get it twisted, an enormous, enormous failure for them to be officially eliminated from the playoffs. That was not where they were supposed to be. They were supposed to be needing to win this game to be in the postseason or playing for something. So it's still a huge failure for them.

But they do have an opportunity here to kind of have, like, guilt-free development and evaluation time against some teams that are more like you're playing in the preseason at times today with the lack of pressure and last week, too. But also, time to show the proof of the concept that this is what they saw and this is what they believed in with J.J. McCarthy. So let me get to a couple of other things. and I have not, let's see, have not heard from Dane Mizatani yet. He's in Dallas, and if he was able to find a good spot to jump onto the show, he said that he might be able to do that. Decided not to travel for it tonight, just saving the budget a little bit for combine and owners meetings and so forth.

So, which, you know, I did, you know, I miss being on the road. But don't regret that as of this. moment, even though it was a very good game. Again, if you missed that fan duel question of the day, the Vikings are plus 190 to win eight games. What's your confidence that considering how well McCarthy's played over the last two, that they can now get to eight? So a couple of other things that stood out on the defensive side was just how well they

have created a complete pressure group. and I was once again thinking about and this is just going to happen, you know, every time they play well as a healthy unit, just how much Andrew Van Ginkle plays into this and missing him at a certain time was just so problematic. Also, I mean, they didn't really start starting Eric Wilson until they were forced to. And he and Blake Cashman have only played X number of games together. So he's now really a starter. Had some great plays tonight.

The secondary actually finally had some play. from Byron Murphy that I noticed. He broke up a slant early in the game, made a nice play on a screen. The punting once again, I mean, Ryan Wright, we got to talk about this even a little bit, right? He had a 65-yard punt that went right down to the goal line and another one that was inside the 20 as well. Ryan Wright deserves to be a pro bowler. And, you know, I saw people after they gave up a couple of decent returns and didn't have some early, like, oh, Matt Daniels, Matt Daniels. I've gotten sort of tired of seeing that from fans. I feel like what I mean, this is, are you bored? Like, um, I know that they've had some catastrophic mistakes this year

that have proven costly, which probably wouldn't if they had any semblance of an offense before now. But this guy was very confident in Ryan Wright and stuck with him and, uh, kept saying it was a punting competition when it never really was. It's been his guy the entire time. Uh, Will Reichard just bangs home an easy 53 for the dagger. And yes, it is possible still for people to miss field goals in the NFL, but it doesn't seem like it with Will Reichert as the kicker. They didn't have a great return game overall. They did have a 32-yarder that was a good one, didn't return any punts. But, you know, the special teams played a big role in the success tonight and, you know, pinning Dallas back and a couple of times there when they weren't getting going on offense.

So that whole group deserves to be in the Pro Bowl. And they're working with young players that are sometimes going to make mistakes. But I was looking up the numbers overall for kick returns, punt returns. They're third in net yards. They might go up to the top after tonight. And overall, I mean, they've been good. Let's see.

Okay. So Dane says that he is not found a great spot to do the podcast. So that is how it goes sometimes. So the thing about these press boxes is now we all have to try to do podcasts on the road. And so there's only so much space to do that sort of thing. Anyway, so that means that there's opportunity for you folks to jump in. And what did you take away from tonight? How much?

That's really the question. How much are you valuing this performance by J.J. McCarthy, 15 for 24, two touchdowns, 250, and for me, checked every box except for the connection with Justin Jefferson, which I've got to think can come along in these last four games. That has to happen. So what would what would you like to talk about from this game? Jump into the comment section and let me know here what you're thinking about for this one. Because really, when it comes to these last few games. I mean, the main thing, everything is going to be about evaluating McCarthy. And I think that that's fair based on where they're at. Just a couple other things from around

the league today while you guys jump into those. Buffalo has been my Super Bowl pick and they have taken me on a roller coaster, including this this week where they got down 21. But that Josh Allen performance is why they remain my Super Bowl pick. And the same goes for the Rams. But injuries now all of a sudden affecting a lot of stuff and the fact that Devante Adams got injured looked like that could be serious. Michael Parsons getting injured. He's going to be out for the entire year after getting Green Bay to this point. And the Phillip Rivers experiment came so close to working, so close to working. That was interesting to watch. I was at first really scared for him. And then I thought, well, he's actually kind of bawling.

And then as the game went on, he just could not push the ball down the field in any way, shape, or form. And Sam Darnold did the same stuff that he did against Jacksonville last year. Couldn't get the ball into the end zone, but gets a game winning drive for a long field goal. Rivers scored too soon in that. But, hey, he went out there and made it happen without getting injured. There was a time where he slipped and fell down. And when he got back up, it was like, Philip, no, don't do it. don't get back up, you're going to get hurt.

And luckily he did not. But Seattle continues to be a beast. And Chicago, man, I think at this point, you got to say, and I know it was Shadur Sanders and I know it's Cleveland, but they've also beaten some good teams. They played really well against Green Bay. They beat Philadelphia. Like Chicago's pretty legit.

This NFC is insane. I was thinking about this today that I don't, I mean, even if we give the Vikings wins in games that they were close, even if they beat, you know, they should have probably been able to beat Atlanta. There may be, you know, a couple of plays away there in the red zone and a big throw to Nailer away from that one. And Pittsburgh, Chicago, they don't give up the long return. Even if that happened, I'm not sure they're really in this race just because of how incredible

and crazy the NFC is this year. It's really been the exact opposite of last year where there was just a couple teams who were good and everyone else was terrible. So, all right. Oh, I missed, sorry, Brian, I missed your super chat. Let me go find it. Oh, my gosh. Somebody came in with a huge one. Thank you, Hanky 86. Can you send the question again? Oh, Bryson. Sorry, Bryson, because I didn't see it here. So please send it again, and I will definitely answer it. I'm sorry about that. Usually in the first part of this post game, I'm not looking at the comment section because I'm I'm just trying to kind of focus, but thank you so much, uh, Hanky for that.

All right, let me get, uh, into some of your comments here, uh, for in terms of the Fandul question of the day, pizza guy or pizza Gary says 65, 35, 35 that they win two more. I think that's a, I think that's a pretty good percentage. I think 60 to 70 percent.