Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Reacting to Kevin O'Connell's comments about McCarthy on Rich Eisen's show

Episode Date: June 11, 2024

Kevin O'Connell talked about what JJ McCarthy needs to do in order to start while on the Rich Eisen Show. Matthew Coller breaks down those comments and answers fan questions about the QBs, guard situation and much more Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider, Matthew Collar here, and as you can tell from the hotel room, I am still on the road for a couple days here, but that doesn't change anything as far as being able to do podcasts. including about the guard position so stay tuned you guard freaks and lots of fan questions that were sent in for me to answer as well and then i will be back in time for the last vikings open ota to the media which is on wednesday and jj mccarthy is expected to talk then so we'll have a reaction from tco performance center after jj mcc McCarthy's final spring practice in which we will decide is he a future Hall of Famer or is he a bust? That's what we will determine by the OTA practice for sure. We'll definitely be able to figure that out then. So I'll be out there though and we'll do our usual thing after that. And I'm very curious to hear from JJ McCarthy how much

he's learned over the spring, how he think the process is going and just where he's made his biggest gains, his responses to how he's fitting in with the team, all those different things that we will ask him. We kind of got that from Sam Darnold the other day about his learning process and so forth for the offense. So, you know, now we get the other quarterback before the end of OTAs and minicamp. And then we wait for a long time, but that will not stop the content train. I promise you there will be lots of fun stuff to discuss and we'll find some different ways to talk about this team and its history and where it's going and the NFL and make predictions, maybe.

And all those things that people do during the summer before we get to the hardcore training camp so this place takes no breaks though even when on the road as you can see so let's dive right into it from kevin o'connell he was on the rich eisen show and of course rich doing his job asked about jj mccarthy so i pulled three different quotes that stood out to me the first one o'connell said everything so far we hope to get out of JJ from the spring and confirming things we thought about him pre-draft and all of those things that he's done. I think all that Kevin O'Connell is saying there is that when you meet with JJ McCarthy at the NFL Combine and you get to know him and you go to Ann Arbor and you sit down with him that you get a

certain type of impression about him as a player and what he's going to be like in your facility. And you also get a certain idea of what the tools and the skills are going to look like when you put them out on the field and also maybe the things that he's going to have to learn. And they've confirmed those. And I've felt that way, even myself from the amount of practices that we've seen and the approach that he's taken and everything that we've heard about his work ethic and showing up at the stadium early or the, you know, the venue early and getting the practice worked out and how he was going to learn and the effort he was going to put into that. This is a major reason why you draft JJ McCarthy is that the

person, the competitor, the guy who said that when he was in fifth grade, he edited his life just with the plan of making the NFL and had an offer in college when he was in eighth grade, all those things like that person is going to bring that type of commitment to this, to the facility. I think we have seen that before throughout this spring, and we've also seen the arm talent, the athleticism, and so forth, and the places he needs to go. So I think what O'Connell is saying there is simply that they got what they expected with the 10th overall draft pick,

and he also said something to the effect of he's wearing us out at the facility, meaning asking a lot of questions. We heard that from Josh McCown as well, that they're having a ton of dialogue communication throughout the spring as he is in the quote learning environment. And this speaks to how O'Connell has tried to curate this entire spring in this situation for JJ McCarthy to not have the pressure of being the first round pick and to have time to be able to develop. And I think a lot of that comes from the influence of his own background, his own career, Josh McCown's career and putting together a pretty clear-cut plan of how they were going to handle this thing in order to give J.J. McCarthy the best chance to succeed. He also said, how many times can we apply the principles that we saw on tape at

Michigan? And so I've noted on numerous occasions that learning an NFL offense is way different than in college, but that doesn't mean that college just plays a totally different football game. There are a lot of concepts. And I think some of the stuff that Michigan did, where you have kind of high, low stuff, you could call it that where, you know, one receiver is doing a corner route to the back of the end zone, the other's doing an out route and you kind of read the defense and make a decision, stuff like that. You see in the NFL all the time, also over the middle routes where I think JJ McCarthy has been really good in practice at times where when he lets it rip on

those throws over the middle, he has a lot of success in that and seems comfortable with those throws. Well, running, you know, mesh concepts and things like that that go over the middle of the field is something that the Vikings could continue to do more often with J.J. McCarthy so they looked at everything he did and said what can we kind of borrow or what do we already have that he's going to be comfortable with that they can do which I think is is probably a good idea and not just sticking purely to the system and this is a question that has been asked a number of times. It's like, how much are they going to build the offense around him? I still think it's Kevin O'Connell's offense. He believes that it works, but to say, here's what

we have that is reflective of what you were best at in college. And maybe we'll lean into that more. I think that's a good idea to be aware of what he was doing in college and having success with and what they can apply to their own concepts that are part of this offense. The next one from Kevin O'Connell on the rich eyes and show, he said, we have a long-term plan for JJ. We see him as the quarterback of the future. And when that starts, uh, with, Oh, I'm sorry. And that starts with him taking with taking game reps will be about demonstrating total comfort in the system. Uh, that to me has been the biggest thing with JJ McCarthy. And when he can get on the field is there are certain things

with throwing the football that are going to need to be developed over a couple of years. I think that the accuracy we've seen other quarterbacks, Jalen hurts, uh, you know, Josh Allen who have developed their accuracy, who are good natural athletes over a couple of seasons, but it's not great right away. And that's why I've said over and over, like, don't panic or freak out that we're saying from practice, it doesn't look perfect. It's just, this is where we are right now. And we're going to see, use that as a baseline and see how much it can improve. But with someone like Jalen hurts, it was year three where he really started throwing the ball more accurately. And even with Josh Allen year three, he took that huge leap forward.

So that might be the case where he know play in games because he's got the offense locked in and he is comfortable with the offense and he can get everyone lined up he could throw to the right places he can throw on time but that sometimes it will be erratic and they shouldn't be afraid of that if that's the issue if sometimes it's a little erratic with the accuracy that's not really a problem but it would be a problem if he didn't know how to set his protection. I remember in a games last year that we saw with Bryce young and he was just letting edge rushers for the Vikings come free and not resetting or changing protections and things like that. Maybe he didn't have answers. I don't know. I didn't cover that season for them, but when Harrison Smith comes down to the line of scrimmage, you should really

have somebody there to block him. Right. And Bryce young didn't. And of course it was a great play by Harrison Smith to win that game. But if you're looking at it from the rookie quarterback perspective, he was not a hundred percent locked in on what their assignments were, or he would have shifted the protection toward Harrison Smith because he has a tendency to blitz when he comes to the line of scrimmage. Well, they don't want those moments from JJ McCarthy. They want him to be totally comfortable with where he's supposed to throw the ball and how he's supposed to operate the offense. And that's why we have sort of talked about this patience. And as Kevin O'Connell said, they have a clear cut plan that they have designed and they're

going to know when he's ready. So this will be a big discussion over and over again of, Hey, is he ready? How's he looking in camp and everything else? They will have the best idea based on how much he knows and how comfortable he is of when he is actually ready to go. Now that won't keep us from asking of course, and it won't keep ESPN from putting on the bottom scroll. Will Vikings go to McCarthy if Sam Darnall has a tough game or two in a row, but they have, I think a baseline of as soon as he is in X amount of command of this offense, then we feel like he'll be ready

to go. And that does get harder once the season starts. So if you get to the end of training camp and feel like, uh, you know, he might need more work here. Um, then we might be talking about waiting for the entire season, or there might be a moment within the season as they're practicing. And as they're going through meetings where they've implemented five game plans for the first five weeks and they say, yeah, actually he's really got it. It's clicked in and he has mastered everything and we're one in four and now it's

time to go to JJ McCarthy. That could be a potential scenario, but it won't be until then, which I think is very smart. Don't send somebody out there who isn't ready to handle everything. And the point that O'Connell went on to make was that you can't handle adversity or the crazy things that happen in an NFL game, the defenses you never expect to see or whatever, if you don't have the baseline of knowledge. So think about it like as in driving a car, right? If something crazy happens on the road and you know, somebody changes lanes or whatever, does something wild in front of you, you know how to react because you know how to drive a car. So, you know, all right, I got to push the brake. I got to switch lanes. I got to check my mirror. I got whatever it might

be put on my blinker, whatever. whatever uh you got to know all those things if you're jj mccarthy the same way how to drive the car before you can deal with swerving to avoid an accident or swerving to miss a deer or something you can't deal with the adversity and the surprises that come up unless you have your foundation set and obviously through otas and minicamp he does not have the foundation set So that's where he's going to be. But I think O'Connell confirming that on this interview and saying clearly, like, we're not going to play him until he's ready to do that. That allows us to say, all right, it looks like they're going to be very patient with this and wait till they're probably more sure than they

even need to be that until they're going to put them out there. One other thing. And again, this is for all of you offensive line nuts. Uh, O'Connell said that Dalton Reisner will compete with both Ed Ingram and Blake Brandel at left guard. Now this question came up when they signed Reisner and I was skeptical that he was actually going to compete at right guard. Now it looks like he has taken some reps at both positions during practice. So maybe this is a thing that he could do. He hasn't played anywhere except for left guard during his career. I did think last year when they signed him, because Ingram was struggling so much that maybe they did sign him for right guard and they elected eventually to have him replace Ezra Cleveland and traded Ezra Cleveland away. I could be more real this year. I don't know though, because again, he's never played this

position ever before. And he's talked about being versatile in college and so forth, but it's been a long time since Dalton Reisner was in college. So asking him to play a different position might be pretty difficult. He also might be just learning it because he's going to be the swing guard. And if anybody gets hurt at left or right guard, then he's going to be the guy that has to jump in. But at least as far as what Kevin O'Connell said to, I asked him about this position the other day, and he said, you know, kind of the same thing, but more offered this information without even being asked about the gut. Rich Eisen was not asking about the guards and he just sort of casually mentioned,

you know, we're going to have competition there with Reisner and Ingram and Brandel. And so, okay, well, I guess that's where we're at with that situation. So I will give the benefit of the doubt in believing this. Now,

I'm not sure that I fully do that. He's actually competing at right guard because you think about how Ed Ingram has played over the last two years and the number of opportunities that they've had to bench him and the fact that they never have, even when he's struggled and they've always stuck with him. Why would they do that now after he's coming off his best stretch of play of his career at the end of last season? And Brandel has never started before, so it would make so much more sense that the veteran would actually be competing with him so those are the takeaways from that interview on jj mccarthy and on the guard position there was more to it of course you can go to youtube and find it that's where i watched it he talked about sam darnold expectations and so forth he did drop in there that he thinks sam darnoldold has had a really, really strong spring. And I would agree with him the way that it's looked out in practice. And so that's kind of where we're at right now with Kevin O'Connell, because I don't think he's

going to talk again next week. I think it's just McCarthy. I could be wrong about that, that we're getting. So the last time we spoke with him will be the last time I think until training camp. Again, I could be wrong. They might, you know, change something there, but, uh, if it is, then we've kind of got our final statements here about where he sees JJ McCarthy and so forth. So I got a bunch of fan questions. I put it out there on Twitter for questions. And so I'm going to jump into those right now. And starting with a JJ McCarthy question, uh, Asa, a friend of the show, said, how far into McCarthy's contract do we become worried if he's not starting? Is it starting a year two or a red flag or a luxury for the Vikings? Oh, I'm sorry. He's not starting year two. So if

he was not starting by 2025, would that mean it was a bad thing or would that mean that something maybe went really right for Sam Darnold? And there is a scenario as we lay out all the different potential options that there is one scenario where Sam Darnold throws, let's just say 33 touchdowns, 12 picks, 4,500 yards, Justin Jefferson's offensive player of the year again. And they go to the playoffs at 11 and six. And then you go, uh, oh my gosh, what do we do now? Because Sam Darnold is so good. And JJ McCarthy sitting there, but they would probably have to, and this is not what they want to do ideally with the salary cap but they would like in that case likely decide to franchise tag uh sam darnold to make sure that he was still around for another year again not ideal

with the way the salary cap is set up but with jefferson's contract they could afford to next year have a big contract from the quarterback position i would be very shocked if they even if he had a great year, if they decided to sign him to a long-term deal, unless, I mean, that's like you're winning the super bowl and then you get a long-term deal, but the bar is extremely high for that. Anything short of that, if it's an average season, 20 touchdowns and 18 picks. That's not an average season. That's a bad season. 14 picks, 12 picks, whatever. And he ends up rating 24th by PFF,

throwing for 4,000 yards, and they go eight and nine. Let's just say it's that kind of season. It's sort of how he played in Carolina over those two years. All right, well, that's pretty easy to move on from him after that. If they don't move on, that means they're very concerned about JJ McCarthy. This will be an easy situation to read

is if they were to franchise tag Darnold after an average season. And if they didn't make the playoffs or made it and then lost in the first round at nine and eight or something, then we would know, all right, something's going on behind the scenes that it's problematic because I think the entire situation was always set up to have a bridge quarterback for a year, just in case, and maybe have him win the job out of camp if he's ready to go and then move on after one year, Sam Darnold signed a one-year contract. It wasn't any longer than that. And so if he's not starting by 2025 with anything short of a marvelous performance by Sam Darnold, then that would be the red flag. I think, I don't think it would be the luxury unless we're talking about the scenario where

Darnold is just incredible and they're deep in the playoffs or something. And we've got a case Keenum situation. I think they would franchise tag him at that point. If they felt like, oh my gosh, we got to the NFC championship or divisional round or something with Darnold in this pro bowl, terrific season. We've got to run it back with him. We can't just bail on that quarterback play anything other than that. He should be starting. And I think that he will in 2025, there's probably a 95% chance that JJ McCarthy is starting unless something goes terribly wrong. But even then, I don't see what it would be with JJ McCarthy. I mean, if he's not going to be good, then it's going to be because he doesn't correct

the accuracy thing. I think that he can because of his age and how much time he has to develop over the next few years but if he doesn't do that and he's just erratic and he he won't be he strikes me as a guy that would not be ever super bad like somebody who like christian ponder or something can't play at all it would just be erratic and can't break through and can't get to the next level because he's got the talent uh to be good enough but can he be consistent enough from week to week? That's something we won't know for a couple of years with JJ McCarthy. But I think that with his mental makeup and his drive

and his competitiveness and all the things that we hear about him and see out on the practice field, he's going to convince the coaching staff, all right, it's time for me to play. And then where it goes from there, we find out, uh, how well he does those things, how many plays he is able to make. Um, you know, the leadership aspect, I don't think is going to be an issue or the learning of the offense or whatever. So it's not like we'd be saying, oh man, he just couldn't learn that offense by 2022. I think you'll get it down pretty quickly and, um, maybe be in the game this year, depending on how things go. But just to your point, it would be a big red flag if he was not playing next year. But I think that there's almost a guarantee that he will be. Next question comes from Josh. What is the likelihood that Ingram

gets demoted and the week one starting guards end up being Brandel and Reisner. I will give maybe a 20% chance of that happening. I mean, I still believe that Ed Ingram is going to start at right guard. And I also feel like just from what we've heard that they want Blake Brandel to start at left guard and would prefer that Dalton Reisner is the veteran swing guy. I mean, David Questenberry is their other backup offensive lineman. He was a starter for years and then just sort of wasn't good enough or consistent enough over long seasons. And he ends up becoming a backup for the Vikings. Those veteran guys who have started many games before Dan Feeney is like this, uh, that can still come in and start their valuable guys. And I think that they want that from Reisner. The contract suggests that

that's the type of deal you would give to somebody. That's a swing veteran backup who has proven himself in the league to be able to play, but is not giving you anything above replacement level or average. Um, but I, if Ed Ingram comes back, I mean, we don't really know this, right? If he comes back and he's not in the best shape or he gets injured or struggles in training camp and they go and they're going to go to Cleveland for these joint practices, guess who's in Cleveland? Lots of good defensive linemen, including Delvin Tomlinson. They put a lot of emphasis in those joint practices. If he doesn't seem like he is locked in or prepared, the way that he started last season was not very good. They want to avoid that. I think they want him to be fully ready. And

if he's not, then they would consider having Dalton Reisner start at right guard because they know that he's going to at least give him them an average level of play. I don't think that he's going to at least give them an average level of play. I don't think that that's a high percentage chance. I think that Ingram is going to get his opportunity for year three, the big jump that we've seen for many offensive linemen in the past. And with Brandel, he's been developing behind the scenes at multiple positions. It feels like they really like what they've seen and want him to start. So my guess would be right now, it would be Brandel and Ingram. And if anybody gets hurt, then you'll see Dalton Reisner, which is a lot better than some of the other guards we've seen when someone got hurt in the past, where you dropped off from a very poor starter to maybe one of the worst players in the league, which has

happened numerous times before. So depth on the offensive line seems very important to this coaching staff and to this front office i think that's what reisner is really here to be and just from listening to reisner talk to us the other day just doesn't sound like there was a lot of options for him so he had to take this opportunity just to be in the nfl which is odd to me because i think he's better than that i think he's better than a number of guards in the league. He just has limitations. Hey, U.S. cellular customers, I've got some good news. So do not hit that skip forward button just yet. I'm talking about their special customer event, Us Days.

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Right now, U.S. Cellular customers get $1,200 off any phone plus 300 off any tablet terms apply uh this is from ivan another friend of the show if sam darnold is good enough to start in the vikes start two and two or three and two how does koc evaluate the rookie uh I mean, I think that on a weekly basis, they're going to be implementing game plans. JJ McCarthy will be in all those meetings in those rooms, looking at the tape, understanding the game plans, and then they'll be taking them out to the practice field. He'll also have to learn other teams and their offenses and take those out to the practice field as well. If he's going to be the scout team quarterback, although, you know, maybe we might end up seeing in practice, although we don't see practice in the season that they close it to the media in the season, but Nick Mullins

might do some of that scout work because he's very good at that other stuff. They may have JJ McCarthy just focus on the Vikings game plan and how they're going to approach things, but how he's handling that on a daily basis in practice with combined what they know about him through an entire training camp. You think about training camp, there's a lot of days to understand where somebody is with the knowledge. I mean, you're talking about day after day after day of practice, joint practices, all those things. By the end of training camp, you should have a pretty good sense for how somebody has picked up the offense in JJ McCarthy. And then they'll see him on a weekly basis, get into that rhythm. But in this scenario that you're laying out two and two, three and two, there will be no rush at

that point to throw in JJ McCarthy, unless they've won those games purely because of defense and they feel like it's time to make a change. But if that is one in three, then maybe we might be talking about something a little bit different, but if it's three and two, then I think they'll feel pretty good about where they stand and just how things have gone overall at that point. So this is where it gets a little dicey is if it starts off really bad. I mean, they have that tough schedule. If it's a struggle, then a lot of people are going to be calling

for J.J. McCarthy, and it might get harder for Kevin O'Connell to keep everybody kind of at bay if he doesn't feel like McCarthy is ready. But it does get more difficult behind the scenes. The quarterback coaches are going to know Kevin O'Connell probably at that point is going to be much more focused on the day-to-day game plan. And it will be about the coaching staff saying it looks like from the meetings and everything else that he might be ready.

But by the end of training camp will really be the last true evaluation of him. Because once you get into the season, then it's, you know, prepping for those games. But there's nothing wrong with letting him see how Sam Darnold does it. I mean, Darnold has been in this league long enough that it's a good experience to let him just, you know, watch Sam Darnold, learn a game plan, implement it, practice it for five, six weeks, even if it doesn't go that well to have a better understanding of what he needs to do when he becomes the starter. I think we saw last year with Jaron Hall getting thrown into it, that it was, uh, it's pretty tough. It's not the easiest thing in the world to get tossed into the NFL for your first number of starts. Um. So it's okay if he ends up taking half

the season or something like that, or even more to learn. But I do think the evaluation process gets trickier into the middle of the season. And everyone says they won't pressure him to start McCarthy, but if it's a bad start to the season, it's going to change because the world is just totally different during the season. Everyone changes during the pressure of things like that going on. At red and purple 77 asks, I remember during the 22 season, people in the building talked about the mood in the building is so improved. Do you still feel that way? Yes, I do very much. I mean, I think the NFL PA survey really showed you that the players association, where they ask all the players to fill out and grade their franchise based on a number of

different subjects and head coach was one of them, but the overall, you know, the ownership and how they feel about the facilities, which of course the Vikings crush the facilities because they might have the nicest facilities in the entire league, but they graded the head coach either an A or an A plus last year, even during a seven win season, which is very difficult because people start looking around for who to blame when something like that happens, when the wheels come off as it did last year. And yet the players still gave O'Connell and the organization as a whole very, very high grades. And I think that his handling and turning around of that culture in the building has

been, it's been on a couple of different levels. I mean, one, the types of players that they've brought in, when you bring in Jonathan Grenard, when you bring in Aaron Jones, Andrew Van Ginkle, these are really high character players that I think will fit very easily. They're good communicators, especially Aaron Jones has been long known for his leadership in green Bay. That's, you know, why a lot of those players and a lot of those fans probably didn't want to see him go because he has been so valuable to that end. He's Kevin O'Connell has empowered the players, the leaders, the Brian O'Neill's, the Garrett Bradbury's. And

I mean, the vibes of minicamp are, are very good. I think so far. And I think everyone is just sort of intrigued about what this is going to be. I mean, Harrison Smith talked about, I mean, the fact that he came back by the way, if it was not a happy place to be probably wouldn't have, but people have talked about the defensive room and how Brian Flores has created this sort of atmosphere of players taking ownership of the defense and Harrison Smith has clearly really enjoyed that so I think as far as where it is to play it's got to be one of the nicest places to play in the entire NFL from a culture perspective. And that doesn't get you a ring, but it certainly helps in wooing free agents, which they're going to have to do more of next year. And they did a lot of

this last off season. And as far as developing your quarterback, if you're creating the right atmosphere for that quarterback to be developed, then it gives you, I think, a better chance than incompetence or insanity, which we've seen some of both in recent years. So it doesn't guarantee you anything, but the atmosphere around the team is as good as it gets in the NFL. And I didn't think that it fell apart last year. I mean, the team seemed to believe all the way to the very end that they could get back to the playoffs and so forth. They lost a couple of close games, but you never heard or saw this kind of, Hey, maybe O'Connell's not made up for it, or it's his culture, the ways handling X, Y, and Z. It wasn't really that it was

much more of got backup quarterbacks playing and so forth that can change when things go sideways or if they go sideways. But as far as how he's going to empower the players make them feel like they want to be there it's a totally different situation than it was years ago it turned around pretty much instantly in 2022 and has stayed that way since then and uh you know i was curious last year to see if things changed or if O'Connell changed as the pressure ramped up, but I don't think he did. And one of the things that he just does very well is when it comes to those public statements, you very rarely hear him tossing people under the bus.

Sometimes we'll get hints of how he feels, but it's never something blunt, derogatory, or way too aggressive that's going to manipulate people. And it's the opposite of my way or the highway, which I think was very much Mike Zimmer. And even with Zimmer, when they were winning in 2017, he would find ways. He would go out of his way to find ways to have players feeling uncomfortable or unhappy with things that he had done or said. The Case Keenum stuff is really the example of consistently saying in front of the public, yeah, I don't really believe in Case Keenum.

I mean, why do that? I never really understood that approach from him, but I think it was that Zimmer was offended by the idea that someone who wasn't that good was being talked about as being good because Zimmer is a great player evaluator and knows football. And I think he was also really terrified that the wheels were going to come off. But when you say that stuff and you don't show the belief in your player, I think that's where you start to get the fracturing of a locker room. Whereas Kevin O'Connell is just really great at communicating with his leaders and making sure that that doesn't happen. So yeah, I think that the fracturing of a locker room. Whereas Kevin O'Connell is just really great at communicating with his leaders and making sure that that doesn't happen. Um, so yeah, I think that the

vibes are good, but we'll see how that goes as things go along. Kevin O'Connell is not running to aside from a Kirk cousins, Achilles, some of the, uh, adversity that Mike Zimmer had to deal with through the years, which was extreme. Even in the NFL, it was extreme. The number of things that he had to go through, whether it was Adrian Peterson, Teddy Bridgewater, you know, and on and on and on all the different stuff that happened. Everson Griffin, when Zimmer was there, we have not seen that from Kevin O'Connell aside from a quarterback injury. So things do change. Uh, but as of right now, uh, they're one of the premier places to play in the league because of it. Uh, boogeyman 2012 says, I know you've mentioned before

watching the Vikings training camp since 2016. So I wanted to know your rankings for the best and worst quarterbacks you've seen include Darnold and McCarthy. So when it came to, uh, I actually got here at the end of training camp, 2016, when Teddy got hurt, um, clearly that was not a good training camp for them because they lost their starting quarterback, but I didn't see that whole camp and how Teddy looked. I remember watching his preseason games and feeling like his arm strength had improved and so forth, but I can't include him in the conversation because of that. It really started in 17 with what you're talking about with Sam Bradford, where it was incredible. It was nothing short of incredible. I've talked about it enough times on the show, but Bradford was a former

number one overall pick with an arm of gold. And he put on a show every single day down in Mankato long throws to digs, crossing routes that he was just putting on the dot. It was remarkable. And I think you saw it in that week one game against New Orleans that he was ready to explode and it just never got to happen. Unfortunately, it's very sad for Sam Bradford because it was right there and he was proving he could do it and it just didn't happen. But as far as ranking them is tough because so much of it has been Kirk Cousins, of course. And when it comes to Kirk Cousins being the quarterback, you're not really paying much attention to anybody else.

He's taking all the first team reps. He's the guy. He's a number one. And if, you know, Nick Mullen steps up there, Kellen Mon, Sean Mannion, you just can go look at something else for a while. I mean, maybe you're trying to see a number four or five wide receiver or something, but I mean, everything is really about Kirk Cousins for the last six training camps. Uh, Kellen Mond had probably the worst

training camp practice I've ever seen in my life. When, uh, Kirk Cousins was sick, he was out for a day and Mond and Sean Mannion had to practice. It was untenable. Fumbled the ball on every snap. Didn't throw it. Took sacks. When he did throw it, it was inaccurate. And Mannion didn't look a whole heck of a lot better.

There was the Kyle Slaughter drama of maybe 2018 or so. Where maybe 2019, where he had the good preseason games, but he really struggled in practice. And Zimmer came out and said, yeah, he couldn't get people lined up correctly or whatever. But the practices were not very impressive. Actually, Jake Browning was much more impressive in a lot of those practices. And you've seen that play out that Jake is still in the league, even though he didn't play as well in the preseason games, he actually was pretty decent when he started in the NFL because Jake understood the offense better and operated it better. During those practices, there was rarely a lot of completions and there was a lot of coaches looking around a little frustrated at times,

but then you'd get in the games against fourth stringers and run around and scramble. And then, you know, people wanted him to be the backup. But if you were watching practice, then you were like, I don't get it. I don't see why we're talking about this. Uh, Jaron Hall had a pretty good training camp last year. I thought not perfect or anything like that. Um, Nick Mullins is fine. It kind of looks how you would expect, uh, as far as Darnold and McCarthy, Darnold would slot in. If I had to just use the information I have right now. He would slot in. Okay. If we have Bradford number one, and then Kirk's 2018 was a struggle.

Something was way off in that training camp the whole time. And that played out throughout the season. The other training camps were mostly fine. I remember 2021, the whole COVID thing was very awkward, but when they would go out there and run the offense, it was, it was uncomfortable, but it wasn't terrible. Um, 2020 was pretty good. I think in the shortened one, 2019, I think was probably the best one where he looked very comfortable with what they were doing offensively. So Kirk's best training camp was 2019. That would go right behind Sam Bradford. And then after that is probably what I've seen

from Sam Darnold so far, but it's way different. It's just, everyone wants updates. I get it. And I love giving them, but we also have to keep in mind that it's not training camp. Like training camp is so much more situational stuff, so much more 11 on 11, so much more high speed pads, physical play, all those things where you really can get a sense for what it's going to look like. So I can't judge Darnold yet. I think he's looked quite good in mini camp, but it's not the real dog days of summer where we start to see the separation. Red and purple here asks, do you have any comment about what Mike Florio said about the Vikings beat? I really don't. I know that this has been a thing over the last few days, but I can't say that I have much to add to that. I mean, you guys heard my opinions on it and some of my

snarky comments about it. All I can really say is that I had no information that ever made me think the Vikings would trade Justin Jefferson. And that's from talking with Kweisi Daffo-Mensa and Kevin O'Connell at the combine,, at the owners meetings, spending the last year talking to people about this situation from all different angles. And no one ever said to me, I think they're going to explore trade options. And as far as I know, that didn't happen with other people that are on the beat. One thing that I did see mentioned was something about beat reporters, like hearing things and not telling people, which I think is funny because really what the job is, I think as a reporter is to pass along the correct information. And so I said to all of you guys

throughout this process, be patient, Justin Jefferson will sign. Well, that turned out to be the correct information. In fact, I think we got it right down to the number of years and maybe even almost dead on the amount of money that he was going to sign with per year. I think we were somewhere 34, 35 per year in projecting the contract. So my reporting on that turned out to be exactly what happened. So I was very happy with the way that I handled it overall. And I didn't see any other reporters say that any of these rumors had steamed to them or whatever else. And all of those people turned out to be correct as well. So vetting information is important. Yes, people say things to me. I heard this. I heard that. Did

you know that this was going on or whatever? But if I can't corroborate it, if I can't vet that information, also there's the smell test of some things that I'm not going to bring it to the show because I want to be presenting things as I believe them to be. And the other thing is too, sometimes you hear things that you're not going to, I don't always say the word sources or whatever. I mean, sometimes it's just, Hey, you know, kind of got a sense this might be going on or whatever else there's different ways to present it. But it was really only that part of it that I thought, well, you know, I mean, I think it's important for reporters to vet information that makes sense, passes the smell test that you can get through multiple sources and things like that if you're going to report it. So I never got any information myself that even slightly hinted at the Vikings

wanting to move on from Jefferson. And it turned out to be the right approach because they signed him. So I don't have much more to say about it. I think we'll move on pretty quickly from the entire thing. And it didn't seem to me like any rumors had impacted the way that Justin Jefferson talked about his contract or the Vikings or anybody else. And I do know that teams talk about stuff. They go over scenarios, they toss out ideas. It does happen. So if we put out every single thing they ever talk about, then we're going to have a lot of really juicy stuff, but a lot of stuff that didn't actually have any chance of really happening.

So I guess that's, that's my thought on it. Nothing personal with, uh, the guy, you know, doing the rumor thing. Uh, that's, he can do it. However he feels necessary. I'm going to do my job the way I feel necessary. And you know, that that's how it goes. So, but you know, I guess if he wants to take shots, we took shots and had some snark as well about the rumor. So it is what it is. Uh, head coach 21 says with the additions on defense, where do you think the Vikings will improve the most stat wise? Uh, yeah. So sometimes the schedule and the opposing quarterbacks and the circumstances will play into it. The injuries will play into it. I think if they ranked still somewhere in the range of 12th overall and points against 12th to 15th, that would be a fairly successful year.

Maybe we expect it to get better because they improved and they don't have as many weaknesses as they did before. But at the same time, you have to play CJ Stroud. Jordan Love has taken a step forward from where he was when they faced him the first time. And it's just a really difficult schedule of quarterbacks that may end up giving them more challenges than some of the guys did last year, like facing Aiden O'Connell and shutting him out in that game. Well, that was a rookie quarterback who wasn't even a high draft pick playing for an offense that was really struggling and the Vikings took advantage and you don't have to give the win back or anything. It's just, is that going to happen

as many times this year as it sort of did last year. I don't really know. Uh, as far as overall stat wise, you would think, I know you're taking away Daniil Hunter sacks, but I think that they'll do better sack wise and overall pressure wise because they just have more rushers that they can use now with Dallas Turner, Andrew Van Ginkle and Jonathan Grenard. And I would even throw in Jerry Tillery into that mix, Blake Cashman into that mix that they have added some guys who can get after the passer. And they were able to bring back Harrison Smith that, you know, is going to add a little bit to that as well. So sacks would be a part of it. And maybe just maybe, um, quarterback rating allowed could go down a

little bit because they have better cornerbacks, but it didn't jump up so much at the cornerback position that I think, wow, okay, this year is going to be totally different with the corners. It'll still be a struggle at times until they can get a true number one shutdown elite type of corner. Uh, right now they have enough bodies of guys who are average, or maybe could be better than average if Makai Blackman takes another step forward. But I think that they could create more pressure without blitzes. So maybe stat wise, the improvement is that the blitz rate will go down. So the blitz rate goes down and they're continuing to create pressure. Then that is an advantage for them as opposed to last year where the only way that they could do it was by creating pressure. Uh, CJ says, talk me into Sam Darnold, either next season's QB needy

contender. Oh, enter. Oh, I see. You're saying he is with Sam Darnold is with a QB needy contender versus JJ McCarthy's Vikings in the 2025 playoffs, hopefully the Superbowl. Okay. So I'm supposed to talk you into Sam Darnold has left the Vikings. He's playing for a QB needy contender currently. Uh, and then, uh, JJ McCarthy has made the playoffs and possibly the Superbowl with the Vikings. Well, on the JJ McCarthy side, it's not too hard. It's pretty simple. JJ McCarthy could get into the playoffs and face Sam Darnold if he's decent, if he's even decent with the team that they have been able to build and the money that is going to be opened up by Kirk Cousins leaving. He's going to have everything that he needs to make the

playoffs and there will be some inexperience. but think about Josh Allen's second year where he made the playoffs with the bills. There was inconsistency, but they had the Texans on the ropes that year in the playoffs. That was right before the Vikings played the saints that that could be a very similar type of 10 win season where if he's on his way, there will be bumps along the road, but he's still good enough to get them to the playoffs. Sam Darnold is a little bit of a harder one here, but it would be kind of a similar situation to this one, I guess, that he's in right now where the team is in pretty good shape throughout the entire roster, but they are missing a quarterback. But who would that be? Now that's a difficult question. I got to, I got to think about this. Who would that be? That would be potentially QB

needy next year. I got to pull up the teams and take a, take a think about this one that who we could end up with that could need a quarterback next year, but could also be on their way as a strong enough roster. Oh, okay. Well, the funniest answer is the jets. That would be funny. If he came back to the New York jets after a good season with the Vikings, uh, Pittsburgh, what about Pittsburgh? What about the Pittsburgh Steelers? If Russell Wilson, Justin Fields doesn't work out for them, they just extend Mike Tomlin. They're still going to be a good defense. I could see that happening. The Tennessee Titans, if Will Levis is bad, could potentially be that they draft a quarterback,

but they're building the rest of their roster through drafting at the top. If Bo Nix is really terrible, but probably not. How about the Raiders? Maybe the Raiders could be that they have Gardner Minshew as their only quarterback right now. So that's all that's possible in the AFC. The NFC might be a little bit more difficult on this. Let me look at the NFC. Who could be Dak Prescott leaves. They replace him with Sam Darnold.

The Giants could see the Giants. The Vikings love to play them in the playoffs. Aside from that, New Orleans. Now, I think they're pretty locked into Derek Carr. Carolina, he's already been there. Seattle, maybe. Seattle could move on from Geno Smith, but are they moving on from Geno Smith to go to Sam Darnold?

So there's not a ton of teams that he could potentially go to, but that's as of right now. And as we know, things change a ton over the year, but if Sam Darnold had a very good season this year, and I just mean above average solid, like what Baker Mayfield did last year, or even Gino Smith, someone will absolutely make him their quarterback a hundred percent because it's so hard to find even competent quarterback play. Uh, Jackson asks, does Andre Carter appear to be in better football shape this year than last year? That is a little hard to say. Like, I don't look at him and see a huge amount of muscles suddenly that he didn't just like

sprout muscles over the off season i guess i was wondering if that would happen he doesn't look crazy different to me uh but he is getting a lot of run and he is more of a speed guy with the with the length than he is a muscle guy go through you type of player so maybe he didn't want to put on a ton of muscle i haven't weighed him either i don't i so i kind of don't want to say yeah he actually doesn't look that much bigger to me because i could be wrong about what he weighs and i didn't walk right up to him and look up and go let's see here how about you make a muscle for me andre carter but just at a glance sometimes at a glance someone does look significantly bigger i think ivan pace looked bigger but we got him at the podium. So he was standing five feet away from me. And I thought that you look a little bit bigger than when I

saw you last year here. I don't know that that's the case for Andre Carter. The fact that they haven't dipped into the free agent market for a veteran edge rusher could mean that they're comfortable with Andre Carter and the way that he looks so far as a depth defensive lineman. Patrick Jones is still out there, struggled with quite a bit last year. So I'm intrigued, put it that way. I'm intrigued. I haven't noticed a crazy, he doesn't look like Hulk Hogan or anything right away, but in training camp, I'm going to be watching him quite a bit to see where he stands. Could he get in the mix in some sort of rotational role, uh, uh kelly k5 kelly says what do

you think the plan will be going into camp at wide receiver three renfro what if theelin is a camp casualty uh that route thoughts i i guess if the renfro thing was going to happen seems like it would have happened by now and nobody is going there. I mean, even Sterling Shepard, who is constantly hurt, signed with the Tampa Bay Bucks and they didn't go after him, or at least that we know of. And Renfro could be somebody that signs right before camp or in camp, similar to Dalton Reisner, maybe a guy who thought he was worth a lot more money than he was actually worth and then finds out that he isn't and the Vikings look at him or they could just let this thing play out as of this moment that's how it feels it feels like they're going to just let it play out Trent Shurfield is their signing and Brandon Powell's

wide receiver three and then you go on from there and you get uh you know one of these guys maybe just Sean Jones or someone like that ends up making the team. He's the UDFA out of Maryland or Tristan Jackson, who appeared to have an injury at the end of the last mini camp practice. We'll see if he's back out there, but Tristan Jackson is a guy who's been developing over the years, got into some games last year. Jalen Naylor is still in the mix. Really depends on how they feel about all of those guys of whether they go after someone. And I don't think that your Adam Thielen dream is going to come to fruition. I think that Carolina is going to stick with him because he's a veteran wide receiver. They've got

a Deontay Johnson there who's, you know, can get open. They drafted a guy, they drafted a guy last year, but still a veteran who can catch the football and be a possession receiver, kind of like what Anquan Bolden was later in his career. That's still going to be important for Bryce Young. I'd be surprised if Thielen is a camp casualty. Maybe they will look at guys though, who get cut around the league. That's really going to depend on just how it looks during training camp. Does anybody emerge? We've seen that over the years where guys have just emerged all of a sudden, Hey, this, you know, Chad BB is catching every ball out there. Wow. Right. And, uh, it, will it happen or not? I don't know, but in the middle of training

camp is when we start to figure that out. And if it doesn't look that way, then yes, they probably do need to dip into that market. If they sign Hunter Rentrow tomorrow, I wouldn't be shocked just because of the way the position is right now. I also maybe feel like they could be, uh, or we could be underestimating their love for Brandon Powell a little bit with how he's looked and, and maybe there's somebody else that they like that we don't really know about lucky jackson or someone like that that they think okay this could be a guy who jumps up for us i'm okay with letting the competition play out and see if you have anybody for the future but if we get halfway through camp and it's not going well all right go to that free agent market get one more guy there's not much after that though by the way

other than renfro all right couple more quick questions here. Uh, Brad Dan Paul on Twitter says, uh, not apples to apples, but considering Kirk's success and prior experience with KOC, can you compare how Darnold and McCarthy look at this stage learning KOC's offense with Kirk about the same for Darnold McCarthy's nowhere close. It's not like that at all. It's just, I mean, that's somebody who has no experience whatsoever. So obviously Kirk would not have been on the practice field on the other side, on the learning field, if you will, like JJ McCarthy, though he has, you know, he's starting to get more reps and we saw him in some of the higher speed stuff

on Thursday. And I expect this in OTAs, we'll see even more reps from him with either the first or second team. And he'll be getting out there a little bit more. I thought it was a good sign on Thursday for him to get some more reps. But Darnold looks about the same where there's a lot of plays that look pretty good and look like they're on time. And there's other ones where he kind of looks around and like, was that the right thing? That, that sort of stuff. He's been largely in command, but I never felt cousins struggled with KOC's offense. Sometimes cousins would talk about it openly like, well, I'm trying to learn this. I'm trying to get this down. And I remember O'Connell talking about trying to convince cousins to stay on some reads a little bit longer.

I don't know that that's going to be an issue with Sam Darnold, but you get different opinions from everybody. TJ Hawkinson was like, yeah, this offense is pretty easy to pick up. And then other people have said, Hey, you know, it's pretty complicated. I think it asks a lot of the wide receivers in this offense. And it asks a lot of the chemistry with the wide receivers. I don't know what they've pared down or taken out or put in for this off season compared to last year, but I imagine that they've got a process now of how to teach it. Whereas it might've been the first time in 2022, where Kirk had to learn it, that Kevin O'Connell was teaching it. And, you know, maybe he learned some from last year about how to teach his offense, getting quarterbacks into the mix early, uh, than he wants or earlier than he wanted to, including Josh Dobbs. Um, so maybe he learned some stuff from that, but it's looked about the same.

I mean, you're not out there watching the laser show necessarily when it's seven on sevens and things like that, but it just looks like Darnold is comfortable with what he's being asked to do. And Kirk looked the same almost always. There were a few practices here and there where it was a little, okay, what happened today kind of thing. But for the most part, it was hard to have big takeaways from Kirk Cousins training camps because they were so consistent with how he was always kind of on point. Maybe we'll get a little more ups and downs when we get to training camp with Sam Darnold.

All right. Two more real quick. Uh, Sid 92 says, uh, if TJ is going to miss several weeks, who is wide receiver three or pass catcher number three, do they need to sign someone? So yeah, I think the Brandon Powell thing is really something we might be overlooking that they like him a lot. The way that he stepped in and played a ton last year when Justin Jefferson was hurt, that he was kind of a wide receiver three for maybe six, seven weeks there. And sometimes even a wide receiver two when KJ Osborne was down and played pretty well alongside Jordan Addison.

So he's wide receiver three at this moment, but with Hawkinson down, it might be Robert Tunyon. I maybe I'm overreacting. Maybe I'm, this is the hottest take of my off season. Maybe is with Robert Tunyon that he's looked so good out there in mini camp. This could be one of those things that we laugh at years later. Remember when you kept saying that Robert Tunyon was going to be the guy and he was cut out of training camp, but it looks legit. It looks pretty solid. So he could be that guy for a couple of weeks. Maybe not the third pass catcher behind, you know, in front of Brandon Powell, but the starting tight end, I'd be surprised if it's Johnny month getting too many targets or Josh Oliver getting too many targets, but signing someone still does make some sense because they just don't have

anything behind Brandon Powell that's proven. So if someone does go down, then you slot everybody up one who's going to be the fourth guy moving up to the third spot in an offense that uses a lot of 11 personnel. That could be a reason to sign someone. But as of right now, maybe Robert Tunyon is the sneakiest signing of the off season. Uh, last question from, uh, SM McCullough five here, where does each position group rank versus this time last year, every single position group. All right. Well, rapid fire, rapid fire, rapid fire,

uh, offensive lines about the same. I didn't have a lot of confidence in them last year on the interior and this year we still got questions about that running back massively improved if aaron jones is healthy massively improved uh tight end is deeper but you know tj hockinson being out wide receiver is worse because it doesn't have kj osborne and we kj osborne actually had a really good camp last year. And I don't know what happened in the regular season, why it wasn't the same as it was in the past, but in camp and in the off season, I remember KJ Osborne seeming very determined. And I thought he was a guy that tried too hard once he got into the actual season to

prove himself as a free agent. But, uh uh the wide receiver group was definitely deeper we had confidence in naylor at that point the d-line is better even though daniel hunter is gone i think the d-line is clearly deeper than it was before if we count the outside linebackers linebackers definitely better we were very suspect of brian assamwa and Jordan Hicks, but the emergence of Ivan Pace and then the way that Blake Cashman played last year, quite a bit better. Cornerbacks, definitely better as well with Shaq Griffin in here.

A year later, we know that Makai Blackman can play and the safeties are about the same. Kicker, we'll see. We'll see. I mean, Will Reichardt kicks the heck out of the ball and same with the punter and the long snapper and elite position is still the same in Andrew DePaulo. So there's every single position on the field and whether they're better than we thought last year at this time.

Thanks so much, everybody, for all the great questions. Awesome stuff. Really appreciated. Fun to run through this while I'm here on the road, but I will be back, as I said, into Minnesota quite soon. And we'll get back to the usual guests and live chats and things like that when I return. So thanks so much again, everybody for watching and listening, and we'll catch you all next time.