Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Sam Darnold struggles in Vikings first padded practice

Episode Date: July 30, 2024

Matthew Coller and Dane Mizutani report on the first padded practice, which wasn't smooth for the first team offense and Jay Ward's move to cornerback Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

🎵 Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here, along with Dave Mizitani of the Pioneer Press. We are inside TCO Performance Center following the first padded practice. Checking off another box in route to the NFL season. We've got to have at least one padded practice first off another box in routes to the NFL season but we got to have at least one padded practice first before we get there and uh it was certainly padded that is one of the big takeaways yeah they practiced and they had pads on and I heard them popping those are the big analysis now let's go through some of the things that we took away from today I think for starters

is that the offense looked a heck of a lot better when they didn't have pads and you couldn't do anything. Brian Flores is going to test the quarterbacks and he is going to test them a lot. And we saw that today with both Sam Darnold and JJ McCarthy having a bit of a tough time running the offense, but Sam Darnold was maybe significantly worse. now he's going up against the first team it was ones versus ones in situational drills but i would say it was a pretty tough day for sam darnold with his first time at full speed in kevin o'connell's offense versus brian flores's defense yeah not not something to write home about i also don't

think it's necessarily like a cause concern. The sky is falling. But first day of pads, I was hoping to see kind of a continued ascension of Sam Darnold, to see his arm on display, to see his decision making on display in a way that everything looked confident. And it was a little bit of the opposite. I think a lot of that had to do with, like you said, Brian Flores. He's dialing it up. He's not going vanilla for the defense. He's obviously also not doing everything. But he's doing more to make the offense uncomfortable, to put stress on those guys.

And I think you saw it a lot with how much he stressed the quarterbacks. You saw it with how he stressed the starting offensive line, I think to a point late in the day, a red zone drill, two-minute drill actually, and you get the ball as long as it takes to go score points or turn the ball over, and if you turn the ball over, the drill is over. Ones versus ones, Brian Flores was able to generate some interior pressure, and Sam Darnold threw an

interception on the first play of two minute to combine them. And I think that was kind of emblematic of the day as a whole. He did follow it up late in practice with a bomb to Jalen Naylor, but you could have told me it was a sack with how much pressure he had in his face. Good throw off his back foot. He chucked it up there. He showed his arm strength. But, again, pressure in his face. I think that interception he threw at the end in that two-minute drill is kind of the microcosm of the day. Inconsistent, not confident with his decisions, and frankly not super efficient in the entire way it was run.

So it could be better, but yeah. I think that was a good breakdown of Sam Darnold's day. Not great. One thing that I talk about a lot on the show is just the look of the ball coming out, where you see the quarterback drop back, he reads something, he reads something else, here's the football.

And with today with Sam Darnold, there seemed to be a lot of, is it time to come out? Is this the place to cut? Oh, I'm pressured. I'm kind of looking around. Should I scramble? Should I throw it somewhere? And that's how the interception happened where he didn't get what he was looking for initially, and then just tried to sort of whip it sidearm into a hole and the hole wasn't actually there and it got intercepted it's not a huge deal it's the first day of padded practice but if we're breaking it down in a very serious manner since we're inside the team facility it didn't go as I think Sam Darnold would have wanted it and as you mentioned even the deep ball that he threw yeah it was caught

by Jalen Naylor and we should give a lot of credit we'll talk about this Jalen Naylor has had a really excellent start to this training camp and he made a great catch one-on-one battling he did well in their one-on-one drills with padded practice for the first day so there were some outstanding performances today but when Justin Jefferson already seems frustrated in the first practice and Kevin O'Connell's talking to him and he's walking over to the video board and Kevin O'Connell's talking to him and he's walking over to the video board and trying to figure out what was going on. That's not how you wanted it to go today. Guess what? There will be tomorrow and they'll try again. Then it's also not unusual at all. It is one of the all-time camp cliches. The defense is ahead of the offense.

And especially when the defense is run by a mad wizard in Brian Flores, I also think that that matters as well. Now let's talk about JJ McCarthy and how he played a two minute situational drill. My favorite part of it for JJ McCarthy wasn't any of the throws. They were all fine. It was nothing down the field. It was really what happened after there was a completion. And then McCarthy seemed to know exactly what he was supposed to do. The receivers are jogging back to the huddle. He's shouting at them. He's getting them lined up pretty quickly.

And then on three straight passes, they weren't downfield. They were underneath. But they were what looked like the right place to go. And it got them into a field goal position. Didn't have Will Reichardt kick. Side note, he won the kicking competition after yesterday. They cut John Parker Romo. We'll never think about him again,

but Will Reichard obviously was always going to be the kicker, but they didn't let him kick it. I was sad about that. And that was really all I came up with. McCarthy got rid of the ball. He lined people up. He was also playing against the second team defense, which is quite a bit different than going against Grenard, Van Ginkle,

Turner, and all of the first team players. But for his first padded practice, it was not a mess. It was not a disaster. I thought it went totally fine for J.J. McCarthy. End of my take. Yeah, no, and I think we talked about this on the porch pod like two three weeks ago what do we care about jj mccarthy heading into training camp and one of our biggest things was can you run the offense can you have a practice that actually resembles something that would

stress the defense does everything look in order as it should? And the answer is yes. And I think to your point, the two-minute drill is a good example of that. I know everything is pared down in the two-minute drill, and it's a lot of this or that, and it's not the 500-word play calls that J.J. McCarthy is getting from Kevin O'Connell during the course of the not two-minute drills in the game. But the point being that he was able to line people up. He knew where he was supposed to go. He was getting the play call in from Kevin O'Connell and relaying it to the guys on the field.

All of that is good. And I think it goes back to what he was talking about when he talked to reporters on the first day of – second day of training camp? It doesn't matter. Earlier this week, he talked about how he didn't go anywhere during the summer break he stayed back and his biggest goal was being able to hear play calls take it in the huddle regurgitate it get to the line run the play and he's so far it looks like he's done that we're not in the huddle with him but it's not a lot of look back at Kevin O'Connell get to the line not know what to do it's get the play huddle with him but it's not a lot of look back at Kevin O'Connell get to the line not know what

to do it's get the play huddle break and and they're going so we can talk and analyze certain throws he's made where he needs to be better but I think to your point about just being able to run the offense even though that shouldn't necessarily be like what we judge as success for the number 10 pick in the draft I think it's okay to go there because you heard Kirk Cousins like this is a hard offense to learn Kirk Cousins was talking about it you know always in September like I barely know all of it I have to go listen to it on my car drive home it seems like JJ McCarthy has a good grasp of that. And that's a really good baseline for a guy that I think they believe can be the future of the franchise for many years to

come. What today in these first few days have given us is just the starting point with J.J. McCarthy to see how far he can go from here. And today in the situational drill, looking like you know what you're doing is a big part of it. Because the thing is about the NFL is that all the plays work. It's just a matter of can you execute them? And then when something breaks down, can you do something special? You could whittle all of football success down to this. Tom Brady, when he got everything right and knew exactly where to go with the football,

he's one of the greatest of all time. And then he has to make one or two plays, three or four plays a game that are special types of throws. You can't use all of the physical skills. And I want to talk about Louis Seen in just a second here, because this is another takeaway from today's practice. But Louis Seen is a physical freak who cannot play in the game because he can't see it and doesn't know where he's supposed to be and how to read and react.

If you are a quarterback with the physical talent of JJ McCarthy and you can master the offense, you're almost there. Then it comes down to the special plays and whether you're just good or great. And people will debate all that a million times over. But I think Brock Purdy is a good example of someone who has physical skill, but his biggest skill is that he can just run the offense and then three times a game he scrambles or he makes a play off balance or something on the run

and find somebody and he got his team to the Super Bowl. That's really simplifying it because the first part is so freaking hard. And to see McCarthy look like he even just understood where to go when kind of panicked because the first play broke down and he just made sure he got a completion moved the the ball a little bit gave a chance the next day didn't throw an interception maybe and in a funny way we saw both quarterbacks for the thing that may have held back Sam Darnold. And the thing people like about J.J. McCarthy is that when he had to deal with stuff like that, he didn't make catastrophic mistakes when he was at Michigan.

So he could be a game manager and he could win the national championship for a great team. Whereas Sam Darnold was already trying to do a little bit too much. And then he throws an interception to start again. There will be tomorrow. There's only a handful of plays and always it starts out bad. We always go, man, it's time. Let's go. And I hit a tackle dummy today and everything.

And then it's really not, you know, it's got to ramp up. Yeah. And then we, we judge day after day. Anything more to say about the quarterbacks in their opening padded performance no i think we covered it all like i think it's kind of each day feels like sam darnold is certainly not running away with the number one quarterback position job but i don't in that same coin feel like jj mcc McCarthy is significantly narrowing the gap. I think they kind of just are where they are. And like you said, they'll come back tomorrow.

They'll come back every day following that. That isn't an off day. And at the end of training camp, at the end of preseason, we'll have a better idea. But nothing, it's pretty status quo right now. And I think this is just kind of life after, you know, moving on from a guy who's played in the league for over a decade in Kirk. And it's what practices are going to look like sometimes.

Okay. I'll throw a little spice then out there because I feel like we're being too reasonable. If it looks like this too much, Justin Jefferson's not going to have a good summer. So it better look better tomorrow. If it looks like this a lot, then halfway through this camp, we will be saying the heck, but I don't expect it to.

Where's Lewis seen? We didn't hear anything about an injury for Lewis scene. We haven't seen him in the last two days. It's possible that he's hurt. They don't have to announce injuries or give injury reports, but they signed Bobby McCain mccain and brian flora said bobby loves football so if you guys were concerned that he maybe didn't you know he does he he also asked today brian or bobby mccain was asked what's his favorite position to play on the field and he just said football so that's i mean

i think i think caller has a favorite player. All right. I almost dapped him up right there. Just like, all right, football. So we have it clear that Bobby McCain, who's played 10 years in the league. And I asked him if he thought about, you know, retiring or something. He's been around a long time. And he was like, no, I've been working out since January football. And then he took me down at the legs. He clearly is happy to be here, but he was playing safety. When you sign a defensive back, you assume in this current position, as the Vikings are, that any guy who has played cornerback before was going to be a cornerback.

They go out there for second team reps. Jay Ward is playing corner and Bobby McCain is playing safety. The guy just got here and he's like in there playing okay hi bobby good thing he likes football man he would have been really screwed if he didn't uh i imagine he knows just about every defense under the sun and played for brian flores before a veteran player's been around and it was theo jackson playing on the other side as well and those were the corners but we haven't seen Louis seen in two days and we did not observe him getting hurt it might be or it might be just over for Louis seen now that they've signed to say it

was over it's been over but signing another safety and Brian Flores said he's going to start at safety not start in the games, but begin his time here. Jay Ward moving to corner, not really a move because he's been a corner, was a corner in college. But moving parts here, and we don't know what's up with Louisine. Maybe they're trying to trade him. I don't know. Yeah, I mean, I think part of this job is reading the tea leaves, right? And if you move one of your safeties and i know it's not a move but jay ward was working with the safeties repping with safeties and today he was repping

with the cornerbacks and then you go sign another safety off the street it probably means your first round safety is not in good standing. And, and maybe he's just injured. Maybe he is. Um, but, but I wanted,

I wanted to X files this thing up a little, a little, a little conspiracy to that just because we didn't see any injury, but he might've just tweaked something. And even if, and we can get to the X Files and, and we will, we'll,

we'll, we'll dive down that rabbit hole. But even if it's just an injury, I've seen enough, like it, like it's always just an injury with with Lewis seen and I get he broke his leg in half it was disgusting I feel really bad about that but he's never been available I think last year everyone was super excited to see is oh he's back from his leg injury and then he missed like two weeks of practice early in the summer. I think it's just over for this guy. I think we have a milkshake bet on it.

Like I said he was going to be on the team. You said he wasn't. I'm ready to concede that milkshake bet now. Like I don't think Louis Seane makes the team, and maybe that's a good segue to your conspiracy theory. Like maybe he's not out there because they don't want him to get hurt. Like maybe it is kind of just a, well, if, if he plays, he could get hurt. And then a guy with already depreciating value,

value continues to depreciate. He's still a first round pick, a large human, fast human, physically gifted human that I think some teams could maybe convince themselves they could fix. You see it sometimes in the league. There are teams that think they can fix first round busts. Maybe that's why he's sitting out too. Here's what we know. First rounders will get many, many jobs in their life if they don't work out with their first team. Because didn't someone recently sign Laquan Treadwell? The Colts.

Okay, so someone always recently signs Laquan Treadwell. He is going to play for 31 teams. It might not be the Colts. I said it with so much confidence. Oh, okay, I believed. Oh, is that like a fact thing that you're doing now? It might be. Is that a real thing? I think it be the Colts I said it with so much confidence okay yeah I believed oh is that like a fact thing that you're doing now is that a real thing I think it's the Colts he was with Atlanta he was with the Jaguars and you're just always going to see those first rounders get second opportunities but when it comes to could they trade him right now and maybe they just did

this as a numbers thing to get Jay Ward at corner and delay having to sign someone else. Or maybe they looked at the corners that were out there, watched the tape, looked at the data, made phone calls and said, gosh, we'd rather just play Jay Ward at corner than we would go out and sign a Dory Jackson who was really bad last year. Why don't we just go with our guy in house? Maybe they decided on that, which means, you know, need another safety. And then in case of emergency, McCain can move up to a nickel corner. So he's a versatile guy, but it just feels like another, Oh, well, he's not practicing another step toward. He's not going to be here. And if you did make a phone call to the other teams, do you want Louis seen? I don't know why

anyone calls you back if there's a player like that that didn't make it with ed donatell's defense then didn't make it with brian floris's defense there's a pretty good chance that he's not going to make it with your defense and last summer they tried putting him in the box for a little while that didn't work out either so it feels it would have to be a vikings over colts type of style comeback like 2022 style in order for lewis scene i think to even just be here because mccain the way that florist talked about him i thought they were going to go both start tackling each other on the field like they they just seem like they're the same guy and uh he appears to really like uh bobby mccain and if that's the case then just like with zimmer

and terrence newman that's somebody you trust and you've been around for a while he will probably want that guy instead of lewis scene so uh we'll keep an eye on it but jay ward at corner i'm intrigued yeah me too. I mean, I think, like you said, he's played both, and he was kind of a tweener last year, and maybe this is a real chance to carve out a Nischak cornerback, and they need a cornerback. They need someone to step up.

Caleb Evans is getting all the first-team reps right now. I thought Andrew Booth would be rotating in. He was over the weekend, but then he wasn't today. I don't know if it's going to happen for Andrew Booth either. But, yeah, I'm excited to follow Jay Ward's journey at cornerback now. I hope it wasn't just a one-day thing because I think this is actually something we could pay attention to and maybe in the preseason be talking about Jay Ward getting meaningful reps at cornerback because he's working towards maybe contributing in that realm that's that's where

we're at right now with the cornerback position and I guess I'm looking forward to seeing how that string plays out I think Shaq Griffin's going to come back at some point soon-ish. Kevin O'Connell made it seem like it was day-to-day, maybe a week. I'm inclined to believe him because Shaq Griffin's just out there. I think if it was more severe, he'd be in the back probably rehabbing something. It seems like they're just being careful with him. So when Shaq Griffin's back, the defense is going to look a little bit different.

But I think Jay Ward working at cornerback today, it matters. And it matters because it's training camp and these are the things that we pay attention to. But it might matter in the grand scheme of it. Like he was a drafted player, I think fourth round? Fourth round. Yeah, like those guys can those guys carve niche carve out niches for themselves all the time uh it didn't happen at safety because

there are a lot of really good safeties on this team maybe it could happen at court folks u.s cellular noticed that the way we use our phones has gotten ironic we try to put our phones has gotten ironic. We try to put our phones down for dinner, but the menu is on a QR code. That's ironic. We hit like on social media posts that we don't actually like. Ironic. Which is why U.S. Cellular created UsMode to help us reconnect with each other and use our phones less ironically. A phone company wanting people to use their phones less ironic let's find us again with us mode from us cellular visit us cellular.com slash built for us to get started yeah it's better for him to be a corner because the way theo jackson is playing every day again theo jackson out there making plays every single day.

They already have Metellus, who Brian Flores was talking about expanding his role even more. Like, I don't even, is that legal to expand his role even more from what it was last year? He was doing everything. Harrison Smith, Cam Bynum. There was some questions folks asked about Cam Bynum moving. That's not the guy you can really move.

But Jay Ward was a corner just recently. And then last year played kind of a little bit of everything. folks asked about cam bynum moving that that that's not the guy you can really move but jay ward was a corner just recently and then last year played kind of a little bit of everything special teamer so there's some comfort there but now after the first pad of practice then i feel talk about comfort i feel comfortable throwing out a name an undrafted free agent who is getting a big opportunity here. And I think has looked pretty good. Dwight McLeather at the cornerback position. I even saw it now. This was some real rotating here, but I didn't even saw him in the first team just every little bit. And as you mentioned, we didn't see a whole lot of Andrew Booth Jr., but we did see a lot of Dwight McClother in the undrafted free agent, who was a kind of a playmaker in college. He's really big. He seems to be physical.

And this is why I wrote the other day that they could bring in a veteran at corner. They could bring in a Dory Jackson. They could bring in a Killa Witherspoon, or they could just do nothing and see what happens. Now, see what happens in 2020 became a total disaster. See what happens last year at certain positions like linebacker turned out to be pretty good with Ivan Pace jr. You kind of don't know until these guys get opportunities, but from seeing McClother and out there a lot, he is now officially in my mind,

once the pads come on and he's out there going against top wide receivers, you, sir, are now the UDFA to watch. That's never been a thing before, but it is now as of this moment. He had 47 interceptions in college, actually. There it is. The statistic that's not true. 47, that's his number. Oh, it is.

That's where I came up. It's in your subconscious. I could get behind that. He looks the part, and he looks the part because he's tall. He's freakishly tall for a corner, and a lot of times you see these guys are more compact. But he's tall. He towers over some of the other corners on the team.

But he also looks the part, like jamming at the line today when the pads come on. He made a tackle today, which he wasn't supposed to do, but he did. I think he kind of relishes the physical part of the game, and why wouldn't you if you're like 6'2", 215 or whatever he is? If I'm excited about Jay Ward, I could also get excited about him because this is the time to figure out what you have. And I have always been, I think until the Porch Pod a week and a half ago, two weeks ago, whatever it was, in favor of bringing in another receiver, bringing in another cornerback.

But I think you convinced me on the porch that day that it's okay to just let this thing play out with the people in-house. You can always go sign a free agent, and chances are if you do, it's not going to work. So why not just see if you have something in an undrafted cornerback um you saw you like you had something in an undrafted linebacker with Ivan Pace Josh Metellus sixth round pick like on the roster bubble last year and now he's a star like guys need opportunities to prove that there's something in this league. And as good as Stephon Gilmore was, he's 34, 33, 34.

He's on the other side of his career in the decline. Patrick Peterson, he was awesome. If he was signed tomorrow, I'd be happy because he's a born leader and he's a great guy to talk to. But at this point in Patrick Peterson's career, you might just want to see what you have in some of these young guys. So I'm okay with what they're doing right now. Someone just needs to step up. It's what Kevin O'Connell said at the beginning of training camp.

Someone's going to need to step up at cornerback. But if you're challenging them to step up at cornerback, then you also need to kind of like have that carrot in front of them. Like, yeah, there's a spot here on the team. If you challenge them to step up at cornerback and then you go sign Patrick Peterson and it's like, okay, well I'm not making the team. So I'm okay with how they've, they've totally operated with, with, you know, the lack of depth,

I guess at secondary right now. I feel like the minute we get done with this, because you said that and we agreed, with, you know, the lack of depth, I guess, at secondary right now. I feel like the minute we get done with this, because you said that and we agreed, yeah, it's just go forward with it. And then they'll sign Stefan Gilmore or someone of the like, nothing yet. If they sign a veteran corner, it's not some sign that they hate all their young players or whatever. It would be just, they want to win. They want to get in the playoffs. And there's a bunch of these guys out there. I'm just in favor of not doing a whole heck of a lot. If they feel like they are interested in seeing what a Caleb Evans can do the rest of the way, which I am, I think he was a middle of the road corner last year

until the end of the season, which is enough for me to say, if you could be two thirds, three fourths of the way through the season playing pretty well and only come apart at the end, when you play top five offenses without your full unit on defense, that was already super thin. All right. Well, I'm willing to see more of that because we are in the mode of, I expect you to make the playoffs,

but I need to know, is a Caleb Evans, a guy who you could start because Shaq Griffin is probably a one-year solution anyway. Could even a Caleb Evans, if he plays really well and looks good in camp and they like what they see, could he play over Shaq Griffin? I would be in favor of that because that's a guy that you're actually going forward with rather than somebody that is just a total stopgap. As far as the defense, I noticed that they are rotating in a lot of edge rushers and they're switching them around. So I saw Dallas Turner on the right. I saw Dallas Turner on the left.

I saw Van Ginkle on the right and left. Grenard historically has only stayed on one side, but he took some reps on both sides not shocking i guess when it comes to brian flores moving guys around uh you had a chance to talk to dallas turner after practice i think i saw you talking to him yep i'm really really excited to watch that battle with him and christian derisaw today it looked like christian derisaw got the better of him pretty much every rep but that's going to grow and he's going to learn from it and he's going to change from it. So watching Dallas Turner alone with the pads on, when you finally got to see that jolt off the line of scrimmage, you're like,

okay, all right, now here we go. It was only a handful against Christian Derrissaw, but watching that as it progresses will be something that i am constantly looking over to that direction yeah he he told me today he was like i haven't put the pads on since january 1st so i was really excited to put the pads on and i was excited to watch dallas turner in full pads because i i keep he loves football and you love football and bobby mccain loves football and brian flores loves football exactly that's why football we love football, and Bobby McCain loves football, and Brian Flores loves football. Exactly. That's why. Football. We love football.

It's just, yeah. When I think about Dallas Turner, I think about what Christian Derrissaw said about him in the spring. And it was kind of like an offhanded remark at the time and then pressed on it. Like Christian Derrissaw talked about how I saw a spin move from Dallas Turner in OTAs that was quicker than Daniil's and everyone was like oh and he then followed up really quicker than Daniil Hunter's spin move and Christian Derisaw said yeah it actually made me say holy yeah he said the f-word

so ever since then I've been thinking like he is gifted. And if you go back and watch some of his college film, like, he's physically dominant with some of these guys that are just way bigger than him. So ever since listening to Christian Darius, I'll talk about that spin move. I've wanted to see it happen with pads on. And I think in my head, it was like, Dallas Turner's going to put the pads on today

for his first pad at practice, and he's going to wreck the world he's going to hit everyone with this ridiculous spin move and they're going to have just the top tier pass rusher in the league from day one and the thing is he didn't like there were times where he looked impressive and there were times where he looked like a rookie and he also told me today like the biggest thing I've learned is that I have a long way to go which is good like that a rookie has that perspective right now but I think as we keep going forward with training camp

like usually and well kind of how the sausage is made usually the reporters will just like kind of gravitate towards the receivers and the quarterbacks because like that's stuff we can actually like determine like was that a good rep was that a bad rep I think at least sometimes I'm gonna like find myself gravitating towards the offensive and defensive line because I want to see like how Dallas Turner really takes this opportunity and runs with it I know they love him and I think he can be an impact player as soon as this year, as soon as week one. But he said it himself. He has a long ways to go, and he has a month and a half to get there.

But first day of pads for Dallas Turner, I would consider a success because he looked pretty good. And going up against tackles like Christian Derrissaw and Brian O'Neal, pretty good is good enough on your on your first day it's really about the get off for me where he just explodes out of his stance and that's something that you cannot teach to use that one that football cliche but it's so obvious and we get to stand kind of on his side so he's right there in front of us and you like that lightningness it is everson griffin like yeah uh deniel hunter i thought of as more of a

of a tractor trailer it would just keep pushing and pushing and pushing until he got sacks and was so strong that he would overwhelm people wear them down and he had moves obviously but not in the same way that the traditional outside linebacker quickness around the edge it's just that Christian Derrissaw is really good and that if he was going up against TJ Clemmings from the past I think he might have smoked him it is a position in particular that is so technical that it does need a lot of development and that's why when we talked about expectations for Dallas Turner, we talked about 500 snaps.

Four and a half, five and a half sacks is a good season for a rookie because it is so difficult in order for those guys to learn how to play against tackles. And that was what Brian Flores talked about today. The instincts, the physical ability, it's so much different than college. They know so much more and you only take the one percent of freaks and put them at left tackle so he's got a lot to learn but it's always the question with rookies do you see it do you see the glimpse no one expects it to be the full thing yet that's why they have van ginkle that's why they have granard and both of

those guys look like pros the defense had a good day and it looked good. And that's always the hard thing when you analyze a practice, because if the quarterback struggles, it looks horrendous. And the defense goes into their room and was like, we were great today. What are you guys talking about? It was a bad practice. The defense got a lot of pressure on both quarterbacks and seemed to be pretty locked in, except for when Jalen Naylor made a great play down the middle of the field. But a couple more things for you. Not necessarily, this has been a way too thorough breakdown of a single practice.

So let me move on. Let me move on to this. After one padded practice, because we're checking in for the first time here since they actually started playing. So I need to know where your percentage stands on the odds that JJ McCarthy starts week one because you were steadfast at 5% after minicamp and remained at 5% at the start of training camp.

Four or five practices in, where are you at? I think I cheated. I think I said five or 10%, which is like a big, big, big margin. But I'm not there anymore. I'm getting closer to you. I was at 25. I'm getting, I'm like 20%. Like, I think, here, and I'm at 20% because,

not because I think J.J. McCarthy has looked leaps and bounds better than Sam Darnold, but I think, and this is the second day in a row, because they had an off day on Sunday, but Saturday I watched Sam Darnold and I thought, like, eh, that was okay. And today I watched Sam Darnold and I thought, like, eh, that was okay. If I continue to feel like this is just like a stagnation of his like climb up this quarterback you know ladder that that he was bent on and and I feel like J.J. McCarthy is continuing to look comfortable and ready to go and I think that that momentum can build pretty quickly and I think like the snowball like can start rolling down the hill.

And then if JJ McCarthy looks good in the preseason game one and then good in practice after that, and then good in preseason game two. And then, you know, I guess preseason game two would proceed joint practices in Cleveland. Like I can see it. And I, I think I was just so like blinded early on I guess like believing like we're gonna be really really patient with him we're gonna you know we're not gonna screw up his development and we like Sam Darnold and I think they still do like Sam Darnold this is not

like necessarily a you know let's pile on on Sam Dold. But I think it's okay to be patient with the guy until he proves to you that he's ready. And I still think it's going to take a lot. I didn't jump from five, 10% to 80%. But I've jumped a significant portion, like from basically no chance to like, yeah, I could see it happening. and I could see like a path forward where the the momentum and the steam becomes just so undeniable that it has to be J.J. McCarthy I think an important part of that equation is like the players on the field right like if practices just look kind of ho-hum with Sam Darnold running with the ones eventually like if it starts to look good with J.J. McCarthy like it's not just going to be, like, the fans, the reporters.

It's going to be the players being like, yeah, this guy should be starting. And if it's the players, Kevin O'Connell is going to feel that. He doesn't care what the fans think about whether J.J. McCarthy should start. He doesn't care what the reporters think about if J.J. McCarthy should start. But if Justin Jefferson walks into his office and says, and says like all right let's have a real conversation like jj's ready like i think at that point kevin o'connell might be able to relent on his

patience is key here so 20 let's see if it climbs the next time okay i'm still at 25 i'm just gonna stay where i was because i always thought that there was a chance he would come out and look at training camp different than he looked at mini camp. When it came to OTAs and mini camp, we used to not pay any attention to anything with those. We would kind of walk out there, stand in the sun, talk to each other, and then interview a few people and go home. It was never a big thing.

And then when they draft a quarterback, we got 30,000 views on a video. Like, well, we got to talk about this. We got to go into detail about what we're seeing because so many more people are interested in any glimpse of the first round quarterback. But usually minicamp is information that we don't even factor in outside of, hey, maybe the last day or so and where everybody stands to start training camp because it'll give us a little idea of that. But I always wanted to leave the door pretty well open because you could anticipate through a long summer training camp feels short because you'll see those things that say the season is only 40 days away. But a lot happens during training camp.

And if we get to that point where we are, what, two and a half weeks from now in Cleveland and watching J.J. McCarthy do well against Cleveland's defense, then we're going to feel like he has a really good chance and your meter might shoot up. And we might actually see, I didn't think of this until right now. I have taken preseason games in my brain

and imploded them forever to never be thought about again, but they have now reconstructed themselves into something that could be very relevant for this team. We could actually see a lot of Sam Darnold and JJ McCarthy in preseason because they will put that in the pot where they try to decide which guy is going to be the starting quarterback. But I think we are getting a tad ahead of ourselves, which is why we're still saying a 20% and 25% because it's still only second-team reps for J.J. McCarthy. It's not first-team yet.

The minute he gets those first-team reps, though, then this conversation changes. Then that meter goes up to maybe 50 or something but every time we talk we got to check in with where you stand with this uh there's two other subjects that i had in mind unless you had anything did you have anything okay no just just checking you lead i follow okay uh but you're always free to just toss something out there just so you know the two things that were on my mind are will reichard winning the kicking competition very quickly and and also john parker romo don't tweet through it man don't tweet out practice film that's not going to get you anywhere it doesn't matter but that was just one of those okay well they didn't really have very serious

competition for will reichard but here was the other subject that i i wanted to throw at you so if you have kicking competition thoughts you can give them but i don't think there's a lot to say there we've been saying the dude is awesome we went semi-viral because we were like oh my god i like he kicked it to the top of the net in in spring and like we were like kind of joking tongue-in-cheek but like the competition was over then. And then he went 5-for-5 the other day. John Parker Romo missed one kick and then found the video and tweeted it out and said, maybe I'll be back soon. Like, no, you won't. There was never a competition, and I'm actually just glad they said,

like, okay, it's this guy, undeniably this guy. Let's not waste anybody's time here. So that's the whole take. What do you think of Jordan Love's contract I think it's hard because if you are the Green Bay Packers what else you're gonna do um he has all the leverage there and I think I read uh Domofsky like off of ESPN like he said like there is precedent for this aaron rogers he played like seven games um granted he had time to sit but so did jordan love he had time to sit behind aaron rogers um my gut reaction was like wow did they really need to do that right now

that's a lot of money and the more i thought about it it was like well yeah they kind of have to do it right now and they just have to hope he's right and there were times the reason the contract gives me pause is because there were times last year like not not two years ago like there were times last year early in the season where i was like this guy stinks i think it was the game that they that kirk tore his achilles jordan love tried to throw an out route and I was like, this guy's horrible. They need to draft a quarterback. Like they might be so bad that they might be in the running for Caleb Williams. I thought that at one point, but it did click at some point late in the season. And he was arguably the best quarterback in the NFL down the stretch. Obviously, when Chip's on the table,

Patrick Mahomes is the best quarterback in the NFL. But what you saw from Jordan Love was enough, I guess, to justify thinking he's the guy. And if you think he's the guy, then you don't want to piss off the guy. And so I think it's a lot of money to give a guy who has a 10- game sample size of being a really good quarterback but I also can see it like if you're Green Bay like what other choice do you have the only other choice is to make him really really mad at you and to make his camp like be

like Jordan you shouldn't trust them they're not they don't believe in you and then you have an entire you know, you open up that can of worms and have that on your hands moving forward. I believe in Jordan Love at this point. I just have that little, you know, voice in the back of my head saying, like, do you remember that game in week six of last year? But I think if you're Green Bay, you have to give them that money. It rarely gets cheaper, as the Dallas Cowboys are finding out with Dak Prescott, you should just

sign them when the first opportunity is to sign them because by a year or two years from now, it'll be more expensive. Two things come to mind. One is that NFL teams are now just having to become comfortable with the idea that a quarterback acquisition or contract could totally implode and you could owe him a gazillion dollars and you just have to live with it because that's life. The Atlanta Falcons are doing it with Kirk Cousins. They signed a guy who is old and just ripped his Achilles in half to a hundred million dollars guaranteed because what other option do you have? The gap between people who can play this position and people who cannot play this position, i.e. Taylor Heineke and Desmond Ritter is so massive that when you have even competent quarterback play, you could compete. You could be out there. If you have a good enough

team, you're going to be in the playoffs, but there's 18 guys who can do it or less. And the other guys are just impossible to watch. They're miserable. People get fired almost immediately in the NFL. And that's the thing. If you're the general manager, if I don't sign this guy and then he has another huge year, and then we have to pay him even more than I'm looking really dumb and making my own job harder. But if he fails, I'm fired anyway. So I'm just spending, well, in Green Bay's case, they're spending the public's money that owns the Packers, but they're just, they're just, that's the mentality that everyone has to have as a general manager. The other thing is too,

that with Trevor Lawrence, Tua, Jordan Love, all these guys, you could go, oh, I don't I'm not 100 percent. I'm not quite sure about this guy. But what they've done with all of them is they've created windows for themselves. So think about it as with the cap hits. You have about two to three years where you can make this work. And if by the end of that three years, you have gone to a Super Bowl or NFC championship, if you're the Packers, then you will figure the rest out with his next contract, his extension, the restructures, everything else. And if it blows up in your face, Russell Wilson style, you probably just get fired. And then that's life. Although, you know,

George Payton still exists out there in Denver, but they took away all his power by hiring Sean Payton. I mean, right. Nate Hackett gets fired. You might as well just go for it. Just go for it. Pay the guy figured out. But what you have to have and Green Bay might have this Detroit definitely has it.

That means you have to draft extremely, extremely well. And you have to have an ownership that will push money forward so you can restructure and write guys checks right now to move cap space. And the other big takeaway is just the Vikings don't have to deal with this. They do not have to deal with it.

They have so much flexibility now because of JJ McCarthy. When they signed Kirk to 30 million, we all went, wow, that's a lot. How are they going to work around it? And the cap's gone up like crazy. But the gap is only growing. Per year, it's like $50 million between J.J. McCarthy and Jordan Love.

And you're going to have that advantage over a long period of time now because you can even stretch out a little further if he gets an extension someday. You have this advantage not for today, not for tomorrow, but for the entire time that he's on his rookie contract and it only gets highlighted more and more every time one of these guys signs yeah you're spending power next year like go on over the cap and look at how much cap space the vikings are going to have next year it's insane because like you said rookie, that's like the cheat code in the NFL with the way the contracts in the quarterback market has just soared. I think going back to Jordan Lovequick, if they were being really honest with themselves and they knew he would turn into a good quarterback, they would have just taken last year and been like, let's just be okay.

Let's not be so good that you're going to cost us so much money right away. Because down this alternate reality rabbit hole for a second, if he looked atrocious early in the season, had a little bit of a ramp way late in the season, they missed the playoffs, and he goes into this year like ready to be the guy they take the next step forward then you have the entire year to look at it before you have to pay him instead he hit a rocket ship to the moon and was was outstanding and now like you said like that gap and and you're gonna see it play out really well in the NFC North like in a

vacuum Detroit and the Green Bay Packers have paid their quarterback. Chicago and the Minnesota Vikings have rookie deals. And because of that, the Bears and the Vikings are going to have more spending power when it comes to big-name free agents. You could see a potential jump where one year they look okay and the next year they look great because they were able to bring in a bunch of players with the money that they've kind of saved on the margins between ultra expensive quarterback and cheap rookie quarterback so it it all goes back to like this

was a good thing it's a good thing that we were talking at the beginning of this podcast about well maybe the practice didn't look super great today because it's Sam Darnold and J.J. McCarthy. Like, it's all a good thing in the long run because if you don't have a guy that you're willing to throw all the chips into the center, like, you can't pay him. Like, he's that kind of guy. The Vikings have moved forward in a way that totally makes sense. And like, the world is kind of their oyster now. Now are they going to win the Super Bowl this year? No, probably not. Yeah, no, probably not. But like everything's exciting now

because you're not paying a quarterback $50 million. Well, and it, yeah, it does set up for a big free agency next year. I thought you were going to say that if they could kind of redo it, they would have gotten rid of Rodgers a year earlier and just put Jordan Love in there. And that's what they really should have done. But they had won 13 games. That's where, see,

this is a Viking tie-in. The Vikings won 13 games and it was kind of bogus. And they said, yeah, I don't think so. And they moved on from a lot of talent and did not extend Kirk. Whereas Green Bay won the 13 games. They said, oh, that's okay. Rodgers will come back. He'll do it again. But then he didn't. And then they missed the playoffs because he didn't play well in the final game against Detroit. And that was crushing to them because they let Jordan Love sit on the sideline the whole time and then didn't compete for a Super Bowl and didn't make the playoffs.

So they wasted that entire year that he could have been playing. Then this year could have been cheaper, but they would have known by then. See, that make the playoffs. So they wasted that entire year that he could have been playing. Then this year could have been cheaper, but they would have known by then. See, that's the mistake. And he actually, he also might've signed a deal that would have been cheaper than it is now because all those other guys. So they missed an opportunity to move on from Rogers earlier

and it ended up costing them in multiple ways. But Jordan Love, it's not like it's $55 million today. That's the trick of the NFL is that you can move that money around and create windows. And that's how you can figure out what everybody is thinking and how they're going to act is just looking at when do they have their chance to win and how will they respond to that? And a bunch of teams decided the best thing is to pay Trevor Lawrence because if you let him go then oh my gosh if it doesn't work out with the next quarterback it's gonna look so bad so we'll uh we'll keep doing this uh this week Will Raggetts is gonna come on we'll have

Kevin Seifert stopping by everybody giving their analysis and as we mentioned it was not the greatest offensive performance in this padded practice, but they will try again tomorrow, which means that we will try again tomorrow, uh, podcasting wise. So thanks everybody for watching slash listening. Dane, we'll see you tomorrow and, uh, we'll catch y'all later. Football, football. So do I.