Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Steve Palazzolo analyzes Vikings chances vs. the NFC North

Episode Date: November 5, 2025

Steve Palazzolo of the Check The Mic show joins to break down Minnesota's chances vs. the rest of the NFC North after the Vikings upset the Lions on Sunday. The Purple Insider podcast is brought to you by FanDuel. Also, check out our sponsor HIMS at https://hims.com/purpleinsider Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hey, everybody, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider presented by Fandu. Matthew Collar here. And from my number one podcast on iTunes, the 33rd team, the Check the Mike show, formerly of Steve Palazzo, has an entire chapter in my book. What's going on? Mr. Palazzo, how are we? Doing great. Thanks for having me again, Matt. Yeah.

Listen, the Vikings have been a very smooth, easy ride this year to cover. It's just been totally normal, start to finish exactly what we expect. You know, I mean, look, every NFL season is a journey. And how many beat reporters out of 100 at the end of the year go, man, didn't see some of that coming? Like, the answer is probably a very high percentage of us, right? Except for maybe Buffalo, where they just always end up winning with Josh Allen. But everybody else has got to ride the roller coaster. what do you make broadly of that coaster that the Vikings have been on?

Because I listen to your guys' reactions to every Vikings game. And I feel like you're just like us where one week it's, hey, McCarthy beats Chicago. That looked great. And then the next week it's, oh, baby Carson Wentz will play. And then the next, like, and now they beat Detroit and get a big win that could propel them into the second half. How have you guys, you and Sam Monson, managed the ups and downs of the Viking season? Yeah, there's a lot of confusion. And then, you know, trying to figure out the wise.

There's been injuries. Injuries on the offensive line. I think, you know, Van Ginkle being in out of the lineup, I think has affected the defense. Some of the big storylines I thought for me were defensively the investment in Javon Hargrave and Jonathan Allen, you know, trading a Harrison Phillips. How's that going to affect the run defense? And then thinking, I think Flores will figure it out, right? They crowd the box. They're going to stop the run.

And then they're getting gashed in the run game. And then the Detroit game, they do great. And it was almost like a lot of, as soon as Florida, the whole Flores experience the last couple of years, I think, has been fascinating because he goes through these ebbs and flows, we're like, man, he kept these offenses completely off balance. He's crushing Kyle Shanahan. He's crushing the Texans last year.

And then they get, you know, beat up by the lions. And so there's like these ebbs and flows of how the defense is playing. And then this year, it was like, man, it seems like teams have caught up to Flores. quicker this year. And before you know it, you know, he gives probably the biggest challenge he's given to the Lions in years last week, you know, Sack and Jared Gough five times, creating that indecision, stopping the run incredibly well. So I think that's where some of the confusion comes in is, you know, flipping their strengths and weaknesses almost on a weekly basis, right? You know,

the Isaiah Rogers game, of course, a lot of uniqueness to the Minnesota season. And then, of course, the offensive line injuries and thinking we've got multiple years of Kevin O'Connell. elevating Kirk Cousins and, you know, elevating Sam Donald last year and even Josh Dobbs rolling in and getting the most out of him on short time and then thinking, hey, can he do that with Carson Wentz? And then trying to unpack how much was Wentz trying to play hurt, how much was it just, man, Wence just doesn't see it quickly enough,

but there were some explosives, but too many negatives. So it was a lot of, this is pretty good, yeah, but this is regressed this year. And it all leads to three and four and then four and four, but it's like the season was on the line last week, and they showed up to play in Detroit, such a huge win. And I still think it's a good overall roster

with a good coaching staff. So there's hope now because of because of that win. It really hit me the other day. It's like the whole season in a nutshell, isn't it? That was beautiful. I guess we don't have to talk about anything else. But the season feels like a new now starting. And it really hit me the other day that there are still more games.

to be played than have been played for the Minnesota Vikings, despite how it feels like this really long slog of a journey. And yet, even just going into Detroit, if J.J. McCarthy said that it was like a hard reset even on his season and his career. So restarting in Detroit. And for me, the idea of them being a different team into the second half really all just begins with McCarthy, that Carson Wentz, there was a minute there. You know, he played well against Cincinnati, where you went, if this team has an average quarterback play with Justin Jefferson, I love those charts that show the PFF grade in EPA. And it was like, Carson Wentz was an average EPA and the worst graded quarterback,

which means that the offense was working and he was still getting a lot out of those wide receivers despite not playing well. So the idea is, can you get J.J. McCarthy to play average football. And then Jefferson makes a one-handed catch in the end zone. He uses his athleticism to score. And it gives you an offense that can actually stay on the field, run plays, not have constant three and outs, and it will have its up and down moments with McCarthy. But what you're really good at on your guy's show is sort of pulling back and looking

bigger picture on front offices. And this is where I always liked this idea of building to the rookie quarterback contract. I think that we've seen at work. But when you do have Sam Darnold playing as well as he is in Seattle, which is not just okay. It's tremendous in Seattle. And that's a serious Super Bowl contending team now with the way their quarterback is playing. Where do you stand on what they decided to do this offseason and how that reflects on what has happened so far in their four and four star? Man, I mean, try to do this honestly, right? We had no idea what Sam Donald would do in Seattle. So I'm trying

to put myself in the headspace coming out of last season because I looked at Seattle and said, Gino Smith's played pretty good football. He has, Gino Smith's had three decent seasons in Seattle. They're going to go with Sam Darnold now, whose best season was last year, was better than anything that Gino did, but that's an outlier, of course, in Donald's career. And then you add the variables, well, he's thrown to Justin Jefferson, he's thrown to Jordan Addison, T.J. Hawkinson, he's got Kevin O'Connell, right? So you have all these variables, and I'm thinking, Donald could be an upgrade in Seattle,

but I'm not betting on that. And then you've got the whole last two games of last season. I mean, it was just so extreme last year where if Donald was just average in the last two games, you can make a really strong case. What do you throw? 40 touchdowns, whatever it is last year. It's like, just give me that. I don't care.

You know, give them 40 million. We'll figure out what to do with J.J. McCarthy. But there is a known commodity here in Sam Darnold with these playmakers, with Kevin O'Connell. We got a roll with that. But it was so bad at the end of last year, you had to, you had to, you had to, rethink it and say, did he implode but just later than he ever did in Carolina or New York or wherever else he was as a starter? And so I don't think it was a crazy move to move on. So at the time, I thought, okay, now you're going to say, we do have the rookie contract

quarterback. We have so much cap flexibility over the next few years. We've already built an incredible foundation. We get to invest in the offensive line now, right? You wouldn't have had that same offensive line investment. So I thought it was the right move. Now, I'm sure Vikings fans are sitting there five weeks into the season being like, why do I see Sam Donald and Daniel Jones at the top of every single chart that says, these guys are great. These guys are playing better, more efficient than any other quarterback in the league. And now nine weeks into this season, similar, right? They're right at the top. Daniel Jones took a bit of a hit. Both of those guys were in our QB room last year at this time. Did we make the wrong move? I think it's a fair

question to ask, but nobody was, not enough people were saying, how do you let Daniel Jones walk out the building. I'm sure there was a lot of people saying, hey, you know, Donald was far more good than bad. Don't let him walk. I'm sure that happened. But again, we didn't, there was enough indecision about Donald's last two games and nobody was saying, well, Daniel Jones is going to be an MVP candidate next year. You've got to keep them around. And so you made, I think it was the right move. Let's see what we could do with the younger quarterback. Let's lean into the fact that Kevin O'Connell has elevated multiple quarterbacks. And let's let's lean into that and bank on this is going to happen and just create

this incredible environment around the rookie contract quarterback. We could rebuild the offensive line. We can lock up these playmakers on the outside. We could build our defense, continue to build that and invest. And so the Vikings have a very good all-around team, even though I think they've underachieved on both sides of the ball. They still have a very good team that could turn it on and have a great second half. And it just, it does come down to J.J. McCarthy being efficient enough in what should be a good

environment for him. It's funny. You ever see one of those talking about charts that it's kind of a meme of like the more you know, you think this, but then you still end up at the same spot as the people who know absolutely nothing. And it's kind of, if it's kind of felt like that at times, like, I thought darn old failing in the last two games was not really a great justification for moving on. It would be only if you truly believed in J.J. McCarthy, right? And then the more we know, the more information we gather, then we're about this team, this season we're going, oh, maybe

it was not a good idea. And then they beat Detroit and you go back to, no, actually they were right to move on because Donald failed those two games and McCarthy was clutch against the Detroit Lions in Detroit where Donald couldn't win and that's where I am just this year maybe more whiplash than I've ever been because a lot of times when we lean on the data we could sort of see the future a little bit.

The 2002 Vikings are a great example. You guys know Aaron Schatz and his DVOA and it couldn't stand the 2022 Vikings and it was saying hey, they're not that good. And truly they weren't. And we knew that the entire season. But, and you guys at PFF with the Pittsburgh Steelers of, was it, 2021,

where they won a bunch of games? Yeah, 2020. And that started the internet on fire. Not the first or last time PFF did that. But you know, usually the data is pointing us towards something. Oh, they're the point differentials or whatever. With this team, we just don't have data points on J.J. McCarthy.

We have a great ending to a Chicago game. pretty good performance against the lions and a bad performance against Atlanta and a lot of shrugs. And then here's the other thing, a lot of the players that they invested in, it's been a journey with them too. Like you talk about Hargrave, Hargrave against the Chargers was getting run over. And then last week, he's a freaking beast.

And you're like, I don't know. What am I supposed to think of this? And the idea, though, was that you could build the team so strong that it could elevate a quarterback that throws for 143 yards and wins a game. And that's exactly what just happened and has happened now twice within the division. So the next question is, when you look at Detroit, when you look at Green Bay, when you look at Chicago versus what you saw with only J.J. McCarthy in there, where do they stack up for you? Man, it's a good question. Look, I think roster-wise, they should be good. Like, I don't think Green Bay has a great roster.

Because my biggest criticism of them before they traded from Michael Parsons was like, where's the star power? Do you need star power? Maybe not. But they were just good across the board. And if you had a star or two that would help elevate, then they get Michael Parsons. And the defense has completely been elevated. And I would say Jordan Love has star potential. I would say, of all the quarterbacks, maybe even in the NFC, if you told me Jordan Love is going to be the best quarterback, I'd say, sure, that's fine. You tell me Jordan Love's going to be eighth in the NFC.

I could say, yeah, I could see that too. Right. So I would say he's got this wide range of outcomes where he could be a star. So I think Green Bay is this wildcard in the where you stack NFC teams because Michael Parsons, Jordan Love can really be force multipliers, maybe more than others, right? I don't think Jared Goff is a force multiplier for Detroit or I don't think JJ's right. It'd be a force multiplier for Minnesota yet. I still think Detroit's overall roster is the best. Their overall package is the best.

But there's some weaknesses there. Offensive line's been banged up. The defense has been banged up again this year. And then maybe in a game like this where you had a history of whether it's Ben Johnson, Jared Gough, like they had done a really nice job against Flores in Minnesota. And they looked like they got attacked in a different way and didn't have answers to it on Sunday. So maybe Detroit's a little bit back down to the pack. And you could easily make the case that Minnesota position for position.

I thought their defensive line on paper could have been great this year. had some injuries, had some questions with Hargrave and Allen. I thought the offensive line before their injuries should have been much improved. The receiving core, the past catchers, among the best in the NFL when they're all out there. So I think you could stack Minnesota's roster with Detroit and Green Bay. And then it's like, all right, you've got a rookie quarterback. And because we cover every team here, you get into all these debates. Like there's heated debates about a guy like Bo Nix.

And I always say when you have a middle-tier quarterback, a guy that in a ranking situation is going to land anywhere from 9 to 22, dependent on who's looking at it, what the numbers are, whatever it is, mid-tier quarterback. Everyone's right, right? If you're a Bo Nix hater, you're going to say, dude can't complete a pass the first three quarters in most of his games. He's overthrowing everyone. He's underthrowing everyone the other day against Houston. And then if you're a Bo-Nicks lover, you like them. Big fan of Bo-Nicks.

you're like look at this guy in the fourth quarter look at him when he's clutch look at these dimes down the field when the game's on the line but that's like the nature of the middle class type of quarterback or even just a rookie quarterback that's good but not great yet and so just get ready matt is what i'm saying oh yeah like that very well could be the j j mccarthy experience right if you're a if you're a fan of j j j mccarthy you're like look at this pass to jordan Addison. Look at the one that one hand, that Justin Jefferson one-handed. Look at him juke and Alex Anzolone in the open field in crunch time to go up two scores, game on the line. Look at the back shoulder to Jalen Naylor. Look at that play. With the game on the line,

this is to seal it in Detroit, game on the line. Don't give the Lions the ball back. J.J. McCarthy makes the throw. You've got fodder if you're a J.J. McCarthy fan. And if you're like, hey, let's wait and see, you say, well, his first eight quarters of play, one was good, awful against Atlanta and everything that you laid out earlier, right? And so it's still early. So it could be a roller coaster ride with J.J. McCarthy, but I think it's interesting because Minnesota has a roster that I think can compete among the best in the NFC, but they have a rookie quarterback where if it is a bit of a roller coaster, it might only land at eight or nine

wins, you know? So you're almost like trying to build for the future with the quarterback while also having a roster that can compete right now. So I don't know if you see it all this year, but you just want to see more positive than negative, I think, for J.J. McCarthy and you have a chance to win a lot of games in Minnesota. Well, I really like the Bo Nix comparison. And because Bo does not always have sexy stat lines and their team is really, really good overall, especially their defense. And while I think that J.J. McCarthy in three years can probably be a better quarterback than Bo Nix, that's the reason you draft him instead of Nix, is that

Like that's a finished product. There's only so far that that's going to take you where, you know, the future is wide open for somebody with McCarthy's skill set and how young he actually was when you pick him. I think he had really just turned 21 when they drafted him. So that's, you know, that's a young player these days where you can really develop him and mold him and so forth. You see all the flashes where you see the arm strength. You see the mobility. You see the athleticism.

You also see the confidence, the leadership, the toughness, all that sort of stuff. But how do you get from a point where you're playing game after game after game to you get more and more consistent? Well, Bo Nix kind of did that last year, where he turned a corner late in the season. I think if they do that and you look at their late season schedule, they have Washington, Dallas, Giants. I mean, those are three very winnable games. Sort of if you could survive the developmental part of this for McCarthy, which is the next

couple of weeks, I think you can get to a point where you're at least in that playoff race and you know that anything within the vicinity of Jefferson and Addison is going to get caught. So that helps a lot too. You and I do over the years love quarterback comparisons. So do you have one for J.J. McCarthy? I will give you one that's been in my mind a little bit and then let you think for a second. I think Alex Smith with more natural athletic running ability and Moxie. And Alex, look, if you look up, you know, how he did in the second afternoon,

his career wins and losses. They won a lot of games with him. I think he has a skill set where it's a lot of very good traits. It isn't a Lamar Jackson trait, but there's a lot of, like, he's a good athlete and he's got a really strong arm and he's got pretty good accuracy. But those things are not, you know, it's not Drew Breeze's accuracy. You're not pushing the slider all the way up to 99 on anything that he has. But you add a little bit of more moxie to Alex Smith and you get some more scrambles for first down, some more throw. into coverage that Jefferson's going to make, pass the sticks maybe, and, you know, you got something there. So that's what I've been thinking about while watching him.

I haven't come up with a clean comp for McCarthy yet. I like that, though. I mean, and just quarterback development is so fascinating because Alex Smith wasn't good. I mean, what do you have, like one touchdown in 10 picks one year? I mean, it was like Trent Dilfer, mid-90 stats for a season or two for Alex Smith. And he started and he was drafted in 05. and his first good year was like 2011. Yeah, yeah, it was crazy. With Jim Harbaugh, 2011, he was good in 2012, and they still benched him for Colin Kaepernick.

Like, Alex Smith was still good. And they benched him for Colin Kaepernick saying, there's just more upside there. And then he was, Alex Smith was good, not great for Kansas City, right? So he didn't figure it out until year five or six and then became a pretty consistent quarterback for what he was. I don't hate that as a comparison. The other part of that, I think where that makes sense is we don't know about

J.J. McCarthy in a high volume offense. Right. That was the big question coming out of Michigan, right? I would always joke about his, you know, he's 14 for 20 for 1.30 and two touchdowns. And that's the Michigan stat line that led to a national championship. Yep. Michigan ran the ball 39 times for 250, right? And we haven't seen it at the NFL level.

And that was Alex Smith, too, right? Uber game manager. He's never going to turn it over. He's going to take a few too many sacks, but maybe offset that with some plays with his legs. But you just know what you're going to get. And if you give him good playmakers, the stats will be better as, you know,

2017 led the league in deep passing yards because he had Tyree kill. But you're just going to stay on schedule, not turn the ball over. But it wasn't ever really a high volume. Hey, put the ball on Alex's hand 40 times and let's go. And we don't know if JJ McCarrer, can do that. And that's a fair, not even a criticism, it's just a fair unknown about J.J. McCarthy at this point in his career. So I kind of like that as a cop. There are some

similarities to the, not the early career Alex Smith who really struggled, but the mid career, Alex Smith, who was in the game manager part of the spectrum because his interception totals were really low. But that, but Alex Smith won a lot of games, right? We don't, I know analysts aren't supposed to use QB win loss records. But I think in the short term, they're not great. Like Mitch Trubisky went in 12 games one year was fake. But I think over time, it gets you in the ballpark. And Alex Smith won a lot of games across two different teams because of his skill set being a part of that.

And I like that as a comp for JJ. Well, just on the QB wins thing, I think it just asks a lot of questions of like, why did this happen? Was it circumstances for wins or losses? Like Sam Darnold's a great example. Like, why in Minnesota and Seattle is this guy now? a winner. I mean, you think about Sam Darnold's last, maybe he goes 14 and 3, 6 and 2, what is that, like 20 and 5 in his last 25 games, and then, you know, it was maybe 10 games below 500 before. So we can kind of

matches his stats. Yeah. Like it matches his stats, right? Like when it's not that it's the, it's the definition of what happened. But when it matches your stats, like, why did they lose a lot of games? Because he played bad football. Right. right yeah it wasn't like he had the where it would be weird as if he had the same stats across the jets the Vikings and the Seahawks and with the jets he was winning 30% of his game and with games and with Minnesota he's winning 80% that would be well wins and losses are stupid don't look at him like he played poorly they lost he played well they won at the other places right and we could also look at his development too as a guy who came in at 20 years old and was thrown

right to the wolves with kind of not a great organization but putting him aside and Going back to the McCarthy comp, I mean, having two wins where you throw for 143 yards both times, but still produce three touchdowns and it's in tough road environments and things like that, I think at least for the early part of his career, that's what they want him to be is hit a few shots, mostly control the ball, use his legs, make plays, and then they're going to build to a point where he's standing in the pocket and throwing and throwing and throwing and then like who knows what the sky can be but i think for right now that's kind of how you're asking him to play based on what you have around him uh now the the question then is sort of

how far can they take that if it ends up working out that way looking at the division right now you guys are sponsored by fan duel so am i uh the green bay packers are plus 110 to win the division the uh Detroit lions are plus 125 the bears are ahead of the Vikings by quite a bit at plus 900. The Vikings are plus 1,700. Tell me your thoughts on Caleb Williams, the Bears, Ben Johnson. That's coming up in two weeks for us because I think it's, I think their season's been hysterical. It's been one of the funniest seasons. Them and the Bengals, I love that they played the dumbest game in history last week because the Bears lose in week one to McCarthy. Everyone just throttles Caleb Williams. They get killed by Detroit and you're thinking, all right, well,

is going to win two games with Ben Johnson. And then they get a blocked field goal. They get Jane Daniels fumbling. They get Colston Loveland. You and I could have probably taken a better shot at tackling him at the end of that Cincinnati game. I mean, well, you are six, nine. So I think you would have at least bowled him over.

But I mean... I would have made the tackle. I think you make that play. If you're in that same position, maybe I could grab a shoelace or something. But what do we do with all this? I mean, what do we do with Caleb? doesn't get sacked every single play anymore,

but also has accuracy and up and down issues. Like, what do you got for Chicago? More confusion than Minnesota, I would say. You summed it up pretty well. I mean, the 22, 25, 24 games, back-to-back games, not weeks, but Raiders and commanders in just weird style for the Bears. Caleb Williams' entire career, now we're two years into it. And last year, I summarized his season as like two good games, two bad games.

And we're always with young quarterbacks, you know, you're going to do this, Matt, right? You're going to take two weeks, two weeks of J.J. McCarthy and say, okay, when you see this in two weeks, we're going to project this third week and fourth week based off what we just saw. And every time Caleb Williams had two good weeks, it's like, all right, young quarterback, you start to show signs of life back-to-back weeks, he's figuring it out. He's putting it together. It makes a clean story. until he doesn't and he regress it

and he has two bad games and then two and three good ones and then two bad ones and that was Caleb Williams last year and I think this year has been similar and I don't you throw the Bengals game out I think their defense has made

you know gave Pittsburgh and Aaron Rogers an explosive looking offense which they're not had the Jets looking like an explosive offense I don't think you can learn anything now against the Bengals defense and then you have Caleb Williams like last week against Baltimore just a late game interception

It's back and forth between some questionable decisions. I don't think the pass blocking has been all that bad, but I see him even in clean pockets getting into that like crouching tiger stance. Like, all right, second read's not there. Where am I going? I want to play on the run. And then other times he is under pressure and those skills work for him. So there's just a lack of consistency.

And I do think that the bears are still trying to figure out Ben Johnson, great play caller, creative play caller, who creates open throws and then Caleb Williams who can play with Instructure, but I think he cycles back and forth between playing robotic and then playing two free. And it's like the sliders that my guy Sam always likes to talk about. They need to figure out where the slider is because Caleb will look robotic sometimes. It's like coach told me go one to two to three and I'm going to do it because that's what he told me. And then other times he's just like, first read's not there, boom, I'm just going to go play.

I'm going to go play ball. And that's the stuff. I know every athletic quarterback, like, can you be Mahomes? Can it be Josh Allen? Can he be Lamar Jackson? To be those guys, they found the perfect balance. And even their balance is off kilter at times. Like Mahomes was off kilter last week against Buffalo.

Lamar had times earlier this year where he's off kilter. Like he's just not, there's no easy buttons in there. It's all deep balls or he's getting sacked. And so that's going to be the challenge for Caleb Williams' entire career. is he can do anything. He can read, read progressions, hit backside reads, hit backside throws, he can make plays outside the pocket. But he's got to find the right time, right balance of those things.

And I don't think they're there yet. I know they just scored 47. They're not there yet. And then defensively, it's like pass rush has been inconsistent. They might get a boost from Austin Booker breaking out as a young player. Inconsistencies defensively for Chicago as well. and then the run game. Every now and then,

I thought they beat up the Saints two weeks ago, didn't do much against Baltimore, beat up the Bengals this week. The run game is kind of back and forth. Like they look like a physical Ben Johnson team at times, but it's not there yet. So I think they're dangerous. I think the bears are dangerous

because they've shown elements of what Ben Johnson had with the lions. It's just not there yet. And so they're dangerous because if there's like a switch that's flipped in the second half of the year or in the last five games or whatever, they could look really good. I think they're on their way, but it's still inconsistent. It's just not there yet completely, but theirs.

The fact that they can run the ball, I think, makes them scary on a week-to-week basis, especially with teams around the league successfully building off the run with the pass, and they can do it. With Caleb Williams, I was thinking about this when it comes to scramblers, and you mentioned Patrick Mahomes, and this is kind of funny, I was visiting my wife's family in Los Angeles, and there's this really nice park there and there were some dudes throwing around the football

like it looked like some sort of, you know, guys who play high school there were in pretty good shape, throwing the ball around. And when they were warming up, they're all doing like Mahomes throws. They're not like Tom Brady, Peyton Manning, stepping back, three steps. They're all like, oh, you know,

like doing the crazy throws. And I had this thought about second-tier playmaking quarterbacks and how few of them there actually are that have ever had success. Like the top tier is Mahomes and the top tier, you know, the top tier is Steve McNair, maybe. It was like you can go to a Super Bowl with that guy. The next tier down is like on the bench,

Kyler Murray for Jacoby Brissette. And the inconsistency of that guy ends up driving coaches, teammates, organizations, absolutely freaking nuts. And I feel like historically, I mean, we were just talking about comps and older quarterbacks and stuff. I can't think of that many who teams really want to, it to fully buy into as a second tier type of, I'm going to go off structure all the time because the inconsistency, I think, ends up costing you so many games, so many points out

there. And especially with offensive coordinators who are like, if you just run the play, like Ben Johnson, we've got the receivers, the line, the running game, at some point, if they stop winning, that's where I think there will be some friction there with the way that Caleb is still playing. It's a great point. It kind of reminds me of like when, you know, Kyle Shanahan was known for, oh, they run bootlegs all the time. And it's like, it's really three per game.

So like a quarterback would be coming out of college, but like this guy throws great on the run. He's good Shanahan quarterback. It's like for three plays a game, like there's another 30 dropbacks. You know, you still have to drop back, read it out, and not throw on the run. And so you overweigh the couple times that you have to do that. It's a great point because you're still, Mahomes and all those guys are special because they win within the pocket.

They win within structure. They win within the play call. Josh Allen did not do that his first couple of years. He was wild and crazy. And, you know, he hit like a cover two shot every now and again, but his accuracy and decision making within the pocket was generally terrible. And he became a superstar where he just started hitting a five-yard hitch on time and accurately. And then that, and then it's like, okay, I have all the easy stuff down, quote easy stuff,

not easy for me, but for an NFL quarterback. I have all the expected throws down. Now I'm special because I can do all this other stuff when it's not there, when it's all covered. And so, yeah, I agree with you, man. And that's the Kyler thing, right? Like, Kyler is going to have a few spectacular plays per game. But the number of times you just want to hit the dig route, hit the back shoulder, hit the stuff that we need you to hit from the pocket more consistently and on time before you get to the special stuff.

And, yeah, that's what I'm still looking for from Caleb, Williams on a on a week to week basis. And if he can get that, that's where the that's where the high end potential comes from. That's why teams draft on potential because you're saying, if we can improve a couple of these key areas, he has some stuff that other people don't. And his running ability, his ability to throw on the run, his overall arm talent, you know, for lack of a better term, touch, velocity. It's all there for Caleb Williams. It's a matter of putting it all together within structure first, I would say. It's why this entire division is so freaking fascinating, man. I mean, you just like each one of these teams, you could sit there and make a case

for if Caleb Williams builds on this and they run the ball, who's going to want to play the bears with that offense, even if their defense is flawed? You can make a case that the Packers are still strong enough without Tucker Kraft to win this division because they have Micah Parsons. They have a playmaking quarterback. You can argue that Detroit, although they've played four games against good teams and lost three of them, that their roster is still so stacked that they're going to be there. You can make the case that McCarthy will turn the corner. We just have no idea what's going to happen here going forward, which is why the old sports ball is so wonderful. Before I let you go, Steve, I want to know what you and say, well, actually, I know this because

I listen to every show. I don't make it through all three hours sometimes. I, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I only have like a 20 minute drive to the facility. The next episode's coming. Yeah, well, what happens is sometimes you'll be like, all right, we're going to break down Titan Saints. And I'm like, okay, I can just kind of. That's okay. You could fast forward that. That's a lot. Move to the next one.

But I want to know, though, what you guys, as far as, like, you're always tracking trends in the league, bigger picture stuff that's going on. And I'm not talking about Sam and his intentional grounding takes or something like that. That's, you need to have that. But like a bigger picture. picture thing that is happening in the league that has your intrigue as we go into the second half of this? I mean, there's some schematic stuff. There's two things, I would say. High level, you know how much Sam and I like to talk team building. And I think, I think every, the last two

off seasons, we've gotten to draft season, free agency, and we've said, no teams feel bad. There's teams that are certainly less talented, but we know that they're rebuilt. Like, we know where they are in their life cycle, the Titans, the Saints, the Jets. Like, we know where they are in their life cycle. They're rebuilding. But there's a lot of teams that are close in team building and their roster.

And then it doesn't, it might not show up in records, right? There are, there's a big difference in the have-nots this year. There's a lot of teams with one and two wins. But there's a lot of teams with just six. or seven wins right now. So I do think that the league is,

it's always been called this parody league, but I think it's real right now. So I think there is, you know, the chiefs coming back down to earth closer to, say, the Patriots, or the Colts being closer and the Broncos, like the fact that they're, and then look at the NFC standings, right?

Like the five win bears are outside the playoff picture or right on the cusp right now. So I do think the league is just tighter overall. And there's always that, And there's fewer difference-making quarterbacks that just skew things right now, right? You'd list Mahomes and Allen. But then, like, the other two is Lamar and Burrow, and both of those guys have been heard.

And, you know, the Bengals doesn't really matter because their defense is terrible. So I think the league's just tighter overall. And then it comes down to, you know, a couple plays here and there, right? Would you agree? Like, it feels snug as far as team one through 20 now compared to what it. it was. And then just like schematically, I think you're seeing a lot of teams getting bigger to create explosive passes, which is, which is fun, which, you know, double two tight ends,

extra offensive linemen in there. So if you're watching the game closely, you're seeing more big guys up front. We already know that teams are using motion more, using O linemen in motion, but using big guys to create running advantages, but also play action advantages and in shot plays and everything. So I think that's a fun development in the league. More two tight end sets, more six offensive linemen sets as far as a schematic trend that we're seeing around the league. I think in terms of parody, I have two theories on that. Number one is that even though quarterbacks still fails spectacularly sometimes, teams are getting better at building two timelines around those

quarterbacks and the Vikings have done it here. I think Atlanta did it really well with Michael Pennix, where you drop him in, whereas your team is maturing. Denver did the same thing. So we've had this entire draft class that came in where all the quarterbacks are pretty good. We don't know who's the best yet of that group, but all of them are good. And you go, okay, how many teams have absolutely horrific, don't even show me this person on television quarterbacks?

Only a couple, really. So that means, but also outside of Allen and Mahomes, there's really no banning and Brady and Rathesburg are just running away with everything. and Alan and Mahomes' teams are pretty flawed. So we have a lot of like seven out of ten quarterback play, which on a weekly basis can go up and down. I think that that's part of it. I also think some of it's your fault.

Here's why it's your fault specifically. Because you guys, you and Sam, PFF, football outsiders, the data movement, then the next gen and all these people, what they force teams to do is pay attention to every detail of their team building and their decision making. And Thomas Demetrov talked about this

on one of your guys' podcasts a long time ago about how in the actual rooms they have to prove it. Whereas I think there was a lot of owners that just did crazy random stuff, which is why I still love Jerry Jones. Like Quinn Williams, this is great. This is a throwback.

He just did something insane. But you don't see that a lot anymore. I think in those rooms, there has to be a lot of, There's more voices, there's more, here's scouting perspective, here's data perspective, here's like thoughtful decision making and team building, which I think is something that you guys in the analytics movement focused on so much. And some of these guys just got shamed into having to do it the right way because the more

you spread it, the more media understood it, asked about it, fans wanted it. I'm not giving you entire credit. But I think that they have so much more to, so much more to work with resource-wise to make better decisions and understand their timelines better so you don't have teams just wasn't was it wasn't the jets that drafted like fred baxter in the first round like a fullback i mean you know teams teams used to do stuff that was just insane and now we don't see that as much anymore we we sam and i come out of every draft it's like i didn't hate any of these draft like nobody really went crazy in the draft so yeah i think there's something to that and then i'll just add the fourth down

Oh, yes. Going forward on fourth down has added so much variance to games. And I know a lot of times the broadcast or our little Twitter football world leans into like you've got to go for it more often, which therefore increases your win probability. But I think the other side of that is when you don't get it. Oh, yeah. It hurts more than kicking a field goal, right?

So what you do is you're just increasing variance in a game where like Sam and I roll in on a Monday morning, like, how did this team win or lose? It's like, I don't know, they went four for four and fourth down, or they went one for four and fourth down. We do all of this analysis, and a lot of times it really comes down to, did you gain or lose possessions on fourth down conversions that maybe used to be six points, you know, from field goals or whatever it is, or it was a punt, and you gained field position. So I think that's a huge aspect, too. Teams going forward on fourth downs, and it makes games come down to like a couple plays, which can really, really swing, you know, the result of a game.

Well, Steve Palis Zolo, I love what you have done with. Check the mic. You guys got the new studio is built. It's well lit. It looks great. Sounds great. Everything going on. The channel has exploded over the last two years since you guys move from PFF to 33rd team.

I love to see it. And I am as loyal as it comes for the listeners. Although, you know, I was trying to think, like, is there a way I can get in on the studio sponsorship. Can I get a brick in the wall or whatever? We'll have to work that out at some point. But find a way. Thank you guys. As a guy that's written about Sam and I, right, we're part of your book. And I'm sure we can find a way to get your name on the wall and everything here. All right. Well, I'll have to come visit at some point. But no, honestly, it is the best out there when it comes to football analysis, game breakdowns. And sometimes, I don't know, you are

a freak with watching multiple games at one time. So I'm like, how did he even? even catch that play in the Vikings game that you're talking about. So phenomenal stuff. And thanks again for stopping by, man. Yep, you got it. Anytime, Matt. Appreciate you, man. Football.