Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - The Vikings can get JJ McCarthy going against the Commanders, right?

Episode Date: December 6, 2025

Andrew Krammer of the Minnesota Star Tribune joins the show for our weekly hardcore preview of this weekend's Vikings game. Matthew Coller and Andrew discuss whether or not Kevin O'Connell can get J.J. McCarthy going this weekend and what the return of Commanders QB Jayden Daniels means for the game. 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 Fandul. Matthew Collar here, along with Andrew Kramer of the Star Tribune for our weekly hardcore preview, which we did promise that no matter how ugly it got, we would keep a preview in. So last week, let's all forget that Andrew said it was an 8 out of 10 for intrigue of Max Brosmer playing. I was intrigued for the first drive. You know, intrigue doesn't mean that you thought that it would be great, but I would say that, you know, maybe we were a tad guilty of saying maybe, but you know what's really interesting about this season, Andrew, is that as long as you and I have both covered the team, usually when things are going bad, there's something that's coming around the corner where it is better. Like the 2016 season is my first year and man, did it get nasty at the end of that season? And then 2017, they're in the NFC championship.

And 2018 is pretty terrible. And then 2019, here they come into the playoffs again. And this season, I think we've all expected, like, oh, JJ will come back and he'll play well. And then they'll get back on track because there's just too many good players and coaches here with their resumes. And it just hasn't happened. But I'm here to say that it could for this week. This Washington Commanders team is extremely bad this year on paper. So is this the week that finally something good happens?

It could. It could. In a way that it could against the Chicago Bears, you know, and the Bears weren't, are obviously better than the commanders. But their defense is statistically on par. I mean, Washington's is obviously a little bit worse, too. They're worse in almost every way. So when I say it could, that means the spaces will be open in the route patterns.

There will be throwing lanes. I have no idea if those throwing lanes are going to be hit on target, on time, and in rhythm. But the Vikings feel like with more simplification, less than JJ's mind that they could get more out of them. But, Matt, like you said, 31st in yardage for the Washington commanders, I almost said it. Washington commanders in terms of allowing, they allow most teams to march up and down the field on them. Yes, they do. And against Denver the other night, though, they were competitive. And that is something to keep in mind that even defenses that struggle,

can have a good day if you do what, create turnovers. And that was the big message from Kevin O'Connell to J.J. McCarthy is, let's not worry too much about how you're dropping back and hucking the old pigskin, but maybe just don't throw it to the other team or we'll lose. And that remains the case with this team. When you look through some of the names on the team, you're like, well, you know, Bobby Wagner is here, although he's banged up. Vaughn Miller was once one of the premier players in the NFL,

and I'm sure he thought he was joining like a Super Bowl gravy train in Washington when he got there. Duran Payne has been good. Preston Smith has been good. But I think there's a pretty common thing here that a lot of these guys are just not the players that they used to be. And I don't expect J.J. McCarthy to be under a lot of pressure in this game. No, their defensive line is kind of like a namesome guy's Hall of Fame. Eddie Goldman, Preston Smith, these were all players that five, ten years ago in the NFC. were making pretty big impacts against the Vikings.

And, yeah, Washington is one of the oldest teams. They were last year when they made the NFC title game. They decide to run it back with many of the same pieces. And shockingly, come December, many of those pieces are not there. And even with Jane Daniels, they're what, two and four when he's available? So it's not too much of a shock to me when you look at Washington's defense specifically, which was the oldest part of their team, that this has kind of fallen apart the way it has. And when he watched Bo Nix able to march down the field on them, they took the, I think they've taken

back-to-back games into overtime. They took Denver to overtime too, but Denver had no problem moving the ball. It was just a matter of takeaways, turnovers, punching it into the red zone, turning field goals into touchdowns that they couldn't consistently do. Bo Nix is a better quarterback right now than J.J. McCarthy. I saw Bo Nix make some throws against Washington that I have not seen J.J. make at least in some time or certainly not consistently. I don't know if he's going to be able to do that. It's going to take JJ showing some level of improvement because this is still an NFL defense, Matt, and even know they're still bad. It's still better than anything he saw in the Big Ten. Right. And their

defensive coordinator has a long, or their head coach slash DC because he took over a defensive play calling. Dan Quinn has a long history of success. Clearly, no one is a miracle worker, as we've seen for the Vikings offense and Dan Quinn's defense. But there's enough there to throw some different looks at J.J. McCarthy that maybe he hasn't seen or that he struggled against. And I think you know, when people will ask sometimes, like, why does it feel like it's gotten worse? I think one of the reasons is who you played matters, and Green Bay is as good as it gets on defense. But also, once they see you play football games, they understand what you do well and what you don't do well, and they game plan for you. And that's not, I mean, that's something that,

you know, in college, yeah, they try. But if you're talking about the difference between NFL game planning and college game planning. It is absolutely enormous for how many hours get put into studying every single dropback of a quarterback. And you know that Dan Quinn's going to be doing that. It feels like he's coaching for his job at this point. I don't know their situation if they're saying that. But I mean, if they lose out or something, then they could have a coaching change there as well. So he's going to throw the kitchen sink, I would imagine, at J.J. McCarthy. So even though we're assuming, yeah, well, he should have time to throw. Yeah, there should be guys open. I also think that there could be different pressures that maybe he hasn't seen before

that he's really struggled with, different coverage changes. We saw that a lot, just to use Seattle for an example, but also Green Bay, where, oh, it looks like this. And when you take the snap, they do this to young quarterbacks all the time. Then it's a completely different coverage. I think that they're going to try to squeeze everything they have out of this. The question for me is how much is Kevin O'Connell just going to run the ball? Because that's the one thing. You can mess with the quarterback, and you can blitz them, and you can throw different coverages at them. But if the run game is too overpowering, which it should be, there's not a whole lot of defense can do there. I imagine this matchup in the Tuesday process of game planning for all the

Vikings coaches was as painstaking as any this year, because when you watch Washington on film, I mean, statistically, they're giving up 8.7 yards per throw. The next closest is under 8 in the NFL. Like, they're one of the worst past defenses in the, or the worst, in the NFL. And one of the worst in recent history. So for them to be giving up as much as they are in O'Connell, not being equipped to take advantage of it because of his current quarterback play, you saw him kind of capitulate up there in terms of saying, look, I need to think of things differently in terms of my understanding of where we're at in games with this quarterback play and how I want to attack it.

He talked about having visions for attacking defensive coverages and knowing that just because I want to get, what do you say, in-cut screaming and all this stuff, I want to get this stuff working against these coverages that are open and the opportunities are there for us, I need to understand that we can't do it. And I'm paraphrasing, obviously, but that's kind of what he's talking about. And he watched this film, and Washington's giving up so many opportunities that he must know by now that they cannot take advantage of all the time. So yes, running the football, Washington also gives up 4.6 yards per carry.

They give up a ton of yards to a ton of running backs this year. Duran Payne, Javon Kinlaw, can make impacts, but they could also be driven backward off the line of scrimmage pretty easily. Denver found that out with some of the runs they were able to hit against them last week. So I imagine that O'Connell's going to have to know that he has to coach within himself because his quarterback is not able to totally play within himself. We're hearing a lot about decision-making. We're hearing a lot about taking things off his plate.

What did Mr. Harbaugh do in Michigan to make him a winning quarterback? He turned around and handed that thing off to play quorum 30 times a game. That does feel like if they are going to win three more games the rest of the season, probably the only way to do it. I say that as then they tried that, really against Chicago and Green Bay, to not a whole lot of success. I mean, I guess they did at the end of the Chicago game have the lead until a last second field goal.

So maybe it kind of worked to mitigate. But even then, what it didn't work to do was reduce the interceptions, where he still threw several picks in that game. And with McCarthy, I guess I do wonder about his own mentality, mental state right now, after dealing with this, because this is so far away from what his rest of his football life has been, where it's connected well when he's been nine and when he's had this crazy enthusiastic type of attitude, been a little bit different, a little bit, you know, over the top, a little extra, as people say. And, you know, now he's just getting made fun for it all over the

place on national television and the internet and everything else. And all the discussion is about the numbers that he's put up and how poorly he's played. And now you have something very different from college too, which is players looking at you in the locker room who are 30 years old, whose prime season was messed up this year by quarterback play. And now you have a coach whose messages are being picked apart by folks like ourselves. And that was what I'm curious about from you. I know this is more of our X's and O's breakdown rather than our press conference breakdown. That was yesterday with Dane. But I wonder what you think of the messaging from O'Connell saying, forget talk about the fundamentals

anymore, like, let's go play big boy football. Again, paraphrase, that was how I took it, but I saw different interpretations of his last couple of press conferences. Yeah, I think it's been stark admissions that maybe he's been saying the part that they've already been leaning toward the last few weeks. If you go back and just look at it, they've been putting JJ more in the shotgun over his last three starts. It was over 80% in each game. You go back to week one, which is probably the best snapshot of what they wanted this to look like for him. It was his lowest shotgun rate

around two thirds. He had the highest play action rate in the NFL in week one at 40%. He has not reached either of those marks in terms of low shotgun and high play action rates. Under center play action is the core tenant of this offense. And so to me, you see what they've been doing with him over his six starts. It's already been trending this way. And it feels like O'Connell just finally said the quiet part out loud with him of like, look, I'm finally just telling him, like, don't worry if the fundamentals aren't perfect. And I think what might be getting lost in the messaging is he's not totally saying, forget about it, don't even count your feet, just do whatever you want. Like, that's not what they're doing. But what he's trying to tell

is if you screw up, don't harp on it, I'm not going to harp on it. Let's just get back out there and run the next play. So they want to give him time to work on these things. With five weeks left, though, it seems to be quite the admission that he is not at the place where he can be trusted to go out there and do it consistently. And he's at the place where he's clearly, as O'Connell said, overthinking, which is not too much of a shocker to anybody who's been around this kid for the two years, almost two years he's been here. It's very cerebral, obviously very well read. All the stuff off the field is documented with his intangibles and all the things that he likes to bring, the mindfulness, the ADHD, everything that he tries to center himself

with. He talks about the mental space that he lives and resides in. And it was often positive up until now, like you bring up. And I do think that the negativity surrounding him, as coaches have alluded to, must be impacting him because they want to have him be as clear-headed as possible because his last few starts have not been that way. Well, it's not too possible if you don't start out this game very well. And the boo birds come out because we did see this at U.S. Bank Stadium the last time that J.J. McCarthy was out there that he got booed off the field. And everyone said, well, you know, I mean, it's the fan and the fans of every right to boo. They paid a lot of money. to be there. People who tell fans not to boo their team or whatever. I'm like, hey, man, you didn't pay the price to sit in those seats and watch your offense be a horror show. So they have every right to do it. But also, there's no way that you don't feel that. And I know that JJ told us in Green Bay, always confident and everything, there's no way that someone can perform like this and not have their confidence shaken. This feels like a game where it's the last

frontier of we're going to try this simplistic approach, we're going to try not talking to him about his fundamentals anymore, and just tell him to go play and see if that works because they've tried everything else. And I don't think that that necessarily means, this is just my take, that O'Connell put too much on his plate from day one. I think that the past, run-pass ratio is always going to be, we're going to look at it and go, did you need to pass there on third and we're fourth and one. Like, we're always going to do that with O'Connell. But I also think that he was here, and all last year, learning this offense, he went

through a training camp, he went through another training camp. He's, it's now week 13. Like, how do you not know the offense well enough to the point where Aaron Jones is trying to look for any other words to say except for dumbing it down? And eventually he had to say, yeah, we're dumbing it down. I mean, that to me is an indictment on where the quarterback is at in his own progress. Yeah, and look, Ken O'Connell has a very clear vision of how quarterback play needs to be done in the NFL through a peer progression West Coast system that he's learned under Sean McVeigh, and he's wanted to install and has installed to great success with different quarterbacks. Josh Jobs even came in here and ran variations of it to success until it didn't work out quite so well for him.

He's been able to piece it together with some lightning in a bottle a little bit. With McCarthy, we haven't even seen four full quarters stretched together where you can walk away and say that. That felt like progress. And it's just been six games. a year and a half. Two training camps, yes, it's been still just six games for him, though, and I think that's where it all falls back on him not being ready for the O'Connell way of doing things. And O'Connell, again, has a very strict way of wanting to go about things. And I think, and I say strict, it's unfair to him because they've already changed this so much this year.

Going through his six starts, they have adapted and changed a lot to him. And I think it undersells when people think that just now they're starting to make changes. When no, if you listen to O'Connell, he's been saying, no, we're further doing this. we'll further pare down the inventory of our game plans, make them even smaller. It sounds like they're changing up some things in the huddle just to make the communication clear. All of that kind of stuff is stuff to make it easy on JJ and not have him overthinking. I don't think O'Connell's at fault for having the confidence in himself to get a quarterback to play a way that he's gotten many other guys to play before.

He's just learning six starts in, which should be mid-October, if he were healthy and available, learning six starts in that, again, it's not even six starts in. He's known this even after the first start. They started changing the way they were coaching him and kind of running this offense. And it's just kind of reached a bottom point. It feels like where they're going to have to change even more than they'd hope they'd have to. I think, I mean, clearly if you were to go back in time far enough, you'd just keep Sam Darnold if a quarterback was this far away.

But I also think you'd probably go back to the offseason where a lot of this is hatched. That's where it begins. They are in their offices and having meetings and decide. what are we going to be for the next season and how are we going to lay these things out? And I'm sure that there was consideration of, well, he's going to have to learn and he's going to have to develop and things like that. Maybe they used too much of rooting it in where he was at the end of 2024, assuming that he would just pick right back up and that potentially did not happen.

But I think if they were to go back now, they probably would have an entirely different idea if they had known that it was going to be such a struggle. But then at some point, there's just a baseline of even being on the field. Even being on the field requires, oh, I don't know, like getting the cadence right. And it's, you know, when you talk about having to dumb it down, there was something that Aaron Jones said that really stuck out to me was where you followed up with him on the complexity or something. And he said, no, hang on. It's not too complex for me. And like, I thought that was very telling. It was like, this ain't about, you know, Aaron Jones or T.J. Hawkinson or Justin Jefferson, like the quarterback can't get it.

And for me, if you've been here for that long and you can't get these things, then you've got to prove that you can really quickly, even with all the help that the coach is going to give you. There's only so much you can do. You cannot run a wildcat offense or something. You can't run a triple option. Like you have to, there's a certain level. Zimmer used to talk about this with defenses. Like there's a certain level of things you have to do or you're going to get killed in the end. NFL. And I guess we're going to find out where that level is because this is such a bad

defense for the Washington commanders. Now, flipping over to the other side of the ball. Well, actually, let me get your expectation for this game for McCarthy, though. You know, we're talking about all this. He misses another game, sets him back more. But, you know, I mean, the best interpretation is maybe there's a reset of sorts after, or maybe having two weeks to recover from Green Bay was something that was necessary after really getting pummeled the few weeks before. So what should we expect from J.J. McCarthy here? Yeah, I expect Kevin O'Connell in this Vikings offense. They should be leaning on the run as much as possible, and I would expect J.J. McCarthy to try to get the ball out quickly with some of their quick play stuff, quick play

stuff, screen games, all that kind of stuff, stuff that they tried to do with Max Brosmer in the screen game, but they didn't involve a lot of, I thought, complexity to their quick game. They tried to get Max to do the full field vertical stuff because they thought he could, and he couldn't. I think they understand more with JJ that he's in a position that they're going to need him to get the ball out quickly, make easy, fast decisions, don't have him think through many long, full field progressions. He has shown that he doesn't make consistent or good decisions when he does that. And even when he tucks and runs like he's done at times, he's now gotten hurt in two different

games where he's run and taken quite a few sacks. So I think this is a game where they're going to want the ball in his hands as, as few seconds as possible in the backfield just to minimize the amount of decisions he has to make. So my expectations are that they're going to want to get the ball out to Addison, Nailer, where are the quick handoffs to guys? Where's the jet sweeps? Where are some of the wide receiver underneath involvement that we just haven't quite seen? Like, that's the kind of stuff I want to see and I expect them to do it just because they're going to have to minimize McCarthy. But they should be able to run the football mat like they did against Green Bay at times.

And they certainly did against Chicago. I think they'll get back on track with that. and they can kick a field goal from 59 yards or longer away. So once you get to the other side of that field, just kneel down and just kick field goals. J.J. McCarthy on Fandul is over under for this game is 183.5 yards, which is the lowest one I've ever seen on Fandul, and I still am not entirely sure that I would go over. But this feels like if there's ever going to be a breakout game, it's got to be this one. And the other one I'm curious about, I don't know if they have it, is they don't have it. But wide receiver is interesting too.

And this, I think, is a discussion to have real quick before we get over to the defensive side is just, I think this week, it is beyond vital to get the ball to Justin Jefferson seven to ten times, if not more than that. Even if he ends up with 90 yards on 12 catches, it has to happen. like you have to get this man the football it is shameful the way that they have struggled to get someone who is so talented and so open all the time the ball and if you can't do it against this I mean look at the secondary I mean sandra still is good he's a nickel guy but I mean Jonathan Jones they've got Latimore out so they picked up Jones and they've got Amos out who was one of their top picks Antonio Hamilton senior and Jonathan Jones Jeremy Reeves and Will Harris.

These are the second day. Who are these people? This is the second day. No offense to those guys. You're in the NFL, so good for you. But like, these are not Marshawn Lattimore. These are not a lot of top draft picks. These are not proven guys.

Like, every opportunity should be there. It struck me when we were listening to, I think it was West Phillips the other day, talk about how they've had injuries strike certain position groups. And then he kind of stops to mention, well, wide receivers, we've kind of been, kind of had that group altogether, you know, but the unspoken part is that they've gotten nothing for that. They've got no production out of that because of how bad and inconsistent their quarterback play is, you're right. Like when you talk about Jefferson and Addison against these guys, adequate, mediocre, even below average NFL quarterback play, Carson Wentz

gets a lot out of these guys against this defense. We just, how can you or I sit here with any confidence after six starts of what we've seen from McCarthy and say, he's going to get it done? I think they almost need to turn to what John DeFilippo did in 2018 with Stefan Diggs. Remember when they were so bad running the football. caught like 100 passes for 400 yards that season. Like it was just basically, you're going to be our run game first down, little quick slant, little quick hook, bubble route, smoke route, whatever. They would just do everything with him, quick passes, get the ball in his hands, make him work. Jefferson's obviously not quite the tackle breaker. He's never been a Debo Samuel type. But like, I want to see that

with Jordan Addison. I want to see that even with Jalen Naylor a little bit. Like, why not try to get some of these guys who have built up their bodies a little bit to break tackles? And they intended to do it on 15-yard dig routes, do it underneath. Get it going quicker. Like, that's the kind of stuff against this secondary I want to see, because I don't know how well these guys are going to rally and tackle. I know how well they did in Seattle, though. It was pretty good.

Well, if you remember, I was doing a little research yesterday, the Aidan O'Connell Raiders that were shut out by the Vikings in 2023, as pathetic as their offense was, Devante Adams still ended up with 100 catches for 1,100 yards, and it took 175 targets. But you know what? That man did not leave without the football coming in his direction, at least. And that's the thing with Jefferson that's so shocking is that a lot of times it's not even targeted.

I mean, he ends up with, what, six targets last week? How is this possible? So that is an absolute requirement for this week. Let's go over to the offensive side. Folks, the holidays are almost here. And if you still have names on your list, don't panic. Uncommon Goods makes holiday shopping stress-free and joy. joyful with thousands of one-of-a-kind gifts that you cannot find anywhere else.

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He was only limited in practice on Wednesday. now he's going to play, but it has not been when he has been in for Washington, the Jaden Daniels that we remember from the NFC championship run. Yeah, it really hasn't been. There are two and four with him this season. He's already missed six games to three different injuries, the latest, the elbow injury that he's coming back from here. But when he has played, obviously, Terry McLaurin, I think, was in and out in the off season. They only played two games together at the top, so it's hard to draw too much from this because the full complement was not there. but the average depth of target was a lot lower than it was last year.

His sack rate was still very high. Hasn't played that well against the Blitz compared to Marriota, who just took the Denver Broncos to overtime, albeit with 50 throws. He's played pretty well when teams have sent extra rushers against him. So if I'm Brian Flores, I'm not saying I'm looking forward to facing Jaden Daniels, but I do think there's a mode of experience with Marietta that he clearly has a higher completion percentage against the Blitz, all these things. He seems to find the solutions.

a lot more consistently than young jade daniels does so that may be true for the small sample size this year the bigger sample size is jane daniels being a freak and i guess that's what the question is for me is with much more of a full compliment of players around him than he had at other times this season and he really should have won the game against the bears where he literally just fumbled the ball in the wet rain there in uh chicago ends up getting it and winning that game one of Chicago's kind of many lucky wins this year. But I hadn't seen him play at any time Daniels this year, where I felt like it was breathtaking in the way that it was at times, especially in that playoff game against the Detroit Lions. I can say, though, for him, in terms of the

U.S. Bank Stadium atmosphere, what Brian Flores is going to throw his way, he is one of the calmest individuals that I think you will ever see playing under center in the NFL. Kind of reminds me of Jalen Hertz that way, where things can be going. tragically wrong for Jalen Hertz and he'll just walk off with like a blank look on his face which when things are going bad you're like does that guy care and when it's going great you're like look how calm he is under fire but you know I think with Daniels the biggest fear for the Vikings would be something they've struggled with throughout the season which is scrambling quarterbacks they had a really tough time taking down Caleb Williams and when

Jalen Hertz was here he launched a bunch of deep balls and had a lot of success throwing down the field. And for Daniels, even if he is a tad rusty, that is his thing, is being able to scramble around, make plays. And I think he has one of the best deep balls in the NFL. He does. And you saw that connection all throughout his rookie season with Terry McLaurin. McLaurin, one of the best deep threats, too. So I think him being back, him being healthy, is a huge difference maker compared to the beginning of the season, where McLaurin again was coming off an inconsistent, just participation-wise summer and did not seem to be clicking right out of the gate. That included, I believe, that week two game against the Green Bay Packers,

where it was Jeff Halfley's defense that seemed to really put a lid on everything they tried to do downfield that made Jaden hold the ball, had to check down quite a bit, and then they rallied and played very well underneath. That's the kind of mode that I expect the Vikings to be in when they're not sending 5, 6, 7, which we know we're going to see quite a bit against Jaden Daniels. But we're going to see a lot of cover too. Vikings love to run the Tampa two that they've been doing because of how well Cashman and Eric Wilson covered down the middle. I expect a whole lot of that to try and keep a shell on top of what they're going to do and force Jaden to make some decisions that he can hold on to it.

You can sack him. He's got a sack rate that's around 9%. It's one of the worst in the NFL. So I think for as dangerous as he can be, he's not as efficient as a guy like Justin Herbert, like Jalen Hertz, who are a little more seasoned and know more consistently what to do with the football. So the question for me with Daniels coming back would be Cliff Kingsbury and his quick passing and screen game, which I think helped Jaden Daniels a lot last year. And maybe teams were a little more prepared for, or maybe it's just that, as you mentioned, having Terry McLaurin in and out of the lineup, not having a full training camp with him, that that may have made a difference just in how Jaden played. But I think that that is something that if you're watching on tape last week's game, especially, and you see.

Isaiah Rogers struggling with tackling and missed four tackles last week. If I'm Cliff Kingsbury, I'm saying let's get some of these guys the football in their hands and not force Jayden Daniels to drop back, face all that pressure, bounce around, put himself potentially in danger, which I think that Jayden has a tendency to do a lot and take way too many big hits. So I think that they will be trying to test these defensive backs for their tackling because it's really been an issue all year long, and they have guys like McLaurin, like Debo Samuel, even Traylon Burks, who can break tackles. Yeah, and to me I could see Debo Samuel's the nice toy that they brought in there who's been a huge catch and run threat his entire career and

fits very well with what you're talking about, but also that backfield that they've got. When they traded Brian Robinson, I was a little confused, but to see Chris Rodriguez as Jeremy McNichols, the young Kroski Merritt, Jacori Kroski Merritt, they'll get all those guys involved in those kind of ways, especially McNichols as a rest. receiver. So I think the underneath stuff they're going to go to, that's Kingsbury's M.O. They want to get the, probably want to get the ball out, I would assume, quickly against this Flores defense. So I would expect a lot of that, because you're right. And you go back to a play against Seattle, too, where it was Ken Walker on the perimeter. And you just see

their corner, I can remember who it was, but one of the Vikings corners gets pushed back. And Harrison Smith is lined up on Ken Walker to make a tackle and instead gets dragged about six yards as he tries to punch the football out. That's where he's at in his career. And Isaiah Rogers isn't tackling as well. Byron Murphy's missed some tackles. I think the Vikings' perimeter defense, as you're mentioning, is a spot where they might want to, I'm sure they put some emphasis this week preparing for this commander's offense. Well, and if you're them and you see, say, Eric Wilson roaming over the center of the field, then you know that he might blitz. Well, that means he's not going sideline to sideline as someone trying to make tackles. And even though I

think Fabian Moreau has done a surprisingly good job for someone who they signed to the practice squad. If they're in a nickel situation, then, you know, you're talking about trying to put Moreau or trying to put Rogers in situations where they have to try to tackle these players. And Debo, like many of the Washington commanders, is not what he once was in his prime, but that dude could still run somebody over. He is still built like a tank. I am just interested to see Daniels play in person because we didn't see him at all last year. And the 2024 draft class, the J.J. McCarthy tour, I guess, makes another stop in the 2024 draft class. They decided to pick him over Drake May, who it's funny how last year you looked like a genius

and this year you look like, maybe they should have picked Drake May. That's football for you. I think that they should still be very thrilled about where they're at long term with Jayden Daniels. But I want to see how refined he looks in a season that hasn't really gone his way and against the defense that's going to send a lot of different. stuff at him. The line on Fandul, Andrew, has moved since we recorded this the first time with Marietta starting. It was that the Vikings were favored by one and a half points. Now that Daniels is going to play, the Vikings on Fandul are one and a half point underdogs

to the Washington commanders. Do you think that the Vikings will win this game? Or now that Daniels is back because your initial pick, when we thought Marietta was starting, your initial pick was that the Vikings were going to win, but now that Daniels is back, are you changing that pick? I think I am going to change it. Just because I think Jaden is going to be able to, he's got a lower turnover worthy play rate than Marcus Marriota. Like, he still doesn't put the ball in harm's way too often, as much as he can take negative plays and take hits as a runner. So this makes me feel like that this offense is getting its pieces back in terms of Washington's, with him and McLaurin. Yeah, I don't have enough confidence right now in how the Vikings are playing on

offense. This is not about the Vikings defense. I think this could be a game they lose 20 to 16 or something like that, just because I don't know how young J.J. McCarthy is going to fare even against what we've already talked about being a bad commander's defense. So to me, I'm going to switch my pick and pick Washington. Okay, so I vowed after the Seattle game that I would not pick the Vikings. Are you changing your pick now? No, I'm not. I'm still not picking them. I made a vow. I have to be a man of my word here. I said, I am not picking them again after they lost, what, 23 to 6, then 26 to 0, which means this is the perfect time to bounce back. One factor with Daniels coming to U.S. Bank Stadium is that when I envisioned this game and was picking the schedule

and ended up with 11 wins because I have a very big brain and that's what I was picking in the off-season, I thought, man, like, it'll be great to see him tested against this atmosphere. I think the atmosphere of this game is actually one of the storylines of this game. Yeah. Because fans, at least the ones that we interact with on a daily basis, don't seem too pleased with this team. And it seems like if there are a couple three-and-outs that they could turn on this team, and they already started to against Chicago when they were.

struggling on offense. So normally you'd be saying, well, it's Daniel's first time here. He's still a young quarterback. Flores takes advantage of that home field advantage as well as anybody. But are they actually going to have a home field advantage? Because in previous years, when the team hasn't been good, that is kind of disappeared. Yeah. And I can't remember if it was the Bears game or clearly it would have obviously been at least the Ravens game where he was booed, you know, off the field after one of the third down misses. So that was the most recent. home game then before this one. And it just didn't go well. So it was very nice of you to say it's about the team and not about the young quarterback because I feel like that's where they're at,

at least the sense that I get from fans, both at games and as you mentioned on social media, it's all about the quarterback, the failure to develop the quarterback, at least to this point, six starts into his career. So yeah, the how they receive him if they don't start well. And frankly, because we've heard now his teammates talk about it. I'm trying to remember exactly who said it. But one of the teammates, it might have been Aaron Jones mentioned just him not getting kind of caught in the snowball, the emotion of just, you know, kind of having that all kind of affect him and in the crowd noise and everything. And he needs to kind of, you know, and McCarthy talked about that too, kind of being more mature emotionally and not feeling

sorry for himself, he mentioned. So you could feel sorry for yourself pretty quickly if you're getting booed in the first quarter, you know, coming out. Since we're redoing this, here's what I'm going to pick. I'm going to pick the over under for points is 43.5. I'm going to go over on that. And I'm going to say that this is a 2724 win for Washington in overtime. That's how it happens. It's going to be exciting game. Overtime. I think it's going to be an exciting game. I think that McCarthy will get some things back on track. But since we're recording this now, after we listen to McCarthy talk, what did you think of him saying that he felt like he was overthinking too much and now has been freed of the shackles of someone talking about his footwork?

Yeah, he talked about freedom. This frees up a lot of space mentally. was his quote. He sounded like a 22-year-old, an inexperienced one, I should say, and one that has a lot of maturing to do, both as a quarterback in the NFL and as a young man like anybody who's 22 years old. So for him talking about the emotions of it, being okay to fail, like we go back to training camp, go back to OTAs. I remember being in his press conferences in May coming off that injury, him saying, I need to be okay to fail. I'm a perfectionist. Now that I'm going through this as the first team quarterback, I need to be okay at failing. Obviously, that's all a work in progress. Obviously, he did not master that through one summer of not playing a single NFL game until September. So this is all such a work in progress for him that it's understandable, but it also has not made, to this point, a winning quarterback. It has not made an NFL quarterback even. This is well below average on almost every single metric you could possibly track how he's doing. So you could tell that the headspace, the mentality, all this is so important to the Vikings and to O'Connell because that's where it's gone wrong. him. Well, and when you're talking about, you know, overthinking and not getting coaching points on technique in the middle of the season anymore, which is probably the last try from Kevin O'Connell, like, let's just stop telling him different stuff to fix it and we'll try to fix it in the offseason and so forth. But what will negate that is if O'Connell goes run, run, screen pass over and over and over again and completely takes the keys away from him. I mean, if you're

trying to give him to play more confidently, that's not a particularly great. way to do it because he's going to know when he gets those play calls in these are play calls of i don't trust you i don't believe in you we're already there we're already there i agree i agree but if you go into this talking about hey we're going to free up we're going to let you play and be yourself and then it's hand off hand off and then you know a quick little pop pass or something like that's he's going to notice that the offense and also it's already been called dumbed down by erin jones like there's not a lot of things at this moment that are necessarily building up J.J. McCarthy when you're talking about, well, you can't throw, so I'm done trying. And also, we're going to dumb down the offense because

you can't handle it. But go play free. Was it the Bears game where they get back into it with two straight handoffs to Jordan Mason on a short field? That was the most anti-Oconnell thing we've ever seen. I can't remember if it was a punt return or a turnover. Part return, yep. Yeah, they had a big play to set something up. That would be the time that he takes a shot play or something on first and 10 right to the end zone instead of his two handoffs that O'Connell could not have guessed would have gone all the way to the you know to score six like they did but they did in that right there show me and we've seen examples before too the eight false starts or delay again whatever we have false starts against the Ravens just everything that led up to that point and all the issues that they've had you've seen

him kind of pull back step by step by step and I do feel like there's been a mild overreaction here of because we've seen gigantic overreactions on some things but there's been a little bit of an overreaction on O'Connell talking just this week about pulling things back to McCarthy when this has been a process throughout his entire six starts. Yep, 100%. He's already started doing it in the last two games specifically. So that's going to be one of our storylines to watch going into the game. We'll see how it goes. And Andrew, thank you for both the first hardcore breakdown. And then the, uh-oh, Jane Daniels is starting, hardcore breakdown. Appreciate it. We'll do it again next week, probably in one take. Football. Football.

Thank you.