Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Vikings camp Day 3: Justin Jefferson has a hamstring injury (Part 1)

Episode Date: July 26, 2025

Matthew Coller talks about the news that Justin Jefferson is out with a hamstring injury and discusses what that means for the other wide receivers in the unit

Hey everybody. Welcome to another episode of purple insider Matthew collar here and I have just gotten back from a TCO performance center where we have our first injury of training camp and unfortunately it comes to Justin Jefferson and we also have a new Greyhound in the house who is wandering around in the studio. So if you're going to see him pop up from time to time, this is Buddy who is now

going to eat all the wires down here in the studio and hopefully will continue to be okay. But he's been a nice addition to the home. He's just a little on the mischievous side, so I can't keep him out of the studio. Anyway, so we have our first injury and that is just Jefferson. And yesterday we were talking about how Jefferson doing his press conference yesterday and staying on the field was probably a sign that it wasn't too serious. And it turns out Kevin O'Connell came out and announced today that it is a mild hamstring strain for Justin Jefferson and That they are going to hold out Jefferson evaluate him next week see where he's at But they are going to be as patient as possible and this is not the first time that we've seen Jefferson

Get injured in training camp and be OK. It happened in 2021 where he had an AC joint injury. I believe he caught a pass, kind of went down on his shoulder and missed a couple of weeks then. And that was a little bit of a problem for Jefferson. But ultimately, he ended up coming back, having a huge 2021 season and everything worked out just fine. So they're hoping that the same thing ends up happening here as I'm sorry, the, the dog is kind of a gotten himself trapped on some equipment down here in the studio.

So I'm actually going to have to help him. Any of you who've gotten a new dog, you know how this is, right? Hold on. Okay. There's a rowing machine down here and you know the rowing machine where you pull on it and he was trying to step over it, but then he got stuck and didn't know how to make his back legs because Greyhounds are very long and so getting the back legs and the front legs to operate together at the same time is a little bit of a challenge. So let's start again with Justin Jefferson. Now I've got him to lay down.

He's good to go and he'll just be my partner over here. But it's not the first time Jefferson has been injured in training camp. And I think of course it is so much better for them to be patient with this take their time It's not like just to Jefferson needs to learn how to play football or learn the offense and we'll get into the silver linings And we'll get into the downsides of it But first I want to bring you what Kevin O'Connell had to say about Jefferson in the sort of official update I know with Justin You know about Jefferson in the sort of official update. I know with Justin, you know,

getting a chance to talk to you guys yesterday, we were, you know, he expressed some discomfort there and to our staff and, you know, between the hamstring tightness and his left leg and just didn't want to leave anything to chance. So we did have a little bit further evaluation done. And he does have a very mild left hamstring strain. You know we're gonna be really cautious obviously with it. It is not the same leg from a couple years ago. I know that question's probably coming and I credit Justin just for you know his

ability to recognize how he was feeling and the fact that we were able to avoid anything major. You know, so we're gonna hold him out, you know, here for a bit and then reevaluate him next week when we come back later on in the week. And the best thing is we avoid anything serious. I see no concerns in regards to the opener and, you know, have no worry at all that we'll be able to get Justin ready to go. So there is Kevin O'Connell talking about Justin Jefferson giving you an update there. And if we want to get into the downsides, of course, every day that Justin Jefferson is not

with JJ McCarthy, it's not great because there is no person who is more important to JJ McCarthy and his success than Justin Jefferson. But I guess that's also why it makes total sense for him to sit out as long as possible. I mean, you would much prefer that these early days of training camp that those two get on the same page, that they work together on a daily basis, especially when the pads come on and the cornerbacks get physical and you really get a sense for how to throw it up to Justin Jefferson and double coverage when it's Jets time, even if it doesn't look like it's Jets time. And that's what Jefferson talked about a lot yesterday after practice is just continuing

to give McCarthy confidence in him. Well, that's going to be a little harder to do when he is not practicing. Uh, and, uh, Adam, no, uh, O'Connell said it was not the same leg as actually was two years ago in 2023. So different hammy. Um, but not being able to have those early practices is a little bit of a challenge. Um, and there wasn't a clear timeline for when he's coming back reevaluated next week.

And then O'Connell went on to say that he wasn't going to play in the pre-season anyway. So it's not like they're ramping him up. But at the same time, when he was talking about the pre-season, it did make me wonder, okay, how long do you really think this is going to be? Re-evaluated next week doesn't mean getting back next week necessarily.

It sounds like from his comments that it's going to be kind of a week to week type of thing with Jefferson. I do feel like it is unfortunate for all the fans who come out because Jefferson is the guy to watch. He is absolutely lightning out at practice. He loves to hype up the fans. He loves to do the gritty. He loves to do celebrations.

And also Jefferson competes like crazy when he's out there in practice. And it doesn't matter if it's year one or year six for Jefferson. He's always done that. Always been a guy who's out there to destroy every corner back who tries to cover him. So I think in another way, and this is where the silver linings come in. I mean, of course this could have been much worse and it could have been something that kept him out week one. It could have been something if maybe he had kept practicing and tried to go through it that he could have made worse. And so he stopped at the right time. He went in and saw, you know, Tyler

Williams and got treatment at the right time and made sure that it's not something that's going to be serious. So, well, and the other, the other thing before we get to the silver linings is just that you worry about long-term when this is the second time that he's had a hamstring issue, even if it is a mild strain where last time it was a pretty significant injury that he had in 2023 and ended up missing seven games. But you do start to wonder a little bit of is this going to be something that plagues him? Is it going to be something that comes back regularly? him? Is it going to be something that comes back regularly and they're going to have to really manage this over his career as we go into the second half and he's put a lot of mileage on his body and a lot of mileage on his hamstrings over the years and I guess this might be some type of

issue that maybe he specifically has or it might just be a wide receiver thing. That wide receivers do so much explosiveness, so much taking off fast, so much quick breaking in and out, things like that, that somebody as explosive as Justin Jefferson is just occasionally going to have hamstring issues. But when you start off with that, that's where you don't want it to become a problem

throughout the rest of the season. That's what their main't want it to become a problem throughout the rest of the season That's what their main focus is going to be for the rest of camp to try to make sure that it is at 100% by the time they start week one because you can work through that chemistry issue and Look, we've seen quarterbacks go in and throw the ball to just Jefferson and be just fine Even you know Sam Darnold last year over practice got in the right to Justin Jefferson and be just fine. Even, you know, Sam Darnold last year over practice got in the right rhythm with Jefferson, but he had never played an actual game with them comes out first week, hits them on a 40 yard pass. Nick Mullins barely took any reps with Justin Jefferson over his career, got in, hit him on deep shots. I mean, it's

probably one of the easier wide receivers in the NFL to just step onto the field and throw to. Um, so I'm imagine that their hope is that he can get back by the couple of weeks that ramp up to the season. So we get the training camp, get the joint practices, and then you go into that two week period of time where they're just practicing. And then finally the season arrives. I It also made me wonder a little bit about the joint practices and whether he's going to be able to practice then. I know that's a few weeks from now, but do you want him to practice then? Because the thing about Justin Jefferson is he's almost even by being out, protecting himself from himself by being out because during practice,

it's one of the things that makes it so exciting to watch for the fans for anybody who's there, including myself over the years is that he goes 100% the entire time. He competes like crazy, but that also puts more mileage on the body and it's a 17 game season and they're hoping to win playoff games. Do you really want him to have those joint practices where he's trying to smoke and destroy the opposition? Not if he's got any sort of issue with the hamstring. So it might end up being after that. I'm not sure, but if we wait a month, then it will be still enough time to ramp up for the regular season.

So it happening now and Aaron brings us up in the comments. If it happened on August 25th, that would be a lot worse. So this is the best time for it to happen. And it might just keep a little bit of mileage in general, a little bit of Nixon cuts off of the body of Justin Jefferson. That is somewhat of the trade off for missing time of building chemistry with JJ McCarthy. So I asked Kevin O'Connell now that there's going to be at least a significant amount of practices without Justin Jefferson. I said, who does that put in the spotlight then? And here was his answer.

And here was his answer. Do you want to see him step up in his absence on the next few days? Yeah, I think even yesterday you saw it. There was a couple guys, two, three guys jumping in there kind of taking reps with Jordan and Speedy and that group of 11. Rondell Moore had a chance to make a couple plays. I think we saw Lucky Jackson. I think we saw Felton, Jay Sean. There's a group there, really the outside receivers,

where they're going to get a chance. And then we can mix and match Jordan to play a little extra receiver like he had to do in 2023, going back there. And as we've seen, Speedy move around and really show his value at all three spots. And it doesn't change what we're trying to do from a passing game, running game, as far as installations, developing our core principles of the offense.

It's still early enough that, like I said, I have a lot of confidence that we're going to be able to adjust to anywhere we need to in the short term. But for the long term, I'm 100% confident we'll be able to get our team ready to go and get Justin ready. Okay. So there you go. Uh, no panic from Kevin O'Connell when talking about this, but certainly made my ears perk up when he name dropped for wide receivers. Uh, so I had mentioned yesterday that Rondale Moore and Ty Felton were the first guys to go in also lucky, Lucky Jackson and Jashon Jones.

So why don't we talk about those four guys and then a couple other things that came up today. I will say before we get into the training camp day three recap, there wasn't anything today. Uh, this was a walkthrough day for the Vikings and what a walkthrough looks like. Actually, I'll be able to show you later with some of the video that I took of it But it is a slow motion practice. So if you're asking and somebody did earlier in the comments

Antonio asked how did JJ McCarthy look without Justin Jefferson? We are going to find that out tomorrow and then go from there with McCarthy without Justin Jefferson. I mean, the answer for yesterday was not great. In the middle of a practice, losing the superstar wide receiver where every single play starts with Justin Jefferson, that clearly took its toll on the offense and they did not have a great practice after Jefferson went out, but they will have at least a day To get themselves ready for that and to get the guys ready to rotate into his positions get Jordan Addison prepared to play the x-wide receiver as you heard Kevin O'Connell mention and

You know the expectation is that it should be better than that. But when you have a walkthrough practice, there's nothing to evaluate There's not 11 on 11s. There's not deep passes. There's not full speed handoffs with people colliding into each other. It's just them literally walking through drills and plays. And there was a lot of, I can show it to you right now. This is what it looks like for most of the practice is just in the red zone, running some routes, going through some different drills and stuff like that. So I took a lot of video of the quarterbacks throwing to wide receivers down in the red zone. And, you know, it's kind of fun to watch the guys run routes on air, but not exactly the most that I can evaluate when they're going slow motion.

So tomorrow, what that means is it will be a big practice for them tomorrow. And the reason that you do it this way, because I'm sure some of you are thinking, wait a minute, they had two practices and then they did a slow motion practice? Really? Well, I think part of the reason for that is that the first off day is Sunday and reason for that is that the first off day is Sunday and you can schedule it out to have tomorrow be a very physical and hard and complete practice and then you get the off day and then the pads start up poppin and I think that's why they worked it out to have today be kind of the slow motion. So

tomorrow, we will be looking really closely at those four wide receivers because this is interestingly giving them an opportunity to simulate what it's going to be like without Jordan Addison when he ultimately gets suspended two to three games. So if he ends up being out for three games, then some of these other guys will have had a good amount of reps with JJ McCarthy. Whereas otherwise they might not have gotten any, or maybe only a handful throughout the beginning of the season or, you know, through the training camp here, then we might have not really seen those guys getting in with JJ McCarthy for a lot of reps. And then all of a sudden Addison goes out, somebody else has to step in. So now all these guys get a legitimate competition over, I don't know how many weeks or days

it's going to be the Jefferson will be out, but at very least when you hear evaluated next week, well, that means that he's not coming back next week. So you get this practice, the start of pads all the way through next week. At the very least, that's a good place to start for these other four wide receivers. And also if anybody else wants to make a case for themselves, they will have the opportunity as well. So let's talk about the four other guys that Kevin O'Connell name dropped. Rondale Moore has really impressed me to start training camp. He looks quick.

He looks back to the full speed that we saw from him when he played the Vikings in 2021. Did he play the Vikings another time? I'm struggling to remember maybe 2020. He must have been 2022, right? I don't remember if he was in the lineup that day, but they played Arizona 2022. And I imagine that he was. So the last times that we saw him healthy on a football field, he looked like this. And it seems that his recovery has come to fruition. And I'm going to talk to him at some point this week just about that recovery where he stands and his big opportunity here with the Minnesota Vikings. But that's a veteran wide receiver who if you look at the numbers now he wasn't playing in a great passing offense. Remember Kyler Murray got the ACL tear in 2023 and 2022 they weren't quite as good as they were in 21, where it was a very good

offense. But when you look at his numbers from his very first year to his third year in the league, the thing that you see is that he was used as a real wide receiver more and more. Now that doesn't mean that he became, you know, the next Jordan Addison or Justin Jefferson, but it does mean that he's not just a trick shot artist. He's not just a corner three point shooter who can only do one thing. He is going to have a little more of a complete skillset than he's probably given any credit for based on his experience, because nobody was watching Arizona in 2023 after Kyler Murray went down, that's for sure, but he was used

as more of a complete wide receiver. So now we'll get a chance to see him take on a complete wide receiver role, because even though you want to use Rondale more as the trick shot artist, as the corner three point shooter, if Addison is out, he's going to have to do the whole route tree. He's going to have to go downfield and he can't just be underneath quick outs and things like that.

Although I saw yesterday how good he could be on a little seven yard quick out and how tough he can be to guard, but he's going to have to go downfield, he's going to have to run intermediate routes. They can't just dial up every play. If more is out there to have him get a bubble screen. So that's going to be part of his test. Now the next receiver being Ty Felton, I'm really intrigued by Ty Felton. This is a guy who is on the taller side. He's about six foot one. He is fast as heck. His long speed is absolutely

phenomenal. He can break tackles. He's got some strength. He's got some natural playmaking and ability. And it came up last night that he had some drop issues in college has not had those issues so far in training camp. The one thing that I was and remain very curious about because this is when we see pads, it's going to make a big difference is can cornerbacks get their hands on him and take him out of a play and make it a lot harder? Can he get the separation ability? Because just like what I was saying about Rondell Moore, it's not like you could just

always put Ty Felton in a bunch formation. It's not like you could always send him in motion. So he will have to quickly develop and learn how to beat people off the line of scrimmage. If he's going to take on this role and get the, the opportunities when Jefferson is out here in practice, when Addison is out in the season, and then whoever steps in, whether it's more or Felton get chances during the season as a rotational wide receiver and add that extra element. So you're looking for that best case scenario where Rondale more or tie Felton or both is a bit player for them where, you know, that I think they

thought Brandon Powell was going to be that guy a couple of years ago, kind of never really became that. And they haven't had it since they haven't had a guy who you can just toss it to him and he can get 10 yards, get 15 yards, maybe break something big. But where Felton really does have my attention is I think he's more than that. His numbers at Maryland suggest that he was a lot of catch and run, but that may have been just because Maryland JJ McCarthy was not the quarterback at Maryland.

If he was, they would have won a lot more games and Ty Felton probably would have caught more passes downfield had that been the case. So I wonder if it was a product of the offense or if it was a product of him because his downfield route running and receiving has been good so far in many camp and training camp. Now, just Sean Jones is an interesting one because last year I think I was calling it some, I, what was I calling? I had some sort of nickname for just Sean Jones every time he was catching the ball because he just was good in training camp last year and we didn't expect him to make the team because the lineup was pretty full at wide receiver, but he is not particularly big. He's not particularly fast. He isn't crazy jacked is not particularly big. He's not particularly fast.

He isn't crazy jacked or anything like that. He's not Anquan Bolden, but the guy just catches the football. Like he seems to have very, very good hands and a natural feeling for the wide receiver position. And I'm not calling him the next Adam Thielen. Okay. But it reminded me a little bit of how how when you saw Adam Thielen in practice, he would not blow your mind.

Now you were sitting there watching feeling going, Oh my gosh, I have just seen the next great NFL wide receiver walking out of practice. He just did a lot of things really well and then caught everything that came his way. And so that's been just Sean Jones. And that's why he's going to get this opportunity is because he's run the right routes, caught the football, and maybe that's what's held them back a little bit from getting more opportunity in the NFL so far is just that nothing overwhelms you when you see him kind of out of the box or off the bus, but catching the football and being in the right spot could get you pretty far in the NFL.

So he's got my attention with the fact that he was in this group because you think about this group, it's a high draft pick, it's a veteran and then lucky Jackson, a guy who's been on the practice squad, who has fought the good fight to stay around in the NFL. This guy was in the first version of the Spring League. He was in the XFL, and then he's fought his way all the way to stay on this team. And maybe this is the year that he actually ends up on the active roster, but Lucky Jackson is a guy

who is smart, he's a veteran, even though he hasn't been in games, he's been in the NFL for several years, and he's going to allow them to practice the way they need to practice. He again is not a guy who's going to light you on fire from watching him. You're not going to sit in the stands, be like, who is that? Uh, but he's going to be in the right place. And then we'll see if maybe Tim Jones works his way into there or anybody else. And if anybody else works their way into this discussion

while Jefferson is out well, you know, then that's that's big for them. Whoever it is. If it was a Silas Bolden, a miles price, Robert Lewis, whoever the other undrafted free agent, if they get in this discussion and they get first team reps, then we're really going to know to take notice of them. So there is kind of the complete breakdown of what we'll be watching for with each one of those guys over the next couple of weeks when Jefferson is out. And then it's just Jefferson health watch. When does he come back?

Can he and McCarthy get on the same page? Does he participate in the joint practices and that sort of thing. But clearly the expectation is that he is going to be ready for training camp. So just a couple other things from today I saw I wasn't standing at West Phillips because I was having a short conversation with Andrew Van Ginkle, but I did see that he gave Jordan Mason a shout out for his hands. So I felt very validated. Someone, sorry, I don't have it in front of me, sent me the DM of the, uh, posts from

our friend, Will Raggits about Jordan Mason's hands. But that's kind of all the really take away from today. Uh, I don't have a ton of other big takeaways because we just didn't see anything. So what that means is questions, comments, thoughts, feelings, takes, opinions, throw them in the comment section. And I will get to those as we also bring in the camp B roll for today. Um, but this wide receiver thing, uh, it's going to open the door for quite the competition between these guys for not only who makes the team, but who becomes a role player, who ends up playing when Jordan Addison is out. So it's almost like a simulation that they get to

have in practice. And then if there's one good thing about it, it's that Jefferson can't get hurt later in practice by giving too much, which he has had kind of a tendency to do in the past. All right, from first name, last name, says, would it be fair to say that JJ seems more in sync with Addison and Hockinson than Jefferson at this point? Seems like there have been big completions to Hockinson and Addison and big

misses to Jets. No, I would not. I would not say that. No, I would not. Uh, I think he's been a little more, at least in terms of targets throwing to Addison and Jefferson than Hockinson so far, but we're talking, uh, where's my scroll? Where's my scroll? It's cause it's still actually only been two practices. I don't count today. There's my it's only been two practices scroll. And if you want to throw mini camp out there, you know, I think he's found Addison quite a few times, but that is not something that I'm prepared to begin judging at this moment. But the catch that Jordan Addison, I'm sorry, Justin Jefferson,

the catch that Justin Jefferson got hurt on yesterday was actually a great catch and throw from JJ McCarthy. And Jefferson was being guarded by Jeff Okuda, jumped up and got it. On the first day, he ran a comeback route that was maybe 15 yard comeback route. Timing was good. McCarthy hit him as he was returning to the football.

So no, I don't think so. Is that maybe just based on the team highlight reels so far? Because there haven't been fans in the stands yet. There was only a handful yesterday, but I think that's that was like friends and family or partners or something Yesterday, but there haven't been fans in the stands yet to take fan videos and we aren't taking videos During the actual plays so I'm guessing that's just based on the highlight reel and that goes to my PSA Do not make too much of the highlight reel

They're putting it together each day and they're trying to show some big plays. And some of them have come from Addison, maybe a couple from Hockinson, but he was doing fine in playing with Justin Jefferson to this point. But the hard stuff begins soon. This first two days, they literally call it the ramp up period.

And as you can see from these warmups, it was a whole lot of ramping up today and not a whole lot of hard work in. And so yesterday was, I think, a hard practice. And the first day was very energetic as well, but where we can really, really get a sense for who's emerging, who is he leaning on, how it, just how it's going in general. I think starts a little bit tomorrow and then big time on Monday when they put the pads on.

And then the practices get really serious because it's still a little bit of the learning, a little bit of the rehashing from mini camp, starting from square one. But when the pads get on on Monday, that's where you're running full plays and you're really practicing against each other. Everybody's going all out. They're trying to get the quarterback.

They're playing physical at the cornerback position. They're throwing off the timing of the quarterback. Flores is sending crazy blitzes. That's where stuff takes that next jump forward. But no, I mean, I think he's had fine chemistry with Jefferson and Addison so far. I haven't seen any person that he kind of prefers yet. And the last year he was with the second team when it came to practice. So we didn't really get any sort of sample that way either. Next question comes from Wade. Sorry. Wade says, I wonder if Jefferson's

unique long strides on patterns leave him somewhat vulnerable to hamstring injuries. I think that is definitely possible, Wade. It's the number one thing that everybody talks about when they talk about Justin Jefferson is just how long the strides are and how difficult that makes it on cornerbacks. Cause if you think about trying to read somebody and where they're going, but if they're always looking like they're running full speed and then they could turn one way or the other at that full speed on the long stride.

Yeah. I mean, you see guys like backing off, backing off because they can't get a good read on it. You don't see too many corners trying to jump in front of Justin Jefferson when he's running his routes because he just gives away nothing because of that. But you're right. Maybe his biggest strength is a little bit of a weakness physically because he's doing that.

The other thing could just be it's random. It's football and you come back from the off season and you start going 110% like Jefferson does. I mean, he really does practice his butt off. I mean, this, this guy goes so hard and is so competitive that when he made this catch, I mean, he was roasting Jeff Okuda and going up for it wasn't, he's not jogging through these routes even if there's no pads or anything else. And it's just maybe the nature of the beasts that all wide

receivers kind of like baseball. You know how some guys like Byron Buxton, he runs so hard to first base every time you're going from zero to full speed, really, really fast time and time and time again, or maybe he just came down funny and had a mild hamstring strain and hey, if it was week 14, he would just tape it up and play now. Right. So that's kind of like what it sounds like is that this is more on the precaution side than it is the super serious side. And when we're talking about a guy who's gone five years and he's only missed time once ever, I can't say that it's some kind of pattern necessarily. Maybe just a little bit of bad luck. Uh, LDR says, uh,

LDR believers, sorry, says, I like the KOC. It treats the starters like an overprotective parent. Your leg is hurting. Don't move. Let's get you to the MRI machine. I totally agree. LDR believer. I saw it today and I had to check and make sure that it was a trustworthy beat reporter

in Detroit because what I saw confused me when I saw a tweet that said that Terry on Arnold in a tackling drill knocked the helmet off of Jameson Williams. And I was like, what a tackling drill where they're actually hitting each other enough to knock the helmet off of somebody. It's only been a couple of days and maybe I think they started camp a couple days earlier. So I assume it was their first day in pads. That was my friend Nolan Bianchi who's been on the show, but what you're having your corners slam into your 170 pound wide receiver. Who's kind of a Ferrari on the first day of pads, man Campbell, what are we doing here? And I think the results have really spoken for themselves when it comes to

Kevin O'Connell and this team's record of health overall. The record of health has been very good for the Minnesota Vikings. Over the last couple of years, I have always agreed that his methods are right when it comes to keeping these players safer and having a ramp up. And look, I would have loved to have had this full practice that was physical and all sorts of takeaways to come home to and told you guys, oh man, what a practice it was today. And we'll get there. We'll get there. But if this is the right way to do it for what their sports science and sports health people say, and I'd rather everybody gets to see Justin Jefferson at practice as fast as possible. But again, if this is the right way to go about it, then do it. You're

absolutely right. Take your star players. I mean, last year, I don't know how many reps last year. Aaron Jones got at all in training camp. It might've been, you know, full pad, 11 on 11 might've been a dozen, 20. It wasn't many. And Aaron Jones came out and averaged five yards of carry over the first eight weeks when he had Christian Dersaw in there. These guys who have been around the league for long enough, they just don't need a lot of this. And if you remember, I mean, 20 was a 2011 where there was no training camp at all and the league survived. It was fine because a lot of these players, they could play tomorrow if they absolutely needed to with how they deal with their bodies. They've got gurus, they've got trainers, all this stuff, they're ready to go. It's not like the old days where

you were coming to training camp just to start learning how to get ready to play football. So if Justin Jefferson doesn't take another practice until two weeks before the season, I'm pretty confident that he'll be fine, especially since we've seen it before. Kevin O'Connell's right. Tyler Williams, their trainer, he's right. They know what they're doing when it comes to the health thing. And I think it's a lot smarter than how physical and how much Mike Zimmer used to push guys back on the field. I think that that caused over the years some longer term problems for

certain guys because they would push them back early. And Zimmer would get really frustrated with the whole can't make the club in the tub and that kind of thing and every coach wants his guys on the field. But when you've got time here, then do it. Yes. Treat your star players that way. Uh, K P F A U is that foul 77, uh, says, are there deep ball concerns with JJ McCarthy? When it comes to everything regarding JJ McCarthy, being QB one, week one against the Chicago Bears,

everything is a concern. We don't know anything yet about what he's going to look like as an actual starting quarterback in the NFL. So I can only speak to what I've seen in practice. I can't try to guess with 100% certainty when he plays against the Chicago Bears, he's gonna hit every deep ball or he's not gonna overthrow anyone. So far over last year's camp and into this year's camp, I've seen an enormous, enormous improvement on JJ McCarthy throwing the deep ball. Now that doesn't mean he's not going to overthrow them,

but we are going to overanalyze this and I am part of the problem, of course, doing a live show every night. Kirk Cousins overthrew people. He was a great deep ball thrower. It happens. It's hard to throw the ball 50 yards down the field. But where McCarthy has improved, I think the most is within his touch on the football, his general feeling for how deep the ball is going and knowing that he doesn't have to throw a hundred miles an hour every single time that he is big enough and strong enough to just flick the wrist and that ball will get downfield and it will have the proper amount of juice. My guess is that when he was first growing up maybe he wasn't the biggest guy and that he

learned to put every ounce of his body into it and that he was throwing fastballs every single time that he touched the football and he's had to develop that and it's still going to be a work in progress. I can't guarantee you that he's going to be an elite deep passer right out of the gate, but I can say that what I see consistently on a daily basis and over a longer period of time is just improvement when it comes to that. It is a little bit of the downside here of missing Justin Jefferson though, because that deep ball that does take chemistry.

It does take timing and it's not just go balls. Justin Jefferson doesn't get a lot of go balls because a lot of teams don't let him just line up on the outside and run straight down the sideline. A lot of his deep shots have to do with timing and have to do with identifying where the safety goes, who bites on the play. Cause a lot of times the, if you were to distill the most general philosophy of Kevin O'Connell, it's drawing a defender in one place and then sticking just Jefferson behind it or confusing one defender with another route that is underneath or crossing. And just the Jefferson runs by and gets open.

That's really what they do. That's why we talk about dagger sometimes. And if you think about the concept of dagger, what it is, it's exactly what a dagger looks like. It's one guy running straight up the field and another guy cutting inside. Often it's Jefferson cutting inside. So the biggest piece in terms of the timing is going to be hitting him out of his breaks and releasing the ball as he sees the read, but throwing

it out in front of Jefferson to let him go get it and then knowing when to toss it up and these are things that can kind of only really happen in the games. It's the only part where it really does hurt them here in practice. And Sam Darnold started to get it with Jefferson late last year in training camp, that could be a potential issue out of the gate. Um, but at the same time, we're talking about Justin Jefferson here. So, you know, I kind of go back and forth. Like this is the, uh, somebody asked earlier for a don't panic. Uh, did I make that? Yes, I did. There you go. Don't

panic scroll, don't panic. And then I put in parentheses yet because I'm covering the Minnesota Vikings and, uh, you know, you never really know what could happen. But, um, as far as the deep ball goes with everything, we're going to have to see it. I think it's gotten a lot better. And this is why, when I talk about JJ McCarthy, having seen a lot of these practices and the growth, and then I listened to national TV shows, sometimes talking about McCarthy as if it's the same guy who was in Michigan. Like he's had a lot of reps to improve things like that, but that's a thing that can only really come when you're actually playing. Uh, Aaron says, saw some clips of kick return with miles price and he was in one of them.

Uh, yep. Miles price has been a part of this since the beginning. He is the guy that came from Indiana as an undrafted free agent and is in the mix in the conversation for punt returner or kick returner. And Silas Bolden is the one you guys heard probably more about because he's a fun player and he's really undersized and everybody roots for that guy as they should. But Miles Price is just as much in the mix for that conversation.

If he can make something happen and that's what it's really going to come down to with the part returning is who can make something happen in preseason games in practice. They're only going to be able to figure out in practice if a guy can actually catch the ball, but can he catch and run with it? Can he make plays? Is he really reliable? You get, you have to show it when you get to the preseason game. So I think guys like Bolden and price because you don't want Isaiah Rogers back there. At least I don't think that's a great idea. I don't think it's a great idea to have Jalen Naylor back there. If Jordan Addison suspended three games, I don't think it's a good idea. I don't think it's a good idea at all to have a wide receiver three

back there unless the guy's main thing is part returning. Uh, this might keep a Rondale more from getting as many opportunities now that he's going to have to step into this other role. So if you're one of the undrafted free agents, so you got a chance to be that guy when it comes to the kick or or punt returning. Hamza says I know you were very skeptical about Caleb. I assume you mean Caleb Williams and his overall intangibles the quarterback and some reports are coming out of Bears camp.

He has been very bad. Apparently he is playing awful. I was when he was coming out in the draft because the thing is that I have a good amount of experience watching pro quarterbacks really up close, right? And Kirk cousins, uh, was frustrating at times and was great at times and won a lot and lost a lot and all those things. And we criticized him and praised him and all the things through the years. But one thing about Kirk Cousins was he was a true NFL quality, very, very good starting quarterback who went through a lot of ups and downs in his career and had to battle through every single one of them. I had to battle through his wide receiver, uh, not showing up to practice and then saying there was truth to all rumors, you know, his head coach firing his office

of coordinator and his head coach being kind of against them at times and blaming him for his contract and you know, the, the things that went on there and he had bad games and then would come back with great games. And so I, I saw really up close there with Kirk cousins from week to week, how much you deal with in the NFL. And it concerned me that Caleb Williams struggled with that in college, which is really not, I mean, you really shouldn't not at USC. You shouldn't be having major issues with the emotional rollercoaster in college because

it's so much tougher in the NFL. So much tougher. And you have all these players whose careers are on the line that you're carrying the load. And then you talk about the media attention. There's people talk about college football. It's popular. Talk about the NFL. Everybody There's people talk about college football. It's popular. Talk about the NFL. Everybody is watching the NFL.

Every network is NFL wall to wall for what? Six months, seven months. And if you're struggling, they are going to beat you down. So yeah, I, I do think that the pressure on Caleb Williams could be problematic, uh, continuing under his new coach. I don't know if you could snap your fingers and then change something like that about someone. But I think more than anything, the biggest issue with Caleb Williams that concerned me when he was the number

one overall draft pick consensus, I thought people ignored how much he struggled to play on time and to see the field. And this is what tying this back into JJ McCarthy. When we watched McCarthy coming out, the concern of course was it, does he have a cheat code physical tool where he's going to be able to just make something happen like the Josh Allen, like the Lamar Jackson. It doesn't have to be with the legs, but the playmaking,

the freakishness, like, does he have that tool in the bag? Uh, and you wondered why they mostly focused on the run and he had certain games where he barely threw the football. And you've said like, is this really, can I really see enough here to make a determination? And actually, you know, quasi-da-file Mensa came on the show. And I mentioned that to him. I said, the struggle for me with McCarthy is I just didn't have a sample size. I had five years, six years of Bo Nicks and Michael Pennex, but I just, you know, had two seasons that equated to essentially one season worth of passes

for McCarthy, but the thing that I never questioned with JJ McCarthy that I thought was his biggest asset is the guy can see the field really well, uh, that he plays on time. Even when he practices, it's not perfect yet, but it's on time. The ball comes out and there were plays in that preseason game where guys are coming on crossing routes. There's a lot of mud in front of them and he trusted it. There was a play where someone's running a crossing route. I forget, maybe Trent Scherfield or somebody is running a crossing

route and the pocket gets muddy and he has to find him and lead him out in front kind of over the middle, but leading him toward the sideline on his left side and he does a really good job of it. And I think if you drop your eyes under pressure or muddy pocket, you don't see that guy. And I thought it was very telling for McCarthy that he can see the field. Whereas Caleb Williams, every time anything broke down, he dropped his eyes. He tried to scramble around. And if Ben Johnson is

hammering home, playing on time, getting the football out, it's just, it might not be truly his thing or in the long run. It might end up working out better for him because Ben Johnson is really going to hit home on that. Think about where he came from. Why is Jared golf good because he plays on time and that's that's my thing about sometimes. I think I've probably made a little bit of a golf and McCarthy comparison.

McCarthy's a better athlete, faster can throw on the run better than Jared golf, but what Jared golf does playing within the system, getting the ball out at the right time. It's enormous. It's the reason why his offenses are constantly the top of the league. I think this about Dak Prescott too, is that what we all want to do with quarterback discussion is either say this guy's horrible or this guy's the goat and there's nothing in between. It's I rank him dead last and he's the worst or I rank him number one and he's the best and let's fight about it for 30 years. But the nuances to

it I think are can you see the field? Can you play on time? And it's the decisions you make. So let me, you've sent me really down a rabbit hole, but just let me complete the thought because I was talking to someone the other day. In the league, in the national football league, not with the Vikings, just about, you know, whatever ball. And, uh, we were talking about basketball,

making comparisons with basketball to the NFL and quarterbacks. And one of the things I think is underrated about shooting percentage in basketball is the decisions you make with the ball. When to shoot, right? And if you are a really good decision maker for when to shoot the basketball, you're going to have a higher shooting percentage than someone who takes bad shots. And I think the same thing with quarterbacks, Brock Purdy and Jared Goff are not freaks who just run around and make the

craziest place, but they play on time and it works. And with JJ McCarthy, he doesn't have Caleb Williams physical tools. He absolutely does not. If he did, he would have been the number one pick easily. But if you can't play on time and you want to freelance everything, you end up as Justin Fields and you end up just getting sacked a lot and not really being a top-notch starting quarterback. So that will be really interesting to watch play out. I think it's one of the biggest storylines in the entire NFL is how Ben Johnson coaches

Caleb Williams through this camp because they're either going to get to the end of camp and Caleb Williams is going to be like, I'm good now, or they're going to get to the end of camp and Caleb Williams is going to be frustrated and his coach is going to be frustrated and they're gonna be a little bit at odds and you're gonna go into the season with some drama right off the bat and there you are the Minnesota Vikings are the first team you face so but it is very very interesting and don't worry Courtney Cronin from ESPN who covers the Bears will be on the show before week one I shot you 99 says speaking uh, speaking of injuries, is there any positions on this team that would concern you if one starter or even two are out for any

amount of time, Jefferson being out now is already triggering panic.