Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Vikings camp recap: Joint practices, Day 1 (Part 1)

Episode Date: August 14, 2025

Matthew Coller talks about the first joint practice between the Vikings and Patriots and how JJ McCarthy performed vs. the New England defense. The Purple Insider podcast is brought to you by FanDuel.

Hey, everybody, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider, Matthew Collar here. And I am back from Minnesota Vikings joint practices, the first of two days of joint practices with the Vikings and the New England Patriots. And I got to tell you, it was a beautiful day for football. That was the number one takeaway for today. I'm going to get to all the different things that we saw from J.J. McCarthy, from the offensive line, the weapons, the receivers, but I'm going to tell you the truth. Little PSA here at the beginning, or I'm just going to admit to you that I only have one pair of eyes and I can only be in one spot for the entire practice. So I watched J.J. McCarthy. I watched every drop back. I watched every throw, every scramble, every handoff. But I was not on the other field. watching the Patriots offense versus the Vikings defense. I asked around after practice, and I read some other reports of what other reporters

said, but can't be in two places at one time. So I was watching all of J.J. McCarthy, all of the offense, and that's where most of my focus is going to be. And of course, I mean, a major part of that, too, is I think that we feel pretty good about where the Minnesota Vikings defense is at. And one funny moment about the defense, so I was standing there watching the offense, and And then Chad Graff, who used to cover the Vikings and now covers the Patriots, he came over, said, how's it going over here? And I said, how's it going over there?

And he said, you know, that rookie Will Campbell, he is getting demolished by Jonathan Grenard. I said, welcome to Vikings camp. So it sounds like the Vikings defensive line gave the Patriots a pretty tough time on the offensive side. But otherwise, it sounds like also that Drake May had some really impressive plays, I would expect no less. you want the J.J. McCarthy breakdown. That's what I am here to give you. So I'm going to take you through the entire practice, go through a little bit of sound, talk with T.J. Hawkinson in a scrum after practice and a couple other players that I can talk about as well. Who stood out? Who looked good? What were the ups and downs of practice? I'm going to dive right

into it, get all the way through it. And then we've got some KOC. We've got some Hawkinson. And yes, I took some video out there as well of actually, some of the good stuff with receivers running one-on-ones versus cornerbacks, always pretty fun to see. So here's how the practice began. The Vikings got out there with the offense versus the Patriots defense in a seven-on-seven situation. And I thought that J.J. McCarthy, through his first six passes, looked the best that he has looked all summer long through his first six passes. He had, and I saw the Vikings tweeted this out so you can go look at it if you want to. He had a beautiful timing throw to Jordan Addison, who in my mind was

one of the bigger winners of today, him and T.J. Hawkinson both had great days. But he starts right out with a seven on seven throw, drops back, lets it go. It's got touch on the football as Addison's breaking out. Addison smokes his guy, perfect catch along the sideline and kind of looking around like, okay, J.J. McCarthy is cooking. And he hit a couple of different downfield passes, not 50 yards downfield, but more like 10, 20 yards downfield in that intermediate area and even had something that stuck out a little bit, a tight window throw to J. Sean Jones. Again, if you're not familiar with J. Sean Jones, the undrafted free agent from Maryland last year started to work in a little bit the other day into the first team and then

was out there for a handful of reps. Still lucky Jackson getting more of those reps. But Jashon Jones, maybe has shown the coaches something with Rondell Moore out. It seems like he has moved up into the wide receiver four if Addison is one because Justin Jefferson was not practicing. So let's get that out of the way to Jefferson. I didn't expect him to practice after the fact that he didn't practice the other day when they were preparing for this. So no Jefferson.

So that means Addison is number one. Naylor's number two, Lucky Jackson three. And it seems Jayshon Jones is the number four wide receiver. and he's a guy that has impressed at times going back to last year. So there was a nice, tight window throw to J. Sean Jones. After the touch pass to Addison, I noticed that McCown came over, gave him a slap on the helmet, like great throw. So he starts out really well.

And then the seventh pass. So he goes six for six, bang, bang, bang. Like, whoa, okay, he's on fire right off the start. And the seventh pass was very emblematic of what J.J. McCarthy's training camp, has been so far, which was he dropped back. He got to his first read, went to his second read. He identified Jalen Naylor streaking across the middle of the field wide open. And I think he tried to put it over a linebacker and it went over everyone and ended up as

an interception. And this is the process with J.J. McCarthy. And I wrote about it today over at purple insider dot football. I had a long conversation with Kurt Warner about layering the football. and I think with J.J. McCarthy, the accuracy part, the consistency on the touch of the football. It's been sometimes awesome and sometimes, whoa, that ball flew way where it was not supposed to. And you could almost see him trying to slow down a little bit as he was going to throw it. Like, I got to put this touch on it just right.

And we over the top and ends up as an interception. So that kind of took the wind out of the sale. a little bit for J.J. McCarthy, but as the practice went along, of course, they got into the 11 on 11s. We did see Thayer Thomas and Ty Felton mix in a little bit, not a lot, but every once in a while for a couple of reps. And he got going in 11 on 11s pretty well. I will say that the Patriots defensive line is really good. It's, I think it's going to win them some games this year because they were in the back field a lot and they were causing a lot of pressure. Now, of course, your next question is, should we be concerned about the Vikings offensive line?

And my answer is I'm not sure yet because in Cleveland, it kind of went the same way last year because Cleveland had a great D line in the joint practices in Tennessee a couple years ago or against Tennessee. It went the same way. San Francisco, it went the same way. So I wonder if with these joint practices a lot of times the defenses are ahead. when it comes to the defensive lines. I'm not sure exactly why,

but maybe when it comes to picking up some of the pressures or they're not game planning for these guys, that could be another part of it. Like Christian Derisaw said after practice, hey, I mean, I'm not really preparing for the guy that I'm going to face. So I'm kind of just trying to out there figure it out on the fly. That's quite a bit different from when he plays whoever it is this year, where he'll be scouting and studying and all the different details.

So that might be a little part of it. but they were they were causing a lot of pressure i think it's also because they're good uh causing a decent amount of pressure but i thought that mccarthy handled it mostly very well today uh he found jordan mason a couple of times mason made a really good catch coming across the middle where the throw was a little bit behind him and also seemed to go to t j hawkinson a lot so the second 11 on 11s where they're doing like a second down in 10 type of drill he found t j hawkinson on a really nice pass on that one, kind of over the middle. And they also had what I thought was the play of the day today from anybody. And that was coming from Donovan Jackson. This was the one time

where the offense got super pumped. Everybody was jumping around, high-fiving. So something that we've talked about a lot on the show as a frustration of mine over the last couple of years is the screen game. And a major part, I believe, of the Vikings screen game struggles. has been the fact that they just haven't had offensive linemen to get out there and be an impact player on the screen. I mean, we saw last year, Ed Ingram missed a couple of blocks. Reisner is not a guy who could get out there. Brandel is not a guy who could get out there. So now with Donovan Jackson, we got to see the full, whoa, this guy is a first round pick on this screenplay. So they ran a screen. It was actually to the right side to Aaron Jones.

And Donovan Jackson, I think was coming from the left side and then, like, pulling on the screen. I think that's what happened. It happened very fast. So he's coming out. And all of a sudden, Donovan Jackson just puts his head down and books it. And Aaron Jones kind of slows up a little to give him some space. And he just like a bowling ball hitting bowling pins demolished two New England Patriots defensive backs. I mean, just comical like something out of a cartoon.

bam, bam, just knocked two guys on their behinds. And they're looking around like, what just hit me, what just hit you was Donovan Jackson. And after when we talked to T.J. Hawkinson, it was the first thing he was talking about was, man, that got us all pumped up. And then we had a very successful couple of plays there. And Jackson said, you know, it's not used to running like 40 yards, then coming back and running a bunch of plays. But I think that this play was a good indicator of what their deep, or, what? what their screen game can be. And especially against the defense that has a lot of talent here,

but having that mobility and that amount of athletic talent of Donovan Jackson, that can make a true impact in a screen game. So that, I mean, I think that was one of the plays the day, hands down. And Christian Derris, I was talking about it after. I mean, everybody enjoyed that one. And, you know, they came back. And right after that, J.J. McCarthy hit a 15-yard pass to Jalen Naylor. I think that his chemistry with his receivers was on display today, where it was a number of

completions to Hawkinson. Now, if you're asking me for what the stats were for today, I was trying to keep track. I'm not always super confident in my completion percentages. I don't want to get it wrong, but I had about a 70% completion percentage, and he threw somewhere in the range of 30 passes. So he was throwing a lot today and had a lot of completions for sure. So, you know, when it came to getting back, you know, into the swing of things after the screenplay, he hits another pass to Jalen Naylor, had a couple to him today. Naylor did drop one across the middle that was a little on the low side, but largely an accurate day for J.J. McCarthy, but where I felt like he was at his absolute best was in

the two-minute drill. And this is where McCarthy really stood out to me last year, was when he got an opportunity to run the two minute drill, he seems to take an extra level of dialed in, focused, command, whatever it might be. This, I think, is one of his best assets as a quarterback is when they pull out that two minute drill, when it's time to go, nobody's questioning where they're supposed to be lined up, what the cadence is, what the snap count is, and McCarthy's in total control. So McCarthy in this two minute drill, steps up, hits a throw to Naylor, rips one to Addison, finds Hawkinson, like, they're moving. And then later on in the drive, he has to scramble, gets about 10 yards, and the scrambling is

just becoming a thing that he's doing really well. And if you think about it in the regular season, would you rather have him take a risk or push it downfield or just use his legs? And you saw it in the preseason game, fourth and four, they get some rush. It's going to happen. takes off and makes a play. But now it almost feels like since Kevin O'Connell talked to him after one bad attempt to Aaron Jones in the middle of training camp, they had a conversation about this.

I think O'Connell was saying to him, and this is a guess, I've sort of paraphrasing a little bit, but if it's not there, just go. Like, make sure we get yards. Make sure we keep the drive on track. So he did that. And then they had what was, you know, a simulated, obviously fourth down. and he hit a 15, 10, 15 yard pass to Jordan Addison that set them up for a field goal. Like the situation was they're down by three and you got to drive down and get at least a field goal.

So he hits on a fourth down, completes it to Addison, who again just had a phenomenal day. Jordan Addison took over the role today of Justin Jefferson, just smoking the New England Patriots secondary. I thought he was terrific. But this drive, having it hit some stumbling blocks, I think there was a penalty mixed in and then to complete a pass on fourth down and get that conversion and set it up. That's the stuff that you're looking for for J.J. McCarthy. And the way that Kevin O'Connell's framed it, I'll play it a little later, is kind of these checkpoints.

And this was a bit of a checkpoint just for me of, all right, it's the joint practice. This is what we've talked about this whole time. and the biggest part of these joint practices is the two minute drill and the situational stuff. And Mike Vrable mentioned to us today that tomorrow is the reds of the vaunted red zone where McCarthy has had a lot of his struggles in training camp. But this was a major checkbox for me of it wasn't the most flawless two minute drive I've ever seen. There was some mistakes mixed in.

But McCarthy ends up getting the job done with a conversion to Jordan Addison. and it seems to me like he's really finding the number one wide receiver, which ultimately will be Justin Jefferson. I would expect that it's going to be, you know, Justin Jefferson starting next week is when he'll probably get back based on what's going on. That would at least be my guess. So I thought it was a great drive on the two-minute drill later. They had, I think, one more 11 on 11s after that.

And nothing really stood out. except for he has had a couple plays where he's doing different stuff with his arm angle. Now, there was only maybe one today, but he had a conversion where I think you're just seeing the pocket presence of J.J. McCarthy. And again, like the reasons that he was drafted are on a lot of things that are not just height and how far you could throw the football related. Getting rid of the football on time went okay today, if not, if not decent. Pocket presence, he was under a lot of pressure.

He did not seem rattled by that pressure. I think I had him sacked maybe two times. There was one or two throws in seven on sevens that came out a little slower than you would like to or he had to scramble and throw away. But it was way more good than bad today for J.J. McCarthy. And this is also adjusting for over the years, what we've seen from joint practices. And it's never, I haven't seen any quarterback in a joint practice, just complete every single pass, look flawless, not make any mistake.

like they're still growing in this offense, but I thought it was a good day. And I walked around and I asked different people, including a friend of mine, Doug, Doug Kide, who works for the Boston Globe, he was standing next to me. I kind of asked him, what do you think? Dame is it tonny, you know, just other people saying, like, what do you think of McCarthy's day? And most of the reviews were B or B plus. And that's where I would go to. I would lean toward B plus because he had a nice throw that was off balance that he made a

play. He converted on the situational drill. There was maybe a little debate on a deep ball that he had, whether it was underthrown or not, but he had a deep ball where he gave Jordan Addison a chance to make a play by throwing it 40, 50 yards in the air. And he was right there in range that he probably would have caught it if it wasn't knocked away by the defender. I don't think it was flawless. I also don't think 50 yard balls that you're asking the receiver to track it and go get it. I don't think that they have to be perfect and JJ probably won't be. But the intermediate passing game, getting rid of the football, not taking a ton of sacks today, dealing with the pressure, scrambling a little, making some plays out of structure, not too many, but one or two. Overall, a very solid day, in my

opinion, for J.J. McCarthy. So I'll be interested to see what other people thought of it that, you know, write up every practice like I do and analyze every practice like I do. I'll be very interested to see. But that was my takeaway. I thought there were some moments where they're going to say, all right, they've got to figure out how to deal with this blitz or this pressure as an offensive line. I also think the line is really coming together, but it's only in the early process. Like Christian Derisaw got beat on a play, but I mean, come on. He's practicing for basically the first time against somebody else. That was another huge note. So let me go through my other notes today. Number one is that Derisaw was out there quite a bit.

And the steps just keep going forward one at a time for Christian Derisaw, where he got out there 11 on 11s before the start of August. That was big. He's been mixing in. He's been improving in terms of his health. And then to actually practice against another team on August 13th, like that's really good news for the Vikings. Still, I'm not going to say that I'm going to guarantee this, that, or the other thing.

When it comes to Derisaw, first week, second week. week, whatever it might be. But I will say it's big for him to be back in these practices. My thought was if that he didn't participate in these practices, then week one was off the table. At least this keeps week one on the table. And we had a conversation with Darisaw after. And he's not trying to make any promises about his recovery, but he was very, very positive about getting back out there today. So that was nice to hear from him because they need him. And he's just a really nice human being. So, you know, his getting a chance to talk to him about his recovery and him, you know,

having a big smile on his face. Like, uh, that's, that's a good vibe for this team for one of their most important players. We did not see, uh, Andrew Van Ginkle or Harrison Smith or C.J. Ham today. So clearly they didn't use, uh, any of the fullback types of personnel groupings. I did notice, though, a lot of two tight end. And that's my expectation, uh, to the point where you guys are starting to make fun of me for talking about Josh Oliver. Well, guess what? I got an article on the way, too, about Josh Oliver that I'm working on maybe for Monday. But, you know, they were using that a lot. And Lucky

Jackson mixing in, he got the most snaps. And that looks like that's the order of things right now is that their base unit with the two tight ends is probably going to be what they use the most in the first couple weeks. And then Lucky Jackson, there is a maybe a new option on the table that people are starting to talk about for wide receiver, but we haven't seen signs that they're going out to get somebody else as of this moment at the wide receiver position. And I'll bring you Kevin O'Connell's thought on that in a moment. Donovan Jackson looked to me like I would call it a competitive day from Donovan Jackson. I tried to focus in on Donovan Jackson on a number of plays. Now, my eyes, again, I've only got two of them and I can't split them. There are people who

can do that, but I'm not one of them. So mostly I'm watching McCarthy. And when someone arrives at McCarthy, I'm trying to reverse engineer who it might have been or how they got there, which is why it's hard to analyze offensive line play from the sideline. But I tried to focus in. And again, this is a good D-line. I noticed Kaira Tanga a lot out there, former Viking. And I thought Jackson, even on some reps where he was facing somebody pretty good or there was a little bit of an edge on him, I thought he did a really good job of battling. I thought they looked good in the run game. They broke out a couple of runs solidly.

And then, you know, the screenplay as well. Talk about confidence building days for Donovan Jackson. I thought this was one of them. And when we talked to him after, he had a big smile on his face also. You know, I thought the offensive guys, really the body language after practice was it seemed like they felt like things went pretty good to them. And Donovan Jackson seemed happy with his performance. it looked to me like he was battling pretty well, even if the overall,

the Patriots did create a good amount of pressure against the Vikings today. So Donovan Jackson, I think he needed to step forward after maybe a little bit of a rocky preseason debut. And we're all trying to figure out kind of where he's at. But Christian Derrissau was saying, like it's really hard to make that transition

from college to the NFL and his confidence is growing. And I think I saw that today with, Donovan Jackson. Another thing that was kind of interesting to me, Kevin Sefer tweeted, and I took note of this, but I didn't count them, that there was somewhere in the ballpark of 10 flags against the Patriots. I wonder if part of the conversation with KOC and the Patriots was like, be physical, be physical against these wide receivers because Naylor and Addison and Lucky Jackson are not exactly

Kelvin Johnson when it comes to their size. So you want to see them be able to fight through the content. also Carlton Davis is a really physical corner he is enormous he was standing kind of closest to me on the sideline I was like oh my gosh that guy is huge so there was a lot of grabbing a lot of physical play and I thought the receivers did a good job of fighting through it and also McCarthy staying on time with those wide receivers I know that you all want to know how did Will Reicherd look well let me tell you will Reichard looked really really good kicked the ball great. He went four for four and he also made that other one in the two minute

drill. So technically I think it was five for five for Will Riker back on track. He had that one bad practice and maybe that was because he was thrown off because someone else was holding or the wind or whatever it might have been. But since that one bad practice, Will Riker has not missed in any practice or in the preseason game. He's back on track, folks. I was making sure that I was keeping track of the kicking. And as far as Sam Howl and the second team, uh, I guess I would describe it as okay. It was okay. Uh, they failed on the two minute drive, didn't succeed. He had a throw that was a little low and a little behind. I would not walk away saying, wow, Sam Howell, it's all resolved. But he had a number of completions as well throughout the day. And I think that

he's settled into looking like a backup quarterback. Previously, I would have said he looks like a UFL quarterback at the beginning of the summer. But now he's looked much more like I'd expect from QB2. And this practice was reflective of that. And our absolute must, the Max Brosmer throw of the day. Max Brosmer just continues to do it out there, guys. He, for the second straight practice, delivered on a deep bomb 40, 50 yards down the field to Tim Jones, special teamer, third team wide receiver.

but Brosmer got a couple of reps in there and it may have even been more than Brett Rip and I didn't I didn't rep count with Max Brosmer or maybe it was about the same but drop back they picked up a pressure he let it loose and dropped it right in the bucket over the shoulder of Tim Jones and so you know Max Brosmer just continues to have some really really good practices and he did again today even though a small sample and the preseason game will be a much better indicator for him on Saturday. the fact that he's even getting a couple of reps in a joint practice like this, I think that we're all kind of seeing the same thing with Max Brosmer.

So there is your kind of complete update on what happened on the offensive side. We will definitely talk to Dane Mizatani tomorrow. We'll see, you know, his takes and we'll get a little bit, let it maybe a little bit more look at the defense tomorrow. But I really, really want to see the red zone stuff, the two minute stuff from J.J. McCarthy because anything that happens here, and one of the guys that I wanted to see was not practicing today. That was Levi Drake Rodriguez. Anything I wanted to see was really based on maybe the secondary, the corners. How does Isaiah Rogers look? But I don't feel like I need to know a ton

about the Vikings defense. I mean, normally in the past, in these joint practices, what I've been doing is I'll kind of go from one to the other. But that was because I felt really good. about what Sam Darnold was at that point. I felt pretty good about what Kirk Cousins was and just knew who he was as a quarterback. So I had much more mobility around the practice. But in a situation such as this, I felt much more compelled to watch J.J. McCarthy every rep. So just from what I heard, it sounded like the Vikings defensive line was doing the same stuff that they've been doing all summer long, which is just getting after it. So let me get you a couple of soundbites here. from Kevin O'Connell.

So the news yesterday was that Brian Osamah was cut and Ron Dale Moore was placed on injured reserve. And so Kevin O'Connell talked about the wide receiver and part returner situation now with Ron Dale Moore on injured reserve. So here's O'Connell. Where are you at with receiver depth in the part return spot right now? Yeah, we're going to. So anyway, what Kevin O'Connell was saying.

was just that you know there's a real competition there with those wide receivers and that it's open the door is open and it's going to matter a lot to the decision of what they're going to do and this is paraphrasing kevin o'connell with what happens going forward into the preseason game and even maybe into the third preseason game so it feels like what the vikings are doing here is what they have often done with the wide receiver spot. It's that they are leaving the door open for somebody to come up and win the job. Like that's what they're looking to do is just somebody, hey, somebody come get it. Somebody come win the job.

And then they'll give it to them. And if not, if they don't feel comfortable with Lucky Jackson, with Jayshon Jones, with Thayer Thomas, if they need to use him, if they don't feel comfortable with that situation, then maybe they will look elsewhere. And I'll throw out one idea that was bounced around today at practice, which is just Odell Beckham Jr. It sounded like from some couple of social media posts that maybe the Steelers as they continue to try to build the oldest team in football. But, you know, we will see on that. I don't think the Vikings would be interested in Odell Beckham. But once upon a time, Kevin O'Connell earned himself a Super Bowl.

bowl ring with Odell Beckham at wide receiver. So yeah, D.B, I agree. Just get somebody who can make a fair catch. Uh, that's probably a good idea. So, uh, let's get to, uh, let's get to the fan dual question of the day. And then we will get to your questions about today's joint practice and whatever else is on your mind, Vikings related. So, uh, fan dual question of the day. This might be a little bit of a funny one. But I noticed this and I, and I, and I laughed out loud a little bit, which is that the Vikings are plus 1,500 to kick a field goal in every regular season game. I don't think that's very possible.

Has that ever happened before? I would have to look that up, but it was one of those funny bets that you can make, plus 1,500 to make a field goal in every game. So let me spin this to a Vikings question, which is your confidence from 1 to 10 that Will Riker will be a good kicker for the Vikings this year. confidence from one to ten i doubt he's going to kick a field goal every single game but what is your confidence level in him now that i've told you that he is recovered from any sort of issue that happened a couple of practices ago and he is back to making 100% of his practice kicks so

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IDEEO is offering my listeners 15% offsite wide. Go to IDEO.com slash Purple Insider. That's IDEO.com slash Purple Insider for 15% off. So let's get into your questions. Let's see. Well, the first question is, how did it go today? And I think there's, a longer breakdown about that. Will says, seems like McCarthy's errors seem to be stemming from accuracy rather than making the right reads, in your opinion, which one is harder to coach up. I would mostly agree with that. I don't know the reads, though. That's the only reason that I can't 100% confidently agree with that is that, you know, I, they don't tell me before the play where the football was supposed to go. But based on what I'm seeing, I think that

the ball comes out quickly. I think it comes out on time pretty well. And I think that he's usually throwing it to receivers who are breaking open that what I don't see a lot of is J.J. McCarthy throwing the ball to wide receivers that are covered or, you know, when we talk about tight window throws, it's like, uh, you know, those are great and those make highlight reels, but tight window throws also means that there was a guy covering your wide receiver. And sometimes it's necessary. But if you're doing it all the time, that's not great for you. That's usually you want to be finding the guys that are open because the plays are designed to get guys open. As far as the throwing accuracy, I think the only way to improve that is just by throwing. I think there just has

to be more throws, more in game stuff. And I think I've said this probably for a few weeks now. And maybe it's going to resonate with, you know, another practice today is just that there are going to be times during the season where J.J. McCarthy misses a throw that he should make. And where he needs to make up for that is scrambling. He needs to move on to the next play. He needs to not lose confidence, which I haven't seen him do at any point. And he needs to just get, move on and get over it. Because every once in a while, a while this year, that's going to happen. You're going to see j j mccarthy drop back and throw it over somebody and you're going to go oh no he missed the wide open receiver and it's going to happen because he is not flawless in terms of his accuracy

at this moment and it might happen and i know because the the next natural comment is always well everybody overthrow yeah yeah i know i know but i think it's going to happen a little bit more than it would happen to more experienced quarterbacks think about josh allen early in his career as he was mastering his accuracy now i think that McCarthy's more accurate than Alan was coming out, but it wasn't perfect. And there were some balls that were offline and he found ways to get his team to the playoffs and to win games because he understood the offense. He made plays with his legs. He handled situations properly. He threw to the right receivers. And then the accuracy came along a little later, but they were able to win games. So I think that

it's something you can work with and work around and improve as the year goes along. But I also don't think that you go from being an inexperienced passer overall to all of the sudden, wow, you're Drew Breeze. Like it just doesn't work like that. He needs hundreds of more passes to get some of these down and not have the airmail interception that happened today. So, you know, it's just, it's something that's going to need work. But throwing to the right place, like think about Brock Purdy or Jared Gough and how

neither one of them, I don't think either one, is the most pinnesty. point passer that I've ever seen, but they make a lot of really good decisions. And if you throw a little behind Jordan Addison, he can catch it. If you throw a little over Justin Jefferson, he can catch it. It's just do these mistakes hurt them as in like remember, I don't know why this popped into my mind, but remember with Justin Herbert where early in Herbert's career, you know, one of the biggest criticisms of him coming out was, yeah, the guy's got a huge arm, but just sort of throws everything line drive and doesn't really have the touch figured out yet he certainly does now at this point in his career but he didn't coming into the league and they get to

the playoffs in what maybe his second year and he overthrows somebody in the back of the end zone and they don't score and they end up blowing the game and you know right and a lot of people that are talking about it with herbert and there may be situations like that where you miss on a throw and it's going to be costly and someone else has to pick you up that's going to happen early in j j j mccarthy's career. I think after seeing enough of these practices, we can guarantee that that's going to pop up. It's just, can you overcome that? Can you bounce back? Can you get someone to run the ball into the end zone? Can you make a play on defense to pick up your quarterback? Because there are going to be some interceptions, just like the one that happened today when he just doesn't put the right touch on the

ball. And can he make progress with that in the middle of the season, which I think you saw from someone like Bo Nix and you saw from someone like Jaden Daniels can you do it um you know I think with the offense that he has around him we saw you know Sam Darnold last year make a lot of progress within this offense and McCarthy can too but it's it's been a more or less a daily occurrence that there's a few passes where you just go that one that kind of can't happen right that kind of can't happen of you know the the ball being thrown you know up over somebody who's wide open in the back of the end zone. So that is going to continue to take some work for J.J. McCarthy.

How did he respond body language-wise after the interception? That's never a problem for him. I don't think that's ever a problem for J.J. McCarthy. Let me read you what T.J. Hawkinson had to say since the last video clip I tried to play, melted my computer. Let me read you what T.J. Hawkinson had to say about J.J. McCarthy today in the pocket. And I think this gives you a good sense for, like, just JJ in general and how he handles something like that. Hawkinson said, quote, in my head, he played well today, put the ball where he needed to and played fast, which I totally agree with.

We were able to move the ball the whole practice, a lot of things for him to learn from. There's some new stuff that we're doing and it's a lot of fun to come out here with McCarthy and for him to see a different defense, different routes, different leverages and playing against. against different guys was really fun for him to play as fast as he did today mentally and physically a lot of fun. Did Hockinson have a good time or what? So that I thought was very telling though because he kept using the word fast, playing fast. But as far as your confidence question or how he responds body language wise, I mean, he's never happy with a mistake. It might have been slapping the hands together or whatever it might be. But the next series, he comes out and plays well. And that's always been who J.J. McCarthy is. It's just that they're going to have to

work their way through, battle their way through some throws that don't hit on the money. Let's see. Katzen Lassie. Hopefully I said that right. Vikings offense has been past heavy the past few years. Do you foresee the 2025 Vikings looking more like the 2012 Vikings with Adrian Peterson? No, I don't. No, I don't think so. I mean, if you're talking 2012, they could really only run the ball that year and Adrian Peterson had to carry the entire offense. That is not something that I would expect this team to have to do to lean entirely on Aaron Jones, to lean entirely on Jordan Mason. Remember, this offense was created for J.J. McCarthy last year. Sam Darnold ran it, but it was created with J.J. McCarthy

in mind because he was here and he was in the building and that's the first offense that they taught him. It's going to be a downfield type of passing offense, intermediate passing offense that gets the ball to Addison, Jefferson, Hawkinson. You know, Hawkinson's going to catch those 10-yard passes underneath. And then you're going to see coming over the middle, Justin Jefferson. It looks to me like they want to run outbreaking routes with timing with some success. you know, Jefferson can always get open in those, and Addison's good at getting open in those. So they're going to push the ball down field and they're going to throw it. And they're going to run a good amount of play action.

But I think the run game is going to just be more effective. But they're not going to run some sort of, you know, 2019 Gary Kubiak, Kevin Stefansky offense, where you're just handing the ball off time and time again. I do not foresee that. Rob says, I think the Patriots will be pretty decent. looks like they have a strong rushing game, also a promising young quarterback and a strong defense. I agree. And that's a lot of the chatter with that team and the reporters from New England that I talked with today is they feel like it's for sure going to be a better team with

Mike Vrable that it's way more professionally run than it was with Gerard Mayo, who just seemed to have no idea how to run an NFL team. And then, you know, when it comes to the rest of the roster it's it's not there yet uh their offensive lines not there yet their weapons aren't there yet and they have to develop some of those things but their defense could win them games and you know i think they've got an okay running game uh not a hundred percent sure on that because i think remandre stevenson did not practice today and i didn't see a lot of those those run reps and how the viking's defense looked but just on paper they could have a decent enough offense that has Drake made doing a lot of the heavy lifting and then have a really good defense.

And for McCarthy to play B plus or B type of football with a lot of pressure against the very good Patriots defense, I thought was really good for him. I thought that was a really good development for today. Expoise says JJ looks very composed in the pocket during passing plays, looks more comfortable more than the other young quarterbacks. Are you seeing the same things in practice? even during the preseason game one. I think that his pocket presence has been one of the best things for J.J. McCarthy for this summer,

is that he has not looked like he's taking all sorts of sacks or struggling to see the field. This was an observation of mine last year is I know that I've probably mentioned on the show 50 times that I don't think Caleb Williams sees the field very well. I do think J.J. McCarthy sees the field very well. he seems to identify which receivers he's supposed to throw to. He's able to find them despite all the big bodies in front of him, the offensive and defensive linemen crashing in and navigates the pocket quite well. These are the things that he's going to have to keep doing in order for him to be successful

is he's going to have to scramble. He's going to have to probably make some plays off balance. He's going to have to navigate pressure. But even when you go back to that game that he played against, the Raiders last year, so far in the past, but, you know, he made plays on the move. He made plays under pressure, and he was able to scramble and get out effectively. And I think we've seen quite a bit of that. And I thought he handled the pressure well today.

It was not perfect, but I thought it was, I thought it was well. Krifty. Matthew, why does everyone talk about Max Brosmer like his ceiling is a backup of the NFL, the way he's playing? Don't you think he could potentially be a starter? I don't. I don't. That's not like hating or anything. That's just being realistic. Normally NFL starters are falling into a couple different categories, which is number one, they've been drafted high and they're absolute freaks and they have crazy arms and crazy ceilings of being a franchise quarterback. Or number two is that they've already been somebody else's franchise quarterback and they're on a different team. And I think you could go through all 32 teams and that's the case on maybe 30 of them. very, very few have an undrafted free agent who was a backup, who developed over a bunch of

years, finally got his chance, and then became a franchise quarterback. Actually, can you name a single one right now in the NFL who falls under that category? I mean, I guess, you know, Brock Purdy being the guy from San Francisco who was the seventh round pick and doesn't have the freakish stuff. Maybe he's the closest that you get to that. But the thing with Brosmer is saying that he could be an NFL backup is a huge compliment. I mean, Most undrafted free agents, they come in as a camp arm, they throw it to the third stringers. They play in the fourth quarter so the starters don't get hurt. And then they go, you know, work something else.

Like, this has been impressive to be talking about a guy who you think could actually play in the league. But we have to remember these highlights and the way he's playing. It is against third and fourth stringers. I think physically is where he would have a tough time. Doesn't mean it's impossible, you know, Kurt Warner, proves that it is it is possible and so does brock purdy it's just most likely 98% of the time its franchise quarterbacks are drafted in the first round or they've been around for a long time and then they're you know they become journeyman like a tie rod taylor or something is that

possible for him yeah i think it's possible but i think it would be getting a little far ahead of ourselves based on what we've seen what i'm saying again huge compliment can play in the league can I have a long career in the league that's a that's a good thing that is definitely a good thing uh expose says uh there were some people out on the defense but uh how many long passes from may would have been sacks in a game that's a little hard for me to say because i wasn't watching every rep from drake may i did see that there were a few downfield passes that he made that were highlights and what the patriots reporters were saying was yeah that's great that would have been a sack. And so it sounded to me like just from the other reporters that were talking

about that side of the field that I wasn't having eyes on for every play. I was kind of trying to peek over and see from time to time. And I did see the ball fly deep a few times from Drake May. I mean, he's got a spectacular arm. So we know that. But it sounded just like the defense was completely dominant. And that does not surprise me whatsoever. So let's see. Conrad said, Brozmer does look great. The one caveat I read about in his health, he's dealt with a number of injuries during his college career. You know, I think with, with him, it's just he has to continue to prove it. You have to continue to prove it time and time again when you're Max Brosmer. And so he has to go out and he's got to have another good

preseason game and he's got to have another one. And then during this season, he's got to do great work behind the scenes and you know he's got to help them prepare for other teams and all that sort of stuff like it's a it's a long road for an undrafted free agent guy to even stick with a team i think right now he's there um but you kind of have to just keep doing it over and over again and make them stick you here if i was looking into the future i would say he's qb two for next year for the vikings and that would be a good thing uh in terms of the confidence in Will Reichard, got some 10 out of tens. I don't think that Minnesota Vikings fans can ever truly be 10 out of 10 on a kicker.

Nine out of 10, seven. He'll definitely kick 17 field goals, right? But they're probably not going to kick them all in the same, like one per game. First name, last name is on a nine out of 10, eight out of 10 for Brian. Okay, yeah, you got, well, look, he's been really, really good bouncing back from that slow start to training camp, which could be just shaking the rust off, and he has looked like the excellent kicker that he was last year before he got banged up. I shot you 99. McCarthy's inconsistencies appear to be consistent as in identifiable and repeatable. It's shown itself in the preseason

game, too. I feel like that's kind of a good thing. Well, yeah, I mean, I understand what you're saying that, like, they know, they know what it is. They know why. you know j j mccarthy is throwing like that like they know why the ball is going too high and it's just a matter of him fixing it consistently and i keep making you know golf references time and time again with this because i do think that it's really similar to golf where if you want to be good at a certain type of shot you just have to take it over and over over and over again. There was a video once of Tiger Woods where he was at something,

I don't know, some clinic or whatever might have been. And they asked Tiger, like, hey, Tiger, what's the key? Like, give us the key. Tell us how I get better at golf. Like, what's your number one thing? And he said, I've got great advice for you. You go to the driving range and hit golf balls. It's like, that's right, man.

I mean, you know, that overthrow today, he's going to look at that. And he's going to say what happened on that overthrow. throw and how can I correct it? And then he's going to work on that throw tomorrow and he's going to do everything he can. That's, that's just how it's got to be with J.J. McCarthy and time is the only thing that's going to resolve it. But for me, if it was over and over and over and over again with McCarthy, like throughout a single practice, if he couldn't bounce back from it, then I would be concerned. But he throws this terrible interception after completing six in a row where he looked really good and then he goes into the 11 on 11s and bang bang bang gets a couple of

completions and looks comfortable and like that's j j mccarthy right there you know the stat line as i'm trying to think about what it's going to look like there's probably going to be some interceptions and there's probably going to be some turnover worthy throws that you're not thrilled with that fly over people's heads or there's going to be you know a third and eight where someone is wide open on an out breaking route and he throws it out of bounds it's going to happen But that doesn't mean it that all that other stuff gets erased because he's got this flaw that seems to crop up from time to time because getting the football out in the pocket, dealing with money pockets, dealing with the pressure and the leadership and the huddle and all that sort of stuff. We said the word operation like 50 times after the preseason game, but it was very telling. He got the call in.

He got everybody lined up. And then off they went. and like that that that's really good like that's what this is supposed to look like even if all right this throw was a little behind somebody okay well that you can deal with but not knowing the play or not getting guys lined up or getting rattled or you know struggling with the different pre-snap stuff or holding out of the ball too long like that stuff's hard to resolve at this point he's checking a lot of boxes for good stuff that quarterbacks have to do and he's going to have to smooth the other stuff out with the accuracy over the season as we go forward.

Uh, jesh, guys aren't giving me a lot of easy names like Todd or Bob today, are you, uh, says, uh, are you concerned about the amount of starters having days off? Seems like a red flag to me. I feel like it could either mean not being fully prepared to start up the season or injury prone season. I am not because this has always been KOC. Always. It is just, it's just who KOC is, uh, where he believes in making sure that he's not losing

guys in training camp. And I fully agree with him at first in 2022 at first, I'm going to tell you the truth. I was like, shocked. I was like, how many, how many veteran days are we giving out here? Like, how are these guys even going to remember how to play football when they get back out there? And then they came out and they won 13. games and they were prepared and they crushed the Packers in the opener and all that stuff.

And I was like, oh, seems that Mr. O'Connell knows what he's doing here. And I think the same thing goes for this with the veteran days where they just understand that August 13th, it's not worth it to press it. And as far as having an injury-filled season, it could totally happen because it's football. But I don't think they're doing anything right now that's an indicator of, oh, they will be injured a lot. And they have players with some, you know, issues, you know, in their past with injuries. But that's just so hard to predict. Aaron Jones came in, well, this guy's been injured in the past and then played the whole season. Like, I don't know. How can we ever predict those

things? I think what you'll probably hear if they have injury issues is, see, we told you that you got too many injured guys. And if they don't, it will just never come up. It's kind of like when they didn't play starters in the preseason game in 2022 and they won a bunch of games and no one ever talked about it. And then they start out slow in 2023. And so then KOC gets asked about it. Don't you wish you played the starters in the preseason game? Like sometimes we just let the results end up dictating how we talk about it. Stuart says, what do you make of Paul Allen's comments on Turner being underwhelming in the game and worry that Gabe might be overtaking him? He said there's a dark cloud on the horizon.

Wow. I did not hear Paul's comments, so I cannot speak on them directly because I don't know what he said. I would say this. I think Dallas Turner has had overall a really great camp. I don't think Gabe Murphy is overtaking him, even though I'm impressed by Gabe Murphy.

And I think Dallas Turner played nine snaps. Nine. and they weren't game planned at all. And also he's trying to stay healthy in the preseason game and just get through the first drive. So what I've seen so far from Dallas Turner is improvement in quickness, improvement in his bag, improvement in his strength, and a lot of creative usage for Dallas Turner. I don't know if that means that he's going to get nine sacks because the usage is going to

matter and they have two of the best players in the NFL at the outside linebacker position. but I haven't seen anything that would imply a dark cloud for Dallas Turner. I really haven't. I thought he's had a very good training camp so far. So I guess, I mean, I guess we'll have to see as we get into the season. We don't really know we're just trying to take a swing at it. But he's somebody that's repeatedly pressured the quarterback and, you know,

made plays as much as you can make plays defensively. He's been physical. I've liked my own perspective as I've liked what I've seen from Dallas Turner. and he's somebody that I've been talking about on the show feeling like he did have a good attitude coming back. He worked out with Jonathan Grenard. It's very visible, the difference in his body. So I'm feeling good about where he's at.

I just think that judging someone in any way who's a starter or is going to play a big role off preseason is insane. It's just the I just never do. As a rule, I never do it. The third and fourth string guys, absolutely. Those guys are playing for their careers out there. But nine snaps on a single drive where nobody looks like they wanted to play? I don't know about that.

First name, last name says, just about to make an Allen comparison. Now, Paul Allen, but Josh Allen, if JJ can limit mistakes while he's working on his touch and consistency and things can start to come together in a year or two, I'll be happy. The thing is that you can win. You can win with some accuracy miscues. you can't win if you throw a bunch of interceptions you can't win if you don't get the football out or if you make bad terrible decisions you can absolutely win if you overthrow somebody the ball goes out of bounds you can overthrow somebody i mean think about this like

interceptions from an expected points added perspective analytically uh sometimes are worth less than a sack just because of the difference in the field position. So if you throw a ball 20 yards down the field, then it's picked off, it becomes like an arm punt. It doesn't always kill you. And they're going to need sometimes people to pick them up. They're going to need a great catch here, there. They're going to need a defensive stop after an interception. These are just realities that they can do as a team because they're strong enough, but he is not completely refined. I think you could still win that way. heck we saw you know case keanenom win a lot of games by not being the most accurate but he managed

the game well he didn't you know he had some crazy throws that mike zimmer was driven insane by but you look at his actual turnover numbers it wasn't a lot i think that's going to be really important and the the comparison that i like to make about how he needs to play this year is not one that anybody really loves but then you look up this guy's win loss record for his career and you go okay i get it and it's kind of alec smith like which is make the throws that are there, scramble with your legs and make some plays, don't make big mistakes,

and then start from that position and then grow. I was saying the same thing about Sam Darnold last year. Like, hey, like, don't make mistakes. Keep the train on the tracks. If that means throwing for 175 yards for the first couple weeks, then just do that and then work your way into it. And the growth that we saw from Kirk eventually with the offense, from Darnold with the offense,

makes me think that that's that's his best potential track, which is if he can grow into it as the season goes along to where you're playing the Eagles and then you're going out to play the Chargers. Like that's when you need him to start peeking in the offense. If he was peaking on August 13th, I mean, that would be a little better, but I don't think that's realistic. Michael says sounds like JJ is looking like a B grade so far in camp with his Vikings defense. Could you see this team as a real contender?

Well, yeah, it's not just their defense, but it's also, you know, when it comes to the playmakers, like you don't have to be a 10 out of 10 or an A plus with the playmakers you have. And we saw that today from Jordan Addison. I mean, Addison was open. He was breaking off routes. And I know he's not going to play for the first three games, but just imagine that being Justin Jefferson.

You have guys that can make you right. if you're J.J. McCarthy. And even just today, I really thought that T.J. Hawkinson was huge for him today. And that's where I keep going back to Hawkinson is going to catch a million passes. I just, I keep thinking this is going to happen for T.J. Hawkinson because he seems to be the guy that, all right, drop back. And, oh, you know, I'm not seeing, you know, the downfield route. And, oh, there's. There's T.J. Hawkinson underneath and just trust him. And he's been doing that quite a bit. I thought he was very good with Hawkinson today. Skoll 357. Is there a punter battle?

Does the Australian have a chance? I don't think the Australian has a chance. But every time I watch him, I'm kind of like, I don't think I've ever seen a ball fly through the air the same way that it does when Oscar Chapman punts it. And that must have something to do with, the way that he's kicking it, the Australians, I guess maybe it spins the opposite way,

south of the equator or something. Like, I have no idea. But he's, he's interesting for them. But I also think that Ryan Wright's going to be the punter. Like when they do their drills, the first guy coming out, it's, you know, it's Ryan Wright as the punter. And he's probably going to start that way. Scholl 357. Comparing Sam Darnold last year in joint practices, how does McCart compare as far as mistakes or success. Well, actually the first day of joint practices for Sam Darnold might have been like his worst day of the entire summer. I thought it was a really rough first day of joint practices.

The difference, though, was now Cleveland's defense from a statistical perspective didn't finish amazing, but I think they actually were amazing and their quarterback made their numbers go really bad, Sean Watson. They had a ton of talent. a ton of talent. And so they gave this Vikings offense a really hard time last year. And then in day two, it was better in day two. And so I think where we're really going to see for dar or for,

I'm sorry, I'm reading the word Sam Darnel, for J.J. McCarthy tomorrow is get into the red zone situations. That's where I really would like to see is the red zone situations. And they're going to do more two minute drill stuff. but the two-minute drill, he just seems really, like, pretty locked in. He looks like he's pretty locked in. But when it comes to the two, the red zone stuff, that's where that sharpness with accuracy has been a little bit spotty throughout the summer.

So you guys are now naming all the way down to Bobby Abear, undrafted quarterbacks who made it. I'm not saying it's impossible, my friends. It's not impossible. Anything is possible as Kevin Garnett, once said. But it's unlikely. So that's why when you talk about a ceiling for players, we usually talk about, you know, the most likely scenario, not the scenario that would be sort of pie in the sky. C.J. says he'll never be 10 out of 10 on a kicker. Oh, man. But a lot of you seem to be

very, very high on Will Reichert and the fan duel question of the day. So, you know, I, I respect it. I respect that you keep coming back and like Michael Scott once said, you're ready to be heard again. Alexander says, what would your score prediction for week one be? I have not thought about that just yet, Alexander. And we're just at the joint practice. But two point favorites and over under 43.5. I think that right now I would pick the Vikings to win that game by 10 points based on just everything that we're hearing from Bears practice. But I'm going to have to get Courtney on the show and we're going to have to go from there. And there's still a long way to go before the end of training camp. That's that's probably it. That's probably it. Let's see. Cat and Lassie says,

do you think JJ has gotten progressively better? Each practice from OTAs should be a good sign if he's trending upwards despite not having a perfect practice every day. Yeah.