Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Vikings camp update: Darnold, McCarthy shine on Saturday

Episode Date: August 4, 2024

Matthew Coller breaks down a great practice for the quarterbacks on Saturday and two undrafted free agents who are making a difference already Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

🎵 🎵 Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here, and I have just returned from TCO Performance Center, where I watched another Minnesota Vikings practice. I believe we're at, is this number nine today? Number eight? Something like that. Maybe number nine. And whichever number it is I would say this one of the most memorable and impressive so far from which quarterback am I going to say

well if you've already seen the headline you might know actually both Sam Darnold and J.J. McCarthy had very very good days at the office today. So we'll talk about that. An injury on the defensive side. Will Reichardt kicks six field goals. I'll let you know how that goes for him or went today for him. And we'll take your questions and comments as well and break this all down. Tomorrow is a walkthrough for the Vikings, so we won't be out there. And then Monday is one of the big moments of every year's

training camp Monday night is yes that's right the night's practice that we have all treated like kind of a scrimmage it's under Kevin O'Connell hasn't quite been as epic as it was under Mike Zimmer or as much as it meant to Mike Zimmer in the past, but it's always one of those markers of training camp where you get to that night practice. Let's see who they're playing in front of the fans. And then it's a precursor to what's going to happen in the preseason game. And then we go on and on and on and go forward with the off season. And then at some point, we will get an answer to who is going to be the starting quarterback, but we won't get that at least exactly soon. So why don't we start by talking

about Sam Darnold and JJ McCarthy's day. I know that's what everybody wants to hear about. I've even got my notes out here because there were a number of impressive plays that I wanted to talk about with both quarterbacks. I think the place to start with Sam Darnold, who still QB one, as far as I could tell, no reps for JJ McCarthy against or with the ones today, he was going against both the ones and the twos, a mix of both, but he had his first and only rep the other day with the ones almost through an interception. Didn't have any today. I have to work his way back up to that, I guess. So we'll start, but he had his first and only rep the other day with the ones almost through an interception. Didn't have any today. I have to work his way back up to that, I guess. So we'll start with the guy who is QB1 presently, which is Sam Darnold. I thought today Sam Darnold and Justin

Jefferson were extremely on point. If you are the person who all offseason has been telling your friends look sam darnold has never played with a receiver like justin jefferson okay this is why sam darnold is going to be good because that guy he's never had this guy he's had jameson crowder he's had robbie anderson he's even had dj more but he is no just Jefferson. Well, today was a good day, and that was a good practice. If you've been that guy who has been telling all of your friends and family that Darnold just needs to throw the ball to Justin Jefferson, they started out early in practice with hitting a sideline throw where Jefferson was running outbreaking route.

Darnold let it go, layered the ball over to the sideline, and Jefferson went up and grabbed it in a fashion that very, very few NFL wide receivers can. But it was a good throw. At the same time, it was in the place that it needed to be versus the coverage, and Justin Jefferson just goes up and gets it as he does. Another thing that I have noticed on is them clicking on throws over the middle over the last couple of practices, and they've probably hit six, seven, eight throws over just the last two practices where Sam Darnold was accurate,

where he was on time, and no surprise, Justin Jefferson was able to make plays. And that wasn't really getting going earlier in training camp and in the first padded practice we're still kind of early but the first padded practice there were some moments where they kind of went wait how is that supposed to work that's what training camp is for by the way but now that they have gotten on the same page a little bit that's been completion after completion from Sam Darnold to Justin Jefferson. In my notes, I have Darnold to Justin Jefferson again, Darnold to Justin Jefferson in the red zone over and over

with these two connecting over the last two days. And that would, if you're trying to keep the meter of where things stand between Darnold and J.J. McCarthy that would definitely push you toward Darnold a little bit more as far as starting early in the season that he's had so many reps with Justin Jefferson to date J.J. McCarthy has had one and Sam Darnold has had now dozens and they are starting to connect in a way that they weren't before. That is a big part of this offseason if Darnold is going to start, which I think a lot of us believe still that he will be the quarterback when they face the New York Giants. It's a huge part of it. If Sam Darnold

is going to change the narrative about him, if he's going to come in and show that he could be a starting quarterback, Justin Jefferson has to be an enormous part of that. And their chemistry over these last few practices has come alive. And then at that point, you can see the arm talent that we've talked about with Sam Darnold when we've seen him in shorts or when we've seen him in minicamp. But those throws that you're just whipping the ball deep down the field. Well, you're not always going to see a ton of those. And Darnold said it was something that he wanted to put an emphasis on is completing deep balls, but deep balls are

maybe 10 to 12% of the throws in the NFL. Whereas intermediate throws make up such a higher percentage. And if you look at Jefferson's career, that's where he has annihilated the competition. I mean, everywhere, but intermediate throws between 10 and 20 yards, he has been prolific. And that's where he and Darnold are starting to come together. And when you see it in the middle of the field on time, click correctly, or when you see him make a really spectacular throw along the sideline, 15, 20 yards down the field that Jefferson go get it, you could definitely envision what that would look like in actual games from Darnold to Jefferson. So that chemistry is coming along. I think that's a big advancement in the Vikings offense that that's happening. If it wasn't,

and if they were struggling you should never in your life struggle to get the ball to Justin Jefferson then we might start saying okay what's going on here but now it is starting to click and that is starting to happen on the other side of things with the twos J.J. McCarthy had a really excellent day and I want to talk about a couple of throws that stood out. He had a red zone drill where he found Trent Shurfield for a touchdown and he and Trent Shurfield have connected a handful of times. They did a really interesting drill where the offense was pushed back, like up against their own goal line. and they had to fight their way out of it

essentially and he was able to jj mccarthy was able to find nick muse who i thought had a really good day and we'll talk about the tight end situation with the injuries but he was able to find nick muse on a deep throw down the field that was accurate and i think that his accuracy in throwing the ball down the field has looked pretty good. Going into this, that was one of the criticisms of J.J. McCarthy and watching him in minicamp. They needed to put a little more arc on the ball, a little more touch. And I think it's looked OK. I mean, it hasn't been the same level as Sam Darnold for the deep passing because Darnold's been doing this a lot longer. But overall accuracy, I've mentioned this a few times throughout,

that it has taken a significant jump from where it was during minicamp. And I think a major part of that is just knowing where he's supposed to throw, how the footwork is supposed to work, the reps and the hours that he's put into it. And we've seen progress. And today, by the way, just the overall, being that it was an excellent day for J.J. McCarthy today was huge for him to bounce back from yesterday yesterday was a pretty miserable practice for J.J. McCarthy and those are going to happen we talked about that last night about look I mean when it's a rookie you're going to

have these ups and downs but then to come back out today and have a bunch of good plays, this default to muse in that drill was really good. And then in that same period, they also ran a cover zero blitz and he was able to beat the blitz and find his man for a completion. I didn't write down who he threw it to, but he was able to beat the blitz, throw it down the field and get a completion which was very impressive for J.J. McCarthy he also had a couple of reps where you know a good throw to Jalen Naylor that resulted in a big gain and then he also has been doing some playmaking some stuff where all right now he's going to scramble now he's going to roll on the move and there was one completion that he had where he escaped the pocket pretty quickly.

So it wasn't a sack necessarily, but he escaped the pocket pretty quickly and then threw on the run. And this was something that I wanted to see him do because in college, it was one of his biggest assets and he threw a very accurate bullet. I mean, that doesn't mean that it was the greatest practice I've ever seen, but there were things from both quarterbacks today. Actually, it might be the best two-quarterback practice I've seen because we've rarely been in a situation where the Vikings have had two quarterbacks

who were drafted in the top 10. So it probably actually was from that perspective. But to have McCarthy get back from having a tough practice, succeed in some of the situational stuff they were doing, not final drives, but rather backed up in your own end zone and try to work your way out of it. Both quarterbacks had success. Some ups and downs in the red zone, but a lot better from J.J. McCarthy today.

The scramble, the throw on the move that had velocity on it. I mean, going into a day where they're going to have a walkthrough, that is a big-time confidence builder. And then the night practice, the fans are going to be out, and they're going to want to see J.J. McCarthy throw the ball. And for him to go into that period of time where he's not going to have another rep at it for a little while by camp standards is, I think, important for him to bounce back and to play as well as he did today and have as good of a practice as he did today,

connect with some of his wide receivers, make some accurate throws, show off the talent of playmaking. This was a really good day for J.J. McCarthy and Sam Darnold. And every day you can be pushed pretty far one way or the other by the feeling walking out of TCO Performance Center. So after the first padded practice, you walk out going, oh man, if Sam Darnold starts, they're going to win like four games. And then after today, I might tell you that Sam Darnold starts, they're going to win like four games. And then after today, I might tell you that Sam Darnold was about to throw for 4,200 yards, 28 touchdowns, eight picks and go to the pro bowl. Uh, and that's training camp. And this is, uh, I was just talking with

my wife on the phone, telling her about how things are going on. Hopefully some of you have seen her. She's doing an Olympic broadcasting for the shooting events. She is in Connecticut doing broadcasting for the Olympic Games in Paris. So if you get a chance, check that out. Some of her stuff is on YouTube. But anyway, so we've been just on the phone with each other. had a training camp like this since I became an NFL reporter full-time in 2016 covering the Vikings where every single day you're kind of riding this roller coaster and normally just you wouldn't want to evaluate every single practice as some referendum on what each quarterback is going to be but there's no way not to. When you walk out

of there after today, you go, man, they got a 10 win quarterback and a franchise quarterback, and I don't want to hear anything else. And yesterday it was, well, you know, Darnold is going to be a lot better. And maybe McCarthy has to sit a whole year and you can feel so different. It's a whiplash is what I have right now at this moment. So let me try with that said, before I move on to the other things, then we'll get to your questions and comments. Let me try to make a definitive statement now that we're going to have 36 hours or whatever it's going to be. I can't do math.

I guess it's going to be 48 hours until the next time I see them practice when they have the night practice. So let me make a definitive statement for the next 48 hours on these two quarterbacks. I think the start of training camp has gone very well for the Vikings overall at the quarterback position that Sam Darnold starting to get in rhythm with Jordan Addison and Justin Jefferson on a daily basis. And he actually hit Johnny month again. Johnny month is at a great training camp. I guess I didn't have that on my bingo board, but Johnny month, another one of those seam routes down the field where Sam

Darnold was able to find him. And maybe this offense is just set up for tight ends to succeed. But getting onto the same page with these wide receivers was a number one, the most important thing for Darnold. And when there were some rocky days in there, it was worth wondering, okay, is he going to be able to do it? Is Justin Jefferson going to be happy? How's this going to work out? And these last two practices have given confidence to that idea that it's there, it's starting to develop and if it grows from here we could be having a conversation about Sam Darnold and what he's going to do this year and his potential to have this huge step forward from where he was before

because nobody has the keys to that more than Justin Jefferson and Jordan Addison. And if he's getting it, if he's getting the offense and understanding how to get them the football, which he has these last few practices, then he can have success. I have no doubt about that after seeing everyone who's thrown the ball to Justin Jefferson succeed. And that mostly just means Kirk and Nick Mullins. But as far as J.J. McCarthy goes, even in his bad practice, you didn't see him get too frustrated or down. You didn't see him giving up. You didn't see him stopping his body language from dapping up teammates and getting people in the huddle.

You didn't see the dropping of the head or shoulders. You didn't see the coaches running over to him, kind of panicked, getting in his face or anything like that. There was no body language signs that you wouldn't like, even when yesterday it was a difficult practice. And then today, coming back and throwing a lot of good passes, making plays, starting to get confident in what he can do as far as scrambling and how he's

approaching the defense where he's taking the football with his reads the timing was much better today than it was yesterday i didn't have sacks written down maybe one of the scrambles would have been a sack i think he threw a ball away but that would be about it for jj mccarthy that the early returns have checked a lot of boxes from the sideline view every day watching this thing develop, that they've checked a lot of boxes of someone that looks like they could play in the NFL. And I was talking to another reporter today just about how if nobody told you, I like to do this kind of test with myself. If nobody told you that JJ McCarthy was a rookie and drafted right now, and you walked out on the practice field and just for the sideline,

you don't have the script, you don't have the plays, you don't have the reads. You're just watching from the side. Would you think he was a rookie? And I think the answer is probably not with the way that he leads the team, the way that he gets under center. You don't see too many times with Kevin O'Connell throwing up his hands or getting frustrated at all. You see, I can't tell you about a time that I have seen that, but you don't see him really struggling with a lot of this stuff. And the fact that the technique and his throwing is coming together,

I think is all very positive signs toward the future. And they've given themselves a fallback option with Sam Darnold for him to play as long as they need him to play or as long as they want him to play. But if you had to put JJ McCarthy into an NFL game, and I'm projecting out here, this is trying to make a strong statement. Okay. So give me a little leeway. If you had to put him in an NFL game at the end of this camp I think he'd be okay that's that's how I view it right now because I've seen bad I've seen and I feel awful for Kellen Mond but I've seen bad it's not just him the number of quarterbacks who've come through who have tried to run offenses and just struggled and failed and even in comparison to what we saw from Jaron Hall last year as the pads came on

and it got more difficult. And when you see someone that looks like an NFL starting quarterback, you wouldn't have to work hard to figure that out. And the way that he's carried himself so far, the signs I think are extremely good after today's practice. And I was very, very interested. How is he going to bounce back from yesterday? And I think he passed that test with flying colors.

I don't know what Kevin O'Connell thinks about it, but everybody, I think, who watched it today from the sideline or Stan's view came away thinking, OK, that was a really, really nice showing. So there is your quarterback breakdown. Now if they stink it up on Monday night, then we'll come back and say it's over, it's over. No, we're trying not to be that way. And this is why, because if you overreact yesterday,

you're going to come back today and go, well, sorry that I said he was a bust, but maybe not. You know, that's not what we're trying to do here. Trying to give you the whole progression and the whole viewpoint on what this thing is going to be. And this is why I'm not moving my percentage chance that he starts. But I still think that if Sam Darnold continues to play like this, not only will he start, but he will win if he plays like this, like he did today.

Every day has not been like that. But overall, I would say it was an A from the quarterbacks today. They're hands down best practice between them and maybe the best day for both guys. So that was fun to watch. When things are clicking in a practice and a lot of guys are catching passes, when it doesn't work, it's pretty miserable. And I feel bad for the fans who came out to see it. That was yesterday. All right. Let's talk about another thing that is on the plus side. I know a few of you saw the other day that Will Reichard missed a couple of long kicks. He did not today so you can take a deep breath uh will reichard not only made his

kicks uh i i should have gone back and forth with things maybe some things that aren't going so good because now i feel like i'm i'm the hype machine here but it was unbelievable like will reichard kicked the absolute heck out of the ball today. He went six for six. Two of them were over 50. Another one was deep 40s, I think 47. And so I was walking, I was waiting till the end of the end zone period, the red zone period to go get some water because I was absolutely dying. And maybe you could see, I don't know, one side of my face is this side. One side of my face is very sunburned and the other one is not, maybe that's not coming through on the video. I don't know because I was standing in the same spot sweating. So I said, you know what, when the kicker goes out there, I'm going to go get some

water. And where I was walking, I could see the entire, you know, line, like on a golf shot. If they have the shot tracer, I could see the line of the ball. I think every one of the six went directly through the middle of the goalpost. I mean, Will Reichard is overall having an extremely good mini camp and start to training camp, despite one day where he may have missed a couple. But today, six for six, including two from 50 plus. Very, very impressive from Will Reichardt. And this is, so far, something to continue to keep an eye on, how well he's performing. I mean, he was one of the best kickers ever in college football.

I mean, considering he's the all-time leading scorer at Alabama, he's much more experienced sometimes than kickers when they come out, one of only a handful of kickers that have ever had more than 100 attempts in college. I believe that's the stat, but a great day for him. So now let me get to something that did not go so good, which is Jerry Tillery, the defensive tackle who had my attention. Jerry Tillery was injured today, banged up, didn't see exactly what happened. Looked like he might have got tangled up.

And I'll describe to you the scene. And if you guys see any reports on Jerry Tillery, let me know, because I'll tell you what we saw. And the other night we were talking and then it came out what had happened with Robert Tunyon. But with Jerry Tillery, he went down. And when he was down, and you don't see this too often when a player's just banged up kevin o'connell and harrison phillips both came over to him and kneeled down and spoke to him for a little while while he was down with three trainers around him and then he got up and he gingerly walked over to the golf cart and then the golf cart took him inside. I don't want to speculate on what that could be, but the way that O'Connell and Harrison Phillips

came over, kneeled down, talked with him, made me think that there's a potential for a serious injury here. But again, I don't want to exactly speculate there. And if you guys, again, see an update on that, feel free to let me know. But if they were to lose Jerry Tillery for the season, for the first part of the season, for any significant amount of time, that would not be great because this unit, this defensive tackle unit has, in my opinion, been okay, if not pretty good. Harrison Phillips is still a really good player. And I think maybe we ended up down more down on Harrison Phillips at the end of last season than he was deserved because he just played way more snaps than he should have. Jonathan Bullard is kind of a, just the guy type fits into what they want to do defensively.

But then, and we'll talk about this a little bit, but you've got some younger players mixing in. And Tillery, I thought, was a nice addition in the offseason as someone who had rushed the passer in passing situations with the Raiders and is a big guy who I thought was playing pretty well in practice. And to have him go down like that, to see that reaction, it makes you concerned that there could be a long-term injury there. So again, we'll wait and see what we've got for updates on Jerry Tillery. But if he is out, then it doesn't look as good. It looks a little less deep there. It looks like there could be, you know, the same problem as last year when they were lacking that depth

and lacking any sort of push toward the quarterback really at all. That was the issue with last year is that they didn't have anybody who could get into the backfield no matter the situation. Wanted to bring you something from Brian Flores because the undrafted free agents are at it again, folks. They are. There are two undrafted free agents that have really stood out. And Brian Flores had some nice words about Gabriel Murphy.

He was one of them. And also Dwight McClothern was the other one. So let me bring you first what Brian Flores had to say about undrafted free agent from UCLA, Gabe Murphy. Hey, Brian, what have you liked about Gabriel Murphy's camp so far? I think Gabe is, you know, going back to, you know, watching him at UCLA. Did a lot of good things there, versatile, played a lot of positions, played outside as an edge player, played inside a little bit as a three technique he's played off the ball during during the course of his career you know they had a good front you know over there at ucla

so you know the thing that kind of stands out is just his football iq he's very bright it's very important to him you know we were in a staff meeting the other day and he said that Gabe Murphy despises bad football. So that's a good thing to, a good thought for my coach to say about a player. So he's been, he's done a real nice job. I'm excited to see him, you know, moving forward and, you know, in preseason games. But, yeah, we got a long way to go, but he's off to a good start. With Gabe Murphy, were you guys surprised at all that he ended up being an undrafted free agent? It seems like there was a lot of projections that he was going to be probably a day three pick somewhere.

You know, that happens every year for whatever reason. I know we liked them on tape. And, you know, we're sitting there at the end, and there's an opportunity to grab him as an undrafted free agent. And, you know, I would say to a man, we were all, you know, in favor, highly in favor of, you know, let's do what we got to do to get this done. And Kwesi and his staff were the same way. And we were able to get him here.

And he's done a lot of good things. We're not crowning him by any – we're not crowning him. But he's done a lot of good things. Oh, I'm crowning him. Why can't we crown him? We should crown him. No, I'm just kidding. Never crown him. Not in football. Not until they got the crown. Then should crown him no i'm just kidding never crown him not in football

not until they got the crown then you crown him okay anyway back to undrafted outside linebackers uh gabriel murphy for the second straight year the vikings went out and got a guy who went undrafted for unknown reasons in part maybe maybe because of his body type. Ivan Pace jr. Was certainly that. And Gabriel Murphy, like me short little arms, but that seems like a silly reason not to draft someone when they draft long snappers and punters and stuff in the sixth and seventh rounds,

running backs who will never make it. I just, I don't understand the players who are their dad works for the organization, the scouting department, but you wouldn't draft the guy who had tons of pressures, tons of success, extremely high PFF grades, just like Ivan Pace. Same thing. The grades across the board were tremendous. And if you're talking to UDFA or a late round pick, why not take a shot on somebody who graded very well by an objective source and then put up other statistics in college like pressures and like sacks that it's worth it over whatever else you're going to draft at the end. the NFL did not. And Gabriel Murphy has already put himself on the map along with also Dwight

McClother, who is another guy that Brian Flores talked quite a bit about as well. Somebody who is big and moves pretty well and is getting a lot of reps with the second team. And looks like if you were making a depth chart right now, might beat out some other more well-known players like Andrew Booth Jr., maybe even beating out actually probably at this point Duke Shelley as well. McLaughlin's had a really nice start to training camp. And so I asked Brian Flores, what the heck is up with this? This is a couple of years in a row now where you guys have brought in some very good undrafted free agents. It used to be that we barely had to ever pay attention to the undrafted free agents. And when I would get questions, hey, what's up with this guy from Navy or whatever?

You know, some random, I don't know, whatever. He's not going to make the team. And every so often an Anthony Harris would squeak through or a Adam Thielen, of course. But aside from that, there weren't too many examples of the undrafted free agents making it. We might have two more this year alone on the defensive side with Flores. So I asked him about it. Here's what he said. When it comes to the undrafted free agents getting Ivan last year and then finding guys who are contributing right away,

what is the process like of identifying those guys around draft season that you might have a chance to get that might be hard drafted and potentially contribute? I think when, you know, for us as a staff, when we're looking at players who may go late or undrafted, it's about fit. You know, this thing's about fit, time, and timing. You're getting to the right place with the right coach, the right system that fits your skill set.

It allows an individual player to see his potential. And sometimes you don't get in the right place. You're in a system that doesn't fit your specific skills, and it takes a little longer to reach that potential. So I think we're looking for, in that process, along with Kwesi and Griggs and Demetrius, Chiz, and their staff, Money, and I think they're all on the same page as far as the fit. You know, I think he's going to come here and this is where he fit.

This is how he play. And, you know, you never really know until they get there. But we always say our job is to predict the forecast. And, you know, when you put your scouting hat on, that's what it is. So there you go. Brian Flores, they're talking about the undrafted free agents, and they haven't played a preseason game yet. So we can't say for sure.

The early returns seem to be good from Gabriel Murphy and Dwight McClother. And one thing I've always said is that we can judge it on reps better than we can judge it with our eyeballs on technique or pressures or things like that. And with both guys, they're getting a lot of reps along with I've seen Owen Porter out there quite a bit as well. And here we are with another class of UDFAs that we're actually going to have to watch pretty closely as we go forward. At the tight end position, Robert Tunyon remained out today. Also saw Nikhil Harry leaving the field early in practice, not sure of the nature of his injury, but didn't return. Nick Muse and Trey Knox. Trey Knox is a converted wide receiver from South Carolina. He converted to tight end later in his career at South Carolina,

but a good athlete, good hands, caught a lot of passes today. Honestly, he must have had five, six catches on the day. It was kind of an outlet option, seemed to know where he was supposed to be on the route running. And Nick Muse was really impressive last year and made quite a few plays today, including on one deep ball. I believe it was from JJ McCarthy that he caught it. So this is another guy who like, I don't know what this team does to have so many good tight ends, but all of them can play. Josh Oliver had missed a couple of days of 11 on 11s, but was back out there today, made some catches himself. It's a, I mean, they're building an offense for TJ Hawkinson and Justin and justin jefferson so i guess

it shouldn't be surprising that a lot of the plays go to the tight end but when everybody is thriving i don't know i think uh the system may be to blame but we'll see what happens with nikhil harry thus far i have not been able to see enough to give you an opinion on how it's going for nikhil harry we're starting to now see the guys that aren't opinion on how it's going for Nikhil Harry. We're starting to now see the guys that aren't getting reps and that's pretty telling. And I had just, he hasn't been out there a lot at tight end position before today. And finally, my final note, probably the longest section of notes that I have given coming back from training camp, but a lot going on today. Levi Drake Rodriguez still getting reps with the first team. Jonathan Bullard was back. given coming back from training camp but a lot going on today uh levi drake rodriguez still

getting reps with the first team jonathan bullard was back so it wasn't just the fill-in situation and brandon powell still taking a lot of reps with the ones jaylen nailer mixed between ones and twos that battle ongoing or maybe that battle is done and those guys are wide receiver three and four and the real battle is for everything else. I think that actually might be the case. Just trying to figure out how involved Naylor will really be, how involved Brandon Powell will really be. I think you feel better now about the standing of the wide receiver three position than you would have going into this because of how well Jalen Naylor has played. So let me tell you about one of our most important sponsors of the show,

and then I will get to all of your questions and comments. So if you haven't fired one in there yet, and I'll scroll back to the beginning and we'll go from there as I always do. But got to tell you about U.S. Cellular. U.S. Cellular noticed that the way we use our phones has gotten ironic. We try to put our phones down for dinner, but the menu is on a QR code, which is ironic. We hit like on social media posts that we don't actually like. Ironic.

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is that both Sam and JJ playing well specifically Sam because after all, he's the one that will probably start in New York. As of right now, you would give Sam Darnold by far the nod of starting in New York because he's taken all the reps with Justin Jefferson. Even in minicamp, we asked JJ McCarthy, hey, have you gotten a chance to throw to Justin Jefferson? And he said, no, not really, not yet. One or two passes. And if you're spending this much time into training camp and haven't had McCarthy throw a single pass toward Justin Jefferson, pretty hard to be convinced that that means that J.J. McCarthy

is going to sweep in, win the job, get all the reps with the superstar wide receiver that the whole offense is built for, and then off we go. That just doesn't seem realistic past a certain point. Once they've gotten to a preseason game, we're almost there. I mean, I've always put the marker at the joint practices, which I will be there in cleveland the hotel and the flight are booked so i'm excited about that but i might even put it a little bit earlier going into those joint practices if they're preparing for those joint practices and mccarthy still hasn't thrown a single pass to justin jefferson he's not winning the job i mean because at that point

you've installed the entire offense and still haven't had your young quarterback throw to your superstar receiver. But what I feel like I keep having to go back to is that this is not abnormal, that this has is something that has happened, you know, in the way that they laid it out for us. I mean, they've said that JJ McCarthy was going to you know, have every opportunity to develop. And it wasn't until he was completely ready to go fully all set and good to go that they would actually have him play.

And that's what they're doing. They're developing him the way that they said they were going to. He's getting his second team reps. He is succeeding more than he's failing. And even when he's failing, he's bouncing back and we can all go forward with that. If it ends up being that they wanted Sam D donald to start all along and we're never going to start jj mccarthy that's that's all good like that's an okay way to approach this even if everyone wants to see the rookie quarterback first and even if there's like an effort from some people it seems on social media to tweet out every good throw from the stands video and say, see, the media is lying to you. McCarthy's ready. Like, no, no one's lying to you. O'Connell's not. Wej mccarthy it's just this was the way that they were always going to approach it and the more days that go by where he's not throwing with the first

team and especially when darnold and jefferson keep hooking up play after play after play that's going to keep jj mccarthy on the bench also, or is, you know, QB too, but it also is good for him too, because he doesn't have some sort of pressure of Sam Darnold looks terrible. And now McCarthy's got to get in there or whatever. That sort of narrative doesn't have to show up if they continue to go through training camp and have success together. But these last two days have been really excellent

between Sam Darnold and Justin Jefferson. Leon says, why are we not hearing much about Dallas Turner? Everything going well for Dallas Turner. The coaches have praised the heck out of him as far as his football intelligence, how well he picked up the defense. He is taking a ton of first team reps in a rotation with van ginkle and jonathan grenard the reason why is because it's gone about how you'd expect

like he's with the first team out there he's doing battle with christian derisaw a lot he's losing to christian derisaw a lot but seems to have the physical gifts that we talked about. Unless he's, we'll see if he's playing. But if he's playing in the preseason game and makes some plays, then we're going to talk about him more. Dallas Turner, because they drafted a quarterback, is the least talked about first round pick in the league. It's probably by far in the national media and even in the local media because you know we've met him we've talked to him we've asked the coaches about him but it's sort of well we're not really breaking down every rep because all eyes are on the quarterback and he's

looked pretty good so far but also doesn't have to carry some huge load because they have grunard who's been fantastic by the way jonathan grunard is having a phenomenal i think a phenomenal training camp i'm seeing him out there on almost every play making different types of moves he seems to have a deep toolbox i've been impressed with him van ginkle patrick jones is having a decent camp so far uh you know it's going so much smoothly with no real controversy or anything to talk about. And there's a quarterback situation. So there's not a debate every day of what Dallas Turner is going to do for this defense. That's pretty much really why you haven't heard as much about him. Evan says, my biggest question today isn't about the quarterbacks about how Dwight

McClother would get the nickname nudie. Well, we were talking about that as well. Brian Flores mentioned McClother and said that his nickname was nudie. And well, you know, I don't really know what to make of that. I've got a few guesses,

but it sounded like something that they couldn't really say what to make of that i've got a few guesses but it sounded like something that they couldn't really say in front of all the cameras so there you go uh austin says what is most impressive about will reichard well the kicks when they come off his leg. Woo. Woo. They go in. That's my, I don't know anything about kicking. Do you, does anybody know anything about kicking? I don't know. I don't think so. So that's it. That's the whole, that's my whole analysis. The way that the ball consistently goes through the middle of, I'm going to try here the way that it consistently goes through the middle of, I'm going to try here, the way that it consistently goes through the middle when he's practicing stands out, but also the height and the arc. It's like watching Rory McIlroy hit, yeah, hit off a driver. Sorry, I'm not a huge golf watcher. I like playing, but if you ask me to name three more, I might struggle. But it's not like watching Rory hit a

drive, or it is like watching Rory hit a drive or it is like watching Rory hit a drive where you want the combination of height and distance and velocity. And he's he's just got it all. I mean, the kid has a great history in college and then he has been excellent so far in training camp outside of. You know, two. Kicks that he missed the other day. And then that's about it. Oh gosh. Says we've seen a decent we've also seen decent. Is he in the vein of Teddy? Oh, I see what you mean. You've also said like decent quarterbacks. Is he in the vein of Teddy or so a game manager in year one? I'm not sure if he's going to even play in year one. So I guess we'll see about that. I don't think that JJ McCarthy is so much that in his mindset. I think he's very

much a playmaker in his mindset, although Teddy Bridgewater was too, but Teddy it's different coaching. So this was always a frustrating thing for me. I thought, and I'm sure we'll get the comments, so I'm just going to ignore them after you say it. I thought Teddy Bridgewater in 2014 and 2015 was great. I thought he did exactly what he was asked to do. They were, in 2015 especially, a very much run-first offense behind the best running back in the NFL, and they had one of the best defenses. His job was to make sure he's not turning the ball over, make a few key throws a

game. And when they did rely on him, he often came through and got them to the playoffs, won the division. I mean, you couldn't have asked for much more, but he was coached to play a certain way. And they also didn't have much for weapons in 2015. He didn't have dig stealing as they became, uh, JJ McCarthy will play as coached if, if, and when he plays, like if it's this year or if it's into the future, he's going to play as he was coached to play, which is in Kevin O'Connell system going to be, can you throw the ball to Justin Jefferson and Jordan Addison, no matter what running back they get back there, it's not going to be, can you throw the ball to Justin Jefferson and Jordan Addison? No matter what running back they get back there, it's not going to be, it's not going to be like a matter of O'Connell trying to protect him. That's not how O'Connell thinks. O'Connell thinks like,

if you are in, that means you can run the entire offense. And if I don't think you can, then you're not playing. And that means all the dropbacks, all the rhythm, all the timing, all the complicated reads and everything else. You better have it locked down. With Teddy, that was different. That was we're going to make sure the quarterback doesn't hurt us and he's got to make a play when he's got to make a play.

He had very good numbers on third downs and things like that. When they were relying on him, the irony of this is that Teddy Bridgewater played like Jim Harbaugh asked JJ McCarthy to play, but O'Connell is not going to ask JJ McCarthy to be a game manager. Not at all. I don't think, which is why they're more patient.

That is my assessment of the whole game manager thing, but he's a playmaker. I mean, this guy has won everywhere. He's scrambled a lot in college. He made plays out of the pocket. And when I watched JJ McCarthy season back when they drafted him and in the lead up to the draft actually what I saw was him trying too hard to make plays at times and taking a sack running away from somebody or pushing it a little bit into a window that's what I saw from J.J. McCarthy not a game manager mentality he may become that but he just I don't think that's in o'connell's nature to have that if if josh jobs wasn't going to be a game manager then nobody was um from x it's been so long since we've had a young quarterback with any promise so any semblance of a quality signal caller is huge for this team

yeah i mean i agree with you that it is an actual decade since the last young quarterback showed any potential for the Minnesota Vikings and that would be indeed Teddy Bridgewater and then between Bridgewater and the last young quarterback that showed potential because we'll skip over the one guy uh was Dante Culpepper so this fan base has not had many of these young quarterbacks coming in and training camps where everybody's talking about well he looks like this and he looks like this and what's going on. But as far as promise goes, all I can tell you from my eyeballs is what he looks like as an NFL quarterback in a practice. I can't tell you and think about how small the differences are between the fifth best quarterback and the 12th

best quarterback. We went through this many times with Kirk, first tier, second tier, second tier, third tier. Can I tell you from watching a handful of practices where J.J. McCarthy could potentially fall on that list? No, nobody can. If they claim that they can, they are lying to you. I promise they are absolutely lying to you. if they could tell you from watching these practices where J.J. McCarthy is going to fall. But what I can tell you is the things that are required to play NFL games successfully, we've seen a lot of those from J.J. McCarthy. And that starts with his leadership and how he carries himself.

It starts with how he receives the call in his headset, how he gets to the line of scrimmage. I'm not seeing McCarthy looking around confused very often. Even after a play that doesn't go right, you don't see him going like, I don't know. I don't know where to go. You don't see that command and the physical skill. And I was talking with Nate Tice. I'm sure you guys remember him from the athletic, but he's with Yahoo Sports now. And he was here at practice, his dad, Mike Tice, of course. And we were just talking about how it's so funny how some guys on TV in college don't look as big as they are in person or the other way around.

And JJ McCarthy has fits the size profile bigger than you would have thought based on what you saw on TV. And so at this moment, all the signs of JJ McCarthy, I think even despite a bad practice yesterday have been pretty good and where it goes from here, we're going to find out, but does he look like someone who could play in the nfl to me yes he does and that is a big step it's a big step because a lot of times you can figure it out pretty quickly if he doesn't it's just where do we go from here to get him to not just be okay but also uh good uh shooter mcgavin says if the vikings start one and four does the job go to McCarthy if he's ready to go but I think so I think that if they got off to a really tough start and they went to London and

they lost to the Jets then they would probably come back with J.J. McCarthy against the Detroit Lions because and I'm only saying this because this is not some sort of guarantee or knowledge or inside whatever O'Connell's not telling anyone just how they weren't telling anyone which quarterback they wanted the most. They're not telling anyone what their plan is. They won't even tell us who's starting the preseason or preseason. Yeah. How many guys are going to get reps in the preseason game because you need to protect that information, I guess, if you're the coach. But the way that McCarthy is looked, if he continues to play this way, that's how I should put it.

If he continues to have, OK, there's a down practice, but an up practice, it looks really nice and it looks like he's in control and he's not struggling and everything is coming along. Then if you were to start the season badly, they should feel like they're good to go to turn to him whenever they want to. That's where it's trending at the moment. That doesn't guarantee that it's going to be the case. It's just, that's where it feels like it's going. Gary says, what have you seen from Blake Brandel? That one is a little bit tough because I have not been watching every rep of the left guard. It feels like, this is just my

sense of it, that Blake Brandel has fit in pretty well because he hasn't taken anything but first team reps and they have run the ball. They're not tackling them, but it looks like they've run the ball pretty successfully with their two running backs. They're not tackling them, but it just looks that way. That's another hard one with the left guard though. I think I want to see it if they play them in a game. How does that look? We can go back and look uh at how the reps turned out i think that the line has been good so far at pass protecting oftentimes it is ones versus twos with darnold out there so that might change it a little bit um but i mean i i don't know is it an upgrade from dalton reisner i don't i mean that's hard to say because Reisner is a good pro it definitely looks like

there's more push as far as the running game from Blake Brandel than there was with Reisner but that speaks to the whole similar thing with McCarthy and what he can become can I tell you right now if Blake Brandel is going to allow 25 pressures or 35 pressures no I can't but I can tell you that nobody else has taken a rep out there this is their offensive line as it seems to me because when the pads came on that would have been the time to start making a change my only observation is well first he's huge but that the running game doesn't look like it's getting more push than it did with Dalton Reisner. Conrad says, I hope you're not too tired from going to practice. Never Conrad. Never. I never get tired of football. Let's see,

who is the best player for the offense today? Who is the best player on defense today? Well, the best player every day is Justin Jefferson. There's no question. If you knew nothing, if they didn't wear jerseys and they just told you one of these guys is amazing. I'm not even gonna tell you who you'd figured out in two seconds. So yeah, Justin Jefferson was the best player out there. He is almost every day. Uh, but the fact that Sam Darnold is having his chemistry come together with Jefferson makes it even more obvious that he's the best player out there. Best player on defense. I'm not as sure about that. Jonathan Grenard is probably the guy that I would pick because I noticed him the most. But when you have that many moving parts that, you know, that could be hard to say. Like,

did someone have, did a safety have a good practice or not? Well, I mean, was he in the right spot all the time? I don't know the plays uh there wasn't as much playmaking from the safeties today as there has been when that's the funny thing about camp if the offense has a bad day then we go hey theo jackson guys am i right and then if the offense has a great day we go i don't know that defense can't cover anybody but I guess I would go with Jonathan Grenard if I had to pick. Future retrospect, when the Vikings say F them picks, they mean we will just get all the good UDFAs. Doesn't it seem that way? It does seem that way. And what the strategy appears to be, Aya says, feels like Kwesi hits the best in the UDFA market. The strategy seems to be that they are going to pay.

That's the most important thing. You can get whatever undrafted free agents you want if you give them enough money. And if you are saving money on paying draft picks that you bring in, you might have your ownership feel like, well, we have this much allotted for the draft picks that you bring in, you might have your ownership feel like, well, we have this much allotted for the draft picks normally, but we're not going to have to pay those signing bonuses. So why don't we give a little less, but actually way more than usual to an undrafted free agent who's the top guy. And when I was thinking about this strategy, now F them picks, you need picks and you need them to hit and you need them to be good players. And your odds of undrafted free agents hitting are lower than draft picks. But when you think about it this way, if somebody was a fifth round prospect and certain teams had something they didn't really want to do it and they end up in the seventh how big is the gap like the gap between the top five

picks in potential and in talent and even number 10 to 15 is enormous the gap between 20 and 30 may not be as big the gap between 30 and 45 may not be as big the gap between the fifth round prospect and the first undrafted free agent, how big is that? Is that almost nothing at that point? And if you go out and you get five of the best UDFAs because you're willing to pay them the most or three or four, your chances of hitting on one of those guys are just better than a fifth round draft pick. I don't think that that means you can just, you know, throw away all your draft picks, but if you have to use those draft picks to get players like Dallas Turner or make JJ McCarthy for sure your quarterback by moving up one spot, that's a way to counteract it a bit

as far as your odds to hit on players and it seems to be working but the biggest thing i think with the udfas is brian florist i just i think it's brian florist this guy was a tremendous scout for the new england patriots and when i interviewed scott pioli who used to be with the patriots was the gm of the chiefs one thing that he told me about florist and that mentality and it seems simple but it really makes a lot of sense is that they would look for the guys who had a specific thing that they did really well, and then say, can we do that? And with Gabriel Murphy, there's probably certain types of pass rushes he was very successful with in college. And I think they're saying, can we do that?

And it's working. I think, I think that's think that's really what's happening with Ivan Pace. All right. Well, this guy is really good at blitzing and can cover pretty well for his size. Can we do that with him? And then he gets here and he's a Wolverine and they figure out, yeah, I guess we can. He was out there hitting dudes today. Like, Ivan, they're on your team. Remember that my man.

Wallpapers live. What player are you most hyped about outside of the JJ duo? Preferably offense and on defense. Well, if I were to say who has captured the hype for both sides of the ball that are not Jefferson, McCarthy, Dallas Turner, like obvious people. The answer on each side, I think would be Jalen Naylor as far as wide receivers go, because he's had a lot of highlight reel catches. Now again, Brandon Powell is getting a little more work with the first team today and yesterday. So that's something worth watching. But Jalen

Naylor has done what they've asked him to do, which is stay healthy, make plays in training camp as he has in the past. And on the defensive side, it's Levi Drake Rodriguez, somebody they drafted in the seventh round. They were jacked about that when they picked him in the seventh round. And he has worked his way up to getting some first team reps, which for a seventh round pick, you just don't see that often. Even if it's only a handful, getting reps against the first team means we're thinking about playing you. They wouldn't do it if they weren't. And that's why it's always good. Because if I was trying to evaluate from the flashes I've seen, I'm not really sure, but they go back and

watch with the trained eye, every single rep, they know this is why you rarely see players who get cut by the Vikings show up somewhere else and turn out to be great because they get a sample size. And they know by the end of training camp, whether a guy belongs on the first, second, third team or off the team. And to see him at least worked in with the first team, it deserved hype. Once you get onto that, those first team reps, uh, Valerie says, how is the air force guy looking? That would be Bo Richter. Uh, I think Bo Richter got in early, uh, as far as, uh, taking some reps with the second team. And I've seen him less recently. Early on, maybe a lot more.

He's physically very, very impressive. Looks like a strong, very strong guy and has some speed and quickness to him, but will need a lot of technique work. What I've seen so far, I would say someone to put on the practice squad and then develop from there because of his physical ability, but maybe not someone who's ready to play in the NFL just yet. That's my

impression of him right now. He could get four sacks in the preseason game and everyone would be talking about him. Wallpapers live says, are you still in the camp of sit JJ for the whole year or tempted with what you've seen that he might be more prepared than he thought. Well, my thing has always been that with an approach like Kevin O'Connell's very, very patient with JJ McCarthy, that sometimes the kid is ready to take the car out for a date night by himself before you think he is that I think that J.J. McCarthy will probably be

closer to ready when we get to the start of the season than the coaching staff feels like he is, but that's because this is a delicate situation for them. It matters a lot to what happens with their futures and everything. So they're going to be cautious. They're going to walk on eggshells a little bit with JJ McCarthy. But I'm not terrified of the idea that he would have to play. Because with a quarterback like him who could get the call in and get into the huddle and who has the physical skill, the arm strength, the mobility that he does.

And he's been getting rid of the ball fairly well. It took a couple of sacks yesterday, but didn't do it again today. I think he could play if you needed him to play. I wouldn't be terrified of that, but if he sits the whole year, who can, who can be mad at that? And this is a difficult place to be because you're supposed to kind of, you know, stick. What do they say? Like plant your flag. You're supposed to plant your flag. I'm team play McCarthy right away or I'm team. Let him sit the whole year. But I wanted to be more fluid on this situation, like I believe it is where we'll see how it plays out. But I think that if you end up having Sam Darnold play well

and he's winning and they're a 500 team and they're going into the final section of the season with a chance to make the playoffs well keep playing Darnold try to make the playoffs see what happens there but if they get off to a tough start and McCarthy isn't too far over his head as far as the coaches consider, then play him. I don't think it's going to be a disaster or that he's going to totally fall apart. I just think that it's okay to be overly safe when teams like the Chiefs and the Packers have had this work for them,

that it didn't hurt in any way. There's no way you can hurt the guy by having him go through the whole season because that first offseason is extremely extremely uh important i think when it comes to you know mastering a little bit more of the technique and improving accuracy and all those things so if he goes through the year doesn't play goes into that offseason works like crazy to be the starting quarterback the next year who's mad at that i i wouldn't be i i want to see him like you guys do of course he's the first round draft pick we spent so many hours talking about him of course we want to see him play it's just for the smart thing for the franchise it's all right if he ends up sitting uh wallpapers

any word on what they're expecting from Hawkinson as far as making her turn? Kevin O'Connell talked about it being ahead of schedule. I snarked about that yesterday that most of the time teams do say our guy's ahead of schedule. I still look at the early part of the season for him coming back, but I don't have a medical report. I see him over on the other field working i'm sure they want to get him into some drills before the end of training camp three four stuff like that uh is as judd said that levi drake rodriguez has a non-stop motor you think we can hit gold twice john randall style john randall i yeah, I understand the small school connection, but John Randall is so much more of an outlier because he wasn't drafted.

I mean, you're talking about one of the all timers for John Randall, I think. But the point with Levi Drake Rodriguez, I mean, I agree with Judd. That's what you see out there. I mean, you see that the motor is there, the quickness, but he's also big. I mean, this is also a difference between John Randall. John Randall is small. I have stood next to John Randall and been like, this is the guy, huh? This is the nastiest pass rusher or one of them in NFL history. I mean, he's not that big.

Levi Drake Rodriguez is big. He is a mammoth human being. He's definitely over 300 pounds i think or at least in that ballpark uh and for someone to be as quick as he is at his size has got to be what has made them intrigued uh leon says will the defense especially the pass rush be better this year compare what you're seeing last year versus this year. Well, last year, there were so many knowns last year. I knew Hunter. I knew DJ Wanham.

Just kind of understood what it was going to be. Last year was very much Daniil Hunter and every blitzer who could rush at the quarterback. This year, I don't think they'll need to do it as much. I was looking at some of the stats from Josh Met metellus he led all safeties and pressures and harrison smith was in the i believe top five in pressures as well jordan hicks rushed the passer a ton ivan pays for it like they were sending everybody that they could and getting pressures that way whereas now when you have granard van ginkle and turner and then pat then Patrick Jones in probably a better role than he was last year, in my opinion, I think that the pass rush can be more deep than it was last year when it was basically one guy.

And I mean, Hunter has a ton of sacks, and this is no disrespect at all. He did not always win immediately. If that makes sense, where you have some pass rushers that as soon as the snap is taken like a miles Garrett, and they just blow by their guy and they're at the quarterback where Daniil Hunter was a little more of a beating drum, pushing the guy back into the quarterback, which is less impactful sometimes on a play-to-play basis. Again, no disrespect. It just is sort of a style. You might see someone like Dallas Turner or even Jonathan Grenard get there a little quicker when they get their wins. That might change it a little bit, and they may just not have to blitz as much, which would be a win for them. Alexander, was this

the first day where the offense took advantage of the defense, or did the defense still win? No, this was a winning day for the offense. If you had to give the crown, I was told not to crown anybody by Brian Flores there. We're not crowning him yet. I'm just kidding. I hope Brian Flores isn't offended. But if you were to anoint someone the winner of the day i think it would

definitely be the offense especially when jj mccarthy beat the cover zero blitz and uh was it maybe michael jurgens picked it up i i noticed him picking it up uh on the interior uh they did a good job at handling the second team off its line handling a flores blitz to give mccarthy time but he also didn't panic when they put everybody up there and sent the cover. It looked like cover zero to me where they were sending everybody. So that's that when the quarterbacks play really well,

it's a win when they play really well, like they did today. Alexander, where do you see the Vikings offense realistically in points per game, top half or bottom half with just the players they have as far as weapons go. If it's Sam Darnold for the entire season in the middle is where I would put them, which is a safe pick for me. I think that that's where they would be though.

It would be really hard for Sam Darnold to lead a top five offense, even if Aaron Jones is as fantastic as he was last year. I could see them hanging around the top 10, 12 ish, but that's kind of where they were when Kirk was the quarterback. Maybe eighth was as high as they got or seventh when Kirk was the quarterback. case, I expect more inconsistency for Darnold and probably where we're really impressed by some games and really frustrated by others would be Sam Darnold's history. That would put them as a middle offense. If it's McCarthy, it's probably in the twenties. It just is rare for a rookie quarterback to lead an elite offense. And I wouldn't expect him to do that right away. You know, something like good at times, not good at times, maybe 17th to 21st, something like that. Andrew, Sam Darnold has all the tools. People don't talk about his rushing and his rushing

touchdowns. All that adds a layer that cousins didn't offer. Oh yeah. That, you know, when we were talking about the plays, I was kind of running through a few plays there was one where maybe donald would have been sacked he scrambled out though the play kept going so it didn't stop so he scrambles out and he sees aaron jones in the back of the end zone and he kind of does this flip of the hips jump thing and turns and throws it like a little Mahomesian type of thing. You can see him like rolling to his left and Aaron Jones went up and got it. And it was an athletic thing of beauty from both players. I mean, Aaron Jones, we know is a great player, but Sam Darnold in that scramble drill was, Whoa, that is an athlete. And you are right that Darn darn old when i watched him at the end of uh last

what was it uh the end of 2022 with carolina he actually did run and scramble quite a bit that's a good point he is a mobile quarterback um and he is a really good athlete as far as the tools there is no question about the tools it really comes down to can he protect the football which in training camp has been yes and no some interceptions early not so much the last couple days Kirk kind of threw a lot of interceptions in this offense too that's something that he hasn't done so badly early on as far as make those huge mistakes the games are different is he going to make the big mistakes because if he doesn't and he gets on the same page with jefferson then he's going to put up numbers he's going to play well uh human reconditioning says some of you guys have some

very interesting names uh i assume you mean gab Murphy is slept on heavily, played with Latu, but got the majority of the double teams and still managed to get pressures. I don't get it. I don't get it. I really don't. I truly don't understand with Gabriel Murphy what the NFL was doing, not picking him. You look at all the numbers we were talking about, the grades,

the pressures, the sacks. It's worth like a fifth round pick or something right i mean same with ivan pace look at all the numbers look at all the sacks look at all the the pressures the coverage numbers and nobody like nobody wanted to pick this guy and uh I don't know, maybe Gabriel Murphy will be the next great find. Flores said it happens every year. Does it? As good of a player as Pace doesn't happen every year. Maybe there was something. I'll ask around and see if I can find out what it was that kept Gabriel Murphy off being drafted.

It was so weird. Let's see uh joker nation says do you think nailer is going to be wide receiver three uh ish ish i think he will be sort of wide receiver three uh and brandon powell will mix in as well with um with him but if nailer can offer more of a downfield presence and powell can do some of the underneath stuff then you have a nice combination that creates a versatile type of situation where they can use both guys how they want to that's how I think that Naylor fits in it will be wide receiver 3a and b and if they both get 35 catches but nailers are longer and powells are shorter then

you get well that seems like a lot if they add up to 55 additional catches that would be pretty good but so far he's he's looked like he's uh done well max says you are so white man i know look at this look at this ridiculous sunburn not great great. And I put sunscreen on. There's nothing I can do about this when I can't find some shade. It's a Southern thing. It has nothing to do with being nude. Well, feel free to explain with that. I don't know. I was kidding around. I mean, I was just joking. Brian Flores didn't want to tell us why Dwight McClothern was called nudie, and I was kidding. I didn't have any follow-ups on that.

I did not realize that it had to do with me being white, that I didn't know that. But yeah, I mean, feel free to explain. I, you know, that's all right. Wallpapers says there's been rumors of a possible feeling reunion there's not going to be a no there hasn't there's no it's not happening there's no feeling reunion the panthers aren't trading him i don't know what these and and you're not following the rules the rules of the show are if you have a rumor you got to tell me where you got it so I can decide whether it's

worth talking about or not this one I know to be not Adam Thielen is going to play for the Carolina Panthers because the Carolina Panthers want their quarterback to be good why would they give up a receiver who can catch the ball and help a young quarterback right I mean why would they do that they want him to play for them and they want them to win and play well they're not a they're not a team that should just be trading away a veteran wide receiver who can help bryce young be better this year because he really needs to be better and not only that doesn't make a lick of sense for the vikings i'd rather see if jaylen nailer or lucky jackson or uh i keep seeing just Sean Jones. I'm going to keep

saying it until it happens almost every day. He's out there. Just Sean Jones makes a catch. So I'm going to keep throwing his name out there. But you know, him too. I'd rather see those guys man juice. Remember what I said about the names? How come we never talk about kevin and sam's relationship how is it it's it hasn't really been much of a discussion because sam darnold is a veteran quarterback who has come here and acted like nothing but a veteran quarterback it's not somebody that they're trying to develop so there isn't as much discussion about it it's, you came here to learn the offense and play and let's see it. But here's what I can tell you that I heard from someone. This is not going to be the hottest thing ever, I promise, but I heard from someone with direct knowledge of Kevin O'Connell's thinking. How does that work for you? That's that's my attempt to become an insider that O'Connell really believed when they signed him

that he could be a very good quarterback for this team. And he wanted to put his effort into Sam Darnold, give him this situation in this offense and give him a chance to have a longer career as a starter in the NFL, that that's real. That's not just what we grabbed a guy and whatever that he believed in that. And I think from that perspective, it's really good for Sam Darnold, but Darnold's not a huge talker as maybe some of you can tell. I wouldn't be either if I started in the New York market and he hasn't gone into it a ton of their relationship. But I mean, I think that that, that background, and also I believe that O'Connell mentioned having a discussion with Sam Darnold about drafting a quarterback, even though the Falcons didn't with Kirk, but also he didn't even need to like, because everyone knew it was

going to happen. I think that communication has been good. And he has been asked so much more about JJ McCarthy because he's the rookie that maybe it's worth bringing up what their communication is like. I think Sam Darnold has acted so far like the most professional quarterback that you could be. And he did last year with San Francisco and that's how he got here. And he's done everything. He talked and that's how he got here. And he's done everything. He talked about going on a golf trip with JJ McCarthy. I mean, they seem like they are doing their jobs out there and have a good relationship so far.

He hasn't shied away from the idea of helping JJ McCarthy and seems to understand the circumstance that he's in, which does also stem back to the head coach. Edwin Murphy is going to be a really good player for the Vikings. Continuing success of UCLA defensive players for Minnesota. Certainly Anthony Barr and Eric Hendricks. Were there more or were those the only two? But you're right about that. I just don't understand it. I'll try to find out. I didn't think about it too much until today. The way it's always worked with UDFAs is I pay attention when I have to, because there's so many of them. Officially today, you have to. Once Brian Flores starts talking about them like that,

once the head coach starts shouting them out, then, all right, we're going to start paying attention.