Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Vikings-Falcons preview: Darrisaw out and a HUGE game for Dallas Turner

Episode Date: September 13, 2025

Matthew Coller talks about the absence of Christian Darrisaw and Andrew Van Ginkel, which puts the pressure on Dallas Turner to rise to the challenge. The Purple Insider podcast is brought to you by FanDuel.

Hey, everybody, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider, Matthew Collar here, and we are now just days away from the Minnesota Vikings facing off with the Atlanta Falcons on Sunday night football and the injury news officially came out today. We'll break all of that down later in the show from the Star Tribune, Andrew Kramer and I go through position by position. and hardcore breakdowns, and then Stephen Ruiz from the ringer who is responsible for their quarterback ranking. Not an easy job over there at the ringer comes along with a lot of feedback, we'll say, but I talked to Stephen about what he saw from J.J. McCarthy, what he wants

to see. And we talked about some other quarterbacks, including Michael Pennix, as well. So we'll get into that. I also wanted to just say a huge thank you as we crossed 14,000 subscribers here on YouTube, and I appreciate all of you who have helped grow this channel, the folks who show up every night, ask questions, get involved in the debates, all of you who watch the replays of the shows, just cannot thank you enough. And those listening on the audio side, you guys are still going strong over there as well. So I appreciate everybody who has made the summer into the fall great for Purple Insider Industries. So let's jump in here.

And what I'm going to ask right off the bat is the fan dual question of the day, which is, you know, I didn't put a lot of work into this one. Fan dual question of the day, J.J. McCarthy. Let's talk about his prop, 212.5 yards in this game against the Atlanta Falcons. How many yards do you expect from J.J. McCarthy? Give me a stat line. Give me an X for X. How many yards touchdowns, picks if you want to. If you want to throw in some other prediction as well, would you go over under? 212.5 passing yards and do you think they win? But we'll get into that, of course, as we go along. My prediction has been that they do, but we'll see. So the, as far as the injury report goes, Christian Derisaw will not be playing for the

Minnesota Vikings. And I don't have to tell you guys, that's not good. Justin's school struggled against the Chicago Bears who have a pretty good pass rush, but not a terrifying pass rush by any means. I don't think Atlanta does either. In fact, I was looking at their numbers from last week, just one week, but they didn't have anybody on their D-line who graded above a 65 by PFF. It was really their secondary that caused a lot of problems for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. And this week, you're going to have to see a lot better from Jefferson, a lot better from feeling. And they do have their full group of tight ends, as Josh Oliver will play. in this game, but nonetheless, just in school played like a replacement level tackle, which means there were some plays where he was fine, and then there were some plays where he was beaten very quickly. And if James Pierce goes against him, a first round draft pick who has lightning quickness, that could cause some problems. I'm sure that Rahim Morris saw on tape

the number of times that they were beat on stunts and things like that, where he was involved or had quick losses, they're going to want to try to emulate that against the Vikings in this Sunday night's game. And as far as him being listed out versus limited, so Kevin O'Connell explained this to us why he was limited versus why he is out. And he talked about wanting to get him out there for warmups and go through that process and on the grass in Chicago versus the turf at U.S. Bank Stadium. And I'm going to tell you the truth. I didn't fully understand why he was out versus, versus questionable. I mean, not limited, but questionable at last week.

And he had had the two full practices and then he went into the game, questionable. It didn't happen. This week he had a limited practice and then full practice. And now he is completely out of the game. And I think that with these types of injury recoveries, the ACL, is there are a lot, All the guys who have ever had this have said it's not a every single day you get a little bit better. It's not like when you cut your finger while you're, I don't know, you know, chop in some food or something. And then every day the wound closes up a little bit more.

It's not like that with this kind of injury. And O'Connell, you know, talked about just wanting to see him make more progress and be in a good spot, but didn't give a ton of details exactly on when Derisaw is going to be back. Now, they didn't place him on IR to begin the year. So if they had placed him on IR, then we would have said, well, four weeks. So next week does make a lot of sense unless he has a setback. O'Connell said that he did not have a setback. He wanted to clarify that it wasn't like something else went wrong.

But we also went through this last year with T.J. Hawkinson as a reminder where Hawkinson was practicing and he's, you know, limited in practice. Then he's full in practice. and then is he going to play, and then he's questionable, et cetera, et cetera. And then when he didn't play, I think against maybe it was Los Angeles, it was like, oh, you know, what the heck, KOC and they didn't play against the lions. What the heck? What's going on?

I think that this team in general is very hesitant to push guys out there until they're 100% because they see the bigger picture that, yes, they could really use them against the Atlanta Falcons, but you know where they could really, really use them is next week against the Cincinnati Bengals. when they bring Tray Hendricks into town or in two weeks after that when he's facing off with Miles Garrett, you don't want Christian Derisaw

to be struggling in any way or not at 100% or not totally comfortable with whatever and how it's healed and the mobility of it or the strength of it or whatever it might be when you face Miles Garrett because that will be extremely bad for him and he is a franchise player

giving him an extra week, giving him an extra two weeks. I know it's important. I know these are big games. I know it's national TV and you'd prefer not to have Justin's school or if there's any chance that they play Walter Rouse over there. Like you don't want that to be the case. But if you're sacrificing this week or another week of having some struggles at the left tackle position, which you can try to paper over and you can try to help out and your quarterback knows it. So he's more aware of it. That's the best you could do, but they play 17 of these and then some that you're looking for in Minnesota. So you do not want Derisaw to be struggling.

And if some of you saw the Green Bay Packers game last night, I'd like an apology from the people the other day when the Packers traded for Micah Parsons, who told me he's not that good. Nope, he's that good. You're going to need Christian Derisaw at 100% to go against some of the great rushers that they're going to face this season. If there's any game that you could survive, it's probably these first two where there is not a Trey Hendrickson, a Micah Parsons, a T.J. Watt, a Miles Garrett. But those guys are on the way. And I know Watt usually rushes over the other side, but you get

the point that those guys are on the way. A lot of talent is on the way against this team. And they need Derisaw to be ready. So I get it. But it does create a major concern. Now, the good thing on the news on the injury report for the Vikings regarding the offensive line is that Ryan Kelly is in. So they are not starting a second year offensive lineman who's never played before on national TV in Michael Juergens. Instead, it will be Ryan Kelly. So he missed two days of practice. And this is something that we just need to keep in mind as we go forward here, kind of as always, which is that this team will sit veterans, out of practice. And we can't overreact. And I know that we have to go through it and the factors and

we don't really know. But with someone like Ryan Kelly, he doesn't need to practice on a Thursday in order to be good on a Sunday night with whatever he's dealing with in this instance, a toe. But that's a very big development for them because playing Michael Juergens, the drop off there in experience, in raw talent, in where they were drafted, all those things. I mean, you saw it on Monday night. Ryan Kelly created an interior wall that we have not seen there since I would say the year that Joe Berger played center was that 2016, where he was really, really on point. But I don't even think Joe Berger was ever as good as Ryan Kelly. You might have to go back to Matt Burke playing the offensive line at that center position to be this good as Ryan Kelly was on Monday.

So that's a huge deal that he's going. going to play in this game. And then you have four fifths of your offensive line. And, you know, I was noticing today because I was finishing up my Friday mailbag on the written side, which Purple Insider dot football, feel free to subscribe over there. So I was finishing up the mailbag. And one of the questions was, well, why was the offensive line so terrible in this game? And I, I checked on PFF, and they were the second graded pass blocking unit from that game. And J.J. McCarthy registered six times that he was pressured out of all of his dropbacks. I think it was 26 total dropbacks, a couple of sacks, couple scrambles, and, you know, 20 attempts. And that's not very much.

That's not getting very much pressure. But four of the six came from one guy. So if it's from the left tackle, if it's from his backside, if sometimes he was hurried up and scrambled out of the pocket when maybe, you know, as he gets more experience, he could readjust. But I also thought that it just speaks to how hard it is to have a good offensive line in today's NFL, that that performance, which was not perfect, still ends up grading extremely, extremely high. It's tough to be an offensive lineman these days. And that's why they spent the draft pick on Donovan Jackson, and that's why they spent the money on Ryan Kelly and Will Fries.

So Kelly back, he is healthy, good to go. On the offensive side, also Josh Oliver is good to go as well. He missed a couple of days with an ankle injury. but he is going to be all set. And when they elevated Nick Vanette off of the practice squad, that's where I went, is there an issue with Josh Oliver? Is there concern that Oliver's not going to be up to 100% because he is a huge help on the left side of the line

to try to just give Justin's school a little bit extra assistance there? And then in the run game, we know that Josh Oliver is vital as well. So he's in, doesn't have an injury designation. On the defense, Andrew Van Ginkle is out. with a concussion and Dallas Turner is going to be in. Now, what Kevin O'Connell said today was that every time he's been asked about Dallas Turner this offseason, which I think has been 20 times, he has talked about how excited he is for Dallas Turner and how far he's come in this journey to reach this point.

And he mentioned and reiterated what Brian Flores said about Turner yesterday, which was that he was actually disappointed that he wasn't on the field more and that he had felt his presence in that game enough times where they thought he was actually on the field more than he was. And clearly he's going to have a much bigger snap count in this game. What I think would be a little unfair to Dallas Turner with a quarterback that gets rid of the ball so quickly is, well, if he doesn't get five pressures and he doesn't get a sack or two, then Dallas Turner's just the bust and they need to move on and give chas chambliss a chance or something uh no offense to chas chamblis who did a great job making the team as a udFA but you get my point so i don't think that

we can treat this as a test case of is dallas turner good or not we'll find out sunday night and as much as i like that stuff and i really do about football i like the marquee element i like quarterback versus quarterback when someone says well you know i'm not not playing the other quarterback. I'm playing the defense. I'm like, yeah, you're playing the other quarterback. Come on. That's football, man. That's what we do here. We put you guys in the ring and we see what happens. And so I like storylines, but I think it would be a little unfair to Dallas Turner in this game with the way that they play to evaluate him purely on, well, does he get a sack in this game? Does he get five pressures in this game

because of the way Michael Panix plays quarterback? So where I'm looking for him to impact the game is to be in the right places, look like he's winning and at least disrupting the blind side of Michael Pennix because this being a left-handed quarterback, Jonathan Grinard is going to be the one that he sees winning on his side, but this is not their starting right tackle. So this is a backup right tackle. It is a great opportunity for him to have a couple of plays where he impacts the quarterback and wins quickly and shows the flashes. And then, what you really want to see is the other technical stuff where I thought he was very good the other night was against the run playing off of the guys up front who did a good job against DeAndre

Swift and you're rallying to the football using his quickness making some tackles like he did that on several different plays that stood out to me well this is a game where they want Bijan Robinson to get going and if you let Bejan Robinson get going you're going to have a lot of problems. Well, do you think the Falcons want to run at the second year player who's known as being a little undersized or do they want to run at Jonathan Granard is one of the best players in the NFL? Now, I think they're going to want to test Dallas Turner quite a bit in the run game. So if he comes out of the game with two or three pressures and yet also has a really good day setting the edge, it's not going to light anybody's shorts on fire. You're not going to celebrate

well, he was worth the trade up, but it doesn't have to be that way. This is a Dallas Turner, do your job to win this football game, create a couple of disruptions, drop back in coverage and fool Michael Pennix. Because one advantage that the Vikings have with edge rushers that can drop back in coverage against a guy like Michael Pennix is that he likes to make quick decisions. He likes to get the ball, know where he's going with it, based on what he sees, and then let it loose. But the way you could take advantage of guys who get rid of the ball quickly sometimes

is to trick them, meaning is to sometimes drop back a defensive lineman into where they're reading from pressure. So, for example, if you're sending a pressure off of Michael Pennix's left side, then a lot of times he's going to look for where he can drop in the football behind your rush. So if it's on the right side, let's say you're sending Ivan Pace, Jr., But you can drop back Dallas Turner. We've seen him intercept a pass before into that vacated space and try to get a quick decision maker like Pennix to make that snap decision

and throw it right into the hands of, you know, Dallas Turner. The funniest example that I could think of of this happening was when Tom Brady threw an interception to Sam Adams, who was a 360 pound defensive tackle, and then he ran it back for a touchdown. But Tom Brady was like that. Like Tom Brady sometimes would have that happen. because he was such a quick decision maker, he would decide I'm throwing it there.

And there might be a fat guy or there might be an edge rusher who drops back into that space. That would be Kurt Warner in the Super Bowl. I think of James Harrison had read something on that play and they were sending pressure, drop back into that space. That's what I'm looking for here because you know Pennix is going to want to get it out quickly.

So again, we might walk out of that game saying, you know, I don't know sure I really saw Dallas Turner get a quarterback hit or, you know, some sort of explosive play, but, you know, maybe he's in a spot where he's supposed to be that throws off the quarterback or maybe he's setting the edge on runs. All that little play-to-play stuff is what I'm going to be looking for, which takes a little more digging at the end of the day. It's hard to watch for in real time. It's much easier to see a sack, but I really learned from Janik and Gokwe that sacks are just

not everything in this life, my friends, when it comes to edge rushers. Yanik and Gakwe had what double digit sacks. There was all these numbers when they traded for Ingakwe that were like, hey, he's got this many sacks and this many games and only like three other players have done that in the last 10 years and et cetera, et cetera. You're like, wow, this guy's unbelievable. And then you realize, oh, he doesn't really routinely pressure the quarterback. He kind of sells out for sacks.

He doesn't set the edge, doesn't play against the run at all. and is just kind of, you know, trying to swing for maybe the other team makes a big mistake and he gets a sack. Well, that's not really effective play to play. You know, who's effective play to play? Andrew Van Ginkle. Every single down, Andrew Van Ginkle impacts the game positively. So if you're playing the role of Andrew Van Ginkle, you got to play it that way. And Van Ginkle doesn't always get three sacks.

He always doesn't get an interception. Some games, he plays really darn well. And he doesn't have anything in the stat sheet. And that's what I'm looking for for Turner. So I think we have to be careful about how we grade this game from Turner. I also think it's just another step in the progression for him that is 17 games long of a sample that we're going to see. But on the other side of that, if Turner flashes and if Turner shows the progression

that it looks like he's made and that they keep talking about and that we saw sometimes in training camp and we saw the improvements in his body and we saw the, I thought, improvement in the mentality of knowing what he didn't know after that first year and what he had to learn, then I think it will be a very big sign for this defense overall because they need him. They need him to be good. We definitely got to look at some of the weaknesses of this defense in the secondary, as we had talked about, that it wasn't going to be a perfect secondary. If the front seven is a perfect front seven, that's going to mitigate some of the issues. with the back half of the defense and Dallas Turner is a big part of that and we'll have to make up for a big absence of Andrew Van Ginkle in this game. So I don't want to make it the

does Dallas Turner justify his, I mean, we could. It would be funny like to do the like a big voice kind of this Sunday night, you know, that kind of thing. Dallas Turner proves whether he is a real success in the NFL or a bust. Yeah, I mean, but. that's not really how we should do it. Now, there is another absence of Jeff Okuda is also out. And while Jeff Okuda only played a handful of snaps in the first game, still, you know, that's somebody that gave them a nickel package to put on the field. And now they've been talking about Flores and Kevin O'Connell about how Dwight McLeathern is going to have to step up to the plate here and he's going to have to step, you know, into this role that he's

never played before. Only a handful of snaps last year, two training camps, an undrafted free agent that they really, really liked last year, who's been a playmaker for them. And I thought after a maybe a bit of an ugly start to training camp ended up finishing strong. And I also think that that's why he ended up on the roster and not Zemaiah Vaughn was even though Vaughn was playing over him for a lot of camp. They gave Vaughn every chance to win the that McLeathern at the end of the day was the corner that they wanted and has shown a lot of potential.

He's never played before, though. But sometimes guys who have never played before, step out and show you what they could do, i.e. Miles Price. We said it so many times. Well, he's never caught a real pun out there at Soldier Field. And then when he did, he was awesome. And you're like, oh, well, some guys are good at football.

So I don't know what we'll see from Dwight McLeathern. My feeling on this, though, is Jeff Okuda is experienced. He's a physical presence. That's what you really like about him out on the field is it's not easy to run when Jeff Okuda's out there. But as far as his actual performance over his career in coverage, you're bringing in a potentially replacement level player in McLeodern, but that's what Okuda's been for his career.

And you're not filling in like a normal team that plays your regular, you know, just nickel package all the time. And this is a team that's going to rotate different guys. I had a conversation with Jay Ward in the locker room today because he's a guy that you could definitely see being a much bigger player in this game. Also, Harrison Smith is questionable without full practices this week. I struggle to see a full-time role for Harrison Smith in the game. But I suppose it is possible that they could have him active and on a pitch count just to get him ramped up. maybe it's 15 plays or something.

I don't think that he'll play, but we'll see. Jay Ward stepped in last week. It did a really good job for this team. And he's developed over three years. Imagine allowing someone to develop and then they get on the field and they're not completely lost. Well, what a concept. But, you know, with Ward, he is following the very same path that we've seen from a lot of

other guys. And he has been a special teamer and he's worked his way up and he's gotten small opportunities. And now he is a flexible type of player who can play in the slot, can play it in the deep part of the field at safety. And he might be somebody that they need quite a bit in this football game against an Atlanta team that will have both of their, they will have both of their top wide receivers in Drake London and Darnell Mooney. Those guys do not have any designation. So both of them are going to be healthy to play in this game. The secondary is going to be tested in this football game.

And whether it's McLeodden or it's Ward, someone who's not all that experienced is going to have to do something in this game in order for the Minnesota Vikings to win. So I want to know how you guys think that this one's going to play out. And around 7 o'clock, going to have Andrew Kramer of the Star Tribune. We had a conversation inside TCO Performance Center before the injury report came out. so we did talk about like some different possibilities. But I don't think it's anything that I need to delete. So that's a really good conversation.

But I want to know how you guys think that this game is going to play out. And that Fandul question of the day, J.J. McCarthy over under 20012.5 yards. What do you expect from J.J. McCarthy? Give me one thing that you expect to see from J.J. McCarthy. I'd love your over under there, but it can be just about. anything. And I've also got some other fun props if we get to those, but your questions and comments and thoughts are also welcome as well. So what do we got? I think personally for J.J. McCarthy in this game that because of the way that the last one ended, you know, we're going to be talking

a lot about, you know, well, he should just do that again, right? He should just be the same exact guy that he was in the fourth quarter throughout the next four quarters. And then the expectation is set pretty darn high for J.J. McCarthy the way that he finished that game. But I think that the way that he managed the entire game, because every game is like this, no game almost in the NFL. Now, maybe Indianapolis versus Miami last week, or maybe last year against Houston, but almost no game in the NFL today in 2020. is a team comes out is just amazing. The other team is like garbage and then the game ends.

On Saturdays, you'll see that. Maybe when the gophers play Northwestern State Louisiana Tech or whatever, but that's not the NFL. It doesn't happen very often. And even last night when the Packers beat the tar out of Washington, that was a game in late in the game where Washington still very much had a chance. and the Packers completely outplayed them, but these are NFL teams, right? So I expect that the Atlanta Falcons will cause problems at times for J.J. McCarthy.

I expect that they'll score points and that you're not going to just go out there and get a Will Reichert 47-yard field goal and then pack it in because your defense is so good. With the injuries on defense, if Harrison Smith isn't there, you know, Kudah's out. You're adding an extra defensive back to it. You don't have Blake Cashman. and Eric Wilson is a tremendous player. I have huge respect for Eric Wilson, not Blake Cashman.

Blake Cashman is a next level, top 10-ish type of linebacker who is really good in command out there. I mean, that's some serious losses that they've got going into this game. So I expect that Atlanta will move the ball and that they will score at times and that during the game, people will be saying, Flores, do you know what you're doing? But that's how it's likely to play out, right? Is there will also be moments on the offensive side

that J.J. McCarthy does not hit somebody perfectly in stride, that Justin's school allows a pressure on a third down that ruins a drive. So maintaining that good decision making that he started with in Chicago. And I saw Alec Lewis tweet out something from NFL NextGen about how, J.J. McCarthy threw in rhythm, which they determined to be between two and a half and four seconds after taking the snap. Maybe a little bit like shoving something into a box, picking it between two and a half and four seconds, but I understand what they're getting at there. Like, it's not a screen that comes out in one second, and it's not a scramble.

So anything in between. And that McCarthy did that on 65% of his passes, which is a really good number and KOC quarterbacks are the best in the league when it comes to throwing within two and a half and four seconds, kind of that in-rhythm type of passing, maintaining that, dropping back, making a decision, letting it go, and improving on the timing would be really good for J.J. McCarthy. And I think that in the atmosphere that he's going to be in now, he can do that. You are at U.S. Bank Stadium. You are not at Soldier Field in Chicago. You know, your fans have been partying all day preparing for this. And I was at the airport today.

Funny story. Not that funny. I forgot my headphones. I went to bed at 3 o'clock in the morning after the game and finished all my work, flew back with my flight at 6, and just took off my headphones and set them down when I grabbed my bag and left them there. And the good folks at United Airlines, feel free to sponsor the show, the good folks at United Airlines called me and said, did you forget a person?

pair of headphones, and so I had to go to the airport. And I saw one Atlanta Falcon fan. Yep, yep. There was a guy had Falcons gear on, walking through the airport. I expect that he'll be the only one inside of U.S. Bank Stadium. So the environment is going to be really good for J.J. McCarthy in this game. Probably the toughest he'll face is when they say, a quarterback, J.J. McCarthy, and everyone will go crazy, and then he can't hear the play being called in. Like, if you're at the game, don't do that. Don't cheer. He needs to be hearing the play in that moment.

Anyway, other than that, it will be a very good environment for him to communicate, for him to get everybody lined up, to get out of the huddle. This is what you want to see from him. These are the biggest areas. In and out of the huddle's got to be faster. Checks and changes at the line of scrimmage have to be faster. And then decisions have to be ever so slightly faster. And the difference between a slow decision and a,

a fast decision is that. Like, that's it. Like, that's it. It's just a half quarter of a millisecond can be the difference. But if you're a little late here or there, that gives a defense an advantage. And I think he was a little late on a couple of his throws in his first game. So you want to see incremental improvements. But if the second quarter, they don't score and he goes one for six, we don't have to talk about Christian Ponder.

So I'm just throwing that out there. But these are small things you want to see. Now, that's from him. From Justin Jefferson, you want to see him do Justin Jefferson things. You want to see some spectacular catches. You want to see his details be better. You want to see him take over a game the way he has so many times on the brightest stage in front of the Sunday night audience.

And I think that Jefferson is, after talking to him yesterday, very, very amped up to do that. And then it comes down to Kevin O'Connell. And what do we want to see from O'Connell? For me, and I talk about this a little later with Andrew and with Stephen, but for me, it's just getting a couple of screens. It's a lot of Jordan Mason, like make them show that they could stop the run first. Don't give them anything easy. And also, I want to throw this out there as well, that all of us, logically speaking,

we can think about this and we could go, you know, it's probably a good idea to just get that ball out of JJ's hand. get some short passes going. I don't mean screens. I mean, you know, quick passes. Just get a couple of completions to Hocketson and, you know, just get them in rhythm early on, right? But this man's best throw is the 15-yard line drive post, 20-yard post.

Let him rip it. Let him rip it early. The throw that he said that he got in rhythm with was a deep crossing route from Jay, Naylor that was kind of a little bit of a defense that surprised me a bit, but I guess this is what they mean when they talk about Justin Jefferson, where there were three receivers on the right and Naylor ran a deep crossing route. There's a safety on that other side, but the safety went with Jefferson and not Naylor. That's why he went to Jalen Naylor. It's okay to have J.J. McCarthy come out and throw the ball down the field early if those are the best throws that he

makes. And I think that they are. I think that touchdown throw to Justin Jefferson or that play action throw, those are the best throws that he makes is something where he puts his body into it and drives it. That's where he's most comfortable. And he's not yet comfortable. I don't think with a little dink over over there or a little touch pass over there. Those are things that in practice, you can come along, come along. And then you go into the game and you kind of are who you are right now until he gets a lot of those. So I'm not saying no short passes. No short passes, KOC, only bombs. Let's go. But more of like leaning into those throws that worked for him in the fourth quarter and into the legs as well. Don't be afraid to use some of that running again and make these other teams

prove that they can stop J.J. McCarthy. So the Fandul question of the day, the over under 12.5 yards, I will go with the over on this because I think they're going to need offense. I think they're going to open it up a little bit more, but I would still like them to slam into Atlanta's face with Jordan Mason and your expectations for J.J. McCarthy. What are they? Whether it's numbers, whether it's a score, just win the game, or, you know, what is it? Andrew has 27 to 20. I've got 2420. I think it's going to be very close. Dino says Dallas Turner is a stud. No player in the NFL would start over Grinard and Ginkle. Well, I think that with what Dallas Turner did last year,

had they played him 750 snaps and had him rush the passer every time, he probably doubles his sack output, if not a little more, because he has lightning quickness. He's also probably not a complete player at that point. And developing someone is not a crime. We've seen many NFL players start. start off in a part-time role and develop and get better and then get their chance and succeed.

And that's what you're looking for from Dallas Turner here. And what happened last year is a development season for a very, very talented player. And even though you're right that he would not start over Van Ginkle and Grenard, and there's very few guys who would because you're talking about a pro bowler and a second team all pro, Turner was on the field a lot in the second half of the year, which I think showed his progress and he was on the field a good amount in this game as well the first game of the year. And then they played dime and pre-vent and, you know, that sort of thing. And he wasn't out there as much. But, uh, yeah, he played well and he got on the field. It's not like

this, it's not like this guy is sitting on the sideline. And they're playing Chas Chambliss instead. They're, they're playing him. The plan was to play him. They didn't go out and get anybody else. They could have. Instead, they got interior players. And that's where I, I, I do think that the interior is going to be huge for them in this game where you might end up with, I wouldn't be shocked if I saw Jonathan Allen at the end at times. And you had Jalen Redmond and Javon Hargrave in the middle because you can't play Dallas Turner every single snap. I mean, he's youthful, but he's never played more than about 35.

Maybe you could push that to 50, but how are they going to handle, or maybe they will just play him 70? I don't know. How are you going to handle a rotation there? Are you going to have a rotation there? Is it an extra delinement? Is it playing Jonathan Allen at the end? Is it Bo Richter? Is it Gay Murphy being elevated?

And then, you know, he ends up playing a little bit. I wouldn't be shocked if that end up happening as well. That's going to be worth watching. Andrew says, he just wants to see the protection holding up well for J.J. McCarthy. More play action runs, JJ, and handles the crowd well. There won't be a whole lot to handle with the crowd if the crowd knows what it's doing. I know they're going to be excited, but they need to study a little Peyton Manning era in Indianapolis where you just keep your mouth shut when he's on the field.

Better protection from the O line, though, is, you know, I think it's just a one guy thing. In that game, Donovan Jackson, Ryan Kelly, and Will Fries were awesome. It's probably the first time that I would walk out of a game. I mean, I'm sure it's happened before, but not too often where I said, while the interior of the offensive line was really good in that game. Early on, I still don't even want to say they had some problems. Maybe it wasn't the biggest push, but they just didn't have many plays because of a lot of different factors, drops, running routes, short, you know, things like that.

The interior was really, really good. It's really just that left side that's going to be the biggest question. And more play actions for McCarthy, I wonder how many, and it's nice we can look this up, how many play actions. that he ran in the first game of the year. Let's see. He had a lot. Yeah, he had a lot. So when you say more, this is a high, it's a high amount. He ran 40% of his dropbacks were play actions, which is about 10% more than Sam Darnold had last year and had some success, 41 yards on 10 dropbacks is not, not a lot of yardage, but he did have that great throw to Justin Jefferson.

and it was his one big time throw of the game as tracked by PFF that throw to Jefferson was off play action. But I would say keep using it. You don't need to use it every time for him, but keep using it. Name, I guess, an anonymous commenter, no pick six this weekend, three touchdowns, another W. I don't need the three touchdowns depending on, you know, how things end up playing out. But as an offense scoring, at least three touchdowns would be in the ballpark of what

they're probably going to need to win this game. If Jordan Mason scores them, you know, that goes back to the old, like, Teddy Bridgewater thing. Adrian Peterson scored the touchdowns. So Teddy didn't throw them in. Sorry, like that happens sometimes. If J.J. McCarthy doesn't throw or run any touchdowns, but Mason does and they lead touchdown drives, well, all the power to J.J. McCarthy then.

TLS, but no pick six. Yeah, that would be an improvement. No huge catastrophic mistake is probably a. good one. TLS says Jay Ward had another special teams penalty, but Buck said it was Nick McLeod. Well, look, it's not easy to get every single detail right when you're calling two teams that you don't cover all the time. Mistakes happen. Jay Ward did leave a little bit early on special teams. And he has had that happen a few times. But defensively, overall, as a special teams player, he's been really good over the last two years. He just has had a couple of penalties. That one weird

one. Didn't he line up off sides and it negated a field goal or something, 2023. So a couple memorable ones. A JJ to JJ 35 plus yard touchdown. Yeah, that's what you really want to see in this game is that J.J. McCarthy and Justin Jefferson look like a duo that is going to be dangerous. And with Sam Darnold, those two last year had a couple of big games and nights like this, like against Indianapolis, where the Colts decided that they were going to play. man coverage against Justin Jefferson and just got completely smoked in doing it by Sam Darnold, hit a couple of shots, hit a couple of intermediate balls for him. I mean, this is the best receiver in the world.

He didn't play like it last week, and he should be very motivated to come and play like it this week. Brett says McCarthy over 240 yards. Track pat has a rushing and passing touchdown 224, so just barely covering. Melkill says my gut says the Vikings will whoop them. I think that this Vikings team at full, full strength, every player on the roster playing, I would agree with you,

would be significantly better than Atlanta's overall roster. But without Derrissau, without Cashman, possibly without Harry, there's a lot of talent that's not playing in this game. And Andrew Van Ginkle, again, like one of the best defensive players in the entire NFL last year. the fact that there are players missing makes it harder because they are kind of big players for them. Paul says I would bring in Taki Tiamani to help stop the run. No doubt they're going to lean

heavily on Bijon Robinson. Well, you know, last week they were great against handoffs, 17 for 53. And that's where Jalen Redman and Levi Drake Rodriguez, I think those guys are better players than Taki Tiamani. He's fatter. But I think those guys are better players. And they They specialize in that. There were a few plays where those guys shot into the backfield. And that's why they have a more dynamic rotation on this D-line that we saw last week, where you have Levi Drake Rodriguez playing 20 snaps. You have Jalen Redmond playing 30 snaps.

That's a deep group. But they all do something a little bit different where Levi Drake is just very strong and very quick. And I think Redmond is crafty and quick as well. and then, you know, tie Ingram Dawkins, I think we'll mix in from time to time as well. So I don't think that they need anything different from what they did last week. And they should have a much better D-line than the offensive line for the Atlanta Falcons, which last year was the best in the NFL by PFF at run blocking. And I checked this earlier today, but failing on the memory, what is it, 26th for week one.

And it's against, you know, it's against Tampa Bay. Tampa Bay is good defense. They're a good team. But I think that tells you that they're not the same run blocking unit as they were. TLS says JJ had several balls deflected by pass rushers. I tried to look this up and I found it with Kirk Cousins because in 2018, I remember Kirk getting a ton of balls batted down and being like, what is going on with Kirk?

Is it something he does? Is he telegraphing where he's going with the ball? Like, why do they keep knocking the ball down? and then he had 12 the next year and nine and then nine and it's like oh that's not a problem that's one every other game i think those knockdowns could be put pretty random uh you're rolling out you throw it the guy just barely gets a hand on it uh there was another one where he went to throw the ball and was it on ymata kind of came back around and just knocked it out barely at the last second i don't know if like we're going to need a much much bigger sample size of him getting balls

knocked down. To have four knockdown was like shocking. Is that how many he was credited with? I don't know if that's how many he was credited with for the game. But to have as many knocked down as he did was surprising. You just don't see that very much. Could have been just being a little late. Could have been completely random that the ball ends up getting whacked down by somebody. Bobby says, I like McLeatherin in there if he's called upon. I'm interested. He's got the talent. He has got the talent. And I'll go back to my friend, Chris, Paso, who I love as a draft analyst, and I remember when they picked up McLeathern as an undrafted free agent, he sent me a message and said, man, I was so wrong on McLeodern. I had a third round

grade on him. And then about halfway through camp, I sent him another message and said, actually, I think you were right on him. I think he was more of a third round type of talent. And just like a Gabe Murphy or just like a number of other undrafted free agents, sometimes guys slipped through the cracks, and he was a slip through the cracks type of guy. This isn't somebody who's completely new undrafted free agent. He's been in the system. The expectation should be high for him. And I only go on what it looks like in front of me and not so much on the draft status.

And McLeathern has looked like a guy who could play in the NFL over the last two camps. He looks like a guy who could jump in front of a ball and get a pick. How much they're going to let him play is my question, though. Is it going to be Mattelis, Jackson, Ward, where Ward is playing back there? Are we going to see Harrison Smith this week? How are they going to manage this? I think Jackson and Ward at the safety positions in Mattelis playing nickel is something that they've done and has worked out for them. Mr. Merr says Elijah Williams is like eighth on the depth chart.

He looks promising, but I doubt he gets meaningful snaps. Yeah, I agree with that. I don't think that he will, but I like where he's at. I really, really like where he's at. And that's a good example right there for Elijah Williams of somebody who will develop and you want to give him time. Levi Drake Rodriguez last year, that's somebody that everybody wanted to see. You know, they got to get Levi Drake in there and he wasn't ready last year.

And then now he is and he's good. this coaching staff seems to understand timelines for guys and when they're ready to do what they need them to do. Jason says kind of hard to let McCarthy throw a deep when your left tackle isn't blocking. Well, yes and no, yes and no. I mean, you have play action plays that are usually downfield. You can roll them away from the left tackle.

Justin's school did not play well, but he allowed four pressures on 20 something, 26 dropout. tax total, including scrambles and a couple sacks. But, you know, that's all that's, you know, that's 90% of the time still blocking his guy. There's opportunities to still throw the ball. And a lot of downfield passing to someone as fast as Justin Jefferson is one, two, three hitch throw anyway. So I, you can, you can do that. If you do it right, you can do that. You don't have to hang in the pocket all day. I don't think I'd do it every single play. I think intermediate is really where I'm looking,

where you can get rid of the ball in three seconds where McCarthy can get everything behind it like he likes to the throws that he's most comfortable with and then go from there. Name says take off the last one of the training wheels. My goodness, play calling felt awkward to watch in the first half. It was. Yeah, it was because it almost seemed like Kevin O'Connell wasn't really sure how much he could go with there.

and execution it was a massive deal as well that's you know the blocking at left tackle and the receivers and some of that stuff and also there were some plays that were downfield there's one in particular that was a wide open shot downfield to jalen naylor that just never came to fruition because of a pressure off the left side there was the shot to aaron jones that ended up turning into a penalty. So there were some play designs that should have sent J.J. McCarthy into the intermediate and downfield areas. That's why it's always difficult to judge the play caller. She's like, oh, these plays. Like, they're not working. They must stick. And I agree philosophically. Running Mason, getting McCarthy into some of his best throws, line drives to the middle of the field. I think they

only threw four attempts to the middle of the field. That's not good enough for a guy who thrives in the middle of the field. So all that stuff, like, I agree with you. But then sometimes when you watch the tape back, you go, yep, that play should have worked. But this happened or that happened to the other thing. And that's why it's always a little bit dicey. I shot you 99 as 31.17. Could see that. 50 to 14. Of course. They put up 50. Then, then you're really going to be hearing a lot about J.J. McCarthy. Kurt says injuries early on help us adapt. so that later in the year we have even more wrinkles we could throw in. Well, where it might help is you have players who get experience.

That's what it is. Like you have players like Dallas Turner here, like Jay Ward. You probably need everybody. And I've brought this up on the show before, but the Greg Rosenthal theory of 40 players where his idea is if you want to be a great team that can win the Super Bowl, you've got to have 40 good players. And, you know, of course, there's many other things too. that, but I like that thought because you're going to miss guys throughout the season. You're going to miss guys in

the playoffs. And the next man up has to be at least somewhat ready to face off. And, you know, I think they're going to see some opportunities for some guys here in this game that, you know, like Dwight McLaughern and like Dallas Turner, younger players that are not as experienced. TLS, thank you for the super chat. It says, I've been a Dallas doubter, but I'm optimistic. The thing about being a Dallas doubter is, well, what have we really seen to not take them at their word? We've seen him get in games last year as part of a great defense and contribute. He had a couple of sacks. He had an interception.

He had a game against Indianapolis where he had to play Van Ginkle's role that he was very good in. And that's a player who is a 21-year-old developing guy behind some great. players. It's not like when he got in to those games that he looked, I mean, he didn't look like Lawrence Taylor. He didn't look like Micah Parsons when he first walked down the field. But he looked like he belonged to the NFL and he certainly made plays down the stretch for them and was a significant part of the defense. There's nothing that I've seen so far where I would go, oh man, this is a huge problem with Dallas Turner. You got progressively better last year, better throughout camp and now you expect progressively better in the season he's got to show

it though he's got to show it it's just there has there hasn't been a lot to work with because of the circumstances and now we're going to get more to work with and that's what i'm looking forward to in part in this game uh jose's redmond and lDR looked pretty good will be interesting to see i don't think that you trade harrison phillips unless you're pretty sure about those guys i don't think you just go, you know what? Let's move on from a captain, veteran player. It's really good and proven because we kind of like this one dude. Those guys were really good in camp, really good in the first game. Bri has the over on the Fanduil question of the day and has 250 to 300 yards passing in the score 23 to 20. It would kind of be a little shootouty,

I guess, in that way. Shons is perhaps they elevate Murphy from the practice squad. to bridge the snap gap at outside linebacker. I could definitely see that. I think Turner gets 50-ish Murphy 15. Perhaps Bo gets five. Yeah, that's, it's really, I think, going to show us how they feel about Gabe Murphy because it was a surprise when he was cut out of camp. It was a surprise to me. And I figured they could get him through to the practice squad, but it was a surprise to me as much as it was to you guys because I thought that he had a good preseason in training camp and sometimes it's just who they think they could get back ends up getting cut and who they think might get picked up but Murphy played a little bit last

year got into a game I think it was actually against Atlanta played okay they might do that they might with Ryan Flores sometimes they like guys that we don't really realize how much they like the first time I saw Josh Mattel is playing box safety in training camp in 23. I was like, Josh Mattelis, huh? Okay. All right. Well, that's an interesting idea. And now he's like in a thousand snap key player extension, vital guy to this team, right? Sometimes they see things behind the scenes. So it might be somebody else. It might be Bo Richter who I have been high on kind of since the start and wrote about him last year, just about how good he was on special

teams and embracing that role and coming from Air Force and all those things, they might be high on Chas Chambliss to play him a little bit in that role. He played well in the preseason. So I'm not sure. That's something that you want to start finding out is whether, you know, it was the reason for Gabe Murphy getting cut was because they liked somebody else or if it was just kind of a procedural thing and he's still a part of this. It's kind of hard to say. Let's see. Kit says under on the passing over on rushing. Still think JJ and the running backs push the ball on Sunday night. That's where it's there's nothing wrong with using Jordan Mason like he's Jamal Anderson or Michael Turner or something where you're pounding away

and beating down a defensive line that's just not that impressive. I mean, when you go through the D line of the Atlanta Falcons, there's not. not too many names on it where you're going, well, hey, this guy, he's the game wrecker. He's the superstar. You just don't really see that. Barry says, I thought I understood PFF grading, but the Vikings had 30 pressures last week versus eight for the bears. They ended up with the same exact pass rush grade.

Yeah, so Barry, the quarterback, it's a quarterback. That's what happened there. Did they, let me see, I didn't look at the, now I'm looking at, I'm looking at something different with the grade for the bears. I see them at 23rd is where I see them on PFF for a week one. I see the Vikings at second and I see the bears at 23rd for their pass blocking. But also, quarterbacks cause pressures and they will give, you know, the pressures to the quarterback.

How many of those pressures were on Caleb Williams is probably a lot. That's also something I can look up how many they gave to Caleb Williams. But it had to be a lot, right? the amount of times that they were chasing him around. Let's see. They only gave a couple of the Caleb Williams, actually. That's interesting because I thought it would probably have been more. But holding onto the ball.

So even if somebody gets beat, holding on to the ball, holding on to the ball, what was Caleb Williams time in the pocket in the first week? I'm guessing that that was, yep. So Caleb Williams in week one had the second slowest time from snap to throw, which would probably cause his offensive line to have a bigger challenge and J.J. McCarthy I think was pretty good in that area.

Where was McCarthy? I think he was pretty good in that area anyway. I'm not seeing it right away. Oh, there he is. McCarthy was at 2.8 seconds versus 3.4 seconds for Caleb Williams. You're just going to end up with more pressures there. Let's see.

Derek says I would love to see a first drive that would show KOC isn't afraid. of hitting the gas and not putting J.J. in bubble wrap. Yeah, I like that idea. I mean, sometimes even with his, it doesn't have to be bombs. It doesn't have to be 50-yard shot plays. Sometimes it's just a play action that goes for 15. And then a straight drop back where everybody's all out and you swing past for another 10. And then you hit Jefferson on a hook or a whatever, or button hook, they used to call it. I don't know if they still do.

Or curl and you hit him for 15 or 12 or it's an, you know, a drive that feels like the other team just got hit by a truck is something that's happened a lot during the KOC era with Kirk Cousins or with Sam Darnold where they come right out and they drive down the field and they score right away. We've just seen it a lot. And for last week in those scripted plays to look so bad, you went, they either had a little bit of a rough script

that maybe wasn't quite clear for J.J. McCarthy or didn't have the right idea or McCarthy was pretty anxious and so were a lot of other people. You know, maybe that could be a combination of things. But I don't disagree though. You'd like to see aggressiveness, but don't forget about Jordan Mason. It's a little bit of, don't get too hot or too cold. Because if you're all aggressiveness trying to throw it down the field, then you forget about Mason, which they kind of did until the third quarter, and you don't want to do that either. Bobby says Miles Price should start us around the 50-yard line for every punt return. Yeah, Miles Price made one hell of a first impression.

It's hard to do that every single week, but at least he struck the fear. I saw, I think it was De Orlando Ledbetter, who's a longtime Falcons reporter, was tweeting about how the special teams coordinator was talking about Miles Price down there in Atlanta today. I mean, they're, they're noticing that he is a factor and they're going to have to pay attention to Miles Price. Let's see. Evans says so excited to watch Miles Price play again. That's the first time and a long time that anybody said that about a punt returner, but he's got something to him. He has some juice to him that is special.

It's unique. And it doesn't take any work for any of us to see it. when he's out there for the preseason games and then he's out there it's just an explosiveness it's a fearlessness and i think he's got strength to to run through people if he has to we saw that in the preseason game he's an exciting player and that's one of those things where i don't want to get into any draft discussion but where if you're going to be a good team this has always been my thought you have to have random guys that you never expect emerge i will say that for any sport. You have to have, it's so hard to just in an offseason throw together all these people

who are highly paid free agents, which the Vikings have done and spent a lot of cash in order to get there. But every team that's good needs a random undrafted free agent to be a great punt returner and then suddenly get some huge returns of the first game and be a hero and go, where do that come from? I mean, that was Marcus Sherrill's too. Undrafted free agent, how many times did Sherrill's come up big for them. It's the same kind of thing with Miles Price. They need that. Neal says, uh, want, uh, the Vikings team that blows a team out. So my blood pressure is, isn't 140 over 200. I don't know how blood pressure analytics work, but that sounds bad. This year, I don't know if you're going to see a lot of blowouts. When you look at the schedule,

when you look at the NFC, just a lot of teams that are pretty good. I'm not. I'm not. I'm not looking at the NFC like I looked at it last year. And this is why when we look at record and expectation, we have to do it differently every year. And a lot of it has to be on the environment. Because last year, there were so many god-awful abomination teams in the NFL. If I'm not mistaken, it was one of the biggest gaps

between the number of good teams, the number of bad teams, like the number of teams under six wins, the number of teams over 13 wins, the NFL has ever had the have and have nots it was absurd and the vikings got a lot of the have knots on their schedule they don't this year and that means probably closer games than they had with some of their blowouts and you know some games were blowouts and turned into one score games we know that but the schedule is different this year the environment's different so I think what you should do is take a deep breath during a game and sometimes I want to say like

remember, and I know this is hard, but you are just watching football, you are just watching football. That is a hard thing to remember during a game. I understand that. Let it play out. If they're down after one quarter, let it play out first. Get angry after the game if it doesn't go your way. Rob says school wasn't great, but he wasn't egregiously bad either. JJ slipped on the turf trying to escape a couple times. That is true that he also. He also, got arm tackled once where if he kind of breaks through it or doesn't trip on somebody's arm that got thrown out he probably gets about 10 yards school overall graded i think a 60 by pff which to put that in context the worst games from t j clemings were somewhere between 20 and 40 and

christian derisaw games are usually in the upper 70s to upper 80s so that gives you kind of the spectrum of where that is 60 is considered by pf a 60 grade is replacement level play. That's what Jason Justin School gave. He gave replacement level play. But it's still not a position that you can really get away with very well having replacement level play.

Now, they would have begged for a replacement level play at the guard position at times. I think that tight end or running back or a safety, you can get away with that on a number of games. Left tackles hard because you're usually playing the best athlete on the other team. Nick just got here, was Kelly practicing. He was, and he does not have a designation.

That is, that is huge for them to not have a designation for him, which means he's playing. It's good to go, all set. There you go. Exposé, notice JJ was staring receivers down. Is that an issue you saw? That one is hard to figure because if he was getting into his reads early in the progression, well, you're probably going to go where you're looking.

I don't know about the staring receivers. I mean, maybe he was. It's hard to figure out. Even when you're watching the tape, you're looking at, is his helmet pointed that way? Then I guess he must have been looking that way because his helmets like this,

but I don't know what his eyeballs were doing. I'm going to say generally, yes, it sort of looked like he was looking in the direction where he was throwing. One step at a time, one step at a time with McCarthy. He got the fourth quarter come back. He's not prime Tom Brady. just yet with where the game is slowed down and he's looking off wide receivers and that's

why they need to manage it carefully with what they dial up for him. But when he ultimately threw the football, I thought that he did a good job of deciding where. There may be something to what you're saying, though, as far as defenders having a read on it of when he is going to, when and where he's going to throw the football of him staring down his wide receivers. It's just a really hard thing, a very advanced thing to be dropping back and using your eyes to manipulate safeties and stuff. And this is why it's going to have to be one step at a time.

And that's why Fanduil question of the day, I still think he'll be around 200 yards in this game that I would probably go the under and they're going to run a lot and try to control the ball and play it that way and try to hit on some of those plays that work best for him. But that's why you can't just throw 40 times a game right off the bat with J.J. McCarthy. because there is some elements of that. Mr. Mayor says weird hearing different podcasters talk about the beginning of week one. Some people are saying the training wheels were on and they let him loose with the full playbook. And others say they started too complex

and that he got successful when they simplified it. What's your take on that? My take on that is that probably the guy who knows best, the answer to that is Kevin O'Connell. I felt like they were a little bit timid coming out with J.J. McCarthy and it certainly didn't strike me as being super aggressive right away with the routes that they ran when I watched back on tape. I also think there were some downfield routes that the opportunities were missed and he ended up scrambling or throwing somewhere else and completing a pass. I don't think

that a war crime was committed of play calling here by Kevin O'Connell to start the game. I think that everybody was responsible in different ways, whether it was some play calls that weren't good enough for McCarthy or good at that time. How about the run calls early in the game? They didn't have any success with that. And West Phillips said that they were too slow to make those changes and get to some of the more power runs that the bears were giving them. And so that was an issue. Not having Jordan Mason until the third drive. Jordan Mason should be the last person I want running into me to start my day is Jordan Mason. Aaron Jones, I get, if the starter is a thing, I don't care about who's starting.

What I would want is as far as like in the box score or in the introductions or whatever, what I would not want if I was a defensive lineman, a linebacker, a safety would be to have to fill a gap and get drilled in the face by Jordan Mason to start my day. I've just had the introductions. I've just had my eggs and bacon, I'm ready to go play some football, and I'm lining up at linebacker, and Jordan Mason hits me in the mouth. Like, that's not something that I would love. And that's why I would like to see him early on in the football game. So everybody had, uh, their reasons why, uh, you know, it didn't work out. And, you know, I think, uh, that those are all things that they can work on. I mean,

that that's the one thing is that there was nothing that I saw in that game and the way that they started as bad as it was. When I looked back over it, there was nothing that. I saw where I went, oh my gosh, this team is in so much trouble. This is such a problem. Nothing, nothing that I saw. It was just, that should be better. That should be better. That should be better.

Now, Justin's school, you know, of course, there's no answer to that one. But, you know, those things when it comes to, you know, the wrong routes or play calls that weren't there for him yet or not using Jordan Mason early out, like all those things. those are all things that they can improve on for this week. That was the most encouraging part of the start of the game. Now, when something goes bad, we open an investigation, and sometimes the simplest answer is the best one, which is they just didn't execute what they were supposed to do.

Dylan says Dallas played stout last week and broke through, disrupt the run game on a couple of important times. I agree, Dylan. I agree. It was really noticeable the times, and you saw the acceleration, you saw, saw the power and went, oh, Dallas Turner, that was a good play, right? And even though it was only a couple of pressures, it still was impacting the game, which is, you know, that's the job. I thought he had a good last week. I really thought he had a good last week. Mr. Mayor, why was the

field so rough in Chicago? Oh, Mr. Mayor, I have no idea. They had concerts and it's Chicago. It's never been good. I'm sure if you're just to Jefferson when you watch the tape back, there's a couple of very clear slips and slides. It's football, man. No excuses. I don't know. Chicago.

What are you going to do? It's Chicago. Bobby says Jordan Mason, most impacting acquisition. I might go Javon Hargrave as well. I wrote about or I'm writing about Jvon Hargrave for this week. Might go with Jvon as well because he was a beast. last week but I agree like they what they added

you know last year O'Connell was talking about play style all the time play style we got to be tougher we got to be a play style team and they got to feel us kind of thing you know what that comes down to though that doesn't come down to asking for it I can ask for it all day long

you could stay in next to me on a basketball court and you don't be like you know what we need we need dunks I'd be like okay here I go and I would come two feet short of the goal of dunking the basketball because I can't do it. I can shoot for three, but I can't dunk. Last year, you were asking Dalton Reisner to have an intimidating play style. Not going to happen, my friends.

You're asking Garrett Bradbury to intimidate the other team and have a play style. Not going to happen. Will Fries, Ryan Kelly, Javan Hargrave, Jordan Mason, now you've got something. Like, that's only as good as the players you have. and they have a lot more of that now, which I think should bode well for Sunday night. Jack's Park says never felt as good watching a Vikings win as I did Monday night, borderline euphoria. JJ has the quarterback traits needed to win a Super Bowl. Going to be a great ride with this guy.

Well, this is the thing from my seat that's a little bit challenging. Everything you saw, I'm not going to tell you that it wasn't really good. It was. The way he executed the offense, the plays that he made, the scramble with his legs. Those were things where I was, you know, searching my old podcast. How many times did I say,

if only they had a quarterback who could just make a play with his legs? And there it was. And the throw into the end zone was an anticipation throw to Jefferson. That was good. Let him to the right spot. So there was a lot, lot to like. There was a lot to like from his personality, all that sort of stuff.

but like talking about the Super Bowl right now let's let him start two games that that's where I'm that like you you deserve all the excitement of last weekend good thing you didn't turn the game off in anger or something but you know there's going to be game two that he's going to play and we'll see how that goes before we quite get there they have a team good enough to very seriously compete and as I was watching the Packers and I know you guys don't want me to talk about that game I'm sure but as I was watching the Packers last night and how good and mature that team is and how filthy that defense was, I was thinking, man, that drive down to Lambo, I'm going to be hitting the gas a little bit harder.

Like, this is exciting to see these two teams play against each other at some point with how strong the rosters are. And I wonder where McCarthy will be at that point when they play what looks like the best team in the NFC and they've got a few weeks to figure it out first. and that to me is the thing to watch with McCarthy. And I know you guys, it's exciting, so you want to get ahead of yourselves and I'm not going to tell you not to from where I'm sitting, from my perspective,

it's, well, let's see the incremental improvements week to week of doing the things that didn't go well better and continuing to do the things that went well for J.J. McCarthy and then see where this team is at because the potential is that he'll be very good. D.L. Did you see the ESPN ranks? JJ went from 22nd, 29 to 30 seconds. Laffable. Yeah, I don't know.

I mean, what are you going to do? Later on in the show tonight, I have Stephen Ruiz on where we talk, and he's a quarterback ranker himself at ESPN, and we talk about that and everything else. And it's a hard gig to rank quarterbacks. But, I mean, ranking J.J. McCarthy at the back end of the NFL after that, pretty silly. That's pretty silly. That's pretty silly. And I hope that you guys saw Kevin Cole and sometimes you could just do better with a search of the internet. Kevin Cole, I would

highly suggest as an analytics expert and does good writing. He pointed out that J.J. McCarthy in terms of expected points added, which is, you know, a pretty, pretty well established statistic of giving you a good idea of how someone played. It's not perfect. Nothing is. But, you know, how efficient you were, EPA should tell you pretty well, that if you adjusted the EPA for the drops, he lost the third most EPA just on drops and that he would have been 12th. So this is why quarterbacks are so interesting, right, is that everybody sees a different picture and, you know, I guess, I guess they must be doing a quarterback ranking thing to kind of stir the interwebs and that's good for them.

Kevin's Outdoor Buzz says Vikings defensive backs are the biggest issue. So many Bears wide receivers had too much separation, fortunate that Caleb was inaccurate. Thank you so much for the super chat. Kevin's outdoor buzz. And you are 100% right. And going into this game, that's the biggest concern for me. I don't know that they could dominate the run game without their offensive line that they had last year. But I sure know that Michael Pennix can throw some big time balls if he gets any separation.

and he probably won't miss the way Caleb Williams did. And the fact that they have Drake London and Darnell Mooney healthy, that gives him a whole bevy of weapons to work with. That is for sure a concern. And that's why I would say, like, I don't think the Vikings just steamroll Michael Pennix in this offense. Dino says on the sideline, McCarthy said, Jefferson, don't lose faith on me or in me.

That was awesome. That's who JJ is, man. Like, that's why you draft him is. and I know I've said that a lot, but that game, that's why you draft him, because all that stuff's real, like character, leadership, work ethic, like resiliency. Like, it's all real. In fact, it probably correlates better to success than arm strength. Not that arm strength's not nice to have, but that's the stuff.

You got to buy into the person. I think that's what KOC saw in both of these quarterbacks, but, you know, McCarthy being the one that they picked. wallpapers live says with Okuda out, do you blitz more or less to compensate? It's a great question. It's a great question. Because if you blitz and Pennix does the same thing that he did to the Bucks last week, which was on blitzes, he went nine for 13 with a touchdown.

He was great on blitzes. I think it was nine yards an attempt on blitzes. Then, you know, he might just light you up. You also might get him because it's the U.S. Bank Stadium and it's going to be really hard to communicate. He was a home last week. It's a lot easier. If you rush four, then he gets a little more time to sit in the pocket and pick you apart and throw into windows. That's a really big storyline of this game is how Brian Flores is going to approach it.

For me, I would blitz early and just see. You could get a good look. Is he identifying what we're throwing at him? And then if he does, you back off. They did this last week. last week is the opposite. They did not blitz early, and it was working for Chicago. So they said, screw it, we're going to blitz.

And then Caleb Williams went, I think, five for 15 on the blitzes, the rest of the game. So you can sort of find out. But the defensive backs are still a major concern here without Harrison Smith. If he can't play, he is questionable for the game. You've got your starting corners. They both looked shaky last week. I don't expect them to. They have better histories than that.

but they were shaky and then you're without another corner it is jeff okuda but you are without another corner that could be problematic uh jim says uh pennix won't escape like caleb cover the quick game and seven plus sacks uh you're gonna have to google michael pennix uh jim now i can see him getting sacked a couple times against this team this guy just doesn't take sacks it's and he doesn't the this is a thing he also doesn't rely on the quick game like he relies on his anticipation in his arm to throw into windows where he's not holding on the ball forever. He was top five in not holding onto the ball. And they rushed him and they got some pressure on him. He's just really darn good at it. He's a good quarterback. He's got a lot

of talent. And, you know, last year he showed it. He's a first round pick. He's a guy that they and you know what I mean when I say this. Like they embarrass themselves to pick because of whole kirk thing and uh you know last year i'm going to see how many sacks did he have last year let's see he had four so last yeah that's penics he had no sacks this week and in five games last year he had four times sacked that's it this is not a guy you're getting seven sacks against he is really good at managing the pocket and that's why it's such a good battle uh john John says Donovan Jackson looked like a future all-pro. So we've got the Super Bowl from J.J. McCarthy.

We've got the all-pro from... No, look. Jackson looked great. He looked great. And the one thing I've learned about Donovan Jackson is that he is a sharp dude. He is a smart kid. I've talked to him a few times, talked to him right after the game, talk to him for my JVon Hargrave piece that's coming out tomorrow. He's a sharp kid.

And he's got the athletic ability. You add that together with high IQ and playing next to veterans. that look it's one game that one looks pretty good that one looks pretty good and and guards to me now are worth their weight in gold they're hard to find centers and guards they're just hard to find there's not that many good ones in the league if you have one who can move the needle you've really got something there that's why positional value is always something that's shifting you should never just decide well yeah guards they're just not worth it because five years from now the defenses could play different and suddenly guards are worth it.

And that's what's really happened. And that's why I advocated it. You know, on draft night, a lot of, it's a guard, who cares, you know, there's some of that. And I shouldn't say everybody. This fan base has been abused by guards. So maybe there was happiness amongst the fans. But I looked into it last year.

Playing guard has gotten harder in the NFL significantly. They're allowing a lot more pressures than they were because they're getting attacked more. That defenses understand you can't just rush four and you have to attack the interior, and they've done a great job at that. So that means guards are more valuable. If Donovan is as good as he was, consistently, you've really got some value there. Joe, with Chandler out, who else is there to kick return?

Xavier Scott or Ty Felton is going to be the other guy. So still, you know, unproven guys back there. Miles Price is really the dude. But Felton and Scott were the guys that Matt Daniels brought up. Bobby says how long before Mason takes the number one spot? he's on pace for more yards well on pace for one game uh i i think that there should be no such thing i think it should be a 50 50 split let's not forget erin jones ran down the sideline and caught a 30 yard touchdown i don't know of any other running backs who did that in week one uh i don't

want aaron jones off the field i just want jordan mason at the beginning of the game and if it's working then you stick with them you just go with what's working and you rotate them i think they need to rotate them in series, not just only, okay, you know, it's the third drive. Now, Mason, you're in. It should be, well, hey, we need somebody to ground and pound throughout Mason, you know, then mix and match with your tendencies, stuff like that. I think there's more that they could be doing there. We'll see, but we'll see whether it's Xavier Scott or Ty Felton. Both of those guys worked in training camp for the returner spot. Julian, going, Going back to the Fanduil question of the day,

I think McCarthy will have like 265 yards passing. That probably means if he's getting up toward 300, it's hard to get up toward 300 these days with the way defenses are playing. But if he gets up toward 300, then this game's probably a pretty entertaining back and forth. Rob says thought Ty Felton had a great day on special teams, beating his coverage. You're totally right.

Felton has got something there. Felton's got something there. This is why, you know, Felton, you're right. He's got juice on the punt gunning, kind of like Sherfield had last year. And this is why I always am banging this drum. Like, well, like, let the guy, let the guy, you know, during training camp. Well, why isn't Felton wide receiver three yet, that sort of thing? He can play football.

If you can do that punt gunning thing, you can play in the NFL. You could play football. So he could be a valuable contributor to this team. I think he definitely could be. Probably a good time to jump to the interview with Andrew Kramer. Just getting, looking at some more comments here. But we had a really good conversation breaking down the hardcore of this team. These two teams battling against each other, the X's and O's.

Thank you, Matt, to the kind words about enjoying the show. I really appreciate that. Do I think that Walter Rouse has a chance to play? He does, but I also don't think that school was so, so bad that they would be saying, let's play someone who's never played before. And this is going to be quite the atmosphere, national TV. Are you going to, and maybe that doesn't matter. I don't know.

We saw Miles Price do the job. Rouse, I mean, you might need him, but I don't know. It feels like they're going to go with the person that they trust the most, which is just in school. and as much as he did struggle last week, we should keep in mind that last year with Tampa Bay, he had one really bad game against Detroit and Aden Hutchinson, I think, and he was mostly okay.

He was not that bad as a player last year. So there's a chance that it was matchup based or defense based or whatever it might be. I think that they will end up keeping just in school there. Rach says, thought you weren't a fan of quarterback rankings. Well, you are correct about that. I am generally not. But Stephen Ruiz from the ringer is a friend of mine, puts a lot of work into his

quarterback rankings. And I think that they drive everybody nuts like anybody's quarterback rankings do. And it's part of the job. But he's very detailed in his analysis of the quarterbacks. And I think the rankings sometimes are just sort of a vehicle to talk about what the quarterbacks are doing in the NFL these days. And if you just wrote, if your article was, I talk about what the quarterbacks did this week in the league, not as catchy as quarterback rankings.

So I get it. Like, it's a clicks world. But Stephen does a good job. And I've known him for a long time. And I think he's got really good observation. So you're going to hear from him a little bit later in the show about his rankings and what he thought of J.G. McCarthy and stuff. But am I not a fan of rankings?

No, you're right. I'm not. I, because I just don't think they tell the right story. I don't think it's a, for one, it's a standard deviation issue. The first and second and third and fourth best quarterbacks in this league are so much better than the fifth, sixth, and seventh. I mean, Josh Allen, Lamar Jackson, and Patrick Bahalms and Joe Burrow are so much better than anyone else that whoever gets ranked fifth, maybe you do, maybe it's Herbert,

I don't know, whoever you rank fifth is not. close to those guys and then the sixth best quarterback or seventh maybe world's better than the next guy or he might be almost exactly the same and not only that i my main issue is that supporting casts are are not factored into this and that's how the real game works so i wrote an article about this actually when jalen hertz went to the super bowl in 2022 i wrote if you're ranking quarterbacks. You have to rank Jalen Hertz toward the top of the league, or was it 23? Sorry, I, no, 22, yeah, 22. You have to rank him toward the top of the league. He's going to have one of the best seasons in the league. He's got an unbelievable supporting cast. He's going to be

good. And yet, I would open quarterback rankings and he's 23rd. He's not going to be 23rd. He's not going to be 23rd. He's got A.J. Brown. He's got Devante Smith. He's got Dallas Goddard. He's got the best line in the league. He's not going to be 23rd. And it's the same thing with McCarthy. guys, he's not going to be 32nd. I fricking promise you. I absolutely promise you at the end of the year with Jefferson, Addison coming back, this line, this coach, this day. He will not be the worst quarterback in the National Football League.

I promise. So why are you putting him at the bottom of your rankings? It doesn't make much sense to me as all Vikings quarterbacks just succeed. But they did the same thing with Darnold. It was like they put Darnold, oh, he's 28th, seventh tier quarterback. doesn't deserve to even touch a football like do you understand what you know nick you know nick mullins did with jefferson do you like do you get the supporting cast has to be factored into cuby rankings but then if you do that then you'll get a lot of well how dare you

this quarterback's raw it's just it's it's crazy sometimes it's just crazy so anyway there's that there's that rant for you but you're right in general that's that's my issue um okay so So why don't we jump to the conversation and thanks so much TLS again for another super chat. Why don't we jump to the conversation with Andrew Kramer? So this, again, just to update you was on Thursday afternoon. We weren't sure yet 100% who was going to be playing who was not. So we worked with that of different factors, but still a hardcore breakdown of the matchups between the Vikings and Falcons with. the Star Tribunes, Andrew Kramer.

Actually, hold on. Hold on. I need to make sure I don't forget about our sponsors before I do this. I always do this. I get focused. So hang on one second for Andrew Kramer. This episode of the show is brought to you by my good friend, Denise Atova and her team at TOVA QDRO and retirement valuators, which might sound complicated to you, but the best part about Denise says she has a podcast that breaks down the law.

in a very personal way with those who are involved in doing it. So judges, juries, lawyers, all of it sounds very black and white, very harsh. And yet these are real people who are doing those jobs. And they have stories and they have skills and they have perspectives that Denisea ties in on her Beyond the Bar podcast. So you're going to want to check it out. She's interviewed all sorts of different folks that are in different parts of the law. How do lawyers and mediators balance their emotions with the truth? How's AI changing the legal world?

And how the law is a lot like skiing I saw was one of her episodes. And I also was on one as well. So the Beyond the Bar podcast is going to want to check that out. And off the mic, Denise, runs a forensic retirement lab. So if you are a divorced lawyer and your client's 401K or IRA was around before the marriage and it's all blended together, well, let her help you out with her settlement language lab. Just go to LinkedIn, find Nisa Tova, T-O-V-A, ask her about the settlement lab, and let her know that you heard of the show here on Purple Insider.