Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - What did JJ McCarthy show the Vikings in his debut? (Part 2)

Episode Date: September 10, 2025

Matthew Coller chats with Vikings fans about JJ McCarthy's incredible fourth quarter and the conclusions we should take from it. Plus Jeremiah Sirles and Maggie Robinson join in the second hour. The Purple Insider podcast is brought to you by FanDuel.

so all right i am a few minutes late from when i promised jeremiah surles and we're gonna he there's one week where he goes on a hunting trip every year i think that's two weeks from now otherwise the whole rest of the year every tuesday night we will bring you jeremiah surles so we had a great conversation here about j j mccarthy his former player perspective on the offensive line where he gives some great analysis and we have some fun as well. So after Searles, I'll be back. And then Maggie Robinson has her Robinson roundup where she looks at some interesting overreactions to the first week of the season. So let us continue the show with Jeremiah Searle. All right, welcome in to the first Tuesday

morning left guard of the year with myself, Matthew Collar, Jeremiah Searle's former Minnesota Viking, where we break down a football game. And, My understanding, Mr. Searles, is that you got a little bit of mixed emotions about this football game. I don't know how to feel, Matthew. I honestly don't know. Like, I woke up this morning being like, did that? Did I watch three quarters of Iowa football and then one quarter of NFL football? Like, I'm so confused of what I witnessed last night. And like, talk about a 24 hour shift of watching Sunday night football, Josh Allen and Lamar Jackson exchange haymakers. And then the first three quarters of just. a pillow fight between Caleb Williams and J.J. McCarthy. Like, it was just one of these things was like, am I buying this? Like, am I willing to take the 12 minutes in that fourth quarter and go, oh, I'm all in on this? I think this is going to be great. Or am I going to take the first three quarters and be like, what am I watching? I'm just, I'm so torn from a what to expect from this

offense going forward. Well, why don't we, why don't we work backwards with this? Because the headline is the last thing that we saw. The most important thing is the last thing that we saw that they won the football game. One and no. Apologize. to no one for victories in the National Football League, Jeremiah. What was it about the fourth quarter in your estimation that worked? You know, I kind of, I went back and I watched it again this morning, and there was a turning point. And the turning point was, unfortunately, for Bears fans' misery, the terrible holding call on Darnell Wright. Like, that is not a hold in any stretch of imagination. That is a

beautifully executed trap technique where you knock his hands down. Like, from that point on, the Vikings hit the gas pedal and the bears imploded. And so for me, I look at that moment and go, okay, there's bad calls in every single game. Every game has an up and down of bad calls that go one way or the other. The teams that can overcome those bad calls are good teams and the teams that can implode are bad teams. And you saw last night the difference between a 14 win team last year that went into the playoffs and a team that won five games.

And I think that for me shows a culture and it shows. that Ben Johnson has a lot of work to do in that building, and it shows the belief that that team has in Kevin O'Connell and what they built there in Minnesota. And so you look from that moment on, the bears were anemic. Like they were completely anemic on offensive. It's like it just zapped the sales because it went holding, intentional grounding, missed field goal, right down the field and score. And that just shows me a resilience from this Vikings team as a whole, not just J.J. McCarthy of just finding a way to hang in there when things aren't going well. And then when you finally get a rhythm, gas pedal down and go. Right. So I think that we can all

acknowledge that if the opponent is not the Chicago Bears and it is the Green Bay Packers instead or someone else who's good at football, that the Vikings lose that game by a lot. Like you can't play that game again and expect to win. In fact, late in the third quarter, right before that play, I looked up their win probability on ESPN's game cast, 5.8% chance to win at that point. you can't play that way where you have to just like the bills the other night where you're just giving up all these bleeding all these points and you have one percent chance to win and come back which you know it happens a lot more these days in the NFL but still that means you got thoroughly out played up into that point and if you do that week in and week out you're not going to win a lot

of games i thought the turning point so i totally agree with that because then you get the missed field goal and then you know the wheels kind of come off for them and you could see the panic in the Chicago Bears. You could definitely see the panic in Caleb Williams, where in one sequence, after running around and scrambling and making a lot of great plays, he just sort of stopped doing that for one for one series and then just got sacked and made a bad throw and then they punted away. And also Ben Johnson, I think, freaked out a little too and didn't run the ball because if he runs a lot more clock out and they weren't having a ton of success with DeAndre Swift, but if he wears them down a little bit more, but he kind of did the KOC thing, like we're

up and I'm going to put the gas pedal down and then bang, bang, bang, you got the football back. Miles Price gets a great return. I thought the turning point, though, was Jordan Mason's back to back runs to start the, I believe that was early fourth quarter where he gets a seven yard run and an 18 yard run. And then all of a sudden, you're looking around going, you just got 25 yards without doing anything because that guy is the beast that we thought he was going to be. I saw the stat. We'll have some more. What does that stat mean? But it was like 90% of his yards were after contact for Jordan Mason. And that really matches the eye test.

And that sort of got them like, oh, we're moving. And then they run a play action. And then that works. And Chicago's kind of selling out because they're getting beat up. But the fact that McCarthy was able to like latch on to that confidence and then put the gas pedal down, I think it does say a lot about him. I don't think you can just go. hey, all that stuff that happened in the first three quarters,

like men in black, just forget about it, right? Like, you didn't see that. You only saw the end. But we can chalk up, I think, some of it at least to the nerves, the fact that Jefferson didn't have an entire training camp. I would be shocked if he drops two passes again for the entire year, right? Those two drops matter. They didn't help with JJ's confidence.

But I think the bigger thing is that he never lost the confidence. He never lost the leadership. and the group around him, I mean, you football players, I mean, you know how to talk about another guy and hype him up and be like, oh, yeah, he's got it. I see it. I know it. I know it. But until you actually see it on the field, and I know this from you, because every young player, you're like, he's in the blue for me until he proves it, even Justin Jefferson after he had 175 yards. Yeah. Yeah, people don't forget, Jeremiah. So the, so the point, The point is that the players seeing that is so important that I think it does supersede

some of the stuff that we saw that was pretty gnarly early in the game. And I'm willing to give the kid grace. He hasn't played an entire football game since he won the national championship, right? I mean, he has, and I think that that goes a little bit too of the philosophies of the preseason, right? You're seeing a lot of teams play starters deeper and deeper and more and more into the preseason. and you saw some of the teams start offensively hotter this week, the teams that did that. Versus Kevin O'Connell took the opposite approach of like, hey, 12 snaps.

We're not going to get them a ton out there. We're just going to get them to the season. And I think that did play a big factor into the start of this game, just getting into a rhythm. And then when you can't convert first downs, you're clunky on rhythm. Like you never saw them really get into that rhythm. The thing I liked about what he was able to do, though, is so many quarterbacks that we've seen throw that pick six in the third quarter and it's just toilet bowl. right it is complete toilet bowl and one thing that kevin o'connell did is he didn't let the anger sharks in his head swim around and just unload on McCarthy as he came off on that thing he was able to be the

player right the players coach i've been in that moment i've thrown a pick six before and the last thing i need is my coach on the sideline just coming down on me because of it and he puts his arm around him he coaches him hey when we get this look this is where we're supposed to go and we're going to be okay right and that allowed McCarthy to stay in the moment stay in the rhythm and not fall into the oh my gosh i just threw a pick six on monday night football in my hometown and my first NFL start and let the spiral begin he was able to overcome all of that and i agree with you guys like ryan kelly and brian o'neill that have been part of games like this they needed to see that from him because you don't know if that guy actually is in there right it's easy to throw a pick six in practice and go all right horn next period right like it's easy to do that and just move on it's a lot of harder to do in real time when Troy Aikman's up there breaking it down and you've got sweat starting to feel it coming off the edge like you have to see those guys in that moment have it and I can't put a quantification on what it is but you can feel it when the guy has it right and on the vice versa side you can feel when a guy doesn't have it a la Kayla Williams right and so

I'm not ready to again I'm not anointing McCarthy king or anything but he showed me enough of that it factor in the clutch moments of the game to make me believe that he has what it takes to be a big time starter in the national football league. And that is such an easy thing to say of like, we'll never quit. We'll fight till the final whistle. It is a lot harder to actually do, especially on that stage. And with Soldier Field, it was lathered last night going into that. Oh, yeah.

I mean, it was, it was extremely loud. I mean, you know how hard that atmosphere can be to play in as a quarterback, even as an opposing quarterback, Caleb Williams was getting booed, which I think also maybe got in his head a little bit. But with J.J. McCarthy, I mean, after that pick six, that place is about to explode, right? I mean, one more three and out, and they're going to go nuts and they're going to have a party the rest of the night. And for him to be able to eventually get it, I mean, yeah, they didn't immediately score right after that. But you know what I mean? Like, not allow that atmosphere to intimidate him, not allow that mistake. Because think about how

embarrassing that must feel. Yeah. When you throw that pick six, especially when, I mean, if it was a tip ball, you can be like, oh, not my fault. Yeah, you threw it right to him. He sat on the route. He knew exactly what you were doing. The guy played for the Vikings last year, and he just waited for that football to be thrown right in his lap, and that's what you did. And you go over to the sideline, and there is Aaron Jones pro bowler, just the Jefferson

best player in the game, Adam Thielen pro bowler, Ryan Kelly, pro bowler, Brian O'Neill, T.J. Hawkins, there's all these guys who have proven it in the league, time in and time out, won so many games, and you just had the biggest mistake, it would be very easy to shrink right there. And then they, like I said, they didn't immediately like come out and score a touchdown right after also would be easy to get really frustrated after that. And the fact that he had that resilience and that fight to him, it reminds me of when I first saw Joe Burrow play, this is different because his team was horrendous his first year. But there were three or four games where they're down, you're like, ah, they're hitting Burrow. He might die out there. And he just

kept fighting and fighting and fighting and you know McCarthy took a few hits pop back up ready to go like his energy never changed throughout the game like these things are projectable going forward so that's why I'm like looking at the early part of the game as nerves for everybody including the head coach and the play caller and O'Connell when I asked him about a Mason he admitted I should have been running more early in the game I should have just leaned on Jordan I know right and he said something like I've got to look in the mirror like how about you use the mirror that works this time, Kev, but like, the one that has the run play sheet posted on the mirror, or you'd be like, look at yourself, look at the run sheet, look at

yourself, look at the run sheet. It's okay to run the ball three times in a row. It's okay. So all that stuff, though, I think it means so much to the bigger picture with JJ McCarthy. Yeah, and I also, taking it one step further, how many times have we seen quarterbacks throw that pick six and then compound it with another mistake, right? That I have to overcome this bad pick six that I just threw, I have to overcome that mistake and show that I'm still this guy and force a ball in where it shouldn't go or make something happen, hold on to the ball for too long because I'm waiting for that long and get strip sacked, right? He didn't allow the big time mistake to compound into multiple mistakes. And that shows a maturity factor. But I don't

know if that's from him being super mature or him being in the league kind of for a full year and watching how Sam Darnold did that last year and learning from Sam, right, learning from a guy like Carson Wentz, who's thrown a lot of pick-sixes in his life, right, like in understanding that. So that just shows me a maturity factor for him. So I agree with you. The arrow is pointed where we wanted to go. There was a lot of question marks those first three quarters of like, man, did we make a mistake?

Did we make a mistake letting Sam Darnold walk out of here? Did we make a mistake? Maybe if Aaron Rogers not wanting to come here, like you could have spiraled quickly down those first three quarters, but he did what he needed to do in the fourth quarter. And like you said, unapologetically, I'll never apologize for a win in this league. but it is one of those things where you understand that if that guy in the first three quarters shows up again against better teams, the game will get out of hand way more than it will against the Chicago Bears.

Well, I think another part of it when we look at what does that stat mean? The fact that the short passing game was incredibly bad in this game, which I tend to think that the short passing game is about the coach. The intermediate passing game is about the quarterback and the deep passing game is about the wide receivers. And they threw three screens, which I had expected more screens than that when you have Aaron Jones and other guys who can make plays with the football in their hands. I thought maybe they'd use Mason on one of those. And they just really didn't.

Even the tight end screen, we despise so much. They just, the screen game was not really part of the game plan. And the underneath stuff where it seemed like O'Connell was almost trying a little too hard to bring him along slowly and baby him a little bit from this outset. but it wasn't giving him great answers in that short game. And maybe a part of it is just like that's playing left-handed for Kevin O'Connell. It's not who you are. And the fact that McCarthy nailed the intermediate part, let me pull this up for his intermediate passing last night.

Between 10 and 19 yards, he was three for four, 58 yards in a touchdown, that dot to Justin Jefferson. And then deep he was one for two with 27 and then the Aaron Jones, big pass interference. So the throws that are more. quarterbacky and less manufactured, he was really good on. And the Velo on the touchdown to Justin Jefferson, to me, was the most impressive play of the entire night because even at that point, he hadn't thrown a touchdown yet.

They're just starting to get going. The last time he was in the red zone, he threw a pick six. All right, let it loose. And it was an anticipation throw, too. He's coming across and you have to throw that to a spot and it hits him. So I thought that the things that we could sort of project forward, what he's going going to be like in tough situations, how he's going to manage his veteran teammates, is he going to shrink, and how he throws the ball from clean pockets into intermediate and

downfield areas, all of that stuff checked boxes for me. Agreed. Right. I agree completely. And that's where the war in my chest is at is like, you see all those things and you're super excited about all of it. But can we just forget the first three quarters? Like, can we sit here and go, that's not who he is? Right. Like, can we truly just write that off? I think I can't. I can't just write that off and go, you know what? That was just nerves.

It was just first game. Like, he didn't see the field. He didn't see things. He panicked inside a clean pocket at times. His timing was off. Like, I need to see him never do that again, right? Like, because he looked like Caleb Williams. Like, he looked like Caleb Williams and like his feet were jittery.

He wasn't settled. He wasn't sure where he wanted to go. He was timing. Like, he wasn't a good decision making. I need to see that piece completely. get away from him. And I think the way to do that is lean on Jordan Mason, all right? Lean on that guy. You paid fries. You paid Kelly. You have O'Neill, right? You have a very good left guard in Donovan Jackson who played very well in his first start. Lean on those guys. Let them take you

where you want to go and take the short passing game out, turn it into a run game, and then live in that intermediate and deep area. Like that's where I would like to see because I think there's a fallacy of, well the short passing game really just gets the quarterbacks in rhythm i don't think that's true i think if you have an extremely good short passing game that is true but we don't have a great short passing game right jefferson's not who you want running the five yards sland the six yard out like feeling's like a little bit more of that guy because he's not as fast but this team is built to push the ball down the field that's what they're built to do let the run game take over for that short passing game and not think we have to get a six yard out route here on first down where let's get four five yards on a run game and then have our pick of the poison. I really think if we can get that hand holding, let's get McCarthy in a rhythm on a short passing game and just let him rip it down the field and build on this run game, that's where the success of Jay Z McCarthy is going to continue to go. And for KOC's perspective, I don't think any of us knew the right way to handle it or where he was going to be at and that sort of thing. But what you're saying, as far as like you can't look like that again,

it probably will at some point. But what last night did was, when J.J. McCarthy has these, I haven't played a lot of football moments. Well, there's two things that that stick out to me about that. One is that everyone will be like, it'll be fine. Like, no one's going to be going, oh, no, oh, no. And look, there was a previous quarterback here, number eight, who when things started to go a little bit wrong, especially in the Zimmer era, not so much in the KOC era, but in the Zimmer era, if he had that look in his eye, everyone in that locker room was going,

oh, no, oh, no, it's one of those days. we're going to lose to a Bill's team that has, you know, got beat by 40 the week before or something because he's got that look in his eye. Now, if they get down, if he struggles, if he makes a big mistake, they're like, he'll be okay. We already know that. We've already seen that. I think that's a big development. But can you say that that's never going to happen again?

Of course not. I mean, it's a long season and the teams that they're playing in the future are better than this. Like, not maybe necessarily the Falcons, but I promise the Eagles are going to, bring more. I promise the Chargers, the Packers, the, there's going to be a lot harder challenges than this, and there will be bad moments. But what I thought was really important, you alluded to it earlier. I checked it on the numbers. He had one turnover worthy play. It was a horrible turnover worthy play. And it turned into six points, but one, he didn't compound mistakes. He didn't make, you know, another turnover worthy play. So when he's struggling, and I think he lost six

yards on sacks. So when he's struggling, he's not running backwards like Sam Darnold and losing 15 yards. He's not losing the huddle. He's not all of a sudden forcing throws into bad areas. He stayed within himself, I think, in those tough moments. And that, I think, projects really well as we're trying to figure out what is week one actually mean for him that it said a lot. It's also 20 passes that the guy threw, right? So, you know, watching a little ESPN on my flight, you would have thought that, you know, J.J. McCarthy was Peyton Manning and Caleb Williams was Ryan Leaf. And that's, that's how it turned out. So let's 46, 46 plays is not okay. Right. I mean, time of possession completely on the other side. We didn't convert a third down in the first half,

I think. Like those, those are the type of things that you're looking at going, okay, this is, this was bad. like i don't know if i've ever watched a game that the pendulum has swung so far right to where i mean we are talking atrocious football to wow how did that happen in a matter of like an hour where the pendulum went from couldn't move the ball to just doing whatever we want moving right down the field that for me is coaching and i think that is kevin o'connell being able to truly pivot even though he didn't fully pivot to the run game but being able to just pivot enough to go okay i got to do something different. Like I got to go away from what I know, away from what is my whole brain's telling me to do. I got to do something different to change this rhythm and this, what we've got

going on. And then we can get back to what we're doing. I feel like that was a really nice job by Kevin O'Connell. At some point with O'Connell, we have a big enough sample size to say that his quarterbacks respond extremely well to adverse situations. Yes. We are now on three quarterbacks who have gotten down in games, who have been in tough spots or who have given up leads and have to go figure out a way to close out a game. And when his starting quarterback plays, he is 32 and 11 now after last night. So when you see, well, it's a one score. And look, and look, from a statistical perspective, that's a lucky win. It just is. Like, that's not one you're going to win very often. But there's also something very real to what Kevin O'Connell brings to his

quarterbacks and his teams when it comes to these these spots also you know he was helped out by a lot of bears things including them not kicking it out of the back of the end zone which made life a lot easier than it needed to be so anyway let's talk about the offensive line i think when you come out of the first game ever played by donovan jackson the first round draft pick of the vikings and you sort over here on pff by pass blocking and he has the highest pass block in grade and he has zero sacks, zero pressures, zero QB hits allowed in this game. I think that really says something about Donovan Jackson. I know, again, this is not the 85 bears, some of whom were in the house last night.

Ryan Kelly also zero pressures in this game, 78.8 pass blocking grade. And Will Fries, such a disappointment allowed one loan pressure and a 74 grade. I mean, this might be one of the best performances we have ever seen from an interior offensive line for those three players. Yeah. And it helps when you only throw the ball 20 times. Yes. Right. Like that that really helps the stat sheet for an offensive lineman when you're not throwing the ball 50 plus times a game, which will happen at one point this year. But you take with what you have and you look at what you got, they were very efficient up front. Right. And what I mean by that is I watched a lot of ball this week where centers are moving the wrong way. there's free runners up the middle. We're not IDing things correctly. Oh, the Lions game. Yeah, the Lions game.

Yeah, you watch the same game that I did. Right. And so when you're watching that and you're going, hey, three new brand interior interior players, one of which is a rookie, how do these guys all work together? How are they go through? Now, it helps that Frye's and Kelly came from working together in the past,

right? But new system, new snap count, new quarterback. I was thoroughly impressed with the way the communication went up front. Now, the communication from Pressbock, coach, McCarthy, up to the line of script, image has to get better, right? But that comes with a veteran center of being able to be like, hey, we got to go, right? We got to go. We got to get on the line. Here's the point we roll. Like that was a very good showing from those three from a logistical standpoint, from a communication

standpoint, and then from a technique standpoint, they were very buttoned up on their past protection. And when Donovan Jackson specifically, you know, every training camp of my life, someone says, you know, iron sharpens iron. I'm like, is that I like, I like, I need a black. Smith. I'm so tired of this phrase, but this is actually true in this case. He was able to practice against Javon Hargrave. Who will get to? Uh, inter, reintroduced to Minnesota Vikings fans after whooping them every single time he ever played the Minnesota Vikings, but practicing against those guys, those veterans with, that's why during camp, when people are asking, well, how's Donovan Jackson looking? Well, he's kind of getting killed, but also what I noticed though, and this sort of goes

back to J.J. McCarthy in some ways in young players is that he never gave up. He never gave up these easy lunge. Oh, I'm just going to fly right by you and you walk to the quarterback. It was always like someone like Hargrave, getting by him eventually or pushing him back into the quarterback. And we know this from, it's like the Dalton Reisner theory. If you can hang on for dear life, you can do a lot in the NFL. And there was some of that last night, but I thought overall, and I know he's not facing the toughest competition here, it's not Jalen Carter, but still that is a pretty darn impressive debut. I think he did learn a lot from playing against guys better than who he was facing last night. Yeah. I mean, anytime that practice is

harder than the game, you're getting, you're feeling pretty good about yourself. And that's going to happen with a lot of our offensive linemen. I mean, very rarely you're going to be blocking a Gernard and a Van Ginkle and a Hargrave and a Jonathan Allen. Oh, yeah, Dallas Turner is still around too. You know, like when you practice against those guys for six weeks of training camp and you still get that good one-on-one reps when you do two-minute at the end of practice on Thursdays. Like, it keeps your skills sharp. And I guarantee you, Donovan Jackson came off that field last night after the first couple series and was like, oh, these dudes are not Jonathan Allen and J. Vaughn-Harkrave.

Like, I can beat up on these dudes. I'm not going to survive against these dudes. I'm going to contribute, right? And that's where you start to take jumps. And he's so naturally gifted. I mean, he's, I mean, God built that dude to play offensive line. Long arms, big body, big ass, like, looks great. Right.

And so when he can use those God-given abilities and they continue to develop because no one will develop more than in their rookie year, right? When you go from even at Ohio State and you're playing against JTT and Jack Sawyer and those guys, like those are good players, but your development takes such a huge jump when you're starting to practice every day against all pros or pro bowler level players. You take huge jumps. And so I'm so excited to see him continue to grow because he's just going to keep developing throughout this year.

And I mean, the sky's the limit for what this dude can do because he has. has all the physical tools. The other part about Donovan Jackson, too, and this is one of those first impression things, but being around him just a little bit, it's a very bright guy. I think he's a very aware person. So when Ryan Kelly says,

hey, actually you're supposed to do this, that he does it. And Kevin O'Connell has talked about how if he lost a rep in a certain way, he wouldn't lose it again. And these are little things, but they tell you something about the players football IQ. And then you get to know him a little bit.

Oh, this is a bright kid. this is somebody who's going to learn from mistakes and pick up on things and grow throughout the season. So even if the strength isn't quite at the same level as someone like Will Fries, who's been doing this for a while, I think he's going to find a lot of ways because he has this ability to learn quickly. And also a very, for a guard, I could see why they want him to play tackle last year in a pinch. For a guard, he's a very chill guy. It's kind of concerning, actually. Yeah. Like you, like guards are usually a little, right, they're a little Booney or a little Alex Booney. Yeah, right. Exactly. Uh, I saw, I'm not even joking. I saw a man in

Alex Boone jersey at the game. I'm not joking. I was like, am I seeing the right? Like, is that guy's name Boone? Um, but, uh, yeah, like that crazy in their eyes. But I think that he kind of has like a little bit of tackle calmness to him, which would help on that stage, which for him, I know everyone is looking at the quarterbacks, but for him, that's his first NFL game. And yeah, the, the, pressure of anybody else. So a tremendous debut for him. And also, he's not playing against one of the next to one of the best left tackles in the NFL yet. Right. Right. I mean, you pair him now next to not just in school, which we can get to if we want to, but that was a problem, right? You say, hey, now we're going to put Christian Derisaw next to you. And it's going to be even more. You can talk

about two chill guys, right? Darisov from everything I've heard of and talked to is one of the chillest human beans ever to walk the earth right but the thing i also love about donovan jackson is so many times first rounders have an ego to them right i was a first rounder i know what i'm doing i know how to get here right there's a reason i was picked in the first from what i've been told he doesn't have any of that right and you see it right to be coachable and then to have the gift of playing next to a guy like ryan kelly who i believe was also a first rounder right yeah and he was able to look at you and go like listen bud you don't know what you think you know i played with the greats i've been around a long time. Just trust me. And him to go, okay, I'll just trust you. You're like, that doesn't

happen often with first rounders. I don't care what the position is, right? Those dudes just usually have a little bit different mindset to him. But for him not to have that, that's why I think the needle for him is pointed so far up. Because if you can have that mindset and have the skills of a first rounder, that's how you get all pros. That's how you get Provo level caliber players out of the first round. And as someone who has sat here and talked about many troublesome, offensive lineman on the interior over the years. I think it's okay to have your eyes get wide with what this interior can be and what it can mean because if McCarthy isn't rushing as he was early in the game and they can run

like they did with Jordan Mason later in the game. If those things are consistent, the protection he got in his first contest and some of the run blocking later in the game, that can be a difference making offensive line. And when we were trying to project it, we're like, well, if Donovan Jackson is good, then you can have a difference making offensive line, just one game, but he was very good. You mentioned Justin's school, though. I don't know where Christian Derisaw is at.

If Christian Derisaw wants another two weeks or three weeks, he is a franchise player. That would be the right thing to do. You should not push him back at the same time. I mean, can we get, can we get Walter Rouse warming up on the sideline there in the bullpen? I mean, he gave up four pressures, which you're like, well, force is, you know, not too bad. on 20-something dropbacks, that's like having eight pressures in a normal game or seven pressures in a normal game, which is an untenable number.

Justin School is a veteran player who's been around, but he was overmatched, and he wasn't overmatched by someone who's actually great at football. That's really concerning going forward here. Yeah, I mean, that was the glaring problem. And, you know, it's one of those things, too, where I'll give Justin maybe, I don't know, I wasn't at practice. Did CD take all the one reps this week and then be like, hey, I don't. I don't feel like I'm ready to go, right?

Like there's a lot of factors that go into that. But we saw glimpses of this in the preseason, right? And you saw glances of this during training camp. More than glimpses, yes. Right? Like Gernard and Van Ginkle, it wasn't dying a slow death. It was destroy, right? Seek and destroy.

And so at one point you are who you are when you're at the age that is just in school. Like we know what we're getting out of him. But what's going to happen now is you've got the rookie in the weak link on one side. That side's going to be tested until Christian Derasaw gets back. Right? they're going to see one thing I didn't think that the Bears did last night, which surprised me was a bunch of stunts and twists. I really thought that they were going to test this interior,

the new guy, we're going to stunts and twist. I mean, they didn't do that. I would fully expect to see some stunts and twists if Dar esau's not out there to test how well can Justin's school and Donovan Jackson work together on this side when Justin's really struggling just to hold his own in one-on-one matchups. Let's go over to the defensive side of the ball. I'm going to throw this out there.

If Caleb Williams was 5% slower, he's got nine sacks in the game here is a what does that stat means special for you 13 pressures between jvon hargrave and jonathan allen and i know that like allan has been really good he's been really good in training camp i cannot stop watching javon hargrave because he's so huge and he's so fast and some of those pressures just came so quickly i don't know when the last time the vikings two Interior D-Linman had 13 pressures. I know, I'm sure Tom Johnson and Linvall, maybe Shreve Floyd and Linvall,

but I don't know if they would have gotten to 13. That's two superstar-type performances. I mean, just to kind of put it in context, if you get three or four, you've had a pretty good game. If you get five, six, you've probably had a great game. Seven is like elite. That's like 99th percentile. And Hargrave had seven and Allen had six.

Now, thanks to Caleb Williams hanging on to the football for sure. but that was the dream scenario of that interior D-line and it made a massive difference in the game. Yeah, and the biggest reason for that is, you know, when you have two really good edge rushers, right, a lot of times it's like, hey, we've got a slide to the edge rusher. So it's like, hey, shock the three technique and then guard, get your butt out there. When you have guys that can create pass rush from the interior like that, like the Aaron Donald's, the Fletcher Cox is back in his day, the Kenny Clark's when he's playing really well, you can't escape as a guard real quickly.

You need to really sink that guy up, make sure your center's really fit up, and then I go. So that's going to allow guys like Grinard and Van Ginkle to feast on the edges. Like that's really going to make a difference because you can't just bypass that guy and think, hey, he's just going to be one-on-one with the center

and the center will be fine. That's going to be a problem. And so that's just going to continue to bode well for this past rush. And I really thought it allowed Brian Flores to not have to blitz much. he still did it's a little bit in his DNA much as like throwing the football is for kevin o'connell right but i loved what i saw from those two interior guys of it wasn't fancy it wasn't manufactured off of stunts and twist it was true just ass kicking like it was just i am more more powerful than you i am going and i really think that the interior that offensive line for the bears is good drew dalman jona jackson joe tini like those are really good players and they handed it to him multiple times in the pass rush game last night and it really helped once we able to start putting the pressure on offensively, our defense is built to rush the passer, right?

Like it's built that way, it's speed, it's fast as quickness. And so when we were able to finally flip the switch and get our defense to the green light of, hey, ears back and go, that's when you really start to see those guys being true difference makers in the end part of that game. Forty-five percent of dropbacks for Caleb Williams were under pressure in this game. A good number is probably like 35 to 38 percent for a defense. So that, again, It's like a 98th percentile type of performance. And a lot of those are certainly on Caleb Williams as a playmaker. But I also think that a lot of it was what this defense is going to do, which Caleb would

drop back and he would look for his first read and he would not see it. And I think it was their goal to, all right, you know, we are going to send some pressures. And they've gotten here 40% of the time sending at least like one extra guy, which is about how Flores does it. I think he wants five on five matchups, but we're going to make him quickly get to the second, get to the third and stand there and figure it out. And as Caleb Williams last year was doing, and once again, this year doing, he's not going to get to that second, third read all that often and make the right play.

And that allowed this D-line to just absolutely feast, which is kind of funny because they're playing the exact opposite quarterback next week in Michael Penix, who gets rid of the ball extremely quickly, hardly ever. take sacks and it's going to be a totally different challenge and I promise these numbers will not look like this. They will not have 50% pressure against him. But for for this game, though, I mean, they took advantage of the type of player and they just couldn't catch him except for you got to admit when Hargrave cornered him. That was kind of amazing. He kind of like did like a basketball move. Like just try it, man. Just try it. And he just, I don't know, I ain't part of that

and threw it away. What do you want to say about Caleb Williams' performance? I thought it was really interesting, you know, starting the game 10 for 10, I was going, okay, he's turned a corner, right? He's turned a corner. Ben Johnson has got him going where he needs to go. But then as it started to deteriorate as the game continued to go on, I realized what happened. The scripted plays ran out, right? Because every single, I mean, you look at across the league, all the offenses in their first few series were looking pretty hot, right? Because those are scripted plays. We know what the defense is going to give us in this formation. We know what we're going to get out of this. This is. is what we're going to go to. And you drill those plays on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, right? You just continue to get them in. And so when you walk out there and you can just go, oh, I know what I'm doing here. Bang. I know what I'm doing here. Bang. I know what I'm doing here. And then all of a sudden, okay, get to the sideline. The defense goes, all right, here's what they're doing. Caleb Williams now has to go, okay, this is what they're doing. We have to adjust. When the adjustments started to happen, the play started to get slower. The brain turned on for him and his processing speed is just not there. it's just not there to be able to like you said boom one two right boom one two okay three right it's like this pause where he has to go one okay what is two okay two is now that like that half a second or quarter second pause where in his brain he has to think what is the route that is number two not i know what the number two route is is what causes him to hold on to the ball for an extra second which an extra second in the NFL is an eternity for a pass rush and that's where i started to see he just the processing speed up in between the ear is not there. The arm talent, unbelievable. The athlete, unbelievable. But if you don't have it up between the years as a quarterback in this league, you can only get so far with the intangibles of an athlete when you don't play on schedule. I also think that his accuracy is probably one of the most overrated things about him. And we saw that like coming out. It's like, oh, he's got all the

tools. He's super accurate. Is he really from a from a pocket, from a clean pocket? He's actually crazy accurate running 19 miles an hour. Right. The throw to Roma Dunezay was disgusting. It was like running out of bounds. You're like, oh, if this is the Caleb we can get when he's off schedule and he can be good on schedule. I mean, that's what you draft a guy one, one for. But the on schedule throwing, which is where you need to live at as an NFL quarterback, just isn't there with him. Right. That was like Kerry Wood velocity throw. But then he also has Ben Johnson. I also think Ben Johnson's good at his job. I think Ben Johnson's good at his job. I think Ben Johnson. did a great job in this game. As I'm watching back, some of the tape in this game,

I'm like the opportunities are there. Wide open. Yeah. I mean, that's if you're concerned about something for the next matchup, it's that Ben Johnson did have guys wide open and one of those is going to click. You know, you get a fourth down. A guy's running an in breaking route.

It's wide open. I mean, that is a 99 out of 100. You need to hit that. That's a seven on seven throw. And he just airmails it. And that happened numerous times. And his accuracy on easy throws was quite poor in this game.

and I don't think it's ever been particularly great. Yeah, I mean, and even to the one Aikman pointed out, and I actually pointed out to my wife when we were watching when it happened, I go, he has to get DJ Moore there so much faster. When they have Zakias breaking to the flat and the corners flat-footed facing forward and DJ Moore runs that slot fade, that ball's got to be gone immediately. But that's where I go back to like he couldn't get off of like completion, completion, completion, and see the field of what's happening with the other 10 players on the field.

Right? like he is so locked in on that my first read is I must get the ball to Zakias and to get the ball out of my hand. He's a like if he sees that, DJ Moore walks into the end zone, right? He puts it out there. But then again, to your actually point, he threw it out of bounds. Like ball can't be caught if it's throwing out of bounds, man. Like give it to him. And then he throws a hospital ball to DJ Moore and almost gets him killed.

Like that's the other piece. If you team throwing these high balls to Cole Komet and DJ Moore and Roma Dunese over the middle, these receivers are going to kill you, man. Like they're going to be super upset with you because they don't want to get their. ribs exploded they don't want to get their knees blown out like he's got to get the ball down this balls the ball's soaring on him are going to be a huge problem going forward uh let's uh you know the show brought to you by fan duel i got a question for you based on the fan dual odds here for the nfc north we saw the green bay game we saw the detroit game so it's kind of like well

if green bay is just what detroit was and detroit's just what green bay was then you just switch them in positions different jerseys same sort of stuff uh let me give you right now the order on fan duel in terms of the odds green bay is the favorite to win the division vikings are second the gap is pretty significant minus 120 to plus 290 Detroit plus 400 in third place and the bears after last night now plus a thousand not even close to the other three teams is that the correct order and also you know for you non gambling community here pretty big gap between Green Bay and the Vikings. Not a huge gap between the Vikings and Lions. Do you agree with that layout of projecting the NFC North after this weekend? I don't. I think that we're

pretty quick to ride off a really talented Lions team. Now, I will say they've got some serious issues up front. Three new starters, a rookie, a guy in his second year who only started a few games last year in Mahogany, and then Glasgow at Center is not Frank Ragnow. It's very apparent. They're going to miss Zytler and Ragnow in a huge way. But I also think Detroit ran into a bit of a buzzsaw, right? I mean, Packers just signing Micah Parsons, like, I'm sure Lambo was on fire, right? And then, and they focused all year on, yeah, we were a good team last year, but we barely won any games in our division, right?

And so they're so focused all year probably, there's a big sign, I guarantee you somewhere in the Packers locker room that says win the division, right, like win your divisional games. And so I do think Detroit ran into a bit of a buzzsaw. They've got some clunker. things to figure out from a defensive side and from an offensive side, but I do think it's not even close to Packers or the odds on favorite. I still, with the performance that JJ gave in the first three quarters last night, I'm still going to say that I think the Lions are second favorite here and then the Vikings are much closer. I think the gap between the Vikings and the

lions right now is razor thin, right? It's razor thin and that thing's going to move week to week depending off performances. But I do think the battle testedness of the Lions is a good thing that's going to help propel them through and they'll figure out their lives here going forward. I think it's a little bit of an overreaction. I think the Packers deserve all the credit that they got for that weapon that they laid on the Detroit Lions. I'm not ready to, as Denny Green said, crown them. You know, you want to crown him, Vegas,

Fandul, go ahead and crown it. Well, look, I mean, there's a long way to go. And Jordan Love's performance is going to dictate just as much as that defense. And the Lions, they have good offensive line coaching. If they come along through the season, it's a long year. And with J.J. McCarthy, I think we walk out knowing a lot of things that he's not. He's not a guy who's going to give up. He's not a guy who can't lead a football team.

He's not a guy who can't make the throws down field. But we still don't know what he is fully. And we're going to need a lot longer for that. I would still have Green Bay, Detroit, Minnesota, very, very close stacked together. And then Chicago at plus 1,400,000, 100,000. Like, that's just not happening. Like, it's not happening. Your kicker can't kick out of the back of the end zone.

you're giving up three touchdowns in the fourth quarter. Your players are all banged up because you had to tackle each other all summer long. I just, I don't see it with that team having any chance to compete with the big boys. Let me give you one more and then we'll get to love to see it. The Minnesota Vikings on Fanduil are four and a half point favorites at home against the Atlanta Falcons. What are you feeling about that line? Do you think that too much, too little, too hot, too cold? just right i think i think a lot of that has the fact that drake london's probably not playing this

week right you know i think drake london being out is a huge piece of michael pennix's game right bjohn robinson i mean first play from scrimmage just looks like he's on a different planet from an athletic he's going to be a problem um all year long right but that offensive line is very good i think that the falcons i mean they were a kick away young way ku couldn't put it through the uprights and now they're bringing in someone to compete against him like i think that this game is going to be closer than that piece there. A lot of because what does JJ do? Does he build off of the fourth quarter?

Is there a little bit of a ramp up period again? Because the Falcons are good enough that if they play like they did in the first two quarters, this is not going to be, this is going to be they're up 21 to seven, right? They're going to put points on because I think Michael Pennix taking a big jump in the offense for the Atlanta Falcons is so much better than what the Chicago Bears was. Yep, yep. We'll get into that. I think that their quarterback can execute what their coach asks, if you put Ben Johnson with

Michael Pennex. I think he would be incredible. But, you know, you're putting it with a guy who can't see the guys who are wide open. So, but Pennix, if guys are wide open, he's going to make the throws. He's going to hit him. I thought he had a really, really good game against the very good defense and a tough coach in Todd Bulls. Love to see it, hate to see it. My love to see it was that the National Football League offered a beautiful popery of different things. It was like you had teams melting. You had great games. You had magical comebacks. You had superstar performances. You had drama. You had

every, just every bit of magic that the NFL offers in week one. It was a beautiful week of football. Oh my gosh. I mean, you couldn't have asked for a better week one. Right. And I think that this goes back to what I talked about last week. I think the disparity gap between the haves and the have-nots in the NFL has closed. Right. Like, you mean, you've got the bangles having the rounds drag them into the deep water at the beginning part of the game. You've got the chargers laying it on the defending AFC champs and saying, hey, we're here for a staple

there. You've got the Broncos trying to find ways to gut things out in the last minutes. It just shows that these teams, the gap from last year to this year, I think has closed in a long way. And so, yeah, I'm very excited for what the NFL is going to bring this year. What's your love to see it? Yeah. So my love to see it is the fact that I think the AFC West through L.A. I think that what L.A. has built, what they have done, right? Everyone was talking about, hey, Amari and Hampton is going to come out here and just run all over the field and Najee Harris and this. And then all of a sudden they're like, oh, okay, you want to take the runaway? Well, we've got three unbelievable receivers, apparently. Right. Keenan Allen comes back

and just does bet things, right? Catch the ball, be in the right spot, be a security blanket for Justin Herbert. And then you've got, if they can figure out the way to continue to have Quentin, do what he did, that's a problem because Ladd McConkey is one of the better slot players in this league too. So you're talking about Justin Herbert, who for the first beginning part of his career was just a throw it 60 times a game guy and has the ability and the talent to do that. What do you take away from this offense, right? Do you load the box and say, hey, Gero, you're not, you're not going these cool run schemes and throwing it on me. Okay, well, I'll just let Justin Herbert be a top five quarterback in this league and throw it all over the yard to these receivers. That team is going to be really tough to beat this year.

my hate to see it is if you're going to schedule a team that you know you can beat and maybe you give them a little money out of your wallet to do it two two things are required here number one they have it has to be safe for you to be on the field with them for the gophers like they played my community college man that's not okay that it's just not they're like well you know they were playing their back at you got like four stars backups okay what are we doing here if you're going to schedule the tomato can team make sure they can keep it within 50 in the half just so no one gets hurt on the other team those kids are like i'm missing biology for this and think no man this is not okay they got guys who are going to the NFL so next time PJ let's work on a team that's a little bit closer in talent and the second part is um you have to beat them and uh not all the college teams found ways to beat the tomato cans or at least even like Clemson letting it be close with Troy, you know, you got to make sure you take care of business with that. So kind of hated to

see one of those weeks of college football where we get so amped from week one. And then it's like, oh, this is the preseason now starts. It's like how the NASCAR tune up, tune up games, baby. Right. You get, you get the indie, or not the Indy 500. You get the Daytona 500. And you're like, man, I love racing. And then they go to somewhere you never heard. heard of it. And, you know, it's like, what? Come on, man. That was college football this week. Yeah. I mean, that is the definition of the habs and the have-nots. I mean, Nebraska laid 69 on a team from Akron who hasn't scored a point in 10 quarters. And, you know, it's what you're like, yeah, that's what you're supposed to do. Right. I mean, I remember the press

conference. I don't know if you saw the Grambling State head coach when he went in earlier in the year or the week there Plano House. So he's like, well, I think our bands could compete with one another. And he's like, we know what this is. Like, that's the thing. He's like, you know what you're walking into with these but there also is that fine line of playing it safe but also not playing it too close to where you're going to be touched by the sun right where it's one of those things where it's like hey yeah let's schedule in north dakota state right or let's schedule army kansas state like you can't flirt too close with the danger there's this perfect middle zone where you're like hey we want like a like a seven win fcs team right not a 10 win not

like not that we want that seven win FCS or like that middle of the range Mack team, not the upper echelons of those lower ones or else you know, you flirt too close to the sun. I'll give you one more hate to see it, which is when a player who was really, really

good in the National Football League keeps playing and it goes bad, it hurts my football soul. When you talk about some of the famous ones in sports, like Emmett Smith playing for the Arizona Cardinals, the Toronto Raptors version of Hakeem Elijah Juan, the Willie Mays playing for the Mets. It's always sad. I think that's Russell Wilson over the last three years. I just don't,

I don't enjoy it. Watching it on Sunday was painful. I don't think he should be playing in the NFL anymore unless he just wants to be a backup. It looks sad. He can't get the ball to his wide receivers. He looks flustered constantly in the pocket. He looks kind of afraid a little bit at times in the pocket. He does not want to push the ball into any sort of window. The guy has lost all of his physical tools except for he could still throw the ball hard. And I just don't want to watch any more of it. Like put in Winston if you don't want to play the dart, at least it'll be fun and hilarious. And Millie Neighbors will get 400 yards a game or something. Like just just stop doing that. When Brian Dable said, no, he's our quarterback. I'm like, stop. Stop. I hate this. He wasn't the

answer for the Broncos. He wasn't the answer for the Steelers. It's not like all of a sudden, you're like, well, he's going to come to New York and be the answer. Like, I think it needs to be Jackson Dart season in the Giants world right now, right? Put butts in the seats, get the first rounder on the field. See what you have in that room there. Like, I agree with you. Russell Wilson is completely washed, unfortunately. And I agree. You mean, you talk about a guy that was at the pinnacle of the top at one point in his career. You just, it's not fun to watch. It's a, it's a painful process. And of course, it's happening. I feel bad. it's happening to the giants who have a very what I thought good defense. But, you know,

I'll give you my last hate to see it to his brain is broken. Oh, from more standpoints than one. Yeah. Not just the concussions thing, but he is throwing bad interceptions. He's not seeing the field. Like you talk about a guy that has fallen off the cliff. And I mean, the concussions probably play a part in this. But to attack by Loa is he's done, man. Like that is a really, really tough thing to watch right now as well it was and it's also a like you know what i have no feelings about the dolphins organization like i'm glad there's a team in florida but i mean it's tough for teams when they have their window and they miss it yeah you just know it's going to be suffering it was for the vikings like that that 2019 team was the last chance they had and when it went to the other side it was

just suffering for several seasons and miami when they had that season where toa was healthy and he played so well. That was it. That was your year. And once you miss it and you try to hold on to that rope and it's being pulled out of your hands, it's, it's just brutal to watch. And they're going to end up with a fired coach. Two is going to be playing quarterback somewhere else next year. That thing is set to implode. Love to see it though. Us breaking down a football game. Oh, we're back. Let's go. Jeremiah steals. A win. A win. We need more wins. More wins. because you talk about someone you talk about someone suffering we suffered like you and i suffered through some tough times and like we're ready to come out on the other end we're ready to

we're ready to ring the bell we had to get used to it uh with kevin o'connell breaking down wins uh and because a lot of the wins would be not ones that you loved and so at least at least this one was extremely entertaining and folks will never forget j jay mccarthy's first start jeremiah serles thank you so much my friend absolutely see you next week there you go jeremiah surles everybody i'll get back to a few of your questions i have done a lot of podcasting today and uh because i also recorded with robert mays for tomorrow so i'm running out of vocals here but uh i'll answer a few more questions and then the robinson uh roundup with maggie robinson where she goes around the league it looks at some

different things around the NFL and that's a fun conversation as well but i want to remind you that the show is brought to you by my friend Denise Tova and her team at T-O-V-A, QD-R-O and Retirement Valuators. Denisea has a really fun podcast called Beyond the Bar. And just to give you an example, if you go to her YouTube page and check out Beyond the Bar, the art of winning arguments, even when the stakes are personal,

a podcast interview that she did. Very interesting. Your emotions versus the truth. If you're a mediator, what she is mostly focused on here is the law and the people who do the law, who are involved in the law, their lives, how they view things, different perspectives within the law. I think a lot of us think of the law as very black and white and very buttoned up in suits and lawyers, things like that, right?

Law and order, but there's real people behind all of those things. And what Denise with her podcast aims to do is to try to unearth a lot of those people's perspectives, what their lives are really like. So you want to check that out. I have also been on the Beyond the Bar podcast and her and her husband, Glenn, a lifetime Vikings fan, are huge supporters here of Purple Insider. And off the mic, Denise runs a forensic retirement lab if you're a divorce lawyer and your client's IRA and 401K were around before the marriage and it's all blended together. well, she and her team can help you untangle it the way that a certain football team untangled themselves from being down in a game last night. So if you want in, just type in Denise Atova to LinkedIn and let her know that you heard

her here on Purple Insider and ask about that settlement lab and check out the podcast again Beyond the Bar, great friend of the show, Denisea Tova, that is T-O-V-A. Okay, I want to get to a couple of more questions before I bring in Maggie Robinson from syndrome says what kind of pressure does McCarthy face now from the fans the locker room and the league and how do you see him handling it? I think that what winning that game did was take a lot of pressure off. Now look, he's in the NFL and he's a quarterback. So he's going to have pressure every single week, every single game, every single year going forward. I don't know how many games that J.J. McCarthy maybe if they're in a playoff spot and he's only playing the

first half just to get a few reps in because they've already locked in their playoff spot i don't know how many games j j mccarthy's ever going to go into where we're like you know i'm cool with this one whatever happens happens this chill like what what monday morning overreaction show is ever going to say all right we're breaking down this big game j jay mccarthy's the quarterback and you know whatever whatever but let's talk about no there's always going to be in the NFL, no matter who you play, no matter what stage you play on, think about even if you play at noon, the entire state of Minnesota is watching you. That's still a lot of people. And even if you play the Bengals who are not necessarily the biggest rival of all time, you're still going up against

one of the best quarterbacks of the last decade. And that's kind of the case, no matter who you play or what stage you play on. So I think this is just the very small first step for J.J. McCarthy to overcome a very tough situation to work his way through early struggles and maybe not great execution and maybe not the perfect game plan to go against the Chicago Bears and get through it and get a win and on to the next one. And that's, that's how it really has to go. And I think with McCarthy, he has really mentally trained himself over the years, along with his natural personality, but I think he's really put a lot of focus on this of that was one game and now I play the next game and now I play the next play. You really have to do this. It sounds like some cliche that they say

and is actually impossible. I think you really have to do this, which is just have the ultimate horse blinders on and get to the next game, get to the next play, and not think about the pressure that's going to be on you to keep winning. But there's pressure on all season. They know what a good team this is. They know how much talent is on this team. And there's a lot of pressure to win. But tell me where there's not. I mean, even if you're Justin Fields, that's a career on the line. If he plays really well, we could go through every one of these teams and talk about if the quarterback plays well or doesn't. What are the implications? We were just talking about Tua. The implications are enormous if Tua plays horribly this year, right? For the Miami Dolphins franchise

and no one cares about the dolphins. So I think that exists just about everywhere. Nature of the position, it's probably always been the case. For him, him, but passing the first test, I think reduces a little bit of that. So thank you for the, the super chat there. Northern Pride wants Stefan Gilmore, again, with the cornerback unit, unless Jeff Okuda is seriously hurt and is out for multiple weeks, I think that they're going to just keep going forward with this, where they are right now, which is with those four corners and the guys they've developed in Fabian Morrow.

With Stefan Gilmore, I just don't know. he wants to play the season started he's not on a team it's week one he hasn't signed anywhere even after the week one thing where you get no guarantees and etc i mean it's it doesn't really look like stepan gilmore unless he latches on with a super bowl contender doesn't really look like stephan gilmore is going to be a guy that is in the mix that again that could change if there is a serious injury or you know something else like that but for now i think they're going to continue to go forward with this cornerback group, and I'd like to see them against two teams that have good wide receivers. Drake London status, I think we're going to find out here, but I don't

think it's great. And then T. Higgins, Jamar Chase, those guys got slowed down in the first week by Cleveland. I think that games against the team where a quarterback runs around and runs around and runs around are probably a bad representation of what your corners can do, and they did get beat on some regular plays. But when you're dropping back and having to cover for five, six, seven seconds, it's really hard to do. So I'm trying to check here, time to throw, time in the pocket. If Caleb Williams may be second in the league. The only guy who held on to the ball longer from snap to release was Jalen Hertz this week. Caleb Williams, almost 3.4 seconds. And when he was scrambling? How about this? Crazy stat. When he was scrambling, it wasn't until 6.3 seconds. That's how

long he was moving around the pocket before even making the decision to scramble. I mean, that's, that's a, that's a, that's a long time to say to your corners, make sure you keep it tight. But if Okuda is seriously injured, then, you know, I think that is a problem and they still can look for answers. But this team also can look for answers. I mean, just, you know, For example, I mean, Jay says pick up the best free agent. There are no free agents. There are none. I mean, Stefan Gilmore, he's 36, I think, at this point, wore out toward the end of the year.

Not sure if he wants to play. Not sure how much money he wants. What other free agents? Mike Hilton, maybe, I guess. But again, like you're talking about a guy who was, I wasn't he cut, and then he's worked out with a couple other teams. The options are bad. You would probably prefer just Dwight McLeathern being your depth than

Fabian Morrow over pretty much anything else because those guys have familiarity with the team and the system. But I just think after one game that it's probably not the greatest idea to overreact to their secondary. The PFF grades weren't great, but overall, Caleb Williams is not like he smoked them. I just think that they're in a tough spot there. So, I mean, there's a, yeah, I know there's a couple of guys. I mean, James Bradbury, I mean, what are we talking about here?

We're talking about guys who are just toast. so it's possible and here's what here's the how i look at the corner situation is that if you get halfway through the year and it's a struggle and you feel like you need a corner to be the difference maker well go trade for one they got a bunch of late round capital they've got enough cap space to do it go acquire one via trade but you're probably doing it after five six weeks something like that you're not doing it after one in which Caleb Williams just ran around and Ben Johnson has had the answers to this team for a long time now. And his offense is really good at picking apart certain things about this team.

I want to see a much bigger sample size these next three weeks probably because, you know, they're going to face Aaron Rogers. They're going to face Pittsburgh. That will tell us a lot more about this secondary than I think yesterday did. And, you know, Derek points out Bejohn Robinson might be the number one target for Atlanta. So we might not get a real test to see this Viking secondary versus great wide receivers until Cincinnati. So we'll see on that. But I wouldn't go crazy just yet.

I would look at it like they'll make a move if they feel like they have to or if there is an injury that ends up being pretty serious. But I mean, I think that the defense played really well. Considering that you can't get off the field time and time and time again early in the game, and you go into halftime down 10 to 6. That feels pretty good about the defense overall. Mr. Mayor, where are the flags from behind me? Spent a few podcasts trying to interpret based on logos, missing teams gave up.

Well, so these behind me were sent by a listener, longtime listener, Jason, who lives in Michigan, and as a friend of the show, met him at training camp a couple times. And he found these in his garage, maybe a couple years ago, and they had never been open. So he sent them to me, and they're from the 80s, and I put them together. I think I tried to make it just old AFC, NFC, so Seattle is in the AFC. But there's no real big rhyme or reason to it.

Just tried to get, you know, the Vikings one over my shoulder, so you can all look at the Vikings helmet. I just think that they look cool, like really retro. Then I got my purple insider man over here, got me downtown, you know, Minneapolis, U.S. Bank Stadium over there, I don't know, got the book. Just trying to put together something that looked bright and colorful. That's all I was going for. I'm not a professional designer, but I really liked them.

So I thought, let's put them behind me. All right. Let's see. Lucas says, do you see the team trading for a high impact player before the deadline? I have no idea. It's week one. I really don't. I mean, of course it's possible,

but they've just played one game. I mean, you guys, you guys have had too many days since a player acquisition. And you're like fiending for a player acquisition. Make a change. Make a change. Out of offseason mode, my friends. It's the regular season.

It is the regular season. We're on to Atlanta. And then when the trade gets, deadline gets here, we'll definitely talk about it. And I also think that we need to give Dwight McGle some credit as well because, you know, McLeodern over the last two training camps,

he had some rough moments in this last training camp, still ends up making the team, still ends up making some plays, and they've developed him. And so they've got Morrow who they trust, and they played last year in a pinch. They've got a guy, a young player who plays the ball that they've been developing.

They've got their two starters. And if Okuda is healthy and good to go, they've got their three starters. I mean, I don't look at after this. game that that is a really big discussion. I just thought it was proof this game that you can be not perfect when it comes to the corners and still end up with a really good overall defensive performance. So I think that that topic for now is just not a big one for me. And we'll just see where it ends up going. Buddy's here. If you guys can see him. Yep, buddy's back. He interrupted

in my interview with Robert Mayes yesterday. So when you guys watch that one tomorrow night, you'll see, you'll see, buddy, in action. All right, before we wrap up the show for tonight, it's been a really fun conversation, great chat with Jeremiah Searles, Maggie Robinson's special contributor to Purple Insider. She looked at an article that went through overreactions, and we talked about what's an overreaction around the NFL and what is reasonable. So here is myself and Maggie. All right. It's time for another. Robinson run down with special Purple Insider contributor Maggie Robinson, formerly an NFL producer now at Syracuse University and ACC Network at this point

is from my understanding as well. So very cool. Maggie Robinson, what is on your mind? We got football games to break down. And in this segment, you take us away from the purple, look around the NFL, things that stuck out to you, which is definitely a lot easier when you have a full slate of games. So where would you like to begin? Well, it was a great weekend of football. Oh, my gosh, we are so back for one. That's all I have to say. We are so back.

Football is here, baby. I want to kick us off with some of the biggest overreactions coming out of week one. Okay. So Dan Graziano, who's an ESPN writer, wrote this article about some predictions that he thinks, are these overblown or are they not? I picked two of them that I'd like to chat over with you. Okay? So let's kick it off nice and strong with this prediction.

The Dolphins will be picking first in the 2026 NFL draft and we'll be looking for a new QB. Is that an overreaction or is it valid? I think part one is an overreaction. I think part two is completely valid. I don't think that the Miami Dolphins are just going to lose every single game. I do think the New Orleans Saints could lose every single game because Spencer Rattler cannot win games in this league. They have very little talent on that team. they signed an extra safety, he got hurt right away.

The Saints played a pretty mediocre Cardinals team with Kyler Burry, who was very ill going into that game. And Arizona was never really in danger of losing that to the Saints. So I still think that New Orleans is the worst team in the league and that Miami has enough talent to win sometimes. And their coach is pretty good. I wouldn't put him up in the same category as a Kevin O'Connell, a Matt LaFlorra, Kyle Shanahan, and Andy Reed.

I wouldn't put him under the top minds in the entire league, but we have seen him win games before. And they also do get high grades from players in the NFLPA survey. And I think if the players want to play for you, that you will hang around in this league. I see them as more of like a five win type of team. Tua probably ends up getting hurt, missing some games again. It's going to be a rough ride for them.

I wouldn't be shocked if he ends up getting fired halfway through the season. I just don't see them as being so horrific. I know how it looked. I know how it looked. Daniel Jones, looking like he was Andrew Luck out there, was not on my bingo card. But at the same time, week one will do this to us sometimes where it'll be so bad for a team

where we'll go they're done. Their seasons over one weekend. And then the next week they'll win a game and we'll be like, oh, well, you know, I mean, what I said last week, just forget about it. That's the nature of football. So, but as far as Tua goes, it's clear that he peaked with that one season.

He can't be a quarterback that you paid. And I don't think he's ever. going to be the same again. So I agree with the second part. They will be looking for another quarterback. Yeah, the second part is what I wanted to hit on. Two was 14 of 23 for a 60% completion rate. And the last time, according to this stat that his passing efficiency was this bad, he was playing with broken ribs. He's perfectly healthy. And it's a week one and he's doing this poorly. That doesn't really feel me with a bunch of confidence if I'm a Dolphins fan. He went for 114 yards, one touchdown, three sacks, two interceptions, like just a poor performance from Tua all over.

And he has a $54 million guarantee in 2026. So he's going to keep playing on the team. They're probably going to keep him as a starter. But this is a great time. If I'm Mike McDaniels, though, like, I'm looking at, I don't know, like a Cade Clubnick or someone coming out and saying, we could develop you for a year. You could be sitting right here. And then we could bring you in in 2027 right away to hit the ground running.

if Mike McDaniels still gets to be there as the head coach. I mean, that's really he's fighting for his job here. And that's why, you know, when people bring up, well, they should just trade Tyree Kill after one week. I don't think you could do that because when the job is on the line and the GM's job should be on the line as well. When you have that one big season and then you fall apart after that, fall apart in the playoffs, you guys got a win or everybody's probably getting canned. And I think that desperation will get them to a couple of victories, but they're not a serious team. Maybe at the trade deadline, we are talking about a Tyreek Hill trade that could completely shake up whatever team it is.

Maybe it is Kansas City that he goes back to because you talk about those contracts. And Tyree Kill has no guaranteed money for next year. That is extremely tradable for the Miami Dolphins. I just don't think they can quite hit the tank button yet. But when you look forward and at the rest of the AFC, what's your path? You're just sort of hoping to hang on and make it interesting in December at the, this point because they don't have enough to be a real contender yeah agree with you on all fronts you mentioned kansas city which brings me to my second point which is the overreaction or not kansas

city will not win the a fc west this season valid or overblown well they are oh and one since travis kelsey got engaged i think that there's distractions that they can't overcome no i'm just what was the question i was teeing up that joke well kansas city win the afc west oh okay yeah Yeah, yeah. So it was one of my bold predictions going into the season that the Chargers would win that division because I think they're extremely talented and they finally have a complete group of wide receivers around Justin Herbert, a running game, an offensive line that they've built through the draft. It's a little banged up, but I think we still saw the other night that it's good. And I think Herbert's a really good quarterback. I don't know if he's as good as Josh Allen, probably not, but he's really good at football. And with him making some plays out of structure, Jim Harbaugh has won everywhere he's gone in his career. They've loaded up that defense. They were number one in points allowed last year. They don't turn the ball over.

There's a lot of things of the chargers on the rise. And I think with Kansas City, the problem last year that everybody had with their great season was that it seemed like they kind of just tried to hang around to the end and said, Mahomes, can you please just sort of bail us out at the end? And then once they got to the Super Bowl, that did not happen. I think if you're going to try to play with an even worse roster, this year than last year where they lost Joe tuning they lost some other players just and reed that were key guys for them and you're going to say mohomes ball us out over and over and over

again it's that's just a really tough road to beat teams that are good like the raiders i think at least are not a joke from what we saw under p carroll and denver is definitely not a joke this is one of the tougher divisions in football i think it will be a hard time for kansas city to get there with the talent that they have the only overreaction part is they lost xavier worthy early in the game and you know that most of the game plan was around Xavier Worthy and Rushie Rice is out for six weeks. That beginning of the season, I think, is what could put them behind

and they might end up as a wildcar team. Yeah, Hollywood Brown got, I think, 16 targets is like the next man up, but who's wide receiver won? How bad was the Xavier Worthy injury? Also, mind you, if we're talking about Travis Kelsey Slender, Travis Kelsey ran into his own teammate. Come on. This is

professional football. You're paid to play the sport and you're running into your own teammate, like open your eyes. It happens sometimes. But It was interesting that he got punched in the face with the open hand and did the player did not get ejected for punching him. I thought if anything, Kelsey looked a little more spry than he did last year. But that team, when it was at its absolute greatest, was throwing 160 passes his way. He's five years older than he was at his absolute peak now. It's really tough to just ask him and Hollywood Brown, who's never been a real A1 wide receiver to just carry this offense.

So I think they could run into some losses early in the year, probably recover, probably end up in the playoffs anyway. Yeah, I just think they looked a little sloppy. And I think everyone assumed that coming out of a lackluster Super Bowl performance, which is kind of a crazy statement to even say, that they would just have a fire under their belly. They'd be ready to go. And it looks like they kind of just rolled out of bed and showed up. And it was sloppy. I mean, they had a lot of false start penalties. I think, what, seven first half penalties for 48 yards?

That's a fixable problem. That should not be happening. I mean, I guess it makes sense to happen in week one, if anything. But again, professional football team, you should have worked this out. Communication is key. Well, in that team, they won last year by not making too many mistakes. So if you have that and you make mistakes, and that's the game that they've been forced to play because their roster is just deteriorated over the last couple of years.

But that's where I wouldn't put it past them to when they get their full bevy of wide receivers and maybe trade for Tyreek Hill, then all of a sudden Kansas City will still be scary when we get to the playoffs. that would be how I would project it right now. But I think that that division is up for grabs. Yeah, absolutely. Okay, let's jump up to the northeast. Aaron Rutters is back against his old team. And I almost want to say, unfortunately, he did really well.

I kind of wanted to be a hater. I really did. But he went 22 of 30 for a 73% completion rate, 244 passing yards, four passing touchdowns, like 136 quarterback rating with no interceptions. He showed out. He kind of carried the team on his back with a little bit of help from his kicker. So I, for one, was impressed by his debut with the Steelers. It's exactly the opposite of how I would have expected it to look because I would have

thought that the Steelers defense was going to be great and that it was going to be Aaron Rogers kind of struggling to move around back there. And, you know, he didn't look like the old Aaron Rogers, but he executed everything that was out there for him. The thing about that game, though, is, I mean, number one, the Jets, they might be. in that conversation that we're talking about for number one overall pick, that's not a good football team. I was happy for Justin Fields that he got a little moment there because that guy gets drilled on all the time, but he's not a good player and they're not going to be a good team.

So it's not like they came out and they beat Kansas City or they beat the Chargers or they beat someone who's really good. At the same time, the offense that Arthur Smith has there is it has a lot of easy buttons to it. That's why in the same offense, Ryan Tannhill, if you've got armed talent, then you can make this work. They run a lot of play actions. They have a good screen game. So Tannahill went under Arthur Smith from being this bust in Miami to being a really good quarterback and winning 13 games with Tennessee. And Rogers, the big question for me is, will Rogers buy in? And when I see Rogers running play actions under center, I'm like, that looks completely different than what he was doing for the Jets. It is possible. And I don't want to

project any self-awareness onto Aaron Rogers. It is possible that he looked around and said the way I used to play quarterback that I was trying to do with the Jets is not how it works anymore and bought into what Arthur Smith was selling. If that's the case, they can win a lot of football games with Aaron Rogers because the ball is still jumping off of his arm. Yeah, it feels like they taught an old dog new tricks. Like if he really is this dialed on this new game plan, watch out, honestly, because this

was a great showing from him and got a shout out the kickers always. Chris Boswell sealed the deal with a 60 yard field goal and Tomlin called him a quote serial killer for how calm he was in big moments, which I thought was a interesting quote. It's come on man. It's just it's just these football dudes are just bizarre sometimes. That is just bizarre. So here's here's a stat for you by the way. They had almost 30% of their plays were screen passes with Aaron Rogers. in that game. And with play action, he went eight for 10 with three touchdowns. So the, yeah, the easy button stuff that was drawn up by the offensive coordinator and all you have to do is executed. They were really, really good. But Mike Tomlin is sort of famous

for this over his career of just using bizarre descriptions and strange. He was a Vikings coach once upon a time. He probably did it then. It's like, as long as it is, what's the Jay Z song where it's like, as long as it sounds good or whatever, that's not how it goes in the song. But you know what I mean. Yeah. It sounds good, but that's kind of a crazy thing to say about a kicker. I think he just means, what they usually say is he's cold blooded.

Right, like ice in his veins. Right. You know, they don't go with, you know what, what did you think of that game when he kick? He's a homicidal maniac. Yeah. Total psychopath. Cash of weapons on the sideline. He brings them with him.

He's got a machete. He's got, like, Mike, relax. Relax. Relax. We're just a football. He kind of lost it there. It was like, he's, yeah, yeah. He forgot he was in front of microphones, I think, for a second there as football guys tend to do. It's week one for everyone. But speaking of kickers, man of the hour this week, Matt Crater, 41 year old just signed to the bill's roster in relief of Tyler Bass, who's struggling with some injuries, came in absolutely clutch in the most exhilarating game of the weekend, nailed a 32-yarder to walk off the game. with the bills. I love to see that. I like how you say he's 41. Well, apologies to the audience. Goodness. I say that. Let me run that back. I say that in the context of there's only what, like three 41 year olds. We have Placo. We have Rogers and now we have Matt Prater. Remember that name. The 41 year olds are doing something I'm just saying. The guy has done this a lot because a lot of people are acting shocked at like, oh, new guy. No, he holds the record for the most field goals over 50 yards.

He has done that 81 times. Vikings fans know well because in 2016, they were about to win a game against the Lions and then they completed a pass to like the 40-yard line and he banged home a 60-yard kick to send it to overtime. So they are aware of Matt Prater. I just sometimes it sounds like you're talking about a guy crawling out of the crypts, like,

I can't believe he's still alive at that age, much less kicking. I will say I was not the only one to have thoughts like that, though. teammates in his own locker room at the bills thought he was a new coach that's because they're your age uh all the team mates in the locker room anyway so that game though is one of the most insane football games that it reminded me of when the vikings went to buffalo in 2022 and had the crazy come back with all the sorts of different stuff that happened and it is a little bit weird that the baltimore ravens have done this so many times there was a graphic i saw on tv today

about, like, Belichick coached 500-something games and had the same amount of double-digit late lead blown as Harbaugh has had in 300 games, which is pretty crazy. I also think that we've reached this, this Brady Manning kind of point in the NFL only with also Mahomes still included. But Jackson and Allen are the two most exciting players in the NFL, hands down. And that game was everything that you could have dreamed of. someone was going to lose in the end, but the number of explosive plays, the number of wow plays, the number of twists and turns.

And if this call went that way, or if Derek Henry doesn't, I mean, Derek Henry had this unbelievable game, but he fumbles at the worst point. I mean, that was one where you went, is that going to be a playoff game?

Because that's going to be a playoff game at some point. They're going to do this again, and I can't wait. They have to. They have to. Great on the scheduling team for putting that week one. It was a phenomenal game. It was just so exciting.

I just was thinking about, all the bills fans leaving the stadium when they thought the game was over they left too early didn't beat the traffic those people you know who leave the games early do you think you're beating the traffic they did you understand what the traffic is like outside of that state there is in buffalo and maybe they'll fix this when they build the new stadium there's one road in one road out it's not like minneapolis where there's a bunch of different ways to get downtown there is one road that takes you to the stadium. You're not beating any sort of traffic, man. You're getting home late. You might as well just stick around. And I would never leave a game. Two things,

I'd never leave a game if I was a Bill's fan because they had the greatest comeback of all time until the Vikings beat it in terms of points, but it's still the greatest of Frank Reich in the playoffs. So if you know that history is Bill's fans, you should never be leaving any again. And you have Josh Allen on your team. Why? The guy is like John Elway of this era. Why would you ever leave a game when you have that man is your quarterback? I, to anyone watching, if you're confident up for those tickets, which I know are not

cheap, keep your butt in the seat. I mean, the game's not done till it's done until the final whistle is blown. So that's my take on it. Unless you have, you know, actual responsibility. So Flacco is your quarterback or whatever. You probably just head out. But, yeah, that was

magical. That was an incredible football game. That's one where you remember that one for a long time. Absolutely. And I want to round it out here with my rookie of the week, Will Johnson, who's a cornerback for the Arizona Cardinals. We mentioned at the top, they played a really lackluster New Orleans Saints team, but I thought he had a standout performance. And I want to give you a little bit of background here. So he fell to the second round of the draft this year. He was a really highly recruited player, but he had some knee issues and teams were kind of hesitant to take him on his

injury history. And he was on the PFF all rookie team this week with a 90.2 grade, played 45 snaps, three passes defended, one interception that unfortunately did not count, and most notably on Twitter, I'm sure everyone saw this, rocked Chris Olavé. The commentators gasped, the entire stadium was like, oh, it was phenomenal. He just stood on his head this game, even got the game ball from Jonathan Bannon. So I think Will Johnson was such an interesting case because in terms of pure talent, he was a top 12 player in the draft, and I'm sure the Vikings considered drafting him, but they were just concerned about this knee issue. And are you going to get a player that you can have for 10 years? Or is he going to play for a couple years? And it's going to, you know,

not be in a good spot. And that's all you get out of that draft pick or whatever. But the talent was not totally shocking, was also playing the Saints. But just, you know, this is who he was supposed to be. How about we end on this one? I'll give you two games that I think are my favor from the slate. you could tell me which one you would rather watch this week. We have a Super Bowl rematch between the Philadelphia Eagles and the Kansas City Chiefs. And on Fandul, the Eagles are one and a half point favorites. So Vegas is not overreacting to what happened last week. And then Dolphins Patriot.

No, I'm just kidding. That's a joke. Chargers Raiders in Vegas. So you have Kansas City, Philly, the game of narratives, the game that will be broken down. And then also, I think a lot of funzies between the Chargers and the Raiders, which of those two games would you rather watch? Listen, I think the marquee headliner that's going to get huge viewership is the Super Bowl rematch, clearly. But I'm looking at Gino Smith and the Raiders. A lot of fun. And the Georgia's coming off this game, I think Gino just set the, I'm looking at

the stat, just set the record for passing yards in his first game with team. If that's not a knock on the front door of, hey, we're here. Don't forget about us. this season. I don't know what is. It's a really interesting team to watch this season. So I think my eyeballs are there. The Robinson rundown every Tuesday night here on the show, special contributor to Purple Insider Maggie Robinson. Thank you so much for your time. And congratulations on new endeavors. And we'll hope, at least for now, you don't get so many that you can't appear on the show. But if you do, I'll be very happy for you. So thank you for your time, Maggie. Thank you guys. Happy week two. Football.

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