Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - What do stats, tape reveal about JJ McCarthy's game vs. Bears (Part 1)

Episode Date: November 18, 2025

Matthew Coller breaks down what he saw on tape and in the numbers about JJ McCarthy's rough day and where they go from here. The Purple Insider podcast is brought to you by FanDuel. Also, check out our sponsor HIMS at https://hims.com/purpleinsider Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hey, everybody, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider, Matthew Collar. Here, the show is always presented by Fandul. We will have a Fandual question of the day a little later in the show. Questions, comments, and thoughts and opinions in the comment section, hit me up. I'll answer your questions very shortly. I got a bunch of notes to run through from Vikings and Bears. I spent the day watching back the all-22 film and going through all the numbers and have a bunch of things to break down as well as listening to Kevin O'Connell's press conference. So probably should start there with what Kevin O'Connell had to say.

And then we'll get to all the analysis and break it all down and have a conversation about where the now four and six Minnesota Vikings stand. And I know the discussion has to be centered around the quarterback. after that game, but I think that a lot of the conversation out there in the social media sphere and so forth has been, you know, maybe going a little too far in a couple of different ways. So I'll get into all that momentarily, but just wanted to bring a couple of quotes from Kevin O'Connell that I thought were interesting to start the show. First, he just talked about, you know some of the things where j j mccarthy is making it a little harder on himself than it needs to be o'connell was asked about the mechanics and why some of the mechanics

seem to be working for him maybe in practice and then what he saw when he was going through the tape uh what was going on mechanically with mccarthy so let's begin with that there there are There are some plays where, you know, he is making it hard on himself just by, you know, the nature of many of the things that I think that's probably the most frustrating part for him. It's, you know, it's talked about and repped and practiced at length. And then in those moments, you know, in his fifth start, you know, it's just a variance to it is causing, you know, it's causing his job to be more difficult than it needs to be. and he's wildly capable of making the throws that present themselves. There were some good throws in there as well, some throws there late that even after what had been a frustrating day for him,

his ability to still respond like he has a couple times now and move the team late to get a lead. He's made of the right stuff. He's going to keep working at it. We're going to go back to work and continue to find every aviative. to try to help build the consistency to to his to his mechanics and then I just I firmly believe the accuracy will come from that it's it's been tried and true and tested with other players and guys that have been on their journey before so there Kevin O'Connell talking about the mechanical

element of it and how he feels like McCarthy is quote wildly capable of making the throws that are there and has made it harder on himself than it needs to be, which I think is a really great description and a great place to get into what I saw on tape because I think that he really nailed it when it comes to some of the mechanics where the throws are there and he will add something else to the mix that doesn't need to be there. And a really good example is the Jordan Addison drop early in the game where, yes, Jordan Addison absolutely needs to catch that ball. It hits off his hands.

And maybe we're talking about a different ball game. If Addison brings it in, gets, I don't know, 20, 30 yards there, and then they're set up in field goal position or maybe they score a touchdown or whatever else. And there's no debating the drops in this game hurt McCarthy. It hurt his completion percentage. It certainly hurt their chances in a couple of different instances to get some first downs and keep some drives going.

but when we wonder about some of the drops that have happened, timing does have to do with at least a little bit of it. And I thought that last week with the Jefferson ball where he was going into the end zone, but it was a little bit late coming out. And on the play with Jordan Addison in the drop, this is right off the beginning of the game. He drops back. He's got a totally clean pocket.

If he just shuffles a little bit to his left, he starts to feel a tiny bit of pressure from his right. If he shuffles a little bit to his left and just delivers the ball, Addison runs right into it, catches it, it's got a big gain. But being a little bit late meant sort of taking almost a running pedal up into the pocket like he was about to scramble. And then when, oh, actually I see Addison open and let it go, that wasn't where he expected to be getting the football.

Now, again, he's got to catch it. He said he's got to catch it. I'm saying he's got to catch it. but it was just an example of making it harder on himself than it needed to be, where a shuffle and a throw and a little anticipation guides him right into the football. And instead, he is stepping up. And it's once again the issue of if you are running and then throwing, the ball is coming out very, very hot.

And also I think someone did grab the corner did grab Jordan Addison from behind, which may have thrown him off ever so slightly. again, that's a catch that he makes 99 times out of 100 and then we would never be talking about it. But I think it was a great look at some of the mechanical issues that we have been talking about. And I do want to, before I get into much more of this, I want to give a little bit of a PSA about the conversation here and where we're going to start is this is a look at yesterday's game. So every single critique or a thing that I point out, whether it's good or bad, is not a statement about the bigger picture. And that seems to be a little bit of, I think, a problem when it comes to talking about

J.J. McCarthy is that every single thing that gets tossed out there is either has to be in one of the two buckets of he's going to be great, just you wait because he made this throw, or he's a bust because he made that throw. What I'm doing is looking at the Bears game, okay, for the purpose. And then when I'm not, I'll tell you. So for right now, we're looking at the Bears game. and applying what Kevin O'Connell said in that quote that you just heard and going through that, okay, like through that lens of the mechanical issues and making things harder on himself

than they needed to be. So one of the major issues with this game for me is the number of routine throws that came from a clean pocket that did not get completed. This was, I believe, the best pass protection I have ever covered in a single game from the Minnesota Vikings. It was fantastic. And that is in part J.J. McCarthy, and he deserves credit for that, that you see him in a couple of different instances. I'll give you an example where when he misses the throw on third and seven to Justin Jefferson, he brings in C.J. Ham, and I believe he maybe signals something a check to T.J. Hawkinson. so they bring in extra protection, they get this all-out type of blitz,

and then he identifies where he's supposed to go with the football to Jefferson one-on-one with Noah Sewell. It should be a really nice sort of high-level quarterback play of getting the protection right, identifying where the blitz is coming from, and then getting to the right read, where I believe it's only a two-man concept, where you have somebody, maybe Addison, clearing out, and then there comes Jefferson underneath, and it's a pitch and catch, as O'Connell said, outrout, and he just straight up misses it. And I think that some of it is when he's had these mechanical issues,

when he's thrown a couple interceptions in the game, and he was asked about it snowballing and so forth, and I know he tried to downplay that. But I felt like it was, if you're a golfer, and you've duffed a few, and then you're trying to slow down your swing, and then you swing too hard at the end, and you hit it over, and you just get all thrown off because it gets in your head. I think that that happened a little bit to J.J. McCarthy, too, where he was just trying to guide it there rather than just stepping and throwing, and he ended up guiding it over Jefferson and out of bounds.

But that is a routine throw. The interception by Nashon Wright was a routine play where it is a two-man concept on that side. Actually, three, three-man concept on that side. Hawkinson comes to the middle. Naylor breaks behind him. And Addison is going deep down the side. line and he's got nailer wide open. So that should be a routine pitch and catch completion. He passes up on that and then is late to throw it to Addison, but it also felt like he was trying to guide it there. I don't know if at that point it was a confidence thing as well,

but he didn't put the right amount of a distance on the football. And it goes up, it hangs up in the air, right table to turn around. He makes a really great play to intercept that ball. but just another example of the routine throw, the pitch and catch, the 95% completion percentage type of throw is right there in front of him and he takes the harder route to it, but he doesn't quite get it right mechanically and leaves the ball hanging up a little

too much or doesn't put enough distance on it and it ends up getting intercepted. These are things that you would expect every quarterback to be able to complete that pass and identify that Naylor was wide open, breaking underneath. And if not, you expect every quarterback to be able to put enough air under that ball to get it to the back of the end zone where it's either Jordan Addison's or nobodies. And instead, it barely gets to the end zone. And that's where Nashon Wright intercepts it. There's another one on a deep ball that was not intercepted.

And I'm sure you guys, I'm trying to pick out plays that were really memorable to talk about where the two bears players ran into each other. other and both of them got hurt. Well, one of the reasons they both ran into each other is because McCarthy was laid on that throw and Brisker, the safety, realizes where he's going with the football and takes a beeline right to it. And that's the difference between college and the NFL is the timing is just so much more precise or it has to be because the other team's players are so fast. Brisker is a great safety. And as soon as McCarthy takes that little extra a half second and reveals where he's going with the football,

Brisker just takes off and the ball comes up well short and is almost picked off by two different guys. But earlier in that play, Justin Jefferson is wide open right in front of J.J. McCarthy. I mean, it is a max protect, two guys going out against a single high coverage and Jefferson beats his man off the line of scrimmage to the middle of the field. It is as open and is simple and as easy. and none of this is easy because it's the NFL, but by NFL standards, completion right in front of him, and he hesitates, and then he tries to launch it, and I'm not sure if it was going to Jefferson or Addison to tell you the truth, down the sideline and is almost picked off by two different guys. those are the types of routine plays that were not being made from J.J. McCarthy.

And I think when you talk about being very concerned about the accuracy, concerned about the mechanics, that's really the place that you start, is that these are day one OTA's types of plays that Kevin O'Connell has drawn up for every quarterback and they've worked for every quarterback that he's had here. Kirk Cousins, Sam Darnold, Nick Mullins, even Josh Dobbs has hit some of these during his time here. They are sort of standards in the NFL, standard types of plays. And some of them he was able to hit and some of them he was able to complete. But the misses, the extreme misses, were really costly for them yesterday.

And they're one of the reasons being late and not having your timing correct. And I don't know if that's a matter of whether he's got the footwork down. or it was just a trust in the throw because when we talk about anticipation, this is a huge, huge thing in the NFL. Jefferson goes straight up and then breaks across the middle of the field. As soon as he's out of his break,

the ball should be hitting him. You should be seeing as the quarterback, all right, that single high safety is 30 yards down the field. He's going to take the deep guy. They're sending a pressure. It should be out of your hand way before he is even totally, out of his break and he should be running right into the football and taking off for 20 more

yards. Instead, he's coming out of his break and then there's a hesitation and then he throws it kind of off his back foot and it flies off into the atmosphere and he's very lucky that it wasn't intercepted. That to me is a trust and confidence. It is also a haven't played a whole lot of football type of miss and it might be a footwork or mechanics type of miss as well. because you should be hitting a certain spot with your footwork and then releasing the football, not hitting it and then kind of stopping and then drifting backward and then throwing it up in the air. There was a lot happening on plays that you almost never see a lot happening on

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Featured products include compound drug products, which FDA does not approve or verify for safety, effectiveness, or quality. prescription required, see website for full details, restrictions, and safety information. So by the numbers, his completion percentage over expected, which would factor in how open the receivers were, was 14% below what you would expect. So based on just him throwing where the receivers were, when he throw through the football, and this speaks to I think a lot of the timing, and maybe some of the drops are baked into this as well, 14% below expected his completion percentage yesterday. And now at this point through five games, his completion percentage, when adjusted

four drops, so that is a stat that we have, is 36th out of 40 quarterbacks who qualify have enough dropbacks. And in terms of clean pocket completion percentage, and again, this is what is concerning is how often he had all day to throw the football. there was nary a pressure from the Chicago Bears. Their defensive line is banged up. I believe his pressure percentage maybe was like 20-something percent, which is as good as you could ever dream of in the NFL today.

And now after five games, he is 40th out of 40 players in completion percentage from a clean pocket. And he is at 54.8 percent. the top 25 quarterbacks in the league are all above 70. So he has not really been anywhere close to NFL starting caliber standard when playing from a clean pocket. That I think is something that through five games is not going to give you a perfect sample. And if you have a great game, the next one,

you can bump that up by 10% or something. But if we're just looking at yesterday's game and the trend of what has been through five games, not being able to take advantage of time in the pocket. I think early in those first couple games, there was certainly that discussion that was warranted of, well, you're playing a backup tackle, and it's just in school,

and the Falcons are confusing the backup linemen. The Bears did not confuse the Vikings' offensive line, really at all. They tried stunts. They tried stuff like that. I thought Blake Brandl was excellent in this game. I thought Donovan Jackson was absolutely phenomenal in this game. Christian Derisaw did a great job.

C.J. Ham was used out a number of different plays to be an extra blocker to deal with the rush and was great. I believe he had six snaps that were probably all on third down and was, didn't allow a single pressure. I don't even think he came close to allowing a pressure. So they gave him all the opportunity in the world and the balls were just not there. And a lot of it, I think, had to do with the timing and with the mechanical parts of that. let's see the pocket movement as well and this goes to mechanics but the pocket movement overall some of it it just is confusing it doesn't really make a lot of sense on the interception that he throws to Kevin Byard which of course is another example I think of the

ball coming out a little bit late because for some reason McCarthy steps up into pressure and didn't need to step up to throw that football and of course when you start stepping up and your eyes and your shoulders are targeting a certain way. NFL safeties like Kevin Byard are going to, he's going to take a B-line there. He's going to go exactly where you're headed. And that's kind of like the Melchai-Starks interception against the Baltimore Ravens. So why on the Addison miss are you taking like two run steps forward and then throwing it when he's wide open.

Why are you taking a violent, and this is something KOC mentioned. I'm not coming up with this myself. I just looked for it after O'Connell. brought it up. But why are you taking a violent movement toward the line of scrimmage in a situation where you should just be able to plant and throw? And that's what is a little bit hard to figure out. And I will say that O'Connell did make me feel a little bit better about the discussion at the end of this show yesterday because I got a lot of questions about, well, you guys all reported that he looked good in practice and training camp. And I guess you guys don't know

how to watch a practice or you were lying to us for the hype and the clicks or something, which, you know, if you listen to the show, you know that that's not something that I do. But then O'Connell said, well, he's getting this stuff right in practice. And I was like, I know. I know. And I think the big difference is there's not 70,000 people. Maybe during camp, there was 2,000 out there and a handful of nerds that were watching with notebooks and tracking the throws. But that was about it. I think another part of it is the pressure

that he, I'm sure, has started to put on himself, which is to try a little bit too hard to try to make a play. You know, if he doesn't want to throw that ball to Addison, you could take off and run. He didn't run a single time yesterday. You can take off and run and you can get a first down there potentially if you want to. But I think that there's a feeling, and I don't want to play psychologist. I know he would never say, oh, yeah, well, it was in my head. But how could it not be? I mean, if you're a free throw shooter or something and the entire crowd is booing you because you've missed some free throws, are you feeling great about crushing that next free throw? Or are you trying to press a little bit, which I think is just natural for any athlete? But I think you can see it

there and that also the throwing and the mechanics, they go back to what they were in college and probably his entire life before this because there's not enough time that has been spent. And I was even thinking about all of this yesterday about the process of developing quarterbacks and how it's changed over the many years. I remember I like to reference things that Sage Rosenfell's former Viking quarterback has told me in the past because his knowledge is 1,000 times the normal football viewer of playing the position in the NFL, as he did for many years. And he said to me one time that if there hadn't been that third quarterback position that he was early in his career, that he wouldn't have been able to develop. If he had

to go in right away or very, very quickly into the NFL, that he would have probably failed because he needed the years of development of practice. He needed the years of development in preseason where he got a ton of work. And I'm not saying that KOC should have played McCarthy 14 more plays in the preseason games. But in years past, and we're going back a ways now, but it speaks to development in the NFL overall. In years past, there were four preseason games.

And if you were a young quarterback, you'd probably play all four. and you'd probably play the first half of all four. And that's just not even close to happening now. And I'm not sure you can even get anything out of it because the other team isn't playing their players either. So you're not really getting much out of those even close to full speed or even close to high talent reps. But you would have been playing in the past four games, three of them against first teamers. That's just not happening anymore. And there used to be two a day practices.

And think about how hard it's always been to develop quarterbacks. there used to be so many more reps out there for this to happen in the off season. So you have a handful of OTAs, a handful of minicamp. Then you're in training camp mode and you're running the offense. You're not really even at that point developing. So then it's on you to develop behind the scenes. And you get a quarterback guru, which I saw McCarthy's was very mad online, I guess, yesterday.

And you get one of those guys. You try to work with them. But McCarthy couldn't really work with the quarterback guru in the same way because he had the injury. And I think that's what a lot of it comes down to is that if you want to be, you know, a great golfer, you have to have, I'm sure, X number of times hitting your driver off the T. And that number is probably astronomical, right? And it's, I'm sure, the same thing for a quarterback trying to adjust his mechanics and doing it on the fly, doing it at full, full, full speed. Jordan Addison in practice cannot run at the same speed that he's running in the game. It just doesn't work that way.

He would run out of gas by week seven if he practiced at full complete speed. If the defense came after you at full complete speed, right? They'll call him full speed reps, but they're not. They're not the real speed. And I think that that is what has sped up McCarthy at times in his footwork and things like that. And I think he's also, you know, having to believe in things that aren't theirs. What you have to do as a quarterback. It takes a long time to get used to that. Believe in where Addison's going to be. Believe in where Jefferson's going to be and throw it to that

spot. It takes a long time. And Steve Young talked about this and is a football life where he said when he turned the corner in the NFL was when Mike Holmgren told him that you're not going to be able to see it before you throw it. You just have to throw it and believe it's going to be there. that's not where J.J. McCarthy is yet as a quarterback. That's kind of the takeaway there. Now, can it be fixed is really the question. The things that we saw yesterday, the throws that are late, the throws that are just flat out errant,

the footwork that's kind of all over the place, the stepping up in the pocket that's troublesome, like can it be fixed? And my answer would be not tomorrow, not a week from now and not probably five weeks from now. but what you want to see is him making progress. And I think that one of the things that got me about yesterday was that the week before, all of these things happened against Baltimore.

And then he was put in the most favorable position you could ever be put in. KOC called a great game. He played off the run really, really well, really well. They ran excellently all game long. So they were in favorable situations. They were not, for the most part, losing the game by a lot of points. They weren't down by 20 or something. It was a fairly close game through a major part of it.

The receivers were there. The offensive line was there. And I put the drops aside when I say that. But it was a favorable situation against a horrible defense, a defense that is 28th in points allowed in the NFL in Chicago, a defense that Jackson Dart with no receivers lit up the week before and to still not even clear 50% to get to only 50% and not clear that and not have a fairly big day against that team. That's where you think there is a longer way to go than any of us would have had after five games. Now, I have seen a lot, I'll get back to the fixed thing.

I've seen a lot while it's only five games, it's only five games. And you're right, it is only five games. And we'll get to that bigger picture. But through five games, I did a little math here over the last 20 years. So I looked at quarterbacks in their first five starts over the last 20 years. And they had to have at least 100 passes. So it's not like, you know, random people entering games five times. Like five, at least over 100 passes.

And in terms of completion percentage, J.J. McCarthy is 94th out of 113 quarterbacks, a 92nd in quarterback rating. Some of those QB rating quarterbacks worked out. You do have Josh Allen who's mixed in there. Some of them were from 20 years ago that worked out like Joe Flacco, kind of a different league at that point. That is where when we talk about the roller coaster, the expectation for a roller coaster is that you're going to have the high moments.

And there has not been a single complete game yet played. through five weeks. It has not been a roller coaster. It's just been a, I mean, it started out pretty well against Chicago in the fourth quarter. And it's been, I mean, there's some spikes against Detroit, but it's not major spikes. It's not, okay, wow, he threw for 280 and four touchdowns or something. I mean, that's more of a, more of a bump. I mean, this is a, this is one of those kiddie coasters that stays low to the ground. Like, this has not been a way up and then way down. And those are the parts that make you start talking about where this is headed. I think if you're the person who's declaring it one way or the other, you've gone,

you've gone too far because his inexperience and because five games does not tell us what a quarterback is going to be. And there's a lot of time to go still in this season. He has more games to play the rest of the way than he's already played by a lot. So there's still a lot of work to be done. here with seven games left to go for J.J. McCarthy and a lot of sample size to still build on. There was a lot of moments with Jordan Love when he first started or Bo Nix when he first started early on that people thought this guy's a bust. I mean, I even, you know, in college,

it's driven me crazy with, you know, Arch Manning and how everyone wanted to call him a bust after his first game with Ohio State or whatever. Like, we don't have to do that. We don't have to do that with J.J. McCarthy here. We really need to see it play out. in a much bigger sample size. But I also think if you're burying your head in the sand and you're saying, no, no, no, this is just how it goes with young quarterbacks. It's not really, it's not really, not to this level.

No, not to 94th out of 113 and not 36th out of 40 quarterbacks in adjusted quarterback rating. I mean, that is not a level that you have seen a lot of successful quarterbacks in the last even 10 years have in their first. first five games. So there is some element of a sample size here that we are now working with that is very concerning. And I think the only answer is to continue to play J.J. McCarthy. The Brosmer people, I respect you. I appreciate you. And I agree with you that Max Brosmer at this moment is farther along than J.J. McCarthy. And I think he could very well have a great career

ahead of him. So I'm not negative or down on Max Brosmer at all. But you spent the 10th overall pick on McCarthy. He has tremendous athleticism. He has tremendous arm strength. And you need to find out how far that's going to go. And I did want to bring up the end of the game. And his final drive there, I thought that some of it was just favorable from the bears. There were a couple short underneath passes that worked for him that I think you'd like to see him make more often, honestly. The really nice pass on a Jalen Naylor out route where Naylor had the guy beat

and he delivers it on time. I thought the touchdown was a really great velocity throw, but I wasn't sure that's where the ball was supposed to go. I don't know the plays. So just in terms of the velo on that ball, though, that's when you need to fit it into a tight window. And he didn't have a ton of space there and let it rip and it's a touchdown.

And, you know, I do think there's a really, resilience to J.J. McCarthy and, you know, I, I'm sure that people have made fun of the whole nine thing and everything else, but I do think he has the right mentality for this overall. And Kevin O'Connell talked about his postgame press conference where, you know, I've seen many quarterbacks the past. I'll just give an example of one that did not play here. Zach Wilson, when you would listen to Zach Wilson after games, when he was a young quarterback, you thought, the heck is this guy's deal? I mean, he did he see? the game. To quote, Mike Zimmer, did you see the game? But that was not J.J. McCarthy.

I mean, he came out and he said, you know, that absolutely sucked. And he said that, you know, it was on him and he needs to improve the accuracy and everything else. So also, if you're throwing your body in front of McCarthy, it's like, listen to that post game and how critical he was of himself. But O'Connell talked about that element of it for J.J. McCarthy. When you hear J.J. taking accountability the way he did after the game, just how does that hit you and how did you then apply that and translate that to growth from practice into a game? Yeah, to me, you know, if that falls right in line

with the intangibles of how he was able to get it done at the end of the game. I mean, he's never going to turn it down. He's never going to turn the work down mentally or physically. This is just, to me, it's a consistency factor and discipline of some very, very simple things that we're working very hard to make translate

in those competitive moments where you get one opportunity a week and 54 plays yesterday. How many of those were in the two minute mode? How many of those were in normal football? How many of those were on third down? You're just trying to get him to understand that every single snap, his detail and his job is of the utmost important.

I thought he had some really great protection calls yesterday. It's a defense that had really, really activated some problems for people. free runners left and right, you know, in some zone pressures, and he was able to navigate what was a pretty intricate protection plan and with precision, and that was all pre-snap. Just like a lot of the things he's been able to be prepared to do in his high capacity pre-snap, we just have to find that

when it comes to the post-snap. And sometimes it's not even reads and progressions. It's simply just the fundamental foundation that we need to start seeing the concrete kind of dry a little bit on the work that's put in. Yeah, that's an interesting way to frame it, the concrete drying and the work that's put in. And at this moment, all the hours that have gone into, you know, make it a golf lesson, again, the driving range are just not translating to the course.

And the question is, will it ever and how long is that going to take? But as far as the bigger picture to this, I think that you have the rest of this way to go, And McCarthy has shown you a couple of things that you have to like. Number one is some very high-end plays, some great athleticism running for touchdowns, some incredible arm strength on the velocity, on throws into the coverage or into tight windows or into the end zone like last week against the Ravens, where he's even had touch on the football. He's even shown some of those. So he's shown enough of the highlight stuff to want to give this.

more time. But the problem is that, one, how much time can you actually give it if you are the Vikings with a roster this good, which I felt like yesterday was the healthiest that they've ever been outside of Jonathan Grenard being out. We'll get to that with Dallas Turner. But it was the healthiest that they've been in a long time. And we saw the full version of the Minnesota Vikings almost yesterday. And it wasn't enough from the quarterback to win the game. So are you, you going to give it how much time? I mean, do you get to the end of this year if it looks like the rest of these games? Are you going into next year looking for another quarterback to bring in or how far does he have to go? Where is the bar get set? Like these conversations after

three or four games to me were too far out. But as concerning as it was to play against a defense that poor and look like that, I think it now is a time where you start to say, all right, right, what do you need to see? How far along can you get? And just to go back a little bit to the whole quarterback development thing and how much harder it is these days, I think what we have to see is quarterbacks developing in real time on the field because that's the only time that they can get these types of reps. And over these next seven games, everything in the Vikings organization is about J.J. McCarthy and how far he can develop. And if he can look like by the end of the year, a starting quarterback that you want to go forward with.

And I think it's possible for him to get much, much closer to that because the opportunities are there. The throws are there to be made. And there could be a light comes on type of moment or maybe not ever be perfectly accurate. And if he flies some throws into the stands, I don't think that's what anybody is that worried about. It's really when it happens at the type of volume with the mechanical elements of it, if he just missed, you'd go, well, you know, okay, I mean, young quarterback, you just missed. But some of the footwork stuff and some of the throws that were missed wildly overthrowing Jefferson on that seven-yard out route, I mean, that's just not pro-level. It's just not. And he has to get, I think, to a point where you're saying,

okay, this is a pro-level type of performance that needs refining. By the end of the season, and if you get to that, then it will have gone, I think, a long way from where it is right now. So the idea that we all know or don't know yet, I think we have a sample size that you cannot ignore. And so if you're putting your fingers in your ears and saying, it's only five games, it's only five. Well, it's five games with very little to write home about. And you're starting to get into that space of, you know, the guys who have thrown this many interceptions, and the guys who have this completion percentage, and the guy, like, you're starting to get into some concerning territory with the comparables historically

from what you've seen through five games. At the same time, if you're trying to call it and say, it's over, he's a bust, he's terrible, they should move on, whatever, I still think that you're out ahead of yourself. These next two games are going to tell us a lot. They are as tough as it gets. Lambeaufield, great Packers defense. Their defensive coordinator, Jeff Halfley, throws all sorts of stuff at the opposing quarterback, Micah Parsons, is quite possibly the best player in the entire NFL. And then the following week out to Seattle, which, you know, maybe you can beat Seattle if Sam Darnold has a tough game against Brian Flores' defense. I could 100% see that and see some of the same mistakes that he made against the Rams.

At the same time, that defense for Seattle just did a really good job against Matthew Stafford, who's looked like the league MVP for half of the season. So these next two tests are going to be as challenging as you have in the NFL. And the resilience of J.J. McCarthy is truly going to be tested. So I don't want to get to a point where we're five games in and we're just saying, all right, it's over. Who's the quarterback for next year? I'm not there.

But in terms of red flags, things that are very worrisome, looks on Kevin O'Connell's body language throughout the game. the way he's talking about it of like it looks good in practice and what else can we kind of do like he didn't say what else can we do but you could sort of feel that in his voice like I what else can we do you ran the ball got the receivers wide open and you just need to to do it so that's kind of where I come out for him let me get you a couple more notes and then we'll get to your questions and then at 730 Brian Murphy and manny hill will be on the way Brian Flores had a really interesting plan to go after Caleb Williams, and I thought it was really effective. He used a lot of corner blitzes. Brian, Byron Murphy, blitzed five times. If Brian Murphy

blitzed five times, he would come nowhere close. But Byron did. There was one where Jay Ward blitzed, and he should have had Caleb Williams, but the guy is a magician. It was an incredible play to get out of that, but that was an effective blitz for them. So that was a game plan that I hadn't really seen them used before. And I thought that it caused some problems for Caleb Williams. And he didn't gain a ton of yards on the ground. He didn't gain a ton of yards throwing down the field when he was using those escapes. The Vikings were bailed out a little bit by a couple drops from his wide receivers as well.

I don't know what was going on at U.S. Bank Stadium yesterday. Maybe the footballs were cold. I don't know. But that helped them a little bit. But I thought overall very good defensive performance there. Dallas Turner, it was as good as you thought, watching it back. PFF gave him five pressures. He also made a great play on a screen where he kind of sniffed it out and didn't drift back and just accelerated and hit Luther Burton. I would call this the best game of Dallas Turner's

career. And I don't think that it was a mistake that it happened while he was filling in for Jonathan Granard. There was a lot of straight up rushing. There was times where he got some help. I mean, this is a thing for playing the 3-4 defense. He was playing an outside linebacker in a 3-4 type of look where Jalen Redmond, Jonathan Allen, Javon Hargrave are all out there. And he got some matchups against the tight end. And he won those matchups. And I know you could say, oh, well, you know, congratulations.

You got a pressure. But, you know, that's something that that look in Brian Flores is looking for. And he was able to create pressure on a couple of those. He straight up crushed the left tackle on one pressure, should have had a sack. he had Caleb in the grass, but then the tackle kind of fell on him and he escaped and made a bad throw. But it was a really good game for Dallas Turner. And he's shown enough this year to say that there's been pretty significant progress. Is he a superstar yet? Of course not. But significant progress, some very impressive games. And, you know, I was looking

at the stats today. The Vikings are eighth in defensive expected points at, oh, the corners I thought were really good in this game overall. Just Fabian Moreau has done a good job since stepping in. Murphy, Isaiah Rogers, even though he took a heck of a hit there, had, I think, one of his better games overall. Murphy is one of his better games overall. Sticky in coverage in a lot of plays. Didn't give Caleb Williams a lot of places to throw the football. So they were very good there against a tough receiving unit. To the Vikings defense is now eighth in defensive expected points added, which is crazy because they've had almost no turnovers.

Just against Cincinnati and then have not had much since then. I mean, it's crazy where you have Williams just drop the ball and it gets kicked and he dives on it. I mean, how many times does that happen? The Ravens were trying a play like that. The ball bounced right back up into Zay Flowers's chest. I mean, maybe if there's a case for turning things around, maybe they'll go from, I think, what do they have, nine turnovers to like 20 in the coming weeks and just get a bunch of Jordan Love and Sam Darnold interceptions or something.

win some surprising games just because of regression. It's crazy how the turnovers from last year have just disappeared, even though they've been creating pressure on the quarterback. And one more thing, last thing that I noticed, is on the kick return, Kevin O'Connell's explanation, I know some people were saying kick it out of the back of the end zone. I don't know why you would do that. The Chicago Bears would be celebrating if you kicked it out of the back of the end zone.

They would be like, what? Thank you. The 35 yard line with 50 seconds and three timeouts, uh, yeah, take that all day long. What they wouldn't want is if they were tackled at the 23 and had to use seven seconds or something. But what happened was the Vikings got a little overaggressive on the right side and

sometimes the other team is smart. It earlier in the game, there was a very similar play and they were close. And so they had their fullback type of guy, the other returner, second returner, shoot all the way out wide. And they let the player on the right side come very aggressively inside. And as soon as he sort of declared that he was slamming down inside a little too hard, they broke to the outside and made a great play. It's been a really good unit so far this year. I agree with Kevin O'Connell. I think that that was trying to blame, you know, something on O'Connell for this game like he for those people who every single week just you know have to give

them a hard time for something like and I'm not saying that all the critiques were wrong but in this game it was like okay we got nothing else so special teams decision no that it wasn't it wasn't the wrong call it was not the wrong call kicking it out of bounds would not have made a whole lot of logical sense it makes much more sense to have your very good unit stop him and they were not able to do that. So anyway, all right, let's get to some thoughts, questions, comments. I'll scroll back up a little bit. I know I was, you guys have been commenting a lot. And I have been going through all of my notes, but I wanted to make sure that I got everything out there that I was thinking. And we'll go from there. Thank you very much to Sean for the super chat.

Really appreciate that. Said, I'm tired of the Josh Allen early career comps. Alan at least had epic athletic moments that could give you hope jj doesn't possess that ability well here's the thing about those comps is that did anybody ever kind of get tired of hey this guy who never sacked anybody in college could be denial hunter denial hunter denial hunter is a once in a lifetime type of outlier right and it just doesn't happen a whole heck of a lot that you see you know somebody like Josh Allen come along. I mean, it's, I mean, how many quarterbacks ever have been like Josh Allen? I would say, I mean, you go way back, way, way back, like Otto Graham.

Otto Graham was so much better of an athlete than anybody else on the field. That's probably where I'd start. I know that's like way, way back. But you could go through any time in history where maybe like a Terry Bradshaw, early in Terry Bradshaw's career, he's pretty terrible. and yeah, this huge arm and was an amazing athlete and everything. And then as the team got better, Terry Bradshaw got better. My point is that there's only a handful of guys that you can ever find in history that started off like Josh Allen and then turned it around.

You know, John Elway by his second year was really good. It's that kind of historic level athleticism, though, someone like John Elway. I don't think that that's J.J. McCarthy either. I don't think that he's a 99.999 percentile athlete like Josh Allen. And I do think, though, here's where the comp does make some sense is that Allen's problem was the same, which was really just throwing it way too hard. That is one of the problems. Now, I didn't watch all of Josh Allen's games in 2018.

I'll say that. I did not. So I don't know if he had this problem with slow processing, but I think he did. So, you know, I think that there's some element of, okay, well, Josh Allen is maybe not a fair comp because he's an outlier and also became the best. But if McCarthy becomes good following a similar path or a more consistent following a similar path, the, it doesn't have to be top of the mountain or or nothing with his improvement. So I think there is some proof of the idea that you can become a better touch passer, a better. technical passer and some proof of the idea that you can get better control over the football, but, you know, saying he's going to become Josh Allen is probably too much.

I mean, he is a good athlete and he has a really, really good arm. I don't think those things are on the level of Allen. And remember, his running, his running is legitimately historic. He's like the best running quarterback of all time. It's him, Randall Cunningham, Michael Vick, and Cam Newton are like the, Steve McNair. Like, these are the best running back, Hertz is up there now. Like, best running quarterbacks of all time. Josh Allen is way up on that list.

That's not where JJ McCarthy is. So that helped guide him through a lot of those tough times as well. Ryan, thank you so much for the huge super chat. Really appreciate that. Did KOC and KC. and KC. and KACSI miscalculate by not signing Aaron Rogers and opening the McCarthy mystery box a season early? I mean, I think that we can very clearly, clearly say if you want to talk about conclusions we can very clearly say with no hesitation

whatsoever now because their playoff odds are i'll look them up on fan duel i'll look up the viking's playoff odds where are they at plus 1260 to make the playoffs now so that's worse than dallas yeah okay we can pretty clearly say when your odds are plus 1260 to make the playoffs through 10 games, that, yes, you miscalculated the whole timeline being built around this year with J.J. McCarthy with this team. And as much as they wanted Daniel Jones, I know they wanted Daniel Jones to stay here. The Darnold thing was more complex. The Darnold thing is more complex because you also have a franchise tag that would have been so expensive. Now, you could have afforded Rogers. You could have afforded Daniel Jones.

I think that had they truly understood where McCarthy was going to be, and remember what KOC has said about practice and what I've said about practice, is that when that's your only sample size, you felt pretty good about it. KOC watched him practice in 2024 and came out saying he's a franchise quarterback. Like, it's not a lie that he's looked really good in practice. And that's what actually gives you some belief that there could be a turnaround here. and by, you know, 2026, he could start to really have it click in, is that it is there. It does happen.

It just has not happened with any level of consistency in the games. But I think if they knew that, if they knew what it was going to really look like in the games, then, yes, they would have signed Aaron Rogers or they would have said to Daniel Jones, you are our starting quarterback for next year, even if they didn't, you know, put that out loud. but that would have caused a lot of problems. You guys have to understand that, too, is that that would have caused a lot of problems because if Daniel Jones came out and Justin's school

was his left tackle and they had some rough patches and everything else and lost some games, then the cheers for J.J. McCarthy would have been enormous. And I think Daniel Jones understood that, oh, I'm going to be an upgrade over Anthony Richardson, no doubt. And the fans have seen Anthony Richardson be bad and are not going to call for my head, even if I'm mediocre. So Daniel Jones, no fool, he understood, oh, plus he probably checked out that division and said,

you know, it's a lot easier than the NFC North. So I think all those things factored into, but yeah, I mean, if they had known what they know now, I think they probably would have gone with Aaron Rogers because this team would likely be like six and four with him. Do I think that that is the best outcome? I mean, that's kind of to be determined, right? I mean, through all this scar tissue, it might be J.J. McCarthy figures it out because he's getting a chance to play. Like, that might be something that helps him as long as he doesn't get hurt.

He's getting all these real reps. But I also think when we're talking about mechanics behind the scenes would have been a lot better for him, I think. So let's see, S and a lot of endsables. says draft a guy because QB wins are a stat, but he can't even throw the ball. We drafted Tim Tebow. Sadly, some of the numbers for completion percentage do look Tebow like. Tebow ended up with a 47.9 or 8 completion percentage for his career.

McCarthy's currently at 52, so it's not as far off as you'd like it to be. And then he has a lot of the boxes. See, I don't think we're at the point yet where we could start going over totally, the process and the draft, but she only had two quarterbacks to pick. And the other one's nine and two right now and is one, 19 of his 28 starts and has already been to the playoffs. And is the least sacked quarterback in the NFL, was the least sack quarterback in college, et cetera, et cetera. And I don't think Bo Nix is John Elway, but, you know, he's playing with a really good team and winning. That was the idea that was supposed to happen

here, right? And so I think for the timeline, Bo Nix was probably a better fit. What they decided to do in their mind was go with higher upside, which I think you could see in McCarthy's skill set that he probably does have a higher upside than Bo Nix. I think that O'Connell also went with the quarterback that clicked with him the most, which was J.J. McCarthy, and those two are going to have to communicate for at least four years or whatever is your projection is through the rookie contract at least. Well, you want to pick someone that you're on the same page with the draft is also a mystery and always will be just when it comes to quarterbacks or any other position. We've gone over that many times. But I think if you were going back and looking at that

pick, a major part of the plan was sitting behind Sam Darnold and developing for an entire year that he didn't get. So that has to be factored in when we just look at this and say, well, they could have picked that guy. They should have picked that guy. You know, it's true. It's absolutely true that you know, there, uh, could be some questions there about fitting with when you needed that player to come in and when you needed that player to be good. And the college statistics are so different between those two. The number of passes was so different. So you, you can ask that question. Um, you know, I, for me, uh, I, I liked all the 20, 24 quarterbacks. I know you guys, um, some of you have been listening long enough to remember how in depth,

we tried to go breaking them down, but at the end of the day, I kept coming to the conclusion of as long as they get one, like, then we'll see because you never really know. And I don't think we have the conclusion through five games, but we do know that if you want to talk timeline, because that was the question about the timeline and maybe getting, you know, keeping a veteran quarterback instead, yeah, it's a miss. It's a miss. And it's right there in the standings. There's no arguing it. It is a M-I-S. They missed on the timeline of, when McCarthy was going to be good and when they were going to peak as a roster because the roster we saw yesterday was awesome.

That's a great roster we saw yesterday. It's great pass protection. The receivers needed some work, but they were open a lot of the game. The defense played really well. They've corrected a lot of the stuff. I know they had that one long drive where they got run over, but at the end of the day, they average, what, 3.8 yards per carry. I mean, it's a really good team.

And it's not a. quarterback that right now can maximize that. So I think if you're questioning it, it's probably that. That's probably the biggest thing because you needed to hit on that. Now, I will say to their credit, they did not say it is

Super Bowl or bust. I did not say it was Super Bowl or bust. I remember looking at, I think it was Jeremy Fowler who said in the offseason that he had been told or something like that, that the Vikings were looking at as a three year type of window with McCarthy's rookie

contract. And when you go through player by player, a lot of these guys are going to be back next year. It's a very high percentage of the roster is going to return. So it feels to me more like a two year because I don't think you could look three years in the NFL. I think that's impossible. But it feels more like a two year window to me, which puts a ton of pressure on 2026. For me, the expectation for this year was you should be very good. I don't expect you to be ready to win the Super Bowl. But you should be, you should be good. You should be in the conversation for the NFC North. You should be in the playoffs. And when I look at the roster that they have and the way that they've played the last couple weeks, they've been a team that, I mean, even you go

back to Philadelphia with Carson Wentz, you're one for six in the red zone. You should have a chance to win that game. You look at these last couple weeks. The Ravens didn't play that great. You have a chance to win that game and then this week this is a i mean my goodness chicago is though not good at all i don't think chicago's good at all somebody said in the comments i'm sorry i missed who it was chicago's going to finish nine and eight i could totally see that chicago is just not a a deep team on defense Caleb williams i thought had some real amazing moments but i think he also had some pretty blit moments uh you know and their run game had some you know okay their offensive line i think is pretty good, but I don't think that's a like 12 win team or anything. And the victory is

right there to be had with a couple of throws. So, no, yeah, it hasn't matched up with what they expected. And this is the risk you take, though. When you bring in Rogers, my issue with bringing in Rogers. And here's the thing, I'll say this about the Rogers deal. You would rather win six games with J.J. McCarthy and know a lot about J.J. McCarthy than when 10 games with Aaron Rogers, get bounce of the first round of the playoffs and know nothing about J.J. McCarthy. I will say that. That I would stick with, I don't think that the Rogers deal was ever a good idea. Daniel Jones, I think, would have made a little more sense to at least give you some buffer there.

But knowing, I mean, we always, we always figured that this was possible that there could be an outcome like this, where he's just much farther behind than we expected. and the positive part of that is that you now know and you know everything that you're seeing with him as opposed to, hey, I guess it's 2026 for J.J. McCarthy after a 9 and 8 season where they missed the playoffs with Aaron Rogers, that would have been much, much worse. So from my perspective here, yeah, I mean,

they missed on the timeline and how far he was going to be, but also learning about him is better than knowing nothing and going into 2026 with an, all-in type of approach. So, oh, let's see. Judd thinks that they're going to fire people. That's, uh, that is, that's Judd. Uh, look, you know, I, I think if you are the ownership of this team and the timeline

was presented to you as 2025, 2026, then you should go with that. I guarantee you that the ownership of this team sitting at, four and six. Knowing what I've heard from Mark Wilf in the past, sitting down with him at the owner's meetings as part of a contingent that goes to that or the times that he's talked here in the Twin Cities. Winning is very important and there is not a patient element to like, oh, it's fine if you win seven or it's fine if you win six. I'm not saying that they are overreactionary when it comes to that. But missing the playoffs is not something that's just accepted and gets a thumbs up. Great job. Like me just saying that great job finding out about J.J. McCarthy as we

win six games. Like that's not, that's not okay. I don't think they're in a position where heads have to roll. And it's actually funny now how after yesterday, a lot of the offseason moves look pretty darn good. They just need the quarterback to complete a pass. I mean, Eric Wilson has played well. Hargrave has improved. Allen has looked pretty good recently. You know, even Dallas Turner playing better. Aaron Jones has looked like the old Aaron Jones played a great game yesterday. Man, Will Fries was good. I wrote that in my notes. I forgot to say it.

Will Fries, Beast played awesome yesterday, dominant football. So a lot of those moves are looking okay. But, you know, I don't think that we need to do that. And I think we do that way too often in sports. If something goes wrong, it's like, well, who's got to get fired? This is a situation where they have pushed their chips to the middle of the table on this plan. and a lot of parts of it, I think, are going okay on the roster, but the part that matters the most is farther behind than they needed it to be.

So the rest of this year is about figuring out how close you can get and what your contingency plan needs to be if you don't get there. I made a mistake. I did not give you the Fandual question of the day. So let me give it to you. Fan dual question of the day. I'm going to divert a little bit from Vikings here. Who are your legitimate Super Bowl?

contenders after yesterday. The Rams, for me, pushed the top of the list. Who the heck's idea was it to give Jalen Phillips to the Philadelphia Eagles? Thank you, Dolphins. Oh, my gosh. He has been fantastic. When we look at the Super Bowl odds on Fan duel, the Eagles are now the favorite at plus 500.

The Rams are plus 650 and the Buffalo Bills and Josh Allen. What a game yesterday for them. Plus 800. Kansas City, who's not even in the playoffs right now, still plus 1,000, the fourth highest odds, Indianapolis after that, plus 1,000 as well, then Detroit, Seattle, Baltimore, Denver cannot get much respect, and Green Bay at plus 1,500. So who are your legitimate Super Bowl contenders? All right.

As you guys know, every week, oh, I'm sorry, we got another super chat. Try not to miss those. from from john here wish the best for the kid but the pastronaut has great highlights too looks a lot more like mechanics and those terrible throws what is uh what does he do consistently besides saying my bad yeah that's uh that is harsh my friend and thank you again for the super chat and the support uh really really appreciate that not required at all by the show here to get questions and comments in but always thankful for those of you who want to contribute to the cause. What does he do well? Yeah. And I mean, that's the thing is he does a lot of things well,

but not consistently, as you're saying. And consistency is the key to everything. There's a lot of golfers who drive the fairway at 350 yards, but they are not on the tour because they don't do it consistently. And there's a lot of quarterbacks in the past who have had strong arms and great mentalities and character. And they were the best. But you couldn't go out there and execute on a play-to-play basis, and that's what it comes down to a lot of times. I mean, KOC laid it out as simply as it could be yesterday, and it just didn't work for J.J. McCarthy. So that's, I mean, it's a harsh criticism, but I also think that you make a fair point. I mean, if people are raising red flags right now, I mean, who can, who can say

that that's wrong of them to do? All right. So each Monday night, we have Brian Murphy and manny hill which uh take a second to get those guys in here and then we will have a discussion with the panel about where they're at now and what it means to have had j jay mccarthy play the way that he did my answer by the way to the fan duel question of the day is i think the buffalo bills in los angeles rams and philadelphia eagles are the three teams that i think can truly win the Super Bowl. And I'm not sure anybody else in the AFC has made a good enough argument except for if Denver had a great defensive performance against Buffalo, maybe they could do it. So that's my answer to the Fanduil question of the day. And now to the round table.