Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - What we'll be looking for at OTAs

Episode Date: May 26, 2025

Matthew Coller discusses what he's looking for at OTAs before answering several of your Vikings questions.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hey everybody. Welcome to another episode of purple insider, Matthew collar here, and we have reached a very special week in our lives. That's right. JJ McCarthy will go out on the TCO performance center field and take snaps as quarterback one for actual OTA practices. That's right. For the very first time he will be the first string QB one of the Minnesota

Vikings in a practice setting. That's mostly seven on seven and is considered the learning phase, but it still does have significance because this is the first time that we're going to see him and media will be there wednesday including myself and then once next week and for three days for mini camp which is usually more significant because at that point they've had a couple weeks of installing offense they do more eleven on 11s, but this week at least will be the first time that we can see him playing quarterback for the Vikings after all of the surgery, the discussions, the room and runners thing that got talked about for a really long time and the

Vikings landing on him, letting Sam Darnold go to the Seattle Seahawks deciding to stick with their future of the franchise quarterback, JJ McCarthy. And we finally got here to the point where he is on the field after all that conversation. And now we will get to see what that looks like. So I'm going to have a whole list of things that I want to go through that I will be looking for over these next couple of weeks, not just from one practice,

because it's oftentimes seven on seven, they're just ramping up and you can't figure out everything, but it's really over these next couple of weeks where we'll have access to the Minnesota Vikings to see what that offense looks like. So I'll get into that in just a minute. Did want to toss this out there real quick that we're doing some planning for the next year

in terms of our ad schedule. So if you have a business, you want to toss this out there real quick that we're doing some planning for the next year in terms of our ad schedule. So if you have a business, you want to reach out. If you want to be a part of this and become a sponsor for Purple Insider, Matthewcaller at Gmail is where to reach me through email. And then on Twitter at Matthewcaller, great place to reach out. I guess you can leave it in the comments as well, but I might not see it. So go ahead and reach out if you have a business

and you're interested in partnering with me and our team. So let me get now into all the things that I got for OTAs and what we'll be looking for. Shockingly, this list begins with JJ McCarthy's comfort in running the first team offense now I chose my words wisely here because I didn't just say how he Performs with the offense. It really isn't that important to me in terms of watching JJ McCarthy How many of these passes get completed?

I know and I've already had this discussion with Kevin Seifert and a few others that we're all going to be writing down How many completions how many in completions? JJ McCarthy went seven for ten today with an interception or something and that's fun and I guess interesting But really for me It's not how many passes reach the hands of his wide receivers because if he's got some rust and he isn't throwing perfectly sharp and perfectly accurate in the first OTA practice, well you know, you got your June, July, August, and a little bit of September to get that figured out.

And last year we saw him struggle in OTAs with his accuracy. And then by the end of training camp, he was very accurate as you all saw in the preseason game, but he had been doing that in practice for a few weeks where he had made massive improvements. So coming off of all this time and all this recovery, I would expect that there is some rust to shake off from McCarthy from a throwing perspective. But what you want to see is that he had a 400 level class, a master's degree class in Kevin O'Connell's offense last year. Now he doesn't know how every single receiver runs their routes yet. There's a lot of chemistry that has to be built over the summer.

I remember even TJ Hocketson talking about how different it was between Sam Darnold and Kirk Cousins in the way that they approached his role in the offense. And that applies for every single player for a quarterback. So there's work to be done there over this spring and into July and August when we get to training camp. But to me, it's more important that he looks comfortable doing everything he's supposed to do and knows where the football is supposed to go and that they're not having to constantly stop the practice. They've got these video boards out there that have the all 22 of the practice. And what you see a lot of times, if something goes wrong, is Kevin O'Connell kind of stopping and watching it back and showing something. And that's always going to happen for the learning phase of OTAs,

but you don't want it to look choppy and to look like, oh, that doesn't nobody really knows where they're supposed to be and so forth. And I don't doubt that McCarthy will look in command because he has had so much experience previously with this offense, but I'm looking more for the feel of the thing. Does the practice have the flow to it? Does it seem like the ball's coming out on time and going toward the right places? That's a lot more important. And I'm talking again over the next couple of weeks. So by the end of mini camp, does it look like they're pretty locked in with each

other and ready to go once they arrive at training camp that is the main thing that I'll be looking for from JJ McCarthy and then we'll be listening for just how he talks about how this is all going or how it's gone because he's always an introspective type of person but last year there were times where he kind of admitted like I've had a tough practice and it didn't go as well as I want. But the thing that was always so impressive about McCarthy is that he would bounce back the next day. So if he had a tough practice the next day, you could count on that he was

going to be more locked in, but you don't want to see too many of those that don't go the way they're supposed to go. So I'm going to have the PSA pretty much every single time we talk about this. We're not overreacting. We're not saying JJ McCarthy is either a superstar, a bust after any of these practices, but the job is to inform about how it went.

So I'll be trying to observe as much as I can from JJ McCarthy's first and monumental OTA and minicamp practices. All right. Some other things. Uh, who's QB2? We had more discussions about QB2 than I wanted over the last number of weeks until they were able to get at the draft Sam Howell, and it would make complete sense if Sam Howell was just locked into that job. He's had a full season as an NFL starter.

He was QB to last year for the Seattle Seahawks. But my question is, is there a competition between Sam Howell and Brett Rippon or not? Brett Rippon has played a handful of games in the league. He's won two games, lost two games as a starter. He is more experienced and he does know the offense better than Sam Howell. And the thing with Howell is even though he started a year in the league, it's not like it went that well. I mean,

there was a run in the middle of the season for Washington in 2023 where it was okay for Howell, if not borderline good some games, but overall, his season leading the league in interceptions and sacks is not something that just screams out. You've got the job locked in forever. My friend. So I think that there could be competition and if how is right off the bat QB 2 in these 7 on 7s and OTA drills then okay,

then that's probably going to be that way. But if they're switching and they're mixing and matching then maybe we're going to have a competition and the way that I've always looked at OTAs and mini camp is that it's like the qualifying for a race it's not the race the actual race for jobs and for positions that obviously happens in training camp when they can put on pads and they can play real football things. But in OTAs and mini camp, you do get a sense for who's picking it up, who's getting it, and then where they're going to start. So if they're switching in and out QB2, then we're going to start probably with a competition

in training camp. But if it's just Sam Howell locked in all set then that's likely his job and it would have to go really badly in training camp in order for him to lose it so I will be keeping an eye on the QB2 reps while all eyes are on JJ McCarthy I promise I won't be taking eyes off of McCarthy but just when the other quarterback mixes in okay so what is the depth at wide receiver look like and this is the easiest position for somebody to stand out that isn't actually all that good.

The mini camp has fooled us many times about certain players who have a really great mini camp, but then look they're not actually guys who could play in the league because once it gets physical, that changes how a lot of people are able to play in the NFL. But right now the corners can't do a whole lot. They're just trying to stay with them and make plays on the football. But it's not like you want your corners abusing your young rookie guys or UDF phase, but just how it plays out will tell us what the coaches are thinking by the end of mini camp.

What is that depth chart starting to look like in the back end? Because there are four positions that are very much locked in and we'll have to get an update on where Rondale Moore stands. I'm not expecting to see him in OTAs or mini camp. Maybe we'll find out that also is another thing on my list is the injury updates. But let's say Ron Elmore is not there. So you have your four guys that are absolutely set in stone,

Jefferson Addison and Jalen Naylor and also Ty Felton. Like none of those guys are not going to be cut from this team. Everybody else though, kind of wide open and you have some guys who have been here a few years that could shine and you know a guy who makes it of run when Justin Jefferson wasn't there for OTAs. They are Thomas is another player who's still here because he made a good first impression as a UDFA back in OTAs a couple of years ago. And he's been developing behind the scenes.

And then you have these UDFAs who have come in, uh, which, uh, Silas Bolden is probably the most interesting, the punt returner from Texas can't really get a good look at punt returning from an OTA or a mini camp. Even in training camp, you kind of have to have that in preseason games, but really quick lightning quick caught a lot of passes when he was in college. So is that somebody not so much last year with Texas, but before I believe Oregon State.

So is that somebody or is there another guy who we haven't talked about that starts to make a little noise or is the veteran Tim Jones, someone they identified from the Jaguars that didn't play a whole lot, but maybe there's something there for this team that Kenan McCarter liked or whatever. We'll see. But the wide receiver depth is going to be one of the biggest battles when we arrive at training camp. So this will be our first impression of that injury updates are always going to be a big

thing at this time of year when you've had some players that have had injuries. So what we've heard from Christian Deris on his recovery from an ACL injury is that he's ahead of schedule that he's doing well, but we haven't gotten a lot of specifics about what his timeline might be, just that Kevin O'Connell has said it's going well. Now, if we just start to try to do our math a little bit, the odds of him starting week one are not particularly great, but it's also a little bit close when it comes to that ACL injury because he was lost in the middle of the season and Just you know doing the calculus there think about Hockinson Who was lost at the end of the season and then came back in the middle if you're lost in the middle Can you come back at the beginning? We don't really know so how far along is he really?

Same with Rondale Moore. Do we see him? Do we see Makai Blackman who should be a hundred percent ready to go? Uh, he was, you know, the 2023 draft pick that played well in his rookie year and then tore his ACL on the first day of training camp last year. So the fact that that was the first day of camp last year should mean that he's fully recovered and all set, but is he? Because you never know if there's complications or something like that. And then do any other injuries crop up or has anybody else had an off season surgery that they're recovering from? And then we see them on the guys who

are recovering from injuries field. We'll find all that out as we go forward into OTAs. But some pretty important players there, especially Darasaw, but also Blackman for sure on that injury list. Next thing on my list, what is our first glimpse of the front seven look like? Javon Hargrave, Jonathan Allen, Harrison Phillips. This is going to look pretty new, but to me, I'm most interested in what it looks like behind them. Taki Taimani, Levi Drake Rodriguez, Jalen Redmond, and then Ty Ingram Dawkins, who we don't really know what to expect from Ingram Dawkins.

I think a lot of you are excited about him because he was such a unique player at Georgia, lined up all over the place. To me, that says there's probably a lot of development to go. But you know, sometimes we even get just for example, a sense that somebody's made a good first impression like Ivan pace in 2023. Ivan pace was working with the second team in mini camp and we're like, Oh, this undrafted free agent is with the second team. Okay. That's interesting.

Maybe we'll get some of that, but how do those couple of players who are vying for position start to rotate in? And that goes for the backup edge rushers to Bo Richter, Gabriel Murphy, there's some intriguing undrafted free agents that they've brought in, but there aren't any veterans at in that group. So where do those guys line up? And of course, Dallas Turner Turner what's he doing in all this is he just taking some reps off of the other guys that are edge rushers is he lining up at a place we don't expect them to line up is he lining up at a lot of different places now again this is just setting the stage

if somebody just another example like Josh Mattel is in OTAs two years ago is just lining up in some different spots and we're like, okay, well, that's all right. That's interesting. It's kind of in the box or whatever. And it wasn't until midway through training camp 2023 that Mattel was on the field all the time with the first team lining up as a box safety. That's when it became clear something was happening. But again, only small little morsels of information from mini camps. So we'll see what we get from Dallas Turner when it comes to that as well. And I'm sure a lot of you will want to know like, what does he look like? I don't think this is the time

for somebody to have in just a couple months stacked on 15, 20 extra pounds, but that will be worth observing maybe a little more in training camp. I mean, I guess if the guy looks enormous, when we see him at OTA, is that'll be notable, but I'd be surprised. That's a short period of time. We'll see. We'll see. I don't know. JJ McCarthy was able to put back on the weight, so maybe Dallas Turner has beefed up as well. Have not seen him. So we will find out about that, but the whole front seven is kind of intriguing.

And you know, where does Eric Wilson fit into this? He's back on the team and you know, where does Kobe King, their rookie linebacker fit in? We're gonna get a sense for that when we see these next few weeks of practices. How about the defensive backs, the inexperienced defensive backs, the McKay Blackman, the Dwight McClothern and Theo Jackson, Jay Ward.

Those are kind of the big four of intrigue to me. You might even throw in Jeff Okuda because he hasn't played that much football as a former high draft pick. But those four are guys that they have been developing. And, you know, McKay Blackman, even though he couldn't play last year, similar to JJ McCarthy, like had the experience of seeing the defense and how it played out. And he's been in it before. Theo Jackson, like these guys know what to do, but can they get out there and do it and where do they fit in? Exactly.

Does it look like there's competition? Is there rotation or is it, hey, look, this is Isaiah Rogers and Byron Murphy and everybody else who work in with the second team and you guys are backups Like how's that going to go for the secondary early on here? Is it lining up for a Isaiah Rogers? Mackay Blackman a Dwight McClother and competition or do they have their specific roles because last year that was where Stefan Gilmore Shaq Griffin they had their really specific roles. And then Byron Murphy did a little bit of everything. Is that how it's going to be?

Or are they making a change with that? We should get our first little hints of that as we go into this OTAs. And punt returning, have to mention the punt returning. The Minnesota Vikings have just not had anything for punt returning since Marcus Sherrill's. I seem to remember a couple of Dee Dee Westbrook punt returns. Brandon Powell, his most memorable punt return was one that was stripped from him in Philadelphia,

a guy who hardly ever fumbled but did there. And then it was fair catch season last year for Brandon Powell. Are they looking for somebody who can make an impact? I mentioned Bolden, Isaiah Rogers, maybe. I think he's done a little bit of it in the past, but when you go through the roster, there's not a lot of guys who you could say, oh yeah, this is your clear cut punt returning competition. It's this guy versus this guy. So if we get a little bit of a glimpse of that, what does that competition

look like, because I think the Viking special teams are a little bit under the gun here for this year. Last year, it was just such a non impact, zero impact unit, nothing from the kick returns. They just didn't even want to do them this year. They're going to have to do them. Nothing from the punt returns. The punting was okay. The kicking overall was pretty good, but they need to be better than what they were last year on special teams just to get a little bit of an edge there.

And they have got nothing from punt returning in a long time. And now the final one on my list and the most important is vibes. Of course, it's vibes. That's number one. How do they come out of this mini camp? And I'll tell you why vibes are important. 2018 could not have come out with worse vibes. It seemed like the head coach and the offensive coordinator

and the quarterback were at odds. Like, that's not good. And then also Nick Easton got hurt that year. And so your starting left guard is out for the year with back surgery and your head coach seems very unhappy at the quarterback you just made the highest paid guy in the league. That's bad folks. Now with Kevin O'Connell, it's very hard to end up with bad vibes.

But you don't know, right? Off the field stuff or injuries or whatever might happen. Last year is a counter example to where the vibes felt so good. I thought this team like seems to be believing in itself already because they knew at that time that the over under was six and a half and that everybody was picking them last in the division. They knew it then.

And I think that's when O'Connell and he brings this up started to implement that message of like, hey, just one day at a time, one and O each week, whatever it was that he was saying over and over again, but his message to the team was, I think we're a lot better than what the world thinks we are. And last year they bought into it. So you're really getting your message to the team out here.

I am very curious and we'll see if I can get this question in at some point. This is me saying it to myself, so I try to remember to ask, what is it this year because you won 14 games? And I know that Jonathan Grinard is going with more is required. But what is Kevin O'Connell's message to the team? Because last year it was show the haters prove the haters wrong. Well, you can't really use the haters after you win 14 games. I don't think that that's something that you're allowed to do.

They're over under is only eight and a half still, but I don't even think that's a hate and over under. That's just a let's get people to bet both sides of this over under because the Vikings are an interesting team type of number. If you put them at ten and a half, if you're Vegas and the gambling community, then people would be too afraid of McCarthy. But if you put them at six and a half, it would be too easy. So that's how that number ends up landing.

But the point just being you can't use that anymore. You can't just come out and say no one believes in us. Not when you were playing for the NFC North last year in week 18. And everyone does believe in you now that you've taken the right path and gone with the right quarterback and all those things. So what is his message and what are the vibes? Uh, the vibe from the very earliest access that we got, which was off season workouts, voluntary off season workouts was with Granada

talking about the shirts, the more is required shirts. And with Brian O'Neill saying, I don't care if we run or pass 75 times a game, I just want to win. There was a desperation type of feel that these guys know it, that you only have so many more years, maybe just one of Harrison Smith and Harrison Smith returned to compete for a Super Bowl. He did not return to come hang out with his pales, although I'm sure he enjoys the team and everything, but he came back to put his body through this again to try to win a Super Bowl.

And I think they all felt that that when he returned it was I believe we can do this. And so I want to see if that's kind of the feeling or if that carries over, because that was the sense that I got early on. OK, well, I appreciate you guys going through that with me. And I've also got a bunch of questions from you and a good way to get them into me. Again, Matthew Coller at Gmail dot com. Tweet me at Matthew Coller. Or, by the way, we've got the newsletter.

This is a great time to be supporting purple insider through the newsletter, daily articles, long form features, practice breakdowns, everything that you could want in written form at purpleinsider.football. Okay, let's get to your questions. Got a long one from Jack here. Jack says, one to spark some discussion about a player that we seem to have forgotten about going into OTAs, Ambry Thomas. Thomas was a third round pick by the 49ers in 2021 and we signed him to our practice squad back in December after a failed physical with another team.

Thomas doesn't play, didn't play that much in his rookie year a little bit in 2022 and actually won the starting job in 2023 with the 49ers Super Bowl team. I don't have access to PFF premium, but I believe in 2023 he played about half of their snaps and had a 71 ish PFF grade with the cornerback room being wide open after Byron Murphy. I feel like he has a shot to earn a role. I would be curious to see where he sits in the pecking order at OTAs. Do you think Thomas has a chance to earn a role?

Well let me call up some Ambry Thomas statistics and this tells you that I really do like to give you my honest reactions to your questions and not research beforehand. so I have them prepared or something. Let me pull this up. Yeah. So, uh, you're a little, a little bit off. If we include the post season, we'll try to get a bigger sample size with Amory Thomas, a 61.5 PFF grade in 2023 on 573 snaps. And when he was targeted, opposing quarterbacks had a 99.5 rating, three touchdowns,

one pick and six pass breakups. I don't know what to make of Ambry Thomas. He's less than art. Can you be less than you? He is not yet 26 years old. He is 25 and he will turn 26 at the beginning of the season, former third round pick, 103rd selection, 2021 draft. I think that the Vikings like to do this and Jeff Okuda is an example where if somebody was a fairly high draft pick and they like them coming out in any way and they're available, they're going to give it a shot. And Ross Blacklock was one of those guys.

And we've seen, you know, Jeff Okuda is already one of those guys. We've seen a number of them come through over. Rondale Moore is definitely this type of player where they're just taking some swings. Even Marcus Davenport. Remember that contract was not spectacular. It was kinda, Hey, let's see if there's something there with Marcus Davenport that we can take advantage of. And now they're doing this with Ambry Thomas. I don't know what to expect from him. Uh,

the fact that he did fail a physical with another team, the fact that he didn't play at all last year, none of that really points to anything good. And if the 49ers really loved Ambrie Thomas, they probably would still have him on their football team because as you said, he was involved in that team that went to the Superbowl last year. He only played one snap in the Superbowl, uh, but did play. Maybe he must've gotten hurt then. I don't recall. He must've gotten hurt,

but he played very poorly for the 49ers in the playoffs, 32 and 35.9 PFF grades really got lit up in those games. Seven for nine passing against him. It looks like it was a pretty tough time for him. Uh, had a couple of good games early in that season, but I'm guessing that there's an injury issue that is lingering with him, But you take shots at guys and you see what happens and every once in a while during training camp will see somebody emerge and go, wait a minute, this guy's getting a lot of run all of a sudden and maybe something's going

on there. Uh, that's happened in the past and maybe that will happen again. That's really the best I could do though, because when I look at his numbers his profile The fact that he didn't play last year There's nothing that says to me like watch out for this guy This guy's gonna take the Vikings by storm or be in this competition For real when they have some players that they like that are on the young side that they've already pushed to the front of the line But you know, you never know I'm gonna throw it out of the category of just, you never know, and that's why we have training camp.

My sights are not really set on him until they have to be, until he's getting second team or first team reps, but sometimes guys show up and win jobs that you never expected that to happen. So we'll see on Ambry Thomas. That's the best I can really do right now. I don't know how much else there can be as a discussion other than when we run through the list. If he's getting some second team run, then he deserves to be mentioned for somebody that could be on the watch list for training camp. Our next question comes from Paul says,

I don't think enough is being made about the home and away Disadvantage the Lions have in their schedule the Vikings and Packers have their most difficult games at home Well, the Lions play the presumed contenders on the road worthy of discussion worthy of a neck roll Yes, I think Paul and Paul included in his email a And Paul included in his email a entire list of all the teams and their home and away games. So that is what's worth a neck roll is the fact that he went to the trouble of showing me and demonstrating in an Excel sheet. Here's what it actually looks like with the home and road. I think that the answer is yes, it deserves to be discussed to some extent. I don't know how much, though, because something I wrote about even back in 2020 when I was first launching Purple Insider

talked about five year anniversary. Well, there was no fans in the stands. And what I was trying to figure out was, well, how much of a disadvantage are the Vikings at for not having any fans in the stands? I honestly I think the advantage was enormous For the Minnesota Vikings was it enormous for a lot of teams in the NFL that I'm not as sure about When you look up the numbers, there still is a home field advantage There's no doubt about it. And so the Lions are at a disadvantage here

But also how many road games did they lose last year? They went 15 and 2 how many road games did they lose last year? They went 15 and two. How many road games did they lose the year before? I don't think that the road edge or the home edge is what it used to be in the NFL. Now where you play them, you have to go to Philly. That is hard. You're right about that teams that have to go into Philadelphia. That might be one of the places the few places that you could say has a significant edge.

I think overall we talk about that how tough is the schedule and I've said that it's really not predictive. Where people rank your schedule whether it's based on the Vegas lines or whether it's based on vibes or whatever it's not predictive I looked at both the Vegas based over under strength of schedule and NFL.com having human beings ranked schedules. And I think the human beings did better by quite a bit using some common sense and still missed by a ton. It's not really that predictive for strength of schedule, but the Vikings have two road games zapped off the face of the Earth and made into neutral field. That is big. That is a big advantage for the Vikings. I think. Now,

if they blow both games overseas to two teams, they should beat well, you know, then who knows, but those are winnable games, more winnable now, especially against Pittsburgh, that they don't have to go into Pittsburgh. And even Cleveland has an enormous gap between how they play defense Home and road and I would guess that some of that is miles Garrett getting the jump off of the snap is a big deal There so yes, I think that it is worth mentioning But when you play those teams who gets their quarterback hurt how all of it plays out once we get into the season if Who gets their quarterback hurt how all of it plays out once we get into the season if we could ever predict it Then this game would be boring So I don't know what those games are actually going to look like once we get there we hype up every team

Everybody's got a chance and then one week into training camp someone gets hurt and go well that changes everything so We'll see but I think that your point is valid that the Detroit Lions, if you are picking a regression team, they lose both of their coordinators and they're playing a tough schedule with a lot of the tough games on the road that I would circle and say, yeah, I think that they could drop back. They could be more of a 10 win team than a 15win team last year, and the door could be open for the Vikings to win the division, and this is a factor. Could be a factor. But yeah, I mean, that, I think it's worth bringing up. Lucas says, what do you expect to see from JJ McCarthy in the preseason? It's not necessarily a question about predicting his performance, rather how much time we can expect KOC to have him actually play.

Oh, I look forward to this will be fun. This will be fun. When we get right to the first preseason game, the press conference beforehand, we will ask Kevin O'Connell, so how much is McCarthy going to play? And O'Connell will say, I got a plan. And then we'll say, what's the plan? And he'll say, I'm not telling the plan. And we'll say, why plan? And he'll say, I'm not telling the plan. And we'll say, why not?

And he'll say, because I'm not telling. And it happens every year with every coach. I'll never understand why they don't want to reveal their plan. But maybe this year will be the one year that he's a tendency breaker. And he tells us exactly how much McCarthy is going to play. If I had to guess, I would say that J.J. McCarthy will play in one preseason game for maybe three series or four series. That's my guess because they have at least is it if it's official with the Patriots and then I think make somebody said was make somebody said that they're

I think make somebody said was make a somebody said that they're gonna have a joint practice with the Rams was that released yet I don't know but I think they're gonna have two joint practices we know for sure with the Patriots I have to google it Vikings Ram joint practices that out there. Let's see is that official that's official. Let's see Vikings hope to hold, that's the headline, looking to have joint practices. That was out of the owner's meeting. So I don't think that they've made that a hundred percent official yet, but we'll see. So anyway, the point being that Kevin O'Connell is big into the joint practices and it's been out there. I think the Rams mentioned it, that they want to have joint practices with the Vikings or

there's tentative agreement or something. I forget what it was that was out there. I'm guessing that they do. So if they're going to do two joint practices, then JJ McCarthy is not playing in those games. They treat the joint practices like they're the games. And I think that's a smart way to do it because you don't have people actually trying to tee off on your quarterback, but you do get all of the high speed and physicality. Honestly,

those joint practices are more physical than a lot of the preseason games that you see. And it's first verse first. It's not like, Oh, well, we're playing our first team, but the other team is playing no starters. And you can use Justin Jefferson who never plays and never should play in any kind of preseason games. So my expectation is that he'll play a couple series in the first one, and that is going to be it. And then it will be all joint practices.

And I will again say that I wish that at least one of the joint practices was in a venue large enough for more crowds to come because I really believe that Vikings fans would sell out the lower bowl of a joint practice with JJ McCarthy involved. But if you have tickets to those or you can get out to TCO Performance Center for those, uh, that's going to be pretty intense, I think. But I don't think because of that, that you're going to see a whole lot of preseason action from J.J. McCarthy. All right. Next question comes from Dermoman. Dermoman. Sorry, that's a tough one.

You're going to have to correct me in the comments how to say that, excluding Dallas Turner and Theo Jackson, who on the 2024 who from the 2024 roster is primed for a much larger role. I'm hoping for Dwight McClothern. Dwight McClothern would be my potential pick that kind of depends on the health though of the corners. I mean, the reason McClothern didn't play last year was really because they were healthy for he got in a couple of games here or there,

but they were very healthy in that secondary. Stefan Gilmore got banged up a lit a little bit. Fabian Morel played, but aside from that, like he was the veteran ahead of Dwight McGlothern, and those were big games. They needed a veteran in there. But now that he's got a year of experience, is he really competing? We have not seen a ton of rotating the corners when they're the starters like, but they also haven't had a ton of depth

with the corners in the past. So I think MacLothern does have a chance there. Jay Ward would be one that I'm going to keep kind of throwing out there because Jay Ward is one of those guys that just play special teams and doesn't catch anybody's eye and has some good data on his special teams. And then all of a sudden, you're like, whoa, what this guy's actually playing? Like, that's happened enough times from whether it's the Anthony Harris, the Andrews and Dayho.

It's happened enough times to tell us to that. You've got my attention if you're a good special team or and you play the safety position. So he's another guy that has been developing behind the scenes and on special teams that might have a chance to carve out a role for himself. And the other one is a guy that everybody kind of fell in love with last year during training camp, but Bo Richter has been on my radar since last year. I wrote a story. I sat down with Bo Richter and very interesting background

story of how he ended up at Air Force and how he kind of emerged at the last minute before his final year in college and all that sort of stuff. Very interesting guy. Also a great athlete and very highly productive in his last year college then came out in the preseason and made plays right away, then earned a spot and then got on the field and special teams and made plays right away. So he has my attention as somebody who was on the team last year,

nobody thought a lot about because he was just on special teams. And now looks like he might be in line for a rotational role or a backup role and you never know when that could turn into something more than that. So those those would be my answers. Another one I'm sure everybody will be looking for Levi Drake Rodriguez, very raw player last year got some first team reps when Jerry Tillery was hurt but ultimately did not play many snaps. A couple against the Seattle Seahawks, and that was really it. But he like made a play or two on those few snaps.

There is potential there. How much did he improve since last year is going to dictate where that goes. So let me answer one more question. This one comes from Jake J. If you had a vote for the Hall of Fame, would you vote Harrison Smith in the first year he would be eligible? Also, I'm assuming Jefferson will be inducted into Canton someday, assuming he stays healthy

and has similar production going forward. How many more seasons do you think that he would have to play to make it in? I'm guessing if he retired tomorrow, he probably wouldn't because he hasn't played long enough. So yes, now this one, I actually did take a peek beforehand at the numbers. I did not have Ambrie Thomas's stuff up, but I did take a look at Justin Jefferson. So right now he is around 7,500 yards total receiving for his career. Receivers that get to 1100 are usually very fringe and some of them aren't even in that have gotten to 1100 are usually very fringe and some of them aren't even in

that have gotten to 1100 yards. But if you get to 1300 yards, you are pretty much a lock. So that calculates to about four more seasons for Justin Jefferson of elite play. I think he can play a lot longer than four more seasons. He's still pretty much on the young side and strikes me as a guy who could play into his mid thirties and rack up crazy stats. But just from the perspective of the hall of fame,

you got to be at least over 1200 these days and a little bit more. There's a 17 game now. So like that's a little bit of an advantage for a couple hundred yards that adds up over time every single season. And I think that for receiver, the bar is very, very high. And that's why you couldn't put them in. If it happened right now, even though he's off to a historic start to his season, you could not put them in right now because there's so many great wide receivers.

Jimmy Smith is a great example. Someone brought up Torrey Holt the other night on the show, but there's so many great wide receivers. Jimmy Smith is a great example. Someone brought up Tori Holt the other night on the show, but there's probably five or six wide receivers who were at their prime, top five receivers in the league and have big numbers, but just not quite enough to get them over the hump and make them Hall of Famers. So he's got a long ways to go before he could be a lock. Now, though the start that he's gotten off to in his career is as great as anyone who's ever played the game. And because his peak is so high, his totals might not have to be as high.

And we've seen that from sterling sharp. We've seen it from Terrell Davis, just the Jefferson truly dominated in ways that other receivers haven't, but with receiver, there's always another guy from your era. There's an always another guy coming that is going to take your place. If you don't have those big numbers, it's kind of like with baseball pitchers. It used to be 200 wins. Now nobody cares about that. I understand. But, you know, that number 3000 hits.

They used to have baselines that would put you in in the baseball Hall of Fame I think with wide receivers It's kind of like that with yardage totals and receptions you kind of got to be this tall to be in the Hall of Fame And Jefferson I think someday will will get there but is not there yet as far as Harrison Smith that it's hard to answer when you say the first year that he's eligible, because I think that by the time Harrison Smith is up for that conversation, we will have more people inside of that room talking about PFF grades and PFF data telling a story on Harrison Smith.

He's got sacks, he's got interceptions, he's got tackles, he's got six Pro Bowls, which puts you in that discussion for the Hall of Fame. Usually seven makes you more of a lock, which is just how silly this is because some years you're just as good, but you don't have as much hype or your team doesn't do as well. And you don't get a Pro Bowl nod or an all pro or something or all decade team where I think they gave it to Eric Berry and Harrison Smith probably deserved it. And yeah, you know, all those sorts of political factors that go into Pro Bowl's, all pros different awards.

But where it really tells the story of Harrison Smith is the PFF data because it shows a player who was truly elite at his position year after year after year as a driving force of the Vikings defense. It shows his versatility, his playmaking, how dreadful opponents were when they tried to test him in coverage, how much he impacted the pass rush, how much he impacted the run defense. Like those things are graded and they're shown in those numbers that don't really get used,

I think, so far in the discussions for Hall of Famers because we don't have complete data on many careers. Like Jared Allen, I think you only see the end of his career get graded by PFF, not the very beginning, if I'm thinking about this right, or maybe the very, very beginning where they were first formulating those grades. But now those grades have been here for a long time and they've worked out a lot of the kinks in that. And I'm not saying that they're perfect, but they are a much, much more telling

way to look at a safety over many years than sacks or interceptions even, because if they'd ever throw the ball against Harrison Smith, it's not going to get as many picks, right? That's a, I think a bad way to look at any defender. What three plays or five plays over a season when you play a thousand snaps. And that's another thing that I'd like factored with Harrison Smith. A thousand snaps every year. Snap count should matter. It shouldn't just be a bunch of awards.

How many snaps were you out there for your team? That's value. That's being accrued. First ballot depends a lot on who else is up for it because I think there's going to be a long waiting list. I do not understand why the hall of fame decided this year to make it more difficult for guys to get in. And that could hurt someone like Harrison Smith unless they make a change there because there's a lot of players who deserve to be in the Hall of Fame but are not yet there so

they just continue to wait and wait. All right great stuff cannot wait for this speaking of waiting cannot wait for my first opportunity to get out there at TCO Performance Center and see JJ McCarthy really taking those first team reps, throwing the first team wide receivers, having Kevin O'Connell come and break down plays with him. Oh, the excitement. No, really. I mean, it is every single step here along the way. It's one of those things where you kind of want to put it in the, in the bank, in the memory bank of if this becomes something really special, we'll kind of remember that first year he didn't play and finally getting out there and that off season and how we felt about it and all those things.

So I am one to always keep a close eye on things like that. So thanks everybody for your time. We'll have the live show as always on Monday night, have some really fun guests here, trying to project players for this year including JJ McCarthy and then Dane Mizutani and I will break down that big old practice on Wednesday So a lot to look forward to and I look forward to hearing from you guys as well So thanks again for joining and take care

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