Minnesota Vikings predictions vs. Chicago Bears: JJ McCarthy, Caleb Williams and more

Minnesota Vikings predictions vs. Chicago Bears: JJ McCarthy, Caleb Williams and more

Purple Daily is daily Vikings entertainment. I just want the Vikings to win a Super Bowl before we die. I will ride with this group. Seriously, man. Please. And away we go. All right. Welcome to Purple Daily. Vikings takes 365 days a year. Write this down. And every Wednesday, predictions where we keep statistics like idiots and hold each other accountable. We’ll go through all of that and the 2025 debut of the quarterback cesspool challenge, gentlemen, where we look to identify bad quarterback play across the National Football League. But first, North American Banking Company powers write that down every single Wednesday here on the show and they can power a better banking experience for you and your family or your business. So, they’ve got six locations in the Twin Cities. It’s a Minnesota based banking company since 1998. Maple Grove, Roseville, Shore View, Hastings, Woodbury, 50th in France. Very friendly, knowledgeable people. They specialize in personal relationships. Yeah. Like you can uh actually get to know the people that handle your money instead of just sitting on some automated press one, press two phone line all the time. Not that I’m bitter about some of those experiences. Go to nabccoode.com/macky to learn more. That’s nab bankco.com/mackie. Member FDIC equalousing lender. And we are told there are like 10 or 15 spots left only for the Thursday night purple daily unplugged event at Running Aces. 35 just on the north edge of the Twin Cities. Awesome place that we will talk more about throughout the coming weeks. But we’re gonna watch football on Thursday and we’re gonna podcast unplugged style for uh a group of Purple Daily listeners and Vikings fans. It’s free to attend, but we do ask that you RSVP scorner.com/unplugged. Unplugged. Thursday night, everyone who attends, by the way, gets a $10 gaming voucher and $15 in food and beverage. So, we’re pretty much paying you to be there is how the math works out. Uh so, come hang out with us. These unplugged events are super fun. Are you guys ready for a write that down session? Write that down. Let’s do it. So, here’s how it works. This is the first This is like the week one write that down session. So, it’s Last week we made some week one predictions, but this is the first in season write that down here with Vikings Bears on the horizon. So, every single week it’s three Vikings or football related predictions from everybody on the show. They have to be quantifiable. So, those are the parameters. We keep track of completion percentage and touchdowns. And if you want to be like Jeff and be a guest, listener, participant, you can send Declan a message through the Scor app. There’s a feedback tab in there. We make it super easy. We’ll get you on the list for sometime in the uh the coming month. So, here we go. We’ll start with Jud. Let’s hold you accountable. It’s not good. It’s not good. It’s It’s not good. It’s I’ve I’ve seen much worse, but it’s not good. You said you caught Ty Felton fever after the draft and you said Ty Felton would catch at least two touchdown passes in preseason games. Oh, did I don’t think he had any. No, I think you’re right. You said Sam Howell will throw five or more passes in 2025 with the Vikings. Now, if he somehow gets like reacquired by the Vikings, we can revisit this. Yeah. No, no, I think we can pass on this one. I think I’m good with it. But it’s wrong. And you said, now this there’s a little gray area here. I guess you can fight back if you want to, but you said Kevin Oonnell won’t declare JJ McCarthy as the starting quarterback until the second preseason game. Feel like it was fairly clear who the starting quarterback was dating back to like OTAAS and mini camps cuz Sam was so bad. Yeah. But if you wanted to fight this and that there was no formal announcement until the depth charts came out, right? But when did the depth chart come out? Before the first preseason. Yeah, first preseason game, I think. So, yeah, I’m not I’m not going to fight this one. I I mean, Sam Howell basically screwed everything up by being incompetent. Like, he screwed up pick two, screwed up pick three. I mean, all he had to do is act like he had played in the National Football League before the National. But I I should have known. I should have known because I said in spring he’s terrible. It’s complete waste of time. I had nothing come off the board this week. So, we’ll highlight something still on the board. I told you guys like two and a half years ago when Adam Thielen had the kind of the weird falling out with the Vikings, went back to the Panthers or went and signed with the Panthers. I said Adam Thielen will catch another touchdown pass with the Vikings before he retires. So, the the the big thing happened. He did come back to the Vikings. Now, he needs to catch touchdown. This would be a bad beat if he just if he plays like nine games or something and doesn’t catch a touchdown pass. Did I Did I see something on social media in the last week or so that the the camp is now saying he wasn’t offered a reworked contract back then? I did see that too. Do we need to be talking before the camp? Can I offer some advice? Cuz it’s not Adam let just let it go. Yeah, just let it go. I think it’s been I mean if it was two years ago and that’s what happened like that that’s what happened and then they reworked his deal for this year too like oh no but I’m saying he he’s saying his camp is saying he would have stayed in Minnesota right if offered a reworked contract two years ago we are litigating something that does not need to be litigated anymore agree with Jud also find it funny that Jud just rides on the edge of these like these borderline too old Vikings kings that think they deserve something in jail. One of your biggest pet peeves. Well, it’s it’s my pet peeve that we are that I have offered the advice that we should that that unless the wants to say it. I’ve offered the advice that people on his side of the fence need to just be quiet now and we have a we’re we’re struggling with that and I’d like to help out. I am sports dad after all. You are you are also a sports PR consultant in your spare time and you’re here to to help with messaging. It’s a good point. Okay. Listeners had a couple things come off the board. Merrick said this will be CJ Ham’s last season 2024 that is as a Minnesota Viking. Well, he is on the active roster going into week one against the Bears. So, um I think this one we we waited all summer. He made it past the cut line again and he’s he’s in the room. probably going to play quite a bit. Mike said before the 2025 regular season, the most fan-friendly show in all of sports entertainment, Purple Daily, would find a way to make the listeners part of the quarterback cesspool challenge. So, I’m I’m buzzing this because here we are on the day of the quarterback cesspool challenge and we have either directly or indirectly decided that it’s it’s going to be the three of us that compete. Um, and you might fight back listeners and say, “Well, we already have guests lined up for write that down predictions, but it is just kind of like it’s a it’s a lot to put on Declan’s plate to do another sort of listener. Then you have to organize and send prep to the listeners. Here’s all the quarterbacks. Here’s the QBR stuff.” So, for another season, it’s just going to be the three of us. But, we are open to the I can speak for the show. We’re open to the idea of adding listeners to some of these fun games. But I think for this year it’s going to be I’m wide open to it because I have competition for this year. So I got I’m wide open to it. You mean you have nothing to do with it? You are literally the star of the show. No, I don’t have I don’t have to do the leg work. I don’t have to do the leg work. Declan does. So I have nothing to do with like I’m all for let’s add more. Let’s bring listeners in for everything. Poor Dex. You’re correct on that. He has to do a lot of work. So unless you guys want to p push back on this. I know that there’s been some buzz over the last couple years that listeners like to be part of the quarterback. You can buzz this. This is This is a buzz. This is incomplete. We’re good. I was up for it. It’s more to organize behind the scenes than than it seems, but we’ll we’ll keep it open for future consideration. Sports dad’s very upset about this. Uh Declan said Bill Bichic won’t coach a game at North Carolina. Well, Dean, you want to say you want to fight this one? No, you could fight it and say he didn’t. Oh, man. That’s true. I I could make that case. Uh man, what a what a what a buttkicking over the weekend. That was that was phenomenal to watch, dude. And then like uh what’s his girlfriend’s name again? Jordan. Jordan Hudson. Jordan. Jordan Hudson. Yeah, dude. She’s like on the sidelines during the game coming down to talk to him. What are they talking about? Mrs. Fleck comes down, but during the game? No, that’s at the Well, she actually does come down during the game to walk off the sideline, but I don’t think she consults with PJ. It’s just kind of odd that like you you’re coaching. I mean, you’re getting smoked, but what are you guys talking about? They can’t wait until after the game. I don’t really understand that one. But so here are the season stats so far. It’s Super Bowl to Super Bowl is the schedule. I’m at 56.3% completions. Jud 40%, Declan 38%. Listers at 30 and a half%. You guys, Jud and Declan are tied with six touchdowns a piece. I have five. Listeners are still looking for their first touchdown on the season. Uh all time stats going back to 2021. Declan just a tick under 37% completions. I’m at 35 and a half. Jud 34.8, listeners 24.3%. I lead with 63 touchdowns, but listeners was 60. Declan 59 are just a good week or two. I mean Declan had like three TUDs last week. So these categories could shift on a dime. So there’s your accountability session, gentlemen. Let’s get first time guest listener predictor Jeff on the show here. Jeff, what’s going on, man? So excited to be on the show. Thanks for having me. Of course, we are pumped to have you show off your jersey. What are we What are we rocking? What are we Is it Teddy? Old Teddy. Yeah. Nice. Old Teddy. Hey Teddy. Hey Teddy. Teddy. Jud’s favorite songs. One of my favorite songs. Want to come to my birthday? Hey. Yep. That and Beatles songs. two favorite artists. Todd loves them. Yeah. Uh so tell us about your fandom. Tell us when did you become a Vikings fan and give us your story, man. Yeah. So I’ve been a Vikings fan ever since uh sitting on my dad’s lap uh watching the Vikings games. Now I grew up in Delaware. You might say Delaware. And that the answer would be yes. Uh that’s where I’m from. And uh yeah, sitting on my dad’s lap watching watching Vikings games. Now, we don’t have Vikings games come on often, so I had to date it back to figure out when. And it would be in the late 80s in the playoffs, my first game, sitting down on my dad’s lap watching watching the Vikings play. So, okay. I uh remember going to school and uh always being the only uh Vikings fan growing up playing football, always wearing a Vikings, you know, jersey or any type of it was kind of difficult to get Vikings uh uh Vikings uh any type of paraphernalia to wear. um being in Delaware uh because there weren’t many Vikings fans uh at least outwardly that you could see it’s a lot easier now with uh logistics being how they are. But I remember uh being uh uh the 98 season and another another I know we have a lot of fans that they became fans during the 98 season and uh here coming off of 9796 understanding Jake Reed Chris Carter you know and uh this other fan just who’s this person wearing a Vikings jersey and it was a nice looking Viking jersey nicer and newer than mine. How dare they wear a Vikings jersey? I’m the Vikings fan in Delaware. like who are you? I’m the one. And now it’s like, you know, you see another Viking fans like, hey, can come congregate with us. Come join with us. And, you know, so, you know, very fortunate here in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, where I live now, to to how have a a group of Vikings fans uh that that, you know, get together, Joyy’s Tavern and Mount Joy, uh, Pennsylvania, and, you know, we get together, watch the Vikings games, and, you know, have a have a good time. Love it, man. Yeah. I I I love the late the late 80s hook on your Vikings fandom, too, because that’s kind of a it’s almost like a lost era of the Jerry Burns was a really good coach. They had some of the best defenses in the league. Anthony Carter was going off. They had some good teams in that era and it just gets kind of overshadowed. Yeah, they they they they certainly did. And you know, remembering uh you know, Tony Tony Dunie came in and and 92 defense. I mean, I think I think even up until like 2020 or it might still be the case that the the the best indicator that somebody is going to have a team that wins a Super Bowl outside of taking the Patriots out of it, it’s whether or not you had a former Vikings coordinator as your head coach. Yeah. Tony Dunie, Brian Bilick, Mike Tomlin, you know, add up their Super Bowls kind of. Yeah, it’s it is a list. A little salty, you know. So, it is a list. So, we’re gonna start with you on these predictions here, Jeff. We’ll go over to Jud Dax. Back to me. We’ll we’ll make one prediction uh per round and we’ll make three trips around the room. If you are ready, what is your first prediction? Write this down. Well, one of the things that’s very important to remember uh for our our good friend JJ McCarthy is he is riding an unbeaten streak of 15 straight games. He has not lo he did not lose in the conference and I don’t think he’s going to lose in the division starting week one. So Vikings win Monday Night Football in Chicago, my boy’s hometown. Love this the simplicity of the first prediction. Let’s get it on the board, man. Uh Jud, what is your first prediction week one here? Write this down. also uh from that game, but a little bit more nuanced or narrowed down is that the Vikings first play from scrimmage on Monday night will be a run. They will run the ball on their first play just like they did in the preseason, the scripted plays, Kevin Oonnell script, play one. You know, I’m I might try I might turn I have a thought about that and I might just morph it into a prediction before we’re done here. All right, we’ll see. Write that down, Dean. All right, write this down. Four item parlay for week one. Wow. So, the first Vikings win. Vikings beat the Bears. JJ McCarthy second leg throws for less than 200 yards. Okay, he logs no more than 25 pass attempts and he is not credited with the turnover. The spirit of this prediction is I think this is going to be a very runheavy game. JJ McCarthy is not going to crash the car. So, I’m going to have all these in one single parlay. I know three is usually our number. I’ll add the fourth as the Vikings win. Um, so this the spirit of this is I I think JJ McCarthy is going to have a decent game. I just don’t think he’s going to be a huge uh cog throwing for a bunch of yards and throwing for a bunch of touchdowns. If I’m wrong, you know, I’ll be buzzed. But I I I think this is going to be more of a runheavy game. Go for it. Absolutely. Write it down. You like writing things down. Yeah. The four you usually for anyone who’s new to write that down, a touchdown would be something that’s like 25% or less chance. And usually three item parlays automatically qualif qualifies. If the four item parlay, unless it’s four gimmies lined up, we can fight those. But all right, I am going to turn my thought about the first play into a prediction here because I think the world thinks what Jud thinks, which is he’s a handoff merchant. They’re going to protect him and insulate him. They’re going to run the ball first and second down, especially his first game, right? It’s he’s been in the garage for a year and a half in the NFL. Let’s just ease him in with a little handoff to Aaron Jones. That’s what the world thinks should happen. Write this down. The first play from scrimmage for the Minnesota Vikings will be a JJ McCarthy pass that travels at least 20 yards in the air. So air yards, 20 air yards or more on the first pass. I think I think they’re going to run play action out of the gate. The Bears are going to bite and they’re going to take an opportunity to hit a shot on the first play. Get the juices flowing. Show the world. completed or that’s outside the purview of this prediction. It could sail into the arms of a safety and it could go back for six points the other way. But that would be a correct. Uh but I’m just saying that the first play from scrimmage will be a pass that travels at least 20 yards in the air or more. Whatever happens after that is outside the jurisdiction of got this new four item parley. Phil’s like ah they’re going to pass on the first ball. I have no idea what’s going to happen to it. You mean 20 yards downfield, right? Not 20 yards. Yeah. Yeah. 20 yards from scrimmage. That’s a good That’s a You know what? That is a loophole that I would attempt to potentially hunt for. But if you look, it was on the left hash and he threw it to the right sideline if you measure it. Write this down. Okay, Jeff, what’s your second prediction? Oh, so you might you might gather I love Christmas and so I’ve got to go to a Christmas prediction. So Christmas is week 17 at home against the Lions. And I said something also at the beginning of my my first prediction how he has always won in his conference. So Vikings win on Christmas day and by the end of the week by the end of week 17. So maybe on Christmas day we know by that point in time we know the Vikings have won the division. Wow. So they’re rest. They’re like resting in week 18 in your mind. And you know, we we can if if we wanted to make it a three item, I’m fine with making it a three item. I’m completely confident saying that the Vikings will continue to be undefeated in the division up until that point. 5-0 with the division. Let’s do it. John, you I mean, where’s the flag? The flag’s right here. I just I won every conference game going to win every division game. Wow. Flag is back. I love right now. I’m not including uh week 18 with the Packers because I don’t think it’s going to mean much. Wow. Jeff is just just guzzling purple Kool-Aid right now. This is great. From P Delaware to Pennsylvania. Jeff like got a like like he just started to dabble and then he’s like, “No, we’re going to go all in. Give me more.” Yeah. Jeff blacked out between the second and third leg of that parlay. Jud, what’s your second prediction? Oh. All. Uh, my second prediction is one that we talked about. I think I brought this up on Monday’s show, so I’m going to put it on the record. Tyrann Ingram Dawkins will block at least one field goal or PAT attempt this season. He’s going to use that 65, that length, that basketball player length. I think he can be a real asset on the uh field goal block team and he will block at least one this season. You know what’s kind of total just side thought? You watch Tyron Ingram Dawkins. If you were a fan and went to training camp, he’s one of the lank like lankiest players on the field. He’s got these long arms. He’s super athletic. Yes. But if you did actually put him on an NBA court, he’d look short. Isn’t that crazy? Yes. He’d be like like he’d be like a 6’5 shooting guard. May maybe like a small small forward, but he wouldn’t look I don’t think he’d look out of place completely. So, like like I think a lot of football players if you put him on a court they would look sort of out out of place a little bit. The thing is you’re you’re right. It’s his length. Like it’s not just his size but his arms. Like he looks like he looks like a guy that could play basketball and you wouldn’t say that seems weird. But yes, he would be short. You are correct. Write this down. All right, Declan. All right. I’m workshopping this on the fly because I originally had a Caleb Williams prediction. Um, but I kind of want to make this more of a Vikings defense swarming Caleb Williams making him flustered type of predictions. And I’m going to quantify it in this fashion. The Vikings defense will combined for at least five of these categories. Sacks, interceptions, fumbles on Caleb Williams. So like if it’s if it’s four if it’s four sacks and a pick, this would count. If it was five sacks, it would still count. A strip sack would count two and then you just need three other things. Yeah. Yeah. So, I think they’re gonna swarm him. I think getting I think a couple sacks is probably likely obviously just given the fact the Vikings are really good at at getting after the quarterback, but I also think they’re going to force him into some mistakes. So, they’ll combine for at least five of those three categories. Out of curiosity, just to see if this is a touchdown. So he last year he had he took 68 sacks. He only threw six interceptions despite running around like a maniac for 75% of the season. And then uh in terms of fumbles, he fumbled 10 times. So he had what’s 78? 84. Oh god. Um stay out of this. 84. I’m muted. Yeah. Stay out of this. Divided I’m going to use the calculator. 84 divided by 17 games. So he he averaged five of those per game. So this would be like it’s a good solid It’s a good solid completion for you. I I Yeah, I I wasn’t going to stump for this to be a a touchdown. I I think it’s borderline. I don’t think it’s like a definite because I know he took a And you look, they they redo the offensive line in the offseason, so it should be a lot better, but I think this feels like a good chunk play, so I’m I’m I’m good with it. Not be love this. Write this down. Honesty. All right, I’ll I’ll make a Caleb Williams prediction. That’s just quite simply, write this down. The Vikings will sack Caleb Williams on the Bears first offensive possession. Just straight up, they will sack Caleb Williams on the Bears first offensive possession. Rebuild offensive line there in Chicago. It is, but there are. But he’s going to hold the ball. It’s not to me. Yeah, cuz there’s been a lot of times watching Vikings games where Okay. Yeah. Ed Ingram missed a guy coming around on a twist or something. And I think a lot of those sacks, if you were to take without having broken down all the film, of those 68 sacks he took last year with a worse offensive line, a large percentage of those were something he could have done better by like getting rid of the ball, being on schedule. So, uh, if he gets off schedule in this offense, it’s going to go sideways or he’ll be running out of the back of the pocket and running for his life. So, I’m just They’ll sack him on the first offensive possession. Write this down. All right, back to Jeff. Third and final prediction. Okay, a lot has been bandied about the Vikings going against the AFC North. You know, if if uh you alternating years, we win, we lose, we go to the N the NFC Championship game, our our coach has been fired. It’s not about the AFC North. It’s about the Baltimore Ravens. say this is someone who’s gone to multiple Vikings games at the Baltimore Ravens. Well, let me tell you, this year the Vikings are going to beat the Baltimore Ravens and go to NFC Championship game. Wow. Wow. Oh, hold on. Jeff, Barney, move aside. Hand me the flag, Barney. Yeah, there’s Man, the opportunities for bad beats here. I love the shots that Jeff has taken. the listeners do not have a touchdown yet and Jeff is is tossing the ball down the field like we’re we’re going to get a lot of touchdowns here come the end of the year. You know, you guys might get a little little head there, but we we we’ll get it we’ll get some completions in here in there, too. We we’ll spot what we need to, but you know, JJ likes to throw it downfield as you as you uh as you’ve mentioned. You know, getting 20 yards in there. You know, we we’ll get downfield. We’re chunking it. Hey, great stuff, man. It was fun hearing your story and uh and your predictions here since you’ve got this platform right now, this this lifealtering platform on Purple Daily. Is there anyone you’d like to shout out or thank that helped you get to this point, Jeff? Oh, yeah. Abs, absolutely. And I I mentioned him uh right off the bat, my dad. you know, he has uh uh you know, last year I’m wearing this hat because we got to go to the uh my first home Vikings game against the Texans last year, in which case uh we we forced I think three straight uh offside penalties, false start penalties, you know, from crowd noise. So I was I don’t think my vocal cords have yet recovered, but uh my dad has also written a number of different children’s books. Uh, so my dad Rick Mapson, love him uh for what he what he did and you know making me a Viking fan through uh thick or thin. Also wanted to thank uh the guys that I get together with uh Jeff, Mike, Mark, you know, a number number of others that that join us at Joyy’s Tavern. And if you’re in central Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania, Northern Maryland, you want to come join us, have some fun watching uh watching the game together, by all means come up and and my brother my brother Brad as well, Viking fan. So, some crab cakes. Watch the buck are shut out. No, no, no. We’ll we’ll I mean, we can have crab cakes. I mean, I’ve eaten them when I’m in Maryland, but you know, central central Pennsylvania, you’ll you’ll you’ll have Pennsylvania Dutch more often, but Okay. All right. They don’t they don’t do crab cakes in central Pennsylvania quite like they do in Maryland. Maryland. Yeah. Weird. I mean, I just, you know, when watching the game, I’d rather have, you know, potato skins, you know, I’d rather have wings, you know, normal other places. Ai tuna crisp. I think some of those crisps got put in and uh someone laughed at us. So you were kicked out of the bar. What if it was fried ai tuna crisps? Huh? That would be a game changer. Calamari. No. Yeah. Recent fair food, right? Yeah. That for next year, I think. Jeff, awesome stuff, man. It was great to have you on. Good luck with your being here. You guys, you guys are part of the daily life household. You know, my wife has uh you know heard as well and of course thank to her and and I did have one more. It’s my son, 2-year-old Josiah. He knows how to skull. He knows the skull chant. He’s doing great. He’s going to be awesome in life. And uh you know, hopefully we uh we can all win one before any of us die. Amen. Amen. Jeff, thank you again for coming on. Good luck with your predictions and hopefully we see you again, man. Thanks, guys. Merry Christmas every day. I love it, dude. Jeff, Santa Claus looking Jeff for those of you on Apple and and Spotify and didn’t get the YouTube experience. Uh before we get to the rest of our predictions, before we get to our quarterback cesspool challenge, um we Dax, did you take the floor here for a second? Uh it was a week ago today at Annunciation Catholic School that just a just an unthinkable terrible tragedy happened. It impacted your life. You talked about it on the Mackie and Jed episode last Friday. And uh we’re trying to rally the audience here to help out in even just a small way. Yeah. So uh I I I shared an experience um last Friday on Mackie and Jud. If you guys didn’t hear that, I I had three of my nephews were inside that church um at Annunciation last week, which was a week ago today. Um and right now here at Score North, we are we raising some money here to help out the students and the faculty at Annunciation Church. So we’re looking for two things here. Number one, it’s awareness to just kind of surround the community with love that they obviously desperately need. two, the financial support uh to support students and staff and to provide immediate mental health resources, campus repair, safety needed to resume some semblance of school life, which they still kind of don’t know when that’s really going to be. So, you can uh support Annunciation Catholic School uh and help pay for the resources needed for those families and students. Go to scornorth.com/donate to do so for our audio audience, for our YouTube audience. It’s in our bio, but scornorth.com/donate. Anything you can give, uh, we’re looking to we’re looking to raise if we can. $5,000. So, anything you want to give, we we would appreciate it. Uh, means a lot to all of us here. Scorn.com/donate. Yeah. Five bucks, 50 bucks, whatever. 500 bucks, whatever you feel comfortable with. I know whenever we ask something of the Purple Daily and Scorn audience, um, they generally step up and and help out. So, yeah. Okay, guys. Write it down. You like writing things down. Final predictions. Jud. All right. So, I’m going to give myself a a prediction that will allow me to get a little sweat on at running aces tomorrow as we watch some some Philadelphia Dallas game. Saquon Barkley will rush for 100 or more yards and two touchdowns against the Cowboys. Improved rushing defense in the Thursday night opener. So Jerry Jones got to trade Micah Parsons. Kenny Clark, we’re going to improve that rushing defense. That is so important. Well, you’re going against Saquon. I think he gets off to a a good start. Uh just for he did rush, I think for 100 plus yards against the Packers in Brazil last year. Uh, but I think he gets off to another good start. So, 100 or more yards rushing and two touchdowns. Is that It’s an NBC game always the first Thursday, right? That’s Yeah, YouTube is the Chiefs Chargers on Friday. Yeah. What’s the YouTube theme song going to be? Has it leaked yet? Do we know? I don’t think we know. But I’m saying that cuz this is their first game, right? I don’t. And is I have a dumb question. So So that’s the Brazil game on Friday. Yeah. you. It’s just like you go to YouTube.com and there’s just an NFL game or how does that work? Or is it It’s not YouTube TV. No, I think it’s YouTube.com. My guess is it’s free because when they did a baseball package, they just put the games on for free, which was actually sort of great. So, I’m guessing you just go there, but um yeah, this is I think this is their first production because they’ve got the Sunday ticket package, but that’s just from a variety of games that they pull in. So they’re not producing the game for for those. Yeah, this will be them like I think right or is is NFL producing it and they’re running? I think it’s a combination. But this is uh cuz the Packers Eagles game in Brazil last year on Friday night was a Peacock game. So they continue to move this game around. I wouldn’t be surprised if this ends up like on Netflix eventually as well, too. Yeah. Well, they’re they’re trying to The NFL when it comes to cash grabbing is just brilliant, right? Let’s take all of the assets we have and distribute them to like seven different platforms and get billions of dollars from all of them to just write it down. You like writing things down associated with our product. All right, Declan’s third and final prediction. Yeah, write this down. TJ Hawinson catches the first touchdown from JJ McCarthy. So, I’ll go with the Hawk. And I mean, I guess if if my the spirit of my prediction, my first one about how McCarthy maybe is just kind of the passenger and they run the ball that this could stay on the board till like week two or hopefully not week three. I think he’ll have a passing touchdown within the first couple games for God’s sakes. Whenever it happens though, TJ Hawinson catches the first touchdown from JJ McCarthy. Yeah, someone I saw someone posted the list of week one quarterback performances by last year’s rookies or like the the first game that they play because Pennix didn’t play till later. And it’s I don’t think any of them I think the only one that threw a touchdown was Drake May in his first start. He threw like three touchdowns, two picks, but his QBR was like 30. Uh Jaden Daniels rushed for a couple touchdowns in his debut, did not throw for any, but then you know the business picked up from there. So maybe what that means is some someone from that class is due to come out and just sling it all over the lot in their first start. If McCarthy doesn’t throw a touchdown pass, is he a bust immediately or will we have to talk about it? My column on Substack/Judge. We’ll have hottest stakes. We have hottest stakes the day after. So Tuesday I’ll just I’ll be ready to sling it. In fact, I already got I already have banked hottest takes for after week one. Just just ready to rock just in case. No, I don’t have them yet. No. Oh, okay. Yeah, I was going to say really you’re really like it came off as like very I will say to get how like how the sausage is made like throughout the game I will like kind of will some of my hot takes like I’ll write them down like being like what if this could happen throughout the game and sometimes wow it happens workshopping it happens in the middle of the game. Yeah. Do you ever have a hot take and but it’s predicated on something bad happening to the Vikings and you’re almost like oh man I’m rooting for Josh Dos to you know I don’t I mean I’m sure it’s probably come up before it didn’t come up last year because it was obviously such a great year. Um do I root to be correct or do I root for the team to be if the team’s not very good then yes for sure. Yeah. Okay. Write this down. Final prediction here, and I’m going to go a little negative here because it looks like the Vikings, as of right now, based on depth charts, the last reported signs at practice a couple weeks ago that media could attend, it looks like the Vikings are going to lean on rookies for kick and punt return. So, right now, it appears that Ty Felton is the kick returner, right? And correct me if I’m wrong on this. No. And Miles Price, undrafted rookie free agent, is the punt returner. Most definitely. I’m a little nervous about two rookies handling the kicks and the punts, especially at Soldier Field, whatever. So, write this down. A Vikings rookie will drop a kick or punt return. So, the ball has to hit the ground after it touches the said rookie sometime in September. So, I’ll just say sometime in September. Okay. Okay. I think we’re going to see an an early an early bobble of some kind from I I’m going to leave it at a Vikings rookie in case there’s another one that gets a crack at this. But so if Ty Felton is on a kick return and he you know the kick comes to him and he bobbles it and it drops to to the ground and he easily picks it up. This still counts. It counts. Yeah. So if does this it’s a disaster. Yeah. So the way I mean it’s hard to like quantify it more than I’m leaving myself a little bit of a loophole. Not intentionally but just but yeah like the obvious would be Miles Price sits underneath a towering punt. It bounces off his chest, hits the ground. I get the point now. He could pick it up and be fine. Good luck with that. He’ll be hit immediately. He’ll be knocked off the ball. We’re talking about sudden change here. Did I see Adam Thelen as the backup punt returner on one of the depth charts? He uh he’s got some experience with that back in the day, right? Didn’t he? That’d be the Bobby Wade method, right? Of Adam, catch the damn ball, wave the arm while that thing is still in the hang time of the year, right? Like the ball is being snapped to the punter. Throw your hand up. Don’t take Yeah. Adam Thielen back in Well, it was only six of them. It was back in 2016, nine years ago, he had six punt returns for how many yards would you guess? This is when he was 26 years old. Three yards, probably something. Eight. Eight yards. Eight yards. Six punt returns for eight yards and a long of nine. So the other five returns were for a minus one. Wow. Don’t forget the Thelen blocked punt against what the Jets that he returned for a touchdown. The Packers when they won the division with Teddy in 2015 in Green Bay. I think the block. Okay. There was one there was one at TCF Bank Stadium. Yeah. It was like pre gold cleat. Pre- gold cleat. Oh yeah. Yeah. This was when he was just trying to make this, you know, stay on the team. Minnesota State, he was a ham and so all right, those are the Write that down predictions, the accountability session. We have a quarterback cesspool challenge, the return week one of the quarterback cesspool challenge here, boys. Shout out, by the way, if if you’re looking if you’re looking to really put your money where your uh bad quarterback predictions are, My Bookie My Bookie can help facilitate that, Jud. And in fact, I have for you right now from Sports Dad right there, the three best words in sports. Football is back. And that means that it is indeed time to get your sweat on. My Bookie makes it easy to get in on all of the action. We’re talking about the National Football League, of course, College Survivors, all the spreads, player props, and in-game lines that you could possibly want. It’s as simple as this. Just go to mybookie.ag. Use the code purple daily as if you’re watching this. You see the right there on the screen. And any bet you choose up to $500 is fully covered. Make your play and if it doesn’t hit, you know what? You get it right back in the action. When you opt in using your betback bonus token, it’s the perfect time to jump in and play. Football is back. Mybookie.ag makes you part of the game. Uh the Renaissance Festival, Minnesota Renaissance Festival is still happening for the next month or so weekends through September 28th. And this weekend at Minnesota Renaissance Festival, it’s Bold North Adventure Weekend presented by Viking Fest Minnesota. Discover the true north. Bring out Jud’s inner warrior. You can see armored combat, daring competitions, battlecry contests, Nordic meatball eating contests. Nordic meatball eating contest. That’s called Friday Night. Uh, a battle of the beards and kids can craft their own Viking shield. So, explore the Viking encampment and visit Bold North vendors all weekend at the Renaissance Festival. And then one more event coming up here. It’s World Junior season pretty soon here, Jud. Big annual hockey tournament. Yep. In my opinion, this is the best annual tournament in all of sports. Absolutely love it. The last time it was here was 1982, but yes, the World Junior Hockey Tournament is coming back December 26th of this year to January 5th of 2026. Um, it is a tournament that features some of the greatest players, the future players who were coming. For instance, Ovetkin and Crosby, the first time they faced off, guess what? It was in this tournament. It’s going to be held at both Grand Casino Arena and 3M at Maruchi. Uh, see all four USA preliminary round games at grand casino with the USA4ame mini pack. For information, world juniorsmn26.com. That’s world juniorsmn26.com. Don’t miss the future stars of the National Hockey League in town starting December 26th. All right, boys. It is time now for the quarterback cesspool challenge. by hold your water [Music] where we look to search for and celebrate bad quarterback play each week in the National Football League. So, here’s how it works. And we we did decide at the end of last season on one tweak to the format, which I’ll remind you and the audience, but all of us select a quarterback each week that we think is going to be bad. Once you use that quarterback, it’s like a survivor pool. You can’t use that quarterback again the rest of the season. Oh boy. All of us have to pick different quarterbacks each week. And the scoring is ESPN’s QBR, which is like passer rating with context. So if you’re if you’re playing well in garbage time, it doesn’t really help you out as much as traditional passer rating. It’s a 0 to 100 scale. Uh we’re going to draft in in in order of last season’s standings and then going forward uh if it’ll be flipped around the other way for the week- toeek standings. But the the two uh caveats here are one that we decided on before last season, which is if your quarterback doesn’t play, so Jud drafts JJ McCarthy and oh my gosh, he stepped on a pothole walking into Soldier Field and he’s not going to play. You then automatically get the backup for the quarterback that you picked. Yep. If you find yourself in a spot where you’ve used the backup earlier in the season, so let’s say you already chose uh what’s his name? Carson Wentz and then McCarthy’s back and now you choose McCarthy and oh my god he’s out and Carson Wentz is back on your plate. You don’t get to use Carson Wentz twice. You get stuck with a 75 QBR which would be the top end of of uh it would be like a top five QBR for the week. So you get stuck with a a bad score. And uh the the caveat that we decided on at the end of last season was that this is a regular season competition only. The playoff format was like small sample size. We’re choosing between Jaylen Herz and Patrick Mahomes at the end. So, it’s a regular season competition only and we will track weekly wins and we will track full season aggregate QBR. We’re looking again for bad quarterback play. Any other questions from the assembled group here? No, I’m just glad that that we got rid of the playoffs. That’s good. It just it’s like we try it’s like oh it’d be kind of fun to you know wild card weekend but then you get into the championship weekend and it’s literally like Lamar Jackson and Patrick Mahomes and just I and they’re all putting up 80 QBRS against each other. Josh Allen. So uh Jud won last year. Congratulations. So you get the number one pick to start the season here. I finished runner up and Dex finished in third place after winning two years ago. So Jud, the week one slate of quarterbacks is wide open. You can pick whoever you want. I’ll pick second and Dex gets the third pick. 10 names on my list. I was grinding through it this morning. 10 names on my list and I was grind and I was grinding through it. Well, I I mean no, I just went through all of the games and I’m like, who has a possibility for this? You know, Dak Prescott, Michael Pennix, Joe Flacco, but he’s playing the Bengals. So, after great deliberation, give me Caleb Williams against the Vikings. Wow, dude. I’m just going to go for it. I’m going to go for it. I think it’s going to be Rocky to start with. You know, I did consider would JJ in his first game for QBR purposes not be great, and that might be the case, but I just feel like the Caleb Ben Johnson thing, it might improve, but week one, Flores defense, oh boy. Oh boy. Okay, Caleb. Yeah, I mean this would be it’s a great time. He was Caleb was right there high on my big board, too, because this is the least comfortable he’s going to be in that Ben Johnson offense. Like when you when you play them later in the season, he in theory should be more comfortable. Correct. So, you might as well get him in the first week while he’s still trying to figure this thing out and a terrible defense to play against. Yeah. So, I am stuck between the oldest quarterback in the league and one of the youngest quarterbacks in the league. just put my my cards on the table here and if Declan wants to take one of these guys that I leave, that’s fine. Aaron Rodgers at the Jets is really interesting. He’s 41. Mhm. He joined late. He didn’t go through mini camps and OTAAS. I mean, I guess he ducked in kind of at the end of some of the spring workouts, but the Jets, I think, kind of hate him. Aaron Glenn coming over as a defensive-minded new head coach looking to put his fingerprint on that thing. And then Cam Ward’s first NFL start at Denver against that defense. Experienced Shawn Payeyton. I have that high on my list. So, it’s very coin flippy for me, but I am going to lean Cam Ward at Denver here. Give me the the first career NFL. I got excited like, “Oh, he’s gonna take Aaron.” I was like, “You’re gonna leave me with Cam Ward. This will be great. This will be great.” Yeah. I couldn’t watch other games to choose Aaron Rogers. So, yeah. But we just we just also read the stat about no rookie quarterback last year or only one of them threw a touchdown on their first start. So, I bust Cam Ward was number one on my big board. All busts. Yeah. And funny enough, Caleb was number two, which means I get to go to my third option because you both have taken the number first two options on my big board. So, I will take Spencer Rattler. Yeah, that’s a good one. I’m going to take Spencer. I You know what? I’m a obviously I’m a big Kellen Moore fan. I’m I’m excited what he could actually maybe even even with that offense and likely that team being uh uh in prime position to have the number one pick in the draft in 2026. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s able to prop up some things uh for for a little bit here, but I’ll I’ll take I’ll take an inexperienced mostly Spencer Rattler in in week one for for my pick. Yeah, it’s at some point we’re all going to take Spencer Rattler probably in the first five weeks. So, it’s it’s a good pick. It is a home game against the Cardinals and I got maybe got a little tricky there trying to save the Spencer Rattler pick for future weeks, but you can’t go wrong picking Spencer Rattler in the quarterback cesspool challenge. I feel like the Saints because Spencer probably gets benched at some point, but the Saints will just continue to give. Yep. That’s that was kind of my thought process. Like I don’t think Spencer Rattler is going to start all 16 games with the Saints. No. Next man up will also suck though. the next three weeks for old Spencer. It’s Jud, you and I are gonna have our pick of when we want to unleash the Spencer quarterback cesspool challenge pick here because it’s San Francisco next week and then it’s at Seattle at Buffalo in weeks three and four. So, yeah, he’s might he might not be starting in week four. No, but we’ll take the other guy, the Louisville quarterback, Tyler Shuck. Shuck. Yeah, Tyler Shuck. Yeah, good luck, Tyler. So, there it is, boys. The quarterback cesspool challenge. bad quarterback play in that. Did anyone think about taking JJ McCarthy on the road from Chicago? He’s on my board. Yes. Wow. Yes. But if I’m going to take JJ or Caleb, I’ll take Caleb going against Flores before I take JJ against the Bears. And then Cam Ward in Altitude first ever start to as a rookie. He didn’t get the year to kind of prep and soak it in. Yeah. Make no mistake, JJ will be unleashed. Wow. in the You’re saying in the cesspool challenge, not necessarily on the field. Okay. Yeah. No, no, no. I’m saying in the cesspool ch like like this is a very dangerous territory. There’s a lot of there’s very few guys who are like no way am I taking him. Pittsburgh and Dublin. I could see Pittsburgh and Dublin. I could see a game against a defense where it’s just like it’s not a good fit. This is where my logic the post buy run there too. My logic of the fantasy football. When I played fantasy football, I would never draft NFC North players, opposing ones, because then I would have to root for them to have success against the Vikings. This is the similar logic. I I’m not going to root for JJ McCarthy’s demise on a Sunday for my personal gain in the quarterback sport. So, you won’t take him. Also, I will not take him. I will not take him. I mean, Phil just nailed it. There’s a fourame stretch out of that buy where I think if you don’t take him, you you’re being irresponsible. Eagles, Lions, Chargers on a Chargers on a Thursday night after the Eagles. Now, I will I will happily chalk up when I pick him, I will chalk it up as a as a learning experience that make that sharpens him for the rest of his career. And QBR is fickle, too. Like, like there’s a lot of things about that. Not that I claim to know how the sausage is made, but QBR can be a very odd thing. Like you get docked for things that aren’t necessarily fatal to your team. Yeah. No one like actually knows how QBR is calculated. You just kind of at the end of the year it kind of makes sense like yeah that looks like the five or six best quarterbacks. I guess I’ll trust your your process. All right boys, that’s a wrap. Write that down. Predictions the quarterback cesspool challenge. Tomorrow it is Thursday’s day and we’re going to go through as part of the show picking the 14 playoff teams in the NFL. Our official Super Bowl matchups and some other things. And there’s a really interesting piece from Bill Barnwwell that we can get into tomorrow either with Thor or Doogie. He doesn’t he’s their analytics guru and he does not like the Vikings this season for a couple interesting reasons that I think the show might push back at. But we can do all kinds of things tomorrow on Purple Daily. Thank you guys for hanging out with us.

Minnesota Vikings predictions vs. Chicago Bears in Week 1 involving JJ McCarthy, TJ Hockenson, Vikings defense and more on Write That Down; Plus the return of QB Cesspool challenge.

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