Should We PANIC Over J.J. McCarthy?

Should We PANIC Over J.J. McCarthy?

When things start to go wrong, we either want to panic or apply a little bit of patience. Let’s play one of my favorite football analysis games here on the Lockown Vikings podcast. You are Locked On Vikings, your daily Minnesota Vikings podcast, part of the Locked On Network, your team every day. Hey, hey everybody. Welcome to the Locked On Vikings podcast where we’re always trying to learn something new. It’s part of the Locked On podcast network, your team every day. Thank you so much for making Locked On Vikings your first listen of the day every single day. Today’s episode is brought to you by Mazda. Like NFL players, they sweat every detail because when you make every move count, pulling off the unexpected is only the beginning. Stay tuned later for highlights in this week’s Moving the Game Forward. Mazda, move and be moved. Today on the show, I would like to play one of my favorite old NFL network game. I think they still do this on like NFL Network panel shows sometimes. It’s been a minute since I’ve actually been able to tune into him, but like I think like a lot of you, I grew up watching like uh Rich Eisen and this was before even like Kurt Warner was like Kurt Warner was still in the league. It was like Rich Eisen and Mike Ditka and Michael Irvin and like those that whole panel of like the game day morning guys and they would play panic or patience which would always happen in week two and or after week two and they would go over all the O and2 teams and they would say should we be patient with these guys or is it time for these teams to totally panic and things are falling apart right a play on the old Owen tombstone that pattern where once you go 0 and2 you there’s kind of only like one 0 and2 team that’ll ever even make the playoffs let alone be a guy be a contender. Well, the Vikings aren’t 0 and2. So, if the NFL Network ever did that segment this year, uh they are not going to be a part of it. But I think we probably are still a little interested in asking that question, don’t you? Uh I’m sensing a lot of panic. Maybe it’s just the texture of the mailbag from yesterday, but I’m sensing a lot of panic. So, I have three particular things that I would like to address. whether or not the Vikings should panic about them or apply a little bit of patience. JJ McCarthy’s performance, the general health and depth issues on the team, and the run defense and how it kind of got gashed really, really hard on Sunday night. But we’ll start with panic or patience about JJ McCarthy. My answer for JJ McCarthy is going to be patience. Very firmly, it’s going to be patience and not panic. Um, I I think it’s like look, it’s really easy to see the early returns not go the way you want and say, “Oh my god, we got to get out of this before it derails seven years more years of my life, right?” And and it’s super easy to like apply that in hindsight to go look back at, you know, the first couple of games of Kurt Cousins, right? Kirk Cousins laying an egg against the Bills in week three of 2018, the game where Josh Allen hurdled Anthony Bar and and um you know Kirk Cousins fumbled the ball twice right away and say, “Oh my god, we got to get out of this before we end up in the the pits of mediocrity for six years a and it’d be like really easy to like apply that situation to this situation, but I don’t think that that’s what this is at all.” Right. JJ McCarthy is not a veteran. I I love the way that the the the hot taker yesterday put it. This is not somebody that we have six years of precedent on and like priors. This is somebody that is not the final form of himself. I would say that for every single one of these 2024 QBs that are all in various stages in their development right now. Caleb Williams is sort of getting better, but there’s all these problems under the hood that that are being reported on and speculated on. Drake May has his blum blemishes. Jaden Daniels is like sophomore slumping after this total disaster against Green Bay. Um and and you know Bo Nicks is not beating the A dot allegations. Like all of these guys have blemishes right now. And I think a lot of them I think the same like cope can apply to every single one of them. They’re young. They’re new to the NFL. Talk to me in three years and tell me if he’s still doing all that. And watching back the tape of the Atlanta game, I really very rarely found myself looking at that and saying, “Yeah, that was JJ McCarthy really screwing that one up.” It was either the line not doing things right. And maybe McCarthy had something to do with that in a way that I can’t know. Maybe he gave them the wrong play call or something and that’s why guys didn’t know who to block. Um, maybe that is on him. I kind of have to set that aside and and let that be for people who are just in the room. But like I don’t really feel like a lot of it is his fault. Um I am trying my best to assign blame to the place that I think it is. And it’s weird because I’m watching a protection bust and saying I think the most veteran guy on the offense in Brian O’Neal is the one who screwed this thing up, which is what I think on the uh the strip sack that came from number 96 with his two hands in the ground. That made me go insane. I do think Brian O’Neal just made a bad decision there. Um, watch my Patreon video, patreon.combrand NFL, for a more detailed breakdown there, but I’ll I’ll spare you that for now. Point being, I just kind of think a lot of it was that he didn’t he wasn’t the one that did the thing wrong. That doesn’t mean there weren’t bad plays. That interception was terrible. He took a sack he shouldn’t have taken by bailing on a clean pocket. There are a couple of misses. You probably remember those things are bad. And I’m not going to sit here and say that JJ McCarthy secretly had a good game or anything like that. No, it was not as a a good game by any stretch of the imagination. But in terms of like concerns I take away, the most consistent concern is that they couldn’t get the play calls in on time. And I don’t know whose fault that is. So, at the very worst, I can say there are some things that are maybe his fault, but that certainly does not elicit panic. And that’s very much an experience thing. That is a thing that only occurs in a high pressure of a game that counts. I don’t even think preseason really uh uh translates into that all that well. Yeah, you can you’re like running the huddle in the game day process a little bit, but it’s still like a dress rehearsal. It’s the the crowd’s not bumping, right? Like the the atmosphere isn’t quite the same. And I just kind of think that everything that did go wrong for McCarthy is the kind of thing that gets better with just a little bit of experience. Now, here’s the thing to maybe panic about, and this is what people are really panicking about, is that he’s now going to miss two to four more weeks with a high ankle sprain. He’s probably not going to be back till after the buy that game against Philadelphia. So, we’re about to watch Carson Wentz tour the AFC North here and go across the pond. Uh, and for some of us, we don’t think that that’s the first time that he’s been over there. If you know, you know, we maybe should keep him out of cursed Chinese restaurants or maybe put him back into a cursed Chinese restaurant, depending on how you believe the freaky Fridaying happened here. Um, but the point being, oh no, he’s going to miss more development time. I think this is one of those things where it’s really easy to feel like every day is four years of your life. Like, it’s super easy to just get lost in the moment. And you know, Philadelphia week 8 feels like it’s a 100 million miles away. This is not JJ McCarthy sitting out a whole year again. He’s not out for the season. They didn’t even put him on IR. Um and and they had to that that would have happened on Wednesday if they were going to do it. Um that means that they think that there’s at least an outside chance that he’s going to be ready before four games. And if they did put him on IR, he would be required to miss that game against Philadelphia. So, they’re at least like targeting that time for a return. And this is ultimately a short-term injury that they’re going to work through the best they can. I should also mention that um that injury the the was a the result of a hip drop tackle or at least something the Vikings are accusing of being a hip drop hip drop tackle. I I see the debatableness of it. For me, I would probably call it one and I think that that Falcons player is going to get fined for it if I had to guess. But if he doesn’t get fined for it, I certainly wouldn’t raise any eyebrows on that. It’s like a pretty borderline thing. But the Vikings did send the play to the NFL and it was commented on on the broadcast. I’ve seen some I’m going to say it pretty dumb people uh out there trying to garner your attention by coming up with a conspiracy theory about this that uh the the Vikings are like softly benching JJ McCarthy for for uh Carson Wentz. That would be a panic thing to do and that’s not what this is supposed to be about. This is supposed to be the patient development of a of a young quarterback. It’s it was always going to be like this a little bit and he just didn’t play benchably poorly enough. I just I just defy you to tell me how that’s worse than what so many other young quarterback so many other teams have stuck through with their young quarterbacks. I mean, they we saw so much worse from guys like Sam Darnold or or Zack Wilson in New York. We saw so much worse from Josh Allen for two years. I know he’s the one that, you know, you always cite, but we’ve seen a lot worse without guys getting uh benched. I think if you believe that, you just you need to change your sources of information. And I think if you’re hearing that a lot, you should really look at what those what else those people have tried to convince you is true in the last few uh few months because I think there are some people out there that don’t really have a beat on what the Vikings are doing. and maybe you should stop listening to them. But for me, it’s patience. We’ll have to be a little patient for a month now while he comes off of this high ankle sprain. And then when he’s back, we have to be a little bit patient still with the operation of everything. Maybe a month off to gather his thoughts, collect, reflect on what went wrong in that Atlanta game will be good. It’s a bad taste in his mouth for a while. He’s probably going to come out super fired up, but just to kind of have that moment to sort of take stock and process might be good for him. Um, but we’re still very much in the wait andsee place with JJ McCarthy. And when he plays, I will break it down in all kinds of detail for you right here on this show and on my Patreon page. But there’s other stuff to maybe panic or show patience about, including the depth. That’ll be next on Locked on Vikings. This episode is brought to you by Mazda’s moving the game forward. For those who believe it’s not just about playing the game, it’s about redefining it. There are moments that do more than just put points on the board. They move crowds, culture, and keep moving the games forward. And this week’s moment that moved the game forward goes to the entire Minnesota Vikings crowd at US Bank Stadium. If there was anybody that you could say had an unequivocally good day against the Atlanta Falcons, it is the crowd. There were so many pre- snap issues, false starts, Michael Penn literally saying, “I can’t hear.” And then having to take a delay a game and timeouts and stuff. That is the crowd having an outsized impact on the game. And if you are a longtime Everyday, you know my philosophy on this. If you are ever at a Vikings game and the other team gets a false start or has to take a timeout due to crowd noise, you get to say we forever. And I think even if you have never gone to a Vikings game, I’m still not going to judge you for saying like we when you talk about the Vikings. I I think that’s fine. But you’re just going to have a tougher time coming up with an argument for it. When you follow what moves you, the unexpected is only the beginning. And just like there’s more to every highlight, there’s more to a Mazda vehicle. Mazda, move and be moved. This episode is also brought to you by Game Time. If you’re trying to get into that crowd, NFL season is back. If you are trying to get there, that is what Game Time is for. It gives the advantage back to fans. Getting tickets can be a huge hassle between cues, login screens, and prices jumping at checkout. It can be super frustrating. But with the Game Time Guarantee, you will always get 100% authentic tickets delivered on time and at the best price. Plus, all fees are included. So, the price you see is the price you pay. I can personally speak to this. I did one time go on to Game Time, had an issue with my ticket. I was refunded in full before the event was even over and they helped get me uh point me in the right direction so I could get a better ticket and actually still get into the event on time. It was an amazing customer service experience. And that is not a story I’m making up. It happened to me in Jacksonville. Download the Game Time app, create an account, and use code locked on NFL for 20 bucks off of your first purchase. Terms apply. Again, that’s promo code L O C E D O N for $20 off. Swipe, tap, ticket, go download Game Time today. Moving on here with the Locked On Vikings podcast. Um, a little later in the show, we’re going to discuss the run game catastrophe and what I kind of blame that on and how much we’re panicking about it. But firstly, the we we should probably discuss this injury bug, right? Um, obvious the Vikings are dealing with a ton of concussions. Enough concussions have happened where I I wonder if we can start asking questions about like the helmets or something like that. Um, but it’s probably most likely just a factor of luck. Um, when it rains, it pours. It happens. Luck is streaky like that. But it’s not just that. It’s J.J. McCarthy’s ankle. It’s Aaron Jones’s hamstring. He goes on IR. The Vikings signed Cam Acres. By the way, you might have missed that because it came in the midst of the Vikings also signing Desmond Ritter to the active 53man roster to replace him uh to replace Aaron Jones’s roster spot and they’re not putting again not putting JJ McCarthy on IR. So, he does still occupy a roster spot while he’s out. He’ll just be inactive. Um but now Desmond Ritter is there. Um he is according to I think Andrew Kramer of Star Tribune uh he’s going to be the third the emergency third. So the depth chart will be Carson Wentz, Max Bromer as the backup and then Desmond Ritter as the emergency third. They just wanted an emergency third in there. But we’re getting down to it and we we’ve had depth issues that we’ve been talking about here and and a lot more on the squad show on the Vikings squad show during the preseason when preseason games were going poorly and we’re going, “Oh my god, do we have a depth issue?” Um and and now that depth is getting tested a lot with Ryan Kelly in the in the concussion protocol plus dealing with a toe injury. Anyways, um Michael Jurgens said to play, Walter Rouse said to play with Justin School in the Concussion Protocol. If if Christian Darasaw doesn’t come back, which who knows what the deal is with that? If Darasaw doesn’t come back, now suddenly you’re thinking about making his debut abroad, right? Oh, in a in an Ireland and London double header trip, which is just logistically a difficult thing to pull off for like the medical staff and not an ideal situation. I think the Vikings were hoping they could avoid that, but we don’t know where that’s at. So, you could have Rouse and Jurgens playing right now. Um, next to Will Fry, Brian O’Neal, and Donovan Jackson, and that’s your O line. And I think Donovan Jackson’s the only one who doesn’t have an extensive injury history that that would raise concerns or have concerns because he’s just like a young Well, I mean, they’re all young players, right? You got either you’re it’s either a first or second year player or a guy with an injury history. That’s the O line right now. Um, not to mention CJ Ham still on IR. The the injury bug has hit the Vikings really, really bad. I would not blame you if you were panicking over this. And I think the Vikings have kind of clicked a bit of a panic button. They’re they’re bringing back old friends, right? This is the second time this year. It’s only week two and they’ve already brought back like a guy they remembered from the roster before in Cam Acres. They did the the Adam Thelen thing because of Jordan Addison suspension and Jaylen Naylor’s uh injury which turned out has turned out to not be that big of a deal at all. Naylor makes a great catch on week two. He’s been playing fantastically. Maybe he’s the only other guy I would give I would say is like had had an unequivocally good day. He was just open all the time and he could have had he could have six touchdowns by now if the offense was working up front the way it was supposed to. But there is just a lot going on. there there was a big deluge of news and you might have missed something. So so hopefully that catches you up. Um but the reason it’s panic and not patience is there is nothing anyone can do about this. That’s the frustrating thing about injuries. You can take additional injury risk, which the Vikings very much have. Um, I I didn’t think that would be as controversial of a take as I thought it was when I did the show earlier uh in in the week leading up to the season opener when I did the like everything that can go wrong, the 100% negative show to kind of pair with my 100% positive show. And the injury part was part of that that has really made people react strongly, but like it was a valid concern. They basically found every single opportunity they could in free agency to get a player who was cost whose cost was depressed because they were coming off of an injury. The reason that cost is depressed when you’re coming off of an injury is because you are incurring additional risk. So they just grabbed risky prospect after risky prospect after risky prospect after risky prospect and now they’re dealing with an injury bug. It’s a little bit bad faith of me to go there because it’s not fully lining up, right? Um, but like Ryan Kelly did have a concussion history. He has a concussion again. Blake Cashman has an extensive injury history. Now he’s hurt and he’s on IR. Aaron Jones extensive injury history. Now he’s on IR. Relying on these players does like it was a risky move and they’re getting punished for it. So, I don’t feel super comfortable doing what I usually do when an injury bug bites a team and go, “Ah, bad luck. Get them next year.” It’s like when it happens to the 49ers, right? You don’t go, “Oh, wow. Bad luck for you guys.” You’re going, “Yeah, man. That’s what Christian McCaffrey is made of and what George KD is made of. Those guys are always hurt. Of course, somebody’s hurt over there in San Francisco.” I feel like the Vikings have have sort of painted themselves into that same corner. But at this juncture, you cannot do anything about it. you simply have to wait, which is something that frustrates NFL players a lot when we do the everyman series or the parts of the everyman series that we did this summer. I didn’t finish it this summer, but um when we do that, so many of the chapters of those stories are like the greatest adversity that these players would tell you if you said, “What’s the hardest thing you’d ever done?” A lot of them would tell you it’s rehabbing from an injury because you can’t outwork your injury. You can’t put in a little bit of extra if you’re struggling with the playbook. You can burn the candle at both ends, right? If you got a drops issue, you can go at the Jugs machine and catch a thousand balls after practice. If you’re injured, you can’t and in fact should not put in extra work. You have to just wait. You have to be patient. You have to do an hour of stretches a day and that’s like all the progress you can make. And it’s painstaking and it’s slow and it requires a patience that a lot of these athletes have never had to exhibit in their lives. And in fact, being in a constant hurry to get a little better, to put a little more in is kind of what gets them there in the first place. And now they have to fight that instinct. It’s really, really difficult. And all these players are going through that right now. Some guys have gone through it a lot like Aaron Jones and Blake Cashman. It’s probably not affecting them emotionally the same way, but like if you watch the receiver show that Netflix put out last year and listen to uh Justin Jefferson talk about the hamstring injury he recovered from in 2023. Yeah, man. That’s really rough. He had a tough time with that. That really bothered him that he couldn’t be out there. So, I guess it’s a mix of panic and patience. Patience is what you need, but as fans, there is no solution to this. We simply just have to watch the house burn. I don’t know if you’re panicking about that anymore. It has already happened. But now we have to worry about Michael Jurgens and Walter Rouse and Eric Wilson and uh you know Jay Ward because Jeff Okudoot is in the concussion protocol. So we got to see more Jay Ward. We have to worry about a lot of these depth players we weren’t super excited about getting a lot of time and getting picked on. To me that falls more in the category of panic than patience. Speaking of Eric Wilson, let’s talk about what happened to the run defense and just how concerned we are about that moving forward. That’ll be next on Lockdown Vikings. Today’s episode of Lockdown Vikings is brought to you by FanDuel. The season is underway and FanDuel is making sure you’re ready for kickoff with the can’t miss offer. Right now, new customers can bet just $5 and if your bet wins, you get $300 in bonus bets to use across the app. You can find anything right now. You can find the Vikings minus three, the Bengals plus three. You can do an emotional hedge, right? Take that Bengals money line and then if the Vikings lose, at least you made a buck on it. That is something that I will never begrudge you. Okay? You do you. And that’s between you and your mirror. But whatever it is, put five bucks on like an overwhelming favorite or something you’re super super confident in. And if that that bet wins, you can get $300 in bonus bets to use across the app. So if you’re ready to play, download the FanDuel app right now by visiting fanduel.com to get started. Once again, that is fanduel.com to place your first $5 bet. Moving along with the Lockdown Vikings podcast. I just released a or I’m about to release a Patreon video, depending on when you’re listening to this. It’s probably out when you’re done with this. It releases like an hour after this show releases. A video about the run defense and what went wrong. Um the the Falcons put up over 200 yards rushing. They got a bunch of explosive plays. what happened on those explosive plays. And much like the protection thing that I also did on that Patreon page, every play has its own culprit. Everything is different. It’s never the same exact thing every single time. But there are a few things that crop up kind of over and over and over again. And those are the things that I feel a little bit like panicking about. Those are the things that I feel like this isn’t just going to resolve itself over time. This isn’t going to be a thing that you can stay the course and expect to get better. With JJ McCarthy, I do kind of feel like you can stay the course and expect that to get better as long as everybody’s doing what they’re supposed to be doing. With the run defense, I don’t really feel that way. Blake Cashman’s got a hamstring strain that could keep him out two full months. He could he could not be back until like Thanksgiving. He’s going to be out a while. And you’re going to have to find a way to stop heavy rushing teams in the meantime. You got the Ravens and the Eagles coming to town. You got to figure out how to beat teams like the Lions and the Packers that have good rushing games. You’re going to have to figure out how to stop the run. This is not the last time this will happen to you if the Vikings don’t figure it out. And the problem is what I determined to be the cause of it are things that are not just easily like solved without incurring another cost. Let me explain. One of the most glaring issues in this game was Jayvon Hargrave. Jayvon Hargrave who had an fantastic start to week two or to week one had an absolute blowout loss in week two and was at fault in a lot of these. If you notice that Bejian Robinson had a lot of space and Tyler Algier I guess sometimes too had a lot of space. They had a lot of room to work with and it makes it really hard for somebody like Ivan Pace when he fills the correct gap and he’s there. But if that gap is so huge, it gives Bjan Robinson a chance to juke to um set something up, to cut back. There’s all kinds of space for him to just work in the open. It’s like getting the ball in the flat because of all that space. Why is there all that space? Because your Dtackles can’t hold their spot. When you take on a double, you cannot get sledded bad back five yards. I know it’s twoon-one and that does give you some kind of a numbers advantage, right? But if you’re getting sledded back at will, you lose that numbers advantage because it becomes really easy for the other lineman to peel off and take a linebacker. They took you to the linebacker. This happened to Jayvon Hargrave several times against Atlanta. He would get blown off the ball so hard that he would be walked into Eric Wilson or Ivan Pace’s lap and then the lineman doesn’t have whoever’s peeling off of that double team to go get the linebacker doesn’t have to actually climb at all. He is already there. You have to hold your ground better than that in the NFL. Simply unacceptable to have that happen as often as it happened to Jayvon Hargrave. And when it wasn’t doubles, he was getting sledded one-on-one by the likes of Chris Chris Lindström a lot. Chris Lindstöm absolutely smoked him on my live watch. I thought it was the center. That was another case of me just kind of getting that mixed up because it’s just hard to tell who’s who sometimes on the broadcast angle, but when you can slow things down and look at the tape, no, it’s it’s Chris Lindström, which makes a lot more sense. That’s a good guard. But, uh, it was a blowout. you you just cannot let a a a halfway decent guard do that to you when you’re supposed to be this like improved Dline. And I don’t think Jonathan Allen had much of a better day. It’s just that Hargrave had such an explosively bad one that it kind of distracted me from everything else. That said, you had tackling issues from the linebackers. I would bring up um Eric Wilson and Ivan Pace for different reasons. Ivan Pace was in the backfield a lot. He was in the right place a lot. he just could never finish. He was just always a step behind and then he was arm tackling. He’s just not big enough to do that. And there were definitely times when he was just the the size of Ivan Pace was just an insurmountable problem. And it’s the reason that you look at Ivan Pace is somebody that eventually they’re going to want to upgrade on. Um I I don’t think they ever need to be in a hurry to do that, but I’m not giving him a four-year extension at at this juncture in his career and saying you’re our guy for for the rest of time. I think this is somebody that plays out. You give him the tender. He’s he’s great for a guy who is cheap, but I don’t really love it if he gets expensive. And I don’t think that that’s something that is cured with development. I think it’s just a thing where you’re a little bit too small to play this position long term. That’s why you went undrafted and it still absolutely rears its ugly head sometimes. Eric Wilson had a different issue. Eric Wilson and Bejon Robinson were playing a little bit of a of a game of chicken the whole game when um I I described in the Patreon video a system called Stack Track Fall back. It’s like a runfit rule set. It’s like a principle in in in run defense where um you want to basically stack yourself on top of the defensive lineman. You basically want to be you want to place whatever the dtackle in front of you. You want to place yourself so that he’s directly between you and the running back. Track that as the as the run goes horizontally and then if he cuts back, you fall back into it. Stack, track, fall back. Right? And the problem is a lot of running backs of course know this rule and the good ones will love to give a quick head fake as though they are cutting back to see if they can get that linebacker to jump out of position. Eric Wilson did it like every time and then be Robinson was there up through Eric Wilson’s gap. So both those guys had pretty bad games. I would say Eric Wilson’s problem happened more often and was more annoying than Ivan Pac’s which was man you really blew stuff up and if our DTackle wasn’t getting the blown to smitherreens right now this actually probably would have been a TFL but now you have to make an open field tackle on your own and you couldn’t do that against Robinson. It’s like a lot easier to not be mad about that than it is for Eric Wilson. But Eric Wilson’s a backup too and he’s a backup for a reason. Um, elsewhere I I guess I should bring up Dallas Turner, who I thought had a perfectly adequate game. Um, I think he was in in his spot. He won enough of the reps. He got enough of the knock back that you really want to ruin the angles. It just turned out to be such a moot point cuz other guys were taking such bad L’s that it never really came up. There were a couple times where he got a little bit caught inside. He got caught thinking and hesitating a little bit and then they got managed to jump around him and get an explosive. So, he is not free of sin by any stretch of the imagination, but he was far from the problem. Um, and and I don’t really walk away like concerned, but I walk away concerned about Jayvon Hargrave and Jonathan Allen. And I walk away concerned about the general lack of beef here. We’ve got two small linebackers, two small defensive tackles. If I am a physical team at all, and there are two pretty gosh darn physical teams in the division. If I am that at all, I am running this thing up the gut constantly. and forcing these guys to take on doubles. I am bringing in extra tight ends. I’m bringing in fullbacks and stuff so that they cannot split my double teams and I’m saying Jayvon Hardrave, you have to take on this double or I’m going to run it down your throat all day long. And I just don’t think the Vikings have an answer to that. To me, that’s a panic. That is they need to solve this problem. They need to go back in time and undo their Harrison Phillips trade or do something like that. They need somebody with sand in their pants. Maybe that means more Taki Tymani reps, but they need to make a decision. They need to make a change. They need to do something different with their fronts. they need to try something because that is absolutely a repeatable outcome that run defense issue. Um, I will leave you with this. I I didn’t really set a lot set aside a lot of time to talk about it. However, the coverage was really nice and that is something that I was super concerned about coming into the season and it has um they they they’ve done a really good job. Look, he’s hiding the corners and there’s a lot of open zones especially when they blitz and that’s the Brian Flores thing. there’s holes in the zone and that is going to be exploitable later. I’m still very much like keeping an eye on that as a concern. But for what the players were asked to do, they did it well. And so from a gametoame perspective, it’s pretty hard to criticize that. Um I will talk to you tomorrow. We have a crossover with James Rapin of Locked on Bengals. It is I already recorded it. It is messed up, man. We are two very unhappy people talking about Jake Browning and Carson Wentz. It’s very fun. And then on Friday, we’ll do all of our game preview stuff as normal. I’ll see you all for that. And as always, school.

Let’s play a game I’ve loved since I was a kid watching NFL Network debate Mark Sanchez and Derek Anderson. Should we panic or show patience about some of the Minnesota Vikings’ biggest issues?

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Upside
Don’t let this offer drive on by, download the free Upside app now using my limited time promo code TOUCHDOWN for a limited time 25 cent per gallon bonus! Offers vary by user and location, Go to upside.com for terms and conditions.
Click Here to download the app: https://getupside.onelink.me/zlLr?af_xp=custom&pid=barrington&c=barrington_lockedon25&deep_link_value=promo&deep_link_sub1=lockedon25&af_dp=upsideapp%3A%2F%2F

Square
To learn more, go support your favorite neighborhood spot and see what Square has been up to in your neck of the woods. And then if you have extra time, check out https://square.com/go/lockedonnfl.

PrizePicks
Download the PrizePicks app today and use code LOCKEDONNFL to get $50 in lineups after you play your first $5 lineup.

Gametime
Download the Gametime app, create an account, and use code LOCKEDONNFL for $20 off your first purchase. Terms apply. Download Gametime today. What time is it? Gametime.

FanDuel
Right now, new customers can bet just FIVE dollars and if your bet wins—you’ll get THREE HUNDRED dollars in bonus bets to use across the app.

FANDUEL DISCLAIMER: 21+ in select states. First online real money wager only. Bonus issued as nonwithdrawable free bets that expires in 14 days. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit FanDuel.com/RG (CO, IA, MD, MI, NJ, PA, IL, VA, WV), 1-800-NEXT-STEP or text NEXTSTEP to 53342 (AZ), 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat (CT), 1-800-9-WITH-IT (IN), 1-800-522-4700 (WY, KS) or visit ksgamblinghelp.com (KS), 1-877-770-STOP (LA), 1-877-8-HOPENY or text HOPENY (467369) (NY), TN REDLINE 1-800-889-9789 (TN)

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Zoever/Under Art by KDominiqueArt