J.J. McCarthy RETURNS To Practice & The Rubber Meets The Road

J.J. McCarthy RETURNS To Practice & The Rubber Meets The Road

As the Vikings return to practice this week, they’re going to look a lot healthier, which means it’s time to make some decisions about who’s playing where. Welcome to the Locked On Vikings podcast. You are Locked On Vikings, your daily Minnesota Vikings podcast, part of the Locked On Network, your team every day. Hey 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 and thank you so much for making locked on Vikings your first listen of the day every single day. I appreciate my hashtag everydayers so very much. Today is town hall Tuesday, which means I am going to answer your questions as submitted to me via the Google form, which you can find in the description to any episode, as well as some of the hot takes that you can submit via that same form anonymously, and I’ll react to them on the show. We’ll do that near the end. Today’s episode is brought to you by FanDuel. Right now, new customers can bet just $5, and if your bet wins, you get $300 in bonus bets to use across the app. The first question I’m going to take today comes from KC Hates JJ. who asks, “Now that KOC has confirmed that JJ is being softbenched for the season and has once again refused to commit to him ever starting another game ever, who should the Vikings target to be their 2026 keyb?” Okay, so I know you’re asking this faciciously, but I started with it because it brings up the topic. Um, so a lot of Vikings appear to be returning to practice. The Vikings look like they’re going to get Donovan Jackson back. They’ve opened Blake Cashman’s 21-day IR window, so he will be back in the next three weeks. If he’s not, that means there was a setback. and he goes on season ending IR. So, should be the next three weeks. Um, both quarterbacks that have played for the Vikings, JJ McCarthy and Carson Wentz, uh, are ready to practice. They participated in whatever they did on Monday. It wasn’t a full practice and there won’t there isn’t a practice report for it. So, we don’t get full injury designations. Um, but they’ll be ready to go. Both of those guys will be ready to go on Wednesday. Um, I feel like there’s another one. Oh, Brian O’Neal. Also, they’re getting some optimistic look at at his ability to return. Obviously, you’re hoping Harrison Smith and uh Christian Darasaw can be off of pitch counts now that they’ve had a by-week to kind of rest and relax. There is I think something else I’m forgetting too, but there is a lot. Um, Andrew Van Ginkle is the other one. Not as rosy of an outlook. Kevin Oonnell still doesn’t really have a great timeline on him. It’s a neck injury. Those can be really nasty. So, we’ll keep an eye on that. Um, but suffice to say, the Vikings are going back into this the vision that they were supposed to be this year, and we’ve never really seen that yet. We had too many people missing from the get-go, and it kind of only got worse, and the by-week came at a really important time, and we’re getting the expected result on the other end of that. But, there were a lot of questions about whether or not McCarthy would play. what goes into that, what they expect from McCarthy, how’s the development going? And Okonnell actually had a few interesting things to say. Inexplicably to me, I’m hearing people interpret his comments as Carson Wentz is going to start and JJ McCarthy’s like softbenched. And I think it’s because maybe like it’s because they they talked a lot about development and how on the by-week they didn’t really con uh they they didn’t really focus on anything but like lower body mechanics um and building that foundation and kind of that that like resetting that before we can get back on the field and get to what Kevin Oonnell called real practice reps. Well, yeah, there’s no game to prepare for on the by-week. I don’t know if you knew that. they didn’t have a game plan for week six um to focus on so they could focus on mechanics as though it’s an offseason uh practice session which is a a pretty good opportunity and Okonnell did also mention like McCarthy hasn’t practiced but once since they left Chicago. There was a walkthrough uh practice he missed because of his kid and then the one practice that he actually participated in was the Friday before the Atlanta game. So they they that’s it. So they kind of got a chance to to resume that and he was he was like really happy, you know, he there was a lot of work. You started to hit a lot of throws. You started to kind of get back into the rhythm of things and sort of re align what you’re trying to accomplish. Um, we will see how the practice works out. I’m sure the media will be watching it like a hawk. Who’s he taking reps from and stuff, but it’s also unclear who’s going to play center. It’s not Ryan Kelly. He’s still on IR. Is Michael Jurgens going to be back? Is it going to be Blake Brandle again? Who’s McCarthy taking reps from? Who’s taking snaps from? Who’s Carson’s taking snaps from? I’m sure they’ll all be watching it like a Hawk. But what I heard with Okonnell who said, you know, I’m not ready to put a percentage on it with JJ McCarthy’s health on if he’s going to be able to play. I don’t see how you can watch that presser. And the answers are all too long for me to like just cut to them. It would that would be the whole show. But go watch it. Go watch the Kevin Oonnell pressure. Don’t read the tweet. Don’t read the quote that the excerpt that some rage baiter put in his forward fan blog article. Um, go watch it. Listen to his inflection, his tone, the way he talks, and tell me that this is anything but injury. I don’t know. that still feels like an an injury plan and uh a a a coach that really wants to get going with the with the plan that they’ve had the whole time that they’ve been in Minnesota, which is to develop a young quarterback and to get this guy going. Um Greg asks, “At what point does it make sense to keep getting by with Wentz and finding continuity with the whole offense, including JJ? realistically to be at our best when a possible playoff run comes, don’t we have to bite the bullet and see what we have as planned? Um, yeah, this is like the kind of the main crux of the argument that at least the one the like the debate that I’ve had with the Reef on the Squad show about Carson Wentz and JJ McCarthy, which is about like, well, what what’s the tugof-war between like the best version of the offense and the thing that’s best for the team long term, which is of course developing McCarthy, right? the more you start Carson Wentz, the more developmental reps that could go to McCarthy you’re wasting, right? Um, I’m not as persuaded by that latter point. I I do think it’s about finding I I’ve said finding the best offense of the season. What makes you the best by the time you’re you’re playing the games that will decide whether you get in the playoffs, which happen in December, right? What get what makes you the best version of yourself there? You’re three and two right now. You’re right in the thick of things, right? Um, and I think once you get into December, if you’re still just like bumbling along with whatever you can cobble together with Carson Wentz and hoping that the other team is stupid and plays Justin Jefferson in man coverage all the time, uh, which is what Cleveland did. Like if if you’re going to do that all day, um, then I guess we can just like continue to get lucky and any quarterback will work. But the best version of the Vikings is the one where they figure out how to get JJ McCarthy and his far superior athleticism going. I think we can all agree on that and they should probably pursue that. That’s kind of where I’m at. But if you’re you’re asking at what point does it make sense to keep just getting by with Wentz and it is the point where JJ McCarthy just clearly still is not ready to be an NFL quarterback. Um, and you basically you have to look at those two first games and say all the bad things that happened on offense were like squarely on him. He couldn’t get the play in the huddle. He couldn’t make the throws. He didn’t know the reads. He didn’t know. You have to like say all those things. I don’t think you can prove all those things to be right. But assume that they were true and that internally, you know, the coaches are watching this guy totally drown and not know what to do and not be able to relay the play calls and are, you know, rolling their eyes and going, “Oh, brother, we’re we’re in trouble here.” And then over the last, you know, calendar month that McCarthy’s been out, it just hasn’t gotten better. He still can’t do the play call. You would have to have situations like the ones that like Ty Dunn uh described in his like Caleb Williams piece about how Caleb Williams in his rookie year just like couldn’t figure out the play calls. He just couldn’t relay them properly and he got words wrong in the huddle all the time. Um, by the way, there’s one really mad Bears fan, hate watching Bears fan, that um submits questions every week the Bears win that are that are like, “Are you ready to admit you were wrong about Caleb Williams?” Uh, I got three from you this time, buddy. I’m not going to read them, but I will say you probably should have waited till after the game and not sent a whole bunch of stuff in the first quarter, man. uh that you maybe maybe you want to hold off on it a little bit until you’re very very sure the Bears are going to win because that got a little dicey for you. Um anyways, the point is do you have to bite the bullet and see what we have as planned? I I don’t see a world where Kevin Oonnell doesn’t try to put this all on the field now that everybody’s healthy, now that Addison is off his suspension. Christian Darasaw hopefully is off of a pitch count. You get Jackson back. Hopefully O’Neal is back soon if not this week. put J.J. McCarthy in that world. And if he ruins that because he just can’t do the thing, all right, you blew it. You got to just figure out how to make this a sort of sensible offense and a and maybe, you know, put him in rice until and and try another offseason and see if it’s over again. But but if that’s the case, but and that’s what’s happening year two after a whole year of only focusing on the mental, it’s probably over. and you’re probably will leving this and going right back into the market and saying, “All right, well, what’s this LSU quarterback look like?” Right? Like, we’re probably going right back into it if that’s the case. But I don’t think you go right back into it while just holding McCarthy on the bench. Um, that would be pretty bad. And I think a lot of people would start losing their jobs if that was the the path the Vikings took. Uh, Kevin McDermott’s Pinky says, “You talked a lot on the show about how we need to see improvement from J.J. McCarthy. Can you quantify what that would look like? Quantify? Probably not. You’re not going to hear me say, “Well, I think he needs to have 235 yards because that’s the threshold for No. Uh or, you know, this many yards per attempter. This is the EPA.” Uh, no. I’m not going to quantify. But what I will say, I’ll I’ll try to I’ll try to qualify it. I think qualifying it is good. You want to see the feet married to the eyes a little better. I want to see between downs, you know, between the whistle and the next snap. I want to see things move a little faster. Um, they still aren’t moving fast enough even with Carson Wentz. So, I know not all of that is on McCarthy, but you still want to see that operation work a little better. Uh, and you want to see him go through his reads with the proper timing. Sometimes he was too slow, sometimes he was too fast. I want to see that dial in a little bit. What that turns into offense-wise and how many stats it gets is up to a whole bunch of other people. But in terms of evaluating McCarthy, those are the things I’m keeping an eye on. You guys sent me a lot of run defense questions and some other miscellaneous stuff and also your hot takes, so we have quite a bit to get to next on Locked on Vikings. Today’s episode of Locked On Vikings is brought to you by Built. If you pay rent, you probably don’t like paying rent, but you got to do what you got to do, and you might as well get something out of it. That is where Built comes in. Built is changing the game by turning your rent payment into real rewards that you can actually use. When you use Built to pay your rent, you can earn flexible points that can be redeemed toward hotels, airlines, a lift, ride, even future rent payments, and more. But it’s not just about rent. It’s about rewarding you around your entire neighborhood. Paying your rent finally works for you, and it doesn’t feel like that money is just going into a pit of somebody else’s wallet, never to be seen again. 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I wrote a whole article over at wideleft about it and I’m going to do a a show tomorrow with a lot of talk about the sort of the conclusions from those projects and what I’ve learned. I’m going to tell you about tomorrow on the show. But if you want to know in a lot of detail and see me show my work, you can go check those things out. Okay, let’s move on to the next questions. Uh, the next one comes from Run Defense Enthusiast who asks, “Hindsight is 2020, but how much better would the run defense be if the Vikings had not signed Jayvon Hargrave and opted to keep Harrison Phillips instead? Additionally, how much worse would the pass defense be?” I mean, that’s the bet that they made, right? Um I I think the pass rush between Harrison Phillips and Jonathan Bullard last year never ever getting interior pressure was a huge problem that probably cost the Viking like you you could probably give that a pretty good percentage of the blame pie for why the Vikings season went belly up at the end because they couldn’t get interior pressure and that just made it way too easy for offenses to hit them over the middle when they had to send blitzes because that was the only way they could get quick pressure. The edges win but that takes time, right? But they did have a much better run defense and the run defense is pretty bad. So they basic basically just flipped those two in my in my idea. Um I think for me the hindsight thing is I wish they hadn’t trade traded Harrison Phillips away. That’s my hindsight thing. And and I think I said at the time I was like I kind of get it but like I think this is a really weird move. I guess we’ll see what their plan is. And their plan was be bad at run defense. So I I just think they shouldn’t have done that. they they should have just kind of taken their lumps and maybe they would have to cut a player that they think is pretty good. You know, lose Taki Taiani to another organization or they you know maybe they’re going to have to cut it’s ah well shoot you know Elijah Williams we can’t keep you in the building. I’m sorry and keep Harrison Phillips instead. They were probably going to cut him at the end of the year um as a cap casualty and I think making this trade part is partially that where they already knew they they weren’t going to use this the last year of team control. So, they’re only trading this year away, which is the only one to use this year and cut him at the end of next year. I think that just should have happened. Um, and then keep Jayvon Hargrave also. I think they could have had their cake and eaten it too here. But you’re right, hindsight is totally 2020. We are where we are now, and they have to figure out how to keep up with some really nasty run games, starting with the Eagles, who are pretty famous for it, even though they’re in a weird slump right now. Um, Diamonic has a question about this. After the last few games of run defense po going poorly and the upcoming gauntlet of seemingly run first runheavy offenses, is it time to bring in Taki Taiani off the practice squad? I super expect this to happen. Yeah. Uh, I I think you’re going to I mean, you’ve already seen one elevation, I think, from Taiani. Correct me if I’m wrong there. So, eventually he’s going to have to be elevated to the 53man roster. I think that will happen at some point this season, probably soon. Is um I think that means there’s two elevations left. So, they can activate him twice without putting him on the roster and then they’ll probably put him on after that. But, yes, I do think that that should be part of this. Um, Elijah Williams is playing, he looks like he’s playing a lot bigger than the the weight he is listed at. I think that’s an error. So, Elijah Williams could also be part of this, but like those are not the starting zero tech Vince Wilforks, right? Like those are rotational guys at best that are coming in off the practice squad. So, I I think you’re still in in a weird spot, but I I will be watching the defensive tackle rotation um pretty strongly. And I I want to count it by drives, not by necessarily snaps. Um how many times do Allen and Hargrave come off the field and get replaced by Redmond and Levi Drake Rodriguez? In the Cleveland game, those four guys all had about the same snap count. It was like 5050 for those guys which makes me wonder is Jayvon Hargrave and and and to a lesser extent Allen but Harrave and Redmond like Redmond might be emerging as more of a trustworthy player. Um certainly doesn’t match the resource allocation but these things happen. um that could happen and then Taki Tymani maybe helps you especially in those third and one situations where uh it’s it’s really really hard to stop especially a team by like the Eagles but everybody’s going to be able to sneak it on you because they know they’re just bigger. Um Billy Bob Borton says Mai Blackman has been the topic of the Vikings Twitter convo for the last two weeks since he in my opinion lucked into two picks. this is being held against Quay because he chose Okuda instead. Am I crazy for seeing this still as a wash of a trade? I don’t think I super agree with you. Um I I do think that there is again I I think they overcooked this a little bit. Um I I looked at So I haven’t watched the Colts really at all. I know they’re like the story of the league, but I they just for whatever reason they just haven’t really been on my radar. Um probably because they play simultaneously with the Vikings a lot, so it’s hard to catch up catch up with what they’re doing. But the the boy are they just like the team o sour grapes if you’re a Vikings fan, huh? If you just want to be real mad about guys that aren’t Vikings anymore, they got like Daniel Jones, they got Cam Binham doing the worm in the end zone again. Uh they got, you know, Mai Blackman’s got a couple picks. I did go look at the two picks you’re talking about. I wouldn’t call them luck. The first one is a pretty good play. I it looked to me like it was cover two and he like jumped a route that was breaking in. That’s a pretty hard play to make. I I think that it’s a really nice play uh as an outside corner, by the way. And then the second one, you could say I I don’t know who 20 is on the Colts, but Colt the I would credit that pick to him as much as I would to Blackman. The it was like supposed to be a glance, but 20 contacted the receiver, broke it up, but the the the pass was already gone, so it just landed right in Blackman’s lap. Um, right place, right time for sure, but you still got to make the play. But what I would probably caution against is looking at that and then being like, “Oh, Mai Blackman is having one of the best seasons in the league. Oh, wo is us. They let us go.” And and can I just really quick, okay, can I rant? Can I just say something without everybody getting super mad? Um, Vikings fans, stop trying to get people to feel sorry for you because you’re a Vikings fan. Okay, I’ve heard enough of this. I’ve heard this for years. Oh god, woe is me. Look at Stefon Dixs. He’s playing so well on the other team. Oh, look at Oh my Get Somebody get my fainting couch. Yeah, man. Players leave. It happens. Guess what? The Eagles are probably super pissed off about Isaiah Rogers, too, the other way. It happens always. And and Howie Roseman’s one of the most respected GMs in the league. And it happens to him, too. Happens all over the place. All right, we can critique and say, “Hey, that probably wasn’t that smart of a decision. I I think you maybe wish you you had kept him in there.” Um, we walked into camp with a battle between Okuda and Blackman and it just seemed like they never really thought Blackman was close to Okuda. I don’t think they were correct about that. Um, but they also walked in with the intention of running a whole bunch of safeties and the Colts don’t have that intention. So, Blackman was worth a little bit more to them. Um, I think it’s okay to critique that move and say that that was probably bad. where you lose me is where you go and therefore Quay should have never gotten the job like whoa whoa whoa what is or when you start just begging people to feel bad for you because wo is me oh I didn’t have the guy on my team this year and look he did the if you think about it just like by the draft we do this all the time with like oh they picked a player and then five picks later this guy happened well the Vikings will pick on average seven times a year right once a round the five picks after those guys that’s 35 players a here, right? That’s a seventh of the draft. That’s a seventh of the league. So, some where in the seven that seventh of the league for everybody, no matter how good they are at the draft, there will be somebody good. And to woe is me about it is not unique to you. You are not special. You are not a snowflake. You are a football fan that roots for a team. And other people get to have good players, too. It’s just what it is. I got some hot takes to get to. We’ll get to those next on Locked on Vikings. This episode of Locked On Vikings is brought to you by FanDuel, America’s number one sports book. We are back. The bye-week is over and we’re back in uh the the swing of getting some of your gramles out there. And if you want to get started, if you haven’t gotten started yet, you can go to FanDuel. Now, the Eagles are favored by a mere two and a half points. If you think that maybe the Vikings should be favored because they’re at home, you think that’s super low on them. Or if you think the Eagles should be favored by way more because you think the Vikings are a disaster, whatever it is, put a little bit of money where your mouth is, of course. And you can do that at FanDuel. Right now, new customers can bet just $5 and get 300 bucks in bonus bets if you win. That’s right. Pick a bet. Put down five bucks. And if it hits, you’ll unlock $300 in bonus bets to use across the app. For example, you could pick the Eagles money line. It’s minus 142. Not a lot of juice, but assuming the Eagles win, you would get your 500, your $300 in bonus bets. Or you could do an even more extreme version of that with like the Kansas City Chiefs money line. It’s minus 700 over the Raiders. But assuming that actually happens, you would get 300 bucks in bonus bets. Visit fanuel.com to download the FanDuel app today and get started. It’s hot take time here on the Lockdown Vikings podcast. You send me hot takes, I protect your anonymity, and I will react to them as I see fit. The first one comes from uh Mr. C, who says, “If JJ had started the last three games, the Vikings would also have gone two and one.” I don’t know if that’s that hot a take. Um I mean, they would have anybody wins the Bengals game, right? Then going one and one in those Browns and Steelers games. It’s like the the level that Wentz has played at, which I guess is subject of a lot of debate. I don’t think it was very good. Um, statistically, there’s this really funny thing. So, if you go to RBSDM, which is Ben Baldwin’s website, he’s like a stats guy, and and I use his website for like quarterback stats a lot, and he has Carson Wentz 12th in EPA, or at least it was before week six. 12th in EPA over the stretch that he played. Okay. Right. That sounds really good, right? And then Ben Baldwin himself posts like an adjusted EPA for quarterback’s thing that adjusts for, you know, uh, screens or like kind of automatic passes and and I think it makes a play action adjustment and pressure and all that stuff. And Wentz falls to 26th in that. Uh, so I don’t know what adjustments Ben is making, but whatever they are, whatever he thinks is stuff that we shouldn’t credit to the quarterback. Remove that and 12th turns into 26th. Um, so all you got to do is beat whatever threshold you think that is or at least match it and you go two and one. I don’t think it’s a hot take to say that JJ McCarthy could have done that, even though I know the Atlanta game went really, really, really bad. But you kind of have to think he’s Nathan Peterman to think that it would have continued. Um, Wampmp Wamp says, “The decision to pass on Darnold in favor of JJ is going to be viewed as disastrous as any other decision in Vikings history. Barring the Hershel Walker trade, it will be seen as just as horrible as the ponder pick, possibly worth considering how good Darnold has been.” I think we’re way too desperate to have a Johnny Flynn for the Vikings. I really do. I hear this stuff all the time with players who leave, right? I mean, we just did the thing with with Mai Blackbin. Um, it’s it’s hard to do it with Diggs cuz it comes stapled to the Justin Jefferson joy, so people didn’t really do that even, but like I we did this with Xavier Rhodess when he got one interception in Indianapolis uh and played largely a cover two role before just kind of aging out of the league. We did this with Case Keenum when he played in Denver. We did this with Sam Bradford when he had one good game in Arizona before his knee fell apart again. Um, we’ve done this with we did this with Dante Co Pepper when he was in Oakland. I mean, like for my whole life I’ve been hearing about how the next guy that you know the the most recent whoever the most recent guy is that left the Vikings is uh going to be the next big thing and we’re going to be so upset that we got rid of him. Um, and it’s just this is not your Chargers Drew Brees, okay? It’s just kind of never is. And so people have just cried wolf on this too much that I’m just never going to believe it until it’s so abundantly clear that we already have the benefit of hindsight. We’re looking back and and everyone agrees on it like we would with Breeze. Now next one comes from a gram of uncertainty who says my hot take is that the Vikings will not have a decisive answer at QB for the remainder of the season. I.e. Wentz will play a few games to make sure McCarthy is healed. McCarthy will come in and play well a bit and not great then have a bad performance get replaced with Wentz and so on back and forth until the Vikings somehow make the postseason. Uh that would certainly be a very 2013 way to do things or more like a 2008 way to do things. That’s the vibe, right? where you have Trevveris Jackson and he starts out and they were what two- one when they when he went down or they were one and two when Travaris Jackson got hurt and then the backup comes in and goes 8 and three and then Jackson comes back after he’s healthy and and Far goes to the bench and they’re like whatever and then Traver plays a postseason game that they somehow got in. But that really required a much better performance from Farat than anything we’ve seen from Wentz. Maybe that’s what people think this is. Maybe they think it’s a Farat again. It’s not. Uh, he’s worse. Uh, she Carson on my JJ till I went. JJ McCarthy is good. Two games isn’t enough for an Evval and nothing he has done has strongly altered my opinion. He needs to go to a line to develop and hasn’t had it. The Vikings line is getting healthier and we will make the playoffs. And if you think Carson Went should finish the year, your brain is rotting. I waited two years to watch these MFs pick Carson Wentz over JJ after two G. Oh wow, this gets very all caps. Okay. Uh, so sick of it. Sorry for the rant. Uh, yeah, I don’t think that’s a hot take. I think a lot of people really do think that and they just are. I I I think that for the most part we’re we’re patiently waiting and just like I’ve been trying to focus on other things. Been doing my tush push thing and I had a whole episode about kickoffs and about Miles Garrett and TJ Watt. Um, cuz I I think the conversation pretty quickly gets boring. It’s like, do do you just have to ask how you feel about offense that works this time, but is going to be very simple and easy to defend against a smarter team that doesn’t decide to one-on-one JJ uh Justin Jefferson, which the Browns did, by the way. I mean, like inexplicably, and they walk into every game doing that because they have corners they like, although they traded one away. I don’t really know what’s going on over there, but I think two games isn’t enough for an evaluation on a quarterback. Should be the most ice cold take in the world. But a lot of people want to write the book. And I think I’m telling you right now, if you’re trying to write the book on JJ McCarthy if you’re trying to say, I know what he is now, you are a fool. You’ve been made the fool several times by trying to write the book on Drake May last year when he was struggling. Now look at what he’s doing. trying to write the book on Josh Allen when he started. I know he’s the example everybody brings up, but it’s far from that. Trying to write the book on CJ Stra’s going to be the next big thing. Not so much anymore. Bryce Young is going to get Josh Rosen. Nope. He’s figuring things out. These quarterbacks change and morph over time. Everybody sticks with their guy. None of these guys when they’re young quarterbacks struggling go, “Ah, we got to put the backup in just to, you know, make sure we can have a reasonable offense.” Doesn’t happen often, right? Happened with Anthony Richardson, but I don’t know. He’s got a broken eye socket and he’s got bench for Daniel Jones who’s balling. Uh, happened for two weeks with Bryce Young, then came back. But that’s kind of it. Um, you got to just see these things out. It’s a marathon, not a sprint. And if you’re trying to make it make it a sprint, you’re trying to be the first person to answer a question that takes three years to answer. The last one comes from the real Arian. I’m not going to protect your anonymity person who is definitely Arian. Uh who says the Vikings should have kept Sam Darnold after last season. JJ McCarthy would have to have an elite career to make it worth moving off of Darnold. You know, here’s the thing about I’ll say about Darnold. I love what he’s doing in Seattle and I’m like low-key rooting for the Seahawks every every week because I just love what Sam Darnold did for us so much. I’ I I enjoying seeing this a lot. So, don’t take this as sour grapes, but we have spent a long time in the last decade in Minnesota watching a veteran quarterback put up numbers and have a lot of encouraging games only to fall apart three or four times a season, including when it matters most. Let me see Sam Darnold do this in the postseason and I will join you in these regrets. But I I for everybody saying this and and having their woe is me regret regrets about Sam Darnold. You show me what you were saying on like January 9th of 2025. You show me what you were saying because I doubt it was as positive about Sam Darnold as it is now. So don’t act like you know better. I will talk to you all tomorrow.

The Minnesota Vikings are getting healthier. Several players are working their way off of the injury report as a much-needed bye week has come and gone. So now, it’s time to put the “quarterback controversy” to bed

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