BREAKING: JJ McCarthy in concussion protocol — Max Brosmer time?

BREAKING: JJ McCarthy in concussion protocol — Max Brosmer time?

Regulator mount up. We’re coming. Hey everyone. Everybody, welcome to an emergency episode of Purple Insider presented by FanDuel. Matthew Coller here fresh from TCO Performance Center where Kevin O’Connell announced that JJ McCarthy has entered the concussion protocol. So, here is what Okonnell said that last night after the game when they were on their way home that McCarthy reported some concussion symptoms to the medical staff and then they made the decision to put him in the protocol and we don’t know a lot else about how this is going to play out throughout the week. Um, clearly Max Brosmer is the backup quarterback and Kevin Okonnell said that if McCarthy cannot practice if he can’t go this week that Max Brosmer would get the first team reps. That makes a lot of sense. I did wonder about John Walford because of his previous experience in the uh Los Angeles Rams system and him being a veteran quarterback and there have been times where uh Okonnell has pointed to, you know, maybe the inexperience and not wanting to throw Brosmer out there, but that might have to be the case this week. And uh just to go through kind of the the way that uh it played out with the conversation with Kevin Oonnell, he was asked about uh you know the chances of JJ McCarthy and and what this means that uh he is just in into the protocol, but they don’t know where it is going from here. So if he is cleared, then he could return to practice. And the normal way things work during the week is the guys come in on Monday, they get treatment and so forth. Tuesday is the players day off and then Wednesday everybody comes back for practice, the game plan, all that sort of stuff. So, there is a a timeline here for McCarthy to potentially be still cleared to play against the Seattle Seahawks. of course, uh, if he is experiencing concussion symptoms, the fact that he’s already had an injury history before, uh, this is not somebody I think that you want to push the needle on, uh, with JJ McCarthy. Uh, the other thing is too that I I know, uh, where this conversation is going to be headed. So, why don’t I just get there first, right? What a lot of people are saying about uh, this, which is, you know, here we go again with the soft benching conversation and all that. The first thing I want to say is that if you have kids or you play football, if you have symptoms, you want to tell someone. You want to tell the medical team. You want to tell your coaches. It is the right thing to do. And I’m always going to be on the side of players and handling concussions with the utmost amount of safety. You know, you saw Ryan Kelly with the Guardian cap on, and I’ve been very concerned about Ryan Kelly with his concussions through his career. Uh, the other thing is too that if you go back through the fourth quarter, there is one particular hit, and I don’t want to really try to guess and go, “Hey, is it this one? Is it that one? Which one of them could it have been?” because he did take a lot of hits in that game. But there is one in particular that at very least looked like it might be, you know, a neck injury or potentially a head injury there as well. And other, you know, people have pointed this out by now as soon as it comes out. You know, everybody goes back and looks at all the hits and things like that. So, I don’t like to I don’t like to go down that road. I mean, I know that that’s where everybody is going to go with this. It’s to me uh not the uh right thing to do uh is to start talking about is he faking it? Is he tapping out? Is the team softbenching him? All that sort of stuff. I think that if you are sitting at home and you watch the game and you’re just firing out messages on the internet and saying, “Ah, yeah, this is what they’re doing.” Okay, I understand that. I think for for myself, I got to have a little more responsibility in the way we approach this. not just start throwing things out there when clearly uh he took a beating yesterday and if anything in the post game I expressed concern about JJ McCarthy and about his health after seeing that because I felt like yesterday was the first time you know maybe Atlanta could be thrown in there as well but really the first time that I thought he is having so many problems uh operating the offense that he is going to get himself hurt. When you hold on to the ball too long, when you’re not seeing things downfield, what ends up happening, especially if you are playing against someone like Micah Parsons, but also, you know, not the only rusher, Rashawn Gary, you know, got him on that one play that turned into an interception. He was hit by Devonte Wyatt uh really hard at one point. Uh this is a very good Packers defense that when you hold on to the ball even a little bit too long or you don’t have the confidence within the offense to set the protections the right way or whatever whatever else can go wrong there. Uh there was one play where he started to scramble and then just kind of stopped and he has walked himself into hits on numerous occasions and there was a lot of that in yesterday’s game and he ultimately took enough hits to after the game feel like he should report how he was feeling to the medical staff. And that was my worry is that when players hold on to the ball for too long, they put themselves in danger at the quarterback position and that looked like it was the case for JJ McCarthy. So the bottom line is that it is not decided yet that he is going to be out for this week. It’s just O’ Connell was announcing that he has entered the protocol which could result in him getting cleared. Now I don’t like that idea. I do not like the idea if he’s having any symptoms at all of putting him out there, especially against a Seattle Seahawks team that is very good. They can get after the passer. Uh it’s unclear right now if the Vikings are going to have their entire offensive line because Okonnell said that they were still in the evaluation process of Donovan Jackson, Christian Darasaw up front. So, if you are going to play against Seattle with even those guys as being a question mark, especially if Darasaw wasn’t playing and then you’re talking about potentially pushing McCarthy out there after he’s had concussion symptoms, I mean, that that’s just not something that sounds uh like it’s a responsible way to approach this. I think even with any symptoms at all, even the fact that he’s gotten into the protocol really says this is a time to make sure that he doesn’t further uh end up injuring himself. Even if it is, and we’ve seen this from someone like Andrew Van Ginkle, even if there is a a neck issue, which sometimes neck and concussion, you know, with different injuries, uh can have some of the same symptoms. But, uh, even if it’s that, even if it’s a neck injury that would cause, and I’m just sort of speculating a little bit there based on the hit that I saw, but even if it was just a neck injury and not necessarily something that he couldn’t clear concussion protocol, I don’t think you want to push him out there right away. I think you would much rather see how that plays out and see how he’s able to, you know, take a step back from where he’s been over the last couple of weeks. So again, I’m not going to be the person that says he’s faking it. The team’s faking it to me. That’s just that’s just not the right thing to do. That’s not the right approach to this. It’s not fair to him. It’s not fair to them. And it’s also not fair to anybody who plays football because the last thing that anybody should ever be accused of is faking faking injuries. Because when players do have injuries, there’s a long history of this league of them covering it up. especially when it comes to concussions and trying to fight through it and play through it as if it’s a hangail or something and they are often pressured to do things like that to get themselves back on the field. So, I don’t think that that sends the right message at all to be going just out there, you know, I guess, you know, some of you can just say whatever and the internet has no consequences at all and that’s how it works. So, it’s fine. But for me, I don’t think that that’s the right uh way to look at this, especially considering, just like with the Atlanta thing, what drove me crazy about when he got hurt against the Falcons was, and everyone called it a benching, was you could see where he got hurt. You could see where he had to be taped up on the sideline and then, you know, people acted like it just never happened. And the same thing goes for the fourth quarter of that game. But I think the bigger concern is well of course his health overall, but also just where he got to in the fourth quarter to the point of feeling so lacking in command of the offense, lacking in confidence to run the offense that he was hanging on to the ball for that long to take that many hits. So, even if this had not happened, yesterday after the game, I was talking about it might just be better for him in Bryce Younglike fashion for what happened last year to take a step back. And I think that it probably is. Now, as I mentioned, this could still play out in a way where they clear him, he decides to play, and then they go forward with that. Again, I I don’t think that’s a the right approach to this, especially when concussions are so difficult to deal with that even when guys pass the protocol, we’ve seen this happen a few times before where they pass the protocol, they’re good to go, they send them out there, and then they have another concussion. I think we’ve learned over a long period of time in football that if you have one, the likelihood of another one being on the way just goes up. Caleb Evans, Ryan Kelly, Christian Derisaw, even Jeff Okuda. I would say these are guys who all had concussions in short periods of separation from clearing the protocol and then getting back onto the field. Then Okonnell said, you know, he’s going to leave it to the medical team and all that. But I think also from O’Connell’s perspective as the head coach and as the person who is most responsible for the development of JJ McCarthy and handling this situation. I I know the medical team is a number one for who you always want to listen to. But I think you also have to say if there’s even a question here, if there’s even a discussion here about him, because look, you could say whatever you like about the way that he played yesterday. And I said a lot of words myself. Uh I, you know, a lot of descriptive words on the podcast yesterday breaking down the game, but this is the youngest starting quarterback in the entire NFL. I think maybe Jackson Dart is like slightly younger, but very close, very close to being the youngest quarterback in the NFL. And even though he’s had some really, really tough times here, he’s going to have a career. Like, this is not a situation where you’re trying to push somebody through a concussion protocol or as soon as they’re cleared, you’re saying, “Go get them, Tiger.” Uh, this because you’re trying to win a championship or something. You’re four and seven and this is a kid who is just learning how to play football in the NFL and he took it on the chin as hard as you could take it yesterday and it’s been a bad six games overall with some highlight moments mixed in but it has been and you’ve seen all the statistics by now as bad as you can play in the NFL as a starting quarterback through six games. I had a bunch of the numbers, social media had a bunch of the numbers. They are what they are and the predictive nature of those things is fairly strong. I mean, you have to go back to Alex Smith or something with the 49ers or Jared Goff with the Rams, but those were guys who were drafted number one overall on really bad teams. So, it’s made worse that JJ McCarthy has performed like this on a team of this caliber with a coach who once got 300 plus 400 yards out of Nick Mullins throwing the ball. So, all of that live in reality, it’s been as bad as I I would I was about to say as you ever could have imagined. I never imagined it being this bad. But that doesn’t mean that his career has to be over at this point. And I think they have to think a little longer term because even if we’re going down that road, which I opened the door to yesterday of who’s going to be the quarterback for the Vikings in 2026. And I open that door because how could you not? With the start that JJ McCarthy has, I promise you in the coach’s office and front office, uh, they’re starting to have those wheels turn as well. Like what is going to happen to this quarterback situation, but that doesn’t mean that the that it’s over for JJ McCarthy. And even if you went later into the season, he comes back, depending on how he plays, you are still going to be interested in having him as part of a competition for next year, unless an opportunity, unless Andrew Luck calls you up and says, “You know what? I want to play for one coach and one coach only, and that’s Kevin Oonnell.” Okay, if Andrew Luck does that, but more likely than not, it will not be Andrew Luck or any other guy that is in a position where they’re a top 10 or 15 quarterback. So, that means into the future, JJ McCarthy will very likely be a part of a quarterback competition next year. Again, the youth has to be weighed into this. And that’s why, long story short, that’s why it’s much better to have a slower approach with something even if he ends up being cleared in the protocol. I would much rather see Max Bromer go to start or John Walford play. It sounds like from what KC said that Bromer would take the first team reps and then they would very likely if this scenario plays out, they would use the elevation for John Wolford who started a game for the Rams in 2020, played pretty well in that game, started a playoff game, I think got hurt, and then Jared Goff went in with a broken thumb. So, I mean, you know, these things with quarterbacks and injuries happen all the time, but for the better of JJ McCarthy, it makes a lot of sense to me to not play him against the Seattle Seahawks, regardless of what the medical team comes back with. That’s weighed into not only just how he played against Green Bay. There have been other games that are like that. Not that many historically, but there’s been other games throughout NFL history where young quarterbacks or even veteran quarterbacks threw zero touchdowns, four picks, got sacked a bunch of times, and then they came back and played the next week and, you know, maybe improved or something. I mean, Baker Mayfield had some of these games in Cleveland and has turned out to be a good quarterback in the NFL. I was looking that up last night. Uh, there’s been a handful. Daniel Jones had some of these games against the New York Giants. A game like that doesn’t have to end somebody’s entire career, but when you are reaching the point where you’re taking that many hits, what would make you think that you’re going to go play a very difficult Seattle defense and then not take any hits? I mean, even last year, Sam Darnold, that was one of the games I thought that he got banged up the most was when he went out there to Seattle and had to play against that defense. And they’ve, I think, even improved this year since then. It’s better in my eyes, no matter what happens with the protocol for JJ McCarthy not to play against the Seattle Seahawks. see how things play out with Max Bromer, which we’ll get to in just a second, and then go from there. And of course, if Brosmer plays well and if he looks good, then you just see what you’ve got in him for the rest of the year. Uh, but, you know, we’ll get to that in just a second. So, I just, you know, bottom line here is that it still remains possible just based on what Kevin Oonnell said that they, as they’re evaluating JJ McCarthy, could still clear him. he could return to practice. And he did mention though, Kevin Oonnell did mention that there may be a little bit in terms of the scheduling that makes this even more difficult because even if he is cleared, if he misses any time at all, you’re talking about Thanksgiving being on Thursday, usually they don’t have a full full day. They’ll still be out there and they’ll have, I think, a shortened practice or something in the morning so players can go home in the afternoon and have uh Thanksgiving dinner with their families. But just in in terms of the actual schedule in this time of year, it gets a little tightened. And a lot of times too, just in general, teams will practice less hard trying to take, you know, mileage off of players bodies and there’s less time and less reps to get prepared. So from that perspective too, not only the more global, I think JJ McCarthy needs a reset. I think he needs some time after these last couple of games anyway. Even I I might be saying this even if he was not in the protocol that it might be for the betterment of him long-term like it was for Bryce Young last year to not be playing uh this week against Seattle because if the confidence and I know he said yesterday that he’s going to remain confident. It’s not possible. It is not possible to remain 100% self-belief and fully confident after taking a whooping like that. Especially if you I mean look I I don’t know what McCarthy does with his social media, but especially if you see the things that people were saying about him yesterday after the game and everything else. It’s really impossible in today’s world to have a showing like that combined with the last couple of weeks where there’s been so much conversation about his footwork, his mechanics, his timing with the offense, and it has seemed to just get worse and worse and worse. After the Detroit game, they tried a lot of different things. They tried leaning into him against the Ravens to try to bring him back. They tried to run first and marry the run with the pass approach. They tried the runonly approach, but at some point you just can’t hide your quarterback away. And when you’re down a couple scores and you’re calling pass plays, I mean, now it’s not just, hey, can he throw it accurately. Now it’s can he even get rid of it and protect himself from getting further injury. And the worst thing that could happen to JJ McCarthy for his long-term for even just being a part of a quarterback competition next year would be to get hurt longterm again because he’s already had the meniscus. He’s already had the ankle and now even in the protocol to me throws up a flag of you just got you just got to stop. You just have to stop. hit the brakes on this and if there’s a scenario to bring him back against when you’re at home against Washington or against a little bit easier of defenses, but this defense with Seattle with someone who’s dealing with something that they felt like might be concussion symptoms on the team playing, it just doesn’t make a whole heck of a lot of sense to put JJ McCarthy back into a situation where he could take more hits. And in terms of just the the long-term overall with McCarthy coming out of that game, it did feel like we turned a bit of a corner, but not in the way that we expected late in the season. A corner of all right, you could kind of hang on to, okay, he’s shown flashes. It this is maybe and if he could only just do this, that, or the other thing to that’s unplayable. it that’s just unplayable the way that it went yesterday against Green Bay that gives you no opportunity whatsoever to even compete in a game when you have quarterback play like that and it does open up the door to 2026 who’s going to be the quarterback which we’ll have probably a lot of discussion at some point but for the the purposes of just the uh the breaking news podcast and there will be later on tonight uh a round table where we’ll get more into this and then the long term is certainly going to be a main subject of that. But let me shift over to the Max Brosmer part of this. Um Kevin Oonnell was asked of course like what I mean his confidence level in Max Bromer is and you know he said extremely confident and he cited the you know performances from the preseason from training camp and you know throughout this entire thing there’s been a lot of people who have said why don’t they just try Bromer why don’t they just put it put in Brosmer? He was very good at the U and uh he was very good uh in training camp and preseason and reporters such as myself who were at every training camp practice were uh becoming Brosmer Bros all the way back to I think rookie mini camp. I think I may have written like this is the best I’ve ever seen an undrafted free agent look at uh look um you know in terms of rookie mini camp and then between uh mini camp and training camp I spent some time talking to uh his offensive coordinator at Minnesota uh his quarterback trainer Quincy Avery who has a lot of successful clients in the NFL and these guys were incredibly high on Max Bromer’s chances. Now, I know they’re in his corner, but also what you combine that with what we’ve seen with what Kevin Oonnell has said about him, and you know, Quincy told me that really Max Brosmer’s mind for this is his cheat code. So, if he does get a chance to start, uh, color me is intrigued as anybody else. I mean, I I was not in the camp of Bench McCarthy for Brosmer. And the reason is you needed to find out. you needed, even if it wasn’t going well, you needed to get as much information as you could possibly get on JJ McCarthy. So, you needed to play him and you needed to keep going back to the Well, because at some point we went beyond, hey, this season’s about getting back in the playoffs and winning. I think after the Lions game, there was a moment to say, hey, maybe maybe they could get back in this race. The Lions look vulnerable. The Packers aren’t that great. The Bears at some point they want another three-point game. The Bears will maybe fall off and and you’ve got a chance, right? And after losing to the Bears, to me that door shut. It was it was pretty much closed of you’re not really competing for the playoffs anymore. Your chances went down to, you know, I don’t know, 3% or something. So, to me, that’s basically over. and the rest of the season is about getting as much information about McCarthy as you possibly could. So, I was never on the side of, hey, just put out Brosmer, maybe he’s better, maybe he can do it. Now, I did feel that way, you know, going back to the Chargers game of like maybe just have him come and hand off or something, but that’s that’s old news there. Uh but when we’re talking about the actual hey let’s see what Brosmer brings to the table. My thought was it’s just too soon for that. It’s just too early. Uh because McCarthy has shown enough at different times whether it was the fourth quarter of the game against the Bears or whether it was a lot of the game against the Detroit Lions. But man, a lot of that also had to do with his running. And I think we saw yesterday, talk about the the confidence that he didn’t really seem to have any desire to try to scramble and make plays, which I I think was going to be one of his bigger assets. And uh that just kind of devolved to he’s not doing it the last couple of weeks after he was really good at running the ball against the Detroit Lions. But still, let’s get as much of a sample as you as you can because the organization needs to know what they’re doing. And they need to start forming a plan for the future. Whether it’s, hey, he’s the guy or no, no, you’re going to have to get on the market and you’re going to have to start shopping around and see what is out there for you at the quarterback position and try to find the next Sam Darnold. Imagine trying to find the next Sam Darnold when you had Sam Darnold. But that’s not the point. Again, that’s another podcast that will happen this week, I’m sure. But the point is just that you couldn’t say, “Hey, McCarthy, hit hit the showers. We’re going to go to Max Bros.” until you had more information. But now, they are going to be put in that position potentially by an injury. And at this point, if Brosmer does get a chance this week to be the starting quarterback, and for me, it’s it’s all about Wednesday that if uh JJ McCarthy doesn’t practice Wednesday, he’s not playing. There’s no way that you would want to do that. And personally, I don’t think you should even consider it anyway, having any type of symptoms at all or even if it does turn out to just be a neck injury, that’s enough for me, too. You don’t want him going out there after getting hit as much as he did. and trying to play through a neck injury or of course not playing through even whatever symptoms even if they were gone having them coming out of the game. I you don’t want that. You don’t want that to come back. You don’t want this to be a long-term type thing. So now naturally you may very well get a look at Max Bromer. And I am as interested as anybody else because there’s something very key that Max Brosmer has that JJ McCarthy doesn’t. Actually, there’s a couple things. Number one is experience. And this is I remember talking to in 2024, I talked to a former NFL scout. He had worked for I think the Jets kind of back in the day. And we talked about I wrote an article about this. I have to go back and look at it a little closer. And he talked about an old scouting theory was about the number of passes that guys threw in college. Now, this theory was more of just kind of guesswork and not analytical, but he mentioned it when he was talking about McCarthy and Bo Nicks and Michael Pennix and saying like this is this is back in the day this would be a huge red flag. Maybe today it’s not as much uh because some guys come out with less experience, but one of the reasons is just the amount of times that you’ve taken a snap, drop back to throw, and release the football. It just builds up experience more and more. And that’s not something that McCarthy came in with. And I think that’s the biggest thing that they probably overlooked as they were making this decision to move on from Darnold, to not franchise tag him and go with JJ McCarthy, is that experience does matter. And it’s not just, hey, how can you throw the football with your actual footwork, but it’s also seeing things and patterns and how many times have you seen a certain defense, even if it’s at the college level, the dropping back, the trying to read a defense, making a play, making a throw, all that stuff. It builds up. And then there’s also just the age factor of being more mature in in your football life. Not saying McCarthy is immature, but you know, in your football experience, you’re more mature as a person. Um, I’m sure the gap between for all of us between being 22 and 25 was pretty big. And so, Max has way more experience throwing the ball. Uh, he was a a huge thrower at what was it? Um, New Hampshire. New Hampshire. Is that right? And then with Minnesota, it was the first time I think we had ever before this year seen PJ Fleck. maybe the one year with Tanner Morgan, but we had rarely seen PJ Fleck lean into a quarterback the way that they did with Max Bromer. And you know, Kevin Oonnell had had his eye on Bromer really since the first time that they uh had a proday at Minnesota when he was transferring over. He threw at a proday that wasn’t even his and Okonnell was there and he liked what he saw and then really liked him the next time. And I also think that they really like really really like Max Bromer’s approach and his brain for the game. Uh he said to us when Bromer made the team, he said he understands that he’s not 6’4 and 240 pounds and runs a 4340 or something. that his advantage to be here is in preparation and anticipation and being able to read defenses, see where to throw the ball, um, understand what he’s seeing out there and study and work harder than anybody else, which I know is easy to say, but I think Brosmer actually puts his mind to that. And as I mentioned, I haven’t seen undrafted free agents pick up the amount of things that Brosmer was able to pick up this quickly, this fast. And there are I know that the preseason game is a preseason game. Tennessee did play some good players in that one. I don’t know if they were mad at their players or something. They they had some starters out there in the last preseason game. Um, but also there are some throws that the ball is really coming out on time and thrown to a spot, which is what this offense really requires. And I think that it wouldn’t be a huge surprise if Brosmer went in there and just looked a little bit more comfortable with this offense. And and that’s the positive thing for Bromer is that he’s been working with KOC and with this offense for really this entire year. and uh his offensive coordinator Greg Harbaugh at Minnesota told me that there’s uh a lot of crossover there that that they have tried at the U to adopt a lot of things that Kevin Oonnell does and so he’s kind of been paying some attention to this offense for quite some time and I think that he showed a real adeptness in the offense throughout training camp and throughout the preseason that was impressive. Now, here’s the always the caveat to this, which is so I so I’m interested. I’m very interested in Brosmer. I’ve been very impressed with him really since day one. Carried himself like a pro really early on. Uh, and has taken on this backup thing as as a pro. You’ve seen it before of quarterbacks who come in and think that they should be the superstar starter. Uh, that’s not that’s not Brober. Like, he came with a mentality to do everything he could to help the team. um you know the the reps for the defense during the week and things like that, the look team if you will, uh all that stuff. So, great job by him. And the fact that they trust him to be QB2 has said a lot, too, because actions mean, you know, more than words. And, you know, they didn’t put Walford immediately at QB2 or they didn’t go out and try to, you know, make a move for somebody else or get somebody up off their couch or whatever uh to get another backup quarterback like they’ve said. They trust Max Bromer. So, I imagine that inside that building, they are as intrigued as a lot of you are just by all the things that Bromer has done to get to this point. He’s checked every single box of what you’d love to see from somebody who is an underdog, undrafted free agent to build up to potentially this moment. And again, if you’re just joining, it is not announced that Bromer is going to start. Kevin Oonnell said that he would take first team reps if JJ McCarthy is in the concussion protocol throughout the week and and misses practice time and and of course if he’s going to take those reps that means he would start against Seattle which I think is just the right thing to do even if we get to this point it’s the right thing to do just go to Brosmer it’s probably better for McCarthy’s confidence anyway to just take a step back take a deep breath and if he goes back in, he goes back in at some point this year, but just stop just a stop is probably uh the best thing for him. But in terms of Bromer, I just think that his understanding of the offense gives him a chance. Now, I don’t think that he is uh the hardest thrower in terms of arm strength. I don’t know that he’s the most accurate thrower either. I mean, I I don’t know that we’re talking about and I think he’s accurate, but I don’t think that he’s from what we saw in practice going to wow you with that. I think it’s really just the anticipation and the understanding of the offense and the command of the offense. I would suspect, and who knows what it really looks like when you’re out there against the Seattle Freaking Seahawks, I would just expect him to run a cleaner operation where he could get them in and out of the huddle maybe a little bit smoother. And there was a hint or an insinuation a couple times from Kevin Oonnell in his postgame yesterday that maybe some of the things Colewise were not what they were supposed to be. Uh he didn’t pin that on anybody in particular, but there was kind of a a sentence or two that were layered into his postgame comments about that. Um so it’s possible that Brosmer could look a little bit more comfortable and get the ball out faster. I think that’s the biggest thing is that the number one thing that I saw from day one of Bromer at training camp was the ball comes out quick. Uh I don’t think that if you’re that size, I mean sometimes it’s crazy sometimes athleticism can be a detriment because guys will rely on it too much. Uh, I was talking to Josh Matelis for a story uh that I put out this week about deceptive coverages and he was talking about how, you know, some quarterbacks they get fooled but, you know, they’re just going to rely on their athleticism to solve their problems. You know, McCarthy did some of that as well. That’s never been what Max Bromer is able to do. He’s always had to work through the problems by figuring out what the defense is doing, what his assignments are, understanding the protections and all those things uh to get everybody lined up in the right way. So, he’s had to play the way that Kevin Oonnell wants him to play. Now, I have seen the whoever came up with uh purple party, you’re very funny. Whoever the first person is to say that, that’s good stuff. But I wouldn’t mind seeing a few games of this myself just to see. We are at that point. If they were seven and four, I’d be saying, “Ah, whoa, just survive this. Get through it. Get, you know, get back to JJ as soon as you can.” But at four and seven having scored six points yesterday and when we think about it too like go back and look at the Chicago game that’s not a good Chicago defense. How I mean how many points did they really score in that game? They had a punt return that set up a touchdown and then McCarthy’s touchdown and and a Riker field goal. So really the offense has produced I mean if you kind of take out the one that the punt return set up and they just hand it off and went in. I mean, they’ve they’ve produced what a one touchdown in the last two weeks and three field goals and probably should have kicked another one yesterday to stay in the game in the first half. I mean, that’s nowhere near enough uh production. So, I I’d like to see what kind of production they can put up against at least a good team. It’s it’s actually possible Jaden Daniels. I saw there was a a report today about him trying to get back to practice and it’s possible Jaden Daniels could be in the lineup. Then you’ve got some defenses that open the door for you with Washington, with Dallas, with New York. I’d like to see it be Max Bromer’s turn for a couple of weeks here and just just know where you’re at because if you have six games or seven, who knows if he comes back or what’s going to happen. He might start this weekend. So like, but allow me on an emergency podcast to go as far down the road as I need to go. That again, that’s where we’re at. That’s what they’ve earned. They’ve earned us getting to 2026. They’ve earned us talking about wanting to get more football games from the undrafted free agent quarterback to find out. Trust me, I didn’t think that we’d be going into this game against Seattle talking about, hey, maybe they should get a sample size on Max Bromer because we’ve kind of seen a lot of JJ McCarthy. Uh but again, that’s where we’re at. So if you ended up with Brosmer getting six games of his own, if it goes well this week or even goes decently this week and the leaders of the team want to stick with him, then I mean because if I’m Justin Jefferson at this point, he’s been I saw somebody complaining about Jefferson yesterday and I’m like, you got to you got to be doing crack if you’re complaining about Justin Jefferson. This guy should be losing his freaking mind. I mean, Jordan Addison can’t get a single target in this game. like the quarterback has not been able to even remotely find these wide receivers in a professional way. I mean really all year in all of his starts. I mean when you’re talking about a guy having his best starts go for 143 yards and that’s not what your expectation is in this offense with Jefferson and Addison. So, you know, I if you’re on if you’re one of those guys and you are to me Jefferson the most important person in this organization, if you if Brosmer plays even halfway decent and they want to stick with that, then they should do it and they should find out how far uh he can go this year and if he should be a part of a competition next year. I don’t know that there’s anything and this even went for Brock Party. Could Brock party have been better because we’re going to make this comparison because why not? Are you busy? I’m not. This is all I do, so we might as well do it, right? If we’re going to make the purple party comparison, even Brock Pury in his what, five starts and then playoffs and he got hurt in the playoff game against Philadelphia, he played as well as you could play in the NFL. And they went into that next training camp with Sam Darnold there and him competing with Trey Lance. Now, I know he got hurt, so that was a a factor in that, but I don’t know that there’s a world where uh uh that Max Bromer could play to the point where we’re talking about they found their guy. It’s the Purple Party, they’re all set, just go into next year with him. I think you’re still talking about looking around the NFL and saying, “All right, who else is going to be a part of this thing?” And I just want to take a step back for a second. So, let me put a a bow on that and um just say that I’m I’m ready uh to see Max Bromer for a couple of games after what happened with McCarthy over these last three games that there’s only so much time you can give something like this. And I also think it’s better for McCarthy that even if he’s cleared that Brosmer start anyway. Even if McCarthy is cleared, I would just prefer that Brosmer go into this Seattle game and go from there and that McCarthy takes a step back because he’s already banged up here. And I don’t think that going into a game where you had a serious enough injury to go to the medical staff and say, “I’m I’m having some problems here.” that throwing him back out there against a defense that’s this good just seems to me that that would not be a great process for a young quarterback who, believe it or not, could still have a good career ahead of him. Now, what that means with the Vikings timeline and everything else of how he’s played, I don’t know. But I don’t want to take any risks with putting him back out there and then getting smashed by the Seattle Seahawks. Especially if Darasaw is not 100% or not playing or if Donovan Jackson’s not 100% after he tweaked an ankle yesterday. I mean, you just don’t want that. If it’s Blake Brle and Justin School in there and McCarthy’s having trouble seeing the field and Seattle’s going to throw disguises also in their coverages. I mean, this is just that that’s just a recipe for absolute disaster. So I I don’t want to see that. I think even being in the protocol is enough even if he’s cleared for Brosmer to start in this game and then he will have a chance to I think earn more starts. And we saw this from Shadur Sanders that he was he started or drafted lower than Dylan Gabriel. Now, he played against Vegas, but nonetheless, like he comes in, he has some moments. They’re going to stick with him. And I guess we’ll see what happens there uh with Brosmer. But I also wanted to step back. So, uh I was looking on FanDuel today and the Vikings uh this changed from yesterday are now minus 360 to get to six wins, which means they’re favored, but not wildly favored to even reach six wins this season. And I just as if this is happening today to close out the emergency portion of this um and if you want in the comments do you I guess that’s our FanDuel question of the day. They’re minus 360 on FanDuel to get to six wins. Is that is that where your expectation is now? Can they win two more games on this schedule? Um I we’re really at we’re really at shrugs right now uh about that. to just take a step back though before I put a bow on this and then a reminder later tonight 7:30 central will be the round table and we’ll get into this the bigger picture all that sort of stuff and and the game against the Packers and the whole Sam Darnold thing and everything else. I I’m in disbelief. I am in I am in disbelief at how this season has played out. I never would have thought, as much as there are things along the way where you went, you know, this could happen. It could happen that he’s not ready. It could happen that he gets hurt again. It could happen that they can’t bring him far enough to be a real contending team. But that to me was always a eight wins, nine wins. And I remember saying that, hey, as long as you’re playing for something on the last week of the season, as tough as this division is and everything else, if you’re playing for something at the end, then it’s probably gone mostly good for you. And he’s probably turned a corner and everything else. But when you look at the quarterbacks throughout history, even recent history, last 10 10 years, I mean, even like Justin Fields had his defenders, usually there’s at least enough of a kernel to latch on to. And usually you don’t get into a world where we’re talking about potentially sticking with Carson Wentz, which was a discussion for a few weeks. Uh, now we’re talking about the undrafted free agent and sort of the the hope and dream of all motans to have a quarterback from the U end up being their franchise quarterback. And that’s what you’re hoping for at this moment is that he just potentially again he’s this is not declared that he’s in. I just want to make sure I’m clarifying that that it’s it’s not declared that he’s going to start this week, but potentially like this is now like a shot of energy. Like this is where we’re at. That the shot of energy into the Vikings fans is the undrafted quarterback maybe getting a chance to play against the Seattle Seahawks who are one of the best teams in the NFL. the way that these things have gone from the injuries early in the season to then finally getting healthy but getting worse quarterback play to the crazy special teams stuff that’s happened both good and bad but I mean special teams play turns the game against the Ravens it turns the game against the Bears it turns the game against the Packers I mean holy cow special teams was just not even a a thought last year I didn’t even think about special teams like oh well Riker got hurt and John Parker Romo did a good job for a short time And there, that was the only time I thought about it. People complained about the punter. I was like, I don’t remember anything for the punter. They won 14 games. And this year, special teams is a part of everything. I mean, this is when was the last time that you had this many game-changing plays happened on special teams. Again, even for good as well, because they’re not even in that Chicago game if not for the punt return. All of this, the off season, the Rogers stuff, the amount of spending that they did. Now Darnold’s eight and three competing with a Super Bowl potential team out with the Seattle Seahawks. And here’s here’s one thing that’s banned from the show this week, by the way. Sam Darnold can’t win the big game. Can’t say that. Can’t say that. Can’t say that this week. There will be absolutely zero slander of Sam Darnold on this show this week. I’m not reading any comments that say it and I ain’t going to say it myself cuz this team went to a fork in the road and they chose one direction and that was to go with JJ McCarthy and it has led to nothing short of historic disaster and Sam Darnold went to Seattle and it has led to them being a team that is going to be in the playoffs and you know what the Rams will probably win the Super because they’re the best team. We saw it last night. They’re running away to me as the best team now. Philadelphia is out of that conversation. They’re a second tier. Rams are the best team in the league, period. So they So, you know what? Darnold might not win the Super Bowl, but he’s going to play in some big games, and he played in some big games last year. This was the path they chose. And they knew when they chose this path that one of the outcomes was us talking about being excited about Max Brosmer starting at the end of the year. They knew that when they picked this direction. Um, I don’t think that the book has to be completely closed on McCarthy at Green Bay throwing for 80 yards. 80, was it seven? 87 yards. I don’t think that has to close the book on McCarthy. I think there’s even if Brosmer starts this week, there’s a decent enough chance that he comes back and plays again after he’s out of out of concussion protocol where he is right now. He could be out this week, but even let’s say he doesn’t play and you know, who knows, right? Who knows where that goes the rest of the way. And there have been turnarounds. When I watched Bryce Young last year, I thought, “This guy should never play again.” He had a loss, I think maybe against the Saints, where I thought, “This guy should never play again.” And now he is playing tonight for sole possession of first place in the NFC South. know there’s been many times where we’ve been out on quarterbacks and they’ve fought their way back and he is extremely young and everything else, but this week going against Seattle and having it not be McCarthy and potentially and having it potentially be Max Bromer, even the fact that that’s a conversation and if you had told me at the beginning of the year that fans going into this game would be much more excited for the idea of Max Brosmer starting the JJ McCarthy, I would have said there is no Hey, there is no worldly chance that that happens because even if McCarthy struggles then you know they should still should be interesting right of like him trying to turn a corner but instead this is where they are at as a franchise. So uh we will see how this plays out. Uh again, the show is the regularly scheduled live show will again be uh later on this evening with Brian Murphy and uh Manny Hill, but wanted to jump on and just let it all out for what is going on now. Uh also, there wasn’t any um further update if I didn’t mention that with Matelis and uh Darasaw and Jackson. So, that’s going to be up in the air. That’s something we’ll find out later this week as well. But I I just I wanted to just throw it all out there because that’s the season we are in. We have now entered what is going to happen at quarterback. I guess I’ll I need to come up with a jingle. I’ll work on it. I was going to try it right there, but maybe maybe not the time. I’ll work on it for what is going to happen. Quarterback watch 2026 is uh already on at this moment. And if Brosmer does get his first start, it’s just another step toward who’s going to be the quarterback next season. Uh again, just would not have would not have thought that we ever would be here this fast. So again, let me just add that the same goes for you’re never going to hear me go after or rip Sam Darnold or say, “Oh, he you know, he doesn’t show up in big games or something because at least he plays in the big games, so you’re not going to hear that from me.” Uh but uh the same thing goes for soft benchings and you know they you know are he tapped out or anything else like that because I just want to say again that it’s very important that players tell the medical staff if they are dealing with something concussion wise that is serious long term. And I’m sure that you could all go back and look at the tape or you’ll see it, the different hits that he took and and how that looked for him and some of the things that have happened concussion wise, the spotters, the NFL. I mean, it’s a very hard job for the spotters to be able to identify stuff like that, but you you want them you want him to get it. you want him to get it when it’s the quarterback especially sometimes it might be hard for a tackle or for a guard uh you know or a cornerback or something guys fall hard but you want him you want him to be able to see those things but then sometimes look this is a fact sometimes with concussions uh it doesn’t come on right away uh this is this is why concussions are so difficult and another reason why the long term of JJ McCarthy and his health should be also in consideration here or in significant consideration because though many have declared it over for his career at 22 years old, I don’t think it is. So anyway, all right, there’s your emergency podcast JJ McCarthy and concussion protocol. Uh I have to finish up watching the tape and writing my article about that and uh everything else and then later on this evening we will be back here on the channel. So, thanks again everybody for popping in for this emergency podcast and we will catch you all later on. So good

Matthew Coller talks about the news that JJ McCarthy reported concussion symptoms, which opens the door for Max Brosmer to potentially start against the Seattle Seahawks.

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