Who’s responsible for the Minnesota Vikings disaster? A roundtable

Who’s responsible for the Minnesota Vikings disaster? A roundtable

[Music] Regulator mount up. We’re coming. [Music] Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Coller here and uh in just a second. Manny Hill and Brian Murphy will join for our Monday night round table which should be very entertaining. But uh quick update from the Vikings. JJ McCarthy has cleared the protocol and will be in line to start. If everything goes well for him in uh practice early in the week, then should be expected to start against the Washington Commanders. Kevin Oonnell also addressed uh the Adam Thelen move and a number of other things that uh now feel like okay I mean that’s just kind of where we are at. So I guess you can go watch that entire press conference if you want. I didn’t have a bunch of other takeaways uh that we couldn’t figure out from what happened with uh Adam Thielen and there is a emergency podcast if you want to go check that out. So, why don’t we just jump right in with our panelists to answer the question, uh, what did I what did I label this thing? Uh, who’s responsible for the disaster that is the Minnesota Vikings in 2025? Manny Hill and Brian Murphy. The show of course is always presented by FanDuel. We’ll have a FanDuel question of the day as I was looking at the odds today. And the Vikings are underdogs to the 3 and9 Washington commanders at US Bank Stadium. When I said last week it was a new low. Well, they dug further toward the center of the earth. So, why don’t we just begin with uh that question, that main question there. And of course today, what already looked bad enough looks worse when Adam Thielen doesn’t even want to finish his career as a Minnesota Viking and wants to try to go somewhere else for the final part of the season? Manny, who is responsible for the 2025 Minnesota Vikings? Uh, everyone in charge, everyone that has influence on the decisions that are made in the off season is to blame for this. Um, you know, this team spent a lot of money in the off seasonason in free agency, really kind of for the second consecutive offseason. They were big spenders in free agency. Um, 2024 worked out pretty good getting Van Genko, getting Grard, getting Blake Hashman, that stuff worked out pretty good for them. Um, you know, some of the moves that they made this past offseason has have have worked out okay. Uh but the the ultimate sort of snafu if you will has been the quarterback the handling of the quarterback position has just been a colossal disaster. And we can talk about well you know this guy was injured and that guy was injured and oh this play call on on this play wasn’t working and you should have done that. Ultimately, right now, the Vikings have two quarterbacks active on the roster who have minimal NFL experience and they’ve both started games and neither one of them have played well in the games that they’ve started. And you have a situation where you, you know, you signed a backup quarterback who you end up having to kick out of here because he wasn’t good enough. And then you had to get Carson Wentz in here um at the last minute before the season started because you needed a more viable backup and then when he came in it really wasn’t even all that great. So um just the way that they have bungled this quarterback situation has just been the primary cause for this disaster. And then you just look at some of the other moves that they’ve made as well. Just either haven’t worked out or we just haven’t seen those guys be used in the way that we all kind of thought they were brought in here to do. Um Jordan Mason immediately comes to mind. All of that just sort of adds up to, you know, a team that has, you know, with high expectations coming into this season as just immensely underperformed. And I don’t think anybody is off the hook for what we’ve for for what we’ve seen so far in these 12 games. It’s been a it’s been a total disaster. And uh I don’t think really anybody is blameless. Yeah, I think that that’s right. In terms of the decision makers, we might see some spin in the national media to try to direct the blame toward one person or the next or to try to deflect that blame. Uh but ultimately what it has come down to is they made a bet that was a big swing and a big risk. And when you do that to go to JJ McCarthy and you don’t have any fallback option outside of Carson Wentz who had played for six teams in six years and as you mentioned the training camp fallback the competition that McCarthy was going to be compared to was Sam Howell which I mean he had played in the league before and I thought okay maybe and then the minute we saw him play after the first couple of practices was like okay this isn’t any sort of reasonable competition for JJ McCarthy. So, uh, at that point they had, I mean, what else could they do other than no other options than to go get someone like Carson Wentz off of his couch? And sadly, Carson Wentz play has played the best quarterback for the Vikings. And it’s not even really that close in comparison to the other two quarterbacks who have played. We can go through a lot of other issues. And I think that uh Murf, if they were sitting at six and six right now and they were last in the division and we were saying, man, they’re pretty much out of the playoffs, we’d probably go through a lot of other things like, hey, you know, the cornerback position and we kind of told you you might need to address that other than just Isaiah Rogers and Jeff Okuda or hey, why’d you let Cam Binham go? Or, you know, maybe there was, I don’t know, you know, another option on the offensive line that wasn’t as expensive or or something like that. had a backup center that you could have gotten. But all of that, it almost feels silly to talk about. That’s why I said about the the thing where it’s like, “Yep, it’s bad, but I mean, toss it on the pile.” Uh, it almost feels just wrong to talk about anything when it comes to the failure except for the decision at quarterback. And now that the one tiny little glimmer of maybe Max Brosmer will work out is gone, there’s nothing left to do than just look back at this thing and go, “How was it that you made this decision based on so little information about JJ McCarthy?” Well, they obviously had too much confidence in what he could deliver. And and look, you know, McCarthy has a lot of the makeup that we all want in an NFL quarterback. He’s got Moxy, he’s got confidence, he’s got the look. uh just the way he responded in Chicago week one in in the fourth quarter. Uh the way he came back against Detroit after being out for several weeks. I mean, you see glimpses of what he can be because he has the makeup, but he doesn’t have the makeup right now to be an NFL quarterback. He has the possibility to be a good NFL quarterback. So, if you’re assessing blame, it goes all the way through the organization. You have an underachieving roster that doesn’t seem to really have enough gumption left anymore, especially the defense, which has been hung out to dry so much this season. But they also it wasn’t illegal to overcome some of that and and make plays early on when they were hovering around 500 and this still felt like a possibility. it it looks like, you know, decisions were, you know, Quazia doofmensa has a lot to answer for in his drafts. Uh he’s been creative. He’s been aggressive in targeting free agents and bringing people here and assembling that roster, but really what he’s trying to do is buy his way out of not being able to supplement the team with quality draft picks who are starting and contributing. He’s four years in. I mean, his initial draft should be producing right now at a level commeerate with, you know, quality NFL teams if those draft picks really did work out, and they haven’t. So, he’s tried to backfill through free agency, which obviously ownership signed off on. You know, the Wils have been here 20 years. I don’t want to I’d never doubt their business acumen. I’m guessing they rely on their football operations to guide their decisions for investing and for maybe overcompensating with those kinds of investments. So either they were hoodwinkedked or went along blindly and we’re we’re in a mess because you have an underachieving overpaid roster that hasn’t been able to bail out the monumental quarterback decision or decisions which basically you know it was kind of influenced by us. I mean, it was like they didn’t want to know any other alternative after drafting JJ McCarthy because so much stock both politically, financially, philosophically was put into that pick. It became kind of a confirmation bias like, well, of course, we believe in JJ, so we have to shape all of our decisions around that. And you have a roster that just hasn’t been able to respond. and playmakers aren’t making plays. Uh the rebuild offensive line hasn’t been able to stay healthy, although there were red flags everywhere to indicate that. You know, there were some bad luck with injuries earlier. Uh but you have play suspect play calling, inefficient protection, incompetent quarterback play, occasional defensive stoutness, but all in all, not enough to sustain a winning operation, let alone a viable operation that would give you hope that ride this out with McCarthy, McCarthy can’t stay on the field. And then there was a lot of Gophers truthers out there that thought, well, this is Max Brosmer, you know, he it’s his moment. He’s our next Brock Brock party. You know, we were sold a bill of goods on McCarthy that hasn’t panned out. We were sold another bill of goods last week on Bromer that clearly showed he wasn’t ready. And then you had Kevin Okonnell kind of putting him in a position to really not succeed and an overwhelmed roster not able to come through in a very difficult place to say to play. So, it wasn’t one decision or one person. It was a calamity of decisions made collectively and they all have to own it. There’s a lot to pick apart there and there’s also two different disaster conversations. There’s the disaster that is the 48 record and then there’s the disaster of looking forward the salary cap situation, the draft capital, some of which has been given away for players like Adam Thelen or Jordan Mason who they refuse to use on third or or fourth uh in one for some reason that I don’t fully understand. And I know KOC did say, you know, they were getting beat in the run game. He’s not wrong on that. uh they were totally dominated in the run game by a great Seattle front. At the same time, he uh did take responsibility for that play. Uh it wasn’t like earlier with the deep shot, which I actually thought was fine that got picked off. But this one was a common sense dude. You can’t run that play with that quarterback at that time. Although I would say that no coach ever expects maybe a sack wouldn’t be shocking. I don’t think any coach ever expects his quarterback to do something out of the 1960s lowlight reel from NFL films, which is what Max Bromer did. But when we talk about those two things of the immediate what happened this year, which was they did not get quarterback play anywhere near what they needed in order for this team to succeed, but also then there’s the bigger picture. When we talk about that, uh, Manny, the quarterback play for this year, I I think that what’s hard to figure out is how much of of it could have been mitigated. I don’t think that any of it could have been prevented. Like clearly JJ McCarthy who against the Packers could not throw a screen to Aaron Jones wide open. I mean, you are at the point where even just the simple throws have not worked out for JJ McCarthy with his throwing technique and how hard he throws the football. And with Brosmer, that’s a guy who is an undrafted free agent. It’s a tough ask to go to one of the toughest places in the NFL. Matthew Stafford struggled against that defense a couple weeks ago. It’s a lot. But at the same time, Kevin Oonnell talked a little bit around and weaved through his own philosophy, play calling, strategy today. And there is a part of me that wonders about that Josh Dobs moment where Dobs went from looking reasonably decent to looking like he had no clue. And they talked about how he had to know the whole offense in order to do it. You’re like, “But he’s Josh Dobs. Why would that be the case?” And I feel like there’s been a stubbornness and it includes a fourth and one roll out from the quarterback. There’s been a stubbornness that has been very costly. And Alec Lewis tweeted out a stat that just was insane that the Vikings on third and fourth and one this year are like the worst team of the last 25 years. And like, yeah, dude, it looks that way. Uh, but I I it feels like there has been I like I’m not going to move this too far away from what it’s supposed to be. And then he tried that a little bit against Green Bay and and Chicago of run first. But yet it still felt like it was pretty much the same offense in Seattle with Max Brosber. But also like we’re talking about Josh Dobs, we’re talking about an undrafted free agent. We’re talking about a 22-year-old kid who missed all of last year. I think it’s really hard to pick apart how much to assign the blame of this disaster offensively to the fact that Okonnell has not seemed to want to fully shift how he views this offense. Yeah. I mean, I think it it you know, I mean, I I think sometimes so much gets made, you know, when it comes to KOC especially, so much gets made about like play calling, you know, oh, you know, play calling, play calling, he needs to give up play calling duties and all of that. I don’t think it’s so much about play calling. I think it’s more about just it it’s sort of the the the the KYP, know your personnel type of thing. And I I think it that’s, you know, when you’re talking about the quarterback position, especially the most important position on the football field, I think there has to be an understanding that, you know, you don’t have Sam Darnold like you had last year. And Sam, look, Sam’s career didn’t start out great. And he got into a good situation in San Francisco where he got to sit behind Brock Pury and be a part of a a team that went to the Super Bowl. He got to be in that locker room and that helped revitalize his career. And then he came to Minnesota at the right time and that was a a system that fit him really well and he was at a a a point in his career where he was going to be at his best. And we’re seeing, you know, that’s kind of carried on to this year with the Seahawks as well, you know, but Sam was a guy that had been in a lot of locker rooms, played in a lot of systems, had been in the league long enough to where he was starting to kind of get it. You don’t with JJ McCarthy and Max Brosmer, you don’t have that. And you can’t approach an offensive game plan with Max Brosmer and JJ McCarthy the same way you did with Sam Darnold last year because they don’t have the experience to go through the reads and make all the processes at the line. And don’t get me wrong, I’m not trying to make excuses for McCarthy and Brosmer here. I’m just trying to make sense of, you know, what we’re seeing. I mean, the reality is JJ McCarthy is 22 years old and he hasn’t played a lot of football. That’s a reality. That’s not an excuse. That’s just what it is. And I think there has to be more of whether it’s him or Bromer or I don’t know we see Desmond Ritter at some point this year. I don’t know. Um but there has to be an understanding of okay, this kid’s got a lot of talent, but he’s not at the level that Sam Darnold was at. what can we do to try and make things as simple as possible for him? And even even if you look at the there was a play in the game yesterday. It’s it was in the fourth quarter that Seahawks had a fourth and one and and it kind of made me reminded me of the fourth and one that Brosmer just completely went the bed and threw that awful pick six. It was a fourth and one for Seattle and they just ran a very simple play where Darnold throws to the tight end Barner I think it was and it it it just and it worked. It just it just clicked. It was just a a level of execution there and I just immediately thought like oh that’s a simple play. It’s fourth and one. It’s a simple play and you know you don’t need to do anything fancy. You don’t need to do anything extravagant there. Let’s just run a play that’s going to get us two yards. We need it’s fourth and one and let’s run a play that can get us two yards that we’re guaranteed to get us two yards. And I think sometimes that when we’re talking about KOC, that’s the kind of stuff that I think gets lost, especially when you’re dealing with a young quarterback because those are the type of plays when you have a young quarterback with no experience. Those are the type of plays on a fourth and one that you need to be running. those are or I don’t know you can turn a ball turn around and hand the ball off to the running back that you traded for in the offseason that we thought that’s why you brought Jordan Mason in. So, I don’t know. I think sometimes it’s a system that I think can work, but sometimes I think you just have to keep it simple. And it feels like KOC maybe at times just gets a little bit, you know, gets in his own way a little bit too much and tries to do too much when the the easy simple answer is the easy simple play in certain situations. So I think that you know what he said that was kind of interesting today was basically that he calls plays based on what he sees from the defense. So this is like if you have the controller in Madden, there’s that mode where he could be inside the helmet. And that’s how I think Kevin O’Connell likes to feel is he’s playing himself at the quarterback and he’s looking out and he’s reading the defense and he’s calling plays based on what he’s seeing from them. And this not exactly that way. Like he’s got his coordinators up top and they’re telling him what coverages the other teams are playing. So he’s coming up with things of okay, this is how they’re attacking Justin Jefferson. Let’s start there and then call our plays consumate with how they’re playing against Jefferson. Just to give an example of that, if they’re playing a cover three against Justin Jefferson, you’re going to see him running deep shots one-on-one, like let him roast the guy who’s playing one-on-one with him down the sideline, right? If they’re playing cover two and they’re opening the middle of the field, then they’re going to have him doing crossing routes and deep digs that break in between the safeties, stuff like that, right? And if they’re running man-to-man with him with someone, if he’s being shadowed, they’re going to put him in motion. They’re going to do a lot of different stuff. And I think that under the right circumstances, Murf, this works really darn well. I mean, we’ve seen it enough with Kirk and with Sam Darnold. And I don’t think the record lies with those two quarterbacks that in the regular season, Kirk was 17-8 and Darnold was 14-3 playing with KOC. But I don’t think that it applies as well to younger quarterbacks or inexperienced or poor quarterbacks that don’t see the field as well, can’t time things out as well, don’t have the arm talent of those guys for as much of a hard time as we all gave Kirk. I mean, the guy has a talented arm where he’s very accurate. He’s not a rocket thrower, but he’s accurate. And what Kirk would always do is he would take the completion and he learned how to deal with pressure sometimes and take a hit by hanging in there and and I’m watching Max Brosmer try to go through those reads yesterday when I’m watching the tape back and going I don’t know if he’s capable of that right now, man. Like and then there are other things where you go, okay, that’s just a simple Jefferson is completely covered and the ball can’t be there. You can’t make that throw. It’s a simple 101 that this guy’s an undrafted free agent. So, I think that there are things to pick apart there. And uh I did want to inform everyone. I wasn’t sure how this would play out with quarterback rating. The Minnesota Vikings now have a team quarterback rating in 2025. Are you guys ready for this? That is lower than the Cleveland Browns. They are dead last. 32 out of 32. And Murf, at that point, I don’t care who’s playing quarterback. I don’t think you can just say, “Oh, it’s the it’s the quarterbacks are just bad.” It has to be other things with this level of receiver to be I mean, who’s playing receiver for the Tennessee Titans? I don’t even know. Is Kelvin Ridley still there? I haven’t watched the Titans anything like how they’re how can you be worse than the Titans? How can you be worse than the Browns? Jerry Judy doesn’t even feel like playing. I mean, it’s they’re starting a fifth rounder right now and hoping and dreaming. It’s It is It can’t be. It is so low that it cannot just be the quarterbacks. No, it can’t. But you can see where the mental problems are coming in because you have overwhelmed players. You have a 22-year-old who came out of college not throwing much who’s been behind in his development because of injuries. You have Max Bromer who, you know, Ye was 24 when he came out. Had a nice year at Minnesota after transferring from New Hampshire, but you know, there’s a reason he didn’t get picked among the 262 possible picks that were out there. I mean, you can’t tell me all 31 other teams didn’t know what they were doing by passing up Max Broer. So, it just feels like Okonnell has a set offense in mind. He has a set way of playing quarterback. He’s seen what veterans like Darnold and Cousins can do. And he feels like with just the right coaching, just the right massaging, just the right ego stroking that he can, you know, put anybody into play and and be competent. And maybe maybe he got a little bit drunk on his own success from two years ago when the the the carousel came through and you had the Jiren Halls and they had the Josh Do jobs and you had the Nick Mullins. The difference was those guys had already taken NFL snaps. As scattered as they may have been, they brought certain proven skill sets to the table that had been battle tested, not necessarily successfully, but they did have a bit of an NFL resume uh to bring to the table. JJ McCarthy, Max Burmer have not. Even with Wentz though, you know, there were times where we wondered why wasn’t he running the ball and putting the game into Carson Wentz’s hands when again 31 other teams passed him up this summer and said he’s done. The Vikings seem to believe or Kevin Oonnell seems to believe that he has a monopoly of wisdom on either reclamation pro projects or young untested quarterbacks that he can make better. And maybe, you know, he got away with that a bit a couple of years ago. And maybe Darnold, who by the way was first top 10 pedigree and had been ruined by other organizations and came to him kind of as a blank slate. And once McCarthy was hurt, all he had was Darnold to mold. And guess what? Things started clicking with Darnold. But they clicked because he had Justin Jefferson, he had TJ Hawinson, he had Jordan Addison emerging, and he had an unbelievable playmaking defense that could bail out the offense and allow you to win 12 nothing in Jacksonville on on four field goals. He had a turnover machine on defense that flipped fields and changed momentum. And right now all the Vikings can do in the turnover department is give the ball away at the worst possible moments at ugly time and and looking ugly doing it. So then you have the false start uh you know epidemic from a couple of weeks ago. You’ve had the special teams gaffs. You’ve had bad injury luck. You could list it all. They’ve all been a calamity. But every team has to overcome that. And every successful team has had problems with their offensive line. They’ve had injuries to key players. They’ve had moments of self-doubt, but successful teams have been able to pull out of that spiral. It just feels like the Vikings have been spiraling since week two against Atlanta because that exposed a lot of And look at Atlanta. I mean, they’re a fellow for 48 team and yet they look like uh playoffbound uh know-it-alls against the Vikings at US Bank Stadium. So, it seems like they’ve been chasing that sort of unpreparedness and overwhelmed state of being all season long. So again, the blame that gets spread around, everybody has to own it. But I just I’m not sure Okonnell is either willing or capable of adjusting to suboptimal quarterback play because that’s, you know, a nice way of saying what he’s gotten this year. So I I’ve got a comparison to make. It’s a little bit historical. So if you are less than millennial, just listen to old men talk here for a minute. Um, SF Will has an interesting comment. Says, “Ke KOC’s scheme is boomer bust. Need everything to go right. It looks amazing. One piece doesn’t do its job and it all comes crumbling down.” And I think that that is right. I think there’s a lot of truth in that. And I was thinking, Manny, uh, before the show today about Mike Martz, uh, and if you go back to the greatest show on turf, he’s the offensive coordinator and then he takes over as the head coach after Dick Vermile retires. And for a minute, it’s really good when all the pieces were still there. And then when the pieces started to get older or more expensive and left or whatever it might have been, then you end up with Curt Warner benched and Mark Bulier is in there playing for a while and then there’s some good and some bad with that and eventually he ends up getting fired and then he goes to the Bears and doesn’t have great quarterbacks and it’s a total mess with the Bears and it’s a very similar type of downfield aggressive passing game and Okonnell has talked many times about wanting to be aggressive and wanting to push the ball down the field. And when you look at the route concepts, I mean, there’s one I was just watching before we went on where Jordan Addison is running a deep I call it a hitch. Just call it a hitch because everyone knows that. I don’t know what they call it. It’s probably like 17 yards and a hitch. And Bromer reads it out correctly and throws it a just slightly too early and it goes flying by Addison’s head and he’s like, “Okay, well, all right.” and then he just jogs back to the huddle. That is a route right there that in order to succeed with that. Max Bromer needs, I don’t know, a hundred passes in the NFL before you can attempt to hit something like that. You might say, well, hey, he’s a pro quarterback. He’s never played with Jordan Addison. He doesn’t know the tempo that he’s going to run that route at. He doesn’t know when to release it. He’s never been chased around by Leonard Freaking Williams, who is a beast, or Byron Murphy, who is a beast. I mean, their Dline was amazing. It’s like I saw someone tweet, “Can we can you just run a slant for somebody?” It’s like, yeah, I don’t think that it’s rooted in that. And I think that there’s a lot of truth in that comment that when it all gets blocked up and when the quarterback can have the armed talent to throw over linebackers and drop the ball in, which Brosmer attempted on a play and it went flying over Jefferson, or when these guys have a hundred reps in training camp in a row at all these concepts of throwing deep and it can all get timed out perfectly and everybody’s had because I think that camp not having Jefferson, we all kind of went, well, you know, he’s Jefferson he’ll be okay. But the timing, if it’s all rhythm and timing and you don’t have the guy, it’s like there has to be an adjustment there. And I think if we’re looking around the league, it’s probably San Francisco, which is the gold standard of offense that you go, I watched them throw a pass to their fullback for like 30 yards yesterday where the fullback motioned in and then just went out into the flat and it was like a rail type of route and he’s open and they get him the ball and it’s not a hard play. It’s not a hard throw and you go, everything doesn’t have to be hard. But I also I also don’t want to put it all on him when the quarterbacks can’t execute simple stuff. So, let’s move the discussion into the disaster that is the future because I’m watching ESPN today and Dan Arloski is talking about the Vikings and he’s like, “Well, in order to keep Justin Jefferson here, they’re going to have to get Daniel Jones back or trade for M. Jones.” And why shut off the television? I mean like that like Daniel Jones is okay, but I think you’re seeing the shortcomings now that they’re playing some good teams. M. Jones. Hey, do I get to be right about M. Jones now because he was decent? But are where are they supposed to take this Manny from here? Assuming that everyone is still here after this season. Maybe we should do that first the rest of the season. Let’s let’s do that. So, I want to I want to add this into the FanDuel question of the day, which is the Vikings are one and a half point underdogs against Washington. What would it take to get them back on any sort of track like a respectable finish to the 2025 NFL season? Is there a world, Manny, where you can see that going from here to we get to the end of the season and we go, well, at least they gave uh the ownership reason to continue on this path. Shrugs, how do you get there? Uh, and just very quickly, a side note, because you mentioned the Tennessee Titans, who have a better team passing rating than than the Vikings do. Their leading receiver is their tight end, Chega Quango. So, he’s got like 406 receiving yards. And yeah, I don’t know who that is. I don’t know. I I didn’t know who that was until I looked it up just now either. So, um yeah, that’s that’s a leading receiver for a team that has a better uh team passer rating than a team with Justin Jefferson and Jordan Addison and uh TJ Hawinson. But I digress. Um I the only hope I think if we’re just talking about this season, the last five games of this season, it’s JJ McCarthy has to come back and he has to show improvement. He has to show he has to show significant strides. And I’m not talking about 143 yards against the Detroit Lions. I mean, it’s it’s got to be something significant. It’s got to be a huge jump. It’s got to be something, you know, from start to finish where you where you go, “Wow, okay, the kid seems like he’s maybe figuring it out and and showing the growth that we were hoping to see earlier in the season.” Um, it can’t be a situation where we’re trying to convince ourselves that we’re seeing improvement and then we look and it was, you know, the stat line is like, “Oh, okay. All right. Not not bad. Not terrible, but nothing nothing that blows you away.” I mean, that to me is the only way if we’re just talking about this season, that’s the only way that I think anybody can feel like this is that there’s something there. Otherwise, I mean, it’s it’s this is a this is a disaster. And I, you know, I want to talk about the future for a second because I was looking this up um before we came on. So, this is the 21st season that the Wolves have owned the Minnesota Vikings. They bought the team back in 2005 from Red Mcomes. They have made the the team has made the playoffs and obviously they’re not making the playoffs this year. That’s pretty much a given. They’ve made the playoffs eight times and they have three playoff wins. This is year 21. And I I’m not shifting blame towards anybody as far as that goes. But I think if you’re the Wolves, and by the way, I also looked this up. Red Mcomes owned owned the team for the previous seven years before he sold it to the Wolves. He won the Vikings won four playoff games in those seven years. Wow. So, yeah. So, if you’re the Wolves and you’re seeing this season play out the way it has and the way the quarterback position was handled and you’re looking up at your own resume, if you’re Mark and Ziggy and you’re looking up the last 21 years that you’ve owned this team, and you’ve made the playoffs eight times, which is less than half the time, and you’ve won three playoff games, which is less than half the times that you’ve made the playoffs, you you you can’t be happy. You cannot be happy. And so now I think if you’re them, you have to be looking at KOC, Quazi, whoever else with with raised eyebrows like, “Hey, wait a minute. What’s what what are we doing here? What are we doing here?” And then and now you’re having questions about, you know, what the future of the quarterback position looks like. I don’t know what it looks like right now. Kyler, do you know? Murf, do you know? Do the fans know? I this is this is very bleak right now and if you’re the Wolves you have to be thinking about the same thing right because there is no easy path out of this at the quarterback position unless JJ McCarthy turns the corner which I don’t want to say is impossible after six games but as the question that got you there to that incredible factoid Manny uh was what can they do the rest of the season that could make this respectable and I don’t think that I’ve reached the point where I want to say that after that game now everyone’s job is up in the air or that they’re in hot seat mode. I would say though that if there are five more games like that where and and I would say like that is in the last four. The last four is the most embarrassing performance by the Minnesota Vikings since I got here the last decade. I can’t think even in 2016 where they were falling apart. I mean, the the last two games of 16 were embarrassing, but a lot of those games were like against Dallas when Zimmer’s eye popped out and they, you know, lost on a last second two-point conversion that they were trying to convert. And even if you go back to 2023, I thought they played very respectably with Nick Mullins and Josh Dobs. aside. I mean, they won a three nothing game, but uh you know, they were in a game against Cincinnati that they needed to not tush push with the smallest player. And they were in a game against Detroit where Justin Jefferson had an iconic play where he runs back to recover a fumble and then Mullins throws the pick at the end. uh the game against Denver where Mai Blackman gets mossed by Courtland Sutton at like all those were entertaining respectable football games and you just came up short and you went well there’s not a whole lot you could do there. This is not respectable. This is not NFL level football and when you are dead ass last in the league in in passer rating. I mean that that is like we’ve always looked at these teams and laughed hysterically. The Jets, huh? the the Browns, lol’s, that’s who you are now. You’re the Browns and the Jets. You’ve gone completely unrespectable. So Murf, that’s the question. Can they get back to that in the next group of games where they have a three-9 Washington team, a Dallas team that is playing really well right now, but still has a suspect defense, and a New York Giants team who has fired its head coach and its defensive coordinator. Yeah, I would say if you’re bottoming out and drilling, uh, this might be the stretch of games you want to have because you obviously have some vulnerable opponents. Dallas is always a wild card because it could score 45 points and give up 41 or 48. I don’t see the Vikings putting anywhere near 41 points on the board anytime soon. I think what you need to see if McCarthy indeed emerges from the protocol this week is some marketked improvement. And to me, it comes down to just real basics, accuracy. Can he find open receivers and hit them? Um, if he needs to be working on mechanics, if he needs to be on a better, you know, understanding and page with his receivers, that is something that can always be worked on. But if he is barely, you know, cresting 50% on a game by-game basis, I’m not sure there’s hope. So there is incremental improvement and just all around looking at McCarthy and feeling like, well, this is a guy that can go out and win us some games someday. Maybe not this one, maybe not next week, but someday. I I want that guy under center. I want to buy a number nine jersey and I have a feeling he’s going to be here for a while. I just need some indication of that. I need more snapshots and full games. More than snapshots. I need full performances. I need a four quarter performance and it may not even be a victory. I mean, if they lose, you know, 3531 to Washington and he’s 22 for 28 for three touchdowns and 350 yards, I’m living that with that just fine. So, it’s that, but also on McCart on Okonnell’s shoulders, and this is going to be his toughest coaching challenge, is getting that locker room to play at the level that they need to play at to support McCarthy and also make the case to play for McCarthy. I’m not saying he’s losing the locker room, but you can’t have a situation where leadership in the room or the rank and file in the room are questioning whether their leader is even as is even competent. I mean, I think they want to believe in in Okonnell to elevate McCarthy, but if those if that evidence isn’t there anymore, he risks really losing the room. And if you lose the room, I don’t know if you get that back. I’m not in a I’m not in a mode right now to blow it all up. I’m really not. I think they all need crit to to face reality. I think they all need to erase the deniability that’s been coursing through for a while. Uh take accountability. I’m not saying wipe out the regime, but if what we have seen over the last four weeks metastasizes and continues, then I’m not sure the wills have another any other choice than to blow it up and wipe the slate clean. And I don’t know what that means for McCarthy, but you have, you know, this is a product you’re selling and people are paying a lot of money to see it. And what they’ve been watching or what they’ve been seeing lately is unwatchable. And if you can’t bring it up to that level and get buy in and get effort and get competent play, then that’s a reflection on on your coaching staff. I mean, we already see Quazy’s uh pock marks here. We know where he’s missed. They’re there to be seen. I’m not saying he needs to go because of that. I’m say I’m saying he needs to lean into that and take accountability. That may not be until January. It’s Okonnell’s job right now to get that team at least believing in itself. Whether it believes in the quarterback right now, believe in itself and go win some games and play competently. And if that’s one win, two wins, three wins, fine. If it’s five straight losses, but they’re tight and competitive, is it really going to make a difference at this point? It’s it’s really about passing the eye test, and they have not been able to do that. Certainly over the last month, for vast majorities of this season, it’s just And how many quotes have you seen? It’s just bad ball. It’s just bad ball. Well, you know, it’s week 13 of a season. I’m not sure bad ball is a viable excuse anymore or a reason as PJ Fleck would say. There’s reasons we’re losing. They’re not excuses, but there’s reasons. You know, you look at the false starts, you look at just the general sloppy play. I mean, that’s all a reflection on the coaching staff. So what they that what they have to do to preserve themselves and and maybe inject some hope into the fan base and you know reestablish some credibility with their bosses i.e. the Wils is to put out five games of competent play. Is that asking too much? Right now it looks like it is. I think that well two things about you know the will ownership. One thing that I know about them is that missing the playoffs is never going to be okay, even in a year that we all talk about a reset like 2023 because Mark Wil who’s not an animated human being, but he really brushed back at uh Kevin Seaffort when he asked about 2023 like, “Hey, the quarterback got injured. Like, isn’t that sort of just sort of, you know, you shrug and what are you going to do?” and he was like, “No, that’s not acceptable at all. I I’m I’m still evaluating uh our coaches and general manager and everyone on their ability to win regardless of what happens at the quarterback position.” There are excuses and explanations, uh there is a difference between those things. But when you go through those explanations, if they all kind of point back to one decision that these guys made presumably together and one person who was supposed to be the elevator of quarterbacks and you are worse than the Browns at playing quarterback this year on a play-to-play basis. I mean, what how what else can you do? And the game that I’ve circled for this is let me know what it’s like walking out of US Bank Stadium after the Packers game in week 18. The Wolves care a lot about the games against the Packers. You’ve already massively massively failed in Green Bay. But if you do that again in US Bank Stadium, if you lose 23 to6 and it looks like that and you are booed off the field, I have no idea how you say, “Oh, that’s okay. Everyone’s coming back. uh we’ll see a next year bad breaks. I I if only we had not allowed that one kick return. I don’t see how you could possibly have that be the case. Um and it reminds I’m sure Manny with the steel trap memory of Brad Childris and him getting fired after the terrible loss to the Green Bay Packers. Um so I don’t think that they are um what’s the is who is the Godfather where he says I will not be made to look ridiculous. I don’t think that this ownership is okay with being made to look ridiculous and they will if this team continues to go in that direction. So my answer to this is KOC has to figure something out for this quarterback JJ McCarthy yesterday. It’s got it has to be figured out to make it look respectable and to give them a chance to be in games. I don’t even need them to win them. I just need them to be in games like what happened with Washington the other night. who didn’t enjoy that bleep show of a game. It was a mess. The referees were terrible. It was, you know, it came down to a two-point conversion. They can’t convert it and all that stuff. But you, if you’re Washington, at least under Dan Quinn, you played the Denver Broncos on national TV, a hard football game. And with the Vikings, what these last three weeks, what have they combined for? Is it 23 22 points? I mean, we’re talk we’re talking a game’s worth of points over three weeks. Uh that’s that’s not something uh that is acceptable. So, I think it’s not only McCarthy showing signs that he could be there for next year, but also KOC showing signs that, as you said, the team is rallying around him and that the team is rallying around McCarthy and that KOC can adapt enough here to get him on some sort of track to show promise for the future. So, let’s talk about that part of it and uh feel free to answer that FanDuel question of the day. Vikings are one and a half point underdogs to Washington on FanDuel. What would it take for them to get back on track? Now, you alluded Manny to that future part of this, which is Oh, that’s a good point. That’s a good point, uh, SF Will about, uh, the Christmas game could also do it as well because you’re on Netflix and it’s a big thing and, you know, they’re gonna NFL’s going to bring in a big halftime show and like if you lose to the Lions 41 donut, I don’t know how you can res call this respectable football uh, anymore. Um, but the the future though, I personally think as of right now, just throwing out a prediction, we’ll pick the schedule on Wednesday or Thursday, Manny. But, um, I think the Vikings will win two games the rest of the way. They’ll play a couple more that are closer to respectable and probably have one that’s just absolutely awful. And they they’ll probably be like, “Give us one more year because our plan was for 2025 and 2026.” I would like to see them get the chance to play through what they planned for because I also think this team with good quarterback play, say the 12th best quarterback play in the league, Bo Knicks level quarterback play is right there in the race with the three other teams in the NFC North. Plus, they’ll get a last play schedule, which has often predicted success for the Vikings in their past. Um, what quarterback idea do you have, Manny, that would make people not want to vomit? I’ve seen a lot of Kyler Murray. We’ve talked a little about M. Jones. Daniel Jones is a free agent. I’ve got to imagine if Indie has any sort of success, they’ll just sign him like Tampa Bay did with Baker Mayfield. What do you got? You got some ideas? You got some good stuff? What are you What are you hiding, Manny? I know I know you’ve got uh I know you’ve got some gold to save the Vikings franchise. I mean, what what are they going to do at quarterback? I honestly don’t say I don’t know. I’ll block you. I was counting on you to solve this problem tonight. I I think I think M. Jones makes probably makes the most sense to me. The the problem with the M. Jones idea is that you’re going to have to give up draft capital to get him. and you’ve already over the last couple of years have been giving up draft capital for players and they haven’t always worked out or you’ve you’ve given up draft capital for rent to players. you’ve driven up, you’ve given up draft capital for to bring home a a a a prodigal son who were happy to have Adam Thielen back and then now like he’s not even going to finish the season with you because you know he was he’s looking to go play for a contender and when you had him he wasn’t really productive for you anyway. But I think in this particular situation, you’ve got to get somebody in who’s at least going to challenge the idea of JJ McCarthy just being handed this job with the with the keys to this car, you know, with no sort of competition, no no pressure, none of that. Because that’s kind of what happened going into this season was we’re letting Sam Darnold go. We would have liked to have Daniel Jones back, but he decided to leave. So, you know, we don’t want Aaron Rogers. So, JJ, here you go. And Sam Howell is going to be here be your backup. You can’t you can’t go into next year with that kind of appro with that same approach. Not when you just don’t know what you have in McCarthy. You’ve got to figure that out obviously, but you’ve got to have a situation in place that if McCarthy does not show any improvement, you got to have somebody in that can at least give you a chance. To me, M. Jones makes the most sense there. But the problem is I don’t know. I don’t know if there’s going to be another a free agent quarterback that you can go sign. I mean, the the Sam Darnold thing last year, signing him for $10 million and him playing as well as he did, like that’s you can’t count on that. You can’t bank on that happening again, that circumstance. So, it’s going to have to be they’re going to have to probably pay a little bit whether it’s draft capital or significantly more money or something like that. It I I I’m going to go with Mac. Jones because that seems to make the most sense, but you’re gonna it’s going to cost you. I’m going to give you a smoking gun statistic about M. Jones. His average depth of target, how far down the field per throw that he has had this year, is 7.7 yards, which is 32nd out of 40 playing for Kyle Shanahan. So, he’s completing 70% of his passes. He had a lot of success. He won games. He did really well, but he never pushed the ball down the field. He actually had more turnover worthy plays than big-time throws because they never asked him to make big-time throws. Does that sound like the Vikings to you? I mean, this is where the a lot of the league has made a shift to getting the ball out of the quarterback’s hands quickly because you have also number one in the league for average depth of target is JJ McCarthy. Uh that’s in part because he never jacks down. Um, but still like this is not an offense and last year Sam Darnold was toward the top. Uh, this is not an offense that is very friendly for, you know, check down Charlie type of quarterbacks. I know that, uh, you know, Okonnell at times seemed frustrated by the fact that Kirk would do it as often as he did. And I’m not just referring to that one playoff checkdown, but just in general. So, I don’t know that he’s got the skill set to make this work. I actually think that on Sunday we will see the quarterback for the Minnesota Vikings in the building and that is Marcus Mariota. Uh I think there’s a good chance at him and I’ve I’ve got one that I think is plausible and I also think is a good idea and that is Gino Smith because while Gino Smith would throw 20 interceptions in this offense, he might throw 40 touchdowns. He has he he has been terrible this year in that abomination of a college garbage offense, whatever it was supposed to be with the Raiders, but when he was playing with reasonable football men, he was averaging eight yards a pass, he was throwing for 4,000 yards, he was winning 10 games, and if you’re in a position to have to save your bacon, you need a real quarterback. I mean, even Marcus Mariota, they tried that. Arthur Smith tried that. That doesn’t work. it. I mean, for him as a long-term starting quarterback, I mean, I know that you’re I think that uh you’ve had your quarterback whisper card taken away, so I don’t think that that works anymore. I think you need a real quarterback, and there’s only a couple guys that are actually going to be out there. But, uh, Murf, what is your feeling on what they should do? And I’m not saying throw McCarthy away, just to be clear. I’m saying someone else needs to be here to be competition for JJ McCarthy and they might have to take it a step further with someone like Gino Smith. What do you think, Murf? Well, I am not in the in the boat of tossing McCarthy aside. I mean, even if the next few weeks look bad, I I I don’t think you can invest in that kind of an asset and discard it. But yes, it’s probably going to be time to have him sit down and absorb, learn, or at least compete with a viable NFL quarterback this training camp. So, you mentioned Mariotta uh or Marota, depending on who’s pronouncing what, uh on NBC or US, but I I like the fact that he looks and feels like a quarterback who can come in and maybe put on some gauze, put on a tourniquet. I don’t see him as a long-term solution. None of these guys that are going to be available are long-term solutions because that’s why they’re on, you know, they’re on one-year deals or they’re getting old. I mean, would it be I I thought it would have been catastrophic or at least misguided last year to even consider bringing Aaron Rogers back. I may not I may move off of that slightly. I don’t necessarily think he may be the greatest influence for McCarthy, but he also elevates the competition to a level that the question is, is he going to want to put up with that though? Is he going to want to come into a place where he’s the anointed one? I’m I’m less dismissive of Rogers as a disruptive presence because he’s also going to be 41 42 and I don’t know how many suitors he’s going to have after two mediocre and injury plague years in in New York and Pittsburgh respectively. So, I I’m fine, you know, along the lines of a Gino Smith because he’s a, you know, a a boomer bust kind of a scenario and you might be able to to stack a bunch of 35 31 wins based on that. Uh, the question is going to be what’s the rest of this roster going to look like when you’ve spent so much money and not had enough of a return this season? You know, your cap situation is ugly. uh you know the numbers better than I do, but I know they’re suffocating in it next year. And I obviously, you know, if if you if you decided to rebuild your interior offensive and defensive lines with injurypprone, expensive, aging players who didn’t stay on the field or perform up to snuff, those are more holes that need to be filled. And Quazy’s draft record has not been great at filling those holes. Can he double down and buy his way out of more problems? Probably not. But however that roster takes shape may end up dictating what kind of an, you know, veteran quarterback they want to bring in. But it’s clearly it’s got to be a situation where McCarthy has an entire year of unfettered development and mechanical work, confidence rebuilding, and also he needs to be pushed and he wasn’t pushed. He’s never really been pushed in Minnesota. He’s going to have to be pushed. So how that makes up and what that dynamic is going to look like. And the biggest question of all, I mean, you have Justin Jefferson under contract, but at what point is he going to just be like Adam Thielen and say, you know what, it’s just not going to matter here who you bring in. I don’t want to be a part of it. I’ve been patient. I’ve gone through the carousel. I’m going to move on. So, you know, you have these are the known no unknowns and unknown unknowns. And the unknown unknowns are where’s the roster going to be? What’s your star receiver gonna say? And how would any veteran quarterback react to a 5050 shot with a unproven kid who can barely complete 50% of his passes? So, there’s going to be a lot of politics involved. But this is the mess they’re in and that’s the only way I see them getting out of it. Let me just throw something out there. Last year, Gino Smith was the ninth highest graded PFF quarterback, and he was sixth in big-time throws and won 10 games for Seattle. And had Sam Darnold not made an incredible throw, you know, usually you want to keep a quarterback who can make a play like this, but not everyone feels that way. Uh, if Sam Darnold had not made that incredible throw, Gino Smith would have been in the playoffs with 11 wins and maybe Seattle’s not even changing quarterbacks. That was just a year ago. So when I bring up that idea, he’s also only got a $26 million cap hit, which as you mentioned would take some work, but when you are in desperation mode to save jobs, uh that work is willing to be done. And forget the next guy if you don’t uh save your job. Also, um there’s another part of me that wants to say, you know what? You know who should be the backup next year? Sam How. And here’s why. Because you guys made this decision and you guys should have to live with it. You guys should have to, if you can whisper quarterbacks, do everything you can next off seasonason and try it again and live or die with that. In fact, if we’re talking about the best thing for the franchise, it is absolutely to get no one and to have JJ McCarthy as your quarterback. And I mean, maybe it’s the best idea to draft another one and then have those guys compete, but just stay with me. It’s the best idea for the long term of the franchise to just have JJ McCarthy for 2026 because if you fail then you fire absolutely everybody and you start over again with a horrible record which means a high draft pick for some other GM to pick his quarterback. But that is not what they will do. And the biggest frustration here, you know, another name that Kevin Seaffort I I can’t take credit for this. Derek Carr is the other name that Kevin Seafford has thrown out there. Do not count it out. Do not count out the quarterback. What if that happens? I will be freaked out and think we live in a simulation because I’ll be like, “Wait, a quarterback coming from retirement back to the Vikings who’s probably going to be good. Like, this is too weird.” Uh, don’t so don’t count that out. But uh where I I think just in general like they are now because of how horrific this season has been is the same exact place that Mike Zimmer and Rick Spielman got to in 2021 in a spot to do stupid long-term stuff which they already started doing this year like the you know the trading for a running back who you weren’t going to really use and things like that. Uh you’re giving away future draft capital to try to win now. It was desperation of a different form to get a playoff win to prove that last year, you know, was a a fluke in Los Angeles and you could build a better playoff. I mean, Casey said at the beginning of the season, we’ve built a team that went can win a lot of different kinds of fights. Now, you can’t win any type of fight. If the if the other team had pillows on their hands, they could knock you down. So, I mean, this is now a Zimmer Spielman 2021 spot where they have to do everything. move heaven and earth to try to save themselves. That’s not a spot that you were ever supposed to get in after one year with McCarthy, but it has gone that catastrophically bad. So, if you’re asking me what I would do if I own the team, I would tell them, “No, no, no. This was your guy’s pick. This was who you guys told us to let go Sam Darnold for. You You sleep in it and and you’re going to make it work or you’re going to fail in it. And that’s that’s on you because this was your quarterback. And had they had they had no answer at quarterback, had Sam Darnold been garbage and they went with McCarthy and it didn’t work, I’d say, “Oh, bad luck.” That’s how it goes. That’s the NFL. Trey Lance, Anthony Richardson, better men than you have picked the wrong quarterback. But when you let go of 4,300 yard, 35 touchdown top 10 quarterback and say, “No, no, we are the exception to the rule. We know better. We are smarter. we can coach him up better. Then you gotta sleep in it. Then you gotta do that. Then you got to prove that or you gotta lose your job. That’s how I would deal with it. I wouldn’t go get Gino Smith or effing M. Jones. Who cares? You’re going to win eight games. Congratulations. I’d rather see you burn absolutely burn to the freaking ground and draft first. Coach him up. Sorry, you picked him. Anyhow, let and let somebody else draft uh Julian Saiyan. Absolutely. Well, or or or maybe McCarthy’s good. I don’t know. Like that could be the other thing, too. He they could also turn it around. Uh would not be the first quarterback ever to uh be better in year two than year one. So, there’s also that possibility as well. Again, I am not declaring McCarthy’s career over, not by any means. It’s just that we’ve gotten to this far where you have to have other options to compete with him in camp. That’s entirely the point. and how far they go uh maybe in terms of getting a different quarterback may be dependent on how this looks over the last five games. Uh let’s end with the Justin Jefferson point. Uh Manny, I don’t think there is any world where Justin Jefferson uh can declare a trade or demand a trade because of the way his extension works out. But what he can do is after 2026 say, “Nope, I am not signing an extension with you guys. You got to trade me.” And that’s when this can happen. But it’s brewing. And and I think the number one goal of the of other than developing McCarthy is get some answers for Justin Jefferson. Get this man to a,000 yards because if he ends up with less than 1,000 yards, it will be I think one of the like remember when Zimmer wouldn’t throw him the ball at the end of that stupid Bears game in 2021. It was like if you already weren’t so freaking fired, you are absolutely out now for being just petty and childish. And the whole crowd who sat there through that nonsense just hoping to see Justin Jefferson set a record didn’t get to see it so he could play for wins and not stats. He said after the game it was like that’s as that’s as bad as you’ll ever see and you deserve to be gone. If they don’t get him to a thousand yards, man, anything that he asked for in the off season, if he asks for a trade or whatever else, he’ll be justified in however he feels after this. Sometimes, you know, when you’re an organization and you have superstars or you just have like really really good players who have been good soldiers and have been good teammates and good leaders in the locker room, you know, I think about what the Buccaneers did for Mike Evans last year in that last game to try and get his keep his thousand yard season streak going in a game that didn’t really mean anything. you that’s that’s what you do because Mike Evans has been uh a really really just outstanding outstanding player, outstanding teammate, outstanding leader for that organization for a long time. And so you just you just do right by the guys who have been that. and Justin Jefferson through all of this chaos, through a coaching change and coordinator changes and quarterback injuries and all that stuff has been just a consmate professional. and he has shown up and been a leader and been productive and done all the things that you want a superstar to do and all the things that we always give, you know, diva wide receivers a hard time for doing. He hasn’t been doing any of that stuff. I’m with you. Find a way to get into a thousand yards. you know, make something. Give give us as consumers, people that cover the team and and in in my case, somebody that just watches this team and wants to see the team do well. Give Give us something to to sort of root for to kind of follow down the stretch of this just otherwise pitiful season. Give us something. Give Justin Jefferson something to shoot for because that guy has absolutely earned it. And if you don’t, then it it will be it will be a real shame. How do they get Jefferson back on board, Murf? I don’t know. Throw him the ball. No. Uh, I think they need everything that we’ve talked about for these last few games is is he needs to see what we’re all going to see, which is, you know, a consin with what Kevin Oonnell’s selling, but also finding reasons to believe. As anybody could ever tell you, you know, it’s an awful job to be a a receiver running routes and not getting the ball or not being productive in a game because the miles you have to run throughout a game just to put yourself in a position to make plays and to not feel like you’re included, valued, or I don’t think he’s being disrespected. He’s just not in a position, the offense is not in a position to leverage his skills. and he knows that and you can feel it eating at him. So, I think he needs to see what we all need to see, which is competent play, but also, you know, a belief that Kevin Oonnell is going to pull through this because I might be here longer than him. So, I think there’s a I think there’s a there’s a lot at stake for him to evaluate, but as you mentioned, I mean, his contract is a little bit prohibitive, but it doesn’t mean he doesn’t have leverage. And I think what you saw yesterday, and you know, his he didn’t want to talk afterwards, which, you know, is fine. and he’ll probably talk during the week, but I think you’re seeing the first signs of true frustration boiling over and it it almost feels like everybody’s just dying to see the volcano erupt, which I think is a little bit cheap, but I understand why it feels like it’s building to that point. And I just I don’t think he’s any different than uh any other veteran. Uh you know, I don’t think he’s any different than Brian O’Neal. I don’t know if he’s any any different from um you know some of the some of the defensive guys. I don’t know. Harrison Smith probably doesn’t have to believe beyond this year. I just there’s this I he needs to have a sense that I’m not just going to be productive but we have a viable quarterback and a viable offense that can compete. And I don’t see that being the case right now. And that’s really just table stakes. So if the Vikings can’t demonstrate that and if Okano can’t, you know, elevate McCarthy’s play to the point where you can at least lean into the off season and lean into next season uh with some hope because you can’t tell me that the Patriots and their fan base didn’t see some glimmers last year knowing they had Mike Vrabel, knowing they saw Drake May show some flashes of things. I don’t think they expected to be 10 and two. And it looks like they’re they’re taking care of business against the Giants tonight and the number one seed in the AFC. But there was belief going into the offseason in New England for the first time in a while. That’s I think where things need to be come January 5th, which is never mind the record. Is this a quarterback we can go forward with? Is this a coach that we can rely on, that has buyin from the locker room, and is really able to carry this team over the finish line and convince the front office that there doesn’t need to be a regime change because Jefferson doesn’t need to go through that again as well. Yeah. Well, and you know, also if I’m in control of the team, I’m having a phone call with Justin and because the thing about Justin Jefferson that of course you mentioned it, Manny, the cameras, the networks, oh, they can’t wait. They just want they’re like, “Do it, do it, do it. Call somebody out. Go crazy.” like him not talking to the media I think is also maybe part of last week he said extremely reasonable things just expressed his frustration and he’s still got that like oh Justin it’s bubbling over like come on like what are you trying to make this happen which I think yes I think the answer is yes like when things are when things are uh starting to catch fire uh everybody wants to throw gasoline on it what better than a wide receiver freaking out right is better drama for the the NFL as you mentioned. Um, yeah, Brian O’Neal was infuriated after the loss and we talked to him, but you know, I didn’t see too many of those quotes getting pulled and put on different networks and stuff like that. But, uh, as a he’s a very, very bright guy, Justin Jefferson, he I think knows football incredibly well. What I would be doing I is getting on the phone with Justin Jefferson and saying like, tell me what you really think. Like, how do we fix this? What do we do? fix it. Because over these last couple years, Kevin Oonnell and Justin Jefferson have built a very good relationship. And there have also been a couple little things at times, and I mean little, that Jefferson has mentioned that have sort of indicated that he feels like the offense is a little too much at times. And remember, he came into the league with Gary Kubak, who is the ultimate simplifier. That’s why Kyle Shanahan can get M. Jones and Jimmy Garopppolo and Brock Pury to play like stars because he comes from that. He worked for Gary Kubak. His dad is Mike Shanahan. Like they were the best at that. Brian Greasie played well there. Jake Plamer played well there. Like they understand. Kurt Cousins became a $30 million quarterback in Washington playing with a simplified offense. John D. Philippo put too much on his plate and he fell apart and then they brought Stfansky and Gary in and then he played well again. It’s like I don’t know man. So, he comes into the league with a fairly simplified offense and there have been very high moments in a high variance offense, but does he does he see something different out there? Uh, does he think this is the right path? Does he feel like the locker room is still behind the head coach or does have the results been so disturbing that the defense is infuriated and Jefferson feels like he’s not being used properly? I would want to know. I don’t know that I’m not putting words in Jefferson’s mouth. I would want to have that conversation with him like if I own the team tell me everything that you are feeling and thinking right now and that will help me evaluate what we should do you know going forward. So, it is now a total quagmire of a situation. And there’s only one thing that can make this feel better, and that is beating Washington, beating Dallas, beating the Giants, taking one out of two of those last two games, playing competitive football, getting a lot more out of JJ McCarthy, adjusting the offense, fixing what has ailed them the last couple of weeks. they’re playing the right opponents to do it and make this thing look like there’s reason to believe in it going forward. And if they don’t do that, you think that the conversation tonight is fiery. Um, imagine the one that we’re having at the end of the season if they lose 30 to nothing against the Green Bay Packers at US Bank Stadium. This has gone in a place that I never could have thought it would be after 12 weeks. I thought that we’d be talking about, man, this game against the Cowboys, this game again, you know, here comes those last two games, they’re going to be for a playoff spot. And we are not remotely close to that. Instead, we’re already on to 2026. So, Manny Hill, Brian Murphy, every Monday. My understanding is Manny has a job, so uh next Monday may have to be just me and Murf. But, uh, usually the round table, Manny will pick the schedule as always on Thursday. and bless your heart for continuing to do it. Um, if you haven’t answered the FanDuel question of the day, the Vikings are one and a half point underdogs against Washington. What would it take for them to get back on track this season? So, thanks everybody for listening to this here round table. We’ve done it every week and we have followed this journey uh all over the map and we’ll continue to follow it as we go forward. So, thanks again everybody for watching. Thank you very much Mr. Hill. Thank you very much Mr. Murphy and we will see you guys very soon.

Matthew Coller, Manny Hill and Brian Murphy break down how the Vikings got to 4-8 and what happens next.

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