Minnesota Vikings camp notes: JJ McCarthy BOUNCES BACK; TJ Hockenson limps off

Minnesota Vikings camp notes: JJ McCarthy BOUNCES BACK; TJ Hockenson limps off

Purple Daily is daily Vikings entertainment. I just want the Vikings to win a Super Bowl before we die. I will ride with this group. Seriously, man. Please. And away we go. Jud Campotes. All right. Little Sun Sunday brunch with Judg’s camp notes here live on the Purple Daily YouTube channel. Good morning. Morning. Good morning. It’s been uh two eventful days, full padded practices, and now they’re going to do um a walk through today. So there there there will be no there will be no camp notes off Sunday, but just a little bit of a tease. We’ll we’ll be doing a little bit of stock rising, stock falling. That’s right. For Monday. So we are uh we we’ve got plenty we got plenty in store after what I saw the past few days. And then Monday, Monday night, you got the the first night practice of of the training camp season here. So, yeah, let’s just let’s get right into it here. By the way, uh if you are joining us here on this Sunday morning, either live or maybe you’re catching this sometime later on on your Sunday or Monday morning, whenever you’re catching up, uh we are almost to 60,000 subscribers on the Purple Daily YouTube channel. So, thank you to all of you who’ve clicked that like button on these videos, the subscribe button over on the audio side. If you’re an Apple or Spotify listener, a five-star rating and a positive review only keeps growing the best Vikings fan community you’re going to find here, Purple Daily. So, Jud’s been grinding it out uh at practice every day for like two weeks here. Now, I I’ll set the scene here a little bit and that the last time we we spoke uh through camp notes a couple days ago, JJ McCarthy was coming off a string of sort of not just him, but like the entire first team offense and the second team offense just behind the defenses, right? And um you could characterize those practices as a grind to gain yards and move the football for the offense. So cur curious to hear how our guy has been looking uh since the last time we talked. Grind is probably a very good word. I will say this. Um Friday was better. I think Saturday was the best full pad practice McCarthy and the first team offense has had. But uh let’s talk about the fact it got fiery. It got feisty. Let’s go. It got combative, which is not surprising. Like this is the time. And it’s weird because like the last two days temperature- wise were fantastic. perfect days to practice as far as being tepid. Now, the smoke doesn’t help from the Canadian forest fires, especially on Friday, it felt pretty stifling. But Saturday, I think we are tired of of practicing against each other in full pads. But let me get to what I think is the most important takeaway I saw, and it has nothing to do with a pass. It has nothing to do with a run. It has to do with something you either have or you don’t. And that is this. In one of the combative things, what happened was, in fact, it was back-to-back plays. So, uh, Aaron Jones catches a checkdown from McCarthy and Brian Oamwa basically lays him out like like he he hits him. He check he like shoulder checks him down. Yeah. Like you would in a real game. Yeah. And and you know, probably not the best idea with Jones, but um it’s football. And so, just to set this up, what happened was okay, Jones goes down. He’s not upset like he’s I think he’s a little bit not shaken up but he’s like wow. And um Osama extends his hand to you know say hey I’ll help you up now because it’s football. And Will Fry who does not know as much about Kevin Oonnell’s distaste and and hate for fighting and mixing it up in practice. Will Fry comes and shoves who then throws a punch at at Fry. Gets broken up pretty quickly. But first of all, I sort of liked it because while Okonnell doesn’t like fighting, I like the fact that the new guy, the right guard, like you want nasty, right? And he’s like, I’m not gonna put up with this crap. That’s my running back. Yeah, that’s my running back. Yeah. So, I’m like, I love this. Like Okonnell’s probably like, I don’t really like this. And I’m like, Kevin, this is great. So, let’s go to the next play. So, the very next play is a handoff. And this is probably one of the most important plays in camp. just from a perspective of what happened. Tyler Baddy comes in and lays out poor Aaron Jones again. Just I mean just So this is now backto back plays. Yes. It’s full pads but you’re not actually tackling. It gets a little It was full pads, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And Yeah. It’s supposed to be sort of you thud the guy up, right? Yeah. But like the defense is getting combative, which they’ve been the entire time, and becoming more a progressively more combative because you’re a a defensive guy in pads for the what, fourth time in six days. And so Baddy, who’s, you know, not going to make the roster, but he lays out Jones. So Jones is down again. Poor Jones. And poor, you know, he’s not upset like he’s like, I’m in my 30s. I’m just trying to get through camp, guys. What are we doing here? Well, okay. So, who immediately rushes Baddy? JJ McCarthy. And he goes in and pushes him. And now this sets off partially I think to defend McCarthy, this sets off what I would call a dust up. Like not a huge fight, but it’s a dust up. But I think that alone right there cuz that’s an either you got that or you don’t. Like when we talk about the it factor, right? Like there’s a lot of vague statements guys like us make about I think McCarthy has the it factor as far as being a leader as far as being a captain. And then the justif the justifiable question back is what does that even mean? Like you’re like what are you doing? Well, this is it. He went in there and he didn’t hesitate and he’s like I’m defending my running back and my teammate and you know what? Get lost, man. I just I love that. I think that is such an important and you know how many Vikings quarterbacks, Phil, I mean you you’ve been covering training camp for years now as well and been to a ton of practices. How many times have you seen a Viking quarterback and I don’t care if his name is Kirk Cousins? Um Christian knew you were going to use this as an opportunity to rip Kirk. No, no, I’m just saying go through the list. Like I start with I start my first camp in ‘ 05 was a Brad Johnson camp. Really? um and Co Pepper and then Brad Johnson. But anyway, long story short, this to me is the IT factor. It’s leadership. It is the I’ve got your six no matter what. Yeah. I mean, not all quarterbacks are presented with a skirmish or I see some people in the comments debating on do we call it a brewhaha, is it a skirmish? It was a skirmish. Was it a fight? I mean, there was there was a punch thrown on the first play, Asam Fries. Yeah. But, uh, but if we were to hypothetically like list and rank Vikings quarterbacks a dust up, that if if one of these things occurs and the opportunity presents itself, how likely is it that all of these Vikings quarterbacks going back 20, 30 years would jump in like that and stand up for a teammate? And yeah, like the answer is probably not that many. Well, and and you know, part part of it too is in defense of the guys that don’t do it. You’ve got a red jersey on. Like you’re not supposed to be really touched at all. What what I saw was a guy who loves hockey. That’s what I saw. I saw He does have some hockey DNA. He went into that. He’s a nice guy and hockey players as a rule I think are probably the nicest athletes, you know, as far as like just being but there’s uh there’s until you cross check the superstar player on their team and then all of a sudden Exactly. So I just I just think that just having covered this thing for a long long time, I don’t think we can put a price on what we saw there as far as the because it’s one thing for him to be a leader and to slap guys on the back. I think it’s another if you are especially if you’re a lineman, right? Well, I I did Zar. I mean, Kirk, I never saw Kirk do it. What What I’m saying is I never saw anyone, including Brett Favre. Um, yeah, I love it, too. I love I think I think it’s fair to say through through two weeks of camp and also just through kind of anecdotally through a year and a half of JJ McCarthy being on the Vikings roster and in the ecosystem, he has some fight to him. He has some feistiness. there’s a maturity and a leadership quality about him that sometimes it takes guys until they’re older than 22 to fully develop or a lot of guys just just never have that part of their personality. So yeah, like a lot a lot of really good signs on that front. Uh but if I could push forward into Jud’s camp notes, what about like actually moving the ball and and hitting receivers and running the offense? Like that’s great. uh leadership stuff like those are all prerequisites I think for being a high-end star starting quarterback but then also at some point you got to get a first down you got to put points on the board and that’s what’s been improving um so in the last oh boy so the last two full padded practices before Saturday were Wednesday and Friday and at the end of those they did essentially two-minute drills down by different sets of points and in each of those the they move the ball and They actually do. They move the ball more efficiently. Now, on Friday, McCarthy McCarthy did act did a great job. In fact, I’ll find my notes here. McCarthy did a fantastic job of g of getting his team down the field. I think they started at the 40 yard line of the offense. Uh, and they went run and then four consecutive passes. And McCarthy, in fact, the run was McCarthy for seven yards. I charted that part. And then he completes four consecutive passes and then they bang their timeout. So this is a really good good drive. The the situation the offense down by six, 115 left, one timeout and the uh it drive started at the 45 yardd line of the offense. And now the Cardinal sin here was they got to the 11 yardd line of the defense and they’re down again by six points and McCarthy takes a sack. Can’t happen. Yeah. like just can’t happen. But you know, short of him being bad in practice and falling apart, this is all about what positive steps do you take versus the negative step, which is can be seen as a learning experience. And I thought those last two days before Saturday in those two-minute drives, including the one I just described, had a lot of good. Like you are moving the ball against a defense that at times was kicking your ass. Now, the sack’s a problem, and I’m sure that that got addressed big time in film, but that takes us into Saturday, and I saw enough there where you sort of got to sort the bad and the good out and and cuz he’s not going to look perfect. Yeah. The question is, how does he look? How does the arm look? How does the decision making look? And I’m going to put you on one thing that we probably haven’t talked enough about because it seems so stupid for a for a National Football League quarterback to be good at, but it has to be there. And you’ve seen this, too. His control of, and I’m not joking here, getting out of the huddle and controlling the line of scrimmage is really good. Th real quick, those are things that sound really just benign and basic and like, what do you mean? Like getting out of the huddle? Yeah. the the amount of when you’re learning an offense, the amount of verbiage. So, the the coach, it sounds basic and we take it for granted because when you’re watching football on TV and the play clock starts at 40, you’re spending 20 seconds just kind of like waiting for them to get out of the huddle and then get to the line of scrimmage. But so much of the success of a play happens between the play coming in, just literally like the most basic things you can think of, the play coming in, the quarterback regurgitating it clearly so that everyone understands as quickly as possible to get up to the line of scrimmage so that you can diagnose then what you’re looking at and then make a decision post snap. And and you know, people way smarter than us will tell you that, especially in Kevin Oonnell’s offense, a lot of the answers to the test happen before the ball is snapped. And you already kind of know based on the play, the check, the coverage that you’re looking at, or the defensive front, you kind of know like it’s either going to be this or this. These are my two answers. Not that it’s as easy as like always completing a pass. So yeah, that like that is something to monitor and drill down on. How and even just like the presence and the confidence of if you’re getting your ass kicked as an offense for two or three practices, is your body language starting to slump? Are you are you are your teammates sensing that the play is over before it starts because you’re defeated after two or three bad practices, or do you still come with that leadership and that confidence and all those things? Like again, it sounds super basic, but it’s a really important thing to watch for a young quarterback. Yeah. And in fact, I laughed at the time, but when Brad Childers had Tvaris Jackson, he called it spitting the play out. Can you spit the play out? Which sounds like, huh? Okay. But it’s true because there’s verbiage there’s verbiage upon verbiage to understand and you also have to identify things. So, yes. So, he I think looks very comfortable with that and that is a big thing to get past because that’s not something that you want to be dealing with right now and the Vikings aren’t. Let’s get to his day though. So among his best passes for McCarthy on Sunday, he had a gorgeous pass down the left sideline for what I had as a 21 yard gain in 11 on 111 to Jordan Addison who himself had a bad day on Friday. His I don’t know what was up. He had a bad day. He actually had a ball where where McCarthy gunned it over the middle. But Addison should catch this. Okay. I I mean it was thrown hard, but I’m not going to rip the kid for throwing hard every single time. And I saw this on Twitter because the fans are doing a great job of documenting camp. Addison two-handed tips the ball. Theo Jackson picks it off. Okay, that that goes as a pick against McCarthy, but that’s a ball and Jordan Jordan was real distraught. That’s a ball Jordan has to catch that. Yeah, that Let’s talk about that play for a second. And I think it was uh I think it was Dustin. I can’t remember Dustin’s. It’s Tik Tok Dustin and he’s he’s putting all these clips out probably to the grin of the Vikings to some not liking that. Yes. And there’s other fans that are doing it too. Uh and it’s it’s kind of cool. You get to go back like you the assembled media inside the ropes like you like Jud can’t film plays once the individual stuff stops, but like fans in the stands, you know, there’s some good clips floating around out there. So I was going to ask you about that play. That was an example of he’s got a fast ball and he’s going to zip that ball into sometimes tight windows, but in this case like Addison was pretty wide open, but he just he got the ball there pretty quickly and the ball was a little too hot for Jordan Addison to handle. But watching that play, it didn’t feel like an unrealistically hard fast ball. It felt like, okay, he zipped it, but like that’s one of the best number two receivers in the NFL and this is the NFL. Like, you’re you’re you’re going to have to catch some passes that get on you pretty quickly. Is that one that JJ needs to layer better with velocity or is that just, hey, Jordan Addison, dude, you got to catch got to be caught. That ball’s got to be caught. And going back to watch it, I couldn’t find a fault with with like the pass. Like, was it slightly behind Jordan? I didn’t see that. Like, yes, it came in hot, but you just said it. If you are one of the best number two receivers in the entire league, you got to catch that ball. And you certainly can’t, and I know it’s a mistake, but you certainly can’t tip it up. Like, that was that became an insta pick. Like, it was perfectly tipped. So, no, I I actually saw that pass as an encouraging play because it was deep enough down the field where the ball had to have juice. Like if you try if you try to get cute with that pass in terms of its speed, it also could be picked off. Yeah. So, no. No. And Jordan went back to behind the play cuz I I think he came out after that and he must have spent a good chunk of time on one knee, his head buried in his hand, and like teammates were coming up like it’s okay. So, he knew. It’s interesting. Like he was really down about it. It’s kind of interesting that he’s an established receiver at this point, right? Like one drop in a training camp practice isn’t going to change his trajectory, but the fact that he’s that upset over it, like good. I I want him to feel that, right? You want the Vikings players to care. I also wonder if maybe the weight of an impending suspension is would he already know if he’s been suspended and they just haven’t announced it? I was half expecting him to get suspended at 5:00 on Friday with the way he he was acting. He had a bad I thought he had a bad practice. Like he seems like something I don’t know if he’s been told it’s coming or what, but yes, it he seems like a guy if you watch him who has something on his mind, which I mean, if he’s going to be suspended, he should. But anyway, that ball has to be caught. But I do give because of the practice, I do give JJ McCarthy points for what I thought was a really nice pass. Let’s get to a couple more. Seven on seven. Neither of these was caught, but ladies and gentlemen, this is training camp. I’m not judging on if if they’re caught. I’m judging the receiver on that. I am judging JJ McCarthy on did did he throw a nice ball? And I want to give you two examples of very nice balls that weren’t caught. One was a play, and both of these catches, just to be very clear, were tough, but it’s the National Football League. This is a difficult league. football. The first one was Josh Oliver, who ordinarily catches everything, which is funny because he’s known as a guy that couldn’t catch despite the fact in college his statistics on catching were very good. The other one was more disturbing. Deep pass. Really nice deep pass down the middle of the field. You want to talk about layered, baby? We got layered here. M Jaylen Naylor covered by Jeff Okuda and he go and Jaylen goes up and again it’s tough doesn’t catch it needs to be caught. second time that Jaylen has not caught a pass in training camp at least like that that he needs to catch. Like these are called contested balls for a reason. And Okuda made a nice play and that’s awesome. But both of those passes were pretty difficult passes by the quarterback and both of them were well thrown. Both of them should be caught. And what I’m judging is did you make the best pass possible? because this league’s not, you know, you don’t get wide open guys a lot. What you get are can you do you have guys that can make contested catches and the answer in this case was both of those balls could have been caught and the Naylor ball should have been caught. So I don’t I don’t know that the first two weeks of camp practice is going to drastically affect the wide receiver depth chart. Uh but just for fun, Jefferson number one, Addison number two. Even though that’s another thing like we just quick side street, we probably haven’t used the asterisk of Jefferson being out almost entirely for the first two weeks of training camp as a viable reason for why the offense isn’t moving the ball that well, right? Like the for the first five days it was no Darasaw at left tackle and Will Fry mixing in. and and if Jefferson if the offensive line is fully intact and Jefferson is back at some point, I expect that offense to have a better chance to move the ball. But I digress. Who would you say has uh if if you’re looking at that third wide receiver spot, not depth chart rankings, but just who has been the best wide receiver, not counting Jefferson and Addison from what you’ve observed in camp? Boy, Ty Felton’s pretty raw still. The hands have to improve. I don’t love how he catches the ball yet. I don’t love I I was actually filming individuals yesterday and it’s funny, but if this makes any sense, watching Felton catch the ball at times, he’s almost fighting the ball instead of accepting it. Like you watch receivers that are good, they’re silky smooth hands, right? Why? Because the ball, they accept the ball. It’s like catching in baseball, right? like a good catcher, a good catcher just it sort of just comes in and that’s how that’s how you become good at framing. Felton sort of is like this a little bit. So now he’s going to make the roster and I have no idea. It’s way too early to pass judgment, but I mean he did drop some balls in college. Here’s what I think we have found because I think Naylor is a fine three, but I think what the Jefferson absence has done and and we’ll get more into this tomorrow. I think that what the Jefferson absence has done is show you why Naylor is a three. He’s not a two. He’s not a two. And maybe Jordan’s not a one. I don’t know on that either. But like everyone right now fits their role when Jefferson is healthy. And quite frankly, Jaylen Naylor because of the Jefferson absence has been asked to do a lot more than he ordinarily would be. And he’s not that guy. doesn’t mean he’s bad at his job, but he is also a like you see some of the problems from last year reemerging more now in training camp because he is he’s the two um Colin Ireland just popped a question here in the YouTube comment section because there are some veteran wide receivers available still in free agency or even like like the would be available via trade if you floated the Panthers a late round pick. Sure. and he brings up Amari Cooper. If Addison gets suspended, and I’ll even add the context of if you don’t love how your other guys are playing, could a guy like Amari Cooper or a trade for an like just a veteran receiver Yes. make some sense in three weeks from now? Yes, it absolutely could. Absolutely could. Kean Allen, right? He’s still out. Was Keenan Allen visited someone this week. Yeah. Now, but I think he’s still out there. I will say a guy who has emerged as seemingly a McCarthy favorite from like the massive group of guys, Lucky Jackson. Yeah. But but if Addison gets pinched for three games, I think you could make a pretty good case that it might be smart to look. And Rond Del Moore on paper feels like a fun potential number three guy. But with the injury history and he’s not, you don’t see it. No. No. I I could see him again. He could be on the 53. He could return punts for sure. I think he’s more of a gimmick guy. I don’t see him as a viable. If Addison gets suspended for um for three games to start the season, I don’t know if this team right now has a number two, a true number two, like like a guy that you could trust as two. You know who it would be? And uh maybe I’m jumping ahead in Jud’s Campotes. Jud Campotes. TJ Hawkins football, but he limped off the field yesterday. Yes, he did. Yes, he did. And let’s get to that in one second because I’ve got the pass of the day, the play of the day from McCarthy as well. So, this is the pass of the the day as far as I’m concerned because it comes in a very important territory and it’s the type of passes we’ve talked about. JJ’s not been great on 11 on 111 red zone period. Nothing more important, right? Mhm. and McCarthy. I think this is approximately from like the 10 or 15. It’s hard to see from our perch what the yard lines are way to our right, but McCarthy goes back to pass. Addison runs a route back corner of the end zone. If I’m not mistaken, Dwight McGlthin, who’s had a good camp, is on him, and he’s on him pretty well. McCarthy puts the ball up high. Jordan goes up and makes the catch. It was absolutely what textbook what you want. Tough play, contested ball. Everything about it wasn’t easy, but it worked. It was a touchdown. And that’s I feel like we have harpeduh quite a bit, seven on seven at least, on McCarthy’s shortcomings, passing in the red zone, which is also a very difficult place to complete a pass because the real estate’s not there. This was a hell of a play for both JJ and Jordan Addison. Yeah, I mean those are the those types of plays. You think about Sam Darnold’s shortcomings, it would be intermediate kind of tight window accuracy, right? He was a little he’s just a little inaccurate or hesitant to throw some of those passes and you saw him sail all those throws against Detroit. Well, those are the like those intermediate crowded space passes. is like that’s how you score touchdowns through the passing game in the red zone and then running the ball in. Like the the two most common ways that you score touchdowns, crowded field close to the end zone are tight window throws and running the football. And the Vikings just were not good at either of those things last year. Uh C Cousins going back a a generation of quarterback was pretty good at those little tip one in there, find the sitting on the goal line, whatever it may be. So, absolutely. Yeah. If McCarthy can be better in that range, just throwing the 50/50 ball in the exact right spot and if they can be better as a as a run unit, run blocking and and Jordan Mason down there, they’re going to score more touchdowns inside the 20 yardd line. All right. So, now on to what you brought up as we transition in Jud’s Gamnos. You want the sounder? I sound. Yeah. I don’t want to I don’t want to Don’t be afraid because one person complained about the sound upset the audience. Don’t be afraid. You know what? More camp notes football. I talked to a couple sets of fans on Saturday. They love the camp notes. They love the sounder. Keep the Don’t let one Buzz Killington let us not have these great Sounders. Anyway, uh yes, TJ Hawinson made a nice diving catch. He also dropped a couple of passes. Um he has not been as good of late as as he was to start camp. Then to what you just said, he did he didn’t limp off the field. He limped away from a drill, went and got checked on. It appeared to be lower body, to use a hockey term, distress. I don’t know if it was a groin. I don’t know if it was I couldn’t tell exactly. Um, he was checked out. He stayed on the field for the rest of campus or for the rest of practice. Went off the campus and then went into the trainer room. Long story short, I don’t think he practices on Monday. I don’t know what’s wrong here. Uh, but not a good sign. What was his what was his level of limping? Would you say was he walking gingerly? Yeah, perfectly put. But he was but he wasn’t being helped. He would have left he would have he would have left the practice fields if it was worse. Okay. So, he clearly tweaked something, but I don’t know. I mean, my first thought is a groin cuz he was he he was trying to stretch after that. Like, he went and watched the rest of practice behind the play, of course, and he was trying to sort of stretch. So my only guess is cuz I don’t think you try the way he was moving it didn’t look like a hamstring stretch like he was going sort of side to side like he was trying to get it stretched out which I would guess is a groin. Um but yes it’s cause for concern because because if he’s out you know obviously Josh Oliver who we like kicks up to a one but he is more of a blocker. Gavin Bartholomew I have not seen yet and he’s got a back so I’m growing concerned there. It’s a really thin position group. It really is. It was It was sort of thin to begin with. It was I mean, you’re literally My guess is you’re you’re seeing like UDFAs jumping into the if they’re running two tight end personnel with a first team offense, you’re getting literally like undrafted rookie free agents that are correct. Jumping in at this point. Correct. And we saw them like by the time uh that TJ was out, he missed the red zone drill. Yeah. It was Uric Nesbit Giovani Reichi. So you talk about thin if Hawinson and he might not miss a time. I don’t know. But if he does and I again I haven’t seen if Bartholomew you now I guess he could be in street clothes but I haven’t even seen the guy at this point for and he’s a sixth round pick. Yeah. I would think they would lean because you can’t put him on the 53 really. like when you miss the first two weeks of camp as a rookie, it’s it’s so hard to play catch-up. So, their their only course of action is to just put them on the would it be injured reserve or pup or whatever it is to start the season so that you can stash it. Or if it’s a back, you might just you you might just use the season end. Yeah, I don’t know. But I mean, this is a it’s really unfortunate. Um, but if we’re going to have a discussion about where are you going to uh scan the waiver wire eventually or get a guy off his couch, tight end becomes one for sure. Now, yeah, real quick here cuz we’ll do like a couple more minutes and then Yeah, I got one more thing left. Yep. We’ll save some stuff for Monday to like some bigger picture themes. This one from Bloody Soup 74, he asks about Donovan Jackson. Is he forklifting anyone? I think some of the the bigger theme stuff like that because they don’t uh the it’s like a walkthrough today. So there’s no there’s going to be no camp notes from today. It’s closed to media today. Yep. But I’m going to add that to the list of you’re So you’re going to do stock rising, stock falling tomorrow as part of Jud’s camp notes, but I think we can touch on some bigger theme stuff like the rookie left guard just in general over the course of two weeks. So I’ll add that to the list for for tomorrow’s uh Purple Daily. All right, let’s uh let’s end on this one. I’m gonna ask a question and then I’m going to answer it because that’s how Jud’s Campos rules. Ladies and gentlemen, do we have a kicking problem? Oh boy. Do we have a kicking problem? All right. So, yesterday for the third time in camp, we ended practice with a kicking drill. I don’t know if you called it a drill. With Will Riker kicking from various distances. How does that sound now from the perch? I didn’t. And I don’t think there’s flags to look at. So from the perch, it did not feel like a super windy day, you know? I mean, yeah, there’s a breeze, but it didn’t feel like one of those, oh my gosh, the ball is being tailed right or left because this wind is a tropical storm of some sort. It’s It’s not Soldier Field in November. Yeah. So, let’s start with that one. Will Riker made field goals from 42 or from 38, 42, and 42 yards. He missed from 36 and 33 and almost everything was hooking with a hooking left like if like if he was a golfer, right? Yeah. Like the ball is going left and like he made some of the makes were inside the goal post left. It was very very weird. And now in three kicking periods he is 13 of 18. Yikes. And so 13 of 18 with multiple misses inside 40 yards with one doink. He doked a 53 yard a couple days ago off the left, but again it went off the left. Things the ball is being pushed left. I thought it was the win that day, but I might be wrong about that. But they don’t they right now they only have in terms of like position battles, they have two punters in camp. They only have one kicker in camp. Will there’s no there’s no competition. So right now there’s no competition. But like if he has a couple more clunker practices, I do wonder if they would I think they would. Alan Slug is a good comment for me. Of course, it’s left. Yeah. Oh, we don’t we don’t miss right. Are you new here, Jud? He’s right. Gary Anderson, um Blair Walsh. I I there’s 90 guys on a training camp roster, so there there would be room to like say goodbye to a depth defensive lineman or something. Sure. But I think in general the coaching staff doesn’t want to rob from the defense and the offensive positions, which they’re because you need depth during these dog days of camp and guys kind of limping off the field and stuff. To bring in a second kicker would be problematic for multiple reasons. So the the best course of action here is Will Riker. Come on, guy. What are we doing here? Big legs, Bill. We need you back. What’s going on? And he’s a draft pick. Yeah. one year removed from what was a magnificent rookie season until he got hurt. Yeah. But um I’m just telling you Vikings fans know this. Keep an eye on that one. Classic. It’s concerning. I’m I’m not going to lie. It’s concerning. 13 of 18 is not good. No. I mean it’s great in 1974. It was actually. Yeah. When everyone when when the kickers would like set their lit cigarettes down on the field while they backed up with their straight ahead kicking approach. You know what? You put the beer down, the cigarette on the top of the beer. He who cast the first stone on that. Okay, it’s a no judgment zone. We’re not judging 70s kickers. Uh, good stuff. Jud’s camp notes here. Football brunch with Jud’s Camp Notes. Yeah, that was a eggs benedict right there. You think? Little eggs benedict. Uh, little football little football uh biscuits and gravy. I think it I think that was a bloody mary with a a bump of you know your favorite light beer. Oh, chaser. You know, great. Awesome stuff. That’s what I think that’s what you and I might go do right now actually with our guest. So, yeah, Jud’s Camp Notes uh tomorrow, stock rising, stock falling exercise. Uh we’ll have our hottest Vikings take either Monday or Tuesday. By the way, just for people who are wondering, how much animosity is there between the sports dad Jud and Jeremiah Sirills from the O line committee after Jeremiah ranted about people that chart training camp, but not knowing I did. Well, he didn’t when he started the rant, he didn’t know specifically that you did, but he’s very excited. So Jeremiah, you know, Alex does the uh the trenches film breakdowns with us throughout the season the last few years. Jeremiah will be a regular contributor on Purple Daily at least monthly every single month starting next week. So, uh, we’re going to have a little O line committee crossover with Jeremiah Sirills on Purple Daily on Wednesday, August 6th in a couple days. And you guys, we’ll we’ll we’ll just me and Declan can just back out of the ring and you guys can fight each other about the value of tracking training camps. I got to be honest. I think it’s just going to be two different points of view more more than a fight cuz I think what both of us are going to say is going to be justifiable. But we come from very different worlds. It’s going to be it’s going to be glorious. Well, and as I’ve always said, as I have always said, if you don’t like us making assumptions, then tell us exactly what you’re doing. That’s what I’ve always said about, well, you guys don’t know offensive line play. They’ll give us Well, they the offensive line play thing is great because like those guys mission, Jeremiah and Alex, is to educate all of us play. So, like we’re on the same page there. It’s more of a Kevin Oonnell thing. Well, you guys don’t know. Okay. Well, what what’s so And that was a big Zim thing. That was a big Zimmer thing is you guys don’t know what you’re looking at. And my response has been, okay, that’s awesome. You are exactly right. So, tell us exactly. So, if the right guard didn’t screw up the play, who did? Yeah, quarterback didn’t get sacked because a magical sack fairy came in and sacked him. Tell us specifically who should be thrown under the bus and and we’ll all be happy. So, all right. He’s Jud. I’m Phil. Jud’s camp notes pretty much every day here on Purple Daily. At least at least when they uh when they don’t have these off days when they practice. Yeah. And we’re looking forward to another great week on Purple Daily here. Again, click that like button and the subscribe button and we’ll see you guys. Enjoy the rest of your weekend. And we just want the Vikings to win a Super Bowl before we die.

It’s a LIVE edition of Judd’s Camp Notes, recapping the weekend at Minnesota Vikings training camp! JJ McCarthy bounces back after a few rough practices, a skirmish takes place after Aaron Jones took a big hit, TJ Hockenson limped off the field, and more!