Should The Vikings Give Up On JJ McCarthy? | Pat McAfee Show

Should The Vikings Give Up On JJ McCarthy? | Pat McAfee Show

That NFC was decided in the final week by the Detroit Lions and Minnesota Vikings. They’re playing for the number one overall team back. Coordinators back. Everything’s back except for quarterback. Quarterback is new. Who you going with? Young guy. We drafted him early for a reason. He got hurt. Doesn’t have a lot of reps, but we were going all in around him. You got Sam Darnold, Daniel Jones, Kirk Cousins. Um Rogers was available. Aaron Rogers allegedly was waiting to hear if they wanted him. a lot of quarterbacks, okay, a lot of quarterbacks that wanted that position because they know Kevin Oonnell’s offense. If you are able to get to your drop step, there’s somebody going to be wide open and it might be Justin Jefferson, the best wide receiver in all of football. So, very fascinating how it’s all unraveling right now and how nine is performing. He’s also currently in the uh concussion protocol that just got announced uh via Aria via uh via the team’s I would assume website or social media account. How do you kind of view this entire nine situation with the Vikings? Because obviously yesterday Micah and uh Green Bay Packers defense did their thing against them. Uh 59 52 yard field goals half the points that they scored the entire night. Um what are your thoughts on the Vikings because they’re supposed to be in it. I think everybody thinks or thought going into the season. Well, look, Jeff Halfley’s defense put on a show yesterday in a fact that they had five net yards in the second half and they were sacked five times, had two interceptions and then both third and one and fourth and one in the first half. Big moments in the red zone like got stuffed it. That’s the game. And we’re going to talk about it the rest of his career sadly until he turns it around. But JJ McCarthy was selected over Bo Knicks and he was in a draft where there was other quarterbacks who are having great success. Drake May, Caleb Williams, Jaden Daniels last year and Michael Penn has shown flashes. So you’re in that draft class. That’s one bucket. Then the second bucket is the guys that you chose him over and Darnold could have been franchise tagged this year and McCarthy’s salary is not exuberant. They could have had both those guys on the roster and they could have said, “Let’s run it back. We came up just short. Let’s do it.” You could have also brought back Daniel Jones. You could have entertained Rogers. And you could have said to McCarthy, “We’re going to wait one more year until you come off this injury. We’re going to see.” Hindsight’s 2020. Of course, we forget how bad those eight days were for Sam Darnold. Two of the worst performances that have cost one man more money in the history of the NFL than Sam Darnold’s last eight days as a Viking. The Sunday night loss and then the Monday night loss where they lost to the Rams in Arizona. where if we were to have this conversation that Tuesday morning, and maybe we did, it was probably 99% saying, “All right, it was a nice story. It was a good ride. Sam Darnold was fun for a year for the Vikings, so we got to go to JJ.” No. No. I would have I would have said franchise tag. Let’s let’s split the baby. Let’s do it. Let’s see if we can get one more year here. Keep JJ, you know, in the wings. And then year three, he’s the guy if Sam doesn’t. But truth of the matter is, they went all in on a draft pick that they traded up for the year before, and they were banking on what their pre-draft process was, the interviews, and the coaching that like Okonnell and Macauan can get the best out of this guy. Well, not only has he been a disappointment, but there’s been health issues this year, too. So, now you’re left with major question marks when obviously they had maybe the best quarterback room in football last year. Yeah, I understand what you’re saying about the end of Darnold’s days and Seahawks are obviously reaping the benefit of Darnold going out there. Big win over the Titans for them yesterday and uh the Minnesota Vikings sitting in a position where are they going to have to admit something here? No. Right. Can’t Well, no. Tell you what, if Max Bros gets a start, we’re looking at a Brock party situation. Yeah, look out. He is not turning that ball back over. I mean, there’s a chance, right? There’s no there is. That’s I’m being dead serious. There’s Tell Tone, tell me about him because I got to be honest. I know the name, but give us the little profile. Uh he was an FCS All-American at New Hampshire and then transferred to Minnesota. Had a really good uh year last year at Minnesota and then, you know, came to the Vikings this year. He’s can spin it or Oh, yeah. Yeah, he can spin it. He can run, too. What? No, not much of a runner. He’s just more of a spinner. Okay. Okay. So, he can spin it. So, Kevin O’Connell’s offense, we’re doing robot stuff. Yeah. We’re in here. We’re doing this entire thing. This could be a rock party situation. Could be. Yes. This could be a rock party situation. If they if they admit fault though, like that’s isn’t that a fireable offense for the GM? Like you had this team that was ready to be the best team in the NFC and now all of a sudden it’s just like I mean that I don’t know cuz I see a lot of people putting KOC into that and I don’t think that I think that’s you know getting way ahead of your skis. But like if you’re the GM, you traded up to draft this guy. You had everything kind of made and you were ready to go. You again you paid everybody on the defense. your offense is kind of set with all the weapons and then it was just like, yeah, you know what? Unfortunately, I [ __ ] up the most important position in sports. So, we’re going to we’re going to try something else. And it’s also how it looks. Like, we were told it was going to look good. And I agree. Like, okay, sure, they’re not going to win. I was lied to. Like, like I we all knew they weren’t going to win 14 games like last year, but we were told it was going to win. You’re going to call the Better Business Bureau. We were told all training camp how great he was as well. It’s not as if we the expectation I think is also what has killed nine in the sense of how bad it looks because during training camp and all these people were coming on and saying like hey nine’s great. They’re real confident in JJ McCarthy right now. And maybe they were in training camp because he was playing against you know high school football defenses but it just looks abysmal like there’s no hope. There’s a couple good throws there. Not yesterday. There wasn’t behind the line of scrimmage. Maybe. I will say this. I just looked Bromer’s first start next week. They have at Seattle. So, that would be tough. But Oh, that’ be easy defense. If you’re the GM, that’s a good move then. Can’t protect Max Bromer. Got to throw it out there. Yeah. Throw this guy in and then you can say the fan base, oh, this is the guy you want. This is the guy you want. I think we’ll stick with nine. No, the the post script on it all. I I think I’ve said this before, maybe on this show, but like the the commanders thought Sam Darnold was coming to them last year and at the last second he’s like, I’m actually going to go with Okonnell and go with those guys. And they were like, well, all right, we’ll we’ll we’ll pivot. We’ll go with Mariota. But like, what a sliding doors moment if if Darnold was in Washington, never takes the field, and then all of a sudden it’s Jaden from day one, and we don’t even know about Sam Darnold, and it’s like I don’t know. It’s just amazing how the NFL works, and it’s these moments that like come and go. butterfly effects I believe decisions effects everything like that voice from Ethan Iberg hash I don’t want to overreact but the Vikings are the most doomed franchise in all history fourth best win percentage with no Lombardi show for it allergic to finding a franchise quarterback yet always good enough to not have a good draft pick I’m ready to join debut and find a new team what do you think finally I’m seeing more and more this every week more and more come on especially as the season unravels don’t let one franchise ruin your [ __ ] happiness for what five six months Don’t do it. Yeah, you can’t do it. Especially if your team is one of those teams that potentially ruins people’s happiness week in week out. Vikings should not be that. Last year Super Bowl, that’s the big issue is like they had a team that we all thought could go on a run and uh what all the experts were saying was if we get any semblance of quarterback play at quarterback for this Vikings team with how they’re built, this team will be good. And also, don’t look now. Maybe they get better with JJ McCarthy. Actually, it’s like, all right, stupid. Okay, we heard that a lot. A lot. A lot of people saying that. And then we heard Kevin Oonnell at the uh owners meetings say the number one thing he looks for in a quarterback is accuracy. Ain’t that what he said? Yeah. Was a good pass though. It was pretty So like he got that wasn’t the one I was talking about. I was talking about the later interceptions. Yeah. But it’s like arm talent seemingly is what they were looking for. or Jim Harbaugh had now granted now granted Jim Harbaugh was his college coach and uh like he said it was the greatest proday he’s ever seen and you have people that who’s Jim Harbaugh said it was the best pro day of all time. This is cool. Yeah, there’s a lot of Harboss it feels like in the media with JJ McCarthy. But when he said that though, exactly a lot of people saying the the the biggest poll or takeaway at least was Pennix was like, “Oh, okay. Accuracy. Pennix is incredibly accurate.” But then Pennix went to Atlanta at 8 and nobody had that build at all. So maybe I mean, I don’t know. And then Shawn Payeyton also, you know, people are kind of circling back to Shawn Payeyton saying like, I [ __ ] told the Vikings we were trading up for JJ McCarthy and guess what they did? They traded up to [ __ ] steal him from us and we wanted bone eggs the whole time. So, like it does feel as though Sean said it in like 2024, I guess. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Right after during that press conference. So, I I mean, who knows what happens, but sure seems like they [ __ ] it up. That’s what people are saying. Plain and simple. And the fans are getting new teams, more teams. That’s that that’s the fourth winning percentage, fourth highest. Nick Mullen threw for 400 yards in this offense twice. Four 400 yards. That’s the biggest. Come on now. Nick can spin it. Yeah, he can. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, he can. That’s the biggest knock on JJ, though. Because of this KOC offense and how many people, he’s the greatest wide receiver in the history of football. And him just being like, “Yeah, I got to be part of the solution here. You know, it doesn’t matter what quarterback is, I got to do my thing.” And then he starts seeing these balls go. Coach Oonnell, these are the worst thrown footballs I’ve ever I couldn’t even tell you the last time I had throws like this, you know, because he’s obviously experienced bad throws throughout some point. Sure. Yeah. Somewhere in high school, maybe played with Carson for a little bit, too. Yeah. That I’m now I’m just thinking after Tai pointed out that throw that um that little video that we saw of the receivers getting ready for the game this week that if they were on those things, if they had those gimmicks. I missed this. No, you didn’t. Yeah. What video you talking about? the guy on the stilts. Oh, yeah. Walking. Oh, yeah. That would have been right. It would have been one. Yeah. So, maybe he does have a little bit of um what would that be called? Um where it objects in a mirror closer. Yeah. Maybe it’s depth perception not great. Maybe wide receivers look bigger, you know, like maybe it’s so blurry they’re like stacked on top of each other. Does he need So, he thinks he’s hitting him right in the helmet. Turns out he’s 12 feet. Jameus situation. Yeah, he needs Lasic. Boom. Nine needs better eyes. That could be the problem. I’m back in. All right. You need to get lasic. It helps. Jamus is catching touchdowns now. Yeah, I haven’t seen that one. I’ve heard the depth near side, far side. I haven’t seen where a sixoot guy looks 16 ft. No, it’s just blurry. You know how people say they see two different things. Instead of seeing two different ones, they’re just stacked on top of each other. So, Jamus, look at get off me. He said he’s available to do anything to make the team better, including play tam. He’s the best. Love everything about him. Very thankful that football is uh exists so that we can live in a world where Jameus Winston can catch a touchdown and stiff arm somebody, break a tackle, and shake somebody at the same time. Shout out Jameus doing his thing. Always. He when they put this play in, he probably told somebody, “I’mma catch that thing. I’mma shake a guy. I’m gonna make a stiff arm spin move, break a tackle, touchdown. Just why I can I assume that was He’s always expecting the most epic outcome, Jameus. Yeah. Which is why I think we love him. Yeah. Probably told Gunner just I don’t care who’s I don’t care if I’m D. Just throw that [ __ ] up. I’m going to go get it. Yeah. I’m a [ __ ] I mean, not to mention, too, we inside but we outside. We outside but we inside before the game starts. Of course. And that’s another pregame speech that just go ahead and save it, lock it in for the rest of time for football. I love Jamus. That’s a tough down for that defender. Yeah, I I I have his name, but I I feel like I should say he’s hurt enough. He’s a good player. He’s hurt enough. He is a good player. Detroit won this game. And Jameus Winston talked about how happy he was that Gunnar gave him a shot. You know, he said every once in a while, you just need your quarterback to give you a chance. You heard him start like talking about that and Gunnar pulling the trigger for him and for all of us really. Yeah. Thank you for throwing that, Gunnar. Thank you for throwing. We need you.

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