But that said, I felt like we really figured it out yesterday, especially at quarterback.

Yeah, I don't understand.

I can have a healthy amount of criticism for this team like anybody else, but I don't understand.

I saw some people on social media really just dogging the team and just trying to pour some cold water on this whole thing.

And for the life of me, I can't figure it out because...

I don't think there's any team out there that feels like they're a polished product in Week 5.

All you're looking for is incremental, sometimes leaps in improvement.

They, as you two said, they found something yesterday.

What's the read there?

You know, that's, that's interesting too.

I, I, I don't really understand why he didn't.

Um, you know, I, I guess that's something...

I don't know if B Flo's been asked that.

I have not seen that in, in the, uh, in the press conference or any transcripts.

But, um, that is a curiosity.

Mm-hmm

[laughs] That's how the pros do it.

Uh, in all honesty, I don't, um- This one's a little, this one's a little confusing to me because [laughs] it's, it's, um...

What's...

My question is, what's the message? What's the message you're trying to send? Are you trying to tell Ty Felton and Jauan Jennings that they're not producing, and like, "Hey guys, better kick it in the rear because we're, we're not against bringing other people off the street to try to take your job"? Um, or is this a, "Hey, we got some injuries.

We got s- we got a guy that's...

You know, take his nameplate off.

This is a guy that's been in the system before.

Ben?

Uh, we talked-

And I do love the movie Mallrats, by the way.

How do you not love it? So do I.

Yeah.

I mean, it's a great movie.

How do you not love it? Yeah.

Uh, by the way, before we move on, 'cause Sauce, I know you're gonna do sports, but Ben, before... 'Cause you have to leave, right? Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Right.

Two drives in the fourth quarter.

Yes, it looked great.

Um, I think things sort of married up, and we schemed them up a little bit.

I do think that they were probably playing a little bit more downhill because they, especially the last, the last drive where, you know, I think we had about four or five minutes, and they were thinking we might be a little bit more run heavy.

So I think we, we kind of okey-doked them a little bit and, and so that i- that was a good scheme-up change 'cause they were probably thinking, "We're gonna try to run the ball out and try to run this clock out," and then we still had some passes up our sleeve.

So I think that we, we did a really good job in those last two drives, especially that last one, playing the chess match.

... where it's like, "Yeah, we got the W, but it just doesn't feel like it."

So I think he got really lucky that that didn't come back to haunt him.

It is fascinating that when you look at PJ being a younger guy, young head coach, he seems to have all this energy, this youthful exuberance.

Seems like he does a lot of things that the kids like.

But when it comes to the evolution of football, I'm not saying that you have to be an analytical geek and make every decision based on numbers and probability.

But that one just seemed like a no-brainer.

No-brainer.

That was like you don't even need an analytics department to know that that was the right plays to go for two there.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And you have all these people that come out of the woodwork just, like, chanting and, and hollering about, like, "This is an inept team and organization.

Casey doesn't know what he's doing, and what's Teasley doing?" Like, what is happening here? Like, did you, did we not get a sense that this was going to happen? It's been talked about since the start of the season.

It's been talked about since, since that overthrow in the preseason game of like, "All right.

Are we gonna trade this guy, and what are we gonna get for him?" And, "Man, I can't believe he's quarterback number three.

That must means that he's not gonna have...

He's not gonna be in the long-term, uh, plans for the Vikings.

... on a different team

Ben, before we go too far, can you tell the guys about the slap in the face?

Okay, yeah.

Okay, so apparently going around college campuses all over the country is a stupid thing that's called a dunkaroo.

And it's so dumb and so silly and so ridiculous, and I have no idea who originated this thing, but it is – it sounds so crazy.

So this is what happens.

You go to a college party, and the idea is you are flipped upside down like you're doing a keg stand.

So two people have your legs.

So, you know,

That's that's it's a vibe killer.

So sterile.

Yeah.

I don't like it.

I don't even really understand why.

Even in the new stadium at U.S. Bank, the press box area where all the beat writers sit, that's a very sterile environment, too.

Why couldn't you just have some windows up top that can open? I understand not having like giant windows that open on the bottom, but why not just have it? That's a great question.

Is that something we should be giving him props for? Um,

Were you ever sent to the principal's office?

I was.

No way.

Yeah, I mean.

What'd you do? What'd you do? Okay.

I mean, there were some times where, of course, you know, you're a teenage boy.

Sometimes things happen and you get in a little bit of trouble.

about the transition then from leaving the NFL? And now what am I going to do?

Ben

... of course, you know, you're, you're a teenage boy, sometimes things happen and you get in a little bit of trouble.

And, you know, it's all of this minor stuff.

There i- there was one time where I, I got into sort of a pseudo fight.

And now this sounds like I'm making this up, okay, and I'm not trying to be funny, but we had a special needs kid in school that was high-functioning special needs.

Like, he was on my, he was on my baseball team, all this other stuff.

Some of my friends were making fun of him during lunch.

Mm-hmm

Ben, did we, in fact, do a lot less blitzing yesterday as you theorized we might?

Well, okay, so I'm glad you brought that up.

So...

After the game, from my field perspective, as you know, it's not always the best perspective to see everything about the game.

Because it looked like we did less pre-snap movement, there didn't seem to be this cat-and-mouse game pre-snap that we saw the previous week.

It seemed like there was less blitzing.

And then I see the next-gen stats come out after the game, and I was like, wow, we blitzed a lot.

He got worn out a little bit from time to time as well, but you liked what you saw, didn't you? Oh

[laughs]

Uh, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna talk about...

But I will say, when you were talking about that, I'm like, it reminded me that when we were in London last year, I, I happened to be at the team hotel and I was like, "You know what? I'm gonna go take advantage of this, like, sauna situation that they have there." So I went to go to the sauna.

Well, Eric Wilson was in the hot tub at the same time.

And now this is gonna sound creepy.

Mm

... uh, I mean, I, I didn't talk to her, which I normally do, 'cause I've had history with her working at Fox.

Um, I didn't talk to Stacey Dales as much as I used to or normally do.

I feel like we're in a remarkably different spot talking to you today than we were the last time.

Yeah, I mean...

It's hard to really explain what we think is going on because I think that there's still a lot of high hopes for McCarthy that he can continue to mature, understand this offense a little bit more and still be the guy.

Um, he still has years on his rookie contract that's left.

There's no reason really to throw him off to the side right now.

Um, But yet, you look at how this franchise is set up and the roster that's been built, despite the fact that we got rid of our general manager and we brought in Nolan Teasley, we still feel like we have a very talented roster.

And a talented roster that can compete in the playoffs.

What do you make of the whole Ben Johnson, Brian Flores? I think the NFL national pundits have talked about it a lot, but the matchup, what does that mean to you when you see yet another meeting between these two teams?

Do you still stand by that? Are you still feeling that way today?

Yeah, I still feel like that.

It's not sustainable to be blitzing 70% to 80% of the time in the game.

He never had that high a volume last year.

So that's why I feel like this is, I think, an intentional anomaly to put out there to the rest of the league, and especially Chicago.

I mean, it just gets you thinking.

I mean, it gets you thinking more and more.

easily can a defense that almost gave up 500 yards to the Panthers be exposed? How do the Vikings expose this defense?

But yes, you were saying before I rudely interrupted with a very, very, very inside joke.

Yeah.

First of all, yes, we did a decent job stopping the run yesterday.

Although, you know, again, offensive line, they were banged up.

They were going in with a bunch of backup, backup, backup running backs.

And, you know, we still got gashed a little bit in the run game.

It's just that things kind of tilted and...

angle.

Sure.

I mean, sure, he's, he's suffered some weird injuries, and he plays a physical brand of quarterback.

I mean, we all s- have seen him last year.

The r- reason why he banged up his shoulder and injured that is because when he runs, I mean, he becomes a running back.

He's not gonna shy away from contact.

I don't know how you coach that out of him.

Um, certainly you can do it, and he's just gotta put it in his mindset that he's just gonna go down, um, and not take unnecessary hits.

Hm.

awesome.

And he was also great, but let's not forget Drake Lindsey, 19-24, 264 yards, one touchdown in three quarters of play.

And he also found Javon Tracy as a wideout.

So the passing game was going, as Tommy said before, running game maybe a little inconsistent.

That's a lot more on the offensive line and a lot less on Darius Taylor.

That needs to improve from week one to week two.

But I thought the defense played well, too.

So tons of Viking

What he was able to do last year from a standpoint of very limited repetition, but being able to apply a career's worth of experience, that's kind of what you need to do as a backup quarterback, especially early on when so much of the emphasis is going to be on getting Kyler as comfortable as we can possibly get him.

What do you think, Ben? Makes sense.

I got to be honest.

I mean, it makes a lot of sense.

I think that there was a lot of us that was talking about this and predicting that Carson Wentz was going to be the number two guy.

And just the way that they treated him during the whole training camp, they're like he barely got a lot of reps, especially publicly.

And.

But if you had to be right, what's your vibe? What are you expecting? 325 Sunday, Vikes and Packers.

Thank you, Zach.

Well, I think that we and the Steelers are the only two teams that kept four quarterbacks on the team.

That, to me, just tips the hand.

To me, it's...

I don't think that...

I don't think you keep around Max Brosmer if you don't have McCarthy still on sort of the trade block or at least fielding phone calls.

The way I see it is it's fine for now.

explain why you see shades

Hmm.

He...

It's just he...

It looks like he's...

he just can't do it.

Like, the 50-yard pass was really good.

Ty Felton made a great play on it.

Right.

Yeah.

But we haven't seen consistently, at least for us as the public, maybe he's doing it more in practice.

It just seems like he's much more comfortable in two-minute drill, where the reads are cleaner and the reads are more decisive, and you gotta get the ball out.

The outside the numbers throws Much easier for him where he can throw away from leverage a lot of times.

Um, he has not really worked on the, the touch part of the game.

That, that seems to be very clunky, and it's like, again, okay, a throw here and there, but consistently not using...

So to contrast that, to juxtapose that, when Carson Wentz was in there, the n- the variety of throws that he distributed [laughs]

Yeah

Um, what, before we get into kind of the pecking order, what did you, what did you, what was your kind of evaluation of how that decision got made and, like, you know, why, I mean, why ultimately it's Kyler Murray, and why it maybe was important to make that decision at that juncture?

Yeah, I mean, I think everybody realized that when they signed Kyler, um, it was going to be, you know, in Adam Thielen's words, uh, his job to lose.

And, um, everybody kinda knew that and felt that, and I think the Vikings did a really good job of trying to create a true quarterback competition.

Um, that way it just betters everybody.

It pushes Kyler, it pushes, it pushes JJ, and you know, it even pushes a guy like Carson Wentz.

Um, but I think the, the way that they handled it was, was the right way, um, again, to build that competition.

But I think everybody wanted to see what an athletic quarterback of Kyler's talent level could look like in a Koc scheme.

But like, w- what, what else can happen between now and September 13th that might influence those thoughts?

Mm-hmm

...

the, as you guys were talking about with Kyler, the, the operation, the feel of the three quarterbacks, it looked the clunkiest with JJ, just from an operations standpoint.

I don't know.

There's just something about...

I mean, you can't probably put everything on him, but very first play a busted play on a jet sweep that just was ill-timed.

Well, okay.

Good question.

Yeah

... oh, geez.

Wellsy- But, like, that's, that's heaven on earth as a kid.

Oh.

Wellsy and I, that's something I could talk to him about.

Oh, Well- Seventh grade, you walk into a gas station, dad's there buying.

Oh.

Hmm.