By Matthew Coller
Happy Friday, everyone! Well, the Vikings are off to a 2-0 start and there’s lots of things to answer. Let’s dive into your questions…
@Ragnarskingdom Do you expect Claiborne to get a run this weekend if Jones doesn’t play or do they continue to prioritize vets
There’s something O’Connell said on Wednesday that sounded like they were hoping to get him comfortable with some things during practice that would give him a chance to contribute. That’s only me trying to read between the lines there but it seems like they should use him in some type of role, even if it’s not a heavy workload.
We don’t know where Jerome Ford is at right now. He only carried the ball one time in preseason and had an injury and he only got 24 rushes all last year. Jaret Patterson just got here. DeeJay Dallas isn’t someone you can lean on for more than a handful of carries and he came out of the game a little banged up too.
They might have to go with trial by fire with Claiborne. This one is tough to guess though because it’s such a unique situation.
@Kjgehl27 Do you believe Vikings need to draft an RB in either of the first two rounds of the upcoming draft?
The 2027 draft is so far away that it’s impossible to know what will be happening when we get there. We don’t know what players will still be around then or who they will have added in free agency at that point. What we can say is that Nolan Teasley’s previous team was never afraid to draft a running back and they won a Super Bowl in part because Ken Walker was incredible.
We like to talk about how you can get RBs anywhere and that’s true to some extent but the great ones are almost exclusively top draft picks. If KOC is going to run a lot in the future, it makes sense to get one in the second round.
Jon A… If Demond Claiborne or any other running back, can’t be counted on to step up when someone’s injured maybe they don’t need to be on the team
Jon, if they cut every player who wasn’t ready in their rookie year, there’d be like eight players on the team.
Here’s a list of current Viking starters who did not play right away in the NFL when they were rookies:
Aaron Jones, Jordan Mason, Jauan Jennings, Will Fries, Dallas Turner, Andrew Van Ginkel, Jalen Redmond, Levi Drake Rodriguez, Ty Ingram-Dawkins, Isaiah Rodgers, Josh Metellus, Eric Wilson, Blake Cashman.
That doesn’t mean every sixth-round pick will work out but you can’t just toss everyone who isn’t developed yet in the trash.
@asiddiqui15 Which Vikings player was the best to interview?
I assume since you’re using past tense that you mean guys from the past. There’s obvious ones like Adam Thielen and Kyle Rudolph who everyone knows but aside from those guys Terence Newman and Latavius Murray were my two favorites. Newman is brilliant and was willing to really explain the game to me when I was a first-year reporter. Murray was incredibly open and genuine. They both really helped me get comfortable in the locker room.
Ketan… Kyler didn’t look great in the few reps he played in game 1. What are you hearing about expectations of his play this week? Most importantly should I worry about Jefferson’s targets?
The first 11 snaps of the season should really be thrown out when we’re trying to project anything about how Murray’s going to play. What we know about him is that he’s been an average to above average quarterback throughout his career and he’s pushed the ball to his No. 1 wide receivers a lot. We saw that in training camp as well. Justin Jefferson was his go-to guy (as he should be) and their chemistry was really good throughout the summer.
What I’m interested in is how aggressive O’Connell is going to be. He’s really preached not turning the ball over and that’s been a key stat toward them winning but passing EPA is the stat that correlates most with winning and I’ve gotta think that KOC is highly motivated to show everyone that he’s not suddenly a run-first coach.
It actually has kinda reminded me of Brian Billick lately. Billick was the OC for the ‘98 Vikings when they threw all over the yard but when he went to the Ravens they grinded out wins with Tony Banks, Trent Dilfer, Elvis Grbac and Anthony Wright because they had to do that — not because they wanted to do that.
@corsolino Do you think Frank Smiths hire is the main component of the uptick in our run game?
I think Frank’s scheme has given them confidence in running the ball. There seems to be a belief among the O-linemen and KOC that they can do it successfully and that’s important in terms of continuing to go back to it.
The main reason for the uptick is that they have played their backup quarterback in both games.
@CjakeSD What is going on with Jakobe Thomas?
He missed a lot of time in the offseason and Jacob Thomas emerged as a legitimate deep safety who they can trust. So Thomas will have to wait his turn. That’s all.
Bradley P… Matthew, as the man who wrote the book, can you explain the Dallas Turner Bears PFF grade? I watched the game and he dominated. I don’t get it sometimes.
Well, I reached out to Sam Monson, who was deeply involved in inventing the system and graded countless games over his time at PFF, and he talked about on his Check The Mic podcast that he felt the grade was a little low.
What I’ve tried to explain a bit when talking about this is that PFF doesn’t grade for competition. So if Drew Bledsoe or Caleb Williams dodges your tackle, you still get graded for a missed tackle. I’ve had NFL people tell me that they’ve had their analytics folks adjust for competition but it’s a really hard thing to do.
If Williams isn’t the quarterback, then containment wouldn’t have been such a massive part of the gameplan and Turner wouldn’t have missed as many possible sacks/tackles.
Also it’s a real thing that he was getting free runs at the QB and going against TEs and RBs. They aren’t going to calculate it as much as beating a tackle 1-on-1.
The same thing happened to Van Ginkel when he was All-Pro two years ago. He had a great game against the Bears with four pressures, a sack and dominated the run and he got like a 65 because he missed a couple tackles chasing around Williams.
I suspect if Turner has another 11-pressure game, he won’t have the same grading issue.
Jeffrey S… Every amateur analyst on the net and their mom are pushing a JJ trade. While there are good reasons not to force a trade, what kind of package in draft would you think entices the Vikings? (my personal guess is more than a 3rd to around a second)
Do you have any data from the first 2 games showing how opposing QB stats went from the 1st half to the 2nd half? My guess is given amount of times they get hit, by the second half they start to really feel it and it messes them up both physically and mentally (maybe more mentally). Does the data support this?
About Dallas Turner... Obviously he has been great but it seems a couple of times he might have gotten away with a roughing the passer.... How many sacks do you think he would have had in the Chicago game if he was not facing Caleb but just a normal QB?
I also don’t see any need to trade McCarthy unless the offer is too good to refuse.
There was a data study a few years ago about how different QBs responded after a QB hit and Matthew Stafford came out as the guy that somehow got even better after being hit. As you’d expect, almost every other QB was worse and there’s definitely an accumulating factor. We don’t really need data from the two games to tell us that Jordan Love definitely played differently as the game went along. They didn’t hit Williams very much, they just annoyed him so it wasn’t exactly the same. It’s pretty clear that Brian Flores does not believe pressure makes diamonds when it comes to quarterbacks.
On Turner, if he was just rushing after a normal QB, it probably would have been four or five sacks. That’s why I’ve been saying that the grade thing doesn’t tell the whole story. Also people asking if Turner is really good are funny. Good coaching is maximizing talent however possible. I’d say Flores has absolutely done that with Turner thus far.
Matt D… Excluding Kyler Murray, what’s the biggest question about this team after two weeks? On the Turner PFF grade kerfuffle, I think I agree with what Sam and Steve said on Check the Mic. He played much better than the grade, but there was a lot of schemes up pressures against RBs and TEs that he didn’t always capitalize on. Truth is probably somewhere between his pressure stats and the PFF grade.
Yes, there’s insight from the PFF grade about how it was happening but he clearly played better than the grade. There’s a lot of folks who go out of their way to be intentionally dense about the grading system and treat it like every 1-100 is the exact amount of good that a player played that day.
In terms of the biggest question about this team, it’s probably whether they can be good or great. It’s obvious through two games that they can win and that they can even be quite a bit better than they’ve been vs. GB and Chicago if the passing game gets going. But can they be a 13+ win type team that goes into the playoffs with Super Bowl expectations? Or are they more of a 10-win type team that’s in the middle of the pack?
@darthzimmy Say Jones is unavailable for this week and limited in practice next week and the Vikings find themselves 3-0. Is it worth it to trade significant draft capital for a Breece Hall, De’Von Achane calibre player?
The hard part about those trades right now is that it’s so early in the season. The Jets think they can be pretty good and maybe even really good next season so I can’t see them trading away a player like Hall. The Dolphins can probably pack it in but they just signed Achane to a big contract. Are they really bailing that quick?
I’m not really in favor of trading away significant draft capital just yet. Jordan Mason is going to come back healthy in a couple weeks. This is about surviving until then.
Now if the Vikings got to Week 8 and were 6-1 and Kyler Murray looks awesome, maybe there’s a real argument to make a significant trade for a running back.
@JayFull15611297 Should we worry that the next 2 games are against 0-2 teams??
Yes and no. Yes about the Bucs, no about the Dolphins.
Tampa Bay’s quarterback, line and weapons have the capability to produce a 300-yard, 3-TD day on any given week. Baker has faced Flores before and survived it. He’s been around a long time and has great tools. There’s always a chance they could be dangerous, especially with their backs against the wall.
Miami is just a terrible football team. No matter how desperate, it shouldn’t matter.
@AlexCFlick The knock on KOC has largely been that he’s better with older players than developing younger guys. Is that myth being dispelled with our recent crop of exciting rookies? Or is that a product of Kwesi poorly drafting/trading away picks?
I wouldn’t be surprised if you asked 20 NFL fan bases if their coach favors veteran players and refuses to develop the young guys enough that you’d go 20 for 20 on fans who would say that. People used to say it about Zimmer, too.
KOC wasn’t afraid to play Addison or Jackson right away. I’m guessing that’s because they are good at football. He did develop Jalen Nailor.
The whole McCarthy thing was not for lack of effort or opportunity. That just failed.
It was probably a product of simply not having a lot of promising developing players because they did trade away so many draft picks. I thought they shoulda stuck with a couple of younger guys on defense over the years but it’s not like I can name 50 of those guys. If you’re always trading picks for veterans or putting all the eggs in Turner’s basket, the young players are gonna mostly be UDFAs, which tend not to work out that often.
They’ve also been in win-now mode since the day KOC arrived. They’re gonna play whoever gives them a chance to win.
Eldon… Is it possible the Vikings trade McCarthy to the giants? Or is it possible that Nolan Teasley still likes McCarthy long term and the Vikings will hold on unless they get a big offer?
It’s possible if the Giants decided they were going to throw significant draft capital at the Vikings but I’d probably still pass at this moment. This has the potential to be a really competitive season for the Vikings and I wouldn’t toss away my insurance policy at quarterback for a Day 3 pick.
Especially if they win on Sunday, the mindset really goes to being a serious contender in the NFC. Teams that are hunting deep playoff runs don’t give up any talent off their team, even if they’re not currently using it.
Is it possible Teasley likes McCarthy? I guess. I think it’s pretty clear that it would take a miracle for him to become part of their long-term plans. He’s only got one year left on his rookie deal and they’re not going to pick up his fifth-year option, so next offseason is probably when they move him.
But there’s no good reason to do it now when you could easily see a scenario where he has to play.
Brad L… If Jones is limited in any way can we still generate a run game? Or will we need to pass 3,000 times?
It’s not likely that they’ll be able to create much in the run game. The Bucs have a great run defense with Vita Vea in the middle and guys who rally to tackle on the outsides. They kept the Browns to 1.9 yards per carry last week.
Throwing 3,000 times shouldn’t really be considered too worrisome considering KOC has won a lot of football games that way. The thing they need is a short attack to Hockenson, Oliver, Jones, Jennings that can close out a game if they can’t do it with the run.
Jon A… I don’t expect Kyler Murray in his first game really of the season to be slinging it all over the lot. I think the over under on his passing yards is 230 until he proves otherwise I’d take the under.
Really depends on how the game plays out. I think he should be fine against this defense.
I understand that Vikings fans have literally never watched Kyler Murray play football because he was with an irrelevant team but this is a quarterback with 48 career games — yes, 48 — with more than 230 yards passing.
Some people are treating him like he’s never played in the league before. It’s actually funny how much more benefit of the doubt was given to McCarthy last year going into the season than a guy who’s been legitimately good before.
Bradley P… I’ve been hard on the Special Teams with the penalties but can we give that unit and Matt Daniels some love? They’ve found a punter of the future that had no issues holding a soggy football and an all pro kicker.
The rule of evaluating special teams is that if anything goes wrong, you call for the special teams coordinator’s head but if everything goes right you completely ignore it.
Obviously I’m kidding but that’s truly how it goes when it comes to reaction to the games.
Matt Daniels is a really excellent special teams coordinator. He’s been dealt a really tough hand over the years with so many UDFAs and they’ve been on the positive side of EPA and found really good kickers, punters and returners and the coverage units are really good. The only
@MIvikesfan With TID’s injury do we see Elijah Williams active this week?
If Ingram-Dawkins can’t go, then yes. He makes sense as the next man up since veteran Naquan Jones got scooped up by the 49ers. I liked Williams’ game in preseason.
Arin J… 2 and 0 love it, Defense and Special teams kicking u know what. Kyler back hopefully we see some passing the cornerstone of KOC. I recently had an interesting conversation someone frustrated that in the Chicago game we didn’t throw more to the tight ends given how successful. I pushed back we don’t know what’s called per se when watching. Question: facing the Bucs porous pass defense can we expect more passing and specifically JJ Addison and Hock?
To be fair, they really didn’t throw to anyone on Sunday because it was such a mess. You could make an argument that little dump-offs to Hock and Oliver would have made sense but it was so hard to pass the ball for anyone that they just chose to keep pounding away on the ground and play field position.
Jefferson is always going to be a big part of the gameplan but I definitely think they need to get Jordan Addison a big game. It’s been so long. He hasn’t gone over 100 yards since October 19, 2025 against Philadelphia.
The Bucs are really struggling against tight ends. Both Mike Gesicki and Harold Fannin both had good games against them in the first two weeks so I could see Hockenson being a big part of the gameplan.
Andrew K… Forecasted high in Tampa Sunday is 86. I worry that the exhausting conditions at Chicago followed by a trip to steamy TB could lead to a letdown. Can you talk me off the ledge?
It’s a concern. I saw analytics fella Ray Carpenter wrote something about how games with extreme heat are more sloppy. I’m not sure 86 is quite extreme but that’s toastier than it is in Minnesota. I’m always concerned about letdowns after a big road division win. That was a very tough and physical game.
The mitigating factor, however, is the passing game. While the defense might be a little worn down, Murray and the receivers didn’t exactly tucker themselves out last week.
The other thing is, it’s only Week 3. If it was deeper into the season then you could see them being banged up or worn down but it’s a little too early for that to be a big thing. At least I think so, we’ll see.