Friday Mailbag: McCarthy's footwork

Fans are interested in JJ McCarthy's development path in this week's mailbag

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By Matthew Coller

Happy Friday, everybody! We had a pretty quiet week but that doesn’t mean it has to be quiet on the football talk front. So let’s dive into your questions for this week….

Sean… I just read from the Athletic that WR Elijah Moore could be on the outside looking in at a starting spot in Cleveland. If you were GM, would you be interested and what would you offer?

I’m pretty skeptical if a fairly high draft pick could end up on his third team in four years. I don’t mind the strategy of tryin to bring in guys who were picked highly but I can’t say that it works very often. Moore’s numbers are very pedestrian for his career. If we were talking about a sixth-round pick to take a swing then I guess that’s fine. Nothing more than that. I’d probably rather just see if anybody can emerge from this group of late picks and UDFAs they have now and add to the room next year in free agency if nobody steps up. Hey, did you know Adam Thielen was undrafted? Maybe the next Adam Thielen is already here (though if he is, I haven’t spotted him yet).

Taylor… my worry is Darnold’s highest ceiling is Nick Mullens 2.0. He’s a gun slinger with a lot more athleticism, but with just as many interceptions. How do you think a peak Darnold can compare to a peak Mullens? Also, I really feel we should’ve traded for Sam Howell instead

It’s funny, by the numbers Nick Mullens is a lot better than Sam Darnold. That’s why QB stats can be weird. Mullens blows him out of the water in yards per pass attempt, completion percentage and QB rating. But Mullens played all but one of his career games with Kyle Shanahan’s offense in SF and Justin Jefferson in Minnesota.

Mullens is actually more reckless than Darnold when you look at the turnover-worthy plays by PFF. Mullens was at 5.8% in 2020 and 7.0% last year whereas Darnold was at 4.3% in 2021 and actually only had 2.9% TWP rate in 2022. Since Darnold left New York he has 17 picks on 592 passes whereas Mullens has 21 INTs in his last 529 passes since 2020.

If Darnold plays similarly to the way he did in Carolina and protects the ball even a little bit better he could, with this supporting cast, play better than he’s ever done before. If you’re not a turnover fan, Sam Howell threw 21 INTs last year. Darnold definitely has more talent to push the ball downfield and make plays with his arm and legs so it’s worth giving a try to see if there’s something there as a bridge QB.

Ben…. I heard The NFL owners are discussing a QB salary cap. Is that needed or do you think the QB market will go back down?? (especially as bad QBs start getting deals)

It is wild how the QB prices have jumped over the last few years. When Cousins signed in 2018 there was one QB over $30 million per year on the cap, now there are five QBs over $45 million. The salary cap has jumped massively since then though. In 2018 it was $177 million and this year it’s $255 million so as crazy as it might seem Matthew Stafford’s $49 million cap hit this year only takes up 19.3% of the cap (Kirk’s highest mark was 16.7%).

The owners would have to change the CBA, which would require the players to agree. Maybe there is an option that the players would be OK with where the QB gets paid his salary but only a certain percentage can count against the cap. So if a QB makes $55 million or more, then his cap hit only counts as 75%. That way owners could pay out the actual cash but everyone would be happy because the 25% goes to other position players. It would have to benefit both sides to get done.

But realistically the owners know what happens without a good QB. If the Jaguars said bye-bye to Trevor Lawrence and ended up with a string of bad quarterbacks then they could be stuck in the mud for a decade (as they were before).

On the flip side, there has been an increase in teams letting their expensive veteran QBs walk and a middle ground does seem to have emerged with guys like Derek Carr and Baker Mayfield. There’s only about 1/3 of the league making big money at that position.

David E…You’ve focused a good deal of your coverage of McCarthy’s development on the importance of proper footwork but precious little detail about what exactly that means. Please expand on exactly what he needs to work on with regard to footwork and how specifically that affects his performance.

Think about it this way: Let’s say a playbook has 100 pass plays and each play has three different options for what might take place on that play. The quarterback has to understand where his feet are supposed to be in 300 different scenarios. Are we dropping back zero steps, three steps, five steps, seven steps? Are we throwing as soon as we hit the back foot or are we hitching up first and then throwing? How does that change when we get to option No. 2 or No. 3 of a play? Are we pivoting to the other side of the field or staying on the same side?

Every single play has the footwork written in. It’s timed up with the route combination.

Then there are fundamental things. If you drift in the pocket, you’ll get sacked a lot. If you dip your shoulder when throwing to the left, the ball will sail on you. If you don’t get your front foot pointed toward the target on throws to the right, it will be short on velocity.

We think of accuracy as being something natural but it’s not a carnival game or shooting hoops alone in the gym. Accuracy is tying together the footwork with the timing of the play and throwing it correctly from a technical standpoint.

Watch this:

Wade M…Matthew, who was the player (or players) who made you fall in love with the game, back in the day? (For me, it was Ahmad Rashad. I had been a Vikings fan since the early 70s, but Ahmad took me to another level of obsession… he was just so silky-smooth, utterly poetic in the way he played the game.)

There were probably 50 players between 1994 and 1998. Since that was the hay day of the Buffalo Bills it starts with Jim Kelly, Thurman Thomas, Bruce Smith and Andre Reed but I watched every single NFL game that I could get my hands on and every NFL Films special at my disposal. John Elway, Brett Favre, Barry Sanders, Tim Brown, Reggie White, Steve McNair, Steve Young, Randy Moss, Marshall Faulk and on and on. It was an unbelievably good time to start watching football. My brother and I used to play endless Madden and Tecmo Bowl seasons with all those guys.

Kyle S….Of all the bizarre moments in franchise history, I think the time the Vikings lost a kid in a hot air balloon doesn’t get enough acknowledgment for how crazy it was. What are some of your favorite bizarre moments in Vikings history?

My nomination is not talked about as much because they never showed it on TV but it’s the protester from 2016. I was walking in the hallway in the press box and wandered out and there was a person dangling from the roof. It is the craziest thing I’ve ever seen in my life. We were all sitting there wondering if the person was going to jump or start attacking the crowd with a weapon or… who knows what. Brian Murphy somehow got their number and called them while they were dangling there in a Favre jersey. This happened when I was working for 1500ESPN so we had three guys covering the game and we made one person stay back to see if the protester did anything insane. Hopefully nothing like that ever happens again because it was scary.

Corey… It was very cool to see that Eric Eager, my all-time favorite Purple Insider podcast guest, was hired as the Vice President of Football Analytics for the Panthers. Now that he's officially in the NFL, can he now be referred to as an "anonymous executive with a rival NFC team" for future draft grades?

I’m going to miss Eric on the podcast but I’m absolutely thrilled that he is getting this opportunity with the Panthers. When I first moved to Minnesota he was a math professor in Wisconsin who was just starting to do grading for PFF. He grew up in Minnesota as a massive Vikings fan though so he reached out to me and and asked if I needed any help getting comfortable with Vikings history. So we talked and I brought him on a podcast I was doing for 1500ESPN at the time called “The Analytics Department” and we became friends from there. He’s legitimately the smartest person I’ve ever met when it comes to analyzing football and unsurprisingly people in the NFL saw that too.

As far as anonymous sources though, no, I won’t be asking him for draft intel. I’ve always said that the reason the sourcing is so bad in NFL reporting around the draft is because if you leak stuff you get fired and I’d prefer him not get fired. But I will be banging the drum for him to argue for more fullback usage in Carolina’s offense.

Rob…JJ got his extension Darrisaw will probably get one during training camp What about Harrison Phillips?

I would be very surprised if Darrisaw agreed to an extension this offseason. Obviously he’s a top notch left tackle so it would make sense for him to negotiate but when you look at how the prices jump every year (including with Justin Jefferson’s deal) it doesn’t make much sense to sign before the final year of the deal. Plus from the team’s perspective they would probably rather work with a bigger sample size from the player unless they think they can get a steal of a deal.

It’s possible that they could sign Harrison Phillips and Cam Bynum this year but there is no rush. They can wait to see how they play this year and then extend them in March next season if they want.

Rzuppelli… Who do you think is a better bridge? Sam Darnold or Elsa of Arendelle?

Is that a soccer player?

Never Played Madden…. With Jefferson signed, the offseason is effectively over. It seems less all-in than in the past. Any regrets with any of the Vikings’ decisions?

Not really. Everyone would prefer another receiver, shutdown corner, star guard and a pass rushing defensive tackle but I don’t think any of those things were available to them this offseason. If I laid out the offseason checklist back in February, I would have had: Move on from Cousins, draft a QB, get a bridge QB, extend Jefferson, either bring back Hunter or find multiple pass rushers to bring in, draft defense, make sure the salary cap looks favorable for 2025 and 2026. They got the QB and did an excellent job setting themselves up to have an improved defense this year and build around McCarthy for the future. Mission Accomplished Part 1. Of course, Part 2 (actually winning) is the hard part.

Hunter S… You mentioned that Brian Flores could be here for a long time. I was under the impression that he would end up in HC talks most years, especially if the Vikings defense out performs expectations. Have you heard any talk this summer that he is more likely to stick around unless a perfect situation comes up?

Last year he turned around the Vikings defense by pushing every button and finding every possible advantage that he could and he got zero job interviews (as he confirmed to us earlier this offseason). I think he’s completely deserving of a second chance and being inside KOC’s building has probably been a great experience for him but we can’t ignore the fact he’s suing the league. Owners pretty much made it clear that they aren’t going to break rank on this one. Of course, there are a lot worse things than being the Vikings defensive coordinator.

Evan…. What does the plan for JJ McCarthy’s development look like? Is it “he’s ready when he’s ready” or do they have 3-month, 6-month, 9-month plans and benchmarks for him to reach? How do you evaluate NFL readiness during the season when there are no joint practices or preseason games?

The way it sounds, when he’s ready then he’s ready. O’Connell used the word “benchmarks” and said that he’d be confident in him once he believes that he’s mastered the offense. They will have a very good idea of where he stands when it comes to readiness once the preseason and joint practices are over. If they feel he’s not far away at that point then he can still improve when it comes to preparing for a game, practicing each week and staying after practice with the QB coaches. It’s like Mike Zimmer said, “I see him every day in practice.” They will have a sense for whether it’s clicking or not.

I don’t think that you or I would be able to tell exactly when a quarterback is ready to go based on practice but I’m guessing Josh McCown and Kevin O’Connell are probably qualified to make that call.

Patrick G… what happened to Khyiris Tonga? at the end of 2022 he looked so promising. was he just not a fit for the Flores D? is there a specific archetype for NT/DT in the Flores D? should we be concerned that there wasn't much effort or success in getting a disruptive, BIG NT/DT in the offseason?

You’re right, Tonga did look like he was going to be a piece of the puzzle going forward and then just stopped seeing the field in 2023. I never asked what happened there but I would venture a guess that he was a better fit with what Donatell wanted from that position than Flores. When it comes to fringe players it’s always about whether they can fit into a very specific role.

Should you be concerned that they don’t have a great NT/DT? Yes. I thought highly of Dalvin Tomlinson but never felt he was a game changer and they truly haven’t had a difference maker at that spot since Linval Joseph’s peak 2017 season. I wouldn’t say it’s for lack of effort. They tried to sign Christian Wilkins. It’s lack of availability. Those dudes don’t hit the market very often and when they do they get paid huge money. Next year it should be a major priority to find a menace in the middle.

Mike H… Since we’ve discovered you’re a musician, Fender neck or Gibson neck?

Either one is fine. The only type of neck that I do not like is the super flat ones like Ibanez has on their shreddy type guitars. I grew up playing a Squier strat so I’m comfortable with a little more thickness on the neck. I also don’t play like a classical guitarist with the fingers super flat. I’d prefer to grip into the guitar and do big Jimi Hendrix type bends. I just bought a Les Paul style LTD that has active pickups and it’s very comfortable.

David W… Say next year, Netflix has a show called LEFT GUARD. Who are three left guards in the league you’d love to see in depth?

I liked the way the Quarterback show went with the best QB in the league, a good QB and a bleh QB so I might do the same thing with LEFT GUARD. I’d go with Joe Thuney, Teven Jenkins and a veteran trying to hang around like Laken Tomlinson.

Lemme tell ya, LEFT GUARD would be freaking fascinating. The O-linemen are some of the smartest, funniest people in pro sports. They would also never agree to it. It’s not in linemen’s nature to look for shine.

Denton D… I’m not sure I buy the Plummer comp since Plummer won a playoff game in ‘98. Geno Smith seems spit on however… How possible is this scenario: Darnold is average or even a little better but with the tough opening schedule the Vikes are at or below .500 after 6 games. If McCarthy was close to ready could the Vikes trade Darnold to a qb needy team for a Day 2 pick?

The year Plummer won a playoff game he threw more INTs than touchdowns and got sacked 49 times. He ranked 20th in the NFL in passer rating. Sam Darnold had a similar 2019 season where he went 7-6 and was 26th in rating.

The trade scenario is plausible but things would have to land exactly the right way in order for it to happen. If they are .500 after 6 games and he’s playing well then they would likely stick with him because the second half schedule open up quite a bit. The only way I see it working is if they are 2-5 yet Darnold has played pretty well and there’s a winning team that loses its quarterback but has a chance to do what the Browns did last year. It might even have to be San Francisco or someone Shanahan influenced because he knows the offense.

The more likely person to be traded if things don’t go particularly well is Aaron Jones. He’s on a one-year deal and will probably want to help a contender if the Vikings are struggling.

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