Friday Mailbag: Ramping up to the competition

As camp approaches, fans have questions about how things will play out at quarterback

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By Matthew Coller

Happy Friday, everyone. Hope you’re enjoying the last couple weeks before camp gets roling. Let’s dive into the mailbag…

Anonymous Ravens fan… Ravens fan infiltrating here.. obv a huge fan of defense and the crazy stuff Flores does so looking forward to learning about it!! I wanted to ask how you think the Vikings can maximize Kyler’s athleticism in their offense (especially given the somewhat shaky OL situation)

Thank you for dropping by, Ravens Fan. I think they can use his athleticism in a few ways. Getting him rolling out on some bootlegs makes sense. That gives him an easy choice to either find guys in his vision or take off for a few yards. I could see them using some RPO game and the threat of him taking off would be enough to hold the linebackers in place.

They can definitely up their creativity in the run game to use him a little bit but I wouldn’t expect that he’s suddenly going to be a Lamar Jackson level designed runner. He’s more of a guy who scrambles when he gets pressured or something goes sideways than a player who you want running out in space and taking hits.

Matt D… Who is your all-time holy bleep training camp guy? A guy who from the first day of camp just looked like a different category of human. Percy Harvin?

I wish I could tell you Justin Jefferson but his camp was such a bizarre situation. He got COVID and missed the first part of camp and then it took most of the shortened summer for him to begin showing signs of excellence. It’s too bad because he’s a “holy bleep” guy in every other year except that first one. I always thought Zim got wrongly criticized for not playing him until Week 3 because he didn’t have the full camp.

Anyway, the one that stands out most is Dalvin Cook. He was shredding the defense in 2017 camp and all the defensive players were talking about it. That was the best run defense in the NFL and he was not having problems finding holes and accelerating. I remember doing a story about it and Terence Newman told me that he knew as soon as Cook ran into him during a goal line drill that it was different.

If you’re talking about guys who were already established that blew me away the first time I saw them, there are three that stand way out from the others: Sam Bradford, Everson Griffen and Stefon Diggs.

Darnold is close to Bradford in terms of throwing the ball but I’d say Bradford was still better. His ball glided through the air, yet it was also cooking in terms of velocity. Griffen terrified people. He was so strong, so fast and so competitive that the offensive tackles would just get worn down by him. Diggs wanted to demolish every cornerback who dared to cover him. His route running was total insanity at his peak. Nobody could stick with him and he caught everything.

Anglo Vike…. Firstly thanks for all the content you provide, especially at this time of year.
As a fan from the other side of the Pond for 40+ years I’ve seen many changes in access to Vikings & NFL news, information, games etc in that time. So what do you think is the biggest change in the way that fans get information or interact with reporters like yourself or the team? Has it made for smarter fans or do we prove the ‘little knowledge is a dangerous thing’ rule ?

Thank you for following along!

It depends on the information we’re talking about. I love the fact that fans know the salary cap because of OverTheCap.com and they know every player in the draft because of Dane Brugler and Daniel Jeremiah and that fans have PFF subscriptions and Pro-Football Reference to analyze the team in deeper ways. I greatly appreciate that fans have taken a viewpoint on the front office of timelines and player analysis that goes multiple layers deep.

That means that we can all have a conversation about the team rather than the reporter just telling fans what’s going on. We can really dive into stuff and put ourselves in the GM and coach’s seat. That’s incredible. I always hoped we’d get to that point.

The only downside is that there is such a desire for more angles and more news to analyze that disingenious aggregators can successfully drum up bogus drama and misrepresent opinions and reporting from reporters in order to try to rile people up for their own clicks.

I have no issue with social media accounts or websites who share the news and cite our work properly but those who either straight up steal it or spin it to get more attention are a scourge on sports.

Overall, internet good. Just make sure you’re supporting the people who actually cover your team or write good commentary and analysis.

Brent M… Hi Matthew, During this “break” in the NFL calendar, do you get any “official” updates/info from the Viking organization, or have access to any players that are using the facilities? Or are the only new tidbits from sources like when KOC joined the Dan Patrick show?
Also, I agree with Anglo Vike. Thank you for helping us through this dreadful period!

All of the reporters hope and pray that we do not get any official updates from the organization at this time. If there’s news two weeks before camp, it’s bad 90% of the time. So yeah, if a Vikings player or coach does an interview, we’ll pay attention to it and break it down if there’s something there but otherwise we’d all prefer to let the sleeping dog lie and enjoy the quiet time.

I’m perfectly fine doing content without any pressing news or quotes for the summer because it allows for a lot of space to do things that I otherwise wouldn’t have time to do. The series on the most underrated players of the last 50 years was a really fun research project. If I was typing out quotes, I wouldn’t have been able to do it. I’ll have a couple other interesting things coming your way soon too.

Once we get started with camp, the press conferences and scrums will be a fire hose and it’ll be tough to keep up.

KellyJ… Love the show Matt! Really appreciate the journalistic integrity. You’ve talked a lot about the QBs that finally find their footing but always with the second or later teams. Is there a scenario where you can have patience with JJ and he develops but not until year 5? It’s like Jordan Love but add basically add a year plus. In this hypothetical scenario, they don’t exercise the 5th year option, he hasn’t proven much yet so the post rookie scale contract is more like a back-up contract for say 2-3 years. If he prefers to stay here, betting on himself, and finally figures it out, then it’s a win-win. I’d love to hear your thoughts. In my mind, why not give it a shot as long as his approach is to work to get better at those “correctable” flaws.

Thank you!

In theory, there could be a world where JJ McCarthy develops this year and in 2027 and then convinces them that he is good to go and signs a new contract to stay here and be the starter going forward.

I don’t see how that could actually happen in real life though. If McCarthy isn’t the locked-in starting quarterback after 2027, he isn’t going to agree to stick around based on a promise that he would finally get his chance. At that point there would absolutely be other teams who were willing to sign him and give him a fresh start, so there’s a 99% chance he’d be looking to find a franchise that would let him restart his career fresh.

There is only one path to McCarthy remaining this team’s quarterback if he doesn’t win the competition. That’s if Kyler either gets hurt or struggles and he comes in the game and then plays really well over an extended period of time and they win.

If they went 3-6 to begin the year and then went to McCarthy and he played great football and went 6-2 the rest of the way, then he’d go into 2027 as the starting QB and all sins would be forgiven.

They could keep him through 2027 if things went OK with Kyler and they didn’t sign him just to give it every possible chance but if he’s not playing by the end of this year it feels like that would be time to trade him and get something back.

Josh I… Im going to start by saying I really loved the QB competition article huge fan of hearing old NFL stories like that! I’m getting really excited to see how the QB competition plays out over the coming weeks there is a apart of me that is rooting for JJ to win the job and prove he deserves the job just as a good redemption story. If you were to put a percentage on JJ McCarthy to beat out Kyler Murray what would it be?

Thank you, Josh! I loved doing that article.

It would be a good redemption story and the best possible outcome for the Vikings because it would mean that he grew a ton and played really, really well.

Right now I’m only putting 5% on McCarthy to beat out Murray. As we learned the hard way last year, training camp only tells you so much. How the guys have actually played in real NFL games will still weigh extremely heavily in the decision. McCarthy’s burden of proof is so much higher than Murray’s is. McCarthy has to be incredible and Murray has to struggle to have any shot and even then I’m not sure if they would do it based on each guy’s past.

That’s why there are so many skeptical folks about the merits of the QB competition. The bar has to be extremely high for McCarthy because he looked good in camp last year and then struggled so much in the regular season and they brought Murray here to start.

Jason… Can you do a pie chart for JJ McCarthy’s career outcomes based on Tannehill being the most likely good outcome?

I’ll go…

— 5% chance that everything comes together and he becomes an elite QB.

— 25% chance that he has the Tannehill outcome and it eventually works out

— 40% chance that he is Zach Wilson-y where teams want him but they are always looking for their starter.

— 30% chance that nothing really materializes.

The history on this one is pretty clear. Once a quarterback plays like this to open their career and they aren’t a top-five pick, the odds are against them.

Personally I think he can be in that 25% and turn into a good quarterback. The pie chart, however, has to be shaped by what has happened in the past to QBs like him.

Florian K… This is something from what I’ve read and heard. How much of a deal is it between Murray being more of a shotgun/pistol QB and KOC liking his QBs under center more for play action? Are there any stats or metrics to speak to that?

The idea that KOC wants his QBs under center all the time is way overstated. Like, way, way, way overstated.

In 2022, Kirk Cousins threw 454 passes from the shotgun and 189 from under center. In 2023, it was 214 to 97. In 2024, Darnold was 390 to 155.

Let’s add those all up…. we get 1,058 shotgun to 441 under center. Or 29% under center.

In 2024, Kyler Murray was under center 22% of the time.

Yeah, not exactly the massive gap that some folks have made it sound like.

It’s quite possible that the Vikings ran under center a lot more often than the Cardinals but that would make no difference to the QB and they’re designing the run game with Miami roots this year and they ran out of shotgun a ton.

(Pro-Football Reference with the data).

Ben… Are the Packers entering “no mans” land as a franchise?? We are getting pretty deep into the Jordan Love era and the results haven’t really been there. Fun fact ( If the 7th seed didn’t exist the Packers would not have made the playoffs once in the post Rodgers era.)

Yes and no. Last year they were 9-3-1 with a lead over Denver with Micah Parsons in the mix and then it all came crashing down. Parsons is going to be there a long, long time and they will have every chance to build around him on defense. If they draft really well and put more talent alongside Parsons, they are going to be really, really good.

On paper, Love is good enough to win. They have ranked 12th, 8th and 16th in points over the last three years and he’s put up some really good numbers. He’s still relatively early in his career and I don’t think that him being expensive should destroy their chances of winning because he has the talent to take a team into the playoffs and win.

The way I think it’s going to go with Love in Green Bay is that he will be a bit like Joe Flacco. A downfield passer who needs to get hot at the right time and have everything else fit perfeclty into place, especially the defense. And then get the right matchups and so forth.

That’s more of a long-term, next-five-years answer. In terms of 2026, it’s hard to see that team having enough talent through the entire roster to be more than the seventh seed you’re talking about. I just wouldn’t count out the idea of it all coming together sometime for them during Love’s career.

Eldon… Is this a must win a playoff game year for KOC?

Yes and no. I don’t see any other NFL head coaches that are employed right now that have gone five years without a playoff win. It’s a reality of the NFL that you don’t get a decade to win in the postseason. At the same time, I could absolutely see a scenario where they win 11 games and lose in the playoffs to the Rams or Seahawks by 7 points and nobody’s calling for KOC’s head.

If they were to miss the playoffs entirely, then the pressure is going to be ramped up to the max going into 2027.

So I would say that for the fans to really buy into him, they need to see postseason winning. Nobody rational thinks he’s anything less than an average or above average coach but the scoreboard in the playoffs has to eventually reflect that in order to have full belief that he is the one who can win them a championship.

Jordan D… Talk me into the Vikings winning the Super Bowl in 2027 without JJM as the starter. Is there another good QB we could sign for a Kyler Murray-esque contract? Can we compete that year in the roster building competition if we’re losing so much cap space value to potential Kyler Murray and Jalen Redmond contracts? Is Joe Burrow the only win-con? You are allowed to trade JJM for assets in this talk-me-into, but he can’t make any hypothetical on field impact for me to convinced.

Baker Mayfield is another possibility, though it’s hard to see that resulting in a Super Bowl.

I’m not too worried about the salary cap situation if Kyler is really good and they believe he can win a Super Bowl, then they can design that thing to be managable in 2027 and still spend on other parts of the roster.

It would have go go something like: Kyler is a top-10 QB, the weapons stay together and they draft a sick running back, the O-line is great and the defense is really close in 2026 but just needs some parts. They go add some more pass rush, a big-time safety and Will Reichard goes 30-for-32 (hits a wire twice) on the season and bang you’re a serious contender.

It’s just that easy, right?

Matt R… Who is the best NFL player golfer you’ve ever seen play? I’m guessing some of these pro athletes in other sports end up being great golfers.

I have only seen Adam Thielen play in social media highlights and on TV but he’s absolutely unreal. He can drive it like 350 and apparently his handicap is almost scratch. Patrick Peterson is also a really good golfer.

Maybe the best of anyone was Tony Romo. There was talk when he was still playing of him making the US Open or something like that.

Of course, even the gap between great NFL player golfers and real golfers is hilariously large. They might be able to play par golf on the easiest PGA tour course where the pros are 20 under par.

Bradley P… Who’s this year’s Seattle Seahawks? Who surprises most by winning the Super Bowl?

The funny thing about Seattle winning last year is that normally betting market underdogs do not win the Super Bowl. It’s almost always favorites or teams that are hovering around the top. If there was another team that was going to be a big surprise, I would go with the Commanders at +5000 on FanDuel. I don’t think they are quite deep enough but they still have Jayden Daniels, who was a step away from the Super Bowl two years ago with a worse team. They have put a lot into the defense and have a chance to be pretty good.

I still see Washington is just OK but they’d be my pick for a long(ish) shot.

Brent O…Looking at the Jeremy Fowler/ESPN top players by position rankings, not 1 Vikings defender made a list OR even the honorable mention. Does that make Brian Flores the best assistant coach in the NFL to have a highly producing defense without a top player at any position on the defense?

The PFF data also backs up the idea that Flores is enhancing the defense beyond the skill on the roster. Last year they finished 7th in points and 3rd in yards allowed, yet PFF graded them 16th overall, 14th in coverage and 19th in pass rush. That means they weren’t getting mindblowing individual performances, yet the final results were elite.

It’s going to have to be the same story this year unless Dallas Turner turns into a 15-sack guy or Caleb Banks dominates right away.

The problem with that is eventually it becomes hard to always have to squeeze every ounce of blood out of the stone.

Carter… ESPN ranked Kyle Hamilton as their #1 safety. If the Vikings stick & pick him at 1.12 in ‘22, where are we today? Same place, only with Harry comfortably retired? Kwesi still around?? Vikings beat the Giants in ‘22 wildcard, Donatell sticks around another year, miss out on Flores???

Kyle Hamilton as a rookie wasn’t changing the fate of the 2022 defense. The scheme was so atrocious and the cornerbacks struggled so much that they still would have been really bad. If Donatell couldn’t get much out of Harrison Smith, he wasn’t going to make Hamilton into the freaky piece he eventually became.

Brian Flores, however, would have had an absolute freaking field day with the guy. That would have been his favorite player ever. If Flores was the DC then, he probably would have pushed super duper hard for them to pick Hamilton and it might have happened. We can’t forget that Cine was suppposed to be the perfect Donatell fit.

I’m not sure that I can come up with any other results that would be crazy different because Metellus and Bynum were an awesome pair in 2024. Maybe they squeeze out one more win last year and find their way into the playoffs if they had that guy. We might not even know who Metellus is though.

Don’t get me wrong, it would have been an outstanding pick and we all know that they should have just taken him. I’m just not sure that the results would be much different because the defense has already been very good.

Bradley P… Shiver my timbers, Matthew, has ESPN awoken a sleeping drunk in Wisconsin. How dare they say Caleb Williams is better than Jordan Love?!? What are your thoughts on their top 10 rankings?

It just shows you that NFL executives don’t have magic powers and can totally fall victim to the last thing they saw. In no world was Williams better than Love last year and there’s no guarantee he surpasses him but that Bears/Packers end to the season absolutely convinced everyone that he’s the next coming of John Elway.

Also, he might be, so we’ll see.

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