#690: Minnesota Vikings should know Concerning Fact about JJ McCarthy | NFL

In this episode of The Grind, Tim discusses the current state of Minnesota sports, focusing on the Minnesota Vikings and their championship aspirations. He emphasizes the importance of winning and critiques the mindset of celebrating mere participation. The conversation delves into the Vikings' roster changes, the challenges posed by a young quarterback, and the historical context of Super Bowl-winning quarterbacks.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Grind, a Minnesota sports podcast July thirty first, twenty
twenty five. The Minnesota sports scene. It really epitomized the
name of this podcast. The Links lose to the Indiana
Fever in the Commissioner's Cup game without Caitlin Clark and

(00:23):
Red Panda falls during her halftime performance. The Minnesota Twins
get shut out versus the Miami Marlins in royce Lewis's
first game back from rehab. He has fifty percent of
the team's hits, but the bigger problem was that royce

(00:45):
Lewis only had one hit and Willie Castro had the other.
This is a Minnesota sports podcast, and there is no
doubt it is a grind to be a Minnesota sports fan.
It's been twelve thousand, three hundred and two days since
the Minnesota Twins hung up and won that World Series

(01:10):
in nineteen ninety one, when Jack Morris went ten innings
in a complete one zero shutout against the Atlanta Braves.
All right, let's talk about Minnesota sports. But first I
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(02:47):
free consultation, and like us, you'll probably sign that dotted
line because they are incredible. Okay. I talked about the
depressing day that was July first for Minnesota sports fans,
and this podcast is very clear that nothing short of

(03:15):
winning the whole damn thing is a failure because you
don't look back on seasons when you don't win the
Super Bowl and say that was a successful year. You
can look back on plays, You can look back on

(03:36):
players that make plays and say, oh, I loved Randy
mosson ninety eight, I loved Brett Favre in two thousand
and nine, I love Case Skeenam to Stefan Diggs in
twenty seventeen. But those seasons in and of itself were
failures because the Minnesota sports team that was competing to

(03:59):
win a championship did not win the championship. Do you
think Patrick Mahomes is looking back at last season then
saying it was a successful season when his team lost
the Super Bowl. The answer is no. So why should
Minnesota Vikings fans look back on last season when they
lost against the Los Angeles Rams and say that was

(04:21):
a successful season. When you're fourteen to three and then
you lose in the first round against the Los Angeles
Rams in Arizona, that is a failure, a catastrophic failure.
So this podcast sets the standard differently than any other
show that you may ever hear Because as much as

(04:45):
people want to clap hands and give away consolation trophies
to a team that won a playoff game, or made
it into the playoffs, or won the NFC North or
even defeated the Packers and throwing Sam Darnold up on
their shoulders like they won something meaningful, this podcast takes

(05:09):
a different approach. Nothing or anything short of a championship
is a failure. The Minnesota Vikings are going all in
for that championship in twenty twenty five twenty six. They've
added players to their offensive line, Will Fries and Ryan Kelly.

(05:31):
They've added players on their defensive line Jonathan Allen and
Javon Hargrave vwell maintaining their corner that had a lot
of interceptions last year. Vyron Murphy Junior. And when you
look at championship teams, championship teams are built in the trenches.

(05:53):
Just take a look at the Eagles last year. Their
toush push play is a play that is a result
of their ability to win in the trenches. Their defensive
line is filled with players that can win in the trenches,
and the Minnesota Vikings have developed their roster through free

(06:16):
agency this past offseason through the trenches because they understand
that that is what makes a Super Bowl roster. However,
there is one concern the Minnesota Vikings must understand centered
around Jaj McCarthy, who is going to start for his

(06:38):
first time in his NFL career second year technically, but really,
let's call it what it is. This upcoming season will
basically be his rookie season in the NFL, and the
one concern the Vikings must have before we even see

(06:59):
McCarthy the play significant regular season snaps is his age. McCarthy,
although he speaks at the podium like a thirty year
old NFL veteran, he is only twenty two years old,

(07:22):
and he is projected to be the youngest NFL starting
quarterback next season. Aaron Rodgers is the oldest at forty one,
Joe Flacco at forty, Matthew Stafford thirty seven, Russell Wilson
thirty six, Dak Prescott thirty two, and then you get

(07:45):
down to the Vikings. McCarthy twenty two years old. He
got a list of players at twenty three, Bo Knicks,
Caleb Williams. There's another handful of players in that list.
Bryce Young. Bryce said no he's twenty four. I can't,

(08:06):
I cannot. I do not recognize some of these quarterbacks
because Jaden Danis was twenty four. I recognized Bo Nicks
and Caleb Williams. I do not recognize some of these others. Huh.
Who was the first round pick in the NFL draft

(08:28):
this year, the guy that went to the Tennessee Teins,
cam Ward. I bet some of those players are cam Ward.
I bet some of those players are rookies coming into
the year. So a rookie coming into the season next
year was going to be older than McCarthy And the
reason why McCarthy's age should be a concern for the

(08:51):
Vikings is that there has not been a quarterback in
the NFL to win a Super Bowl at twenty three
years old since the Pittsburgh Steelers did it with Ben Roethlisberger.
McCarthy is twenty two years old right now, but he

(09:12):
will be twenty three by the time the Super Bowl
has played in February, because his birthday is January twentieth,
according to Google AI, which I love. You type in
a little Google question and they pop up a bunch
of different answers with Google AI. It's amazing. Ben Roethlisberger

(09:35):
is the youngest quarterback to ever win the Super Bowl
at twenty three years old, and he's an old twenty three.
His birthday was in May, so he was almost twenty four.
McCarthy is a young twenty three. He's gonna be twenty
three for like two weeks. It was also Big Ben's
second years starting in the NFL, so he had already

(09:59):
a year of experience. So if you combine the two
factors for the Minuteseta Vikings quarterback room this season, if
the Vikings want to compete for a super Bowl in
JJ McCarthy's first year starting, they will have to do

(10:20):
something that's never been done in NFL history. McCarthy would
have to be the youngest quarterback starting in NFL history
to win the Super Bowl, and it will also have
to be his first year starting. So you combine those
two elements for the Vikings this season, and it almost

(10:43):
feels like an impossible task because a first time starting,
twenty three year old quarterback has never won a Super Bowl.
And to take it a step further, I looked up
the ages of the last ten Super Bowl champions that

(11:08):
played quarterback. Peyton Manning twenty fifteen was thirty nine years old,
Tom Brady twenty sixteen, thirty nine years old, Nick Foles
two thousand and seventeen, twenty nine years old, Tom Brady

(11:30):
twenty eighteen, forty one years old, Patrick Mahomes twenty nineteen,
twenty four years old, Tom Brady twenty twenty, forty three,
Matthew Stafford twenty twenty one, thirty three, Mahomes again, twenty seven,
Mahomes again twenty eight, Jalen Hurts twenty six. So the
average age of a Super Bowl winning QB the last

(11:53):
ten years is thirty three years old. Now, I understand
that you have to fa the're in the ages of
Tom Brady winning at forty one and Tom Brady at
thirty nine, and Tom Brady at forty three and Peyton
Manning at thirty nine. Those numbers influence this chart dramatically

(12:16):
because they were late thirties early forties to win a
Super Bowl. But you take those players out of the
equation and the average is still much higher than McCarthy's
twenty three years old. Jalen Hurts twenty six, Patrick Mahomes
twenty eight, Patrick Mahomes twenty seven, Matthew Stafford thirty three,

(12:36):
Patrick Mahomes twenty four. So you take in that average age,
and that average age is probably around twenty seven twenty
eight years old, and that's the last five to six
years of Super Bowl winning quarterbacks. The last ten years,

(13:01):
the average was thirty three years old. That is ten
years older than Jaj McCarthy will be on Super Bowl Sunday.
To combine McCarthy's age twenty three in January and his
inexperienced first year starter for the Vikings, it almost seems

(13:26):
impossible for the Vikings to overcome those odds in the
twenty twenty five twenty six season. And the reason why
it feels impossible is because you look at super Bowl
winning quarterbacks and you're looking at the elite players in

(13:47):
the league. Mahomes Hurts the last ten years, besides Nick
Foles and I guess an aging Peyton Manning. Eight out
of the last ten years, the quarterback has never been
a first year starter, and the quarterback has always been
an elite quarterback. That does not shape well in the

(14:11):
odds for the Vikings. Because even if you think McCarthy
will be a great quarterback for the Vikings in his
first year, let's all be realistic. About it. He's not
going to be a top five quarterback in his first year.
Even if you think he will be better or just

(14:33):
as good as Sam Donald was last year, he is
still not Mahomes or Hurts or Stafford. And if you
expect McCarthy to be what Sam Donald was last year,
that is asking a lot of McCarthy. To expect McCarthy

(14:56):
to throw thirty five touchdowns and twelve interceptions and be
in the rearview mirror of the MVP categories and MVP
candidate within the quarterback position, that is asking a lot
for McCarthy. I don't expect him to be what Sam

(15:20):
Darnold was for the Vikings last season, because I think
that is an unfair expectation. Now, the problem with this
whole situation is that the Minnesota Vikings are ready to
win a Super Bowl now. They're ready to win a

(15:41):
Super Bowl now. They brought in the Javon Hargrave and
the Jonathan Allen and the Will Fries and the Ryan Kellies,
and the offensive line is fairly young enough, like there's
some young talent on the offensive line that will last
a few years, and those guys are signed for a
few years. But Jonathan Allen the trenches within the Vikings

(16:06):
defensive line. He's thirty years old coming off a major injury.
Jonathan Hargrave, He's had injury history throughout his career. He's
thirty two years old. So it's not like the trenches
within the Vikings defensive line are built to withstand multiple seasons.

(16:26):
The Vikings roster is in win now, super Bowl mode.
And now you're going to ask your first time starting
twenty two year old quarterback that turns twenty three in
January to take a super Bowl ready roster all the
way to the super Bowl and win it. I don't

(16:47):
buy it. And a division that's still tough, arguably the
toughest division in football, I don't buy it. I would
say the Minnesota Vikings super Bowl window is not open
this season, but it could potentially be open the following

(17:08):
year when McCarthy has NFL regular season experience, and he
will start the year at twenty three and will become
a twenty four year old when the Super Bowl begins
in February. So my overall arcing point is that there
is a concern the Vikings should recognize and Vikings fans

(17:35):
should recognize, so that we can place our expectations in
a rightful category and a rightful place. There's always next year.
There's always the year after next year. The Vikings are
not winning the super Bowl this season. They will not

(17:57):
compete for the Super Bowl this season because Jaje and
McCarthy will hold them back. So that's the podcast for
the day. Thank you for watching and listening. Make sure
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