Hey, everybody, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider, Matthew Collar here.

And this is somewhat of a fans only episode.

I'm going to have some fan questions to answer in just a couple of minutes.

But when there's not a whole lot of news cycle and acquisitions and trades and signings and things

like that going on, I always think it's a good time to make some lists and help us put

in perspective some different things about the Minnesota Vikings.

So here's what I started with today.

The five toughest games for J.J. McCarthy on the 2025 schedule. So this isn't the

toughest just for the Minnesota Vikings overall, but the most difficult opponents, circumstances,

and so forth for a first year starting quarterback. So I'm going to run through the list that I've

also got an interesting couple of quotes from Bucky Brooks from NFL.com and another list of the best rookie seasons in recent memory.

And there's two that stand out that could be similar to J.J. McCarthy.

So I'm going to get to all that.

Well, right now.

Here we go.

So here's my list of the five toughest games on the Viking schedule for

J.J. McCarthy. I think number one on that list, or let's count it down from number five to number one.

So I'll start with number five. That is the opener versus the Chicago Bears. The toughest game is

always the first game for a young quarterback, right? He's never done it before.

He's got to go on the road and play at Soldier Field, which in Vikings history, maybe you've

heard, has a little bit of lore to it, although Kevin O'Connell has seemingly had no problems

beating the Chicago Bears at Soldier Field in recent years. But even last year, it got a little bit weird.

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