Welcome back to another episode of Voyage, where we've set sales seeking validation, vindication and Vikings victory. Another week, more turmoil to talk about. Um, this Vikings team is under duress and uh, we got a lot to catch up on. I'm the host of the program, cam Erickson. I've got Johnny Ditman here with me. Um, as we, I, listen, I don't think we need to talk about last Thursday at all. Uh, in fact, I don't really want to. I'm sure we will a little bit, but I wanna ask you this before we get into things. You preach patience. You've preached patience from the beginning of this season. Now, let me ask you, is your patience wearing thin ear is the thing about. Patience. Here's the tough love part about patience. Patience is only good until the time is now, and you have to recognize when the time is now, cam, the time is right now. Yeah. I don't have patience anymore. I have no more patience. We have to show up to Detroit and we have to play good. We don't even have necessarily have to win. We really should win. And I get the spread and I get everything we need to come out. We need to ball out. The time is right now. Agreed. A hundred percent. There couldn't be, uh, there's no other time than now. You're exactly correct on that now. Um, I guess the thing that is. Hurting a lot of Vikings fans and making them a little bit tepid and annoyed. Uh, is the fact that we're talking about this now, heading into the Lions game after what, seven games of football? It's week eight. We're talking about going to the Lions for our second, uh, divisional matchup, and we. Still don't out know what we have from our kid quarterback, JJ McCarthy. Um, I think I talked about it on the, on the first episode of the year that we would know what we had in him by week five after our, our first stretch, after we got back from, um. From our overseas trip, we know nothing. We know nothing. And I think that's frustrating. That's a little bit intimidating. But listen, we gotta find out. And time is now. I'm not gonna get into the whole Carson went situation and everything that occurred that transpired leading up to this, we have right now, you're a hundred percent correct. We should be healthy. Um. Looks like we're gonna get Van GLE back. DAW should be healthy if he's on a pitch count. I'm gonna be pissed off. He had a DNP today next to his name. I'm not sure what the deal is with that. He hasn't practiced on a Thursday all year. I understand that, but it's starting to, my patience is starting to wear thin in some places like that. Patience is starting to wear thin with Dallas Turner. We gotta turn it on on all levels, uh, on Sunday. And I also talked about this too, last episode, and the identity of this football team and what it needs to be moving forward, kind of with the understanding that we were gonna come to see what JJ McCarthy had and that he was gonna start heading into this week. Um. It has to be JJ to jj. It has to be JJ McCarthy to number 18. It has to be JJ throwing the ball all over the yard to number three, to TJ Hawkinson, to Jaylen Naor. Um, it, it's just gotta be, I don't care what you have to do as KOC, as the rest of this offensive unit. It has got to work with getting the ball to number 18. That's the, that's, that's what we have to do. Do you agree? I mean, it has to be everything. It has to be, you have to be able to complete swing passes to Aaron Jones in the open field with blockers in front of him. It's, you gotta be able to hit, uh, Justin Jefferson on the sideline. Yes. It's all of those things. Now I know you don't want to talk about the Carson we thing, but I gotta get it off my chest. Vikings. Twitter needs to grow up. They need to grow up. Okay. People saying that, I had people saying that. The NFL should penalize fine Kevin O'Connell for playing Carson Wentz. Carson Wentz was cleared medically. Carson Wentz is a grown ass man. Carson Wentz was saying he's fine and he's ready to go back out there. Can't we just sit here and say that it was a bad performance? But nevertheless, it was a tough performance. He gutted it out. Okay. It would, there was some, there's something admirable about that and why can't it be, why can't that inspire this ball club a little bit? JJ McCarthy probably could have played, he didn't have a full week to prepare. You're setting up, setting him up for failure a little bit. Was that the right or wrong move? Obviously it was the wrong move. He's sitting on the sideline knowing he can play. Watching Carson Wentz gutted out. Inspiration is not nothing. Get over it. Stop feeling bad for Carson Wince. He's a grown ass man. He knows what he signed up for. I mean, yeah, he even said it in his, in his presser this week. Yes. I'm not an idiot. I knew what I was doing. Yes. I had the training staff's approval. I had the coaching staff's approval. The only thing I would say to counter that is that. Yeah. Uh, it is admirable that he did that, I think. Um, but I would really like somebody to ask KOC the question, do you truly believe that for the last two ball games, Carson Wentz gave you the best chance to win those football games? His answer gonna be yes. Well, I understand that, but is that true? Can he look himself in the mirror when he goes to sleep at night? And truly believe that, because I can't. Look, I don't know. We don't sit there at practice all day. I think he's sitting in a pretty tough spot. Damned if you do, damned if you don't. Correct. Correct, and I'm not, and I'm not ripping him for it. I'm just saying, um, I wish there was a little bit more transparency. I wish we could know a little bit more about what went on behind the scenes and why the decision was made. Not to bring in Max Broer, at least at some point in that ball game, but by the time they did it was a little too. Too late. Um, but they didn't wanna throw'em to the wolves either. I mean, look at the way we were playing offensively. Look at the offensive line that was out there. Yeah. I mean, you and I were sitting on a live stream with our hands in our face for most of the game. Right. It was disgusting. It was awful. It was pitiful. I don't think it would've mattered who was back there at quarterback, but it couldn't, it couldn't have been worse, I guess is my point. Um. But hey, look, I think we're on the same page. It's turn the page, it's, turn the page. That's, here's a, here's a couple things going for you. Okay. As far as my understanding, JJ McCarthy has not lost a game in the state of Michigan. Ooh. He has not. I believe not to be true. He has not lost a game in the state of Michigan in his entire career. Uh, so they've got, we've got that going for us. Um. JJ McCarthy has not lost a divisional game. No. As a, as a starter. That's right. He has not lost a road, divisional game as a starter. So we got that going for us. Those aren't, those aren't biased. Those are facts. You're just laying out, you're laying on facts. It's a fact. Uh, listen, it's a fact. It's undeniable. Listen, the one thing that we're, that troubles me the most, um, understanding the offensive execution hasn't been there. We've had a piecemealed offensive line put together. We've had a guy out there under center with a snapped, you know, labrum and a broken, broken rotator cuff and a dislocated shoulder. I was screaming it was dislocated since the Philly game. Yeah. But, uh. The defense troubles me the most. Yeah. I mean, what is, what is going on? We can't stop the running now. You got Jamir Gibbs coming at you. Yeah, no, I, that's correct. All the talk about the quarterback, I mean, personally, I think McCarthy, there's a good chance he just balls out. He rushes for like 60 yards. He gets first downs. He completes some passes. I'm not too worried about the offense. You're right. The defense has looked uninspiring for essentially the entire season. It looked terrible. Jonathan Allen. Yeah. Ja. Nobody's played good. Nope. Nobody has played good. But you get Van G that Sam Rogers has played like pretty good. I think Van Gink, I dunno, he's gonna be a game time decision. He's got. Yeah, I mean it's just, I. It's frustrating. It's hard to watch. It's, there's, I'm running out of excuses for the defense. I'm running out of excuses for the entire team. And I think regardless of how you look at it, what you want to pinpoint as the biggest failures of this club to this point, it's, it's now, it's now or never. You're backs against a wall. You're kind of playing with house money at this point. Um, nobody believes that you can go on the road and get it done in, in Detroit. I think the line is a little bit interesting because I predicted last show that we would be. Two score dogs, um, at least. So I think that's a little bit interesting. I think, um, Vegas kind of understands the spot that, that we're in, but it, that hasn't really played true, um, this so far, this season in the NFL at all. So I guess we'll see how that plays out. But yeah, man, I'm, I'm, I'm running out of excuses. I can't make any more excuses for this team in all three phases. By the way. All three phases, um. So it, it has to all come together starting now? Yeah. I mean, there's, you're right there. The, the thing is, is like we, and I believe this, and there's been a lot of heat on our GM quai, and you don't have to be the biggest fan of'em, but Vikings fans, people that are complaining about'em right now, when it was. August, July. July. Really, when we made the Jonathan, we made good off season moves to help cushion the quarterback situation a little bit. And the quarterback situation, it was likely it wasn't gonna be great, but we bet on the rest of our team playing good enough to have a respectable re record. They haven't. It's been so bad. There's, I mean, Harrison Smith is probably our best player right now on defense, and he is a great player, but Cashman looked terrible. Dallas Turner can't shed a block. I mean, grard looks pretty good. He, he, he has a lot of pressures, but he's not just quite getting home, just hasn't looked good, man. Just hasn't looked good. So, um, I, I, I. I dunno what else to say, Johnny? Um, yeah, this is it. This is it. This is a, you're talking about NNFC North play now. You're going to face a really good lions team. Yeah. Who's just, might as well crown'em now Yep. Sort of thing here. Them and the packers might as well crown'em. Mm-hmm. But, uh, I, I, I agree. I mean, you gotta go just play good football. Sure. Show me something. Good. So I don't care if you lose, I mean I do. Oh, good. Tape up. Put good tape out there, but give a fuck. You know what I mean? Right? Yes. Um, show some, show some fight. There was absolutely no fight. Uh, last Thursday. It was the worst loss of the KOC area. Era. Yeah. I expect them to bounce back honestly. I really do. I think I. I think if there's anything they can rally around the young quarterback, I think they can, yes, all understand that they kind of let him down in that Falcons game and you know, he didn't play well in that game either, but he's a young kid. There's expected to be learning moments. I think we all understand that, but now is the time everybody else needs to step up around him and we need to play good football. I think it's pretty clear the plan was can Carson Wenz get you to Detroit? And he couldn't, can he? Yeah, he couldn't do it. Now we have, you're right. We have a little bit of a spark. We have a little bit of inspiration. You know, McCarthy's gotta be. I know you have, we know nothing. We know this kid's a competitor. We know that. Yes, correct. He's chomping at the bit to go out there and put play good football, period. Yeah. So I'm excited to watch it. Right, right. That, that if there's anything that you can be excited about as a Vikings fan is this, this is kind of a fresh start. That's right. You know what I mean? Uh, it's almost a second season. Within a season. I mean, I saw a stat the, the nerds are give, give us a 4% chance to make the playoffs. I saw that. Yeah. So who cares? There's, yeah, exactly. There's no question that the schedule's gonna be tough sledding from here on out, but it starts on Sunday and I don't care. Go out there and compete against the division rival. Um. Okay, let's get into the rest of the NFL slate. Dude, this, I, I'm, I know you're down on it as well, but the, the NF l's bad. It's a bad product right now. And, uh, yes. Let's do a quick hit on all these games. Chicago at Cincinnati. Chicago, minus two and a half on the road. Gimme Cincinnati. I think Chicago's spiraling. I mean, Chicago has to win this game. I know, but they won't. You're right. Gimme the Bengals. Gimme the home dog. Atlanta plus five and a half at New or, or New England. I don't know if Atlanta's starting. Kirk Cousins again. Um, yeah. Gimme New England minus five and a half right now. Gimme New England. If p next starts, gimme the Falcons. Okay. Uh, what about the Chargers at Tennessee? Tennessee plus nine and a half. They're a sorry club, a sorry, franchise. Uh, gimme the Chargers minus nine and a half. I think they continue to roll. Sure. Carolina at Green Bay, Carolina plus 13 and a half and and probably, I don't know, you're probably gonna see Andy Dalton Trott out there again. Packers crown'em minus 13 and a half. All lay the points. Lock Andy at Pittsburgh, Indy minus three. I think Pittsburgh bounces back. I think they win this football game. I like Pittsburgh a lot this week too. By the way. My Colt's pick at the beginning of the year, over eight and a half wins. Looking pretty solid there. Uh, San Francisco at New York. The Giants plus two and a half at home. I think San Francisco might finally be getting Brock pretty back. Uh, gimme the Giants to win this one at home, though sure feels, it feels like a game they win. Um, Denver at Houston. Denver plus one and a half on the road. I think Houston wins two in a row. I love Houston. Might be my favorite play in the NFL. Yeah. All right. New Orleans at, uh, the Rams, Rams minus 14. I'll lay the points. Don't care. Sure, sure. I, I'm just in the mindset now of just, just fade the bad teams. Fade'em, I guess. Yeah. Sick. Uh, yeah. Vegas plus three at home against Jacksonville. All fade to the bad team. Gimme Jacksonville minus three. Yep. Kansas City Buffalo might be the most intriguing matchup. Gimme Buffalo at home. Short dogs, whoever. Uh, I see all the Twitter handicappers on. I'm gonna take the other side. I think it's probably Buffalo. So, so you're gonna take Kansas City? No, no, no, no. I'm saying I'm taking B. Oh. Everybody's gonna be on Kansas City. Okay. Uh, Seattle. At Washington in a good uniform matchup. Um. Washington Plus three. Gimme'em. Is Jayden back? I don't know that. I can't, uh, let's see if I, I can't give a pick unless I know the guy's back. I don't think it matters in this one. Gimme Washington at home. Sure. Uh, okay. And then Monday night Football, Arizona at Dallas. Dallas, minus two and a half, half a bad loss at mile. Hi, gimme Dallas minus two and a half. I guess. Gimme Dallas. Although if Kyler Murray plays, if Tyler Murray plays, gimme the Cardinals six week. Gimme the over. Gimme the over. It's the high total 53 and a half. Don't care. I'll take it. Just take all overs and favorites. You'll be good. Sick league. You know, here's, here's the thing, dude, and pick'em. I'm getting smoked. I can't pick my nose in the NFL, but you know how it's flipped on me is my fantasy team is six in one. Yeah. Or seven in one, or what do we Yeah. I'm seven in one. My fantasy team is elite. I, I've never had a good fan. I'm a historically, even they laugh at me in my league. How bad of a fantasy player I am. I got Jonathan Taylor. It's just you stumbled into one. I stumbled into one. Now I gotta care about it and make like sharp moves. And I don't, I, I don't know what I'm doing, but whatever I'm doing is working. Write it, write it. Oh, all right. Gimme the lowdown on this college football slate. I see Vandy at Texas. That's an interesting one. Uh, your Louisville team is on the road in black Blacksburg. Scary spot. Georgia, Florida. Is that one in Jacksonville? This was the, this was the week preseason where it was like, whoever has a wedding on this day or like, you know, whatever that is.'cause it was Penn State, Ohio State. It was all these matchups. SMU was ranked, uh, Florida was supposed to be good this year, and it's kind of a snoozy spot. But there is one spot I'm, I'm. The more and more time has gone on. I really like it. I like Kansas State plus seven and a half at home against Texas Tech, Kansas State's coming on right now. They're similar to Kansas last year, remember Kansas last year people were high on'em. They started like oh and four and then I think they won like five straight. Yeah. Yeah, it happens. I like Kansas State a lot at home. Well, let's not forget too, there was a big 12 team Arizona State last year that was unranked at this point in the season and went on a tear and ended up making the playoff. So nothing's out of question. Still at this point. I like, uh, I like Tennessee as a short home favorite against Oklahoma. Uh, I kind like, I kind of like Nebraska plus five and a half at home against USC. I want to get there. It's just Nebraska has been so underwhelming. It's honestly, I agree. Sickening. Maybe, uh, Stanford is worth a look. Plus 14 and a half with Pittsburgh traveling all the way west. Yeah. Maybe I, by the way, I like Texas this week a lot. Texas and Kansas State are two of my favorite places. Those might be my, if I can place, I'm getting there with Texas. I, I don't know if I can get there with Texas. I, I like'em. I like'em. I like the number. I, I I, if I had to pick in that game, I'd pick Texas, but I can't pick Texas. I, I am on the wrong side of them. Every time this year, it's the same line as the Oklahoma line. It didn't make sense. Texas has played like three or three, maybe straight road games or four straight road games. This is their first home game. Middle of the day. I think the defense has a ton of talent. I think they can play really good football. They're gonna have an attitude at home. Diego Pavia, I, he's, he's a fan favorite, rightfully so. I like Diego Pavia. I just don't know how good he is. He should be a Heisman front runner, but his numbers really aren't that good. Van's winning games, not because of him necessarily. Right. And I just, I like Texas men. I like Texas. I like Kansas State. Are those your, are those your plays? Those are my two plays. I love it. Okay. I'm gonna go with Tennessee minus two and a half, and I'm gonna go with Colorado plus four. How about that? At home against Arizona? Ooh, Colorado might be a bad team, but nevertheless, it's at call. Is it at night? I might go with Liberty minus three and a half at home against Delaware too. No, it's, it's, it's at 5:00 PM so it's gonna be one of those late afternoon Colorado games. Sure, sure. Uh, you know, uh, underrated matchup this week, north Texas, hosting Navy, north Texas. Oh, that's a great matchup. North. Yeah. Seven and one Navy. Seven. And oh, Navy's had like the worst schedule in, um, the weakest schedule in college football. Yep. Going to North Texas. North Texas Lane six and a half. Interesting matchup that, I mean, that line Vegas nailed that line. Yes, there is. I don't know that there's an edge in that game, but that is one to watch out for. Uh, keep an eye on that game.'cause that is, that's gonna be a good, that's a good litmus test for, uh, potential playoff. That's correct. Um, yep. That is correct. All right. All right. I mean, yeah, it could be Apple picking weekend. I'm not really sure. Maybe is it a little late for apples? Uh, pumpkin patch? Sure. Going to the pumpkin patch. The, uh, the farmer's market. If you go to the farmer's market on Saturday morning, you might miss out on, uh. Uh, uh, you know, bowling Green and Buffalo, you know, you might miss out. You might miss out on Duke and Clemson. It's a hell you might miss out on Vandy in Texas. Look, it was just, it's a bad slate. It was supposed to be such a good slate too. It still could be. Listen, it has potential to be the sleepy slate this year that just messes everything up. You know what else is an interesting one? Syracuse is at home against North Carolina. There are only two and a half point favorites. Why? I, I don't know. Hmm. Okay. I'll have to look into that one. See if there's any, uh, well, both teams have lost four in a row, so that's not good. No, it'd be, it'd be in a bad club either way, but I do like Syracuse at home. Oh, all right. Well what about your Gophers club? Uh, minus three and a half at Home Against Mic. Michigan State. They got the snot beat out of them. Floyd, I'm sure they'll win. I'm sure they'll win. Know it'll be back on board, you know, six into Well, it's kind of a, it's fun. It is kind of a somber voyage episode. We got a lot to figure out here. We got a lot to, uh. I don't know, maybe next episode we do a little bit of Vikings and then we just talk about my fantasy team because that seems to be the only highlight we have in football. You know, college basketball is coming on at the right time. Yeah, that's exactly what I was gonna say. You plugged it last episode. You were exactly right. You were spot on the the full court man. Preview episode is gonna be out. Yeah, same time. This, this episode drops. So if you're sick of the NFL, if you're not interested in this college football slate, if you're tired of us talking about the Vikings quarterback situation, let's turn the page and talk about some college basketball. We got good things on the horizon. Full court, man. We just put in, uh, about a, a, you know, a solid hour and a half on a preview episode for you. So go over to full court, man and check that bad boy out. But man, um, let's hope the Vikings can get back on track and at least give us some hope. Going into the rest of the way. Otherwise, this is gonna be a slog. And we're gonna be talking about K'S head and we're gonna have to be fighting, uh, Vikings Twitter guys calling for KOC. We're gonna have to be, we're gonna have to be, uh, calling out Alec Lewis saying that there's a schism in the locker room. I mean, it's just, it's all bad right now. These guys, man, these guys, who was that dude from Score North? Jason Harmon? Is that his name? Yeah, you just going, I can, dude, I was so, this week I was so mad. Monday and Tuesday, I was, I would open up Twitter and just, it would make me so angry. You have people at the job site being like, Ugh. It's like, what are you talking about? Yeah. Now they want to care. Now you care. You, you, it, you just, you know what it is, is this, people just wanna, they live to hate on the Vikings. When they're good, they don't even care. They don't even care. They want, they spot on. They become fans when they suck and they just can find something to complain about and act like they know ball. That's exactly right. Everybody's got a take now. Mm-hmm. Now they have a take. Now everybody has a take. Of course. We're, we're gonna sit out here, we're gonna be warriors. We're gonna battle through this. We're gonna t tredge through the mud. We're going, we're going continue on this voyage. Uh, correct wherever that may lead us the rest of the way here, sir. So, um, we'll talk to you next week and Skull Vikings skull.