Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - A Christian Darrisaw breakdown and the state of the Vikings' offensive line

Episode Date: October 20, 2021

Former Minnesota Vikings offensive lineman Jeremiah Sirles breaks down the tape of Vikings first-round draft pick Christian Darrisaw and talks about what makes him excited about Darrisaw's future prospects and what opposing defensive ends are going to attempt to do against him when the Vikings play the Cowboys and Ravens. Also Jeremiah discusses the rest of the O-line and how they're playing, including some of the struggles of center Garrett Bradbury and right guard Oli Udoh. Would we see Wyatt Davis soon? Plus what Jeremiah thinks the Vikings' final record will be. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Whether you own a bustling hair salon or a hot new bakery, you need business insurance that can keep up with your evolving needs. With flexible coverage options from TD Insurance, you only pay for what you need. TD, ready for you. Reminder before we start the show that TickPick should be your first choice to buy football tickets because they save fans money by never charging service fees ever. Tick Pick is the exclusive ticketing partner of Purple Insider and the Blue Wire Network. All right, let's get to the show. What's that sound you hear coming from the trenches? It's former Minnesota Viking offensive lineman Jeremiah Searles. It's time for the Tuesday morning left guard show on Purple Insider.

They're too strong, my dog. You're too strong. Welcome to another episode of Tuesday morning left guard on a Wednesday because Jeremiah Searles has a complicated life for a former offensive lineman. What is going on, Jeremiah? You're fresh off of watching Vikings Carolina tape and you're not screaming in horror, but you know, I mean, we're here, we're doing our thing. What's up? I mean, first thing is I really enjoyed our left tackle play. I thought that that was a very pleasant surprise to turn on the tape and see a left tackle moving dudes off the line of scrimmage stout in the past game and I really think you only had like truly one bad pass rush rep and Kirk was able to escape and run for a first down so it wasn't like uh he wasn't on the ground 20

times like we've seen Rashad Hill play but I mean we had like 500 and some yards offense I enjoyed watching most of that game but also sometimes it was like oh my eyes because it was just like the penalties were just atrocious and if i'm a wide receiver in carolina's ride receiver room right now it probably wasn't a fun last few days watching this game and realizing they have all thumbs for hands because wow they dropped a lot of balls uh yeah pff gave them eight drops espn gave them six so let's call it an even seven seven there dropped a lot of balls. Yeah, PFF gave them eight drops. ESPN gave them six. So let's call it an even seven. A lot of footballs to have bounce off of your mitts there in that game. And these are supposed to be good wide receivers. I think that was the worst part.

You're at home and these are good wide receivers and it's warm out. What exactly was the problem? And it wasn't like those Sam Darnold passes were wobbling all over the place. Those weren't case Keenum throws. He was making fine throws and they were just not concentrating and dropping them. And so when you look at the Vikings yards allowed, you have to factor in that maybe there would have been a few more yards allowed. I don't think that C.D. Lamb is going to drop that many passes,

for example, when they play Dallas. But let's talk about Christian Derrissaw. Go into detail, Jeremiah, about what you liked about Christian Derrissaw's day. Yeah, so first thing I love is he is a road grader in the run game. And I sent you a picture as I was watching it. But that third and one on C.J. Hamm's big long run, they are picking number 96 for the panthers him and cleveland get on a double team cleveland does a nice job of prying the shoulder open derisaw takes great footwork gets his hat inside and lifts him up on one foot and it's driving him three yards back

which is perfect because it allows cam or cam allow cj to cut right back and come off that block. And we just haven't seen that big backside wall of caving guys down that allows that cut back. Derrissaw did that in college. He did it at Virginia Tech. It was a zone-blocking scheme coming out of Tech. And to see now that we have a guy that can really do that consistently is really going to continue to help this run game. And then in the pass protection game, he is stout. He might not be out of his stance perfect set yet, but he gets his hands on guys.

I mean, Brian Burns is a good pass rusher. And they moved kind of him over to O'Neal's side more than I thought they would. I thought they were just going to line him up over Darisaw and be like, hey, rush the rook. Rush the rook over and over. And Darisaw held his own really well the one thing I will say if you're listening to this go back and watch some of Derrissaw's past sets and here's where he's going to get himself in trouble because here's what happens in the NFL once you play one full game the book is out on you now this next group is going to look at you okay who are you how do we beat you what do you have some quote-unquote issues with

he doesn't get out of his stance very well he kind of kicks up with his outside foot instead of really exploding off that right leg and pushing back and gaining ground with that left leg which allows him it makes him turn a little bit now burns ran into him every time which was great but he's gonna run in some dudes that are gonna look at him and go okay i'm gonna push you up the field and i'm gonna spin back under i'm gonna come back under with a swim and i think we got like randy gregory right dude's playing out of his mind right now for dallas he's gonna look at him and say okay if you don't get that fixed i'm just gonna key to key myself off that outside foot. And the second you pivot and open that outside foot, because you open the foot, it opens the knee, opens the hips, opens the shoulders.

I now have your full body turned towards the sideline. It's really hard for an offensive lineman to redirect back inside once he's opened all that way. And I saw him do that a few times. But the good news is they ran into him and they just stopped. Like if you're going to run into Christian Derrissaw, you're not going to push him all the way back into the quarterback. And guess what? Guys are going to stop running into him and start finding different ways to beat him.

But for a first time going out on the road, starting a game like that, very, very impressed with the young man. And having to play, I believe it was 89 snaps after not having a preseason and not having a training camp. And that puts you in question right there. I mean, that's hard for veteran players to do if they don't have a full training camp and full preseason to come out and play at a high level. I think it was a really good idea to use him for whatever it was, 28 snaps against Detroit, because then he wasn't going on the road and then he wasn't like, you know, going into his first NFL game, looking around, what do I do? It was, he was in the flow of the game. He could get his feet wet a little bit against Detroit, not have to face

anybody too serious and then go and play, you know, a good player in Brian Burns. I mean, and kudos to him for getting himself in shape, right? I right I mean that's you can run and I'm sure guys have been having him run on the side but I promise you the way that he played I mean he wasn't putting his hands on his hips he wasn't bent over at the waist he looked strong throughout the entire game I mean he didn't look like he wore out so I mean kudos to that young man for taking his job seriously and actually really putting in the work and the time which if your first round pick that's the way it's supposed to be and you can tell already that his these guys love him you see guys patting him on the head you see like he has already earned a

lot of trust in this group just through a short amount of time and again football so much about confidence offensive line so much about confidence he should have a lot of confidence after this last game saying hey I can do it and I can play in this league I know I can play in this league and just go out and continue to stack good performances on top of each other I think that we may have found a really really good player at our left tackle spot here for a while let's talk about the differences between him and Rashad Hill because I I mean, physically, it's just not anywhere close between an undrafted player and a, um, you know, first round draft pick like, uh, for anybody in terms of just physical gifts, that's always going to be the case. The NFL scouts don't miss on, uh, insane athletes and just leave them undrafted or something like that. Um, but I think that that is what really shows up is just how solid he is and how strong he is. But also, if you look at his combine numbers or pro day, I guess in this case, just really impressive in terms of his athleticism.

And that's why they pick those guys. It's just a completely different level of athleticism that even when things go wrong and i i pointed this out in my film thing that i did for last week for the website was even when someone did beat him inside he took his right arm and shoved the guy and he flew back like four yards it was just like that's how strong he is and i think that i mean other than just blocks better like that that's a big difference just physically between the two yeah and i mean it's it's stuff you can't coach right i mean you can't coach someone to be six nine you can't coach someone to have the hips and bend like obviously they have god tool god-given tools to them daresaw has a lot of tools but i also think that he works at his craft a lot you can see the way

he uses his hands you can see this the footwork in the run game like i said if he cleans up his pass set with his footwork he's going to be almost impossible to beat because i actually saw the same thing you were talking about there was a couple times because he was laid out of his stance or he didn't take that great first step guys were going to get the edge on him all of a sudden he turned dropped that hip and just shot putts the dude up the field and he's all sunny's three yards behind the quarterback but what was amazing too is usually if guys turn and shop it like that they kind of throw themselves off balance too he turned shot putts two steps he's playing basketball with him again and that's the kind of stuff that you watch and go okay crazy athlete like crazy athlete

at left tackle that's very strong i 100 see why they draft you in the first round and i think that the more he gets comfortable over there the more they'll ask him to do hey you see with o'neal right hey we're pulling you out on front of stuff hey we're pulling you out on the back side of stuff we're we're having you cave down i think the more they get in trust with him the more they're gonna say hey we have two really really good tackles we can do whatever we want to both sides because we trust both these guys instead of hey we're always running to the right or always making sure if it's third and one we're going to run behind O'Neill and we're making no you can go both sides now and we haven't had that since I mean Riley left and even then they were still kind

of making sure O'Neill was coming along until really last year so I think that here in the next this year and maybe even next year, you've now, if you solidify your two tackle spots, maybe finally they'll start looking at some guard spots too. Once we start Kings on, because I mean, four, four penalties on one guard. That's, I mean, that's Dakota Dozier drew some Mia stuff that I thought we were past. Well, and I was thinking about this just this week,

because a few people asked about Wyatt Davis. Now Dakota Dozier can only be elevated twice and they already did that. So Wyatt Davis was active on game day and he's going to be going forward. I wonder as we go along here, if we eventually get there to see Wyatt Davis, Udo is sort of similar to Rashad Hill in that uh he was a late round draft pick Hill was undrafted a guy that's maybe in over his head at the guard position and you're trying to just see if anything is there and if he plays great you say oh well then we've got our guard he's fantastic but if he struggles then okay this is why we drafted another guy to eventually work his way in. Wyatt Davis was not in physically good enough shape for them to want to start him at the beginning of the year or even give him first team reps, which I think is a big concern that they were running him at the end of practice and things like that.

But eventually, if you're committing, he's committed seven penalties on his own this year. I mean, there are full seasons of guard play that you see one or two holding penalties all year. And he's got seven. That's just like giving up a sack. Those are absolute drive killers. And, uh, I don't know if he's going to be able to just flip on a light and change these things having been a tackle until right before the beginning of the season. So to me, that's still, uh still remains the biggest weakness of this offensive line. Well, the center position might be bigger. I mean, Garrett Bradbury had a really, really tough game.

He was getting pushed back by the nose guard in the run game, which basically eliminated a lot of the backside cutoffs. He just struggled. And it's hard to watch because it's the same stuff you and I seem to have been talking about for the last two years now on this show is, hey, he's getting pushed back in the run game. He can't anchor in the past game. He's getting pushed back in the run game. He can't anchor the past game. And, well, he's really athletic and he can get out on linebackers, which he can and he does.

But, man, he's just really struggling with those big, tough nose guards inside. And you're seeing it show up time and time again. And so you're wondering when is this going to either change or when are they just going to kind of move on from this because it is a detriment to our offense. And I love Gary. He's a great guy. But at some point, it's a production league, and you're just, if you can't sit on big bull rushers and you can't get movement on those nose guards as a center,

it's almost kind of like okay we tried and we're gonna have to move on and as we're talking first round picks what derisai is and you go look at a first round pick and bradbury and you're kind of like did we miss the boat a little bit here or kind of what happened and i feel bad for the kid but he's just not producing the way he needs to right now yeah i think what happened was they got gary kubiak in as their offensive well just mind and then eventually offensive coordinator and they said we're gonna run outside zone baby let's get they call them i mean the draft people the grim reacher because he has

these great reach blocks which is fantastic but what's that worth it's not worth as much as pass protection and not even close and And I just pulled it up here. Pro football focus has Garrett Bradbury rated as the second lowest pass blocking graded center in the NFL. Who's the worst? That would be Trey Hopkins of Cincinnati is listed as worst. And guess who is slightly above him? A guy who was traded another first round pick billy price who was traded by his team uh earlier this year so that's not great uh creed humphrey by the way has gotten very good grades

he was uh in the draft oh he's a stud he's a stud for kansas city yeah uh anyway so it's always i digress guys that are available that maybe could be drafted but if they hit on Brian O'Neill and Christian Derrissaw then we can't say so much that they don't know how to draft linemen but I think that their thinking overall was flawed the question was could he be average could he at least just hang on for dear life and be okay uh say like a Nick Easton or something but then be amazing in the run and screen game and the answer has been no he has not been amazing in the run game. He's good in the screen game, but how often do you use that? Maybe four times a game in the run game. He's not even grading all that high this year or last year. It's not like difference making good. And I think as you're looking forward, you have

to say, there's no way you pick up a fifth year option and you've got to find somebody else they won't do this but it's gone through my mind of like is Mason Cole better because this is just not going well and it has not really cost the Vikings yet but I think eventually it will yeah I think eventually it might too but the big thing too is I think if we want to look at it from a bigger scale Matt I think the NFL is moving away from that size of a center I think that as you're looking around the league I think scouts are now watching tackles in college that are 6-4 6-3 and saying hey is he athletic enough to play center because I think the the days of the old squatty body I'm trying to think of what his name was for Arizona who he was as wide as he was tall and he would just play center and they those are going away because again these

nose guards are becoming so big so fast and so long I mean you look at a guy like DeForest Buckner and they're like, oh, you have a six foot tall center. Yeah. I'm going to line my six, nine defensive end up over you and you're not going to be able to reach it. Like that's just the way it goes. And so I think it's a transition. And so I think here in the next couple of years, again, if they do move on from Bradbury, I would expect them to go get a bigger type center, a guy that's athletic but can still move and so i really think that's just going to be the new offensive line in the nfl and everyone's kind of moving away from it you're just not seeing it across the board again billy price

um i think of the other guy who won the the remington pat f line right like he's not playing center anymore those guys are just getting moved to a different era of the NFL. And there's really just not going to be a spot for those kind of guys anymore. Yeah. Teams are seeing a lineup, a dude over the center as a pass rush opportunity. And interior pass rush is so disruptive. There's been studies looking at kind of either way of this. Like, do you get more out of the edge or more out of the interior? And, you know, either way, it always comes out the same, which is not good for the quarterback when you have someone who can run right through him. So you've even seen Zimmer do this in past situations where he'll take now. Everson is lining up in the middle and sometimes you'll see pass rushers right over the center. That's just something that we didn't see a lot in the NFL until the last couple of years.

And I think that's made it way harder instead of just, hey, you're going up against the fat nose guard. Can you just manage them, right? And it's not that anymore. Now it's the werewolves are everywhere, as you like to say. Oh, yes. Now, by the way, Wyatt Davis did take some reps at center during training camp.

Not a lot, but a handful. And I wondered if that might be a future potential option for them. On the other, since we're going through the whole offensive line, Brian O'Neill, great. I have nothing else to say about it. Just playing great. I mean, that one-on-one pass rush rep against the KJ Osborne touchdown, the last one, if you want a clinic tape on a one-on-one pass rush tip,

go watch Brian O'Neal. Takes three kicks, meets him at the junction point, throws his hands. Brian tries to jump outside. O'Neal jumps back outside, gets covered him up, always stays nose inside out, nose to the inside number. Guy comes back inside, sticks him with his hands, and it's over.

And he did that all game. He is playing at an all-pro level. I don't know if i can name a right tackle in the nfl that's playing better than brian o'neill right now uh o'neill is still giving up zero sacks so my article about how he never gives up sacks was not blown up that happens sometimes you write like hey this guy's having this crazy statistic and then it just immediately implodes as soon as you write it but that was not the case for brian o'neill and if people want to check that out i talked to to Mitchell Schwartz and Phil Rauscher and

Daniel Hunter about Brian O'Neill. Oh, yeah. Schwartz is great. Schwartz is short. He's a good dude. Yeah, he's really, really, really smart. And one of the things that I enjoyed talking with him about was offensive lineman mentality and just how you see a toughness required that's

different than just like oh is the guy big and strong like no it's more of like uh can you have the concentration the dedication to doing the same thing over and over and over and over you almost have to be like ocd psycho in a way um and i also like when he sort of explained what it means to do everything you've been asked to do which is one of those cliches that we don't like to write as writers but what that really means i mean and it means like everything that it takes to get better every day and then not everybody has that mentality no neil really does yeah i think o'neill really does and i think that i think that he's starting to instill that a little bit more in that room I mean we talked about the beginning of the year right like

who's the top dog when Boone is on who's the top dog in that room who is it I think it's pretty clear cut now Brian O'Neal is the top dog in that room and so you want to have guys like that that instill in guys like Derisaw what it means to be an NFL offensive lineman for 16, maybe 20 weeks at a time. And then the biggest thing is, hey, here's what you do when you go home in the off season. Here's how you come back as a reinvented offensive lineman

because the book will be out on you after one year. You have to reinvent yourself year after year after year. And so I'm really excited to see him take that jump, especially now if we found a young left tackle, those two's dynamic could be really special over the next few years as well. Okay. I want to read you a quote real quick and I promise we'll get to Ezra Cleveland and so forth, but this is from, this is from Daniil Hunter. I asked him about like, what are offensive linemen like? Like, why are they different? And here was his answer. He says, you have to be tough and

strong. I see them as very serious. They don't try to be too pretty and all that. Off the field, they are the most frugal group. They all hang out together. They do normal stuff. On the field, they're all tough and all that. But in real life, they're frugal and do stuff like decorate their rooms with Halloween decorations. Yes, that is correct, Daniil Hunter. You are a correct. That is a correct assessment of offensive line.

And that's why I tell people all the time, like you see offensive line and get traded or picked up middle of the year and you never hear about what will they fit in the room? It's like, yeah, we're all the same. We're all just a bunch of same dudes that just plop up, plop us in an old line room anywhere. And we'll all have 11 best friends by the end of the day. Because it's such a unique group, and you see it all the time. It's all five guys have to be on the same page, or you guys look like shit.

I mean, there's no way around it, right? You have one guy that messed up the run game. It's like, the offensive line's so bad. And then you have the pass game where you have a completely clean pocket, and the running back gives up a sack. They're like, the offensive line's so bad. And so you have to completely clean pocket and the running back gives up a sack like the offensive line so bad and so you have to constantly like band yourselves together but that's what makes being offensive linemen so fun and the the bonds you create with your buddies and you're going to battle because you are the first ones under the bus when things aren't going well and you're the last ones off the train at the championship station when things are going well

and and so you know it's just one of those things that you get together. But frugal is definitely something that I think he learned from Mr. Joe Berger because he was the most frugal human being I ever met in my entire life. Yeah, I thought that was funny because I never saw that word coming out of the knee. Like I thought, you know, he's going to tell me, oh, yeah, they're they're very technically sound or whatever this is that and he's like no they're very cheap they're very cheap people and they decorate their rooms uh that's yeah we did it was you had to at least under sperano like rookies had to get a tree you had to decorate the trees for christmas thanksgiving we wanted halloween thanksgiving and christmas and we wanted all the stuff and you had to have a buttload of snacks in the back of the room or we were very upset now that I could have figured out without interviewing anybody yes yes so let's let's move

along though and talk about Ezra Cleveland playing left guard and I think the biggest compliments you can give his play this year now it hasn't graded out particularly well by pro football focus but I think it's just that we haven't been saying what is going on with Ezra Cleveland. Like it seems like it's going OK, at least. Yeah, I think he's playing a lot better over the last couple of weeks. I mean, I even think he's improved this year. I mean, even from the beginning of the year was kind of like, man, same old Ezra Cleveland. Right. I think he's improved a lot since then. I mean, the one thing that really sticks out to me is his run game. He's been really a lot better in the run game with cutting off noses, working his double teams with

their saw and getting around with Bradbury and cutting off that big nose guard of climbing up to the backside linebacker. And even on, I mean, he had that big run where he pulled out and he smashes the corner and he just melted. I mean, he just runs in the corner, melts him and Dalvin cuts off him and it's a big 11, 12 yard gain. And so you see things like that, and that's more along the confidence line. I think we all know Ezra's talented enough. Again, you talk about he got drafted in the second round. There's a reason he got drafted in the second round. They didn't just look at a guy and be like,

eh, he's probably an undrafted guy. Draft him in the second round. I mean, he has the physical tools to put it all together. Last year, I think he really struggled because kind of got thrown into a new position, middle of the year, up and down. And so he's starting to just continue to develop at that position now because he's had a whole offseason at it. He's had a preseason. He's had a beginning part of a season. You're starting to see him settle into a position that he's new at. And I've been really pleased with the way he's played.

I think that you can get those two young guys over there working really well together on that left side and you're going to take your lumps with a couple of young guys over there there's no doubt about it that's just the way it goes but you give them a year a year and a half playing together you like and then you finally be like we've solidified our left side for three years. And we haven't had that in what, five, six years where you've had just two guys at the same two positions that are just going to grow together and play together and be together. And you look at great offensive lines across the league. I mean, the Eagles, right? You have those guys that have played together for a long time over there before they got

split up. The Cowboys guys played together for a long time before they get split up. And that's how you build consistent and good offensive line play in the nfl yeah so uh i was thinking about this um for a piece a while back about the offensive line and whether it was bad luck or if it was sort of earned that the vikings offensive lines have been inconsistent uh it's a combination of the two um some players got hurt. What are you going to do? You know, going back a ways, I looked at the whole Zimmer era. Matt Khalil was a top draft pick who made the Pro Bowl in his first year and then fell off the side of the earth. I think that's bad luck, maybe not bad process, but not having the same guard pair ever during the Mike Zimmer

era for two years in a row is part of the reason that there's been so many struggles. And I think they've looked at that position in the past and said, eh, you know, just tape it together with glue and pixie sticks or whatever, not popsicle sticks. Um, pixie sticks would fall apart very quickly, very quickly because I think Joe Berger was able to do that. And they were like, Oh, we just found him on a trash heap. And then he was really good. Um, but that hasn't worked. And so then they invest in Wyatt Davis we'll see if that works out invest in Ezra Cleveland your chances are just better if you're drafting more talented guys up there and I think they have the potential but I also think that they're going to be really tested

in these next two weeks I mean Dallas is getting after the passer like crazy and then Baltimore runs all those crazy blitzes. And if they can survive that, because right now I think it's been okay outside of one game. If they can survive that, then I think you could go down the stretch and say, they're going to be able to protect Kirk and do enough for Delvin in the running game.

If they struggle these next two weeks, I think we'll be kind of going back to that same conversation of, yeah, you did move a sixth round tackle into guard. And, you know, and and we might be saying again, you know, what is Ezra Cleveland? Is he a left guard? You know what I mean? So I think it's like as of this moment, it feels like it's OK and it could grow and be better. But I need to see a little bit more. Well, yeah, it comes back to the word that we all love to use. Right. Consistency. can we do it we I got on here after the Seahawks game and was like we have a good to average offensive line we go

play the Browns and I have to print the full retraction right like we can't we can't have these weeks of up and down and up and down of man we looked really good against a good front I mean Seattle was a good front you look at the panthers pretty dang good front it's like okay stack games together stack games together stack performances together so that we don't have to be every single week going up and down and up and down because i do agree with you these next two weeks will be tested but the best way to not be tested is continue to do what we're doing in the run game we're still not built to pass protect 50 times a game that's not what we want to do that's not what this offense is built

to be able to do do we have the receiving core to do it absolutely do we have the whole structure of protections to do it i don't really think so i mean you saw the play action was how that was huge against carolina we got to stick more to that and then keep ourselves in second and six, third and three, second and six, third and three, live in those easy down ranges and don't get behind the sticks. And we're pretty dang good offense when we're efficient. We get really in trouble when we get behind the sticks and have to really sit back there and let routes develop deep down the field.

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what we're pressured again because they know we have to throw uh at the same time by running the football in disadvantageous situations they also do that to themselves at the same time by running the football and disadvantageous situations. They also do that to themselves that I'm not sure they'll ever figure out. Okay. So let me ask you a broad Vikings question for the second half of the season. I haven't even sung you the bi-week Bonanza song, which goes by week Bonanza.

Love it. You want to say it? Love it. By week Bonanza. Yeah, I'm feeling it. Yeah. You do the thing where you take one headphone off yeah you know like that in the studio bye week bonanza snare in my headphone i got no snare so this is my bye week bonanza question for you this has been like a state of the offensive line

address so well done on that breakdown um including people asked for more i was asked for more this week so i brought it i brought you did you did uh i mean i didn't think we'd break down the frugality of offensive linemen but here we are here we are so here's the broad question though okay you look at this game against carolina you see 500 plus yards of offense you see a meltdown as well uh and you've seen them dominate seattle play great game great great second half of the game you've seen them completely struggle to move the football at all against cleveland browns and really against detroit too uh what do you think the final record of the minnesota vikings will be having seen six games by week bonanza man i i'm still i still think this is a 500 team i think that

until you prove me otherwise and these next two weeks will be very telling i mean these next these next couple weeks these next couple games will be very telling until then i think this is a 500 team um and i know you play 17 games now so saying 500 it's like well which side of 500 I'm gonna say plus or minus it doesn't really matter I think they're they're either gonna be nine and eight or eight nine whatever it's gonna be somewhere in there until you prove to me otherwise that you can win games without shooting yourselves in the foot and because yeah you can come back against the Lions you can come back against the Panthers but you can do that against dak prescott lamar jackson i mean these dudes are playing lights out football right now sam darnold's enlightening the world on fire right i mean jared goff's gonna get benched you played

against a couple quarterbacks now that are not exactly top tiered and everyone knows that the nfl you're only as good as your quarterback kirk's playing really good football right now i think he's delivering the ball well i think he's making good decisions with the football but we need to make sure we don't have to make him go in a shootout against guys like Dak and Lamar because that's not where he's going to excel that's where those two guys excel that's not where I think Kirk necessarily excels so I think this is a 500 plus or minus one football team right now yeah and the defense is truly going to be tested as well over these next couple of weeks especially without patrick peterson

but i think that your assessment is fair what could they do in the next five weeks where they have this stretch how many wins would change your mind about that record do you have the schedule up in front of me i know the next two i don't i don't have the i don't have the full hold on let me get the full schedule up here i had it up at one point because i was looking at it before the show i can just tell it to you please do i have it i have it in my skull uh so you start off with um obviously the dallas cowboys are next okay uh and then after dallas you go to baltimore and then after baltimore you have um los angeles and after that that's on the road and then it's green bay and then at san francisco so that's this is the stretch from hell is dallas baltimore chargers

green bay san francisco and then you get detroit after that yeah i mean is it i don't know if dac prescott is healthy he is not healthy at the moment he was in a walking boot if he's fully one hand i don't know if we can beat the cowboys now i think we can beat i think we can beat the 49ers they look they look very trey lance is a rookie quarterback and he kind of looks like it who knows that jimmy g is going to be back or where they go with that right that's always a dumpster fire when you have that happening yeah it's like play the young guy but he's not ready i don't care play him um and then green bay i mean i mean you we have to play the owner of chicago i mean aaron rogers is certified owner of the chicago bears as we learned very much and they're playing really good bar and i mean i

we probably go two and five two and three excuse me i would say two and three in these next stretch and and maybe we can maybe we can go three and two if we squeak one out against la um but i i don't see us going better than three and two over the next five weeks so does three and two convince you though that they can be better than 500 because of the difficulty of these teams it would but a lot of it's going to depend on how healthy the other teams we are playing. Are we playing full-strength teams or not? I mean, the full-strength Baltimore Ravens, I don't know. Not a lot of people are beating those guys.

I mean, that run game that they have, and what's amazing about them, too, is they're down to their, like, fifth running back. I mean, the old Tate train, right? We're going to run into Tate train coming in. And then it's like, oh, by the way, they have the all-pro Le'Veon Bell that was just hanging out on the street that we just decided to scoop on up. I mean, and so those guys are playing really good ball right now.

And then green Bay. Yeah. But I think if they go to it, if they go two and three, I stick with my 600 or 500, golly 500. They go, they go three and two.

They might be able to win 10. They might be able to win 10. I think so too. I think three and two is might be able to win 10 they might be able to win 10 i think so too i think three and two is the magic number here two and three is your season's not over but three and two is i'm impressed three and two is you can play with anyone in this league yep that's what you're playing against top tier talent and you found ways to beat top tier teams playoff teams i mean afc championship contender type teams super bowl contender type teams and you found ways to beat top tier teams, playoff teams. I mean, AFC championship contender type team, Super Bowl contender type teams. And you found ways to beat them. I'm not sure which one of those are on the road and which are not.

But I mean, especially if you go to some of these places and win at their place, that's even more of a statement for what this team can be. At Baltimore, at LA, at San Francisco. A lot going on there. That's a lot going on there that's a lot going on there I mean you go to San Fran and beat them you go if you go to Baltimore and beat them I you can play with anyone in this league I mean that's that's just that is a benchmark for the NFL right now so that'll be really curious to see that one when I mean Dallas coming to UF US Bank will be a really fun game um but I do think you go into Baltimore

and you challenge them at their home place and maybe find a way to come out with the W that's that can turn your whole season around all right let's get in a little uh love to see it hate to see it here um hate to see it I'm gonna say this so you don't have to Gophers and Huskers I just hated everything about everything that happened there that was it was i was bad it was a bad football game and look look you line up in the shotgun i know and you hand off at the goal line to get a yard you deserve what you get you deserve to get stuff and the vikings did this very strangely on a two-point conversion they line up in the shotgun and try to like pitch it to the outside or something what are we doing here what are we doing i've seen so many teams do this line up in the shotgun we need one

yard why never understand hate to see that i yeah i mean the fact that we even were should have won that game as a husker is just you go take michigan down to the wire and then you go up to a minnesota team and they're a decent football team and they just drag you up and down the field a couple times it's not super fun to watch so uh but give you so many chances they gave so many opportunities it's not often you're plus two in the turnover margin and lose the game and if you're if you're a husker fan you're listening to this going yeah that's kind of what we do we just invent ways to lose football games it's actually fairly remarkable so uh yeah hate to see it um my my uh my hate to see it is voles fans voles fans what are we doing down there in tennessee just launching things onto the football field like

it's no problem like this is just and then my favorite says so dean don de plowman is the chancellor at Tennessee. She used to be the dean of the College of Business here at Nebraska. She comes out with an Instagram post like, this is unacceptable. We shouldn't do any of this. And everyone's response was like, well, are you going to hold the refs accountable? It's like, that's not an excuse to just throw things onto the football field. It's like, well, they threw things and Ole Miss threw things on our basketball team like four years ago. And so like just the whole scene that was at the Volunteer Stadium,

because that's an awesome stadium and it's an awesome environment. Don't be dicks. Just don't be dicks. And you can scream and yell, but don't throw things at the head coach and do all that. That's just a bad look for college football. I have the most random grudge maybe you'll ever hear against the athletic director for Tennessee.

So this would be a sarcastic hate to see it. Okay. He started at the university of Buffalo. Okay. And now he tried to rebrand the university of Buffalo as the state university of New York at Buffalo in attempts to, I don't know, make them sound important or maybe to fool players from Florida to think they were going to New York city.

I don't know. But basically, he made the word Buffalo on their logo for several years, like this bit, like little tiny words. And the guy wasn't from there. And he was just one of the sort of risers. Of course, you know, he's a Tennessee now. So he was just trying to go this college, that college, that college. And it was the dumbest bleep I've ever seen in my life.

And it was disrespectful to the city. And the minute he left, they changed it right back and put huge letters of Buffalo. And then they won a bunch of fricking football games as soon as he left. So you hate to see it, Danny White. What a shame. I'll go, my love to see it is that the NFL has not missed

on a primetime game this year. Sunday night, Monday night, even some of the Thursday night, they've all been nails. Like usually you're like get to a Monday night game. That's just like, Oh, this sucks. Blow out whatever. Like that was, they've all been phenomenal games and they've been fun to watch. And I agree with the call to go for it on fourth and one with Josh Allen is your quarterback to win the football game. Even though I was like, so I'll kick the field goal I I just loved how great of a game it was to watch I do wish the Bills came out on the other side being the old Bills fan that I am but phenomenal football games in prime time so far this year yes yeah the NFL has not let us down all those people on

Saturdays when college football is crazy they're like this is better than the NFL I don't know man there's been a lot of crazy football games I'm trying to think of a love to see it that I haven't I don't know what I have from this week I had all snark um man I don't know because I was also going to say like you hate to see it just everything that Ben Roethlisberger is now I just like it hurts my so hard to watch dude it's like literally you watch him run and you're just like ah go down like just fall down right stop trying to move yeah it's so bad uh i'll say love to see it um that shootout between the patriots and dallas i think this may be the best game and mac jones was the highest graded quarterback for this last week by pro

football focus and I love to see a rookie quarterback uh that just looks like poised and so you see like okay this guy is the most physically gifted but he kind of has it and we're all into the the giant guys and that probably will be the case in the future but um I just really liked watching him play this year and watching his development and that's kind of my top thing to watch for like the whole rest of the season. So love to see a shootout with a rookie quarterback. I think it was at Dallas, right? So, I mean, going into Dallas, playing Tom Brady, things like that. That journey has been pretty fun to watch.

How about the nuts on that guy? Throws a pick six to digs and then just comes right back and says double move and just burns them deep like that's the stuff as a rookie you're like really good for you man yeah like really good for you like i agree i think he's one of them he's going to be a really good quarterback in this league as long as he stays in the right systems and the other i go i'll go one more one more one more hate to see it is jalen hurts he's just he's's not an NFL quarterback and I don't I feel bad for Sirianni but also kind of like you made this bed like you're gonna have to kind of lay in it because he just as much as everyone's like well Aikman's not helping I was like dude

he's Aikman's 100% right like in the NFL you have to be able to anticipate and throw your guys open it's not college you don't have cd lamb running four yards away as your number one receiver at oklahoma and just throwing his hand up and you just go oh okay 500 like you have to throw guys open in the nfl because he has a really talented receiving core in philly i mean and now they get rid of zacherts which he scores two touchdowns kind of weird but i mean i just i don't, I just, I don't think he has it. I don't think he has it. I don't think Tua has it.

Like you're starting to see some of these quarterbacks that were first, second rounders the last couple of years that you just kind of go, maybe not, maybe not. And I hate seeing that because you want everyone to be good. But I think at some point you got to be like, okay, it's time to go somewhere else. Yep. And the, well, the Jalen hurts thing to me,

he was never a quarterback to play right away and no they just oh you're our guy now and this happens so often somebody gets thrown in they're in over their head they're not great and then it's just over and right like well we just don't develop quarterbacks anymore so they'll draft someone else and that'll be it for him it's like well i don't know maybe i mean he's got physical gifts so maybe over five years or three years or whatever he could develop but we just don't do that. So it's the, yeah. They also just college doesn't develop quarterbacks for the NFL at all anymore. Right? Like it's not, it's, it's light years away from what college offenses is to the NFL offenses. And to think a guy can pick that up in a matter of five,

six months is insane. Yep. No, for sure. And, uh, I like Jalen hurts. I think that he's got a lot of toughness to him, but I'm not sure that's going to work out by week. Bonanza did work out quite well. Beautiful. That's beautiful. Uh, Jeremiah, thanks for your time. I've enjoyed this Bonanza and we will do it again soon, sir. Yes, sir.