Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - A hardcore X's and O's look at how the Vikings' defense can be fixed

Episode Date: December 14, 2022

Matthew Coller and former defensive coach and writer at MatchQuarters.com Cody Alexander do the most hardcore deep dive possible into how the Vikings can solve all of their defensive issues. Is it personnel or scheme? Should they really be blitzing more? What does it mean to change up coverages? Is it the 3-4 scheme? Plus, how would Cody gameplan against Justin Jefferson? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Purple Insider is presented by Liquid Death, delicious water that's bringing death to plastic. Learn more at liquiddeath.com slash insider. Hello, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here and returning to the show, the most brilliant defensive mind I know who's allowed to actually talk in public about defense. Cody Alexander runs Match Quarters. Matchquarters.com has a sub stack, which if you follow Purple Insider's written work,

similar thing, matchquarters.substack.com, a former football coach and just somebody that I try to consistently learn from all the time. And when the Vikings defense finally hit rock bottom, I thought there's only one man who can explain to me what in the world is going on. And that is Cody Alexander. What is going on, man? How are you? I'm doing great, man. Thanks for having me on. Yeah, for sure. Well, why don't we just start there what's happening here what is that the vikings defense ranks 32nd in yardage and you look at the roster and i know that some of these guys aren't uh in their prime still but there's a lot of names on this roster there's a lot of good players here and there's even a lot of guys who are having good

individual seasons and it just seems unfathomable that they could be 32nd, especially in the NFC. And when you look at, I'm sorry to rant here to start, but when you look at the opposing quarterback schedule, it's not like you had John Elway, Montana, like you had Andy Dalton and, you know, Mike White and Mac Jones, like for this defense to be bleeding yardage the way that it is. And of course the points are catching up with that. It just seems like very mysterious to me, especially coming off the Mike Zimmer era where he seemed to squeeze every bit of blood out of that stone.

Yeah. It's an interesting, it's interesting too, because going back to the Mike Zimmer, you know, defense has always been a priority in the Vikings. It's something that, you know, you can always turn on the tape and you're like, okay, that's going to work. We know that we're at least going to get solid defense. You know, Donatello, who's now the D.C.,

you go look at what his track record at Denver, and then even what Denver's doing in a similar system with probably less talent than what Donatello had, and they're, you know, one of the better defenses in the NFL. So to me, it comes down to when you have such a disconnect between, you know that you have a defensive coordinator that has a proven track record, you know a system that works. So why are we seeing such difference?

And I think it does come down to familiarity with players. Some of these big, like especially with uh the Lions I think everybody kind of anytime that you have a receiver that is just so wide open there's nobody within 10 15 20 yards either the the primary DB fell down or there's a an absolute disaster in coverage in terms of there's somebody's not where they're supposed to be. And going back to that, I know that you had brought it up on Twitter and I looked at it. You know, I think Kevin O'Connell said that it was actually some sort of a quarters coverage. In that, when you don't have a safety and when you're running a split field defense like that and your safety and your corner are not in communication and they're not, they don't know what they're doing. What,

what that play in particular to Williams that the big long one is that the safety turn to cut the, cut the, the, the crosser and the corner fell off thinking he was the one that was going to cut the crosser and that the safety would cap that. And so what ends up happening is you have two guys low, nobody high. I think if you ask any defensive coordinator, they would much rather have two guys high and not two guys low. And so you usually see big busts like this, like on screens,

like screening goes when you get both the safety in the corner, biting down on the screen, and then the go guy is all by himself. That's usually where you see big buffs like this uh now later in the later in the game they came back to the exact same play uh and they they ran same same everything um but the vikings were in a cover too they so they had a tampa look they had the mic run in the pole they had both safeties capped goff ended up hitting it it ended up being another completion on the little, on the little cross sit. But, you know, you would much rather have that cross sit that said about 15,

20 yards than a kind of, I call them fatals where, I mean, that's a fatal error in the secondary where it's going to be a touchdown. So that communication piece, it's a continual breakdown that you've seen from the beginning of the year all the way through. And normally, if we're at this point in the year, at some point, you've got to either go back to how are we teaching this? What are we teaching? And are the players actually receiving that knowledge or are they just blatantly? And this does happen sometimes. Are they blatantly just going against what we're trying to teach within the program?

Which I would hope that that wasn't the case in the Jameson Williams touchdown. But no, that actually happened in 2016, where there was frustration with Zimmer, with some of the players. And they just decided and usually we don't as a media find these things out. But that day we did. They just decided, no, we're going to actually play our own coverage in this game and uh that was it's funny that mike zimmer was able to bounce back from that and have a number one defense the next year because uh that felt like a kind of a low moment but for this one um it seems to me like there could be like several explanations like either one they're teaching it in a way that they don't understand it or two they don't have the players who can understand it and are asking too much

and it's just been kind of my theory that when you have corners who are weak so Patrick Peterson is obviously still a great player in the league and one of the all-time greats but the rest of the guys highly questionable Mike Zimmer was playing Bashad Breeland over Cam Dantzler last year. Now they're asking Dantzler to do a lot, and he is allowing 127 quarterback rating into throws his way. When he was out, it's two rookies and then Duke Shelley, who's just like a journeyman guy who made some plays and was OK, but is going to get picked on quite a bit when he's in the game.

You also have Harrison Smith, who I know was not in this game, but has been there all year for these yards being given up, who's a great player, but next to him is someone playing safety for the first time in Camp Bynum. So how do we parse apart what's being asked of these guys, what they have? I mean, because the biggest thing in coaching is always how can you play to the strengths of your players? And clearly there's some sort of disconnect there.

Yeah. If you go and look at the top three coverages that they run, the number one coverage that they run is is cover six. So in just blatant, like just, you know, basic coach speak, what does that mean? That means quarter quarter halves. Now, the Fangio system, which is what Donatello runs, so the system that the Vikings run is a little bit more complex than that because they have a bunch of different coverage checks in that system just for the quarter-quarter-half part. Where do you set the quarter part? Where's the half part? Are we setting the half to the number one receiver? When we get two tight ends to one side, are we playing quarters to that?

Are we playing cover to that? Where's the back set off of that? All of these things matter. So when you get this, this is why this system in particular, on the surface, it looks very simple. Quarter, quarter halves. That's easy, right? I've got a quarter.

I've got a quarter. We've got a deep safety on the other side. That seems really simple until you add in the coverage checks that are based off of formations and it's based off of personnel. And that's when you get into, are these guys talented enough? And are they mentally prepared enough to handle the teaching of this and then actually calling it and checking it and doing those things? Because when I see these big busts, and I go back to even the one that went viral on the Eagles game, is this cover two?

Is this quarters? And it goes back to, again, with Dantzler. At some point when you start looking at this, you have to start thinking, OK, we've survived this long. And now when you get into this part of the season, everybody knows what you're doing at this point. And so they've kind of pinpointed where you can get a, get a player. Now the bus, when you have a huge bus like that, like you had in, in the last game with the Lions, like that's, that's like, again, I call that a fatal that's that's on, that's on one of the players may made it.

And I normally would always defer to the corner on that. Whereas you're being told what to do in that sense. And so at the end of the day, most corners want to play man. So if you're falling off or if you're not carrying that guy, you know, have some sort of situational awareness about you. The safety clearly turns early in the down and he turns his, his self to the crossing. You've got to try and cap that as, as close as possible.

And anytime you run these quarters in these quarter quarter halves, so these middle of the field, open coverages, the communication piece is so, so much more important than you would normally get in a cover three scheme, which again, you know, the Rams run a lot of cover three. They run the most out of everybody, but you're starting to see, like especially with Donatel and some of these other teams, like Seahawks, for instance, or another one,

they run a lot more quarters than you normally have seen. And so anytime you run quarters, there's a communication piece. And that, again, that is why, too, you do not see a ton of quarters teams at the higher levels. You don't get as much time with players as you do at the high school and even at the college level. And so when you go up, that communication piece sometimes can be a reason why coaches kind of steer clear and they'd rather play country coverages than the actual match matchups. And how are we doing this in that communication piece? Yeah. I mean, going back to that fatal play, as you call it, I mean, for Cam Dantzler, I think it's just been an issue in general, him mastering some of the details and situational awareness. I mean, Zimmer used to talk about that nonstop and I mean, just, and it's a very,

it's a very like, I don't know, common sense thing that there was nobody else on the other side of the field. Like, who are you covering? If you're, you know, continuing to drop back, clearly the other guy is coming underneath. I mean, if you carry that guy, I mean, I like, it's a little too simple to just look at the dots and be like, where are you headed?

But in a way, I mean, that's just, it's just like you said, the situational the dots and be like, where are you headed? But in a way, I mean, that's just, it's just like you said, the situational awareness that I think has caused them some issues. I also think that when we talk about the talent on the defense, that, you know,

defenses kind of exist in a weak link world. And people on the show have heard me talk about this with offensive line a lot where it's like, well, they have two of the best tackles in the universe. Why are they giving up the pressure? Because their right guard is, you know, the giving up the most pressure in the league and everyone's going to attack that. And that's where I think they need to, to find an answer here is how do you limit the weak links on your team? And the, and I think the answer that

they tried to go with looking at the data was they tried to blitz more. And's something that everyone's kind of been calling for is hey you need to send more pressure you need to blitz and they blitz jared goff a lot more than they have most of the season but they didn't get home so then when you don't get home it's just this thing crumbling and i guess my question for you is these weak links aren't going away like you're not it's you know you're not going to have all another all pro corner, just show up on your doorstep. Um, how do you cover for weak links in a system like this? Yeah. And what you're, what you're seeing within that system is that they're trying to cover Dantzler as much as they possibly can with the cap safety and, and kind of making it as easy as possible with him. The issue that you've seen is in repeated weeks, him being able

to run cover two is not necessarily been there. Reading out, when do I trail technique? When do I come off? When do I try and replace off of that? What if we get checked out and they give us a formation and now I'm in charge of being the sole defender of this? So like, let's say they go two by two, you know, two by two cover. Two is easy. I read number two. If two comes out, I take them. If nobody comes out, then I just keep sinking in three by one. Now, are we poaching the safety? So are we taking that deep half and moving it to the middle of the field? Well, if we're doing that now, I'm locked on the receiver.

Now I've got him and now I'm the one that's got to carry him vertical. So I think what you're seeing is, is in a player. And what I think is you're seeing is, is in a player. And what I think is interesting about Dancer, cause Dancer's from Clemson and Venables has run and, and runs a very coverage heavy pedagogy wise. He's learning a lot of different coverages. But I do think if you go back and you look at, okay, what was he doing? A lot of press, a lot of press man for, for lock, which just essentially means he's going to take number one, wherever he goes anyway. And the safeties are going to bracket the slots. I think if you look at that now you're seeing transitions.

And I know like, for instance, uh, Jared Stingley for the Texans, he struggled early in the year with picking up cover too. Uh, and, and this is probably something that a lot of people don't haven't heard, but even like Nick Saban, for instance, and I don't know where the quote is from, but I know that he said it one time. It was like, when I die, someone will put cover two, put me here. Cause I still don't know how to run cover two. So he's, you know, he's more of a, I want to match everything up and man match and do that. And I'm taking these guys and making it clean. So cover two is a concept that is really easy when you're playing Madden. It's really easy when it's on paper. But when you start talking about the different matchups and when do I come off

and where do my eyes go? Zone eyes and man eyes are such a different thing. There's zone corners and then there's man corners. And I know that that, you know, you people think that these players and part of it has to do with fantasy football. Part of it has to do with the whole Maddenification of how we view football and learn football. I mean, most people are learning the game through playing Madden anyway. in any way. And so it's not like I can just take an 89 ranked corner from whoever, and I'm going to purchase that guy and I'm going to move him in and just slot him in my depth chart. And then all of a sudden that works. It's the same reason why you don't see guys that can move into the slot. Like guys like Pastor Tan and guys like Ramsey that can go and they can play in the slot and they can play outside.

And they're both 6'2", 200 pounds and they're big dudes. That's that's not what happens everywhere. That's those guys are unicorns within within this. And so when you get a guy that has been primarily man coverage his whole entire career, he'd from college all the way through. And then all of a sudden you have to start running more of these zones. Like Zimmer was running more zones last year. Now you're running definitely a zone heavy. I think, I think the Vikings are running like cover cover one,

like 11% of the time. So you're, you're very minimal amount of cover one, which this system is not a heavy cover one system. Now you've taken a guy that all he's ever done is man coverage. Technique home, home base where his home is, where his comfort zone is, is man coverage. And now you've got to expand your horizons.

You've got to see through to the quarterback. Now I've got to see if he goes away. Now I've got to look to the hash. I've got to view things from opposite the field. And I just don't think that people understand corner and quarterback are probably the two hardest positions to play in the NFL because at any moment with quarterback, obviously, I think everybody kind of understands reading defenses as it changed and you got people breathing down the neck, but corner is one of those where you take one misstep or your eyes

are in the wrong spot. It's either a penalty or it's a, it's a touchdown or you're giving up a big play. And so I think when you get it, when you get this, you can clearly tell that there's some of these players probably are not going to be there for very much longer. Don tells me to still be a divas corner because they just don't fit the system and it's not no fault of their own. It just doesn't work.

So with Dantzler, I think you're thinking of Booth jr. Who played at Clemson. He was at Mississippi state, but your point is exactly the same because yeah, that would be the same. It's kind of the same system, man,

heavy system. Well, and the biggest selling point for cam Dantzler coming out was that he matched up against Jamar chase and had the best day of anyone. And then as one-on-one man to man coverage. And, and the thing is with Dantzler, I think he has like that great height and also really great instincts for

just following a wide receiver. And we've seen him do this. There's a couple of plays this year, like on against like Chris Alave, where he just matched him up super good with his footwork. But at the same time, I think if you're talking about IQ wise, this was a much better fit for Patrick Peterson. So it's like they have a system that they said,

oh, we need to really protect Patrick Peterson, because last year Mike Zimmer was asking Peterson to press a lot. And it took a toll on his body. He even talked about this. And Peterson has been very uh like uh happy with the system he's played great and he's just reading everything and he's using his intelligence but then on the other side you have someone who's not really capable of doing that so roster construction kind of matters and who you pick to be that other corner and o'connell

mentioned personnel several times when talking about this and I wouldn't be surprised if they just bench Cam Dantzler if it continues to go this way and even go with someone like Duke Shelley even though he's in I think what maybe like a fifth rounder or something like that and was cut or was on the practice squad like just the guy you pick up because he just understands the game better and where he's supposed to be within this system. So it's kind of like bizarre that it works so well for one guy and doesn't work at all for the other guy. And everybody seems to know it. I'm curious what you think about the blitz thing,

because I think it's totally fair to say, Hey, like you're going to have to dial one up every once in a while, man. I, I said, uh, Ed Donatello to Blitzes is me with salads. Mix one in. Except for neither of us ever do that. But no, seriously, I mean, they tried it last week. But one of the things that Jeremiah Searles, who's a former Viking and we do a show each week, he brought up is it's not like in the middle of the season you could just say, you know what?

Let's install this unbelievable blitz package you know i mean mike zimmer that was his thing and he also had anthony bar who you and i have talked about before and i think the first time we talked was for an article about bar where i was trying to explain why does mike zimmer obsess over this guy because he knows all these checks and all the defense he's such a smart player i don't think that we can just say you know what let's run some other people at the because he knows all these checks and all the defense. He's such a smart player. I don't think that we can just say, you know what? Let's run some other people at the quarterback when this is kind of a system known for not really doing that. Folks, my wife had a great idea this week in the holiday spirit. We went and got some cases of liquid death

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or if you want to give back to others, go get yourself some liquid death water. Go to Hy-Vee, Whole Foods, Target, or liquiddeath.com slash insider. That's liquiddeath.com slash insider to find out more. Right. And that's the, it is heavy. I think you're seeing, you know, I go and look at the problems that the Rams are having, for instance, it's not a problem. Like they actually have a really good front. They have the best run defense in the NFL. And then they actually have one of the best pass rush win rates in the NFL.

The issue is they don't have the personnel either to run the system that they want. So they're running a lot of deeper coverages or running a lot of cover three, which if you've ever played in a cover three system or been around it, you know, it's kind of that chast deep coverage, right? Get your ass deep. Don't get beat deep type coverage. Well, what does that open up? That opens up everything underneath. So what you're seeing with the Rams is like like unbelievable amounts of yak so yards after carry so you're seeing like guys like i was doing a some some research for a friend of mine and looking at san francisco for instance and of like half of their yards actually more than that i think it's like 60 of all of their yards in the two games that they played against the Rams came from yards after carry from tight ends or running backs. That's insane.

And so what you're seeing is kind of the pendulum has swung back. And it's amazing how quickly that the NFL actually evolves. The organism of the NFL, especially on the offensive side, evolves so quickly. And so what you're seeing is what was perfectly manicured system for the Rams to win the Super Bowl is also why it's not very good right now. And it's kind of the same thing with if you look at the Broncos, why are they so good? Well, even Evero. Evero's been able to play a ton of cover one and play matchups. Well, why are they able to do that? Go look at the corners that they got.

The Mathis kid who came from Pitt played in a press-heavy man system, even though, yes, it's Narduzzi and he's playing quarters. It's a very much press-heavy corner. The corners are essentially playing man on number one. Then you go look at Sertani, who's one of the better corners in the NFL. He can play man, he can play zone, he can do whatever. And so you're seeing where, okay, that works for them. But when you come to the Vikings and Donatello, it's like, well, it worked over there. Why is it not necessarily working here? And that's part of the problem is you have some of these guys where personnel just doesn't fit. You know, you're, you've got a kid that's been used to playing a lot of man and a

lot of press man. And now he's being asked to, Hey man, you're now going to have to expand your vision. You're going to have learned how to play zone. And it's very nuanced. It takes time. Yeah, no, for sure. And if it's not a fit, then, you know, what, what are you going to do at this point in the season, other than to just try to patch it over on on the on the blitz thing specifically we asked donatelle about it and he basically said look we have two of the best pass rushers in the world and so we're going to rely on them uh the the problem with that is though zadarius smith has been a little slowed by a knee injury and all of a sudden it's like well now what now what? And, and Daniil Hunter has had spurts this year where he's been a monster. And then other games where you're like, Hey, I don't know.

He didn't really impact the game in the same way. And when those two aren't getting after the quarterback, no one is. I mean, and, and those two, they together put up eight pressures against Jared Goff. The whole rest of the team on that day gave up six or created six, the whole rest of the team, like they were getting interior pressure from Delvin Tomlinson. Then he had a calf injury. It slowed down a little bit. There's no one that they have. And this is just an observation that I've had around the league. If you have a Grady Jarrett, a Chris Jones, Aaron Donald, of course is the legend, but like even somebody who's really like pretty good, it just causes all sorts of problems.

Like these offenses don't know what to do with a penetrating defensive tackle. And they went out this offseason and got Harrison Phillips, who I've been very impressed with his run stuffing ability. They brought in Kairos Tonga, who's just this massive house of a person who just like slams the middle. But everybody knows that their pocket is safe. It's basically like if Zedarius doesn't beat somebody and hit you, then your pocket is going to be fine. Again, this is a personnel problem, not a scheme problem, but I feel like they have to try to get somebody in the face of the quarterback by sending a blitz. So like, is there something that they should be doing better when it comes to the blitz game just to get somebody rushing up the middle? Well, and the other thing, too, just to go with that, too,

is that personnel-wise, Donatel has never really been a big penny package guy. And penny package is basically just a 5-1 that you see a lot, basically what the Broncos are running, the Rams are running, that whole kind of staley tree, Chargers are doing the same thing. He doesn't, he's never really been that way. He's been a four-down guy, and like you said, his comments are spot on. We've got these two great edge rushers.

At some point, we figured they're going to hit home. The issue becomes then when they don't hit home, and I think that's kind of been the problem. So what you're seeing in coverage problems with the Rams, they have to play such soft coverage that everybody's eating them up underneath. They're getting the rush, but nobody can get there because the ball's out so quick.

What you're seeing with the Vikings is kind of the opposite, is that they've got a couple of people. They're just good enough personnel- wise where you get kind of a coach doesn't feel like he necessarily has to be super creative about creating exotic pressures. And going back to it about, you know, talking about being able to install certain things, you know, you're at the point in the season now where you probably have a couple of these pressures installed. But you're not you haven't had you haven't but you're not, you haven't had a, you haven't put layers to them because you don't use them as much. And so you now to be a different presentation or do different things. And I mean, they've moved as Darius Smith all over, but you know,

they do the battering ram thing where they line them up in the middle and they just kind of run them through when they feel like they can get a center. I feel like sometimes what what's happened is the coaches sometimes are like, we'll get predictable if it just means I at least know where everybody is. So anytime that you blitz, you're creating voids. And the moment that you create voids, especially when you're struggling with passive coverage, is that you start thinking, okay, well, if we blitz, we either got to play man. And if our guy gets beat, it's over and I don't trust him. Or two, where our underneath coverage players aren't good enough to cover these large

voids, right? So we can't play a lot of fires on three coverage. We can't play a lot of trap two coverage with nobody in the middle of the field. So how can we do this? And not being a big penny guy, meaning he's not going to do a lot of 5-1 line, is that you can't necessarily manufacture the one-on-ones that you need for your edges, which is what you're seeing in Denver and what you're seeing with the Chargers and what you're seeing with the Rams is that, okay, we can at least get a 5-1. And now I know that, yeah, we may not get an internal push, but those edges are going to be one-on-one with the tackle.

So it's kind of that give and take. If we pressure, we open up voids in coverage. If we don't pressure, I at least know where everybody is and we can play top down. And hopefully we can make them kick field goals or get them to make a mistake. Yeah, it seems like they've sort of run that out there maybe in really obvious running situations

where they have five men down and then one linebacker but aside from that i mean it's kind of it kind of is what it is people asked have asked questions about three four four three because this is supposed to be sort of a three four i don't really see that though like i i mean i see much more of a you have two edge rushers who are defensive ends and the only difference is that they stand up. And other than that, it looks kind of the same to my less trained eye than yours. But is there anything to like where those defenses stand? I mean, you know, you and I could go back and talk about four, three versus three, four, Jason Gildan and Greg Lloyd and Kevin Green and all those things for those famous 3-4 defenses.

But to me, it just doesn't, it isn't really a thing anymore. Do you agree with that? Yeah, where you're seeing a true 3-4 is when teams go into about, when they get in heavy personnel, 12 personnel, 21 personnel, 22, 13 personnel is really big right now. When you get that, that's when you're going to see the traditional three, four, you're going to get the big bodies in there. The penny front is kind of where that meshing of, we want to run nickel on early downs, but we want to plug the run gaps.

And so we feel like we can win some one-on-ones and we can, especially against zone teams or teams that like to run outside zone. What you get really in, in today's nickel is they're taking the nose out and they're putting a third corner in. The interior linemen are still playing what you call like a knockback, fallback, meaning that they're really just kind of reading the guards and they're fitting off of it. Now, you will get some things depending on the coverage piece.

Are they running single gap where everybody has their gap? Are they running more odd front, odd spacing, where they're trying to close the b gaps with post snap movement and your linebackers are kind of just trailing the trail in the back so what you're seeing is really a hybrid of that even in the four down those defensive ends a lot of time are boxing meaning that they're just kind of running up the field and holding contained. The reason why you do that is because they're edge rushers, right? Pass rush is a premium. So you don't want them working down the heel line, spilling what you normally would see at the high school or the college level.

You don't want those guys doing that because that's not what you're paying them to do. You're paying them to go get the quarterback. And the linebackers are the ones that kind of fit off of that. And the interior guys are what I call fluid front mechanics, meaning that they're wherever the line's going, they're just going to try and kind of like trail behind everything. It's like lag technique. So like, if you're going to left, I'm going to knock you, but then I'm going to fall off to, to the right. And I'm going to trail that technique knowing that the linebackers are going to sit there and clean it up. So it's a, it's a meshing of things. I think people get too, too into how many down linemen

are there because it really matters. The run fits, you can have a four down run, you can have a four down line, but then you fit everything like an odd front. And then you can also have an odd front where you fit everything like an even front. So it really it's fit structure and run games, not to get too far into this, because you can get into it forever. But that's kind of where we are, is you're trying to maximize pass rush on early downs. And by doing so with that, you just let those edge rushers kind of go. Well, then how do you close those bubbles? And that's usually what you get with the line games inside. Yeah, I was just about to say, I think you reached the point in that last answer where I was like, OK, that's that's too much.

That's too much football. Even for me, we need a whiteboard. We need to, like, rewind the tape and go back and look at everything. But long story short, no, four, three, three, four. Not really a thing. Well, into like now these guys are all, they don't want to be labeled as defensive ends. They want to be linebackers and edges are technically considered linebackers because you make, you can make more money as a pass rusher. So, you know, DNs now are three, you know, 300 pounds. I always go back to the mat,

you know, talking about Madden. Cause I think a lot of people relates to it is like, it's like if you've ever been on Madden the guy's like a 300 pound 320 pound defensive end you're like wait why is that guy you know you're not running a four down front um you're gonna move that guy inside and you're gonna drop the nose uh so it's it's a little bit um kind of a misnomer uh and really to be honest with you, I think football outsiders probably about 10 years ago quit, or probably about five, six years ago, started just moving away from even labeling defenses 3-4, 4-3, because you now are so package-based.

And what most teams are doing now are they're running a bare front, which is basically you have two guys on the outside of the guards, you have two guys on the edges, and then you have a nose over the center with two linebackers anytime you get big. And then if you go 11 personnel or four wide, then they get into a four down, they bring that third corner in. And that's typical of what you're seeing in the NFL. Folks, you have just days left before Christmasmas so make sure you're going to sodastick.com to get all of your minnesota sports inspired goods that's hats t-shirts

hoodies sodastick.com s-o-t-a-s-t-i-c-k.com use the promo code purple insider there for your last minute holiday shopping. So if you want to rewind the podcast, listen to all that again and try to draw it out on a, on a map. No, it's, it's very, it's very fascinating. And shows your depth of knowledge for sure. Buddy Ryan would be thrilled to see the those bare fronts coming back the way that they have. And that's always so fascinating to me. What's old is new in the NFL. So I have two more questions.

Okay. The first one is, do you think they can, you think they can do something here? I mean, what's, what's weird is that they're playing the Colts and then they're playing the giants and then they're playing the Packers and the bears game probably

won't matter. All those passing games are terrible. So you can like, it's a, it's like you're facing the fifth starter in baseball or whatever, like, all right, let's, let's get our hitting back on, on course, but in the playoffs, they're going to face the best offenses. So, you know, I guess I'm, I asked Kevin O'Connell this question, like, how do you even evaluate? And I wasn't trying to like slam the Colts, but like, how do you even evaluate and i wasn't trying to like slam the colts but like how do you evaluate how you're going to play in the playoffs or or what's working so as they try to just mash the keyboard and push every possible button how how can they decide if it's working how

can they get this fixed over the last couple of games because if they don't they're going to lose like you can't rank 32nd no team has ever ranked 32nd in yardage and gone to the Super Bowl so like you have to fix something here well and I think what the if I'm the coach and and you're you've been in the situation where it's like okay we know we're making the playoffs we know we've got these we've got these teams we need to let's make sure that we're not giving up fatals. We're not our our our communication is is much better. We're focused more on communication. We're focused more on getting lined up correctly. We're we're focused more on the fundamental piece that you would normally focus on in fall camp and in the summer. But now, because of the situations that we've had, we understand the gravity of the situation.

We're having problems against elite offenses. We need to fix this. We need to get this right. I don't think, and two, to go back to what you asked about, like, do we start doing more blitzes? Do we get more exotic with things? And the answer to that is no. What you need to do is to go back. And probably what's going to end up happening is they're probably sitting down with everybody say hey here's the deal you everybody here is getting evaluated from from here on out

like we've got to know what you are going to be capable of by the time we get into the playoffs because by the time we get in the playoffs we'll play the best 11 and if you're not part of it then we're probably probably not going to play and I think that's where that's where you kind of have to have that conversation especially with some of these guys that are having problems. Look, what do you need? How can we help you to get better? I think you simplify things. I think that if you want to work on things, you make sure that it's within the layering system that you have already in. But it's got to be one of those where we have to have a concerted effort of we're, we're not going to give up explosive plays. And that's how you tell, right? Is how many explosive are we giving up each week? How,

how many have we given up towards the end of, and hopefully what you, what you hope is by the time that you get to the playoffs, one, you want enough games. And then two, that you, you kind of feel good going in and you have a nice plan and a nice system. And everybody is kind of like, okay, take a deep breath. Now we got this. Let's go now. Now the real season begins. Yeah. I think that if their problem was the dinking and dunking, we'd be like, okay, well just survive, but it's not, it's just given up one big play after the next. And even I counted this the other day, I think the lions had like eight different receivers who had a 10 plus yard reception. Like what you can't win with that.

Cause that's not even just one receiver shredding you. My other question was, let's say that you're the defensive coordinator of the Indianapolis Colts this week. And you're going back and you're looking at Justin Jefferson. What, what are you, what are you telling everybody? Like what, what can any team do against Justin Jefferson? The answer has been, there is no answer to this, but if you were facing a player of his caliber, what would you try to do? You got to shadow him with somebody all the time. And,

and really the best way to, if you feel like what, what a lot of teams do, and this is kind of the Billichick model blueprint, if you want to call it, is that you take your second best corner and you put them on Jefferson, and then you take your best safety, your best cover safety, and you put them to Jefferson's side every time. And that's typically what you will see with teams when they do that, is that they're going to take their second best guy and put him on them. That way they can shut down the other option.

So you're either funneling the ball constantly to Jefferson because you've shut down the other option, or what you're doing is saying you don't have access to him, but neither do you have the other guy. We feel like our number one guy is better than that way. To me, that would be a way to approach the offense. The issue that you get in with that, though, is that you are going to give up somebody in terms of the run fit. You're never going to have that extra guy, and it changes when you play a two-high system. It can be difficult,

but if you go to a cover three system or a cover one, it makes it a lot more easier. But you've got to make sure that you can handle all the other options because if you're going to take your best guy and move him off their best guy, you've got to make sure that you're eliminating something. Because we've seen this too where guys have had big gains, but nobody else is doing anything and so as long as you don't give up a touchdown or a fatal as long as you're not letting

him get you know it's not like he's got 10 receptions 200 yards and three touchdowns you know and you would hope that by putting somebody on top of them that you wouldn't get those fatals that would be the way to approach a guy like jefferson uh but you know guys like him it's you know people have doubled them people have them double you know, guys like him, it's, you know, people have doubled them. People will have them double, you know, it's like you kind of anytime. And I've always felt this because, you know, I've played some, I've coached against some division one receivers that are freaks. And it's like, you know, if you almost Rob Peter to pay Paul, when you,

when you do start doubling those guys, because it changes everything. And the way that you communicate that because it changes everything and the way that you communicate that and the stress level and the anxiety that you create because you're changing everything everything is going to this guy now I can't mess up or and you think that that doesn't matter but it really does in the way that you talk to him a great example of this is we when I was coaching in Midlothian we had played Alito. Alito had a receiver that went to Utah and another receiver, Jojo Earl, who is a receiver at Alabama. And we had to sit there and decide.

I mean, much like the Vikings, they have a dude in Jefferson that would be like Jojo Earl. Then they have another guy that's like really good in Thielen, just like the Money Parks kid who's now at Utah. And so it was like we had to figure out like, okay, are we going to double him all the time? Are we going to do this? And what I felt like is, is that we can't wholesale change what we're doing in order to do that. And I felt like it took the stress off the kids. And so

yeah, if it's, if it's, if you think you can get away with it, you double them with your second best guy and your best cover safety. But if you feel like it's just too much of a change in your system, then you're better off to just kind of play, but then always have like in the, like in, in the Viking system, always have that cover to, or that cap safety to his side, they call it Zeus. So you always have that cap, that cap defender on that side at all times. See, my answer is twofold. It's prey for one, because there is, there is no way to completely stop him. But really I think, well, the, the, the actual answer for other teams

this year is sort of what you alluded to is like, make someone else beat us. Even if Jefferson does have a good game, why they were so good against the lions is that everyone else had a good game too. TJ Hawkinson and Adam Thielen. I mean, there's been games this year where he's made up like two thirds of their yards. And if, if you're a defense, you'll kind of take that like, okay, well you had a big day, but their overall passing attack wasn't consistently effective. The other thing is just hit the quarterback. I mean, if you,

if he can't throw it to Jefferson, then he can't do anything. And that's really been the only two answers, but I've never seen a receiver so unstoppable in person like this. If he can't throw it to Jefferson, then he can't do anything. And that's really been the only two answers. But I've never seen a receiver so unstoppable in person like this. I mean, there are only a couple answers really ever for receivers that are as unstoppable as Justin Jefferson on a week-to-week basis. It's incredible. So I want to do something for you, Cody, because you have been such a great guest, of course, but also a huge supporter people. If you're a football coach or like super into X's and O's, send me a note on Twitter and email. And I am going to give three gifted subscriptions to match quarters to the first three people who

send me an email. So purple insider.com. I am a subscriber of course, to match quarters. And I understand almost half of what you're saying, but if you know, but I mean, if you're, if you're a football coach, this is like absolute must stuff. Great, great insight from Cody Alexander. Uh, so three, three people, first three people that either send me an email from purple insider.com or a tweet. And like I said, like, make sure that you're like a super X and O's guy or a football coach. Like that's your target audience as everyone has probably picked up on over the last half hour or so. I'm guessing, but I'll buy three for the next year for people. So on me and I really appreciate you, man.

You're the best. And this was just, just tremendous, tremendous insight into how screwed the Vikings are on defense. I appreciate it. Thanks a lot, Cody. Appreciate you, man. All right. And a reminder, just for everybody else, match quarters dot sub stack.com is where to go.

And actually, before I let you go, what's the Twitter? Cause you're great on Twitter. At the underscore coach underscore a. That's awful. That is an awful, awful. It's too late to change it now. So how did, would you make that in 2010? Probably. Yeah. That's terrible. That is an awful, awful. It's too late to change it now. So how did, would you make that in 2010?

Probably. Yeah. That's terrible. Anyway. Okay. Well, but the interview was great. So thank you everybody for listening and thanks Cody as always.