Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Aaron Schatz compares Vikings vs. NFC, Andrew Krammer talks Sam Darnold's corrections

Episode Date: November 15, 2024

Matthew Coller talks with analytics expert Aaron Schatz about the Vikings team strength vs other NFC teams and then with Star Tribune's Andrew Krammer about how the Vikings can manage Sam Darnold's ups and downs Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here and returning to the show, Aaron Schatz of DVOA fame, which has been coming up a lot lately on the show. FDN Fantasy is where you can find DVOA these days. Of course, everyone knows you from the Football Outsiders days as well. Aaron, welcome to the show. I've probably cited DVOA this year as much as any, maybe 2022, but in an opposite way to try to convince Vikings fans not to jump off the ship when they only beat the Jaguars 12-7. So how are you? Good, good. Yeah. I mean, we've been high on the Vikings

all year. Our numbers have been very high on the Vikings. And the big reason is the defense. We have the defense, I think higher than what like EPA has. Cause I've had the Vikings defense number one, pretty much all year. And early on they were early on, they were like historically good. Now they're just like run of the mill, best defense in the league. But you know, the top defenses always regress when you get into the second half of the season. I think I looked at one point and the top 40 defenses through whatever week all got worse in the second half of the season. Like it's just defense is just less consistent than offense. Right. Kind of always in forever,

which I think is one of the reasons that people are more skeptical about this is when it's funny because when you used to win with defense, like in the early two thousands, we'd be like, all right, bears, Ravens win with defense, like in the early 2000s, we'd be like, all right, Bears, Ravens, win with defense, Pittsburgh. But now if you win with defense, nobody likes that. They want the quarterback, the offense. How valuable is it to win with a great defense? I mean, listen, you can win with either offense or defense. The thing is just that the defense is less predictable. I think there's a psychological element of quarterback is so acknowledged as the most important position now that if you don't have

a star quarterback, you worry about your team even if everything else is good. So there's an element of that. There's an element of defense. People may be understanding that defense is less predictive than offense, and therefore the likelihood that the defense will stay this good is not as strong as the likelihood that the offense will stay this average. And then I think the other psychological component is the best team in the league is in your division, right? So there is that sense of, well, we're probably going to get a wild card.

We're going to have to go on the road and win three games, but this is a pretty good team. And with Detroit, the defense did not hold up. Now they were missing. I think their most important player to the defense in that game, which is Blake Cashman, who is their defense play caller and has been really the head of the snake this year. But still, when you are resting on defense a lot early in the season and then you lose to Detroit, you give up a bunch of yards, I could see why the fans would say, well, that's what's going to happen in the playoffs. And on the other side of the ball, with Sam Darnold,

there's been a little bit of that too, where he starts the season looking like Randall Cunningham from 1998. And then he hits the skids a little bit, especially last week with the three interceptions, all coming at the worst part of the field that you just have these flashes of, oh, they're playing Arizona on the road in the first week of the playoffs. And he throws three picks and then you go home. And I don't think that's irrational, but I also think the bigger sample of Sam Darnold has been a very good quarterback this year. I did look it up. Sam Darnold has a positive pass DVOA in six out of nine games this year, including Detroit because of the opponent adjustments, because Detroit's defense is very good. He has three negative games, the Jets in

week five, and then week nine, which was what, in Indy? Indy, yep. And then really bad last week, like really, really bad. But the Vikings managed to win all three of those games. The two losses, Darnold was actually kind of fine. So, you know, people ask me, do I trust Sam Donald? I guess I trust Kevin O'Connell and I trust Justin Jefferson and I trust Jordan Addison and Hawkinson more than I trust Donald. I trust that those receivers and that that coach can lift him up into averageness. I don't trust the offensive line as much now without Derrissaw, but, you know, O'Neal is still there. So I feel like the parts around him are good enough to lift him

to where he'll have bad games. His average performance is average. If the defense can continue to be this good, that might be the recipe for a playoff upset. It's not the recipe for a Super Bowl run. Right, and I think there's a little bit of what happens here is that Minnesota fans have seen so many teams, and we have all the teams.

So the hockey team does this. The basketball team does this, the baseball team does this where they're pretty good. And then, you know, they're not quite good enough. And I think last week was in some ways for fans. One of those were probably not good enough to really compete for the Superbowl type of moments. But when we look at the rest of the NFC, Aaron, I'm impressed with Detroit. I'm impressed lately with Philadelphia for sure. Everybody else, I could give a pretty big old shrug to. Our numbers still really like San Francisco.

Right now we have Minnesota fourth and San Francisco fifth. But if you consider McCaffrey being back and you consider the idea of offense being more predictive than defense, I would put San Francisco ahead of Minnesota right now. Arizona has looked nice, but we don't have them quite as high. And then after last night, I think, you know, Washington is a little lower and Green Bay is a little lower. That's tough. I mean, I don't follow hockey or basketball well enough to know what's up with the Wild and the Timberwolves, but it would be frustrating to be the city of first round losses. And the feeling of, like, do we need to suck for a couple of years in order to get good? Because on one hand, you know, oh, God, is it going to be another first round loss for the Vikings? But on the other hand, this is better than anybody really thought this team was going to be this year.

You guys are having more fun than anybody thought Vikings fans were going to have. And I don't think anybody thought the Vikings were going to bottom out and be in the running for a top draft pick so i mean being like 10 and 7 is bad is and losing in the first round may feel bad but being 7 and 10 and not even getting to the playoffs but also not getting a top draft pick is worse oh yeah no definitely and that's a lot of the recent vikings history anyway i mean Also not getting a top draft pick is worse. Oh yeah, no, definitely. And that's a lot of the recent Vikings history anyway. I mean, the 2020 season where they start one and five, they're in perfect shape to tank

and then they don't end up doing that and they get into the hunt. That was my, for, I don't know how long, my insult for the team was, welcome to the in the hunt graphic. It must be December for the Vikings, but now they're right there neck and neck, even with Detroit. I mean, Detroit- We have them at 89%. We have them at 9% to win the division and 89% to make the playoffs.

That's a huge difference because of the fact that we have Detroit so good and because they lost at home to Detroit so that if they have if they want to even up Detroit they're going to have to win in Detroit it's very unlikely the Vikings win the division but 89 to make the playoffs they're pretty much it right and then when you look at the upcoming schedule here, the Titans this week, but then the Chicago bears still twice on the schedule, Arizona, Atlanta, Seattle, kind of some, a little better than coin flip type of games that they should at least split those games. But if they do a little better, I mean, they only need to go five and three, the rest of the way to have a 12 win season, which is the same number of wins they had in 2009 with Brett Favre. And yet the Sam Darnold element, I think really holds up

people because he can be so volatile. And even though he's throwing to Jefferson and Hawkinson is back and is made for a really good weapon for him. I don't know how to tell people that Sam Darnold won't throw that interception. He could go on a run, but in order to go on the run, he has to avoid the interceptions and the defense has to take it to like 2000 Raven levels. Like they could go on a run and be like the 2000 Ravens,

the 2002 Bucks, the 2015 Broncos, but the defense would have to go back to what it was doing the first three or four weeks of the season and Darnold would have to avoid the picks. Right. So what is the gap between the Vikings in terms of strength and some of the other teams? You mentioned San Francisco is right there. I feel like the way Philly is playing right now, they're really making a case for themselves. Washington is starting to slide a little bit. Jaden Daniels banged up. Hasn't been quite the same since he got banged up or maybe halfway through the season. DVOA says he's been

about the same. Oh, really? He got banged up if you adjust for the opponents. Oh, okay. That makes sense. It's only a small drop since he had the rib injury. That makes sense though, that, you know, maybe the beginning of the season is fueled a little bit by schedule. So much of our conversations are in the NFL trying to figure out, you know,

Washington doesn't seem as good as Philadelphia. Certainly after last night, Philadelphia will rise in our ratings and Washington will fall. That was a really dominant. If you consider that they missed the two field goals and that the last touchdown at the end was, you know, 30 seconds left,

they're not going to get the onset. Philadelphia really dominated that game. Right. And what do you think about Arizona? I'm fascinated by them because they looked like sort of just a mid type of team, and they have really kind of put the gas pedal down recently. They are a mid type of team in every way except the passing game. They're like 14th in everything except passing the ball.

Passing the ball, they're like a top five team right now. Murray is awesome. Murray is playing. We were like, are we ever getting back the Kyler Murray from the first half of 2021? And the answer is yes, we are getting back the Kyle. Look, he's back. Kyler Murray from the first half of 2021 has returned everything else they do. They're not bad at anything this year. They're like 14th. They're like 14th and special teams and 14th and run defense and 14th and pass defense. And they're like 14th. They're like 14th in special teams and 14th in run defense and 14th in pass defense.

They're like 14th in everything except for passing. Yeah, I think when the schedule comes out, and you write down the little W's and L's, you definitely just wrote down a W next to Arizona for the Vikings. But now they're going to play. It's going to be more interesting. That also could be a first-round matchup. Atlanta is also in the mix here.

That's kind of a weird team, right? I mean, they really outplayed the Saints, but they lost the game. Their defense is not good. They're eighth in offense and 24th in defense. And overall, we have them lower. They are the only team with a winning record that has a DVOA lower than any team with a losing record.

Okay. Like we have things pretty much right side up this year. The teams with winning records are all above average, including Atlanta. And the teams with losing records are mostly below average. Like the only teams with losing records that we have as above average are Tampa and Cincinnati and Seattle, I guess, but they're only a little bit above average. Like it's pretty much like the top teams are the winning teams and the bottom team. There's no like super surprise. Like this four and six team is actually fifth best in the league. There's nothing like that this year.

It really does seem like the seas have parted. And that's the way that I've been talking about it on the show is that you have this number one team that is by far the best team in the NFC and the Lions, and then everybody else is kind of just battling each other for who the next best team is. But how far do you think the Lions are ahead of everybody else? Because this becomes a debate in every comment section when I bring it up, that Vikings fans don't think the Lions are ahead of everybody else? Because this becomes a debate in every comment section. When I bring it up, the Vikings fans don't think the Lions are that much better than everybody

else. I kind of do, even though they only beat the Vikings by two points. Where do you stand on that? They are that much better than everyone else, but it's not on a surmountable. We have them as right now they are the 13th best team in dvoa history through nine games so before this last game they were like top five but then they had the really

close game with houston and they dropped but there's a good chunk between detroit and the rest of the nfc with just baltimore in between detroit and the rest of the NFC with just Baltimore in between Detroit and the rest of the league by our numbers so we have you know then you have like we have Detroit way ahead and then Baltimore and then again another gap and then Kansas City Minnesota San Francisco Buffalo and I'm assuming Philadelphia after last night are all kind of grouped together I was thinking about something earlier this year and I decided to look it up about what teams usually look like on paper when they go to the Super Bowl. And I noticed a couple of things.

I mean, number one is that they usually have 12 or more wins. It may have been 11 in the 16 game era, but somewhere in there. And they almost always have at least a plus a hundred point differential. So out of the last 20 teams to reach the Superbowl, I think only four were less than 100. And one of them was Kansas city last year that won the Superbowl. You could just sort of throw that out because gestures at my homes. So that's the Vikings right now sitting at plus 64. I'm curious about this as far as thresholds for what you need to be, whether it's DVOA or whatever, a real contender as you go into the playoffs.

The optimistic viewpoint for Vikings fans is to look back at 15 years ago. We went through a period between 2006 and 2012 where a number of teams that were not at the top of the league in the regular season went the Giants in 07 or the Giants in 11 or the Cardinals in 08 or the Ravens in 2012. There are all these teams in, there was a seven or eight year period where all these teams that don't hit those marks were making it. But the last few years, yeah, you basically had to be like a top five or six team to make it to the Superbowl. And even Kansas City last year was a top five or six team in the it to the Superbowl. And even Kansas city last year was a top five or six team in the regular season. It was not a super surprise that they made the Superbowl and their playoff

wins for all that. They have magic beans. Their playoff wins were all close. It's not like they were like blowing teams out in the playoffs, like the 89 49ers or something. Right. You know, I was thinking about that era of football exactly and how there are a lot of

things this year, and maybe it's only hit me this year that are reminding me of that early mid two thousands type of NFL. And I'm watching Saquon Barkley last night thinking this, but like running backs, everyone like running games are, are kind of being the main focus of things. Aaron Jones is going to be 30 years old soon, and he is still putting on great performances. And I look around the NFC and for so long, it was, well, Aaron Rogers is here. Drew Brees is here. There's the, the certain quarterbacks, especially in the AFC who are dominating. That's still kind of the case with theomes and Allen, but on the NFC side, Jared Goff is not a perfect quarterback and he can mess something up while he's trying to scramble like he did in the

NFC championship last year, or I guess he's capable of throwing five interceptions. I didn't expect that the other night, but I, there's no one that you go into. Jalen Hurts is a good example. There's a lot of quarterbacks who play in overall, kind of like Sam Darnold has played this year, where it's not just week in and week out near perfection, like Breeze or Rogers. It's one week Jalen Hurts is great,

and another week his fans want to throw him in the lake. And then it's kind of been that way with all of these quarterbacks. I mean, the best quarterback in the NFC may be an injured guy on a bad team, which is Dak Prescott. Oh, yeah, right. If you really lined up every quarterback in the NFC right now and they were all perfectly healthy and they all had, you know, the same receivers or whatever, Dak Prescott might be the best of all of them. So that kind of shows the superstar quarterbacks of the current NFL are all in the AFC, right? Like Mahomes,

Josh Allen, Lamar Jackson, for the Justin Herbert people, Justin Herbert, Joe Burrow, et cetera, et cetera. So that being said, the AFC also has the terrible teams. Like I realize the Giants lost to Carolina and I realize Dallas looks really bad now with Cooper Rush. But for the most part, the only really, really horrible team in the NFC this year is Carolina. Whereas the AFC has like New England and Cleveland and Tennessee and Las Vegas and Miami before Tua came back and whatever. So I still think it's a quarterback driven league. And I still, I would build my team quarterback first scheme, offensive line receivers before I would worry about my running back as nice as

a safe. It is interesting that older running backs are having these really good seasons. That's what I think is interesting about Saquon and Derek Henry and Jones. And they're going to need Jones with the two games against the bears because the bears are like a ridiculous run funnel. They're like fourth on pass defense and 30th on run defense. You really want to run against the Bears.

So Jones is going to be very key. When it comes to the Vikings down the stretch, one of the things we'll be thinking about is the future at quarterback after drafting J.J. McCarthy. And there's two ways to look at this. When Sam Darnold, if he plays really well down the stretch, which I think is very possible, Seattle can't play defense, Atlanta can't play defense. You've got some opportunities to put up some big numbers there and get into the playoffs

and potentially even be favored on the road if it goes all right for him. What would be the bar for you for they should franchise tag Sam Darnold and play him next year or give him a contract extension? Because we're going to be having that discussion. Clearly, there's no bar. It's just go to McCarthy, you mean? There's no way that Darnold can play well enough in the next eight games that you would throw away the rest of his career and go, this guy is so good that we should give him a bunch of money and forget that we used a top 10 pick on a quarterback.

We don't know what McCarthy's going to be, but you spent all that capital on him. And the idea that Darnold is going to be worth a bunch of money and throwing away the capital that you spent on McCarthy, it doesn't. I'm not saying this just because I'm in two dynasty leagues and I own J.J. McCarthy in both of them. It really is like, I mean, don't fall into the Flacco-Richardson, you know, dilemma. It would be great to bring Darnold back as the backup, but to commit to him in any kind of way, that would spend a lot of resources. It doesn't make any sense which kind of leads me to when you can give

a quarterback this type of setup you mentioned believing in o'connell but also i believe in justin jefferson who is about to break the record for most yards in five years by week nine of his fifth year you cannot possibly shower enough accolades on Justin Jefferson. It's obscene, the numbers that he's put up in his career. And then also the way that he carries himself is so impressive. Yeah, not really a diva. Not even close. Not really a wide receiver diva, is he?

No. In fact, it was just sort of funny. Every time he doesn't have like a hundred yards there's at the press conference it's like oh why didn't what did they do to to slow you down he just has an average good game for a receiver it's what did they what did they do against you and he always answers all the questions even his commercials are kind of humble you know like he i mean so yeah je, it's a good play. I mean, listen, I just said I own JJ McCarthy and two dynasty, right? There's a reason for that. And

it's not that I'm a big JJ McCarthy guy. It's that I'm a big O'Connell and Justin Jefferson and Jordan Addison guy. This is a setup. I did an article for ESPN before the season about the best setups for rookie quarterbacks. And I had Caleb Williams number one, which it turns out is not because Keenan Allen is not the guy he used to be. And I don't think their offensive line, it's not as bad as people think, but it's not as good as people hoped. But I also had McCarthy on that list because if you put a rookie quarterback with Jefferson and Hawkinson and Addison and you give him O'Neal and Derrissaw as his tackles, that is a great setup before you even get to the question of how good O'Connell is scheming. How do you quantify circumstances versus the quarterback? I think this is probably the quintessential football question, right? I did it based on DYAR stats from the previous year, adjusted for if guys missed time, and then adjusted for rookies, giving rookies like a dunes projection.

And then I manually moved teams up and down based on the offensive linemen. Yeah, I think when it comes to rookie quarterbacks, young, unproven quarterbacks, if we've seen any sample of them, this is what's hard is I've seen a sample of JJ McCarthy play in training camp. And I think having seen that this guy could play just as good as Sam Darnold or better next year, but I've only seen a training camp and they've only seen a training camp and you don't know that, but you do know what Darnold brings. And if they make the NFC championship, that will be hard to say, nah, you know, I think we're just going to go on to McCarthy.

If you lose in the first round, it's probably easy. But if you go to the NFC championship, then you're going to have a lot of players who go, wait a minute. Whoa, whoa, we went to the NFC championship and you're going to move on from our quarterback? If they're going to devote resources to Darnold, at least they should franchise tag him and not give him some kind of long-term contract. Because he's going to be Darnold. Even if he goes on a little run in the playoffs,

the fact is that the ceiling for him is averageness, right? And we don't know yet what the ceiling is for McCarthy. And I think that O'Connell can make Darnold average, but that's the ceiling. Yeah, I think so too. I think it's always going to be a roller coaster. And that was what I wrote after last week is, I don't think it's possible for someone like Sam Darnold to play consistently on a weekend and week out basis.

There's a lot of skill there where he could be great, but there's also a lot of flaws there where it's, it's just, this is what you have to hope that you land on the right side of variance when you get to the playoffs or if you land in the right matchups. And I was thinking about how Philadelphia made the Superbowl after having to play the giants and then Brock Purdy tearing his arm. And sometimes stuff just happens. Guys who aren't that good, just have a two or three week stretch like Nick Foles and they, and they, and it works for them and it helps when you scheme a guy up well, and they scheme Nick Foles up well.

And I think O'Connell schemes Donald upold up I mean it's not like without it's not out of the range of possibilities that the Vikings go on a run I just I I very much think they should not devote long-term resources to Sam Darnold yeah I know I totally agree with you and I think that we haven't seen enough this year right now to say that there would be really any consideration to keeping Sam Darnold. It's been good, but it hasn't been to the level that it would have to be to say, all right, we're going to throw out JJ McCarthy and everything we know about him. Just in terms of the rest of the season, how many wins do you think the Vikings should slash will end up with? Oh,

I don't, yeah, I don't have the thing in front of me with the projections, but I mean, it's, you know, I, it,

they look like, like 11, 11 and six or maybe 12 and five, probably more like 11 and six. That's what I have them at too. I think that when you're facing well you have four home games in december which sets them up pretty well to get a couple of wins there and there's also going to be a stinker somewhere in this they've as you mentioned

they've gotten away with their stinkers from sam darnold they'll probably if they get one of those against seattle or arizona or something they probably won't come away with it. You might end up, by the way, with a Week 18 game where neither team, like where Detroit has clinched the one and Minnesota has clinched the five or something like that. Or even Detroit hasn't clinched the one, but Minnesota has clinched the five. So you don't know what's going to happen there right and you don't really want to play you you'd like to be in a position

where you're not playing detroit with having to give it your all because then you have to play the next week after the the detroit thing which i think is is real that you play them and they're such a physical team and it's it could be that what do they call it the honolulu flu or whatever uh right exactly okay so uh on the afc side what what do you make of kansas city and all their one score wins because i i don't know what i'm supposed to think like tom brady won way more one score games than he lost Mahomes wins way more than he loses there has to be something to those guys winning those games that that can't be yeah but not at a seven and oh right right not at a seven and oh level so like let's imagine that

they had gone five and two in one score games which i think is a much more like if luck evened out but yes mahomes and reed are special okay they'd be seven and two which is close to the best record in the afc and we'd all be like kansas city is one of the best teams in the afc they won the super bowl last year they're definitely a super bowl contender without having the baggage of nine and oh right like they're really like a seven and two team and then they wouldn't have this this nine and oh we would know what they were which is you know they're absolutely in the mix with baltimore and buffalo like that's the mix right there those three teams those are the three best teams in the afc i think any of them can make three teams. Those are the three best teams in the AFC.

I think any of them can make the Super Bowl. Those are the three best teams. Now, the difference is because Kansas City is 9-0, it is very likely that Buffalo and Baltimore will have to face each other and then the winner will have to face Kansas City, whereas Kansas City will only have to face the four or five, like Houston or whatever. That makes life easier for Kansas City, whereas Kansas City will only have to face like the four or five, like Houston or whatever. And that makes life easier for Kansas City. And history just goes on repeating itself. It was Big Ben, Peyton Manning, Tom Brady, and now Allen and Mahomes and Lamar Jackson. But it was also Montana. This is the team I keep comparing the Chiefs to. The 1990 San Francisco 49ers were coming off two consecutive titles, and they won a bunch of close games and started 10-0, but they weren't as good as their record.

And then they lost a couple, and then they lost in the playoffs. It is hard to make a Super Bowl. There is a reason why, even if the Chiefs go 17-0, four teams in NFL history have finished the regular season undefeated, and of those four teams, only one won the championship. Two Bears teams from before the Super Bowl and the 2007 Patriots lost. And of course, the 72 Dolphins have been brought up a few times. They're the one team that didn't lose in the championship game, that went undefeated in the regular season and didn't lose in the championship game. So like, it is not ridiculous to think that if the Chiefs beat the Bills this week, that the Chiefs could go undefeated

and then lose to the Ravens or the Bills in the playoffs or the Lions. But more likely is that Andy Reid would sit guys in the last couple of weeks of the season. And then like the 2009 Colts, they would lose the undefeated season because they sat guys. Are you you think I mean the Bills got to do this someday right I you can't be this good for the thing about the Chiefs winning three titles in five years is that it leaves a lot of

teams in the AFC where you're like the such and such has to do this someday right like the Ravens have been good for years the Bills have been good for years the bills have been good for years the bangles have been pretty good you know like there is this feeling like one of those teams has to get over the hump and then in the nfc the 49ers right like i mean the chiefs winning three out of five kind of has blocked all these good teams from winning it so yeah i mean there is you know look i would love to see a buffalo detroit super bowl wouldn't that be fun those two fan bases and one of them would actually win i'm pretty sure the week before the super bowl earth just gets hit by an asteroid i mean i know you would all be voting you know you would all be rooting for buffalo oh well that yeah i mean that's, the sister team of the Minnesota Vikings for sure.

Yeah. And, and, you know, you'd be rooting against Detroit, but it would be fun to have those, those two fan bases in the Superbowl. No, I agree. You're right. Vikings fans would be very annoyed because the Vikings have been a good team for so long and Detroit was just horrible. Detroit may be taking the Tampa Bay path to the Super Bowl, I think would be very frustrating here. But yeah, I mean, whoever gets to win that one has absolutely earned it. Just the last thing for you, Aaron, what has been your sort of pet topic in the NFL this year?

Like when you're talking on your podcasts and you're writing, what, what do you keep coming back to as something that's fascinated you about the NFL this year? Um, just how historically good the Ravens offense is that I think because their past defense has been pretty bad. people don't realize how historically good this offense is. We have them as the fourth best offense through 10 games in the last 45 years. They are up there with the 2007 Patriots and the 2018 Chiefs and the 82 Chargers and 84 Dolphins. They are a fantastic, ridiculously good, well-rounded offense. Lamar Jackson is

crazy, insanely good so far this year. And their pass defense is 25th. Their run defense is like fourth, by the way, but their pass defense is like 25th. And then their pass defense looks worse because their offense scores so often that their defense faces a lot of drives so the total stats against their past defense are even worse than the rate stats because their defense is on the field all the time because the offense scores so quickly that the defense has to go back on the field it is wild uh but that last year they were so good defensively was that yeah it's this that defense inconsistency thing like i don't know how much it's mcdonald to or and i don't know how much i i don't i mean i don't think it's patrick queen you know um they i will

say they've dropped a lot of interceptions they're gonna have better luck on interceptions the rest of the way so their past defense will probably look better like i feel really good about the ravens going forward the problem is that they're going to have to beat buffalo probably and then go to kansas city and that's just a tough that is a tough two games right there to win both of those for me it's been uh the running back thing because i grew up loving running backs just like everybody did in the nineties and two thousands. Right. And it's like, Hey, they're back. Like the star veteran running back is back. And the other thing is, I think I'm fascinated by Chicago and Caleb Williams and whose fault is it anyway? Uh, how much is it that Caleb Williams might not be everything

people thought he was going to be. I, you and I talked for the season about projecting Caleb Williams. You refused to do it because we had no idea what he was going to be. And it just hasn't been very good. And he holds on to the ball so long. And part of it is guys aren't open. So let's see what happens with this new offensive coordinator, but it's not like the new offensive coordinator has a great track record. He was like Bryce Young's offensive coordinator or something. So I don't know if that gets better, but watching, you know, being a Patriots fan, I watched a whole game of Caleb Williams because I watched him play the Patriots and my God, does he hold onto the ball too long? That's what I was. It looks like Justin Fields. He would do the same thing except for he doesn't have the running ability of justin fields and but he's more accurate as

yes yeah yep he's a better thrower i it's way too early to call it uh you know i hate to use this guy as an example but deshaun watson held on to the ball too early in his career and then figured it out early on yeah i mean j Jared Goff was horrible as a rookie. Matthew Stafford was bad as a rookie. Eli Manning was bad as a rookie. Don McNabb was bad as a rookie. John Elway was bad as like, we don't make judgments after one year.

Right. But I am curious because it has usually, I would like to see the stats on if you get someone fired in your first year, then what your chances of success are. Can't be that great. FTN fantasy is where DVOA hides these days. So I go find that each week to see what happened with the Vikings. Make sure you check that out

along with your work over there as well. And I'm sure we'll do it again very soon. Aaron Schatz, thanks a lot, man. Thanks for your time. Hey, thanks for having me on. Gifting is hard, but here's a hint. Give the gift of connection from U.S sure what that means here's a slightly more specific hint you can choose four free phones and get four lines for 90 a month from us cellular your family wants

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Whether it's during halftime or between big plays, Catan brings a whole new level of competition and excitement to your game day. Visit CatanShop.com and use the coupon code PURPLE to get a 10% discount off Catan for a limited time. Again, Catan shop.com coupon code purple to get a 10% discount on Catan for a limited time only. Along with Andrew Kramer of the star Tribune for our weekly in-depth super football, he look at the Vikings and their opponent and their opponent. It's pretty sad.

You know, I was watching a video from a Titans reporter earlier in the day and his entire video was based on how the Vikings will murder the Tennessee Titans and ruin everything about their franchise that is left to be destroyed. That was his main takeaway. I'm just saying. So this one. Okay.

How about this? Like, talk me into taking this seriously, Andrew. Well, the last two games against AFC South opponents have not gone exactly well against the Colts and the Jags. Somehow the Minnesota Vikings have not held a halftime lead since the Jets game in London. It has been since before the bye. So I think the way you can take this seriously is the Vikings are not going to make this as easy as possible on themselves.

And if they do, Vikings fans can breathe a sigh of relief and say, boy, that 10-0 lead should really salt it away in the second quarter because against Will Levis, it just might. But the Vikings have had a hard time getting off to the fast starts that they grew accustomed to in that 5-0 start. So I think this is going to be another work in progress where against a pretty decent defense in terms of yardage, in terms of personnel up front, they're going to need Sam Darnold to be on point for it to be the kind of breeze that Vikings fans think it should be. Well, let's talk about it this way.

What are you worried about? What are you not worried about? Because I thought that there were a lot of reasonable critiques and there were also a lot of wild overreactions, like play Nick Mullins would be probably under the overreaction. Maybe the best place to begin would be Sam Darnold turnovers. Give me some sort of scale one to a hundred ten to a thousand one to ten what use colors give me some sort of scale of how concerned his interceptions

or last two weeks should be yeah it's it's a seven or eight out of ten um but there is no recourse other than sam darnold playing better vikings fans should listen their head coach, who said right after the Jags game, it'd be crazy not to be all in on Sam Darnold right now because he knows what's in that room. He knows that there is no other option. J.J. McCarthy is not walking through that door because he just had a second procedure on his right knee. So they have to rely on him.

They've poured into him since March. They need him to play better, and they're going to continue to push that. It's been six turnovers of his 13 in the last two games. That's nearly half of the turnovers he's committed this year have come in just these last eight quarters. So the Vikings expect him to be able to play better. He has played better for them, but it is concerning considering the body of work that Sam Darnold has put together in the NFL. This guy is a turnover prone quarterback. Decision making can be streaky, so can accuracy for him. So the Vikings need to get him back on

one of those good streaks and hope that whether it's through coaching, through talent reinforcement around him, that he can maintain that good level of play. So Matt, yeah, it is concerning. And the other parts of this matchup I'd be concerned about when it comes to the offense is that interior offensive line. They did not play that well against the Jaguars front. A Jaguars front that really only wanted to put six, maybe seven guys in the box. They were, as we've talked about ad nauseum, they backed everybody up off the line of scrimmage and said, try to run it.

The Vikings did for 169 yards, but it wasn't as easy as it seemed in the box score. This was something where Ed Ingram, Garrett Bradbury, Blake Brandel at times struggled through their matchup. So Matt against Justin Simmons up front against sweat, their new nose tackle against even Arden Key, who 16 months ago, dusted them in training camp practices. Those defensive defensive linemen for the titans are very good and i think that is going to be a continued way that this offense can be slowed down and that's always the thing that we talk about when you go into a game no matter the opponent if they have a defensive tackle and in this case they have two in in jeffrey simmons and tavandre sweat

that is where you wonder especially about the size and the power differential with the center the right guard. There's just, you know, that's not going to be great almost ever. But when it comes to Garrett Bradbury, when you look at how he performs on a weekly basis, it's almost always based on who it is lining up over the top of him. If he has tough matchups, if he has a Kenny Clark, it's probably not going to be that great of a day.

But if he has somebody who's more along league average, he can really do well against them, especially when it comes to the run. And I guess what I want to know after a game like that is how much do you try to adjust and how much do you say, guys, he's not going to throw three picks every single game. And two of them were kind of weird, not to excuse them, them but they were like he just misread which direction justin jefferson was going and the ball ends up getting intercepted but it doesn't seem to me like they better overhaul x y and z or this thing is going to go in the toilet i don't look at it that way i thought the overall offensive strategy was pretty good and darnold was just off in that game yeah and i i didn't go to Jacksonville.

I watched the broadcast and I did get to hear Mark Sanchez talk about some of the things with Darnold were early in that game. You saw quiet feet. You saw him not bounce in the pocket. You saw him look a little more composed and his fundamentals and delivering the football that seemed to wane as the game went on in some of those moments that Mark Sanchez did point out. And you've hear coaches, coaches, talk about this, where Sam Darnold is not this fixed figure yet. He doesn't have 10,000 hours on task at doing the things they're asking him to do. Yes, he played under Ben McAdoo.

It's a different ballgame right now for him under Kevin O'Connell, Wes Phillips, Josh McCown. They're asking him to do things he only really started doing in San Francisco last year. All that said, they're focused on Sam, not so much as this holistic system of, boy, we got to change X, Y, and Z. They need Sam to just fundamentally play better, to make better decisions. Kevin O'Connell said yesterday, we're asking him to trust what's gotten him here. That means trust what got you to a 5-0 start, to throwing 13 touchdown passes in the red zone when you couldn't throw one on Sunday. So this guy has done it before. He's done it for them. They just need

to get him into a more consistent place. And how do you ask? This is the question I think everyone who's ever coached Sam Darnold has run into. How do you ask someone with that arm to just play game manager football, but also you have Justin Jefferson and all these routes running 25 yards down the field. You can't tell Justin Jefferson too many weeks. Hey, great job. Josh Oliver caught that ball underneath. We got that kind of speech this week about, oh, well, Justin's pumped when he sees Josh Oliver catch a ball because he cleared out that space. I have no doubt that's true, but also that's your best player. You can't let other teams take away your best player

by just playing the safeties 1,000 miles away from the line of scrimmage and that be the answer. There has to be other ways to get Jefferson the ball that there really weren't. But I thought that the receivers overall were pretty open and there were chances there. I mean, there's a 20-yard throw down the middle that Darnold just overthrows Jordan Addison. He's wide open in the middle of those two deep safeties. It's not like Kevin O'Connell doesn't know how to deal with these defenses.

That was just a little bit more extreme than you usually see. But I could see the Titans doing the same thing because their front four is good enough to get after Sam Darnold just with their pass rushers and with their defensive tackles. Why do you think the Titans are so bad at stopping the run? They've just been run over these last couple of weeks. They have big people. I just am not understanding really anything about the Titans in trying to evaluate them, but it seems like that might be the opportunity for the Vikings to keep running. Yeah, I do think this Titans team has been down big in some games that maybe that has contributed to it.

I think Detroit ran for like 200 plus yards and only hit a throw for 60 in a game. They won 52 to 14 Buffalo when they wanted to throw on them. They did through 300 yards on them. I think the Packers ran on them. The Chargers just ran on them they did threw 300 yards on them I think the Packers ran on them the Chargers just ran on them you're right I think teams have been able to lean on them but the Chargers weren't very efficient in the run game last week they had to really kind of work at it to get it going that game was 13 to 10 in the third quarter Tennessee seemed to put together one of their better games where Will Levis didn't just throw it away the way that he's

done before the way that he started his season so I I don't know what it is. I haven't watched a ton of Tennessee film, but I can say that in terms of missed tackles, in terms of basic stats, they're not one of the most consistent defenses up front. So the talent is there, but it's a new coaching staff. It's a new defensive coordinator who was a passing game coordinator in Denard Wilson over in Baltimore. So I don't know if they're asking them to do the same things they did under Mike Vrabel. But a lot of the personnel is still there. A lot of the guys who are going to drag you into a telephone booth, as they say, and beat you up. Those are the guys that are still very much on that Titans defense. And if the

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this holiday season it's only 49.99 at futurefans.com use the code purple though and you get 10 off again futurefans.com code purple and unlock a lifetime of memories with a kid in your life starting now. So I don't really like with and without you stats. You know what those are? That's when you're on the field versus when you're not on the field. It is starting to become a tad noticeable that outside of the first half against Green Bay, since Jordan Addison has come back, it has been less efficient for Sam Darnold and less consistent for Sam Darnold.

Now, I don't think that's anything Jordan Addison is doing. He's running his routes. He's getting separation. He's getting open. But the chemistry is not there. And also, we've seen Jalen Naylor just disappear, where he was, I think, acting pretty well as someone that Darnold trusted early. Remember that big third down throw that he made against San Francisco

to put the dagger in the 49ers. That goes to Jalen Naylor. He had a touchdown pass to him against the Giants. And then we just haven't seen him in weeks, really since London. Jalen Naylor has been no part of this conversation at all. And I don't think that's because he's doing anything super different.

Maybe people talked about that one route that he could have maybe run a little bit better for Sam that could have been a touchdown pass. But it feels like there's Jefferson and Hawkinson that he's comfortable with, and everything else maybe a lot less so. Yeah, but that's obvious with Jordan Addison. I mean, we saw that going back to training camp where it just wasn't as automatic as Kirk Cousins was with him in that first camp.

And I think that lack of consistency or chemistry with Jordan Addison, if I had to guess, and with Jalen Naylor, it has to do with the fact that these guys are not the biggest targets. You need to be a little more precise in your windows. You need to be more precise in your timing of knowing how fast guys run certain routes, how quickly they get in and out of their breaks. All of those things seem to be still learning with us. Darnold seems to be learning that stuff with those other guys. With JJ, it's a lot easier. JJ is just going to do these supernatural things to supersede you being half a second late with the throw or a little a yard off with the pass over here. Those other

guys aren't superhuman like that and especially Addison he needs more of that kind of precise hyper accurate that Kirk Cousins was in these short to intermediate areas where you got O'Connell talking about Darnold saying outside the numbers we need a little bit better accuracy from him well that's kind of where Addison's been able to eat at times and I also haven't seen him trust throws over the middle to Addison the way that you saw Kirk do or that he does with Jefferson. It's obvious too that with Darnold, he's a see it, throw it kind of guy because with Hawkinson, boom, automatic connection, didn't need to practice with him. All of a sudden, the guy's got eight catches in the game. He's got six catches on third downs in the last two weeks. That's tied for second most on the team already on

third and fourth downs. He's already been the go-to guy. So I think this is just a quarterback fit with these guys. And also when you bring up Naylor, he's wide receiver three. They're starting to lean more on those two tight end sets,

especially the last two weeks with Hawkinson bringing CJ Hamm in the game, trying to run the ball more. I do think Naylor's kind of paid the price for being phased out when they try to mix it up on offense. Do you think that there's any part of it that is just Kevin O'Connell and scheme? Because I was thinking about how Cooper Cup dominated the targets in Los Angeles in 2021, and there's been offenses, even LaFleur with Devontae Adams when he was there.

There have been offenses that are really centric on one guy and then everybody else kind of gets their shots when they get them. And with Addison, it looks like a different day if he hits him over the middle for a 25 or 30 yard gain than it does if he only has, what do you have, maybe two catches in the game, or it actually looks different if that scramble that Sam Darnold had where he found Addison for a first down uh it wasn't called back if it wasn't called back for reasons uh that everyone wants by the way all nfl fans have voted they want illegal formation to be called more they want exciting plays taken away whatever it's been a tough year for a refereeing but the point is that there were there were some plays that were there

and they just weren't executed but i actually actually like the two tight ends. I think it helps them run the ball better. And Josh Oliver just catches the ball and he gets open. And I don't think anyone really knows what to do with them for other teams. You just don't see Mark Bruner, Jim Kleinsasser looking dudes running over the middle of the field anymore. And I opponents are like what what is this man doing isn't he supposed to be run blocking and the guy can catch too he really can he's not the most dynamic athlete he's not going to split out wide and shake a safety and get open but if you put him on a crossing route like they did against the jaguars and he makes a one-handed grab where when you watch that play from different angles sam darnold actually had an incredible play it's pressure up the middle from uh what was it was a wide alignment so Cam Robinson the left tackle

was kind of in the middle of the formation pressure right up there Darnold spins out of it and throws this little sidearm pass to Josh Oliver that he one arm grabs and then flips the ball because he's so emphatic about catching it the Vikings had to challenge that to get it anyway the point is the officials didn't even believe that Josh Oliver had caught that. Guy's got nine catches, 110 yards, and a touchdown over the last two weeks. He's been a great complement for what they need on offense. And again, for a quarterback who needs to kind of see things to throw it, to totally trust it. With Oliver, big enough target that clearly Sam's got the confidence to throw it in there.

And you're just not seeing. You mentioned the miss to Addison down the middle of the field. When things need to be farther downfield, Darnold's got the confidence to throw it in there, and you're just not seeing. You mentioned the miss to Addison down the middle of the field. When things need to be farther downfield, Darnold's got the arm talent. You're just not seeing the consistency with some of the guys outside of Justin Jefferson. I believe that Chris Herndon had his big season while playing with Sam Darnold, so maybe that is a thing when it comes to throwing underneath two tight ends. Let me switch. Well, is there anything else you want to say about the Darnold situation?

Because I think what we're seeing play out halfway through the season now is the strengths and weaknesses of Sam Darnold, the realities. Because early on in the first four and a half games, it looked like there were no weaknesses. I mean, he was just hitting everything. Opponents didn't know what to do with him. They were hitting shots down the field, 97-yard touchdowns that really aren't sustainable. And now it feels like this is how football works, where opponents say, all right, we've seen everything you do. We're going to make some adjustments and see if you can figure that out. And now the big challenge for Sam Darnold the rest of the way is figuring that out. Yeah, there's no shock that when NFL seasons begin, typically the teams that get off to fast starts are the ones who kind of come out of nowhere, ones that didn't have the

playbook all laid out last year for defenses to know what's happening. And with Sam Darnold, the book wasn't really written on what to expect with him in Minnesota. And so I think you saw teams like the Niners, I think, who played a lot closer up and dared him. And then all of a sudden they get shocked that Kevin O'Connell wants to call a 97 or a deep touchdown pass that turns into a 97 yarder. The teams know now that Sam wants to throw downfield. He wants to take shots. This offense wants to enable that for him.

And this offense still does not have a running game that forces defense to creep up. They still don't have a big breakaway running game. They don't have even explosive at all. There's not a lot of 10, 20 plus yard runs with this team. Aaron Jones has been efficient. He's been able to make offensive linemen right, but they're not turning from five, seven, eight yarders into the big runs that scare teams. So I think you're seeing defenses like Jacksonville, like the Colts, like the Rams,

sit back and say, you know what? We're going to give you the underneath stuff and we're going to bet that your aggressive quarterback and your aggressive head coach don't want to take everything we're willing to give you. And you're right. It's about the book being out on him. And now it's about how do they counter adjust?

How does Sam Darnold adjust his mentality to say, you know what? I'm going to be more of that manager that they're asking me to be. Cause make no mistake behind the scenes, they're pounding that into his head, be efficient completions or negatives for the defense, just get the ball out, get it into the hands of somebody else. Um, and that might even lead to an over-correction where teams are worse sitting here in a week later saying, ah, Justin was wide open. Why didn't you throw it? It's because of all of these turnovers, they're going to keep forcing that into his head. And now it's about finding that balance between

being too conservative and being too aggressive. I think it's the toughest thing in the sport for somebody like Darnold. And you see even Mahomes and Josh Allen have struggled with this throughout their careers. When you have a cannon, everyone wants you to throw it deep all the time. And yet every defense, there was that one year where defenses just started playing way over the top against Kansas City, and now Kansas City's adjustment is to have the ball for the entire game and have Mahomes convert third down over and over again. I don't know that you really want Sam Darnold to have to convert third down

after third down after third down, and they also don't have an offensive line that really gets to the second level. I think they can open up big enough gaps for a little guy like Aaron Jones to weave his way through and pound forward for five yards. But if you're going to get huge runs, you usually need guards that are working up, pushing linebackers and make it so it's only the safety who's getting beat by the running back. And that's just not this line. It hasn't been this line for years. And it's something that in the future needs to be addressed, but there's nothing that they could do about it. Now,

Dalton rise, there is not helping you with those types of blocks. So this will have to be kind of who they are. I think that just getting the ball into the hands of Addison and Jefferson quicker is a good idea because it felt like last week was a track meet for those guys. And they were just running right down, you know, down the middle, deep route, deep route, deep route, deep route.

And that's got to get frustrating. If you're those guys, if you are putting in that many miles running all day long and not getting the football very often, I think they did adjust the second half a little bit with Jefferson to get them the ball quicker. Uh, but that has to be, I think, a priority if the Titans are going to do the same thing. And sometimes teams like the Titans just don't even pay attention to what the team did the week before and just play single high like the Colts did and get roasted into the sun. So that could also be the case. I do think we need to note or should note that in that Jacksonville game, coaches have

been pretty honest about how they threw them a curveball. All that too high stuff was stuff that Jacksonville had put on tape. But as Wes Phillips told us, it wasn't something they did all game before. He said, credit to them. They kept us out of the end zone, but we'll be ready next time. And O'Connell has talked about needing to better adjust on the fly. If we don't have something in the game plan, we need to be better about creating it and throwing it in there.

And I wonder where he gets that idea from. Cause Brian Flores just did that at halftime of that Jags game where they were dominating Jacksonville and still Flores was at halftime being like, we need to fix this. We need to adjust this. And it's, you can see the changes. You can see if a guy's constantly maniacally trying to tweak things the way that defensively they seem to do, uh, at least lately, um, that can help you in ways that this offense seems to be a little more rigid in their planning going into a game where they think, no, we know how we're going to get attacked. We need to do this.

And even O'Connell and these coaches are saying, you know what, we need to adjust a little bit better. So to your point, I do think some of the quick hitting stuff earlier in that Jags game certainly could have helped them. And yet they gained 400 yards and had the ball for four. They're the only team in the NFL to have the ball for 42 minutes this year, which is partly a defensive stat. Believe it.

Yeah. But at the same time, like they had long drives, they were on the field. That's why the tweaking and changing is a hard question to answer. How much do you want to change when you had the ball day and you should have scored 34 points, but you know, the cookie crumbled a little differently in the red zone.

William Levis. What do you think his middle name is? Mayo. Oh, that's good. I was going to say Jeffrey William Todd Levis. Todd. He does look like a Todd, like a Chad. Yeah.

William Chad Levis. I don't know what his middle name is, but I know it's been a rocky road for him this year. He has been hurt. He averages less than six yards of pass attempt, which is very hard to do even in a world where people are throwing underneath. And yet he played pretty well last week. He got sacked like crazy and probably will again this week, but he completed passes last week, week almost 80 completions uh he was throwing the ball much better than he has this year i don't think will levis is so bad where you just go kind of as mac jones not just him but also the situation was atrocious for mac j. They had traded their left tackle.

They had multiple injuries up front. I mean, Will Levis might be a little bit better than Mac Jones. So how much should they be concerned about him coming off of a pretty good game against a pretty good defense? Yeah, I like the talent around Will Levis better than the talent around Mac Jones. Yeah, Brian Thomas is a great wide receiver, will be great, I think, for the Jaguars, but that's about all they had. Tony Pollard has played very well for Tennessee. Obviously doesn't get talked about because it's a dumpster fire over there, but Tajay Spears, the backup running back, just got healthy

last week, is also very good for them. Calvin Ridley is their lead wide receiver because they traded DeAndre Hopkins. That's good for the Vikings because Ridley is somebody who will drop just as many touchdowns as he catches. But Will Levis, you see why he was a second round pick. Physically, he's mobile. He's big. He's got a decent arm.

But mentally, he averages one mean play per game where he just is. He puts himself sideways and he throws a pick and all of a sudden it's all over every social media site because the guy is kind of a clown show of a quarterback at times with his decision making. And I don't think that's changed too much. You mentioned the efficiency he had against the Chargers. I do think taking sacks is better than throwing picks, better than fumbling. But Brian Callahan, their first year head coach, the former Bengals coordinator, has talked about his awful decision making that famous kind of viral press conference moments where he's saying, I don't know, he's an adult. Why is he making these decisions out there? So I think we heard it. The Vikings were not big fans of Will Levis in the 2023 draft.

Clearly, the NFL wasn't either because he fell to the second round where the Titans snatched him up. So I think the Titans too have found out we're not big fans of Will Levis either, and they'll probably move on from him this off season too. So I think all that the Vikings have to worry about with Levis is the talent around him is if they don't contain Tony Pollard, they don't contain Spears. And if they let the game get out of Levis's hands and into their playmakers, that's the way Tennessee can at least do some damage against this Flores defense. If you make Stephon Gilmore, if you make Ivan Pace chase to the perimeter and tackle, those are the ways that the Rams, for instance, really attacked the Vikings

and found ways to move on the perimeter. So that's what you worry about with Tennessee, but you do not worry about this quarterback dropping back and dissecting your coverages. You just don't. Right. I think that he's going to take five sacks in this game. And the, also the mismatch between Jonathan Grenard and their tackles.

It's bad. You could see the fear of Brian Callahan and his press conference was like Jonathan Grenard. Wow. So he's a underrated hey you know i mean you just uh he wanted to leave uh after talking about that so i think that's the biggest mismatch maybe on the field is uh their offensive line versus jonathan granard the blitzing uh trying to identify blitzes versus dropping out. The only time we ever see quarterbacks solve that is when it's Stafford, when it's golf, when it's guys who are great at football. And that's their main thing is having so much experience and they can identify it. They don't

panic when they see it. But it last week was just a case of the Jaguars can't block this. I didn't even think it was crazy. Anything they did, they just couldn't block pace and Cashman on their blitzes. And I don't think this team can either. Tony Pollard's a great player. He's the only one where you might go. If he runs like crazy, if he gets a couple of big runs, but the run defense has really come alive these last two weeks, the Jags and the Colts had been good running teams in terms of yards per carry and the Vikings just completely shut them down. It's a wild mismatch. And I think that we see everything that the Vikings didn't want to invest in when it came to Will Levis, which is the huge mistakes, the trouble identifying stuff. I haven't watched enough to say for sure about the leadership and the toughness and all those things. But the way his coach talks to him doesn't really seem like he commands a

whole lot of respect, uh, from the head coach. Otherwise I don't think he'd be talking to him that way. So it's just not really a great scene in Tennessee, which leads me to, uh, if the Vikings win this game as they should,

uh, let's just say it's convincing fashion. It doesn't need to be a hundred to zero, but, uh, they get three pot returns. They win the convincing fashion. It doesn't need to be 100-0, but they get three punt returns. They win the game easily like Detroit did. We just kind of shrug our shoulders at this, right? We're not going to try to make anything of it other than kind of on to the next one. And if they lose, so I've been very much in the mode this week of, guys, You have to win ugly games.

They dominated the game. They just kind of screwed up in the red zone. That's not something that happens that often. Move on. The season is very much intact. You're one of the top teams. If they lose to the Titans, I take it all back. Truly, this team is horrid.

So that's kind of how I feel about this one. This is very much a Vikings fans are watching it going. Just don't just don't do that thing you do. Yeah, Vikings. They look the Vikings need style points at this point. They should act like this is the AP coaches poll and college football and all it's decided is vibes and just how you looked and you know what we're going to that's what they need right now they need to look good against the Tennessee Titans they need Sam Darnold to look good against the Tennessee Titans you need to feel good and have a get right bounce back game on offense score a bunch of points it doesn't even matter if you're three of 13 on third down if you have four

40 yard bombs that end up getting you in the end zone just feel good about your ability to rack up points on the scoreboard because you are better than this team. You just need your quarterback. You need to feel better about him. You need coaches to feel better about him. You need to feel like he's kind of getting on the right path and right trajectory here because you've got two games.

You've got the Tennessee Titans and you've got the Chicago Bears who are a pretty decent defense. So that's not going to be a cakewalk for Sam Darnold in Chicago. But you've got these two games to get right before you start facing more of the tougher teams in the NFC, starting with the Cardinals, the Falcons, and then into the rest of your division, where you need to really ramp up for the postseason come January. It has to start here. If you're the Vikings and you think, where do we want to be mid-January, first playoff week, whatever, you want to look back and think this was the low point.

That 12-7 Jaguars, boy, were we a bad team then, and we really rebounded since then. If it's not, and if this Jaguars game was just indicative of who they can be on any given Sunday, and they show that again against the Titans, there's going to be a real cause for concern for this team. But you're right. In terms of being 8-2, like we all expect them to be, I don't think there's going to be any coronations or any, oh, we really learned a whole lot about how great they can be. No, it's going to be go do what everybody expects you to do. I feel exactly the same way. Just win this game against this horrendous, awful team

that every good team that's played them has run them out of the building. Their vibes are as bad as any team in the NFL. And this is not the opportunity to let them get a little bit of fight, especially early in the game, like make this not a game. And I think what we've seen is they'll give up for when they've gotten down in other games against Detroit or against Buffalo. Like they'll just say, but forget this. They're clearly not really playing for their coach there, and the Vikings need to make sure they do that. Put seven on them right away.

Get them behind the eight ball. Get them panicking a little bit, and they'll melt. If they don't, then we'll have a lot more critiques, say, for them next week. I'm putting it at 27-10. I don't know what you're doing. Yeah, I think the Vikings, it's going to be a similar game, I think, to Sunday, except I think they convert a couple of those drives into touchdowns. I think this is going to be more of a 24 to 7, yeah, 23 to 10

kind of a game where, hey, at least it's two scores. At least it was easy. But the thing is, too, this Titans team has been in games, at least some games. They were 13-10 against the Chargers in the third quarter. They can kind of drag things out a little bit and make you sweat. And I just wouldn't be shocked if we're sitting in the second half, Vikings, Titans, and Vikings fans are still going, Oh, God, they're not going to blow this, are they? I just think that's kind of where this Vikings team is set up. And Sam Darnold is the kind of quarterback who you haven't seen a consistent

four quarter efforts since Houston week three. Yeah. Right. Cause the second half of green Bay, that's where some things started to go a little wonky and then it's been up and down since, I mean, I thought he was good against Detroit and LA.

That's the thing. They should have come out with wins if they get a couple of stops there, but they really just didn't and had drives and by penalties that may have been somewhat his fault but also maybe the coach not getting in calls and things like that um i think that they've resolved a lot of the issues that they were having offensively overall and are in a good place and they just have to not throw it to the other team that's why it's a it's a hard thing to break down because it's like don't do that worst thing well we didn't we didn't talk about it though but like the pre-snap penalties did creep back in there was i mean the cam robinson

illegal formation you can talk about but wasn't there another one i thought there was another either false start or another wide receiver illegal motion in there after having a pretty clean game against the Colts on that front where I believe Cam Robinson's hold was the only offensive penalty they had in that game so there's still some of that where they're popping up and we're not talking about it because it's 400 yards and Sam Darnall was the story but there's still some of those things we're in a close game it shouldn't burn you against the Titans but against good opponents Kyler Murray, Kirk Cousins, Jared Goff, again, that, that absolutely will come back to hurt you in that Lions game. They scored 23 points on offense against the defense that I thought you should

have been able to put up more against without Aiden Hutchinson. So just real quick though, every team in the NFC, what, what are their podcasters saying that, I mean, the Lions, of course they're going super bowl, but Washington, they lost to Pittsburgh. Philadelphia has come along lately. They're pretty hot. San Francisco barely escaped against Tampa Bay. Atlanta fell apart at the end. I heard there was a check down. I didn't see it, but just saying I heard, uh, and, uh, you know, they lose a horrible game to the new Orleans saints, green Bay, they've got their problems, too. I just think that this is the nature of the beast right now, is that every single team in the NFC is a little bit shaky at times,

and it's not always going to be amazing. What the Vikings have that those teams don't have is a top-five defense. Yeah, the Vikings have more of the better collective team. They've got the best 52 around the quarterback, or they have the argument to have the best 52 around the quarterback for most teams in the NFC. That's what you got. But you just don't have the one position set where you can say, you know what? If the other 10 around him don't play well, we got the quarterback.

No, you need the other 10 to play consistently well around Sam Darnold. And then Hope, he also has a good day because that's where he's at in his career. That's who he is as a quarterback right now. He might progress, develop to get better, to be more transcendent and consistent. To ask that of him in his first full year as a starter under good coaching is asking a lot. And you're right. I think a lot of teams are going through that for various reasons, but the Philadelphia Eagles can say, you know what?

We got Jalen Hurts. The Packers can say, you know what? This time last year, Jordan Love turned it on and was one of the best quarterbacks in the NFL for the rest of the season this time last year. The Vikings don't have that to lean on with Sam Darnold. As Kevin O'Connell said after that Jags game, he hopes this is a moment they all absorb. We don't say that after a win unless you feel pretty good about yourselves. And they don't because of what Sam Darnold did in that game. Kevin O'Connell felt the weight of that. You surely Sam Darnold did. And so, yeah, you're right. The Vikings, I shouldn't overblow it. A lot of teams have the issues, and what the Vikings have going for them is a very good team around, Sam.

I think everybody's got the same fear. I think Vikings fans have the same fear as what's happening in this building right now this week. They know they've got a better team top to bottom than almost everyone in the NFC, not named the Lions and maybe the Eagles. And they have a quarterback who they're not sure what's gonna happen but he could be great or he cannot and uh we're gonna find out in tennessee so uh andrew kramer star tribune

and i am not going on this trip i spent um my whole budget on jacksonville then it rained and i couldn't play golf and um nashville's a great town. We'll try again next week. We'll try again. Football, football.