Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Addison, Van Ginkel miss practice and expectations vs. 49ers

Episode Date: September 12, 2024

Matthew Coller chats with Vikings fans about the latest injury report and takeaways from TCO Performance Center on Wednesday. Plus answering any and all questions from fans Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

🎵 Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here, and welcome to our Wednesday night chat, which means that this is kind of your show. It belongs to you. I will answer any and all questions, comments, takes, opinions. So start it up. Fire it up right from the very beginning. Get your questions, comments, and thoughts about the Vikings,

their upcoming matchup with the 49ers, the roster, players, coaches, strategies, fullbacks, especially fullbacks, whatever you got on your mind. And we'll have a nice, fun conversation here on the show. I want to start off, though, with just the injury report and also what's going on with Christian McCaffrey. But for the Vikings injury report, it was not any sort of big surprise that Jordan Addison was out and was not practicing today. But his status, though, if you don't practice on

Wednesday, still remains up in the air. It's really Thursday and especially Friday that usually make the biggest difference when it comes to this, but not practicing today is not a great sign for Addison. And just judging by the way that Kevin O'Connell talked about it the other day, it did not feel like O'Connell was talking about a player who's going to play against the 49ers. And that's just not great for the Vikings. I don't have to tell you guys that. You know how good Jordan Addison is. But what he did last year to the San Francisco 49ers, no one will be more thrilled to not face Jordan Addison than the 49ers, but I will be very, very interested to see if Jordan Addison cannot play just what they do

with the rest of the wide receiver group, because you saw Jalen Naylor was effective in catching a touchdown, but can you ask him to do a lot more than that? And he was a full participant. So that was the good break for the Vikings today is that Jalen Naylor participated in full, which means he should be good to go from that ankle injury when they get to Sunday's game. But can he be a more complete wide receiver? Because I think in an ideal world for Jalen Naylor, He's more of a bit type of player. He deep route mix and match with Justin Jefferson and Jordan Addison catch teams a little bit by surprise as he did with

the touchdown the other day. But Jalen Naylor has not been asked at any point in his career since college to be the guy and end up with a large target share. He's never done that in his career. And I think that one thing that they did during training camp that was good, and maybe they did this because they weren't sure if Jordan Addison would get suspended at some point. But one thing that they did that was smart was they had Jalen Naylor work with the first and second team in a lot of different positions. So he was working with the first and second team in a lot of different positions. So he was working with the first team as if he was wide receiver three, but he was working with the second team as if he was wide receiver one or wide receiver two, uh, and playing the role

of Jefferson some days playing the role of Addison some days. So this won't be completely foreign to him when he gets out there, but how do they manage the rest of it? We could see a lot of Brandon Powell. I know that a lot of you want to see more of Tristan Jackson, and maybe that might have to be the case with Tristan Jackson, because you might be looking for explosive plays or somebody who is more of a route runner as opposed to Brandon Powell. But I would guess that the main combination would be an 11 personnel with three receivers would be Jefferson Naylor and Brandon Powell. And that's why even we talked about this, how really the wide receiver three position was a three, a three B type of thing.

And then Trent Shurfield did work in a little bit into the game as well. And we might just have to see more Trent Shurfield and Shurfield and Powell are proven wide receivers, maybe not proven wide receivers at the level of someone like Jordan Addison, but at very least they've gone out, they've done it before and you know that they can at least play, but it doesn't draw attention away from Justin Jefferson in the same way or split the attention in the same way that Jordan Addison did. So if he can't play, then someone has to make the 49ers pay. That is not Justin Jefferson. It has to be Naylor. It has to be Powell and Powell was actually good against them last year. It has to be someone else, uh, other than just him, Johnny Munt, who had a couple of

catches and the run game then becomes an, and passing game out of the backfield becomes even more vital. And that was an area they were good. And we didn't talk a whole lot about the other day, but they were good against the giants at throwing passes to a tie Chandler. There was a play where they were backed all the way up to the end zone and they throw just a little dink to a tie Chandler. He ends up getting a first down that set up their big bomb down the field to Justin Jefferson, things like that to tie Chandler, just a little bit in the passing game, six, seven passes to the running backs in this game. They're going to have to really spread it out if Jordan Addison can't play, but there was with Jordan Addison, some of the off field stuff deservedly comes up a lot,

but as far as the way that he actually plays football is really exceptional. And you saw that on a couple of plays. Funny about how sometimes guys can have a great game where they didn't catch a lot of passes, but it was still very important, the plays that they made. And with Addison, he had two plays where he just ran an out route, but he breaks it off so well. And he's so good at making the catch coming back to the football it got two significant gains before they were able to score a touchdown on a drive against the Giants those types of things are not going to be there if Addison can't play or if he can't play the regular full workload Addison would seem to me less likely to play than Van Ginkle but of course if Van Ginkle can't play

that is a huge loss now we'll see on that one because kevin o'connell didn't seem concerned about it at any point and wednesday is a day where veteran players who are banged up will often miss a wednesday because they've done it for a long time they don't need a lot of extra practice so So Wednesday would be the day where a player like Van Ginkle, if he's just resting his foot would sit out Thursday and Friday are going to be worth watching very closely for Andrew Van Ginkle. And that's not a guy that you can replace. I mean, I liked what Dallas Turner did on the one rep for the sack. Didn't really make a huge difference on a lot of other plays. Van Ginkle is a star and you saw this,

the most underrated player in the NFL probably. And he was one where if you looked at the PFF data through the years, you knew this. And when they signed it, we talked about it. Like this guy is used all over the place and he's a playmaker. And sometimes he scores touchdowns, which he does,

you know, he did for the Vikings, but not something that's even unique to his career. They need him against the 49ers. I mean, when you have the line that they have, the running game, they have the intricate passing game that works off the run so beautifully. He needs to be in there, but just the vibe of Kevin O'Connell, when he was getting asked, asked three questions about Van Ginkle today, and there was no hint of him being concerned about his health. And even when he was asked about it after the game,

he said something about, well, we're trying to kind of take some reps off of him and rest him a little bit. That was the way that he phrased it when he said it after the game, which still makes me think that there's a good chance that Van Ginkle plays. But that's only a thought as of this moment. I won't know until we see more from the injury report, but that one would be as significant or more of a loss than Jordan Addison. And other than that, the Vikings came out pretty healthy from their game against the New York Giants, which is a win there alone. If Addison's ankle injury isn't long-term and Van Ginkle isn't hurt seriously either, then they would be in pretty good shape.

And as far as everything else, I mean, Harrison Phillips talked about his extension today. Sam Darnold was talking about how sometimes if things are going wrong as a quarterback, it can feel like it's piling up on top of you. And I thought that was an interesting comment to him because one of the things that seems to have been a struggle for Sam Darnold, I can actually give you the exact quote. Hold on to what Darnold said, because trying to rephrase this is not that easy. Okay. So what Darnold said was when you're a quarterback, I feel like a lot of times you can feel everything collapsing on you, not just in the game, but theoretically as a whole. If things aren't going your way, you can feel the weight of the world a little bit. At the end of the day, it's your job to put the ball in the playmaker's hands and let them go play.

And I think that that gave us a window into how maybe Sam Darnold felt in previous organizations that were looking at him like, you got to save us, man. We got nobody else to help you. They had bad defenses in New York, bad receivers, bad offensive lines, especially. And with this Vikings team, what they're trying to prevent is that feeling. And I think it showed up in Sam Darnold's play that he was feeling the way to the world. You can even see it in the numbers that every time he was in situations where they were saying sam you got to go do it all for us that's not where he thrived and against the giants he was not in a whole heck a lot of those positions and it's going to be important vital to these next two games that he doesn't ever have to

really feel that way. And there will be times during the season they get down and he's going to try to bring him back and so forth, but trying to avoid as much as they can, putting everything onto the plate of Sam Darnold. And that's what he said about just keeping the mindset of get the ball into playmakers hands. And for one week, it worked pretty darn well. And I called it in one of my articles, the point guardy stuff for him because he just has used that reference over and over, but getting the ball to his tight ends and his running backs for positive gains. He did that extremely well, 13 attempts toward tight ends and running backs, 12 completions.

That's exactly what he should be doing. And then even when you talk about some of the plays where the ball came out quickly and it came out on time and he hit the back foot and let it go, there was a good breakdown from Dan Orlovsky who was talking about a couple of plays where Darnold just threw in rhythm on time and it was three and a hitch and throw or five and a hitch and throw. And that's exactly how it's supposed to look. It can't be like that all the time, but if you can whittle it down in a game plan to here's 30 plays that involve Sam Darnold and 15, 18 of them are play actions. You're building off the run throwing quickly in time go into your running backs if you can get 60 70 of those plays that aren't hey drop back and read three things and

then fire it into traffic then i think you can continue to have success and i think we will see eventually a little more of the playmaking from him but i think they want him to be a pocket quarterback who's just making good decisions. And for at least one day that worked out pretty well, but now, uh, the next challenge then, uh, will show up in the form of the San Francisco 49ers. And that will be a significant one. So there's just a couple of thoughts from TCO performance center today, and just, you know, little, little things that came out today. And if there's anything else you guys want to talk about, then let's fire it up. So as

I said, from the start, your show, your questions, your comments, we'll spend the next, I don't know, hour plus or so just chatting about whatever is on your guy's mind. So if you've got a question, comment, thought, opinion, hot take, anything you want. And at some point, somebody throw me a fantasy question as well. So we can do that part of the show also, but whatever is on your mind, let's hear it. Let's hear what you guys are feeling headed into Vikings and San Francisco 49ers. Chris asks, is addison's injury serious uh serious in the way that he was not practicing today i don't know if it's serious in the way that it's going to keep him out for a long period of time but if it's another high ankle sprain you saw from even just how much he missed of practice

he missed several weeks of practice when he injured the other ankle. And if that ends up being the case this time, that's hard to have him out for that long. And then we don't know what's going to happen eventually when it comes to a suspension. That's really yet to be seen and will be determined after his court date, probably. But just when it comes to potentially missing time, it might be a couple of weeks. And each week, Kevin O'Connell might roll out and say, well, yeah, you know, he's getting closer or whatever, or we're going to try to ramp him up.

But I've mentioned this before, that just when trying to read Kevin O'Connell on injuries could be a little tricky because he always trends toward positivity. And if he's saying, hey, well, you know, I mean, he's pretty sore, but we'll see how it goes. That could mean three weeks. Uh, even though it sounds like from his comment that it's not, so I don't know exactly the severity, but if it is another high ankle sprain, he was out from the joint practices all the way until we weren't sure if he was going

to play week one. That's several weeks right there. Is that three weeks? If it's three weeks again, then they're going to have to have somebody else step up in his place. Sean says, do you think we see LDR active this week? I imagine we need to rotate a bit more on the defensive line to have any hope of stopping the run. You know, I think last week was probably the lineup that you're going to see. And the rotation worked out really well for them. They were able to keep Harrison Phillips to 36 snaps, which would have been his lowest all of last year. Just tells you how different it is to have Jerry Tillery in there and have somebody that

can mix and match with Jonathan Bullard, but they played Taki Taimani 10 snaps. So he was mixed in there and peer run stuffing situations with Levi Drake Rodriguez. There's always a thing that happens when it comes to the camp darling, which is you get to the season and it's a, and this is why Ivan Pace was so weird because he actually played and just was right in the game. But I remember winning a milkshake last year from Andrew Kramer because Andrew didn't believe that Ivan Pace was going to play because we never see that guy really play right from the outset, the camp darling undrafted free agent or late round pick. Normally they go right to the

inactive list or deep on the bench, and then they develop some more. And then maybe down the road, we end up seeing them a lot. And with Levi Drake Rodriguez, he is a ball of fire. They really like him, but as far as, is he ready to go out there and play against the best team in the NFC, a team that went to the super bowl last year that has a really good offensive line, unbelievable schemes, super skilled players. I don't know about that. I don't know if he's ready for that yet. Taki Taimani, you can mix in in a very simplistic role in a, like, this is your gap run stuffing type of thing. But oftentimes defensive tackles have to be really bright players and experience helps them a lot because they have to read things so quickly. And it's probably better to just have the more experienced guys playing for this week

against San Francisco. And we'll see Levi Drake Rodriguez down the road. Exciting player got reps this summer that were indicative of someone who can be something down the road. Exciting player, got reps this summer that were indicative of someone who can be something down the road. But as of right now, I would be surprised if we see a ton of him early in the season. So I think you'll probably see Taki Taimani instead. Aaron says, San Francisco look good against the Jets. Do you suspect that Brian Flores will have a better plan to stop Mike Shanahan's offense? I saw the Jets. Do you suspect that Brian Flores will have a better plan to stop Mike Shanahan's offense? I saw the Jets were leaving wide open rushing lanes. Well,

and that right there might be one of the reasons for playing Taki Taimani because that's what he does. He is a really stout gentleman. He's just a pure run stuffer. And that's what they have as far as the defensive tackles. They don't have penetrating defensive tackles who are trying to get upfield to the quarterback. They have dudes who stick their man in place and allow for the rush lanes and the linebackers to do their job. But as far as stopping Kyle Shanahan's offense, let me know if you find out a way to do it, because I'll get in on that business with you and we'll get paid a lot. I mean, Kyle Shanahan is the best offensive coach in the NFL. You could

put McVay up there, but I think I would have Shanahan even higher than him considering some of the players that he has made into stars over the years, the running backs. And we did this with Jordan Mason already, the quarterbacks. And I think Brock Purdy is a very good quarterback. I give him way more credit than I see some of the quarterback analysts giving him because it's hard to lead the best offense in football. And just saying it's because of their receivers and coaches. I don't know. Kyle Shanahan's coach, other players that didn't always do that. But anyway, that is an aside. The run game is where it's going to start here and being able to stop that. My concern on that would be the outside linebackers and the way that they're asked to play here is very wide. And we saw that from

Andrew Van Ginkle. We saw it from Jonathan Grenard. Grenard is an excellent pass rusher, but as a tackler over his career, he hasn't graded very well. And there's this guy named Trent Williams that could be a massive problem. He's a massive problem for everybody. He's a massive problem for even teams with the best edge rushers who are defensive tackle size, much less an outside linebacker who's on the lighter side it's a concern it is a concern and san francisco's o-line last year had some problems but they've got a rookie there who played really well in the first week that's that is not an easy matchup to face for this team but the one thing that they do have going for them is that they have two

guys who are missiles as linebackers and they built their defensive line roster wise, despite all of us saying, my gosh, like you gotta, you gotta go get a pass rushing defensive tackle. And I will bang that drum forever folks, but they went and got run stuffers. And that's an old school bill Belichick thing where he would have the big Allen branch or Danny Shelton, these huge nose tackles. And even going back to Belichick had Ted Washington way back in the day in Cleveland. If you could stuff the run in the middle like that, your other guys can eat a little more easily. Maybe they have a better chance than against, uh, than the jets did, but this is a team that does this to everybody. So you have to find a way to at least mitigate,

uh, them running it down your throat. And this is why it's great to have a run game, right? It just makes everything so much easier for San Francisco and for the Vikings with Aaron Jones. But, um, I think they can definitely learn from what happened to the Jets. It's a different construction of a team and of a roster than the Jets. I don't know if they have three or four dudes whose total job is to just stuff the middle with the run, but it won't be easy for the Vikings, that's for sure. Folks, U.S. Cellular noticed that the way we use our phones has gotten ironic. We try to put our phones down for dinner, but the menu is on a QR code. That's ironic. We hit like on social media posts that we don't

actually like. Ironic. Which is why U.S. Cellular created Us Mode to help us reconnect with each other and use our phones less ironically. A phone company wanting people to use their phones less? Ironic. Let's find us again with Us Mode from U.S. Cellular. Visit uscellular.com slash built for us to get started. Bill says, any insight through PFF of what Flores' scheme was? Heavy zone, man, blitz, hard to tell from the broadcast, what is match and what is man?

Oh, well, you're certainly right about that, that when it comes to coverages, if you're trying to watch for the broadcast, sometimes you can only see half the players. I, of course, was at the game, but if I could identify all of the coverages and whether they were man or zone in real time, sitting up in the press box, I'd be coaching one of the coverages and whether they were man or zone in real time sitting up in the

press box i'd be coaching one of the teams probably but as far as the pff data that's where it comes in and is very helpful there was a chart that i saw that they mixed it up pretty well they mixed up cover two cover three and cover four quite a bit i don't remember the exact numbers but kind of one third one third one third, one third, one third, or somewhere close to there. Maybe if someone else saw the same tweet that I saw, I think it was from football insights, or maybe you can look it up, but it was fairly close with a lot of different coverages. And as far as what PFF said about their blitzing was basically that they just didn't do it a lot. They rushed for more than you are used to seeing them

rush for, which was that a product of your winning? Uh, that could be because when you're up by a lot, you're not going to be sending wild blitzes. That would not be a good idea to send crazy blitzes when you're winning. Cause if you give up big plays, then you're helping the other team come back. So was it a product of blitzes because they were, or lack of blitzes because they're way up in the game against the giants? Or is that something new? Because Brian Flores is a guy who wants to reinvent himself every year, knowing how good NFL teams are breaking down offenses and defenses and making adjustments. And teams did start to figure things out as we went along in the season last year. So I do wonder, are they going to rush for more? Are they going to play a little more with the man coverage? It didn't look to me like they

were playing a ton of man, but again, you're talking about being way up in the game. Why would you play a man coverages and give up a chance to, for Malik neighbors to burn somebody rather than playing zones back? So I think we'll get a better sense for how much the scheme has changed just by what we see this week. And what I presume is going to be a tight game. Andrew says eight man fronts, most of the game. That is what San Francisco wants you to do. My friend, I saw stat today talking about these numbers. Uh, all that we have access to is so great that the jets played more eight man boxes against the Jordan Mason than anybody in the league. And they got absolutely smoked in every

way possible. I think that's what Kyle Shanahan's dream is. If you bring up everybody to the line of scrimmage and then just he's running all sorts of receivers behind you and it can be a huge problem. So I think that they have to kind of stick to the usual plan and try to keep everything in front of them and hope that they could create pressure on Brock Purdy in some key spots. But this is one of the toughest teams that you're ever going to face top to bottom. And you saw that against the Jets. Lauren, good friend, Lauren.

What's up, buddy? How are you? Says, according to PFF, Ed Ingram had another atrocious game. That is true. Yes, that is true. If he wasn't drafted in the second round with the Vikings have given up on him a while ago. Yes. I think the answer is yes. If you look at his numbers from his first two seasons, nobody gave up more pressures in the entire league than him. And then that continued over and there were signs of progress at times throughout last season,

actually his PFF grades from his first year to his second year, they made progress, but it only went from really bad to a little bit less bad, but still bad. Uh, and he was more of closer to a mediocre replacement level player, but that first year, he definitely would not have, uh, have kept playing if he wasn't a high draft pick and i never understood they had a guy jesse davis who was a veteran player at guard and they traded him to the steelers rather than keep him around in case ingram struggled and then they just had no answer for what to do that was you know you know, in 2022 and, uh, Kirk Cousins still feeling the effects of some of those hits, I think that he took in 2022. And so this year he comes out and

they just targeted him. I mean, that's, that's when you have one week link and Bradbury did not have a good game either, but I think we know Bradbury can be a solid center. Uh, most of the time, not against the guy like Dexter Lawrence that was inevitable but they targeted him pretty well with their best player and he's got to look forward to that every week now because now that every team knows this is what this guy struggles with they're going to attack it week in and week out and I think that Ed Ingram has and I don't know this I've been told this but it just you get that sense by the way they talked about him in training camp. I think he's got four weeks. I think that he has until Dalton Reisner returns from IR to get it together and look like he's headed somewhere,

or they're going to go to the other guy and they should, uh, if it continues to look like this but to your point there's no real sign of here's where it could obviously improve the quick losses have always happened where is it that i'm supposed to see what area could the light come on and i don't really see something like that from ingram he's not the greatest athlete he's a fine fine athlete, but it isn't like Makai Becton or something where, okay, well, if the light goes on for that guy, he's going to be one of the best in the league. This is a player who a lot of people thought was a fourth round caliber draft pick. Who's kind of played like it. And they, they just need, they need average play from him. And there are really good offensive line so far. Oh, for one, but I don't hold out a

lot of hope after seeing that, that it's going to be a huge change at any point. It's really just, can they work around it? Um, and there were some throws where Darnold got it off on time and it was able to work around it. Uh, Thaddeus says, did Darnold discuss going against his old team and what advantages it might bring? Discuss is a word you could use for that. Yes. I mean, of course, Sam Darnold wasn't really going to go there that he wasn't going to say, you know what, actually they run this cover three and they have this detail with Fred Warner doing X, Y, and Z. I mean, that's not who Sam Darnold is. Uh, we've certainly covered some quarterbacks the past that would go into more detail than that, but Darnold was raised in the New York environment and during his press conferences, he's very straightforward and mostly literal with

his answers and kind of steers his way away from anything that could potentially be used against him. Uh, and yeah, some guys are really good at walking that tightrope, but I think for Sam Darnold, he doesn't want to go there and he's not going to dive into it. So he knows something about the scheme, but this is what I love about football right here is Kyle Shanahan knows what Sam Darnold knows. So Darnold is using what he knows to prepare for San Francisco,

but he also has to think about what Kyle Shanahan and their defense might do that he doesn't know about football. Now that's the, that's the great part is what wrinkles are they going to throw at Sam Darnold that they didn't use before? You can guarantee that they're going to use things that they never used when he was playing there because they want to make sure that he can't just easily know all of their rules and all of their assignments. So they'll be switching things up against him and they're going to have to prepare for all the different ways that he could go against them. So yeah, that's one of the things that makes this matchup pretty interesting.

Is the faithful good to see you? You could see Darnold's confidence growing during the game. That pump fake touchdown to Naylor, you could tell he was feeling it. That one, until I saw it on tape, I didn't think a whole lot of it. I really thought that, well, you know, because when it came to that play, I saw it developing pretty well and I saw Naylor fly wide open and

then the ball arrives as a touchdown. And so I kind of go, oh, well, okay. Naylor was wide open, easy throw for Sam Darnold. It was not until I rewatched the all 22 that I went, Oh, actually that was a great throw because he couldn't really fully step into it and kind of just had to torque his body and get the ball there and get it over a guy. It was a really good throw where I saw it from Darnold. And this is why I love watching the tape back because sometimes you catch things actually every time that you didn't see before. So I noticed that when he threw the touchdown to Jefferson, so yeah, that little slant puts it on him. Great throw. He turned around and gave this huge fist pump. And I don't know, you can over-dramatize these things, but that seemed to me like that was pretty huge for Sam Darnold.

Get that first touchdown, get that first successful drive, kind of a big let's go type of moment. And I think Kevin O'Connell's superpower is that people who play for Kevin O'Connell believe in themselves. And you just, you did see it through training camp, but when McCarthy went down, then it was, Hey, it's really your job. And to get that touchdown drive, to make a couple of big throws, it's like belief, belief, belief for Sam Darnold.

And now play at us bank stadium, play against the team that you play, you know, you played with and went to the super bowl with last year. And you know how good they are play really well in this game. And then you start to stack it up a little bit and things will get easier than San Francisco. Eventually. I know Houston's come in and then green Bay and some other good teams, but the confidence of Sam Darnold is a big deal for this. Let's see. Is the faithful says if the Vikings beat the 49ers at home,

should we expect them to go to the playoffs? Do our expectations change? Is it rational for a team to go to an L and over a 17 game season to say playoffs, here we come. No, it is not, but we do not live in a rational world. And I think that will suddenly become the expectation because they have a lot of talent and because we saw it come together the way that it did. If we see it again against San Francisco and they win, then you're saying this team is actually good if they could play against san francisco in in a game like this u.s bank stadium opener and if darnold looks good people are going to bring up that darnold's first three games at carolina he was excellent and it's happened before with the new york jets and that's not wrong you're absolutely right that that's true

he was really good in those first couple games and everyone said wow Carolina got a steal they found their franchise quarterback and then it turned out not to be true so no we can't jump the gun and say that but yet I do think that the bar starts to get raised automatically because the more information you have about a team the more you can start trying to project it out and say, you know what, if they can beat San Francisco, then they, then who can't they play with? Because that's the best team in the league. And, and I, but I would say from the other perspective, and this is why you can't overreact too much. If they lose to San Francisco by a decent margin. Okay. Onto the

next week. I mean, that's the best team in the league. What are you going to do? Right. Uh, so we can't kind of have it necessarily both ways with the overreacting. Uh, I think if they play closely with San Francisco, we'll be impressed and we might, we might raise the bar a little bit, but then you wouldn't be able to just say, well, it was the New York giants. That would be much more of a prove it type of situation, but I don't want to overreact to two games. If they now this four or five games section, finishing up with the jets before they, the bi-week, I think it's a nice little package of games for us to be able to say like,

yeah, this is who this team is going into the, the bi horse feather says, do you foresee a live show with Jeremiah Searles? Great show this week. Love the backlighting. Well, two things, the backlighting is there's supposed to be another lamp back there, but it broke. So I improvised, but actually I kind of like this. So if you guys like this better, I'll just stick with this, um, this situation, but the light that's supposed to light up the back wall,

it just went out. So that's why we're doing it this way. But if you like it better with a little color back there, that's what I found hanging around the house. Uh, as far as a Searles live show, I would like to the problem with Searles though, is he is also an agent who represents players. And it sometimes can be that we're recording a show and he has to take phone calls that he can't really miss. And this happened in our last show. Probably if you look closely, you can see a little edit in there because he had to take a phone call from one of his players.

That's kind of why we don't do it live. I would, but I think that might be a little bit difficult for him. But I'm glad you like the Searles show. If you didn't check out Tuesday morning, left guard, it is available. Andrew says, I said,

Sam Darnold will be a top 10 quarterback and was willing to wager a thousand dollars. I know. I remember Andrew, thankfully for Vikings fans, no one took the bet. All right. It's,

it's one, you know what you are want to know as well, Andrew. And I was not willing to take your wager either because it's the Vikings and we know who plays receiver for them. But when do we get to decide when Sam Darnold is trending toward what he's going to be? So do we decide that if he beats San Francisco and we say, well, Sam Darnold is the dude and he's going to be a top 10 quarterback, which this year there's so much bad quarterback play that you might be able to get there.

But I think that I need the first five games to be able to have a good sense of where this thing is going. Because if they beat the Giants in blowout fashion and then lose all the rest of them, well, okay, then you're not winning your thousand bucks. And that's still on the table with someone like Sam Darnold. He still does have the history. You don't just throw it out after one game because he does have a history of playing some great games in the NFL.

But could you see the things working that worked for them against the Giants? I think the answer is yes. Oh, gosh, have I done the ad reads yet? I have not. I need a fantasy question for the underdog read. Somebody hooked me up with a fantasy football question. And because you asked, I'll tell you about us cellular us cellular notice that the way we use our phones has gotten ironic. We try to put our phones down for dinner, but the menu is on a QR code. That's ironic. We hit like on social media posts that we don't actually like. Also ironic, which is why U.S. Cellular created UsMode to help us reconnect with each other and our phones less

ironically. A phone company wanting people to use their phones less. That's ironic. Let's find us again with us mode from us. Cellular visit us cellular.com slash built for us to get started. And, uh, I'll wait till I get that fantasy football question to do the, uh, underdog read. Oh, wait, actually Brett was there. I hadn't, I just hadn't scrolled down enough. Good timing. Brett, Brett says, should I start the chiefs or Vikings defense in fantasy this week? That's a great fantasy question. And all of you should check out Underdog Fantasy because they are a sponsor of the show. And they are the easiest place to play fantasy sports.

Also the fastest growing fantasy app in the industry. If you haven't checked out the Pick'ems, it's so easy to play. Just pick between two and eight stats of your favorite players. Choose whether they will go higher or lower and you can win 20 times your money. Also in September, every single day, Underdog Fantasy is running a special promotion. So you go there, you'll see it right there. Click on the NFL spot. You'll see it every single day.

It's pretty good. Lots of opportunities there. Click on the NFL spot. You'll see it every single day. It's pretty good. Lots of opportunities there. So if you want to check it out, sign up with the code purple to claim your special pick and first time deposit offer up to $1,000 also contributes to the show. Every one of you who signs up and uses that promo code must be 18 years or older terms apply concerned with your play call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit ncpgambling.org okay should you start the chiefs or vikings defense in fantasy this week and if anybody else has other fantasy questions i'm down this is your show wednesday nights are for you guys whatever is on your mind i'm in i would go with the chiefs i don't know off the top of my head who the Chiefs are playing, but I would still go with the Chiefs

because San Francisco is such a prolific offense. They have their quarterback healthy, even if their running back is not. They have their left tackle healthy. They've got their wide receivers and their tight ends. I really like this defense for the Minnesota Vikings. The first impression was fantastic. And I thought going into the season,

if there's one thing that I'm going to bank on with my prediction that they would win nine games, it really is on the defensive side because they have more talent than they were given credit for throughout this off season by a lot of people. I think when they were picking them to win five or six games, like don't forget that they have Van Ginkle and Cashman and Stefan Gilmore

and Brian Flores, but I can't get over how good San Francisco is on offense. And even if Purdy did have some troubles last time against the Vikings, still, he did a very good job in that game. So, oh, it's the Bengals. Oh, okay. That does even the playing field a little bit. Bengals in September, for some reason, have a big problem with, I don't know, coming out of the gate. I don't know why, but they struggled against the Patriots. I would definitely go Chiefs. You're right. I did drop Alan Branch's name rather than Vince Wilfork when it came to Patriots defensive tackles. If you're not digging deep into Ted Washington and Alan Branch, what are we doing here? Danny Shelton, what are we doing? That's what you got to do. Go deeper than the great ones of Vince Wilfork. That's how you win

Immaculate grid on pro football reference uh is the faithful says i'm concerned the way burrow is going he'll be out of the league with a couple years due to injury apparently his wrist is injured now i know it's not great he has been really really banged up and that's too bad because he is one of my favorite quarterbacks to watch so much moxie accuracy throwing the football total command of the offense i mean everything just says franchise quarterback with him but he's got to stay healthy last year he was playing banged up and it looks like he is already again not great not not great for uh joe burrow some quarterbacks have come out of that drew

breeze where they were banged up and other quarterbacks retired like Andrew luck after they played not an entire career. It's, it's concerning the amount that quarterbacks get hurt is concerning just in general. It seems like quarterbacks are, are getting hurt at such a high rate. The last couple of years,

uh, digits, uh, says, is it possible? This matchup favors the Vikings on digits, uh, says, is it possible this matchup favors the Vikings on the, uh, I, I'm sorry. I, let me make that bigger. What does that say? B, uh, B F L O. What does BFLO? What does that mean? Uh, I don't, I don't know what that means. Side on the, on that side.

Oh, and the B flow. Do you mean B flow? Okay. I was like, what is B like Buffalo? No B flow. Got it. Um, I have, I have it set on my side. So the letters are small. So you see me going like this all the time. Uh, anyway, Purdy does not have a great deep threat. Uh, and the middle is going to be clogged with Vikings hybrid players. Right. So if you were to be able to build an offense, I'm a defense to go up against San Francisco's offense, the way that you would do it is how the Vikings are constructed. You would have some good edge rushers to try to pressure Brock Purdy on those third downs.

Like Chris Jones got after him in the super bowl. You would have run stuffers in the like Chris Jones got after him in the Superbowl, you would have run stuffers in the middle hybrid players who could play in the coverage or stop the run. And then you would probably have faster corners. That's where the concern is for me is number one, can anyone stop their run game no matter what? Because the Vikings did miss some tackles last week that didn't make any difference at all. But, you know, at the same time, like, I think that they can be a good run defense. It's just San Francisco is so good at running the ball.

And we saw it last year a little bit with the Eagles, where they just ran and ran and ran and ran. And the Vikings did a good job in the game against Christian McCaffrey. He was also banged up going into that game last year. That's where I'd be concerned. And then playing off of that and the speed of the receivers against these corners, Gilmore is on the older side. Griffin, I didn't think had a great game the other day. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't game changing.

And then Byron Murphy kind of is who he is. They're going to find ways to take advantage of that. But I think other than that, they have a roster that's built for facing San Francisco. It's just, can anybody stop this? I mean, the Jets usually have a good defense. They have a good defensive mind. It didn't mean anything the way that San Francisco played. It will be a huge and very difficult challenge right off the bat here for Brian Flores. James says, I feel like this game is going to be fun to watch. Both teams were well prepared

for week one. So I expect the same again. You know, this is one where last week as I was flying out of Newark, you get in the plane, you take off, you're looking down at Newark and you're reflecting on your trip. You're saying, what do I think of my trip? That's how I reflect on my trip. And I said to myself, that means this week will be a good week and a fun week to talk about and a fun game for the Vikings and John or in a 49ers to play because they beat the giants the way they did. If they had not, then this would be, Oh guys, they're probably going to get smashed. But as much as they showed against the giants, blowing them out the way they did.

And it's not a talentless giants team, but the smashing them the way that they did set up for exactly what you're saying to well-coached well-prepared teams with a lot of talent across the board. And what's going to happen at home for the Vikings, which I mean, like that is an advantage for them. Okay. I like this one. Son of a beavers who is going to be the number one fantasy kicker this

year. That's the big question getting asked. So underdog fantasy, pick them. You actually can pick the kicker and what he's going to do. And we talked about that on the fantasy show that I recorded earlier today. You can do that. Who's going to be the number one kicker? I don't know who is the, I mean, Tucker is still the best kicker in the league, right? I'm not really sure. Detroit should get a lot of chances. Good teams have better fantasy kickers, don't they? Or do bad teams? I have never studied this. do mediocre and bad teams have better kickers because they get stopped in the red zone more it's a great question i have no idea who the best kicker is going to be i guess you're gonna have to tell me john randall i'm assuming not

the john randall i've had him on the show though you should go check that out uh why does everyone fans and media concede the division to the lions? They had one good year. Their defense is not that great. And Campbell will cost them some games. I disagree with everything there. Uh, yeah, I think the Detroit lions have probably a top three roster in the entire league. They have a quarterback who's been to a super bowl, a quarterback who's been to an NFC championship game. And if a guy catches the ball, he's going to another Superbowl. They've got receivers. Jamison Williams is now part of it. The best offensive line in the entire NFL, their defense played at times. Okay. Against the Rams. I agree with you on the defensive side,

though. I still don't trust Aaron Glenn. It just doesn't ever look like any quarterback is confused, but they also have one of the best pass rushers in the world and Aiden Hutchinson who can cause a lot of problems that Detroit team should win 12 to 14 games. They are stacked and Campbell doesn't cost them games. The numbers are clear on that. Campbell does not cost them games. He wins them games with the way that he manages. That's, that's by the numbers are clear on that. Campbell does not cost them games. He wins them games with the way that he manages. That's that's by the numbers. That's just the, the facts of the matter is his aggressiveness was a plus side for them. They're a beast. What, what they are. Oh yeah. The Cowboys kicker is good. Good point. And the chargers kicker, there's a lot of good kickers in the league now. Good kickers in college football too, which is upsetting. You want to college kickers being bad is what makes it fun. But no,

I'm a hundred percent buying the lions and the fact that they could play a game against such a really good team, like the Los Angeles Rams that are well coached and they have a great quarterback and play like they did, which wasn't that great and still find a way to win. Very, very impressive. I thought from the lions week one, I, I'm not going to back off from that one until they fall off. Uh, digits says, uh, Darnold has to face a bunch of schemes and circumstances before the new Sam Darnold, uh, as anointed. Okay. Uh, Maybe there's more to that comment. Yeah. I mean, the thing about Darnold and facing different schemes and stuff is that they're going to, no matter what San Francisco throw something at Sam Darnold that he hasn't seen before, because that's what NFL teams are

going to do. And I'll be curious though, to see how it plays out over the year, because every team is going to know that if Darnold plays in rhythm, he's really good at throwing the ball. And he did a great job of that against the, the giants. So how are they going to throw off the rhythm of Sam? Darnold is really a question there. And maybe not allowing him to use the bootlegs kind of like team started to do to Kirk or

maybe not following the motion in the same way where I was really impressed with Kevin O'Connell was that it was, he used this motion a lot to get some of their bigger plays. One time he's having CJ Ham go out in motion and that takes a player with him and gives them an indicator of what the coverage is. And then he runs Josh Oliver right behind the linebacker. It's a good throw. It's right on time. Will teams start to adjust to not giving the coverage indicators to Sam Darnold? Because I think that's something they utilize really well against the giants, but good teams will oftentimes show something pre-snap with the motions and then play some different coverage. And that's where he could end up, uh, in maybe having a tougher time against San Francisco. Uh, will Oliver have two catches against San Francisco?

Is that a fantasy question? Because I love an underdog fantasy when you can do some silly one where it's, does this guy have one catch Oliver? I would go one catch against San Francisco. That's what I would bet. Uh, Pittsburgh kicker had six field goals last week. I didn't see that game.

So I, other than watching some of the breakdowns of Kirk's play, but that's a good selection. Whoever Pittsburgh's kicker is, that's a good one for who your favorite kicker should be this year, because with those quarterbacks, they are not scoring a lot of touchdowns. Mike says it just me, or is the new kickoff largely a non-starter? Most of the games I have watched, there've been touchbacks. I looked at the numbers on this for an article I wrote yesterday. It was a non-starter for the Vikings. Absolutely. There was one return in the game, but last year, week one, trying to remember the number, I believe it was 34 were returned.

And this year it was 57 were returned. And this year it was 57 were returned. Uh, if you, I'm sure you didn't watch the Carolina game, but they returned nine of them. Uh, and I'm sure that was partly just because, well, we're losing. So we need to try to get a spark. Uh, even if you take that away, it's a little more kick returning than we saw in the past. I thought it would be much better. I thought there would be a huge, massive jump. There wasn't, but even if you're talking about 57 versus 34, that's what a 40% gain for kick returns and fine by me because I just want to see more of it. But I think it'll take a couple of weeks to get into how teams want to approach it.

And they're going to go game by game. Some games, it might be better to kick the ball down there, depending on the returner. If the returner has trouble picking up the ball, if the Vikings are down by two touchdowns late in a game, well, you're going to want to return. You're also going to want to kick off. So I think that teams that are trying to come back in a game, well, you're going to want to return. You're also going to want to kick off. So I think that teams that are trying to come back in a game will try the kickoffs a little bit more.

Whereas if you're winning, then you're not going to bother. You're just going to kick it out of the back of the end zone and you're not going to try to return it. You're going to kneel down if you can. But we'll see. I mean, it's just one week. We'll see how it ends up going. I agree that they should have pressed and I agree they should have moved it back at least five more yards to make it where you have to really hit the ball to make it a touchback. You can't just choose to do that. Samuel says, I expect a good game, which means the Vikings have already exceeded my expectations. Whatever the outcome, as long as we have a healthy team at the end of this game, I'm happy. Well, you know, expectations is something I think about all the time for players, teams, everything.

And it didn't change mine for what I think this season could and should be because I thought that they would beat the New York Giants. The way that they did end up, uh, beating them may have adjusted expectations for some people. Uh, but you know, I think after McCarthy got hurt that everyone was so down on just, Oh, really? We have to go through this whole season without just seeing this, you know, new quarterback. That's so exciting. Like, ah, it's Sam Darnold and that's okay. But you know, all that sort of stuff. And then one week happens, Jordan love gets hurt and go, Whoa. Okay. That, that could change things. Caleb Williams looks like a rookie.

Oh, okay. That could change things. And then when the Vikings play like they do, okay, that could change things. And all of a sudden, this is why we watch. This is why every fan base can't turn away because you just never know how it's going to end up playing out. And the expectations for me were that they would beat the giants. And then if they could get to three and two, or even two and three, by the time they got to the bi-week, then this team can compete for a playoff spot where I set the bar was go to Detroit with a chance, even if it's 5% to make the playoffs, do not be eliminated by the time you get to Detroit. And it's a successful season. And we've had a lot of fun and ups and downs and entertaining performances.

And then there's that excitement and tension at the end of the year when it comes to, you know, potentially fighting for a playoff spot, make, make that your season goal. Right. Uh, and after one game, I don't see why you can't do that, but it's a long, long season. I think what it did though, even if they don't win against San Francisco, is it got people on board to, Hey, Sam Darnold's not terrible. Sam Darnold can play football. Sam Darnold can play football. They could throw some passes down the field and this defense might be really fun.

I can understand why people would be very skeptical of a defense that hasn't been good in a long time. So I think it did, it got a lot of people more on board and I end up talking football with random people all the time, whether it's, I mean, other not random people. I know it reporters and stuff, but I even mean just people I run across always talking about the Vikings because they're a main conversation. And I just felt this like, oh, okay.

Well, wait a minute now. This team doesn't have to be bad. That it was a shift after one game uh lee do you have a score prediction for sunday i have not thought of one yet but just for you lee because you're here and you ask the question i will think of one for you right now i'm gonna go 24 to 20 san francisco they're just better they're in a spot, but I also don't expect the Vikings to fall apart. Not with this team, not with these players. I think that Sam Darnold will have the ball with a chance to go take a lead at some point. Um, and I, you know, this is how do I

predict these games? I'm so bad at predicting these games over the years, but that's what, that's what I would throw out right now. that should be a battle and that both teams will have a chance to win it. I would just lean a little towards San Francisco because of what they have as far as an entire roster. Let's see. So more questions. Anybody got more questions? I like the discussion of expectations. If you guys have a thought on that, whether your expectations changed, you're welcome. Lee, Lee, I want to know your score prediction for the game. And it might depend a little bit on who's healthy. Cause I'm going to talk tomorrow. We'll do the, um, the podcast with Andrew Kramer, where we do the hardcore breakdown and we'll do our official

predictions, but I'll probably stick with that one. Mike says as a Canadian, I'm so used to the sudden change from the kicking game, but our field is massive and punt returners have a five yard buffer who said snap judgments with one week sample would be wonky. Yeah. So as far as the kickoff goes, I just think that we should give it some time right now. It's produced some crazy results. We just didn't see any in the game that the Vikings were playing in. Uh, Chicago probably hates it right now after what happened with them and kicking the ball 20 yards by accident. And Arizona probably loves it because it kept them in that Buffalo game and gave them a chance

to, they didn't win it, but gave them a chance to potentially win it. And, uh, you know, I think it's, it will change some games. And when I asked Matt Daniels, I said, Hey, you know, you thought this would change some games. He kind of lit up like, yeah, I told you. And there were a few around the league that it did. It just not what we saw and not any of the national games were really changed by that so you had to be watching carolina and the saints or you had to be watching arizona and buffalo but um i think that uh what i mean mark says what's the point of it well the number has increased and the point of it is to try to reduce the amount of dudes flying at each other at 100

miles an hour, but to still keep it in the game. And I think that it's worked so far, not to the level that we thought it was going to, but to increase the number of returns overall. And we may see that improve as it goes along. Just don't, I just don't think we should write it off yet. Just because in the game that you watched with the Vikings, that there were a lot of kickoffs that didn't get returned. Uh, wait, wrong one. Um, Mark says, how is Addison coming along? Well, at least for today, not good, uh, because he did not practice tomorrow is the best day to judge. I think if,

if a guy practices on Thursday, he's got a pretty good chance to play. Even if it's limited, if he does not practice on Thursday, I would be very surprised if he plays right now. I don't have a ton of belief that Jordan Addison's going to play in this game based on what the injury was and how it does take a few weeks to resolve an injury like that. But it's just hard to know. I mean, you saw what San Francisco did with their injuries with McCaffrey, where they played games with it. They knew that he was going to be out and yet they still put him as limited or questionable or whatever. I don't think the Vikings have played a ton of games with the injuries in recent years, but it does happen. So it's unclear what's going to

happen with Addison. I just think that he is more likely not to play this week. That's just a guess. Spencer says, who is your favorite Viking of all time? This is a hard question, Spencer. I can give you a couple of my favorite that I've covered. So this would mean favorite to go up into the locker room and talk with. And then I'll give you a couple of historic ones that I really liked from back in the day. So as far as covering favorite Vikings, I think Terrence Newman and Latavius Murray are way up there. Patrick Peterson is also way up there to have someone as good as Patrick Peterson was be available whenever you needed him as a reporter was just incredible to be able to just go up to his locker. This is a hall of fame player, one of the greatest of all time and just

say, Hey, I remember I asked him about blitzing. I was like, Hey, how do you be a good blitzer as a corner? And he explained it to me, broke it down that he studies the cadence of the quarterbacks. And so by the time they get to game day, he knows how the quarterbacks rhythm and cadence works in certain situations. And he could time it out as a blitzer. I'm like, man, that is cool as hell. Thank you. So those guys were willing to explain the game to you. Always available.

Several of my favorite players, Adam Thielen came on the show a number of times. I got to know him pretty well over the years and he was a great guy to talk to. Always available. A good guy of the year in 2017. So that's some of my favorite to cover. As far as historic Vikings that I liked even before I moved here to cover the team. I mean, you got to go back to, I like a little more underrated because obviously Moss, you know, Carter, but I like David Palmer, Henry Thomas, Orlando Thomas, Game Changer, Scott Studwell, Randall McDaniel. I kind of liked the guys who were a little bit under the radar. Jake Reed was probably my favorite receiver of the group just because he played that role with Moss and Carter and came up with big catches, even if he wasn't getting as many

as he used to from back in the day. Also, another guy who came on the show is Robert Smith. Robert Smith was one of my favorites. I love when they would talk about how he was a track star. And when they ran that little delay handoff, nobody was faster. So there was a lot of them from my upbringing that I thought were pretty cool. Jim McMahon, one of my favorite quarterbacks ever. So that's a great history. Uh, Preston Van van ginkle hurt or just keeping him healthy well he must be hurt to some extent or he would have practiced but um yeah i didn't mention uh john randall of course of course john randall uh friend of the show if someone comes on once are they a friend of the show probably need at least two appearances i'll have to reach out to john

about that but um i think with van ginkle he's been dealing with this foot thing all off season. He had surgery on it and, uh, their hope I'm sure is that there isn't a aggravation of whatever injury, but the way O'Connell said they took him out for precautionary reasons. And that makes me think that he didn't practice for precautionary reasons, but tomorrow we'll start to find that out. They need him. They need him to play. Is the faithful says Randall's my favorite Viking of all time. I remember him getting in carves.

Oh, a far far ahead. Sometimes. Yeah. Every time you guys make a spelling error, I just get like, I'm Ron Burgundy when I'm reading these things in far ahead at times of far admit as much. Well, um, make a spelling error. I just get like, I'm Ron Burgundy when I'm reading these things, uh, in Favre's head at times and Favre admit as much. Well, yeah, it was a really,

didn't he talk about this in John Randall's a football life? I thought that he did, or maybe it was Warren Sapp that he talked about, but, uh, those two going back and forth at it, two of the best. And if you go back and check it out, it's on the YouTube page or the iTunes, whichever you use, and you find my interview with John Randall. This is what I mean when you talk about the players I cover now. It's my profession. I get to know them. I appreciate their time when I interview them and stuff.

But when it's a player from the 90s, I'm like, oh, this is cool. OK, so talking to John Randall is pretty cool. And I asked him what it was like to from the nineties. I'm like, Oh, this is cool. Okay. So talking to John Randall was pretty cool. And I asked him what it was like to sack far. And he was talking about how it was so great for him to feel the deflated Lambeau field, to envision everybody being upset and frustrated and sad that their quarterback got sacked and how much joy that gave him. It was really cool. You go back and check that out. That was, that was one of the, I think, uh, more fun things I've had on the show. Uh, Mike says, uh, my expectations are pretty high for the Vikings. If they can be relatively healthy, I think nine or 10 wins

might be reachable. Love the direction. It's nice to to have hope i just felt the shift from people being concerned that it was going to be a super miserable season to oh okay there's a lot to work with there but i don't think i think mike you're being very reasonable i don't think anyone jumped to championship championship team i don't think anyone got there yet. That's going to take a few more weeks, but when you're talking about if they're healthy, nine or 10 wins, that's exactly where I'm at still. And I really want to see how long, uh, that Jordan loves going to be out because that could make a difference as well. Could make a big difference in the game Vikings and Packers, of course, because I don't have any belief whatsoever in Malik Willis and it could,

and he might not, I mean, if he plays bad, they might have somebody else play quarterback. If he's out for a significant amount of time, they could fall behind and have a really tough time catching up. So if the Vikings can survive this early part of the season, then you can have one of those types of years. Preston says, love Foreman, Eller, John Randall, Tommy Kramer, Robert Smith, Studwell, but Dante Culpepper, your favorite. Dante Culpepper was one of my favorites as well, because I've really discovered this in adult life. With YouTube, I can go back and watch players that I only maybe saw a couple times on national TV. You didn't have access to every game.

And that I mostly knew through video games. Dante Culpepper, I may have seen play because I didn't grow up in this area and I grew up in Buffalo. So I was watching AFC games and then the occasional afternoon Dante game and the occasional playoff game with the Vikings. One of them was 41 donut, but the other one where Randy Moss did the moon. I remember watching that as how old would I have been? Probably maybe 16. I must've been about 16 years old when that happened. So I

remember that quite well, but I only probably saw five or six games of him actually playing. And the rest was on Sega dreamcast at a friend's house. It was Madden. It was this very fast, very strong arm quarterback who I saw tons of highlights when Jimmy Johnson and Terry Bradshaw are breaking down Randy Moss touchdowns and things like that to have come here and learn more about Dante, but also watch a lot of the games back because I've always wanted to understand the history of this team and have memorable games and things like that. He's so much fun. It's just so much fun. And I know the bad games were not fun for dante and there was a lot of ups and downs and stuff but i think he was one of the more entertaining quarterbacks to

ever play and it is just one of those unfortunate things that he wasn't given an opportunity not only to just play and build a roster around him but but also have the ownership shift, go to an ownership that was willing to spend a little more. The modern NFL, he would have started to get into with how passing games work and he would have been better, uh, unfortunate for Dante Culpepper. Uh, but what a great player, uh, Lee says, I agree with your score and prediction, but I think Grenard picks up a couple of sacks. Yeah. I mean, with, uh, with Jonathan Grenard in the, in the offensive line of the 49ers, it's going to take a lot and that's where it might have to, it might have to be some blitzing that gets Brock Purdy up the middle

is going to be big for him because anytime you have a, a quarterback who is not the biggest, I think up the middle is where to go for pressuring them. And it worked against Kirk. And of course, Purdy is more mobile than Kirk, but it works against Drew Brees at times. Again, Purdy is more mobile. But those quarterbacks who aren't huge, getting in their face up the middle causes more problems, I think, than when they're rushed at the edges. So they have a chance to be able to do that.

Whether Gennard can create pressures or not, he really impresses me with his myriad of pass rush moves. He's kind of a big swinger where he's going for a home run every time trying to get the big sack. But, you know i i think they have a chance to cause some problems for brock purdy it's just they have so many weapons uh oh gosh rather hang out with for a day randy moss or harrison smith this is a hard one because i know harrison smith and he is a really good guy to talk with.

Just talk about stuff. Very personable guy when he's not in intense football mode. And so that's a little more predictable than Randy Moss. Randy Moss seems like the type of guy who might tell you to meet him somewhere and never show up. I mean, so I don't know. Uh, but I would be because I, the difference here is because I know Harrison Smith and have talked to him so many times throughout his career, I would be more interested in hanging out with Randy Moss. Cause I don't,

I don't know, Randy, I didn't cover Randy. Uh, and it sounds like it was very difficult to cover Randy back in the day. Um, but I would love to hear Randy just how his brain works, because he was a very intelligent player that people didn't really realize how much IQ went into it and preparation went into it. of things that he had been through and he always had that chip on his shoulder. Now that we are so far away from his career and the intensity of the NFL, he can probably reflect much more effectively on his career and who he is as a person. I would be fascinated by that. If Randy ever listens, I would love to write a book about Randy Moss if he would ever give the opportunity, but he's not a media guy. I mean, he's in the media on ESPN, but he's not seeking out podcast appearances and, you know, articles and books and stuff about him. I don't think. And especially for somebody that he doesn't know. So that would be difficult, but I'd probably pick him.

Uh, Brett says, what do you think of Harrison Phillips contract? I think it's fine. Uh, Harrison Phillips is on the younger side and he's effective when he's playing in the right role, if not very effective when playing in the right role. He's not a massive difference maker as in he's going to get eight sacks or something like that, but he plays hard all the time. He's good against the run. He stuffs gaps and he's a captain on the team and it's not that expensive. And now when you look at it, the importance to me for the Harrison Phillips contract is when you go across this roster and you go, well, who's going to be here? So you're not sure about Harrison Smith might retire. You're not sure about Stefan Gilmore might retire. You're not sure about Byron Murphy. They may have to replace him depending on how much money he wants and how they feel the fit has been with him. Bynum, I wouldn't be surprised if they extended Cam Bynum, but that's it. I mean, everybody else

is here to build around. That's where they can be good going forward is when you have all these pieces in place, then you just add some things to it. So not having to replace Harrison Phillips, even though this isn't Chris Jones or Grady Jarrett or Dexter Lawrence, it's still a piece that fits into the puzzle of a defense that can be, I think, good this year, but maybe very, very good with $25 million added to it next year. Keith says any word on the actual fire during pregame opening ceremonies. I've lost hope, Keith. I've lost hope. I've just lost hope,

my man. I thought that we would all get over it. We all being Roger Goodell and they would bring back fire into the pregame opening with the dragon. It's just doesn't look like it's happening. I went to the Taylor Swift concert at us bank stadium fire everywhere. I went to a Las Vegas WNBA game, which is inside a hotel fire. They use it at target center all the time indoors in much smaller spaces than us bank stadium i don't get it they had one fire i mean imagine imagine if we did that way everywhere someone leaves their stove on and burns their house down and no one can have a stove again that's rogers logic when it comes to that i don't get it bring back the dragon oh gosh what do you think uh of that hawk or is it nascar defense with six rushers

yeah some people call it nascar i don't know what they call it right now uh i think that jihad ward was someone that i remember being asked about this i left him off by 53 when i did it in may or i don't know how many 53s i did this year when i did it in may because my line of thinking was sometimes you add a guy just to see if you need a veteran there and whatever. And actually when he's used in this way, he looks like a difference maker and that's not, we can't jump the gun one game, but he looks like somebody that is a unique player to rush over guards and centers because he's the size of a defensive tackle but all of his history is as a pass rusher i mean i've always liked that third

down and long throw out all your pass rush talent and off you go so them using it they've got more depth at outside linebacker patrick jones succeeded in this game and then you just can't stop everybody in that situation. And sometimes Patrick Jones gets a sack and you go, Oh yeah, Patrick Jones, he can kind of play when he's in the right spot. Jahad Ward can kind of play when he's in the right spot. Ask those guys to play 700, 800 snaps. You're probably not getting above average play, but that's Brian Flores, man. He is so good at just saying, what if you do this one thing you're good at? Let's just do that. Uh, Anthony says, I think we should blitz more this week. Shut down Mason,

shut down Purdy. Well, if you shut down Mason and Purdy, you're going to win the football game. Uh, but, uh, Anthony continues, uh, you got to risk it for the biscuit and place man coverage. I wonder if our corners can run through some of the, with some of these guys. That is the cat and mouse here is how much man coverage do you want to play? Because Kyle Shanahan is the man coverage destroyer. These wide receivers are man coverage destroyers because they run the crossing routes all over the place and guys crossing the field and getting the ball and yards after catch and all that stuff. That is a nightmare. I don't think they want to

do that too much. I think they want to play more off coverages and then try to tackle, except for this team breaks a lot of tackles to your point though. The situational blitzes is where it's going to be really big. The situational blitzes where, all right, it's third and seven. Now you're going to come after him. Now you're going to force Brock Purdy into a spot where he has to play pure quarterback, where it's not a run, runner pass either way. You know, it's gotta be a pass and it's gotta be a drop back. It can't be a bootleg play action, whatever. You got to make him do something. That's where you need a game changing play on the blitzes, but he's a

good scrambler. I mean, he can make plays. I have a ton of respect for Brock Purdy. I think he's a really good quarterback. Uh, Mike says thinking about Sunday, the Samuel factor and the ability stopping the runner. My biggest concerns. Niners have a lot of cards to play. That is right. That's right. That's and that's what makes this so much fun. I think this type of matchup is you have a lot of talent on the Viking side to say, all right, so how are they going to use Blake Cashman? Ivan Pace was just running into things in this last game. He was going wild.

I watched that back on tape. I was like, whoa, was Ivan Pace ready to play some football or what? Oh my gosh. The first two drives, he's out there just hammering people. So they've got the players that match up in ways that you would think would be helpful against 49ers. The tackling, the crossing routes, the aggressive defensive players, guys who are quick. But the corners is where it kind of comes down to for me. How much can you mitigate that weakness? Because it still isn't even as good as the fine Gilmore played. It still isn't something that I

would call their strength until we see it against somebody who's really, really good with wide receivers. Uh, Oh gosh, as the of our d-line and edge rushers is crazy it's a brian flores dream man i had this stat and i forget sometimes i run across stats and i try to recall them perfectly but you'll get the idea i think it was 2021 where brian flores's defense ranked top seven in sacks and nobody had ten. That's how he wants it. You stay fresher. You, you, you make the other team prepare for more players. It's yeah, it's a, it's a good defense. Now. I really think it's a good defense. Uh, Oh gosh, says they have been solid the last couple of days. Didn't they just win 10 to five? Oh, you're talking about the twins. You guys, I was like, who went, who won 10 to five in a football game?

Talking about the twins. Um, oh, you, the, uh, you guys, you're talking about the, um, the, the jam session. Yeah. When are we getting the jam session at some point? I'll see what i can do at some point to uh bring out the guitar we'll see um there's been a lot going on we're talking about there's been a lot of football we've needed to talk about but at some point we'll get it out we'll play it out maybe uh it's a bi-week thing how about that bi-week i'll play i'll play guitar

once we get to uh close to nine o'clock or something on the live stream on a Wednesday or whatever, at some point in the bi-week, I'm going to try at some point also to take some sort of day off. We'll see. I don't know. Uh, okay. Well, look, great stuff. Everybody really, really entertaining conversation as always from you guys. Wednesday night is going to be, belongs to Vikings fans. Jump in, have a conversation. What I'll do is I'll bring whatever I kind of took away from TCO Performance Center that day.

And then the rest is an open floor for you guys. This was a great example. Very well done, everybody. So tomorrow night, me and Manny will also answer questions then and have a lot to discuss. Andrew Kramer and I doing the hardcore breakdown. So a couple, me and Manny will also answer questions then and have a lot to discuss. Uh, Andrew Kramer and I doing the hardcore breakdown.

So a couple more podcasts to go. Uh, Lindsay Rhodes, also a former NFL network personality is going to join the show. There'll be a video up on that when it's a game week, folks, you got a lot of football talk to listen to on this channel. So subscribe,

like sign up for underdog fantasy and use the promo code purple. And, uh, also maybe go over to the newsletter, check out. I did an article about the kickoff. You guys were interested about it. Purple insider.com check that out as well. So, uh, thanks everybody for all of your time. Yeah. I know, uh, Preston seven, 7.00 PM is when I want to start the live shows. Sometimes I have some radio appearances that are in seven o'clock hour and they get pushed back a little bit, but I do my best to make everybody happy. So thanks everyone for watching slash listening, and we will see y'all tomorrow night live on the channel and much more to come football.