Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Analyzing the exhausting Vikings one-score game narrative

Episode Date: December 3, 2024

Matthew Coller and Brian Murphy talk about how the Vikings have been criticized for one-score wins and then discuss Kirk Cousins recent struggles in Atlanta Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

🎵 Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here for Monday Morning Murph, and I have a declaration, Brian. Brian Murphy, of course, with me. This was a random one score win. It was, it was, yep. It was one of those random one score wins that people seem to claim is all one score wins, but they're not. There are one score wins that are much better than other ones. This one, however, was a little bit more given to the Minnesota Vikings than taking away. Would you agree with that assessment of the Vikings win over the Arizona Cardinals? I thought so. I thought it was hard-earned. They came up with

the plays they needed to defensively, and of course, Sam Darnold offensively led them on that game-winning drive, so you're right. I mean, remind me, did the game in Lambeau end a one-score game? Because if it did, that was an ugly one-score win, because clearly they had that game in hand at halftime and deep even into the third quarter. But I think one-score wins, one-score games are kind of the industry standard around the NFL. I mean, that's what parity and the draft and a salary cap and competitive balance will do for you, it certainly guarantees outstanding entertainment, even when maybe it's two teams that are unevenly matched. If anything, I thought the Vikings finally got a challenge they needed, certainly an opposing quarterback challenge they needed in Kyler Murray,

that they really haven't had the last several weeks. I mean, we know Caleb Williams is on the rise, but that team, the Bears are a mess. So you got to kind of put an asterisk by him, but Mack Jones and Will Levis and, you know, the ugly winds on the road. I was looking forward to seeing how they would match up against Murray and sort of as they get onto the stretch drive, which is going to be much more defined by quality quarterback play and tougher opponents, how they would respond. And it took a few quarters, again, on both sides of the ball. It wasn't like Arizona was marching up and down. They stalled in the red zone a couple of times,

and the Vikings were able to stiffen when needed. But I think the one score victories can earn you a little bit of credibility. And I think it pays off in the long run. One score losses as painful as they can be. And I believe the losses to the Rams and the Lions were also one score. So I feel like the Vikings are equipped in the fourth quarter when either the defense or Darnold and the offense need to go out and win a game. They're in a position to go out and win a game because they've had that experience doing it, no matter their opponent, no matter their opposing quarterback. It still comes down to making money plays at money moments. And the Vikings have had that in spades this year, and it's been kind of fun and entertaining to watch.

The Rams loss was by 10, but only because of the old tug on the face mask. Yeah, it was an eight point game. Yeah, right. Yep. And Sam Darnold didn't have any chance to go down and potentially tie that up because of the uncalled face mask. But anyway.

Thanks for cleaning that up for me. The one score game thing has been driving me a little crazy i don't know if people are fans of south park but uh south park did an episode called simpsons did it where every single storyline they had they had a character say the simpsons did this already because uh those cartoon shows were being accused of ripping off the Simpsons. You get it. That was their way of mocking it. Simpsons did it. Simpsons did it. And I hear that voice with one score game, one score game, one score game, like every single time. But Tom Pellicero tweeted out that 12 of the 13 games that happened before the Sunday night blowout in the

snow by the bills. So 12 of 14 this week, we're one score games. It's everywhere in the league. It happens all the time. And I don't know when we decided as a society that one score games were random because I looked it up. Tom Brady is like 91 and 43 in games separated by seven points. I'm guessing that that wasn't completely random, that he won way more than he lost. And when you look at those close games the Vikings have played, this was truly the first one

where they didn't have at least 80% chance to win with five minutes left to go in the fourth quarter. This was the one where they did get outplayed for a very large percentage of this game on offense and on defense and had to come up with a bunch of red zone stops and come up with several magical and fast drives by Sam Darnold. But I also think Murph that the coaching matters in this discussion for one score games, Matt Eberflus was five and 19. So I don't know imagine that right like is this the same thing or am I looking at the same picture I don't think so between Chicago and Matt Eberflus and

Kevin O'Connell and the Vikings Justin Jefferson matters to this equation Jonathan Grenard matters to this equation I think that they have the personnel and the coaching to play and win in close games. But I would also say if they play like that against Arizona the rest of the way, they might win one or two of the rest of these games. They have to learn from this and be better going forward. Yeah, and that's been an ongoing theme for them the last four or five weeks, really, since the loss in L.A. I mean, the five-game winning streak has got asterisks all over it. It's got pockmarks and nitpicks and dents and dings.

I've tried to kind of steer away from getting obsessed with that because it is easy to go down that rabbit hole of, yeah, but for this opponent or but for this quarterback or but for this overwhelmed head coach or this rebuilding team, you know, the Vikings would be six and six. I don't go down that deeply into the rabbit hole. You play the schedule that you're given. And the Vikings, you know, racked up some quality wins early, leveled off, and now have had to fight their way through this five-game winning streak. And if you can't find the appreciation in that, I mean, if you're constantly chasing perfection, if you're constantly measuring yourself up against the Detroit Lions or maybe even the Buffalo Bills or the Kansas City Chiefs, which is easy to do, obviously, the Lions are in your division. They're in your backyard. You've got another game against them.

These are also flawed teams. You know, I mean, I think people put these teams up on a pedestal and say, well, you know, they're not as good as the Eagles or their roster isn't as solid as Detroit. And they can't come up with 40 points the way the Chiefs or the Bills can on a dime. But I also think, you know, you're losing perspective in the sense that not every team can be 11-1 and on a stratosphere to the Super Bowl. And not every

team that's 11-1 on a stratosphere to the Super Bowl always emerges in January. I mean, the Vikings are putting themselves in position to, to have a lot of, have a tough armor going into the playoffs. It looks pretty obvious unless they can grab and surpass Detroit, that they're destined for the number five seed here. It looks like they're going to have a wild card seed. Even 13 wins may not get him a home game. They're going to go on the road. They're going to have to face a middling NFC South team is looking like at this point on the road. This should pay off for them because this is going to have to be hard earned. They're going to have to take the tough road to get there. I don't think constantly measuring yourself against the two or three other teams

on paper that look much better than you and maybe win cleaner or win by wider margins or win more excitingly or a little more star driven what do you what are you complaining about at this point because I think you're seeing some star you're seeing star play from players that may not have been as heralded I I mean, we've all talked about Darnold, but, you know, Aaron Jones was a good, solid running back at Green Bay. He's a game changer here in Minnesota, for good and for bad, and we can get into his fumbling issues in a bit too.

Jonathan Grenards had a solid career. Stephon Gilmore, who just got hurt. Solid careers, Pro Bowl careers, but that feels like they're part of a greater purpose here and a greater machine. And they're being put into positions at this stage of their career to really make huge game-breaking plays. I think that's what you need to embrace. Some of the unheralded plays, some of the guys that are emerging, the Byron Murphys of the world, Ivan Pace before he got hurt. Now you got, I just feel like the, I feel like the fan base is so conditioned for misery and ruined expectations. They're just unwilling, unwilling at this point to hitch their emotions to this team.

And I could even sense through the screen yesterday that U.S. Bank Stadium didn't feel like this was a, you know, nine and two team coming home on a four-game winning streak, and we haven't seen anybody in a month. Let's rock the joint. It felt, now granted, their play didn't help with that, but it just felt like there's just a, there's a very reluctance, there's a reluctance to buy in. And I'm not quite sure why that is, because if you're going to be measuring yourself against these elite teams, you can always find faults. But they're flawed too. And I like the way the Vikings are playing. I like the way they're not getting overwhelmed by the moment. I just feel like this is a team better equipped for success than the 2022 team that owned one score victories and laid an egg in the playoffs. And I guess maybe that's why people have not bought in because we saw this two years ago.

It's truly completely different. They're expected when loss is different. Their point differential is different. Their defense is wildly different when you look at net yards per attempt the Vikings in 2022 were just about the worst defense in the NFL this year they're in the top 10 and the same goes for points allowed where they were 29th in points allowed in 2022 and I think they're fifth right now in the NFL they were giving up 400 yards to Mike White, not Kyler Murray, not just Kyler Murray, but to Andy Dalton, to Mac Jones went off on them on Thanksgiving night

in 2022. Daniel Jones had the game of his life. Twice, twice the game of his life. That's not happening this year against this defense. I do have concerns about this defense getting worn down. They played 77 snaps in this game. They were asked to do a lot, and it was largely because the offense wasn't on the field. Andrew Jones' fumble. Andrew Jones, not the outfielder for the Braves.

Aaron Jones' fumble and Darnold getting sacked, short drives, punts, ending drives with field goals where you have third and two and you want to throw the ball down the field because that's what you always do. And really taking until the second half to remember that Justin Jefferson needs that old pigskin in his hands and to throw some underneath passes. And Jonathan Gannon had a good plan against them. But when everybody knows you're running Jefferson down the field all the time, you need a little bit of a different plan. And it took them until the second half to get there. There's a lot about this team that says to me, it might be tough to go on the road multiple

times all the way to the Super Bowl. And there is statistical evidence right in front of you to say that the Detroit Lions are a significantly better team than the Vikings on a lot of different metrics. But last year in the NFC championship, the point differential for San Francisco was plus 193. For Detroit, it was plus 66 on the season and Detroit was a fourth down conversion away from beating them and going to the Superbowl because this is the world we live in. You bemoan the one score wins, but the one score wins might benefit you in the playoffs because it closes the gap between the best and the good teams on any given Sunday. So that's where I'm always thinking about, do you reach a bar to have a case when you go into the playoffs right now, they're hovering around that bar.

As far as wins go, they're absolutely on pace for this, but you do have to beat some teams in better fashion as we go forward. And there will be more tests, but I really don't understand saying one score wins. This team sucks. Huh? The whole league is playing these one score wins. And by the way, if your coach out of what is it? 33 one score games since he took over has won 24 of them.

There might be something that he does better than Matt Eberflus. That helps weigh the odds a little bit in your favor in some of these games. I'm not saying there's no randomness. My point is this is not a reason to look at this team and go, ah, who cares about them? They're a bunch of frauds. It doesn't look like that to me, even if the most recent game they actually did get outplayed. Well, mental toughness really matters when you get into the playoffs. And if you have muscle memory of either being down or needing a third down stop, a fourth down stop, a turnover on a particular defensive touchdown,

if you need a game-winning drive with under three or two minutes left and limited timeouts and a long field to go, I would feel pretty confident having this defense in position to do that with Brian Flores on the call. I'd be pretty confident with Sam Darnold taking over inside his 10-yard line with two and a half minutes left and one timeout and needing either three or six to tie the game and extend it or take the lead because they have done that, because they have performed both units in high leverage situations as the baseball parlance goes. That all matters. That

all adds up later on because then you're going to draw from a wealth of experience, resilience, an ability to shake off poor play, bad breaks, turnovers, penalties, unfortunate bounces that all occur throughout a football game or can occur at any moment. It's not what you did. It's how you respond, and the Vikings have responded. They've responded to every punch in the mouth they've generally taken, both in real time on the field or even in the schedule.

I mean, you look at those back-to-back losses against Detroit and LA in a four-day span, and those are two haymakers they absorbed. And all they've done is run off five straight wins. And I know there's caveats to that. I know it's Jacksonville and Mac Jones and Tennessee and Will Levis and Chicago crazily coming back, but then melting down and then ultimately melting down to the point where they're starting over again. The Cardinals, I think there was a sense probably in the building that, again, the other shoe is going to drop today because they seem to have found a

way to scheme defensively and pressure and blitz Darnold to the point where they don't know where the pressure is coming. Almost like a Vikings type scenario where you don't know where the next free man is coming to take down your quarterback. But the adjustments were made. The plays were made. The two things that really do concern me more than anything, and they've been haunting this team for a while now, you brought up the fatigue on the defense. I think that's been a weekly standpoint, from an endurance standpoint, and almost from a mental standpoint. You've got to worry about how much that unit has been shouldering when the Vikings are going three and out or turning the ball over, which leads me to my next stat. 53 turnovers since the start of last season no other team has had that many and these are

really unforced ugly turnovers Aaron Jones's yesterday he was fortunate Brian O'Neill fell on his first one but these are really ugly unforced sort of really preventable turnovers whether it was Darnold's decision making three three or four weeks ago, Jones' penchant for fumbling lately, you can't outrun that demon for that long. And it goes hand-in-hand with the fatigue of your defense. If you're turning the ball over and putting the defense back on the field to defend a short field, that's high leverage, that's high stress. And again, this is an accumulation.

We're now into December. The defense is going to start feeling the effects of those short drives and short-circuited drives from the first half of the season. So turnovers and keeping the chains moving, I think are the two keys right now. Really, if the Vikings are going to ride this wave of good fortune, good play, and good luck, all the way to 13, 14 wins and maybe a run, those things need to be corrected. And limiting the turnovers kind of self-corrects the long periods of time the defense is on the field.

But those are the two things that stand out to me that are really unsustainable. But we've been saying that now for weeks, and it seems to be sustainable. I don't know for how much longer. Yeah. In Tennessee and in Chicago, I thought they did a good job of having the ball more than their opponent. And even in Jacksonville and screwed that up in the, in the red zone,

but Chicago was the most top to bottom offensive game. And I was curious about how they would come back after that and how they would perform. And they come out of the gate with a couple of completions. They move the ball and they get to that third and two. And these are problems that kind of crop up each week where these fourth to third and to the short yardage at the goal line, when they got inside the five, my first thought was like, here we go again with, can they actually score inside the five my first thought was uh here like here we go again with can they actually score inside

the five and they've got to throw a pass to Aaron Jones because they have no confidence that they could just hand off and go get a first down uh even on the third and two on the first drive that the answer should be hand it off to somebody blast up the middle even if you only get a yard then QB sneak but Kevin O'Connell always has to be kind of one step ahead and sometimes can't just do the obvious thing and maybe that's the one critique that I have of him over three years is that the obvious thing is the right thing right a lot of times it's third and two you're in the red zone run the ball uh and get that you know get the first down or get a QB sneak.

If you only gain a yard or whatever, go from there. Of course, if he scores a touchdown on that pass, then I probably don't bring it up. But keeping drives sustained is something that has to consistently happen throughout the season. And I think the rest of the season, and I think that always hunting these big plays will result in ups and downs. In Chicago, they had to get a 70-yard pass to Jordan Addison, a 30-yard pass to Hawkinson, 30-yard pass again to Addison,

like these big plays. And when it's working, oh, my gosh, is it ever working? But when it's not, then the other team has the ball all day. And if you do that against good teams like Arizona, they will take advantage. Their offensive coordinator is good. Like he, he was throwing short passes. He was running the ball. And then they just had to rely on those key stops in the red zone. That is not where you want to be. I think I would say that yesterday probably had, I might even say more red flags

than the Jaguars game, the Jaguars game, three picks in the red zone or inside the 25 almost never happens. Three interception games, even for Sam Darnold and his career almost never happens. But what they ran into yesterday is stuff that has happened throughout the season and cannot continue to pop up. Sorry, go ahead. Well, I was just going to say, and they were really out-schemed for a good chunk of that game yesterday, which you haven't seen much of this year. But Arizona's coaching staff came to play,

and they really had a good game plan for a road game. And I thought that they were really well positioned to, to eat, not even eke out a victory. I mean, they were winning convincingly heading into that fourth quarter. You know, if, if that final drive hadn't melted down the way it had,

and again, credit the Vikings for creating the chaos that, that led to a lot of that, but a touchdown drive, and we're not even talking about a 10th win here. Instead, it was a field goal. And then you put the ball in the hands of Darnold, and he comes through for you. But it was at a razor's edge there for a while.

And I credit Arizona's coaching staff for really having a game plan that seemed to have the Vikings on their heels for two plus quarters. They did a really good job. I think a team that one more year of talent building can be in a really good spot in their division. I want to move forward, though, to this game. Vikings and Falcons, everybody circled it on the calendar. The minute that the schedule came out, Kirk returning to Minnesota

after throwing four interceptions against the Chargers and flat out losing them the football game. Their defense was fine, if not good, against the chargers and flat out losing them, the football game, their defense was fine. If not good against the chargers gave every chance for Atlanta to win. He threw that game away. They're 500 and cousins had his best month in October. And their defense is not that good this year because they didn't have money to invest in it.

And I spent the morning Murph checking out the old draft grades where everybody gave Atlanta C minuses for drafting Michael Penix because they just signed Kirk Cousins. I guess those draft grades don't mean anything ever as usual, but what is your feeling on the way that Cousins is playing and where the Falcons stand with that team now as they come to Minnesota? Well, there's a lot to unpack there. I do feel like, you know, he had the great start or the decent start. And of course, you know, Kirk Tober has been legendary both around here and even in Washington for the production and the flash that he shows early in the season. I watched some of the highlights from last night. There were a couple of balloon balls that I'm not sure why a 12-year veteran is even throwing, let alone putting himself in a position to get four picks like that.

I was among the many who on draft night thought I don't quite understand the philosophy here. And I don't think they did a really good job. The Falcons have explaining their decision-making then, but I think you and I talked on the phone yesterday about this. Maybe there's something they did know in his recovery. You got to remember this is 36 year old quarterback who blew out his Achilles on October 29th or 30th of last year. So by the time they're drafting, he's only six months into his recovery. You know, he's nowhere near full strength. It was either a hedge, a wise hedge,

or a let's just backstop just in case six months from now Cousins is losing steam. I think the accumulation of 12 years of quarterback play, a major injury, I don't think there's any doubt that maybe physically he's just not there. I mean, he's clearly not very mobile. He never was anyway. But he's a pure pocket passer right now, and I think he's being probably limited because of that recovering, maybe the Falcons, and he don't want to acknowledge that.

But that's a tough injury to come back for for a quarterback in that short period of time to shoulder the burden of a franchise. All that said, I can't imagine they're going to bench him this week for a couple of reasons. One, they're still 6-6 in a bad division. I mean, it's still up for grabs, not only a playoff spot, but a division. And they could end up hosting the Vikings in a playoff game. And I still think you stay with your veteran. And then there's the obvious, which is, I don't think there's no other game. He's

going to be more motivated to play, uh, than Sunday at us bank stadium, not only because he's coming back, uh, from the team that said, hey, thanks, but no thanks, we're moving on, but also he's probably coming off his worst performance in Atlanta and one of the worst performances of his career. If there's ever a time where he's going to rise and respond, this would be it. So from a mental standpoint, I think you've got a motivated quarterback. If he doesn't get the job done, or if the Falcons lose because of him again, I think you might see Michael Penix really soon. But I don't think you bench him now. I think that would really be devastating to him. I think it

would be a really bad message to send because I still think he's your best option. Doesn't mean he's going to be your best option three weeks from now, but I think he's your best option this week to go back into his old haunt and take on his former team. If he can't be up or ready or responsive or resilient for this game, I think he might be done, frankly. So, and then the atmosphere we're going to have in there, it's going to be fascinating to see what the reaction is going to be with him, how Brian Flores dials up pressures for him, how he tries to evade that. I think it's going to be one of the extremes with Kirk. I mean, he's either going to have another three interception awful looking game where he's harassed and checks down and does all the Kirk things that we were all familiar with, or he's going to go off and have, again, a redemptive game of his life,

and he may be shouting something in the tunnel more cliched than he shouted about you liking that in Washington. I just think it's going to be one of those two scenarios, and I'm angling for a credential to get there because I think this is the one game you want to be at in person, and I have a feeling U.S. Bank Stadium is going to be a much different atmosphere Sunday than it was yesterday. Yeah, I think so too. And just with cousins and the idea of benching him, uh, I think Michael panics will be on the sideline, getting the cannon loose. If it starts out poorly for, uh, Kirk cousins, because after his last three weeks, it's not just

the four interceptions it's weeks long. Now they got killed by the Denver Broncos, and he was very bad in that game. And the Broncos have a similar defense to the Vikings that puts a lot of pressure on the quarterback. And it just feels like with both him and Aaron Rodgers, when you come off this Achilles injury at that age, it's not just the injury healing. It's also the other work that you put in to get your body ready for the season. Like think about what Sam Darnold was doing in February versus Kirk is sitting around and he's 36 years old. And this was, we're going to go back.

I'm sure through the whole week and think about it. But this was the most important decision that Kweisi Adafo-Mensa would ever make was, do you go with the quote known commodity because it was unknown how he would recover from the Achilles? Or do you go off and try to find somebody else and hope that it becomes a 10-2 Sam Darnold and he chose the right path in moving on from Kirk Cousins. And as people are upset about them not winning by enough, it's what a crazed thought considering how rare they've been in this position. The six years that Kirk Cousins was here, they were in this position of 10-2 one time, one time, and they barely had a positive point differential through 10 and two at that point.

So I think that it can't be overstated enough that the franchise shifts in a direction toward this team being a serious contender and potentially a serious contender for years to come because they did not handcuff themselves to a broken quarterback who was never great to begin with. And we see it in Atlanta. And I just think this could have been the Vikings. themselves to a broken quarterback who was never great to begin with. And we see it in Atlanta. And I just think this could have been the Vikings. It could have been exactly what the Vikings are. A bunch of weapons, a good offensive mind, but the quarterback just fading because his physical ability is not there anymore.

Those, like you mentioned, those footballs, no velocity whatsoever when he was throwing a couple of those passes. And we talked about all offseason. You have to dig into the ground to throw the football. Hard to do when your legs aren't there, when your Achilles is repaired at age 35, 36. And it just highlighted, as we go into this game, after he throws four picks, how right of a decision it was for the Vikings to move on, no matter what happens in this game after he throws four picks how right of a decision it was for the vikings to move on no

matter what happens in this game we've seen kirk always bounce back and i have no doubt he'll be better than he was last week but they're average they're struggling they're not a contender at all oh well maybe we can win the division golf clap congratulations good for you he's not desmond ritter but you're also not serious as an nfc contender after spending 45 million dollars on him yeah this this game sunday is not a referendum on the decision to move on from cousins that's already been decided i mean not only darnold's uh unexpected production and literally seizing the mantle, but your ability to break free of the financial constraints that Cousins and the baggage that he brings to a two, even if you wanted to bring back Cousins one more year,

he wasn't signing a one-year deal. So it was the financial shackles that you were able to get rid of and start over with McCarthy. But I kind of wrote about this today too. I think it's time for Vikings fans to not think that they have to put these two, put McCarthy and Darnold in two different silos. Like, there's no way we can embrace Sam Darnold as the future if we've already got McCarthy, because we know Darnold's going to move on.

We know he's going to command a long-term deal. I think it's important right now to keep that debate open and honest. It's going to all depend on his performance here, of course, the last five weeks, whatever Darnold does in the postseason, the economics of free agency. You know he's going to want a big payday in a long-term deal. But I don't think you should take off the table the notion that Darnold is not, he's only a one-off solution. He's only 27 and he's playing at such a high level right now. You have to consider that going into the off season, that maybe there's a way. If there's a way to keep both, I don't know, but there's a way, there's a world in which you maybe never see J.J. McCarthy suit up for the Vikings,

or there's a world in which, you know, Darnold feels comfortable enough to stay here a little bit on a shorter term deal if he feels like it's a great fit. So many things that need to happen. I just wonder, though, if the fan base or even the front office is open to the idea that we don't have to lock ourselves into what was the obvious and convenient solution, that Darnold's a placeholder and a mentor no matter how good he is let's hope we can we can contend and then we're going to hand the keys to the franchise to McCarthy because you're still betting on the unknown and Darnold week after week is showing you what he can be so it's a fascinating problem to have I just

wonder where the fan base in the front office is on that notion that, hey, what we thought in July or August may not be the case anymore, and are they comfortable enough to think outside that box? Sam Darnold's played like a franchise quarterback this year. He's played like a top-ten quarterback. He's played like a guy you pay $50 million. In the future, I mean, I don't know if that's something they believe could keep happening. I don't know if that's something they believe could keep happening.

I don't see any of these receivers going anywhere, but it does constrain the other things you can do with the roster. The way I look at this, remember when we were in Vegas, Murph, once upon a time before the season, we were trying to come up with some sort of motto for the season.

And I think what we settled on was something like, let's just see what happens. And that's where I've been with Darnold all year, since they went five and out with the Darnold McCarthy discussion. Let's just see what happens because I don't think we can solve this right now. I also don't want to try to solve it right now. I mean, I I'm curious what other people think, but I just, they're 10 and two. They're chasing a Superbowl with this quarterback right now. I'm not too concerned about that decision. I will have plenty of time to talk about it when we get to the end of the season and we have all of our information. So it's both the most

interesting discussion point and one I don't really want to have because I want to see what happens first. And I also don't want to stop appreciating this man. Sam Darnold has been freaking incredible. The throws he made yesterday in the second half of that game. Incredible. I don't want to be the person who's like, when about McCarthy, like the Simpsons did it, the one score game. Why, why do we have to talk about this every single time? The man has a good game. It's been a great season for him. So anyway, we will carry on and another win here. And hopefully we see you on Sunday there at U.S. Bank Stadium. But I agree with you, Murph. The crowd will be, I think, a little more amped up for the Kirk revenge game that will get a lot of attention this week. So

I will talk to you following that game. All right. Sounds good. And make sure you check out Murph's article, Purple Insider, where he talks about darnold check it out got some time to answer a few more questions so throw them in the chat questions comments thoughts feelings emotions uh let me scroll back up a little bit here uh you guys with your names i'll just say blunts here uh had jj not injured his knee what are the odds we don't see darnold this year very low uh sam darnold was having a good training camp he was on the same page with justin jefferson for the whole training camp you can go watch the old videos where I kept showing up back here going, this might be happening guys. Like Sam Darnold might be good. I don't know. Uh, that, that kept happening during training camp, coming home day after day, talking about these good practices that Sam Darnold was having. He did struggle in the joint practices. If JJ McCarthy

had dominated them and Darnold had really struggled then maybe there was a small chance but I still don't think they could bail on the entire offseason plan of developing J.J. McCarthy and remember Kevin O'Connell that was his thing the entire time he was going to make sure that JJ McCarthy was a hundred percent ready to go before he was going to start him. That would have meant that Sam Darnold would start week one. And with the way Darnold is played right from week one, right against the giants, they fumble on the first drive, which this team just cannot hold onto the football for some reason. And then after that, it's just a blowout. They get down three, nothing and they blow them out. And then Texans and 49ers and whatever order that was in and the Packers and the jet and like they reeled off the

wins. And I think also that Darnold played pretty well against Detroit and the Rams. So even when they lost games, they wouldn't have been thinking about benching Darnold. The only time would have been in Jacksonville. And I still don't think that that would have been enough the way that he played in Jacksonville. I still don't think that that would have been quite enough. They would have given him another week for sure. Or another couple weeks play great against Tennessee play great against Chicago yesterday. He's clutch. Yeah. I don't think you would have seen McCarthy, and that would have been fine. I'm sure we would have been having the discussion every time a quarter went by

that they didn't score three touchdowns. Is it time to play McCarthy? And the fact that that hasn't been a thing may have really helped Sam Darnold, actually, just mentally. Kerplupp, he says, the alternate universe where uh we hire harbaugh and chicago hires koc really spooked me yeah uh and especially if they'd handle things differently or well handle things the same from a roster perspective and ended up with caleb williams and koc that would be a pretty dangerous combination. Though Jim Harbaugh is winning football games.

There is that. He's turned around their defense. They play a grinded out style because they don't really have a lot of weapons for Justin Herbert. And he's winning games again. It's the same coaches all the time. That's why, is it worth three first round draft picks?

No, because when you have one of the 10 best coaches in the league well all these other teams hire the adam gases and matt rules and urban myers and just screw it up over and over again i don't think you want to risk ending up in that pool of things but if they had hired jim harbaugh here i mean, does it go way differently? Maybe. I mean, I don't know if it goes way differently because they won a bunch of games in 2022. They probably still do with Jim Harbaugh because he always seems to find ways to win. And then they presumably would have still had a rebuild plan.

But if they weren't on the same page with the plan, then things would have been a lot different. This is why it was so important to have KOC and Kweisi Adafomenta on the same page with the, the entire plot, because then they could take a step back last year. Blowfish is, is I want the lions to drop off as we can't be the only team in the division without a

Super Bowl win. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know if the Lions are going to drop off. They still have so much there, even though they've got injuries on defense. I think what they've gone from though, with those injuries is from way, way out in front of everybody to a little more failable. And when you look at how they've played against winning teams this year, they did kind of blow out Seattle, but they've also played a lot of close games or division with Chicago, division with Minnesota. They have played more close games than it looks like. It's just that they ran the score up on Jacksonville and Tennessee,

which I don't know how relevant that is. It's good to blow out bad teams. I said that after the Giants game. It's always good to blow out bad teams. You should be blowing out bad teams. But does it matter as much how you played against the Vikings or how you played against the Jaguars? It probably matters more with the Vikings.

So I think that the lions in their current state with their defense is banged up as it is. Now, if they had a full defense with Aiden Hutchinson, I might feel differently, but I think the gap is closer than it appears when it comes to the point differential. Uh, can eat. So I think, uh, says, why do you think the national media are calling the Vikings frauds? I feel like this is way different from 2022. Uh, I'm not fully aware of whom and which national media is saying what, uh, about the Vikings, but, uh, I wrote about it today about the one score game thing and how every game in the NFL is coming down to one score.

I've seen different numbers. Maybe it's based on whether it's eight points or seven points, 80%, 70%. Somewhere along the line, somebody said that if you win one score games, you're lucky. And everyone just took that to be complete fact and truth and never circled back on it. But there's a really good article on FiveThirtyEight from a couple of years ago where Josh Hermsmeyer, who's a good analytics writer, he used win probability to look at this in a smarter way. And so just for example, when the Vikings beat the Green Bay Packers, it's a one score win, but their win probability never dropped below like 75%. They were ahead the entire game. They dominated the game overall. And even in Chicago, when you get to the final five minutes of the game, the Vikings have an 80% chance to win the game. They outplayed them for the entire game. You look at the yardage differential, the time

of possession for a lot of games, not yesterday. Yesterday was kind of a fake win. Like they got away with it yesterday. They were outplayed in a lot of ways by the Cardinals. So that one, you could say is lucky that the Cardinals didn't go for the touchdown there at the end or didn't finish any of the drives. That is one where I think even O'Connell and the way that he talked about it was, we got a lot to learn from that one. We kind of got away with it and the Cardinals played really well, but a lot of these other wins, it's a 10 point win. That's not one score over Indianapolis. It's a 10 point win over the Tennessee Titans. Probably could have been more over both of those teams. I really think it's because Detroit has been the darling and because they are so good when you look at all their

numbers, but the Vikings are top 10 and points for and points against. Is it that there's not belief in Sam Darnold and they're still thinking it's just some sort of magic carpet ride and it's going to fall off the edge of a cliff, which there's been opportunities for that to happen. And it hasn't, I think actually the national media, the perspective that I've had, and this is only just, you know, flipping around a little bit. I don't have time to sit and watch those shows and take them in, know what everyone's saying, but I've usually just haven't seen any discussion about the Vikings at all. And it feels like no one believed it was going to keep happening. So they didn't pay much attention after week five. And they said, Sam Darnold might be the MVP. Then they lost two

games and they said, okay, put the Vikings away. Let's focus on the jets. Let's focus on how bleeped up the jets are. Oh, Chicago. Let's focus on how messed up Chicago is. That has really been my takeaway from the national media this year is that they've just put the Vikings in a closet. We'll deal with them if we have to in the playoffs, but now we need those teams that are in big markets who are falling apart and that's their business model. And I respect it, but from this seat where I cover everything up, up and down and sideways about the Vikings, I do think that they're being left out of the discussion for a Super Bowl contender, a legitimate contender when the numbers say that they are. And when you talk about it

being 2022, I just don't see what relevancy 2022 has. This whole team has been overhauled since 2022. And in 2022, they were 29th in points against and 31st in yards against. Well, that's not the case now. We've seen that this defense is not perfect, but it's good. And it's got a lot of star talent on it. And by the numbers, it's top 10 in points. It's top 10 in net yards per pass attempt against. They're a really complete team this year where they weren't in 2022 and just to even add

to that point they just beat caleb williams and kyler murray who are they beating in 2022 uh skylar thompson and teddy bridgewater off the bench andy dalton mike white mac jones they were surviving against bad bad quarterback How many quarterbacks from the Vikings 2022 schedule are even still starting in the NFL? I would venture a guess that that's not that many. It's not that many. It's probably half their schedule is not even starting anymore. Justin Fields, they beat Justin Fields twice and barely survived him one of the times, not even a starting quarterback anymore. That's a lot different from this year. Is Levis the best quarterback in the world? No, but he's a starter there and he's had some games

and he played well against the Vikings. Brock Purdy, CJ Stroud, Jordan Love. These are all starting quarterbacks. Really the only backups, Daniel Jones in week one and then Mac Jones. And those are the only bad quarterbacks that they've really played or not starters. At least Levis has made sort of a case for himself at times. But yeah, it's nuanced. Like that's nuanced. That's what we do here. We dive deep into everything, data and numbers and how they compare and everything else.

It's not always how it's done to a broader audience. It's more of, is there a big storyline? And if there isn't one, then are they frauds is the story, I think. Yeah. 80% of games by one score. Yeah. I've seen a couple of different numbers, but either way, it's like all time high with one score. So that's why what I wrote today was we have to be better at how we look at one score games, because if they're all going to come down to one score, how do we evaluate what happened on the field? It's by who played better that day. The Arizona Cardinals had a 92% chance to win with five minutes left in the game on

Sunday. They played better. They should have won the game. The Vikings squeaked it out. That's something you can't rely on. They have to play better against Atlanta. They have to play better against Chicago. They have to play better against Seattle. If they play like they did yesterday and say, Sam, bring us back from down 13 points at the end of the game, it's not going to work that, that I understand, but it hasn't been a season of that. It's actually been a season of, Hey, you're up by 11 points. The game is over victory format. What the heck is a watermelon kick

or they fumbled again? Like it's really been that kind of thing of a season rather than, oh, it's a bunch of luck. I don't, I think the luck has gone against them as much as it's gone for them this year. There are stats for that, but, uh, we have to evaluate on who played better. How many times have the Vikings been the better team on the football field this year out of 12 games? Not the two that they lost, not against Arizona. Is there any other game? Is there any other game where they got outplayed this year, except for yesterday and the two games that they lost?

I don't think so. So I would look at it like that. And in 2022, their expected win loss, which is based on point differential, was eight wins and they had 13. This year, it's already eight wins and they have 10 so there you go uh brett says if the lions continue to play man with their front seven

outs they can't get pressure koc will pick them apart totally agree that's what happened against chicago in that second half they had to play man and they were running people across the field, uh, left and right on those mesh routes and the slants and things like that. They were just getting people wide open all over the place. And the Vikings have mostly had a ton of success against Detroit's defense since KOC took over. There isn't really a game that I can think of where they have stopped the Vikings offense. So you go into Detroit, potentially week 18, if there's a chance to win the division,

it's a little ways down the road, but you don't ever play Detroit thinking there's no chance for the Vikings. Because no matter how good each team has been, when Detroit had no wins and were 0-11-1, they beat the Vikings. Division matter how good each team has been when Detroit had no wins and we're oh, in 11 and one, they beat the Vikings division games are like that. Uh, Brett says, what would you say? The main difference between this team and 2022 is point differential. No, it's defense. They have one. They have one of the best defensive minds in the NFL and Brian Flores versus at Donatello, who was playing a system that did

not work at all for that unit. And it's weak links. They had so many weak links of that defense. The linebackers were slow. The nickel cornerback couldn't cover anybody. They had to rely on interceptions to stay alive. The D line was good. The D line was good that year, but that was pretty much it. I mean, they were just weak everywhere in 2022 safeties were good as usual but josh matelis was sitting on the bench in 2022 and playing only special teams that's the biggest difference the offense is a little bit better this year actually than they were in 2022 i think they were 10th and it's a shade better right now sam darnold has played better quarterback go look at at the numbers. Compare Kirk to Sam Darnold through this point in 2022. Darnold has been a better quarterback than Cousins was to this point. So the quarterback play has been a little better. The running game has probably been a shade better than it was. They're deeper at wide receiver. Adam Thielen was not the same version as a few years prior was playing banged up. They didn't get TJ Hawkins until midway through the season.

Same deal here, but they've got Hawkinson fully into the offense and Jordan Addison is just making plays. The offensive line is better for sure. Dalton Reisner, zero pressures allowed, 88 PFF grade blocking the pass, pass blocking. Yesterday, we've never seen that grade from Ed Ingram in a game. Their offensive line can pass block. They screwed up some stuff yesterday with the blitzes,

which is partly the quarterback. It's hard to handle those sometimes when the other defensive coordinator is good, but the offensive line is good this year at pass protection. Not on the run necessarily now, but Cam Robinson has been fine. If not good, he was yesterday. I think he allowed one pressure and Reisner is a game changer for them in pass pro because now you don't have those quick losses. Ingram was a rookie and Kirk was just getting smashed all over the place. It's a, it's a much

better team. If they played 2022 Vikings versus 2024 Vikings. I think that the 2024 team is favored by like three and a half points. If not more, they're just a much better team uh brett uh who would your pro bowl selections be for the vikings this year i'd have to look at kind of everybody to figure that out but the obvious would be jefferson jonathan grenard blake cashman probably the the ones i would go to first and brian o'neill who has had an unbelievable season and Sam Darnold's got to be in the mix. NFC quarterbacks, Jared Goff, Sam Darnold, Jalen Hurts, probably the top three there, unless I'm forgetting someone. So, I mean the, the pro bowl,

what is it anymore? Wally says the lions game was very tight from a box score perspective. I do think the Lions outplayed them, but it wasn't a massive difference. Yeah, I agree. They did have to get a defensive score there to go ahead, but they didn't outplay them. The Vikings started that game hot, and then the Lions got their running game going

and got Jameer Gibbs going with some big plays. It was a great game. I mean, that Vikings line, give me that 100 times in a row. That was a great football game. Star players, great coaching, left and right, big moments. It was an awesome game. Vikings just came out two points short. But if that's what you get for a divisional round,

if that's what you get for week 18 for the conference, that would be phenomenal man juice is a time to talk about aaron jones well i don't really know what to say about it because when we talk about things that are random fumbles are pretty random the other thing is too that when you look around the league they are teaching dudes to just punch the crap out of running backs. And I don't know how this is never a personal foul. If you miss the football, don't you just punch the other player? Is that legal? But that's, that's what they're, they've they're teaching the peanut punch, punch the pocket, whatever.

And he's been kind of the victim of that a couple of times where they just landed the punch. That's what happened the other day. But he's never fumbled this much before in his career, which you could look at is that's why it's a concern. Or you could look at it. It's just been a little bit of a bad run and the balls popped out a few times and it's nothing to worry about.

You could be concerned about the rib injury if that is playing a role in how tight he can hold the football i don't know he just had a really great game against chicago and he did fumble in that game as well and they don't run block the same without christian derisaw that's obvious they're going to have to improve the screen game, which has still not been very good. They need an explosive run here or there. The reality is the rest of the season is about that quarterback. It's going to be much like it was on Kirk. It's going to be on the quarterback to move the football.

They're not going to be able to just stay on the run game. Cam Akers, though, gave him an explosive. It's going to have to be the occasional run that plays off of the pass and not what it was early in the season where it was the pass playing off the run. That's just where they're at as a team right now. But the fact that they could pass protect gives them a better chance. The right guard. How about this guys? How many times have you been sitting there watching the game the last three weeks and just gone, Oh my gosh, the right guard missed this guy entirely. And there's a sack. I mean, okay. There was a, it was the left side, but you know, there's a couple of free runners with the blitzes, but just getting beat

off the line of scrimmage, it doesn't happen to Dalton rise there. And that's been a big improvement. And even when he gets beat, he kind of gets pushed back or finds a way to hold on so they got better pass protection than they had they're gonna have to find a way to just work the run game as much as they can but it's not gonna be easy because you know with with Jones he's not Superman I mean he can still get them four and a half yards to carry. Uh, but yeah, I mean, there's, there's a concern there about whether they can have any sort of consistent run game. Uh, can eat. So I think the big thing for the 2022 season, when we lost, we were getting blown out, hence the fraud allegations. And this year's losses are by one score should have been by one score technically two scores

face mask on the rams that was not called should have been called and given sam donald the chance now after seeing him in these clutch situations don't you really want to go back and see him maybe down eight get a shot no couldn't call the face mask. Even though his whole head spun around like Beetlejuice. I don't know. The referee's only standing right there behind him. How would we ever expect him to see that happen? But to your point, yes. The losses have been fairly well-played games by the Vikings.

They're down by eight points before the safety at the end. I mean, the other one's by the Vikings. They're down by eight points before the safety at the end. I mean, the other ones by two points, you lose your two games by 12 and Kevin O'Connell made this point. Yeah. If you win by one score and your losses aren't blowouts, you still end up with a pretty good point differential. And that is true. And they have a good point differential. They're in the what still top five in the league and point differential. So I don't know. I just, I think that when you don't have Mahomes or Allen or somebody who's been there, they're always going to say, even Jared Goff has been there. They're always going to say, I don't know. I don't know.

I don't know if they can really do it. They have, they got Darnold. I don't know if they can really do it. It's always going to be the discussion, which is fair. I mean, because he hasn't done it yet. Uh, Tony says no one is talking about how Darnold gets hot and takes them in the playoffs. He has only played 12 games in the system. Uh, yeah, I mean, he's fully entrenched now, uh, in the system, uh, but he's playing these last three weeks. I mean, the first half was rough. But aside from that, think about how good

he has played just over these last three weeks. I mean, it's been phenomenal. He's been one of the best quarterbacks in the league over these last three weeks. Does that continue? They're playing a pretty bad defense here. They go to Chicago. Not to Chicago. They'll play Chicago. Seattle doesn't have a great defense. Yeah. I mean, there is a chance that he could finish this strong. Uh, AV, are you concerned that the defense may be gassed after yesterday's game? Very much, very much. And if Stefan Gilmore can't play, this is the thing. When you see what

Atlanta just did, your initial reaction is to go, huh? Vikings are going to beat them by 30, which is true if they play like that, but he threw four picks and they only lost by a couple points. The Vikings defense having to stop Bijan Robinson and Tyler Algier the entire game with that offensive line could be a problem. It might not have to be a lot that Kirk Cousins does get a few passes into the hands of his playmakers and they can control the ball. You know, that's what they're going to do. They are going to try to control the ball for that entire game on the ground. It was short passes. This might be one where Andrew Van Ginkle is

hunting a pick six or something. Uh, if he does that, somebody clip that and tweet it out. But yeah, it's not an easy game. And when you come off playing 80 snaps, you always worry about the defense being gassed. They've had to chase around two of the best quarterbacks in the league at scramble. Mustin Sir says Dallas Turner played a couple of snaps, did particularly, practically nothing, still early, but Quasey's drafting. I just like the, the Quasey drafting conversation. Just throw it out. Just throw it out.

They don't even have any picks next year. I'm not worried about that. I'm really not. I'm not worried about Dallas Turner. You're just going to have to give them time. You guys don't like to do that with draft picks. You like the answers right away he was he's getting in the game we'll see what what he becomes when the opportunities

start to grow he's a rookie i don't know i'm not concerned about they're 10 and 2 i'm not concerned about quacey's drafting uh taylor, any news on Gilmore? Yes. Uh, Kevin O'Connell said he does not believe it to be a serious injury, but he's not sure about him playing this week. And certainly Fabian Moreau was in over his head a little bit. The pass interference was suspect and he did have some good coverage later in the game. Fabian Moreau has played a lot of football in his years. He's played a lot of football. He was pretty much an average corner everywhere he's gone. And he's a guy that can fill in for a week or two. This is a hard week to do it. They have receivers. They have guys who get open one-on-one, but you would rather they take the risk of playing

Fabian Moreau and not play Gilmore and make sure that his hamstring is a hundred percent when they go down the stretch. Uh, Kufu, Sam, uh, Kufu 21, Sam may not have Kirk's accuracy, but he's willing to try tight windows. And I do feel Sam has a better deep ball. Yeah. Kirk has had, so there's kind of different versions of Kirk. I mean the 2019 version where he's still in his prime and throwing the football. Well, his deep ball was really great that year.

And in 2022, maybe it wasn't on the same levels, more intermediate passing. Sam Darnold has been incredibly accurate this year. I don't think that he's sprayed the football all over the place. When guys are open, he makes plays. But yeah, I mean, Kirk, it was more of an intermediate accuracy where actually Darnold's been good the last couple of weeks. But for Kirk, it was slant, quick out, things like that. Comeback route.

He could throw the comeback route with really great anticipation. The slot fade where he's dropping in the bucket throwing it up letting his guy run underneath it's very accurate quarterback so they're just they're different but darnold is much more physically gifted just throws the ball much harder and is able to find spots in those tight windows that kirk just would not throw the ball. And I think that some of the offense was predicated around throwing into those tight windows because it was built for Sam Darnold. And I'm sorry, built for Matt Stafford. And Sam Darnold is playing like Matt Stafford in 2021.

He's, he's playing a very similar, like on paper type of season. So I think it was kind of a little bit square peg round hole for Kirk to say, Hey, you got to let this one rip into that tight window. And that's just not really what he wanted to do. And there was a lot of shorter passes because of that. Those were his choices going to the shorter passes because he didn't want to let it go. And, uh, we've seen Darnold really let it go. Uh, Wally says, uh, Shaq Griffin played well yesterday. They played fine against the past 5.8 yards per attempt. Yeah. The yards per attempt thing was hurt a little bit by some failures in the red zone interceptions. They did not get roasted, but the problem was it was a short passing game on purpose. They averaged 5.8 yards per attempt kind of on purpose to stay on the field all day.

And that certainly wore down the Vikings defense. If Atlanta does that, they can run really well and they will be able to grind out the clock. That's the concern there. Jacoby, thank you so much for the super chat. Jacoby, really appreciate you, man. Was that my first ever Vikings game after being a fan for roughly 10 years this Sunday? And it was amazing. I can barely talk now. There you go. I mean, the end of that game was you got the full experience of going to a Vikings game

where at the end of the game, I mean, you're gripping the edge of the chair. You're sweating. You don't know what's going to happen. It's fourth down. That place when it's like that is really something. I mean, when the Vikings are driving, the crowd is trying to stay quiet, as I'm sure you noticed, but they want to explode. They want to go crazy with some sort of big play.

And they were able to do that a few times. It's the best atmosphere in the sport. A lot of times yesterday, I thought that there wasn't much juice until later in the game. And I know that is because of the way that they played. There are times where I, if I were to make a suggestion to the crowd, don't let, don't get too caught up in the offense, not scoring to forget to cheer when the other team's offense is out there. There were a few times that I thought Kyler Murray had it a little too easy because the fans were frustrated with the offense. Like, Hey, they, they, they're

do, do your thing, do what you're supposed to do. Give them to jump off side. Uh, Brett says I'm viewing Turner as the ultimate gadget guy. We'll take him a year or two to get right where flow wants them to be. If they wanted a true edge, they would have gotten a layout to lot to, but they have a Grenada van Ginkle. What it seems like to me is the plan with Dallas Turner is to make him into an Andrew Van Ginkle type player to rush him wide, to have him drop back in coverage, to teach him every part of the game. He has to get stronger. He's got to grow. He was one of the youngest players in the draft. There's a lot to learn in this defense. I just don't, I just have more patience than everybody else who is in love with the draft

because this is how it goes for some guys. Jared versus 24. He's a grown man coming out of college and he's played like when he's played great. But as far as Dallas Turner, he has to develop and they're developing him clearly on a plan to be ready to take over when Van Ginkle goes or to mix him into this scheme with a specific role for next year. But it's going to take time. And that's Brian Flores.

Look at this defense. It's built with all these veteran players because he's not a draft Nick. He's not obsessed with the draft. He's obsessed with, let me develop this player to be the next Dante Hightower, which he's compared him to, or the next Van Ginkle where he is just this multifaceted outside linebacker who's everywhere rather than, Hey, let me just rush him off the edge because I'm supposed to, cause we drafted him high. Um, I'm sure the front office probably does have a little impatience with him, uh, but he was on the field yesterday. He made a few plays. He's not just edge rushing.

He's dropping back in coverage quite a bit. They, and maybe that's a criticism. I don't know. Maybe you could say, Hey, uh, Brian Flores, how about you just rush this guy all the time but i think he's got a bigger goal for him in mind but i'm just i'm just not i i mean one is look at the discussion we're having tonight about the quarterback situation how they've built this team where they stand sitting here at 10 and 2 i'm just not into focusing on, you know, draft picks from years before or something like that. You know, it's what every team has good and bad drafts. It's how you deal with it. And then with Dallas Turner, they gave up a lot for him. I agree. The standard should be high, but I'm not declaring players at this point in the game. I'm just not like he's got on the field. He hasn't made a lot of splash plays. He also hasn't looked totally out of place to me when I watch him back on tape.

He's had some good games where he's made plays and we'll see how he develops from here. He's going to need a lot more opportunity. Uh, Taylor says, uh, sticking with the Thanksgiving theme of being thankful, thankful for this team quarterback coaches this season. It's been incredibly fun and big hopes for, and dreams for the future. Yeah. Think about just where they were not too long ago. They were in a place that felt hopeless. It felt like there was no answer. They were lost out there in

mediocrity, just in the desert. How do they get out of this? The cap was screwed. You have cousins under a big contract. There's no way out. The culture was screwed up in 2021. And in a couple of years, now the debate is, well, what do you do with Sam Darnold when he plays like a top 10 quarterback when you got this other top 10 draft pick and you're 10 and two, but your GM messed up one draft. What do we do now? Like you're, you know, Casey called that, what do you call them? Champagne problems. And everyone made fun of them for it.

But I mean, in a lot of ways, that's what it is. Well, they've won too many one score games. Darn. That's like the biggest problem. This KOC keeps winning all his one score games. Darn. That's the biggest problem that you have. It has really changed around.

And I still think that it's like a hard adjustment to not just look around and want to point out everything that that's wrong because that's what we did for so wrong. And that was the right thing for so long. And that was the right thing to do. The right thing to do in the Spielman and Zimmer era was to look around and go, look at all this. What are they going to do with this? And then even in 2022, when they get to the end of the season and they don't win, it was still the right thing to do to say, well, what are you going to do with all this? You have Kirk on this short extension you gave him. Are you going to sign him? What are you, what are you going to do? How are you going to get out of this? And then we

thought, all right, well, it's going to take a couple of years to get out of it. Turns out it didn't. I would not have expected it, but that's a pretty good place to be. It's pretty good place to be when you're the team that everyone's saying, is this really for real that they're 10 and two? There's a lot worse places to be than that. Wade says a 21 year old will never get snaps on an eight and two, a 10 and two team behind Andrew Van Ginkle and Jonathan Grenard. Zero concerns. He'll be a beast. Yeah. I mean, I'm just giving it time. It's given a time. They have two of the best players in the league at their position with Patrick Jones. I think that there could be more mixing in of Dallas Turner. We did see that yesterday. Jones got banged up a little bit and Turner was in more.

And I expect that we'll just continue to see just a rotation as they are out on the field so much, they're going to need to rotate. And they did that a lot. So Turner will play. And he got in the face of Kyler Murray one time, had to throw the ball away. A lot of his plays were dropbacks into coverage and you don't

notice him, but you know, if he's in the right spot, I'll take a closer look at it on tape. I usually look at the tape on Tuesday. Uh, David says, I think that McLaughlin will get some valuable experience over the next couple of weeks. And there are quite a few more young players that are already included and will be infused as well. Uh, yeah, Jalen Redman has done a really good job, for sure. He's somebody that they kind of just found. They're better at just finding random guys, it seems like. Like Ivan Pace and Dwight McClothern might get into a game. They're going to go with the veterans, though.

They're always going to go with the veterans. I don't know, even if Gilmore's banged up, if McLaughlin's going to play, maybe he will. He was someone they were very high on in training camp, but it's just Brian Flores should go with the veterans. They're 10 and two. They should go with the veterans. They're a really good team. That's competing. Like that's what you do. You don't throw out rookies and try to develop them and get them the highest snap count you can get them. You try to win every game. Wade, remember six months ago when everyone was confident Darnold would consistently grade higher than Cousins at 25% the price.

Me neither. Such an awesome ride to be on. I'm not shocked, though. I mean, I'm surprised, but I'm not shocked. How many times over the years did people say, well, who's going to play quarterback? If you don't have cousins, who's it going to be? And my answer was, let's find out. I remember in 2022, I said, and people were displeased that if they had just signed Marcus Mariota and let Kirk walk,

they'd probably win like 10 games. And the reaction was like, no way. Marcus Mariota is horrible. But the reaction when they signed Sam Darnold was that he was horrible. I wanted to find out, let's see. And Nick Mullins was the real test case. I think that, I don't know. They always wanted to do this. I get the sense that they always wanted to move on from Kirk in that draft for those quarterbacks. But if there was something that pushed them over the edge, it had to be those Mullins games. They should have beat Cincinnati. They should have beat Detroit the first time he played well enough to win those games. And his talent level compared to Sam Darnold is nowhere close.

Nick Mullins would even say that. And to be able to have an offense that could still put up yards like that and be one good throw away from beating Detroit at home with Nick Mullins, I think that said how strong the infrastructure really was. And I'm definitely not shocked that a guy who's 36 years old is struggling to recover from an Achilles injury. That is not surprising at all. That was always the biggest fear for me.

If you bring him back and the Achilles doesn't heal right, or he runs out of gas, what do you do? And their answer might end up uh to pennix uh new daddy oh would you say that darnold is an essentially a one read quarterback i would not say that no no i would not uh there's been plenty of times this year where he's dropped back in the pocket gone through his reads and let it rip it's not always the first read. I think that if you, if you give him the right opportunities where there's space that he can throw into that space with more anticipation than I thought, like early in the season, I kind of thought he was

lacking in anticipation throws, but those have really jumped up a lot. But he's read the defense fine this year. I mean, this last week, the sacks were him hanging on the ball a little too long and they weren't getting it blocked up right. Probably some of that is him as well. He's always going to try to hang in and get to another read. In fact, I would say that one of his big issues is probably that he's always trying to hang in and see if something flashes open to make that throw and where he's been a little better in his best moments is trying to throw the ball away. Uh, and, and, or even sometimes if you take a sack, then that's okay. Take a sack. That's all right. And they've overcome that. It's been fine. But he's been better at not making mistakes after he gets to his first read and just throwing out of bounds or something like that.

But as far as being a one-read quarterback, no, I don't think that's really true. I think him and Kevinvin o'connell are very much on the same page with this offense it's just that what o'connell needs to do in my humble opinion my non-former nfl quarterback observer opinion is the second half gets going when some of the short stuff gets going you you get a six yard screen to Justin Jefferson. Great. It's a positive play. Second and four off you go.

Hockinson underneath. Don't forget about him. Kind of forgot about him a little bit yesterday. Addison is so good on quick stuff. Get the ball out of his hands. Get the thing moving. Hunting big plays early. I get it. But sometimes Hunting big plays early, I get it,

but sometimes hunting completions early, hunting getting the ball out early, get a running back screen that works sometime. That would be my suggestion for the offense. Jason, what's the book behind you in the frame? This here little number you're referring to, that would be my book. Football is a numbers game.

Spent a year and a half reporting on pro football, focus analytics movement, its impact on the NFL, which would shock you how much it actually is. Since everybody on the internet says, no one cares about the grades. Well, I interviewed Casey Duffel Mensah for it, who said that one of the ways he got ahead in the NFL was by about the grades well i interviewed quesadilla fomenta for it who said

that one of the ways he got ahead in the nfl was by using the grades so i guess sometimes people do use the grades but that and much more for the reader in your life for the holiday season football is a numbers game wherever you get your books thank you for did you do that on purpose jason did you do that just for me so i could pump my book i appreciate that thank you uh alex says remember when you couldn't believe the packers moved on from jones for jacobs i guess uh i appreciate you listening long enough to remember that if you've got a dossier of the rest of all of my opinions from March, then that'd be fine. What's the comparison?

Like how's Aaron Jones doing? I mean, Jones fumbled the football twice in his last game, but how's he really doing? 820 yards, four and a half yards of carry, right? This year.

It's pretty good. How's Josh Jacobs doing? Josh Jacobs has 987 yards of 4.5 yards per carry. Seems to me that they worked out for both of them. One thing that I would maybe bring up with that is we have to really strongly consider more the environment for running back. I mean, environment for everybody, right? But the coach Matt LaFleur knows how to run the dang football. And I think what they were probably concerned about was Jones's health. That makes a lot of sense. If Aaron Jones is playing for green Bay with their running team, with their scheme, with their offensive line, is he out? Does he have the

same numbers? Uh, probably pretty close. It's's it did surprise me that they did that because aaron jones remember him in the playoffs last year he was incredible and josh jacobs had not been very good last year so yeah that did surprise me i think it's worked out really good for both teams i mean aaron jones has been phenomenal he has been an incredible signing for the vikings he just had the ball pop out a couple times the last few weeks they need him down the stretch as a receiver to catch the ball that they need him in the run game to make some special stuff happen they're going to need him to be good the rest of the way but he's brought the best running back play since what 2020 to this team uh Tony says seems like O'Connellnell and phillips are slow to figure

out what works each game see you know a lot of times what happens is we see a game and then we just say that that's everything remember a couple weeks ago where people were asking me is it only ko sees opening script that works and not the other but And then the opening script doesn't work. So it's, does he not know how to adjust? It's a game by game type of thing. I look this up for Kevin O'Connor because I got this question on the Friday mailbag on the written side a couple of weeks ago. And I looked this up and I looked at quarter by quarter where the Vikings rank touchdowns, points scored, yards per play, all that stuff. It doesn't really change for his career over how effective they are from quarter to quarter. It's kind of like saying, hey, this team scores a lot of their runs in baseball in the first

three innings. So they must be a first inning team. And then by the end of the season, they're distributed. They were slow to figure out what worked against the Arizona Cardinals. I also think that the Aaron Jones fumble really shocked everybody. And you felt some wind come out of the sails there. It just didn't seem right after that. Like something was wrong after the Aaron Jones fumble. I think it really shook everybody, but in the previous game against the bears, they fly down the field and Jones fumbles at the goal line, but they should have scored a touchdown there. Uh, there's been plenty of games where they jump out to a fast start. There's been some games where they don't and then figure it out a little later. I I've never really figured

out a rhyme or reason on a game to game basis with this. Uh, I just think that they're always hunting big plays and that sometimes they need to identify like, okay, that's not there. Let's get it to Hawkinson. Hawkinson should be a run play at this point, a seven yard pass to TJ Hawkinson is a run play. You're going to complete 90% of them. He's always there. He always catches it. He's going to fall forward. He's going to break a tackle sometimes. Like that's something that they need to establish super early on is we're going to go underneath the TJ Hawkinson until you make us not. Uh, I shot you 99, uh, is Will Reichard returning for the Falcons game or this team going to

let Romo continue kicking? Well, they're not going to let him. It's really the health of Will Reichard that has to do with that. I don't know. They opened his window today, but I don't know if he's going to practice. I'll find that out tomorrow. I don't know when he's going to come back. Usually they try to open the window with enough time for the player to get whatever he needs to be at a hundred percent. I don't want to rush Will Riker back, that's for sure. You do not want to be in a playoff game and all of a sudden he's having problems or something, right? So anyway, okay.

Well, great chat, my friends. It should be an exciting week of discussion. I was just talking with Mike Renner, CBS Sportsbs sports formerly pff and he's going to come on the show for this week maybe we'll get a falcons guest to talk about kirk i haven't booked anybody yet we'll see but the usual suspects jeremiah searles to break down everything that he saw from the game and going forward and uh manny hill on thursday andrew kramer star tribune there's a lot there's a lot coming i I'm very excited about it. And our Wednesday night chat will also happen

on Wednesday. It'll be just like this. So make sure that you pop in for that. And everybody, if you're new, subscribe, tell your friends, and sign up for the newsletter over at purpleinsider.football. So thanks so much, everybody, for watching. As always, again, really fun chat.

I think it should be an exciting week leading up to this game. Can't wait. And we'll talk to you guys later. Football.