Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Are the Vikings a mismatch for the Ravens?

Episode Date: November 8, 2025

Andrew Krammer of the Minnesota Star Tribune joins the show for a hardcore breakdown of this Sunday's Vikings-Ravens game. The Purple Insider podcast is brought to you by FanDuel. Also, check out our sponsor HIMS at https://hims.com/purpleinsider Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hey, everybody, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider presented by Fandul, Matthew Collar here, and just get to the injury update from Friday before we get to my conversation with Andrew Kramer from Inside TCO Performance Center for our hardcore breakdown. Aaron Jones is questionable for this game, and he seemed to be in good spirits, was limited and practiced both Thursday and Friday.

So some good signs for the potential of Aaron Jones being back on the field. And this is a game where I think he is absolutely vital, considering how aggressive the Baltimore Ravens are. They have not been one of the better run defenses in the NFL. And we saw just how effective it was for J.J. McCarthy to have Aaron Jones in his backfield last week, whether it was a swing pass or starting out with an explosive run, Jones, at his best. still has a lot of juice. So he will be dealing with this shoulder injury and we'll see where they go from there with Aaron Jones.

Also questionable in this game is Theo Jackson. He was dealing with a concussion and was in the concussion protocol. So do we see Theo back out there or will we get another look at Jay Ward who played well earlier in the season against Chicago but has not been out on the field very much? I guess we'll have to find out there as well. It is Josh Oliver and Jeff Okuda, who will be out, which means Fabian Moreau is likely to get a fair number of snaps again. And with Josh Oliver out, Nick Vanette, who was one of the quiet heroes of the game against the Detroit Lions, where Vinette played a lot of snaps, big personnel as a blocker and did a really good job in that game and was a difference maker. So he appears to be in line again to be taking a lot of snaps in this game if the Vikings use big personnel.

against Baltimore. So there is your injury report. Now let's get to the show with Andrew Kramer, Star Tribune. Hey, everybody, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider, presented by Fandul, Matthew Collar here, along with Andrew Kramer, the Star Tribune inside TCO Performance Center for our weekly hardcore breakdown of Vikings and Ravens. And I got to tell you, there has been a shot in the arm to this building, press conferences, locker room. I think everybody had the same feeling of that is the football team that the 2025 Vikings were expected to be. But you know, it doesn't mean a whole heck of a lot, Andrew. If they just do it for one week against the Lions, it only matters if they carry on through the rest of the season playing like they did against Detroit.

So why don't we start with big picture on this? And then we'll get into the J.J. McCarthy, what we expect, the defense, what they're going to do against Lamar Jackson. but I have really felt a different energy here, and I know we joke about the vibe checks and stuff, but it does feel like it's just a different feeling overall after the win against Detroit. Yeah, even just watching the post-game locker room video in Detroit and being there in Detroit

and seeing how the players rallied around J.J. McCarthy and that raw emotion and playmaking that he's got, West Phillips said it today, said I think the players feed off of that. And that's not to say that this kid is the center, most important player on this team, he might eventually be, but right now he's playing a role that is winning and is at least good enough to win, like he showed in Detroit, which shows all these veterans, brings up the vibes as we talk about, puts a pep in the step of everybody from coaches to players here at TCO, and they needed that, being at three and four coming off

of pretty much their two worst games of the season, maybe at least the worst game of the season in Los Angeles. We can talk about the Eagles game and whether or not that was as bad as it looked, But defensively, it certainly wasn't great. And so they get on the right track. They have their young quarterback back. It feels like, Matt, that they're getting closer to the vision that they had kind of dreamed of all summer. Well, and they built an offense really over two years to fit J.J. McCarthy. They drafted him to be the franchise quarterback.

And they didn't design it for Sam Darnold. He just ended up running it. And then they didn't design it for Carson Wentz or Sam Howell or Max Broseber or anybody else. They set this thing up from day one for J.J. McCarthy. and it looked like that was the case with some of the easy button stuff from him, some of the stuff that used his mobility, including a zone read, including a rollout where he throws a touchdown back across his body. It felt more comfortable for everyone.

And I think that the biggest thing, as we get into McCarthy here, number one was the way he ran the offense. And I don't mean the actual throws accuracy, which will have to come along as he goes forward. I mean Ford Field, it's loud as heck, and he's got to get the play call in. And I thought in the first two games, he struggled a bit with getting the play call in, getting the communication to the line, canning plays, making checks. And in this game, it didn't feel like he had that struggle at all.

And I think if you can get that fundamental piece down and start rolling week after week where he is in total control, then the other stuff will come along with it. Yeah, and it helps too when you have a 61-yard kickoff or two. turn that quiets the crowd. You have an 11-yard handoff on your first play. Next drive starts with a 14-yard handoff. They had a lot of things working around him. But you're right, that Atlanta game, even at home, when there wasn't a lot of noise when he was on the field, he couldn't get the words out it would seem. They were running up against the play clock pretty frequently. He was dropping the ball on a pitch. Like just even post plays, there's these post-snap, excuse me. There's these things

from McCarthy that look just out of sync and out of sort. And talking to our colleagues in the press row before the game in Detroit, the one thing I did not see, was him looking as poised as he did right out of the gate. It really wasn't until the hurry-up sequence before halftime where he started air-mailing some throws and on the run started getting jittery and seemed maybe too amped up like he can get. And coaches talk about him harnessing that energy,

not getting too out of his shoes at times and still trying to be locked in play after play. And that's all going to be a work in progress. But to see that in that environment showed us a glimpse of what we saw in that quarter four way back in Chicago in week one. We've seen it from him. We've seen the glimpses, but by far, Sunday was the most kind of quarter one, two,

three, to four that we saw at least a decent level of consistency in just your third start. The run game here is going to be vital, and we're going to find out, as we record this, we don't know about Aaron Jones's status, but they need the running game to build off of, I think, everything with McCarthy. And even during the game, I thought in the middle, in the second and somewhat in the third quarter, they weren't running as successfully and they weren't building off of play action the way I think that you want

to with J.J. McCarthy, there were probably too many snaps for me that were just straight up out of the shotgun, sometimes an empty protection, which I just think maybe not the greatest idea, as we saw, or even when Jordan Mason was in the backfield, asked to pass protect, he gets run over

and maybe you want to have more guys in there protecting. Maybe you don't want to have too many times where he's just asked to be in the shotgun. and straight drop back, look at four different options. And I thought they moved away from that a little later in the game, hit a great play action throw to Jordan Addison to move the ball. And then his scrambling ability can also paper over where maybe you do have a miscommunication. Maybe a guy doesn't run a right route.

Or maybe he doesn't have 100% of the play mastered against whatever defense or he's surprised. That's where I think McCarthy with this offense can even things out where when Carson Wentz is in there, Even Sam Darnold was not a difference maker really at all with his legs. He could occasionally roll out and get a couple of yards. I think McCarthy showed in this game and against Chicago, it's difference making running. He's not Lamar, but he's somewhere in between. Maybe remember when Daniel Jones for the Giants ran for, I don't know, 800 yards or something? It's kind of like that where they can dial in things to use his legs specifically.

And I think that becomes a huge factor going forward. Yeah, when was it? Was it like the third quarter when we saw that? read option like they don't bring it out a lot and you kind of wonder how much Kevin O'Connell wants to lean or not lean on that considering that job number one is developing him as a pocket passer in this offense obviously they want to improve his accuracy when he's throwing on the run they do want to roll him out and then use that mobility in spurts but it seems to be only off schedule for the most part the times that

they're designing runs for him don't seem very frequent but yeah he he sputtered and the play calling might have sputtered with him quarters two quarters three after the first two opening drives he went like 9 of 18 for 75 yards wasn't a lot of production but then they get the easy button stuff like you mentioned the read option then the nine yard touchdown run that he that he gets that the stuff in the red zone where the development as a passer is going to be much more difficult those graduate level kind of parts where you know areas of the field that'll be toughest on him will be the red zone when it gets condensed what I'm trying to say is that when he runs that's where it's going to be the most effective and the ravens have been really good

as a red zone defense recently. They've only given up like three touchdowns in the last 11 trips for their opponents going back to when they faced the Rams and gave them a hard time three weeks ago when Pooka Nakua went out. So the Ravens give up a lot of yardage, but once they get down there,

they're going to need McCarthy's mobility. They're going to need Jordan Mason, Aaron Jones, and the run game to produce because this Ravens secondary does not give you a lot of opportunities to throw it. So, yeah, let's dive into what the Ravens bring to the table here because their last couple of games have been against underwhelming

opponents maybe where they've gotten it back on track and so much of the NFL is like that for a lot of teams. It's like, well, if you're playing a good team, you look worse. If you're playing a bad team, you look better. If you're playing Miami, you look fantastic. Miami and Cincinnati just shouldn't even count on anybody's stat sheet. And going back to Chicago, their defense played pretty well, made a key interception, but also Caleb Williams kind of threw it right to them in the worst possible moment. So I don't really know where I'm supposed to stand. The one number that blows me away, though, that I'm pulling up on their stat sheet here, is that their team leader in Sacks is Madabike, who is one of the better defensive tackles in the league at rushing

the passer. He played two games. There's a catch, yeah. That is their leader inside. That reminds me how, like, in 2020, it was Yanni Kengakwe, who led the Vikings, and they traded him at the deadline, and he finished leading the team. They can't rush the passer really at all. And I think for J. J.J. McCarthy, if there's a thing through these first number of games that's been concerning, it is the number of sacks. He's up to, I think, 14 sacks that he's taken, and he's only played three games so far. If there's a team to get right in the sack realm, it's this Baltimore team. Yeah, and the Ravens will blitz you. Like that's maybe because they don't have a good pass rush. They will, Zach or the defensive coordinator, will dial it up. And on third down,

you go back to the Miami game, they'll still make you play quarterback at a, you know, somewhat high level. When you see Tua have to read where the blitz is coming from and throw into the vacancy, those are things that McCarthy is going to have to do to succeed. And you saw Detroit play plenty aggressively against him and him find ways. He checks into the Aaron Jones screen on the opening touchdown drive. That's the kind of stuff he's going to have to continue to do and be consistent with because the Ravens are going to try to compensate for their lack of talent up front in that way. But they do not force a lot of negative plays. You mentioned the sacks, how low those are they have only four seven turnovers this season,

and three of those takeaways came against Miami like you talk about. So if you don't even count those, it's four takeaways in the other seven games for them. So I think this is a defense that you can play keep away from, and that's got to be Kevin O'Connell's goal going into a game that the Ravens can certainly turn into a shootout. And the blitz has been problematic for McCarthy. Like if you look at his numbers against the blitz throughout these three games,

I mean, even if we don't look at the Atlanta game against Chicago and against Detroit, his performance has not been very good. And I think that that comes to, you have to do a lot of work. And this is why Brian Flores blitz is so much because he's going to say to the opposing quarterback, all right, do the work. Like, go through where the rushers are coming from, identify where the vacancies are. And what Flores' philosophy has usually been is, I bet you can't do it over and over and over again. I think the Ravens are going to bring a lot of the same against McCarthy and say, do it time and time and time again. And that's why building off of the run is so valuable because if you can get to second and four, well, can they really dial up their nastiest blitz when you might be running? You might run a screen.

You might run a play action and things like that. Not forcing J.J. McCarthy to play extreme level quarterback midnight all the time against the Ravens because they don't have the horses right now. I mean, Smith is a good player, Roquan Smith, and Kyle Hamilton is really the X factor for this entire defense and this entire game. I saw someone say, or maybe you said to me, like that Kyle Hamilton is their only player. He is their entire defense. And you can definitely see that when you watch them, he's going to have deception. He has playmaking. He will blitz.

He will drop back. He will be man to man, and he can do it all. And I know I can hear you cringing on the other side that the Vikings could have had this player. I get it. But going up against them, he really is the only guy that you feel like is scary. So if you can manage him on the other side and put him in positions where he can't be as dangerous, then you've got a chance to roll as an offense against this team. Yeah, and I do think the Vikings flexibility on offense, their ability to just run away from certain people.

I have to imagine they'll just find Kyle Hamilton and throw or run from whichever direction away from him. And just to pause for a second, Vikings fans, they got good reason because Brian Flores would have fun with that guy. Like, he would look pretty good in this Brian Flores system, considering that when you watch just the last game against the Dolphins, they end up trading for safety Alohi Gilman to put back there to drop Hamilton into the nickel a lot. And you'll see him just lining up at edge rusher. You'll see him taking on a guard in the run game.

Then you'll see him drop back and deflect a pass in the secondary. He's just this chess piece that they can use wherever they want. And his talent stands out in a relatively talentless defense with the Ravens. We're outside of Marlon Humphrey, I just don't see. a ton of, and Roquant Smith, you mentioned, I don't see a ton of individual talent here. I think in terms of the run game, you talk about that with the Vikings and making things easy with McCarthy, this Ravens group gives up a lot on the ground. They give up a lot of yards in general. But when you watch what A-Chant was able to do with them, rip-off runs of 19, 22,

I think he had another 20-yarder. It was very boom or bust with him. But you see the speed and what it does to the Ravens defense that they just don't have the speed to match on that side. Aaron Jones, if he's healthy enough, I imagine they're going to put a lot of padding on that AC joint sprain he's got and tell him to get out there and outrun some Ravens defenders. Yeah, and even with Jordan Mason, I feel like his impact has been somewhat limited over the last few weeks after a really good start to the season where I feel like this is a game where you can have someone who can run over people, wear down a defense that is, I'll call it just a little mushy, just feels a little mushy in comparison to some of the teams that they've played,

even Detroit, where they ran successfully, there's a lot of talent, and there's a lot of toughness on that group. I'm less convinced. This just doesn't feel like a Ravens defense of the past where you'd be saying, oh, man, Michael Pierce and Brandon Williams are in there. How are you going to run against those guys up the middle? This team is not so much like that. It feels like there's opportunities abound. So where do we set the bar in this game for J.J. McCarthy? Fanduel has him at 205.5 yards is the over-under for him, which I think is a good.

good number because they will have to pass in this game. Baltimore is going to score. I don't think that they could just get up seven to nothing and kneel down or whatever. So it's going to be a game where you have to score. But also, I think that it's going to have to be slow progression for J.J. McCarthy from week to week. We shouldn't just say, wow, you had a really good win against Detroit. Now, please go ahead and be Josh Allen. But the truth has to be somewhere in the middle. We need to see some progress, especially as Kevin O'Connell. he continue to talk about being more accurate with the football. Yeah, and I think I would take the over in this case,

not to get too overexcited based off this one Detroit win for him. But you saw the aggressiveness in taking shots downfield, specifically the 31-yard or to Addison, the opening throw he had that should have been caught. It should have been a touchdown to Addison. That was a better throw of them, the touchdown that was actually caught by Justin Jefferson, who caught just a missile with one hand.

Those kinds of plays make me think that, okay, they're going to try and do the similar things. things against the Ravens who give up big plays. I think they rank 27th in the amount of big pass plays they allow over 20 yards downfield. They're among the league worst and giving up the most air yards to quarterbacks. They can rally and tackle. They're not the worst defense in terms of playing down low, but I still imagine the Vikings will do some of those easy button plays with McCarthy to get the ball out of his hands

quick, but I think there's going to be opportunities for shots to take. And the Vikings certainly have the talent to do it downfield with Jefferson or Addison, and those guys should have opportunities. Maybe it's off the play-action run game. Maybe it's just the quick three-step drop, you know, kind of go-balls that we saw in Detroit if Baltimore wants to be as aggressive as Detroit was. I also thought that J.J. McCarthy left 75 yards out on the field against Detroit. I mean, we could go through the different plays.

But just in terms of his accuracy, O'Connell mentioned one where he throws it so hard to a wide-open just to Jefferson that it knocks him down. I guess he was reaching out. And in one film breakdowns, I was like, I don't know why he went to the ground. Because the ball is heavy and is going really fast. That's why his inertia, I think, would be the reason where, you know, I think O'Connell's opinion was if you just lay that ball out there to Jefferson and he catches it in full speed, he's maybe gaining 10, 15, 20 more yards if he can make someone miss. But I also think that when you can have those receivers that you understand the offense and where to go enough with the football and the only correction to make is, hey, put a little more touch on it.

Like, you've already accomplished 80% of the way there, now just get a little bit more consistent, which you expect after building up reps and another key to this, a full week of practice leading in. This is something that McCarthy has not had normal circumstances going Sunday to Sunday two times in a row, yet in his career. So he's going to get that. And I think that we will see incremental improvements. I don't expect him to immediately become the next Drew Breed.

but I think that some of those yards that were out there knowing that, hey, these are the things I have to improve on. One thing I really like about McCarthy is that he's always willing to look inward and say, all right, that throw right there. He even mentioned it to us after the game. He was mad at himself for that throw on the run. That's something I have to work on this week. So I do expect more accuracy this week against Baltimore. It's interesting, too, to listen to coaches about kind of how far they will and won't go with the critiques of him. Just listening to O'Connell say, like, they're not going to necessarily over-critique McCarticle.

if he takes a completion, but there might have been a deeper shot open downfield. No, let's be happy with the fact that our young quarterback is taking completions like we're coaching him to and still understand that there are positive plays, even if it's not the most positive play available on the film. But you're right. There were some plays where he was running around too much. It seemed like the pocket presence kind of waned at times where he's taking off to the sideline, waiting, wait and by in time, not finding anybody.

Yet if he would have stood in there, looked at the other side of the field, he would have found somebody because the pocket wasn't collapsing the way that it seemed around him. Those things should come with time. They come with experience. They come with feel. They come with just time behind an offensive line that's still regrouping itself. And I think it was great news for the Vikings that Christian Derasaw said this week that he's getting close to 100%. Brian O'Neill is not even on the injury report after dealing with two knee injuries last month. Like that's an early Christmas gift for the young McCarthy. Yeah. And it's interesting about how different people watch the game because I think some

folks analyzing that said, oh, the offensive line allowed too many pressures. I thought the offensive line against Detroit had a really, really good game, and the quarterback allowed some of those pressures by, like you said, rolling out too much, maybe hanging on to the football too long. The play that gets intercepted and called back, he's drifting and drifting, and then just heaves it up in the air, like things like that. That's going to allow a lot more pressure where you do need to just check that ball down or you do need to just dirt that ball and move on.

But overall, I thought the offensive line, the push they got in the run game, It was significant, and I really like the way Donovan Jackson has been playing this whole year, really. But I thought against Detroit, considering the degree of difficulty, he flashes all the skill. And if it's Derisaw at 100%, Jackson at 100%. I mean, you can do a lot on that left side with the run game. And I think the pass protection is so much, so much better. This team doesn't have Aiden Hutchinson. And that's the other thing, too.

Hutchinson was really the player alone that killed their offensive line. they don't have that with Baltimore so I think there will be a lot of time to throw the ball and yeah I would go over as well in this game I think that some of that stuff will get cleaned up let's flip to the other side Lamar Jackson has a 136 point something

passer rating so far 0.7 but in his five games he's taken 17 sacks and he has only run for 180 yards which is just not what you expect in either one of those numbers for Lamar Jackson he does take sack because he scrambles, but that's an extreme amount. This defense, I think, is going to

stay with who they are against Lamar and just be wildly aggressive and the X-factor player to this entire thing. I think is Eric Wilson because he lined up in the middle. He lined up outside linebacker. I think he's going to be doing a lot of chasing around of Lamar Jackson and the way he's playing has added, I think, a different dynamic to this defense that wouldn't have been there if they had Ivan Pace starting. Yeah, Eric will be huge. They've used Cashman as a spy when they do that. And Cashman obviously strains his hamstring while spying Caleb Williams back in week one.

I imagine Cashman is going to have a long day potentially doing that too. But I want to know like Jonathan Allen, J. Vaughn Hargrave, all these guys that we talk about being so important, are they going to be the discipline rushers they need to be against a mobile quarterback when I think of a playback in L.A. Where it was the 18-yard scramble with Herbert, in part because Jonathan Allen picks aside, maybe gets a little undisciplined with the rush lane. I'm not sure what he's getting coached to do in that moment. I didn't talk to him about it. But Herbert picks the other side.

It goes right up the middle for 18 yards. Like that's the kind of stuff that we heard Mike Zimmer for years as a coach here, yell at his defensive line about gap discipline, two gaping it, one and a half gaping it, making sure you're not letting that quarterback out when they faced Kyler Murray or whomever. Jackson's going to do that to you regardless of what he's done in the past. He has that option. And I think this Viking secondary is dealing with some things too,

with Akuta being out, Theo Jackson and the Concord. precaution protocol, I think they could pick or choose their poison a little bit on how the Ravens want to attack. If the Vikings are as aggressive against Lamar as they were against Jared Goff, keeping him in the pocket is going to be so crucial because that would easily turn into a 30-yard run for Lamar if you do not. Right. No, there's a lot of plays with Jared golf where he just has to throw the ball in the ground that Lamar, you know Lamar would be trying to scramble out of there and make plays. And the idea that they used last week of dropping the edge rushers often. Both rushers were in double digits of dropping back as they rushed up the

middle. I'm curious if we see the opposite of that or if we do see them continue to drop into zones out there. So when Lamar scrambles to the outside that he's going to go up against Andrew Van Ginkle or Jonathan Grenard. And I know that sometimes you'll see an edge rusher drop out if there's a complete pass. It's why was your best edge rusher dropping out? But so many times there was those stunts up the middle from the linebackers that cause all sorts of problems. But what we know about Brian Flores is what you see one week might be completely different than next week. So I expect him to do none of that this week against. Like the thing that worked against Jared Goff, knowing that he has weakness up the middle with pressure,

I think trying to get Lamar not to be able to scramble to those outsides will be huge. And I also think we could just say 100%. And Andrew Van Ginkle is the linchpin to this defense, and they are a different team, and we just have to grade them differently. It's sort of like when Derisaw is not in, yeah, we're just grading the offensive line completely differently. They can't play the same, and the same thing goes for Van Ginkle. I thought it was telling in regards to Van Ginkle when Dallas Turner went in for one of the first times in Detroit. It was on a second and 16, and the Lions went, we're going to hand off to Gibbs right at him, right at that guy. And it was a seven-yard run.

It was Gibbs' best run of the day. When Van Ginkle's in, you just don't have a weak point that you're going to target necessarily on offense if you are on offense facing them. So he's so good. Flores said it today about how even the sack that Jalen Redman got, Flores said that was a stunt that Van Ginkle called on the field. You're not getting that from your second year edge rusher in Dallas Turner probably fairly often. So it comes with a confidence. It comes with an instinctiveness to know on the field what you're seeing, the formations. just all that experience he's got.

He's such a heady player and somebody that things come so quickly to him in a game that is so critical for it to happen. And yeah, he's a game wrecker after the snap as well. So I think those edge players are going to be incredibly important. In the familiarity that the Vikings have with Detroit, this is going to be another key to me. They don't have that familiarity with Baltimore.

So when Gibbs is motioning as often as he did at the perimeter, they clearly had an alert where they would drop whichever edge rusher they motioned toward to take away and kind of, take away the numbers disadvantage that that motion created. Are they going to have the same comfort and familiarity with a Baltimore offense that Flores has not seen in some time that the Vikings have not seen since 2021? I don't think it's going to come as easy, which makes me wonder, there could be some curve balls.

Baltimore can throw at you in a way that Detroit with a new coordinator might not necessarily be able to have done. And here's another part I'm interested in, too. With the secondary, it's been big play after big play over the last few weeks. And we can't just say that against Detroit, everything was flawless because it certainly was not when you give up a 40-yard touchdown on fourth down. And there's three players kind of in the area. None of them are on Sam Leporta. And Jameson Williams gets the big catch as well.

These receivers, though, this receiving group, as great as Lamar Jackson's numbers are throwing the football, he's averaging over nine yards per pass attempt. And then you look at the receivers and you go, but where exactly is that? I mean, Zayflowers is a good receiver, but 12 yards a catch. It's not like he's got a million explosive plays, one touchdown. Mark Andrews is under 10 yards of carry. It's really been D'Andre Hopkins for a handful of big plays. That, to me, just does not scream deep ball to D'Andre Hopkins. It's been a handful of place for him.

Bateman doesn't have a lot there. I mean, it's just... Baitman would be the guy, right? Isaiah likely. Yes, yeah. Maybe Isaiah likely. It's not quite the same. When you look at the receivers they've played recently, where it's Devante Smith,

and A.J. Brown, elite, Ladd-McConkie, and then the murder of all things, Vikings, Keenan Allen. And then even last week, Jameson-Williams is A-plus-plus-plus speed, Amun-Ross, St. Brown. I just don't see that with Baltimore the same way it was with these recent

opponents that have shredded the secondary. Well, when Okuda gave up, what was it, the 27-yard touchdown to McConkey before halftime in L.A., like, that's something Bateman can do. Oh, yeah, they can't do that. But you're right. It's not necessarily going to be fourth down to A.J. Brown. He, you know, just goes down the sideline and hurts has such an impeccable, you know, feel for where he's going

to be, throws it over Mattelis like that. I don't think they do that quite as often because the receiving talent, as you mentioned, is not that great. Where they win is if Zayflowers is breaking eight tackles in a game, if they can get Derek Henry and Lamar going with a lot of the quick passing stuff they do in the runs to open that up, like that's kind of where they can win. And they do take shots. They can be that intermediate level offense because Lamar is so good at every every single level. But I do wonder if they can pick apart the Viking zones. This is a little what we saw with Philadelphia. If you can buy time at the quarterback position against this Vikings pass rush, you will find voids downfield against this Viking secondary.

I'm interested to know if they get them a nickel, who is the nickel if Theo's not playing and if Okuda's not playing, which it seems like he's not. Is it Fabian Moreau? Is it Jay Ward? Those are areas that you start to get a little worried about if you're going on second six, seven, eight of Lamar just buying that. time. Yeah, and I will say Jay Ward played really well in the first game of the season when he had to get in there quite a bit. And I've kind of wondered at times, and I know they love Theo Jackson, and I think he's been a player on the rise for a few years. But I have wondered about Jay and his development. He is a draft pick for them that looked good and got a lot of reps in training camp. If, I mean, Flores has said it, like whoever goes out there and plays better just keeps playing. So could we see Jay Ward? Fabian Morel played really well against the Lions, where it's, you need some random heroes if you're going to win a game like that. And I thought Nick Vanette and Fabian Morrow were those random heroes that are on the practice squad. As the weeks go by, though, where I wonder, are we going to be saying you guys needed

to make a move at that deadline and get another corner, or are we going to be saying, well, actually, it's okay because all these other teams are playing bigger personnel. So that kind of plays into what you guys like to do with Mattelis and two safeties. I'm curious to find out. And I think that kind of starts right here, an opportunity for the corners to start turning it around. We haven't seen Byron Murphy make the big plays, the splash plays that he had made in the past. Rogers has the one game against Cincinnati, but hasn't had other splash plays. They're going to give up passes against them.

That's going to happen when you play great receivers. But I think the other side of it has to be there. Like they need guys to make game-changing plays. Cashman was the guy who did it against the Lions. They need someone in the secondary step up and get it. darn interception here. They're not making plays on the ball. Like even just many deflections, they're not. And I wonder what that has to do with. I think early on in the season, they were playing a lot of teams that, you know, wanted to get the ball out quickly,

wanted to just test their poor tackling, which was poor early on. But they're just not doing what they did last year when they led the NFL with, I think it was like 80 something past deflections and there was 24 interceptions. Like they were very good at that last year. And we're not seeing that this year for whatever reason. And Unfortunately, Lamar Jackson is not the kind of guy who gives you a lot of chances to do that. Yeah, no, that's absolutely true. Let's talk about expectations for this game because on Fandul, the Vikings are four and a half point underdogs. It's kind of odd when you look at the standings and go, a home team would be underdogs when the other team doesn't have a winning record.

But there's always a lot more belief in Baltimore knowing who their quarterback is. A lot of those lines are often just set based on the quarterback. How high should we raise the bar? Because I think it's the hardest question. In a week-to-week league, it has been so week-to-weeky for the Minnesota Vikings. You come out of, I'm sure that we had this conversation going into the Atlanta game, coming out of Chicago. And like, well, I mean, they should beat Atlanta. And it feels like they should beat Baltimore.

It feels like from top to bottom, they're stronger. But I don't ever want to underestimate the gentleman who wears number eight that's going to be playing quarterback for Baltimore. So are you picking them to win or lose this football game? I picked the Vikings to lose last week. I'm often wrong, as fans will remind me. I'm going to pick them to lose this week. So there you go, Vikings fans, you're welcome. I think they're going to lose because, like you said,

if Lamar has the ball at the end of the game, if it's within one score, I trust his ability to find a way. And I think what the Vikings did in Detroit was really press on that weak point of Detroit's offense in their interior offensive line. And they were able to then help neutral. the lion's best player on offense in Jemir Gibbs, and we can argue if that's St. Brown or Gibbs, but I'm going to say it's Gibbs for the point of my argument. They neutralized him. They took away the runs early on, then obviously they blitz so much that he couldn't

release out in pass protection, and then they outcoached him because they couldn't figure out, the lions couldn't figure out how to get Gibbs the ball when they probably should have figured something out. You can't do that to the Ravens because Lamar is their best player. You can't force the ball out of his hands. You can't neutralize him the same way. He's going to be able to hold that thing as long as he wants to and do whatever he wants. And unless the Vikings can contain him in the pocket, rally as a team tackle him not just one at a time, but two at a time. That's what they're going to have to do. And I just think it's a tough ask for a defense that has struggled against mobile quarterbacks.

I need to see them do well against a mobile quarterback before I pick them to beat Lamar Jackson. So I think the Vikings lose this game. So we didn't really do a lot of diving into Derek Henry, but I'll just say that if they can avoid giving up the big play to Henry, who has not been the same on a play-to-play, basis, but he has still broken out those 50, 60-yard runs. If you can avoid those on a play-to-play basis, then I think you've got a much better chance of forcing Lamar into the situations that every quarterback is less great at, which is, you know, third in eight, third and ten. He can convert them.

He's a great passer. He's a great runner. But you also might get a sack. You might get a mistake, an interception or something like that against him. Because everything for them usually builds off of what they're doing. doing in the run game, and they just haven't had that consistency, which I think is one of the reasons they're not a winning team. I would tend to lean toward the Hall of Fame quarterback over the kid making his fourth start. I think the Vikings are a better football team from

top to bottom. And I just, something is off. Okay, how about this? A vibes-based pick for me. Total, total vibes pick. We love the analytics. We break down every single element. Something's just been weird with the Ravens all year. It just does not feel. feel to me like that as a connected team. You said this about the Eagles, and then they lost to the Eagles. Yeah. They actually outplayed the Eagles on a play-to-play basis, and they went one for six in the red zone, so can't predict the ball.

But like, I'll just say that, that if we're talking about things that generally don't predict games that great, but I don't really know where else to go with this, momentum off of last week, may or not be real. Vimes may or may not be real when it comes to week-to-week basis. but I think that it's very even when they have one really great player and then a pretty weak team and this team has a pretty strong team and a quarterback that's inexperienced

they are at US Bank Stadium Lamar hasn't been here before I'll go I'll go Vikings but very very close like 24 to 21 wow if that happens that is an incredible defensive performance somehow if you're holding this Ravens

because this Ravens team is Lamar's games he's lost, have been complete shootouts. It was like when the Texans put up, I think, 40 some points or some of the Ravens, or excuse me, the bills put up a bunch, the chiefs put up a bunch. They have not been held down often in terms of that offensively. So the Vikings defense, if that happens, if your prediction comes to fruition, Vikings defense has a heck of a chance to change the narrative of this season, the trajectory of this season, and stack the two most impressive games if that, if that happens back to back. Call it shooting my shot on a totally meaningless prediction that a never, Well, you know, I mean, we probably get 50% of these right like everybody else in the world.

So anyway, we'll see what happens. But we will both definitely be there at U.S. Bank Stadium and continue week after week to break down these games. So thank you so much for your time, Mr. Kramer. And we will catch you all very soon. Football. Football. Viby football.