Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Are we overreacting to Vikings loss to Eagles? (Part 2)

Episode Date: October 21, 2025

Matthew Coller talks with Vikings fans about the loss to Philly and then the round table breaks it down. 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.

This episode of Purple Insider is presented by FanDuel. So Brian Murphy, jumping in here for the roundtable with Murph and Manny. Mani will be here in just a second. Murph, give me your reaction to that FanDuel question of the day. The Vikings now plus 1,700 to win the North. And Chicago has better odds than them. Is that fair or not fair? I think it's fair based on how Chicago's kind of rebounded from their ugly O.

And two start, they're looking relevant. And it's sort of what we maybe projected a bit, that, you know, the Bears would be on the rise because of Ben Johnson, because they'd have some competent offensive play calling to go with Caleb Williams. And I think you've seen that come to fruition. Now, look, they're not going to have the Saints to kick around every week. So it's kind of convenient that they've been able to make some hay because of their schedule. But the way the Vikings have looked, you know, three and three is about where I think they deserve to be right now. And they may be fortunate it's not worse, considering they really haven't put together a complete game. You know, Cincinnati, yes, but it was Jake Browning and they were still a bit shell-shock because of the loss of Joe Burrow.

I'm not sure they would have ragdolled all the Bengals with Joe Flacco now the way he's playing. So I just haven't seen a complete 60 minutes at all from the Vikings. I'm not sure when we will. Yeah, no, I certainly agree with that. And thank you to Adrian for the super chat. And yes, I agree. That one sequence, I totally agree that three straight passes from the six. You're right.

They needed to hand off second down at one. There's no question. Yeah. So, Manny, about that Fandul question of the day with the Bears now. having a better chance to win the North than the Vikings, according to our friends at Fanduil, is that just an overreaction to the Bears pulling off some games against some really bad teams? Or do you think that this Vikings team is sort of destined to be where they are right now against a Bears team that's on the rise and other NFC North teams that are clearly thriving,

including MIRF's Detroit Lions as we speak? yeah the bears are the bears are an interesting team because they seem to be playing a lot better but they've been doing it against you know lesser competition even even against you know Washington they had to kind of pull a rabbit out of a hat to to and have some things go their way to win that game and and you know we're kind of starting to wonder how good of a team Washington actually is now, especially now with Jayden Daniels, probably going to be out for a little while with the hamstring thing that he suffered yesterday. You know, and they, like Murph said, I mean, they're not going to be able to kick around the New Orleans Saints every single week. Now, you do look at the schedule for the Bears over the next month, the next four weeks.

They're at Baltimore. The Ravens are kind of struggled. See what happens, you know, when Lamar comes back. You know, Cincinnati maybe has found some energy with Joe Flack. but I don't know the Giants are a mess and then they're going to play the Vikings on November 16th so if the Bears find a way to kind of keep this going over the next like if they win two out of the next three games to set up that matchup with the Vikings that game's going to be really pivotal I think to kind of determine which one of these two teams is going to kind of avoid the seller of the NFC North, so to speak. Appreciate score one more for the Super Chad, by the way. So and also to Adrian, of course, you don't want Wentz to throw 42 passes.

That's what happens when you're losing all day. And that's the problem that the Vikings have faced, right? I mean, it's a lot easier to pound away with Jordan Mason. And I also think that Carson Wentz on a play-to-play basis was finding open receivers all over the field. So they move the ball quickly to score and stay in the game because they passed so much. But, you know, that's, again, I feel like that's, it's just sort of something that gets boring to me of like, oh, they lost so they must have had all the wrong play calls, no matter what happened contextually. So let's pull back a little bit and talk about where they stand just with quarterback again, Murph, where we're having this discussion about should they just play J.J. McCarthy anyway, again. the Los Angeles Chargers, I say no, that it's not a good idea if he has not practiced

at all to play him against the Chargers on a short week and just like, hey, go out there and just figure it out, kid. That didn't work very well against the Atlanta Falcons. I don't think that would work very well against the Chargers. And you risk the confidence, you risk the health because if he doesn't know where to go with the football, then you're talking about taking hits. And Wentz is here in some ways to be a crash test dummy. so J.J. McCarthy doesn't have to play while he's banged up.

I think that calls for him to return are just frustration. And to tell you the truth, I also think probably boredom. I think that watching Wentz and it feels like you're just not moving anywhere. I don't know if anybody else did this, but after my first two years of college, I took a year off. And let me tell you, about three months into that, it felt like, oh, man, my life is moving nowhere. I am in total purgatory and I need to figure something out. I need to figure out how to be a professional podcaster someday. That wasn't exactly what I said.

But you get the point. Like I felt like, man, I'm going nowhere. And that's how it feels, Murph, with the Vikings as long as Carson Wentz is starting. So I think that the calls for JJ to start are less about the logic of it and more about the just let me see the kid play. Yeah. And that kind of goes to the let's just see Max Rosemar play too. which is even more absurd right now.

It's always about the shiny object that's not in. We went through this a couple of years ago with the carousel. You know, Josh Jobs, Jaron Hall, they had a few moments. Nick Mullins had a moment. And you're wondering, well, maybe they can patch this all together. Well, over the course of two and a half months without Kirk Cousins, we saw what happened. This is what you have with Wentz. He's erratic.

He's rusty. He's indecisive. He runs into tackles. and he's also a fearless playmaker that can occasionally fling a pass and get some momentum going and find the playmakers. You're going to get the balloon ball pick sixes. You're going to get or you're going to get the balloon ball interception and the pick sixes because this is who he is.

This is who he's always been. This is the same guy. 31 other teams said, we don't want as of August 23rd. And the only reason he's here is because they whiffed on Sam Howell. So to really expect him to be doing. much more, it's probably a fool's errand. And the idea that, well, it's just not working. You got to get McCarthy in there would fly in the face of every bit of logic and every bit of lecturing. Kevin O'Connell has given us over the last several weeks about how important it is

to have continuity for the week, how important it is to have his right ankle completely healed so that he can plant and throw and drive and get out of the pocket, escape pressure. pressure, make things happen. They're going to have one practice this week before getting on a plane to L.A. So the idea that he's going to just practice tomorrow, everything will be fine, get him in, because we already know what we have with Wence, and he can't be much worse. Well, I think he can be much worse, and he might be much worse because he's coming in so cold. And so I would say unprepared. You've got another long week ahead leading up to the Detroit game. But again, where is his high ankle sprain. And are we talking about something that, you know, how forthcoming have

they been? They've been kind of slow playing details about this injury. We know high ankle sprains are fickle. We know they take a long time to heal. And the way O'Connell's been describing what needs to happen for him to heal makes this sound like it could be several more weeks. So the notion that suddenly all of that's going to get thrown out in a panic move and they're going to thrust him in the lineup on a short week, not only is it absurd, but it just, it flies in the face of everything we've heard. Well, the other day I wrote Manny that whatever they think is the best thing to do for J.J. McCarthy short and long term is what they should do, no matter how popular and also

no matter how panicked. And it would make sense to me logically that he should be healed up enough and with enough practice leading up to the Detroit game. I think if he's not, then you're really saying, okay, like you said, Murph, he said he had swelling, he traveled all the way over to Europe, probably shouldn't have done that, didn't get any practice over there, comes back, can't practice in full because he's not up to 100% with the ankle. I mean, I can be on board with all that despite everything that people on the internet are saying to get themselves engagement or whatever else. Okay, all that sounds very reasonable to me for a young quarterback to not be forced back out there. I do think if he's not playing against Detroit because if they had beaten Philly with Wence and then they beat the charges like now we're talking okay well they're playing really well and they don't want to bench their starting quarterback so go until the wheels come off but basically the wheels came off against Philadelphia no matter what happens against Los Angeles the run-up should be good but I still think even if Kevin O'Connell feels like I need one more week with him before I really feel confident then do it because you're not making decisions based on Just this season with J.J. McCarthy is not his last season. I don't think in the NFL or at least the way that they should see it. I know every game feels like it's the end of days. But if you're looking at him like, hey, you want to have the best possible sample size of him to also evaluate, not just to win and get better performance than you did with Wentz, but also to evaluate what you actually have here because you're going to have to make a decision. Is he your quarterback? Or do you need to call Mac, Jones and get him in here and start next year.

Yeah, and I think they know and they understand and they know this better than any of us because they are seeing him every day and they are in those offices having those conversations about this huge investment. I mean, it is J.J. McCarthy is an investment. I mean, he's on a rookie scale contract, but this is still a massive investment because this is potentially the future of your franchise that you have control of right now and you don't want to treat anything with kid gloves

but you also have to be very careful not to put him out there in a situation where he's just not ready to go yet and if he's not fully healed that ankle is not fully healed I mean we've been having conversations about you know and Kevin O'Connell's been having conversations and being asked about you know

where J.J. McCarthy is that from a mechanical standpoint? I mean, well, if he's not fully healthy, you throw him out there and he's going to be doing things on an ankle that's not 100% and that could potentially screw up his mechanics and if that's something he's already needs to work on,

then you're potentially risking like just screwing him up completely and permanently. And so you do have to be careful. You don't want to, you know, you don't want to slow cook this thing too much, but you also have to play your cards right and I understand like you know just selfishly speaking

I want to see JJ McCarthy play I want to see what they have I want to see if he's the guy that's going to be the franchise quarterback for the next decade we all want to see that but I only want to see that when he's actually ready to play because if he's not

you're making a huge huge risk of really screwing him up And if you do that, now you're back to the drawing board and having to take another quarterback and invest in another development and another two or three years of figuring out what you actually have. Oh, trust me. Some of us are invested financially when it comes to the views that YouTube videos get, the subscriptions, all those sorts of things in J.J. McCarthy starting. But I cannot sacrifice my journalistic morals and demand that J.J. McCarthy start. But clearly everybody wants to see McCarthy out there and start finding out what you have. That's absolutely true. But if you do it too soon, then you're not finding out.

Then you're finding out a version that's unprepared or you're finding out a version that's not at 100% health. Yeah. And Colorado to kind of piggyback off of what Murph was saying, too, the shiny new object. You know, we talked about this late last year when everybody was going after Sam Darnold and ripping him because he had not finished the game. or not finished the season very well and everybody was like get sam out of here let's go to mccarthy next year and i think some of that had to do with you know there were a lot of quarterbacks taken in the top you know top half of the first round in 2024 and we got to see all of those guys play last year you know new england look at the patriots right now they're in first

place they're five and two and drake may is playing fantastic you know what i mean so if you're a a Patriots fan. You're seeing your guy make these growth and have all this growth and development. He's playing great. Pennix has been kind of up and down for Atlanta but he's playing. Bo Nix has a crazy comeback win against the Giants yesterday

and the Broncos are five and two so they're on cloud nine right now. And if you're a Vikings fan, your guy that was drafted last year in that same draft, you're not seeing them. And when you're seeing all these other teams get to play with shiny new toy and you're not getting to see your shiny new toy, it gets frustrating and you get

impatient and you get upset and you start wanting to make, you start wanting them to start making rash decisions and throwing him out there. But I just can't stress enough. If he's not ready to go out there yet, they should not put him out there. Folks, maybe you haven't started your holiday shopping yet, but those holidays sneak up on you fast. So let me give you some advice. Check out uncommon goods. Uncommon goods makes holiday shopping stress-free and fun with thousands of one-of-a-kind gifts that you can't find anywhere else. Uncommon goods looks for products that are high quality, unique, often handmade or made in the USA, many of which are crafted by independent artists and small businesses, and because they're made in small batches, the best finds can often

sell out fast. I'll give you an example of something that I found for a gift. You guys know I have a greyhound dog. Well, I search greyhounds and I found artists made towels and jewelry that I know my wife will love. You can literally do that with anything that the people in your life are into. And if that's not enough, with every purchase you make at uncommon goods, they'll give back $1 to a nonprofit partner of your choice. They've donated more than $3 million to date. So shop early, have fun, and cross off some names from your list today. To get 15% off your next gift, go to Uncommon goods.com slash purple insider. That's uncommon goods.com slash purple insider for 15% off. Don't miss off on this limit. Don't miss out on this limited

time offer. Uncommon goods. We're all out of the ordinary. Folks, are you overwhelmed by the number of different options for hair loss? Are you exhausted by looking around the internet for answers and watching late night television commercials, seeing if any of the options will work for you? Well, getting your hair back doesn't have to be that complicated. If you want to be happy with your hair when you look in the mirror, then hymns can help you get that confidence back. Hems can help you with prescription treatments that have clinically proven ingredients like monocodil and finestri that can help stop further hair loss and regrow hair within three to six months. They make it so simple for you with 100% online access to personalized treatment plans that put your goals first. No

hidden fees, no surprise costs, just real personalized care on your schedule. For simple online access to personalize affordable care for hair loss, ED weight loss, and more, visit hymns.com slash purple insider. That's hymns.com slash purple insider for your free online visit hymns.com slash purple insider. Individual results may vary based on studies of topical and oral monoxidil and finesteride. Featured products include compound drug products, which, The FDA does not approve or verify for safety effectiveness or quality. Prescription required.

See website for full details, restrictions and safety information. Well, and I also think that we all realize that the only chance they have of actually being a good team is if J.J. McCarthy comes in and plays well. That Carson Wentz, should he play the rest of the season, they probably end up at 7 and 10 or 8 and 9. And then that's just who you are with the backup caliber quarterback because that's where he's at in his quarterback. journey, as Kevin O'Connell likes to say. So it's not just, and I agree with you that, like, man, everybody else's young quarterback is playing and developing and growing and you're not seeing that. But I don't think it helps him to go out there too early. And actually, you know,

the Patriots felt this way with Drake May last year. There were some miserable Jacoby Berset games and they sat him on the bench and they waited and they, and I think that it benefited him because he was ready to play when he actually got out there. And even then, there were some bad games. There were some ups and downs that were pretty tough for Drake May to have to work through it to get to this point. So let's move on from that a little bit to something you mentioned that I've been hesitant to really go there yet. So this will be the question, Murph. Is it time to go there yet? And really what we're discussing is like what's an overreaction? So is it an overreaction for the talking heads of NFL analysis world to be spouting the name Sam

Darnold time and time again of, hey, maybe, and I saw Jackie mentioned in the comments, like maybe Sam Darnold was actually kind of the perfect quarterback for Kevin O'Connell. Now, the trouble is we did a roundtable right after the season where I argue that it wasn't a bad idea to bring back Sam Darnold. And so I, but then ultimately, landed on, hey, if they really believe in J.J. McCarthy, then that's the right way to go. And that's what it came down to for me is if they've seen a lot more of him behind the scenes than I have, if they're buying in, then they're buying in. Not really the question, would they be better with Darnold?

I think we all know right now they most certainly would be, but they're not playing the first six games Super Bowl championship. They're playing the multiple years of the quarterback position, Murph. But is it too soon to have that discussion? yet? Or should we be looking at that and saying, gosh, you guys really should have stayed with Sam Darnold? Well, it's a convenient way to look at things right now. But if you remember, I mean, January 6th, most of the fan base could not get Donald out of here fast enough after his performance in L.A. or in Arizona against the Rams in that relocated game and his performance

against Detroit. But if you take that question and just keep it in a vacuum, it's hard really to analyze because what you need to do is take a step back and realize they didn't know what they had in Darnold. The end didn't help the cause for bringing him back, at least in the near term. They thought they had something in McCarthy before a knee injury derailed his development, but they have invested reputation and treasure into McCarthy. And you also have to realize if they did bring back Sam Darnold, what would they have invested in in the meantime? What they did was, you know, they were cute.

They said, we're going to give it to the kid. We're going to spend some money elsewhere and build up the roster. The problem is the roster has failed to live up to the expectations, certainly defensively. They have not played to the level that we were promised this revamped roster would do and allow a quarterback like McCarthy, maybe even Wentz, despite turnover. and short fields and sort of not a lot of continuity in the unit, the defense would take care of things. Well, they can't. At least they haven't. And granted, they played the Super Bowl champions and Jalen Hertz, obviously, the reigning Super Bowl MVP. He wasn't going to stay down that long.

It's tough. I never had them beating Philadelphia even when times felt great. So I'm not shocked they lost yesterday. But I think to really go, yeah, well, if they had just brought Darno back, Yeah, I'm sure they would be in a much better position, but they'd be a little more short-handed defensively. Maybe that wouldn't have been a bad thing if they'd have gotten some younger, cheaper talent. These are all things you can unpack with that question. I think it was the right move to make at the time.

I think philosophically, it was the right move to make at the time. But we still really can't answer that question until we get McCarthy on the field for more than a week and a half. So until that happens, we can't answer any question. Well, I think where you, where you could definitely say regrets is that, okay, we knew that every single dollar they spent wasn't going to work out the same way it did last year with Grinard van Ginkle, Cashman. That was, you don't have that happen where a 2015 draft class or a perfect free agent class, we knew that, hey, maybe these guys, some of these guys won't click. We knew that maybe some of these guys will get injured. So, all right, well, yeah, you can find 40 million if you want to find it in the ones that we already.

have the answers about in hindsight. But, you know, I think more or so if we're talking about a miscalculation, Manny, to me, and as far as bringing back Sam Darnold, it's not so much about the way that Darnold has played more about J.J. McCarthy, actually, because the miscalculation was how far along he was going to be able to get from just starting to throw a football again in January after his injury and missing that entire season to the point where he was finishing training camp and just the sheer amount of reps and work that you can get in, it doesn't take, I mean, they mentioned 10,000 hours, quarterback should laugh at that, a hundred thousand hours.

It ain't close to 10. I don't even know where that came from anyway. Some guy wrote it in a book and everybody adopted it forever. I promise you, as someone who's been trying to master several crafts my entire life, golf, playing guitar, doing it for 10,000 hours ain't enough. But anyway, that's, I think, the point, right, is that every other quarterback in the league was playing and getting better and still these guys aren't perfect mechanically. And they thought, no, we, we don't need to have him develop anymore behind somebody else.

We need to see, as you said, the shiny new toy, we're going to go with it. He's going to have no camp competition. Maybe if they brought back Daniel Jones, it would have been a camp competition that everyone would have been pissed as hell when Daniel Jones won it. Like when you think about, there's also an element here that everybody on the outside, and I don't know how much ownership was involved in this. They usually aren't too much. But there's also an element where just the mobs of people screaming get rid of Darnold.

Do not dare franchise tag him. You will ruin the franchise. I want to see McCarthy. Don't keep Daniel Jones for competition. Like there was a lot of that of everyone just wants to see McCarthy. And they may have pushed, and including, I'm sure, in the building, they're human as well, right? They felt the herd of the darnold thing more than anybody on the outside. I think that they miscalculated how far you could actually go in terms of gains

when you haven't played the entire last year and really didn't throw a lot of passes in college either. Yeah, and that was something that we kind of talked about as far as like if there was, if there were any concerns about going right to J.J. McCarthy in 2025. This is why I constantly said over and over and over when we were chatting during the offseason, about you don't have, you don't necessarily have to go to J.J. McCarthy yet. I mean, he has not played a lot of football. And that was one of the concerns that I think some of us had with him is that this guy has not played a lot of football.

And he missed all of last year with the knee injury. And he wasn't getting any reps in practice during the season. I mean, it's one thing if he was just sitting behind Sam Darnold because he's just not ready to play yet. and he's still getting some reps in practice and some sort of action, you know, but like he wasn't allowed to do anything football related last year. And that you talked about the miscalculation. I mean, that I think has a much bigger effect on where he's at right now than anything else.

I mean, aside from obviously the high ankle sprain has derailed some things too. But I think just the fact that he hasn't played. made enough football and done enough football things in, you know, since that national championship game, I mean, I think that's just as huge a factor as anything else. And, you know, I don't know, where would they be at if, if, if darnel, if they had franchise tagged Darnold, I don't know, it's, it's hard to tell. They wouldn't have some of the, some of the players that they have right now. But then again, you know, how many of those players are really making a huge positive difference for this team right now. I mean, they're not really. So, you know, maybe they

would be, maybe they would still be three and three if Sam Donner had come back. And, you know, at that point, people might still be, you know, if they're three and three and Donald's playing okay, but not great, people will still be clamoring for J.J. McCarthy to play right now anyway. So I, it's hard to really tell where they would be at, but with what we've seen, it does, you know, it does kind of make you wonder. And this is where it comes back to, Murph, how can we say right now that it would have been a better idea if we don't know what McCarthy's going to look like? And, you know, I think the most important thing, because there's still a lot of people in the

comments arguing, hey, you got to put them out there anyway and everything else. I think the really important part is when you get your sample size, trying to do everything you can to make sure that it is a sample size you can really work with. because one offseason of taking second team reps and one preseason game was not a great sample size to make that bet on. And I think if there's any regret, it's probably that is that it wasn't a great sample size to make the bet on. But why I think it's too early to start saying in Murph is we just don't have the answer

yet. And this could change because when you think about how crazy this is, for fans this year, normally what happens, and you've covered the Vikings beat before Murph, you know this, that, okay, camp starts, fans are like, that smell like football? I guess it kind of is. I'll read the Pioneer Press where Brian Murphy's writing a little column, but you know, I'm not going to pay that much of attention. Oh, a preseason game's on on this nice summer night.

Let me throw open the windows, watch the first quarter, and then move on with my life. For this year, the season started July 26th, and it was all eyes on. And I know this for my numbers. I've never seen anything like this. So all eyes on every report from what J.J. McCarthy looks like in training camp. So it feels like the season has been going on for a really long time. I know I feel this in my energy level, but we are only six games into the season. There are twice as many games to go as there have been so far.

So I think, Murph, I think it's too soon to start saying the thing. And this is a coming from me, the biggest Sam Darnold defender in the room for a long time. But I really think it's way too early to start saying that because this could very much change when we get to the second half of this season. It's always easy to criticize the character actors into play. But when your star is not on the stage, you can't evaluate anything else. And the unintended consequences, too, as we've been talking about this, let's say they did bring Darnold back on maybe the friendly deal that they got with Seattle. Or maybe it's a couple years. Maybe they tagged them. All things being considered. How are they going to frame

what McCarthy would have done in training camp? Is it a wide open competition? What if it had been Daniel Jones? Is it a wide open competition? And as you said, no one was going to root for Daniel Jones to win that, probably in the building either. Right. What if he did? And then how, what does that say about your draft prowess if you're picking up guys on the scrap heap and bringing them in to compete against your guy and he loses that job. Those are also damaging and also definitely disruptive. So they were able to clear out all of those kind of scenarios. But in clearing out all those kinds of scenarios, they also jettison two very capable and productive NFL quarterbacks who, you know, Jones is having a darn old resurgence right now with

one of the surprise team in the league and Darnold is really just kind of picking up where he left off out in Seattle. It's easy to say, well, of course, they should have done more to keep X, Y, and Z. But it wasn't just a matter of bringing back those two bodies. It was all the baggage it was going to bring with it. All of the, the context of J.J. up, J.J. down.

Is he winning the battle? Is he not winning the battle? should he get more opportunities? All of that is easy to kind of second guess and wonder about now because they are doing so well and because we have eight quarters of a sample size of McCarthy, seven of which are pretty bad. But there's this sense out there that we know what we're going to get with Wence

and we don't like it. We might get the same with McCarthy, but at least he's getting the reps. And I said this last season too, before they invested all their moves on kind of bolstering. the roster, the interior line, and all that. Are you going to be, would you be content with J.J. McCarthy going to 8 and 9 and missing the playoffs? Because I think you should. And right now, if he comes back in a couple weeks

and they end up finishing 8 and 9, I think you need to be satisfied with that because he is a developing quarterback. If you expect him to come back and just shirp of this team all the way to the postseason, that's a lot to put on him when he's already had this hirky jerky start to his career. Asking him to save the 2025 season is as a lot. And I just don't think that's fair. And none of the scenarios that have played out have anything to do with him. It's all the machinations around and the underperformance elsewhere. By the way, Tampa just scored an awesome touchdown. Tess Johnson gets into the end zone. So Detroit not running away with this one like it looked like early. And Stephen giving me a hard time for watching the game.

reading the comments. You should see me play a game of chess, write an article, and have a conversation with my wife at the same time. I am a multitasking king. Reminder, Fanduel question of the day, the Vikings dropped to plus 1,700 to win the NFC North. The Bears are ahead of them at plus 1,000. Are you buying that the Bears will finish ahead of the Minnesota Vikings? So I think that we can thoroughly say that we've covered all angles with J.J. McCarthy in the quarterback situation at the moment, and it feels like we could just keep rolling on back and forth and back and forth and everything else, but also all agree, we do need to see him play more football. So let me go to something else, which is really where

I started the show, which is about overreactions and whether people were overreacting to the loss to Philly. And because where we've gotten to is the point of enough games where we could start saying, talking about some of those signings, hey, was this one really worth it? When you have a defensive tackle, you paid 15 mil who plays 18 snaps and somebody else who was an undrafted free agent, who's playing great, by the way, but is playing 50 snaps. Like, that doesn't really look like that's how it was supposed to be drawn up. Is it an overreaction, Manny, to start looking at the offseason moves and making determinations about whether they were right or not.

Or, I mean, is, okay, so if a guy's hurt like Ryan Kelly, obviously, yeah, that's one's not working out. Aaron Jones not working out. Okay, that's fair. There's no real debate about it. Those guys got hurt. But for the guys that are playing, when we look around at all the money that was spent, it has not been justified with a three and three record.

If it's an overreaction now, then when does it become not an overreaction? Like, when will we be able to see? say with enough sample size, hey, that Allen signing, who played really well yesterday, by the way, uh, or J. Von Hargrave signing or Byron Murphy giving him the bag because Murphy was also right there when A.J. Brown, who by the way, looks like you ever see one of those wrestling matches where they get in the ring and it's like the big guys and then the small guys come out or something and they're like, they pick them up and throw them out of the ring? That's what it looks like A.J. Brown in the corners for the Vikings yesterday. It looked like

Derek Henry's high school highlights yesterday versus the Vikings corners. But Byron Murphy, you bet on, you know, and look, I like Byron a lot, but six interceptions that was going to be hard to repeat, they sign Isaiah Rogers, they love them, you know, it's Flores' guy and he has that one great game, but the rest, especially yesterday, has been a backup level play or average level play that hasn't, you know, justified that. Jeff Okuda got beat several times yesterday in big moments. are we just are we just so annoyed with the team underperforming that we're like pointing at things and raging out against it or is it time to start saying hey some of that money you spent and some of these decisions you made they just not good enough yeah i see i think it's i think it's the latter i think it's fair to look at everything that they did and just say you know what it's just not good enough it's got to be it's got to be better i mean they

spent a lot of money, particularly on defense and on the interior of the offensive line. And that's mostly just been kind of injuries with Jackson and obviously the Ryan Kelly situation is really unfortunate. But they did spend a lot of money and invest, you know, they invested a first round pick on an offensive lineman to really kind of solidify the weaknesses that they had last year on a team that won 14 games. So there was an expectation that, okay, to repeat a 14 and 3 regular season was going to be a lot to ask. But the thought was, you spent all this money on guys, not just like, you know, we're talking about veteran players here, guys who have been good players at other places.

Ryan Kelly's been one of the best centers in the NFL for the last decade. You know, Jonathan Allen and J. Vaughn Hargrave have been really good defensive. tackles for a long time now some of that you might you could you could say well you know these guys are kind of in their 30s and you know they're kind of on the other side of their primes and you know maybe it's a little unfair to expect them to to be the same guys but you paid them like you expected them would be the same guys and they and they haven't been but the other part of this is as we always say context matters and some of this stuff is particularly with the tackles this team, you know, save for the Cincinnati game, for the most part, even with the Browns game,

this team has been playing from behind a lot this year. And that, we talked about this last week. Allen and Hargrave are not built to be, you know, just a run stuffing defense that's going to shut down the other teams, you know, opposing. running game now yesterday they they handle saquan barclay pretty well um but it didn't matter right and just because jalen hurts because jalen hurts is awesome right and just to jump in there manny you can take deep shots like that when you're winning like you when you're when you're up you can just be like oh why don't we just try to get an 80 yard touchdown off a play action yeah so it i think a lot of this is i think the criticism has been fair they do

You overall as a whole need to get better against defending the run, but they were pretty good yesterday. But the other part of this is they got to find a way to just get a lead. Get a lead. Get off to a really good start. I don't know. Does that mean that Kevin O'Connell, if he wins the coin toss, he needs to elect to receive? I don't know. I don't even know how it went yesterday.

But the Eagles took the opening drive of the game, went down and scored a touchdown, and you're already in trouble. Right. Because you're already behind. And that's just not the recipe for this team to win games because rather it's Carson Wentz or J.J. McCarthy, this is an offense that has talent, but it's not really an offense because of where you're at with the quarterback position. It's not an offense that you can just go out and have shootouts or you can fall down by two scores and throw your way back into a game and find ways to win games like that. They did it against the Cleveland Browns because it's the Cleveland Browns. So, of course, they were able to do that. But a better team like Pittsburgh, you fall behind.

It's going to be tough sledding to try and get back. And they got back into that game, but it was just too late. A championship level team like Philadelphia, you fall behind, you're screwed. It's going to be really, really hard. And we're going to see, you know, the challenge is going to be there with this Thursday against the Chargers. and when you go to Ford Field on November 2nd, whether it's J.J. McCarthy or Carson-Winth, you fall behind at that place, it's over.

You're done. You got no shot. So that part of it, too, I think, is they've got to find a way to get off to a good start offensively. You get down into the red zone, whatever, run the ball a lot more. I don't know, whatever. But you get down to the red zone, score a damn touchdown and get yourself off to a good start, get a lead, to allow your defense to play with a lead.

And then that's going to open things up, I think, offensively for you too, because then you can be more balanced with Jordan Mason and hand the ball off to him much more because we saw that against Cincinnati. That was the, I mean, that was the perfect recipe. The way they, I mean, it was dream, but that was the perfect recipe of how this team is going to win games.

And if you fall behind, it's just, it's not going to work. Yeah. Yeah. Carson Went's first drive, went right down the field. Yeah, 100%. Yes. I was going to pile on here a little bit. I think it's absolutely right for criticism to look at the moves that have been made and try to find the true value there. I also, I think it was maybe unrealistic to expect them to be the splash play,

lightning bolt defense that they have been the last couple of seasons. Some of those turnovers, you know, obviously Van Ginkle hasn't been out there. But a lot of those turnovers, I'm not saying we're fortunate, but you're probably not going to get those scenarios that they had defensively last year line up the way they did. But the reason the defense could be so aggressive could afford to be so aggressive and blitz and disguised blitzes and just befuddle teams is because the Vikings were constantly winning or in double-digit leads early in the season.

I mean, the stat, I know you wrote about their, how much they've been in a deficit this season. And I'd like you to bring those up in a second because I remember reading that. And it reminded me again, I know I brought this up a couple times, but we pounded this stat early last season. I believe it was four minutes and 30 seconds. Yes. Or something to that effect that they had trailed when they went five and all throughout that stretch. So the defense, you know, was playing with house money the whole time. now the defense is being nasked, not just to hold steady, but also to bail out the offense.

And it feels like they're operating uphill all day long. Now, nobody's going to feel sorry for them. They're getting paid to make plays and turn games around. But when you are constantly behind the sticks, when you are constantly on short fields, and when you watch your team march down the field and stall drive after drive and have to settle for field goals against the super. bowl champs who can just drop back and throw a lightning bolt, that's got to be demoralizing. And it's been like that week after week.

And that is emotionally and physically taxing. The defense can do better. The high price talent can do better. But a lot of the struggles are because of what they're not doing offensive. Well, and this is why so much gets paid to quarterbacks and so much attention gets paid to quarterbacks. And we went through this a lot with Kirk, where we would argue about his impact on different things like the number of three and outs that they would have and how that would affect the

defense and how it always made life harder for the defense. And these two things are very interconnected. So when you've gotten bottom five quarterback play on the whole, just as a team, bottom five to seven, I'll look up where they rank as a team quarterback rating. I'm guessing that overall it's not very good going into this game. Detroit scored again, by the way, Murph, if you're wondering. But, you know, if you're getting bottom five quarterback play, it's really going to hurt your defense. Let's see. Hasn't quite been that bad. It is, let's see, 22nd. Okay. Point made. 20 second and quarterback rating in the NFL. Sorry, you're probably not going to be helping your defense much, right? And it's not good enough. It's not good enough.

And really, like, as bad, as bad as some of the moments were for the defense, you know, they, they give up a pick six. They give up 21 points yesterday. It's pretty hard to win a game. If you as a defense give up 21 and then, you know, your offense can't score in the red zone, throws a pick six. Like, it does come back to your quarterback. And I think that it's made everybody look worse. And I brought the stat up the other day that they have actually faced the second fewest amount of passes in the NFL. You went out and paid for the.

pass rushers and they're not getting to rush the passer too much, even hurts through like 25 passes yesterday. When another team is losing, they throw 45 passes and you get 100 sacks and pressures and all that stuff, which is probably what made those numbers for Gernard looked so good last year. And Van Ginkle is that they were rushing the passer under favorable circumstances all season long. And yet that has not been the case. They've been trailing for 18 out of the 24 quarters so far, which is absolutely brutal. And so it's kind of built on itself. I do think that there was always, because sometimes we think of like first guess,

second guess. I liked the plan. Okay, here's your weaknesses. Interior pressure has been a weakness for a while. Go get two defensive tackles to pressure the quarterback. Is that worth $36 million between those two guys? I don't think so, but you kind of spend stupid money when you have the rookie quarterback contract.

This is what you do. You overpay guys, right? So I think that that made sense from the start. Ryan Kelly, yes, had injuries, but still played like 800 snaps, 700 snaps last year. I don't think we would have expected he would play like 100 and then be out for this long. That's just bad luck. So some of this stuff was luck or has been luck and circumstance related where these two things are playing off of each other because you're not getting the type of QB play that you expected

going into the season. I also do think, Murph, when you make a bunch of bets that have a 50% chance of paying off, sometimes it comes up snake eyes on you. Sometimes you miss on those bets. And I remember this off-season-

You can't cover every chip on the roulette table. Right, right. I think that I remember this off-season where Seth Walder gave a bunch of the Vikings moves terrible grades. It was just like they overpaid this guy. They were paid that guy. And my point was like,

well, yeah, they can overpay because of the circumstance, but there's a range of outcomes with these guys. There was a range of outcomes where Javon Hardgrave just wasn't great anymore. And there was a range of outcomes that was even call it likely that Ryan Kelly wouldn't play this much or that Aaron Jones would get hurt or regress. Like, that was there. And so I think when you're second guessing them, you have a right to do so because that was, that was on the table.

And they made a bunch of bets that they all needed to click at once. people will bring it back to the draft and all that. But I think you can also say some of the players that you went after in free agency were not the most likely to they had probably the highest upside because they're former stars, but maybe not the most likely to click. So let's let's do this, Manning, the last 10 minutes here or so talk about the rest of the National Football League and the way things stand. I am curious what you think.

So we don't know what Detroit's going to, Detroit's winning. They'll probably win this game. But right now the Packers are minus 105 on Fanduil to win the NFC North. What did you make of the Packers game yesterday? Luckily, I was able to see a lot of it. Unfortunately, on the post game, just like I'm doing right now, on the post game, you see my eyes going back and forth to the TV as I'm talking because I was watching the Packers and the Cardinals.

But not really the most impressive win. And I saw a lot of Belly Aiken from Packerland. but here they are at the top of the division. What do you make of Green Bay at this moment? It's hard to tell. In some ways, they kind of remind me of last year's Vikings team where they're winning a lot of these close games. Like they're going to make the playoffs.

I think, you know, are they going to win the NFC North? Right now I would say no. It looks like it's Detroit's division still to win for the third year in a row. But, you know, they are obviously very talented. The quarterback is talented. But they've been kind of squeaking out these close games, kind of like how the Vikings did last year. And I think you have to give them a lot of credit for finding ways to win games

when you're not playing perfect football. But I question rather or not they're really built to go on a deep run. Now, maybe Micah Parsons just goes ham and like maybe he just turns into Lawrence Taylor for like four games or whatever in the playoffs and, you know, that kind of propels them to go on a deep run. But, you know, I kind of wonder with just the way that they're kind of squeaking out games, they didn't look that great against Cincinnati at home and they had to come from behind to beat the Cardinals yesterday. They had the weird tie against the Cowboys, the game where they almost lost. I mean, it was some questionable clock management there by Matt LaFleur at the end of that overtime. You know, they had the bad loss to the Browns. I kind of, they look like that team that's going to go, well, they have a tie now.

So they look like that's going to factor. We know it will. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it might. But they look like that team that's going to go like 11, 5, and 1. make the playoffs, and then if they don't get a matchup that's favorable to them, that they're going to be one and done. Now, again, Michael Parsons gets hot and that defense becomes lights out, which they really haven't been yet,

then that could maybe change some things. But right now, the way they're playing, they just kind of look like a team that's good enough to make the playoffs, but not quite good enough to go on a deep run. I think that they look like everybody else in the NFC. Like, was anyone blown away by the Eagles? No, I mean, of course, their superstars were superstars, but it's not like they dominated every portion of that game.

And, hey, like, is anybody else kind of intrigued by the Dallas Cowboys? If they, like, wouldn't that be something if the Cowboys ended up just going on a run here? Their offense is probably the best in the entire NFL right now. I think Detroit, with their injuries, if they get healthy, are clear. the best team in the NFC. I'm saying that when they have a lead. If they blow it, I'll take it back. Tampa Bay is much more flawed and has been smoking mirrors this year. And the Rams are great. The Rams are absolutely great. They demolish the Jaguars on Sunday morning. And I think that blowout wins like that are pretty telling. So they're really, really good.

Their defense is the real freaking deal. So right now, I mean, you'd put them, the Packers right there with the Rams maybe a touch ahead of them, the Lions ahead of them. but it's probably right in that same range. Murph, who in the NFC intrigues you the most? Because I'll give you my answer. The San Francisco 49ers being five and two is crazy. Oh, did I just steal? Okay, go, go, go ahead.

You ask the question and then you stop on it. No, you go, go ahead. Say the 49ers. All right, yeah, San Francisco being five and two, San Francisco being five and two with Mac Jones, San Francisco being five and two without Fred Warner, without George Kittle for most of the time. I think we thought this was going to be the, and they're going to have a heck of a

quarterback decision to come up pretty soon with Brock Purdy. Maybe it's not as he, maybe he does become Mr. Irrelevant again, even though they're not paying him that kind of money. I just feel like we don't exactly know, you know, who's going to be emerging as sort of the the alphas of this group because there's so many new faces. Well, Christian McAfry is obviously going to be there, but I just, they're so well coached. Kyle Shanahan's going to find a way. they're going to fight the Rams all the way.

I feel like they are almost playing so loose and so confident because they've been dealt a pretty bad hand and it seemed to be thriving in spite of it. So, yeah, I would say San Francisco being five and two and looking like they're not going to miss a beat despite the injuries might be my most intriguing NFC team. So please come over the top on that. They've got the Viking starting quarterback for next year, Mack Jones, right? So that's interesting. I like that blueprint.

I said this off the air after I recorded with Jeremiah Searle's early. But I was like, we're like three weeks away from picking candidates to compete with J.J. McCarthy for next year. I'm not there yet, but man, we're getting, we're marching toward that. Okay, sorry for stealing San Francisco. It is fascinating, though, where they're at, just in general is a franchise of a team that probably missed its window. and yet scratching and clawing to remain in the conversation. I will, we had a lot of discussion about Sam Darnold tonight.

I will say Seattle. I don't know what they're going to do by the time people go back and listen to this. You know, they'll know the result for tonight against the Texans. But the Seattle Seahawks have a really talented defense that maybe hasn't been fully healthy or hasn't come together. They've got a good running game. And the way that Darnold is played,

they are a legit contender. right, with the rest of these other teams. And what a lot of these teams have that's so interesting is volatile quarterbacks. Like, Dak Prescott's been there many times. How about Jalen Hertz, the volatility where some weeks he just has looked very poor in other weeks like last week. He looked amazing. Jared Goff's probably the most consistent of those quarterbacks, but in the playoffs, he lacks the playmaking ability. We know that Stafford, if he gets hot, watch out, but that's not always the case.

So there's a lot of quarterbacks that are all really, really good and in this conversation that are making it interesting. And also, I think all these teams have left the door open a crack for a team like the Vikings to get hot and compete for the playoffs as well. So we didn't do pick the schedule Thursday night. Obviously, I'll be in Los Angeles covering the game. How about we just do a version of that by saying, where is the bar now, Manny? like you don't have to speed run the schedule but after losing that game where does the bar sit for the 2025 Vikings can you get to eight wins can you get to eight wins i mean it's it's going to be tricky with the with the way the schedule is laid out you have him at 11 like two weeks ago i had him at 10 when he

picked the schedule on Thursday that's that's why this that's why we do it murf you manny is immune manny is immune from criticism because he rides the roller coaster like everybody else. So that's, he's brave enough to pick it every week. You can't, you can't criticize him for his results. Because last year, you were probably as low as nine or ten and as high as 15. So that's how it goes. Yeah. I mean, I, I think, look, I, I mean, if we're talking about a bar, not necessarily where I think they're going to end up. I think eight wins. You got to get to eight wins. And if it's eight because McCarthy's come back. And, you know, you kind of ride the roller coaster of dealing with a young quarterback and you just deal with the growing pains of that.

And you find a way to get to eight or nine wins. And I think you, you can be satisfied with that, like Murph talked about earlier. I think anything less than that, I think you're raising some eyebrows because that probably means that you put McCarthy back in and it didn't go very well. right if you're if you're seven and ten or six or heaven forbid six and eleven something like that you'll get a higher first round draft pick which there's nothing wrong with that but i think in terms of like where the vibes will be at how people are feeling about where this thing is headed i think you got to try and get to eight or nine wins um if you can do that i think people will feel okay i think it'll be a little bit of a disappointment considering all the money you spent

in free agency. But I think people will still walk out of that, walk out of the season, feeling like, all right, 500-ish. McCarthy played all right when they put them back in. This is still heading in the right direction. Anything less than that, I think, is sounding some alarms. What do you think, Murph? Yeah, I like to, you know, I had him at 10-11 going into the season.

I've been kind of clinging on to 10 throughout the European trip. now I'm down to maybe nine is is feasible, but I think eight slash nine. And I got to go back to just how I felt last season as we were chewing over the, even during the season, you know, do you bring Sam back and how complicated is this going to be? And what does this mean for the franchise if they do? And what does it mean for McCarthy? I still felt comfortable saying, look, he may go seven and ten, eight, and nine next season as pretty much a rookie, you should feel okay with that if he's developing.

You should feel good about that if he's having moments. You can't always expect, you know, maybe a Bo Nix, Jaden Daniels, kind of a, they're going to suddenly be the alpha and they're suddenly going to be leading their teams to playoff wins. I don't, but the way this roster has subsequently been constructed, I think a lot of people thought you should be expecting McCorm. to win 10 slash 11 games, which is why I bought in because I was drinking all that purple Kool-Aid all summer long. I think the playoffs are, you know, within grass but fading. And I think there needs to be a recalibrating of expectations because really it's about

what McCarthy can get under his wing this season. And it may only be a handful of wins. It may be a handful of moments. But that's kind of the bed they've made at this point. and you need to know more about McCarthy than you need to know whether this team can scratch to nine or ten wins. I think if you get to eight, you can at least grip onto that means some things went well along the way and that there's a lot to work with here going forward because when you think about it, like yes, it is all in ish, but it's not all in as in they're going to lose all their players after this year.

Remember, like 2019, they were literally going to lose like, seven star players after that season. Derisaw's here a long time. Jefferson, we assume Edison, if you just maybe stay in your house and don't ever go outside. I found out you can order groceries now. They'll bring him to your house.

Like, do that. Just don't ever leave. I do it all the time. It's just, and I'm broke and I do it all the time. He's not. Okay. I see, I was feeling a little bad about it. I'm like, I don't know. Like, it just shouldn't I get my lazy butt up and just do it. But anyway, Mason will be here.

Brian O'Neill's got. years left will fries is under contract long term like there's not you're not just going to lose the whole offense uh you get another you know pro center and all right you know you've got your offense to go forward with j j mccarthy it doesn't end uh if you don't win the super bowl this year but if you go as you said man he's six and eleven i mean there's just you are you are literally talking about mac jones you are saying like who is available at quarterback that could be our daniel jones our sam Darnold again because it's going to be a wide open competition in training camp. And that is not. And does Kevin Ocado get to make that decision and crazy?

Yeah. I mean, they will. After 6 and 11. Okay. I mean, like, they, they, they don't quite have knighted status as in like a Kyle Shanahan who had a four win season. I think he had a four and a six wins season. He had one a six wins season last year. Like, it's stupid to just fire coaches and stuff. Like, bad franchises do that. Um, I don't think this franchise is going to be reactionary for one year where everything went wrong. But it does turn up the heat for sure if that doesn't work out because that means the guy that you hitched your wagon to, it did not work out or at least for the first year. And there's a lot, a lot of pressure there at that point. They can start avoiding that

with a win against the Chargers and then come out of it four and three with J.J. McCarthy. And then you feel like season is very much still on. So let's close with that. Mani, do they beat the Chargers? I think they will find a way. I think it'll be ugly, but I think they will find a way. The Chargers are a weird team right now, too. I mean, they got their butt beat yesterday, too.

So, yeah, I think it's going to be a weird week because it's short and it's a travel, but I think they're going to find a way to squeak out and it might be like how the hell did they do that, but somehow they found a way to win that game. Hey, Will Reichard banging him home from 59, like it's nothing. Five more field goals? Why not?

Murph, do they win this game? Yeah, maybe like Jacksonville last year. I just feel like, you know, Parker Romo, but I feel like it's 51.49 that they win. And I'm only saying they're going to win because, I mean, it is a coin flick game. Oh, I thought you meant the score was going to be 51. Oh, I'm sorry. I should have said percent. No, God, no.

It's not going to, it's going to be ugly. It's, uh, it's Thursday. football, you never know. I feel like these both teams are in disarray. They're both injury riddled. Their seasons aren't going how they thought they were. Yes, they have

Justin Herbert, but he has no protection. I just feel like the urgency for the Vikings is here. And this really feels like they have to pocket this one so they can get their long mini buy and again, make a quarterback decision

and then go into the cauldron of Detroit. right but if they can have a quarterback decision in hand by then i would feel like their season may get on track but it's not going to be easy and i don't understand what they did to deserve two games in europe and then two weeks later flying to l.A. again on a short week which is exactly what they did last year to play the rams on thursday night why don't they get a home game for this this is not doing them any favors at all that could be their downfall because the charge as banged up as they are going to be sleeping in their own beds. You know, when it comes to strength of schedule, we always just looked at the opponents,

but we never thought about how this thing was actually laid out, like a Monday night football, then Sunday night, so you don't even get the extra day. So it's short rest right away. Then you are short rest because you're traveling for eight hours to go to Dublin and then staying over there, which was clearly a mistake that they will not repeat in the future. And then coming back, you get your regular by week and then have to play again on short rest very soon after. Not exactly the easiest set of scheduled games that I've ever seen. So anyway, Mani Hill, Brian Murphy, we will be back on Monday doing this here

live stream again and reacting to whatever happened and maybe talking about J.J. McCarthy's return start. I guess we will find out then. So thank you to both of you. I have a couple more things to say before I wrap up the show, but really appreciate you guys. And I will see you guys on Monday. Football. No, good. Football. Football. All right. I want to make sure that everybody answers the fan dual question of the day. The Vikings plus

1,700 to win the NFC North. Bears are ahead of them. At plus 1,000, are you buying that the bears are better than the Vikings or the bears smoke and mirrors? And you think the season is still going to turn around. Make sure you answer that. And before I close, I want to say that something happened today

that really gave me perspective on what I do here, which was, a chess streamer by the name of Daniel Naraditsky died at the age of 29. And I followed him for, I want to say probably the last four or five years. He has become one of my favorite people to watch. I've learned endless amounts of chess from him. And I am in the hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people, if not millions, who watched and enjoyed Daniel Naraditsky during his life time as a streamer, as a teacher, as a YouTuber, as a commentator. He was commentating on the world chess championships and hundreds of other events that

I like to tune into. And I thought about the amount of support that you guys have given me over the years and the amount of people who have asked to say hello at a Vikings game or who send me emails or who just tune in every night, comment, or even those who don't. And just like me, I never commented on a single Daniel Naraditsky video. And yet, I was the hugest, hugest fan of his work. And he was brilliant. He was a genius when it came to chess, but also brilliant when it came to speaking and explaining the game.

And every time a new video would come out of his, I would run to the phone and make sure that I took time to watch his video. And I took so many lessons from him. but also even just thinking about the way that I present this show and do these things and analyze the game of football through a lot of his lens of the way he looked at chess. And I make a lot of those comparisons all the time. And I was absolutely shocked and heartbroken to find out that he had passed away today. So it really kind of put in perspective how blessed I am to have you guys supporting me. And I feel like even if I don't.

know you. I make connections with you. You follow along with me. You get to know little parts of me the way that I did with him over the years. And I think I always have to keep in mind, even when we're debating football and getting into it and all those things, just how lucky I am to have that because I hope that I mean one-tenth to you talking football as much as Daniel Naredeski meant to me talking chess. So I know that there's probably not a huge crossover here, but I really wanted to say that because he just meant so much to me during his lifetime. It will never, ever be forgotten. And his videos and his chess analysis and listening to him talk for hundreds of hours will stay with me forever.

So rest of peace, Daniel Naraditsky, and he will be greatly, greatly missed from people like myself who love the game of chess. So that's it for tonight. We'll be live streaming again tomorrow. we'll have some chargers guests, some breakdowns there. We'll turn the page onto the next game and continue the chat. We'll also hear from Kevin O'Connell. We've been talking as if we know what's going to happen, but we don't at the quarterback position.

So we will find out probably tomorrow. And we'll get his comments and play you some of those on tomorrow evening show. So thank you again for everybody for joining, playing along, getting in the chat, and we'll catch you all next time.