Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Are we ready to talk about Vikings future with Darnold or McCarthy?

Episode Date: November 7, 2024

Matthew Coller and Jeremiah Sirles discuss the Vikings sleepy trade deadline and then play a game of "is it time to talk about" with the Vikings QB situation, Brian Flores, Caleb Williams and more Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here inside TCO Performance Center. Jeremiah Searles normally Tuesday morning left guard, but it's Wednesday mid-afternoon left guard because we had to wait for all those big trades that the Vikings made at the deadline. So we got all new players to talk about. The roster was basically overturned.

No, I I'm just kidding. But Jeremiah, what do you think happened? Where did all the, the trading go? There was so many teams with reasons to make moves that just didn't. It's,

it's kind of like, I think a lot of teams found themselves in a similar situation that the Vikings found themselves in last year, right after. And we talked about it after we beat San Francisco or going into San Francisco I call I said we're gonna beat San Francisco we're gonna think that hey we still have a shot at this thing let's keep Daniil Hunter let's keep we can do it I think there's more teams this year at that especially looking like the NFC West right that are sitting there going we're still in it but they're really not right and so you look like the Rams they West, right? That are sitting there going, we're still in it, but they're really not, right?

And so you look at like the Rams, they claw their way back, they beat the Vikings, they beat Seattle, and they're like, we can win our division, right? And I think there was just a lot of teams that fell into that category of, you know, maybe we aren't just in a fire sale mode. Maybe we should just keep some of these guys around. We don't need all these draft picks.

We're like, let's just stay and develop the guys in the building and i think that that is probably more the norm but we like to think it's more the opposite we we like to sit here and think oh they're they hate this guy they want to get him out of there or they want the draft picks they want to they're looking two years down the road when really organizations are looking week to week how do i win football games and that's by keeping players that you have on your roster. That's how you keep your job. That's how you do all these types of things. So always more speculation than there are real trades. And it was, it was a disappointing trade deadline. You know, usually there's one or two that's like, Whoa, that's a blockbuster fun one. But I feel like all those kinds of happened two, three weeks

ago. Yeah. That was the thing is that the trade deadline played out over a while if the vikings hadn't traded for cam robinson last week and did it at the deadline we would all be going oh whoa big trade for a left tackle they're gonna save their season by trading for cam robinson but instead it happened a couple of days ago and then even with the cam acres that's two weeks ago it doesn't feel very trade deadline e uh at the same time i think that comp picks play a role in this too where some teams are like why should we trade you our pending unrestricted free agent when he's gonna leave and we'll get a sixth for it or something like that but that's not what you're going to give me. And as for the Vikings, having only a first

and a fifth allows for very little wiggle room there. I mean, maybe they could have been in on somebody like Marshawn Lattimore, but how can you do that if you only have a first and two fifths? I did. I don't know. I just had struggled with if you're Miami, why are you not trading a 38 year old Calais Campbell to the Minnesota Vikings for a conditional seventh or whatever you can get? But like you said, maybe it's more valuable to just say, well, if we get hot, 17-game season, maybe we can rip off five wins in a row. That's exactly what the Vikings did last year, not trading Hunter.

And then even in 2020, when they were one in five and then while they go down to green Bay and beat the Packers, well, now we're two and five, maybe, well, we've, we're going to play the Jaguars and Mike Glennon's their quarterback. So maybe, and you know, what's nice Jeremiah is not being in that position. So now the big question is how strong is this roster? This is it. There's no more acquisitions. They're minus a kicker and a long snapper for a couple of weeks here. But aside from that, they will get Blake Cashman back eventually. How good do you think they are top to bottom? Ranking from where we were at the beginning of the year to where we are right now,

I think we're down a little bit mostly because of our left tackle but at the same time we're not down as much as it could be because hawkinson's back right and it was good to see him back on the field and the reception that he got from the fans and you know cam robinson came in and played very well for a guy that has been here for like there's 72 hours but i said it on the O-line committee to my other pod. You know, the left tackle is the guy that sits in the back of the room, puts his glasses on, has his arms crossed like this, and sleeps occasionally every now and then. And then the coach looks at the guard, goes,

you got that? And the guard goes, I got it. He's just going to block that guy 99% of the time. Right? And I thought he came in and did a really good job and he had very minimal pressures i don't think he gave up a sack you know so i was really pleased with that then look around at the emergence of addison getting healthier at this point in the time and he had a great game last week and jefferson continuing to go and so i'm looking at

this as aaron jones staying healthy the only piece that we really lost is we went from an all pro left tackle to a middle of the road left tackle. And that's going to hurt at times, but it's not the disaster blow of no offense DQ. But Cam Robinson is just a better left tackle than you are in the NFL right now. And that's why you were back up. That's why he's been a starter in the league for right now. So looking across the board, I'm not down on this roster. I'm excited about this roster. And I think that it's still in a really good place moving forward.

Well, I was impressed by Cam Robinson actually in the run game, maybe even more than I was in the passing game, because this has been a critique of his game throughout his career that maybe he isn't the most physically imposing even though he is in person he is an enormous human being uh when i think of i know someone's huge when they're bigger than you so if they if they are larger than he and cam robinson is uh but we're getting low letting guys get kind of underneath him the words play style come up kind of often,

but I thought he got off the ball really well. And there was a 13 yard run by Aaron Jones early in the game where he turned his man completely and opened up a big gap and he got through. I don't expect him to dominate the same way Darisaw can, or be in the screen game where he's in space, looking around for guys to hunt down. That's not going to be Cam Robinson, but if you can drop back and know that your left tackle is not going to give up a strip sack once

or twice or three times a game you're in a decent enough place to continue to carry on as an offense and i think that that's what we really saw there's a baseline level the left tackle must be this good in order for you to keep rolling as an offense. Call it the Riley Reef bar. I always thought Riley Reef gave them a chance to operate as an offense. He was not Orlando Pace, but he was certainly good enough over there to let you be what you need to be offensively. As far as the rest of the roster goes, I think the weaknesses are just going to have to be the weaknesses. There really isn't a change that they can make or a tweak, but when they get Cashman back, I think that does shift the dynamic again. And I, that's why I didn't want to overreact to the two losses because you're

missing one of your most important players. And then you look at the quarterbacks that they're going to be facing in the next couple of weeks weeks it is Trevor Lawrence and possibly with an injury might be Mac Jones it might be Will Levis or Mason Rudolph and then it's an inexperienced Caleb Williams I think that they have an opportunity to really kind of lock in here now that they've corrected some of the things that have gone wrong and they have an easier set of quarterbacks to go against. Yeah. And it was really exciting to watch the way this defense bounced back. You know, we sat on the show last week going out, Anthony Richardson, Flacco, the veteran quarterback might be able to pick us apart, might be able to do a golf and Stafford has done to us the last couple of weeks of finding ways to replace the blitzer. He had no shot. I

mean, he looked deer in the headlights. I mean, granted, he's old. It was past his bedtime, Sunday night football, the whole thing there. But this defense did a great job of saying, okay, we're not going to change who we are. We're not going to just go back to the drawing board because we had two really good quarterbacks pick us apart at times. But they adjusted, and they did a nice job.

And so moving forward, talking about the quarterbacks that we are going through, I think we're going to get back to more of the confusing and getting after those guys and not allowing them to have the quick answers. The offensive lines we're going to be facing are not as good as we've seen in the last. Indy's offensive line is actually very good. We got after them. They started a new left tackle. I understand that. That was a pain for Matt Goncalves. Welcome to the NFL. I'm really optimistic about what this defense is going to be able to continue to do going forward. Okay, I got a game for you.

Yes. I requested it. You requested a game before the show. I want to call this game, Are We Ready to Talk About? Okay, so that's pretty self-explanatory, I think. Are we ready to talk about sam darnold in the future of the minnesota vikings the sam darnold jj mccarthy conversation now that they're six and two now that they have a schedule coming up that opens the door to this team being an 11 or 12 win team

if they even play their average level of football the rest of the way and sam darnold is a top five quarterback rating quarterback this year he is right up there in terms of his efficiency with the best quarterbacks in the nfl and with his full bevy of weapons last week i thought outside of a bad decision or two looked absolutely terrific. This guy is completing 75% of his passes at this point. Are we ready to talk about that yet or not? I think it's definitely at the table for a conversation. And there's still a lot of factors that need to be played out. I think one thing you got to monitor very closely is how,

how well is JJ recovering, right? Is he on track? Is there any setbacks? Is there any realm of possibility that this is going to be a long-term effect thing that we can't let Sam Darnold walk out the building if we're not fully confident in JJ's ability to take over next year? I think meniscus surgery is not crazy, so I think that's probably a bit of a mute point.

But I've said it since the beginning. If Sam Darnold doesn't take us to an NFC championship or a Super Bowl, you have to let him walk because what KOC and what Kwesi has done is they are starting to build their plan around a rookie-scale quarterback. And the last thing you want to do is based off of one year of Sam Darnold coming in and doing great things is derail the five-year plan.

Derail the future of the plan that was put in place when you drafted jj mccarthy and i don't believe unless i said super bowl mc championship that that really changes anything in the minds of the front office of the vikings okay so i'm going to respond to that then you got to think of one i got one uh all right i think it is too early to have that conversation because we are not even this crazy to think about we are not even halfway through the nfl season this year for the vikings they still have more games to play than they've already played and even though we're projecting this to go really well uh you never know in the national football league as uh we find out all the time but i think that that your analysis is correct,

that you would have to go really, really far because part of the reason that Darnold is succeeding, a major, major part is the environment. And when you look at a team, I was thinking about San Francisco with Jimmy G and then going to Brock Purdy where Jimmy G takes them to a Super Bowl and he's a great quarterback through that era. Nobody was more efficient than him. There were some limitations to his game that proved costly at times for Jimmy G. And they thought if we give another guy who's a little more dynamic, the same set of circumstances, the same coaching, the same offense, the same receivers that the results

can even be just as good or better, only a lot cheaper. And it worked out for them with Brock Purdy. That's scary. And you put your careers on it. If you're Kevin O'Connell and Kwesi Adafo Mensah, but you knew that that's what you were doing with JJ McCarthy anyway. And I think there are a lot of people that will say, well, Darnold is so talented in his arm talent. It is preposterous. He made five throws in that game that just made my head explode. I didn't even realize how sick the Jordan Addison throw was.

Try running full speed backward and then throwing the ball like 20 yards in the air on a line. That was incredible. But there are also some limitations as we see to Darnold that JJ McCarthy actually might be better at into the future. And number 18 is not going anywhere. So I don't think that we're quite there yet. I think the plan is still the plan for now until the plan changes or is forced to change by Sam Darnold.

But that doesn't take it to me. If you say that people think that you're taking credit away from Darnold, what he's done has been amazing this year. I am not taking any credit away from him, but team building without a lot of draft picks, there's really only one way to do it. So what would you, what do you want to throw out there?

We need a jingle. Are we ready to talk about it? But are we ready to talk about walking around the NFL and seeing the teams that the head coaches are one foot out the door? Right? They've already lost Dennis Allen. The Raiders fired their whole offensive staff. Matt Eberflus is probably dead men walking in Chicago.

Are we ready to talk about Brian Flores leaving the Minnesota Vikings and being a head coach in the NFL again next year. I thought you might be going there and that I'm, I'm not, I'm not, I'm almost going to have to see it to believe it because now I know last year they ended up out of the playoffs. So this is where narratives could change because if they get into the playoffs and let's say they go to Atlanta, just say, and they give up 180 yards and pick off Kirk cousins three times and completely dominate as a defense. And that's the reason the Vikings end up in the divisional round after everybody thought they were going to finish last in the NFC North. And the defense is just the talk of the NFL, then it becomes more possible for Brian Flores. And I think that he's done a really good job of handling the media, handling the Tua thing the right way,

where he said, you know what? Yeah, I could, I could have been better and I wish him the best. And he didn't really get into it. But I also think that the NFL owners don't forget things very quickly and they're aware of who's suing them. And as long as that is going on, it's just really hard to see someone saying you're the face of our franchise. The only situation I could see someone doing it is if you had a very established veteran quarterback and it was a bad defense, then I could see someone doing it. But if you have any type of young or development quarterback, you're just not going to do it because you know exactly what happened in Miami. I tend to disagree with you just off the fact of the NFL wants to

win. And that is above all else, right? Winning is above all else in the NFL. And if you laid out the plan, if everything goes according and the defense is getting, hitting their stride and everyone's going back and they're seeing what Flores is able to do and the creativity and the turnover margin and all those things, I do think that there will be a team that has to be the right situation. I agree. It's not Chicago with a young Caleb Williams. It's not a team that's going to want to go draft a young quarterback in the top 10, like maybe Vegas with Shadur Sanders or something like that. But I do believe that he has matured enough from learning. And I think the NFL would want a guy like that. Everyone loves a comeback story in the NFL as well. I do think if he continues on the path that he has,

he will be a legitimate chance for a head coach candidate in 2025. Okay. My only counter to that is if the NFL believed winning over everything else, there was a certain available gentleman from 2017 on that was a better quarterback than a lot of players who have played since. This league holds grudges, so I don't know if that's really the case. Also, maybe Jerry Jones would have bought

a few free agents this offseason if it was winning above all else. But are we ready to talk about the fact that the backup long snapper and backup kicker are going to have to win a game for the Vikings on a 50-yard kick? John Parker Romo got – what is his name? The guy that they – the long snapper mcguire he's been around um are we ready to talk about the fact that the that a game will end up on the shoulders of a backup

long snapper and a backup kicker it's crazy to think about because that's been such a strength of this team i mean he's been nails he missed his first two kicks in week seven. I mean, that's incredible. And to have something that has been almost automatic to where it's like, oh, they're kicking a field goal. I'm going to get up and go to the bathroom and I'll come back and catch the kickoff. Not automatic anymore. It's butthole puckers

and hold on to your breath and let's make sure this works. The good news is they went out and got a pretty veteran guy. They didn't go get a guy off the street that's banged around in the ufl or maybe he was in a training camp or a mini camp earlier this year they were smart enough to know we got to go get some some vet position at this so it's going to be wild to think about and man what a story if they can knock it out but it's also not something to panic about if they miss a couple field goals that are 50 plus moving on but the game-winning field goal is going to be a thing with the way this vikings team plays the way it's

going to go a game winning at their end of half kind of flip the flip the script and try and double dip at the end of half that's going to be a real situation that's going to arise and come forward and it's going to be fascinating to see how this group handles it jake mcquade is his name mcquade there you go yes sorry about that i pulled a u on that one he just got here i didn't have it right on the dome uh 2017 long snapper gets hurt jeff overbaugh comes in goes the wrong way on a punt it gets blocked, causes the Minneapolis miracle accidentally. I want to know from you where those long snapper dudes fit in in the operation, because when we take them for granted more than anything in sports, what's another position in sports where we don't think about that player at all? And yet if he's bad, it's really bad for your team. Where does that guy fit in in a locker room?

I mean, because Matt Daniels said it was a devastating loss because he's such a great communicator and leader and all that. I was like, I don't know that I've ever heard the long snapper being out referred to as devastating, aside from if the backup can't actually snap it. That's more for the punt team. No, I think the punt team with the communication that's up front, the checks and the ability of, hey, where's the block coming from? Center, which way are you going?

Is the snap going? They always kind of line up offset, so making sure the snap's going back to where it's supposed to be. There's a lot of checks that actually go on on the punt team, and I only know that because I had to sit in special teams meetings when I was on field goal return for a while and so i got to listen to some of those like oh there's actually a lot more that goes into this than just snap and punt you know but as far as it comes to like an extra point most of the time you just kind of i played guard all right i

was next to kevin mcdermott and i just made sure he got set and i just tap on the head and go i got you buddy right like just don't get bowled over. Just lock into this leg right here, and you just hold on tight. Those guys are always respected because we all know that we need them, but that we're not going to ever talk about them. So in the locker room, you always respect those guys that are doing their job. They have a job to do, and just because it's not as physical or it's not as flashy as Justin Jefferson or even just a center or a guard, it's not as needed it is still

one of the three phases of the game and if you can't win all three phases of the game in the NFL when the margin of victory is so small that plays a big part so the team always respects those guys and has a lot of help and courage towards them but it is always a little bit of like just make sure you do your job right that's all that kind of little bit i know i respect you but like your job's not that hard just make sure you do it properly hold on let me silence my phone real quick so i can tell you that us days are back at us cellular again exclusive offers just for customers just to say thanks. Right now, you'll get $1,200 off any phone plus $400 off any tablet. Amazing, right? Yeah, but my family is so excited about their new devices that they keep texting me during the show.

They're all about Us Day's deals like $1,200 off any phone and plus $400 off any tablet. Terms apply. Visit uscellular.com for details. I mean, I think any guy, McQuaid has two Pro Bowls, Andrew DiPaola has two Pro Bowls. Any guy that gets in the Pro Bowl or All-Pro, he's going to have respect in a locker room.

And also, I feel like every long snapper is 36 i don't know why that is they just have been around forever they're usually uh on a bunch of different teams and that's the case with this guy so he's done it for a really long time he was he was with the rams to the point he played for the saint louis rams like that's how long this guy has been around in the nfl uh what what else you got are we ready to talk about are we ready to talk about that justin jefferson is going to go down as maybe the best receiver to ever play in the national football league like is he on that trajectory right now crazy stat for you let's mix in at what does that stat mean? But I actually know what it means. He leads the league in

receiving and the Vikings are 27th in pass attempts. So they're not even throwing the ball a whole heck of a lot in comparison to other teams. And yet their wide receiver is number one in receiving yards. I don't think that we're ready to talk about him as the best ever

because there is a guy named Jerry Rice who will just never be topped. That's like saying, hey, is Shohei Otani the best ever? Is he better than Babe Ruth? You're like, I don't know, man. Babe Ruth was hitting 60 when everybody else was hitting like 22 home runs or Barry B bonds for that matter it's it's a it's a very high bar with wide receivers but let me throw this back at you what's what's a historical comp for justin jefferson because what he's doing this year

is some of his most impressive work because he isn't getting volume targets and yet it's all downfield stuff i had this stat that when sam darnold throws it in the intermediate area which is 10 to 19 yards over the middle of the field to jefferson he's 12 for 14 with like 280 yards i mean that's not easy for him to be getting open the way that he is with the attention that he gets. I was laughing at the Colts playing him one-on-one single high. What are you guys not watch any tape? Just all we play our system. Congratulations on that. It looked great. Uh, but what, what do you got for like historical receivers that he's similar to? It's, it's weird to say, but i think about the run that d hop went on when he was in houston when deshaun watson was before all the craziness and he was leading the league in passing and you know you talk about a guy that quote unguardable you know i can remember growing up

i mean in high school and in college watching d hop being like this dude just can't drop a football and he can't continue to go and then you also think about larry fitzgerald right another guy we talk about reliability and that's one thing with jefferson for me and kirk knew it too is just he's down there somewhere he's gonna catch it let me just throw it that way and i mean so many years carson palmer did that with larry fitzgerald down in arizona right and through, and so he's kind of this mixture, but my question that I always come back to is all those guys eventually had a drop off, right? Eventually it hit a point where, I mean, D hop's still a great receiver, but he's not what he was six years ago. I look at Jefferson and I go, he's so young.

He has so much raw ability. And then you just hear about the work ethic that he has so much raw ability and then you just hear about the work ethic that he has and the personality that he has i really do see him making this run for a long time if he can stay healthy just based off the person that he is so many times you talk about great receivers and they're just not great people or you know they get paid and everything changes in their life and things go crazy and now you're seeing them doing wild things. Jefferson is the consistency, right? And I say it all the time. The best compliment you can get as a football player is you're consistent, right? Whether it's consistently great, consistently good, consistently average, you're consistent.

And he is consistently great. And if he can continue on this path and continue to have KOC that can help with guys like Cooper Cup and the whole bit there. I really do think the sky's the limit for this kid. I think another part of it is, I mean, his personality is a huge element because his press conferences every week, don't even draw huge crowds of media because it's just so routine to talk to Justin Jefferson. Oh yeah.

Okay. Jefferson's at the podium again. And so far, the guys, we are talking to the best player at his position in the world right now, but he always makes sure that he's positive toward his teammates. He will, you know, acknowledge that he's really good at football, but even his trash talk sort of sounds playful and it never really moves the needle. And also who's going to tell him he can't when he says, I'll do the gritty on the Lambeau field. And then he did. So he's like, okay.

But just the completely lacking in any sort of drama at all. And people tried really hard to make that a thing in the off season. Oh, whatever. But he didn't have anything to say out in the media during his negotiations. Everything was kept in house. He practiced last year while they were negotiating. Nobody practices harder than this guy. He goes to the joint practices and wants to destroy the other team. I mean, you just can't ask for more.

And then he also has this communication with Kevin O'Connell where they're working together on the offense. And I think it was Jefferson that helped this last week to say to O'Connell, because he kind of leaked this out a little bit to us in the press conference, but to say to O'Connell, dude, you don't need a million motions. You don't need a million formations. Line us up, let us run our routes and we'll win. And they did a lot of that in this last game and it really worked. I think of Andre Johnson for this, the drama lists, consistent banging drum of excellence who elevates his quarterbacks.

You can't tell me Matt Schaub is a star quarterback who takes a team to the playoffs without Andre Johnson. And he is not controversial. So he just sort of is in the background of the NFL conversation. They're not debating Andre Johnson back in the day or Justin Jefferson on a weekly basis now because the guy is just so, as you said, consistently excellent and just does his job. That's who came to mind for me. I think Larry Fitzgerald's a good one. He's faster than Larry Fitzgerald, which is kind of crazy,

but the technician and the competitor, I think you're only putting him up there with legends yeah i mean the megatron one's one to think about too like if if calvin doesn't call a career because he's tired of being in detroit and all that what was what is his 15 16 17 year career look like if he can continue to do it right and he was maybe at the time i, no one's ever been doubled like a punt gunner in the end zone like Calvin Johnson was. And I think he's reaching that level of attention. I mean, they kept saying on the broadcast, you know, one of the linebackers for Indy was like, hey, does Justin Jefferson changing? Oh, Justin Jefferson changes the weather. Right.

And so he does have that respect. And when you have that type of respect amongst the league it's crazy i mean that's kind of the aaron donald stuff right we would change our entire protection scheme to where is 99 right when that guy commands that a bunch of attention from that it'll change an entire scheme of a defense or an offense that's when you have to compare them to legends and he's only in year five four whatever it is i mean this dude has the 12 to 14 year career written all over are we ready to talk about are we ready to talk about to do playoff projections as we look at the nfc because it's very interesting it's very tight

you have detroit starting to pull away a little bit with their win over Green Bay, but Green Bay is right there. They're a half a game behind the Vikings. You have Washington that has suddenly become a very interesting team, and their metrics on offense are fantastic. The Philadelphia Eagles are suddenly legit,

and the NFC West, maybe you could even call it the Wild west out there if you wanted to uh or is it and look atlanta kirk would host a playoff game in atlanta uh is it too early or are we ready to talk about how it might shake out who the vikings might play how things could play who's going to be racing for what spot or are you not there yet i don't think i'm there yet just because i think that's a december conversation the month of november always has big time injuries it always has big time players that kind of don't show up or fall apart right the kirk tober type type stuff but nove November is really where you start to see some of that separation from the

true contenders to the, I want to make the wild card and we're kind of starting to sort some of that out, but I'm not, I'm not ready to start talking about who's the number one seed, who's going to get the buy, who's going to host the playoff games just because there's so much that's going to happen in the month of November.

Yeah, I agree with that. I mean, I remember I was sitting, maybe it was in Chicago or somewhere, when Carson Wentz got hurt in 2017, and they were the best team in the league. And we're going, oh, what's going to happen here? And all sorts of things and how those can play out throughout such a long season. I mean, I can't say out of one side of my mouth,

hey, there's actually more games left than we've already played, and then be like, playoff time, baby. But I do think that we're getting a pretty clear picture of how it's going to work. It, the NFC East is probably going to have two teams and the North three and the West one and the South one. It's just, who's it going to be? Can Tampa Bay, they keep battling. Can they find a way? Is Atlanta going to fall off? Is Atlanta going to hit the gas pedal now after a couple of good games? When the next time they play a good team is feel free to let me know because they have just not played anybody. It might be the Vikings. I don't know. It feels like they haven't played anybody. So yes, I think you're right that it's too early,

but also we kind of know who the players are going to be, except in the West. I honestly have no idea what is going to happen in the West, but are you taking, are you taking Washington very seriously as a contender? I am. And a lot of it is because of Jaden Daniels. You know, everyone wants to know what's the rookie going to look like, and he looks like what C.J. Stroud was last year. The rookie that can come in can do no wrong. Terry McLaurin has revived his entire career now that he has a quarterback he can throw to.

They're so unique and so creative on how they get to formations and run the football with different pullers and guys all over the place. And Dan Quinn has been to a Super Bowl. He has the pedigree and he's got his team to buy it, right? You look at what Dan Quinn's done and it looks very similar to kind of what Dan Campbell did in with the Lions of how he just changes everything when he walks in and he doesn't bring anything from the past.

He just says fresh slate everyone's buying in and now you're going to look at it as Washington's going to become as weirdly as to say a destination spot for free agents right no one said that in probably two decades like yeah where do you want I think I might want to go play for the commanders right like that's not a thing and he knows he's that. And even with this year with a rookie scale quarterback, with the pay scale that it's going to be, I really do believe in the commanders and what they do. They're going to have to get through the Eagles who are figuring their life out because Saquon Barkley, whoo, what a man, right?

They're figuring their stuff out, but they're the most consistent team in the East right now, right? Philly's up and down. New York is battling for maybe the number one overall pick. Dallas has got their 60 million quarterback on the sideline saying we effing suck. They're a disaster. Steady Eddie as we go here, I think the commanders

are definitely going to put themselves in play to make a run. I think so too, and Daniels has shown a lot of maturity as a young quarterback. I don't think that their offense is just gimmicks. And when things go wrong, he can solve them by just being him. And that's a pretty powerful thing. But I really agree with you that coaching matters so much. They filled out that roster well.

And you can't underrate. They have a really good offensive line. And when it has a good O- old line i think on a weekly basis we talk about consistency that's something that can smooth out the rocky edges um but they also did get a hail mary to go their way which is pretty unusual i don't think they're perfect i think they're a little short on weapons i don't know that latimore solves all their defensive problems right now, but they're serious. And I think they're going to be in the playoffs. Let me throw you one more.

Are we ready to talk about Caleb Williams flaws? Because I want to be very patient with young players and he's much younger than Jaden Daniels, but the flaws that were there at USC are are still showing up as the flaws here not seeing the field scrambling first trying to make crazy plays and then it doesn't work out or are we gonna say uh it's not very good coaching or whatever like where are you at with that i'm all over the map with that and i think a lot of that is because caleb's all over the map you know some games he's out there slinging it looking confident setting his feet and then other games it looks like he gets

rattled early and never can get himself back on track and that's where i'm with you i don't want to write off a young quarterback we do that too too often in the league do we go oh my gosh it's like this is a huge jump right usc to the nfc north is a massive jump for any player let alone a quarterback who went 1-1 whose expectations are through the roof who when they drafted him there the entire city said save us please and that's just a hard thing to put on anyone's shoulders you know I look at Josh Allen's rookie year right I was with Josh when he was a rookie and we went 6-10 in Buffalo but everyone just was like just give him time just give him time. Just give him some time, give him some weapons, build some people around him. The bigger question that I have with Caleb is, is it a personality problem or is it like you said,

issues on the field or is it somewhere in between? Because I've never in my entire life seen a receiver quit in the middle of a play. I've never seen, besides maybe Colin Kaepernick with the Niners when all that stuff went down, where you're on the ground after a guy kind of pushes you down late and nobody helps you up. Those are more of the alarming factors for me when I watch that guy going, you can be young, but you need to have the other 52 guys rallying behind you. Because if it's not that way, things can go south quickly and the finger pointing will get started, whether it is the coaching or is it not development or is it the scheme or how am I not getting DJ more of the ball? So I better get him there. So he's happier.

What's happening there. I think it's a lack of leadership from a player-led place in Chicago right now I don't think there's a lot of great leaders veteran leaders on that offense specifically that can say hey we're gonna rally behind the young guy so I'm not ready to write him off but there's definitely some dysfunction in the chain of command going on in Chicago and unfortunately he is at the focal point of all of Yeah, I think that he might need to find his Mike McDaniel. He might need to find a head coach where he can lock arm and arm with and figure out the offense for him. He also reminds me a lot of Kyler Murray, where when you have to bail all the time,

then you have to make tremendous plays all the time. And there's variance in that. Josh Allen even goes through it it where if you're always asked to make amazing eye-popping plays some weeks it works some weeks it doesn't work and you Josh Allen goes nine for 30 one week and then the next week looks like the best quarterback in the NFL that happens to Kyler as well and if Caleb is going to play that way and he's not playing with rhythm and timing and execution then you're just sort of putting your life in your hands with all the scrambling and everything else. And it just doesn't work the same in the NFL as it does in college for almost anybody. I mean,

even, even Lamar Jackson is more of a in the pocket or actually run for first downs. The run around, run around, run around. There's usually just one dude in kansas city who's good at that and almost still not too many other quarterbacks on a week-to-week basis uh let me circle back uh to the jacksonville jaguars and the reason this wasn't a preview of the jaguars is gestures at jaguars uh but trap game not really right that's not real is it it's not real but they're not garbage right like it's as weird as it is to say jacksonville i don't put them when i stack them up on their record versus the other teams around them in their record you know you say okay i put you head to head with the giants you're probably better i put you head to head with the Giants. You're probably better.

I put you head to head with the Patriots. You're probably better, but you found ways to lose some of those games too, but you've also found ways to win. And so I don't think it's as much a trap game, but it's definitely got to be a healthy respect for the Jaguars. You can't just assume, hey, we're just going to roll in here and roll over these dudes because we're the Vikings, they're the Jaguars, and they're a mess. right they have some talent now they're injured at some key positions

but they have a really young that young receiver that they got out of Texas is phenomenal right they have kind of tanks Bigsby ETN trying to figure out the run game there the whole linchpin is Trevor Lawrence he is supposed to be the guy that makes things go and talk about riding the roller coaster this year he's been all over the place too. And now he's injured. We saw what happened when Trevor Lawrence got injured last year. They completely fell apart. The Jacksonville Jaguars completely fell apart at the seams last year

when Lawrence got injured. And so when it's already feeling like it's on this teetering point, you can say if Mac Jones is out there, is this a repeat of last year where everything just falls apart and no one can do anything? Or is this a team that's going to rally and get in and figure their life out together? It's somewhere in between, but I don't think anyone in the NFL has a pulse on what is the Jacksonville Jaguars. I think it was LSU, Brian Thomas, where he went.

Yes. Sorry. Yes. I'm thinking the kid from Donnie Mitchell. Yeah. Yeah. Or Xavier Worthy. Either way, at least um didn't say his name because you couldn't remember it uh but I can't I can't talk trash because I forgot what the new long snappers name was briefly uh so we're we're even for today but this Jaguars team fought last week against the Eagles it wasn't just the easy steamroll game over. They're going to lose by 40 points. They still have a professional head coach who once upon a time drew up a game plan that beat the Vikings in a very important contest in Philadelphia.

But at the same time, I mean, this team is a mess. This team is a disaster. And if they're playing Mac Jones, I just don't see any way he can execute against the Brian Flores defense. I still don't really even see it for Trevor Lawrence, who has never become the quarterback that we were told. So no, it's not a trap game because you're going to see on tape that they played really well at times in that game against the Philadelphia Eagles. And I don't think also the Vikings are quite good enough to be that.

I think a trap game is used way too much. I think it's got to be a very, very specific thing. It has to be one of the top teams versus one of the absolute bottom feeders. The Vikings are good. They're in the mix with other good teams, but that's almost like Kansas city versus the Raiders or something. Okay. That's the, the, the best team in the league versus one. That's really bad. Everybody else realizes on a week to week basis, they've got a lot of NFL players too. They've got pro bowlers. They've got a proven coach. So I don't think it's quite like that.

As far as love to see it, hate to see it, what do you got? You got anything? Yeah. My love to see it was an excited Aaron Rogers, right. And excited Aaron Rogers. And I think they fell into the trap a little bit of not doing the fire sale because they won that Thursday night football game. And they think, Hey, we can just get ourselves back going here again. It's on Reddick's back, you know? And so I don't know if it's a love to see it or hate to see it, but there's the jets giving hope and giving life back into a fan base

that they may rip away from as simple as this week my love to see it is do you remember when michael jordan was at his peak and then every other player that followed him tried to play like michael jordan and that resulted in some really awesome players. Not ever Jordan again, but Kobe Bryant, Vince Carter, Tracy McGrady, all these guys who kind of played in that high flying above the rim style. That's Odell Beckham's impact on wide receivers. I was standing behind Justin Jefferson at practice the other day, and he was catching the ball from 30 yards away with one hand, just like it was a baseball mitt. I was like, you guys just do this right from childhood. They're like, well, OBJ caught it with one hand. So I'm just going to learn to catch it with one hand. The limitations of the human body are, uh, uh, pressed every, uh, every time a new generation comes along. We talked about with kickers, they're better now than they ever have been

these wide receivers and one handed catches. It blows my mind it's incredible every time and this week was magic it was addison it was garrett wilson there was one other one that was right yes and then even the touchdown demarcus robinson has in the end zone he makes that with one hand his other arms kind of getting grabbed it's a beautiful thing i love the spectacular circus catch and we're getting them fast and furious this year and it's something to be said to watch it on tv it's another thing like you've getting to done and i've gotten to do to watch it in person like to understand the full body control that it takes for these guys to be running as fast as humanly possible, understand the boundary of my toes have to drag right here and to reach up and pluck this ball

that's coming from 30, 40, 50 yards away at a time. I have so much respect for wide receivers with the body control and it's why the elites are the Oh one01% of the elites, because it is just such a remarkable thing to watch in person. And I got to watch guys like digs and, and you know, other great receivers, Antonio Gates, when I was with him and just the way that they work and move and do those things is just so cool to watch in person.

And the TV really doesn't do it justice. I mean, it really doesn't. I know I was there for in Buffalo for jefferson's greatest catch and then uh the one that he made against the ramps down the sideline where he tipped it to himself it's just it never gets old i'll combine a love to see it and hate to see it love to see the gophers being a competitive football team i know you don't but it's been enjoyable to actually want to tune in to see go for football. I feel like it's a whole new world.

They've been an entertaining team this year. They hate to see it is that if you thought those debates were going away with more college teams, let in the playoff, you were wrong. They're going to let in some teams that don't belong there. The big 10 should be ticked. South Carolina should be ticked uh south carolina should be

ticked and here we go again no matter how many teams if they let in 64 there'd be well how did they not let in the 60 50 always and forever it's going to be that way yeah but i do love that it's going to be expanded and you know you're just always hoping for i think it was 2008 boise state oklahoma you're just there's always that little piece it was 2008, Boise State, Oklahoma. There's always that little piece of you that's like, can this small school do it? And 99 out of 100 times, the answer is no. They're going to get steamrolled by 40 just because that is the era of college football. But yeah, the Gophers have been fun to watch.

They are consistent. 7-5, 8-4 every year. You know what you're going to get and if that's your expectation level they're meeting up to it but yeah they've really figured out that young quarterback they have or that quarterback they have really put it together they're starting to find out a rhythm on defense again and pj flex just continues to row that boat and i also love random teams emerging as being great, like Indiana. And I think your theory about the NIL actually evening things out is a really good one, and we're seeing that play out. Do you have a hate to see it to close the show? Yeah, my hate to see it is how can people not beat the Chiefs?

I just don't understand. You watch it, and the problem is the more I watch the Chiefs and the more they find ways to win, the more I find they find ways to win the more the back of my mind goes this is going to be a three-peat like they just continue to find a way and if you're Buffalo and you're Baltimore and you're watching these team go every week someone has a chance at these you're getting confidence to do it but there's always that piece in the back of your mind that's going they just win they. They just win. They lose Rasheed Rice. They lose Isaiah Pacheco. Oh, we'll just get Kareem Hunt and Travis Kelsey. You'll figure his life out again. We'll trade for DeAndre Hopkins. And the scariest

thing I heard was the post-game press conference with Patrick Mahomes when he goes, yeah, I'm starting to just trust a lot more that DeAndre is going to win one-on-one matchups and I'm just going to keep throwing it to him. And you're going, no, how, how does they keep doing this? How do they keep doing this? And it's just, I mean, the AFC is just going, man, I don't know how you beat these guys. And the rest of the league is going, I don't know how you beat these guys. Cause it's really, it's fun to watch, but it's also just, it's scary to watch going how they continue to win every single week. The crazy part is they haven't played that well, and they're probably going to play better as we go forward.

They will not go undefeated. I don't think you can do it in 17 games. If Tampa Bay goes for two, maybe it's a different conversation. I don't know why you don't do that on the road, but Todd Bowles, Will Todd Bowles, I just think that they could get better and better with uh deandre hopkins and then getting some guys back uh we will see how that plays out jeremiah great stuff um this is a new game that i think we can keep going back to i i enjoyed it that was right off the dome you

just said you want a game so there are i'll figure it out i loved it it was perfect you know we're games guys we're gamesmanship we love it we are ready to talk about anything, anytime when it comes to football. So thank you again for your time. And as always football, football.