Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Brian Murphy and Manny Hill talk about whether the Vikings' win against Carolina was convincing of a turnaround

Episode Date: October 3, 2023

Matthew Coller talks with Brian Murphy and Manny Hill about their reactions to the Vikings' win over Carolina, including whether the Kirk trade talk goes away, whether there were signs of a turnaround, what this week vs. Kansas City means and much more... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to another episode of Monday Morning Murph. Matthew Collar here along with Brian Murphy, who wrote a very nice column about the only subject one could write about yesterday, which was, hey, Harrison Smith, still really good at football. And other than that, Murph, when I think about my time covering the Vikings, when I'm 78 years old and I'm retired on a Minnesota lake, and I think I remember the good old days. I remember the Minneapolis miracle. I remember the comeback game in Buffalo.

You know what game's not going to come to mind? The Vikings beating the Carolina Panthers 21 to 13. I thought you took the right angle writing about Harrison Smith. That was good to see. That's why Brian Flores is here. But other takeaways are pretty tough to come by when it comes to that game. Yeah, I mean, it was certainly not entertaining. It was enough to make your eyes bleed at times.

It was frustrating. It was boring. It was just not really good schematic or entertaining football for various times. But then you forgot how good Harrison Smith is maybe. And you forgot that this is a guy that is probably building a Hall of Fame resume more brick by brick than big flashy plays all at once. But he had a flashy day yesterday. And he had a flashy day that not only counted uh but at least for the time being really tightens the tourniquet for the vikings i mean obviously we know who's coming

in town next week uh patrick mahomes travis kelsey and maybe some pop singer that you may have heard of as well that'll be invading for the 330 national game next week, this very well could be one in four. But at the very least, you buy at least another week of time. You sort of, you know, validate two things. One, bringing in Brian Flores to really dial up the aggressive, put a rookie quarterback in his place type schemes that really did flourish yesterday and also put an old guy, old playmaker in a position to make big-time plays at big-time moments. And it was nice to see Harrison Smith come through like that, but it was also nice to see how the team sort of, at least in his comments and certainly on the defensive side, certainly head coach Kevin O'Connell, really rally around Smith and sort of build him up as, look, this is a guy that is sort of the glue in a lot of ways to this defense.

And let's not forget that he took a pay cut almost in half just to come back here as opposed to retiring because Brian Flores and his aggressive schemes maybe kind of convinced him, hey, you know, maybe the best days of my career under Mike Zimmer can be resurrected here a little bit. And boy, did he come up with the right plays at the right time. And he allowed, you know, sort of the rest of his defensive teammates to flourish at times because of the work that he was doing as well. So it was sort of an opportunity to look at what this defense might be, but let's not kid ourselves. They're not going to be able to fool Patrick Mahomes

the way they were able to fool Bryce Young yesterday. Yeah, that's completely true, and he's also one of the hardest quarterbacks to beat on the Blitz, although, I i mean we'll talk about it throughout the week everything has looked a little more human that he's still winning and the chiefs are still a great football team but without a top receiver and even last year it looks like he doesn't really even have a competent receiver like juju smith schuster it's kind of a bunch of young guys and then travis kelsey and their offensive line is not very good. And this is where Marcus Davenport's health is going to be really important.

So if we talk about the big takeaways, Harrison Smith, of course, I agree with you that, I mean, he just continues to be Harrison Smith as long as you let him. And gosh, I feel like Ed Donatel stole something from Harrison Smith last year. And he still had a bunch of interceptions last season because he just is a natural playmaker. And so he didn't have like a horrendous last season, even in the completely wrong usage. But that was one of the reasons that I was believing in Brian Flores was that he was using Harrison Smith throughout training camp in the right ways and putting him in position to drive the offense nuts and to surprise opposing quarterbacks. And also in training camp, Marcus Davenport looked really darn good Murph. I mean, this guy is huge and he's fast. And when

you go the drop off from Davenport to DJ Wanham or Patrick Jones starting. I mean, we see those guys could be a little bit of a rotational player, but in a starting role is really big. And we saw that yesterday as well. So as we're going forward here, I think you see two things. I mean, one, Brian Flores was no fool. He wasn't just sending all those blitzes at Justin Herbert because he lost his mind. It was probably the only thing he thought gave them a chance. And then you see what happens when the opposing offense can't handle it as

well as Justin Herbert, but also what Kevin O'Connell has been saying about Marcus Davenport, which is every time he talks about the defense, we need this guy back. We need this guy back. He's completely right. He's completely right. And I think we saw it yesterday. Yeah, he was disruptive disruptive he was a factor and i think he made everybody else around him better but let's let's be honest i mean he just hasn't been available that much the last couple of seasons both in new orleans and then here as well so you know if he's back and he's healthy and he's fresh and he's able

to free up and and you know maybe maybe he makes Daniel Hunter better around him. Maybe he frees up Smith to be a little bit more creative on the backside and doing what he does, which is showing a lot of different looks, sneaking down to the line, you know, playing more, more of a chess match, a high level chess match with quarterbacks and opposing offensive coordinators than just the brute force of being the hitman. You may have to consider changing him from the hitman to maybe the checkmate man just because he is so smart and he has so much experience now with what he can do

that I think his greatest asset is almost as a co-defensive coordinator now out on that field than it is actually a physical playmaker although again what we saw yesterday is he can certainly dial up big plays and big moments when he can but let's again that's this for once the defense was able to cover up for a multitude of sins on offense because I don't think there's too many opponents yesterday the Vikings would have been able to beat with the way their offense was not only not productive, but, you know, cousins making some key mistakes and key moments, the pick six, obviously the offensive line suspect as usual, you know,

at Ingram gets ventilated on that one hit where, you know, cousins essentially put the ball up for free and put it up for grabs. You had a lot of momentum swings in that game that could have gone badly. I mean, but for a penalty on the Panthers, I mean, I think they got inside the 10-yard line on that drive before, you know, Smith forced the fumble. And that was a 14-point swing. I mean, I was essentially dreading the fact that this was now going to be

an 0-4 team that we were going to have to gin up a lot of juicy and fun content over the next 13 weeks to justify our existence. And I'm not sure, Collar, we would have been able to do that. So all of a sudden, you buy a little bit of time. It takes a huge amount of edge off. You know, 0-4 is a black hole. One in three is you're, you're basically hanging on by your fingernails, but it does give you some kind of hope. And, you know, as you mentioned, I mean, the chiefs are, I hate to say the chiefs are vulnerable. That's a strong word to say for the Superbowl champs who happened to be three

and one and, you know, walked into New York and found a way to basically snuff the life out of the Jets with that long drive. Benefit of a suspect defensive holding call on 3rd and 20, no doubt. But this is a Chiefs team that, as you mentioned, their offensive line has got some question marks. The downfield threats aren't as much there. Mahomes can still improvise with

the best of them, but to come home and have a chance to play, I wouldn't give him any chance in Arrowhead, but to be at home, you know, they're 0-2 at home. The Vikings need to redeem themselves at home, and maybe this is the opponent, the opportunity they're looking for. Yeah, just, and totally agree that if you're going to have a chance having it at us bank stadium coming off a game where it looked like they struggled on the offensive line to pick up a lot of the jets's pressures may you know you can start to like talk yourself into hey this is a vikings team that upset buffalo last year like maybe you could pull something off but let's circle back though to some other parts

of that game that you brought up. I mean, number one is you are totally right. That, uh, to the Victor goes the narrative that, you know, Brian Flores, his defense is back baby and they got everything right. But, uh, you know, it's a game of, uh, one drive here or there where Harrison Smith strips sack. If Bryce young understands how to identify anything at the line of scrimmage, he throws that ball away or he just tucks it and

takes a sack. And there's still, I think in field goal position, even if he takes a sack there, or maybe one completion away, their kicker has a big leg, I guess, as everyone does when they play the Minnesota Vikings. But I mean, they were this close to going up 16-7. And if they go up 16-7, things get very dicey there because they were able to pressure Kirk when he did drop back. The Vikings' offense was barely on the field during the game because of the couple of turnovers that they had, which are looking more like this is a thing the Vikings do

as opposed to just completely, totally random events. And I also think that it's sort of like we've talked about many times during the Kirk era, this game of whack-a-mole where you think you've solved something and then something else pops up and it's like, oh, that's right. Kirk Cousins is capable of having a bad game as every quarterback in the NFL is, but you can't afford any the rest of the way because he had good games and you lost. And so, yeah, they survive this bad game from Kirk Cousins, but would they survive it? Even if he had one in Denver later

this year, would they survive it? Like their offense can move the football a little bit. I mean, I'm getting too far down the road, but like if you play poorly against San Francisco in a couple of weeks, you'll definitely lose that game and you won't give your team a chance. And the same goes for this week, where if that wasn't just a one week blip in Carolina, because his body didn't adjust the Eastern time, which also happens to me every time I go out there, it's like messes with me for a couple of days.

Then, you know, but if that happens against Kansas city, it's over. If it happens in out there it's like messes with me for a couple days then you know but if that happens against Kansas City it's over if it happens in Chicago it's over it's like they need to upset either Kansas City or San Francisco and then win every game that they need to win the rest of the way and that game served as a little bit of a reminder oh you can have one of those days and that's why it's going to be so hard, I think. Yeah, and I don't think they're delusional to thinking that this game was the ultimate stopgap. This was the game that's going to pivot. This is the game that can turn around a season.

No, it was a necessary victory at a desperate time against an inferior opponent. Essentially, you did your job. The Vikings did their job and won. This week coming up, and as you mentioned, in two weeks when San Francisco visits here on a Monday night, it's not only going to maybe define where the Vikings stand in the season, but it's also going to just validate whether they're relevant for the rest of the way. So you're right, the margin for error is gone, but I don't get the sense that they are puffing their chests out too much after yesterday. I think they realized, you know, as you mentioned, the turnover issue now, it really feels baked in. I don't, you're almost going into this thinking they're going to have two ghastly turnovers, whether it's fumble

or an interception, and they're going to have to overcome that. That's almost like part of the game plan now until proven otherwise. We're four games in and they are sloppy. And the timing of these turnovers that they're committing are awful as well. I mean, the pick six there on the first drive of the game, I mean, that 99-yard return, that's the kind of play that if you make against Kansas City or San Francisco, you may never get that opportunity again. You're not probably coming near the goal line again. And also from an emotional and psychological standpoint, those kinds of gaffes are daggers usually.

But against Carolina, no, not necessarily because, again, you've got a rookie quarterback, you've got a rebuilding team, and they're almost as directionless as they have been for the past several years. So that is more of a, you caught an inferior opponent at the right time for your schedule. It's not going to get easier. One thing I would look at though, the Davenport return and his impact, we may get into this a little bit. Cam Akers, he came in and now suddenly the rushing attack doesn't look so feeble. Madison had some moments. Akers certainly had some moments yesterday.

And they are able to actually establish something. That's one thing that was an improvement that we hadn't seen hopes of. The interior offensive line, still suspect. I don't know when we're going to get Reisner in there. I don't know what he's in town for, but at any moment now, we should be expecting him. I don't think he necessarily needs to master the playbook as much as he just needs to be a bodyguard for Kirk right now. So when is he going to get integrated into the lineup? I want to see how they respond at home to this challenge, but the first half, the first quarter, the first drive are probably going to be more important and

more pronounced in terms of what they can show on either side of the ball because Kansas City can take over a game very, very quickly and kind of steal your soul and steal the home field advantage right away. So I don't think, you know, the Vikings, as sloppy as they've been, are not going to be able to get away with huge unforced errors early without paying more of a penalty than they did yesterday. Our only theories there on the Reisner thing would just be that it's really hard to show up and be ready to play 70 snaps, although not that the Vikings ever get 70 offensive plays, it seems, but to play a whole bevy of snaps when it's hot out, the conditioning element of it throughout training camp is kind of a big deal. There's also maybe the possibility that it didn't look as good in practice as they wanted it to look.

I mean, I don't know when you're kind of tossing out ideas, but I think it is hard to learn an entire NFL playbook in a couple of weeks for somebody. But if he's not playing against Kansas City, then we are going to look around and be like, what is he here for? And look, if they were a fine offensive line getting depth, we wouldn't have this discussion, but it's the same player getting beat over and over and over,

and everybody knows it. I promise the Kansas City Chiefs have noticed who it is. Even if they were just throwing him in there on third and long or something like a rotational guard, anybody in for this third and long, there can't be that many things in the playbook for third and long. Can we just show him those plays and have him block, you know, somebody up because he is a much better pass blocking guard. We'll see if that happens. The one case that won't happen, but we'll see if he plays. I don't think rotational guard is going to happen.

But the one interesting case about this Vikings team, if you're trying to make the argument that they can do it, which Kevin O'Connell, that's his job now, is pretty much to keep coming up there and making the argument to the team, we can do it, we can do it. One of the things he does have in his pocket is that they are a better football team going into face Kansas city today than they were week one. If they get

Bradbury back, that's even better. Although I haven't been displeased with the way that Austin Schlotman has played. I think he's actually been pretty good. I mean, they've run the ball the last two weeks. No one's good when you're facing Jalen Carter and Jordan Davis, right? But the last couple of weeks when he's had time to prepare and hasn't played some of the best defensive tackles in football, I think he's been okay. But if they get the whole offensive line that they want it to be, Akers in the mix, who I thought was very impressive, and you could see why he was a high draft pick once upon a time and then Davenport healthy that's that's an unusually healthy team for one like into the season like this but it's also a much better team than they played the first week against which is kind of

rare like you don't see that very often so if you're making the case that's probably one of the best things you have in your back pocket there. Yeah. And you also mentioned too that, you know, Kevin O'Connell, that's his sales pitch now going forward. And what, you know, so much of what being a winless coach is, is damage control and preventing, it's a psychological game where you're trying to prevent your team from slipping into a here we go again mentality mentality or, you know, a Chicago Bears mentality where their body language just speaks volumes on the sideline. You know, this is almost a defeated team before they line up for the coin toss. So O'Connell right now has an opportunity to sell the belief. He has an opportunity to say, look, our defense finally came up and did something.

He's not going to frame it that way, but that's exactly what happened. The defense finally came up and did something because not only were they a disaster all of last season, they were a disaster against the Giants in the playoffs, and they were as much of a reason for why the Vikings were 0-3 as the turnovers were. So you have some confidence now in your unit. You actually can say to your offense, you know, don't feel like you have to make the perfect play at every moment. We have some playmakers here on defense.

Don't forget they actually bailed you out fine this time. Now, again, we're talking opponent to opponent. Carolina is not Kansas City. Kansas City is the best team until somebody knocks them off. They are with the most valuable player in the pocket who can beat you in so many different ways, so many different creative ways, ways you're not used to seeing. So it's, it's fine to sell that. What I think though, is I think you need to sell belief. And I think right now O'Connell's in a position where

he knows he's coming up against, you know, Andy Reid, one of the greatest coaches in the history of the NFL. He knows he's coming up against the most valuable player and a two-time Super Bowl champion. So this is a time to make your mark as a coach, not only in preparation, but in selling your squad the belief that you can be the greatest team in the world for three hours on Sunday. I'd like to see how they respond to that. Again, everything with O'Connell is like a new experience. They're 0-3. He's plugging the dike. He's trying to, you know, manage a crisis, several crises.

He bought some time. How do they respond to that? What's his message going to be this week? How does the team respond to that? I think they're going to be fired up. I think you're going to see them be a little bit more, I don't want to say cautious, but at least aware of their surroundings perhaps than they were in week one and week three at home where it almost felt like they were relying on that home field advantage and the fact that, you know what, we can step up when we need to at home because we have in the past. It didn't work. Tampa just kind of milked the clock on them. And then obviously Justin Herbert torched them all over the field and beat every blitz that

Flores could dial up. So now you're back home again against Kansas City. You've got a little bit of confidence because of what you did down in Carolina. How are you going to play with that house money a little bit? Because this is, you know, this could be the game of the season right now, psychologically, schematically, and then practically in terms of, you know, one and four is an awfully large hole to climb out of. Two and three against the defending champions getting a victory. I mean, you can really reset your season. All right, two important questions.

Number one, I got the tweet yesterday. Imagine some people were thinking it, that when Bryce Young was driving, trying to tie the game, that Vikings fans weren't necessarily rooting against him to do so. That, you know, maybe rooting to put a nail in this thing. And also, again, I say this every week, but if you watch Saturday football, there are some candidates for the future quarterback. And after being uninspired by the Vikings quarterback yesterday and being reminded that those roller coaster from week to week moments happened with him, would it have been better if they lost Murph in some universe?

And I know this is a thing that you've never really been for, teams like not, you know, tanking and so forth. But they weren't tanking. They were just not playing good and they were allowing Carolina to stay in that game so like would it have been better in the bigger picture if they had just lost and sort of put a nail in this thing and we don't have to play the in the hunt game as we go along or would you prefer that the season stay alive and they have a chance these are two great philosophical questions.

Look, I get the practical implications of them going 0-4 and turning their sights to the 2024 draft and reimagining what the roster can look like with assets, reimagining what the quarterback position is going to look like, because at 0-4, with a lame duck quarterback, there's going to be a lot of chatter up until the trade deadline about what are you going to do about Cousins? What are you going to do going forward if you're just kind of lurching around here winless? I understand all of that. I understand the excitement that, you know, playing fantasy football and being a general manager 24-7, 365. I understand the excitement that, you know, playing fantasy football and being a general manager 24-7, 365.

I understand the, you know, when you're contemplating and plotting for the unknown and from a fan who wants to be entertained standpoint, you want to see the Vikings be relevant. You want to see them playing relevant games. You want to see them going up against the best and trying to defeat them and not thinking about, are we going to win April? Are we going to win May? Are we going to win in June? That's all fine and dandy. But for me, no, I don't want that. I want to see them, you know, 0-4 was a death knell.

1-4 isn't much better. 2-5, 3-6. I mean, we could be lurching throughout the season. But as long as they're in the hunt, as long as there are relevant games to be played against quality opponents, that's what I want to tune in for. I don't want to tune in for the speculation game of if this drive is completed by the opponent, then now we can turn our sights on who's available in the draft and start playing the chess match of, you know, the 53-man roster intrigue. That's just something that's never interested me as a former journalist or as an entertainment consumer right now. I want to watch relevant teams play relevant games and produce big moments. I don't want to necessarily speculate on what the roster could look like going into training camp next year.

That's just me. I'm an old school guy. Just entertain me with what is in front of me on the television screen or on the field, not what may happen in the draft room. And I think that I have been thinking about it is that C.J. Stroud and Anthony Richardson and Patrick Mahomes and Josh Allen and many others, Lamar Jackson, were not the first quarterbacks taken. And I think Caleb Williams, after watching him the other day, is spectacularly talented, but he's not the only fish in the sea. So we kind of have to just wait and see how that plays out. But like, there will be quarterbacks to draft this year. This isn't a situation like last year where had they been in this spot last year, if all those close games went the wrong way, I'd be saying you, you might need to because the quarterbacks are going to go in the

top five. Well, there's so many of them this year who could be first round picks and not every team is going to need a quarterback. So, you know, and plus last year, they had no draft capital to trade up this year. They will, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So you're not with every win losing out on Andrew Luck as the Vikings once did by winning a game against Washington late in the season. And only God knows where we'd be as a franchise. Uh, if that had happened probably in a better place than they were in Indianapolis and they were pretty darn good in Indianapolis when they had him, but I don't think it's like that. I don't think you were ever going to be this close to Caleb Williams because later in the season, they were going to win games. Anyway, the only way would have been, and that leads into the other part

that I wanted to ask you about, is if they had traded Cousins, then yes, you are going to lose a lot of football games if you trade Cousins. I think that's an impossible thing to do to Harrison Smith, to Justin Jefferson, to Christian Derusaw, to the great players on this team. It's very, very difficult to say. We're bailing on all of you guys. I know we've got all these talented players, but we'll see you next year, guys. I mean, I don't think you can do that.

So I've never bought that they were going to do something like that. But the next three weeks are really going to determine this because if they lose the Kansas city and then go to Chicago and lay an egg there, which would not be the first time then, then it's a different discussion. I mean, then we're halfway through the season and you're nowhere close, but you pull an upset, you get a win in Chicago. The season is still alive in some ways. And I don't see any other way to go about it than just say hey if they have a magical playoff run they're probably still going to be able to get or run to the playoffs I hear

people say playoff run when a team makes the playoffs I don't like you got to like do something in the playoffs not the point but I think if they start to have this emergence where they start reeling off wins I don't think you should sit there and be mad because they're moving down the draft board. You're just going to have to let that play out. We saw Kansas City and Buffalo move up to get their quarterbacks. I know it hasn't worked out with Fields, but Chicago moved up to get Justin Fields.

It's not impossible to draft a quarterback if your team has a magical comeback to the season. So I guess to me, I've just thought ride the roller coaster. But if they lose the next two weeks, I'm going to change my tone and say, there's no reason to keep your quarterback around if there's anybody who wants him. Right, because now you're looking at one of five

where you know the season's over and it's not even a sell job to the locker room necessarily. I mean, as much as everybody loves Harrison Smith and wants to see him end his career on it on at least a competitive note and not on a tanking note, the sentimentality goes out the window if you're one in five. And the other, you know, you have to consider what the marketplace is going to be like. What is it, November 1st or October 31st? I mean, we're talking another month. So if the Vikings are in a no-win situation where they're not even getting wins and another team is desperate enough to overpay for a veteran quarterback, I mean, that's catching lightning in a bottle too. And you'd be, it'd be malfeasance if you're part of the front office that you don't consider trading to get, you know, maybe fleecing a desperate team for some assets.

One person, though, that you do need to sell this hard to is Justin Jefferson, because you didn't get the contract extension done. You're basically telling him, we're going to see how this plays out this season. And he's seeing dollar signs in his eyes because of the way he's producing, but also because he, in a way, did get snubbed while the Vikings were handing out money everywhere else, it seemed like. And, you know, he's not sure who's going to be the guy throwing to him for the next five

years, if it's not Cousins. I would think he would be the one you would need to placate more so than Darasar or Harrison Smith or even the fan base. I think you need to be on the same page with Justin Jefferson if it looks like this is going to, if not in tank mode, you're playing for pride mode. And maybe there's a little bit of a subtle difference there. You know, you're not playing to lose, but you know, you're not going to be able to win enough with the existing roster to actually go to the playoffs. How do you frame that discussion with Justin Jefferson? If you end up shipping Kirk Cousins off to wherever in November 1st, what's that first conversation with Jefferson going to be like? He's the one you got to placate. He's the one you got to pay attention to because all he's doing is

putting up insane numbers despite everybody having a laser beam of attention on him. And you didn't extend him during the preseason. You've got options as a team. You can franchise tag him. There's all kinds of things that are unplayer friendly that you can do to retain his rights. But the biggest thing you need to do is make sure he's on board with whatever plan you have going forward. If that plan includes a two and six record without Kirk Cousins. Yeah. You know, I was thinking about that yesterday, Murph.

How many wins would the Vikings have over the last two years without Justin Jefferson? The answer is not that many. And I know that mathematically the wins above replacement that football has is not something that's like easy to find, like PFF created this metric, but it's kind of in-house, like they don't share it all the time. And so you can't just like look it up. But we got a hold of that data in the off season and did a study on how valuable Justin Jefferson was. It's about as valuable as an average quarterback, which is insane. Like that's, he's about the most valuable non quarterback player in the entire league. And dang, did you see that

yesterday? I mean, it was just remarkable. It's like the game is on ice. It's a struggle. It's everything's looking bad. And then Justin Jefferson just goes, nah, I'm good. I'll just make a ridiculous catch look super easy. And then laugh at the cornerback who's trying to cover me it was like okay and that's been so many games where you should be out of it it should be over and then they just have a jefferson drive where he does everything and i whatever he whatever his side wanted in training camp is not enough he's probably worth more than that. So a mistake I think we might go back to consistently is saying, all you did was wait till his price went up because he just did it again and again and again. But I totally agree with you. If there was something like that on the

table, if they were to lose the Kansas City and then Atlanta comes calling or someone gets a quarterback hurt and says, hey, what if Brock Purdy were to get hurt in San Francisco? And they say, trade us Kirk Cousins. I mean, you have to go to Justin Jefferson and say, we've got this offer. What do you think? Is this going to change your outlook? And if he said, don't trade Kirk, then all right. OK, we're good. We're not trading Kirk. he's that important to their future that you can't just throw away the rest of the season

unless he's going to sign off on that move for what it means for the future he's a big college football fan so i don't know maybe he understands what's going on there uh anyway murph what do you think now after watching this uncompelling 21 to 13 victory about their chances to get back into the playoff race knowing knowing other information knowing that Kansas City had some struggles knowing that Jordan Love maybe is not the next Aaron Rodgers shockingly and the Chicago Bears can lose a game even when they play really well so now with new info what do think? I think they've got a shot to upset the Chiefs because I think Kansas City is scuffling a little bit more than we're used to seeing. I think this victory is going to, you know, energize the Vikings and the coaching staff as

it should. And I think you're going to see a fantastic atmosphere Sunday afternoon. Obviously, it's the later game. It's the national game. You know, maybe Taylor Swift makes an appearance. I mean, I'm loathe to think that that should generate, you know, should determine whether or not somebody tunes in to a game. But if you're in the building, I think there's going to be an atmosphere there that's going to probably rival most, you know, a playoff game. So that being said, I think they can rise to that occasion. And they've shown enough in pockets this season where you wouldn't be shocked if they upset the Chiefs. But it's going to come down, you know, they got to play a perfect game almost. They have yet to do that. And they got to rise to the occasion. And the last time we wanted them to rise to the occasion at home against the New York Giants, they fell flat. So that's where I'm cautiously optimistic that

they're going to play a competitive game. I think it's going to be a really entertaining game. It would make their season with a victory because it recalculates and recalibrates everything. A loss is almost sort of expected, but then you run out of your wiggle room. So this is why we tune in. That's why we say it week to week. Build up the narrative, tear it down when it's over. But there is a lot at stake for not just the 2023 Vikings, but the 2024 and beyond Vikings. And I think if they're going to revive their season, it's going to have to include an upset victory either over Kansas city and San

Francisco, or at least one of them while taking care of Chicago in between. But you know, it could set a really important tone if they show up Sunday and, and take down the defending champs. Yeah. The way I would put it, Murph is the Kevin O'Connell era Vikings. show up Sunday and take down the defending champs. Yeah, the way I would put it, Murph, is the Kevin O'Connell era Vikings. There's no team they can't beat and no team they can't lose to on a week-to-week basis is the way that I would put it. They almost lost to Carolina, which is not a good argument for beating Kansas City this

week. And yet, still, I have it in the back of my mind. Maybe I could see it because if they have one great game offensively well guess what you'll be writing after that game reacting to it as well as podcasting so I will look forward to that Murph and we will see where this thing goes because one upset and you are right this is a completely different season and the feeling that we're going to have if they beat Kansas city. And if they don't, we'll say that's what we thought was going to happen. So I will talk to you next Monday then. Thanks Murph.

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Download GameTime today. Last minute tickets, lowest price guaranteed. Once again, hot routes on a Monday night, as I know the universe will probably not be tuning in Manny because they are so captivated by Seahawks and giants, people all over the world saying, no, I can't miss a minute of Trey Aikman's commentary on Daniel Jones's quarterback play. Who would have ever thought a few weeks into Daniel Jones's season after he signed a huge contract and isn't playing the Vikings defense every week that he would be disappointing. But for those of you who are joining, welcome to the live stream and listening

on the podcast version as well. Manny, I got a question for you to start out the show. Here's a question. Let's say I like meters. I like confidence meters, panic meters, things like that. Let's say that going 0-3 and going into Carolina, your meter of confidence that the Vikings could turn it around was probably fairly low. After the win and everything you saw,

did your confidence meter in the 2023 version of the Minnesota Vikings move? Did it move at all? I mean, of course it wouldn't have decreased with a loss. I wouldn't think, but maybe since Kirk cousins didn't play that well, maybe it did. Where did, where was it before and where did it move to after that win i think if you're putting it on like a scale type of like a meter scale i think going into the game you're probably looking at i i felt about a three or four maybe in terms of just like turning the season around and maybe getting into the playoffs after the 0-3 start. It didn't really move much for me after the game.

I mean, it just wasn't, it felt like they went into Carolina, they played a bad team with a rookie quarterback that is struggling and has not found himself yet. And they did kind of what they were supposed to do. They won the game. It wasn't pretty. I don't think Kirk Cousins played particularly well. I thought the defense made some plays, but part of that was just Bryce Young being bad and the Panthers just being a bad team. So they kind of just took care of business and did what they needed to do, which against a bad team like Carolina, you

didn't have to do much to be able to beat them. Carolina kind of beat themselves as well. So I don't know if the meter really, really, really moved for me at all. I said they got the win because it means that, you know, we can at least put off sort of waving the white flag for at least one more week. We'll see if that changes this coming Sunday against Kansas city. But yeah, I would say at this point, it's just about, I feel about the same as I did before the game on Sunday.

I think that that's fair, but one of the things that we like to do on the show is play a game of talk me into. And so let me try. Okay. Now this doesn't mean that I necessarily believe everything I'm about to say, but let me give it a shot. Let me try to convince you to move your confidence meter a little bit higher. All right, here's where I'm going to begin. First, you saw the Packers play, right? Not so great. Not so talk about not convincing. The Packers are are not convincing if you told me that you think the Packers are decidedly better than the Vikings I would call bogus I don't think that there's been

enough evidence to say that Green Bay is better so you have two games against Chicago two games against the Green Bay Packers where I don't know about Jordan Love yet I think he can play competently but he also has a lot of bad throws mixed in. All right. You got some winnable games. You have Vegas. You have Denver that barely survived Chicago. Oh, do you get to play Desmond Ritter? Maybe if he's still the starting quarterback, that's not bad. How hurt is Derek Carr? Are they going to be able to move the ball more than about five yards at a time with his ac joint sprain all of a sudden after this little run here where you face kansas city and san francisco with chicago in between the schedule opens up quite a bit so it would require an upset of one of those teams or beating detroit twice which looks like it's going to be a pretty

hard task toward the end of the season to get them past like a seven or eight wins and be in that range of making the playoffs. But that, so that's part of it is the schedule is not that tough and I'm not that sold on green Bay. The other part is that cam acres adds a different dimension that was not there before. We saw that instantly of having a ying and a yang in the backfield, somebody with some explosiveness to them. He was great. Five runs for 40 yards. I don't expect them to average eight yards to carry all the time, but I think you saw it right there. Like, oh yeah, that guy was a high draft pick. So the running game has really turned around

the last couple of weeks. It was probably based on the fact that they were playing Tampa Bay and Philly and on the defensive side. And this is a big if, but if Marcus Davenport is on this football team week in and week out, going into any game, you feel like he can cause the problems and be a partner for Daniil Hunter that they were really lacking

in the first couple of games. And in this game, and I think my confidence has never been low on Brian Flores. The question was always how much can Brian Flores really do? Because of his track record, we know he knows what he's doing on the defensive side. But we really saw it against Carolina. When you're not facing Justin Herbert, who might be a top five to seven quarterback in the league, when you're not facing Justin Herbert, who might be a top five to seven quarterback in the league, when you're not facing the Philadelphia Eagles who are competing for a Super Bowl. And I know that is the standard, but we're talking about just getting it turned around, make playoffs. If you are facing a Derek Carr, a Desmond Ritter, a Justin Fields, a Aiden O'Connell, I don't know. It looks like this defense is going to cause a lot of problems for those quarterbacks going the rest of the way.

And especially with Harrison Smith moving up to the box, he was either at the box of the line of scrimmage, I think, on like 50 plays out of 72 that he was on the field for. That is our Harrison Smith that we know. So I think that they actually are a stronger team today than they were week one. They're getting Garrett Bradbury back and possibly at some point we'll have Dalton Reiser playing right guard. But I don't know if that's happening. I don't know why it's not happening. We didn't get a great answer for why it's not happening. But still, right, there's the potential there to pass block better. And they already have an all world wide receiver who's driving their offense.

Did I make a good case? How did I do trying to talk you into it? I think you made a pretty good case. I think what it comes down to, though, is because of that, you know, remember we talked after week one, after the loss to Tampa Bay, we brought up, okay, if you lose to a team that you probably shouldn't have lost to, you're going to have to make that up down the road. And you can't, your margin for error just got that much smaller. You can't have any more stumbles.

You got to take care of business against every inferior opponent that you, that you face the rest of the way. And I think that's going to be the most important thing for them. You brought up the schedule. You're talking about teams like Chicago, Denver, Las Vegas. Maybe the Packers are not as good as maybe they had looked the first couple of weeks of the season. You can't have any stumbles the rest of the way. And you still have to, you know, maybe steal a game that you shouldn't, that you shouldn't win to kind of make up for that Tampa Bay loss to kind of get you back on track. Is that against Kansas City this coming Sunday? Who knows? We'll see.

Is that San Francisco in a couple of weeks? We'll see. But I think if they can, if they can do that, steal one of those games, like you said, and just don't stumble the rest of the way, beat the teams that you should beat. Um, especially if you're going up against, you know, just bad quarterbacks or just backup quarterbacks for whatever reason, don't, don't have any sort of slip ups against, against those teams the rest of the way. And then I think if they do that,

then I think there'll be in pretty good shape to possibly win nine or 10 games and still get into the playoffs. Yeah. And what you just laid out there was almost the problem in Carolina. And that's why, even though I just put together a pretty good pitch, in my opinion, I,

I tried my hardest. I reached my deepest Manny, but the problem is they won by eight against the Carolina team. They're a pretty good pitch, in my opinion. I tried my hardest. I reached my deepest, Manny. But the problem is they won by eight against the Carolina team that was a strip sack away, a really good bounce. We talked about the bad bounces they've gotten, but a really favorable bounce away from going up 16-7 late in that game. And then the way that Kirk Cousins was playing, not really sure if there's going to be a chance to turn that around and we just know that over a season over 17 games I was thinking about

this you know the baseball stat quality starts I was thinking about it like this and it's something in baseball where the pitcher has to go six innings and give up three runs or less and you know it's whatever no one goes six innings anymore so this stat used to be useful and it isn't but let's just say if we had a football stat for that for kirk cousins let's say it was you know whatever amount of efficiency whatever pff gray whatever espn qbr and that made for a quality start so his his metrics of course from the carolina game were horrific as bad as I've ever seen them for Kirk.

That's not a quality start. He probably had two out of three or three out of three quality starts in the first couple of games. So the rest of the way, even if he has two out of four, three out of every four, you need all of them to be quality starts against those bad teams. You're supposed to beat. You cannot have something like that. And Carolina has a bad defense.

I mean, they were giving up everything on the ground game. Their corners were hurt. They really can't pressure the quarterback outside of Brian Burns and Derek Brown. I mean, that should have been a game where you run away. You win by 20. And I kept thinking that, like, all right, they'll get it together and do that. One of the issues is with their passing game, which no surprise by the

expected points, things like that. They're kind of right in the middle with their passing game so far this year, even though their yardage holes are high. But if you adjust for, you know, game situation and stuff, they're pretty average is that it's still the Justin Jefferson show and the Justin Jefferson show only. I mean, Jordan Addison has a couple of big touchdowns. KJ Osborne had one against the chargers. That was a big play. Hawkinson is averaging eight yards a catch. Like it's gotta be better than that. It's gotta be better. I mean, then you're talking about long handoffs at that point, I mean, to TJ Hawkinson. And if that is not better, then you're not going

to do this. It's really simple. You're not going to do this. That Jefferson by PFF has a 91 grade. The only guy higher is Tyree kill. No surprise. The next best receiver, not Hawkinson is 61. That cannot be the case. It just simply cannot. And so even though Addison has made some good plays, they've got to involve other people or they're not going anywhere. And I think that that's the hardest part of the argument is could Kirk cousins have quality starts and 75% of his games, the rest of the way, it's never really been who he is. So you're going to have to probably win some games where he's not that good. Can you get Bryce young every week? Probably not.

And then you have to establish some other people here in the receiving game, because if it's only Justin Jefferson, it's going to be boom or bust as it's pretty much been for Justin Jefferson's entire time. And in addition to that, for the love of God, they've got to stop turning the ball over. I mean,

they've got, what was it? 11 turnovers now in, in four games. I mean, that's just outrageous. You just can't give the ball to the other team. And I know sometimes, you know, you turn the ball over, you know, as to quote Kirk cousins,

not all fumbles are created equal. You know, sometimes things just happen and you don't really have much control over it. You know, players are going to make mistakes and they're going to fumble the football, but it's, it's the avoidable turnovers. Those are the ones that you gotta, you gotta limit the pick six that Kirk threw on the first drive yesterday. I mean, it completely flipped the game to, to, to start things out. I mean, the Vikings are moving and getting themselves in a position to, to take the lead, um, to sort of set the tone for the rest of the game, and then that happens.

And it was just a bad, bad decision by Kirk Cousins to throw that ball. He held onto the ball a little bit too long, and that makes all the difference in the world in a play like that. And it literally put them behind by seven points. It was a pick six. That's the kind of stuff that they have to avoid,

just the costly turnovers that are just boneheaded decisions um you know sort of shooting themselves in the foot they've got to avoid that type of stuff you're not going to be able to do that against kansas city on sunday and and find a way to win like that it's just not going to work when you're going up against the greatest player in the world and the best tight end of the league as well so um they're going to have to clean some of that stuff up get find some more consistency offensively and then i think they'll be okay yeah i mean i think uh with that the consistency offensively is just something that we always have been baffled by during the kirk cousins era and to your point about the turnovers,

so I was just checking the numbers on his turnovers historically. So if you go back to 2020, since then, he averages 12 interceptions per 17 games. He's got four already. I mean, interceptions can be weird and random, but he's a double-digit interception guy. It's just kind of who he is.

He threw with O'Connell, especially 14 last year. And every time they've leaned into the passing game, he's going to get to double digits. He also has historically fumbled the football a lot. And that's in part by, you know, taking sacks, but 2021, he had 12 fumbles seven last year for already this year. So it's not like the spigot just turns off and suddenly that the turnovers go poof and you won't turn the ball over ever again. It was kind of like some of the fumbles are random and some of the turnovers are not random. And also, I'm not really sure, even though what's going on at right guard is pretty hideous. I'm not really sure that they're ready to put dalton reisner in we just assumed that he was ready to play and throw him in and it's go time like if you sign him on madden

like okay week two uh my guard's bad uh let me throw in a guy and just plug him in there but in the real football they have to judge it by is he in shape to play a full season or yeah a full game to start and then the full season after not having an offseason? Is he actually an upgrade? And one of the things I've wondered about, Manny, is these last two weeks, they have been phenomenal running the football. And I think that you and I probably focus so much more on the passing part and the big negative play that was given up. But I think if you're the offensive line coach, Chris Cooper, you're more likely grading out on everything and not just, you know, that one part of it and they're running it. Attack has been really good and their run blocking has been really good over these last

two weeks. And what is Dalton Reisner's biggest weakness? It's the run game. And so they might feel like okay these guys have played better it was just one mistake you'd also like and I'm not blaming him okay no zero blame you'd like him to move

a little bit when there's some pressure but it's not going to happen so they might they might grade that one out and say look you know he let go of the block but you know cousins whatever I don't know like I'm not sure but i'm hunting for explanations since kevin o'connell went with we're playing the best five which is like so do you not think dalton reisner is the best five i don't know what's going to happen there exactly and then

we're going to wonder so why did you sign him i mean because there are a lot of positions on this team including edge rusher where it's you knower, cornerback, where they just went for, hey, young guy figured out. But with this, they sign Reisner. So you think, all right, well, they're not going with young guy figured out. But now they are. It's a little bit puzzling, Manny. It is. it is and I and I wonder too you know to your point about Dalton Reisner I wonder too if we were so anxious to see him get into the game right away as soon as they signed him off the street

essentially I wonder part of that was just because we had watched Ed Ingram perform so poorly in pass protection the first couple games of the year where it's just like well it can't possibly be worse than this if you put Dalton Reisner in but it you know look they they see these guys every day in practice they know so much more about this than than even you and I might you know they might be seeing something that might be indicating it's not quite ready yet. We need a week or two to get him into game shape, make sure he's got the scheme down, and then we can put him in. And then the run-blocking angle of that, that's an important thing. I mean, the Vikings have been able to run the ball pretty well

the last couple of weeks. Alexander Madison's been really solid. Cam Akers got into the game yesterday, and he was really productive. They might feel like they have something going here with the running game and if ed ingram can just get a little bit better in pass protection not going to hold my breath for that but you know maybe they're hoping like if if he can show a little bit of improvement there and not just completely like shell shock this offense at any given moment, like he almost did when that second interception yesterday.

If that can happen, then, okay, maybe we can survive this. And it's still nice to have Dalton Reisner in our back pocket because, hey, somebody else on the offensive line could get hurt. Ed Ingram, you know, knock on wood, could get hurt. And it would be good to have a guy that's at least can step in and play a couple of different positions on the line. With our sponsor prize picks. I was a big winner this week. I went three for three.

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And he went more as Kirk Cousins went with less because I thought they would run the ball a lot. And then Josh Allen threw all over Miami, which I figured as well. So a great week for me with PrizePix. PrizePix.com, it's very easy to go, sign up and play. And that's all you got to do. You just pick more or less with these players and you're in. And if you go to PrizePix.com slash purple and use the code purple,

you get a first deposit match up to $100. So PrizePix.com slash purple. And the reason I like it, Manny, is it's just not that expensive to play. I mean, you jump in, you're playing for a few bucks, you can win a good amount. So, you know, it was a good week for me. prizepix.com slash purple with the code purple daily fantasy sports made easy. Yeah, I mean, maybe that's how they're looking at it or it may be, it's just conditioning. I mean, without a clear answer, we don't really know, um, what the deal is, but also it seems that maybe there was some inspiration for the two linemen to listen to their coaching a little

better, or maybe it's just that competition has not been that high the last two weeks the chargers and the panthers do not have two of the better offensive or defensive lines to go against and they got pushed around by this offensive line now it's going to be kansas city kansas city is a much better especially with chris jones uh offensive line so our defensive line so we might see a change if ed Ingram is struggling. But in my mind, I've seen enough. Like, I've got a pretty big sample of what we've seen here. The other thing, too, is that Ingram barely had to pass block on Sunday.

I mean, there was only 21 dropbacks, and he was, what, sacked on two of them and then had his arm hit. It was the only pressure that Ingram gave up. But even one pressure in 20 dropbacks is not like that could because you you're dropping back so little um high times kg says uh what was the point of bringing isoamine reisner in they already know if they already knew ingram was a better run blocker i mean that's the question i and and maybe maybe they were so frustrated by those first couple weeks that they just said you you know what, pull the lever, use the Reisner phone. Hey, Dalton, it's time.

But then the last two weeks, their guys have played more up to par, even though I didn't think so against Los Angeles. I thought that Ingram was their worst pass blocker. There were several third downs that Cousins got pressured and hit. So I don't know, maybe, maybe it just needs one more week of him getting into shape to play and we'll see what happens this week. But if he is there and they are pass blocking better,

I do have more belief that their passing game could be a little more consistent and a little more successful on third downs where I think that they've really struggled to keep these drives going. And that's how they end up having punts. And then I think, what is it, like four turnovers that are directly on the right guard? There's several strip sacks and then the arm being hit,

which might as well be a strip sack. It goes down as a pick, but that's too bad, by the way. Like that's a box score. I was just talking about Kirk's picks. Like, that's a box score issue. That's more of a strip sack on the right guard. But speaking of Kirk, actually, let's talk about Kirk in a second, but let's talk about pizza first, Manny.

You guys, if you're watching the show, I know you love pizza and football, so you should make Little Caesars, the official pizza sponsor of the NFL, part of your game day. Order online during their Pizza Pizza pregame one hour before NFL games and get ready for some football and fun. Choose your favorite Little Caesars pizza. Pick the toppings you crave. Either way you win. And speaking of winning, everyone scores with convenient delivery or their in-store pizza pizza pickup. So grab some friends and enjoy a few slices during the tastiest hour before kickoff uh are we done talking about kirk being traded what do you think

uh for this week yeah probably um just because they won i mean it's it doesn't really even have anything to do with kirk's play yesterday either uh but i think because they won. I mean, it's, it doesn't really even have anything to do with Kirk's play yesterday either. But I think because they won the game yesterday and their season is still, I think mildly alive. I think for now we kind of just are still rumors and the, the conversations aside a little bit, but man, if they, you know, you just, you look at their schedule again the kansas city game is is just huge you know and the san francisco game coming up the chicago game i mean soldier field's always been a house of horrors for the vikings on the road you know so

these next three games i think are really gonna determine so what what day is the trading debt uh the trade deadline what week is uh that is now unlike our childhood manny that is now week eight it was week six before and that's why there were never any trades yeah so okay so if you go to week eight you got kansas city chicago san francisco green bay the next four games all right one and three. If I think if they can get themselves to. If they can get themselves to like three and five or four and four, I think you can probably put those put the Kirk trade rumors to dead, you know, to bed up to that point of the of the trade deadline but you know you lose the kansas city you stumble at chicago and then the niners come in and beat you now you're one and six going into lambeau and then at that point i think it's open season for all of the kirk trade rumors at that point yeah and i

think that two and five because i think it's after week seven before week eight i'm i'm thinking i i'm trying to remember from past years because the Vikings, I mean, I remember them trading away Yannick Ngakwe and I can't remember what they were at that point. They must've been, no, because they got a win in Green Bay to go to two and five and then they traded Yannick Ngakwe, I think,

but they didn't trade anybody else. So they tried to turn it around. At two and five, I think they still go for it. I think that they'll look at their schedule and say, there's a lot of wins going forward. Even if they were to lose both of these games against Kansas city and San Francisco and beat Chicago, they'll say, all right, we're three games out of 500, but the NFC has got a lot of problems. The South is still utter garbage. I mean, you probably in the East, you've got a case for maybe two teams making it, of course, because you have Dallas and Philadelphia, you got Seattle that's in the mix.

You'd need something to go wrong for one of those three teams, but then you've got a case like Green Bay, of course, is still in position to be a playoff team, but I'm not convinced. That's the whole point is like they're vulnerable. And then we're already seeing the race take shape at two and five. I think they would have a chance to at least turn it around and they would not give up on the season because they would look at their upcoming schedule. The problem is with that. The upcoming schedule thing is even though a lot of those teams are bad, a lot of those games are on the road.

And so you could always lose. I mean, the Raiders, the Raiders are horrendous, but they almost tied the game against the Chargers after, you know, starting Aiden O'Connell and having him sacked six times by the same player. Like, you know, it's a very much in any given Sunday take, but like you can lose one of those games, especially on the road.

So that one is a pretty tough, like to convince that two and five could get you there. But I think they would think that just like the 2020 version of this team did at one in six, it becomes a little more toasty. Then it becomes a little more spicy to discuss. Is it time to trade Kirk? Because because even if and then the other element is Zach Wilson just played a legit very very good game against the Kansas City Chiefs and if he plays similar to that going forward and gets some confidence and they found some offense that works for him they're not going to make a trade either or if they're out of it as well they're not going to make a trade Atlanta's in this discussion but I don't know who else is.

I mean, you'd have to have, there's only one scenario that I thought of Manny, that is the Vikings play San Francisco and Marcus Davenport rolls up on Brock Purdy's ankle and Brock is out for the year. And Kirk travels back to San Francisco with them. That's the only thing I thought about. Kind of like you alluded to this last week, like the Purdy has had some injuries already. If that were to happen, I think that would have to be it though, because unless, I mean, Atlanta is probably the only team I could think of right now that whose quarterback play is

so bad and they're trying to win. And if it's the jets it just it just seems like the odds after that win when and zach wilson's play went way way down to barely a flicker at this point that it could actually happen yeah and and even going back to you know the from the viking standpoint in terms of like where they'll be at by the time you you know, week seven, the trade deadline comes up. I mean, even if they're like two and five, what if what if Detroit is in first place, but they're like four and three at that point? Then you're two games back, at least there in their mind, they're thinking, OK, well, we're we're two and five. But we're only two games back in the division and we still get to play Detroit twice later in the season if we can win a few games in a row and and sort of keep pace with the Lions a little bit there you know there would be no reason I think at that point for them to to sort of punt on the season if they

still think that they can have an outside chance of winning the division, and Blantos brings up that Daniil Hunter trade would make more sense, and I agree with that. Also, I mean, Lee is bringing up the cap implications. I mean, that's the thing, is that it was already, in my mind, almost impossible because of cap implications and the fact that I think Kevin O'Connell wants to fight it out. I don't think Justin Jefferson would enjoy playing with Nick Mullins instead because he knows that he's going to have a chance to win each week with Kirk Cousins.

So I think it's dead. I think it's DOA. It's over. It probably was never alive. But I think it's over after that. Unless, I mean, if they lose at Chicago, maybe it starts to flicker. I'm not sure. I just don't see it.

I think they're going to play it out. And they might as well. You know, I know that there's always the fear of not getting a high enough draft pick, but I'm not that concerned about that. I wanted to ask you a couple other things, though, just about around the NFL and what we saw on Sunday. And if you're not overreacting, you're not living with the NFL. Sometimes it's like, I don't know, what do you want anybody to do? They play one game a week. Yeah. Like this is what we have. But Buffalo's win over Miami. I think it was last week. We were talking about who our power ranks would be at the top, who our Superbowl predictions would be at the top. And I don't remember if I said this or not, but if I didn't, I should have,

which is, I want to see how they play at Buffalo. I know what that atmosphere is like. I know they have one of the best coaches in the NFL who everyone wanted fired after week one, by the way. One of the, one of the hands down best coaches in the league, Stefan digs goes legend as he often does. They crush Miami. They solve a lot of Mike McDaniels, Tomoolery and I I just couldn't be more impressed I mean that that team has looked like a absolute 100 Super Bowl contender and in my mind since week one which is random and weird the best team in the NFL I think is probably Buffalo right now after that win yeah and when you look at the way things have kind of gone for them over the last year, I mean, the DeMar Hamlin stuff,

obviously it took such an emotional toll on that team. But then, you know, you lose that playoff game at home to Cincinnati. You know, Stephon Diggs is pissed off and he's mad because, you know, he's such a competitor and he hates losing. And, you know, he wants the football thrown to him. Let's be honest. We know how Stefan is. He wants the ball, as many star wide receivers do.

But, you know, there was I think after they lost last year, there was kind of that question of, OK, is the window starting to close on them a little bit? It's not shut. But like Cincinnati is this up-and-coming team that made another kind of deep run, and Kansas City's not going anywhere anytime soon. Are the Bills kind of, was their best chance for a championship maybe these last couple of years?

And then you get all the question marks about what happened to them in week one, losing that game to the Jets, but man, have they answered the call the last three weeks, and, you know, I know whooping up on the Raiders week two, you know, the Raiders are not a very good team, but if you're a great team and you're playing a bad team, that's what you're supposed to do. You're supposed to annihilate them.

You're supposed to dominate them, and they've just been fantastic. Offensively, they've been great. That defense, man, that defense is unbelievable. And they've been really good for the last few years. So hats off to Sean McDermott for, you know, turning that thing around and Leslie Frazier and all those guys. They just look like a complete football team right now.

I think they're, what are they? I think they're, you know, just four games in the season, but they're second in scoring and they're second in scoring defense. Like that's your top five in both categories. I mean, you're a legit dominant team, and the Bills look fantastic right now. You know what they remind me of with Josh Allen, and I know it's done in a different way, but kind of like the Indianapolis Colts where Peyton Manning had some playoff disappointments, and you could throw this out there for like New Orleans with Drew Brees,

like teams with elite quarterbacks where they would have some playoff disappointments, but you just knew that if they kept going back and kept going back and kept going back, that they were going to win at some point. And I'll give you a comparison historically, not that far back historically for what the Buffalo bills are right now. I think they're the Roethlisberger era Pittsburgh Steelers, where they have some great receiver play, an absolute baller quarterback with a ton of guts, and a defensive-minded head coach who every year, every week is throwing out a great defensive game plan.

And they can be volatile a little bit because of their quarterback and the way that he plays, erratic at times, the same way that Ben Roethlisberger would be. And sometimes the passing stats are not always beautiful, but they are going to find a way to win a lot of games. And, I mean, you said it, when you've got that type of point differential, like that opens your eyes. I saw that Aaron Schatz and his DVOA has them as one of the strongest

three-and-one teams ever. I mean, they lost on a punt return. Like, what are you going to do? And a couple of bad interceptions. But since then, they have been a dominant team. And then degree of difficulty to crush Miami like that is super impressive. So, yeah, I think that they go right at the top. And then San Francisco also.

Speak of historical comps. I need you to give me a historical Brock Purdy comp. Because was having this conversation via text with our friend Sage Rosenfels. And I want to get Sage on the show before the San Francisco game because he trained Brock Purdy going into the draft. So he knows him extremely well. And so I was I was asking him about like, who do you think? Like, what's a historical comp? Is he like my case? Keenum is just riding the gravy train. I came up with like Matt Hasselbeck with the Seattle Seahawks where, you know, it's not the best athletes, not the biggest arm, but the guy's kind of gutsy and like finds a way

and has a great team around him. But every week he continues to get more confident, more accurate. And it's not, it doesn't look like it's just a guy who's sort of luck boxing into a great team. It looks like a legitimate quarterback. So I don't know. What do you got? Yeah, Matt Hasselbeck's a great comp.

Another one I was thinking of, too, and you can tell me what you think about this, but I thought of kind of like a right-handed Mark Brunel. You know what I mean? Where he's just kind of – you know, Mark Brunel was that guy that like, he had some really talented receivers around him with Jimmy Smith and Keenan McCardell and Jacksonville. Really great running back and Fred Taylor and, you know, an offensive line that was really, really solid for a while.

And he took advantage of the talent that was around him. And he was just tough you know you couldn't really you know mark brunel towards the end of his career started getting beat up a little bit uh but he just hung in there man and he didn't have the biggest arm you know wasn't a super great athlete but he could move around and he could run if you needed him to and that's kind of the same thing with brock purdy it's like the arm isn't like, oh, my God, look at this amazing arm, but it's it's good enough and he can move around and he's just he's just got guts, man. And I remember we had talked about it last year, I think, about Brock Purdy, about how just like I wasn't too surprised that he played as well as he did. You know, I didn't know how long it was going to last, if it was going to continue on into this year, but it didn't surprise me that he played fairly well because, I mean, this is a guy that played a lot of games in college at Iowa State

and played at a high level, was gutsy and tough and competitive and just kind of a winner just kind of have that that winner's you know mentality that intangible um so yeah i mean it just i didn't think it was going to continue on into this season because there's so much questions about his health and his arm after the nfc championship game last year but man he's delivering man he's he's he's hanging in there and and i think it really kind of shows how good a coach mind Kyle Shanahan actually is, too. Because you take a guy like that, that you took in the seventh round. He was the last pick in his draft. And he's, like, literally just balling out.

He's taking advantage of what he has around him. And he's delivering. And it's been impressive. It's been fun to see. I pulled up my uh text chain with sage says mark brunel right there is my other side we came up with we came up with exactly the same um i i this might be so there might be something to this brock purdy from t kubler is a mini brad johnson i mean when you look at at Brad Johnson's career, probably underappreciated

for how good he was. He won a heck of a lot more than he lost. He was an accurate quarterback with some guts and with great leadership abilities. And everyone I've ever talked to said that he was like a very relatable person. Like he really connected super well with his teammates. And I think when you talk about that 2002 Tampa Bay Bucks team, that Brad Johnson will never, ever in a million years, get any credit for winning because the way the Superbowl went was all their defense, but he had a good year and he played well. The thing is though, that like Brock Purdy's putting up legit stats though. I mean, that was the thing with, with Brad Johnson where, you know, he'd find a way and he was a good game manager. And I think even in Washington, uh, for as much of a

truck fire as that franchise usually is, he had some good years and one, like 10 games, one season for them, but it was never like putting up huge efficiency numbers, huge stats. I know different era, but maybe that's it. Maybe if you're a Brad Johnson type player in this era where where you're not getting clubbed all the time and getting hurt all the time because of, you know, the way they play, maybe that is, maybe that is a really good comparison. And it's a guy with the right team who is certainly good enough to win. So I would have, if we're just going to do this on the fly a little bit, I would have Buffalo then San Francisco right behind them because the more Brock Purdy plays, the more we have to buy in to Brock Purdy. And now, and like, I've been, I've had a chance to watch him a little bit more, like actually watch.

And it doesn't seem random or fluky. It doesn't seem just like, oh, well, all the receivers are wide open. You could just throw it this way and it would be fine. Or like, and any old, you know, Trevor Simeon could step in and just win a bunch of games. I don't think that's the case. I think the guy is really playing at a high level. Who would be after that? Would you still have Miami after that, or would you flip back on Dallas

and say, hey, they just had a bad week in the desert, and then they pummeled the New England Patriots? Who's after that for you? Yeah, I was going to say Dallas. Miami, I think they're still maybe, even though their offense is fantastic still, I think there's still some questions about their defense a little bit. I know Vic Fangio's been a really good defensive mind,

really good coordinator for a long time, but you just kind of wonder if there's going to be enough there. If they do have an off day offensively, is their defense going to be able to sort of pick up some of that slack? And I don't know if they've really shown that yet. I think so far it's just been so much their offense just destroying everybody. And so I think that's going to be a question mark with with miami the cowboys man the cowboys should have everything like they have a they have a good quarterback they got a pretty good running game their defense

is really good there's talent up and down that roster. What happened to them in Arizona is just, it's mind boggling to me. I can't even like point at anything from a football standpoint that is wrong with them. It's just, they just seem to have these games where you just, you're, you're kind of scratching your head. Like what the hell is that? Like, why, why did they play so badly in Arizona? The Cardinals aren't, aren't even trying win. Like, how do the Cowboys just lay an egg like that? But I think from a talent standpoint, when you look at the way they're constructed, I mean, I think you have to have the Cowboys up there right now. I think they blew it a few times in the red zone.

And if I'm not mistaken, was that right after the Trayvon Diggs injury? So maybe there was like a little bit of chaos with the team. I'm not sure. I think these two comments, the next two comments I'm going to show really describe everything about the Dallas Cowboys. Nathan says he still thinks the Cowboys are the best team in the NFL and Tang thinks that they're going to choke again in the playoffs.

And I think you're probably both right. I think you guys nailed it. Yeah. yeah i mean what like every team's gonna have a bad game last year kansas city lost to indianapolis so it happens like where you just have a no-show i wouldn't knock them like that's why we do this that's why we talk about the power of a team where we're trying to like not overreact to certain things and like what's going to carry on dallas is is very very good and it seems like there's a little bit of a collision course with them still going you know against uh san francisco at some point like our childhood and philadelphia philadelphia is a weird one to peg

too because philadelphia keeps winning and they're what four and oh and yet none of their wins have been really good like so they dominated the vik, but it was a time like Philly fans were booing them off the field at one point and against Washington. I still think that Terry McLaurin, I don't know if you saw the end of that game, Terry McLaurin, I think made a catch in overtime where his toe was inbounds, but they couldn't overturn it because it's a noon Fox game. And so they didn't have like the 700 cameras and, you know, the rules expert or whatever everywhere.

But I think that they were that close to losing that game. And their defense is a little shoddy. I mean, they gave up a game tying drive to Sam Howell, best quarterback in the draft class, by the way, Sam Howell. Now, I mean, now that Kenny Pickett is garbage, like, right. I think it's sam howell so anyway um you know i i i guess i i think that uh philadelphia still deserves to be talked about as very very strong but i'm not sure that they've been as convincing as some of the other teams

yeah and you know i look back at that game with washington yesterday. When Howell threw the touchdown pass to make it 31-30, I just kept saying, Ron, go for two. Go for two. Riverboat, Ron, come on. Go for two. Go for the win. Like, what just happened wasn't even supposed to happen. Like, Sam Howell leading on a drive like that in a clutch situation like that,

that was not supposed to happen. Just go for two. Go for two and the win. Think about what that could do for that football team if that happens and they win that game. I knew as soon as he kicked the extra point, I was thinking, the Eagles are going to win this game in overtime. I just felt it. I felt like Ron Rivera just let the Eagles get away with one there, and he should have taken advantage of it.

But alas, here we are. Here we are. And, I mean, you just want coaches to sometimes understand the moment. Like, you are the underdog in this game. You kind of lucked out to even be there. There was barely one second left on the clock. Like, just give it a shot, man. Just try to win it right here instead of playing for overtime all right um okay that's interesting uh because i don't have the game on at the moment that apparently gino smith got banged

up which uh yeah that's i mean that's what we're talking about manny about the vikings and their path is if something goes wrong for one of those teams that appears to be right there in the race, once again, the NFC is so insanely top heavy. And I wanted to ask you about this as well. How about the, the AFC at getting CJ Stroud and Anthony Richardson, who have looked really, really good so far. And the one quarterback who hasn't in the draft that went to the NFC has not looked very good. How much would you react to what we've seen so far, knowing the history of quarterbacks, knowing how long it takes to really get an idea, but how much would you react to what we've seen so far from these rookie quarterbacks?

I think from what we've seen so far, I think it's pretty legitimate and, and I don't, you know, I'm not ready to give up on Bryce Young yet, but it is, I think what we've seen so far is very concerning. I think his durability was a concern, you know, from the very beginning. I've got some concerns about that. And I just, I'm worried that he's not seeing the game the way that he should. A couple of weeks ago, we talked, or it might have even been last week or two weeks ago, I asked the question of, should he even really be playing right now?

Should Andy Dalton be quarterbacking the Panthers right now, and Bryce is sitting on the sidelines with a clipboard, and he's just watching and learning you know what I mean because some guys are ready to step in right away and I think CJ Stroud and Anthony Richardson have both shown that they're pretty ready to you know they've had some bumps in the road too early on like most young quarterbacks do but they've seen much they've seemed much more ready to go early on here and and I think in the case of Bryce Young I think it's okay that he's not ready yet I mean the Panthers are not trying to win a Super Bowl this year you know nobody's picking them to do anything like that so you know I don't know

what benching him now could potentially do for his confidence going forward but I just wonder if he should be playing right now because it just doesn't seem like he's seeing the field the way that he should. C.J. Stroud, man, looks – I mean, he's legit, man. I think him and Anthony Richardson are both legit, but C.J. Stroud has really, really impressed me. Just the poise that he plays with, he's accurate, he's making pretty good decisions.

He's not turning the ball. I don't think he has he thrown a pick yet. I don't think he's thrown a pick yet. Has he? No, I don't think so. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, four games into your career and you haven't thrown a pick yet. Like that's that's impressive for a young guy like that. So and Anthony Richardson is just so much fun, man. That kid is his just you watch him. I mean, obviously, we want him to continue to grow as a passer, and he's a much better passer than I think a lot of people were giving him credit for going into the draft. But to watch him run is just a treat. I mean, watching him, you know, just tuck the ball and take off against the Rams yesterday

a few times was just really impressive. And he's just, there's so much of a, you know, Dante Culpepper, Cam Newton, you know, Josh Allen type of build with him because he's big, but he's also fast. He's just a freak athlete. And it's a lot of fun to watch him run. And he's just going to get better and better as a thrower too. And I'm excited for it. Yeah. And what I see from both of those guys too, and you're right. I mean, I think Richardson way too much was made of the throwing and I know he's not going to complete 70% of his passes.

He's not going to be like Dante in that way, right? Where Dante was absurdly accurate. That's never going to be who he is. But like Josh Allen still still isn't and you know sometimes you could survive that way i never thought john elway was the most precise passer but was so physically gifted that you know he could throw it over the mountains and he can run and run people over and so forth but what i've been so impressed from both those guys is their leadership i mean they that we're on teams the draft in the top five here so these are bad franchises that have been a mess i mean last year jim ursae is hiring a tv analyst who

was coaching high school tanky like a fox jim ursae tanky like a fox jim ursae knows he knows the deal he knows like uh let's just accidentally end up with a top five pick and get this great quarterback prospect whoops i hired the stupidest person to hire in the world my bad i guess you'll all forget this when richardson is amazing so here we are uh but anyway uh the point just being that like from the minute that these two guys seem to get there they took command of these teams and they are totally in charge. And I really enjoy watching that. Richardson will miss some throws. That's going to happen. I mean, Josh Allen is a good comp, but also, you know, Cam Newton wasn't as accurate to start as he ended up being

at his peak. But when you're talking about somebody who's coming to the line of scrimmage, making the checks, making the plays and reading the defenses properly, getting the football out. Neither one of these guys are making catastrophic mistakes. They're not getting sacked. They're not throwing picks. They just look so much more in command, where Bryce Young, even Bryce Young, I thought what he did, pulling over the whole team and being like, it's on me, it's on me, was very amateurish.

It was very high school-y like guys i'm here for you whatever and like this guy is like i i know sometimes it takes like getting the boys fired up or whatever but i just thought that was like i don't see that very often the nfl kirk throws a pick six goes to sideline comes back out running the offense like you don't see after every mistake you know these quarterbacks gathering everybody around. And you saw the body language of the Panthers players. They're like, okay, buddy, we're going to go work on our adjustments or whatever. He just doesn't look like he's really got it at the moment.

And that could change. But we're talking about historical comps. I got nothing for Bryce Young. I've never seen a person this small play quarterback successfully. And you have to go back to my childhood to find like Doug Flutie, because even Russell Wilson and Kyler Murray are much thicker or much faster. One of the problems with Kyler Murray, he's not fast. Or I'm sorry, not Kyler Murray.

With Bryce Young, he's not that fast. He was running away from somebody and he wasn't really running away. Kyler Murray is insanely quick. Russell Wilson in his prime is insanely quick and they could escape anything. But I didn't see that from Bryce Young. That's like a big, big, big concern. So I don't know.

They need a lot on that team, but I'm not sure what the ceiling is for him. Anyway, before we wrap up, Manny, we got to name some chiefs they're playing the playing the chiefs let's talk about some chiefs give me your top three four five there's a lot so i could i could say manny give me your top 23 kansas city chiefs uh of all time and you probably would get to 23 easily how about five give me five okay and play along in the comments too give me give me your your favorite Kansas City Chiefs players ever okay uh well the first one I'll go through is

Steve Bono and it's only really for one play and I think you know what play I'm talking about I do run this they're the Chiefs are playing at arizona this was like 1995 i think maybe um and they he runs he he runs like 75 yards for a touchdown because they run this great play fake and he just bootlegs out to the right side and takes off. It must have taken him like 20 seconds to run 75 yards for the touchdown. But it was just amazing. And the Cardinals were completely fooled. So Steve Bono is that one for me. Derek Thomas was just an absolute legend.

Legit, like great, great, great player. Great pass rusher. Great leader. Tragically, we lost him at such a young age. But just an amazing and incredible player to watch. Willie Rofe is another one, too. Really good. One of the great offensive linemen that we've seen, certainly in the last 30 years or so.

Dante Hall is another one that really stands out. One of the great kick returners, kick and punt returners that we've had. I mean, you know, I'm a, you know, I'm a big Devin Hester guy and I think Devin Hester is the greatest kick returner ever, but Dante Hall, if he would have had a chance to have a longer career, I think could have been right up there as well. So Dante Hall is another one. And then Trent Green, I think was a really solid quarterback for them for, for a few years. And so, yeah, I'm trying to think of a fifth one. I guess I'll go maybe Tony Gonzalez, just being a great, you know, pass catching tight end. And, you know, I was, I'm always kind of partial to those tight ends that like played basketball in college too,

like Antonio Gates, Mo Alleycox of the Colts didn't play college football at all. He played basketball at VCU and turned himself into a pretty solid tight end in the NFL too. But yeah, so I'll go Tony Gonzalez there too. So just to read some from the comments, Joe Montana, obviously. What I loved about the Joe Montana era was, and this is only, I mean, you got to really be a certain age to be talking about the Joe Montana era of Kansas city. And I recognize that, but Montana had nothing left.

I mean, nothing. And he's throwing check downs to like Kimball Anders over and over again. And the dude found a way they were great teams during that time. They didn't even have great wide receivers. He just found a way they were great teams during that time they didn't even have great wide receivers he just found a way i don't even know how like throw a little short passes underneath and everything and he like grinded it out christian akoya is one of the coolest stories of all time the football life on him uh coming from he was what uh what was it track and field and again a guy who had never played uh before i mean just like one of the coolest coolest coolest stories ever so definitely shout out to him for

that uh derrick thomas you mentioned but one of my favorite players ever amir smith-barsett the natural ironic pick uh didn't have the revenge game with carolina but still is uh kicking around there um you know obviously like you know Travis Kelsey's a great player Tony Gonzalez as you mentioned uh Joe Alt is uh that's a great pull very good pull the most underappreciated running back who probably belongs in the hall of fame Jamal Charles every running back from just because of how things are is looked at like ah who cares but Jamal Charles averaged like 5.4 yards carry for his career. The dude had like Barry Sanders numbers without Barry Sanders highlights and

belongs in the hall. I don't know why he's not probably just because of how underrated those guys are. Will Shields, man. I mean, one of the great guards in the history of the game, huge fan of Will Shields. How about when Neil Smith went over and played for the Kansas City Chiefs? That was great. And one of the Viking legends ever to play for the Kansas City Chiefs, Tyler Thinkpen, who was picked up. Everybody always worries about what happens if, you know, you drop a player and you try to get him to your practice squad, but they get picked up. Tyler Thinkpen got picked up by the Kansasansas city chiefs uh and started a few games

dan salia mula how about that one um justin houston who's still around a great player they i mean they have this is a great this is a great history you go on forever james hasty was a great player for them how about eric berry? Didn't he beat leukemia or cancer or something and return one of their great players ever? Yeah, that's yeah. I mean, so this is this to me was for the longest time. Oh, and then there's the Steve DeBerg era. Marcus Allen, of course. This was for the longest time to AFC Vikings, and it's only changed in the last five years since.

Oh, yeah, they drafted a quarterback when they were an average to good team. Shocking. Oh, Priest Holmes. Yeah, Priest Holmes was so cool. Priest Holmes had had like a static. He was super cool. But yeah, I just think it's interesting that Kansas City and I want to talk more about this with. I'm going to have Sam McDowell on the show, who's in Kansas City, great sports writer.

They were, they were us. We were them. And it all changed. So I don't know if you have thoughts on that, but that's what happened. Well, Alex Smith, I think is another one that I think we, we should probably mention too. I mean, really, really nice run um you know obviously they they ended up going with Mahomes and moving on from him but you know Alex Smith was a guy that just the ultimate professional man and and had you know his career got off to

such a rough start in San Francisco uh then he you know Jim Harbaugh got on board and he kind of found himself again and then Andy Reid took him in and and really gave him a sort of a rejuvenated career and had a really nice run for about five or six years with the Chiefs too. So shout out to Alex Smith as well. I'll never forget that the first person that was brought up by Patrick Mahomes when they ran up to him after winning the Super Bowl was Alex Smith. And that, I mean, that speaks to character right there, because that guy was in a position that nobody would enjoy

after winning a bunch of games and being a franchise quarterback and then having someone else take your job. Since it has hit 9 o'clock, I always say on the show, Manny, we get one or two weird things after 9 o'clock, after we've been going for the right amount of time. Let's just say it. Oh, Marty Schottenheimer, course another great football life documentary yeah you think she's coming you think she's coming you think she's gonna be here yes it's gonna be here she's gonna

be there she's gonna be there she was already at us bank stadium earlier this year selling out the place yeah you you went didn't you you Didn't you go to one of those shows? I did. She played a great show. I mean, look, I know some of her music. They asked me in the comments once to name my five favorite songs. I was like, guys, this isn't the Kansas City Chiefs roster.

I can't do this with Taylor Swift songs. I just went to the show. But, you know, one of the things that I would like to say about the Taylor Swift thing Is if you feel like this Has been annoying You're right it has In fact when it was when it was like

17 to 2 against the Jets I wasn't really paying attention to the Broadcast because I just didn't want to hear The Taylor Swift stuff every two seconds I was like I just don't you know come on I just you know Stop So it's annoying it's gotten annoying to hear the Taylor Swift stuff every two seconds. I was like, I just don't, you know, come on. I just, you know, stop. So it's annoying.

It's gotten annoying. It's overkill when we're all doing which Kansas City Chiefs players are like Taylor Swift songs. Stop it. Just calm down. Stop being weird. Okay. People have been weird.

The other side of that, people have been weird too, though. Like people, well, everyone's been weird about it. It's like the over obsession with travis kelsey from her fans that's weird the people who get real angry at her that's also weird she's she's fine i mean she makes pretty good music she puts on a great show she's a big celebrity i don't know what you want like whatever like you know people who get upset at her like i don't know just just in general just in general in life manny i like to think if don't go out of your way to find more reasons to be

angry like life is hard enough so be angry at like i don't know world hunger like don't be mad at taylor swift so anyway that that's what i think so as you're going through this already, we've got a little bit of a silly headline with Byron Murphy saying like, oh yeah, I'm going to say something to Travis Kelsey about it on the field. It's like, oh, bulletin board for Taylor. Like, I don't know. Like, let's stop. But do you, do you listen to her music at all? Do you like, do you have a thought on Taylor Swift? It's never really been my cup of tea, her music. But I mean, listen, there's a lot of musical artists that have not been my cup of tea that are insanely popular.

And the way I look at it is just, you know what? If they've got enough people that like their music and will do whatever it takes to go and watch them perform, I mean, they're doing something right. So it's hard to really hate on that. You know, I've got my own, you know, I'm a hip-hop head, so I've got my own sort of like personal favorite hip-hop artist that a lot of people wouldn't give two dams about. It's okay. It's fine.

I mean, just, you know what? If Travis Kelsey and Taylor Swift are really happy together, who the hell are we to complain about it? That's the way. We can complain about the number of shots to her in the box. I think we, Oh, look, Taylor reacts to the tush push or whatever, you know, like we don't, we don't need that. We don't need that. It's too much, but you know, um, that, uh, okay. This is, uh, it was fine. It wasn't some NFL player dating Doja Cat. Yeah.

Now they can have her perform. She's pretty talented, but yeah, I mean, look, it's not Prince everybody. It's not the greatest musical genius I've ever seen in my life, but, uh, you know, it's all right. And here's what I would say. First, you can sing along with a lot of songs. So as they play them, you get a do do do, you know, you sing along with it. It's fine. It's like some, I, I annoyed my wife by saying like, a lot of these are kind of like nursery rhymes, you know, they're more than songs and that didn't go over well. But, um that somebody did a youtube video where they pointed out that 21 of her songs have the same chord progression which is pretty funny this is like hey she knows what works and uh we're a business here i respect her business acumen actually that's

something i truly have a great respect for but uh you know it's see see i don't i don't agree with this i don't think anyone's acting nathan I don't think anyone's acting like she's Michael Jackson. I don't think anyone says this is like the greatest singer ever or Prince or whatever. I think she just has a lot of fans who really love her music. They love her brand. They really buy into it. And that's totally OK. I would just like to welcome the Swifties to the show. And so if they want to learn about three techs, reach blocks, why I love the kick return, I'd be happy to explain it. So anyway, of course, neck rolls should really,

it's like this ladies, neck rolls. Anyway, that's enough. So Manny, that, I don't know if it'll be the last time we talk about taylor swift on the show but probably great stuff manny thursday night we will be back as usual previewing the game in a little more of a hardcore fashion and diving into such other nfl headlines so great stuff from you thanks everybody for joining and playing along in the comments and oh by the way my book's out tomorrow my book is out tomorrow i'm going to and playing along in the comments. And Oh, by the way, my book's out tomorrow. My book is out tomorrow. I'm going to post the link in the comments here for anybody who wants to check it out. Football is a numbers game,

a PFF and how a data-driven approach shook up the game. We'll see how it goes. I'm very interested to see what people think of it. Now it's actually going to be in people's hands. I spent two years reporting on PFF, what they do for teams, how they help Kweisi Adafo-Mensah get to the GM of the Vikings, how they were invented the football, Billy Bean. There's a lot in there.

I put a lot of work into it. So if you have a chance to check it out, please do. And you'll hear more about that later in the week. So thanks Manny. And we will catch y'all later. Football.