Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Brian Murphy hasn't lost his confidence after the Vikings' loss, but now comes a real test

Episode Date: November 21, 2022

Matthew Coller and Brian Murphy talk about how Brian has been a believer in the 2022 Vikings all along and how their 40-3 loss to the Dallas Cowboys is a smack to his ride-the-wave mantra. Brian believes getting back on the horse quickly will be good for the Vikings but there are serious issues to manage, particularly the injury to Christian Darrisaw. Plus how did Kevin O'Connell handle his first major loss? What does he need to do in order to get the offense going?  -- For more of Matthew's Vikings coverage, head to purpleinsider.substack.com For bonus discussions, interview clips, and more videos, check out our YouTube channel! Interact with us on Twitter! @Purple_Insider Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to another episode of Purple Insider, the morning after a 40-3 loss by the Minnesota Vikings, Matthew Collar, along with Brian Murphy. Now, Brian, when you say ride the wave, what that means sometimes is that the wave crashes. Now, it didn't crash in the playoffs, so there's that. But it did come crashing down on a national TV game where Tony Romo and Jim Nance are in the building and the eyes of the nation were on the Minnesota Vikings after their big win in Buffalo last week and after they had received a lot of the attention and hype. So as the, I don't know, what do you want to be? You want to be the sort of the prince of the team of destiny

or whatever you've been so far. That's been your angle that you've been buying into this team all season long. And if it had been a seven-point loss, I wouldn't have come on and asked how you're feeling. I would have said, well, you know, they were going to lose one eventually. But 43, Murph, how are you feeling? Bewildered, betrayed, vengeful.

The knives are coming out. It was all a fraud. I'm a fraud. No, they were going to be humbled. I thought they would have been humbled in Buffalo. And I had been thinking, as we had been building up to this three-game stretch in November, I had been thinking that, you know, if they could go into Buffalo and be respectful and come out, you know, within a one-score game as they typically play,

not a moral victory, no such thing in the NFL, but I thought it would have been fine for their psyche, their development, their flow, the wave, as it were. Well, then it became the whole Josh Allen thing is like, well, maybe it's possible. And then it was the game of the millennium that we'll never see again. So I, you know, if they if they got out of Buffalo without getting their doors blown off, I thought that would have been a solid effort. I never expected to have to have them get their doors blown off at u.s bank stadium the way they did because i you know again i'm not following the league as much as i used to but i didn't think dallas i mean the dallas you know perennially overrated and uh nauseously overrated because

of how the media built that team up and they they had just kind of really, you know, stepped on themselves last week at Lambeau Field. And, you know, after Green Bay, you know, laid down again on Thursday night, I thought, well, that kind of delegitimizes Dallas almost even a little bit more. Vegas oddsmakers had the Vikings at, what, a point and a half underdog, and people were losing their minds. This is definitely a reset button. I think it's probably a good thing that they're actually playing Thursday night. I don't think they can marinate very long in this misery.

I'm really looking forward to seeing how Kevin O'Connell handles the next four days and the Thursday night matchup against the Zen Master because, you know, I've been saying all along, they haven't been tested with adversity yet. Well, they are now. And the adversity isn't so much that they're a bad football team. Look, they're eight and two. The adversity is every flaw that was just sort of lingering out there that we all knew about was exposed exponentially yesterday uh by a team that found a way to expose it and really stole their lunch money at home and all of those cliches so you know new england i'm not sure what kind of team they are they're six and four i don't know what that even says but i do know that you know a rookie head coach coming off his worst loss, going up against Bill Belichick and his six rings

on a tight turnaround. There's your adversity. So let's see how they respond. Yeah. And also a game that you still feel like you should win because the Patriots offense scored three points and the gift that keeps on giving Matt Patricia is in charge of their offense, probably the worst coach in the entire National Football League of any kind. And yet somehow the man certainly the worst dressed. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. smoked by Nick Foles in the Super Bowl to a horrific coach that shreds the entire Lions organization from stability that it had under Jim Caldwell to now somehow being the offensive coordinator. And we'll talk more about this as we go on. But like, this is a game you should still win. Like there's no excuse for not winning. You should be a better team. Your record is much

better. Their quarterback is playing horrendously. Their offense has no idea what they're doing, but the double-edged sword to that quick turnaround, because that was the silver lining that they were going with last night. Really, to a man, every player was saying, well, good thing we get right back out there. Good thing we get right back out there. And there's truth to that for the mentality of the team. Like, well, we get to put it in the past. We don't have to watch the tape of it over and over again for the entire week and then just be sad about getting destroyed by the Dallas Cowboys. At the same time, the injury part of this is a big deal for what happened. I mean, Christian Derrissaw was clearly not at 100%,

really from the very beginning. I mean, even the first sack that he gives up to Micah Parsons, which, you know, was Kirk, maybe not just taking the sack or not throwing the ball away or, and trying to escape, which is not really his thing.

But normally Christian Derrissaw drives that guy all the way, you know, and sticks that guy. And instead he kind of took the initial contact and then Parsons got right by him. And then he gave up a sack to somebody I'd never heard of. And they're like, okay, this is not the Christian Derrissaw that's played all year. And that's when they took him out of the game. So the concussion thing is hard to know. I mean,

if he passed the protocol, what else can we say? But at the same time, I think we do need to be critical of teams who put players back and okay. So T, Stafford, and Derrissaw now are three glaring examples of guys who have passed the protocol, then played and instantly got concussed again the next game. Do we need to think about this a little bit deeper next time? Probably. But Derrissaw is not going to play. So that's a problem. And then you look at Delvin Tomlinson's been out and what happened? They ran all over them 150 yards running and Dallas could do whatever they wanted on the ground, really from the very beginning of the game. Well, that's, there's only so many times you could play your backups

in the, in the defensive line and not have one of the better defensive tackles in the league, right? So if he's not able to come back in four days, Zedarius Smith only played like 40 snaps, which wasn't just because of the situation. I mean, he was not out there in some key spots because he's having this knee issue and he was questionable. There's no real time to heal Murph. And I think that that's, that's maybe my biggest like concern about this short turnaround is you don't have that entire week to try to get some guys healthy.

And Andrew Booth Jr. is just not ready to play in the NFL at this point, I think, from what we saw. So they're going to run out a very battered group as they go against New England. Yeah, and we've been mentioning that in September and October as well as all the horseshoes kept raining down, the golden horseshoes of luck and good fortune down. Injuries was the main component of that.

They did not suffer serious injuries. These, you know, Derisaw's injury is going to be problematic because I think it's going to get scrutinized more, as you said. I mean, he was clearly not himself on those initial couple of drives, and now he's back in the protocol. He may be sidelined longer term than we think. And then let's say he comes back in three weeks. You know, he's one head slap, one collapse pocket pileup from, you know,

not being himself for a long time. He was their best offensive lineman this season. He is the left tackle. These are big, big losses. As you mentioned mentioned Tomlinson as well has been lingering Zedaria Smith banged up these are kind of the you know playing in the National Football League 17 games you're not going to go unscathed so these things are starting to add up a little bit they were dominated on the line of scrimmage yesterday on both sides all day long, all day long. And Dallas smelled blood, and they took advantage.

Well, first of all, look, Dallas is one of the best defenses in the league, and I think they have the best pass rush in the league, and that was no secret coming into it. So the fact that the Vikings wanted to go the old, we're going to establish the run, because the Packers were able to run on the Cowboys, and the Cowboys have been soft against the run. Dalvin had a big game in Buffalo. We can roll Kirk out a little bit, buy some time. Well, it all collapsed anyway because at times,

Dallas didn't even really blitz at all. They didn't need to. So they had Kirk kind of playing the guessing game of, this isn't the coverage I thought I was going to get. Now I'm scrambling and I'm not fast. This isn't my forte. A couple of three and outs. And, you know, you could say, well, you know, three and outs, you know, they can catch their breath,

make a few adjustments, figure out what may work today. That's worked in the past this season. Falling behind 7, 10, 13, 17 points. Okay, they did fall behind 17 last week in Buffalo. This is their MO. We know how the Vikings operate. This is nothing new for them. But it didn't end.

It just kept piling on. I mean, the deficit went from three to 30 in a hurry. I thought the game essentially was over just before halftime when the Cowboys kicker made two 60 yard field goals in a row. In fact, his second one was even better than the first attempt. I think it cleared the crossbar by five yards and was dead center. And I thought they're done. There's no way they're coming back from this.

If that's, if that's how the you know 30 seconds left Dallas doesn't just say hey we got a we got a 17 point lead here let's just drop to a knee and take take this momentum into the locker room no we're going to dial up a couple of pass plays you know CJ Lamb makes an outstanding toe tapping catch on the sideline and not only you know again the NFL almost ready to hand the Vikings a big break out of nowhere with a late review. No, doesn't happen. Dallas kickers money again. And I thought, yeah, this is a little bit, this is it in a nutshell.

And then, again, the first drive out of the shoot in the second half because the Vikings took the ball in the first. You know, Tony Pollard's wide open down the near sideline. And, you know, there were just daggers everywhere. And then it becomes the funeral march in the second half. And then the home, the Dallas fans take over. So certainly an epic butt whipping. The worst, I think, certainly since the early 60s for the Vikings at home.

Plenty, plenty to pick over. But as you mentioned, New England and the Jets played a game that probably was only televised in their home markets. Hopefully nobody else had to get exposed to that 3-3 mess to the very end. But I don't know. I want to see how O'Connell really lifts his team off the canvas and gets them prepared to win a game they should win. Because if you do that, then you say, look, we came out of this three-game stretch with two victories, and we're at nine and two, and I've crunched the numbers, which I rarely do on a Monday morning, but I believe the collective record of their remaining schedule is like 34-38-1, including four out of five at

home. So put the tourniquet on, live to fight another day, and I think you're in a decent position here uh this is all a mental game right now all a mental game and uh they've got a veteran crew uh you can preach the quick turnaround all you want but you really really do need to to stop this in a hurry and it's another national television audience that's going to tune in to see are the Vikings frauds or are they for real uh you know you mentioned the how the sort of construction of this destruction happened and I got a question this morning on Twitter about just like why we focused a lot of the post-game podcast on how the offense was problematic it's because that we always know and have known that if this defense has to play a great offense, they are going to have to either get turnovers or they're going to give up a lot of points, not against Washington or, you know, Arizona even is

not a great offense or when they played Chicago, they weren't a great offense, but Dallas, they've got a $40 million quarterback and they've got superstars. They have a good offensive line. Like you, you were going to have to score to beat them. And that end of the first half is a great situation to highlight because this is when you really knew it just was not going to happen. It was different. Like they weren't going to be able to pull off some of the stuff that they have earlier this year because Kevin O'Connell, I think smartly knowing that Dallas was getting the ball back called timeouts. And so then he gives his offense plenty of time to go down and there's a completion to Justin Jefferson, like, okay, now you're rolling. And then the pass rush again, just takes them apart. Like, Nope, Nope.

You're not rolling. You're not going anywhere. So then they have to give the ball back and Dallas goes pass rush again just takes them apart. Like, nope, nope, you're not rolling. You're not going anywhere. So then they have to give the ball back, and Dallas goes and scores again. It's just that, you know, I mean, when you punt five, six, seven times in a row, you won't win any game against anybody. And your defense, if it's not unbelievable, is going to get exposed against a good offense if that's how you look. I mean, if they were able to sustain drives and have success, they're not giving up 40 points in that game. And the other teams are

going to make plays against you. This has never been a defense that was just going to shut everybody out. It was always going to be a defense that needed some big plays themselves, but was going to give up points and you'd have to win with offense. And coming out of Buffalo, that was the thing that I said I was the most impressed by. And then it immediately, that spigot shut off. But like the thing I was most impressed by is they gave up a lot of points. Stephon Diggs had a huge day against them.

And they still found a way to win with their offense, that their offense could turn up the heat and go score a bunch of points and have some great drives in that game. But they were not able to do that against a great Dallas defense at all. They weren't able to move the ball. And I think what's really central to that is Derrissaw not being himself and then getting hurt, where there's a reason why the league pays left tackles like their wide receivers or like their edge rushers,

because these gentlemen are pretty darn important. And he's had an incredible year. So there's, there's a part of me that says like, well, yeah, there's what they have still, even with some injuries, you should, like you said, like this schedule is still pretty favorable and there's winnable games. Are you afraid of Zach Wilson right now? Like, I don't think so. And he's coming up. Are you afraid of the giants? Like these are even teams with some of the better records. No, you're not afraid of the New York Giants. They were, talk about a paper tiger, right? But if you have a bad loss mixed in here, then you start going like, okay, do we have an offense, right? Like, I mean,

this next team has the best defensive EPA in the league. They have the number one sack artist in Matthew Judon in the entire league. And they just embarrassed the team. Their defense did in the New York Jets. I mean, yeah, I think you talk about like tests, good tests. Yeah, this is certainly a good test for them to see if they can figure out what the heck just happened. Because if you play offensively like that, which is not that different from how they played in Washington two weeks ago, by the way, and not that differently from how they played fourth quarter in overtime in Buffalo, where their offense was really operating at a super high level. And if it carries over into these next two weeks,

then you do have to look and be like, okay, I know that they're still running away with the North, but if they don't have an offense that can consistently score and especially can't score against a really good defense, then you can't have a whole lot of confidence in them week to week down the stretch because you don't have enough firepower. Well, I think what has bailed them out consistently this season as well on both sides of the ball are big plays in big moments.

And there were none of those yesterday. And I don't even know if they even had the opportunity to. It just felt like Dallas was so relentless in their domination that they're they really really did not even give the Vikings a glimmer of hope you know if if I think I said it the last week too is I thought the biggest play in the Buffalo game was Dalvin Cook's 81 yard touchdown run because at that point they're down 27 to 10 in the third quarter and really hadn't done anything and Josh Allen had taken over the game and the Bills had taken over the game and doing what we probably thought Buffalo should have done but then all of a sudden Dalvin Cook's in the end zone after 81 yards

Patrick Peterson's picking off Josh Allen in the end zone. They kept going to Jefferson who's making other worldly plays. Well, they couldn't get to Jefferson yesterday because Dallas was all over Kirk cousins in the pocket, all the routes that they had developed. I think O'Connell even said that all the routes that they had developed for the day, they could not get, he could not get through his progressions because he was either running for his life or getting caved in. And then on the defensive side of the ball, the running attack really,

really softened up the Vikings to the point where there wasn't a play to be made in the defensive backfield because Dallas didn't have to go for the big splash plays. I didn't really even watch a ton of the second half, but to me, the best catch of the day is slam on the sideline to set up the 60-yard field goal. Beyond that, it was Tony Pollard and Ezekiel Elliott and Dak Prescott doing what he can with his legs as well. There just wasn't a moment there. You know, if Prescott had thrown a poor pass that Peterson and or say Harrison Smith stepped in front of, if Elliott had fumbled in the red zone, again, you can't be expecting

other teams to make mistakes to breathe life into you. However, that's how the Vikings have succeeded so much this year is that those key plays have happened at big moments, none bigger than Josh Allen falling in the end zone, you know, inside a minute. So those plays were not made, but I don't even remember an opportunity where they could have been made. So that exposes you as a long, you know, as a, are you a 60 minute team or are you a 33 minute team that has occasional moments of brilliance?

Now you're starting to look back on that and you're realizing that's what has dictated their success in so many ways. So, you know, you got to look at it this way too. They've got two losses, right? Two losses to the Philadelphia Eagles and the Dallas Cowboys, who essentially, if you're going to make the playoffs, you're going to play one, if not both of those teams probably. So there is a blueprint for defeating the Vikings, and there is a challenge ahead of, you know, the week two loss in Philly was almost, again, it was pretty thorough, but it was easily chalked up as, well, you dominated Green Bay in week one, You lose at home on national or you lose on the road to Philadelphia, which is, you know, considered the preeminent team in the NFC. And then you rip off seven straight wins.

It's easy to say, well, you know, they're doing just fine. Now Dallas comes in and says, hold on there. We've got something to say as well. And we're angry because, you know, we choked at Lambeau last week. So it's, again, you know, everything has been exposed. There's no secrets here. The Vikings are who they are. Everybody knows that. So it's how are they going to be able to manage expectations and performance going ahead? And that's why I think it's enjoyable to watch. I've been waiting for a bit of adversity. I've been waiting for them to pick themselves up off the canvas and see how they respond. And I'm in particular

interested to see how Kevin O'Connell handles this. Because again, he's a rookie head coach. The guys love him. They're playing for him. But now they're looking for him to, you know, they want them to be dad and tell them it's going to be all right. And they have to believe that. So let's see, because now they're going up against the old man wizard who's made a career of doing that and at least getting his team prepared to play a unique opponent and been able to match any personnel confidence or schematic challenges in front of him for so long now o'connell's got that first big chess mental and schematic chess match to succeed in folks maybe you've noticed people in your

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And maybe I'll have to start pounding them in front of my friends who know I'm not a drinker just to see their reactions. So go get liquid death at your local target whole foods market or Hy-Vee or find a liquid death retailer near you with their store locator tool at liquid death.com slash insider. That's liquid death.com slash insider. Well, I think, um, O'Connell has more older brother or cool uncle vibes than he has uh dad vibes uh if if zimmer was grandpa zim then uh i think o'connell's like your wise older brother who's been around but i thought that uh kevin o'connell deserves and and look i mean you know where this is like a participation trophy for you know being in a press conference but like deserves an a for the way that he handled the press conference

because philadelphia there were enough chances for the vikings to win that game that they could walk out and say like well you know we lost 24 to 7 but we were in the red zone multiple times and through interceptions and like the second half, we moved the football and so forth. Like they could really talk yourself into. It wasn't that bad in Philadelphia. There's no talking yourself into it. Wasn't that bad when you lose 40 to three and,

and when you, it's just never close. And he came out last night and he took responsibility for it, which wasn't always what we saw in the past. And he did not seem panicked, but he seemed stern and frustrated, answered all the questions, which was problematic in the past, I think. And if you're players now, look, we could talk about veterans all the way and how like, oh, they've been through it and everything else. Everybody follows the leader in football. And so I think what you didn't see was panic in Kevin O'Connell that during Mike Zimmer's

era, it was one of the things I was maybe most critical about was people will say, oh, who cares about press conferences? Like, oh no, everyone's watching it. Every player sees what's said. Every family watches that post game press conference, like everybody knows. So when you go up there and you kind of show more of a steady hand of like, like this wasn't acceptable, this was bad. And here's all the things that went wrong. However, like we believe in his team and everything like he had the right message,

I think. And they went, they went hard on that. we're going to get right back out there and we're going to prove who we really are and everything else. I think that was the right way to go. I was sort of reminded of Philadelphia in 2016 when the Vikings started 5-0 and got their first loss. And Mike Zimmer immediately called the offensive line soft. And that just created a problem that wasn't there. The biggest thing with these press conferences when things go really wrong is don't create another problem because you've already got some problems to solve since you got beat this badly. And I thought O'Connell did a tremendous job of doing that,

of not creating another problem, not manipulating anybody, not pinning it on anybody. I mean, he did say, look, there's not a whole lot of options on that offensive line. And we tried helping the inside and then the outside got beat. We tried helping the outside and the inside got beat. So there was a little a little pang of I was out there trying everything, but they were just beating us on the offensive line. But he didn't directly come out and say, yeah, there's five large gentlemen who really let us down today.

He didn't come out and say something like that. So I think it is kind of they can get back to work without the additional distraction of their head coach freaking out. And again, if you watch enough press conferences around the league with these embarrassing losses and things like that, which do happen every week, you'll see a lot of coaches step on their own feet. And I think that just his maturity as a head coach has been impressive. But now where he has to really handle himself, Murph, is schematically. You can't send everyone 15 yards down the field when Micah Parsons plays for the other team. It is that simple.

You need some other answer. And they did not have some other answer. They thought that the answer was just running the football, which I believe at one time Delvin was like eight for 48. It wasn't that they couldn't really run. It was that you weren't, you weren't succeeding at all every time you dropped back. So then it was like,

okay, now we're not even scared if Delvin runs and so forth. And it seemed like they just had no answer. There has to be a – now this where I would give John D. Filippo some credit for this, even though he was not a good offensive coordinator for the Vikings. In 2018, it was a similar offensive line that would get beat just almost instantly. And he had a lot of answers early in that season with quick passing, like screen passes and swing passes and things like that,

quick slants that they used a ton. O'Connell's got to go into the quick game because asking these guys to run 15, 20 yards down the field on every play without Derisaw in there, and you already have enough problems on the interior. I think he has to make a pretty significant change and find a way to hit a darn screen pass at some point. Like, I think that we can look at O'Connell and his leadership and be impressed,

but also look at the scheme and be like, is that you got, you got something for this, like, you know, and I, that's, that's going to be really the biggest test over the next couple of weeks

because they play two of the best defenses in the league here in New England and the New York Jets. Well, not even two weeks. They're going to have one official practice this week, right, before Thursday's game. So, yeah, if you're going to do that, then it's going to be a crash course. And, you know, he gave them a light walkthrough on Wednesday, which was probably the right thing to do after that emotionally draining game

in Buffalo. But now it's like, we got to get back to work. And, you know, you talk about, yeah, Cook did have some production. But, you know, if you're down 20 to three, I don't know what establishing the run is going to do other than bleed the clock out so you can lose 20 to 10 for the most part. So I don't know the answer to the schematic issues. If there is a way to free up, I think what got – there was nothing that worked yesterday because they were so dominant, dominated on both sides of the ball quickly that there just wasn't – it just felt like there was no opportunity to breathe throughout that first

half. There was just no moment where something was righted from the, you know, even on the initial third and three, when Darius, you know, when cousins got strip sacked on the third play of the game in the red zone and yeah, okay. The defense stiffened a bit and they held them to a field goal but then you go down the field and you know Hawkinson can't make the catch and it's three to three it still felt like a very bitter tasting three to three and then before you could even process that it was 20 to three so I I I I it's going to be a mental challenge. As you mentioned, though, the schematic changes, they're going to have to stitch together and convince –

what's the young man's name, Blake? Blake Randall, yeah. Where is his head at this week? I'm curious what he feels like right now because I'm sure the weight of the world may be on his shoulders. What is he, a sixth-round pick? I mean, this is your moment, dude. Don't get your quarterback killed.

Maybe nobody's asking you to be a savior, but just don't get him killed. How is he going to respond to that? That'll be an interesting one-on-one thing to focus on. They're probably going to give him a ton of help. If anything, Dalvin Cook looks like he can block, so they might be able to use him in the backfield a little bit. Yeah, just shaky. As running backs can block, he at least seems willing.

He doesn't have a Matadors suit on and a red cape, letting the bull come through usually. I'm trying to give him some credit here collar give me something you know I follow the numbers he's given up more pressures than anybody in the league is running back so I just oh they're never what I just said he made a great play in Buffalo that was yeah and that's what I'm looking at so I you know yep that a lot of people tweeted about this is this is the mistake I made when I come down from my 40,000-foot perch and get into the weeds with you football guys

and think I know what I'm talking about. You shouldn't be surprised. I'm going back up to the perch, back up to the balcony with my rotten fruit, and I'm just going to keep shooting the wounded from there. Thanks. You should not be shocked that I knew how many pressures the running back gave up in pass protection off the top of my head because I saw people tweeting about it and I was like, I don't think that's actually right.

And so if you compare Adrian Peterson as a pass blocker to Delvin Cook, Peterson is better. Really? Historically. By PFF grade, Yeah, he's better. Okay. Again, I'm not swooping down again and talking football. And at the end of his career, Peterson was not caring at all.

But at his peak, he wasn't asked to do it a ton, which is maybe a benefit. But it just tells you how hard it is to analyze something like that and how perception is probably going to rule the day when something like that. Peterson wasn't great at it, but Delvin isn't great at it either. In fact, most running backs aren't great at it. What can Klein saucer up to these days? What's that? What can Klein saucer up to these days?

Well, and look, this might have to be the answer because, you know, I've always sort of leaned on the side of Gary Kubiak was not a fool. Gary Kubiak is one of the best offensive coaches in history. And I think there was a reason why he wanted two tight ends and a fullback out there on the field. I don't think it's because he got his jollies off. I think it's because he knew that they needed extra help blocking. And I was thinking of a game in Houston in 2020, where was it 20? Yeah, 2020, where they, after the, the, after the game, they fired Bill O'Brien where the offensive line was getting beaten pretty badly. And what Kubiak dialed up was two tight ends, a fullback, and they ran two guys out on routes a bunch of times and had Kirk throw down the field. And it worked for them

in that game just enough to get a win. And when you go up against, I mean, the Patriots D line is pretty good. Their coverage is better, but the Jets are going to demolish your offensive line. The Jets have a great defensive line. There needs to be a button to push. There needs to be an answer. And the bootlegs have not necessarily been the answer every time. They just need to find a way. That, to me, is the biggest test. Because if you can't find a way, you're not going anywhere in the playoffs.

It's that simple. Because the coaches you'll face, simple because the coaches you'll face, the D-lines you'll face, they're going to be good. Folks, if you're looking for a way to celebrate Minnesota's insane football season, go to sodastick.com. See all the different designs from Kirko chains to the gritty to everything Skoll-related. Sodastick, S-O-T-A-S-T-I-C-K.com

and use the code PURPLEINSInsider for 15% off your purchase. Well, and I want to pivot a little bit because I don't think we've talked much about Jefferson as well. And, you know, look, he's never going to, he's not going to have 200 yards every game and he's not going to make documentary-style catches every week. But was this a product of Kirk not having time to find him? Or did Dallas – look, Buffalo draped him, and it didn't matter.

Did Dallas have an answer that could be a cure for other teams? And if not, if it is just a pass if it's a pocket collapsing if it's a pressure issue and a protection issue um then i don't feel too leery about that but i don't i don't want to single out jefferson but to go from the week he had in buffalo and the whole world's talking about him to not even being a footnote yesterday. How did that happen? Did you see them trying to get the ball to him early on and establish that? Or was it, we're going to run, we're going to run to buy time and set up the pass?

Yeah, I think they wanted to try to take advantage of Dallas's aggressiveness and run the football, which I would agree with. Like, I think that's probably the right way to go about it. And especially based on what Green Bay did to them. But the pressure was just too much. You get sacked seven times, you're not going to win a game. Like it's really that simple. You're not going to get it to your number one star if you get sacked seven times. I would, I would love to see the numbers of how often a team won when their quarterback was sacked seven times. My guess is maybe, maybe Joe Burrow did it once, but I can't imagine that's happened too many times. So I think that it was entirely that they were sending Jefferson down the field.

They've been kind of of the ethos recently that like, hey, we're going to push it down the field. We're going to throw jump balls to Justin Jefferson. We're going to have him run a lot of deep routes, which I agree with. But there's got to be an adjustment there to like, okay, now you're Cooper cup. Like now you're going to go. And I know that's hard. There's, I think it's not that simple, but okay. We're getting beaten every single time. We need to get him the football somehow it needs to be a screen. It needs to be an underneath route.

It needs to be something to just like take one step and throw the ball. And there, I mean, how many times was he able to do that? Very few, I think. Just snap the ball, catch it, get rid of it. There wasn't a lot of that, and that's not really the offense. I mean, O'Connell aims for big plays, but I think there just needs to be something that he kind of looks in the mirror a little bit and says, how can I get those quick passes going?

And I wouldn't be surprised if he does, you know, against the Patriots. So let me ask you this question then, Murph, to wrap up. Let's say that your confidence meter of this 2022 Vikings team after last week was beaming. Let's say it was a 10 out of 10. How far is it knocked off of the pedestal this morning? I'll keep it at an eight. I'll keep them at a B minus to B range.

And I'm being, I'm probably being overly generous, but I, I I've been talking for, we've been talking about this for weeks, this three game stretch in November. When will O'Connell be challenged mentally and schematically confidence wise? I thought it might've been drip, drip, drip. I thought it might've been in Buffalo. when will O'Connell be challenged mentally and schematically confidence-wise? I thought it might have been drip, drip, drip. I thought it might have been in Buffalo. It wasn't in Buffalo.

In fact, if anything, their confidence went through the roof, obviously, last week, and they were part of the national conversation for a long time last week. Okay, now it's a little bit of the opposite. Now you've got a small window here to change maybe slightly a bit of your offensive identity, whitewash a miserable home loss, and turn it around quickly against a tough defensive team and the Zen master in Belichick and on a national television audience we haven't even talked about.

In fact, this is the first time the Vikings have ever hosted a Thanksgiving game. I mean, they've played several times over the years in Detroit and Dallas, but they've never hosted one. So this is a unique time as well for, boy, if you ever want to redeem yourselves in front of your fans, your God, and your country, Thursday night offers that. So let's see how they respond because there's going to be some serious doubters at the gate if, if they get humbled again at home and now you're looking at,

okay, I don't care what the record says now they're then now they're, now they're fragile psychologically. And, and does it become a, can they just get to nine or ten wins and get in? Or is this going to be a complete and utter collapse? And it gives all the naysayers and the insecure out there in Vikings Nation, which is basically saying Vikings Nation, the chance to inevitably say,

see, now they made us sit all day with our families on Thursday, and this is what they treat us to? I'm done with this team. So I don't know. It'll be fun to watch the emotional wave go up and down again as you started it off with the crashing of the wave. Yes, the wave has crashed. We don't know where the surfer is.

The board is halfway to Australia. I still where the surfer is. The board is halfway to Australia. I still think the surfer is going to surface. I don't know what he's going to look like, and I don't know if he's going to be half-brained, but he is going to surface. Yeah, Bodie from Point Break is... I was going to go down that road, yes. Yeah, that was...

Did Bodie live? Everybody that saw Point Break thinks Bodie lived. What? That's the whole point. I know. He went out the way he wanted to go out. He's not coming back. I mean, it's one of the greatest lines in movie history to me.

Movie buffs might disagree, but when Keanu Reeves says he's not coming back, like, I felt that. So, yeah yeah that was that was the hundred year storm last night that's for sure uh well here's what they say Murph they say it's a week-to-week league but in this case it's a week to a half a week league and if they go out against the Patriots and get a decided win then this is left in the past as a blip on the radar and so they have that opportunity and they is left in the past as a blip on the radar. And so they have that opportunity and they're still in a tremendous spot.

They've really given themselves as big of a cushion as you could ever give yourself. They're eight and two. Have we mentioned that? Right. And, and, and had it not been 40 to three, then everyone would have woken up and been like,

well onto the next one. I mean, that's what that would have been the reaction, but you, I mean, with that, you have to view it differently with the accumulation of all the points that you've put up, the opponents have more than you on this Monday morning. I mean, that's that's something you have to like use an eyeball emoji about. Anyway, so great stuff,

Murph, as always. And I'm looking forward to a very special edition of Monday Morning Murph on Friday. Oh, yeah, yeah. Friday Morning Murph. I didn't even think about that. Two Murphs in one week. That's intensity you won't find elsewhere. Thank you, Murph, for your time. Great stuff.

And we will talk Friday. Sounds good.