Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Brian Murphy is still buying the Vikings after their loss to Detroit if...

Episode Date: December 12, 2022

Matthew Coller and Brian Murphy talk about how Kevin O'Connell has a decision to make regarding the defense and it might be time for a change and how Kirk Cousins put together his best game against the Detroit Lions. Plus Matthew answers fan questions on how the defense can be solved, a late-game onside kick and much more... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Purple Insider is presented by Liquid Death, delicious water that's bringing death to plastic. Learn more at liquiddeath.com slash insider. Hello, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider, where I'm not talking that loud because I'm in a house with family and I'm trying not to wake everyone up. Brian Murphy, it's Monday Morning Murph. You could talk as loud as you want on the podcast, but I'm just trying to stay a little low-key as I do the podcast in every possible unique location. I've done airports. I've done in my car. I've done in hotel rooms. Now I'm in the den of my in-law's house. How are you? What's going on, man? Well, I'm not in the den of my in-law's house at some ungodly hour pre-dawn, trying to not wake up my in-laws, talking this uh this lady latest vikings um i don't even know what we call these games anymore i mean they're just they're mini dramas and uh

mini series i think that's what they are every game is a mini it's a four-quarter mini series right now limited series and if you're binging on this team i i i don't envy you. I, I, I just, um, they are, they are pieces of work and they are, they are fascinating to watch. I, I just, I'm not sure I've ever seen a 10 and three team seem so fragile, not fragile psychologically, but just as a, just as a house of cards operation. And it, it, it did, it did seem to crumble a bit yesterday. Well, on the defensive side, I mean, that's just where everything has to run. Like every single conversation has to go.

But I suppose if you were waking up on Monday morning after let's say you're a Vikings fan, watch the game, you're really annoyed at what happened and frustrated at how it went down on the defensive side. But then you go back through that box score and look at what happened and frustrated at how it went down on the defensive side. But then you go back through that box score and look at what they were able to do in the passing game. And I know that Detroit does not have a great defense, but they had been playing much better going into that game.

And the way that they threw the ball, it's sort of like the whack-a-mole type of thing where it's like well you know last week it was okay what was going on with Kirk Cousins his accuracy was off it you know we're saying like could he be kind of banged up after getting hit so many times you know the last couple of weeks and then he comes out and he's just throwing heaters out there all over the place and Justin Jefferson has this historic game so So on that side, like, wait, wait, that right there, that looks like, that looks like a Superbowl offense. Well, at least the passing game, but I don't worry about running games. When I talk about Superbowl

offense, like you need more than that, but okay, fine. You'll probably have offensive linemen back with, you know, in the playoffs, but like, that's, that's a passing game. That's what they've been looking for. Cousins hasn't had a game like that since week one. And then you lose. Like it's, it's, it's very hard to reckon with Murph when you throw the ball in the way that the number one teams in the league throw the ball and still don't win the game. Even though you have most of the entire roster out there playing,

minus Harrison Smith, who is very, very important to the defense, no doubt. But you're missing one player. Everyone else was healthy. Cam Dancer was back. Delvin Tomlinson has been back for a couple weeks now. And they couldn't pressure Jared Goff. They couldn't cover any of his receivers. His number one receiver didn't even shred them.

Amon Ross St. Brown. Everyone did. I mean, I guess I just don't know what to do with them because I would tend to think a passing game looking like that is more important and the defense fluctuates up and down but that's so disturbing now they're 32nd in yards I mean you're not going to go deep in the playoffs with that like how do you how do you deal with both of those things happening at the same time? Well, this is what has been discussed for a while. You know, it, Ben don't break, you know, whatever cliche you want to throw out there.

Well, it did sort of shatter yesterday. I thought the biggest thing was they didn't have a turnover. You know, they didn't force a turnover because they've had games like this where they are getting marched up and down the field and even ragdolled to a certain extent. But then Harrison Smith or Dantzler or Bynum will come up with a key pick in the red zone, at the goal line, in the end zone. Patrick Peterson, go down the list of guys that have made huge plays in those moments. Where's the pass rush? Why isn't Daniil Hunter and Zedaria Smith making any kind of impact? I mean, that has been a slow fade the last few games. And I don't know

if it's teams that have found a way to neutralize them. Ed Donatel is too gun-shy to get aggressive or they're getting beat up so back on the back end that there's really no time to get any pass rush because they're not maybe creating as many as third and longs anymore. I'm sure you can sift through all of that and find some common denominators, but this is where they were exposed as a team that, you know, relied on big plays at big moments, especially defensively, to maybe escape danger. They couldn't do that yesterday. I feel like this is, what, week 14. This is your defensive coordinator.

This is what he's been doing all season. You may be able to scheme up a few things to increase some pressure. I think O'Connell was saying that without basically saying, I'm tired of not having a pass rush. He essentially said, I'm tired of not having a pass rush. He essentially said, I'm tired of not having a pass rush yesterday. But this is who they are. It's kind of baked in now at 14 weeks. You're going to have to probably win 36 to 30 every week. You know, with Justin Jefferson and Cousins having, you know,

a game that resembled a lot of 2021 games, at least statistically, that's something that you may be able to do for a while and maybe make some impressions. But if you're giving up 400-plus yards with zero sacks and zero interceptions, I mean, they may have a hard time against the Colts on Saturday if they're putting up that on the defensive side of the ball. But here's who they are. I don't think there's any surprises. Are you going to be able to sustain success,

giving up as many yards and points really without any really pressure or risk to the other offense? And are you going to be able to have Cousins and Jefferson et al. putting up record-setting numbers on a weekly basis. I mean, we know that's not sustainable. It's entertaining, but it's not sustainable. And here we are. The numbers now, it's funny because early in the season, the yardage didn't match the

points against, right? So they were giving up the most yards, but they were finding ways to get stops. And even through last week, they had sunk to something like 20th in points against, which is not good, but it's also not the worst thing in the entire world. You can overcome that. And it required a bunch of red zone stops. And like you said, they got interceptions at the right time. They got sacks at the right time.

Z'Darrius Smith, to me, cannot be at 100%, but also you can't rely on Zedarius Smith to be 100% of your pass rush. I mean, that's just how it goes. Like, even the best pass rusher on the best day gets there one out of every four times. And if you're not going up against a backup tackle or something, or you're not able to find the weaknesses tackle or something, or you're not able to find the weaknesses in the defense, or they can game plan for one guy. And it's not to say that Daniil Hunter hasn't had some impact, but it's really been like, Zedarius, go do the job.

Every single week, he gets banged up a little with the knee. He hits a bit of a lull here. And then all of a sudden, Jared Goff has zero sacks and three times hit in the entire game he's just sitting back there the whole time and I guarantee you that Kevin O'Connell is is just pulling his hair out about you know not being able to get there and maybe you know they go into this week saying how can we possibly you know blitz more but the coverage was not good either. And if you, I think that Donatello's argument all season, which I have mostly been like, okay, I get it is, am I supposed to be blitzing with Duke Shelley at cornerback this fourth string corner or Chandon Sullivan who can't cover anyone? I mean, is that what I'm supposed to be doing here is sending extra people and leaving one-on-one

matchups. And I, and I also think that like, they don't really want Patrick Peterson in a situation where he's got to cover go balls from receivers who run four threes, because we've seen a couple of guys get behind him even when he's playing off coverage. So that's been his argument. But now I think we've reached a point where if you're Kevin O'Connell, you got to walk down to his office and say like, give me the keys or give the keys to Mike Patton or give the keys to Mike Smith or like whoever, like Mike Patton is a guy who's supposed to be, you know, an important figure to Kevin O'Connell, somebody with a lot of experience in the league, somebody who is a good defensive coordinator at times during his career. Like, I don't know, like how panicky is it to just be

like, all right, someone else is calling the defense now. Like, is don't know, like how panicky is it to just be like, all right, someone else is calling the defense now. Like, is that too much? I mean, when you're, I looked at expected points added against the past, they're 27th. You can't win with that. Like you just can't win with being 27th against the past. Like you, if you win with the passing game for you and how you stop it, that's not going to be good enough. And it feels like in a season where you have a chance in the playoffs against just about anyone, you might have to pull the trigger on something that doesn't make anybody feel great. But I don't know, it's results-based here, right?

Well, it would be panicky. The headlines would be panicky if it comes out trickled down from national media or broken locally that, you know, suddenly Donatel is handcuffed on the sidelines or in the press box from calling plays. I mean, that is – it smells panicky. But, you know, it's also – these are the types of decisions NFL head coaches have to make. And it may be a little bit much for O'Connell to have to absorb in his rookie season,

but he's had it pretty smooth for a long time this year. So these are decisions that do need to be made at times. But as we've been talking for months here, these are once-in-a-decade-type seasons. These are once-in-a-decade-type seasons. These are once-in-a-decade-type moments where you have an opportunity to clinch your division early and compete for the number one seed. That seems a little bit more elusive now that Philadelphia's got a two-game lead up top there. But that doesn't mean you can't win 14 or 15 games

and still seize home field up until you may have to face the Eagles. There should be no hesitation in O'Connell about the appearance of that type move if it warrants it. And the statistics and the performances or the results warrant something more than just a minor schematic thing where we're going to move a few things around and free up some guys to do X, Y, and Z. You know, there does need to be a – we need – you know,

we're going to need to be more aggressive. That puts us in some vulnerable positions. We're already in vulnerable positions. We've given up 400 yards for five straight games. We've never done that as a franchise. So that's, you know, is it panicky or prudent? I mean, it depends on how it's rolled out and explained, but I don't think there's any reason for O'Connell to be hesitant about taking the keys, as you say, away from Donatel. This is no time for stroking egos. This is a 10-3 team that still has the potential to do some things, especially when you look at what Cousins and Jefferson did yesterday.

This is a team that has a chance to do some special things. You know, you look back, I look back on that 1998 Vikings team. We like to do a lot of comparisons because 15-1 and, you know, the unimpeded, supposed unimpeded march to the Super Bowl and Randy Moss and his rookie year and, you know, it was a party for six months in this town because of that. But that defense is what ultimately undid them. I mean, they were banged up, they were old, they were leaky. And even in that NFC Championship game loss, everybody likes to pin the blame on Gary Anderson.

But that defense fell apart and was really unavailable in the fourth quarter in overtime. I'm not comparing personnel or scheme or injury situation. I'm just saying you had a historic offense that couldn't flourish in the Super Bowl because you had a weak defense. So that's a long-winded way of saying I don't think it would be panicky at all. I think it might be prudent. It's just a matter of how it's massaged, I guess, publicly.

If Ed Donatel were to take a seat or maybe just step aside, but, you know, it's going to have to be Kevin O'Connell handing it to, as you said, Mike Patton or somebody else that he trusts in the building. And then how do you spin that? Because Kevin O'Connell, he needs to be concentrating on how he's going to need to score 35 points a game to win. Well, they used to have a head coach on the defensive side who would get annoyed with offensive coordinators. And now we have a head coach on the offensive side who is no doubt annoyed with the defensive coordinator. So, you know, sometimes it's funny how things end up working out.

But, you know, I think that the hard part here is when you look at these final couple of games. And I mean, I guess if you can give up the amount of yardage they did to Mac Jones and a miserable offense in New England. The Jets at least have some playmakers, but New England has nobody that should scare you. And they went for 380 yards passing. I guess when that happens, I shouldn't guarantee that Matt Ryan won't throw for 300 yards, but I really have a difficult time seeing what's left of Matt Ryan looking good. And then, you know, it's the Giants and the Giants aren't good and they can't throw the ball and their weapons are hurt or they traded one away to Kansas City for some reason. And Daniel Jones is bad and they like they're going to try to run the ball a lot.

But the Vikings are actually really good as a defense against the run. They know how to stuff it for sure in the middle. And it's just like, okay, so you're going to look better here. I mean, you're going to go face Aaron Rogers and Justin Fields at the end of the year, but one of those games might not even matter. So more likely than not, the defense will look like it's gotten itself back together. So if you don't make a move here and then the defense does mostly fine the rest of the way, let's say you just go three and one or even four and oh, which is not unreasonable at all to think that they will, you're going to get to the end of the

year and be like, oh, okay, well, we're playing better and we made improvements and so forth, but it might just be kind of an illusion because of the teams that you played are four of the worst offenses, depending on if it matters with Justin Fields and whatever, like you get to that last game, we're not going to pay attention to it at all. So you really have three weeks against three really bad offenses to just be better. And I guess in a way it's almost a good test because if you're still getting beaten through the air against these teams, then you have a really serious problem. But if you wanted to make a change, you kind of have to do it now. So everybody's used to what's going on. I think that was part of Zimmer's argument when he fired John D. Filippo is like, okay, well, we're doing it in part because we want to have Kevin Stefanski's ideas in place by the time we get to the playoffs. Of course, they never got to the playoffs. In this case, it's a guarantee they'll get to the playoffs.

And as far as like, you know, the sort of panic meter about this, when you look at the first round matchups as of this moment, they'd be playing the Giants, which I wouldn't be concerned really at all with the Giants the giants i don't know i just think that they're just not a good team but when you look at who's behind them like seattle could kind of scare you because their offense and especially detroit which you really don't want to play again because they know you and because they've shredded you the both times that they've played so uh i yeah i think it's sort of like do it now or forever hold your peace when it comes to making a change with that Donatello. Yeah, it's almost being teed up as a four-game preseason, if you think about it that way. And I'm sure nobody in the NFL wants to hear that the last four games of the regular season are the same as a preseason. And the Colts, Giants, Bears,

and Packers might be insulted by that notion, but that's kind of the opportunity you've bought when you did get out to a 10-2 situation with a five-game division lead. We knew that this Detroit game, which a month ago looked like a doormat game, obviously they've come alive winning five of six and looking good doing it. They're now in the conversation and the hunt. But you do have an opportunity with this very, very soft schedule to fix your wrongs. And if it does mean a really drastic overhaul either in personnel and or play calling, yeah, you're right, this is the week to do it.

Because I don't sense the Indianapolis Colts not only just with Matt Ryan but with their sort of, I guess, head coach in theory in Jeff Saturday. You know, they're coming off a bye, but, I mean, he seemed like he's been in over his head since he came off the high school field to take this over. So you're at home. You know, the Colts, the Giants have been exposed as a paper tiger for several weeks now, also at home. And then, you know, again, it's two games in the cold against teams that just really aren't a factor anymore. There's no reason you can't win three or four of these games and

still position yourself well. So you can get well in a way and maybe experiment and try some things out because not every snap is not about earning a playoff spot. Every snap really is about maybe redefining, not redefining, but retooling yourself to a playoff run. As you said, you're going to be eyeing matchups that matter in a month. You might be able to be in a position. It's very rare in December going for a playoff berth that you can experiment. That's usually what you do in August. So maybe this is an opportunity, a rare in-season, late-season opportunity

for a rookie head coach to an innovative head coach to maybe, you know, scramble some things up a bit and see what you can come out with. Because, frankly, the results aren't going to be any worse. I mean, as you said, they're at the bottom defensively in so many categories. Yards and points, the obvious ones, they are not going to be successful with the status quo. And if you talk yourself into thinking, well, these next four games, you know, we can maybe, you know, get away with what we have for the previous 13 games. You're going to find yourself probably out early in the playoffs because that's not what we're dealing with right now. It's not about trying to get through these next four regular season games. It's how are you going to position yourself to be successful in the playoffs?

So this would be experimental time, and I'd be interested to see if O'Connell has the guts to do that, and if so, how he executes it, because it's one thing to fire, as Zimmer did every other year, your offensive coordinator, but what really became of that? I don't recall, maybe, you know, obviously the 2017 season was its own anomaly, but it didn't work out when he got rid of Norm Turner. And it sort of, it adds up, you know, you don't want to look panicky, because if you make a huge move, like taking over play calling or reassigning play calling duties from your experienced defensive coordinator, it better not just be, I did this

for the sake of doing it. There better be a plan and execution that follows from there. So yeah, maybe there is an opportunity here to, you know, you still have a bit of house money left. Why don't you play with it and figure out what you can do defensively to be relevant in January yeah and I was looking at just playoff scenarios and things like that and whether they end up with the two or three seed I'm not sure really matters they may have dodged a bullet when it comes to Brock Purdy actually being really good and what I mean is the last team on earth I think that you want to play is the 49ers even Even with Brock Purdy, okay, but he's playing really, really well. And if every other quarterback can light up your defense, it looks like they can dial up a lot of things they can too.

And then maybe the Debo Samuel injury isn't as serious as it initially looked when they were carting him off yesterday. But San Francisco has this just super violent, dangerous defense. They can cover. They can get after the quarterback. They're just like the worst possible matchup for the Vikings. So it went through my head when Garoppolo got hurt. Like, oh, if they drop off, then the Vikings end up facing them in the first round.

And that's not what you want. And maybe Jimmy comes back and all those things. But now that they've gotten a couple of wins with Brock Purdy, they're kind of in a position to be the two or three seed, and the Vikings are looking at playing teams that just aren't that good, unless it's Detroit. But everybody else is, the Giants, Washington, Seattle. You think that the Vikings should match up totally fine against those teams.

But how they're going into the playoffs will be really hard to judge. I think just because of this schedule, it's such a, like a difficult challenge to evaluate. But on the quarterback side though, it is important to note, I guess two of the last three games, Kirk cousins has been downright phenomenal against new England.

And then this week and against the Jets, though he struggled quite a bit, a ton of pressure on him in that game. And he made the throws when it was necessary to take, you know, the two score lead late in the game. And I guess it was earlier in the fourth quarter, but make that throw to Jefferson in the corner against the Jets to kind of pull away a little bit, just enough to be able to hold on. But overall, the last three games by ESPN's QBR, which sort of factors game situation, have been three of his four best games. Do you think he's getting it?

I mean, I thought that yesterday the biggest thing was that other people got the ball. Like Jefferson, of course, went nuts and had history's greatest Vikings performance in terms of yardage for a receiver. But under the radar was 7 for 65 for Adam Thielen. It was a great touchdown catch by K.J. Osborne. It was like, oh, other people. T.J. Hawkinson, if he holds on to that one, they've got a first down there and maybe things are a little bit different. But overall, T.J TJ Hockinson had a nice little revenge game and was a big weapon for them. Like that to me was the other side of the coin of

like, Hey, this is something that they've been waiting for is can anyone else other than Justin Jefferson drive the offense? And yes, it was Jefferson, but they took advantage of everybody else as well, which is, which is really what they need. They can't have games where they throw for 115 yards to Jefferson and 175 overall. I don't know. Is he getting more comfortable? I don't know if I want to make a broad statement about it other than to say that I think that we've seen a couple

of his best performances recently. Well, I don't think it's a stretch to say that, you know, Cousins is peaking, you know, in Minnesota. I think he has been all season long, despite having suppressed statistical performances, he's been able to make plays when they matter at times when he wasn't able to before, despite maybe throwing for paltry yardage. I think if you're a Vikings fan, I think you can, without cursing yourself, and that's a loaded statement to make when you're addressing Vikings fans, but Kirk Cousins is really not an issue this season,

and I don't expect him to be going forward. They got a diverse offensive cast. If he can get protection, you know, the line's been banged up. Cousins can do some amazing things, and as you said, I mean, he was throwing bullets yesterday. I mean, accurate, hard, tight window, confident throws that were impressive to watch. He's evolved, I think, as a leader and as a teammate.

Look, we've been bashing him for years for being one of the least self-aware people in front of a microphone you can find, but I think he's as comfortable and he's showing that both on the field, off the field. It looks like he's actually enjoying playing the game as opposed to robotically going through the motions. I really do think you can just put Kirk Cousins off to the side and say, why is Delvin Cook throwing a pass to a blocking tight end named Johnny Munt inside the five-yard line? Why can't the defense get pressure when it needs to? Why is the secondary kind of a mess? Why weren't they prepared for a fake punt when the Lions are notorious

for stealing possessions on special teams? Those are the things I was looking at yesterday. I don't know the last time I've really looked with a microscope at Kirk Cousins and said he was responsible for today's, well, they've only had three losses, but I don't think you can really chalk up any of those losses on Cousins and said he was responsible for today's, well, they've only had three losses, but I don't think you can really chalk up any of those losses on Cousins. I'd have to think back to the Philly game, but it was the defense and it was some curious play calls at strange times that I think undid the Vikings. And they were always able to cover up for that because they were making huge defensive plays and huge offensive plays

in the fourth quarter, catching breaks, leveraging those breaks into points, whether it was officiating or turnovers or, you know, the Josh Allen fumble in the end zone. I mean, that was, none of those scenarios presented themselves yesterday. And the defense didn't earn any turnovers. It didn't create any, and it didn't really – you know, the Lions were relentless, and Goff was relentless in really picking them apart. So there wasn't really an opportunity, I think, for – I mean, there might have been an opportunity for a big play

to shift momentum, but it just – you could sense the game slipping away in the second half. But as far as Cousins, I mean, I think you've got to feel really good about where he's at mentally and physically heading toward the postseason. It may all end up being moot. I mean, wouldn't that be ironic that Cousins has maybe his most successful season as far as wins and maybe his teammates being inspired and galvanized around him. But, you know, some curious play calling and bad defense ends up undoing him.

You won't have Kirk Cousins to kick around anymore, I guess. Yeah, that's funny just because, like, one of my things is winning just sort of changes how we view absolutely everything. And I think what Kirk Cousins has turned into this year is kind of what Teddy Bridgewater was in 2015 and why everybody liked Teddy Bridgewater so much that the statistics weren't necessarily always huge, though they were yesterday for cousins, but it was like, do just enough, find a way, lead your football team. And I think that, you know, if that comes along with being more comfortable in the offense, finally, and putting up some big numbers, finally, to go along with that, that then, you know, you go into the playoffs feeling very confident about where your quarterback is at. And I think that that's that that's been something to see over the last couple of weeks is just how, again, the Jets game was kind of like boom or bust for Cousins,

like great drives or horrendous drives. But a game like that, sort of turning a corner maybe as far as the complete offense. And there wasn't a ton of pressure, but you're playing with backup offensive linemen. And yeah, so I think that you're right that it's really interesting. And somebody texted me yesterday who has long been a Kirk Cousins skeptic and said, I just really like him this year. And it's so funny because like it doesn't erase what happened before, but he has become with winning and playing sort of to win the game much more likable to the fan base, I think, than he ever was before. And I'm not even sure he knows that, or I don't even think he cares. I mean, he may a little bit, but I think he's been enough of a guy

that's been able to compartmentalize the criticism over the year where it's really not, I don't think, affected him that much. This is just, yeah, you don't have to, I don't think you need to be concerned about Cousins. I think you need to be concerned about why there seems to be, you know, some blackout periods offensively where things don't seem to be working at all. And then defense can't get off the field. So you don't have to look very hard to see where the Vikings' vulnerabilities are. And I just don't see them that much offensively. I certainly don't see them at the quarterback position from my sort of elevated position here of not being deep in the weeds of things every day. But if skeptics are texting you saying, I really like what he's doing this season, then

I mean, that's a win for the franchise because I'm not sure people would have thought that Cousins could have been considered the answer after a 10 or 11 year career where you're pretty much pretty certain about who he is and especially what he's been doing in this market the last several years before this season. So yeah, I think that if anything, I mean, you should take solace in the fact that the quarterback is not the issue right now. The issue is going to be your defense. If you can win 36-30 all the way through to the Super Bowl, good luck. But that's what it looks like it's going to be your defense. If you can win 36-30 all the way through to the Super Bowl, good luck, but that's what it looks like it's going to have to be, and that doesn't always happen in the postseason when you get nasty weather and you get tougher opponents and you're definitely going to

be playing elite quarterbacks. If you're giving up 30 points, you're very, very, very unlikely to be advancing. You can always be the 2,000 Ravens, but if you're not able to withstand the relentless gut-punching of elite quarterbacks in the postseason, you're not going to last very long. So if they can, if they can patch up the defense enough to keep the games interesting and look, their formula for success has been one big play at one big moment can change everything. That's not a very it's, it's like going all in and poker, you know, it, it, every once in a while, you might just bludgeon people to death with that,

but usually you're probably going to flame out at some point. This is the high wire the Vikings have been on all season. I don't think that's going to change much. Maybe it'll give them success. It probably won't, but everybody's trying to enjoy it along the way. What a weird transition this week is from playing intense game after intense game against really good teams. You know, like big buildup for us.

And they're going against Dallas. And they're going against this Jets defense. And then the Bills, you know, going back a few weeks. And then it's like, and now the Colts. Like, oh, yeah, they're here. They're here. It's on national TV. So sorry to the nation.

Everybody enjoy more Matt Ryan because that's what you wanted. Anyway. It's the ultimate get well game, right? Just get yourself well, put another one under the W column, and keep retooling because you're really competing right now for mid to late January games. Yes, yes, indeed. And if it looks any worse than that, then we start to get nervous.

So Murph, always great stuff. Really appreciate your time. And we will do it again after the Colts game, which we're all pretty pumped about and stuff. So yeah, it's on Saturday, too. Yeah, right. Sunday morning. Murph sounds weirder. It sounds like it should come along with a pipe.

Anyway, not, not, you know, like a, you know what I mean? Like not that kind of pipe that you're thinking of. Anyway,

that's a good place to end. So thanks. Murph. Really appreciate your time. All right. Sounds good. Folks. My wife had a great idea this week in the holiday spirit.

We went and got some cases of liquid death and donated them to a local food pantry, though. I have to say we did get some strange looks because it's called liquid death and it looks like we were bringing in a bunch of tall boy beer cans. But liquid death water is about helping the world be a better place, specifically the environment by ending plastic bottles. They donate 10% of their profits from delicious mountain water to end plastic use, and we've become big fans in the household of it as well. So if you want to get some water in a tall boy can because it just tastes better, or

if you want to give back to others, go get yourself some Liquid Death Water. Go to Hy-Vee, Whole Foods, Target, or liquiddeath.com slash insider. That's liquiddeath.com slash insider to find out more. Okay. Let's answer some fans only questions. There were a lot of reactions to the Vikings loss against the Detroit lions. So I'll get through as many as I possibly can. A lot of great questions here, but if you were wondering, I just wrapped up the Kevin O'Connell press conference and he said that they are not considering changing who is calling defensive plays. But if you listen back to his answer, he didn't start out with a direct, no,

absolutely not. What are you guys talking about? You're crazy. It was, well, we're going to look at everything, which I think means that that could be under consideration. They have to be as frustrated as you are with the defensive talent versus defensive performance that they've put on. I did look at some of the numbers and they blitzed more than I thought they did. They blitzed around 30% of the time, which usually it's about 20%. So that was up a little, but it's not like they turned into Buddy Ryan all of a sudden and started sending the house nonstop after Jared Goff. And either way, no matter what they've done, they have not found ways to get to the quarterback and have not

covered. And, uh, you know, you add those two things together. I know you guys listened to this for football insight. Um, it's bad. It's bad. If you don't do either one, it's bad. If you do one of them, you might have a chance if you do neither, um, not good. And that's exactly what you saw yesterday in a crazy stat from Steve Palazzolo of PFF, that the Vikings have been on the defensive side for four quarterbacks having their best PFF grade of the year. And yesterday, Jared Goff added his name to that list. So four different quarterbacks have had their best PFF grade of the year against the Minnesota Vikings defense. And that just, when you look around at some of the names on this defense,'s uh inexcusable

so there will be more questions on that and we will get to it so let's jump right in um from gm via email was there a legitimate reason for using an onside kick with just over three minutes to go in the game and two timeouts remaining with the rule changes onside kicks are now even less successful than they used to be. Either way, you had a three and out, and I'm just wondering if either way you need a three and out, and just wondering if the Lions are more conservative on third and seven, if it's taking place from the 28 rather than our 40, the way our defense played. They would have likely converted anyway, but the onside kick questions is one of a handful of decisions made by KOC this year that has me wondering if he is overthinking things or have aspirations of becoming an NFL trendsetter. Yeah, I don't think that that's quite it. I don't think that

he's looking to be a trendsetter. I haven't seen anything from him that has been absolutely wild when it comes to in-game decisions. I think that that was very aggressive. And I agree with you that those rules basically make an onside kick, I mean, almost impossible. And I wish that they hadn't made those changes. I get why, because it's a very dangerous play, but it kind of eliminated end-of-game madness. Like, the 1997 Vikings probably don't beat the New York Giants in the playoffs with the

current rules for onside kicks. But that is another discussion. Maybe we'll go back and look at the history when they play the Giants. But to your point, Kevin O'Connell was asked about this in his press conference, and he explained that the way he looked at it was no matter what happens, they have to get a stop. and he felt that there would be enough time to fly down the field and score either way so they were hoping to just get the onside kick and go score and hope for better execution he said than they had

but i think his logic was whether they have it at the 40 or the 28 we need one stop and one stop only and then they could make it up and the way that they were passing the 40 or the 28, we need one stop and one stop only. And then they could make it up in the way that they were passing the ball during the entire game. I can see why he thought that. But the thing that you can't really say out loud, if you're Kevin O'Connell, is that he didn't believe they would get the stop. And he was right. They didn't. They gave up a pass to a tackle, which, you know, I never saw coming either. And what a catch and play by Penny Sewell, an unbelievable athlete. And I saw former NFL player, George Foster tweeted, make it the logo with him reaching up to catch the ball. So there, you know, that was certainly

not something we expected, but if you're Kevin O'Connell, you're probably saying we won't stop them three times. We very likely won't get a three and out. So this is how we have to get the ball back. And I think that's why he did it. I mean, it is a fact though, that either way, like if you kick it off all the way and it's the 25 yard line, you get a stop. They have a great punter. Jake Fox, I think is his name. He just crushes the ball very similarly to Ryan Wright. So I'm sure that his thought process was if they go three and out, he's going to punt the ball all the way down to the other 25. What's the difference if they get stopped and punt the ball down to the 15? It's just, you know,

10 more yards, but either way, you're throwing to Justin Jefferson and Adam Thielen a bunch of times and they believe that they could travel the length of the field and score. So that was his explanation. I don't see O'Connell as kind of a galaxy brain guy, as we've kind of joked about through, you know, many times with crazy coaches who do wacky things, but there is something to overthinking it for sure. It is a first time head coach here who's finding his way. And I think when you have the ball at the four yard line and you have Justin Jefferson and even Jalen Rager as explosive as he is on those end of rounds and Adam Thielen, who's just been incredible at the goal line in his career, and even just Delvin Cook running straight up the middle, you know, those are probably better options than trying a pass.

And he said after the game, well, you know, we practiced it all week and so forth. I get that. I get that. But this is a team that ranks fourth worst. I saw this today on Twitter. Fourth worst in terms of perfectly blocking plays, pass plays specifically. But, you know, I imagine that the run game has some of this element when Garrett Bradbury was out.

And that's another factor too. The chances of this play getting blown up were pretty decent with the guys that you have in there, and you're running it right behind your rookie who has a tendency to get blown up. And, of course, a fumble is not really an expected outcome, but if you're telling me that Delvin Cook is going to throw the ball and something bad happened, I'd be like, okay, yeah, that sounds right. I mean, I've never seen him do it before in a game, and you can practice it all you want, but it's first down, like maybe just run it in.

So there is a little bit of this overthinking it. Yeah, I think that that's the way I would put it. I don't think it's like a concerted effort to be like, look at me, look at me. That's not who Kevin O'Connell is. I think when it came to this onside kick, it was just the mere fact that they knew if the other team gets a first down, we lose the game and the other team will probably get a first down because this defense cannot be trusted at all. But it's a good question. And that's why it was asked in the

press conference. And I thought he gave a very, um, a very honest answer without fully saying, yeah, it's cause our defense couldn't stop a nosebleed. Uh, next question comes from at miles Sean C on Twitter. Um, let's see how realistic is it for a team to alter their defensive scheme mid season and to what degree? Yeah, this was another thing that Kevin O'Connell talked about. He said, you can't really reinvent the wheel. And I asked him specifically, I said, how do you even evaluate the changes that you make down the stretch here? It's something that you heard Murph and I talk about because you're playing the Colts

and the Giants and the Packers and the Bears, and probably the Bears game won't matter. So you're talking about only a couple weeks against bad offenses. How can you really evaluate the changes that you make? And it's clearly not as simple as, Hey, Blitzmore, but something that he alluded to that I thought, you know, Kevin O'Connell has this really clever way and it's taken me quite a while to figure out how to listen to Kevin O'Connell talk because he gives long answers. He has a clever way of sort of sneaking in what he wants you to know or, you know, an element of the truth. And when he said to some extent, like I'm paraphrasing, obviously, I don't have the

quote right in front of me, but basically like you have to change coverages at some point. You have to change up coverages. You cannot just run the same coverage play after play after play after play was kind of what he insinuated. And I think that that's something you can do. These players have been in different systems. You think about someone like Patrick Peterson, Harrison Smith, Cam Dantzler even had a couple of years with Mike Zimmer. Can you change up your coverages throughout a game to where you're throwing a lot of different looks, how you're rolling, are using, you know, cover two cloud, cover three, whatever it might be zone blitzes where you're dropping back somebody, not that you want to see the Daniel Hunter drop back in coverage, maybe ever again, but where you're

surprising them with who you dropped back. There's mug looks where you're putting linebackers right up at the line of scrimmage and dropping them back. And I'm going to have later in the week a true defensive expert that some of you have heard on the show before, Cody Alexander, who is a brilliant defensive mind, tell me this answer. So you'll get a better answer from him than me,

more specific in what they can do. But I think that the broad strokes from what Kevin O'Connell said was like, no, we can't totally install a new scheme, but yes, we can make changes. We can study. And it sounded like, you know, it's kind of an all hands on deck here.

Like let's solve these problems and let's make some changes because clearly they are aware that it's not working. And maybe identifying the problem is the first step just with anything in life. But if they couldn't identify the problem before, I just don't know how much of it is going to be solved by tweaking this coverage or that coverage. And it's probably going to look better is my point. By the end of the year, it will probably look will probably look like oh well they got some stuff together but that's against some

bad offenses if the colts if the giants if the packers if those teams are moving the ball against them uh then it's been a failure because they couldn't even make the changes that they needed to slow down some of the worst offenses in the NFL. This will be the big evaluation thing the rest of the way. I think we know what the offense is and we've got a good sense for what it has to be in order to win games. But on the defensive side, that's really the, it's the, can you stop anyone challenge? And that's what they're going to need to do. But I think to your broader point, yeah, there are changes that can be made in how much you change up your coverage, what type of blitz looks, but Jeremiah Searles did mention on the show the other day that you

can't just throw in a blitz package. Like teams make that their thing. Um, like Mike Zimmer with the double a gap type of look, like from day one in OTAs, you're teaching everybody the fundamentals of that. So if you don't have a robust blitz package and then you're all of a sudden saying, hey guys, we're going to blitz. So can you just, you know, just go ahead and why don't you just get after the quarterback? It might not be as simple as that. I think overall, it is a very difficult task to solve a problem this big, but maybe it's as simple as making three more plays a game and not ending up giving up as many

points as they did and just not having a chance to win, even when your offense is moving the ball for most of the day. So yeah, I mean, I think that having the expectation of them completely fixing it would be way too high. But getting it to a point where it's not getting gashed over and over and over again, that I think is possible if they solve some of the problems. But I think you kind of are who you are in a lot of ways. Against good offenses, you are who you are. And the question is going to be, can you outscore them? Can you have the ball last? Can you cause one big turnover? Can you make one more big play than them? And the Vikings didn't. They didn't get a big sack. They didn't get a big interception. And, you know, they failed a couple of times with three and outs and it just wasn't enough for them. And like, that's how razor thin the margin is going to be. I don't think with the offensive talent that they have, it's that that's impossible at all to beat a team

with a good offense, but you just know, like, here's the way that I think of quarterback play. And, and we talk about quarterback wins sometimes and stuff like that. And I've been sarcastic about it because when you look at Patrick Mahomes going 15 and 0 against his division, you're like, I don't know if it was the guards, but you know, maybe. But the bigger point is just that what an offense has, or what a quarterback has, is a landscape. It's like if you're playing Super Mario or a video game where this is how hard the board is. Like this is how hard the level is. And for some quarterbacks, the level is insanely hard like jared goff last year like that's insurmountable it's an unbeatable game the level for kirk cousins is is is hard to some extent because your defense is going to give up points but you also have great

weapons and one of the best receivers i mean mean, my gosh, in franchise history and probably won't be long before we're saying ever. And, uh, you know, your running game is inconsistent. Like, you know, what you have to overcome as a passing game. And that's the one Trump card that you have is that you're never out of a game. I mean, if the, if the lions punt them the ball back, do we all think they'd have a really good chance of going to score? Like I would have thought that for sure, because of the way that they moved the ball in the passing game that's who you have to be and that's why you can come out of that game certainly feeling like wow you can never get through the playoffs with that defense and i don't disagree with you but at the same time you can look

at it and say in any given game justin jefferson could go for 200 yards and give you a chance to win, even if your defense has played about as bad as they can play. So there are a little bit of two ways to look at that. All right, next question from Alex. I understand you saying that Kirk played an amazing game today and the defense was horrendous, but how can we say that the offense was good when they had 16 points with three minutes left in the game? At some point in the playoffs, your defense is going to allow an opponent to score 30. It's just going to happen because you're not the 2000 Ravens or 2015 Broncos. So at some level, my concern still ultimately lies with the offense. I knew we would score points against Detroit and we really didn't. Yeah, it's a good question. So let me look here.

Going through the drives i pulled up all the drives uh they had a turnover on downs which of course was a problem they didn't convert a fourth down they had a fumble at the four yard line so that was another drive three and out and then scored on every drive to the end except for the the very end so in the second half they punted to start the second half which they you know that one they probably needed to bounce back with a long drive but then it went touchdown field goal touchdown was their drives they didn't touch the ball um they just one of the things that has happened quite a bit is that the other team is running more plays than them and it was only seven at the end of the day, total plays. But I think some of those,

you know, come at the very end on the last drive or something. So it was probably more like the Lions were near 70 plays and the Vikings were in maybe the mid fifties because there's the end of the half to the first half. So if we're really looking at it, shaving off some of those plays that weren't really plays, it's probably more like 70 to like 55 in total plays because the Lions just had the ball a ton. And they, again, they only end up with like four more time of possession, four more minutes. And yet they had these long drives where they just weren't giving the ball back. So that was part of it. And then failing at the goal line certainly was.

And, and, you know, ending a drive with a turnover on downs where you don't get the first down. I mean, that's another one. But I agree with you because when you look at the three and outs, the Vikings are one of the teams that's at the top of the league in terms of three and outs. And if you're this boom or bust, if you don't boom throughout the entire game, you're going to end up with 20-something points. And this team, I mean, okay, so they had overtime in Buffalo. Let's take a look here. Like, how often do they put up big scoring totals?

They seem to consistently put up about the same amount of points from a week-to-week basis. But it doesn't seem like they ever have one of those big run up the score type of games. I mean, it's actually kind of crazy. So when you look at their scoring throughout the year, like 23, 28, 28, 29, 24, they did have 34 against Arizona. That was a good offensive game. And then 20, 33 in overtime against Buffalo and an absolutely nuts game, of course. 33 against New England, 27, and then 23 yesterday.

So a lot of times it's like in this same range from the mid-20s to the low 30s of points. And do you have that explosive next level where you can really run somebody out of the building with your offense? Because for four quarters, you're unstoppable. We haven't really seen that all season. It's been a lot of, hey, on this drive, they fly down the field in three minutes or on this drive. They take seven minutes and then it's three, three and outs in a row or something. Part of that is playing against good defenses throughout the year. But you said it i mean yesterday um the defense affects the offense for sure with you know not being able to slow them down and and force them to you know have to punt

the ball back to you and give you more opportunities on offense so the number of plays really does matter here for putting up a lot of points um that's how these two things kind of play off of each other and aren't in a bubble but But as a consistent theme throughout the season, yeah, I mean, I think that that is a problem. And I would not say I would not sit here and say that the Vikings have a good enough offense at this moment to run people out of the building and overcome a horrendous defensive performance. Folks, you have just days left before Christmas. So make sure you're going to soda stick.com to get all of your Minnesota sports inspired goods. That's hats,

t-shirts, hoodies, soda stick.com S O T A S T I C K.com. Use the promo code purple insider there for your last minute holiday shopping. Because it's not like Detroit has a good defense. And, you know, I mean, so they're 10th in points right now, 17th in yards. Yeah, I mean, that's that all sounds kind of right. 18th in net yards per pass attempt and 22nd in yards per rush attempt.

Like those things do not scream, Hey, if you give up 30, you can go, you know, back and forth with a team and win. Uh, I think it would have to be like, hang in and then get that one stop at the end and make a play. That's who this is going to have to be. And they, they have been that, I mean, the Buffalo game is certainly that they made one big stop, uh, the Detroit game. They made one big stop at the end, got that extra chance. And with Justin Jefferson, they can go score against anybody at the final moment. So I think that what we know, and this is why the end of the season is kind of weird, is like we know how it's going to go, or at least we have some sense for how it's going to go. If you told me, Hey, they beat Philadelphia at Philly in the playoffs. And you said, well, how did it go? How did it look? I wouldn't say it went 13 to 10. You know, what I would say is they made one key stop or got one key turnover, and then we're able to fly down the field and score and maybe win a coin toss and go win the game that way. Like that's, it's who

they're going to have to be, which makes you certainly a lot more anxious as we go down the stretch here and into the playoffs than if your team was outscoring people consistently by 10, 12 points, right? So yeah, I mean, I think that your point about the offense, not putting up big point totals despite the yardage numbers is absolutely valid, and it shows you the thin margins where you can't fail on fourth down. You can't fumble if your defense is playing against an offense that can really move the ball against you, and that's why it's so important to not solve every problem. That's impossible, but just improve enough.

Just improve enough to be competitive to get those few stops um the one saving grace that they have is their run defense has been excellent and i wanted to mention that too i'm sure some of you were thinking that as i'm talking is they didn't run the ball and that's a big problem for this team i mean i i do think that when it comes to scoring when it comes to putting together those long drives, yeah, I mean, that is a big part of it is being able to run. I mean, when you look at those, there are charts and things, expected points gained and added after a game. I mean, they're just getting crushed yesterday in terms of the run. They're just bleeding points because

they're having all of these negative runs and presumably a healthy offensive line will help that, but it hasn't been a consistent running game either. And I don't know what the solution to that is. I think that everything about this team is boom or bust. It's all a 47 yard pass or a punt, or it's giving up a 47 yard pass or getting a key interception. And boy, that is made for some entertaining football. I have to say, does it make for you're going to win the Superbowl? I have no idea. Crazier things have definitely happened, but as far as entertainment value, yes. As far as being very secure going into the playoffs, knowing that you got to hit big plays to win. Uh, yeah, no, that, that raises the anxiety level for Vikings fans. I'm sure. All right. This one

comes from my friend, Chuck Aoki, consistent listener to the show says, uh, sending this the evening after the Detroit game, the main storyline, clearly how bad the defense was. I'm going to go in a different direction on this. Now, two out of three weeks where the offense has performed quite well. Am I crazy for thinking that throwing for 400 yards with two backup offensive linemen, even against a poor Detroit defense should be bigger, or at least an equal story is it is only one game, but we know that a passing offense is better than anything else. So, uh, if, uh, they've managed to figure some things out that could bode well come playoff time, happy holidays to you and yours. Thank you very much, Chuck, and happy

holidays to you as well, sir. Yes, I agree. I agree. And I mean, I don't want to repeat myself with some of the things I said earlier, but I think that what Kirk Cousins showed, and here's always the problem with Kirk Cousins. Once you think you got it, he does something different. It's like once we thought, oh, against New England, they made all these adjustments and they were running the bootlegs and they figured it out. And then it was like, oh, no, never mind. Like that's, no, that's the next week against the Jets.

And he came up with the big plays, as we talked about. But at the same time, there wasn't a consistent offensive performance against the New York Jets. And he averaged 4.9 yards per pass attempt. And it was a struggle. There were a lot of inaccurate passes and things like that. And I wondered, OK, how beat up is Kirk Cousins? Is this a bit of a problem?

And then he comes out against Detroit and has the best PFF grade he's put up since 2019. And one of his highest QBRs of the year, one of his highest, if not his highest quarterback rating of the year, and just eye test wise played incredibly well, especially without any help from the running game and where they were, you know, going back and forth in shootout fashion throughout the entire game, which again is kind of why you would have liked to have seen them pass the ball with Kirk Cousins, not Delvin Cook at the goal line because of how confident Cousins was looking. But if you're talking about one major factor, one thing that could be the difference, and

sometimes it does take a long time for a guy to get more comfortable in the system and everything else. But I don't even know if it's quite that. It's TJ Hawkinson. It's more KJ Osborne looking like he did last year where he was just filling into a role and making a big play when they needed it. And Adam Thielen looking good. Adam Thielen was open and made plays. And there have been times this year that there's been serious concern about Adam Thielen with his health. And Kevin O'Connell did admit that he's been banged up a little bit with a knee issue. I think that you all know that from seeing him limp off the field on a number of occasions. But he was open and made plays.

And it wasn't just the Justin Jefferson offense. That is the biggest factor. The Lions don't have a scary pass rush, so that helped a lot that Kirk Cousins didn't face a lot of pressure in that game. Got hit a handful of times, took a couple of sacks, but it almost felt like when he wasn't getting sacked, he was getting the ball off. He actually had some good pocket movement where he stepped up in the pocket a couple times and made throws, but getting the ball to more than just Jefferson, because even if you look at Jefferson's historic day, best day in franchise history, it's only 200 yards. You usually need 275, 300, 350 to match some of the best offenses

in the NFL the way that the league is now in the playoffs. You're probably going to have to throw for three bills if you want to beat Dak Prescott or Jalen Hurts. I mean, Jalen Hurts just put up 48 more points for the Philadelphia Eagles. They're a juggernaut. You're going to have to beat them. You're going to have to throw against them. And that's a great point that you make, that two out of the last three weeks

he has moved the ball around to different people. He's made big plays place, but also looked very confident in two out of the last three. That's the only hesitation I have is just like the Cousins coaster is just so real that after New England, you're like, oh, wow, he's just going to get on a roll here. And then against the Jets, it's oh no. And then right back up to wow against the Detroit Lions. So the unpredictability of Cousins on a week to week basis has always, I think, been an issue for his entire career where, you know, you look at Mr. October and then November's have been problematic.

But this year there were months earlier in the season where he didn't play as well statistically. And then he has a game like this against Detroit. That makes it hard to predict is it possible that he is starting to fully become in command and comfortable with the offense and can work the ball around better than he has before yes i think i think yes and i also think that they face some pretty darn bad pass defenses the rest of the way and he's going to look good i I'm going to make this prediction right now, right here, for all of you, I'm going to make this prediction that the quarterback rating for Kirk Cousins, which sits right now at 91, I'm going to say

that it gets to 100 by the end of the year because of the defenses they face and how comfortable he's looking. I don't know that that predicts what will happen in the playoffs, but I think that's how he's going to go into the playoffs is rolling. Um, especially because they're not playing teams that are scary on the defensive side against the pass. And maybe that just increases the confidence that he has. That's why I don't, I don't ever want to be dismissive of their chances to beat teams in the playoffs. And I see this all the time. We're going to lose. We're going to lose if this, we're going to lose if that, the point differential, all those things. But it's going to come down to a couple of games and how your quarterback plays and how your passing game is,

I think, is the ultimate factor. It's like, hey, it's everything that they wanted to be in position with a Kirk Cousins team. This is why you signed him way back when was to say, if you need to pass the ball to win, this is your guy. So he's going to have that chance in the playoffs, and it won't be easy with a struggling defense and an inconsistent running game. But they have the weapons to do it,

and they certainly showed that the highest end of this team can throw for over 400 yards if it needs to. But somebody made this point earlier. I wanted to bring up this little factoid that Kirk Cousins has thrown. I think I looked this up yesterday, and I'm sorry if I'm a little off on it. But I think he's thrown for over 400 yards like six times in his career, and it's 0-4-2. So playing from behind definitely did play into it a little bit yesterday. That's not to say that the yards were fake or that he didn't play phenomenally. It's just that, um,

usually that's not how they're playing, uh, winning football, but it's going to have to be, I think is my point. So anyway, all right. This one comes from at cam causey on Twitter, couple of questions for the shows this week. In short, I'm trying to make sense of how awful our defense is. Convince me or don't that this defensive performance is anything but Ed Donatell's fault. I don't know if this is the best way of looking at it, but from a player personnel perspective, I'd argue that this year is objectively more talented than last year. Outside of Cam Bynum versus Xavier Woods, the eye test and even a glance at PFF grades suggest we're equal, if not better at most positions than last year. Um, let's, and then, you know, he lists some of the players that are clear improvements. Um, this year's Peterson is playing better. Dantzler's

better than Breeland. I don't know about yesterday, but maybe a fully healthy, uh, Dantzler Hicks is better than bar last year. Totally agree on that one. Um, yeah, last year we rightfully said that Mike Zimmer has to take responsibility for a bad offense, even though he's primarily a defensive guy. Why shouldn't we say the same thing about KOC and this year's defense? Yeah. I have a tough time disagreeing with anything you said, man. I really do. I really have a difficult time going any other direction than you have the talent, you have the players, the weak link system thing is very real, but also it's not like you got a hundred weak links. You have a couple of weak links. You have to pressure

the quarterback. You have players to do that. You have to be able to cover up schematically some of the weaknesses in the coverage, which I think is a major problem. And this is why sometimes you'll hear analytics people say that coverage is more important than pass rush, because I think that coverage is hard to cover up. It is very, very hard to cover up if you've got a problem, but the only way to cover it up, and this is where it's chicken and egg, is pass rush, and they don't have that either. But yeah, I mean, I think that they picked the wrong horse for defensive coordinator. He's got three games, maybe week 18 if it matters, to prove us all wrong in that, but that's the way that it seemed. But I agree with what you said is, when you wear the hat that says HC on it, head coach, it is your responsibility for everything. You're the guy that can walk down the hall and make that change.

You're the guy who can push the button and say, Mike Patton's calling this defense. Now you're the guy who can say, this is the way we're going to cover this. This is the way we're going to make this change. So yes, everything goes on Kevin O'Connell, even if it's not his fault. It is his defensive coordinator. It's his system that he picked, and the scheme that they claimed was untouchable because Vic Fangio ran it. But you know what's funny is that the Chargers don't have a good defense. I know they played well against Miami, but they haven't had a good defense at all under Brandon Staley and they run this system. It's possible that Vic Fangio had great players or also that Vic Fangio maybe like knows more about this. I don't know like that. He's got a little more skill in that, but I think it's, you know, look at the Rams team that was so good on defense with Brandon Staley. It's like Aaron

Donald and Jalen Ramsey and all these great players. So a lot of times that's what it comes down to. They do have weaknesses on the roster, but it's not bumps. It's not Steven Weatherly starting. It's Z'Darrius Smith and Daniil Hunter. Yeah, I'm with you. I am with you., that this, it should be better. It absolutely should be better. And there's really nowhere else to point the finger aside from saying, Hey, maybe you picked the wrong nickel corner, but that seems pretty aggressive to me to just pin it on, you know, the one or two week guys. I don't think Cam Bynum has been as good as Xavier Woods, but there were some of the same, you know, the occasional coverage miscommunication or something. It's not quite like Anthony Harris, but even then, you know, 2020, same deal. It's like this defense might be worse

than 2020. And at one point they were starting basically an entire backup defense. They lost Barr for the year. They lost Hunter for the year. Like that hasn't been the case this year. They have been almost completely healthy. All right. Last question here comes from at David D. Westman on Twitter. And sorry if you didn't make it this long, David, but I appreciate you if you did. How many other teams are deploying a 3-4 defense in the NFL and their success rate versus the 4-3 defense? It'd be interesting to see if any of the other 3-4 defenses are in the top 15 in defense in the league. The 4-3-3-4 discussion is hard because they so rarely play 3-4 or 4-3. You don't see four linebackers on the field unless you're counting, you know,

Daniil Hunter and Zedarius Smith are just playing defensive end. They may be standing up different. The technique may be slightly different. But those guys, we've seen drop back in coverage like 10, times this year at max so they're not really playing linebacker they're just defensive ends uh one thing they do pretty often is put five defensive linemen on the line which may be somewhat questionable but i don't have data like it may be somewhat questionable in that you certainly can stop the run but are you leaving a lot of the middle of the field open when you have five defensive linemen including hunter and smith

and then they put in someone like james lynch or jonathan bullard like does that make a difference that might be something to look at back on the tape or with the numbers whether that makes a difference but for the most part teams are running nickel it's just nickel. It's two pass rushers on the edge, two interior pass rushers, two linebackers, a nickel corner, two deep safeties, two outside corners. Like that's what it mostly is. There's slight technical differences. I'm sure about where guys line up and things like that. And do you stand up rush? Do you put your hand in the, in the dirt? But I mean, it just should not be this way no matter what, like it's not the old three, four type of classic, you know, four linebackers out there. And one of them is an outside linebacker

who rushes it's yeah. It's, it's, it's much more of just nickel all the time. That's the personnel they're playing in. But yeah, I don't think that that's really what it is. I think that it's much more of just nickel all the time. That's the personnel they're playing in. But yeah, I don't think that that's really what it is. I think that it's not really having a good idea of how to blitz to create pressure because think about this. You want to talk about Zimmer. They created what the second most sacks in the NFL last year with who rushing once Daniil Hunter was out. Right. And that was, that scheme. That was blitzes. But that was years and years of Harrison Smith and Anthony Barr and designing these blitzes and things like that that Zimmer had become kind of famous for. I don't think that that's an Ed Donatel thing necessarily, but you can't run the same coverage time in, time out. And I think that that hint that was dropped

for us, that little pebble to kind of pick up like okay this is kind of maybe the problem is it's just too predictable and if you're predictable and you don't pressure the quarterback then you got problems and think about like you know what it reminds me of is seattle seattle after the uh legion of boom kept running the same defense the nfl changed a little but they didn't have the personnel to do it anymore. And suddenly all those things became just predictable and easy when you didn't have Richard Sherman and Earl Thomas and Cam Chancellor. So I think that it's, it is probably a, as Kirk Cousins likes to say, a combination of things. I don't think it has to do with 3-4 versus 4-3. I think it's entirely the defensive play calling, not being able to cover up the weaknesses

and not really understanding how to blitz and not changing up the coverages enough. And that's kind of a lot of things to fix. If it's one thing, maybe you can fix it. If it's multiple things, that's going to be hard. It's going to come down to on defense. Can you just flip the field a couple times? Can you get a pick? can you get a pick can you get a sack can you make one of those plays that sets up the offense for an easy score every game and uh they've done it this year mostly but i think we saw what it looks like when they

did so great stuff great stuff everyone great great questions really appreciate all of you guys jumping in purpleinsider.com to contact us or on Twitter at Matthew collar, sending me the DMS. It will be a fun week to, um, analyze what happened, take it all apart and start looking at those playoff scenarios. And we'll get into all that. And again, um, I will have Cody Alexander bringing some big time insight and we're also, we'll bring on a Colts guest just for fun because I really like Zach Hicks who writes for SI and is a really, really good analyst, a big draft guy, but his Colts are not very good, but that's the upcoming opponent.

So we will certainly have him on and have a really fun conversation. It'll be a good week and, uh, hope you all do well and we will see you later.