Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Brian Murphy picks the Vikings schedule

Episode Date: August 23, 2024

Matthew Coller and Brian Murphy are live from Circa in Las Vegas for their Millions and Survivor contests so why not how Murph pick the schedule? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collard here along with Brian Murphy and we are inside Circa in Las Vegas. We're out here for their Circa Million and Survivor Contests. Two very, very cool things that if you have a chance to drop by in Las Vegas and check out these contests, you've got a few more weeks to sign up. The Survivor Contest is what it sounds like. You pick teams, and if you get them all right each week to win, you know, Survivor Contest.

It's just like any other. But in this one, you can become a millionaire if you win. And last night, actually, Murph, when we were out, we ran into the winners from last year. And they are millionaires. Looking like ballers. They got these blue blazers for being the winners. Matching.

Matching. And they looked pretty cool. So if you have a chance to come out. It's a hell of a club to join. It's not a bad place to visit. And last year, $9.2 dollars was split between four winners in the survivor contest and with the million contest you pick five teams against the spread every week so you sign up out here but you're obviously playing back

at home you don't have to fly to Vegas every week to do this so if you got a flight that's coming out this way or you got a stop or something like that that might be a good thing to do before the season starts because, yeah, you could become a millionaire. We are not millionaires because we're not usually good at picking games all that well. But we're going to try that anyway today. We're going to try for you, Murph, to project the Minnesota Vikings 2024 season. It's one of my favorite bits to do with people where we go through every game

and you pick whether they are going to win or lose and we come up with a final record. So we spent a lot of time yesterday talking about the over-under here and we're going to talk also with Derek Stevens who owns this place about the NFC North over-unders and Super Bowl odds later on. So keep an eye out for that. But you're going to pick every single game, so I'm going to set it up, and you're just going to tell me Vikings' win or loss, and you have to explain why you think they will win or lose. Are you ready? Yeah, let's tee it up.

Can you handle this? I can, I think so. Okay, you seem a little tense this morning. No, no, not at all. Okay. Got a long day ahead, though. We've got to get out of here, travel, be home by 11 o'clock. Yeah, we do.

That's true. We're already plotting ahead. Yeah. Well, we're going to do our best. So let's start out with the Vikings at the New York Giants, the New York football Giants, if you will. I'm going to say 1-0. I'm going to say early September in the Meadowlands is not a bad way to start the season.

I expect Brian Flores is going to make life miserable for Daniel Jones and the Giants even though it's a year and a half too late from the Ed Donahell implosion in the 2022-23 playoff opener at US Bank Stadium but I also think it's enough to take the edge off of Sam Darnold's return to MetLife Stadium where of course he floundered with the Jets. It'll be ugly, but I see Minnesota prevailing and starting out 1-0. Yeah, I feel the same way that it's hard to get over what Daniel Jones has looked like really since he beat the Minnesota Vikings.

I mean, what is his last— That is his peak. Right. What does his last 7, 8, 10 starts look like versus that against Ed Donatell? The Giants do have new pieces that could help them a lot. Malik Nabors is one of them, but we're talking about a rookie making his first start against Brian Flores' defense that I think is going to be really tuned up to try to stop Malik Nabors. That's going to be their main goal.

They don't have Saquon Barkley anymore. The one thing I would be concerned about from the Vikings perspective is the Giants defense. That they have pass rushers. They have Dexter Lawrence. And the Vikings interior offensive line has not looked any better. And so if there's one guy who could just absolutely blow this whole thing up, it's probably Dexter Lawrence and then Brian Burns, who they traded for as well. I think this is a must-win game.

I hate to say that in week one, but it does set the tone because we know the first month of the season is brutal. There aren't many layups at all. But I would say that if you're going to go into the Meadowlands on a rebuilding team, taking on a rebuilding team, and you want to kind of establish what you're going to look like from kind of a retooled offense and then sort of a stopgap, got to make it happen defense, this is an opportunity to get one in the bag because it's going to get so much more difficult in the next four to five weeks.

Right. It could be the confidence builder and give them a little bit of cushion, a swing game to where if you end up going 500 through the next stretch, it would be great for them. But this one gets you one that's a little more cushion if things go wrong, starting with week two, where they play the San Francisco 49ers. It's probably going to go very wrong. They were able to beat the 49ers last year, but that was one of Kirk Cousins' best games that we ever saw him play. And I don't know i assume brandon iuk is going to be coming with the san francisco 49ers but even if he's not it's still a super talented team and the only

thing that gives you a chance sometimes with the 49ers is that they get banged up a lot but it's only weeks still early to get banged up too right exactly so last year i think it was what debo was not playing last year in that game and and McCaffrey was questionable going in. And he was not effective, I don't believe. Right, and this is going to be just week two. So is this a loss for you? Yeah, it is a loss. It's a tough home opener.

You know, Sam Donald's Vengeance Tour is really starting early this year, but I don't think it's going to make that much of a difference. I don't expect him to be crowing after all. 49ers are a tough home matchup. Probably as tough a home opener as you're going to get. The sting of two very close Super Bowl losses is kind of driving right now and you have to have, I believe Kyle Shanahan's going to be kind of dialed in for this week. But you're right, the IU drama and then, you know, they've got some other contract, pressing contract issues issues right now which shows how tight that championship window can be because it's not so much how you perform and missed

opportunities it's can you continue to pay some of these guys and the 49ers are realizing right now that to maintain an elite roster you got to win quickly and I think this could be a make or break season for them I kind of expect the 49ers to handle minnesota so we're looking at one-on-one the only thing that i would leave the door open to is just regression from brock purdy uh it is very been waiting for that though we have but it's very hard to back-to-back seasons average nine and a half yards of pass that's they would buck all of history i look this up every guy that's averaged over nine yards a pass and what they did the following season and no one was able to repeat it not even Aaron Rodgers or Matt

Ryan I think better quarterbacks than Brock Purdy is there a way to figure yeah well we don't know yet I mean there was a sixth rounder once upon a time that people wondered if he was any good after winning the first Super Bowl and And Tom Brady just kept being great. So maybe Brock Purdy will be the same thing. And he has, I think, a mind for being great for Kyle Shanahan. That is the most important part rather than the physical tools. You climbed into Brock Purdy's head? Yeah, I think so.

The way that he processes the game, the way that he sees the field for someone who's not that big is ridiculous and then he has a bit of a playmaker mindset but one of the things that I notice in the numbers from Purdy is that he had more turnover worthy plays than you would want yep and kind of got away with some stuff last year he will put the ball up for grabs and if some of that stuff regresses on him how often those balls were picked in this game specifically i mean that that's what we're going to talk about with every game that they're not expected to win is the way that you have to do it is probably just getting turnovers getting turnovers and playing almost playing a perfect game because there's no margin for error and you know the 49ers are going to come

in i don't want to say looking for vengeance from last year but they obviously remember coming into the dome being a little bit undermanned or not the the Dome, but U.S. Bank Stadium. No, the Dome. Mall of America Field. Mall of America Field at U.S. Bank Stadium. I just feel like this is, look, if the Vikings take air business in New York, that'll take the edge off the week two loss that almost seems guaranteed. Okay, one and one, and they stay at home. Stay at home stay at home face off with daniel hunter revenge game stefan diggs revenge game stefan

diggs revenge game jonathan grenard revenge game is there any other that's a whole lot of drama for week three right and there's not a lot of bad blood with anybody in houston you have to imagine that stefan diggs no matter when he plays the Minnesota Vikings, is going to feel like he wants to shred them. But do you see that happening? Do you see the Vikings beating the Houston Texans at Metrodome? Metrodome. I think Brian Flores can put the Vikings' defense into, you know,

maybe positions to defuddle C.J. Stroud. I mean, because no way they can get into an offensive shooting match right now with that team and those weapons. I'll grant the Vikings an early upset here. I just feel like it'll be intriguing to see, you know, the miracle worker and the sack master back at U.S. Bank Stadium, but I think all eyes are going to be on C.J. Stroud and whether this emerging star can kind of turn Houston

into legitimate and viable Super Bowl candidates, and I think it'll probably take a little bit of the season to get back into their rhythm. They were more of a second half team last year as well. I just feel like this is a home game that the Vikings can pull off an upset. I don't like their chances in the division games, and I'll get into that a little bit more as we go. This is an early upset opportunity so we get them at two and one. Two and one start for the Minnesota Vikings and Sam Darnold would be very good. I am a little less confident than you on this but I understand why you would pick one of those two games to be an upset because you have back-to-back games at U.S. Bank Stadium. Normally

you wouldn't expect to lose both of those and last year when we were picking schedules we would have said they are losing to San Francisco when they they came to us bank stadium and they pulled off a win there i think what when you're talking about the 49ers and texans game it's a 60 40 type advantage which is about as it's not as large as it gets in the nfl but that's how i would put it for the 49ers and texans can you be on the right side of the 40% of one of those two games? And then you're going to feel a heck of a lot better. And that's a turnover-driven probably occurrence. Usually, yeah, right.

And last year they were on the wrong side of all the turnovers to start the season. Can you be on the right side of them and pull off one of those wins? Now they go to Lambeau Field feeling pretty good about themselves. But do you feel pretty good about the Vikings at Lambeau Field at 2-1? No, I don't really. Maybe somebody will pour one out in memory of where, you know, Kirk Cousins' 2023 season and Vikings career ended shockingly maybe last October. It was shocking.

I don't know. The first big NFC North test goes to the Ascendants, I got to say, with Jordan Love and the home Packers. At least they won't have to, you know know the Vikings won't have to suffer through an arctic matchup as they usually have there but I I feel like this is where it's going to get difficult for the Vikings to make not only make the playoffs but be viable just because of their division I really have them going about one and five in the division we'll break those down later but I think this is going to be a very humbling season in the NFC North for the Vikings. I can already see the comment section when it comes to that.

I usually think that they're going to split the division games because they are closer. Even if you're not as good and you play a division team, the familiarity is so high that usually there is a little bit more of a split. But this year, the other teams, two of them them at least are decidedly better and very much more in their Super Bowl windows than the Vikings which would be understandable to pick them instead the only the only edge here as you mentioned is that you're not going to Lambeau in January for once maybe Justin Jefferson will have the right cleats this time and everything will be okay but okay they take a loss they start the season at two and

two and then they get in their buggies and they fly out to london again play the new york jets i know again aaron rogers what does he look like by week five this one is a very difficult one to project but we do know robert sala has an excellent, if you missed yesterday, couldn't pronounce Robert Sala, but Robert Sala has an excellent defense, which could cause a lot of problems for Sam Darnall, I think. Of course it can, but here's what I think. It's a tough opening month. I feel like, assuming Aaron Rodgers can survive his early comeback from that Achilles injury,

I think floors will be waiting to scheme him up pretty good. It should be a fun matchup, though. The biggest matchup, not even so much quarterbacks, is watching Justin Jefferson maybe go up against Sauce Gardner. It might not be as dramatic and entertaining as Double Doink was a couple years ago, but I do see the Vikings prevailing here and moving to 3-2. Okay. And putting a bookmark on a very difficult opening stretch.

I was going to say, I feel like if they are able to survive. 3-2 going into the bye. Yeah, at 3-2. That would be a best-case scenario for them. With these teams, to get a win against the Jets, I just have no idea what Aaron Rodgers is going to be. Because it's been so long since he played and he hasn't been around much this spring he also didn't look that good when he was playing

last for the Green Bay Packers that it looked like his physical skill was not the same as it was during his peak and he couldn't just kind of make it up back there and play his way and I just think that that worked for him once upon a time, and it certainly worked when Matt LaFleur got there. He does have at least one really good receiver and some other weapons. Is their offensive line good enough to protect him? I don't know. I'm not super high on the Jets.

He just feels like he can plug in and play, you know, like as if nothing has happened over the last year and a half. And as you mentioned, watching him get marched off Lambeau by the Lions in Week 17, Week 18, and January of 23, you felt like obviously it was the end of an era in Green Bay but considering what happened three snaps snaps into the season last year you wonder I don't he's not the same player he's not the same guy and I is he 40 yet when is his uh is it this season uh is he already 40 how old is Aaron Rodgers? It's this calendar year, I believe.

So, you know, you haven't been relevant in a year and a half. It says he is 40 years old and turned 40 in December 2nd. So is he 40 going on 48? Yeah. Like most quarterbacks? Or is he 40 going on 32 like Tom Brady? I mean, even when he was was 38 he started to look like he was getting older and when he was constantly talking about potential retirement that's where

the red flag always goes up for me when you have a quarterback that is always thinking about retirement at some point even with Tom Brady they just fall off the side of the earth and the same thing happened with Peyton Manning like is that this year for Aaron Rodgers and I think to say yes would go I think with history with the way that some of these quarterbacks have had their careers end even when you go back to a lot of legends other than John Elway who walked away after a really good year but even someone like Dan Marino one year too many it's oftentimes one year too many and the vikings have to hope that that's the case because if it's not that's going to be a hard game but okay three and two what an ideal scenario yeah going into the by a lot of positive vibes coming into october

uh but an immediate test coming out of the by and i'm sure that uh tj hawkinson is coming back at this point jj mccarthy is oh no he's not that would have been a tantalizing time considering him it really would have been interesting if he had been but at three and two with Sam Darnold he's probably not in the mix right now this just I don't mean to keep going back to McCarthy's injury and how much it took away so many fun storylines but if they were three and, but it was a Flores 3-2, and the offense ranked 28th, but they had gotten some turnovers and Will Reichard made nine field goals in a row or something to start the season,

coming out of the bye would have been a very difficult decision. Do I keep going with Darnold? He's winning, but they're not playing that well. By the way, real quick Sam Darnold stat that i ran across tell me how this one sits with you uh last night so i was i keep thinking about how can i reframe the darnold discussion in any other way than just maybe um when he was in carolina he won eight out of 17 games what do you think carolina's record was in 16 games that he did not play for them, whether he was either benched or injured?

16 games? 16 games. 4-15. Okay, that does not add up to 16, but 4-12 does. That's what I meant, sorry. 4-12. You are actually completely right. Yeah, I was thinking just four wins.

Yeah, go ahead. It's morning in Vegas. It is, right. They were four and twelve without him and eight and seven with him that doesn't mean he played well i'm just saying that he played better than anybody else did there and that really tells you how bad that team was that when they were throwing in baker mayfield pj walker whatever they couldn't win at all and at least least with him, he gave them a chance. I don't know, being king of the losers, I don't know how much you can put in that stock on that. It was a very bad team that was near 500.

That's all I'm saying. I'm not trying to talk you into this. Every comment section I notice keeps going back and forth between you're too positive or you're too negative, and I can't figure out what we are. But I guess when you say a team's going to win eight or nine games, you're both. Yes, we're on the fence. We're straddling. We're a little more optimistic than Vegas at six and a half.

Yes, we are. Okay, on to week seven. The Detroit Lions at U.S. Bank Stadium is the name of the new stadium that they just built. I've heard of it in 2016. Not too long ago. I don't know. I mean, you think Hawkinson will be back? I mean, I think he's probably got it circled on the calendar.

Obviously, you know, he's lost to a torn ACL last Christmas Eve on a low hit by Kirby Joseph. I mean, is he going to be back to provide some more playmaking punch? I mean, they're certainly going to need it. I would say it's another, but I do believe it's another splash of cold water from an ascending division rival like the 49ers the lions are complete team up and down the roster nfc north games again i think they're going to be very humbling for the vikings i see detroit prevailing in minneapolis now we're at three and three three and three going out to los angeles which means that all of you who are listening and watching,

you're going too, probably. It'll be a takeover. We were there when they last played in Los Angeles. But it's a Thursday night game. You have to take some more paid time off a little bit around that. You might be able to make it work. That's true. It's going to be a short week.

That could be an impact, though. If it's a night game, you could fly out on Thursday. I'll probably do that. Take the red eye. On Thursday. During the day, I mean. And then you're only taking two days off of work. if it's a night game you could fly out on thursday i'll probably do that take the right on thursday during the day i mean and then you're only taking two days off of work you could start planning this now folks you can do this uh listen to triple a over here you can probably get you a deal it's still going to be a lot of purple and there are a lot of california purple fans so i think uh this one has a little less home field uh impact for the. Nonetheless, a team that I expect to be good,

you never know what level of banged up Matthew Stafford is going to be at that point in the season because it's always some. He's banged up in May. Always. It's always. Every single year, Matt Stafford is battling through whatever injury. I don't know. Maybe he's just more honest about his injuries,

and that's how everyone knows about them. I don't know. It's always a thing. Anyway, do you think that they'll win? No, I don't think they're going to win. I think Stafford and that high-octane offense is going to be too much. But it will be an interesting homecoming sort of for Kevin O'Connell. Obviously he won a Super Bowl with the Rams on that coaching staff.

Primetime Thursday night. I'd give the Vikings a little bit more of a chance if they had a full week to prepare, but this just looks like another one of those superior opponents they're facing on the road. It's just going to be a tough lift, so I've got them going down to three and four. I am pretty high on the Los Angeles Rams this year, and part of it is because I thought that Stafford last season weirdly played some of his best football. He protected the ball much better than he usually has over his career. That was always my big criticism of him is that as wonderfully talented as he is

and the highs are super high with Stafford, there would be a lot of turnovers and a lot of sacks that he would take. And he even did that in the year that they won the Super Bowl. He had a lot of sovers and a lot of sacks that he would take and he even did that in the year that they won the super bowl he had a lot of sacks and turnovers then last year i thought he was pretty sharp um for for them and they weren't as good of a team as they can be now they weren't as healthy right and uh cooper cup yeah is coming back nicole we'll see about his health but i think by that point he should be back and ready to go that That's a very difficult team to face. Their defense has improved. They've added some players over the last few years. I would agree with you that that one is not an easy game,

especially coming off of a home game against Detroit. This is something that over the years, and this may be quack science. Somebody who's good at picking games will have to let me know in the comments if this is quack science. I think when a team has a really difficult opponent one week and then has to go on the road the next week that game is always really hard like if he's so and it's a thursday night playing a division opponent right play even just under normal circumstances playing a division opponent detroit those games are always crazy with the vikings and

then going out somewhere a few days later that is a serious disadvantage for the Vikings week nine they return home to play Anthony Richardson in the Colts and I saw people reacting to Anthony Richardson's preseason performance last night you can you guys need some football games you're just desperate just please let me react to something there's nothing to react to there but by week, I really want to know what Anthony Richardson is going to be because right now I still have no idea. No, and I feel like this is maybe finally a layup. It might be the only layup.

I don't know if the Vikings are really going to be associated with too many layups this season. It was only two years ago, but it feels like an eternity since the Vikes rallied from that 33 point take deficit to take down the colts but i they're screwed if they fall behind by two touchdowns in this particular game i think this i think this is a game maybe for darnold to shine if he's going to shine it's kind of one of those if he has one three td 300 yard game this will be it and what will follow is all the resurrection headlines because

clearly this is the Colts team if not rebuilding they're certainly transitioning trying to figure out what they have with a new head coach and a new you know what they have at the quarterback position so I feel like this is an opportunity for the Vikings I don't want to say to blow anyone out but I think this would be the one game they can handle somebody at home handily so that gets them back to 500 four and four I'm calling up my big sheet here of the circa win-loss totals because I want to know what they think of the Colts they have the Colts as a eight and a half for over under giving them quite a bit more credit than the minnesota vikings hey here's another stat i looked up last night can you tell i was just partying in vegas looking up stats during a break at the craps table oh yeah sure that's definitely me um quite a few teams that had

six and a half wins last year as their win loss total and i'm not trying to uh say this will mean anything to the vikings either made the playoffs or missed it, and the Colts were one of them, that they were a six-and-a-half win-loss team last year going in for preseason odds and ended up being one good Gardner Minshew pass away from making the playoffs. That may carry over for them with Richardson, that they feel like they're ascending more than a team that's fading back, but in my mind, they're one of the harder teams to project because we just don't know what anthony richardson's going to be right that's august 23rd his throwing did look a little bit still shaky to me his running could be one of the best we've ever seen based on what he did in college in the early part of last season i don't know what to

make of that like those guys can be very volatile we don't know is he going to get injured because he runs all the time and that kind of thing whole new regime in town it is a really hard team to project but i do like their head coach yeah the former offensive coordinator for the philadelphia which in his name is you're going to fill me in on that shane steichen it's the guy i'm sorry You're just teeing me up to be an idiot. It's just raw. The Indianapolis Colts. Remember that video that they did where they just showed people logos in Nashville and asked them who the teams were, and people didn't know 90% of the logos?

I find that hard to believe. That was the video. The Colts is an iconic one. They've been around for 1,000 years. Yeah, I'm not saying you don't know the Colts, or people wouldn't know the Colts lineup necessarily, but I'm just saying that, you know. People don't even need to know logos,

so therefore I don't need to know their head coaches. Exactly, that's what I was getting to. I'll know it that day. And Shane Steichen has to be the most anonymous head coach in the entire NFL, I think, unless you know who coaches the Titans. It's not Mike Vrabel anymore. This should have been the whole show.

Who's coaching who? Who's coaching this team? You don't understand. After the Super Bowl, I kind of shut down until week one. Who coaches the Texans? That guy. That's great. You don't need me for this kind of stuff.

The AFC South is just out of your mind entirely. So why don't we just have you pick the next game, which is from an AFC South team. But you've got them at 4-4 right now heading into Week 10. I think that's right. Yep, 4-4. Again, maybe an ideal scenario considering how hard that run is of games. And now they go down to Jacksonville, a game that I can't wait to go down,

play golf with our friend Paul Hodowanek. That's the plan. You going to Jacksonville? I am going to Jacksonville. It's sort of the road trip weekend for my St. Paul dads and dads without wives crew. We did pick Jacksonville for obvious reasons. We're going to rent a beach house for all the shenanigans. I think the Jaguars might be a little bit too tough to handle, though. Talented on both sides

of the ball. I look at a bounce back season maybe for Trevor Lawrence with Peterson coaching for his job, it sounds like, down there. I feel like this is a hiccup for the Vikings on the road. Too much weirdness might happen in that game because Lawrence is kind of one of those wild cards oh he's definitely a wild card I I feel like he is one of the hardest predict on a weekly basis where sometimes you'll watch him and you'll go why isn't it better and other times it is it is better but the team around him the coach their offensive coordinator I just don't think they're that strong and this feels more to me like a game that opportunity for the vikings right and and brian flores that a game that i would pick as a

win against jacksonville because they don't have the offensive players that terrify you unless brian thomas their rookie wide receiver becomes great but christian kirk doesn't terrify you travis etn in the backfield that i think we're if you're picking the schedule based on which receiver could slaughter your cornerbacks this would not be one that i would pick against the vikings now if we're talking about a game like you know houston then yes digs could do that to them or the rams yes cooper cup could do that to them amin ross saint brown does it every freaking time they play each other even before anyone knew who he was less concerned with the the Jaguars there for me but a fair enough loss coming off of a big win at home and now they go from Jacksonville to face Brian

Callahan's Tennessee Titans and Will Levis as well yeah I think at four and five um this is might be as winnable a game that the vikings are going to have certainly on the road and i think they got to seize the opportunity the titans are rebuilding and it's like a prime opportunity this looks like one of those games we haven't even mentioned aaron jones yet but i could see him rushing for 130 yards and the defense to kind of play in a smothering style low scoring game maybe that gets the vikings back to 500 okay they will go to the Bears after that I don't have much more to say except for there is a revenge game angle do you know what the revenge game angle is why are you doing this to me I'm not I don't pay attention to roster turn

who's who's what you know I don't know this so you're just going to make me look like a fool no I'm not making you look like a fool i'm informing the audience of the revenge game angle between the vikings and titans that maybe people haven't thought of which educate me too which is that you can't be this surly when we're at circa hanging out in las vegas and we had a great dinner last night jeez sorry i just like talking in broad strokes and large grand themes i don't i don't drill into the roster churn of the offseason as much as I used to. Who's the coach of the Raiders? I can see him. I can see.

They just all blend together now to me. I swear to God, dude. I'm not working this every day like I used to. I don't care anymore. I'm not asking for this. Will Levis. The Vikings could have drafted him. That's the revenge game angle.

That's drilling deep. Yep. See, I wasn't trying to make fun of you with that. I was asking the audience. But you didn't even say anything. Are they going to win this game? Oh, yeah. Are they winning the game?

I said they are going to win it. Oh, you said they are. Yeah, they're going to get to 5-5. Okay. I got them at 5-5. Where are you at at this point? Take a deep breath. Take a deep breath and google the coaches in the

nfl i know i think that your five and five would be a pretty solid outcome for this yes and we have to expect i'm sure that some vikings fans would look at jacksonville and tennessee and say we just win both of them but it might be hard to win both when both teams are kind of in the same range as you and I'm using this the win-loss sheet as an objective observer of the uh you know circa bookmakers that they would have an understanding better than maybe us of what team's expectations should be and so Vegas always knows they're like Santa Claus they uh they're here for a reason this place didn't get built on nothing um the Jaguars are eight and a half so

that's another kind of middling team and the Titans are right with the Vikings six and a half so you you could win both of those games those are two of the easier games on the schedule if we're if we're given the uh the win total plus we're just rooting for them to be relevant in the mid to late November. Well, that's absolutely true. I mean, if this has happened, it means Sam Darnold's playing pretty good football. It doesn't mean that he is a superstar or that he's Kurt Warner or something, but it means that he's played pretty serviceable and solid football.

I always love that word, serviceable. Yeah, that's the way to look at it. It's a nice way of saying mediocre but not getting in the way. Or that it's been amazing and terrible which i think is more likely for sam darnold that if we went game by game well you know against the jaguars he threw for 18 yards and four picks and then against the titans 423 and four touchdowns that seems like the type of year we're in for and that's where whenever there's this theistic, this year doesn't matter, we'll just get on to the next season. I'm like, you don't want to see what kind of madness that this could happen.

Anyway, they go to Chicago. Yeah. Weird things in Chicago. You know, I used to always pick against them in Chicago because they just lost all the time, even to the point of complete absurdity. But that hasn't happened in recent years. They usually have actually done okay at Soldier Field. I think that's more because of the Bears than anything the Vikings have done.

That is true. They were tanking at one point in Justin Fields. But we did a look at, I mentioned Paul Hodowanek, when he was the intern for Purple Insider. He did an article where he looked at the Chicago games versus the spread and Vikings history and how many times there was upsets and shocking results it was way way way more than you ever would have expected so that was a real thing it just hasn't been lately they are a team just like the Vikings hoping to ascend uh circa has them at eight and a half for their win total what

do you think I think the rookie rust is probably going to be thoroughly knocked off by late November for Caleb Williams. It's probably going to serve notice with Jordan Love that these are the future dominant quarterbacks in the NFC North. Now, how Brian Flores counters against Williams, budding inexperience, I guess is a way to put it, could come a long way in dictating the outcome. But I just see the Bears prevailing in maybe a sloppy, muddy,

late-November game at Soldier Field. And this may be, well, at least in my opinion, this probably is the only divisional win for the Vikings this year. Oh, really? It gets them to 5-6. Oh, so you think the Vikings will win? No, I think they're... Wait. You said both right there.

I did. There's a game that they come back to at the Metrodome. US Bank Stadium. So are they winning or losing? No, they're losing in Soldier Field. I got them at 5-6. I wrote down the L there, and then I wrote down the W. What did you write down? 5-6. I think that

they will split with the Bears, but I don't know what. I don't know what way. You're not committing to which home or away yet? Yeah, I'm not. Well, I agree. They're going to split with the Bears. You would pick Soldier Field as the place that they were going to lose. If that was just the obvious, they're going to lose at Soldier Field.

But I don't know what, at that point, Caleb Williams is going to be and how we'll feel about him. is he turning the ball over like crazy or is he playing extremely well and starting to take the next step i don't know if it's an advantage or disadvantage to play caleb williams for the first time in the middle of the season all right or do they play the bears earlier in the year yeah that's right right the first time yeah it's a late week 12 look right to not be able to know what he's going to be until week 12 could either mean that he's losing confidence and getting beat up every week or he's starting to click and get it and that's bad for you because then you play them again uh a few weeks later like two weeks later uh week 13 they play the arizona cardinals and they are a 6.5 team, just like the Vikings.

How are you feeling about that? I like the match. Justin Jefferson versus Marvin Harrison Jr. I think is going to be something fun to watch. They're not going to impact. I mean, they will impact the game, but I don't think that's going to be the driving force. I think this is another opportunity maybe for Brian Flores to climb into Kyler Murray's head with a lot of different things to keep him uncomfortable. I think the front seven makes the difference.

I'm going to go with a win on this one at home against an inferior opponent. We're back to.500 again at 6-6. You knew I'm going to ask you the coach of the Cardinals, right? Ken Wisenhut. Joel Bugle. Jonathan Gannon bruce arians uh jonathan gannon is the coach uh buddy ryan once upon a time coach the uh is it the phoenix cardinals at the time i think ryan yeah that's where he went from the bears i believe i think it was so you just have them bouncing back and forth i do i have it toggling all the way yep yep and i don't see any big winning streaks or losing streaks i would say the same thing because there's just enough of games where they should have a good chance in this stretch where they go colts jaguars titans bears

cardinals all of those are very winnable games so if there's going to be a stretch it has to be right there but they have to survive the first four weeks to make this relevant yes and we're gonna do another episode where we answer fan questions and i think that's going to be one of them about like if it goes a certain way then what do they do early in the season when you know that the easier part of the stretch of the schedule is coming up in the middle week 14 now there's a revenge game week 14 i've heard about this okay so you know this one this is going to be fun. Who's the coach of the Falcons?

It's not Arthur Smith anymore. It's not Arthur Smith. No, it's not Dan Reeves. It's Raheem Morris. Formerly of Tampa. Do you want me to keep doing this or stop doing this? No, I don't care. I'm going to be wrong every time. I'm really just not that engaged.

I'm admitting to you that I'm not engaged with all of this. I know. I know. Well, once that train got rolling I just couldn't stop myself I'll know in week 13 what his name is And I'll be able to type that in when I'm writing Okay

After that game But yes I mean as daytime melodramas go It doesn't get much better than Kirk Cousins And the Vikings reuniting Kind of like that Divorced spouses at a friend's wedding. It's going to be a little bit of an awkward dance.

Bouquets are going to be thrown at each other all week long from Atlanta to Minneapolis. But I think the energy at U.S. Bank is going to be, it should be amped up, and I don't know what the conflicting emotions are going to be like. I'm kind of looking forward to what kind of reaction. Again, week 14, you know, Cousins coming back from that injury. We don't know what his status is going to be. I don't think we're going to see Michael Penix under center by then, but it's not out of the realm to rob us of this opportunity.

Cousins has proved so durable prior to the Achilles injury that you can almost bank on him being there. But I just think this might be one of those Kirk games where he prevails and he has sort of the cheeky, milquetoast last word, maybe running to the locker room. You like that part too. I don't think – I think it will have people wondering a little bit about what might have been if he comes here and sticks it to the Vikings.

But I think both sides are prepared to move on, and I think emotionally it'll be an interesting night. Now, if you want to talk about bets to make, does Kirk Cousins say you like that at any point during his game against the Vikings would be a good bet? Do the mic'd up cameras show him throwing a touchdown, going like this and saying you like that? You like that again.

I think that he will at some point say that. I'll make that bet. Nine and a half for the Falcons seems pretty high to me for a team that hasn't been that great, but there are expectations for them with Kirk. Six and seven I got him at now. Let's go to the Bears at Metrodome, week 15. So they're six and seven after a loss to the Falcons.

The morale is low, but the Bears come in, and what happens? You know, this is one of those where you can almost see it would have been J.J. McCarthy finally playing by now. You'd have a great rookie matchup and all kinds of thrilling back and forth. But we'll have to wait until 2025 with that. I just feel like the Vikings will be able to avenge the loss. They'll know Williams a little bit more. They'll know where he's at. I still think Chicago among their three division foes is going to be the weakest link,

but it's not that weak anymore. But I do see that, you know, Monday night, I think the Vikings will be up because they realize what's at stake and every game is going to be hammer and tonguing to the end of the season. So I see them getting their lone divisional win on this night. Okay. So still 500 team going into the final three weeks. And we could talk about this on another show, but I think this would be a success for the Vikings. If they reach 7-7. Now you're in December playing meaningful games. If the final three weeks were relevant,

going against the Seahawks, Packers, Lions, three good opponents, then that's a win for this team to be in this position. So you've got them in a decent spot going to Seattle against their new coach. Don't worry about it. Geno Smith's their quarterback. Pete Carroll's not there anymore, right? No, he's not. This would be a hard guess that it's Mike McDonald.

Yeah. Look, this used to be a really spicy kind of a rivalry. Yeah. Because the Vikings, every time they go to Seattle, something really ugly would happen, either rivalry-wise or trash-talking-wise or decisions made. It always felt like it was a grudge match, even though they're in the, you know, they're not even in the NFC North, but it always felt like a NFC North kind of game I don't

see that happening this time I think the Vikings are in a good position I still a tough place to play but I mean the Seahawks are kind of rebuilding and there's enough bailing wire and duct tape I think to keep Geno Smith together uh by week what 16 are we at uh I think Darnall leads them to a kind of a gritty road win that will uh I think this may mark the peak of their playoff contention right here at 8-7. Okay, 8-7. They get a big win in Seattle. They have a winning record going into week 17. And I think you just teased what you think is going to happen in the final two weeks.

So you think they're going to lose both of these games to go 8-9? I do. I think the Packers are going to be jockeying. I mean, if the Vikings are fighting for their playoff lives, the Packers are going to be jockeying. I mean, if the Vikings are fighting for their playoff lives, the Packers are going to be jockeying for a higher playoff position in the NFC. And this is where I think the rivalry kind of, you see the fork in the road here. I think you've got an ascending team, you know, with the sky's the limit expectations. I think the Vikings are kind of left in the dust in their year of transition.

But I think it's a big day for Jordan Love and a crushing home loss, which there have been many against the Packers at U.S. Bank Stadium. Doesn't kill their playoff hopes, but really it sets up a must-win game in Detroit, and we can go into that again, but now I think they're 8-8. You know, this is a thing that's happened to them a few times is the late season game against the Packers where they're hanging around the playoff race or they need it for to fight for the division or for a home playoff game or whatever it might be. And they just don't pull it off. It happened in 2019. It happened in the Kirk got COVID game in 2021. Even 2022, they could have won the entire NFC. Didn't do it because they had that slippery, you know, whatever thing happened out there with the cleats. Yeah, late season games at Lambeau.

Cleat gate or something, yeah. And then last year with Jaron Hall attempting to start against Jordan Love, and that didn't work out very good either. And then at the Lions, it's been difficult at Ford Field, 8-9. Yeah, I haven't been 8-9. I just feel like there's going to be so much more at stake for the Lions, it's been difficult at Ford Field. 8-9. Yeah, I have them at 8-9. I just feel like there's going to be so much more at stake for the Lions. It could be kind of an appointment TV-type game. It's still TBA on the schedule, so on the flex schedule.

Obviously, I think nine wins would allow the Vikings to sneak into a wild card spot, but I just don't see it. The stakes and expectations are sky high for the Lions, who would be very well. They could be playing to clinch the division and home field advantage. I think Ford Field's going to be rocking, and we know exactly where the Vikings will stand in the NFC North. On the outside, looking in at 8-9. Okay, well done. I had 9-8, but I needed to give them two division wins myself to get there. We'll see how it goes. The division record is going to determine everything for them. No, I totally agree.

But we're going to go because we've got to interview the owner of Circa. So great job, Murph. I'm just giving you a hard time about the coaches. I could care less. Thanks, man. I know. On the breakdown. I'm here for higher level expertise.

Yes, yes. Exactly. Exactly. So thanks for watching slash listening, and we will talk to you all soon How long was that