Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Brian Murphy thinks next week is big for Kevin O'Connell

Episode Date: January 7, 2025

Matthew Coller and Brian Murphy talk about the Vikings loss and how Kevin O'Connell now needs a bounce back to get a playoff win Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here inside a hotel in downtown Detroit in the morning after the Minnesota Vikings lost 31-9 to the Detroit Lions. Joining me as always for Monday Morning Murph is Brian Murphy. Murph, there's really no working around it there's no sugarcoating it there's no well you know there's a silver lining here when you get beat 31 to 9 and now the difference is the number one seed versus flying to Los Angeles playing on a Monday and even if you win you have to go to back to Detroit on a short week.

It's pretty tough for the Minnesota Vikings now. Yeah, I think the way they, you know, I think you summed it up pretty beautifully as you usually do in your immediate reactions. But what I really truly am going to be looking for is the response. We've had a couple of moments where both Sam Darnold and Kevin O'Connell have been challenged by, is this really a fraud team? I mean, you think of that Jacksonville-Indianapolis stretch where they were two ugly wins and Darnold looked as bad as could be. They went back to the drawing board and he manages to rip off the greatest six, seven-game stretch of his career.

Is that going to be possible to turn around in the hothouse of going into the postseason, especially when it really doesn't bode well because not only did the Vikings lose and get kind of schooled a bit by the Lions in the regular season. Then they went out to LA and got manhandled pretty well. This feels like a very similar pattern. We've been saying for a while, the Rams were not the team he wanted to face because of their pedigree. And lo and behold, that's who they're facing. And it's just to go from being at the pinnacle of accomplishment and success and potential, and 24 hours later, really wondering if Darnold has a future in Minnesota and whether or not this team is ready for the moment.

They weren't two years ago as well. And I feel like O'Connell and Darnold need to redeem themselves, at least get one playoff win in L.A. And I don't see them going very far after this, but there's a lot at stake next week as well because they've had so much regular season success in two of the last three seasons, but it just doesn't feel right. And that's a strange feeling to go into your postseason. I think if they had lost, say, 35 to 24 even, and Sam Darnold had played an average game,

then we would have looked at it like, well, you know, you get a stop here or there and maybe one throw here or there, and it's a little different. But for this to go the way that it did from the very start of the game, he's a little bit high throwing to TJ Hawkinson, and then drive number two ends the same exact way, overthrowing Hawkinson. They get down to the red zone, and Addison's wide open, misses him. Jefferson's wide open, misses him. And then there were a couple of drops by Justin Jefferson that are completely uncharacteristic. And there was one in the back of the end zone

that I thought that he usually makes and he didn't bring it in. There was a third down that I thought that he usually makes, but mostly it was the quarterback not making the throws. That was Sam Darnold's comments after the game, and he's absolutely right. That's the reason they didn't win the game is because he had throws there. The plays were dialed up, and he just did not make them. And there's only so long you can ask your defense to hold back Detroit. And then later in the game, I think Kevin O'Connell pulled up for a field goal on fourth and four because he was concerned about the way that Darnold was playing. He said it was because he was confident in the defense, but the defense had just given up a seven minute drive for a touchdown. So if that was the reason, it wasn't a very good reason.

If the Vikings had played a normal game and lost like they did last time to Detroit, we all would have come away saying them's the breaks. What a stupid system. And there would have been people outside of Roger Goodell's house protesting that the Vikings have the five seat at 14 and three. The fact that it was total and utter meltdown by the quarterback, something we have not seen in a really, really long time. And even when Darnold didn't play well, they still found some ways to win throughout this year. That makes you concerned that the rest of the way, is he going to be able to step up in the big moment? Which is funny though, Murph, because we try sometimes on this show to have a little bit of awareness outside of the horse blinders of what just

happened. A week ago, he threw for 377 and destroyed the Green Bay Packers in a huge game. So maybe it is just a bad night at the worst time from Sam Darnold, and we don't have to make it that the guy suddenly turned back into something else. That seems to me kind of unfair to Sam Darnold. Yeah, and he's had moments this season where he has looked bad. I mean, again, the Jacksonville game is an easy one to pick out. He was unsteady, unsure of himself, poor decision-making, seemed to be sensing danger in the pocket that may or may not have been there, forcing throws, doing things that were uncharacteristic. Mechanically, he looked awful. And they were able to go back to the

drawing board that Monday and fix some things as they were and they're preaching the same here coming back from Detroit there's some things that they can zero in on film and technique wise yes there are some things that you can sand off the rough edges a bit from one performance what concerns me more is the fact that this was sort of the moment. Darnold didn't necessarily have to win that game. He did have to probably outplay Jared Goff, but he didn't have to go out there and throw for 377. But when you go 0 for 4 from the red zone, and I don't know how many shots they had inside the five-yard line,

and they didn't come away with seven points, that's not gonna get the job done against an average team let alone an elite team and an elite offense like the lions who seem like a team of destiny you know they've had this has been a two-year run they've been kind of building here this isn't just you know the lions showed up on the scene they are the cream of the crop and the fact that they were more prepared, the fact that they have been giving out, you know, 30 plus points, we all know how tattered that defense is. They even lost another starter, a cornerback last night as well. But for them to be able, for Aaron Glenn to be able to come up with a game plan to fluster and literally take

the ball out of Sam Darnold's hands, not physically, but mentally to the point where he wasn't in position where he felt comfortable at any given time. Red zone, middle of the field, anywhere. Darnold just never felt comfortable or looked comfortable from that moment on, and that hasn't happened that often. So the fact that you lose opportunities in key moments early on in a game like that, you're not going to be able to make up for. And what's eerie about this, and it's eerie to draw these similarities, but the Lions handled them at US Bank Stadium because they showed a little bit more playoff metal, a little bit more maturity, and Jared Goff, you know, the battle-hardened veteran, was able to make some plays on key third downs. Last night, it just felt like the Vikings were overwhelmed.

I mean, I had not seen a game this season where they looked and felt overwhelmed, certainly on the road. I didn't feel like they would have the issues in Detroit that they had as a road team. And, you know, this is a team that's always kind of stepped up to their latest challenge and was getting better week by week as the season ended. So the timing of it, the manner in which they lost, the manner in which Darnold played, lends itself to a lot of doubt.

That all being said, redemption is a path to greatness in the NFL. And if O'Connell and Darnold can kind of resurrect their confidence and where they were just 48 hours ago and put up a performance against the Rams that is at least not cringeworthy. I think they can level off, but it's very difficult right now after what you saw yesterday and how they kind of responded to the challenge of winner take all. This is the first time i've really had doubts about this club well it didn't seem to me like the lions were doing anything crazy on defense that they shouldn't have been ready for right they've seen a lot of teams that blitz and it looked like detroit was blitzing a lot in this game maybe they don't always do that quite as much,

but trying to throw some pressures in there, which did get through to Sam Darnold. And it is difficult for a quarterback to continue to do those scramble 40-yard touchdown plays like he did against the Seattle Seahawks. That's not something that you should have to ask your quarterback to do time and time again. And he has had to do a lot of that over the last couple of weeks when it came to the Atlanta game, the Seattle game, but I also saw enough open wide receivers that got missed. So if you're looking for a silver lining way to view this is the receivers were open. They were there. He just had to do the thing that he's done all year, which is hit those open wide

receivers. And I also was thinking about maybe it's better for him to have felt this Detroit noise and excitement and energy and a playoff style game before he goes into the playoffs and have that moment where he doesn't play well. It was one of his worst games of his career. If you look at completion percentage, this was a rare game. The Seeing Ghosts game was in there. There was a time he went 5 for 15 for Carolina, and then actually the game against Mike Zimmer's defense in his rookie season where he went, I think, 17 for 42. So that's how rare this was from Sam Darnold,

which of course deserves all the criticism that it gets for a no-show in the biggest moment and all those things. It's also just not who he's been or anywhere close. So as you go into the playoffs, I assume everyone is going to declare the season to be over. This is it. That's it. This is the end. But if they do end up facing Detroit again, it will be tough. I don't think anyone will pick them to win that football game. But if they have as many open wide receivers in the end zone as they did on this night and he just throws it to them, it will be a different game the next time he faces them. So I guess what I'm trying to do on the morning after here on Monday morning, Murph, is pull

back from making this entire team what happened in this one game because they are 14 and three and Sam Darnold is going to finish this season with 102.5 quarterback rating. It feels like what we did in 2019 when they lost to the Packers and we said, this team is terrible. They should fire Mike Zimmer. And then they went down to new Orleans and beat the new Orleans saints in a huge upset. That's just how the NFL works sometimes. And it felt to me though, Murph, if there's one big concern, it's that Darnold couldn't pull himself out of it. There were other stretches throughout this year where, oh, in the first half, they didn't get cooking on offense or whatever, which they survived in this game.

But as we were coming out of halftime I was kind of thinking I think Darnold will get locked in here in the second half he'll kind of shake it off and when he didn't that's where you start to go oh boy is that how this is going to go in the playoffs right and it and you know all the stress that gets poured onto that defense that we've been talking about all season it really you know you're not going to hold Jared Goff and the Detroit Lions at home, Jameer Gibbs. You're not going to hold these guys, the weapons that they have, that long, over 60 minutes. And I thought the biggest, you know, the big drive of the game was the eight or nine minute drive or seven or eight minute drive, I think, that Goff had in the third quarter there. That felt like that's when they took control of the game,

and you felt like that's – it's just going to be too much – it's going to be too insurmountable right now, the way that Darnold's playing, the way the clock is going, the way Detroit seems to be controlling the game and having the Vikings play into their hands. It felt like it was slipping away at that moment. What – I think it's – Darnold deserves all of the opprobrium he is getting today. I mean, it's not as if, you know,

he needs to be protected here and apologize for. He did not rise to the occasion in his biggest moment yet. But it's not over for him and it's not over for the Vikings. And I know fans don't want to hear that today because all they want is they wanted the home field, they wanted the week off, they wanted the easy path.

It's not going to be an easy path, and there is still a path. But regardless of worrying about what you can do again against Detroit, they need to take care of business in Los Angeles. And it means a lot, I think. We don't know where Darnold's going to be three months from now. This game in L.A. will dictate so much of that. But Kevin O'Connell, despite all the noise I think you're hearing nationally, is going to be here for a long time.

And this is an important game for him. It's an incredibly important week for him. I don't get the sense that that locker room is going to implode. The fan base may implode. That's predictable. I don't think the locker room will. That said, this is going to be his biggest coaching challenge, and that is getting his team elevated back mentally to where they were 48 hours ago, getting his quarterback refined and mentally ready for the biggest game of his career. One small thing, I mean, I don't like the idea of going against Stafford and McVay and those offensive weapons and kind of a team that was getting better late in the season.

But SoFi Stadium, for what it's worth, doesn't always seem to be a huge home field advantage. There's a ton of expats out in LA. I'm sure there'll be plenty of Vikings fans there. That's not sort of the cauldron Detroit was last night, that New Orleans was five years ago, that Philadelphia could be. It's not the worst road stadium to go into. It's a lot of travel. They get an extra day. I'm going to be curious to see what the Vikings look like on their first couple of drives. I'm going to be really curious to see where Darnold's accuracy is early on. Has the, you know,

did Detroit have the blueprint that they had two months ago? LA took advantage of that four days later when the Vikings went out there. And that was right about the time the Rams were starting to really get well physically and also mentally and starting to play better. And it was almost a leaping off point. So I'm really going to be curious what the message is this week. You know, they're going to be disciplined in terms of their comments, but you know that this had to, this had to shake the foundations a little bit inside that building. And it's going to be interesting to see. I'm going to see, I want to, I'm always interested in how teams respond to challenges because it's easy to have the automatic reaction as they're

done. They're most likely done. They're most likely not going to New Orleans, but that doesn't mean that they can't put up a resilient effort and maybe win back a little bit of respect, win back a little bit of confidence. You mentioned that 2019 season. You're right. I mean, it was to the point where the Wilts had to put out a press release the day of the game saying, we're not going to fire Mike Zimmer. And then they go out and win in overtime so there is a pathway it's difficult but this is a team that put up 14 wins this is a Sam Darnold that was playing at an MVP like level I don't think one game is going to end that but what it does do is it now magnifies all of the things and the doubts that were sort of always there lurking anyway. This is almost like a chance for everybody to say, aha, you know, the moment came, Darnold turned back into a pumpkin.

I'm not buying into that yet. I look for Darnold to probably have a bounce back performance. Will it be enough against the Rams? That I don't know. But I do expect Darnold to bounce back from this because I think he knows the stakes. And I think he has the confidence. He has a well of confidence to draw from. And he was able to bounce back.

Again, losing in Jacksonville in week 10 isn't the same as week 18 with everything on the line in Detroit. But as bad as he looked against Jacksonville and Indianapolis, he managed to put together the best stretch of his career. I don't see that as being an impossible task. Right. I mean, the NFL just takes you on this whiplash journey, and I can't help but think about how this would be different if this was for the number one versus number two seed which it was for the number one versus two record in the nfc if it had been versus the number one or two seed we all would have said okay well when these two teams play each other again it's going to be you know pretty tough for the vikings but they still

finish 14 and three but they still finished 14 and three, but they still finished with the second best record in the conference. So they should have confidence going into the playoffs that their quarterback just had a really rough night and off we go. And instead, because you get kicked down to a road game from this, it feels so much different. It feels like, as we talked about last week, the percentage chances go from you have a great opportunity to potentially go to the Super Bowl to now you are a long shot. It's not an extreme long shot, but it's not 2%. It's higher than that because you're a 14 win team that outscored its opponents over 17 games by a lot of points and put up great numbers and top 10 offense

and defense and all those things still happened to your football team and I thought the defense through two and a half quarters gave them a chance to win the game they made plays and I couldn't help but wonder how it would have looked if Andrew Van Ginkle had picked one off and taken it to the house I mean this close on the fingertips of Andrew Van Ginkle. And that's kind of how this game was also as far as the overreaction to it is it's this close to Justin Jefferson in the end zone. It's this close to TJ Hawkinson on a throw over the middle. The margins in the NFL are very, very thin. And I think that that's probably the worst those are going to go against them

that you could possibly have in that game. But it's very different on just a couple of plays if the inches are different. I do think what you said earlier is worth exploring about Kevin O'Connell. Can you have a 13 and 14 win season in your first three years and then not have a playoff win. I think that would be pretty tough. Now, Jay Glazer's talking about trading Kevin O'Connell. Okay. Yeah. No, that's not going to happen.

They're not trading Kevin O'Connell. They're going to sign him to an extension. He's going to be here for a very long time. But Denny Green went through this a long time with a lot of success and didn't win the playoff games, and the pressure added up, and Randy Moss showed up at the right time for Denny. But here we are potentially in that position again if Kevin O'Connell can't get a playoff win against his former coach

in Sean McVay is we're going to be talking about, hey, can this guy actually take you over the top of where you're trying to go? I think narratives like that are built for the NFL. They're not always fair because it's based on one game, but that is the reality of it, right? Is that these regular seasons have been so good, two out of the three and the other one, they probably should have made the playoffs if not for an achilles and you are kind of staring down the barrel of it having to go play a team that's really good yeah and it just i've mentioned this before it really really makes that wild card loss to the giants look so egregious because that was such a inferior team with an inferior

quarterback i mean we don't even need to go into the fact that Daniel Jones peaked that day and now he's on your practice squad. So the fact that they couldn't come away with a home win after a 13-win season, I mean, we know why that game became what it was and how symbolic it was with Cousins checking down there short of the sticks. But that's where, you know, you get that win and you get blown out the next week. You've kind of got that as a buffer on your resume. Like, well, at least, you know, I did it. I'm one and one in the playoffs. He could very well end up 0-2 a week from now, but we're still

not going to be talking about is Kevin O'Connell the right choice for the future of this franchise? I think we've answered that question. And if they truly are going to be pivoting to J.J. McCarthy, who else do you want coaching that guy right now than Kevin O'Connell? I can't see anybody on the sidelines that would be worth mentioning. Or if you're going to be in this, we're going to trade our head coach and stockpile some assets. Well, who's going to be the person to be taking charge? Who's going to be the quarterback whisperer right now? I don't see that scenario playing out, especially now. If it does seem like maybe Darnold does move on, I mean, O'Connell and McCarthy, that's the pair that you wanted. That's the pair that you talked about last April when you made the draft pick.

This is the future of the franchise. I want to see how he answers, though. I mean, I think so much of what a head coach does is, you know, keep that fragile ego together and make sure this is not a fractured locker room, and I don't think this is a locker room that's ever lacked in confidence. But there's a lot of feelings probably right now that there's so much hype. There was so much hype and so much buildup to that game. So much praise for Darnold. So much praise for O'Connell to the point where, you know, people in his camp are leaking these stories to try to nudge a little bit of a contract extension into the national discourse, which is a complete waste of time.

They're going to sign him. It seems obvious. I'm just wondering now how he's going to handle, you know, all of the – there's going to be blowback, and there's going to be talk this week about you were able to kind of resurrect Darnold and keep him and the team from falling into the abyss in November. What can you draw from that now going into such another high stakes game?

And then there's always, of course, the narratives of going up against your former mentor. And I want to see how they respond, both talking this week, but I also want to see how they respond in that first half. Because frankly, I think this game yesterday was lost in the first half. To me, 31-9 or 10-9 doesn't really feel that much different. I think the Vikings had the opportunities that they squandered in the first half, and it just felt like those were gone, especially when Will Reichardt gives a kickoff out of bounds and spoonfeeds momentum. I mean, it's only three points, but it felt like a concession at that point. And it's not how you want to go into the locker room.

I just feel like there were some things schematically, the receivers were open, the defense held well. I don't think it was a poorly coached game. I think you can make the argument that collectively the Lions outcoached the Vikings. Clearly Aaron Glenn did on the defensive side with Detroit. But I didn't feel like they were overwhelmed by not being prepared. It just felt like they couldn't execute basic plays. And Darnold couldn't make the throws that he needed to make. And if those happen in that first half, the complexion of the game, I think we're going to, we'll be talking about a nail biter and how good you got to feel going into

LA. So they got to answer for all of their, their foibles. I mean, the Vikings don't deserve a skate on this, but there is a pathway. The fan base doesn't want to hear that this morning, but there is a pathway. The fan base doesn't want to hear that this morning, but there is a pathway. There is. And I mean, the pathway is if you beat the Rams on Monday, you go back to Detroit and take another shot at it.

And if you complete the passes that you incompleted to wide open receivers, we got a ball game. Now I'm sure Detroit could say, Hey, our quarterback's probably not going to throw two picks to you, but I actually thought they did rattle golf a little bit at times. And I thought that that team was a little overly amped up. They're not immune from that either with their home crowd. And they were a bit jittery from the start. They did slow down Gibbs in the first half of that game. I just think when they, if they play again, if, when they play again play again uh then they're going to realize that it's the start of the game that you have to take your advantage if there is one right there to jump on them and you can't miss these these shots that's the hard thing about breaking down this

game in particular is well well everybody must have done everything wrong right well not really uh one guy just didn't make his place. I mean, Cam Akers gets a 58 yard run in the game and Hockinson's open a couple of times. And I mean, I think maybe there's some criticism for the blocking. There was one play where Blake Brandel got just completely toasted and that was not Darnold's fault, but the blocking gave him enough opportunities. The defense gave them enough chances. Of course, they're going to give up those throws underneath over the middle every time against Detroit, but it's not like they were hitting explosives. It's not like every drive they had was seven minutes. They just didn't hit the biggest plays when they needed. And they left

Detroit with a loss. I don't think that eliminates everything that we know or that we've built up about this coach and this team and even this quarterback, just because that happened on one given Sunday. Real quick on the Kevin O'Connell thing. Of course, yeah, he's not going anywhere. But also if, and I'm not saying that this is what happened. If his agent went to Jay Glazer with something on a day like that, his agent is a fool, an absolute fool to have the whole world talking about trading your coach on the day where that organization needed to be locked into that game. That would be a

completely idiotic thing for him to do. I don't know that that's what happened, but I did have that thought. If you're leaking stuff on a day like today, you need to maybe get your head straight about what your coach needs to do to really prove himself, which is to win games like this. They haven't done yet. Also, how about just for a second before we wrap up credit Detroit, an unbelievable team build over the last couple of years, they made good on all of this they went to the bottom they drafted like crazy they stuck with their quarterback they brought in a psycho coach who is a great motivator and people organizer they've got an awesome offensive coordinator i underestimated their defensive coordinator in his job last night and and

cobbling that thing together they have a great line unbelievable receivers they got laughed at when they drafted jameer gibbs i guess people aren't laughing now because i remember on the night the moment they drafted gibbs all the vikings fans said oh ha ha ha and my thought was uh you're gonna have to play him. And there you go. There's Jameer Gibbs. If not three times. Right. Exactly. So credit to Detroit for a unbelievable season for them. And they go in by far the Super Bowl favorites.

And the Vikings will hope to earn another shot. So final thoughts, Mr. Murphy. Yeah, it feels like with Detroit, this has been building for a while. Like I think back to exactly two years ago last night, I remember watching them play at Lambeau Field on Sunday night. Their playoff chances had just been eliminated an hour or so earlier from, I think, a Seattle or a Rams loss on the West Coast. They have nothing to play for.

Green Bay did have everything to play for to get in the playoffs, including Aaron Rodgers. And the Lions essentially took a knee and ended Rodgers' career in Green Bay, ended the Packers' playoff hopes. And from that night on, they marched into Arrowhead Stadium on the opening night last year, Thursday night, upset the Chiefs. It's been a steady march since then. There's been a lot of ups and downs, but this feels like one of those teams

that has been doing it right and building it right, and they just seem like they're on the path. All their chips are in, so if the Vikings are somehow going to get a third shot at them, I mean, it's very difficult to beat a team at destiny, and I just feel like this is the season of the lion. They had their scar tissue last year against San Francisco in the NFC Championship Games. So maybe the Vikings are a season behind the Lions in the NFC North. And we all know Green Bay, Detroit, and Minnesota are going to be knife fighting each other for a long time here. But there was an opportunity last night. It was a lost opportunity. but I don't think the 2024 season has been a lost opportunity.

If they lay down or get rolled over in LA, that's the proper autopsy. But right now, they're a 14-win team in a one-game elimination tournament. Things can happen. And off we go. Brian Murphy, you and I will talk about it next something because they're playing on monday uh so whenever it is that we next talk about that game presumably uh next tuesday we will talk then thank you so much for your time sir we'll see you then sounds good back from detroit where uh if you recall the minnesota v Minnesota Vikings had a little bit of a tough

time last night so we have a lot to discuss here on the show Manny Hill will join pretty shortly and Manny has a new assignment on the show which is to actually pick the entire playoffs because this season every single Monday, Manny has picked the Viking schedule and well, we are plum out of games from the regular season and we have just this one coming up and who knows how many after that, but I want Manny to pick how he thinks the entire playoff bracket is going to play out. So we'll do that in about a half an hour, but wanted to talk about the main subject of the show here, which is what the playoffs mean for Sam Darnold. And also look back

just a bit here to start on what happened against the Detroit lions. Now that we've had a little bit more light shined on the game, uh, I go and cover the game in Detroit at Ford Field, go to the locker room, get the takeaway from the head coach, from the quarterback, do all that. And then the next morning, I take a look at what all the data says about the game. That's kind of my process. And then I go review all the film. So it's a three-day type of process of really trying to fully understand what happened in a game. And then I think I've got it after about Tuesday. Everything that went down, what happened, why it happened, and maybe things that I missed live or didn't realize and so forth.

And the biggest thing to discuss from the Vikings-Lions matchup, which is a little harder to figure out in real time unless it's super obvious, which is how much pressure a quarterback is actually facing. Because sometimes if it's on a key down, you can go, oh man, the offensive line in this game, or they face so much pressure, but actually it wasn't that bad. And then there are other times where you don't realize exactly how bad it was because of other things that went on in the game. And that was really the case for the Vikings against the Lions that I don't think we fully realized the amount that Sam Darnold was getting pressured by the Detroit Lions because that was not so much their reputation recently without Aiden Hutchinson, without Elaine McNeil, that they were shorthanded on that defensive line,

but they did not play like a football team that was shorthanded, not even close against the Vikings. Levi Onwuzerki, the newest potential Viking killer. I guess maybe after that game, we have to put him in that club or at least nominate him for that club because he put up nine pressures in that game, which if you get five, it's a really good game. If you get seven, it's an awesome game. If you get nine, I mean, we see the best pass rushers in the league only get nine a couple of times a year. The Miles Garretts, the Jonathan Grenards doesn't happen that much. And that's what Levi on was Erky did to the Vikings.

And Blake Brandel gave up eight pressures over the left guard position, which is again, a super high number. If you give up eight from a guard position, that might be one of the worst performances by any guard in the NFL for the entire 2024 season. And that was where a lot of this happened. And I think that Sam Darnall was a little bit off to start the game and he did have a couple of high throws and he did have a couple of misses. Maybe upon reflection, Brian Branch hits his arm on the ball that goes over Justin Jefferson in the end zone. But Sam Darnold was pressured on about 50% of his dropbacks in a game that was close. It wasn't like they were only having to pass and the Lions just kept blitzing and blitzing and blitzing. I mean, the game was close throughout and still they end up giving up pressures on about 50% of his snaps,

which is way above the normal average for Sam Darnold. Who's about more like 35% of a pressure rate. And he ends up around 50. The crazy part of this to me is that last week against Green Bay, the offensive line did such a good job last week against the Green Bay Packers. And this week, it was a completely different story, which I think you could figure that some of it is matchup. And just the fact that on was Erky was a really different, difficult matchup for Brandel and the interior offensive line. But also I think the Detroit lions through things at the Vikings O-line and at Sam Darnold that forced them to change the protections and get on point in order to handle the different pressures that they sent. Andrew Kramer, the Star Tribune had a stat that they sent zero pressure, which means basically sending everyone except for the guys covering the wide receivers that they sent that something like 14 times in the game, which you never would have expected

in a game like that. So that was very surprising. I think that they caught the Vikings a little bit off guard and they had a shockingly good matchup on their side over the guard position. And that was a huge difference maker for Sam Darnold. The other thing is too, that Sam Darnold has been this year, the third best quarterback in the NFL when under pressure in terms of quarterback rating. So his actual performance when he's been pressured, we've seen him scramble out. We've seen him make some plays, but the problem with a stat like that is that any given week is always different under pressure. What options do you have? What type of pressure is it? Where's it coming from? How are you reacting? All those different things. And this game, Sam Darnall was

the worst he's been under pressure in a really long time in the NFL. He went four for 18 when he was under pressure. And these are PFF stats, of course, but he went four for 18 under pressure, a crazy bad number to not be able to get rid of the football and find players underneath or behind the blitzes or anything like that. Didn't take too many sacks, but also didn't have too many completions. A couple of the red zone failures were the Lions getting pressure on him. A couple of the third down failures, same thing. And they blitz about half of the time in

this game, which is not something that the lions were generally known for. So I think that they did catch the Vikings off guard in a few ways through the kitchen sink at them in the biggest game, took advantage of their home field and their environment and their noise and took advantage of a Vikings weakness on the interior of the offensive line when it came to sorting out those pass protections. And I think it has been at times an issue for Sam Darnold sorting out those pass protections. So one week after they were great against Green Bay, they struggle so much in this game and it did not help Sam Darnold ever get back on track. And this is where in real time, what you would like the play caller to do is to start running the ball more often. They were running effectively in this game. You would like Kevin O'Connell to

have some shorter answers. There were a few times where they still went down the field, even though Sam Darnold was clearly struggling with some down the field passes. And when he was throwing anywhere past 10 yards in that game, they went two for 12 when he was throwing past 10 yards. So down the field was just not happening in this game. It would have been a little bit better. I think had they recognized in real time, they're sending a lot of blitzes, they're getting after us. We've got to hit them with some run plays to maybe like they did with Cam Akers to maybe rip off some explosives and catch the blitz or just to get the ball out of Sam Darnold's hands faster. And at times they've been really

good at that, the underneath and short passing game but there's also been times this season where i've thought that they're kind of like a three point shooting basketball team that you live by the three and you die by the three and the vikings died by the deep ball yesterday going i mean not all the passes were deep, deep, deep shots, but when you're pushing it into the intermediaries and deep areas all the time, sometimes if somebody has an answer for it, or your quarterback's accuracy is off, you have to have a counter punch. And the Vikings did not have a counter punch for the lions. And even with that said, where they were also let down was by Justin Jefferson and gosh, nobody's praised Justin Jefferson more than everyone. Uh, but myself,

I wrote about him last week. We did a whole show talking about Jefferson's amazing year and the extra effort that he puts in and all those things, the big stage ready for him. And he had two important drops that were decent enough. Sam Darnold throws. They weren't flawless. It wasn't Joe Montana, but they were decent enough. And then on contested catches, he went over three, which is not what you expect for Justin Jefferson. And a lot of things in this game, as we try to project it forward and think about what it means for the playoffs, a lot of things in this game were the worst that they've done either all year or ever under Kevin O'Connell. Some of these things on the offensive side, but also there are

things that are hard to see them making all these mistakes again, based on what we've seen from this team for the entire season, that for Justin Jefferson to play that poorly, the last time Jefferson had a PFF grade as low as he did for week 18 was that game. And I think week three, 2022 against the Detroit lions, when he only had what one or two catches, Jeff Akuda was on him that day. A lot of talk about Akuda playing physical with him. That was the last time that Jefferson had a grade that low.

The other thing is too, Jefferson had one drop since week seven and had two in this game, just stuff that you don't expect. And really makes you think that everybody was a little overwhelmed and a little wound up and trying maybe a little too hard to prove themselves. And they came away from Detroit with a loss, but we have to look at the bigger picture with this. And I know that everyone decided that the season was over yesterday because I guess that's just what you do when the team loses. And it certainly got harder,

the path for the Vikings. It definitely got harder and that's really not their fault for going 14 and three and then having a system that works this way. And we'll talk about those playoff scenarios in a bit. But when it comes to how this team can match up in the playoffs, where they can go, I don't think that that game against Detroit is all that representative of who the Vikings are. It's probably not quite as good as it was in the first half at Green Bay. And it's definitely not as bad as it was in the second half against the Lions. It's the truth is somewhere in the middle when it comes to this Minnesota

Vikings team. But we have all the numbers now that tell us exactly who they are. And they went 14 and three, they outscored their opponents by a hundred points. And now they're going to face an inferior opponent in the first round of the playoffs. And there's even a decent chance that they can face an inferior opponent in the second round of the playoffs. Because even though Dan Campbell said to Kevin O'Connell, Hey buddy, we're we'll see you in two weeks. That doesn't guarantee that that's what's going to happen. There are several scenarios where the Vikings could go on the road to play against Tampa Bay. I think Philadelphia is an option.

We got to look at the, all the scenarios and how they could play out in a bit, but they could go to Philadelphia. They have the potential even to host a home playoff game. If Washington and green Bay win, then suddenly the Vikings would be at us bank stadium. And I think there would be quite a different tune. And even, you know, one of the comments here, just that they can beat the Rams, but it's likely over after that. Well, that depends on how it goes, Jim. It all depends on how it goes. It doesn't have to be over after that. It might be over after that if they have to go to Ford Field and beat the Lions after playing on Monday night.

You might be right about that. But because of the way the playoff bracket works, they might not be playing the Lions in week two. And then you'd have to see from there. But if they reach the NFC championship, that's a pretty good success if they have a chance to potentially play to go to the Super Bowl at the end of this playoff run. So I think what ended up happening in Detroit was that they did get overwhelmed. Of course, the offensive side, the defensive side was great to start the game.

They could not have been more ready against Detroit. But I think Detroit maybe would argue that they were a little overly amped up too. And now in going into the playoffs, I think it will feel like less of an atmosphere. I mean, Los Angeles is going to be better than you think. It's going to be louder than you think. Their fans will show up for that. It's a big event in LA. If there's a big event, people will show up. Uh, they may show up midway through the first quarter, but they'll be there, uh, with the traffic and so forth in LA, but, uh, they've already had, I think their toughest environment. And that is against the Detroit lions yesterday. So now

there is an opportunity to forge a path through the playoffs and make this thing interesting. I don't believe it would be accurate to say that the Viking season came to an end against Detroit. I think the path just got more difficult for them. And if after the last game, we saw that Darnold struggled like this, he was able to bounce back and become the best version of himself that has ever existed in the NFL. If there's something like that on the way, then we might end up looking at Detroit as somewhat of a turning point. But over the last two weeks, what a whiplash roller coaster type of ride where they beat the Green Bay Packers and they beat them mostly handily. They outperformed them significantly and it looked like they could play with anyone

and then they lose significantly and it looks like they could play with no one. Well, that's the NFL for you. That's how it works. And this is where it does tie into Sam Darnold and his future. That's, I know, the major topic in the NFL surrounding the Vikings, because after they played that way, they don't belong on the marquee of everyone saying that they're the favorite. But I think that a lot of people are far too quick to throw out everything that Sam Darnold did over 17 games in the NFL or over, I guess, 16, but even the bigger picture over 17 games this year, just because of the thing you just saw. And if we weren't all prisoners of the moment, then the NFL would not be so fun,

wouldn't be so exciting. Every game gives us all the answers. But I also think that if we're trying to do it right, if we're trying to get the right answers, then I don't think that we should be prisoners of the moment, or we should be overreactionary to just one game. If you go, even the MVPs of the league and go through their game logs, there's a bad game or two in there. Lamar Jackson played very badly against the Pittsburgh Steelers this year. Josh Allen played very badly against the Houston Texans. It happens. Sometimes it's the wrong matchup, the wrong situation. Something doesn't fit right. A pass gets missed here or

there. And then all of a sudden the wheels come off and you're walking out with a loss. But because those guys had one bad game does not mean that suddenly you want nothing to do with them. The overall picture on Sam Darnold for this season is that he finishes as a top 10 quarterback and his rating for PFF was no doubt dropped after yesterday, but he is eighth. And I'll read you the seven guys that graded higher than Sam Darnold this year. Lamar Jackson, Joe Burrow, Josh Allen, Justin Herbert, Jaden Daniels, running is a big part of that for sure, Baker Mayfield, and Patrick Mahomes. Those are the only quarterbacks in the NFL that graded higher.

Now, I think that PFF system doesn't give Jared Goff enough credit. It doesn't really give quarterbacks as much credit for throwing to open wide receivers as I think it should. So I would put Jared Goff ahead of Sam Darnold, but still that settles him within the top 10 quarterbacks in the NFL. And I think even if we just use our common sense and go through the rest of the quarterbacks, he was better than Gino Smith this year, better than Brock Purdy, better than Kyler Murray, better than CJ Stroud, Aaron Rodgers, Jordan Love, Russell Wilson, Bo Nix, Jalen Hurts, Matt Stafford,

better than all of these quarterbacks. Tua, Kirk, Bryce Young moved up to 20th. Good for him. Better than Caleb Williams, better than Will Levis. Certainly, I think that they have somewhere in the range of the 10 best quarterbacks in the league, and Darnold was one of them. He displayed great leadership through this 14-3 season. He displayed tremendous arm talent, athleticism, command of the offense, all of those things, and put them in a position to go into the playoffs with the second best record which 98 of seasons in the nfl the best record in a conference would be 14 wins but it just so happens that this year that's not it to me that is way too much evidence mounted up there that you don't want to throw that person to the side of

the road with Darnold. He ends up with 35 touchdowns and let's what's the traditional quarterback rating again, dropped after last night. I have sixth, the sixth best quarterback rating in the league. Darnold is 102.5. I mean, that is right in the same range as the guys like Justin Herbert, Joe Burrow, some of the best in the league. After a performance like that over the larger sample size, it's really, really difficult to just look at that and say, Hey, you know, go away. Sorry. We don't want you 14 wins and that type of play because they had one bad game on the road in a situation where he was pressured 50% of the time. That's not how I would do it. I don't think that that's how NFL teams should do it as being that reactionary. Now, with that said, the playoffs do matter to evaluations. If Sam Darnold has the highest end performance that he could ever have,

and he reaches the Superbowl, you may very well, maybe looking at a multi-year contract, which I have felt would be unlikely overall. I've always thought that the franchise tag made the most sense. And then you can continue to develop McCarthy, kind of play the middle hedge a little bit, uh, and not lock yourself into anything long-term. Then when you sign free agents, like whoever the two best guards are in the NFL, uh, when you sign free agents that you can push their contracts down into the future and then give yourself another year to figure out a bigger sample size on Darnold. And if he's another top five to seven quarterback again, well, then you consider a long-term deal. And if he's not, then you go with JJ McCarthy. And of course, you know, I see with the McCarthy, no matter what,

and that's cute. And that's a, you know, it's a thought you're certainly allowed to think that, but I don't think it makes a whole lot of logical sense to say after a 14 win season, that if Sam Darnold then went on to win two or three more playoff games that you would say, Hey kid, you've never played in the NFL before. You've never played a real game. You played one preseason game and had one training camp. Yeah. Go follow that up. Go do that with this veteran team. Who's all in Superbowl or bust mode at that point, right? Because next year, after you win 14 games, you're expected to be back in that conversation at this time of year next year. And to do that to JJ McCarthy,

I think would be very unfair. I also am not sure that it's the best thing for his development. It's so funny how we all will sit here and say, Hey, this is a kid who's going to need a couple of years. He's going to need a lot of time to develop. And then as soon as the other quarterback loses a game and say, no, get in the kid always in forever, right? The most popular person is the backup quarterback or the one who's not playing that is for sure. But I don't think we need to, to like fight too much about what happens if he goes deep in the playoffs. That's the scenario that I was talking about is if he goes deep in the playoffs, it's a pretty easy choice to bring him back either franchise tag or a short-term deal, which would really be the best for them.

That has a small cap hit in the first year. And then in the future future that cap it goes up but it's maybe got some flexibility that's a way to do it uh that's how i think they would if they got to the nfc championship so they could have as much cap space as possible and try to work it out that way but then with uh jj mccarthy you could still develop him over the next two years and see what happens. And, you know, maybe it's like a Jordan Love and Aaron Rogers situation where McCarthy develops for three years. And then he's the old age of 24 years old when he takes over as the starting quarterback, uh, playing both sides of this makes so much sense for the Vikings. And if you bring back Darnold and it doesn't go well and he regresses and they're struggling, then you go right over to JJ McCarthy. But if you're asking a rookie,

who's never played to match the performance of Sam Darnold, that is a lot. That is a lot to ask when you have zero sample size of JJ McCarthy playing. So I think McCarthy was on a great path this year. They should feel really strongly about him and they do. But if Sam Darnold wins multiple playoff games, then there really isn't a discussion here. They have to find a way to bring him back. And then really the conversation is how the harder situation for the Vikings would be if Sam Darnold loses to the Rams and plays the same way that he did against Detroit. I still think that 14 wins the regular season and a top seven performance, the entire league is too high to walk away from. I don't think this is like a Jimmy Garoppolo type of situation where he had shown his limitations.

He wasn't an athletic quarterback. They really had to simplify things like that. And I also think a Harbor that it's, it's not it's not true that you can't fix the interior line and sign Darnell. That's just not true. And this is probably the biggest myth that needs to be dispelled. And I'm going to see it. And I'm going to see every time we talk about, I know I'm going to see it. The biggest myth is that you can't improve the team after signing

Sam Darnold. And I will point to 2018. And this is when the cap was not going up anywhere near as much as it does from a year to year now. But in 2018, the Minnesota Vikings signed Kirk Cousins. What did they do later that week? I made another trip to TCO Performance Center for another player to be introduced. That was Sheldon Richardson, one of the best defensive tackles in the league that the Vikings still signed.

You know why? Because they were in a Super Bowl window, and so they pushed money down the road in order to go all in on that Kirk Cousins and Sheldon Richardson plan and were able to have him as the star defensive off of that roster. That is true. And they just kept with Kirk cousins. They did not live in reality and move on and draft the young quarterback after that, when they should have, that's what happened in the past. But for two years, they were able to pry the window open and even made bad decisions by keeping guys that they shouldn't have like Anthony Harris or even Kyle Rudolph's last contract. I think even he ended up regretting that a bit. And who was the other one? Anthony Barr. Anthony Barr was the other one. So you

absolutely can sign free agents. And the better example is probably just this year with $70 million in dead cap. So that's a myth that needs to be thrown out. They could go sign the biggest guard in the league in the off season. How about Kevin Zeitler? Are we familiar with him? The guard from the Detroit lions that they signed this year while having Jared Goff as on an expensive contract and not a whole lot of cap space to work with there after signing him and other players in the off

season. They may have had a decent amount. I don't know their whole cap situation in and out, but they were still able to sign him. But if the Vikings are to lose against the Los Angeles Rams, the decision does get harder as far as how to handle this thing. Because on one side, you might be saying, well, yeah, obviously there's just some shortcomings that you're not going to be able to overcome with the roster that you need to spend crazy dollars and you can't bring Darnold back. But I also think you've set the bar so high. I think that that's where it gets a little more complicated. If it was to look like it did against Detroit, against the Rams, then the decision becomes more complex, I think.