Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Brian Murphy wants Vikings fans to lean into the wild ride

Episode Date: December 19, 2023

Matthew Coller and Brian Murphy discuss how the Vikings move forward following the loss to the Bengals. Brian wants to enjoy the craziness of the season rather than living and dying with each game. Then Manny Hill talks about the playoff races and how the Viking stack up with other teams in the race, particularly the Packers Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here as always and joining me in front of his Christmas tree, Brian Murphy, who I'm sure is in the spirit to talk about the Vikings falling to the Cincinnati Bengals. And you know what's funny though, Murph, is that because the Green Bay Packers lost in the way that they did to the Tampa Bay Buckss. The Vikings still have over a 50% chance to make the playoffs, and even some combinations of them only winning one of the final three games still get them into the playoffs, which feels very awkward to talk about after the way that they came apart in the second half, particularly the fourth quarter

against the Cincinnati Bengals. So just add that to the weirdness overall of this season. Yeah, an 8-9 playoff berth. Wouldn't that be fun to get on the train of? I feel like we've been saying this now for a while as this quarterback carousel has kind of played. There's no way to predict. There's no way to prepare.

There's no way to digest everything that's going to be happening with this team for the next couple of weeks because it really is a drive-by-drive situation right now. I mean, I'm sure O'Connell's going to face questions today about whether he's going to stick with Nick Mullins or he's going to go to the rookie. I don't necessarily think that's the wise move to make at this point. You still have a guy that, as bad as Mullins looked at times, he still was fairly accurate. I mean, yeah, he had the two interceptions and, of course, a pick six negated by an offsides penalty. Still threw for 300 yards, still threw

for two touchdowns. They weren't pretty, but they did look, they put together some sustainable, sustained drives. This is as good as it's going to get. I think if you switch gears again and hook your game plan up to an unprepared rookie, I don't know what that's going to mean for this week. I don't know what that's going to mean for now you're going up against the division-leading Detroit Lions. I think Mullins gives you the best chance to win, but as this quarterback scenario has played out this season and as it's going to continue to play out, there's really nothing Kevin O'Connell can do more than just throw up his hands, call the plays that he can.

We can go over the failed tush pushes, and we can go over some other goal line calls as well. But the reality is he doesn't know what he's going to get out of his quarterback. None of us know what anybody, none of us know what any quarterback taking a snap for the Vikings from here until the end of the season is really going to be capable of. So you're just going to have to endure. Well,

I'll ask you a sort of the big question coming out of the game. And then I want to talk about this week more because when the game's on Saturday, I feel like we have by now kind of pounded all the things into the ground from should this have happened? Should this player have pushed the tush or not? Hey, you know, maybe maybe the issue is that Nick Mullins needs to work the glutes a little bit more. Right. I mean, that's what they talk about with Jalen Hurts, that he could squat so much or whatever. I don't know. Usually people get first downs on quarterback sneaks. But the big question coming out from a lot of fans is about Kevin O'Connell and whether there should be considered cracks in the foundation or questions about him a little bit more than there would have

been a couple of weeks ago in the game management, the play calling and so forth. And I have been very hesitant to go there. And that upsets some people who I think want to react to what we've seen. And I also think that you could talk about some elements of that and say, you know, Hey, there was a questionable one here, a questionable one there. I don't know what coach that doesn't pertain to. But tell me tell me how you view that, because I think that there's reacting to they called a play in the moment that didn't work and it was the wrong call because it didn't work. But I don't think we have to make it into way more than it actually is. Well, if you want to talk about a crack in a foundation, that was when, you know,

Kirk Cousins Achilles cracked open on October 29th in Green Bay. I mean, that was the crack in the foundation. There was another crack in the foundation when Justin Jefferson pulled his hamstring and was lost for eight weeks. There was a crack in the foundation when, you know, we realized that Josh Dobbs isn't going to be a savior. I mean, yeah, there's always going to be nitpicking. And I agree, going back to the well on the tush push a second time with your five foot eight, you know, 180 pound running back as your main push wasn't going to probably bear any more fruit.

I know they were trying to get too cute with trying to keep Cincinnati's large personnel spread out a little bit more and whatnot, a little bit overthinking it. But, you know, you get two cracks to get, you know, half a foot. You think you can get that? I get the scrutiny. But as far as like a big picture, this is O'Connell losing control. This is O'Connell in over his head. This is O'Connell wilting under the pressure of the moment. Look, you put any head coach in a position where he's

starting four different quarterbacks in a season, all with different skill sets, backgrounds, and all with flaws, some fatal that have rendered them journeymen and backups, you're going to get disjointed results. I'm a little more concerned now. You know, we've been lauding, you know, we've been lauding this defense for several weeks, but there's some cracks in the foundation there late in games. Is that on Flores? Is that on the personnel where they're just not able to make that really big play at the last, you know, on some of their last stands.

And those have, you know, coughed up victories in Denver, coughed up a possible victory against Chicago, and then again on Saturday. So this is, you know, it's a stressed defense that's been overachieving all year, but you've got an offense that can't, you know, pick up a dagger first down in the fourth quarter, puts more tremendous pressure on your defense to win the game. They haven't been able to do that a couple of times. You've got a 7-17. I mean, you've got a 7-17 that reflects the chaos that they've had offensively, and, you know, O'Connell's got plays that he would like to call with particular quarterbacks.

I don't think he, you know, maybe trusts Nick he maybe trusts Nick Mullens in a play action in a big moment like that. Look, I don't know. We're not in any of their heads. We can probe and prod as much as we can. But I think O'Connell is just spinning so many plates right now. There's going to be a few that crash once in a while. I would not view any cracks in in kevin o'connell's foundation i would say he's just managing a you know a fractured roster a fractured scheme and

he's essentially playing the hand he's dealt as best he can yeah you know it felt very much like so i used to do a post-game show in buffalo and during that time, they had Ryan Fitzpatrick, E.J. Manuel, Kyle Orton, and Tyrod Taylor, I think, were the quarterbacks that I mainly was reacting to postgame calls, were mostly about coaching decisions because they're very easy to evaluate, I think. Like, they stand out so much when we watch a game. And so, like, they made a decision, it worked or it didn't work, and that's what we can talk about, right? But at the end of the day, the Bills ended up way better than when I was there doing postgame when they had Josh Allen playing quarterback. And then their postgames turned into celebrations of their quarterback for the most part as opposed to, hey, why didn't they run this play or that play? And I'm sure there's the same questioning when they lose there

of different play calls and everything else. I just mean that when it's Tyrod Taylor or when it's EJ Manuel, the margin for error is so thin. So if Jake Browning throws up a balloon into the air and T Higgins comes down with it, then you lose. And there's nothing you can really do there because your quarterback turned the ball over in the red zone two times when they could have had easy field goals and been running away with the game. And yeah, I know you could say, well, Cincinnati has a backup quarterback and that's, but that's the sort of the point is like their backup quarterback has had a couple of weeks where it's clicking. And next week, Jake Browning might throw four interceptions, but this week he gets to go to the podium and talk trash about the Vikings, but next week it might be a

disaster. And you know what I was thinking Murph, because I'm always the big picture thinker, which has irritated some people throughout the season, but just the Jefferson and Jordan Addison sure made Nick Mullins look great on a lot of vacations during that game. I mean, Jefferson made some all universe type of catches that had no business. Even the refs didn't think he caught it on one of them. I have no idea how Jordan Addison caught either one of his touchdowns. The one is a shoestring catch that he goes down at full speed to grab the other one. I don't even know where Nick Mullins was throwing the football and Addison's arms just come out of nowhere and snatch it. And I'm sitting there thinking, man, you know, the next quarterback here has a pretty good setup with all of this. Receivers were open throughout the day. They had the first running day where they were dominant in

a really long time. And so there's like this two parts of me that goes, you know what? They really let this one get away and this is a really bad loss. But at the same time, would you look at some of this stuff on offense? You know, like just, just look at it. But I also think it did reveal that on defense, Brian Flores has been squeezing this and squeezing this and squeezing this, but they're going to need at some point more talent. If they're going to have a true like top five type of defense, I think it's been overachieving. It's been, as you said, very stressed that it was bound to break based on who they've been relying on. And that it's just sort of evidence of like, this team has some ways to go. The offense is set up perfectly for the next quarterback. The defense is going to need some

work still, I think. Right. And we don't even know if Brian Flores is going to be there to kind of keep shepherding that unit to its greatest potential. But you're right. I mean, you look at Akilah Evans comes up just short on that Tee Higgins play at the pylon. That's an NFL Pro Bowl play that Higgins made, not only going up to get the ball, coming down with both feet inbounds and having the wherewithal to stretch around and catch, break the plane over the pylon. I mean, that's, that's a highlight play. You know, Evans was there, he was in coverage. He didn't make the play. Now does a shutdown corner that you draft higher or you, a veteran like Patrick Peterson maybe makes that play. Yeah.

You could make that argument that he does. The fact that he was actually in position to make that play. And then you had an NFL receiver, make an NFL Pro Bowl receiving type play. You just have to live with that. And again, why is that in that position? Because, you know, why can't Mullins, you know, convert in the red zone? He had his receivers bailing him out time after time. But as you mentioned, they were clicking offensively for the first time, really, I think since the New Orleans game, or at least it felt like when they had the ball, they were a threat to do something,

as opposed to most of the last month it's been, can they get a few first downs and drain some clock so that the defense can catch their breath and figure out what they need to do next? You know, that 12-play, 75-yard drive to start the game was quite impressive. I would not have predicted that. I mean, I've been thinking that 16-13 is going to be their requisite victory margin because it's going to be, you know,

put in the hands of their defense. Well, now I see a little bit more. I see a little bit more, at least scheme-wise, where you're right, they have two great receivers. Hawkinson was in play. Chandler coming in for Madison, 130 plus yards. You're wondering why maybe he couldn't get the ball on the fourth down play in overtime. A lot of those things are at least for positive influences that they can build upon. And that's why I have a pretty good suspicion that O'Connell is going to stay with Mullins because there are some building blocks that you can at least, you know, use going forward and game plan for another week, give Mullins another week to kind of digest and assume his role. And look, the Lions is as decent as they have been all season.

They've been carried by their offense because they're pretty prolific and we know what they can do. We know what Goff's been able to do. But their defense has been suspect at times. And it's a Lions-Vikings game. And weird things always happen with the Lions and the Vikings, especially in Minnesota. I think the Vikings have been able to torment the Lions and Dan Campbell even in recent years at U.S. Bank Stadium. I think this may be more evenly matched than we think. And then, of course, the Vikings know the stakes are so high.

But I just feel like it's very difficult with what we've seen in the last two weeks, the last four weeks, the last eight weeks, to really understand what this team is because we know what they're somewhat capable of and limited to, but every game that you see something positive and negative and you look and you just throw up your hands. I mean, there's just really no way with such unpredictable quarterback play and sort of an unproven defense that can shine at moments but reveal itself to be sort of the inexperienced, overachieving unit, you just have no sense of what this team's going to be able to do drive by drive, quarter by quarter, which makes it impossible to look away, but it just also makes it very difficult to digest because you know it's going to be

a difficult, difficult journey every game. You know, I was thinking about this after the game that how many times has even any backup quarterback put up 424 yards of offense? It doesn't happen all that often. And aside from like, if you were losing the game the whole time, which they weren't like, so you're, you're in control, you're leading the whole game and you put up over 400 yards of offense. How often does that team ever lose? Right? I mean, most of the time you would expect to win. And it's, that's what it comes down to is just a couple of plays, which made it really difficult to analyze. I think because those plays

made it made them lose. They lost the game. That's what happened. We can't pretend it didn't, but on a play to play basis, they were the better team for the vast majority of that game. And I don't, it's like hard to ask for a lot more of that when you are playing Nick Mullins, who came into the game with a five and 12 career record, mostly playing for the San Francisco 49ers. So it's not like he was playing for Cleveland or something. I think he had one game with Cleveland. It's not like he was playing for some or something. I think he had one game with Cleveland. It's not like he was playing for some terrible franchise or something. He was playing for a really good one when they struggled so much. So, all right, let's get into the Lions part of this. This had Kirk been around.

This might have felt really cool, even if their record was the same, even if they were seven and seven. And we maybe would have talked about, hey, look, look, they were all in three at one point. And now they're still controlling their own destiny for the playoffs. It's very rare. The teams make the playoffs after going, Oh, and three, and yet they have this chance. So if Kirk was the quarterback, I think we'd be going. This is actually like an exciting situation with the Vikings and lions.

Like it's been a really long time since the Lions have been relevant. They've got to beat the Packers in here at some point to make the playoffs. This is really tense and really interesting. I think what Mullins throwing those interceptions gave us was like, oh, this team probably doesn't have enough juice to really go anywhere, even if they make the playoffs. So, okay, I guess we'll just see what happens. But even if they win that game against the Bengals, we're probably going like, oh, wow, look, maybe Mullins is the guy who's, you know, operating the offense the way O'Connell

wants, and they're going to play top offense versus top offense here or something. It's just one or two plays can really change the way we view this game. So I don't think that right now from the fans, they're getting super juiced up for this game. But at the same time, if you win it, you've got a great, great chance to make the playoffs and it would restore all of that. Like the Cincinnati loss would be quickly forgotten if you beat the top team in the division and presumably have to play really well offensively or defensively to do it. Yeah, I mean, as you look at, we're 14 games into this, right? So everybody's had to endure seven losses and, you know, hang on for seven wins. If you're really going to pull the pin now and just say, you know what, it's useless.

Even if they make it, they're not going to last long. And look, I don't think anybody expects them to roll in at nine and eight, 10 and seven at best, but most likely nine and eight. You even mentioned an eight and nine scenario where they could kind of back in. Nobody sees them going on the road and taking care of business and moving on. Just as last year, we were blindsided a little bit by how badly they played against the Giants, we should go in with eyes wide open of what they have the potential to do.

But it still doesn't – I mean, at this point, there's no sense in just laying down. I mean, it really doesn't benefit you as much anymore because your record is so close to 500 anyway. The tank campaign, if there was one, should have been six weeks ago. If you've endured all of this, the quarterback drama, a three nothing atrocity in Vegas, if you've endured all of what you've seen and all the emotional roller coaster that you've been on since about week six, you might as well see it

through, right? And seeing it through means, you know, you have two chances against the division leader. Again, the North isn't really in play, but you can really dictate your destiny in the playoff hunt, and you can put the final nail in the coffin on your arch nemesis on New Year's Eve. So it's almost like you're going into a fun house, I feel like, these next three weeks, because it's very rare that you see an opponent twice in three weeks. And there's some scenarios out there where they could actually play the Lions in the first round.

Could you imagine seeing an opponent three times in four weeks? And what kind of grudge matches and what kind of trends you're going to see coming out of that? Which, by the way, in the 60 years these two teams have been in the same division, having grown up in Detroit, I can't remember a significant Vikings-Lions game in my lifetime. So there's something a little bit new and fresh in that. It's just you might as well enjoy it. You might as well sit back and you just don't know what you're going to see. This season in the NFL, because of the backup quarterbacks, because of the one-score games and the differentials in in the wide open playoff races. I know they're wide open every year, but it just feels like this year,

there's just a lot of, especially in the NFC, there's a lot of potential for some just random things to happen that, you know, just enjoy. I know I've been saying this for three years as we've been doing this together, Collar. It just feels like every week is an incredibly new, different package to unwrap with narratives and trends and consequences and potential for rosters, for potential for jobs, for potential for playoff berths, not playoff berths. What will happen when they're in? What are the wild card scenarios? I just find it the greatest unscripted entertainment and they never seem to fail. This franchise never seems to fail going into the final few weeks of setting expectations that I don't even know if they can achieve. I don't even know if it's worth setting

expectations because we don't know, again, what they're going to be able to do offensively with any given quarterback for the next couple of weeks. So to me, fretting about what may happen to them in the first round or fretting about what would happen if they finished 7-10 compared to 9-8, probably not much. So I don't think you're going to solve your quarterback problem in the next couple of weeks with Mullins or if they go back to Dobbs or they go to Hall, it's not going to all come into a clear focus. So just sort of enjoy the moment, I guess. Yeah. I think that when we got to the bye week and I know that other people wrote this, I kind of wrote this like, you know, this five weeks at the end of the season could really shape how they feel about the quarterback situation and

things like that. I'm not even sure that that's even really true, right? Like now, now that we've, we've seen Nick Mullins, I mean, maybe if they go for 400 yards and beat Detroit and get the win, we could come away saying, man, if Nick Mullins could put up back to back 400 yard games, but we are always dealing with this small sample size whiplash. And there's no better example than Detroit where two weeks ago, Detroit loses to Chicago. And I see in Chicago, they're starting to say, well, wait, wait, they could maybe stay with Justin Fields and Hey, you know, Detroit, like they're showing these, these problems and maybe their office has fallen apart late in the

season. And then Detroit comes out and just hits the turbo rocket boosters against a Denver defense. That's not that bad. Uh, that's turned it around in the second half of the season and they run them out of the building. Likeameer gibbs is looking like a superstar they're getting jameson williams involved i'm in ross st brown is playing great jared goff suddenly just snaps back out of it whatever trance he was in for a couple weeks he's firing the ball all over the place you go like uh okay i guess two weeks ago we thought you know maybe these detroit games and then, oh wait, no, maybe not these Detroit games this year. And you're right that every year is like this, but this year it feels

like the NFC has been so open outside of the first couple of spots, but even those everyone, except for San Francisco has big flaws, even, uh, even the good teams. We saw it from Dallas. We've seen it from Philadelphia. That there is more of an any given Sunday part of this where you think that Detroit could be the best team and blow you out of the building, or they could completely fumble versus Brian Flores' defense and then lose at U.S. Bank Stadium. I mean, we saw them last year.

They were right in position to beat the Vikings, had something like a 95% chance to win that game late. And they end up blowing it. Cause they don't cover KJ Osborne. He goes for a touchdown. Uh, that's just the world we live in. And I was adding this up last night, Murph. It's like 75% of games that the Vikings play that come down to one score and one drive. And I was feeling this in Cincinnati, like, you know what? I don't even have an elevated heart rate anymore at the end of these games. I am so used to this, that this is just, I'm so used to, I stopped even trying to write my game story during the game. And I write it as more of a narrative of how I was feeling at the moment,

because I used to have to rewrite it so often. Like I'd be writing, oh, Vikings win. Oh, wait, they blew whatever lead or, oh, they lose or what, you know what I mean? So, uh, it's, uh, it's, it just, it's just been like that. And that's just the world that we're living in. So I have no idea what's coming next. And I don't even know what I'm supposed to think of the Detroit lions. It's like people, I think, want our analysts to be very like this is this is what's going to happen. This is the truth. But in this case, I don't know. I think Detroit is a really good football team overall. The larger sample, I think they're much better than the Vikings in the larger sample. But in two games at the end of a season, who knows what could happen? I don't think anything happened in Cincinnati that made me go season over. They can't win any more games. They're totally dusted.

Forget this team. Just, you know, go, go to your holiday parties. I, I, I don't, I don't feel like that. Well, I almost felt like that after the Raiders atrocity. I mean, even though they won, that felt like a devastating loss. I mean, if you look at the emotions and the way they played, I mean, you can make the argument that, you know, it's interesting that the Raiders and Bengals game ended up washing. I kind of thought, man, if they're going on the road, they're probably going to split these two. I could not have predicted which game they would have won and which one they would have lost in the manner in which they won and lost. I mean, so that's the unpredictability of this. And you mentioned the Lions too.

I mean, the Lions have been kind of in a prove-it mode for a long time. I mean, they got hot at the end of last season. They obviously bounced Aaron Rodgers and the Packers out of the playoffs on the final Sunday night of the year and basically drove Rodgers out of Green Bay. And that was, you know, made of a big deal was made of that. Detroit had all the momentum in the offseason, all the positive vibes. They walk into Kansas City on the opening Thursday night and take down the Super Bowl champion Chiefs.

Kind of a, hey, you know, the Lions are for real. And, you know, all along the way, they've showed glimpses of being a, an NFC elite team while also having stubbed their toes at just the wrong moments against the wrong opponents to, to make you think and, and, and give you, when I say you, I mean, the broader NFL community, are they reliance really for real? And, you know, as much as they may, you know, beat back against that reputation, it's probably seeping in the locker room. This is still an unproven team. It's still a conference where people are talking about Philadelphia.

As much as Dallas looked terrible in Buffalo, they're still talking Dallas and they're still talking San Francisco. So again, there's always that sense of waiting for the other shoe to drop for the Lions. So you don't know how they're going to go into the last two out of three, knowing that, you know, the Vikings, they're decades long tormentors. You know, they got to come to U.S. Bank Stadium first. And I think that's key. If this game were in Detroit, I'd feel a little bit more uneasy for the Vikings.

But the Vikings have always played Detroit tough at home. The Lions still have a lot at stake. They know that the division is generally theirs, but it's still, I think they need to show themselves, their fan base, that they're not just going to wander into the postseason. They're going to roll into the postseason. And to do that, they're going to have to take care of the Vikings twice. And the Vikings know, obviously, that every game from here on out is a playoff game for them. And because of those high stakes and because of the fact that neither team is really predictable, certain, there's really nothing you can bank on. I just feel like we are, again, if you're a fan, you're probably like, I wish this was a lot easier.

But I mean, you could be a Cardinals fan, you could be a Panthers fan. You know, you could be looking on the out, you could be on the outside looking in and lamenting these games don't mean anything. So as, as thin as seven and seven feels, it doesn't feel as catastrophic after they left Cincinnati because they, you just sense that the Vikings can be in any game and make something happen in any moment, but also anything can happen to them at any moment. So where else, you know, where else would you rather be on the entertainment spectrum? Yeah. I remember Mike Zimmer talking to us about this one time, uh, because Mike people should know, uh, could be cantankerous at the podium sometimes, but we would have side sessions with him as reporters.

And sometimes they would kind of go into Mike's story time about his days in Dallas or Cincinnati. And he was telling a story about it because when he was a defensive backs coach on a Dallas team that won the Superbowl, and he was talking about how during that season, they were having some down moments and they got on a plane to go to a game thinking this might be the last time we all as a coaching staff get on this plane like people get fired or whatever if we lose this game because the expectations are so high and everything else

and they got something like a kick return for touchdown to win the game some sort of random event and then they go on to win the Super Bowl and. And he's like, that's, that's the league. Like, that's how this all works is that it's always teetering on kind of one play here or there. Like when T Higgins whipped his arm out, I thought about Justin Jefferson in Philadelphia. And if Justin Jefferson scores and reaching his arm out, instead of whips the ball to the back of the end zone where are we at and there's so many of these moments that just sort of rest on one play and that's where it's really fascinating to relitigate but very difficult uh to predict when you have especially teams that are good but maybe not necessarily great so how much do you respect detroit murph do you think that this is like is this is this detroit team a legit Superbowl contender

or are they a second tier or how are you feeling? I'm leaning more towards second tier. I need to see more. I need to see them, you know, put down the Vikings and put down the Vikings threat. I see, I need to see them win 12, 12 games or more to really feel like they're a Super Bowl contender. I think this is an important – they're progressing. You know, other than Goff, this is still a relatively young team. So I feel like this is a team that's going to have to get some battle scars in the postseason. They haven't won a playoff game since 1991. So, like, you know, baby steps here first.

Get your division. Get a home game. Win a home playoff game, put yourself in a position to go up against Philly, Dallas, or San Francisco on the road. And maybe you come out with a victory and maybe you get to the championship game and you're playing for a Super Bowl berth. I think that would be a pretty good ceiling. And then another part of me is like, well, this guarantees nothing. I mean, you could easily win 12 games and then, you know, fall back to, you know, 6-11 next season.

But I do feel like they're prepared to take a step. But to me, that step is mainly taking care of business the next couple of weeks, especially with your – you know, they're going to have a home game on the 7th against the Vikings. If there's still stakes there there how to put down an opponent opponent and go into the playoffs with momentum and confidence that's what I'm looking to see before I can put them in that top tier with Philly Dallas and San Francisco as Super Bowl contenders but they're definitely knocking on the door I think uh as long as they have a fatal flaw of when Jared Goff gets pressured,

he has so much trouble performing that it's going to be difficult to take them as seriously as some of the better teams, especially considering who you have to play and how the other teams in the NFC could pressure the quarterback. But historically, if you get to 12 wins, I mean, you've got a pretty decent chance of going deep in the playoffs.

So I think this will say a lot about both teams. It will say a lot about, I mean, you've got a pretty decent chance of going deep in the playoffs. So I think this will say a lot about both teams. It will say a lot about if Detroit can beat good Vikings teams twice and go into the playoffs with 12 wins or whatever, they're going to be considered pretty scary. That means their offense will have really operated quite well. But if the Vikings beat them, then you're going to feel like, hey, a 6-3 matchup in wildcard weekend is sort of screaming Vikings beating New Orleans in 2019 or many of the other wildcard weekend upsets that we've seen. So yeah, I guess the message coming out of the episode here

with us today, Murph, is like, it felt pretty bad bad on Saturday but the sun for some reason keeps coming up for this team every time we think it's about to explode into the stratosphere so uh thanks for your time Murph as always and we will get together again after Vikings and Lions sounds good folks is there any better way to spend the holidays than attending sports? Knowing you guys, I'm guessing the answer is no. Well, there is a way to get to all of the events that you want to get to during the holiday season with affordable tickets. My friends, you are going to want to check out the Game Time app.

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along with manny hill i am once again in my father-in-law's office so it's a little dark but we look fine we We're going to roll along Manny Hill as usual here on a Monday evening. And it's a little weird Manny, because normally we're just still reacting to what we saw in the game when we get together. But this time it's like several days removed. So let me ask you this. I'm sure that you, along with everybody else in Viking land, after watching that game was like, what the heck was that? What happened there? How do you lose that ball game? Now that you've had a couple of days to process the fact that Jake Browning went legend by throwing his helmet and yelling, don't effing cut me or whatever he said, and got to dunk on the Vikings in a true revenge game. I mean, we joke about revenge games all the time, a true revenge game. Maybe we should have done a list of revenge games last week, Manny. I never dreamed.

But give me your like, all right, I'm calm. Here's my takeaway from the ball game reaction. Well, it's interesting because felt, you know, when we talked Thursday, I felt like this was a game the Vikings were probably going to lose. I picked them to lose it just because of, you know, the way things had gone for them offensively the last couple of weeks. And, you know, I was surprised to see them, you know, be as productive offensively as they were. They put up over 400 yards of offense.

It was just the turnovers that ultimately were the difference in the game. And, you know, in Cincinnati, he made some plays. And T. Higgins, man, T. Higgins is just a beast, man. He's fantastic. And he doesn't get a lot of attention because Jamar Chase is the number one guy there. But, you know, he could be T Higgins could be a number one receiver on a lot of teams in this league. And, um, and he showed that on Saturday. And so I, you know, I, I feel like it's, I think it's really easy to kind of just look at

how everything went down in that game and just sort of pick apart every single thing that went wrong for the Vikings in that game. You know, pick apart every single thing that went wrong for the Vikings in that game. You know, they gave up a lot of points in the fourth quarter, blew a double digit lead, you know, Nick Mullins through, you know, three really bad interceptions, two that counted. And so, you know, I think it's really easy to kind of look at all those things and and just be apoplectic and want kevin o'connell to be fired and and trade this guy and cut this guy and this is this is awful and they blew it and all this other stuff but i think what it really just kind of shows is that this team is not that good they're not ready yet to to make that to make that next step and make any noise in the postseason.

And I think that's okay. I mean, I think based off of what this team has been up and down all season long and they got out to a bad start, got a nice winning streak, put themselves into a position where we're thinking,

okay, well, let's see what happens with Dobbs and everything. And really the last couple of weeks, they've come down to earth. And it sucks because the offense has been bad the last couple of weeks. And then this week, they put up a lot of yards and put up enough points that you would think with the way the defense has been playing that they would come away with a win. But now you're still kind of expecting your defense to just be completely lights out. And that's just not realistic for as good as they've been for most of the season. It's not realistic to just think that Brian Flores' defense is just going to pitch a shutout every single week. And so you had to know at some point

teams were going to be able to move the ball. And Cincinnati's talented. Joe Burrow isn't playing, but, you know, they've got weapons and they've got a, you know, a decent offensive line and Joe Mixon's a good running back. So they've got a lot of stuff to work with there. It's unreasonable, I think, to think that that defense was just going to completely shut them down

and the Vikings were going to find a way to win a really low-scoring game. And it didn't work out for them. And even with all that said, they still have a shot to make the playoffs if that's kind of what you're rooting for. Personally, I would kind of rather see them drop these last three games and have a higher draft pick because I don't think they're going to make a lot of noise in the playoffs should they get there anyway. So it's interesting because it feels like my tone of this team

has really kind of flipped in the last couple of weeks just now that they've kind of come back to reality. Well, and I think that's fair because after the new orleans game we were looking at it like look brian flores's defense is rolling and josh dobbs is gonna be able to keep this offense going and they could pump up the quarterback and they could protect the quarterback and they could get receivers open and everything else and then it became a little harder to protect the quarterback and they could get receivers open and everything else. And then it became a little harder to protect the quarterback when everybody knew that he was going to try to run. So that happened. Teams played to the weaknesses of Josh Dobbs, started to shut him down. Also, I do think that there are reasoned criticisms when it comes to Kevin O'Connell,

and then there are unreasoned criticisms. But one of the reasons would be, Hey, you know, one would be like, look at Ty Chandler, bro. Like maybe just that was a good idea to play him a little more or, Hey, look, you know, if you could make some more adjustments to Josh Dobbs, maybe you would put up some more points in some of those games that you didn't. But then there's also some of the games that they lost, including Chicago, but Denver also falls into this category as well, where you're just like, this is the delicate nature of playing with a backup quarterback, where if one thing kind of goes wrong, it can really have a major effect on you.

So if the defense against Cincinnati does have this meltdown in the second half, it's hard to expect the Vikings to just go toe to toe with Nick Mullins in there, even though they put up a lot of yards and points. But it's not like if Josh Allen is in a shootout and they're going back and forth and it's like, all right, well, whoever's got the ball last. I mean, it doesn't. And I know people have brought up while a backup quarterback beat them. I know. I know the point is that like he was playing well and he was putting up points in that second half. And the Vikings had a few drives, including the tush push one where they had a chance, but somebody's backup was going to fail eventually. And it turned out to be yours.

And next week it might be theirs, but you're not playing a backup next week. But if you are, then, you know, it might be theirs. Right. So that's like, that's kind of how it goes. And in a way that's why it's like, I want to listen to all the perspectives on this thing, but I also don't want to get too caught up because of how close they were to having totally different narratives. I mean,

if they beat the Denver Broncos and knock a ball down in the end zone, then we're talking about, okay, wow. Like this is now a winning streak. And then, you know, if Justin Fields doesn't lead a game winning drive of which he literally

never, ever, ever does that ever. I mean, look at, look, I mean, look at his career,

how many chances he's had to lead game time, game winning drives. He never does it including, and it wasn't his fault exactly, but you know, hail Mary that didn't connect yesterday, but he just does like, that's not something he's ever been capable of doing.

He does it against you and Jake Browning coming out of nowhere. It's just like, these things have been a little bit all season long, uncontrollable, random, and when something happens, then you don't win because you're not a team that's really built to overcome all the things that you have gone up against. Yet, at the same time, you kind of have because you're in the playoffs, still in the playoff race.

So we're losing our minds over the loss and then looking up in the playoffs still in the playoff race. So we're losing our minds over the loss and then looking up in the morning and going, Oh, actually there's still more than 50% to make the playoffs. If they get, especially if they get a win against the Detroit lions. So one of the weirder games to try to break down. And I think, and I was walking out of the stadium thinking like, that's actually a really memorable football game. And we've had a lot of unmemorable football games lately. And I'll tell you what Brian Murphy said. We can move on to some other stuff. Murph was basically like, folks, just you can't control this thing. It is it is a roller coaster with rocket boosters strapped into it. So like it was already a roller coaster with Kirk. Just, just go along for the ride and see what happens. And I think saying that to football fans is basically like saying, you know, I don't know that the, that space aliens are going to come down and take over football because no, nobody wants to hear, Hey, don't overreact to your football team. Just, just chill

and watch the games. But in a way, this thing is so out of out of control is one of the it's not a weird season for roofs collapsing or people hanging from trusses inside the stadium or whatever. But it's definitely been a weird season for football games the way that a lot of these have played out. So it's like I don't know what to tell you, man. Most of the time I saw Nick Mullins was top 10 in EPA per play for this week for quarterbacks. It's like, if you had told me they were going to get that, I would have said, damn, like that means they're going to play great, I think. Right. And they mostly did until they didn't. It's just it was just a it was just a weird day. It really was. And, you know, I'll be honest with you, Collar.

After the game was over, I wasn't even really all that upset because the first thing that kind of came to my mind was we've seen the Vikings lose games like that with Kirk Cousins at quarterback. I mean, how many times have we seen it? Hell, the last time they were in Cincinnati, was it years ago where they lost the game in overtime? It was the same kind of thing where they're neck and neck with the Bengals and Dalvin Cook fumbles in overtime and it ends up costing them the game. The Bengals kick a field goal at the end and they end up winning it. Same kind of game where you kind of look at this play and that play and say well man they would have just made that play then they would have won the game it was the same

thing saturday you know where if they if they execute on the tush push one out of the two times you know that that could have been the difference in the game between them winning and losing if you know t higgins makes an incredible catch uh you know getting his hands on the ball and then somehow some way because he's he's freakishly athletic and he's got these long arms and he just kind of reached his arm around as he's going down and reached the ball across like how do you defend that like that that there's nothing you can do about that when great players make great plays and just certain things don't go your way and you're playing with a backup quarterback so you just kind of chalk it up as these things happen you know and and you just have to kind

of accept it for what it is it's kind of how the season has gone as a whole anyway um so you just accept it and you move forward and you just try to get a win against Detroit. Yeah, I'll tell you, I didn't really expect the reaction that they got because I thought that people would be much more like, oh man, what a wild way to lose classic Vikings and backup quarterback, what are you going to do? Crazy day. And it just, I think those particular plays not working and the kind of strange way that they went about it with Brandon

Powell and, you know, everybody, the broadcast is talking about it. Everyone's watching the same game. You know, when the whole nation is watching, it gets more attention and, but it really, it really set people off, but you're're exactly right if that was Kirk Cousins and they lost that game I would have understood much more because at this point I think if they had had Cousins there would have been a lot more pressure on this team to make the playoffs rather than a hey you started out oh and three lost your starting quarterback it's good to even be here type of approach but you know now it's only one win in several weeks. And that one win was three to zero. And I think that that tension had been kind of building.

Like this thing is just really sort of teetering and feeling like it's going off the rails. And I would imagine I know our buddy Will Raggetts had this stat about the last three years, the one score games that the Vikings have six more one score games than anybody else. And it's like just one weekend. Can you give these people a rest? is the one score games that the Vikings have six more one score games than anybody else. And it's like just one weekend. Can you give these people a rest? Can you stop having them like have heart attacks every single week at the end of these games and not putting people away? And that's another argument about that game as well. It's like you have 95% chance to win or something going in the fourth quarter and you end up walking away with a loss. So then it feels like, gosh, you should have been there regardless of the backup quarterback thing.

So I get it. I mean, I'm not downplaying people's passion for it. I guess that was just, to me, the most notable thing coming out of the game was just how upset people were. And yet here we are. So why don't we look at the NFC races, Manny? I think that's what we got to do here. Right. And you know, what a, what a, what a wild day for everybody. I mean, if you are a New York giants fan, you thought last week, maybe you had your franchise quarterback and Tommy DeVito and somebody asked in a press conference to Brian

Dable about Tom Brady and Tommy DeVito, which, you know, I guess that went away pretty quickly when they lost 24 to six. But let's go through the teams that are battling with the Vikings for this final position, because this race, let me count them up now. We've got one, two, three teams at seven and seven, a six and seven team in Seattle that is playing tonight and then two, six and eight teams. So let's, let's go through them. The Vikings still somehow holding on to a number six seed, the Los Angeles Rams though, Manny, they seem pretty scary to me. I mean, they played toe to toe with the Baltimore Ravens lost on a punt return two weeks ago, and then they get a big win yesterday with Matthew Stafford. If you know, he's healthy because he got beat up earlier this year. He is playing some phenomenal football for them. And Sean McVay is not going to get talked about for coach of the year. And that's going to be a really tight race with a lot of coaches that are deserving. But that team was kind of left for dead after what we saw last year and now they feel like they've come together cooper cup is healthy stafford's gunning all over the place their defense is competent

they could very much end up with one of these playoff season are probably the most dangerous team that nobody would really want to face in the playoffs if they did that's how i view them how are you looking at the rams yeah they're they're definitely a team to look for, especially when you look at their last three games. You know, they've got New Orleans coming up this Thursday. And then, you know, on New Year's Eve, they're going to take on the Giants on the road. The Giants aren't very good, obviously. And then you got San Francisco in week 18. And that could be interesting because the 49ers might not have

anything to play for and might be resting a lot of their starters, which would open up the opportunity for the Rams to, you know, possibly run the table the rest of the way. So, you know, it's a team that's well coached. Sean McVay, as we know, is one of the best. And it's a battle tested team. A lot of players on that team were on that Super Bowl team from two years ago. So that's a team you're definitely going to have to keep your eye out for. It took care of business against Washington yesterday. They've just been playing a lot better the last month or so since their bye week, which was week 10. Because before that, they went into

green Bay and kind of stunk up the joint, uh, back in early November. So they've been really good playing a lot better. Like you said, they went toe to toe with the Ravens. Uh, you know, that's, that's a team you're going to have to really watch here as we get down the stretch of the season. Yep. I agree. Now just go and kind of rapid fire through these, the New Orleans Saints are one of the weirdest teams in the NFL because every single time you think it's over, they are dead. The Derek Carr experiment totally failed. And we're going to include Tampa Bay in this discussion, too, because they're right now in the lead, but still they're also seven and seven. So but New Orleans, I have no idea what I'm supposed to think of them. When they were playing against Josh Dobbs in the Vikings offense, I was like, this is the top 10 ranked defense of the New Orleans Saints. What? And fit against the Giants.

They're making Tommy DeVito look like he should be back at Syracuse University because he's getting sacked seven times. They're playing dominant football. I still think they have a good defensive head coach in Dennis Allen and their offense seems to just ride or die on whether they can convert some of that underneath stuff and get big yards after catch and have their playmakers make plays. I don't think they're a serious contender, but can they win enough games to stay in this race and get one of these spots? I think they can. But if you're the Vikings that like new Orleans needs more wins than you, because you beat them head to head, which is going to make a huge difference there.

So what the Vikings need, let's loop in Tampa Bay into this as well. They kind of need like Tampa Bay to stay in that spot at the top of the division and not New Orleans get the spot. Like if New Orleans were to win three in a row and then Tampa Bay wins two, and then the Vikings don't have the tiebreaker against Tampa Bay. So both, let's talk about both of those teams. I think New Orleans is weird, but I actually think Tampa Bay might be pretty legit. I mean, Baker Mayfield has really proven this year, not that he's a star, but he's a competent starting quarterback who could get the ball to his top receivers. He's been thrown to Chris Godwin like crazy lately, and their defense is pretty scary. We talked about that week one win as if it was like a travesty that they lost to that team.

I thought that team might be trying to draft to the top five. And yet they have really come through actually under Todd Bowles and with, you know, Baker Mayfield, the quarterback and way overachieved. So which one of those teams do you think ends up winning that division and which one is battling with the Vikings? It's, it's hard. The NFC South is just so weird. I thought the saints were going to, you going to almost win it by default because of the addition of Derek Carr, and I thought their defense was going to be really good, which it has been at times this season.

But then Tampa Bay has kind of been sort of that wildcard team that, okay, if they can string together a couple of wins, go on a little winning streak, then they can make things really interesting. And they've done that now. They won three games in a row. They're sitting there atop the division. Their schedule, I'm just looking at what they have to go here. Jacksonville, they got Jacksonville coming into town on Christmas Eve this coming Sunday. Then they're hosting the Saints, and then they're playing Carolina, a bad team in week 18.

So you got to figure like, they're probably going to win at least one of those games. Probably can almost, I think almost guaranteed they're going to win the Carolina game. But the Jacksonville, New Orleans games. And that, and I think that's,

what's interesting about like all of these teams is that they're all playing each other. The Rams are going to play the saints this coming, you know, this coming Thursday, you know, and then Tampa Bay is going to play the saints right after that. So it almost feels like this whole situation is going to solve itself.

And if you're the Vikings, obviously you have a little bit more of a rooting interest in like a, like a Tampa Bay. Cause you want to see them win that division so that you don't have to worry about competing with them for one of those wildcard spots. But, yeah, it's it's it's going to be interesting. I tend to think the way Tampa Bay is playing right now, I think they're playing a little bit better than New Orleans is. And I think they're going to ride some of that momentum. Jacksonville is kind of a team that's really talented, but they just have, they've had this tendency to kind of lay some eggs, you know, over the course of the season. And that could be one that we see this coming Sunday. So I feel like the way Tampa Bay is

playing lately, they look really good in Green Bay yesterday. I think Tampa Bay is going to win that division somehow in these last three games. I think so too. And again, that does play in the Vikings favor. Yeah. With Jacksonville, Trevor Lawrence comes out of that game. Not only did he play terribly, but also he's playing on a high ankle sprain and then with a concussion as well. And at some point, you know, that's going to start to affect Trevor Lawrence's performance when he's dealing with these injuries. And I know that they, you know, he looked a little bit mobile and so forth, but I still wonder about some of the throws that he's been asked to make.

And he also clearly is just trying too hard, Trevor Lawrence, to do it all himself and to win everything himself. And I don't think that he has to necessarily do that, but they really don't have the playmakers, the run game that he seems to trust. So that was unfortunate to watch against the Ravens. Also, if the Ravens aren't the favorite going into the playoffs to be the super bowl champion. I don't know who is, it would almost be a massive disappointment if they don't find a way to reach the super bowl, because that team top to bottom is in my mind, the strongest team that Lamar Jackson has ever had around him offensively. And then defensively,

they have a great coach. They just looked like a juggernaut. So Seattle is harder to comment on since they're playing. That is a little more difficult for us to discuss. But Atlanta, I think, is out. And there's nothing more to say there other than if they had had literally anyone, except for Desmond Ritter this year, any level of competency, including somebody give Andy Dalton a job, somebody give Jacoby Brissett a job.

They ignored all that. They were like, oh, Taylor Heineke, who's like not that serviceable of a backup quarterback. And we're buying into Desmond Ritter in that decision. Who would have ever expected, except for everyone through the entire offseason, who said, really? You're going to go with him? If they honestly had gotten Gardner Minju, that man has his team on the precipice of the playoffs. That was something they could have seen coming, but them losing to Carolina is the death knell to their season.

I do not see how they overcome that. Somebody asked yesterday on the show, and I'd like your perspective on this so we can spend more time on this. Are the Packers completely cooked here, Manny? We had made a big deal about how their schedule was easy, and then all of a sudden they lost two games in a row to easy teams. Were they a fraud in those weeks where everyone was declaring them the next great team in the NFC?

I don't think that they're frauds. I do think that there is cause to know, cause for, you know, to sort of pause on like anointing them and anointing Jordan Love as like this guy that's arrived now and he's ready to take that next step as the franchise quarterback? I think the jury's still out a little bit on that. But, you know, again, I think you look at their remaining schedule. They've got Carolina coming up. They've got probably the easiest opponent of the weekend coming up on Christmas Eve. So you go on the road, you take care of business against Carolina. You're 7-8.

And then that game against the Vikings on New Year's Eve becomes just absolutely massive for both teams, really. And if you're the Packers and you find a way to win that game at U.S. Bank Stadium, now you're hosting Chicago in Week 18. You know, you got to figure that's a game that's very winnable as well. So I'm not ready to write the Packers off yet. I know Vikings fans will want me to just say, yep, the Packers are terrible and it's over and they're done. But, you know, I think you just look at what they have left. There's an opportunity for them to get right back into this and sort of go down swinging. So that Packer-Viking game on New Year's Eve, I think, is going to be massive for both teams.

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because Bryce Young needs a little bit of something. And every time I look back and I'll watch highlights of the game and so forth, and I'll see four or five highlight plays from Bryce Young where I go, I think it's in there. There's just a lot of work to do. There's a lot of construction. It's where you can kind of like someone gives you a floor plan, and you're like, oh, that looks like a nice house.

They show it to you, and it's got the windows falling out, and the piping is burst and everything else. You're like, oh, okay. There's a lot of construction to be done, but it could be something that still turns out to be good eventually. So good for him getting that win, but I don't think he's going to beat the Packers this week. And really the discussion about the Packers is twofold here because it's, can they get it back together? They have in my mind, the most lost defensive coordinator in the league they have forever.

Every time the Vikings have gone to play against them, I think, well, they're going to score a ton of points because this defensive system does not work in the NFL anymore. The league changes quickly. Everybody was chasing a certain style, and now they better go chase what Brian Flores is doing because this style is failing. It failed with the chargers. It's failing here. And you know, look, Vic Fangio is really

good at what he does, but when everybody's sort of trying to copy this, like let's play back and let them catch the ball and tackle them and so forth. Like it's just not, it's just not working playing the same way over and over and over again. I was just having Donatello flashbacks, watching that Bucks and Packers game going. This is exactly what we watched last year. They're not adjusting anything. They're not having a lot of guys moving pre-snap. There's not confusion from the quarterback.

There's a lot of comfort. And it basically comes down to does Rashawn Gary get like four sacks? If he does not, then the opposing quarterback is going to be just fine, which is what we talked about last year with like Daniil Hunter, Zedari Smith, Patrick Peterson better get a pick, or the opposing quarterback, Mike White, is just going to hang out back there and complete a bunch of passes.

Mack Jones throw for 380. That's what it was like. A perfect quarterback rating for Baker Mayfield against you. Crazy stuff. I don't trust them even against the bad teams to win all three of these even though it's very possible that they will and I think that if the Vikings play offensively like they did against Cincinnati against the Packers with their defense they could put up 24 points at 400 yards again and then

you're just hey can Jordan Love solve Brian Flores this time, which I have trouble thinking that he can. There was a massive overreaction because that team has been so successful for so long with good quarterbacks that they developed for a couple of years. And it's it's no different than when someone says that Ohio State quarterback can't be good. It's like because all the other ones before who had nothing to do with this man, they all prove it. It's like, no, Aaron Rogers has absolutely zero to do zero to do with Jordan love and

what he's going to be. What do you think he's going to be though? Now we got a pretty big sample of Jordan love playing football. Like here's, here's another way to frame it. Would you take them? Would you say, if I offered you them, you could also pick Chicago,

a couple other teams for the future that are going to draft higher. Would you be like, no, I'd rather have the quarterback I know or I'd rather take a swing at somebody else? How do you assess that? Would you rather be them or the vikings who are going to roll the dice at the quarterback position uh are you looking at jordan love and saying you know what a team should aim higher than that or where that guy is going to get by

next year or whatever is going to be high enough to compete for a super bowl they're in a hard spot, man, because I don't think, I don't, I don't know what to think of Jordan Love yet. Mainly because we just haven't seen him play enough. We've seen him play just this season and that's it. And typically when you're sort of evaluating a young quarterback, you need a pretty large sample size. You need like multiple seasons to really kind of determine like, okay, is this the guy that we want to, you know, when his rookie contract is up, is this the guy that we want to pay

a lot of money to and invest in? You know, can we build a good enough roster around him to have success? I don't, I don't know one way or the other with him just because we haven't seen enough. He's, there's been times where he's looked really good. And then there's other times where it's like, dude, where are you throwing the football? He had a throw yesterday where he had a guy wide open. I think it was a fourth down. They were inside like the 10-yard line or something.

He had a receiver wide open in the flat in the end zone. And he airmailed it over to him by, you know, airmailed it over his head by like five yards. It's like, dude, that's a simple throw. That's a simple, basic throw. But then you see him make other throws and it's like, okay, I see why there were people that kind of liked him because there is, there is talent there. But it's just hard to really get a read on like, if, if, is that enough talent to

where you want to invest a semi big contract into, you know what I mean? And I don't know if we've just, I don't know if we've seen enough of him to even really like, he certainly hasn't shown that you definitely want to go that route. But, but there's, there's enough talent there where you think like, okay, I could see maybe giving him that contract, but you just don't know yet. And it's a tough spot for the Packers to be in because if you do give him that money, if you give him like, I don't know, Daniel Jones money or something like that, and he's not that good, now you're stuck. Now you're in a really tough spot. Now you're kind of like where the Giants are right now, where they're not very good, and they've got all this money tied up

into a quarterback who's not really all that good, and now you're stuck in mediocrity. You're stuck going 8-9, 9-8 all the time, and maybe if everything goes your way, you can make the playoffs a few times, but not much after that. They're in a tough spot man and they're gonna you know maybe these last three games can really kind of show you something but i'm not sure just after one full season as a starter if you know you can if you're ready to hit your wagon to a guy like that long term i would probably take what's behind door number two for if it was if you're saying, hey, would

you rather take a quarterback high if you're Chicago or would you rather stick with what you've seen from Jordan Love and believe that he's going to improve on this? I would probably go with Chicago. I don't even think I would think about it too much because I'm aiming higher than what I've seen from Jordan Love. And the thing about Jordan Love is what I'm sure we'll hear a lot. And this always goes with the could be old takes exposed. It's football. It could change whatever. But this is just a I think that what we've seen this year is going to be who he is. I don't think that that's going to change. Now, that doesn't

mean he can't have a great year in between somewhere, because if you go through quarterback seasons through history, it's not every single year. Like Kirk is the weirdest one ever because every single year it's basically the same. And he's the only quarterback I can think of who's like that. Like even Patrick Mahomes wins an MVP, but then no one will catch the ball for him this year. One of the worst interceptions you'll ever see off a receiver's hands from Kadarius Tony the other day. He's like, what? I mean, so usually circumstances, schedules, injuries, all these things send statistics and PFF scores

a little up and down, and somebody could get hot and have a great year. That may happen to Jordan Love because we've seen it even within a season. But I think this inconsistency, especially from an accuracy perspective, you mentioned that throw into the end zone that went wildly over his receiver. I don't think that could be fixed at this point or maybe ever with certain guys that you're going to have those wild throws.

And Josh Allen still has these wild throws that go to absolutely nowhere, and that's still inside Josh Allen. But he's one of the guys that had, after three years at the same point, had increased his accuracy and improved it by leaps and bounds. We saw this from Jalen Hurts over a couple years. Now, I know Jordan Love hasn't been playing, but he's been out of college for multiple years now. And he's had that time to develop, to work with quarterback coaches and so forth.

And now at this point, that makes me think it's going to be hard for him to change that accuracy issue. And I remember before the season, Sam Monson of PFF, their NFL show, he said that Jordan Love might be like Jameis Winston if his head was screwed on straight. And I was like, I think that's right, where like he does some insane throws. And a lot of times if a receiver makes the catch, it gets the highlight reel. If you, you know, you launch it downfield or you throw into the back of the end zone, like he's got guts and he's going to have a lot of highlight reel throws, but he's also going to have a lot of low light reel throws. You know, who was like that too.

And talk about like the head being screwed on straight. Carson Wentz was like that. If you go through his season with the Indianapolis Colts, there is a lot of highs where he actually plays really well and puts up big numbers and leads their offense. And then they lose in the last week to formerly urban Myers Jaguars because he just loses his accuracy altogether. But if you add that with some leadership quality and intelligence, which it seems that Jordan love has, then that could be a guy who wins you games. The hard part is they're going to have to pay him as you mentioned.

And there's this clock that runs out that suddenly makes everything so much harder and then you end up with the potential for like a not quite as tragic Daniel Jones situation and then they end up getting stuck so if he doesn't solve the inconsistency issues with his accuracy you're going to get a lot of this kind of wild ride with Jordan Love year in and year out, I think. Yeah, and he's in year four now, right? Because he was, was he 2020? He drafted the COVID year.

So they have to decide after this, they have to decide this coming off season if he's going to be the guy. You know what I mean? They're going to have to figure out um if they want to extend him and and keep him around they don't really have a lot of time to like sit back and evaluate and let's see if we can add this piece and that piece and we'll get a couple more draft picks and surround them with even more talent and then everything will be kind of ready to go the clock is is ticking now um on that and and that decision, you just kind of wonder, like, are they going to get sort of suckered into a decision, sort of a rash decision, because they don't really have a lot of time to really think about it. And they're stuck in this sort of, you know, spot of mediocrity. And they're like, well, you know, we're not drafting high enough to draft another guy. We don't really want to trade up

to take another guy. Oh, screw it. Let's just pay Jordan Love and just hope for the best. And then if he doesn't turn out, then they're screwed. They're stuck in mediocrity for the next five, maybe six years. The irony is that they should probably draft a quarterback this year, which leads into our next topic, by the way. They should probably draft a quarterback this year because their whole mantra is draft a quarterback when it doesn't seem like you need one.

And right now, remember, the Packers drafted Brian Brom when Aaron Rodgers was a couple years into his career, and Todd McShay famously was on TV saying, yeah, I actually like Brom more than Aaron Rogers. And I think they may have gotten their future quarterback. Well, that did not,

um, work out and shows you that, uh, any of us, no matter the platform can be very wrong in our predictions in football, but they've always had that as their ideal, which is we're going to draft quarterbacks and see if we can develop them and so forth. They tried it over the years with middle round quarterbacks and things like that. Brett Hundley

was the most notable over the years behind Aaron Rodgers. And then with this situation, because they don't know for sure, and because paying him is going to be unclear, then it becomes harder. He did redo his contract before this year, I think, to make this a little bit more stable for them. But they're still going to have a decision to make him a franchise quarterback or not coming down the road very soon. And I don't know if he's going to reach the threshold of somebody that you want to make a $40 million per year quarterback. That's why it's a very hard decision for them. The other argument would be, look, I mean, he made all this progress this year.

The receivers are just learning how to play football. They can improve their offensive line. And it was halfway through the season that Matt LaFleur kind of figured out how to play to his strengths. But that one to me is going to be, if they stick with him, it's going to be a year to year. Some years we're going to be like, oh man, they're done with joy and love. And some years, I think he's going to be good if he gets a year to year situation with Daniel Jones. That one was, maybe that's a little unfair because I think they just tricked out that

offense to have him run all the time and throw really short passes. And he had two good games against the Vikings and they had to give him all the money. And he just played them like a fiddle. I mean, it was just like, give his agent all the credit for taking advantage of those couple of games. But what I wanted to talk about too, and then we'll circle back to the Vikings and making the playoffs and so forth is how many teams do you think will be in the hunt for quarterbacks for this year? And there's the, you know, Jordan Love, obviously in the Packers, not really going to be one of them. Um, I'm only like half joking with, they should draft a quarterback this year. It is like the thing that they brag about though. Uh, Chicago, there has been some buzz that maybe Chicago should consider staying with Justin

Fields because of the progress he's made this year. I don't agree with that at all. I think if you've got a chance to take Caleb Williams or Drake May, you do that. You never apologize to anyone. But there's maybe a situation where they don't move on from him, like they don't trade him away. And instead, they leave him there on the roster. This would be like Christian Ponder with Teddy Bridgewater, where they left him on the roster. Let that play out with this contract, just in case he ends up playing over,

beating out the rookie quarterback in training camp and then taking some huge step. And then they could trade the other guy or something. That might be the way to go. That's a little weird and is certainly going to have a ton of controversy that goes along with it if they do it that way. But there has been enough flickers of Justin Fields to think that he could start in the league and win games with a team, but is not a guy, again, that you want to make your franchise

quarterback. with a team but is not a guy again that you want to make your franchise quarterback are we in a hundred percent mode that they end up drafting whoever they get at the top with carolina's pick i think so because how many opportunities are you going to get like this if you're the bears going forward you know what i mean and they're they're in a good spot in that they're going to have two certainly a pick that pick that's likely to be number one overall, and then their own draft pick, which might end up being in the top 10. That's a good spot to be in.

They're going to have cap space. They've got some young players to kind of grow and develop and an opportunity to get even more young players to kind of build. And I think it makes a lot of sense for them to just sort of wipe the slate clean. It might be a little awkward to start out with Justin Fields if he's still on the roster. It might be a little uncomfortable. But, you know, if you go with Caleb Williams or Drake May and that guy is a stud, you don't have to apologize for the 2024 season being a little bit awkward. You know what I mean?

Because if everything works out long-term for you, then, then I think everybody, everybody will find we'll be fine. And then, you know, you, you maybe trade Justin Fields and send him to a spot where he can maybe have a

little bit more success. Another team that's willing to take a chance on him perhaps and give him an opportunity um but if you hit on that guy with your top pick i don't think there's any apologizing that will be uh that will be necessary so if i'm the bears i take you know i do my due diligence on one of those two guys, Mayor Williams, make the decision and not look back with any regrets. So there's a bunch of bubble teams for quarterbacks. I'm going to give you

the ones that I wrote down of where I was like, maybe, but this is kind of weird. And you can tell me what you think. Tampa Bay is actually a maybe, but it's kind of weird because Baker Mayfield

has played them well enough to get here. Seattle is another one. Maybe it's kind of weird because baker mayfield has played them well enough to get here seattle is another one maybe it's kind of weird because they invested in geno smith but they really didn't invest long term actually after next year they could get out of that contract for almost nothing and that was that was what i was using to talk about if they re-signed josh dobbs it's just uh things change fast. I was like, looking at this Geno Smith contract, I'm like, you know what? If they gave Josh Dobbs that same deal,

that might be pretty good. Oh, what a league. What a league. But yeah, I mean, Seattle, I think the Falcons are probably a lock. The Giants are the other one that, do they need so much that they should just stay with Daniel Jones and wait to

try to give the next quarterback a better situation or should they just draft somebody else because Daniel Jones is bad so uh Tampa Bay Seattle and uh the Giants what do you think of them for quarterbacks I'll start with Seattle I think I think it makes a ton of sense for Seattle if they can get themselves in a position to maybe, it would probably be a situation where they would have to try maybe move yourself into the top, you know, six or seven. And if there's a guy there that you really like, I think it makes a ton of sense for them to do that because you've got Geno Smith, who's a veteran who's been in the league for a decade. He's under contract for a couple more seasons. So that's a situation where you draft your young guy, you let him sit behind Geno for a year or two, and then by the time Geno's ready to move on,

you've got your young quarterback that you've already invested in behind the scenes, ready to step in and take over the keys of the franchise. So I think for Seattle, it makes a ton of sense to do it this year. If not this year, I think next year would make even more sense for them to go that route. So Seattle, I think is in a, in a good spot. You know, I don't, it is interesting, like how long is Pete Carroll going to continue to coach there too? You know, I mean, that, that might be kind of a thing like, you know, Pete is what, 72 now. I mean, is he going to, if he's going to stick around?

He's not he still coaches with a lot of energy and a lot of a lot of passion and enthusiasm. So it doesn't he doesn't really seem like he's that old, but we know that he's been around for so long. So it's like, OK, if you're Pete Carroll, do you want to start the process of like going with a young quarterback yet? Or do you want to kind of make one more push for like a playoff run or something like that before you before you walk off into the sunset and end your career? So but I think, you know, just from a roster standpoint, I think it makes a ton of sense for Seattle to start investing in in a young quarterback now while you have sort of a bridge guy under contract. And that way you kind of slow cook things with that young guy. Right. Yeah. I mean, the thing is that I'm only even looking at the NFC here. There's so many teams.

There's so many teams because Washington is another one that to me is a lock. I don't know. Like Sam Howell has impressed me at times, but looks to me like very much a backup quarterback or a journeyman type quarterback that somebody needs to fill in and you know that you're going to get decent quarterback play, but is not going to be someone that can elevate to the level of a Super Bowl type of caliber quarterback.

How about Arizona? Let's say you're in a position as Arizona to just the way that these last few weeks work out to trade Kyler Murray for let's just call it two first round draft picks to the Minnesota Vikings or, and draft Drake may, or stick with Kyler Murray and draft Marvin Harrison Jr.? Which one are you doing? You kind of caught me off guard there because I wasn't even thinking about trading Kyler Murray to the Vikings because that kind of causes me to raise my eyebrows a little bit. The Cardinals are interesting, though, because they've already paid Kyler Murray. So the contract is a pretty big contract.

You don't really have the luxury of, like, building around a quarterback that has a rookie cheap contract. So, you know, the clock has kind of been accelerated a little bit. They've been in a weird spot because there's been a lot of instability in the front office and with coaching and all that stuff. It seems like they've got a pretty good coach now, Jonathan Gannon. And Kyler's played well at times since he's been back. I think if you're the Cardinals, if you've got a chance,

if Gannon really likes Kyler Murray, I think it'd make sense to keep him. And you take Marvin Harrison Jr., give Kyler Murray another weapon to throw to. And you see how that goes. You start trying to maybe build that defense because that defense is not great. You just kind of use some draft picks and whatever free agency money you have to try and build that defense and get yourself into contention. It's tough right now because San Francisco is like owning that division. So you're probably still a little bit of ways away from competing for the division championship.

But, you know, the Rams are kind of a 500 team right now, and so Seattle's kind of in a similar spot too. So you've got a chance, I think, if you make a couple of moves over the next couple of years, you can maybe get yourself into a wildcard situation. And who knows how long this window is actually in for San Francisco. If things fall off for them, you make all the right decisions. You've got your quarterback already seemingly with Kyler Murray. You might be able to take a pretty significant leap. So I would, if I'm them, I would stick with Kyler Murray. I would keep an open ear.

If a team was willing to give me two first round picks for him, might have to think about that. And then still, I mean, hell, maybe you still take Marvin Harrison Jr. Cause he's that, he's that fricking good. But I think right now I would stick with Kyler Murray and go with Marvin Harrison and then try to build the roster in other ways. I am so intrigued by this idea of Kyler Murray that it's been coming up on the show

since the summertime of trading for him and pairing him with Justin Jefferson. Kevin O'Connell loves pushing the ball down the field. Well, buddy, Kyler Murray can push the ball down the field. Jordan Addison is a star. They're making Nick Mullins look pretty good at times in that football game was a very inaccurate throws. They catching him anyway and you know t.j hawkinson underneath like just uh i don't know and you know you could say well he doesn't like a running quarterback because of dobbs why i mean i don't know like he would design the whole offense over the whole summer for kyler murray and to take advantage somewhat of his running ability i don't think dobbs tells us anything about anything uh that's just a very small sample where they would have had to change the offense a ton on the fly.

So I'm not I'm throwing that out. I also wonder. So they when he was with the Rams, they did well against Arizona in the division. Like he had trouble against the Rams defense, if I recall. But he would have a lot of intel on Kyler Murray. Like, was it as bad as people said with his leadership or was that overstated because Cliff Kingsbury was bad. And I haven't heard anything about that this year that he seems to have

come back just fine with Jonathan Gannon. So was it a personality conflict or was Cliff Kingsbury just bad? Like nobody wanted him after he got fired and he's working for like USC or something. So there's a lot, there's a lot of stuff there that I could see us debating. Everybody also remember there was like a minute there where we thought the Vikings could go after Lamar Jackson.

And there was a good number of fans were like, I don't know too much money for Lamar. Oh no, no, no, no, no. It's not too,

you know, it's like this, this would be very interesting, very interesting. If they were going to do that, the cap implications would be difficult, but not impossible. And for Arizona, though, if you're making an argument to stick with them, it's look at the Lions. So the Lions get Jared Goff when they're in a very low spot and they say, we've got stability. guy and draft and develop players and find some dudes in the fourth round, like Amon Ross, St. Brown draft, super high stars to put with them. And you could create a pretty darn competitive team. So I think that they could go either way with this, but man, if you're talking to first

round draft picks, I think the Vikings are in position to actually do that if they wanted to with the, where the roster stands and how few needs they actually have outside of getting, you know, another pass rusher, that would mean Daniel Hunter is gone. So you'd need to find a way to get another pass rusher. But it's an interesting idea that I think is going to keep coming up. So I don't want to go through like every team, but those were just some in the NFC that kind of stood out to me. And I think at the end of the discussion, it's always like, I think the Vikings are going to have a lot of competition when it comes to a different quarterback, which kind of

leads us to back to the Kirk thing and everything else. But I was thinking about this as we're getting closer, we know what teams are now and how they can feel about their quarterbacks. Arizona may swing the whole thing because if they don't get to the top, then they might have to just draft Marvin Harrison Jr. because they can't get the other two quarterbacks anyway. So these final few weeks will be really compelling in that race for Caleb Williams and Drake May. Let's wrap up on this, Manny. The playoffs and the Minnesota Vikings. What would it mean to you? I'm going to give you two different scenarios. They're very simple. What would it mean to you? I'm going to give you two different scenarios. They're very simple. What would it mean to you if the Minnesota Vikings made the playoffs at nine and eight? What would it mean to you if the Vikings made it at eight and nine?

And what would it mean to you if they missed the playoffs altogether? Run through those three for me. Okay. Well, I think that if they finish nine and eight and make the playoffs, I would look at Kevin O'Connell and say, Hey man, it looked ugly at times, but Bravo for you to pull that off, losing your starting quarterback halfway through the season and inserting a

guy that you just traded for from Arizona. And he comes in and wins a couple of games for you. Things kind of fell apart for, for him, but then you shifted gears and you still found a couple games for you. Things kind of fell apart for him, but then you shifted gears and you still found a way to get in. I would just say, hey, bravo, man. That's, you know, long-term, you know, big picture-wise,

it probably doesn't make a lot of sense to make the playoffs, but just as far as a coaching job overall for the season, my hat would go off to him. If they go 8-9, I don't know. I would probably feel some type of way about it because I would kind of feel like, well, wouldn't it just make more sense to just lose another game and just miss the playoffs altogether? You know what I mean? Because it seems to make the most sense to do that because it's like, well, what did

you really accomplish here? You know what I mean? And you're still talking about them making the playoffs, but it's like if it's eight and nine and it's like, well, you probably could have lost another game and missed the playoffs and you'd be in a better position for your future. And obviously, I'd say that to say this. I mean, you finish seven and ten. It would suck. It would be a really bad ending to say this. I mean, you finish 7-10. It would suck. It would be a really bad ending to the season. But you know what?

You have a decent draft pick. You are in a better spot to maybe trade up and get a quarterback in next spring's draft. So I would say I'd be totally cool with that. If you drop these last three games, I'm all good with that. I'm not saying intentionally go and do that, but I'm good with it if it happens. I completely agree with all of that. If you lose the last three games,

I'm sure that it will be ugly and frustrating and we'll walk out of those games and just be like, man, what a, what a collapse from being in the driver's seat after, I mean, the new Orleans game where your percentage to make the playoffs goes up to like 80% at that point. And you're feeling like you control your own destiny and all those words that we love to use. And then to just let it slip away and miss the playoffs, like, ouch, that would be pretty rough as far as how it felt in the moment. But then in the longterm, it's just hard to be too upset about

it because if you make the playoffs by one game and then lose in the first round, what difference does it make? You were just a road cone for somebody else's season to carry on. And you'd rather just draft higher. If they win nine, it will be impressive i don't care if kevin o'connell blows some play calls or some game management or some player usage or runs another trick play that sucks like it's just i i know like those things we nitpick the heck out of because that's what we do and that's why we love the game is because we can do that. But in the big, you got to look at the big picture there. It's very similar to with the Lions winning on the last day to knock out the Packers last year. I don't necessarily believe, hey, year to year momentum or whatever.

But in that situation, I thought, all right, this Lions team has got something there. Like the way that they fought back from where they were last year under Dan Campbell to get a win on the last game, the way they played, like they just showed a lot of promise and to get nine wins. This team, I would say showed a ton of promise. And in the big picture, they competitively rebuilt, developed a ton of players that are going to go forward with this team and be a big deal. And I would say like the expectation, regardless of even what happens, a quarterback is that this team is very soon a significant and serious contender that's how i'd walk out at nine and eight so seven and ten is like uh there's a lot of work to do and they're going to draft higher

so that's good and then nine and eight is man like i know we shouldn't raise fake banners but that's a pretty good accomplishment considering what you went through eight and nine is kissing your sister is what they say when you get a tie like it i'll just say it feels like a tie it feels like well it wasn't the worst but it wasn't the best and they gave you a playoff spot they should just get rid of the seven seed then and like what did you did you earn it not really but you kind of fell into it and you were never that good to begin with and so congrats i guess uh yeah i i mean i i think it would be a very conflicted feeling because you're going to draft lower being sub 500 and that's just not good for anybody so it's yeah, yeah, it is, uh, it is one of those things where one game could swing the way that we feel

entirely about the season. And it is most certainly to do so. And you know what, Manny, I wouldn't be surprised if there's some one score games mixed in to these final three. So of course we will, uh,

be breaking it all down and we will do a hardcore Vikings lions preview, which will, uh, have a lot of fun with a Manny list for Thursday night. So let's do it then, Manny. Always fun getting together with you, and I'll talk to you on Thursday. Sounds like a plan.