Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Darnold, Vikings collapse in Detroit

Episode Date: January 6, 2025

Matthew Coller and Dane Mizutani of the Pioneer Press analyze how the Vikings lost in Detroit 31-9 on the back of a no-show from their quarterback Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey everybody, welcome inside the press box at Ford Field here in Detroit. Matthew Collar along with Dane Mizitani of the Pioneer Press. As we break down from start to finish, the Minnesota Vikings whooping loss to the Detroit lines 31 to nine on a night where Sam Darnold had his worst game in a very, very long time, 18 for 41. Uh, he failed repeatedly in the red zone, missed the throws. And we just got done talking with Darnold and Kevin O'Connell and Justin Jefferson in the locker room. And the takeaway from Sam Darnold was pretty simple. He just missed the throws. And you know what?

Can confirm, having been here, that that was really the case. And so what we will attempt to do in the next hour or so is break down how much this is a concern, what it means now that the Vikings are going to play the Los Angeles Rams, whether we saw a formula that the Detroit Lions used, whether the Vikings will be back here in Detroit in a couple of weeks, as Dan Campbell said to Kevin O'Connell and what it all means and why it all went wrong for the Vikings. And Dane, you know, I think that, uh, with Sam Darnold, sometimes he can be frustratingly short with his answers and his analysis and his breakdowns. But I believe that

the right answer was the short answer tonight. He missed throws and because he missed those throws, they lost this football game. I don't know that there's, there's a lot more we'll talk about, but I think if we were ranking all the reasons that the Vikings lost this football game, number one, two, three, four, five, six, and seven are that Sam Darnold just missed nearly every opportunity he had in this game. Wide open Jefferson in the end zone,

wide open Hawkinson in the end zone, really set the tone from the start with a miss to Hawkinson along the sideline, really set the tone from the start with a miss to Hawkinson along the sideline that he was open for a big first down. Then they get back pinned in their own zone and had a chance to break out with a big third down play. And he overthrows TJ Hawkinson. And there's one thing we have seen from him a few times this year. And I don't know if it's a pinky injury because he just lit up the Green Bay Packers last week, or if it's just who Sam Darnold can be sometimes, which is a guy who

has a little inconsistency with his mechanics. And probably tonight he can say all day long that the atmosphere did not affect him. The pressure, the lead up, the conversation, the results though, I think would speak differently. This was one of the great atmospheres that I've ever been a part of here tonight. I would compare it to us bank stadium in the playoffs. I would compare it to the superdome. And I felt like he was amped up from the start and then got shaken by being amped up from the start and ultimately ends up having his worst game. I think this is worse than the Jaguars game because at least he completed a lot of passes that day. And it would have been a wildly different game if they finish in the red zone just a couple

of times with the way the defense played in the first half. So my big takeaway from this game is that it is devastating to their chances to go to the Super Bowl. There's no arguing that it is a likelihood they come back here and play the Lions, but they're also earning a spot with the team that we all said, you don't want to go face in the Rams. And on the national stage, they melted down on numerous levels and proved that there is a significant gap between the Detroit lions, the super bowl favorite all season long and the Minnesota Vikings, the little engine that could, that got here hoping for the number one seed and went away thinking we're not that close to this super talented Detroit Lions team,

who, by the way, just one last thing, really found it as a defense. I know they missed opportunities, but great job by Aaron Glenn. I've questioned him before. I've wondered, is he really that great of a defensive coordinator? Well, tonight they had an excellent plan to throw off Sam Darnold, and it worked. So your thoughts, sir? My thoughts are like yours. I mean, this road to the Super Bowl that had the Vikings won this game looked pretty cushy, dare I say. Win two games at US Bank Stadium, you're going to New Orleans.

Win one game at US Bank Stadium, you host the NFC Championship game there. That sounded pretty good, and I thought entering this game that that was not only a possibility, I thought it was going to happen. I picked the Vikings to win. I thought they were rolling. I thought the fact that the defense on the Detroit Lions was consistently banged up with injuries coupled with the way the Vikings were playing over the past two months. I thought that was a recipe for them to walk away with this win and set themselves up with a nice road to the Super Bowl. Instead, like you said, it's hard. Now they might have to go on the road three times to even get there.

And like you also said, they have to go to Los Angeles next week and play the Rams, a team they've lost to in the past, a team that knows, if anyone knows Kevin O'Connell, it's Sean McVay, Matthew Stafford, been there, done that, Cooper Cupp, I could go on. The road to the Super Bowl got way more challenging today, but I don't even know if we can even entertain the Super Bowl right now because there are problems we have to talk about in the immediate present. And you mentioned Sam Darnold's game, 18 of 41, 166 yards, no touchdowns, no interceptions, but no offense in the red zone. I asked him after the game, did the crowd affect you?

He adamantly said no. One word answer, no. I disagree. I think it did. I think the crowd environment, to your point earlier, I think it amped him up in the early stages. How could you not? Legends abundant here.

Calvin Johnson, Barry Sanders, Eminem, Eminem's daughter. Everybody who represents Detroit was here. And I think in the early stages of the game, you saw a really jacked up side of the ball for both teams. And I think he got rattled after it didn't start going his way early. You start to sail a couple of throws because you're amped up. You're trying to gun them in there and it's not working. And then you're missing throws that you haven't missed all year.

That's been something with Sam Darnold we've seen throughout this season is that he just doesn't miss the throw if it's open. You're amped up, you start missing the throws, and then you're missing throws in the end zone. Detroit had a good rush plan where they heated him up pretty well. I think they got him off balance, off rhythm, and then he looked like a shell of himself for the rest of the game. So I think it was the crowd noise coupled with the environment, coupled with the early struggles. It ended in disaster for the Vikings and really spoiled an incredible effort for the defense. 31 points will not tell you that the defense was good tonight. They were good tonight. They were good enough to win the football game had the offense come with any sort of fight whatsoever. They did not.

So the Vikings end up walking out of here, losers, 31-9, having to go to Los Angeles in primetime next week. It's tough. Can they bounce back from this? Maybe. This is a team that has proved the doubters wrong all year. Unfortunately for them, the doubters are going to be really, really loud

this week because they fell flat on their face in primetime. Well, and now I don't want to get too far away from breaking down what happened here, but I think what Dan Campbell said to Kevin O'Connell still is a fairly likely outcome that they could beat Los Angeles. I mean, Los Angeles beat them on a Thursday night after they played Detroit. But if you go through their season, they've had a lot of close victories. They don't have a great offense or defense by the numbers. They've got some answers for this team, but it'll be better than coin flip that the Vikings can win that game. They're a 14 win team. They had a better season, but if they come back here, I just can't make an argument that they'll beat this team when they come back here. And it will feel very 2019 ish for the best possible outcome. And the other side of that coin might be, hey, this was if Will Reichard makes a field goal, it would have been a five point game late, but on the defensive side, they needed to make a ton of amazing plays early in the game

to hold down this offense. And then the more that the game wore on, the more Jameer Gibbs proved that this man looks like Barry Sanders, the way that he plays, you could get him for some negative runs and you can tackle them for so long. And then he eventually is going to explode for a 47 yarder that put the nail in the coffin of the Minnesota Vikings with their offense and the fact that they know how to attack Flores. And once they got kind of loose a little bit and stop making catastrophic mistakes, like a crazy arm punt from Jared Goff, which, you know, it did flip the field, uh, still, but it was a bad throw and the interception. He almost had a safety that I think should have been a safety. And those things just don't happen all that often to golf. I think he was amped up and their offense was amped up and

they made some mistakes, but they're going to come back in the playoffs and be stronger and healthier and fresher. And it's just looks like an impossible task now. And when we asked all week, what's the difference between winning and losing? We all knew the difference was enormous. They needed to win this game and Detroit did. And this is what I think the most frustration would come from. Detroit did open the door to that. And they could have had a, what, 20 to seven leads, something like that. If they finish in the red zone even once, and then just kick field goals. But I would also add that we're going to put it all on Sam Darnold because he missed the throws and he was not playing on time and looked like a very different quarterback from what we've seen in the clutch performances in Seattle or against Green Bay, where he was one of the best quarterbacks in the

league all season long and just did not look like this week after week after week. We never saw this version. However, sometimes quarterbacks don't have the best games, especially on the road in the toughest environments. And when you get to the doorstep or your defense steals the ball away and puts you at the doorstep and your quarterback is way off and he's struggling, there wasn't a good explanation when Kevin O'Connell was asked about why he threw nine times and ran twice when his quarterback was in that mode from the very beginning everybody in the stadium from eminem to barry sanders to kelvin johnson to dane mizzitani to me could all tell something was not right with the quarterback and yet you're going to throw nine times and run twice in the red zone the anti-running sentiment from a couple of madden players here is respectable

because i never run on madden either but in real life with aaron jones and cam acres had a good game tonight had one uh explosive run there jones was a little banged up but even with acres to not run they get the ball at what the seven yard line and they don't run more than one time. And then it's pass, pass, pass. And all of the passes are lining up, spread out four wide receivers. And what the lions did was they just put everybody on the line and they grabbed all night long. And Justin Jefferson brought it up. Hey, there could have been more penalties out there tonight. I get that, but that's always going to be the case in a big game like this. You are not going to get call after call after call. That's football. That's just how it's going to be. Seattle proved that and won a Super Bowl that way

years ago. That's how it's going to be. So in the red zone where you've got the timing thrown off, the protection was not great tonight, but they were running the football effectively. You've probably got the numbers on the running to not try to slam the ball into the end zone, I think was a huge mistake by Kevin O'Connell. And I also thought, and I asked him about it after the game, the decision to kick the field goal. And he said, well, I wanted to make it a five point game. You can't make it a five point game once that Detroit offense is rolling, because I think if they make it a five point game, it quickly becomes a 12 point game. Anyway, they had solved their issues and they were attacking the middle of the field once again for about the 14th straight time they've played the Vikings. It's Jared Goff standing in the pocket, ripping throws to the

middle of the field. But you knew that was going to be the case. You have to go for a fourth down there to give yourself a chance to win the game. They did not. They played to sort of hang around in the game and it didn't end up working. So on this night, we usually go through and grade and do things like that. On this night, I would give the coaching a extremely poor grade from the play caller and head coach, because I think that they could have worked around some of the issues. I think there could have been adjustments earlier when they realized that Darnold was off to get him more quick stuff,

more screen stuff. And I know it's easier said than done, but they did run one screen to the running back that actually worked and then never went back to it again. I almost wondered if it wasn't just the quarterback who got rattled, but also the head coach by the fact that the quarterback was rattled and his answer was to try to push him through it with more throws. Let's get him a touchdown. And that strategy did not work. Yeah, no. And Kevin O'Connell said as much after the game he said i have the utmost confidence in sam darnold i always feel like he's going to hit the next one it's a double-edged sword because i think that belief in sam darnold is a big reason why he's jumped and taken this leap forward this year and ascended into a quarterback that looks like you can build a franchise around. But in that same breath, you have to have some self-awareness,

and you have to understand that, to your point, everybody in the building could tell that Sam Darnold was off or in the early stages. It doesn't mean he was going to be off all game, but you can do some things as the play caller to help a guy like that. And I get it. The people will say well you know some of the throws that darnell missed were wide open true but he missed them because

he was rattled so let's just let's just go through the red zone the low red zone where they finish oh for four a couple turnover on downs field goals settling not good enough but real quick real quick on that before you go through them. Yeah. If they go two for four with touchdowns. Different game. Insanely different. Insanely different game.

Yeah. I mean, it's like we said this walking up. Like, yes, it's 31-9. The last touchdown from Gibbs was a victory lap. It was a two score game. So, yeah, you turn two of those red zone trips into touchdowns. It's a ball game. And then you're playing from ahead and then you're trying to take Gibbs out of the game

and the running out of the game, because then you're hoping that they're panicking because they're behind at home. Yeah. I mean, that's, that's football for you, right? That it always comes down to a couple of these things, but they couldn't have done a better job. The Vikings defense on giving them a chance in that first half and early in the second half to get those red zone opportunities. They literally take the ball away from them inside their own 10, and I think that was one they didn't score on at all. Yeah, so when you get into, we'll just go drive by drive.

Early in the game, the offense had stalled for most of the game. They complete a 31-yard pass to Jefferson in the early stages. This is second quarter now. First and goal at the five-yard line. Here's what they did. They ran the ball once with Cam Akers for two yards, got to the three-yard line. Second and goal from the three-yard line. Incomplete, incomplete, incomplete. Turnover on downs. Okay, well, great. The defense made an an awesome play Ivan Pace Jr. he's a demon out there he ends up somehow catching the ball that Josh Metellus tipped into the air so you got the ball back wow first and goal at the seven yard line incomplete incomplete incomplete

25 yard field goal for Will Reichert not good maybe they'll switch it up after halftime. Somehow the Vikings only trail by four, given the fact that they didn't at any point cash in on their opportunities. They march right down the field. Cam Akers bust one for 58. God, I'm sure Kevin O'Connell was hoping he was going to score there because at that point, I think you're right. He's probably rattled. What do I go to in the red zone? What do I go to in the low red zone? First and goal from the five yard line, run up the middle for Cam Akers for no gain, pass short to Aaron Jones for three yards. And then it's third and goal from the two yard line. And I remember I turned to you during the game and I said, you talk about play style. You talk all about play style. You're down by four points now. You're on the road, opening drive of the second half, third and goal from the two. That's two runs right up the middle. If they stop you, okay. If they don't, you get to flex your muscles and talk about this play style that you've preached all season, which means physicality, the more physical team. The play style of the Vikings this year has been

predicated on trying to go out there and be the more physical team. You had an opportunity to do that coming out of halftime, third and goal from the two, incomplete, incomplete, turnover on downs. That was the ball game. It really was. I know the Vikings cut it to 10-9, but at some point, the Lions were going to wake up. And when they did, the game was over. They ran away with it. I also want to just throw out there that if you can't put in Ty Chandler after a guy has a 58 yard run to the point where you have to hand it off to him again, then why do you have Ty Chandler? I just, that's what I was wondering in that moment, who, what running back would run 58 yards and then get drilled on the sideline and then be ready to go to run again. That was, that was another. And then Jones is out there after that, another kind of perplexing decision

among a few of them tonight with things like that. And with Jones's health, it's another something that we're concerned about now as they have to go right from here to Los Angeles. They don't get the week off for Aaron Jones to get to a hundred percent. Clearly he was not because cam acres was in the game a lot tonight, but I also couldn't figure that out. So acres stays in the game. They run for zero yards. Then Jones comes back in after he had not been in the game for a while there. And how healthy is he really is a pretty good question, but they did run the ball overall pretty effectively. Jones didn't look bad running the ball today. They were getting four or five, six, seven yards on the ground. And it just was

sort of classic Kevin O'Connell, not wanting to stick with it. And I understand why, because you want to get into a shootout here, but it really did feel like they might run on first down, not ever else. Even when the game is tight, even when you get six yards on the first run, it was always going right back to the passing game. And it was often, there was a play early on where in the, in the second half early on where it was very clear, still like Sam Darnold's not right. And they run a play action where air, uh, Jordan Addison, who was non-existent in this game. But I guess if your quarterback's that far off, I can't blame too many of the wide receivers and Darnold throws it about 12 yards short of him. Just, just stepped into a

play action and it was nowhere close. And I kind of thought you're going to have to keep handing that off. You're not, you can't run these deep developing routes, not tonight with the way that they're rushing, which was a big surprise, but a Zedarius Smith. Whoa, when it matters, Zedarius Smith is a freaking beast. You guys remember from examples as every time he played them or when he played for the Minnesota Vikings and he did it again tonight, but to run that play action and try to take a shot downfield when your quarterback looks like that. Again, was a, you might just be believing a little too much. And to pull up for a 52-yard field goal, assuming it's going to go in, when your kicker has not been the same person since he came back,

is just believing a little too much. And I am all for, very much all for, Kevin O'Connell's strategy. They're 14-3, and by the end of the show, we may have to remind everybody of that, about how good this season has been a historically good season for the Vikings. It's driven by their head coach. No, nobody's trading for him, Jay Glazer. Okay. But there are some times where I think you don't have to prove that you believe in someone over and over and over every single week. You have to make the most pragmatic decisions and to try to push it down the field

when so clearly the short passing game was your only chance in this game of getting going, started out just right behind the sticks again. Then you can't run on second down in 10, then it's got to be three passes and that's your only choice. And you could see how these things kind of stack on top of each other and keep building to the point where then you're punting the ball away or trying a 52 yard field goal. And that to me was, was a big mistake. Uh, but also with Reichard now halfway through the season, we're thinking this is the best kicker ever and he may never miss. And he was going to grow his hair down to his kneecaps or whatever.

And before he wasn't going to cut it until he like, that's where we were at with him. And now when he walks out there, I'm not sure what's going to happen. And where I think something is really not right with Will Reichardt is the kickoff at the end of the first half. And this doesn't matter. It was 31 to nine, but it might've mattered is he kicks the ball off and it just squirts out of bounds. What, what is happening there? Exactly. The special teams this year, we got to call a spade a spade. It has been bad. It's been a bad special teams unit. They can't return for anything that either side kick or punt returning. Brandon Powell was good last year for them. Literally fell on his face on his first attempt to punt return. The kicking has now gone

from great to at the end of the year. So it's going to be, I think around 80%, which is not that good in the NFL. And they can't, they can't kick the ball off today. I mean, that's inexcusable. They gave up a field goal because they couldn't kick the ball off. That's those are the little things that separate you. Some of the play calling stuff, some of the feel for the game stuff, not being able to run or wanting to run when you have to. These are all things that have cropped up throughout the season, but they weren't playing the best team in the national football league, which I think it's either Kansas city, Buffalo or Detroit or Baltimore. Those are the teams that can win the super bowl, right? I think we've decided after tonight, those are the

teams that can win the super bowl. So I don't want to be as fatalistic as all of you who, you know, I got a lot tonight, like, see, they told you, I like they're 14 and three. So I'm not sure that's really how that works. But, uh, when it comes to this matchup, because of the rules now, if the NFL had a system that made sense being 14 and three, wouldn't send you out to LA, but it doesn't. Now, if the NFL had a system that made sense, being 14 and three wouldn't send you out to LA, but it doesn't. So those are the rules. But I do think that things like this are probably not going to change if they, if they weren't going to change tonight in this type of situation where you're going to read the room as the play caller and sort of adjust accordingly or your special teams is going to show up when it really has an all year or whatever number of things. The fact that Jared Goff can throw to the middle of the field time and time and time and time again against the Vikings.

These things I don't have real answers for. There's clearly something they know about the Vikings defense or they're just amazing that could also be the explanation but when they've done it for about 11 straight matchups there's something they know there these if they are able to overcome some of the shortcomings with blocking which I thought was an issue and, and picking up blitzes, which clearly they prepared Arizona did it. Atlanta did it at times green Bay actually didn't foolishly. And then, or not as much anyway. And then Detroit comes and sends a bunch of blitzes. There's answers to this team that are very likely to prevent them from reaching the Super Bowl. If they were able to beat this Lions team tonight,

I would have said Kevin Garnett style, anything is possible. They could beat anybody. They're going to sit at home, and good luck to everybody who comes to U.S. Bank Stadium. But there's another statement we can make. On the road versus at home, it is a different story. I don't think other than Arizona, they played a bad game at home all year long. And on the road, we saw bad at Jacksonville, pretty mediocre at Tennessee.

Who's going to draft number one overall. We saw pretty bad at Los Angeles. It's just, and then their worst game of the year here. It's just a different story when this team has to go on the road. And I don't know any other way to put it, but it's going to be very, very unlikely that they can overcome those things and go on the road, on the road, on the road to be able to reach the Super Bowl. Yeah, I think that's why this loss probably hits like a ton of bricks for everyone who's still awake back home, afraid to go to sleep because you've got to wake up on a Monday. The Sunday scaries are real right now for Vikings fans because I think heading into the night, there were a lot of people who finally just decided, you know what, screw it, I'll buy in.

I think they can win the Super Bowl. I thought they could win the Super Bowl heading into tonight. And I think that's why this loss is so damaging, because like you said, the things that have consistently popped up over the course of the season but haven't all manifested themselves in one game, all manifested themselves in one game against a team you're going to need to beat to go to the Super Bowl, against a team who is the Super Bowl favorites right now. I would assume they are in Vegas. And if they aren't after tonight, I don't know why we do betting lines. They're a powerhouse football team on both sides of the ball and have just continuously overcome injuries. But with the Vikings, I thought as they were building and getting better and it felt like

each week they were taking steps forward with still with room to grow like i thought it might all just click and what better way or what better place for it to all click than on the road week 18 against the super bowl favorites with a chance to win the one seed and instead of it all clicking and coming together in really nice fashion all your weaknesses and all your shortcomings all kind of came together and then what resulted was a mess out there so look i i think we are going to need to pump the brakes a little bit i i think they can beat the los angeles rams and then if they beat the los angeles rams and they get back on track like this team has shown at times that they are capable of

overcoming adversity of pushing through when it looks like everyone should jump off this bandwagon. They keep going and riding down the tracks. And then all of a sudden it's full again. There's a world where they put it all together and they come back here and they give these guys a fight. But like you said, I just can't see it all coming together in the fashion that allows them to actually contend with this team on this field in this environment. This team is good. 14 and three. They are very good. The team on the other side of the sideline, they're great. They are one of the best teams in football if not the best team in football and there are levels to this thing in the nfl there just are it doesn't mean this season was a failure

and i'm not saying the season is over but i think tonight was a reminder that like they gotta pitch a perfect game to contend with this team they kind of did in the first half on defense and had a couple things gone differently this is a I think a dogfight to the end but if you give Detroit anything they'll bite a kneecap and they'll keep going and and I think we saw that tonight there are levels to this thing the Vikings aren't there unless they play perfectly and we have not seen them play perfectly this year. So I'm trying to think about, is there any overreaction element to this? I mean, of course it's a football game, so that's what we do, right? But if you were trying to make the other argument, now I tend to believe that if the Vikings, let's say it was the old system and they just, uh, which maybe you couldn't still,

if you didn't win your division, get the number two seat, but let's just say, let's say in a rational NFL, Roger, hear me out on this. The team with the second best record got the number two seat. Let's just say, let's say it was the old way where two teams got first round buys. Then I think we might've looked at this game and went, okay, if they see them again, it might be really tough and we'll see. It's so much more devastating to their chances because of the road that they now have to go on going to Los Angeles. But you could potentially look at this and say that the way that it was going through halfway through this game, if your quarterback just plays like 60% of himself, that you're probably winning by two

scores early in the game. Now on the other side, they could say, Hey, well, Jared Goff kind of gave you an interception and he doesn't usually make a lot of mistakes and he did. And they failed on some of the fourth downs, which they usually don't do things like that. But just if we follow down that path, I think that if it wasn't such a devastating punishment for losing this game to their odds, that we might've looked at it a little more like Sam Darnold hasn't been off like this all season. So he's seen this environment. The last time we saw him go off the rails was in Jacksonville. And what happened after that? He played his best football after that and

became more and more comfortable and was able to assess some of the problems he had and fix them. And with Darnold, I expected more games like this this year, just based on who Sam Darnold is, where we would walk out of the stadium. I'm sure we said this early in the year where we'd, we expected at some point to walk out of a stadium and go, what the heck was that? What was that Sam? And we're doing that today, but we've very rarely done that. So if you're making a counterpoint to that, it would be that if Sam Darnold played even a halfway decent game here, even mildly okay to compare to where he's been all season against a defense that isn't that great, then you're talking about this being a great football game and coming down to the final

field goal and being what we thought it was going to be. So maybe we're making it a little too much based on the fact that they didn't finish some drives in the red zone. I don't, I think that the truth is probably much more toward the lions are going to be impossible to be here. If the Vikings beat the Rams, which I'm not totally sure they're going to do. And the season might just end there, but I want to give some credence to the other side. That is Darnold never plays this way. And he did tonight and it was the worst time to do it. And of course the worst for the dialogue, because you know, all week, this game is going to be the focus, but the last game of the season doesn't always predict who you're going to be

in the playoffs, how far you're going to go and things like that. That's, that is the best interpretation that I could make of a case that it wasn't as far away as it actually looks on the final scoreboard. Yeah. I think it is important to have that perspective. Um, because I think the immediate reaction after a loss like this after a 24 31 to 9 loss i can't do math right now it's freaking midnight and one o'clock on the east coast um after a loss like this the reaction is like burn it down it's over the season's done i get it like you've been waiting all week for this it was a primetime game the biggest game that the nfl has seen in in two decades and then they fell flat on their face i get it i get the want to overreact but i think that perspective is necessary

because this does not automatically mean that they will go to los angeles and they will get their butt kicked and if they had just, like you said, played a halfway normal game on offense, this is probably a close game until the finish. Heck, if Will Reichardt makes that 51 yard field goal, it might still be a close game. I think Detroit probably goes right down the field and scores again, but the defense was on fire. And then I think it probably weighs on you and you have to defend a short field and blah, blah, blah. So I think there are elements to this game where you can look back and I'm sure Kevin O'Connell will, I'm sure Brian Flores will, and they will say this part, this part, this part, that's where the game turned. Other than those things, it was a pretty close game, even if the

final score would not indicate. Another thing I think is important to bring up, and I've been preaching this for the last two months, two and a half, just because Sam Darnold has a bad game, we do not need to then say, well, there it is, pumpkin, Cinderella slipper, midnight. We don't have to do that. We don't have to say he's just turned back into the person he was in New York. I do think there is pressure on him next week. I think if he comes out next week in the playoffs and looks like this again,

while I don't think it's necessarily fair to just take his entire body of work this season and reduce it to two games, I think if he comes out next week and looks like this again, it would give me some pause at least going into this off season. But I think I sat there last week after he threw for 377 yards against the Packers. And I said, this guy's just a good quarterback in the league. This guy's just a great quarterback in the league. And you know what? Sometimes good and great quarterbacks in the league play like crap sometimes they just don't show up in the biggest stage sometimes they get rattled and the crowd affects them even if

they say it doesn't and i that's what happened tonight and i don't think that just because he was the worst version of himself in prime time necessarily means he's going to go out monday and just be seeing ghosts again on the sideline. And I think that's important to say too, because I know tomorrow morning, the talking heads are going to go crazy about, see, told you I couldn't do it. I know the comments are probably freaking out about Sam Darnold and why the heck would they want to build around this guy? And you certainly have to show up when the chips are on the table. And that is not, I'm not giving him a pass for the way he played tonight, because if he played like half of himself,

they would still be in this football game. But it is important to go out and say, like, I don't think that this is just Sam Darnold, the bold, the thing is over fun story. Let's move on to JJ McCarthy. I think the story still has an opportunity to at least be

written in a way where you can feel pretty good about this guy moving forward. Tons of pressure on him next week, though. If he does this again, I don't know how much I can stand on the table. So throughout the year, we have talked about the implications repeatedly with Darnold and the decision making and everything else. And it's never been more true than whoever said we have talked about the implications repeatedly with Darnold and the decision-making and everything else. And it's never been more true than whoever said it's a week to weekly because one week ago he played the best football game. We've seen from a quarterback at a long time against the green Bay Packers,

a top five defense and ran them out of the building by being on point, making plays, all that sort of stuff from Sam Darnold, the highest of high end, the quarterback play that we saw one week ago, only in central time. So it was way better. But then we see tonight the Darnold coaster that hasn't really existed since the middle of the season. And it also had the feel of maybe the Jets game,

except for the Jets had no real offense and they got a lot more opportunities and so forth. But where the throwing was just not quite right and something didn't feel good about Sam Darnold. And you do have to be able to lock it back in after struggling. You do have to be able to get a bucket and get going, which it never really seemed like Sam Darnold did. There were a few completions. The big one to Jefferson was huge for getting in scoring position because they did get in scoring position those four times, and three of them was from their drives. So it's not like they never moved the ball in this game or that he had no completions or anything like that. There were some opportunities, but it was always a foot off here, a foot off there, which is you could say that, yeah, it just happens and

is a bad game and move on. At the same time, the best quarterbacks doesn't happen to as often. And when you have a past history of being very inconsistent and inaccurate then everyone is going to go back to that and i don't think that the vikings are immune from having that thought themselves of wait did the magic carpet ride just end of course it's unfair to do that about one game when you have this huge body of work but it was the biggest game. And I've always thought through this entire thing that the biggest games always shape the opinions, the strongest. And this happens in every sport where decisions might be mostly made going into the playoffs, but what those playoffs look like will shape the decision-making. And I'll give you an example. The Vikings went to Philadelphia and

lost 38 to seven and sat on a bench over there, their decision-makers and said, we need to go get a better quarterback. And that's how Kirk cousins ended up getting here. If they lost that game 38 to 34 in Philly case, Keenum might've been the quarterback the following season. In fact, he probably would have been if he had played well in that game. So the what's coming next for Sam Darnold could absolutely make a decision for the Vikings. I mean, I think that already we've reached the point where we have gone too far to just say, sayonara, my friend, after this many wins, he goes 18 for 41 and they lose 31 to nine against the Rams. I don't know. I I'm, I'm, I'm a, just a realist when it comes to decision makers and the reactionary nature, we saw this

ownership keep Mike Zimmer because they won one of these playoff games against the new Orleans saints. So they are not above being reactionary owners either when it comes to things like that. And let's just say that they get beaten by the Rams. They might say, we need a lot more talent in the roster. And I will, I'll tell you that watching them against Detroit, there were times where I thought tonight, this is a real true Superbowl roster. They've still got some work to do when it comes to this. They've got some old line work to do.

They've got some other steps that they need to take into the future and how they're going to take them will also be impacted by the quarterback position. So that decision, what we've always wanted was the full picture, and next week begins getting the full picture. This is a data point, and it is a data point that is not this big. I'm making a tiny thing with my fingers. If you're listening audio, it's this big, it's that's much bigger. It is it's, it's 10 times, right? More of a data point.

It, when your quarterback shows up and completely plays like a backup level or a, or a third overall bust for a night where you've got the whole nation watching. And that's the type of performance that you put together. It has to be weighed. It just has to, there's no other way you can do it. I, let me just add Lamar Jackson has choked in playoff games. Mahomes blew a second half lead against the Bengals. Mahomes played bad in a Super Bowl. It does happen. I love that Eli stat that he didn't win any playoff games except for the two times he won four in a row and won the Super Bowl.

I do think that sometimes it gets done that way in the NFL. So what you're saying is I think you're correct in the way that you're thinking about it is you can't let this small sample size of two games totally shape where you're correct in the way that you're thinking about it is you can't let this small sample size of two games totally shape where you're going in the future after seeing 14 wins in the regular season, but there's no way to get it out of your mind if something happens in the playoff. So next week will be really big for Sam Darnold and how he responds will matter. Yeah, and that's why this game for him, like obviously it's damaging for the Vikings, but that's why this game for him is so damaging

is because now it does create this pressure cooker moving forward. And to his credit, he has not succumbed to that pressure this year. He is a pretty California cool guy. Things seem to kind of just roll off his shoulder. I don't know if I would go to that length and say he's going to be feeling the pressure. If I don't perform, I'm going to maybe not be here moving forward. I don't think any of that really goes through his brain. At least it hasn't throughout this regular season.

But you're right. Like a data point in like a scatterplot of data points. Like this one shows up bigger because it's the biggest game of the year against the best team in the NFC. And if this is how you perform in the biggest game of the year against the best team in the NFC, how are you going to perform in the tournament? We're going to find out next week.

If he comes out against LA, lights it up, looks like the Sam Darnold that played against the Green Bay Packers at US Bank Stadium, I think moving forward, you could say regardless of what happens in that rematch with Detroit, you can feel good about where he's where he's going where you're going as a franchise with him but if he does this again yes whether it's fair to him or unfair to him whether taking two games of a sample size as opposed to 18 games as a sample size is fair. It's just the reality.

It's the reality, and the reality also is that we thought this team was close walking into Ford Field today. And if they kick the crap out of the Rams next week in impressive fashion and the offense looks great and they come back into Detroit, I might walk back into Detroit saying if they beat these guys, I think they could do it again. But I'm going to walk out of Ford Field right now thinking next week is going to matter so much for the direction of this franchise, where they want to take it with who's leading the charge. It's just the way it is in the NFL. And I think it was always going to be a

field thing with Sam Darnall. I think we were always going to just kind of know if he should be back or not. At least that's how I've been operating. I think if he gets his doors blown off next week in Los Angeles, you're just going to know. You're going to feel like, I don't feel great about that. I think if he performs well next week and you win a hard or lose a hard-fought game in two weeks, you could just be feeling like this team is very good in, in the Detroit lions.

So, so much, you know, at stake for this guy who has to his credit, rewritten the narrative of his career. He deserves all the credit for that. Everyone thought he was a bust myself included. Everyone thought there's no way he could ever reach a level of play that was

worthy of being drafted number three overall. And then he went and did it for an entire regular season. He went 14 and three. They should be the two seed. They are the five seed. But when the chips are on the table, you got to perform. He did not do that tonight. And if he does not do that next week, you know, everything is on the table for this franchise. So is there anything else that you wanted to highlight from the evening's events before final statements? I mean, I think if you're building off of something from this game, like I think turnovers itself, like forcing them is not the best recipe to win on defense. But then again, this defense does it at an extremely high rate.

They've forced a turnover now in every single game of the regular season. So like there are things to build off of on defense and going into the Los Angeles, I think you can lock onto a couple of these things on defense. I know the conversation we want to have and the conversation that deserves to be had after a game like this is how putrid the offense was. I think we've talked at length about that. But just quickly to bring up the defense, I thought they were great tonight, even if the 31 points would not suggest it.

And I think you can build off of that moving forward. I think they should latch on to some of the things they did early in the game and the energy with which they played and the fact that they were able to rattle a guy who was pretty unrattled all year. You can latch onto that and feel pretty good. I think as that side of the ball, as Brian floor is coaching that side of the ball heading into the playoffs, I think there are things to build off of from defense heading into next week. I think the most frustrating part of this is trying to sort through all of the narrative stuff that we're going to talk about this week. But walking out of here, my head's swimming a little bit with, they went 14 and three.

And how many times did I come in and say like, they're 12 and two, they're whatever. like they went 14 and three. It's so rare. It's so difficult. They beat the Packers twice. They had a tough road here to London and to LA on the short, you know, rest. And that was how they lost the game and all that sort of stuff, right? That it wasn't an easy way to get here to 14 and three, an incredible season for Kevin O'Connell. It's either him or Dan Campbell for coach of the year. Dan Campbell probably just solidified it. Honestly, I think a lot of people wanted to pick O'Connell, but it may be now impossible not to pick Dan Campbell for coach of the year.

And he's absolutely deserving. Unbelievable turnaround to this franchise. So many good things have happened to this team this year. Jefferson had the season everybody dreamed of when you signed his extension. around to this franchise. So many good things have happened to this team this year. Jefferson had the season everybody dreamed of when you signed his extension. The front office made just a bevy of tremendous moves. Cam Akers with one of the potential plays of the game today. That's a mid-season pickup. Cam Robinson, mid-season pickup. The way they built the defense. There's so many accolades they're getting the

pro bowlers and everything else. And yet here we are kind of reading them their last rights, right? Like this is it for you. Like we've dug the hole and we've built the box. And now all you got to do is jump in it in the playoffs and we can all bury you. And that's a hard thing because realistically you went for maybe a 50, 50 shot or better to go play in the Superbowl at us bank stadium to probably now you have to put them 20% or less. It's probably less to go all the way to the Superbowl, knowing that you likely have to beat this team again, or you, you do. If you beat LA, you got to beat the Lions again, and you've lost to them twice. They didn't even play their best game.

If they played their best game, what does that look like tonight? That could have looked way worse if they played their best game. So what is going to be, I think, talked about with the fans is we never believed in them the whole time. They were always frauds. They didn't deserve to be here. They were never that good. And you guys sold us a bill of goods, which I've seen all night long. And congratulations to you. I guess you saw the future and knew better than anybody else what was going to happen tonight. All the hundreds and thousands of people who tried to pick this game and pick certain scores, you knew better. So congrats on that. You got what

you wanted. You got what you asked for the whole season long was for them to disappoint you at a moment like this and for Sam Darnold to come up short because a lot of you have really seemed to hope for that on a weekly basis because you don't want him to be your future quarterback. So again, congratulations on that. You got a big W tonight for all you people who have repeatedly said that over and over again, but in a different world where the system is different, I wouldn't be saying that they had a 15% chance to go. I would be saying that they had maybe a 40% chance as opposed to 50, but that's not the world we live in. And it's a bad break for them that maybe Roger Goodell will fix next year as he did with the overtime

rules after Brett Favre. It's been a frustrating season of watching Vikings fans wait for this moment over and over and over again and seemingly celebrate it when they got it here tonight with Darnold and the Vikings losing. I don't really know what I'm supposed to make of that. Maybe a therapist could help a lot of you figure that out. But I think that this is everything that's been nice that's been said about this team has been true, where they're going, the direction, the leadership and everything else. The reality may be A, a bad break, and B, there's one team that is just better that is destined to go to the Super Bowl. But I will say before we wrap up, 1987, the Minnesota Vikings,

I'm going to throw back here, the Minnesota Vikings played a horrible game to end the season. And everybody wrote their obituaries there. They ended up one pass completion away from potentially going to the Superbowl. So you never know what's going to happen in the NFL. If we knew what was going to happen, we wouldn't play the games. And nobody had this team as 14 and three ever anywhere. No one had them finishing with this type of season. And in a world where the teams are close, the division was close this year. Anything can happen going through the playoffs. So I'm sure we'll spend the next week talking all about the future quarterback position,

who they're going to trade Kevin O'Connell to, which effing free agents they're going to sign on the offensive line and all that stuff that all of you guys so desperately want. I'm sure that that is what we'll spend a lot of time on. But why don't we see how it plays out first? Because I recall, and I don't know how it's going to play out, but I recall going into week one, having a lot of people already quit on the season because J.J JJ McCarthy got hurt

and they came into this game with a chance to win the one seed. So maybe we don't have to do that. And we can preview a playoff game that we weren't sure at all at the beginning of the season that the Vikings would be even playing in much less go into with a better record than the other team by kind of a lot. So that's, that's my, my final statement. I think I've been kind of up to my ears lately in all of the fatalism and all of the desperation to talk about what's coming next in the future, rather than enjoying the ride. But again, you were made right tonight by the Minnesota Vikings. They let you down again. They pulled the Charlie Brown football away and you swung and fell on your

butts. And I guess that's why you act this way. Cause that's what they've done so many times. So maybe I can't blame you anyway. Dan, your final thoughts. Yeah, we got to get away from that because like the way that people have kind of

viewed this season, like through the prism with which they viewed this season, is I'm going to be correct unless they win the Super Bowl. And truthfully, only one team gets to win the Super Bowl, and the Lions have looked like the team that was probably going to win the Super Bowl the entire season. Patrick Mahomes might just go Tom Brady in his prime and win the Super Bowl again because that's what the greatest of all times do. So the people who all season long have been just saying

they're fake, they're frauds, this is not real. Oh, I finally have hopped on the bandwagon and I'm ready to get hurt again. If the criteria for this to be a successful season was the Super Bowl, then I don't know why we watched the sports in the first place. But I think I'll just bring it back to whoever said it's a week to week league is correct. It is a week to week league. I walked into Detroit at Ford Field thinking they could win the Super Bowl because a week ago they looked like they could. I will walk out of the Ford Field in Detroit thinking, I don't know if they can because of what happened today. If next week they go to Los Angeles, a tough travel against Matthew Stafford,

who has a ring against Sean McVay, who is a boy genius turned Super Bowl champion. If in this week to week league, the Vikings go and beat the Rams on the road and Sam Darnold looks great and the defense looks great again, I'm telling you what, I bet a lot of people hop right back on that bandwagon because it's a week-to-week league. So let's just see the week through. Let's not go to figure out what's going to happen at the Combine in February

and owner's meetings after that and the draft and free agency. Like this is a 14 and three football team that gets to play a playoff game next week. We deserve to at least talk about that and to prepare for that. It's a week-to-week league. If they win that game, I think people will be feeling pretty emboldened in their takes on this team heading into wherever they head after that. So go to bed, everybody. It's late. I'm sure you're frustrated.

But take a breath. Realize that that's a good football team on the other side of the ball. The Vikings played as bad as you could possibly play tonight, but they still get to go into the tournament tomorrow and it was pretty cool to be playing the eight mile thing with eminem in the building very cool you know if you grew up at a certain time and maybe were graduating high school in 2004 like some of us or you're in middle school song was pretty big you know lose yourself all that uh to have the whole crowd

rapping with it was was pretty cool so detroit hey shout out detroit they put on a tremendous show they built a tremendous team and they deserve to go into this as the super bowl favorite regardless of some of their injuries because they earned it with a win tonight over the Minnesota Vikings. And as we put odds on teams chances to go to the Super Bowl, I think the Vikings will be decidedly third. That might tell you something right there again about what we were just talking about is, well, you went from first to third. I would put Philadelphia ahead and I would put the Lions ahead, but those are still the only two teams

that we could talk about. I remember saying at the beginning of the year that this season would be a big success if they went to Detroit with something to play for. Well, they went to Detroit with everything to play for and came up short, and now we will see what happens next. Dane and I, of course, will be in Los Angeles podcasting from their press box next week.

And so we'll see how that goes and continue to follow the ride here with all of you. So thank you so much for staying up very late. My computer's on central time. It's actually 1.30 where we are. And that is unpleasant. I got to tell you. So both of us still got some work to do on the writing side, sign up for the purple insider newsletter,

read the freaking pioneer press. And, uh, we will see you back in Minnesota tomorrow. Thanks everybody again. And we will catch y'all later football. Later. Football.