Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Deep diving into why Justin Jefferson has been slowed down recently

Episode Date: September 27, 2022

Former Minnesota Viking Jeremiah Sirles joins Matthew Coller to go through Kevin O'Connell's explanation for why Justin Jefferson hasn't gotten off to the start we expected outside of his first half against the Green Bay Packers. Should O'Connell make changes or stick to his guns? Is he saying that Jefferson needs to understand the offense better or that he needs to do things differently? Plus, is the defense doing something wrong schematically? And Lewis Cine tweeted after the game.  -- For more of Matthew's Vikings coverage, head to purpleinsider.substack.com For bonus discussions, interview clips, and more videos, check out our YouTube channel! Interact with us on Twitter! @Purple_Insider Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What's that sound you hear coming from the trenches? It's former Minnesota Viking offensive lineman Jeremiah Searles. It's time for the Tuesday morning left guard show on Purple Insider. They're too strong, my dog. You're too strong. Oh, we are back in our normal format. No one is whispering in an airport. No one is shooting bears or whatever you were doing. Jeremiah Searles, Tuesday morning left guard.

What is up? It's even a Tuesday morning. I mean, we are really, really back here. What's up, man? I mean, I'm three for three on Tuesday morning so far. I'm just throwing that out there. I'm three for three. We're just going to keep this thing rolling because we got a good thing going i mean the vikings won surprisingly i did not think they were going to but they won so things are good here um husker nation is not in a good place but that's okay we can we don't

have to get into that the sky is falling in lincoln but the gopherville rowing the boat straight to the big 10 west title, in my opinion. You know, I think you just bring in Urban Meyer and then everything. Stop it. Hey, didn't Kansas try that with Les Miles? And that did not work so well. But Lance Leipold, who I can actually say my guy, Lance Leipold, because I covered him at the University of Buffalo. And actually, he was the one that told me when the Vikings drafted K.J. Osborne,

like, dude, this guy is legit. K.J. Osborne, he said, was one of the smarter players that he'd ever had, and he wouldn't be surprised if he succeeded. And there he is, game-winning touchdown against the Lions. It reminded me of, in terms of the tenor after the game, when the Vikings beat the Jaguars 2020 and Mike Zimmer came out and was just like, no, no, it's gotta be better than that. And that's exactly what we've heard from Kevin O'Connell and Kirk cousins and anyone else who's talked is that there just has

to be better execution. So I have some quotes from Kevin O'Connell and instead of what does that stat mean? I think we need to play. What does that quote mean? But I wanted to get your, your like big picture takeaway. Like, is that reasonable for them to look at that game and go, yeah, we won, but we can't really be thrilled by it. Yeah. But I'll say this winning in the NFL is hard.

Like it is really hard to do week to week. You're seeing it in every single game that's played the talent gap is so small between an 0 and 16 team and a 16 and 0 team like it really is a very small margin so anytime you can get a win in the NFL like you'd celebrate it but it's also so much easier to go back and make corrections off of a win than a blowout like in Philly where you think every play like was that the difference was that the difference versus like okay we won so it's so much easier to make corrections but yeah they do have to play better but I will give credit to Dan Campbell and the Lions that is a much improved football team compared to what it was a year ago yo yeah no I totally agree and I

think if you're looking forward you're saying the timeline for the Lions is pretty laid out for them. They have a very talented roster. They draft a quarterback this year and then you plug that person in. Maybe they even sit for a year, continue to have Jared Goff. They're competitive. You do the Alex Smith to Mahomes thing. Like you can see it all laid out for them. Where with the Vikings, I think that the future is a lot less clear of how they're

going to handle this entire roster and that was really on display i mean penne sewell looks great i'm in ross st brown looks great like they've got some real talent there and i think this is going to be a match-up for a long time for the vikings that won't be easy uh i do wonder after that game maybe it's a hot take but i don don't know if man Campbell is going to be the guy to lead them to the promised land though. I mean, the way that he handled that game was so bizarre and haphazard. It was just the, the Joker flipping coins on what decisions they were going to make. And, uh, I, I do feel like at some point they might have to just have Aaron Glenn be their coach or someone else. I

mean, I just don't know. Like he got them through the darkest times, but a lot, a lot in a lot of circumstances, that's not the guy that gets to benefit from all of those, uh, rebuild the years. No, I think you're right. You know, but the thing that is different, I feel like the team just embodies that dude's like personality, right? Like like I don't know if you don't have the crazy personality of the double fist and venti lattes personality bite and kneecaps if this team is successful as they've been now it's not you know it's not like they're three and oh or whatever it is but you know for them to be able to stay in these games and fight when there is a talent deficit on that team compared to some of the teams that they've played I think that Matt Campbell

embodies that and that his team does latch on to that now I will 100% agree compared to some of the teams that they've played. I think that Matt Campbell embodies that and that his team does latch onto that. Now I will 100% agree with you. Some of the decisions he's made, you're like, are you, are you okay? Did you, did you hit your head? Did you get a targeting penalty? But you know, I think that overall I I'm a Dan Campbell fan. I like him. He's a gritty fighter personality. You think he's a former alignment if I don't recall. So tight end, tight end, he's an extension of the O-line. So we'll take him. He's a gritty fighter personality. I think he's a former O-lineman, if I don't recall. Tight end. Tight end.

He's an extension of the O-line, so we'll take him. But, yeah, you're right. They're going to go get some big-name coach after they go like 8-8 and they barely miss the playoffs in the wild card, and they're going to go get some big-name hot coach, and then they'll finally make it over the hump. Yeah, but that will be something that I think we're tracking is Detroit, Minnesota, like how the timelines end up matching up. And then even for the next game, you can't just write in a W when you go to Detroit to play them because there's a lot of talent there. And they also did a lot of things that really worked, which is kind of the main subject here of the show is why wasn't the offense working? I mean, in Philadelphia, it would be very easy to say,

Philadelphia's just got a great defense. They have a great player in Darius Slay. He shut down Justin Jefferson. Life goes on. And you're on the road. Tough environment. Kevin O'Connell's first road game. But against Detroit, I mean, Washington put up points against Detroit.

And the Vikings really struggled throughout that game. And so I've got a couple of quotes that I used in an article from Kevin O'Connell specifically regarding Justin Jefferson struggles to get the ball. And I'm having trouble making sense of exactly what they mean. So should we say, is this like maybe light jazz? What does this stat mean? Or like grunge? I think it's a smooth jazz because it's more it's just yeah what does that stat mean what does it mean what oh quote what does that quote mean what does that quote mean

it's like scatting right they're just yeah yeah stuff out there and we're just trying to is that good is that bad do we like this kind of said some words what do they mean okay um all right so he's he said this i've got three or four of these uh i he this is kevin o'connell i think he being jefferson had eight or nine total snaps in the game where he didn't have some variation of a double team now let's talk about double teams because there's the famous video of Calvin Johnson where two dudes line up right over him. And it's just preposterous. It's like what you do in a high school game.

That's not how double teams normally work. They normally work. Someone is pressing and then someone else is over the top. It, this, if this worked all the time, we wouldn't have receivers with 120 catches so so is that a valid excuse for why they were unable to get justin jefferson the ball because i tend to think not you know it is something when you schematically scheme it's called bracketing a receiver you bracket him right so you have the press safety but you always have a safety to that side you know what alleviates that and what you see is why receivers get that

is it's the short passing game. Like you can bracket a receiver and that takes away the deep middle cross. It takes away the fade. It takes away the corner route. But like what it doesn't take away is if that safety is standing at 12 yards, it doesn't take away the 8 to 10-yard slant or the 8 to 10-yard hook. And, you know, those were the things that were missing to Jefferson. you know, so much of his game is down the field and press the field and wide open things. But when you bracket a receiver, you do take those away, you know,

so that's a little bit of a combination of what the defense does, but also the play calling for how do we get him the ball? You know, so much of it is if we're not getting him down 10 plus yards receiving, like let's find a way to do a bubble screen. Let's find a way to just get the ball in his hands. You know, so that's not a real valid excuse, but it is something that the defenses did to us and offensively, schematically, we didn't adjust to that. And the other piece of it is other receivers have to win. If you're going to bracket Justin Jefferson,

which every team's going to do, then Thielen, Osborne, Rager, whoever it is, has to win on the other side where you're on a one-on-one matchup or you're not a bracket or you're playing against the nickel in the slot. Like, you have to win those matches, and Kirk has to plug them the ball so it loosens up the coverage so then you can get those deep shots to Jefferson and you can get those play-action shots because right now, just locking in on 18 is not doing the trick.

And interestingly, lined up out of 72 total snaps, 56 were as a wide receiver for Jefferson, which is not like kind of the expectation of him moving around often. That's putting him on the outside and allowing Jeff Okuda to lock into him. But against Philadelphia, they had him in the slot much more often, and the Eagles just mostly did that anyway. I think that when you look at the upcoming opponents, you're going to see Marshawn Lattimore,

let's see, Xavier Howard for Miami, Jalen Johnson for Chicago. This is going to happen on a week-to-week basis where some of these good corners in the NFL are going to travel with him, particularly because I think everyone watched what green Bay did and said, Nope, can't be doing that. Can't be playing a bunch of zone coverage and let him run all over the field. So that's an adjustment they're going to have to make. But now here's another quote for what does that quote mean?

What does it mean? Kevin O'Connell said, I think the most important thing for Justin is to continue the evolution of understanding. He's had a ton of success in this league. He's going to see different variations of defenses that he's going to have to plan for. We're going to have to plan for him that allows him to move within the offense but still say true to who we want to be now does that kind of point to hey justin you need to also figure some things out or not because i wasn't sure how to really interpret that yeah that's a weird i

didn't i didn't hear that quote that's can, I almost need you to read it again because there's a lot, there's a lot to unpack there. I'll do it with the light symbol. Um, he says, I think, and, and O'Connell works in a lot of words. Okay. So there are times where the, the phrasing and tenses and things like that, you're a little like, what was going on there? Uh, but he says says i think the most

important thing for justin is to continue the evolution of understanding he's had a ton of success in this league he's going to see different variations of defenses that he's going to have to plan for we're going to have to plan for him that allows him to move within our offense and stay true to who we're going to be. So if you followed that, it seems like it starts in a place that kind of puts it on Jefferson and then works back to a place that says, no, actually we have to do different stuff. You know? Yeah, I think that's exactly right. So part of me is looking back going, okay, was the Kubiak offense really simple? You know, and you usually keep it as simple for a young player who's playing a lot as a rookie and as a second-year guy, right?

Like, you keep it simple for those guys because when they're having success, you don't want to be like, okay, now let's read this. Let's look at that. Like, just do what you're doing. Now, I do think the KOC offense is probably a little bit more complex, a little bit more checks, a little bit more reads, a little bit more option routes, and those type of things. And so you saw it against the Eagles game where when they threw that deep shot and Jefferson didn't cut off the safety and it ended up being a pick,

you let the safety come across his face, right? You can't do those type of things. And so that's what I think he's talking about. Like you have to reinvent yourself as a player. And I think I've talked about this on the podcast before, but every year in the NFL, you have to reinvent yourself as a player because especially if you have a lot of success, that's what the entire defensive staff and the entire, especially corners in your division are going to look at of how do we stop this guy? And I think we're seeing a little bit of that you know for a long time it was feeling like how do we stop feeling and then

jefferson was winning the others i think it's switched now to where everyone is so hyper focused on jefferson he does have to reinvent himself and maybe his releases maybe how he gets out of breaks at the top of his route how he wins certain one-on-one matchups of 50 50 balls or whatever it may be so i think that's where kevin's talking about that with him but also he's right I mean they've got to find ways to scheme him open you know Cooper Cup schemes open now he wins a lot but they do a great job of scheming him open Stefan Diggs and the Bills they scheme him open right they find ways and motions or where he lines up or I mean Debo Samuel's the perfect example they always put him in the backfield and they put a linebacker on him then run him on a seam route like there's so many ways schematically that it is a two-fold thing but I think a lot of that is him telling

Jefferson too like you have to take some onus on why you're not getting the ball like you're right receivers that get bracketed do have 120 catches a year why is he not it might be a little two-fold both on the staff but both on him just not being able to win even when the cards are stacked against him okay i think the next quotes that i have here sort of speak to your instinct on this matter um okay so the next one is uh what does that quote mean uh o'connell said early on we missed some chances to get justin some chances that might have gotten him going a little bit i have to do a good job preparing him and equipping him with the things he needs to help him have an impact no matter how he's being defended now again these are kind of winding roads that you follow along but from this one we missed some chances early on to get Justin the ball. That made me

think, did that mean that Justin did something to not have him get a chance or the quarterback did something to have Justin not get a chance? The connections that you just mentioned, Josh Allen and Matt Stafford, they really have like a special bond with their number one wide receiver. I don't know that that's ever been the case necessarily with Cousins and his top wide receivers. So that made me kind of think at first in the quote, like, oh, okay, well, maybe Cousins was supposed to throw it to Jefferson and it didn't happen. And then the second part of it is, well, maybe he didn't do something right within the offense early on that he was supposed to do that would have gotten him a chance.

But I think that there's a lot of evidence starting to pile up in these comments that Justin needs to do some other things, which is very interesting because the guy was essentially untouchable for two years. And now we're getting these like hints of, does he not quite have the offense down? You know, I think it's everything you just mentioned, but the other piece of that is because it is a new offense. I think KOC Kirk and Jefferson are still learning how defenses are going to

play that. You know, I think it, it does come back to, you can say, well, did Kirk not throw in the ball or, but when you're scheming up against your offense versus a defense that you know I think it does come back to you can say well did Kirk not throw in the ball or but when you're scheming up against your offense versus a defense that you haven't played against

yet like you might have a play on your opening 25 script that's like okay we want to get Jefferson the ball six times here but you come out and the looks just not right you know and so you have you do have to check to a play or maybe you have a play called that's into a look that you want to get Jefferson the ball but you just don't have time to check to it or whatever may be and so those might be the chances that he's missing too you know I think that it's really easy to look internally and be like is it Kirk is it Jefferson or whatever but you know these are new defenses that we're seeing they're this defense has changed the way that they've played the Kubiak offense versus the Kevin O'Connell offense like it is very different you're seeing more um you're seeing a lot more blitzing this year you know I've seen guys that have come after

cousins a lot more because they do saw they watched LA last year they're like well what got Stafford off schedule was when we blitzed him and got him off his rhythm so you're seeing more blitzing this year than I think we've seen in the last couple years so the ball's coming out quicker which doesn't allow the developing route so there's a lot that goes into this and I think it's really easy for us to sit here and go week three, like, well, look what he did week one. Why isn't it happening now? Like, I think it is going to be an evolution over the year.

And it is going to be everyone involved from the offensive coordinator to the quarterback, to the O-line, to the running backs, picking up protections, to Jefferson being able to win now as the star receiver and going up and making the catches and splitting the double team and doing whatever it has to be. So I think that that's all encompassing for what we need to see out of Jefferson in this offense but I'm going to keep going back to it Thielen and Osborne those guys have to win more they have to win more and Kirk has to understand I can't just throw to 18 like I know you want to and I know that you want to get him going early but the way to get pressure

off him is to get these other guys going and these other guys I mean I was watching I remember watching the Philly game everyone's screaming like Thielen has zero targets zero targets zero target well you saw some more targets to him this week and Osborne those guys but those dudes have become way more involved in the past game and then things will definitely start to open up because as great as Jefferson is he's not at the level of a Devontae Adams yet he He's not at that level where it's like, no matter what, no matter what happens, I can just throw the ball over to that way and something's going to happen. He's getting in and he's getting really close to being that. But you're seeing the evolution of him as a receiver.

He's still a young player. Right. And this is just two games back to back where it didn't go well. And it's not the only section of his career where he's to back where it didn't go well and it's not the only section of his career where he's had games that he didn't go for 180 yards i mean i looked back at his game log and i think there were 10 games where he was under 60 yards or under 50 yards and of course they lost most of those so to get a win where he didn't play well is good for them. Now I have to switch from what is that quote mean to what does that stat mean? Because I have a stat. So when Kirk Cousins has been in the shotgun so far, and let's keep in mind, these are all small

samples. He has a 61.1 quarterback rating in the shotgun and averages about a yard less when he's under center where he has a 110.5 quarterback rating. Cousins has always been an under the center quarterback, which there are not a ton of those in the NFL these days, but he is one of them. They have about an equal amount of past attempts from either under the center or shotgun has had so much more success. Now, some of that is circumstantial with just, you know, he threw the picks out of the shotgun and they were pressing and so forth. But also even the yards per attempt are quite a bit lower out of the shotgun.

And it makes me wonder if Kevin O'Connell is going to have to look at this and say, you know, some of those things that they were doing before, we're going to have to look at this and say, you know, some of those things that they were doing before, we're going to have to kind of go back to those in previous years because asking him and the receivers to do all these things that the Rams were doing last year just might be a little much. And I think it's, it's the, the first real fork in the road for Kevin O'Connell. Do I stick with this where it hasn't really been working? I mean, there's 17th and points, 18th and yards, or do I go another direction and make an adjustment here?

And I don't know actually what the right answer is. Yeah, I don't either. There's almost something about just staying true to who you are and what you do and just kind of develop or get out of the way. But also it's the same time you see this happen with a lot of new coaches at every level, college, high school, NFL. Like sometimes it's just square pay ground hole. You know, sometimes it's you don't have the pieces to really operate the way that you would want to operate. So you do have to for a year or two years kind of do that mesh hybrid of a little bit of the system that was before you as you continue to implement more and more of your system.

And then by year's end of year two, beginning of year three, for sure, it is 100% your system. But this goes all the way back to when they hired KOC and they brought in the new GM and they were like, this isn't a rebuild. That's a lot easier when you say this is a rebuild. It's a lot easier to be like, we're just running my stuff, my stuff only, and we're just going to do this until we get it right. But when you set the expectation that this is not a rebuild, we're here to win now, you have to be willing to go back and do some stuff that worked beforehand because that's the personnel that you have. And if you don't have all of your own personnel, then you're just kind of beating your head against a wall with sometimes

because you just can't do all the things you want to do. No, this is a great point. I mean, the way that we evaluate everything is changed and shaded by the direction that they chose. They chose to keep everything together to keep Adam Thielen when there were opportunities to trade him and Kirk and everybody else. And I know that it probably gets redundant a little bit for listeners to hear me talk about this all the time, but it matters to everything. If they were through three weeks and they had chose this path where they're like, well, look, this year is going to be kind of a transition year. I think we'd be going like, okay, let's see what happens. But now it kind of feels a little, I don't want to say dire,

but it feels like really important that they make the right decision here of whether to, you know, go back to using CJ Ham on the field a lot and that bigger personnel. They threw the ball to Munt. They threw the ball to Ellefson actually successfully on some of those boots and things like that. Like, are you going to have to do that all the time and then look for those shot plays to where Jefferson doesn't get 120 catches and instead gets 80 catches,

but gets 15 yards of reception. Like that's kind of what they were doing before. Are you going to have to go back to that? Or, but if, if they hadn't gone all in with keeping the roster together, I would have said, Hey, you be you, Kevin, and you figure out who's got to stay and who's got to go and what's going to work for you. Um, so I think that that's a really, really interesting thing that we're going to watch is like, how much does this morph? He used the word evolution. I think like four times. It's like, are you sort of setting up for, no, there's going to have to be some changes after this week, um, to this offense. Now I did want to bring up with you Christian Derrissaw and his play. Christian Derrissaw in this game was a monster. He was absolutely fantastic. Gave up

no pressures at all to Aiden Hutchinson. And I think as we talk about like when now and everything else for now and for the future, I think I'm ready to declare it. I think I'm ready to declare Christian Derrissaw. Remember our meter? I think he's in the red. I think he's either in the orange or red, but I might want to go red. I think I'm ready to say that they have one of the best tackle pairs in the NFL and that Derrissaw is just going to be a really, really good player for a long time. I'm with you. I'm probably going to put him more in the orange because I want to see him do it for

an entire year. When you really see, can a guy A, stay healthy, and can he stay playing at that high level for all 17 weeks? That's when you can start to declare he's up into that echelon of a great tackle. Because there's a lot of really good tackles in this league that just can't stay healthy or just can't consistently stay at that level right um so I mean I think of a guy like Taylor Decker right like he's hot and cold some days he's an all pro caliber and then Everson Griffin used to just rip him apart right like when is there is Derrissaw going to have one of those games or he just can stay steady Eddie and the greatest thing that I love about Derrissaw is this is really truly in my opinion his first year you like last year, he didn't have any of the training camp, none of that. And now he's had all of that. And you've got to see how he prepared his body,

how he prepared mentally for this season. And you're seeing the fruition of his work on Sundays. And so that's really exciting to watch a young tackle have the success that he's having. And you can't win in this league without championship tackles. And so you have have the championship tackles but that now goes back to what we were just talking about beforehand like you have pieces like you have the pieces so it's hard for this to be like well we just have to change like i don't know i think the more we talk about him at the more i'm leaning towards just stay as yourself koc just stay as who you are and stay the course and it might be ugly as we go through things but it'll pay off in years two and three as long as this fan base when i think the organization thinks

they have their guy like just understand there's going to be big bumps in the road but man derisaw is a huge bright pot bright spot on this offense right now yeah and i guess uh the hard part about staying you is if it's not working for justin, you can't stay you. That's who it's really centered around because if you lose his trust, then it's going to be trouble. And also you're really looking for him to sign a huge extension at the end of this year. So you have to have his trust. So do you go to Justin Jefferson and say specifically, what is it that you need to make this work? What is it that's worked for you in the past? What do you want to do here?

Because the idea, other quarterbacks, I think, would just throw him the ball anyway. This quarterback will not just throw him the ball anyway. So they have to figure out what's going to work for him to get in situations where Cousins will throw him the ball. But just circling back to Derrissaw, some more delicious statistics for you. He is graded as the 14th best overall tackle in the NFL right now. And as far as pass blocking efficiency is 12th at the moment. Those are great numbers for somebody, as you said, who does not have a ton of experience. I think he's played some pretty difficult players off the bat here in Rashawn Gary and against Philadelphia. They've

got some good players and then last week against Hutchinson so that's kind of a tough start and yet he's done extremely well and I think he showed all the signs of that in training camp as well and now is sort of taking that step forward I remember I remember watching him against Bosa when we were up there for the and I was like you know Bosa got some wins and got I mean but I, man, he's holding his own against one of the best in the league. And that was when you're seeing it all come together. So yeah, he's going to continue to be tested each and every week. But when you have tackles that can protect the edges like that, like that makes defenses

have to start pressuring because if they're not getting home with four, which we've seen the Vikings not do for a few years now, which is why we've had to start ramping up pressure, which got us in trouble in years past. But if we can stay consistent and block their front four with our front or front five, then that's going to help us a ton because it makes teams pressure. And then when you pressure, that's when you can't bracket receivers. It's all encompassing,

but having two tackles that can lock up dudes on the edge has been really helpful for us. All right. Now I'm going to use a little 30 for 30 here. What if I told you do do the Garrett Bradbury do do do do ranked as the sixth best center in the NFL do do do do so far. What if I told you he's playing at a high level and it's hard for me to not. I mean, you saw it with Garrett Bowles.

I'm going to use Garrett Bowles as the example in Denver, right? First round left tackle. The first three years of his career were just atrocious. Led the league in holding penalties, had like the most sacks given up. And then all of a sudden it clicked for him and he had a really good fourth year and he got his butt paid a lot of money. So, you know, I'm never one to say, oh, it can't happen for a guy that I think it was going to happen for Bradbury off of what I'd seen. No, but he has been playing at a high level. I think this offense helps him a lot.

You talk about not having Kirk under center. I think that's a big reason why when he gave up a lot of pressures is because Kirk was under center. He had a big nose guard right over the top of him and the dude just barreled right through him. You keep Kirk in the shotgun, get that guy a little bit more space, gives him a chance to use his athleticism in space because he's a great athlete. This offense fits Garrett Bradbury very well. So he's playing at high level. Let's see if he can just keep it up and keep consistently with it. Can I just say, this is one of the things that I love so much about data and sports is that they really, it really asks as much questions as it does,

like give us the answers. Right. And another part is I didn't tell you the other thing, which is that he's 27th and pass block efficiency. So I mean, out of 29 qualifying or 30 qualifying centers, he is a 27th for, as far as how often he gives up pressure. So still giving up pressures.

His pass blocking ranks 18th. But if it ranks 18th and not 30th, then you've actually done just fine for yourself. But that is the give and take of everything in football. It's like if you go to the shotgun more, is Kirk going to be as comfortable there? But also you're getting better blocking from your center because he can actually back up and give himself a little bit of a chance to take on that guy who's getting his momentum going toward him as opposed to just right off the snap and your beat.

So it's a really interesting thing that you have to balance and getting it all to work together, I think, is the challenge that makes football so great yeah I mean and you see it across the league if you have a center that is middle of the pack you don't really like you're not you're not really looking elsewhere I mean look at what happened to Buffalo this weekend they had their backup center in and then their backup center got hurt and had to go to their third string center and the wheels just came off in the fourth quarter i mean that that miami front was good but i mean they looked like the 85 bears in the fourth quarter going against that i mean if you have a serviceable center that's not ranked in the bottom

10 right like you're not in 25 and 26 like that's a serviceable guy that you can win a lot of football games with now I think he can go up I think he can but the question is will he go down you know he's had some issues in the past of finishing season strong like can he that size of his is what eventually kind of wears him out as he goes on throughout the year so if he can stay in that 10 to 20 range of where you just kind of rank that's a serviceable good year for him and that's what's going to help us but if he starts declining that's when things start getting really in trouble yeah center is a really fascinating position because there's a lot of guys who can do it pretty well there's very few guys who do it really well like ever and then there's

so many dudes that you almost can't even have out there, or you're just getting clobbered. Uh, and it's, and if you have one of those, you're in a lot of trouble. Now I want to ask you about, uh, the defensive strategy, because there's a lot of questions about how Ed Donatel has approached this. And it's very different for people to see, I think, then with Mike Zimmer, where Mike Zimmer was doing, especially with Harrison Smith. So he was out last week, but Harrison Smith moved all over the place. You saw, you know, Anthony Barr was at the center of the defense for so long and they did play a lot of single high looks until maybe recent years. But they would, they would mix things up quite a bit. This is almost like I had the old tech mobile defense where the guys just stand there and you pick like dime and they just stand there and the guy goes hut, hut, hut, hut, hut. And then, right.

And I mean, that's, that's what it looks like. And then they just drop back to their spots and the little man just stands there and then like they throw it. That's what this defense looks like. The numbers are bad. They're 30th and yards. They're 10th and points allowed those things will get closer to each other um but i don't know that they're doing anything wrong schematically i i really don't because i think that the way they've built this

thing they just don't have a lot of defensive linemen that can attack and they don't have a lot of secondary players who you really trust to be out there on their own. And I don't know if there's a schematic answer that Ed Donatel is supposed to be doing, but at this moment, I'm willing to kind of defend the way he's approaching it. I'm with you. I think that you talk as much about on offense of not having the personnel that you want. You have some players on defense, but when you lose one or two of them, Harrison Smith being one of them, the risk chance, the risk-taking taking is just it drops to basically nothing. Like because when you talk about great defenses, great defenses have erasers and erasers are guys like Harrison Smith, Jamal Adams, Troy Palomalu, like Ray Lewis, like those great players that even if things go wrong schematically, like someone's going to step up and make a play.

We don't have that guy in the back end of Paris and Smith's not playing like you don't. And it used to be, it used to be, you could make it up on the front end with guys like Daniel and Everson and Brian Robinson and guys that were like, Oh, even if schematically on the back end, it broke up. Someone's going to win their one-on-one matchup up front. Now I think Daniel's playing better. I think he's still kind of getting I think he's still getting himself back into every week, getting back into

it. I think that the tandem pass rush that we have is good. Where we're lacking is someone winning in the middle because you're starting to see more chips. You're starting to see tight ends hit on the end. You're starting to see running backs chip on their way out, and that's giving a lot more time because we don't have

the guys in the middle that'll win the pass rush. best pass defense is a pass rush and when you're losing guys on the back end you have young players on the back end like it's really hard if you're gonna ask them to stand back there for two and a half three seconds and defend the pass so i think schematically the keep everything in front of you make them go the long way hopefully they make a mistake right now with the pieces that we have is absolutely the right play. Just pulling this up, and hopefully that didn't make a super loud noise in your ear.

But here's the thing. Zedarius Smith has done pretty well as far as total pressures. Right now, where did he go? Well, he ranks ninth in the league in total pressures. Hunter has not gotten off to a great start. He's 37, which is not where you expect him to be. But the point is that neither of them has been a disaster, but you only have those two creating pressure.

When you look at the rest of the defense, no one else is doing this. And here's one thing I'd love to hear your analysis on they are playing other people a lot other people not names adarius smith and daniel hunter do we think that's a good idea i tend to think that it might be necessary but dj wanham is graded not well of course by pff james lynch has played a lot has by PFF. James Lynch has played a lot, has zero pressures. Jonathan Bullard has played a lot, has zero pressures. Ross Blacklock, who they decided to bring in instead of Armond Watts, has two pressures and has played 23 defensive snaps

so far. Patrick Jones has four pressures, has played 46 defensive snaps, doesn't grade particularly well. They are using these guys and not a whole lot is happening, but they might feel like because of their health, they have no other choice. I, what do you think of D line rotation when the rotators are a struggle? Yeah. You know, that goes to the lack of depth built over the years, right? You can't just build depth in a matter of a year, especially as cash strapped as the Vikings were, you know, sometimes a lot of those depth pieces are the older year six, seven guys that you do just bring in. I look at Miami, right? They have Trey flowers, right? Like he's just a guy that, Hey, we understand you're kind of past your prime as a starter all the time,

but you can still go in there and pass rush like a veteran guy like that. And you have to rotate to Neil and Smith because of their injury history, you can't if they're the only ones creating pressure like you cannot afford for them to miss one or two games or all of a sudden they get wore out and they have a soft tissue injury or I mean a neck injury is pretty serious thing a back injury is a pretty serious thing like those things don't just magically go away yeah you rehab but you're always there and so you do have to put those guys on a bit of a pitch count, especially early in the season. So that come down the stretch when we were talking week 10 on, they can maybe play every single snap because you didn't burn them out at the beginning part

of the year, but you got to have better production from your backups. And that's not something that can get fixed right now. That's not something that you can wave a magic wand. all of a sudden Wanham's going to come out and have an 11 sack a year thing you know you've got to have more production from these guys it's a necessary evil because you can't just leave those guys in for 60 70 snaps right now so between Harrison Phillips Ross Blacklock Jonathan Bullard and James Lynch so Delvin Tomlinson has been quite good for them. But between everyone else who plays defensive tackle, they have 167 snaps and five pressures and no sacks. That's not going to get it done. And the Harrison Phillips addition at this moment, not really paying dividends and it's only three games in, but his pass rush grade is below average. I'm sorry. He does have one, one sack between those,

but five pressures total. And the thing about defensive tackles is they're going to have to play far more passing snaps than running snaps because it's the national football league in the year 2022. And I guess that's one where we might go back to and go like, did you need to get rid of Armand Watts? Like what happened there? And of course they wouldn't say, and this is always the thing about not explaining yourself in the NFL because it leaves us to go, then I guess you don't know what you were doing, right? If you won't say why you did it, then we can say, maybe, I don't know, maybe you just didn't know what you were doing. So maybe Blacklock will play more. So far he's had no impact. I don't think that there's a solution to this problem. This is going to continue to happen.

Now, I need to ask you about this, though. We've done our meter of when you're buying into a player. And I can tell you who's in the blue. And that would be Louis Seen is very much in the deepest, icy, bluest ocean that exists. But here's my question. So we know the reasons why this isn't happening. Processing, taking from the classroom to the field, it's just slow at this point. And maybe that will change. But here's my question. And you and I are very similar in age,

so maybe we view these things differently than the youths. But after the game, the Vikings won in really dramatic fashion. Right after the game, Lewis seen tweeted a picture of himself at his locker looking ominous, I guess, and tweeted time will tell. Do we need an interpret this tweet song like dude i hate social media so much for me that sounds like oh coaches are screwing me that's that that's how i would read into i don't follow him on instagram and i probably won't but at the same time it's like that is not that's not the message you want to portray to the fans, right? Like, I mean, look at Smith Schuster, Juju Smith, one of the greatest receivers. They lose.

The first thing he tweets is time to get back in the lab, right? That's the kind of stuff you want to see. And especially as a young player, like you don't want to put stuff out there like that, that raises more questions than answers. I don't. And as an agent, I tell my players all the time, like, don't do stuff like that because the last thing you need is guys like you and I, the talking heads to make a story out of it because you did it. You made a story out of it. You raised questions where there's no questions. Last week, I'm on this podcast going, yeah,

I give rookies a lot of grace because it's hard, you know, but you tweet something like that. You start, you start really chipping away at that grace that people will give you because now it looks like you're like, I'm not, I don't know this guy, but now it's looking like, well, are you just saying the coaches are screwing you or where's the disconnect? And you just don't do things like that, man. I just don't think it helps anyone. It doesn't help the organization. It doesn't help you personally. Like just don't do things that raise more questions than answers. It also fools nobody. Like we have just been through this for so long. It fools absolutely no one. We know what you mean. It's like when digs would tweet stuff. It's like, we know what you mean when you say time for a new beginning. You're not talking about like, you know, I've been eating at subway and I think I'm going Jimmy John's. We know what you mean. Okay. And when you've only taken one defensive snap and you took zero,

we know what you mean. And also, by the way, now here's the worst part of this to me. Josh Metellus played great. Josh Metellus played great. I mean, that's one of those performances you look back at if he plays one game this year and he graded like an 82. 82.6. Yep, got the pick at the end of the game. And just by my eye was in the right spots at the right time. And might be a ball player. Like, I don't know.

Like, Josh Mattel is a very smart guy. Your teammate in your room played great in a situation that was not easy for him. Against good receivers and a good passing game. And he's never done that before. And your first reaction is not to be like bros forever. Josh Metellus, my man, great, great work. Happy. We won. It's like, time will tell that I'm better than Josh Metellus. Like, I don't want to put words in his mouth and you don't want to be like ridiculous or something like skip Bayless or something, but also at the same time, it does make you think it's a little bit of a, like what,

like a, uh, inside your psyche that you think you're getting screwed. And here's the thing about the NFL. There are guys who get screwed. Not that often though. The best players play. That's it. It doesn't matter where you were drafted, man. Adam feel in 2016 is playing over Laquan Treadwell. Cause he's better at football. That's it. It doesn't matter where you were drafted, man. Adam Thielen, 2016 is

playing over Laquan Treadwell because he's better at football. That's it. People love this in training camp, young players. Why isn't the mean coach playing the rookie? Does he not believe in rookies? Like, no, the guy's not as good right now that might change, but like to, to be sending out something that can even be interpreted that way to me is like a rookie blunder. And I, and I, and I hope that they say to him, look, when you do that, you look selfish. Your team one, you can't come across as looking selfish. And also if you outperform Josh Metellus, you would have been playing simple as that, but it does, it does not make me say seen as a bust, but it does make me go

I I think you got to learn from that choice because that wasn't a good one he's he's at a crossroads right now right like you can either embody that oh me against the coach me against the world mentality or you take a big step back and and really self-reflect and be like and you go and you grab harrison and you grab patrick peterson you go why am i not playing help me help me like be put your ego aside first round pick whatever it is like no one's gonna get more chances in the nfl than a first round pick that's just a that's just a fact look laquan treadwell is still in the national football league if he's an undrafted free agent he doesn't make it past camp like you will get plenty of

opportunities just make the most of the opportunities and not be don't put the ego aside go ask what am i missing why am i not playing because you are so physically talented this team could use you they absolutely could use you in a struggling back end just put the ego aside put the selfishness aside whatever it may be and just go out there and ask for help and find a way to get yourself on the football field. Yeah. And the other thing is too, it's also disrespectful to everybody who plays special teams. He played 15 special team snaps. Those guys are important.

They matter. People just look at special teams like, who cares? But it matters. And if you went out there and you did a great job on special teams, you helped the team win the football game. Like they were better on special teams than the Detroit lions in that game. And then you should take pride in that part of it that like, Hey, I'm part of this team and anything I can do. Cause everybody says that, but they're full of bleep. Like, that's just not true. Like guys want with what, what they think is they are deserving of, but they have to earn that. And I think there's a very high correlation.

You could tell me you've been around great players and busts, a lot of both. I think there's a high correlation of dudes who think they're getting screwed and bust. And again, I'm not saying that's the case with Seen, but I guess I would just say to him, like Kyle Soder thought he was getting screwed. No, Kyle, you just weren't very good.

And maybe you should have listened to everybody when they told you where you could improve as opposed to saying i'm great and i'm getting screwed i just think that correlation's high and i think that lewis scene needs to understand that i think it you we could dive i mean this could be an entire podcast episode as far as diving into where that stems from and i think it's only going to get worse matt with nil with the college scene with with all of this. It leads to, and again, I'm not saying this about, I'm saying this as a blanket statement. There's an entitlement that comes with the first, second rounders that we are great.

Because you were great in college. You were awesome in college. There's a reason you got drafted in the first, second round. The NFL doesn't give a crap. They don't care that you were drafted in the first or second round. The NFL doesn't give a crap. They don't care that you were drafted in the first or second round. Can you play? Can you contribute? And those are the only two answers that you have to say yes to, to play in this league. And you're seeing it with young players in the sixth, seventh round that came in like, I'll play special teams. Where's the

punt coverage? Who's the special teams coach? He's my best friend. Like as a first rounder, that's not your mentality going into it. Your mentality is I'm a starter. I'm a starter, which is fine. But when you're not that, and that's the expectation that you put upon yourself, it takes, it's hard to take a step back, but the great ones do the great ones, take a step back. They're okay with it and they learn and they develop. And then when their opportunity comes, they run with it and they never look back. Yeah. And I think that that's really what he needs to do. Um, and I, and I think that I want him to succeed. No one, me and you both are sitting here. We're not saying this kid's a bust. I want this kid to succeed. I want every young player to succeed in the NFL. But you have to have the right people in your ear and you have to have the right people surrounding you. And you have to be willing to take the advice willing to take it and be and take that i'm getting screwed mentality just completely out of your mind or else all that stuff just falls upon deaf ears and that you're right there's a direct correlation between that and just i'm

better i'm fine i'm getting screwed on next thing you know you're out of the league right and that's why i wanted to bring it up not because again saying bust but only that in my experience see when i saw that i just went oh no, like, don't, don't do this. Don't be that guy. Cause I've seen that guy and this doesn't go well. Um, and you know, who also sees that everyone coaches teammates, Josh Metellus at Donatello, everybody sees it. Everybody hears about it. You're not going to sneak it under the radar. And, um, I'm sure that there were some things said about it. So anyway, well, we've talked for quite a while here, so maybe not quite enough time

to do a whole love to see it, hate to see it. So let me just ask you this question. Do you think the Vikings go to London and come out victorious? I think so. I think so. I think I think that they'll show up. I think they'll be ready to play i think they'll build off this momentum from last week and i think they do come back with a win

i agree i'll uh i'll submit my official pick that everyone's waiting for later in the week can't do it here but no no i think i think they do and i think they've got an opportunity to be looking at four and one here with the start because of the way the schedule has laid out for them so uh jeremiah can i do can i do one hate to see oh sure yeah go ahead just one the fact that the dolphins are trying to say that tua has a back injury after watching him crumble on the field and coming back to play the nflpa has a hammer and they are wielding it and it is about to come down hard in Miami because that was ridiculous. You know, if you're the Miami Dolphins and you tried to like make Tom Brady an owner slash quarterback

and you already got your owner suspended, maybe mind your P's and Q's. Maybe just you can't come out and say he's questionable with a head injury and then he comes back and then at the end of the game be like, oh, no, no, no. It was his back. Oh, like question. It was like when he was heading to the locker room that's what we meant no that's it's a bad look it's a bad look and normally i would say that trying to diagnose injuries off

of tv is a pretty sketchy thing for all of us and uh hey if you follow that creepy doctor guy for the chargers unfollowollow him. Okay. I promise you that he doesn't know what he's talking about and feel free to Google the dead spin piece on him, but we all know football and what we've seen and we all know what we saw. And when the team comes out and says, Oh no, no, no, no, no. You didn't see what you saw. It's like, okay, something's going on there.

That was very, very mysterious. And, um, the crazy thing is that they probably could have won that game with Teddy just playing the rest of the game because it was their defense that won and a well-timed butt punt that also helped them as well. Amazing. The football is so good, Matt. It's just so good. It's so good.

It's been so bad this year, but it's also so good. Well, Jeremiah, you are the best. We will do this next week, presumably on a Tuesday morning, and we will carry on every week throughout the season. So we'll talk to you soon. Later.