Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Did you change your mind about the 2024 Vikings after Week 1 win?

Episode Date: September 10, 2024

Matthew Coller and Manny Hill discuss the Vikings' victory over the Giants and the way week 1 played out in the NFL and how our minds are changed because of it Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

🎵 Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here back inside the Purple Insider studios. Just got off the plane from Newark, where I flew out of. And guess what? I'm ready to talk about football with you guys again. What a win for the Minnesota Vikings over the New York Giants, I feel like that win alone has just taken a jolt of energy into the Minnesota Vikings fan base that they so badly needed after JJ McCarthy got hurt. Because it felt like when McCarthy got injured, that it was going to take not just a win over the New York Giants, but a decisive win and a win where everyone could get excited about the next week in order, like a win that was convincing enough to be able to talk yourself into

this will be a good game against the San Francisco 49ers to get rolling on this season. I think it was so much of a gut punch for the Vikings when they lost JJ McCarthy and for Vikings fans losing JJ McCarthy for the season that the last couple of weeks of training camp, the vibe was very different among you folks versus what it was before. It seemed like every time we would have a chat

and everybody that I talked to that I know who are Vikings fans, it always kind of circled back to the same thing. Oh yeah, this team could be interesting, but you know, I mean, losing McCarthy, which of course, you know, was quite a gut punch for everybody to not have JJ McCarthy, but it didn't mean that the Vikings suddenly had to go. Oh, in 17, they were going to run out a lot of very good players and to go out and have a defensive performance like that to see the players that they brought in over the offseason that I think we get bored of everybody by the end okay Van

Ginkle you know Grenard these guys that they brought in we'll see what anybody does and then you go oh Jonathanathan grenard five pressures in the oh andrew van genkel a touchdown but not only just that he made several other key plays again harrison smith can still play stefan gilmore can still play and ivan pace jr i i don't know over 17 games if there's another step that he takes but it sure looks like it yesterday with the way that he was running around and then you start to get interested in what the rest of these players can do and when you see sam darnold play the way that he played then there's the blueprint there's how this can actually work on a week to week basis. The other thing too,

that week one just offers this a tremendous reminder of is I was just pulling up the scores from yesterday, trying to think of a few more things to talk about later with Manny about what has changed our perspective, uh, after week one, right there, you changing your mind, which is what I want to know from you guys about the Vikings? Are you changing your win loss where you had them before the season? Did you change your mind of what type of team you think this is going to be or how they could win or how good Darnold could be? Or do you think that that's just too much of an overreaction after week one? And I'm going through these scores and looking at some of these teams from yesterday.

And oh, yeah yeah that's right once they start playing the games everything changes and everything we thought we knew starts to go right out the window uh once everybody gets on the field and i mean the giants and the vikings in that game are viewed as the vik so slightly better than the Giants based on what the line was, maybe a little bit better. They were not a little bit better. They were way better than the New York Giants. So I think that if they played 17 times in a row, the Vikings would win almost every

one of those games because they're that much better. And that might change some minds immediately about what the Vikings can be long-term. And they were getting a lot of attention today that a lot of you pointed out, Hey, why, why is everyone picking the Vikings to win five games or six games this year out in the national media and so forth? I think part of it is because free agency was so long ago that you tend to forget how much better the roster got overall. And by the way, I think that skepticism on Aaron Jones was fine because of the age curve, but the age curve is only a broad thing. It's kind of like if you were talking about major league baseball pitchers, that most major league baseball pitchers are probably done by age 35 or 36, but Clayton Kershaw can still pitch

because he was the best. And even with quarterbacks that there are outliers, we never talk about, well, quarterbacks can play until they're 40. Not usually, not historically, but they can if they're Drew Brees, they can if they're Aaron Rogers. And sometimes with running backs, they can keep playing effectively into their late 20s, into their 30s, depending on their health and depending on how good they were before they got there and how it was that they went about having success. And think with aaron jones he has something that very few people have which is freakish vision and toughness and burst and he averaged the second most yards after contact in the entire league this week so there's that he's a very tough guy to take down

but also he sees things faster than other people see them. And he in turn looks faster, even though there's no metric, even from when he came out of the draft that would have suggested this guy's faster than everyone else. And yet when you watch him, you go, Whoa, he just ran right by those guys. But he anticipates the same way that a quarterback can be accurate, throwing the ball out in front of somebody. Wow. He really, you know, let him perfectly into that, even if they don't have the greatest arm strength. And I think that applies to Aaron Jones. And you also just cannot measure for the analytics person. You can't measure the will of the player. And Aaron Jones came here with a plan to buck the

age curve. He is very aware of what everyone said. He's very aware of the green Bay Packers moving on for a younger running back. And he wanted to prove that that is bogus and that he came with a plan to try to show that. And in week one, he most certainly did. And that was something, well, how much is he really going to help the offense uh the answer is a ton and as we go forward we'll see if that sustains uh week in and week out which might be the reason that some of you could look at this game and go hey great game one and oh that sets up for them to have a decent enough chance to be going throughout this schedule and survive to the point where you get to play the and survive to the point where you get to play the weaker part of the schedule where you get to play a rookie quarterback in Caleb Williams

against this defense or you get to play Will Levis and maybe he'll just go that and throw you the ball like he did yesterday for the Chicago Bears there's beatable teams the Jacksonville Jaguars completely blew it yesterday beatable teams down the. It's all about surviving this early part of the season. And when Jones looks the way that he does, Aaron Jones looks the way confusing at times. Even in writing my article, I was like, I need to write Aaron Jones to make sure everyone knows who I'm talking about here. But if he continues to look like this and they can build everything off of the run, if Sam Darnold continues to play point guard, which I was looking through the PFF numbers and thought it was really interesting that he only threw four intermediate passes in this game. That's between 11 and 20 yards.

Everything else was either up over the top or short underneath. And when he was throwing to running backs and tight ends, he was 12 for 13 passing that's playing point guard. And if Sam Darnold can continue to do that and play point guard and have a lot of his passes go underneath short stuff and then occasionally let one rip and hit on a bigger play then they then they can do this then they can be in all of these games and if the defense is playing like this so at least you saw that it was possible it's not a guarantee of what's going to happen because we never know. Players could stay healthy and be really good. And week to week, we're talking about, hey, this team has emerged as a surprising top NFC team.

Or we could be saying, oh, when they face San Francisco, it's a totally different story. When they faced Houston, it was a totally different story. But at very least, I think that they now go into a game like this against San Francisco and next week against Houston at home at U S bank stadium with a defense strong enough and a running game strong enough to keep things interesting with these two teams. And Brock Purdy didn't play his best game, uh game even before he had the concussion and then through the interception at the end because they didn't identify it. It actually should have been Sam Darnold at the end of the game rather than Brock Purdy. But even before that, Brock Purdy did not play the best against Brian Flores' defense. here before. He's never seen it before. And it becomes more in your mind, not something that seems like marching up to the top of the biggest mountain to beat one of those teams or wow, you're going to need some sort of miracle to beat them. But no, actually, if the game can stay close

because of the defense and you can run the football and build off that and hit a couple of big plays to Justin Jefferson, you can be in a game with some of the best teams. I think that that's what it did show for yesterday, but I am curious of your, your questions, your comments, and are you changing predictions after week one? And after the Vikings blowout, when Manny Hill will join in about 15 or 20 minutes, I'm going to run through the schedule with Manny. Rapid speed run, looking at the schedule to see if his win-loss number changed at all for the Vikings after just one week and what we saw around the NFL

and some other things we'll get into as well, including his favorite parts of the Vikings' win over the Giants. So let me answer your questions. Not much to get into as far as news and notes. Sounds like Jordan Addison, Kevin O'Connell said he was very sore coming back from the game with the ankle injury, but could not definitively say, oh yeah, he'll play or no, he's going to be out. So we will continue our Jordan Addison ankle watch. Not ideal to have both of Jordan Addison's ankles get injured at the beginning of this season

for a guy that relies so much on the quick twitch and the route running. If it takes a week to get him back to 100%, you would rather have other receivers come in at the same time. It's San Francisco and it's Houston, and you need to get one of these games to go to green Bay and then face either a Jordan love who's more limited

or Malik Willis, which would be really great for Brian Flores. I really great for Brian Flores to face a guy whose biggest struggle is getting rid of the football and identifying stuff. That would be a massive mismatch. Get one of these two and you're going there to green Bay, feeling very good about yourself. Uh, reconnected says, do you think they activate Tristan Jackson for the San Francisco game? Really want to see what he can do in the regular season. If, uh, that would be a choice there because I do wonder if lucky Jackson might be a little bit better on the special team side and they might decide to go with him instead. He is a little more experienced, uh, at, well in special teams because he's done it in the preseason, but

Tristan Jackson played a little in the regular season. So I suppose neither one of them is actually all that experienced. I, yeah, I think that's possible. It's going to be one of the other, the special teams part of it may be an element, but they're not replacing a guy who played special teams in Jordan Addison if they have to. But they are replacing a route runner and a contested catch guy with Tristan Jackson, who kind of has some of the same skill sets as Jordan Addison. So yeah, I think that they could do that. But as far as who goes into his role during training camp, it was always Jalen Naylor who was sliding into his role when they would take Addison or Jefferson out. He got a lot of work at all the positions, so they were prepared. If I had to guess, we would be seeing a lot of, of course, Jefferson,

but Brandon Powell and Jalen Naylor would be the three receivers. And then a good amount of two tight ends in the game, as there was the other day. They used Johnny Munt and Josh Oliver quite a bit. JP says, I'm being overly negative, but losing two timeouts in a drive in the third quarter was not good to beat San Francisco. We can't do that with Addison out. We'll need to run more and finally work in some screens. So I think that the road element of that probably played into it. First time working with Kevin O'Connell, They'll at least have that under their belt going into this week, but being at U S bank stadium, it would be inexcusable if they had the same type of issues

because you don't have the noise factor going with you. I do think yeah. Overly negative is it's more of nitpicky, but you're not wrong. It is nitpicky in a game like that, where everybody played so well to say, what about the timeouts? That sounds like you're not wrong. It is nitpicky in a game like that, where everybody played so well to say, what about the timeouts? That sounds like you're looking for just about anything that might've gone wrong, but I can't disagree with you because I had the same exact feeling myself when they use the two timeouts that you're going to need those in those close games. This can't happen. And it shouldn't because they're going to look at what happened there. And also they're going to be at home at us bank stadium. Uh, and as far as running

more, I mean, I thought there was a time a little later in the game when Darnold through the interception, uh, that they could have started the process of just running all the time. And I think we saw from the carry counts where the trust lies from the coaching staff when it comes to the running backs. And this is where an RB three would have been. That was not miles Gaskin would have been kind of useful. I know they wanted to try to get a hundred yards for Aaron Jones, but at the end of the game, you just don't want Aaron Jones or Ty Chandler in there you just don't want Aaron Jones or Ty Chandler in there. You don't want either one of them to have some fat guy fall on them and

sprain an ankle. When you're trying to mess around and get a hundred yards, I really think you need a miles Gaskin, but somebody who can actually move forward. It just doesn't feel like miles Gaskin has a whole lot of juice. They seem to like him, but not really like him enough to actually be on the roster. They didn't go out and get any other RB three. That would have been a place where they could have used them. Uh, the screen game, they didn't even try. They did not even really try it. I think I saw in the data that they threw one, one screen and it was not successful. I mean, maybe it's just not a Kevin O'Connell thing. I always think the screen game is really great. Kirk Cousins put it this way once he said it's either the penthouse or the outhouse

when it comes to a screen game. And that I 100% agree with from just the history of watching this team. Some years they're good at it. Some years they're not good at it. They may not want their guards pulling out there on screens or and they might be concerned with illegal men down field which has happened to this team a few times missed blocks that could get blown up and screens get ruined they a lot of times it does come down to how good is the offensive line at executing the blocking for those screens and they might not think they want Blake Brandel

out in space at Ingram out in space. It's, it's a more media couple of guards there than it was in the past when it was Josh Klein, uh, trying to get out there. Uh, Daniel says football. I agree with that. Uh, how about those guards run game, upgraded guard talk. one of the guards one of the guards it was a tale of two guards and i checked just for you guys to see where dexter lawrence lined up if blake brandle's very very good pff grade and ed ingram's very very bad pff grade was because of the matchup it was not uh dexter lawrence mixed between both sides of the defensive line blake brandle did a really good job ed ingram did not i've said this before and garrett bradbury struggled as well but i've said this before if it's just one guy you can work

with that if blake brandle who just had a better game than Ed Ingram has ever had his entire career, also speaks to offensive line development a little bit, but just had a better graded game than Ed Ingram has ever had. If he is at least competent to good as he was yesterday in the run game as well. And then Daris saw O'Neill and we know Bradbury can play unless he's going up against the freak like Lawrence, you can deal with that one guy or they can replace him later in the season with Dalton Reisner if they want. And we know Reisner is a good pass blocker. And if you had five good pass

blockers and even just one bad run blocker in Reisner, well, that's also okay. Every team, even the best offensive lines has one guy, maybe not Detroit. Usually they have one guy that is a little bit more of a struggle. You just can't have two and you can't, you definitely can't have three. And there have been years in the past where it's been three. I liked the way that they played yesterday. They did not allow a ton of pressure on Sam Darnold when they did. It wasn't really fast, instant pressure, and they did overall a pretty solid job, but you can make up for, okay, we feel like this guy's going to get beat, give him a little bit more help, but you can't help on both sides. So Brandel being good, maybe a huge factor for them going forward.

If that's what he can do week in and week out. Uh, Edwin says, I'm liking the new defensive talent seems to fit what floor is wanted. That being said, next stretch of games is brutal. I still think this is a seven and 10 team, even though they're better than 2024 and that they may have to be better to get to the same amount of wins, depending on how the cookie crumbles. Because I would have said that game in Green Bay, always super tough going to Lambeau. If they're facing Malik Willis, that's a lot different. I got the TV on over here. I am extremely curious to find out, well, what does Aaron Rodgers actually look like for the New York Jets? Who are they going to be facing in London? Is it, oh man, that's Aaron Rodgers or is it, oh, okay. That's not the Aaron Rodgers. If he has some of

the same issues as Kirk cousins moving around that he did in Atlanta yesterday, where they couldn't even run a bootleg with him. That's a lot different than what I expect right now in my brain. I do think that the Rams and Lions are going to be very difficult, but then after that there's beatable teams. Certainly Chicago is going to be a battle for them, but beatable because Caleb Williams was not going to come in and just run over the entire league as a rookie. And he'll be going up against Flores. There's opportunities to win down the road. If you get through this, even around 500, that's why it was so important to have the win against the New York giants, because it now it means that one of the next three, you go to London at 500,

even just one of the next three. And if you get one of the next two at home and then go to green Bay and it's Malik Willis, and I'm not saying it will be, but when you hear three to six weeks, that sounds like it could be difficult for a guy who uses a lot of his back leg. It is his right leg, right? To, to plant and rip the ball. That seems like it'd be hard coming off of an injury for Jordan Love. So that was really important to clearing that threshold that you're talking about, seven and 10. And now San Francisco and Houston, they are still really tough. I'm not downplaying them at all. They are just less daunting when you feel like there's a defense there and a run game there and an explosive play opportunity there with Darnold and his comfort in the offense that it's that it's a chance to beat

one of those two teams and then start talking about all right what's the path to this team actually being good that's how important it was to get that win the way they did yesterday. Sean says, I'm stoked about the win, but still concerned that Ingram will get Sam killed and Aaron Jones will get hurt, uh, casing a better box score. Yeah, that was unnecessary, unnecessary to try to get a hundred yards in the game. I get it from the coaching perspective and Hey, let's try to get them a hundred. That happens a lot in the league, but I didn't need that. I did not need him there in the game to your point about Ingram he is going to let up pressure I doubt it's going to be as much as it was yesterday if it was then he needs to be benched immediately when Reisner comes back that was one of the worst games of Ed Ingram's

career it's also maybe the best player in the entire league at that position. This is not to defend Ingram. There's no progress that's been made there. And that's pretty clear that he is what he is. And that's a guy who gets beat fast way too often and allows one of the highest rates of pressure in the entire NFL over the last two seasons.

However, Dexter Lawrence is a unique dude. There are very, very few players. Chris Jones is one of them, but very, very few players who have the size and the speed combination to even talk about being in Dexter Lawrence's rare air. He is one of the top five players at that position in the entire league. You're not going to face that every single week. Kenny Clark is on the way. I don't even think he's as good as what Dexter Lawrence has done the last few years. But we also have to look at this offensive line and say it's a pretty good offensive line right now. If Blake Brandel is good, it's a pretty good offensive line. And I know that a lot of you have really been wounded by bad offensive lines. This is just not one that I'm concerned about in ways that I was in the past, even if there is one weak link

who is going to give up some pressures, but he was there last year and they graded very high as a unit. Kirk cousins was not pressured all that much as a unit last year. And ited very high as a unit. Kirk Cousins was not pressured all that much as a unit last year. And it's the same guys, only maybe something even better at the left guard position. We'll see. It's one game for Brandel, but that was a very good game that he played. I shot you 99. Do you think it's more of the Giants, specifically Daniel Jones being bad or the Vikings defense being very good? Always the hard question when you blow somebody out, is the other team just awful? Here's the way I look at that. If you have the Minnesota Timberwolves playing against who's bad in the NBA, the Brooklyn Nets, let's just say they're bad. I don't honestly know if they are bad,

but if the Brooklyn Nets are bad, so let's just say that that's who they're bad. I don't honestly know if they are bad, but if the Brooklyn Nets are bad, so let's just say that that's who they're playing. And they end up beating the Brooklyn Nets by 30 points. And then they have to play the Denver Nuggets. I think that it says something that they beat Brooklyn by that much. You can't totally just dismiss that because we saw over the years, totally mediocre Vikings teams struggle

against other teams that were like the Giants. We saw them make bad quarterbacks into better looking quarterbacks. It doesn't mean that they'll play toe-to-toe with San Francisco, but I think blowouts mean more than maybe they're given credit for. And this has been studied and found in basketball that blowouts are more indicative of how strong your basketball team is than if you win a lot of close games sort of

stands to reason one, one score games in baseball, a team can have a closer blow a bunch of saves and lose out on a season, or they can blow a bunch of saves and lose out on a season, or they can get a bunch of saves and win out on a season when you're always playing close games. And maybe you're not that great. Whereas if you are blowing people out as a baseball team and outscoring them by 200 runs, well, that's, that's a good thing, right? That means that you're probably pretty good. So I think that it is telling about the defense. Again, nothing guarantees anything in the NFL. Things change so much that it's not like I could say,

oh yeah, Brock Purdy, look out, pal. I mean, but when we look at who was playing, we got $22 million guy over here, big contract guy, Andrew Van Ginkle over here, you know, Ivan Pace, who was good last year. None of it was fluky. That's what these guys have done throughout their careers. That's what makes me think, yes, the margin of victory had a lot to do with how bad Daniel Jones is, but not what they did. Let's get Manny Hill in the building.

What is going on, Manny? Hang on. Let's get us like this. There we go. A little purple border for us. Let me ask you this. And also let me put on my headphones so I can hear you. I was just talking about whether it was Daniel Jones being bad or the Vikings being good and

what that means toward them going forward. So why don't, why don't we pick up there? Got a ton of great questions. We can run through those. I've demanded that now you pick the schedule to see if you're a way more optimistic than before. So we'll do that. We'll talk about some other things around the league. I have to change the channel to football so while i'm changing the channel you answer the question go uh yes i think that's my answer is was it daniel jones being bad or the vikings being good uh i think the answer is just yes i think daniel jones is terrible uh we said this thursday that he's just not good um but i also think that this unit this defensive unit is is really really good and i think it it was on full display um we'll get into this a little bit later but andrew van genkel man my

goodness that guy is that guy it's it's fun to watch It really is fun to watch him just kind of be a force and just be all over the place on the defensive side of things. So, yeah, I think it was just a combination of both things. I think both things can be true. I think that Daniel Jones sucks. And I think this is going to be a really good Vikings defense really all season. You know, I don't need everything that i report from training camp to come to fruition during the season because you can't predict stuff and it's very difficult to know how someone's actually

going to play when they get out there but every time i watched andrew van ginkle in training camp i was like oh this guy really has something He actually had the same interception against Sam Darnold. It wasn't the same exact play, but kind of where he acted a little sneaky and then Darnold didn't see him and threw it right to him. And that's what he did there with Daniel Jones and that interception. And he did the same thing on a play last year for the Dolphins against Washington, where he picked one off. He's a very savvy player. He's also huge. I don't know that you can tell on TV how big he is and how fast he is for his size, but for somebody like that to be able to play in coverage, blitz, make plays for them, blow up guards when he has to, like he did yesterday. He is an absolute force. And when

you want to know how good Brian Flores is at this, I present you Andrew Van Ginkle and Ivan Pace Jr. There is something that Brian Flores understands. And I think what he calls it is this guy loves football. I think that's what he calls it, but it means this guy's an aggressive psycho who will go out there and just play his butt off and developing him to the point where he's this kind of star, such impressive work. And then we see it among other guys as well. So I think that you're right though. But when a good team plays a bad team, you should blow them out.

And that's what you did. I don't think it's a one-to-one with that means you'll play with San Francisco next week. But if they had played them close, I would be giving them way less credit. If Daniel Jones threw for 250 yards and had a good day and they beat them by three, okay, well, that's an okay win, but I don't think it's as meaningful going forward.

Let's see. I assume this is pronounced DAC, D-A-C-Q. I always thought this was a fringe playoff team as long as Sam is average. Do you think after watching yesterday, Manny, that Sam Darnold can be average? Yeah, I think he can be average at least. I think he has a chance to be really good. I think, you know, and again, taper your expectations. It was the New York Giants defense he was going up against.

But the Giants have some guys on their defense that are serviceable. I mean, Dexter Lawrence, man, that guy is poor Ed Ingram. He just had no shot, especially early in the game. So that defensive front with Kaywon Thibodeau as well in there, that, you know, those are guys that are pretty good players. You know, Dexter Lawrence is, you know, borderline great player in this league. But, yeah, I think Darnold handled it really well. And I think he showed that he can kind of operate this offense.

You just kind of, again, you just have to hope he can kind of limit the mistakes. But I think what he showed yesterday is that he can run this offense, and at the very least, he can be good. It doesn't mean that he's not going to have a bad game at some point this year, but I think it shows that he's competent, he can make the throws, and he's on a team that's probably more talented than any other team he's been on, I mean, save for him being a backup in San Francisco last year. I think he can do this, and I think he can be really productive.

Well, when we talk about average, it's always a sliding scale in the NFL because it depends on what's going on around you. Average being the accumulation of everybody in the league. And this year is not good for quarterback play so it seems just through one week there are a lot of young quarterbacks playing and there are a lot of bad quarterbacks who are playing there are a lot of teams that are playing this isn't what i think is happening manny that years ago if a team drafted a quarterback and it didn't work out and they weren't all that good they would just say all right let's go get a journeyman backup. Let's try to survive. Maybe we'll draft and develop the next guy or get another opportunity. Now, what teams seem to do is we're going to draft you, make a bet on you, stick with you for a really long time and see if this plays out.

Because even last year with Bryce Young you could have seen enough to say okay well you got to do better than Andy Dalton to come in and compete with this guy because we're going to try to win football games and instead what Carolina said was all eggs are in the Bryce Young basket they didn't make any attempt to get another quarterback who might be able to play because everybody knows the benefit is if it's really bad, then they get to draft Carson Beck or whatever quarterback they want next year at the top of the draft. And this goes for the giants as well. Drew Locke is not a reasonable option to actually compete with Daniel Jones, but this team has to try to justify it. So around the

league, what you have is a handful of true elite franchise quarterbacks, young guys who might be the next, whatever, like Bo Nix having a tough time or Caleb Williams, and then hopes and dreams after that, just hoping and dreaming. And I think that's why it was such a bad week of quarterback play if it continues like this Sam Darnold being the 12th or 14th best quarterback might not take him being Hercules out there it might just take him being competent compared to the quarterback play we're seeing in a lot of different places yeah and, and even a guy like Anthony Richardson, who has a super high ceiling, but we just haven't seen enough of yet because he got hurt so early in his rookie season last year.

And, you know, yesterday we see him make a few plays, but then it's like he completes under 50% of his passes, so you still don't really, like, know, like, okay, what level is he actually going to get at we know what the ceiling is because of all the physical talent but like and he continued to grow and develop it there's just sort of that that unknown guy and again to your point the Colts are just going all in with him like this is the guy we invested a high draft pick in him. We're going to let this thing play out. Rather we go 5-12 or 12-5. We're just going to ride it out with this kid and see what happens.

And if it's a disaster, we'll just go back to the drawing board and reset things. It's going to be really fascinating to see how all this stuff kind of plays out too and see where a lot of these young quarterbacks end up and who really gets better or who, you know, kind of stays the same right now, Carolina, it kind of looks like much of the same thing that we saw last year with Bryce young. And it's, uh, it's a little troubling down there. What you saw already is I think the unseriousness of some teams about really winning that 32 teams do not go into the season saying, Oh yeah, we can really compete. And with teams focused more on their

timelines and more even willing to go to the bottom, it results in less good overall quarterback play it, or it has a lower floor of quarterback play when the worst quarterbacks used to be. And you have to go back a ways for this, but when they used to be guys that were journeymen, then at least those players were in the league for a reason. Our guy, Gus Farratt, friend of the show, Gus Farratt, who had been on radio with us a bunch of times. If Gus Farratt was your quarterback, you could play and the Vikings prove that. But a lot of teams now in that same situation would have just said, no, we're not benching Tavares Jackson for anything. He's just going to play it out. And even if we waste a year of everybody's life, we don't care because then we're going to draft the next year higher rather

than trying to make the playoffs with Gus fraud, which is what the Vikings did years ago. And then played Tavares Jackson when they shouldn't have the point being that you're already looking at an NFC that has been, I think, whittled down within the first week to, okay, Washington is not really competing here. Right. Chicago can, but Caleb Williams is going to have a really long way to go. As we saw, you might be looking at an unserious Atlanta Falcons team that just may have signed the wrong, very expensive Achilles repaired guy,

which Rogers on this drive, by the way, is letting her rip a couple of times, but he had, he had a lot longer for his Achilles to heal and had way more talent to work with to begin with. But you're seeing, you mentioned Carolina,

you're seeing some teams show up already and going, oh, okay, well, that doesn't look like it's a serious contender for the Vikings. So how many teams do you really have to beat out in order to get into the playoffs? And if Green Bay just starts losing games with Malik Willis, then I already had them as maybe a 10 win team.

Now your margin for error becomes almost nothing. And all of this becomes more possible for the Vikings. After just one week, the landscape of the league feels very different. Add plus verb says, how surprised were you that Darnold ended up with only one sack, but almost no scrambling. I thought he might scramble more because he has a history of trying to scramble. And I think that Kevin O'Connell said, don't be doing that. Don't be running all over the place, trying to do crazy stuff. If it's not going right, throw it out of bounds or just make sure you check it down. One interesting little factoid that I found about Sam Darnold's history

was that he was not often responsible for his own pressure compared to the rest of the league. I would have thought a guy like this, who didn't succeed. He must've been holding onto the ball too long and PFF tracks this. He didn't have high numbers. And yesterday he was responsible for zero of his own pressures. Right guard was responsible for 54% of them, but this overall blocking unit can be good enough with just one weakness to avoid having Sam Darnold do too much of that stuff, which I think speaks to the idea of him potentially being an average quarterback.

Yeah. A hundred percent. And I think, you know, to your point about Kevin O o'connell telling sam don't run you know don't don't be doing that uh which i see in the comments somebody quoted don't be doing that that might be a new uh a new a new bit now for us don't be doing that um but i think also you kind of look at the situation you know you don't want sam donald running around too much because then he might

get hurt and then all of a sudden it's nick mullen's time and i don't think we want to see nick mullen's time especially seeing what we what we saw yesterday i think we're seeing something that could actually potential to be pretty you know has the potential to be pretty good this year and so if you lose sam darnold because he's running around trying to make you know trying to do too much and he gets himself hurt now you're going into nick mullins and now things might get really dicey and because i don't i don't sam darnold has the physical tools like we've been talking about to where you can envision him leading a team you know potentially to the playoffs if everything goes right.

I just don't get that sense with Nick Mullins. And so I think it's going to be really important for Sam Darnold to at least be average, don't be bad, stay as healthy as possible. And I think things will be okay. The way that the game played out, and I think about this all the time with football, is how the game actually ends up working versus what the stats are.

And we saw this, of course, Kirk Cousins made me think a lot about this, where you end up with 340 yards and you lose 21 to 28 in a game where you were down two touchdowns, but hit a 40-yard touchdown late in the game to lose by one score. And wow, your quarterback rating is 140 in a game to lose by one score. And wow, your quarterback rating is 140 in a game that you didn't play that great. And yesterday, when you look at Sam Darnold statistics, well, he has very high completion percentage. It,

you know, who it reminded me of was a case Keenum stat line where there was nothing wowing about it. And yet you were ahead and you won the game and him playing from ahead. And this is another statistical thing of my research as the jets just scored here at a great drive by Aaron Rogers. Uh, but as he was playing from ahead in his entire career, he's a good quarterback. And when he was playing for behind, he's a terrible quarterback. And with Kirk cousins, he was always good under all circumstances.

All of his numbers are always good. So it's not just the building up stats when behind, but Kirk's stats when he was losing were excellent in comparison to the rest of the league. That's something that what Kirk did really well over the last two years was if his team was losing, he brought them back and oftentimes won the game in the last two years. I don't think you want Sam Darnold to be able to do that. You need to be in situations

where you can continue to play close type of football run or pass. Don't put it in a spot where you just have to pass. That feels very important as they go into these next two games which is where we always separate offense good defense good offense good defense bad I think they tie into each other I I think that it's a huge deal that the defense allowed Sam Darnold to play point guard and game manager and then make two unreal throws in the game and have that really be all he was asked to do i noticed something with you and dane talking after the game yesterday you guys brought up the the topic of complimentary football and i think that's ex i think what we saw yesterday is a perfect example of how it's it's you know you look at sam darnold in the offense and they're looking at the defense and

and they're saying help me help you help me help you you know i mean it's and the defense is saying kind of the same thing it's like help you know help me help you help me help you i mean it's if every facet of this team is working well they're gonna they're gonna have a chance to win a lot of games this year and right now i mean i think it's just gonna come down to just them staying healthy and kind of avoiding the catastrophic loss of a player um if they can do that and and have performances like what we saw yesterday we're not gonna see that for 17 weeks i think we all yesterday. We're not going to see that for 17 weeks. I think we all know that we're not stupid. But I think yesterday was a really good example of what this team can look like

and what the formula is going to be for this team to win games. It's the defense making plays, you know, keeping things close, not letting you fall behind, you know, the offense, not, you know, they have the turnover on the first play or the first possession of the game. But, you know the offense not you know they had the turnover on the first play of the or the first possession of the game but you know they played a pretty clean

game after that i mean i don't even really count the interception that was kind of tipped in the air or whatever and that was late in the game they were up big already um but it's playing clean clean enough football on offense and the defense not allowing big plays and just being, you know, really disruptive to an opposing offense. You get that. This team has a chance to be pretty good. It's almost hard not to sound like an early 2000s or 90s coach at a podium being asked, like, Coach, how do you think you can win this game? Well, you know, we got to play complimentary football.

We got to build the passing game off the run game. We got to play strong defense. We got, it's like all of this is pretty true because we just saw it all come together. But if one of those things isn't working, that's where we'll really see the true test of where Sam Darnold is. And early in the season, this becomes especially because jordan addison is banged up and either way he's not gonna be 100 tj hockinson is not here when you have your complete complement of weapons then sam darnold might be able to be more than just point guard because tj hockinson can catch and run with it unlike johnny munt can't do that really uh josh oliver's got some myths but i don't think he's escaping from

anyone after he catches the football. You can use Hockinson a lot more in a lot of different ways. You can use Addison as a downfield threat and not have to rely as much just on Justin Jefferson. And again, we'll see where Jordan Addison is, but being banged up, if you could get to that point, that's when I think maybe you'll be able to open it up if he's more comfortable with the offense. But right now you can play this type of football and this, if O'Connell can keep doing it, I will be impressed. You look at the way that Mike Tomlin won a game yesterday against the Falcons and it, you know how much it hurts me to bring up this game with the Falcons and the Steelers. It's very hard to keep referencing it, but I'll power through and maybe do that a few times. Mike Tomlin has made the playoffs year in and year out and had winning records without great quarterback play by doing this,

by finding ways to survive and then hit a few plays here or there, stay in the game with your defense. And this is finally a defense that they can actually do that with. I thought the 2019 team kind of played that way, hit a screen pass, hit a big run from Delvin cook. Well, now it's Aaron Jones. So it is a total shift in just how they are, are playing their, their philosophy.

But if they could keep doing it and O'Connell can go from wide open 50 passes a game to playing like Gary Kubiak wants to play all the time, then I, yeah, I will definitely be impressed. A little thought here on the 49ers. Nick says, uh, tonight's game may very well be informative. My gut tells me the jets of 49ers, maybe more of paper tiger than real. The 49ers,

you can never really count out because Kyle Shanahan is so good at his job and they have so much talent overall. But if Christian McCaffrey is not playing against the Vikings next week, see, this is what I mean. You never know whether the football universe is going to show up and just be like, screw you this year. That's how it felt last year at the beginning of the year. Or if they're going to say, Hey, how about you play those 49ers without Christian McCaffrey? Or Hey, how about you play those Green green bay packers without jordan love that's the one thing that we don't really know uh how how the luck thing is going to bounce but if he doesn't play that that is that that's a good break for them i still wouldn't discount how tough san francisco is going to be though yeah i mean they're they're a championship caliber team i mean they're you know they were just a couple of plays from winning the super bowl last year uh with the roster that they had and

they got a lot of those guys back obviously and but it is the christian mcafree part of it is going to be fascinating to watch how that plays plays out And his situation as a calf, I mean, that calf is tricky, man. Like if we've seen situations, again, I'm switching sports here, but you think about Kevin Durant having a strained calf in the playoffs for the Warriors,

and then he comes back and plays in the finals and then pops his Achilles and it's over. So the 49ers have got to be really delicate with this situation with christian mccaffrey and obviously he's sitting out tonight uh but you know if they want to be really cautious and sit him out next week as well that can really change things and maybe lean things in favor of the vikings because mccaffrey is such a huge part of what the 49ers do offensively.

They've got other terrific players, obviously Kittle, IU, Debo, but McCaffrey is that X factor type of player that you take him out of the lineup. It changes what they want to do completely. And that might lean into Brian Flores's favor. Rob says, Brandel is in his fifth season. You're comparing a guy that couldn't get on the field for four seasons to a guy that was thrown in from week one.

That is BS. Ooh, we got some BS on the show, Manny. I don't like that. Ingram has improved every season. Okay, I mean, there's just, are you related to Ed Ingram? Because there's a lot of problems there. He's in his third year.

He's had two full training camps, two full off seasons to develop. And what do you, I mean, thrown in from week one might've been an excuse two years ago. How is that relevant to 2024? And every season just means last season. And the improvement still resulted in a top five year in pressures allowed. He improved from being legitimately the worst guard in the entire NFL and pass protection to maybe the fifth or sixth worst. That's not really large gains there. I think we're on Ingram gets benched for Reisner watch until proven otherwise. And my point about Brandel's development is that, yeah, I mean,

Ingram could get better, but that's not a good sign. It's not a good sign to come out and play some of the worst football that he's played in his career and give up six pressures. Six for a guard is obscene. I mean, that's what you would expect if you're facing Micah Parsons as a left tackle and not as a guard, even if you are going up against Lawrence, but Brandel went up against them too. And Lawrence had more pressures than anyone in the league through tonight and probably will continue to have that. That's not just, well, he had to kind of a tough day.

It was a catastrophic day for a guy who's had way more catastrophic days than are acceptable for a starting guard. So that's all you can really say about it. They're going to have to consider Reisner at that position if they aren't holding on for dear life through these first few weeks or there's not major gains. The opportunity is there for him and they've given him more than enough time to be able to figure out if he can do this or not. Mark says, I know it's only one game, but not impressed by Caleb and his weapons. They did not play well.

That is very true. And also Roma Dunze came out injured in this game. And I believe Keenan Allen went into it maybe with some limitation. I just think, Manny, that when you watched Caleb Williams in college, we all saw the same thing. The guy holds onto the ball for a really long time and his first instinct is to scramble.

The ceiling is very high, but we have this expectations. And when you and I saw this in the WNBA with rookies who came into the W and people thought in the first day, they would just score 50 points it's the same way with this it's we could go to a hundred different quarterbacks and because cj stroud was good last year well every new quarterback there's so much hype about him they should just be fantastic right away i just think with caleb williams as he's making this adjustment by the time he faces the vikings there's a question of you don't face him right away you kind of wish you did like this week has he figured it out yet or is he still playing like a rookie? Because if he's still playing like a rookie, this gives Brian Flores a lot of opportunity to screw with him.

Well, it's kind of like the Jordan love factor last year with the Vikings, right? The first time they played him in Lambeau, he was terrible in that game. And then he comes to us bank stadium late in the season season he lights up the defense um so you just kind of there's that whole dynamic there but yeah i mean this is kind of why i think i posed this question to you off the air about caleb williams of like does does he look like a guy that maybe should sit to start out you, that maybe he's not the guy that you want to throw out there. And again, most of these guys that come into the league, as even the guys that are taking number one overall,

most of these guys are not ready to go when they step onto the football field for the first time. It's very rare that you get the C.J. Stroud, the Matt Ryan back in the day where he stepped in right away and i mean matt ryan came in and won 11 games as a rookie and took the falcons to the playoffs but that stuff is rare man like you just don't see that very often most of these guys need to sit early on and and really kind of grow and progress behind the scenes, the greatest quarterback of all time sat for his entire rookie season.

He didn't play at all, really, except for maybe garbage time in some games. And again, Tom Brady coming into his job was because of an injury to the guy ahead of him, so it's kind of a unique case. But again, it's like the best quarterback to ever do it didn't play right away the best quarterback in the game right now didn't play right away you know so i i think it's you know you can't really put that toothpaste back in the tube now with caleb williams i mean you you decided to start in week one so you're probably gonna unless it just becomes a complete disaster maddie reflux is just to have to kind of ride this thing out. And I think people are just going to have to taper their expectations that, you know, the Bears, for all the talent that they have,

might not be that 9-18 that sneaks into the playoffs with Caleb Williams as a rookie. It might be a 7-10 type of thing just because Caleb isn't quite ready to be that productive guy that we think he's eventually going to be yet. But if you're talking about it through a Vikings lens, then a lot of things came up Vikings for Simpsons fans. Everything's coming up Milhouse. Everything kind of came up Vikings yesterday, including the fact that though they got a win, you don't expect to block punts and have Will Levis throw you the ball the way that he did every single week.

If they're going to win, it's also one game. And my expectation based on the guy's talent is that he will progress. It's that's just, to me, that's just a big question of by the time you face him, is he looking like the number one pick superstar is he looking like someone who's still very much on the rookie side uh cliff says how about rookie uh dallas turner starting his career with the sack yet dallas turner not having to play a lot and coming into situational roles and getting a sack just shows you how much deeper this defensive line is harrison phillips how about this for you for a stat, Manny? Harrison Phillips played 36 snaps.

That would have been his lowest for last year. He also graded an 80 by PFF, one of his better grades, even of the last two seasons with the Vikings. If Harrison Phillips plays in the right spots and he can get rest and he goes back in there, he is a very good player. If he plays 68 snaps in game, he's not a very good player. And they were able to rotate. Tillery, somebody the other night said, why do you keep talking about Tillery, you dweeb?

And I said, because he's looked pretty good in camp. What do you want from me? I'm only here to report the facts. And hey, Jerry Till tillery my friends play a lot of snaps and actually played uh pretty good in this game not a guarantee he'll be the greatest defensive tackle ever but they can actually rotate them unlike they were unlike last year so a good sign for dallas turner that was the only noticeable rep that he had in the game, but that's okay. Again, they can develop him and not have to ask him to be Jonathan Grenard,

who was an absolute beast in that game. Jonathan Grenard could be Jonathan Grenard. One more question. Is there questioning of the Diet Coke? Yeah, it was on sale. You know, the diet Dr. P, you know, that's always my go-to, but it's gotten expensive out there in the soda world. So I gotta, you know, if I'm, if I'm going to be going to East Rutherford for you folks, I gotta save a

few nickels and dimes over here. Uh, no Dak to many. I, I don't think Dak's going anywhere. I think he's pretty well set. How about that? You talk about this. Actually, let's, let's talk about this real quick. I'll read the comment, but I want to talk about things where you were already trying to pimp your home run after one week, which is ludicrous. Uh, no DAC to many says, uh, Vikings refused to address backup quarterback for years. Amazes me how teams are willing to live and die. Hoping the starter makes it through the season. The problem is there's only about five good backup quarterbacks in the league, but what you could do, this is Teddy Bridgewater's not in the NFL anymore because teams always opt

to play the younger guy. Teams could pick up Teddy won seven games with Denver, but nobody wants that. They used to want that. They used to want somebody who would keep them competitive and maybe hang around in the race. Now they want to draft high and they would rather stick with a Bryce Young and just let them lose and lose and lose and lose no matter how bad it is, because they know they're going to get that high pick for next season. And a lot of teams are doing this rather than signing a Teddy Ridgewater, a Tyrod Taylor, and letting them start and win seven or eight games. That's just kind of a fact of life in the league, but there's, there's five or six backups who are clearly better than five or six starters,

but teams are saying, no, we don't really want that. But as far as priors, I got, I got some homework. I want you to think of yours from week one, where previous opinions now look amazing just today. And who knows where they'll go from here?

Number one is all off season. I said, don't worry about the drama with the Dallas Cowboys. Don't worry about it. That's just Jerry Jones thinking it's 1993. And he needs to get the NFL on the front page because he's old and crazy. They will get the contracts done and Zimmer's defense

is going to be a freaking beast. They have so much talent. That's that's a team I think is still going to be great. They were really great. Also, I started a mild controversy in Cleveland when I said on their radio after joint practices,

your offense stinks. I don't know why, what delusional people you have there watching practice, but Deshaun Watson has not gotten any better and it's awful. And then they're raved. Oh, well, yeah, Vikings guy. No, guy who's watched a lot of NFL practices guy

is what I was. Looking pretty tough there, Cleveland. Oh yeah, and another sexual assault allegation is out against deshaun way more allegations than touchdowns since getting to cleveland so uh not a good scene there you hate to see when someone gets exactly what they deserve and that's what cleveland deserves so there's there's uh two of them for me what do you got what do you want to what home run do you want to, what home run do you want to toss the bat and dance around the bases on for week one?

Uh, you remember last year in the spring leading up to the 2023 draft, you and I would have texting conversations and I text you a little bit about my, my thoughts on Will Levis. Oh, yes. Yeah. And you knew that I wasn't a huge fan. I watched him play quite a bit at Kentucky. Most people that know me knows I'm a Tennessee Vols football fan, so I watch a lot of SEC. And I saw Will Levis go up against my Tennessee Vols defense, which was not very good in 2022. They were a good team.

Hendon Hooker had a great year. They won 11 games, won the Orange Bowl, all that stuff. But they couldn't stop anybody on defense. And Will Levis generated, I believe, six points against them. Yeah, and after yesterday, dude, I don't know what the hell that the the pick six that he threw what in god's name was that hilarious absolutely hilarious yeah and i saw it and i was like yep that's the will levis that i've been trying to tell people about for about a year and a half now i just i'm i'm not a fan, man. I just

don't, I don't think he's that good. I, I, it seems like the Titans are just gonna ride it out with him at least for this season. But I just don't even, I think even if he gets to his peak, I don't think he's gonna take the Titans really anywhere. And I think they're already gonna have to be looking for another quarterback here pretty soon. Uh, I agree. And when the Vikings didn't draft him, I was okay. All right. We'll see. But then when he got to the second round, I changed my mind. All right. If the whole league passed on him, then I can't criticize the Vikings for passing on him either. And another great example of the draft analysis world secret is bad at this very bad at evaluating quarterbacks, which is maybe where my next home run should go to just

for week one. And we understand that these could blow up in our faces. Okay. That's not the point. It's just, this is what you do after a week of football. You go, I was right about something. Don't talk about what we were wrong about. Uh, the Atlanta Falcons drafted Michael Penix for a reason. I said it that night. I said it a hundred times after that. Well, the entire world went, what are the Falcons doing? What are they insane? Are they crazy drafted this left-handed fireballer? No, they're not crazy or insane they know that achilles is very hard to come back from and also uh you know uh it looked really bad it looked like he he could not move before but he could run a bootleg he didn't even run bootlegs in this game people

had numbers on this he didn't move at all And I was talking to somebody today who said, it reminds me of Ben Roethlisberger at the very end, where remember he was averaging like four yards a pass. He was just catching it and like shot, putting it to his receivers. And for some reason he was still playing. That's, that's what it looked like. I don't want to not necessarily dance around the bases about the decision.

The decision was made when they got here. We just told you about it. They got here and decided this is when they were moving on from Kirk because it was going to be a good quarterback draft. They were right. They picked McCarthy. The Vikings are in a good situation. Kweisi Adafo Mensah had the right plan, along with Kevin O'Connell, along with the Wilfs.

Everyone deserves credit for having the right plan along with Kevin O'Connell, along with the Wilfs. Everyone deserves credit for having the right plan. It's more about people criticizing the Falcons decision. When anytime you're picking a quarterback that you really love, you're making the right call because anybody else can be replaced except for that guy. Love it. Love it. All right. One more thing that I'll sort of pimp the home run on

and it's kind of a it's kind of an easy one it's kind of low-hanging fruit but like that's what this segment really is though this is exactly what that is and and i and i'll keep it local here i mean daniel jones is just terrible dude oh yeah this is that yep i i said it at the time when the giants decide to pay him they're screwed this guy is not good they're paying him based off of one playoff game against a defensive coordinator that just lord knows what the hell he was even doing that day um daniel jones is just he's just not it man this is just not gonna work it's gonna get a lot of people fired it feels like maybe the general manager might get fired I you know I don't think Brian Dable is gonna survive this um and and now you know it's

it's at at the very least this is gonna maybe if they're gonna be like a 4 and 13 3 and 14 type of team which they looked like yesterday it just it might mean that okay regardless of this daniel jones contract situation we got to take a guy we got to take a guy and hit this reset button and try again and if daniel jones is sitting on this roster as a backup, making, I don't know, $40 million a year as a backup, then so be it. But they've got to pivot from this because this is just not working. And in that market too,

you're better served by going in a different direction now and getting that fan base excited again. Because if you keep rolling with this, going into next year, that fan base out there is brutal and rolling with this you know going into next year that uh that fan base out there is brutal and they will let you know here's what i don't understand about the giants so malik neighbors i believe will be a great wide receiver he looked really good in the chances that he got but the giants tried to trade up for drake may and the patriots were like stop no no and good for gerard

mayo by the way uh getting his first win uh in that game against cincinnati but they laughed okay whatever but they didn't draft mccarthy and they didn't draft pennix when they were right there because they had to have the receiver to justify the quarterback. I saw this happen early in my career, Manny, with the Buffalo Bills drafting Sammy Watkins and trading a first round pick for him to try to salvage EJ manual. It does not work. It does not work. If somebody is that level of bad, you cannot just salvage them by getting them a good wide

receiver. They could have picked JJ freaking McCarthy right there. And then the Vikings would have had to trade up at that point if they did. And they could have been playing or, or even if they picked Pennix, they could have been playing that guy yesterday. Cause that, that person would have won the camp battle against Jones. And then your Brian Dable being like, oh yeah, it's a new fresh start. I didn't draft Daniel Jones. I'm like, I just tried to make the most

of that, but this is my quarterback. My quarterback is JJ McCarthy. And instead silver plattered him to the Vikings. I mean, that's a pretty good break for the Vikings that they needed to have their wide receiver, uh, as opposed to drafting a quarterback. Uh, Zoomer Kev says running scheme better or Aaron Jones. Good. I'm going Aaron Jones. Good. I don't know about you, Manny, man.

That was, uh, I know we talked about, you know, things that we were impressed by yesterday. That was one of mine, Aaron Jones. That's that guy is, uh, I used to say this a lot about Anquan Bolden, that he's just – the guy is just a pro's pro. You know, the guy just knows how to play football, knows how to play his position, understands what he needs to do week in and week out. And Aaron Jones is that guy, man. He just looked like a professional running back yesterday.

And, again, the question mark with him is always health and everything. Can he stay healthy for a full season but when he's out there he absolutely knows what he's doing where he needs to go um it's a it's a major major upgrade over what this team had last year and you know and i think it's nice that he's at the forefront and that means that ty chandler can kind of roll instead of having the entire weight of the running game on his shoulders um yeah aaron jones was a stud yesterday man that was really fun to watch there's something about him he reminds me so much of patrick peterson where it's a guy who's a little past his prime and Peterson was much older, but you're just wowed by the, by him, by his intelligence, by his toughness, his preparation. And there something different

about this guy. I can't put my finger on it. I know for Peterson, it was because he's one of the greatest athletes to ever come out. That was not true for Aaron Jones, but something about these veteran players who, even though there are many younger dudes who have come and gone, they have something different built into their will, their IQ, and then hardwired into their physical abilities where you can see stuff before it happens. And that's why Aaron Jones looks so fast. It's really something. And he's tough AF, man. I just, he averaged six yards after first contact. He runs through people as much as he runs around people. And, uh, yeah, couldn't have been more impressed by him. Not that we needed

information on Aaron Jones who averaged six yards to carry in his career against the Vikings. He demolished them every single time. So that was one, if we were talking about surprised or not surprised by, was not surprised. What else was on your list of things that impressed you the most, by the way? Yeah, I mean, it's kind of things that we kind of talked about already. I mean, Andrew Van Ginkle again. I mean, just everywhere.

He's kind of, might sound a little hot takey but maybe not uh kind of like um i'm trying are you gonna say micah parsons or something i see that okay yeah i was i was coming i was going i was gonna go micah parsons light you know not as i mean micah parsons is just like a freak of nature, honestly, you know, and Mike Zimmer is going to have a lot of fun with him this year, but Andrew Van Ginkle is kind of that same type of player in that he's just, he's all over the field. He just makes things happen. If his defensive coordinator just lets them, just lets them loose.

A lot of big things are going to happen and we saw with that with that pick six yesterday that was one of the most unbelievable just individual plays i've seen a defensive player ever make in my life and that was uh and to your point you talked about this yesterday he's done that before we've seen him do fake plays like that before which is even more impressive about him because he's another one of those guys you hinted at it same kind of thing we talked about with aaron jones he's a professional football player he knows exactly what he's supposed to do he's very instinctive as well um and he's going to be a major major factor for this defense all year in provider he can

stay healthy again we say that about everybody but he was man he was a monster um all over the field yesterday it was fun to watch you heard it micah parsons white is what man he said uh justin says darnold started strong in new york and Carolina. It is true that he started very strong in Carolina in 2021. His first three games were excellent. And then he completely fell off the map, which is why when we're trying to figure this out, number one, the supporting cast was quite a bit different in there. And then here, and we're trying to figure out where's it going to go the answer is we don't really know what we know is that the things that we thought could help him play well did in the first week of the season against the defense that's not a joke it's not the best defense in

the league but it sure as heck is not a joke their offense is a joke but not their defense and we thought that aaron jones could help a lot and playing off of that. We thought that he could hit some beautiful throws down the field to Justin Jefferson. We thought that if he played point guard and did not try too hard to do anything crazy that he could win and play really well. That's what we know as of right now. This is a developing story story not one that we've just decided sam darnell top five quarterback i i think that's really that that is you are right

that he did start really well there this is a different situation though i think uh janet says so excited about the defense uh i get it was against the down team but it's been a while since the vikings could depend on their defense it has been a while since the Vikings could depend on their defense. It has been a long while, Manny. I was very tired. I was very tired. Since Purple Insider began, this defense has not been good. And last year there were some flashes and some games, which we're going to have to find out. But with the amount of talent that they have, this should be a week to week thing where they can be very good. It's not Brian Flores trying to tape it together with sticks and glue. This is a bunch of guys who are proven and are projectable,

very good players. And I don't think it's 2017 defense. Maybe it will become that, but it looks more to me like 18 and 19 where opportunities will be given for them to win games if they play even average on the offensive side because the defense is good enough and the thing that i like the most about it too about the defensive unit and this was something we especially did not see last year even when you know early in the season when they were playing well there's there's a little bit more depth and versatility.

This defense looks a lot more like what Brian Flores wants to do as a defensive coordinator than it did even last year. I mean, last year, to your point, they were just trying to piece things together. And because Brian Flores is a really good coordinator and really good at scheming things and putting things together you know the defense was able to keep them in some games last year but this is a this is a unit now i think with the additions that they brought in harrison smith still in the in the picture with josh metellus having emerged last year as a vital part of the defense, this is a unit that can be legitimately good.

Last year, they showed some good things, and it showed that, okay, they've got a competent guy coordinating the defense now. This year, it looks like, oh, this unit could be really, really good and could be the reason why, if this team is going to make the playoffs, even if it's like 10 and seven as a wildcard team, it's going to be because this defense was fantastic really from start to finish all season. Uh, and by the way, someone asked, I scrolled by it, sorry about Hockinson. Uh, no real update there, but it's going to be

at least four weeks. i think that it makes more sense for him not to go and play on the field in london these fields that are in brazil and other places are historically not that good and someone coming off an acl injury i would far prefer he just come back and play the revenge game against the Detroit lions. Then go play in London. Manny, I think it's time for you to pick the Viking schedule because I'm trying to get a sense for just how high everyone is on this win. And I was saying to Dane yesterday after the game,

we were in the press box and I'm and I'm going through my mind I'm like is there something I'm missing here I I feel uncomfortable why do I why don't I feel right breaking down this game and you know why Manny because every game for the last two years under Kevin O'Connell has been a one score game and I'm always in the opposing team's press box doing a podcast with Dane going, well, you know, they had this great play, but then also this guy really blew it. What was O'Connell doing? What the coverage?

But then they came back and found a way to win. And there wasn't two sides to the story. I haven't covered a blowout since 2019. I forgot what to do. I was somebody tweeted the what do I do with my hands? Uh, thing like O'Connell to score lead. Well, what do I do with my hands? And so coming out of it, it's really hard not to look around and go.

Yeah. All the things that we said, if they work, they're going to be good. They all worked for this week. And before you pick the schedule, is there something that worked against the giants just to be fair and balanced as we are always on the show uh that's my should i use that as a tagline i think that's actually a good tagline for a media no it's not anyway throw that out uh but is there something from this week that we're high on and we're talking about how good it was that you think the next two weeks we might not be talking as much about sure i think honestly

for as fantastic as the defense was yesterday i think there's a possibility that they could get you know that they could get the score run up on them a little bit next, even as soon as next week with San Francisco. I mean, we're talking about a team that was in the Super Bowl last year, has been in many NFC championship games over the last few years. It still has a very good defense and they've got weapons on offense. And, you know, even if Christian McCaffrey is not playing next week, it's still going to be a test, I think. You know, him being out changes what they do offensively, but it's still with those receivers.

And, you know, I think Brock Purdy is legitimately good. We could argue all day if he's like top 10 or top seven quarterback in the league, whatever. He's a good quarterback. You know, he started in the Super Bowl, played pretty well in the Super Bowl. He's very capable of, you know, making things challenging for you on the defensive side. So, yeah, I think for as great as the defense was yesterday, and I think overall they're going to be very good all season. There's a chance that, you know, we see them get maybe lit up a little bit next week. I think that's definitely possible. Specifically the corners for me yeah uh it was

an easy game to play corner because your team was sacking or intercepting daniel jones a lot or he was just throwing it to nothing uh shack griffin stefan gilmore they looked fine uh byron murphy looked fine but that group will be as you, tested a lot more against San Francisco and especially against the Houston Texans. That battle of former Bills, Stephon Gilmore and Stephon Diggs, that'll really be something. Maybe before the game, we can all chat about our favorite wing choices when we're in Buffalo. I usually have that conversation with offensive linemen. Like David Questenberry, I was talking to him about something else. I was like, what was your favorite wing place in Buffalo? There was no hesitation. He was just like, it's an art form, dude. The offensive linemen know what they're doing.

So let's, let's have you pick this schedule and see where you come out on the 2024 Minnesota Vikings. Now having just a tiny morsel of information about this squad so we start one and up against the new york giants and now on to san francisco at home will the minnesota vikings win this game this week at u.s bank stadium i'm gonna say no okay i think it'll be close but i think they'll say i'll say no and uh we're gonna we're gonna speed run this so it doesn't take the next nine hours uh so yeah pick and then one sentence uh houston texans on september 22nd revenge games everywhere yes all over the place uh i'm gonna say that's a win okay all right let's go uh at green bay this one's a hard one to pick because we do not

know what Jordan loves status is, but we do know at very least he would be limited. If he played, I will say when, because if he is limited, I think that really works in the Vikings favor. Three and one start would really be something for the minnesota vikings who are only picked to win six this year by the betting markets new york jets in london i'll put that as a loss okay rogers has looked pretty good jets team has a lot of talent especially on defense uh bye week how about this nobody have any driving incidents and that's a win on to detroit on october 20th they will play that at u.s bank stadium loss okay the los angeles rams at los angeles but really not that much at los angeles it is a thursday night so there could be more los angeliens than there were the last

time we were in los angeles where it was extremely purple. Plus, it's a great team now, but it's still at Los Angeles, October 24th. Can't wait for that one. I will call that a loss. Okay. Indianapolis, where we get to see up close, Anthony Richardson throw the ball the farthest we've seen since Favre in the state of Minnesota.

I think Anthony Richardson will make a lot of really wow plays in this game, but I will say the Vikings find a way to win it. Okay. So you have them at four and three. Am I right? Four and four? Four and four. Four and four.

Okay. Going up against Jacksonville at Jacksonville with a 500 record. That's a place where we could see a lot of Vikings fans. Oh, yes. Oh, yes. Oh, yes. I can't wait for that. I've already worked out the golf trip with Dane and Paul Hodowanek.

We're doing it. Yeah. That will be a way home game for the Vikings, and they will come away with a win. Jacksonville is a really hard team to figure out. Aren't they? Yeah. I mean, they're playing great yesterday and then they just melt down. I don't know. That seems to be who they are under Doug Peterson, but are they really going to change coaches for a third time with Trevor Lawrence as their quarterback? I guess they might not have a choice. Tennessee, November 17th at Tennessee. Will Levis sucks. That's a win. All right. Easy breakdown there at Chicago,

a place where the Vikings are always totally fine. And I don't remember anything ever happening that went wrong. It's the third consecutive road game, a lot of traveling. That's a house of horrors. We know it that I will put that down as a loss. And I think to your point earlier, Caleb Williams will be playing better by then. Okay then okay fair enough i usually don't pick the vikings at soldier field because gestures at everything yeah uh in the past arizona december 1st arizona looked good against buffalo yesterday they did uh if this game was in arizona i would probably pick the cardinals but i'll pick the vikings uh being at home. All right. Atlanta, Michael Pennix and the Atlanta Falcons come to US Bank Stadium December 8th. If it's Michael Pennix,

I will pick the Falcons. If it's Kirk Cousins, I will pick the Vikings to win, but I'll still assume that it's going to be Kirk Cousins then, so I'll give the Vikings a win there. Okay. Home against Chicago. I'll call that a win. It's at home. Yeah. Speaker 2 All right. Now you're headed to Seattle at Seattle. They were okay. Yesterday beat a team with a rookie quarterback who didn't play all that well.

Speaker 1 It was the last time the Vikings played well in Seattle. Speaker 2 Well, there's a difference. They played well and actually came home with a win right there was the the uh game that they blew at the very end with cam dantzler not covering someone and russell wilson throwing a game-winning touchdown they played okay i'll call that a loss did not win okay green bay at home december 29th that one's got some entertainment potential there yeah i'll call that a loss uh i think

jordan love will be back and playing pretty well by then okay and uh detroit um i'm taking a little bit too long on these but i'll say a win because the lions will really oh the lions will have had the division wrapped up already and be resting guys. And the Vikings will be fighting for a playoff spot. So there'll be, there'll be serious. If I've counted correctly. Now you think they're going 10 and seven.

Okay. Okay. I'll take it. Okay, Manny. I'll take it. You, you were,

you were at, and if I miscounted, let someone let me know, but that's what i had that's what i had uh you were at nine and eight so this isn't a huge deviation i was also at nine and eight because i think both of us felt like it was being ignored how much talent they had outside of the quarterback because all the discussion was just about the quarterback. I also think that 10 wins would be a lot for, uh,

for this team still with the schedule that they have, but if they can get through this first run of games, then this can be a much better season than people expected from them. Um, you know what? I forgot to do the ad read so i'm going to do that now before we uh we call it a night i mean you know you can hang around for it if you want you don't have to uh so just you want to dance or something while i'm doing it um you gotta play some music all All right, I'll dance. OK, all right. Well, hold on. Let me do that.

I'll get you some music so I could do the ad read and then we'll put a bow on this. Let's do this. There you go. All right. OK, now maybe I maybe I should do this ad read

with a little bit of rhythm. OK, no, I won't try that. US Cellular noticed that the way we use our phones has gotten ironic. We try to put our phones down for dinner, but the menu's on a QR code. That's ironic. We hit like on social media posts that we don't actually like, which is ironic, which is why us cellular created us mode to help us reconnect with each other and use our phones less. Ironically a phone company wanting people to use their phones less. That's ironic. Let's find us reconnect with each other and use our phones less ironically a phone company wanting people to use their phones less that's ironic let's find us again with us mode from us cellular

visit us cellular.com slash built for us to get started maybe i need a little auto tune here to get started i was at the uh went to see the locks at first Avenue last night. Oh man. I'm jealous. Yeah. That was a, that was a good time. This music is a little bit of a deviation away from. Not quite the same. Not quite as them.

All right. Final word, because after this, then we put it in the past. We move forward. We'll have Jeremiah Searles on break down some offensive line play. And then we switched to San Francisco. So put your final word on week one for the Minnesota Vikings. I was just really impressed all around. You know, we talked last week about, like,

we thought they were going to win this game, but, you know, if they lost it, then it was kind of like, ooh, uh-oh, things could be kind of ugly here. But they passed with flying colors yesterday. They were just all around just a really good football team. And I think that has me still excited because I think this team is going to be really interesting and fascinating to watch how they kind of navigate the schedule. So off to a nice start. I'm happy to see it. A day later.

I don't need this to continue. There we go. A day later, because when you're doing the post game and this will happen sometimes where people will go back and be like, well, you said this. And a lot of times it's just I just saw it. I get a chance to review it. I ran to the locker room, heard what they had to say, ran back upstairs, trying to remember all the details, trying to get it right. But it's kind of a adrenaline type of instant reaction. Can't always be a perfect breakdown, but then the next day you get a look at things and you look at all the numbers,

PFF puts out their stuff and you go back and you see everybody's reaction. And I came away feeling like the uncertainty of this is now mixed with the excitement level of uncertainty as opposed to dread. Yeah. And every week when we show up at the stadium now, it will feel like, Hmm, what's this going to be today? Yeah. As opposed to feeling predictable, which has happened in the recent past, very predictable over some seasons. Instead it's, is this going to be really good today? Is this not going to be really good today? Is this going to be a 10 win team? Is this, is this a total fool's gold from the giants? Cause Daniel Jones is so bad when people say stuff like that.

Well, it's just a giant. It's like, well, I don't, I can't tell you that you're actually wrong because you could be right and you could be wrong. And none of us really know. And that has created a new dynamic within the fan base surrounding this team if they had barely won or if they had lost i don't really know what we'd be saying about this because it would be well could be a long season folks strap in it might get bad and instead it's all right strap in it might be might be interesting. And that's where I'm at.

So go watch Monday Night Football. San Francisco is playing pretty well right now, despite not having Christian McCaffrey. But this looks like it could be a pretty entertaining game. And everybody, thanks for all of your questions, all of your comments. Great stuff. We'll be doing this again during Thursday Night Football on Thursday night.

Live show on Wednesday is all me answering questions. So show up on Wednesday night, all questions. I think I'm going to start probably seven o'clock and we'll have a good time there. And I'll have the report of what I ascertained from TCO Performance Center from Kevin O'Connell talks that day. Sam Darnold talks that day. Open locker room on Wednesday. So excited about that.

Thanks as always for your time, Manny. Thanks everybody else for watching as always. And don't forget football, football, football. you you