Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Divisional Round Sunday reaction: Eagles did what the Vikings couldn't

Episode Date: January 20, 2025

In the midst of a snowstorm, the Eagles conquered the Rams, clinching their spot in the NFC Championship Game next weekend. Matthew Coller reacts to the Eagles and Bills moving on and what the Vikings can takeaway from the Division Round games. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here and Championship Sunday is set. So I've got a bunch of takeaways from today's games and I've attempted to tie them into the Minnesota Vikings and the offseason and where they need to go in order to be playing in championship weekend in the future. And I've got a few of your questions that you have tweeted me or emailed as well to get to. So let's not waste any time here. We've got the Philadelphia Eagles playing at home against the Washington commanders and the Buffalo bills traveling to Arrowhead to face off with the Kansas City Chiefs. I got to start out with the game that I just watched, which was the Ravens and the Bills.

And the biggest thing that will be taken away from this weekend is that Lamar Jackson and the Ravens miss another opportunity for them to get to a Super Bowl in an MVP caliber season for Lamar Jackson. And this is going to go down as the Mark Andrews game, as great as Mark Andrews has been for his entire career. He has been there for Lamar Jackson through the MVPs. He's been a reliable weapon. This was an all time gaffe game for Mark Andrewrews it goes in the legendary annals of games where kickers have missed game winning field goals guys have fumbled at the goal line all of those things mark andrews is going to belong on that list what they used to call goat for you youths that used to

be a bad thing was when someone was the goat well Well, that's what Mark Andrews was in the bad way in this game because he had two opportunities to make difference-making plays and ended up botching both of them. He catches a ball in the middle of the field midway through the fourth quarter with an opportunity to kickstart a drive to take the lead, and instead he ends up trying to cut back, trying to juke fumbling the football and the bills recover it. And then on the final drive, you could not have asked for any more for Lamar Jackson. And this really tells you about how clutch works, right? Because

Lamar Jackson was as clutch as you ever could have dreamed of him being on this drive. He was scrambling around. He was making plays. He was finding guys down the field. And then he throws a beautiful touchdown, 30, 40 yards out, drops it in there for a touchdown to get within two and rolls out. And he's got his tight end wide open. Lamar could not have been more calm,

more ready for the moment, more prepared, more dialed in. And he throws it right to Mark Andrews and it bounces off his body and that's it. The Ravens are going home. And that is the thin line of the NFL playoffs. And certainly that that was the case very much with the Rams and the Eagles as well, where maybe a pass interference gets called at the end of the game. If Matthew Stafford gets the ball a little closer to Puka Nakua, and maybe they would have had a chance to upset the Eagles. It was that kind of day where the little details of each game ended up being all the difference and an absolutely classic day of football with both games coming down to it. Heavyweight battles, lots of star players, make it star plays, small mistakes, costing teams their entire season. I mean, it had all the drama that we were hoping

for going into this weekend, which a lot of people think is the best weekend in football and a personally, you know, conference championship, it gets ratcheted up a little bit for me, but there's games all day. The drama is high. The battles were good over these last two days,

but this one for Mark Andrews, for the Ravens, for Lamar Jackson is such an unbelievable gut punch. I mean, you think of if you're the Vikings and the way that they went home, just getting whooped and they go home and go, we just weren't good enough for the Ravens. They have so many regrets. And this is the first place I wanted to start. And it applies to the Vikings and it applies to every game that we watched in the

divisional round, which is the turnovers and mistakes just ended up costing these teams their seasons. And that was most certainly the case for the Baltimore Ravens with the drops, with Lamar Jackson, very bad interception, a fumble early in the game. It seemed like his typical kind of jitters. And then Baltimore gets it going in the second half. They look unstoppable. Baltimore had Buffalo looking a little jittery at times where they seemed afraid to throw the ball down the field. They were trying to just run and throw short over and over again, and it wasn't really

working. And they allowed Baltimore to come back. They've got the ball. They've got a chance to go take a lead and then fumble. And then they've got a chance to tie the game and then drop. And if you look at the Rams game, very similar type of theme where Puka Nakua drops a big pass and then there's fumbles and the Eagles get them. And then that's all the difference in the game because these teams are so, so close. And for Baltimore, it's a huge gut punch, but for Buffalo, this is where they expect to be every single year, as long as Josh Allen is their quarterback. And you have to give them a lot of credit on the defensive side for shaking Lamar Jackson early, slowing down Derrick Henry early. It was not what happened over the long run. Eventually Derrick Henry and Justice Hill got going, but to start out by being able to stop

Baltimore's run game, or at least slow it down and take the ball away from Lamar Jackson. It seemed to take a little while for the Baltimore Ravens to shake that off and get themselves going in the game. At that point, Buffalo had an 11 point lead going into halftime. And there you go. That's the difference in the game between two of the closest teams that you're ever going to find. And now we get a dream scenario of quarterbacks in the AFC. The two best, and Jackson belongs in the conversation as well, but these are the two guys who have gone back and forth year after year, put it on the marquee. When you do the next season preview hype video,

the first two people who are going to be shown are Josh Allen and Patrick Mahomes. That would have been the case this year. It would have been the case the year before, and now they're going to do it again. And I know I'll talk about the matchups, potentially the Superbowl momentarily, but I know there will be a lot of folks in Minnesota rooting on Buffalo is kind of the AFC brethren that has never won a Super Bowl before and has had a lot of things go wrong in the playoffs. So we will see what happens at Arrowhead. On the other side, I have a lot more connections to the Vikings from the Eagles and the Rams game than I do from Buffalo and Baltimore, mostly because that was just two of the best quarterbacks

there is. And, uh, I don't know how you replicate that if you're the Vikings, unless JJ McCarthy works out to be one of those guys, guys, if you watch the show all the time, you know, that I'm a hat guy, but if you're wearing hats to cover up for your hair loss, then I've got something that can help you. It's called hymns. If you've lost your hair, that doesn't mean you can't find it again. Try HIMS hair loss solutions, and you'll be joining hundreds of thousands of subscribers who have found their hair again. HIMS makes treating hair

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for your personalized hair loss treatment options. Him.com slash purple insider results vary based on studies of topical and oral minoxidil and finasteride prescription products require an online consultation with a healthcare provider who will determine if a prescription is appropriate. Restrictions apply. See the website for full details and important safety information. But I really noticed one thing that was pretty important in the Vikings game and was also important in this game to give the Rams a chance, and that's that they sacked the heck out of the quarterback over and over and over and over.

Jalen Hurts, he got banged up in the game. He was taken down at key moments that took the Eagles out of field goal position. And this is against one of the best offensive lines that's been built in years in the NFL, the Philadelphia Eagles. They are as good as it gets up front. They have five basically star players up front.

And yet the Rams defensive line was that good. And I think that the Vikings deserve the criticism that they get for the offensive line because it faded down the stretch. It wasn't good enough, but at the same time, if they did that to the Eagles, they were going to do that to anybody. I mean, unless you have the perfect offensive line, the Los Angeles Rams were going to take advantage of that. And I think the Rams would have won the game had they not literally fumbled it away in some pretty bad weather there. But there was some bad play calling by the Eagles, especially backed up in their own

end zone. They end up getting a safety, but the Rams pass rush was a problem. And it's an always in forever issue in the playoffs when a team has a front four, that's just nasty. And the San Francisco 49ers got to some Superbowls in part because they had that front four that could just totally dominate and take over a game. And the Rams did the same thing and nearly made it to the NFC championship doing it. And what did the Philadelphia Eagles do as a counterpunch? What the Minnesota Vikings can't that's run the football and all season long. We talked at different times about, okay, early on Aaron

Jones was really good. And there would be times where they went away from Aaron Jones as he was thriving. But as the season wore on and the offensive line wore down and Jones got banged up, there was very little consistency in terms of the Vikings run game. And now three straight years where the Vikings have finished in the bottom 12 in rushing EPA. And when they got into the games against the Lions and the Rams, they just could not lean on a run game to get them explosive plays.

They had a couple from Cam Akers, but to get them explosive plays, to slow down the rush even a little, to get them in favorable situations, they just didn't have it. And that was the difference because the Eagles did. They have Saquon Barkley. He's one of the best players in the world, but that's where the offensive line was so big of a gap

between the Vikings and the Philadelphia Eagles is their ability to run block. If you have monsters up there as pass rushers, they're going to get through, especially with great pass rushing plans. They're going to create pressure. But what's your counterpunch? I didn't think Philadelphia had a ton of great counterpunch

when it came to their passing game. There was the occasional shot downfield. They threw a couple of screens that worked, which every time a team throws a screen and I'm watching, I go, okay, you can actually make that work, huh? Because the Vikings have so much trouble with it. But having a run game that can be a free 50 yard play every once in a while, or, or just control the game and slow the rushers down, wear the rushers out.

It's very kind of old school sounding. I understand that, but it's kind of one of those forever opinions, just like forever the defensive lines will dominate. Well, forever a way to slow them down is to be able to run. And that's what Philadelphia did. And that was a major difference in the game. And as the Vikings go into this off season, as they look at all the free agents to try to sign on the offensive line, potentially looking at players to draft on the offensive line, of course, pass protection is the biggest deal, but to have a Dalton Reisner, a Blake Brandel who struggled so much, and Cam Robinson, not his fault. He's just the guy they acquired to make up for Christian Derrissaw.

But that's got to be better. The scheme has to be better in terms of the run. The commitment to it has to be better. All of those things we see what it can do when you're facing a rush of this caliber. But I did wonder if it makes anybody feel differently about Sam Darnold, because the big takeaway coming out of the game against the Rams was, well, you saw how Darnold melted down, how he got sacked all those times. And this is clear evidence. He's not any good and et cetera, et cetera. Well, Jalen Hurts is pretty good. He's

been to a Superbowl before and he's got a great offensive line and the same thing happened to him. It just so happened that instead of the Rams, oh, I don't know, having a clear fumble overturned that was called a forward pass. They didn't have that happen. They didn't turn the ball over. They didn't make huge mistakes against the Vikings like they did in Philadelphia. And I also wondered how that might have gone if the Vikings had played against the Rams in the snow and the ice, if it would have been different. Maybe not because it was so excellent, the pass rush of the Rams and because Darnold did struggle greatly in that game, but one team

had something to deal with it and another team did not. And that's why the Vikings are not playing next week or did not play this week. And I'm at home rather than in Philadelphia. But as far as did it make you feel differently about Darnold? Well, not a ton, because after watching the tape back of the game against the Rams anyway, I felt like the blocking scheme, the overall play calling, play selection, the lack of underneath options, lack of running game. I thought that that was what really cost the Vikings in that game. And I still think that just as much as Darnold did not play very well, but I still feel the same that way. I just think even more of the Rams because wow,

what a defensive line they've put together to be able to take apart the Eagles like that at different times in the game. The Eagles, by the way, also were able to, and this was in part because of a Rams mistake on the defensive line, but they were able to use their interior pressure with Jalen Carter to get after the quarterback on a couple of very important snaps late in the game. And as I've been looking over over the last few days for a bunch of articles that I'm writing about the Vikings future. I've been kind of picking apart every part of the roster, looking for weaknesses that they'll try to shore up. And it's something that has come up so many times on the show over the years, really since

Sheldon Richardson was a Viking. So now we're going back. What is that? Seven years, six years to 2018, but it'll be seven next year since they had an interior rusher that when the game is on the line is going to create pressure up the middle into the quarterback's face. And Kevin O'Connell talking about the Vikings interior line said, well, that we got to have that great pocket. We got to be able to step up into it. We can't get pressured up the middle. And yet pressure up

the middle has not been much of a priority for the Vikings except for when they're blitzing, but not having guys who can actually win in the trenches in the middle this year, the best interior rusher for the Vikings was Jihad Ward in terms of pressures. And he ended up with only one sack this entire year. And he's a veteran guy that they brought in at less than $2 million, but he ends up with 31 pressures in one sack. That's not going to get it done when you need somebody to create problems for the quarterback without blitzing a linebacker every single time. There's only so much you can do there and it should be a major priority for the Vikings, whether it's in the draft, whether it's free agency. A lot of

times you have to get those guys in the draft to get someone like Jalen Carter and the Eagles have numerous dudes who can get up the middle, that's one of the big differences as we analyze the roster of the Eagles, the roster of the Vikings, that ability to create pressure with the front four and with the interior is something that they absolutely have to improve. And it's one of the reasons that the Eagles are headed to championship weekend and have a great chance to go to the Superbowl again. They have just loaded and loaded and loaded and loaded on that defensive line. And you saw it play a big role in their victory today on the Ram side, the Jared verse thing. He was great. Again, a dominant player in this game,

despite going up against lane Johnson at times. And he was still able to get sacks and pressure and just be a menace up there. And what I can say is that the Jared verse versus Dallas Turner comparison may end up living for quite some time unless Dallas Turner becomes a star player because, and I know it's very basic analysis. It's not fair really to just say, well, you know, the next guy who was drafted, uh, look at him. He turned out to be great. I mean, you can do that with every team, every draft. Oh, if a bunch of

teams had only known Brock Purdy or Tom Brady was going to be great. But when these guys are drafted so close together and when the Vikings traded up to get Dallas Turner, the heat is immediately on for next year for Dallas Turner and the Vikings. And they'll say that they've got their development plan and they're going to improve him the way they see best. And he's going to do X, Y, and Z in the off season and all that, all that stuff. And there's no reason because of the age difference to compare these two just for this year. But what the Rams got from Jared verse was elite play. And what the Vikings got from Dallas Turner was a handful of snaps and a couple of nice plays and not much else. And I was looking at Dallas Turner and his pass rush win rate for even just a small sample size of pass rushes. It was one of the

worst in the entire league, even at the back end of the season over the last five weeks where he had come along and he was actually playing better, but he was not winning in the pass rush. And that's a little concerning. He's got to put on muscle. He's got to work technique. And he, I think, has to become a more all- around player because that's the way that Brian Flores wants to use him as more of the Andrew Van Ginkle role. But I was wondering if the reason that they use them in more of a dynamic type of role was because he couldn't win in the pass rush. So they had to drop him back in coverage rather than maybe something that they truly wanted to do with Dallas Turner. The fact that Patrick Jones is a free agent opens the door for Turner to have a much bigger role for next season, and whether he rises to the challenge or not could dictate what they could do on defense as far as their depth goes. Also, Grenard and Van Ginkle were healthy all season long,

which you can't really count on. And Turner has got to be the next man up. He has to take big steps forward. I know there have been numerous players who have been in the same kind of situation, mid to late round, and it takes them two to three years. Adafio Way, Rashawn Gary. There's been a bunch of guys like that who get better and better. And then by year three or four, uh, it clicks and they're really good. And maybe that will be the case with Turner. They really needed to happen faster than that with Dallas Turner and Jared versus outrageous success. It does ramp up the pressure because if you're going to trade up, it has to work.

That's the rule. That's the rule. Again, is it completely fair with the way that the draft is random at times? No, it's not. But when you're so sure, it's got to work. Think about the Texans and Will Anderson. When they made that trade up, they were so sure we're getting our franchise defensive player. And they did. The Vikings needed something similar to happen. So far, it's not even close. The ages are not even close. The development's not even close. But Turner, next year, all eyes are going to be on him going into training camp,

in part because of how incredible Jared Verse was. Something else that came to mind today, I wondered about home field advantage. Now it did not work in the case of the Detroit lions at Ford field where Washington was able to beat them, but it did work everywhere else. And Buffalo seemed to have the edge, especially early in the game where the crowd is going crazy. I don't know if you saw the clip, but Ryan Fitzpatrick is there taking his shirt off and leading their chant and all that stuff. Wow. That is quite an atmosphere. But as defenses get more complicated and offenses have to do more adjusting at the line of scrimmage, more adjusting protections, more changes. and you see a big mistake on the pass protection

by the los angeles rams at the end of the game where i'm sure the fans in philly were going absolutely berserk i wonder if home field advantage in the playoffs they had talked about it statistically i mean the analysts the you know the gambling universe had all kind had talked about it statistically. I mean, the analysts, the gambling universe had all kind of talked about home field advantage as something that just wasn't what it used to be. And I felt like it was what it used to be in these games. And what does that mean? There's nothing really actionable for the Vikings to do with that. Other than if you think about where the NFC North is at and how tough that is to win, you might have to win it in order to go deep into the playoffs, which did make me think about where they are as far as is the roster good enough? Is there enough assets,

all that stuff to play for the one seed? You probably have to play for the one seed. And I realized that Washington is there and they went on the road. They are in my mind, a bit of an outlier here because of the matchup they had with the lions. The fact that the lions melted under the pressure, their quarterback got hurt. Their defense was all injured, all that stuff. And they also might have the next complete freak at quarterback. But for the Vikings, if all of you, which I know are on the side of moving on from Sam Darnold, going to JJ McCarthy, if you want to make that argument, which I think we all are on the same page that that's what the Vikings want to do eventually. It's really the timing of when that happens. But if you're

making that argument for do it now, the biggest thing you could say is probably, is it a swing for winning home field advantage by hoping everything goes right again and bringing back Darnold and being limited in what you can do, even to some extent, I know I have argued that they can still sign free agents and do a lot to rebuild this roster, but they could clearly do more if Sam Darnold is not resigned or if he's not signed on the franchise tag, is that maybe your argument that you really have to swing for the fences to get home field because it's really going to be difficult if you're trying to play from any other seed and just hoping that you could be the Rams and go to Philly and give them a run for their money or just hoping that you can be

Baltimore. And I know the teams would have had to win 15 games to get ahead of Kansas city or ahead of Detroit. I think this year was weird that way. And it probably won't be that way into the future where 15 is the number of games you have to win. Most often those teams have to win maybe 13, but I think that if you're making that argument at the water cooler, and if you have found the one person in Minnesota who wants Darnold back, then I think that's the case that you're making is that you can't really just try to get in the playoffs and hope. I know all they needed was one more win to go to Detroit, win a game, and they would have had home field, which

is the other part of this point about the 2024 season is we're going to always scratch our heads about the 2024 season and go, what happened there? What happened? They just were so different over the final couple of weeks. It'll always perplex me what happened over the last couple of weeks. And you can say, ah, just the offensive line. I know, but against Detroit, who they had played earlier in the season so well, it just to melt down like that will always stick in everyone's minds. So again, there's nothing like that they could have done better outside of when that one game, I mean, they get to 14, but to do it again, there's going to be things that are not the same going forward. You've got to be a better team to get the same number of

wins because the road always gets more difficult. So I think that is an argument. If I mean, of course, it's always been if McCarthy is ready, it's just when and how much can they stack up that roster to be able to meet the challenge of the Philadelphia Eagles, to be able to get the home field advantage or be in a game where they can play for it again, because it seems to matter. Okay. The refs got involved. There's always going to be bad calls. There's always going to be game changing calls. And I won't spend a lot of time on this, but at the end of the first half,

and this is the delicate walk that every playoff game is where it's always teetering one play here or there one call one flag can just totally change somebody's entire trajectory of their season and a pass interference on Tredavious White at the end of the first half change the game for the Buffalo Bills andairtor, who's just trying so hard not to say what everybody's seeing, which is that was not defensive pass interference at all. I'm not sure why we have the booth ref. If the booth ref is going to either just agree on stuff that we all see, or if he's going to softly land every critique like, well, the players got tied up. So I don't know. I mean, it was so clearly not a pass interference

and that allowed the bills to go into halftime with a huge lead as opposed to that was third and five. It would have been fourth down. They're either going for it, but probably punting and a defensive pass interference gets in the way. And once again, I know they tried to roll out the pass interference review and make it challengeable. And that was a mess. The idea was not a mess. It was the execution that was a mess. And if you had a replay instant review judge that had 30 seconds to check calls, throws the flag, pass interference, defense. Okay, we're going into the ear to the sky judge. Sky judge says, no, it was actually offensive pass interference, but you probably can't just change calls like that.

You could just pick up flags. Even if they could just pick up flags that were wrong, that would have changed the face mask from the other day. And then it would have changed this game altering decision by the refs. And if you're Baltimore, you're shaking your head in disbelief. How in the world is that a pass interference that gives Buffalo a massive edge? I mean, if you're looking at win probability, going up 11 is an enormous chance to win for the home team. So another frustrating, oh, we've got kind of a ref show type of thing in the Baltimore

and Buffalo game. It's not what lost it for Baltimore. That was a fumble and that was a drop. But when we have the ability in games like this, where everybody's watching and everybody can see it, how long do we have to go on until somebody can just say, I wouldn't even mind if they called a random sports bar in America and just handed the phone to a guy watching the game and said, was that interference? And the guy would go, no, I could see it right here sitting on my bar stool that it wasn't. Okay. All right,

good. Pick up the flag. That would be better than what they currently do. Very frustrating. Uh, and one more thing about this and these games, Eagles and chiefs is a realistic possibility now, and it has to be the worst case scenario for everybody, right? I mean, that's no disrespect to Patrick Mahomes, who is making his cases, the greatest quarterback of all time. And no disrespect to the Eagles who have repeatedly found ways to build incredible rosters, complete rosters. I mean, I'm watching a Mackay Becton at right tackle or right guard who by the way, could be a Viking maybe as a free agent after this year, but I'm watching him going, what a great job that was to go out and get him and move them to guard. And then now you got this total beast here. They drafted a center two years ago behind Jason Kelsey and everyone went,

why are they drafting a center? Do they have Jason Kelsey? They developed him for a couple of years and now that guy's good and they've got playmakers and they've got defensive linemen just coming and going like crazy. They've got a great secondary. They made a trade for Darius Slay. He's still a great player. They draft Cooper Dajin, who I think anybody who watched big 10 football knows how good that guy is. And they just have rebuilt and rebuilt and restocked and restocked and they're great. So no disrespect to either team reads a great coach. Spagnola is a great coach. If that ends up being the battle, then it'll be a good game. You can guarantee it with the

quality of those players. But we just saw this matchup two years ago. We've seen the chiefs go time and time and time again. And here's Buffalo. Who's been a phenomenal franchise. They were supposed to be resetting and rebuilding this year. And instead they develop players. Uh, James Cook has become a top-notch running back. Khalil Shakir is one of the top underneath yards after catch receivers in this great offense that they've got with Josh Allen and you have one of the best quarterbacks in the NFL a guy right now in Allen who is tracking to be one of the best quarterbacks of all time he deserves to get get into a Superbowl. And that is not my bias from growing up in Buffalo. It's what all of America will want from the AFC championship

is get the underdog back to the Superbowl where they have not gone since the early nineties with Jim Kelly. And they've been on the doorstep to Kansas city over and over again. And what happens when a team wins a lot is that we all get tired of them. We got tired of the warriors with Kevin Durant. We certainly got tired of the Cowboys in the nineties and the Patriots. Oh my goodness. The Patriots year after year after year. And we've reached that point. Similarly with the Kansas city chiefs where,

you know, there's show and Taylor Swift and, Oh, she's got a friend. And it's just like, I don't know the whole thing. You respect it. It's the goat quarterback, but we've seen it. So I imagine 90% of America that is not in either Kansas or Missouri will be rooting or whoever just decided to pick up the Kansas city chiefs is their favorite team recently will be rooting for Buffalo in this game. And then on the Philadelphia side, there's nothing like in sports when somebody has kind of got next in a league and they arrive. And you remember that moment that they arrived.

That was Jaden Daniels against the Detroit lions. This dude has arrived. He's the next great one. And you know, Philadelphia, I know Vikings fans don't like Philadelphia. I respect the way they run their operation and think they're really good. And even throughout this year, I thought, ah, is their coach going to come apart and so forth? But, uh, the answer is no, their coach did not come apart and their team did not come apart. And Jalen hurts has emerged over

the last few years is a great quarterback for them and all that stuff, all that stuff, right? They bounced back from last year, again, all the respect, but who doesn't want to see the next great thing in football in Washington, this woe be gone franchise that was so bad for so long. And then they get rid of their terrible owner. And here they are with this incredible quarterback, a rookie in the Super Bowl. It's never happened. Here we go. So yes, I think Eagles and Chiefs would provide great Super Bowl entertainment between two phenomenal franchises

and nobody wants that. Everyone is going to want a rematch of 1991, which took place in the Metrodome between Washington and Buffalo. And I think that would have the most layers to it, the most intrigue to it. Kansas City and Philly is a little bit of, oh, all right. Well, I guess the two teams that are real good are back.

So let me get to a few questions here pertaining to the Vikings. And feel free to shoot me a note. Matthew Collar at Gmail is a good place to do it. And if you want to sign up for the newsletter to read the future of the Viking series, which is coming out purple insider dot football, please go check it out. If you want to support the channel, purple insider dot football and sign up over there. It's a big help, big help to keeping this plane flying.

Let's start out with the Andrew W. I'm sorry, DW. The Andrew DW says, has Kwesi backed himself into a corner this off season, giving the low amount of draft capital at his disposal. People point out the cap space, but free agent guards are expensive and the team has a lot of pending free agents. I don't think that that's really the case that they've backed themselves into a corner because, well, the cap space is a pretty big deal. Yes, guards are expensive, but from just looking at the interior offensive line set up in free agency, there's only really two guards or three that will command the hugest money. It's going to be Trey Smith, probably Tevin Jenkins.

And after that, it's hard to see a lot of the other guards going for 20 million, probably more like in the eight to 10 type of range, which will be affordable if they actually, for the first time in a long time, want to invest. It really has been since what they signed Alex Boone in 2016 that they have gone all in on a big interior signing. This is probably the time to do it. But I don't think that that's going to be whether they do anything with Darnold or not. Oh no, they signed a guard. They're out of cap space. Like that's

just, they've got a lot to work with. And not only that, whatever the number you see on over the cap.com, they have set up their contracts to create a lot more space so they can restructure or extend Brian O'Neill. I think an extension is likely there. They can restructure Van Ginkle, restructure Grenard. There's a lot of extra cap space to be dealt with there for Kweisi Adafo-Mensa. And this was really the plan. Kweisi Adafo-Mensa knew that he wasn't going to have a ton of draft capital to spend, whether it was this year or last year, because they were spending on a quarterback. So he hasn't had these drafts where he's picking 15 players like Rick Spielman used to have at times.

So what they did was they set up their salary cap to have a lot of room to be able to work within. And they do have free agents to resign. A lot of them are kind of $2 million type of players that they may replace cheaply. They may replace in-house with guys like Bo Richter or Gabriel Murphy, like development players, Levi Drake, Rodriguez, Jalen Redmond. So there are areas where they've been developing some depth players, which make up a lot of those guys. As far as, you know, a Byron Murphy or a Cam Bynum, you can bring those guys back. I think depends on the price.

I don't believe either one of them is an irreplaceable foundational player. You'd like to have them back. They're both very good players, but I don't know if they're irreplaceable foundational player. You'd like to have them back. They're both very good players, but I don't know if they're irreplaceable. They're, they're good. They're very good. They've been a big part of the secondary, but if they're going to draw 15 to 20 million, there are other guys in the league who you can get for cheaper if you need to make some cap space.

But that's kind of going a little bit too far down the rabbit hole and not directly answering your question. I don't think that that's the case because they have foundational pieces in place. So when you're trying to build a roster, you're saying, what is, if we get nothing else, what do we need? If you had a blank slate and you just said, what positions do we need right here, right now, in order to start building our football team? Well, quarterback is one and the Vikings have one and JJ McCarthy wide receiver. They've got two, including the best one in the world, just weapons in general to add TJ Hawkinson to that offensive tackle. They've got to edge rusher. They've got to where they're missing is

really corner. And so signing a big name corner like DJ Reed might be in the cards there. If they've got enough money to work with, that might be a draft pick. They've patchworked it for years. Sometimes that's worked. Sometimes it hasn't. They still had a top five defense patch working that last year. You'd like to find an elite player. But if you don't have the foundational players, then it's really, really tough. Where are you going to find an elite edge rusher? Well, they have one in Jonathan Grenard. They really have two since Andrew Van Ginkle made all pro. And then they just drafted one that they're hoping becomes that next guy.

So the most important positions in the sport are mostly filled for this team, which means take the cap space. You have fill out those guys that are usually easier to get your hands on. Usually if you dedicate yourself to it, like guards, There's a lot of corners who are out there. Find ones that fit the system. Get Makai Blackman back. Look for Dwight McClothern to improve. You're going to have to hit on a couple of guys. Maybe it's Theo Jackson stepping in.

You're going to have to hit on a couple of guys. But I don't think that they have put themselves in a position where you're just, well, that's it. You're screwed. That's the, that's the end. You didn't win on your 14 win season because they have so much to work with at the most important spots. And a lot of it will come down to if it's McCarthy is the quarterback, just how he plays and patchworking some of the things that, or not, I shouldn't even say it that way because that makes it sound like what they did this year, which was truly patchworking, investing the cap space

into those other positions to fill out the spots. And then you still have a first, that's always going to be the most important. You could throw out the rest of the drafts. If you hit on the first and that player becomes really good. So another bite at the apple there, but I guess I just wouldn't phrase it that way, that they've backed themselves into a corner. I think it's more of they've got to have another really good free agency. This year, they've got to have those free agents work. And then at some point, you do have to start hitting on those draft picks

and find stars through the draft again, because otherwise you're just going to be paying so much that it's going to be hard to afford. Maybe there's trades involved or something. Um, but no, I, I mean, I don't think that what, just to add one more thing onto this, it's a really great question. So sorry to try to cover every angle. When you look at Philadelphia and you look at what Detroit had before everybody got hurt and you compare position by position, it becomes pretty clear where the big differences are. The big differences are not at edge rusher and they're not at wide receiver. One is, you know, Jalen Hurts has become a very good quarterback and he's a

scrambler and we're going to have four scrambling quarterbacks representing, right? Yeah. Four scrambling quarterbacks. That's interesting with the way the defensive lines are working, but Philadelphia has got the interior line and the interior D line, right? And they've got the corners. Those are places that they have to, they have to improve and they have to hit on free agents and they have to hit on a couple of these draft picks. So just like anytime you're trying to restock a roster, it's got to work. But the fact that they have that cap space is very relevant because they proved last year, they can get players to Minnesota. And I imagine that will be the case again this year. So it's about taking the right free agent path and hitting on those free agents, just

like hitting on draft picks. Mac jaw 68 says, why does Flores's defense fall off in the later parts of the season? Two answers to that one. One, I didn't think that the defense played badly against Detroit or against the Rams. If you're going to give them the ball over and over and over again, because of turnovers, because of failures in the red zone, because of sacks, then you're going to get exposed eventually by those offenses. There were definitely more games in the second half of the season where they did not perform like the clear cut best defense in the league as they had early

in the year. Some of that was, they got a couple of pick sixes from Andrew Van Ginkle. Those are hard to repeat. Um, part of it is who, which quarterbacks you're playing. Uh, we had initially thought, wow, what a run of quarterbacks to start the season, but the Texans did not play as well up front and CJ Stroud didn't have the season we expected. Brock Purdy struggled a lot more than he did the previous year. Daniel Jones ended up getting cut by his team. Uh, Jordan love was banged up when they played him. Aaron Rogers was just terrible the whole season so that's who you played to start the year and that benefited flores also when he comes out with something new from the offseason and he throws it at his first couple opponents

there's a shock factor there's a trying to figure this out you saw the look on daniel jones face to start the season. You saw even the first half of the game against Jordan love, where he's kind of looking around. Where's everybody coming from? What coverages are they playing? Throws a bad interception, stride through a bad interception as the season wears on teams,

find what you're not as good at. They study your film. They've got all the best coaches and they find areas where they can have some success. And we saw that from even the Falcons when Kirk wasn't throwing interceptions, he did have some completions over the middle, dealing with the pressure golf dealt with the pressure Stafford dealt with the pressure in the middle of the season. It's, and it just gets harder when you're playing the best teams, but I thought that they were a good enough defense to give the offense a chance to win them games in the

playoffs. And the offense did not do that. And there's just some part of it is you can't invent Darrell Revis out there when you don't have them. You can't invent John Randall out there when you don't have them. You can't invent John Randall out there when you don't have them. And if they wanted to be an elite defense from tape to tape, they were just going to need more players. And you have to add in there that Flores was predictable for the Rams, at least from my eye, I'm sure that he would tell me some different

wrinkles and stuff that they threw in there, but the same areas of the field were open. The same players were blitzing and the same quarterbacks had success. And also, uh, the lions, you know, eventually cracked through and ran against them, which we kind of knew that was a little bit of something that if it happened, their defense would be in trouble. But I really think that it comes down to if you're going in the off season and Flores is coming back, you've gotten up to a top five defense with some flaws in it, in the roster, improve those areas. And maybe we're not talking about the defense falling off the way that it did. And it only fell from being number one to number five. Uh, I, it didn't fall off the edge of the earth. It was still a very good

defense. Uh, one more let's get to Pat. The Pingu says does 25 million for Trey Smith and the 24th overall pick on Tyler Booker fix our offensive line, or do we need to upgrade at center? What I would look to do is probably because I've always believed that offensive lines are a weak link system. You've maybe heard me say it a hundred times. The weak links at the end of the day were Cam Robinson and Blake Brandel on the left side that teams blitzed on one side and got one on ones because the protection would shift the other way. And they just won on those one-on-ones in big moments against cam Robinson and Blake Brandel. I've always looked at it as if I would rather have five guys who were decent than two guys that were amazing, or even three guys that were amazing

and two guys that were below average. If you sign Trey Smith to $25 million, the right side of your line is going to be absolutely freakish. It's going to be phenomenal. But look at Kansas city against the Texans. They have two or three guys on that line. I'd say three who are just all world Tooney Humphrey, and then Smith and yet still pressure, right. And scrambling, right. Because they take advantage of the weaknesses. I would look to sign three guys who are good rather than one guy who is great. It would be more along the lines of a Ryan Kelly. Who's the center for Indianapolis can probably come at a fairly cheap price. He's in his thirties and two guards that maybe are $8 million guards instead of 25.

And that's how that market has worked by the way, is you have guards who are just getting crazy money like Robert Hunt last year, Jonah Jackson, crazy money. And then there's a big drop to the second tier that are only making between eight and 10. Maybe you have to overpay a little, but I would prefer to go with proven starters who are average to above average. Then I would one guy who is just an awesome freak. As far as the draft, I don't want to spend that draft pick on a guard because one, they take time to develop unless it's Quentin Nelson. It takes time to develop three years years later, great, you've got your guard. But first year, we've already sort of seen that.

And yeah, you assume that Booker is going to be better than Ed Ingram, but still that's a second round draft pick. And it took Bradbury three years as a first round, late first round draft pick. It often just takes two to three seasons before that guy is ready to go. When there is a good number of players who are already developed a guard and they need a defensive tackle pretty badly, and they need a corner pretty badly. I'd look a little more there and we'll go through eventually all of those positions, but I would not look at the guard position. Now, maybe if Booker is going to fall

that they trade back and they take him and a defensive player. Sure. But I would not just spend one pick on a guard. I would rather see them do it on key defensive spots though. After the way Kevin O'Connell talked, maybe he was campaigning to try and take that big guard and get Trey Smith. I would not argue with that. As far as do you need to upgrade its center? I think we've reached the point where we just have to say yes, that in a different system, Garrett Bradbury being the outside zone play action type of center, if he's playing for San Francisco, maybe it's a good fit.

But this year there was a lot of reliance on him to face one-on-ones to sort through a lot of different rush packages in the middle. And the results are what they are. I have a lot of respect for Bradbury and really he had, I thought reached a different plateau in his career because in 22 and 23, he was in the middle of the league by PFF and the past blocking grades. But this year he dropped back down to the bottom middle of the league by PFF and the past blocking grades. But this year he dropped back down to the bottom, led the league in pressures allowed. It just can't happen. And not in a system that's going to ask the quarterback to just drop back time and time again and throw down the field.

You just can't have somebody who, when he's put in that position, is going to allow the most pressures in the league. So I think they do need to look for an upgrade at center. Uh, somebody who has a better history as a pass blocker. So there you go. And, uh, noticeable, certainly noticeable difference when it comes to the, some of the interior offensive line and offensive lines that we're going to see in championship weekend than what the Minnesota Vikings have. So there's a lot, a lot for your brain there, but next week should be very exciting leading up to the AFC and NFC championships. We'll get deep into Vikings off season theories, a lot more of your questions to be answered. Again, send me a tweet at Matthew collar or Matthew collar at Gmail. And I will respond on the show when I get through. I've got

a lot of questions, but get in the queue. We've got a lot of time to talk about the Vikings off season. And once again, my whole series every day, a new article coming out, breaking down every player, every position on the Vikings. It's called future of the Vikings, purple insider.football. Make sure you go check that out. Thank you so much. And wow. Take a deep breath after some kind of weekend of football. Whew. Good stuff. Thanks everybody.