Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Does the Vikings' resilience outweigh some of their issues on offense?

Episode Date: September 26, 2022

Matthew Coller and Brian Murphy talk about the Minnesota Vikings' ugly win over the Detroit Lions and how much it matters that the Lions gave away the game as much as the Vikings won it. How will they get the ball to Justin Jefferson going forward? What did we make of the way the team reacted to Kevin O'Connell at the end? Why is the NFC so bad and what does that mean to the Vikings' chances to make the playoffs despite a meh start to the season. -- For more of Matthew's Vikings coverage, head to purpleinsider.substack.com For bonus discussions, interview clips, and more videos, check out our YouTube channel! Interact with us on Twitter! @Purple_Insider Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello and welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here, and it is a Monday morning Murph with Brian Murphy. What is going on, Brian? Are you celebrating Victory Monday after a magical performance at the end by the Minnesota Vikings? No, I'm just trying to decipher the dripping cynicism coming through from all my peeps back in Detroit who sadly have been guzzling a little bit of Honolulu blue and silver Kool-Aid over the last couple weeks.

And it's not the bitter same old Lions screw up at the end. I think it's more anger because it wasn't so much Keystone Cops follies as much as it was a cerebral decision by their coach or an uncerebral decision by their coach to not go for it on fourth down there when he had been pretty aggressive and successful doing that throughout the day. That's what I've been kind of swiping through this morning or even last night after the game was there's an anger more than there is sort of a resignation just because of that, which may be a good thing.

Maybe that means that your team is growing up a little bit more when you can question an NFL coach's decision on its merits like a lot of fan bases do every Sunday evening Monday morning rather than just knowing you know you stumbled into a loss because you're cursed forever as an awful franchise yeah I saw a headline in the athletic that said young lions still learning how to win. And I was like, no, that's not what happened. That's not what happened. The Detroit Lions outplayed the Minnesota Vikings for that entire game

and then gave it away. And somebody on Twitter pointed this out. I think it's a great observation. If Dan Campbell had punted right there, it would have been a far better decision than kicking a field goal. The field goal is not only a low percentage play, but if it goes in, it's still bad. Even the best opportunity or the best outcome from that position is still bad. If they're up by six, the Vikings still have a great chance to win getting the ball back with time. If they had

pinned them inside the five and the Vikings have no timeouts and Cousins does have a tendency historically to kind of run the clock out on himself by throwing in bounds like that would have been a better choice they made the worst choice possible and gave the game away and not only that but the way that they played in the in the second half after going up 10 points was like they were up 30 points and you look at what the Lions have for a roster, like they should be setting the standard that if you don't win these games with a veteran quarterback, by the way,

it's not like you have this young quarterback who's running around and doesn't know what he's doing. You have a veteran quarterback who played really well and you wasted a great performance. I mean, the Lions should not be looking at this as like, oh, well, fun for us. It should be, I can't believe you just a great performance. I mean, the Lions should not be looking at this as like, oh, well, fun for us. It should be, I can't believe you just gave that away. And from the Vikings' perspective, Murph, I think they got to look at this in two ways.

The micro of this is you didn't play very well. And there's a lot of things to point to and go, what's going on there? Like, what's going on with Justin Jefferson? What's going on with the other receivers for the most part? What's going on with the pass rush and et cetera? But from the big picture, the Vikings are 2-1, which is about the best start you could have hoped for considering you were playing three very tough opponents to begin the season.

Yeah, and I take to heart, too. Not take to heart. I don't take anything from the NFL to heart. I don't have a heart for the NFL. Let me rephrase that. I take serious what was said after the game between Cousins and anybody else interviewed. I think Eric Kendrick spoke to it. Obviously, Kevin O'Connell spoke to it.

They realized this was a gift that was handed to them. They said all the right things afterwards that, you know, we took advantage. We made a play. We, we, we hung in there. We, we, we still had confidence throughout, but the reality is the Lions handed them this game and they know that. And they know they really, other than for a handful of minutes in sporadic bursts did not play well at all on either side of the ball. And they acknowledge that. So that's a good thing. You know, some teams, you know, they get these victories

and it's all about, well, you naysayers out there, you, you, you know, all of the, all of you folks who poo-pooed us. And then, you know, you, you, you build the straw man argument that nobody believed in us. No, they, they walked out of there as you mentioned, and now with a 2-1 record, frankly, with two home victories over division opponents, you're now going to London, which is not an easy trip to make, but really up against a Saints team that's just a shell or a husk of what it had been for over a decade. you've got an ideal down opponent to have to travel overseas to take care of, which, oh, by the way, that game would have normally been in the Louisiana Superdome, which is just a cauldron of misery for the Vikings and a lot of other visiting teams. So I think the Vikings recognize that they are on very fortunate ground right now. And as you mentioned, Justin Jefferson, there seems to be a blueprint now. We're going to double, triple team them and dare you to force the ball to him.

Vikings found some back-channel ways to get around that. It took a long time to do that, but it doesn't seem like they've been able to design anything to free him, or it doesn't look like he's been able to free himself. He had a couple of mishandles yesterday too. So yeah, okay. You've proven yourself to be an elite NFL receiver. What are you going to do now that the league is adjusting to you? And what is an offense? Are you going to do Vikings, KOC, Kirk Cousins to compensate for the fact that you do still have some talent around you?

You're not going to be able to force the ball to Jefferson. If you can't get them open, what are you going to do next? And I think that opponents know at this point, especially ones that are familiar with Kirk Cousins, that he's not going to force his ball to the number one wide receiver. And your evidence is in Stefan Diggs in Buffalo. I mean, that was about zimmer more than it was cousins but it also like wasn't not not about cousins you know i mean that that's that's been the thing that receivers have been frustrated with cousins since i googled this last year i just wrote washington football team cousins receivers and the first thing that popped up

was a story about pierre garcon and des Deshaun Jackson being frustrated that cousins wouldn't push the ball to them. And I know receivers are going to be receivers, but like in this case, you have to find a way to push the ball to Jefferson. And I'll be interested when the tape comes out to go back and look, were there opportunities that the quarterback wasn't throwing the ball his way, or was it really Jeff Okuda being a great player? I mean, Okuda has had a really tough start to his career, but he has the draft position to suggest that he could follow somebody throughout the game like Jefferson, and that's not going to go away,

that the other team is going to put their top corner on him, but they've faced some pretty good ones over these last two weeks. I think the bigger concern for me is that, you know, okay, Justin Jefferson's doubled and Kevin O'Connell tried the like, Hey man, it opened up some opportunities for our other guys, but those other guys were CJ ham had a couple of catches. Johnny Munt had a couple of catches, which is fine. I mean, they gained yards, but like it was still 61 yards for Adam Thielen,

and K.J. Osborne catches the 28-yarder, but before that hadn't done a whole lot. I mean, that doesn't say, oh, wow, we just lit them up with our other guys. It was a struggle the entire day passing, almost in the same way it was Philadelphia, save for one drive really being the difference. Yeah, I mean, it looked like, you know, Adam Thielen had been a forgotten man for several weeks. I mean, he did make the key touchdown grabs there to carve the deficit down. But I wonder, too, I mean, you know,

Thielen's value is in the red zone. We've always known that. He's a playmaker, and he comes down with the ball in that area. Where else is he throughout the day? Yeah, I like the fact that K.J. Osborne also kind of comes up in big moments, either at the end of games or in the red zone. Those are good things. They're all good things.

But there are missed opportunities. There are, I think you've mentioned it, we've been talking about it for a couple of years now. It's that Kirk Cousins aversion to danger. You know, I'm not going to force a ball into coverage that I know may be too risky. Not so much. Maybe he's doing it subconsciously from a statistical standpoint. I think he's just risk averse.

That's just the personality he's always been. So how do you convince somebody who's been risk averse. That's just the personality he's always been. So how do you convince somebody who's been risk averse their entire lives to suddenly run out into traffic? That's the challenge that's happening right now. And I think there's going to have to be a way to tell Cousins and to at least convince, you know, him too, that Jefferson's going to find a way to get the ball. You know, if you fire it into a tight window, you know, Justin Jefferson's going to find a way to get it. I mean, there may be times where it's knocked down. There may be times where you're a hair off and there may be some interceptions down the road. I mean, I think, I think people can live with those if, if, if you're being aggressive and

you're targeting your best player. Not if they're constantly killing drives or constantly killing red zone drives. But I think, I think it'd be a little more palatable to see some aggressive shots and play calls to your most talented player as opposed to lofting it 15 yards out of bounds or dumping it off to C.J. Hamm for the inevitable two-yard gain on third and 12th. I don't know what's more frustrating. I mean, that's a risk-averse play that allows you to live another day. It also doesn't instill any fear into a defense.

It doesn't instill any confidence into a team, and it certainly doesn't improve your reputation among a fan base that's just looking for any reason to criticize you. Yeah, he has become more Alex Smith-y, it It feels like as even the years have gone on and yesterday really felt like a game from last year where they were trying to run the football a lot, a lot. cousins it kind of looked like Gary had sent in a few of his favorite play calls and then the defense was good enough to keep them in a game when the other team really stops trying to score I mean after the Jamal Williams touchdown and subsequent thrusting the Detroit Lions just really didn't try to score I mean they were running the football on first and second down and just seemed like we're going to run the clock out like it's 2003. But Dan Campbell, somebody needs to update his, you know, like download the update for Dan Campbell.

Like this is not how we handle stuff in the year 2022, because that's how you blow a 10 point lead. And your friend and mine, Judd Zolgad, and I were sitting next to each other, as always, in the press box, and we were like, they're blowing this game. Detroit's blowing this game because of the way that they handled it. But the defense, I think, had Detroit kept the foot on the gas pedal and continued to throw the football, I think Detroit puts up 450 yards or 500 yards if they had really stayed aggressive in that game, because the defense I don't think is able to stop really anybody

unless Daniil Hunter and Z'Darrius Smith are just getting sacks. And going forward, they don't face any scary offenses. So this could look improved in the next two weeks. And then when they face some better offenses down the stretch, I think it could be problematic, particularly without Harrison Smith, if he can't come back and make the trip over to London or if they suffer any other injuries. But, but so they've got these issues on offense they're dealing with. The defense doesn't really need to be debated because no one's liked what they've seen over the last two weeks. But the NFL is bad this year, Murph, it's just bad. What is going on? Like I'm watching

last night's game. San Francisco can't complete a pass. I saw enough of the Packers game. They won 14 to 12. Neither of those two teams had anything going on. Is it just weird timelines going on with the NFC where teams are not really peaking outside of the Philadelphia Eagles and everyone's gotten problems or is it some defenses have figured things out against these great quarterbacks because offense is not thriving at this point especially in the NFC and this opens the door for the Vikings to say well well, we're just like everybody else. And I'll give you a good example. The point differentials in the NFC North are all between plus two and minus five.

Basically, every team is playing like a 500 team at this point. I'll answer chronologically backwards here, I guess. The Vikings should look at themselves as, if not us now, when? There's no reason to believe that they cannot find a pathway into the postseason based on just what we've seen through the first three to four weeks, or three weeks, actually. It feels like four. Some of these games have just been awful to watch.

So, yes, I think the Vikings, you know, have a path certainly for the division. And if, if why not us? I mean, I think that's what a lot of teams are going to be saying certainly right now until the weather changes and, you know, schemes are baked in and injuries take hold and then, then your, your true identities kind of show up. I think the Vikings are playing with house money right now, clearly with their win yesterday, but also just their attitude. I mean, they're still adjusting to a new defense, completely new defense, a completely new head coach, and they're still sort of trying to find their way in tough situations. They've had, you know, they looked untouchable in week one, they got very humbled in week two, and now they got handed a gift in week three, and now they got

to unconventionally travel to London to play a really bad team. So I wouldn't put anything, I wouldn't set anything in stone of what'll happen. I think this will just be another probably crazy shootout because both teams are not going to be ready for the environment and what's happening there. Now, all the way back now to why play looks so sloppy. I mean, I'm not going to advocate for this, but I just don't think anybody practices anymore. And you didn't have a fourth preseason game, which we all know, of course, was always for the scrubs to play. But I mean, did any Viking starter of significance make any contributions in the preseason? I mean, I understand why that's being done. You're trying to preserve body and mind, both long-term for these guys, but also over the course of the season.

But there's a sharpness that's been lost there. I mean, if you go back 30, 40 years, you had six preseason games. I mean, they started July 15th and went to Labor Day. I mean, they were long two-a-day grind fests that beat these guys up. They also honed them into pretty sharp units as well on both sides of the ball back in the day. I'm not advocating for that again, but I think you're seeing a little bit of a byproduct of that. At least that's my humble opinion. Yeah, I think there's something to that. And at the same time, like statistically this year versus last year is quite a bit different so like last year um i'll have to i'll have to pull this up again

takes a little work to figure it out but i was looking at um the start to the season last year what the combined quarterback rating was for all quarterbacks the beginning of the season and it was like 10 points lower this year than it was last year through the same time through the first couple of weeks. And I'll have to get the exact stats on that. But I think that part of the reason is because when you go down the quarterbacks, like particularly in the NFC, I mean, there's just a lot of really bad ones. Like Dak Prescott is hurt.

Daniel Jones is not good. Carson Wentz is not good and is just going to play for every team eventually, but just got sacked nine times yesterday, which seems like humanly impossible. Rogers is old and has no receivers where last year he won the MVP. Justin Fields is not good. Golf is not good. Brady does not want to be there.

Murph, Brady wants to be like you. He wants to be at home with his family. That's what he wants. He does not want to be playing football. The look on his face yesterday, Matt Stafford is playing hurt. Jameis Winston is playing hurt. Mariota's bad. Kyler Murray's coach has no idea what he's doing and their organization is just awful. And Gino Smith is the quarterback in Seattle. Like there's no quarterbacks. I think that that's a huge part of it. And Jimmy Garoppolo is just still like Jimmy Garoppolo-ing out there. But it looks like, you know, he didn't practice that much this year and really wasn't ready for this and wasn't, you know, I mean, he never expected to even be playing. And so he was

awful last night against the Broncos, but I think that's the main culprit and that absolutely opens the door for the Minnesota Vikings. So even through two weeks, like getting, getting a win after they played badly and being able to celebrate that and have confidence and work their way through their problems to get a victory. I mean, they can look at this and they don't have to apologize for it because it could really help them at the end. And even if it's a slog sometimes, every team's having a slog sometimes. Like eventually some teams are going to pull away, I think. But at this moment, it looks like it's like a bunch of slow horses

all racing for first place or second place to Philly that's a legit team. Well, that increases the entertainment value a little bit too because I don't think there's anything that's baked in or expectations are obvious. I mean, you're right. I mean, the league's star power, the league's intrigue, the league's superstar often.

It's all in the AFC. And the Vikings are going to get their share. I mean, they're going to have to go down to Miami and play in the heat. They're going to have to go play in Buffalo probably in the misery. So those games are coming. So you might as well stack up what you can now, both in terms of victories, but also in terms of confidence. You're right.

Because I think if they do come up against another opponent where things aren't going well and they're still trailing in the fourth quarter, I mean, they're going to be able to go back to that game and against Detroit where they can kind of remember where the confidence came from. Remember how to take advantage of opportunities. I mean, I think one thing that I they took advantage of their opportunities yesterday because there weren't a ton of them. And they were able to take advantage not only of opportunities that they created for themselves, but bad decision-making, mistakes by the Lions. These were things that they didn't do in Philadelphia. I mean, they had opportunities in that Philadelphia game to cut it back to a one-score game or even shave it closer

where you felt like, I mean, I didn't turn the game off the entire time because I thought they were on the verge of making this more competitive, and it never happened. It did happen this time. They were within striking distance, and it was really, you know, it really does come down to Dan Campbell here. I mean, Dan Campbell's hubris throughout the game of going for it on fourth down, I think on the opening drive, they were fourth and six, and he converted to when we were to, to build up that lead 14, nothing.

I think they were what Owen three, Owen four on third downs, but perfect on fourth down conversions, which just makes you wonder what he was thinking late in the game. If you had gone this route and your field goal kicker had already missed from 48, why are you attempting a field goal at this moment? When even if you fail on fourth and four at the, at the 30, you're still pinning, you're still pinning the Vikings deep.

You're still man, you know, the clock is still in your favor. You know, Dan Campbell has kind of become a caricature. And if he makes more decisions like this, he's going to become even more of a clown. You know, Dan Campbell has kind of become a caricature. And if he makes more decisions like this, he's going to become even more of a clown. I mean, I think last year he emerged from clown to caricature to maybe we've got something here. Hard knocks kind of turned him into a little bit of a of a throwback guy you want to be around. And now, you know, he comes out and he makes the decisions that he's making that kind of harbor back to, well, you're just a tight end and you're making tight end football meathead decisions based on emotion and not on logic. So that's just a long winded way of saying the Vikings had opportunities against Philadelphia and didn't take advantage what they were given yesterday.

I think they can make some some hay out some hay out of this long-term emotionally, psychologically as these tougher games come up. Right. That's because Philadelphia has better players and better coaching and they, and Philadelphia just made like strange mistakes. Uh, a screen pass miscommunication gets intercepted, a kick gets blocked. I mean, with Detroit, they were just soundly out playing the minnesota vikings took the gas took the foot off the gas pedal and then made the worst decision at the end it reminds me a little bit dan campbell maybe of mike singletary i don't know if i said this yesterday uh on the show or just to other people but mike singletary was trying to turn around the

49ers and he did the whole can't win with them rant and everyone's like yeah mike singletary was trying to turn around the 49ers and he did the whole can't win with them rants. And everyone was like, yeah, Mike Singletary. And I was like, oh yeah, Mike Singletary can't coach. So then they had to go get a real coach, uh, which might end up being the case in Detroit. Like you can only take them so far if you're doing that, like, oh yeah, everybody's behind Dan Campbell. But at some point you're playing games that matter and you have to make the right decisions and you cannot kick the field goal there. Um, but that's, and that's why with this win, you know, I keep swinging wildly back and forth between when I analyze the football team, there's just a lot of things that I'm not sure can get better. Justin Jefferson is going to have

big games and he's going to rip people apart. And you know, the, you're not going to keep him below 40 yards very often, or yesterday was his lowest that he's ever had in 16 yards, but that's not going to happen very often. So I swing back and forth though, between going like, man, they, I don't know if they can really cover anybody and they're not getting the pass rush they expected. And you know, that I think that Detroit Detroit if they had run to the edges probably would have done better and and they still ran for a bunch of yards and this and this and this and this and they missed two field goals from Greg Joseph and and on and on and then I go but they're two and one and everybody else is bad and I just like keep coming back to this and and thinking

like well here's the thing with the Vikings though after that game like they made decisions to the point where they have to win so i think the the result for us has to kind of be over everything but also when you made decisions to win and this is your team it's sort of like the this is your king is like this is your team like this is this is the group that you said we got to go all in on and hurt ourselves in the cap in the future and everything else like this is it because so far it's just not that impressive no and i don't know if they're they're in a position where they need to worry about you know what everything looks like right now either um because i don't think they're really i don't even know what they're selling right now because what they're

selling is what they've had in the past so they're repackaging is what they're doing so i don't think they're really, I don't even know what they're selling right now, because what they're selling is what they've had in the past. So they're repackaging is what they're doing. So I don't necessarily, I look at it like they're trying to gain some credibility. O'Connell especially is trying to gain credibility. I think Cousins is trying to find a place to just come in for a soft landing a little bit, because it's been such an exhausting four years with him. I think if they can find a way to get back into the playoffs with him and at least bring out a little bit more success

before they have to inevitably make their financial decision to move on from him, then it isn't a complete loss. But I guess where I'm getting at is there's so much about this team we already know in terms of personnel and what they've already accomplished or have failed to accomplish. But there's so much of the regime and the coaching staff that we don't know. That's what I'm kind of finding out is like, how are they responding? How are they responding to adversity? How are they responding to failure? But how are they responding to adversity, how are they responding to failure, but how are

they responding to the guy that's commanding them? You know, I think so far, I think they're all in on Kevin O'Connell. I mean, again, I'm only judging this based on post-game quotes, week-long quotes, reaction shots on the field. I mean, watching Delvin Cook and an injured Delvin Cook and O'Connell celebrate after that game winning score. I mean, you can't make up a motion. I mean, these guys want to win for him. They want to be successful. It behooves them. But it also I think they they're they're generally they generally like and respect who Kevin O'Connell is. So I'm constantly watching, as we move along here, how they respond to certain events in a game, certain calls that don't go their way, drops, mistakes,

general phases of adversity. I mean, they were booed pretty harshly yesterday. You were there. It came through on the screen at halftime, certainly. They were booed harshly. I think this fan base, again, because there's not much intrigue with what you're seeing as far as the personnel, the players, the talent goes. We're all accustomed to what these guys can do. It's how they react in certain situations. And, you know, if I'm a Vikings fan, I'm feeling great

today, not because we pulled one out of the fire, because we had the the the the metal to kind of do it and when I say we I mean the team I that this is a game that I think a year or two ago would have gone down in flames easily just because of the mood and the emotions and sort of the resignations maybe on the sideline that didn't happen I don't know how many you don't get that many opportunities to win on emotion only. But you could make an argument that they won that game on emotion yesterday. Yeah, I don't know. I think they won. Yeah, they won that game a few times last year and they lost that game a few times last year. That was every game last year. Right. Where you're like, yeah, I don't know if they played well, but, you know, I they won. Or, oh, they didn't play well and they lost right at the end. And then people would say it's not their fault if they lost right at the end

and so forth. So I think we're going to end up with a lot of those discussions. When I look at where they rank through three weeks, which I know is super early, but 17th in points for, 10th in points against, but 30th and yards allowed those two things usually get closer to each other uh than that so that's kind of not what you expected through three weeks i think schematically kevin o'connell is really trying to figure out what he's supposed to do with kirk cousins and don't be surprised that the offense ends up looking exactly

like it did with kevin stefanskianski or Gary Kubiak or whatever, where they're running a lot bootlegs and everything else. So before I let you go, Murph, just tell me, what do you think the record will be by the bye, which is they have three more games before then. So two and one at the moment, make you do math here. Three more games. What's the record for the bye three and two that's not right that's only two games right i was just gonna let that one sit there for a second well i know they got new orleans and then uh who do they have before miami or do they go to chicago chicago at home um i think they're go 2-1. I'll give them these two games.

I just think the Saints are so bad. I know it's strange going overseas, but I think they can handle business there. The Bears are whatever they are on any given Sunday, and then they never seem to win at U.S. Bank Stadium. They may give the Vikings problems, but I'm not worried about that. It's the Miami Buffalo games I'm really looking forward to see how they respond there. So I'll give them two to one going into Miami. But that's going to be the first meat grinder test.

I agree. And I think that would be a very, very good start for them, considering they've gone through some things here with some struggles to figure out who they are. Brian Murphy, great stuff. We'll look forward to your column as well on the website. And you and I will do it once again on an early Monday morning next week. Thanks for your time, man. All right.

Sounds good. Okay. Before we wrap things up on the show here, let's answer some fan questions that I got in my inbox or on twitter yesterday starting with jason sent an email at purpleinsider.com and use the contact us uh who is good and who is bad in the nfl it seems tougher than ever to tell this year yeah that's a great observation but i'll try who is good and who is bad and uh through three, it's hard to really judge based on record, but I think that the three and O teams are both good because they have sustainable goodness. And that is Miami and

the Philadelphia Eagles. Both of those teams have really emerging quarterbacks with great weapons around them. And it looks like they are well coached teams that have rosters that are also pretty deep they have you know in Philadelphia multiple good defensive linemen they have a really good offensive line they have weapons Devante Smith went off and Miami showed that they can win a grind of a football game against the Buffalo Bills that they don't just have to win a shootout and that their defense could actually slow down the Buffalo Bills offense. And if there was one huge concern, it was that they got shredded by Lamar Jackson, but then they came back and played extremely well against Josh Allen. I think speaking of Lamar Jackson, Baltimore is a really good team.

They're plus 22 on point differential. They only lost the game against Miami. That was just a brilliant back and forth game. Their defense probably isn't any good, but Lamar Jackson could win another MVP. He is throwing the ball extremely well, running the ball extremely well and playing for that huge contract. So Baltimore though, I think, you know,

has weaknesses on defense and injuries on defense. Again, I saw Calais Campbell got hurt yesterday. So they're dinged up and they're not great on defense, but they're just going to outscore people. They have 99 points through the first three weeks. Buffalo is still good despite the loss. It was just a great game between them and Miami, but I have no doubt that that is a complete team.

They are a little banged up with some of their key players on defense, but their defense wasn't a problem yesterday. It was really that Josh Allen had to throw 63 passes. Everything is on Josh Allen, and that does make it more difficult for that team, but they have a good supporting cast for him, and they're good. I'm pretty convinced of that. I think Cincinnati's good, and they just got off to a little bit of a sputtering start, but they got the win that they needed to get to one and two, so their season's not over.

Their division with Cleveland and Pittsburgh, maybe not super scary. They still have great weapons. The offensive line is improved. Joe Burrow's just going to have to adapt to that. I'll say that I'm not going to write off Cincinnati. Jacksonville is definitely good. There is no question about it. Jacksonville is a good football team that last year was horrendously coached

and made huge improvements. And now Trevor Lawrence looks like he's ready to take the big step forward. But their defense has also been extremely good through a couple weeks. They've only allowed 38 points so far. And I think that they just might be legit in, in all areas of the field. The Christian Kirk signing was absurd at the time for the money they paid, but also he was the type of receiver that Trevor Lawrence needed.

And week by week, Lawrence just looks better and better. They've got Marvin Jones there who could still play a little bit, had a great catch yesterday. I'll say that they're good. Now, after that, though, Justin Herbert playing with an injury really, really concerns me. The Raiders are just bad. I think New England is probably bad, and it's not going to be able to score on offense, not only because of Matt Patricia and Joe Judge being their coordinators,

but also that Mac Jones has been hurt multiple times already in these first few weeks. That is a big problem for them. And it might be a similar situation to maybe like Baker Mayfield that came into the league, played well right away, and then took a step back with some bad coaching before he could take a step forward. And maybe New England will decide to hire an offensive coordinator in the future so that yeah i think and as far as deciding who's good and bad uh like i said the eagles i think we'd all agree are good dallas i'm really i'm not sure of but i think that dallas can be good when prescott comes back but i'm not 100 convinced of that green bay chicago detroit minnesota none of

these teams have shown to be good so far uh they're all at this point mediocre and with green bay they get the benefit of the doubt from everybody but i mean they put up 14 points against a good tampa bay defense yesterday an unimpressive performance for them and then even their game against chicago they almost let chicago back into it so not impressed by green bay as a whole and they've only scored 48 points here through three them. And then even their game against Chicago, they almost let Chicago back into it. So not impressed by Green Bay as a whole. And they've only scored 48 points here through three games, Carolina, New Orleans, Atlanta, Tampa, like none of those teams are really standing out. The only thing you might say is that at some point Brady's players are going to come back,

that I think it is a big deal that Tom Brady doesn't have any of his weapons. I mean, what Chris Godwin and Mike Evans are both out yesterday. Evans got the suspension. That's yeah. Uh, that's just a silly, silly decision by Mike Evans to go push Marshawn Lattimore. But when you're playing in a game where it's all backup wide receivers, like Tom Brady used to do that, where he would make those guys great. I don't know if he can do it now. And the Rams, I think, probably are good. San Francisco, I would have said before yesterday, is a good team, but now I'm not really convinced after a horror show of a football game

against Detroit and Arizona and Seattle are both bad. So that's kind of a rundown of the entire league and what I think in Kansas City is good, but I'm a little concerned about what we saw yesterday between Eric Biennemi and Patrick Mahomes. Like there's just seems to be some problems over the last two years with that team trying to decide what they are offensively. But just to recap, since I kind of rambled off all the teams I think there's a lot of bad but the good teams are Miami Buffalo Baltimore Cincinnati Jacksonville Kansas City I don't want to completely bail on the Chargers but I am extremely concerned about that Justin Herbert injury and him playing through it so I'm not going to say they're a good team yet. Philadelphia and Los Angeles. I will not say that Los Angeles is bad yet. I think they'll still end up being good and they're sort of grinding their way through the start of this season. On to the next

question. This comes from Bernie via email. Why is Kirk the way he is when things break down? Yeah, that's a good question. Because he doesn't have any athletic ability. I mean, it's just a fact. I've brought this up before, I think, but if you look at Kirk Cousins' athletic scores, even going back to the combine, that was in 2012. They are in some of the lowest percentile of any starting quarterback in the NFL. And that's not just because the NFL has a lot more freak athlete quarterbacks. Even just decent athlete quarterbacks like Mac Jones scored way better on athletic scales. And Kirk Cousins, even what Jared Goff did. Jared Goff is a much better athlete on paper than Kirk Cousins, even what Jared Goff did, Jared Goff is a much better athlete on paper than Kirk Cousins,

and you saw him move a couple of times away from the rush. That's just stuff that Cousins can't do. He can't escape and run away from people, which means he has to get rid of the ball or get smacked, and the reason that Cousins has been one of the reasons that he's been so healthy, I'm sure he takes care of his body really well, but they all do, is that he gets rid of the football and he gets pushed down after throws sometimes, but he doesn't take very many big hits, big sacks because he's, he is just

getting rid of the football at this point in his career, he has at times, but now he's into the latter part of his career. And I think he's changed the way that he plays a little bit because when he first got to Minnesota, I thought he hung onto the ball too long. And I, and I felt like he was getting strip sacked and taking too big of hits in 2018. But now he doesn't take a lot of hits or knockdowns or pressure. I mean, still takes pressures, but he's getting rid of the ball a lot. His pressure to sack rate, they actually have this how often a pressure turns into a sack. And I don't have it through the third week. The stats aren't updated yet fully, but last year it was very low. Like when he got pressured,

he just got rid of the football. And I think that's part of him understanding that his athleticism is not very high and never really was, but has gone down since as far as his physical skill. I don't know if it's anything more than that with cousins. I think he gets tunnel vision a little bit. This is not uncommon for quarterbacks. Of course, there are very few people that have like if you played Madden 05, that cone of throwing vision, there are very few quarterbacks who see the whole field all the time. I mean, normally you're kind of focused on where you're supposed to go with it. But there are times where I feel like when things start to break down,

he'll drop his eyes a little bit or he won't have the right answer and just sort of throw the ball away. And there's nothing you can really do. And this is why we talked about, can Kevin O'Connell change Kirk Cousins? Well, he can't really change the fact that, you know, maybe four out of every 10 plays or three out of every 10 plays breaks down and it doesn't end up with a wide open receiver or end up with a first read and you have to figure something else out. And him figuring something else out is throwing to Johnny Munt or throwing to CJ Ham yesterday a couple of times. And I don't know if there's a solution to that. And that's kind of why they ran the bootlegs and stuff. That was the solution to it. Because if you run those play actions and bootlegs, they give very defined reads and they give deep options for him to get away from the rush and set his feet and throw down the field.

The problem is that defenses started putting in solutions to those bootlegs like they started. OK, when the other team is lined up in an I formation, there's a decent chance it's a bootleg. So if it looks like a bootleg defensive end, you come up field and you go right at the quarterback. And we saw it yesterday against Detroit where that's exactly what Detroit did on the one that the Vikings tried to run. And Cousins was able to, I think, check it down, but not able to find his deep option. So it's just a thing that you have to work around is the fact that you don't have one of the athletic quarterbacks. You don't have a super creative playmaker or anything else like that. It has to be dialed up if it's going to succeed.

And so far through three games, it only was really dialed up in the first game. And how Kevin O'Connell adapts to that is going to be a big deal for whether they can improve this offense. This comes from 7790 Skull on Twitter. Fans only question, given the issues with the pass rush, do you think Kweisi Adapomensa regrets waving Armand Watts? He had shown the ability to get after the quarterback over the last few years. He didn't make sense initially and continues to be a head scratcher. For him being cut. You mean? Yeah, I do think they should regret that. And I don't understand it. I didn't

understand it then. I don't understand it now. And we're not even seeing Ross Blacklock play. He may have gotten in on a few snaps yesterday, but he only played, I think, 10 times against Philadelphia and a couple of times against Green Bay. Maybe that role increases throughout the year for Ross Blacklock. Blacklock was supposed to be very similar to Armond Watts, but maybe a better fit in their mind. He was not a very successful pass rusher in Houston, but that was kind of his thing.

Armond Watts, throughout training camp, I thought looked fine, and over last year had a good pressure rate. Why they decided to move on from him. Maybe it was contract related and they thought that, well, you're just going to have them and then lose them. But that seems galaxy brain to me. You want to think about the short term here with this team that you're trying to win with and have the best you can get.

And he was the only guy who could provide interior pressure. They're playing Jonathan Bullard and James Lynch kind of a lot. And those guys at last check. And if this changed yesterday, I'll have to update it, but I don't think it did. They have not pressured the quarterback a single time and I didn't see one yesterday. So, I pff markdown one but uh yeah because those numbers aren't out yet but yeah I like those guys aren't pressuring anybody the arm on what's cut is weird I I won't really understand it like and they praised arm on what so he had a great camp we just uh thought this was better for our football team it's like well that's not really a good explanation for cutting a player who was a very solid and and this is even by the

efficiency numbers a very solid pass rushing defensive tackle for a rotational role last year and they are rotating a lot so why is uh why are you cutting him i i i have to say that is one that we uh should go back to we haven't really so far because we're kind of letting it play out, but that we should be going back to and saying, I don't really get it if Ross Blacklock doesn't take that same role and start getting after the passer. So I think that's a very reasonable criticism to wonder. You only really have two guys who are rushing the passer.

Why did you move on from one that proved that he could do it last year? All right. This from CJ McCauley on Twitter. By rule, let's see. By rule, these two have to play again. Oh, the Vikings in Detroit. So pie chart for the return leg. Vikings inexcusable, inexcusably find a way to lose to the Lions or Lions inexcusably

find a way to lose to the Vikings or a well-played game on both sides. Uh, I think that the next time they play, it'll be in Detroit and someone will lose inexcusably. I don't know who though. I mean, you think about the last several games, the games of the Dan Campbell era, uh, the Vikings fumbled at the end of the first game and gave up a late touchdown and then hit a 54 yard field goal to win. So that was a inexcusable loss for the Lions. And then you had in Detroit that last second Jared Goff drive where it was an inexcusable

loss for the Vikings. And then yesterday inexcusable. So I would give maybe 49%, 49% and then 2% both teams play a good game. I don't know. Yeah, I mean, no, this is what it is. I'm just kidding. But this is what it is to play in the division is oftentimes these games are close because the opponents are familiar with each other, even if it's not coaching staffs who are familiar.

But the players, they understand the strengths and weaknesses of Kirk Cousins. Like they get it. It's very clear that Aaron Glenn knows how to slow down Kirk Cousins, and they have to solve that because now two weeks in a row, teams have put things on tape that have really worked against the Vikings offense, and the offense needs to be your driver. I mean, I mentioned the numbers, but if you're 17th and scoring an 18th and yards this year at the end of the season, you're not going to feel very good about that. When the whole deal was, you need to take the offense to the next level. You need to be a top 10 offense and they have not played like that so far. And maybe the one thing you could say is that Jefferson won't be shut down throughout the

season the way that he was the last two weeks. And so it should be better than that. But it kind of is evened out by having an amazing game the first game. So his stats through three weeks, they don't look super unusual. But the order of those one huge game and two bad games, you know, that feels a lot worse, I think. And we could see that. And there have been times where that's happened throughout his career. And I think that a lot of folks looked at that and said, well, that's Mike Zimmer's

fault, but not at the moment. And so Kevin O'Connell's big challenge is to fix that. I don't know if there's an easy fix though, because I think the Lions and the Eagles, they know that, and this goes back to times for 2018, even when Diggs and Thielen had big stats, but later in the season, there were adjustments to where they started doubling them in key situations. I remember New England just straight up put two guys over Diggs and Thielen and said, throw it to anybody else. And they weren't able to do that against New England in that game.

So, you know, I think that that's kind of out there, and it's going to be Kevin O'Connell's job to find the solution. So anyway, we'll have a lot to talk about leading up to London later this week. Jonathan Harrison, Purple Insider producer going to London. I'm really excited for Jonathan to head over there and then check in on the podcast late in the week. We'll have Tuesday morning left guard. Make sure also you check out the Hot Routes podcast. It's wherever you get your podcasts.

And it's spelled with a Z. Hot R-O-U-T-E-Z because there were other pods called with an S. And also that's the brand. So let's go. But that's more of a recap let's go. Um, but that's a more of a recap of what happened in the NFL season and, um, you know, some fun, the usual stuff. So thanks everybody for listening and we will talk to you again soon.