Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - ESPN's Courtney Cronin is picking the Vikings to beat the Seahawks

Episode Date: September 24, 2021

Matthew Coller and ESPN's Courtney Cronin discuss why the Vikings so desperately need a win and why they're both picking the Vikings to save their season on Sunday afternoon. Why is Russell Wilson such a difficult QB to face, even at US Bank Stadium? What would the ramifications be of a loss? Do the Vikings have Wolves-like dysfunction? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to another episode of Purple Insider, Matthew Collar here and with ESPN's Courtney Cronin inside TCO Performance Center. What is up, Courtney? A crazy week, as always. Never a dull moment with this team, with any team in the state of Minnesota. Honestly, it's kind of crazy that the Vikings, after the missed field goal, are now old news and very much buried news at this point, considering the Wild get Kirill Kaprizov here. Heard that's a pretty big deal. Not a a big hockey girl myself but I definitely follow along with the Russian phenom and then man I don't even know where we can start with the Minnesota Timberwolves but Jesus I'm glad that uh we don't cover that team because that is a uh that's a mess that's a mess

the happiest person in Minnesota is Greg Joseph oh my god just off the front page instantly and i guess i would say that when we think about stability of franchises and why the vikings ownership has stuck with the same coach and general manager even though there has been plenty of what the H with car accidents where deer are involved and people hanging off trusses and Adrian Peterson drama. There's been a lot of things that have happened to this team, but they haven't generally been rooted in the head coach and the general manager. Maybe the Stefan Diggs thing, I thing i would say probably was but that's more of a player who has a beef with the way his franchise is handling their offensive philosophy

it is not a general manager having an affair and being seen in public slash also alienating like a very large percentage of the inside of the building like we just haven't seen something like that i would say the closest that we got though, not the fair part, but the closest we got to alienating people in the building. Wouldn't you say 2019 Zimmer at the end of the year, there was a lot of conversation. When he and Spielman were trying to like distance themselves publicly, privately, but it became very public about who's on which side of this. And if this playoff thing goes wrong and there's a loss, one of us is going to get gone and it's not going to be me. Yeah, that was 100% what was happening in the month of December 2019.

We all felt it. We all knew it. Those of us who were talking to people behind the scenes saw it too. It's just something that, you know, the infighting in franchises, like the one thing that like I see with this Timberwolves story, this happens in every professional sports franchise. The affair stuff included, and I'm not here to get into airing dirty laundry or anything, or I'm not saying anything about this team,

but this stuff happens with every professional sports franchise. Do not kid yourself about that. The infighting, the debaucherous nonsense, all the BS that's happening behind the scenes. I mean, Gerson Rosas, the one thing I took from that story that The Athletic wrote about him blocking his number two from that Houston job, but also blocking him from coming into the building? What?

Like, there's a lot of weird nonsense that was going on within that team that I promise you is going on in other franchises. It's just those who do a good job of distancing themselves from it or not letting it bubble over to where people are like, yeah, I want to talk about it. Those are the ones who can at least handle their nonsense, their off the field nonsense and still win on the field. Well, and in 2019, there was also the possibility of the trade to Dallas, which I believe was very real. Because the next day after the playoff win, Mike McCarthy's the coach in Dallas. It was like the timing of that was not a coincidence. And the fact that ownership, the Friday before the game, comes out with a statement that says that they support,

like vehemently support, whatever the wording was, Mike Zimmer and Rick Spielman. You don't do that. If where there's smoke, there's fire. And they just basically like tip their hand to what they were planning to do. Right, exactly. So we have seen this. And there's also been things that I've heard about, who has control over roster decisions and how, you know,

certain people don't have decision power or they don't feel like they have any influence or any say in what happens. The analytics department, I think, on the football side, not on the front office side, but on the coaching side, I believe has felt like they don't have control. So these things do exist. And like you said, there is a balance here to who's in charge versus having a sort of dictator type of feeling to it. And then also you can't embarrass yourself in public the way that Gerson Rosas did. But your point, I think, is exactly right, that this stuff,

it exists when you don't win. If you are Bill Belichick, for example, and you run the whole franchise, but you just keep winning, I mean, what can anybody say to you? Right. But if you lose and lose and lose, which the Timberwolves have, and now the Vikings see, this is the thing about going on too, is if we push the meter back a little bit, it's not just Owen too. It's seven and 11 since the beginning of last year, you go back to the end of 2019, you lose to San Francisco. So now it's seven of your last 19 games that you've won under Mike Zimmer. And I think this one in Seattle, it's got a ton of pressure going into it. And I know that what's being talked about here and most people, players and coaches,

you ask, we'll ask will say yeah we were a couple plays away from being 2-0 but the pressure they must feel to win this game because of what's at stake you can't be 0-3 going into a game where you host Kevin Stefanski and the Browns and if you're the Wilfs that's the coach that you let walk away you had every chance we're talking about that Dallas thing and the trade rumors who was your guy that you were going to replace Mike Zimmer with? It was Kevin Stefanski. So you can't have it be a situation where you're 0-3. You give yourself no breathing room to do that, and you play tight.

You play terrible. It's a bad situation to be in. And when we're talking about early season firings and potentially a change at the top of this organization if they're oh and three and then soon to be after that oh and four it's it's probably it feels very likely that something will happen either that or you can just say that ownership I don't know if you want to say that they don't care or that they're going to try to see this thing out or their brainwash but like it. But I'd be very hard-pressed to believe that they wouldn't do something

after 0-4 if it got to that point. But, yeah, I mean, the mood around this team this week has kind of been, I guess, what you would expect. Almost, I wouldn't say delusional, but there's also this sense of, guys, we were right there. We were right there. And I get that because in many ways they were, but in many ways they weren't. And if you don't get out to a fast start against Seattle like you did against Arizona,

but you let them come back in the game, that's going to be a serious problem. They're fortunate that they're at home. The crowd noise should be very beneficial for throwing the offense off and the headsets going out and everything you expect on the road they need this game they absolutely need this game because being one and two is a huge dark difference than oh and three if we go back so I was just doing a little poking around here and talk about like uh have you been snake bitten recently? Last year in one score games, they were six and four and then oh, and two here. So six and six.

And if you even look at last year, you sort of made your own bed with Dallas because you had a corner that didn't want to tackle somebody. But then you also got a good break in Chicago that a receiver had a ball go through his hands that would have been a game winning touchdown by Nick Foles. You had some bad breaks, but you also had good breaks against Carolina and Jacksonville you know the Chicago one you made your own bed by not being able to you know convert a final drive and that kind of thing so I think that doing the whole we were almost there type of bit I think that that works with a team that's young, that has potential where you talk

about, oh, well, they've shown signs. If you were the New York Jets and you lost two games by one score, you'd be like, okay. That works if you're inexperienced. You're right. Right. Not when you spent 46 million in guaranteed money on defensive players who have been on good teams before, who have been good players for you in previous years that you brought back all of that stuff like it just kind of feels like it was like again like I remember you know they think they were they think they're good enough are they I don't know because it just felt there was a little bit of delusion in that where it's they're trying to like almost talk themselves into believing that yeah yep that's exactly what it feels like is sort of speak it into existence that the first

two games were a fluke and that they'll bounce back here. Now, both of us think that they will. Yeah. My pick for this game is that the Vikings win by three, that they get a big stop at the end or something of the like on defense, that the crowd plays a major role in this and that they come away one and two feeling like they have sort of saved their season and then go into another pivotal game against Cleveland. There is a part of this that feels like, wow, you're playing playoff games already. And this

is very stressful to do when you have a tough. Can you imagine they're going to do that over 17 games? Right. That's why it's always tough. And there's no Jacksonville here on this schedule for the rest of the way, except for Detroit. But last year's second half schedule was easier. Explain your thinking, though, on why you are picking the Vikings. Well, for starters, they're one-point dogs at home. So I think the line on this game opened at four. Maybe that was Arizona.

I know that line opened up close when Seattle loses the game to Tennessee and they end up, you know, kind of looking a little bit more evenly matched than the team that just beat the breaks off Indy in week one on the road. So I looked at that, I looked at a number of different factors from like a, you know, a wagering standpoint. I mean, Seattle is a team that in like six of their last seven road games, they've failed to cover. So like, I looked at that saying, okay, is there something to that? Now I'm not a huge gambling person, but when I'm trying to like pick a score and I pick them, I picked the Vikings 28, 27 to beat the Seahawks. That was something I factored in.

And like, they've been playing on the road. That's a big swing to go from Indy all the way home back to Minnesota. Like that's, that factors into it. Also, if this team truly is as good as Mike Zimmer is saying, he thinks that they can be, you think about the teams that have gotten off to slow starts before. 2017, they're 2-2 at the first, you know, the first quarter of the season 2019 they had the you know the the win over Atlanta the loss at Green Bay the win over Oakland the loss at Chicago like they started out same thing two and two now this is a different stretch because you had to go on the road for your first two games you have a new secondary you're breaking in and like I know

that's something we've talked about well why were there so many busted coverages well maybe it's a factor of this of the secondary communication learning to play together the whole thing combining all different styles of players together whatever but if they truly are going to turn around the season it doesn't happen like oh and three and then they start doing it against Cleveland it happens this week and I think that there are some vulnerabilities with Russell Wilson at this point of his career. It's not the same guy that you faced in 2018 or even at the playoff game, anything like that.

I know that they've played them a lot and they do have experience and they know Russell Wilson should probably be in the NFC North at this rate. But I think there is something to be said about the way that Tennessee was able to come back in that game and still run on Seattle that the Vikings can, you know, follow suit in that. So that's kind of what factored into my take on this. Like, well, if they lose this game, will I think anything different of them? Yeah, I will say, okay, they are a bad team because you cannot be 0-3 and make the playoffs. I just don't believe it, even in a 17-game schedule. This is as must- must win as it comes I know I said that last week people

are going to point that out I'm sorry when you are in this situation where it's coming down to one score games and you can't follow through like you don't get time to figure that out later on because when you do figure it out it doesn't matter because you're out of the postseason race at that point and we know it's going to be tight right and uh the way that green bay bounced back last week i know it was against detroit but you just can't expect that you can get down a couple of games early to green bay in the standings now we'll see um what happens to them they got to go out to san francisco that's not going to be easy cleveland is uh hosting chicago so the teams that you're battling with could sort of keep you in the race but the other nfc teams won't and that's how it usually works is you get down and then everyone says well we'll just win these games or whatever

but there will always be other teams who are staying ahead of you playing each other where someone has to win you get a w it becomes almost impossible now here's the thing with Russell Wilson is that on the road, he is 44-28-1 in his career. Now he's better at home, 55-18-0, but his numbers are still really good. A 99 quarterback rating when he's at home, 126 touchdowns to only 48 picks, averages 240 yards passing a game, 8 yards an attempt almost. I mean, he is a surprisingly good road quarterback there are some quarterbacks who I remember Drew Brees was this way who is so

different on the road versus at home but I don't I don't think Wilson is a guy who will necessarily be shaken by being at U.S. Bank State I mean the thing was week one when they play the Colts are talking about oh like look how good Russ is in the Eastern time zone. They're using all these road stats that you don't think mean much. But you look at the consecutive number of wins that they've had when they are in those situations. And he plays in a pretty loud environment as it is. I know he plays on offense, but that place is still rocking

with a 12th man or whatever it is at CenturyLink Field in Seattle. So he's used to playing in raucous environments. And I look at like the way that they've been producing on offense, how this thing has changed, new offensive coordinator for him, the same sort of system. I mean, Patrick Peterson today, I think kind of, what's the word I'm looking for? I compared them to the Rams a little bit just because of some of the principles and philosophies and the Vikings have played the Rams before and played them pretty close in moments.

So maybe there's things you can take from that, but you know, I do think that there are things that the Vikings can take from last week's loss at Arizona. No, Kyler Murray is not the same quarterback as Russell Wilson. I'm not saying that Murray is a younger version of Wilson. I think they have a lot of similarities, but there are some differences there

because Russ is somebody who will step up in the pocket and just drop a dime on you. But, you know, Tyler Lockett scares me. He really does. I think that they've got something going there, the two of them, and just the way that they're able to break off plays which become backyard football, which become these dangerous things. Think about how many throws that Kyler Murray made under pressure

and it didn't phase him. He was like 6 for 10, 140 yards, two touchdowns, and a pick. Well, you were pressuring him. Well, Daniil still got three sacks, and those numbers are that good. Are they going to be just as good against Russell Wilson even if your pass rush is doing all it can it might be so that's what kind of worries me when I look at them and just like you know all the all the things that factor into Russell Wilson being as good as he is you know he's gone into some really stark like you know environments before that have you know they would shake any quarterback and he

hasn't been that guy I just pulled this up over the last three years so of course he's a different quarterback now than he was early in his career over the last three years the only quarterback with a higher win percentage and quarterback rating than Russell Wilson on the road is Tom Brady well Patrick Mahomes the answer to every question for who has the best statistic at everything. It's Patrick Mahomes. And he's tied with Mahomes for that 7-0 record he has against the Vikings against any one single opponent.

That's the second best record that any active quarterback has. Mahomes has one, two against the Broncos. Tom Brady is the one who has a 9-0 record against the Falcons because, of course, there's something to be said about that. A quarterback who has your number, who has your card. And it's not like they haven't played them close before. I think back to that game in 2019 where they had those back-to-back drives where they could have won that game on the road last year.

Or two years ago. They could have won the game on the road last year. They could have, two years ago, they could have won the game on the road last year. For sure. If it wasn't for, you know, that last drive where Seattle didn't even have to use timeouts and they just went down the field and absolutely dismantled your backup replacement quarterbacks, cornerbacks.

It's just wild to me, like how good he is though and just how well he does at picking picking apart this defense I think the reason though that I'm going to still pick the Vikings despite all the stats that we just gave you and you it should be concerning honestly that Wilson is so good on the road that he's clearly not shaken is that not only do these Seattle Seahawks not really pressure the quarterback they also don't cover well and this was the thing that they were super good at when they were at their best is they had just had a great coverage unit where you had Richard Sherman and Cam Chancellor yeah the defense that no longer

exists the Legion of Boom exactly whatever the hell it was called so just going by PFF grades they're 19th in coverage but they've had a couple of corners who have really been shredded and it feels like as long as kirk cousins does not come out overly anxious which we have seen in big games before prime time game technically i mean the 2019 game against green bay is the one that comes to mind for me where they cause the fumble on the first drive and then they i think kirk checked down to C.J. Hamm like two times in the red zone. If that version shows up, then change my pick. You're not going to win if the anxious, overwhelmed Kirk Cousins shows up.

But if he doesn't, this is not a team who's going to necessarily get after him, and it's not a team that's going to cover effectively against Adam Thielen and against Justin Jefferson. I also think that Seattle just plays kind of an antiquated form of defense that we saw actually last year, last week. I mean, it just feels like even Arizona playing the single high and trying to load the box. It's like, what year is this? Everybody who's smart in the league is playing two deep safeties and then five man fronts and doing all these creative things that these couple of teams are really not. And I think that when we've seen that in the past, Kirk Cousins takes advantage. Also, usually when he gets on a hot streak, he kind of rolls and it's usually not

one or two games. It's usually three or four games when he's one player of the month and things like that before. So I think that he continues to to play well and this is a good matchup for the Vikings offense and that they can do enough on defense especially since Wilson takes a lot of sacks with Daniel Hunter playing the way he is that they can do just enough on offense to get a win here I do too and I think that Kirk the way he's playing right now we we can't blame Kirk Cousins for the two losses that they had I mean yes there are moments where he could have played better but statistically and I always we always throw caution to the wind here with like the passer rating that's this like 90 plus passer rating for 16 consecutive starts I look back at that so you remember what when that started was like the 26 or something of September

last year and I went back oh that's a Tennessee game where he had a chance to lead the team down the field for a fourth quarter comeback and he didn't um he doesn't have the interceptions that he did last year remember how bad they were 10 and 6 games like he doesn't have one yet the only other quarterback who's thrown more touchdowns without an interception is Russell Wilson this year so Kirk's playing really well I don't know if there's like a science down to like what that's um you know what that is because honestly after week one I don't know if there's a science down to what that is, because honestly, after week one, I was nervous, thinking, okay, he's not going to play well at all going forward. He was really, yes, he did get them in position

in getting them through their fourth quarter, setting up the field goal, getting them to overtime where they could have won that game if there wouldn't have been a fumble. But he's playing really well right now if you get the version of him that doesn't look like deer in headlights and just like shook like that's gonna bode well for you I think that this will come down to like you mentioned because Russ is gonna get his even though he's not the let Russ cook version of himself and they've kind of gone away from that and they still run the ball a lot I think Kirk Cousins

will be the what wins you this game against Seattleattle so the the cousins and how he's played is an interesting conversation because it's a little bit of uh in the first game light the house on fire and then put it out the same you know the same person is lighting the house on fire and then fighting the fire if you've seen the meme it's like if we could only find the person responsible for this right that's that was kind of i mean it wasn't just him it never is just the quarterback in any situation but there have been too many drives that are three and outs the second half of the game in arizona same thing and you can pin that on cl Kubiak or Mike Zimmer or whoever, but throws were not made by Cousins. Drives were not led until they got to the very last one where they needed to go down and set themselves up for field goal position. So you could say in part that like, even though the

statistics came out looking good because of some big plays, especially the KJ Osborne one and a very nice touchdown to Justin Jefferson, very nice touchdown to Adam Thielen that, uh, cousins kept both the Bengals and Arizona in the game by not having an extra gear, but that's the reality of what you have here. It's like, you don't have a quarterback who has an extra Russell Wilson gear. So you have to make your field goals and extra points, and you have to play really well on defense to win games against good teams. I'm not convinced that Arizona is a good team. Yeah, I think they're okay. I think they're like a six seed.

But now I think Seattle is a good team, a real good team. Now they're not perfect, but they have a top three quarterback or top four quarterback in the league. So it's not going to take an okay effort. It can't take one of these oh the first three drives are three and out or four or five and out I mean it has to be right from the outset just like it was in Arizona or then you start to get everybody in the building including the fans who've seen this over and over again as I mentioned seven wins in your last 19

football games I think the fans get anxious quick when you're 0-2 if it doesn't start really well. The season's on the line. I hate being that person, but it is. It's on the line right now entering week three because 0-3, 0-2, those are big holes to dig yourself out of. If they're going to do it, they have to do it now because I think you're going to get people starting to get off the the Vikings fan I mean fan wagon whatever you want to call it like I mean and that's not really what I care about all that much but I think just for like the belief in this team because think about like what you were talking about with like Kirk and in the numbers and how good he plays in certain stretches there is no October that has the New York Giants, the Detroit Lions, the Washington football team, a bunch of other schmucks that are in there.

It's a hard schedule. They've got Baltimore. They've got a Panthers team that might be actually decently good. They've got San Francisco. They've got the Chargers. They've got a really tough stretch. Green Bay is in there. They don't have this throwaway give-me stretch where Kirk can go light it up

and be NFC Player of the Month the way that he has the last couple years. It's a gauntlet, and they've got to prove themselves that they can handle that because they just have not in years past at all. So if you don't win this week, I hate being that person again to say it's over. But can you disagree with me to think that it's not oh and three even if green bay and you gotta be thinking there's gonna be an injury or some sort of catastrophic something that's going to allow you to skate through to get in the playoffs if you're oh and three to start the season correct and i know the colts did it a few

years ago and the houston tex did it, and I don't care. This team feels very fragile still. Yes, they were two plays away at the end of the day. There are a lot more plays than that that cost themselves, but we will remember that game for Dalvin Cook's fumble in Cincinnati. We will remember that Greg Joseph missed a chip shot. But this team feels very fragile. If they don't get a win, I wonder when they start fracturing internally

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and keep your eye out for our soda stick giveaways if chicago and green bay lose it won't feel like the world is over because it will look like green bay is every bit as vulnerable and chicago might just be like not good uh they're playing cleveland at cle, so that's not an easy opponent. And with Justin Fields starting. Right, with a rookie, yeah. But they wouldn't look so much as a real contender if Chicago's 1-2 and Green Bay gets beaten down by San Francisco or something. I think we would still say they're the favorite, but they won't look as tough.

But if those teams win, if Chicago and Green Bay wins, and you are down two games from the very outset of the season, chasing in the NFC North, and no other team is going to let you into it, like they're going to fill up those playoff spots, it will feel like, yeah, it's over. And then I think we go into week four, and we start talking about, like, is it time?

When is it time? What do you need to do here? And I guess what the biggest thing that would exist in my mind is even if you like the people and you think that they're good, you think that they're stable, unlike the wolves and so forth, unlike some other teams, I think you'd say like, how, how much longer can you do this though? When you're getting the same results over and over the definition of insanity're getting the same results over and over? It's the definition of insanity, expecting the same results,

expecting a different result, but the same thing keeps happening. You keep going to the well, and you expect something different. I'm not saying this team is not capable of coming back out of this hole. It's half the reason I picked them to win this week. There's a desperation factor here, whether they want to believe in it and talk about it publicly or not. You don't want to play that way because you're going to play tight and you're going to miss assignments, miss tackles. We've seen them in that situation before where it's game on the line

and they just completely crumble. All the times they had to back into the playoffs, remember? Indy 2016, Chicago 2018, all these moments that they've had where it's like do or die time, and they died. Like, you know, Chicago last year and New Orleans last year. I mean, the list goes on and on. But I think that they know what they have to do. It's just a matter now of can you rest this on Kirk Cousins' shoulders?

Because I don't know with this defense. Like, I'm still not for sure, like, how legit they are. I mean, yeah, they looked... Daniil Hunter's wonderful. That's great. I had no qualms about that. Anthony Barr might come back this week. Big question there. Do you replace Nick Vigil with him? Because Nick Vigil's been playing really darn good. I don't know how you do that in nickel. Maybe you do. I don't know. The secondary is still a giant question mark, and now they're injured. So what's that going to look like? I think you've got to put the weight on the offense considering how good the offense was last year at home kirk's numbers were really good uh granted there were no fans nothing like that

but he looked really good at home last year how does that translate to them needing to beat seattle you hope seattle's defense is every bit as porous as it was a year ago because it looked like it in that Tennessee game and the way they let them back in. Sure did. No one's ever said Seattle's a great defense in recent years. Right. In recent years. And I think that if you play the same team with the same coaches and the same quarterback over and over again. Yes. It's like a division opponent. It really is. Yeah. There's a familiarity there that really screams out close game. Screams out your failures. And then, can you close it? And they haven't done that in these first two games.

When have they closed out a game? Can you think of that? But it depends. Are we grading this on a curve? Like, does Jacksonville count? Like, no, right? Carolina, yeah, I know. That's the thing.

Close out a game that you thought was big. I mean, outside of the wild card game against New Orleans, they won a coin toss to win. I don't know. I think that's the thing where Kirk has three fourth quarter comebacks in his career since he joined the Vikings in 2018, one of which was that Denver game, I believe. You can do it against mediocre opponents that's great but Seattle's I think a very good opponent the NFC West is going to be really tough to figure

out who's making it to the playoffs when all four of your teams are playing great I think last year they closed out Chicago on the road yeah was probably the last one that mattered. And they closed them out because even when you go back to 2016 or I'm sorry, 2019, there weren't many wins against good teams that year. I think Philadelphia would be the one. But but that was kind of a kill. I mean, they just sort of ran over Philadelphia. So was there a close game in 2019? I'm looking right now.

Denver, that's the only one. But not a good team. Not a good. You shouldn't have been down 20 points in that game. I mean, that is the thing that has got to be so frustrating for Vikings fans is that over these last few years, they just every time they have an opportunity sort of right there to show that there's something, show that there's something there show that they

can close out a big game win a big game it just has not happened it has not happened since 2017 really with this team there's the occasional big win but I mean not that many of them though and and this right here I think if you're going to say the season is different this year is different those first two games were flukes this year is different than last year then because the defense hasn't been different than last year at the start of the season so this year is different this is the win you get to prove that it's different and then you can go forward and see where you could take this but if you don't get this win there is no convincing anybody that anything is different correct no I completely agree because a it's the same result it's been the last two weeks there's no turning point at that point right because

I think Cleveland will end up beating Chicago this weekend I still think Cleveland even in that loss to Kansas City in week one they're a playoff favorite for me and the drama that's going into that game you want to like try to get it like try to right the ship and do everything else when you're dealing with all the ancillary nonsense that comes with Kevin Stefanski coming back to town you know Mike Zimmer you want to you know beat the guy that you know walked out of here and became head coach of the year in year one and you know you you've heard the noise you heard that they wanted him over you. Like, come on. That's like, that's too much. And if you don't get it right this week, I think that they are doomed in week four.

Let's close out this way is what surprised you most in the NFL so far through two weeks? I mean, the injuries suck. Like, the quarterback injuries are just not fun to, you know, deal with. I mean, we talk about, like, Tua and then Carson Wentz, who I mean, that's not a surprise to me. The guy can't stay healthy. He hasn't stayed healthy since he was drafted. Whatever. I'd say, honestly, it's probably the Dallas Cowboys.

Because they've looked good? Yeah. And it's not that, like, I don't believe in their offense I do it's that they won in spite of like losing their best defensive player um Dak went down and beat Tom Brady like almost being Tom Brady excuse me yeah Dak played incredibly well in the game yeah and like in in like got so close there with like as bad as they looked in moments still came back and they win last week I think that not that the NFC East not that I really had any sort of belief in any of the other teams I I do think Washington and I have said that I thought Washington could probably win that division the

Cowboys though like look legitimate to me they really do I just wonder like you know when we talk about that October 31st game when they they play the Vikings at U.S. Bank Stadium, what version of them are you getting? Are you getting a team that looks like a Super Bowl contender? Are you getting a team that, like, eh, they made it through, like, weeks, like, three through six, and they look terrible, and they're back to earth, and the offense can't carry the weight. Like, what do they look like?

But, no, of any team that surprised me, that's probably one of them. I'm not surprised that Kansas City lost last week, by the way. I'm not. I think that they were due for that. I thought that the confidence that John Harbaugh has in Lamar Jackson and just the way that they went down and won that game, that was impressive, and I was not surprised by that. Also, I guess some of the risk-taking from Mahomes

was bound to bite him occasionally, and that happened. He had a sort of James Winston moment. He not mortal right or he is immortal immortal not moral would be maybe what happened with the Wolves uh anyway so I was just gonna say the Raiders um for me have just looked great and I think that that's they got away with one in the first game of course but talk about a winner or make or break season for them. Yeah, I think that Derek Carr has really looked like a franchise quarterback. And I don't know if I've thought that since he had the 12-4 season.

But even then, it was a lot of checkdowns. He's been really aggressive this year. And if he keeps that up, that could turn into a big surprise in that division. They might even have a chance to win it. And Atlanta being a complete joke is not something I thought was going to happen. Do you think they beat the Giants this week? I don't know. I don't.

I actually think the Giants will win that game, which is crazy to think that Atlanta and all of its new stuff and new changes. I thought it would work. I thought it would work. I thought Kyle Pitts was supposed to be this super great player. I mean, we'll see if they improve, but I thought that like the coaching was a big issue and wow, through two weeks,

just like not good. And their defense is still horrid. So I think the giants win that game too. Anyway, well, we'll see how this one goes and we'll talk next week and we'll either be talking about how the season once again, rests on Cleveland or we'll be talking about how the season once again rests on cleveland or we'll be talking about

all the hot seats those are the only two outcomes unless there's a tie and then i'll just we won't do a podcast i don't know we'll just we'll turn on the recorder and just be like i don't know do you know no you have to get blank noise for 40 minutes the weirdest feeling ever walking out of a stadium was the tie in green bay oh my god i didn't know what to do i was like uh it's like wait we changed the overtime rules when did that happen i felt like donovan mcnabb wait it's over uh okay so we'll see how it goes and we'll get together again next week thank you for your time