Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Former Lion Glover Quinn talks Vikings-Lions rivalry

Episode Date: December 21, 2023

Matthew Coller is joined by former Detroit Lion Glover Quin to talk about the Vikings-Lions budding rivalry, how he felt watching Matthew Stafford win the Super Bowl elsewhere and who's winning this weekend's matchup. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here and uh continuing my tour on the road here with the in-laws in the back porch but uh you're all fine with it so joining me on the show returning is glover quinn uh former detroit lions safety and i would say generally glover um vikings fans only really hate one person in the division, and that was Aaron Rodgers. And anybody else they would just have respect for if you were a thorn in their side. That was you. Like when the Vikings would play the Lions,

it's like that Glover Quinn dude is going to pick off a pass or something every time. So I feel like you had a lot of respect from Vikings fans. So welcome back to the show, man. Man, I appreciate it, man. I definitely had respect for the vikings fans i i actually enjoyed um playing there i played my last well the last game in um the dome uh what the dome was called um yeah metrodome yeah the metrodome the last game that was played there was against Detroit in 2013. And I was on that team.

And then 2014 and 15, I think we played at the University of Minnesota. And then 2016, I think we opened up in the new stadium. And it was always fun playing there, man. The city was actually cooler than i thought it was um so being able to come up i actually kind of got like started to look forward to come to uh to minnesota and so especially when we wasn't playing at the university of minnesota because you know it gets kind of cold out there i think we had one cold game. But it was cool, man. I loved playing in the new stadium, man.

I used to love going out there and playing, man. You guys doing the ball chant, the school Vikings chant. I used to love it, man. It was such a cool thing, man. And, like you said, I felt like it was a true, like true NFL player to fan situation, meaning the Vikings fans were never ugly to me. It was all, this is football. I know you guys are here to cheer for the Vikings. I'm playing for the Lions, so I would expect you guys to boo me.

But it was never anything ugly, never anything out of character. You know, I had fun playing there, made some plays there, you know, gave up some plays there, but it was fun. So I got a lot of respect for the Vikings and the fans and the city. Isn't that interesting how different atmospheres can be based on the region? I mean, I've been to Philadelphia quite a few times, and it's different. They'll boo their own team, which you don't see all that often. Like, if they fail on two straight possessions, half the crowd will start going after their own team.

And then if you're, of course, dressed in purple in Philadelphia, you might get something thrown at you and so forth. But in the Midwest, it's just a little bit different. Like, when you go to a Vikings-Packers game, they will tailgate together, but then go inside. And the decorum is, I think, pretty good overall because it is one of the louder buildings in the NFL. So it's not like the fans are not into it. I think it's just like the way of approaching football. And like I mentioned about fans having respect for your game. I think that that just tends to happen a lot with this fan base. Like they're very knowledgeable

about their team who plays in the division and a safety from the Detroit Lions is going to get that type of respect. So I've really appreciated covering this fan base and kind of how they approach the game. Yeah, they're good. They're good. I definitely can say that. They're good. Like I said, it was always fun, always a good time. You know, we had some good games. The game in 2016, I think we played up there when – did it go OT or did we win in the last – Overtime, yeah. I think it was overtime when Golden Tate scored the walk-off touchdown, right?

Yeah. That's one of the craziest games I've ever covered. Yeah, that was Matthew Stafford hit a pass for like 40 yards with seconds. Andre Roberts crossed the middle. Yep. And then that Prater. Long field goal. Yeah, kick a long field goal.

And then we get to overtime and Golden Tate gets the walk-off touchdown, right? And then we come back in 2017. We had the game. I think I ended that game on a punch out of Adam Thielen at the end. Y'all had a two-minute drive, I think, to try to go down and win the game. And they throw a pass to Adam Thielen across the middle. He catches it, turns away from me. I chase him down from the back, punch the ball a lot.

We recover the fumble. We win the game. I think 2018, you guys beat us because that was Matt Patricia year. So I don't think we won that year. But had some really good, like, epic divisional-type games in Minnesota. So it was fun. I definitely enjoyed it. Yeah, absolutely. divisional type games in Minnesota. So it was fun. I definitely enjoyed it.

Yeah, absolutely. And I want to talk about that a little bit because I feel like there's been a lot of great games between the Vikings and Lions. I started covering the team in 2016. And so since then, as you mentioned, the one in 16 was insane. Even the one in 17, I think, was it Thanksgiving Day, where there was a blocked field goal that didn't count. But if it had, it would have changed the whole game. The Vikings are, you know, kind of riding the Case Keenum thing and so forth. And so through the years, there's just been a lot of nutty games.

And then even recently, since you've been a podcaster, you've seen them too. The K.J. Osborne touchdown catch at the end of last year, throwing a pass to Penny Sewell to end a game. So I feel like this has been like percolating as a rivalry, but there haven't been that many games that like this have a lot on the line. Like the Lions are fighting, you know, to get as far as they can in this race to set themselves up for the playoffs. The Vikings are fighting for the playoffs. Like, I love the juice that's coming along with this game and it feels like you know kind of a throwback to the meaningful nature of this to i mean i don't want to say you have to go as far back as the 90s but like to have playoff implications on the line for these two teams battling i think it's something we haven't really

seen in a while yeah and i think you know you say robbery you know just being honest just from the the the outside looking in i guess from what we think about when we think of rivalries and we think of you know nasty or dirty or things like that i don't think the vikings have like that i think they have rivalries but they're like like you said with the fans it's like good respectful rivals like we go at each other we play hard we're gonna play a good game we're gonna win some we're gonna lose some but there's really no hatred we're just football players or we're just football fans and we understand that we're going to play this team once or twice a year. And it's generally a good game, you know what I'm saying?

But I don't know many Minnesota fans that are saying, you know, oh, I can't stand the Detroit Lions. And I don't know if there's any Detroit fans saying I can't stand the Minnesota Vikings. You know what I'm saying? I think it's just too, too just happy, like blue collar hard working like this is kind of how it is we go we watch the games we enjoy the games and we move on and and have a good time and so this game right here like you say the implications on this game the you know it's a meaningful game and in the end of december right the lions have an opportunity to win and clinch the playoff berth, and Minnesota's still fighting for everything right there in front of them. So I think it has

a huge implication on postseason play, and obviously for the Lions, with Seattle losing or beating the Eagles last night, that opens up the Lions to have a road to the two seed and put pressure on San Francisco to see what happens at the one.

So it's a lot on the line. And like you said, I don't know if it's – I can't remember the last time these two teams have played at this point in the season with this much on the line. Right. I mean, even just playing late in the season, it doesn't seem like something that generally happens. Now I want to know,

does it, are you excited by the idea of the lions being talked about as one of the three or four true contenders? It's probably really three, maybe four. Well, Philadelphia, yeah,

Philadelphia, Detroit are kind of in the same boat. And then there's, you know, Dallas and San Francisco that are maybe a notch up, I think in our minds. Uh, but in the way that the lions get talked about nationally is sort of like, oh, like this is cute. They're finally doing something, which I think if you're in the division, you're like, wait a minute.

I was, I watched Matt Stafford come in here and do some pretty crazy things through the year. There were lots of seasons that were competitive with Stafford, and 2017 was one of them. But it was always something in the way. Like, he would get hurt at the end of a season, can't really control that, or whatever it might be. But I wonder how you feel about having played for the team, that that's sort of the narrative as if you didn't exist before this. And then now suddenly sort of popped out of nowhere. Well, it's just one of those things, you know, like being a football player, being a football fan,

you kind of understand the whole dynamics of things. And the Lions, like you said, since 1991, they haven't had one to play out for anything like that. Right. So for most of the people that are in, I would say, you know, 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, you know, they they haven't really seen the Lions as a winning franchise in the NFL. And so you're fighting to change the narrative of that. Or as you look at a team like Dallas, Dallas really hasn't won a lot of that stuff either. If you really think about it over the last few years, but they were known as America's team. So whether they playing good or they're playing bad, people still take note to the Dallas Cowboys.

Whereas the Detroit lines nationally, you have to fight for that respect. You have to fight for whatever, because your market isn't as big as a Dallas. You haven't won Superbowls. Although Dallas won Superbowls back in the nineties and things like that, right? That lines haven't done those things.

So you're trying to fight to get that recognition, to get that respect. But to build that nationally, you have to be able to repeat that year in and year out, right? You look at, you know, what the Patriots did. They were able to be AFC championship game, Super Bowl almost every year. You know what I'm saying? We're seeing them in major playoff games, Super Bowl games. They won seven of all these things. So the Patriots become a team that everybody knows about, right? The Lions haven't really been that. So you have to fight to get the world. And it's not just one season. You can't have just one season and feel like everybody's going to take

note of the lines. No, y'all just had a good season, right? You have to do it over and over and over and over and over again. And so now seeing them kind of get talked about, you know, we had some good momentum with Coach Caldwell there for four years. And then it kind of went downhill with Matt Patricia, which was a storyline as well. And then they get put on hard knocks and all these different things and gain some national attention. And although they didn't start the season off great last year with the momentum from hard knocks, they actually finished off the season off great last year with the momentum from hard knocks they actually finished off the season great winning a big game in green bay the last game of the season prime time game everybody got to see that right then you open up the season this year prime time game against patrick mahomes in kansas city everybody got to see that they go and win that game and so every

time that the lions have played on prime time, especially at nighttime, they've won. Yes, they lost on Thanksgiving Day. But every time it's Saturday night, they won. Monday night against the Raiders, they win. So they've played well national TV games to where people can start to say, okay, this Lions team is pretty good. But like you say, we've had some players, we've done some good things over the course of these years. But it's good to see that they're kind of trying to start to get that recognition. And I mean, the work that we've done, you know, in those years to kind of build the name, to build the standard, that stuff doesn't go to waste.

You know what I'm saying? It doesn't go to waste. And you're just glad that, you know, you had something to do with the organization, you know, getting turned around and trying to bring a little respect to that team and those players because they work hard too. Yeah. And, you know, I really felt like they were on the cusp of something with Caldwell where the couple of years they're leading up to

when they fired Caldwell, it was like right on the edge. Like one more thing goes right, add a little bit to the roster, whatever else, and I thought it was just a bad decision to move on from Jim Caldwell. And then it really shows,. And we talk about criticisms for Kevin O'Connell. Every coach gets criticized, but sort of keep in mind that if you make the wrong coach hire where that can go, right? So like, let's be, let's be careful at how far we go over that line when we're criticizing what Kevin O'Connell has done with this. I do want

to ask you about this team and, and where they stand. I will do that in a second. But the last time we talked, I think it was like middle 2021 season. So I don't know what your take was on Stafford winning the Super Bowl, but I think it was a huge celebration from Detroit people that he did because everyone knew that he was capable of being that guy. And I'll be honest, I was a little skeptical when they did it because it felt like is this a Kirk type of move where they you know think that that they're one piece away it turned out that they were so as having played with him and seen where that went I guess how did how did you feel about it oh I felt good about it you know I was glad to see Stafford um you know win a Super Bowl I mean

I felt like Stafford did everything that he could for for Detroit. He gave his all from day one, playing injured, playing, you know, through any and everything. And so, you know, when the organization brings in new guys and they kind of want to go in different directions and they have this idea of what they think they want. You know, sometimes, you know, players become, you know, casualties of war, I guess, right? The situation. And for Stafford, you know, the only thing that, you know, when it was going on, I remember I had said something, and I'm pretty sure Stafford had something to do with it, the actual trade happening. But I had – there was reports coming out about this and that and this

and that. And I was just like, man, I just feel like Detroit needs to honor Matt Stafford at this point and at least allow him to have some say-so into where he wants to get traded instead of just trading him to the worst team for the best deal. I feel like sometimes as an organization, you have to maybe lose to build certain things. You know what I'm saying? Because when you're going through a feud with Calvin Johnson, you had a little hiccup with Barry Sanders. Stafford comes around and you treat Stafford a certain way. Right. Then it starts to look like the organization doesn't really take care of their stars, their guys, right? They don't really take

care of those guys. They don't have a good relationship with Calvin. They just got back on track with Barry Sanders recently. Now they just traded Stafford to the worst team in football just so they can, like, that just doesn't look good from, you know, a perception standpoint, especially for other players, right? If they'll treat those guys like that or this and this and that, like, what do you think they're going to do to me? Right. So I just kind of felt like, you know, yes, staff, we understand it's a business, right? So we're going to, we're going to do this, but we at least want to give you an opportunity to tell us where you would like to go and then give us an opportunity to try to see if we can work

a deal out so that they feel good about the deal and they can get a quarterback that they need. You can go somewhere that you want, and then we can also get some pieces to help us build for our future. And I think that ended up kind of happening behind the scenes. I felt like Stafford probably wanted to go to the Rams and be with McVay. I think they had met up a little bit out of the country at some point on vacation and saw each other. And they ended up figuring out a way to make it happen. But I just remember during that time, I had tweeted something before he actually got traded to the Rams. And people started jumping on me about, man, man, man,

it's a business. We trying to get what we can get. We trying to, we trying to this and we trying to that. And it's like, you know, when you're building a house, you got to take it step by step, brick by brick. You can't, you can't feel like you're going to take your organization straight to the top. Like you got to go through these steps. Right? And sometimes you got to lose a little bit, but that right there keeps a good relationship with Stafford. So now when Stafford is on the Super Bowl platform, he's not saying bad things about your organization. He's able to say good things about your organization. And he's able to say, hey, man, I got a love for the city. I love the fans. These guys, they treated me right. They did this. They did that. I wish them well. That stuff is good because if it ended bad, now he's on the Super Bowl platform and he don't

have anything good to say about an organization that you already are trying to fight for respect anyway. So now you got Stafford not saying good stuff about you. Calvin Johnson not saying good, like you're fighting those battles that all it takes is just figuring out how to make Stafford happy and not feeling like just because I go out of my way to do this for Matthew Stafford that I got to go out of my way to do this for another player on the team because everybody on the team isn't Stafford. You know what I'm saying? Everybody's not Stafford. So no, you don't get the same respect that Stafford gets, right? It's just, it doesn't work like that. And so I had much, you know, respect for Stafford. I was happy to see him win.

You know what I'm saying? It was good to see him go there and get the recognition that he deserves. Obviously, he's a great player. He's a baller. Super, super talented quarterback. So I was happy to see him win a Super Bowl. Folks, is there any better way to spend the holidays than attending sports? Knowing you

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That's a really interesting point. And sometimes I think about trades and how we analyze them when they happen and then we get to look back a couple years so when stefan digs gets traded from the vikings it's like oh they sent him to siberia out there buffalo and then he plays a role in turning around that organization and when you trade for jared goff into detroit that could be looked at as like well what you what, you know, who cares? What's the point in that? You just get another quarterback that's going to be in here and out of here. And yet I feel like that has played such a vital role in building the team around him, knowing that you have a quarterback who's capable of taking a team to a Superbowl.

Well, you're rebuilding, which is an unusual approach. I mean, most of the time you get a rebuilding team with a young quarterback and that's just kind of how it is but I think it accelerated the timeline for this Detroit team because you do have such a good quarterback and in my mind and I know that when he's pressured it doesn't always look this way but in my mind one of the better quarterbacks in the league especially when he's on point I, we've seen him do crazy things to the Minnesota Vikings when he's on fire, including last year, Detroit, when they were in Los Angeles, he had a perfect quarterback rating against the good Vikings defense. So a lot of respect for him,

but that's another part of this, another dynamic that I think is played into this rebuild working out. And I I'd love your perspective on the approach here because having the quarterback allowed them to use draft picks on other guys like Aiden Hutchinson, you didn't have to spend it on a quarterback. And even though he's expensive, there's a lot of stars who are not at this moment because they're on rookie contracts. And even though like no GM's ever going to get it perfect, Brad Holmes has made a lot of great moves in order to set this team up where it is. So what do you think that they got right in their approach to going from the point they trade Stafford to right now where you're talking about real playoff expectations? I think the biggest thing they got right is, you know, I don't think the GM

that's there now, Brad Holmes, I don't think he was a part of the trade for Stafford and golf or did he he was yeah he was I think it was like one of his first moves yeah okay so I think when you when you have that this is this is what you have you have an organized you have a GM that came from the Rams right so? So obviously there's a relationship there. But he doesn't have a background with Stafford. He has a background with Jarrett. So when you bring him in, he's not expecting Jarrett to be Stafford. He's expecting Jarrett to be Jarrett. He's expecting Jared to be Jared.

And I traded for you, Jared, so I understand who you are. And we're going to build the team around you, right? A lot of these GMs, these teams, these people, when they build, it's all just body types, game types, when you really think about it, right? When you look at the Patriots, you look at a lot of these teams, they're just replacing bodies, right? You think about the Patriots. They started with Tim Dwight, right?

I think they had Tim Dwight. Then they go to Wes Walker, right? Then they go to a Danny Amendola, a Julian Edelman, right? It's the same body, right? They want this type of person, right? You have a big tight end, right? They look for another tight end. They look for another. Why? Because we need this type of body, right? We have a Randy Moss. Okay, we need a big time receiver on the outside that opens up things for our little guys on the inside. So we have a Randy Moss. We try to get this guy. We try to get that guy. They always try to find that guy, right? You look at Seattle. This is our type of secondary. We want this.

We had a Cam Chancellor. We had an Earl Thomas. We had a Richard Sherman. So who do we have now? We have a Jamal Adams. We have a Coindre Diggs, right? We have Tariq Woolen, right? He's a 6'2 guy.

Sherman was a big, you see what I'm saying? They're just replacing bodies. So when you look at Brad Holmes, he's like, okay, I got Jared Goff. Who did we have in LA when he was there? Like what type of, okay, we need this type of guy for a slot guy. Okay, we go out, we find somebody, boom, Amar Ross St. Brown. It's kind of like a Robert Woods type, right? Or whoever, you know what I'm saying? You think about those bodies. You get you a tight end. You get you this. You get you that. And you just build your team based around those type of guys that you know will fit well with Jared Goff.

Whereas the Rams were like, okay, we already have these explosive weapons. Maybe Jared Goff wasn't the explosive type of quarterback that we need for these weapons that Sean McVay wanted to put out. So let's go and get Stafford for that, right? But Brad Holmes coming and bringing Jared Goff, I don't expect Jared Goff to be Stafford. We got rid of Stafford. We want Jared to be Jared, and we can build our team around him. And I think that's what they've done. And they've put a lot of playmakers around him, like you said. He may end up being expensive, but you got Jameer Gibbs on a rookie contract. You got David Montgomery on a second contract, but it wasn't a high dollar contract coming from Chicago as a running back. Amon Ross St. Brown still on a rookie contract.

Now you got Aiden Hutchinson on a rookie contract. You got Brian Branch on a rookie contract. So you got all these pieces, these young pieces. And I know Amon Ross is going to have to get paid here coming up pretty soon. But you're tight end, Sam LaPorta, he's a rookie, right? So you got your running back, in defensive and secondary. Like you got key pieces. Jack Campbell, you just dropped him in the first round. Right. You got key pieces that are playing on rookie contracts and you have a veteran quarterback that can keep the thing together. You know what was going to happen in the next couple of years. Obviously, your old line, it's going to they're going to have to get paid. Taylor is going to be up at some point. Frank Ragnow is going to happen in the next couple of years? Obviously, your O-line, they're going to have to get paid.

Taylor's going to be up at some point. Frank Ragnow's going to be up. Pinae's going to be up, right? And obviously, you can't keep all those guys. So that's when you have to start replacing guys, finding little pieces. So your window of opportunity is slim. You got one, maybe two years where you got the right group of young guys, the right mix of old guys and a good enough quarterback that can stay

healthy where you can make a run for this thing. Otherwise the window is passed. Guys want to get paid. They go and now you try to basically rebuild and do it all over again. So I think they did a good job of just building things around Jared and expecting Jared to be Jared and try not to make him be what Stafford was. Yeah, no, I mean, I think it's amazing how quickly windows open and close and how fast this happened. I mean, the Stafford trade is only 2021. Here we are two years later, if you hit on draft picks and you make some savvy moves and you add a couple of players here or there that work for you, then all of a sudden, like you're back in contention. And that's the point about how they built around golf, because if they didn't have a quarterback who was capable of taking a team deep into the playoffs, it might still be a search for who's the quarterback going to be. And maybe that's a, that's a thing that ends up being controversial down the road with, do you draft a quarterback? Is he too expensive and all that stuff? The more you win, the more expensive it's going to be great fodder for your podcast. But as far as this game goes,

I want to hear more about Ben Johnson. Everybody wants to hire Ben Johnson. I've seen him getting hired by every team that's fired their head coach. Why does it work so well with what Ben Johnson has done with Jared Goff? I mean, he's done a great job. He's built an offensive system around Jared Goff that maximizes his strengths and tries to hide the things that he maybe struggle with. You know, they do a great job of mixing it up, run pass, play action, route concepts, route plays, just things that they do. They've done a great job of trying to keep the offense, I mean, the defense off balance. I mean, and anytime, you know, quarterbacks, offenses, anybody, defenses, secondary guys, anybody benefits from the team just being at the right moment.

It's always a collective effort. Right. So the coaches get credit for that, too. Right. Because we've seen good players and a collective group of good players, but they don't perform well on the field. So when you have that collective group and they perform well, well, the coaches get credit for those guys performing well, because somebody is holding the standards higher practice. Somebody is designing the plays that's putting those guys in position. Yes, they're executing, but somebody is having to design this stuff and so then the players get credit for it right and then the coaches get credit for it as well and so i think he's just done a great job of you know being able to skip the ball or call plays to get the ball to so many

different people from sam laporta to jameer gibbs david montgomery um amara saint brown you know you got uh jameson williams you got like all these different guys that they got to draw plays to at some point to get the ball but we also got to go and win the game and we got to stick to our game plan and we got to run the ball and we got to do these things so i just think he's done a great job of managing that whole offense putting that system together calling plays at the right time and getting the most out of his guys for the most part. And so when you fire a team or you fire a coach, you know, most of the time they're looking for the next hottest offensive coordinator because they want to score points. That's what people want to do. They want to score points. So they're going to try to find the next hottest offensive coordinator and make him a head coach so now he got him as a head coach and you got

an understudy right so that if we ever have to fire our head coach we got this offensive coordinator that we can promote and keep our hopefully you know whatever intact and then they can find somebody to run a defense right so? So that's what they're looking for. They're looking for these new, young, up-and-coming offensive coordinators. And Ben Johnson just happens to be that guy, and he's coaching the Detroit Lions team that's been putting up 35, 40 points

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at Detroit, you know, some of these great defenses that get playmakers open, how they also have found and developed the right playmakers for their system. Right. And that's a huge factor. Like Debo Samuel, Brandon, Iuke, they draft those guys. They bring them in Amin Ross, say Brown and put them in positions to succeed. And a lot of guys that you draft, you take for a reason because they're good at football. And if you could find a way to maximize what they do, you could be very dangerous. If you have a distributing point guard quarterback. And one thing that I think a Glover, this was in the media a lot with Cam Newton talking about game managers versus game changers and so forth. I think the most underrated talent for a quarterback is going to the line of scrimmage and just identifying where the ball is going to go. What? And even,

you know, if there's changes, if it's like a, you know, if it's a cover to look, but then a robber comes down, there's like a different look, you know, post-snap look being able to adapt on the fly. So we always focus on, can they throw it hard? Can they throw it accurate? And do they run real fast? But I just feel like the mental part of this, the reason Brock Purdy is successful, the reason Jared Goff is successful, I feel like that mental part of it has just become so big because if you can run the plays as they're designed with all the different options and

all the looks off the defenses, you could be successful. And that's where I feel like golf maybe doesn't get enough credit. Oh, no question. I mean, playing the quarterback position is tough and being able to identify what's going on. And, you know, this is the thing that, you know, for me as a player, it's, it's, I don't want to take away from anything, but playing quarterback is what they do. So to us, it's tough to them. This is what they do every day. This is what they've been doing every day for the last 15 years, right? So just like me, I can line up in the safety position and I can look at the offense. I can look at the quarterbacks, the receivers. I can look at the O-linemen and I can almost get a clue as to what they're going to do just based off the down, the distance, who's in the game, where they lined up, how they lined up. I can almost have an idea of what they're going to do.

I can't always change the plays, though, because I'm just the safety in the back, right? But as a quarterback, you know, you do the same thing. You study defenses week in and week out. You sit throughout the meetings. So when you walk up to the line, you see certain things you can almost tell. Oh, I know what this is already, but you got the power to change the place. Hey, I know they're in cover one. I know this safety is coming down. We're not running to that side.

We're going to run to this side. Check, check, check, check. Right. So it's difficult to do, but that's what they do. That's what they're trained to do. They just make it look easy. We just know that it's hard, right? But some of them are better than others at it. That's just really what it is, and that's just kind of how everything is. And I feel like that's a lot of what Cam Newton was saying.

Just because a guy's a game manager, that doesn't mean that he can't play. It doesn't mean that he's not smart. It doesn't mean anything. That just means that that team doesn't win because of him. He helps, but you can put somebody else there and they probably can get the job done of what they're asking him to do, right? When you look at Brock Purdy, I mean, Debo Samuels was out for three games, and they couldn't win. They didn't play well. Offense didn't look the same. Neither did Brock Purdy. You bring Debo Samuels back, they've beat everybody by 25 points, right? But you're throwing screen passes, and he's taking them for 60.

But when you can do those things and you add that extra playmaker, now coverages change, right? When Debo's not playing, okay, well, we can stack the box right now and stop Christian McCaffrey, right? Hey, you can man up on Ayuk. We can survive that, right? You bring Debo back. Now, we got George Kittle we got to worry about. We got Debo we got to worry about. We got Christian McCaffrey we got to worry about. We got all these different players, So now we can't just double team this one guy. These guys are going to kill us. We got to do this.

So it just opens up more things. And as a quarterback, being able to find what's open, understand what's going to be open, all those different things help make you better. That doesn't make you a game changer. You're managing the game. you're managing the game you're managing the situation it's just some people are better at it than others but that doesn't take away from how great you are and i think that's why he in his historical one he wanted to put tom brady and drew breeze and all those guys and i understand what he was trying to say but i definitely feel like those guys

are game changers. In my opinion, they're not just game managers. They're game changers. The Patriots haven't been successful since Tom left. Tom left one team, went to another one and won the Superbowl. Like the Saints haven't been the same since Drew Brees left. Like we're talking about some of the best quarterbacks in the history of the game. If we're going to call those guys game managers, then everybody in the league is a game manager. There are no game changers if those guys aren't game changers. Right.

It can't just be does this dude run or not, right? Like, I think of it as does somebody somebody have a superpower? Right. So like if everything goes wrong and you're playing against Drew Brees for the offense, I mean, or if the defense does everything right, can Drew Brees still beat you? If you have the right coverage, you pressure him, you get a good rush. You like everything you wanted to do happen and you still lose. Drew Brees can do that to you with his accuracy and with his processing and with he can make a throw into a window that nobody can make a throw into right and the same thing with tom brady where it's like he can diagnose something that you would never expect him to figure out enlightening quick speed like these are superpowers that make you a

game changer not just can you do what lamar jack did the other night, which is like avoid three guys and whip it down the field or something. But that's his superpower is that you can't get a hold of him and he can turn a perfect defensive play into 20 yards. And that's where, yeah, like if you get into a playoff game and you do everything right against Dak Prescott, you'll beat him. If you do everything right against Brock Purdy, you'll beat him. And that's how I sort of interpreted it. But I agree with you that I think you need to slide a Peyton Manning, a Drew Brees, and a Tom Brady. Those aren't game managers. Those are all-time

greats. We could keep going down that conversation for a long time because it's a really interesting one. But I just want to ask you one more thing. Brian Flores' defense has been talked about a lot. Super interesting, very, very unique. Three safeties. I thought it was a myth, and then there is. No, we can do it. There are three safeties. I don't know how much you've had a chance to watch it, but it has been absolutely fascinating to cover and study how he has morphed and shape shifted this defense to a week to week, different game plan quarterbacks, their heads.

A lot of times are spinning and it's taken some really miraculous plays to beat the Vikings defense, even in Denver. And then last week by T Higgins, but just from your trained eye as a safety with this defense seems like it would be really, really fun for somebody uh who's a safety to play it right i mean and like you said i haven't saw as much um as probably i should um

but when you think about it when you got three safeties out there on the field especially with a guy like harrison who's been around for a long time right and know he's getting older, but he still can play the game of football. He still can make plays. You can use those guys to do so many different things. It gives you flexibility. It gives you all types of different things that you can do to mix it up for the quarterback, to make it difficult for him. It takes some pressure off of certain guys because you got other guys out there that are athletes that can make plays happen.

But then when you still have guys like Daniel Hunter on the on the D line that can get that pressure on the quarterback like you want to have your playmakers on the field. That's what you want. So I definitely feel like these coordinators are smart enough. They understand the game enough to say, hey, is it beneficial for us to have three safeties on the field? And if they feel like that's their best combination based off of who we have a linebacker, who we will have to put in at the nickel, all these different things. If I feel like, hey, I got a safety. You look at the Lions in Detroit. They could do the same thing. Right. When you think about it, they don't maybe play it the same way. But Brian Branch is a safety, right? If you're a final is a safety Kirby Joe that those three guys are on the field. Most of the plays just Brian is in the run game, but can cover good enough to cover these little slot wide receivers. So now we can put him on the field so we don't have to have a little small corner playing the nickel and he can't get off a block to help us in the run game on first and second down. Right. We got safeties out here. And now in doing that, if we're playing some types of zones or

whatever, like we can mix a lot of stuff up and they not know. Yeah, they might count Brian Branch as the nickel, but that don't mean he has to be playing nickel this play. So, you know, I like I'm a defensive back, you know, so I like the more DBs we can have on the field, you know, especially safeties because we can do so much, you know, saying corners are good, but corners just cover for the most part you know i'm saying for safeties being able to cover being able to drop into these middle zones being able to to blitz blend being able to get into the run game like you can affect the game

so many different ways as a safety and i like that so you can find ways to get three of them on the field that you feel like are playing at a high enough level that they deserve to be out there i think that's a great thing. Well, I think you're really going to enjoy watching the defense of the Vikings operate because they have three really good safeties and three really super intelligent safeties. And I've just come to think, and this isn't to pat your position on the back, but safety is the most underrated football IQ position in the entire league.

We think of centers, quarterbacks, and linebackers, but I think safety deserves a lot of credit there, especially since I've seen guys like Josh Metellus combine them. They're not high draft picks, but they win with their football IQ, and it allows Flores to do many more dynamic things with them because he knows they can handle it. So I think you'll enjoy that very much. And look, it's always good games between the Vikings and Lions. And if nothing else, always memorable. So the Believe in Lions podcast is where you're doing these days. Glover,

super great to catch up with you. Are you picking Detroit, I assume, for this game? Oh, man, I got to, you know, it's man. I think my record right now is 10 and four because I think I've picked the lines every game. But that's just really how I felt. I mean, I probably shouldn't have picked them against Baltimore. But I just really felt like, you know, for this team to be what they're going to be, they need to go to Baltimore and get a win. They need to show that they can go on the road and get a win. They just went to Tampa and got a win. And Tampa was kind of one of those teams.

And it's like, now they need to go to Baltimore. Maybe I should have picked against them two tough games on the road, now this is in Baltimore. But I just feel like they need to do it. So, if it's been up to me, the Lions would be 15- 0 right now almost uh but they're not they're 10 and 4 so in this one I'm still gonna go with the lines I think um this is a home game or away game uh this would be at U.S. Bank Stadium so it's in in Minnesota um they haven't played well on the road lately. They did get back on track at home this past Saturday, but I think this is just a division game, and they know if they win,

they should possibly be able to clinch, I think. I mean, I haven't looked at all. That's funny. I try to look at all that stuff. Like I said, when you were talking about the podcast and things, right? I try not to look at all that stuff. I don't want to see interviews. I don't want to hear what people are talking about. I just like to watch the game, and this is what I saw. This is just what I saw, whether it was good, whether it was bad, whether it was leadership, no leadership, execution, no execution. I don't want to hear that they didn't get to practice two days this week because nobody cares.

You got to go out and play. Figure out a way to get it done. So I don't even really know. Like I said, I didn't even know that it was a home game. I don't know if it's home or away. Like, I don't know. I know they're playing the Vikings. Where at?

I don't know. I don't gamble. So I'm not really into the you know the the making the bets and all that stuff um but that being said i'm i'm gonna pick the lines um going on the road they haven't been as as explosive on the road um they're playing inside so not worrying about the weather um but i'm going to pick the lines. I think the defense would be tough for the lines to crack, but I still give them 27.

27. The Vikings' defense is tough, though. They've been holding teams down pretty good. I mean, that's how you can hold a team in, what y'all in overtime yeah yeah never seen that before i mean that's tough to hold to shut a team out for five quarters almost like that's tough uh especially in the nfl because all these guys are good like it's i'm not saying it's easy to score but you expect the team to be able to get something over the course of a game. So I'm going to go to the Lions 27, the Vikings 21. Okay, I think that's about what I would pick, honestly,

to tell you the truth. But I think you get a free pass on being a homer, considering that you were an excellent Detroit Lion for a long time. So an honor to have you on the show again, Glover. I know that Vikings fans appreciate hearing the Detroit perspective from you. Great, great, great, great to have you on. And best of luck with the podcasting and the rest of the season for the Detroit Lions. Thanks so much, man, for coming on. All right, man, I appreciate you.