Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Freak out over the Vikings loss to the Eagles? Brian Murphy says it's not time for that

Episode Date: September 21, 2022

Matthew Coller and Brian Murphy discuss the Minnesota Vikings' loss to the Philadelphia Eagles and what it says about the team's strengths and weaknesses and how Kevin O'Connell handled his first gut punch. Murph believes that Vikings fans have to ride the wave and give an experienced team time, though the bigger picture has some concerning elements. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello and welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here once again, talking a little quietly because it is extremely early and I'm inside my hotel room before leaving Philadelphia. It is time for a Monday morning Murph. Brian Murphy, I think it will be a little bit of a different tone this morning than it was the last time we gathered at a very early hour to discuss a Vikings game. How are you? Yeah, it's a little bit rough.

I struggled mightily to just hang with that game as long as I could last night. And you'll be proud I did make it to the final gun. Regrettably, I probably could have tuned out at least an hour earlier and really not missed much. I kept waiting for I thought there was going to be a moment where the Vikings were going to really make it interesting. They had so many opportunities to do so. But at the end of the day, they really didn't show up the first 30 minutes. And ultimately it cost them and in a pretty hostile environment. Yeah, I guess the question that I'm waking up with this morning is how much to react to this, whether to point to everything they did wrong and say, see, all these things are the same, or was it just inevitable that they would have a loss early in the season at some point?

Because even really good teams have games where they no show and where everything goes wrong. And I wrote about this, about whether it was the scheme or whether it was execution from the game. And I think the answer was both. I think that at times Philadelphia understood what they were trying to do on defense and took advantage of it specifically on the 53 yard touchdown. Although it looked like there was a miscommunication, which would also be execution. So it's like a lot of the things there, the way they played against Jalen Hurts, he had open receivers and he found them. He also had a 26 yard touchdown that was extremely impressive. You know, on the other side, they had moments where Justin Jefferson, from my view, looked open,

but there were a lot of moments where he might not have been because of a gentleman by the name of Darius Slay, who is as good at his position as anybody in the entire NFL. And I guess the way I look at it, Murph, is that in week one, there were some signs of some things

that weren't going to be sustainable, specifically throwing the ball to Justin Jefferson every single play that were not corrected enough to get a win in Philadelphia. Yeah, I don't think I don't think there should be a real deep well of anger or angst or anxiety, maybe even among fans. You're right. This is a team that if they achieve what even the most optimistic analysts think they will achieve or even the most rosy predictions, they're going to end up losing seven games probably, maybe even eight if they get into the playoffs.

This was one of them that seemed to be an ideal one, not an ideal one, but an obvious one. You're on the road. It's Monday night. Philadelphia is a good club. Jalen Hertz is really good. And they were ready and they were ready to attack. And the Vikings were flat footed. But what I look at it is the Vikings also put themselves in opportunities to come back. I mean, you know, small solace. I get it. It's a results-driven league, and they made plenty of mistakes to dissect and criticize and go over on both sides of the ball, no question. But the blocked field goal, the opportunity Irv Smith had to break the game open, the interception late, the turnover late to set up things.

The Vikings were in a position where they were at several points, one play away from really changing the tenor of that game. It didn't happen. So, you know, no excuses, no apologies. But they were outplayed. They were outplayed, outcoached, and they were beaten by a better team. And they're going to face better teams in another month or so. So I don't view this as – I mean, I don't think anybody would have said three weeks ago one-and-one home win, road loss in Philly would have been all that surprising. I don't think what we saw last night was terribly surprising.

I think that you're right. Once you've got Darius Slay taking care of not only doing what he does best in causing havoc in the secondary, but he also, he handled Justin Jefferson. But that also gave opportunities to Irv Smith, who had several receptions and made some big plays, drop the big one that people are going to remember mostly. The running game disappeared. Cousins found himself under duress. A couple of interceptions that looked like he and Jefferson weren't on the same page. And again, Slade just had himself a night. So I'm not, you know, the usual, the cynical soothsayer here is usually, is really not all that alarmed by that performance and i

think i think there are some things that they can build on and i like the fact that kevin o'connell fell on his sword and fell on it very deeply early last night because i think that sets a tone in the locker room that had been missing the last several years yeah uh i certainly felt like the uh tenor of the press conference was quite a bit different, which I did expect. I mean, they hired someone to be the opposite of Mike Zimmer, and he was. Now, on the matter of them giving themselves chances to come back, I do think that a major part of that was Philadelphia trying to just bleed clock. They had two drives. One was over six minutes, and one was over five minutes where they didn't score, but you're winning the game by doing that.

A blocked field goal is pretty unusual. The special teams was actually insanely good last night. I mean, the punter was fantastic, had a 61-yard punt that pinned them all the way back, and then Philadelphia just drove and got a field goal anyway. And then the blocked field goal, which is Patrick Peterson said the fourth of his career, which is wild.

Like, I don't know that I've even seen four blocked field goals. And, you know, Patrick Peterson getting in there with his, I don't know, perfect timing, I guess, to make that play. And they were close to outrunning the punter on that and having a touchdown and making it much more much closer. But it's sort of also a product of, you know, the other teams up and they're just trying not to lose it. Even the screen pass that Jalen Hurts got intercepted was very much like a timid. Let's not blow this play call that just kind of went wrong. So some things actually

bouncing the Vikings way and they couldn't take advantage and it really goes all the way back to the quarterback though Murph and here's where it's like this is a good way to to go with it is like what to be a little freaked out by and what not to be a little freaked out by that wasn't just a bad showing by Kirk Cousins that was one of the worst games Kirk Cousins has ever played as an NFL starter. It was the ninth lowest rated game he's ever had by traditional quarterback rating out of 122. And it was one of the lowest in yards per attempt per attempt. I think it was maybe his fifth or sixth lowest in a game that he started. And yes, Irv Smith dropped the pass. Receivers drop passes sometimes, like in football.

It happens. To have that performance, and I know it feels different if he catches it and runs it in for a touchdown, just like we were saying about Rodgers last week. It is different if he catches it, and that was a really nice throw. But I think you have to wonder about leaning on Kirk Cousins as much as they seem to want to and whether the weapons are going to be as good as they expected them to be. Specifically, the running game in Delvin Cook, the explosiveness is not quite there yet. And whether it ever returns, I don't know. Derrick Henry ran for a bunch of negative plays

last week. Elvin Kamara is not playing. Christian McCaffrey is washed. This is the life of a running back, right? So do you have that weapon in your bag anymore? They can't get Adam Thielen the ball. KJ Osborne had what, one catch last night? It doesn't look the same as it felt going into the season with all the weapons at least through two weeks that everybody else outside of Justin Jefferson has essentially done nothing well they have they have struggled to spread that ball around and what you know we bring up cousins because we have to bring up cousins we always bring up cousins right but I it really goes down. You just point to that career record, which is now 60-60-2. I mean, that tells you everything you need to know.

He's average. In the long run, he's going to be average. Is he going to win 13 games and lead you to the promised land? No, I don't think we've ever expected that. I don't think we've seen that. Maybe the first year coming off of the 2017 NFC Championship game run, it was fair to expect that, but this is baked in. This is who Cousins is. We know that. He had a great week last week. He struggled this week, but what he's always shown is when the stakes are highest, and I guess he won his previous couple of Monday night games, but we know he struggles under the lights. We know he struggles when the stakes are higher. Again, this is week two on the road at Philadelphia. Not exactly an ideal situation for the Vikings to set themselves up for an easy win. That said,

they lurch. They always seem to lurch. And again, this goes to, okay, what is this team's identity going to be? We're still not sure. We had a snapshot last week. We had a snapshot last night. I look at both, and I'm still not sure exactly what this team is, even though there's not a lot of surprises on personnel. It's going to take on, I think, the makeup of their coach in so many ways because I said yes last week, and I'll say it again, any young coach, how they respond to adversity, how do they respond to poor performance, how do they respond to make things right. I mean, every coach has said that numerous times in his career.

I'm going to work 70 hours a day to fix this. Well, that's not possible, but at least he's thinking that way. I was not surprised that he took as much responsibility as he did, but for him to say right away, this one's on me, at least it doesn't create the image of everybody walking on eggshells again for a week leading up to how they're going to respond. So I expect them to have a decent week at practice, and I expect them to respond pretty well at home against Detroit, but Detroit is no longer the gimme. I mean, we know that now. They couldn't beat Detroit last year in Detroit despite having a lead the entire game.

And now Detroit looks like they've got their act together a bit too. So, you know, they've got Detroit and Chicago at home. And then what, New Orleans in a neutral site? They've got time before they hit the meat grinder of Miami and Buffalo to establish themselves. But it's, I think it was a, as a, I think yesterday could be a valuable lesson for them in a seven game, 17 game season, how they respond to that. And that's what I've always wanted to see is how is O'Connell going to

respond to adversity? And he's got his first slice right now. Well, and this is the push and pull of talking about this game specifically because it is only one game and everything went wrong and they got out pretty much everything in philadelphia but we have seen seasons before where things go wrong and you lose a game and people play poorly and then we move on with our lives and you win the games you're supposed to win and so forth just thinking back to the last time they were

in the playoffs in 2019 it felt like the world was ending when they played against Chicago, lost to Chase Daniel, and then Stefan Diggs skipped practice. And they came back and they won the next week against the Giants and put up big numbers and cruised and then went to the playoffs and got a win in New Orleans. So you don't want to look at a game this early in the season and just declare it all over. But what you said about Kirk Cousins and his record and their record really even with Kirk Cousins, especially in big games like this. Case Keenum's Washington football team is a little bit different. Like this was kind of a nice measuring stick of a team in Philadelphia that was pretty hyped up. And a lot of people were picking them to win the NFC East and, you know, potential Super Bowl team and everything else. It was like, these are two teams that are looked at as ones with opportunity in the NFC that has some weaknesses to it and no clear favorite in

the NFC the way that Buffalo is in the AFC. So here's your opportunity. Go show that you're going to be the team that's being talked about walking out of there is kind of the trendy team. And instead, your tail goes between your legs where it's been in big games for so many years and that usually stems back to the quarterback uh that right from the outset of the game it was one of the disappearing acts where it's like oh okay you're going to get behind right away because you look a little timid and you're not you know hitting throws and you're thrown underneath uh to a very covered irv smith on third down and like all the things that we've seen many times in these games. But I think where it's different is there's a part of me that wants to say like, well, it's Kevin O'Connell's first year

and there's going to be some bumps along the way and so forth and we'll kind of have to look at the totality. But then I don't think that people who are waking up like, man, it's just going to keep happening, isn't it? Like, I don't think that those people are waking up like, man, it's just going to keep happening, isn't it? I don't think that those people are wrong who have that feeling. No, they're not wrong. There's evidence there to support that. If that's the wallowing rabbit hole you want to go down, then that's going to be a long four months.

Because I don't see this club being a ripping off four wins in a row or five out of six. I think it's going to be a week-to-week mini-drama, as it usually is. But this is also a veteran team, too, so I don't expect them to panic. I don't expect them to start turning on each other. I don't expect them to start underperforming woefully on a week-to-week basis. This is a fairly battle-tested team, at least as far as adversity goes. So I don't think they're going to stray too much. So I think you're just going to have to hang in there. You're going to have to hang in there week-to-week, series-to-series, quarter-to-quarter, because I don't think the Vikings are really going to walk away from

opponents like they did week one against Green Bay. So are you going to embrace that? Are you going to enjoy that journey? Are you going to allow yourself to be entertained? If anything that we've learned in the first two weeks of the NFL, and this is piggybacking off last year's postseason and just the last few years in the NFL in general, I mean, no lead is safe. No game is tucked away early.

It's hard to pull away because there's so much that can happen so quickly, the way the game is played today. And I didn't feel like the Vikings were going to snatch the victory from the jaws of defeat, but I could see them making an opportunity. I mean, I was ready to check out of that game in the third quarter, but I just couldn't do it because there was just enough juice there. There was just enough momentum. There were just enough random plays and momentum,

potentially momentum turning plays that I stayed engaged until the end, which is what the NFL wants because they're going to bleed every ratings point for every dollar they can get. But circling back to what I'm thinking for what Vikings fans are going to be going through this year, I don't feel there's an inevitable dread creeping in like there had been last year and even the year before. Maybe a little bit with Cousins, because there's an obvious, well, we've been here with him before. We know how he's probably going to react. But with the club in general, I'm a little more optimistic on what O'Connell can do to kind of fix what he sees as baked-in problems

that have plagued the team the last couple of years, especially on defense, because he's an offensive guy. So what's Donatello going to do now to answer for what happened yesterday? Because, again, every game is a blueprint for your next opponent to figure out how to take you down. So, again, it's always about responses. How do you respond? How do you better prepare?

I want to see how they perform against Detroit because I'm also, not just because I'm a Detroit native and had watched Hard Knocks, but I'm interested in seeing there may be a little bit, you know, the bullied brother on the NFC North block may be rising up a little bit. And the Vikings haven't had to deal with anybody other than really Green Bay for the last 10 years, it feels like. So if there's another emerging rival, are they going to be able to handle that and take care of Detroit at home?

Because you need to take care of your home games, especially in the division early on, because they're going to be finishing up on the road late against Detroit, Chicago, and Green Bay. So there is some urgency, but I really want to see what the response is like. And they're set up well. Other than Harrison Smith, I think they're relatively injury-free at this point, too. So two weeks in, there's still a lot to be hopeful for.

Yeah, I mean, there's kind of a push and pull that I'm thinking about between the fact that they decided to make themselves a veteran team, as opposed to taking the option on a lot of things and how those decisions play out, like is a week to week evaluation. Like you brought back the quarterback, you brought back Adam Thielen at a very expensive price and a very expensive price next year. If you want to move on from him, you, you know, you signed veteran players on this team to win this year and to point the finger at the old guy. And I saw Mike Zimmer was trending last night. It's just like, well, what, what a typical Mike Zimmer Vikings type of performance that

it was in Philadelphia, right? Like, I mean, if you're going to make the case as an organization that it was the bad man's fault and everything was wrong, then you can't do the same things that you did when you had him here. And if you're going to not help your salary cap long term, and if you're going to not progress your quarterback situation or your timeline or time horizon, as Kweisi Adafo-Mensa likes to say. If you're not going to reset those things, including the salary cap in the offseason, then it really has to work in the regular season. The expectation needs to be extremely high.

At the same time, I think I can like a lot of things that are general about Kevin O'Connell. I can like the way that he handled the preseason. I can like the way that he seems to be handling players. I can be impressed with his first whooping because every coach will face a whooping. And you have to go. And like you said, you have to, unless you're Mike Zimmer, you have to own it. Otherwise, you just blame everybody else and so forth. He clearly did not want to do that and contained himself, even though he was clearly a little shook last

night, but contained himself from saying, yeah, Cam Dantzler or Cam Bynum, one of you, which I think might've actually been Cam Dantzler after looking at some of the coaches on Twitter that broke down the film and everything. But the point just being that he handled his first loss very well, and I think that he's getting deserved praise for the way that he's going about coaching and everything else. But it's a cold league, Murph. This isn't like, hey, we're all just here for the fun, right? I get what you're saying, like, we're all just here for the fun. Right? Like I get what

you're saying, like, Hey, just kind of enjoy the ride, but you can't really just enjoy the ride when they set the expectations at a certain level. And I think that we have to hold them to that. And it's only week two, they're only one in one. And like you said, if, if you had told us they would come out of, uh, these first two weeks, this is, this is how I predicted it in my wind loss thingies. When I did it, when the schedule came is how I predicted it in my win-loss thingies when I did it when the schedule came out. I predicted a win in Green Bay and a loss in Philadelphia to be 1-1. So, no, it's hardly the end of the world.

I just think that when we look around at the roster and the way that they handled it, there's some things that have to work here for them that after this game maybe make you go, oh, is that going to work here for them that after this game maybe make you go oh is that is that gonna work is is leaning into Kirk Cousins this much going to work is is making just a Jefferson Cooper Cup gonna work you know I mean like all these things that were sort of the promises they made are they going to come true when you have some of the weaknesses that were revealed on Monday Night Football? I can't believe I'm actually sounding like the eternal optimist in this conversation.

I very rarely am. You're almost making me feel too soft, so I'm going to have to revert. No, I agree. I agree with you as far as holding them to account for their off-season decision making. That is something that'll be a week-to-week, season-long accountability test, and rightfully so. You're right. They did say, look, a competitive rebuild or a minor reset, or I don't know what the Wilf comment was. It was something along those lines. Competitive rebuild, wasn't it? Yep, competitive rebuild.

Competitive rebuild. So, yeah, when you see signs of like, well, you know, that might not have been the most prudent decision and you're going to pay a hefty financial price probably for that later. Those accountability moments deserve to happen. I just what feels different again about this is because we do have a new regime and a new coaching staff, generally the same roster, same quarterback. I want to see how, again, this club responds. I want to see how O'Connell responds to the butt whipping, by the way, in his home stadium with his parents watching. That must have been extremely humbling.

And, again, in a matter of a week, you go from, you know, the highest of highs to now you're back in the office grinding away, trying to coach, you know, work yourself out of a rut. It is a cold league. It's a cold calculated league. And that's why we keep coming back because it's not our blood being spilled. Right. It's just great entertainment. I want to see how he responds, but I really want to see how the team responds to him because he took the bullets yesterday.

He did what he had to do as a coach and say, this is on me, whether it was or wasn't. You didn't have him kind of trying to figure out whether it was Jefferson who failed in his routes or Cousins who failed in his throws or whether it was just Darius Slate coming up and making big plays. They'll probably go through that a little bit more after the film review, but I want to see how, you know, humbling losses can have a bigger effect than big time wins because they generally show you where your fault lines are. And they also, it's easy to feel good about yourself after a nice home win against an arch rival.

But probably they always say the pain of defeat hurts worse. You feel the pain of defeat more than the glory of victory or whatever that cliche is. And I'm going to be very curious to see how they roll out at home against a traditionally inferior opponent that is no longer inferior. What are they going to do? How are they going to respond schematically to what Philadelphia did to them? But how are they going to respond emotionally? And these are the measuring sticks that I always look at for new coaches, especially young ones. Kevin O'Connell is 37 years old. He hasn't experienced a ton of pain in the NFL yet. So last night was exhibit A and

let's see how he turns it around and let's see how the locker room responds. And I felt like last night inside the locker room that there was not the same angst that we have seen before. But then again, I mean, maybe that's just sort of, you know, revisionist history. It didn't feel like that. It didn't feel like, uh, there was this real man, like it's all coming apart type of feeling as there has been on many, a national TV disaster for the Minnesota Vikings. Um, so, you know, I think that it does matter the way that he has sort of laid the groundwork for we're going to get through these things together. We're going to get through these things with leadership and everything else. I mean, that's that's where I'm saying, like, I don't want to look at Kevin O'Connell and say you got out schemed by a coach who was in the playoffs last night.

You got beat by a team that has more talent on the field than you do. But also, like you were brought here to take the offense to a next level. In the first week, the offense was okay. It was not unbelievable. It was okay. They had 23 points. And then in week two, it's absolutely nowhere to be found. And there's so much recent scar tissue that you could just go back to all the games and to all the situations where it was just like that.

And I think that that's where it is for Vikings fans, too, that when you say, like, logically speaking, when you say, hey, look, you know, it was a tough game and it's O'Connell's first punch in the face and everybody's got to get one at some point and then you know dust yourself off and back on to Detroit I totally get that but I also get all the people who were tweeting me last night who were like this is just like this game from 2018 and then doesn't the offense look like it's 2018 again and oh hey the interior offensive line is allowing pressure and oh look a bizarre interception yeah like the things, when they cleared out the general manager and head coach, they did not clear out the history with these players and this core group of people who has done that thing on many occasions. And I think that that's where it's difficult to reckon with for people to just say, like, hey, you have to give Kevin O'Connell time. And I also thought of last night the juxtaposition of the Vikings getting whooped and the Buffalo Bills running away from the Tennessee Titans on the other channel was really something. Because not only do you have Stefan Diggs scoring three touchdowns, and I just, by the way, had to Twitter search this morning, Stefan Diggs, Siberia. I guess it's, it is tough to travel to, I will admit, but it's not NFL Siberia when you have a quarterback, but the Buffalo Bills at one

point were in the same position as the Minnesota Vikings kind of right now with Tyrod Taylor when he was there before they drafted Josh Allen. And so there is like a feeling of you might have to give the new coach a lot of time and a lot of space, but also look at the ownership, the management and the decisions that they made this off season is having ripple effects if they don't quickly bounce back. And they really do need, like you said, they really need to be Detroit. They really need to go to London and beat the new Orleans saints. And they really do need, like you said, they really need to beat Detroit. They really need to go to London and beat the New Orleans Saints. They really, I mean, they should beat Chicago

because there are harder games ahead. Arizona is not just going to give you a win. They have a great quarterback. Buffalo going there is, I mean, just that's going to be an extremely tough game. So, yeah, there's a long way to go. But I also think that some of the things that you could have seen coming as being problematic for them were last night on the biggest stage. Yeah. And, and, and to that point too, and I'm going to throw this back at you quickly, just cause I I'm curious what you have to say. Cause I, I'm trying to figure out,

and I haven't delved into any of this. What really is going on with Alvin Cook? Is it a diminished skill set? Is it an, is it opportunity? Is it the pace of the games? There's something missing there, you know, and, and I don't know if, again, if it's a physical ailment, we're not sure of if, you know, again, these running backs, there's a ton of miles on them, but it always seemed like, again, this was Zimmer's old school approach of, you know, let's grind, of miles on them. But it always seemed like, again, this was Zimmer's old school approach of, you know, let's grind, cook as much as we can, establish the run, set up the pass. Obviously, that's not the philosophy going forward here. But he does seem to be a bit marginalized, either consciously or because he's not able to break off any

explosive plays. I'm wondering what tone that is setting for the rest of the offense is that to be expected or somebody like you who's been watching them all off season uh otas training camp does it seem like there's there's a gear missing there so last year they were one of the worst running teams in the NFL. Um, and Delvin cook was banged up, but Delvin cook is always banged up. And I think that you,

I, and this is not decided yet. Like there's plenty of time to go that you have to be concerned that the jump that was there early in his career, that his first training camp, I was like, you've got to be kidding me. Like what, this is the, this is the quickest player in the first three steps that I've ever seen. Like he just exploded and it's not there because that's the life of a running back.

I mean, not you can, now this one, you can maybe look at Mike Zimmer or just the nature of the position. Uh, but they ran him and ran him and ran him. And he just piled up injuries over the years. And there's only so much of that, that a running back can take. Another part of it is that I don't think the offense is centralized around their running game. Like they were with Gary Kubiak and Kevin Stefanski using the best scheme for running like that there is,

and it fit perfectly with Delvin Cook. I think this one's a little different. Like it still has zone stuff, but it's a little different. Here's the other part too. The interior offensive line is just not going to do you any favors and these first two weeks. So I do suspect maybe against Detroit, Delvin Cook will have kind of a breakout game, but these first two weeks, so I do suspect maybe against Detroit, Delvin Cook will have kind of a breakout game. But these first two weeks, they've played two of the tougher interior defensive lines in the league and just haven't run the ball very well. But it, yeah, and the other part is too that there was this whole, oh, they're going to line up Delvin at receiver.

They're going to throw to him all the time and things like that. Like he's just not that good at that, right? Like he's just not that good at that, right? Like, he's just not that good at catching the football. He had an easy drop last night, and he's not that good at running routes, and their screen execution was not very good last night. So I think it's like a combination of all those things together, but that's another one where you look back and you go,

well, there was a decision there. Now, this one is not on Kweisi Adafo Mensah it would have been a very tough decision to cut Delvin Cook at this point that would have been going completely backwards with all the other moves but when they signed Delvin Cook in 2020 I mean they've spent one week above 500 since signing Delvin Cook to that extension that they absolutely had to do at the time. You have to extend them. You have to extend them. It's like, no, you don't. You didn't have to. They did under Spielman. There are still the echoes of Spielman and all the inefficient things that were done

under him. And I think that Delvin Cook is one of those. Well, and that's what's going to be interesting to see, because I don't know if he's going to feel marginalized, if he's going to, it's not a running back league anymore. It hasn't been for decades, but it feels like there is a shift going on and, and maybe it's the coaching staff realizing the scheme that they have isn't necessarily going to fit his skillset. And maybe we don't have him as much to leverage anymore. Or maybe, as you said, it's a factor of an offensive line.

It's a factor of falling behind last night, the way they did. It's a factor of him not being able to expand his skill set and maybe contribute to the passing game. It's a lot of little things that seem to add up, but it just, you know, you, you know, know, the big thing is like, well, look at all the weapons that they have. You know, you got Cousins, if he's protected, you know what kind of production we have. Justin Jefferson, probably one of the top, if not going to be the top receiver in the NFL. Irv Smith coming back off of rehab, we should be able to

get the ball to him. And then, of course, Delvin Cook. He was always the big part of that picture. And I don't see him just being a factor right now. And I don't know what that's going to mean for their identity. And I don't know what it's going to mean in the locker room. It's just, it's something that bears watching because I don't think it's the main thing that they have to focus on right now. How do we get Delvin Cook more involved? I think it's a underlying chatter, but as you said, it speaks to sort of the, the remnants

of the previous regime and what they're going to have to do. They're going to have content with being marginalized? We'll see how that one goes. Yeah, right, and I think that there are some teams that they're going to be able to run against and have good offensive performances against, including the Detroit Lions, who are coming up as their next opponent. But it is not so easy.

And I think that this is, as far as like every week, is kind of its own unique test for this team, that even though we look at the schedule and say it isn't that daunting, there are also teams that have things that they do well. And Detroit does some things well, uh Aiden Hutchinson was terrific for them and we'll do the whole preview and everything else but like they have talent I'm in Ross St. Brown their wide receiver is very good and on a short week coming back to the friendly confines and everything else like I think it is just like an interesting test for them overall uh coming off of this how they respond to this And even from Delvin Cook's perspective of just like not having a role last

night. And I thought that that was like a bit of a rookie mistake by Kevin O'Connell. They came out in the second half and it was like, we, we're just going to have to throw every single play because we're losing. It's like, well, you don't really have to, you know, you can still use this guy, but when he doesn't look like he has the same juice then and you're getting beat up on the interior by a great team. Then I think there's a natural thing to just like,

okay, we're going to have to go away from it because we're not getting anything up front. And man, if they get offensive line performances, like these last two weeks from week to week to week, it will be another long season. And we're going to look at

that line and go every player is a first or second round pick and it's still not good wow like that's that's hard to achieve so I don't have the numbers yet from PFF as we're recording this to say specifically how they did but I didn't think it was a particularly it wasn't a particularly horrible or great performance it was just kind of a typical like you you got outplayed by another team that was good and a team that you know you allowed to be in past situations all the time um and just come after you so big picture murph uh which is kind of your thing um why don't you put it on a meter why don't you put it on a panic meter from one to ten where should people be with this one to ten oh why not i'm gonna go five seven i'm gonna go three and a half to four okay um

you know because it's week two i mean if it was november or december i would uh i would i would move it into the red a little bit more um if anything let, let's put a bookmark on that meter, right? Let's put it at 3.5 on whatever this is, September 20th. And let's check back in in two months or three months and revisit where the team is then and compare it to where we are right now. Because I think this will be a game, I don't think it's a defining game, but I think it will be a game you'll look back on and go, yeah, see, that did expose some flaws now that we knew about, and they're obviously coming home to roost. Or we look back at it as a learning experience, a turning point, a maturity type moment, because they responded. So let's put a bookmark there at three and a half. If they're under 500 in November and December,

I may amend that and move it into the red, maybe to a six. Yeah. And I think, I don't know which way that's going to go. I don't know which way the panic meter will go. So I like it though. I think 3.5 is I mean, of all the potential options for regular numbers, you still went 3.5. Were you the kid, Murph, when you were growing up when they said Brian Murphy and you said present, was that you or did you just say here like the rest of the kids? No, I usually raise my both middle fingers up.

That's right. I mean, I went to public school. Come on. It was a rough ride at times, just like last night's football game. Anyway, Murph, we'll do this every Monday morning or in this case, Tuesday morning following the game. So everyone can look forward to that. And a special place in your heart for the Detroit Lions coming to town

with a lot of enthusiasm coming off a win against Washington and behind Dan Campbell, which will be a privilege to watch. So I appreciate your time as always. And we will talk soon. Sounds good.