Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - How can the Vikings bounce back against Detroit? Should Kevin O'Connell blame himself

Episode Date: September 22, 2022

Matthew Coller and Will Ragatz of Sports Illustrated talk about Kevin O'Connell being self critical and what the Vikings will be looking to turn around against the Detroit Lions this Sunday. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here along with Sports Illustrated Vikings reporter Will Regetts for our hardcore Vikings Lions preview. I'm trying, Will. You know, the vibe around here, it changed from a week ago when we were in here talking about whether vibes would matter going into Philadelphia. Let me ask you a broad question before we get into some of the nitty gritty of offense versus defense and so forth. What do you think of the feeling around

here now a week later? Yeah, it's definitely different. As we talked about last week, it could not have been more positive coming off that week one win and then they go to philly and just kind of get punched in the mouth early in that game and then the defense adjusted in the second half but then kirk cousins threw three interceptions and kind of got ridiculed on social media and there was a feeling i would say among the fan base of hey or the national NFL viewers of all right maybe the Vikings aren't that different I think internally from the sense I get is that they're not that concerned about this I mean there are definitely things that they have

to everybody starting with Kevin O'Connell kind of look in the mirror and fix but that was always going to happen in an NFL season like it wasn't always just going to be easy and simple and they were just going to roll to 12 wins or whatever. Like there's always going to be adversity. I think the team with this culture in theory is equipped to handle it. And that's what they've talked about. Like O'Connell said yesterday, this is when the culture stuff gets tested. So yeah, it was easy for us to do these first two previews, Packers game, week one opener, and then week two, Monday Night Football. Now we got a noon home game against the Lions. But we are here to hype it up and talk about it just as much and in just as much detail

as we did the previous two because this is a very important game that is going to tell us a lot of things after kind of the pendulum has swung both ways in the first two weeks. And this isn't your same old Lions team that you can just kind of show up and roll over. I mean, the Vikings didn't even do that last year against a bad Lions team. They were in two absolute nail biters, including one that they lost. But this is a much improved Lions team that is one of the highest scoring teams in the league through two weeks so a lot to get to happy to be here no it is a really big game for them and and a swing when you look at the schedule because when you look at going to London and facing New Orleans a very winnable game against the team with a quarterback that has four fractures in his back and is very likely to throw you the football a couple of times.

And then you come back and play a team in complete disarray in the Chicago Bears. I know they won in a monsoon in week one and felt good about themselves, but they are who we thought they were against the Packers, a team that can't throw the football really at all. The Bears are this year's Lions. Those roles have switched. Yes, which I that can't throw the football really at all. The Bears are this year's Lions. Those roles have switched. Yes, which I will never totally discount the Bears because we've seen some horrific Bears teams beat the Vikings.

Usually it happens at Soldier Field. But the point just being that you have then a very difficult game at Miami, which is going to be incredibly hard to win for this team. Miami has a tough place and environment to go to to begin with but then they also look extremely strong on offense so you really can't count that one as a W but you can reel off some wins here it looks like if you beat the Lions and then you've got opportunities to win the next two go to Miami go to the bye week and then you're kind of rolling on as the season if you lose against Detroit then all of the sudden it's kind of a panicky feeling like you have to win those next

two games. You have no room for error, no room for weird stuff in London, which those games usually are kind of a mess. And all of a sudden it feels like you could go into Miami with your season on the line a little bit desperate to win that one as opposed to if you win this Lions game it gives you a little bit of room the the interesting thing you mentioned like how the staff is handling it is Kevin O'Connell was extremely self-critical and he talked about maybe trying to chase all 17 points on one drive the The fact that on one of the drives, they threw 10 passes in a row while they were still in the game. They were not completely eliminated from the game

early in the fourth quarter, and they were just throwing and throwing and throwing, going into the red zone, where if they get a field goal, they're in good shape. And he was critical of himself for maybe being a little impatient and trying to dial up maybe too many passes. Delvin Cook only gets a handful of carries.

I think that Kevin O'Connell's relative inexperience was shown in Philadelphia, which again is a thing to expect. But I also wonder what your thought is on his decision to tell everyone about it. Like there is a way of kind of putting responsibility on yourself without maybe being as specific. I thought he was very specific about what he thought he did wrong, which I appreciate as a reporter. Like we want to know these things to give better insight and better commentary on what we think happened. But also saying, yeah, I kind of didn't call plays the best way I could have.

We didn't scheme the best way i could have we didn't scheme the best way we could have i feel like you can only really push that button once because if we start hearing week after week i screwed this up then we're gonna be like wait so are you the problem right yeah it's a good point like you can't come in after every single loss and be like yeah this is on me this is entirely my fault like your first loss as an n head coach, it makes sense to do that with kind of who we know that he is just with the way he talks to us and, and what we've heard about how he, how he deals with the team. Like it made sense for him to do that as kind of a noble leadership thing. Like I gotta be better. I gotta put my guys in better spots. And then you read into it a little bit and there's probably some truth to it, right?

He probably could have called better plays and adjusted. And him and Wes Phillips hand-in-hand on the offensive side of the ball, there are different things they could have done. They could have run the ball more, although that's not going to be just like a magic elixir in a game where you're down multiple scores right away. But there was also a lot that Kevin O'Connell kind of didn't really control that went wrong in that game. Like Ed Donatell's defense giving up 350 yards of offense in the first half was not really an O'Connell thing, even though he is the head coach.

And then Kirk Cousins made some of the decisions that he made in the second half. O'Connell is obviously never going to throw Kirk under the bus. He's going to say he needs to put him in better spots. But the second and third interceptions were Kirk Cousins' decisions and just not very good throws. So, yeah, there are a lot of things that the Vikings, O'Connell, the coaches, certain players need to adjust and fix, and I completely agree that the importance of this game,

it's kind of hard to overstate because you are at home in what will be another raucous environment. Detroit's an improved team, but you have to at least split with them and win your home game to kind of feel good about how you did against them in a season. If they win that game, you start thinking, okay, week two was kind of a fluky one-time thing against what could be one of the best teams in the league. I think the Eagles are in that top three conversation right now, maybe with the Bills and the Chiefs and a couple others. But yeah, I mean, if they lose that game, then you go to London and the pressure is really on there

to take care of a New Orleans team that has a lot of talent. I mean, Jameis Winston, we know he's prone to interceptions. He's dealing with some injuries right now. But I mean, that's a Saints team that has plenty of talent and neutral site. You can't like assume you're going to win that game. And then you come back needing to beat the Bears, going to a tough Miami game. So I mean, if they play like they did in week one, they could very much be four and one going to Miami. And I think that almost needs to be kind of the expectation. You at least need to be three and two, because like you said, I mean, we'll talk about it more when we get there. But man, that Dolphins game is looking tough with those two

receivers they have. And the one specific thing that the Vikings have struggled with the most on defense, or at least are kind of built to struggle with, is speed on the outside with Patrick Peterson and and Camp Dantzler at cornerback we saw it with Quez Watkins taking the top off so yeah I think the O'Connell thing was interesting I mean I'm not surprised by it but let's see what kind of adjustments he actually makes now right and when it comes to those adjustments it is really funny to me. And I mean, I was just chuckling to myself and I wrote a little bit about it as well.

It's like, well, see what they need to do is establish the what? Oh, no. Wait a minute. Who have you become? Right. It kind of goes back to the idea that Mike Zimmer didn't have everything wrong. Right. the idea that Mike Zimmer didn't have everything wrong right and there's the lean into the Kirk but whoa maybe you leaned a little too much into the Kirk or maybe because you haven't done this before

you got a little panicky which here's the thing about this situation in my mind that if Kevin O'Connell was in a situation where the off season they had signed Marcus Mariota and they had traded her cousins to the Colts and moved on from Harrison Smith and from, you know, whoever else, Eric Hendricks, whatever. And they had reset this roster and it was a lot of new people with a very young coach. Then I would say, well, welcome to the league, Kevin you know hope you hope you learn from this and uh the thing is with kevin i i like a lot of what he has done and his ideas and how he handles the player health and all these things the vibes and how he responded after the game i thought was uh what did kirk cousins call it mature wink wink kirkature. That was an interesting word choice.

But I like all that. When they bring back Kirk and when they do all these other things to add Jordan Hicks and get Patrick Peterson and so forth, then there really isn't a whole lot of time for inexperience and mistakes like Kevin O'Connell made. And it was certainly not his fault. You know, those interceptions late in the game. But there was not a lot of things that threw the Philadelphia Eagles off in that game. And if you walk out with Delvin Cook, and I looked at this, that there's only been four

times in Delvin Cook's career where he's run for less than 20 yards and they've lost all four games naturally like we know this that they have to play off of Delvin Cook so in the offseason we're talking about oh we're gonna put him at receiver and oh he's gonna do all these things and then through a couple of weeks I mean you really don't have much out of one of your guys that's supposed to be one of your better players. And I think that it is a balance of understanding that Kevin O'Connell is learning to be a head coach and manage all these things and play call and scheme and everything else, but also say, Hey, wait a minute. Now you're,

now you're supposed to be the guy who takes the offense to the next level. And that looked a lot like things that we've seen before. It looked like John D Filippo, just pressing that pass button over and over and over and over and turning Mike Zimmer into a rage machine yeah there's two ways I think you can there's two ways you can look at everything but specifically with this game like Kevin O'Connell has said it's tough to get people involved when you only run 21 plays in the first half it's tough to get Dalvin involved It's tough to get Jefferson as touches and Thielen,

and you want to mix Madison in there. And everybody's workload is going to be limited when you only run so many plays. And like he has said, they were just very close to making a few plays that maybe could have swung things. Like early on, there was the holding call that wasn't called on Darius Slay. But at the same time, the other way of looking at it is they didn't adjust quick enough. I think that's just kind of something everyone can agree on.

Like, they really tore up Green Bay's zone defense in Week 1. Even when Green Bay brought pressure, they were able to kind of figure that out and handle it, in large part because Justin Jefferson was just wide open a bunch of the time in this game the Eagles play more man coverage they bring a lot of pressure and the Vikings just didn't seem prepared for it and they didn't really like the first half offense the second half offense gets a lot of attention because the interceptions but the first half offense is is kind of what did them in in addition to obviously the horrible defensive

performance but when you go three and out on four or five possessions in the first half, like that's a really hard thing to overcome. And you need to be able to, even if you only run for two yards on first down and you're not getting in those second and manageable third and short situations like the Eagles were, which helped them have their entire playbook open, you need to find ways to adjust and to beat that. And it didn't really seem like they were prepared for how to handle pressure and how to get guys open against man coverage. And just, like, they weren't switching things up enough. There was just so many, like, all right, we're going to throw to Irv Smith running a crossing route,

and he's just blanketed on third down and hope that that works. And there were probably a few reads that Kirk could have gone different places with the ball. But you just wanted to see, I think, a little bit more rapid adjusting and make some have some creativity like the one third down first or second third down they converted I think it was the first first down they converted was an end around to Jalen Rager that got 17 yards and it looked like it caught the Eagles off guard like I'm not saying you have to do something fancy like that every time but just finding different ways to recognize what the defense is doing time, but just finding different ways to recognize what the defense is doing and adapt to it and find ways to beat it. And I still have a lot of kind of

belief in Kevin O'Connell as an offensive mind, as a schemer, as a play caller. This was a good learning experience, but if they don't learn from it quickly and adjust and adapt, it could be a problem this week because the Detroit Lions have now seen the tape of this game. They're studying that all week. They are going to do a lot of the same things. They are going to play, just looking at some of the stats of what they've done through two weeks defensively, they're going to play a lot of man coverage. They're going to bring a lot of pressure. Aaron Glenn, their defensive coordinator, known as kind of a blitz happy guy so the vikings need to adjust to that

and that's they need to find ways to maybe utilize the screen game like the screen game was such a disaster yes we're sitting there watching and every screen they threw there's like two eagles right there and they're lucky that they weren't picked i mean it could have been ugly there kirk had one throw where he missed the the hot read to KJ Osborne against the Blitz and just chucked it up towards Jefferson, and it probably should have been a pick six. It just barely skipped.

So they need to make some adjustments quickly. I don't think this Lions defense is quite as talented as the Eagles defense, but they've got some dudes as well. Aiden Hutchinson just had three sacks. They've got some guys on the back end. So this is not going to be an easy game by any means. I'm curious to see how the vikings adjust uh and what they look like on sunday no i i totally agree that it's not it's not an easy game and it also asks kevin o'connell to quickly with a short week bounce back from a performance where he got knocked down for the

first time but also there's a part of me that says oh welcome to the club uh kevin you know who else is here kyle shanahan sean mcveigh kevin stefanski gary kubiak and they're saying oh welcome in yes yes to the kirk did it to you too club huh because as much as i think it is fair to be critical of like you can't have your run game not exist at all with Kirk Cousins as your quarterback you have to have play action with Kirk Cousins as your quarterback it is just a fact of life if you aren't able to do that he won't succeed end of story so that that was a mistake for sure but also like oh you didn't dial up the perfect game plan that had receivers open all the time.

Oh, look, there's Jay Gruden coming in the door. Hey, Jay, great to see you. You went through this for a few years, didn't you? Oh, yeah, yeah, I did. Yeah, so Kirk Cousins will never bail you out. Just never, never, ever, ever, ever. And just welcome, welcome Kevin O'Connell to the Kirk Cousins cousins will never ever make you right when you're wrong club uh and i think that's the frustration from fans is it also maybe was cold water on a lot of fans who thought kevin o'connell will believe in him and will scheme

and will pat him on the back and support him and that will just cover up the kirk cousins will never bail you out club but there's a reason there's so many other guys in there. And I think what he has to do is not let that pile up. Like that's, that is Kirk. It will always be Kirk onto the next one. That's the only thing you can really do because he's talking about how self-critical he is. But it's like, Kevin, if you change everything, like that, then you're chasing your tail when the reality is the guy could have bailed you out. Right. Right. Like, I mean, there were just so many opportunities in that game for the quarterback to make a play and he didn't. And you're saying, well, now we have to change everything or I have to change this or I have to look at that. And it's like, I hope you don't change too much because he'll do it to you again no matter what your scheme was so I think it's fair to look at the things that they could have done and say well x y and z

yes you could have done that but also if you go trying to completely flip the philosophy of what you're doing offensively that's just going to make it harder on everybody on your team and they're going to look at it and be like oh so do you like not know what you're doing or what yeah I think this game kind of really reinforced the importance of just the start. Like the first couple drives in week one, they go down, they score a touchdown. The opening script looks great. Kirk is operating within it efficiently. They're getting some explosive plays.

And that just helps set everything up because then game script, you can run the ball more. Playbook is a little more open. they were just kind of staying on schedule and then against philadelphia they go three and out right away before you know it they're down 14 nothing a few three and outs and that just really makes things hard like it makes it harder to run the ball even if you want to keep running the ball and kevin o'connell it, like we want to stay true to who we are offensively and what we want to do, our philosophy. It's just hard to kind of rationalize running the ball when you are trailing and you need to get back into the game.

And then outside of very few examples, like that Denver Broncos game in 2019, just Kirk Cousins isn't really a quarterback you want to have trying to mount a multi-score comeback he's capable of doing it if the situations are right and if like defenses maybe fall off in some way and don't continue playing at a high level but overall he's not really a guy you want trying to lead that effort because everything needs to be so right there and set up and the play action and marrying the run in the past. And it's much easier to operate that system and that philosophy when you're in front and you have more things available to you. And the Vikings didn't

have that. The Eagles are a good defense. And still, like you said, Kirk Cousins had some opportunities to get them back in the game in the second half. The very first drive of the second half wasn't really his fault. Jefferson should have run that route differently. But then you get the blocked field goal, and you're right there at the 30-yard line. And he just makes a really bad miscalculation, a bad read, gets picked off by Avante Maddodox he admitted that he was kind of pressing on that and trying to do too much and then even at that point you kind of knew it was it was going to take a miracle they almost got one with the jordan hicks interception and he's right there and he just kind of loses his mind against cover zero all out blitzes and just throws it up and like the first one darius light dropped then he was like all right wait I actually wanted you to intercept then he did it again like yeah it was so yeah I mean

it's just it wasn't an ideal start to the game and I think that puts a ton of pressure on Kirk Cousins and I don't know how equipped he is to handle that which makes the first quarter of every game really important. I get, you know, one thing is when you talk about playing from behind, it just usually depends on the opponent. If it's last year's Carolina Panthers, you can do it. If it's the Denver Broncos in 2019, who are a pretty bad team, you can do it. You can't do it against good teams. And you're right though, they did even open the door and it still didn't happen um but yeah it's just like one of those classic games that you have to get over fast but you know there was another thing i want to talk about with this too is so ed donatel was opposite of kevin o'connell uh took no responsibility whatsoever for what went wrong on defense. And you know what?

I'm going to support Ed on this. I think that NFL offenses who are good at football in the year 2022 are going to score points. And if you can't match them, then you won't be good and like if if you came into this year expecting this defense as flawed as it is and is sort of taped together as it is and if we don't see harrison smith in this game which we'll get to but like not good right if you expected this defense to be 2017 vikings and be able to like give up seven points a game or whatever it is. Uh, you had, I think maybe a little bit of delusions there. Like this defense was always

going to be flawed and all, well, why are you playing a shell? Cause these guys aren't that good. That's why what you, because you think Cam Dantzler is just going to like shut down AJ Brown or something like, no, I think that when it doesn't go right, we immediately go like, oh, look at this fool. Doesn't know what he's doing scheme wise. And of course, Troy Aikman was doing that on the broadcast, which riles people up. And I just think that it was, it was a poor performance for sure on defense, but that's going to happen. You are still allowed to win. Like whether this team goes somewhere or not rests on the shoulders of the other side of the ball, because the defensive side is going to just

have to try to survive. They are too reliant on two guys to get all the pressure, which Zedarius did, but Daniil didn't against the great offensive line. They're not going to stop the run. It seems that that's just not going to be a thing. thing uh Dantzler doesn't know how to read plays correctly still another thing that Mike Zimmer was not wrong about by the way that Cam Dantzler doesn't really react uh to to reads the right way all the time which is why they played someone else in his place uh but I just think like I'm not going to view these things equally it's almost like um i'm sure you do this too when radio stations from the other teams city call and they say what about the offense what about the defense like these are not equal the offense is way way way more vital to whether you

succeed or not so i i'm not going to spend all this time breaking down oh well ed donatello doesn't know what he's doing this defense this and that he must have schemed it all wrong no I think the Philadelphia Eagles were good and you still had a chance to do so offensively to match them in that game yeah and he said it too like some of it was on us we didn't execute very well defensively and maybe there were some minor changes that he would make if he were to have that opportunity to do it again from a scheme perspective. But for the most part, they went into it with a plan. They didn't execute it very well. And the Eagles played extremely well on offense and kind of tore them up. And Jalen Hurts kind of announced to the world that he might be like a burgeoning superstar quarterback.

So, yeah, I mean, you are absolutely right that the defense is not going to be a shutdown unit. Even against like a team like the Lions that has a lot of offensive weapons, the Vikings are going to give up some points. They're not going to hold Detroit to seven points like they did the Packers. And I think that was just kind of a weird week one Packers thing. It's going to be on the offense to step up and to outscore them and to kind of help the defense play complementary football by keeping the ball and extending drives and getting the run game

going and using some clock and not putting the defense in tough situations where you're just going three and out and saying, all right, you guys got to go back in the field and try to stop this red hot quarterback in this offense. So yeah, I agree with you. I don't think that a ton of blame should go on Ed Donatel. I think it's fair to put some on him. When you give up 350 yards of offense in the first half, there's going to be questions and things that you should probably change. But, yeah, we'll see kind of what adjustments they make. Like, is Cam Dantzler still going to play? I mean, O'Connell said after the game he still views him as a starting corner. Donatel kind of hinted in his press conference just now that there might be some other young guys out there that we need to see. These young guys are going to have to play, is what he said. And that's a Caleb Evans because I don't think Andrew Booth Jr. is playing yet with the quad injury. So I'm curious to see what happens there. They're going to have to do something to stop the run a little bit.

They just haven't been able to do it at all through two weeks. And part of that is the scheme kind of invites you to run and just be patient and take your two or three play first downs and march down the field and hopefully you make a mistake. Eagles didn't make any mistakes. They hit all the layups. They hit all the easy completions and seven yard runs and things like that the lions have an awesome rushing it's you go by expected points

add per play they're second behind the panthers in epa per per rush through two weeks deandre swift is awesome jamal williams is a good like change of pace guy if they can't stop the run at all and then jared goff starts to hit Amin Ross St. Brown who is suddenly a top five receiver in the league this could get interesting yeah and I and I wanted to just circle back and say that the defense was bad like I'm not saying it wasn't right and but you're saying that that it wasn't shocking right and it shouldn't have been that if you thought that Ed Donatel with this group was going to be vastly different than Mike Zimmer the last two years. Well, just compare the players that you have at the beginning of the year.

Compare the schemes where I think, you know, Mike Zimmer was very good at scheming for the most part on defense. They were one of the top sack teams in the NFL last year. So they've taken a different approach as opposed to attacking like Zimmer did last year. Now they're trying to like play off. I mean, those are two ways of doing it. And neither one solves the problem of the weaknesses in the players that you have. And if you were going to run it all back, you had to think that that was going to survive and your offense was going to drive it. So that's the expectation that I'm going to hold is that the defense will have bad days and that you can still win those games. Like you routinely see teams still win games where they give up three touchdown passes

to the other quarterback or something, just like Detroit did last week, uh, against Washington. It's, uh, so this matchup, you know know specifically against the Lions and we joke all offseason about restoring the roar and everything else I guess my question is like how much are you buying from these incredible results really over the first two weeks from the Detroit Lions offense I think there's a case to be like well you know they week one is weird you get the whole offseason to prepare for it and maybe Philadelphia wasn't ready they were at home both of these games Washington their defense is run by Jack Del Rio who was a heck of a linebacker for the Vikings back in the day but

is not a heck of a defensive mind in Washington at this point but the Vikings I think have higher expectations for their defense than maybe what Washington is putting out there. But I'm also buying a lot of the players. I mean, I'm buying DeAndre Swift. We saw him run against the Vikings where he's very explosive. I'm buying their offensive line. Even when it's been banged up, it's been very, very good. And I'm buying Amon Ross St. Brown big time because I think the guy is just really good at getting open and making plays. I guess how much are you believing in these things continuing for the Lions? Yeah, well, I think first I'll say I think the Vikings are lucky that that rookie they helped the Lions get Jamison Williams at 12 overall is on injured reserve because he has the type of speed that would present a lot of problems.

But they still have Amon Ross St. Brown is a legit number one he's eight straight games with at least eight catches he's like nine touchdowns in his last eight games which I think probably includes that one to beat the the Vikings last year uh in Detroit I'm kind of buying it I mean you mentioned it the offensive line I think is kind of where it all starts and we'll have to watch the injury reports because I think Jonah Jackson didn't practice on Wednesday and their center Frank Ragnar was limited he'll probably play but yeah Penny Sewell was it was a great pick for them kind of a foundational Dan Campbell toughness pick and that's where it starts is up front if you have a really good offensive line Vikings fans know because they haven't seen one of those in a very long time. That helps things a lot.

Now, Jared Goff is the quarterback, and Kevin O'Connell praised Jared Goff, and he worked with him in 2020. But, you know, there's a reason why the Rams made the trade that they did to go to Matthew Stafford and obviously worked, and they won a Super Bowl. Jared Goff, also at the same time, there was a reason why he was drafted number one overall, and he can still kind of make the throws from an accuracy perspective. He's similar to maybe Kirk Cousins in that you don't trust him when he has to go off schedule or create things kind of out of structure. But I'm buying this offense. And the run game, like it gets,

we talk about how it's a pass heavy league and, and running is not efficient and all these things. It's important. I mean, when you can run effectively and especially when you can generate some explosives out of the run game, that just opens things up and, and it makes it easier to run play action. And even if the data suggests that that doesn't maybe matter,

it just like the marriage that Kevinvin o'connell talks about so much it's helpful when you can run the ball and they have the weapons on the outside t.j hockinson it's kind of a mismatch at tight end with his size and athleticism so uh yeah i'm i'm kind of in on the lions i think it'd be fun good for football if if dan campbell's boys are frisky i watched all all the hard knocks so i'm i'm in on like rodrigo their rookie linebacker and uh amin rah and all these different guys and uh it's i mean if we keep saying it but don't look at this as like the vikings should roll in play their b game and win by a touchdown or two. That's not going to happen. They're going to have to play well.

The impact of the run game is always an interesting discussion about the play action because I think what has been found is that you can still succeed in play action passing even if your run game isn't great. And this is evidenced by like the 2016 Vikings where Sam Bradford is one of the best play action quarterbacks in the league, but the Vikings had the worst running game. So that's possible.

But I don't think that means it doesn't help when you're better, if that makes sense. Like if you can frighten teams more, it just forces them to pay attention more to what you could do running wise. And this is a major, major red flag and concern for the Vikings against the run last year. They were, I think an EPA against the pass expected points added. They were like 14th because they got some interceptions. They got some sacks.

So they weren't that bad against the past by those metrics. But against the run, I think they were like dead last. They got, they lost games because other teams just didn't even have to pass the ball. And when they played Detroit, I think both times they ran effectively, but particularly in the first game, they ran effectively against the Vikings. And if you can control the game by doing that, I think it's a, it's a totally different effect. And when you have a quarterback with limitations limitations that just makes everything easier for them it should be a big fear of the vikings that detroit is going to come in and take the crowd out of the game take the air out of the football you talked about game situation how it matters and keep the vikings offense on the

sideline if they can right that's the football right exactly and and not only that but just also make you feel like when another team is running against you successfully time after time you feel like the world is ending it feels like being waterboarded or something right it's just like come on like the vikings did this in 2019 where they had a drive against dallas where they ran like 10 straight times and scored a touchdown. And it was just like, imagine being Dallas right now where they just did that to you. It feels like you're getting steamrolled. And the Vikings have had that in the first two weeks on a couple of different drives where it just felt like they were getting steamrolled. I think that is a big concern uh i also do think that there is a extra added energy to that team

where they have been so bad and i don't know that it's like dan campbell specifically but i also i think it's a thing that happens when a team feels it coming like even miami with brian flores like they had tanked they had been so bad and so miserable, but then they saw it coming. Like we're actually good now. Like we've got players now we can make plays and there's an, there's an extra something there when a team feels like they're trying to prove that they're for real now. And that's what the Vikings have to be concerned about because the Vikings are coming off getting like a dose of reality about where they stand. And so they're reeling a little bit.

And here's a Detroit team coming in off of a big win that they just got with a lot of belief. And they know they played the Vikings well last year. I think I do think that that's something to be worried about. And also to circle back to the Cam Dantzler point, when you pull a corner late in the game, you're not trying to get young guys work. Okay. Like that's their excuse. That is malarkey. That's nonsense. You pulled cam dancer because you were unhappy with cam dancer. That's why. And you talk about things that are worrisome. They have receivers and one really good receiver and a corner who they've already showed that they're very worried about right away. It's like the secondary was already creaky.

And now it looks worse with Cam Dantzler. And by the way, Ed Donatell clarified that it was Dantzler's fault on the big touchdown by Quez Watkins. It was not Cam Bynum, even though it looks like, and this is why the film people, you can only trust some of what you see on the internet with film breakdowns. Cam Bynum looks like he comes down on that route, but he was supposed to do that. And Cam Dantzler was supposed to carry his guy, but he didn't do it.

That, to me, him being pulled out of the game is a pretty big deal to happen this early in the season yeah i in week two absolutely and it wasn't even like we we went into this season thinking andrew booth is gonna apply some pressure to cam dantzler it's not even andrew booth this is a fourth round rookie of caleb evans who they drafted to be like a developmental long-term guy with the tools he has like he you did not assume or think that he was going to be asked to play early on or even be ready to play and I mean you can make what you make of his small sample size of snaps so far but clearly that clearly they like something

about what he can do and yeah Cam Dantzler I think it's going to be interesting to see. Does he start the game? Does he play? Like, is there a rotation? And you don't really want to have rotations at cornerbacks to some extent. Like, they kind of want to figure out who the guy is going to be. So I think that's something to watch. I think I'm curious to see, like, does the defense adjust? Or do they just keep doing what they're doing and using their two high safeties and inviting the run and playing off and hoping that offenses are going to make mistakes?

Like, I don't know if I don't know if that's the best approach to take in this game, because what's the what's the main perceived weakness on the Troy Lions offense? It's Jared Goff. So I would be tempted to abandon that philosophy a little bit at least for this week and bring some more guys up and try to stop the run and bring pressure and try to get after Jared Goff and make him beat you down the field and like what we saw I mean in the second half in Philadelphia when they brought a little bit more pressure on Jalen Hurts that influenced some things and then you were starting to think like hey why didn't we do that in the first half more like so I think just how they approach playing defense in this game is going to be really

interesting to see but overall I agree like this Lions team has some confidence that they've kind of earned with the fight that they showed in week one against a really good eagles team and then validating their whole process and everything with a win in week two they they see the vikings are reeling coming off a kind of ugly monday night loss on prime time they're on a short week like this lions team is probably smelling blood like not to you know get too literal with their mascot, but if a lion in Africa or wherever lions are smells some blood,

I mean, that's more of a shark thing. It's a shark thing. No, I'm just going to let you keep going here. But, you know, they see an animal down, they're going to come pounce on it and get their fill. Is that what they're doing?

Or they're probably killing it in the first place. You know, I'm not okay i'm not an animal expert but you get you get what i'm going for in general here that the the lions the lions are ready to pounce okay wow that was not my finest analogy but i i would like to think people understand where i was going i think so Yeah. It is generally sharks that are thought of smelling blood in the water. Yeah. And that is used in sports at times.

I think, right, that lions probably, if there were a dead animal, they would feast on it. Or maybe like a wounded animal. It would be a better. But I also think they have the confidence as a lion to track down something. A healthy animal. Moving. A healthy animal. Right.

That's true. And how this relates to Vikings lions, I'm not really sure. But I get what you're saying. That when you see the Vikings and what they just had happen to them, I'm sure Detroit is looking at it in two different ways. I mean, one, all the weaknesses were just put on tape. All of them uh and and so how are you going to take advantage of those but the other thing too is that they know that the vikings everything this week is going to be about correcting everything that went wrong

and shoring up those weaknesses and that's what makes football so darn interesting yeah is it like all those things that we talked about there were problems the vikings are spending every waking hour trying to solve and the detroit lions trying to figure out how they can you know repeat what Philadelphia did and I think that this is this matchup if you're doing like a one out of ten for team strength I mean in past years you might have said the Vikings were like a six and the Lions were like a two this kind of reminds me actually of a few years ago when it was more like 2016, 2017, where they're quite close, I think, in an actual talent and the way that their teams are set up.

So it might come down to who is coached better in this game. And of course, does your quarterback show up? So let's talk about who will win this football game. Last week on Twitter.com, you came under scrutiny from a listener for picking the eagles well you were justified in doing so so i think we were both in agreement yeah yeah yeah in each of the two weeks and we were right in both of them right i'm not gonna say that means anything small sample size might be my best streak ever two for two yeah uh so

all i'm saying is that uh you know you were rational about last week's pick will you go with a bounce back or do you think that they slide i think the vikings will win this game um i totally could see them losing because of the things we've talked about and the way that the lions might be equipped to exploit some of their weaknesses particularly in run defense um aiden hutchinson could be a problem some other guys they have on defense but there's also a reason why the vikings are like a touchdown favor right now i haven't checked the latest line but i think it opened at seven or seven and a half that feels a little bit high for me that's aggressive personally

that's aggressive um but the vikings are at home they are going to make adjustments and do everything they can to fix what went wrong. And I do think it's fairly close talent-wise. But I think the Vikings have an edge in some key areas. I think I trust their quarterback a little bit more. Not a ton more, but a little bit more. They have Justin Jefferson, who as good as Aminara saint brown has looked he is not justin jefferson the vikings have good secondary weapons they have um i think we're gonna see a lot of dalvin cook this week uh it sometimes it's just kind of easy and this this could age poorly but

there's some weeks where whether it's jefferson or feeling or cook where you're like hey we're talking about how this guy hasn't gotten that many touches, they're going to kind of grease the squeaky hinge or whatever. That's not the phrase. But, again, you know what I'm going for. They're going to feed the guy that hasn't been getting the ball a ton. And I think Dalvin Cook, they're going to try to put him in positions to be successful. Not just running up the middle, but getting him in space and trying to pass

him the ball more. And hopefully he won't drop it like he did on one swing pass in Philly. But I have the Vikings winning this game. I think it will be a close game. I think it will be potentially a high scoring game, but I want to take this opportunity to shout out the best phase of the Vikings team. and that is special teams. Matt Daniels' special teams unit. I'm going to just say I think there will be another game-changing special teams play in this game, whether it's Greg Joseph from 59 yards or a blocked something or a return. I'm all in on Matt Daniels and the Vikings' top six, I think, DVOA special teams so far.

Yeah. No, the special teams has been great. I mean, it's the squeaky wheel that gets the grease. There you go. I think that if you're going to make an in-season adjustment, it's to your metaphors and common sayings. I'm going to I'm going to I'm going to look up some sayings and practice them before next time. Right. Work on those phrases. Yeah. You know, I think that the Vikings need this one badly and that U.S. Bank Stadium has been

very favorable to them over the years and that they get a win here. But my confidence is just not that high. And six-point favorite right now is a lot. And I don't understand. So if you're a betting man everyone bet responsibly you might you might take the lines and the points yeah i mean because i mean these teams are going to play close i think i mean i we i don't know we as reporters always pick close games like uh well you know this one will be a real battle because we spent all week like looking

at everything and sometimes it's a blowout but uh and it's funny that neither vikings game has been close after last year everyone was close but it's true i feel like this one will be because of how evenly matched these these two teams are and how both of them have equal reason to view this as a huge game for them the vikings are at a slight disadvantage because of the short week but you got detroit traveling on the road like you can go this or that either way like the vikings have shown some weaknesses detroit's banged up a little bit more than the vikings are yada yada yada i think what you end up with is the vikings winning this game but doing it with a late field goal or something like that and we all walk out of there

saying hey detroit's not a joke joke because they have a good team, but maybe they're not quite good enough yet. The only reason I could see it maybe not being a close game is what we've talked about. If either team jumps out to an early lead, I don't think we really trust the other team to come back necessarily. So there is a situation where one team takes an early lead and it kind of

snowballs with the run game and um clock clock management or time of possession is what is term i'm looking for and and so in in that situation it could end up not being close but i imagine it'll be kind of a back and forth thing where there's adjustments happening and it might come down to good old special teams. Good old special teams play. All right, Will. Well, thanks for your time as always. I had dialed up the list of Detroit Lions 1,000-yard rushers since 2000,

but I'll just break the news to you that it's short. So we won't go through it because we don't really have time. But I appreciate all of your time, and we will talk again soon, sir. Always.