Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - How can the Vikings use the final four games to make adjustments?

Episode Date: December 13, 2022

Matthew Coller and former Minnesota Viking Jeremiah Sirles deep dive into the Vikings' run game, the mentality of the locker room when one side of the ball is struggling and whether they can solve enough problems by the end of the year to be considered a Super Bowl contender. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Purple Insider is presented by Liquid Death, delicious water that's bringing death to plastic. Learn more at liquiddeath.com slash insider. Hello, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here along with former Minnesota Viking Jeremiah Searles for Tuesday morning left guard. And as you woke up on a Tuesday this morning and you thought about football because that's what you do. What were you feeling, Jeremiah? We like to get into our feelings a lot. Football is very emotional game.

As you watch the Vikings onings on sunday put together their best passing performance of the year historic play from justin jefferson and yet still walk out of ford field with a two score loss like uh what were your emotions then and i guess how have they um transformed over the last couple days as you've been able to stew on what happened yeah well first of all my barber shop there's a one of the barbers in there is a massive Detroit Lions fan and I have just been pooing on him for the last like three years and so I knew instantly like I'm gonna pay for that because I had a haircut this morning and then I kind of forgot that I walked in this morning and he was just standing there 7 30 bright-eyed bushy-tailed huge smile on his face like i was

hoping you would come today and i was like gosh damn it and he was just like how do you think about that huh jared goff baby he's like i told you we were close i was like stop it like you just stop it but it's just hard to really think like we let jared goff and the lions put up 34 points on us and i mean i said on the show last like, what do you want to see from this team? I was like, just no blunders down the stretch, right? Like, just be ramping it up. Let's work our way towards where we want to go. And we just completely blundered this game away.

And it's so frustrating because, like you said, we've been harping on Kirk. And we've been saying, hey, man, got to be better. Freaking 10 incompletions. 10 incompletions for 425 yards. Like you can't ask a guy to more than that, but we just can't seem to put together like everyone executing at the top level all the time. And that's what you have to do as a playoff team.

So I'm frustrated. It was fun to watch Justin Jefferson be all hail Jefferson, but like at the same time, we just, there's too many glaring holes for me to think right now at this moment we're a true contender for a Super Bowl. It's sort of ironic that some of the better wins have been where they didn't statistically put up the most yards necessarily, but they sort of played the game the way it needed to be played. And one of the issues here, I'd love you to speak to this, having gone through the rigors of an NFL season. Something I've noticed and have sort of repeatedly brought up,

and sorry if I'm bringing it up for like the hundredth time, the Vikings are playing a lot of plays on defense, a lot of football plays. And I just feel like this has to be wearing down guys who are aging because when you have 85 plays against the New York Jets and you have 70 plays against the New York jets and you have 70 plays against the Detroit lions and your offense is only on the field for, if we throw away the, like kneel down at the end of the half and we throw away the VAT, the last possession, that's like, you know, two plays in 15 seconds or something. Yeah. And I mean,

they were out played like by 15 plays or something like that, you know, where, where Detroit's on the field a lot more than they are and I don't know that there's a good way to prevent that outside of having a really effective running game and this year has just not been an effective running game it's been a statistically good running game for Delvin Cook overall but on a week-to-week basis they are not having a lot of success with it and I thought that that went under the radar and really really hurt them against Detroit and I know that that's partly because of the offensive lineman being out but is it schematic is it is it just you know Bradbury

not being able to play because I feel like it has not really been there on a consistent basis even when the offensive linemen are healthy yeah you know I think every defensive coordinator wants to make them one-dimensional make them one-dimensional and you know a lot of that is take away the run you know but the thing is it's pretty scary to take away the run against a Kirk Cousins offense with Justin Jefferson and TJ Hawkins and those guys like part of you would always be like take away the pass make them run um you know and I think that there's a piece of that that's happening that they're able to stop the run without having to blitz. I think that teams are having success with just their four down linemen

and their linebackers being able to stop the run. Now, that can be a number of things. Schematically, the majority, in my opinion, watching the tape, it comes down to guys just not being able to get enough push and win their one-on-one matchups up front. There's not a ton of new line of scrimmage being established on the defensive side of the ball. A lot of times there's penetration.

You know, Dalvin Cook and Alexander Madison are both really good when they can get rolling downhill and get past the line of scrimmage before they're having to make their first cut or their first move. I mean, a majority of the time, they have to make their first move in the backfield or they have to stop their feet because there's no hole. And they haven't really had a chance to just get going. And I know I think that's a lot of just not being able to create push up front.

And I don't know if that's more of the personnel issue that you're going to have to understand or trying to find different schemes. But at this point in the year, you kind of are who you are. You're not going to be able to just magically wand fix everything. You just got to keep grinding away at it yeah the way that this offense seems to work to me is that in order to be successful they have to do the hardest things really perfectly and on Sunday the offense although it's you know it was I got a great question from a fan the other day

about like they put up all those yards and end up with 16 points late in the game until that drive where Jefferson definitely wasn't out of bounds and so forth. But it is a good question about the three and outs that they have, but also not having the football. And so they're moving it really well when they have it, but then they don't have it. The things that they need to do to succeed are throw downfield passes all the time and and just hit like jefferson for big plays the the short game hasn't been effective the screen game hasn't been effective the run game hasn't been consistent and those are the easy things those are the ways that you can win a football game without even like doing too much and i thought there was some of that against new england they hit some deep balls to Jefferson, but a lot of it was like quick game and short passes. But every single week,

it seems to be this whack-a-mole thing where it's like, Oh, well they did the bootlegs really well that week. And then the next week they get blown up by the jets and they average four yards pass. It's like, I don't know. Like, you know, it's like, there's, there's one answer and the answer is the same all the time. And it's how many times can you get the football to Justin Jefferson? And I do think that they made progress in terms of other people getting involved big time. But also, the Detroit Lions have one of the worst pass defenses in the entire NFL, so that probably played a role. They didn't put a ton of pressure on Kirk Cousins throughout the game

outside of a couple of sacks where they won their reps. So, you know, I think that that right there makes it very difficult to be consistent and I think you guys went through this a bit in 16 where the running game wasn't very good if you hit a deep shot to feel in her digs was like here we go but everything else was just a major challenge and there was a lot of underneath dump offs to Kyle Rudolph and such. And it's just like, can, can you win that way? Like, I think so because your star receiver is that good, but you're making it very hard on yourself when you have a defense that isn't giving you any favors. Yeah. You know, I think this offense needs that explosive play or that really positive start in the series in order to kind of get themselves going and that's why i think you've seen so many three and outs that they're not having much so

much success on first down it's pretty much like well we'll try again next time you know like because i don't think that we love no one loves second and ten like nobody loves that you're kind of like okay do i run the ball and try and get to third and five do i pass the ball and try and get a first down and skip third down and you're kind of saying this you're letting the defense dictate the tempo at that point and so what i think the the one of the things that you're getting at and one thing that we really need to see the vikings do is become way more efficient on first down whether that's the short passes the screens the run game whatever it is the efficiency on first down especially on your first series of that drive,

needs to be much, much better. I think if we can take care of that in a certain way and live in second and six, second and seven, and live in that area, it opens a lot more up with the playbook. It has the defense as it contends down because now they defend the sticks, they defend the deep shot. We're just not putting pressure on defenses in second down. Now we're converting a decent amount of third downs

based off the fact that we have Justin Jefferson. And it's like, okay, where is he? Let's go convert. But where you can make your hay is skipping some of those third downs because you're converting on second downs. So that's why this offense, when I look at it, they don't skip many third downs. You see them in third down a lot. I think that's based off of their lack of efficiency on first.

So all of that comes around to say, everything you just said is completely right. You're not helping yourselves. But also, it goes back to even your first point. When you're doing that, this defense is wearing out. And you're seeing it on a game-by-game basis. Like, every single game, they don't look quite as pop like popped off the screen they don't have quite that same brush you're just not seeing it and that's a scary thing going into the playoffs

because like we said you want to be ramping up and getting some guys some rest I don't think we're gonna have a chance to get some guys some rest here because we're gonna have to win out down the stretch here to keep holding on to that two seat yeah I mean I think that even if even if they were to go from two to three i don't know that the matchup is that different i i feel like the rest for week 18 is just absolutely vital i mean you've got the division wrapped up i think you just have to do it regardless like you'd rather be the two and play the number seven because that's a worse team but with zadarius smith kind of hobbled out there and not getting the same amount of pressure though he did end up with you know a handful

of pressures the other day uh no one else really did patrick peterson's age jordan hicks eric kendricks now hicks is banged up and mispracticed today and uh you know harrison smith missing the game was you know certainly relevant um you know you're much better with him than without him and now he's got a neck issue which you have to be concerned about uh something lingering that's that's not a bruise that you get on your arm. That's going to heal real quickly. So you need all of these guys at 100% and rested. I imagine that they'll kind of take that approach. But you know, that the, the bigger picture being, Oh, I was looking up this statistic. What you're saying on first down is just super true because they have one of the worst like

first uh or one of the worst yards per play on first down but the one of the best percentages where they create first downs which sounds absurd right like that doesn't make sense so are they good or bad and the answer is just wildly inconsistent so if they complete a pass they're probably getting a first down but anything else they're just not making any sort of real progress on first down. And I think that that starts with the run game. And I, like you said, like at this point with four games left, it's very hard to say, ah, yes, answers. We'll find them. Um, but at the same time you do have this strange and unusual cushion, which almost nobody ever has in the final four games. And of course, they want to win every one of them.

But you can do some experimenting. You can change some things up. And I don't know if I have a good answer for the run game. I think that run games rely on everybody blocking really well. So if one person doesn't, you didn't bring in a tight end. Who's a very good run blocker. You don't have like a, you know, a perfect run blocking offensive line. And you don't have a guy who can just like juke a bunch of people anymore. You kind of have a running back who gets you what you do for the blocking, but they do have this opportunity to try

things offensively and defensively to kind of see what sticks and that also could include personnel on the offensive or defensive side so it's it's a very weird situation because of course we're like slamming on everything that just happened but i almost don't even know what to do with the final four games for how we talk about them like well don't lose to the colts for sure that would be pretty pretty rough. But aside from that, it's kind of like, are we just looking for what type of things that they're experimenting with? You know, I think if we're going to, let's play this game. Let's play the what would you experiment with game.

You know, I think for me, the number one thing I do is experience. I think I played that in a junior high party. Oh, yeah. You too? You know, I think the experiment number one for me would be 21 personnel more cj ham you know he's so athletic that you can involve him in the passing game he's not a he's not a pat ricard from baltimore that's 300 pounds just a converted o-lineman that was a little faster than most you know cj would used to play running back in college he's extremely

athletic you can get him involved in different pass schemes too if you want, but we had a lot of success in the last few years running behind CJ as a lead blocker. I know it's not in his DNA to want to have 21 personnel out there. KOC is what I'm talking about. It's not something he's going to wake up and be like, more fullback, but it's something like you said to experiment with. And also if you want to kind of take a shift, these next four games, give your first round opponent a ton to worry about,

give him a ton to game plan for, because it's like, Oh man, they didn't do this for the first 14 games of the year, but then, Oh my gosh, look what they threw in here in the last few games. We got a plan for this.

We got a plan for that. We got a plan for all these things you know so give your opponent some more stuff to worry about while you're kind of fine-tuning you put it out on tape they're gonna put they're gonna look at it you have the luxury of going back in the meeting room on Monday and be like trash and pulling it out the other team doesn't know that they're gonna have to spend time preparing on it they're gonna have to spend a play at practice which this time of year there's not a lot of reps at practice. You know, guys are not getting 40 to 50 reps at practice. There might be getting 28, 24 reps a day, you know? So if you're spending one of those reps worrying about a new wrinkle that you put in on offense, that's one more rep. They're not

worrying about the new wrinkle that you're putting in. You know, there's so many things of the chess match that goes on for just during the week of practice that that's the whole reason I'd be excited to see some new experimenting scheme wise stuff offensively. Not as much like we're going to change. It just gives the other team so much more to think about down the stretch. Do you know how many jokes ran through my head when you said let's play a game? I know. I mean, come on, man. It's a family podcast, but it just almost went in a very bad place.

So I saved it. You did. Well, I mean, you're never going to have a bad time with a fullback take here on this show, of course. But I really think that that I really think that that's true. And I think that it really plays into the run game most because as far as, as far as the passing attack goes, I think it's sort of is what it's going to be. And it that's because you can't fully protect her cousins. If you play a violent defense, Detroit is improving, but they're not like, they have one scary guy, Aiden Hutchinson. I think McNeil in the middle is he's pretty good. I like him, but I mean,

this isn't like the jets. This isn't like Washington who is a likely opponent for them, that their defensive line caused major problems for the Vikings. And they couldn't run in that game either. And if you want to mess with the other team in the run game, force them to bring another linebacker or make a choice and stay in that nickel off it. Like, I think that that isn't that hard of a thing to say, put your fullback in there and plow some people with your fullback a little bit and then play pass off of that. They've done a little bit of it. It's been mixed in and I think it's had some success, but they haven't really wanted to

lean into it. And that doesn't mean flip your offense to be Gary Kubiak. It just means, like you said, make somebody think about it and have a nice little counterpunch. Hey, we're not running the ball well today out of the shotgun or out of the, you know, the, the 11 personnel with three receivers out there. I mean, get, you know, give that a try. I think they have been putting Johnny month on the field a little bit more, but I also think that CJM is more effective than Johnny month for this and teams just don't see it a lot. And when you have something out there, that's unique. I think that always played in Kevin Stefanskiary kubiak's favor was that opposing teams had to completely change a lot of things that they did and kind of make them play a little bit left-handed so it's not like

use cj ham every play it's just like get that get that counter punch going a little bit here against the team in indianapolis that does not have a joke defense or a joke front, maybe try that out. On the defensive side, though, I mean, I don't know. None of us have great answers. And I recorded a podcast with a defensive expert to help us out here a little bit. But I think one thing that we might see is we might just see Cam Dantzler not play. I mean, mean duke shelly is not some sort of like star corner they've lost corners they've had injuries there but this zone defense requires a lot of

mastering a lot of different things and i i think that patrick peterson is so great because of that but o'connell mentioned multiple times personnel when he talked about this and the only that's the only change i can really think of because they don't have another nickel corner and Chandon Sullivan's had a really difficult time. But I don't know. What would you like to see them experiment with on defense? Blitzing.

You know, I think we talked about it last time. You know, at this point, the sit back and wait game is not working anymore. The bend but don't break is breaking at the end. You know, so I think especially when you don't have Harrison Smith back there the greater racer of all things you need to make sure like you got to get to the quarterback you can't just let him sit back there and you got to create negative plays you have to do exactly what happens us which is be effective on first down on the other side of the ball you know when you can be and keep them in second down and you can dictate the tempo I can't think of the last game off the ball. You know, when you can be and keep them in second down and you can dictate the tempo,

I can't think of the last game off the top of my head where the Vikings defense dictated the tempo of the game. You know, it's not like, I mean, for so long when I played, and I hate being this guy, but like when I played for Minnesota, you know, in 15, 16, 17, so much was our defense dictated the entire tempo of the game. From start to finish finish we dictated when we were going to blitz when we were going to get them off the field how quickly and when our

offense kind of just played off of that you know I don't know if we've had a game like that this year where our defense was just like nope this is how we're going to handle it and you know I think a lot of us because we don't create a ton of negative plays um I don't have the statin for me you know but I just I would bet we're in the bottom third of the league and created negative plays and when you don't create negative plays you're always on your heels you're always but not you're not behind you're their offenses in front of the sticks they're kind of going so i think we need to start creating ways to um do that whether that's corner pressures or that safety pressures linebacker pressures double a gaps whatever it is exotic fronts you know just finding ways to try and get offensive lines and running backs

and things on their heels so that we can try and find ways to get pressure, dictate, slice in through gaps, slant, make a guy miss. There's just so many things schematically you can try and do, but we've got to start doing something because the sit back and keep everything in front of you game is failing us. Folks, my wife had a great idea this week in the holiday spirit. We went and got some cases of liquid death and donated them to a local food pantry. Though I have to say we did get some strange looks because it's called liquid death.

And it looks like we were bringing in a bunch of tall boy beer cans. But liquid death water is about helping the world be a better place. Specifically, the environment by ending plastic bottles. They donate 10% of their profits from delicious mountain water to end plastic use, and we've become big fans in the household of it as well. So if you want to get some water in a Tallboy can because it just tastes better, or if you want to give back to others, go get yourself some liquid death water go to hy-v whole foods target or liquid death.com slash insider that's liquid death.com slash insider to find out more and they've sunk all the way down to 17th in the league in sacks and i think

24th and qb hits like they're just not making any quarterbacks pay for it and running games are not succeeding against the vikings but also not being hit in the back field for a five-yard loss almost ever so it's kind of like a stalemate and then they just come back up and have another chance uh i want to know what it's like inside of a locker room and one side of the ball is thriving and i you know the, the Vikings offense has been up and down this year, but they're 10th in the league. So kind of where we thought they would be offensively, if we were being realistic with ourselves before the season and not declaring Kirk MVP every year, somebody does it. And every year I'm like, okay, my homes is around. So that's going to be a tough one. But anyway the point just being that, you know, the offense can kind

of look at their numbers and be like, we're not perfect. And we're definitely not putting up the biggest numbers in the entire world, but also we're not 32nd. What is that like? Because you went through this probably in 16, especially where the offense sputtered at times and the defense was playing mostly great. It just seems like it can kind of become a thing in Fester when one side of the ball feels like they're doing their job and then like they're getting let down by the other. You know, I don't know if it's much of Fester as much as it is just kind of it just agitates. And that's might be another word for Fester. But it's not a it's not something that like kind of boils up. It's just in the back of not a, it's not something that like kind of boils up. It's just in the back of your mind, it's agitating and it's more agitating, I think for the side of the ball,

that's letting you down than it is for the team that's doing well. Um, you know, you kind of put this pressure on yourself and I can remember this as an offense where like we'd meet and be like, guys, we've got to help our defense out. Like we have to be better. We have to do this. And like, I can never really remember a time where the defense just came over and just MF does, you know, I really can't. But there was plenty of times that we really felt that like, man, we're letting our team down. You know, we're not performing. We're not scoring points like we got to get to 17 or 21 and we just couldn't do it. You know, so I think there's more of an added pressure on the on the on, we'll call it the bad side of the ball. But, you know, I think guys like Eric Kendricks that were on those dominant defenses really feel that. You know, I think they really feel this huge drop-off from what they know the standard can be and they were part of. Patrick Peterson, too.

These vets really feel that. And I think that it just comes down to trying to find ways to not put added pressure on yourself and just making sure you just go out there and perform and make sure you go out there and do everything that you have to do but like I said there's no magic fix I think you just have to keep trying to elevate your game and play better personally because I don't think anything schematically we do is going to all of a sudden make us a top 10 defense it's just going to be our guys going out and making more plays than the other guys, which is how we won so many games early on creating turnovers, you know, camp Dancer ripping the

ball out of Smith, Marseille's hands, having an, having an interception, giving, stealing a possession. You know, those kinds of splash plays are what made us win games earlier on defense. And the lack of those is what's been making us struggle on defense. So if I had a magic pill, it's get more turnovers. Find a way to get the more turnovers because that's what helped you win games early on. And that's the hard thing, right? That's tough.

Yeah, turnovers are a roller coaster. Some weeks you get four, some weeks you get none. And Detroit did not give them any opportunities really to get turnovers. And then all of a sudden you fumble once and the margin becomes so thin when you don't have as many possessions as the other team, or when they're holding onto the ball so much that like, Oh no, we fumbled. It's going to take a really long time before we can get the ball back and get another chance to score because our defense is struggling so much. Yeah. I think, I think what I mean by fester is that it gets in everyone's head. So I'll give you an example of this. Like Mina Kynes, who's one of the biggest analysts in football on ESPN, went off on the Vikings defense, right?

And just talked about how the numbers are showing how bad they are when they're playing off coverage. And I guess the counter to that, I'm sure that Ed Donatel would say, like, oh, you want me to have Patrick Peterson pressed at his age? Like, so we can have you know aman ross st brown run straight by him and catch a touchdown but at the same time like that it doesn't matter how right or wrong it is what matters is that it's happening right that like the owners of the team turn on the tv and they see here's the espn analysts just throttling your

defensive coordinator and so i mean there's no way that that does not creep in. And I feel like it just sort of pinged in my head a little bit, the game in Carolina in 17, where K struggled a little bit and the receivers seemed to have kind of a secret meeting after the game. And there was just a little, because all year, including Zimmer, everyone had been saying like, K's isn't for real, K's isn't for real. meeting after the game and there was just a little because all year including Zimmer everyone had been saying like case isn't for real case isn't for real and when you say that like the defense can't keep doing this the defense can't keep doing this and then that levy breaks I think

that everyone feels that like oh man were they right we hated all those people when they were saying it but were they right and it's their goal here to make everyone wrong about this but there's no way that doesn't penetrate the locker. Yeah, no, it definitely does. And especially in today's age of social media where you can't even turn your phone on. And everyone's like, I don't look at social media. Yeah, bull. Yes, you do.

I'm sorry. There's not a person on planet Earth that sits there and is like, nope, I don't look at Twitter. I don't look at Instagram. It's like, well, all right, show me your screen time because I don't believe you. And so even if you don't follow those accounts, people send stuff to you. Like, and even if you're talking to a buddy, your buddy would be like, you know, just see what ESPN said. Like it just is impossible to have the zero dark 30 mentality of it just goes away, you know? So I think that it's affecting guys, but you know, I think the biggest thing is just

you realize it and you see it, but you got to use it as motivation. You can't use it as like a, it does penetrate a locker room. And I think it's really important that the veterans in your room don't ever bring it up. You know, I think it's one of those things that's like if the veterans don't bring it up, then I'm not going to bring it up. Then it's just not, it doesn't exist. Now I know it exists and it lives here in the back of my brain, but if we just don't bring it up to where it's like, guys, we, we suck, you know, it's like, no, no, no. How are we getting better?

How are we pushing forward? And always looking on the positive side of like, we are winning the division. Everything's out in front of us. Why? Like, don't like, don't look at the negative stuff. Don't even like, don't even read it. Don't even talk about it. I know you will, but you just have to find ways to focus on the positive stuff,

which is you're an 11-win football team with four more games left to go, and you have everything out in front of you still. I love how you just counted the Colts as a free win there. I did. I did. I did. We're going to beat the Colts. I'm calling it right now.

We're going to beat the Colts. If we let Jeff Saturday, the player analyst coach, beat us, I will be in full panic mode. I'm just going to say that. I'm going to say that beat us, I will be in full panic mode. Just going to say that. I'm going to say that right here. I will be in full panic mode if we lose this game this weekend. I 100% agree with you, especially with the way that they just lost. It wasn't like they were, you know,

a great coach once said fat cats get slaughtered. So it wasn't like. I just say that. I don't come up. Yeah, I don't know. Sources. But anyway, you know, it's not like they're coming in fat and happy. They're really coming in kind of desperate because everyone knows it wasn't just a loss.

I felt the same way that I felt after what happened with Dallas, where I have been just prepared at some point for the season for the Vikings to just have a game where they play okay and some things go wrong and they lose and you could just be like well you know sports are sports and football and whatever when I see the football power index scrolling across my tv say that a team has a 90 chance to win in the NFL you're like nobody has a 90 chance the Texans just played really hard against the Cowboys like come on man uh so was always, I've always been like prepared for that kind of normal loss, but yet the last two losses that they've had have been 40 to three and Jared Goff is Joe Montana. And it's like, okay, well, you know, if that loss takes you to 32nd place in defense, then I can't talk about it the same way I would for just a normal 21-17, I don't know, maybe Greg Joseph missed two field goals type of loss.

And I think that's where the pressure is on this team. And this is where I think it's such a challenge for Kevin O'Connell to keep all of that out, to keep this train going. And they do have a ton of veteran players, so it shouldn't be a massive problem, but this is, this is a time where you see coaches panic sometimes. And again, you wouldn't know anything about a coach getting panicky. Uh, the, you know, we haven't experienced that at all. We know we have, we have like in the past we totally have where something can unravel them and i guess i'm super interested to see with kevin o'connell like how does he handle when the outside world is kind of saying you're not for real look at your point differential when your defense is crumbling and when everyone's kind of looking at you going like well what are we going to do about

this you know benefit of the doubt, they came out on that Thursday night after they lost Dallas and beat the heck out of the Patriots. You know, so for me, it's like, okay, can you reenact that? Can you re-vigor whatever you did that short week and implement it now that it's just a normal week? You know, like everyone's, it's really easy on the short week because you have no choice but to just flush it and move on, right?

But when you have a full week now, like what does it look like here? How are we going to see this? And we've been kind of lucky that like we caught New England when they were kind of down. And now we have the Colts who are just abysmal. And, you know, it's kind of like, quote, unquote, tune-up games. You know, we've had these opportunities to get ourselves back on track, you know, get back going. It's not like we just had this meat grinder right after a really tough loss, which is good, you know, because it allows us to learn how to do those things, but it also will be very telling, you know, and you're exactly right. Every week,

it's no more than a 60-40 chance to win a football game in the NFL. Like, and that is the max. I mean, it's more 50-50 every single time, coin flip. However, when you know you're the superior team, you have more of the pressure, especially here on the back end of the year. You're going to have young guys getting thrown in there for the Colts that you probably never even heard of that are just trying to make a name for themselves, just playing balls to the wall as hard as humanly possible, and anything can happen, right? You're one interception away. You're one turnover away from all of a sudden being down seven in a one-score game to being

down 14. And if we get down 14, I really worry about our chances, you know, but I think overall this team is so much better than they played on Sunday and defensively we have holes. Yes. But I think we're better. We're missing some key players. You know, you're in the NFL. It's all about having your players out there all the time. It doesn't matter if it's your starter and all pro like it's always a drop off to the backup always always always we got to get healthy we got to get better because we are such a better team than we showed on Sunday even if the outside world doesn't believe it but they still have to go out and play better it doesn't matter if we sit here and say it if they don't go out there and perform it really doesn't matter okay maybe they

do have a 90 chance of being the Colts though I don't know I mean I would say so I would say so but at the same time like it's the end of the year and it's so unpredictable at the end of the year things happen like guys are already looking to playoffs guys are beat up like oh my body and then you have a desperate team and the Colts are just like I don't know we're just kind of trying to figure out as we go here our coach doesn't know what day of the week it is yeah one of the things that um i do think impresses me about kevin o'connell is from a public perspective how he took has taken on all of these losses like there have been all the losses had an armageddon feel to them like oh you're a fraud you got killed by philadelphia and like you

said they came right back and then you know oh why was Dallas favored? I don't know. Cause they killed you. Uh, and the same thing, you know, with Detroit, like why was Detroit favored? Well, because they, you know, had a good chance to win that game. And then they did. And each one had their own reason to kind of panic. It was like, Oh, well maybe you can't play with the big boys early on. And your offense didn't work at all against the good Philly defense. And then, Hey, your offensive line got murdered against the Cowboys. So maybe it's just going to be your downfall. And every time publicly he has sort of just like got, you know, gone along even handed this time. He was very clear about the defense though. Like he was very clear. Like we have to be honest with ourselves. We have to have hard conversations. We have to get, we have to get in the lab and figure these

things out and things might change and people might not be happy about them. Like, and I, I think that's really the right tenor. I mean, there were times, this is just my, it's impossible for at least now to not compare to Zimmer until maybe next year. And then everything just sort of resets that way. But since that was the most recent thing we saw, I don't know how many times I felt like the team lost the game and made it worse eventually. Like, you know, just, it just, it got more tense. It wasn't ruling with sort of an even attitude. Um, that's both honest, but also not panicky. I felt like it was more panicky. And so from that perspective, I've been impressed with Kevin O'Connell. And I feel like if there's a reason why they can start to figure this out and go into the

playoffs, feeling a lot better about the defense, it starts with just the overall tenor that he has set. Yeah. And I think as a player, you have to respect your coach. If he comes in, he's like, it's just not good enough for making a change. You know, it's not an easy thing to change. It's not an easy thing to swallow. It's not an easy thing to be a part of. But you have to understand it's a competitive business.

It's a competitive business. We're here to win, especially when you're on a team that's chasing a championship. And you can have a couple things happen. You can go in the tank as a player like that, or you can use his motivation to not get benched. But I do think they'll be what they call – they always call it open competition during the week. It's like, hey, we're going to let this guy get a couple reps

with the ones this week at practice. And it's either, one, you're actually going to put him in the game, or two, you're just kind of putting your starter on notice a little bit. A little bit of like, hey, man, you're the one we're talking about here. There was no public call out of like, but you're the one because everyone's going to see that this guy's going to take reps everyone's going to watch the tape everyone's going to see if he's performing better than you at practice step your stuff up you know so that's one approach you might see you might see some guys get rotated in during the game because like you

said the experiment side so hey let a young guy that hasn't had a ton of game reps this year get in there and see what he can do and again it's just a lot of getting guys experience, also putting guys on notice. I think he's handled it really well. It's why they've been able to come back and win those games after losses. But this one felt a little bit harder for me because it was against a bad team. You know, and I do think the Lions are better.

Don't get me wrong. They're better than they've been. But they are not Dallas and Eagle, like, that type of tier. They aren't there. That's why this loss is a little more panic alert for me just because Detroit is not a contender. Dallas and the Eagles are true contenders in my mind, true contenders to go win the whole thing. Detroit, not so much. That's where you have to really level and tier out the losses. That's where you look at Detroit and you look at that loss and go, this might not work. This might not be okay.

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to be feeling this way and i mean when you look at the point differentials for the other competing teams they're like plus 100 and you're resting around zero and there's just this thing of like i don't i don't know you really have to go into the playoffs feeling good about yourself and luckily they have the schedule, but the schedule could turn on you in a different way because you can't justify any of these losses. Like, if you lose to any of the next three teams, and let's just throw out Week 18 because who knows if they'll be playing starters,

but Colts, Giants, Packers, I mean, those are teams you should just beat. And if you have a loss like this where daniel jones throws for 320 we're gonna go like dude what uh and it's really that's the funny thing about this is the weirdest thing i think i've ever had to figure out is how to talk about this because you're just cruising to the playoffs and there's not even any questions about your team but it's like well what's it going to look like there is kind of everything right and i don't every every week is kind of it's like a confidence meter like we did with uh you know the star player confidence yeah the confidence meter was probably in the yellow

going into detroit not quite in the red of like you know if you're the eagles beating the giants by 26 points or something but But I think it dropped. Wait, how does it go in the yellow? It was in the orange. Yes. It was in the orange. Yes. Dropped back to the yellow after that game, I think.

Yes, I would agree. You know, I think that we talked about it last week. You need to ramp up to the playoffs. If you limp yourself into the playoffs, you're almost guaranteed an out in round one or two. You know, if you just kind of limp yourself in, which is what you see usually with like the nine and, what would be nine and eight or the eight and nine teams or whatever. It used to be the nine and seven teams.

But now you're talking about like those are kind of the teams that just limp their way in. They barely made it. They're just happy to be there. You know, that's kind of the feel I get from the Vikings right now, which I hate. You know, I should want, I want to feel like the Eagles. I want to feel like the Eagles. I want to feel like the Chiefs where you're just like, don't matter who they put out there.

We're steamrolling them and we're going. You know, like the Vikings for me right now, just after this loss, I have this kind of like, oh, let's just get us in the playoffs and see what happens kind of mentality. And that's not a great mentality for us to have as fans, but it's also really bad to have as players. And, you know, I don't think that they embody that mentality, but it's just a nature. It as players and you know i don't think that they embody that mentality but it's just a nature it's just the reality of where we're at as a team we're not cruising we're not crushing people we're not just rolling through teams that are lesser than

us you know we're dog fighting with those teams we're dog fighting with good teams we're dog fighting with bad teams too it just seems like we're there's the elites and we just feel like we're kind of far off from them even even though our record doesn't say the same. And people might hate on me for saying that, but I just think it's true. You know, I just don't think you can say Eagles and Dallas and, like, these juggernaut-type teams and Vikings in the same breath when you're talking about true talent on the roster and true wins versus losses.

So, one thing they have here, as far as opportunity goes is Kirk cousins to be very confident because he's going to play a bunch of bad passing defenses. And I think that if you're taking one thing out of that game where you could say is a different tenor, it's like, wow, he really had it in that game. And I think he was the highest, like whatever it is, passing EPA or pff grade or whatever it was like the best quarterback in the league this last week and you lost the game so

there's always that like other part of it but what's what's more predictable and more important is probably how your quarterback is playing so i want to see in these next three weeks do they take advantage of defenses that just are not good i mean the giants defense is bad who knows how they have as many wins as they do they probably i think they're gonna miss the playoffs they're just gonna fade like that that team's just not good like brian dable shout out but like not kind of they're kind of same boat as minnesota though like and i hate like i do think minnesota is better but you know it's like a team that has found way to win close games but has glaring holes at a lot of positions. I think you absolutely give the nod to the Vikings offense,

but Giants defense, Vikings defense, kind of a horse apiece in my opinion. We have more playmakers, but statistic-wise, they have to be very, very close. Oh, yeah, both very bad. Yeah, that's right. Yes. Where it's different is one man and one man only that's justin jefferson there's a lot of other comparisons the inconsistency of the running game saquon barkley as all running backs do is hurt and now trying to play through an injury but they don't have a justin jefferson and that's kind of the biggest difference but even even until

recently i think this last game might have swung it. Daniel Jones and Kirk cousins statistics were way closer than you'd ever want if you're a Vikings fan. And that's, that is concerning. But I think that that's a classic game where it's like, okay, you're at home. The giants don't want to be here on Christmas Eve. Like just, just beat their faces in, just beat someone's face in. But like, that's it. That's the one where it's like the last, the last team that might be in the playoffs and is really fighting for something in that game just beat their face in and then you're gonna feel way better about yourself uh all right let's see uh love to see it hate to see it i'm just gonna start out real quick hate to see it is it turf or is it something like acls are

just popping left and right kyler mur Murray goes down to start that game. I just hate everything that's happened to Kyler Murray in the last like year. Coming off of last year, midway through that season, he's like MVP conversation. And we're all saying like, oh, wow, Kyler's taking that next step to an elite quarterback. This year, he's fighting with his coach. He's calling out his coach in public. He tears his ACL. Like, I don't know where that guy's career is going to i mean i think he's really really super talented but i think he just needs

probably to be somewhere else when he comes back from that acl surgery and everything else he just needs to be on a different team yeah i mean i worry about him ever being the caliber of scrambler and runner that he was you know that was something that made him so special as the dude ran like a four four you know he all of a sudden took off and he's running away from db he's like holy crap you know and once you come back from acl like it can change a guy you can change a guy like that with how you come so i do i hate seeing that i'm a big advocate for get as much grass as possible i don't think it's i don't think it's realistic to say grass everywhere because how are you supposed to go grass in downtown minneapolis it's just not a not a real thing you can do I don't think they have the money these franchises sell for six

billion dollars man this is true I mean just build around just build a whole nother building just to build grass I guess they'll be greenhouse yeah sure why not um but I do I think more grass is better and I hate that um but yeah terrible for him um my love to see it I'm gonna go with my love to see it it's just how they keep blowing up the Brock Purdy versus Tom Brady 22 versus 23 thing. And he looked freaking good. He looked good out there. I also love that they named him BCB. You see all his teammates calling him BCB for big blank Brock.

I think that's hilarious. And, you know, you can just tell that team is having a ton of fun and they're the scariest team in the NFC right now. I mean, by the San Francisco 49ers, they are by far the scariest team in the NFC. I've always had a theory that teammates don't nickname someone unless they like them.

I mean, unless it's a really bad nickname off to the side, but in public, to us, you will not say it in front of journalists unless you really like that guy. So BCB is that's good news for Brock Purdy. Also, you know, Brock Purdy, it's funny about him, just like a guy who played a kind of a mediocre program and had some early hype in his career, but never took this huge step that gained the attention. But man, that guy handles this business. Like from a character perspective, all the hype, all the things that went into that last week.

I mean, just think about how hard that must be. Like you're the fourth quarterback starting out in, in, in training camp. And then all of a sudden you're just thrown into this huge spotlight. Everyone is talking about you. ESPN sending all their crews out. They're doing the feature. They're calling your parents. They got like, everything's going on after your win off the bench it's very easy to melt after that and that guy every question it's like just this very straight forward very like i'm not

getting thrown off you watch these other quarterbacks baker mayfield's a good example who's headbutting people like a psycho after the game you're like everyone loves that on the internet but i'm sure they're like, what, what do you do? Like, have you been there before? You know what I mean? Like just this, there's there. I think that the way a quarterback handles himself, like Brock Purdy just has checked off all the boxes and just so impressive.

Sorry. Do you have a follow-up on that? I just, I think, I think it's funny to me a little bit that I feel like Shanahan's going to be somewhat put into the Robert Griffin situation again with Jimmy G, where it's like Robert Griffin, Kirk Cousins all over again, where it's kind of like if Jimmy G comes back, but Purdy's still playing really good, do I put Jimmy G back in?

Do I risk him getting like re-aggravating that foot or whatever it is, or I just roll with BCB? I think it's just kind of funny. Shanahan's probably sitting there like not again not again but it very well could happen again if he plays like that down the stretch uh real quick hate to see it if you're gonna have a concussion spot or have him spot concussions i could see on tv that davante parker was concussed nelson aguilar his teammate could see and was screaming for anyone to pay attention to it. And, I mean, you've been there before where you know a teammate's having a problem.

If you're going to have a concussion spotter, he has to spot the most obvious concussion on the field. They should have, no player or no team should ever rely on that or have any confidence in that. I mean, they just missed them left and right. And that was, like, so egregious that I'm here at my in-laws house i was eating pizza and just like half watching this travesty of a football game and i'm like dude that guy's concussed man what's going on there like you have someone with anyway just the nfl and concussions just continue to be a disaster

uh i don't know if i even like love to see it as Steve Wilkes in Carolina. Like keep that team fighting, man. Good for you. Like, good for you. Like any, any, I just think that the Arizona Cardinals are like a bottom three organization in the world and him being there and being fired the way that he was after like Josh Rosen was their quarterback.

And then of course the guy doesn't get a second chance until now they hired one of the dumbest quarter. Oh no, I can't say this about matt rule you're nebraska easy um a highly questionable pro coach but a great college mind that's what i like i'm sure he'll recruit the best of the best uh but one of the uh most uh struggling coaches thank you and then steve wilkes comes in they're competitive they're playing hard they're beating the seahawks i just like to see that for guys who kind of got screwed as a coach and never really got a chance yeah i'll go with my my love to see my hate to skew see it my hate to see it excuse me is the roughing the passer calls that one on jaylen phillips from

miami i don't know how else you're supposed to sack a quarterback. He grabs him, he takes him to the ground, he catches himself on two hands, and he immediately rolls off of him. And that was a changing play in that game. And I don't know, I'm almost back to the point of like, review him, review him, review him, review him. Because those are huge calls that are so painfully obvious, either roughing or not,

that those almost have to be reviewable because they are changing games on pure speculation of, Oh, did he hit him too hard? Let's check. There's no way to check. They're just kind of like, yeah,

that was kind of violent. So let's throw it. Or maybe he spun him. Like there's just no letter of the law of what the roughing the passer is. And it is getting completely out of control. Well, I know a certain spotter who's not busy either in the game they could send it up to him uh old dean blandino again six billion for a franchise we can't have a guy who looks at this i mean how many times is it called in a game twice

like it should be very easy if you're going to call it that just automatically review it we have to admit some things are impossible and they, and I thought they were actually on the right path of the pass interference thing. And then they just were like, Oh no, people were mad about it. Just forget about it. But I actually thought like, these are changing outcomes and you can almost call it on every quarterback hit at this point where it's kind of like if they decide they just want to. And then, you know,

if you had someone being able to take a quick look at that like in hockey when they have a review they sort of like send it back to new york is what they say so they have people watching all the games and then they're like oh okay someone was offsides on a goal we're challenging it have a look you can't tell me that they can't have i mean all these guys dean blandino john pair whatever have them make the call have them make the call on tv to the uh the entire audience i don't care but that really changed the game and when you watch a game and that happens you just leave feeling gross it was a good football game but you just leave feeling like was that even what was supposed to happen or did you know one team

just get the call so yeah that is an ultimate hate to see it and uh last one hate to see it is just uh mike leach passing away i mean one of the most fascinating human beings an innovator offensively uh just uh he recruited me did he really wow i sat in mike leach's office as a 17 year old for a senior in high school down in texas tech and i'll never forget it's a great story we can finish on this so my mom is an avid bike rider. Avid bike rider, right? She loves riding her cycle everywhere.

So we go into Mike Leach's office, and he has a road bike hanging from the ceiling on, like, wires. And so my mom, naturally, she goes, Coach, do you like to ride? You a bike rider? You like to ride bikes? And he literally sits there. He looks up at it.

And he goes, that's the first time I've seen that. And then looked back down and like went back right to it and it was just the most like crazy like he was awesome he was fantastic to get along with the pirate like he was awesome i loved everything about him um you know that's super sad to see him pass because he was an amazing coach yeah for sure one of the all-time greats um i think that he just loved to mess with people like that you know like he was he was a big bike rider actually that that was like a real thing there was i read an article about it yeah how he would like somebody did an article where they rode a bike with him and interviewed him as they rode the bike with him so he was just messing with you to be fun probably he's got all-time quotes the one where him putting the

chairs up this year because his team blew a 21 point lead so they didn't deserve to sit down like just all-time quotes all time and i will always appreciate him as an arguer for a 64 game or 64 team tournament yes i agree with you mike leach rest in peace so uh great stuff jeremiah as always um we will see what happens against the colts and uh Colts and we'll carry on from there as they march to the playoffs thanks man see you next week