Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - How is Kevin O'Connell handling 0-3 pressure? What are the front office implications ft. Brian Murphy and Brad Spielberger

Episode Date: September 26, 2023

Matthew Coller talks with Brian Murphy about how he feels Kevin O'Connell has done in handling the struggles of the beginning of the season and PFF's Brad Spielberger comes in hot in evaluating the Vikings' front office in their 0-3 start to the season Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

All right, everybody, welcome to another Monday Morning Murph. Who would you rather hear from at 0-3 than one Brian Murphy? Brian, what do you want to say about this? After the postgame the other day, I feel like we kind of had to let it all out about the way that this has gone to begin the season for the Minnesota Vikings, and it's put him in a very, very difficult spot to try to be competitive and have that part of the competitive rebuild at times,

having trouble seeing some of the rebuilding parts as the defense gave up one of the greatest days to a quarterback I've ever seen in my entire life. And my apologies for calling him Justin Kirkbert throughout the week, because he was not Kirian in this game. He was absolutely marvelous, Justin Herbert, against the Vikings defense, although I'm thinking most people will be this season. So give me the feelings. What do you think of this morning? You know, dread a bit because we have 14 games to go. So now not only is the urgency on every minute of every game, but you also get the sense that any small hiccup, any particular mistake, any bad call that doesn't break Minnesota's way,

any failed opportunity each week is going to feel like the season is over at any given moment. I mean, you know, looking at 0-3 in a box, I don't like the way the Vikings have put themselves there, but I do see glimmers of hope where you don't throw in the towel yet, and that may keep enough people engaged here for a while. I'm surprised they're 0-3. I really am. I didn't see them falling into a hole this deep. I guess maybe we should have, and maybe I was lulled into thinking that the way they kind of stumbled into that Giants playoff game last year,

the way they performed against the Giants at home, really exposed a lot more than I think we were able to see throughout 2022 because of so many things that broke their way and so many huge moments and huge plays that went their way. line with Hawkinson and Cousins happens nine months ago or 10 months ago, you almost know that even if it's deflected, it's going to wind up in the hands of a Vikings receiver in the end zone, as opposed to a Chargers defender. So I think the last handful of dirt from 2022, that grave has been tossed on that grave. Do not go back to if they have the ball with two minutes left, they can make something happen. They have not proven themselves capable of doing that. And they put themselves in such difficult positions throughout these three games that again, minor or hiccups that, you know, cousins can't hear the play call coming in after picking up a huge first down.

I mean, to actually almost feel like the home team cost them a game because they were too loud during an exciting play is really emblematic of a team that's really struggling to find its way. You know, what's weird about this is that normally, if you told me they lost three games in a row, I would probably say, oh, well, they must have run into three really good defenses and Kirk Cousins must have struggled and so forth. But that hasn't been the case. I mean, you get three pretty good performances from your

quarterback. You fumble away to you allow Philadelphia to steamroll you in two of them. And then this happens. And of course you could look at it the opposite way of last year and say, well, this is just bad luck. And this will eventually turn around the same way that halfway through the season, the spigot turned off for the Vikings as well. Really after the Buffalo game, they were not a super lucky team after that. And I mean, coming back against the Colts is the random thing that happened, but for the most part, I mean, they kind of won the games they were supposed to win and lost the games they should have lost down the stretch after that insane Buffalo game.

So you would say that if you keep playing like this offensively, putting up 475 yards, you are likely to win football games. The problem is Kansas City and San Francisco do not care about the randomness. They are too strong to care about the randomness and and things going the opposite way also does not paint over all the reasons that you got here which has to do with the defense's ineptitude the blitz is not getting home Keenan Allen having one of the greatest days I've ever seen in my life think about all the receivers I've seen Murph and Keenan Allen may have had the best day that I've seen for a wide receiver. Holy cow. 18 catches. I mean, these are things that even if games are played evenly down the stretch

that I don't know how you win. If you're giving the opposing quarterback that much time to throw, if your secondary isn't slowing them down, if you're short on the offensive line, I guess we'll see if Dalton Reisner helps them. But I mean, I just feel like we could say, oh, well, they'll win this, they'll win that or whatever game. But what if you actually don't play well on offense for a game?

What if you don't actually pass the ball well for a game? They've passed the ball well and they've lost three. So I think that this is a mountain that's too tall to climb, even though I think that we will see moments where they have upswings and they do lost three. So I think that this is a mountain that's too tall to climb, even though I think that we will see moments where they have upswings and they do win games this year. Yeah, I think they're positioned to win some more games. What you look at, though, is we came into this season thinking

if they could somehow drag that anchor of a defense up from 30th or 31st to 15, 16, 17, middle of the pack. They had the offensive weapons. They had the production. They had the faith in Cousins. They have, obviously, Jefferson turning himself into an all-world receiver right before our eyes.

They have T.J. Hawkinson they gave a boatload of money to. They have enough diversity, and they cousins now probably at the peak of his powers, whatever that means, at least the peak of his production. attack, but now you've exposed yourself against a top-level quarterback and a top-level receiver as being unable to shut that down when you are being steamrolled. There were no adjustments made in-game that helped any situation yesterday. And then the Brian Flores trademark, which is we're going to blitz, we're going to blitz off, and we're going to make life hell for opposing quarterbacks and offensive lines. They didn't get home at all yesterday. Justin Herbert kind of flung them away like fleas.

And he may not be – he's not the best quarterback they're going to face this season yet. I mean, we've got Mahomes lurking. I know it's a ways off, and Cincinnati's been struggling, but Burroughs lurks out there as well. You know, suddenly the Packers look like they are maybe not on the backslide that they thought they were. They hung on yesterday. The Lions took care of business as they were supposed to against Atlanta.

And suddenly that momentary blip last Monday morning when we talked, well, you know, 0-2 doesn't feel as bad because the rest of the division is underachieving around them. They lost that cushion yesterday. And what concerns me is that you have, again, these are systemic issues. These are things that we had dealt with in the offseason. These aren't going to change much personnel-wise. I mean, Dalton Reisner was a shrewd pickup. Is it too late? And what real impact is he going to have in one week? Maybe you get Marcus Davenport back and you can improve that pass rush a little bit more, but we've seen where the secondary has been exposed. You don't have quasi's initial draft picks moving into the roles that,

that we thought that they could, or they should have by now. And you've got corners that are really exposed right now. And there's a lot of holes. And when you have a lot of those holes and you can't make the perfect play at the perfect moment, this is what you're staring at. And that is a margin of error that is razor thin. And now you've got to wonder about the confidence level of a club that's staring up at 0-3. I mean, O'Connell said all the right things yesterday. You know, I was with the Rams. We lost three in a row.

It wasn't to start the season. It was in the middle of the season, and we ended up winning the Super Bowl. I would take that Rams roster in a heartbeat over this Vikings roster to overcome a three-game losing streak right now. So he's saying the right things, but you're in a position now where you cannot afford any hiccup during a game, let alone during a week. And that's not a position you want to be fighting for 14 weeks to try to maintain relevance.

Yeah, I mean, if the Vikings acquire Aaron Donald and Jalen Ramsey, then I think that'll be fine. Yeah. I mean, he's searching there, searching for something. Now I want to go back to the end of the game because this was the main point of discussion. I want to make a point about this, that since covering the Kirk Cousins era, there are dozens of games where we're talking about after the game was Kirk clutch on the final drive. And this used to be no. And then it was yes last year, but there was games against like Tennessee and Dallas and

Chicago in 2020, where they had the ball with a chance to go win and they didn't pull off the final drive. And then there's missed field goals that happen. There's, you know, whatever. And there's always some sort of big discussion point after the game of this is the one thing that caused that loss. If only they had spiked the ball, they would have won the game, which is very possible. But when you have a horrendous defense that can't stop anything and a quarterback who is not named Patrick Mahomes,

then what you end up with is exactly this. So I, and, and I want to, I mean, see if you agree with this, because this is kind of my theory that when you have to play these games that are always one score and always close, then you're letting God take the wheel when it comes to this stuff. Right. And so we can focus all we want on while he should have spiked it. I guess O'Connell doesn't know what he's doing and so forth. Now, I guess I would have spiked it as well, but I, it just feels like we've had so many of these. If only the kicker did this,

if only the right guard hadn't done that and so forth, but because since 2019, their defense has given up the fourth most points in football. They have been the worst defense, one of the worst defenses. And the other teams are like tanking, like Texans or whatever,

have only been worse. That we're always going to end up having these discussions and nothing that I've seen through these first couple of games have changed how I feel about their head coaching situation. I just think that this is exactly how it goes down when stuff like this happens.

Do you agree with that? I do to a degree. And what you're going to see now is how do you sell the competitive rebuild? How do you frame the competitive rebuild when you're at 0-3 and you know what the percentages are for teams that don't make the playoffs that are 0-3. So they have put themselves in this box from a roster standpoint. They tweaked. They brought in the new coordinator. O'Connell gets his one mulligan by throwing his previous defensive coordinator overboard after one season

and bringing in the hot name that is supposed to, who masters what you have been failing to do, which is get home to the quarterback and disrupt offenses and make quarterbacks feel uncomfortable and feel like they have to not only perform miracles to throw for 400 yards, but they're going to get punished in doing so. Herbert did not have to deal with much punishment at all yesterday. In fact, it was so easy and it was so convenient the way he was hooking up with Allen that you wondered what kind of energy does that drain from a team overall

to know that they are not in a position right now to shut down any elite team, let alone just a run-of-the-mill offense right now. And you get the sense that there aren't solutions that are easily found within the existing roster. So how are you selling the competitive rebuild? You're going to put it all on the back of Kirk Cousins in the offense. You're going to put it all on the back of a team that grabbed so much out of the fire last year that maybe there are possibilities for those situations

to bear fruit again. It's not going to happen. The first three games have showed us it's not going to happen. Look, there's no guarantee that if Cousins had spiked the ball inside the five or inside the 10 yesterday that they would have had three shots and put it in the end zone. Conventional wisdom says yes, but I'm not sure that they were in a position or have been in a position this year where you can lean on that and say, well, that was a fait accompli. They were going to easily win that game because they just made the right decision in a pressure moment instead of making the wrong decision in a pressure moment. It's easy to use those, as I think you were saying, to lean on those one but for this, if that, then the trajectory changes.

It does, but the systemic issues are still there. This is not a team that's equipped to shut down elite offensive players, and it's not a team offensively that can afford, we can get into the turnovers again, the unforced errors and the momentum killing drives that really put you in a position where you have to be perfect at the end of games. By not taking care of business earlier in games,

they're putting themselves in a position where they have to be perfect at the end of games. And they aren't perfect anymore. In fact, they're far from it. Has this changed how you feel about Kevin O'Connell as a head coach? I don't think it's changed because I'm not sure I had the complete picture yet. I mean, we had one snapshot of a season where everything broke right and he was able to say the right things. And again, when you're shifting coaches in a situation where you have an autocrat, say like Mike Zimmer, who burned every bridge and every doorway in that building on the

way out and you bring in a breath of fresh air, you're allowing O'Connell time to grow. You're allowing him time to patch together the wounds of the team and sort of the egos and really restructure things in his image. So I'm not willing to say O'Connell is in over his head. He's not. But now that he's faced at 0-3, I don't know how many more times he can go to the it's on me. There's hope because I've experienced this elsewhere. Those you can, you can, you, you can wield those tools once in a while from a motivational standpoint,

but the proof is always on the field. The proof is always in the film. And right now he's got a, he's got an offense that is overwhelmed and doing everything it can to keep a team in games, but is also mistake prone as well. And you've got a defense that can't stop anybody. And that was what he was trying to fix with Flores. He's, you know, the front office hasn't given him necessarily every tool that he could probably utilize. And, you know, I think Kwasi's draft grades are worsening by the week as you find it harder and harder to find impacts from the players that he's brought in that should be making impacts now.

So what you have is a very precarious situation because you can build it up as us versus them. We're all believers still. That isn't going to fly because the performances on the field aren't allowing you to grab onto those straws where there is maybe some hope here. This is a little bit random. Perhaps if we have this happen, perhaps I don't know how much longer that can play. So O'Connell's going to have to really get into his toolbox and do some things schematically. And as we said, maybe two weeks ago, after maybe right after the Philly loss, you have players that feel compelled to do more than their jobs to make key plays at key moments

because the pressure is building. Now you have a head coach who hasn't been in this position as a head coach. Is he going to stray outside of his lane and try to accomplish something or try to design some new schemes, design some new either protection schemes or maybe even involve Flores more in saying, maybe we should pivot here and do some more of this. Is that going to, are those panic moves that really don't end up changing the end result? Or does he put himself in a position where he's getting in the way of his own people? These are the things that losing does. They make you make decisions you really don't want to make.

All right, I have a follow-up on that. But first, I want to remind everyone to make Little Caesars, the official pizza sponsor of the NFL, part of your game day order online during their Pizza Pizza pregame, one hour before NFL games, and get ready for some football and maybe fun, depending on how the Vikings play, presumably fun, watching football. Choose your favorite Little Caesars pizza or pick the toppings you crave. Either way, you win. And speaking of winning, everyone scores with convenient delivery

of their in-store pizza pizza portal pickup so grab some friends and enjoy a few slices during the tastiest hour before kickoff folks we are going all in on prize picks this football season and this week i figured that justin herbert was going to throw for a lot of yards and nailed my pick, but I underestimated Kirk Cousins. Let me explain. If you haven't heard of it, prize picks is the easiest and best way to play daily fantasy. Instead of battling against thousands of other fantasy geniuses who spend all of their time doing fantasy, you just pick more or less on between two to six players stat projections and that is it

so if a quarterback's number is 250 you say more or less and bang you're playing you can pick from hundreds of players and numbers this football season i nailed my justin herbert pick going over 283.5 by a country mile but i went less on kirk cousins going 297 and uh yeah missed that one he went well over 300 yards but the cool thing is it was quick easy and does not cost an arm and a leg to play you can turn ten dollars into 250 with just a few taps it will fit your wallet and your busy schedule this is something we're having a lot of fun with all season long on purple insider so go to prizepix.com slash purple use the code purple for a first deposit match up to 100 that is prizepix.com slash purple the code word purple daily fantasy sports made easy so uh here's what i wanted to say about that, Murph. Don't lose your mind,

Kev. That would be my suggestion, that what happens sometimes when teams struggle and lose is the head coach, and not that I would have any experience with this, they start attacking number three quarterbacks. They start trashing the general manager at the podium. They start attacking number three quarterbacks. They start trashing the general manager at the podium. They start going after the quarterback for his personal health decisions. I mean, don't lose your mind. It's good. It's going to be a rough ride. I think this year, I mean, they are, I guarantee there'll be a point where we go.

If they only win like one or two more games, then they could, and then they won't. And then we'll be at like, Oh, you know, now they're going to miss the playoffs or whatever. Like that's how Owen three goes. But if you kind of just lead guide the ship without completely going nuts, then I think you can survive. And I always wanted to see the test of this. I mean, I was always curious last year, like how, okay. Anyone can win. Any coach can win. How's it going to be when things get really tough. And I think now we're seeing that and going to Carolina is right away. Kind of a test. Don't, don't lose your mind. Go into Carolina and lose to Andy Dalton and the Panthers and then go.

Oh, and for like, don't don't, you know, handle those post-game press conferences, handle the locker room, all those things, because this is probably the toughest thing of Kevin O'Connell's professional career that he's going to go through. And you don't know how someone's going to handle it until we see it. Sorry, let me unmute there. Yeah, we've been saying that all along. I mean, it was such a glory ride last year that you never really had to seek, you know, O'Connell. I don't want to say under pressure, but handling adversity.

And so much of what defines an NFL head coach is the day-to-day making the 53-man believe, despite where they're at, that A, not only can we do this together, we can climb out of this hole, but you're going to be a major part of that. And if I ask you to do something that may be outside your comfort zone, you need to buy in and believe me. He hasn't had to push people that way. So yeah, what's he going to be like this week? What's he going to be like Wednesday when he sets up a game plan for a team that, look, another awful team in a bad situation. They're not even in a competitive rebuild. It feels like they're just in a perpetual rebuild. You're going back on the road. There's going to be a lot of talk about Adam Thielen and the memories that he had and what that means for him. That's all fine and dandy, but the Vikings need a win so desperately right now

that you wonder what is that going to mean as you design a game plan. It seems like defensively, Brian Flores has designed a game plan specifically for each opponent. And every nuance is designed for each opponent that they're playing. That's not necessarily a grand idea. Every team prepares for each opponent. But I'm still not sure what this Vikings defense is. I don't know if you are or not. Or I don't know if there are any statistics out there that are showing this is exactly who they are. This is exactly who we thought they would be. And they're either failing to live up to expectations or they're underperforming with a roster that we should have expected them to underperform with.

I'm guessing it's a little bit of the latter right now. And that there was a lot of sense that, well, Flores comes in and just sends everybody and puts pressure on quarterbacks. Mistakes will be made and there'll be benefits to that. We haven't seen much of that yet, mainly because Philadelphia destroyed them because they took advantage of turnovers, and they commanded the clock and just ran right up and down the field and got points where they needed. Herbert and the Chargers said said to hell with the running game. We find something soft underneath. We find something soft quickly. We find something soft downfield. They, they exposed Minnesota yesterday for being in a situation where they

brought pressure and then had no answer. And they did not have the one-on-one matchups and the corner matchups to stop the onslaught again against an all world quarterback. They're not going to have an all-world quarterback to deal with at Carolina, but they've been exposed three times as being soft against the run and soft against the pass. So what are you going to do adjustment-wise to maybe take over instead of constantly reacting to what a team is doing? Are you going to set the tone? are you going to dictate terms for how series are going where we you know how is O'Connell going to lean on Flores to get that does he have I'm sure he has the confidence to do it but does he does he have the wherewithal to already call

his new defense his second defensive coordinator on the rug and I think this is more of a roster issue than a Flores issue, because when he was with Miami his first year, 2019, they had the worst defense in football. And then the next year they were in the top 10. What did they do in between? Oh yeah, they got a bunch of good players. I mean, that was really, I think it's hard to be in a Brian Flores defense without a lot of dudes. I think that actually Ed Donatell's system might've fit better for a lot of dudes. I think that actually Ed Donatell's system might have fit better for a lot of bad players where you're trying to keep things in front of you

as opposed to being aggressive. But I mean, there's no real answer when you can't get after the quarterback with anyone but Daniil Hunter. I think that's really the issue here. And you could send all the people you want, but if they get blocked up, there's not a whole lot that can happen.

So last quick question, Murph. You think they turn it around? You think something happens here? You think it's – I mean, look, the Vikings are unpredictable forever. So is that an outlier 0-3 to the playoffs or what? I think they may turn it around in the short term. I don't know about the long term right now. I'm not willing to even look that far down the road.

I think they'll be able to win Sunday because Carolina is such a feeble opponent. But all that does is get you to one and two to welcome Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs into U.S. Bank Stadium. That's going to be, to me, the biggest test because you're also, you're resetting expectations. If you do manage to put a tourniquet on this, you are giving people hope. You are at least providing a blueprint that we're not going to lay down and completely go into tank mode. But, you know, you've got, you know, you got the Chiefs and the 49ers in October coming in at home. I think that's going to define whether this season is lost or whether this season is going to

bring you to, you know, early January with hope. Because right now, you know, things are getting set in place. You get the sense that O'Connell is ready to start pulling some levers. And what's he going to be like after he pulls these levers? I don't know. We don't know that yet. This obviously is a must-win game. But I'm not willing to to write off their playoff hopes completely but I need to see I mean if they can get through five even just hang around 500 through

October we're talking four or five more games that's what I'm going to need to see because not only are they keeping themselves relevant but they are as you as even O'Connell said you're going to have to stack these wins one by one'Connell said, you're going to have to stack these wins one by one. There's no way you're going to be able to take chunks of the schedule and say, this is beneficial. If we can turn this corner by this date, it's going to be a week to weeks long. I don't know if they're built for that right now. All I know is they're built for a team that can outscore you in the right and perfect circumstances. And that doesn't even seem to be the case at home right now.

And they've lost two winnable home games, which I think is as disturbing as their 0-3 record because I don't think anybody gave them much of a chance to win in Philadelphia at all. But to have lost to Tampa and to have lost to a vulnerable Chargers team at home, that has put you in a position now where you are forced to, you know, the Mahomes and San Francisco matchups don't even look that good because the home field advantage right now is not a factor. So I'm not writing them off at 0-3.

I want to see the next three to five games, whether they can make themselves relevant and how they look doing it, how they sound and feel confidence wise, um, before I'm willing to say, yeah, a nine and eight season is what the best you can hope for. It's pretty clear. They're going to have to upset somebody within the next few weeks to keep

this alive. So Brian Murphy, people could see your stuff, purple insider.com. Check out your written work. And of course, every Monday here at the Monday morning Murph show, always great to get together with you brian and uh we will talk again after whatever happens next week i'm sure it'll be just regular normal football nothing strange

so we'll talk to you then always always a pleasure thank you sir returning to the show from pro football focus brad spielberger uh br, we've got a lot to discuss with the Minnesota Vikings, but I'm going to get right to it. I'm going to start right out here with what a lot of fans were talking about after the Vikings started. Oh, and three, as it relates to their general manager, Kweisi Adafo Mensah. I think that he made it quite clear where this direction was going for the roster by the moves they made this off season. But it's a lot harder to watch a competitive rebuild without the competitive part as the Vikings have started. Oh, and three should Vikings fans after this start and now the road that they know they have to go in order to turn this around to

compete for the playoffs. Should they feel any differently about the general manager than they did three weeks ago before the season started? I think the biggest issue that I would point to to maybe say yes is because let's say you were in the quote-unquote competitive rebuild, but you had sophomores from the 2022 draft class and rookies from this year that were showing signs, that were stacking some good outings, that were giving you optimism and reason to believe.

Okay. As these guys grow, I'll feel more confident. Look, Jordan Addison does look good. That's great. Is he the only draft pick of the last two years that might actually mean anything?

It's very possible. The answer to that question is yes. I mean, uh, Caleb Evans with a nice touchdown tip to, uh, Josh Palmer. Um,

you have, I mean, Lewis scene is what the, basically, if he was a third or fourth round pick, he's probably not on this roster. I don't think it's even hyperbolic to say. He's your emergency six safety and special teams contributor. You know, Andrew Booth is also on the depth chart probably because of his draft status. Might not even be on the roster if he was a later round pick so i mean here's the thing though and obviously this is quasi's fault but how in this league you look at the body of work that ryan grigson presented and think it's a good idea to give him any say whatsoever over draft decisions it's it's i mean, the guy, I don't know the guy much, but he's mean. He's horrible.

He's one of the worst talent evaluators. Literally just go look at consensus big board and pick the highest guy, and you would kick his ass in a draft contest. He's terrible, terrible, terrible, terrible. Okay, well, tell us how you really feel, Brent. So, yeah, and then the offensive line is, of course, continue to have issues, as you mentioned, directly related to the player that they drafted in 2022 in Ed Ingram.

And so, okay. Yeah, right. The draft picks and Jordan Edison is a big part of this, but the draft picks so far have not been contributing. But I think where maybe it's as concerning as anything is I look around the league at teams that are pretty nasty to play against. And you see San Francisco, Philadelphia, even the, you know, the Pittsburgh Steelers. And I look at how loaded up they are in the defensive line. And the only answer that the Vikings have to having no one who can get after the passer, not named to Neil Hunter, who might not be here in a year, very possible he's not here, is to just

blitz all the time because they can't create pressure anywhere else. And there's also nobody else coming. It's very clear that Patrick Jones and DJ Wanham are not going to be starters for the future. They drafted Asasia Tomo in the fifth round. He's already off the future. They drafted a Sazia Tomo in the fifth round. He's already off the team. I mean, they, they, Jaqueline Roy got in the game. Andre Carter got in the game yesterday, but these are late round picks who, if they're contributors at all, at any point,

that would be an outlier. So I think that on the defensive side, when you talk about that drafting and they spent the first couple of draft picks on the defensive side, trying to rebuild the secondary, I understood that part of it to try to draft Louis seen draft Andrew Booth Jr. and fill up the secondary. But at the same time, like they have so far to go. I mean, Justin Herbert looks like he was on a beach. He just was having no problems at all sitting back there and demolishing the Vikings defense. And then the week before you're coming off, giving up 260 yards on the ground to the Philadelphia Eagles. The only thing I would come back to is that when you're talking about

rebuilding parts, I mean, it's hard to expect that the parts would be built now when you're having to rebuild them, right? Like when you lose it, Aries Smith, when you lose Delvin Tomlinson, like that's kind of the point. But I think the defensive line is a focus for me because those aren't young players like Dean Lowry, Harrison Phillips. These are not young players. These are experienced players who are getting pushed around or not being able to get to the quarterback. And what is the answer in the future? If you're spending your top first round draft pick on a quarterback next year,

which makes sense, there's still so much to take care of on the defensive side and i think it's become clear it's not just a meh defense it's a defense that each week could give up history to the other team oh no it's comfortably a bottom five defense in the nfl and flores has no choice but to blitz you know at the league high rate and Wink Martindale are probably going to go back and forth for the crown in that category all season long. It's the only choice he has. But then you leave corners on an island. I mean, I made fun of Caleb Evans for the tip to Josh Palmer. That might have been one of his better reps of the game, frankly, because he almost made a play. And then, yeah, to the offense, I think we probably saw Ed Ingram's last start at right guard.

So, I mean, you signed Dalton Risner for a reason. I know he's historically been a left guard. I think Ezra Cleveland, I think, is actually a solid player. I know it's not this front office, but I think he's fine. You know, he's not a great pass blocker, but I think he's good enough. He's serviceable. So I would assume the plan is to just slot Risner in a right guard for Ingram, who, you know, had a sub-50 pass block grade for, I don't know, just slot Risner in a right guard for Ingram who you know had a

sub 50 pass block grade for I don't know the 10th week in a row um you know so yeah it's just tough and the last piece we didn't mention and I can't speak negatively negatively on this because I touted the signing I touted the player but it stinks is Marcus Davenport is super talented but this is kind of his issue right is he just can't get on the field. And it's really glaring right now. I mean, if he was out there, I do think, you know, it's okay. Well, they have another piece opposite of Daniil. They can run some stuff and find ways, especially if they blitz.

You know, I think he'd have some production. So, again, I can't speak negatively on it. I love the signing. I love the player. But, you know, he plays 450 snaps a season for a reason. And that's part of it is when you go back and kind of look at, all right, how are you spending the money that you have? And how did you manage the entire offseason to get to this point? And I do think it's fair to say when the idea is to make the playoffs, that starting out 0-3 is unacceptable, even if there

is the part of us that goes, boy, Drake May threw a left-handed pass the other day and that looked pretty good. I'm not sure you're going to be quite far enough down to get Drake May, but I do think that we can start to look now at what all of the offseason moves meant to how this team looks. And with Marcus Davenport, I went on the day that they signed him, and I said, I think this is a good type of play for a guy that's not that much money, who has kind of a down year, but lots of pressures, and maybe he's up swings. But at the same time, he never plays 600 snaps in a season. I mean, Everson Griffin at his best is playing 900 snaps, and this guy has never played 600 snaps in a season. I mean, Everson Griffin at his best is playing 900 snaps and this

guy has never played 600. So there's going to be issues along the way. The day before the season, he hurts his ankle. It hasn't been able to get better. And each week they go into it and go, I don't know what's going on with Marcus Davenport. But that's another part is that, you know, Casey Adolfo Menta has made a lot of bets on players. Hey, let's make a bet on Jalen Rager. Let's make a bet on Marcus Davenport that just have not played out. And we'll see what happens with another bet that they're taking on Cam Akers, sort of just taking swings at players who other teams don't want. And I don't know, maybe that's the best you can do when you're lacking in the cap space and they're trying to get that right for the future. So what I'm trying to keep in mind is also what they inherited, what they

were asked to do right from the start, which was to try to win, which meant void years for players. It meant signing Zedaria Smith. It meant, you know, keeping certain guys, bringing back Patrick Peterson last year. So some of these things put them in this position where they couldn't just go out and get better players. Davenport was kind of the best they could do. But if you're asking for a patchwork defense, it's not a very good looking patchwork defense so far. That's the issue with, with Davenport. Um, in this context is he's kind of a luxury, right? Like you look at like the Eagles bringing in Hassan Redick, for example, it's like, okay, like if he's bad because, you know,

the sample size is small and they're, you know, like if he's bad, okay. They still probably have a top five defensive line in the NFL. And if he's good, they have 70 sacks and break records last year. Right? Like it's you're bringing a guy who realistically needs to be your number two edge and played 900 snaps, like you said. And he's never played, you know, he's never played 500, forget 600. He's never played 500 snaps in a season. Bring a guy who realistically needs to be your number two edge and play 900 snaps, like you said. And he's never played, you know, he's never played 500.

Forget 600. He's never played 500 snaps in a season. So, yeah, I mean, that is that's part of it, too, is the context of like the investment in a vacuum, I think, is fine. But what you're actually needing that player to be is probably more than you realistically should expect from that contributor just based on historical production. Yeah, it's tough. And then I will say, look, I know Adam Thielen had a big stat line last night, but do not be sad he got let go. The guy cannot separate at all. It says more about the defense they played last night than him.

He's been terrible through the first two weeks. Zedarius has been good, but he was not playing in Minnesota on the contract he was on. That's why he went to Cleveland, got a raise and got the third year of the deal chopped off. So don't get confused by that. Like the decision, Eric Kendricks did not play this week has been pretty bad so far. Like all those decisions have been the correct decisions. I think, you know, to a degree it's just, it's tough that it's all kind of snowballing in a negative direction right out of the gate. Right. And so I think, you know, to a degree, it's just it's tough that it's all kind of snowballing in a negative direction right out of the gate. Right. And so I think about like we need to separate into categories what made sense at the time, what didn't make sense and how it's all played out so far.

And I wonder I got a question about this the other day and I didn't really know how to answer it. When someone asked about the way they handled Kirk Cousins' contract. So they needed to get cap compliant. They restructured his deal. It looked like there was a chance that they were restructuring to kind of push down the road to give them more time to potentially work out an extension, but then they did not work out an extension, and it's at least very clear at this moment.

That's not happening anytime soon, and if they miss the playoffs then i think it's all over it's a derrick carr raiders type of situation where he just you know ends up hitting free agency uh should they regret that though i mean because they kind of waited to try to trade people and then the other one i'm interested in whether they should regret it is the way they handled daniel hunter because Daniil Hunter I believe at this moment leads the league in sacks and it's made basically no difference at all and just like well just like last year I mean he was great last year but it's just a defense is a complete thing and they gave him a good amount of money and they didn't trade him for something which presumably there would

have been draft capital on the table and they're one of the worst defenses in the NFL. I mean, yet that's complete hindsight. But at the same time, if you were asking Daniil Hunter to be your whole defense, I think we've already seen that movie before. So those two decisions, how should they feel about them now? I think Kirk, realistically, you still just thought, hey, we're not going to get the value that we're looking for. Because that's the thing is we talk all the time about his inability to be franchise tagged, yada, yada. That plays into every single calculation possible. Like a team's not going to trade a whole lot for him either entering a contract year because they would have to either extend him the moment he arrives in the building

or know they're trading for a quarterback who's 35 years old, who they can't franchise tag, who if he does play well can bend them over a barrel. And if he doesn doesn't play well you kind of just wasted the draft pick and a bunch of cash so i'm okay with how they handled that one i actually think they probably arguably handled it correctly i get you could have shopped them and tried to start over but at least the offense is like a competent offense um hunter i think he is a guy at the trade deadline that you should be shopping not not taking calls that you should be shopping. Not taking calls on. You should be making the phone calls and saying,

hey, this guy has most sacks in the NFL. Sure, a lot of them are cleanup pressures and sacks so far, but still, he's a great player. Yeah, you should be calling other teams and saying, he's a heck of a guy. We love him, but you should take him in and give us a third, second round pick for him. I think you have to do that. Fall is here, gentlemen, and it's about to get busy during the holidays.

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but it was going to be less and more spread out over a couple of years. So, I mean, I understand some of the logic to that point, but I, it just seemed that they were doing that to buy them time to see if they could trade Zedarius and Delvin cook. And what they got was like a swap of picks in total for that. Right. So I wondered about like sort of staying to their price. And this is another thing about the front office that I wonder about is they've done this a lot. So like with Dalton Reisner, they stayed to their price and they waited until Reisner was just going to take pretty much anything

to have a job and remain in the NFL when they could have raised their price a little bit and they could have just, you know, had Dalton Reisner playing right guard and not the worst right guard in football instead, right? And the same thing sort of goes for Justin Jefferson, which I think is the next part of our conversation here. It seems that they stuck to their price and Jefferson wouldn't come to where they wanted to meet and we don't have a deal done. And now the team is and now you're talking about if this season goes completely sideways, asking Justin Jefferson,

Hey, I know we just won four games or I know we just won six games, but could you please just sign what we want you to sign just right here? I mean, I think that it complicates some things. And I wonder about the, if you're not going to be a little bit flexible and come over to the player's side, or if you're going to try to stay, hold steady on what you want to trade Delvin cook for all the way to the end and then miss your window to do it, is that going to be a good approach long-term for the front office? I do think it is in some ways good to set those precedents. I know it's easy to point to some examples of it not working out. I mean, first I would say I don't think there were any actual offers

for Delvin Cook. And again, I talked about Thielen, and he looks terrible. I mean, he looks like he played Ezekiel Elliott this week, and Ezekiel Elliott looked infinitely less washed than Delvin Cook. And again, I talked about feeling and he looks terrible. I mean, he looks like he played Zekiel Elliott this week and Zekiel Elliott looked infinitely less washed than Dalvin Cook did in that game. So no one was taking on what, $10.5 million or whatever. I'm shocked he even got seven and the Jets might be shopping him because he has a bunch of per game roster bonuses associated with his deal. They're probably begging someone to take them off their hands already.

So and then as for the other stuff, like, look, Jefferson, I think we agree there. You just get it done. Like you just beat beat C.D. Lamb, beat Jamar Chase. Not that not those guys are going to make more or they're going to materially impact Jefferson's money, but should have gotten it done. But at the same time, I think those precedental type moves do, down the road, they come back into play, drawing a hard line and being a stickler on price and on value. I know you could also say, well, they gave TJ Hawkinson big money, et cetera, et cetera. Didn't have the greatest game this past week himself. But I don't know. Anyway, not a great answer, a bit rambling. But I do think there is

value in that I have a lot of conversations about that where they can point to those precedents and kind of lean on that with other negotiations and other conversations. And you do say, oh, that makes sense. Like it probably did help them here. It just right now, a lot of it is kind of skewing in the other direction. And I when I say I'm wondering about it, I really am. I mean, I think that there is a good reason to pinch pennies for the future and not overspend on a Dalton Reisner so you can carry over cap space and whatever cap space you can create for next year helps you pay Jefferson, which you need to pay him, and helps you rebuild some parts of the roster

through free agency because it's clear that on the defensive side, that's going to have to be the way you do it. You're not just going to draft the Nick Bosa top five next year if you're having to draft a quarterback. So that means that you're having to go out into free agency to try to fill up a defensive line and so forth. And that's where, well, the Jefferson thing though, do you think there's anything to that part about the unhappiness factor? Because I feel like with Jefferson, normally what I would say is, come on, one hundred million dollars in your pocket. You're fine. Have a great day. But Jefferson is a different kind of dude. I mean, I really think that he is so winning obsessed.

I think that last year he had a lot of fun and this year he's not regardless of his numbers that he's frustrated as heck with this team and I mean I think if the guy's looking around going do you guys have a plan do you guys have answers that he is going to treat it differently than he would even though it is way advantageous for him to sign but I think he might treat it differently than he would if they had won 13 games again yeah I'm sure he will maybe he'll just want more guarantees or more overall money or or only take a three-year extension which I'm guessing was the goal this past offseason as well and I'm guessing Minnesota hated that idea so yeah maybe but I think regardless he's asking for league

changing money I mean i loved his answer one of the coolest answers ever and it's true where he got asked i don't know who you probably know who it was you know have you talked to other players you know in similar situations about he was like you know with all due respect like no because no one's gone through what i'm going through because i'm so much different um it was the coolest answer of all time so like i think i get the one and you can tell i mean he looks depressed he looks like you know the stefan digs meme i don't know who's a bill for that meme but like that's jefferson every week it looks like on the sideline when they're losing games so i know it's eating at him i know he doesn't just care about money i i think though i would imagine this

organization has convinced him they care about him they're gonna find a way to get a quarterback and figure things out you know yada yada yada but yeah maybe it doesn't help oh you're certainly right uh i also try not to when it's football and this is almost impossible but just like live in the moment too much and be like oh justin jefferson's gonna be you know whatever but at the end of the day there's two franchise tags and it still makes so much more sense. It could get a little bit ugly, but even when it got ugly with Bosa, at the end of the day, he signs, and they're good to go. And it's just so set up to be better. But I think what you worry about when you're in Minnesota, because you've seen things like this happen so many times,

is the guy gets so frustrated that then he's going in public talking about wanting to be traded and you know then then it starts to get pretty ugly but we are a long way away from that conversation in the big picture in the timeline picture i think it's ironic that going oh and three doesn't hurt in fact probably helps because if they were three and oh and like they're not that far away from being three you know that's the odd part as well but if they're three and oh then we're wondering wait are they gonna like bring back kirk because he's playing pretty well and like are they gonna get to march and the wilfs are gonna say you know what actually extend kirk

because look how good this offense is or something but if you end up going six and eleven on the season there's really going to be no argument for that. And they could just draft a quarterback. They can have the potential to trade up for one. And I think despite some miscues along the way and despite like looking pretty rough this year at times and wasting a year of everybody's life on offense, you know, all these great players, you're still looking at a great quarterback draft class. And it's like, if you pull away from the individual, should they have done this at this time or that at that time, the big picture is you have opportunities with lots of potential quarterbacks to draft in the first round and then make something of this. And the worse you are,

the better chances you get to get your guy. And I just can't pull away from thinking when you go 0-3 that there has to be a part of the general manager who goes, well, that's too bad. Watching football on Saturdays, I'm seeing a lot to work with, Brad. Yeah, for sure. And the thing, too, is I think if you look ahead and you were honest with yourself, you'd probably say,

I hope we start two and one. We're probably going to start one and two. You know, you assume you beat Tampa Bay. And then you say, OK, Chargers and Eagles, two very good football teams. Those are going to be tough games. And like you said, they could have won both of those games. I mean, the fumble thing is bananas. Like, it's truly out of this world.

They have, I mean, Vaseline on their hands or something. It's nuts how they cannot hold out of the football um but yeah so that's the thing too is like it's probably one game worse than what their record you know again if you predicted before the season I probably would have said yeah they win week one they lose the next two weeks and then we go from there the quarterback class is awesome I mean every Saturday you watch and you know it's relevant to me as well, of course, and there are like seven, eight kids that are really, really special. I mean, I also – the edge rusher class is not – there's a lot of good football players.

I don't think there's any great ones, any Nick Bosa-type guys, but I think if you have to go that route, you probably get a good football player. The tackle class, I guess the Vikings don't really need tackles. But anyway, it's a good class. The receivers are are dope you don't really need to go that direction either and then maybe pushes defensive players down to you maybe pushes quarterbacks down to you um and the last thing i'll say too is i mean minnesota is better than these teams but tampa bay not not awful the rams not awful like we thought the cardinals they're a plucky fun team uh the texans honestly man cj stroud without an offensive line has been awesome so when he does get you know two

of the highest paid tackles in the nfl you know back playing for him they probably don't give the cardinals like there is a path to where minnesota has the top 10 i'm not gonna say top five but but has a top 10 pick like you're saying let's say they're sitting at eight and they have to go to four to get a quarterback like i think it's very possible you pull that off and i think that when we talk about just the plan from the start i think this was it i mean i really i think that they were figuring on either the first year they try to win and they don't and then they trade up for one of these quarterbacks, whether it was, you know, Young, Stroud, or Richardson, or they are good, and then it's still the next year.

They knew at some point that all those key players were going to have to go, and that trying to replace everybody on defense, there was something that PFF did, and I forget which one of your great data scientists did it, but about turnover, and when you have a lot of churn on the roster and turnover from year to year, consistently, it's worse. The team performs worse when there's a lot of people who change. And we saw this from the Vikings from like 2015 to 2017, they had mostly all the same players on defense and lo and behold, they get to be the number one defense eventually. And I mean, there's a huge part of that. They've

had churn at defensive coordinator. They've had, you know, over the years on the offensive coordinator side and play caller side. I mean, this is very tough to overcome to expect you to be a legitimate Super Bowl contender. So it's like, I think that when Kweisi Adafomenta got here, the 2024 draft was the one they were probably looking at to pick a quarterback, which means that you're on track,

but there's a lot of stuff that's sort of gone. Like how confident should we be in just the decision-making in general? But if you pick the right quarterback and by the way, Hey, CJ Stroud, is it too soon to make the S2 cognition jokes? Cause his cognition looks pretty darn good to me every time I see him play. So maybe we should just not worry too much about that. But speaking of cognition, the Bears. Wow. Wow, the Bears.

In front of Taylor Swift, of all people. I mean, so what the Vikings have right now is three close losses where a lot of players have played really well, and then a lot of things have gone wrong. What the Bears have is a total rocket ship runs into the sun and explodes into a gazillion pieces. The franchise is burning to the ground. Probably the Denver Broncos are the only team that's in a worse position and situation in the entire league.

And yes, I know Caleb Williams is waiting, but my gosh, everything else is wrong as well. They've gotta fire a coach. They've gotta fire an offensive coordinator. Justin Fields look competitive last year now looks like the saddest person on earth. And by the way, when he clearly gets concussed, they put him back in the game. Could you make anything worse? And oh, the defensive coordinator just leaves. I mean, what in the world is going on with the Chicago Bears? I may have put two concussed players back in the game. I'm not sure why cornerback Tyreek Stevenson played yesterday after that early hit either.

And they're so injured in the secondary. And they also just have zero talent. I mean, look, we had this conversation about hiring a defensive coach. I'll be honest. Like, I think Floose, like, there were some signs you saw last year. They obviously have zero talent and still have close to zero talent. But you can't really say that. I mean, you use a bunch of day two picks on corners.

You use a bunch of day two picks this year on interior defensive linemen. You sign two linebackers to, I mean, one to a massive contract, one to a solid contract for TJ Edwards. You sign Yannick Ngakwe, et cetera. They are 32nd in every single defensive metric you could possibly find. You can make up a new one at home and they'd be 32nd in that as well. I mean, they are laugh out loud bad on both sides of the ball, but in particular, when you hire a 50-plus-year-old defensive coach to, of course, come in and inherit a quarterback, and shocker, it's not working.

Yeah, Luke Getze is, outside of Matt Canada, probably the worst offensive coordinator in the NFL. I mean, you're starting to see quit now, which I don't blame the players for, but the body language is as bad as it gets. This is the worst team in the NFL. By a wide margin, the worst team in the NFL. The saving grace is Carolina's pretty bad too. I love Bryce Young, but he's going to struggle as a rookie when they have no one that can separate and the offensive line is a bunch of injuries now too. But yeah, it is worse than the Trestman era. You always say, I don't know where rock bottom is.

I'm saying as a guy who watched them pick number one overall last year or earned that draft pick at least, this is way, way, way worse. And here I'll say this, the last piece to put it, because you mentioned Denver. Denver lost 70-20 yesterday. Denver gave up the most points arguably ever because, you know, 1950s football, who cares? Had the worst defensive performance in the history of time second most yards ever 726 yards which i doubt the bears even

have on the season so far um and the denver broncos are favored in chicago next week and they should be they should be in chicago uh i um saw that tickets are going for $2 and 11 cents, which is far too much. Yeah. Would not pay. Would not, would not pay. Really looking forward to that trip though.

When we go to Chicago and it could be one in four versus Oh, and five, but Chicago food will, will hold me over for at least that game. Are the Chicago bears in the worst position in the NFL, or is that not quite the case because they could draft number one? Because I feel like number one, you know, if you get Caleb Williams, it does cure all ills as we saw with like Joe Burrow, where, I mean,

was there a worse franchise than Cincinnati when they drafted Joe Burrow? But there is a part of me that says, you know, I've always kind of shrugged off the idea that a quarterback could say, oh, I'm not playing for that team or whatever, but man, he could stay for one more year and make whatever $10 million playing at USC just to see if there's a better franchise. I mean, I don't know. There are very few teams that I would ever even think to talk about this. I mean, Trevor Lawrence went to the Jaguars. What a horror show they were at the time. But this is as low as I can. I mean, this is like early 2000 Cincinnati Bengals type of low. This is total complete dysfunction from a franchise. You did touch on it though. So the two points for me are, you know, I would argue

like I'd rather be Chicago than Denver because at least I'm not I don't have an expensive roster. I have the cheapest roster in the league or maybe second cheapest behind New England, whatever you have. Like I said, two draft picks that very well could be top five, probably at this point, borderline guaranteed to have two top 10 draft picks. And that is the last piece. Well, Williams or Drake may if they they somehow you know pull a texans and get the second spot i think those guys are too talented um like you know again not generational yada yada but like very very talented prospects here's the thing though about caleb williams which i find fascinating forget the whole conversation of can he just not go which is very possible i would hope that a major city in a cool city is a help i think caleb williams has the right to legitimately say i want say significant say in who the head coach is

i think we might see a college kid before he goes to the team dictate the head coach hire and i have no problem with it i have like you hire bill polly in, I don't know, 85 years old to run a search that leads to a final three of Dan Quinn, Matt Eberflus and Jim Caldwell. You paid money to a guy to give you that final three and force your young GM, who I think is now getting railroaded. Has he been great? No, I think there's been a lot of good there, and I think if they do fire everyone,

they're probably going to fire him too, which I kind of think sucks. But anyway, I'd rather Cale Williams hire the head coach than George McCaskey. I mean, he's got to be the worst owner or up there. I mean, he is beyond incompetent, has no idea what he's doing in any way, shape, or form on the football side

last piece our guy kevin warren i also kind of hope that he can at least like you know like he knows how to lead and how to do some things obviously you know did a lot of good things in minnesota that that's kind of a saving grace for me to a degree as well um but yeah if they if they get the next quarterback pick wrong it's just like you know it's it's tough man it's tough being a bears fan they they are as bad as it gets okay final thing uh who do you think is the best team in football are you taking a drink okay and now who's the best team in football sorry sorry i had to prepare myself um you know it's crazy because i don't like brock gertie but the niners are just ridiculous and i i'm a trenches guy and they are the best team on the defensive line their

offensive line is not good enough but the weapons are crazy you know no brandon iuk didn't matter for them either i'll go there i'll do it i mean the offensive line's got to get better but but they are just fast physical and you know if they can stay healthy i think they're as good as anyone i will uh not have a hot take here and say miami i mean you put up 70 i'm impressed i'm impressed i've always thought that i've always thought that blowouts matter like how many times you just truck the other team says a lot about your team strength that if you don't have to beat bad teams close, you just run away from them. And plus they have the most creative offense. And if Tua stays healthy, he is looking like a top notch quarterback. So they've got they've got everything. Their defense isn't a joke either. I mean, I think they have a very, very strong argument right now. And Dallas would have been until what? So yeah, classic, classic McCarthy era type of team where you beat, you know, some good teams or you blow out some bad

teams and then you play another one and just what? So I don't know what a crazy, crazy beginning to our lives covering the 2023 NFL season. This is why we do it. Follow Brad PFF dot com and on Twitter. A great follow. And one of the best, I think the best front office analyst in the world. So, Brad, thanks so much for your time as always. And we will talk again very soon, sir. Yeah, thanks for having me. Sorry for the r again very soon sir yeah thanks for having me sorry

for the rants everyone but uh thanks for having me what would this show be without rants are you serious this is what it's all about thanks brett