Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - How will the Vikings quell their weaknesses down the stretch?

Episode Date: December 2, 2022

Matthew Coller and Sports Illustrated's Will Ragatz talk about how the Vikings and Jets match up and then deep dive into some of the Vikings' weaknesses on defense and the guard position and discuss what they can do to improve those issues down the stretch. Plus, are the Jets among the elite tortured franchises?  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 of Sports Illustrated. Will Regetts here to give our hardcore, super inside football breakdown of Vikings Jets. Will, how are you? I'm good. How are you? I'm ready for this. I'm ready for this. I mean, there was a lot of momentum, if you will, in this building after the Patriots win.

It almost feels like the Patriots win got over a specific type of hump. Like, if you lose to the Patriots and you go to 8-3, of course you're still going to make the playoffs. But coming off of what happened against Dallas, I think we would have said like uh-oh uh-oh this is not good uh but to get that win and get the win the way that they did which was basically driven entirely by their passing game which hasn't really been the way they've won a lot of games this year it's usually just been relying on late game heroics but that was more of a complete game for them uh now they face the New York Jets give me give me like a big picture here on this game and what it uh what does it mean to you Will? Well yeah I just think that that Patriots win you just touched on it was so

important for kind of their internal self-belief and and it's something I mean they've won these close games all year they bounced back from their first loss against the Eagles by rattling off seven straight like they've responded the right way but it's it's an entirely different thing to respond to a 37 point kind of embarrassment at home and if you rank their most impressive wins this year the Bills are clearly number one you could make a pretty good case that that Patriots win is number two because of the caliber of the defense that they face. And it was so impressive to me the way they kind of changed up the game plan in just such a short period of time, just four days. Kirk Cousins is sacked once. They just played really well on offense against one of the league's best defenses. So I think that was huge. And now it's just been every week

you look up and they're facing another elite defense this week. And it's a similar story, really, to the Patriots team. The Jets and Patriots, pretty similar defensively. Some differences, of course. But then on the offensive side of the ball, you have a quarterback. It was Mac Jones. Now it's Mike White White who you're thinking okay this should be a decent matchup for a struggling Vikings defense but when you when you let Mac Jones throw for 380 yards on you I don't know how much confidence you go into this game with but yeah I mean Mike White last year threw like five touchdowns and eight interceptions so we'll see how that plays out but it's it's another opportunity for this team to come out and kind of show who they are

there's sort of two conversations going on with the vikings there's like the week to week what are we trying to learn from this game how does it matter and so forth and then there's the bigger picture about the matchups and the playoffs and what it all means and i was uh watching nfl live the other day and saw i think it was mar Marcus Spears was talking about how at some point with teams, we have to start scrutinizing everything about them because now the standard is going deep in the playoffs. And he focused on the Vikings defense, which I think is very fair. And if we look at how their schedule plays out the rest of the year, there are basically no quarterback tests the rest of the year. There are basically no quarterback tests the rest of the way, unless I'm not thinking of one. No, there's not. I mean, I'm not even counting

Aaron Rogers because he's broken. He might not even play. There are no tests for this defense, really the rest of the way. And I guess what I am interested in this game is if they get tested by Mike White. Uh, and I mean, heck, if they give up points to Detroit, if they give up points to the New York Giants, because I think that that is the biggest question. And we've seen teams with mediocre defenses like the 2016 Falcons make the Super Bowl before even the New England Patriots in 2017. Like they didn't have a good defense and somehow someone hired Matt Patricia after that. But and then they brought him back for some reason. Neither here nor there.

The point just being that you don't necessarily have to have an unbelievable defense all year to go deep in the playoffs, but your defense has to be playing well. At the same time, I'm having trouble figuring out how we even evaluate the defense when they will not be tested really the rest of the way. So it's basically like, do you get beat up by Mike White after being beat up by Mac Jones? Right. And the way that they've played against the few really good quarterbacks, Jalen Hurts, Josh Allen, Dak Prescott should inspire very little confidence. So I think that you really want to see something from this defense that suggests that they can play against good quarterbacks in the playoffs. for sure i mean the defense has been kind of a house of cards it's just been it's been such an interesting thing to evaluate and to watch where they are second to last in the nfl

in yards allowed almost almost 400 yards per game and yet they they just come up with these big plays and then sacks and takeaways and third down stops and red zone. And it just doesn't seem very sustainable. And a lot of that has come against some kind of inferior quarterbacks. And you're right. They're not going to get tested the rest of the way. You have Mike White this week. You get Jared Goff and then the corpse of Matt Ryan.

And you could argue the only test is in Week 18, if that game even matters, Justin Fields has been playing pretty well. And that'll be maybe a little precursor if you see Jalen Hurts again or something like that. But yeah, the defense has been really weird. And Ed Donatel talking today was kind of someone brought up that the defense is 31st in yards allowed. And he's saying, you know, there's there's other ways to evaluate. And he pointed to some of those things that they've done well. And's true if you look at the epa per play they're like in the middle of the pack because those big plays weigh so heavily on the expected points added and and that's kind of helped prop them up but man like they have not stopped the run particularly well and they get to alvin thomason back which is big that i think that was kind of an underrated

loss for the last four games. He's such an important player for what he does and then how he helps everyone else around him. But they haven't handled play action very well. They haven't defended the pass very well. They curiously just continue to not really blitz at all. And they just kind of sit back and it hasn't been working necessarily. Like there are pros and cons to sending more pressure, but it almost seems like a no-brainer that that's something that they need to start doing more of.

So we'll see. It's just – you're right. It's weird because they're not going to get tested that much, but you'd like to see them like hold a Mike White Jets offense that's without Brees Hall, without Elijah Vera Tucker, like hold them under 300, 350 yards even, and you start to feel maybe a little bit better about their chances when they start facing some good offenses again in January. I think the concern with the Jets is the same concern it's going to be all the time,

which is when the other team has good playmakers. It's been mostly a problem. I thought Washington was probably their best game at holding a top playmaker down and Terry McLaurin didn't have a huge game and the best play of the game from Taylor Heineke was when the ref tackled the Vikings player so I mean that was uh I think their best defensive performance and maybe there's some similarities there with Mike White I mean after all this is a backup quarterback he started the year as the third stringer behind Joe Flacco

and Zach Wilson and then at some point they moved him ahead of Joe Flacco who's you talk about somebody who's just a corpse like that's Joe Flacco at this point but then last week when he was given time to throw and I think this is the real big factor with this team is if they give an opposing quarterback time to throw as they did Mac Jones, that man is going to find people. If they can pressure them, really, with Z'Darrius Smith and Delvin Tomlinson and Daniil Hunter, because that is who they almost exclusively rely on to get after the quarterback, then, of course, they have a chance to slow down somebody like Mike White. It was astonishing to see how little he was pressured against the Chicago Bears.

So you think that you're a better defense than the Bears, but even on paper, you're not by a lot compared to what you think based on the star talent. Getting a Caleb Evans back could also help, but also do we really know a lot about a Caleb Evans? Not exactly. Like he had a good game against Washington and that's kind of it. He a hundred snaps right we don't really know with him so I think that in a way it's it's a good test because it's Garrett Wilson and Elijah Moore played really well so they have receiving options who can take over games and if you can find ways to hold them down I think that it maybe just gives you a little shred of confidence but I think this is going to be a kind of a big picture thing. When you get to the end of the year, do you still rank 30th or 31st in yards allowed? Because if you do, I think that's going to make it very difficult to be

confident in you stopping playoff offenses for four straight weeks to get to the Superbowl or to win the Superbowl. But you know, you can be a different defense as the season goes along. It kind of depends on how you adjust. And I think it's interesting that on the offensive side, they have made this great adjustment against new England. And on the defensive side, Ed Donatello is just like, no, no, it is the, the principal Skinner meme. It's like, it's the children who are wrong. It's the reporters who are wrong. It's the analysts who are wrong. It's possibly even the players who are wrong it's not my system who's wrong and I think if you stay with that um that we're not going to see a major change yeah I asked

him about like the middle of the field being open because it feels like that's been a big thing and I specifically mentioned that first Patriots touchdown where it was Devante Parker whoever it was was was just wide open over the middle and he he to his credit he said that that was a bad call by him and he he did something wrong there and it wasn't on the players but I'm just so I'm so much more curious these next six games to watch the Vikings defense than I am the offense and we'll talk about the offense and and how they match up with this this Jets defense and there's the whole Ed Ingram thing that's still interesting but Kirk Cousins has shown me a lot this year and I think like I kind of know who he is in this offense and and there's still a chance for him to continue progressing but I I mostly know what I'm

going to get from this Vikings offense except when they just don't show up randomly against the Cowboys that was a kind of a one-time thing but defensively like six games left against no good offenses you're right like if they can't get to like 22nd or 23rd or something in total defense like that's gonna be concerning like it's just it's so weird to me because you go down the line on the roster and you're like this defense should be good, or at least it shouldn't be terrible. You have Daniil Hunter and Zedaria Smith up front who have both been great. Dalvin Tomlinson comes back in the middle. Their depth there has been fine. Like Eric Kendricks and Jordan Hicks are both eighth-year linebackers who are capable of playing

at a very high level. Kendricks has been an all-pro before. Harrison Smith, Patrick Peterson, those guys are ostensibly playing well. Patrick Peterson's had a really good kind of resurgent year. Cam Bynum's been okay. Whoever's been at the other cornerback spot's been okay. And it's just like the pieces all aren't adding up for whatever reason. And I think earlier this season, you could make a very compelling case that, hey, it's a brand new defense, 3-4, these guys outside of Z'Darrius Smith and maybe a couple other guys that haven't played in a 3-4, it's going to take time to adjust to the responsibilities and all these different things that are going on, this transition, but we're 11 games into the season now, I don't think you can use that as an excuse

quite as much, so this is the time where after a little mini-bye, after watching this film of just getting shredded by Mac Jones, who outside of that game has had a rough second season. Like that's not what Mac Jones has been doing this year. They need to come out and just figure something out. And I think it has to start at the top with that Donatello just switching some things up, sending some more pressure, doing some different things. You can't just keep relying on the same thing over and over and saying,

oh, the players are going to improve in this scheme. Do some different things. It boggles my mind a little bit when you look at the roster on paper and then you look at them giving up 400 yards a game. I think that's true. I also think that defenses can be like offensive lines in being a weak link system. So like Brian O'Neill and Christian Derrissaw can be great,

but your offensive line could still be bad if you have the worst guard in football. I think that they have about the worst nickel corner in football or at least close in Chandon Sullivan. That was one where if you're investing your money in the offseason, do you invest it in a linebacker like jordan hicks who's been fine or do you invest it in a corner i think a corner would have probably been a better investment nothing against jordan hicks i mean i think it's been an okay signing it's just that they went the bottomest of the bottom barrel two years in a row with mckenzie alexander and then chandon sullivan and neither time has it worked

out and it's been a weak link and you talk about the middle of the field i mean that's where with Mackenzie Alexander and then Chandon Sullivan. And neither time has it worked out. And it's been a weak link. And you talk about the middle of the field. I mean, that's where everybody's attacking because by now everyone knows exactly what they have to do to get open against the Vikings. You just leave Patrick Peterson to his own devices over there. Patrick, you stay over there.

We're going to attack everybody else. And I mean, the Duke Shelley back padding is sort of funny to me because the Patriots crushed Duke Shelley for most of that that game and they're going to attack a Caleb Evans too. So there's going to be a weakness somewhere in the secondary. The other thing is that I just don't see, and I don't want your opinion on this because Jeremiah Searles and I talked about it earlier in the week. I just don't see them using Harrison Smith to his maximum. This is Harrison Smith's worst PFF graded season of his career, essentially, since he was a really young player. And this is one of the best safeties of the last decade. And yet it seems like aside from causing a fumble in Miami, catching an interception against the Washington commanders. I mean, there really hasn't been a whole lot to talk about with him. They don't blitz him. They don't put him in the box.

Like, then why did you pay him then? Like, I mean, okay, that's fine. If you are going to have a deep safety, you can get one for $3 million. You could use Josh Metellus to do this role with Harrison Smith. I do think at some point, because I've wanted to be very patient with the defense, but at some point you do have to turn up the heat and say like Marcus Spears was saying, like this matters now.

Like we really have to be very critical about how this is going to match up because if you go into the playoffs and you play defense the way you did against Dallas again, you're losing. You're not winning. You have to find a way to pressure the quarterback. And there's also another concern.

So I want to hear your thoughts on Harrison. But also, Z'Darrius Smith has not been the same the last two weeks. That knee issue is a little bit concerning. And I think if they have to sit him for a couple weeks at the end of the year, then go ahead and do it to have him for the playoffs. Because we've seen when he's not 100%, there's just nothing there as far as pass rush yeah I agree on Harrison Smith first I think it's a great point like you watch him play year after year and what makes him so special is well early in his career it was it was the athletic traits

but for most of his career it's been the anticipation and kind of just the the Swiss army knife that he is where he disguises things so well. He can come creeping up to the line of scrimmage and then bail out and play in the middle of the field or cover half of the field. And he can stay high and then at the last second creep down and blitz and be really effective doing that. And just all these different things that you could possibly want a safety to do. He's good at basically all of them.

So you're right. It's been weird to see him kind of pigeonholed as this deep half of the field safety and just he's made some plays. Like I think he has three interceptions this year, but he hasn't had that kind of play to play impact that you expect from somebody with his experience, with his talent, with his anticipation abilities. So that's been weird to me. Like, yeah, like bring back Xavier Woods if you need somebody to do that. He's had a fine season with the Panthers. Like, I agree. We had this conversation earlier with, about Daniil Hunter, where like, if these, if these guys aren't going to be utilized to their full potential, like why'd you pay him? And I guess Daniil Hunter, that has, that situation's changed a little bit. He's improved.

Yes. Over the, it's definitely changed. He's improved over the course of the year. He's become a more impactful player. I agree with your point on Zedarius, too. He's been really good. He has nine and a half sacks. He was so dominant. He had a stretch of four games where he had nine or more pressures in three of them, which is just kind of absurd pressure numbers. And now he only played like 25 snaps in that Cowboys game I think the scoreline and the knee both played a role in that comes back four days later and he was a little bit more like himself against the Patriots he had five pressures in that game but not overwhelming numbers from the PFF or the pressure totals or anything like that so I think they need him right now for sure because if there's one thing that you you want to do to to fluster

a quarterback like mike white a young like backup type quarterback it's put pressure on him and they need zedaria smith in that regard but if there comes a point in a few weeks where they're still kind of where they are right now and they're they're probably going to be the two seed like they're not going to catch philly for the one seed. They're not in huge danger of being caught by San Francisco for the two seed, which I think they kind of are if you look at how well the 49ers have been playing. Then I would agree. If there's any sort of concern with Z'Darrius Smith's knee and having him ready for what you hope is four playoff games,

then, yeah, sit him down and try to get him as fresh as possible. Folks, the more I talk about liquid death here on the show, the more I'm starting to see it everywhere. Just the other day, I was watching a chess tournament presented by liquid death. And at first glance, it looked like the players might have been playing drunk chess with beers, but no, that is liquid death mountain water in the tall boy can. The reason that this delicious water comes in such a large can is because they're trying to bring death to plastic.

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of how he's playing and the interior rush outside of delvin tomlinson has not been all that good and that's the thing where you kind of weigh these different factors it's like delvin tomlinson early in the season was literally an elite pass rusher at his position. Is that going to continue though? And since I just did a story on it, I hope it does for my story. So then every time something happens,

I could tweet it out. But you're right. You're talking about a, a large individual coming off of a calf, like kind of a, a soft tissue injury. I i don't how explosive is he going to be and to their credit they didn't rush him back yeah against the patriots which i think was a really smart decision give him another 10 days so you hope that he's as close to 100 as

you're going to be in the nfl and and that he'll kind of be able to get that juice back right away but we won't know until until we see it on sund Sunday but that's your initial point is just it's sort of being a house of cards it was like well you had to rely on Delvin Tomlinson being a really great pass rusher I don't know if he could do that every week you had to rely on nine pressures a game from Zedarius Smith that usually doesn't happen if you had nine pressures a game you'd be Lawrence Taylor like I mean he's good but he's not he's still leading the league in pressures but which is like something you shouldn't take for granted. There was also a few weeks where it was backup tackles and so forth. And this week I think it's Dwayne Brown. So he's one of the, I think still one of the premier

tackles in the league. And if they are able to slow you down on the offensive line, just, you know, five on four, then you're not getting a whole lot um from this pass rush because donatel is not going to dial it up so i think that that this is sort of a first test like was mac jones 382 a wake-up call or are you just rolling the ball back out there and doing the same thing and i think that you know that's like like harrison smith is the smoking gun though because there's almost no way to mess up har Smith making a massive impact on a defense. And yet somehow they found a way to do that. So I think that that that remains to me a massive concern and down the stretch something to watch.

And I think this week, at least since they have a good offensive line and good playmakers, that it is a test, even if we don't know how good mike white really is uh on the offensive side like yeah you talked about um the sort of um killers what do they call it murderers row yeah murderers row row of killers that they have faced as far as defense goes here's another interior defensive line i think if there's a difference between what Dallas did, and I know it was mostly Micah Parsons, but they also have interior rush as well. I don't think the Patriots really did. The Jets definitely do. And Washington did. And Buffalo did for a big part of that game with Ed Oliver getting after Kirk Cousins. I don't know that there is an answer there. Like we're talking about the can you change schemes can you do some different things the only answer is basically like play actions and moving the pocket but quinn and williams i think is going to probably have a pretty big day here yeah it's you talk about like these four defenses they've played in a row are literally the top four defenses in dvoa the the bills cowboys patriots jets I don't know the exact order. But you could kind of just choose any of those four and make a case that that's the best defense in the NFL,

and I would buy it. And the Vikings have played them. Somehow the schedule worked out where they played them four times in a row. They're going to go to Detroit this following week and be like, thank goodness we are not facing a defense that's stacked with all pros, with no disrespect to the Detroit Lions, of course, have not been the best defense this year. But yeah, the a defense that's stacked with all pros with no disrespect to uh the Detroit Lions of course have not been the best defense this year but yeah the one thing that's staying a couple things stand out with the Jets defense the first one you mentioned is the interior Quinn and Williams absolutely in the conversation on the the top five interior defensive linemen this year up there with like the Aaron Donalds and Chris Jones and Jeffrey Simmons he has just been so impactful 38 pressures this year nine sacks or something around there like he he is just so twitchy so explosive that man they're gonna just try to get him isolated against Ed Ingram as much

as possible this will be a test for the Garrett Bradbury contract year that we've seen who he's been playing well he's been playing the best football of his career. This is a big test for that entire interior. And then they have depth there too. It's not just Quinn and Williams. It's John Franklin Myers. It's Carl Lawson. It's all these different guys that they have up front.

Sheldon Rankins. They have Nathan Shepard is somebody that Wes Phillips talked about as like he had never heard of, number 97. And then he turns on the tape and he's like, this guy's really good. And it's just this Robert Salah scheme is really good that he brought over from San Francisco. And then you look to the outside and we are going to get some of, probably not going to follow him, but we're going to get some Justin Jefferson against Sauce Gardner, which will be about as fun as it gets from a wide receiver cornerback matchup standpoint. So this is another game, like I said earlier, it reminds me of the Patriots where offensively the team doesn't scare you that much. And so you want to really try to prove yourself defensively and be able to make some plays against a team that I don't even think

they have great playmakers on offense. Like Garrett Wilson's been good. He's been fun. He's a rookie. Elijah Moore finally showed up last week. He had been out of the picture with Zach Wilson for a while. Their best player was Brees Hall. Their best offensive lineman was Elijah Vera Tucker, and neither of those guys are healthy. So the offense doesn't really scare you, especially with Mike White in it. Well, it scared even less with Zach Wilson in there with how poorly he was playing but then defensively it's like this is why the Patriots game was weird to me I thought they were gonna need like 20 points to win that game and it ended up being kind of a high scoring game but this defense is is so good that if you can just kind of keep a similar game plan to what you did against the Patriots change some things up

but get the ball out of Kirk Cousins hands quickly try to get Dalvin Cook involved it didn't they tried really hard against the Patriots it didn't end up working but you got to figure out some way to kind of get around this this interior and then hopefully utilize guys utilize Justin Jefferson of course but you're going to need to use some other guys as well because Sauce Gardner has been that good as a rookie the uh Ed Ingram conversation sort of goes quiet for a week because you know they won the game and so forth but i got a crazy number for you here will uh i i want you to guess so last year ollie udo who we can all agree played about as poorly as a guard not his fault shouldn't have ever been a guard but played about as poorly as a guard as you could possibly play i in the pantheon of recent terrible vikings guys i think i still put dakota dozier over ole

udo okay we can do this either way udo was the fifth worst graded guard in 2021 yeah and he gave up 45 pressures now give me one second i'll call up how many dakota dozier gave up okay so remember that number 45 oh drew someia is up there too. Okay. I forgot about him. Dakota Dozier led the NFL among guards. 2020. In 2020 with 46 pressures allowed.

Yeah. Okay. So 45 and 46. 45 and 46 is the gold standard for terrible guard play. I want you to guess how many Ed Ingram has this year. So this would be a really fun game if i didn't already know that the answer is 44 right he's played as bad through 11 games as dakota dozier and as oli udo did through entire seasons and even if we go back can we get some tom compton in my life right now i'm very curious like because because tom compton just was the whipping boy of 2018 he got blamed so much

he's not even close 36 yeah he gave up and most of them were to aaron donald that year he gave up 36 so i think also by the way they all they need to keep in mind when they say well you know garrett bradbury proved himself that other teams are just attacking ed Ingram. They're not attacking Garrett Bradbury. He was the weak point last year. He's not the weak point this year. That is an astonishing statistic though, a full season of horrendous guard play packed into 11 games. And at this point,

you're so good at nine and two that you can't really bench him. But at some point, if you know, Quinton Williams eats him alive and so forth, you might have to have that conversation because the standard now for us for everything is, how's it going to look in the playoffs? And if you have a dude that is so far worse

than even Dakota Dozier as a weak point on the offensive line, unless he really picks it up over these next few weeks, which I didn't see against New weeks which i didn't see against new england and definitely didn't see against dallas that that is still something that we're going to be watching is is that who you're going to play yeah against the best teams in the league and i'm going to make a quick comp here last year alex leatherwood for las vegas kind of a similar team to this year's vikings that had like a negative point differential and gotten the playoffs uh he gave up 67 so Ingram's kind of in that ballpark and what happened in the playoff game against Cincinnati they went after Leatherwood over and over and

over again and it ended up costing them this is something that they really have to pay attention to here down the stretch yeah Leatherwood who was drafted over christian derisaw shout out to uh mike mayock and john gruden for that one but can i ask you a quick question about that i mean we'll get we'll get back to what you think they should do but when someone is that bad at drafting and then they go back on tv and start telling you about the draft is there a part of you because you could make an argument like hey you're a good analyst or not on tv and the draft is random but they're when it's that bad when jonathan abrams just got cut by another team i'm like i don't know man i don't know yeah i'm with you like until they actually do it you can just there's no way to know if they'd actually be good or not if you're a tv analyst and you can say

all these things about a player's traits and what how they looked in college and if you sound smart enough I'll believe it I'll buy I'll buy it but then once you actually go and do it and do it so poorly it becomes a little harder to take you seriously I agree but the one thing I'll say on Ed Ingram is the only kind of redeeming thing you could say if you're putting him against Ole Udo and Dakota Dozier and people like that, really awful guards in recent memory, like, is he's a rookie for one, and he has kind of the run-blocking stuff that he's done pretty well. He has the draft pedigree to theoretically improve. I don't know how much that matters at this point and he was probably a reach in the second round anyways but that's not to say that I think that they should keep rolling with Ed Ingram no matter what I absolutely don't think that I'm just saying like

you can sort of that that's the one one or two slight differences from like a Dakota Dozier who was just a career backup who they threw in there who clearly was who he was and was not ever going to improve now once Christian Derrissaw comes back which does not look like it's going to be this week the concussions in back-to-back weeks not something to mess with by any means I think the earliest would be Detroit but we'll see I mean they're going to be really cautious and smart with that and he's got to go through all the protocols again like do you do you play Blake Brandel at right guard because it's it's a completely different position I know going from left tackle to right guard but he practiced there but he's practiced there we've seen people like Ezra Cleveland play left tackle in college and then play right guard and then play

left guard like I know that the it's not just just as simple as you're playing in a Madden franchise and you're like, ooh, I've got this good backup left tackle. Let me put him at right guard, and it'll probably work because it's a video game. I understand it's more complicated than that, but I find it hard to believe that Blake Brandl or, heck, Chris Reed, who we keep talking about and just keeps showing up on the inactive sheet 90 minutes before kickoff every week, and I'm like, why? You paid him like two million it's just i find it hard to believe that those guys could not hold up a little bit more in pass protection than ed ingram and maybe there's this their view

of ed ingram's run blocking matters so much more than we think but throwing the ball is the most important thing keeping kurt cousins clean when he drops back is the most important thing. I know Delvin Cook, you want to get him going, but man, like, I don't know. It's weird to me. And if this week, if, yeah, if he just gets eaten alive by this Jets front, which I think is a distinct possibility, I'll put it that way, it's just, it seems to me like something they really need to consider. You know, another part of this too, is that I think that, and I don't

want to put everything on one guy, but their screen game struggling also relates to the offensive line as well, because that's a question that we get all the time. It's like, what's going on with their screen game? Like, why can't they complete a screen? One is I don't know how much emphasis the offense really has on it. So they just sort of throw it in there but you should be able to get delvin cook in space and make some plays i was watching some of their screens back it's miss blocking i mean usually uh it's it's eyes is a big problem for ed ingram it doesn't seem to know where to look or who to go block and then people just run by him and tackle who's ever getting the ball which also just as a side note tells you a little bit about running backs in the receiving game it's

usually system related and not like this running back is a great receiving back like Marshall Falk is not existent anymore Christian McCaffrey even it's a lot to do with like how you scheme it up there's another point with Leatherwood and Ed Ingram. Overdrafted is kind of the, like on draft night, people always get upset with us if we say, hey, the consensus board said this guy was a fourth rounder. Well, he's played like a fourth rounder that goes in there. You know how I know?

Drew Samia looked the same exact way as a fourth rounder who was tossed in and then had this much trouble. I think that offensive line coaches, coaches in general, they like traits. So they look at, oh, he's big and he's powerful and he's got these long arms and he's this and this and this. And we ran into this with Matt Khalil years ago where it's like, well, yeah, he's given up these pressures. He's not playing well, but he's got the traits that are way better

than whoever else would be playing. Well, you know, that might be true, but what really matters is the results. And normally the backup, the idea of a backup offensive lineman being better is usually kind of hilarious. Like, oh, come on. I mean, they're not missing it. But I think when a guy has better traits and that the organization puts so much into him and he had the other red flags in the draft.

There's a stubbornness there to make it work as opposed to someone like Blake Brandel, who's a sixth round draft pick and who was cut twice out of training camp. I have to think, though, that Reed or Brandel would be better than legit the worst guard in the entire NFL. And this is, again, sort of something that you're, you're kind of putting your eye on, like how much is this impacting them down the stretch? Cause I think it's had a major impact on the offense so far this year. And when you get to the playoffs, almost every team we're looking at has a good defensive line who they could match up against, except for maybe like, well, even Atlanta has Grady

Jarris. So like everybody's got somebody that could cause you some serious problems. Falcons are in the hunt. They are in the hunt. That's what I mean. The Seahawks. Right now, Washington would be your matchup right now. And they're going to demolish you in the interior if that's the case. Yeah.

There's a couple teams where maybe if they're, like, the 7C and they don't scare you a ton with their defensive front, but once you get to the Cowboys and the Eagles and the 49ers, you have to go through to get to the Super Bowl. Absolutely. It was interesting to hear Wes Phillips today was talking a little bit about Ed Ingram, and he was saying, like, hey, we played him. We started him because we thought he was the best guy.

Not we thought. He was the best guy. Like, we didn't – it wasn't like, oh, we drafted him high. They always say that. Yeah, you always say that. That probably factors into it. And then he did say, like, you just made me think of it. He's like, he has all of the pass protection, the anchor, the athleticism.

He has all of that in him. And it's like maybe he does. And maybe that he shows that someday, whether that's next year or in 2024 or if he's Garrett Bradbury he shows it in his fourth season when he's up for a contract after the after the season like it it might be in there but we're not seeing it right now and the most important thing is like if the Vikings were four and seven right now and this was a valuation year and they're like just kind of a long-term view go ahead play at ingram the rest of the way that's that's fine like see what you have in your

second round pick and get them valuable reps and get them hopefully get them some momentum uh especially in pass protection going into next season you're not though you're nine and two and you're trying to make a push for a one seed you're trying to hold off the 49ers to be the two seed, and you're about to enter a postseason in which the expectation is to get to the NFC Championship game at least. I think that has to be the expectation when you're 9-2 right now and you have as much talent as you do. So you can't afford to wait around and wait for Ed Ingram

to figure out how to pass set. You don't have time for that. So I don't know. I haven't gotten any indication or any sense from hearing them that they're even considering making a change. But it just seems like we don't know more than coaches. But on some of these things, it's like it can't be as complicated or it can't be something that we're watching the games.

Like it can't be this crazy formula that actually Ed Ingram is playing well. Like, no, he's not. He's given up 44 pressures. Nobody else has given up more than 35, I think. He's lapping the field. I mean, after you mentioned it earlier, I want to go through and find, like, who's given up the most pressures ever in the PFF era. And it might be Alex Leatherwood.

I don't know. I think Leatherwood is a tough one to beat. Eddingham's on pace to come close to that. 2015 Brandon Fusco had some sort of time. I've got it up right here. Let's see. I mean, think about this. So Fusco in 2015 gave up 55.

I mean, like he's on pace to beat that at this point or to come pretty darn close. So, yeah. And I guess my thing would be when you look at last year and which team won the Super Bowl, you can always kind of use as a very basic thing and which team won the Super Bowl, which you can always kind of use as a very basic thing, and which team lost. Like the team whose offensive line at the end of the day got destroyed was the team that couldn't come up with the big plays at the end of the game. And if we're talking about Super Bowl for a 9-2 team, you have to discuss that. The Bengals had a guard on their team. I believe he played guard, maybe tackle, named Hakeem Adaniji.

And I remember this last year. And he was like their Ed Ingram. And they got lucky with some of the matchups that they had in the AFC playoffs where they didn't face some of the teams that were dominant in pressure. Like they were able to beat the Chiefs who basically were just Chris Jones. And they won another game like that. They played the Titans who were one of those teams. Joe Burrow was sacked nine times, and they won that game by the grace of God,

like some weird third downs and big Jamar Chase plays. I still have no idea how they won that game. But Hakeem Adoniji was kind of the Bengals' version of Ed Ingram, and they went to the Super Bowl and played Aaron Donald and all those other, A'shaun Robinson, all those other guys on the Rams. And it just, you saw what happened. They lost.

Tis the season for you to buy the best Minnesota sports themed apparel in the world for all of your friends and family. Go to sodastick.com. They have great holiday shopping deals there and use the promo code insider. That is S O T A S T I C K.com code insider for all of your holiday shopping. And you mentioned about like the coaches thing. And I agree with you that like, as far as knowing technique and knowing scheme and all those things that there are very

few human beings on earth that know more than NFL coaches about that stuff. But I also think that what we have the benefit of is we have no skin in the game when it comes to this. We just look at the black and white, like here's the reality. The guy's given up more pressures than Dakota Dozier did two years ago. Like that's reality. And we can also kind of see forest through the trees on something like this, where I think that, you know, you can watch practice every day and go, well,

I know he's got it. I know he's got it. And you know what? I'm going to leave the door open to it being possible that he starts to turn it around toward the end of the year. And that's why every week we're going to kind of look and say like, did he have a good game? Did he look like he showed some progress? Because like defense it's how you're playing not how you've

played when you go into the playoffs but i think that if they remain stubborn on this and it continues to be like this it could be the thing that unravels them at the end their stubbornness of drafting him which was totally unnecessary and at this point i mean honestly like it's a guard i mean you could have signed anyone and they could have played like this and you spent a second round pick like that looks really bad right now in the long run it might not but to spend money in other places and leave the offensive line was something that everybody knew at the time like that might get you i mean because i mean we were looking at all the free agent guards. Here's all the different guys they can get. And they said, no, no, no.

We know best. We've got this rookie. And so far it's blown up in their face, but it hasn't cost them. They're nine and two. They're in a good position. But now we face another major test in the New York Jets. Let me ask you a Jets question. Yeah.

Totally unrelated to the guard position. That might actually be your most serious rant about Ed Ingram by the way that you've had on the podcast and i'm impressed uh as far as woebegone franchises go tortured fan bases no one cries any tears for new york sports they love themselves everybody loves them you know espn loves them. You know, ESPN loves them, whatever else. But wow, have they suffered a lot. I mean, they had the AFC championships with Mark Sanchez that they didn't get to a Super Bowl. They've got Joe Namath. And then, I mean, they're the team that picked Ken O'Brien at quarterback.

They're the team that picked Sam Darnold. Now Zach Wilson is benched. They've missed playoff field goals. They have had everything happen to them over the years. I think that they are in a category of like Buffalo, Cleveland, probably even more tortured than Minnesota, because at least with Minnesota, there have been a lot of really good seasons where the Jets have just been an abomination for a long time in recent history so where do you put them as far as tortured fan bases well that's the whole debate

right like and usually the example is the lions like would you rather be a vikings fan or a lions fan where the vikings get your hopes up and then shatter your heart in cruel and unusual and different creative ways after a good season and then sometimesatter your heart in cruel and unusual and different creative ways after good season and then sometimes they're terrible but would you rather loved and lost so to speak exactly or to have never loved at all like the detroit lions where you have like some of the greatest skill players ever in calvin johnson and barry sanders and you basically don't do anything with it and you draft a not a not an insanely good quarterback but a pretty good quarterback matthew stafford and you have him for a long time and they went

to the playoffs like once twice maybe with stafford they haven't won the division since the buccaneers were still in the division in in the early 90s like shout out nfc central exactly that's and that's the question i think the answer is you'd rather be a Vikings fan for sure because at least it's more interesting, and the journeys of the seasons themselves can be pretty fun sometimes, like in 2017 and whatnot, and you get a Minneapolis miracle. Detroit, I don't think, has ever had anything like that where it's better to at least be invested and then have your heart

broken than to just become apathetic because your team is completely god-awful and i say this as somebody who's watched a lot of minnesota timberwolves basketball in my life it's kind of like that like the wolves have just always been terrible and they blew a bunch of games against the grizzlies in the playoffs last year but that was at least more fun than them winning 18 games and just not showing up ever. So that's a roundabout way to your question. I would say the Jets are up there because they are in that Lions and Browns mold of just – it's just been nothing to cheer about for most of the franchise's existence.

So they're up there. I think I'd put all three – I think I'd put the Lions, Jets, and Browns probably above the Vikings. And I know people might get defensive about that. They might have different opinions on which one you prefer. But, again, I would take the loving and losing than never loving at all. I don't know if anything matches the Lions and Browns. I mean, it's just unreal. Although the Bills missed the playoffs for like 17 straight seasons.

So they do have that. Bills have a little of both with the four Super Bowls and that. Yes. The Bills are like a different order from the Vikings where it's like they pick one a decade to break your heart. Whereas Buffalo did it all at once. And then we're like, no, you never give good football ever again. And then now they're back doing it again with the 13 seconds and so forth. The Jets, the Jets were the Vikings from about 97 to say 2010, 11 at the end of the Rex Ryan era where they went.

They had a 12 win season, an 11 win season, a couple of 10 win seasons where they were just kind of marred in mediocrity and they would get to the playoffs and it wasn't quite enough. But recent history, holy cow. I mean, since 2012, they have had one 10 win season and one eight win season. And the rest is all less than that. I mean, my gosh, like five, five, four, My gosh. Like 5-5-4-7-2-4 from 2016 on. That is. And the last time they had 10 wins, here's what happened. Ryan Fitzpatrick went to Buffalo to face his former team at 10-5. They needed a win to get in the playoffs. They lost.

And he no-showed, and they missed the playoffs. This team, they were in the playoffs last in 2010. You can't get worse than this. They went to the AFC Championship game in 09 and 10, right? In 09 and 10, yep. They had a 9 and 7 and 11 and 5 team. With the Sanchez. With the Sanchez, and it doesn't get a whole lot worse than.

Shout out to Chad Pennington. That dude's kind of. That was an era. He was a fun quarterback in the early two thousands. It wasn't, it wasn't, it wasn't particularly good. One 10 games in 2006.

I just pulled up his, his pro football reference page. One comeback player of the year. I don't know what happened to him in 2005, but is there like a Kirk Pennington sort of chat? Can I just point this out? Chad Pennington, one comeback player of the year,

twice in three years. That's hard to do. So he probably got injured in 2005, and then he wins it in 2006. And I guess he probably got injured again in 2007, and then with the Dolphins, he finished second in MVP voting in 2008 and won Comeback Player of the Year again. Now I'm getting off the rails, but that's random to me and interesting. Who would have thought Randy Moss' quarterback, by the way like yeah would have had that even an nfl career

like you would have expected it would just be some rando who you know got a bunch of yards because of randy moss yeah but i read far of jets legend i do think that i do think that there's a little like kirk pennington pennington didn't get his first chance to start until he was 26 years old. I think Kirk was 27. And then had his best season in 2008 when he was 32. Kirk having his best winning season at, what, 34? Is he 33 still? Did he turn 34?

Whatever. I'll tell you in two seconds. He turned 34 in August. I was going to say, I've been referring to him as a 34-year-old quarterback. That's on me. And the following season, by the way, with Chad Pennington, he got hurt and went 0-3 after he was second in the MVP running. Yeah.

So the tenuous nature of the National Football League, which is why we've been saying enjoy the ride because you never know when it can come to an end. Last thing, who do you think wins this football game? I have completely lost track of whether we've picked them right or wrong but i believe i picked the vikings against new england i think we both did yeah yeah we so we were we were both i think a little bit cold but we both got them against new england i'm i'm picking them this week uh the vikings that is like i it'll it'll be a one score game because they all are, and Mike White will probably throw for 330 and a few touchdowns.

But I think I have faith in the Vikings finding a way, even against another really, really, really good defense with Quinnen Williams and Sauce Gardner and DJ Reed, their other corner has been playing really well. Just a bunch of dudes on this defense. I just have faith in them finding a way because outside of that couple no-shows against the NFC East, they've just done it every single time.

And they've beaten the first three teams in the AFC East. You might as well sweep the division. So I got them winning. And I'm going to go back to the well and say it's going to be a fairly low-scoring game. I'll probably say like 24 to 20 or something like that. Yeah, we were all super wrong about the scoring in the New England game for sure. I will also say that they win.

Ooh, you don't sound convinced. Mike White regression seems like a thing that's going to happen. After this big game, everyone talks about him for a week, and then here comes the disappointment. That's kind of what happens. So I'm going to say Mike White has a struggle and it's like a 17 to seven type of thing. I think that's how it goes. But this this Jets team, you have to take them very seriously.

I mean, they are a really, really talented team. It wouldn't shock me if the Vikings lost the close game for once against this team. I just think that the Mike White thing might not be for real. At some point, the Vikings will probably lose a close game. Yeah, yeah. It's just something that tends to happen in the NFL. There's a wide right field goal that is just on its way. The Greg Joseph thing is just looming, and we talk about it,

but it's the same with Ed Ingram. Greg Joseph and Ed Ingram, no one player has lost you a game yet because in the two games you lost, you got completely smacked around. I guess you could maybe say Kirk in Philly was pretty bad, but there were other factors in that as well. So I agree. Mike White, he's a fun story. When he's protected, he can make good decisions, get rid of the ball.

But he had that game last year where he threw for like 450 yards or whatever, and then next week he threw four picks against the Bills. He's not some potential future franchise guy. So I think Harrison Smith and or Patrick Peterson get an interception this week. I think that'll be enough, yeah. So I guess we will find out how we do and I appreciate your time as always, Will, and all of you for listening. We'll

see how it goes and talk to you after the game. Football. Football.