Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Is this the most hyped game of the KOC era?

Episode Date: September 20, 2024

Matthew Coller and Manny Hill talk Vikings-Texans and the hype around it. Will it live up to the billing? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here along with Manny Hill on this glorious evening. Manny, as we count down to Minnesota Vikings and Houston Texans, I don't know how you're feeling this week, but I have felt like I've needed to, every time I've been talking, try to take a deep breath and slow myself down because this game right here has brought me joy to talk about what happened last week with the San Francisco 49ers just was like a lightning bolt hitting the Minnesota Vikings franchise. And then they get to turn around and we're not like going to Carolina or something or, Oh, it's Jacksonville, whatever. No, no, Manny. This is a

team that has expectations of winning the Superbowl that the Vikings are going to face. And it's just such a great test case for them to take on one of the premier quarterbacks in the league. One of the premier teams in the league at their home building with a new energy sparked into this fan base i've i've had a lot of fun leading up into this game how about you there we go oh manny jeez you made my heart jump i thought you're usually it's just your head freezing not your uh your vocals disappearing i i can usually hear you from where you live with your voice. Okay. All the way on the West side of your diner, right? That was actually my bad. I had a little audio thing that I needed to retweak on my end. So it was nothing you did. But no, I'm pumped for this game. This is going to be, I think when you factor in what happened on Sunday

against the 49ers, you know, you and I both, and I think a lot of against the 49ers you know you and I both and I think a lot of the fans too you know came away really impressed with what we saw and now it's like alright maybe the expectations for this Vikings team now have changed a little bit starting out 2-0

out of the gate and now they're going to have this big test and now you're thinking boy if they could be this team now you know i mean the 49ers are already you know championship caliber team that we know about but the houston texans are now a team that's aspiring to kind of be what the 49ers have already established themselves to be over the last handful of years. And so they've got kind of a chip on their shoulder. They're looking to prove a lot of people that they can, that they're a serious Super Bowl contender.

And now this is going to be a big test for the Vikings too. And then there's so much, there's so much drama going into the game. It's Stefan Diggs coming back to Minnesota. It's Daniel Hunter, former Viking coming back in, you know, Blake Cashman and Jonathan Gren granada former texan players so they're going to be playing against their former some of their former teammates as well so it's it's uh it's going to be really fun really interesting to see how this thing plays out it's going to be a really fun test for the for minnesota there's just so many layers to this manny there's the layer of okay it means a lot for the Vikings and if they lose I don't

think we're going to say season over it's really about the if they win side then all of a sudden everybody starts to talk about the Minnesota Vikings they got a little bit of attention last week and they deserved it and Sam Darnold started to be in that conversation of hey wait a minute why are all the young quarterbacks failing and Sam Darnold started to be in that conversation of, hey, wait a minute, why are all the young quarterbacks failing and Sam Darnold is succeeding? So that was really his main role for this week. But if they're able to win this one, then it's, whoa, now the NFC North

just became super interesting with the Vikings and all those power rankers. You know, they work so hard on those power rankings. They grind over their laptop computers and then slide teams up or down. But those power rankers, they will be giving respect, if you will, to the Minnesota Vikings if they win this game. There's the buying into the Sam Darnold potential. Is this going to be a Jeff George case Keenum season? We talked about it so much leading up to it and it would almost be funny if it was like, Oh yeah, we saw this is what we thought could happen. Right. Uh, there's that.

And then there's the micro of it of, you know, this is Daniel Hunter versus Brian O'Neill. That's a great matchup. Will Anderson versus Christian Derrissaw. It's a great matchup. Nico Collins against Stefan Gilmore. Great matchup. You know, Stroud versus Brian Flores. You just, D'Amico Ryans versus Kevin O'Connell. That's the 49ers roots versus the Rams roots. And those two teams battled against each other so many times over the years. And now you have two of their coaches that on their own are going at it with Minnesota and Houston. And I just, I like that. The narratives and also what it could mean based on the results. So I have a question for you and I would love people in the chat. Welcome this evening. We just got going. And as some people may have noticed

last week i'm trying some new technology here so let me know in the chat if there's any troubles but it seems like we're we're working out pretty well so far except for manny forgetting to turn on his audio but most of you were just joining at that point and you'll have to go back and watch his head moving without hearing him at all uh but I want to know if this is the most hyped game of the Kevin O'Connell era. And let me try to make a case for it. I think I might put it in second place and I would not include the playoff game against the New York Giants. The reason I would not include the playoff game against the giants is that at that point,

we had started to get, uh, to get the picture that the 2022 Minnesota Vikings were not as good as their actual overall record. Because if you remember, they started out seven and one, and then the rest of the way, they were basically a 500 team. They get a win against the Colts, which was an unbelievable victory and memorable for everybody involved. At the same time, it was against a complete joke of a franchise that could blow a 33 point lead to the Vikings. And you went, well, you know, you were down by that much. You shouldn't have been to that team anyway.

So how can we get that excited about you? And then the loss to Green Bay at Lambeau, where they slipped and slided all over the place. After that happened, I felt the wind come out of the sails for Vikings fans. And I think a lot of people thought they're probably going to lose to the Giants. And if not, they're going to go to Philly and get their tails kicked, which I'm absolutely certain would have happened. So there wasn't as much energy. The what actually.

So, oh, gosh, brings up or a Topaz says the Bills game was number one. And oh, gosh, says I got hyped during the game. That's absolutely true. During the game, it was like the masses started, you know, in the in like movies about the 50s where everybody stops out front of the store windows and just like, what's, what's going on? Elvis is on TV or whatever. Uh, that's, that's what it felt like with that bills game where all of a sudden my entire Twitter feed turned into that game. I actually think it was the following week against Dallas, which was the most hyped game before this, but this has a case for being the most hyped game how do you feel

about that i think it has a really strong case i mean i i think when you go back because the dallas game was exactly what i was thinking of too because because the bills game was so crazy and the way they came back and won that game in overtime uh with the jefferson catch and and everything that that happened with that game. That was kind of the game where I was like, oh, because I think they moved to what, eight and one at their seven and one or eight and one or something after that win. And at that point, I was like, oh, you went into Buffalo and won, found a way to grind a way of victory. Oh, this might be a team that's serious about contending for a Super Bowl.

And that just really enhanced the hype for that Dallas game the following week. And we know how that game went. Did not go well. But there was a lot of hype surrounding that because it was the Cowboys. It was another team in your conference that was thought to be a team that was a serious contender for a championship as well um but yeah this i'm getting kind of the same vibes with this with this game coming up as well in a different way because the cowboys in 2022 were already kind of established as like a team that was thought

to be contending the texans i think are still i think they are a serious team but they're still kind of like, all right, had a really good season last year. C.J. Stroud was really good as a rookie. Let's see if they can kind of repeat that. And if they can, then, oh boy, look out for the Houston Texans. But yeah, I mean, this has that same kind of feel of like, I feel like we're going to learn a lot about both of these teams by

watching this game. And it doesn't mean that whoever loses this game is like, Oh no, they're not serious. It's not that, you know, we can't take that team seriously, but I think we'll get a pretty good sense of like,

okay. If the, if the Vikings beat the Texans by, you know, 17 points on Sunday, I think the thought about the Texans will be like, okay, if the Vikings beat the Texans by 17 points on Sunday, I think the thought about the Texans would be like, okay, they're still pretty good, but maybe there might be a little bit of room for improvement

for them to be into that same conversation with Kansas City, Baltimore, although Baltimore's 0-2 right now. They're not off to a very good start. But if you're the Vikings and you don't, you know, if you don't win this game, then it's like, all right, 49ers game was still fun. Probably not quite there yet in terms of, like, the eyebrow-raising level that you might want to see them at.

But this, I think we're going to learn a lot about both teams and it doesn't necessarily mean that whoever loses is just going to be written off completely, but I think we're going to get kind of a better sense of what both teams are at. Yeah. I guess I wonder about all the time because we get so excited for these games. So we want to make each and every one of them into the super bowl. And yet if something happens to another team, it's funny. Cause you asked me right before we went on, you said, Hey, what happened to the Bengals against the Patriots, by the way, that the Bengals lost that game. And I was like, I don't know. I don't care. I mean, the Bengals are probably going to be fine,

but I bet in Cincinnati, it was, Oh my gosh, we lost the Patriots. What is going on? And so I try to sometimes check myself when it comes to that of not necessarily making this game into the Super Bowl. It is certainly a Super Bowl this week, but in the longterm, you go through a season and I always think about 2017 where they lost to Pittsburgh and looked awful with case Keenum. And I remember having a discussion with our friend Judd Zolgad after that game and saying, I mean, they need to trade for quarterback. They need to do something, anything I was saying, anything but case Keenum. And yeah, they ended up going to the NFC championship game. So it really puts in perspective how long the season really is.

And if you win or lose a game in week three to the Houston Texans, it doesn't necessarily mean that you are going to the moon. And yet the other side of my brain goes, wait a minute. If you go three and O and you think about the schedule going forward, everyone starts to seem pretty beatable. It looks like they're going to face Jordan love in green Bay, which is interesting as he was returning to practice. And then you go face the jets. They have not been terrifying so far. They should have lost to the Titans last week, then Detroit, which is still very good team. And after that, it's Los Angeles Rams who have no players left because every single one of them got injured and maybe they'll still have no players left by the time the Vikings get there.

But if you go to three and oh, even if you struggle during that, even if you have some bad losses during that stretch, you're still going to be right in the thick of the race going into the easier part of your schedule. It just means so much to get to three and O for your prospects going forward. And on the other side of that, you know, two and one is still fine for this team. But it's like on one door,

number one, which is your routine loss is okay. All right. Yeah, that's fine. They're fine. The season's not over by any means. And door number two is explosions and confetti and people watching the game from the

top of buildings like celebration. I mean, it's, there's just going to be so much hype for this team. If they go to three and oh, I can't help myself. Even if I know rationally that it's a really long season. Yeah. I mean, it's, it's the, it's, it's sort of the gift and the curse of, you know, covering football, talking about football, being a football fan, is that, you know, they play so many games, but they really don't play that many games. You know what I mean? You just constantly have that thought of like,

yeah, they play 17 games in a season, but sometimes you go through a season go through a season and you get to a point week 17 week 18 and then you kind of start looking back at games and sometimes you'll have you know depending on how the rest of the games went you'll have kind of a different feel about a game that might have happened in week two or week three you know how will we feel about beating you know the vikings beating the 49ers last week in week 15 if they're you know six and eight we won't feel as good about that game you know what i mean but if they're eight and six or nine and five or something like that then it's like okay yeah that was that was a big game it was big for them to win that game.

And it's kind of the same way, you know, I kind of feel the same way with this game. From the Texas perspective, it's kind of harder to get a sense because I think, you know, they're expected to kind of compete at a higher level. But you're the Vikings and you're in kind of this transition sort of retooling your roster, rebuilding but not like tanking mode, and you're just kind of seeing where things can kind of fit, seeing how Sam Darnold performs, and see if maybe he can have kind of a pop-up year

and get to the playoffs. It is kind of one of those games where it's hard to really, regardless of the outcome, I don't know if we'll have a pretty good idea of the team but I don't know how we'll feel big picture about the team for the rest of the season yet because there's still so many games left to play out yeah and I'm sure it'll be brought up over and over again that the 2021 Panthers went 3-0 with Sam Darnold but you know I ran across an interesting O with Sam Darnold. But you know, I ran across an interesting stat about Sam Darnold last night, Manny, that his level of performance being competent, if not good

has actually lasted quite a while now, uh, that he has won six of his last nine games. Nice. And he has as a starter and just as a starter not games where he came in to fill in for somebody or whatever with Carolina or with San Francisco he has a 97.5 quarterback rating since 2022 now I know that you can't throw out everything else that happened before that but when that becomes so far in the past and the most recent performance under these circumstances and even in 2022 they got rid of matt rule uh he had dj more that he was throwing to they blocked a little bit better for him and he played fairly well at the end of that season and we leaned heavily on that when they signed i'm like well you know his most recent performance

as a starter was pretty good and then you add that to his start in san as a starter was pretty good. And then you add that to his start in San Francisco. That was pretty good. And then you add that to what he's done here. And you start to go, this is looking a little more like who this might be. And three and O against this Texas team, against that coach, against that pass rush, I would be on board as almost saying his last 10 starts now have been, this is who he is, as opposed to just saying, well, it's three straight games that have been pretty good when it's a lot more like seven of his last 10 games have actually been pretty good if he's able to win this one or at least play really well against the Texans.

And similar to what we said last week, there is a moral victory element of it, where if you do play really well with Sam Darnold and lose the game on whatever, a fumble or, you know, a field goal at the end or something like that, you would still walk away with a lot of confidence that this could be a playoff team. And I think when we went into this, you and I had a good discussion about what are, what is the goals? What are our standards for this season? And I think we agreed if you're in that playoff race, then it's going to be a fun season for

everybody. It'll probably be a roller coaster. This may be a dip in the roller coaster. It may be a high in the roller coaster. They just might be really good. We're not going to know, but three and O makes that extremely realistic to get to that point where you're competing for a playoff spot. Let me read some comments.

I still haven't figured out with this new system, how to put the comments on the screen. I will figure that out. Give me time. The fact that it's working alone and I figured it out myself, I am proud enough of, so nobody pushed me for anything else. You gotta,

I I'm like a, I'm like Jacoby Bursette. You have to have low standards for me. And then you'll be like, he was okay. He was okay with that technology. Um, Deontay says, uh, can someone please explain? This is a good question, Manny. Can someone please explain why everyone has this as a bigger test than last week?

I understand why it's a big game but i don't believe the texans are a better team than the niners your thoughts mr hill i i think it's a bigger game because the thought at least my thought going into this game is like all right that was a hell of a win last week against a really good team a team that that's expected to contend for a championship again, as they have been for the last half decade. Now it's like, okay, can you build off of that? And can you keep this train rolling? Or are the Texans going to come in to US Bank Stadium and kick your ass by three touchdowns? And then, you know, it's kind of kind of like what you know we just talked about the

dallas game from two years ago they got the big win against buffalo and then the cowboys come in and just steamroll them 40 to 3 on in their in their arena in in u.s bank stadium when that happened i was like oh i didn't watch the game i was in I was in Mississippi at the time with an unfortunate family event. But I was looking at my phone and I was checking the score and I saw, okay, 20-3. Then I checked my phone like 10 minutes later and it was 27-3. And then I checked like 45 minutes later and it was 40-3. And I was like, oh, okay, that's not good.

That's bad. Maybe this team really isn't that good. I think that's kind of why this game is big because again, depending on the result, you're going to have, I think, a better feeling about what this could

potentially be the rest of the season. If they get blown out by three touchdowns and it's like, all right, this could still be fun, but you know, contending for the division is probably out of the question. Whereas if they win the three and O and they play really well, they'd like dominate the game. Then it's like, okay, that might, we might have something here with this team and let's see how it plays out the rest of the way. So I don't think it really has to do with, you know, the 49ers are better than the Texans or whatever. I mean, I don't, I don't

know. Those two teams have to play each other for us to figure that out. I think it's simply the fact that these things don't happen in a vacuum. It's not like each game has no context to it whatsoever. The fact that they won against the 49ers, that raised the bar for what we think of this team now. If they had lost to the 49ers, then this wouldn't be viewed as such a big test case type of game. This would be viewed as much more of a like, okay, well, let's see if they could survive now.

Let's see if they could pull something out of their rear ends to stay alive in this season and not fall way behind from the very beginning. And instead, when you get that win, now you're kind of expected to beat the Texas too. Like do it again. I mean, that's the whole NFL and kind of how it works as I, that's why I was saying it is unfair. I am aware of how unfair it is to just expect, Oh, well you did it last week. So just do it again. And every single bad team like the giants you should really win by 22 i mean but that's what happens when you start to get buzz about a team that might actually be good and i think if we had a confidence meter manny you and i might be on a

six or a seven that this team can be good if if it goes if they beat the texans the meter explodes right and like it just blows up and if they don't it probably goes to like a five and so that that's the magnitude of this game for how you feel about where this train could be headed well it's just think about who they play the week after that they go to green bay i mean that's gonna be a huge game because you said as you said it looks like jordan Love might be back playing by then. If you're 3-0 going into that game, that's a division game on the road against a team that this entire fan base hates. That's a huge game, and that doesn't necessarily mean the Packers are better

or worse than the Houston Texans. It's just with every win, it raises the bar of expectations and it gets, I think it brings more excitement to where every game the rest of the season is just going to become that much more important, regardless of, you know, the quality of opponent that you're playing. Folks, U.S. Cellular noticed that the way we use our phones has gotten ironic. We try to put our phones down for dinner, but the menu is on a QR code. That's ironic. We hit like on social media posts that we don't actually like. Ironic. Which is why U.S. Cellular created UsMode to help us reconnect with each other and use our phones less ironically. A phone company wanting people to use their phones less? Ironic.

Let's find us again with Us Mode from U.S. Cellular. Visit uscellular.com slash built for us to get started. Right, and we're not saying as we have at times in the past, ah, well, you know, they played kind of nothing opponents, and they've won some games and move on to the next week. I mean, I remember 2019, the Kirktober, October, where they played, I think we thought Philadelphia was going to be a big game that year.

And it turned out not to be because Philly was overrated coming off of, they just never got back to that Superbowl level. And they may be repeating history kind of at the moment. Um, but when it, when it came to that, that Kirk Tober, uh, they had lost to some good teams and then they had beat some bad teams. And I remember we were just talking about, you know, it's just like, how do we know if they're good or not? Because they just beat the lions with Matt Patricia again, or they just beat, you know, whatever. And even in 2020, when they fell behind in the season, they got on the wind streak.

It was a windy, weird day in green Bay that they won. And then they beat Carolina and they beat Jacksonville. And I don't know, this doesn't have that feeling when you beat a team like San Francisco, then all of a sudden you go, all right, is that our bar now that each week they're going to come in and play a game like that? So I think that that's why when you're talking about the hype, that if they lost last week, this wouldn't even really be on the radar in the NFL. And now I'm seeing national people saying, this is the game of the week. I was at practice today and I'm looking for Justin Jefferson. It's very sunny out there. I'm just going, where is he? And, uh, I turn around and our friend Tom Pellicero is behind me and I'm like, Oh, big week, Mr. Pellicero. Here we are, uh, for, uh, you know, Vikings, uh, Houston Texans. So I, you know, I don't know if,

I don't know if Tommy's coming out to this one, if it, you know, we were talking about a one in one Vikings or Oh, and two Vikings. So I think, I think that just is how the nature of the beast works. But I'll get back to some comments here. Ty says, I see that Dallas Turner probably isn't going this weekend. Will that have much of an impact? Who takes his snaps? I've been thinking about this a lot, Manny, that Brian Flores snuck up on us and provided depth for this team. And I never saw it coming.

Jihad Ward, my thought looking at his past was, he probably won't make the team and we'll be talking about Andre Carter. And then he's good. And he did have five sacks last year, but he was playing an outside role. Now he's playing an inside role, but he could play on the outside patrick jones did you have on your bingo board patrick jones plays really well against trent williams because i personally did not have that but he actually did yeah i mean we were talking at the end of the year when patrick jones was getting a lot of run late in the season last year that it was just like, I think you and I both kind of agreed, like, I just don't know if there's really much here

with him. You know, he might not even be on the team next year, you know, but for him to kind of step in and, and, and I think that really speaks to, I mean, first off, you give him a lot of credit for, you know, seems like he's just gotten better as a football player, which is a credit to him, but also like Brian Flores allowing him to kind of settle into a specific role and not putting a lot of pressure on him, which is what he had late in the year last year because of some injuries and, you know,

the team was just starting to kind of tail off at the end of the season. And so there was a lot more on his shoulders, but now it feels like he's just in a perfect role. And that because he's looks like he's gotten a little bit better that, you know, if he needs to play a little bit more because Dallas Turner might not be able to go,

I feel more confident that he can be productive than at this point last year. Yeah. A lot more. And he said after the game, because of course, you know, we went up to him and said, what's gotten into you, buddy? And look, I mean, the one sack was totally unblocked. And I'm not saying that I could have done it, but a professional usually gets the sack

there. It was really actually his run defense that impressed me. And Dallas Turner got the one sack in week one. And I thought he was okay last week, but he's still a rookie. He's learning how to play in the league. I don't think that it should be a major impact. This isn't, if you're losing Jonathan Grenard, it's not, if you're losing Andrew Van Ginkle, I don't think that that should be a huge one. Uh, Topaz says you're right. Dallas was the number one, most hype game, but I erased that game from my memory. Fingers crossed. We don't lay an egg. Yeah. Fair enough. Fair enough. Uh, that one, I remember somebody saying about cause Dallas was favored. And so

someone was like, this is just that everyone hates the Vikings. And they're like, I don't think Vegas works that way. I don't think gamblers hate a team. I think they just bet on who's going to win and they really did disappear. The difference may be though, that they got to play at home, going to Buffalo and playing in a game where they had so many plays.

This has been a metric I've believed in and this may not have truth to it. But when you have on defense, 70, 80 plays in a game, that's where I think the next week you just took so much punishment. That wasn't really the case with the 49ers. They, if you will, imposed their will more on the 49ers than the 49ers did on them. So if they had walked out of that game with half the players on the injury report and just banged up and looking totally gassed, and then we say, all right, go beat the Texans.

Then I might think it would have been a little bit more difficult for them. And it still could be. But I think I would be less confident that they're going to show up and have a good game against the Texans. And they also have so many veterans. This is important too. Young players are up and down and that is young, great players. And also, you know, young, young, mediocre players are always up and down a Caleb Evans. One week is really good. And then at the end of the season, he gets benched because that's young players. They don't have them. They really don't. I mean, Ivan Pace is only in his second year but on the defensive side these are all guys who have been around derrison o'neill they do this all the time they face the best edge

rushers in the league three weeks in a row all the time when they get someone who's not elite they're probably like well this is great what what a weekend at the beach for me because they get beat up so much taking on those guys, but they always do it. So there's nothing new about it. Derek Stingley, like when does Justin Jefferson not face somebody who's really good that's going to be tracking him? And when he does, he annihilates them. So I think that a lot of these guys are prepared for this with just their experience and talent.

Digital Plains Media says, Matthew, could you try looking into your crystal ball and see where the vikings finish this year that can i have this game first that i want this game because i think the crystal ball says two very different things don't you agree manny that if they lose this game i would still stick with my original prediction which was nine and eight if they win this game i'm going double digits. Yeah. I mean, when I, when, when I picked the schedule, that was a Monday, right? After the Niners game, we re I repicked the schedule again and I had them, did I have them at 11 and six? You did. Cause I had, yeah, I had them at 11 and six and, uh, and, uh, well well but that was because the week before i had them at 10 and 7 but i had them i think losing the niners game and then winning this coming game um so yeah i mean listen that

three and oh even though it's just the difference of one game three and oh it's just huge man and it just really changes the entire perspective on what this team could actually do and how they can finish. And we have seen crazy things happen before with this franchise. I think I go all the way back to 98, and I'm not saying this team is going to go 15-1 or 16-1. That's not what I'm saying. I'm going to preface that right away.

That's not what I'm not saying this team is going to go 15-1 or 16-1. That's not what I'm saying. I'm going to preface that right away. That's not what I'm saying. But, like, I remember, you know, when they drafted Randy Moss, I was super excited about it, and I thought, okay, yeah, this is going to be fun. They're going to score a lot of points. I don't think anybody anticipated they were going to set the league scoring record and go 15-1 and be within a player to are going to the Super Bowl at the start of the season now as the season went along then you started having those thoughts but in the

preseason was like all right well let's just see how this goes with this new three wide receiver setup but um yeah I mean I just I just think that like because of what we've seen with this franchise and with the nfl in general there's always a team that kind of pops up that we don't think that highly about and they end up being really really good you know i mean the texans were kind of that team last year where there was a thought okay new coach young quarterback they're you know domico ryan's maybe kind of inheriting a dumpster fire because of all the drama that was going

on with them. And then they turn around and win their division and win a playoff game. And the rookie quarterback is fantastic. So, I mean, I'm just excited to see how this thing plays out. I know I've been saying that a lot, but, you know, if they win this

game, it's going to mean, I think it's really going to, you know this if they win this game it's going to mean i think it's really going to you know set the expectations a little bit higher but i think that's a good thing uh wrigley says would bringing back patrick peterson make sense at this point would be good depth and iq in the room not a train wreck last year if he wants to play i don't know if he wants to play we're not really not at that point at this moment. If they had an injury or something, then I would say yes. But at this point, as long as those three corners are starting, this is my concern with this team as a whole. As long as Shaq Griffin, Stefan Gilmore, and Byron Murphy Jr. are starting, those guys can play. And Gilmore has been fantastic in the first two weeks. If any of them gets hurt and you're going to Fabian Morrow or Caleb Evans, then yes, I might get on the phone and see if Patrick Peterson's

been running sprints because I don't have a whole lot of confidence that they can go very far with anybody else outside of the starting cornerback group. And that's what we don't know over a long season is who's going to get hurt and how you're going to battle through though. Again, with veterans, one of the things that veterans know how to do at this point in their careers is stay on the field and we've certainly seen that from someone like harrison smith over the years but i think taking care of their bodies is something that they say all the time and it doesn't mean a lot to us because we don't know what goes into that but these guys know how to prepare but if any of them gets hurt that could be a problem uhontay says, how many wins will it take to believe this

team is not only a playoff team, but could make a deep run. I have the exact number based on NFL research, Manny. Okay. I did, uh, I did a whole thing about what it takes to be a real Superbowl contender. And this was, I don't know, maybe 2022. The actual bar for being a real Super Bowl contender based on your average Super Bowl contender over the last 20 years. And I did offense, defense, win total, everything. And what I found was 11 is the magic number. Now I know that there's 17 games instead of 16 games. You're just going to have to deal with that. But 11 is really the magic number. If you can get there, then you belong in the conversation. Very few teams have been able to be in the super bowl with winning fewer than

11 games. It does happen, but not that often. And I think it was with offense. It's pretty high. It's top seven is where the average is. Defense is a little lower in terms of the average, but I also discovered that very rarely did defenses that made the Superbowl allow even more than 4,000 yards passing. So defense does matter to some extent with a couple of outliers like that MVP Atlanta Falcons team. But 11 would be my number to where I would be saying that's a

unbelievable job by Kevin O'Connell. That's an unbelievable job by Sam Darnold. And you enter the playoffs as a real potential Superbowl team. If you could get to 11 wins. And I had them at 11 wins when I repicked the schedule. Yes, you did. Uh, yeah. I meanicked the schedule yes you did uh yeah I mean that's you know to your point yeah I mean that that that makes a ton of sense and you know I think and it's it seems like in the times where we've seen the occasional like nine or ten win team make a run to the super bowl it's always been because the quarterback is just

fantastic you know i mean i think the bengals when they went a couple years ago i think they were 10 and 7 but you know joe burrow was just he's joe burrow he's fantastic so um and even like with the giants those giants teams that won with eli like Eli played great on those on those runs to the Super Bowl so um yeah I mean I think it it you know that that is the magic number if they can find a way to do that and again as we progress through the season depending on how some of these next couple of games go starting of course with Sunday we'll start having a better feel of like, okay, maybe this is a team that can be kind of serious. Because I think the way they're winning these games too, Collar, I think is going to be really important.

That 2022 team, the way they were winning games, and the way they were winning games against bad teams too, that's the part of it that just i think really kept us from really believing that that team could go on a run despite winning 13 games because we were seeing how the defense was playing we were seeing how they were needing a a play who was it that snatched the ball from the bears receiver in that bears game in 2022 uh well i remember the bears receiver who was it that got it because it was amir smith barsett who fumbled it but i'm trying to think who it was that was it was the cam

dancer it actually might have been cam dancer remember yeah that was a thing for a minute. Yeah. I mean, and, and, you know, 2022 was fun because, you know, they, the way they were winning games was fun and entertaining, but like never really would maybe after the Buffalo game, we had that thought of like, okay, well maybe this team really is serious. And then we saw the Dallas game and it was like, oh yeah, back to reality. No, they're not. Again, like, if they go – I've said this a couple times. If they go into this game on Sunday and they beat – if they just beat the breaks out of the Texans, that's going to tell me a lot.

That, like, okay, yeah, this team is serious. They're beating the 49ers. I don't think that Niners game was as close as the score indicated. I mean, the Vikings were really close as the score indicated that. I mean, the Vikings were really performed like the better team that day. And if they do the same thing to Houston, I mean, it's, it's really going to make me feel a lot better about like where this could potentially go. Okay. I'm, I'm hesitating to say this because I want to, I want to, before I say a preface it with, I am channeling, uh, Jason Alexander here saying you want to get not a George Costanza. You want to get nuts. Let's get nuts. There's two things

that came to mind for me as you were talking there. One of them was the, the most recent runs for the Vikings to having great seasons that actually met the bar of 11 plus wins. Both of them had a fraudulent question about the team, which was Case Keenum. That whole season, everybody battled over whether Case Keenum was actually good. And then of course, 2022, everybody fought with each other about point differentials and whether they were frauds and barely holding on against Arizona that year and Chicago and et cetera, et cetera. Right. The last time the Vikings were not labeled with that way. And I think with Darnold, because of the talent that he has and the draft status he carries with him and the arm talent, see with Keenum, he was small and the ball floated all the time and he would just sort

of throw it up in the air and somebody would grab it. Like you ever play that Frisbee game? That's like football where you try to throw it up and everybody jumps up for the Frisbee. That's what it was like. And digs and Thielen kept coming down with it. The throws that this gentleman is making are not those. These are laser beams. I don't think they would get the fraud label if they were in that discussion as they were going toward the playoffs. And the last time the Vikings have had a truly competitive team that met that threshold and were not being called frauds as they were going toward the playoffs was probably 2009. Is it am i missing one i mean maybe maybe 15 because bridgewater was emerging and they did get to 11 wins and they did win the division but that sort of came out of

nowhere and they got hot but it's it's been a while since they've had a real competitive team that didn't have that shade of is this team really something or not yeah i mean that i mean oh nine i i think you hit the nail on the head because they they brought in brett farve because he was the last piece because they had the defense they had the the talented wide receivers they had the the bell cow franchise running back they had a pretty good offensive line. Brett Favre was that missing piece. You know, they had gone to the playoffs a year before with Tavares Jackson and, you know, and our buddy Gus Farratt.

Brett Favre, you bring in like an all-time great quarterback and you just drop him right into this mix, kind of like what the Jets have tried to do with Aaron Rodgers. But, you know for that year it it really worked out as well as it could possibly work out for now we could talk about what happened in the nfc title game and all that but like that was the way far performed that year the way the defense performed adrian peterson was great the receivers were awesome. That was probably the last time where you had, you know, like the most complete, not really much of a weakness Vikings team, you know, that certainly that from, from what

I can remember. And even before that, it probably goes back to the 98 team before that a decade prior. Two more things that are actually nuts uh one of them is if you go to three and oh you only have to go is it eight and six to get to a wait no eight eight and seven to get to no eight and six eight and six yeah you only have to go eight and six the rest of the way to get to the 11 win threshold, which is at least by my research, kind of the mark to aim for,

to be a real competitive team for the super bowl. That's only two games over 500 the rest of the way. And you have Jacksonville, the Texans, or I'm sorry, the Titans will Levis. We'll throw you the ball at least four times in that game. I mean, a couple of battles with a rookie, Caleb Williams, who might not be ready yet.

I mean, you know, that's what I'm saying. It gets nuts. But 3-0 is let's get nuts with the way we're going to talk about this team. So what a fascinating. Oh, I was going to go back. Oh, one other thing. Yeah, one other thing. Have you thought about this? There's no reason to have thought about this, but maybe you did. If the Vikings were to get into the playoffs, when the division or not,

I don't know the other quarterbacks in the NFC would be people like, okay, we have a lot of respect for golf here, but you know, Dak Prescott, maybe Purdy, Jordan love. These are good players. Baker Mayfield, Baker Mayfield, possibly Kirk, possibly Kirk. I don't know. I'm not writing off Kirk. I'm not writing them off. I may have written them off last week. I'm not writing them off this week. It's week to week league. Um, that does not sound like drew breeze, Aaron Rogers, et cetera. That sounds like a bunch of other guys who are pretty good, but no one that absolutely terrifies you. Gino Smith will probably be there. Uh, I've been impressed with their coach so far. Just a thought, just a thought before we move on to a more rational universe and talk about some other things here, including I need your all-time favorite Texans. So why don't you grab your list there and I'll read a couple of more comments real quick as you

do that. Mike says, can you please call out all the clowns who said we were going to get a top five draft pick. We have, uh, had five in our history that was never going to happen. Um, you know, I just think, well, first of all, when Vegas says it, I can't say every gambler is a clown. Um, usually Vegas is pretty good at what they do. I was looking at WNBA win totals. The links blew theirs out of the water. Every other team was within like two or three games. Vegas is good at its job. So I don't think that they were crazy. And I, I treat it as if it's a person named Vegas, but the gambling universe setting lines, I don't think was insane. But I also think that it took me until seeing them in training camp to think, no, I don't believe that they would end up being a really bad, um, a bad team. Uh, Topaz says whose injury is worse

than advertised Nico or Jefferson. I don't know what Nico status is. Jefferson is going to play. He'll probably be fine. I think he's going to be all right. He was running around on the field today, screwing around, pretending to play quarterback. Garrett Bradbury was teaching him how to give a cadence to take a snap. Just like he was out there screwing around because he couldn't practice. Justin Jefferson. I don't know if I ever mentioned this as it was happening when he got hurt in training camp 2022, maybe in camp at some point, he carried around a football the whole time and he just was tossing it carrying it and today he can't practice but he still throw he was he threw like a 50 yard pass to sam darnold at one point i'm just like this man this guy just loves football

so in love with football oh my god it's amazing you're just like do you love football i love football you're just way better at football than i am but still same vibe um okay we'll get back to your comments and we got uh pickups for the week as well from underdog fantasy to get to also and i can't i can't stream deep into the night tonight i have things i really have to work on last night great great crowd we had so many questions and it was like two hours plus in and I'm just, I lost my voice at the end of the show. We can't, we can't have that. It's a big game. Uh, so Manny, I haven't figured out how to play music on the stream either. So hum amongst yourselves and we'll get that at some point, your top five all timetime houston texans in fact on last night's stream people were guessing

who your favorite texans were going to be so fire it up all right so last week you know with the with the 49ers that i really did like it was basically like a mount rushmore of 49er greats um went a little bit of a different route with the texans this week there are some franchise greats in this list um but i had a little more a little bit more fun just digging into some names number five on my list is you will probably be surprised to hear this name number five is owen daniels wow tight end um owen daniels was just kind of that guy he was never really like a star i don't know if he ever made a pro bowl or anything like that but he was just kind of one of those steady reliable targets uh for the texans for a long time i think he was he began to plan

for them for almost 10 years i think eventually went on to to Denver and won a Superbowl, uh, net Superbowl against the Panthers. And, uh, he, I think like quietly went off into the sunset, uh, you know, not quite with the fanfare that Peyton Manning went out with, but, uh, that, that ended up being Owen Daniels last game in the NFL too, uh, on that Superbowl team. So Owen Daniels really productive tight end for a long time with the Texans is number five on my list. You and Gary Kubiak both. Both of you are. What a time to be Gary Kubiak, by the way. He's sitting at the ranch.

He's just watching football. Like, yeah, I really like watching my son coach the football, and they're running the football. And everyone is talking about how great the Kubiak offenses are. Like, what year is it? It's just all of our lives. This makes me feel young, Manny. Bill Belichick was breaking down tape today

on the pitches to Terrell Davis from John Elway and how they worked play action off it and how that's still happening with Clint Kubiak running the Shanahan and Kubiak stuff. And I sent it to our friend Sage Rosenfels who loves Gary Kubiak. He played for him for years down there in Houston. And this is the Sage Rosenfels bull.

We didn't bring that up. Our friend Sage, who is one of my favorite people in the world. And I feel like every time I talk to Sage, one of the main subjects is why aren't more teams just running this Shanahan and Kubiak stuff? Here's LeFleur running all over the Indianapolis Colts. Bobby Slowik has that connection as well. A lot of teams having success there.

And Owen Daniels was his guy that traveled with him from place to place. Remember, it was Baltimore that just hired Gary as their offensive coordinator, right? And then Flacco had one of his best years. And I think Owen Daniels was on that team as well. So a great deep in the weeds pick i love it i would not have guessed that one all right number four on my list of favorite texans ever mario williams oh really was the number one overall pick in 2006 and and here's why you, that year there was so much hype around the Texans having the number one pick. And everybody was just like assuming that they were going to take Vince Young. Because Vince Young was from Texas.

He just won the national title with the Longhorns. And, you know, the Texans needed a quarterback at the time. Maybe because I think they were, I don't know if they had gotten Matt Schaub yet. If I don't, if I remember. Maybe they did get Matt Schaub at that point. That's why they didn't take Vince. But like there was always this thought about like, oh yeah, Texans should take Vince Young. It's a perfect fit.

It was also Reggie Bush that people thought that maybe they should take. And Gary Kubiak said, uh-uh, we're going to take this pass rusher, this edge rusher from, I think he went to North Carolina, Mario Williams did. And he came in and he was really good for a long time. And then ended up leaving the Texans, went to the Buffalo Bills and had another couple of really nice seasons with the Bills as well. So, yeah, Mario Williams, really good pass rusher. When everybody kind of questioned that pick with the Texans taking him because they thought, you know,

it should have been Vince Young or Reggie Bush. Mario Williams ended up in hindsight, ended up being kind of the right pick. He didn't play his entire career there, but it ended up being, you know, for that situation, the right pick for them. Yeah. Mario was a little aloof by the time he showed up in Buffalo. I can't explain to you.

It would be hard to explain how big of a signing that was for the bills because they had just spent no money for such a long time. And then their ownership had sold the team and he was kind of the first big, huge move. I think that timeline is correct. And it was Mario Williams watch. People were seeing him in town. Oh, he's visiting this. He's going to this place and they spent so much money on him but they still had ryan fitzpatrick i believe as their quarterback and that was the problem and he kind of he he was sort of yannick and gawkway like as in not i mean he's much better but the one dimensional he would get three sacks and then he would get zero for a couple of weeks and you wouldn't notice him at all. Right. But he, he was one of the best edge rushers at his position easily of that draft. And I'm

sure at that point, the Texans understood that maybe Vince young wasn't exactly built for this, but you know, a good, a really, really good player. Number three is Deandre Hopkins, who just really had a remarkable run as one of the became one of the best wide receivers in in football um with the texans and uh he was questionably traded away uh from the texans there was a little bit of a a lot of dysfunction going on in the organization at that time i don't recall any problems i thought that was a great trade david johnson he was okay no he's horrible yeah for them he was yeah just got over the hill running back in return for deandre for one of the best wide receivers in football it was a great deal um but yeah i mean

he was just absolutely one of the elite wide receivers in the league and he's still uh still in the league for the Tennessee Titans right now. It's not helping Will Levis much. I'm not sure anybody can help Will Levis at this point. But yeah, I've always liked DeAndre Hopkins and, and he was, he was terrific with the Texans during his run.

Yeah. Is he banged up? I don't even know if he's a spy. I haven't checked in on the Texans. I think he's played a little bit. I think he's played a little bit. Yeah. But you know, I remember that stat.

This is the sad thing is that he's not with the Texans. And this stat comes from when he was with Arizona. But when Kyler Murray was having that good 2021 season, there was something like 140 quarterback rating when he was throwing at DeAndre Hopkins and 80 when he was throwing to anybody else, he was really that good. Uh, he was different than Justin Jefferson, but similar in the way that everything that went his way, he could catch it. He made a catch against the Vikings at the back of the end zone that I just lost my mind at, at the game. Uh, and some of these things go forgotten because of the way a game ends or who cares. was the cardinals but he was one of those spectacular catch artists that was a lot of fun to watch that era of texans

football is very good but you just have to hold your nose to talk about it because of the whole uh you know deshaun watson thing yes absolutely all right number number two on my list. And this is a bit of a biased pick because he also was a terrific running back at the University of Tennessee. It's my guy, Arian Foster. A little bit of an odd duck, to say the least, with some of his theories on conspiracy theories in the NFL. But he was again, he was part of that Gary Kubiak era of Houston Texans football and you know they they ran that zone blocking scheme and he was really really productive for a few years and uh really good back kind of came out of nowhere I mean I remember him being a Vols fan I remember him at Tennessee but I think he kind of caught the entire league by surprise they weren't really expecting him to be you know have couple of years where he was basically like a 1500 yard back.

But he was he was really productive when he was able to kind of stay healthy during his time in Houston. Could never tell if he was kidding about the whole league being scripted or if that was a thing that he actually thought, but we'll just, we'll just move on from that part. A terrific, terrific running back who was victimized by the running back age curve as so many other players were, but those teams and I, your number one, maybe mentioned here, those teams with Schaub, Foster, Andre Johnson, just so much talent. And they had a Kirk match job was my comp for Kirk cousins, a good, talented, competent quarterback who was accurate and could run the offense, but just didn't have that next level to him and probably their best team. He got hurt. And was it not TJ Yates who won the playoff game for them? That's what, that's another, if you're being really mean about Kirk's era here, you'd be

like, you know, who had as many playoff wins in their career, TJ Yates. And yet he made a lot less money than, uh, than cousins, but shop was sort of the same way. Good regular season, lots of numbers, not quite on the level of the other quarterbacks and playing in an AFC that was a monster with quarterbacks in that era with Roethlisberger and Brady and so forth. So he was never going to be able to push through that, but those were really fun teams. And number one, you mentioned them already, Andre Johnson, just not just the greatest Texans receiver ever, but one of just the absolute all-time great wide receivers we've ever seen.

And he just, you know, just got rewarded for his terrific career by being enshrined in Canton. It was well-deserved and just one of my just favorite football players ever. All those years with the Miami Hurricanes and those great Hurricanes teams back in early 2000s and then just a terrific career with the Texans and just one of the greatest wide receivers ever. I was extremely happy to see that because I thought that it was possible he would go

onto the radar. Things have changed so much in terms of our understanding of every team because of fantasy and because of red zone and just the amount of content that gets produced 24 seven in the NFL, someone like Andre Johnson easily would get overlooked. I mean, it would only be your crazy uncle who played fantasy football nonstop, who would be telling you about some Texans receiver or the person who played Madden and knew that the Texans had a receiver who was rated a 90. That would be kind of like me. And then you see the numbers he puts up throughout his career, but it was my appreciation for him was only after doing radio with Sage Rosenfels, where he talked about him a

lot. And I went back and watched him. It's like, man, this guy was as dominant. You know, who reminds me of him is actually Justin Jefferson, where it is a low maintenance player. Jefferson has a little more bling to him. I would say, uh, then Andre Johnson, who was the most straightforward quiet player, but in terms of his size, his speed, his contested catches ability. And I've got to think Andre Johnson could have been a great basketball player. He was so smooth with everything he did. Uh, that's, that's probably a good Jefferson comp is him. Uh, and that team ran the ball a lot. Didn't necessarily throw all the time with volume and yet put up hall of fame numbers. Great, great. One of my favorite all time players, uh, hands down. So Manny, why don't we, uh, why don't we do these pickups here?

The underdog fantasy pickups with the Viking statsiking stats for sunday's game and first of course we'll tell you about our friends at underdog fantasy the easiest place to play fantasy sports the fastest growing fantasy app in the industry we are going to do some pick'ems here and it's so easy to play go to underdog fantasy click where it says pick'em and you just pick between two and eight stats of your favorite players and when i mean stats i mean all sorts of different stats you go higher or lower and you can win up to 20 times your money by going five for five also a reminder that every day in september they have deals new deals different deals discounting the dogs is on saturday you want to keep an eye out for that every friday if if you check your underdog app, it's a new deal. So that's something that they're doing all

throughout September. You want to take a look there. And if you are interested, use the promo code purple to sign up, claim your special pick and first time deposit offer up to $1,000 in bonus cash must be 18 or older terms apply concerned with your play. Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit ncpgambling.org. All right, Manny, 229.5 passing yards for Sam Darnold. Would you go higher or lower? I'll go higher. He's going to need to throw the ball against his team i agree yeah i

don't think they want too much higher than that because if they can run the ball if they could get ahead if they could play that way this one feels to me like you're going to need to lean fairly heavily on sam darnold all right how about Mr. Jefferson? He says he's going to play. There hasn't been much question about that. Once he did his post game interview last week, we knew, okay, this isn't that serious. He's going to be out there. He's going to find a way. Mr. Jefferson though, 77.5, I'm sorry, 76.5 receiving yards, higher or lower than 76.5 receiving yards for Jefferson. I'll go if I'm going to say Sam Darnold is going to throw more than 229. I'll say JJ is going to get more than what was it?

70, 76.5. Yep. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I think I'll clear. I think I'll clear that. OK, how about this? I like this.

This is why we have a lot of fun with this on the show. 25.5 yards for the longest catch from Justin Jefferson. Does Jefferson have another big explosive 25-plus yard reception in this ballgame? Yeah, I think he does because the quarterback that's throwing him the ball wants to throw it to him further than that i mean sam donalds can can rocket that ball man so yeah i'll say yes all right how about this one i'm intrigued by this one ty chandler really had a great game last week and is he just looks like a baller he is so quick and when they get them in some space, he can make plays 33.5 rushing yards

for Chandler and for Aaron Jones, 48.5. So 33.5 for Ty Chandler. Yes. I'll say more. You're going to go higher. Okay. You got an offensive output. All right. Let me one that's uh that's kind of funny or kind of different i would say johnny munt 0.5 touchdowns does johnny munt catch a touchdown he's gonna get one at some point right maybe this is the game he gets it right i'm gonna go no i don't think he they're gonna wait till hockinson comes back to the, but there's always gotta be a fun one thrown in there. I thought that was pretty fun. Yeah. I think, I think he'll get one. I'll say in this game, you're going to go for it. Okay. All right. We'll put that down. We'll really go for it. That one has odds. If it has a little fire emoji next to it, it has, you get more of your money if you win that one. So, uh, that one, that one's got

the fire emoji. All right. Before we wrap up Manny and you know what, just for you guys, I'll stay and answer a couple more questions. Uh, if I could figure out how to switch from this mode to the regular one, who's going to win. I'm going to stick with my pick from Monday. When I repick the schedule, I'll take the Vikings winning. I think there, I think we're going to stick with my pick from Monday. I'm going to repick the schedule. I'll take the Vikings winning. I think there, I think we're going to see some points scored in this one. Okay.

Cause, cause there's a lot of talent in both offenses and I will take the Vikings winning 30 to 27. Whoa. Okay. That is an exciting game. You know, I've,

I've felt like doing that, not just, Hey, we're hyping up this game. It's fun. It's been an entertaining week, but really the injuries on Houston side have made me think of it, um, with Nico Collins, not being at a hundred percent, but their offensive line, if your offensive line can't block and you're going against Brian Flores, sending blitzers all over communication inside us bank stadium could be very difficult. Yeah, that might be an edge for them. But you know, Jefferson's banged up a little bit as well. No Addison.

So we will see, but it should be, it should be a really good time. I also recorded for all of you. Well, a lot of podcasts. So you can check those out on the channel this week, but just today out at TCO performance center with Andrew Kramer, our kind of hardcore position by position breakdown, and he's going Texans. And I think I'm leaning just for the heck of it, uh, to the Vikings as well. So we'll see, uh, we may end up coming back to you on Monday going, well, what happened was, uh, but, uh, maybe, uh, it'll be a very different vibe.

And then Manny, you will pick the schedule. Absolutely. Again on Monday. So thanks for your time. I appreciate it. I'm going to flip over this thing and hopefully it will stay with just me. And if it doesn't, I'm just going to end the stream and run away. But I've been operating this effectively.

I feel like I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, this is a heat check for me with this technology, but Manny, thanks, uh, for Monday and for tonight, uh, always a fun time getting together with you. And I cannot wait for Monday show. Thanks, man. You got it. Football football. Okay. Hey, look at that. It's just me. It's a different angle, but it's just me now. So let me answer a few questions at, I can change this camera angle a little bit, but, uh, it's fine. We'll be okay. Um, so let me answer a few more questions and maybe like 15 more minutes. I really do have stuff to do stuff to write for tomorrow. Uh, Justin asks, uh, is KOC a top five head coach

in the league already? I don't think I want to go there yet. I don uh, is KOC a top five head coach in the league already? I don't think I want to go there yet. I don't think you could be a top five head coach in the league without a playoff win. Um, if he gets there this year with Sam Darnold, then we will definitely have that conversation. I think what we've seen from Kevin O'Connell is that he reaches a certain threshold and that threshold is we know you can coach. We know that you can do this job effectively. And we know that you can, there we go. We know that you can get the most out of people that are on this team. We know what the culture is going to be. We know what the offense is going to be. And, and that's not easy to do, uh, to have a

head coach. When you hire somebody, how many of them actually work out who can come in and actually reset the culture because they'd be, it talks about all the time. Well, you know, they were toxic and so forth as it often happens at the end of someone's era. but then for him to be able to actually implement this universe that players want to be a part of that alone is an impressive feat. Uh, but then they've won a decent amount of games so far. If they had won the playoff game, I might be a little more willing to go there with you. I'm not there yet because you have, you just have to win more. The guys that we're putting in the top five are McVay, Shanahan, Andy Reed, even Matt LaFleur has had much more success as far as a track record. I would, I would probably go with those, some of those guys first, and then he's, he's got

to earn it. Derek says quarterback play has been sketchy at best so far this season. Are we in a lull regarding top quarterbacks this current era? You have Mahomes who seems to be more human and everyone else is good, but not dominant. Yeah. I think that that's absolutely the case that the range of quarterbacks has both gotten wider and the high end has gotten thinner. So for a while there, there were guys that every year you came in, you knew that they were going to be there because they were the best of the best and they were going to the hall of fame.

And that was Brady breeze Rogers. I would put rivers very close to this. I would a hundred percent put Roethlisberger in that list. And then as some of those guys were coming into the league, Brett Favre was still good all the way to 2009. So you still even had some of the older quarterbacks from the previous era that were still around. And your secondary star type of quarterback is Eli Manning. And Eli Manning is a borderline hall of fame quarterback. He may get into the hall of fame soon enough. Eli Manning, instead of being the eighth to 10th best quarterback or Tony Romo being the eighth to 10th best quarterback, they might be four right now. They might be only behind a couple of freaks and that we might see them develop.

Caleb Williams might be that someday, or I don't, I don't know. Uh, some of these young guys, uh, Anthony Richardson might be that, that way. And five years from now, we may be saying, Oh my goodness, there's so many great quarterbacks in the league, but we're in a bit of a transition with older guys, moving out newer guys coming in. And we haven't quite determined who some of them are. And then you also have good quarterbacks who are on huge contracts, uh, quarterbacks that are really reliant on things around them that got paid a lot of money. Uh, but there isn't that depth at the very top of four or five, six guys that are going to compete for the hall of fame. There's more like

one or two. And then maybe Stroud is the next one up after that. Maybe Burrow is the next one up after that. But even with Burrow, you don't quite feel the same level of invincibility that you did with a Ben Roethlisberger. Burrow might be in the category of a Phillip Rivers or an Eli Manning that was the next level down from that. But yeah, I think there is a little bit of a lull here that has created some interesting dynamics and you know, the way defenses have figured things out. Um, that's also causing a lot of problems for young quarterbacks. And then as far as the range of outcomes I went through today, because I was thinking about this, a lot of people were talking about it and I came up with seven quarterbacks in the league. Think about 32 teams.

Seven is a fairly high percentage that are just totally unplayable. That should not be playing at all. And I counted Bryce Young through these first two weeks. That's a high percentage of a Bo Nix is not ready or hasn't looked ready. Is that non-competitive at the moment? Doesn't mean he will never be. It just means at this moment, when we discuss scoring being down, if you have seven teams that are quarterbacked by Caleb Williams, Bo Nix, Bryce Young, young guys who are not

really truly at their prime yet, or maybe not even any good, well, you're going to see a lot of down quarterback play. And then, uh, you know, in other places it's, it's being determined by, you're going to see a lot of down quarterback play. And then, uh, you know, in other places it's, it's being determined by, you know, who can put the most around their guys, like someone like Derek Carr, Dak Prescott in the past has been that way. Brock Purdy's that way. So, you know, I, I guess I, I think, um, I, I just think it is an interesting time where it's going to be a little bit more on the roster build and the coaching than it is necessarily just on, Hey, they've got Brady and they're going to win a bunch of games because they've got Brady. Well, there's not anyone like

that outside of the homes and possibly Alan, the way he's played so far. Uh, let's see. Just let me, let me get a couple of more here. Uh, Derek says Darnold has a good deep ball. He reminds me of Jay Schrader. Well, that is quite a throwback. Jay Schrader. He got demolished by the bills in, was that 1990 in the, uh, when they went to Buffalo and the AFC championship, and it was 52 to three or something. Uh, he also played for Washington Jay Schrader. Now that is, that is quite a throwback, Derek. I can't say that I was quite old enough to give you anything on that comp with Jay Schrader, but I'm glad his name came up here. Uh, Zoomer Kev says, is Sam Darnold good enough to win a Superbowl? Uh, is this where I say that

Trent Dilfer won a Superbowl? I don't know. Is he good enough? I don't know. I mean, we're going to have to see how this plays out. Uh, but if you're falling under the category of let's get nuts, then, Hey, let's get nuts. Um, and say, sure, why not? But you know, I mean, if we're being realistic here, I don't think we could push that bar so high that we're talking about the Superbowl. Uh, but we could talk about how interesting this gets if they get to three and oh, and then we'll go from there and we'll have to decide when it is right to talk about the Superbowl, but is he good enough? Is the team good enough? Is the defense good enough? Can things go really right for them?

When Philadelphia made the Superbowl, I think if you've watched Jalen Hurts these last two years, you'd probably say Jalen Hurts isn't good enough to win the Super Bowl. And yet he almost did. And I think with that situation, look at the team, but also look at the path. I mean, they had to beat San Francisco when all of San Francisco's quarterbacks got hurt in the game. I mean, sometimes things just go right for you in the playoffs and you end up reaching the Super Bowl. I don't know. I mean, if you get in and you have 11 wins and you're good enough, then you've got a chance. But we are a long way away from that.

Mike says, the most revealing thing I learned about the vikings offense this week is koc might be as tricky as coach flow disgusting looks just like the defense one of the things that i did was when i looked back at the tape i really focused on some of the clever stuff the motions and the way that he had jaylenlor lineup outside of Josh Oliver, then inside Josh Oliver and the 49ers guys went, wait, do you got him? Do I go? Oh wait, no one's got him. And it's a touchdown. And there was a 17 yard completion to Trent Shurfield where he essentially hid behind the line of scrimmage like, Oh, and there I am on the other side of the field. He lined up kind of just off the tackle in a tight end

position and then came out underneath the line. It was wide open for 17 yards and it might've been more those things, uh, that KOC can do have been his calling card since he got here. And I think he's gotten even more creative with some of them this year because of the quarterback that he has, but easy buckets. That's a big thing. Easy buckets is kind of the sign of a good coach. They've had a better screen game this year. They've had a better running game. Easy buckets will always help with a quarterback guard guy. Great to see you. Guard guy says, is it a coincidence that the Vikings finally have a good guard and now they look like they can beat anyone. It's not, it is not a coincidence that Blake Brandel has played very well. And the run blocking from Blake Brandel has been exceptional through these first two years, first two games. We did

not know if Blake Brandel could play that position at all. He had never done it. And yet he's been an impact player there. So it is actually not a coincidence. He was hanging on for dear life against the 49ers. I will say that, uh, when I looked back, he's got some compete in him because he was beat a few times and gave Sam Darnold, even on that throw to Jalen Naylor, just enough time to get the ball out. But that's something to watch going forward is the pass blocking, because I think the run blocking is established as being really good. Um, okay. Last question for the night. It's been a great conversation with you guys as always. And the fact that we've held up technologically makes me proud. Uh, I've been trying to put more work into

this to bring you guys the best possible product that we can. And definitely the live stream. I know last week the audio was a little echoey, so I've been working on solutions for that from the press box after the game. There's kind of a lot of noise and stuff going on, but I've figured some things out there. So that will be good after Vikings and Texans when Dane Mizzutani and I go live from the press box. Looking forward to that.

So last couple questions here from Derek. Teams seem to figure out B-flow schemes second half of last year. I don't see that happening this year. Well, it really depends on the health because last year we can't downplay who they played. I mean, they played one of the best offenses in the NFL twice at the end of the season in Detroit. So that mattered to the statistics. The other thing is too, that DJ Wanham got hurt and Byron Murphy Jr. got hurt. And I know that

Byron Murphy Jr. isn't Darrell Revis, but he is a solid NFL corner. And that left the Caleb Evans just out there to flail at times in those games. So if they are relatively healthy, if not very healthy, that was the 2019 team where everybody who started the playoff game had, I think, except for maybe Anderson Dayhoe who joined the team late everybody. Yeah. It was Mackenzie Alexander, who was the only guy who got hurt. Everyone else was healthy on that team that, I mean, that, um, doesn't happen that often, but if they stay healthy, then they do have a chance to really, really be good and not fall off because I don't think they fell off because of scheme. I think they fell off just because of injuries last year and opponents at the end of the year. Uh, let's see, Justin, are the Vikings

going to win this weekend? I have no idea. And if I did know I would put a lot of money on it and then I would win all that money. And then I would quit doing this. Nah, I actually, I wouldn't quit doing this. Even if I won the lottery, why would I stop talking about football? So I would not quit doing this, but I would do it from a bigger studio in a larger house. If I, if I knew it, but what I would do it from a bigger studio in a larger house if I, if I knew it. But what I would say is last week, I think somebody asked the percentages. Sorry, I was fighting off a sneeze here. Somebody asked the percentages last week. And I say, I think I went, maybe I asked the percentages 38% last week. I would go 47% this week on the Vikings. I think it's very close to a 50, 50 type of proposition, which is why I'd be comfortable saying, yeah, I'll pick the Vikings

or maybe I have to go over 50% to pick them. But I think it's, I think it's much closer than you would have thought just a couple of weeks ago. So, uh, Caleb says, I'm not sure if anyone's asked yet but do you think that two of the texans running backs being out will affect their running game oh absolutely 100 yeah i i that's if you're talking about why the vikings have a chance to win the game if not a decent chance if it's not 47 is where i randomly threw it out there it is because of um the fact that they aren't going to be able to run the ball in the same way. And their offensive line is banged up. Those are difference making things for their offense inside of us bank stadium against Brian Flores. Those things matter. Derek, can we get a Cribs tour of your house, including the porch? It's, it's a very regular

house. So you're seeing a decent percentage of it. If you've seen the porch and here there's a kitchen, there's a living room with the television. There's an upstairs. My wife has an office. It's, it's not cribs worthy, but if you subscribe and use the promo code purple at underdog fantasy. Maybe they will be, uh, really excited about the show and I can get a crib maybe anyway, uh, guys, it's been great. It's been a phenomenal week. Absolutely phenomenal week tomorrow night. Uh, going to have a conversation with, uh, Andrew Kramer. That's going to run on the YouTube channel tomorrow night. Really good conversation we had out at TCO performance center today, but this was a really, really fun week chatting with you guys. Wednesday night

chats will continue Monday night with Manny Sunday after the game. So all over this Minnesota Vikings season. And it's been really fun so far. So thanks again for a great, great week of football talk. Can't wait to see what happens and we'll talk to y'all next week. Football.