Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Jeremiah Sirles breaks down a random old game from 2017

Episode Date: June 30, 2023

Former Viking Jeremiah Sirles joins to continue our Random Old Games series. He talks about the Vikings' wins over Chicago and Green Bay in 2017 and how they changed the tide of that season. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Purple Insider is presented by Oakley. Express yourself. Build a look that's made for you. When you wear Oakley, there really is more than meets the eye. Try it for yourself. Oakley is not only the best looking, but the best quality. So head on over to oakley.com for more information today. Hello, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here, and I know a man who has missed those words Jeremiah Searles former Minnesota Viking I hope you're having a good summer man what's going on Jeremiah it's so good to hear the hello welcome again it's been it's been too long it's been too long it's been a great summer super busy as always but no busy is good but just good to be back here back here

with you and talking a little Vikings ball. I put my entire heart into it. I just knew how much that means to you. I love it so much. So we've been going through a random old game series as part of summer content because, you know, we've got a few weeks until things really get going. And then it'll be super intense, and we'll be analyzing every move by the third string nickel corner and so forth at training camp. But for now, though, we get to have some fun,

take a look back at some things. And of course, being that you're a part of the podcast, 2017 had to be involved in this discussion. So I looked through your game log, and I wanted to go with some games where you were in the game and that maybe you played well and, of course, some Vikings wins. But when I was thinking back on 2017, I was thinking about the early part of the season when it really swung, when there was this momentum of,

oh, this thing could be really something. And you can tell me if you kind of agree with the selection. I went with week five and six in Chicago and Green Bay. Chicago, we're kind of pairing these two old games together. Chicago is where Case comes off of the bench and leads a victory. And then Green Bay is where Aaron Rodgers gets hurt. And maybe you could tell me kind of the vibe because coming off the 2016 2016 season it was a real

roller coaster 5-0 and then missing the playoffs and then the two and two star Bradford getting hurt early I don't remember feeling at all like this team is going to the NFC championship what was the sense kind of going into those games inside the locker room yeah you know the two and two thing for us was we were at this kind of breaking point of like well what's this what's this actually gonna be you know for me it was like is this gonna be another debauchery where everything just goes to hell or like are we actually be able to turn it and a lot of that was built on like can case take us to where we need to go right because we got to see sam day in and day out i mean the dude's rehab was literally like stand up off the toilet sit back down on the toilet like can you do it or can you not

you know and that was just kind of where he was at and so you know you go into all the camp and everything and then case kind of a guy that everyone on the team loved you know everyone knew and he knew his role he wasn't trying to be like oh I'm better than Sam Bradford I'm just gonna come in here like he knew okay I'm here to be the back of quarterback support role but then when he walked in there and started doing some swagger and like we kind of morphed our offense too, right? Like he brought a bit of a mobility factor, right? We knew Sam like he could run, but at the same time,

like it was going to be like, okay, get down as soon as you can. You know, but Case actually brought this kind of mobility factor. And so we kind of started morphing our offense like, okay, we can have some quarterback run, like a little bit more to it, but really we're just going to kind of figure this out as we go. And then once we start building momentum, because we knew our defense was going to be fine, like that was never a question, right?

We're like, well, we know if we score like 17, we're probably going to have a chance to win just about every game, you know, but then we really started clicking on everything, you know, and then everything started going right. You know, and that for us, we needed a few things to just start going right for us because so many of us were on that team were returning from 2016 that we knew how many things went wrong in 2016. Right. And as soon as things started clicking and going right, that's when we as a team really felt like,

okay, we have kind of lightning in a bottle here, right? Guys are on last contracts, guys are young, kind of a good blend of everything. Like we have to make the most out of this. And as a team, that was kind of what we looked at and how we felt about the season was like this group's not going to be together again. Right. It's not like we need to take it and make the most of we can. And that really kind of started there that week's five, six, seven, and then just continue to build yeah that's funny because in going into 17 was also the last year of some rookie contracts for some really important players and we were talking about how like well they're not going to be able to keep all of these guys and they ultimately did because rob brzezinski abused that salary cap to make sure that they could get everybody in and then of course fit k Cousins as well

but we had a sense at the time early on like oh they'll probably extend Bradford that's going to be very expensive and then they'll have to let go I did Daniel Hunter or something and obviously they ended up working all around that at the cost of later on but just going back to the beginning of the season Sam Bradford ignites the New Orleans Saints in a game that Vikings fans still talk about because it was also reflective of how he looked in that training camp. And so like, OK, this thing might be special with him, with these receivers and Diggs and Thielen had emerged in 2016. It was kind of one of the most important things that happened. So he comes up, lights it up. Delvin Cook has an incredible debut game in week one. And then he goes down. Keenum's first two out of his three games were really not good.

The game against Pittsburgh was a struggle. There was an attempted Ryan Quigley pass in Pittsburgh. And then against Tampa Bay, he goes absolutely ballistic. He's throwing just balloons to Stephon Diggs, but Tampa Bay was horrible. And then there's the loss against Detroit. So two out of the first three games are not so good. And then Bradford is coming back. Now, this was a weird situation, though, with Bradford, like you mentioned,

because it was really mysterious. Is he going to come back at all? When's he going to come back? Mike Zimmer is making fun of us and saying he doesn't have a crystal ball did you guys think that he could start that game because from the very outset of seeing the way he was reacting it was like uh he shouldn't really be playing right now and they got very upset with all of us for writing and reporting that sam never should have played but i guess i wonder what the sense was about his health going into that game from you guys you know we were relying on sam to tell us if he could do it or not right and that's kind

of how you always have to be you never want to walk up to a guy the only the only time you walk up to a guy and be like hey you shouldn't play is with a concussion. That's the one time as a player you feel like you can step across that bound and be like, dude, give me your helmet. Go find some dark room to sit in for a while. Your brain is your brain. But at one point in time, the NFL can't have the track mentality of I have to feel 100% if I can go out there. And so every player is different on a pain threshold. Every player is different on what they feel. Hey, I can do this.

I can't do this, you know. And through the week, we were like, okay, maybe Sam can get to the week. He'll be able to take a toward all shot. He'll feel all right. He'll be able to get to go, you know. And he was very limited through the week, obviously. And, you know, practice is you can't replicate game speed in practice, you know. And so in practice, he looked okay.

He looked like he was moving around doing things, you know, but he also never got hit, you can't replicate game speed in practice, you know? And so in practice, he looked okay. He looked like he was moving around doing things, you know, but he also never got hit, you know? And we knew going into that game that they were going to pressure him, right? Like, hey, let's try and get Sam to move off his spot. Let's try and see if we can get him to go one way or the other and maybe hit him a few times, see if that knee can really work. And if I recall early in the game, he got smoked, right? And so like that that once we saw him

starting to kind of limp around and not be able to move and like i remember a few times like the guy got close to him he just kind of fell down right and it was like that for us at that point we were like okay sam can't sam can't do this right now and he said he was even like i i'm hurting the team right but really it you leave that up to the player you leave that up to the player the training staff the coaching staff to have a discussion and it also comes down to you have to kind of think is Sam Bradford at 85 percent better than Case Keenum at 100 percent and you know there's a there's something that goes back and forth with that because there still was the idea of like well Sam still could be the Sam from week one and if he's even at 90 percent of Sam of week

one that's still pretty damn good, right? And so I think that was more the feeling, but it really wasn't until about, I think, the second quarter or halftime when we were like, hey, Sam, it's probably time, and he was the first one that really came over to the side and was like, hey, I'm not helping the team. So that was kind of how that whole discussion went there, and then it was more scramble mode of like,

well, we just got to find a way to get in here and win this game with whatever pieces we do have. Right, yeah, so he takes a safety early in the game and there was a sack early early on where he does go down and doesn't even get touched just like i i can't do this and there's no way to play in the nfl if that's where you're at and he stayed in for a couple more drives after that that that was more of the criticism. It wasn't, I think, anyone on the outside trying to say, oh, you shouldn't have played him because we don't know about the week leading up to it. We don't know how he felt.

We don't know what the training staff said to him or his personal doctor or whatever. But as soon as he couldn't even take a hit in the pocket, that makes it pretty much impossible. Even as quick as his release was, as good as he was at getting take a hit in the pocket that makes it pretty much impossible even as quick as his release was as good as he was getting the ball on a check down to uh kyle rudolph or something um it's it's it became apparent that this was a dangerous situation for his future and yet they still went out a couple more drives now this is what you talk about with that team in particular where anything that happened offensively that wasn't good a lot of times it didn't matter because the defense is so good in that game so case doesn't come in until i believe is it the

last drive of the first half or the first yeah the last drive i think it was a two minute drive two minute drive at the end of the half yes yes and then. And then it comes down, it gets a Kai Forbath field goal and kind of goes from there. But when he comes in the game, now there's nothing. The funny thing about watching this game back is there's nothing spectacular that Case Keenum does in this game, but it's a screen pass to Jarek McKinnon. It's short throws to Kyle Rudolph, but his ability, we always think of him as scrambling around like against the Rams or just heaving it up like that. This was actually the game Mike Zimmer wanted from him.

It seemed like him coming off the bench made him play in a sort of conservative fashion that really worked for the moment in Chicago. Yeah, you know, I'll say this as a guy that came off the bench a lot. When you come off the bench, you kind of just black out. Like you don't really like you didn't have the full week to prep and dive deep in and you know, you're not the starter, you know, you're preparing like you are, but there's not that pressure to prepare like you're a starter. And so when you just kind of come in off the bench, you're just playing ball. Like some of my best games, my best graded out games and like my personal best games, I felt like were games that I came in off the bench and just rolled and just played you know and so i think case coming in off the bench you know you don't come in and you're not super comfortable like timing wise with deep long developing routes or those type of things and also you know you kind of shift the play caller will then shift to okay i know these are the things that case is comfortable with right let's put him in winning situations. Let's try and sustain drives.

And then maybe, like you said, we can have a swing pass there, a screen pass that can go for 20 and flip the field, and then we'll punt. You're obviously always going to score, but I think Case came in and just understood, hey, the play caller is going to put me in good situations. I just need to manage the game here. No turnovers.

Try and not take sacks. But the most important thing is take care of the football. i thought he did a really nice job of that and that kind of was the blueprint that we used for at least that first kind of quarter that case was starting right things started to open up a little bit more after that but a lot of it was like hey just be a great game manager be a great game manager don't turn the ball over make plays on third down when we need you to either using your legs or your arms. And then let's let our defense do their thing. We should mention that it was 3-2 at halftime,

which is tremendous. Because this was also... Was it Monday night? Was it Monday night? Yeah, it was on television. It was Monday night football. In front of the nation. And Mitch Trubisky's first start as well and he looked you know pretty

shaky early on there he was he was trying to do exactly what you were talking about getting rid of the ball quickly and things like that running a little bit but it was clear that the guy was very overwhelmed by the defense so keenum comes out to start the second half leads a touchdown drive to kyle rudolph to go up 10 to 2 in this game and then uh do you remember by the way you played 10 snaps do you remember like how that happened yeah i'm pretty sure nick easton snapped his ankle um or rolled his ankle or had some type of ankle injury like as they were as we were going in to score to go up and so i had to run in there left guard right at the end of the game,

super cold, no warm-up. All I had done is field goal the entire game. And, again, just kind of went out there. I was like, okay, there's Pernell McPhee, there's Mitch Unrein. Like, all right, time to – I remember – and I remember my first play, actually, we ran a naked, and it was a play action, and we all sprinted out to the left. And I ended up going out there and getting a kill shot on Pernell McPhee

and dropping him. That kind of got me into my rhythm, got me into my groove, and then running out there. And then I think the last play was a field goal walk-off, a walk-off field goal winner. So I remember that very vividly coming in. It was crunch time, like no time to mess up, no time. I mean, you had to go in there and perform,

and that was kind of my role that year, which I tried to revel in the best I could. Yeah, no, that's right. I just couldn't figure out as I was looking back at the game, like, where did you come in? Like, what happened there? And Easton had a huge block in that game on a Jarek McKinnon run. And I think that's another key part to talk about with that team. And it's something that we really talk about now kind of a lot with there's a running back rotation again

for the first time since you know delvin was drafted but delvin was hurt the previous week which also i mean this is why this chicago game is so important to win and to get this performance by jerek mckinnon and latavius murray because jerek was phenomenal in this game had a huge 58 yard touchdown run finishes with 95 yards the running game is overall very effective and the screen game is very effective but when delvin went down with the torn acl i mean i remember mike zimmer almost feeling like i don't know how we're gonna win you know with bradford hurt and delvin cook hurt and he was pretty devastated as he should have been the way that delvin looked in the first couple of weeks I thought this was a huge game for saying like wait a minute guys these other two running

backs are pretty good yeah I mean and I think that we always knew Jarek was good right and Latavius we knew was going to become as our big back like rather Delvin was healthy or not you know so it was really just filling that role of the running back by committee type thing and I mean we knew Jarek was great on third downs because his pass protection was excellent, still is. It's why he never comes off the field for the Chiefs. But that was really kind of his coming out party of showing I can still run. I'm still in every down, first and second down back. I can run between the tackles.

I can pitch it and get outside. I can do everything. And that really was a springboard for us because we were feeling the same way right we knew Jarek was good but we knew Dalvin was great right and so we were like okay like is there gonna be a big drop off but I mean Jarek just got better each and every single week that year and then when you got inside it was short yardage like you knew you had just the horse Latavius behind you that was just gonna take it and fall forward for two or three you know and so that also gave I think think, our play caller,

Shermer, a lot of confidence and like, okay, we need to continue to rely on the run game. We need to stay with it, stay with it, and we'll eventually start to pop things, which is what also took a lot of pressure off of Case for a few of the games. There's still a lot of games we had to go out there and throw it. I mean, our run game wasn't stellar that year by any means,

but it was effective. And that was Tony Sperano's big thing, which efficient runs right four yard runs four yard runs four yard runs and then we'll pop it 12 to 20 you know and so that was the big thing with those guys is we knew we kind of lost the home run hit of Dalvin you know we knew Jerick had speed but not quite that like second gear burst that Dalvin had you know but we just knew with those two guys we had to just stay efficient just keep the chains moving, and then just allowing us to just put first downs together. Yeah, and the screen game was such a big part of that.

I think that there's – it's not a very exciting take to talk about the screen game, right? It's whatever. But, man, when you have one, other teams must hate it because they're like, all right, we've got digs and feeling we're going to cover everybody or we're going to double team jefferson then you just hit them with like a little little screen pass the vikings didn't have that tool in their bag last year and i think that it really hurt them but with mckinnon specifically there was also a game later i think on thanksgiving

where it was essentially closed out because there was a great screen pass to Jarek McKinnon. Let me circle back to where were you when Pat O'Donnell threw a 38-yard touchdown? The punter in this game, this is where Chicago was at as a team. They had just drafted Trubisky. John Fox knows his time there is over. He dials up the punter pass, and it ends up getting you guys that has to be the screamiest that uh special teams coaches ever are right oh mike prefer went off you know and he was honestly the most like crazy coach on staff like and that's saying something like prefer he was a

navy helicopter pilot like he and he was the nicest guy you'd ever meet until he wasn't you know and so I mean I can remember Prefer throwing things on the sideline like wanting to lose his mind and I think I can't remember that was the game or there was another game where Anthony Barr said something to him and I honestly thought Prefer was gonna snap his neck you know like Prefer just got so fiery but oh man he came off on the sideline just irate and then of course he has to hear it from Zim right so then Zim's letting him have it and then he's letting everyone else around him have it you know that was yeah that was uh that was a top five special teams blow up moment by uh Mike Prefer. Folks I know you have heard me talk a ton about my Oakley sunglasses this summer but

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Yeah, I mean, and that was the only way Chicago was scoring in this game, more or less, because they do end up later on just to take you through it. So at that point, it was 10 to 2, which also like great baseball score. And it looked like there was an opportunity to kind of close out the game because trubisky was not going to come back so allowing the punt throw for a touchdown uh also not only was it a punt throw for a touchdown but it was in the perfect zone where they could obviously do a fake you know when you're when you're at that like 38 yard line 45 yard line it's always the well this is where they could do a fake. So that makes it even worse that that happened.

But that, and after that, just to get back into order of operations, that's when Jarek hit the 58 yard touchdown run to make it 17 to nine. The bears then come back in early in the fourth quarter to tie the game at 17. And it's kind of a battle from there at the end of the game. And at the end, Harrison Smith, and this is what I want to ask you about, gets an interception of Mitch Trubisky to set up the field goal. So basically nobody on offense has to do anything. You just got it all set up for you.

But Harrison Smith in that season, he's always been great. He's an all-pro level player. He, at the end of the day, may have a case for the hall of fame to me this was one of those moments where he in that season won games by himself and i i don't know what happened to him that season but it like went up a level i feel like playing off of everybody else and then his playmaking ability i think that was the absolute peak of harrison smith yeah you knowmaking ability. I think that was the absolute peak of Harrison Smith. Yeah, you know, I would agree. I think it helped because he had so many great role players around him.

You know, when you look at Harrison Smith now, he's the focal point, right? Like every week when we would have a scouting report on a defense, we would star certain guys, right? Like we can't let this guy wreck the game, right? The Aaron Donalds, the Vaughn Millers, right? And Harrison Smith for the Vikings right now isaron donalds the von millers right and harrison smith for the vikings right now is that star on the scouting report right like we have to know where 22 is but on that defense he was like the third star you had to worry about because he played

safety right the first two were like hey ever since ever since griffin and daniel hunter and then anthony bar eric kendricks like those four guys can wreck this game if we don't take care of them. It allowed Harry to play so free. He could play all over the field, and he could be the eraser if one of those two guys took a shot and missed, but he'd be there to pick it up. It also allowed him to play coverage. It allowed him to not have to blitz all the time

because we were getting pressure with four. We weren't having to send exotics. It allowed him to sit back there, play center center field use his speed and his range and his ball skills to find the ball make interceptions make big hits and he just got he played so free that year because he kind of got to do whatever he wanted right he played within the system but he was one of those players that Zimmer was like yeah this is the system but like you're a great ball player go make plays right and I think that's what made him so great that year and you know you see as more role players and more big stars have left this defense for minnesota he can't play as free he can't he has to be the eraser all the time like he has to

be the make it up guy all the time and that's just hard to have the stats the the things that he can do so well early in the 2016 17 18 seasons you, just because he's asked to do so much now. Ed Donatell, take a note, my man. Harrison Smith can do a lot of different stuff. But yeah, I mean, I also think when it came to that play, that game there, and I'm wondering how you guys came out of that game feeling because the previous season, you'd gone into soldier field loss. That's the Jordan Howard game.

That's the Zim's eye goes pop game and Norv quits game. It was a house of horrors. And I remember them telling me this because the 2016 game was the first time I'd gone to soldier field to cover a game. And I remember the other reporters being like, bad stuff happens there, man. I'm like, I don't know, that Philly loss, who cares? It'll be fine.

This team stinks. And then it became a disaster. And it was almost a disaster again. I mean, you lose this game and go to two and three, and Sam's knee is messed up again. It's like our pet's heads are falling off type of situation i think there would have been panic at that point had you lost that game i would agree you know i think a lot of it would revert it back to like oh boy here we go again 2016 versus the ability to like hey we fought through some really crazy stuff that happened

right i mean but not often does a team score on special teams that you don't win the game. Like that's a huge percentage piece of, you know, I'm sure you could find out what does that stat mean for if you get a special team score, like your odds of winning actually go way up. You know, and so like to have that, to have a switch quarterback change in the middle, you know, all that stuff going going on, it just gave us confidence that we can overcome adversity. And a team that can feel like no matter the situation, no matter what we get put in, we can find a way to win, that's a powerful thing. And you see teams every single year that start slow and then in the middle of each season they kind of figure it out

and they almost feel like, hey, we only are going to be able to beat ourselves no one can beat us and i think we kind of came out of that game a little bit with that mantra of like hey if we don't beat ourselves we're good enough to beat anyone and i think that was the feeling as we left soldier field was like man that was ugly it wasn't good but we found a way to win and that's all that matters at the end of the day the w's and the l's are all that matters and that's the kind of the meant the mantra and the mindset that we approach the rest of that year with.

It is so crazy in football, how that works, right? I mean, baseball, hockey, basketball, they play so many games that you can try to pinpoint a moment. You can try to pinpoint a field goal and interception, whatever, or whatever the version is a three-pointer, a game-winning shot. But the next night, you might just have it all disappear. You might hit a game-winning shot, and everyone's like, yeah, we're back. And then the next night, you just lose because it's basketball.

With football, though, you can really go back and sift through and say, this was a game that really acted as a slingshot. And then the next week, which we will get into now as well because you played the next week against the green bay where it became clear that you were winning the division more likely than not detroit though looked very good early in that season and faded toward the end um but it wasn't going to be green bay i want to know where you were standing did you see when Anthony Barr hit Aaron Rodgers uh I mean what what was your uh you know memory of that yeah honestly I didn't see it because we were on the sideline uh no sitting down as an alignment going over but you heard the collective roar of U.S.

Bank to where like that's a roar of a turnover or that's the roar of like a big hit or something where like everyone kind of stops even spirano you kind of stop and everyone does this one where they look up at the big board like what just happened right or like grab your helmet like do i need to run out on the field or whatever it was and then you looked up and you're watching the replay and then you're like oh oh he's not getting up right and that that in itself and i'm not advocating for players getting hurt but there is something about when you watch the star quarterback of the opposing team go down, there's a little bit of a fire that ignites in everyone on that team like, hey, they're in a corner.

They're in a corner. They're either going to come out swinging, or we can go put our foot on this and just end this right now. And that was kind of the thought process of like, hey, their all-world quarterback is out. He's not coming back. The way he was holding his arm, walking off, you're like, that is not something that is like, hey, go throw a few times on the sideline and you'll be back to go.

So we knew like, okay, they're wounded animals right now. Let's go out there and just put our foot down and just try and roll over this and make a statement. And then again, just keep building momentum, building confidence. And I really do remember watching watching walk off the field we all kind of looked at each other like this is good this is good for us bad for him but very good for us yeah it's good for you because i mean he's still at that point in his career where well i guess he's he still is i'm not he still is yeah i'm not counting him out by any means but uh at that point that green bay team was still pretty good they faded a little bit in 18 and then they had to you know

fire mccarthy reset everything and so forth but uh in 17 they were still very much viewed as the favorite to win the division and the minute he goes down all of a sudden they're not. That play in particular became this kind of thing. I mean, not just the internet. There's always going to be people on the internet freaking out about different stuff. But Rodgers went on Letterman or Leno or some national TV show and said, Anthony Barr was a dirty hit. He didn't have to do it. This also sparked the can't land on a dude with your weight,

which is almost impossible to do. I am amazed. I'm astounded. I was jogging the other day, and I fell down, and I just tripped. And I kind of like did a little bit of enough of a barrel roll to not really harm myself. And I thought at, at lightning speed, defensive ends and outside linebackers are supposed to tackle someone and

then be like, Nope, I'm rolling off at the last end. Like they're in the matrix or something. But at the time it technically was not a dirty play according to the rules. But how much, I guess,

were you guys aware of what a thing it was becoming for him because he was getting all sorts of attacks constantly from packers fans in part because rogers was stoked and fired oh we used to sit around his locker and he'd read the the threats he was getting from packers fans we thought it was hilarious right like people were so upset with him like they i mean you would have thought that anthony bar like went head off and like held it up in the center it was like like roman days right like it no it was just a hit right it was just a hit and i think that everyone in the nfl also agreed you know i i think that no one in the nfl viewed anthony bar as a dirty player because of that hit right like no one else

came out and defended rogers that i can remember that was in the NFL. I was like, oh, yeah, shouldn't have done it. Completely dirty hit. Right. Like and so for us, it was like, OK, let the let the people talk, let them do what they want. Like it doesn't affect us because we know it wasn't dirty. You didn't even get fined for it. You know, so for us, we used to we kind of use it as a joke and we kind of would look at it and be like, oh, look at this guy. Like, oh, and be like, oh, got another DM.m right like we'd all huddle around and read the dm but like for us it never got viewed as that way and it was just kind of outside noise yeah okay well that's good i did wonder because look it doesn't feel good for anybody to get abused like that the way that anthony barr was and he definitely let his

whole body weight fall on him but there was no rule to not let your whole body weight fall on him, but there was no rule to not let your whole body weight fall on him. Right. And you know what? You see that play about 50 times a week or you used to, and the guy usually doesn't break his collarbone, but because it was Rogers and because it was kind of a big game, divisional game, Vikings and Packers, that's where it became a thing. I think that that rule has its heart in the right place

to try to keep quarterbacks healthy. Football's not great when quarterbacks are hurt all the time, as Brett Hundley would soon prove in this game that it's not good. But here's one thing. So you played this entire game, but I don't know how much you remember this. There was not an instant like Rodgers is hurt, we win. This was actually a grind really early in that game because the Packers had a very good defense, and it kind of did turn into a fight. And this sort of speaks to the, like, Case Keenum still

throwing a lot of short passes, kind of playing conservative. And it took a while to get that momentum going in this game. Yeah, you know, I can remember we really wanted to establish the run. I mean, obviously, when you're playing against Aaron Rodgers, the whole game plan is keep the ball out of his hands. Like he can't score and he can't carve you up if he is on the sideline. So we went into that game plan with really relying on the run, really being like, hey, control the clock, control first downs.

If we have to punt, let's make sure we make Aaron go 90 instead of having to make him go 50 or 60. So that whole game plan was predicated on Jarek McKinnon Latavius Murray you know but that's also for us the short passing game was just more of an extension of the run game right like hey if they want to load the box because they know this here that's why I hate Kyle Rudolph where are you turn around at eight yards and just catch this ball you know that was a big piece of it and then also I think we had a few short passes in that game like slants to digs and Thielen that ended up going for 18 20 you know and so that was still also I think at that point that was Case's first full week um you know maybe second I think Case had the full week before Pittsburgh too but you

know Case is like really full week of practice of being the starter, like being the guy, right? So him and Shermer and, you know, all of us are starting to try and figure out, okay, what is our offense going to look like now, right? Like what are we – because with Bradford, it was like we could huck it all over the yard. Like he can put the ball anywhere he wants. He can put it – I mean, if it's five inches outside, he's going to put it five inches outside, you know. And Case had a good arm and he had, he had good accuracy,

but not the deep shot accuracy like Sam had, you know, so that whole week was us just kind of morphing and finding, okay, what do we want to be? And it really was, Hey, let's establish a run. Let's do some short passing concepts and let case create with his legs. This was a game too, where, uh, yeah, eventually Jarek McKinnon once again is a part of a huge part of this catches a 27 yard touchdown on a short pass and uh latavius murray is an interesting one as well

to talk about here because he had not yet got going and i when i think about winning teams i always kind of come back to this one and sometimes yeah you got my homes or whatever and you know that everybody's going to look better when you got my home yes but when i think about how many people it takes like how many good players it takes like here's jerek who's the number two running back at the time and he's got to step up and win a game for you in chicago and then play a huge role winning this game against green bay because they had a good enough defense that they could have just shut out case and won this game with almost no offense. They got enough.

Hundley certainly helped with three interceptions, but they got enough early in that game where this was not decided quickly. It was kind of a slow burn where eventually you ran away from them. But then like Tavius Murray was struggling still in this game. He runs 15 times for 28 yards. And then later in the season, I think it's the Baltimore game where he really breaks out because he had had that offseason injury that slowed him down from

the outset and he finally gets going so it kind of had to be somebody different all the time when you're in a situation like this and I kind of forgotten that Latavius got off to such a slow start that we were at his locker and like what like, what's going on with you, man? You're averaging like two yards a carrot. Yeah, I mean, we all knew that he was, you know, we were like, okay, we've seen this guy do it in Oakland time and time and time again. He's got the power to take it. He's got the speed to go, you know, and Tony was with him in Oakland,

Sprano, you know, so Tony was a big Latavius fan, you know. And so Tony was really the guy that drove the, like, let's just keep him going, keep him with it. Like, he's going to figure it out. He's going to figure it out, you know. And so that was a big reason why we just kind of stuck with him because we knew we were going to need him down the stretch. You know, when you lose Dalvin, you know,

your running back room already gets smaller, especially when you lose him so early in the year. Running backs don't stay healthy all year. It's just not a thing. They take such a beating that you have to have multi-running backs that can come in and not have a big drop-off. With the success of Jarek McKinnon, we knew we were going to need another running back at one point in the year

that was going to be able to come in and shoulder the load you know and so I think for him he knew he was getting frustrated like it was no secret he was frustrated too but we just trusted him we just stuck with him we're like you're going to get it you're going to figure it out and eventually he did and he was a big reason why we had the run we did towards the end of the year yeah for sure and I always respected the fact that he was at his locker every week talking about that through some of the tougher times, because a lot of times what you see with players is if it's getting a little bit hard, then they're nowhere to be found. And then they have a good game. And then, oh, all of a sudden, anybody want to talk to me? I will never forget in the 2016 season, Laquan Treadwell holding a I think it was about a 12 to 14 minute and you know how you've

been a part of those before they usually last like three four minutes it's like there's only so many questions to ask but uh he it was like a 10 minute scrum with him after he caught his first pass uh and that was the only pass he caught all seasons but he was there and he was ready to talk about that was such a dumpster fire that was such a dumpster fire dude i'll never forget when he came he's like i don't play special teams i'm a first rounder that was my first moment i was like oh this is not gonna work this this just this just isn't this just isn't gonna work out like we knew from that quote right there it's like okay i see how this is gonna be and that is how it was yep that's how it went yeah that's how it was and that's an underrated thing and latavius murray

ties into him because on the spectrum of gets it like latavius murray is the elite elite elite of gets it like professional for you know he's still in the league isn't he yes yes so he's still doing it yeah i think buffalo signed yeah i mean he's and that's the reason why like people aren't signing latavius murray to be their feature back they're bringing him in because he gets it he's a true pro and he can mentor a room and then when you really need him he can step in you know guys like that joe berger is a great example of a guy like that right every team needs guys like that especially when you have a young room right when you have a young room having vets that can be a second coach in the room and also be productive on the field still

are worth their weight in gold yeah no for sure and i i mean you always have to respect especially a running back who can hang around for this many years. Because if you don't have all those things that you mentioned, and Latavius is a great pass blocker, all those things. And also, I don't know if you remember that. No, you were probably playing. You don't remember this. He made the most aware play I've ever seen, where Kirk Cousins panicked in 2018 in Seattle and turned around and threw it overhand backwards to him,

and he caught it and ran for two yards. I would have never in a million years expected the quarterback to ever turn around and throw it directly back to me, but Latavius snatched it. It was like, how would he even expect that? But that's a totally different point. Sometime I'll show you that play. It's incredible.

Love it. But back to our game at hand in 2017. This was a serious grind, though, because McKinnon scores again, but the Packers hold it close in the first half and it's three kai forbath field goals that get to the end of the game so not finishing out scores and i remember being in the locker room after this game because again harrison smith was incredibly dominant in this game uh brett hundley it was a serious struggle the guy had basically never played because he was behind Aaron Rodgers and then has to come in and play the Vikings defense at U.S. Bank Stadium with the crowd going insane because it's Vikings Packers. So he didn't have

much of a chance. But I remember being in the locker room after this game and thinking, I don't know if I buy this team because of what we saw in the second half. It wasn't, the offense was not really cooking it was just kind of grinding out enough can you really win if it's just grinding out enough but they're going to win the division because the Packers are now out like as of today they are out and I also thought too that this was a turning point for Mike Zimmer keeping his job because it's hard to say it's like hard to remember this now because they went to the MC championship, but at early start of the season,

it's a little Rocky coming off 2016. We're going, if this thing goes sideways, if they lose some bad games here, Zimmer could be on the hot seat pretty fast. And as soon as Rogers went down, it was like, this division might be just theirs.

I don't know if you guys would have had any sense of how long rogers was going to be out but when you beat green bay at home to go to four and two there had to be a sense that this like you should be in line even with case uh to win a lot of games yeah i mean four and two two and oh in the division at that point i believe right like or maybe were we three and oh two two and one. Yeah, we had lost to Detroit, right? So we were two and one in the division and you look at it like, okay, we've got our first round of division games behind us. We went two and one, right? Like Rogers is going to be hurt. Like we played really poorly against the bears and still found a way to win. Like, that's not a great football team. Like we knew we were going to be have to battle with

Detroit, but we, for sure at that point, again point again we were like we found another way to win right it wasn't ugly it wasn't pretty by any means our defense carried us right I'm looking at from an offensive perspective like if we can just keep getting better we're gonna win a lot of football games and we were still getting better right and like I said we were still learning what case was as a quarterback still learning the best run concepts that Jarek and latavius could tag team back and forth right like we were still learning we we left that game with uh you know after chicago like i said we felt like okay we can win these games but then when you do it again right and this is the great i use this quote all the time talking to guys like you know mike zimmer had a great quote to talk about like how to win championships he's like first you learn how

to practice then you learn how to win then you learn how to handle winning then you learn how to become a champion you know i think that game in chicago was us learning how to practice. Then you learn how to win. Then you learn how to handle winning. Then you learn how to become a champion. You know, I think that game in Chicago was us learning how to handle winning. We learned how to handle how to win a tough game and then did it again. Right? So it wasn't like a flaw. It wasn't a fluke. Like we put a stamp on it.

Like we can do this week in and week out. And then from there on, it was just kind of a run of we're just going to keep learning how to win, learning how to practice, and just being better and better and better ended up becoming NFC North champions. And case became way better than any of us would have dreamed. I mean, right. Like his just come from the net million dollars to Denver better. Yeah. Really in reality, that's what that year did for him. It was, it was like nothing I've ever seen. I mean,

you do see occasionally journeymen pop up and play really well, but he was just every single throw that fluttered through the air landed in the hands of Theo Leonard Diggs, including the Minneapolis Miracle. And so I guess when I think of these two games back-to-back, I think of these kind of set the track for how this team was likely to win. And then what happened with Case would have been completely unforeseen. Just in the big picture of 2017, I mean, we talk about it a lot because it's one of the

greatest seasons in Vikings history and the NFC Championship appearance. I guess, what is it that kind of sticks with you about that season? I mean, there's probably a hundred things because you were a big part of that team. You got to play a lot that year and, um, you know, it accomplished so much, but is there something from that season that you've sort of taken with you into the rest of your career, into your post-career career, like all those things? It was the guys, it was the team. You know, I had been a part of a lot of teams, college, NFL, and, like, I went on to be part of the Bills and the Cardinals,

the Panthers, you know, post that. There was never a locker room that was as close as that 2017 team was. You know, I think there was a combination of things of because we had so much turnover from 2016, not turnover, so much retention from 2016, we had been through so much in 16 together as a group you know and then to come into 17 and have those battles and those adversities hit early on you know it really galvanized us as a team you know and i was never part of another team that was that close that those guys loved each other the way we had and

i know it's kind of a cheesy thing to say but like we played for each other and when you play for each other and it's a group of guys that want to just go out there and fight and practice hard and push each other and become better and hold each other accountable like that's how the great teams become great and that team that year had all the right pieces from the starters down to the role players that were all bought in and that is I've never been – I mean, it wasn't even like that in college. You know, like that team was just that special, and it's why we had the success when we didn't have as much talent as offense as some of the teams that made the playoff runs. We didn't have that, but we had the togetherness. We had the complementary football of when one group was lacking,

the other one picked the other one up. And there was never a ton of animosity between offense, defense, defense, special teams. Like there wasn't a ton of finger pointing going on because we all had so much respect and love for each other as teammates, you know? So that, that for me, I tell people all the time, like that team was just special. It was just different inside those walls compared to what people saw on the outside. And I think that was really the main driver of the success that we had that year yeah i totally agree and i think when we were talking about how latavius murray gets it um there were a lot of guys who did i mean almost the entire thing and i mean even you have to give treadwell that he came along in that season and uh maybe okay well

he at least was quelled as far as the impact. I mean, a hockey scout told me you can have like one jackass in the room if you have a lot of good leadership because that guy will just shut up. So maybe there was a little bit of that. But I don't mean to give him any credit for 2017. But he did have three catches against the Packers. I just mean that you could go guy to guy and tell the story of their professionalism you know terence newman is a really good example of

this um as a great leader who would have film sessions with the corners and stuff like that and some of the younger players came along in their professionalism xavier rhodes you know that year uh and you saw trey wayans and a lot of players like that. So, yeah, the bond of that team was something really special. I saw some of it last year, but I think that the 17 team knew it was really good. I think last year's team knew all the problems that existed were eventually going to get them. So I guess that is kind of the difference. Well, this was really fun, man.

Let me just ask you one quick question before we wrap on this. How are you feeling about this team? It's been a whole offseason. You've been very busy. You're running around recruiting offensive linemen and stuff, things like that, doing agent stuff. But they made a lot of moves. A lot of guys you know are no longer on the team.

So how are you feeling about the direction? I have no idea. I really don't. You know, I look at this team and see so many new names, but then same some old names that we all know. Oh, way too well. You know, and so for me, I don't necessarily know if we fixed a lot of the issues, but I do think that we're going to try. You know, I think that we looked at some of the issues we had on defense. We looked at some of the holes that we had and said, okay, we're going to try something new. Now, we don't know if that's going to work until week one,

but at least I think that the staff was able to identify problems and not just be like, oh, guys will just get better. I think they were like, we need to fix certain pieces. We'll go get certain pieces. We'll put it in there. We'll make it happen. And with this offensive line being the two starting tackles hopefully coming back being studs you know you're getting yourself a chance to win with kirk cousins

back there and you have the best receiver in football like so offensively i'm not terribly concerned that this is going to go one way or the other you know dalvin was good last year i don't think he was a complete difference maker there were certain times in the year he was you know but i think alexander madison's going to step into that role. Well, it's just still for me, it's the pass rush and the ability to cover on the back end that are huge question marks. You know, we did some things to it, but they're just going to be things we're going to have to watch through camp and watch early part of this year. What did we do to address those problems? I'm not sure what this team's going to look like. Yeah, and that's the fun part, I think, because a lot of times we did. Right now, we could pretty much lay out what was going to happen, and I don't know what's going to happen now. Do you think they'll trade Daniil Hunter? I wouldn't if I was them, but I could see them needing to

for money purposes or whatever it may be on the business side of it. But, I mean, you'd lose Darius Smith. You'd lose the Neil Hunter. Like you better have something in the, something cooking behind the scenes of someone you have a ton of faith to be able to get to the quarterback in. Cause if you ship those two guys out and you don't have a bunch of sacks next year, there's only be one person that's getting looked at. And that's, that's the GM.

Yeah. I think that it all depends on your perspective on that because if they trade them away and you're sort of playing the money ball game like long-term perspective developing defensive end seeing or outside linebackers seeing if there's anything there and then if there isn't then you know you have to get it in the future but there's also the when you clear out this much talent and you have a drop off there's a lot of people are going to be like uh what you doing there um so i think it's kind of are you seeing the bigger picture with all the moves over a three-year type of window versus one and but

daniel hunter is not so old that we talk about well you know you got to get rid of him because he's old or something like that i mean he came in the league at 20 years old when they went on the rookie dinner like he couldn't buy the alcohol like someone else had to buy the alcohol and he had to pay them back because it was illegal for him to buy it so he's still very much a young man yeah it's amazing so anyway well jeremiah great to get together with you i hope you enjoy the rest of your summer and we will definitely do it again soon. We'll be back podcasting for sure. But you know, get some rays, man. I mean, you still look pretty pale. You look like you've been working too much. So you got to get some sun, get a vacation in there. Come on.

I've been locked in this dungeon, man. I'm going to try and get out. August will be the month I'll get out and try and swing the sticks a little bit, work on the golf game and hit the pool with the kids. Sounds good, man. Well, thanks again. This was really fun. And we'll talk again soon. Appreciate it guys.