Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Jeremiah Sirles breaks down Dalton Risner's game, and Sam Darnold's confidence

Episode Date: November 20, 2024

Matthew Coller and former Viking Jeremiah Sirles analyze the O-line play and how Sam Darnold made up for some shortcomings against the Titans. Plus what's next vs. the Bears Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

🎵 Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here, and it is time once again for Tuesday Morning Left Guard. Jeremiah Searle still reeling from two different things. A, having to watch Vikings and Titans, and B, the Nebraska Cornhuskers. They go out to USC. They've got a chance to start the turnaround. They've got a new play caller. Everything's going to be good.

Well, we can talk about that later if we want. How are you doing? You all right? I'm all right. I'm hanging in there. I was sitting in a deer stand all weekend, so that at least helped a little bit. Didn't watch the Husker game from in there. I couldn't scream super loud, so that was good. But but yeah super uh not fun to be a husker fan and yeah we are all

worse off for having to re-watch the vikings game because the tennessee titans are atrocious they're just not good it's not fun to watch bad football teams it truly isn't and i don't need a deep dive on a lot of things from you but i do need two and then i've got an interesting power rankings normally there's we just don't do the power ranking thing but i got one that might catch your eye we need to talk about the right guard and we need to talk about the quarterback and i don't think there's a lot else to discuss from vikings and titans which would you like first let's start with the o-line of like first? Let's start with the O-line, of course. You know, we got to start with the O-line.

Okay. So Kevin O'Connell had seen enough of Ed Ingram over what? 40 starts and finally said, you know what? We're playing to Vondre sweat and we're playing Jeffrey Simmons and I need my quarterback to survive this game. So let's throw in the pass blocker in Dalton Reisner what did you make of his performance you know obviously it's a very first it's a very tough first outing right you'd love to get your feet wet a little bit it's like no no Jeffrey Simmons sweat big monster earth

movers have fun and he did okay you know it wasn't, oh my gosh, I think he's the answer type of performance that you maybe thought it was going to be, but it was an upgrade because when he died, he died a slow death. And the biggest issue with Ed was when he died, it was quickly, right? It was right off the rip, immediate beats, quick inside, immediate pressure, Dalton's face, or zero movement in the run game, and he's disruptive. When Dalton gets beat, it at least the run game and he's disruptive when Dalton

gets beat it at least takes a second and a second and a half and as weird as that is to say that at times can be a win because with KOC's offense getting the ball out in rhythm Sam trying to get the ball out quicker that's going to help so it was an upgrade I don't think that he is the franchise right guard for us moving forward but you play with what you got at this point in the season, and he was definitely better than Ed Ingram has been. I think that so much of offensive line play is that in the NFL, where you have every given year three to five teams who have difference-making offensive lines,

and those teams just have a wonderful outing every Sunday, and their quarterbacks are happy. Jared Goff's sitting back there. Or how about I saw a screenshot from, I think it was Bill Barnwell that tweeted out, Jameer Gibbs running through a lane that I always joke about how I could never do anything in football or whatever. I'm like, maybe a yard, but maybe two for this lane

that they gave Jameer Gibbs. Philadelphia's offensive line is back at it again. I think Kansas City's could be a difference maker as well. But aside from that, most of it is, can you just give your quarterback enough time to execute the offense? And there were way too many times where the right guard was blowing up plays on his own,

not just the famous strip sack that he had of Kirk Cousins, but just details of things, like not working to the right guy, getting out on a screen and ignoring a safety and just running upfield and hitting no one. Or the quick beats, as you mentioned, they're killers for a quarterback and there's nothing worse. And what's Sam Darnold's kind of Achilles heel under pressure is when he wants to run backwards and spin out of it after a quick beat up front, giving him time to step up in the pocket I thought was a really big deal.

I don't need him to be Steve Hutchinson. I just need him to survive out there, and I thought he was able to do that against really good competition. Yeah, I mean, Jeffrey Simmons, we were talking about before, is probably a top five, top seven defensive tackle in the NFL right now. And he lined up over Dalton a lot, right? No surprise. When defensive coordinators feel like they may have a mismatch up front

or a guy that hasn't played football in a really long time is going to go out there, there's going to be some rust. You put your good on good there. And for the most part, he hung in there. And I think that any time you bring, he brings a lot of energy till you see it on good there. And for the most part, he hung in there. And I think that anytime you bring, he brings a lot of energy to you see it on the film. Like he's a guy I can remember last year at the bowling pin knockover, and he gives the high kick and that type of thing.

And so I think that's going to be good for this offensive line to just have a little bit of new energy, a little bit of new rhythm on the field, the guy that's a veteran. Right. And you can't say that the Vikings didn't give Ed every chance, right? And I think that's something that I can respect for the Vikings. You know, when you draft a player high, you got to give him a chance to succeed. And Ed had every opportunity. He had every time, even when people were screaming for his name to be benched last year for Dalton and

all those things, and they trade Ezra and they stick with him. They have stuck with him for a long time. He finally got the pull, pull you know and maybe this is something that'll give him a chance to regroup recenter and and go to another team and kind of see what he's going to be and go from there and revamp his career but you know he had every opportunity and sometimes the league is always looking to improve and sometimes you're just not good enough at times there just wasn't progress you just never know when someone's going to make progress or not. I know that every Sunday I get a bunch of tweets that are like, Garrett Bradbury sucks.

Get rid of him. Garrett Bradbury has made a ton of progress over his career from where he was early those first couple seasons. I think he's a solid NFL center who is sometimes going to get run over like probably 28 other centers. It's never going to be perfect when he plays guys who are bigger than him, but he's a good run blocker and he is a leader up there. And he again, survives mostly in the past. I think that's what he's learned to do being undersized over the last couple of years. We saw progress. You could point to it, but but with ingram year three halfway through no progress same types of grades same types of games where he gets a nine

pass blocking grade out of a hundred by pff and gives up six pressures i mean he was still in the top five in pressures allowed and was a bottom third run blocker by grade because the thing is that even though he was more physical and even though his potential is higher bottom third run blocker by grade because the thing is that even though he was more physical and even though his potential is higher as a run blocker he also makes catastrophic mistakes in the run blocking game as well and that's where though with Reisner it's a struggle and it's always going to be a struggle and Cam Robinson is going to be a struggle too and that's my other question is how do they run when they have two players on this line that are among the worst in run blocking

in the league at their positions? Yeah, that was something that was really apparent. And you can chalk it up to Tennessee's a good D-line, but you're going to play a lot of good D-lines going through. And if you want to make a playoff run, you're going to play great D-lines. That's just how it works. And our inability to be consistent in the run game

since Derrissaw's gone out gone out it's gonna be tough to overcome because there isn't a there isn't a quick fix you can't put a band-aid over a left side and a right side weak point right we knew hey ed ingram's kind of a weak point in the run game over here right now but we can just run behind blake brandle and and uh our guy derisaw over here and be okay right they'll double team at the point of account aaron jones will get a couple yards and then do aaron jones things too much penetration this past week where aaron jones and cam acres and those guys are having to make jump cuts in the backfield right never allowing to get full heads of steam and you know saw a couple things like, man, the running backs aren't running very hard. And it's not about running hard.

It's about if you can't get through the line of scrimmage without being touched, you don't have a full head of steam. And so when a linebacker hits you, you're going down. You're not falling forward for five. You're falling down straight down for two and a half. And that was kind of what I saw in this game was they never were able to get their rhythm going from right or left when they were trying to run kind of in between the tackles. This is going to have to be more of a perimeter run game.

It's going to have to be a little bit more of, hey, let's get everyone moving laterally with some of the outside zone and hope that we can get everything moving, put our foot in the ground and come back right on a cutback. Or, hey, let's get some pitching out here. Get Brian O'Neill leading out here. CJ ham leading outside, get some pressure and put that pressure more on our receivers and Hawkinson and Josh Oliver to do some more perimeter blocking. I think that's where we're going to find some hay in the run game coming down the stretch. And Hawkinson, uh, is not the best run blocker in the world. He is more in a lot of ways of a slot receiver who can add some physicality.

And Josh Oliver comes out of the game a little banged up with a sprained ankle. There's not a lot going in their favor right now for the running game. And I don't know what the answer is. I'd still like to see a lot more screens mixed in there if they can. Reisner is not maybe the most speedy guy to get out there and run those screens, but hey, Brian O'Neill, like you're going to have to run block a lot, I think, because he's really him and Bradbury,

the only guys that are way above average as far as their run blocking. Real quick on O'Neill, he has not allowed a QB pressure in three weeks. Can you explain to me, he has less than 10 in the entire season. There's only, I think five guys with less than 10 this year and it's the superstars, the Tristan Wirfs and those types of players. Can you explain to me what is happening with Brian O'Neill and how he is playing at this level? You talk about progress. You know, you thought Brian O'Neill was elite last year he took even more steps this year in being better and that's the that's when you talk about how to have a true pro

and a potential all pro at your level at one point is even when they're playing at what you feel like is the top of their game they find a way to unlock a new level they find a way to go back in and hone their technique even more get a little bit stronger. And what I've seen out of O'Neal is he is just playing technically flawless, right? He's getting out of his stance. He's staying square. He's in a great rhythm with his hands of trusting his strike, and he's making the defensive lineman frustrated, right? Early in the game, he's getting on these D linemen quick. He's using his length. And even at times, if he feels like he he's getting around him he has a great where he opens and he can kind of shot put him up around the quarterback he's just finding ways to use tools and finding new developments in his past

techniques that have just been super fun to watch to the point where I when I'm talking to college alignment about hey work on this in your set Brian O'Neill's the guy I tell them to go watch because he's not really the super freak athlete like the Trent Williams or the Derrissaws or the Tristan Wirfs that are just freak shows. He's big, he's tall, and he's athletic, but his technique is up there with guys like Lane Johnson and the other guys in the league that have just found ways to technically

always be in the right position and then allow their athleticism to come forward, where some of the other guys use their athleticism to get there and then the technique kind of is second hand he's the complete opposite man we talk about a technical pass protector i don't know if there's anyone better in the nfl right now i did a story with him a couple years ago where i asked him about what makes the difference between guys who get beat and give up sacks and guys who get beat and find a way to survive and the answer is kind of there isn't a lot of technique you can do as someone's getting by you you just have to do anything and everything and strain as hard as you can to get some sort of hand on that guy. And there was a play in the Titans game where he gets initially beat,

and yet the guy comes nowhere close because he's able to turn and just get enough of a hand on him. I think that he has a competitive nature to him and a toughness to him that makes the difference in those tiny moments. Because the crazy thing about playing tackle is if you give up one pressure a game, you go to the Hall of Fame. If you give up two, your average, if you give up three, you're on the bench. It's crazy like that. And that little moment of he's beat and yet he's going to fight all the way to the end of that and find a way.

That to me is the difference maker. I mean, I'm sure what you see is something different than me because of all the technical stuff. But when I look at it, I say every time he gets beat, the quarterback still doesn't get sacked and it's crazy how he's able to do that. But I think that has a lot to do with it. He's also a captain, his leadership. He's the one that breaks down the game or the team at the end of the KOC speeches and things like that. Like he's just emerged as this sort of classic veteran offensive lineman for them. Yeah. And, you know, a word that we use a lot in scouting, right.

When I'm talking to scouts or, and that is recoverability, right. And it's kind of a funky word, but it's so important for offensive linemen, because like you said, these dudes on the other end, these DNs, are freak shows. They're maybe the freakiest athletes on the field besides maybe a receiver. 260 to 285, running anywhere between a 4'4 and a 4'7, chiseled out of marble, can bend around a hoop, and you're just going, I'm kind of just fat and long. That's kind of why they drafted me here. And so his recoverability

of hey even when i like you said when i get beat i don't panic because that's what you see a lot of guys when they get beat there's some panic to it and their feet stop and they turn they stop their feet and they turn it open and that guy's around the corner his feet never stop moving right oh hey he's around me i know i need to just keep moving my feet turn and then i'll use my inside hand and push them up past right that type of stuff is just next level play that you're used to seeing guys like joe thomas and are used to seeing guys like david bakhtiari when he was in his prime trent williams penne sewell like the elites of the elites the recoverability is top notch and he is right there with those guys uh and Sam Darnold, lucky to have him.

Yes. So let's talk about Sam Darnold. This to me was a, when I watched back on tape, I was in a different place with the game than when I initially watched it, thinking that this was an excellent, excellent game from Sam Darnold and exactly what he needed to bounce back. And the fact that it was all on his shoulders in that game, he didn't have a run game that was supporting him there. He had some drops that he had to overcome where he made good throws.

He had a easy touchdown, not just dropped by Naylor, but also an easy touchdown to Addison, but he pulled up with a cramp. And the throw is perfect. And Addison, you see him kind of slow up. And otherwise he would have caught a touchdown there. The scrambles, the playmaking. I just thought everything we talked about last week with his confidence and saying, all right, this is going to be a real test

of whether his confidence can bounce back after a tough game. We really saw it. And his resilience this year throughout different moments where he could have melted down has really impressed me. Yeah, and it goes back to, we were talking about last week, the same old Darnold conversation. Can he block out the voices? Can he block out the noise? And whatever he did this week, he did that. And you talk about, and you want to talk about, oh, Jared Goff bounced back this week after throwing Sam Darnold's was just as good of a bounce back. I mean, he played, he obviously

didn't throw five interceptions last week, but he threw three. And then to come back this week and play lights out, great decision-making, took care of the football. His accuracy was on point. All those things are showing that, again, progression. He's getting better. And I think that speaks a lot to KOC and how he helped him put in positions.

And the thing that does scare me is now it is going to be more on his shoulders than ever before with the lack of the run game. Can he handle that? He's proving to me that he can, but can he handle it consistently is now the next question. Week in and week out, can he not ride the roller coaster like this? And can he just steadily progress or even just plateau a little bit? I don't need him to be by the end of the year people are like dude this dude's lamar jackson or this dude's josh allen look at what he can do all the time if he can even just plateau at where he's at right now and maintain this high level of play he's going to be just fine and the vikings are going to make a run so as we go down the stretch here there's going to be a lot of important games for

sam darnold and he's going to face off with some other good quarterbacks, maybe not the best defenses as we saw from Atlanta the other day against the Denver Broncos, but really, for the first time in his career, truly big games, truly with a franchise on his back as they fight for playoff position, and he might have to throw the ball 40 times a game. What is your confidence meter? Why don't you do a meter from the blue to the red?

What is your confidence in Sam Darnold that he can take them where they need to go? This is such a hard question because if you look at the sample size of the last, just call it six weeks, it's pinged back and forth all the time. Like it's been at times you're like, wow, look, this is red. This is great. Right. And then it's, man, this is blue. This is, this is really bad.

And so I have to probably put it somewhere right in the middle of the yellow. And the crazy piece is, is that I think he can flirt with the orange, right? He can flirt with the orange. I don't necessarily know if he's going to be able to stay in the red like he was last week. He was in the red last week. He was in his bag. He was feeling himself. He was great.

I don't think he's going to be able to sustain the red. I think he's going to live between the yellow and the orange. And if you can live between the yellow and the orange, you're talking about your top half quarterback in the NFL. You're going to win a lot of football games, right the whole the whole meter is going to hinge on one thing decision making that that is going to be because he has the arm talent he has the receivers it's all going to come down can he make consistent good decisions and take care of the football that's what's going to be really the the kind of the bounce back and forth for me on if he can do that. Ready to kick off some extra fun on Football Sundays, grab Catan and keep the action going off the field. While Minnesota's football teams are crushing it, you and your crew can build, trade, and outsmart each other in the ultimate game of strategy.

Whether it's during halftime or between big plays, Catan brings a whole new level of competition and excitement to your game day. Visit Catan shop.com and use the code coupon code purple to get a 10% discount off Catan for a limited time. Again, Catan shop.com coupon code purple to get a 10% discount on Catan for a limited time only. So reputation just plays so much into how we judge everything. When I sorted the PFF grades, and of course this last game, he graded tremendously, but, and I know you don't have to tell me about all the shortcomings of the grades when it comes to quarterbacks it's tricky but just follow along uh since the jets game he still rates as one of the

better quarterbacks in the league i think he was in the top seven by grade but they lost two of those games and that made us just whatever happened was terrible i don't want to talk about it just only only criticisms after those games, but he played well, wasn't perfect, but he played well in both of those games. And then in the Jaguars game, it wasn't as bad as it looked because the mistakes were catastrophic. And then in this game, it was better than it looked because he was dealing with some things around him that he had to overcome. Uh, the point just being that I think it's been a little more consistent than we think it was because two of those games were losses where he played actually quite well.

And then against Indianapolis, again, it was the rollout to the left and the interception stands out so much in your mind that you forget he completed 80% of his passes that night and had five that were just freak throws. One of them, DeForest Buckner is in his face with his arms all the way up, which is about 10 feet of human being. And he dropped down and threw sidearm, a bullet to TJ Hawkinson for 20 yards. That one's not as memorable because, oh, there's a 20 yard game. They move on, they keep playing. It's a kind of a boring game, whatever. Not as memorable as what was he doing on that one that he threw an interception. And so I think he's been better than overall than some of the maybe numbers look and the turnovers have shaded us in one way, but as a complete season through this many games has been one of the better quarterbacks in the

NFL and can do this because even though they're playing better teams, I don't think they're playing elite defenses the rest of the way. Well, what's your meter then? Where, where, where do you have them? I'm a, I'm in the orange. I'm in the orange because he's got Hawkinson back, which I think is huge. And you know, he's still got the best receivers now. So that I wanted to bring up with you though, because you've been in huddles and you've

heard play calls. I have not done that. And neither has all of Twitter who decides that they know how to call plays better than the, all the coaches in the league. But I want to know, I want to know your perspective on play calling. Cause this comes up all the time with KOC and just like Sam Darnold's interception, the double reverse against Jacksonville or the third and one or the trick play or whatever, some of the bad ones really stand out of like, what were you doing on that? But I have no problem with the way Kevin O'Connell has called plays this year when his quarterback is produced like this, as offense is produced overall really well.

And they're eight and two. It's very hard for me to say, oh, man, put in somebody else at play caller. But how, from a player perspective, would you judge whether your play caller is good or not? See, that's a tricky question because I always was under the, and I got this instilled in me pretty young age of, hey, coach is, coach players play. And regardless of what play is called, it's your job to go execute it, right? If it was your job

to call plays, then call plays, but it's my job to call plays. And every play that's called is put up on the install sheet to score, right? And it's a weird thing to think about, but when you install a play in the meeting rooms and O OTAs, and in training camp, everyone's blocked up. This receiver is going to pull this safety. This receiver is going to go over the top. The ball is going to go there, and it's going to be a touchdown, right? And so when you install those plays, when you know those plays are called, you're immediately going, okay, this play can score, right? If everyone does their job, and everyone grades out perfect on this play, and the defense gives us what we're supposed to, we're going to score.

And that's the mentality of a player that you have to have. If you start questioning as a player, like, well, is this really the right call? Things just get cloudy and muddy. You have to, as a player, have full confidence in your play caller. Always. And it's not always easy to do. But when you come off on the sideline and you look at the big picture and you get the iPad, you can be like, oh, okay, I see why you did that. And I see that Jimmy over here screwed it up, so it didn't work.

That's more when things like that don't happen. It's usually because someone had a lapse in judgment or an Emmy or they just got beat because those guys get paid a bunch of money too. And that front, the only time that I would ever get questionable of a call would be on fourth and short and third and short. And you're going run the football behind us, please, for the love of God, we know we can get one. And then you hear some play action or some trick play. And you're just like, I don't know if you trust me, right? I don't know if you trust me as an offensive line group to do this. That was really the only time that I would kind of like want to pound the table, like run the fricking football behind us here on third and short. Other than that, I always just

was under the impression, Hey, it's my job to play. It's your job to coach. I think my biggest, if I'm trying to pick it apart and see, I've spent my entire career trying to pick it apart, trying to figure out maybe when something could have been done differently. It's usually just based on the results though. If it works, it's a genius play call. And if it doesn't, you're a dope and you shouldn't have called that play, but is whatever they're designing to do on those short yardage situations. I thought it was a good idea to just have Sam Darnold jump forward for a first down because you can't execute anything else. The other thing is, too, putting someone away.

I don't know if that's players. I don't know if that's play calls. But they come out. They throw a couple times. They get two three and outs. They leave Tennessee in the game. And if you leave Tennessee in the game while you're bludgeoning their face in as a defense,

well, okay. But if you leave Kyler Murray in a game, he might make you pay and he's got the receivers to do it. Or we know that Kirk has made a lot of money doing this, that when teams get up a couple scores on Kirk and they start to relax, he'll come back and he'll beat you. That's the one thing in Green Bay with the Jets that when they've gotten up on teams that they just haven't found a way to finish it. And I don't know if it's play calling on third and one and fourth and one.

They can't execute these very well. And there was a fade at the goal line to Jefferson where everybody knows at this point that play doesn't work right. That is something that they were doing in 1991. There's no reason to be running that, but that shows you can't trust those guys up front. And I saw from Ian Harditz, who's a great fantasy guy, that at the goal line they've tried running Aaron Jones eight times

and got minus seven yards and one touchdown. They just can't execute that. So that's the thing is that players as a play calls is always a difficult thing yeah and it's usually a combination of the two the play caller doesn't trust the players in that situation to do what is the norm right in the the exact opposite situation is the Eagles, right? The Eagles go, we're going to push this. You know it. I know it. All 60,000 people, a million people watching know it. Good luck. Stop it.

That's full trust in your players. Vice versa, when KOC has studied this and going, do I want to just keep doing this, even though I know it probably isn't going to work? I probably need to get cute and scheme something up here that probably has an equal percentage chance, if not a better percentage chance, of converting this specific situation. So it definitely is a combination of the two. You would love to just rely on your O-line, and that goes back to your point. When you have an elite O-line, Eagles, Lions, Chiefs, you are fully dependent and you tell them during the week, hey, when this situation comes, I'm resting it on your shoulders.

I don't think he feels comfortable, KOC, with the offensive line group that he has, with the receiving group or the tight end group that he has. He probably thinks, hey, receivers, I'm putting this situation on your shoulders. O-line, just block. It's definitely a combination of of the two and i don't think there's a right or wrong answer i think koc truly is just calling what he feels gives them the best chance to convert whatever situation they're in the third and short stuff has been frustrating but when it comes to the overall performance if you're hovering around top 10 with your quarterback who previously had a quarterback rating under 80 and never a season where he had graded over 70 by PFF, I know you

got Justin Jefferson, but it's just not an easy argument to make. This man just doesn't know what he's doing out there, especially. And I think that this is a symptom of Vikings fans watch every Vikings game, but I don't think you watch every play of every other game. Because if you do and watch some of these teams around the league, your mind might explode for how bad the coaching is in other places versus, and we saw it in Tennessee, but versus what the Vikings have had. And the graphic they showed on TV where it was the 2022 hires KOC's

up here with 10 wins next to the next best guy and half of them are fired by now. And you're like, I don't know. I might back off this point a little bit. Speaking of which I wanted to run a power rankings by you. I like power rankings. So Kevin Cole does an analytics power rankings. And sometimes it's a little controversial where maybe he sees some teams analytically stronger or less strong than other teams than the record, which has always been my problem with power rankings. Like, isn't it just the standings, but you move two teams like that. Not so with our friend, Kevin Cole,

here is his top five in the National Football League for his analytical power rankings. The Detroit Lions are number one. The Buffalo Bills, number two. The Baltimore Ravens, number three, despite their disappointment. The Kansas City Chiefs, number four. And your Minnesota Vikings, number five. Do you think that the Vikings are the fifth best team in the NFL

man it's hard for me to say no based off of the ultimate the ultimate decider which is wins and losses finding ways to win games is the number one analytic that you can look at and I I know that because I think it was the maybe it was the chiefs game i was watching where they did the the graphic that said that every one point game or every one possession game this year if it would be flipped the bangles would be number one in the afc and the chiefs would actually be like number eight right so there's something to be said about just finding ways to win and the Vikings find ways to win they just continue to find ways when they do it on the back of their defense with guys like Van Ginkle who is having

maybe an all-pro year but not really being talked about as an all-pro because of all the unique things that he does you know guys stepping up in major roles Bullard having a better year than he's maybe ever had right guys are just playing above their expectations across the board and you lose your corners in preseason to ACLs and you get rid of Daniel Hunter and you do all these things that point towards not being a good team. And then when you come out and play the way you are, I think they're probably between five and seven in the NFL. If I really sat down and went through every single team and you and I went, okay, is it this team? You could make an argument for that team.

There's probably one or two teams that you could say, hey, are they the fifth best team likely team to win the Super Bowl? Probably not. Are they the fifth best team right now? Yeah. Right. And that's all what comes down to making those decisions. So I'll put my stamp on that. He's in the ballpark. It's not outrageous to think that they're's Detroit has 50% chance or something.

And the Vikings have like 10 as the fifth best team. Philadelphia is getting a little scary. And Pittsburgh is, you know, with a huge win against Baltimore. And the numbers keep saying Baltimore is great, but they also don't always impress and their defense struggles at times. And then Lamar has a single bad game and they just lose. So, uh, but Pittsburgh, I mean, gosh, somebody had the, this is, this is the thing about, about KOC and, and years from now, it might be hard to even talk about KOC when he's been the Vikings coach for 10 years,

because you just get bored, right? They got bored in Philly of Andrew Reed. They got bored of Mike Tomlin in Pittsburgh. I saw people last year. Why are they giving him an extension? Have you looked at the AFC coaches that are going to make the playoffs this year?

It's all the same guys. It's two Harbaugh's it's Reed. It's Mick Dermott, who I think has established himself as an elite coach now. Maybe some rocky times and bad metaphors early on in his time, but he's got that in the past. That team is overachieved from what I thought that they would be this year. It's the same coaches, and when you get one of these guys, you really have to make sure that you don't overreact and get rid of them or something because they're going to give you such an edge over all the other teams that are bumbling around finding someone who could be a head coach. It's so much about continuity, right?

I was talking to one of my rookies that's coming into the NFL next year, and he was like, what's the locker room like? I go, it's so different than what you remember college being because every year it's about a 30% turnover rate. 30% of your team is not going to be the same year in and year out. So if you want to say, okay, every two years, we're turning over 30% and we're also bringing in a new staff, how do you expect people to develop? How do you expect young players that are coming in from a college system to come into the NFL that's already such a jump from the college game, continue to develop not just mentally but physically and all of that

while putting change all around them all the time? It's not a winning formula. And I get sometimes you want fresh blood in there, but it's not always just about the win right now. And that's been the thing that the NFL probably for the last 10 years, in my opinion, has fallen into the college trap of you bring someone else and they're like, oh, those aren't my guys. I wouldn't have picked them. And I'm going to draft my own guys. And they get two or three more years in there. And then the next coach comes in.

Those aren't my guys. It's a vicious cycle that they've turned themselves into. So if you can get a consistent coach in the NFL that you believe in from a culture standpoint, you believe in that he's going to do the right things as far as development for players. He treats people the right way. He does things above board. You don't let those guys walk unless it's a disaster, right? And even when it is kind of rocky times, you let them, hey, let's ride it out for two or

three years and see if they can pull themselves into the rebuild phase and get going on that front. Coaching the NFL is so hard. It's so hard, not from an X is no standpoint, but from a CEO standpoint of 53 different guys from 53 different walks of life, trying to get them all to come together and not fight and have one common goal of winning a Superbowl. If you can do that from a messaging standpoint, you don't let those guys walk out. It's why I think Jim Harbaugh is so good. Even though he's a cult leader, he gets everyone to buy in for the cult. Everyone's bought in for the

cult, right? And if everyone buys in, we're all wrong. We're all right. All wrong. One wrong. All right. Whatever it is, those guys are worth their weight in gold. Gifting is hard, but here's a hint. Give the gift of connection from us cellular. Not sure what that means. Here's a slightly more specific hint. You can choose four free phones and get four lines for 90 a month from us cellular your family wants new phones how do we know they told us the good news is that compared to wrapping presents you are great at getting hints so take a hint and get them four free phones and four lines for 90 a Cellular, built for us. Harbaugh also understands how to hire pros as his coordinators,

and Dan Campbell did a really good job at that. The other thing with Harbaugh that I notice is he's going to play Harbaugh football, and he knows it wins, and he's been playing it since the 95 Indianapolis Colts, and he's going to stick with it. And he did it with Michigan and won a championship with it. And you see teams just not really knowing what to do with some of this older stuff because they don't see it as much. And I've always felt like being different is an edge in the NFL. The Stefanski was this way with the Vikings of 2019, where it was a, we're going to run a bunch of Delvin cook. We're going to have a fullback in there all the time. We're going to run screen passes, play actions constantly. It was a throwback, but teams didn't know what to do with it because everybody's out

of the shotgun all the time. It's like, what's this quarterback doing under center running this big old bootleg and, and they were shocked. And I feel like a hardball has got a lot of that with what he's doing as well. But yet to the point of knowing how to do the job, being a professional in that job, it's so different from dialing up X's and O's or just game planning all

day. The offensive coordinator doing game plans all the time is not leading an entire organization. It's not being the face of a franchise. It's not talking to the media four times a week, which you could just see the exhaustion and coaches halfway through the season were like, all right, I got to talk to you guys again, but that's the job, right? You have to answer for everything. If the social media team puts out something that's made people

angry, the head coach has to find out somebody puts free three on their Instagram. No one's really sure what it means, but the coach has to know about it. Right. So it's like, that's that, that that's not a defensive coordinator or a linebackers coach type of thing. And maybe that's also an argument for Brian Flores to get another shot because that first time could be so hard. So what O'Connell has done navigating all this to now in line for his second season, that's going to be potentially double-digit wins if they can go forward and even play average football the rest of the way is extremely impressive, especially with Sam Darnold. Now, on the other side of this is Matt Eberflus, whose team is just melting.

And if they were going to get that fire-to-coach burst, they got it last week. Caleb Williams was better. They had a field goal block, lost the game. How concerned are you about the Bears, about finding their fight or Soldier Field? You've been there for a memorable moment, let's say, at Soldier Field in 2016. So explain that whole thing. I don't know how to explain it man the bears are you want to talk about stuck in a vicious cycle they've been stuck in a vicious cycle of bringing quarterback fire coach last two years bringing quarterback fire coach last two years like at this point try

something different so whether that's stick with eber flues for the next three years and let him ride the wave of you drafted caleb williams your guys' fates will be intertwined until his rookie contract is up or a fire the coordinators and you're still the head man. I just don't know if it's good for the bears to wipe the slate clean and start all over again. Maybe that's what they feel like they need. They don't, but man, the talent on that roster is actually very, very good. Keenan Allen, DJ Moore, Cole Komet, Nate Swift, right? Caleb Williams is now your guy. Get some upgrades at the offensive line position. Find some ways to continue to build off your defense. I'm not really sure what happened to that defense because last year, once they brought sweat over, it seemed like they took it to a next level. Hasn't really been that next level,

and I don't know if that's just fatigue of dealing with a terrible offense. And you're just like, I can't keep doing this week in and week out. So there's a lot more questions than answers over with the bears, but they always find a way to play hard at soldier field. It's a tough place to play. It's going to be curious if they can go 500 down the stretch here. Evil flu probably keeps his job. Losing Brisker for the season has been a big deal for them.

He was a real leader on that defense concussion thing. That's not great for them long-term with Ibraflus. It just has felt like since he's been there that no one has bought into him as a leader. And even if they've had their moments, even if they have the talent, when you see a team underperform what their talent is and guys start coming out in the media, guys start taking shots at the coach, little jabs, things like that. Oh, I've been in a locker room. I've heard things like that before where the coach is starting to lose it.

And then every, every sentence out of the player's mouth is layered with the look over over there. Don't look over here, over there, don't look over here, look over there, the coaching, the culture, the whatever. And I don't know what it is. I don't know what it's like inside that building. I did talk to a player last year who had played for Chicago only for a couple weeks who just said, it's a mess over there, man. It was not a guy who was a big player for the Vikings,

but it kind of bounced around. And I was just like, Oh, what's it like in Chicago at traffic's better here. And he's like, there's a lot of things that are better in Minnesota here. He's like every, he said, everything that you hear about them and the culture and everything and how messy it is, it's worse. And I'm like, Oh, okay. Well then why did you keep Matt Eberflus? Is the question I keep going back to you. And if what it feels like is what happened with Tua in Miami, it was a bad pair with Brian Flores. No question about that. Him and Tua. And then they what three years into the guy's career, find a coach. Who's a good pair with him. You can't do that. Like you can't find your your

coach and quarterback pairing three years into the guy's career you have to do it right away urban meyer and trevor lawrence and trevor lawrence has never fully recovered from that and then doug peterson wasn't the dude either so i think that they're setting caleb williams back that said they could still beat the vikings he's talented enough they talented enough. They have a positive point differential as bad as they've been. They are not a horror show. No, and it's so much of, I mean, Hail Mary to lose to Washington, right? A blocked field goal to lose to Green Bay. These aren't slap teams that they're going to the wire with.

And that's the piece for me that the Bears are so interesting is, maybe I'm wrong, but they haven't gotten just blown out this year right maybe there's a game it's 10 points or 14 points but it hasn't been like the Lions put up 56 on the Cowboys and the game was over and they're throwing lateral passes to the tackle because they're just screwing around the Bears have been competitive the difference between winning teams though and losing teams is everything's buttoned up from the top down so when the critical moments happen everything still feels buttoned up it almost feels when critical moments happen for chicago things are falling apart at the seams at the worst possible moment and that usually does come from coaching that usually does come from coaching. That usually does come from leadership, whether it be veteran or not.

But I do think if it's a mess in Chicago, there's nowhere to look but up. Is it the coach? Is it the GM? Is it the ownership? Where in the chain of command is it the mess that is starting and then trickles down into the team, into the performance, into the weekly day in and day outs? I also think that if Caleb Williams was even slightly better, this wouldn't be anywhere near as much of a discussion, and he's a rookie, and that's how it goes.

And when these things build up, it's kind of like how when the Vikings get a new kicker and somehow the guy gets asked about the kicking woes of the Vikings in the past. I'm like, I'm not sure Will Reichert was born in 1998. We do not need to ask him about this. We just don't. He has nothing to do with it. But Chicago is the same way, where Caleb Williams is carrying Trubisky

and he's carrying Fields and Moses Moreno and all the other terrible quarterbacks that they've had through the years on his back, knowing that the city has built up its frustration with this and are saying, can you just come yet? Right. We have no patience for you. Can you just do the thing? We're so tired of 50 years of terrible quarterback play.

Sam Darnold might be the first best quarterback since Sid Luckman in Chicago. If he had this season, right. They would, they'd be building a statue of him. If he had this season, we're like, I don'd be building a statue of him if he had this season. We're like, I don't know. Good receivers make everybody good here.

So it's all about the past and expectations and perspective. And I think that if you took this team and you moved them to Arizona and it was the same exact stuff, it wouldn't have this type of reaction. It would be, oh, well, they're four and six. They're kind of coming along, and they've played some close games, and Caleb's having his up and downs, and we'll see them in two years or something. But in Chicago, it's a totally different response.

You nailed it. I mean, I couldn't say it any better. There's expectations in Chicago. There's past wounds that have never healed in Chicago, and I think what was the Jameis Winston quote like? No one cares about your past. No one really cares about your future either. It's like they really just care about the right here and the right now.

And that is the microcosm of being a Chicago sports fan. It's a huge market. It's a diehard fan-based market. And so when things aren't going well, there's no escaping it. You are just in it. You're living it. It's everywhere you go. And Chicago fans aren't afraid to let there's no escaping it. You are just in it. You're living it. It's everywhere you go. And Chicago fans aren't afraid to let you know if they see you in public.

Right? Like it is just a tough place to be a professional athlete when things are going well. Vice versa. If things start going well there, they'll give that guy the key to the cities. Right? Like if he starts winning in Chicago, unlimited deep dish, we want a sweet at Wrigley Field. Sweet, right? Everything is there for him to go and take from Caleb Williams standpoint. It's not fair to think he was going to do it as the first overall pick going to a Bears team that had some serious struggles beforehand.

All right. Love to see it. Hate to see it. We'll get what do you think they win in Chicago? Yeah, I do. I think they win in Chicago. Going to be a tough day for Caleb Williams against Brian Flores. Correct. That's the matchup. Brian Flores versus rookie quarterback. Edge Flores every single time. Love to see it. Hate to see it. Love to see it is the Bills and Chiefs can just play every week,

every year, every AFC championship game. Just the battle. Just the battle. And the play that Josh Allen made put it on the all- time NFL highlight reel, just ridiculous that run for a touchdown. Every time they play that, that fourth quarter grip in the seat, leaning into the TV, amazing cinema, the, the atmosphere there we know is one of the best in the league. You and I know that extremely well, just, just incredible football. Thank, thank you. Bills and chief, for what you've done for us.

Absolutely. I mean, it was circled on the calendar the day the schedule release came out. It lived up to every hype, every expectation. And, I mean, my dad, I remember growing up going, Hey, Dad, and he would tell me, Hey, Brady and Peyton, got to sit down, got to watch this one. This is modern-day Brady and Peyton, man. Two heavyweight guys, they go at it.

And I loved Josh's response at the end of the game, too, because they kept trying to bait him of like, hey, was this just another week? Was this just another week? Was it really just another week? And he did a great job. Yeah, this was just another week. It's a stepping stone to get us into the playoffs or we're going to have to see them again.

And they've now put themselves in contention to hopefully have the Super Bowl go through Orchard Park and not have to travel to Kansas City in January because that makes such a difference. Orchard Park is a great atmosphere. Kansas City is a great atmosphere. Home field advantage in the playoffs is you can't overstate it. As long as your kicker doesn't miss wide, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

What do you got? I love to see it is the Jerry World shit show that is continuing to happen. Not just on the field, but your building's literally falling apart, right? I'm following this on Twitter. They're like, we're opening the roof. I'm like, oh, that's weird. Why would you decide? Okay, sure.

You've been talking all week about the sun being an issue. Let's open the roof. Sheet metal is raining from the sky, right? And there's videos of that thing falling. And then the NFL was like, this isn't safe. We can't play here. We get the welding crew up at the top drilling things in. Oh, we're going to shut the roof.

It's like, maybe just bolt the roof shut. This experiment is over. But then to watch Cooper Rush go out there and get dismantled and to watch Houston for the Battle of Texas just run up and down the field, Joe Mixon doing his thing, Cowboys, buddies, it's going to be a long rest of the year this way, and there's going to be some serious changes. I don't know if McCarthy's safe.

I don't know if Zimmer's safe. I don't know if anyone besides C.D. Lamb and Dak Prescott is necessarily safe on that team because I could see Jerry Jones going full scorched earth come January. Maybe Deion Sanders coaching that team next year. I don't know. Is Deion hanging around after his son goes to the NFL? I'm not really sure that that's going to happen. I don't really have a hate to see it this week. It was a good week of football in the nfl uh and college except for your college i go i got one more hate to see it okay

um daniel jones my man my friend sorry didn't work out yeah and also how upset do you think drew lock is right now right Right? Like, Hey, I've been the backup all year. This is my guy. And they're like team meeting or quarterback meeting, bring all three in. Brian Dable sits down and says, Daniel,

your injury guarantees kick in next week. We don't want to get you hurt because this is it. We're putting you out to pasture. Thank you. Tommy DeVito. You are now our starting quarterback. And Drew Locke was probably like, what? I'm making like $5 million right now. Like, why am I even here?

And then it's just, I can't imagine. That quarterback room cannot be a fun place to be in right now. I got my hate to see it. Yes. I mean, with Daniel Jones, though, $82 million is a lot of dollars. And also, thank you daniel jones because as the vikings were negotiating with kirk cousins during that same time period when daniel jones got 40 million that's when kirk's price went up and the vikings no longer wanted to give him an extension and that's how we end up with sam darnold and jj mccarthy here so thank you daniel jones for your

contributions uh also maybe they would have kept ed donatello around if they had won a playoff game and found a way to survive and they would have said we just need a couple more players and instead that playoff game leads to them really being desperate for a great defensive coordinator they've got the best in brian flores so a lot of ripple effects randomly that my hate to see it is the kicker from Cincinnati. He misses a kick, kicks it to the left, just, just a little. And he's over on the sideline and he's getting berated by a special teams coach. And then he goes and misses another one.

I'm like, you know, I don't know from past experience of covering the Minnesota Vikings. If that's the way that you get the kicker to make the next one. The fact that the Cincinnati Bengals have lost every game in comical, insane fashion, a pass interference against the Chiefs, overtime against the Ravens, one point against the Ravens trying to go for two. And then this poor dude misses two field goals that could have won that game and made for one of the best comebacks

we've seen in a long time. It's too bad. It's too bad, Bengals. It's unfortunate because Joe Burrow's playing at an MVP caliber and they're four and seven. It's crazy. Absolutely bananas. Very Drew Brees for a couple of years there

with the Saints-esque. So anyway, well well we'll see what happens in chicago it's always eventful that is what we know and uh you and i will talk next tuesday for tuesday morning left guard so thank you jeremiah absolutely football football