Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Jeremiah Sirles breaks down the best O-line performance in years

Episode Date: October 25, 2023

Matthew Coller talks with former Viking Jeremiah Sirles about how the Vikings slowed down the San Francisco 49ers pass rush, why Jordan Addison had his breakout game, the impact of Brian Flores and what's next after winning a big game... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello and welcome to another episode of Tuesday Morning Left Guard. Matthew Collar, along with former Minnesota Vikings offensive lineman Jeremiah Searles. And this is your day, buddy. This is your day. Because of all the days that I have covered the Minnesota Vikings, starting in the year 2016, game after game after game after game of walking out and being like oh you know some offensive line troubles there this was an incredible performance by the vikings against the san francisco 49ers your thoughts about the offensive line dominating one of the best defensive lines in the league and having a

terrific offensive performance. I still, it is a Tuesday morning, by the way, it is 9 a.m. on a Tuesday morning. And the fact that we watched that game last night, and I think I texted me after I was like, what is happening? Like, I feel like my eyes are lying to me because this was the juggernaut of the San Francisco 49ers D line that we have watched run up and down the field on every team that they played for, except for Cleveland last week, but they even got out from a little bit. And they walked into U.S. Bank, and there was a wall in front of Kirk Cousins last night. And it didn't matter. Everyone was playing great. Dalton Reisner, I thought, played really well for his first start.

I mean, Derrissaw solidifying why he is the best left tackle in the NFL right now with Andrew Thomas and Trent Williams being sidelined. If you had to pick someone tomorrow to start at left tackle for your team, it would be Christian Derrissaw. And you can arguably say the same thing about Brian O'Neill on the right side. You know, Lane Johnson's playing okay this year. I think he's battling through some injuries, but I'm looking around the league and I watched a ton of football on Sunday. It was great just to kind of sit and relax and I have to watch the Vikings and panic and to just look around the league play and go man we are so lucky lucky to have these two offensive tackles and it goes back to what we talked about last week of we're too talented to be this bad right and so

up front to to hold that team to no sacks to have Bosa win one out of the 40 pass rushes he had against Christian Derrissaw is just an incredible feat. And I know last week we were saying burn it all down, and I'm not sure I'm ready to say we're totally back and ready to go, but you can build off a performance like that. And offensive line play is so much built around confidence and just knowing you can do it. And when you have a group that goes out and does that against a juggernaut defensive line like that that group builds a lot of confidence and maybe dalton

reisner was the linchpin that we needed to just pop on in there for four million dollars and say we fixed it or maybe they've actually been good all season long but they have not faced quite a test like this and they also haven't taken advantage of it and sometimes even in last night's game they took advantage of it in the run game which was the first time we had seen that since uh just some plays against the los angeles chargers but they were ripping off some big gains at times with Alexander Madison and Cam Akers, who probably needs to see the field a little bit more. And Kirk Cousins had time to throw. I saw somebody on the San Francisco side tweeting out that Cousins about 2.7 seconds from snap to throw was one of the slowest times of any quarterback that has gone against San

Francisco because normally all these teams game plans are trying to get the ball out quick trying to get the ball quick and what you saw from San Francisco was all sorts of single high safety stuff loading up the box playing that aggressive type of football that they do but when it doesn't get home there's just people running wide open. And there's TJ Hawkinson who, you know, maybe we owe some apologies to, I mean, I, but the thing with TJ Hawkinson is he always is there to catch the ball when he can get open and make plays with it. It's the idea that you're asking him to be like Randy Moss sometimes that he usually can't bring those in. And if you're going to play a like Randy Moss sometimes that he usually can't bring those in.

And if you're going to play a single high safety, then Hawkinson can get separation. He can find holes and make plays. And that's exactly what happened. I think that, yeah, I mean, San Francisco came in with their typical sort of we're going to be the 49ers. We're just going to play our style of defense. And these two tackles gave them the Mutombo finger wag. You're not going to let your defensive MVP beat us. And the fact that it's him, it's like they were missing some players on the offensive side,

but they weren't missing anybody on the defensive side. The fact that it's him to go along with Hargrave, Armstead. I mean, these guys are monsters and put on that performance. I mean, that is the type of offensive line performance that boosts and elevates everything you can do on offense. Yeah. And it wasn't just the passing game or the run game. We got the screen game going a little bit, you know, early in the game, we got the screen

game going and that slows down a pass rush. Like you wouldn't believe you wouldn't believe what that does. Just hitting on one or two screens, just puts it in the back of those defensive ends, those D-tackles minds of, am I beating them too fast? Am I up the field too quick? And by then, the ball's out. Right? You just need to slow them down just a half a step or even a full step to let them think,

is this screen or not? And I thought KOC did a great job of sprinkling in those screens early on and not just in third and long situations. Right? A first and 10 a second and eight somewhere in there where it's not an obvious screen right so many times like you hear the commentators all the time well third and long here look for screen or draw right like we sprinkled them in when they were probably expecting a drop back or they were expecting a run play so they didn't have a man-to-man defense on where those linebackers

can blow those screens up early and a nice job of the offensive lineman getting out in space and covering guys up and I mean just a complimentary offense last night from knowing when to run the football the screen game and then also taking advantage of the one-on-one coverage and man how lucky are we to have to have Addison I mean we are so lucky to have a guy like that where when you lose your all-world receiver, you have a guy that just says, we talk about who's going to step up to the bell. He stepped up to the bell in a big way. And we also said everyone else needs to step up.

Powell stepped up in a big way and came up with some huge catches. Hawkinson stepped up. Everyone is sharing the load for the loss of Justin Jefferson. And maybe it took the close game to the Bears and the poor performance by the Bears for everyone to realize I have to step my game up I have to be better or else we are going to really really struggle on offense and you saw everyone take a step forward last night with the ability to show hey we're all still NFL players

we all still make a lot of money we can earn our rights to i think what this showed last night is what they can be as an offense we also can't forget going two for 13 on third down just one week ago and also matt eberflus did a great job of forcing kirk cousins to go underneath and not giving up anything you know deep and over the top or even like intermediate where they were just clogging those areas, playing a lot of quarters and things like that. And then San Francisco comes out with their style

because I always think like styles make fights in the NFL where it's like if you're not going to do the game plan week to week where instead you're going to play your system, it does open you up to somebody gaming your system the reason no one games san francisco system is because nick bosa sacks them all the time and they usually stuff the run really well but that's if you can stop that that has always kind of been an answer to whether it was demico ryans whether it was robert sala but usually that answer is not available. And that, to me, is what this shows is with an offensive line that's this good,

you can have the potential of putting up big numbers on a week-to-week basis and having the offense drive the success. And now, hey, look, oh, the schedule. Oh, my gosh, that schedule looks pretty easy. But I don't know how much to react to this, though, because I do think that things like Addison, Hawkinson, the tackles, even Garrett Bradbury's improvement, which has carried over from last year, and now that he's healthy, he's playing extremely well.

These should work week to week, but is it just a one-off where they threw the kitchen sink at them and then we're going to go back to exactly what we saw that's why this week they have to prove it again but i also thought this is the ceiling and the ceiling is very high when you have blocking that's that good the ceiling's very high when you have talent this good i mean you just have too much much good talent to look around the field and say, someone's going to be able to win at one point in this time. And, you know, I saw some uncharistic stuff from the Niners last night where I think Steve Wilks,

their defensive coordinator, was panicking a little bit. You know, he was panicking where he's sending all-out pressure. I mean, engage eight, the old Madden, engage eight and send the house. And, you know we you don't want to do that when you're playing against guys like justin jefferson because he does things like addison did last night right he goes up he mosses a ball away from the receiver and the only thing between him and the end zone is green grass and you didn't you saw that initially

you're like okay they're just gonna send their four and get home but when they weren't getting home you saw pressure and more pressure and safety pressure and nickel pressure and linebacker pressure. And Kirk Cousins to all his faults is usually pretty good at being able to understand where the pressure is coming from and knowing where his one-on-one matchup is and giving his receiver a chance to go get the football. That's been something throughout his career. He's very smart. He's a smart guy, right? Even if he does take two's very smart he's a smart guy right even if he does take two stays off he's a smart guy you know he understands hey I did my film study I know when a pressure package comes if I can see even just an inkling of it in the pre-snap read I know where my number one read is and he did that time and time again last night and hats off

to Madison I thought he pass blocked really well last night you know for a guy that I think has struggled at times this year of stepping up, putting his nose in there, and hitting a linebacker, I thought he identified somewhere these blitzes are coming from, stepped up there, didn't cut in the hole, which is a cardinal sin of a running back in my opinion, and just died a slow death, but just gave that half a second left for Kirk Cousins to be able to go.

And yes, this is the ceiling of what this team is, but I think we'd be remiss to think that this defense is going to be able to play this way yes, this is the ceiling of what this team is, but I think we'd be remiss to think that this defense is going to be able to play this way week in and week out too. They geared up for a heavyweight fight against a heavyweight offense with McCaffrey and Ayuk, and I know they were missing Devo Samuel and Trent Williams, but this defense geared up. But it goes back to, is this the defense that we saw against philly that got it just jammed down their throats over and over again or is it the defense of the niners and we're at this

crossroads as fans and as media here that goes what team are we going to get every single week are we just going to ride the roller coaster and hey one week it's going to be the bears that we play against the bears one week it's going to be against the the niners or are we going to start to see more of a consistent play as we go down the stretch here with the vikings and i don't think anyone can answer the answer yes or no to that question well i think the answer with the vikings is always that you're going to ride a roller coaster no matter what because that just tends to be who they are and look i mean last night uh greg, Greg Joseph misses a field goal and who isn't thinking it. And last week it's Tyson Bajan driving and who isn't thinking it.

But in the first couple of weeks, the one score games taketh away. And then in the last two weeks, the one score games giveth. And here we are again, sort of playing that game. But I want to talk about Jordan Addison more because i remember and you talk about it sometimes about what we saw from justin jefferson early in his career and i kept asking you do you believe him now do you believe him now uh with jordan addison i was buying him in training camp there are very few rookies that in training camp on the first couple of days in pads mind you are roasting nfl corners and then of course you're gonna be like well it's these vikings corners i camp on the first couple of days in pads, mind you, are roasting NFL corners.

And then, of course, you're going to be like, well, it's these Vikings corners, I guess. But it just doesn't happen. And then the ability to make high-difficulty catches to reach out and snatch the ball is something that, again, stood out immediately. You just don't see it that often. And what he did last night was a special type of play. I mean, you, you, you call it a mossing. We usually think of that as reaching over somebody, but just straight stealing the ball out of somebody's hands on a bomb down the

field and then running it in for a touchdown. It's it's what he did in college. It's what he did in training camp. He's doing it almost every single week now. And I don't know what it is about this franchise and drafting wide receivers or finding wide receivers, some undrafted who become superstars. But here we are again, and I can't be more impressed with Jordan Addison through seven weeks. No, I'm completely with you. And, you know, it's such a relief. I know Justin Jefferson is sitting on the sideline and just eating him,

but he's also watching the success as he goes, man, when I get back, just wait and see. Right. Because you can't bracket coverage him. Now you want to bracket coverage him. Sweet. You got another guy on the other side that's going to be able to go. And that was the hope of what Thielen was supposed to be last year. You know, and he's having a great year in Carolina.

Hats off to Thielen. I think he's having a fantastic year out there. But, you know, everyone was hoping that was gonna be the two headed monster that it was early on when Jefferson got here and it just wasn't last year, but with the addition of Addison, you have to pick your poison of who you want to be. And for me, it's also the yards after catch, you know, that's where Jefferson,

that's where a lot of, I mean, Julio Jones and Deandre Hopkins and all the great ones where they can make the congested, the contested catches, but what they do with the ball in their hands afterwards, what makes them elite, right? Being able to have the speed to separate at full speed, catch the ball and take it or physical enough to wrestle away from an arm tackle of a corner that's falling down and get an extra 10 or 15 yards before the safety gets there. And his yards after catch this year have been really, really good. and that's because of separation he creates in the route but also understanding the zone the hole in the zones knowing where to settle down where to throttle down where to speed up and

get in that second window his iq for a rookie wide receiver is very very high and very excited for him in the future in which he has here as a v and purple. Here's a natural playmaker to him that reminded me of Stefan Diggs right away. And Stefan Diggs has 20 pounds on him. So there's a little more muscle to him than there is Jordan Addison. And when he got out muscled for that ball in the first quarter, that was one of those where I saw. And it's funny because on Monday night football, everyone's watching the same game.

So you see like Darius Butler, who is on the McAfee show before really good player in the NFL tweeting, like, yep, that's getting out muscled by a veteran player. And so you kind of get these instant reactions and that is exactly what happened. And then he took advantage the rest of the day of the 49ers, trying to man him up with Charverius Ward, who's a good player, but it's not like Darrell Rivas out there. What the 49ers were doing is saying, we're going to see if this rookie can beat us. And the answer is he can. And it wasn't just that play, which is the one that stands out.

But I mean, he ends up with seven catches for 123 yards. I mean, it was a consistent effort from him. He also was cramping up down there at times, came back in the game, continued to fight through it, made a couple of more catches. That was a star number one receiver type performance for a guy that, as you mentioned, is going to be the number two wide receiver going forward. And then there's just a part of me, Jeremiah, that keeps coming back to, like, wait, this team is three and four?

This team that I just watched is three and four and i i don't like this is what we expected it to be the question is how can it keep being this way and certainly one thing that they have to do is finish some of these drives not having a single rushing touchdown all year bad not not good at all if you're at the two yard line and you can't just run the football into the end zone but like how does it carry over how do they get this to be consistent week in and week out because if it just happened in this game that's great and it was a fun night but it won't matter but with the talent they have it should happen on a week-to-week basis it has to happen on a week-to-week basis i think we the amount of what how many points we score last night 27 22 22 right 22 is a good amount but that's not enough to win in this league a lot of the time right I look around the league and you have to be able to score more

and if we run the football in there this is a 30 plus point victory right we have 30 plus points in this game if we can run the football into the end zone and that is the piece that is missing is this rushing attack and cam acres is going to take the spot away from alexander madison i do believe that i think he's a more complete back when i watch him the way he has reads the patience and the way he hits the hole i don't think he's quite as physical runner as madison is but i think he's a better overall runner. And remembering that he just got here a few weeks ago, he's still trying to figure out the trust of this offensive line, the timing of what this running game is, because it is slightly different than what L.A. was.

And the more he can get comfortable and the more reps he can get, hopefully he can be that spark for us as that running the football into the end zone piece. But you get the run game going on this offense, and that is the one thing that's missing is the run game you get that going on this offense then the defense is the one that's always on their heels right they can decide hey like the bears did want to sit back and play coverage cool you have two high safeties we're going to run the football right but when we can't run the football effectively it allows defenses to be able to dictate the pace of the

game and allows defenses to dictate how they want to protect against Addison and Jefferson and Hawkinson because you're a one-dimensional football team and KOC even said it last night in his post game when he's talking to the team he's like Kirk Cousins was hot threw a lot of passes it's like yeah that's that's great but what happens when he's hot but the coverage is cut there it's just just good. You have to have something to fall back to. And whether that's the pin pull scheme, the inside zone scheme, whatever it may be, we have to find a bread and butter run scheme that fits this offensive line and fits cam acres in order to get this offense to the next level. Want to remind you guys to make little Caesars, the official pizza sponsor of the NFL. Order online during their Pizza Pizza pregame one hour before NFL games and get ready for some football and fun. Choose your favorite

Little Caesars pizza or pick up the toppings you crave. Either way, you win. And speaking of winning, everyone scores with convenient delivery or their in-store pizza portal pickup. So grab some friends, enjoy a few slices during the tastiest hour before kickoff. Pizza, pizza. Also, prize picks. I'm going to be watching a couple of my prize picks on Monday night. It should be very exciting. If you haven't heard of it, then you haven't been listening to the show.

And if you have, you know how much a part of this show prize picks has become. All you have to do is pick more or less between two and six player stat projections. That's a lot of different stuff. Yardage touchdowns. You can do field goals, points by field goal kickers and lots of other sports as well. So you're going to want to check that out. All it is more or less. It's that simple. So if you go to prize picks.com slash purple, use the code purple for a first deposit match up to $100. Very simple. One of the reasons I love it, you don't have to put down a huge amount of money or time. We do it on the show here in about 30 seconds.

I make my picks that quickly and submit them as soon as we've contemplated and thought deeply about the picks. Very, very easy to do. Not very costly either. So it's a lot of fun. PrizePicks.com slash Purple with the code Purple. Daily Fantasy Sports made easy. One thing that they did do last night was control the game on the clock, which they have not done all year.

And I'm not a huge time of possession freak because if you score on three plays as San Francisco did on one of their drives I'll take it I'm good that'll work for me but one thing that has been noticeable is if you don't want Justin Jefferson or Jordan Addison to crush you is keeping them on the sideline and that's what a lot of teams have done that's how Chicago in in some ways stayed in the game with longer drives. Definitely Carolina didn't finish them, but had that like bad teams have been able to stay in against the Vikings by keeping them off the field and getting those third down stops.

And look, it's an old cliche to say that third and short is a lot easier, but it just is. It just is. I've got some questions on the offensive side. I want to talk about the defense. And then, of course, we got to get to big picture stuff, which, you know, is obvious as we approach the trade deadline.

But Kevin O'Connell in the game management, if they lose this game and Greg Joseph misses his field goal and then Brock Purdy, instead of throwing it directly to the other team, leads a game winning drive, which I just thought he got impatient there. I thought he had time and could have, could have driven the ball down the field instead kind of freaked out and just like launched one. And I didn't really understand that, but maybe that's just who he is. When it comes to O'Connell's game management,

we got two field goals inside the five-yard line, which I thought was going to screw them and ultimately did not. The 50-yard field goal is a pretty risky play. Didn't really play aggressive in that area of the field. They kind of played for a field goal, which I thought was weird to do because it's a long field goal, and Greg Joseph is not perfect. There are things still on a weekly basis where I'm kind of like, Oh, I don't know, man. I don't know.

Like it wasn't the timeouts this week, but it was the timeouts a couple of weeks ago. And maybe it's just something that you have to give and take with a play caller as your head coach. Like you get the benefits of him being your play caller, which clearly called a phenomenal game against the 49ers. But one thing that's just going to always be a little hard is some of the game management stuff. I guess I don't really know what to make of it. I wonder if at times he questions himself

with some of the game management stuff because I thought for sure, no doubt about it because of what he's been for a long time the aggressive nature that fourth down there at the end of the game was like oh he's going for this like why why he always goes for this why wouldn't he go for this and then you kind of see him him and han on the sideline he's like we're not gonna do it and i don't know if that's him it can go one ways maybe that's him growing as a head coach and understanding hey analytics are great but my defense is playing really well right now. Right now in this game, I have a lot of trust in Brian Flores and what this defense is doing.

Let's trust them. And instead of just, oh, what the numbers say, analytics, I should just be aggressive and do this. I think there's some growth there and some trust that's building there between Flores and him of understanding, hey, if you guys are hot, I'll trust you. If you're not, maybe I got to be aggressive and push the envelope here and do our things. And same thing with the field goals. Knowing that points are probably going to be

a premium in this game. We walked into this game probably going, hey, if we can get three, we got to take it. We got to take it because we don't know if we're going to get back down there with this great defense. And when are they going to finally turn the light bulb on and start clicking and making plays and getting that turnover that they need to have at that need to

have moment like they've done all year and he played more of a conservative game last night but i'm betting that was the plan going into the game you know betting that that was what he wanted to do and trust in the defense and doing all that but i don't know if it's questioning himself or if it's growth as a head coach or whatever it may be but i think i would rather see the aggressive koc personally personally i would like to see the go for the kill that's my mentality that's what i'm instilling in this team as their mentality as we're a go for the kill no holds back let's just lay everything on the line type of a head coach type of decision making that i make i want to see more of that koc than the conservative koc we saw last night and you're talking about the punt after the the third and

fourth and four down the side yeah yeah the bunch left and they threw a back shoulder fade to kj osborne on the third and four which I thought was a questionable decision by Kirk but again the tape's not up yet I haven't got a chance to look at the bunch and saw if Hawkinson or someone came over on a slant or whatever for an easy pitch and catch but I would have liked to see him go for it there or run it to set yourself up in a fourth and one or a fourth and short to go for it on fourth down we've just seen that too many times to think that it's just kirk on those like long throws on third and short and but if he goes for the kill on third and four and then goes for it on fourth down then i'm totally fine with it like all right take a shot on third and four

because yeah you're going for it go ahead i i'm okay with that but then to punt i was like i don't really understand this and And I totally get you with, okay. Yeah. Brian Flores, his defense is playing pretty well. Pretty was moving the ball throughout the game. He was averaging over nine yards of pass attempt. It was more his mistakes in the fumble by Christian McCaffrey than it was that they like were being totally stifled and the kicker helped by missing a 40-yard field goal. Good idea to spend a draft pick, a high draft pick, on a kicker, San Francisco.

Yes, I guess you can overcome some bad draft picks. Did you see them showing pregame where he was falling down? Did they show that? It's like during the game, they're like, after he missed the field goal, they would flash back to pregame because every commentator known to man loves talking about,, well, from before the game, he was good from, and he was like kicking the ball and he like fell down as he kicked it. And they were like, oh, maybe, maybe he's hurt.

Maybe like just trying to throw anything at the wall. He was like, he just missed, he just missed. Like, let's not make more of this than it is. He just pushed it a little to the right because he might not be that good of a kicker, even though they drafted him would not be the first time Roberto Aguayo, the most famous high draft kicker. The point I was going to make is just that,

okay, I feel you when you're talking about making those fourth down decisions based on what you're seeing. And I think it's okay occasionally to go against what the numbers would tell you in that position. But if you go against them too much, then you're just going against the numbers. You're not making it by your feel at the two to three yard line. Sure, you probably are lacking confidence at that point after you've seen them bungle a couple of plays, you really need a touchdown and you should have needed a touchdown to beat the 49ers. I mean,

plays were made on defense. They botched some things. They botched some third downs. They botched the, you know, one opportunity where they missed that field goal. Most of the time, if you're playing a good team, you have to score a touchdown. Most of the time you have to finish that third and four off because you don't expect the other quarterback to just throw it right to Cam Bynum for some reason, which I still don't fully understand. And if you're on the San Francisco side this morning, you're saying we gave that game away in so many ways. You want to say we finished that game, not they had to give it away by throwing two interceptions to end up losing and that's where i would like to see kevin o'connell particularly when you have good blocking if if you think that you're just going to get your quarterback killed all right fine but that's not what's going on they need to be more aggressive with some of the stuff i think as they go forward or they're going to regret it now on the other the other side, Brian Flores, I think, has transformed a defense that was just painful to watch last year. And he talked about throwing the kitchen sink. There's 17 different defensive

players running out on the field last night. If you are on the roster, you played in that football game against the 49ers. We're seeing Andrew Booth. We're seeing Kyrus Tongo. We're seeing him use. The 49ers are going to be like, who the hell are these people? And all sorts of different looks, all sorts of different rushes, all sorts of different coverages. And the fact that they can handle them with young players, to me, says well-coached. And his impact all season long in my mind has been very significant

yeah and the thing i love about flores is i'm gonna make a comparison to my to my huskers here you know he came in here the huskers defense was bad bad bad last year but we have tony white who came in from syracuse and flores a kind of similar situation they came in they're like this is the roster these are the players we got we got to make something happen with it and Flores is tailoring his defense to his players he's not square peg round holing like this is my system we run it this way if you're a rush end I'm putting you with your hand in the dirt and you're playing three technique right he's not making guys do things that they don't want to do or they're not going to be great at. He's knowing his personnel and knowing his players

and knowing what they excel at individually and then tailoring the scheme around them. And that is the sign of a phenomenal coach. Not a good coach, a phenomenal coach. When you can say, okay, I'll put my pride away. I'll put what I say and what i stamp of like the flores system right and we're going to be able to tailor and move it and tweak it here and there so that it really becomes the viking system about the 11 players that are on this defense at any given time

and he's creating chaos a little bit you know you're seeing maybe purdy is seeing ghosts we call it seeing ghosts when you play that many guys and you send that many different pressures and you play that many different coverages a quarterback can call it seeing ghosts. When you play that many guys and you send that many different pressures and you play that many different coverages, a quarterback can easily start seeing ghosts and thinking it's single high and then it's double high or it's going to be cover two and then all of a sudden it's cover three or, okay, this is a zone readbacks getting rattled when they're getting beat up. Like, oh man, he's rattled back there. But I think Purdy, who is still a young quarterback, right, is all the success that he's had, he still has a rookie season that he didn't play all of last year. You know, he's still, in my mind,

kind of getting into that rookie box a little bit. He mentally rattled him a little bit last night with his, why, we talk about why did he throw it to Andrew Booth, or why did he throw it to Bynum? I don't know, maybe he was rattledled maybe he thought it was a different coverage than it really was and that just goes back to i mean what he's done he's going to be a candidate for a head coach somewhere next year i just he's done too good of a job for me to think that he isn't but very lucky that we have him and really excited for what he's done and how he's invigorated this

vikings defense over this year and that's a complicated discussion that we have too much to get to to go all the way down that rabbit hole. But let's just suppose that the NFL owners have blackballed him just enough for the Vikings to benefit. You can really build on something here with Flores. There are players who are historically not all that impressive, who have been good for this team so far. I'm thinking of someone like Jonathan Bullard, for example,

was kind of a journeyman defensive tackle, was just a guy on their team last year. And now he's playing a big role against the run. Christian McCaffrey did not run over them and that was really the key if Christian McCaffrey was going to run over them they would control the whole game but they forced Brock Purdy to beat them and sometimes he did and sometimes he threw them the ball but we've seen a Caleb Evans playing well Andrew Booth Jr. is on the field which is why we don't declare people draft busts after their rookie season

because he's been healthy and now he's worked his way back into the rotation at cornerback. An undrafted free agent is here making plays in Ivan Pace Jr. and Cam Biner, who I know frustrated you at times last year. And yet this year we've seen him play more aggressively. He's had more tackles where he's flying up to the line of scrimmage and making plays. And then he's in position to make a lot of plays in coverage where last year I thought the guy was playing at the goal line. And if you threw it anywhere in front of him, it would be fine. And yet this just shows you, I think, one of the most valuable positions in all football is that defense coordinator.

100%. And you look at the really valuable positions in all football is that defense coordinator 100 yeah and you look at the really successful teams in the league they all have very very good defensive coordinators it's why the niners i had to look up again who their defense coordinator was because it seems like every year they're like head coach head coach head coach right because those guys are worth their weight in gold with the way that the league is going with an offensive juggernaut you're paying your quarterbacks 270 million dollars because they can throw it all over the yard the league is scrambling to find ways to slow those guys down how do we slow these high-powered offenses down because when we get into the playoffs we want to make a super bowl run we're

going to run into one of these guys it's just a nature of the beast we're going to run into one of these superstar quarterbacks well hey d, what are you doing to scheme this guy to slow him down? Because we have the players. We'll try and get to them. But if we can't slow them down by coverage or scheme or pressure, then they're just going to rip us apart. And so, yeah, do I hope that he's not a head coach next year? Selfishly, he's a Vikings fan.

Yeah, for sure. But I think that he's earning the right to possibly get a chance to if all the nonsense behind the scenes can slowly go away. But man, he has been such a find for KOC, and we got lucky. We got lucky that he was out there for us. Let me ask you this question, and this comes only hours after the Vikings' best win in a very long time. I mean, Buffalo last year, but this was a more complete win.

You outplayed the other team, not the opposing quarterback had to fumble or somebody had to do something crazy and get lucky or anything. This was, you played better than them at football for an entire game. And they're supposed to be a Super Bowl team. How high do you want to get on this win?

How much are you snorting this win? How many wins do you think this team ends up finishing with right now? I can't let myself get too high because it's just too inconsistent. It's too inconsistent. You know, you have to be a consistent football team to be a good football team in this league. I mean, look at what happened to the Lions, right? The Lions went out and got throttled by Baltimore.

How low are they going to get in Detroit right now? The season's over. We're back to being the Lions, whatever it may be. The NFL is a crazy place, man. It's a wild place. Anyone in the term any given Sunday or whatever it might be is so true because the margin of error for victory from people who say the Niners are the best team to the Carolina Panthers, who are the worst team.

It's not like this as far as talent on the roster. It's more like this, right? It's not a huge difference. And so, yes, any team can beat any team on any given Sunday, but the Vikings have to be more consistent across the board on all three phases for me to think that they're a 10-plus win team. I still think this is probably an 8-win team, 8-9 win team. I really do.

Until they prove to me that they can consistently come out and play like this week in and week out and not have games like they did against the Bears or against Carolina early in the season, and we can show that we've moved past that. That is now no longer in our DNA of who we are as a football team. Then, yeah, I'll start to jump on the hype train of like, well, let's go see what we can do. But next week is going to be a huge hinge point for this team of, can we string together back-to-back weeks that look like this, or are we just going to continue to ride up and down in the roller coaster and which things go? Guys, I know that you might act tough and pretend that you don't care about how the skin on your face looks, but we all want to show up to football parties and holiday get-togethers looking good. That's where Caldera Lab comes in.

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just for you guys, use the code INSIDER at calderalab.com. Get off right now that is 20 off at calderalab.com with the code insider to make unforgettable first impressions with the best gift for this holiday season and still at this moment i don't have it right in front of me but they didn't change massively where they rank in points for points against. They didn't massively change their point differential. The accumulation of this team is an average team now, and the turnovers swung back the other way. So yeah, you fumbled early, but then the last couple of weeks, you're picking up a fumble, running it for a touchdown. You're picking up McCafffree's fumble you're picking

off brock purdy the turnover gods have giveth and taketh away we'll call it even at this point because the ones that the vikings have gotten have been so huge for them and yet the overall sample size of seven games statistically is you're a pretty average team that might take you somewhere in the nfc potentially to the playoffs because the teams that you're playing going forward are a lot of them less than average, including the green Bay Packers that you're playing this week down in Lambeau field, Atlanta, you got Denver in there. New Orleans is not impressive at all.

And I feel like Derek Carr is going to set a record for checkdowns against Brian Flores' defense. And so there's a lot of misery that you've got in this big, wide open space. And I guess what I would say is go prove it. Go prove that that's who you are, because the opportunity is right there for you. And if they can't be better than what you said, eight, nine, then they are who we thought they were. And that's just a blip on the radar. If that's the high point of the season, then it wasn't good enough if it doesn't carry over. And if they don't go on a streak of wins, which of course brings us to the trade deadline, it is never a guarantee to win at Lambeau field. Even if Jordan love likes to throw

the ball to the other team as well. And that dude's probably going to freak the hell out against Brian Flores' defenses. That would be my guess. But if you end up at three and five, it doesn't change a whole heck of a lot as far as the trade deadline, as far as the sell conversation. They could talk about believing in themselves all they want. They have to win this game. And then that goes away. And then it's a playoff chase.

And that's where we're at. Yeah, the narrative completely changes next Monday morning. Right. Next Monday morning, we'll sit here and we'll say, OK, they're back. They're back to what they were last year. Probably even better than last year's team in some respects. Jefferson's going to be back in another week or so. OK, we can see the path in which this is clear to a chance

to chase out a playoff hope and a dream here we lose this game to green bay three and five you're fighting a battle uphill and you're really putting you're not in control of your own destiny anymore you're really not because you're just too far behind you're just too far behind to really catch up and i know the north division everyone won't say what's wide open but i think detroit's going to get themselves back on track and they've got a pretty decent lead a healthy lead here going into the back half back half stretch of this season so this is the turning point right the nfl used to have that what was it the the show they had on and it's like the turning point right this is this is the turning point for the Minnesota Vikings. And if they come out and have another dominant performance,

I think if we squeak a win out in Green Bay, I know it's not easy, right? But that's a team that if we play like we did last night, they beat Green Bay by two touchdowns. They do. If they play the style of defense they played last night and the offense clicking and Kirk doing his thing and getting Cam Akers going against a Green Bay team that should that should i think they lost did they lose the broncos or did they beat the broncos no they lost to the broncos they lost to the broncos right like they they are they are reeling right now in a lot of different ways this is hey let's go out continue to get back and we win this game in dominating

fashion then maybe they aren't who we thought they were maybe they have turned a corner and they're a veteran-led team in certain positions and the young guys are all starting to come along and buy in and koc's got them all rallied together and cool let's have that conversation but until then it's just gonna be a big guessing game we're all just gonna have to sit around and play the hurry up and wait game for what sunday afternoon looks like what i'm curious is whether we'll be right having said last week maybe they should just sell now so they don't upset san francisco and then believe in themselves too much and then going right yep we could have we could be very easily could have signed our death warrant for the rest of the year with that win just based off of one

win and everyone going okay let's pump the brakes let's pump everyone going, okay, let's pump the brakes. Let's pump the brakes. Get one more. Let's pump the brakes. And then the wheels fall off, right? Like we could just be playing on borrowed time here and we just won't know, which is the glorious thing about NFL football. Yeah, I have felt like all year I've been talking out of two sides of my mouth, but kind of because they did like when they call it a competitive rebuild that's doing

exactly that and so it's like when they lose we hammer them and when they win we should praise them for winning because they wanted to be a good team and they said they were going to be a good team so you should be but also at the same time i feel you for every person who watched your drake may dreams trickling down the drain knowing what's coming up on this schedule, there are trades up, people. You can make that happen. But I understand where some fans are coming from who watched that game last night and said, great game. Love to see a win. But the thing that we're still aiming toward is the rebuild part of this.

And I still don't think after that game we're ready to declare them a Super Bowl contender or anything like that. And if you're not going to be, then once again you're stuck in the middle with a lot of great players who can't get you there. And not a complete enough roster. And so it's hard to be cynical after a victory like that that's so impressive but i also totally understand the people who are feeling that way this morning yeah and it's a fair thing to feel because this isn't a five and one football team it's not this is this is still a losing record football team that won a great game that's what they're a losing football team that won a great game. That's what they're losing football team that won a great game against a good football team. That doesn't change the trajectory in which

they were on. In my opinion, they won one week. Congratulations. You almost lost to the bears last week. We can't just forget about that, right? That can't just pop out of our minds. Like, well, that game didn't actually happen. Like this is who we are. This is the NFL. This is the Vikings, right? Look at that. This is who we're always going to be forever and always. It's never going to be any different than what we saw on Monday night football. It's not a realistic thing. The players didn't change. They are still who they are. The NFL is a up and down beast. And I think you, you look at the teams this week that one, there's a lot of bad teams that won this week. I'm not saying the Vikings

are a bad team. There's a lot of bad teams that found a way to put together a teams this week that won, there's a lot of bad teams that won this week. I'm not saying the Vikings are a bad team, but there's a lot of bad teams that found a way to put together a win this week. Does that mean we're ready to declare the Broncos back because they beat the Packers? Are we ready to declare the Ravens as the best team in the AFC because they beat the... There's just so many things that go back and forth with the overreactions that can happen still early in the season if this was a win

in december and we're now staring at 500 or maybe a game over 500 that's when you can start getting really excited about that but mid-october probably got to pump the brakes a little bit on saying gas pedal this is a this is a real deal football team all right real quick uh love to see it hate to see it do you want to begin you want me to start what do you want to do go for it you got it uh mike tomlin i don't know i have no idea i i just want to play for the steelers for a year and try to figure it out what does this man do that that team is still a winning football team kenny pickett hasn't played great except for in the fourth quarter their defense missing some guys they get some guys hurt. Doesn't seem to matter.

They just keep going over 500 in the playoffs every year. And we talk about coaching every week on the show. This is the value of coaching. And I follow people in Pittsburgh. They complain about this decision or that decision. I think of this with Kevin O'Connell. If you have a top 10 coach, you're just going to win more games because of it. I mean, you're, you're just, you're never going to be out of a season unless you lose your quarterback because you have a good coach. O'Connell's not on Mike Tomlin's level. He's like an all time great, but it's just amazing to see. I just love to see it. I watched from afar and see that man overachieve every single year and he's doing it again. You know, just amazing to see i just love to see it i watch from afar and see that man overachieve every single year and he's doing it again you know i hate to see what's happening in buffalo

right now what like what is going on up there i mean i think everyone at the beginning of the season kind of had this eerie feeling of like is buffalo gonna be down this year is there too many distractions is the pressure to win because you paid Josh Allen all this money really high? Have they not been able to reach the Super Bowl? And did they miss on their opportunities? There's all these questions swirling. Then they go out and lose to the Jets in week one against Zach Wilson. And then the questions piled on even more.

And then they put together a couple good wins. And Josh looked right back to being Josh Allen. Like, okay, they're back. They're figuring it out. But now back-to-back losses against the Jaguars and the Patriots. Bad losses. The Jaguars, yeah, that's a contender team for a playoff spot. I don't think they're quite talented enough to make a Super Bowl run yet,

but that's a talented team. But the Patriots have been abysmal. I mean, abysmal. They've been horrible. And to go out and lose that game really is going to put a lot of question marks in Orchard Park. And you just hate to see a team that has the talent, has the quarterback being high paid and just question marks all over the place because they're fun to watch. They're a good time. But I think Orchard Park is not a fun place to be right now. And as a Buffalo guy, i hate to see it yeah i i hate to see that as well i wondered about that going into the season because we know this when you come this close and they did 13 seconds and i know it's a couple years ago but when you come this close it lingers it just lingers and then

every loss becomes armageddon and there there isn't an attitude of like oh we're a good team bad game whatever we'll get back on it. It's, Oh my gosh, what is going wrong? Are we melting? Are we, and the pressure adds up, feels a little bit like the Vikings in 2018 when that kind of happened to them. Uh, let's see. Oh, uh, my love to see it was, uh, the, um, all the teams.

Well, I guess you could make this. I hate to see it. All the teams who could have traded for Lamar Jackson and we're, and we're putting out statements, the Atlanta Falcons, we will not be trading for Lamar Jackson. Are you serious? No, us, no way. We've got Desmond Ritter folks. We don't need no Lamar. That guy is unreal. It just unreal. And he carved up the lions throwing the football, make it plays outside the pocket. I mean, just what I don't think they were ever going to trade him. I think it was always the plan. They had all the leverage in that situation, but if they were, why did the Atlanta Falcons, et cetera, or the 49ers not trade for Lamar Jackson.

Good for you, everyone. Glad all the owners decided to not exactly get together, wink, wink, and decide that they were not at all going to collude against Lamar Jackson.

Worked out for John Harbaugh. I mean, if you're picking a team to go to the Super Bowl and the AFC, they got to be in your top two picks. As long as he continues to play and can stay healthy, right? That's the biggest thing with him is he, I don't think he's ever finished a full season, right? I think he's always gotten dinged. And that just comes with the beast of being a running quarterback in the NFL.

You're going to get hit by those dudes at one point in time, and it's not going to feel good. And a rib, a knee, an elbow, an ankle, I mean, whatever it may be, if he can stay healthy, they're absolutely contenders. 100%. They are contenders. Um, yeah, love to see that too. My love to see it is USC getting beat again by Utah, Utah, just being the USC thorn in their side, just, oh, Caleb Williams, the Heisman quarterback. And then you got, you got the Utah head coach going, they got a Heisman candidate for quarterback.

We got a pig farmer, right? Like just phenomenal. I watched that entire game. Every snap just loved every second of it. And then just the cowardice of Lincoln Riley and not allowing players to come out to the media. What is that? Like, these are grown men. They're making millions.

And you could say this now. These players are getting paid to play, especially your number one draft pick quarterback, who's going to never be able to hide to the media when you go into the NFL. You're not setting him up for success in that regard and saying nope no media availability for my players coward coward first of all one of the reasons i like utah is that the players are as old as i am and that's fun uh they all have uh three kids and uh mortgages and everything yeah yeah no they're they they're one of the toughest football teams every year and i and i like that there were a few things about what you said that caleb williams at the end of that game and i like his talent as much as anybody else but they show him over and over again just sitting on

the bench looking toward the sky head in his hands i was never more impressed with cj stroud than when he lost to mich. He talked to the media. And by the way, I tweeted about this. Caleb Williams wants to talk to the media. He's probably talking to the media. I'm just saying he's the whole, he's the whole university. He could make that decision probably just as much as his coach. And he decided to hide away as well.

And his reaction I thought was embarrassing. After that loss, he did not go congratulate the other quarterback, shake his hand, right? And maybe college football is a little bit different, but you're supposed to be the guy, which means when you lose the bad game, that you walk off the field as the leader, not flop yourself on the side of the bench. You can let anybody else do that. But some of the stuff with Caleb Williams and, and I'm look, I'm not whatever he's a college kid. I get it, but you're supposed to be that leader. And there've been multiple times that I have not felt like I've seen that. And there should be some concern about how long he holds onto the ball

that he's constantly putting himself under pressure. And now I see everybody else getting blamed. Well, you know, his offensive line, Well, you know, his receivers. Well, maybe Lincoln Riley's not dialing up the right plays. Well, it's on you to, you're supposed to be the generational prospect. And I think there's more questions I have about him than I had about any of the other guys that are dubbed generational prospects like Trevor Lawrence, Andrew Luck, Peyton Manning, because you saw the leadership element. And I wonder about him being soft and dealing with losing. Because in the NFL, you lose all the time. Even if you're good, you still lose like five, six times a year. Even if you're a Super Bowl contending team, are you going to do that every time you lose in the NFL?

It's not going to go well. So I will be very curious to see kind of how that develops there. But you're right. Totally embarrassing not bringing out those players. And there needs to be I think all the people who pay them, all the people who pay to be there and everything else deserve to

understand what happened when you get upset like that. But I guess they're too good for that. So anyway, Jeremiah, great stuff. Can I do one more hate to see it one more oh sure absolutely oh yes what the hell was Arthur Smith doing with B. John Robinson what like what was that like I don't have him on my fantasy team listen if I did I'd be irate but like you can't not disclose like well he just wasn't feeling himself like no no that's not how this works you don't get

to just be like oh he stubbed his eyelash right like you have to have a reason to not play a guy and feel like it's still kind of the smoke and mirrors and maybe we'll find out today or tomorrow what thing but it's just a kind of smoke and mirrors thing of well we just didn't play him like that's you can't do that like you you just can't do that arthur smith has seemed like the game is a little too big for him as a head coach really all the whole time he's been a head coach including just not trading for lamar jackson uh maybe that's not his decision but with bijan robinson i would just like to remind everyone that two teams told us their running backs were different and let Jordan Addison slide down the board this is why we talk about it every year don't draft your running backs because they won't

change a franchise no no no this guy's different have you seen his tape yeah I've seen it I've seen a Trent Richardson's tape as well I've seen also Saquon Barkley. Boy, he was different. I mean, yeah, good player. And what difference does it make? Don't draft running backs the first round. You'll pay for it. Oh, Quentin, you know, or what's his name? Zay Flowers. He's too short.

Jordan Addison, he's too skinny. He drives too fast. Oh, and they didn't know that then. And we're going to draft a running back. Can you imagine the Lions if they had addison they had zay flowers or the falcons that's why we say it hate to see it anyway well great stuff we'll be doing this again uh after the game against the packers and we'll know whether we're talking about this team and a hot playoff race or a massive disappointment

in which they should still trade players. That's all. Thanks for your time, Jeremiah. And thanks everyone for listening. As always, we'll catch you next time.