Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Jeremiah Sirles breaks down the Vikings signing Dalton Risner

Episode Date: September 20, 2023

Matthew Coller and Jeremiah Sirles talk about the questions Dalton Risner can and can't answer, where he's going to play and how much impact he can have. Plus they discuss whether there are improvements to be made on defense and whether they'll beat the Chargers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello and welcome to one of the greatest Tuesday morning left guard episodes that we have ever recorded. I already know this because the Minnesota Vikings have actually added a guard. If he's left guard, I'm not sure. If he's right guard, I'm not sure. Maybe he can even play center, but we know he's going to play on the offensive line. Dalton Reisner has joined the Minnesota Vikings and Jeremiah Searles, thankfully, is here after it happened. It was like they were doing it just for us. Let's sign Reisner so these guys can talk about it and break it down.

So the floor is yours, Jeremiah. What do you think about the Vikings signing Dalton Reisner? I think it was a necessity. You know, we saw what it was Garrett Bradbury getting hurt Schlottman going in and you know as bad as the Vikings played on Thursday night and lost that game we were in it and we had a chance and I think that this team is looking at what this offense is and going man we've got so many weapons we've got so many things we can do we've got to sure up the middle of this offensive line.

We've got to make sure that we can keep guys out of Kirk's face. We've got to start running the ball more effectively, and we can't fix it with what we have. We tried. We did our best. We tried to develop guys. We tried to bring guys in. We brought Chris Reed in.

It didn't work. We tried to figure moving guys around, moving guys from tackle. We finally just have to eat this and go, you know what? Wasn't enough. We have to go to the street. We have to go find someone. I think this was preemptively a couple weeks ago when they cleared cap space with Brian O'Neal. I think they were like, all right, we'll give these dudes one more shot.

Short week, Thursday night. But if things don't go well, we're bringing in Dalton Reisner. And I think they saw enough. They've seen enough. They bring in a guy who's played a ton of football started a lot of football games played some center in college he could play either guard position and he's going to be an upgrade at whatever spot he walks in there on okay well that's a pretty next natural question is what spot should he play for me it's just play right guard because I think that there's you could speak to this much better than

me but just my observation is if one player is really struggling to even understand where he's supposed to be on the football field it messes with everybody it's like the one weak link in the armor uh can can really take the whole thing apart I I think he's been that, not just from a physical perspective, but also from a mental perspective. So I would just plop him in there at right guard, hope that Garrett Bradbury's coming back soon. But they would know more about Bradbury's status, how long of a thing this could be.

It's not on IR. Also, it's not like Ezra Cleveland is really impressed, and that's Reisner's position that he's played in the NFL since day one. So where should he slot in? I've been struggling on this too. There's part of me that thinks move Ed Ingram to center and put him at right guard because Schlommen really struggled against the Eagles.

He really struggled. I mean, he got pushed around. He missed some IDs, not just physically, but I thought mentally he struggled off the tape. And again, I don't know the schemes. I i don't know everything i'm not sitting in those meetings but from what i could detect and look at from the tape you know it looked like we were sometimes really mis-id on some things and that starts with the center position and you know i follow ed ingram on instagram and i watched him during the off season practicing snaps practicing doing

those things so i could see them being like hey we drafted you high you need to play we want you to keep developing we don't want to trash your confidence right away as a year two guy let's slide you inside put Dalton Reisner at right guard and let's roll from there but also Ezra Cleveland has also played some right guard right he's also played some right guard so it really just depends that coach Cooper and Quasey and KOC have to kind of make a decision of how many moving parts do we really want to have do we just want to have one moving part where it's like hey we pull one plug one or does it want to be hey move you here plug you here wait till Bradbury gets back and then reshuffle the fold again or do we just want to do the easy fix and I'm with you if we're just

going to do the easy fix and we're just going to look okay where's the biggest problem it's right guard and you plug him in at right guard unless he comes in and he's like, no, I play left. And you're like, all right, I gave you 4 million reasons to play left. Ezra, bump on over. I think those are really the two logical choices there. But only time will tell. I don't think he plays this week. It'd be really impressive if he did.

If you walked in on a Monday and you started on a Sunday and then this kind of scheme hats off to you you know but I don't think he starts this week we probably see him start two weeks from now I'm at probably the right guard position was it uh how long was Jake Long in the building before they threw him out there I feel like it was uh feel like that was the same week and after one series they were nope, no more TJ Clemmings. Here comes Jake Long. I mean, TJ Hawkinson did it last year. I think that's a pretty special thing that he was able to do.

But I also think as far as playing right away, I wonder if they snuck on the playbook or they downloaded onto a zip disc that he could go home and take a look at because if they don't play him and then they lose and go to oh and three and then the playoffs become like a major outlier if you're somehow able to make that but you also signed him like what were you doing right so this is why the timing of it is i think not ideal maybe it would have been ideal let me check my phone calendar app oh yeah august 1st that would have been when this thing was ideal i'll never really understand that but i know that internal politics play a role you know this as well uh this guy drafted him this guy believes in him this guy doesn't this whatever and then finally it's like they really have to see it sometimes

and we have really seen it i think it's a better idea to just plug one guy in one spot rather than it's like if you're a baseball team and your left fielder gets hurt it's a better idea to just plug one guy in one spot rather than it's like if you're a baseball team and your left fielder gets hurt, it's way easier to just add a left fielder than it is. Okay. We're going to move the second baseman to left and the first baseman to second. And then we're going to like, it just messes with a lot of people. And Ezra Cleveland's not even great at his job, much less another job that he's switching mid season after practicing all the footwork and everything else. I think that would be a mistake to move things around too much. Now here's the other question though.

How much can this impact the offensive line? Because you are going from the very bottom to somebody who in past blocking has ranked in the top 20 by PFF three straight years. So I think it could be fairly significant, but I don't know if it's just the be-all end-all to all suddenly you are a great offensive line I think people have to understand too that Dalton Reisner is not Zach Martin Dalton Reisner has not played football since last year he wasn't in a training camp he wasn't in OTAs, and so for him physically to be ready to go out there and

play 60 snaps or 70 snaps is a lot to ask of a guy who's just getting in and you can only practice in pads once a week. Right. And depending on how beat up they are, which they're kind of beat up, they might not be in pads at all this week. So you're going to say, Hey, Dalton Reisner, I know you're sitting on the couch watching football last week, but, uh, here's a helmet. Here's some shoulder pads.

You remember how to lace those cleats up, right? Time to go play big boy football against a very good Chargers front. That's one of the things that everyone thinks guys can do it, and it takes a special Hall of Fame gold jacket guy like Zach Martin to just walk in there and be like, yeah, I'm the best. I'm going to go beat up Dexter Lawrence on the first season, and you paid me to do it. Dalton Reisner's not Zach Martin,

and I don't think it's fair for us to anticipate that he's going to come in here Lawrence on the first season and you paid me to do it. Dalton Reisner is not Zach Martin. And I don't think it's fair for us to anticipate that he's going to come in here and make a Zach Martin, Quinton Nelson type of difference. Will he be better? Yes. Is he going to be the, oh, everything's fixed and everything's hunky dory and we're going to go win the Super Bowl now? I'm not, I don't think so. I think he's a good player. I think he's a competent middle of the pack offensive guard, but it's like we talked about it's a step up from where we were and where we were was Kirk Cousins is having a fantastic start to the year again you have a god out at wide receiver in number 18 you have a tight end who has

great chemistry like all those things get fixed and now if you just elevate even a little bit at the guard position and allow that one more second for Kirk Cousins or you open that lane half a step more for Alexander Medicine or Ty Chandler those guys those can be hidden plays that are maybe a first second third quarter play that instead of now sitting in third and nine we have an effective run on second down because it's behind Dalton Reisner and now it's third and three and we're having more open plays those are the type type of impacts Dalton risers going to have. This is not a Super Bowl changing signing by and feeling pretty good about it. I watched back the game on tape as always. And some of the passing concepts that he came up with and some of the ways he messed with their defense. I mean, the man was in his bag, like he was preparing for

this and he had a lot of answers that Jordan Addison touchdown is really interesting. You see the safety get put in a bind, go the wrong way. Addison is, I mean, it might've been the right play from him, but the wrong way from where the ball was going and it's a long touchdown and like i can see where o'connell is saying just give me a little bit more in this pass pro and i am going to absolutely work teams with the number of weapons that i have and i totally agree with him and i also think that this is kind of the signing though too late, uh, that we did not see from the Mike Zimmer era with Rick Spielman. It was always like, you know, this Tom Compton, he played like six good games a couple of years ago. How about we

give him 16 and like, that's not Dakota Dojo. He was, he was a very competent backup for the New York jets. Let's run them out there for a whole season. That's not how the sport works or anything works. Whereas like small sample guys can handle a handful of games, but when it comes to a bigger sample, tougher competition, it's really hard. And so them identifying the issue, getting someone who's actually good at this in free agency, it's like what everyone wanted. It's just, can it be the thing that plays a central role in them turning things around? And part of that is like you, you have to win this week. So I, I mean, that, that to me is such a huge part of it. I don't know where he's

going to play. Maybe we'll find that out soon. Maybe it'll be a secret or maybe they'll like, is Sam Bradford starting week two, 2016? I i don't know maybe we'll see at green bay i i don't know no one can figure it out even though mike mccarthy was on our conference call being like yeah we're preparing for sam and like zimmer's like they'll never know uh they're they're over there preparing for sean hill no anyway so uh i but i think that this is um maybe a situation where we see him get in for 30 snaps or something like that. That might be the right way to go about it.

I mean, we haven't even talked about it yet, but who's playing left tackle? That's a whole other issue. Do you want to put him – you can't put him at left guard, in my opinion, if you have your backup center and your backup left tackle in because who's going to tell him what to do right those two guys got enough to worry about right we need to about ole's done for the year right i mean he's done i think i don't know if i thought i read somewhere that he was done for the year right quissonberry came in and played well i thought for being the third third string tackle against that front he came in and held his own

but now if he's the guy if derisaw's not back you know do you really want to put dalton reisner next to two newer starters or you're like hey to ease you in let's put you over here next to our big comfy cushion of brian o'neill right like you two start working really well together and build some chemistry because we feel like we can hold on the left side of the line with derisaw and so so it's like, okay, let's put him at right. As my brain's thinking for more of the O-line standpoint here, it's like, okay, if we put Dalton Reisner at right guard, then we can slide our center left more because we'll have more confidence in those two guys on the right

with Reisner and O'Neal being singled up. We can slide our center left more. We know our left tackle when we get derisaw back is going to be stud so let's just sure up with two on one on that side as many times as possible right so that would make a lot of sense versus you put him at left next week and he's like hi i'm new here chris was like hi i'm new here and you're trying to figure out in a must win game probably not a giant recipe for success oh yeah i totally agree and that's i mean that's a great argument to just throw him in and i don't know uh to the right side i mean and I don't know what the situation is with Darisaw. We're going to see. Does he practice? How much does he practice? And then it might end up being a game time last, I don't know how many years, and have just been bad. Anyway, I think Dakota Dozier did give them 16. It just wasn't 16 good

games. But now they, I believe, have the best offensive line left to right probably since 2017, if not better, because Derrissaw is a better player than Riley Reif. And for sure, Brian O'Neill is better than Mike Remmers. So you have, if healthy, even if Ezra Cleveland is your one weak point, he's okay for a worst player on an offensive line. And Bradbury, you know, had taken a step forward last year. It's legit. Like that's a pretty good offensive line.

But how healthy they're going to be. And you're really left tackle with an ankle. That sounds hard hard it just sounds really tough and then center with a back issue that sounds even harder especially since every defensive tackle wants to bend you backwards and and move you that way so i i feel like if they can get healthy this can be pretty good i agree you know And I think that's part of the signing of Dalton Reisner is we can't waste what we have on offense right now. We just can't.

It's too good. It's too many weapons. And the future is uncertain with Kirk. And our running game is abysmal. So we're going to have to throw the football. We've got to fix this now. And so if you can say, if you were to tell me tomorrow, hey, left to right is Darasai, Ezra Cleveland, Garrett bradbury dalton reisner brian o'neill i'd feel very confident in our

ability to go win football games on the offensive side of the ball right and i'm going to keep saying the offensive side of the ball because the defensive side of the ball is an entire another can of worms that there's not fixing that anytime soon but if we're going to have to go getting shootouts every game which is probably what koc is thinking like we're gonna have to score 30 to 35 every game if we want to give ourselves a chance to win well we better make damn sure everything's buttoned up and as tight as we can on offense and that just goes back to why now is probably why they pulled the trigger on Dalton Reisner okay momentarily on the defense because I was um really baff, I guess, a little bit by what happened when I watched it back. I mean, in real time, a little bit, but especially after watching it back.

But momentarily, the running game is, if anything, Dalton Reisner's weakness by the PFF grades. And they usually tell a pretty good story when it comes to, you know, either run or pass blocking. But I feel like with run blocking, this is just my feeling is that five gentlemen working together is really the key. And I think that one of the major issues with Ed Ingram specifically is not having five large gentlemen working together. One is kind of, I don don't know looking at the clouds i mean sometimes you're like where what was where were you what were you doing there so i think that even if dalton reisner even if he's not capable of moving bodies like a philadelphia eagle is even if he is just in the right spot blocking the right human being on the other side that that is going to help the running game but how much can he help that and also is it is it just the offensive

line that's the problem or are there alexander madison issues as well yeah it's definitely a committee problem you know it's easy to pin it all on the offensive line be like boo you guys suck like it's really easy to do that but the two games now that i've watched and looked at and studied like okay why is this running game really not sputtering it's just dead on contact right and you look at it and you're right it's usually one of the five or one of the six or seven if you include tight ends missing one guy and that's all it takes in the run game you can have four guys great out great and if you have one guy miss or one guy with bad hat placement or miss a linebacker run through, the play is dead on arrival. And that seemed to be the theme even a little bit last year with why this running game is not well. The second issue that stems from that first issue is Madison not trusting his blockers. I think everyone's like, man, what's going on with Alexander Madison right now?

Why is he hitting? And the great offense and line running back combos have great fluency and congruency in how they trust each other with the patience to let the blocks develop, let the scheme develop, and then put your foot in the ground and make the cut. And right now now i don't believe madison has the confidence in his offensive line to be patient and allow the runs to come to him he is forcing the issue and by forcing the issue i think he's like i gotta get to the line scrimmage quickly before i get hit right so he's not allowing that backside combo to cave down and put his foot in the ground and get back there or they're not running as much zone right so he's

not getting ahead of steam laterally before. He's going more downhill initially, so the reads are quicker and everything's happening faster. And when you don't trust your offensive line to be in the right place, you just are kind of lost in your run. You're not really trusting or feeling it. You don't feel like you're in a rhythm. And it just feels like he's back there very choppy right now.

He just doesn't feel like he has a good feel of where he wants to go on any given run. Versus you flip it and look what the Eagles did to the Vikings right like Swift was so patient and so calm and understanding like hey this is an inside zone to the left but I know that backside Goddard and Lane Johnson are going to cave this guy down and climb to the linebacker so I'm going to press it make that linebacker come over the top put my foot in the ground and come out the backside and there's just none of that trust factor going on on this offense and even Hawkinson at time has struggled in the in the run game you know I thought that he's done well and I mean phenomenal in the past game obviously but you know that tenacity and

blocker that we see out of Kittle and that I saw from him in Detroit is just not really there and I think that might also be with he didn't work a ton with Brian O'Neill in the offseason because O'Neill didn't practice. Right now, Derisaw's out. And so he's working with tackles and getting fits and stuff that he never had to do before because they're new tackles. So all those things combination together are why our run game is poo-poo. I mean, it's a combination of everything.

It's not a one individual thing. There's a lot of factors that go into making a point. Folks, I am absolutely pumped about my prize picks this week because i crushed it if you have not heard of it prize picks is the easiest and best way to play daily fantasy except instead of betting against thousands of other players or people who spend their entire life doing fantasy all you need to do is pick more or less between two and six player stat projections. Say a quarterback's number is 250 yards or a wide receiver, a hundred yards receiving, go more or less and bang, you're in, you're playing. And you can pick from hundreds

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That's prizepix.com slash purple. Use the code purple. Daily Fantasy Sports made easy. Yeah, I also think that Alexander Madison is quite good at doing two things. If you give him the ball and it's straightforward, shot out of a cannon, straightforward, that he is at worst case going to ram it is some people and fall forward for three or four yards he also i think was very good at outside zone the gary kubiak get your steps right you know that whole like gibbs dennison group that invented that whole thing shanahan he was drafted into that and and he worked really well in that and when you look at his rushing yards over expected when he's playing in that system they were good but the last two

years it hasn't been good and so i don't know if it's more complicated or it just requires a different type of vision or patience or what exactly it is but it's not fitting with what he does well so can kevin o'connell adjust that because o'connell has never been an outside zone get everybody moving run the boots off it type of thing he's been much more of this kind he calls it mid-zone there's a little more gap in there and that sort of stuff but it hasn't worked for madison and there's no other option and this was the other thing we were talking about like oh dal oh, Dalton Riser's here, like a little late. But the same thing goes for any other running back. As soon as it was clear Kenny Wong was going to be hurt, then, OK, Miles Gaskins, just not enough. And so maybe teams to face for two weeks if you're trying to get going on the run game. So this might be what they need to face a Chargers team that doesn't have quite the same. Speaking of which, the Chargers in week one ran for like 230 yards.

They're going to do that again. What did you see? Is anything fixable? Was it just the eagles offensive line is godly like what was the root cause of the eagles doing whatever they wanted i mean the root cause was it was just another man whooping another man for four quarters i mean that's ultimately that's what the game of football is is they won their one-on-one matchups against our guys and the problem was a lot of those one-on-one matchups were over before they started

I mean you're talking about Brian Asamoah 210 pounds of him versus Landon Dickerson and Jordan Molotov all 350 of them you know as my father once told me numbers don't lie you know 600 pounds 300 pounds crushes 200 pounds It's just how it is. But everyone was on single blocks the entire night. And that is not a winning success against a run-first football team. And we didn't do a whole lot to change it during the game. That was the most concerning thing to me is during the first half, we all sitting there watching the game were like, okay, well, we know what the Eagles are going to do.

They found out what they want to do. They were just going to keep doing it and we all just kept waiting like Flores when are you gonna when are you gonna change this when are you gonna switch things up here and he just never really did you know you never got to see four or five D linemen in the game right it was like all right screw it Harrison Phillips Dean Lowry Daniil Hunter all of you go right like engage eight figure it out and it never really happened. Still was just whole, like, we're going to run guys all over the place and try and get going. But that offensive line was so well coached. I mean, Jeff Stoutland is their all line coach.

He's one of the best in the business. He had those guys so dialed in with, Hey, we're just full zoning this because they run this crazy scheme where guys are running. You step, you protect your gap. If nothing's there, you stay on your track until something comes or you put your foot in the ground and rock back to someone coming to you. And you saw it time and time again. If we don't figure out how to just stiffen up in the front, whether that's more bodies, whether that's guys just playing better, we're going to really struggle stopping the run this year. Because one thing this defense doesn't have, and I mean, it doesn't have a lot of things, but the glaring thing is lack of size.

We don't have big bodies, big linebackers, big D linemen that can run up there and be run stuffers. We're built to defend the pass and we're built to run over the place. But I think teams are just going to take a page out of the Eagles playbook and go, well, let's see if they can stop it this week. And then if they do, we'll figure something else out. But that's what the nature of the NFL is. It's a copycat league. And that will be very interesting to see this week with the chargers will they actually stay with the run because even in 2021 i thought that the vikings when they had a horrific run defense that year

that some teams lost games to the vikings because they just couldn't do it like if if you're an offensive coordinator you get hired you're the next offensive coordinator genius. And what does that usually mean? I've got all the passing concepts. Look how brilliant they are. I'll make the most of the quarterback. And oh, yeah, I guess we'll have a run game. We'll see how it works out.

But the Eagles, now they're not like that, though. They are, you know, all in on the run game. How many other teams are going to do that as they you know kind of go down the stretch here well one of them is San Francisco for sure it probably won't matter against Kansas City like you're going to face some teams that probably can do this I don't know if the Chargers are truly one of them or they just had a good week in week one on the ground but I think that that's the thing they have to solve I also did have the same thought like, Hey, is anybody fat here? Just go stand there.

Just do something like how many fat, but honestly, so they lost James Lynch and, you know, Kairos Tonga has not gotten a lot of work. Uh, and it was an undrafted guy who showed up, you know,

I mean, whenever, you know, last year, whenever, and he had some pretty good moments and he played a lot in camp, but this is not a guy who's facing Jason Kelsey effectively. And I was watching Landon Dickerson be like, they got another one.

Like, oh my God, they just do anything. And so this offensive line is unusual though, because this is like the cream of the crop. That's the homes of offensive line. So not everyone's going to be able to do this, but I also think you have nobody that can stuff the other team, just nobody except for Harrison Phillips. And he is about 40 or 50 pounds undersized for what a nose tackle usually is in this type of system. Yeah.

I mean, I think we're really, really in the loss of Dalvin Tomlinson, right? As much as everyone wanted to say like, Oh, he wasn't this, he wasn't that he's a big body that ate up double teams. Right. And he was very effective at it. And he's making,

I watched him do it the last couple of weeks in Cleveland. You know, he, he did a great job against Cincy and he did a really good job last night, right? Like he's doing what they want him to do. And I think he's a guy that we're going to really miss. And so for what we do to fix that, your guess is as good as mine because i don't know how you fix a personnel issue week three this isn't you can't hit the transfer portal right there's no like hey let's see who's floating around in the portal and see if we can bring in like yeah you can bring guys in off the street but they're on the street for a reason you know if you were good and effective you're on a football team right and yes yes, the Chargers O-line is obviously not the Eagles O-line.

And if Eckler's out, it's obviously not the same thing. Kelly is not Eckler. But they have an all-pro left tackle. They've got one of the highest paid centers in the league. They've got two young guards, you know, in Zion Johnson. And then they have, I think it's Pipkins or whatever his name is at right tackle. It's a good offensive line. It's a top 15, right? I say they're in the top. It's a good offensive line. It's a top 15.

I say they're in the top half of the league of offensive line, but I think to go back to your previous point about why teams get away from running the football is if you're paying your quarterback this much money, you're going to make him throw the football. And Herbert's one of those guys that signed one of those fat contracts and they're like, hey, you're going to earn that. You're going to throw that arm until it falls off right and i think sometimes teams can get in their own way with that

thought process of well we paid all this money to this guy and kelly's getting 400 grand this year like why are we why are we giving him the football right versus that's the devaluation of the running back that's that's the everything that i just mentioned is why people aren't paying running backs anymore and it's why you're seeing teams run away from the run game so much it's going to hurt football and the teams that get back to it quicker and the teams that get back to it first are gonna be the ones that have great success with the run games i do think that we are seeing and this i just always believe in the ebbs and flows of football right like everybody after 2020 when is one of the most successful passing years was like this is modern football positionless defense.

They're going to have to go small. And then of course that works in 2021 for some defenses. And I was like, Oh, let's copy this system and get smaller players. And now teams are coming back the other way and saying, how about we run the football down your face? And last year was the most successful, like expected points added in, in terms of running that's ever happened in the nfl and part of that's running quarterbacks as well which was a huge problem for them not that hurts was the problem but it was you have to watch hurts and so there was like one play for deandre swift where a caleb evans is assigned to hurts and he just sort of stands there and looks at him as deandre swift just runs right by and is like, oh, oh, not OK, that it's not the guy with the ball.

And then it was like a 12 yard game. So that's all playing into it. But I think that teams are realizing this. And I do wonder, too, with Kellen Moore being their offensive coordinator, if coming from Dallas where he had Ezekiel Elliott, Tony Pollard, if he's got a little more juice to that running game or if he will stick with it. But I think that's their philosophy. And O'Connell alluded to this after the game kind of like we were kind of going to dare them to run all the time and I thought that was a bad idea uh but

but also I get it though like I get it but it just that seems to me this whole like everyone on our team is super small and we're going to force teams to run the whole game i feel like that's two years ago's philosophy today and i'm not entirely sure it's going to work i also think that when belichick did stuff like this he had alan branch or danny shelton or vince wilfork he had just these beasts how about casey hampton back in the day like there's some and v and Vikings fans know this with Williams wall and everything else so I don't think this is gonna go super good uh and it's gonna have to be kind of a shootout type of game now I want to ask this though you have been in locker rooms

where it feels desperate where you're going into a game that you know and everybody knows if you lose this you're in trouble what is that like it's it's a tough place to be it's a lot of pressure and it's hard to ignore the pressure right everyone wants to say ignore the noise ignore the noise we're going one to know this week it's a lot of noise it's a lot of noise especially in a day and age where you pull up your instagram feed or your twitter feed and the first thing you see is like teams that started oh and three have never made the playoffs it's like oh shit right like it's one of those things you're like man and then it's you try and like okay flush it I'll move on but it lives there right in the back of your brain right and you can put added pressure onto yourself as a player or as an offense or as a defense or whatever it is and just be like man I have to do

something different or I have to play man I have to do something different or I have to play better I have to do this instead of just trusting the process and trusting the scheme and then you add into like oh man they brought someone else in maybe I am the problem right you start doubting yourself like a Dalton Reisner and you bring it like man am I I must be the issue I'm the reason we're losing it just everyone can kind of get out of track and out of sync versus it's really up to the veterans the Daniil Hunters the Kirk Cousins the Harrison Smiths to settle everyone from a player's standpoint be like listen it's a long season right we just have to get the first win like we just have to we have to break the dam a little bit here like we just have to crack first in get this first win like you saw teams do this week

right no one's panicking on Kansas City anymore right after the first week everyone's like Kansas City's washed they're done get them out right and then they go in like oh okay yeah they're okay right same thing with the Bills right I think if the Vikings can just settle and get that first win and find a way to be like hey this is a very similar team the last year they found ways to win in the fourth quarter this is going to be how it's going to be everyone will settle down including everyone in the room but right now I mean everyone's butthole in the room right now is real clenched real tight because it is a pivotal moment in the season and what makes it even worse is the team coming in is in the exact same situation right I mean it is honestly two teams with their backs completely

against the wall where this could be an absolute turning point for both these teams it's going to be very interesting to see which team allows that added pressure to affect their performance on sunday so the stat that popped up here uh only six teams have made the playoffs since 1979 after starting oh and three and there are a lot of articles about it a couple happened to my childhood to tell you like how rare this is the uh 1995 detroit lions bobby ross super fun team or was that no wayne font was it wayne fonts might have been wayne fonts super fun team barry sanders old yeah they threw the ball all over the place so there was that and the 1998 doug flutie buffalo bills a lot of fun with that team as well and i have the flutie flakes here somewhere um from from that

year when they came out but that tells a pretty good story i mean you start three games down it feels like well there's a lot of season to go but But then even to get to nine wins, which is a 50-50 shot, then you have to go nine and five the rest of the way, which means you got to like whoop everybody. You know, you got to be like an elite team to go nine and five. So, yeah, it's it could be a rough ride here how do you think this plays out against two of your former squads and and will you wear half a jersey for this as searles for each side like s-i-r and then the l-e-s is is the vikings and one side no is that not what you're doing no no i'll just watch you know just a suggestion i have herbert and kirk and two separate fantasy leagues so I'll be cheering for a big high scoring game um you know but I think as much as I want to pick the Vikings to win this game like I look at the Chargers roster from top to bottom and obviously I think on offense that the Vikings have a better roster on offense but defense I don't think it's close I think you look from what the d-line has for i mean you talk about khalil mac

and joey bosa and dudes inside and then you look at ours and you're like oh bullard okay dean lowry okay like i have to give the nod to san san diego san diego to la oh they're still san diego until they're always yeah well until they do something the playoffs is la they're san diego yeah i i think san diego probably wins this football game strictly off the fact that we have a better they have a better defense you know that's that's the scary thing for me is i think both teams will score but i think they'll be the one that has the the game-changing sack the game-changing interception the turnover battle will be one just not the fact that they're better on defense than the vikings are

yeah i you know it's hard to dispute that the only uh thing is they're the chargers and i think you forgot about that um so true the the one thing that i do think the vikings have an advantage in is coaching uh i mean other than home field advantage, which I think is helpful, except for if any team is used to playing in a stadium cheering against them, since they have 17 games of it, unless they go to London, that would be the Los Angeles Chargers. I mean, it was straight up purple when they went there in 2021, they were using silent count. I mean, so they're used to it. But I also have just at this juncture, no respect for Brandon Staley as a head coach. And I think that there's a history with O'Connell on offense and Brian Flores on defense that just to me would suggest that they can out coach the Los Angeles Chargers.

Because in my mind, they are one of the most disappointing teams. You not only had Justin Herbert on a rookie contract, but you had an opportunity to build that roster. They have signed a ton of people on defense, brought in all sorts of talent, and yet it just never seems to come together. And so they botched his entire rookie contract, and then now they were like, oh, man, we should do something about that. And here you are sitting at oh and two i mean uh there's no uh there's no ladanian tomlinson that's walking

through this door actually kena mccardle revenge game i forgot kena mccardle was a uh a former charger as well darren sproles these guys these guys are helping lorenzo neal's not showing up to block for you out of the backfield so i I think I'll probably pick the Vikings based on coaching because I think that they're very even teams otherwise. If Derrissaw's back, that levels the playing field a little bit. But if you're talking about David Quistenberry going against Khalil Mack or Joey Bosa, that's a mismatch waiting to happen, and that could be a big problem that we have to figure out and game plan,

and maybe that means Hawk has to stay in more and chip or whatever it may be, but that's going to be the turning point. The pivotal change will be the left tackle for the Vikings. I really do believe that because those two guys are complete game wreckers. They're not just game changers. They're game wreckers. They can ruin a game. If you don't have a guy that's capable to block them, play in and play out. Well, we'll Mac against the Vikings wrecking games. I don't,

I've never heard of it. Doesn't sound familiar. I also think that if Marcus Davenport plays at some point this year, that would probably help as well. Because I felt, I felt bad for Daniel Hunter. You know how you'll see like in a movie, like a comedy,

it'll be a crazy person. Then he gets dragged off by the FBI by like two or three guys. That was like Daniil Hunter. Whereas like, all right, I'm ready to stop the run. And then like four Eagles just came and surrounded him. Like anything but you was kind of the way they handled that. So you need another one. And Davenport hasn't been healthy yet.

Yeah. And Davenport's built better for that than Daniel Hunter is right. You want, Hey, you have the strength of the formation and the tight ends are over here. Hey, Davenport, you're for that than Neil Hunter is right you want hey if the strength of the formation and the tight ends are over here hey Davenport you're bigger you go eat that up let's put to Neil Hunter on the outside where it's a one-on-one block with the tackle instead right and that's what they wanted this defense to be but when you talk about having minimal depth at that position and you know Wanham's not that guy. Davenport was really the only guy on this roster that fit that spot, that specific kind of strong defensive end spot.

And once he's got hurt and not played, we've been in a bit of panic mode ever since of trying to get guys in there. And the problem is we're just beating up Daniil Hunter. We're beating up Daniil Hunter, asking him to take on double teams and triple teams and doing those things that he's capable of, but he's getting a little older. We need him to be fresh to rush the passer on third down and do what he does best.

And so if we can get Davenport back and get Daniil Hunter back on the edge and let him be a little more free and use his quickness and his length on those single blocks, it'll be much more effective. But if he's not healthy, he's not healthy. You can't put a wounded guy out there and expect him to hold up in the run.

Yeah, I think that with Daniil Hunter, there is not just no hold up in the run. Yeah. I think that, you know, with Daniel Hunter, there is not just no help on the other side. There's really no help when it comes to rushing the passer anywhere. And, you know, they're relying entirely on those blitzes and stuff, which, you know, can be helpful, but I mean, sometimes you need four dudes to just go chase the quarterback and win. And there's one dude who can do that if Davenport isn't in. Also put it under the category of, oh yeah, Marcus Davenport missed a couple games. I mean, historically, like this has been who he is. I'm not, you know, I don't like when anybody can't play because they have injuries and stuff, but like that's been who he is.

And they said, no, no, DJ Wanham and Patrick Jones are fine solutions. They're not. So this was one just like with Dalton rise there, whereas like maybe August 1st should have been the date of finding another one of these guys and restructuring O'Neill. Uh, not that, uh, we would ever second guess any front offices. So anyway, uh, love to see it. Hate to see it. I'm going to start off with a sarcastic hate to see it. It is just too bad. The Desun watson move is blowing up on the browns i just feel i destroy i barely got out of bed this morning i was so distraught watching deshaun

watson look like hot garbage it's just too bad you know for such a well-run organization with great moral standing to uh have something go wrong for them. Two bad Browns. Sorry about all that. Deshaun Watson is bad. I mean, not just bad, but making bad decisions. Like the face mask penalty. Like, it's not just bad play. Like, it's bad leadership. Bad decisions for Deshaun Watson.

Yeah, I know. Using his hands for the wrong things. How dare he? Sorry. Too far. Anyways, my hate to see it. I can't stand to see Deion Sanders on my television anymore I just I'm so sick and tired about hearing about coach pride and yes he's winning it's great like and I'm sure ESPN's loving it because their ratings are probably through the roof

but I'm just so tired of hearing about him and not his team. I want, it's never, it's not the CU Buffaloes, it's Deion Sanders, right? And it's just so frustrating. And I stayed up till 1.20 in the morning watching that CSU game going, please, please Norvell, find a way to do this. And they just blew it and they blew it in just classic CSU fashion too I mean they should have went for two after they scored because if you got in a shootout with that team you weren't gonna win like you give that team a chance from the 20 they're gonna score way more than you are I thought Norvell should have went for it but I'm tired of hearing about coach prime I hope Oregon dog stomps them by 40 and then I hope USC does it again and then I hope everything can be right in the world because

that's not a great football team they're good they have good talent but that's not a championship caliber football team like everyone wants to say they are next couple weeks are going to be hard for them especially with Hunter who was head hunted in that game and I did feel bad for him in that game well it's hard see the thing for me is it's hard to not like something that Deion Sanders is doing because you, uh, you mentioned, uh, our age. And I mean, I'm starting to like football as a child in about 1993, 1994. And Deion Sanders is the coolest person alive. Like as, I mean, he's playing baseball, he's making rap videos or whatever. He's, he's got the shades, he's got the dances, he's backing it up.

He's winning the super bowl with the 49ers. I mean, this is like me and my brother in the backyard doing the Dion dance every time we're scoring. And like, I, and I'm, I'm impressed. I mean, he, he built a really good team there and they are super fun to watch and it's become a big show, but even more for me though, is his son. I really enjoy this kid playing quarterback and you know, we can talk about whether he's, he's the next Viking quarterback or not, but I just, I love his poise. I love the way he plays. I mean, 98 yards to go tie a game with a two point conversion, then when an ot uh it i don't care who it's against with all the celebrities and all the crowd and all the everything and the highest

rated fifth highest rated game ever in college football i mean it was that was pretty cool for him so i've enjoyed watching the colorado experience a lot because of their quarterback and because i just i you just can't convince me to be anti-Deon. So. I mean, I can't believe he power ranked his son's family publicly on Instagram. He's like, everyone gets ranked. Like, you publicly power ranked how much you love your children? That is the thing about liking Deion Sanders, but not endorsing everything Deion Sanders does. Okay. That's the thing.

Like, you can't talk me out of Deion, but I'm not saying I subscribe to everything. I am going to say hate to see it because I was actually able to watch a lot of games this week more than I would where I'm trying to just play catch up. I hate to see what CJ Stroud has as an offensive line for his rookie year. I think he has shown poise. I think that he's thrown the football extremely well, but that is just sad. And I don't know what happened there. Like he

doesn't have great receivers. They're serviceable, but that offensive line is miserable. And I just feel like it's going to be a very, very tough season and also hated to see Anthony Richardson get a concussion after he looked great in that game. And I don't want to make judgments on bryce young but yucky ew very bad so not a good week not a good start for these guys even though i think some of them have shown their talent but bryce young looks a little bit in over his head uh physically with his height but also just like where to throw the ball and what to do uh richardson getting hurt stinks and i think cj stroud is going to be fighting an uphill battle with that offensive line all year did you did you see the clip of him lining up behind the guard

like so he goes so he goes to line up behind the guard and it's a shotgun his running back like hits him he's like hey stupid move over i was like dude you're on national tv man like you know where the center is but it happened to kirk once Remember that? It did happen to Kirk once. It did happen to Kirk once. But, I mean, I just know. I found that funny. My love to see it is kind of the bounce-back games for the Kansas City Chiefs, the Buffalo Bills, right? Teams that we were like, whoa, what was that, right?

And then they came out and settled themselves in week two, back to where they were. Now, slight not love to see it hate to see it as it's joe burrow i mean i think there's a lot of people that are like haha the bangles paid their quarterback this but like he's not healthy he's not healthy and i hate when good players aren't healthy the league's not as fun to watch when the great ones aren't playing at great levels right we tune in on sundays to watch the great ones play and seeing what the Bengals are trying to do with him back there obviously at 75 or maybe even less and he re-aggravates it like that's that's a hate to see it for me but I love to see it that the other big quarterbacks kind of bounce

back this week yeah yeah I mean with Burrow I mean it might be Jake Browning former Vikings practice squad quarterback who starts for them on Monday night. Sorry, ESPN. That's not going to be super fun for you. For me, well, love to see it is that sometimes when you get so beaten over the head by offseason narratives, you kind of snicker to yourself when they blow up really fast. And this is not me rooting against anything or for anything but justin fields man taking that next step is just and it's just every day over and over and over again like if he takes that next step that next step the next step if you only take the next step no no i don't think so no he, he, I mean, Packers fan watched last week what Jordan loved it.

And they're like, Hey, that's supposed to be our guy. Why isn't our guy doing that? And then this week he's just, I don't know if he just doesn't see the full field. I don't know if he just doesn't have good vision. Like he just doesn't anticipate, anticipate throws. He doesn't throw guys open and i think him running as much as he did last year it was actually a detriment for him because he's almost looking to do that way too often instead of keeping his eyes downfield and trying to push the ball where it

needs to go but he's not it he's not it no he's not it i remember steve young saying because remember how horrible steve young was you remember this right right? The eighties Buccaneers. You remember quite well. Yeah. Everyone does. So, but his, a football life is excellent documentary. You can find an nfl.com anyway. So he was talking about how he was horrible with the Buccaneers and it wasn't until he got to San Francisco and his, I think it was Mike Holmgren was his coach, his quarterback coach or offensive coordinator, one of the two. And he said to him, you're going to have to throw the ball when you can't see the receiver. You're just going to have to trust that it's there based on what you see from the defense and the flashes you see between the linemen, because you're not that tall. And because it's just, that's how the NFL works. And I think there are some guys who need to see the receiver be wide open and then

look at them and throw them the football. And if they can't, then things go wrong. Justin Fields looks like that guy. And one of the things about the Ohio state things, everyone's like, Oh, those quarterbacks fail. Well, I think it's easy to make quarterbacks look better in part because you can see it and throw it. Everyone just runs right in front of you and they run wide open because I mean, Terrell Owens, Randy Moss and Jerry Rice are their receivers. So you're like, okay, wide open, wide open. And they put up 5,000 yards and everything else. And I think that that may be part of what's happening here. Will he ever learn it? I don't know. Gino did, but it took like eight years so i'm not sure but this is this is not working for them not at all and i'm not saying i love to see it i'm saying that sometimes by

june you're just exhausted of that narrative even though there was no evidence to back it up so it is what it is did you say you think the vikings are losing was that your pick did i ask you already it was okay i think i think the chargers win just i'm going defensive i mean unless unless we score 50 which is very possible but i just think our defense is gonna have a hard time stopping this herbert attack with even if joshua kelly's the back okay we'll see who's right i think the vikings will win next week you are on a hunting trip is that correct correct i leave for an eight-day excursion into the rocky mountains to chase bugle and elk so i'll be back a week from thursday so okay we go thursday so i will miss next week's but i'm sure i'll call you and get an update yeah oh yeah but whatever but for whatever reason too whenever i leave something wild always happens like two years ago i remember i came back i was like why are we getting

beat by the colts by like 40 right now like what is happening you're like oh buddy you missed the packers game last week too like so i might come back and he'd be like hey we beat the chargers by 30 like i wouldn't surprise me i go out of town the wild things happen the vikings all the time season is back or kirk's been traded to the jets when you return you get the phone service you're like wait what all right great stuff and uh enjoy trip. And we will see you again very soon. Thanks Jeremiah. Anytime.