Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Jeremiah Sirles is back and he believes in the Vikings' offensive line

Episode Date: September 7, 2022

Former Minnesota Viking Jeremiah Sirles returns to the show to talk about the Vikings' offense and things that could determine whether they can handle the Green Bay Packers in Week 1. He talks about a new right guard and what the scheme can do to help. Jeremiah also breaks down the havoc that Za'Darius Smith can cause and how he will be vital to the Vikings winning their opener at US Bank Stadium. -- For more of Matthew's Vikings coverage, head to purpleinsider.substack.com For bonus discussions, interview clips, and more videos, check out our YouTube channel! Interact with us on Twitter! @Purple_Insider Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello, welcome to Tuesday Morning Left Guard. Shockingly, we debut on an actual Tuesday morning. Matthew Collar, former Minnesota Viking, Jeremiah Searles. We are back to preview Vikings and Packers, and this will be going on all season long with the caveat that you go on a hunting trip and then you come back after week two. But we'll get to that later. Jeremiah, what is going on, man? Great to have you back. Oh, that hello. Welcome. This gave me a little tingles at my spine. It's been too long, my friend. It's good to be back. It's I got to see you when I was up there for the scrimmages between the Niners and we talked about it.

And I'm very excited to be back. And yes, we're here on a Tuesday, which is a major plus. I got a little something for you, okay? Here you go. What's that sound you hear coming from the trenches? It's former Minnesota Viking offensive lineman Jeremiah Searles. It's time for the Tuesday morning morning left guard show on purple insider oh that is fantastic that is 16 year old jeremiah post acl surgery right there just fat and happy yeah people can't see it if they're listening on the podcast. But I found I just Googled a picture of you to sit like when you make the intro to play it like on a button bar situation.

This doesn't really matter. But like you have to add a picture. So I could have just put a football. But I Googled the most embarrassing looking picture of you to use for this purpose. And that's a gem. Given the two thumbs up. Yeah, I'm going gonna play the nfl double thumbs baby told jeremiah zurls at that point you would have been an nfl player

no chance i would have told you you're high well anyway since you were that means hardcore football breakdowns and i'm i'm gonna start out with our first tuesday morning left guard with the hardest core of hardcore an edge rusher a left tackle okay zadarius smith versus a returning david boctieri to me is the matchup that could determine this game and i have just to hit all the bases here a what does that stat mean for you because aaron rogers yards per pass attempt clean versus pressured drops from 8.5 and a 123 quarterback rating to 5.1 yards per attempt when pressured it seems zadarius v bakhtiari it's pretty darn important in this matchup absolutely

and you talk about two guys that know each other well, right? Like two guys that played against each other. They know each other well. And that goes, it's a double-edged sword, right? Like Bakhtiari knows what to do to stop Smith, but also Smith knows some weaknesses in Bakhtiari's game. So that's me really curious how they do that. Do they slide to him?

Do they double team him? Do they chip him? Because Bakhtiari's played, what, one game in the last two years? two years so i mean he's not going to be a polished product by any means he's got plenty of kinks to work out in his game now he might be fresh but at the same time like you just cannot replicate game speed after two years i think we saw a little bit of it with daniel hunter right like it takes some time to get back into the rhythm of what game speed really looks like so that's gonna be a really fun matchup. But speaking of edge rusher, I'm really excited to watch Daniil Hunter too.

You know, that's a guy that he shook my hand to that scrimmage, like chest bump me, and I was like, don't, don't touch me anymore. Like you're too big and strong for me. I don't want those problems. But those two guys are going to absolutely, if you want to beat Aaron Rodgers, you have to get to his feet and affect his passing game. And that's going to be really fun to watch those two guys just pin their ears back and go. My part about the daniel handshake it's

like the adrian peterson handshake for back of the day but he's so soft-spoken he'll just be like hey man how are you it's nice to see you and you're like please don't kill me yes 100 i was like i don't i don't need that long arm in my chest ever again i had that one two no no more no thank you. Okay. Here's another. What does that stat mean? I came prepared. Zedarius Smith, the last time he played at US Bank Stadium was 2020. It was weird. There was no fans, but I looked at where he lined up in those games and I'm going to read it to you. He played six plays at defensive tackle, nine at left outside linebacker, 13 at right outside linebacker, and nine at middle linebacker. What does that stat mean about what they can do with this gentleman?

It'll be very different from what we are used to seeing, which is Hunter on one side and Everson Griffin on the other. Z'Darrius Smith could be anywhere at any time. Yeah, you know, that's great because with this new defense that we're going with the the more 3-4 style like you can create some wild pressures out of the 3-4 defense like with just with where guys line up where you bring guys from and so when you add Z'Darrius Smith into this mix you always I think Daniil Hunter's a guy you're like listen I want your hand on the ground and I want you just going right like just put your hand

and just do your thing but what Z'Darri Smith did. And I can remember when we used to play him, he used to have what was called the spinner package. Right. And when I say spinner package, that's when a defensive lineman walks and like kind of stands around like a linebacker. And so as an offensive line and from a protection scheme, you have to always account for him. Like he's a D lineman. That might mean there's three guys on one side. Like you're still going to slide over there and leave someone else because the worst thing you can do is be like, oh, God was a linebacker. And then you have a running back trying to walk up and meet him at the B gap is the red sea parts between the guard and the tackle. Right. That's just a recipe for disaster.

Now, it's not saying we won't do that because maybe the Packers will do it, too. We can hope. But I think the biggest thing is just going to be they're going to line him up and maybe start him on the right side and loop him all the way back on the left. So you have to engage three-way bumps between the guard, the center and the guard or whoever it might be. But he just adds a unique pressure flavor into what you can do with him. And I think you'll see a lot of him lining up all over the place because that creates problems. And also it makes Aaron Rodgers have to think, okay,

where am I pointing the protection? Where am I going to point everything instead of thinking about coverages he may spend a little bit more time at the line thinking about protections which like you said it just adds another layer to him not getting the ball out quicker and I think that there's a speaking of like different layers that go on to this uh last year at us bank stadium it was morgue like at times i mean even aaron rogers after the game i know i brought this up before but like aaron rogers after the game it was shocking because he said yeah it just wasn't that loud today and and like you know uh aaron is uh very open with his thoughts about everything but i mean i like that guy would know, like he's played some of those games where even you see Rogers looking like I can't get, you know, signals out to people. They can't

hear what I'm saying. And he's looked shook before at times at us bank stadium. I think the noise will be back because the guy on the sideline is not there or Satan as a former former I'm going to say former coach on the staff, though I have a pretty good idea of which former coach on the staff may have told Tyler Dunn that Mike that don't don't whisper it. Don't whisper. We all know who might have referred to Mike Zimmer as that. But with Mike Zimmer not on the sideline anymore, it is refreshed. It is new era. It is week one. Uh, explain to me the noise and how that impacts an offense. Cause I think it can get to anybody. Yeah. I mean, this has got, this has got circa 2016 game opener, a bit US bang Packers Vikings written all over it again. right? And that was honestly one of the loudest, besides the Minneapolis Miracle,

that I ever heard that stadium. And so this has got that primed and ready to go. And then you add on top of it, if you don't think that – I haven't read, but I'm sure that all the newspaper and everyone has that quote from last year of Aaron Rodgers saying, no, it just wasn't that loud. And it's one of those things that, like, you poke the bear a little bit. Like, you know, hey, fans, have maybe one or two more of those beers before the game and bring a little bit more energy right like there is all of those factors playing to it and so to answer your

question when it's loud like especially in a week one scenario like when you're not ready to go and the Packers starters did not play a ton in the preseason right like they did not play a lot so they're not in full season mid-season form where there's that non-verbal communication of maybe it's all hand signals and maybe it's all just like kind of you know from throughout the weeks of practice what you want when this certain look comes there's gonna be verbal communication that comes through whether it's the snap count whether it's mid-game checks whether it's sideline checks right like so noise plays a huge factor in just slowing down the communication. They'll still find a way to get the communication, but when you slow down the communication and now all of a sudden they're trying to get things yelled at each other and there's three

seconds left on the shot clock instead of 12 seconds left on the shot clock, that just allows for so much more creativity on the defensive side because now they're just hut, hut, hut, hut, and they're just trying to get it snapped instead of getting a second, okay, here's the play call, here's the check, let's reassess the defense, and then snap the ball. It just adds a chaotic feel to it, and when you throw chaos into it,

that usually tends to favor the defensive side of the ball more than the offensive side of the ball. So my understanding of how this used to work with Zimmer is that Anthony Barr could make choices based on what he saw from the offense and the offense trying to get the signals out and taking that extra time could not adjust and I think that's why a lot of times we saw oh man a tight end is on Daniil Hunter and oh no the tight end is now dead and so is the quarterback like uh that i mean this is another story though is like mike zimmer his first game you know u.s bank stadium he has a great defensive performance

against aaron rogers he really seemed to know how to take advantage of u.s bank stadium i don't know this for sure but i but i would bet that they asked him like how can we set this up the best for you noise wise when we build this stadium for you to take advantage of it and he knew how to do it uh this is ed donatell's first time doing this i i guess i wonder not not that he won't know what noise is but like zimmer really mastered that i think when it came to messing with quarterbacks and understanding the checks and changes that they were going to make based on his looks and how to readjust quickly when he got those looks. Yeah, and that's a twofold piece.

Zimmer knew how to use the noise, but Zimmer, as much as we ushered him out the door quickly, he was a brilliant defensive mind. He knew defense, especially early when he was here in the early parts of his Viking era. He knew how to use the defense to his advantage and i will say he knew how to kind of game plan aaron rogers really well but that also became this trust factor that he had developed over years with guys like kendrick's

and anthony bar of trusting them to get into the right checks right when you talk about doing checks on defense it's just as important as the the offensive side in when it is loud the difference is the defense doesn't have to make sure that the old line is all they just kind of turn around and give like a little fist bump signal and everyone knows exactly what that means now it's defense is so simple compared to offense like they're just dumb on that side of the but like you're exactly right Zimmer knew how to use that to his advantage I think that this defensive coordinator it might take him a little longer because it is a new scheme and it is new pieces and it is new players. And so they do have to have that communication on the side. So I think that you might see maybe less checks out of this defense because you don't want to necessarily get into a chess match with Aaron Rodgers unless

you're absolutely prepared, right? That's one of those, like, if you sit down at the table and you want to play the mind game with Aaron Rodgers, like, you better be ready because he can make you look stupid in a hurry. And so I hope that, like, a lot of this is going to be, hey, let's play our game, let's do our thing, and let's disguise stuff and make him almost overthink things and try and overcommunicate at the line instead of letting us try and overthink it and kind of outsmart ourselves. Yeah. I mean, I think that this matchup between Rogers and a completely different defensive scheme is sort of at the top of the list when it comes to this Fangio type of scheme, which, you know, there's a funny thing and we're going to find out if this works out or not,

but it's like, we've got a guy who knows McVay. We've got a guy who knows Fangio, everybody, this should work. But, but there is I I feel like there is something really effective uh about playing the two deep safeties and then having Harrison Smith do a lot of different stuff and sometimes what we act like oh man it's a whole

new scheme and I'm like I don't know I think Zimmer did a lot of playing Harrison deep and then messing with people right but like But like that is an interesting concept because the Packers also want to run the football, right? And that's like their whole thing now is let's run the football and then we're going to have Rodgers run play actions and bootlegs. And when he does it, this offense is built for Jared Goff or Kirk Cousins. When he does it, he wins MVP two years in a row. Or John Elway back in the day wins the Super Bowl run in Gary's boots.

So, yeah, I guess I wonder what you think of that concept in this matchup because you have a team that wants to run the ball, but the Vikings are going to ask their safeties to do a lot in that run game because they're going to play the two safeties back. Yeah, you know, it's going to be really curious to see how far back they play. You know, I think that initially every defense is going to roll up there and be like, Hey, we're gonna play our safeties at our normal depth, whether that's 12 or 16 or whatever it might be and say, Hey, front, stop the run, right? Like stop the run, play gap assignment, football, Dalvin Tomlinson, all you boys up front,

Hey, stay in your gap. And then if the safeties have to make an eraser, like they have some space to do it. Right. And that's how you really want to stop the run when you have to start being like, OK, we're not stopping the run. They're getting four. They're getting five. But like that's when you say, hey, Harrison, you might have to play at eight. Right. Like we might need you to play eight yards instead of 12. And that opens up some stuff in the back end on the pass game that you don't love.

But at the same time, if you can't stop the run in this league then it really doesn't matter like teams are just going to beat you so it's going to be curious at how they do that i will say that the 3-4 system is really built to stop the run like there's more bodies in the box there's more angles there's more gaps covered so it is built to stop the run what it isn't built for is for a team to just start blowing the top off your defense right that's that's what a 3-4 is susceptible to now you try and counter that with well we have more people rushing the passer right so they can't sit back there and throw deep all the time but when you do and you allow some of those guys like there's just not as much security on the back end when you do do stuff that's more

innovative with your safeties football football we are back i mean just like riding a bicycle we haven't done this since your fake uh jim harbaugh presser but now we are back um boy thank goodness that oh my gosh that would have been a disaster that's one of those where you're like you know there's some there's some opinions where you have them and you're like I don't know it could go either way though you know like I'm not confident on this but it's kind of what I think with Jim Harbaugh I was like no do not do that that's gonna be a problem you don't want any of that and then like instantly that came to fruition anyway uh so let's talk about the other side of the matchup and in the Vikings offense you were there at camp to

see a little bit of this thing operate against the San Francisco 49ers in the joint practices uh what was your take on kind of just how it looked in training camp with what they're trying to do yeah you know I think that this offense is exciting. You know, it's fun. I think that – I think Vikings fans are going to be really excited. I think they saw it during camp at the open practices. Like there's a lot more ooh and ah factor to this offense than there was a year ago, right?

It's more motions and shifts, which you and I begged for last year over and over and over again. Like, please stop lining up in too tight and thinking that the whole world doesn't know you're running play action boot. Like, please. Right. And so there's more of that to it. You know, the thing that I'll be really curious about is the workload that they will give

Dalvin. You know, like, I think everyone is used to seeing him touch the ball so much because of what the offense was that he may not touch the ball as much as he has in years past and that could be good it could be bad but I think that we're gonna see a lot more of that quick passing game with what's gonna be I was really pleased with what I saw out of the offensive line when I was at those things you know I think Brian O'Neill is still playing at an extremely high level Derrissaw looks like he's taking a huge jump just from what I saw from last year to this year and so you talk about you can win in this game. You can win in the NFL with two championship tackles.

That's what it takes to win in the NFL. And I think that we are on the road to it. I'm not ready to anoint. I'm still blue on Derrissaw. If we're going to go back to our color gauge of how we rate young players, I'm still blue on Derrissaw, but I think he's trending in the right direction. And then you talk about our guys on the inside. We still garrett bradbury to look at so that can get interesting but you talk about

some young players ingram's gonna get the start which i'm excited i think he had a good camp so a lot of guys up front to be excited about um the two tackles specifically and really just see kind of what this rhythm of this offense looks like um now when it comes to uh the different things they want to do pre-snap and everything else does that help the offensive line and i ask because the offensive line regardless of all the things you just said which was funny because you went like and garrett bradbury and then there's other guys uh but but but but i i tend to think though that anything that flashes in front of the the defense's eyes and makes them hesitate even the littlest bit has to help the offensive line

but i also might not know what i'm talking about here so is that a thing it is you know and the reason it's more on the mental side than the physical side i will say that you know as an offensive lineman when you can be engaged, and this does take a little bit more time in the classroom for these guys. And I'm sure Chris Cooper's been working on it. When you have shifts in motion pre-snap, you have to be really aware of what's going on as the whole versus just focused on who's lined up in front of me, right?

If you're going to motion from three by one and you're going to motion to a two by two set, you have to see, does someone run with him? Does coverage rotate? Like all those things are what we call pre-snap indicators. And that can really help you as an offensive lineman say, OK, if a guy runs with them, OK, that's man coverage. This could be a pressure look. Hey, they just rock and rolled the safeties and bumped one over. Maybe they're just running zone coverage here if it's a pass play.

So now maybe we're only worried about four down rushers instead of five, right? Like there's certain things that look like that. And then the run game specifically, it really helps with shifts in motions because you start to see where guys gap integrity lies, right? If you're running a split zone or you're running an inside zone and guys are running all over the place, gap integrity can really start to fall apart if you all just stay on your track and stay on your thing. So those are all really good pre-snap indicators that I loved as I got older as an offensive lineman

because they allowed the game to slow down for me. But it does take a lot of time of studying and understanding, and you have to be really keyed into the formation calls. You have to be keyed into the motion checks. You have to be keyed into all those things so it can add another layer of mental stuff that you're looking at, but it can really help you overall in the game.

Gap integrity. You are, as the kids say, in your bag today. I love it. Why don't you do this? And then I have a more broad question that's less insane football. But can you explain what you mean by gap integrity? Absolutely. So as a defense, you have to have what's called gap integrity. And what that means is every gap from the center

all the way out is labeled a gap between the center and the guard B gap between the garden, the tackle D gap between the tackle and tight end, and then just outside, right? So those are your gaps and they mirror each other on the opposite side so as a defense when you're lined up you say okay i got my four down linemen we're just gonna call it four down four down linemen my three linebackers i have to make sure that every gap is accounted for as a player right so the nose tackle is probably responsible for the a gap well then the defensive end would be responsible for the d gap and then the linebacker would have the B gap. And then a safety or someone else is responsible for that C gap.

Now, you'll have teams that are like the Steelers, for example. They play two gap system. So big Cam Hayward likes to sit there and plant his feet in the ground. And he's going to get extension. He plays both the A and the B gap. Right. So it's all just dependent on what scheme you like to run. But when you're bringing motion and stuff gaps get switched right so if you're bringing you're coming from a three

by one and you motion one receiver over and now you're going to a two by two set well you just created another gap or you eliminated a gap on one side and so now you have to as a defense shift and say okay who's responsible where because you might have going from over where you have the defensive tackle over the guard and the three technique. And now all of a sudden they go two by two and we shift to under. Now that three technique bumps down to a nose guard. Now there's an uncovered gap. So those things really just allow the defense to have to make those checks and moves when you have those things going. And all it takes is one guy to miss his gap. And that's where those explosive runs come from, right? One guy getting pushed out of his gap or getting clogged and not hitting his gap that's where the running backs

can really hit those lanes or even in the pass rushing game you have lanes and the gaps of when you're pass rushing you get two guys pissed in the same coke bottle and they're moving and they're not in the same they're not in the same gap now kirk cousins can step up he can roll out he can do all kinds of things because you lost gap integrity. Where does that one come from? Tony Sperano. That is a Tony. That is a Tony ism to a T of two guys pissing in the same Coke bottle. Yeah, we really have checked all the boxes here today.

But if you're not familiar with how the gaps work, like the A gap would be between the center and the guard, B between the guard and tackle, and so forth down the line for as many tight ends. Now, if you throw a sniffer in there, I don't know what to do at that point. I don't know how that works. My wife is calling college football this year, and so we've been going over some of the football-y things that she could bring up on the broadcast.

And I'm like, well, at some point you have to mention when there's a sniffer out there, which is when a tight end lines up like behind the guard. And I think it's called the sniffer for the reason that you think, right? That he's like right behind the guard. He's right there, all up in that thing. Right. All up in there. Okay, let me ask a broad question.

Since you just blew everybody's mind with what motion does. And I think something to watch, just something that you can like actionably let me ask a broad question since you just blew everybody's mind with what motion does and i think something to watch just something that you can like actionably just notice as you're watching the game is that this offense will run a motion right before the snap and then run to the same side like almost as if they're running behind the receiver which seems counterintuitive but the rams do it a lot and i think the vik are going to do it. And it just messes with the defense, especially this is why like receivers blocking in this offense is super important. But I wanted to ask you a more broad question, which is you think it'll work for Kirk?

I want to say yes. I want to say yes. And the reason I want to say yes is because I think the more pre-snap indicators that you can give for Kirk, the better, the more that he is such a smart guy, right? Of all the things that we'll talk about Kirk of this, that, and the other thing, he's a very intelligent human being. And the more that you can give him in his pre-snap toolbox of identifying, knowing what the defense is, like we said, is it man? Is it zone? Who's running with him? All those things allows Kirk to then play his own little game in his mind of

where do I go with the football? Okay. If there covers this, then I go here with the ball. If they go here, it doesn't allow him to improvise as much, which I think is probably one of Kirk's lesser part of his games is improvisation when things break down. But I think his strength of his game is knowing what's in front of him and knowing how to attack that. So I do think this works with Kirk in that. The problem is when it does break down, sometimes we have everyone over on one side and you've got a bunch of motions and you don't get what you're expecting.

That's when I could see it possibly going off the rails for him. But I think overall it's going to be a big benefit for him. One thing I'm very fascinated to find out is just how much they can put on his plate, because I think that Mike felt they needed to simplify after 2018 was a disaster. And I think that he was right in a lot of ways. So now you're kind of doing this dance of like, there's some wide open stuff that you're asking Kirk to read a lot of things but there's also like some of the we're going to make it easy and run the boots that's still mixed in here and I I think that it's a very delicate balance for Kevin O'Connell I would agree with you you know I think that when you think about it though like

look at this Rams offense when it had Jared Goff and look when it had Matt Stafford, right? Like you're talking about completely different things. Now, I think that Kirk is obviously better than Jared Goff. I think a lot of people are obviously better. I don't necessarily know if he's Matt Stafford level, but I think that even if you're just somewhere in the middle of that, like it's going to be better because this offense, I think though it may look complicated, I think is very simple. You know, I think it is very simple because of how much you do pre-snap doesn't change. You can run the same play from five different formations and get to it from pre-snap motion. And it's the same thing. So it may look more complicated, but it's not. And so I think for Kirk, that's a good thing. And so I think that when you start talking about, Hey, how do we help Kirk, right? How do we make sure that we are helping Kirk

cousins be the best he can be? It is a simple offense, but you can load more on a guy's plate when the base offense is simple, right? When the base offense is complicated in itself, and then you throw more on top of that, that where it can become too much but when you look at this off and say okay it's very simple in its base form the sprinkle ends the crazy like gadget stuff or some other trick stuff that's just going to get added to it that's not too much on Kirk's plate in my opinion so here's I mean I have several questions about like this offense um in one being is it going to be more of the jared goff style or more of the matt stafford style because i think those are two different things and if we're doing like a sliding scale of quarterbacks i think kirk is closer to the type of quarterback than jared goff is

maybe like a better version although i don't know i mean jared goes to super bowl it's like sit there and say well kirk kirk is just like so much better than him but one of the keys is that uh jared goff always had great offensive line play and matt stafford had that as well so let's get a little more into the swing guys that are going to determine what happens here ed ingram at right guard is kind of the biggest one to look at because it's a rookie. It's going against Kenny Clark right away, who will eat your face. I mean, this is as tough of a matchup that you could start off with as far

as an interior player in probably the entire NFL. And this guy, as far as at his position, it's top three, top four. I think that's a very dangerous game for the Vikings to be playing, and they have to really consider that Kenny Clark could completely wreak havoc on this. But you had a chance to watch some of training camp and even talk to some linemen out there at Vikings camp. So what is your feeling on the rookie stepping in at right guard? You know, from what I watched from him,

it was very obvious that he was the best right guard you know from what i watched from him it was very obvious that he was the best right guard on the team you know and nothing i'm not i'm not pooping on jesse davis i'm not i'm not i think he's a good role player i don't think he's a 16 game starter i was not a 16 game starter that's fine you can make a great living doing that i think that watching ingram he could develop into a he's going to be a 16 game starter. I think he could develop into a very good 16 game starter, right? Like there's a difference. And again, I'm blue on him right now. There's nothing more to say than that, than he has to go out and prove it when the real bullets are flying for an entire season. But I do think that he shows the intangibles. And I was, I was able to catch up with some of the Viking starters on the offensive line that I know

well. And one thing that one of them told me is, hey, this guy's more ready to play as a rookie than I was, and he played as a rookie, right? And you guys can connect the dots on who that was. But at the same time, like, that means a lot coming from guys that played as rookies and they understand how hard it is to play as rookies. To see a guy and say that about a guy is a huge compliment to him. And, you know, I know that he worked down

with Duke Manny weather down in Texas, which is one of the bore O-line guru type places right now. And so, yes, he did get NFL coaching in the pre-draft process, which I think helped his development. And then you got a guy like Chris Cooper who played the position, right? You got a guy who played right guard. And so he's probably been helping, Hey, this is what worked for me. And I think that Chris Cooper is going to do a great great job of from what i saw as far as like it's not gonna be a cookie cutter like you have to do it this way which most player coaches aren't because as players you could never just do it one way but i think he's gonna give him tools that okay there's some non-negotiables that we're gonna have to do but other than that like here's some tools and just block the guy

you know and so i think that that works well for a rookie when you're not trying to square peg, round hole technique and fundamental stuff, but you allow him to use his strengths and use the things that he does well and allow him to grow from that. But you're absolutely right. Kenny Clark is a star on the depth chart of can't let this guy wreck the game,

which means you may slide to him more than you'd like to. Or that might put a little more pressure over there on the left guard and the left tackle because we're sliding right a lot. But at the same time, if you're playing left tackle in this league, you have to be able to do that to become a great one. So I think there will be a lot more slides to him. But I mean, from games I remember watching past, Kenny Clark likes to eat Garrett Bradbury too. So hopefully both those guys on Kenny Clark can not let them eat. Well, and this is where I

think Ezra Cleveland ends up being sort of the swing player here although i mean look christian derisaw i guess we've probably jumped to a conclusion on deciding that he's good but rishon gary emerged last year as one of the best players in the nfl at his position as well so i mean they're very dangerous up there preston smith is still on the team davante wyatt they drafted i mean they have lots of dudes on the defensive line probably one of the better ones in the nfl so it's an immediate test, but the guy like Ezra Cleveland at left guard with him and Darisaw, we've sort of been like, oh yeah, they're like, they're like, they're good. They're fine. I mean, I don't know, like Ezra Cleveland had a 55 pass

blocking grade last year by PFF, which is below average. So if you're asking them to kind of move to the right a little bit more often to help out the rookie then you're kind of leaving the left guard open here and it's i i think that how kevin o'connell game plans and schemes for this will actually tell us a lot we had a conversation on the show the other day like does week one really tell you something and i guess my answer is kind of yes, like not always, but sometimes it certainly can. And if they can't game plan for this, because again, this is not the Rams offensive line where you can game plan

for your quarterback to have three seconds to throw. Like these guys are going to get there. So how he game plans for the fact that you are at a disadvantage with offensive line versus defensive line, I think will be pretty telling. Right, and that's where I was kind of getting earlier. I was talking about the Dalvin Cook workload, right? Like, are we going to see, hey, we can't stand back here

and throw the ball 60 times, right? Like, we need to establish a run, and I think that Dalvin Cook is head and shoulders above guys like Cam Akers and the running backs that they had in la right like you're talking about a top five running back in the nfl behind you like so use more of that right i think that you can be a much more balanced offense than what we saw the rams were last year right they were very pass heavy offense now they ran the ball some but i think that when you have a guy like dalvin you you kind of eliminate some of that threat of the guys getting home by

putting body blows on them early in the run game. If you can say, hey, body blows, body blows, double teams, get after these guys, it slows them down. It does. And as an offensive lineman, you have to understand that that's the game plan. And if you get a chance to tee off on Kenny Clark on a double team, hit him as hard as he can. Because then when it's two-minute drill in the fourth quarter,

maybe he's half a step slower than he should be. And those things matter matter and so i think that's part of the game plan that i'll be curious to is how do we attack guys like kenny clark and rashaun gary in the run game do we bring a tight end back to hammer and cut gary down a few times like they saw against tributo like everyone say that's a dirty block that's a completely clean block where we saw against tributo against the giants where that titan comes back and cuts him right and that just makes guys start thinking that makes those dns start thinking about oh my knees my this my that and you think you're slow right so that's going to be a thing that i'll look for in the game plan too is how do we attack their edge rushers or even their interior rushers in the run game to slow them down in the past game

he's got to prove it for you to pronounce his name. Right. Right. Cave on Thibodeau. No, whatever. He's a rookie. Rookies are an extra R in there. But that was, that, that was some kind of day on Twitter where it was like the typical people losing their mind.

That's a run play. My friends. That is a full. Now I do. I think that the NCAA made that really legal. Oh, really? I don't think in the NCAA you can do that anymore. So these defensive linemen in the NCAA are going to get this false sense of security and be like, oh, it's fine. And then here's going to come some tight end from the NFL and just say, hey, buddy, chop.

So it's going to be a little bit of a learning curve. But those are great ways to just take hits on defensive ends and slow them down but if you had that play and if everybody you know didn't see it you know the tight end comes back underneath the formation and then meets the defensive end while the offensive linemen go to the left that's the best way i can describe it and if that tight end goes head up on a defensive end who's coming off the ball hard you're gonna have injured tight ends i think in the nfl the the power difference and the speed difference there if the dn can be like oh nice to meet you here 225 pound person uh they usually go up against 325 pound people so they're just gonna crush them that's why it's allowed still now maybe

there's some sort of rule change but um there was no reason for freak out there anyway so i have a couple of quick um questions for you uh but i want to get this on record first whom do you think will win the football game i think whom whom i don't know man it's so hard to bet against eric rogers but i think that with the vikings i'm gonna go with the vikings and here's why i say this i think the u.s bank factor is going to be a huge piece of this i think that the energy and the excitement level is going to be hard to for the packers to combat now they and another piece is there is no more Devontae Adams in Green Bay. And I don't know who Aaron Rodgers is going to want to throw the ball to.

Right. Like you just knew when things broke down, it was like, OK, we're 17. He's going to throw it to him. I'm very curious to see who that guy emerges for for the Packers. And so that's why I'm not taking because I don't trust the Packers offense. I just don't. I think that, yes, they're going to run the ball more. But when you don't have the one of the best receivers in the NFL paired with the best quarterback in the NFL,

things are messy. And I just, you've seen Aaron Rogers in training camp talking about guys dropping balls and how they're not going to be playing. And maybe that's a little cat and mouse by Aaron Rogers. I don't know, but he's again, he's not a guy to pull punches. So I am a little concerned for what this Packers offense looks like, which is why I think I give the nod to the Vikings with the better offense in my opinion right now as long as we can hold up up front but also with the defense I think that getting after Aaron Rodgers is going to be a hard thing for us to not do in US Bank I also am giving the slight edge to the Vikings here and you know when you look at the Vegas line also I think it's like minus one and a half packers which means like pretty close i mean point flip yeah the vikings give or get you know i'm not a gambling expert but i just i've seen bigger numbers as the packers come to us bank stadium

in the past uh so i think that uh the the vikings being given a fighting chance with a little bit you know of um extra because it's home field advantage. But I think more than anything, it's health that the Vikings will play Green Bay completely healthy. And one of the things I feel like I've noticed through the years when it comes to elite quarterbacks is when an average or good quarterback has everybody healthy and everything going well. And this goes for a lot of like, obviously you think of Kirk, but like a lot of quarterbacks, Derek Carr, Jared Goff, like they're all good at football. I mean, they can all make the plays, but when Aaron Rogers has somebody hurt or his offensive lines beat up or his coach is a dummy

or whatever, like with McCarthy and then, you know, like whatever it might be, my homes defenses are playing him different last year. And you know, Oh, what's wrong with my homes. And then like three weeks later, they're just like leading the league and scoring again. You know, it's like when things go wrong, they can solve those problems, but for the Vikings, they have their full roster to start. So at, at like peak strength roster, peak strength roster, I think these teams are fairly close as a season goes along. I give a massive edge to Aaron Rogers for making up for the things that go wrong versus Kirk. But as we start week one, you get to game plan all summer. You get to game plan all summer. So Darius and Hunter a hundred percent versus them versus Bakhtiari coming back. Like I, I think that that's a close matchup and I give the slight edge to the

stadium basically. And the noise being problematic without having that Devante Adams factor, we can be like, Oh, everyone got the play wrong. Throw it to Adams and he'll make a catch. Right? Like that can't happen now.

Right? No, I'm 100% with you on that. I think you, you nailed that. And I also think that Aaron Rogers has played against Mike Zimmer for so long like it's going to take him a second to adjust to what's the new Viking defense right like forever he knew I mean he was smart enough that even how bar and him could play the chess match

like he still knew what the Mike Zimmer defense was he still knew where the issues were he still knew where the guys were and so that might take him even a half to try and figure out, okay, where's the holes in this? Where's the guy I want to attack? Where are all these things? Because the Vikings starters didn't play a ton on the preseason either. So, you know, there's not a ton of tape for Aaron to sit there and study. And you can watch Rams tape all you want of what the defense was or whatever tape you want to watch.

It's just not the same as going out there and seeing the real dudes doing it. So I do think it'll take him a little while to adjust of how he wants to attack this defense too you know what we have to finish with here right what love to see it hate to see it that's what we have to finish oh it's back we're back it is back it is absolutely back now i am not going to make i am not going to make my love to see anthony richardson i'm not going to do it i'm not going to make my love to see it anthony richardson i'm not going to do it i'm not going to talk about the draft until we have to talk about the draft but i'm gonna strongly hint that under other circumstances after watching him play that i might have made it the love to see it okay that's how i'm gonna that's a good underlying that's how i'm gonna

phrase that you know i love to see the week one slate. I mean, I'll be clearly like watching Vikings Packers, but it's in the afternoon. So I get to see some early games. I just think that this this like Bengals and Steelers right away. You kind of get to see like the Steelers defense versus the Bengals offense. I think there's just a lot of really good matchups in week one. And I would like to watch them. And also, I mean, you start out with an incredible game.

Bills, Rams in L.A. Like, thank you, NFL. That is a great choice. Dolphins, Patriots is kind of interesting. Like, oh, Jaguars, Washington. No, not that one. But there's a lot of other good matchups. So I think that, you know, I don't really care much for um broncos

seahawks but the sunday night game cowboys bucks like let's cowboys are kind of a mess this off season tom brady like where did he go what was he doing um so i yeah i just i love what they did with the week one slate and can't wait you know my love to see it might be some people's hate to see it but i love to see the v staff willing to be like, you know what? Those picks last year, F them. They weren't what we want. They weren't what we believe in. And that takes a lot because you're eating dead money on those guys.

That signing bonus, that check has cleared and has been spent. But I love the confidence in this staff to be like, you know what? Those weren't our guys. They weren't performing to the standard that we feel is performed to make this 53-man roster. And they cut high-round draft picks last year. And so, no, I love that confidence coming from the Vikings staff, honestly. You know, you should – not that we should take credit for our wins because we have plenty of losses with takes. But when Wyatt Davis was out of shape, when they said that, you were like, nope, out.

That's bad. That's really bad. And that's how it ended up turning out. But that's a good point. I agree with that. And I also think that when they said competitive rebuild, everyone went like, oh, let's see what they do to kind of competitive rebuild.

They did nothing to competitive rebuild, but that's fine because you cut everybody to make your team better. Now you didn't cut. You didn't cut guys just to be like, well, we drafted him and we'll see if he turns out in like four years.

Rick Spielman was quoted talking about Amir Smith. Marset being like interesting to him because he drafted him and you're like, no, you shouldn't just keep guys because they got a draft pick and they did

that way too much like oh let's just hang on to this guy and see if he magically develops he won't after year two he just probably won't right so it's like i like that they just said we want to make the team better and try to win and forget this whole competitive rebuild thing yeah i'm 100 i love it i think it shows a lot of stones by KOC and shows, I mean, it shows a lot of those dudes that they're here to win and they're not going to just be loyal to a fault to guys. I don't know what to use for hate to see it. It's week one of the NFL season. I don't know. Okay. I've got it. You played for the Buffalo Bills. I grew up in Buffalo. I hate to see them a Superbowl favorite. Like, no, no. I mean, what I mean is that just can't, if the bills are going to win the Superbowl, it's in a year where everyone's like, I don't know about those bills. And then they're totally shocked. It's not when they're the favorite that's just begging for missed kicks or strange injuries, or, you know, they've had

coaches quit in the past. How many coaches just quit the bills have had two so like i don't know i got i don't trust i don't trust it i don't trust that team being a favorite it's weird and i i am weird like strangely hating to see it yeah i'm gonna have to go with my hate to see it is i hate the elimination of the fourth preseason game. I hate it. I think that I'm – and that's the undrafted free agent in me, okay? Oh, okay. Fair enough. That is the UDFA in me that needed that fourth preseason game year in and year out to make the football team.

And, you know, you saw a lot of guys this year that could have used that. And so I also don't love this kind of just like dead week that's just like between the end of the cuts and like when the week one is. Like I don't really love this kind of just like dead week. That's just like between the end of the cuts and like when the week one is like, I don't really love this kind of just like limbo week and what we're in right now. But so that's why I hate to see the elimination of that. I get the idea behind it.

I get why you wanted to do it, but I just, I miss it. I miss the fourth preseason game of watching guys go out there and just the jungle, which was make the team and just all hell. I used to watch all the fourth preseason games because you just, you just never knew what you were going to see.

It was just chaos. But a lot of guys made livings from that. They just don't have the opportunity anymore. Fair enough. Fair enough. From my perspective, that fourth preseason game was pretty rough. Mitch Leidner starting for the Vikings. Like, I don't know, man, but I totally understand where you're coming from, that a lot of guys

have forced their way onto the team in that fourth preseason game, and now they don't have that opportunity. So anyway, well, week one, we are here. We have arrived. And scheduling wise, you every year plan a hunting trip. So you will be off the grid in a shack montana or something in an undisclosed location undisclosed location so you will not uh appear next week on tuesday but then the week after and the whole rest of the season you'll be in and then uh whatever calamities may happen during the off

season and so forth uh we'll do a little bit of that in the playoffs as well so i am excited to have you back and appreciative of all of your time sir thank you i'm excited to be back and i hope that i'm not calling you on my way home for my hunting trip like i was last year like what the hell is going on we got roasted by the packers and then we were losing to the colts and i was like what what is happening matt and you're just like it's been a week brother it's been a week and that well It's been a week. And then last year, the Bengals. You should win the game and you don't do the thing. And then a fumble and offside penalties. It was weird. It's going to be a good year.

Yes, it is. Thanks, Jeremiah. Absolutely.