Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Jeremiah Sirles is begging the Vikings to improve their run game

Episode Date: January 22, 2025

***Note: We recorded this episode Tuesday before it came out that Kevin O'Connell and the Vikings had agreed to terms on an extension. Matthew Coller is joined by former Vikings lineman Jeremiah Sirles to discuss where the Vikings need to improve this offseason. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here along with former Minnesota Viking Jeremiah Searles for another Tuesday morning left guard. Jeremiah, we have conference championships Sunday set to go in the NFL. We want to break that down, but I want to know from you. It's kind of been on my mind the most. I wrote a little bit about it. I've been asking everybody, what should Kevin O'Connell,

Kweisi Adafo-Mensa, Brian Flores, the leadership triumvirate, be watching the playoffs and trying to learn about themselves? Because this year, more than any, I felt like playoff football

was different than the regular season. And I usually don't feel that way. I usually feel like, well, football is football. It's always intense. These are just the better teams. But I think that there's been different shades of how teams play in the playoffs this year. So what is your biggest advice to the leadership based on how the playoffs have looked? Yeah. And actually, it's funny. I had this conversation with a buddy of mine at the gym this morning that was like, Hey, is it just me or all the teams that are in the conference championship game have a really good running game this year? Right. And I'm like, it's not, it's not just you. Like that is a fact,

right? Kansas city has had to rely upon multiple different running backs this year. The bills have realized, Hey, in order to get there, it can't all be on J.A.'s shoulders. Let's get James Cook. Let's reinvest in the interior of the offensive line. Saquon Barkley to the Eagles. Let's make our best offensive line with the best running back. Jaden Daniels, running quarterback with Brian Robinson,

who's found a way to be creative in the run game with reverses and things like that. The biggest thing for me as I watch these playoff teams is they are committed to the growth of the run game because they all have great quarterbacks, right? Everyone who's left has a great quarterback in my opinion, but none of them have to do it all on their own, right? Playoff pad is always going to have to do things. Playoff pad has to do, right? But the rest of the NFL is looking, going, man, this team, they revamped themselves a little bit i'm speaking kind of buffalo specifically right josh didn't have to throw the ball so many times this year they were able to run the run game

if i'm the vikings i'm looking at this i'm going okay we have the receivers right we probably have a quarterback in darnold or jj which everyone want to rely on but the running game is absolutely missing from our offense 100 right so from offensive side, that's something that I'm going to self-evaluate and go, we have to get better here. Whether, Hey, Chris Cooper, how do we do this? Hey, do we have to go invest in some guys up front and actually spend money at the guard position this year? Like, what does that look like? And then on the defensive side, the edge rushers have really shown up in the playoffs the ability to rush the passer has shown to be a completely game-changing type of identity for a

lot of teams right Chris Jones is picking who he wants to line up down the line like hey who's my little whatever right there's a right guard right tackle right you look across the board that's been a huge piece of this so continuing to develop at the edge rusher position, the interior pass rush position for the defense of the Vikings, right? Those are the two main takeaways that I've had watching is a defensive tackles that can get to the quarterback, huge bonus in the playoffs and a good solid run game is going to help you win the Superbowl. There's a little bit of a, what does that stat mean here in this question? But do the Vikings have to prioritize time of possession? Because I've always thought that it was a little overrated. I mean, you score a quick touchdown.

The other team has a long drive and kicks a field goal. You're like, who cares? But I'm looking at the time of possession for this year. Philadelphia is number one in the NFL. Detroit was number two. Not too far from there is the Washington commanders, the Buffalo bills, Kansas city. Now Tennessee is mixed in and Miami's mixed in and you know, okay. So it's not a perfect one-to-one type of statistic, but the Vikings were 15th in the league in this. And I felt too often throughout the season that they just were not having long drives.

And that's great. When you're hitting explosives, a 97 yard touchdown, I would never tell, Hey, Justin, pull up at the 20 and kneel down and like, hold on to the ball,

man. T.O.P. T.O.P. Yeah. Right. Right. Get down, get down.

Like a digs in the Minneapolis miracle. He catches the ball. The whole side was like, get out of bounds. Don't get out of bounds. Right. Uh, but I, I did start to think of this like playoff baseball and playoff basketball, because if you look at how baseball, just for examples, played a lot of the teams that lead the league in home runs, of course, dominate the regular season. But historically the teams that don't strike out are the teams that lead the league in home runs, of course, dominate the regular season. But historically, the teams that don't strike out are the teams that tend to go deeper in the playoffs. It's not perfect, but it's kind of a trend over many years that those teams succeed. And the home runs, they can go dry when you play against better pitchers.

Whereas the ability to put the ball in play kind of sustains like the ability to have long drives, throw short passes to hand off, to, to get, you know, a successful running game that keeps you on the field that will travel into the post season. I think a little bit more than throwing deep all the time. Again, not perfect. You could think of examples where teams did it and went all the way to the super bowl, but I'm also thinking about the Patriots and how often the Patriots with Tom Brady would just have the ball the whole game. And there was, and I'm not saying they should just tell who the next quarterback is a swing passes to tie Chandler. Like that's the way, man. But I do think that that has to be a more than just this boomer bus thing, because if you go bust, you go home.

Yeah, and as you get into the playoffs and you're starting to play the more experienced quarterbacks, you're starting to play the more explosive offenses, right, and turnovers and time of possession plays such more of a factor because the best way to beat a Josh Allen, a Lamar Jackson, a Patrick Mahomes, that type of crew, Jalen Hurts, is to keep them off the field. Right? Keep them off the field because I'll tell you this, as an offensive player,

watching the opposing team just kind of go right down the field and you're like watching the clock and you're like, oh my gosh, dude, we haven't been out here. It puts a little bit of a pressure on you of like, we can't go out there and go three and out. They go on a 12-play drive and go score a touchdown and eat up seven and a half minutes. Like you watch your defensive boys come off the field, just gassed, right, man, and defeated. And the momentum swing has kind of gone.

And if you're at home, the crowd's not into it anymore. Right. There's so many factors that play into that. And if you do feel it as an offensive player of a little bit of pressure of man we got to go out there and do something here right we have to we have to make this happen and and sometimes it does sometimes it doesn't but time of possession is is a it's a sneaky good stat right because you're right it's not the end all be all stat it's not like point differential or anything like that but it does just show that as an offense, we can dictate the tempo of the game.

We can dictate how fast we want this to go, how slow we want this to go. We are not playing into your hands. And that's big as you go down the stretch, especially having to go on the road in the playoffs, right? There's so many factors, but I do agree with you that the Vikings need to look at how do we sustain more drives? How do we get to, hey, 12 plays, 13 plays when we got to need it? Or in a fourth quarter, how do we figure out how to end it with the ball in our hand? I think that was a big thing this year that they didn't do great. You and I would be texting each other during games like, why can't we just run the game out here?

Why are they making this interesting? That plays into time of possession. If you get the ball with six minutes left in the fourth and you have a 10 point lead let's not make it interesting let's find a way to eat up that five minutes and finish in victory formation not have to make it an adventure all the time and those hidden time of possession minutes at the end of half at the end of first at the end of the games add up over the course of the year and it just shows that you have an offense that is versatile can adapt to different situations and as great as this offense was in 2024 for the Vikings, there was some definite holes in the strategy piece of it as it went down the stretch. Well, and also they had more plays this year when ahead than anybody in the NFL and to have more plays, but not have more possession time, I think kind of tells a story

there. Uh, just when you combine those two statistics about how they played and it got them to 14 wins. So I'm not saying to anybody, just stop trying to hit the ball down the field to Justin Jefferson. But I also looked at Jefferson and Addison and the percentage of their passes that were caught over 10 yards versus some of the other top receivers. And it's not surprising that they had way higher percentages that were going down the field, or at least into the intermediate areas. And it really felt like against the Rams and against the lions in those games, they just could not get those guys open on quick throws. And when Terry McLaurin went for a 70 yard or 50 yard touchdown or whatever on a screen,

I was just like, huh, that's possible. You're allowed to do that because the Vikings, and this is part of it. Like they throw a screen that should have gone for 20 or 30 yards. Jalen Naylor misses a block. Justin Jefferson gets a yard and it's like, all right, let's never try that again. And they just carry on. But Jaden Daniels going, I believe it was 16 for 19 on throws under 10 yards in that game against the lions. It controlled the game.

And I, they get frustrated, the lions. And I think that they got anxious a little bit. I was like, oh no, our defense is kind of struggling. And now I've got to push it down the field on a deep shot. I've got to push it into traffic a little bit. If you're Jared Goff and they couldn't control the game on the ground, it was just a different dynamic than what happened against the Vikings. Guys, if you watch the show all the time, you know that I'm a hat guy, but if you're wearing hats to cover up for your hair loss, then I've got something that can help you. It's called HIMS. If you've lost your hair, that doesn't mean you can't find it again. Try HIMS Hair Loss Solutions, and you'll be joining

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and whatnot, I think that looking at, I think about this Vikings offense in 2024, and it kind of reminds me of a little bit of the Mahomes offense in the 2020, 2021, right? The explosiveness with the Tyreek Hill and everything. And they did it for like a year or two. And then every defensive coordinator was like, I'm done with this, right? I'm going to drop two safeties back. I'm going to make you keep it short. I'm going to make you readjust.

Defensive coordinators are really smart in this league. And I guarantee you the defenses are going to play if Sam Darnold right that's just hypothetical Sam Darnold's the quarterback for the Minnesota Vikings 2025 right we're rolling with it I'm playing the Vikings completely different from week one I am forcing them to not have the big play I'm keeping guys back I'm making them run the football I'm making them do all the things that they didn't want to do this year. And I'm seeing, can they adjust? Can they adapt? Can they adjust? Right? It's, it's asinine to think that every defense coordinator is just going to allow them to do what they did this year and throw it all over the place. Right? Cause no one knew who Sam Darnold was.

No one knew what he was going to be about. So you were kind of adapting on the fly as you went this year. It's going to be a totally different way that the people play the Minnesota Vikings next year. I guarantee it. And if we can't adjust and adjust, it's going to be really hard for us to mimic what we had this year. Now, do I think we win 14 games next year? I doubt it. That's really hard to do, right? Unless you're the Chiefs or whatever. But I do think that we have to go and self-scout like crazy this offseason with the Minnesota Vikings offense and go, okay, if teams are going to play us differently next year, what are we going to have answers for? And the best answer is the run game.

That's the best. You want to play two deep safety? Fantastic. That means it's a light box, right? That's where Mahomes and that's where you guys saw Isaiah Pacheco, right? That's where you see Josh Allen now has James Cook, right? Like all those teams started playing those guys, two deep safeties, keep everything in front of you. Don't let the big arm guy have the great success that he has frustrated, right? Force him to not feel good about throwing

the ball down the field. And he's going to try and eventually be like, I just got to do it and fly a 500 ball there to the deep safety. It's got to start with the run game. And that's going to be a big thing to watch as OTAs come through as free agency comes through as the draft comes through is, are they investing in the type of player that can help switch the identity of this offense at times? The Kansas city example is such a good one because in 2020, what got them at the end of the day, a pass rush, they couldn't block it up in a single game. Their quarterback got sacked a bunch of times. That's the best quarterback probably ever. And other than Brady and he's just getting killed in that super bowl because they're trying to run deep shots down the field. He's trying to hang

onto the ball. He's getting sacked. The same stuff happened to him. I think he was pressured like 70% of the snaps in that game and they just lost. And we see that all over the league when that's how you're going to play. It's not just deep shots, but it's, if you can't block it up, even Jalen hurts with this amazing line. And that's, that's my biggest takeaway is that of course I agree with everybody else. Yes. You have to sign linemen. I think there might be three different linemen in the middle for next year, but you also are not going to be able to do it. Like if Philadelphia can't do it, nobody can do it. You have to have other things that are the answers because you can't put

together five dudes that are better at blocking than they are. And still, and tell me what you've seen because Steve Palazzolo, formerly of PFF, now check the Mike podcast. He threw this out. There's one of his biggest takeaways that this year offensive lines looked more baffled than ever by stunts, twists, blitzes, all the things that were thrown out there. And the Houston Texans, oh my goodness. Like you guys are just lost out there all season long. But I felt the Vikings were too down the stretch against all of that type of stuff. I think that's going to make it impossible to just line up block for people rushing and have your quarterback drop back and, and, and throw down the field all the time. Yeah. I mean, a great example is the Bengals, right? The Bengals had, and Joe Burrow is probably up there. I mean, I know he didn't go to the playoffs. We kind of

forgot about the MVP type season he had this year. Right. But they do the same thing. They asked their alignment to drop back and 60 times a game. And it's no wonder he's leading in sacks and their guards are number one in pressures and their tackles are number seven in pressure. It's like, well, it's the law of averages, right? You take Philly who throws the ball 19 times a game, and then you take the Bengals who throw it 61 times a game, like bad things are going to happen. And I agree with you. The O-line play this year has gotten worse,

but I do think a lot of that has to do with the limited padded practices that we have, right? And I don't want to sound like, oh, more work is more important or blah, blah, blah back in my day, but the O-line is really the one position that you can't mimic a full-speed stunt, right? And if you don't have pads on, it's impossible to try and realize it, right? Because that D-end, if they're running what's called an E-T, right,

the end goes first, the tackle loops around, that D-end's job is to murder the ear hole of the guard, right? That's his only job. It's not to rush the quarterback. It's to eject his brain out the side of his head. And if you can't practice against that because you only have one padded practice a week, you have limited padded practices during training camp. And as the year progresses, you have zero padded practices. D linemen are going to continue to take advantage of that. Right. And I think throughout the year, you've seen more and more guys just not in sync, not on the same wavelength of passing off stunts or missing on the penetrator and guys running

free. I do think it's just a lack of time and development for guys to get the work in and get the practice in because that's such a hard thing and you talk to any alignment that's played in this league as soon as you open pandora's box of stunts and you put on tape that you have problems with it it's gonna be a long year it is and the vikings down the stretch open pandora's box of oh you couldn't pick up a T E or an ET. Okay. Let's just do it till you can. And we never were able to get over that hump of, Hey, we shoved it in the face and it's a non-issue anymore. And if you continue to let it open like that, it's a really, really hard thing to stop the bleeding.

And also the blitzes that teams are sending, the Vikings tried to run a few play actions against the Rams and they sent corner blitzes the, and I just, I love defense because of this, because like finding the answers to all the cheat codes, when the Vikings ran a bunch formation and a condensed split, which means three receivers together and close to the line. So they're not out at the numbers. They're close to the line of scrimmage. They said corner you're blitzing. It's the hardest thing to face because the corner, it looks like, oh, I'm about to cover a guy. And so you just, all right, he's going to cover Jefferson or whatever, but he's also close to the line of scrimmage.

So a corner blitz, he's right on top of you. And that's how they sacked Darnold two different times, which again is not on the interior offensive line. That's in teams are really good at this and having answers. So if you're going to run this long developing play action, drop back, turn your back, you might be turning around and just getting clobbered.

And there is a tie into JJ McCarthy here. I felt like now when, when we were growing up, one of the biggest things that was talked about with quarterbacks is you better be tough because you're going to get killed. John Elway, Jim Kelly, these guys, they got smacked. They're laying on the turf. Somebody just pulls them out. I'm back. I'm playing. It was terrible probably, but the toughness was such a big factor. Oh my God. Parkinson's now it's like, Oh God. Right. It's like, did you say you had like 200 concussions he thought or something like that?

I was like, oh buddy, not good. But yeah, you're right. It was a different game back then. Sorry to cut you off. I don't mean to glorify the era. I just mean that's how it was. It was. And it was bad.

And they let people just power bomb the quarterbacks. But there is a, I know it's ridiculous, but there's a different version of that now, which is you hit them softer, but you're still hitting them. These quarterbacks, CJ Stroud got destroyed this year. Mahomes is playing hurt. Hertz is playing hurt. Josh Allen is just made of brawn and steel. And so he can't really be touched. But other than that, I mean, these Darnold was beat up. And I think for JJ McCarthy, they better be sure he's ready to play 17 games where he's getting his ass kicked all the time, because no matter who you put up there, quarterbacks

are going to get hit, especially in this system where Kirk Cousins on Netflix is dealing with broken ribs and whatever, and whatever was broken on Sam Darnold. It's like, this is going to happen to you the way the nfl is right now yeah quarterbacks get hit it's it's you don't want it to happen you don't like it's not something that you obviously plan for but it is a reality and these dudes are bigger faster stronger i mean miles garrett is 270 pounds and runs a 4-7 that's gonna really hurt when it hits you right that's not a that's not to really hurt when it hits you, right? That's not a, that's not a, Oh, let me just help you up.

That's a, Hey, I hope you pick your teeth up on your way. Right? I mean, it's just hard to say. And with the blitzes now, if you're blitzing a guy, there's usually a free hitter and you got to beat it with the ball, but you're going to take a shot, right? And that's just nature of playing the quarterback position. And looking at J.J. McCarthy on the small picture that I got a picture of him on the sideline, he looks like he's 185 pounds. Bryce Young learned really quickly that's not going to work.

He had to gain weight. All these rookies learn quickly. Jane Daniels as well. I mean, he even at times this year, he had the rib issue, right? You have to be physically put together to play quarterback in this league it's just the nature of the position and you can protect your tail off as an offensive lineman it's just bound to happen and as we've all seen if you lose your starting quarterback your season's kind of a wash man you're not going to make a run and so whoever's a starting

quarterback whether it be sam donald jj m McCarthy, they physically have to be ready to go the distance. And as a guy that was a rookie that hasn't played a ton of games, right? No, played zero meaningful games in the NFL. That's going to be a steep learning curve for him. If he is named the starter next year. Yeah, I think that's, it's a factor of how ready can you be to take 17 weeks of punishment, uh, under the current circumstances that they have to decide. And that doesn't mean it's for sure. Darnold, it could be someone like Daniel Jones, but you just have to have an answer. I don't know the thing about Daniel Jones.

We kind of assume like, oh yeah, he would come back, right? Everyone likes KOC in Minnesota and hopefully he didn't hang around one week after the season to see minus 23. But if you look around, someone should want Daniel Jones competing for a spot because there's just, well, one, there's all these quarterbacks who are

drafted high, who've kind of emerged, but also there's nothing, there's nothing in free agency and there's nothing in the draft as far as quarterbacks go. So it's not a guarantee that Daniel Jones will just say, oh, sure, I'll be here to not really compete with J.J. McCarthy. I think he's going to have opportunities to compete in other positions. Yeah, I agree. I mean, especially with the draft being what it is this year. Right. Shadur, Cam Ward. Who else?

Jackson Dart. Right. Cam Ward, Jackson Dart. I don't think that any of those guys, anyone feels like Shadur or Cam Ward would be QB 4 or 5 in last year's draft. That's saying something. That's saying that none of these guys are slam dunk, let's franchise quarterback these dudes. If I'm looking around and I'm a coach that's on the hot seat, I'm a coach that maybe wants to rebuild in other positions I'm a coach that's on the hot seat, I'm a coach that maybe wants to rebuild in other positions and wants a quarterback that's competent, been to the playoffs,

won a playoff game, I think Daniel Jones is going to be a guy that maybe signs a $10 million to $15 million deal, much like Sam Darnold did this year, to come in and be the starter with a quarterback like Sardar or Cam Ward or someone to learn behind them that they want to bring into. So I don't think he's a slam dunk to be back here at all, unless he's seen something we haven't seen and he knows JJ is not going to be ready. Right.

And Sam Darnold is going to command more money. And he's looking around going, I could, I could be the starter in this offense and I could make myself a lot of money thrown to Justin Jefferson and those types of guys and whatnot. And he brings an element of running with his legs. So really fascinating that that signing is going to be really interesting to see what happens with him down the stretch here. So I want to get into what we saw, what we're going to see in the playoffs here, but I got a question from somebody that I am less qualified to answer than you are. Okay. Uh, this came from at nurse in time on Twitter.

Do the Vikings need a new offensive line coach? Now here's what I want you to explain to me first. How would I know that? I mean, really, truly like how, how would I, as a general football knower, but not an offensive line expert know if a team needs a new old line coach, I know the Texans do, but who else does, does this team? I don't, I don't know how to answer the question. Yeah. It's, it's an interesting question. You know, I think the first thing you have to ask yourself is why, why are we saying this? Is it because Darnold got sacked like crazy

this year? Is it because we couldn't run the football? Is it because we're worried about the development of Ed Ingram? There's enough question marks there. Or are we looking at it from the other side going, he's helped Garrett Bradbury develop from a guy we should cut to a pretty solid player in the middle at times. He's helped develop a left tackle that came in with great talent and is going to be an all pro

he's helped brian o'neill develop from a good player to a pro bowl type player right and it's hard to wonder how much run game is on his plate versus how much does koc just be like go away right like we don't do that it i don't think unless you see a glaring mistake driven offensive line which was not the vikings this year they did not have free runners all over the place I don't think, unless you see a glaring mistake-driven offensive line, which was not the Vikings this year. They did not have free runners all over the place. There wasn't guys in the backfield on run plays because of a mental error and a linebacker running through.

I thought that Coach Cooper had them very well prepared for every game. And that is a big piece of the O-line coach is preparation. The physical development thing is actually really hard to do because of the stuff I laid out last segment of just the time that you have. So much of the development is what you put into it in the off season to then go and let your O-line coach kind of shape and mold as you go through training camp. But I really don't think that Coach Cooper is the problem. I don't think that he was the issue. And honestly, if you have a team that wins 14 games, you don't really need to fire anyone, right? Like, I don't think that he was the issue. And honestly, if you have a team that wins 14 games, you don't really need to fire anyone, right? Like, I don't think there's any need to say,

well, you know, you got to go. Someone's got to fall on the sword. No one has to fall on the sword for 14 win season. There were some issues, there were some holes, but I really don't believe that coach Cooper did anything this year that warrant moving on from him. You know, I tend to think the same way about that, um, because, uh, you know, it's the roster and the players and their skills are going to dictate much more than the coaching in general. And I did not feel like there were offensive linemen looking at each other going, well, whose guy was that? I also believe that the quarterback is largely responsible for a lot of the protection stuff.

And there's, you just don't know a lot of these things like against the Arizona Cardinals, they had free runners because Gannon came up with some awesome blitzes that everybody copied after that. And the concern would be, is it, is it Darnold just didn't see them, didn't identify them,

didn't have an answer for them and shift the protection or did they not know what to do? Right. Were they not given the tools to know what to do because it wasn't detailed enough. I mean, the development of Ed Ingram is also a hard one because they reached on him as a draft pick. He had three years and I remember Kirk saying, you have to develop yourself in the NFL. And I agree with that. A hundred percent.

The old line coach is there to teach them how to block against the next opponent. He's not there to teach you how to play football. And so then Reisner comes in and is steady. And I think it was a top 15 pass blocker by PFF. Like, okay. So obviously someone can do this, but there's only so much you could do when Christian Derrissaw goes down. And there is a reason they're going to pay the guy. What is it? 25, $30 million a year, somewhere in that range, because that position still reigns supreme in the NFL. And when you

go from him to a guy who seemed to forget how to play over the last four weeks of the season, I don't know what he's supposed to do about that. So I think that the way I look at it is, did you get, and this is like the broadest way you can ever look at any evaluation of a coach. Did you get what I expected you to get out of the line? And I think the answer for this year was yes. And I also think that speaks to how much they have to spend on it to make it so they can maximize a lot more talent up there. Yeah, that's a great way to look at it. How much did you squeeze out of the talent that you had available? No one anticipated Blake Brandl to be a top 10 guard this year.

Everyone knows what Garrett Bradbury is and what his limitations are and what his ceiling is, right? Everyone kept hoping at Ingram was going to develop himself in the off season and come back a more physical player, a more technical player or whatever he needed to be. He wasn't right. And so you input Dalton Reisner and I felt like coach Cooper had him prepared, right? All these guys. And that's for me is the number one thing for a coach in the NFL is preparation, right? They have to be prepared on a week in week out basis. And to your point, I've been on teams where it was the center's job to change the protection. I've been on teams where the center's job was to come out and point the base rule of the protection, right? If this is a six down Mike base protection, we're coming down Mike's 54 Lou call to that. And then the door to the quarterback

is to change it from there I don't know what that is with this team I mean whose whose shoulders is it on I also know that there's quarterbacks that love pressure in their face right like hey I'd rather have you guys slide away protect my backside and see the pressure in my face so I can beat it with the ball and beat the blitz with the ball sometimes guys get hit because they didn't get the ball out of the receiver didn't run the hot route. No one's like, oh, that freaking offensive line missed it again, right? There's so many factors that go into that

that's just hard for me to blame an O-line coach. The only thing that I will possibly put on Coach Cooper's shoulders is the lack of identity in the run game. What were we? Were we a downhill team? Are we an outside zone team? Are we a pin-pull team? Whatever that might be. And again, I don't know if he's the run game coordinator. He was trying to figure it out as we were going, or was it just Kevin O'Connell saying, hey, this

is what we're doing this week. Figure it out and not being able to truly develop and get really good at one scheme or one thing that's your bread and butter. Hard say so he's not the run game coordinator and this would be my thing is the to me the best offensive line coach when it came to teaching a run game was rick dennison in the in the league over many years he did it with kubiak in houston he did a lot of different places i think he was in denver and they invented that kind of system. Every player in 2019, every offensive lineman knew exactly the right steps, the right targets, and they had a total identity. Now things have changed. You can't just run that outside zone over and over and over again, but you also kind of can, if you can do it really well, like if you have mastered that skill, it's kind

of like the idea of there there's something, some quote about like learning one move 10,000 times, as opposed to 10,000 moves one time or something like that. But it felt like you guys maybe try pitching it, maybe try inside zone and over here. Eh. That didn't work. Maybe the something else. And I know it's more complicated than that, but identity and also the guys understanding where their targets are, how to do it, playing to the strengths. I think the line coach needs to be the run game coordinator. And if that's not something that Cooper can do, then he needs an assistant that can do that because I think it's so tied to the blocking that you can't have somebody else, a running back coach saying, well, just have your guys do this

because he's the guy that knows if they can do X, Y, or Z or not. And I think that they've outsourced that to other people that aren't Cooper. And then he's got to kind of teach whatever they want to do. I don't really like that as a dynamic. I agree. I always think the O-line coach should be the run game coordinator, 100% for all the reasons they know. But also when you're in free agency and we're in the draft, he knows the kind of guys he wants to target, right? There are scheme fit guys in the draft, especially day three, when you're talking about developing like developmental players that are going to be in your two deep of, Hey, I want an athletic guard that can run in space because we have this outside zone. I want him to get up on those linebackers or, Hey,

I want the Daniel fillet. He's of the world, the 380 pound right guard, because we're a double team downhill team, right? So the player evaluation that comes into it in the draft and free agency, all the way to talking to the offensive or to the head coach of, Hey, here's what I think we can do well with this group. Here are the things I don't think we can do well with this group. And having that conversation, if you're the running back coach and you're like, man, my running backs love running outside zone. You're like, yeah, my guard runs a five, two dude. You ain't getting out there, right? This dude's built for that way. Not lateral. It's going to be a total miscommunication. It's going to be kind of banging your head against the wall over and over again, which

is what we saw from the Vikings run game this year. So I would love to see coach Cooper renamed the run game coordinator and let him get a chance at creating a run game that he feels he can build around the group of guys that he has in his room. I don't mean to be insulting, but a run game can be a put it in a museum, beautiful piece of art. It really can. Absolutely. And, and when I watched the Ravensvens the bills have gotten so much better at it when i watch especially philadelphia i just

think look at it hang it in the loo just look at it it's like a beautiful ocean breeze in your face and uh when it's not going well it's's just finger paints. It's just throwing cans of paint and being like, does that look like art? And that's yeah. Abstract. It was certainly abstract. The Vikings run game this year. So I'd like to see them stop finger painting and start looking at it like an art form, not an obligation, but something that can actually win you games. Anyway, here's what I want to know. Instead of like love to see it, hate to see it. I want to just know what you took joy in,

in the divisional round playoffs and what you did not take joy in. It's the same exact bit, but like what, what were you really getting excited about for these matchups and how the games played out? We'll start there with what got you pumped up yeah i mean what got me pumped up was seeing a rookie quarterback whose pulse probably never got above 80 right who is in the biggest moments of his life just watch the defense on tape that their last at bat rattled a quarterback to his core of the of the minnesota vikings of sam darnold and to go out

there and go fine with me i'll get to my first read i'll play on time oh i also run four four right to watch him and the poise that he has excites me for the future of the quarterback position for washington and really just this whole class in general out of quarterbacks you know that was something that really fired me up in that game, particularly with Washington. Also, the thing that really fired me up against the Chiefs in Kansas City or the Kansas City and Houston game is I think the Chiefs look very beatable. I don't think there's no chink in the armor.

They're the juggernauts of the AFC. They are an incredible talent. Don't get me wrong. As long as you play off pats in the game, you're going to give yourself a chance to win. But they got some holes in the zone now, and there's some things that can happen. And that game was on a silver platter for Houston to take advantage of and go.

You start talking about the Bills now or even the Eagles or the Commanders, whoever comes out and is going to have to play them, they are going to have a chance to exploit some of those holes and see what happens there. And that just excites me because I'm ready to see someone else besides the chiefs. Well, a number one for me was a drama. There was a lot of drama and even the Detroit game was dramatic in different ways because it was just so shocking. It was like, what is this really happening? But I really enjoyed watching the way that cliff Kingsbury set up that offense for that day. And most of all, Dan Quinn, that guy going forward on all the fourth downs and fighting fire with fire and not backing down

in that environment and not, and look, KOC did this. He kicked the field goal. He missed it. They were down 17 to nine or something. And it just, it all, it all crumbled from there in that game. And I thought the way that Dan Quinn said, yeah, we got a rookie quarterback. Yeah. This place is roof is blowing off here too. I don't care. And you know what? He also didn't care.

He's totally botched the first fourth down with some foolishness about having Mariota sneak or whatever. And then he just says, all right, we'll just go for the next one and we'll go for the next one. And when you have Jaden Daniels who can scramble and put Terry and Arnold in a blender out there, when he misses his read,

which Tom Brady did a good job. We should also praise Tom Brady when he does a good job, like of identifying 12 men on the field. But why did they do that? Because the other team was going for fourth down and they ran out there. They committed an infraction and you get a first down. Like this is why teams do it, but you can only do it if you trust your freak show quarterback, which Dan Quinn did. And also I thought the guy, because of that, the way that Superbowl went, got a bad rap in Atlanta, their roster fell apart. He fell guy, because of that, the way that Superbowl went, got a bad rap in Atlanta, their roster fell apart.

He fell on the sword for that, did an amazing job in Dallas and then has done an amazing job here. I just think the guy's really good at this. And for him to have this resurgence has been really cool to see. Yeah. I mean, especially when you go through the hirings of last year, no one was excited about Dan Quinn, right? Everyone's that guy really like they wanted Ben Johnson, right? They wanted Ben Johnson. And they're like, we settled for Dan Quinn and to see what he's been

able to do and just continue to stay the course. And obviously that off that whole entire team has bought in to what Dan Quinn says. and he's not a flashy guy. He's not crazy. He's not in the media saying wild things. He's just a football player. He's a dude. He's a guy you sit down with and have a beer with, and he's talking about this play that he had in 1997,

and like, oh, I drew it up on the board. And I just love what Dan Quinn has been able to do with that Commander's football team. I just wish they didn't have such a stupid name. You can't be in the NFC Championship with just such a stupid name. Like you can't be in the NFC championship, which is such a dumb name. Like fix this, fix this. The commander's is a terrible football name. I saw an article the other day where they,

the new ownership was totally planning on changing this. And they're like, all right, it's just awful. I mean, I joked when they had no name, I was like, they're going to be the sharks or something, aren't they? That would have been better. It would have been better. The Washington razor sharks or something like an extra scary shark. But instead they go with the commander, but it ain't changing now, buddy.

Those commanders jerseys for Jane Daniels are selling like crazy and they're going to stick with this. That was the actual report. It was like, yeah, they probably got to be forced to stay with his name because they had such a great season. Stupid name. Oh man. That's funny. Football is hilarious sometimes. Uh, where I did not take much joy was in what happened with the Ravens on a few different levels. Number one, it's not a pass interference. When the receiver shoves down the corner, total game changer, just change the game entirely. The bills were going to punt. And instead they're scoring a touchdown like that is an enormous swing in that game.

And then the Mark Andrews stuff is really, really crushing. And, uh, you've, you've been there. You've seen that up close with Blair Walsh. I mean, what do you even, what do you even do? What do you even say when one guy so clearly blows you the game after being a really good player, but it was the same with Walsh. He was a great kicker all year. And then he just fell apart in the biggest moment. Yeah. I feel for the guy because, you know, at the beginning part of the year, everyone was saying

likely is better than him and he's washed. He's like Kelsey. He's too old. And he battled back from that and had kind of a career year on the back end. And if I recall them saying on the broadcast, that was one like his second or third fumble of his career, right? It's hard to look at that. But in these moments, everything gets magnified.

Every mistake becomes that much more important. Every drop pass becomes that much bigger. But I'm going to take it all the way back. And the thing that I didn't find joy in, why are we chasing points in the third quarter? I cannot stand that. If you're down and you've got, I mean, I get it. If you're in the fourth quarter and maybe you only get one or two possessions left, you're like, hey, we got it.

We got to go for this here. There was like 10 minutes left in the third, and we're chasing points, and now you're setting yourself up in a position at the end of the game there where all you have to do is kick a field goal, and we're setting this thing up for overtime instead of, hey, now we got to get a two-point conversion, or we're going to lose this game and go home. As much as you want to put it on Mark Andrews and that whole piece,

I go back to the third quarter of why are we chasing points? What are we doing? I hate that analytic side of yesterday or there, like at that point, take the field goal. You're going to get more possessions. There's going to be more things that happen in this game. Don't set yourself back in the hole because if the bills would have gone down and scored a touchdown when they kicked two field goals instead, it's a 9.2 possession game. Now that's a totally different feeling than an eight an eight point game because they ended up kicking two field goals i just didn't enjoy that and as much as it fell on um mark andrews shoulders lamar jackson is not blameless in all this he throws a terrible interception in the first he has a terrible botch snap in the in the same thing and he kind of sitting there in the press post-game press

conference saying i'm tired of this hold on ball it's like who are you talking to are you talking to you are you talking to yourself because you are just as much at fault here as mark andrews or as derrick henry who dropped the ball like you all took your turn in this it's really not fair for you to put it on one guy well and i think in in fairness in jack's full comment, not just the clip, he did say that, like he said himself, like I'm tired of myself making these mistakes in the big moments too. Not just those guys, but also those guys. And they had the same problem. What was it? Zay flowers with the fumble last year that cost them. Uh, and there was a penalty or something like that last year. I do wonder if they had Zay Flowers at 100%.

They played starters in that last game, and was that really necessary? And Flowers gets hurt, and that proves costly. But I actually don't know what the analytics say about going for two there. I wonder if it's really close. I got questions about the two-point conversion or the field goal or go

for it for the, for the bills. And my answer is I'm not really sure. I mean, the win percentage is probably 95% if you're up by eight with three minutes left. So, and not only that, that two point conversion doesn't end the game. Josh Allen's getting the ball back with a minute 30 left. Like that, that's the other piece. That one's like, oh, no, no, no. That game would have been over anyways. I thoroughly believe in Orchard Park, minute and a half, need a field goal? Josh Allen is doing that. Especially when they were up and down the field there pretty much the entire fourth quarter and then just stalled in the red zone. They were going to get the ball where it needed to go.

As much as you want to say Mark Andrews lost that game. I still don't think they would have won that game, even with how much time they had left. It's just never the case that one person loses the game. Uh, and if they, it's just, uh, and that's what makes playoff football so fascinating and so frustrating is that if they don't get the bad call at the end of the first half, everything is fine. Even if they convert the two point conversion, which my issue with that was they ran every get the bad call at the end of the first half, everything is fine. Even if they convert the two point conversion, which my issue with that was they ran every play of that drive steamrolled. And then with two yards to go, like,

no, we're going to pass. And then, well, Lamar should have made a bet. No, no, no,

no, no. Hand the ball off, run into the end zone. Give it to the horse. There's just no way he's not getting two yards. I mean, they had just clobbered him.

So there's a lot of different things to pick apart for the Ravens and the non joyless or joyful part is after the game and the discussions. It just, it just hurts. It just hurts my soul. It, it, it just,

it brings me so much frustration to hear people. Well, Lamar, he's not that great and everything. It's just, I mean, just stop. He played the best player in the world versus the best player in the world, and somebody had to lose. It's like if Nadal faces Federer and Nadal loses, you're like, trash.

Come on, man. We just can't do it. Well, we can, and we'll continue to, but it's, it's my least favorite part of football. 100%. And if Josh Allen loses this week, we'll be having the exact same conversation of, he can't beat my homes. He's not that good. He's not that guy. There's one happy quarterback at the end of this thing one. And it's really hard to be the one. And I hate the narrative of, Oh, he can't do it. Fine. Find someone else because there's no one else better than those guys right now. Right? I mean, and the AFC, I might've talked about this last year. I can't remember so hard to get out of Josh Allen, Patrick Mahomes, Joe Burrow, Lamar

Jackson, Bo Nix, right? You look at CJ Stroud, you look at the quarterbacks that are in the AFC. If you can claw your way to the final four out of that group, you're doing something right as an organization. So let's not panic and say back to the drawing board, because it is just tough to get out of the AFC right now. I'll throw one more complaint and then we'll talk about the games. Look, I understand the calls on my homes. We're either wrong or very close to wrong now the will anderson one look if you're gonna hit a guy here as opposed to here that's very hard to see i don't think we really understand how fast football is happening and we're expecting a

referee and it's not it's not their fault that there's no review to take that away. And then the NFL comes out and says, well, actually he did kind of hit his face mask. And that's, and if you look at it slow and it did whatever, that's way too close, bro. You just can't hit the homes high. But if you look at the penalty data for the last two years, the chiefs are not getting more calls than their opponents. I don't even think that they've had more penalty yards for them than against them. And the whole it's rigged for the Chiefs because of Taylor Swift or something. I just like I stop it. It's that's a good reason to want the bills to be in the Super Bowl. So I don't have to see one more freaking meme.

I will say. Patrick Holmes lost a little bit of respect for me with that nonsense. He pulled on the sideline, like, let me slow up as I'm running out of bounds here so that this guy can push me in the back and I can go full flop mode NBA style and get the flag here. That stuff is annoying. And I can't handle that stuff because just as easily we've seen in this year, kind of like, Oh, I'm going out of bounds and then plant his foot and get north and south at one point he's going to get rocked and it's going to be a penalty and it's going to be super annoying and even the late slide stuff I'm not a fan of the late slide not just for my homes but for all the quarterbacks

it puts the defenders in such a no-win situation especially when there's guys like Lamar and Anthony Richardson and Jaden Daniels and guys, Josh, that can run. Like these dudes are not lumberers out there. These dudes can run and really hurt you with your legs. As a defender, you have to treat them as such. They are just as dangerous as a running back. And if they get out there and they're running

and all of a sudden you're going for a tackle and they fall down at the last second and you hit them, it's got to be something that's some give and take there because right now it's way too much give to the quarterback position. I just need what I need is that to have a sky judge who's making calls on these things, because also a game changer for Detroit is when they destroy Jared Goff. That's not legal. And then there's no penalty thrown on that one. And you go like, where, where are we at here? The consistency with it is terrible. I would also say that I'll give credit to chiefs fans. They put together a little montage of other quarterbacks

flopping. So one of my, my actual theory on the chiefs and why everyone thinks this is that we all watch their games. There's no other team in the league, no other quarterback, where we watch every game of theirs, but we watch every game of the Chiefs because they're always on national TV. So every call they get is like, they got a call. It happened again, which no one's saying that about the Jaguars. So who will win? Who will lose?

I think the Bills beat. I think it's Josh Allen's year. I think Josh, if you look at his season as a whole, you look at my home season as a whole, Josh Allen is the better quarterback this year. He's taking care of the football way more than my homes. He's not throwing the ball into dangerous situations. He's using his legs. I think their offensive line is much better than Kansas City's. I look at them and go, okay, the holes on offense nod to the Bills. The holes on defense, I would say with a healthy offensive line and Joe Thune not playing left tackle, maybe lean towards the Chiefs, but the Bills have built their team to beat the Chiefs. Every free agency signing they've had, every draft pick that they've made,

every game plan they've installed has led to this moment for them. And you're talking about a guy like Gregory Russo and Vaughn Miller and A.J. Epinesa length and long against a guy like Joe Tooney, who's a shorter guy, unbelievable player, playing left tackle, gave up the most pressures of his career last week.

That's going to be a problem for old Patrick Mahomes there, right? Matt Milano's back. He wasn't there when they played against them. He's going to go beyond Kelsey, right? There's different factors that play into this. Granted, it's an arrowhead. It's going to be cold and advantage chiefs there, but I do think this is the year that the Bills get it done.

And I'm going to say it's the year that the commanders get it done too. I think Jane Daniels, they beat the Eagles the last at bat, right? They in commanders, they drive down the field. It's a divisional team. They're not intimidated by the chiefs. They're not intimidated to walk into Philadelphia. They're used to doing it every single year. Platt plays a factor, right? It's not the Rams coming from the West coast up into Philly where it's snowing and they're think they're melting. They're used to this. I think Jaden Daniels outplays Jalen hurts. As long as the commanders can sell out to, we're not going to let 26 beat us.

We're not, we're going to bottle him up. I think the commanders can get it done against Eagles. And we're looking at a bills commander Superbowl. Whew. 1991 all over again, as everyone thought immediately, uh, it was,

uh, actually here in Minneapolis when that happened. Well, I just, uh, want to say, because I also have the bills. I think the Eagles win,

but Jalen hurts. His status is very interesting here, uh, because they haven't thrown the ball well at all in the playoffs. Something still is going on with him and A.J. Brown, and there's nothing going on with Daniels and his receivers except for them connecting constantly. So I think that's a factor.

My big concern is that Sam Cosme may not play. That's a huge loss. It's an $18 million-a-. And, uh, he, right. He gets rolled up on last week, but I just, I want to say a shout out to my dad who will be watching another AFC championship. He is sat in the same spot in the same house for 40 years. I mean, think about the last time the bills made the Super Bowl was 1994. It is 2024. So that is 30 years of sitting in the same spot. The TVs have changed.

The chairs have changed. The spot has not changed. Watching every single Sunday of Buffalo Bills football through Bledsoe and Lossman. And I was sitting next to him for the Music City Miracle. And last year, they're a field goal away. They're 13 seconds away. This man has been through everything and he's got Bill's shoes and sweaters. And we gave him a little football for Christmas that he watches the games with.

Now. I mean, this is, uh, this is, this is their moment in Buffalo. So, uh, you know, knowing what that culture is like, you know as well how those fans are, how much they've been through to be here. Ryan Fitzpatrick ripping his shirt off last week was so good. So for them, just the best to everybody watching it there, because that is, if they make it, what a moment for that city it will be. Oh, the airport will have to shut down.

I'm not kidding. Like, the airport will have to shut down. I'm not kidding. We used to come back from games, we were terrible, 6-10, and there'd be 400 people there, cars lined up. If they win this game, there'll be 1,000 to 3,000 or 4,000 people waiting for them at the airport when they land from Kansas City. Rain or shine, cold, snowy, does not matter. Those people will be there. And that city loves that team and i like when good

organizations and good people in the organizations have success and i will say this brandon bean sean mcdermott and the staff that they have there are really good people and they handle the organization the right way and so i i have a lot of hope for them too not saying kansas city doesn't right but i just have a little bit of a tie to those guys still. Yes, you do. Well, we'll be watching and it'll be a lot of fun. And just throw one more hate to see it. Oh, college football played a game.

Oh, so bad. I mean, so bad. I mean, no one really cared. Ohio State, everyone knew that was going to happen. And yeah, Notre Dame tried to make it interesting at the end, but they need to get that game done with like three weeks ago that game should not it just pales in comparison to nfl playoffs right you turn the national championship on and you just got done watching divisional weekend right the pinnacle of the pinnacle you're like oh this sucks this is gross i don't feel dirty watching this i'm gonna go take a shower i just i just

struggled to care that was the problem i mean i'm like oh they're still doing this college thing huh don't these kids have to graduate someday i don't like i oh all right it's a kill and it mostly what i don't know and don't send a zero blitz when they have the best receiver in college football i don't know who cares or kick the field goal when you're down two possessions. Who cares? That's what you get. That's what you get. I know, but I just don't care.

Marcus Freeman, that's what you get. They need to get that done fast. How much rest do they need? Just keep playing. Army, Navy, keep playing. Don't be like, all right, everybody take a few weeks off. Now we're going to have a 12-team tournament. It just took forever.

No, no. Conference championship weekend, first round. roll it into the next thing. But if we trust college football, uh, it always gets it right. That's what we know about college football is there's never any problems there. So, uh, great stuff, Jeremiah, maybe next year, the Huskers in that game. We'll see, uh, maybe. And, uh, we will talk again next week when we know who's playing in the freaking Superbowl. Love it. Football, football,

football.