Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Jeremiah Sirles needs the Vikings to clean up the messy play in Philly

Episode Date: September 13, 2023

Matthew Coller and former Minnesota Viking Jeremiah Sirles talk about the Vikings' performance against Tampa Bay, what they can learn from it and where they take things from here as they go into Philadelphia. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello and welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here, actually inside TCO Performance Center with Jeremiah Searles, who's not, and is still reeling over all of your teams disappointing. The Vikings lost, Nebraska lost, the Bills lost, the Carolina Panthers lost. Did your high school team lose? Chargers lost too. Don't forget about the Did your high school team lose? Chargers lost, too. Don't forget about the Chargers. They lost in glorious Charger fashion.

It was a weekend to forget, Matt. It was a weekend to forget for football love. I'm not saying it's you, but it might be you. And, you know, of course, with the whole world watching Colorado as well and future Vikings quarterback Shadur Sanders lighting up the Nebraska Huskers as well. And future Vikings quarterback Shadur Sanders, uh, lighting up the Nebraska Huskers as well. So I have become a Saturday college football watcher of certain quarterbacks. Uh, Quinn Ewers kind of looked pretty good. And then after Owen one, you're like, okay, well just keep justifying my quarterback watching Vikings. I mean, first of all, has see you not turned into the most spectacle of college football? I mean, the Wu-Tang Clan was at the game.

I walked by them. I was like, I think I know who those people are. And then as I was walking by, I saw an Instagram. It was like, Wu-Tang Clan here. And I was like, wow, the Wu-Tang Clan is at a CU Nebraska game. How about that? I mean, that place is interesting. What Deion's done there is nothing short of remarkable.

Now, we'll see. Time will tell, right? But the fandom that has come with Coach Prime is wild. There's never been more evidence in this sport that having a great quarterback will swing the tides there because Nebraska probably was the better team early in the game, especially on defense. And this is why I was so impressed by Sanders. Of of course we'll get to the Vikings in a second, but, uh, but, but Sanders was, was so poised. I mean, Nebraska was beating him up. They were getting after him. Colorado's

committing some penalties and you're thinking like, okay, are they kind of gonna blow this a little bit? Or is this going to be like a grind fest all the way to the end? And that dude just kept coming. Like, I it's amazing to me how calm he is amidst wu-tang clan being there michael irvin playmakers they're like everybody and this is a guy who grew up around superstars and he acts like he acts like that stage is not too big for him i think that's that's the greatest point matt he's not superstardom is the norm to him right like hanging out with dad and his buddies that are all mega stars is just another Wednesday night at the Sanders household, right?

That's just, and that's why he's able to stay so calm, cool, collect and do what he does and deliver very, very accurate passes. And I look forward to watching more of him. And already we have people who, after the Vikings lost to the Buccaneers want to tank for him and others, uh, Ewers was excellent against, uh, Alabama and, uh, you know, Caleb Williams, everybody knows him and Drake may, but, uh, you know, I'm going to go ahead and say, and we'll break down all the things that went wrong and the things that went right.

But I'm going to say that might be a tad premature in week one, Jeremiah. But I understand, though, why people are saying that and why I receive no less than 169 messages from people wanting to trade Kirk to the Jets over and over last night. It was actually it became a joke with my wife. Like, here's my email and my DMs. And it was like, ping, ping, ping. Should we trade Kirk to the Jets? Should we trade Kirk to the jets? Should we trade Kirk to the jets? I'm like, it's week one. It's week one. But, uh, I guess, uh, how much reaction is overreaction to what happened now? You and I both know week one

is the greatest overreaction in all of sports, right? You are going to have people that are like super bowl dudes are going to have people that are like Super Bowl. Dudes are going to the Super Bowl. No doubt about it whatsoever. That team's not going to win a football game. And then by the end of the year, it matters not, right? Remember last year, everyone was like Cincinnati's washed. They're done.

They started two and three or whatever it was. They're like, nope, no chance. And there they go right on back to the AFC championship game, right? I mean, it's such a weird thing. and a lot of it, I think, Matt, is the fact that teams are still figuring out how to navigate the preseason, the new preseason. You see teams that play no starters at all, ever, and then you see guys that are playing some or some here and there,

and it's why you're seeing defenses have so much more success early in the season, and then the offense has kind of figured it out and get going and rolling. But, I mean, that's my opinion of what's going on with the Bengals is the fact they didn't play their starters one snap, not a single snap. And then their very first real live bullets are in the rain, in the dog pound, with a quarterback who, let's face it, still looked really injured.

He did not look like he could move. If he had to get off his spot, his feet got all out of out of shape balls are flying everywhere like and same thing with the Vikings like they played their starters some but I mean Brian O'Neill was his first time back out there and you know it's just one of those things of everyone's still trying to figure out how to navigate this new preseason life where it takes the offenses one or two weeks my opinion to really kind of get into a rhythm and get clicking yeah I think that more than anything, it just ends up with creating some wonky results that are not necessarily indicative of what's going to happen. So there are some like Miami's offense had no problems, but the Vikings offense was a little sloppy. And then you also it's hard not to connect like, well, they didn't play in preseason.

They turned the ball over and they committed penalties and stuff. But last year they didn't. And the Packers played like they needed to play their starters because they didn't know what they were doing. So I think week one is, is I think the, the widest that teams are apart from each other or apart from what they're actually going to be. I guess I would say like who you really are versus week one is, is not always indicative, but there are situations where I think you can react. And I think with the Vikings, what you can say is, I know it was weird. I know that they mostly outplayed Tampa in a lot of ways. It got a lot more yardage than they did, but that's a loss that you shouldn't have had because Tampa Bay is not a great team. If they win more than six, I think I'd be surprised after this. They clearly can't

really move the ball on offense. They don't have much of a running game. Their offensive line isn't particularly good. And on defense, they've got enough to stop the run, but their coverage wasn't great. Their blitzes didn't really impact her cousins that much outside of the one strip sack. And so that's a team that I think if you're going to win the North and you're going to be a playoff team like you, you do have to win that. Even even with all of the qualifiers of how weird and unpredictable week one can be. I think, too, you look back at a year ago, we won all those close games, right? We talked about the end of the year, if we don't win and we don't eke out some of those really close games,

we were staring at a 9-win season, a 10-win season. We just found ways to win games at the end of the game. And this one, just the ball didn't bounce our way. And so many times we've gotten used to it. Like, oh, Kirk's going to go out and win this thing. Everything's going to be fine. And for me, the the defense as good as it played there's a lot of holes in this Flores defense that Flores is trying to figure out

can I fix these holes with scheme because I don't have the right personnel and that's a really tough place to be as a defensive coordinator because you take away the turnovers this offense probably scores 24 to 28 points yesterday or Sunday, whatever it is. Right. So I'm not as concerned about our offense based off of the fact that the playmakers we have are ridiculous. It's going to be more than this defense against good football teams. Cause I'm with you. Tampa's not a good football team,

but you look at what Jordan love did to Chicago. You look what Detroit did to Kansas city. Like when we go up against our division opponents can our defense bow their neck enough to keep it close while our offense is going to score so I definitely want to talk about that because the second half was wildly different than the first half for Brian Flores's defense but I got to throw in and we we didn't do this in our first episode a what does that stat mean what does that stat Okay. So the Vikings in the Kevin O'Connell era started off seven and one, right? After Buffalo, they went seven to one. And in the

Buffalo press box, I declared the Vikings a legitimate Superbowl contender. I was not right in doing so because they got destroyed the next week. But since that game, since that wild, insane, unpredictable game, the Vikings record is six and six. And one of those wins was against a team in Chicago that was trying to lose on purpose. So we could, I mean, you include the Giants, you include what happened on Sunday, and you're a 500 ball club since that crazy cockamamie start to last season.

And there's been a lot of postgame press conferences where Kevin O'Connell is forced to look for answers why a certain throw went in a certain place or why the defense wasn't as good as it was supposed to be and why it was an upset or why they went to Green Bay and wore the wrong cleats or why somebody lined up off sides. But then they say he didn't and all these things. It has felt over the last 12 football games that I have covered much more like the previous Vikings era. So I guess my question is what does that mean? And also, how do they make it stop? Because the magic of those first eight games was not going to carry over forever

and it certainly hasn't it's all got to come from the defense you know i think you you saw that last year obviously the defense was the glaring chink in the armor right you looked at this team as a whole and like okay what is where's the bleeding i know we're winning i know we're winning football games but there's bleeding coming out of here somewhere and what is it and it was the defense so he tried to fix that right new coordinator bring flores in we we're going to be more attacking, we're going to go. But I believe the more I look into this, the bleeding is really the personnel.

It's the personnel on defense. It's the young and the lack of experience and the lack of depth, and all of that is kind of contributing to all this. All that to say, Kirk Cousins, he is who he is. We've said this on the show a lot. He is who he is. And I don't think anyone expects him to be any more than what he was last year. That was a career year, right? It's impossible to ask a guy, unless it's Tom Brady, Aaron Rodgers, RIP. That's just like, Hey, year after year, after year, you must perform at this level. And Kirk has never really been that guy.

And so for him to take a little bit step back and not look like he did at the end of last year, really throughout that first, is not super surprising to me. It's kind of what I expected. Do I think he'll build through the season as he gains more chemistry with Addison, as he gains more chemistry with Hawkinson, who was only here for half a year last year. And then obviously, where's 18? I can just throw it to him. You know, that's all going to continue to go. But the linchpin in all this, I believe we're going to really miss Dalvin Cook. Watching that game back and watching the run game that Dalvin was so good at creating explosives

and creating abilities to make things miss, Madison missed a lot of reads. Ty Chandler, not Dalvin Cook, right? It's very apparent that our running back room is very different, and we are not going to be able to rely on that position as much as we did a year ago when Kirk did get in a funk or Kirk couldn't get things going. Hey, just give the ball to Dalvin. Let's make something happen.

That's going to be an issue that we're going to have to watch as the young part of this year goes on of what we do at that position. Yeah, and I would say there's a difference probably between saying that you could miss someone who could all of a sudden get a 75 yard touchdown, which is just never going to be who Alexander Madison is. And I think after watching him with the jets, they were still right to let him go and, and, you know, go forth because that's running backs and that's how it plays out. But in 2019, especially, which I think is the, still the best year of, uh, Kirk cousins career as a Viking Delvin cook. And you could argue last year because of the wins, but statistically efficiency wise wins a playoff game. You know,

I still kind of lean a little bit toward that one. Maybe there's an argument about it, but I thought that where he was at his best was when teams were really terrified of the run game, because when they were afraid of Delvin cook and when he could break one off at any time, or when you could throw him a screen and it would get you 15 yards of which they have never figured out the screen game with Kevin O'Connell. And I remember Kevin Stefanski, I think once said of the screen game, it's like the outhouse or the penthouse. You either get like a big play or you get nothing. It's been totally outhouse the entire time, except for one screen against Indianapolis last year, but it was outhouse again. And I feel like those things that really help him when the linebackers are getting brought up to the line of scrimmage,

and there's a lot of space to throw on play actions or when you're set up for second and four like these are Kirk Cousins staples of where he could be at his best and Delvin Cook made that happen at his best and without any of that I mean on first down runs I think I calculated this after the game it was something like nine runs for 22 yards what does that step mean that means you are never in second mean? That means you are never in second and short. It means you're never in second and decent. And I think that that's going to make it difficult for cousins. Like, okay, he made a great throw on third and 11 to Jordan Addison. He can do it from time to time, but if you want to get the most consistency out of it, you probably do have to have those elements. And with the offensive line now banged up i think that makes it even harder it's harder to run and it's definitely harder to run that screen game if you don't have your full

offensive line and especially the center position i mean you talk about they probably bought the main reason they brought bradbury back is because of his comfortability with kirk right the ability of those guys to be in the same system and to work together again for a second year and to kind of know each other's thinking and feeling and a back issue for an alignment that's a toughie you know we are constantly putting so much strain and so much pressure on our back because of the nature of the position and how you have to sit down on bull rushes and i sent you the clips that i'm pretty positive garrett hurt his back on and it's vita vea just bearing down on him and you can see him try to go to sit and then all of a sudden have to just start backpedaling because he just can't sit on that

and so I mean obviously I hope he gets better but that's something I would expect him to be out not a short amount of time unless it was just a precautionary like hey my back's getting really tight and hey let's get you out of here while we can try and get you healthy early in the year but when you lose your play caller in the middle there and so many questions have been about your guards and can you help them and get you going and now you have a brand new center in there that's going to be just trying to survive you have to start leaning on your guards and Ezra Cleveland and Ed Ingram didn't put performances together to remember in my opinion you know in some some opinions it was forget, especially at the right guard position. Ezra had some good things.

He put some good things on tape. But we talked about making Eddie Ingram and wanting him to take this giant jump and giant leap forward. And I kind of saw the same Eddie Ingram I was used to seeing on tape last year. And that's just not something you can do as a young player. You have to take big jumps going forward. Again, I know it's week one. I know it's different. Everyone's trying to figure things out as we go but that's a position we have

to rely on to be more consistent from a second round pick I believe yes second round pick I mean you can't you just can't grade a 40 like this is the thing about any offensive lineman whenever and the thing I respect so much about Brian O'Neill is when you go through his worst games his and I mean by pff his worst games will be like a 68, which means that you survived. Then you probably got beat a few times. If you're grading a 40, you're destroying your quarterback. Now it's better than grading a one like Mark Lewinsky of the New York giants. We'll save that for a love to see it. Hate to see it later in the show. But I mean, if you're, if you are that far below average, if you're giving up four pressures as a guard guards, shouldn't be given up four pressures. I mean, that's usually

what you see from tackles against miles Garrett or something and not, uh, you know, over the guard. But I think from the very first drive, you, you saw it where Elijah can't see came around. And what have we talked about many times stunts and twists and these pressures that everybody knows that they don't seem to know what to do against them and there it was like right from the beginning todd bulls going like let's see if you figured out how to spot these no you didn't and so here's the thing i i got a lot of messages uh yes about trading kirk to the jets but also about dalton riser and he's been trolling online he's been yes he has himself in the airport and he's been favorited people who say hey come to

the Vikings and everything else and you did you said it it's one game but it was a lot of the same problems and I thought Ezra Cleveland at least in pass Pro was okay the run game I thought was pretty miserable but if you're talking about Austin Schloteman playing center for a long period of time who is like all respect to journeyman offensive lineman like yourself it takes a heck of an effort to be in the league but if you're talking about somebody playing 17 games if Bradbury's out long term or half the season stop and start you can't really have two massive weaknesses is it time to and by the way they cleared a little cap space today is it time to just call dalton riser and be like get on that flight come to minnesota next week against the chargers they

got a little bit of a long break here for you to learn what you need to learn maybe he also took like a zip disc with the playbook home with him after he visited. Is it time to sign Dalton Reiser? I think there's a few teams that are going to be in the mix for Dalton Reiser now. That might be the problem. And the problem might be after watching some of these week one performances

from some offensive linemen, there might be people looking for answers out there. And I text you because this always happens to us. There's always giant breaking vikings news about 10 to 15 minutes after we wrap the pod and so i watched as i saw this morning i was like brian o'neill moves 10 million cap space i was like hmm that sounds about right for a one-year contract for a starting guard that might be named dalton reisner so i can definitely see them wanting to do that if anything getting him in here now so that he can start to learn so that he might not start right away, but that they can

try and start rotating him in there as well. Because I also know that Ed Ingram has worked some at center. I know that in the off season, I've seen him with snapping the ball, moving around. And so there might be a piece of me too, that thinks, okay, they want to keep Ed on the field. They think he's better than Schlotman. Schlotman? Is it Schlotman or Schlotman? Schlotman. Schlotman. They think maybe he's better than Schlotman. Let's get him back in.

Let's move him to center. Let's get Dalton Reisner, put him at right guard, and kind of go from there. So I could see them moving in some type of capacity there. But I think you've got to give Eddinger at least a couple more weeks to say, was that week one jitters? What was it? Obviously, everyone didn't play great we're turning the ball over i mean the second play of the game alexander madison close a complete whiff on a blitzing linebacker and gets kirk killed

and we talked about it constantly if kirk cousins gets hit early in the game he panics he starts to speed things up in his head he starts to to keep things going. And on play two and play three of this game, he gets lambasted. I mean, smoked, thrown to the turf, killed, bomb up in the air. And I can just hear, I just hear the quarterback, my ribs, my ribs. Like, I can just hear that from that show just going on. I'm like, man, Kirk can't take these shots this early in the year. He just won't survive's getting old folks i found the perfect solution for barbecue lovers looking to up their grilling and smoking game the team of certified pitmasters at grill masters club has cracked the code on delivering award-winning small batch barbecue products on whatever schedule works for you

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Unfortunately for me, I only went one for three last week with Jordan love getting more than 212 yards. And I was a little foolish in thinking that Kirk cousins wouldn't have to throw a lot versus Tampa Bay. I got that wrong. But if you think you can outperform me and you probably can, if you're good at games like this,

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Also, by the way, you saw from Vita Vea when he hit his own teammate, what that does to you and Vita Vea hits you. And just a reminder, folks, don't try to play in the NFL and don't put on tick tock that you could either, because Levante David stood up after that and high five Vita Vea. I'm like, what? How he's alive. So, yeah, just a reminder how violent some some of those defensive lines are and by the way now i do want to circle back to the defensive point i'll get that to the second yes but i got some there for you my gosh they're playing philadelphia like the worst possible start for the offensive line was to go against tampa bay who's got a bunch of dudes up front and then face the philadelphia eagles jaylen carter on where you look, either had eight or nine pressures. That's a lot. That's a real lot. That's like superstar level.

And the guy just started playing in the NFL. Oh, by the way, Fletcher Cox has destroyed this team for years. They have a rotation of great players on defense. I mean, this is like of all the opponents in the NFL. The only one that might be worse would have been San Francisco, but I'm not even sure of that. Like this might be the worst team to play with a banged up offensive line and not really any confidence in your guards. I mean, especially with, I saw that Darisaw was on the injury report for an ankle this week.

And I mean, as much as we're talking about bad things, he's still as good as advertised. I mean, he's still throwing dudes around and bossing dudes on the floor he is as good as advertised brian o'neill come back from the achilles injury as good as advertised so i know we're harping on the middle but i still love our two tackles i think everyone should be really excited with where we're at and our bookends on the line but we have to get this middle of the line figured out. And the fact that Jalen Carter, arguably one of the best players in the entire draft, went to this team is terrifying because they have Nolan Smith, who can run like the wind, Brandon Graham, who's been doing it for

a long time. They have a scene Redick. I mean, you go down the list. There's guys that are in the two deep that aren't starting for them that are starters on 31 other football teams. And they just rotate fresh legs and they're like, it's nothing. And once they figure out how to click and gel and they all start working together and getting that stunt game going, they're one of the best stunting teams in the NFL because of how much speed they have. You know, Jalen Carter is a fast twitch dude at a big thing. He's going to rush that B gap, get that guard to open up,

and here comes a son Redick down the pipe. It's going to be really, really difficult for us to go. The quick passing game is going to be really important because they don't blitz. They don't blitz. So it's not like, oh, they're sending six so we can hold it, pick it up, and go deep. They're sending four and getting home.

So you've got to have quick passes, quick answers, and be able to get that ball out of his hands very quickly well and that's what I'm sort of curious to see with Kevin O'Connell and the adjustments that they're going to want to make here because I thought that Kirk when he was blitzed most of the game did a really good job of getting the ball out of his hands by the numbers it came out of his hands in 2.2 seconds when he was getting blitzed and he went 19 for 23 passing against Tampa Bay. But this team doesn't have to blitz to get in your face. And that's where historically the Vikings have had the most problems when Akeem Hicks was playing for the bears or when Kenny Clark is destroying a young Garrett Bradbury, you don't have to send all these

dudes and all these blitzes and allow cousins to find where he's supposed to go with the football quickly. I feel like he's good at knowing and getting away, getting the ball away. But when it's rush four and they're playing two deep coverages and they've got, you know, they got multiple guys on Justin Jefferson and all that. I think that's the biggest challenge. And I think Kevin O'Connell has to find some ways. And oddly enough, I'm going to shout out to the, to a guy that you wouldn't expect who had a great game plan once upon a time against the Philadelphia Eagles, 2018 John D Filippo. It was his former team. So I feel like he had a good

sense for it. It was his, it was his best game hands down as an offensive coordinator. It went downhill from there, but, but they got the ball into Stefan digs hands super quick. It was take the snap, get it out of the hands of Kirk cousins, a lot of quick throws, and then they hit a shot or two and they were able to have a successful offense. I feel like that's what they have to do in this game, because I don't think that the running game is really going to be there. And I think if you hang around and wait for deep developing routes, you're going to get dead Kirk in the backfield at, you know, in the first in the first quarter that he's going to get hit. Just like you said now on the defensive side, though, if you look at the numbers, you would

have said, what a performance. I mean, this, this, this defense is rolling and they just got a little tired in the second half. Would you agree or disagree with that though, that they had a great performance and it was as good as we could have expected from Brian Flores' defense? I don't want to say it was a great performance. I think it was a good performance. But if you put your cap on and your film coach hat,

like I did, and go back and really dissect this defense, there's a lot of holes. There's a lot of holes. And the great offensive coordinators in this league are great at looking at the tape and finding the holes. There's a lot of holes. And the great offensive coordinators in this league are great at looking at the tape and finding the holes. And as the game progressed, you saw Baker Mayfield and company start to find those holes,

start to figure out, okay, if they put eight up here, they're going to put eight up, but then the third and six and these corners are going to stand at 11 yards. I'll just play a pitch and catch. Right. And that's how you beat a pressure team.

You beat a pressure team with getting the ball out of your hands quickly like we talked about and i think that baker and started to figure that out i think that's going to be a problem moving forward because we're not pressing because i don't think flores has trust in these young corners right it's hard to get up there be like hey go get in his face and be really physical and all of a sudden in the back of your mind you're going oh my kevin's is going to run right by, isn't he? That's the stuff that Flores is trying to think. So he's trying to find ways to also generate pressure on the quarterback because Daniil Hunter, he was good, but they chipped him a lot. They put a tight end over him a lot.

They had double teams out to him a lot. And no one else from that defensive front really stepped up and said, I can go whoop this dude's ass in front of me and go 1v1. Yeah, I got this. I'll do it. And by the end of the fourth quarter, Flores wasn't trusting anyone to do it anymore, and he was starting to have a dial-up pressure. 29 pass rush snaps for DJ Wanham. Zero pressures.

It's just not going to work. And Marcus Davenport not being in there is a problem because he's got size, physical ability. And even though he didn't have a ton of sacks last year he did have a lot of pressures and he's always had a lot of pressures throughout his career which is a huge huge improvement from zero for 29 and i mean when you have benton whitley in there who's a practice squad guy when patrick jones has two pressures and like you know 20 rushes you're just getting nothing out of those

guys. And then you're forced to send the blitzes. The thing is that the bucks just started getting it out quickly. They started running slants and quick passes. And overall, at the end of the day, Baker Mayfield only was registered as nine pressures in like 30 something dropbacks, which is not anywhere close to what it has to be. If you're going to leave your corners on islands. And the other thing that's interesting too, is the way they handled the corners. Josh Metellus played a ton. He was essentially the nickel, which I didn't think was going to be the case. I thought they were going to play Makai Blackman a lot more. He only played 15 snaps that if you're asking Josh Patelis to be the nickel,

I think that can work for underneath stuff. He's a great tackler, but we kind of saw also with, you know, Mike Evans just runs by him. I think if teams try to attack him with faster wide receivers, it's going to be a problem. But as you mentioned from the beginning, there's really only so much you can do if you're Brian Flores, right? Like you just kind of have to line up some people and run them at the quarterback and hope for something good to happen because you can only trust your corner so much you can only trust your linebackers so much although I thought Ivan Pace had a good game and you cannot ask your front four to get any pressure which I just don't know how that problem is getting solved unless Davenport is backing at 100 100%. Yeah, we need Davenport back. I'm not ready to give up on this front until I can see it fully healthy, right?

Because I think that might not be the game plan that Flores wanted to, but then all of a sudden Davenport gets hurt late in the week, and he has to then shift and pivot and be like, okay, what do I have to do now, right? So I want to see this defense with it fully loaded, and everyone will say, well, it's just one guy. Yeah, but that could be a huge difference. You talk about the heydays of Vikings, Everson and Daniil coming off the edges.

You never could guess right which one's going to win. And Davenport, again, he doesn't have the great sacks, but you're right. Pressures early in the year, early in the game are very effective. I mean, Kirk Cousins was under pressure. He didn't get sacked a ton, but he was under pressure a majority of the game, and you saw the way in the fourth quarter that it affected him. And you and I both know we're going to see a lot better quarterbacks than Baker Mayfield.

And if you have teams that are sitting back there, and that quarterback can sit back there and bounce, bounce, bounce, and get from read one to read three, I don't care who your corners are. Someone's going to be open. And so I hope that Davenport can come back and we can see like, okay, they're going to put Daniel and Davenport on the same side and twist guys to death and rush them. Kind of like you did with Zedaria Smith last year.

But even then you look at what Cleveland did. They take Zedaria Smith. They take Dalvin Tomlinson. Both those dudes rushed the passer like banshees last week. Like I was watching both those guys getting in the quarterback's face and bull rushing guys and running over guys. And I'm like, well, we let them walk. We must've thought we had something better.

And then you go back and look at the Vikings tape. And I mean, I know we're missing James Lynch, but holy cow. Yeah. That's not a problem that they could solve. And one of the things is that, you know, they've drafted some players in recent years in the middle rounds. And a lot of times with the, as you call them werewolves, you have to draft them pretty high.

Cause usually it's the freak shows. I mean, Daniel Hunter is a total outlier. If Daniel Hunter was coming out of college now, he'd be a first round pick because we've seen that guy, Trayvon Walker, Adafi. Oh,

wait, we like, we've seen that guy get picked in the first round. now where teams are like, uh, we should probably just take this insane freak show. But, uh, other than that, I mean, it's pretty rare that somebody has the physical skill when they're a third, fourth, fifth round draft pick. And then if you miss on them, like they drafted a Sazia Tomowal out of Minnesota to try to be like a rotational rusher on the

interior. Just didn't happen. And they've really put no effort into getting interior pass rushers. So if you're getting rushed as an opposing quarterback, you know, it's either blitzes or it's coming from Daniil or it's coming from nowhere. And I think that that's not that big of a challenge if you're a quarterback and Mayfield early on looked a little shook, but in the second half looked pretty comfortable dropping back. And then he scrambled a few times and he made enough plays. So it's a weird feeling about the defense because they dominated so much early on,

but then we're kind of exposed for some of their weaknesses in the second half. Uh, if I were to, um, say that I just arrived from going forward in time and now I've gone back in time and I told you you're never going to believe this the Vikings beat the Eagles it was crazy you should have seen it what happened was blank fill in the blank they turned the ball over four times I mean that's that's the way I mean I watched that Eagles offense and they weren't crisp at all you know they definitely but you see the pieces, right? You look and go, okay, well, there's A.J. Brown. There's Devontae Smith.

I do think they're going to miss their running back from last year, Miles. He left and went to Carolina. Yeah, Carolina. Sanders. They're going to miss him. He was their bell cow. But they've rotated a lot of guys in there. They have the rookie they're trying to figure out,

and I think they're still trying to figure out their run game. But the offensive line is as good as ever. All they did was lose their right guard, and they put Cam Juergens, their second-round pick, in their right guard. Their offensive line looked dominant, and they had to play the Patriots week one. That's always a toss-up. You have no clue what Bill Belichick and that crew is going to put for you. You can't game plan for it.

You just got to go out there and be like, we're going to run our stuff and try to figure it out as we go and now that they've got a week of putting on tape this offense is going to move up and down the field on us I think because of they have this defense is now on tape they know what they're going to do they know how they want to attack it and then if they turn the ball over four times we get a short field then I think we can win this football folks I'm not sure if you realize, but after this week, your hometown football team in Minnesota actually isn't at home all that much the rest of the year.

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well check out game time one of the coolest parts about game time is that they have flash deals on last minute tickets and a low price guarantee which means if you find something lower in the section or row they will credit you 110%. You also get images of your seat locations, which helps me a lot because those maps can be kind of confusing. So you can buy tickets in seconds and have them arrive right to your phone. It's great. Download the GameTime app, create an account,

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quarterbacks go through that he does. And sometimes he'll rush things a little bit, get a little inaccurate. Sometimes you can keep him in the pocket from scrambling a little bit better. And with a 3-4 base system that keeps guys kind of wide outside the tackles, I think you have a chance to do that. But where I would be concerned is that they didn't run the ball that well against New England. If they put a real emphasis in these couple of days and running the football, Tampa Bay didn't run the ball well against the Vikings at all. But I don't think that's like

who the Vikings are is this unbelievably stout run defense. So that, that to me is going to be a major determining factor. And of course, keeping Kirk cousins alive is probably a, a good idea idea now I'm hesitant to ask this question before we get to love to see it hate to see it of which there are lots of hate to see it because the memories aren't good for you but you've had time to heal uh what's Philadelphia like I mean I've been there I've covered all the games on the road at Philadelphia but I have not been in those shoes. And I know it didn't go well for you the couple of times you traveled to Philadelphia, but what is that stadium? Like,

I feel like it's like no other. It's tough. It's a really tough place to play. It is very loud. The building itself is kind of weird. You're down on the field and it's just hard. It's weird because when you look around, like it feels like it's open, but it also feels like it's on top of you at the same time. So it's kind of a weird place to play, and the fans are just brutal. I mean, you can kind of flush stuff out, but when they're behind you and it's all game and it's constant and they're just berating you over and over, you see guys lose it on the sideline in Philly all the time because there is no line.

The fans have no line that they will not step over. They will say whatever they feel can get in your head the most, and they make a living, and they're proud of it. It's just another place because you talk about what makes a great pass rusher, those silent cadences, the ability to give it. That's why those guys have such success at home is they're keen on the ball, and it's loud, it's's rowdy the crowd's into it as an offensive lineman you're trying to peek out there to brandon graham who's four yards

outside of you and you're also trying to look inside at the ball and time it at the same time and get off the ball and it's a really really hard place to play especially if you get behind if you get behind in philly you're pretty much toast and the last couple times i've been there it's been at nighttime which is particularly insane uh when the beer flows like wine yeah well i get one thing i give those people credit for is that the number one leading jersey worn in philadelphia remains randall cunningham and uh being of the era i have some appreciation for those jerseys and randall cunningham so let's get to love to see it i I assume you're going to pick against the Vikings here. I mean, I don't know anyone who's going to pick them for this game. Vegas is really against them. They need it. I don't, I don't know that you could pick them until you can show me that you can, you can protect your

passer against arguably the second, if not the third best pass rushing defense in the NFL. It's going to be hard for me to say, we're're gonna walk in there on the road and beat these guys yeah i i agree i i the offensive line is gonna have to show it and uh it kind of comes down to every game when they have a disadvantage will come down to also does justin jefferson do something that only he and god can do right and sometimes it happens like in Buffalo, sometimes it happens. And so there is that element to not just, you know, the turnovers that you mentioned or, you know, getting hurts to be uncomfortable, but on offense, it's, it's going to take some explosives. It's going to take some big plays from him. And last year when he went to Philadelphia,

it did not go so well. So there'll be like a revenge angle for him, Darius Slay and all that stuff. All right. Love to see it. Hate to see it. I mean, I feel like we've got to start on an obvious place for hate to see it. I don't care how much you dislike Aaron Rogers or whatever your opinions on him at all are. I hated to see that as awful out for the year. Achilles injury. If that was going to burn in in flames i wanted to see him playing with it burn in flames not go to zach wilson and i feel like peyton manning was all of us last night even though the jets won his disgust at watching zach wilson was the most relatable thing i've seen from a sports broadcaster in a long time just like why why did this happen why seven months of talking about this and then then this happens. Just hating, hating, hating to see it.

Yeah, that was the second it happened, I think everyone watching was like, it can't end this quickly. The dream in New York can't be over in five minutes. Like, no way. And the thing I really thought was interesting is how many guys on Twitter went in to talk about the turf. How many guys were like,

this is a rain-soaked soaked downpour, hard turf, got a game that played on it 24 hours ago on Monday on Sunday night football. And why I believe it's important that we need to get to grass. Everything needs to be as much grass as possible. I get it. It's hard to do, but even before the game, they were bragging about how this was the fourth event in four nights that had been in that stadium they had a full concert on it the night before like the turf was in bad shape it was tough and you see his foot get in there and there's no give there's no like if that's grass maybe his foot slides out of that thing instead of it just sticks in there like gum and just boom and you see it ball up in there and i hope he's not done that's my biggest thing i

really hope that this is not the last we ever see of Aaron Rodgers. You know, he's old. Achilles injuries are tough. I hope that's not the last time we watched Aaron Rodgers on a football team. Okay. Give us a, give us a love to see it. You know, you love to see all the haters of Brock Purdy. Just wear it.

Just wear it. Everyone about it. I don't know. Can Brock do it again? Was it a rookie saying, was he just having luck out there? I don't think he can carry this team, yada, yada, yada. And that dude comes out there like a well-oiled machine, just wheeling and dealing. And you talk about Brandon Iyuk's the third best weapon on that team. And he's like, I'll just throw two touchdowns to him. No biggie. Oh, I'll just let Christian McAfee run for 150 yards. He is as advertised. If he can stay on that pace of game manager,

putting the ball in good positions, making good decisions, the sky's the limit for that San Fran team. I love to see it to a tug of Iloa, who I feel like has been at the center of a lot of criticism that was odd to me because of the way that he played last year like not many and i hate to get into these because if you just follow social media you think everyone hates everyone so that's hard to say but you know the team didn't sign him to a contract so there is that uh that he's in that boat you know as well as like justin jefferson doesn't get the early extension, like a Joe Burrow did or like a Justin Herbert did,

and then just comes out and plays some unbelievable football. And no matter how inept the chargers defense is, which Brandon Staley defensive coach, uh, haven't seen it yet. Let me know when that shows up. But I mean, just, just a remarkable performance of a guy who I feel like has really been through it. I mean, think of what he had, what happened to him last year, talked about, am I even going to be able to continue to play after the concussions? And then he comes out and plays like that. And this is a guy who came off the bench and won national championship game in college football. I mean, I feel like he's always had this that something resilience or

whatever it is and i just enjoyed seeing him completely light up the los angeles chargers yeah and the chargers they just chargers gonna charger it was a joke in our house like my wife's a huge chargers fan she grew up watching them obviously i played for him and at the end of the game there i looked and i go this is a classic Chargers way to lose a football game. They go down, they score, they take the lead, and then it's just junk, junk, junk ballgame. And I don't know if it's a coaching issue or what, but that team is too talented to be that bad. They really are. That team should be much better than they are with the talent that they have all over that team. Under seven yards per attempt for Justin Herbert.

Again, it keeps happening and I don't know like if how many off I mean we're gonna keep blaming the offensive coordinator for him not pushing it downfield like I don't know um so as far as I hate to see it um Ed Ingram strip sacking his own player I we couldn't get through the entire we could not get through the entire show without me asking you about that play uh I I don't recall you ever strip sacking your own quarterback that was really something no that i mean that's you have to try really hard to strip sack your own quarterback i mean that's that that's a tough one to do you mean i honestly watched it probably six times and i was like wait how did that happen how did that happen how did you i don't know i still to

this day don't really i i've watched it enough times i'm not 100 sure how that went down it's one of those crazy fluke things where you mean you might be the only offensive lineman in history say i've strip sacked someone else okay what else you got for hate to see it oh boy being a giants fan being a giants fan right now is tough and I am a Giants fan my center started he got his first NFL start on Sunday night football I was supposed to be there my flight

got canceled twice and I couldn't make it and I think God might have just been like sit this one out Jeremiah you don't want to go sit in the rain for three and a half hours and watch a team get beat by 40 and put up no points so I didn't end up making it i ended up watching it from home in the comfortable of my own couch but that was about as bad of an ass kicking i've ever seen an nfl team take especially in prime time right you'll you'll see a couple of those 11 amers where it's like ah that team's 0

and 16. but everyone talked about the giants having a chance to maybe make a run in the division. They've added weapons and Darren Waller and Sterling Shepard and Jalen Hyatt and all across the board, that thing snowballed so quickly, so fast and you just couldn't stop the bleeding. You just hate to see it

because Giants fans, they just deserve better. Every single play of that game was awful for the New York Giants. There wasn't a good one. There wasn't a good one. They gave up a kick return and then a pick six. They did have a pick six, but it wasn't like a couple turnovers caused this. It was

just one team taking a sledgehammer to the face of the other team over and over again. I feel like for the Giants, what happened last year was the most smoke and mirrors stuff like brian dable is probably a good coach but they have a bad roster and they have a bad offensive line and they probably don't have a good quarterback and those receivers i mean are is paris campbell actually good like i don't think so i mean you're you're drafting a guy and hoping

he's good is was he a third rounder or something? I just don't see it. And Darren Waller was good like three years ago, but I don't know that he's an impact player now, and tight ends get old pretty fast. So that's an ugly situation. The last hate to see it I would have is Chicago Bears fans, your draft history at the quarterback position. And look, fields might be good

and they still win five games because that defensive line is an atrocity, but he wasn't good. And I don't know if he's going to get good and it's week one. So it's the major overreaction. I get it. But like the whole world is dreaming of this magical josh allen jalen hurts we becomes a superstar and then the first week is like i know that guy i know i've seen him yeah i i didn't buy into the hype all year everyone all year was like he's gonna take a massive jump he's gonna do it and whenever someone tells me that i always go based, based off of what? Like, what did you see actually last year where you're like, if he just fixes this one thing, he's going to take a massive jump? He was a running back that played quarterback last year.

Congratulations. Like, fantasy football owners were like, woo, we can get all of this. But in the real world, that it comes down to winning football games, you win in this league with your arm as a quarterback. And I don't think he has an NFL arm right now based off of the way he makes decisions and he reads things but at the same time his receiving core is DJ Moore is his best receiver like he's a good receiver don't get me wrong but he's not a Kavlin Ridley he's not a Justin Jefferson like he doesn't have a ass kicker out on the edge. That just can be a 500 ball. Like I'm in a trouble.

I'm in panic. Let me just find this dude and throw it to him. Most great quarterbacks have that. And they try to get it in clay pool. They've just been searching for it. They've done everything they can for it. And they just cannot find some way to help him. And that running game didn't help him at all either.

Right. That offensive line was not very good. No, no, their office, like their roster is still very bad overall. And, you know, they had a lot of money to spend and I guess they're going to need another off season of spending it. It's a long season then, but to your point, when we talk about jumps, normally when somebody makes a big jump, like Jalen hurts, Jalen hurts, grinded his team to the playoffs in his first year, a team that was supposed to win like five games. And so you're like, okay, well, he wasn't that great, but somehow he was like

getting wins. Josh Allen was like that early in his career too. I like, it didn't exist for Justin Fields. It was like, well, you're jumping from the bottom to somewhere. I mean, not like, oh, you showed signs and you just need to get over that hump. Like you need to climb a mountain to get over. And I don't know if he's going to be able to do it. We'll see how it plays out. But not a great sign for them. Hate to see that. But love to see that football's back.

My God, we were just like hit with a monsoon of football storylines, madness, craziness. I'm exhausted. And then I got to fly to philly tomorrow oh yeah it's thursday night isn't it it's crazy thursday night oh it's back you only get two nights a week with no football now right and then but as the it goes on to get max in tuesdays right you're starting to get some action tuesdays in there i have one more hate to see okay being a rookie quarterback in the nfl being a rookie quarterback in the NFL, it's as hard of a task as there is because you usually go to a pretty terrible team,

and you usually have to go in there, and everyone's looking at you to fix it. And Bryce Young, Anthony Richardson, C.J. Stroud, buckle in, fellas. You're in for a very, very long, very tough year of just finding out what it means to be in the NFL because that those rosters Anthony Richardson probably looked the best out of both all three of those guys but man all three of those guys have some tough sledding if they're going to get some wins in this league those teams are horrible and there's no way around it I mean I don't the receivers outside of Adam Thielen in Carolinaolina i don't even know yeah it's just no i i mean and even then it's you look at you look down at indy it's like oh you got

michael pitman that's neat yeah but you know you're running back we're just like not pay him so he can't help you and then anthony richardson has to lead the team in rushing as well i mean that's that almost got killed on the goal line. Like that was a welcome to the NFL. It's like, you're going to, I know you're big, but these guys are bigger and you're going to want to slide a lot more in this league. Yeah. It is going to be a rough season for all three of those. I actually, I mean, I, I like all three quarterbacks as prospects, but it's going to be a tough ride. So, all right, well, uh, we're're gonna have another football game to talk about by the time we talk next uh next tuesday morning left guard and uh might even have some offensive line tape to break

down about how they perform against philadelphia but we'll see we'll see i mean every game in the nfl is sort of like that's a yes whatever is a 60 40 type proposition so it would not shock me if the vikings came up with something there i i'm not ready to call this team terrible i'm not ready to trade cousins to the jets i'm i love all the emails but i'm not ready yet we'll see what happens in a couple weeks so uh thanks as always for your time jeremiah and i am excited to talk to you again next week absolutely we'll do it again