Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Jeremiah Sirles needs the Vikings to make their QB situation right

Episode Date: January 27, 2026

Former Vikings lineman Jeremiah Sirles joins the show to react to Sam Darnold getting to the Super Bowl and how that now puts even more pressure on the Vikings to get their QB situation correct this offseason. The Purple Insider podcast is brought to you by FanDuel. Also, check out our sponsor HIMS at https://hims.com/purpleinsider Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hey, everybody, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider, presented by Fanduel, Matthew Collar, here, along with former Minnesota Viking Jeremiah Searles for Tuesday morning, left guard a day early. I don't think we've done it on a Tuesday in weeks, but here we are. Jeremiah, Sam Darnold, through for 346, three touchdowns, and out-duled Matt Stafford in the NFC Championship

to reach the Super Bowl with the Seattle Seahawks. your reaction, sir. Well, my initial reaction was absolute elation because I am actually now going to the Super Bowl. I have flights booked, hotels, booked, tickets booked. I have three clients on the Seahawks. So I have the center, the heavy tight end who got to start last night, Mason, Richmond, and I have a guy in practice squad Logan Brown, who Vikings fans are familiar with was in camp with them. So all three of those guys are on the Seahawks.

So after they won last week, looked at the wife and I was like, hey, let's not tell a whole lot of people. but let's book some tickets, book some hotels, all refundable. And so she actually never stays up and watches the full game with me, but she was right there with me to the side. Like, they're going to do it. So super excited for them, obviously have a little bit more of a horse in that race than most. But watching Sam last night, I don't know the guy.

I've never met the guy, but I find myself rooting for the guy. I find myself rooting for him. And then at the end of the game, you're like, yes, he gets his victory lap. he gets his moment, right? He gets his moment. Everyone's teeing the question up. Sam, everyone doubted you. Everyone didn't think you could do it. Everyone could be here. And the dude didn't even want his victory lap. He was just like, nah, I mean, I could really give a crap about all that. I just love my team. Love my guys. I was like, are you really that good of a guy? Like, are you actually that good of a human being? And you might answer that for me, but he's an

unbelievable player and an All-Star dude. That's off to that man. The answer is yes. So having done much research on this through the 2024 season. I even go back to, I called Rich Gannon about Sam Darnold before the season. And he said that he talked to Sam about becoming the next Rich Gannon, which is what he's

really done here. He's really followed that exact same arc. And I talked to some people that had covered him, that had known him from the Jets, known him from Carolina. And I kept hearing, no, we all thought that this would eventually happen. It just

didn't work out with us kind of thing. And I remember even talking to a Jets fan blogger who talked about, like, how much Jets fans were still rooting for Sam Darnold and they still loved him. I also did a story last year before the playoff game with Max Brown. And you as a college football nut may remember Max, but most people would not because Sam Darnold beat him out at USC for the starting job there that ascended Sam Darnold. And he said basically, like, I've been in a little bit.

lot of quarterback competitions in my life and max was a five star and usually you're not friends with the guys but sam was as close as it ever got with somebody i was competing with and i think that what you see is truly what you get like a a a great teammate somebody who cares about other people on his team and is always first to give everyone else credit except for himself this is not an act this is authentic sam darnold which is the reason that i kept going back to viking fans i know you're going to be really angry here. But like, don't try the coping stuff with this. Don't try to be like, oh, well, it's because he's got a good defense or whatever.

Like, you can just feel good for Sam Darnold and feel disappointed that your team made the 100% wrong call with how this worked out. You can live in those two different worlds. Like, you don't have to be miserable about this guy because, man, did he earn it? And to me, the biggest thing for Sam Donald that speaks to his character is that Kyle Seanahan brought him in and wanted him there over the guy that he drafted over Trey Lance and he was the backup to Brock Purdy and all he did was help Brock Purdy and he went into a few games and perform really well. And I think that's kind of the true test of a quarterback.

Can you go be that backup quarterback for a while because that's where you have to be selfless. You know this? Like you can't be an ego guy. Hey, I'm the man here if you're the backup quarterback. So he had to put his ego aside. Go be a backup and travel a long journey here. It's one of the best stories we've ever seen for a quarterback in NFL history. I agree. And I also think it's awesome

to, and I hope to one day reach this place too. He has reached Nirvana in the fact that he literally doesn't give an F about what anyone thinks about him. He could care less. Good, bad, ugly. He just, he doesn't have Twitter. He's not

on social media. He probably doesn't even have those things on his phone. He could care less what anyone in the world besides those 52 other people in that locker room think about him. And that's a place that if you can get there as a quarterback in this league, you can have a ton of success, right? And you can compare and contrast that with some other guys that are similar situation, right? Baker Mayfield's an example that comes to mind. I don't see Sam Darnold tweeting at the next head coach of his division. He's not tweeting at old Shanahan.

Like at least I could see you twice a year. Where's my apologies, right? those things don't come from him. And it's just an amazing thing to see. And McDonald, what he's been able to do there, the young group, I mean, Schneider has just, I saw a stat that this is the first GM ever to stay the same GM of the team, reach a second Super Bowl with a new head coach and not a single player on it from the first Super Bowl. He has truly returned that entire roster, that entire organization,

and led them back to the Promise Land here, all on the back of a quarterback that at one point in time nobody ever wanted and had become a joke, had became a butt of internet of, oh, I see ghosts. I'm Sam Darnold, right? That lives with him to, I think, being the odds on favorite to be the Super Bowl MVP in two weeks. And super excited for him and that team and everything that goes about it. And it just goes to the point that you and I have talked about since the beginning of this year, it is possible to win a Super Bowl with a mid-tier quarterback contract. And also what Joker asked Sam, last night about, hey, you know, it was the Patriots where you said you were seeing ghosts. And even then, he would have been well within his rights to be like, leave this room.

Just walk out. Just get out of here, jerk. Why are you bringing that up? I just went to the Super Bowl, man. That was like when I was a kid. That was another thing that was unfair about Darnold. And look, if you're looking for things to grip onto with J.J. McCarthy, Donald struggled a lot with dealing with all that.

Yeah, I know, I mean, maybe you're not talking about a guy with that level of natural talent, but still, if you're looking for something, I mean, you know, Sam Darnold said that when he was like 22 years old, maybe. And he also did not know that ESPN was going to put it on TV. He was talking on the silent. Can you imagine if the stuff that you guys said to each other was all put out there, right? Not just like, not just your crude things, but just even like, this guy's killing me out there or whatever. Like there's so many things that. Help me, right. Exactly. Like it gets very tough down there.

He says that. And then everyone, people, even as, even as recently as when they were trailing in the game against the Rams the first time, which to me is where Sam really turned a corner. I think maybe in his entire career was that comeback. But people are still through. Oh, I guess it's ghosty and Sam tonight. And how many, how many analysts that are, they consider themselves, you know, brilliant quarterback people to break down the game had Sam as a third tier quarterback. what is Seattle doing, getting rid of Gino for Sam Darnold. It's the same quarterback.

They're doing the same thing. Well, it's not the same quarterback. You talk about the general manager and how sharp that move was to see the difference between those two. And I think the big difference is just, you know, how Gino tends to throw the ball away in the red zone and how reckless he can be. Where Sam did have some turnovers this year, but here we are the biggest moment, he managed the game. while also making big time throws all over the field against the defense that is really, really good. And at times, he managed the pocket. This was where I was most depressed with Sam.

My biggest criticism of him last year was that he would turn around and run back toward his own goal. Like, I'm going to run back that way. And he'd take like a 47-yard sack. In this game, he managed the pocket extremely well, kept his eyes downfield and didn't try too hard to make a play. and then found open receivers after that. And it feels like we've seen, and I know I am, of course, doing what I do and talking about that decision. But I think we've even seen him become a better quarterback this year,

even than he was last year when he was so great. 100%. And, you know, hindsight's always 2020. It's really easy to be here sitting here in 2026, 2025. No, it's 26. Right, 26. I don't know anymore. Right. sitting here and going, man, a year ago, woulda, shoulda, coulda.

Well, it's a what have you done for me lately league? And a year ago, what Sam did for us lately was melt in the playoffs twice. And I mean, playoff game in Detroit and then the owner of the Rams, like, I count that as a playoff game because it meant proceeding. And so there was that question mark, that justification because right before those games, you and I on this show were talking about so is it going to be 55 a year or is it going to be 60 a year, right? Those were the conversations that we were having and then those two games plummeted him. But I still think that we just had no idea what JJ could be. We had no idea

what this was going to be. We talked about praising them. And I'm still not sold. I mean, at the point of which they made that decision, it probably was the right decision. However, it's really hard to be sitting here waking up on Monday after conference championship weekend, if you're the Wilfs, looking at your front office going, okay, what happened? How did we miss? Because our defense was just as good statistically as the Seattle Seahawks. If we had Sam Darnold, are we raising that trophy in our stadium? Are we going to the Super Bowl because of what Sam can do for us?

That's the harder question for the Wulfs to wake up this morning and try and come. It's also really hard to find something that the Seahawks have that the Vikings don't on the rest of their roster. I mean, I think that they're a little deeper defensively, like the secondary. Nicky Manwari to me is like, Oh my gosh. I was like, is that like if Ronnie Lott and John Lynch got together and made a person? I mean, like that, it's he's a freak and he has has been an amazing fit there.

But I mean, you look around the Vikings defense. You could create pressure up front. And even if you lopped off a little bit to keep Sam Darnold like a J. Von Hargrave or something, Jalen Redman developed there. And I think they would have been very, very strong regardless. Or if you didn't spend the money on the. right guard and just brought back Dalton Reisner. Like, is it a lot different?

Probably not based on the results. So, you know, I think that there is a world where Darnold comes back and wins 12 games or something like that and gives them a chance at it. Like, I'm not saying for sure they'd be here because you never know. They had an easy path overall. They basically didn't have to play the first game against San Francisco. It was over so fast that Drew Loxin the game in the fourth quarter. So the strain was a lot less for them than it was the rain.

But actually, that's kind of part of the point about Darnold and the process versus results. So they're going to say that a million times every time they get asked about this. They're going to do, well, you know, we were, we felt good about our process, but it didn't work out the way that we thought. But for me, that's not a shield that you can hold up every time you mess up. And well, you know, I made a good play call, but it just didn't work out. Like, okay, well, that means anyone can ever just say, oh, well, I did nothing wrong. like when we break down the process and think about how well Darnold played, the options to

fit him in and where they actually spent that money and the results of those players where they spent the money. And then we think about how dubious it can be to just spend like crazy and free agency and how risky that is, how rarely that works. And then when you talk about like where McCarthy was, I think that's probably the biggest thing for me is the results were beyond just okay for Sam Darnold. last year. And McCarthy had been set back in a way that we've like basically never seen a rookie quarterback be set back like this. And so you're judging it on very incomplete information, as

Cuiaddafa Mentsa said, where you have a sure thing in Sam Darnold that you have this lever you can pull to kick that decision down the road for another year and see what you actually have. I think that there's a ton of holes that you can punch in the process and probably the one that bothers me the most. And this is just because I love freaking football, Jeremiah. It's because I watch old games all the time because I look up stinking stats and fact toys and everything else. And the number of quarterbacks who did exactly what he did against Detroit and the Rams, historically, who eventually won Super Bowls is in the dozens. And the other problem is too. Did anyone else play those days? Or was it just Sam? Was Sam the only? Because we treated it. And I think

ultimately they treated it, the decision, like it was just him. And it was like, no, no, no. He just showed that he's not good enough to elevate and that's, it was all him. You couldn't run the ball in against Detroit. I remember that. I remember you getting the ball to the goal line a couple times and then asking Sam to like drop. I remember Jefferson dropping a touchdown. I think that must have been Sam's fault that he threw it right to him in the back of the end zone.

I remember blitzes that you didn't have answers for from the Rams that came free runners at the quarterback, which I don't know how many great quarterback. there are when there's a free runner off the edge that drills them in the face. So I don't know that. I think that's what bothered me the most about the whole thing about the way fans treated him, about the way the team kind of acted about it. The way the national media talked about is like, well, Sam did it. But how many quarterbacks did we see meltdown in this playoffs or struggle in

the or in the last playoffs or Mahomes in the Super Bowl? I'm sorry. I won't ran about this forever. I think when we talk about process versus results, that's what really sticks in me when it comes to the, darn old thing. Folks, have you noticed that social media has now been around long enough to the point where you can see old posts of yourself only with a better hair line? Well, unless you're one of those genetically gifted few people with amazing hair for life, you're probably dealing with that

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Visit hymns.com slash purple insider. That is hymns.com slash purple insider for your free online visit. Hymns.com slash purple insider. Individual results may vary based on studies of topical and oral monoxide and finestriide. Feature products include compound drug products which the FDA does not approve or verify for safety effectiveness or quality prescription required. See website for details, restrictions and important safety information. That's a great point. You know, and I think what happened was we all peggool it ourselves. We made emotional decisions, right? we made emotional rash decisions based off of the heat of the moment and convinced ourselves,

it's just 14's fault. If it wasn't any, if it was any, if it was Kurt Cousins, maybe we could have done it or, you know, maybe the kids should have been in there and he could have done it. It's a great point because I don't remember Sam Darnold sacking himself eight times in that playoff game. Now, was he responsible for a few of them? Absolutely. But you look at Stidham and you look at CJ Stroud and you look at some of the other abysmal quarterback performances in which we saw in these playoffs Herbert Herbert who's making 60 million a year I don't hear them calling for his head it's one of those things where when you look at it as much as we don't want to say well the past is the past your past follows you and who you were is always who people believe who you're

going to turn back into especially at the quarterback position that's a position where everything is based off, well, three years ago, two years ago, one year ago, whatever it might be, that's really who he is. This was the blip in the radar. It's so hard to convince yourself, but especially as a front office when you're talking about handing out a gazillion dollars, that that one year is actually who that guy is. And not just a Case Keenum, Love Case, one of my dear buddies, right? But the Broncos bet $36 million that he was going to be that guy.

It didn't pan out that way. And so that's where the really the big fear factor for a front office and for Quasi and a KOC and the Will family to really look at that and go, are we 100% certain that Sam has turned a corner and it's going to be this quarterback for us moving forward? Or are we worried that those last two games are who he actually is. And that piece fell back in. And even if we put pieces around him, he's still going to revert back into that.

And so while I agree with your your statement of, hey, the process had holes in it, I can also see it from the Vikings perspective of the fear going, we pay this guy a bunch of money. We can't build the roster that we need to. He sucks. So we still put the kid in. Then we just burnt $30 million we could have put into this cap. So here's my thing with that is that you had a button to push to play the middle.

Because I agree. Like we've seen, and you bring up case, we've seen through history, I can name them. know, Kerry Collins, one 13, one time, Nick Folls. You know, like, there's guys who, you know, have. Who was, who is the, who is the Patriots one? Flynn. Oh, that was it Matt Flynn. When he came in, was it the, well, like, but yeah, he was with the Patriots.

And they were like, yeah, pay. It was the Seahawks that paid him, but then they drafted Russell Wilson. That's right. And if you look at some great draft analysis and grades of that year, people really didn't like the Russell Wilson pick because they had gotten Matt Flynn. So that just tells you. a little bit about that process. Although I won't get off on attention on that.

But when they had the option to walk the middle, which was let's get another year sample size on Darnold. And let's also see what we have in J.J. McCarthy. And there is to me where it breaks down when any of this logical process is discussed, where it breaks down. Because what they're going to say is, well, we were shooting for the Super Bowl. by spending all the money on the roster.

And hey, look at Drake May. He made the Super Bowl. And they're not wrong to say that, well, look, if JJ had turned out to be Drake May, then yeah. But how would you have any idea how ready he could possibly be for this season? And you and you still had that year, another year with J.J. McCarthy after this. And let's just say that they franchise Darnold and they have a camp competition. Now, Darnold would have annihilated JJ in a camp competition this year. I think, you know, Daniel Jones probably would have as well.

And that's why they had Sam Howled, so nobody would. But like when it came to that, let's say, let's save a camp competition. And JJ's just better. Are you telling me that no one would trade for Sam Darnold or, you know, by the end of the year, you could still run the same thing if halfway through the season, Darnold does turn into a pumpkin. And then you put in McCarthy, what, what's the worst outcome? come you go nine and eight and miss the, oh, they did that anyway. So I think that there are a lot of

holes to punch in their logic when they did this. But at the end of the day, Jeremiah, you can't go back in time and fix it. So the big question is, because I'm going to struggle getting past that, just like, you're going to have to just drag me and say, all right, stop it. But now how do they fix it? Like what, like what now? is really the question because this just took a floodlight the size of U.S. Bank Stadium and shined it on the decision makers who allowed this guy who's now in the Super Bowl to go. So how do you make that right if you're them? It's the same conversation we've been having for weeks and the answer is there's no good

answer. I think you either have to go all in, double down and say, nope, we made this decision knowing that JJ needed a year. We made this decision knowing that JJ is our future. is our franchise and no one can move us off our spot or you have to do a 180 degree pivot and run with it. I think those are really the only two options. If you try and live in this middle ground of, well, we're going to bring in like a minor veteran camp backup guy to kind of push McCarthy. You might as well sign your own death certificate. I think you either have to double down on J.J.

McCarthy come out publicly and say, hey, good for Sam. We're excited for Sam. We stand by Quasi's decision, KOC's decision, the ownership's decision to move forward with with JJ McCarthy and our plan that we had on the rookie scale contract, how we've structured our cap, boom, boom, boom, like right, just double down on everything. Or you do a 180 about pivot and go,

you know, we made a mistake. And you pull the Anthony Richardson card and go, we're going to go get Joe Burrow or we're going to go get some giant, huge quarterback move and basically cut bait on J.J. McCarthy. I think those are really your only two options. I 100% agree with you.

You either find the Kyla Murray or the, I'll throw out, you know, Daniel Jones, I guess, but I've just sort of been under the assumption that he's returning to Indianapolis or the Gino or whoever it is that's a real starter that's won real games recently. You either do that and say, sorry, JJ, but your, you know, your performance was not at the level of an NFL starting quarterback, which, and the facts are the facts, they, it was not. and if they want to make a jump to be, which to me, you have to be in the top 10 to have a chance with your quarterback play for this. I can't remember too many times. And I'll have to look at the stats on this where a team that was in the Super Bowl did not have top 10 in like, you know, passer rating EPA, stuff like that.

Maybe maybe Manning 10 years ago when he limped his way in there with, but he had one point in time he was the goat. So that's an argument. And that's also the point is that you have to go back 10 years. Like I think, I mean, even. Even the Eagles last year were probably like borderline. They had a very efficient passing game, even though they, they lead on the run a lot, but they still hit a lot of explosive plays and stuff.

Anyway, the point is, at very least, top half to get in the playoffs. But if you really want to be a contender, unless you have some special unique outlier thing, like the best, one of the best running quarterbacks like Jalen Hertz, you're probably looking at needing a top 10 performance. So the question is, can you get J.J. McCarthy in a single, off season? Is there things that you can do for him? Because to me, you've got an offensive line that's mostly said. You have a running game that could definitely improve, but even if it improves a lot, that's not enough to make your quarterback into a top notch, top 10 quarterback. So then

what receiver are you adding? Well, you already have good receivers if you decide to keep Jordan Addison. If you don't, then their receivers get worse. You're not changing your coach at the moment. So it's really down to him and these next couple of months. And I don't know how you can bet on that. How can you put a bet if you're the entire organization on? He will make such improvement. And then I start to get to a point, Jeremiah, always with this JJ situation where I start to feel bad for J.J. McCarthy.

Because you go, well, you didn't put this on yourself. You're going to be the guy that's talked about endlessly as the one that they chose over the Super Bowl quarterback, and especially if he wins it, that's even worse. But even now, like, you're in it, something the Vikings haven't been since the 70s. So that's pretty rough. But now it's like, oh, yeah, if you don't take the biggest improvement that we've maybe ever seen in recent memory for a quarterback who was drafted in your range, then like the whole thing, the entire organization blows up, that's not fair either for a guy that was always known as someone who was going to need a lot of development when they came out. Yeah, I mean, he didn't choose this situation.

he was drafted here. He didn't think that Sam Darnold was going to come in and win 13 games and do it on leading to the playoffs and do all that. He didn't plan on getting hurt. And so I don't have any issue with the guy personally. I think he's trying to do the best that he knows to do, which is not a whole lot because we had a fine in the in the O-line room called SFR, which was stupid F rookie. I won't say it out loud, right?

But that's what he is. And you can say he was in it. He wasn't in his first year. This was his rookie season. And so am I willing to say that he can take a big jump in year two? Yeah, a lot of guys do take big jumps from their first year to their second year. Not many guys take from the bottom, literally bottom to the top. Like that's not a jump that we've historically just seen happen in the NFL.

Not to mention there's going to be a lot of restructuring, some cap contracts that need to be happening here, get ourselves back under the cap. We might lose some pieces. Then you add on the piece that it's not his fault. But then you also have that on the piece that there's some disgruntled teammates. there's some dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot tweets that I happened to come across my feed from somebody and Jonathan Grenard, who has a lot of, Jonathan Granard. A lot of credibility there, yeah.

Yeah, you know, and so then you're going, okay. So now you're, you've got players on the team going, that guy, I just watched win the NFC championship was sitting next to me in the team meeting room a year ago. Why? What's happening? And so this, this is a really hard place to be as a front office. and while I feel for him, you also made this bet. You made this bed.

You have to stay in it. And so that's why I think the two options. And if I'm a betting man, Matthew, I think they double down on J.J. McCarthy. Okay. Let's do it. Let's bet on this. I think they doubled down.

I think they doubled down on J.J. McCarthy and say, we anticipated this. We thought they were going to do this. But J.J. is our. Okay. Since both of us made millions in our careers, we can put down a very large sum of, one large milkshake on this.

That's the bet. Okay, so if they get a legitimate starting quarterback, you buy me a milkshake, if they do not, then I buy you a milkshake. Now, here's the funny part is I'm struggling to figure out where I stand on this take, because not of what they will do, because I'm going to, I think I'm going to be slurping a milkshake here, but what they should do. So about week 15, I was like, you know, they should just stick with. with McCarthy.

If I'm the owners, I'm telling him, you made the bed, sleep in it, like develop this guy. Don't give up on him and push, push, push and see what you can get out of it.

And it's ride or die, right? And then at the end of the season, when he got hurt four more times or whatever, I was like, okay, you can't stay healthy. You got to go get a different quarterback. You know,

you just have to, right? And now I'm back to, well, you made, I'm struggling because now, after you said all that, I was like,

they should just do that because if it clicks maybe there's something there. I think the question that we get to is like how good does it have to be in order to even just keep going forward with this because I don't think it's right to throw out baby with bathwater here. They have a great roster. Flores came back. There's a lot of players who may, they may not be 22, but they're in their primes and you can project for the next couple years.

You got Jefferson extended. If you could get Derisaw healthy. This is a good organization under Kevin O'Connell that just won 14 last year. And like you said, you don't want to be the bills owner and just rage out because one thing went wrong and say, everybody is fired if they don't do X, Y, and Z. But I also think that we live in the National Football League and it's not always rational and it's not always patient. And I'm sure that in Wilf offices in New Jersey, they go.

got on a little piece of paper something written down of it better be this or we're going to have to make a change yeah i think that is the reality of they're the ones that the buck stops with right they're the owners they're the capital be billionaires they are the ones that sign the checks of everyone in that building hell they own the land that the building is on so they have every right to tell this is what we need to do and this is why we need to go do it and it's kevin o'connell's job to implement that. I think that with everything that's happening, though, in the, in the realm of the landscape of the National Football League, Kevin might be the only one if they want to keep JJ that's going to go out on the limb and go, well, I want to keep my job. So I need some

assurances from you that if we stick with this, I was the protest that said, no, I want someone else. And if it goes drastically wrong, you can't fire me because of that. That's the only way that I can see them being a little bit of wishy-washy versus, I think if Kevin, if it's flipped and the Wilts are like, this can't happen again, right? Like we need to, and Kevin's the one saying, well, I'm behind JJ. He is intertwining his fate that if JJ fails, Kevin is gone. Which if you're O'Connell, and if we were just judging body language and commentary, does it seem like he wants that to be the case? It doesn't, which is why. It does not.

Yum. I will take a chocolate milkshake when they signed Kyler Murray, which, you know, look, I think, so I wanted to. For $1.5 million. I actually, yeah, well, I mean, right, that was always the discussion if you had an above it. I think what you might be trying to sell, because I wanted to get to a couple of fan questions with you, because our love to see it, hate to see it,

when you only have two games is reduced, but we can do that real quick at the end. But I got a couple of good fan questions. And one of them, this is from baseball norm, said, what is the collar plan to get this team to a Super Bowl? It feels like we are so far away. Call it the collar, Searle's plan. And it's literally to try to recreate what Seattle just did with like Kyler

Murray or Gino Smith. I don't think for next year, if you're referring to next year. And then the other moves have to be, I don't know, like you need to get a center. You need to get a much better running back. Maybe you're drafting a running back pretty high and getting another one in free agency or something. But that's really all I could come up with is you would have to. And I just say, I get so many emails and notes about Kyler Murray.

I'm just using him as the name here. Okay. It could be some other guys, but just stay with me. He's the one that had the best recent season in 2024. It's literally doing a Sam Darnel turnaround except for with the little guy with less arm, but a lot faster. That's really the only option. That's the only thing that I could see actually working for next year. If we do that, though, we have to create a running game.

And Kevin O'Connell needs to unleash some of his power, relish it to somebody else. And I don't know if he's ever even going to be willing to do this. Maybe give up play calling. I would say, no, I don't see any chance of that. I know. But maybe that's what you need to do. No chance. Maybe you need to.

Okay. I won't even go down that path. They're not going to do it. But you need to bring someone in that's going to be able to challenge you and say, hey, buddy, we got to run the football. We have to be able to run the football. Look at the Rams offense. As much as they want to throw it all over the field, guess what they still sprinkle in quite often?

Kiron Williams, they drafted Blake Corum and brought him in, and he played a factor in that game last night. And really, their whole season, you have to be able to run the football to win. So, yes, it's recreating the Sam Darnold piece with a, 10 times better running game than what was this year. And that comes back to having a running identity, knowing not just, hey, are we pin pull this week? Are we inside zone this week? What are we this week?

Because that's what it felt like this year. It just felt like every week it was some type of new run scheme that we were trying to mimic from the week before that worked against that specific defense. So having that and then having your quarterback play drastically improve, this defense, hear me, this defense is good enough to win you a Super Bowl. As is this day right now, Vikings' defense is good enough. And so barring losing three, four pieces off of that defense, they're good enough

to win you a Super Bowl. So you fix the run game. You add a top 15 quarterback play at the quarterback position. You're playing a third play schedule in the NFC is a third or fourth place. Could have been fourth. Ended up third. Oh, yeah, that's right. We got lucky at the end there. You play a third place schedule in the NFC. There's a path. There is 100% a path there. It is just so predicated, in my opinion, on quarterback play and run game.

So then for me, it becomes like a mathematical, how can we find the points? So if you look at Seattle, offensive and defensive, just scoring, and I think they finish with a point differential of plus 170 or something in that range. Yeah, I know. And the Vikings were,

I think plus 10. So you can't find more points defensively than they had this year. I mean, that would be all-time great defense. Like you're already in that, you've maxed that out. Maybe you could be slightly better, but that's really hard to do over a full season. So that means you have to find 160 points on the offensive side. Well, where's that going to come from? They were plus 19 when it came to the running game, which was okay.

That was above average. You could get better there, though. You could definitely improve. And you can work off that run game better. And you can control the football better as they did in some of those games. And we saw Clint Kubiak do an amazing job of picking his spots of when to throw the ball and using off the play action. But if you could get to, if you could get to a running game with a running quarterback maybe, that adds even more to it. And a passing game that gets you into the ballpark of plus 60, 70, 80 points, at least you're closing the gap and making yourself competitive.

there's no quarterback you're going to find that is going to get you a hundred and sixty points or 150 points to close the gap with Seattle in total. But you might be able to find one that gets you to like plus a hundred, which is usually been the, uh, the pass code to have a chance. Like if you're knocking at the door, you need to at least be a plus 100 team or you're probably kind of a fraud going into the playoffs. Can you get there with the next quarterback and an improved running game? I don't think it's insane to say that you can at least be knocking on that.

that door. And I think going back to the, to the original conversation is whether it's developed JJ and you win your milkshake or it's get Kyler and I win my milkshake, no matter what it is. My bar is, let's be a serious team. We can't be four and eight and looking around and being like, oh, well, I guess we're going to win some games at the end of the year just to be more respectable or whatever. If I'm them, I need to be in that conversation. I'm talking about the ownership in that conversation all year. You don't need to win 15 games. games, but you need to be in the discussion because we're the ones that that put down on the table the many, many millions of dollars to invest in you being in that conversation, which I think

actually goes to the next question that we have to consider here. King Ragnar says if we're, I know, love that. If we're, he says, if we're going to simply look at the strengths of other NFC North teams, what positions do we need to prioritize in the draft? So you're just looking at the NFC North. and this is part of the conversation too. Like, it's a tough division, man. Like, this is not going to be an easy task. They are facing a serious uphill climb here. But what do you think of that?

Like, if you were just looking at the other teams in the NFC North. Safeties and corners. I mean, you look at, okay, let's look at Detroit. Amunrah St. Brown, Jameson, Jamir Gibbs in space. Okay, that's a problem. You look at Chicago, Roma Dunzei, DJ Moore, Cole Comett, Colston Loveland, problem. You look at Green Bay. You've got Christian Watson, Romeo Dobbs.

I think Golden's actually going to be a very good receiver. I know he didn't score a lot of touchdowns, but the two can run and he was hurt. He was a rookie and he's figuring out they're going to get Robert, or they're going to get Kraft back, right? Tucker Kraft next year, he's going to come back. I mean, you just look at the secondary and go, we need more. depth and we need more playmakers. Harrison's probably gone. Now, Brian Flores might be able to sprinkle his Brian Flores magic and squeeze the blood out of the stone for one more year with him, but you've got to have a succession plan with him and you need to have guys on the edges that can

create turnovers and create problems to allow the grenards and the Van Ginkles to not be a half step away from a sack, but to be able to complete that full sack because the coverage is that much closer on the back end. And we saw that too many times this year. where Ginkle and Gernard and even Dallas Turner are winning at the line of scrimmage, but the ball's already gone because the receiver has a yard of separation, five, six yards down the field already versus making that quarterback pat it for a quarter of a second longer in the NFL. That means a sack or a hit or a forced turnover because he has to hold and he's hitting it as he's getting thrown. As he's throwing, he's getting hit and the balls

up in the air, we need tighter coverage. I completely agree with you. And solving the who's going to play safety thing for this defense is particularly important. I think with Flores defense, that was a little bit talk about, we don't talk about them missing on Cambinam and letting him go and kind of where they spent their money. But I thought early part of the season, the ability to downhill tackle in this defense is important and just playmaking was missed with Cambinem not being there. And then just depth at corner, they lucked out with Rogers and Murphy playing almost

every snap this year. if those guys had missed time, I don't know. I truly have no idea what they're doing. They're playing undrafted free agents or whatever. That would have been a disaster had they missed either one of those guys for three games. And they got lucky that they didn't. And no disrespect to those two guys. I think they're good players.

They're not great players, right? And you look at in, you know, you're looking at that Seattle defense and those edges and Witherspoon and, you know, those corners. And you're looking at Pat Sertan. And what's the Gonzalez? Is that from? Christian Gonzalez. I mean, lock down cornerback players at the conference championship level. We don't have that.

They're good players. They're serviceable. They're middle of the road starters in the NFL. And you can win a lot of games with those. But in our division specifically, you need a lockdown corner where you can look over and go, you, this week you have Christian Watson, eliminate him. Hey, next week, you have Amman Ron. St. Brown. This week, you have Roma Dunesay and be able to scheme around that lockdown corner

gives so much more comfort to a guy like Brian Flores than you can even imagine. You have any given the really obnoxious answer? I totally agree with you. The really obnoxious answers to draft a corner, or I'm sorry, to draft a wide receiver in the first round. That's, that, that is, hey, some, some drums that certain people banged like Sam Darnold shouldn't be, you know, judged on two games have looked pretty good. good. So I'm just saying, oh, also, didn't I want Luther burden as the Vikings pick? Pretty pretty good. But no, I'd even add him to the weapon list for Chicago. And that's, and that would be the reason is, well, one, you don't know what's happening with

Jordan Addison in the future. But let's say that he stays and let's say that he doesn't be accused of trespassing at any more hotels or get any more DUIs or get any more, you know, citations for driving 140 or whatever it might be. If he avoids all of the. that. Your number three spot is still open with Jalen Naylor, who I think is a tremendous player. But if you drafted Carnal Tate's or the kid from USC or whatever, look at you, you're into draft prep already. I'm always going to say this. If you want your quarterback to play the best, having three great wide receivers is the best way to do it. You probably have to fight fire with fire in the NFC North. That would be my other, uh, it's either pass or stop the past. It is

still that kind of league. Okay, quick, love to see it, hate to see it. I want to start out with this. The National Football League began in what? The Super Bowl era, let's say, the 60s, right? Yeah, it was just 60, this Super Bowl 60, right? And in the 1960s, there was snow. And it came down from the sky.

and the warriors who put on their gladiated gladiated uniforms, they clashed in the snow and they determined to champion and deceive people be like, this is, this is just not right, you know,

to determine a game where it's snowing, it's just raw. I'm like, what are we doing here? We're just, are we just looking at things and complaining about them? Now, I was frustrated by how it felt,

it felt frustrating because it was like, like no one was really prepared for that kind of snow and the kickers are missing and everything else. But the NFL has been played this way since the beginning of freaking time and we don't have to just complain about everything. The results are the results. If Denver wanted to win the game, they could have won the game. And I'm sorry they didn't. And it snowed. Get over it. Yeah. I mean, the people whining about the snow is so annoying to me. It's, it's part of the game. I mean, people rain when it, when it, when it, when it, they're complained when it rains. Like, it's it's part of the elements it's why outdoor stadiums are the best and i'm so concerned that in the

next 10 years we'll have zero outdoor stadiums anymore and it's frustrating to see that but the broncos with bow nicks i thoroughly believe i totally agree i i think the broncos win that football game and maybe by two scores because they were moving around and everything there and so my hate to see it is sean payton what are you doing not taking the points in a game like that with a backup quarterback where 10 points for that Patriots team at that point in time seemed insurmountable. They couldn't do anything. They couldn't get out of their own way. And you take a lot of pressure off your your quarterback. I'm going to call them young, but your backup quarterback to have to go tip for tat with Drake May. And I just,

well, I still do not understand that decision to go for it right then and there and not put a 10-0 lead on the page. I think when it comes to fourth downs in general, now the league is not going to change on this. I see people maybe they'll learn their lesson. No, because over a season, going for it, especially with the number of

possessions reduced in the NFL, where you're talking about starting at the 35, a lot of times, like teams are, and kickers kicking from the other side of the planet, you're going to have teams be aggressive. It's proven. It works. It's like when people didn't like

texting when it first came out and they were like i'm not doing that texting i'm a phone call guy well that's how you sound when you're saying well they need to just take the points but like any analytical thing ever there are exceptions and when they decided to line up to go for it i thought oh are they going to do like uh great 80s and then and then just like walk off and kick a field goal and i was very surprised at that now they didn't know that there was a giant snowstorm that was going to come their way. And here's another thing about that decision. They stopped the Patriots like three and out got the ball right back. And that often happens when a team fails on a fourth down. It's almost like, no, the people's brain shut off. Like, well, it didn't work. So it was wrong. And the coach is wrong.

It's like, well, what happened after? They got the ball right back and had another chance at it. But in that circumstance with that quarterback and he wasn't exactly. I mean, he made one good throw. But it's not like he looked like he was Nick Foles against the Vikings 2017. Sorry to pull off that bandaid on you for no reason. But it's not like he looked like that. I think that circumstance with your defense playing that way. That's why every decision has to be evaluated in its own. And it can't just be, oh, well, I always go for fourth down. So I always go for fourth down. Even if the punter is playing quarterback. You know, of like, of course, you know, there's always exceptions to that. That's a good. I think he's more of a basketball player because I don't know if I've ever seen three chess pass attempts as a

quarterback position. What no one can ever prepare you for is how scary it is. It's like, why did he do that? Like, well, if you were ever a member a car accident you got in, you're like, why didn't you just go zoom, zoom, zoom? But what I don't understand, though, is why, why some of these guys are just like, ah, ball, get it away from me. I don't want this.

You take it. A sack. This is one of the most important lessons of football, right? It's like a sack's not that bad most of the time. You know, you can just pun it. Right. Let's see. I'm blanking now.

Okay, go ahead. Yeah, I'm blanking on what I had. I love to see a first year head coach and a second year head coach in a Super Bowl. I think you hear so much about the veteran coaches, been there before. And I know that Rable's not a second year. ever head coach, right? But his first year with the Patriots to lead them from a four and 13 season to the Super Bowl, you know, everyone was really, I can remember when they hired Mike in

Seattle. Everyone was kind of like, okay. Like it wasn't like, what tree does he fall from? I can't remember. Like, and to see those two turn programs around, turn organizations around, lead them back there. I love to see it, but I also hate to see it a little bit. because I have a feeling a lot of the ownerships are going to do the, I use the analogy from Iron Man, where it's like, Tony Stark did it in a cave with scraps. Like it's like a lot of the owners now are going to be like, they did it for a 413 roster, fire the coach, hire the new guy and he'll lead us to the promised land. So I love to see it for that.

I'm slightly concerned about it what it means for the future of NFL head coaches. I love that reference. That is a, it's one of my favorite movie. I'm not like a huge, you know. know comic movie guy, but that's, that was a great movie. He's like, I'm not Tony Stark. It's like, yeah, well, he did it. It's like, that's what they're going to point to now. Be like, why did they do it? What made it so they could do it? And why can't you do it now in her eighth year, Sean McDermott? Well, you know what those guys had pretty good rosters.

I'll throw out the love to see it would be, you know, somebody like Garrett Bradbury, who has been in the league for a long time and played a ton of games. And you and I know that there's flaws in his game. But at the same time that he works at it and he's a leader out there. And to see him get his chance after like knowing him for the, really from the outset all the way through this at one point, he was benched by the Vikings. And then, you know, when you become, this is a thing that people don't understand when they send out these tweets and stuff.

It's like the, the players know what you're saying. I mean, not, you know, you individually, but they know what people are saying. Like Garrett Bradbury knows that the Vikings cut him to sign somebody else because they thought it was his fault that they lost against the Rams. And some of it was because it was mismatches. But from the actual person perspective, how much he was respected in the locker room and how hard he works, you like to see sort of good people get their chance and, you know, prove people wrong. Like, oh, you can't win with that guy. Like, well, I guess you can if you have the right situation. And that's that's the most fascinating and frustrating things.

thing about football is how close we are so many times to if this had happened, then everything would have been different. If, if Matthew Stafford's throw comes a little closer and that receiver catches it, then Tyreek Woolen is one of the all-time goats in the bad way. One of the, I mean, there are documentaries about, you know, how they blew that and everything else and the, it was, it was definitely a penalty. But, I mean, think about like, how. close that is to being one of the biggest mess-ups of all time. And then it's just not. And it's sort of a

joke. And he's laughing about it on Twitter. Yeah. I mean, that's one of those where you lose because of that. I mean, delete your account, fly straight to the Caribbean, probably get traded. Like, there's no coming back from that. And I mean, I'd be lying if I wasn't screaming at the television also like, freaking DBs. Why are you the way you are? I never will understand it. Why can't you just do your stupid seatbelt dance and walk your happy little butt back across the field and go celebrate with your teammates? You don't got to yell at the other team, especially Matt Stafford, who's standing right there. But yeah, I just, why are they the way they are? I'll never, I'll never understand.

I wanted to make sure I brought that up because I, I'll never understand. I hate them. I hate them so much. I can't do it, man. I just don't understand. It blows my mind. I was talking to my, I was talking to my center about it today. Jalen, who's the most even-keeled human being you'll ever meet in your life.

I was like, man, sideline was kind of crazy. And he's like, yeah, they don't really understand it. He already screwed up. He knew what he did. I was like, God, that's why I love you. He's like, yelling him on the sidelines, not going to make it any worse. I was like, I would not have been that guy. I would have been the one in his face.

Like, I will kill you if we lose this because of that. Oh, man. And the funniest part is that in general, the worst trash talkers as a unit are the corners. Like in terms of, if we were like, creating a criteria is like in terms of creativity how like funny how good they are getting in other people's heads they're not even any good at it like i think the the interiors of the lines are probably the best they the offensive and defensive tackles are probably number one on the they're really good at it so anyway well uh good stuff jeremiah we've got a super bowl set

and we'll have a chance to react to this and preview it and break it down and call it another successful season of Purple Insider, I guess for the two of us for Tuesday morning left guard. But appreciate your time as always. And we'll talk again soon. Absolutely. Football.