Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Jeremiah Sirles talks about how Vikings first loss can turn into a win vs. Rams

Episode Date: October 23, 2024

Former Viking Jeremiah Sirles joins Matthew Coller to talk about how the Vikings can use their loss to the Lions to improve on TNF vs. the Rams Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here inside TCO Performance Center and somewhere in the Midwest, Jeremiah Searles, the former Minnesota Viking, Tuesday morning left guard. Jeremiah, this is going to be a hybrid episode where we both have a game to break down and a game to preview for Thursday night. So what I want to do is I want to take things that you observed from Sunday and apply them to Thursday. What do you think is at the top of the list of things the Minnesota Vikings should learn from Sunday's game about themselves

or improve that they have to quickly turn around and apply? Yeah. The number one thing for me is the blueprint that the Detroit Lions put on how to beat the blitz against Brian Flores. They were very, very good on finding ways to mix up their protections, finding ways to understand how to get receivers behind the linebacking core and in between the safeties when they're playing such deep coverage. And then also finding ways when the Detroit Lions did something that I thought was incredibly smart was they would set up in a protection that made it look like the running back was going to be

involved in the protection and then they'd leave the backside tight end in so it was still a six man protection and then they'd leak the running back out and because Brian Flores assumed that the running back would be in there was no one accounting for the running back i thought that was brilliant but that for me was the number one thing that showed up was the ability for jared goff and the detroit lions to beat the blitz of brian flores i guess that is really the question here is is it a blueprint or is it the detroit lions are really good at what they do they have one of the best coordinators they have a lot of the best players one of them using peds but he didn't even catch any passes uh jameson williams suspended for two games for peds

if uh y'all miss it but uh yeah he's got somebody said there was a great tweet. Somebody said he can't get into the baseball hall of fame now because he's been suspended for gambling and PEDs, but he'll be back after two games in football. Anyway, that's not the point. It's that they have great players, a great quarterback, great line. Is this something that you think that opposing teams can actually use going forward against the Vikings, or is it just that team was able to do it because they are that? I think the teams that have a very successful running game, I think about the Packers, who I think are sixth in the league right now in rushing. Teams that want to be a run-first football team are going to try and copy the blueprint that the

Detroit Lions had. If you're more of a pass-heavy team or more of a 11 personnel, not quite a big personnel team like the Detroit Lions are, it's going to be a little tougher. However, I've been in the NFL long enough to know that it's a copycat league and the Rams are watching that game and they're installing stuff that the Detroit Lions ran because it is a short week and they're going to go, we got to see if this defense got this fixed in three days, or is it something that we can maybe exploit one or two times? But then you look at the Rams, they're so depleted. They have so many issues on the,

on the receiving core. But I do think that Sean McVay and them are smart enough to go, okay, we have to at least test and see, it'd be really irresponsible of us to not even try and do some of the stuff the Lions did that ended up carving up some of this defense yeah i think when you're talking about the caliber of coach that you're going up against this is my big concern because when you watch the rams play they do have about half a roster they are getting cooper cup back uh amidst trade possibilities with him that are getting talked about all over the place. And this is a team that if they lose to the Vikings, probably goes into some sort of sell mode and actually looks for some of them draft picks that they threw away for all the trades in 2021.

But I think when you're going up against someone like Sean McVay, who knows Kevin O'Connell inside and out, who is brilliant when it comes to picking apart things like this, it is an extra layer of concern. I guess I wonder about a lot of different strategies that are aggressive and all in. In sports, you go to baseball. If your team hits a bunch of home runs or all your pitchers throw 100 miles an hour or you shoot threes all the time in basketball, there's always a variance to that. And I remember when Flores got hired, I looked at how his teams did when blitzing over the whole sample size of Miami, and it was more good than bad, but the bad days were very bad and teams figured it out and took advantage of it. Do you think that this is sustainable

to keep blitzing the way that he does and I guess the other part of it is do they actually have to considering that their edge rushers have been successful getting to the quarterback yeah I would like to see the blitz percentage go down a little bit and it's down from last year I mean last year was ridiculous was it like 53 percent or I mean somewhere up there I mean and it's down from that but I do still think it's in the DNA of Brian Flores of when I need a stop or when I need to get the ball back for my offense, I go back to the well.

And the well is sending Ivan Pace, it's sending Martellus and all those guys and getting them, I know you hate me with names. I'm so bad with names, but it is what it is. We send 44 and we send zero, right? Is that better for you, Matthew? Right, so we send those guys and that's still gonna be be something that he's not just going to shy away from because it has been working. And this is one of those classic examples of we can't panic and change

who we are because we lost to the Detroit Lions. That's an extremely talented football team. I mean, that is a Super Bowl contender, top two or three teams, if not the top team in the NFL right now. So as a Vikings fan, as a Viking organization, it's really easy to go, oh my gosh, we lost to the Lions. We got to change what we're doing and change things up. I think it's more, no, stay the course. We went toe to toe with them. We put body bow for body blow.

We didn't get it. Didn't come out our way on the end. But the worst thing we could do right now is just change everything and say, okay, no more blitzing. No more of this. Like, just, I think we're going to be okay just staying with it but being able to learn and adapt and grow and develop from this game is going to be the more important piece uh it doesn't seem like blake cashman is coming back uh his name is pronounced cashman um if you need some help with

that just uh and josh matelis who's been on the team for the entire time that we've done the podcast i know anyway uh anyway but blake cashman being out i think was a pretty huge factor because the blitz is not getting home and jared goff was something like 15 of 16 for 159 yards when they blitzed and i think one of the things that actually you explained it on the show last week about Cashman is that he can play the cat and mouse game with the quarterback. And they just don't have that, that type of person with that experience and knowledge of the defense like he

has. And the Cashman has kind of been on this, like on a string with Brian Flores, they're on the same wavelength. It's just a lot of a harder thing to do with someone like ivan pace who's only in his second year in the league and has not been doing it all year i think for maybe a normal defense where you just line it up and play okay fine but for something so complex i thought we got a sense for whom maybe the most valuable player on this defense might be yeah and watching back that

game there were so many times where Detroit like I talked about last week used the double cadence right went head bob up one motion okay Frank Ragnow you see points out or moves or hairy rocks and rolls or things are moving and then it's hey point turbo set go right and that was something that Jared Goff executed for being on the road extremely well they played with a little bit more tempo than they have to of getting up to the line of scrimmage allowing them to have 25 26 seconds left on the shot clock instead of 18 to 17 which allows for that five six extra seconds to switch back and forth so that's going to be another piece of trying to disguise things a little better I thought this was the worst disguising I've seen

out of a blind Flores defense. I mean, it was pretty obvious quite a few times, like, hey, Harry's on different levels than Bynum, where he's topped over number two. That's pretty obvious for me to see from the couch. I know Goff sees it. I know that Frank Ragnow, who's one of the best centers in the league, sees it. So from a disguise standpoint, it just wasn't what it goes. That goes back to what you said.

If you can't be checking and playing that who has the pen last, you can't really disguise because you've got to make sure everyone's getting to where they need to go. So that's going to be something that needs to be going forward too is how do we disguise better, how do we check better, how do we put the offense on their heels a little bit more than we did in this game with Jared Goff. On the offensive side of things, it was kind of an odd one to analyze because when you look at

the numbers how many yards per play that they averaged the success completion percentage for sam darnold the yards per carry for aaron jones you think all right if you do this every single game you will win almost every time but there were also lulls in the game where they had some three and outs they didn't have long drives they made mistakes i don't know what happened with jordan addison in this football game uh not lining up correctly and then it seemed ran the wrong detail on the third and four where jefferson should have been open but it seemed to distract sam darnold a bit that addison was in the area that is is not supposed to be how it goes. As Kevin O'Connell told us yesterday, but at the same time, like look at the, at the end of the day, the numbers and everything

else point to a very good offensive performance against a defense that's vastly improved from where it was last year. How did you process what happened on the offensive side? Yeah, if you just watched the offensive side of this game and take away the defensive side, you would have said, oh, Vikings won. The way they were able to move the ball up and down the field, and it's going to happen. You're going to have some three and outs and that type of thing,

but it never compounded. It never was like three three and outs in a row or getting one first down and then having to punt multiple times it was kind of okay they beat us on here went to the sideline make adjustments come back out execute a scoring drive right going through there I thought they did a great job of adapting throughout the game of what Detroit was throwing at them and how they kept them on their heels with balancing the run balancing the pass taking your chance to take those shots down I mean the one thing, two things really glare out to me.

One, the turnover by Sam Darnold, that can't happen. Like, those are plays that you just can't do. And then the play call at the end with, it was third and four, they had two timeouts. You know you're probably going to give them the ball back if you kick the field goal anyways. Make them burn that extra timeout, make them go to the length of field without that.

That was a questionable one to me too, but I understand you want to go for the bleed more clock and all that, but those are really the two things on offense I was watching going, that's kind of all I can really be and complain about right now. That's really it. When you lose a football game, you're always going to over-scrutinize, but everything else

I felt like they executed well. I felt like they did really well in the run game of getting a hat for a hat and making sure, and man, Aaron Jones back was such a key maker. We're so lucky he wasn't hurt for much longer. Like the bye week came at a perfect time for that. Yeah, and it's very clear that even when he's not 100% and is playing with a hamstring injury, he is playing 70 or more percent of those snaps that there is nobody coming off the bench.

We'll see if Cam Akers maybe gets more of a chance. I think we will see that after Ty Chandler has just not proven that he belongs in there. I mean, if you go in against the Jets, fumble the ball when they pitch it to you, go in this game for one sequence, commit a penalty on a pass protection. It's just, those are the mistakes. I think that drive Kevin O'Connell crazy. Even if he does have some explosive ability, you can't fumble. You can't have the penalty that he had. And the other thing is too, that I just haven't felt like, and I know there were some penalized plays against the jets that were taken back. I just haven't felt like when he's had the ball in his hands that he's had that same jolt

this year. Maybe it's just a small sample size, but if he's going in and creating a 15-yard run every game, well, okay, then you'll deal with a couple of mistakes, but that hasn't really materialized. So I wouldn't be shocked to see Cam Akers. They pass protected very well overall. I was actually surprised after the game. I thought, I don't know. I didn't think the run blocking was all that good throughout the game. But right after the game, my reaction was, I felt like some guys were in the backfield. There was a very notable hit on Sam Darnold's pressures were credited to him for holding onto the ball a little bit too long. And the tackles, once again, how crazy is this for a statistic?

We are six games in. They have not, either Derrissaw or O'Neal, not reached 10 pressures allowed. That's nuts. You at tackle may have allowed 10 in a game at one point. Easy. Easy. I'm joking. But no, you're right. I mean, there's guys that allow five allowed 10 in a game at one point. Easy, easy. I'm joking.

But no, you're right. I mean, there's guys that allow five, six pressures a game. I mean, it's not. I mean, Ed Ingram, I think, had like eight one time last year, right? And so it's definitely possible. And you talk about the quality of player that they have played. I mean, they played against Nick Bosa. They played against Rashawn Gary, right? Like lots of really quality players.

And to have your tackles be able to give your quarterback confidence in the pocket, that's so big. I mean, because Sam does hold onto the ball a little longer than I would like. I mean, and that goes back to what we talked about two weeks ago, the decision-making and the processing power of Sam Darnold. That's got to get sped up right because yes your tackle is doing great but if it's one injury away it's one guy's not feeling 100 percent because he got his ankle rolled up on whatever and that half second makes the difference between a sack fumble or completion you know I'd love to see the processing power of Sam Darnold step up and get the ball more to his first read and those type of things but our offensive line in the past protection game on the edges

has been phenomenal, stellar. That play that Derrissaw had where he throws the guy down, does a pirouette, comes back out and picks him up like he was standing still, that's an unbelievable move by a man that big. So if you really stood, if you just stood next to Derrissaw, which you and I both have, and then watch on tape what he did, it'll break your brain. It'll break your brain to think that a guy that big can be that nimble and still get himself back to balance to stop someone running forward.

I mean, he is a specimen of a human. I remember when you and I were talking in 2022, you came out to training camp and you were talking to people, I believe it was the joint practices. And somebody said to you, man, it's Dersaw. He could be like Trent Williams. And both of us were like, okay, let's put, but in all seriousness, I don't think he's quite at that level. Cause that's like goat, but that's, it's not that far away with the things. And, and right.

He's still offensive lineman get better into their late twenties. He's not even there yet. That's been a huge part of it but if we're going to use a what does that stat mean uh right now sam darnold has the slowest snap to release of the football in the entire league uh because uh brock purdy threw some quick passes this weekend and got a little below him uh brock's gonna have to throw a lot of quick passes now with one receiver in the hospital and the other done for the season but the slowest in the league and i know play actions and bootlegs and scrambles like all those things add to that time from snap to release i did feel like it was a little better with the short passing game this week if not quite a bit better at times,

but it really didn't materialize to get them a lot of yards. I just, when he's completing a six yard pass, all right, you're moving the offense forward onto the next one kind of thing. I would like to see the ball come out quicker from him and not have to ask your tackles and your offensive line to block for as long. And I think if there's something that is going for the Rams, they do rush the passer. They do have a good, I think overall a good defense, but they, despite not having Aaron Donald anymore, they find ways to get pressure. That's going to be a huge factor in this game because Detroit not having Hutchinson, I thought it really showed that they did not have him. Yeah, definitely. And

we talked about what does Detroit do? I mean, they're going to have to have an answer there. That was, you talk about building around. It kind of felt a little Daniil Hunter-ish last year for Vikings, where when he wasn't out there, everyone's going, who? Someone should be getting to the quarterback right now. Someone should be affecting him more than this. This is not what I'm used to seeing.

Not having 97 out there was a big factor for the Detroit Lions. Now you flip that and look at the LA Rams. Jared Verse has been a phenomenal player for them. He was a first-round pick. Braden Fisk, the second-round pick that they picked up. Both young players doing a really nice job. Their front is very good. I think we could really get after their linebackers a little bit.

Troy Reeder, Christian Roseboom. I think those two guys are quality players, you know, but it's also one of those things where you're looking for mismatches there. I think that's where you look for it on the run game side. But yeah, if we want to go true dropback against this team, it's going to be a challenge. Yeah. And Kobe Turner is another guy who has become a really excellent player. And anytime there's somebody who can rush inside, we have to pay a lot of attention to that. Although I am curious if we see a change at right guard for this week, especially because when you look at Ingram is talked about as their best run

blocker, but it really hasn't been such a difference maker. It's not like he's Zach Martin against the run and Dakota Dozier against the past. It's not like he's Zach Martin against the run and Dakota Dozier against the pass. It's more of he's average or below against the or with the run blocking. And I would rather just have Dalton Reisner in there. Why is it? Why is it just about both players that Reisner is so good at pass blocking and not run blocking? And what is Ed Ingram's struggle with the pass blocking? Yeah, the biggest thing with Ed is he's leaning. He's leaning and he's getting wide. And those two

things work together in tandem. And when I'm coaching young offensive linemen, or I'm talking to clients, and I'm talking about taking your proper initial footwork in both the things, right? So in run game, your initial footwork is your first two steps, right? So your first two steps are what take you to your proper aiming point and put you into contact position on your second step. Steps three, four, and five are what's called the drive phase. So you go from your initial footwork into your drive phase footwork, which is where you drop the hips and really the power and the explosion that's in your body can start to show on tape. Ed is a much more powerful person than Dalton Reisner, right? But Dalton Reisner on the pass protection side is a much more technically sound person

than Ed Ingram, right? Ed Ingram at times takes the set, but then he throws and gets out over his skis and gets his head forward, which allows for guys to pull. And then when you get your head forward and all your weights forward, it's basically impossible to move your feet laterally, right? It's drop and open and crossover or it's turn and go as the guy's reaching around you, right? So Ed is younger, more strong and more powerful than Dalton Reisner. And that's why he's a better run blocker. But pass protection is so much about technique and angles and throwing your hands and weight distribution and balance. And Dalton is much better at that than at Ingram. And so it's just, it's a give and take. It really is. It's why the great offensive linemen that are

good at both, you don't let them leave your building. Like they never leave, right? Derrissaw should never not wear purple as long as he's playing in the National Football League. But when you have guys that are kind of okay at one or really good at one but really poor at the other, you're always trying to upgrade that position because you know it's going to be a liability at one point in time. Hold on. Let me silence my phone real quick so I can tell you that us days are back at U.S. Cellular again. Exclusive offers just for customers. Just to say, thanks right now, you'll get $1,200 off any phone plus 400 off any tablet.

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Right. And I think if they just decide to run to the left, if Reisner is in over and over and over, I would understand maybe put CJ Hamm and then motion Josh Oliver over there and run to that side. That's what I would do on Madden. Just put all the tight ends who could block over there, run the fullback, just put all the bodies and then run to that side.

But I think with Reisner, too, he was a tackle in college. You can kind of see that he has a tackle body, doesn't have as much of a guard body, which he can anchor, and he's got this huge chest but it's like what he's built like an inverse triangle or something where it's like all up here and he doesn't have big legs anyway we don't need to get weird and breaking down lineman bodies but the point is just yeah like and he's uh his hairline is doing this and whatever no we don't need to do that fingers go that way. I just think it's a

better option to have the past protector because your quarterback is holding onto the ball kind of forever. And if you lock it in, then Bradbury becomes the only weak point in the past protection, which I thought he had a pretty bad game against Detroit, but you can deal with that. So far, they've had the two guys as their weaknesses in pass protection, which has caused some problems. What is your take on if TJ Hawkinson comes back? Where is the biggest area that he will impact the offense? I think the biggest area is going to be a, some of the screens and some of the bootleg stuff, right? I saw multiple times this week. You got a bunch of tight end screens um from around

the league of hey taking advantage of these pass rushers and just flipping around and just dumping it to a guy getting a convoy out there josh oliver is great but he's not as good with the ball in his hands excuse me as hawk is and the other piece is just more of that security blanket in the middle of the field between the safeties behind the linebackers of just 8-10 yards also the play action game the the seam routes the the one josh oliver had a touchdown i believe against the giants right like more more of that is going to be incorporated in the offense when your first read is the tight end i don't think we have a lot of plays in right now where the first read is get josh the ball, right?

That's not, it's just not what you really want to do as a play caller when you love your guy, you love him to death, but you know he's not the best weapon on your team. So your first read needs to be where's 18 and then the, okay, second read's going to be Addison, then my third read's going to be to Oliver, right? When you have Hawk in there, you have an entire piece of the playbook that's kind of been untapped where you're opening going hey first read is find hawkinson right find him get him the football get him involved that's going to open up a lot more of the playbook i think too that sam darnold there are some quarterbacks who have this if you ever played mad no five the cone of vision for the quarterback i don't know if you remember that, they could see the whole field or at least in their brain, they can imagine the whole field. And this is where you are an absolute freak prodigy psycho, like Drew Brees or something, who can just understand where everybody is without actually seeing them. I don't think

that's Sam Darnold. I don't think that's most quarterbacks. And TJ Hawkinson is the guy who's kind of right in front of your face. He was this for Kirk Cousins and they had a great relationship. I think because he was right there, he would read the linebackers, find the space. He had some options on plays where he could say, all right, this is the way they're playing it. I'm going to go upfield a little. This is the way they're playing it. They're dropping back. I'm just going to be here for my quarterback. And that is now your check down. Normally we think of the check down as we'll throw it to the flat or the fullback or something. But in this case, it can be your, all right, they grabbed Jefferson. So he fell down. Addison's double covered what do I do now and Hockinson is that guy but he's not only that guy he's also that guy who can gain you seven more yards after that

which I think is really what's missing here when it comes to Oliver or months it's creating separation when they play man against the tight end because I don't think I've seen Darnold throw a pass to a tight end where they were playing man. That changes immediately with this guy because he's basically a slot wide receiver and just the security blanket of, all right, I hit the back foot. It's not quite there. And now Hockinson is how, how high is the ceiling in your opinion for, and I'll pull this up for their statistics. After you answer, how high is this, the ceiling for the offense, knowing that they've played a lot of tough defenses so far, knowing that the caliber of defense is not going to be the same going

forward and that they're getting Hockinson back? Yeah, I think that if you can start to incorporate more of a 12 personnel set, right? One back, two tight ends and get to more running plays out of that, but also open up the pass plays out of that from a true drop back perspective from under center to a play action perspective to a easy high percentage completion percentage. If it's a naked bootleg and Hawkinson crashes down

and then rolls out into the flat. And like you said said catches it and turns up field for 8-10 yards there's a lot more yards out here for this offense with multiple tight ends in when one of them is a true threat in the pass game right we get in 12 personnel right now and you put Johnny Mont and Josh Oliver out there no one's super concerned about a dude blazing up the seam route or super concerned about a corner route from a tight end in the end zone you know i watch like the bills and when dalton kincaid's out there he's a priority for a lot of these guys right last night mark andrews was not a priority and he

torched the tampa bay buccaneers brock powers is a guy that's been a huge priority and massive for them. So you start talking about adding in an entirely new weapon, I just don't think it can be stated enough of what he can do to open up this offense from a different personnel's perspective. Not just from a yard or anything like that, but if you can add 12 personnel into your entire offense and be productive in that personnel group there is so many things you can do out of that out of that group from a run and pass perspective it's put

so much strain on the defense so they are 16th right now and expected points added on offense which i think is a a pretty good catch-all stat to give you an idea of the overall strength and they are 13th and passing offense to me that is good enough to get you to the playoffs a stretch to say that you're a serious Super Bowl contender if it stays there so getting back one of your best players and pro bowlers that's where you would assume that there's going to be some ascension and I think there has to be I think it has to be a little bit more consistent offensively. Taking the accumulation of the last three games of the second half of Green Bay wasn't really good enough offense to go deep in the playoffs because normally passing offensive expected points added, which is really just how you perform versus the situation. That's been one of the best indicators for who's going to the Super Bowl year in and year out. If you always bet the best passing EPA teams, you're probably going to win a lot of the time.

And it just has to be a little bit better. I mean, it's on the fringe of being really good. It has to be a little bit better, which brings us to Sam Darnold. Let me give you a couple of statements. Then you tell me which one you agree with. Okay. Sam Darnold is right around the corner from greatness. Sam Darnold's bit of a roller coaster that we've seen the last maybe three weeks is really who he is. Sam Darnold has overperformed and will probably continue to regress a little. Which one of those three statements would you land on? I would land on the roller coaster. I would land on the roller coaster. And I think that we know we knew that going into the

year, we've been pleasantly surprised that the roller coaster has been going up more than it's been going down in the first part of the season, but it's not fair for us to look at Sam and say, he's automatically going to regress, right? I don't think that's fair to say to him. He's proved us wrong to this point for us to really like land on that but i also don't think it's logical for us to say he's gonna be fantastic and he's gonna be the guy that we all hoped he is because he's never been that guy it's not like we it's not like deshaun watson before all the allegations like when when cleveland traded for deshaun he was great right he was phenomenal he led the league in passing and and so you kind of always like that guy's in there When Cleveland traded for Deshaun, he was great, right? He was phenomenal.

He led the league in passing. And so you kind of always were like, that guy's in there. Somewhere in there, that guy is. We don't think that about Sam Darnold. Nowhere ever time has we been like, hey, that guy's somewhere in there, unless we go back to his Trojan days, right? So I don't think he's right around the corner from greatness. I think we're going to continue to ride the roller coaster with him throughout the rest of this year.

The question is, is it going to be a consistent weekend and week out roller coaster, or is it going to be climb for two, three weeks and a drop off for one? And then we climb ourselves back up. As long as it's not a weekend week out, up and down thing, we'll continue to have success. I think that if he has a similar distribution of the games that he's played, some have been really, really good. I don't know that there's been a game that I've thought, whoa, greatness, but there's been really, really good games and there's been an average game or two. And I guess I would put the lions game into the average category because there were some throws that were missed. There was a bad interception and then there's one bad game. So if he plays above average in four of every six games,

then the rest of the way, then you're in good shape. And what you need is him playing his best football when it comes to the playoffs. And he has been at the helm to beat good teams so far. So it's not like we're still asking, well, can he really step up and make a big drive? Or can he really go toe-to-toe with a good quarterback at Lambeau or something like that? We've seen enough of it, but I think we've also seen that

there's going to be times where he holds onto the ball too much, or he thinks he can scramble and make a play and it's not quite there. Or he thinks that he can fit something into a window that he can't fit it into. And this kind of ties into like KOC aggressiveness, that third down play, which as you said, Hey, a swing pass or a handoff there. Maybe if you have Hockinson, you're using it. That gets the clock running. I think I've decided where I stand on the KOC aggressiveness thing, which is let's ride the roller coaster and see what happens.

I mean, it's, of course, at times going to drive all of us crazy. Why would you pass there? It's fourth and two, and you're throwing a bomb down the sideline against the Jets. What? What? I will not accept the trick plays, but I will accept that this team is going to ride or die on aggressiveness. And I'll tell you what made me think of this.

Watching college football a lot more the last maybe two years than I had ever watched. I really like dedicatedly. I'm going to watch this. It's just this good. How many teams? Gosh, what is the game that inspired this uh how many teams will be an underdog and they will be trailing and they'll kick a field goal on fourth and three or something and like dude you are trailing against a better team please what to know you have to go for this i think that

they still have to take the mentality that there are other teams in the conference and in this league that have established franchise quarterbacks like Jared Goff that probably have a better chance to win. If you look at the accumulation of their entire career, you might have to just keep swinging for the fences and see if it clicks at the right time. And I'm okay with that approach, even if there are times where you could definitely pick apart some of the issues that it causes. Yeah. I mean, when you explain it that way, I think it makes a lot of sense because for me, I always look at it from what does the book say? What does the book say?

What is right? If you're playing blackjack and it's like, do I hit, do I stand? Well, what does the book say? Like what gives me the highest probability to win this football game? And I always kind of default back to that of, hey, run the clock out. Don't give them the timeouts. Let's make something happen here. But you're exactly right.

When you can do that with the knowing of, hey, I can rely on the players in my pocket to come and I have full trust that they're going to make those plays and they're going to do those things, you can play by the book a little bit more, but also I can respect the guy like Dan Campbell, who it's, he's told the company, he's told the Detroit lion fan base, like, this is who I am. And this is what I do accept it. I just don't think that KOC sometimes he does a little bit of both. Like sometimes he, he blows by the book. Sometimes he's like, screw it,

send them all right. And I would like to see him land on a, on a page more than just kind of riding the, well, what do I feel like right now? Right. If he just said, Hey,

this is who we are. We're going for it. We're doing this. Cool. I'm all aboard. But when it's the back and forth thing, that's where I start to be a little like, well,

pick one, just pick one. I just want you to to pick one and i do think that he probably falls along the sides of the aggressor more than not but i don't know i just it's hard for me as the player to be like just do it just go for it like just let's give ourselves the best chance here to win this game you know what would have been really to go into the aggressive bag. And there's a great argument for this would have been to go for it on fourth and four, because if you screw it up, they get the ball,

they'll score fast. You have your timeouts or at least two of them. Maybe they'll score fast. Or if they even wind the clock on you, they can't wind it all the way out on three plays. So then you get another chance at having the ball last and driving down. If you succeed, you win the game. And so somebody posted the analytics on this and it's a wide variance. If you get the first down, you're like 80% to win the game. If you don't, of course,

that drops below 40%, but it's still possible to win the game. If you're really going all in on this, we're the underdogs. We got to do some stuff that's outside of the box. That would have been an interesting way to go about it because you kind of knew that Detroit was going to come down and score. Maybe it impacted the way that they had played with Jonathan Grenard getting after the quarterback, which wow, played one of the best games as a pass rusher i feel like i've ever seen he rushed the passer 19 times he got nine pressures i have not seen that before um how much does this rams game mean to you and how you feel about the 2024 minnesota vikings football franchise i wish it wasn't a thursday night game because i I hate Thursday night games you know there's so

many variables that go into a Thursday night game as far as health game planning recovery it's not a true testament in my opinion of team versus team it's more like who is the healthier team coming in usually wins these football games and I would have really liked to see Minnesota coming off a week-long prep getting punched in the face getting a going and punching them back in the face an emotional back and forth game you lose it at the last second I would have loved to see what they look like with a week of rest coming out and showing us who they are this week I think is going to be even more important with the Thursday night game because you can't afford to drop two

now like we talked about last week you're now in a neck and neck race with Detroit right you have the device for the division you don't have the luxury of having a hiccup here and Thursday night games are hit notorious for hiccups and crazy things happening because it is such a short week so this this game is gonna be mega important for the Vikings going forward. I just don't know if I put a ton of emphasis one way or the other, whether win or lose, obviously you got to win of how I feel about the Vikings. I still feel good. I still feel like they're a top three team in the NFL, top four team in the NFL. It's just so hard to put a lot of stake on a Thursday night game. As much as you could be rational about that right now, next Tuesday morning, left left guard if they

lose i don't know if it's gonna feel the same way i would not say that if they don't win the walls are crumbling the season is over it might make me think all right this is a little closer to how i thought it was going to be because five and oh certainly wasn't how i thought it was going to be because five and O certainly wasn't how I thought it was going to be. But if it's more of the, okay, they could play with anybody, but they can also kind of fall apart at the wrong time. And that's who they are right now as a team, but they've still got this easy schedule coming up.

It will make me also take those teams less for granted though. Well, Hey, you're going to Jacksonville. Well, they lost to the Rams. You know, we would go back

to that so i think there is some importance to it and just mathematically if you win it you go to six and one you have the next three games against the afc south get on a run here and get to get to nine and one get to eight and two get to the point where uh you are competing for the entire conference so it will swing it from that perspective because then you're going to feel like, well, maybe they could drop a game that we don't expect here going forward. Do you think they will win? Yeah, I do. I think the Rams, you know, they did they end up winning on Sunday

or do they end up losing? I can't remember. I watched someone's game. The Ravens? No, the Rams. Oh, the Rams. Yeah. Oh, no, they won I joked that they

had a bye week because they played the Raiders that's what it was yeah you know I'd look at that team and yes they're getting Cooper cut back but they're on their like fourth string tackle still you know their defense is young but they're good I just don't think that they're a complete enough football team you know I picked them to be in the NFC championship game before the year but that was back when they were fully healthy. They have not been fully healthy since the word go of this season. And I think again, coming off a short week with some young players, they're going to have to play in key roles for them because of that. I do think the Vikings end up winning this week.

Yeah, I'm easily going to pick the Vikings here. I think that the better team often just wins on Thursday night football, uh, shorter prep. It's a lot more just about talent than it is about tricking each other. So I think that they will win and we won't have to have that conversation about what it means that they didn't now to love to see it, hate to see it. I hate to see it that Lamar Jackson won MVP last year, put up the game he did last night. The Ravens are now the team to beat, I think, in the entire NFL. And every team in the league had a chance to at least make an offer to Lamar Jackson a couple years ago. Now, the Ravens probably match it. They probably don't take the draft picks and everything else.

But nobody even gave it a shot to find out. I mean, can you imagine the Atlanta Falcons with him, the Minnesota Vikings with him? I know it doesn't look exactly the same because it would be expensive. But there's this thing about never paying quarterbacks. No, no. Pay the right ones the big money and you'll be OK. Lamar, the right one. Just what an unreal performance on Monday Night Football.

That two-headed monster of Lamar and Derrick Henry is going to be borderline impossible to stop if they stay healthy. I mean, that offensive line is clicking. They're enormous, right? Roger Rosengarten's second-round pick out of Washington has been one of their best offensive linemen as a rookie. Daniel Flaherty, the Minnesota Gophers' finest, 390 pounds of them in their right guard.

All pro, Tyler Lindenbaum, right? Pat McCurry in at left guard. And then, obviously, Ronnie Stanley's been a pro bowler multiple times at left tackle. You pair that with Lamar and Derrick Henry behind them, holy cow. And then, you know, it's one of those things where so many times when you're playing the Ravens

or you're playing any team in the NFL, it's like, hey, make them one dimensional. But let's make them one dimensional. Let's make them be this. Well, Zay Flowers on top of Mark Andrews on top of who's the guy that went to Minnesota? The Rashad Bateman, Rashad Bateman, right? Like you start putting all those guys together. That is a complete of a team, as you can ask for offensively. And so, yeah, NFL, you missed the boat, but also NFL, you missed the boat picking up Derek Henry too. So many people said, Hey, he's old.

He's broken. I'm watching 250 pounds roll down the sideline, pulling away from defensive backs going, my brain can't comprehend what is happening right now. Right. And so, yeah, the Ravens are on a terror. They started the year slow against the chiefs, but they will meet again and I will look forward to that game.

And 2002, Derek Henry would be the highest paid player in the NFL. And I think if we were making an all time freaks list and you just went, I mean, Adrian Peterson might be the all-time freak running back but derrick henry is pretty darn close uh with his size and i love that picture of him in alabama with mark ingram uh so what do you got for i love to see and hate to see it my hate to see it is if you're a if you're a new york giants fan and you had to watch the man that you let walk out of your building go to your division rival not have a revenge game but to come into your stadium that he built on the backs of Saquon Barkley the last four years and have him alone out gain your entire

offense that is a painful pill to swallow. That is a tough one. And then, of course, they had the hard knocks where the owner's like, well, I just don't want to see him go to Philly, right? It's like, it's okay. I mean, I just, that still, I understand why they moved on from him, but that had to hurt so bad as a Giants fan to come back and watch that man just gas you up and down. I think he had 176 on the ground, like another

19 or 20 yards receiving. So, I mean, almost 200 yards all-purpose yards. And then to watch your offense put up 119 yards. 119 yards. It's a tough day to be a big Blue fan, man. It's a tough day. There are some teams that are so far down that you just feel a pang of sadness i'm not saying super sad but i mean the giants what do you do to escape this and at least with a team like the panthers you could see the path like they're tanking they're going to be the worst team in the league and they're going to draft the top quarterback and see what they can do from there.

And that has worked sometimes and not worked sometimes. New England, though, I know an offensive line that got called soft once upon a time in 2016. Not a thing to do. I learned about that in my first year covering the team. Do not call your players soft, my friend. Gerard Mayle, amateur hour in new england that is the fact that he's a former player and did that is mind-blowing to me i tell people all the time you can call me an a-hole you can call me just about anything and i'll be like okay

but there's something about the word soft as an nfl football player that it's fight on spot, right? You look at me soft. I'm soft. I'll show you soft mother. Like, you know what I mean? It's just one of those things that behind closed doors in a personal meeting, in a family meeting, in the meeting room to say, boys, we're not playing very good football. This is soft football right now. That's the way. But when you publicly come out and say it, you're immediately telling your players, I don't have your back. I don't have your back. It's your fault. It's not my fault. It's your fault that you're soft. It's not mine. And that is not okay by any stretch of the imagination. It's kind of been a train wreck from the start. You talk about looking back at like the Jude on stuff that happened with him and that blow up there going up there. That's,

that's a tough place to be right now because there's not going to be a lot of happy people in that locker room when you call them soft publicly yeah i don't think that it's i mean it's not a great thing to call people soft in a meeting uh if you make a soft play certainly you could call that out but that's all behind closed doors to come out to the public. You are announcing to the public. And sometimes I think this happened to Zimmer coaches forget that they're not just in the room with a couple of reporters and they don't realize that it is sent out to the universe.

Everything. And O'Connell is really good at this. He understands every time I speak, it is going out to the Viking nation, if you will, the, the fan. Every time I speak, it is going out to the Viking nation, if you will. And there is a certain former Viking player who I talked to about the media and how to deal with it. And I said, what you have to remember is when you talk to us, you talk to the players' families, your teammates' families. They all watch these things.

They all read this stuff. They know what we're saying. They know what we're saying. They know what you're saying. So if you say it was somebody else's fault, not mine on that play, that person's whole family's texting them. Did you see that your teammate called you out? And you got to realize that that's the case, that it's bigger than just, well, that's my message to the players. It's also not 1991, man. It's not just going to make the local news. And that's not how you talk to grownups who put 365 into this anymore to motivate them. So I feel like he, that was my hate to see it. He missed the mark. My sarcastic hate to see it is Aaron Rodgers

blaming the media. Oh no, Aaron, we did it again to you, buddy. Sorry. Whoopsie. We talked about your team losing and you being mediocre for now. Really a long time. The last time. And Carmen Vitale had this. The last time this man, Aaron Rodgers, threw for 300 yards. Do you know what it was? I don't. 2021.

Yikes. I did not know that. That is a long time time age is a problem and uh according to aaron everything else is the problem everyone else is the problem but you know i haven't been too sad to watch it crash and burn that's kind of what i was hoping for to be honest with you i mean i think that somewhere robert salia is actually slight relieved that he's going this i i got to wash my hands of this you're still paying me i'll be in cancun call me when you need me right but it's been interesting and then you trade for davante adams

and the whole bit there and that he's living with him now apparently and they like ride to work together it's just kind of a weird it of a weird thing going on in New York. And if you're a New York fan, you've got the Mets and the Yankees are doing their thing, and then you're just like, do I have to go to East Rutherford on Sunday again? This is just getting painful to watch on both fronts. All right, one more from you. What do you got? Yeah, you know, my love to see it is going to have to be, excuse me. I'm going to go one more hate to see it here. I didn't

want to top this. I have to, my hate to see it is that Tua is going to be practicing this week. I don't understand it. I don't understand that when someone asks you a very simple question of, are you going to wear a guardian cap? You say, no, I don't understand that someone in his life is not sitting him down and saying, buddy, give it a year at least, right? You're paid.

If you want to come back, I understand you're an ultimate competitor. I understand you want to do all these things, but try again next year, right? It's been four weeks since we saw you unconscious on a football field for the third time. I don't love that. He's coming back. I don't love that he's coming back. I don't

love that people are allowing this to happen. Someone needs to be an adult in the room and sit this down and say, this cannot happen this year for the safety of you and your life and the rest of your life moving forward. Yeah. And I, I mean, the way that he talked about it was almost, ah, thanks. Thanks for caring about me, but I got this. Like, okay, I get that that's going to be every athlete. They want to go out there. Every player who gets taken out of the game for a concussion tries to fight the trainer.

And so I'm like, I'm fine. I want to go back in there. So I get it. I get the mentality. I get the warrior mentality and so forth. It's not just him, though. It's also the team, the league. Does anybody want to step in and say, okay, we need to get a full assessment of this person.

There's no way in this short of a period of time, concussions can last for a very, very long time beyond when you can just go out and play a football game. But throughout your life, can we get a bigger sample size of what is happening with this man? Why these concussions are happening the way that they are to him and maybe be able to assess where he is with his brain and do further testing and give bigger, just the amount of time for it to heal it and know that he should be able to play again to come back in a couple of weeks after an injury or like that and know that he should be able to play again.

To come back in a couple of weeks after an injury like that, it just doesn't seem like it's enough. And I'm not a doctor, a scientist, anything like that. But having just seen these play out, covering this sport, it can be one of those things where, oh, I'm good, I'm ready to go, I'm back. But then it's weeks from now that it crops up again. And with every one that you have, the next one becomes easier. I think we all know that fact. That's also a team that's totally lost right now, and I just can't see them getting into the playoffs.

I don't know. Yeah, I don't like anything about that. It's one of those things where you're not going to want to watch it. I'm not going to want to watch a Miami Dolphins game because it's a ticking time bomb. It's not a matter of, Oh, it might happen again. It's going to happen again. It's just a matter of, I don't want to see it happening. And I don't want to see him run up the middle and Dexter Lawrence just throws a shoulder in there and he goes down again. And now everyone's going, Oh my gosh,

how did this happen? And it's just, it's sad all around, and I get it. I was on that side. I know what it's like to sit on the sideline and watch your teammates and your brothers go out there and fight every single week and be losing because you're not out there. It's a tough place to be as an ultimate competitor, but at the same time, he's like 28 years old.

There's a lot of life out in front of you, man. I just wish, I wish he wasn't playing this year. I just really do i i'm not saying he doesn't play forever if it was me i would say don't play ever again but i just wish if we're really going to go down this path 2025 in august seems like a good starting point again you have a lighter note to end on because that was pretty heavy i'll go i'll go a lighter note uh how happy is amari cooper amari cooper decides hey gonna get traded over here play with josh allen deshaun watson goes down for the year dorian thompson robson's now fingers so he might have He's Amari Cooper. Amari Cooper decides, hey, going to get traded over here, play with Josh Allen.

Deshaun Watson goes down for the year. Dorian Thompson-Robson is now fingered, so he might have been catching balls from Jameis Winston, but now he gets to go catch balls from Joshua Allen. And to have the touchdown to where Josh comes up and kills it and he looks out at Coleman and gives the old double palms up, like, I don't know, and he goes, just go cook the safety. Okay, I'll go cook the safety, and Josh will throw me a dart where it's a spear to

kill me. No one's happier than Amari Cooper right now. That's going to be a big pickup for the Bills. Keon Coleman kind of found his way again this week. They're starting to get rolling again. They're not out of it. They're not, as long as Josh Allen is the quarterback there, they are an absolute Super Bowl contender. I apologize for doubting them. I also thought the division would be a little better. They are going to run away with that division and go into the playoffs with another shot at it with Josh Allen.

And, I mean, if you're picking teams right now, it's probably Baltimore 1, Buffalo 2, Kansas City 3. Maybe Kansas City needs to play a single good-looking game for them to have that title. I don't know. But what Buffalo did, just taking apart Tennessee with Amari Cooper, very, very impressive. So next Tuesday, we'll have this Thursday night game to break down,

another one to preview going forward. It'll be national television against the Indianapolis Colts. That'll be fun. So we will talk then. Thank you so much for your time, Mr. Searles. Absolutely. As always, football. Football.