Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Jeremiah Sirles talks about what he has loved and hated so far in the 2023 season

Episode Date: December 6, 2023

Former Minnesota Viking Jeremiah Sirles talks with Matthew Coller about the things he has loved and hated most throughout the season, from the emergence of young players to QB injuries to the refs and much more... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider, Matthew Collard here, joined by former Minnesota Viking Jeremiah Searles for another episode of Tuesday Morning Left Guard. And this is a very special episode where we are going to do all love to see it, hate to see it, because it's sort of still the bye week and we don't have a lot of new information to share. It has not been officially announced that they're going to stick with Josh Dobbs,

but we're sort of pretty sure that that's going to be the case. So we've got a lot to talk about for the season so far and the final five games, all in love to see it and hate to see it fashion. I'm just going to start this one out, Jeremiah, with a love to see it slash hate to see it. I love to see Jake Browning finding a way to succeed with the Cincinnati Bengals out of absolutely nowhere for a guy who was cut by the Vikings in favor of Sean Mannion being the backup. And hey, maybe in 2021, if Browning had stuck around, he would have beaten Green Bay at the end of the season when Mannion had to start. Probably not, though, but a tremendous game. He plays in Jacksonville, a guy who worked really hard the opportunities that backup quarterbacks have gotten this year has opened up some amazing stories including josh dobbs

but also hate to see it trevor lawrence goes down joe burrow is down kirk cousins aaron rogers is still pretending like he's going to come back but he was never ever ever ever going to come back and that's not even the half of it I mean what a strange year for terrible injuries that have ruined team seasons and yet amazing stories of Joe Flacco showing up and playing well against the Rams right so I'm gonna put that right in the category of love to see it hate to see it yeah it's it's such a bizarre time when you flip on a tv and you flip on a game that you're used to seeing a quarterback you're're like, this is weird. This is weird.

It's just weird watching this guy go. I mean, Gardner Minshew wasn't supposed to be the starter for the Colts, and now he's thrust into action. It's just across the league. You're looking around. It's the biggest carousel of quarterbacks I can remember ever seeing, ever watching football. A lot of it has been like,'s not like oh like i got knocked out

cold it's been like big injuries too not like oh he's gonna miss a week or two here like no no done for the year done for the year done for the year but you know it just i love it as a career backup like i was myself you know i love that these guys are getting opportunities because they're extending their careers by years like honestly by years i, Jake Browning, this was probably his last year to really get a chance before they were just going to move him on and bring in the next new guy and try and mentor him through. But after a performance like that, and if he can string together four or five more good games like that,

he's going to be a career backup. He could be the next Charlie Whitehurst. That dude could be the next Clipboard Jesus, right? That's the best job ever in the NFL, just being backup quarterback chart the stats being the good guy in the room I mean it just goes to show if you get your opportunity you never know when it's gonna come you got to take it so I agree I hate seeing it the NFL is nowhere near the product and nowhere near as good as it can be when those guys aren't playing but at the same time good on those guys similar way my my it's a hate to see it i guess i mean i

guess the nfl playoff committee is gonna have to keep the jacksville jaguars out of the playoffs now since their quarterback is hurt right i guess now we're gonna just look at it and go your quarterbacks hurt we can't let you in you just we can't do it right and that's all fun and games but i'm poking it because i hate to see florida State got screwed I hate it I think they got screwed and you and I might have different takes on this because I think you might be more along the like I want to see the competitiveness but to what the committee did to Florida State and basically gave them the double birds of like listen it's the ultimate team game but man not really if we don't deem that without your quarterback you can't win I just don't think it's fair.

I think it really messed with the integrity of college football. I think it's saying a message that wins are not as important as how you win or however you want to say it. And everyone can go back and forth like Alabama this, Alabama that. They needed a literal act of God to beat Auburn, and they got one. And now somehow we're deeming them kings. So I hate that for Florida State. I hate that for college football. I'm excited we're going toing them kings so i hate that for florida state i hate that for college football i'm excited we're going to the 12 team playoff but absolute travesty that florida

state did not get into the college football playoff so i feel you and you have a real deep love and passion for college football which is different from me where I just plant myself on one spot on my couch and I just go, we, I am along for the ride. So crazy stuff happens each week. I text you like, oh man, you see this crazy thing. That's all I'm there for. I am just there for the wild ride. So it's harder for me to muster up like passion about Florida state being screwed. I think you make a very fair argument. I mean, you could argue that Alabama didn't always win in impressive fashion in all of their games, especially against Auburn with, you know, coming so close to losing, but also losing to Texas as well. So they have a loss

and other games where they were not like, Whoa, look who it is. Uh, I think the other thing that factors in that nobody wants to bring up is that they're afraid of Nick Saban and that like Nick Saban still runs college football. And if they left Nick Saban out, you'd much rather have the Florida state coach. I'm not sure who that is coming out and being like, Oh, well, screw them. We're going to sue or something. You're like, who cares your Florida state? But if Nick Saban gets screwed, you better like really be sure. Uh, so that I think that no one wants to admit that, but it plays in, um, also as, as a very casual enjoyer who is only really looking closely when it's a quarterback, the Vikings might draft. I'm going to enjoy the games more with Alabama.

It's just a fact of the matter, man. I watched that Louisville-Florida State game, and I felt like I was watching Bears-Vikings again. And I just felt sad for everyone involved. And I thought, no, it's okay. It's wrong thought no it's okay it's wrong but it's okay that's how i feel yeah and i i get the argument behind it but you know just being a guy that truly understands how hard it is to take a group of 18 to 22 year olds and have them do everything right for 365 days from their last loss knowing like boys if you do this and you do this and you trust me and we do it and we win everything

you're going to get your shot at a national title and to just have that gripped and ripped out from you with no reason why behind besides oh quarterback didn't break his leg soon enough if you would have snapped his leg like six games earlier and then they like put some things together and like but no sorry your Heisman guy

snapped his leg the rest of you must suffer with him right hate that for those guys but I do understand the idea. My biggest fear, and this is going to be my biggest fear, is that Alabama wins the whole thing. Because if they win the whole thing, that one's going to be like, huh, look, you idiot, they were the best. You were wrong. That's my biggest fear, that they somehow win the whole thing.

Very plausible. Yeah, very plausible. And that's what plays into the argument for me on that side of it is like if we are taking the team that has the best chance to win the national championship florida state with that quarterback and even their other backup quarterback who's going to be coming off a brain injury so they're like oh but he's better like okay um but like uh which team can actually compete for the national championship? The answer is not Florida State. So no matter what they did, everyone was going to be really unhappy with it,

which is why Mike Leach was right when he went on that huge rant about how you can have a tournament and you put a lot of teams and then the teams that win are the better ones and then they crown a champion at the end and uh please don't tell me that it's the integrity of the bulls there is no integrity in college sports thank you this is a this is a mess it's a calamity so why not have it at least the right way yes once we expand it to 12 maybe it's a little less ridiculous than four but we're always going to have this controversy and And I just sit and eat the

popcorn during these controversies. Like that's all I just like, Oh, is that what we're talking about? Let's watch these people argue on TV. That that's me with this. Um, speaking of college football, I can't decide whether it's love to see it or hate to see it. The quarterback class of 2024, because there are some analysts that I follow who are like look if you're talking about anybody except for caleb williams and drake may why don't you just pack up your stuff and leave because there's no other quarterbacks and uh of course i think jalen daniels is going to be a very very high draft pick so he's in the mix as well and then after that there's more debate over whether michael panics since he's older than you, like, is that a problem?

Bo Nix has literally only been good at Oregon, was absolutely brutal when he was at Auburn. So is that just the setup situation? J.J. McCarthy. Hey, you saw him play Jake Browning last night. So, you know, that's what it's going to have to look like if you want McCarthy to succeed in the NFL. But he's talked about as a first round pick as well. But then there are people like ourselves who have actually watched him that don't see a first round draft pick. So I can't decide, like, is this actually great for the Vikings because there's going to be five first rounders?

Or is this actually not good for them because it's going to be picks one, and four like it was last yeah i see i don't think it is good for them because you never want to convince yourself that you're getting your franchise quarterback in the bottom of the first it just it never historically really works out you know there's always the outliers right like lamar jackson going the last pick of the first round right but even then everyone was like we're not sure maybe he's a running back right like you never want to sell their soul. And with this many quarterbacks in the draft, you can almost spin yourself into a convince yourself mode.

Like we stole this guy late in the first, and he's going to be our guy for the next 10 years. Then he doesn't pan out to be that type of generational talent that you see of the Trevor Lawrence's of the world. And those types of guys that go one, two, four, like you said. So I think for the Vikings, it's a, the Vikings more of a hate to see it. Cause you, you don't want to put yourself, you're almost praying. All those quarterbacks are gone by the time you pick, right?

You're almost kind of like someone else reach, right? Someone else maybe reach out and do it. And maybe, maybe Bo will still be there like late in the third or the second, maybe. And then there's not as much pressure to put on us that he has to play right away or whatever it might be but please for the love of god vikings front office don't draft jj mccarthy i can't i can't do it man i've watched him in college he's a very good college quarterback and there's nothing wrong with that there's a lot of good college quarterbacks but netflix is going to be riddled with the stories of the ones that are great college quarterbacks that can't pan out in the nfl And I'll eat my hat if I'm wrong, but I've done a lot of college

evaluations where I do for a living. I don't see him being an NFL starter. I just, for a long time, I just don't see it. I just want to understand what the skill is that's supposed to stand out. It reminds me of Desmond Ritter that when I watched him in Cincinnati, I got a lot of, you know, draft analysts in my Twitter feed talking about how good his footwork is or whatever else. And like, I believe you, but where's the cheat code? Where is the thing that's going to make this guy stand out? I mean, Michael Penix, you know, it doesn't take any effort to know what it is. It's his arm talent. And, you know, Bo Nix is a really great athlete. And obviously Jalen Daniels

is all these things uh Caleb Williams Drake May uh but tell me what McCarthy's going to do to separate himself so I don't I don't understand that but also I think what we've figured out over the last few years is that the quarterbacks are where I think the analysts have been the most off outside of the super stupendously obvious top of the draft. But a lot of, you know, 90% had Malik Willis as a first round pick. He goes in the third, we'll have his top five pick. He goes in the second round. So I think that this is like a tendency to happen with him and we'll see whether that actually plays out. I could see Pennix and Knicks though, getting some buzz and some connection to the Vikings.

And I can't decide whether I think that's bad or good, because even though I look at them and go, I don't know, I see some shortcomings there. I also think, well, Justin Jefferson is here and this setup is here. And a lot of what I'm seeing around the league, even with someone like Brock Purdy, is how good can you make it for your quarterback? And that is really what's going to push them into. Are they great or not? Even with Jordan love, like it can't be ignored how Matt Lafleur has adapted that game plan and how the receivers have come along. And then suddenly the guy looks like a better quarterback. So that's, that's going to be a tough discussion all the way through, but I guess we'll we're gonna find out whether i should

have hated or love to see it with the 2024 draft class yeah uh it's gonna be interesting how it all pans out and i do think that the nfl does their homework on the quarterbacks especially like out of all positions because it's just so scrutinized so that'll be fun to follow out my love to see it but hate to see it for the other 31 teams in the league the san francisco 49ers my friends that team is the most dominant NFL team I've seen in the last 10 years when they're on right and everyone's healthy and I know they had their three-game skid but when you look at what they can do offensively and defensively at any given time in the game, it is crazy the difference between them and the other top three teams in the league.

Usually when you talk about the top four teams in the league, it's like, man, it's a hairline difference, and maybe it's a certain player that really pushes them over the edge or whatever it may be, but cross the board, Christian McCaffrey, Debo Samuel, Brandon Ayuk, George Kittle, with Brock Purdy delivering and wheeling and dealing, played at a high level. And then, oh, by the way, thanks, Washington, for sending them over there. Oh, gosh, the Ohio State kid, Chase Young.

Thanks for sending Chase Young over there. And, oh, thanks, Broncos, for cutting Randy Gregory and sending him over there too. They just kept gathering superstars, and it just kind of was like, how are you doing this? And then they're all in there and everyone's bought in. You don't see fits on the sideline. You don't see guys crying because they're not getting the football and that blend of what that, what that is and what that's got going over there and the way they dismantled the Eagles in Philadelphia, put all 31 other teams on notice. We are the best team in the NFL, and it's not even close. So I love seeing it and watching them because it's so fun to watch them work.

But it also is kind of like, man, the rest of the NFL has got to be looking at this like, how are we going to get past these dudes in the playoffs? Folks, is there any better way to spend the holidays than attending sports? Knowing you guys, I'm guessing the answer is no. Well, there is a way to get to all of the events that you want to get to during the holiday season with affordable tickets my friends you are going to want to check out the game time app it's the fast and easy way to buy tickets to everything sports and also much much more shows concerts all GameTime. One of the cool parts about GameTime

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Lowest price. Download game time today. Last minute tickets, lowest price guarantee. They are just such a versatile team and such a violent team. And when you pair that together, I mean, their tight end is violent. They're running back there, you know, like everything that they have. The only shortcoming that I see that they have is that Brock Purdy can get pressured sometimes because that left tackle is incredible. The rest of the line is not flawless. So if you're talking about in a playoff game, could they get upset because Purdy gets strip sacked or, or someone hits his arm and he tears his whatever. And you know, that sort of thing like that could happen. But what's been really fascinating to watch is the way that Brock Purdy has come back this year

and done it again. And because it's something that like we saw from Jake Browning last night, a couple of games, there are a lot of quarterbacks in the NFL. They were picked by teams. They were put on rosters. They were because they believe that if they get in the game, they can do something. That's most quarterbacks. Right. And so we've seen over the years, the Matt Flynn, like the one random game or little, little run of games from Josh McCown with the Chicago bears, but coming into the league that hot and then carrying it over after everyone's talking about you after your off season has been limited by a major surgery and to be able to operate like this he just has like i think nerves of steel for one to go into philly and play like that and they hit him a little bit early and it didn't matter like that didn't throw him off but also the playmaking aspect of brock purdy has been so fun to watch like yet it's all those other things. It's all the playmakers. It's the design, it's the coach and everything else. But when things go a little bit off, he can still make something happen. And now that they have a quarterback who can do that, like they made the freaking Superbowl and the NFC championship with teams that weren't even this

strong with a quarterback who could operate all those other things, but couldn't really make plays out of structure. Now they have that very, very, very, very scary for the rest of the league. And, you know, sometimes we talk about, well, not sometimes all the time, team building, positional value, everything else. A lot of times it comes down to how many great players can you get? Not like you can fill in other spots, but how many great players they might have. 10 great players on their team i mean that's that is hard to match and it's in a league with 32 teams yeah i mean if

you even say in the same breath there's a potential two hall of famers on that team right and i think in that breath you can say trent williams and christian mccaffrey are i mean trent's pretty much a lock but like christian mccaffrey if he continues on this path for the next four or five years, is he a hall of famer? Probably. Right. So you're saying you have two potential hall of famers starting on your team right there in the same team. So rare, so crazy to be able to, especially in the day of the salary cap and the way that they've managed everything and the way that they've been able to structure deals and do everything like that front office john lynch what he's done there has been phenomenal being able to find ways to keep their superstars happy but we talk about too winning fixes everything as long as you're winning you'll say just about anything you'll do just about anything look at what the patriots lived in hell

right everyone was trying to there was times people couldn't get out of new england fast enough and also you're seeing these veterans that are coming in for one-year deals because like well we want to win right like as long as you're winning everything is gravy everything's good so the health is the only thing that will stop the san francisco 49ers in my mind can they stay healthy through the month of december and january as they make a run i thought you were actually going to say nick bosa is the other potential hall of famer. Yeah. I mean,

I mean, you could say they really have three. Yeah. And I will, I will say with Christian McCaffrey, I really doubted that move when they made it because McCaffrey's health because of how much they gave up. And I just thought, I don't know.

It's a running back. A lot of running backs are replaceable. And I was wrong. I mean, he is an incredible, incredible fit for that team. And he's been healthy this entire time. And he is truly special. Like there are only one, two, three running backs at a time in the league, Derek Henry, Christian McCaffrey, who can sort of transcend those other things that we talk about all the time with the price tag and the injuries and Christian McCaffrey is that guy. So you're right. If they are healthy, uh, they are hard, hard to stop. Um, especially since Dallas will throw the game

away at the end in the playoffs against them. Inevitably. Anyway, I'm going to, I'm going to throw out a love to see it here, which is the number of Vikings players who coming into training camp. I thought, man, I don't know about that guy. I'm skeptical, or I just don't really paying much attention who have made us pay attention to them. And I mean, and, and, and not that I didn't write about them in training camp, but coming into them, we weren't considering them factors. Ivan Pace, Jr. Josh Metellus, Caleb Evans, Brandon Powell. They have had a number of players this year really emerge as guys that we didn't expect. And it was one of the main goals going into the season when you rely on a

bunch of young players is let's see who shows up. And I'll give you another one for if we were giving like a most improved player. I mean, Metellus is obviously at the top of the list. Cam Bynum has been like a top five safety by PFF this year. He's been a great tackler. He's been a playmaker like to see players emerge reminds me of when I got here to Minnesota in 2016 and they had a swing guard tackle emerge into 2017. No, I'm just kidding. Uh, sorry. I mean, you, you played fine, but I mean, uh, a lot of other players, a lot of players though, you went from when I got here at the start of 16 to the end of 17 went from, Hey, this Daniel Hunter guy's pretty interesting to, Oh my, or this Eric Hendricks, he's a pretty, you know, pretty high draft pick. Let's see what

he's got to all pro like that's, that's just fun to watch. It's fun to cover. It's interesting to write about. And I think it speaks to their decision-making in the offseason and their ability to develop players. Yeah, that's the bigger thing for me is it shows this coaching staff's ability to still develop players in the NFL because that's something across the board in the NFL I think is lacking. And a lot of that is just the lack of consistency with coaches, coaches getting less and less time, staff overturn, playbook overturn, players trying to learn too much,

not truly developing, you know, scared of doing it in the weight room because you don't want to get guys hurt. Like all that stuff plays a factor into how young players develop in the NFL because you don't come in the NFL or you don't walk into the NFL unless you're a special, special talent, NFL ready. You just don't. It's a really hard game to adjust to. The speed from the best college football team to the worst NFL team is still light years ahead. And so to see the way that this coaching staff has been able to slowly

but surely, and you see the course of developing young players makes me really excited for the future for the Minnesota Vikings, because when you can have young players contributing that's how you build an NFL roster or excuse me a Super Bowl roster right you build that with the ability of like hey we can trust this young guy who's in his second year of his rookie gear we have two more years with him as a young like cheaper guy let's gives us the opportunity to go get this much x more dollars for a big free agent or this x more dollars to pay a big quarterback or whatever it may be to pay a big quarterback or whatever it may be to extend this player and that just shows that if you can have coaches that can do that you're gonna stick around for a long time and i think koc and the staff have proven their

ability to do that and that's a really exciting thing to watch yeah no i agree and they also have done it through players who i think have like a toughness and an intelligence factor to them that does remind me of some of those other guys like the Anthony Harris is the type that we see as someone that you don't make much of, but made me think about like what players you're drafting, what players you're bringing in as UDFAs and intelligence kind of rules in this game because the coaches put so much on these players that a lot of times the most physically gifted person isn't the one that has the most success. So that's, that's Bynum, that's Metellus. So it's also something that I've kind of thought a lot about when you see these teams have success through players that maybe weren't high draft

picks and doing it that way makes you believe that they have the right mentality. Like, of course, they're not going to hit on every single draft pick. And sometimes they're going to really blow it on some draft picks. But if you can identify and Flores has done a great job of this, those types of players, even if they are buried on the roster, then you've got a, you've got a better chance of finding those guys. And we almost like we've sort of just once someone establishes himself as good, we're like, okay he's good on to the next guy to talk about but you almost can't say enough about ivan pace jr and a guy like who is you know short undersized goes undrafted because he literally is the smallest linebacker in the entire league and the way that

he's played and then he has to take on the green dot and the defense continues to roll. Like it's, it's one of the most impressive things I've seen. I can't remember an undrafted free agent showing up and being a legit, like very good starter. Uh, he's the highest graded PFF rookie linebacker. That's insane. That doesn't make any sense. That's amazing. I mean, I didn't know that, but I mean, I remember watching him down at the senior bowl last year and thinking the same thing. He's like, man, he's kind of short or like he's not very big and then he blew the senior bowl up like he crushed the scene I was like this dude's gonna be a mid-rounder and to one I when the dust all settled like I looked around like where did that kid and

I was like he went undrafted to the Vikings holy cow like but, that's just value pick. And I think that he fell into the analytics of the NFL draft of maybe his hands are an inch too small or this, that, or the other thing. But at the end of the day, and this is what I tell my young clients too, once you step foot into an NFL locker room, none of how you got there matters anymore. All that matters is can you contribute

and can you help this team win a Super Bowl? That's it. And if you can check those two boxes, they're going to keep you around, right? And it's just a great story for undrafted guys. So just keep your head down, just continue to work. Yeah. And it's funny, just real quick before you get to your next one is when we had our intern here, purple insider, Haley English, who is working in the Detroit lions analytics department. Now that was her thing, mathematician, and she added a lot to the show. But she made a list of players that she identified on paper through their performance analytics, not combine, that could be low-key underrated players.

And Pace was at the top of that list. So I imagine the Vikings GM being analytically inclined may have spotted some of the same things. It's sort of a funny story of like, well, she was able to pick out one of those players, but maybe now she'll do it for the Lions. Anyway, on to your next one. Yeah, you know, my hate to see it is, I don't think we talked about this last week, the Panthers, again, letting Frank Reich go and then letting the offensive coordinator go and then letting some other one and them all basically coming out being like,

we wanted CJ Stroud. Just basically like, you know, it's not a great look when you have that going, but at the same time, it's kind of like when you get cut from a team and signed to another team in the division and it's like, are you going to give away all our secrets? You're like, damn right I'm going to give away all our secrets. They cut me. There's no loyalties there anymore. And just goes back to talking about david tepper and the fact that he's

fired three head coaches none of them have made it through the entire year you look at the soccer team that he owns he's fired two head coaches in the first years he's out there so he's owned these teams for five years now he's owned he's fired a total of five head coaches so you you hate to see the fact that Bryce Young's career might never get past the Carolina Panthers. And maybe it's no fault of his own. Maybe it's, I mean, but when you come out and you have the guys that have been coaching you, right?

I think of this from Bryce's perspective, right? Your head coach, your offensive coordinator, those guys that have rallied around you through this whole thing, and then like they get the ax and then immediately they just throw you under the bus. Right? we didn't want that kid right it's just it sucks for him it's not a great look for anyone involved and you know i just hate to see that i also don't believe them no i just i just don't believe them i don't i i i think that the whole world felt like Bryce Young was worthy of the top draft pick.

And I would love to go through and have people show me in the, and I know the draft analyst world, I make fun of them a lot, but show me where anyone was talking about the Bryce Young thing. And look, you and I saw him at the combine and we're like, wow, he's little, but yeah, very little. But at the same time, I mean, he was, he was very, everyone that I talked to that's not in the draft analyst world, but as in the NFL world was very high on Bryce Young as being the top draft pick because of his processing, his accuracy,

all that sort of stuff. And I, I think in order to even take that job, you have to tell the owner that you're on board with this idea that he has to draft Bryce Young as number one. And if you are so against it, then you should have gone and worked somewhere else. I give them zero stars for that. Zero stars. A, I don't believe you. I think you were on board 100% with Bryce Young over C.J. Stroud. And it's just sour freaking grapes because you all look dumb and you all want new

jobs somewhere else. So you're going to blame the owner. I'm going to, I'm going to, I'm going to go the other way on this with Carolina. I actually think that the crazy rich guy did the right thing here. Like that was, it was not a good fit for Bryce young. And this is having watched them play against the Minnesota Vikings that I thought Bryce Young did not have answers for things he needed answers for, especially some of the blitzes that he was facing. And I saw a guy who's being put in straight drop back, no motions, no play actions. And like all these things that we talk about that help quarterbacks and probably a guy that needed a little more adjustment time, but they had expectations for him right away. By the way, who's their top receiver? Adam Thielen. We love Adam Thielen. We appreciate Adam Thielen. And if this was 2017, that would have been great for him, but it's not. So did

you see Jonathan Mingo fly out of bounds with his feet first? Like they have, they don't even just have like not good receivers. They have receivers who don't even just have like not good receivers they have receivers who don't even know how to play football oh by the way did you see their offensive line total wreck complete disaster and then we're going to be like oh but i didn't want bryce young what i mean how how about we run a little bootleg action just to get the guy away from being killed every single play or getting pressured every single play i i think they need a lot of help there and it's better. It's better to cut ties on a bad decision than ride out a bad decision with a coach.

Who's not a good fit for Bryce young. I am not out on Bryce young, by the way, I think that it's still very plausible for him to become a good quarterback. I agree. I just worry that he's never going to have the tools put around him. That needs to be there. That's my biggest concern with him is it's going to be maybe of no fault of his own right but people were ready to write off lawrence

there for a while when he had urban meyer right and so maybe the new fix will come in that's going to be an incredibly important hire like whoever they get there i mean their their fate with bryce young will be intertwined forever and always right and that's a dangerous thing to do as a head coach but i hope they get away because you can see i guess this will be on my next love to see it young head coaches having success right i think about demico ryan's down in in uh the texans what he's done to be able to turn that program around to draft cj strab draft will anderson and just to be going at a high level right you talk about lafer up in green bay who loses his guy adjust his whole game plan, has those guys rolling in the right direction now. I like some of the young head coaches around the league

and how they're able to adapt and how they're being able to move. It's been tough at times for them, but I think that the young coaching world is in really good hands with some of these younger head coaches around the league. Folks, I hope you've enjoyed listening to us talk about prize picks this year, but if you've missed it, here's how it works. You go to prizepicks.com and it is simple. You pick either more or less between two and six players stat projections, and that's it. Now you're playing. So if it's X number of yards for a quarterback, you just decide, are they going to

throw for more or less than that number of yards but it works with lots of different options receiving yards touchdowns even field goals all sorts of sports as well prizepicks.com slash purple go there use the code purple for the first deposit match up to 100 one of the reasons i like prize picks it is very simple to use you see how we do it on the show real quick and easy. And then we talk about our picks and also not expensive either. You can turn $10 into 250 by nailing just a couple of picks. So go to prizepicks.com slash purple, the code purple daily fantasy sports made easy. Yeah, I agree with that and even what Zach Taylor did with Jake Browning and finding a way to scheme the ball to Jamar Chase was very impressive and I guess what I like about it is sort of studying like why has this worked so much from that McVay tree and the Shanahan tree which I think I mean

D'Amico Ryans has to fall under as well because Bobby Slowick is his offensive coordinator and Bobby Sloic came from San Francisco. I think he was quarterback coach, passing game all of the mindset of how can we tailor everything to the quarterback? And I think that Kevin O'Connell did a really good job of that with Kirk cousins and is learning on the fly to try to do it with a backup quarterback. And maybe, you know, we'll see how that plays out the rest of the way, but this philosophy of changing from the older era of being like a psychotic ogre as the head coach to more of a, I'm going to understand the people I work with, the skill sets I work with. I mean, it's something that, and look, I'm not like watching business YouTube or whatever, because that's probably really weird. But I mean, I think the business world has been sort of on top of this for a long

time, right? Of like understanding that management strengths, identifying them are really important. And so they have coaches who are really good at identifying strengths of their players and putting them in those positions to succeed. And I feel like the other thing is too, with the influx of data and things like that, these coaches are much sharper when it comes to their game planning because they're not guessing on tendencies from what they looked at on tape and hoping they are getting really in-depth data analysis for their game plan so it's sort of becoming like this this football chess game that everyone talks about but with like they have engines for for chess that tell you the right

moves it's like they're they're able to use all this information. So it's more coaching controlled success and failure than I think it's ever been, which is a development that I'm sort of fascinated by. Yeah. I think that's a great point. I mean, it's no secret. A lot of people, you FaceTime your mom and dad or the older generation. How do I flip the camera? How do I do this? Can you set up the internet, right? Like, no, the internet exists, mom. You don't need me to set it up, right? But like that type of thing is moving more and more into a modern game of college football, modern game of NFL, right? And with the immediate feedback you can get from data, it's also about how quickly can you get that feedback and immediately turn it back around to help your team. And that just takes

people being comfortable and being familiar with that data and how to use it. And I think that just comes to a younger generation of understanding how that stuff works. Shout out to my technologically advanced parents who also watch every Tuesday morning episode. They have they have had no trouble transitioning from even podcasts to YouTube, wherever the show is, they'll find it uh but yeah no i think that's a really it's a good point and i just like we're advancing and that's always to me what has made football so interesting all the time uh from a i hate to see it perspective and this is hard to have a real opinion on the refereeing this year has been tragic it's and and look what i hate to see is

when i watch college and these these refs shouldn't be better and they're not but they're like oh i screwed up let's get yep okay all right all right everybody back to playing and does it take forever yes but we've already gone down that road trey achman the other night was getting so teed off he was just like what are you looking at what is your problem so it's already taking forever anyway i think that uh we what we need to have is refs on the field refs in the booth that it's just a 50 50 split where there's refs that are down there that are controlling the game keeping the you know the players from having melees and spotting the football and the whole

operation but also in the booth where you can just see the the game of inches because a the nfl has the money if walmart can buy a football team for five billion dollars i think they could come up with a few bucks to put a few referees in the booth. But what's always driven me nuts is we're going to review stuff, but only if X, Y, Z, and whatever. It's like, wait, so you can review if Jamar chase stepped out of bounds, but you can't because it was over time. You can automatically review, but you can't review what happened with Patrick Mahomes when he clearly did not step out of bounds. I mean, I just the lines are so blurry all the time with this review thing. It really should be everything can be reviewed by what's up in the booth and they can buzz down. We're just going to get there eventually.

But it's almost like the NFL has to make sure that we go there slowly because it's too radical to just be like, oh, we're reviewing pass interference now or something like that. So they just need to take a bunch of steps. It's just affected so many games. It's been so frustrating this year. I know it's always like that, but it's a major hate to see it. Yeah, the inconsistencies across the board are for me or what I hate, right? Like the days of, man, they're letting those boys play out there today. Like not really a thing anymore, right?

And I think it was the Cowboys game, maybe the Thursday night game where I was like, I can't even watch this. There's no flow to the game. There's a penalty every 30 seconds. Like it's not fun to watch. It's not enjoyable where first and 10, to get from first and 10 to the next first down

takes 20 real life minutes because there was eight penalties in between it, right? And so i get where you're trying to call the penalties but i think the nfl needs to make it the referees are full-time paid employees like they need to have a union they need to have someone that holds them accountable there needs to be firings and demotions and like that needs to and if you can have a players union where if you're going to call ourselves the epitome of the best of the best, right? And that's what the NFL is. You are the best players in the world, right? There is a very select amount of you that needs to be the exact same standard hand accountable for everyone across the board. And that includes the referees.

You need to have the NFL says we employ them. We have at the end of the year, they can either get renewed or demoted based off of how we grade them. They can have their own union. They can do whatever they want, but they need to be paid and they need to be full time employees of the NFL. Yeah, I mean, I think there's that. And I'm just going to because I in general was against replay review from the beginning. Like this is a monster that you're going to let out of the box and never be able to put back in. At the same time, this game has so many people out there all moving so freaking fast that, I mean, even when it comes to, I think if a referee throws a flag that you should have another referee in the booth that can look at it instantly and tell them whether to pick it up or not. I mean, there was a holding the other night that was so preposterous. It wasn't

even close to holding, but maybe the angle of somebody that's what, right. Yeah, right. Exactly. That's a defensive lineman flailing around like a fish. And in that instance, when all of America, when 40 million people who are watching all knows it wasn't holding except for the guy making the decision why can't we just be like no it wasn't holding we're good play on all right we're picking up the flag and then you know what no coaches could be like why are you picking up the flag like well somebody else reviewed it and we took care of it yeah so that you know because you see these coaches heads blow up over refereeing all the time i think that would resolve some of it.

And to your point, they must know who's good at this and not. In baseball, there's ways to analyze even the percentage of correct strikes and balls. They must have a good sense, and yet they never really make changes with it. So don't want to go on forever about the refs. I feel like I could, but just in general, not a fan to have seen it. I'm going to go with, I don't know if it's a love to hate to see it. It's a hate to see it. The Chargers.

The Chargers. I don't understand. Every year we sit here, you and I on the show and go, I think it might be their year. They have the quarterback. They have the wide receivers. They have the running back. They have Khalil Mack and Bosa. And every single year, they just find a way to just flush it down

the toilet. Like, and by this year, it was like by week six, everyone was like, they're done. They're toast, right? They weren't even really in the conversation after week zero, when everyone was like, this is the year they challenged the chiefs the Chiefs are on a down year this is the time they take the West that game against New England I wanted to stab myself in the eyes like it was so miserable to watch like I had it up on the four box I was watching I had red zone and I had them up to my wife's the Chargers fan and I eventually looked at her like can we turn this off like there's got to be a better game we can put on besides watching this punt fest going on over here. Like that was just so terrible. And I just don't understand it. That team's way too talented to be this poor. And that coach is probably on his way out. But again, you just paid Herbert a ton of money. I don't know what you do. You

draft a wide receiver that did you hear that story about how he only played on one side of the football at TCU? How is that a thing? And how do you get drafted in the first round if it's like, Coach, I just left? I don't understand how that's a thing. And he's struggled so much. PMT on Barstool was talking about all the receivers taken after him. And they're all like 500, 600-yard receivers.

And I think he has like 190 yards on the year or something crazy like that. So the Chargers is an absolute dumpster fire right now. And it sucks because I'd like them to be good. But I hate to see the Chargers right now. Yeah. Quentin Johnson, very Laquan Treadwellian, I think, where he was so physically talented that you could just sort of get him the football and find he'd find a way in college, but that is not how it works in the NFL in a precision league. Um, I guess it's hate

to see it. The NFL thinking that being sort of short or skinny would preclude receivers from being good as if like there hasn't been short and skinny receivers always, uh, that that's a, that was a weird one to me. And it was more so this year than previous years. But I think what we learn over and over is if somebody can play, then they can play. And Zay Flowers, Jordan Addison, Tank Dell, that is a hate to see it. Tank Dell getting hurt, but great, great player right off the bat. I mean, the physically talented big giant guy is not always the one that has the most success in the league. But as far as like the chargers, I have no idea. I mean, I really truly have no idea. Curse could be a curse. I don't know. Like I really know. I mean, it's because you can look at Brandon Staley, but then I also look at the roster and go, they do have some good players, but there's also a lot of holes. I mean, they've drafted players that I thought would work. They brought out offensive linemen that I thought would work and just like nothing has. And which sort of brings you to, well, do they need more from

their quarterback? And I, he might live and I've, I've made the comment before that he's sort of like Justin Kirkbert where it's, he's very giant and very impressive physically. But is it of the level that takes you somewhere? Or is it of the level that kind of leaves you stuck in the middle, hoping that you get good breaks and good health and things like that? And I'm not entirely convinced that he's in a different tier from Kirk Cousins. It doesn't mean he's terrible. And I mean, he's been a successful draft pick for them. But it kind of always comes back to that when you have the same trend even though they keep

trying to change lots of different things but I don't really know because people you know thought this about Dak Prescott too when he was with Jason Garrett that he was like a 500 quarterback who put up big numbers and sort of got lucky when he came into the league to have Zeke Elliott and now he's playing like an MVP candidate. It is a very hard thing to figure out. I really have no answer. But I do think that there is a real skill to firing coaches at the right time. So they'll fire Staley, and then everything lucky will swing back the other way

for the Chargers, and the next guy will look like a genius. You see this all the time. If we're just picking a team to hate to see it, it's Buffalo for me. I mean, just what like how they have, uh, there's that luck index that the NFL is putting out based on fumbles and drop passes and stuff. And of course, Buffalo is way toward the bottom. It seems like all of their losses are on national TV by one score where some special team or does something idiotic and you know whatever right or makes a 59 yard field goal in a monsoon or punt return for touch it's just like ridiculous stuff that team i'm gonna stick with this is talented enough to win the super bowl still and i i think that if

you face them in the playoffs if they are able to get in with these quarterback injuries or whatever i still wouldn't want to play against them because I still think that they're one of the best teams that has just had everything go wrong. Yeah, it's another question mark head scratcher. I mean, Sean McDermott, from what we believe, is a great coach, and he's won Coach of the Year, and he's done all these crazy things and good things, but now you've been through two OCs.

Dable left and took the head coaching job at the Giants. You fire Ken Dorsey in the middle of the year. Like, what is happening internally that is a disconnect, right? That's, for me, when I look at the Bills, I go, there's a disconnect somewhere. And maybe it's owner to coach, coach to coordinators, coordinators to players. But somewhere, the wires are crossed. Not everyone's on the same page. Not everyone's firing on all cylinders. And like you said, in a precision league where winning and losing is just so close every single week,

if you have that kind of disconnect, you're going to lose a lot of football games until you get it fixed. And you always go back to the Kansas City game, the AFC championship that you lost right at the bell there. That might be a disconnect that's just never found a way to get resevered there with those guys. So it sucks to see, but I agree if they get in the playoffs, you don't want to play them because Josh Allen, when he turns it on, he's the best player on the field.

I appreciate that. You gave Sean McDermott a coach of the year award that he deserved, but didn't get. He did not get last year. It was a very bizarrely Brian get it last year it was uh very bizarrely brian dable last year yeah should have been sean mcdermott so i've probably said that before uh how about before we uh before we wrap up i want you to predict what your biggest love to see it at the end of this viking season is going to be so what is it when we do love to see

it hate to see it at the end of the year i say well jeremiah what was your biggest love to see it from the 2023 vikings what do you predict you will be saying my biggest love to see it is we're going to have multiple pro bowlers on the offensive line i think brian o'Neill and Christian Derrissaw will both be voted into the first round Pro Bowl, not the alternate, dropped out, brought yourself in. I think both those guys are going to get voted in by their peers and all that, like the Twitter world and everything goes through it. But they are both playing so well.

I think that I'm going to say, man, that's really fun that the Vikings have two Pro Bowl level offensive tackles. I think this to say, man, that's really fun that the Vikings have two pro bowl level offensive tackles. I think this, this is maybe, I don't know if it's bold or not as a prediction that the biggest love to see it will be that they never fell apart, that they never truly. And this could be over this week for this one. So somebody, I got an email. I was joking around on a podcast literally last night about jake browning i was like well you know the vikings are good at stopping screens so i guess they'll be fine against jake browning and i was immediately had that one blown up which i'm fine with like

that's how this works right the nfl is changing all the time so this is in that category of well you never have it go wrong or right if you don't step out on a ledge. So I'm going to step out on that ledge and say that we'll say to them they never fell apart despite losing Jefferson, despite losing Kirk, despite going 0-3, having things go wrong this season with fumbles, with injuries, with whatever other calamities happen throughout the year. A lot of chances to just be a disaster, uh, crap team. And instead they turn out to be playing in the final week of the season for a playoff spot. Maybe they get it. Maybe they don't, but that will be a love to see it is that the ship

stayed afloat all the way through the adversity they faced. What do you think? No, I think, I think you, yeah, it's going to be a week-to-week thing right because if the wheels fall off on this thing this week or next week even and then they're off right because you start getting into the second you get mathematically eliminated from the playoffs and that as you get closer to the playoffs you get more and more of those going it's really hard to keep everyone together in those moments and so as long as the playoff hope is still alive and it's still right there and there's still everything to play for, it's easy to get up and go to work every day.

But when you get eliminated from the playoffs or when the playoffs seem so far out of reach, that's when you start to see guys kind of be like, why did we go through all this stuff? Or why did this happen? Or, man, this is not fun anymore. Whatever it is, because it gets to that point. It's hard.

We got there in 2016 when we started off 5-0 and then by the end of the year it's just like let's go home like let's get the offseason started let's restart like and so yeah i think that's going to be a fun thing to monitor and watch because if they do find a way to pull this thing together that's gonna be a great storyline that's gonna be a great storyline it's gonna build a lot for the future of this team uh cornerbacks go rogue at the end of the season and someone dangles from the top of the roof now the weird the weirdest thing about that by the way because you're right when when a team is eliminated for the playoffs the outside world doesn't pay attention there's it's always a bleep show like the only people who are caring are like the local fans but they've tuned out so it's just us

it's like us and you guys and they're the only ones that care about what's happening still but here was the one of the weirdest things when the person hung from the roof after the game Zimmer pretended like he didn't know it happened and everyone in the locker room was like I don't know like I didn't see it or whatever like a person hanging from the roof I started that game I remember in the middle of the game it was a tv timeout and all of us were like what what's happening up there like like the other team i think we were playing the bears and i even think the bears were like like we were like did you guys see that and everyone was like looking up like what's happening up there like i

don't know maybe they're fixing something maybe there's a leak or i don't know first and ten here we go like it was just it was just one of those things like i really didn't understand what was going on and in the moment like you look back on it like maybe we should have been a little more concerned like maybe that's something that should have rose like slightly more alarm bells than just like let's just evacuate the people from underneath them right like what is like i don't know i thought it was funny one guy i can't remember who said it someone's like someone should just like continuously shoot them with a paintball gun until they get down like i don't know. I thought it was funny. One guy, I can't remember who said it. Someone's like, someone should just like continuously shoot them with a paintball gun until they get down. Like, I don't know.

There were some fun jokes at the end of it about it. But yeah, I remember that. It was just absolutely bizarre. In hindsight, it was so weird in the moment. I think no one knew what to do. In hindsight, though, if the person was able to sneak in a banner of that size, what else could they have snuck in to the stadium and we should have maybe factored that and evacuated more people than just like those who were right below we had we had multiple reporters covering that game i was with 1500 espn at the time and we kept one guy in

the press box just to see what happened like are they gonna fall like i you know whatever who wants to be up there to see it in case it happens like it was yeah that was that was crazy but in hindsight probably handled poorly i remember i remember walking out uh of the restroom and walking there's like a long walk back to my seat and just looking out toward the field because usually uh if i'm missing something i could see it on the big board as i'm walking back and being like, that's not supposed to be there. What is that? What is going on? What?

And then our colleague, Brian Murphy, got a hold of the person on the phone. No. As they were dangling. Yes, because they found the website of where they had their organization that, I don't know, disrupts football games. And so then he called the number, and it was the person in a Brett Favre jersey. And they never showed this on TV,

so it was like only the people in the stadium seeing this insanity. And also no one cared as Matt Barkley was catching the Philly special down below. You remember that? They ran the Philly special, and that's where they got it. I mean, that is just the wildest that is just the wildest the end to a season yeah and it goes back to our point of when you're out of playoffs no one cares no one cares let's just get this let's just get to draft talk

man let's just get to draft talk figure out what we're gonna do and that's the only way this team doesn't fall apart as long as they have that glimmer of hope that shining light of we can still obtain this well and i think uh you and i will love to see it if we can go down to the final weeks where we're actually breaking down mashups keys of the game and so forth so uh we'll see what happens because i'm not ready to start draft talk just just yet not yet not yet not yet all right uh thanks jeremiah as always this really fun. And next week we will react to whatever in the world is going to happen in Las Vegas. Now we thought we didn't know before. Now we really don't know. So you take care until then.

Take a deep breath about the college football playoff. You know you're going to sit and you're going to watch it. You're going to love it when those games are close. So, you know. Maybe a Florida State personal hang from the banisters. That could be. Thanks, Jeremiah, as always, and we'll catch you all next time. See you.