Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Jeremiah Sirles talks us into Sam Darnold leading the Vikings to a winning record

Episode Date: September 18, 2024

Matthew Coller and former Viking Jeremiah Sirles talk about the Vikings' win and talk each other into stuff, including Darnold for 11 wins and KOC coach of the year. Yes, we know it's only been two games. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

hey everybody welcome to another episode of purple Insider. Matthew Collar here and guest who is back. Tuesday morning left guard, Jeremiah Searles. I think, you know, Jeremiah, it's been a long time since we've played a Talk Me Into. I believe today is our day to play Talk Me Into. Yes. But just to begin, just to begin, your thoughts, feelings, emotions about the Minnesota Vikings and their 2-0 record. You got to start with the defense. When I watched that game back, I was putting myself in the 49ers offensive lineman's heads,

and I was exhausted watching it. Not from a physical standpoint, from a mental standpoint. The mental gymnastics that you have to go through every single snap when you're playing against a Brian Flores defense is exhausting in itself. And all it takes is one small little lapse in that mental fortitude of we're knowing it, we're right IDing it for a disastrous play to happen. And I cannot give flowers or Flores enough flowers on the plan that he put together to rattle Brock Purdy, to not allow this running game, to really feel like it could get those chunk plays and to just keep everything in front of you while also being super

aggressive. It was a masterclass and a defensive coordinator and how you want to attack a team from a word from the word go all the way through the game explain it to me explain to me how this thing works because when brock purdy goes up to brian flores after the game and says that scheme is crazy bro some of the players after the game were kind of like i don't think we did anything too nuts as far as blitzing him and yet he was getting rid of the football slower than i think i've ever seen him get rid of the ball. And by that point, you get the pocket starting to collapse him from the very first third down. Jonathan Grenard was at his feet, and I don't think he liked that very much. There were a few times where he had to scramble and get out, and they have longer progressing routes sometimes,

and you have to wait on them or throw with extreme anticipation. And it seemed like he got antsy in the pocket, which is not his thing. I think he's one of the best pocket presence quarterbacks there is. So what was Flores doing schematically to cause so many problems for Purdy? I think the biggest piece was he mixed up the looks of what the coverage was on the pre-snap and then would roll to something different that wasn't hard for the defense to do it's not hard for the defense to present like it's man coverage and then at the snap of the ball especially at home at the snap of the ball because you can't hear hot hot hot or do all that stuff it's all in the silent count to roll into oh really it's cover three or hey we're gonna line up in what looks like a cover two shell and then oh shoot it's cover one man right that type of adjustment for the defense

is super easy to do on the tempo fly but from an offense that loves to do pre-snap motions and get pre-snap indicators and know where guys are and then base like you said the anticipation throw is so different if my pre-snap read is it's. And then when I go to throw at its zone and there's a guy standing right where I wanted to throw that anticipation throw, then the things have to break down. I got to get through my reads, get through my progressions and go. And I thought that he had Purdy on a little bit of his heels on the pre-snap stuff. And so we really had to see Purdy try and work through his progressions. And that happened a lot last year, too, with the way we disguised stuff.

But the difference is we have a better rush plan. We have better players up front that are affecting the pocket on a more consistent basis than just the Daniil Hunters. You have different guys coming. You have Procke coming from the middle. And then when he's sprinkled in, you have Martellus coming off the edge or Harrison Smith coming every now and then or whatever it is, and you're just putting more and more pressure on these quarterbacks to get the ball out quicker, to get to their reads, and then the rushers are getting there quicker. I just felt like he did a really nice job of messing with Purdy in this offense on the pre-snap side. And this is how coaches come up with the Jimmy and Joe's saying is

you can only do as much as a coach as your players talents allow you to do. So when you have Blake Cashman and you have Andrew Van Ginkle, these two versatile, highly intelligent players, all of a sudden the doors open for you. And then you mentioned Josh Metellus. He was a little bit of a versatile one man band last year,

but now you have multiples of these guys and then all of a sudden patrick jones comes alive and jihad ward comes alive guys who have not had a ton of success in their career but you can put them in roles where they're not the one that the offense is necessarily worried about so they get favorable matchups and then suddenly those players belong in the nfl for a reason because they can make some plays and this is something that i feel like happened years ago with the 2017 defense where you had so much talent that zimmer could do whatever he wanted and then we even saw it to some extent 2019 defense but last year we were seeing maybe 60 of what brian flores could do and then he was trying to cover up for everything else. But

now when you could say to Stefan Gilmore, Hey, why don't you go follow around Debo Samuel for a bunch of plays? There's a play where they're doing a fake little bubble thing where Stefan Gilmore follows him all the way across the field. And he's like, I know what you're doing. I know what you're doing and I'm not going to let you do that. And I think that that was really the key piece to this. I know that the off season signings were great. Those day one, big name signings, but to be able to trust a number one cornerback and so far have him play like that, that has been the thing that put this over the edge from, Hey, it's a good defense. You could do a lot of stuff with it too. Hey, it could actually be a really good defense with him. Yeah. Anytime you have a corner and I was lucky enough to play with multiple of those guys,

you know, got to play with Xavier, um, Zay, right. Xavier Rhodes there initially in Minnesota and Trey Waynes. And then I went to Buffalo and I got to play with Tredavious white when he was an all pro, it just allows their defense recorder to not have this fear of this dude just gonna blow the roof off my defense my defense at any minute right i have the confidence that this guy can lock this one receiver up and say this one will not beat us and with iuk still kind of getting back into season form he didn't look as crisp and he had the drop week one he wasn't running free i think he's still trying to find his way back after missing all of training camp devo was the one that they were like he will

not beat us gilmore devo will not beat us make someone else have to beat us make it pretty with christian mcafree out we don't have to even worry about him and they did a good job of eliminating a threat and putting the pressure on the rest of the team to say make them go and that's what defense scores offense coordinators love to do that too. If we're playing against an Aaron Donald or a Miles Garrett or a Bobby Wagner back in his day, we're like, this can't be a game wrecker. We can't let the game wrecker wreck the game. Make someone else step up and do it.

And that's what Flores has with Gilmore is, can you eliminate a receiver and make other people do it? Great. Now let's play within the scheme. What's so impressive about this defense to me is that they've had opportunities to melt in both games. I mean, not as much against the giants because gestures at Daniel Jones, but even when CJ ham fumbles in week one on that first drive, well, you could give up a touchdown there. And then all of a sudden you're chasing from behind, but instead that's a field goal. When you give up a fumble or an interception by Sam Darnold, you would expect that that was just going to be immediate touchdowns on the board and that that was going to cause major problems to ask them to go out there

and do more as opposed to being protected like they had to be in years past. And now it feels like Sam Darnold just doesn't have to be perfect. And this is why we always tend to categorize it into the offense and the defense, but they are interconnected. The, the, the, the way that the offense can perform when you can run the football better than they've run in a very long time. I would say 2020 is the last time that they ran this effectively through a couple of weeks. A shout out to Blake Brandel at left guard being a road grader. But so you're able to stay on the field.

You're able to have longer drives. They are one of the lowest in the league so far in three and outs, which is a huge deal for the defense. But at the same time, Sam Darnold does not have to feel like, boy, if I turn it over, that is going to be seven points. And I think that it's the first time and quite some time that we've seen a defense that you didn't think almost immediately it was going to be a problem when that happened. And what I love about the Flores scheme is

it changes week to week. Like I have no fear as of this moment that an offensive coordinator is going to flip on the first two games of the year and be like, ah, there's where we attack them or, oh, there's the hole in the scheme because it's just so versatile. The scheme is, so John Michael Schmitz is a client of mine, right? The agency who's center for the Giants. And we watched tape together a ton before the Vikings game, just trying to go through and be like, oh, they call this, this front. We call it that front. And now we line up in this and we have to check to that. And then we go to this guy and it's just like yeah i don't know if you're an offensive coordinator what you prepare for like what do you come in on wednesday install and be like here's what they're going to be on base i don't i think we're going to try and run this to start like that's kind of where you

have to go and then okay what's the flavor of the week what's the blitz of the week what are they going to sprinkle in are they going to go man are they going to go zone it's just so versatile and it goes all the way back to what you started this with he finally has the tools in his toolbox to do what he wants to do and you're seeing why he was a head coach in the nfl for a long time he's a brilliant defensive mind his brain works he's like a sean mcveigh but for defense and i mean you wrap them all into one and you hear him talk and he's calm he's collected his players love him he is a perfect fit for this vikings defense it's really the biggest win that the

vikings could have gotten when hiring him and moving on from ed donatel and not waiting to do that and trying to give him another chance and i also think too that the next wave of defenses will be a lot of people trying to copy what Brian Flores does, which is the way that he puts it is it's our defense, not my defense. And I think that that's a really important thing because when you have Harrison Smith on your team and some other players who have been around for a really long time, it sounds to me like Flores goes in with his ideas and then mixes and matches with the ideas of the players around him. And then he was explaining today about Blake Cashman. And we

know this from Anthony Barr too, that Cashman has a lot of freedom to make all the changes that he wants to make out there. So it isn't just Brian Flores saying, okay, I call this, this is the defense go play it. There is so much more going on out there where you can shapeshift at any time in any way that you need to. And it does come back to having the linebacker who's able to make those calls and Harrison Smith who's able to make those calls.

But I think the ownership of it that he's given to the players to give their feedback and the dialogue that he has with the players, that's something you don't always see. That's almost like a head coach and a quarterback, like Andy Reid and Patrick Mahomes working off each other, except for Flores is doing it with his defensive veterans. It makes you wonder, is that something that he grew from

when he moved on from Miami? You hear the Tua interview with, oh, he was a tell-me-I-was-a-terrible-person and yada, yada, yada. And then you hear what you just interview with oh he's a tell me i was a terrible person and yada yada yada and then you hear what you just talked about of hey he's taking player input and he's listening to his players i wonder if that was a growth thing for him or if he's always done that i don't know the answer to this you know but when you hear the kind of the evolution of maybe what he was to what he is now i think that might be a big piece to his success as he goes and goes, okay, I was the head ball coach. Didn't work out great for me. I did some self-reflecting, some self-scouting.

I checked the tape, right, and I made the corrections, and maybe this is something I want to add into, and he's lucky enough to fall into a room with guys that have played a lot of football in this league and have seen a lot of different offenses and played in a lot of different schemes. And when you have that trust factor with your coach, regardless of the position, if you have that trust factor of he's going to listen to me and it's not going to go in one ear about the other, and he's not going to come back

and say, I coach players, play coaches, coach, right? If it's not that hard line in the sand, and it's this collaboration of everyone's in this thing together, you're going to get a lot more buy-in from your players that way. It's also just a factor of the veterans that they were able to sign and bring in the type of people, because if you're asking young players to take on huge roles in a defense, they don't even know what feedback to give, but someone like Andrew Van Ginkle, somebody like Blake Cashman, guys who have been in the league for a while, they know what is working, what is not working, what the other team's tendencies are. And they can pick up on a lot

of things watching their own tape and share ideas with Brian Flores. And I think that was necessary for them to give him a lot of players that were capable of doing that as opposed to, Hey, Brian, why don't you just develop these three young corners or something? Like, I don't know that that was really the best for him that this is much better for him i you'd rather have a guy who's a little long in the tooth but has the intelligence than someone who has the physical tools and is younger uh i think with brian flores and we're seeing this come together i want to discover your opinions on the rest of this team and where it's going via a talk me into game. Okay.

So let's start with this. Anybody who doesn't know how this works, I ask you to talk me into something. You ask me to talk you into something. It doesn't matter how ludicrous the other person has to talk you into it. And that's where we got to begin. Sam Darnold, talk me into this. 11 and six as a starter in 2024 at the end of this season, 32 touchdowns, 10 picks for Sam Darnold,

and the Vikings don't really know what to do at the end of this with him. Talk me into that happening and then comment on how they would get there, I guess. I think the blueprint for how this happens is you look at what Baker did with Tampa and you look at how he came in and kind of revitalized himself behind a very good offensive line. So I think it all starts with if all that comes together is the five guys up front continue playing at the level of which they are playing right now. Christian Derrissaw, top three, if not top two

left tackle in the NFL right now. Brian O'Neill playing at a top 10 level at the right tackle position. Bradbury still playing at the level he was at last year, which I think is probably his ceiling, which is a good level. It's a solid top half of the league starting center. We can live with that all day long. Brake Brandl continues to develop. Maybe we get Dalton Reisner. Ed Ingram played a little bit better this week than he did last week. So you've got some more competition on there and maybe get the best out of those two guys. You continue to do that with your front five,

you're going to do the things that allow Sam to be who he is, which is not on his back. We have not seen Sam get planted, like planted, planted. Like I watched across the league all this weekend, quarterbacks getting planted and having to help themselves back up and drag themselves up and trying to figure out what day it is and all that stuff. They're keeping him clean, which is allowing him to play within the system.

So Sam Darnold stays clean, and then you rely on Aaron Jones and Ty Chandler in this run game. And if he has the numbers that you just said, 11-6, 30-plus touchdowns, 10 interceptions, it's because he's throwing the football less than 28 times a game. 28 pass attempts is your max that you want Sam Darnold throwing because that's less margin for error, and it allows him to air it out, throw it deep, do his things, and it allows him to play within his scheme.

But that all just predicates back onto running the football control and the clock and this defense playing at a high level. If Sam Darnold can do all that and operate this KOC system within the system, delivering the ball to different receivers, you get Hawkinson back here pretty soon, Jefferson hopefully is okay and he comes back, Addison comes back, he's going to be just fine. But the thing that makes me think this is even more possible

is watching that last drive with Naylor and Powell and not your studs and going right down the field in a got-a-score type of moment. Don't need a touchdown, but we need points. And you don't have your star-wide receiver. You don't even have your star young second player. you don't have one of the best tight ends and you methodically go right down the field that is a unbelievable drive by sam darnold and that was my favorite drive the entire game and if you get that sam darnold for the rest of the year absolutely all the things that you just happened are going to become true. Folks, U.S. Cellular noticed that the way we use our phones has gotten ironic. We try to

put our phones down for dinner, but the menu is on a QR code. That's ironic. We hit like on social media posts that we don't actually like. Ironic. Which is why U.S. Cell cellular created us mode to help us reconnect with each other and use our phones less ironically a phone company wanting people to use their phones less ironic let's find us again with us mode from us cellular visit us cellular.com slash built for us to get started. They ran a bunch formation on a third down and just did a little typical kind of rub out of a bunch formation while San Francisco was still sorting it out. And Darnold took the snap and threw it to Brandon Powell on time, right on the money. And it was one of those where when the quarterback completes it, you're just like, okay, well, good play. I guess he was wide open. Maybe they didn't defend it. Right.

When you look back on tape, you go, no, he caught the ball, got it out of his hands, put it on the money, exactly how they drew it up with, you know, somebody who's not considered a star wide receiver, but has developed himself into being a pretty reliable player. Remember he caught the game winning touchdown against Atlanta in the Josh Dobbs game, but the little things like that. And then there was another third down to Powell where he looked at his first read.

It wasn't there. Powell came open over the middle. It was one next read bang first down. And that was the one that really put it away when they were in the red zone, or at least solidified that you're going to get a very easy chip shot field goal to win this. And they were able to run down a bunch more clock after that, those little execution things from Darnold, the simple stuff is what mostly drives your success. And then you need to hit one or two big, maybe not always 97 yards, but maybe one or two explosive plays in a game in

order to make it work. And I have just been very impressed with his execution of the stuff that KOC draws up that works. So Naylor is open in the end zone, two weeks in a row. Got him. Yeah. Powell off that little rub thing. He's open. Got him. And that stuff is what I didn't really know what to expect with Sam Darnold, because I think it's been an issue in the past of him just simply executing an offense, making great plays. Of course, uh, I am maybe 80% talked into this result. I mean, the 30 touchdowns, 10 picks is aggressive. That's probably, probably what's he at right now. He's already at four. Yeah. And he's got 110 quarterback rating, which is something that I did not necessarily see coming, but it's only two

games and he's had pairs of great games before. And I think there will be dips, probably more severe dips than is going to make you have an 11 and six record and be in the MVP conversation, which I think you are. If you go, if he goes 30 and 10 and wins 11 games, then yeah. So, okay. I'm not quite there, but maybe into the, like you're in the playoff race and this could keep working. I don't see, oh, well, this is just going to fall off. It hasn't been lucky. It hasn't been random outside.

Again, the 97 yard touchdown, you're not going to get, but long throws to Jefferson, you will get with his arm. The thing that's so fascinating to me is the comparison of the opponents like you look at week one and the giants are a mess right an absolute mess but they look decent against the commanders like they didn't look like as much of a mess and then you look at the niners and you think super bowl contender right you're looking at bottom of the competing for the first overall pick in 2025 and a team that is then also looked at as a Super Bowl contender.

And you play them in back to back weeks. And it was consistent. It was consistent. There was no rise or fall to the level of the opponent. In my mind, when I watch those games back, it was consistent play by Sam. And I think that's him being a little bit more of a veteran now, being around the league, understanding how to prepare week in and week out, watching different guys prepare, being in different organizations, knowing what works,

knowing what's dysfunction, knowing what's good, all of that. And so him being able to prepare weekend and week out like this, if he can come out as prepared as he's been for these last two games, that's where I see this driving continue in the right direction. But it is true. I want to see what he's like when things aren't going well

and that's what we haven't seen yet we haven't seen when the wheels have fallen off and the defense somehow gets behind him and there's an 80 yard touchdown on the other end and the momentum has swung and now it's your job to go out there and get the momentum back on our side that's the stuff that we're projecting right now and have not seen and that's what makes a complete quarterback in this league complete is being able to do all those things. And it's just not fair to say, Oh, he can't do it because we just haven't seen him do it in purple yet. I'm curious what to see when things start going awry, if he can settle everyone down with just consistent quarterback play,

like he's shown through the first two weeks. Right. I tried to go wild with that to see if you could get me all the way there to, he's going to be that good. I can't get all the way there because I think we know that there are going to be some games where it's like that. And he has not been a quarterback that is known for when you're down, he's just going to put it all on his back. He tries to, and then throws interceptions is what generally happens. But the idea that you can continue to play your, your key point there was the,

if he throws less than 30 passes, if they're playing from ahead, his numbers show that under the right circumstances, clean pockets, playing from ahead, playing with good blocking. I mean that he has been a good quarterback throughout his NFL career. It's not like there's no sign whatsoever of that throughout his career before this. And they've been able to do that through the first couple of weeks what would you like me to talk you into sir can you talk me into that when we play the green bay packers in a couple weeks that we have the ability to shut down matt lafleur's brain of this run game that he's created and we watched against the colts last week do we have that flores ability to get after the run game like we have been with all the bells and whistles that we're playing here and teams are going to try and mimic the packers because it's

a copycat league can we step up in the biggest way on the defensive side to shut down those type of run games sometimes this is hard uh doing a viking centric show when the Packers do something so cool and you just, and you just want to go so cool. Can we talk about that for like the whole show? Freaking cool. It was awesome. I had a chance to look back at it and Chris, Chris Brown, who wrote the book, smart football, um, follow his thread where he just went through a bunch of the cool things that Matt Lafleur did great wrinkles in the run game and to have a quarterback like Malik Willis, who just showed up and no one believes in, uh, maybe it'll be a Josh Dobbs things for the, for them. I don't know, but that was kind of the adjustment we were looking for, for Josh jobs that we did not see

from Kevin O'Connell. And maybe I want to retroactively criticize a little more than I did because I went, ah, it's Dobbs. What are you guys asking for? But then this turns into the Air Force offense in Green Bay and they win a game against Indian and they're like, okay, maybe the Vikings should have tried some of that last year. I was so impressed with Matt LaFleur. I have been, even since the middle of last year, where I thought he really understood what Jordan Love was good at and was not good at and filtered his offense down to play off the run and work so well with Jordan Love. If there is one worry about the Vikings defense, it is the run defense because you have these lighter outside linebackers. Someone like Dallas Turner, if he's on the field, is not ready to stop the run in the NFL yet. That's going to take probably a couple of years. The defensive tackles,

I thought it's done an okay job so far, but this is not a group that has some of the, you know, Pat Williams in there in the middle and is just stuffing three blockers. Although Taki Taimani, how about that guy? He's been able to actually show up on tape a few times, but I mean, wow. And, and what a thick boy he is. He just, but he, he's not getting moved. He's a little bit Delvin Tomlinson that way. Uh, but I, they have smaller linebackers. There were a few times where Ivan Pace just got kind of thrown, uh, in that game against the 49ers. And I think it's going to be a weakness. And if somebody just entirely runs the ball,. And I think it's going to be a weakness. And if somebody just entirely runs the ball, and if you think about a different universe for the way that the game went

against the 49ers, if you recalibrate the things that happened and there was an interception, a fumble by the Vikings early in the game and the, and the 49ers take advantage and they could run all day, they averaged five yards of carry and gain a hundred yards. They were running just fine. It was just that you were like, oh, okay. Yeah. Oh, do that. Keep. Yep.

That's fine. I'm looking at the clock. Oh, yep. That's fine. Just keep on running. But if you have that same problem against the Packers, then it's going to be a very different story. I think what that comes down to though, still,

maybe just a bad day for Indianapolis. Almost like when who was it was it ronnie brown ran the wildcat and the patriots never saw it coming it's kind of the same thing there where indianapolis must have been like what what what are you doing but now it's on tape i i think it is still a concern if there's one thing that we can nitpick for the first two weeks it's how effectively opposing teams can run but if i'm talking you into it not being a problem if malik willis has to do any identifying of brian flores things he's in trouble and if you want to try to score a bunch of points just with all running the ball what are

the odds that they can do that to the 250 yards against the vikings after they've already seen and prepared for it i think it'll be okay if you can have the right type of game script, but if you fall behind, then it becomes a problem. Fair enough. I mean, I think I agree with you. I just, I watched the Vikings run defense, and then I watched the Green Bay Packers run the football over, and it was such a masterclass in running the football.

I mean, running the same formation over and over again, five different run plays out of the same formation, going over it, and just being physical, just a physical team. And that is the one part where you and I even text on game days like, I kind of miss Linville sometimes. I kind of miss that big 330-pound dude that's a freak show in the middle. That's the hard part about when you have a defense that's based off move-oriented and run it and gun.

If a team just wants to line up and go that way, forward, over and over again, you can get caught in some things. So I'm not as convinced as you, even with the game planning and what we can have, but I do think that it's not going to be like the Colts, but it does still concern me very much about going against a very run-centric team like that. Okay, I'm going to give you be like the Colts, but it does still concern me very much about going against a very run centric team like that. Okay. I'm going to give you a one for the upcoming week.

And then I have one more after this for you that I really love. So let's make sure I don't forget locked in, caught up in the conversation. So Houston talked me into CJ Stroud struggling with Brian Flores, his scheme. Yes. Well, the first problem is going to be no Joe Mixon, I don't think. If he is there, it's not going to be week one, 150-yard rushing Joe Mixon.

I mean, the hip drop tackle happened. Unfortunately, it's a hard part to identify, but it was. It was a hip drop tackle, and the guy had an inside ankle roll, which are not easy to come back from. Stroud historically has been very good at pre-snap breeds and identification, and a lot of it comes with the pre-snap motions, getting Nico Collins, Tank Dell, Stefan Diggs moving around so that the defense has to show their hand.

I think C.J. Stroud struggles with the Flores scheme if they can't run the football out of 11 personnel. They're going to want to get into 11 and spread the Vikings out one tight end, get those receivers on the field. Whoever's in there at quarterback or running back, whether it's cam acres who fumbled, he's probably on the hot seat coming off the Achilles. If they can't establish the run on first down out of 11 personnel and you get

yourself either behind the sticks or second and long, I think stroud struggles to get the ball out quickly against this thing because of all the stuff i mentioned of what exactly what he did with purdy he's going to give him looks and then he's going to shift and he's going to move and he's going to have to hold the ball and as good as that houston offensive line is at the tackle positions their interior is down their starting center at juice scruggs so you have jared patterson who's in there you have shack mason you have some smaller body guys up there that are going to be struggling to keep the pocket from

getting pushed up interiorly and then stroud's going to have to create a little bit like he did with chicago and getting out on the edges he showed he can do it but i think that the vikings have a better edge rushing group than the chicago bears have and so if you continue to rush them in the right ways and you went on first down, Stroud, I think, struggles to get the ball pushed down the field for this high-flying offense that they want to have minus Joe Mixon. So I'm somewhat talked into this just because they kind of did it against the 49ers. I think Stroud is about as good of a quarterback as we've seen come into the league in a long time time and i don't

know that anyone has ever adjusted so quickly to it not inheriting a great team like dak prescott or ben roethlisberger did but a team that was thought of to be this they might win three games if they play cj stroud and then take some of the playoffs the way they've started their season so ton of respect for him but this will be something he's never seen before in an environment that he has never been in before at us bank stadium and i don't think there's going to be a time this year where the vikings go up against the quarterback and you go man oh they're in trouble uh there's good quarterbacks jared goff uh gets a lot of respect from this here program but there's nobody and and aaron rogers this isn't five years ago there's nobody. And Aaron Rogers, this isn't five years ago. There's nobody where you go, Oh man, they got to face this guy. That's just going to be like my homes last year, or even

the way Herbert played against them. What are you supposed to do? I don't know if there's a, what are you supposed to do quarterback on this list because of some of the things around him, including as you mentioned, the offensive line. So I'm like, you're, you're getting me like three quarters of the way there, because I really do that that cj shroud is special but there's a lot going in the vikings advantage when it comes to creating pressure so what's their answer going to be you can't run nico collins as far down the field probably when you have the pressure that the vikings can create all right give me a quick. And then I want to give you my favorite. Talk me into. I had one and then I lost it. So you go first. I'll get it back. I lost it. I had it and then I got involved. I got

lost in the conversation, like you said, and then the CT kicked in. Former player brain. It happens. But talk me into JJ McCarthy being the best quarterback from this draft. There it is. It's not hard to do. That's not a hard thing to do. Okay. If JJ McCarthy in this hypothetical world that we lived in, say he's healthy and he goes out there in week one, all he would have to do is throw a touchdown.

If he just threw one, one single touchdown, he'd be the best rookie quarterback in this entire draft. And watching the system that Sam Darnold is playing in and watching the weapons of which he has, I would be hard-pressed to say that J.J. McCarthy would not have at least a single touchdown between week one and week two. Because if Sam Darnold can can do it and it's not him

having to create it's not sam having to run around and run on the through his fun funky arm angles and doing all that it's from standing in the pocket with clean feet loading that back foot and firing that pigskin and if jj can do that he would have been by far the best quarterback in this class up to this point because all the other rookie quarterbacks, my God, man, welcome to the NFL. It's not an easy place to live, but I sit back and look to Bryce Young,

Stroud, and Richardson from last year at this time. I think I had a love to see it of like, the offense is in good hands. The future of the NFL is in some good hands with these young rookie quarterbacks. I can't say that through week two with these guys. I do not have a ton of confidence in any with these young rookie quarterbacks. I can't say that through week two with these guys. I do not have a ton of confidence in any of these young rookie quarterbacks that they've thrown out there.

Bo Nix can't throw it to the other team that many times. Also, Sean Payton's not helping you. Caleb Williams, buddy, I don't know what to tell you if you're getting destroyed like that. But at the same time, learn how to slide, learn how to take a hit, do all those fun things and then you just go down the list it's not it's not great Michael Penix maybe if he has to go in I don't know but Kirk Cousins sure fired that pig so he was angry Kirk last night give me my

Cole's cash right all that stuff but it wouldn't be hard for me to think that if JJ JJ McCarthy was healthy he wouldn't be looked at as the best quarterback in this class as of right now. And I think long term, because the supporting cast and what's surrounding you has so much to do with success. And I just think if you were if I bought a football team now, if more people subscribe, maybe or more people use the promo code purple on underdog fantasy. Maybe we can get closer to get an ownership stake. So I get my magic Johnson style ownership stake in a football team. And the owner comes to me and says, Oh, we're down pretty bad. What do you, what's your number one thought of what we should do? I would say this. It's okay to draft quarterback whenever you like a guy, if you love them, then draft them. but you do not play him until you have an offensive line and until you have wide receivers and until you feel like you have a coach that is

going to be able to put him in the best position to succeed and until he is a hundred percent ready to go play football in the nfl in fact make it more than that whenever you think he's ready wait two weeks longer and i think that kevin o'con, I know that Kevin O'Connell was adamant about this. He's like, I'm not going to put this guy in before I believe he's fully ready. And you are going to have to slide my dead carcass aside to put him in because I'm not doing it until he's ready. And that approach so far through a couple of weeks just looks really great. And I do think you can ruin someone's confidence early on.

You can also physically ruin them as they get jumped on by Daniil Hunter, which I don't know how you folks live. How do you survive? If that happened to me, I'd be in a casket. He was like, he lost. He lost.

First of all, that move he put on Darnell, right. Was disgusting. The ghost, like I'm going to bull rush. Oh, I'm going to brace. And then, bloop, I'm not even going to touch you. And then just Spider-Man launch at Caleb Williams.

Unbelievable. Unbelievable. He's still one of the best pass rushers in the league. It's crazy. But with Caleb Williams, the guy already had some issues dealing with adversity last year at USC. And we saw the same look on the bench where it was the same thing all by himself, staring up at the sky frustrated. Why would you put, Oh, I know why, because there was so much hype and you drafted him number one and your coaches on

the hot seat and all these things and owners and fans and media. We want everybody to be good right away. Cause there's so much hype. You should just come in, walk in WNBA. People went through this with Caitlin Clark. Well, why, why isn't she just scoring like 50 points a game? I don't know, man. Cause these are pros. It's like the same way here. Like this isn't Rutgers, bro. This is pros. Sorry, Rutgers go Scarlet Knights, but then my gosh, I mean, the same thing goes for Caleb Williams. All right. His two receivers are out. His offensive line is not good enough to play against the Texans. You don't want to be great having him get killed.

That's what's awesome. But now and now it's way too late. Now you're benching Bryce Young for Andy Dalton. Andy Dalton should have been their quarterback for two years. Yes. But the death of the journeyman quarterback has also caused this. So I don't want to rant about that all day, but I think that's really shown up why Kevin O'Connell's approach to this is

so freaking smart. Let's say on the Kevin O'Connell train, talk me into we're sitting here at the end in January and Kevin O'Connell is the coach of the year in the NFL. I don't think that's hard at all. I mean, it's the situation that we talked about the first one. If they are even a 10 win team if they're

going to detroit at the end of the year with a chance to play for the nfc north then kevin o'connell has a great chance to coach the year he didn't win it in 2022 or even get any consideration i think just because everyone knew all the wins were so fluky. But if you take Sam Darnold, a guy who had been written off by pretty much everybody as, well, you know, this team is a six and a half win team by Vegas because Sam Darnold's their quarterback. And not only that, but his cohesiveness with Brian Flores, it's kind of a coaching staff award.

Really true, too. Unless we're just giving Flores all the credit and O'connell doesn't get it because of that but if dar if they if they're in the playoff race and they're making the playoffs it would have to be somebody else with a herculean effort to beat that maybe maybe mike tomlin mike tomlin the guy goes 13 and four or whatever with justin fields and he's just like what i don't know what this is the best quarterback we've had in years you remember duck hodges i went to the playoffs with meese rudolph people that oh man that you know the tomblin i don't know and i'm always like what so uh anyway i also think too

that um kevin o'connell is a few weeks away from just being like oh yeah let's pony up for that extension now this is why before the season i said why don't we just give him an extension? Now, you know what the culture is, you know, what the coach is, you know, his capabilities, let's not ride some wave each week of changing your mind about him. Um, but the wolves did that before with the decision on Mike Zimmer in 2019 to 2020. So, uh, I don't know, but the scenario is right there for you. Cause everyone will say if he did it with Sam Darnold, then he deserves to be coach of the year. Yeah, he's on track and it's fun to watch.

I think I'm convinced through if you if the voting stopped right now, it's between him and Mike Tomlin right through week two. And maybe this is something we track every week. Maybe we track coach of the year, coach of the year rating monitor here because he's in the what's the hot red red be in the red, in the red is he in the red is that the monitor we have going so he's in the red for me right now okay before a very quick uh love to see it hate to see it let me just ask you this about um this whole thing i don't like to do the show in a way where after every three sentences i have to stop and go you know it's only been two weeks that's just so boring and everyone knows that it's only been two weeks i don't have to

tell everyone every time it's only been two weeks your thoughts it's the hardest part about the early piece of the nfl season one week you're looking at man the eagles are incredible they're so good wow saquon barkley was the missing piece week two you're like you lost that game you look at the lions incredible holy cow look what they did five and a half sacks by aiden hutchinson oh they lost that game? It's what makes the NFL so beautiful. Any given Sunday. Any given Sunday. Anyone can win. And it's fantastic. And that's why

even though it is only week two, it's been so refreshing to see what Kevin O'Connell's been able to do because it could have gone the other way so easily. So easily. It could have been a disastrous start. You lose to the Giants. You'll get blown out by the Niners. And you are sitting here going, oh, here comes another fun year of this right it's so easy to let things slide and so when you have optimism and listen i'm riding high vikings are winning huskers are

winning like you can't you could piss on me and call it rain i'm in a great place right now in my football living life so i'm just excited to feel like i have great confidence in the vikings and everything else that it is only yeah it's week two but it's been a fun ride to start the year. So in, out of one side of my mouth, I want to say, okay, let's dig into all the sustainable things and all the numbers and so forth. And the answer has actually come out pretty good because of the number of veteran and predictable players you have. It's not like some random showed up as an undrafted free agent and had four picks in the first two weeks.

And then like, that's not going to keep happening. It hasn't been that random and they have turned the ball over actually a lot. And they've still come away with wins. I think a lot of these things are sustainable. Jonathan Grenard sacking people like that. Yeah.

It's going to keep happening and pressuring people. Stefan Gilmore, this guy won the defensive MVP. It's really the D happening and pressuring people. Stefan Gilmore, this guy won the defensive MVP. It's really the darn old part of it that makes me want to hesitate a little bit on the just two weeks part of it. But there's also another part that I thought we all agreed going into this season. It was going to be, let's just see what happens. It was not when it was spending all the money, Super Bowl or bust. It's a different evaluation than it is now where

you go oh why would you look at that and we'll see what happens next week and we'll go from there but when you get a win like this then you just talk that way it's it's fine to talk that way now uh and then we'll see where it goes from there because we can never predict the national football league why don't you give one uh quick love to see it or hate to see it or quick ball. Yeah, I got, I got to hate to see it.

The fall off of Norvell and Florida state. I'm going college football here. What in the hell happened in Tallahassee? It's it's I've never seen a program's wheels fall off as hard as this one has to the point where you're going, does he make it through September? You're talking about a coach that was supposed to go to the football playoff last year. If his quarterback doesn't explode his leg right before the ACC championship to they can't even get out of their own way to get on the field without falling over themselves.

I mean, the fall off of that program is going to be a hell of a 30 for 30 one day. And it's nuts. And I also will leave it with this if i was a betting man i would bet that the head coach of florida state in 2025 is mr prime time deon sanders oh i think shadur rolls off into the nfl he brings shiloh and says let's go finish ours where this started i'm coming home to tallahassee see i i actually thought you were going to go with florida instead of florida state but the uh the state of maybe that's less shocking because florida has just not been good in a while in eight years in trouble too they just got absolutely

trounced i was excited for that game and i turned on like and now i'm not excited for this game like i thought this was going to be competitive uh so much for that. I think hate to see it is Nick Sirianni, man. Oh, buddy. It is the easiest game management thing of all time. Okay. To know it's called the six point lead of death. When you are up three, you go for that on fourth down, because if you go up six, the other team is going to be super aggressive.

They're going to play for a touchdown and you're going to lose your buffalo bills my buffalo bills our buffalo bills in 2013 with ej manual is their quarterback against the carolina panthers old johnny fox did the same thing kick the field goal goes up by six gave it was the shining moment of ej manual's nfl career and from that point on i was, any coach who does this is a lunatic. And then here's Kirk just being like, okay, I'll just throw the ball down the field, be super aggressive. That was one of the most botched games. It was the most botched game by win percentage since 2016.

There's only been six. There's only been six that were worse than had a higher win percentage. And Kirk must've been having 2022 flashbacks. Like, Oh yeah, I'm pretty okay. The whole game and we're losing. And then the other team does something insane and stupid and I take advantage of it. Um, but you know, uh, I thought he moved around a little better this week and I don't want to see him get hurt because he can't move. Um, you will see how that plays out and everything else but last week i was thinking this he might just get hurt because he he can't move at all so he moved a little bit better and we'll see where that goes on that ball last night too right i feel

like atlanta can have a season now after that that they needed to see that to now you you know we were talking about maybe you're going to be playing pennix. Um, so that's kind of a love to see it. Hate to see it. Cause I, I don't want to see him go down and have their season ruined and everything else because the quarterback injuries happen enough. Uh, but hate to see the Philadelphia Eagles just absolutely implode. Here's another thing I love to see talk about. Can't predict this league.

I think it was the five biggest underdogs in the entire nfl this week all one yeah not just covered but won the game the nfl was drunk this weekend it's insane i mean i i it's kind of a love to see it but not really if you're a ravens fan oh and to start for the ravens yeah after the hype that was, they are the team to beat in the AFC. They go get Derrick Henry, Lamar Jackson slimmed down, Zay Flowers, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Harbaugh. And then you're looking at 0-2.

And I can't remember what game I was watching this weekend that was talking about the difference between a 2-0 start making the playoffs and an 0-2 start making the playoffs. It's like 64% to like 4%. It's nuts. And so to see the drop-off there, if you're anywhere in the AFC, and especially if you're AFC North, you're like, oh, thank God. Like Bengals are like, we have a shot, men.

Like Steelers are nuts to saying this. Cleveland's its own bleep show. But if you're a Ravens fan, you've got to hate to see what's going on with this team because it makes zero logical sense in your mind that they should be owing to and talk about another way to botch a game the way that that ended in the fourth quarter there for the Ravens was inexcusable there's a certain vibe to a former player's psycho coach pulling off upsets and beating teams he's not supposed to have that I really really am attracted to Antonio Pierce. I'm just like,

yeah, that's cool, man. That's cool. Yeah. Yeah. Beat that team. Like you did against the Kansas city last year.

I don't think they're a competitor at all, but it's like, there you go. Antonio Pierce smoke, smoke your cigar in the locker room after or whatever. That was, that was pretty good. So that,

that is kind of a love to see it for a team. The teams that everyone thought were going to be terrible have just not been so far except for like the new york giants uh and carolina panthers but um we will do it again next week and we'll see where we are but this is no this is your you are gone next week for your hunting trip which means i will get a text or carrier pigeon delivering a message saying what's going on in the game. Yes. At some point from you.

And we'll have to find a fill-in replacement for Tuesday. And then we will return prior to, no, after Green Bay. Yes. Yep. We'll be back. And I brought, I'm bringing a satellite. We have a little Starlink thing we're bringing this year so I can watch the games. So I will not miss the games.

I'll be ready because the last time the last couple times i've gone bad crazy things have happened for the vikings i remember well two years ago i came back in the colts or maybe the packers i can't remember was up like 40 to 3 or something i was like what the hell is happening and you're like oh buddy you've been you've been in the dark so fingers crossed none of that happens while i'm gone this year all right enjoy the trip thanks everybody for listening slash watching and we will catch y'all next time see ya football football