Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Jeremiah Sirles think the NFL playoffs should influence the Vikings QB decision

Episode Date: January 17, 2024

Matthew Coller and former Vikings lineman Jeremiah Sirles get together to talk about the wild card round of the NFL playoffs and everything the Vikings should take away including what it means toward their quarterback decision, and how they build their defense going forward. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

🎵 Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. And if you're listening audio wise, you can't see Jeremiah Searles sitting right next to me in the studio. But if you're watching, there he is. And look how big he is in person. I was actually concerned and I set up upstairs because I thought my basement actually might have too low of a ceiling for you to comfortably come down and sit in the studio. But you are here in Minnesota. Great to see you, buddy. How are you? It's great. It's good to be in the only the only little hairy part would be the stairs. Yeah, the stairs are the only it's

like question mark. You know, if it was dark, if I didn't have my hat, turn the hat around so I didn't smack my head. But other that great setup man big upgrade from the other house i did not fit in house number one of the collier household uh it's true that my other house would be deemed a starter home uh that you came into and i was like you know what actually our house is smaller than i thought now that jeremiah is in there the last time we did this which must have been about a year ago, that we were talking, and guess what? It's the playoffs, and the Vikings aren't in it.

But I think what everyone is talking about in Viking land is the takeaways from the first three days of the playoffs, which, by the way, I'll take that. Two games per day for three straight days. In fact, why doesn't Roger just make the whole schedule that? Just a couple games per day every day so I always have football. Remember COVID? When COVID was like, hey, Tuesday, we're playing a game on Tuesday.

I was like, yes. Dude, Monday, Tuesday, the only night off was you got some action on a Wednesday and then you just roll right into Thursday night football. It was fantastic. Right. I'm not doing anything. Yeah. Just go for it. It's like bull season all over again people who have

jobs sorry not my fault hey look if people could get to the bills game by plowing snow away from their seats i saw green bay tweeting out that they have snow blowers for the seats i thought the bills missed the playoffs for so many years they never thought of it like green green bay was hosting so many home playoff games. They were like, you know, we should have some special snowblowers. And the Bills were like, J.P. Lossman won't make it. I'm not too concerned about that. But funny, they make it and host playoff games now that they have Josh Allen.

And I was going through on Twitter the playoff quarterbacks remaining, and I want to get your reaction to this so we've got in the nfc side uh we have jordan love baker mayfield brock purdy and jared golf now here's my observation on that two are on rookie contracts one of them has a lower cap hit than nick mullins uh on a contract. That's Baker Mayfield. I did not realize that Baker Mayfield's cap hit is $1.7 million. Yeah, they paid him peanuts. Insane. And Jared Goff's team tanked.

So that's what we have there. And on the AFC side, because, of course, someone said, well, why are you talking about the AFC? There's a lot of great quarterbacks there. Mahomes, Allen, Stroud, Lamar Jackson. And how were they acquired? First round, first round, first round, first round. Right. Is that where you get good?

I think first round is where you find winning quarterbacks. Okay. And then the other one, so Brock Purdy is Mr. Irrelevant. That's different. He's a unicorn, though. You can't even, like, that's unicorn type. That doesn't happen besides once every 20 years. It's like a Kurt Warner type of thing. Jordan Love, where was he drafted first round baker mayfield first round jared goff

first round okay so uh i think i've gotten the point across just as snarky in person as uh through the zoom call i mean it's not it's not rocket science like and you can and they'll be the people be like well do all the other quarterbacks that didn't last in the first round it's like well yes that's that's the nature of what football is that's the risk that you take but you got to try i mean at one point you have to say okay we're going all in on this dude let's hope that he becomes the next alan or mahomes or whatever it is because if you don't then you just kind of the insanity rule right let's try and bring another free agent big quarterback in pay him a bunch of money build a roster of the child of misfit toys around him and see if he can just go be great and do it and it doesn't work that way it doesn't the great

quarterbacks go in the first for a reason because you're trying to find the legendary generational quote-unquote talent that doesn't fall out of the first round it just doesn't even Dak Prescott fourth round kind of melts in the playoffs yeah yeah well there is that uh I mean he was still running the number one offense and I I want to talk about kind of all of these things at once the Dak Prescott thing is weird I mean he was a very good prospect and I remember talking to people in the league even then that thought he was really good. And then he fell. And I don't know, sometimes sometimes it happens like it does happen. But when we're talking about everything is an odds play, what is the best odds of finding

those things? Now, the odds might be 5050. Would you rather or 6040? Would you rather flip a slightly weighted coin against you and hope that it hits? Or would you rather do something that has failed for 10 straight years? I mean, that's that to me is what it comes down to. But I got I got an email that I want to read you from a listener about the interpretation from the people who matter most about this first round of the playoffs. So Josh sent me an email and he said, I had a scary thought that I'm hoping you can dispel. What if the Wilfs misinterpret the weekend's games?

What if they didn't watch Jordan Love play and think that the Packers win, Lions and Bucks support their belief that all a team needs to do is just get into the playoffs to have a chance? What if they don't realize how much of a step that Jordan Love took after the first Vikings game. And just remember the Vikings beat the Packers with healthy Kirk cousins.

What if they just saw the lines when the division after three decades of building around a veteran quarterback. So, I mean, I guess that's possible. I don't see how that could be the interpretation. You can't know. It's never,

we talked about this. I think like three, four weeks ago. Like, yes, making the playoffs is a great achievement, but that's never the ultimate goal. The ultimate goal is winning a Super Bowl. And listen, if Green Bay goes and beats San Fran, hats off to them. I don't think it's going to happen. If C.J. Stroud miraculously beats the Baltimore Ravens, great. But both those teams kind of limped their way.

Or, I mean, I guess, I mean, the Texans won the division because the Jaguars imploded at the end of the year. So they got in. But, I mean, even Buffalo was one game away from not making the playoffs. Right? And so just getting into the playoffs, yeah, that's a hard thing to do. But once you get into the playoffs and the records are nil-nil, the better teams always find a way.

The number one seeds meet in the Super Bowl for a reason, right? Because they have the roster built to get there. The last time I can truly think of a team that lucked in and won was probably the Giants with Eli Manning when they were 9-7, scraped their way in, and then won it. That just doesn't historically happen. So to watch those games and go, oh, you just got to get in, yeah, you do have to get in, but the great teams are going to be

the ones that are left standing at the end with the great rosters that they built. Yeah, your memory is pretty strong on this, and I have looked it up. Just for the listeners at home, if you go through the teams that won from the wild card, every single quarterback, and I'm assuming Eli Manning becomes a Hall of Famer, I don't know for sure. He's borderline. He won't be first ballot.

Right. I don't think he will be first ballot but if then it's only trent dilfer is the non-hall of fame quarterback who in my lifetime is one from the wild card position and so you know tom brady did it a few years ago but tom brady and that team was actually incredible and it took him like six weeks to kind of get it going in fact if there was a turning point it was probably against the Vikings defense if you remember the game where uh Dan Bailey forgot how to kick and so forth uh yes memories I was watching Chase McLaughlin kick 50-yard field goals being like wasn't he on the Vikings practice squad that that that is uh perfect right the

former Viking kicker just crushing field goals in the playoffs but i don't see any other real interpretation other than the packers and lions are not going anywhere for a long time they're going to be in the playoffs year after year and there's always bad luck things that happen but again are you betting on bad luck things and you need to build accordingly the other thing that i notice is whether it is a team that's 9-8 and wins or whether it's a team that was a first spot, defensive talent. All pros on defense. Vita Vea gets his fat booty in there and stuffs the tush push.

And Antoine Winfield Jr. is an all-pro, and he's making plays. Every team that won, even Green Bay has way more defensive talent. Their defensive coordinator is a little spotty. The only team that doesn't have a great defense is detroit and that's probably going to get them at some point yeah i mean detroit secondary for sure got put on notice i mean puka nakua cooper cup those dudes had some really good success and honestly if stafford doesn't get concussed and go from there i mean they have a chance to win that game there at the end i do think that will be the downfall as their secondary as they start getting deeper in the playoffs.

When you talk about matching up with Baltimore, we saw that. We saw that movie, right? Baltimore ran Zay Flowers up and down, Odo Beckham up and down, like Mark Andrews is coming back. That's going to be their big issue. But again, what do they do? They have Aiden Hutchinson up front. They drafted in the first round Jack Campbell out of Iowa.

They invested in their defense on the draft, and they hit on it. And that's something we've talked about the Vikings for a long time is the draft picks just haven't turned into those type of all-pro type guys. I think DeLuis Seen is a perfect example. You draft a guy in the first round as a safety, and you're like, all right, we found our next Harrison Smith, and then it doesn't work out. Well, you're eating that for four years because you invest all that draft capital in him and it just goes down the list I mean I think back to when I was playing with Laquan Treadwell right like you draft him in the first round that doesn't

end so well and so I can understand the Vikings nervous anxiety-ness of like we don't do well necessarily a lot in the first round but I think when you find yourself in a position of picking just outside the top 10 you have to be willing to gamble and go get a quarterback within that. Because like I talked, I think we did multiple episodes ago, you don't want to be picking here every year. Like you don't want to be like, oh, we're in the top 10 again. Like, no, you want to have, hey, we had some things happen this year that didn't work so well. Let's go get our quarterback while we're in this position. And then hopefully next year we're picking 25th or 24th like but you won't get there unless you try

and make a drastic change in my opinion that has to be with the quarterback you know and i was thinking about too even trying to build just through free agency around an expensive quarterback contract and how hard that is to do and i started to go back through the players that the vikings picked up in recent years and some of them were great Patrick Peterson played great Zedarius Smith was very good especially for the first half of a season I would say Delvin Tomlinson was really good here but all of those guys even someone as good as Zedarius Smith or Patrick Peterson but they were past their prime they're not the guy they are a final piece type to a really good defense not someone you're saying hey patrick peterson be our whole secondary and he was great no doubt about it but what difference did it really

make because he wasn't the fine you know he wasn't the final piece the one more guy to that defense and so they've spent a lot of wilf dollars on free agents who have come in and not been enough to make the difference I think on defense you need like 14 guys who can play right because you know that guys are going to get hurt you need rotational players and then you probably need three to four who are all pro caliber repeated Pro Bowlers and I was going through the 17 2017 defense how many of those guys made the pro bowl 10 out of 11 not 8 out of 11 yeah i mean how far away are you from that uh way away i would say yeah well i mean yeah you think back to that 17 defense like what they do they added anthony bar they added eric kendricks and then it vaulted them to the number one defense

right and that's we talk about the guys coming in and they elevate your team and then they're staples right they're staples for a long time when you bring a guy in on free agency and you sign him to a four-year deal after he's already had four years in the league that in my opinion is almost more of a dice roll than going after a high high draft pick in first and second round for the defensive side because like you said injuries happen age catches up with all of us and eventually your play just slowly falls off right and so when you talk about the offensive side of the ball i also think that the vikings convinced themselves in 2018 that kirk was the one missing piece right like everyone in this entire organization maybe in this entire state was like if we just had a quarterback we would have beat the eagles we would have played for

super bowl on our home turf and we probably would have won it and we spun ourselves into that conundrum we're like all right everything on kirk cousins boom and then everything started slowly fading away guys got older guys got more expensive now we're paying kirk 78 million dollars we can't afford to keep uh eric kendricks for a little bit longer we can't afford to keep that backup rotational guy that had a chance to come in there and that's just that's part of building your team and that's a risk that you take but that didn't work it didn't work and so for me to think that we can go back to the drawing board and say well let's just try and recreate that the 2023 vikings team in the 2017 vikings team drastically different drastically and i've heard the comparisons are like well you know

that drastically different you don't have to have an elite defense you need to have an all pro or pro at each level the lead line the linebacker the secondary at least one right and if you can have multiple then you're really cooking with gas we don't have any like daniel hunter is probably the most and then harrison smith he i mean that ended your press conference for me it kind of sounded like i don't i don't know if you want to play football anymore, right? My shoulder really hurts. Like, this is a tough year. So you're talking about losing him.

You're talking about one all-pro on this defense. That's a huge issue. That's if he comes back. If he comes back. And if he comes back, it's going to be very expensive. And how do you make that all work? And the thing is that, you know, you can look at last year. And I was thinking about this too.

You can look at last year and all the games that they were this far away. And if you're a coach, you're probably like, man, one fumble, just don't reach out over the goal line. Jefferson, we probably win that game. And it turned out that the Eagles were kind of frauds anyway. And, and you can talk yourself into if t.j hockinson just gets his arms around the other way then it doesn't go boing boing and intercepted the goal line but the fact of the matter is you're really not trying to play one score games every single game and that's what

it's been for three straight years and even when they had a better defense they were still playing one score games all the time and when you look at a lot of these teams i mean you have to put the cowboys aside a little bit because we're gonna we're gonna talk about that like a bunch of things i want to ask you about with just the playoffs in general but you usually want to outscore your opponents by about 150 points or 100 to 150 points if you're gonna win the super bowl and if you play a one score game all the time with the roster strength that you have in the quarterback, then most years you're going to be going, dang, we were so close. And that one year you got all of them to go right. But in the two sandwich years between that, the 2021, you miss out on a bunch of close games at

the end. Coach gets fired. This year you miss out on a bunch of close games at the end. Coach gets fired. This year, you miss out on a bunch of games at the end, and you're missing the playoffs. If you bring back Cousins and it happens again, which it very well could with the one scores, then everyone's getting fired. And to me, that's just not a very good bet to make. And it's really hard to convince people, maybe the ownership, that this isn't a one-year project.

This isn't like slap your homework together and take it into school. This is you get it at the beginning of the semester and you got to work on it to the final project. There is so much work to be done on the roster to get to the point. And that was my main takeaway. My other main takeaway was, look,

if you are a Kirk Cousins enjoyer, I have the greatest respect for this man's career. Truly unbelievable to be a fourth round pick. Wasn't a high recruit out of high school. Speaks to his dedication. But there's a dude in the league who can run 52 yard touchdowns in the playoffs. I mean, how you got to beat this and look at the players who are coming into the league. Caleb Williams, what does he do? Drake may throw a left-handed touchdown this year. He can run and has a rocket arm and then Jaden Daniels and the worst prospects we're talking

about. McCarthy's a good athlete. I sorta, and a Pennix has a monster arm and throws into tight windows. And Bo Nix is a good athlete as well. Like this is the league. The league is going to be 20 starting quarterbacks that are worth it. And 17 of them are really good athletes. And you got to compete against that. I just think that in the year 2000 quarterbacks are going to be different. Yeah. That's an old Conan O'Brien bit.

If people don't know in the year 2000, but I honestly, like the, the future of the league and those guys that i just named in the afc well they're coming to the nfc because they're going to be drafting them now and it's just very hard to convince me that one of those guys isn't what you need to succeed yeah i mean and even look at what the knock on golf is is like if you can get pressure to him he's rattled and he can't get away can't escape because when he runs he looks like a baby deer right like that that's what philip rivers was i remember when philip rivers would run all of us be like get down right you're gonna get hurt and you talk about okay if justin fields is even in this division but even if they go get killed he can run right the running quarterback

is such a weapon and when you got back to your your initial point of the one score games like everyone's gonna point to like well kansas city did this year but he's the best right like holmes is the best and so i'll bet on the one score games when i have the best in the world back there is the trigger man and yeah he didn't have the all pro year that he's used to having but he found a way to will that team to win which tom brady did a lot of times too because he was the best and so if you don't have the best standing back there as your guy your trigger man you're gonna more coin flip those 50 50 games than you are like well how for how long was it oh tom brady got the ball two and a half minutes left they went they went i don't know if i believe that about kirk and he's done it

before but he's also thrown bad interceptions he's gotten down there and not been able to finish and maybe that's because it's kirk maybe it's not but are we willing to see that again or are we willing to look and go the Packers have the youngest team in the NFL and they just want to they just want to play off game the Houston Texans have like the fifth youngest team in the NFL and they want to play off game the NFL is forever and always constantly about getting younger always I hear it in the draft process oh that, that dude's 24. Can't draft him. 24? Like, who cares?

Right? But that's constantly a battle that you go through. And so you're looking at these quarterbacks going, do we want to get a Drake May or a Caleb Williams or a Penix or a Bo Nix that we can say, okay, you may be 24 or 25, so we're going to get at least four or five years out of you and then build around you.

And then maybe if we build that roster around you so well because we can and then you aren't the guy then we go buy a quarterback but you have to start somewhere and you start building your roster in my opinion with the quarterback position that's where you go because that's your biggest cap hit those are the ones that you're gonna have to pay the most money to down the road so build your quarterback with a young quarterback build your roster around him and build up talent around him and then if it's not working out with him then go buy one in four years when you have the other pieces. Like I said, now you're in the position of we're one piece away in free agency

versus right now you're going, we're a million pieces away. We got a million things to do. We can't afford to go buy a million different high round free agents. We have to hit in the draft. Start with the best position, the quarterback. Folks, Lucy is upping the nicotine pouch game with breakers, pouches, packing a little something extra inside. What are Lucy breakers? If you know your pouches, then you know that the nicotine doesn't hit immediately and neither does the flavor. But

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22 for 22, and then didn't complete a single pass when pressured, which is the most Jared Goff thing ever. But the thing I noticed about Jared Goff is when he whips the ball, it goes. And he is so good at getting it to the right person on time. Like drop back, hit the back foot ball comes out with a lot of velocity. And there's not a lot of there's, there's some catastrophic, hilarious mistakes that he makes that probably keep him from being on the level of those other great quarterbacks. But he has the arm talent. There was like one of those behind shots of him throwing it through people and stuff to make throws that other

quarterbacks can't make. And I think that of even Baker Mayfield, who is erratic, but has a number one overall pick arm. And when Baker Mayfield won against Philadelphia and played the way that he did, the thing that came to mind for me was going into 2022. I thought they should move on from cousins and get a bridge quarterback, like a Mayfield, like a Mariota, put them in with Justin Jefferson plan to draft a quarterback and move forward. Right. And last night I was just kind of pointing at the TV. Like other people can play quarterback, you know, other people can, for some reason, there's this idea that there's only one guy who could possibly get the ball to Justin Jefferson. Like they got him from nowhere for nothing.

And he threw the ball to whom Mike Evans, Chris Godwin, some guy named David Moore, and they've got weapons and offensive linemen. And like, and there you go. You win a playoff game. And Baker Mayfield has one more a playoff game and baker mayfield has one more home playoff win than kirk cousins in his career now okay also won multiple teams for playoff games right yeah yeah like that's all listed it was like quarterbacks that have won multiple league or multiple playoff games it was like tom brady

brett farb baker may okay let's pump the brakes but no you're exactly right and the other thing too lions elite offensive line elite offensive line they handled aaron donald yep right the bucks very good offensive line spent draft capital and tristan wirfs and gadecki the other side i mean the vikings finally have and i know they didn't play like it down the stretch but you talk about putting a rookie quarterback behind this offensive line two years ago. Disaster, right? Oh yeah.

Disaster. You have Carolina Panthers, Bryce Young getting peeled off the turf over and over again. But you look at this roster and I go, we have a stud right tackle, stud left tackle, probably re-signed Dalton Reisner. Ed Ingram did better towards the end of the year. Bradbury's going to be there for a while. You have building blocks back.

We can work with a rookie quarterback here because of our tackle play specifically that's going to help the development of a young player too that comes in the equation as well because you throw a rookie quarterback but i end up poor to below average offensive line they're toast they're done right and kirk cousins was my ribs for so many years right in his toughness but his ability to understand i got to get the ball here got to get the ball here quickly ricky got to get the ball here quickly. Rookie quarterbacks can't comprehend that. I think you put any of the rookie quarterbacks that are in this year's class, Bryce Young and down, behind this Vikings offensive line, they probably have way more success because they have the time to throw,

and the weapons that the Vikings have are incredible. I mean, Justin Jefferson missed like six games, still had 1,000 yards receiving with Nick Mullins, Josh Dobbs, Kirk Cousins, like input ex-quarterback. Throw it to 18. You'll be okay. Anyone can do that. Now go get a good talent in the first round and bet that he can do it and bet that he can lead it. And that's going to be your best bet. I'm all with you now. Kirk Cousins, I love you, man. You did a great job.

Go to Atlanta, go with Bill Belichick, go to Atlanta and restart your career down there. Vikings, let's roll the dice. Let's do it. Let's go see what can happen. That would be one kind of strange combination of Bill Belichick and Kirk Cousins in Atlanta. I think Kirko dies if he goes and plays for Bill Belichick. I don't think Kirko makes it in Atlanta. Oh, no, no, no.

I don't think he's doing any shirtless appearances. No, probably not. But I do think with the defensive talent Atlanta has, they are on the cusp of being a good defense and the supporting cast. The other thing that I noticed was the Vikings have Justin Jefferson and that's great because he's the, I think he's the best, but he's not the best by Jerry Rice to the next best guy. He's the best by inches. It's like one of the, you know, an Olympic race where everybody's just leaning for is he better than Tyree kill I don't know Dolphins fans probably wouldn't say so

how much better is he than Mike Evans probably a little but not a lot and I'm looking around going wait I'm gonna say Brown is really good and puka nuku is really good and like you're not the only team that has this superstar wide receiver there's a lot of teams that do so where is your Edge going to come from well if you want it to be the line you're gonna have to extend Christian derisaw you're gonna have to sign back a left guard you're going to have to build the rest of the roster out and then the other thing I know notice too is scheme is just so much in this game yeah and what Matt Lafleur did what just blew my mind I mean it was a master class and not not only him but also Bobby slowik from uh Houston and here's two

inexperienced quarterbacks starting for the first time and they're running bootlegs play actions receivers are open down the field and I'm thinking again is there only one quarterback on Earth who could play football? Like, probably not, because if you can scheme it well and if you could give them weapons, it can be there. It can be there for a price of less than $40 million for people who haven't torn Achilles and might be able to run for a first down. Yeah, I mean, we're also going to, I think a great case study is like, what does Aaron Rodgers look like for the Jets next year? Does he come back and is he vintage Aaron? Is he not?

Are the Jets going to all get fired because they made that trade? That's essentially what you're doing if you bring back Kirk. You're pushing everything in going, we're betting our jobs that Kirk Cousins is going to get us to the NFC Championship. And he may, but he may not. Is that worth betting your job over? Is that worth $40 million in betting your job over? Or are you willing to have the nuts to throw on the table and say, I'm going to bring a young quarterback in, KOC, you earn your money,

you develop this guy how you want him, right? Kirk, any veteran player at any position, you're going to be limited with what you call development because they've done it for so long, you paid them to come here and do it. And they talked about it almost at nauseam on the broadcast with the packers of this is finally what we'll see lafleur's offense right gregor's like you kept having to tailor it to aaron rogers that's what you do when you have that type of quarterback have we really truly seen what koc's offense truly wants to look like without the limitations of what kirk cousin can do everyone kind of saw with

dobbs and they're like, hey, some movement, some guy going around, some move-the-pocket type stuff. You bring in one of these young quarterbacks that's got some legs, who knows what this offense could actually look like. And KOC can find, like, this is my guy. I'm all in. And you said it last week. I'm all in on whoever he wants.

Whoever he wants will develop behind. I want to see that. I want to see, KOCoc who are you with your young development guy who you want to build into what you can do except for you have a shirt on that says anyone but mccarthy yes yes underneath there so i don't understand why i got some i got some flack for that i just i've watched a lot of college tape you know that i love college football there's way better players out there there's way better prospects out there listen if if harbaugh goes the nfl and he has

a potential to pick him and doesn't i rest my case you know what i rest my case that reminds me of ryan nasib remember when people were talking about ryan nasib as a first round draft pick and doug marone got hired as the bills coach and they were like well he's obviously gonna pick ryan nasib and he's like no i'm no he's a player. And it really speaks to how often we don't know who's going to be at the top that even the consensus mocks don't always depict it. Will Levis is a perfect example. Everyone's like, he's going top five. Dude's going top ten.

And the NFL's, you're a second-rounder. And he played like a second-rounder. He wasn't on the caliber of the first-rounders that went this year. And Titans obviously weren't very good. But you expect a guy like that. The NFL knows, man, they know.

And then sometimes you swing and a miss, but the amount of work that front office has put in, especially the quarterback position in a top 10 to top 15 pick, usually they know. And unless there's some catastrophic miss somehow, usually they're pretty good at picking the guys. Yeah. I had heard throughout the process that the Vikings weren't huge on Levis.

And then when it came up, it was like, okay, is that like, are they just going to go for it anyway or what? And they decided not to. And I guess we'll find out whether he becomes a starting quarterback or not. It feels like that's not really going to happen, but he does have a lot of raw talent

and showed some flashes. But like you said, normally the NFL is pretty good at picking out who are the first rounders, who are the second rounders, who are the third rounders, what would it need for somebody to go right. And at the same time, getting the order of those players, the NFL is very bad at like, who's going to work out. Is it the first guy? Is it the fourth guy? Is it the third guy, which kind of strengthens the case. But I wanted to get into some other stuff going on with the playoffs. That isn't just us continuing to heap on the stronger and stronger

case even last night. So I didn't do a live show after last night, but I wanted to, and talk for an hour about Baker Mayfield and just like, could he have not done what, you know? Right. So why do you think that Dallas cannot play in the playoffs? I mean, I was looking at that team and I picked the Packers to win solely because Dallas. I did too. Just because of Dallas. Big brains. Only.

I was just like, nah, Dallas. That's why. I think that there is some pressure that happens to those people in that stadium with that owner, with the fan base that exists throughout the entire nation. How does a team have a bad first drive and the receivers melting down on the quarterback? And the quarterback looks like, I don't know. I don't know what's going on. Like, how does that even happen? But I'm curious from your perspective, if you think that that shouldn't be a thing in the NFL.

It sounds like a college thing. Like, oh, they get nervous or something. But I don't know. I would rather play them than anybody else in the first round of the playoffs. Absolutely. First of all, the balls by LeFleur to go, we won the toss. Give me the football. Give me the football.

We're setting the tone early. And it felt like from there it just kind of spiraled. And honestly, it all goes to that. I think it was a DPI that extended the first drive because there's like negative play oh yeah sack dpi and then they finally got it rolling but as far as a team melting like that for me it's a lack of player leadership that's because you know the coach all week was like guys it's just another game we're fine we just got to go out and do our thing doing everything but when the bullets are flying and things are happening you look to the dudes on the field with

you you don't look to your offensive coordinator you don't look like hey could someone help me like no one's coming to save you besides the 11 guys on that field i didn't see a guy that just kind of stood up and was like hey follow me we're going dac you think is that guy but he obviously isn't and then when cd lamb's having a having a fit, Jake Ferguson's a young player, I would have leaned on Zach Martin and Tyron Smith, but they can only do so much. And for the majority of that game, I felt like Dak had some time early in the game, obviously when it kind of got out of hand, pin their ears back and go, best of luck. But I just think it's a lack of player leadership in that locker room of guys

that haven't been there because they haven't. They haven't won luck but i just think it's a lack of player leadership in that locker room of guys that haven't been there because they haven't right they haven't won those multiple games and so when you're looking around i don't think anyone knew who to look to to say hey i know how to get everyone settle we're okay i just never saw that and that's the only thing in my brain that makes sense and not to pivot but i say also the only thing in my brain that makes sense is why the eagles collapse too folks if you've been listening to the, then you know how much fun we have been having with prize picks this year. Just go to prizepicks.com slash purple. Use the code purple for a first deposit match up to $100.

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And you are in prizepicks.com slash purple. The code purple for a first deposit match up to 100 see i think with the eagles well just on on dallas it could also be just this that the nfl is so much i scheme against you you scheme against me and if you get something that i didn't see coming i might lose by a lot of points because the other team's really good and they put everything into that one game. So on a week to week basis, you play on a Sunday, you play on a Thursday, like there's only so much you can change. You get to the playoffs and it's all lasers, but also a team might play no 12 personnel

the whole season and then be like, here it comes. We've been saving this all year long or we put this in this week and if it works, then the other team doesn't see it coming. And I think what happened was with that game in particular. So Jordan love makes some freakish throws. They start to go, Oh my gosh, what's going on. But also the run game, like they had the perfect scheme to just run and run and run and run and then Dak wasn't on the field a whole lot they're controlling the ball they're going down the field and then every time he gets the ball it's well man now we're down 14 or now we're down like now we got to try to come back and desperation started to set in so I think a part of it is if you just out scheme the other team

or have something they didn't expect you can blow a team out and that seems to have happened to the coaching staff in Dallas multiple times over the last couple years now Philadelphia I have a theory about this I think that there are in somebody's career probably only one to two shots to win the Super Bowl if you're not Tom Brady and you're not Patrick Mahomes maybe one to two shots Josh Allen's going to get more than that, but they missed it. They missed it by three points in the super bowl. They couldn't get a big key stop. Patrick Mahomes ran for a bunch of yards. Same thing with San Francisco and Jimmy Garoppolo. Like Jimmy Garoppolo is this close to being a super bowl champion, literally his receivers reaching out

for the ball. And that's all the shots that you usually get. with philadelphia you had to play 20 games last year 17 more this year your center's 36 your right tackles how old you're you know your guys have been beat up fletcher cox brandon graham like age catch up yeah age and i think you also lost your offensive and defensive coordinator and last year and this not take away, they were a great team. They got to play the Giants. And that was easy. And then in the NFC Championship game, they hurt the other quarterback. And they basically didn't have to play the whole game because he couldn't throw the football. And so there's like a combination that maybe last year they were a little lucky to get there.

Again, not taking away. Vikings haven't been there since the 70s. Not to take taking away. Vikings haven't been there since the seventies, not to take it away, but to play that many games with that many veterans and then try to bring it all back is I think they just ran out of gas. They start 10 and one, then they just fall out or fall down, down the stretch. I don't think you should be talking about firing coaches or Jalen hurts is a bad quarterback, but also Jalen hurts was injured and give, give David Carr credit.

The guy got roasted into the sun on Twitter for saying maybe they should play Mariota for a couple games. And part of his reasoning was Hurts is not good at reading defenses, which is not fair and everything. But the running collapsed for him. He tried to escape from a guy in that game, and the guy caught him. It was like, that's not Jalen Hurts. So I think it was

a combination of all of those factors yeah i agree also i do think there was something and maybe it'll come out maybe it's not i think something fractured in that locker room after the san fran game something i don't know what it is but you don't see an epic collapse like that without having someone somewhere that's like i'm not listening to you i'm done with you right i'm done with you because when you have leadership like kelsey and fletcher cox and guys that have been there opposite of dallas right guys have been like i played in the show i've i've been there i know what it takes and to have the epic collapse like that there's a fracture somewhere in there someone said something whether it was a coach to a player player to player

and once that started spiraling there was no pulling out of it and that roster is talented enough to win a super bowl by far but aj brown being out was a huge blow i mean john swift kind of lost it there towards the end yeah i really do want to go back and watch this offseason i'm going to do it the san fran game because i've heard so much about bosa i think said, we put a blueprint together to stop Jalen Hurts and the Eagles. And I haven't studied it enough to really know if that's true. But I really do want to go back and break that game down, play by play, and go, what did they actually do? Because for me, it wasn't really about what the other defenses were doing.

It was more about the lack of communication on the Eagles side. Our other podcast, we broke down in eagles and it was tight ends running wide open and not turning around for a hot it was guys blitzers running free when you're like kelsey he ids that normally there's something that happened and there were guys were on completely separate pages a lot of times and you talk about one score games the nfl's razor thin margin of winning two or three communication games errors in a game is blowout it's two score losses it's two times it's very simple because those lead to turnovers those lead to negative plays all those things compound and i think that was just too much for the eagles as they went down the stretch here's

another thing too for the eagles and again they lost their offensive and defensive coordinator and you can replace those people but it's not quite the sameagles and again they lost their offensive and defensive coordinator and you can replace those people but it's not quite the same and on defense they replace him with a guy that really didn't work out and then replace him with a guy who i can't believe keeps getting opportunities the nfl the last time matt patricia was in charge of a successful unit because he, for some reason, coached offense for the Patriots was 2016 was the last time. And he's been a head coach since he's been an offensive guy since a defensive guy since. And they thought, you know what, let's put him in charge.

A guy who is hated by a lot of the players in Detroit. I'm sure Darius Slay was thrilled to see him show up. Like, wait, what of all the, of all the stadiums and all the league, they had to bring you into this one? I mean, so yeah, like that, it just wasn't the same chemistry as it was before. And I also think age catches up with people

and that's the rise and fall constantly of the NFL. So what do we think, what do we think is going to. So what do we think is going to happen? What do we think is going to happen here? Let me get the matchups for you. So I'll start in the AFC. I think it's going to be a fantastic game. I don't think it's going to blow up by any means, but I do think the Ravens beat Houston.

I think the Ravens, as long as the bye week can mess with some people. Sometimes a team that's hot and the Ravens have been hot, sometimes that week off kind of can slow you down versus a team that Houston's been playing playoff games for weeks now. Yeah. Like weeks and finding ways to win. And that catches up with you too eventually. And the Ravens didn't play their starters at the end of the year.

Right. So they're kind of – they're rested, but are they polished? Right. That's always the question. And with a team like the texans if they can come out and start hot and put the ravens maybe behind the score maybe it'll be a game but i think overall the ravens end up winning this game but i think it's been a fantastic game uh so with this one i mean the ravens to me are the best team in the entire nfl and they showed that down the stretch it feels like it's Lamar Jackson's time.

One thing that's funny is that people love to shape narratives about quarterbacks super early in their career. So Eli Manning's first couple of playoff games, horrible. He was, he was a mess. And what do you think was said about him? If he had been now with the social media doing that,

or this guy's a bus, get him out of the playoffs. They need to trade for somebody else and then he has two of the most epic runs ever in history in the playoffs so i usually don't buy into that maybe dac is convincing me but i usually don't buy into he's too old for that but lamar jackson is like 26 years old it's absurd hey by the way did you know that jordan love is younger than kenny pickett Is he really? That's not good. Oh, my.

That's not good for the Vikings. Lamar Jackson's younger than Bo Nix and Michael Penix. No. I think. No. He might be. You're bad at this. He might be.

No, he's not. I'm dying on the hill that he's too old. Lamar Jackson, I believe, is 26, and Michael Penix is going to turn 24 in May. Bo Nix is 25, though. No no he's 24 i think all right well you're not not quite you okay i don't think bo nix is going to be 25 i think he's gonna be 24 okay i think he's 23 right now so the same age as joe burrow either way the point the point is that lamar i feel like it's his time. That he has the right offense for him. And over the years, he's grown as a guy who can operate a complete offense on time,

which I saw a lot of this year. I was very impressed with it. It's not all just running around. With the Packers and 49ers, this Packers team is not a 9-8 team. For an entire half of the season, they've played more like an 11 or 12 win team, but the 49ers just have everything. And at some point, this Packers defense has to remember that they're the Packers defense,

right? Going out to San Francisco, hugely emotional win on the road, kind of feels a little Vikings over the saints kind of. And then you go on the road to San Francisco, but when you get a blowout like that and you're pulling out your starters at the end it's not it wasn't like it was that stressful for the Packers so this one's hard because I think it's much closer the the

Niners are favored by almost 10 points that's I think it's much closer than that yeah I think the Packers the hottest team in the NFL right now, by far. The hottest team in the way that they ran the last half of the season, got into the playoffs. It's just not a great matchup for the Packers with the physicality that the Niners bring up front on both sides of the ball. I think getting to the quarterback is – the Packers offensive line is good, not great. They're middle of the road, which is a good thing,

but you're going against an elite defense, elite edge rushers elite pressure the quarterback type guys i think that's probably the difference here is i think they get to jordan love a lot more than dallas did because i don't think they're gonna be a blowout where they can just hand the ball to aaron jones over and over and over again there's going to be third and eight third and tens multiple times throughout the game that we're going to see can this offensive line hold up against Bosa and Young and all those guys? I hate to sound too old school, but I think it really does come down to that 49ers team stopping the run the way that they are capable of. And that's just going to make everything on one guy. And if Jordan Love goes to San Francisco and does it again, wow, then that's going to be not a good day for Vikings fans now on Sunday.

So those are the two Saturday games on Sunday is the bucks at the lions. And every year, somebody just gets kind of lucky with an unexpected team winning in the first round and who you face. And that is Detroit because I have great respect for what Baker Mayfield has done. And how about the way that he is just turned himself into a leader that post-game interview even two years ago the guys like headbutting the sideline reporter and you know just shotgunning a beer

or something and instead he was very even keeled and uh very humbled i think i've just been so impressed with him but the lions here lucked into this i mean they're going to face a 9 and 8 team that won its division and play you know just they they're going to have the home field advantage everything behind them like everything kind of points to the lions in this game yeah the only thing that scares me and we talk about in the show is the secondary yeah mike evans godwin those dudes are burners they can go it's going to be a lot on can they get to baker mayfield and aiden hutchinson's the guy he's got to do it no one else on that front they were doing the intros and i was like i don't i don't know any of these

dudes are right unless it's aiden hutchinson and i don't know if someone else can step up it's got to be on him the matchup of him versus gadecki is going to be a great one because they're not going to put them over worse right you don't put your best pass rusher over their best offensive lineman as much as you don't have to you put him over gadecki and say go call game for us get us a strip sack do what you do but the game plan is going to be keep them off the field hand it to david montgomery give it to jameer gibbs then take your shot down with laporta or amandre brown they're just going to have to do what they've been doing all year i think they control the clock like they did against everyone they've played

against down the stretch this year. I think it's definitely Detroit's time and hats off to Dan Campbell, man, what he's done to get to this team, to this position, he's turned the whole culture embodied. And I don't think there's a city more behind a football team right now than Detroit.

I got to say credit to Dan Campbell. You're good enough for Detroitroit jared goff is a hell of a line i mean that's that is to to have gone through that everything else and have that right like he must have thought of that days before he must have been like hold on let me put that in the second copy yeah he had the first copy that came to him he's like yes good enough he's like football football football you're good enough for detroit oh that's a good one they're gonna be videotaping that i'm gonna put that out there that was but that was epic i mean uh after the game if you saw it but he screamed you're good

enough for detroit jared goth that's pretty awesome uh and then we have god's game the game that was written in the stars from the opening kickoff of the national football league, 2023 Kansas city chiefs at Buffalo bills, Josh Allen, Patrick Mahomes, the Dan Marino and Jim Kelly, or, or,

you know, Peyton Manning, Tom Brady of our era. I always feel good for people who, you know, like if you're growing up in any era, you could talk about these, one of these matchups.

And after, you know, Brady and one of these matchups and after you know brady and manning many retires you know what do we got now are we going to have this type of thing oh we got it yes we got this type of thing i i think this is going to be really tough for buffalo the way the kansas city's gotten it together and it blows my mind how they always do this just when you always think no no no now they're dead like now they can't do this anymore and then they go out in that game and just have a great offensive performance receivers remember how to catch a football when it was cold for some reason they catch it better uh travis kelsey got to rest a week which was pretty huge now taylor i want to toss some advice to taylor swift try the

wings but pick a good spot. Barbell. Barbell tower. There you go. Yep. Honey butter barbecue, Cajun style. We are there. I just go straight Buffalo.

I don't even use blue cheese. And you probably found out the ranch is. Don't ask. No, no, no. Don't even ask for it. They look at you like you have two heads. They'll be upset. They will be upset.

You know why that is? Because they make it all in-house. Everyone has their own homemade blue cheese. There's that. be upset they will be upset uh you know why that is because they make it all in house everyone has their own homemade blue cheese there's that and there's also that ranch is like its own spice in a way so what you're doing is completely changing the flavor of the wing to just be a ranch wing if you have blue cheese what it does is cools it off but you still get all the flavor to come through see it's scientific so if you order your roots are going deep i know i know so i'm just giving advice to taylor swift if she's

listening to the show all right probably and also hoping the ai picks up the words taylor swift and just shares it like crazy on youtube why does this have 10 million views we were just talking about you know running quarterbacks but yeah, so there's that. Also, even her private jet's going to have a tough time getting from the airport to the stadium. That is not fun. We used to talk about that with free agents. You land at the airport and then drive to Orchard Park, and they're like, nah, I'm signing somewhere else.

So good luck to her. But this game, I mean, I don't know. I don't know who's going to win. But all I know is that it's going to be epic because it is every single time between these two teams. And I just think we are blessed to have this matchup. Last game of the weekend. Thanks, Raj.

It's perfect. Don't put it on Peacock, my guy. I mean, the thing for me is this is the first time we're going to watch Mahomes in a away playoff. Yeah. This is the first time he's ever wanted to go on the road to get to the super bowl and if there was ever a time for sean mcdermott and the bills to wash that taste of what was it 13 seconds out of it it has to be this time it has to be the biggest issue i'm afraid of

is their linebacking core is so broke yeah the bills lost another middle linebacker and all sudden mason rudolph started just chucking it over the middle of the field for big chunk gains there towards the end of the game and i'm going i'm watching i'm going mason rudolph's doing this yep what is travis kelsey and patrick mahomes going to do yep like they're going to just attack the middle of this defense which is very light right now because the linebacking core is so broken that's going to be the difference if they can find a way to stop that connection over the middle of the field and then allen can't revert back to a bad turnover a bad interception which he didn't do this last week but it's still in there and the gunslinger when he's going against the other gunslinger emotions run high those two guys start trying to outplay each other

and if that gets into that game i give the nod to my homes just because he's proven it and josh still feels like he has to prove he can beat my home oh yeah talk about the pressure pressure being on the other guy that i would be really worried about if i'm the bills is legerius sneak because the bills have one good wide receiver and his name is stefan diggs and if he gets taken out of the game it's going going to be pretty tough. And that defense, man, Steve Spagnuolo just always shows up, right? That guy is good at his job. And I think against Miami, it goes underappreciated every time it's Mahomes. Like if anybody else does anything, you don't really notice it as much because it's Mahomes won the game.

But that defense won the game. I mean, Mike McDaniel got completely out-schemed. Tua looked totally lost. And that was in part because it's a super physical, really well-coached defense that I don't think even has to fool teams. I think they just are, like, right all the time. You know what I mean? They don't throw a bunch of wild stuff at people.

They just do their thing really well. Yeah, and it helps when you have Chris Jones again. Yes. All pro. Of course. Right? Sneed. All pro.

Are you saying superstar talent would help with defense? Superstar talent. I mean, even Bolton's playing at an extremely high level this year. So you have it all three of your levels. George Karloff is a first-round pick, has I think nine sacks this year. So those dudes all do a great job fitting within the scheme that Spaggs wants to play. And Josh historically has had some good games against this defense

and knows how to get it. But with the absence of Gabe Davis, he's going to also be another one where Gabe has tore the Chiefs apart, right? Because they have locked in on Diggs and be like, we're taking 14 away. He doesn't exist. Well, Gabe Davis has been the guy that showed up. Shakir, those type of guys, they're not Gabe Davis. They don't have the ability to do that.

If they win this game, it's going to be on the back of James Cook. Yeah, oh, yeah. James Cook to do that if they win this game it's gonna be on the back of james cook yeah oh yeah james cook difference if the bills win this game it's gonna because james cook was the one that made the difference in the game a little worried about his uh he could be a little wobbly it's a little fumble itis going a little bit i give you an x factor and that's because i grew up there and i live here that kicker looked a little shaky bass tyler bass little shaky he shanked the kick like you see in the mac yeah like or high school even the high school kickers these days don't miss them like that uh little concern right that poor dude you know he's on the sideline like let's go out here hold this kick get to halftime it's really cold and took off and you just saw like just hobbling oh so bad yeah i so

it's funny for me to say this to you but i had that happen once where i was just running playing baseball and the hammy and i was like wow this is terrible because you're always like oh it's just a hammy it'll be all right no no it's not good then he punted it, and the look on his face was like, that's the most pain I've ever been in my entire life. Excruciating pain. So the special teams may be a factor. But anyway, a great, great weekend of games. So, of course, you and I will continue through the playoffs,

and we will have lots of discussions about what is next at quarterback for the Vikings, and we'll analyze all of it going forward. But I'm really glad that you could come in studio. And can you do everyone a favor and show them your finger? You want to see it? If you're listening audio, you're glad you're not seeing this. That's horrifying. How did that happen?

2016, we were playing, I think it was the Texans. It was my first game starting. And I was like, go in, got a cotton face mask. I popped all my first game starting and i was like go in got a cotton face mask i popped all my fingers out so i pulled it back in and then i just felt it like slowly slide back out and so after the game taped it they like mri'd it and they're like well you tore the tendon in your hand like it'll be a six to eight week surgery to fix it or you can just kind of roll with it i was like all right tape it we'll just figure it out and then i've just never gotten fixed i don't have eight weeks not to use my right hand right handed yeah oh yeah well that uh that could

be difficult i remember that game quite well yeah five and oh baby yeah that was a blowout brock osweiler was shook yeah after that game tom johnson was like yeah he wasn't even looking at his receivers he was just looking at us yeah uh that was everson murdered him multiple times yes and i also remember that is the game that we knew that the offensive line couldn't hold up because Whitney Merciless slapped TJ Clemmings hands out of the way and sacked Sam Bradford. And I did a, an article afterwards like this is great.

They're five and oh, but look at these film clips that might be a tad concerning. And I didn't even notice your hand got ripped off. Yeah. So anyway, well, that's that quarterbacks, man. Quarterbacks, when you games and you know, quarterbacks man quarterbacks win you games well and uh you

know quarterbacks win you games look at the playoffs i'm excited this is gonna be i think this is the best divisional round in the last probably four or five years it's really good it's really really good yeah and honestly the super wild card weekend this might have been the best one of those two because usually the eighth seed just gets murdered yeah right like there was some surprising results but they were the other way around it was the teams that like you didn't think were going to get blown out they got usually it's like the second seed plays the eighth right and just gets murdered there is no eighth seed but sure it's seven seats sorry it's like yay that was fun but like this weekend was really fun this next weekend

though i can't wait i didn't even make you try to say i'm in raw saint brown slowly no because you just kind of cruise past uh we don't worry about the details no absolutely not thanks everybody for watching this was really fun now we'll see if jeremiah can make his way out of the studio without hitting his head on anything yes uh here so thanks everybody for watching and we will catch you next time football football