Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Jeremiah Sirles tries to solve Sam Darnold's turnover problem

Episode Date: November 13, 2024

Matthew Coller and former Viking Jeremiah Sirles talk about Sam Darnold's issues with turnovers and the things that play into those, including confidence, scheme and his own technique Want a great tool for teaching your kid about football? Check out FutureFans.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here along with Jeremiah Searles for another episode of Tuesday Morning Left Guard. Jeremiah just turned off the tape. He's so excited. He had so much fun watching all the points get put up on the board in such a back and forth contest between the Vikings and Jaguars. You can just see it right on your face how happy you were to review that game. No, that's not the case. I wanted to throw up multiple times watching that game because it's maddening. It's honestly the most maddening game I've watched this year.

You watch it and you're going, okay, up and down the field, we're doing whatever we want. Oh, okay, threw a pick. All right, he's done that the last couple weeks. All right, brush it off. We'll move on. Oh, defense, yeah, this team ain't going to freaking score. Like, Mac Jones has no shot.

All right, let's drive it. Oh, okay, he threw another one. All right, well, maybe he'll figure it out and get on the rail. It just was this watching of an ass kicking on tape like it was like it was just an ass kicking up and down the field by offense and defense and then you look at the actual score and you're like wait what's happening what is what is going on here why is this happening i i it was just the worst thing to have to watch for a second time i didn't want to watch it again once i got done watching it the first the first one was like, I don't, I don't ever want to watch

this football game ever again. I'd rather watch the giants play the Panthers in Berlin again, then watch this football game. Uh, harsh, but also fair, uh, in the assessment that that's the most difficult thing about coming out of this game is that when we put the stats together over the last two games and we do not talk about the crazed interceptions from Sam Darnold, which every one of them is just an awful decision. And I think that's maybe the most frustrating part is that you can throw interceptions in a game. You could throw three and have it be two of them bad luck and maybe one of

them just a misthrow. But to have five interceptions in the last two weeks in games that you controlled the football, you ran well, you threw to TJ Hawkinson and Josh Oliver, you moved it down the field, you possessed the football for a crazy amount over a two-game stretch, and I think they've run 50 more plays than their opponents in the last two weeks. It's nuts to then come away with only victories by a grand total of 13 points.

That right. Yeah. 13 points in these two games just doesn't make sense. And the, the fear is clearly setting in for Vikings fans. And I don't think it's irrational that those types of decisions are just not going to go away. Now, the only thing I could tell you that would make anybody feel a little bit better is that some of the best quarterbacks in the league also throw a lot of interceptions,

but they're not Sam Darnold and they don't have his past reputation. If Josh Allen has that game, if Matthew Stafford has that game, then we're going, Oh, that's old him. He'll be back to greatness next week. But staff, uh, Stafford and Allen have won a lot of football games in the NFL and Sam Darnold has not. So you're just envisioning, Oh, they need a game to win the division at the end of the season for picks, or they need in the wild card, they're killing the other team and yet they just need to finish off a drive and they refuse to run in the red zone or on third and short i think you're starting to see those wheels turning of this team is actually real good and one thing can take this

apart in an instant it just goes to show how the nfl really is such a quarterback driven league right we've always talked about that, how you're always looking for those top 20 quarterbacks, right? There's 20 guys that should be starting quarterbacks in the NFL. And then there's 12 that are placeholders until we can find one of the 20. And the question has been throughout the beginning of the season is where does Sam Darnold fit in that equation? And at times he's looked like 15, 16 up in that area. And at times he's looked like 31. And when you have the yo-yo effect for that, that's why you see these games that are craziness

that should be blowout type games, but you can keep an opposing team in regardless of how bad they are. If you give them three extra possessions or four extra possessions. I mean, if our defense wasn't what it was, we lose that game by 28 points, 21 points, but because of Brian Flores and what he can do and shutting guys down. And also because of the buy-in of this team, you know, I think it's really easy to look at this game from the X's and O's and the statistics and everything. Oh my gosh, what was happening? But when you look at it from a broader view and go, wow, that team didn't quit or that team didn't fold or that team didn't buckle under the pressure,

that speaks volumes to where this team is at from a locker room standpoint. And you would know better than I. You're in the locker room every day or you're around. Like, that stuff's hard to come by. It's really easy to just be like, oh my gosh, Sam, I'm going to fricking Debo Samuel. You didn't choke you on the sideline, right?

Like there's not a lot of that. It's more, Hey, we'll just keep going. We'll keep battling. We'll keep going. And you're going to win a lot of football games that way. But that starts to wear off a while.

If this continues to go weekend and week out and weekend and week out, there's some players on the team that will stop feeling that way. And that's where things can start to spiral a bit. Right. We've definitely seen when one side of the ball is asked to carry the load, and then that side will get frustrated when they lose a game and then take the blame. I had a conversation with a current Viking who used to be with another team that had bad quarterback play just chatting in the locker room one day, and he's like, we got blame for everything every single week our team couldn't score but all the defense gave up you

know 17 points that we lost and uh oh well you know you couldn't play and i understand that so there's a few things that come to mind i mean one is this is the strongest locker room i think that i have been a part of in terms of covering that includes the coach. Um, the 2017 locker room, as you know, it was very, very tight. The coach did what he could undo that, um, at times by calling out the quarterback rather than supporting him, which I think, uh, Kevin O'Connell has no choice, but to do when it comes to Sam Darnold, that's one thing. I think they can survive days like this, as long as there aren't too many. And as long as that doesn't cause them to go from seven and two to nine and eight, which

you never know. But I don't think that the schedule is set up for that with the Titans and the bears coming up. I think it's much more set up for them being at least 500 or maybe better and finishing with 11 and 12 wins. Even if the quarterback has some struggles, they've won his worst games, his worst game against the jets, his worst game against the Jags. It's okay. You're allowed to win some games with your defense. That's part of being a complete team. That's part of it. The other

part I would say is just name me a quarterback and I will on my computer look up their game log and try to not find a bad game I mean that's pretty bad three interceptions but what you know Kyler Murray's gotten hot lately it was terrible at the beginning of the year Jared Goff through five interceptions Kirk looked like he was going crazy and then loses to the new Orleans saints. The nature of being that kind of quarterback anywhere between 10 and 20 in the league is usually that you're going to have a distribution of games where some of them are bafflingly frustrating. Donald, he went, uh, four and two at the end of 2022. One of the games, he went five for 15 with two picks and had like a four quarterback rating. And somehow they won that game.

This is very similar to this. I think in, we all are sort of prisoners of watching every single play, but when the scores scroll by from other games, we go like, oh, that must've been a bad one. And then you never think about it again. But with this, it's like a traumatic event to have seen someone play like that but i think it goes back to going into the year we had no expectation right going into it we sat here and we're like seven wins six wins it all depend how sam plays and then he teased us with the beginning part of his year. And you're going, oh man, has he figured it out?

Then you're listening to Chris Collinsworth on Sunday night football talking about how this is it. And he's done it. And so you're, you're putting as a Vikings fan, like you said, you're just, you're living in the Vikings bubble, right? You're not, you're not outside. You're not watching it from Carolina. You're not watching it from California.

Like you're in it and you just live in it and go sam's the guy and you convince yourself that sam's the guy and then you watch these things and it is traumatic so you're like oh you're supposed to be the guy when in reality he might not be and he's that's okay right he's not meant to be the guy this isn't your caleb williams this isn't your CJ Stroud. This isn't your guy that you picked to fix the franchise. This is a guy that you paid for one year that's coming in and you have to understand that maybe he's not the guy. And I've found myself watching Sam go, what are you doing, man? Then it's like, it is Sam Darnold. Like it is Sam Darnold. And while I'm not saying that as an indictment on him, it is a little bit as fans to sit back and understand

he's not going to be the guy that's going to put everything on his shoulders and lead us to the promised land. And that's okay because the supporting cast around him is incredible. Not good. Incredible. I mean, TJ Hawkinson comes back for his second week back and they're just, where is he? Just feed it to him. Just dink, dink, dink. And we've been screaming for that for the first eight weeks of this year, dude, get it out of your hand, find someone to throw it to.

But then we get inside the red zone and it's like, I know what we should do 20 yards down the field. And Oh shoot. I didn't even see that guy standing there. Where'd he come from? That's the kind of stuff that elite quarterbacks don't do. Sam Darnold is not an elite quarterback. I'm ready to put the stamp on that. He's not. That's okay. We're still going to be able to win a lot of football games with him

as long as he plays within the scheme and KFC helps him out a little bit more with these underneath routes. What I was thinking about that is, okay, so O'Connell acknowledged that he can do more to help. Screen pass. Anytime now, it was working early in that he can do more to help. Screen pass. Anytime now. It was working early in the season, and they worked fine, the two that they ran, and then they just never did it again.

This one area of the field seems to freak out Darnold or freak out the head coach who loved to score 20-yard touchdowns with Kirk Cousins in this system, and maybe that's what it is, that Kirk was really good in that high red zone, finding Adam Thielen screaming across the back of the end zone, finding Jordan Addison who had 10 touchdowns. I don't know that Sam Darnold is as good at that. Kirk was also really good at getting himself to his base,

getting those feet planted and torquing the football, leading guys into spaces, as opposed to having to just throw right when they're open, which I think is kind of a darn old thing. But if we pull back, it is kind of random to have a three interception game as much as it was totally his fault for doing it. One tip, but that was a bad decision. But when I pull up, I'm just want to make this point. I am not saying he's this guy. Okay. I just want to make this point that how much reputation matters to the evaluation. There is a national football league quarterback who could win MVP this year,

who had a game on Sunday where he threw two interceptions, completed 59% of his passes, had a 60 quarterback rating and eked out an ugly win against the bad team and everyone's like great job you earlier in this season this same gentleman went nine for 30 in a disappointing loss 56 quarterback rating got blown out by another contending team 73 quarterback rating three sacks in the game. This person is Josh Allen. When you are a beast and you've got the reputation and you've done it year after year, if you have these bad games, people just go, that'll be better next week. It's a lot. The fear with Sam Darnold is that this is just going to be who he is this version, because we don't

believe in the backup swing. because we only saw it for essentially four games at the beginning of the year. I don't want to bail on the idea that it's coming back though. I mean, I just don't think that he's going to do this for the rest of the year. I wonder if there's anything that you saw though that was not just self-inflicted that the Jaguars did to cause Darnold to act this way i didn't and i was looking for it too but i was like okay what was the wrinkle what was it was it like a drop guys that you thought were blitzing or it wasn't it was just sam not seeing it and that's the scary part is it wasn't something schematically that the jaguars drew up. What happens is when you get into the red zone,

when you have an offense that is designed like KOC does in his mad lab of crazy route combinations that are going to confuse DBs and get corners pulled and linebackers and I, and I can't and all this stuff. When you get inside the red zone and that field condenses down, that kind of stuff really kind of goes out the window because there's not enough room. There's not enough time.

And the defense knows, hey, they can't do these long routes, so my pressure's going to come quicker. I'm going to get to the quarterback faster. I'm going to have to contain him as much. I just can go, go, go, go, go. And when you have a quarterback that you nailed that has to see things before he throws him, and his anticipation is not

very good it's not even average i think his anticipation of throws is below average so much in the red zone is anticipation hey i know my route concept i identify the coverage i know that my receiver when i hit my fifth step in my drop and i plant and go my receiver is going to be eight yards deep in the end zone on the right hash even Even if when I let this ball go, he's over on the left hash, right? I know that's where he's going to be. Sam doesn't trust himself enough to do that. And there's a lot of quarterbacks in the league that don't, that's what makes the elites, the elites, right? That they do that. I mean, Jared Goff does that so much this year and he had a bad game, right? But it's like, I've seen him do it. Like you said, Sam in the red zone needs to be better with anticipation.

And I don't know if that's something you can fix mid season. I just don't. I don't think that's something that a quarterback can just all of a sudden be like, let it lose unless you're Nick Mullins. And then you're just going to let that thing rip. Right. But I just don't think Sam trusts himself enough to have that type of anticipation. He needs to be able to at least see the window, right?

My receiver's clearing. I know it's there, and I know I have the arm strength to fit it in there. But when you're doing that, that's all you're looking at. You're not looking at the DB that's falling off of the other route because he's looking at your eyes, Sam Darnold. You're not looking at the safety that's not covering anyone, that he's the free man man and he's floating over into that window that's going to close and when you get hyper focused like that like a quarterback

that's where those interceptions start to come because it happens so fast in the red zone i think there's another part of it too with him with darnold that he kind of grew up playing linebacker receiver and then he switched over to quarterback while he was in high school so he wasn't one of those kids that went to qb camps and had you know some former quarterback had uh wes lunt out there teaching him how to throw the ball i knew i was gonna get you were drinking water and i knew i was gonna get you on that pole that's a good pull so but all those guys seem to start their little QB camps and everything. And, uh, they're teaching America's youth to throw a football correctly. What I see

from Darnold is him revert back to this sort of backyard E uh, technique where he hops a little bit in the pocket and he's not driving with his core and sticking his feet in the ground, all that sort of stuff. And the ball just doesn't come out right when he gets a little bit out of the structure of the play. And I don't even mean scrambling. I just mean, okay, the routes have happened. You've gone one, two, three, and it's not there, not there, not there.

Now what? And then he just sort of reverts to, ha, I'm going to huck it. And not like, let me get into my, even if he's had time, let me get into my real throwing situation here. Because when he throws that pick to Jefferson on the right side, if he throws it to the back pylon,

I mean, there's a decent chance Jefferson just does a toe tap and we're all going, that's the most insane catch we've ever seen. But it didn't get there. It just, cause I saw it developing and I thought, Oh,

Aaron Jones wide open underneath, which means he's not going to throw it to him. Jones is waving. Hey, that's fun to watch on tape. When you see a guy being like, I'm over here. And he's like,

no, I can't get throws at you, buddy. You got to go 15 yards deeper than he might see you. But I just, of you buddy uh you got to go 15 yards deeper than he might see you but i just i think that that's a thing that is not really fixable with sam darnold and that is where the head coach needs to have quicker and easier answers in that area of the football field and run in that area of the field or it's gonna keep happening yeah you nailed it on your last point there. Run the football, run the football in the high red, you know, all the stuff I talked about, about things

happening quicker and all that stuff. How do you get them to pause for a second? The threat of running the football play action in the high red is deadly. It's deadly, right? Because if you're in that 30 to 25 area of the defense thing, let's get them out of field goal range. Let's get a sack. And if you can just run the football and get yourself two, three runs in a row, and now you're down to the 18, and now you're down into your low red package and that type of thing, it just alleviates a ton,

and it makes the defense have to worry about more and think about more and maybe change up from their past rushers. Now you get their base personnel in there, and now there's better favorable matchups because now Hawkinson's not on a nickel. he's on a safety or he's on a bigger linebacker whatever it is but if there's no threat of running the football no one's scared we're just going to line up and sub get our pass bid our pass defenders on the field get our pass rushers on the field and let them go and it's just goes back to what i say again it's in his dna and you just sometimes as

my dad used to say a leprechaun changes spots right it is he is who he is and that means that if you're gonna pass it be more efficient with high percentage throws slants hitches screens is a big one i would love to see a couple naked bootlegs, right? Just, Hey, run it out. You've got Oliver, you've got Hawkinson now, like Oliver had a great catch. Just get it out, run the, like pretend you're running wide zone to the short side of the field loop back. And then you'll have your three layers, right? You're underneath for the easy completion, your Addison over the middle, or if Jefferson's doing his thing, then he's going to be in the back. Like those type of throws, those type of things in the red zone.

And then if it's all covered, run for five yards and fall down. Those are the type of things that you give Darnold more answers than just the get it to the end zone, get it to the end zone. That's what I'd like to see the progression of our red zone offense at least get to. But it all starts with the ability to run the football. Have you ever tried to explain football to a little kid? It can be near impossible to make it make sense sometimes, but there is help. I want to tell you about Future Fans, a new brand that helps little kids become big football

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Okay, here's the question then. I have been very, very impressed with the adjustments on both side of the ball by this coaching staff coming out of that mini buy against the rams they fixed a lot and welcome the bleep back blake cashman this man this man is phenomenal at football i mean i thought he was pretty good he graded well by pff and I watched a little of him with Houston. Oh no, he's fantastic. He is the entire linchpin to the whole thing that he makes it all work. He allows pace to get after people. He allows Van Ginkle to roam around as opposed to trying to move into his position. It's great. So that helps. But even the adjustments from Brian Flores,

the in the middle of the game overall, after what happened to them against the Rams. And then on KOC side, they are running the football a lot better and they are sticking with it more than they were. They are getting the ball out of Darnold's hands faster. They're getting to the line of scrimmage faster. There hasn't been a single delay of game in the last two games. They are checking it to Hockinson a bunch and Oliver a bunch, which is really working. So there's a lot of things they've done that I've liked. Will they get here with this? Will they resolve this particular issue? You're never going to take away the picks, but if the picks are the one that got called back and it's a 50 yard bomb and like, okay,

whatever. I don't care about that. Some things are going to happen balls are tipped you try to fit it into his window it gets knocked to somebody your arm gets hit like those picks happen but can he resolve this problem of the red zone the high red zone and the struggle sam darnold seems to have with this area of the field i want to say yes because he's proven to me that he can but it's only going to be if Aaron Jones walks in there and goes, you realize I'm on your football team, right? Like you, you, you realize once we crossed the 20, I'm still here. I don't disappear. Once we get to the 20 yard line, feed me the rock, right? Be the diva receiver a little bit, right? hey i will fix this problem this is what you pay me to do let me do it let me do it and if i can't do it then you can go back and do it your way

but he's earned that right aaron jones has been in this league long enough he has the respect enough to go have the conversation with koc in a respectful way and say this isn't working let's try something else and And know what? I will. I volunteer his tribute, right? Put it on me. I will handle this. I will make sure that Ed Ingram and Garrett Bradbury and Blake Brandel and Cameron Robinson and Brian O'Neill and Oliver Hawkinson get their asses moving that way. And if they don't, I'm going to run right into the back of them. Put CJ Hamm in front of me. I don't care. Just let me do it. And if you can do that, I think we can fix this problem because then you can get back to what you want to do.

But right now, defenses have seen this. They're going to continue to play coverage in the red zone. Let's change it up. And KOC, he's in running for coach of the year. He's a brilliant offensive scheme guy. I think if he listens to his veterans on his team and challenges his offensive line, that's how you fix this issue. I also think that opponents have figured out tendencies.

And one of them I asked Wes Phillips about today, the third and short, fourth and short tendencies. If you take out QB sneaks, they are passing way more than they're running, and everybody knows it. You see teams gearing up, all right, they're not going to run here. They're going to pass. Aaron Jones on either third or fourth and less than three has only run six times this year. Out of, I think, 40-something opportunities.

Yeah, that's not what should be happening. So can they identify that? Or are they too afraid of the interior offensive line? I think that might be a thing that they don't trust Garrett Bradbury to be a body mover. That's not what he is. But also, I mean, I know the internet hates if you pitch to a guy on a third and short. This is the guy you can do that with. This is the one guy where you can get him going behind Brian O'Neill, who's having,

by the way, all world type of year. He pitched a shutout, zero pressures allowed on 44 pass blocking snaps the other day. That's just ridiculous to do, but that's, that's get, get it behind that guy. Get it behind Josh Oliver. Get it by. It's not like you have no meat. There is meat. And they just seem to refuse to do that.

And I think that the tendency thing is what teams are figuring out. We've always criticized Cliff Kingsbury for that, but I think that that's somewhat what's happening here a little bit is opponents. They've got all the data. They know how little you run in these situations with Aaron Jones. If he's back there, you're probably passing and they're going to jump it.

They're going to try to run through and sack the bleep out of Sam Darnold. Sam Darnold question, though. Big picture. You got eight games left. If you win five of them, it's a 12-win season. It's one of the best seasons in Vikings history in terms of the regular year. How good does Sam Darnold have to be for the rest of the season,

whatever metric you want to use or what way you want to put it to win five of the final eight games. It's not a huge ask. He has to double his touchdown to interception ratio. Right. So if he's going to throw six interceptions, he better throw 12 or six or so. You better throw 12 touchdowns. Right. If he's going to throw eight touchdowns, then he can only have four picks.

Right. If he's going to throw eight touchdowns, then he can only have four picks. I think that's the metric that I'm going to look at it is if we're going to go feast or famine with Sam Darnold, which that's the trend, then it better be more feast than famine if we want to continue to get to that point. We can talk about QBR and we can talk about yards per attempt and the average depth of target or whatever it is. At the end of the day, it's got to be a touchdown to interception ratio for him because the big arm still going to be there. It's still going to be sexy to KOC. You still have Jefferson. You sub all these receivers.

You want to push the ball down the field too. You just have to understand that it's going to come with a problem. And the problem is turnovers. And as long as we can double that and continue to play the defense that we have been, I think we get to 12 wins. That is the metric in which I am looking at for Sam Darnold. I am going to try to use a non-metric metric and just say that his,

we like to use our blue to red sort of thing. I'm going to say that his confidence has to be in the orange uh in a good way not oh that's always in the red that is the most confident human being when he's out there and that's another part of it too that sometimes irks me a little bit with o'connell where it's like well you know the the play was there and we just didn't execute it and like like, if the quarterback can't execute it, then it doesn't matter if the play was there. If you said, Hey Matt, I've got this perfect route for you to run. You'll be wide open. I'd be like, I'm a slow person who can't play football. So that's not going to help you at all. Yeah. And it feels the same way sometimes with, well, I mean, the guy was open. He just needs to throw it.

Is that really a good idea? So I think that if, but if Darnold stays confident and his confidence does not fade, because you could see he's had in his career, these great moments, and then the confidence starts to dip. If that doesn't happen, they will be fine. And they'll win five of the last eight eight games if he stays down after this and starts to get down on himself and hesitant to throw the ball because there were times where he threw inaccurate passes where that shouldn't have been

he was just there's one to Oliver that's wonky there's one to Jefferson which is ridiculous catch uh that was way too low and an easy throw for him. You just see that cocking back and letting it loose wasn't really happening in that game. And he needs to be able to do that in order to lead them to these wins. Yeah, I think that's a great metric. You know, confidence for anyone in the NFL is so important to walk up to the ball, whether it's offense or defense, and know that I can do my job at a high level. And the second doubt starts to creep into your mind. It's, it's a cancer and I've seen it cripple guys. I mean, absolutely cripple guys. And I'm not, I'm not trying to throw guys under the bus, but like TJ Clemmings was a guy and it didn't help that the rest of the world was also piling in on

top of you. Right. And it's a hard thing and it's really easy to sit here and go ah none of that shit matters like it rolls off my duck water off a duck right like it doesn't matter but it it sits there and it lingers and the longer stuff like that lingers the more it becomes hard to dig yourself out of that hole and so i think that's a great point because comparing it back to the josh allens and the matt staffords and those type of guys, when you get in that hole, go back and watch one of your great games. Go back and watch one of the games where you just dragged your nuts all over someone and you were like, yep, I'm the guy, right? I don't know if Sam Darnold has enough mental games to go back to, to give himself that, like, I am the guy he's still trying to prove he is the guy. And that's a hard place to be. And you walk a

razor knife edge of which way am I going to teeter? And which way is the wind blowing today? And who, who's who, what tweet did I read? Or what did my mom call and tell me? Right? All that different stuff can play a factor into that and that is the psyche of a quarterback in the nfl and that's why you get paid an exorbitant amount of money to do what you do because it's a very hard thing to do i know that sam knows that everyone's saying same old sam darnold correct and i was in the middle of the game it was so dreadful at times i was arguing with with Mitchell Schwartz about Sam Darnold on the internet during the game. I'm just like, I need to focus here on this check down.

But wait, he would never check down. I need to focus on the right guard play. But what I was going back forth with him was he tweeted something like, this is the same old Sam Darnold. This is why the whole KOC, you know, it makes him a better quarterback is kind of bogus. I'm like, I don't want to go there after one game like this.

The entire season for Sam Darnold has been really terrific. But if you're Sam Darnold, you know, people are saying this. Everyone on the internet is saying this. There's no way to block it out. Every analysis of this game is going to say same old Sam Darnold. I think it's just going to be the truest test for him, for his career. What are you going to be? Are you going to be a Josh Allen? It's like, I don't care what they say. I'm just going to throw

four touchdowns next week and uh losing the afc championship to the chiefs come on guys you know who i am uh but with uh darnold he doesn't have a track record of being able to shrug all that off and get back and i also think too and you represent players i think it's the hardest thing in sports for players now to deal with noise because they used to be able to at least shut it out if you don't read the newspaper or you don't watch the local tv oh there's no shutting it out now it is at your doorstep 24 7 for what everyone is saying about you every week and i think pff doesn't help this at all right because it used to be oh that's just that person's opinion right like i don't

really care what that person says but once pff came out it really pff kind of came out towards the latter part of my career like the last couple years and it gave the world a number to put on you right and it validated some of those people that would get on there and be like see i told you 38 pff grade he sucks right versus it used to be like i don't jimmy jimmy 69 543 on the internet i don't care what you say but now it's like hey i said it pff says it therefore it must be true and when you have a collective group of people on the internet or even people are not afraid to come up and say things to people anymore like at a restaurant or whatever it's it's a hard thing like you said to escape but it has been one

of sam's greatest career years like and it's so easy to lose sight of that because we saw at the beginning and we want to be like top 10 quarterback right we saw it and he did it and you are who you put on tape and then when it swings back the pendulum like this like bottom 10 quarterback that's just so hard to evaluate and as a player you know talking to my guys about it too is hey what did your coach say right that's where having good coaches and that's where having good teams around you like that's where that stuff really matters hey what was your actual grade from the coach hey what was the coaching point on this right I'll use John Michael in his

example. John Michael is my starting center for the Giants. He had a play this week against Carolina where his job was to check the linebacker that was mugged over the top of him. If he drops, he has to kick out behind and pick up the blitzing nickel. He does that. He does his job. The left guard gets creased across his face and gives up a sack. Guess who PFF gave the sack to? John Michael, right? And there's little nuances throughout every single game that happens like that, that you don't understand what the scheme is, right? There's rules within the rules of every single play. And so while some of that stuff is being validated on the internet, other stuff is you just have

to rely on your teammates. You have to rely on your support system and you have to just really focus on the actual fixable coachable things and block out the rest and it's not easy to do but the great ones can do it the guys that last a long time this league can do it and i think because sam has been battle hardened for a long time he's probably got thicker skin than most i think so too i mean having survived this entire thing and just from the PFF point, it's never going to really always tell the entire story that the coaches know. And I wrote about this with Harrison Phillips and Jonathan Bullard, who of course, I mean, Phillips grades pretty well. Jonathan Bullard does not grade very well in certain areas,

which brings down his overall grade. So then when they showed on Sunday night football, it says he ranks 80th out of 90 and he must be the worst player, but his tackling grade is run defense grade or good because that's what he's in there for. He's, he's also in there to move bodies and you're not going to get plus grades. And I had this conversation with Harrison Phillips at his locker the other day about these grades and stuff. Like you're not going to get plus grades by just moving a body and having a blitzer go sack quarterback. The blitzer is going to get the plus grade, not because Bullard didn't do a good job, just because it's not considered to be one of those plus type of plays whose fault it was on a sack is one of the hardest things I think in football in general, because it could be a

running back. Sometimes somebody might miss a block. The running back tries to save his butt and then get steamrolled. And then all that running back loss, you know, there's all sorts of things that happen that make it complicated over a thousand snaps. It tells the story, but on the individual level. Uh, and I think that goes for all stats in general is that everybody has so much access to everything, the film, the stats, that you, if you're not happy with Sam Darnold's performance, there's a lot of things that you could put out there to talk about it. And Sam Darnold, it's his job to make sure that he doesn't see it or, or be impacted by it. So I think that's one thing, but I also just think in his own brain,

no matter what anybody else is saying,'s got to be wondering am i the same old sam i mean i know this just from golfing am i the same guy who misses this putt i've been practicing putting all week i've been putting great in this in this seven through 17 holes but i got a birdie here and i gotta make this putt and i'm the same guy that pulls every putt like it's just that human nature right exactly exactly it's I mean I've had it happen to me I've been playing great I've been having great games and then I give up a sack I'm like my guy gives up a sack a game again like is that me am I am I back to that and then if that compounds for three plays one series right that's

all it takes to derail the entire game. Because I'd say this all the time. As an offensive lineman, which I'll always bring it back to, you give up one sack a game, you're out of the league. You get one sack a game as a defensive lineman, you're all pro. There's different nuances to it, and it's just human nature to have self-doubt. And people think, oh, you're a professional, man.

This is your job. It doesn't change the fact that I have self-doubt and people think, oh, you're a professional, man. This is your job. It doesn't change the fact that I have self-doubt. I have, I have that in me. The pro the, the difference between great pros and guys that can do it a long time is the way to channel that, the channel it, the proper way to say, yeah, I am the same old who I am, but here's how I've grown from it. But I've grown from this. I've fixed this. I've corrected this. And that's where I want to see Sam Darnold say, Hey, yeah, I am the same old Sam. I have my flaws, but with the coaching that KOC has given me with the supporting cast that I put around me, I've grown out of that. And I'm going to show that. And if he can come out and do that,

I think we'll be okay. He's never going to be Josh Allen, but he can be, can he be Baker Mayfield? Right. Can he go be that kind of guy when Baker revived his career in Tampa? Yes,, but he can be, can he be Baker Mayfield, right? Can he go be that kind of guy when Baker revived his career in Tampa? Yes, I think he can. He just has to be the only one that can do it. No one can save him. No one else can save him. And KOC can do better. Jefferson can do better. Everyone can do better around him. But at the end of the day, you're the one that fires the ball. You're the last one with your hand on the ball at times. You have to make the right decision. Ready to kick off some extra fun on Football Sundays? Grab Catan and keep the action going off the field. While Minnesota's football teams are crushing it, you and your crew can build, trade, and outsmart each other in the ultimate game of strategy. Whether it's during halftime,

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How do we know? They told us. The good news is that compared to wrapping presents, you are great at getting hints. So take a hint and get them four free phones and four lines for 90 a month us cellular built for us another point just in general about i mean even using the statistics is when we have a three interception game we are going to lose our minds but even even Nick Mullins doesn't throw three picks a game. Even, even Sam Darnold with his turnover worthy play rate.

There are, I counted this up in terms of the top 10 in turnover worthy play rate. Five of the quarterbacks in the NFL are in the playoffs right now, if they started today. So it's not even that unusual. It's not Nick Mullins turnover worthy play rate is legitimately hilarious and insane. That's that's up there with James Winston for the all time. How does this even happen? It's not that. So I think that they need to keep perspective on if you threw three

interceptions a game, you would have what? I don't know. Do the math in my head. Is that 50 something or whatever? Like it's not that's not gonna happen so as long as he sort of stays on the that was a random event that will not likely happen again maybe one other time in your career that you'll throw that many picks you know jared goff after that game the other night is like wow that that was weird and back

to it next week he's not sitting there thinking I'm going to throw three picks every week. And they have the supporting cast. Now that's the other thing to talk about here is that Hawkinson was so good and will continue to be so good for him. Continue to lean into that. And I think that they can get the bus turned around when it comes to this. And if you keep executing the way you execute, this was my big takeaway for the game. If you execute that way and you gain 400 yards game and control the ball for

40 minutes and you run and you throw underneath and you get the occasional shot down the field, you're just going to be a really good team. That's a lot to handle and get defense like that. That's what I think they need to understand coming out of these last two games. You actually played pretty great. So just finish the job. Yeah. Don't change anything, right? Don't change schematically. Don't do any of that. You are who you are. You're playing well. You're

putting up yards. Just make better decisions. And it's such an easy thing for us to sit here with our microphones and our comfy chair and not having a guy like TJ Watt trying to rip my face off. Right. That's an easy thing to say. It's a lot harder to implement, but that's why you're making 10 million a year, dude. That's why you're getting paid. That's why you're allowed to be criticized like this. You're a professional athlete comes with the territory, put up or shut up. That's what it comes down to at the end of the day.

Football. Okay. So we can bake this into love to see it hate to see it or just talk about it caleb williams has already got an offensive coordinator fired and now now look with every single quarterback always we pick them apart in draft season and sometimes it's right and sometimes it's wrong but one thing that was odd to me during draft season, I talked about this, I feel like a lot, was that Caleb Williams was pretty flawed. And we talked about him as if he was not flawed.

He had the worst, talk about PFF grade, one of the worst PFF grades under pressure last year. He fumbled like crazy last year. He took sacks. He scrambled and broke the play without sitting in the pocket and going through his reads. Talk about wide receivers waving their arms at the quarterback. Happened a lot with USC.

He wasn't seeing the field very well and his highlight reel plays and how he could throw the football. They blew everybody's mind, but they acted like this quarterback would need no development. Of course, I am not going to call Caleb Williams bust, say he can't do it. Anything like that. That's not happening. But the world seemed to just expect that this dude was going to be Andrew Luck and come in and win 10 or 12 games right away.

And I don't know why they didn't think that they had to develop this person. Well, it goes back, and we talked about this on our other pod, the O-line committee, the cycle in which the Bears are living in. It's like the Matrix. You can go all the way back to John Fox. They have a coach that they're kind of lukewarm on. He does terrible for two years. They fire the offensive coordinator, and they go, you know what we're going to do? We're going to draft a quarterback

in the first round and we're going to give you one more year coach one more year. They draft Mitch Trubisky, right? John Fox. Okay. Draft Mitch Trubisky. Nah, go get Nagy. We'll get Nagy. It's Mitch, isn't it? All right, Nagy. we don't really love you, but we're going to go get Justin Fields. Get Justin Fields. Ah, no, Nagy. It's just not, it's not working. Fire Nagy. Iberflues. Ah, you know, maybe it's Justin Fields.

All right, Iberflues, we don't love you, but we're going to give you Caleb Williams. It's the vicious cycle that Chicago do something different. Find a different idea. If you were going to wipe the board clean, Ryan poles, you should have done it last year. You should have done it last year because guess what? You're going to now bring in a new offensive coordinator, maybe a whole new head coach next year. And now Caleb's going to have to learn everything all over again. Not at pretty, he's not going to progress. He's going to regress because he has to learn new system,

new verbiage, new route concepts, new snap counts, everything. It's not fair to Caleb. Now he earned some criticism, but it's not fair to do to these young quarterbacks to bring them in and just put nothing but change around them versus you look at the quarterbacks that were young and struggled and then eventually got great. They had constants around them. Josh Allen, Patrick Mahomes, right? Josh sucked as a rookie. I was on that team. We went six and ten.

We were terrible. He threw interceptions and he did terrible things. But they didn't fire Dable. They didn't fire Sean McDermott. Brandon Bean said, hey, this is our plan. This is our guy. We're going to build pieces. We're going to bring pieces in around them.

We're just going to stay with them and make them better and that's the recipe for success sorry bud this isn't gonna work if you keep just changing things bryce young's now had multiple outcomes all office coordinators right all these young quarterbacks mac jones went through multiple different guys there's a trend as to why young quarterbacks fail and this is one of them you don't give them constants. And Caleb Williams, man, as flawed as you are, you're not being helped out by anyone around you. You know, I was actually thinking the other day, thank you, JJ McCarthy's meniscus, because what would be happening right now is screaming for him, screaming to the high heavens.

Yep. You better do it now. Darnold's going to blow the season for you. You got to force the season for you. You got to force the kid in there. It's actually better that that's not even an option for JJ McCarthy. We see it around the league. There is another part of it though. So Shane Waldron had some success before. It's not the first time ever. Uh, if he, if it had worked out that it's not the first time ever, he's been an offensive coordinator and he got hired for a reason and the quarterback played terribly. I mean, I know, and I'll get all

the film breakdown people. Well, you see the route combinations, the Caleb Williams. Okay. But you're not supposed to get sacked 25 times and like three games. And there's a JTO Sullivan does QB school. And if you watch his breakdown of that Patriots game, he just is losing his mind over everything. It's not just, but good quarterbacks can find a way to keep the ball moving, make some plays. Even when things aren't going right.

I've been super impressed with Drake may dude kind of has a baller mentality and his team's horrible. They're much worse than Chicago and he's finding a way and he's making plays. And of course, Jaden Daniels has a good team and a good coach and they're rolling. He's also a grownup, came into the league a little older, but I think that some of this, it's very similar to Bryce Young. The whole world goes organization. It's your fault. You did this. And even when Bryce Young's playing well he's averaging five and a half yards a pass they may have just drafted a guy who has more flaws than they thought and I also don't want to hear again when someone drafts a 5-10 quarterback

this guy's different it'll be fine it's just like Drew Brees it's not fine it's it's not I mean Kyler Murray is the best version of this, not named Drew Brees or Doug Flutie. Because he runs a 4-4. And he's about the hardest person to tackle, not named Lamar Jackson. That's not what Caleb Williams is. So I think that there was a lot that just got overlooked here,

and he has been horrible, even within the bad circumstances. And what I loved about Joe Burrow when he came to the leagues, his team was complete garbage. It was just awful. And he fought. And that's what I see from Drake May. He's fighting. And when you see a guy that's not, and his body language is brutal,

which, hey, by the way, another problem in college that we pointed out. And everyone said, no, no, no no you're not allowed to say that or whatever you crying in mommy's arms in the sideline put the towel over your head and the game's not even over yet i just i don't know like some of this has to be pointed at maybe he's not as good as they thought i don't know time will tell time will tell because i don't think you bench him right i saw a report that some of the vets were like we want tyson like do you really though no you don't you want to grow with this guy he's the face of your franchise he's not going anywhere don't give him the anthony richardson treatment and you don't have joe flacco sitting

behind him it'd be one thing if like smoke and jay cutler were still sitting there behind him right like the old wily vet no you don't go to tyson you roll with what you got you change some things around him you give him answers, and you grow with him because he's going to be the face of the franchise going forward. Love to see it. Hate to see it. Nebraska football. Hate to see it.

Hey, we got a new offensive coordinator. Marcus Satterfield. We brought in Dana. He's our guy. We brought him in on the bye week as an offensive consultant, and within seven days, he is now our offensive coordinator. And we now have the most expensive tight end coach in the country. We're back. Nebraska's back, baby. You know, we are welcome back. Nebraska. You done? I'm done. What the hell

happened? I don't know, dude. It's so sad. It makes me hurt. It makes me hurt inside, but there's hope we live on hope. That's all we. It makes me hurt. It makes me hurt inside, but there's hope. We live on hope. That's all we live. We just have to go one more. I think we can get one more, right? Play in the Idaho Potato Bowl on December 17th or something like that. I don't care.

Just something with a bowl next to it. All I want to do is get the quarterback a regular helmet. Just stop trying to look like Mahomes with your helmet. Mahomes' helmet looks stupid everybody knows that right i know man trust me what are we doing here i gotta go do a husker pot after this one and put lipstick on a pig too it's just part of part of being a husker fan we figure it out but one more we can get one more maybe it's out out. Maybe it's out West against USC this week. Cause they're a mess too.

Okay. Any other, uh, love to see it. Hate to see you want to throw out there. No, my love to see it. The Detroit lions. You just, you fall behind. You think this is okay. The shiny pennies wore off.

They're going to, they're going to get Brock back down to earth and they just find a way. They just find a way to fight back to not give up never quit and you talk about a culture man i don't know if you can find a better culture in the nfl right now than what's going on with the detroit lions uh my hate to see it well i have a mix love to see it hate to see it jackson deville the mascot from the jaguars, trying to fight the Vikings defense. That was so funny. Love to see it. Love that mascot.

Dude is the GOAT. It's just, he propelled down from the top of the stadium, but there's no top in the stadium. They have a high wire and he comes down from, he propels down. It was insane to watch in person. A true entertainer, a master of his craft. The hate to see it is everything else Jacksonville.

How did this city get a football team? I honestly have no idea. We went downtown. Where's the... Is there a city here? What is this? The stadium. Let me just tell you about something funny with this.

I played in that stadium twice when they got it oh yeah the mad aseata can't get in the end zone game yeah uh the yep remember that one so they bring out these jaguar heads and before the game they're like maybe five feet tall and five feet wide and they roll them out and they shoot not flames because it's not allowed they shoot steam they shoot steam out of them they're ceramic they look like they were made in 1995 when they introduced the team the press box is right on top of the field like it's a high school thing the stands up in the top are just mostly empty but what year is this where are we what is going on is the swimming pool still there oh i didn't see the swimming pool oh they do have that yeah it's still there i didn't i

assume it is i didn't look for it well i remember we played there my bowl game uh when we went down to the the gosh i don't remember what the outback boy i didn't remember what the bowl was but it was the worst bowl game experience of all time. Right. There was nothing to do. There was nowhere to go. Jacksonville sucks as a city. It's so spread out. It's just not a fun place to be. It's just not.

It's awful. So I said to one of the Jags writers, he said, well, what'd you guys do last night? And I'm like, oh, we just went to a sports bar, watched the Bama game. And, uh, you know, it was kind of in this area or whatever. He's like, oh, you saw all of it. Oh, okay. All right. Um, maybe next time I'll book the Nashville trip instead of the Jacksonville trip. Uh, and even dumber for me, I thought when I booked, cause I, I submitted the beginning of the year, which road games I'm going to, to the Vikings PR. So we get the credentials and credentials and everything and i was like this will be a big one this will be a good game you know lawrence jack's gonna be

good this year can i get credentials can we can i get credentialed from purple insider and can we can we go to a game next year together and we can road trip yeah we could do a roadie i would love to do a roadie tuesday morning left guard road. Let's go. Sign me up for that. All right. Not Jacksonville. Not Jacksonville. No. And I also had originally thought, well, I'm going to go down there and maybe find a golf course, rent some clubs or something, or get together with somebody else and play. The minute I get there, get out of the airport, it starts pouring.

Okay. Well, good times in Jacksonville. And then the football game was stellar. Did not make up for it. Uh, all right. Tuesday morning, left guard.

We'll figure that out for a road trip. Oh, I know new Orleans for the super bowl. Oh, sign me up. We're there. That's where we'll be. Uh,

thanks so much, Jeremiah. We will talk very soon. Football, football.