Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Jeremiah Sirles wants Kevin O'Connell to make the QB decision

Episode Date: January 16, 2025

Matthew Coller and former Viking Jeremiah Sirles break down how Sirles would handle the QB spot Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey everybody, welcome to a very special episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here and in studio because he has to show up once a year to show off how much bigger he is than me, Jeremiah Searles. I hope you know as a former Viking that if someone is six foot two in the normal world like i am that's pretty big in your world that's just some average little dweeb man but i actually am above average size i just don't look like it when i'm standing next to you hey you're used to it though you're you've been around all the big people all the time but yeah you are above average i'll give you i'll give you above average so we'll take it you know what wasn't above average? The Vikings. That's a tremendous transition into our main subject here,

which is how the Vikings completely fell apart in this football game. I just want to start with a very simple question for you. Now, you have watched back the coach's tape, and you certainly are better at watching tape than I am. My observation, though, from watching back was like, when was supposed to say, I'm supposed to throw the ball and to whom on many of these sacks. I think that this is why we watch the tape of football games, because the interpretation that I had when I was there in Glendale was quite a

bit different than what I had in watching the tape back. Did you feel the same way? Yeah. You know, immediate reaction was like, well, Sam's never going to play football in the NFL again, right? I mean, that's kind of what's like at the end of that game, even the announcers were like, oh boy, this guy. But when you really look at back, it's really hard to pin it just on Sam because you're watching the offensive line, not be able to pick up stunts. You're watching receivers, not be able

to create separation. Was there times where Sam could have pulled the trigger and let it rip yes absolutely but when you have i think it was 25 pressures last week and then another 25 pressures this week you're going to be rattled like you're going to be rattled at one point and koc did not do him any favors of getting the ball out of his hand early at the beginning of the game trying to establish some sort of run game at the beginning of the game they were just like nope we're going to do what we've done all year. Let Sam hunt the field down the ball. Detroit game didn't matter. Rams didn't watch it. They're not going to try and do anything that they did. We're going to be just fine. And it is a calm. Everyone is to blame for this. You can always pin it on the quarterback. That's the easy thing to do,

but everyone is to blame for this loss. I think when we look around the league and we see someone like Lamar Jackson, we see someone like Josh Allen and we go, well, those guys are kind of impervious to almost anything. So that's what quarterback should be. But there's also a lot of examples in the playoffs year after year of a team just straight up trouncing another one in the trenches. And there isn't a whole lot that the quarterback could do. And I guess the natural next question is after we break it all down and we see, well, Cam Robinson had 12 pressures allowed and the interior struggled and guys also weren't getting open, which is another part of it too. And Sam missed some easy throws. He is always in forever going to try to escape the pocket backwards,

which makes five yard sacks into 15 yard sacks. And so everyone is responsible, but only really one of these players has a big decision about them in the off season. So my question to you, I love to make you put percentages and meters on stuff. So what percentage of your evaluation, your entire evaluation of what they should do is weighted on this last game?

Because I think that the large opinion, and this goes, like you said, broadcasters, Twitter reporters, whoever you look at is like 90% on the last game. It seems, I wonder what your percentage is. I'm putting, it's not as much the last game. It seems, I wonder what your percentage is. I'm putting, it's not as much the last game. I'm putting about 30 to 35% on the last two games, right? Cause I count Detroit as a playoff type atmosphere, right? That was a playoff game. You're playing for the number one seed, right? A ton on the line. Obviously it wasn't win or go home, but I'm putting that game

in this game of you separate the greats in the, in the quarterback world as do they have Superbowl rings? How many playoff wins do they have? What do they do when it's absolute nut cutting time and everything's on the line? That's where you were like, there's the go, right? Tom Brady, there's the go right there. Lamar Jackson folds in the playoffs, even though he's got two possible MVP back-to-back seasons. So when I look at the body of the whole, yes, you can look at what Sam Darnold did during the season

and go, man, that was great. Wow, he's playing as a top five quarterback at one point in this time. But when everything was on the table and all things were equal, and when you get in the playoffs, what you did to get there no longer matters, and it starts to fold like that,

you're absolutely losing money. You're losing money. And I mean, whether it's, did you go from 40 to 35 or 40 to 25, that's going to be fully dependent on the team that takes him. But I'm no longer viewing Sam Darnold as the answer at quarterback for the Minnesota Vikings. Like I was maybe four weeks ago. Right. And that is just that you're only as good as your last at bat in this league. That's just how it works. You can have a tremendous first half of the season. You crumble in the back half. No, one's going to point and be like, oh, but he did really good weeks one

through eight. It doesn't work like that. So I put a ton on like 35% of my evaluation for the future of Sam Darnold on these last two games. I think that's completely fair and unfair at the same time. So it is completely fair because they're trying to win a Super Bowl. And if the goal is for next year to try to win a Super Bowl, it's harder to do or hard to repeat 14 wins again and to have a defense of this caliber and get everybody healthy on the defensive side and perform at the way that he did.

It's so far above his career that you have to factor in. There might be some regression for him or other teams have figured out certain things that he doesn't see well or how to deal with him in the KOC offense. There's the other part that says, well, actually Kirk was better in the second year of the KOC offense.

So maybe there could be some growth there for Sam Darnold. And KOC sort of hinted at that. He said, well, he's only 27. I was like, yeah, 27 is not that young now at quarterback. But the point that I want to make though, is that Matthew Stafford won a playoff game against the Vikings. That was only the second time he's ever been to the playoffs and won a game. And the other time he won four and went to the Superbowl and won. There's that great stat where Eli Manning, I believe is eight and four and all the wins are in two years. And Eli Manning was

the same sort of deal. It was a, you're a choker, you can't win the big one and then you can't until you do. So historically, I don't think that weighing everything on a playoff game is really a good way to decide whether a quarterback is good or not. When you got out coached at the same time, most of those teams historically had to stay with their quarterback because they didn't have any better options. And they also didn't have potentially trade return salary cap return, which really brings them to how confident are you that JJ McCarthy can step into those shoes? And then where do you set your expectations if you're going to, because to me, all right, they won 14 games. But if we're doing the the seven seed next year or taking a step back and

even missing the playoffs in this division. If the bears get better to develop JJ McCarthy for next season, or do they think that they can spend so much money and have so many free agents come in that McCarthy will be in a cocoon of excellence and coaching, which I think you have to believe in KOC's impact on the quarterbacks. I mean, that's really what the decision comes down to is what's your level of confidence that someone who's never played before can step in with KOC and just take off because he's going to have a really good supporting cast. Yeah. And I agree with all your points. The really hard part about trying to figure that out now is it's not even like JJ McCarthy played this year in practice,

right? I mean, it wasn't the comment of Mike Zimmer with Kellen Mond we're like I've seen him every day in practice right we have not seen JJ McCarthy throw a football since August and so now you have to try and make these decisions off blind projection right hey we saw it for one game in a preseason and everyone lost their minds and we lost our minds include like oh we shiny new toy we got something here boys right and now you have to go okay shiny new toy first round draft pick what we hope and what we believe is a consistent quarterback if we're going to look at the the body of the whole from this season what is what is the risk reward for each and they're both drastically different right you could have the risk with sam darnold is he is exactly who he was these last two weeks and you pay him 30 to 40 million dollars and now you're looking at a daniel jones situation right the reward is sam is who he was for the first

16 weeks of this season and now you're setting yourself up for another double digit win season a chance to run at the playoffs like you just lined up the bigger problem for me for koc and crew is if jj mccarthy is not who we think he is and i'm not saying that i believe either way on this if he turns out to come out next year and look like caleb williams because he is a rookie everyone's gonna be really upset that we let sam darnold go and so you have to make the decision kind of right now. I don't think you need to draw this process out, right? If you want Sam Darnold, I think you start contract extensions right now. The longer you don't start contract extension with Sam, the more jaded he's going to feel, right? And then there's going to be a little more drama. If you make the

decision right now, hey, we're sticking with Sam because we want to go win a Super Bowl in the next two years, then we go for it. If we think, hey, we can bring JJ in and still win a Super Bowl in the next three years, then you go with it. It's really just going to be dependent on what you really believe in the quarterbacks that you've seen, but you're blind projecting JJ McCarthy. But the nightmare of the skeletons in Sam Darnold's closet are equally as scary for me. I have to just stop and marvel at where we've come in the last two weeks with this conversation, because look, I mean, this is why I always say we change as the information changes because, and going into the playoff game, one thing that I talked about is how the season ends always shapes how you feel about everything and anything. And that's also gone for some high

moments with this team. Even with Mike Zimmer, 2019, the ownership made its call based on the fact that they out-schemed Drew Brees and won that game. And it was the wrong call for both to bring the quarterback and the head coach back. But they were like, we now know Kirk can win the playoffs. It was like, oh, they won a coin flip and he made a great throw to Adam Thielen

and Kyle Rudolph didn't get called for pushing off and you win a single game. And then that changed the course. But I could also see because the ownership will be involved in this decision. Them saying, look, we just had the same thing happen that happened with Kirk and you didn't want to pay for it. Why would you pay for it now? But it was different. They outscored opponents by a hundred points and Darnold played really, really well for the entire season. I mean, sometimes when I see the dialogue about this, I'm like, was I dreaming? Should I, I mean, should I not take these trips to road games to

watch Sam Darnold throw a 40 yard touchdown to win a game against Seattle because it's all just not going to matter. And I should just maybe cover the wildcard playoff round because that's the only way we're going to do this. I mean, there is a big sample, 102.5 quarterback rating, 35 touchdowns, 14 wins. These things don't just like come out of thin air. And I think that Kevin O'Connell also has to take a look at himself in the mirror for Sam Darnold's performance as well. And I wonder how he'll come out of it. If he's going to come out of it and go, I let him down. Yeah, I mean, if he really believes that he is equally as blame as Sam here, then he needs to go pound the table for Sam.

And I hope ownership and I hope Kwesi and those guys listen to KOC because he is the one that is going to make this thing go or he's going to make it stumble. And he's the quarterback whisperer. Daniel Jones has been in quarterback rehab now with the Vikings for a while now. What does he want, right? And I mean, I think the ownership has the money situation and the contract situation. How do we want to build our team? But at the end of the day, the head coach is the one that's going to talk to the quarterback about winning football games, right? So he needs to make a decision of, hey, I think this is best for me and this offense going forward. And it's kind of an impossible

position to really put him in. But at the same time, that's why you have head ball coach. That's why there's only 32 of you on this earth right now. But KOC does have to take a big, hard look of, man, what happened the last two weeks? Why did Aaron Glenn rattle me so much? Then how did we not make the necessary adjustments? I'm going against Sean McVay to fix the issues, right? That's what I always talk about is I talk about with my rookies a lot. If you make a mistake the week before, the number one thing that the opponent's going to do is test you early and say, did they fix those things? Or if they didn't hammer down. And that part for me is coaching. It's all about coaching and getting you guys ready to go.

And I don't know if it was because KOC didn't feel confident of like, Hey, we got to be more run centric this game. Like we're just going to keep doing our thing. And Hey, we just had a bad game against the lions. Things will be fine. But if he really believes that he can just, his scheme's going to work against everyone now, then I'm concerned it might not really matter who the quarterback is. Yeah, and that's another thing that's hard too because we're talking about Kevin O'Connell, Coach of the Year, and he earned it a thousand times over. I mean, not just the preseason expectations, but you win 14. Even if your preseason expectations are high and you win 14,

you win Coach of the Year. And to do it with a quarterback who had been a journeyman before and had struggled before to do it with the culture that they built the scheme that he drew up for the quarterback to have a top five defense a top 10 offense I mean it's just great coaching the guys I mean you know when people are kind of talking around something but I think they're not. It's genuine how much the players care about O'Connell. And it shows up in that NFL PA survey, too, that they gave him the highest coaching grade in the NFL. And I assume that they will again this year for the player survey.

That's pretty hard to be like, ah, man, well, you know, I guess you can only go so far with him. Like, okay, let's,'s again not overreact no because this narrative was on sean mcveigh until it wasn't and it's on everyone until it's not even with mike tomlin now well it's been too long since you've won a playoff game so thumbs down like okay well someone needs to get him a better quarterback but they're your flaws when you lose this way on the big stage a lot of times are really enhanced because it's in front of everybody and everybody breaks it down and shout out to dan

orlovsky of espn who did a great breakdown of how the rams had every answer for what koc was going to do from a pass protection standpoint and that sort of teacher and student type of situation and why it was the worst matchup for them as well but it's also one game yes and o'connell can get better and he can improve going forward uh but it has been out there i've seen it do you think that it hurts o'connell in negotiations absolutely you think so okay i mean i think if he would have won this game then lost in the divisional no no, it doesn't hurt. But to have, like you said, to have the 14-win season and to not go in the playoffs like 2022

when we knew they were frauds, right? We were like, I did. I was like, this is a fun football team to cover, but I don't think they're a contender. D.C. Timwee's a contender, right? You had a contender football team. You had an unreal wide receiver, a defense that had been playing lights out, a quarterback that had been playing lights out.

Something fell out of the bottom. And whether that was an emotional roller coaster from Detroit last week that they never really could kind of build themselves back up after losing that game, whether it was KOC trying to overthink going against the master and the student mentality whether it really was just sean mcveigh putting koc in a blender for one game he's human too right there isn't a player in this league that's played in this game that's had a perfect game every game of his career it sucks when it happens on the biggest stage right that's really not it's unfortunate but i agree with You can't judge it as a whole.

But it is one of those things when you go into negotiations, they're going to go, ah, what happened here? Right. They're going to point to explain to me from your perspective what happened right here. And he better have a good answer for that. Or they're going to be like, well, we wanted to pay you X. But because of that, it's going to look more like why now it's not going to drastically drop, but it is going to be a little bit different. I do think when you have a 13 and a 14 win season and come away with zero playoff wins, that the pressure does start to ramp up quickly. And I, I wonder personally how this impacts what he thinks of the decision, because on one hand you could say KOC really would like some offensive linemen on the interior, and that costs money. Or you could look at it as, man, I was right there in the playoffs. We just got to win one of those games.

We need not a check down. We need Christian Derrissaw playing left tackle instead of Cam Robinson, which would have completely changed this game, I think. Oh, my gosh. 100%. When one guy gives up 12 pressures, that's probably three from Christian Derrissaw. And you can roll to the left. You can scramble to the left.

You can help players run the football to the left. No. Ah, okay. I don't know how crazy you wanted to actually get there. No. In fact, even using the word run made me physically ill after watching KOC coach,

unless they're down 18 in the fourth quarter with six minutes left. And then that was mind-blowing. That one, I don't have an answer for that one. Even Aikman was like, what are we doing? And I was like, I'm so confused. This looked like, let's run the preseason clock out and get to the Strigal season. This was one where you ever have a day

where you stub your toe right out of bed and then the car breaks down and then you get to work and your computer melts and you got a virus and somebody's robbed your bank account. That was that football game. And that was just the cherry on top, you know? But I think from Kevin O'Connell's perspective, when you look around the league and look at coaching around the league and you can guarantee that this is a top 10 coach in the league. And you look at the way other franchises have handled coaches like him. John Harbaugh is a good example. There's a

lot of these Andy Reed type of caliber coaches who have their jobs for a long time. People were talking about firing Kyle Shanahan. I'm like i'm like uh no what have you seen the guys that they hire and come in and just implode no i don't think you want to fire kyle shanahan the same way with kevin o'connell this is someone you sign up for a long time and if the biggest criticism is man when we win 13 games like we screw it up it's like okay you got teams out there that are higher in linebackers who just came off the field and now they're playing and they don't know how to coach anybody. Gerard Mayo, the poor guy is like, why would you put him in that position? Or Antonio Pierce,

or whatever. You got so much ineptitude around the league. You got to make sure that someone who stabilizes your franchise and is truly a great front door for your franchise. You look at the way he handled the Kyrie Jackson situation and with so much care and empathy and the ways connected with his quarterbacks and his leaders. And you're like, I can't let that man walk out the door just because of a playoff game. But I do think that if you don't look yourself in the mirror and you don't realize that playoff football is just different

and you can't go in with the same stuff that worked in the regular season that this is going to keep happening to him yeah and i mean i am completely in agreement with you you have to give the guy grace and growth this was his second playoff game ever as a head coach right sean mcveigh has gone the distance and won the ring right and it's it's not like he lost to another first-year, first-time head coach, right? That's a totally different conversation if we're like, hey, man, he lost to like Brandon Staley, right? Or something like that. Or Brian Dable.

Or Brian Dable, right? But he lost to who's going to go down as one of the greatest coaches at 39 years old to do it. And that just so happened to be his mentor. There's a lot of factors that play into why that matchup was bad. But I think because he is a former player, because he has that mentality, you expect growth from him. You expect growth from him. And I think, I don't know, I feel like I didn't see growth from the first playoff game to this playoff game, maybe a little bit. But it's one of those things where you just have to go, okay,

what is my bar for KOC growth? What is my bar for how you go? The hard part is going to be, I don't think it's going to be 14 wins, right? I would be shocked if they replicated this season again next year, because when you win, it just gets harder, right? It just gets harder and it just gets harder. So next year, if all of a sudden we're a 10 win team, are people like, oh, Kevin O'connell what are we doing like it can't be that way it has to be and that's where if i'm the wilfs and i'm the organization i am locking him up for a long time right because you hand again this will all go back to our first conversation who's the quarterback right you lock him up for a long time so that

any direction you go sam darnold jj mcc you know, there's at least one stability point in the center and he can keep everyone around what you saw he was able to do last year when things weren't going great this year when things were going great, like he can keep the base rallied. He just needs to be the focal point. So I'm extending him for four or five years at least. Folks, I found something that I didn't know how badly I needed it. It's called Rocket Money. Like everybody else, I've got many subscriptions to different apps and websites that I just couldn't keep them all straight and it takes forever to figure them all out unless you have Rocket Money. What Rocket Money does is organize all my subscriptions into one place and allows me to cancel the ones that

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There is no reason to get rid of any coach that reaches a certain level of competency and leadership as well. But also, I mean, his scheme works. It just doesn't work when the other team has four defensive linemen who are werewolves, as you said. And I think that's the biggest area of growth for Kevin O'Connell, which is just how do you adapt, not only adapt throughout a season and grow.

We criticize Cliff Kingsbury for this, but we have seen it at times with him in these two years where they've been good. How do you adapt to it? And look, Josh Dobbs was QB3 in San Francisco this year. So this is not a real criticism, but it does go in the bucket of they had Josh Dobbs throw 40 passes and four interceptions in a game that there was something on the line. How, like, how did that even happen? They lost like 13 to 10. It wasn't,

I mean, there are just, there seems to be a bit of a rigidness. And also, for someone who's so deeply connected with his quarterback, I'm there in the press box in Glendale, and I'm looking down and going, uh-oh, you're going to have to adapt because Sam Darnold looks like he's not seeing it or not getting rid of the ball or doesn't know where his checkdowns are or something. What's the answer in your back pocket? What's the change? And there really wasn't one uh throughout even that entire game even when they came out in the second half they moved the ball

a little and then it's like ah it stalled out again in the same way and a lot of it has to do with if you're going to swing for the fences all the time you're going to strike out too what is your counter punch and i did think throughout the year, Darnold became better and the stats back this up at quick game. Yes. But there seemed to be no real quick game answer. And average depth of target in the league has gone down, down, down, because teams realize you just can't block for people like this. And O'Connell is still kind of running what looks to me like Bruce Arian

stuff where it's just deep crossing and things like that. Is there an answer that he can find going into next year? And also, I mean, look, the line is not great at run blocking. I get that. These are all NFL players though. It's not like they didn't have a single guy on the line who I would go like, Oh boy, welcome to the UFL, my friend. And yet for the running game outside of a couple of good cam acres runs last two weeks, it just is not a threat. And here's a, what does that stat mean? Expected points added on the ground, the Vikings ranked, where do you think? 30, 28. Ah, close. There's look, you can't keep running the same run game coordinator out there, right? There has to be an answer here. Yeah. And

that, I think that's the other piece is you don't want to overreact to a season of hey we got to change everything but you do have to think what does need changing and the run game right you go back to your statement about the counterpunch piece the best counterpunch is what the philadelphia eagles do when jaylen hurts is struggling and they just go hey you that way right if we can develop some shape of that because you see around the league teams that are starting to go more and more pass heavy pass centric right i think back to when herbert was throwing the ball 60 times a game now joe burrow they got rid of joe mix and now joe burrow is throwing the ball 60 times a game these dudes are getting killed like they're getting murdered from the pass rush and they're not making playoffs or they are making playoffs and melting because they don't have a solid run game right Ravens unbelievable run game Eagles

unbelievable run game Detroit unbelievable run game the Bills have bills a different caliber run game they did before 100 James Cook makes that team completely different the Chiefs when they went on their playoff run and Super Bowl run last year they leaned heavily on Isaiah Pacheco right if I'm Kevin O'Connell I'm'm going all in after I make my quarterback. That's number one. After I make my quarterback decision, I am going all in on how to become a better running football team because that takes pressure off of the quick game if you don't want to get to it because a four or five yard run is just as good as a six yard slant.

I promise, KOC, it is. It's just as good, right? So if I can find a way to, Hey, what are we good at self-scout like crazy? What were the runs we liked? What were the runs we didn't let's go get a big garden free agency. Let's go get pay Trey Smith, right? Let's pay a guy to fix an issue. And then let's make him, Hey, this is why we paid you. We're running the football behind you, right? That is the counterpunch that is missing for the Minnesota Vikings. And that is the counterpunch that if you compare a devastating run game with Jordan, Jordan Addison and Justin Jefferson and TJ Hawkinson, that's the lethal punch. That's the,

you're not talking about like a Detroit offense with Demir Gibbs and all those guys. Like that's what you need to be. Cause you, a, you have to keep up in your division. The lions aren't slowing down anytime soon. Right? And so if you want to keep up in your division, you have to be because you a you have to keep up in your division the lions aren't slowing down anytime soon right and so if you want to keep up in your division you have to get better at running the football and i'm curious what he thinks that is because we have asked about that for two straight off seasons and aaron jones was the answer he uh was i think 12th in russian yards for this season so he was a good running back and yet it still felt like there wasn't much of a commitment to it. And they had to go out in the middle of the season and get somebody else to even be the backup because I

don't know, they didn't think of it in the training camp. They hoped Ty Chandler, even though they knew he wasn't somebody to lean on. There's just a lot of, and look, Dalton Reisner, I think did a great job this year for what he was asked to do, come off the bench, play a different position, much better than the other player who was there before. But that's a what $5 million free agent who was still available when they were just about to go into camp. I mean, that's not really what you're looking for there. And I'll say this, and I know you rep some interior offensive linemen. So this is my objective, unbiased opinion on this podcast. Guards value is rightfully increasing because those dudes in the middle outside of the Vikings, but a lot of teams, they're nasty.

They are now getting guys. And I saw Kalijah can't see that guy weighs 275, but he's in there and he's getting in the backfield time and time again and making plays. And then you see the same thing from the Rams. They're not beasts. They're not like big giant hulking dudes who are stuffing gaps. They are getting upfield and making plays. That's a, that's a trend around the league rushing over the middle.

You got to have, I think, higher intelligence guards than ever because things happen so fast with the games and to be so short at that position for so long. I think that that is a big, big area of investment. Now, my question to you is, where else do you think they would need to invest on this football team going in? Like, give me your off season plan and maybe, maybe you got to do one with Sam and one without Sam. But I think even if they franchise tag him, they'll still push contracts down the road or whatever. So what is your biggest areas in this offseason?

Yeah, well, knowing that Kevin O'Connell is an offensive minded guy, my number one is going to be my interior offensive line. And he even mentioned that in his postgame press conference, right? We have to really, and that was the first time I've heard him actually, like you're all on notice, right?

All of you, rightfully so, after you give up nine sacks on a playoff game so i'm evaluating the free agent market on hey can we get a guy like trey smith right or is he going to be way too expensive for us who else is on the free agent market on that front and then i'm also looking on the bottom tier free agents of we need depth veteran depth right and then i'm going to draft a guard, right? I'm going to do it. I'm going to bring three guys in. I'm going to bring a high tier free agent to replace someone, whether it's a right or left guard. I'm going to bring in a, like a mid tier guy who's in his year four or five, pay him a couple million bucks, but he started 25 games in the league and is an average player. And then I'm going to draft,

I'm going to draft an interior guy, maybe late day two, but definitely early day three. That's going to be a developmental guy and then try and put him in there because you have to upgrade that position because you have two championship tackles. You have two championship tackles. Those are the ones hard to find. Those are the diamonds that once you have, you never let go. You can develop guards. I really do believe that guys can develop into good guards in this league, and you just need to have a good guard in the room to kind of drag the guys with them, which we've been missing. Even when Ed Ingram was here, who was he looking up to? Who was his mentor? Who was teaching him? Bradbury is a center. Totally different position.

He didn't have a guy that could pull him away and be like, hey, this is how you study. This is how you work. This is how you do all those things. So I'm bringing that guy into my room, 100% saying, Coach Cooper, find your guy, tell me what it is, and we'll make it happen. The next part is you've got to get better at corner. You've got to continue to get better at corner

because Gilmore is probably done. He's going to retire. Bynum's a free agent. He's going to command pretty big money. I mean, he is. And so are you paying him top-tier corner money? Are you going to go try and get two more? I mean, I think you are you paying him top tier corner money are you going to go try and get two more i mean i think you bring him back i really don't think you want to

let him walk but he's going to be really expensive right so then the db because harrison smith probably done i mean that interview i watched almost made me cry and like dude that dude's been doing it for the high level for so long he's probably exiting and so your back end's going to look completely different going into next year you're going to spend some money there because again you have to win in your division what's in your division Amon Ross St. Brown Keenan Allen DJ Moore Christian Watson Romeo Dobbs Reed right you have to be able to win your division so I'm building my team from the inside out on the offensive line and from the backside in on the defensive side. The Cam Bynum thing, I just sent a few texts to people.

That's the best I could do with that. Just being like, am I wrong in thinking this dude could get paid? And I was hearing some pretty big dollar figures for him, not only just with his performance, and he's a good football player, but also all the vibe stuff matters to teams, especially if you're a struggling team with your culture and you want to bring in one of the smartest players, a guy who went to Cal and switch positions and then became this. And also somebody who seems to galvanize teammates and brings a lot of energy to your

franchise. Like there's a lot of stuff that you could bring with him. He's a great ambassador for a team. This team just happens to have 15 guys who speak well and who are great out in front of the public, you know, Hockets and Jefferson, Grenard, everybody's good, but not every team really has that. I think they want somebody who could be a captain and that's going to be worth paying for. And, uh, then you're looking at Dwight McClother and who hasn't played at all, but Mackay Blackman, who hasn't played in a year and then et cetera in free agency. And then you got to teach them how to do it again. And there's just a lot of moving parts there that they're going to have on the defensive side. But I think that this team always in forever is going to be led with its offense and where if Flores continues to be here and we don't know what's going to

happen, but if he continues to be here, you can ask Brian Flores to elevate what he's got and then put your money onto the offensive side. They've done that a lot and they put the draft capital into Addison. They put the draft capital and money into Hawkinson. They paid Derisaw. They paid Jefferson.

And now I think it's got to be a 20 to $25 million guard is your main priority and figure out some of those other areas also with Flores. And it does matter if he stays or goes because a lot of the development projects are his. We've seen Pace Jr. be a huge success. There's a bunch more. There's Jalen Redman. There's Levi Drake Rodriguez. There's McClother. And I mentioned there's Theo Jackson who had this great training camp, but just everyone stayed healthy. So he didn't play, but he gets a pick in the time that he does play. He's a good player, but you might have to rely on some of those guys to take a big step forward. And I also think too, that just all credit to jerry tillery and jonathan bullard for the prices those guys

were paid they did a great job as an elite run stopping defense well well done great signings great great play uh bullard is is one of those leader type of guys who is really intelligent has been around the game somebody's got to get back there. You can't just have to blitz from the middle all the time. There has to be an Oso Diggazwa from Dallas or somebody who can get after the quarterback. And I think, and this is putting the cart way before the horse, but that's where I would have them drafting in the first round is probably defensive tackle.

100%. Yeah, and it's a good defensive tackle class. It is. and it's a good defensive tackle class. It is. It's a really good defensive tackle class. So that's another piece to hit on. With needing to pay players to stay on your team, you have to hit in the draft. You cannot swing and miss on players this year.

You just don't have that luxury, especially, I mean, you go the McCarthy or the Darnold chase. Like like you go Darnold, you're even having less money in free agency. The teams that usually win the Super Bowl have young players that are in their first or second years as major contributors, full-time starters, major contributors knocking on the doors of pro bowl type caliber players. We have to find ways to do that with our draft class this year, which we've done at times. We've also taken some big swings and some big misses, right? So if you're drafting interiorly, right, you then are saying, okay, then I need Dallas Turner to really take the next step in year two here. We spent a first round pick on you over Jared Verse,

who just made us look silly for that. We need you to take the big jump next year all you rookies we need you all on the defensive side specifically to take the big jump next year because we're going to need you i am very concerned about what this defense looks like if brian flores leaves because what we've talked about right he squeezes the sponge out of the guys like bullard and you know the guys like tillery and even some Pace when he was an undrafted free agent, right? You got the most out of that guy. If you bring another guy in, there's no guarantee he can do that again. So if Brian Flores leaves, my concern meter for this defense skyrockets through the roof.

And I think if they want to continue to play the same way, Durante Jones has proven himself and worked with Flores closely, but it's not quite the same. And I think that, and that's not to disparage Durante. I think he's a guy who should be a defensive coordinator. He's done an amazing job with not a lot in the secondary. And we've seen players like Metellus and Bynum develop and grow underneath Durante Jones. So I think he's ready for that, but it's not quite the same as the continuity of having Brian Flores. And the other thing Flores is just so good at is player evaluation. And this is one thing I think a lot of teams forget about coaches is they're like, well, this guy knows his X's and O's, but if he can't evaluate players, then you're going to have a lot of guys out there who can't do the things that your exes and ozing. And so far, Flores has been really masterful at

discovering player skills, putting them in positions to win. And even for someone like Dallas Turner, who didn't look really ready physically to be out there this year, finding a role for him down the stretch, he made a lot of plays for them at the same time as you mentioned that better work i mean that that just better work you have van ginkle for i think another year and you've got cashman for maybe two more and granard's gonna be here a long time he's not going no he's not going anywhere he might end up in that ring of honor if he keeps playing like this but with dallas Turner, this is somebody that you need because Van Ginkle is a great rusher and he got a lot of sacks this year.

But I think you need somebody who's lightning out of there who can just win and win and win. And I didn't see a whole lot of winning from Dallas Turner when he was matched up one-on-one with tackles. And it does matter that Jared versus a monster. It does. You evaluated this guy and you brought him in and i am willing to give him a lot of room because he's very young yes

they picked someone who's one of the youngest players in the draft and turner but next year is very much where we're going to decide either hey that was a good decision to move up and take him or holy cow you really blew that one yeah and you got to give i always say the players the you've covered it for a long time rookie year to second years where you see the biggest jump in a player and you can start to traject where's he gonna go and with dallas turner the bigger issue for me this year is it just seemed like he kind of ran out of juice and i'm willing to give rookies grace right i'm in this world as an agent. Rookie year is a grind, right? You get done with your college season, right into combine, right into everything. You don't get a break at all. And so you're kind of just wore down by the

end of the year. But now is where you have to become a professional. You got drafted in the first round. You've got money in your pocket. Spend it wisely. Invest in your body. Invest in the training facility. Invest in the proper food, the nutrition, all of that. Your hope is you have someone around you showing you how to do that because this organization is going to expect a lot out of you. I mean, you draft a guy like that in the first round, it's really not a lot different than drafting a quarterback of like, we're expecting you to produce at a all pro level because we took you in the first round. It's a lot of pressure on a kid, but that's why you do it. And we're going to have to find ways to do that. And I think that if I'm KOC, I'm trying to find a way to keep him in the building.

Why don't you stay here in Minnesota with us? And we'll show you how to do all these things. And then after that, you can go to go wherever you want. But just making expectations known to players like that is going to be really important going down the stretch, too. I think he's got a really good attitude and he maybe midway through the season started to get a sense for how you're supposed to do this because his body's not ready to be like jonathan grenard's now jonathan grenard didn't become a superstar until he was 26 and then at age 27 now holy cow i mean it didn't make all pro but there's

like they give two out to that spot it's just silly uh but anyway it's didn't make all pro, but there's like they give two out to that spot. It's just silly. But anyway, it's tough to make all pro there. I would have had him now. Van Ginkle is a great season. I would have had him above Van Ginkle. Yes, probably for me. Top three in the league in pressures. But just to look at those two, their lockers are close to each other.

And you're like, OK, one of these guys is 27 has been the nfl a long time one of these guys is a rookie there needs to be 20 more pounds of muscle put on dallas turner throughout this year and i think he's got the right attitude to do it and he's an intelligent kid you think about what he went through to start the season not only the draft process but then a teammate of his died who he came in in the rookie class and they were teammates at Alabama. So they were close. They knew each other. And then you go through that right from the start.

And then also Brian Flores is saying, hey, by the way, I know you just rushed the passer all last year. Now you got to drop. And that is a whole different barrel of schemes and things that you got to know that Van Ginkle was a fifth round pick and took five years to figure all that stuff out so i'm patient when it comes to turner but also there's a lot of pressure on that draft pick because you can't just sign whole teams every year and try to coach it up and get 14 wins because if one turns into marcus davenport you're just screwed right and all of them hit this year that's hard to do uh let's talk about uh love to see it hate to see it i love to see the playoff matchups for this weekend uh sadly i will be watching them the same way all of you will and i will not be in philadelphia oh that's not the worst thing in the

world you won't be called dirty dirty names by mean mean people i'm gonna tell you a secret i like going to philly i just yeah because you're in the press box but they do terrible things in the press box oh and i think that's hilarious yeah they bang on the windows they were yelling at rob domoski who's a reporter for the packers because he's bald they were like making fun of him they're you're in the stands well yeah because wasn't that where they were making fun of uh jerry jones yes right where they were all like jerry okay you shouldn't ever do violent things toward people or yeah i remember when elf line got hurt they said terrible things to his parents i get it uh but out of 80 000 in the stands there's only a few people who go way way over the top and the crowd is just so interactive with the game yes every single thing if they go three and out in the first

drive they're like boo get the hell out of here i mean it's just it's just different yes and they have the best collection of jerseys in the world like i mean vikings fans they do a good job you'll see a john randall you'll see some random Jeff George or something. Philadelphia is like Clyde Simmons, Jerome Brown, Randall Cunningham, Keith Byers. And you'll be like, this is just great if you love history. Anyway, so sorry, that's an opinion I'll put at the end of the podcast that I actually enjoy going there. Sadly, I'm not.

And so they're playing the Rams instead. Your favorite matchup of the week is Lamar Jackson versus Josh Allen. I know that everyone knows that America knows that. What is your second favorite matchup of the weekend? Hmm, man. Do you need me to show you the match? No, I know all the matchups. It's just one of those things where it's, I want to say my second favorite matchup

is going to maybe be Chiefs-Houston because it's questionable to me because I think there's a lot of really cool and intricate pieces to this, right? Travis Kelsey, Patrick Holmes haven't played in 21 days, right? CJ Stroud and them are coming off a massive win where the defense looked unstoppable. Daniel Hunter is killing people.

Will Anderson is killing people. And you're going, ooh, what's kind of the Achilles heel for the Kansas City Chiefs? Kind of their offensive line a little bit. Now, C.J. Stroud, can you hook up with Nico Collins enough times to make it work without your other buddies around? That game for me has a lot of moving parts of could be extremely interesting as it goes, but that's also one that could just fall apart in the first quarter. We're bored in the regular matchup.

It's probably going to be the Eagles and the Rams. Just because I'm super excited to see what Saquon Barkley does. I'm excited to see if A.J. Brown brings a different book out to the sideline there. But mostly because that defense is as suffocating as they come. And you're talking about guys that want to rush the passer and two extremely good defenses going at it. That's probably my 2B, but the Chiefs one is just super interesting

because I'm curious if the Chiefs come out flat and Houston can punch them in the face a little bit. The Houston one reminds me a little bit of the Vikings when they had to go out to San Francisco after winning a playoff game. It was like, oh, yeah, we gave everything we had. We won that game. And then they arrive and San Francisco has been just hanging out for a week. They're like, hi, guys. You played 80 snaps last week.

We played zero. And now we're going to murder you. And that's kind of what ended up happening the rams in philly for me because the rams now have won nine of their last 11 games or was it that matter like they they rested their players uh and they have this kind of adrenaline there's things going on in their home city. And sometimes that just elevates a team, maybe not all the way to the Superbowl, but sometimes for a couple of weeks in the playoffs. And that's how you get a magic carpet ride for a team.

And there's just something with Philly that's holding me back, which is, is there a quarterback at a hundred percent? And can he consistently drive them down the field with the passing game? Cause I'm not sure you can just, and I think, I think they did it to them in the regular season where they ran over the Rams, but this is a different Rams defense. Now, can you just run and beat the Rams? Like, I'm not sure that you can. So, uh, I also really want to see Jaden Daniels. I think that one's

probably going to be a kill, but if it's not then i'm gonna go boy vikings you better be ready because now there's a team in the nfc that is very serious i already think that but if they if they give a run for their money the lions like oh somebody's arrived and it's washington i did see i think it was colin coward that was like he's a mixture of lamar jackson and patrick i was like okay pump time out pump the the brakes there. Let's calm ourselves. But he is so fun to watch. And I'm not going to lie. I was really bummed to see Baker and Mike Evans out.

I was rooting for them. I mean, their season's been great. I got to watch Baker Mayfield run over Bobby Wagner, like sign me up for that. But Jayden Daniels is obviously Offensive Rookie of the Year. He's going to be a force a long time. Washington is now going to be a destination for free agents to want to come and play with a guy like that. So that's been really fascinating one too, but I think Detroit hit the bi-week at the perfect time. And I think that could be a, that could be a very quick, uh, thanks for coming. We'll see you next year.

I have a hate to see it. If you said, look, I'll give you a million dollars out of my pocket. If you could tell me when the NCAA college football championship is, I'd lose a million dollars. I have no idea. I don't know the way Monday night. Okay. The way they've scheduled this thing. I think it was last,

last Thursday I turned on TV and I was like, this is like an old Penn State game? Oh, tonight? This thing is just, I don't care about it at all. It's been fun, but it's totally lost its momentum. And I think the whole college playoff in general is a big fail. The last year, the final four was really compelling. The Texas-Washington game was great. alabama michigan game was great and then the final was good enough and but it was really intense really exciting and then this has been like all right it's a bunch of terrible games

that one team almost blew it are we there yet and okay apparently it's monday so well i i think i agree with you the The scheduling is awful. Just schedule it back-to-back weeks. Like I get you want the fanfare of it's the Rose Bowl and it's the Fiesta Bowl or whatever. Hey, conference season ends on the first weekend in December. Guess what? First round, you're next week, right?

Let's get this thing moving and that's how you keep momentum and then you'll be finishing up as the playoffs are starting that's the way to do it and as a fan i would love that like through december you've got just college football playoffs not just the bowl games which we know and love but the playoffs going as well uh that would be just awesome it is monday night case you're wondering i have a hate to see it oh okay i hate the fact that after the ravens and bills game we're gonna have to spend 10 months talking about how one of those quarterbacks is not going to be able to do it, and they're just not there.

And it's just like, there's just, the AFC is so hard to get through, man. Mahomes, Burrow, Jackson, Allen, it's just hard to come out on top. And it sucks that the narrative for whoever loses this weekend is going to be, ah, here we go again right josh allen couldn't beat the ravens or lamar jackson melts again in the playoffs it just sucks that we're gonna have to listen to that for 10 months because i don't agree with it it reminds me of uh the 90s as so many things do but remember you had marino Kelly Elway that the AFC was super stacked and somebody would lose every time. And it was like, well, Marino can't get it done or whatever. He just, ah, this is the greatest quarterback. And that is going to always follow whoever that is. And I mean, I think that the

bills are an ascending team overall because they were able to get through this kind of supposed to be sort of a reset year, but their quarterback is just shaped out of Thor's hammer or whatever. I mean, the guy's unbelievable. And so they were able to do that with Baltimore. It does get more tricky going forward because you got the best of Derek Henry that you're ever going to get. And Lamar does get more expensive. And I think there's a more pressure on them a little bit than Buffalo, but Buffalo has been at this doorstep time and time again, and it all goes on the quarterback. Allen has been a incredible in the playoffs,

unbelievable in the playoffs, but he's been let down by coaching or defense or kickers or whatever. It's going to be 30 seconds right 13 13 seconds so uh i agree with you there and sometimes you just have to close out the social media i i watched uh the washington and tampa bay game on a flight so i wasn't looking at twitter at all or any social media and i was like oh yeah that's what this is like yeah just watch the game no hot takes every 30 seconds enjoy it not watching people fight with each other try to you know whatever one up each other's outrage so uh anyhow uh this will be fascinating to watch how this all plays out we'll continue to do these oh yeah through the super bowl and break it all

down and then uh onto the off season we go so let me ask you one more question just while you're here. The confidence meter has been your signature of this show. Okay. Confidence meter that the Minnesota Vikings will nail this off season and go into next year feeling like, okay, they're, they're in the great position and off we go, equal with Detroit,

with Green Bay, ready to compete again? I'm going to go orange because I have a lot of respect for the Wilfs. I think they're an ownership group that doesn't meddle, but makes their opinions known to the people that need to be made, but respects that they hired proper people to make those decisions. I have unbelievable respect for KOC and the way that he has handled himself since becoming the head coach, the players he's brought in the ability to not sign turds and to like have your culture continue to be great. Right.

I don't think any of that's going to change. All of it will be pampered on who is your quarterback. And if it's Sam Darnold in my orange, maybe is it JJ McCarthy in my orange? I don't know. That's the hardest part is you want to say if you take the quarterback out, I'm probably flirting with the red, right? Because of just the character of the front office. I think it's a great run front office, which trust me,

I deal with a lot of front offices. Not the case all around the country, a la Jets, right? But you look at what they've done here in the past and how they've done it all i have a lot of confidence they're going to nail all the pieces they need to nail now obviously the drafts never an exact science you're never going to know for sure what you get but i do think that they're going to continue to bring the right kind of players in and the longer you can do that matched up with talent at the quarterback position you're going to be successful tuesday morning left guard guard on a Wednesday afternoon here in the studio.

Thanks for coming in, man. Absolutely. It's always a joy. We will see you next week. Football. Football.