Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Jeremiah Sirles wants to see Jaren Hall at QB for Vikings

Episode Date: December 27, 2023

Matthew Coller and former Viking Jeremiah Sirles talk about the possibility of Jaren Hall starting and whether that would be the right move for the Vikings. Plus they look back at how the Vikings reportedly had interest in Lamar Jackson last offseason and talk about how they're feeling right now about the Packers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here along with former Minnesota Viking Jeremiah Searles on a Tuesday morning left guard in which, as we record, we don't know the starting quarterback. Just got off the Kevin O'Connell's press conference in which he said all three quarterbacks are being considered, which sounds to me like Jaron Hall. But again, by the time you listen to this, I might be wrong already. Let's just make the argument, since we don't know yet, for whichever quarterback you believe should start. So who do you think should start against the Green Bay Packers, Jeremiah? Yeah, I think it's got to be Jaron Hall. I really do. I think the sample size that you have from Josh Dobbs when he was here and when he was in Arizona and what from you have in Nick Mullins from San Francisco and wherever else he was and now here you kind of okay these guys

the spots are their spots they're not going to change right they are who they are so if we're trying to evaluate this roster and we're trying to evaluate what's going on we only have one quarterback that we really don't know a whole lot about yet right and. And the great thing about that is no one else really does either. Right. Green Bay doesn't know about him. Detroit doesn't know about him. Like these teams are going to be kind of like, well, we saw him get, he's not very good at not being concussed.

But other than that, like, we don't know. So I think you have to give him a shot. You have to see what he's made of. And you have to evaluate this roster going forward of, hey, we're going to be in the market for quarterback next year or not, but we need to be in a better position with the backup quarterbacks that we have and is Hall the guy or not. I mean, when you look at the totality of both Josh Jobs and Nick Mullins, what you get is bottom tier backup quarterback play, which means it's volatile. It can have its moments, but the more passes that the guy throws, the worse it generally gets. And with Mullins, what is the most concerning, I think is now I know this is a push the ball down the field type of offense. So you're trying

to create explosive plays and it was built for a quarterback who has downfield and intermediate accuracy. So this is why you can't just snap your fingers and say, actually, quick game. Actually, we're going to move everything right to left like Kyle Shanahan does or something like you can't just do that. Nick Mullins did create a lot of big plays, but I think his explanation at the end of the game for the play for the interception that lost the game really made me think, all right, it's fine to start Jaron Hall. He said that when he saw Jefferson coming across, he could either lead him or put it on him. And I was like, in what world do you have the arm to put it on him? Like, and that was his choice. Like that was his thing. Like, I'm going to put it right on him, like a dot, like this dude in his brain has Matthew

Stafford's arm. But in reality, he has Nick Mullins arm. And there's just no way to scheme or block or receive for a football floating at 32 miles an hour, like a little kid at a carnival throwing the baseball and the, you know, the little, they try to guess their miles per hour or something like this is not an NFL arm. This is an XFL arm for a guy who's very bright. And I think knows exactly where to throw with the football, which is how they ended up with so many yards. But I would rather see Jaron Hall,

who I think has an NFL arm and also evaluate for next year as well. If you like what you see, you've got a backup quarterback and somebody who could be in consideration or in the mix. I don't see him as a quarterback of the future, but with TJ Hawkinson out for the year, Jordan Addison banged up DJ want them out for the year. Mackay Blackman banged up. I mean, we are at the point where winning back-to-back games with any quarterback is going to be really, really darn difficult. So I would much rather have an evaluation on a player. And also maybe he just plays it a little safer and doesn't heave the ball into nothingness

like Nick Mullins did. So yeah, I'm, I'm very cool right now. It was sort of like, let's see where it goes. Don't put the pressure on the kid to try to save the season. But now there is really no saving the season. So off you go. Yeah, that's the biggest reason why Hall should go, too, is even if we find a way to win these next two games, the Super Bowl is further away than it seemed all year, in my opinion. There's always that sliver of hope.

And we already talked about it last week. We weren't really contenders. But you looked around with the pieces that we had could we get in the dance and be frisky and fun maybe win a playoff game but you start losing hawk and addison's bagged up like it just gets further and further and further away and if we feel it i promise you the team feels it these dudes are tired they're beat up everyone at this time of year is absolutely smoked physically and so then you lose a couple of your key playmakers and you're just kind of going to survival mode. But like, okay, I know I need to perform. I know I need to do well, but like, let's just get through the next two weeks fully unscathed.

So I don't have to go into my off season with a surgery or anything like that. And that's a little bit where everyone in that building probably is right now, whether they'll admit it or not, because that's just how the human brain works. And that's how, as a player, you can see the writing on the wall. And so if you're saying,

okay, that's where we're at now, you put your head coaches hat on, you put your GM hat on, how do we squeeze these last two games into getting what we need out of them? And that will depend on what they feel like they need. If I was the GM of the Vikings right now, I'd be saying, okay, this season was crazy, right?

Wild up and down all these things. But to be productive for us in these last two games, we need to see X, Y, Z player play, right? Can he do it with the bright lights on? Can he do it against two talented teams that are still playing for a lot? And can he go out there and perform and be a guy that we can trust next year and a guy that can compete for either a depth spot or compete for a lot, and can he go out there and perform and be a guy that we can trust next year, and a guy that can compete for either a depth spot or compete for a starting spot and all those things,

that's how you get the most out of these last two games instead of just kind of being like, well, we're going to go out there and try and do our thing and run our offense. It's like, why? What's the point? What is the point of doing that when you can be so much more productive in these last two games for the future? And with Jaron Hall, my observation about him, and of course he didn't really get a lot of opportunity to play, but just having been around since training camp and so forth, is that he is

a rookie, but no longer a rookie at this point after this entire season of practices and an opportunity to get into a real game. And the other thing is that he is a very calm, sort of even type of person that I don't think is going to be in over his head or into freak out mode when he has to play against the Packers on Sunday night football. And I'd rather see him have ups and downs in that game than have Nick Mullins win it. Maybe that's like going too far because everyone always wants to beat the Packers. I understand that no one's ever going to be happy with a loss to the Packers. But if you told me that Nick Mullins would go out, throw a couple of picks, have a wild game, Jefferson would bail

him out at the end and win. Or I could have Jaron Hall have his ups and downs, get some experience, play well, maybe show some exciting parts of his game.'d probably pick the jaron hall side just because you know he's going to be here as part of the future and you want to see what you've got with him that i think that i mean it's a weird situation because if you win both then you get in the playoffs like more likely than not like 95 and and so that's where i'm sure in the coaching staff's room as they're having this discussion they're like but we did throw for like 400 yards but as jamis winston proved to us years ago you can't be on pace to throw like 30 interceptions in a season and end up getting yourself to the playoffs it's just way too much volatility there and you know they need to run the football better they need

to screen better they need to do all these other things. But I think at least Jaron Hall could be a little more safe with the football and not just launch it to the other team. And after seeing this, Josh Dobbs and Nick Mullins are not part of this team at all in the future. That's over with.

So why not play the guy who is there? So we'll see by now, by the time you listen to this, you might have a decision. But either way, it's very you know, by the time you listen to this, you might have a decision, but either way, it's very much a shrug. And I wanted to ask you about that. I mean, there are just some seasons in the NFL that just go down because of bad luck. And as we evaluate the coach and as we evaluate the general manager, it's really hard, I think, to just say, I don't know. It was a lot of bad luck.

They were in games at the beginning of the year and a good team and they fumbled away or dropped away wins. So those are usually luck things. And then as they've gone along, it's just become a mass unit of players because they've had so many guys go down along the way. Even, you know, Marcus Davenport was supposed to be a big part of this, and he goes out last week. They're missing Byron Murphy Jr., and they can't cover anybody. And then the quarterbacks, Jefferson. Jefferson comes back.

They get three quarters of everybody, and look how good they are at making Nick Mullins look like a real quarterback. And then two of them go down. I mean, it's just absurd and i asked o'connell about it and he basically said yeah i mean there's nothing we could really do but this is life in the nfl sometimes but i think you can critique some things and you could say that this is a year that you can learn from but it's very hard for me to say, wow, you guys botched this year when all of this stuff goes down. Yeah, I would.

I mean, if anyone's saying that they botched this year, they really need to take a closer look at this because you can look at teams historically throughout the NFL that have had, quote unquote, bad luck that have just gone down the tank. Right. It's just been done. Lights out immediate and what gives me a lot of hope and why i really respect what koc's done is every week we've come on this pod and thought said hey we learned this about koc this week or we learned that and we praised him for this we criticized for them for that but i think he took that in stride and he looked at it as like a player looks at it as like okay it's new week how do i get better what do i need to adjust with what do i need to do better and you saw the team buy into that too and so for me it's i don't think

they botched anything at all i thought we learned a ton about who koc is as a person this year how he hey can get a team to rally behind him hey get to four and four and like we'll get this thing going right and everyone bought into that you can see his coaching ability when the dob situation in atlanta when he's in his ear and calling a game and and then you saw the bad too of hey i put too much on dobs or hey some of my decision making and all that comes down to just a young head coach i mean he's only been a head coach for two years right i mean that's really it like that's not a long time when you start talking about some of the guys that have been around doing it forever the tomlins the pete carrolls the bill belichick's like those dudes have been doing's not a long time when you start talking about some of the guys that have been around doing it forever, the Tomlins, the Pete Carrolls,

the Bill Belichicks. Like, those dudes have been doing this for a long time. So when you're criticizing Bill Belichick or you're criticizing those guys and you're criticizing KOC, there is a bit of a sliding scale of how long they've been doing this, what they've been doing. And as far as what Quasey's been able to do, you know, he's put together a pretty damn good roster, right? Like that roster from top to bottom on offensively specifically is really dang good. And he has some really good young players in the mix on defense. So you can't help it. You can't

help injuries. It's, it's definitely part of what the game is. And it's all just see the great equalizer in the NFL. I mean, look at last night, the Baltimore is playing San Francisco. They get 3-0 line when you hurt, and it's over. Ball game. No one can do anything, right? It's hard to say, well, that's the coach's fault, right? Your stars are your stars for a reason. Your starters are your starters for a reason, and there's always a drop-off from starter to backup.

I don't care what position it is. And I thought that KOC and crew has done a really nice job with that this year. I've been encouraged by a lot of things. I think there's obviously some things he needs to get cleaned up, but overall, as far as evaluating from where, from where I sit, I think he's a really good head coach.

And I think the Vikings are lucky to have it. You know, I remember in training camp, I asked a contributor to the podcast, Will raggets, how many wins he thought the Vikings would have, or maybe we did the show right after the schedule came out. And he said 11. And I was like, no, I don't know, man, that seems like a lot. And I think they

might've had 11 had they stayed healthy. Like they, they were right in that range. Um, if you know, Kirk Cousins stays healthy, I'm not going to say they were going to win every single game after he got hurt. Cause we know the Kirk coaster is real, but 10 or 11 is not unrealistic. And if we look at it through that lens, and I know that's going into imagination land, it's not real. It's not what happened, but you know, right in a competitive rebuild type of year to have a 10 or 11 win roster that just got punched in the face over and over again with injuries, I think is a pretty good place to stand again that doesn't mean everything is perfect and thank you everyone for reminding me

yesterday they could have drafted Kyle Hamilton I I didn't I didn't remember that I didn't know so thank you on Twitter for every person who said did you know they could have drafted Kyle Hamilton I did I did I I was there. But and for the coaching job, the most important thing to me is that the way that they've lost the games, you could go in and did he tush push or not tush push, we could do that, or whatever. But to me, it's more of they have not had their doors blown off at all. Like with backup quarterbacks with injured players all over

the place, they have stayed in every single game to the point where we're actually unhappy with late game handling or whatever, because they're never losing by a lot of points, despite whatever happens. That's to me, impressive and maybe frustrating at the same time, because they should be in the playoffs but uh also o'connell has not lost his mind and so far as i can tell there is no signs of this dude melting which is what happens a lot of times when teams struggle like this and when they have injuries like this there has not been fingers pointed there hasn't been passive-aggress aggressive shots taken at the general manager or at the other coaches or whatever. And you don't have to look far to where that used to happen. I was joking with you before we went on that, this year because of the approach that they took and the way that they laid out the plan. But I also understand where people can be like, did this all just sounds like sort of excuses.

And I actually got called a homer the other day, which never happens to me. I'm like the last guy who gets that. But it happened. It happened. So I don't know. I'm like questioning myself. Like gets that, but it happened. It happened. So I don't know. I'm like questioning myself. Like, wait, am I giving them too much leeway? No.

Injuries are not excuses. They're not. And you're looking at it across the board. Every team that has a backup quarterback that is a starter for a long time, like the Bengals, right, because their starter got hurt, Gardner Minshew after Anthony Richardson, starter for a long time like the bangles right because their starter got hurt garter minshu after anthony richardson like all of them are kind of in this similar world of like we don't know what's going to happen every single week because of the trigger man but we're going to coach our

guys up the best we can to get everything we can out of the roster and i think a big piece why they haven't gotten blown out as much as because of brian flores right it's really easy to go off the rails. I mean, the amount of turnovers that Nick Mullins had and Josh Dobbs has had down the stretch here, I mean, those games could have been 21-point leads in the blink of an eye if it wasn't for this defense stepping up the way they have. And so you talk about how you evaluate that.

Well, that's obviously a tip to the hat to Brian Flores, but, you know, KOC is a part of that, right? You are involved on both sides of the football when you wear head ball coach. And I also think that goes to the hat to Brian Flores, but you know, KOC is a part of that, right? You, you are involved on both sides of the football when you wear head ball coach. And I also think that goes to the fact of the fact that, um, golly, I just said his name like four times, the defense coordinator helped me here. Brian Flores. The CTE is real today. Um, blind, right. Brian Flores, you know, while he has also been a head coach, right? Like like so you have two of those guys on on your staff here that are head coach burka back and forth with each other like the staff that they

put together too has been fantastic you know i think there'll be some some probably there always is some turnover on staff as the year goes on and whatnot but overall like the core nucleus of the staff like being a homer here it's not a homer to just call out facts right it's a homer to sit there and give them excuses like well you know they should have done this or they should have done that but like when you look at the true facts of what has happened to this team and the adversity that they've been able to overcome week in and week out that doesn't just happen in the nfl by magic that doesn't just like oh well they just figured it out like that is coaches putting guys in the right spots that is coaching having guys ready during the week preparing them like all that stuff doesn't just magically

happen. That's because guys were really well prepared and ready to go. Folks. I hope you've enjoyed listening to us talk about prize picks this year, but if you've missed it, here's how it works. You go to prize picks.com and it is simple. You pick either more or less between two and six player stat projections, and that's it. Now you're playing. So if it's X number of yards for a quarterback, you just decide, are they going to throw for more or less than that number of yards? field goals, all sorts of sports as well. prizepicks.com slash purple. Go there, use the code purple for the first deposit match up to $100. One of the reasons I like PrizePix, it is very simple to use. You'd see how we do it on the show real quick and easy. And then we talk about our picks and also not expensive either.

You can turn $10 into $250 by nailing just a couple of picks so go to prizepicks.com slash purple the code purple daily fantasy sports made easy yeah i mean it sort of reminded me of a lot of stealer seasons where if the you know post ben roethlisberger or the year that he got hurt and they were down to someone named duck Hodges, who was playing quarterback for them, who I don't think is in the league anymore, even on a practice squad. And this year with Pittsburgh, they get a win the other night and it's Mason Rudolph coming off of the bench to win. And they could very well lose the next week because that's backup quarterbacks. But when Mike Tomlin coaches your team, you're always going to be in the mix. And then when you're actually great and get actual good quarterback play, you should be in the mix for much, much

more. There's a little side discussion I want to have with you before we circle back to the Packers and this game and how we're viewing it and everything else. But you know, on Christmas day, Lamar Jackson did some really Lamar Jackson-y stuff. And and man is it fun to watch and hey did you know the vikings could have drafted lamar jackson didn't yeah i didn't know that i thank twitter people for letting us all remind us of that okay but there is something that we should bring up that maybe is less talked about than mike hughes or kyle hamilton or whatever other Mike, Michael Thomas. There's lots of players throughout history. The Vikings could have drafted. Okay. So, but Lamar Jackson was very briefly rumored to be a part of some intrigue from the Vikings. Now, Adam Schefter said on

Twitter yesterday that no team actually reached out to the Baltimore Ravens. When, if you recall Lamar's pool boy was calling teams, asking about trades or whatever, I forget how this went, but he was saying he didn't want to be there. And then there was the whole deal where you'd have to give up first round picks, but there was maybe an opportunity to design a contract that they wouldn't have wanted to match that. Now putting those two things together, of course, collusion is a word that comes to mind, but should we be actually unhappy with the Vikings for not doing that? I mean, every team should be unhappy, especially the Falcons, where they decided to roll out Desmond Ritter. But I did think of that yesterday. Like,

you know, the Vikings weren't one of those weirdo teams that was like proud of not going after Lamar Jackson, like Atlanta was, but to not even check, I guess that's just bigger than them, right? It's like Colin Kaepernick would have been a better quarterback for the Vikings this year than Nick Mullins, but that's just bigger than them. And maybe they viewed this the same way. Like this is just bigger. The owners decided they couldn't let these contracts get out of hand. And the Vikings were not going to step out of line with that. But imagine if he's the quarterback of this team. I think the hardest thing with Lamar Jackson is when you watch the Ravens,

that whole system is built around him. I might get some shit for saying this. I don't believe that Lamar Jackson is a plug and play quarterback on all 32 teams. I don't. I think that he is a system quarterback in which you have to have the system in which he operates in, which is that run first system and all of that. I don't know if you drop him into a KOC system if he's the Lamar Jackson we're used to seeing and I think that's the biggest fear that happens with these big quarterbacks that are I don't want he's not one-dimensional I can't think of how I want to say this he is built Ravens built that offense for Lamar Jackson

and so he operates it at an extremely high level right like he knows the ins and outs he knows how to do it and then he creates and all those receivers know how to create with him. When everything breaks down, you plug and play him in and you pay him the kind of money that he was going to need. The fear is that he can't come in and operate your offense that way. And right, wrong, or indifferent. I mean, maybe he can, maybe he could walk in and be like, KOC it's on, we got this, but you have money in Kirk and you have kind of a sure thing in Kirk for one more year, you can freak yourself out by saying, I don't know if I can go pay this dude this much money

and all this stuff. And you can look at all the bad and the negatives and the what-if world instead of looking at the, he could be the guy, right? He could come in here and be the guy, the linchpin, everything we need. It's just so hard to do with those veteran quarterbacks that are getting ready to make that life-changing career altering money because you then tie yourself to

them as an organization as a staff your job you put everything on the line when you go get a guy like that and i think that guys got too nervous because of his injury history guys got too nervous because they didn't know maybe he was getting to the point where you know he can't sustain that running style anymore because of his injuries. Like all those things came into play. But yeah, we shouldn't be mad, but I understand why we didn't. I think those are all reasonable justifications, except for the fact that they were just trying to keep the quarterback dollars down. I mean, because look, if I'm going to go down, I'm going to go down swinging with Lamar Jackson trying to adjust to the system or whatever. Hey, look, if you can't figure out something for that football player to succeed, then you stink at coaching.

That's how I would look at it. I mean, if you're giving him, their receivers are okay. The Vikings receivers are way better. I mean, Justin Jefferson is way better than anything they have. TJ Hawkinson, well, they have tj hawkinson well they have mark andrews but he's been out so hawkinson addison in the way that he developed the offensive line for the vikings has been very very good this year as far as pass protection i mean you are competing for a super bowl especially in the nfc if lamar jackson's your quarterback

i understand all those things about the injuries he had been banged up before he had had some trouble with Greg Roman in the, you know, a couple of years following his MVP season, all that I get, but I don't think that that's why nobody tried to trade for him. I think it really comes down to, he wanted outrageous money from anybody else that was going to sign him from the outside. And you had to give up the draft picks. And teams just said, no, we don't want every quarterback coming back to us asking for the Deshaun Watson contract. The Browns screwed that up. We're going to rein that in. And they did with Daniel Jones and with Derek Carr and Jimmy Garoppolo.

They kind of reined those quarterback contracts in, which makes it possible that the Vikings could extend Kirk kind of because of that. I think that's what it was all about. And I guess I understand that the Vikings were in line there, but if you recall, you could have traded cousins and created a huge amount of cap space via trade the way that his contract was set up. If you had traded them to the Falcons and made the trade for Lamar Jackson, I'm not saying it could have happened because the Ravens probably are like, okay, we'll just, you know, thanks for screwing us over and we'll just get, you know, give him the contract match. It's just that like to not even call, to not even check and just roll this thing back out

again. I don't know. I would have thought it was a pretty good idea to have lamar jackson as the franchise quarterback for the next whatever number of years did anyone see this year coming for him though right like i mean since his mv you did did you see this year for him coming yes i don't know maybe maybe i didn't you know since his mvp season he's been banged up like i did not see him having a resurgence of a year like he did this year personally. And, you know, I just didn't see it. And that's why I kind of I was like, well, I get why he's trying to do what he's doing.

Maybe he's trying to see like, hey, I got a few years left here because of my injuries, whatnot. But the way that he's come out and played and bounce back this year, you can't speak credit to him enough because it's really fun to watch. And I can't imagine how infuriating it is to be a pass rusher trying to catch him. And I mean, Joey, not Joey, Nick Bosa yesterday looked like he just wanted to rip his hair out. He's just like, he has him right there in his arms, and he's just like sidestep, swivel, spin. It's like, where'd he go? Gosh, he's funny.

He's just so hard to get on the ground. If you go back to that day or two where the Vikings were in the rumors, I was very strongly advocating for Lamar Jackson I just I mean I just believe in his talent as you could see and I understand the injuries but there's really like quarterbacks get hurt lots of quarterbacks get hurt yeah Kirk's a pocket quarterback he gets hurt Lamar's a running quarterback he gets hurt I don't know you know so that I I wouldn't worry too much that's why you love Daniels too much that's why that's why you're such the big Daniels guy you think you just you see the next lamar well i i look at pocket quarterbacks and even brock purdy

is part of this even though he's got a little scoot to him but i look at pocket quarterbacks jared goff is another example and i just think there if you're not brady and you're not breeze there are limitations there and there are even limitations in that game jared goff had two or three opportunities that if he's fast that dude's getting 20 yards running they were just dropping everybody back and saying like you won't run and of course he can and he can't throw on the move and he can't make plays i watch lamar i mean look honestly patrick mahomes was a good argument for the mobile quarterback yesterday because he should have thrown for about eight yards the way that their team played and yet found ways and found ways.

And in the Super Bowl, they were in a tough position and he breaks off a 30-yard run to put them in a spot to win that game. And it's just like, this is the world we live in now, I think, at the quarterback position. And Lamar is like at the very, very top of that list for guys who can throw the ball well, but also are great playmakers. So I don't know. I think you could be, I think you'd be a little teed that they didn't even try that. They didn't even like to send a text Lamar question mark, like anything, like, what do you, you know? So, okay. They didn't do it and now we're on to

the discussion of trying to draft the fourth quarterback in the draft or whatever uh let's circle back though because i'll just talk about this all day if you let me to this game against the packers how you feeling about the packers right now i was really excited about them about two weeks ago. You know, I thought Jordan Love had turned a corner. I thought they were getting things figured out. They kind of were getting a run here. But as things happen with quarterbacks that aren't superstars,

I feel like this is a winnable game, as weird as that is to say, because the Packers are maybe the most inconsistent team besides maybe the Dallas Cowboys. The most inconsistent team in the NFL. Sometimes they look lights out. Sometimes they look like a defense that's smothering, getting after the passer. Gary has three, four sacks in a game. Kenny Clark's all over the place. And then other times it looks like they can't stop anyone.

They can't stop anybody. They just run up and down the field on them. So I don't know. I feel good about this game. I think it's be a really good i think it's be very competitive game but i have very little faith in the packers right now that's the wild thing is suddenly their offense save for the game against the giants but for the most part over the bigger sample the last six weeks or so their offense has been good. And Jordan love has found some chemistry with these receivers. I think that they've worked on things that are good for him.

And Aaron Jones being back in the mix makes them a really pretty dangerous offense and they can hit downfield. The Vikings have had a little bit of a problem when anyone asked for a contested catch or to break up a contested catch. They're not so good at that. And so you could see Jordan Love going off against this broken defense that now is down to, I don't even know, is Andre Carter starting at defensive end, outside linebacker? It's a pretty rough spot as far as the defensive

line goes. Harrison Phillips is banged up. He was gutting it out the other day. So you could see that the issue is the other team will probably have the ball for 35 minutes and the Vikings were just on the field for I think 77 plays and that's usually what happens if you go to overtime as you're on the field for 77 plays so they just played like an overtime caliber game and then have to come back and play a very physical defensive line as bad as Joe Barry is. This is going to be hard, I think, you know, just for their for everybody. Right.

For their defense, especially to just get them off the field. And then offensively, like you said, you have beasts out there who could pressure the quarterback. They actually did pressure Kirk quite a bit in that game against the Packers. On paper, they should. Why is it that I just don't trust them at all though? I mean, like they just, they just played a barn burner with the Carolina Panthers. So yes, I think they could. And we could be talking about going to Detroit with Jared Hall, a quarterback or who, I don't even know who a quarterback Todd Bauman,

something like just somebody is playing quarterback CJ ham and talk, you know, talk about maybe playing their backups like Teddy Bridgewater. I mean, wouldn't that be something? There, there is on paper. I think that the Packers should be much better cause they're much healthier. They've got their quarterback and everybody else, but I don't, I just don't believe in them at all as a team that can show up and and be the best version of themselves yeah and it's just because they've earned that they've earned that week in and week out of not being consistent right but to be fair the only team that's really been consistent all year is baltimore like everyone else has kind of been this up and down

and especially when it's so funny to me to watch the, in the hunt type of like players, those teams. Cause it's just like a revolving door weekend and week out of like, well, who pooped the bed this week? Oh, you beat a 500 team.

You can get up there like, Oh, they all lost. So they're all still in the hunt. Right. It's just when you look at the Packers and they know that they're still quote unquote in the hunt, the Vikings are still in the hunt.

Like these games mean something. And it just really comes down to the mistakes being made. and they know that they're still, quote-unquote, in the hunt. The Vikings are still in the hunt. These games mean something, and it just really comes down to the mistakes being made in those, and the Packers have historically made a lot of mistakes, but so have the Vikings. I don't know if you can say you trust either one of these teams. If we were a Packers podcast doing Tuesday morning left guard out in Lambeau, we'd be saying the same thing about the Vikings.

They've got some playmakers. They've got some dudes, but we just don't trust them. We don't trust them to not turn the ball over. We don't trust them to take care of the football or to go create something on special teams. Like it's pretty two teams that you look and go, I don't know, flip a coin and see who throws the first pick, right? That's the kind of feeling that I have watching this game because no one's earned the right to say we are the better team in this matchup. One thing I do wonder about is like, remember last year

when they had gone through all those emotional games at the end, they went down to Lambeau and just got blown out. Smoked. It does happen where you just go through so much and okano was even talking about this today with dj want him and he felt like the air came out of the defense when want him got hurt because he's been a player who emerged took on a big role like handled it i think he's sort of a favorite of everybody on the defensive side he goes down and with hockinson out like that's the outlet for whatever quarterback has been able to go in there is always to have TJ Hawkinson. And now it's Johnny Muntz. That's a big fall off from the literal best receiver in the league at tight end by catches targets to Johnny Muntz, who is like a number three tight end on any team.

That's a big drop. So I do wonder about the emotional, like the Packers have this, hey, we've turned it around the second half and we're going to fight to the end here and we can make the playoffs where I wonder if the Vikings have just taken too many hits along the way, which leads to my last Vikings related question for you, which is what if they make it? What if they don't? I want you to tell me, I want you to imagine in your brain. Okay. Yeah. Think meditate. Oh, meditate. Okay. Imagine that they pull it off and they win these two games. Now imagine on the other half of your brain, if they lose both of these games and tell me about your imaginary emotions i think if they lose if they

lose both these games how they lost them with the players that they put in will matter to me more than the win-loss column if we play nick mullins and we go the next two games with it's his show and we lose i don't love that i don't feel good about that because you knew what that was going to be and you're like man why did we even do that what was the point of that like did we really think he gave us the best chance like were we really trying to chase just squeaking in but if we put jaron hall in and maybe we see some young players get in there we see ty chandler get a bigger continuing to get a bigger role right and we see some guys step up in a big way jamie john and month's gonna have some big games or

whoever no Brandon Powell starts saying like okay Addison's out I gotta be this number two guy I gotta step it up and he has a big game and we still lose but we're seeing progress from some of those guys I'm good with it I'm good with that because that is getting that is being productive with the opportunities that you have as a staff with these final two games now put on the flip side we go win these two games with Nick Mullins and we somehow go out we win it still is not like I'm not exuberating confidence like oh we made it we're gonna go win the Super Bowl right like it's kind of like okay yeah I still don't know what we established unless everything I said with Jaron Hall the quarterback everything else happened right Powell did really well and all these other guys stepped up and we won these games with nick mullins like great that's fantastic but

if we go these two games with nick mullins and lose that's where i'm going to really have an issue um i also would love to see some who the young guys on defense are going to step up like who's going to step up in that realm maybe a pass rusher gets a nice game like andre carter maybe he has go has a nice couple sacks or whatever it is you know but just continuing to watch those guys emerge and develop and then also just to watch the effort the effort level of this team as far as like you said the hits that they've taken on the chin over and over again can they weather the storm for two more weeks right can you weather it can you just keep coming to bite or is it just the ship is sank

there's too many holes to plug anymore. Everything's going down like that. That's another big piece of how we lose these games is the fight and the effort in which we put forth. Yeah, I agree with that. And I think if they win both games with Jaron Hall, then you're like, oh, this is kind of like interesting going into the playoffs, because that will mean he will have played well since I think that both of these offenses can score against the vikings like if you get in shootouts and win with jared hall then i'm then you you got me roped in for sure and if they make the playoffs there is no way and i know i am mr draft status like this is just like i have the draft list just on my chest and i

just move around like you know i get different tattoos for where they are for throughout the season i don't even know how that works the point is that it's like that matters a lot to me where they're going to draft we've talked about it all season long and do i have to say it if they had just tanked after no no i won't say it i won't i won't go all the way there i already did the lamar jack thing, so we won't go down that road. But if they make the playoffs at 9-8, I will be amazed. Considering all that you went through, I'm just going to go, hey, you deserve all your credit.

The players do. The coaches do. Everything else to fight their way through this and be at this point will be absolutely amazing, no matter who is playing quarterback, even if it's nick mullins and if they lose both games i will start watching quarterback tape college quarterback tape because they have a chance at a pretty high draft pick either one of those outcomes are pretty good the worst outcome is that you win one out of two you hurt your draft stock and you don't make the playoffs anyway and you end up with that situation we talked about like at the beginning of the season is they're gonna go eight nine and then draft 16th or whatever so yeah the the range of outcomes here is is very wide uh what do you uh what do you got for love to see it hate to see it my love to see it is the

baltimore ravens i thought going into this, this could have been a Super Bowl preview. I think it still very well could be. But what I loved is that they rose to the occasion. And I was talking to my buddy about this today. The reason I was so impressed with that win is because so many times you see good teams like allow another good team or a great team that gives them mistakes to hang around. Baltimore made sure when the Niners made a mistake, they made them pay. They made them pay.

They went and scored. They took advantage of the turnovers. And for me, that's the sign of a mature team that's going to go a long way. And I just love to see the fact that also I think the stat is what Lamar's lost to the NFC like once or something crazy like that. Like, he's just crazy against the NFC. But I just love watching that team play. I love what Harbaugh's done with that defense, you know,

getting Roquan and Queen and Hamilton. The guy, did you know he could have played for the Vikings? Really? In what draft? In a draft? They could have picked him? In a draft, yeah. They could have taken him along with another 20 other teams. But, you know, I just love watching them play football i love watching them go and you know the fact that mitchell got hurt last week they didn't skip a beat at the running back jk dobbins hasn't been there all year just the gus bus and hill show going rolling forward so love to see it

love to see the ravens they're gonna go a long way in the afc i love to see a really really smart organization get rewarded in baltimore um because they have just made a lot of really wise moves over the last i mean we're talking over the last 10 years um but just and okay so they lucked out that the rest of the owners colluded to make sure that they got Lamar at his price, but they've built an offensive line. They went out and made some really nice moves at wide receiver to get Odell Beckham to draft Zay Flowers when people said he was too short. And then the way they've put together that defense, they also moved on from Wink Martindale a couple of years ago and hired a new defensive coordinator that's really worked out well for them. But they just make savvy little moves like Jadav and Clowney. If the guy feels good about his life, he's

fricking unstoppable and he feels good. So there you go. Drafting Kyle Hamilton was another very smart move. I know, I think the Vikings maybe could have picked him, but he, he like got, he dropped because of a 40 time. It's like, did you watch this gentleman play football? I mean, that, that was one of those silly overthink it at the draft time type of things, He dropped because of a 40 time. It's like, did you watch this gentleman play football? I mean, that was one of those silly, overthink it at the draft time type of things. But here's the Ravens being like, yeah, production is way more important.

I do want to throw in a quick hate to see it from that game, though. The referee making a heck of a tackle in the end zone. No one can tackle Lamar Jackson unless the referee throws his carcass in front of him in the end zone. And then it ends up being an intentional grounding. And look, I know the rule, everybody. I know the rule. I know that they're part of the field. One of them tackled cam Bynum last year, but how do you call intentional grounding when you tackle them? So I, I don't know, refs are having a tough year, and I thought there's the definition of the year that the refs are having is taking down Lamar Jackson in the end zone and giving points to the 49ers. Can I do another?

I'd love to see it real quick. Oh, absolutely. I love to see the unraveling in Kansas City. Being in Lincoln, being here in the Midwest, it's insufferable hearing about the Kansas City Chiefs and just their fandom and how great they are. And all these people I've known for years that weren't Kansas City fans until Patrick Mahomes got there. And now they're just diehards painted on the chest, right? And to watch the slow unravel that's happening between Mahomes and Kelsey, Andy Reid's chest bumping Travis Kelsey,

and just everything just slowly unraveling for them. And they're like, oh my gosh, we're going to have to go on the road for the first time in the playoffs ever. And just hearing everything about it, I just love it. I love it. I love it watching it. I love what's going on because the golden horseshoe was bound to fall out of my home's ass at one point and it finally has and now we're kind of getting to enjoy it for a little bit because i don't think we'll get to enjoy it for long i think they'll be right back where they need to be when you have mahomes as your quarterback

so i'm just i'm just reveling in that a little bit this year i have two related uh hate to see it's uh one is i hate to see a front office arrogance i hate to see we don't need deandre hopkins we'll just draft a guy we'll do fine we don't need even adam phelan what does adam phelan do for the kansas city chiefs dude could get open dude can make plays but not getting deandre hopkins and here he's got a thousand yards or something in tennessee with two different quarterbacks and is playing great them being like nah our quarterback is so good we could just draft bad receivers throw them out there do whatever we want he'll just run around and throw to whoever and that is not how football works and the same thing goes for the offensive line uh we don't need to pay this guy we'll just bring in some other guy who doesn't know what to line up right or whatever. It's just like they thought that they could in

a similar way, actually, to the Vikings 2020, where they were like, oh, you know, who cares if Xavier Rhodes goes and these other guys will just throw in another guy and develop them because we're that good. No, you're not. You're not. No one is better than the players. No one is better than the roster. Like there's no scheme. There's no one quarterback who can scoot around and do whatever and make it better than the totality of the roster. And the other hate to see it I had was the MVP discussion.

I don't want to hear the words MVP ever again. Every play was like, oh, here's a tipped interception where Brock Purdy's arm was hit by a great play by the Ravens. Number one defense. Oh my God. I told you Purdy was terrible. Good for you. Congratulations. He might not win the MVP now. And then it's like Lamar's better than his stats. Don't you see? And you're like, I don't care about that either. Maybe just give it to Tyreek Hill. I don't care if there's anybody more valuable than him. I don't know see and you're like i don't care about that either maybe just give it to tyreek hill i don't care if there's anybody more valuable than him i don't know who it is it's christian mcafree christian mcafree it i'm so tired of it always being a quarterback it doesn't have to be a quarterback give it to give it to someone else that's having a great year it's like the heisman

right like best quarterback like no no just give it to the best player best player and chris mcafree i'll leave it at that best player in the nfl totally fine i just don't want to hear about the mvp debate anymore where's peyton manning to just run away with it for me so i don't have to hear about it uh anyway so we'll see what happens with uh you know everything and we could be in very different spots just one week from now talking about being one win away from the playoffs somehow or talking about the 38 point loss that Jared Hall had or something and what that means for the future. So that's why we get on this ride each week. Jeremiah, great stuff. And we'll talk to you later. See you next week.