Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Jordan Addison's social media post and how the Vikings made out on their Sunday off

Episode Date: October 28, 2024

Matthew Coller talks about Jordan Addison's cryptic social media post following the loss to the Rams and breaks down a bunch of relevant games to the Minnesota Vikings from Sunday's NFL slate. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here to talk about a crazy day in the National Football League with all of you guys and a little bit of Vikings news and anything that's on your mind with the Vikings as well. And I am very curious if anybody feels a little better or a little worse about everything that happened on Thursday night and how today's events relate to the Minnesota Vikings. A win for the Green Bay Packers, a late lead on the Washington Commanders 15 to 12 in one of the worst quarterback games that you will ever see in your entire existence. And yet the Bears look like they're about to win that game. I'm keeping an eye on it in my phone

over here, but I figured we would dial it up as the games came to an end so we can have a conversation about what is going on around the NFL. I've got all my notes from today, got to sit back and watch Red Zone like the rest of the world and watch every game. And so I've got a lot of thoughts on everything that went down today. So I'll run through all of that. But I want to start with Jordan Addison and his social media posts that made it all around the interwebs yesterday.

I guess it would have been really Friday, I think, is when he posted it. And then it just sort of picked up some steam since then. So after the game against the Rams, Jordan Addison put on his Instagram a picture of himself with free three, which because he's a wide receiver, every cryptic post that goes up on the internet is going to be viewed as a trade demand because that's exactly how wide receivers have demanded trades in the past, including here in Minnesota with Stefan Diggs, when he tweeted time for a new start or something like that, right after Kirk Cousins signed his extension a couple of years ago. And then the Buffalo Bills saw it. They called the Vikings. They traded for Diggs. So we've been through this before, and there's probably a running list somewhere on the internet

of all the times that wide receivers have posted something seemingly in frustration and then got traded right after that. So with Jordan Addison, now I've seen some people say that he's always said free three. Maybe that's a saying of his or something. But I think we all know that if you go to Instagram and post something like that right after your team loses and you don't get very many targets, how that's going to be interpreted. And that's my feeling on it is when it comes to Jordan Addison posting something like that, I think that you have to have some awareness of the fact that the world is going to read into your social media posts and analyze them and try to figure out what you're talking about. And to make noise right after that on a team that's five and two was thoughtless

at best. I think the best we could do for Jordan Addison in his social media post is to say, even if you didn't mean what it looks like you meant, that wasn't really having an awareness or a thought to how it would be interpreted after you are, you know, after you are struggling like Jordan Addison did. And then he did, I believe, delete it immediately. Okay. So wait, did the commanders win? Are the commanders going to win?

I had to turn it off to do the stream. Is that happening? Oh, my gosh. Oh, my gosh. The Hail Mary. Oh, my gosh. Wow. Okay.

What a day. What a crazy day in the NFL. Wow. When I, when I started this up, I thought, man, it's going to be impossible for Washington to come back. We'll just get it going. Talk about this terrible, ugly bears win and what it means. And now a walk-off touchdown for the commanders to win the game. That is so crazy. How about I will, I will watch the play in a, in a moment here on my phone, but that is amazing. How about that? How about that?

It looked like the bears were playing the worst football game ever. They try to hand off to their offensive lineman. He fumbles it. Then that looks like it's the game over. Washington can't get a first down. They give it back. Chicago scores despite the ugliest drive and the worst game from Caleb Williams. And then it ends up coming to an end on an insane Hail Mary pass from Washington. Wow. Whoa. That is, uh, that's why we watch everybody. All right. Let me see. Let me see. I got, uh, I got Schefter, uh, tweeting this out here. I gotta tell, I gotta take a look at this. I gotta take a look at this play before we can go forward to talk more about

Jordan Addison. I got to take a look at this play. So Jaden Daniels, where does he throw this from? Where he's okay. I'm seeing him rolling around. I literally turned this game off just to start the stream. So he throws this ball from the 35 yard line. Although, oh my gosh, the tip, the Cordell Stewart classic tip into the end zone. So he must have thrown that ball 65 yards in the air and then tip drill and the Chicago bears lose to the Washington commanders. Now I think that the bears were always going to fall behind in the NFC North race anyway, because of just the schedule that they have coming up, but to lose the game that way and to have Caleb Williams play the way that he did today, 10 for 24 with 131 yards, 59 quarterback rating for Caleb Williams. That is

a miserable, miserable, horrific loss for the Chicago bears, especially since part of the reason they blew it was the fact that they tried to hand it off to one of their offensive linemen and he fumbled it. All right. So not all is lost for the Minnesota Vikings. And this is what I wanted to bring up that if I was thinking about this, the day's results, and I'll get back to Addison and your guys' thoughts on, on his social media posts and so forth, but the day's results and i'll get back to addison and your guys thoughts on on his social media posts and so forth but the day's results good or bad for you uh green bay gets a win but loses their quarterback jordan love got hurt malik willis comes in and wins the game against jacksonville but it sounded from matt lafleur what he said that it is not looking good with Jordan Love and a groin injury

that was very weird it didn't look like anything even really happened and then he went to the ground couldn't come back in the game and then LaFleur saying after the game well it looks like it's a bad injury so that could mean more Malik Willis and I know that they won some games with Malik Willis earlier this year, but if Jordan Love is out for a significant amount of time, that is quite bad overall for the Green Bay Packers. They can hang in the race, but it's going to be difficult for them without Jordan Love to stay at the top race of the NFC North. The whooping that Detroit put on Tennessee, number one, it might make you feel a little bit better about what happened against Detroit last Sunday

with the Vikings playing them neck and neck, and then they come out today. They don't even need to pass the ball, and they beat the Titans by 40 points. Also, the Vikings play the Titans in two weeks. The last two Titans games against good teams, they have been totally run out of the building. Mason Rudolph is starting for them. Hey, if the Viking special teams wants to get on point, maybe this is a game to do it. There were two returns for touchdown in that game by Detroit. They ran all over the Titans. So I interpreted that as being better for the Vikings because we know how good Detroit is, but with the

Titans just totally flailing, that's a team you get to face in two weeks. And then this, a clear, very good result with the Hail Mary touchdown at the end by Washington knocking the Bears down a peg. Also felt like a Dan Quinn defense, which has been okay for Washington, kind of up and down, more than up I think this year and the fact that they only gave up 10 for 24 passing to Caleb Williams also has to give you a little shot in the arm of confidence for the Vikings defense that will go up against Caleb Williams in a few weeks here and Williams has been good against really bad teams and against any team that has a halfway defense, a good defense.

He has struggled quite a bit. I think that that does give you a little bit of elevated confidence going with the Vikings against the Chicago bears in a couple of weeks because yeah, he lit up the Carolina Panthers, but the Vikings are not the Carolina Panthers and maybe all rookies are going to be up and down but there was a lot of kind of declaring that Caleb Williams had arrived and all that today looked like he was not seeing the field very well at all against Washington he was scrambling a lot kind of reverted to some of his worst days at USC in his final year. And I think that the Bears are still a talented team that can hang around in this race a little bit.

But when they play better teams down the stretch, as they go on this long run of difficult teams over the next whatever number of weeks, and the Vikings are mixed in there, that they will start to slide back. And today was big for that uh for washington uh andrew are you sure we're not like the panthers yes the five and two vikings with one of the top point differentials in the nfl are not like the panthers whose only two losses by the way

the vikings only two losses were by a combined number of points of 12. Uh, and yet I think a lot of you acted like they were the Panthers. And also by the way, the Ravens, the Ravens lost today to a one in six, you know, Cleveland team, and they got maybe a boost from having a better quarterback starting. But remember just the other day, teams lose games sometimes that you don't expect. And not that there's not a lot wrong with the Vikings coming out of their loss against the Rams, but you see around the league, the close games. And I know you're joking, Andrew. I know you're joking.

But yet your joke, though, a lot of people were acting like that. A lot of people were acting like that. A lot of people were acting like the season was over. It was coming apart. And I think after today, you can reset yourself a little bit. Packers fans are probably freaking out that their quarterback is hurt. Bears fans are freaking out that their quarterback had one of the worst days you could possibly ever have. Also another thing that is relevant to the Vikings, Anthony Richardson, I don't know where his career is going to go, but I do know right now he is horrible, unplayably awful at quarterback. And apparently quarterbacking is even a little too difficult

for him from a wind perspective because he had to pull himself out of the game at one point because he was tired, which I don't remember ever seeing a quarterback do before in my life. Usually you fake an injury if you're just coming out because you're tired as a quarterback, but Anthony Richardson could not complete a pass to save his life. And when I thought he was hurt, when he took himself out of the game, my thought was, well, this is worse for the Vikings because Joe Flacco could go in there and actually handle us bank stadium. And Indianapolis has a pretty good team overall. Their defense is decent. Their weapons are decent, but their quarterback against Brian Flores is defense. If you want to get right game, how about a guy who just cannot throw the football?

And maybe up north, maybe you're right. Maybe they will be playing Joe Flacco with the way that Richardson is played, but I don't think you can invest as much as they did to pull him at any point. They do have to be mashing the panic button though with Anthony Richardson the problem with him is that the guy just hasn't played football games we knew that he had to take big steps forward as a passer but you have to play in games in order to do that and he's just been hurt so much of his career so far the other thing too is that Richardson needed to improve his passing game underneath short coming out of Florida, but he looked like the same exact quarterback

that he was at Florida. And there have been other quarterbacks like Josh Allen in particular, who have corrected their accuracy problems. Richardson kind of did look like Cam Newton, where it wasn't perfect. It was a little ugly at times, but the guy found a way. It's much worse than that. It makes Tim Tebow look good at throwing the football sometimes with Anthony Richardson. So I think you come out of this day saying that a lot of things

pushed in a good direction for the Minnesota Vikings. The fact that the Bears lost in hilarious fashion at the very end is part of it. But also, if you watch Richardson, am I supposed to believe that that guy is going to come in against even a better defense than he faced today? Although Houston's defense is pretty good, but I don't think as good as the Vikings or as confusing as the Vikings. So he's going to come into U.S. Bank Stadium and beat the Vikings? That's hard to believe. If he does, then okay. Then the freakout can really commence.

In Green Bay, I am really curious to see how they now adapt with Malik Willis. Because the first time they did it, it was a shock to the system for whoever they were playing. So they come in with Malik Willis because the first time they did it, it was a shock to the system for whoever they were playing. So they, you know, come in with Malik Willis, they start running this army Navy type of offense. Oh man, the totally shocked. Right. And, uh, but this is not going to happen this next time that they go to Willis. Now there's a bunch of tape on him. Now teams can prepare for him. And if Jordan love is out for any period of time, and then he's still playing with this MCL thing that he was just recovering from, now there's another groin injury. Then the injuries start to add up for Jordan Love as well. had an amazing day today, but we never thought anything other than that the Detroit Lions were a great football team. So of course they were going to blow out one of the worst teams in the NFL. So nothing really changed there with how you view the Lions versus the Minnesota Vikings. But

as going forward, look at the teams that they are facing and the days they had today. Richardson, one of the worst days of quarterbacking that you can possibly have in the NFL. And then the next week, Tennessee has just entirely given up. They should be trading everything that isn't nailed down. And then actually it's Jacksonville before that. And then Tennessee. Jacksonville put on a fight against the Packers at home

after injuring Jordan Love, but still could on a fight against the Packers at home after injuring Jordan love, but still could not beat the green Bay Packers. These next three games are set up pretty well for the Minnesota Vikings after this day, uh, today. So thoughts, feelings, are you feeling a little better? Are you feeling the same? Uh, and as we evaluate also the rest of the, and I agree, Jason, that the Jags, they looked okay, but how can you say that they looked good when they lost the game to a backup quarterback at home? They looked like not as bad as the Titans, but I don't know if I would want to say they

look good. They scored what? 20 points? Not, not great. And if they were to fire their coach at some point, I wouldn't be surprised. You just don't want that before you face them. Cause I always feel like there is that boost when a team fires their coach. But aside from that, there's not too much that went against the Vikings today. I might say that Philadelphia looks really good. Uh, over the last three weeks,

the Eagles have gotten it together. And I know the Vikings don't play the Eagles, but as we are thinking about just the future going forward of the NFC and the races, and this is a huge win for Washington to stay ahead in that race. And the Vikings might end up being in a wild card race. The Eagles are somebody to watch now where before I was saying, I don't really see anybody else in the NFC. That's that big of a threat, you know, the Viking other than the Detroit lions, of course, the Packers. But now, uh, I think that the Eagles belong in that discussion because they really ran the Cincinnati Bengals out of the building today. Uh, Marley says, do you know if it's true that KAM and KOC wanted

to trade four firsts for Richardson? I don't know whether that's true or not. I know that they were lining up the entire timeline of this team to draft a quarterback either last year or this year. Bryce Young, again, looked very, very bad. And you can't call it yet on Richardson. The guy's played 10 games in the NFL. It's just that he's been injured so much that it's problematic. And truthfully, it doesn't really matter if they were interested in Richardson or not because that didn't happen. Would they have potentially traded draft picks for him?

I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't, for first sounds ludicrous. So I don't know if that's actually true or not. Anthony Richardson was the fourth overall pick. He was a great prospect coming out, but everybody knew that he was going to have to develop a lot. And if he never plays,

then it's really hard to develop as a quarterback because last year he looked better as a passer than he's looked this year, but he's also coming off of the shoulder injury, which has made it hard. Jeff, I agree that the Rams belong in the discussion when they are healthy. They are a much better team. They're not, I don't think they're a better overall team than the Vikings, but it's close when they are healthy, as we saw. They've got a good D-line, but those receivers are really, really tough to deal with. Vikings fans anonymous says, of the three left tackle options you mentioned the other day,

which one do you think is the most likely between Rouse, Questenberry, and Brandl? I will go with Blake Brandel as the most likely option, because if you put in Blake Brandel at left tackle and then Dalton Reisner goes in to start at left guard, then you're keeping five starting caliber linemen on the field as opposed to bringing in a backup and then keeping a starter like Dalton Reisner on the bench. That just makes sense to me when they talk about the best five. Well, the starting caliber players are the best five. So I would go with that.

I suppose it's possible that Questenberry comes in. He's come in in the past, but now benching Ed Ingram for Dalton Reisner and then putting Questenberry, that doesn't really make a lot of sense. And Questenberry has barely played as a starter during his career. He's been a backup for years. Do you want to ask him to play 10 straight games? They've already had the bi-week. They've already had their mini bi-week. That feels like it would be a really, really big ask for David Questenberry, as opposed to Brandel, who's been starting, and then Reisner, who's been a starter for a long time in his career. Kevin says, I would argue that we've had one of the most difficult schedules with teams we've played and how we've barely had any home games. No, I agree with that. And that's why it's so relevant for what the

freak out level is that we look forward to the schedule that's coming up. I mean, that it just, it makes such a difference, your schedule, who you play, where you play in the NFL to what the results end up being. And the Vikings have played most of their most difficult games as we look forward. And I did think about this, that Arizona had a good day today and they're a team that you can't overlook with Arizona. Atlanta got another win in sort of comical fashion against the Bucs. I was thinking about how Kirk Cousins lit up the Lions every time, and now he's found his Lions, the Tampa Bay Bucs, that they're the team that he now demolishes. But you have to take Atlanta seriously. Seattle got pounded by Buffalo today. I still think Seattle is the ultimate 500 type of football team. But outside of the NFC North games, who's the toughest on the schedule going forward? There are not many games that you think, oh, there's no way that the Vikings could win. And that's why I just thought it was too much for Vikings fans the other day to be saying,

oh my gosh, the season's over. The sky has fallen. I'll see you next year when McCarthy's playing like, whoa, whoa, whoa, hit the brakes. I know that it was an embarrassing loss and it was bad on defense and that Derrissaw got hurt. Things happen, but I think we needed to keep in perspective where they actually stand in the NFC and what they've got upcoming. If before the season, I told you they went five and two out of their first seven games, you would have said, no, they didn't. You're lying because we didn't think there was any chance they did that. So if the order was different,

if you, if the order had happened differently in San Francisco beat them, but they beat the Rams, we would just feel totally different about where this team is at at five and two than we do right now. Um, but I think that it was a game that, that offered a lot to be concerned about. I'm not downplaying any of the concerns. I'm just saying big picture. When you look at where they stand in the entire NFL and when they do the power rankings and all that stuff, they still belong among the top 10 teams, top seven teams, top five teams in the NFL, even though they had some regression on defense. And even though they had an injury to the left tackle that I would not take them and just eliminate them from the conversation.

Now, I do think though that the Philadelphia Eagles moved up in my book today after putting together quite a few good performances now in a row. I think three really good performances in a row and a great one today against a Cincinnati team that's not great, but it's good. Digital Plains Media says, Do you think trade talks are delayed until we see what happens next Sunday against the Colts? That's a great question. I don't think so. I think if the opportunity arises for the Vikings to get a player that

they could get under contract for multiple years, they would do it now, but that would have to be the main part of it. And I don't know, do the Titans change their feeling on Jeffrey Simmons after a game like today? I mean, you get beat by what? 24 points last week to Buffalo. I can't do the math. Was it 52 14 today from Detroit? I mean, you get beat like that. You are nowhere close. They're like the Panthers. I mean, they are years away from being in any sort of discussion of a team being competitive. So if I'm Tennessee, I am shopping for potential first round picks that I can get back. And if you were to trade a first rounder for someone like Jeffrey Simmons and you get to have him under contract and you've got this team that's good on defense

and it's proven to be good, but they need a little bit more to be great, I think that makes sense for all parties. I don't think it's likely. I just think that it's plausible that there would be some opportunity somewhere. I've brought up the J.C. Horn idea. I don't know if there's any theme to that, or it's just an idea that I had looking around

for players that a team could part ways with. But if you're Carolina and you just got run out of the building by Bo Nix, you've got to be thinking, are there any teams that would give us future draft capital? And if you're the Vikings, cornerback has to be near the top of the list for positions that they should look at to add where you can then sign the player into the future so i think that it's when it's a now and later move when it's a hawkinson style move then it really doesn't change anything where they stand whether it's this week or next week as far as pure rentals so let's say you wanted to bring in someone who's going to be

a free agent next year let's say brandon sheriff or in someone who's going to be a free agent next year. Let's say Brandon share for something, uh, then trade a fifth rounder. That might make a difference because if you do blow the game against the Colts and you do fall to five and three, then it's a lot less convincing that you should then go out and trade any of your draft capital, even fifth round picks. I just can't see them doing that if they fall to five and three. But that's the only part of it that I would wait for. If we're talking about a blockbuster type move where you can get somebody who's going to be on your team for multiple years, then you can do that now. You don't have to wait.

Let's see. Mel Kill says, without completely overreacting, would the Vikings do well by shopping? Addison seems to be more of a headache for the lack of productivity. Okay, so I got an interesting stat on him that is in my brain, so I want to let it out before I lose it. The interesting thing about Jordan Addison and targets is that his actual percentage of completions by the Vikings is not different than last year. So this year he's catching 15% of their total completions. Last year it was 16%. The problem is they're not throwing the ball as much because they're not on the field very

much. The Vikings, this is, this is absolutely nuts, have played 70 snaps less on offense than they have on defense. And you'll probably hear me bring this up all week because I just was amazed by this, that they have been on the field so little as an offense that they are something like, and it's going to go down after today, They're at the bottom of the league when it comes to pass attempts. And nobody outside of Justin Jefferson is really getting their target chair. And likewise, on the defensive side, a lot of guys are at the top of the league in terms

of total snaps that they've had to take. But the Addison problem isn't necessarily that it's changed how much they throw to him per pass. It's that they just don't pass as much anymore. And what they're really running is something similar to what Gary Kubiak and Kevin Stefanski did with Kirk Cousins in 2019 and 2020. And if you remember after 2019, a wide receiver demanded to be traded Stefan Diggs because it's just hard to be a receiver in an offense that's never throwing 30 passes you're not going to get your 100 yard days all that often you're going to get high completion percentage high yards per pass attempt a lot of play action a lot of building off the run. That's what they've been doing. And if you look at Sam Darnold's numbers, and this is why when I get asked a lot about

O'Connell's play calling one problem that I have, and I agree with a lot of the things that people say, but one problem that I have is that Sam Darnold, a guy who was left for dead in the NFL, was a backup last year, has 107 quarterback rating because they've really played for a lot of big passes down the field. And when that's the case, Jordan Addison will catch a 51 yarder, but he might only have two catches the next week. And that's just kind of how it goes. Again, I don't want to guarantee or say a hundred percent that Jordan Addison meant what it looks like it meant. It's more of you have to understand if you put out that social media post, everyone's going to think that you're demanding a trade, you're acting like a diva, and it's not necessarily his fault that every other wide receiver has done this if he didn't

mean it that way but how could we not interpret it to mean that way that he's frustrated when you look at his target share you look at his numbers you know what his talent is and then the next step of this of course is what about a trade and my thought on this if Jordan Addison had not had the offseason DUI arrest and we weren't talking about court dates and things like that my thought would have been guys this don't overreact to this Kevin O'Connell's a great communicator I'm sure he'll work it out with Jordan Addison I'm sure the next time O'Connell talks he'll be asked about it and he'll say that he talked to him about it or it didn't mean what we thought or whatever it is. But I also I also had the feeling of if he wants to go, he can go.

I mean, they played fine on offense without him. They've got Hawkinson. Naylor's a good receiver. They could find someone else to be the second guy to Justin Jefferson. If he wants to go, he can go. I don't, I don't like putting words in someone's mouth when they didn't actually say it. And sometimes with Stefan Diggs, I would get frustrated because we would just assume that his social media posts meant something and we're reading into them and everything else. And it doesn't always mean what we think it does,

but if that's how he feels, then there's got to be some suitors out there who would be interested. The only guy that I would not move on from on this team, well, one of them's hurt and the other guy's number 18. That's it. Anybody else has a problem. You can pretty much figure it out as far as replacing them, except for Justin Jefferson. There are other people who could be wide receiver twos. I think though it is on Kevin O'Connell to try to figure out

how he's going to work a short passing game now with Christian Derusaw out, how he's going to get the football to Jordan Addison more often. Because even though I sit here and feel like, okay, man, if that's how you're going to be, then, then all right, then just then trade him. But it's actually a good thing to throw the ball to Jordan Addison. He is a very talented wide receiver and has had a lot of success so far early in his career at catching it when it is thrown to him. how are they going to balance this? You can't run Aaron Jones every play. They have to figure out a short passing, high success rate type of offense. And I think Jordan Addison has to be at the center of that along with TJ

Hawkinson. So I don't, if he meant what he said in the way that we think he meant it as in free me, get me out of here, get me into the offense, whatever it is, that's a selfish approach that I don't like at all. If that's not what he meant, and it's just been a saying of his, then okay, well, either way, that issue does need to be addressed of the fact that now you have Hockinson coming back, you have three good wide receivers, and the offense seems to only be cooking deep down the field. Now, I will say that the last two games, I felt it was better for the underneath stuff. They had success on a lot of the underneath stuff. Now the volume

has to increase. You have to figure out a way to get longer drives because if you have 50 plays, you're going to end up with a lot of wide receivers looking at the box score saying, why did I get on the plane today? I felt that way against the Jets that it's because it's just not a passing offense right now it probably is going to have to be because Derrissaw is your best run blocker too we always focus on pass blocking he's also the best run blocker let's see the Pollock says Rams Eagles Falcons Washington will all be competitive if the saints get car back they could start rolling again baker will not let the bucks go down without a fight yeah i think it's uh mike evans and chris godwin being out that's a real issue uh the falcons washington there's a real playoff race i mean if we look at it right now in the playoff race the lions are going to end up with the number one seed that unless golf gets hurt, looks pretty much like a

lock. But then the NFC West is so bad. It's gone from so good to so bad. The Rams might be the best team out there. I wouldn't actually be surprised if they ended up winning that division now that they got Puka Nakua and Cooper Cup back. Yeah, I actually think that that's very possible that they win the NFC West because Seattle is just so inconsistent and probably not that good. San Francisco is so banged up that that could be the Rams division. The Eagles are definitely getting it together and coming along. Washington is a good enough team to win today on a Hail Mary, a little bit of luck there, but Washington's going to be a good team. Jayden Daniels was playing today with an injured rib, uh, should be a little better going forward

Falcons and bucks. One of those teams will be in the playoffs. I'm not sure which one, I think it probably will be the Falcons though, with the bucks having their receivers injured. The, um, the Vikings and Falcons could end up being a huge game for both teams as we get to that one in December. Why wouldn't it be right? Why wouldn't Kirk's team just be fighting for playoff position in December and having to go on the road and play the Vikings? Uh, oh gosh, says, uh, my freak out level is a three. I was expecting a seven win season and we already have five. So this is okay. In my book, uh, I'm like on both sides of that fence. I am on both sides of that fence. Uh, I don't think that we should look back and go, Hey, we thought this was going to stink. So we shouldn't expect them to fix stuff. That's going wrong. No, we should that they're in the

driver's seat still to be one of the best teams in the NFC. They have the roster for it. They have the coaches for it. The quarterback's playing like it go win stuff. I think we've seen that the lions are a little better of a team than the Vikings, but they lost by two points to the lions. I don't look at it now. Like, Oh man, well, I only thought they were a nine win team. So if they get 10, then, well, that's fantastic. No, I mean, the schedule that they have, they should still be in route to 11 wins, 12 wins. This doesn't have to stop that. The reason for the freak out not to be as high as it was the other day is that all of

that is still very possible with the teams that they play. And they lost by 12 points to two teams. They didn't lose by 34. They still have all the numbers point to them being a good team. It doesn't point to them being the 98 Vikings. When that was coming up earlier this year, that was a little much right there. That was a little much when they looked like the 98 vikings but when we're at this point and they have the numbers to be considered a totally fine competitive team that's right in the mix with all the other fine competitive teams that are behind the lions all right let's see how the race plays out when they have an easier schedule going forward.

Let's not start talking about who they're going to sign in the off season. There is a long way to go. So that's, that's why the freak out shouldn't be that high. You have a quarterback who's playing well, and that's a great place to be. If Sam Darnold played these last two games, the way he played them and they played Tennessee and Indianapolis. They win those games running away. They played two very good teams. One of them on a short break. I'm going to call the Rams a very good team when they have Nakua and cup. Cause that's what I saw in front of me.

But I think, I think we can come down a notch from where we were at five and oh, five and oh, was this is the year here. Here we go. Fifth, the 98 team was 15 and one. So 15 and two win the NFC Superbowl. Okay. All right. We can push the brakes on that. We can push the brakes on that. But as far as playoffs, successful season, Sam Darnold having a great year, all that stuff, the defense being good, all of that should still be in play. But instead of seeing them as being way better than a Washington, a Philly, an LA,

maybe put them on the same and Green Bay would fall into that as well. Evan says no answer for right guard. Then KOC is going to have to do a better job of scheming guys open quickly so Sam doesn't hold on to the ball. Hawkinson should help with that. I agree with all that, Evan. There really is no answer now for right guard. I did get a little bit of a chuckle out of the fact that Ed Ingram had his highest graded pass blocking game right after Dalton Reisner is getting ready to come back. Like he kind of did that last year when they acquired Reisner, Ingram started playing better and that kind of bought him some extra time with that stretch right after Reisner had been acquired.

Kind of the same story here, but they just don't have an answer now unless they are going to put in Rouse or Questenberry that's asking a lot from rouse uh he looks like a good player he had a good training camp he did well in preseason it's just hey man come in as a six round draft pick no development time just go play left tackle for the rest of this whole season he might have the most, but Brandel has way more experience and Brandel had to go in in 2022, played left tackle. Then, uh, I thought he didn't do the best job. Uh, but one of the games was against Micah Parsons. So what are you going to do there? Look down the stretch. Tennessee's got a pretty nasty defensive line at times, but they're a team that just gave up 52

points today. I think Brando's probably the guy to do it. I know he hasn't played left tackle in a while, but moving him over after he's been starting, he knows the offense, he knows the assignments, all that stuff, I just think is the least chaotic and the best players on the field. If you're going best five, then that's how you do it. Tracer says Addison should be packaged in a trade. He is a liability. Here's the thing. If you say to me that you want to trade Jordan Addison, I'm not going to fight you on it. Had he not had the DUI right after the death of

Kyrie Jackson, and this goes to the awareness thing of posting on social media as well, then I would have said, Hey, it's just a bad moment of frustration. Did you say anything you regret the other night? You probably did. Uh, but now if you say it, I think, okay, if that's what he wants. And again, I'm only saying this if he actually meant that from the social media posts. Some people have said that he didn't. And if that's the case, then it's not a discussion that necessarily needs to be had. But if that's your opinion, I'm not going to fight you on it.

I probably would prefer to see him play out this year and get the ball more and they need them and they're competitive. And I think that he's a weapon that they should be finding ways to use. At the same time, there's a lot of reasons and good argument for if you get an offer, they've got Naylor, they've got other guys who can fill in, they've got Hawkinson, they won games without him, they. They won games without him. They played effectively offensively without him. And liability is right. If this social media post was meant to be the same sort of, you know, diva finger quote

act of what Stefan Diggs was doing a few years ago, then yeah, then it is kind of a liability then you're not sure what's going to happen off the field there's court dates coming suspension uh down the road and then are you not going to be sure if he is going to be given everything out there i think that there was a real concern a couple of weeks ago about how engaged he was lining up correctly against the Detroit Lions. That was costly for them. That was not acceptable. And Justin Jefferson kind of alluded to having to pull him aside and say, Hey man, you got to stay locked in. Even if you're not getting the football that shouldn't have to happen in year two. So if that's your opinion, I'm not going to fight you on it. I'm not pounding the table for it and saying, oh man, get rid of this

guy. He's this, he's that. But I don't think it's the worst idea I've ever heard considering there's only one guy that I would say no to every trade. And that is Justin Jefferson. Just the Superbowl Vikes says Vikings need to get its next win to get rolling again, score more points and you'll win. That's true. Hawkinson will definitely give extra first downs and extra points on the board. That's I agree that Hawkinson coming back is a very big deal potentially for this offense. And it's exactly what they need. It really is. They need that guy who can just rip off first downs. Hockinson was so good at that with Kirk Cousins. Just eight yards, five yards, ten yards. Hey, it's third down and 14. Everybody runs deep. Hockinson comes underneath, catches the ball, goes for six, seven more yards.

Big first down. They've been missing that. The third downs have not been impressive. I can't remember exactly where they are in third downs, but it's in the bottom half of the league. And when it comes to the amount of plays and time per drive, so number of plays they run per drive, amount of time they have the field, they're at the bottom of the NFL. That has to change if you want this defense to keep it up. This is why I always say, look, offensive defense are tied together. If you're on the field all the time, then your defense is going to have a lot more luck. I would cite the 2015 Vikings for that. The 2015 Vikings only ranked something like 16th in

points, but they were 7th in scoring percentage. They kept the ball. They scored on a lot of drives. The defense didn't have to be on the field all the time. If the Vikings want to make the most of this defense, they have to stay on the field more than they have before, and I think Hockinson is important for that. David says,

I don't see O'Connell changing his approach enough this season and this situation enough this season and this situation to this season and situation. Maybe he will with JJ and his ability to win and convert third downs. See, I think that O'Connell has changed the, the overall philosophy of running and play action. And that's, that's what the numbers say. They are a lower volume passing offense than they were before

they've leaned on aaron jones in my opinion probably too much i think that they've leaned on aaron jones and need somebody else other than aaron jones maybe that's going to be cam acres this next week kevin o'connell i did ask him about that on his press conference the other day. I asked him about Cam Akers and he said he is quote absolutely going to be a part of their offense. Sometimes things like that are true, sometimes not with O'Connell, but I think in this case it does make a lot of sense that Akers will replace Ty Chandler as RB2 going forward and they're going to keep running the ball and running play action and going downfield. It's just over the last two weeks, there has been an improvement. I think in the short passing game that they need to lean into heavier with TJ Hawkinson to extend and extend and extend drives. Otherwise that defense is going to continue to fade the way that it did.

Evan says, what do you think of Martin Emerson from the Browns or Tyson Campbell from the Jaguars if Horn is injured or not available for some reason? I like both options, not for a first-round pick, and that's where it gets tough because you only have two other fits. You can't offer them a third or a fourth. Both of those guys are good players. Emerson was very good

in the joint practices against the Vikings. Cornerback, there is a debate there. Would you do it for a corner or would you do it for a defensive tackle? I've liked the defensive tackle idea, but the other night I started thinking more along the corner lines, just seeing how top-notch wide receivers took advantage of the Vikings' corners. But the other thing about this in evaluating the rest of the season, and I know in the playoffs you'll face great receivers, so this is where you'll need maybe another corner if they can trade for one. They need to rotate guys in.

They have not used any defensive backs except for the starters at all. Theo Jackson is the leader for backup defensive backs in snaps. And he has 20 Theo Jackson, a Caleb Evans, and yeah, everyone's down on a Caleb Evans, but he played a half a good season last year. They haven't rotated in anybody in the secondary. They need someone that Brian Flores is going to trust in the secondary. And they need a foundational piece to build on too. They don't really have that. You've got Murphy is going to be a free agent. He's up and down. And Gilmore is on the older side.

Shaq Griff is going to be a free agent. He's been up and down as well. They have to rebuild that whole thing. So if they do have to trade away a draft pick to get a guy who they can stick with, then they should do that. If they've got that possibility, people are not usually just trading away really good young corners. That's the problem. It's like the needs that you have. Other teams are saying, why should we help you with that? So it'd have to be the right situation. Hunter says, how about that commanders and bears game? One of the ugliest games you'll ever see in your entire life, but a classic ending on a absolute bomb of a throw from Caleb Williams played a Anthony Richardson slash Tim Tebow slash Christian

Ponder type looking game today against Washington. And I don't know if that's just because Washington has a good defensive coordinator or he wasn't seeing the field. I don't know what it was, but it looked like he was going into scramble mode. The minute he touched the football, like he regressed from the last few weeks where he had played lesser competition and he had taken apart lesser competition. But facing a good Washington coach, he really struggled, probably just rookie struggles. But when the guy has the same problems that he had in college, which is bailing on place too quickly, trying way too hard to scramble and run around. You do have to wonder to yourself, is that who that dude is going to be where one week, all that stuff works and is amazing. And the next week it looks like this,

which was hideous. You know, what reminded me of was actually Kyler Murray, where Kyler Murray can be the best quarterback. he was great today against Miami but then the very next week Kyler Murray could drive you crazy I wonder if that's along the lines of what Caleb Williams is going to be Marley says besides the Bears losing essentially worst case scenario for the Vikings played out today for the division as well as potential trade targets on teams that won to keep hope alive. How many teams really kept hope a lot? Like did maybe they did. I don't know that there was a, the year where Detroit won nine games after going one in six, did Cleveland really, maybe they did. Maybe they kept hope alive, but Cleveland

has already traded off Amari Cooper. I have to think that they are still interested in potential trades. Tennessee is a team that everyone wants to farm. They lost Carolina lost. And as far as worst case scenario goes, I'm not on board with that because Jordan love got hurt and that's going to hurt the green Bay Packers. They could talk about how Willis has played when he's been in there, but he's not Jordan love. He's been good. Their coach is good. Their team is good, but are they going to win the same number of games if Jordan Love is out for any significant period of time with Malik Willis in there? I don't think that that is going to happen. So that wasn't a bad scenario. The Lions didn't make any difference, but the

Titans looking the way that they did, I think it was a good scenario for the Vikings. So was Anthony Richardson looking as bad as he did. The fact that Richardson has made no progress really at all this year and was not hurt. So you're not going to see a better quarterback in Joe Flacco. That would be silver linings from today. So I can't go worst case scenario. If the bears had won, I would have gotten there a little bit more, but now the bears stay back there. Uh, the Packers are still behind the Vikings still solidified in second place. Not a whole lot changed for the Vikings. I think on this day, uh, let's see, got to get to, uh, ad reads, uh, got to get to uh ad reads uh gotta get to the ad reads uh so let me get to that here in in just a second uh actually i have to call that up so i'll i'll work on that in just a second but i will tell you about first my day on underdog fantasy who is a sponsor of the show as you guys well know

so right before the games i thought let I thought, let me jump in, let me jump in on underdog fantasy and do some pickups for today, right? It'll, uh, increase the experience of watching. So I go through and I think, you know what? It's going to be a big day for passing. I go with Josh Allen, uh, higher than 199.5 Joe Burrow higher than 254.5. Mason Rudolph, I thought he's going to throw on the Lions over 200.5 and Baker Mayfield higher than 235.1. And I'm going, okay, I'm rolling. I'm rolling. But I also picked Jared Goff higher than 236.5. And Jared Goff had one of the funniest days ever. He had to do absolutely nothing on this day. He just handed it off and he let his running back throw a pass, which I guess you can complete those. And his kick returners took a back for touchdown. And that cost me from winning my pick them on underdog fantasy. So close, so close on this day, but it didn't quite work out for me but you can

play along because underdog fantasy is the easiest place to play fantasy sports also the fastest growing fantasy app in the industry the pick'ems took me about 45 seconds to get all i did was pick five players higher or lower with all those passing stats. And I could have won a lot more money. 18 times. My money is what I could have won. Had it worked out. It did not. We'll go again.

Next time you could sign up with the promo code purple and claim your special pick plus first time deposit offer up to a thousand dollars in bonus cash helps the show. A lot of you've been doing it. It's great. Use that promo code purple must be 18 or older terms apply concerned with your play call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit ncpgambling.org so that's uh that's where we stand with that but it was a funny day i that was what it is a weird weird time with

the way that uh the way that the lions won that game in blowout fashion. I can't remember I've seen a quarterback have to do so little in a game to win like that. Okay, got the other ad read, and then we get back to our discussion. Hold on. Let me silence my phone real quick so I can tell you about Us Days at U.S. Cellular. It's back again. Exclusive offers just for customers just to say thanks right now you'll get twelve hundred dollars off any phone plus four hundred dollars off any

tablet amazing right but my family is so excited about their new devices they keep texting me during the show they're all about us days deals like twelve hundred200 off any phone, 400 off any tablet. Terms apply. Visit uscellular.com for details. Okay, back to it. Let's see here. Okay, sorry, I'm laughing here at, oh gosh, stopped watching football and my fantasy team was literally down 85 points.

Sorry, man, it's a tough day with fantasy, just like me. Coming up just a little bit short there with the fantasy football today. But if you have any fantasy questions, I would be happy to answer them. But results can be mixed when you're asking me about fantasy. Evan says, even if we get a better short passing game do we want sam throwing more than 30 times a game it's the same question that we had for years with kirk cousins right with kirk cousins when they went to a high efficiency low volume passing game in 2019 they had a really efficient passing game. He had 107 quarterback rating, hit a bunch of deep shots to Stefan Diggs.

They blew out some teams. If you remember that year, it was the last time before this year that the Vikings actually blew people out. And it was because they were hitting on big passes to Stefan Diggs. He went over a thousand yards with something like 60 catches

because they were going deep to him all the time. And then when Kevin O'Connell got here, he went with a high volume passing game with Kirk cousins, but his quarterback rating went from over a hundred down to something like 96. His average yards per attempt went down to something like seven from you know over eight when he was with Gary Kubiak and Kevin Stefanski it's the same type of discussion with Sam Darnold and I think with Darnold this is this is barking up the right tree it is barking up the right tree of using his arm strength to get the ball down the field. But the last two weeks, I really do think that this is something they need to build on more than, well, they've never done it. The last two weeks, Darnold has been better at throwing underneath. They also have

to severely reduce his sacks. He took big sacks. Yes, it was a face mask, but he also held onto the ball too long on that play where he got face masked. So they have to figure out a way to get the ball out of his hands a little faster and not take those big sacks where he's turning backwards and running around because that has been problematic for them all season long. He's getting sacked on something like 10% of his dropbacks. That just cannot happen. You're not going to succeed as a consistent offense if you are getting sacked 10% of the time. It's just way too much. So there's a balance there that they have to strike. They have to continue to run with Aaron Jones and they have to get Hockets in the ball underneath. I think building on what they've done so far, uh, is, is what they have to continue to do only with a tight end that could get yards after catch lean on that tight end who could get yards after catch.

Uh, Anthony says, Addison's brand is free three. Isn't it? His, uh, being his necklace says it. So that's, that's the thing, Anthony. And this is my point about Jordan Addison and the social media posts is, so I don't know if that's his brand. I've never looked at his necklace, but the point that I'm making about Addison is when you post that the way that he did, people are going to jump to conclusions. There has to be an awareness there. And as I said, I am not trying to jump to conclusions when it comes to this and say, oh, I know by that social

media post guaranteed he's demanding a trade. I'm not doing that. My point is only that you have to know when you tweet that or Instagram that, that other receivers have done that when they've wanted to get traded, it's coming off of a game where you didn't get the football very much. You know how it's going to look, or at least I would know how it's going to look. There's just, there's a lack of awareness there. And if he was putting that out there because he does want to be freed then okay then i guess we know where he stands but the the way i look at it is he's not getting a different target share it's really just the fact that they don't throw it as much and they have to find a way to throw it more uh yeah and and anthony following up with just if that's what he's doing if he's being cryptic then

whatever man right like that's how i feel i don't know what you're doing with that post for sure and i'm not coming on here and saying that i do but if that's what you're doing then get out of here with that that's that's kind of yeah that's the point uh dionte says vikings win the next few games like we think they should. They could potentially lock up a second seed. It's going to be a race. It's going to be a race down the stretch because there's now a number of teams that are competitive in this race. And Philadelphia is back in it.

Green Bay is still in it, even if Jordan Love is banged up. And Washington is definitely in it after this win. So there's going to be quite a few teams that are fighting for the spot behind the Detroit Lions as the Vikings go forward. But to your point, if they go three for three in these games, you should definitely win against really bad teams, 1-2-3-0, then they're sitting at 8-2. And even if you botch the end of the season, you're still talking about being in the playoffs at that point. All you would need is maybe two more wins to be in the playoffs at that point.

That's what they need to do here. They need to be in a position where they take advantage of the five and O start. And they're so far ahead that they are fighting for. Well, if the lions win the division, the Vikings could have a better record and go on the road as the five seed to Atlanta or something, which would be some real juice to a game like that. But these next three games are not only winnable, but against three of the worst teams in the NFL, I think. I mean, Richardson is playing. Okay, the Colts don't have the worst team.

They have a good team, but they have the worst quarterback play. And then you have two of the worst teams in the NFL after that. Also, the game against Richardson being at home, go three for three. And this season is very much on and you are right neck and neck with everybody else. And if there's one team in the lions that you feel like is significantly better.

Okay. Well, I think anybody would take that as a result, go into the playoffs. And there's one team that you feel like is way ahead of you. That's if they end up with an 11 or 12 win season if they lose two out of these next three games then it's major panic major panic major questioning of everybody i just didn't want to get there yet i want to look at how they're going to try to solve the problems now and not be at the flip the computer and punch the television. Like a lot of you seem to be doing, uh, the other day, light a match and burn

it all down. Uh, those of you who are longtime listeners have heard the end of season rants when the Vikings have missed the playoffs are kind of let it all loose. Uh, I don't think we're, we're quite at that point yet. Sorry, let me adjust that. That light was a little intense. So I don't think we're at that point yet. We got to see how the next couple of games play out. If they are to lose to Tennessee, lose to Jacksonville,

if they win two out of three, then we're still going to be going back and forth and flip-flopping on this team. But if they win all three then the season is back on uh i shot you 99 i know hockinson is good but as he's season changing good i don't know how much will change with the offense with hockinson back well if we compare what hockinson did for them last year and it's not the same level of course as what it was last year because they're not throwing as much as we have detailed here but if you compare hockinson to josh oliver and johnny munt as wide receivers those are guys who get maybe 20 catches a year on checkdowns when they're in for rundowns, but they run a play action.

TJ Hawkinson last year had 95 catches and was a premier player at his position all of last year. That is way different. I do think that he's that type of player. The only thing is, as we're asking Sam Darnold, how much better do we think Sam Darnold is supposed to be? Because Sam Darnold has been great so far overall. I mean, he is his career quarterback rating was something like 78 and it's 107 right now. How much better can he be from where he's been? But I think the thing about the quarterback rating is that when you have the big completions, big yards per pass attempt, that rating goes up. It doesn't always mean that you're producing most value or the most consistency.

And that's where his success rate is pretty low because it's not the most consistent. Where TJ Hawkinson adds to this team is a consistency for the offense and they have to take the approach sometimes of let's aim for some 12 play drives here as opposed to all right shoot big hit the home run get the quick score all the time and again they've done it a little bit more they've checked it to Jefferson underneath more or got him over the middle they actually did a good job against the rams of going over the middle to justin jefferson now tj hockinson can take up some of that attention as well which i think will actually help jefferson and addison get open that opposing teams have just had to pay no attention whatsoever to the tight end position and now

you've got a star there that they have to scheme for marcus says with hockinson back and addison wants out maybe let's not say for sure addison wants out uh trade for a cornerback defensive tackle or left tackle everything depends on compensation and how much selling the selling team is willing to eat in salary. Well, no one's trading you a left tackle, I wouldn't think. I suppose it's always possible, but not a left tackle that's going to be anywhere near Christian Derrissaw. You probably have to solve that problem on your own. But as far as corner or defensive tackle, how realistic is it to even if we're talking

about trading somebody like Jordan Addison, how realistic is it to be even having a discussion about trading him for a corner defensive tackle, a player for player trade in the middle of the season? Not the easiest thing to pull off. out five and two you don't really want to be moving on from jordan addison is that they use their fifth round picks to try to acquire some additional help so i was watching adam butler for example from the raiders i believe he's a free agent after next year the raiders should be a team that's selling all right they're not going to sell max crosby but adam butler is a pretty big beast there at the defensive tackle position that could solidify that group a little bit more. Not the pass rusher, but just a strong dude on the inside. Can that be a little bit better than what they've had?

They need to look for one or two trades like that at very least. If I mean, I don't know. Do I want to say if they beat the Colts or should they just do that now? Maybe they should just do that now. Wrigley says KOC should trust Darnold to air it out deep a few more times a game. So it's always a hard thing to pin down because if you start asking him to throw it deep too often, then you end up in a situation where he's turning the ball over and he's done that too much. If you dial him back too much, then you get too many checkdowns and guys are running down the

field open. It's a really hard thing to figure out. It is. It's a really hard thing to put your finger on when it comes to how much you should throw, how much to go deep how much underneath um but i think hockinson gives them that obvious underneath pass completion that gets them seven to ten yards over and over again that kirk cousins really learned to take advantage of when hockinson was here alex says green bay is better than minnesota um i think well first of all they played and the Vikings won so it's a harder case to make there because of that the Vikings strength of victories is better or just as good as Green Bay but really Jordan Love is hurt like I would I might side with you because they have the quarterback with a bigger sample size of success but now now he's on his second injury. And that's where I'm wondering how healthy he's going to

be for the rest of the season. If he is not going to be healthy and they're going to have to be jumping back and forth between Jordan Love and Malik Willis, or if this is a serious injury that requires surgery and he's out for a much longer period of time, then over a bunch of weeks, Malik Willis and his weaknesses will get exposed. They can't just run the option offense and hope for a deep pass every once in a while. He's a backup for a reason. Although Tennessee and the amount of talent that they've gotten rid of, maybe they're just bad at everything, evaluating talent. But I've got to think that when it comes to Malik Willis, that he is going to be a downgrade from Jordan Love and they will lose more games because of it.

The health of your quarterback matters to the evaluation of your team. If Jordan Love is healthy, I think the Vikings and the Packers are neck and neck. And I mean, maybe there's a slight edge just because Love has shown a high ceiling before that there's an edge there to the Packers. But the reality is he's not healthy. Let's see. Libin, maybe? Libin says Jordan Addison as a rookie had 900 plus yards, 10 touchdowns. I don't want to lose him. I like Addison, but he's no Naylor. No, I agree with you. I agree with you. I think in the best case scenario that Jordan Addison just gets the ball more and becomes the Jordan Addison that he was last year. And the thing with wide receivers that are not Justin Jefferson is that they have been frustrated, including Adam Thielen at times, because Jefferson is the sun and everybody else is just orbiting around him.

And some weeks you might not get the ball at all because there's so many targets going to Justin Jefferson. for KJ Osborne, who got frustrated, I think at times in 2022, because Jefferson was getting the ball so much that he got left out of the party for the first nine, 10 weeks of the year. Then he had a breakout game. And then he had a couple of huge games down the stretch where he was really good. We might see that from Jordan Addison, where there will be games where they're just putting everything into Justin Jefferson. And suddenly Jordan Addison is the guy that you're going to where I stand on the entire Addison issue is you would much rather see him get it together, focus and not have problems with lining up and things like that and be the secondary receiver. You want him to be throw a little bit more overall to be. Throw a little bit more overall,

be on the field a little bit more overall, and have him end with something like 70 receptions and Jefferson 110 or whatever, and Hockinson get his fair share, maybe it's 50 or 60 over the last part of the season, and have this team become a passing offense that's very hard to stop, and a consistent, more high volume passing offense. That's what you'd like to see. My only point was if he's sending out a tweet like that to

rib the, you know, the play caller and say, Hey, you got to get me the ball free three. You got to get me the ball. If that's what he meant, then come on, man. Like that's not something that you could do. And he should also be aware of how it's going to be perceived to begin with. That's my whole point. I don't think it's better to trade somebody with that amount of talent. It's better to work it out and have it work than it is to have to move on from somebody in their second year in a situation like this.

Vikings fans anonymous says, number five seed is in line for a wild card loss after playing detroit week 18 still got to push for the division title of course yeah of course i think just in terms of being realistic about what uh this is going to be as a season when you watch the lions that's not going to be an easy team to match week for week. The Vikings probably have more disappointing losses than the lions will down the stretch because the lions are better. That's really the bottom line is that the lions are a better football team than the Vikings. So it's harder to believe that the Lions aren't

going to win the division and the Vikings will. You would naturally rather have that. You would rather do everything you can to chase winning the entire conference. If you're in line still to get 11 wins and be in a wildcard spot, then that's a good season and not the worst position to be in going into the playoffs. The Lions are the team to beat though. And you do want you, of course you want that. I mean, I've always thought the best case scenario for this season, the way I described a successful season for the Vikings was if you can be going to Detroit with something to play for, then it's a successful season. And that might be going there for playoff position. It might be going there for the NFC North.

If either of those two things happen, then it's been a successful season for the Vikings. If you're playing to get in just barely because you melted down the second half, then okay, maybe that's not quite going to be at the same level of success. But even then, if they're in the playoffs, then it's been a pretty successful season considering where they were at the beginning in terms of expectations. I still think we should have the bar higher than just make the playoffs. It should be compete neck and neck. They're one game behind Detroit. It's not like they fell 50 games behind and there's a long way to go. It's just, I've put winning the conference out of my mind for now and started to look at it as more of there's four or five teams that are in the same ballpark that have their strengths,

have their weaknesses and could get hot and could play well in the playoffs and be dangerous. That's Washington. That's Atlanta. That's the Rams. That's Washington. Did I say Washington? Uh, Oh, green Bay. I probably said Washington twice. That's a green Bay. Still. That's kind of the list. San Francisco is going to need to prove that Dallas is going to need to prove that a lot is going to need to prove that. A lot of football to go, everybody. It's exciting, I think. I know everyone's still unhappy. Let's see. David says, put Rouse in there because he is the option to right tackle a lot quicker than we probably think. That's my concern, is can they merge these timelines?

It's hard to commit to trading at this point. Well, with, with Rouse, um, I, I think that you're asking too much of somebody, whereas Blake Brandel just has a lot of experience playing and playing at a starter level. He hasn't been a superstar, but he's a starting offensive lineman in the NFL Rouse. I like his future, but I don't know what he's going to do when he actually has to play in the NFL. That's where we can predict a little bit better that someone like Blake Brandl is going to be able to handle that job. And the Dalton Reisner can be pretty good at left guard, as we saw from last year. You could still, with Brandel, he's also a good run blocker. You could still take advantage of the run blocking for him a little bit,

where I'm not sure that Rouse is going to be an above-average run blocker. It's not an ideal position either way. Whatever they do has probably got all the same odds of success, right? It's probably got all the same odds um no matter what but uh when it comes to walter rouse uh we don't have anything to work with with questenberry we do and with brandel we do and with reisner we do that's why i would choose uh that way to go uh jason says darnold forcing passes into tight windows is like forcing a big fart okay jason it's probably going to turn out okay that's one i probably shouldn't have put on the screen

but i thought it was going to go somewhere funny and it did i apologize for that uh alex says uh packers fans are not freaking out their roster is young and deep unlike the vikings what are the adjustments the adjustments the Vikings should make up to shore the defense? You know, when it comes to the last two games, they played two quarterbacks who won the Super Bowl or who have played in the Super Bowl. Sorry. One of them won the Super Bowl. The other one played in the Super Bowl. The rest of the way, they don't face too many quarterbacks who have had the amount of success of Jared Goff and Matthew Stafford. So I don't think that they need to start thinking, oh my

gosh, we have to change absolutely everything on this defense. They should probably be more along the lines of, we need to take these three things that have been working and have answers for them, have checks versus them, have coverage versus them. Number one is throwing in the middle of the field. That's number one. They have given up way too much in the middle. They're blitzing linebackers. The other teams are throwing behind them. They can't be doing that all the time. The blitzes can't be coming from Ivan Pace over and over and over again in the middle of the field. They also can't be playing the deep coverages, the zone coverages all the time with four

guys back there. They were doing a little Donatello type of stuff with just trying to keep things in front of them. Other teams are going to take advantage of that. The other thing is that these offenses have started to keep in six blockers. So they're going to have to have an answer for that. I don't think the answer is send seven. Maybe it is, but it might be pretend you're going to blitz and drop back and leave that

tight end standing there blocking absolutely nobody. That could be part of it. They were able to fool five-man protections over and over, so they switched to six-man protections. Now the Vikings have to make an adjustment there. Those couple of things alone and dealing with the screens and the swing passes, that's been a big problem, the screens and swing passes. And if they can find a solution to that, is that playing a safety up a little more? Is that bumping out a linebacker a little more to deal with those bubble screens? All of this stuff is going to be tried again with other teams. And I don't think that there's

all that many teams who are going to be able to execute it as well as the rams did uh let's see uh brady says he wore a free three chain on draft night i know that uh let's see carmenisa sorry if i pronounce it wrong said why does it have to be why does there have to be an awareness thing uh when you lose a game talk this through so you lose a game, talk this through. So you lose a game as a wide receiver and you barely get any targets. And you've had some issues in the past. And you post something that looks like you are asking to be freed from the Minnesota Vikings. As many other receivers have done something similar to try to get traded, people are going to jump to conclusions. Here's my evidence. Google Jordan

Addison. I didn't make it this way. I wouldn't make it this way, but it's this way. And everybody knows that. Everyone knows the number of wide receivers who have demanded trades by posting stuff on social media. That's why it has to be an awareness thing is you have to understand that people are going to view this as some sort of diva act using the finger quotes, some sort of trade me, get me out of here. When you have so few targets this year, I have said repeatedly on the show that I don't know what he meant by that. I don't know if he meant that or not, but enough people thought that he did that. Now it kind of does mean that right. Even if it's not on purpose. And he didn't post anything after, this is also key, did not post anything after that said, guys, stop, I didn't mean that. He must've seen the reaction.

He must've seen a hundred articles come out and aggregated posts and tweets and everything else that said, hey, what's Jordan Addison doing? Is he demanding a trade? He must have seen that, right? And there was no correction. That's the whole point. I'm not saying that that's what he meant to do, but that was the intention, but you have to have more awareness in that. I'm not saying that that's a trade demand by him, but the world works a certain way. And I mean, right here,

right here, Brady says a wide receiver posts his brand and everyone flips out. His brand is free three. Okay, that's fine. But everyone doesn't know that. Everyone does not know. It's not Jordan brand, which is on my shirt because that's Jordan. Everyone doesn't know that clearly because of the number of articles and posts and responses and everything else that came out.

It has to be a level, has to be a level of understanding of how the world works when you put something out like that. And you should aim to correct it very quickly if you realize that that's what's being said. So, and if he is posting that to try to put pressure on the vikings to throw in the ball i've said repeatedly throughout the show that they should be throwing in the ball more that it's a good thing to work the ball to jordan addison that he's a good wide receiver you'd much rather not trade him. You'd much rather keep him here. But the lack of awareness thing for Addison is also a pattern of behavior as well. We can't throw out the priors.

This is not Harrison Smith posting something that people are reading into. This is Jordan Addison. And your reputation matters. So there's the whole thing laid out. I'm not calling for him to be traded, but I also understand when people look at this and go, what does this guy do it? I understand it. Let's see. I assume this is pronounced Nord. It's obvious that Darnold's place is the second half of Green Bay game has declined. I still have faith, but we definitely need to make more than one trade.

Without capital, it'll be hard. I don't think that Adison's play, or I'm sorry, I don't think that Darnold's play has declined. I think these last two games have been good. I think they've been, especially the Rams game, I thought he was really good. I don't know how much better you can ask Sam Darnold to be than the last two games

they gave up a ton of points and lost that's what happened they do not have a consistent offense they have an offense that is going to need to push the ball down the field and have success on big plays because that's how Sam Darnold plays. That's what they're going to have to have. You're never going to have the offense of, I don't know who, the Buffalo Bills with Josh Allen when he's got weapons. You're not going to have that because you don't have Josh Allen. And even every team has some inconsistencies. They need to find ways to stay on the field more often. That is a big, big correction. But I'm not sure what we're looking at if we think that Darnold hasn't been really good in these last two games. And if they

give up even just one less drive to either one of those teams, we're talking about coming away maybe with wins there, especially in Detroit, finish out one drive against Detroit. In Los Angeles, Jalen Naylor catch one ball and run it into the end zone, and maybe we're talking about a different story. This might be the most unexpected comment of the night from Jason. Still can't figure out why Quasey traded Vardarian Lowe to the Patriots. He'd be a perfect backup left tackle. Are you sure you want to talk about Vidarian Lowe? I don't think that's a guy that they miss at all. I will check if I'm missing something about

Vidarian Lowe's performance. Are you just kind of looking at stuff and blaming Kweisi? Vidarian Lowe quacey vidarian low in two seasons he okay so he has a pat a decent pass blocking grade in 80 and 104 pass blocking reps uh so far but last year when he played more his pass blocking grade was 36 and he gave up six sacks last year so in the bigger, he has not been good at all for the Patriots. Blake Brandel beat him out in training camp and became a starter. The Lost Angel says, can the backup beat Detroit next weekend? Who's Detroit playing next week? I have not looked at who Detroit. Oh, are they playing the Packers? Is that who Detroit's playing next week? I haven't looked at Detroit's schedule.

I assume you mean they must be playing the Packers if you're saying the backup, which would be Malik Willis. Let me check. Yeah, okay. That's what you're referring to. And also, thanks for the super chat, by the way. Anybody can do that if they're enjoying the show. Definitely not a requirement. But anytime you want to throw a little in the super tip jar,

very much appreciate the Lost Angels. Thanks so much for doing that. Can Malik Willis beat Detroit? Probably not. It's going to be a tough road. That battle will be fascinating, though, because we've seen the Vikings go toe-to-toe with Detroit, and Detroit didn't have to play much today in order to win,

whereas the Packers had a tough game and lost their starting quarterback. I lean very heavily toward the Green Bay Packers not being able to hang with Detroit in that game, though I will change my tune about the Packers if they are able to hang with Detroit and maybe beat them next week. Because my thought is the more you have to play Malik Willis, the more banged up Jordan Love is, the much more difficult this is going to be. But if they play well against Detroit with Willis, then we'll start to have a growing sample size of success with Malik Wilson. Maybe he's just better than we thought he was. I'm not going to hold onto the draft status. You know, I don't do that. I go by how guys play and don't worry about the draft status once they're in the game. So if Malik Willis is good,

then that he's pretty good. Uh, but I still think that, uh, when it comes to Willis, they were able to trick other teams when he came in off the bench by not running their offense, that, that he, uh, was able to have success running this kind of trick offense that over more and more games will be figured out eventually. Uh, seven XXS says this is this franchise ever not going to be a joke. I, you know, I think when you look at overall franchise, this is what I talk about with the overreaction to the other day, they're five and2. I don't think that there's anything jokey about being a 5-2 team. That is one of the top teams for free agents to come to.

They signed three A1 free agents. They drafted a first-round quarterback who's promising for next year. This franchise has a lot going for it, and I think that sometimes when something goes wrong for this team, the weight of a bunch of years of failure just collapses people. I honestly think that the weight of failure in the past just makes you fall to the ground every time something goes wrong. I don't think this is the point in which that needs to happen

at five and two with three opponents that you can beat coming up. And the Vikings really have under Kevin O'Connell and Kweisi Adafo Mensah built a premier NFL franchise. They have the stadium, the facility, the culture. They've got star players on the roster. I'm out here in LA. If you couldn't tell, I got my UCLA shirt on that I bought yesterday at a UCLA volleyball game. If there's sports around, I'm going to find it. And I see Justin Jefferson's face around LA on ad campaigns and everything else. They lost two games by 12 points. It's not, it's not time for this. It's just not time for this. Uh, let's see. Dave says, uh, the difference in the last two games, our defense played just average instead of top five. I wouldn't give them average. I think they played

horribly in the last two games. Uh, I'm hoping that they are not falling off like the defense did last year. That's, that is the big concern there. And we won't really find out. So my feeling is that the defense is in the middle. It's much more of a top 10 defense than it is an unstoppable beast. Number one can't be competed with type of defense and especially on the road uh that's a little bit harder than than at home where they've had an advantage and they did pressure jared goff at home by the way he just made plays all over the field when he got pressured they are a flawed

but very very good defense And the last two games, they played offenses that have elite weapons. And teams that have elite weapons are going to be able to make plays. Teams that have elite play callers, Ben Johnson, Sean McVay. If you did a full draft of all the play callers in the NFL, where do McVay and Ben Johnson get picked?

One and two, two and three, two and three. Kyle Shanahan's one. Then it's two and three. They face two of the best play callers, two quarterbacks who've been to Super Bowls, unbelievable wide receivers for both teams. St. Brown's incredible. We know that Puka Nakua and Cooper Cup are great.

They're going to make defenses look bad sometimes. If they continue to struggle against Anthony Richardson, or if they continue to struggle against Trevor Lawrence, Mason Rudolph, and then they go forward, Caleb Williams. Okay, well now we're talking about a different story. But I am willing to live with this defense. Probably can't just win you games against the best teams in the league. That means your offense and number 18 and your quarterback, who's been very good this

year and all your weapons, including Jordan Addison, they have to be a part of the success in one of those games. But how many games will those guys have to just win it for you with this defense? Probably not that many. So going forward, I think that they'll still finish as a top five to 10 defense. I don't think it's just a fall off the edge of the cliff thing. The one major concern I have though, is the usage, the snap counts. Van Ginkle and Grenard, to start today, and consider the Vikings have played seven games. They had their bye early. So it's a pretty fair representation going into today, the Vikings versus the rest of the league.

Grenard and Van Ginkle were both in the top five in snaps. Stephon Gilmore is in the top 20. Harrison Phillips is in the top 20 at their position. That's not what you need. Harrison Smith has taken way too many snaps. That's not what you need. That's my concern when you're asking about a potential fall off. That is my concern, is that there's going to be just a defense that gets worn out.

And that did happen to them at times last year. Steven, the man, I assume you mean Addison, has been wide open the last three games. Sam keeps forcing the ball to JJ. Well, in terms of throwing the ball to Jefferson, Darnold went eight for nine with over 100 yards to Justin Jefferson. I wouldn't say that he had no success forcing the ball to Justin Jefferson. That's not really the issue. So I started the show with the stat about Addison that he's getting the same percentage of the completions

as he did last year. 16% of their completions went to Addison last year per game. And this year it's 15%. So it's basically the same. They're just not throwing as much. And I expect that they'll throw the ball more as they go forward because they've just not had long drives. So it's a, it's a little bit of a chicken and egg type of thing with Jordan Addison and getting his target sort of stuff, because it's not that he's being ignored. It's that they're not throwing as much because they're not on the field as much, which maybe they should throw to Addison more and stay on the field more. And that's what I, that's what I think. That's what I think. I think that they should be working Addison underneath a lot more.

Six-yard passes are a good play, and sometimes they treat it as if it's not. The last two weeks, underneath throws have worked, but they need more. They need more. Omega Flash says, I'd be'd, uh, be missed too. If I was Addison, uh, maybe you're maybe, oh, you mean you probably mean pissed, uh, with all the looks that are forced to JJ, but that's the thing. That's what I'm saying is that these last couple of games, the jets game, they forced the ball to Addison, the, the, the jets, or I'm sorry, the jets game, they forced to Jefferson before the, the, the jets

game, they forced it to Jefferson way too much that I agree with, but eight catches on nine targets. That doesn't sound like it was forced to just the Jefferson to me. They've they've spread the ball out. Otherwise, rather than just go Jefferson and then Addison. It's been more of Jefferson and then one to Josh Oliver, one to Trent Shurfield, a couple of two Aaron Jones. I think that they need to get him underneath stuff to try to set up deeper stuff to Jordan Addison. So that's, that's what I think.

Let's see. Sean says, where's the leadership on this team to keep him in check or tell the club he needs to go. Yeah. Again, I don't want to say that he meant that he was trying to get traded. And as far as keeping him in check,

this is the NFL, man. I mean, this isn't like high school. This is every, every guy's got to have his own responsibility for his behavior. And every guy's got to have an awareness of what they do on their social media and how it will be perceived or how it's going to be viewed by the rest of

the outside world or the team or your teammates when you put it out there. So, uh, let's see. Purple forever says, stop complaining so much. No team is perfect. That's kind of funny. Purple forever, because my whole thing for the last two live shows has been, Hey guys, look around. Your team is right in the mix here.

There was no reason to jump off buildings the other night like a lot of people did that's been my whole take but at the same time there are things that need to be corrected otherwise they're not going to be a real contender and that's where we're setting the bar still is that they're a real contender. I didn't drop off after two games and say, well, look, I thought they were never going to lose ever season. You know, season's over. They're not a contender. I look at Washington and the way they played today, Chicago green Bay situation with the quarterback, Philadelphia is on the rise. The Rams look pretty good. Seattle falling off big time today.

And go, it's wide open behind the Lions. The Vikings have a lot of their best games already behind them or their hardest games already behind them. So make your move these next couple of weeks and separate yourself. They can do it. They have the talent to do it. They have a mini buy here. They have the coaching to do it, but they have to make these adjustments. They have to get the ball to Jordan Addison more. They have to stay on the field

longer. They have to shut down the middle of the field. They have to pressure quarterbacks outside of just blitzing. They have to find a counter for some of these short passes. Otherwise they are going to be a disappointment in these next couple of weeks. Uh, let's see Vikings fans anonymous. What about our Armstead? If, uh, Dexter Lawrence and Simmons are too pricey or probably just unavailable, uh, with Armstead, I don't think he's played very well this year. Has he, I'm going to have to look that up. Did I close it out? Oh, here it is. Uh, I don't think he's played very well. And when, isn't he very highly paid? That was, he was supposed to be one of the bigger, uh, let's see. I'll, I'll look this up right now. How he has played so far this year.

Well, he played today, and I don't know what happened, but I wasn't watching him specifically. Let's see. Has he been good this year? No, not really. No, he has not really been good. Going into today, 66 PFF grade, 12 pressures total, and one sack, which is down quite a bit from what he was last year.

I know it's with Jacksonville, and maybe their coaching's not the same, but that one I would be pretty wary of. He's got a big injury history, too. Skull Vikings, do you think that they make any big moves before the deadline at corner, defensive tackle, guard, left tackle? I would throw out the offensive line of trying to make a big move. Do I think they do? I was pretty convinced that they would if they had beaten the Rams. I'm a little less convinced.

I also think that Kwesi Adafo-Mensah seems to be constantly trying to do just that. And if he's trying, then there might be something in the mix. You have to look at this season as an opportunity though, because going forward teams like Washington, Chicago, the Packers are going to continue to be good. Like it's not like these teams around them are getting worse. Uh, and you have to keep pace with that. I think the way I would put it, Skull Vikings, is if there is an opportunity, they will take it. But that opportunity has to be right. It has to be a player who could be a starter over multiple years for them to make a big trade for. It can't just be somebody that's a rental that paints over a weakness and you're giving away draft capital for, you might see them use the fifth round pick for that or pick swaps or

something else here. It, but I don't think that there's a big move unless they can get somebody over multiple seasons. In that case, I could see it. Uh, Preston says Ravens lost to the Browns today.

Oh my goodness. They need to trade all the starters. Yeah. Well, that's exactly, that's exactly the point. That's exactly the point is when we're talking about the other teams in the league, you can go to every single one of the other teams in the league outside of Kansas city. And you can say, Hey, what the heck happened for that one loss? And that's why with the Vikings, that's why I've been saying about this loss against the Rams. It's it's bad. And there are concerning and problematic things about it, but also we can't make it into the whole season is lost. The Raven season is not lost. The Ravens are flawed to some extent.

Their offensive line is problematic and they got crushed a bit today. Their defense is not perfect and Winston had a good day against them. But there's still a Super Bowl caliber team. Now, they get more benefit of the doubt than the Vikings because of who their quarterback is, multi-time MVP. But even the Lions had a bad loss to the bucks who aren't that good. And what Buffalo had that loss where Josh Allen went nine for 30. And we all thought, oh man, he's in trouble. Then they go make a trade. And then now they've looked great.

These last two weeks, they've locked back in. Every team has had these ups and downs, but through almost half a season, five and two, still in my mind in the driver's seat to go make the playoffs. Let's see what happens before we go nuts. They lose to Indianapolis feeling maybe a little more nuts. I won't be having this talk with you. If they lose to Indianapolis, that team, uh, is struggling so much to pass football. It'll be more freak-out level justified at that point. Eric says, has anyone asked KOC why he refuses to incorporate perimeter and underneath passes? I think this is one of the biggest improvements he could make

as it would open up deep routes. Yeah, that's what I've been saying, man. The last two weeks they have. I've got the numbers for you right here. This is my... You guys are never impressed enough with my ability to do two things at once. Here is... I'm joking

because I usually say something wrong as I'm looking something up. So this last week, as far as the underneath stuff against the Rams, behind the line of scrimmage, two completions on two passes. But the short stuff, nine for 11 passing, and then medium, which is 10 to 20 yards, five for seven passing. So only 12% of their passes went over 20 yards against the Rams, and 52% were short or behind the line of scrimmage this week. They did do that. And I think it was similar against the lions. Let me take a look at that against Detroit. Uh, let's see against Detroit. It was, yeah, it was actually a higher percentage. It was

55% were either behind the line of scrimmage or short passes. So coming out of the Jets game, I think this is more of a Jets game criticism. Eric coming out of the Jets game, I was having the same issue. You don't have to take these shots all the time, but they have corrected that this past game was really part of it was they couldn't run the ball. Aaron Jones was really run down and the offensive line didn't run block very well. And they just had a few bad endings to drives, including a couple of sacks by Sam Darnold. That's where he just cannot take bad sacks. And he's done that a couple of times throughout the season uh betwixt with the huge super chat thank you betwixt appreciate you uh four teams in the nfl have better record than

the vikings right now and this low iq fan base is always reactionary after a few losses look around the league we are fine the ceiling is high for us well here's the only area i disagree with you betwixt is the low iq fan base what if i if i am to analyze the fan base based on the groups of people that i chat with what three times a week we do this i think three times a week we get together and we have conversations about this team i think the reason for the reactionary nature of this team is not IQ. It is many years of frustration and it is no surprise to me. I went to the Minnesota history museum not too long ago, but this summer, and they had a thing about, uh, Charles Schultz, the guy who wrote Charlie Brown. And when I walked by and I was looking at the

Charlie Brown with the football pulled out from under him, I thought it all makes sense. It all makes sense that the guy was from Minnesota who did the Charlie Brown with the football. And it has always been so true that every time Vikings fans have gotten excited, they have something go wrong right after. It can't just be a loss. It also has to be your best player's left tackle, you know, the knee, the left tackle's knee, right? It can't just be that you get somebody injured. It has to be that their career is altered. Like Teddy Bridgewater, Dante Culpepper, Sam Bradford. There have been so many close calls, so many good teams, just like this one that start off hot. We talk about how good they are. They start to get the nation's attention. And then all of a sudden, whoop, there it goes right

out from underneath them and that builds and builds and builds. So then every time it looks like it's happening, there is a reaction almost to get out in front of it. Like I'm done with this season. I'm done. I'm not getting hurt again. This team can't do it. Forget it. And I don't think that's irrational based on what's happened.

That's why you watch me to tell you which parts you should be freaking out and not. Because that's what i do here right that's what i try to do here i play i play uh opinion referee and i'm like you know what and i try to be better than the nfl refs you know i'm gonna i'm gonna throw a i'm gonna throw a flag on you know maybe this is too far or i'm gonna put the flag in the pocket for certain criticisms and things like that so i don't think it's IQ. A lot of the criticisms are very rational. It's just I don't think we can start calling the season over or saying the coaching staff is terrible or anything like that at this point based on the losses that they had.

This team is the best team they've had since 2019, but it's also a lot like 2019. If you guys remember that season, they lost some, some games against good teams. They beat some bad teams and we were asking questions about them the whole season long. How good are they? Really? We asked that a bunch of times throughout the, uh, 2019 season, they had a good defense, but it wasn't perfect and it could get beaten. They had a big play offense that would also go stagnant. It's kind of similar to that.

That team made the playoffs and won a playoff game, but it wasn't completely perfect. Slowpoke says Detroit exposed our middle linebackers and found wide open holes. The Rams did the same. We need to get some real beef on the line that could create their own pressure right now. They're outmanned the, uh, well, Cashman coming back is a huge deal. I assume he's going to come back for this week. That is a huge deal and was really proven that the middle of the field is just not the same without Blake Cashman, not even close. That's another part of the analysis too, is that the most important player on the defense, the guy who's making all the calls was not there to do it. And I don't think that Ivan Pace is that guy. And then this was kind of weird to me.

Kamu Grugier-Hill just didn't play the other night after making plays as a fill-in player against the Texans and against the, who was it? Oh, Packers, when he got the other interception. Maybe that's because the personnel that the Rams were putting out there wasn't allowing the Vikings to put Grugier Hill on the field, but there is a lack of trust for the rotational players that we see at times that I start to wonder about. But Cashman coming back should be massive for this defense, getting back into who they are. As far as the beef,

the interior and the pressure from the interior, I were on year six of me asking, you know, just when, when will there be a player who gets after the quarterback? I think Jerry Tillery has been good this year overall, but hasn't been a guy that you could say you're going to rush for, and you just drop straight back and he's going to

win and he's going to get to the quarterback. They just have not had that. Let's see. Marley says the issue is they lose one guy and mostly fall apart on defense. Losing Derrissaw was massive for Sam. He holds the ball for 127 hours before making up his mind. It feels like disasters. And it losing, um, Derrissaw is such a gut punch. It really is.

Uh, because not only just how good he is, the fact that you can leave him out on an Island, uh, against any pass rusher that you want to, uh, the fact that he could take on anybody and you don't have to shift over protection. You don't have to give him a whole lot of chips. You can run behind

him. It is, it is really tough. I mean, they are only missing. So you say like they miss one player and they fall apart. Well, that, that hasn't been true. Like they've missed Addison and they didn't fall apart. They missed TJ Hockinson and they didn't fall apart. And then with Christian Derrissaw, it's important. And there will be more pressure from behind Darnold that needs to be aware of that. And O'Connell needs to be aware of that, but it doesn't have to mean fall apart because they have been missing other players and they haven't completely fall apart. Jason says the line for the Colts game is Minnesota minus seven. Well, if there's any, so the whole world hasn't given up on the Vikings. There you go. There you go. We're always,

we're always checking with Vegas to see what expectations are. Right. And a seven point being favored by seven points means the expectations for the Vikings have not fallen off the edge of the table. At least for the, those who are putting down money in the NFL quick says who in the NFC outside of Detroit is clearly better, clearly better. I don't know. I mean, I could see

Washington being better as Jaden Daniels goes on because Jaden Daniels looks really good. Today, he's dealing with that injury and Chicago has a good defense, but Jaden Daniels looks like a star. They have good offensive players. Their scheme is working. They have a good defensive coach who's been to the Super Bowl before. They're a threat to be better. Green Bay is certainly a threat to be better if Love comes back and they get on a roll. They've been playing pretty well lately.

That's going to be decided in, what, week 17 with the Vikings and the Packers, maybe for who's got the better spot in the NFC. Clearly better, though. I can't say. I mean, Philadelphia, again, an argument for a team that has a lot of good players that has been a little bit up and down and had some disappointments. All the second place teams behind the Lions all sound about the same when you start describing how they are, how strong they are.

Slowpoke says, my entire lifetime as a Vikings fan has been nothing but hope, then heart ripped out and stone cold misery. So I get it when fans get upset. That's exactly what I'm saying. Yeah, it's not a matter of the you know the game. Of course you people know the game. Of course Vikings fans know the game.

And you guys have great questions on here. It's not just throwing out utter nonsense. I mean, you guys are asking about schematics and player decisions and coaching and all sorts of smart stuff. That's why I enjoy it so much. We're on almost two hours of talking about football here. If it was bad questions and low IQ stuff, I would have been gone 45 minutes ago. It's good stuff. But I think where your rationality creeps in is based on what's happened in the past and frustration creeps into where you start wanting to go,

get rid of the coach, tired of this. He can't call plays. Defensive guy doesn't know he's doing, he's overrated. You want, you want to kind of lash out every time it feels like the wheels are coming off because they've come off so many times before.

I can't tell you that they won't because this team does have its flaws, but there's also a lot of other teams that have their flaws as well. Ron says Garrett Bradbury is the least of their problems on the offensive line-ish, sort of. So Garrett Bradbury had a good game the other night, and two weeks ago it was one of his worst games of his career bradbury's success seems to almost always be based on just who he's playing against if the other team is attacking uh garrett bradbury then it's it could be a problem for him. If they have somebody who is overpowering at the defensive tackle position, it's going to be a difficult day for him. But I've gotten to the point with Bradbury where I think he's a solid,

solid center. And if everything is good around him, it's not that big of a problem. It's not perfect. It's not Dermot Dawson or Matt Burke or any of the Jeff Christie from the past, but he's a fine NFL center. He can run block above average for you. And if he's not facing

one of the better defensive tackles in the league, he'll probably be okay and give you an opportunity there to, you can still operate the offense. Early in his career. The offense was getting blown up because of Bradbury, but it's not that big of an issue. Now, of course, the left tackle becomes a problem. Uh, Leonard says Bo Nix has five wins that he does. I don't think Denver is exactly regretting, uh, drafting Bo Nix. He's had some

bad games. All the rookie quarterbacks have. Caleb Williams had a horrendous game today. Drake May looked good and then got hurt in his game. Jaden Daniels may have had one of his worst games today. Bo Nix has had some bad ones. He had that one game where he had like minus passing yards at halftime. That's rookies. That's how rookies are always going to be. I liked Bo Nix coming out and thought if the Vikings drafted him, he would do really well here because he's a good decision maker and he gets the ball out quickly. You could see that his aggressiveness is growing and that he's locking in pretty well with Sean Payton. He

competes hard. Sometimes I thought people acted like Bo Nix was just the worst quarterback prospect they've ever seen here. If he was here, he would have done well. Based on what I've seen from him in a couple games, he also played the Panthers, but he's found ways to win. They're going to be in the playoff race. He's doing okay. Where is his ceiling is the bigger question. somebody like may daniels williams and

mccarthy have higher ceilings panic does too because he's more physically talented but he's a good pick for that coach and he would have been okay for uh kevin o'connell it would have been a different offense for o'connell uh it would have been if it was bo Uh, it would have been, if it was Bo Nix, it would have been a lot more short stuff than it is with Darnold. Uh, David says, uh, this is exactly why the Wilves delayed their commitment and approach. I like where they're heading, but if you were an offensive coach, it has to be more of a calling card like the lions running game. They Sam Darnold, dude, this is what I mean by the overreacting Sam Darnold is a 10 game below 500 quarterback in his career with a career quarterback rating of 78. When he arrives here, he is five and two with a 107 quarterback rating. And you're calling out the offensive coach. I just don't know what to do with

that. I have my nitpicks as well. I have my critiques as well. You all have heard them, but we need to look at the bigger picture here. They, the reason that the Wilfs, you say delayed the commitment. They're not in the last year of their deal. That's why. So why is the ownership, would you not let it play out? I did not think it was that controversial that they didn't extend them. Personally, I would have because I'm comfortable with where the organization is and how it's being coached, but they weren't going into the last year of their contracts. Next year they will be, and they'll negotiate extensions next year. This has become a franchise that people want to play for The nflpa voting it the best and then second best franchise in the entire league under kevin o'connell

And as far as the the calling card, he does have a calling card. The calling card is creating explosive plays in the passing game That's what it is. And he's done it as well as any coach in the league. The other stuff though may just have to come with a different quarterback later. That's not Sam Darnold. That's always looking down the field, but if they play the way they have so far this year on offense, the rest of the year against the defenses that they're facing, they should finish as a top 10 to 12 offense with a quarterback who's never even sniffed that before in his career. So let's go forest and trees here. Let's let's, let's be cognizant of forest and trees. Like the trees are, you can't have as many three and outs. You can't have as many short drives. The is you have a really good nfl head coach

who in the future you feel very confident turning jj mccarthy over to but he's not perfect and we're going to criticize after losses there's no doubt about that i mean this this right here you want to talk about wacky town i just said you you guys are smart, and Preston says, I'd rather have Sala as the Vikings DC. I don't know about that, dude. I mean, I don't have a problem against Robert Sala, but wait, this is what we're doing? After two losses?

We don't have to start saying everybody's better than everybody with the Vikings. Hamza says, do you think the reason Sam is holding onto the ball is because he's struggling to read the field? He seems to not throw with anticipation like Kirk used to. Is he waiting until guys are open? Yes. Yep. Yes. What you just said is exactly what I think it is. I think that Sam Darnold sometimes will think he sees something different than he sees and he will hesitate. I've seen it. I don't know how many times on tape now he goes back and he goes to throw the ball. You see his shoulder actually moving and he'll go like now and then it'll look somewhere else. And sometimes it's a completion. I think that he needs to see guys get open and then use the laser to throw it in there.

Kirk Cousins was very good at envisioning where people were going to be. And actually watching Kirk today a little bit, I was using a red zone. So I'm seeing kind of in and out of the game, watching some of the throws that he made today were exactly what you're talking about, where somebody doesn't look that open and he throws it to a spot where they can run into it open. And he's, he's good at that. He's always been good at that. That's just a skill that Kirk cousins is sort of blessed with is seeing ahead. Drew Brees was great at it. Steve Young was great at it. I don't think that's ever going to be something that

Sam Darnold has, and you just are going to have to work around that. But now they have a seven game sample of what works and what doesn't schematically. He does have to get rid of the ball way earlier and throwing receivers open is a way to get rid of the ball earlier. He doesn't really seem to know how to do that. And that's not something that you can correct. I don't think that's something that you could just be like, Hey dude, why don't you just throw guys open? It's not something that he's, is in his skillset. So they have to figure out ways to not ask him to do that too often. And that's why you see when someone like Jefferson breaks open

over the middle and he doesn't have too many people around him, Darnold will put it on the money, but you won't see him throw until the guy's out of the break. There were many times with cousins where I'll be looking down the field from the press box, kind of where the routes are going. And I see him go back to throw the ball and the ball comes out and i'm like where is that going because i don't really see and then oh he's throwing it to a spot and the guy runs underneath it it's just not what darnold is capable of doing um slowpoke says darnold is doing exactly what koc is asking to do i honestly believe once hawk steps back into the lineup, Darnold will have more one-on-ones on the outside and the Vikings are going to feast.

Low IQ fan here. I don't think there's anything low IQ about that. I think that that's reasonable. It's definitely reasonable to think that when Hawkinson comes back, some of those shorter passes and getting the ball out quicker. I mean, that's what you're telling. I think that's what you're telling Sam Darnold, right? Is now that you have TJ Hawkinson, if you drop back and you don't see something, just go to him. And that's, that's what, uh, that's what cousins would do a lot. Uh, Wrigley points out, and this is true.

Uh, Kirk definitely had games where he held it too long to even open receivers. Rams game on Christmas is a good example. There's that's there's no debate about that. So that and that's where Wrigley we do have to wonder about some of the route combinations and reads and things like that with KOC to and the sack rate. Because Cousin Sackray in uh, the amount of sacks that he racked up, was it 40 something? Like he racked up a lot of sacks when it came to that 2022 season, when he was first leading this offense. And we saw Josh Dobbs struggle with this too. And he's not obviously as good as those guys, but there were definitely games where the ball was getting held too long. And that's part of the offense and trying to hunt explosive plays is sometimes you're saying, hang on to it a little bit longer, a little bit longer, stay in that pocket.

And you would hear KOC kind of talk about Kirk as in trust the reads, trust the reads. But sometimes that results in holds onto the ball too long. And I don't know if there's a perfect solution for that because Darnold has always been sacked a lot. David says, my issue with what you said is in the critical moments, third downs converted more consistently, putting games away, winning time of possession. Yeah, and David, this is where I'm saying the forest and the trees.

All of those critiques, keeping drives going longer means converting third downs. Consistently putting games away has been a problem. I don't disagree with you there. Time of possession, they don't win it very often. And I thought it was really just that they didn't have good running backs, but they've still struggled with it at times this year with a good running back. Not trusting another running back could be a part of it with Cam Akers, and we'll see how that goes.

But Ty Chandler just basically never getting on the field at this point. All the things you said are right. They are all the shortcomings of the Vikings offense that keeps them away from being elite. I think that some of this is trying to make it enough to where Sam Darnold can run it with the limitations that he has as a quarterback, which I think they've done a good job. But when it comes to the bigger picture of Kevin O'Connell and where they stand as a franchise, and would you want him as your guy who's designing your offense, calling your plays,

running your team, all that stuff? I would. But some of those things, if they're, if they're not improved over the years here, as we, or I should say over the coming weeks here, if they're not on the field more often, they're going to wear down their defense. If they are not better in critical moments, then they are going to struggle. If they're not putting games away, then they're going to have 2022-like comebacks from other teams, but you're not going to always finish them out. Yeah, oh, you're right. You're definitely right. But I don't think that those criticisms that you have there have to mean he's not good at his job. He's not a good coach. He's not good as an offensive mind or play call or any of that stuff. Because I think that so much of this is who your quarterback is. Everybody looks a lot smarter if Josh Allen is your quarterback how much more can we reasonably ask out of Sam Darnold from Kevin O'Connell but the feel for mid and late game oh yeah that could

be better that could definitely be better that's been a three-year frustration for me now feel for the game game management you might call it trick plays at bad times, stuff like that. Understanding this is not the time to try to have a running back throw a pass. Uh, just as a small example, like, yeah, no, I, I definitely agree with you there. So I think that we're largely looking at the same thing, but I'm just not making it into a, well, you don't have a guy who could do this job, or this is why they didn't look at extensions for them. I think they wanted to see where this direction was going and also they didn't have to do it there was no pressure to do it two years out and if you're coming off a seven and ten season and giving out a four-year contract extension well i don't know like that looks that looks a little weird uh maybe

from the wilfs perspective uh basketball guy says isn't it crazy it crazy that Jefferson is like 137 yards away from Thielen? Yes. And just the other night, it's too bad that they lost because Jefferson put on such a show that it would have been nice to hear him talk about some of his catches from that game. But clearly he's a competitor and was not in the mood to talk about it after the game it would have been interesting to hear what he really thought about that ball he tipped to himself he's an unbelievable player and they're getting as much from Darnold to Jefferson as they can it's just more to Addison more to Hockinson when he comes back more consistency and as David said

closing out games, managing them, keeping possession these are things that are really important in the upcoming games the one thing we should say is when you look at the totality of who they played your team's just not going to run over everybody when you go through the teams the Vikings played

they destroyed the New York Giants that's a bad team and they killed them. And then the 49ers at that point only were missing McCaffrey. That's a really good team when they're only missing McCaffrey. The Texans are not a perfect team, but they're really good too. And they blew that team out. They play the Packers who are clearly a good team with Jordan Love in. They don't destroy them, but they hang on for a big win there at Lambeau. They play with Detroit and they have a bad loss against a team that had just gotten healthy with big stars. That's you're going to not look perfect when you play teams that are that good and they haven't looked perfect. am curious now how do you look against several bad teams in a row what can you correct by the time you play good teams again

and hey look no matter what kevin o'connell does this year He can't call a worse play than the bears did today. Handing off to an offensive lineman with the game on the line. Can't do worse than that, right? Definitely can't do worse than that. David says I'm with you and hear you. Don't mean that he should not be in the position, just tired of the same old results doing the best I can dealing with it since 1976 well let me let me say this david as of right now and you and i might

have a conversation later if they have more upsets uh that that they're on the wrong side of as of right now it's not the same old thing They lost to a team that's got a great coach and a great quarterback and great receivers and good defensive linemen. And they did it on the road after only having three days to prepare. They couldn't make the changes that they needed to make on defense in three days. They couldn't. So I don't think we're there yet. I'm not discounting all the things you've been through cheering for this team for that long or why you would think,

ah, these weaknesses are going to get them around the corner. So far, this has been as fun of a season until Thursday as I've had covering the team. And so I guess that's also part of it, which is just, ah, do we need to do this? Like this was going well. It wasn't the best team I've ever seen, but it was the most fun.

So don't let it ruin your whole experience here because they lost to a team that's pretty good on a Thursday night. Slowpoke says, would it be a bad idea to move Brian O'Neill to left tackle? Just curious how long it would take for Brian to adapt. It is going to be crucial to protect Sam's blindside. I don't think it can be done. Maybe that's something, I don't know. I don't think it could be done. He's a lifelong right tackle, career long right tackle. Blake Brandel was a left tackle. Just two years ago, he's in games playing left tackle,

filling in for Christian Derrissaw. I'm much more good with that than I am trying to shift that around because then who's going to right tackle? And these days, people are coming off both sides all the time. David, I appreciate you eloquently capturing that after the IQ comments. Yeah, yeah. No, look, that comes up all the time. It comes up all the time with fans of this team.

And I just think that over the last, how many years have I been here? Nine? Since 2016? Was this season nine, eight? You do the math. Uh, I have really come to understand how much the past impacts, how we all react, not just you guys, uh, or me to react to what we're seeing. If you guys don't think that I thought of the parallels between 2016, now everybody's eyeballs are fine as far as I know, but in terms of the tackle getting hurt

and losing the two games after five and oh, the bi-week, I thought of it too. Of course I did. But I think that one of the things that you guys who joined here on purple insider like to bounce off me is like, am I overreacting? Is this a crazy thought? What do you think guy who covers the team? And then I tell you, it's a great relationship actually, but the, the passion, the passion for it that you guys have,

you know, it's, it's a bond of all the things that has happened to you in the past, because all of you have the same feeling when you see the team lose back to back games. So I'm trying to sort out myself. Where do I really want to stand in this? And where I think I decided to stand is the weaknesses are the weaknesses

and they're going to cause problems and they're hard to fix, but how they address them and how they fix them in the coming weeks will probably determine where this thing goes. And that's the challenge to Kevin O'Connell and to Brian Flores and to the players. And I'm, and I'm ready to see how it plays out before I say everyone failed. I kind of wish there were some better games coming up so we could see it against better opponents, but that will also tell us a lot.

It will definitely also tell us a lot. Let's see, Eric with the big super chat. Thank you, Eric. You're the man. Really appreciate that. Do you think that Darnold can improve each week as each week progresses and lead this team with a good playoff run?

So what I think that they can do, Eric, I'll leave that on the screen. Hold on. What I think they can do eric i'll leave that on the screen hold on what i think uh they can do is as the sample size grows of sam darnold playing football is understand him better and one of the things i would really like to see is some correction to this issue of false starts, delays of him, all that stuff. I need to see that get fixed. But it's a lot of little things with Darnold. That is the ball coming out or not coming out fast enough. What is it that he's having trouble reading versus what is it that he's succeeding

in reading and the adjustment? See, if things turn out differently, I think we're really praising Kevin O'Connell for the adjustment on the shorter passes. I read the statistics earlier, but the shorter passes have been much more successful the last two weeks. And that's something that Darnold has done well. That 25-yard pass he had to Josh Oliver, I was thinking to myself, if they come back and win, I'm going to bring this up. Because it was actually kind of like a Teddy Bridgewater-ish. He threw it five yards, and the guy caught it ran for 20 uh it reminded me of the play that bridgewater

made to set up the blair walsh missed field goal where he threw it to rudolph underneath but that that was a hey sam darnold that's exactly it man that that part of the field is clear it's an easy pass like don't make things harder on yourself. But Darnold's not going to totally change as a quarterback, but the relationship can grow. And there is at least some past of this happening, which is Kirk Cousins in year two was more comfortable in Kevin O'Connell's offense than he was in year one. So as it goes along, can he become more comfortable?

And as far as leading him on a playoff run, depends on what your definition of the playoff run is. A run to the playoffs can absolutely happen. A run in the playoffs totally depends on who they're playing, how they match up. If they play Atlanta in round one, then I think they could get to the divisional round. It all depends on just how it plays out when it comes to the playoffs. But I think they can get to the playoffs. Can they get deep in the playoffs? That's going to need a little more convincing. Dakota says it's hard to be confident about their outlook.

Now that Derrissaw has lost an irreplaceable loss at a premium position. I think the team will bounce back, but that will be too much to overcome. And as we talk about the long, long term of this season, that right there is something they can survive. Other teams have survived losing a single player on offense. If they lose multiple players, it's going to be harder. If you have Hockets in healthy, the receivers healthy, the running game is succeeding to some extent, then you can overcome losing one guy. There's no team that's lost no guys.

Derrissaw is really important though. No downplaying that whatsoever. So that, as far as their long-term ceiling, are they a Super Bowl team? Harder to do when you don't have a player like that. They paid him for a reason. It's really valuable to have that player. When you get to the playoffs, a lot of times you're facing right defensive ends against your left tackle that are amazing, great beast pass rushers. Long-term, down the road, it lowers the expectations a bit

for how many wins you'd put on the season, how far they could go in the playoffs. But it doesn't mean it's over. It just makes it harder. Yeah, that's what I would go with. John says, I haven't heard anyone discuss what appears to be the main reason for the two losses Soft defensive secondary coverage

They allowed 5-10 yard cushions Underneath the rush And also disappeared The issue with what they have As far as personnel goes Is that it's hard to play man-to-man coverage With these guys If you put Cooper Cup and Puka Nakua

Against Stephon Gilmore and Byron B. Jr., it's going to be a hard match for you. You're probably not winning that one. And it seemed that the idea was that they were going to try to get pressure and then keep everything in front of them. That's what they've done really the last couple of years. But the Rams and the Lions are two teams that are willing to say okay we'll play that game we'll get the ball out quickly we'll get it to the edges we'll force your guys to tackle and later in the week i'm going to have an expert on defense come on and kind of break this down for why this this was happening but i think it's tough to put your corners up on someone like

puka nakua he's so good cooper cup is the best off the line of scrimmage in the whole league i mean it's very difficult to stay with and he'll just smoke you if you put him in the slot and you go man-to-man coverage so you either have to play a little bit of a shell ish which i know we're all remembering donna shell and all that stuff if you pressure the quarterback and then you have that going on and you're confusing in some way and this is where i think that cashman comes in is that they weren't really confusing any of the quarterbacks in part because they were throwing those short screens and stuff but neither goff or stafford looked like they were lost and seeing ghosts like Aaron Rogers did,

or like CJ Stroud did. And maybe they just weren't switching coverages enough. Maybe the tempo, uh, that they, they had to stick with their original coverage because they were getting to the line of scrimmage and snapping the ball quickly, which the Rams did quite a bit. So yeah, I do. I'm with you that these deep coverages and creating this kind of bubble underneath in the middle of the field is something that teams are attacking. I don't have an easy solution for it other than most teams, most quarterbacks won't complete 90% of their passes against you. Golf can Stafford can they're great and they did richardson mason rudolph warrens williams probably not uh so i think that we can look at these last two games

and say how do you match up against really good quarterbacks and the answer right now is not ideal you're going to have to outscore them if you play them in the playoffs that you can't just rely on your defense to completely shut down good teams is this defense good enough to win versus a lot of teams that are on the schedule 100 it is uh i shot you 99 reichardt should be the rookie of the year candidates and also with the super chat thank you so much and i shot you 99. Reichardt should be the rookie of the year candidates and also with the super chat. Thank you so much. And I shot you 99. You're always here and I appreciate you so much. Always coming on and chatting. So many of you show up whenever I dial up the YouTube live and I really, really appreciate it. Especially the super chats have been awesome tonight.

I really, the conversation has been awesome awesome tonight i feel like everybody took a deep breath and we're ready to get back to it for next week and and that's been good uh reichardt should be a rookie of the year candidate he's been amazing absolutely amazing uh what else can you say he's made every freaking kick it's just been crazy but i know what you guys are thinking. When's he going to miss the game winner? That's what you guys are thinking. I know it. He really is that good. He will miss someday, but he's that good.

All right, a couple more questions. I got to record with Murph in the morning tomorrow. Okay, let's see. Just the Super Bowl. Vike says a huge flip on the season, which I noticed at the end of last season. You need a running game once again. All this talk packers there there's a bunch of running backs that were free agents and things like that uh saquon barkley has really come alive for the eagles and the value is there but i i think that the running backs don't matter thing was always and even the draft thing it was a little bit misconstrued like the reason that you don't draft them is that

there are a lot of running backs who could do the job and also the history of signing running backs to a second contract was very bad before this this year it's been pretty good uh another part of it is that there were so many at a time so many good running backs that were drafted in the fifth round, like Aaron Jones, or even in the second round, like Delvin cook and Joe Mixon, like maybe, or Jonathan Taylor, maybe you shouldn't spend the first round or on it because there are other positions that just are harder to replace, but that should have never been conflated with, Hey, running backs don't mean anything. Oh no, they mean a lot. They mean a lot. That's pass protection. It's catching passes. It's extra yards after contact. It's making up

for if your offensive line isn't perfect. I had the stat, looking up stats earlier today, that I think it was 36 out of the 58 yards that Aaron Jones did get were after contact. I mean, he's very good at creating something out of nothing. He barely ever loses yards. So it's an extremely valuable position, but it's more about the contracts in the longterm and how easy or hard it is to replace that position that comes into play. But I do agree that we've seen it from aaron jones how valuable he is i also know that if they keep playing aaron jones the way that they're playing him and running him as much as they are he's going to get worn down and you do not want to see that so this next week will be

another kind of mini test for kevin o'connell can you rotate those running backs at all or is it just going to be run aaron j Jones all the way down into the ground? Okay. One more question. Then I'm going to run. David says they need to trade for or acquire a defensive back. Youth and man-to-man versatility, pass rushing, three technique, either now or before next year.

And with continued success undrafted. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, defensive back is the biggest thing. And this is, if you're making the argument, if you're making the argument that the Vikings shouldn't trade the first because they need to draft a corner in next year's draft, I'm with you on that. They do. I was thinking if they could get a special talent, a real needle mover and included the first, then do it. But if you're talking about, Hey, they really need to draft a good corner.

Then yes, they, they do because their corners are going to be free agents. We've seen what happens when you pick up older corners who can't lock people down man to man. That is the last step. Flores has a good defense. That is the last step to making them a great defense at some point in the future because they get to keep Cashman, Pace, Grenard, Van Ginkle. They've got pieces here. They signed Phillips. I wouldn't be surprised if Bynum is extended. They've got pieces in place, Metellus but they need that those corners that can shut down top wide receiver without needing safety help or without needing trickery in the coverage or something like that so anyway two and a half hours of football talk after watching football all day

do you guys like football by any chance kind of think you do and you know what i also think if you're watching this for this long, you probably haven't actually given up on the season. So what does that mean? Lots to come this week. I'm going to have some interesting guests on the show to break down trade deadline, to break down the scheme and what's gone wrong with it the last couple of weeks. Monday morning Murph, I'm getting up super early West Coast time before I fly back to record with him. Jeremiah Searles, as always, Tuesday morning, left guard. We're going to find out what he thinks they should do at left tackle.

So it will be a very exciting week leading up to another home game at U.S. Bank Stadium. So thank you all so much for an awesome, awesome chat tonight. Really, really enjoyed it. And we will talk to you guys tomorrow. Oh, tomorrow night, Manny picks the schedule again. Must be there. That will be 7.30 Central because I'm on West Coast time and it messes me up. 7.30 tomorrow night. Manny's picking the schedule. You absolutely have to be there for that. So thank you again so much for tonight and we'll see y'all soon. Football.