Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Justin Jefferson lands on IR, Bears game will dictate if the Vikings are sellers

Episode Date: October 10, 2023

Matthew Coller talks about Justin Jefferson landing on injured reserve and he and Manny Hill take stock of where the Vikings stand and whether they should still be sellers even if they win in Chicago and talk about Jordan Addison's big opportunity when Justin Jefferson is out. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Everybody, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here and unsurprisingly recorded a podcast with Manny Hill and then breaking news came out that Justin Jefferson will indeed be going on IR. different things, including the trade deadline approach, Jordan Addison's big opportunity with Justin Jefferson down and so forth, because we did expect Jefferson to be out for some time. But we got the news from Adam Schefter and the Star Tribune this morning that he will be going on injured reserve. So I wanted to give you a quick opinion on that before you hear the conversation with Manny Hill. The opinion is twofold. Number one, yeah, this is going to now be a huge uphill battle if the Vikings want to get back in the playoff race. I am not ready to say that they are going to all of a sudden sell everything, the season is over.

Trade KJ Osborne and Daniil Hunter. Get on the phone right now today, Kweisi. It's over. Good night. But they are playing against the Chicago Bears this weekend, and I think that that is the game that will swing this discussion, that if they go into Chicago and lose, there is no argument whatsoever for this team not selling.

Selling everything they possibly can. And that includes the quarterback, if he wants to be traded, if he can be traded. I am still very skeptical about that, whether that could actually happen, whether he would accept the trade and so forth. But everybody else has some value. Daniil Hunter, especially. There have to be 10 teams in the league that would be interested in trading for Daniil Hunter if the Vikings have

no plans to extend him long term. And KJ Osborne as well, that wide receivers have a ton of value, even if they are not number one wide receivers. If you watch wide receiver play around the league, there's not that many Justin Jefferson's kicking around. There are a lot of KJ Osborne's that are effective in NFL offenses and he has been before for the Vikings. So if there's a team that is competing for the playoffs that needs a wide receiver two-ish, wide receiver three, which a lot of teams do, then there has to be some interest here. And it's not that often that you get to a trade deadline, even as a team that's struggling, and you have talent like that, a number two, three wide receiver and a number one pass rusher that you can put on the market.

And with Hunter, if they were going to extend him, it feels like they would have extended him already this off season when they had plenty of opportunity to do so. They went short term. So if they're not planning on having him be part of the future, then it would be time to sell off. But I don't think that Jefferson injury guarantees that today. Like, I don't think that Kweisi Adapomenta is on the phone right now saying, Hey everybody, Jefferson went on IR. Let's go flood my phone inbox and, you know, propose all of your trades and so forth. I don't think that we're there yet because if they beat the Bears,

even if they lose to San Francisco, you saw Green Bay last night not look very good. And 3-5 halfway through the season is not the season being over, at least in their minds. I think this is just my feeling on it is that Kevin O'Connell would want to keep fighting, talk about getting Justin Jefferson back and going from there. But if you reach one in five, the season is completely over. Your playoff odds are essentially down to zero right now they're still only at about 10 or less but they are about zero if you go to one and five and we saw what happened in 2020 where they made a little run of it they went one and five they got a little bit hot they fought their way just far enough to

not have a top 10 draft pick now all all worked out very well after that by picking Christian Derrissaw, but they kind of lucked into that. Somehow Derrissaw fell to the middle of the first round. Doesn't happen that often. We know that this situation for the quarterback of the future is vital to get a higher draft pick if it's there. I thought going into the season that they could compete for the playoffs and that they should compete for the playoffs. But now that we're here and now that Justin Jefferson is out, it is very real that this will be what you guys have heard me talk about for many years is the natural tank where you weren't trying to lose.

I mean, look at this offense. There's a lot of great talent here. It's not like they shipped out everybody and put a punter at quarterback. I mean, they had plenty of opportunity to win all of these games. I do not think they went into this season with the expectation that they would be sitting here. But we all knew that they were a couple of things going wrong away from being here. I mean, there were plenty of listeners who asked me in the offseason, like, hey, looking at this schedule, do you think this could go bad for them to start?

And my answer was always, yeah, I could see it. Like, I don't totally expect it, but I could see it. And once they lost to Tampa Bay, yeah, we all felt like this could go bad. And then now you add a Justin Jefferson injury onto this. And from Jefferson's perspective, there is no reason to fight your way back as fast as possible. He wants a contract next year. He's up for an extension. They're obviously going to try to do that and get that done. You do not want this injury to linger throughout his career or be problematic after this. So sit out as long as it takes for Justin Jefferson. But I still am not quite at the point where I believe that before

Chicago or even if they win in Chicago and go to two and four, that they would cash in all of their chips. If they do, I will respect it. And I will think that it's completely right because two and four isn't really any different. You can argue all day long, well, you know, Green Bay's not that good or this team or that team's not that good on the schedule, but we've seen that movie before.

So I will be completely in favor and arguing for make a selling off anything that they can, even if they win in Chicago. But just judging nope, sorry, we're trading Daniil Hunter to Baltimore or Jacksonville or whatever team is a contender in the AFC. So we'll see how that goes. The other element of this is Jordan Addison. It's very interesting now for Jordan Addison. He has gotten off to, in my opinion, a very good start to his career. It hasn't quite been Randy Moss or Justin Jefferson, but it's been good. He has found his way to be open. He plays extremely fast. Kevin O'Connell described that yesterday. And he's looked like somebody who is a quality NFL wide receiver. Well, now he's going to be the number one target for Kirk Cousins, at least as long as Kirk Cousins is the quarterback of this team.

And Justin Jefferson is out that connection there. I'm interested to see how he now handles this increased workload because he has looked the part to start here. I'm also watching TJ Hawkinson. I think that with everything that happens, we're judging his contract and whether that was the right decision. I was completely for TJ Hawkinson resigning. I think he's a good player. The way that it worked out salary cap hit-wise was not as bad as it sounds when you look at the total dollar figure. I think it's a reasonable contract, but he's fumbled. He's dropped some key passes.

It just has not been a great beginning for TJ Hawkinson to the era after he signs his big contract. So that's something to watch as well. And where they go from here, how they respond. I mean, this, this is either going to be a turning point in the season where we end up

saying, wow, they overcame just the Jefferson's injury and fought their way back into the playoffs. Crazy season. How about that? Or we're going to say this was indeed the natural tank where everything just went wrong and there was nothing stopping the forces of nature that dragged

this team down at the exact right time to be drafting a quarterback next year and then setting up their franchise for the future so maybe we'll have conversations at some point about what you're rooting for and so forth with this team the rest of the way. I'm not ready to have that just yet because I want to see what happens in Chicago. But Justin Jefferson, the first injury of his career, coming at a time where the team was already reeling,

and yet at the same time, at a time in their franchise where they need to draft higher. And there's just no denying that. And that's a strange place to be for the Vikings here today with Justin Jefferson going on IR. So we do discuss, Manny and I discuss a lot of these things just before the official news came out. But having been on a TCO Performance Center yesterday, there was a pretty strong chance that Jefferson was either missing multiple weeks or going on IR.

So we kind of talked as if that was the case. So here is my conversation with Manny Hill. Hot routes once again. Hopefully, as usual, you're watching Monday Night Football and listening to myself, Matthew Collar, along with Manny Hill here. What is going on, Manny? It looks like the early returns here, it's going to be an ugly game. We've had some interesting results as we've been sitting here talking along with these games over the last couple weeks, including during the Chicago game, where we were both like, huh?

But this one is kind of going as I expected it to go, which is neither team is really moving the football very well. Yeah, I think we're kind of learning that both the Raiders and the Packers are just, like, not really all that good. I think we've known for some weeks now that the Raiders are just, like, garbage. And the Packers, we've been just kind of figuring out like, are they really good? You know, they beat the bears week one. They look really good, but you know, then we saw them against Detroit and they kind of looked like a team that

was just not, not quite, not quite there yet. So yeah, I mean, my, my, my hats off to Joe Buck and Troy Aikman for calling this game in Las Vegas because it's between two teams that are really not all that good. Well, I saw that Joe Buck was already trolling about the people who think that he dislikes the Packers, which is hilarious because Vikings fans think he loves the Packers more than anything under the sun. I've never really had like a hot Joe Buck take. I know that people will never, ever let it go about the Randy Moss thing. But over the years, Manny, I feel like we have implored fans to let it go

because the Minneapolis miracle, because his call was so good. He was on that call. It's going to be remembered forever. Dig sideline touchdown. It was well done. And I think that call. It's going to be, you know, remembered forever dig sideline touchdown. It was well done. And I, and I think that that's all washed out. Plus Aaron Rogers does not play for the Packers anymore. So he cannot talk about Aaron Rogers every two seconds, which I think is what got people worked up, but shocker here, football broadcasts talk about good quarterbacks all the time. You know, I, I didn't,backs all the time you know i i didn't

i was at the game so i didn't hear romo and nance but i saw a bunch of tweets of like oh they're obsessing over my homes like yeah that's what we do here that does happen so i've got no beef with joe buck yeah neither do i i've always thought the whole you you know, we hate Joe Buck because of the Randy Moss thing was just over the top and ridiculous. And apparently Joe Buck told a story. I think he was on like Colin Coward or something a handful of years ago. And he told the story about like Randy Moss didn't even care. Like, so it's like if Randy Moss doesn't care, why do we? You know, it's just it's it's just always been kind

of ridiculous I mean there was a reason why Joe Buck was employed at Fox for as long as he was and there was a reason why ESPN gave him a lot of money to do Monday Night Football and I mean because he's good at his job he's damn good at at it. So, I mean, at that point, it's just like you got to just let it go. The guy's good at his job. Yeah, I mean, I think having grown up with Monday Night Football with Frank and Al and Dan, we were very, very blessed. And they struggled over the years to come up with another crew that ever brought that kind of energy.

So they just kind of went chalk and went with Joe Buck, uh, bring him into ESPN. So yeah, it's fine. I I've never, I've never thought he was a bad broadcaster. I've always thought he was good at it. And with Troy Aikman, that's a little too much cliche for me. And it kind of hasn't changed over the years, but it's fine. It doesn't get in the way. I don't get too upset about it, but I definitely think when it comes to the disgusting act thing in the long run, it makes it so much better that he said that. Like, I think it's, it's great that now that like the broadcaster freaked out and everything else, if Joe bucket just said, like, like Pat

Summerall would have said, Moss touchdown. Oh, look at that, John. You know, like it wouldn't have been as good as a disgusting act. So anyway, we got a lot to talk about. I want to start here, Manny, with Deja Vu land. And we'll get to Justin Jefferson, how they're going to replace him, what it means to go to Chicago. You guys are already talking about tanking in the comments. So, of course, we'll get to that

discussion plus I want to ask you about Brock Purdy because that has been topic du jour in the NFL but my feeling coming out of that loss was to start having a lot of discussions flood back in that we've gone through many times and I'm feeling a lot of deja vu here of the same talk about the quarterback and everything else and of course you know you get the people why do you hate the quarterback everything else like i yeah i know i just did like a story with kirk cousins about his relationship with his hometown newspaper and how cool that is but i probably hate him personally i just want to, you know, if you didn't read it, though, I enjoyed doing that story. It's really more about to me,

Manny. It's always been about there are some people who every Sunday is a referendum on the quarterback. And to me, every Sunday is about the franchise, the organization and where it's going, what is happening to it, what their record is, can they actually win? And Kirk Cousins is a major part of that. Just like the coaches, just like the GM is. We talked a ton about Zimmer. We talked a ton about Spielman, about Kweisi Dalfomensa, about Kevin O'Connell, but the triumvirate is what's important in every franchise. It's the coach, the quarterback, the general manager. Those are who drives the success or failure of a franchise. I think everybody knows that.

And the combination of whatever coach and GM with Kirk cousins has not worked to drive them anywhere to be successful. It drove them to two playoffs now in, in five plus years. And they have a, according to Aaron shots, former football outsiders, his numbers, 8% chance to make the playoffs. And we're five weeks in. So we, we are, we are at the usual spot where we're talking about maybe if they can just have some more miracle turnarounds and stop fumbling the ball that they will make the playoffs. And to me, that's just not even good enough for a competitive

rebuild. It is probably good for the natural tank and for potentially drafting Drake may or something that is good for that part of it. So you can't be like overly upset in the big picture about, Hey, it didn't go that well from the, the, the outset. But I think as it pertains to how we discuss what happened against the chiefs and the quarterback and this season, you can't ignore all the other things that have happened before this and say, well, you know, it's those fumbles. It's those darn fumbles. Like, yeah, the fumbles have been a huge part of this for why they've been an average offense.

But this is kind of who you are always and forever. And this is why there is not an extension for Cousins and that they have not locked into him as their franchise quarterback. So I guess that's kind of how I'm feeling about it, Manny. I don't feel like it's good enough for what they sort of said it was going to be, which is this very exciting and dynamic and fantastic offense, a flawed defense, lots of fun games, competitive, fighting for a playoff spot. Hey, young players are stepping up over here and there.

That's just not really what we what we've seen we've seen a very average offense that put up 20 points against Kansas City which you are never going to win with 20 points against them absolutely and and again it goes back to that first game against Tampa Bay I mean you know when you look at the way they kicked that game away and and I still don't even really I'm still not fully buying into the Tampa Bay Buccaneers as you know they might win that division by default because it's just bad you know the Panthers are bad the Falcons don't really have a very good quarterback so they're gonna have problems and you know New Orleans looked pretty good yesterday but the

Patriots are awful as well so it's hard to really tell if New Orleans is really a team that's going to step up. So Tampa Bay might win that division by default, but that was still a game that the Vikings should have won. I mean, the opportunity to win that game was right there and they put up 17 points. You know, I mean, you just, when the offense is supposed to be the driving force of this team, you know, you've got a veteran quarterback, you've got all of these weapons, you've got an offensive line that's improved. You know, for them to be doing this so far, I mean, they're averaging,

what is it, is it like 23 points a game, something like that, 24? I can't do the math off the top of my head, but that's just not good enough. I mean, it's, and that, I think, it really does speak to where this franchise is at, big picture. When you're thinking about, okay, where can this team go, you know,

going forward, even beyond this season, it's just not good enough. There's pieces there to work with that you like. Obviously, Justin Jefferson, fantastic. Jordan Addison, fantastic. You know, TJ Hawkinson has kind of had an up and down season, but overall, he's very talented. He's very good.

You got him locked up for a few years. You've got some pieces on defense that you kind of like, but it's just not enough. As far as going on a run to win a championship, it's not enough. When you look at teams like Philadelphia, you look at teams like Kansas City, we just saw yesterday, you look at what San Francisco did to Dallas last night, and you see this and you're just like, the Vikings are nowhere within the stratosphere of any of these teams. They're really not. And that's kind of the frustrating thing. But I think it just comes down to, you know,

can people come to grips with that now? Last year was fun. They won a lot of close games. They won the division, made the playoffs. It was a lot of fun. But, you know, things can, a lot can change in a year. And I think now we're kind of realizing that this team is just not, they're not there yet. They're not good enough yet. And there's still a lot more work to do.

And it, it might have to start with, you know, moving on from the quarterback and going in a different direction, continuing to build the defense. You've got some good pieces on offense. You've got, I think you have a good foundation going forward, but there's still a lot more work to be done. I think that when we look back to and I don't want to get into this because this is someday going to be a really long conversation about looking back at the Cousins era. But it can be defined by having basically two shots to make something out of this 18 and 19. The 2018 team is weirdly because they missed the playoffs. The best team he's had here from top to bottom. That was the most of the 17 defense plus Sheldon Richardson, healthy wide receivers,

both over a hundred catches. Delvin cook was a little banged up that year. The offensive line wasn't as good that that year as it was, as it is this year, of course. But still, that was like your big shot. And then in 19, there were some players that started to drift off where they lost them in free agency or they got injured or whatever. But it was still mostly the bones of a really great team.

You win a playoff game. You go to San Francisco with a chance to go to the NFC Championship. And there's your shot. So 18-19 combined, both you go into those seasons thinking you should compete for a Superbowl. And then last year when everything kind of goes your way, but also I refuse to say that the team was garbage and they just got lucky. That became what a lot of people said, but I don't agree with that. Uh, because when you look at a lot of the wins, a lot of them said, but I don't agree with that. Because when you look at a lot of the wins, a lot of them were, yeah, you're winning against like Chicago and they get a touchdown,

they come close to you, but they were never that close and they fumble at the end or something. You know what I mean? Like they, they had to win those games. They made a lot of plays, but also they were winning in a lot of those games this year. The one score argument of, Hey, well, it's just the bad luck to me does not hold up because against Los Angeles late in the third quarter, they had a 12% chance to win that game. Yesterday, they had a 10% chance to win that game in the fourth quarter, early in the fourth quarter. I mean, if that, if that's where you're at and then you're saying, well, we lost by one score. Okay, but the game was almost over earlier because you were losing by two scores.

This is not a really competitive team, even though you're talking about one score at the end of the day, because that's kind of what this team does as long as they have Justin Jefferson. But I think the totality of the Cousins era, if things continue to go this way, are going to be, you had two shots, it didn't work out, and he played really, really well in 19, and he played really, really well last year,

but it was never quite enough to get you over the hump and beyond mediocrity, and now here we are. What we're staring down, though, Manny, to bring this to today and to just the Jefferson is the first time ever Kirk cousins will have played a game as a Viking potentially without digs Thielen or Jefferson ever, which is really amazing when you consider all the injuries, all the other bad receivers in the league, what a lot of quarterbacks are dealing with, that's really remarkable to think about. He's always had one of those guys by his side. And then we, I think, get to the discussion of should they be making

phone calls this week about selling players, knowing that without Justin Jefferson turning this thing around doesn't seem very possible if he's not coming back soon. Do you wait till Chicago? I don't think they'll do it before Chicago. If they win in Chicago, does that change anything? Like where do you stand on being salesmen potentially very soon as we start to approach the trade deadline? Yeah, that's a great question. I, me personally, I think it's time to wave the white flag. And I think it's time to start making some calls. I think it's time to, you know, I think it would be really hard to, you know, like we talked about for weeks, it'd be really hard to move Kirk Cousins because of the money, it would be complicated, trying to move him to a different team. But I think you got to start, you know, maybe feeling some phone calls about Daniil Hunter. You know, I mean, that's a guy that could get you a really good return,

especially if he's, you know, first of all, the Vikings are going to have to assess, like, is Daniil Hunter going to be in their long-term plans? Like, if he's a guy they want to keep around for, you know, three, four or five more years to come. And I kind of think that his his game is going to age pretty well. Like he's still going to be, you know, 32, 33 years old and still a really productive pass rusher. But the Vikings have to figure out, like, OK, is that guy do we see him as part of our long term plans?

If they do, then OK, then you hang on to him, I guess, and you try to work out a new, you know, maybe a longer-term deal. But if he's not, I think you've really got to start thinking about moving him because you're going to be able to get a decent return for him. And then you've got to start looking at some of the other veterans, and you just have to kind of make those tough decisions. And it's not going to sit well with fans, you know, if you move on from a lot of guys. and you just have to kind of make those tough decisions. And it's not going to sit well with fans.

You know, if you move on from a lot of guys, it's probably not going to sit well with a lot of players. But I think, you know, now is the time now where you got to really start thinking. You got to be more of a forward-thinking organization. But the question is, will they really do that? I don't think they're going to do that now I think definitely they're going to see what happens in Chicago this coming week and maybe even they might even wait and see what happens you know at you know against San Francisco the week after that

but to me I I just from from an outsider's perspective I just look at where this team is at what I've seen so far these first five games, where they're at in the standings. I just don't see a scenario where this team is really going anywhere this season. I think you've got to start preparing for the future. Yeah, and a big part of that too is even when you look at the schedule and try to talk yourself into some teams that you could potentially beat, this defense really can't cause explosive plays defensively. They can't take the ball away from anybody.

They can't sack anybody. They can't pressure anybody. I mean, Daniil Hunter has like six sacks, and I don't know if anybody else has more than one. I mean, maybe they credited Davenport with that one yesterday. I haven't looked. But, like, nobody else is getting to the quarterback. They're not intercepting passes. They're not causing fumbles.

I mean, even if they're on a play-to-play basis better than they were last year, at least on last year's team, they had that. They had interceptions. They had sacks. They had explosive plays that helped them win at the end of some of these games that they have not seen so far. And then you're asking a non Jefferson offense, which I'm really interested to see how Jordan Addison responds to this because he's been terrific so far. But at the same time, your

potential is so much lower without Jefferson. He has 571 yards in five games. And if you add up Hawkinson and Addison, they don't get to 571. I mean, that's how, how good he's been. I agree with Josh. If we lose in Chicago, then it's time to get draft capital for our current assets.

I was thinking about this. We were having this discussion a little bit in the locker room today, Manny, about Kevin O'Connell, Kwesi Adafensah relationship as it pertains to trading away assets. I 100% agree with you. You have to see what happens in Chicago. If they lose in Chicago, O'Connell's got no case. They're one in five. It's over. Good night. Trade away whatever you could trade away. If they win in Chicago, though, this is an interesting discussion.

In fact, why don't we pretend to be them? So you can be, I'll be Kwesi and you be O'Connell, okay? So I'm going to talk you into, okay, we're two and four, we should trade away the assets, okay? Listen, Kevin, I know we're two and four, and I know you believe in this team because you're a positive guy and you love football and you don't want to give up on the season, but Jefferson's probably not coming back for a couple more weeks. San Francisco is going to kick our faces in next week. And we've got somebody on the line here. Hello. They're going to give us a fourth for kj osborne they think he's pretty good i i think we need to do that man i think we need a

little bit extra draft capital we're two and four you know i was looking at football outsiders uh odds and they're not very good i was running the analytics on my computer and then they're not very good for us making the playoffs i think we need to make some moves. What do you think, Kev? You know, Kwasi, I hear you. I understand where you're coming from. But listen, I mean, we're 2-4. We still have 11 games to play.

We're not even really out of the division race yet. We've still got really a handful of division games left to play. If we can just listen, if we can, you know, just listen, if we can get past San Francisco, we find a way to squeak out a win, however possible. I know we don't have JJ, but if we can find a way to squeak out one against San Francisco and move to three and four, then listen, then we've got Green Bay the week after that. If we can go on to Lambeau Field and pull one out, the Packers are not that good. I feel really confident about, you know, what we can do on the road against Green Bay. You know, we're not facing Aaron Rodgers anymore, so that's not a problem for us anymore.

I really believe in this group. We go into Green Bay, we get to 4-4, then we're right there, Kwesi. I mean, we're right there. I'm just not sure I'm not ready to move from from KJ yet, especially with Justin down. I mean, we need KJ more than more than ever before. You know, Jordan's really progressing nicely. You know, we just need to have these guys around and keep these guys together. And then, you know, we can string together a couple of wins and then get Justin back and healthy at 100 percent. Then I think that just increases our chances

over. I'm just not ready to pull the plug yet. Purple Insider is brought to you by BetterHelp. Friends, have you ever had times where you felt like your brain is getting in the way? Maybe your brain is racing and you can't fall asleep or you can't slow down negative, intrusive thoughts and you know you should look for help but you haven't brought yourself to do it yet well therapy can help you figure out what's holding you back so you can work for yourself rather than working against yourself therapy can be as simple as

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Make your brain your friend with BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp.com slash insider today to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp, H- L P.com slash insider. Oh, what's this? Oh, that's a, it's a phone call. What a second round pick for Daniil Hunter from the Jaguars who need another pass rusher because they didn't draft Aiden Hutchinson because they were drinking whatever tea Aaron Rogers drinks before the draft. I don't know, Kev. I don't know, Kev. That sounds pretty good. We need to draft quarterback next year. And Hey, by the way,

Kevin, I'm not saying, I'm not saying I know you're going to fight. I know you want to fight. I know you want to keep going, but you know, if we don't have Hunter, we can't rush the passer. And there's pretty good quarterbacks this year. I'm not saying it out loud, but I'm kind of winking at you about, you know, that whole situation. Well, what do you think? Second for Hunter? I mean, we're getting assets here. We need assets. We need to improve this. This shows we're not that good, two and four start. Listen, I know, I hear you. But, you know, Daniil, I mean, we can't afford to lose Daniil. He's such a good pass rusher.

You know, our defense, we're not going to be able to stop anybody. We're already having a tough time stopping people. If we give away Daniil Hunter, even for a second-round pick, we're just not going to be able to have enough to apply pressure on opposing quarterbacks. And then our season is just really over. And like I said, I mean, you know, we can string together a couple of wins here. We've got a chance. We've got the 49ers at home, you know, and then if we can go into Green Bay and get a win there, you know, things are looking nicely. and then we're on the road against

atlanta i mean atlanta's not very good i mean we can go on the road and take care of them as well you know i just crazy i just think we can pull together a couple of wins daniel hunter is going to be a big part of that uh we're not going to be able to stop people on defense if we trade them away so we just i i just got to say we got to hang on to him you know manny uh that's how you actually sounded aside from your vocal tone like kevin o'connell would where he right like where he'd be talking about we just string couple together just string couple together uh and it's you know i i'm not saying that there all of a sudden is going to be some sort of massive head-butting throwdown of two very tall gangly men in the parking lot but i do wonder about this type of situation between

a coach who doesn't want to give up and believes that they have a good team and i think that he mostly believes that i mean i think he's very clear that they could be better on offense. He knows that for sure. If they don't stop just, you know, fumbling the ball to the other team constantly, they could be a better offense for sure. And they're not going to play great defenses week in and week out the rest of the way, all that stuff. And I think from Casey's perspective, this was probably always in the back of his head when he got the schedule. When they sent him the PDF, he probably opened the email and went, you know, it's not impossible that we're two and five, like at the deadline. It's not. When you look at it, when you got San

Francisco there, it's not impossible that we could be two and five. And then he probably started plugging into algorithms what he thinks he could get for trades for some of these players. And he should be. And this shouldn't be the coach's call at all. I, I think it's gotta be Kwesi Adafo-Mensah. Here's his role. Somebody said this, I think it was Zach Lowe. You know, I love Zach Lowe's podcast. Zach Lowe said the best general managers in sports are the ones who can communicate with aloof owners. Because if you think your owners are aloof in the Wilfs, let me tell you, there's a lot crazier owners out there, man. I am a lot crazier. So I get messages every day. Do you think the Wilfs are the problem? And I'm like, I don't know. That's

pretty hard. There are some wild owners out there. They've created a pretty darn good franchise. But one thing you have to do is you have to sell them on these things. So it's not so much Kevin O'Connell and look, if the ownership wants to sell Kevin O'Connell, there's nothing he could do. He's coaching the football team. If they're on board, then they're on board. But I do think that there could be a potential disagreement there if they beat Chicago about what to do, because teams will start calling, you know, this team when they see the blood in the water and the fact that you know they haven't started out well and they've got a bunch of these players who could be useful i do think that that is a potentially very interesting dynamic between

quacey and kevin o'connell because of the way o'connell has talked so positively still about where they're at yeah and and also i mean thinking about this, you know, if they, if they do decide to, you know, let's say they, you know, whatever happens after the San Francisco game and they decide to start, you know, selling off a bunch of players and do kind of a little mini fire sale, obviously it's going to make the team, you know, even weaker. It's going to be a lot harder for them to win games. If you're Kevin O'Connell, you got to be thinking, okay, well,

am I still going to, you know, you're not going to tank this roster and have us finish four and 13 and then kick me to the curb. Are you and go hire another coach? I mean, that's, that's also, if you're Kevin O'Connell, you got to be thinking about that too, of just like, you know, he wants to try and win as many games as he possibly can so that when that time comes, when he is evaluated as a head coach, he's going to have as many wins as possible to, to kind of stand on,

you know, and that, that's going to be an interesting thing to kind of look at too, as far as the relationship between Casey and Kevin O'Connell, it seems like it's a good relationship now. They've got a good working partnership going right now. But, you know, things can change if you go a period without winning a lot of games. And I'm not even suggesting now that O'Connell's job should be on the line or anything like that yet.

I don't think it would be. But if you're him and you sell off all these players, you go into the tank, you finish four and 13, what are you kind of thinking about as far as your future is concerned? Because even then, even if you're not removed as head coach, then there is going to be sort of this, your seat is going to be kind of sizzling a little bit going into next year because you're going to need to see some improvement um so that yeah that's going to be an interesting dynamic to kind of watch for for the next couple of weeks and there is something brewing a little bit with fans and kevin o'connell where i think that they're probably starting to get a little

bit tired of the, we're great, even though we lost sort of thing. And I know that for me, look, I covered mostly Mike Zimmer. It's still very different. They didn't lose that much last year. It's still very different to lose a game like they did against Kansas city

and have the coach say, I'm going to remain positive. I believe in this team or whatever Zimmer in 2021 gave us some of that, but it was more of like a middle finger to us than anything. It was like a very angry, I believe, in this team, as opposed to I'm going to be positive and keep going on. So I'm still getting used to that. I think fans still are as well, but you also can't be like,

you look like your head's in the clouds and you're not acknowledging what's going on here. And you just keep saying it's the fumbles or whatever right so it's a very tough thing as the head coach but i think that when you have such a flawed team every mistake is just so amplified i think the same thing about the refs the the chiefs were wildly penalized more than the vikings yesterday in the game and And, but you know, when you have a flawed roster, you need things to go your way. You can't have a penalty flag picked up.

You can't have a coach burn through timeouts. You can't have a challenge go wrong. You can't have a ball bounce off of TJ Hawkinson's hands. Josh is asking about, you know, can we ask Detroit how to gin up Hawkinson's numbers for a good draft pick? I mean, the thing is with Hawkinson, he leads the NFL in targets and he's kind of been the same guy he was last year. But every mistake is just amplified when you're always playing in these close games.

And when you're never running away from anybody, it's like this is how it is. A ball bounces off and this is how it is. A ball bounces off. And this is how it is to have Kirk Cousins as your quarterback. A ball bounces off your hands. I remember this Mike Messina. You remember Mike Messina? When he got old, I remember him saying that he would get really mad if an umpire missed a call because he knew he couldn't throw that pitch like two times in a row because he just

lost this fastball. So he was like like in his early days, didn't care. Oh, you missed one. I'll get the next one. It's been this way with the Vikings offense. Oh, someone dropped the ball. Oh, well next throw, right? That's how it looks for the great offenses. But for this offense, it's missed the throw three and out, you know, missed it, missed the catch three and out, missed something at the goal line, which, by the way, if you saw the all 22 and I'm sorry, I'm bouncing all over the place here. If you saw the all 22 of the KJ Osborne play, it shows you the TV cameras lie because he threw it way early and there was no way that Osborne could have got his head around. But the point is, you missed that one and it feels like, Oh, no touchdown missed on one play. So it's kind of always that way with, with this team. And I think that's one of the frustrating parts, but I want, I want to bring this up though, Manny, if Jefferson is out, I'm actually, I'm actually intrigued by Jordan Addison here.

And I think what this year could turn into is who's got your eye? Who matters for the future? Cousins yesterday declared Jordan Addison a successful draft pick. He's been that impressed with him. I think that Jefferson being out, it gives, well, one,

Hawkinson an opportunity to, you know, redeem himself from the start of the season. But I think it really gives a great opportunity for us to see what's really there with Jordan Addison when he's not just playing sidecar to Justin Jefferson. Absolutely. I mean, you know, JJ gets all of the attention from the opposing defenses. And when that's not the case now going forward for, you know, however many weeks he's going to be out. Now, you know, you're really going to get a chance to see how good Jordan Addison is.

I mean, he's been he's been terrific so far, but I think a lot of that has been. Well, and you got the best wide receiver in football on the other side, you know, on the other end of the field. You know, it's going to take some pressure off of you. Now with JJ out of the lineup, now teams are going to be starting. They're going to start looking at Jordan Addison as, you know, potentially the number one threat in this offense now. And so now they're going to start scheming towards trying to take him, you know, trying to make things more difficult for him. Yeah. I'm really excited to see like how he can potentially handle that sort of thing.

He's going to start seeing some different coverages than, you know, he may have seen the first five weeks of the season. So I'll be interested to see like how he makes that adjustment if that happens. Same thing for TJ Hawkinson, too. He's going to get even more attention now from opposing defenses. You know, can he kind of redeem himself, like you said, from kind of the rough start to this season? And, you know, let's go back to the quarterback, Kirk Cousins. You mentioned it before. This is the first time he's not going to have Justin Jefferson, Stephon Diggs, you know, slash Adam Thielen. So how does Kirk kind of handle that now? He's going to get a full week of practice of not having JJ and a full week of

preparation of not having Justin Jefferson for the first time. So, you know, how is Kirk going to really adjust to that? You know, yeah, I'm intrigued by it. You know, if they can have a good week of practice, we'll see what happens. You know, I think to to start out I guess if there's any opponent that you want to have at least a defense that you want to have this is this might be the best case scenario for them because the Bears defense is garbage it's really bad um so you know this might be an opportunity for them to really kind of shine uh come Sundayay in soldier field and hopefully the weather's not too bad and they can have some good footing and and put on a good performance i have not looked but i am also not confident that it's going to be uh the greatest footing there at soldier field but you never really uh know what you're getting into there uh i want to talk to you about brock purdy

because this has become the internet thing but first i want to talk to you about Brock Purdy because this has become the internet thing. But first, I want to talk to you about pizza. Make Little Caesars the official pizza sponsor of the NFL part of your game day. Order online during their Pizza Pizza pregame one hour before NFL games and get ready for some football and fun. Choose your favorite Little Caesars pizza or pick the toppings you crave. Either way, you win. And speaking of winning, everyone scores with convenient delivery or their in-store pizza portal pickup. your favorite little caesar's pizza or pick the toppings you crave either way you win and speaking of winning everyone scores with convenient delivery or their in-store pizza portal pickup so grab some friends enjoy a few slices during the tastiest hour before kickoff also prize picks

oh i was on fire i was so close last week manny i discovered that in prize picks, you can do kickers. And so I went with more than three and a half field goals in the Washington Chicago game. My kickers came through with more than three and a half field goals because of course they did. And I went two for three. The only one I was short on was because of a hamstring. I went with more yards than I think 102 and a half for Justin Jefferson. That didn't work out. Also Kansas city just straight up played him really well. And that was curious a little bit, but so I went two for three with the prize picks.

I think I'm five of the last six prize picks.com. If you go there, use the code purple. So prize picks.com slash purple. You get your first deposit match up to $100. Playing is very simple. I just described it for you. You get more or less on a number, whether it's quarterback, yardage, running back,

apparently kickers. There's all sorts of options, all sorts of sports, and you just pick more or less. Does not take a whole lot of money to play. You could turn $10 into $250 easily if you're as on fire as i have been with the prize pick so go to prizepicks.com slash purple with the code purple daily fantasy sports made easy all right what's your opinion on brock purdy you think he's good or you think he's just a product of shanney slash mcafree iuk samuel williams kittle etc what do you think i'm sold i'm sold i you know i had some doubts like watching him last year just kind of like step in as a the last pick in the draft as a rookie and just kind of lead these teams to

wins. And, you know, they get to the NFC championship. You know, I, I had some doubts and I, and I even now I still go back and have a hard time believing they would have beaten Philadelphia, even if he hadn't gotten hurt. I think that Eagles team was just way too high powered, way too good on the defensive side. But just seeing him come back and, first of all, come back from that injury. I mean, that was his throwing arm with that elbow injury.

To come back from that, he looks fantastic. He's playing even better than he did last year. I mean, listen, we saw Jimmy Garoppolo playing that same offense with those same players, and Jimmy wasn't this good. They won some games with Jimmy, got to a Super Bowl and got to a couple of NFC Championship games, but Jimmy never played this good, man. This guy, Brock Purdy, is on fire right now,

and I think it's legit. Now, if something were to happen to him and Sam Darnold steps in, could I envision Sam Darnold having some success because of what Kyle Shanahan is able to dial up with this offense? Sure, I could see that, but something about what Brock Purdy's doing, man, the intangibles that he has. I saw it for a couple of years at Iowa State. The guy's just a gamer, man. He's a baller. And for whatever reason, it just clicks right now.

I'm sold on him, man. I like what I'm seeing. And the funny thing about that is it's not that it makes the Trey Lance trade any different, really. But if you found your quarterback anyway, oh, well, you know, it really doesn't destroy your franchise if you found your quarterback anyway. find that quarterback the idea that anybody can just play for kyle shanahan and be a monster quarterback i think is pretty dubious uh but i also believe that if you pair him and his mastery on offense with a lot of weapons we also saw this from matt ryan with atlanta in 2016 where he was paired with kyle shanahan as the offensive coordinator and they also had julio jones etc two good running backs at the time four receivers a good tight end good offensive line and they were one of the best offenses in

the nfl and he had an mvp season but also he's very good though. It's not like Matt Ryan was just dog food. And then like all the, Oh, Shanahan. Now I'm magic. Like he had to execute those plays and execute those throws and make plays at times out of structure, which Brock Purdy actually can. He's kind of got quick feet back there and he gets the ball exactly where it's supposed to be on time. I mean, that is a skill that we have gone through this with a number of quarterbacks through the years.

And I think it is hard to tell because Kurt Warner was unbelievable in the greatest show on turf and then was horrible with the giants and then comes back with Arizona and gets Larry Fitzgerald, you know, the Justin Jefferson of the time. And then he's great again. I don't think that anybody in history, and maybe I'm missing someone, maybe like John Elway in the early days of the Broncos was still great with pretty much nothing to work with, but I don't know that anyone is ever great, great, like the numbers Purdy is putting up without people around them.

And then there's the argument of like, well, but he's getting the ball to these players. So it's not like it's no offense to Nick Mullins, but it's not like it's Nick Mullins where he kind of had some good games and some bad games, like a backup quarterback. He has been consistent. And I think that that's the biggest thing that oppresses me is he's not turning the ball over he has zero interceptions he doesn't do anything stupid he sees everything and he delivers the ball where it needs to go and I think that there's somebody

made this comparison that I liked we talked about comparisons for Purdy but like a Tony Romo whose teams were great also by the way Terrell Ow. Is, is who he's given in Dallas, but he also was very accurate and he got the ball where it needed to go, which is a massive skill. It's like, okay, it's great to watch Josh Allen throw it 700 miles an hour. And that's really, you know, something that will maybe transcend your situation a little bit more than with Brock Purdy. But there is something really important to not having turnover throws, strip sacks, get confused. Like if you can execute it the way that he does and throw the ball accurately, that's a huge skill. I don't think you could just throw Sam Darnold in there and it's fine because he sees ghosts. He gets lost out there. He turns the ball over all the time. He

did it at USC and this guy doesn't. And the other thing is too, look, I understand it's all of our jobs to have debates about this. And I think it's a really interesting discussion. How much does a circumstance impact a quarterback? Mark Rippon would have a good argument that it's a lot. We won the 91 Super Bowl and nothing other than that. And maybe Trent Dilfer would. And maybe a number of quarterbacks would. But they had to make the plays.

They had to make the throws. And this is one of the coolest stories in sports. And we went through this with Warner. We went through this with Tom Brady. Is he actually any good? Or is it just Bella check the whole thing? And it's like, I'm not letting anybody ruin this for me. This is fantastic. Seventh round, Mr. Irrelevant draft pick.

And he is leading a team that could win the Super Bowl that they are that strong. It's just, it's way too cool for me to debate this. And I also think just one other thing. It was in the back of my mind, Manny, that this could be a Case Keenum situation. And where it's not is the lack of negative plays. Because with Keenum, he had that great setup and the great receivers and the great offensive coordinator

and all that. But he was making some wild throws that year that were not getting picked off and that were getting caught this is not like a miracle that's happening this is like a week in week out thing where the guy's just playing very solid football so i think it's different i think it's on a different level than akina i yeah i'm totally with you i you know, you just look at the numbers right now through five games, Collar. They're absurd. His numbers are outrageous. He's averaging 10.7 adjusted yards per attempt. That is, this guy was a seventh round pick. That's not supposed to be happening for guys that were the last pick in a draft. And he's got, what, 10 starts under his belt at this point in over the course of you know two seasons uh yeah it's it's it's remarkable and the fact that he doesn't turn the ball over it just there's like just so much efficiency in what he's doing with this offense you know kristen mccaffrey didn't have a great day running the ball yesterday for them

and you know he was kind of looking like the MVP of the league for the first four games of the season. Well, you know, Dallas did a pretty good job of not really letting him beat them. And Brock Purdy still shredded them. Like it just, and the crazy thing is he's so efficient. He doesn't need to throw the ball 40 times to throw for 300 and something yards he's so he's so accurate he's efficient you look at it and he's like yeah he's he went uh 18 for 26 for you know 200 and 295 yards three touchdowns no picks and the 49ers won by three touchdowns like it's just it's And, uh, he's just got a little bit of, you know, you listen to him talk to, he's got, he's got kind of a quiet

confidence about him. Um, he's not super flashy, but he's, he's very confident in himself. He's very sure of himself. Um, I'm impressed, man. It's, really, really, really fun to watch. What percentage do you think is circumstance versus quarterback talent? Like how much in terms of a quarterback's success in production? And this is after we just watched Mahomes play great with me and you and Patrick Royce at wide receiver. So this answer may vary, but how would you deal with that discussion? Well, I think you still have to give him a lot of credit. There's a lot of talent there.

I mean, George Kittle is one of the best tight ends in football. He's got wide receivers, and he's got McCaffrey, and that offensive line is really good. And he's got the benefit of a defense that is still really good that, you know, they're not behind a lot. So there's not a lot of pressure on him to really kind of, you know, they're never down by two touchdowns to where he's got to really kind of throw them back into a game. He's always able to play in some comfort. So he has all of that stuff going for him. But again, I'll go back to, we saw Jimmy, Jimmy G run the same offense with a lot of those same, a lot of those same weapons, a lot of those same players. And Jimmy played well at times and they want some games, but he did not play like this man. And it's hard for me to, it's hard for

me to dismiss that. I mean, I think Brock Brody deserves a lot of credit. Now if you take Brock Brody and you put them in the situation that Mahomes was in yesterday against the Vikings, where he's just got like Travis Kelsey and nothing else to really, to really throw to would Brock Brody find a way to win that game yesterday? I don't know, maybe. And I think that really kind of solidifies the greatness of Patrick Mahomes. But I can't take anything away from what Brock Purdy is doing, man.

I don't think that you can just insert any guy into that circumstance and be as productive as he's been so far. Because you asked me a percentage, right? I would say it's like 65% him. I think it's 65% just his ability and what he brings to the table is really allowing for them to have a lot of success. The way I look at this, and I've come to think about QB wins over the years, is QB wins, I think, tell you what you need to win, right? Like, what kind of roster do you need?

What kind of weapons? What kind of offensive coordinator? And every quarterback has a different threshold of that. So Peyton Manning, he had, I mean, he had good receivers, but like he had coaches turnover, offensive line turnover. Sometimes receivers were more healthy than others. And the guy was winning between 11 and 14 games, no matter what, no matter who played on his team, because he was that good. And Mahomes is that way where it's even, mean I was listening last night to a Kansas City podcast post game I was just curious about their perspective and they were talking about like

it was an okay game for Mahomes I'm like that was an okay game for Mahomes I mean just I know I've seen him but that was the first time in person and I was like okay well they're they're not that impressed by what they saw his threshold is can have Sky more on your team and still ends up winning a lot of football games so far. They lose one and everyone's like, whoa, whoa, what's going on there? And so there's that. Brock Purdy's not that. I think Brock Purdy on Kansas City is probably more like a 500 quarterback

on a team that I consider to be below average with their offensive setup, not good tackles, not good receivers. So the, the threshold for him is probably needs a lot of good stuff around him to be great where my homes does not. And then there's quarterbacks and this is the Kirk cousins line that have always teetered on that. Like, can you actually do it? Can you actually create a circumstance that is good enough where it's going to happen? And so far the answer has not been yes. I think with Jared Goff, he's over that. And he's proving once again, he's over that, that he is him and Brock Purdy are kind of similar where it's like, yeah, if your team is a tanking

team, then you're probably not going to win much with Jared Goff. But even with Amon Ross St. Brown out, he was balling out yesterday. Like if he's got the right situation, he could be really good and potentially compete for a Super Bowl, which actually ties into the Vikings argument about drafting a quarterback. Because what I'll hear all the time is, well, I mean, it's so hard to hit on like a Joe Burrow or in the homes. And that's true. But also Brock Purdy's over here with the right setup. And Hey, by the way, you have the right setup here. You're, I mean, I was going to say a right guard away, but we got to give Ed Ingram a break this week. He was real good.

He actually played really well. So we got to give him a break. Here is the only other thing I had for you, Manny, is now that we're into the season a little bit, we've seen everybody. We know what every team looks like. What would be the best Super Bowl matchup? Like if Raj called you and he said, hey, Manny, look, you know those rumors that we rigged the league? We do. We do. But you can't tell anyone if you don't tell

anybody i'll let you pick the super bowl matchup who would you pick i i feel like i'm kind of copping out by making this pick but i nine it's niners chiefs for me man i think because of you know you're the the niners are going to be kind of looking for a little bit of redemption against the homes and Andy Reed and Travis Kelsey and the chiefs from, because I know that was a game that they felt like they should have wanted. Jimmy Garoppolo makes that throw in the fourth quarter. If he doesn't overthrow, I think it was a Debo Samuel. I think he overthrew on that deep pass in the fourth quarter.

That could have changed the entire landscape of that game. You know, I know there's some players on the Niners that were still on that team back then that, you know, kind of feel like maybe they can get some redemption there. But also, I think the Mahomes versus Purdy quarterback matchup would be something that I think a lot of people would talk about because Mahomes is the goat, right? He's the current. He is the alpha of the NFL right now. And then you've got Brock Purdy, who has been really good. But people are still going to make so much about him being, you know, Mr.

Irrelevant and just kind of coming out of nowhere and taking over this team. And it's just that the two of the best teams in football. I mean, I think it would just be a great matchup, you know, two head coaches matching up on the Super Bowl again, that are both great offensive minds, you know, old school versus new school kind of with Andy Reed and Kyle Shanahan. That, I know we just saw it four years ago, but i think that would be the most entertaining matchup if we saw it again i cannot argue with that but i think there are other options and after seeing what detroit has done so far how about detroit and miami as two of the most creative offenses, most entertaining offenses, playmakers, weapons, kind of kooky coaches. I mean, Dan Campbell's a lunatic, but then Mike McDaniel is this like weirdo boss nerd. And that's kind of a cool vibe, I think, but also a genius in the way that he has dialed up all their weapons. And again, Tua is kind of a Brock Purdy in some ways also.

He has this ability to just get the ball into his playmaker's hands and execute all the different things that are going on at once and handle all that mentally. That would be a really fun one. I think Miami, it's hard not to want Miami to go deep in the playoffs with as entertaining as that team is. The other thing, the other thing I thought of is just, well, Buffalo, Detroit would suck us all into a black hole. So can't, cannot talk about that. But that, I mean, you know, Josh Allen

in, you know, digs in the Superbowl, everything else that might be pretty fun. But I also thought like Jacksonville, you know, if Jacksonville went to a Super Bowl, no one likes Jacksonville. Everyone would be so mad that it was Jacksonville, Detroit. Like, well, we're going to have set lowest records for the Super Bowl ever with Jacksonville and Detroit. But I, you know, I might enjoy that just because it's two teams that have been so down for so long and you like to see them come up. So that would be, uh, I think a pretty entertaining matchup. Uh, we'll, we'll wrap on this Manny. What do you think the chances are that the Vikings in some way are turning this around to where we're talking about playoffs at some point. And part of the calculation for me is that the Packers look bad again, so far tonight, we're only at halftime as we're recording but it's not it's not looking great for the packers the way that they're playing against vegas right now and the way they played last week so the you know the vikings have this is another thing they're leaning on we've got all the division games to go what do you what do you think the chances are i would give them about a

well first okay i'll say this i will give them i'll give them maybe about a 25 to 30 chance of getting getting themselves back into a position where it is a conversation again i think and that would mean i think think, you win at Chicago this weekend, you win against San Francisco the next weekend, and you go on to Lambeau and you win, and all of a sudden you're four and four, and now you're right back into the conversation. So I'd give them about a 30% chance of maybe making that happen, and I think that's very generous. And then after that, I mean, I think you do have a pretty good chance because now you're feeling very confident, you've strung together a couple of wins probably you know a

few wins without Justin Jefferson so you're feeling really good about yourself and now you're anticipating okay now if we can get Justin Jefferson back it's going to make things even better for us I think if they can do that then I think there is a pretty legitimate chance that they could go maybe on a run. But I just realistically speaking, I just have a hard time really seeing it. I mean, I would not be surprised if they laid an egg at Soldier Field on Sunday because they have done that so many times before. I saw this team, you know, albeit completely different team, completely different head coach. I saw this team lose to Chad freaking Hutchinson, starting for the Bears at Soldier Field. So nothing would surprise me anymore.

But, you know, it could be interesting if they can find a way to win Sunday and then beat San Francisco after that. Then it could be it could be mildly intriguing that they could kind of maybe turn things around. But I just have my doubts. It's a long road still to get to the In the Hunt graphic at this point, but not impossible. Yeah, this week you could either see them getting up for this game, let's save our season, and winning by 28 points because they have the talent to do that or going to Detroit not Detroit Chicago and doing the thing they do in Chicago

missing a field goal or whatever you know just stumbling around on that field it's a noon game though right so I mean at least the grass won't be slick and there won't be cleats issues like there were last year in Green Bay. But Kirk, the last couple of times he's gone to Chicago, has really had no problems. He's played good games there. I don't know. I feel like they should win this one and then lose to San Francisco, potentially beat Green Bay. And then we're talking about a season and we're not talking about them having traded everyone. That's how I'm guessing it's going to go.

But that could all change. I mean, there's been some ranting on the show a little bit, Manny. They they lose to Chicago and it's like, you're not good. This is over. Don't talk to me about fumbles like whatever, unless they have five fumbles. But like, you know, which is not impossible. So that that will, that will be, that will be very interesting. And look, this defense, you know, if you don't cause sacks or

turnovers and you give Justin Fields the time to throw the football, he has shown that he can do it. So this, this is kind of a big swing game for which game are we going to play here? We're going to play the let's all watch football on Saturdays together and see what quarterback we're getting? Or are we going to be talking about week to week? The season is still on. We're going to find that out. So thanks for all your time, Manny, as always.

Thanks for everybody for watching slash listening. A good time as always. And yes, for those who you asked, Courtney Cronin expected to be on the show this week. So if that's what you're asking about we are expected to have that so all right thanks Manny we'll see you on Thursday night and we'll talk to you all again soon football