Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Kevin Cole on the Vikings' strange analytics; Giants radio host Lance Medow compares Daniel Jones to Alex Smith

Episode Date: December 22, 2022

Matthew Coller talks with former PFF data analysts and current operator of the Substack "Unexpected Points" about the Vikings' analytics. Do the numbers say they should play starters? Who would they match up worst against? Why does his power rankings see them in the middle of the league? Plus Matthew is joined by XM host and Giants radio host Lance Medow to get insight into how the Giants are 8-5-1 despite Daniel Jones playing super conservatively and the defense not ranking highly. Are they in the same league as the Vikings? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Purple Insider is presented by Liquid Death, delicious water that's bringing death to plastic. Learn more at liquiddeath.com slash insider. Hello, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here and returning to the show, Kevin Cole, the Unexpected Points newsletter and podcast now because Kevin and I have something in common. We both did nothing wrong and lost our jobs. So welcome, welcome to the independent universe, Kevin. I'm happy to be here. I mean, can we say, can you say that you've done nothing wrong though? Like, I guess you could probably say you've done nothing wrong. I don't think I've done anything wrong, but at the same point in time, whenever there's a decision, even if it's not performance

related, to let some people go and not let some other people go, you got to wonder. Yeah, you got to wonder a little bit about what's going on here. But we are moving forward. We're moving forward with the sub stack, as you mentioned, a little bit different type of analysis that I'm doing that I enjoy doing a little bit more. So it's normally all for the best. I think everyone needs a little bit of a shake up sometimes to produce their best work. And that's hopefully what I'm getting here. Well, I can say just from my own perspective that it has worked out incredibly well for me. And one of the coolest parts is the support that I've gotten from Vikings fans. When you work in sports radio or for a company like PFF, you could feel a little bit like part of the team and a little separated. But the way that it is now, the number

of people who have come in and supported this thing, gotten behind it, that I've gotten to know like kind of on a personal level that I communicate with so much more than I did before. Like there's a lot of rewarding things to it. Plus I don't have to answer to anybody, which is also pretty great. So there are benefits, but I was very sad to see about PFF and the layoffs that they had to go through. And of course, you've been one of my favorite guests on the show. So, yes, certainly not reflective of your work, which is why you're here to talk a little bit about the Unexpected Points newsletter, which is just going to be a lot of your work that you are doing there, only more focused toward things that people can read and less behind the scenes analytics stuff. But let's start off with just talking some Vikings though.

Here's my big question about the Vikings from a data analytics perspective. Cause I think that they have a very hard decision down the stretch who to rest, how to handle week 18 against Chicago. If the number two seed is on the line versus maybe losing that game and playing whoever and getting the number three seed. And I tried my best. Now I'm no you when it comes to breaking stuff down analytically, I tried to research this to figure out how much is this supposed to matter?

Of course, home teams win more in the divisional round than on than the road teams because the road teams are usually worse so they're usually not as good of teams uh but when i looked up like the point spreads and things to give me a better idea like okay so the vikings won't be you know 13 point underdogs or something if they go on the road it'll be a little bit closer than that the results were much closer to 50 50 for teams covering that was the best way that I could think to do it how can we figure this out Kevin because I think on one side you could say look get that two seed you need that second home game if you're

going to get to the Super Bowl but the other side of that is one person hits Justin Jefferson wrong or Christian Derrissaw or Zedarius Smith. And this team just teeters and collapses. Yeah. So we're talking about, you mentioned week 18. I like to think about it maybe even in a, in a broader sense of saying the next full three weeks, what do we want to think about happening? And teams have some experience in this only really dealing with the preseason and how they want to use different players.

But it's really going to come to weighing tradition in a way, which would be if there is any sort of possible benefit on the line through playing, then you play until that's not been done. I'm not sure in the regular season beyond maybe some week 18 games where it could flip some home field advantage, whether we've seen anyone rest multiple weeks in advance. I think that's really what to look at here because when we think about the benefit of resting, whatever that may be, and some people say it's a hindrance to rest to your, your rusty for the playoffs. I don't really believe any of that.

We have lots of evidence through lots of time of teams being better off of their bi-week and then they would have been if they had played the week before. So I think we can write rest is good. Rest is good. Maybe too much rest of multiple weeks. Isn't great, but rest is good. But you also have to say, what are the scenarios that we're talking about here under which you can get a benefit because it is number one, how things play out. If you rest players, it doesn't mean necessarily that you're not going to secure the number two

seats. You have to figure like, what is the number two seat versus not getting the number two seat? Number two, what is the likelihood of getting, of it really affecting us going into the next round of the playoffs, right? So it's not even the first week. We're talking about the second week at the playoffs that'll really have an effect as far as not being at home. And third, I think maybe even most importantly is looking at what sort of home field advantage, what is it worth and where will you potentially be playing? And it looks like, you know, if you're going to lose out on that, it's maybe most likely to San Francisco at this point, you know, the Cowboys are a possibility. We're talking about two teams in good weather and then similar sort of environment there.

And you're playing in a dome at home. So I'm not sure, at least from a weather perspective, it makes that big of a deal also. So all those things lean towards me as maybe trying something a little bit new and at the very least platooning some different guys who you might want to get rest and keep away from injuries. And Kevin O'Connell talked about this yesterday. I asked him specifically, like, how will you manage this since you're already in the playoffs? And he alluded to what you're saying with platooning, where he said, like, of course,

we have things that we still want to accomplish. And of course, we see that top seed or the number two seed. And number one is almost out of reach at this point. But number two is and number one is almost out of reach at this point but number two is yeah really up for debate um when you look at the fact that san francisco right now has the tie breaker against them so you can't even tie san francisco's record which would be losing one game and the 49ers they play washington arizona is one of their games and there's another one mixed in that they're all very winnable though all three games for them so they could end up 13 and 4 even with Brock Purdy as their quarterback

I think it is pretty scary to go out to San Francisco but the thing that I've noticed in recent years is that the home field advantage is not the same as it was before so I looked up even just this year's point differential for the Vikings home and on the road. It's kind of negligible. It's not that different. Most of their wins have been by one score because they're always by one score, both home and on the road. You know, they, they lost to Detroit in a game where, you know, I think that if the defense makes a single stop, or if they don't fumble, you're playing, you're playing pretty close with them. And I just don't see the same impact even on opposing teams as even when I did when I first started covering the Vikings. In 2016, I think teams were totally shocked to see what it was like inside U.S. Bank Stadium. But it's been around a while. Teams travel much better.

The health and science has even changed in the last five to seven years. And I think that Vegas has sort of picked up on this where it used to be three points, and now they only give maybe like a point and a half for going on the road. Now, that doesn't make Vikings fans feel better about it when I say you have to go out to San Francisco, and that's been a house of horrors for them in recent years. But I also think that having a fully healthy roster is so important to this team specifically. Like we can look at the broader sense, but we can also look at if you drop from Christian Derrissaw down to Ole Udo, you go from the best tackle in the

league to a guy who graded out to be a 40 by PFF last year playing at guard and tackle. Like that's a massive, massive difference. And that's somebody who's had a couple of injuries this year. Zedarius Smith, Daniil Hunter, these guys make up literally half of your total pressures for the team. I added them up half, but two guys, if you lose one of them, it's over. You're not pressuring any quarterbacks ever. So I think that there really is a tough balance here that they can do some of that rotating,

play half the game for some of those guys in the next two weeks and see what happens. And then sit, I lean towards sitting the starters, but I think that like you said, the football men, also the owners might say, look, I want that second home playoff game if you guys win. So I think that they're in a very difficult position here with this. Like, good problem to have, but not the easiest choice. Yeah, I mean, you're going to get more information as we go along, too, based upon the potential for the 49ers to lose, let's say, next week. It looks like the other remaining game was the Raiders.

I don't think that you had mentioned of those two. So yeah, another game, which there's a lot of teams that are just kind of like average-ish. So the Raiders are another one of those teams where you never know what could happen in these circumstances. So you're going to want to gain more and more information each week that goes by.

So I like platooning. You're right about home field advantage. It had actually almost reversed in some recent years, still settling in probably around a point and a half. So if you say being in one place versus another, you could say three points, but in some ways that's even overstated because when you're like between like point spreads, when they're between like a three point advantage, there are very few games that really fall into that into that category so we're talking about two to three points maybe which makes a difference but it's not uh fundamentally driving everything i do agree though when it comes to san

francisco um you cannot help but have the 2019 san francisco home run deb I mean, home field debacle, debacle, debacle for the Vikings there. And then, you know, they went and just, you know, kicked the stuff out of the Packers the next week, also at home. That's something that's evidence. That's something you want to think about. It's probably also something that you're going to overweight versus others. I mean, you don't see the San Francisco 49ers always turn into the incredible Hulk at home on a week-on-week basis. So you're going to think about that. And the fans are definitely going to think about that, though, when it comes to their decision, if they end up giving up that number two seed eventually.

And they might say, too, that, look, it's a rookie quarterback starting, and it's going to be harder for a rookie quarterback to play at us bank stadium than it would be jimmy garoppolo who's got tons of experience going on the road to wherever over the years um but yeah that's i mean this is the thing like i've gotten quite a few messages and emails from fans and stuff about this like i don't i don't know like i really i really don't know i think you play it. I think you play it pretty safe this week. Play it pretty safe this week. You'll learn a lot. It could reshuffle all thoughts going into what the situation is next week.

So that's what I would say. I'm fine with playing it pretty close to normal, maybe some rest. Lean towards sitting guys who may have played if you really needed a win type of situation where we're talking about guys who are questionable or on the doubtful side of questionable and then reassess a week from now we get a little bit more information we can make a lot better decision at that point and you also know that either way fans are going to be very afraid because if they end up with the three c they're going to say oh here we go like we're going out to san francisco to lose marching to our death or they're going to say, Oh no, we're playing starters at Chicago.

Talk about house of horrors for the Vikings and who's getting hurt in this very important game. So I'm still leaning slightly toward, I mean, there's not going to be like a very analytical, rational, Hey, we're not that good.

And we're playing with house money anyway, this season. That's how I would view it. But then again, I have no loyalty and no fandom. Well, that's a good transition though because something that has been tricky for me in terms of talking about this team all season long is how much i have always leaned on a lot of the numbers to be

my my beacon of truth and uh this year has gone against pretty much anything that any numbers could ever tell you right like the 10 and 0 and one score games and all the stuff that's gone into this uh you know your football outsiders dvoa has just hated the vikings all year long and said no this team can't keep doing this uh and yet somehow they have found a way to keep doing this. And I think that there is certainly an argument to look at the accumulation of a team and go, I don't know, man, there's teams with 130 point differentials that should be way stronger than you. But then there's another part that says this team has a lot of star talent

and always seems to find a way. How do you deal with these competing ideas, the reality of their record, and you are what your record says you are versus some of the under the radar numbers? Yeah, I mean, I try to keep my radar scope, I guess that's why it is possible in some of these things.

And if under the radar is like a euphemism for uh doesn't really matter sort of thing then yeah maybe i'm going to discount some of the things about you know i mean star power is important definitely more important in the playoffs uh it's probably less of a thing in the nfl than it is in the nba where rotations and referees and others that make make a big difference between the playoffs and not but it is a thing and I think experience can definitely be a thing in the playoffs okay so just so you know I have the Vikings in my most recent power ratings which you can check out on unexpectedpoints.subzack.com um at let me see here 17th in the power rankings so right in the middle of the league but I'll say that the difference between 10th and again like there aren't 10 good teams so stop

yelling at me for whoever I have in 10th place so I have the Bucks in 10th place we actually moved up a little bit despite the loss there so the difference between 10th and 23rd, which are the New York Giants, is basically like a point and a half or something. It's barely anything. So there's not much of a difference here. So I don't think the Vikings are in the same company when we're talking about the first or second tier,

which includes Dallas, Miami, San Francisco, Cincinnati, Buffalo, Eagles, and Kansas City City I don't think they're in that tier but after that it's all open for for anyone can win it here and we're in a situation where I think for the NFC you have the Bucks who could win who could win a home game I'm assuming they're going to it or if it's the Saints they could win a home game and then you know they're like in the general mix also for someone you could potentially play in the second round. So there are lots of easy paths for them. So I think they're in as good of a position as you could really hope for at this point. And I

wouldn't play too much into the fact that they're kind of an average-ish sort of team. I think that's fine. Average teams have won plenty of Super Bowls in the history of the NFL. Well, and that's why I feel like, I mean, just circling back, like the health is a huge part of it, but then there's another thing with the matchups. And I mean, just even last year, having two four seeds go to the Super Bowl, and as I was writing about this,

looking at previous teams and their paths, it was like, oh, okay, just last year, both teams had to go on the road in the divisional round and they ended up winning. And the Rams had that crazy game against the tampa bay bucks um but i'd love to know kind of like how the sauce is made a little bit there when you're trying to figure out the power rankings which here's where i'm going to give you credit because i can hear people's like you know brains burning with what do you mean they're wherever uh power rankings are usually when they're just done off

the top of people's heads just the standings and that is not how you do it you're doing you're doing it in a mathematical type of way but but what factors into that that points to why they wouldn't be despite their record in the same category as someone like Philadelphia or Dallas. Okay. So yeah, I mean, without getting into like too many of the details here, I'm looking at efficiency more than what the actual scoring is. So efficiency, and this is mostly based upon using the preferred metric of nerds out there, expected points added per play, which is really a calculation of how many points you expect before a play happens on a drive. Then the play happens, you have a new down distance and yards to goal situation. You can calculate the expected points there, and then you add the

difference. It's a better way than yards or anything else of gauging the value of any play. Now, I make a bunch of adjustments to this based upon down weighting some kind of unexpected outlier type of outcomes. For instance, looking at the massive negatives that came for the Bucs, as I mentioned, when they had four turnovers by a Brady offense, I think it was the first time since in the last 10 years that that's happened. It's probably not going to happen a whole lot where they actually look pretty good in the first half. So it's like that sustainable sort of offensive success is more important to me when valuing results than the massive negatives that come to scoring and come to EPA through these outlier plays. Special teams are going to be discounted a bit of what's going on. Penalties are going to be

discounted a little bit. So there's some other adjustments to the formula. So I try to come up with a more sustainable number for offensive and defensive, what you can expect from this team, how they have played, and then use that to project out into the future, which of course, you know, you're not necessarily going to be the same thing in the future, but we are 15 weeks, 16 weeks into the NFL season. I mean, maybe I'm going already too far here. It's about a 60-40 weighting between offense and defense because defense is more dependent upon what's happened. The offense you're playing, then the offense is upon the defense. And then from there, it's getting a number, strength of schedule adjustments, all that sort of stuff based upon who you played.

And then that is going to project forward for the strength of the team. And that's why for the Vikings, if you look at their offensive efficiency, kind of scoring rate, and their defensive scoring against rate, they are very similar this season to the Seahawks, the Giants, the Jaguars, the Steelers, even the Chargers are all almost in the same exact category. They're almost on top of each

other if you were to plot these things out against them. And that's why I see them as being in the larger mix of these average teams. Whereas if you plot out in particular defensively the Vikings defense has not been very good this year if you plot out a lot of these other teams their defense has been has been really good and then when it comes to Kansas City their defense has been slightly better but their offense has been at another level as far as their efficiency they've been able to generate it's the most wonderful time of the year, folks. And what I mean is that time where you put liquid death in your family stockings just to see their reactions.

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seven 11, or see where you can get liquid death at liquid death.com slash insider. And yes, it does fit in a stock. Yeah. So the Vikings just from pro football reference are 18th in the percentage of drives that they score and have the second worst in terms of the percentage of drives of which they allow points and a lot of times in the last few weeks against the jets and then against the colts

they've relied really heavily on red zone stops against really bad quarterbacks. I mean, Mike White is a nice story for Jets fans, but it's Mike White. He was their third choice. And then Matt Ryan is just, I wish they had not played him anymore after the way that the start of the season went, because it's just so sad to see. I've seen that guy do great things against the Vikings over the years and you know he was a great quarterback but he certainly is not anymore so it's not surprising that they would get those red zone stops but if they're facing a San Francisco that has Debo Samuel Brandon Iuke Christian McCaffrey George Kittle and Trent Williams it's going to be pretty tough to stop

them over and over at the goal line like they've been able to do with some of these other teams so I think that the skepticism of course you know Vikings fans are riding a high from what just happened the largest comeback of all time so you know nobody wants to say like hey is it what you know they what's all this you know these other things that say we're not that strong but you know we kind of circle back to after Detroit where they talked about you know kind of panicking and pushing the red button when it came to their defense they made some adjustments against the Colts who knows if those will work against other teams I don't really know I did want to ask like how much it matters going into the playoffs what a team has looked like recently because when we take these stats they're all the accumulation

of the whole season but i'm not sure what you know week two has to do with the first round of the playoffs right at this point that feels like seven lifetimes ago and now i know they've been playing from behind but the way that kirk cousins is playing recently he has kind of kicked into gear here where all of a sudden he's putting up, you know, some better stats and looking more comfortable in the offense. They figured out the screen game in the last game. They figured out KJ Osborne in the last game. So there's a lot of factors that are kind of going into this for me that even though the bigger numbers say, uh, the red flags kind of all over the place here for being a Super Bowl contender. If they roll into the playoffs and fix some of the issues before having had a new coach and had to make big adjustments, they might be a stronger team than they started with.

Yeah, I mean, that's logical. That is analytically backed. That is something that's also in my power rankings, but I was already going on for so long that I was like, and then, you know, I didn't want to go too far there, but there is also something that we adjust. Uh, we, the Royal way me, uh, adjust based upon how far in the past we're talking about here. Now, what I found is best is there's a discount for every single week going into the future. I'll get into a little bit of the nerd stuff here. It's basically last week's results are worth about 95% of this week's results. If you're saying this week's results, these last week's results were a hundred

percent. And then you take that 95%, so 0.095, and you take it to the power of what, however many weeks you go back. That's how I do it. So if you look 10 weeks ago, I just calculated this out, just give me an idea. The results from 10 weeks ago would only be worth about 60% of the results that we just saw last week. And that's what goes into the calculation. So again, that is part of it. And this is something that I tested

and came up with based on the past. Unfortunately for the Vikings last week, that game against that opponent doesn't look good at home. It doesn't look good. It hurts them. That's one of their lower performances, even though they came out with the win. So they're not going to really get credit for that versus a stronger win in the past. Right.

I saw the raging debates over Kirk Cousins' performance because PFF grade, QBR, they did not score it very well. It was like, well, you know, I mean, if you get behind by that much, some bad things had to have happened. And normally every metric, but every metric is designed to say that when you're down by 30 points, we're not going to give you credit for stuff and they came back in one but like if it's a qbr that's putting in a lot of the expected points added and win probability you'd be throwing touchdowns and the win probability would be like no no no no no we're not giving you credit for for a touchdown that didn't move the needle at all so they the win probability would only really credit you at the end when you when you came through.

So and from the grading standpoint, they're going to grade the negative throws that happened along the way. You can't just discount those because you came back. So it's kind of like it's it's like this with almost every game for the Vikings that we have to talk about where, you know, they go to Washington and they're down by 10 in the fourth quarter. They need an interception to come back. Well, the interception happened and a great player made a great play which is all season long but also you were down 10 and you needed that to happen in order to come back and there's just been this sort of back and forth about this team all year long but I do I do think that there is something to having a lot of people that have been there before, even Kevin O'Connell with his experience of going and winning the Super Bowl last season, that there has to be something to that.

And I've also seen that older teams tend to win the Super Bowl a lot of times, and this is an older and more experienced team. So I'm kind of thinking, I mean, matchups are going to play into it and just how things end up playing out. If somebody else gets upset and you end up with a favorable division round matchup or something, it could be right there for you. Yeah. Yeah, it could be. Now let me go back for a second. This gives me a great opportunity to trash PFF. No, I'm just kidding. I do want to talk a little bit about the the grading there because okay as someone who's you know been behind the curtain there a little bit as far as the grading process not responsible for it but it's basically there's a play-by-play although maybe

this will help edify things for for listeners when they're thinking about these these grades so context is not part of the grading system. Throws are like most of the grade, honestly. So again, it's not looking at process. Like, did he make the right read? It's really looking at throws. And then also just because of the difficulty of grading every single play and making a nuanced grade on a particular play, most grades are on a play-by-play basis can go from negative two, which is like the most ridiculous worst pass or turnover ever to a positive two, which is again, the most ridiculous

great play ever, which very rarely happen. 1.5s, they go by 0.5 in either direction, rarely happen. Ones, pretty rare because even turnover worthy play is a one or a big time throw is a one. That's something that's more in know, more in the four, four to like 6% range, basically even lower on the, for, for some players. And then a lot of plays are just 0.5 in either direction, but most plays are just zero. Most plays, they're just giving guys a zero. So these plays that get graded as negative one or positive one have a big effect on grading. And when Kirk Cousins needs to take risks, needs to throw the ball down the field, needs to risk turnover worthy throws,

which can be, can be worth it. Like it can be worth it to have a couple of dropped interceptions. If you're going to end up getting more touchdowns in certain circumstances from it, that is going to really negatively affect the grade. So that's probably what drives the grade down quite a lot. Whereas if you look at other measures and I'm looking at success rate, other things, it wasn't a bad game. Kirk Cousins, if anything, has been pretty good the last couple of weeks versus not being so good

and almost like head-scratchingly bad versus what he had been the last several years. So if anything, he's gotten a bit better. Just the defense has really not been great in this sort of matchup. Despite the fact that Patrick Peterson, as I mentioned from your sub stack, he was, you know, he came in there and just said, we're not going to let him score almost three points. Did he get three points, but he did a pretty good job not letting him score in the second half. No, I mean, he certainly did. And Jeff Saturday also did a good job, not getting them to score in the second half. I almost feel bad for Jeff Saturday.

I'm making the full rotation from being someone who was critical of the hire to being like, what do you want this guy to do anyway? I mean, it is kind of hard. It's a hard situation with this team. It's, it's, I don't know. Well, we'll see what happens. Well, I'll save that for the Colts Insider podcast. Yeah.

Part of your explanation also, the Vikings had more yards after catch than any other team in the last think is generally correct but there are at least certain offenses that are designed to generate yards after catch most notably the 49ers where it's kind of unfair to jimmy garoppolo to say like we're going to take away all of this yards after catch where like literally that's what the offense is designed to do and he has to make those sorts of three plays for it i think it's somewhat true also of the vikings so that's that's behind the curtain qbr style for what what may explain why that's a bit lower for kirk cousins well and when you throw a 64 yard touchdown pass on a screen like pff's not going to give you the big time throw right that's gonna be a zero that's gonna be a zero grade on the play right right right so i think that uh once people understand kind of what it's telling you it's much easier it's like and also anyone who says pff hates kurt cousins go look at his career

grades i mean the pff has graded him oh yeah extremely well to the point where i'm like are you sure uh over the years but i thinkins' grade being high has been used to discount PFF much more than the reverse. Right, right, right. Which, I mean, it's very easy when you don't look into, which a lot of people don't. I try to explain on the show. If you don't look into how it's done, it's very easy to just be like, I watched that game and I don't agree with that. But you forgot about, there was a throw into the end zone that could have been easily intercepted by the Colts. That was just a really bad choice by Cousins

and it hit the guy in the hands and no one will ever remember that. But that's their job to grade that. So before we wrap up, Kevin, here's what I want. Give me the best matchup for the Vikings. Give me the nightmare matchup for the Vikings in the first round. Like they can only play a handful of different teams. Washington, the Giants might still be on the table.

Detroit, of course, Seattle. Like what what do you think it would make for a good or bad matchup for them in the first round? Yeah, yeah. Well, OK. That is a good question. I'm trying to think of, okay, so I'll just go pure. Let me, let me just go through my process here. So if pure power rankings, and again, there's not a huge difference between, between any of these teams, pure power rankings wise, I guess it would be the commanders would be the worst team that I have here of teams who are vying for the playoffs and their defense actually isn't that bad, but Taylor Heineke is just like, no, he said that played well.

I guess he has Moxie. So maybe if you're, if you're scared of Moxie, be scared of, of Taylor Heineke because the results he's done have just not been good they went on this preposterous winning streak mid-season where he was just awful the entire time even by pff grading a lot of dropped interceptions for him too so they would probably be the team that i would want to see the most the giants are right in there too i mean not only do they have maybe a little bit more questions although i think daniel jones has been playing a lot better this year.

Injury concerns, not a lot of depth at some key positions. You could probably shut down them offensively a little bit better, even if your defense isn't that great because of how you could concentrate on Saquon Barkley and not worry as much about the receivers out there. So I think that would probably be next. And I think it's those two really would be the other ones. I would not want to see the Seahawks or the Lions. I think they're just better teams than those two teams.

And luckily, at least as of now, the Giants and the Commanders have the advantage over the Seahawks and the Lions. So it would really be those two teams. And the Packers I have is even being better than all those teams, although only slightly better when it comes to the Lions and the Seahawks. And I think the Packers are playing way better than they were earlier this season, partly because of the emergence of a guy the Vikings gave them in the draft. But that is a discussion for not today.

But I think that the – Jameson Williams. What if a Jameson Williams scores a touchdown against the Vikings? That would be like a red alert. Stage five, everyone crazy would have to run for the bunker if that happened. Well, yeah, he did score one when they played them in Detroit, but it wasn't like, yeah, that's true. Yeah, they just didn't cover him at all, which was a problem. But if he scored the game-winning touchdown, the stadium roof did collapse once, but it might collapse again.

I think Detroit's the worst matchup because they know the Vikings so well. And you talk about coming to U.S. Bank Stadium. There's a team that's been here a bunch of times. Jared Goff's played pretty well each time they've been here. Like I just, I think that would be the worst. I'm not as afraid of Seattle. Cause I think that Gino Smith regression, Tyler Lockett injury, that defense can't stop the run, which if you can't stop the Vikings run, you know, they'll play action and everything off of it. So anyway, well, great stuff, Kevin. I feel like we hit like all the big home run analytical topics here surrounding this team. The Unexpected Points newsletter.

I've always praised the show name or the yeah, well, it was the podcast Unexpected Points. I think it's a great name. Now the newsletter still exists a little bit less of a little bit less frequency, but still exists. Well, I just signed up yesterday, so I am on your list. Everybody else should go there as well unexpected points if you have an analytical mind uh few people in the world do it as well as kevin cole so thanks so much for your time man and we will definitely do it again all right thanks for having me folks you have just days left before christmas so make sure

you're going to sododaStick.com to get all of your Minnesota sports-inspired goods. That's hats, T-shirts, hoodies, SodaStick.com. S-O-T-A-S-T-I-C-K.com. Use the promo code PURPLEINSIDER there for your last-minute holiday shopping. Returning to the show, he is a Sirius XM host, also Giants Radio Network, Lance Meadow. What is going on, Lance? How are you? I'm doing very well. Thanks for having me on. Looking forward to this weekend's matchup between the Giants and the Vikings. Some mathematical meaning for both teams here. You know, the last time we talked was actually when the Vikings signed Delvin Tomlinson and we had like a long discussion about nose tackles, which

is so perfect for the show. But I have to say that when you were on, you said, look, this guy is really good and he's going to make a huge difference. And not only is that been absolutely true, he's been a tremendous player for them, but he's going to make a huge difference for this weekend. You have a team that needs their running back to be the driving force versus a defense that doesn't stop the pass, but is actually quite good at putting fat people in the middle like Delvin Tomlinson and stopping the run. Yeah, you actually bring up an interesting point. And it's funny you brought up that conversation about Tomlinson because last season, the Giants run defense struggled immensely without him in the mix and everybody was talking about oh well they'll be

able to find somebody on the interior of the defensive line it's no big deal you don't invest in guys like that but as we were talking about the subtle things that he did to clog up the running lanes make a huge difference and this year they have struggled also to stop the run. Now, part of that has been guys in and out of the lineup, but it just goes to show you sometimes those overlooked players up front, the big boys that you just referenced make all the difference. But yeah, this is a Giants offense, to your point, that relies heavily on the rushing attack.

And that's why a guy like Dalvin Tomlinson is going to be critical. Can you make this a Daniel Jones game or do you allow Saquon Barkley to really set the tone? He was able to have a number of big runs in their last game Sunday night against the commanders that really helped. I wouldn't say solidify the win because they needed a goal line stand, but milk some clock and get back to what worked, Matt, so effectively for them earlier in the season. Daniel Jones has been great protecting the ball, but I don't think if you ask Brian Dable and company, do they want him throwing 35 to 40 times like what Kirk Cousins had to do in the second half against the Colts? I don't think they want that to be the recipe. So yeah,

this is going to be a game in the trenches. There's no doubt about it. And the Giants are going to have to find a way to establish the run and really do it for the sake of four quarters. You know, I was looking at the people who caught passes for the New York Giants last week against Washington. Nick Vanette, Richie James Jr., Isaiah Hodgins, Daniel Bellinger. Who are these people? That's what I think everybody is asking, including Giants fans, I should add there, Matt. It's not just people that are outside the New York, New Jersey market. Yeah, this has been a prevalent storyline the entire year. They were hit with injuries at that position. They lost Sterling Shepard and Wandel Robinson over the course of the year. And

those guys are not big receivers, but they're good with yardage after the catch and two of their best playmakers. The Kenny Galladay narrative continues to beat on. Unfortunately, he's been dealing with injuries and just has not been productive. And the other element is they're barely even targeting him, which I don't think a lot of people are noticing. You know, that's a big reason why his production has dipped. So yeah, they're left with the group of players that you just named. In fairness, Richie James has had a nice group of flashes. He actually had a huge catch on a fourth and nine for 11 yards in the commander's game that helped extend their longest drive of the season.

18 plays, 97 yards that they capped it off with a Barkley touchdown. So he's been hit or miss on special teams, but he actually quietly has made some big plays in the receiving court. And I think the most pleasant surprise is Isaiah Hodgins, who you brought up. Here's a player, Matt, that was on the Buffalo Bills. So he has a connection to Brian Dable and GM Joe Shane. The Bills recently waived him. The Giants took a flyer and said, hey, let's bring him in. He's got familiarity with our scheme. And he has built some really nice chemistry with Daniel Jones. He's made some big catches, including a 19 yarder against the commanders on Sunday night. And

he had a touchdown streak that ended right on Sunday night against Washington. So this has been a guy that's been able to move the chains, make some big contested catches, and they're making the most of what they have. It's not pretty, it's not flashy, it's not sexy all the time, but they're finding ways to move the ball. And I think that speaks volumes of the coaching staff to bring these guys in and make the most out of it. Yeah. And let's talk about that. I mean, you have two guys who have in their first year made an argument for coach of the year. I mean, with Kevin O'Connell, he's had a little bit of a horseshoe around his neck when it comes to the one score

games. And most teams don't come back from 33. I think history says that, that they usually don't. Indeed. And things like penalty differential. And even just if you probably looked at the injuries for the Vikings alone, we would be saying that's kind of a big deal. And then there's a lot of other things that have gone their way. It seems like for the Giants, a lot of things have not gone their way in that regard. And that Brian Dables had to overcome that when it comes to the injuries. And I'm very interested. Well, let's stick with that too, because I'm very interested in talking about the defense a little, because the defense I watched against Washington looks pretty good, but there's questions on paper, but there's's injuries but we'll get into that but the Brian Dable I was always

extremely impressed with him for what he did in Buffalo in his work with Josh Allen but there's always that question of like okay is it just Josh Allen being great and that's what got Brian Dable the job but it seems like he has squeezed every single bit of juice out of the lemon here when it comes to this offense. Yeah, I don't think there's any doubt about that. Plus, Daniel Jones has improved in terms of ball security. I think that's something else that shouldn't be dismissed. Josh Allen, he improved in that department as well, but he also improved his accuracy. And Daniel has been a very accurate quarterback this year. He does not put up fantasy numbers. You're not going to put him in the fantasy starting

lineup to try to win you a championship because they're barely hovering around 200 passing yards per game, but they're grinding it out. And as long as Daniel Jones protects the football, makes good decisions, which he's done this season, it hasn't come back to bite them like it's been in previous years. Matt, the number that come back to bite them like it's been in previous years. Matt, the number that jumps out to me, Daniel Jones, his interceptions are extremely low, but the team overall only has 13 turnovers. That's actually tied for first in the NFL with the Eagles, who have a ridiculous turnover differential. So that's been significant in terms of, to your point, not having the ball always bounce the wrong way,

which was the case in a lot of scenarios over the last few seasons because they were playing some close games. They just couldn't finish. And it's funny you brought the Vikings up walking that fine line, that tightrope, I like to call it, because look at how many one possession games they've won. Well, the Giants actually all eight of their wins this year are one score games. They're right behind the Vikings in one score victories this season. And I always say this, normally the numbers balance out. And that's what happened with the Giants, to your point, that leading into the Washington game, they weren't playing their best football.

They only had one win in their previous six games. But also a lot of the games they were playing were lopsided. Now they weren't having those tight affairs. The Vikings have found a way to consistently play these tight games and they've won them. I also think there's a differential, which I don't think many people would disagree between the talent pool, especially on the offensive side of the ball for Kirk cousins and his

playmakers compared to Daniel Jones. But it has been very impressive that they have stayed competitive and they have found ways to protect the football and not put Daniel Jones in a situation, which most quarterbacks have to do, Matt, in these circumstances where he's got to put on the cape and he's got to play hero ball. Meaning he's got to put together that fourth quarter drive that wows everybody. They haven't put him in that situation. I think that has helped immensely. Yeah. And his turnover worthy play percentage has gone down from last year. I mean, that was really, I think the biggest issue that he had over his first couple of seasons where he was just throwing a ton of interceptions, fumbling a lot. And clearly they were not

previously using his athleticism. Maybe because when he ran really fast that one time he fell down. This was like, I don't know, maybe we shouldn't. But the number of times that I have watched the Giants, probably five, six games this year in and out. And every time he's making a game changing play with his legs where it's like third and eight or something and he takes off and runs for a first down and he's also gotten to the middle of the league in quarterback rating without making a whole lot of you know like you said like huge throws huge games like that but he's done sort of the Alex Smith thing where if you keep the train on the tracks you play really

conservatively with the ball get a good running game run yourself a couple of times for first downs and you can get just enough but the question is whether that can be legitimately competitive I think that the Vikings and Giants are in two different spaces with this where it's like the Vikings are all in to try to win the Super Bowl they trade for TJ Hawkinson like they're they're going for it. All these veteran players, Darius Smith, Patrick Peterson, like these guys aren't in a, like, hey, hooray for us type of season. It's like we have to win to justify all this. I think the Giants are a little bit different in that regard because they were so bad.

They were just so bad that it's like, okay, like, well, you're kind of fun now. And at least out of this season, you know, that you have a head coach like this, this guy is competent at the job. Unlike some previous recent head coaches since Tom Coughlin. Yeah. There's no doubt about that as well as a coaching staff, I would add in terms of the development of some of the players on the roster to really get what you can out of them because the giants have exceeded expectations, Matt, that's really get what you can out of them because the Giants

have exceeded expectations, Matt. That's pretty much what you laid out. I don't think anybody really thought that they would be in this position where they're the magic number of two right now to get into the playoffs. I thought they'd be competitive than they were last year, but to say that they would be in the driver's seat ahead of four other teams for a wildcard spot, I mean, that's pretty impressive. And once again, that's a reflection of the coaching staff and some of these younger players, too, making an impact, like a Kayvon Thibodeau, now that he's fully healthy, what we saw him do against the commanders and some of the other members of the rookie class who have stepped up, whether it be on the offensive line or some of the guys at the

linebacker position or the secondary. You don't get this far unless you have the youth movement contribute because it's a relatively young team that they're trying to put their fingerprints on, Joe Shane specifically, in terms of him giving them an identity and carry out what he wants to see them accomplish over the last few seasons. But yeah, I would not compare the Vikings and the Giants any further than both teams played a lot of close games. That's it. I do think your comparison and your parallel to Alex Smith is very interesting because if you remember, Alex Smith had a season with Kansas City where I believe he didn't even throw a touchdown pass to a wide receiver. Yes. And right. They somehow kept their head above water. And Alex wasn't that flashy guy.

He protected the ball, barely threw any interceptions. They ran the ball, they played somehow kept their head above water. And Alex wasn't that flashy guy. He protected the ball, barely threw any interceptions. They ran the ball, they played good defense. And that was the recipe. And I think it goes back to, Brian Dable has talked about this multiple times. He realizes that there's limitations on this roster. He may not admit it publicly, but he's not naive. He acknowledges it.

So it's a matter of how do you coach this team up to be competitive? And what that has proven, and this goes back to your point about Daniel Jones and his athleticism, some games they have leaned heavily on Daniel Jones, a runner. Other games, though, Matt Jones has not been a runner and people have called and wondered, well, why don't you use Daniel Jones as a runner? And I think part of it is they look at the film and they see opportunities in the passing attack. For example, the last game against Washington, we know Deron Payne, Jonathan Allen, Montez Sweat, they've got some guys that could get after the quarterback. And they proved that two weeks ago in the first matchup. But Daniel Jones gave them trouble on the ground in the first matchup. This last game, they caught Washington off guard. Daniel Jones was getting

rid of the ball in a fraction of a second. They did not give Washington an opportunity to get after him. So if you were going to say, well, what are they going to do against the Vikings? Your guess is as good as mine. They could get Daniel to run this weekend, or maybe they get rid of the ball because they don't want Daniel Hunter and Zedarius Smith getting a piece of him. So I can really see it go both ways. The point I'm bringing up is that's why the Giants are remaining competitive and winning games because there's a little bit of that unpredictable flavor in them in terms of strategy. Yeah, I wouldn't have – well, I mean, with Brian Dable as good as he was,

I could have seen it coming for sure. But unpredictable would not be like the way I would have described any recent Giants offense. It would have been pretty much I predict they're going to do almost nothing. But having Saquon Barkley, I'm just dropping bars on you here, Lance. Oh, listen, it's not a surprise. I think most people feel the same way. So no harm, no foul.

But having Saquon back and healthy is a huge deal with this. And it kind of, it actually kind of takes me back a little bit. I mean, I think you and I are somewhat in the ballpark of the age where we remember running backs when they were the center of an entire offense. And that's kind of how this feels where it's like, you know, Sean Alexander or we were talking about the Chiefs, Larry Johnson, a Tiki Barber-led New York Giants team that handed off to him and threw it to him every play. That's kind of how this feels with Saquon Barkley.

And when I watch the guy, I am amazed at the workload he's been able to take on. But also, when he's healthy, he's everything everyone says he is. It's just that he's not always been healthy throughout his career. But he makes three, four cuts per game where you're like, that dude just put everybody in the matrix. And that's why it's so important to get him to the second level of the defense. And that was what was missing in this stretch where they only had one win in their last six games.

They weren't getting him to penetrate to the second level of the defense because to your point, yes, you want Saquon against a linebacker or a defensive back. And then you'd say, OK, let's take our chances. We feel pretty good about Saquon winning that one-on-one battle because of his cutback ability, his ability to make a move for a splash play or an explosive play. That's why the onus is on the offensive line, which was missing in consistency over the last few years, in addition to, of course, Saquon not staying healthy. It was really a double-edged sword. It was him not getting to the second level, not finding the holes, and getting indecisive, doing some dancing, trying to create something out of nothing.

He hasn't really had to do that much this year because I think they're opening things up for him to say, OK, hey, you're going to get those one-on-one battles. We're going to expect you to make that maneuver. And the results have been mixed over the last few weeks. He was dealing with a sore neck, so he popped up on the injury report. I don't think it was health that limited him. I just think they were going up against really good defensive fronts. We talk about Washington.

They played the Eagles. And those teams, it's a no-brainer. You go up against the Gi Giants. You say we want Daniel Jones to throw the ball 35 to 40 times. We don't want Saquon to dictate the tone. And that's why I think if you're the Vikings, you want to do the same thing. Can you limit the damage done by Saquon? Can you make it more of Giants have to play from behind? They have to get more oriented with their passing attack. And most teams have not been successful in doing that. And that's another reason why the Giants have once again remained competitive because when you've got to play, you saw it in the last game when the Vikings had a miraculous comeback against the Colts. When you get down two or three scores, you're in pass mode. It's constantly throwing the ball, trying to get those explosive plays. The Giants, even though they were on a bit of a skid

and they had that one tie, they were still in those games. And that enabled them to lead on the run. And that has been critical. They have not had to abandon the run. You start abandoning the run, we've seen this Giants team get in trouble. So that, I think, has been a huge X factor over the course of the season.

And that, once again, goes back to your point about Saquon Barkley's consistency. And I think that this is a really interesting matchup between Saquon and the Vikings because the Vikings defense has done very well against the run, except for when they played Ezekiel Elliott and Tony Pollard. So I'm really interested because they haven't faced like super explosive running games. They slowed down the Lions, who can be competent on the ground, but they're more of a passing team. Indianapolis had Jonathan Taylor get hurt on the first drive. So they had Zach Moss, another guy who was just cut by the Bills,

trying to carry the load for the rest of that game. And that really helped them stay in that game was the fact that they didn't have Taylor breaking off big runs. So this would be a challenge for them. But I am really fascinated by the defensive side because when I watched Kayvon Thibodeau, I saw a little Michael Strahan in that man's game flying off the edge. He's probably a little, is he smaller? He's probably smaller than Strahan.

Yeah, a bit smaller. Yeah. But, you know, I just want to throw back reference or maybe OCU Manura. OCU, I think is a better comparison. I go with the OC one. Yeah, no, I like that. But you talk about him being healthy. He looked so explosive in that game.

And it seems to me that the Giants defense, when it's healthy and then you add in all of these blitzes, you see every broadcast you watch, they're like they blitz 50% of the time. And this is something that the Vikings haven't faced a ton, is like a completely blitz crazy team. And I'm just really interested in this matchup between a Giants defense that now has its freakish pass rusher sort of emerging, along with one of the most aggressive defenses in the league.

Well, speaking of the blitz, remember, that's a staple of Wink Martindale's defense going back to his days with the Baltimore Ravens. So he's pretty much brought over that philosophy. And you do bring up an interesting point with respect to the emergence of Kayvon Thibodeau. And does that take this defense now to another level down the stretch? Because here's the key component. It's not just the emergence of Kayvon Thibodeau, Matt. It's the fact that now they have all four of their key defensive players up front on the field simultaneously. Zizo Jolari and Kayvon Thibodeau, the bookends in terms of the pass rushers, and Dexter Lawrence and Leonard Williams on the interior. There were very few opportunities for all four to be on the field together this season because they were all dealing with injuries at some point.

So now they're all back in the mix, And I think you're seeing what they're capable of doing based on what we saw in Sunday night's game where it came on Tivado. It wasn't just, by the way, the strip sack for the fumble, which was a staple of OCU Manure's play, but it was the high volume of tackles. He was everywhere. The hustle plays, some things that don't always show up in the box score. It's like the energy bunny in terms of just not slowing down. So if you get that motor going, not only does it present opportunities for him, but it presents opportunities for his teammates because he's just not going to all of a sudden take his foot off the pedal. And we know the Vikings offensive line, Kirk Cousins was sacked seven times in that Colts game, which is a stat.

I think that gets overlooked because of the unbelievable comeback. And the Giants pass rush has picked up over the last few games. So I do think they're going to have some opportunities to put some pressure on Kirk Cousins and force him to get rid of the ball quickly. But see, that's why I think the key is, here's the Achilles heel of the Giants defense. They can't stop the run. So if I'm Minnesota, I would lean on Dalvin Cook, see if you could get him going, because that's been the one thing, even with the return of their top playmakers. And even when we saw them all on the field at the same time, they just cannot slow down opposing run defense. I was surprised, Matt. Washington was running the ball so effectively Sunday night with Brian Robinson Jr. And then for some wild reason, they just abandoned the run in the second half. Now, granted,

Taylor Heineke made some big plays to Terry McLaurin and Jahan Dotson, so I don't want to take anything away from them, but they had opportunities on the ground, and they just became a one-dimensional offense, and that played right into, to your point, the Giants' pass rush. So if I'm Kevin O'Connell, I know there's this attractiveness with all these receivers, but I think you want to test the Giants pass rush. So if I'm Kevin O'Connell, I know there's this attractiveness with all these receivers, but I think you want to test the Giants defense on the ground until they can prove that they can slow Dalvin Cook down and put Kirk Cousins in a position where he has to make plays on third and longs. That to me should be the way that Minnesota approaches this game.

See, you just got into one of my theories of why every game is close is because back in the day, coaches would really put an emphasis on grinding out the clock with the run game when they were ahead. But I see this on a weekly basis with the Vikings where, I mean, even Indianapolis, if they could have run effectively, they probably just run out the clock on the Vikings. But teams will just get anxious. Even if the run is working, they'll be like, no, we didn't have one that worked on first down. We got to scrap that, go back to the passing game. And you can almost see it in real time happening. Like the coach

wheels turning like, oh, that's not working. Maybe the Giants would be a team that would continue to run the ball, but there's not very many who will stick with it. So I actually think like what Wink Martindale is doing, just being aggressive with all these blitzes and saying, well, you know, if we give up the run, that's okay in comparison to try to make some big plays. I am very interested in watching the matchup with the Vikings and Dexter Lawrence because we started talking about Dalvin Tomlinson. We need to talk about Dexter Lawrence.

I think that he is one of the elite players in the entire league in terms of defensive linemen. This is a man, like you talk about those guys in the middle go unnoticed. You notice him every single game. He is an absolute monster. And this has been the number one weakness for the Vikings. And you mentioned the sacks they gave up last week. Just always in forever, Kirk cousins and pressure up the middle. It feels like there is an advantage there for the giants with the guys in the middle. Yeah. Dexter Lawrence is having a career year. It really has been exciting to watch his quick development because if you go to

the previous coaching staff, and this goes back to the conversation we were having earlier, Dexter was a solid player, but he was not nearly as disruptive, Matt, as he's been this season. We're talking about a guy that's up there in quarterback hits. He leads the team in sacks. If that doesn't tell you anything, then I don't know what does. And normally the nose tackle is not the guy because Dalvin Tomlinson, he's not a big sack guy. I had mentioned that when we had our conversation a few years back. You're just, you're not going to get sacks. You're going to get

pressure. You're going to get stopping a run, but You're not going to get sacks. You're going to get pressure. You're going to get stopping a run, but you're not going to get seven, eight sacks out of him. That's just not his game. Dexter's giving you that, which has been a really pleasant surprise because it's opened things up for the other guys on the perimeter. And yeah, he has created opportunities consistently. It's not just one good game. I'll give you the perfect example. They played the Packers in London earlier this season, and there was a third down that Aaron

Rodgers was facing. Dexter Lawrence came up, collapsed the pocket, and they were able to get the Packers to go three and out. Offense got back on the field, milked the clock, scored, and that was a huge difference maker. So it's those plays that he's making consistently. And yeah, that should be a concern absolutely for the Vikings. I know Garrett Bradbury has been banged up, so I don't know whether or not he's going to get back. I don't think he practiced the last day. So if you're down, you're starting center, does that mean that the Giants could very well capitalize? Yeah, I think they look at that as an attractive piece. And the other thing that's interesting about Dexter Lawrence is you were talking about

Wink and moving personnel around with the Blitz. He moves Dexter Lawrence around too. And he moves Leonard Williams around specifically. And Leonard's a guy that's played on the outside and the inside throughout his career, going back to his days with the Jets. So the point I'm making is the interior of Vikings offensive linemen, they may not see the same guy consistently during the game because Wink doesn't want to make it so predictable. So yeah, this is a game that's going to be decided, not that it's a huge surprise. Most games are in the trenches, but that's why I go back to if Minnesota can establish the run, maybe you don't allow Wink Martindale to put his flash and press the button to allow his guys to wreak havoc. That's why, once again, I go back to the rushing attack,

because if Kurt's going to be in some of those third and long pass happy situations, the Giants are going to tee off. They're going to take their fair share of chances. There's no doubt about that. So as far as the playoffs go, I mean, what do you think of this team as how they match up in the playoffs? Because I look at them as probably the least team that I would bet on to go deep into the playoffs or last team that I would bet on because they have had to win a lot of games close and because they don't have one of the dominant quarterbacks.

They're the second-class citizens fighting for the bottom seed. And I also think this opinion might change by the end of Saturday, but I also think that they're the matchup the Vikings should want. This is a game where if the Vikings win and try to keep the Giants kind of over here in the seventh seed, they probably want to face them in comparison. I mean, Washington's another team I think they could beat. Seattle doesn't impress me recently.

Detroit, I think the Vikings want to stay away from because of how they just matched up with Detroit. But I look at this team as kind of like good for you with a fun season for fans for the first time in forever, but I'm not sure they're really a scary contender. And I know they are the only franchise ever to win a Super Bowl with a negative point differential, but that was with Eli Manning, who might have been a little bit better. So, yeah, I don't know what you think of, like, are people in New York thinking, like, no, we can actually compete, or, hey, we're kind of a paper tiger

that's having a fun season, and, hey,, like there's good things coming for the future? I think the latter is probably the more popular opinion that this is a really good starting point to build upon. And that hopefully as they beef up the roster, they add more draft classes, they have a little bit more salary cap flexibility to go after free agents that the team can improve and follow the trajectory of what Joe Shane and Brian Dable did in Buffalo. I think that's the most practical approach. Now, there are, I think, a segment of fans, Matt, to your point, that say, oh, we're sniffing the playoffs. We're in the playoff picture. Let's go all in. You never know. Remember, they still have work to do.

They got Minnesota. They got the Eagles. They got the Colts. And everyone's breathing down each other's back. And I'm with you. I think the Lions are the most intriguing team of the four wildcard spots. I don't want a piece of the Lions.

Washington, the Giants, and Seattle. If I'm Minnesota, San Francisco, those teams, I'm fine with playing any of those three. I don't want the Lions because I think Detroit's defense has drastically improved. And I think their rushing attack, which is a little bit overlooked because of all the wide receivers that now they have at their disposal, it's been very strong. Jamal Williams is having a career year and DeAndre Swift is healthy and Justin Jackson is a nice complimentary piece. But getting back to the point about the Giants, yeah, if you're the Vikings and you match up with the giants again, let's say playoff time.

I don't think Minnesota should complain about that because, so here's the thing that I think is being overlooked in this conversation, Matt. It's the fact that the giants are only averaging 20 points a game. And that's more of a reason why if you're the Vikings or the Niners, I don't think they'd match up with the box because I don't think they're going to surpass the Cowboys for the fifth seed. But if the Giants are hovering around 20 points a game, if your offense can get the better of their defense, which I think Minnesota is going to put some pressure on this Giants defense as we talked about, especially, oh, by the way, if a Dory Jackson doesn't return their top corner, which right now doesn't look promising,

then that's going to be, once again, an attractive matchup for the Vikings to make some plays throughout the air with the likes of Justin Jefferson, Adam Thielen, and TJ Hawkinson, and KJ Osborne, who had a really good game against the Commanders. But what I'm saying is the Giants have yet to put together offensive clinics. And if you continue to stay within that 20-point arena, there's going to be some games where your defense plays lights out, like it did against Washington. But there's going to be other games where your defense gives up 25 points. And the last time the Giants got to the 25-point arena was against the Packers in London. And Matt, that was several weeks ago. So yeah, getting back to your point, until the

Giants offense can prove that they can give you 25, 27 points per game. They're walking this tightrope, as I mentioned, that when you walk the tightrope, the law of average normally comes into play, which means some games, it's going to bounce your way. Other games, it's not going to be the case. And I think that's exactly a bit of a microcosm of what this season has been for them. Yeah. I mean, there's a reason why Alex Smith's teams usually kind of petered out once it got to the playoffs because they just couldn't match teams for fire power or randomness played into it too. When you play low scoring games, uh, I remember Marcus Mariota catching his own pass and running it for a touchdown and beating Alex Smith, uh, in one of those games. So it's this, they kind of have to play the same sort of ball game. I think that the Vikings are in the class of the Eagles, the 49ers, and the Cowboys.

Whereas it's like you could just split the NFC contenders right down the middle. But I also don't think this is a team that the Vikings can take for granted because they have big time players. And the Vikings have been susceptible to explosive plays. They've been susceptible to sacks, as you mentioned, which they've taken a lot this year, interceptions,

which they've had their fair share of this year. So, I mean, I think that it's a, it's a good test for the Vikings because there are still people here naturally who are going, you know, you really shouldn't be down 33 to the Colts,

like no matter what. Right. And so the accumulation of the last five games for the Vikings has just been a little more rocky than maybe earlier in the season with the loss going back to Dallas and then the loss in Detroit. Like what, what are we really as a team? I think is what people are, are asking. And I think the Giants provide a nice baseline to kind of find that out. So, um, sorry, go ahead. Go ahead. Yeah, no, I was just going to add, also coming off that Colts game, I think you're looking for a more cleaner performance, and it's going to be a good test from an emotional standpoint, Matt,

whether or not the Vikings can quickly put that last game behind them and say, hey, you know, that wasn't the championship game, even though we pulled off an unreal comeback, which is atop the archives. How did they, I think, bounce back from that standpoint, even though they won? I will say this, and I think you were alluding to this, the Giants turnover differential is plus four. And that's a big reason why they've won some of these closed games. If the Vikings don't give gifts to the Giants, don't shorten the field, there's no reason why they can't put themselves in position to win the game and maybe

win the game comfortably. Because if you go back to, once again, the Washington game Sunday night, two strip sacks of Taylor Heineke, two lost possessions, two in the red zone, Matt, where they had no points to show for it. They didn't even settle for a field goal. That adds up. That's cumulative. So I think teams have come to the realization you protect the football. You don't change field position with the Giants. You're going to create some distance. If you don't do that, then you're going to keep the Giants in the game. And the Giants have proven they're going to say thank you very much and they're going to take it from there. So that's something else to monitor, I think think in terms of this weekend's matchup yeah for sure

and uh you know I I was just going to say that you you talked about that season where they had the negative point differential and how great Eli Manning was as an Eli Manning enjoyer I know we debated him a bit the last time that uh that we were talking about the hall of fame and so forth but I I want to know just if you could think back, what the iconic moment from that run is, going through, I mean, you have to go on three road games and win in order to get to the Super Bowl. Now, of course, I mean, the Super Bowl has its own iconic moments, the fact that they were able to win it. But on that run, what was required of Eli Manning to get that team to the Super Bowl that year? Well, it's interesting, once again, that you bring up the postseason run

because I think I was hinting at this earlier. During the regular season, Matt, it was everything on Eli Manning's shoulders. He had to come up with one heroic performance after another. When the playoffs came around, though, the running game started to emerge a little bit. The defense was opportunistic, got much better. I remember they knocked off, of course, the Packers, who had one of the best turnover differentials in the NFL that season. And then all of a sudden they turned the ball over like crazy. And I'm looking around and I'm like, what's going on here?

So, you know, wacky things happen like that in the playoffs. But I'm not trying to take anything away from Eli. If you go back to the playoff run, to me, it wasn't so much Eli. It was more of the early hit that forced the safety because Brady tried to throw a Hail Mary when he got hit in the end zone. And Ahmad Bradshaw with the run game got going, the offensive line doing a better job. It wasn't so much the narrative of Eli Manning. It was really more of the other facets that were missing during the regular season. And he, of course, made the throw to Mario Manningham. So I think if you're looking for one, I know I wasn't necessarily answering the question

quite maybe the way that you had anticipated, but if you are looking for one example, the Eli Manning pass to Mario Manningham, that's it. You could have not picked better placement in the Super Bowl when they did need him to deliver. Eli came through, And that goes back, once again, this is how our conversation's coming full circle. When you were bringing up the Alex Smith example, it eventually comes back to the quarterback, right? Come playoff time,

you can only cover up some of the limitations of your quarterback, meaning that if the Giants are fortunate enough to get to the playoffs, it's going to come back to Daniel Jones. There's going to be a moment, Matt, where Daniel's going to have to make a play. He's going to have to have a wow me moment because we've seen it with every team and every Super Bowl run. It always comes back to the guy under center. And that remains to be answered, I think, with respect to the giants, because remember, they're still evaluating him. They have a decision to make. He is a lame duck quarterback. Do they give him the franchise tag? Do they work out a new deal? Do they move on? The jury is still out with respect to that. Yeah, no, that's very interesting. And I think from our perspective here, you have a defense that ranks like 28th and yardage and an offense. That's just cracked the top 10. It's kind of,

it's kind of like some of those teams with the giants where you're hoping that the defense finds itself at some point. And that that's what, you know, I think they were looking for last week when they blitzed a lot more and I'll see, be interested to see if they carry that over. Like, are they going to, they blitz Matt Ryan a ton matt ryan is no faster than you are but you know daniel jones has some escapability so they are they going to do the same thing and

plus if you send those blitzes and they give a delay handoff to saquon barkley he might run for 50 yards so this matchup i think has has a lot of juice to it and uh i think that it's the type of thing that the last couple of years if you and and I were talking, we'd just be like, who are they drafting? Who's your team drafting? Who's my team drafting? I don't know. Like, whatever. So, anyway, well, it's always great to get together with you, Lance.

Follow him on Twitter, at Lance Meadow. But don't use the A. It's M-E-D-O-W on Twitter, the Giants Radio Network host and XM Series host. And Columbia basketball play-by-play. That's right. You can't leave that off the resume. Go line. Save the best for last.

Appreciate your time, Lance. It's great to get together with you, man, and enjoy the game. You got it, Matt. Always a pleasure. Thanks for having me on.