Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Nashville talk host thinks the Vikings will blow out the Titans

Episode Date: November 15, 2024

Matthew Coller talks with Jared Stillman of The Game in Nashville about the Titans' woes, Will Levis and why he thinks Vikings fans should be VERY happy with their leadership Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here and joining me on the show, friend of mine, Jared Stillman from The Game in Nashville. Stillman & Company is the daily show. And Jared, I really want you to tell me who plays for the Tennessee Titans. I think that's really what we should do here is you can tell me who is on the roster and who I should be watching for. I'm giving you a hard time, but I haven't thought about the Tennessee Titans a single time until this moment when we turned on this podcast to start talking. So how are you? Who's on your team? Okay. So I think when we start with the Titans, they have the best running back in football, Derek.

No, no, no, he's not on their team anymore. They have one of the best receivers in the NFL, A.J. Bratton. He's not on their team anymore. So there's a little bit of an identity crisis here with the Titans. I mean, right now they have Tony Pollard. That's their entire team is Tony Pollard. And the great part about Tony Pollard and him being their entire team is that he's not as good as the guy that they let go in order to sign him.

Will Levis, the quarterback, has been a disappointment, but I don't know how much of that's Levis and how much of that is they don't have a right tackle. They don't. They're starting centers out. They're right guard, retired two weeks into practice. Their defense is ranked number one in the NFL, but they never get sacks. They never get turnovers, and they don't get key stops in big moments.

Ernest Jones, who might have been one of the best players on that defense, who got traded a couple weeks ago to the Seahawks, said, you know, we're a great defense except for when it matters. who got traded a couple weeks ago to the Seahawks, said, you know, we're a great defense, except for when it matters. And I think that's also a little bit of the problem. So to answer your questions, Collar, it is a depressing time in Titan land right now. And I think there are a lot of people, because they spent $230 million in free agency, that expected a lot better coming into the season.

I got to be honest. I also was one of those people. I did not expect it to be this bad. And part of that though, is that you just really never know what the quarterback is going to be. So why don't we talk about Will Levis? The Vikings had an opportunity to draft Will Levis. They decided, nope, we're going to wait till next year. And they drafted J.J. McCarthy this year. And every time I see Will Levis, there is one of two things happening. It is an awesome throw that is down the field. And you go, whoa, what a cannon this guy has. Or it is the worst thing that anyone has ever done at the quarterback position. And it seems that those are the only two options for Will Levis. But that's me in the few times I've had a chance to watch NFL Red Zone and he pops up

doing something crazy. What is the full evaluation or do you feel like it's not really possible to fully evaluate him under these circumstances and with the injury that he had? Well, I'm not sure it's totally possible to completely evaluate him. I also just think that the way the league works is that that's what they do anyways. And I think that the Vikings quarterback is a great example of this in Sam Darnold because Sam Darnold was in a horrendous organization in New York. And when he was with the Jets, I mean, he was a laughingstock. I mean, he was kind of the butt of a joke that, oh, yeah you're going to draft Sam Darnold. Oh yeah. How's that working out?

But you know, Adam Gase was a dope and that was a poorly run organization. And I can't even remember who he was throwing to in New York. He goes to Carolina, very poorly run organization. It's well-documented and people kind of forget with Sam Darnold that the last month of the 2022 season in Carolina, when David Tepper kind of gave up on the season and so took his hand out of the cookie jar, fired Matt Rule. I mean, Sam Darnold and DJ Moore really, I mean, they gave Carolina a shot to make the playoffs. And Sam Darnold was 4-2 as a starter. He had a higher QBR than Aaron Rodgers. And I actually watched those games. And I ran into Sam at the Super Bowl after the end of the 22 season. And I told him, I said, I don't know how manyitter as their starter, but they weren't totally, you know, Desmond the guy. He would sign a Sam Darnold to be the backup, and then six weeks into the season, Sam's in there starting,

and, you know, what we thought would have been a good offense in Atlanta, he would have flourished. When he signed with Minnesota, I kept telling people, I kept saying, this guy is going to have a renaissance. And I got laughed at. I think he's as good as Jared Goff, as good as Ryan Tannehill. I think all those guys are the same. If you have a bad team and a bad coach, Jared Goff stinks.

If you have a good team and a good coach, Jared Goff's good. Now, is he good enough to win the Super Bowl? I don't know. He's good enough to get close. But I don't know if you win it. That takes you back to Levis. Their number one receiver, Calvin Ridley, can't catch. Their other receiver, DeAndre Hopkins, is now on the Kansas City Chiefs.

Their first round draft choice and receiver, Traylon Burks, is a bust. They have no starting caliber tight end. Their number one tight end is a former fourth round draft pick who sucks. They have no right tackle. Their right guard, as I said, quit two weeks into training camp. Their center's out for the season. And their head coach is a rookie who's in over his head. I mean, I'm not sure exactly how to evaluate Levis. And the problem is, you know, Collar, I think what happened was everybody in Titan land took two performances. Levis had the first start of his career where he lit up the Atlanta Falcons and a comeback that he had against Miami on the road on Monday night football last year. And they just assumed, okay, let's get big bad Vrabel out of here.

Who's a defensive coach anyways. And let's bring in an offensive guru Allah O'Connell or Zach Taylor or Sean McVay, or, you know, Mike McDaniel. Let's bring in our offensive guru and we'll be on our way. And unfortunately, you know, not all these offensive gurus are created equally. And I think, too, like, oh, Rick Spielman, I think, left some tools in the toolbox for the Vikings to give Kevin O'Connell. He's got the best receiver in the football, in the game.

Like you don't really have that here. And so it's a long-winded way of me saying, I mean, I think Levis is kind of a dope. I think Levis, you know, he's kind of the opposite of those guys, the ice water in the veins kind of guys. I think he's kind of the opposite of that, which is unfortunate. He's the opposite of Joe Burrow, which is what Brian Callahan's used to. But at the same time, I don't know how any second year quarterback can be expected to carry a team

when they don't have a right tackle. So to me, again, I think this is the conundrum that we live in in Titan land, which is everything's terrible, but there's all these different opinions as to why. Well, at least that's good for sports talk radio. If people have different opinions. So people think that and it is I mean, like, you know, the ratings will say that it is not bad, like either be horrendous or be great. And, you know, the middling eight and nine is the worst place to be. At the same time, though, it's not fun every day to be arguing. You know, the Titans, the Titans have turned into what the Indianapolis Colts used to be.

And I used to make fun of the Colts with this where frank reich was the coach which is they used to be so concerned about off-season narratives and positive press and all these things that really don't matter in the nfl now winning free agency it doesn't matter in the nfl but they get excited about it and maybe it's because they're building a new stadium and they're trying to sell psls and i don't know if the v the Vikings you know pumped tires when they moved into their new stadium for fun I don't know but it's really disheartening because you know everybody has an expectation level the team comes out they're probably the worst team in the league I mean they needed overtime at home to beat New England. And yet there's all this complaining and yelling and screaming about why,

and the owners got her ego involved, and the GM keeps – I mean, they lost by 32 to the Lions, and the GM came out and told the paper that the ball didn't bounce their way. So it's an unmitigated disaster around here on all fronts. I think the spread's eight. Am I right about that? I think the spread's eight. Am I right about that? I think the spread's eight on Sunday. Lay the crap out of the Vikings because the Titans suck. And I did this yesterday.

The Titans are one and eight against the spread this year. And their one victory was on the road at Miami when they started Snoop Huntley at quarterback. So, again, lay the crap out of the Vikings. You know, if I had a local talk show in Minneapolis, we wouldn't spend a second talking about this horrific Titan team other than they should win this game by 17 points. I got to tell you the truth. You're here because we're friends. That's why we're here. Not because I was desperate for that. No, but I am actually quite interested in, in the Levis situation and the approach of the Titans, because I'm always thinking about team building, comparing it to things that the Vikings have done. And this offseason, they did win the free agency in a lot of ways by bringing in a lot of players that looked like on paper.

All right. Well, they're going to have some good players on defense. If you add a few weapons, the Tony Pollard, the DeAndre Hopkins around Will Levis, it'll be at least a competitive type of situation. The AFC South is never all that special. And maybe you could take a step forward with Levis to be a fairly competitive team. And it turns out that building through entirely free agency is just not a good strategy. But with Levis, I guess I wonder what you see in terms of the skill set and if that's something that they can build around. Because right now, he must be just getting rid of the ball as fast as he can.

He's averaging 5.9 yards per pass attempt. The numbers are not so horrific, though. It's not like this is even what Bryce Young was doing early in the year. Like we've seen it's not even what Caleb Williams has been doing recently. It's better than that. So I'm having trouble figuring out, like, is this somebody who could even against the Vikings, who could pop a little at some point or even just into the future if given a better circumstance start to grow or is that hope just not even existent there because of the circumstances around it well i can't speak for

everybody else i can speak for me i thought his best game was sunday against the chargers and he didn't turn the football over but he got sacked seven times and he held on the ball a little too long on some of those but it might might've been his best game. I think he's a backup. You know, I mean, I think that, you know, I went into the year thinking, I went into kind of when he was drafted, I thought he was a first round talent. You know, I liked what I saw on the tape, saw the problems, knew what was there, but felt like with a lot of these young quarterbacks, there's like a certain talent threshold you have to have.

And then there's the other things that like, we're not privy to knowing, like we don't know like what's in somebody's heart and what's in somebody's head, you know? And that's what these general managers get paid millions and millions of dollars to figure out. You know, if you can take a Josh Allen and develop them, take up a Holmes and develop them, develop him, that kind of thing. And with Levis, there was first-round talent that was there.

I think he right now is more of a backup. I think that the situation that the Titans have put him in I don't think was very good last year, and I think it might even be worse this year. I think that you made a couple of points that I'm not sure I'm totally in agreement with, but I think that it's the Titans specific here. So like, let's use the building through free agency. The Titans spent $230 million, I think total, I think they spent like guaranteed $100 million. So they spent $ guaranteed a hundred million dollars.

So they spent a hundred million dollars in free agency guaranteed. And yet they did it on an injured corner in LeGarrius State, a team that the Vikings were interested in. And then they got a snip of the medicals and were like, no, no, no, no, no, no. Thank you. So that's stupid. You know what I mean? Like you can spend $25 million on a player and it make a difference. But when you spend it on an injured player who's injured, you know, I mean, like you can spend $25 million on a player and it make a difference. But when you spend it on an injured player who's injured, you know, that's a problem. So, you know, they spent $8 million on a running back. They ignored right tackle.

Again, like that's just stupid. And so the Titans, I believe, are a dumb organization. They were run competently. Then John Robinson, the general manager, got arrogant. He and Mike Vrabel, I think, probably had a falling out. Vrabel got arrogant. I mean, he's the embodiment of arrogance in Vrabel, who I think is a good coach, but it was time for him to go. And the owner's arrogant because she thinks she can just do whatever and it'll work. And it's just bad football. And so you bring up Levis, like,

is there something there? I mean, what I've seen, I think he's a backup. I think they put too much on his plate. I think they had a first year coach who thought I can coach him. I can do it. And I think it's a little bit more complicated than that. And between all of that and the bad decisions and drafting a guard with the 11th overall pick and drafting a run stuffing DT at 38 and just the bad things the Titans have done it's like you have to try to screw it up this poorly and that's where they find themselves so I would say that in a big picture I think he's a backup but I have a big picture, I think he's a backup, but I have sympathy with him. And I think there's a little silver lining in there that like, again, like with Sam Darnold, maybe it's just the organizational incompetence more so than it is the ability of the quarterback.

Yeah. And we do see that all over the place. I think it's one of the hardest things to figure out in football is, is it the team? Is it the player? And they're going through that in Chicago. Was it Shane Waldron or can Caleb Williams not see the field? Well, I'll answer the question for you right now. It's Chicago. Same issue with tight zone. Same issue. I mean, I, I remember I was on Sirius XM, you know, when I want to say like right towards the end of last year. And I said, you know, I think it was like the last week of the year and Chicago had already clinched the number one pick because Carolina was so bad. And I said, they need to fire the coach.

And they said, but Jerry, they got hot at the end of the year and Eberflues and they're, I'm like they're seven and 10 and they're going to change the quarter. They're going to draft Caleb Williams. I said, anything you hear between now and the second that they draft Caleb Williams is all just fodder. They are drafting Caleb Williams with the number one pick. Justin Fields will not be their quarterback next year.

So they need to go get a new coach because if you have a defensive coach and you hire a good offensive coordinator and the quarterback develops, what's going to happen to the coordinator? What's going to happen to Cliff Kingsbury in Washington? He's going to be a head coach next year. So then they will start over with Jaden Daniels in year two or so. That's bad football. So I'm like, you need to go get an offensive coach that's Caleb's guy and start over. And then you can have your coaching staff do their jobs instead of being worried about protecting their jobs. And in Chicago, they just can't see the forest from the trees.

They drafted Mitch Trubisky, and they fired John Fox a year later. So in comes Matt Nagy with a quarterback that he didn't draft. So then that doesn't work. They draft Justin Fields, and they fire Matt Nagy with a quarterback that he didn't draft. So then that doesn't work. They draft Justin Fields and they fire Matt Nagy a year later. So here comes Matt Eberflus with a quarterback he didn't draft. Now they're going to fire Eberflus at the end of the year. They're going to bring in a new coach and he's going to have a quarterback that he didn't draft. And you've been doing this long enough, Colin, you know as well as I do. If you were a prospective head coach who's somebody who's

going to be in the hiring cycle this year that's probably not ben johnson but could get a job offensive coach maybe like bobby slowick from houston perfect example bobby slowick took like nine head coaching interviews last year didn't get a a single job offer. You're Bobby Sloan. And you don't really like Caleb Williams. You, you sat there and told everybody in Houston, we got to draft CJ Stroud at number two, because even if we're this bad,

you know, I don't love Caleb. So you don't really love Caleb, but the Chicago bears call and the Chicago bears say, would you be interested in D what do you think of Caleb Williams? What's he going to say? I love him. I love him. He's great. It's going to be great. It's going to be awesome. It's going to be, we see this all the time. And so then the next coach said, well, I didn't draft him and it wasn't my guy. And it wasn't. And again, it's the organizational

incompetence. And it always starts with the owner. It always goes to the top. I mean, and so, again, like, I just, when it comes to the Titans, when it comes to the, it's so hard to determine who's at fault that when I think you get into this mess, you're just best off doing what Washington did and just blow the whole thing up and get everybody on the same schedule. Have you ever tried to explain football to a little kid?

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Use the code PURPLE, though, and you get 10% off. Again, futurefans.com, code PURPLE, and unlock a lifetime of memories with a kid in your life starting now. No, I completely agree. And you're dealing with the same thing in Tennessee where it's a different person at head coach who inherits Will Levis. And then the whole coaching interview is, well, how are you going to turn around or make something out of this quarterback that you didn't draft and might not completely believe in? But who else is offering you a head coaching job? I think that's a great point.

And then when you have a quarterback that's in second, third year, the pressure ramps up very quickly on the head coach. Like, oh, well, he's been in the league a couple of years. You should be winning now. We spent all that money in free agency. You should be winning. And then the vicious cycle just continues over and over again. And I'd like to remind my Viking fans, listeners who are upset that they didn't beat the Jaguars by enough, that your organization is a lot more competent than others in the NFL with

the way they've handled a lot of different things with this roster build, I do want to circle back to the defense because it is the weirdest stat line I think I've ever seen for a defense to be number one in the league in yards allowed. And I know it's not all the defense, but also 29th in points allowed. How does that, like, is this defense any good? Is it the points that they played is okay it's not good no so here's how the titans ended up with the number one defense the first couple of weeks you know first of all everybody thinks in training camp that they're going to the super bowl and so the titans defense i mean there are good players on it jeff. Jeffrey Simmons is a high-end player in the NFL.

Ernest Jones, when he was on the team, was a very good inside backer. Imani Hooker, the safety, he's a solid safety. Harold Landry's a solid outside backer, pass rusher. So they've got, I mean, solid players. Even the run-stuffing DT that we laugh about that they took with the 38th pick, I mean, he can stuff the run. I mean, he's the Outland Trophy winner, and he's one of the fattest guys with quick feet I've ever seen. So that's all there for whatever that's worth.

But again, going back to the defense, the Titans have the worst special teams that I have ever seen in my entire life. And that's saying something because the special teams last year was so bad that Mike Vrabel had to fire the special teams coach in the middle of the year after the punter got his leg broken. And this is after Vrabel and I got into it over the special teams coach in front of the owner, you know, the previous offseason. And so this special teams unit is so bad. I mean,

Kalief Raymond of the lions who used to play with Titans almost set an NFL record for punt return yards three weeks ago against the Titans. I mean, it's one thing after another, they spend an entire week of answering questions about why they haven't fired a special teams coach. And then they play the Patriots and they can't get lined up on the opening kickoff. So it's a complete train wreck. And so what happens is when you're allowing 50-yard returns every game,

well, the other team only has to go so far in order to score a touchdown. And so I've been saying this for weeks. The Titans started the year off playing a bunch of bad quarterbacks, bad offenses. They lost to Chicago in week one. They fired their play caller. They lost to the Jets in week two. They fired their play caller. They got crushed by Malik Willis managing the game in week three.

In week four, they played Snoop Huntley, and they actually won. I want to say in week five, it was Joe Flacco and the Colts. It's not exactly Manning, Brady, Breeze in a row. They played Buffalo, got their ass kicked. They played Detroit. They got crushed. They played the Chargers. They got smoked. They got crushed. They played the Chargers. They got smoked.

Real quarterbacks. And again, you know, the Detroit game, they just didn't give up a lot of yards because they almost allowed an NFL record of punt return yards. So, I mean, they're 29th in the league in points allowed because Levis turns the ball over and special teams are terrible. But also, they don't get turnovers, they don't get sacks, and they don't get turnovers they don't get sacks and they don't get key stops you know there's a big moment in the jets game in week two where there's a second and 16 and aaron rogers just pops a ball right over chidobe aluzia's head for mike williams i mean and now that we know how the story ends with rogers and williams and hackett and everything like that's embarrassing that's the titan defense i wouldn't worry about the tit defense. I watched the Vikings game on Sunday against Jacksonville. I was actually really keeping an eye on Mac Jones because I was wondering if Mac Jones could be like a Sam Darnold

somewhere else down the road. I was not encouraged by what I saw from Mac Jones in the game Sunday, but I would not worry at all. I mean, Justin Jefferson is going to be going up against the fifth round rookie. This is not a fair fight. Well, other than that, though, I mean, it seems like it's not that bad. You're right, though. When I looked at the schedule and the quarterbacks that they had faced, it's not exactly a murderer's row. I think it's maybe a perfect situation for Sam Darnold to bounce back.

Is there, I just can't help but follow up on this. How does the special teams end up this bad? Like, what is the explanation for, because the Vikings special teams is, I would say, a ghost on the team. They basically don't return punts. They don't return kicks. Their kicker has been amazing. He got hurt.

The other kicker was fine. We just don't. The punter's been fine. We just don't even discuss the special teams because it's not part of the conversation. How does a special teams unit become that laughably bad? So week one, the Titans jump up to a 17-0 lead on Chicago. And remember, this was like supposed to be the Chicago dream season, which I never understood with a rookie quarterback. No matter how hyped the rookie quarterback is, he's still a rookie,

but that's their business, not mine. They have a 17-0 lead going to halftime. I am, I watched the games with my dad. You know, I grew up here, so we're Titan fans. Like watching the game, and I'm like, the only way the Titans lose is if they screw up. And they get a punt blocked for a touchdown. And that's what led to the floodgates and then led us, you know, it was a disaster. Week two, they play the Jets. They get a punt blocked.

Week three, Braden Narveson in Green Bay, who cannot kick, misses a 47-yarder, but Jeffrey Simmons gets called for defensive holding on a field goal. The Packers turn that into a touchdown. I'm trying to think. I'm going in my head. In week four, would they beat the Dolphins? The Dolphins got called for a safety,

and it was late in the game, so they had an onside free kick. And the special teams coach did not know the rule of where the landing zone was on the new adjusted kickoff rules and everything else. And somebody may hear that and think to themselves like i'll ask you caller do you know where the landing zone is on a free kick on an on-site a declared on-site free kick with the new kickoff rules and whatever do you know what the box is for this particular instance uh off the top of my head i do not i mean because they move it back to the 20 so does that move the box forward i don't know either but guess what i'm not the special teams coach right like that's the that is the that's the job like that is the job that's like the referee not knowing the rule

like it's the you need to know the rule so i mean again that's just the first month of the season i mean again khalif raymond almost set an nfl record um they gave up huge pump returns they gave up a huge kickoff return last week that led to a charger touchdown and then i got brian callahan who i like him because he's a good man but he's probably in over his head a little bit and he's up there saying well i mean our gunners were good but we just gave up the kick return because a guy fell down. And, like, no one wants to hear that anymore. Nobody cares.

And so if you can't get lined up for a kickoff, you know, when they allowed Khalif Raymond all those return yards against the Lions, Brian Callahan's excuse was, well, we decided to get bigger guys in on the puck team because we got punts blocked and people were upset about that. So we brought in bigger guys and now we're having trouble cover. I'm like, well, there are 31 other teams in the league that apparently can protect for the punt and can go cover the punt. So I don't know why you can't.

It's just, it's an unmitigated disaster. This all goes back to December of 2022. People forget the Titans used to be good. Like it wasn't that long ago. And John Robinson had whiffed on three straight first round picks. And people were, you know, patience was getting a little thin here. And they went to Philadelphia and they got beat by A.J. Brown and he spanked the goalpost. And the owner fired him the following Tuesday.

They were seven and five and in first place, the division. They had won back to back division titles. They had been to the playoffs three years in a row. They had been to an AFC title game. They'd had the number one seed in the AFC playoffs the year before. They'd been to the playoffs four out of the last five years. And for the owner, it was like, not good enough. And when you fire a general manager like that in the middle of the season, when you're in first place, when you're, I'm like, there's got to be something there. You know, there's got to be something like he fooled around with the secretary. He was scalping tickets. He told the owner, F you. You know, it had to be something like that.

So, I mean, I did some digging, talked to some people. There were some people over there that did not want to talk, would not say it. There were some people over there that were like, no, she just wasn't happy with the performance. And when I heard that, I put my head in my hands. Again, I'm a Titans fan. And I said, oh my God. See, I laugh at the stupid teams in the NFL because they're always the same right the Jets the Jags the Raiders the Browns and you know they may surprise you with one good season here but like then it goes right back to the toilet every year and it's the same teams Washington was that way Dan Snyder's out Now it looks like they've got a regular run

organization. So that week when I was, they fired him on Tuesday and on Thursday, I think I'd come to the conclusion that there wasn't some HR related issue here and that the owner just fired him. And I said to myself, I go, Oh my God, you're one of the dumb teams. Like the Titans are one of the dumb teams. And it's so easy when you're not a dumb team to point and laugh at the other dumb teams but when you are a dumb team there's really you know again how are the special teams so bad how is lev is so bad how is the offensive line so bad how is the it goes all the way back to that the owner does not have a clue. And until she realizes, okay, because she had, you know, John Robinson, the general manager, he ran the whole show. Until she realizes,

I got to fire everybody I have right now. And then, you know, hire a football guy to run the whole show. It's kind of a fashion faux pas in the NFL to hire a general manager that's been a general manager before. You know, Dan Quinn and Cliff Kingsbury can go get coaches, coaching jobs again. But like nobody's interested in bringing in Thomas Dimitrov who built up the Falcons to that 28 to three lead in the Super Bowl.

Cause it's like, well, it ended poorly in Atlanta. So did it with Dan Quinn. But again, I don't understand. I have been lobbying for really, I mean, I wanted them to clean house at the end of last year. And we're like, you can't do that first year GM. And I'm like, he's a moron, guys. Like, you just got to cut, bait, and go. And I've been begging because the owner does not know if the ball is pumped or stuffed

so I have been begging like go get an experienced guy go get Rick Spielman to run the operation go get Thomas Dimitrov to run the operation go get Pete Carroll to run the operation because you know as well as I do caller even though Pete Carroll's old and quirky, there's no way the special teams would be this bad if Pete Carroll was running the show. And so that's what it all goes back to. And I mean, like, Viking fans, you should be thankful. You have a good coach.

And like, you may not win the Super bowl this year and you may not win it next year and when it goes to jj mccarthy there might be a step back and it might take some time and they might run the ball and it might just deal with it because if the second you get rid of the smart people you are likely to bring in the stupid people because you got rid of the smart people because you are stupid and didn't realize they were smart. So hear this out. Do not fire smart people that have had success. Go to them and say, okay, what can we do to get back on track? Not, well, I just got fired because, you know, we didn't win last week and I wanted to win last week. And I think that's the problem with Titans. Gifting is hard, but here's a hint. Give the gift of connection from U.S. Cellular. Not sure what

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The Vikings could have, they didn't have to, but they could have extended Kweisi Adafomensa and Kevin O'Connell before the season. And when we talked to the owner, Mark Wilf, he said, well, we're not really talking about that right now, which is not a panic thing because they weren't in the final year of their deals. But still, I wrote that you have to stay the course with this. When you reach the level of organizational competence, you have to be very, very serious about it when you're going to change that because they have acted competently going from the Rick Spielman and Kirk era into the next era of Vikings football. And as you mentioned, I mean, even if it doesn't finish with a ring or a deep playoff run, still what they've proven here through this season,

even this start to the season is competence from the coaching staff. And when we were talking about free agency, you can't build a whole team through free agency, but you could get Blake Cashman, Andrew Van Ginkle, and Jonathan Grenard and make your team a hell of a lot better if you make the right decisions. Plus the handling of Sam Darnold, the handling of J.J. McCarthy, where they were not going to throw him right into the fire and ask him to be the guy like so many other teams have made that mistake.

We, we nitpick the heck out of everything because we should, because when you're a winning team, you got to take advantage of that opportunity, but that it can, it can just go so much farther off the rails. If you make the wrong decision. And I mean,

you're right. Like those Titans teams for the longest time were kind of Vikings middling type of teams with Mariota and then started to be that way with Tannehill and then had some really, really good seasons there and could just not quite get over the hump. That's a way different spot than where you're at now. I started my career in Buffalo during the EJ Manuel era. That's exactly what this reminds me of. When they had Ralph Wilson

as their owner and he had lost touch with what was going on. And it was just one calamity after the next, uh, I guess you're always a quarterback and a coach away like a Buffalo was, but it feels like there's a lot to be done there. Um, so here's what I'm saying to the Vikings though, yeah, that I, I, that I think is incredibly fascinating. And that is, like, I think O'Connell is one of the better quarterback coaches in the NFL. So McVay, LaFleur, O'Connell, Andy Reid, you know, I think he's one of the better quarterback coaches. And we know that quarterback's the most important position. So, you know, we get so into the draft nowadays nowadays and J.J. McCarthy was a top 10 draft pick and you don't draft a quarterback in the top 10 if he's not your franchise guy and yet Sam

Darnold is 27 years old and I you know there was a and everybody that doesn't have a quarterback is going to be clamoring for Sam Darnold at the end of this year, and that includes the Titans. You know, I kept saying, like, Dallas has to sign Dak in the offseason to whatever he wants because if Dak gets to free agency, you don't think the Giants are going to sit there and say, hey, screw drafting a quarterback. Like, let's give Dak $65 million, get him away from the Cowboys,

put him on our team. I don't even like Dak that much. The Titans are moving into a new stadium. You can sell PSLs with Dak Prescott at quarterback. Not sure you can do it with another year Will Evans. Well, Dak's off the market. So Darnold's the guy. I think Minnesota's going to tag Darnold. Like, I think that that is inevitable. And the way they're looking at it right now is this is a bad quarterback draft. And there's going to be about six or seven teams that need a quarterback. And so we are going to tag him and we're going to try to get a low first round pick or a high second round pick in exchange for Sam Darnold. But if Kevin O'Connor were to truly evaluate this and we're to go to Mark Wilf and we're to say, I think Sam's the guy.

Like I, I, I know we drafted JJ and I love JJ and it's workable there, but I think Sam's the guy, like he can make every throw. He's now been in my system for a year. He's got the respect of his teammates. He's 27, which again means there's about 10 more years on the bone like let's leverage the tag to sam and offer him a baker contract you know not 55 million or whatever and he gets traded then he gets the 55 million because when you trade a second round pick for darnoldarnold, you've got to extend him.

But let's give him the Baker contract, $35 million a year, to be the quarterback for three years. We'll guarantee two. We're working on J.J. behind him. We're not just going to get rid of J.J., but he'll be the backup, and we'll work on him. Because this is a bad quarterback draft, you might be able to spin JJ into the sixth pick, or you may be, if you think, and I just wonder, like, your ownership has to truly believe in the coach, and the coach has to truly, or GM, you know,

whoever makes the decision on the quarterback, and I feel like in Minnesota it's O'Connell, just your ownership has to be comfortable with your coach's opinion your coach has to feel comfortable that he can go to the owner and say hey i know that we had this whole plan when we let go of kirk and our whole plan was built around jj but i'm telling you sam's the guy like this is i i want to change the plan and i don't i don't know minnesota well enough to know like yeah they'd say okay we're in on sam i don't know Minnesota well enough to know like, yeah, they'd say, okay, we're in on Sam. I don't know that,

but I do think that that's going to be a huge storyline this off season of what they do. Cause I don't think they're letting Darnold just go out into free agency and sign a four year, $212 million contract. Yeah. I think they, I mean, if there's the opportunity, which there probably will be to tag and trade him, then they have to take advantage of that, especially because they're very, very short on draft capital.

And the, like you said, the market for a quarterback is going to be extremely high. How about the Raiders? I mean, the Raiders would love, Mark Davis would love a big, giant, armed quarterback, and they've been so miserable since moving into their stadium. They haven't been exciting or fun at all. As far as the Vikings go, it should be and is Kevin O'Connell's decision.

He made the decision on J.J. McCarthy. He, I think, wanted maybe to trade up for Drake May, but that opportunity wasn't there. But it was him making the call on McCarthy McCarthy and he'll make the call here. And I think what the general manager's job is to do is to work with whatever he decides he wants to do. So if he wants to stay with Sam Darnold, then, all right, now I got to figure that out. How are we going to pay for it? And also what can we get back for JJ McCarthy? I think presently, and this could change, and I know they're seven and two and they're a really good team and they're a good offense I still think Kevin O'Connell would say trade away

Darnold and go to J.J. McCarthy I think that McCarthy is it's it's so hard because I only have a sample of a training camp but I think he's a little bit better with seeing the field, decision-making, playmaking. And I think that O'Connell is tweaking up the offense as much as he possibly can. I mean, like Ryan Tannehill, where it was a great job to set up that offense the way it was. But I think we all knew there's kind of a ceiling on that. And you mentioned those quarterbacks that do have a ceiling

where you do the same tweaks with McCarthy. There might be more there. But it's going to be a very hard thing to do. I mean, even with San Francisco going from Jimmy G to Brock Purdy or Alex Smith to Patrick Mahomes, Tyrod Taylor to Josh Allen, you're never really sure if you're giving up a quarterback who's a little better than 500. But you make a great point with Darnold's age.

That also might complicate it. Let's say you go to Arizona in the first round of the playoffs, you beat the Cardinals, you come to Detroit and you lose by a last second field goal to Detroit. And Darnold throws for 320 yards. You're like, what, what do we do now where this guy's won 12 games and a playoff game? And, but then his cost is going to be $40 million to keep him.

What's the difference in players that you can bring in for that? It's going to, it's going to get complicated here. So what you just described is exactly what the Giants messed up because the Giants won the playoff game in Minnesota. And then they were like, well, we got to keep Daniel Jones and we got to, and they got too caught up in winning the negotiation with Jones or Barkley. It was basically, hey, one of you is getting the tag. The other one's getting the deal. The first one that takes the deal gets the deal. The other one gets the tag. Well, the deal for the quarterback is 110 million.

The deal for the running back is 30 million. So even if you overpaid Barkley, but you tag Jones, then you find yourself in a position where, well, we overpaid the running back by a couple of million dollars. When you overpay Jones, because again, he had a good year. He did. When you overpay Daniel Jones, now you've overpaid by $40 million and you're stuck at that position. And who knows how the Giants are getting out of this? They may get out of it with Sam Darnold. Well, they're going to have to trade a second round pick in order to do it. And I don't even know if they have a second round pick. Like they Titans because Carolina traded with the Rams for that second round pick, you know, in order to take Braden Fisk.

Because they had this dream of verse and Fisk equals Aaron Donald. And they might be right, but that was kind of their dream. So they traded a future second in order to move up. So it was two second round picks and a fifth to move up to 39. There's a video the Rams put out of Les Snead on the phone saying, would you take an extra second? And then getting turned down. And basically what Snead told McVay in the video is exactly what Brian Callahan told the press about why they didn't trade down when they took a run stuffing DT with the 38th pick.

So I have just put two and two together to say that the Titans turned that trade down and they don't have the extra second round pick. Well, I was talking yesterday. I was like, if you've got an extra second round pick, then it's easier to justify, hey, we'll give you the Rams second for Sam Darnold. We'll sign Darnold, you know, four years, 50 million bucks a year, something like that. But hey, now we can use that second overall pick on Travis Hunter. Now we can use it on a right tackle, you know, the second pick of the second round on a right tackle. So now we got a right tackle. We got

Travis Hunter. We got Calvin Ridley, Tony Pollard, Sam Darnold. you can win with that. But again, it's the dumb teams keep doing dumb things. And I feel like O'Connell has kind of graduated from, let's see him go from offensive coach to, coach, you've got our trust. Just the same way Matt LaFleur does at Green Bay. And I think that Minnesota is going to reap the rewards because of it. Well, I think so too. I mean, this is the best they've been set up in a very, very long time after so many years of being in the middle with Kirk Cousins. Let me ask you one more question, just for fun. I don't think either one of us thinks the Tennessee Titans can

win this football game, but it is the National Football League in any given week. If it happened, if the Titans upset the Vikings, how would it happen? Sam Darnold would become New York Jets Sam Darnold. That's the only, and there were some, there were some of that in that Jacksonville game on Sunday then, but that's it. Brian Flores' defense will absolutely dominate the Titans offensive line. Levis won't know where the pressure's coming. You know, when it's coming, you know, are they dropping out? He will have no idea. Justin Jefferson will be matched up on either a rookie safety or, I mean, a rookie corner or a nickel who's playing the outside because of the injuries. There's no matchup there. The Titans don't sack the quarterback. I mean, it's, to me,

it's pretty, I mean, to me, it's pretty cut and dry. I mean, I'd lay the points here. And I'm going to finish this up with one question for you. How would you, and I want you to speak on behalf of all the Vikings fans and people in Minnesota. What would you think if you saw an alert on your phone, on Twitter, on whatever, the Tennessee Titans have fired Rand Carthon and are hiring former Vikings general manager Rick Spielman? Yeah, that's a, it's a little complicated because there's two versions of Rick Spielman that were in Minnesota. The version that built the team that went to the 2017 NFC Championship and then the Kirk Cousins version of Rick Spielman. And the big difference is job security and pressure. once they signed cousins and it was super bowl or bust every single year they made moves that were

unexplainable to try to save their bacon i mean they traded a fourth round draft pick for chris herndon who couldn't play anymore and was going to get cut by the jets because they got a tight end hurt in training camp and then their backup tight end was fine the entire season but they gave away a fourth round pick out of desperation they drafted a kicker and then they cut him after he missed a couple of kicks out of just desperation knowing that like if if this goes sideways we're all getting fired and so i and i also think that they were very very hamstrung to where they had to hit on draft picks because the most money they ever spent on a free agent during Kirk's time, I believe was Michael Pierce. They extended Kyle Rudolph when they had

drafted another tight end. Like there was a bunch of things that just didn't make a lot of sense, except through the window of, oh, they're feeling the heat and they're making these moves because they know they got to eke out enough wins to have a job next year. But if you go back to the original build, the drafting of Teddy Bridgewater, not Rick's fault that his knee blew up, but he was on a really good track. They built well through the draft. The 2015 draft is legendary here. They, I think, made a lot of really good moves between the general manager and the head coach to build the defense the way Mike Zimmer wanted it to be a defensive team first. At the time when he got here,

they had Adrian Peterson and the division had a lot of good quarterbacks. So they were thinking we got to be a defense and run the ball team. They built it to that. Most of all too, I would say about Rick Spielman is that the man knows how to run an organization, like from a scouting department to coaching staff to all those things. This is a lifelong football person who, whether you like some of the draft picks or don't like them, he got them Jefferson and Derisaw without picking in the top 10.

Those are two of the top 10 players in the league, but also drafted a bunch of guys who didn't work out like everybody else. But as far as how the boss is going to operate with the people below him, the organization, the structure, all those things, they were for a long time until his relationship with Zimmer fell apart, a very competent franchise in that way. So if you hire Rick Spielman and like over here, there's not too many people who had been more critical

than Spielman during the Kirk era than me. But I would still say that as far as getting the organization back to knowing what the F it's doing, he's a guy who could, who could do that. And probably Thomas Dimitrov is the same way. Like these guys have done it before. I a hundred percent agree with you. It always has to be the shiny toy. It always has to be the, well, this guy's got really new and wild ideas and everything else, but sometimes things are done the way they're done for a reason, and people who have been in their jobs for a long time understand that. So I think that that would help the Titans get back into relevancy.

Well, Collar, I appreciate that. Makes me feel better about my own opinion. I wouldn't want him picking your quarterback though. I don't think that's his, I don't know if that's his thing. I'm not sure I want him doing that. I went to college in Louisville. I was there like my last year was the year when he was coming in. It's actually crazy. Uh, Will Stein is the offensive coordinator, Oregon. And he's probably going to be a high-end head coach next year. And he was the starting quarterback. Now, Will Stein was about my height.

And he and I, we were in the same major together, so we were taking all, we're still very good friends. He was a walk-on who became a scholarship guy. Charlie Strong was the coach, and Bridgewater comes in. And Will Stein plays like the first couple of games. We got crushed by Florida Atlantic because they had this wide receiver named T.Y. Hilton that just went up and down the field the entire time.

Will Stein against Kentucky hurts his shoulder. In comes Bridgewater. I don't think Will took another meaningful snap again in his career and And obviously, he's doing okay. But I saw the growth of Teddy Bridgewater in college. I was on the radio in Louisville when Bridgewater got drafted in Minnesota. I knew Bridgewater was going to be a good NFL quarterback. I knew it. I knew the makeup. I knew the accuracy he had.

Like, you could see that he knew the game. Like, and he was right on schedule when he got hurt. And so when I hear people say things like, well, Rick Spielman, I mean, you know, he drafted Teddy Bridgewater. I'm like, Bridgewater, I really believe was headed in the right direction. And just what I saw from the college and I knew him a little bit. And like, I'm'm like that's the guy who leads an organization and then obviously what happened happened but yeah the cousins thing you know it was almost like we've got a team that's on the cusp of the Super Bowl with Case Keenum we

just need a good quarterback we'll be okay and I think it might be just I just think the NFL is a little bit more complicated than that no yeah totally agree and just to clarify they were going very much the right direction with Teddy Bridgewater when he got hurt. I was more of referring to maybe the Christian Ponder or Kellen Mond picks that maybe didn't work out so good, but I totally agree on Bridgewater.

Anyway, I'm sure you have a radio show to do soon. Jared Stillman, Stillman and Pales, Stillman and Chums, Stillman and Friends Company. Close enough. That's what it is. Stillman and allales, Stillman and Chums, Stillman and Friends Company. That's what it is. Stillman and all of Nashville, Tennessee that is going

to you to deal with what they're seeing on the football field. I really appreciate this. This was super fun. I knew that you would be a great guest regardless of the lack of hype around this football game and that bet paid off. We'll see each other soon. I'm sure somewhere radio row at the super bowl or somewhere else down the

line, but really glad to get together with you and chat football again, Jared. Thanks man. Love it. Be sure to buy caller's book too. Even though you hate analytics, that's a big endorsement. Thanks man. See you bud.