Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - NFL Insider says Brian Flores' lawsuit won't hurt him getting a head coaching job

Episode Date: November 27, 2023

Matthew Coller talks with Vikings fans about a report that Brian Flores could get a head coaching job this offseason and Justin Jefferson's status along with the games on Sunday. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Everybody, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here. Hope you all had a relatively stress-free day not watching the Minnesota Vikings and just got to plaster yourself on the couch and watch football all day, which is exactly what I did. The day started out, let's just say, a little bit rough. I watched some Jake Browning playing for the Cincinnati Bengals. And I think it's fair to say that either AJ McCarron will play for the Bengals or that game

should be looked at as being a lot easier for the Minnesota Vikings, though. I don't think Browning played horrendous, but certainly not good enough to win for Cincinnati. And then the late game was a work of art from the referees, the broadcast, and the actual football with the Philadelphia Eagles pulling it out against the Buffalo Bills in the last moments. And I have to say, before we get into the Viking stuff, there's a couple of reports we need to talk about it amazes me how many times the Buffalo Bills have had a chance in a big national TV game to win and make a statement. And they have lost. They were up in that game by 10 points. There's a Josh Allen interception. There might be a little Tom Flory at the end of the game with the referees. And then Philadelphia hits a 60-yard field goal the the Bills miss a wide open Gabe Davis in the end zone give up a game-winning drive to the Philadelphia

Eagles and they fall now to 500 going into their bye week and I mean we've seen this from the Vikings in years past where we thought a team was better than their record, and yet they lost kind of all the big games. That's how Buffalo feels this year. And, of course, Philadelphia continues to make their argument as that was a very playoff-like game against Buffalo as the runaway strongest team in the NFC. But for the teams that are considered the strongest in the NFC, a great weekend going back to Thanksgiving Day for those teams.

San Francisco, Dallas, Philadelphia, just blowing people out and separating themselves again further from where the Detroit Lions are. That you just look at the resiliency of the Eagles, the talent on those teams. There's just a separation there. As of right now. That's how it looks in the NFC. But let me talk about a couple of reports that came out because each weekend in the NFL, the insiders start to go on the hunt and they hold on to everything until everyone's paying attention during game days and pregame shows and put things out there. So it was actually on Saturday that Jason

Locke on fora wrote in the Washington post. He also works for CBS that Brian Flores and his status will not be impacted as far as becoming a head coach by his lawsuit against the NFL. Now, this is something that has come up a bunch of times here on the show as Flores has continually gotten better and better and better with this defense. And if you heard what Kevin O'Connell said this week about Brian Flores, he said, not surprised at all to hear that he's in the head coaching discussion said that he's made him a better head coach by having Brian Flores here. And he even threw in a little bit of a jab when he said that fans are enjoying seeing Harrison Smith rushing the passer and being hit the line of scrimmage again. And so is he, but he had immense, immense praise for Brian Flores

and also said that he wasn't surprised that, you know, when he hired Flores, he knew that it was a possibility they would turn the defense around and then be in this position right here. And everything that Flores has done, whether it's connect with the head coach, connect with the players, maximize the players' abilities. I had a conversation with Josh Metellus the other day for an article, purpleinsider.com. You can check it out soon. It'll be out probably by the time you're listening to this podcast, if you're on the iTunes or Spotify side. But if you're watching live, then tomorrow, check it out. But I was talking to Josh Metellus, and what he said was even in training camp that Flores had come up to

him and said, I've watched your tape, and I think that you should have been on the field more last year. And we're going to do that. Like his ability to identify players, strengths, overcome the loss of Marcus Davenport and coach up DJ. Want them overcome to have a very good performance last week, the loss of Jordan Hicks. And they're going to continue to do that.

And remember last year when they had that streak of 400 yard games against them, 400 yard game after game, after game, they have not allowed one since the game against, uh, I think it was the chargers would have been the last 400 yard game that they've given up. And only one of those games had more than 370 yards. And only one of those games since then, since that Chargers game, have they even allowed more than 21 points. And that was partly because the Atlanta Falcons were given the ball a couple times on turnovers right at the goal line. But this defense has gone from at the beginning of the season,

like this could get bad, the roster just isn't good enough, to now on a weekly basis, you trust what they're going to be able to do, including going into Monday night football against the Chicago bears. I mean, that has been a remarkable turnaround, which should give Brian Flores every opportunity. And when you look around the league, I mean, a lot of teams have gone the route of trying to find their Kyle Shanahan, their Sean McVay, their Kevin O'Connell. But I don't think necessarily you have to have an offensive head coach in order to succeed. And Brian Flores was successful before when he was with Miami.

Maybe actually a little too successful for his owner if we believe Brian Flores' lawsuit, which we should. And it sounds quite plausible considering some of the other shenanigans that went on in Miami. But he came out of Miami with two winning seasons. He works with Mike Tomlin for a year. He comes here. He puts together a terrific defense with not a ton of talent. In fact, Kevin O'Connell even said, or at least I should say proven talent. I should put it that way.

Not a lot of proven talent on this defense. We have seen the talent come out as we've gone along. But O'Connell said that it even exceeded his expectations, which I think was an interesting thing to admit. But we all looked at that roster and wondered, can you even get into the top 20? And now they're a top 15 defense that has a chance to be even better than that. So the only thing that would hold back Brian Flores would be the lawsuit against the league. And I looked back at the lawsuit, what it said,

kind of what it was going after in a way for one, of course, his treatment in Miami, but then also in the interview process as well, where he claimed that teams basically brought him in just as a token, just because they were forced to bring in a black coach to give them an interview and that those teams had already long decided who they wanted to be their coach. And there was even more evidence about the Giants and hiring Brian Dayball and a text from Bill Belichick and all those things that went into that lawsuit. If it's not going to affect his status as far as getting a head coaching job, at this point, it's almost hard to see him not getting one. Just looking at his track record,

he is maybe the only Belichick-related coach who has had success. I mean, there's been a lot of failures. You know, Josh McDaniels being the most recent, getting fired by the Raiders, but that list is very long. Flores is not on that list. He did get fired, but after back-to-back winning seasons and seemingly for nothing involving how he was actually coaching the team and on the offensive side, they've done better since Flores.

They also have Tyree Kill and Jalen Waddell since Flores was there as well. So it's a different situation in Miami now than it was when he was here. So I think if this turns out to be the case of what Jason LaConfora is saying, we could be looking at a one and done defensive coordinator and Brian Flores, which feels like there's more pressure now to maximize this season. If that's going to be the case. However, I remain a little bit skeptical of whether that is going to be true. In the Washington Post story, La Confora quotes an agent who he says does not represent Flores, who said, look, you know, it's hard to find good head coaches, especially hard to find ones with experience. Still, nobody quite knows how to blackball somebody like the NFL.

Think about this. Think about what we're seeing at the quarterback position right now, how bad some of the quarterback play is around the league. I just mentioned Jake Browning is starting this last off season. Colin Kaepernick held a workout at Michigan that was televised and he looked like he was in good shape, was throwing the football. Well, I know it's not exactly the same. I understand it's not exactly the same i understand it's not exactly the same but there is some comparable nature here right it's race related and it's going after the league and remember the league had to pay out uh to kaepernick and may very well have to pay out one day to brian florist as well because the most recent update i

could find was back in july where the n NFL was trying to get the lawsuit thrown out. And a judge said, ah, we're going to go forward with this thing. So that could be something that holds up the owners. If you're the owner that wants to hire Flores, do you have to get the blessing of the other owners? But he's suing them collectively. Still seems quite complicated to me. But this is the first time that we've gotten any sort of report regarding Flores' status going forward. So wanted to start the show there.

Also within that same report, Wes Phillips' name came up, which I know that there was some discussion about him potentially going to the Chargers last offseason as an offensive coordinator, decided to stay with the Vikings and not call plays. But the Vikings, as a coaching staff, what they've done with Josh Dobbs, arriving here, having success right away, what they had done with Kirk Cousins, I also would not be terribly shocked if Wes Phillips got some attention too. And their quarterback coach who came over from the Rams,

Chris O'Hara, could be the next in line. I've had a few people ask who would be the next in line if Flores were to get a head coaching job. I think that Durante Jones, their defensive back coach, is the answer to that question, but I'm not entirely sure. I'm not entirely sure if they would stay in house or look somewhere else for someone that was similar philosophically to Brian Flores. But at least at this point, I had been approaching this as I just don't think it's going to happen, even if they have one of the best defenses in the league. And now that door is a little bit cracked open, or I'm a little more doubting my own opinion that, you know, after this Jason Lock on for a report and, you know, people have pointed out that there is a lot of speculation within reports like this. It doesn't mean it's locked dead solid. He's getting a head coaching job, but it was part of a bigger theme in his article that teams might look more

towards some defensive minds. D'Amico Ryanans has had a ton of success in Houston. So we'll see what happens there. But I figured we would begin the show with that update. Also, we'll take your questions in the comments if you have them or any opinions from today. We all got to sit and watch the same football game. So feel free to share any takeaways from today that you'd like. Rich, you are right that Kevin O'Connell and Brian Flores are the best branches of the Belichick tree. I can't think of everybody who came from there. Really, the front office people, I think, had a lot more success

than the coaches. So Thomas Dimitrov, for example, was a two-time GM of the year, built the Atlanta Falcons team that went to the Super Bowl. He was part of that tree. And there's a bunch of other branches off of that from those front office days. But as far as coaching, yeah, there has not been a whole lot of coaches that are successful. And I think that Flores and O'Connell really work well for each other, that O'Connell probably needed a little more grit in the room and somebody who we could really trust as the head coach of the defense. And also Brian Flores can learn from Kevin O'Connell. You know, there were some reports that Flores butted heads with some players and things like that, and maybe shaking off some of

that Belichick way and doing things a little more like the O'Connell way could help him as well. So we'll see where that all goes. But you're right to say that they are two of the best branches. If we call Kevin O'Connell a branch off that tree because he played for Belichick. Ben, good to see you, Ben, says, I feel like the Eagles will lose to an unexpected team at an unexpected time. Uh, very well could be, I mean, they have played with fire and are still 10 and one. They have been in these close games all the time, almost a little bit Vikings like from last year, still that is one heck of a team. And a lot of these really good teams like this,

what they do, uh. It was pointed out by Tony Romo amongst many other things that Tony Romo said during that game. The point differential that Buffalo actually has a better point differential than Philly and Buffalo is now at 500 and Philly is running away with the NFC. It may have been that, you know, the Buffalo is a little bit stronger. I don't know. Or it could just be that, you know, the Buffalo is a little bit stronger. I don't know. Or it could just be that, you know, a blowout or two that, that shapes them because he kind of said, yeah, there's an argument that Buffalo is stronger. I don't think that that's quite right because Buffalo melts down in every big situation that they've had. And that they're, I don't know,

like it's hard to make, is that something, Is that not something? It makes sense that it would be something Philadelphia could repeat. It's not like their point differential is not good at all. It's like plus 63 after this game. But you're right to bring up, Ben, that they have just found ways to eke across the goal line and win games. And boy, did they get a lot of help from the refs. All of you know, who listened to the show where I stand on this for the most part, which is look, refs going to ref

the Vikings actually have been on the right side of refereeing more than wrong side this year. As far as penalties go, their penalty differential is massively in their favor, but there's been a few calls that have really gone against them, including against Denver that were very costly. If you like good refereeing, this was not your day. It was all over the place. It was a mess. It definitely went against Buffalo on a number of occasions, including a non-called horse collar that was somehow intentional grounding that, you know, it turned out to be costly because they had to kick a field goal there. And if they get a touchdown, we're talking about a different game.

So this was a very irritating day from watching the referees. Evan says, the Eagles are giving me 2011 Packers vibes. That's quite the pull, Evan. Shock divisional round exit. I could see it. I could see it. They just have so many players though. That's the thing.

One thing they have is a weakness. They have so many stars, defensive line stars, weapons. They have the offensive line. They're playing without Lane Johnson today. That's a big deal. Jalen hurts,

throwing the ball over the place. He's got his legs. Like they have everything from last year, but the one area they are weak and it almost costs them at the end. He's got his legs. They have everything from last year, but the one area they are weak and it almost cost them at the end is their secondary. Their secondary was not good against the Vikings. Almost let the Vikings come back in that game earlier this season. And then they allow Gabe Davis to run wide open into the end zone on what looked like a cover zero blitz. I don't really fully understand that either.

And he was wide open. I mean, there were many wide open receivers and opportunities for Buffalo in that game. And that's where we might see a Dallas or a San Francisco be a little bit better than where Philadelphia is. Clifford said, Wes would be easy to keep. He's like his dad and knows what his dad went through. I assume he means a head coach. He's a coordinator, and all you have to do is give him a raise, and he'll stay. Well, I mean, maybe. That could be the case. I don't know.

It's very hard to turn down opportunities to potentially be a head coach in the league. You're right that Wade Phillips went through it a few times. He was the head coach of the Bills when I was growing up in Buffalo and that whole Rob Johnson, Doug Flutie thing. And then he's in Dallas for a while and ups and downs in Dallas. He was more at the end of the day considered to be a great coordinator as opposed to a head coach, but also your chance to run an entire organization is pretty darn hard to turn down. The one thing that I think might hold Wes back a little bit is that he's just an understated guy. Like Kevin O'Connell has a real, I played quarterback since I was a little kid vibe to him,

you know, very talkative, you know, big personality. He was a broadcaster for a little while. And a lot of times you kind of have to give that off, like that personality, that leadership element. And we see that from Brian Flores in press conferences. We see it from Matt Daniels. And Wes Phillips is a major part of putting together these game plans and coaching them up. But will a team see him as enough of a splash hire, enough of a, yeah, let's roll this guy out and win the press conference? I don't know about that because he does have a low-key personality. That, to me, doesn't matter at all as far as his coaching acumen. And if you're hiring people, hiring him from a McVeigh tree and going back to that coaching staff in Washington

that had all those great guys is a good idea, but it's more of will an owner be wowed or blown away by Wes Phillips? I don't know, but his name belongs on the radar for what they've done over the last two years. From IShotU99, did O'Connell say who's backing up Josh Dobbs? Nick Mullins is going to be backing up Josh Dobbs. I presume. I know that there's been a lot of questions about Jaron Hall, but I think we have to go back and remember that they wanted Jaron Hall to be QB three and to not have to play this year so he could adapt to the NFL. I mean, he was at

BYU before and he didn't look lost out there. I totally agree. He had a good drive before he got hurt, but Nick Mullins has been in the league for a long time. He's mastered this offense. If Dobbs were to go down, I think you'd feel much more comfortable with Nick Mullins going in. So he's going to be the backup. Another thing to talk about. Actually, let me get to another comment here from Horse Feathers. Do you think it was a mistake for McDermott to try to be a head coach and defensive coordinator this year? Yeah.

I mean, that's the thing. Like he, in whatever way, lost Leslie Frazier, whether that was his fault or not, or less just wanting to step away. But we know how good Leslie Frazier is as a defensive coordinator. And McDermott trying to take on both is a lot. We see it from Kevin O'Connell sometimes. It can be a lot. But on the offensive side, there feels like there's a little more command. I don't know. Zimmer did it for a long time too.

I'm not sure the way that I've thought of this bills team is when you have an Epic meltdown at any point, like the 13 seconds meltdown, it seems to permeate everything. And with the Vikings, the NFC championship game did that for them losing the NFC championship game every single big game after was all right we're tight this is going to be a really tough game end of the game got to go win it all these things there seemed to be so much

pressure that they put on themselves and the margins are so thin that they would always seem to find a way to lose those games and that's's what I've seen from Buffalo. But yeah, it does feel like with McDermott that he should have tried to keep Leslie Frazier there. He should have had a defensive coordinator calling the plays because his game management, you come out of almost every game going, did you really need to do that? I mean, look, they had 19 seconds to try to get in field goal position and a timeout. And what they used it on icing the kicker, which did nothing. So they would have had two timeouts, but also they have the quarterback with like the best arm in the universe. And you're just saying, no, no, we don't need to try to go win this game at the end.

Like there's been a little bit of that with McDermott as well. And I don't know. I think he's been a great head coach for them, but it feels Zimmer-like in the pressure mounting in this maybe second half of his tenure over the last couple of years. He did a tremendous, tremendous job for them last year when they went through the DeMar Hamlin thing and then ran out of gas.

And then this year, it just has seemed like he's been tight and they've been tight in every one of these games. Um, actually let me do a quick ad read for you. Uh, and then we'll get into a Justin Jefferson update. If you will ish update ish, but want to remind you guys about prize picksix and give you my PrizePix for the week. So it's prizepix.com. Very, very simple. You go there. You pick anywhere between two and six players.

I like to go with three. And they all have yardage or touchdown or some sort of statistical projection that you pick more or less. And that's it. That's all you have to do. So for me, this week with my prize picks i am going with more yards for josh dobbs no i'm sorry less yards for josh dobbs than 237.5 i am going with more yards receiving for jordan addison than 49.5 we'll get into the reason in a second regarding

justin jefferson and ty chandler this would be your prize picks lock of the century, more than 32.5 yards. So less for Josh Dobbs than 237, more for Jordan Addison at 49.5 and more rushing yards for Ty Chandler. Go to prizepicks.com and you can use the promo code purple to get a first deposit match up to $100. Very easy to play. You saw what I just did there. That was playing. Now we're set.

Now we're going. That's all it takes. Just a couple minutes. So prizepix.com slash purple. There you go. This show is being brought to you by BetterHelp. Folks, the holidays are an exciting time for buying gifts and spending time with family, but you have to remember that sometimes the best gift is the one you can give yourself.

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That's BetterHelp, H-E-L-P.com slash Insider. All right. So, Justin Jefferson, Jeremy Fowlerler and Adam Schefter both implying that they don't expect Justin Jefferson to play so that would not be very surprising and I walked out of TCO Performance Center on Saturday feeling like Jefferson was not going to play. Because when you look back at Kevin O'Connell's press conference, and I know some of you like to watch the press conferences, or if you just saw the quotes, then you'll see a lot of hedging,

a lot of, hey, you know, trying to get him out there Monday night. We'll see if we can get him out there Monday night. But, but, nobody yell at him online. And poor Justin Jefferson Jefferson having to delete his Twitter and Instagram because too many people gave him a hard time about recovering from his injury. Yeesh. That's a harsh world. That's too bad. I don't like that he had to do that. Um, and that he felt so attacked by people over this situation. And part of it was Adam Schefter himself putting it out there,

implying that Justin Jefferson would not play because of his contract situation, which I have never seen any indication. I have tried asking people in the know, like, was there anything to that? Or why do we think that that was put out there? And this is a guy that took every practice rep in training camp during the negotiation. So I don't see why he would have ever sat out, even if they were still struggling. I mean, if they had no wins or one win at this point, then I guess that might be different, but they were always going to have a chance and be in the

hunt with the way the NFC is. So I think Jefferson got exhausted of seeing that over and over and over again. And the whole fantasy football thing, but the way that O'Connell talked about it was we're gonna, you know, like the fact that we waited to get them out there. We're slow playing this because we want Jefferson to be a long-term part of this team.

It did not sound like he was giddy, but look, if O'Connell played it that way and fooled the insiders and Jefferson comes out running out of the tunnel and playing on Monday night, I'm going to be impressed. I'm going to think that Kevin O'Connell should take up acting because that was some pretty good work at the podium. None of us, none of the reporters walking away from that press conference felt like Justin Jefferson was going to play. But at this moment, regardless of what's being said or reported, I don't think anyone really knows. The only people that are going to know are Tyler Williams, their trainer and Justin Jefferson. And in my opinion, waiting for another two weeks before he gets out there going against

the Raiders, not a bad idea, not a bad idea at all. I will say that this game does have more implications than maybe we would have thought in part because of what happened with the Rams. None of us were watching the Rams. We were watching the Eagles and bills, but the Rams steamrolled the Cardinals today and they're now five and six and green Bay is now five and six. And so all of a sudden there's some teams nipping at the Vikings heels a little bit more than it felt like just a couple of weeks ago, but when they lose to Denver, more pressure now mounts on this game against the Chicago Bears. Would that impact how Jefferson is feeling? I don't think so.

It's going to be entirely is his hamstring 100%. Can he trust that he's not going to go back out there and re-aggravate it? And I wrote a column on this, purpleinsider.com, check it out Wrote a column on this, basically saying, look, like it or not, they've handled this the right way. And I will not change that opinion. If he does not come back against the bears, just as I sit here right now, and this podcast will be relevant for maybe like 30 hours. As I sit here right now, I don't want to dismiss the idea that he could come back. you got an extra day it is at the back end of the initial projection so when he got hurt it was reported i think by

schaefter but also maybe confirmed by o'connell four to six weeks is what they were looking at and this is i think the seventh week so it's gone all the way past, like even what they would have expected, which suggests to me that maybe it's possible he could play. And if he does, they may need him. Chicago has actually really ramped up their defense and has been much better in recent weeks. And they were good against the Vikings last time. And I think where we really saw Jefferson missed, because of course I've made a meme out of it on the show about how like trade him, you know, that whole thing. But where it was really missed is the final drive and they get a chance to go down, potentially win the game in Denver and can't had too many of those in recent weeks. That's the one where you need Justin Jefferson, whether it's taking all the attention away and getting KJ Osborne opportunities,

getting Jordan Addison, TJ Hawkinson, or just making an all world play for the quarterback, not having that option was there. And you know, that's, that's where you need it is to make those plays, whether he shouldn't push it. So that's that's where you need it is to make those plays whether he shouldn't push it so that's the thing it's like it all comes down to just the medical situation but this game is bigger than it seems because the bears are bad but they've had their moments and they're not

always bad that's my point uh let me get back to your questions and you can keep them coming in the comment section here as well. From Breck, let's see, what's your take on Dobbs, how Dobbs slipped through the cracks? That's an interesting question because I've asked some people that myself and I think what it came down to is two things. Number one, he's not the most accurate passer. You've seen that already in these first couple of games. The other thing is too, that when you take rocket science in college, and maybe it shouldn't be this way, maybe teams should only evaluate on the football. I think teams are going to wonder, does he really want to be a football player or does he want to be a rocket scientist? And there's not a whole lot of precedent for stuff like this.

There was the guy who was a cornerback who wanted to be a doctor, and I think he ended up quitting football to go be a doctor in England or something. And so you know how teams are with this stuff. They ask these players, how much do you love football do you really love football more than rockets so maybe that was a factor you go back and look at his stats in Tennessee not that great it's not like he threw 50 touchdowns or ran for 50 touchdowns in Tennessee I think what we're looking at here is one a player who has the physical skill to be a starter so i think he does have a good arm he has to wind up to throw it like at a high velocity but he's pushed the ball down the field a few times 30 yards and has looked like it's got some juice very much

a plus like running ability scrambling tackle, all that stuff. By expected points added, he's number one in the league in terms of rushing. So he is a plus plus rusher. That would be a question too. Will he be able to do it at the next level if he was coming out in Tennessee? And then opportunity is another part. Because if you look at the places he's been, where was the opportunity for him to get a chance outside of Arizona where he gets thrown into a team that's really just bad? The situation was hard and their team is bad. Even since Kyler Murray's comeback, it hasn't been that pretty. So including getting crushed by the Rams today, that's another part of it.

And it's hard to predict development. It's just not easy with any position Josh Metellus is a key part of the Vikings defense last year I would have told you he's a special teamer in fact I think it was going into last year I wasn't sure he was making the 53 because he had been lightly used uh before that and now he's a key part so sometimes development can be hard to predict also it's hard to predict. Also, it's hard to predict what's coming next for Josh Dobbs. If he does not play well against Chicago,

are there going to start to be the, well, you know, maybe the magic carpet rides over a little bit. That's the week-to-week way that we kind of work here. Myron Roll, thank you, Jason. Appreciate that. He was the corner that became a doctor and ultimately left football. I think we've seen from Josh Dobbs, his insane level of commitment to football while also being an interesting dude. Otherwise still, if you're in the NFL, you got to ask that question, right? Like, is this guy really want this? Because you know how much of a workload in college it is to be a rocket scientist and all those things. I mean, there's quarterbacks all throughout history, every era who have slipped through the cracks. And I mean, it's very possible that Dobbs was that way. But, you know, he's in

Pittsburgh. Ben Roethlisberger starting Dobbs isn't playing at that point when he went to Jacksonville briefly. And then what Cleveland where they trade for Deshaun Watson. Not really getting a chance there. And then in Arizona. So, all right, back to your questions. Caleb says, do you think the Bears will have a better answer for the Vikings defense a second time around? Like maybe having more scheduled run plays for fields. That is an interesting aspect of this game because

when we were in Philadelphia, they seemed to really have a problem with Jalen Hurts running, but not his actual running, but factoring for him. So he didn't run that great in that game, but they did a lot of those, you know, hold the ball out until somebody commits and then hand it off. And they were able to create a lot of rushing lanes there. And there's two other examples of this where teams did run well recently, even though the Vikings have been great. One of them is actually early in that Chicago game. One of their best drives, maybe their best drive in that game was where they were running the ball quite a bit. And the Vikings have been so good at stopping the run recently. But when you have that quarterback that you have to factor for,

that might be something that is more of a challenge for them. And then against the Falcons, for a lot of that game, they stopped the run. But late in the game, when they gave up the go-ahead score for Atlanta, they struggled against the run a bit there too. This defense has had to really shoulder a pretty huge load during this entire win streak to get back over 500. And then in Denver as well with the turnovers, if they do have problems, that could be where it comes from. The other thing too, is that I look at Justin Fields is just being volatile, as being really hard to predict.

If we had to look at his games all charted out, there would probably be two, three games that were just total stinkers in a row. And that's where we all talk about Fields is done. He's no good. And then he'll have a great one. And that was against Washington earlier this year. Then he gets hurt against the Vikings, comes back, has a really good game against Detroit. And that's been part of the discussion leading up to this game is,

well, Justin Fields played really good in his last game. What's he going to do next? No idea. No idea. The one thing that does concern me a bit is Caleb Evans is questionable. And Makai Blackman, I like what Evans is questionable and Makai Blackman. I like what I've seen from Makai Blackman, but if you're asking him to take on, for example, DJ more in one-on-one situations, I think Flores does a great job of avoiding that too much with too many of his

players, but those contested catches, those jump balls, like DJ Moore can get those. And Justin Fields has the arm to be able to put those up. So there's some things that I think could be a little bit on the weakness side for the Vikings defense. Still the way that Flores game plan against fields, there's no way that Flores comes back with the same exact game plan. It's just going to be more messing with his head with pre-snap and post-snap looks. That's where, and O'Connell mentioned this again with Flores, where each week this defense has morphed into something different with a different game plan. That's very hard to do. But when you create versatile pieces, you can give different looks.

So I imagine what Fields saw the last time that he's spending this whole week looking at, he's not going to face this time. And I would lean toward the Vikings defense giving Fields a really hard time, but he's always got those big plays in him that you need to be concerned about. So yeah, I could see them running with Fields more on purpose or using it as a factor, studying what the Eagles did to them, and also trying to get more of those contested plays for DJ Moore. So I don't think that this is, and I could be completely wrong because I don't pick games for this reason. I only pick the Vikings game each week because we should, I guess,

put our prediction on paper, and I get it wrong a lot. So, you know, I don't know. Like, football's hard to predict, but there's just a part of like the volatility of fields that makes me, I guess I would say if you're a Vikings fan, you'd be nervous about that possibility that he has one of those pop-up good games and that Dobbs has a regression game after getting off to a really good start. But again, I would still think the Vikings will succeed here. iShotU99 says, if it was a contract issue, why would he even play this year? Oh, talking about Justin Jefferson.

And if there's no plan to extend him until after the season, then they'd have to leave him on IR for the rest of the year. It never added up to me. I thought that Justin Jefferson and his explanation was really good. When we first asked him, he did his first press conference. We first asked him about that. Would you consider sitting out the rest of the year because of your contract? And he said, guys, I'm trying to make the hall of fame. I'm not trying to just be a good wide receiver here. I'm trying to make the hall of fame. You don't make the hall of fame by just sitting on the sidelines.

I buy that from him. That's the message he's had since day one. And I remember in 2020 in an early press conference with him where he was a little more, I would say timid with the media and a little more nervous in front of the media. Plus 2020 was weird. Anyway, we were on zoom all the time and he said something about LeBron and how he wanted to emulate LeBron, which,

you know, lots of people do, but he said that was like the thing he said with the most conviction. And then he goes out and starts balling out like crazy. I think he looks at a player like LeBron James as the model for him to just keep doing it year in and year out and try to be one of the best who's ever played. I think that's the standard for him. That doesn't sound to me like a guy who just says, you know what? I'm going to have a contract thing.

Forget it. I'm not playing. It just doesn't sound like that to me. So I don't know. I could be wrong. His agent didn't call me and tell me what's going on. And I've gotten the impression, though, speaking his plans would have been, but they're in a playoff race now. There's no reason not to do it, and everybody in the world knows this extension is happening after this season.

He knows it. They know it. I don't know why he would just sit out to put pressure on them other than fear of an injury, but it's a hamstring. It's not like his leg's going to fall off. I don't know. Anyway, that's just been a weird thing for me. Folks, it's the holiday season again, and it is quite hectic. So let's admit it. It's not always very easy to eat nutritious meals. Well, I've got a solution for you. It's called Factor. It's America's number one ready to eat meal delivery service which can help you feel up for

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Head to factormeals.com slash purple50. Use the code purple50 to get 50% off. That's code purple50 at factormeals.com slash purple50. Go there today to get 50% off. Clifford says, in my opinion, if he being Josh Dobbs busts against Chicago, he's the backup to Mullins. KOC likes Mullins. Well, yeah, I mean, everybody likes Nick Mullins because he's shown

that he can operate an offense in the NFL and win some games. And if you look around the league right now, there's not a whole heck of a lot of that, is there? There's a lot of very incompetent quarterback play going on in the NFL. So if you have a guy who you can actually trust to get in there, make some throws, run the offense, get it to the playmakers. But I also think that we can't really do a week to week thing with Dobbs. They should just stay with him unless it goes really self if they lose to chicago they go to vegas fall apart lose he throws four picks all right maybe you consider that i don't see that happening

maybe you would consider all right we've got to push a button to try to save the season because at that point they will be falling out of the race uh Dobbs just doesn't look to me like a guy in this situation with the line, O'Connell, the receivers, getting Jefferson back, like he's going to play to such a poor level that we could be talking about with Nick Mullins at some point. So, yeah, no, and Clifford, I agree. Clifford says Dobbs won't bust uh that he's the diamond uh koc gets to buff yeah no that and that's what it's looked like so far is that he is

got some rough edges as you're talking about and they're working through that and i wrote a little bit about that for this week of just with dobbs having to deal with the scrambling issue, the playmaking magic, but also trying to play on time. And I don't even think we're quite close to him having full control of the offense and all the receivers and every single detail like you would have if he's been here for a while, but it feels like it should only get better, should not get worse. And if you look at the defenses they're playing, yeah, Matt Iberflues does concern me a bit because of how well he did against O'Connell's offense last time. Still, there are not many offenses the rest of the way. I'm sorry. There are not many defenses the rest of the way that

you'd be worried about. The Packers are playing a heck of a lot better. The Lions defense is pretty atrocious. Vegas's defense is not very good. There's going to be, in my mind, opportunities for Josh Dobbs to prove that he can be the guy. We'll keep taking your comments and questions. I will say that yesterday, Saturday, I watched quite a bit of college football. And I got to tell you, one, I don't really understand JJ McCarthy being talked about as a first round prospect or being connected to the Vikings. I just don't really see it. Michigan's a great football team. They won that game. Their running back's great. Their defense is great, but I don't feel like he's a first round quarterback by talent wise. He looks closer to Jake Browning to me than he does a first round prospect. I'm not a scout,

but that's just, that's my feeling. But I'll tell you the guy that I started watching a few weeks ago and started thinking, imagine this guy with the Vikings setup is Jalen Daniels. Now, he might end up being a first-round pick, a high first-round pick, but if you've watched him, he put himself in the Heisman conversation over the last couple of weeks. He's got, like, Lamar Jackson legs, and also a pretty good ability to throw the football. And I have thought, as I've been watching Josh Dobbs,

that Kevin O'Connell should be excited by the idea of having a quarterback that could be really mobile and like, not just kind of within the pocket or a little bit of movement, but really, really mobile. And Jalen Daniels intrigues me from that standpoint. I don't know if the Vikings are going to be able to get the good quarterback prospects, how high he's going to be projected. We'll wait till draft season to find that out. But I definitely have been watching him thinking about keep Dobbs for a year, draft him, develop him profit. I don't know long way from that, but it certainly was on my mind as I

was watching him play on Saturday and also just how insane college football is also what I was thinking. Uh, let me remind you guys, as this is coming up soon, uh, that for the game in Vegas, I will be out there at circa. So if you're trying to get away from this December Minnesota weather, which is only getting worse and not better, then come join me at Circa Las Vegas, where I will be hanging out doing the podcast for a couple of days out there. You'll be able to find me at outside at Stadium Swim, which is this incredible gigantic TV with heated pools out there.

So it's warm, even if it's only 70, which to us would be incredibly warm right now. Literally one of the coolest places for sports that I have ever been. And there is a special party that night, that Friday night at Circa Las Vegas that includes drink specials, two ticket giveaway to the game.

So I will be there. You have to RSVP. Few people have asked me about this. It's very simple. You go to circalasvegas.com. So that's be there. You have to RSVP. A few people have asked me about this. It's very simple. You go to CircaLasVegas.com. So that's their website. There's a place where it says Sportsbook. Go there and click Huddle Up at Overhang. So it's that easy. Sportsbook, Huddle Up at Overhang, RSVP for the party there at Circa. We'll make a whole weekend of it together. I will be there. So go book your spot today, and we will have a lot of fun leading up to that game. Back to your questions. Caleb says, seems like the Vikings can do design run plays

and run fakes for Dobbs, like they did with Chandler in one of the other games. Yeah, yeah, the Saints game where he ran for a touchdown and make teams have to guard against the run more. The thing about that is it's not easy to install new stuff in the middle of the season. They start in the spring and they put all this stuff in. They have all these meetings and all this other stuff week after week after week. So everybody's on the same page with all the things that the offense wants to do.

All the base concepts, all the branches off those start to come to life in training camp. They practice them and practice them and practice them. So it's difficult in the middle of, say, November to say, all right, actually now we're just going to create this package of plays that has Josh Dobbs doing a bunch of running. That's not easy to do. They do have the bye week to think about that a little bit more. And I wonder if it will be used a little bit more.

Then they had the one designed run against the Saints that worked pretty well. Or is that the one you're talking about with? Yeah, no, I think that's the one you're talking about with Chandler blocking to the right side. And Dobbs ran for the first down. Yeah, that's a good observation. I do think they could do it more. You also have to be concerned about at what point do you put Dobbs in danger? But, you know, as I was watching just Josh Allen and Jalen Hurts play,

who wasn't thinking this? Like, Josh Dobbs isn't these guys, quite. No one has Josh Allen's arm, my gosh, but those times where something breaks down and there's nothing there and the guy finds a way, those are Dobbs plays and it just makes a difference and they can design runs. I mean, Jalen hurts ran for a touchdown to win the game. Those, the reason quarterback design runs are so hard is that there isn't an open player on the defense. Everybody can block everybody. You can have basically 10 on 11, as opposed to nine on 11. I mean, you hand it off to a running back and

there's two guys that have to be unblocked on every running back play because of the quarterback and the ball carrier obviously can't be blocking and everyone on the defense is trying to make a play so you add an extra person to that and the quarterback runs are very effective so i do think that that will increase and increase as we go along uh matthew says do you like having 7,000 bowl games spread over multiple weeks or miss having them all on New Year's Day? Any favorite bowls? So my approach to bowl season has always been exactly the same. Number one, I do not care what the bowl is called, who's playing in it, what reason, what they're advertising, who's broadcasting it, what network, I will watch it.

I will watch any and all bowl games because they are usually completely ridiculous. And you end up seeing as they get better, the players who are going to be in the upcoming draft. But that's not really the reason that I like them. I like them because they're absurd and they're on. It's football and it's on. I know that there are people who don't like the number of bowl games. And when I heard the gophers could get a bowl game, I got very offended as everyone else should. That team doesn't belong anywhere near and a bowl game. They don't deserve to get rewarded for this atrocious season, but if it's on, I will watch it because it's football and you never know what could happen.

So that's always been the way I've gone about it. I mean, there's lots of different hilarious names. A lot of times, like there's that mayo bowl where they pour mayo on somebody. There's the Cheez-It bowl where they celebrate with Cheez-Its. It's like they've really leaned into the absurdity and I enjoy that.

So yeah, I'm good with whatever. It doesn't matter. I don't have a favorite one. They're all my favorite. And then, you know, it's pretty exciting when we get to the final ones, but those couple of days where it's like the first beginning of March madness, where you don't know the teams, you don't know the players and you're just finding it all out on the fly. Very exciting to me. Who doesn't want to watch football at like 11 o'clock in the morning on Tuesday? I do. Uh, if you're here watching this you probably do too uh i shot you says does the team plan on doing white helmets uh for the whiteout days or is it just them wearing the away uniform and the helmets are purple i would assume the helmets will stay purple that's beyond my

knowledge though i've never asked. I don't have sources in the uniform department and so forth. So yeah, I'm not really sure. I don't really like the idea of the white helmet. I don't know, but I think you can technically change the helmet if you want to. I really, yeah, that's just not my area personally i like the white jersey with the purple helmet so uh if anybody has any other questions ask them i was just going to go through a couple of other things for today uh in the nfl that just kind of stuck out to me not even necessarily vikings related but we're here having a show right after football and i figured i would do it while the sunday night game is going on so instead of waiting until 11 o'clock at night or whatever to go live we could just do it now and

talk about those reports leading up to the game uh but i thought it was interesting to watch the matt canada list pittsburgh steelers Canada lit. Yeah, that's right. Without Matt Canada, they fired their offensive coordinator and this year more than any year. And, and anybody who's listened to the show knows that I have been very much all in on your roster is the reason you succeed or fail period. But I think what we really discovered last year with Ed Donatell is if you hire the wrong guy, you can just wreck everything. And it seems Matt Canada was wrecking everything for Pittsburgh because Kenny Pickett looked like a pretty competent quarterback. And once again, we're trying to pick apart the impact of is it the quarterback? Is it the system?

Is it the weapons? Is it the system? Is it the weapons? Is it the line? All those things. It's what makes this so complicated because he had a lot of good throws in that game that looked like he could use the middle of the field and he knew where to go. I mentioned that I thought Cincinnati is pretty much toast. There's no way they can win with Jake Browning. Would not be surprised if we're talking about facing AJ McCarron. And this is almost like last year where a Jamis Winston got benched and, or got hurt. No, he got hurt. And they put in Andy Dalton. It was like, actually, this is kind of a bad break for the Vikings because they're facing a harder quarterback. That might be the case with Jake Browning and AJ

McCarron. We'll see where that goes from here. Jacksonville-Houston game was marvelous, and that is your future of the NFL, folks. Jacksonville and Houston, they played a part in saving the weekend for exciting football. Trevor Lawrence, CJ Stroud, that's going to be fun for a long time. I mean, I don't have any hot take on that. Those guys are good.

It's going to be great. It's going to be great, I think, for a really long time. I mean, I don't have any hot take on that. Those guys are good. It's going to be great. It's going to be great. I think for a really long time to go. Here's somebody mentioned to me the other day, Atlanta as a team that could come back into the mix and be nipping at the Vikings heels if they don't win the division. And I was like, I don't know. I don't think so. They're terrible. They win today. They don't have that. They're terrible. They win today. They don't have that hard of a schedule going forward. They might just win that division, but that game where Josh Dobbs comes in and wins would potentially be the difference in them holding onto that spot. How funny is that? Like football is this is, this is why we like, it's just crazy. It's just crazy how all the webs come together.

But the Saints are lost. They're a mess. They're a disaster. And bringing in Derek Carr looks like one of the worst decisions that any team made this last offseason. Not a great day for New Orleans. New England and the New York Giants was one of the saddest things I've ever seen. So I tried not to watch it.

Don't look directly at it. The thing with Mac Jones is not everybody remembers because people followed this stuff forever that when the Vikings drafted Derrissaw instead of Mac Jones, I wondered aloud as I did with Will Levis, as I did with Kenny Pickett, I wondered, does one of these guys become a good quarterback that the Vikings have passed on? And with Mack Jones, I'm always going to think that had he not been stuck in this situation, it would have been different because of what he did in his first year. But this is some of the most pathetic quarterback play I've ever seen in my life. It's very sad. I don't know that anyone could play quarterback for that team. They had another

receiver get hurt. They're a mess. Belichick is completely done, but the way that Mac Jones has handled it has been very bad. So maybe it would have been a completely different world had Mac Jones been drafted here. It looks like that's not going to work out. Will Levis played okay again today. He hasn't been great since that four touchdown game and Kenny Pickett, another guy. This is why we talk about drafting them and seeing how much circumstance can impact them because we're talking about Josh Dobbs here is, Hey, you know, it's looked pretty good. It could go forward. And these other first round quarterbacks who by just the way they were drafted, you assume have more talent.

And yet Dobbs looks way better because of the comfort in the offense. He's obviously smart. It's got a baller nature to him. But so much of this is just based on what you have and what you can put around him. It kind of blows my mind sometimes. Carolina threw a bubble screen on fourth and sixth to lose the game. I would expect that. Mention the Rams.

The Rams are scary. The Rams should be scary schedule-wise and also the way they're playing-wise. The Rams are coming, and they're playing better than I expected. If Stafford stays healthy, they could be a team that is nipping at the Vikings heels. Vegas had a lead early in that game. And I still don't think that should be anything but a blowout win for the Vikings in Vegas. Aiden O'Connell playing a little better, probably not good. And the other one was Denver and Cleveland. Denver getting another win.

And Cleveland is out of quarterbacks. So there's kind of your quick rundown. But Denver has had this insane turnaround that is very similar to what the Vikings did. They've also had a lot of luck along the way. But a pretty decided win today against Cleveland. Yeah, no, Caleb, you bring up a great point about Tua getting Tyreek Hill and Mike McDaniels becoming a really good quarterback. And Tua is very talented. He throws with anticipation. He's very accurate. He masters a complicated offense in Miami. But before they had those two things, especially Tyreek Hill,

I mean, you just give him the ball and he just goes, but that offense before they had that two is looking like a bust and they're not signing him and they're not sure he's that good. And they're trying to get Tom Brady. And yeah, that just, it just tells you a lot, right? Even with Jalen hurts, there was, I think a rumor that they were trying to trade for Russell Wilson and they didn't get him. And Jalen Hurts ends up getting these weapons and AJ Brown, and now he's a star. That's when we talk about the rebuilds and where this Vikings team will go. That's a thing that I'm going to keep circling back to is if you've got the coach and you've got the receivers and you've got the line, your chances of that guy being successful are a lot higher than if you're throwing Mac Jones

out there with the worst line in football, the worst receivers in football, washed up coaches. It's, you know, Mac Jones just screams to me that he's going to be somebody else's halfway decent quarterback eventually. But right now it's one of the saddest things i've seen just just playing terribly however the patriots might get drake may out of it i don't know because now they have two wins and i don't see them getting another one anyway well glad we could get together here for a quick update on brian floris if you missed that at the beginning of the show go back and re-watch what I said about the report regarding Brian Flores, the Justin Jefferson discussion, and everything that happened on this football Sunday. And a reminder that we'll be live here on YouTube right after the game, after the locker room. So myself and Dane Mizutani,

go down to the locker room, go to the press conferences, come back up at U.S. Bank Stadium, and we'll broadcast from there after Monday Night Football. So if you're a night owl, make sure you check it out or the next day if you have to go to bed early. But, you know, make sure you do that. And one more reminder before I go is if you're looking for some Cyber Monday things to buy for people in your life, go to Amazon, check out my book, Football is a Numbers Game. It's about a crazy story of how pro football focus got started and the impact on the NFL that I can't even describe to you is so immense behind the scenes. And I spent a year and a half reporting on it for my book, which is over here in the scene behind me.

So if you get a chance, go to Amazon. Football is a numbers game. Make sure you get that for your football loving friends and family. And we will talk to you all after Monday Night Football. Thanks for coming on, everybody. Football.