Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - PFF's Eric Eager breaks down Vikings-Bengals and how improved defense helps the Vikings offense

Episode Date: September 7, 2021

Matthew Coller and Pro Football Focus data scientist Eric Eager break down the Vikings' matchup with the Cincinnati Bengals and why it's a gift and a curse to play a bad team in Week 1. Plus, should Klint Kubiak get more aggressive with Kirk Cousins? Will having a better defense improve the Vikings' offense in some ways? And how will Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here and joining me right before week one. We had to get it in before the season officially starts. Pro Football Focus's Eric Eager. What's up, Eric? How are you? I mean, the offseason was a long one, man, but it's done. So I can't wait to see all the teams play on Sunday. Would you say that you are your last name to get it going? I just started using the word eager in a sentence like two years ago. I've finally become that secure in myself growing up like I just never did. But, yeah, I'm extremely eager to watch some football starting. Actually, right now there's a CFL game on in the background.

There's a Louisville versus Ole Miss tonight, Tampa Bay, Dallas Thursday. I mean, it's just all over the place. So the way I usually do it is when anyone asks how I pronounce my last name, I will say just like what you put on your dog. So that's always been my thing. I've never run away from the connection between my name and what you put on dogs. So anyway, let's talk some football.

I always say like the word. It's spelled, it's the exact same word as the word. Yeah, right. So the Vikings are playing the Cincinnati Bengals. What do you think of this as a week one matchup? Because I go back and forth. I think in one way, well, that's good because they didn't have a very good preseason.

They took a lot of hits. There were a lot of issues. There's some injuries still, some uncertainty. Irv Smith is out, so an adjustment has to be made really on the fly over the last week and a half since Irv Smith went out, and the Bengals are not very good. I look at their roster up and down, and I can't find a team there that's competing for the playoffs save for if Joe Burrow is amazing, but Joe Burrow is coming off a horrendous injury. And I don't think I've ever seen a quarterback or really, I mean, any player come back off of a horrendous injury and then right out the gate, maybe Adrian Peterson, but not even

this is worse than just a regular ACL. There was even more than that. And so coming right out off the gate in your first game and then you're just fantastic and back to being your old self. I even wonder about that with Dak Prescott. Like I was in a car accident once. And then every stoplight I went to, I thought I was going to get rear ended again for a couple of weeks. Right. You've had this happen. So I feel like there's some of that with football. From that perspective, it's like this should be a win. the other way is if this is not a win that's a big problem like right away it's a big problem it's it's like everybody could start pointing

fingers from the very outset of the season if you don't beat a team that you're supposed to obviously beat so how do you feel about that as far as Cincinnati being the week one opponent yeah it's a nice setup for the Vikings right it reminds me I know they were at home this that year but in 2019 they opened against Atlanta they were about four point favorites at home in that game and there was like sort of this idea like oh if you kind of squint a little bit the Falcons could be pretty good they can give the vikings a game i think i even bet on the falcons in that game and the vikings do what in with exceptions they've almost always done under zimmer and cousins which is beat a team that they're supposed to right and they they went out

and they pounded the falcons that game kirk only threw the ball like 10 times they were it was like a really remarkable week one win and sort of dispelled a lot of problems, you know, and then it wasn't until they lost in green Bay had a win against Oakland and then got killed by Chicago and not kill. It was like a 10 point loss, but like where we all hit the panic button on that team, I think similarly here, like there are only three point favorites, like, and so, you know know they're sort of like talk that's about a 57 chance to win so the markets are giving the bangles a puncher's chance

here um but i do think it could go really south for them if they if they don't play well for sure and that's i think the that's i think where this game has just the right amount of tension right if they're if they were facing houston at home then we're all like oh this game kind of sucks because you're not really going to find anything out about the vikings you're not you know if they lose it's like the season's over basically if they win who cares i do think the vikings have to play an okay game to win this game and i do think some things have to come together for them to uh out 1-0. But at the same time, they should beat the Bengals.

Like, this is a should-win situation. The Bengals are not good up front offensively. They have good receivers, and the Vikings don't have great defensive backs. But, you know, Jamar Chase is still a question mark as any rookie-wide receiver is. And then, you know, you go to the other side of the ball, and I actually think the Bengals are low-key okay on defense but but again the Vikings have weapons that should be able to exploit them right exactly I don't see how they cover for four quarters Adam Thielen

and Justin Jefferson I don't think they really have the defensive line to stop Delvin Cook for four quarters or the offense with a quarterback coming back from his injury that is just going to light up a Vikings defense that is much, much better than it was last year. And that's kind of what I wanted to ask you about is I've always had a general feeling for offenses and defenses impacting each other. But when we separate them into the statistics, we say, well, their defense was this last year because they ranked there. And the team that really made me think about this was Tampa Bay with Winston when he threw all the picks and their defense was horrendous by points allowed, but their defense was not horrendous. And they proved that when

Tom Brady got there. And so then I thought Zimmer and Cousins have been at odds here throughout training camp, but yet they really need each other. If Cousins is going to get a contract extension after this year, here or elsewhere, he's going to need to play very well because I think the NFL, and you see this with some middle quarterback contracts, is starting to figure that out a little bit, that we are allowed to give a middle quarterback contract. And Zimmer is trying not to get fired. And so I wonder what you think about the offense and defense and how each needs each other to perform

and how the coach and quarterback are sort of going in different directions. Yeah, that 2019 Bucs team, by the way, 7-9. They went over their season win total of 6. a half so they actually exceeded expectations that year and i and i would argue i mean i jamis averaging like and then i listened to your pod with myron metcalf where you kind of went off about jamis spinston and i i kind of laughed because i'm one of those that says you know jamis averages 8.2 yards in attempts, led the league in passing. But you have obvious flaws, which is that Bucs team was bottom two or three in the NFL in points against, but they were sixth in yards per play allowed. And that's why you have to look a little bit deeper.

But it was clear that Arians, and there was actually somebody who I'm friends with, a local Minnesotan who used to work for Tampa in their salary cap, and every time I brought up Flamus Winston, he got kind of pissed off because it was like yeah he killed our chances even though we had a good roster and you could sort of tell that they were like look we spent the bucks spent seven picks on defensive backs in day two uh those three years and they were going to waste because they were creating terrible circumstances whereas you know getting Tom Brady into place like you knew there was a floor you knew there was a high floor of saying if our defense plays an amazing game he's not going to kill us and then in the playoffs he can enhance us right and make us better i think the relationship between and and this is borne out right so uh

one of my colleagues ben brown um tweeted out basically this uh the the market implied uh ratings for offense and defense and like essentially it's like taking the betting markets the spreads and the over-unders on each game and sort of coming up with a rating for how many points you'd expect to give up how many points you'd expect to give up, how many points you'd expect to score. And interestingly, even though I don't think we think this is true, those two numbers are correlated. If you're a high performing offense, you will give up some more points than,

than a low scoring offense will give up. And that kind of makes sense because again, you just slow the game down. Those Bucs teams were really good offensively. I was still content that that Bucs offense was good. It's just that they played a style of football that you couldn't necessarily win with because the other team was scoring a lot of points. And, again, you're more likely to lose when the other team scores a lot of points. Whereas you have a story like Jim McMahon for the Vikings, that one you average like 5.9 yards an attempt.

But they won two-thirds of his starts because you just kept every game in that 13-9 range where you could sort of win that football game because of variance if you weren't better than the teams you played against. So let's wrap this back to the Vikings. The thing about the Kirk and Mike Zimmer relationship has almost always been, it's been tension. In 2018, it's my opinion that Mike saw how much Kirk was making and said, this guy doesn't need any support. John DiFilippo, run a normal NFL offense. He's a big boy. He can handle it.

And we saw how much that was a failure. And then in 2019, 2020, it was like, we can't win with him so let's condense the offense down and play a high variance game and hopefully we can make this signing look good that hasn't had the benefits either that i that i think that they want so it'll be interesting to see now that he's gotten some pieces on defense i still don't think they're a great defense the vikings how does that influence the way in which they use Kirk? And I think more importantly, what they expect out of Kirk. So, well, first of all, on the Tampa Bay thing, when your quarterback gets sacked 40-something times

and throws 30-something interceptions, you can't convince me he's good. Because this is one of the fundamental things that you guys talk about is the flaws carry over. How did we know Sam Darnold was not going to be great in the NFL for a lot of the statistical people? Because the interceptions carry over the mistakes they have with Ryan Fitzpatrick. They always will with Jameis Winston, but that is a different conversation. I just don't think you can ever win with a guy who locked into 15 to 20 picks and 40 to 50 sacks. I don't know how you can win when the best guy throws six picks and gets

sacked 20 times. So anyway, that's put that aside, but that actually does connect to Kirk cousins. And here's how in 2018, what Zimmer could not stand about Kirk cousins was turnovers. He had pick sixes. He,

I believe was right up there with Jameis Winston through whatever number of years in terms of how often he fumbled the football. And we see him hang in the pocket longer than most quarterbacks. He'll just hold the ball and then, you know, guys can swipe at it and he does get strip sack. This is how in part they lost against Dallas last year. He gets strip sacked. They end up, you know, losing the game to Dallas. So I guess I wonder about like what the best approach with Kirk Cousins is to maximize offense and the offense's impact on the defense. Because Zimmer's defense, I think, ranked or in terms of points against, it was like

ninth in 2018. But if you took away the fumbles that were returned for touchdown and the pick sixes they would have been like fifth and i know that i'm sure drove zimmer insane so i guess i i wonder do you think the lean into the kirk idea meaning throw more often if you're kubiak ramp that up and deal with the variance deal with the turnovers is smarter or does Zimmer have it right by trying to run the football a lot if he's going to play a defense first type of thing now obviously that doesn't work with your defense from last year but it could work better with your defense from this year or from 2019 or 2018 yeah you remember the 2016, the first year you covered the team.

I always felt like that defense was the best that the Vikings have had. 17 gets all the praise, but the 16 defense, I think, was the best that they've ever had. The problem is when Sam was the quarterback and you had to pick up yardage six at a time, right? The defense couldn't be as aggressive, and they couldn't force as many turnovers because they knew that the offense didn't have its back. You know what I mean? I wonder if Zimmer would prefer a more high-flying offense

because then his defense could be more aggressive. I don't know. That'd be how I would view it right like i would just say look you're gonna lose some games by two scores but you're gonna win some games by two scores too and you throw out some of the variants associated with it whereas like how they played you know like let's say 2018 2016 was like they had a great defense fundamentally one to 11 they were awesome but they But they couldn't blitz as much. They couldn't do the cool Anthony Barr stuff,

partially because Barr was hurt, but also partially because they knew that if they gave them a big play, their offense wasn't going to bail them out. And I think that that's the – you think about – I think back to the 2011 Packers, the year after they won the Super Bowl when they had 15-1, and their defense was terrible. Like they gave up a ton of yards per play,

but they forced a lot of turnovers and scored a lot of points. And like, not a lot of their games are close. And it's like, I feel like, again, that's a perfect encapsulation of like, sort of what you're talking about, which is if an offense is explosive, if the offense has a defense is back, then a defense can kind of be aggressive and stuff like that. They can go after the quarterback because they know if they give up an 80 yard touchdown,

like the offense is more than likely to score again. Whereas for teams that are not necessarily like, you know, there was one reason why I'm talking about Vikings history again with Jim McMahon. The reason why the Vikings traded for Warren moon was because their defense was number one in the league, but there was like consternation to locker room,

but like, look, we can't give up 13 points every game there's gonna be some games we got 20 and if you guys can't score more than 17 this sucks you know i don't know what that means about this viking squad because they are explosive in some ways but they play a very like they play a very compact football you know know? And so I don't know. Like I wonder if Zimmer thinks he's that good at third down defense that they don't need to force a lot of turnovers, but it is a weird, maybe I'm walking back into my statement that they aren't going to be a very good team because these things don't, don't match very well.

There's sort of a, an irony about the way that they want to play offensively, which is they want to run the football first, which is very conservative. And if you're talking about second and 13 and you're handing off to Delvin cook and getting six, like that's just not doing a whole lot for you. And that's what they did a ton last year. I don't expect that to change by a lot. So that's the most conservative way you could possibly play, right? We used to see that in the nineties all the time. You watch a game, you're like, why are they running on second and 11 after they've had a one yard loss behind the fullback but that was football and uh mark brunel threw for like 3200 yards and we thought he was

great right so rad rad childress used to line up in i formation and run the ball on third and six like yeah well anymore like he like that that guy was trying to win games 13 16 and for a while there they scored so many defensive touchdowns they could but obviously those things catch up to you like it's crazy but you're but yeah it's absolutely right it's so weird how but the problem is I don't feel like the Vikings are getting any worse in this department I think they're staying the same and the rest of the league is figuring it out, which, which is a canary in the coal mine,

I think a little bit. And I think there's some of that, by the way, with drafting roster, building all those things that the Vikings are doing things the way they did several years ago. And the league has advanced different conversation. So here's what I'm getting at though,

that they want to do those very conservative things, but they also are very modern in this way. They want to run a ton of play action and they want to hit explosive plays. Zimmer has said this many times. We can't have five yard checkdowns. We can't run 20 plays on a drive. We can't do that. We need to hit big plays. So that's so interesting to me that they both are the most conservative and the most aggressive. They have a very high average depth of target. They throw the football down the field a lot with these play actions. And I guess I wonder like how these things all fit together and what they do to the big picture, because here's my thought on it. It results in a lot of big plays and a lot of exciting plays.

It also results in a lot of three and outs, which I think impacts the defense. Yeah, I agree. And I think that's one of the reasons why teams run the ball on early downs is because it will take 40 seconds off the clock, you know? So if you go over three, like if you go, if you pass three times, there's as big of a chance you're going to gain no yardage or no realistic like to me third and eight and third and ten are about the same so like but but if you go pass run pass or run pass pass your chances of being all of those that include a run are worse than those that include all three passes except for one thing which is in the worst case scenario pass pass pass if they're all incomplete you you don't you don't give your defense any time you make the game longer which if you're the worst team will give your give the other team the best chance to beat you and to beat you soundly and i think that that's again one of the things i try

to avoid they're they're beneficial in the sense that they have a running back and a running scheme that I think is plus. They do better than most teams in the NFL, at least now. And so they're leaning on that, I think maybe to the detriment of long-term ability to beat the really good teams. Like if you get into a game with Tampa, like they did last season and you make one or two mistakes, you have no chance to win. But it also, you know, it keeps them in, you know, some, it keeps all the games close. I mean, I think I said this on your show. The Vikings have never been in the regular season more than a touchdown underdog in the Kirk Cousins era. Like they're in every single game. Like they're never, no team comes up on the Vikings and says, this team's terrible. We got to, we're Vikings and says this team's terrible we gotta we're gonna kill this team so in that way they keep the game close the the thing that would be irritating for me if I'm Zimmer which would be look I've built an okay defense to great defense every single year except for 2020 and you took from that defense to pay a quarterback who in a top echelon of football.

And the best you can say for yourself is that you're in every game. Like there should be more double digit wins on the part of the Vikings. And to me, like they're, they play so that every game is sort of close. They keep both games in the, to your point about offense and defense being related, they keep both teams in every game yeah no i i agree and and that is it sort of always harkens back to the like he does have the second highest cap hit in the league and so when certain people say defensive ends tweet that zimmer didn't want cousins i think it's more about he didn't want that cap hit. And then the other things, I think the vaccination issue clearly strikes very deeply with Zimmer.

The turnovers frustrate him a lot. The lack of sort of, I'm going to do everything and anything to win a football game probably drives him a little crazy. And he's just the opposite personality of Zimmer. Zimmer is a junkyard dog. Kirk is the sort of corporate quarterback. And I think all of these things sort of work against each other. And that translates to what goes on in the field. And it all comes back in my mind too. I'm not sure the head coach trusts his quarterback to win football games. And the one time he did, it blew up in his face in 2018 when they said, all right, early on in the season, Kirk, this is your offense. Like, let it let it loose wide open offense. And then eventually it didn't work.

So that's very interesting to me to track this dynamic as we go along. Now, you said you don't think they're going to be a very good defense. I we did our 21 predictions, by the way, for 2021 Viking season on the website, purpleinsider.substack.com. I predicted that they'll finish between seventh and tenth in points allowed. Is that too friendly to the Vikings defense? I think that there are a lot of potentially bad defenses. So this is my backhanded compliment, I guess. I think there are enough defenses that are just like the Vikings to where that's not a terrible prediction, but

there are a lot of crappy things that can happen to the Vikings, right? Like I, again, I don't mean to get, I don't mean to, you know, we all, we've all taken a side on this and I don't mean to bring it up again, but your best player on defense is not vaccinated and he plays a position that is extremely weak link right uh Harrison Smith goes down all of a sudden Xavier Woods is your best safety and like I think he's a pretty good he probably could prove to be a great second safety probably not a great first safety uh you have uh corners that are slow like they're they could be good, right? Breeland had two good seasons in Kansas City just recently, but they're slower and they need the help of Harrison Smith.

So you have that. Anthony Barr is already injured. We're already there with Anthony Barr again. You brought back Everson Griffin because Andre Patterson is yet to sort of spark whatever he needs to spark out of DJ Wanham, Stephen Weatherly, and those guys. So I think things could go well for them, for sure, if all the cards flip over okay. So they have the goods, right?

They're not like Houston, right? Where if everything goes right, they're a middle-of-the-pack defense. No, if everything goes right, they could be a pretty damn good defense but there are a number of things that can go wrong and I and they're they could go wrong in important positions corner they're old they're safety they're unvaccinated they're linebacker they're already injured there and on the defensive line like I don't necessarily know if fans realize how much of a difference it is between having prime Everson Griffin and Hunter with Robison backing up and having Hunter off of an injury over the hill Everson Griffin and a bunch of kind of like failed draft picks backing up.

Like, I think that there's a humongous difference there that people are not necessarily pricing in because of the names. And the middle is interesting because I think that teams do walk right into the trap, which is to run it right into the fat guys. We saw them do this against Linval Joseph for years. I'll never understand it. It'd be third and one and then just right into Linval, he shuts it down.

They were the best third and one defense by like 5% or something over whatever stretch. Including the Minneapolis Marigold game. They should have never had a chance. Just insane. They didn't have the possession. Drew Brees is playing the best quarterback I've ever seen in person, and you hand it off right up the middle into Linval Joseph. It'll never make any sense and that's a praise like I'm critical of Andre Patterson I don't think he's like I don't think he's the guy where like oh Janarius Robinson's

the next so and so it's like no there was one Danelle Hunter and literally everybody else has been butt cheeks taken at that point and like but but we we gravitate but i will say this linville joseph was probably i mean linville joseph might be the most underrated vikings defensive lineman in the history of the franchise and that's a franchise that has had a dozen kind of ring of honor hall of fame caliber defensive lineman i think linville we take for granted how good he was in that 15, 16, 17 stretch of play. And again, like I think Dalvin Tomlinson is a good player, but to sort of like, oh, well, look, we got this outcome when we signed, you know, Linval from New York. We're going to get this outcome when we signed Dalvin from New York.

It's like, I would probably slow my roll a little bit on that to your point, but I think he'll be fine. It's just, to me, it's like who's going to get pressure other than Hunter. Cause like you didn't bring Tomlinson in to get a lot of pressure. The thing with Linval was that he was the best run stuffer in the NFL and was a plus player when you did have him pressure on early downs and some late downs. And then you had Tom Johnson who I think they want Sheldon Richardson to be which you have a chance there I just don't see it necessarily with this other side of the ball you know with the Weatherly's and the Wanham's and the even

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and I can tell you that the shirts are comfortable and they last because half of my closet is now soda stick at this point again that's sodastick.com minnesota sports inspired goods and keep your eye out for our soda stick giveaways i think uh linval joseph 2017 is one of the five to seven best defensive players in the nfl that year mean, truly one of the most dominating performances. He was pressuring the quarterback. He was running down dudes on screens and tackling running backs from behind. It was nuts. I mean, he, because he was fully healthy. I think other years he was battling some stuff, but that year he was incredible. And I don't expect that from Tomlinson or Pierce to be able to put dominance together like that. I do think that the Cincinnati Bengals on the first play of the game, line up and hand it off to Joe Mixon for three yards up the middle at best.

I mean, I just, this is, I still don't have trust in coaches to look at those two fat guys and say, you know, we should do something else. They're still going to run the football into them, but passing on early downs. If I was game planning against the Vikings, I'd be like 70% passes on early downs because they're just going to have no pressure up the middle. Even if you push the pocket a little, it's not the same as getting

penetration to the quarterback. So yeah, I think that that's an interesting move. And I think theoretically it makes sense, but if teams adapt, then we're going to see some weaknesses there and the other thing too i think so much of this also rests on patrick peterson like he was brought here as a 10 million dollar corner to be the old patrick peterson and through camp i don't know i mean he doesn't look to me like a hall of fame player but i know also guys i mean overall his career is but i mean like right now, I think also guys try to ramp up slowly when they're that age that, you know, Terrence Newman looked terrible in training camp every year I covered him and then was great when he got out there. And so there probably is a

comparison there. Um, but if he is not great or he's relied upon too much to track number one, wide receivers, there's, there there's just there's some holes here and not it's not solid enough to say this defense can just win you 12 games well you you bring up a great point right Terrence Newman's the guy that every Vikings fan looks at and says say here here's what Patrick Peterson the problem is Newman was asked to do very specific things and he did them very well. And you weren't going to – there were games I remember watching, the Packers game, the first game at U.S. Bank Stadium.

And that was – Rhodes was out the first two weeks. People forget he was out the first two weeks of 16, and they had to start Waynes as well as Terrence Newman at outside corner. They also had Monterlin, who's a much better nickel than I think the Vikings have had for a long time. And, you know, both those guys got matched up a lot on Devontae Adams and Jordy Nelson. And they got toasted, right? Like, the thing that brought that defense together in both 17 and 16 was Xavier Rhodes played outside of his mind. And there's not that player on this team, right?

Like, Gansler, they probably wanted him to be, but, like, the die is cast for him. Obviously, Gladney's no longer with them. They're piecing it together. And, look, they can. Teams like Kansas City, like, won a Super Bowl and went to another with this very Brashad Breeland and Travarius Ward, who's a seventh-round pick.

Like, you can do it. I just don't know if you can do it in Zimmer's defense. And to your point, like that 17 defense had Shamar Steffen, who's not very good, and Tom Johnson, who got railroaded against the run. But I will say, they kind of, whether they lucked into it or not, they really, like, honed in on something that's true about the NFL, which is if you have one dominant defensive tackle against the run and against the pass, every other player on your defense can be a pass-first

player, and you'll be fine. And I worry that they watch that Saints game on Christmas Day or Christmas Eve or whatever day that was, and they said, we need to be run. Like we can't have Troy die out there. It's like, you can't have Troy die out there. If you're, if your nose tackle is a space eating guy that can free him up,

you can have Eric. Well, people dog Eric Wilson in this town because he has terrible run fits. It's like, well, Eric Wilson created turnovers and he like, you know, he got him passing lanes. He's a good linebacker, but like, the problem was is you didn't optimize the defensive line and now you're going to put two guys there right that's to me that's overkill and this as you said these smart teams are just going to throw on them on early downs because they're not going to sniff

the quarterback and we all talk about how great zimmer is on third down and i think that's all true i think he's a genius there but if the other team doesn't get to third down on you very much you're still screwed and and I wonder I worry sometimes I worry about that with a lot of teams it's not just Minnesota I worry that Kansas City put too much into their offensive line because of one game you know Minnesota defensive line because of one game, et cetera, et cetera. Like those things, you have to be measured. And I know that that's hard to do because the glaring games make you stay up at night if you're an evaluator. Oh, for sure.

And, you know, your point about the third downs, it's very, very helpful to be great on third down. They were still pretty good on third down last year and finished 29th in defense. Like it seems they get to third down last year and finished 29th in defense like it's seems they get to third down very much right when you hit explosive plays when you can't cover people when you can't even pressure mike glenn and even he's going to make some plays when that happens which is the last question i had about the vikings then i want you to give me a couple of games that you're excited about for this week um which is what were we just talking about um

oh the schedule is what i wanted to ask you about. The quarterback schedule, the difficulty of the schedule. When it comes out, we all go, oh, well, this is whatever. This is hard. This is easy. And it just morphs so much throughout the season. But the one way you can figure out how tough it's going to be is assuming health. Look at the quarterbacks.

I think this is a tough group. I don't know how tough Joe Burrow is going to be for week one because of what he's coming off of. But you go to Kyler Murray, who's interesting, Russell Wilson, Baker Mayfield, and then later on, Aaron Rodgers is back. And we'll see about Trey Lance and Justin Fields, whether those guys play. That could swing the difficulty but where would you where do you guys have their strength of schedule and the strength of quarterback schedule yeah so we uh if you go to pff.com we have a power ranking stool

which has our simulation it has you know probability of winning the Super Bowl probability of winning the division all that um we have Minnesota with the – it's actually not so bad. We have them with the 21st toughest schedule in the NFL. But it is a top 10 schedule of quarterbacks. So the thing that's kind of like interesting about that is sort of more of a – the schedule could get a lot harder, could get a lot easier, but it's probably going to be less variable than another team's schedule, right?

At one where they play, like, it's less about the quarterbacks and more of the strength of the team. So, like, think about a San Francisco team where San Francisco is probably going to be a good team, but it's not going to be because of the quarterback. And teams like that just have a more variable win-loss outcome. Like, their distributions are wider because quarterback is a very strong link thing and you know this year might be a little different because there's some guys that aren't vaccinated but like quarterbacks don't get injured that much

and they tend to be pretty stable in their play so if you tell me how good a team's quarterback is that's kind of the biggest determiner of how good they're going to be in that season. Right. And this one is only interesting because it can change a little bit with the rookie quarterbacks. But I think overall, if Aaron Rodgers hadn't come back, I would say this is a pretty easy slate. But Rodgers twice makes that a lot harder. If Rodgers doesn't play this year, the Vikings are the favorite to win the division and I think a lot of that is because Detroit's tanking and Chicago doesn't seem to want to win this season um and but you know again like you know they have a tough you know being second place third place team last year they have the Chargers they do have they do have a tougher schedule than some believe but it's not like a murderer's row like Pittsburgh or New Orleans have. Okay. Give me football games in week one,

where you actually think the result is going to tell us about that team. Because last year we saw it wasn't a Jacksonville beat Tennessee and then never won again. And that pulling, pulling the Chris Winky, right. Of when your first game and then lose all the rest of them. What are we going to, what are we going to find out here in week one about the NFL? Yeah, that was a survivor. A of people at indianapolis like and that was a survivor pick for like everybody and then that went up in flame indy right yeah indy right yeah indy weirdly almost lost to

jacksonville twice and and made the playoffs as 11 5 7 seed which i don't know if the nfl envisioned when they made seven seeds that one of them would be 11 and five um this is one okay so I'm gonna take two games that I think a lot of people are gonna think are stinkers and I'm gonna talk you into liking them okay New York Jets at Carolina is a very compelling game for me I think the jet the Jets are five underdogs. I think it should be more like three. So I'm a huge fan of Zach Wilson. I think Zach Wilson is the most talented quarterback in this class, not named Trevor Lawrence. I think that the Jets are much more quarterback-friendly than we're all giving them credit for with the LaFleur offense.

And I think Robert Salah as a head coach is going to be – we all talk about Dan Campbell and how, like, likable he is despite kind of how big of an idiot he can be. I don't mean that specifically. But, like, you know, he's kind of Mike Tice-like, right? I think Robert Salah is going to have all of the positives of somebody like Dan Campbell as a person, but also be a tactical guy who you're not embarrassed about.

So I think if the Jets can go to Carolina and win week one, that will be kind of an interesting thing for the AFC. Conversely, if Sam Darnold plays well, Joe Burrow could be the next head coaching candidate in the NFL, and it'll say something about the NFC too. And then here's the other one. Our former guy, Teddy Bridgewater, going to New York to face the Giants. The Denver Broncos are two-and-a-half-point favorites.

I don't understand that line at all. I know people are high on Denver's, like others, the rest of their team, and they should be. Like, they have good players on that team but the Giants are also pretty good everywhere but quarterback uh you look at James Bradbury was one of the best free agent additions the last decade at corner Jabril Peppers is a good player Blake Martinez went came from Green Bay played actually really well for New York they have Leonard Williams on the interior. Offensive line, they have some young players who struggled last season. If they emerge a little bit.

I know in the preseason they kind of suck. But, like, you can see them elevating there. And they got former Lions wide receiver Kenny Galladay to go with. Kadarius Toney. I think of all the teams in the NFL, the Giants have the best chance of being one of those teams that wins a bad division on the back of a defense and a third year QB who plays just well enough for all of us to argue about the next. No, I like that. And I can't make a whole lot of sense of going on the road from Denver to New York without a great quarterback and being favored. That is a little bit strange, but I am fascinated by Denver and I was going to pick that game as one that I think you'll just sort of find out how Teddy Bridgewater looks

as a Denver Bronco with a good team because Carolina was so bad last year. I've got two that really I can't wait to kind of see how some things play out. One of them is miami at new england um for one so your franchise is talking to deshaun watson slash the fbi um that's how much they don't necessarily believe in tua that is worth talking about and then mac jones getting the start he beats out cam newton i feel like you have to sort of justify that right away with mac jones and how do you look against a brian florist defense that should be really good it's also at New England that helps a lot but there's some things to find out and learn from that game um I would have said Chicago and uh LA but Justin Fields isn't starting because insanity

exists and so I don't want to pick that one but I do want to pick Pittsburgh at Buffalo because you guys have talked a lot on PFF about Pittsburgh as a team that regresses. But you talked about it a little bit on maybe two episodes ago or three episodes ago about Buffalo as a team that regresses. And so they're playing at home. They've got the advantage there, but Pittsburgh still has a good defense. And if Josh Allen is going to carry over this MVP version of Josh Allen, it kind of starts there. You got a really tough test against Pittsburgh to have that happen.

So I think that those two games are going to be really quite telling. Yeah. And last season we always, you know, George joke, you know, when Buffalo blew out Pittsburgh in Sunday night football, and then he had a tequila on air because all the, you know, George joked, you know, when Buffalo blew out Pittsburgh in Sunday night football, and then he had a tequila on air because, you know, Pittsburgh fans called him an idiot for saying the Steelers were overrated. Like, people forget in that game that it was basically, I think it was tied at halftime at like 0-0. The Steelers did a really good job of sort of neutralizing Josh Allen

in that game. And then in the second half, weirdly, the Bills just sort of leaned on, like, the thing we know works, which is one, two, three, get Diggs open in two and a half seconds or less, throw Diggs the ball, you know? And they were like, stop, you know, quit being pretentious. Your name's Joe Dirt. Like, they just singled him up on like Steven Nelson and Joe Hayden and it's like those guys are good corners but like Stefan Diggs is one of

the best players in football so let's just throw him the ball and like ultimately then they had a pick six as well so it wasn't an it didn't end close but that game was a lot closer than people realized and that was with you know a Steelers offense under Randy Feichner that was like, was not being particularly creative or doing any of the KPIs that we like in football. So, yeah, look, I bet Buffalo early in the process. It looks like some people have bet Steelers now. I like kind of like the under in that game too. Like I think the just kind of going to be a ground and pound type of game. Yeah, I think this will find kind of going to be a ground and pound type of game. Yeah.

I think this, we'll find out something about the AFC. One last one. Here's an honorable mention. The chargers at the football team is also an interesting one. I agree. Yeah. I agree.

That one. Cause I probably would bet chargers. I'm, you know, I think Washington has a really, a lot tougher schedule than people want to give them credit for um when they all like are saying they're a darling to win the nfc east but if they could come out win this game i think it changes my mind a little bit yeah uh anytime a team says

ryan fitzpatrick is the answer um i just back away just back away slowly because i've seen that i remember when the bills gave him a contract extension and he beat the New England Patriots. They were all excited. And then he did what Ryan Fitzpatrick does tend to do. So I would expect that to happen in Washington. Eric Eager, the PFF forecast podcast is my go to when I am going for a jog or whatever, working out. So I appreciate the work that you guys do.

And people should listen to that. PFF forecast is the podcast. And I look forward to seeing you in Cincinnati soon here in a couple days, hanging out and football, man, football. I can't wait to watch college football with you on Saturday. I can't wait to, to have you at the office and not eat Skyline chili and all that good stuff. I'm excited, man. This is, this is what we've waited eight months for. So I'm excited.