Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Pittsburgh radio host answers: Should the Vikings be afraid of Aaron Rodgers? (Part 2)

Episode Date: September 26, 2025

Matthew Coller talks with Andrew Filipponi of 93.7 The Fan in Pittsburgh about whether the Vikings should be worried about the Pittsburgh Steelers' offense and Aaron Rodgers and then Manny Hill picks the schedule. The Purple Insider podcast is brought to you by FanDuel. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Okay, Manny, I know you need about 0.5 seconds to think about your most interesting Rogers versus Vikings moments, but I give you about a minute there. So what do you got? Well, I brought up 2012 already. That's kind of the one that stands out to me the most because that felt like that week 17 game at the Metrodome felt like it felt like a playoff. I mean, essentially was a playoff game for the, certainly for the Vikings, because they needed to win it to get in. I think about 2008 as well, first game of the season. It was a Monday night game, and that was Roger's first start as the starting quarterback of the Green Bay Packers, because at that point, Farr of it moved on to the Jets.

And I remember Tavares Jackson's very crucial interception at the end of that game, that frustrated me quite a bit. that gave the Packers the victory. And what is interesting is, you know, Rogers' first season as a starter with the Packers, they went six and ten. They were not a good football team. He had a pretty good season statistically, but that team was not very good.

And I remember thinking, you know, especially with Favre having moved on, I was thinking, is this guy, is this going to be a guy that just puts up good numbers, but they don't really win? a whole lot. And eventually the fans are going to get frustrated with him because he's not

Fav and all that stuff. And then it was a two years later, he ends up winning the Super Bowl and winning Super Bowl MVP. And even in that season in 2010, I think about the, it was the last game before Brad Childress was fired at the Metro Dome. And the Packers came in and blew the doors out of the Vikings and just really dominated. And, you know, that Packers team went on to win the Super Bowl that year with a great defense and Rogers going off in the playoffs against Atlanta and finding a way to win at Soldier Field in the NFC title game. But yeah, that 2000, 2008 and 2010, unfortunately, they're both Vikings losses. But those are ones that kind of stand out to me as well. Well, those do come up with the losses quite a bit into my head because we know this about

the Wilf's that the Wilf ownership cares a lot about Green Bay. And Green Bay tends to spark action. And when in 2019, remember, Rogers actually played badly in the game. He threw two picks to Anthony Harris, but the other quarterback played much worse. At the end of the season, that was one of the most hyped games I can ever remember because if they beat the Packers, they would have had a chance to still win the division the following week. And if they had gotten the division, then you get a home playoff game and you know how badly the Wills wanted that home playoff game.

Instead, they lose. Zadarius Smith has one of the freakiest games that I've ever seen from a defensive end slash outside linebacker and the Vikings sort of fall apart. And then after that was when the rumors of trading Mike Zimmer to the Dallas Cowboys came out. And it was going into a playoff game. And then I was just saying this the other day because the term vibes ended up being a thing last week. and I was kind of laughing about it because the vibes were the worst of all time around the team in 2019.

And then they go to New Orleans and they win that game, which saved Mike Zimmer's job. And Kevin Stefansky probably would have been the head coach after that. They probably would have drafted a quarterback, which that 2020 class had all good quarterbacks and like, who knows what ends up happening after that. Well, I guess that, yeah, well, no, that's right. The 20, right, 2020 class. so they instead extend Kirk because he won in the playoffs and Rick Spielman at the

combine says Kirk proved us that he can really win in the playoffs like how many dominoes and that all kind of goes back to that that game against the Packers because otherwise they might not have been playing against the Saints and that was the one that even put him on the hot seat so when things went wrong the next year it was like he was already there and it was a short extension and you know etc so it always feels like Rogers is is just there in a big moment, which brings us to this week of Annie against the Pittsburgh Steelers.

I think that this is a really big moment in this season, that when we review, and one of the things you and I love to do, we love to go back through history. We love to talk about the games and what they meant and when the seasons turned and feelings turned on certain players and things like that. And I can think of multiple moments of every season,

which took it either somewhere great or took it somewhere terrible. And this feels to me like it has the potential to take it somewhere great or somewhere terrible. Are you having a similar feeling? Because I think if they win, you've got Cleveland coming up, who has a great defense, but you should be Cleveland. I mean, then you're looking at four and one going back home. And you've got a lot of home games after that and you're in pretty good shape, even though it's a tough schedule.

but if you lose to Pittsburgh and you're going to feel like it's season on the brink already. Yeah, I mean, it's, it's the ultimate fork in the road. I mean, it's, it's, and, you know, we, we talk about vibes a lot and what the vibe is around this football team, depending on, you know, where we're at in the season, how they've looked at a certain point of the season, you know, you, you find a way to win these next two games in Europe, you're starting with this Sunday morning against Pittsburgh, I think you've got to be feeling really good about where you're headed and, you know, the potential to, you know, to be a playoff team and maybe make some noise depending on what, what seed you get in the playoffs.

But if you split these next two games and if you don't win this game against Pittsburgh and then, you know, beat Cleveland the next week because they're just not that good of a team, then you're you know you're sitting at three and two and you're not feeling bad but you're not are you really feeling great because it's kind of like okay yeah well we beat Cleveland that's supposed to do that supposed to beat the Cleveland Browns but man we should have had that game against the Steelers the week before and so I think that this is a this is an opportunity this is a Pittsburgh team that I just I'm not sure they're really all bad good I mean they beat a bad Jets team and and you know had to you know you rely on some huge defensive plays late in that game against a Jets team that's just I don't think they're very good at all. Their defense is not very good. And then they just looked horrible at home against Seattle the next week. And then they barely hung on to beat, you know, a New England team that might not be very good this year either. So I'm not really sure how good Pittsburgh is.

And this feels like an opportunity for the Vikings to go in and do what they're supposed to do. Because even though the overall quarterback play these first three games as a whole hasn't been all that great. This is still a football team with a lot of talent that has a chance to make some noise. And this is a game that I think, you know, with the weaknesses that we're kind of seeing with this Pittsburgh team, this is a game that you should be able to take care of and win. Well, and the Vikings are, I looked at this today, 26th in passing EPA through the first three weeks. they have been 7th and 10th when they had their starting quarterbacks for the full season when it was Kirk in 2022 and when it was Sam Darnold last year.

That's where we expect them to be based on this offense, the weapons. They're bringing back Jordan Addison here. Christian Derisaw is back healthy and you're missing Donovan Jackson, but replacing him with a fairly good guard to begin with. Like you've got everything overseas and, you know, we never know what's going to happen in this next game. But you've got everything to face the Pittsburgh Steelers. with and the veteran quarterback that they spent all week praising about how well he played

within the system and talking about how quick the ball came out, the anticipation and all those things that O'Connell was talking about this week, liking about having Carson Wentz a quarterback. If you go out and you don't look the same and you struggle offensively, I mean, a whole almost quarter of the season where you can't pass the football and we're going And I don't know if care who's playing quarterback, if you can't move the ball like this, then all of a sudden it goes, it does throw back to 2012 or something, except for you don't have a 2,000 yard runner. You got a great runner, but you don't have a 2,000 yard runner to bail you out in this type of season.

And then you could be talking actually kind of 2016-ish where the offense just can't really do much and the defense is really good. And eventually the defense cracks, like you could see that going in that direction. because then it's going to feel like you don't have an answer at all at a quarterback, where if Wentz plays really well, then you can handle JJ exactly how Kevin O'Connell wants to handle JJ, as opposed to, well, that didn't work. So get back in there, kid, and see what happens.

I think the benefit of Carson Wentz playing well over the next couple games is that it allows Kevin O'Connell to see him in practice. If you remember, the head coach watches the quarterbacks in practice. Mike Zimmer, let us know, I see him every day with Kell and Mon. It allows him to see JJ's progress. It allows him to work with McCarthy on better understanding the offense and what he needs to do and what Wentz as a veteran is doing that's working. All that stuff can be good for JJ McCarthy in the long term of a guy who's going to have a long career in the NFL, I think. But if Wentz struggles and you feel like you're forced to throw McCarthy back in and then,

when you're forced to throw them back in is either against Cleveland's defense or Philly or the Chargers or the even the Lions who just gave Lamar Jackson a hell of a hard time, that doesn't feel as comfortable to me if this happened. So there is a major swing here not only on the season and how it could play out and how badly you need these wins with the schedule that's upcoming, but also just the quarterback situation and the flexibility you have because if Wentz plays terribly and then I don't know if anyone's going to play great against Cleveland's defense all year. They're so good. You could be looking at, all right, well, that didn't work. Now you got to go back to the other

thing. It's got to feel maybe to you like 2008 again. I can't think of another situation. I have not covered one like this, Manny, since I've been here. It's always been like, hey, the only time it was a controversy, I think was when Teddy came back and Keenham had a very bad game against Carolina. And they lost in 2017 and there was a meeting about hey should we go to teddy like maybe you know keenum just the magic wore off or something and they decided that you know it's a lot to ask of teddy and and keenam's mostly been winning so they stayed with him but i i don't remember another time where there was any sort of it was like kirks the quarterback there was never oh it's actually going to be sean mann or you know or kellen mon or whoever else it was going to be it was

always going to be him and last year even if there would have been a controversy we never got there and we never would have because Sam Darnold played so well. So this is the first time in a very long time that there is a dicey situation with Kevin O'Connell managing a quarterback situation. Yeah. And this goes back to what I said the other day is if Carson Wentz doesn't play well, you know, if he doesn't play well Sunday and then he struggles against Cleveland, even if you've won both of those games, but you want to make a change and go back to J.J. McCarthy just because

sort of the volatility at that point that you're getting from from Wins, you just don't know what you're getting out of him. And you put McCarthy back in and a lot of the struggles that we saw in the first two weeks of the season continue. Ben, what do you do? You're kind of in a spot where you do you almost have to ride it out with McCarthy at that point, no matter how bad it gets because you put him back out there and then you get into a situation where you have to now bench him. What is that going to do for his long-term future? And so this is, it's a very delicate situation. I trust Kevin O'Connell to be able to handle it and make the right decision at the right time.

And, you know, if and when McCarthy does, you know, does come back and play this season. It's going to be, you know, I trust KOC that it's going to be the right time for him to come back in and and be ready to go. But if he's not, it's going to be a really, really dicey situation because then how do you how do you even go to Carson Wentz? If you decide to pull McCarthy again, how do you go back to Carson Wentz and say like, hey, man, like about that. You still good? You still want to go out there and play? You know, what do you think? You know, how is that going to?

And I would imagine in that circumstance, Carson would be a professional and go out there and play. But how is he going to be feeling? you know what I mean? And then what kind of impact is that going to have on the rest of the locker room as well? Folks, I know a lot of you out there either own your own business or you are in a management position where you have to hire people and it can be such a headache. You have to sort through all sorts of resumes of people who aren't qualified and you end up overlooking some of the best candidates. It's tough. But what is not tough is using ZipRecruiter for your hiring needs. ZipRecruiter finds amazing candidates for you and fast. And right now you could try it for

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opinion on the Fandulul question of the day. And then I want to answer a question here from the chat. And I want to have a very brief conversation about Sam Darnold. And then let's pay you. the schedule. The Fandul question of the day, Manny, is Dallas Turner is the favorite on Fandul to get a sack against Aaron Rogers. I think I probably would have to be Jonathan Granard, but I could see it at plus 106. How many times do you think the Vikings have to sack Aaron Rogers to win this football game? I tend to think, I mean, Pittsburgh's offensive line has had their struggles. And Rogers is not really moving around the way. he used to only only slightly man he only slightly yeah um i think if you can get to him three or four

times sack him three or four times i think that's that's a pretty good pretty good morning i guess i'll say on uh on sunday i can't i came down with three i think if you sack him three times especially one early then that will speed him up uh he clearly doesn't want to get hit these days and he'll start because against the blitz the number that I saw on PFF was he's only 11 for 23 passing against the blitz. A couple of red zone touchdowns for him. But that to me says he's, oh, I'm being blitzed. Let me just get this ball out of my hands and not bother with the hits that are going to come after that. If that's how he's going to play, then you know that Brian Flores is going to take advantage of that. So I think three is a really

good answer. So Sam Darnold, oh, I'm sorry, DeMad asked about opinion. on Jordan Addison's return and how big of a piece he'll be and says think Hawkinson is more key than Addison. I think where Addison is important is that he's so prolific downfield at tracking the football that he can run routes that are 17 yards snap off at the exact right yardage, his break, and have the ball be there on time. And Jalen Naylor, I don't think quite runs routes at that level. Like Adam Thieland doesn't run routes at that level anymore. This is another guy who's just going to be open for Carson Wentz to throw to that they,

you just haven't felt that, hey, they can't stop what's going on out here. Even last week, it was checkdowns and dinks to T.J. Hawkinson. And then it was a couple of really nice throws to Justin Jefferson. And then it was like, okay, hit the showers and Max Brosmer will take it from here. I think there'll be a little more of a challenge. And he to me is the swing man for this entire thing of being unstoppable. Like the idea of they can't cover everybody, it really, I think hinges mostly on Jordan Addison. But who has more catches, I would probably say T.J. Hawkinson, because Wentz clearly likes to lead on that little quick,

ah, it's not there. Let me just go right to him. Addison is what makes this thing what it is. Yeah, 100%. I mean, it's kind of like you insert him in and it kind of puts everything. everybody else, you know, in the pecking order of this offense, I mean, we know Justin Jefferson is at the top and number one and everything, but you insert Addison into that sort of that number two wide receiver spot. It kind of moves everybody else. It moves Naylor down a spot. It moves Adam Thielen down a spot. And it kind of actually opens things up potentially for some of those other guys to have success because the league knows that Jordan Addison is a weapon, that he's a legit threat, like you said, down the field, runs really good intermediate routes and I think having him out there is just another guy that a defense is going to have to account for and it's going to open things up for guys like T.J. Hawkinson to have more opportunities when they're available. So I think it's going to be huge having them back. I think it's only going to help this offense click and flow even better. So I think it's going to be huge getting them back. So as we are chatting right now, it's seven to three Seahawks. I don't know what's

going to happen last week we were talking and it was like a close game and then it went or something maybe that was post game post game I was like 14 14 bears and cowboys and I was like I don't know you know cowboys will probably win the game and then they did so you know who knows where it'll go from here tonight but I have thought about Sam Darnold over these first couple of weeks because he's played extremely well with the Seattle Seahawks he's been a good fit there with Jackson Smith the Jigba in particular And it does come to mind the offseason decision that they made considering that Carson Wentz is now the quarterback of the Vikings. And we all know about how much it would have cost the contract, the fact that he's probably

not signing a contract for cheap, that he would have to be franchise tag. We all know that, like all those caveats. But I do wonder where they would be if Sam Darnold was their quarterback. We saw the struggle Darnold had against really great defensive lines, but he also managed his way through Cam Robinson for like eight weeks last year. And the one thing that I'll always kind of wonder about Manny with Sam Darnold is what he would have looked like in a year two of a Kevin O'Connell offense. It's one of those things where it's like, let's say that you date somebody in college and then right after college, you get a job in New York, she gets a job. in L.A. and you're like, well, look, we both loved this. This was a lot of fun and we care about each other, but you're going New York. I'm going L.A. and we've just got to part ways. But then 20

years later, you're sitting in the rocking chair, having the morning coffee and you're wondering, I wonder what that would have been like had we stayed together. And I have a little bit of that watching Sam Darnold because he was just learning that offense last year. And Kirk took another step in the second year with KOC. What would that have been like had they have been able to make that work with Sam Darnold? I know that's not something that people really want to think about right now, but I can't, I can't help it when I'm watching him play as good as he is in Seattle.

And I also think that it wasn't just a random fluke. I think he's a good quarterback. I don't think he's the best quarterback ever, but I think he's good. Yeah. And he's, when you think about where he is at in his career, we've seen a, a lot of quarterbacks over the years play their best football when they're at about the age that Sam Darnold is at when he's in his late 20s. He's been in the league for, you know, seven or eight years, got a lot of football under his bells, made a lot of starts. And this is kind of when

we see the peak out of a lot of these quarterbacks. Now, some of these guys, they go into their 30s and they get into their mid 30s and they still have some success. But this is kind of the sweet spot for a lot of quarterbacks that we've seen. Even, you know, for as great as Tom Brady was in his late 30s and into his 40s, he still winning Super Bowls and MVP's and all that stuff. You know, when Tom Brady was 28, 29 years old, he was pretty damn good then too. You know what I mean? And certainly I'm not saying Sam Donald was Tom Brady, but you know what I mean. Like a lot of these guys, they play their best football when they are 28, 29, you know, maybe getting ready to turn 30 years old. And this is where Sam is at. And so you kind of wonder like, again, another year,

another training camp in KOC system. He was a great fit for it last year. You know, I think what happened late in the season was, you know, I think that the offensive line just, just wasn't great. I mean, it just, you lose Derasaw for the, for the season. And, you know, Cam Robinson did the best that he could, but he wasn't Christian Darrasaw. And so that had a huge impact, I think, on how well Sam was able to perform. And, you know, I think what's interesting is, and I don't know if they still would have been able to pull it off, but like you've got Jordan Mason now in this backfield.

What does having Jordan Mason do for somebody like Sam Donner? And this is no knock on Aaron Jones, but, you know, we saw the running game kind of struggle late in the season last year. And I think it was just Aaron Jones. kind of wearing down in the latter part of the season. But what does having a more proficient running game do for a guy like Sam Donner as well? Well, that's exactly the way I was thinking of this too is I know you can't do it.

I know it wouldn't have worked with the salary cap and the money that they spent. You don't spend the most money in the entire NFL in cash. And if you're also franchise tagging a quarterback, that's the reason so few teams franchise tag their quarterback because that's just one big lump of cap hit right there. And there's not a lot of great ways to work around it. But if you could just sort of superimpose what they were able to get with what they had last year, who knows?

Maybe he would have come apart in the playoffs anyway, but he probably would have looked a lot more comfortable with Will Fries, Donovan Jackson, Ryan Kelly, especially, and Christian Darrasaw, then he looked with Cam Robinson, Blake Brandel, Garrett Redbury and Dalton Reisner, who we saw just get completely worked against the Vikings last week. Such is life, right? If Kirk Cousins is the quarterback in 2017, maybe they go to the Super Bowl instead of Case Keenum. I don't know, right? That's how it goes.

Sometimes it just doesn't quite cross paths the right way, and I've been thinking about that. But Sam Darnold, just before we get to picking the schedule, when Vikings fans see him, and I understand you're not going to root for him when the Vikings play Seattle. But when you see him on national TV and he's playing well, my impression of Sam Darnold could not have been higher. My respect for him could not have been higher with the way that he handled it last year. And the fun that he gave Vikings fans throughout that season, the class in which he handled the situation, one year deal, 10 million bucks. You got to, you know, work with a young quarterback here. You're not the guy coming in that anybody wants to see be the quarterback.

and he played great and provided a very, very fun season for them. So I think Vikings fans should always have a special place for him, similar to how they do with some of the other great journeymen who have been here. Okay, let's do our thing, Manny. Let's pick the schedule. I'm very interested to see what you do with this, all things considered. So why don't we start with this week, Vikings and Pittsburgh Steelers? They sit at two and one.

Will they be three and one coming out of this? game. I think they will be. I just don't, I don't like this matchup for Pittsburgh. I just don't think their defense is very good. And it's weird because they've got some dudes on defense. And it's really strange to see them not, you know, a lot of those guys are getting, getting older, Slay is older, Jalen Ramsey is older, even T.J. Watt is, you know, a little bit longer in the tooth than what he used to be. But it's still just weird seeing a Pittsburgh Steelers defense not be good. And I think the Vikings and Carson Wins are going to be able to take advantage of that and come away with a win. Yep, I agree. I've got it 27 to 17. Does that sound good to you somewhere in that range?

All right. So then the Vikings scoot over. I don't have my map here, my world map. So I don't know if that's what direction. I didn't do very good in geography. But they will be traveling not too far over to London to play against the Cleveland Browns. and Joe Flacko, quick aside, Shadur Sanders today saying that he's better than a lot of NFL quarterbacks. Whose choice was it to let Shadur Sanders do an interview when he's QB3? You ever seen a quarterback be QB3 outside of training camp and do an interview? I mean, in the middle of the season, I have never seen that. I've never seen that.

That's, I mean, just the, he's just proven everybody right about the guy being clueless about how to handle that position. anyway he ain't starting because he ain't good so it's going to be joe flacko i assume maybe dylan gabriel depending on how things go uh do the viking beat the vaunted brown's defense i think they win this game to go to four and one i do think it's going to be kind of sloppy i mean the browns just kind of play these snot-nosed just low scoring grinded out games i think the vikings win this game but it's, I'm getting like 16 to 16 to 10 vibes where the where you never really feel like the Vikings are going to lose, but they never really bust this game open because the Browns

defense is so good. Yeah, I could see that. Darisaw versus Miles Garrett. I saw it in joint practices. And what a freaking battle that was. Now it will be in real life. So the four and one Vikings, they get a long break. How about this? October 5th to October 19th, they will have all that time to get back, reacclimated to the time zone, get healthy, and presumably we'll have a quarterback as their backup wearing number nine, who in this scenario where they're four and one also has a healthy ankle, Vikings and Eagles at US Bank Stadium, October 19th. How does this one go? I think the Philadelphia Eagles have earned the right to be considered the best team in the NFC just because of what they

did obviously last year and so many great players that they have, I'm going to give the Vikings a win here. Whoa. Yeah, I think coming, coming out of a buy with kind of the two weeks off, getting, getting their bodies back and acclimated to being back in the U.S. Games at home, I think they're going to come out and play really well. And it's going to be a tight game because the Eagles are that good. But I think the Vikings will play well enough and win the football game and go to five and one.

there are some signals. I don't want to totally doubt the Eagles, but there are some early signals of maybe it's not as good as it was last year. Their coverage has been problematic and their running back is not averaging six yards of carry as you would have expected after a 2000 yard season. We've seen that in Minnesota as well, that it is hard to go back to back with that type of performance. So a five and one Minnesota Vikings team at that point would be talked about as a potential Super Bowl. favorite there. Now they go out to play James Harbaugh and the Los Angeles Chargers. Four days rest. I don't know how many Vikings fans can make the flight. People have jobs. People have lives flying out there on a Thursday night. It was noticeably more pro rams. And considering that Herbert's playing like an MVP candidate, if he still is at that point, I do expect that

the L.A. crowd will be there for this. It won't be a pseudo home game for the Vikings. 50, 50 may be at best. So do they handle Jim Harbaugh and the Chargers? I'm going to say no. I think that the Chargers will win this game. It's going to be a short week for the Vikings where they have to travel. The Chargers will be coming off a home game against Indianapolis that Sunday. So they won't have to do any travel. They can just sleep in their nice, warm, cozy beds that entire week. And it's a Chargers defense that I think is really, really good. A secondary that I think is really good.

And so I think the Charters come away with the wind, dropping the Vikings to five and two. So if the Vikings are five and two and Carson Wentz doesn't play well, assuming that he's the one that beats the Eagles in this scenario that you're picking, I guess it starts to depend on how it's looked overall when you get these wins. because the only season I have to lean on recently that's quarterback controversy is 08 and what eventually happened in 08 was even though Gus had won games

it had been pretty gnarly and they eventually went back to Tavares so I think we could see that even a scenario where they're 5 and 2 kind of depends another long break from October 23rd this is what a weird schedule you play October 5th then the 19th and 23rd and then not again till November 2nd

but that is at Ford Field at 5 and two against the Detroit Lions. Tough matchup, tough place to play. The Lions are still really good at Ford Field as we saw week two against the hapless Chicago Bears.

And the Lions are going to be coming off a by week. Their by week is week eight. So they're going to be coming off some rest as well. So I think they're going to be feeling pretty good, feeling fresh, ready to kind of start the second half of the season. So I'll give Detroit the win at Ford Field here.

Okay. So the Vikings then drop to five and three, and maybe the conversation is increasing about J.J. McCarthy returning, but they will play the Ravens, though, you know, in years past, many, we would have said, oh, whoa, those Ravens, their defense is nasty and we haven't seen that from the Baltimore Ravens. Last year, they were able to turn it around. I don't know if they're going to be able to turn it around might depend very much on their health. I'm really not sure. At some point, it was bound to happen where the Ravens would just have a bad defense based on, I don't know, personnel or injuries or whatever because they've been so consistently good, they look like

they can't stop the run at all. They didn't stop it against Buffalo. They didn't stop it against Detroit. This is just not the same thing we usually expect from Baltimore's defense. So maybe this could be a spot where you do think about bringing back McCarthy after back to back losses. Let's assume that it's whence here. Do the Vikings win? I'm going to give the Vikings a win here because Baltimore kind of looks like, right now they kind of look like a 10 and 7, 11 and 6, 10 and 7 type of team. That's still, I think, going to be good enough to win that division because there's just nobody else. The Browns aren't going to challenge for it. I don't think Pittsburgh is very good.

You know, Joe Burrow was still going to be out for a while. So it's going to be the Jake Browning show for Cincinnati. That didn't look very good on Sunday. So I think the Ravens are going to be that team that can kind of afford to lose games like this and still be in pretty good position to win their division and get a home play out game and all that. So I think the Vikings will kind of realize that they need this game more coming off the loss to Detroit that I'm predicting and they'll come home against Baltimore and play well and win. Okay, that gets us to six and three. Is that right? Six and three.

Okay. That's a pretty good outcome. as the Bears come to U.S. Bank Stadium. The last time Caleb Williams was there, not too happy did he leave U.S. Bank Stadium. That is on November 16th. So the 6 and 3 Vikings versus either the bears that have completely collapsed or the bears that have emerged.

At this point, it could still go either way, I guess. I'm going to say the Vikings win this game. The Bears got, had a nice get right game against the terrible Dallas Cowboys defense and even still like 31 points is a lot but against you only score 31 points against the Dallas Cowboys defense it's kind of

like all right good nice day at the office everyone does yeah everybody everybody does so yeah I think this game being at US Bank Stadium I think the bears will come in and play okay but I think the Vikings will get the win okay that makes sense

and you could see you know the typical Caleb Williams stuff some Miracles and some really ugly plays and turnovers, et cetera. So now they go November 23rd to Lambo. I'm just looking forward to it. I mean, when you get that late fall, not quite winter yet, where it's going to maybe affect the game, but it's not going to be an ice bowl or something.

The leaves are coming down on your way to Wisconsin. I know a lot of you make that drive. I mean, I love this game for the Vikings being on November 23rd at Lambeau Field. but as a 7 and 3 team that is probably being talked about as, you know, maybe a darling in the NFC at this moment. Do they beat Jordan Love and the Green Bay Packers? I'm going to say no because I feel like the Packers defense. This will be the time of the year with that Packers defense,

which is already really good, is really going to be hitting their stride. They're going to have Micah Parsons fully ingrained into that unit, and they're going to be clicking on all cylinders then. And so I'm going to say Green Bay wins, wins this game at Lambeau and plays really well. Whoever goes down there, whether it's Wentz or McCarthy, it's not easy. It's never easy. And I think that actually Kirk eventually kind of got used to it because he did it so many

times. And then you thought, well, he'll probably play well every time. Darnold had a good half and then a really bad half at Lambo. But I think it still has its mystique. It still has its intimidation factor. And we've seen it with this defense. This defense, I don't think is going anywhere for Green Bay. They're going to be very good.

even against Cleveland, I mean, they should have won the game. Their defense played exceptionally, that's going to be a tough one for the Vikings. So there's seven and four going out to Seattle for the non-revenge game. The thank you game. Thank you for all the money that Sam Darnold earned. He should appreciate KOC for that. But is it thank you, Sam, for a win or not at Seattle? I think this is going to be a tough game for the Vikings because I think Seattle is going to be in a position.

where we see i don't can win that division yeah that division i mean san francisco is three and oh but they've really been getting away by the skin of their teeth in all three of these games um granted one of them was against week one against seattle uh but you know i think the seahawks are going to be playing pretty well at this point of the year that's still a tough place to play sam did go out there and get a win out there in a viking uniform last year but it's a tough place to play that crowd still the 12s out there still like to be rocking and so I'll give Seattle the win here. Where I think Seattle's probably surprise of people is that they're protecting pretty well for Sam

Donald. If they keep doing that and Gray's Abel's been really good. If they keep doing that, they can be a very dangerous team. So now we're talking about a real roller coaster, seven and five. They'll play the commanders at home on December 7th. I don't even, we can't even begin to guess what's happening a quarterback at this point. Because if you've had back-to-back losses, if it went really badly for Carson Wentz, Maybe you're feeling like you've got to make a change down the stretch run.

Maybe you're feeling at that point like you can't. There are so many options with McCarthy. If you told me he played next week, I'd be like, okay. If you told me he didn't play again, I'd be like, okay, like I could believe either one of those. But Vikings home against the commanders December 7th, do they win? I'm going to say yes. Washington, I think, is really good when they're healthy, right? now, Jaden Daniels is not healthy. Marcus Marriota had to start for them, played pretty well

against the Raiders. Is he going to be healthy by then? You know, kind of, I mean, it's two months away, so, you know, we'll, well, two and a half months away, so we'll see. But I'll, I'll give the Vikings the edge here just because it's at home. And I think they're going to be a better home team than road team this year. So an eight and five Vikings team then goes to play the Cowboys, who he might arrive and the stadium is burnt down at that point. The way that things have gone for Dallas, you know, almost winning against the Eagles and then how they fell apart against the Bears. It just, and now C.D. Lamb is banged up.

It just feels like this is the year where it all truly comes apart. Last year, they did enough to fight for air at the end. And you're like, okay, well, they've still got some pieces. They're just toast, I think, at this point. This Cowboys defense is so bad. I cannot believe it. This is the game to bring back McCarthy, by the way. Maybe, maybe.

I thought, you know, you trade away one of the great defensive players on earth. Your defense is going to take a hit. But I didn't think that they would be this bad. And maybe I should have expected them to be this bad because they were kind of bad last year with Michael Parsons. You know, but maybe I just thought that was more so, you know, Mike Zimmer kind of, the league kind of catching up to Mike Zimmer's defense and all of that. But they can't blame this on Mike Zimmer no more. That unit is awful.

And I think whoever's playing a quarterback for the Vikings is going to go in and have a field day and the Vikings win running away. 9 and 5 going to New York, remember when at the end of the off season, there was sort of a run of people saying that they thought the Giants were going to be good. And it was like, all right, start the season, everybody. like this is maybe even I said it at one point like maybe they'll be like we're just every team at that point we've talked about so much uh they're not they're not good brian dable i don't know how much of it is his fault but it hasn't been good for him since he beat ed donatelle's defense what is his record by the way since they beat the vikings in the playoffs it's got to be like a 20%

win percentage or something since they won that game against uh eddie ball game but uh the December 21st, you know, let's say it's a beautiful time in New York. The Christmas tree is going to be up. Should be a fun trip, I think, for the Vikings. I mean, this one, come on. This, this has got to be, right? Yeah. Yeah, the Vikings are not going to lose this game.

If they lose this game, whether it's Russell Wilson or James Winston or Jackson Dard playing a quarter pack. The Vikings should go in and take care of business at MetLife and win this game pretty running away. the way, Brian Dable, I believe my math is serving me well. He is, if you include the playoff game in Philadelphia, the next week, he is nine and 29. Oh, my gosh. Wow. Since beating Ed Donatale. So there was a question last week about whether you have to pick a letdown game or not. I think the schedule is so hard that it's hard to find that.

like you only have really three options it's basically cleveland Dallas or new york and i guess it's fair but i also think they should just they should win those games like when we're picking the schedule so let's let's hold off on that being a rule for now and then if they have a letdown or they show us signs of that or they get killed by some good teams maybe we'll re-implement letdown games as we go forward but these ones cowboys and giants are just so bad right now so you're talking about a 10 and 5 football team headed down the stretch to play the Lions and Packers. I like to kind of package these two games in your analysis because they are likely for

the division, but I'm not sure with who. At the beginning of the, at the beginning of the year, one of my predictions of which many have already gone wrong was that that Christmas Day game with the Lions will be for the division, that they'll do it again, only it'll be at US Bank Stadium. Now the Packers are pretty darn good as well. it could be another week 18. I mean, who knows? In this scenario, it feels like all three of these teams are going to be around that same ballpark

when they arrive at this moment. Yeah. And I think that this is an opportunity here for the Vikings having the Lions at home this late in the season, I think is going to be very big. Christmas day, yeah, everybody's going to be watching. Well, if you have the seven day trial, Netflix. That's, that's very, that's very true. That's very true.

This is, this is a tough one for me to predict because all signs point to Detroit playing, you know, having played their best football at this stage of the season. But the Vikings are going to be at home and I feel like at some point they're going to have to, at some point Kevin O'Connell's got to find a way to beat the Detroit line. Yes. Yeah. You know, um, so I'm going to give the Vikings. is a win here. Okay. So 10. I have 11 and 5. 11 and 5 going into the last week of the season.

Jordan Love played amazingly against this team in 2023 and pretty terrible in 2024. Almost brought them back. But that was one of those fake box score type of games where he wasn't very good. What are we talking about here, Manny? Are you, are you feeling like despite the quarterback situation that we are talking about a 12 win? football team or are you sticking with 11? I'm going to stick with 11 here. Okay. I think that that this is a tough stretch. The last

two games after a very friendly stretch with going to Dallas and to New York. Yeah. This is a tough stretch to wrap up the season. Even though both games are at home, this is, this is tough against two of the, I think, the best team, certainly in the NFC, if not the NFL. I have a hard

time believing the Vikings will win both of these games. Yeah. So I gave them the win against Detroit. So I'm going to say Green Bay comes in and wins, and I think Green Bay solidifies and wins the division in week 18. If you go into the playoffs at 11 and 6, in the NFC, the way that it is right now, you got just as much of a chance as anybody else. And you never know what can happen from there. And I think when we talk about what's a successful season,

there's a bunch of different paths that you can get to to call it a successful season. if things went terribly wrong with Carson Wentz in that stretch against all the good teams. And you go 0 and 4 and you just say, all right, let's go back to J.J. McCarthy. And then he looks good. And you miss the playoffs by one game. Like, that could still be a success.

It's not a good one. It's, I'm not really into participation trophies in a year like this. I've said that all along. Like, and that's why with Wentz, it's like if he's the best guy to win, then win, because this is not a find out development, like, bridge. see, it's not that way for me. I've never viewed it that way because they don't.

But you could still at least say, okay, well, that's pretty successful in the toughest division and here comes McCarthy next year. Or if you're going to go Wentz the rest of the way, which the way you played it out, there's no place to really bench Carson Wentz. There's maybe one spot where they lose back-to-back games against the Chargers and Lions

where you might think about it. If Wentz plays the rest of the way, you have to win 11 or more games for me. I agree. Okay, 10, if you get in, maybe I'll set it. I'll just put it double digits. A nine and eight season with Carson Wentz is not good enough for me.

I think you have to have double digits because I just don't believe that a team is going to go into the playoffs at nine and eight and really compete for a Super Bowl. We've seen that a few times in history, not many. But you get to 11, you start going through the history. Like, okay, well, you find a lot of 11 win teams that got hot in the playoffs and went to the Super Bowl. You get to 12 and you're a very serious contender.

I think they have to have that label on them when they arrive at the playoffs. If it's Carson Wentz the rest of the way or you haven't succeeded. Yeah, I agree 100%. And I think that if, because to me it kind of feels like if you've finished nine and eight or even dare I say eight and nine and Carson Wentz has played all these games, well, you can probably look back and say, we're going to brought back J.J. McCarthy to have that kind of result. You know what I mean? I mean, that's, he's, J.J. McCarthy is still the long-term plan for this organization going forward. And so if your end result, if you ride, write it out with whence the rest of the way and your end result is basically a 500 team, you kind of wasted everybody's time because you could have gotten McCarthy back out there to get that result, I would think, with this roster. And you will have, I think, missed on a real opportunity to kind of continue to do.

develop J.J. McCarthy. But if Wentz is playing well and you're winning enough games to get yourself into a pretty good playoff spot, then I think it makes a lot of sense. But you're a 500 team. I think you've wasted everybody's time if that was done with Carson Wentz. I think there's only one way this season could go, Manny. Carson Wentz gets banged up this week. Max Brousmer comes in, plays great and never gives up the job ever again. And next year, it's Max's team. And someday, they're putting a gold jacket on it. Look, I say that almost ingest, but it's happened before, which tells us how unpredictable the rest of the season is going to be. And last year, you fluctuated everywhere for maybe nine wins to 15 wins at one point when picking the schedule. That's why we do it

every week to get a feeling of like, where are we at? Where are we setting expectations? How good can this team be? And it's, it's going to be a ride that we don't know where it's going to end and what the stop-offs are going to be like along the way. So we will be doing this every Thursday night, picking the schedule and having a discussion. Also, it allows us to talk about where these other teams are at as well, because I probably would have

said, hey, that Dallas game is not going to be easy. And then we've seen Dallas, okay, that game shouldn't be too hard. Manny Hill, you are the best, sir, every Thursday night. Folks do not forget to answer that Fandul question the day if you're watching this on the replay. How many times do they need to sack

Aaron Rogers, Dallas Turner, the favorite to sack Rogers at plus 106, how many times they need to sack Rogers to win the game. Okay. Well, so tomorrow night, what's going to happen on the show? It'll be Andrew Kramer and also a brand new guest who's never been on before, but as one of the biggest football YouTube channels, Garrett Greenlee is going to join tomorrow. He is a lifelong Vikings fan who built a great YouTube channel.

So that's going to be tomorrow night. We'll really get into the nitty gritty of Vikings versus. Steelers. So make sure that you keep an eye out for that. Manny, I will see you again on Monday night and we'll have even more answers to talk about with the Minnesota Vikings. Thank you for your time, sir. Can't wait until Monday. Football is going to be a fun weekend. And thank you all for watching and listening. Football.