Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - POSTGAME REACTION: Disaster in Dublin

Episode Date: September 28, 2025

Matthew Coller breaks down the Minnesota Vikings' loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers. 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.

Hey, everybody, welcome in to the Minnesota Vikings postgame show here on Purple Insider, presented by Fanduil, where we will spend some time breaking down a game that looked a lot different than if you just looked at the box score. If you just open up the box score, let's say that you had things to do this morning. You come back, you're like, well, let's see. what happened and you go, whoa, Carson Wentz went crazy and, oh, man, they just barely lost. They had the ball with a chance to win the game at the end, but they just came up short. Darn, that must have been an instant classic. But if you actually watched every minute of the game, you do not feel that way at all. In fact, until the final moments, my headline was disaster in Dublin because that's exactly what it felt like.

Actually, it might still be the headline now. But it felt more like a disaster in Dublin than it did that they just barely escaped Pittsburgh did with the victory and the Vikings fought hard and so forth. It wasn't really that. I mean, this was a one-sided game that the Pittsburgh Steelers completely outplayed the Minnesota Vikings. And at the end of the game, some random stuff happened, including Mike Tomlin, not going for the fourth down, which I guess makes sense, I suppose. but, you know, they didn't get a third down and won. The Vikings made a nice stop there. They got a last chance.

Carson Wentz takes a sack where they end up losing a bunch of yards. They don't finish it out. And there you go. They lose. But what that really felt like to me was one of the bad era Kirk Cousins losses. So the 2020, the 2021 type of loss that the Vikings had so many times where the offensive line struggles, the defense isn't good enough and then the quarterback ends up with a huge yardage total

because he's firing back trying to get his team back in the game but when it is 24 to 6 at one point and this is why I always say that not all one score games are created equal they certainly are not if it had been back and forth punches being thrown by both teams and then Pittsburgh escaped with a three point win you would say oh well man gosh that's bad for the Vikings but at least it was a good game or they just needed one more thing or whatever it might have been.

This was not that. This is panic time, I think, for the Vikings to lose, not just to lose, but to lose the way that they did, which also included losing offensive linemen, a defense that now can you really trust them on a week-to-week basis after last week, they get all those turnovers and look great, but this looked much more like the Atlanta game, except for Aaron Rogers is better than Michael Pennix at managing a game where his team is playing from ahead. He did a terrific job in this afternoon or this morning. And they ran the ball like they had Bejohn Robinson and not backup running back Kenneth Gainwell. So I want to get all

into that and then what it means and of course what they will do next at the quarterback position. So let's start by going through the game. And then we'll talk about the bigger themes and what it all means going forward. So the game I thought at the beginning looked to me like Carson Wentz was pretty locked in. Now, yes, it's going to be a thing with him to get rid of the football. And he did not do it on a number of occasions. And there were some hits that he took early and some mistakes. But he was getting the ball to Justin Jefferson a ton in the first half. And by the end of the first half, I believe Jefferson had eight catches with 97 yards. And the Vikings had had had, at least three drives where they move the ball extremely well.

Up and down the field with Wentz passing, they didn't finish off two drives where they needed touchdowns and they end up with field goals. So that's a huge part of this right off the bat that they were not able to finish those drives. And Will Fries takes a penalty. I mean, when you have a lot of injuries on your O line, your $17 million guard taking a penalty inside the 10

is not something that can happen, especially when it's a boneheaded penalty, where he's just drifting down the field. And I thought that the opening script looked really good. Like quick passes, get the ball to Jefferson. No one's going to jail because Jefferson was involved early on. I mean, eight catches in the first half is really good. They get a bad break on the tipped interception where that was one of the few times.

They actually had protection, but it was just a good job throwing a hand up, tips the ball, gets picked off, ruins another drive. but even going into halftime, I thought, well, I mean, they're moving the ball. And if they continue to move the ball against Pittsburgh, then a couple of these drives will eventually click. And, you know, you'll be in the game, at least. I did not think that at halftime they had played so badly on offense or that Wentz had played so badly that they were going to have no chance to win the game. But on the defensive side in the first half, and really for the entire game, but especially

the first half, it was shocking. Just absolutely shocking. The only times we've seen stuff like this, and I think maybe the correlation is veteran quarterbacks, right? We've seen it with Stafford. We've seen it with Jared Gough. But Aaron Rogers having no problem today identifying where the pressure was coming from, getting it to D.K. Metcalf time and time again,

the second drive of the game, he throws the ball to D.K. Metcalfe five, six different times, and they just steamrolled down the field score. And then there's an 80-yard touchdown. to D.K. McCaff, where he just runs a slant into the middle of the field. Everybody just clears. He catches the ball. You're not catching D.K. Metcalf.

It's one of the fastest people on Earth. And he's six foot, seven, 240 pounds or whatever. And he just outruns the defense. Those things were very concerning. The fact that they could not throw off Aaron Rogers at all. And it makes you wonder just about the veteran quarterbacks that they're going to eventually face, even Joe Flacco. But going forward.

where you go up against Jalen Hertz, you go up against Justin Herbert, who shredded Brian Flores' defense two years ago when he faced it. And then you're going to see Jared Goff again, who has never had problems with this defense. So watching that in the first half really made you wonder, are they going to be able to do the thing where they just cause turnovers and get a bunch of sacks and pressures

and shut the other team's quarterback down and leave them all flustered like they did the last, that Rogers was in London, well, that didn't happen today. He didn't, we didn't see Rogers face at all. In fact, he was grinning for most of the game. And that was going to be the indicator, right? If Rogers looks miserable, you've probably won. He didn't at all.

He looked very comfortable throughout this day. And he looked like he had, I don't know, done enough homework to understand where the defense was going to be coming from and had all the answers for it. But that's not even the most disturbing part. because Aaron Rogers is one of the greatest players in history and okay you can see it right he hasn't played that great lately but he had flashes last year he's had flashes this year metcalf is a 35 million dollar wide receiver okay maybe you could say look it's rogers he's harassed this franchise for 20 years he might as well get one more off against them right but the disturbing part

I thought was Kenneth gainwell I know who Kenneth gainwell is so it's not one of those situations. But when Jalen Warren goes down, they're starting running back and is not able to play, your first thought is, well, they're not going to run the ball at all. They're just going to get stuffed and stuffed and Rogers is going to be in third and long and it's going to be a field day for Brian Flores. That was not what happened on this day. Kenneth Gainwell ends up with over five yards of carry and that number was higher throughout the game. The offensive line for Pittsburgh had no problem moving this defensive line, and it's a worst fear realized. Now, I know you could go back to the Harrison Phillips trade and say, well, why did they

trade Harrison Phillips if this was going to be the case? And I think that that's fair. I'm not going to tell you that that's an unfair sentiment. I even wonder about Jonathan Bullard, who was available all the way through the offseason, Taki Taimani, Tami, who's sitting there, not even dressed for game day on the practice squad, the fattest guy there. And the thought was that Levi Drake Rodriguez, Jalen Redman, you can put those guys in, you can mix and match.

It's clear that this team needs to be at full strength with Blake Cashman, with Andrew Van Ginkle, rallying to make those tackles that you can't have. I mean, Eric Wilson, I thought, you know, he's done a lot of good things. And Dallas Turner, I think, has done some good things since he's been in. Those guys are not run stuffing specialists. and that makes a difference, but it also makes a difference

that your interior can be moved. And when you looked at the numbers from Jonathan Allen and J. Vaughan Hargrave, their pressures were still really good over the last few years. But what was the most concerning part of those signings? It was their run defense.

And the idea was you can sacrifice some on the run if you're going to create more pressure with four. But if you get down in games, it doesn't work that way. And that's what happened today. that's what happened against Atlanta. And if Chicago was any good,

they would have done this as well, but they're not. So these are teams that are a little bit more competent, have a little bit more talent. And this team, it's run by a guy, Arthur Smith, who is known for his run first type of offense

and building off that, and they did a great job. They pushed the Vikings all over the field. These older defensive tackles who just want to rush the passer, they're getting moved left and right. I wouldn't be shocked if we look at those PFF grades. And we see 40s for those guys because they were getting run over.

And Kenneth Gainwell, all he had to do was just get the ball and run into the huge holes. He didn't do anything special. Bejohn Robinson, they wrote it off. And they say, hey, look, you know, be John. He's like the seventh overall pick or whatever. He's an amazing player. Yeah, okay. But nobody else, right?

Chase Brown's not going to do that to us. Well, Kenneth Gainwell just did. And that makes it very concerning because Quinn John Judkins, a top draft pick, is in the backfield for Cleveland next week. Are they going to stop him? And then the rest, I mean, O'Marion Hampton's on the way, Sequin Barclay's on the way,

not in that order. Very, very, very disturbing stuff. Who are you going to stop on the ground if you can't stop the Pittsburgh Steelers with their backup running back? And that set the tone for the entire game because Carson Wentz, if you're going to win with Carson Wentz,

there's a pretty clear formula here. You need everybody in. can't have three backup offensive linemen. You have to play from ahead, which means you've got to run successfully with Jordan Mason. They didn't really do that today outside of a handful of runs, but when are you going to do that when you're losing? And you cannot play from behind, absolutely cannot play from behind with a backup quarterback

in the game. And he tried at the end. He tried. He got them a 80-yard touchdown and he let another touchdown drive and converts the two-point convert he tried he tried or uh wait no did they convert a two point conversion maybe they failed on that i don't remember anyway uh he tried he did his best that's not how you're going to win and guess what you're not going to win that way when j j mccarthy if when he comes back either if you're going to win with j mccarthy you ain't going to win from behind when you can't run

the other team is running over you and you have three backup offensive linemen you're not winning with anybody a quarterback unless the chargers decide that they want to trade Justin Herbert here. Otherwise, it's not going to happen. So Wentz, once those guys go out, Juergens is a disaster today. He's playing one of the greatest defensive tackles in history. Cam Hayward, talking about PFF grades. It's probably a 95. Maybe he had a perfect game, just like Isaiah Rogers.

Juergens is a backup center. He did everything he could last week in a very favorable situation and was okay. But in this, where you have to drop back 50 plus times with Carson Wentz, Yeah, Michael Juergens isn't going to cut it. Blake Brandel messed up an assignment at the end of the game, which caused Carson Wentz to either get sacked or have to throw it away where they might have had a chance. Brandel's a backup player.

Justin's school in it, right tackle. No chance against future Hall of Famer, T.J. Watt. You're not going to win many games with a backup caliber quarterback who just showed up here a month ago if all the things that you needed to go right for this to work all go wrong. and that's what happened today. And I thought that there was no moment that demonstrated this better because I'm sure that there may be some discussion already,

the play calling and all that, which is a conversation after every game. The third quarter, they're down 14 to 6. They hand off three times to Jordan Mason, or maybe it was a swing pass, a couple of times to Jordan Mason, he gets big gains. And they get to the other side of the field. and you're thinking 14 to 6, here they go. They're going to get the offense going.

Jefferson's going to get a big play or, you know, keep pounding with Jordan Mason and you're going to tie this game. And then, hey, look, they play four quarters for a reason, right? And then the wheels come off with the offensive line. And you get a strip sack, which is recovered for, you know, by the Vikings, so they get lucky there. And then it's another sack that's, sends them way back.

And then in an attempt to play, it's safe, which I understand and is another kind of a little bit of a bad break, but nonetheless, a Hall of Fame player makes a Hall of Fame play, then they throw the interception. And that's on Carson Wentz, not seeing T.J. Watt there trying to, I mean, I thought it was a little bit of a lazy kind of dunk, like, ah, it's third and forever. So just, you know, whatever, it gets picked off. That totally reshaped. And then if there was ever a time where you needed a big stop and you needed your team to step up there on defense, the defense that you paid more money for than anybody else in the entire NFL, it was there.

You were going to have to get a stop there. But instead, five plays, 35 yards, touchdown 216, and listen to this drive. This is the most concerning thing. Listen to this drive after Wentz throws the pick. so you could call it a bad break, you could call it a terrible play, whatever it was. All right, but you're still 14 to 6, and they're starting the drive at what? The 35-yard line, is that where they started the drive? At the 35-yard line.

If you hold them to a field goal, it's 17-6, you're still in the game. Listen to this. They get an 8-yard completion, then a 7-yard run, a 6-yard run, a 10-yard run, and a 4-yard run, more or less game over at that point. the win probability was about 95% Steelers at that point. Let's go through this again. Seven yard run, six yard run,

10 yard run, 4 yard run. That is not going to cut it if you're going to have an elite defense. If you're going to win games with either Carson Wentz or J.J. McCarthy, if that's what you think you're going to do, you cannot have your quarterback,

whoever it is, make a mistake, and then just give up four straight, five straight run plays touchdown just can't happen and they weren't worn down because the Vikings were actually on the field a lot more with these longer drives this is just a team that can't stop the run and everybody knows it apparently and last week Cincinnati got down so fast and their offensive line and they're running back are just horrible it didn't make any difference everybody else has been able to run on this team and that is extremely extremely concerning because now you can't, again, no matter who's a quarterback, you can't play the way that you need to play

to win. And let's talk about those injuries. Ryan Kelly, out with a concussion. He just had a concussion two weeks ago. I am not a doctor. I am not evaluating him. I'm not his family member. Retire. Retire. Like this is, this has got to be it. Ryan Kelly, this has got to be it. One of the best players of the last decade, phenomenal center. The games he was in, I was so impressed. The way he picked things apart up front, his power, his size, such an excellent player. Talk to him a handful of times. Incredibly smart dude, incredibly impressive person, really great to be around.

Every, every person you ever talk to loves Ryan Kelly. Retire. Two concussions this quickly. Four in the past. that's all the ones that have been diagnosed. And you can say, and I saw people saying it, well, this is what you get when you sign him. And look, I get it.

He had had injuries in the past. This is just bad luck for Ryan Kelly. It's just a terrible, terrible break for a great, great player. And there's stuff that we can second guess. And signing older players, there was bound to be some injuries. I agree. And the reason I didn't talk about them in the offseason, because it was like, what do you want me to say? Yeah, if somebody gets like, yeah, they might get hurt. I don't know.

Everybody might get hurt. The 22-year-old quarterback might get hurt. So you can second-guess that. You could probably second-guess not having a veteran backup center. I would fully agree with that because now it's Michael Juergen's show. And even he had to be evaluated at one point in the tent because everybody is getting hurt on the offensive line. But I don't like second-guessing the signing for, what, two years and $9 million of a guy who had played, what, 800 or something snaps last year, you knew that there would be bumps and bruises, but this, this is just a bad, bad break for Ryan Kelly. And the same goes for Brian O'Neill, who doesn't have that much of an injury history.

He's been banged up at times throughout his career and he gets hurt on a field goal. So now you might end up, and I would much prefer to see Walter Rouse in there, by the way. I don't know why he was inactive today. I'd much prefer to see him instead of just in school. but you might go forward with Justin's school, Michael Juergens, Blake Brandel, as Donovan Jackson is out, I don't know what they're supposed to do on the offensive line. I don't know how much you can second guess that.

School was okay as a backup, but all backup tackles are terrible. I mean, in his past, Brandel is who he is. He's a backup caliber player. And now Jurgens is a guy with very little experience. It's not like there's guys that they can go out and get. And that's why in the bigger picture here,

this feels like it's on the brink. This feels like it's teetering. And it's two and two. And you could say, oh, it's two and two and they can get a win next week against Cleveland. And that's true. But I don't know how if Brian O'Neill is out long term, you're supposed to go forward with this offensive line and expect anybody at quarterback to win. So we get to, let's just, you know, later in the game, they get a couple of stops.

But it was gifts. They were still moving the ball. Pittsburgh was still moving the ball. and they just gave the Vikings gifts. When you go to the end of the game here, this long drive, nine plays 64 yards, took almost four minutes off the clock for the Steelers. And what do we got here?

15 yard run, 15 yard run. I mean, how are you going to win this way? And then they get the stop at the goal line, which again, I just don't really understand some of Mike Tomlin's handling of the game management. I think that's always been an issue for him. Maybe that's why every win of theirs is like this. I'm sure they're saying that in Pittsburgh and then, you know, the end of the game where they get nothing and the Vikings forced them to punt and get a chance.

But that drive where it eventually was a turnover on downs after the long touchdown drive for the Vikings, it still moved the needle very positively in the Steelers direction. And if you get a three and out there and you take only 45 seconds off the clock or whatever, a minute off the clock, then the Vikings would have had a chance. when they have the 99-yard drive and the long touchdown to Jordan Addison. But instead, they ended up taking four minutes off the clock. There's just not enough time at the end of the day. And when you're asking Carson Wentz to lead a drive of how many other yards it would have been, I guess that would have been an 80-yard drive. If you're asking him for an 80-yard drive at the end of the game with those past rushers coming at you,

it's pretty tough. Overall with Wentz, I thought that early on he executed what he was asked to do. And the rest of the way, it was a hard ride at times with inaccurate throws, with hanging on to the ball too long. I guess we could say, but the pressure is just coming on top of him the whole time. It was just brutal with the pressure. But there were times where you got to throw the ball away, the sack or what did they rule it? Did they rule it a, was that a, did they just call it a sack at the end of the game or was it a penalty? Okay, they called it a penalty.

I was wondering if they said he was like in the grasp or something. I had the, I was writing. So the penalty at the end, you got to get rid of the football. But like this is kind of who Wentz is. He's been sacked 50 times before in his career that if you're asking him to drop back over and over and over and over again, where he can't just play in rhythm, compare, you know, combine it with the run game and get the ball out quickly like he did last week. That's going to happen. So Wentz overall ends up with huge numbers on this day.

Jefferson ends up with huge numbers. A lot of it feels pretty empty. And to me, he played kind of a Nick Mullinsie type of game where it was inaccurate. And he threw for a ton of yards, but they were playing from behind. And you just end up with an empty feeling at the end about the quarterback play. I wouldn't say that it was horrific. I would say that it was the type of game situation that this is what you would expect from somebody like Carson Wentz, that if you have Mahomes, if you have Herbert,

if you have probably, you know, 10 starting quarterbacks in the league, you'd have a chance to win this one. But, you know, with Wentz, that's not really where you're at right now. So I'm sure that there will be a lot of like, you know, you told us Wentz was the goat last week, which of course I didn't. But this is the level of performance that you're going to get for a backup. You want to win with them. You've seen it. You have seen it many times in Viking's history. If you want to win with Case Keenham, you don't win playing behind 24 to 6 because you can't

stop anything. That's what it looks like with Nick Mullins in 2023. I said bad Kirk era, but Mullins, 2003 against Cincinnati against Detroit, where the defense wasn't doing its job. And then the guy's going to make mistakes because he's not a starting quarterback in the NFL. That's what you get. So that leads me to the bigger picture here and about the quarterback situation.

After two games with Carson Wentz, you've seen him play extremely well, when in the right circumstance, and you've seen gestures at everything today, which was some really good plays, some really good drives, and some really bad and some unacceptable stuff from him, the delay of game, how does that even happen at the end where they could have had a chance? I don't know whose fault that is, but the quarterback's the guy out there with the ball. And if Kirk Cousins was the quarterback, I would have been telling you that's on Kirk. So I'm going to tell you that's on Carson.

And I would have told you last year when Caleb Williams messed up something like that on Thanksgiving, that it's on the quarterback. You're the guy out there. Getting a delay a game is absurd at the end after you've just spiked the football. That was just crazy. So there was a lot of stuff, a lot of stuff that was just been. mistakes from Wentz and even got bailed out by them babbling the ball at the end. But there were open throws. There's one in the red zone where they don't end up scoring a touchdown to

T.J. Hawkinson. Hawkinson runs an out route. It's right there and the throws behind him. And Hawkinson has to make a hard catch, but that just doesn't happen. That has not ever really been his thing since he's been a Viking. And you could definitely get to a point. I don't feel like it needs to be said today, but when you're looking at the money that was paid out there, you're certainly asking, can you make that catch? Can you make a catch that's a little bit behind you that just asks you to turn around and make a play? But that hasn't really been who T.J. Hawkinson has been over the last couple of years. So there were a lot of throws, though, that needed to be on point that weren't. He gave them a fighting chance. But that's about

all Carson Wentz is going to do because there's a ceiling on that. And we talked about that. And that's the concern about having Carson Wentz be your quarterback and sticking with him is that you have a ceiling. And when you win 48 to 10, it looks great and everyone feels like, oh, we're back and this is who we really are. It's not. It's a combination. It's not the 48 to 10 team. It's not as bad as it was in Atlanta. And today was kind of in the middle where it was some really good moments for them throwing the ball to Jefferson,

which you can win a lot of games and stay in a lot of games doing that. But if you're not going to stop the run and you're not going to give your team a chance to stay ahead and play with Jordan Mason, you're just not going to win or you're going to have to win on miracle stuff or whatever. I feel like we've just seen this script so many times for those of you who watched closely the 2016 season, the second half of that year. There's probably five different games from that year, five different games from 2020, 2021, especially. there's a lot of those that went just like this. And then 2023 went like this as well, as also some, you know, losses that they had mixed in the last couple of years. So now you're talking about a two and two team that is about to face one of the best

defensive lines, if not the best in the NFL. I don't think that's a good time to put in J.J. McCarthy. And I'm not sure when it will be. probably against Philadelphia, though, after the byweek. If they beat the Cleveland Browns 41 to 12, I don't know that you'll see McCarthy. I'm not sure. We don't really know how Kevin O'Connell is feeling about this.

But, and I know McCarthy's got to play. I know he's got to play to develop. I get that. And a lot of people are going to say, well, if you're going to waste this season, then you got to get him in. but you don't have to get them in right now. You don't have to get them in against Cleveland,

a defense that is that nasty. Philadelphia is good. They're touchable. They're not perfect. They don't have Milton Williams anymore. They're still good at pressuring the quarterback. It's not what they were in the Super Bowl. It's probably going to be the best time.

And if they were going to have this Case Keenum type of season happened to them, this, whoa, a backup quarterback comes out of nowhere. then they were going to have to check a couple of boxes, and one of those boxes had to be winning today. You had to go 2-0, and then you would go back and say, all right, well, this is a good team, and here comes Carson Wentz, and we'll see what happens with McCarthy in the future,

but you're just going to keep running it back with the veteran quarterback, try to win, try to get in the playoffs. We've talked about that a million times. It's a team that's built to win. Losing today changes the calculus on that, where now it's so hard. hard to see them with Carson Wentz running through that tough portion of the schedule and even even at the end I mean Jackson Darts in maybe the Giants like they've got talent they could be

pretty good at the end of the year not right now not with Wilson and they start 0 and 3 but they get to the end of the year they've got that D line like that's no there's no guarantees now if you can't win this game and you're down 24 to 6 at some point and you're getting steamrolled by a backup running back who's kind of bounced around. It's hard to convince me that there's anybody left on the schedule that I'm like, oh, well, that's, you know, there's your tomato can, just take care of that. That'll be easy.

You'll get this win, this win, this win, and then all you've got to do is split the tough games. That's kind of out the window now, right? Their wins this year are Chicago in a miracle fourth quarter and a horrific Cincinnati team that has the worst offensive line of backup quarterback. and your losses are against a reasonable Falcons team where you got your face beat in and then a reasonable Pittsburgh team where you got your face beat in.

If we start adding up the quarters, how many quarters the Vikings have won this year? It's five. They've played 16. They've won five. It's not looking good, my friends. It's not looking good. So now you have to figure out when's the best time for McCarthy to come back. I think even if we pencil in a win against Cleveland,

it makes a lot of sense to go back to J.J. McCarthy against the Philadelphia Eagles. But that's my big picture type of take of, well, it's just time to play them. Like, if you were going to be a great team, you needed to win this game, and you needed to come out of it healthy. You can't come out of this game.

It's all a factor. You can't come out of this game down to offensive linemen and then convince me like, oh, it's all going to be fine. and you're just going to be a great team from now on. That matters too. And it matters that the defense is just not who we thought they were. They're going to be fine, but they're not going to be good. They're not going to be elite.

They're not going to lead the NFL through a couple of games in EPA and all that because of all the touchdowns and whatever last week. That's not who they're really going to be as they go through the rest of this season. I think they're going to have their moments and they're going to be very flawed. And ultimately just be another deal. defense in the league, which is kind of how it is from week to week and even from year to year. You know, they stacked it up and put all these guys there and all this investment and everything else, but there's no guarantee that it's going to stay healthy.

There's no guarantee it's going to work. And what we saw today, if it had just been a couple of throws from Aaron Rogers and they stopped the run and they lost by three, okay, but it was the way that they lost. Rogers goes 18 for 22. It's the way that they lost. so efficiently running the football, passing the ball. That's not a team that should scare you offensively. I mean, Chicago moved the ball against them.

Caleb Williams missed open receivers, but they were there. It's really only Cincinnati. Atlanta moved the ball at will. If Atlanta had finished some drives, by the way, they would have scored 34 points in that game. But they failed a bunch in the red zone. and ended up looking better than it was. A lot of very disturbing stuff coming out of this game.

So, because the postgame show is presented by Fanduel, we have a Fandual question of the day. That is how many wins should be the over-under now after this game. The Vikings are now plus 265 to make the postseason on Fandul that is right behind the Arizona Cardinals. That's where they're at right now. You know, I like to be the person who doesn't overreact too much to stuff. It's a long season.

We try to judge the bigger type of indicators, right? That's why I use the stats all the time. What do the stats tell us about where this is really going? And let's not freak out over one loss or, you know, last week, Green Bay, lost to Cleveland, Atlanta got killed by Carolina. As we speak, the Giants are beating the Chargers. I don't think any of us think that the Giants are better than the Chargers or that the Browns are better than the Green Bay Packers, right?

So the NFL can really trick you and can really make you think that your team is the best or the worst on a given week. So I would understand maybe if some folks said, hey, whoa, they just won 48 to 10 last week. But if you're going to tell me that the road to success is scoring two defensive touchdowns, having your quarterback only need 20 passes, run for seven yards per carry, get five fumbles, cause a couple of interceptions, and have the other team be in total disarray with their backup quarterback, their horrible offensive line, they're running back who's not any good. If that's the model you need to win, well, I don't know how many teams on the

upcoming schedule have that maybe Cleveland maybe because their offense is totally inept and you know I don't know maybe we'll see Dylan Gabriel or something but when you start going forward against the Eagles the Chargers on four days rest then out to four field then come back and you've got Baltimore coming up there too which one of those games leaves you open to another 48 to 10 or even just to winning in that style this defense plays to get turnovers and sacks, and they're going to do that at times. And there's probably a game or two in that mix, like there wasn't 20, 23, where they beat San Francisco, kind of saved their season.

And we all went like, oh, seasons back on now, or they beat Green Bay. Ultimately, that team was very much like this one, a lot, a lot, a lot of flaws. So we come out of this game, I think, with a lot more questions, and it is so much more difficult to see the path to them making the playoffs when you have Detroit that's such a proven team, such a proven quarterback, Green Bay, that's a proven coach, their quarterback's been to the playoffs every year since he's been starting, two years, their defense is elite. How do you get in that mix?

How do you get in that mix if you stick with Wentz and then you need him to, to play hero for you? I mean, if you told me before the game, Carson Wentz was going to throw 45 times for 350 yards. You know what I would have said? Oh, they got killed then, right? Because there's no world where you want to play that way. And Jordan Mason runs 16 times for 57 yards.

It's not enough runs. It's not enough yards. But who are you pushing around with this offensive line that's as banged up as it is? So we've almost reached the portion now of this conversation and this breakdown of this loss where we're looking around who to point fingers at and who to blame because that's what we have to do in a postgame show after a team that lost. And I think it's a pie chart. But the biggest piece of the pie is the injuries. I don't think there's any way around that because with Ryan Kelly and Brian O'Neill and Donovan Jackson and Christian Derisaw,

that's a really good offensive line. It's just never played together. I mean, Jackson getting hurt was something that throughout the week, I think my reaction was like, well, you know, at least you have a backup guard who's played before. You know, my take on Donovan Jackson is he's pretty darn good because today it was a rough ride for Blake Brandel over there, left guard. How are you going to maximize Jordan Mason if you can't get push up front? Because when you have Donovan Jackson, he is so athletic and so skilled, he can get out to linebackers, he can turn defensive linemen. He was doing high-level stuff last week against Cincinnati and in week one against Chicago. Clearly the Atlanta game was tougher, but Jackson is a high-level talent.

And you don't have that for multiple weeks. Maybe he comes back out of the buy. That would be helpful. Kelly may never return. I hope that he doesn't. If he does, I'm going to be really worried every single snap that he's out there. I do not. I mean, look, guys, they hurt their ankles.

They break their wrists. You know, that's football, and you go, eh, well, it'll heal. But the brain, not so much, nothing to mess with. So you're probably riding this out with the backup center the rest of the way. And if he gets hurt, I guess Joe Huber is the guy, a good camp, but I don't think that's what you want to have. And then if Brian O'Neill is out long term, then you're talking about Justin School or you're talking about Walter Rouse. And it was a main part of this team, how to win. And when Quasi Adolph-Menzis said, we want to be able to win multiple different kind of fights,

well, you can't win any fights with your arm tied behind your back due to injuries. Andrew Van Ginkle is one of the best players in the league. Not out there today. It made a difference. Who was the guy that picked off Aaron Rogers and changed the game? It was him. I didn't think it's hard to tell. I didn't think Dallas Turner had a very good game.

I didn't think anybody had a very good game. But he's not Andrew Van Ginkle right now. He's going to be a guy that gets five pressures. last week and then no shows this week because he's still on the younger side. But he's not Andrew Van Ginkle and Ivan Pace, you know, I think the teams figured out how to take advantage of Ivan Pace. And when Blake Cashman comes back, I'd like that to be Eric Wilson and Blake Cashman at linebacker and not Ivan Pace anymore. He's been good for them as an undrafted free agent, a great story. But this is kind of what happens sometimes when you had

the meaty guys up front last year, holding blocks, then you could get Ivan Pace knifing in and making tackles. But when you're a player like that, everything around you impacts your performance. So all of a sudden, when Hargrave and Allen are just being moved, Ivan Pace is going to get taken out a lot of those plays. And he's not a great cover linebacker.

He was never going to be probably at that size. But I don't think he's been a great cover linebacker for them. So now you're looking around going, you're missing two Pro Bowl caliber players who make a big difference and the replacements have their limitations. The secondary, I mean, there was only one throw against Jeff Okuda, but it was sort of a worst fears throw where he was in position to make a play but couldn't get head back around and Rogers makes a good throw.

They just attack him one-on-one, which is going to happen every time he's out there. Harrison Smith was a little late on the D.K. I mean, this is how it happens. This is why defense is so hard to predict. This is how it comes apart. So last week was a lot of entertainment and a crazy performance by Isaiah Rogers. I saw today that he hit 23 miles an hour. I think when I jog, I probably go about eight.

So, I mean, I'm impressed there. But the secondary has got its weaknesses and the D-Lines got its weaknesses. And that's not the plan. That's not how you're going to win multiple kinds of fights. So when we start to look forward, it's difficult to see how this team after this can flip a switch. I think that's the hardest part for me as I try to project forward. What have you got here and how does it become something really good? You know what it feels like?

It feels like a 2020 season where you get behind the eight ball and you're never able to catch up. And even if you get some wins, even if you have some fun games, even if you have pull an upset against somebody like in 2020 when they went to Green Bay and they beat them. I think that was 2020 and they beat them. And it's like, oh, let's not trade DeNeil Hunter at the deadline. Wait, that wasn't that season. That was 23. 2020 was let's not trade.

Maybe it was Riley Reef. Somebody else at the deadline. Kyle Rudolph, whoever it was. Yeah, I think it might have been Kyle Rudolph. Like, let's not trade those guys at the deadline. 2023, this happened too. You get a win right before the deadline. And it's like, don't trade DeNeil Hunter.

for a second round draft pick, Hunter leaves. I mean, yeah, you get eventual compensation for that, but, you know, you didn't get the draft pick right away. And that's usually why teams sell at the deadline if they can't really do it. Two and two in a lot of years, depending on the schedule, would have felt like, okay, well, season's still on. And I know Adam Thieland had brought this up. Hey, we were two and two in 2017.

The schedule did not look like this in 2017. So the way it feels now is from the path to point A to point B feels like to me, the only way this thing goes in the direction where the team is playing in the playoffs is one, if a lot of NFC teams kind of come apart and you can get in with eight or nine wins, I think nine is about the high marker.

That was my fan dual question of the day. It's like where would you set the over under after this, knowing they're plus 2.30, 265 to make the playoffs. If I was advising fan duel, I'd put it about seven and a half wins for this team now where maybe, you know, I had stayed with for the entire time, hey, they can win 10 or 11. I hadn't moved off the 11. I had stuck with it.

This is the day. This is the day. Because you needed to come out of this trip four and one to have a chance. But now, without key players going forward, great teams on the way. It is going to have to take a lot. So the only path to get there is likely if J.J. McCarthy returns and plays really, really well.

And I know that lots of comment sections and lots of videos for last week and lots of podcasts all told me that I wrote off McCarthy, I hate McCarthy, you know, all that boring stuff that people say to me all the time, which is you're not just listening, you're just angry at someone who's not me because that's not what I'm saying. But they still have, I think, a little bit of a tricky balance here with bringing back McCarthy

where you're bringing him back into an environment that might come along with some risk of playing with this offensive line. And I know I was the one that said, hey, you've got to be able to play with one backup offensive lineman. Three is pretty tough. Three is pretty tough, as we saw from Carson Wentz. so they will have to decide if they beat Cleveland. Let's say they win handily, 35 to 13 against Cleveland.

They'll have to decide, is this the right time to bring him back with this offensive line, although 35 points against Cleveland's very unlikely. So I guess if they win 17 to 10 over Cleveland, like is this the right time to bring him back if the offensive line is not going to be healthy. But the answer is probably you're just going to have to throw them into the fire after this. At three and two, unless, I mean, I guess if Wentz is unbelievable next week and they do score 35 points and he throws for 300 yards at three touchdowns, no picks against a very good Cleveland defense, maybe you say, well, you can't really bench him now. And hey, he gave us a chance against Pittsburgh. You can't bench him now.

But I think when the season looks like this, it is probably more important to get McCarthy in. It's just when is the right time because I don't like that turnaround. I don't like the idea of McCarthy not having everything at his disposal from a game plan perspective against the Los Angeles Chargers. And again, I know you could say, well, you're babying him and he's going to be, you know, he's a pro quarterback. But historically, younger quarterbacks on Thursday night football with that shorter turnaround have had more trouble.

I don't know if I like that for him. Maybe against Detroit, see where you're at record wise. and then you just go from there and then you just ride it out. Like Baltimore's defense isn't special. You've got Chicago at some point. You've got Dallas where he can get 300 yards against them and just go the rest of the way. Because at this moment, again, it's only two and two. But it also feels like this was not the way it could go if you were going to actually go and compete to be in the postseason.

So feel free to jump on that. A fan duel question of the day. I'm not sure what else there is to say about this one. I guess I could say that they've got a receiving weapon in Xavier Scott. Jordan Addison did a great job in his return. He did have one big drop, though, but four catches 114, huge day for Justin Jefferson, which may be influential in whether McCarthy comes back. I don't know.

I think that has to be all KOC's decision. When we start talking about coaching in this game, there's always going to be conversations about that because it's a football game. I don't know what plays work with that offensive line versus that defensive line. Maybe we could pick a few apart. That drive I mentioned to the third quarter, that was where I thought probably should stick with Jordan Mason there. There was a red zone situation where I think it needed to be a little bit simpler probably, but, you know, one of the red zones got called back for a very silly penalty. And bounces didn't go their way in this game much.

They did recover one of their own fumbles. But Aaron Rogers, I mean, that changed the game too. Rogers scrambling and he gets stripped from behind by Jonathan Grenard. And it bounces right into their offensive tackles arms. But, I mean, this team today, I don't know, I don't have the Hubey hits up. Did they hit Rogers at all? I mean, Redmond threw. him, but other than that, they barely hit him at all.

So when we do the finger pointing game, you need a lot of fingers for this game. This isn't one where you could say, well, this guy is the one who blew it. This guy is the one who blew it. The front office is the one who blew it. It's really everybody. It is questionable now to not have Harrison Phillips or Jonathan Bullard here. It is very questionable now, even though they have created pressure on the interior to spend as much money as they did on the older guys who your expectation was that they were going to be able

to stop, at least reasonably stop the run. But if they can't stop it at all, then they're not worth what you're paying them, even if they create pressure. So that's a question mark. Do you spend on Aaron Jones? And in the off season, it looks like a life hack to spend on all the older players, but now it's starting to pile up where it doesn't look as good. And that's the risk you take. that's the dice you roll. I thought it makes sense to me because if even if Alan doesn't work out, the Hardgrave does, okay, well, you've got the rookie quarterback contract. If Aaron Jones doesn't work out, Jordan Mason will, and you kind of see that.

But now you start to add it up and you knew the risks. There were risks involved of going out and spending this much on the interior D-line, which I think at their best have been very, very good, but not against the run here. And then Kelly is now out. Jones is now out. It's a very tough situation for the Vikings. And this is one where some people will say, oh, now last week you were crowning them

and now you're saying the sky is falling. Well, it's been quite the whiplash, hasn't it? It's been quite the change. And had they won this game and found a way to escape, I think that some of the takeaways would probably be similar, even if they had found a way to tie it, get the ball back, score, touch, down, win the game, give Ireland the best football that they've ever seen in their entire

lives. Even if they had done that, I think we still would have come in here and said, this is a lot of problems. And this isn't going to work going forward. But at least you would be coming out of it sort of survive in advance. Not finding a way to pull off the victory when you get a gift from Mike Tomlin at the end is pretty crushing to this team's chances. I would change their chances to make the playoffs, big time after this loss because of everything that is here. So we can't quite get into the mode of this season now is just J.J. McCarthy development because it is two and two. It's a long year. We thought Cincinnati would be really good. Cincinnati comes in with Jake Browning. It's altogether possible that, I don't know,

maybe who's, who's the Chargers backup? Is it Easton Stick still? No, be somewhere else. Taylor Heineke, somebody that you're not facing the starting quarterbacks you expect. That happens on a week to week basis and you can get lucky and, and you can turn things around. And we've seen it before where this team, because they have good coaching, they will keep a bad season alive. That was how 23 felt with the Josh Dobbs game. That's how it felt. And I'll still say, Mike Zimmer was a very good coach. That's how it felt with some of the Zimmer years, where they're one game away in 2021 for making the playoffs, but it just wasn't enough. And I think we've all got the sense for that right now.

If they had played much better against Chicago, had they played much better against Atlanta, I wouldn't be saying that it has that feeling. I would be saying, well, you know, maybe you got a bad break against Atlanta or something. It wasn't. It was Atlanta dominating your offensive line. And this feels like the same offense. This feels like at this moment, the worst offensive line that we've seen since 2016. And I just would have never dreamed that you'd be saying that by week four with all the

talent they have, but it's got to be on the field. So one of those years is what it feels like. This is a crushing loss to their long-term chances. And it leaves them with a ton of questions. How are they going to fix the run defense? Is there a fix to the run defense? I mean, if it's a practice squad nose tackle, I'd be pretty surprised. I think there's more to it. And then I think we could start getting into the other stuff down the line. Like the front office is handling of the offseason. I was for a lot of the moves.

But I remember a conversation I had about Seth Walder's offseason rankings from ESPN, where he had kind of hammered the Vikings. And he didn't like the, he had graded all the moves and he graded them all terribly, hated every one of them. and it was like Jonathan Allen, D, J. Von Hargrave, C, he just, like, crush them. And I, and I remember Vikes fans were very mad at the rankings, because that's all we have in June or whatever. And I was breaking them down. And what I said was, I could see a world where he's right, that I support what they're doing because spending the money is what you do when you're in this spot.

you spend the money. But there was always a scenario where free agency doesn't solve everything. And I mentioned it earlier this week, the Philadelphia Eagles dream team where you go into the off season and you're the team that spends and then you get all the bad luck and it doesn't work out. That's what it feels like right now. The only thing I could say that's on the other side of that is that they have coaches who can fix things. They've gotten back on track after bad losses before and they're playing the Cleveland

Browns next week. You come out of the first five games at three and two, your season is definitely not over. It feels like the concept of being a Super Bowl contender and maybe even the concept of playing and winning playoff games right now is at a flicker where going into the season, I would have said that the chances of that were very good. But I didn't know that Ryan Kelly, Brian O'Neill, Andrew Van Ginkle, Aaron Jones, Blake Cashman, who am I missing? Harrison Smith was out for the first couple games. Now he's just working his way back.

It's a lot to overcome. It's a lot to overcome. They have their work cut out for them. And I don't know what to say about the quarterback situation of what the right answer is. because I would be very concerned about playing J.J. McCarthy against the Cleveland Browns next week. He was already holding the ball too long. You saw what happened when Carson Wentz held the ball too long today, right?

Got killed. That's what would happen with J.J. McCarthy as well. And then you go play after the buy. It makes a lot of sense to go back to McCarthy after the buy. And even if they win and say thanks for filling in Carson and he's back to full health, that's what makes the most sense to me now is to go back at three and two and whatever happens with J.J. McCarthy, just fight through it. I don't love that turnaround, though, against the Chargers. I would much rather see him start for the first time against Detroit and just make

the most of these couple of weeks. Hopefully at that point, if you're the offensive line, you've gotten some guys back, Donovan Jackson and Brian O'Neill, and you go from there. that's how I would probably project it right now, but nobody really knows where this is going to go. All I know is that this was a fork in the road game, and that's the final comment that I want to make. This was a fork in the road game for the Viking season. And had they lost this game 24, 21,

on a last second field goal where they played great, and the guy makes a 60-yard field goal, and you're like, that I still could have been talked into like, yeah, all right, well, things are still mostly on track. That, that one's going to hurt, though. That, but the way that it happened to get down like they did, to struggle like they did against the run and against Rogers, who finishes 18 for 22, 200 yards. I think that, I think if you were taking the over on, the Fanduil over under was like 202.5. Those people are good at their jobs. But 18 for 22,

200 yards, you're not winning that game. If you give up a 90% completion percentage to one of the best quarterbacks in history, you're not winning that game and you're not convincing me that you're suddenly going to flip on a switch and stop Justin Herber. Wait, you got the Super Bowl champion, Justin Herber, who completed 40 passes against you last time, Jared Goff, who's ripped you to shreds. Those are your next opponents after Cleveland.

That doesn't scream to me that you could go anywhere. after the way that this looked. So this was a fork in the road. If you come in to Dublin and you destroy the Steelers and you shut down their run and you fluster Rogers and you win the game, then it was like, season's on. And everything is on the table. But how it happened matters a lot.

And they went the other way in the fork in the road. And this is a story we have seen, I think, many times. So no, I'm not declaring that the season ended today in Dublin because we never know what's going to happen. And there is three quarters of the season left to go. That's a long way. Look how much happened in the first quarter of the season where they go two and two.

And I'll still, I'll call it that forever. I know they're 17. But they've got to get a lot of guys back and they've got to get a lot of problems solved and they've got to get the quarterback situation resolved as well. And probably the only chance of going, somewhere is if J.J. McCarthy comes in and then is awesome because there's a cap on what Carson Wentz can be. No matter how many people accused me of buying his jersey and putting hearts on it

and putting it in my room last week because I said he played well against Cincinnati. I believe that I also said that there's a ceiling when you have a guy like that. And we saw some of that today. There's only so much that Carson Wentz is going to be able to do. You draft J.J. McCarthy in the first round to be able to do more than that. So he's going to be the best chance in the second half. We don't know where it's ever going to take us. I've been shocked many, many times, but it is now a much, much, much, much harder road without this victory.

That's the bottom line on this game. I still got to use disaster in Dublin, though, even though it was much closer than it needed to be. So there's your post game. Tough, tough performance. watch for the Vikings and it's just funny the next time you hear someone say they're this and this in one score games I watch I'll look this up right now maybe I can get this what the win percentage was ESPN has their their game cast thing let's see when the Vikings got down what

was the yeah so when the Vikings got down 21 to 6 their chance to win was 5.1% So not all one-score games are created equal. This was, you could also use drubbing in Dublin. Could use that as well. Not the trip that they envisioned when they packed 35,000 pounds a gear and shipped it overseas. All right. There you go. A very, very bad loss for the Vikings.

But we will go forth on the show and we'll have the breakdown tomorrow on what happened. in the rest of the games. Mani Hill will be here for a little roundtable along with Brian Murphy. And we'll break it all down tomorrow. And then Jeremiah Searle returns. He's going to give us an analysis. I've got a porch podcast planned. As you could probably figure out,

I'm not in Dublin or going to London. So we're going to try to sort it all out as we go forward. And we'll get a bunch of different viewpoints. Emily Liker from the Star Tribune is plan to come on as well. A lot of different viewpoints on what is going to happen. next maybe maybe there's disagreement maybe people don't see it the way that i do after this game and the handling of mccarthy will remain center stage in the conversation going forward with the viking so thanks again everybody for watching listening to the purple insider postgame show

presented by fanduel and we'll see you again very soon football