Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Postgame reaction to the Vikings losing to the Eagles

Episode Date: September 15, 2023

Matthew Coller and Dane Mizutani of the Pioneer Press discuss the Vikings' loss to the Eagles and whether turnovers were the root cause or whether they would have lost the game anyway because of the run defense and struggles to run the ball themselves. Now what? Is the Chargers game a must win? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey everybody, welcome inside the Philadelphia Eagles press box. Matthew Collar, Dane Mizutani from the Pioneer Press. After the Minnesota Vikings lost to the Philadelphia Eagles in, I would say, one of the stranger games that I've seen in a while. But Minnesota Vikings football, it is now a feature of the last, I want to say, about three seasons where every game seems to be one score and it can never just be one team regularly outplays the other football team. It has to involve, oh, I don't know, four fumbles and 250 plus rushing yards for the Philadelphia Eagles in what was maybe a really good argument against Thursday night football because both teams were very, very sloppy to start this game, Dane. And yet as it went along, what we saw was the progression of

the Eagles offensive line, just dominating the Vikings defensive line, the Vikings passing game, spectacular, the Vikings running game, horrendous. There were some similarities between the game against the Bucs, some big differences, but it really came down to they lost a lot of possessions in this game and then had some three and outs that were pretty key and could'll get to the macro and what it means to be a Owen too. But how do you balance Dane? The fact that Kirk cousins played a tremendous overall football game, they threw the ball over. Justin Jefferson was unstoppable. And 90% of the time that those things happen, you're probably going to have a chance to win at the end rather than watching the other team, you know, just kind of run the clock out. So what is, what out. So what is your explanation for what happened this evening? The explanation, and to your point about Thursday Night Football first, can we just get rid of it? Because these games are all the same. Oh, no, there's billions involved. They're not getting rid of it, I promise you.

But, I mean, the product is not good, and the product was not great tonight, regardless of what a high scoring box score might look like but what happened tonight the way we can sum this one up is they fumbled four times and now their turnover margin for the years is they've turned the ball over seven times and they've only turned the other team over once as Kevin O'Connell said in his postgame press conference their scoring differential they've only lost by a combined nine points this year. They're 0-2. They've lost by a combined nine points. Their

turnover differential is six. So your scoring differential is nine. Your turnover differential is six. It's just not a recipe for success. And that's what's happening when you're seeing that in real time, when they're fumbling the ball, they're just giving the Eagles a chance to kind of take control of the game. The one that stands out probably above the rest tonight is probably the dumbest rule in football. But Justin Jefferson fumbles the ball after an incredible catch, gets it punched out by, I think it was Eagles safety, Terrell Edmonds. And Justin's kind of trying to make a play late before halftime. The Vikings are, it's been a slog of a game to that point. And he rises up and he tries to make the, he makes it a great catch.

And he tries to stretch over the pylon and the ball comes out. It's a touchback. Eagles take over. I think Kirk Cousins mentioned that he, you know, he throws a better ball there. It's a touchdown. But it's also just probably a principle that you just can't a better ball there. It's a touchdown, but it's also just probably a principle that you just can't reach the ball there. And I think Justin even said that after the game, it's a learning experience for him. But that's a microcosm of the game as a whole.

Like that weirdness of that play, it was a weird play and it featured a fumble. Those two things collectively are why the Vikings lost today. Okay. Let me at least attempt to push back on that because I think that there is a lot more to talk about than just the turnovers because the thing about the turnovers is when you ask uh Kevin O'Connell about the turnovers what's his answer is well we've got to practice it more and like what can you really practice that says for just the Jefferson oh don't reach that ball out? I mean, Kirk Cousins pointed this out, that over many years of football, all coaches will say,

don't reach it out unless it's fourth down and you absolutely have to or something. And yet what Kirk said was every weekend we see all sorts of star players reach the ball out and go into the end zone. So, OK, now that is brutal and that is bad luck. And I would say that almost every one of these fumbles is bad luck, including the fact that they didn't recover them. I mean, we never remember the fumbles that the offense recovers or the special teams recovers, including a Philadelphia Eagles fumble on special teams that bounced right back to them. So the bounces have absolutely gone against them. And it is probably the, the, I don't know, the football gods swinging things back the other way from where it was last year and all that, you know, 2022 luck that they had, including

probably quite a few fumbles and turnovers and everything else that went their way. However, if we look at the score and how it went, a lot of the passing yards and a lot of the success that they had was coming from behind in this game, which we have seen that many times over the Kirk Cousins era. They get behind, they're playing desperately, they're pushing the ball down the field, and they're racking up yards and they're racking up points, even when the other team is truly in command of the game. And they had a whole drive that they get to write in the box score that should not have happened if Philadelphia hadn't decided to senselessly decide

they were going to throw goal balls into the end zone and then get sacked back to the 50-yard line. It should have been 30-16 after a simple field goal, and then it would have been over. And instead, it gets extended. It looks like a one score game. It looks like a really close game, but it wasn't for a lot of this and the turnovers are a huge deal, but there's nothing really in my mind that's actionable about turnovers that we could say, hold onto it next time. Like, okay, well, I mean, that's random.

The turnovers are random, but what's not random is you can't run the football. You can't stop the other team from running the football. And even when you do an overall good job of containing Jalen Hurts, you still have a huge touchdown play. You still have a long run from DeAndre Swift at the end of the game. And I don't think it's as simple as just saying, well, they were tired, so they were just giving up 250 yards. Well, also they don't have players. I mean, Harrison Phillips, normally defensive tackles play like 600 snaps. He's going to have to play a thousand snaps

because there's no one behind him that can stuff the run. They at one point are just running out small people. They've got every safety they have, for lewis scene out on the field in fact maybe there was an argument to use lewis scene tonight because at least he's large right and maybe could have tackled someone so i think that you can absolutely say that yet current you know turnovers caused this and they were not necessarily outplayed on a down-to-down type of basis but your quarterback being strip sack two games in a row is not super random when you have this offensive line. The injuries on the O-line are a disaster,

including their swing tackle, Ole Udo, who it sounds like he's going to be out for a very long time, maybe the season. Kevin O'Connell said it didn't look good. So I tend to think we need to also look at a lot of other elements of this loss than just saying, oopsies came to Philly and couldn't hold onto the ball because we had too many cheese steaks

and there was grease on our fingers. Like there's, there's gotta be more to this than just saying that. Yeah, that's, I mean, that's right. But like the game itself tonight came down to, they turned the ball over four times, but when you push it out next week against the chargers a week, two weeks out against the chargers a week two weeks out against the carolina panthers three weeks out against the kansas city chiefs you are right when you say like like regression of the means probably going to come back into play at some point here they're not going to turn the they're not going to fumble the ball four times a game they won't so that what was concerning tonight about this game or what led to the loss this game being the four fumbles.

It's not something I necessarily think is going to continue into the rest of the season. What will continue into the rest of the season is Alexander Madison struggling. Hard to say struggle. The only got eight carries tonight, but it just doesn't look like an effective running scheme in the slightest. There's nothing that they did this offseason, outside of signing Josh Oliver on the first day of training camp, that lended itself to improving the run game. And I think that's probably the biggest issue with this team right now,

is that there's just no balance. So, yeah, the fumbling, the turnovers, like you're going to get lucky. The luck's going to end up on your side moving forward. There are some games where you're probably going to the other team is not going to recover those fumbles and you're going to recover them. And then you're going to be ahead in the turnover margin. But you won't just fix your you don't, just lock yourself into fixing your running game. You don't lock yourself into fixing your running defense. So I do think that's a good point you make when you say like, regardless of how this game turned out, the game itself and everything in the DNA that went into this game, it should give you some pause and make you nervous

if you're a fan moving forward about just how competitive this team can really be. Well, yeah, I mean, I guess that's the thing is when we're trying to assess the game, there's an element of breaking down what went wrong, like play to play and where those turnovers happened. And maybe we kind of need to go through it, just through the entire game here and sort of stop and pull ourselves back with this turnover discussion because i think of course of course this would have been a different game if they didn't turn the ball yeah they win no one was ever saying that i don't know if they win though

because you probably are playing a different set of circumstances and the eagles are playing a different defense than just sitting back and giving up receptions. And we've kind of been through this whole story a million times with cousins playing from behind and how spectacular he is playing from behind in these games, as opposed to, you know, maybe they weren't as aggressive as they would have been under different circumstances. So I can't say for sure one way or the other there's no question to me that they will not keep fumbling the ball at this rate like that in the bigger picture you're going to say look you can clearly pass the football with probably among the better teams in the entire nfl especially since jordan addison it turns out is really good

we were not lying to you about training camp when he was smoking fools every day in training camp. We figured he would do that again. And he's been really good. Hawkinson was great tonight. I mean, he has a couple of third down conversions, one where he gets wide open,

gets 20 yards. And Justin Jefferson is all universe. Like what, what did ESPN rank him as the second best player in football? Like, okay. Yeah. I mean,

non quarterback, he's probably the most valuable player in the entire NFL. And he sees that. But I also just cannot say, oops, they fumbled a few times. Guess this one doesn't count. Move on to tomorrow. Because if we just go through the entire thing, there were opportunities for them to get up early in the game that they weren't able to take advantage of because of the fumbles, but there were also opportunities for them to still win this game.

And even if you take away Jefferson's fumble, they are getting the ball back down 13 to seven, going into the second half. And that to me, and then of course they have one turnover in the second half. But if you said to me, they're getting the ball down 13-7 going to the second half could they win the game I would say of course they had an opportunity to win that game and then they got steamrolled and barely ever got to touch the football and had some three and outs and had some miscues some drop passes they had you know some pressure that got on Kirk Cousins they They couldn't run the ball, and then they end up losing the game. So I don't think that we can just say, like, oh, well, they fumbled the ball, because most of it happened in the first half,

and it was only one in the second half when they truly lost this game. Yeah, but the one in the second half, it turned the whole game on its head, right? So even if we wanted to just chalk those three first-half turnovers and those first-half fumbles up to just bad luck, it didn't end up hurting the Vikings all too that much, except for the fact that they probably could have, the whole game script could have been different if Brandon Powell doesn't fumble on that punt return.

That ends up being pretty good. It looks like the Vikings are going to start at the 50. Instead, the Eagles get the ball back. I think they go down and kick a field goal on that punt return that ends up being pretty good it looks like the Vikings are going to start at the 50 instead the Eagles get the ball back I think they go down and kick a field goal on that drive maybe the game looks a little bit different if Alexander Madison doesn't fumble his first you know of the game and you know they allow the Eagles to take control but the fumble that does matter to me is the one that you talk about with Kirk is you know obviously the other the one that matters is the Jefferson fumble into the end zone. That's points that pretty much get taken off the board, very similar

to last week when Kirk threw an interception before halftime. Those are two devastating turnovers that just immediately take points off the board. But all of that being said, you're right. They get the ball back 13-7 going into the opening drive of the second half. And if you go down there and you move the ball the way they proved that they could move the ball later in the game and score a touchdown, even kick a field goal, then it's a brand-new ball game. But because strip sack, Jalen Hurts, QB sneaks, the unstoppable play, two plays later.

The touch push. Exactly. And then all of a sudden the Vikings are chasing it, and they were chasing it the rest of the game. So, yeah, I mean, it's a hard thing to talk about with this game because, yes, the turnovers felt random. No, the turnovers in the first half didn't really hurt them too much. And really the game started to get out of hand in the second half,

less because of the turnovers and more because Philly just started to exert its dominance on all of the Vikings weaknesses, both on offense and defense. But I still keep going back to like, just how different this game could have been. Like you said, maybe we, maybe they don't win, but if the Vikings just hold onto the football, I just think the game could be so, so said maybe maybe they don't win but if the vikings just hold on to the football i just think the game could be so so different so it's just it's just a hard game to talk about because of the first half's all about turnovers second half's all about the vikings getting dominated by the eagles but all of it you know sums up into a close loss that

wasn't actually that close it's it's just weird well maybe if they had played in the preseason no i'm just kidding i'm just joking okay so here's here's maybe why my brain is working this way when it comes to wanting to push back against the idea the turnovers just did it because i don't know that a strip sack like that is necessarily random when it's your backup left tackle and it's your quarterback who has a propensity to be strip sacked. I think if you go search the most fumbles by quarterbacks over the last, whatever number of years you want to do, like five years, Kirk cousins will be one of them.

He has that tendency to have that sack and look, I'm not blaming Kirk cousins for the loss. In fact, we were going to get to this. I thought this was one of the best games I've seen Kirk Cousins play. It reminded me of the 2018 game against the Rams on a Thursday night where he was just marvelous. They were playing from behind a lot of the game, but he was delivering and delivering and taking hits. And I thought this was one of those toughness games for him that the whole world got to see on Netflix, but where he really showed last year and then carried that over. And there was even a point where I thought Cousins is going to bring him back and they're going to win this game somehow because that's who this team has been under Kevin O'Connell.

And he was that good. So I am not criticizing Kirk Cousins overall performance. It was an A, I mean, it was as good as you can get, but from a strip sack perspective, I mean, he mentioned that, you know, he didn't see it. It was a blindside hit that happens sometimes when your left tackle gets hurt on a play and gets steamrolled the way that only Udo did, or no, I'm sorry. He didn't get hurt on that one. He actually got hurt later on one that was a completion but when ole udo gets just beaten immediately the way that he did there isn't a lot he can do but i also think that it's one of those things that consistently happens is the strip sack the the and and i think of a brandon powell punt return as being a random strange bounce an alexander madison run it just whatever somebody punches it out they don't

recover it okay I can get that but the pressure that is being allowed through these first two weeks on Kirk Cousins he was so good under pressure today that's not always the case week in and week out for any quarterback to be great when they're getting hit as often as he was so I guess that's that's maybe why I look at it as you're, you're getting hit in, in a situation where it's happening a lot and it probably will continue to happen because of who your quarterback is and because of your offensive line. And Oh, by the way, we're not sure what Daris are re-aggravated his injury. Uh, Udo might be out for the year so yeah there's who knows about the center position with garrett bradbury like they are in pretty tough shape on the offensive line so i don't think

something like that is going to change and we could just chalk it up to like oh well you know that was a random weird thing yeah that i mean that's probably right like some of these turnovers will probably regress back to the mean and maybe a punt return ball that gets loose will then get recovered by the Vikings, whereas today it got recovered by the opposing team, the Eagles. I see what you're saying as far as the process of the strip sack fumble because that's something that doesn't necessarily feel random in the sense that it

happens a lot with this team um and i i want to make sure like it's we're not blaming kirk for that fumble like i mean to a degree that's on him he like he does have to have feel that pressure and you know secure the ball better um reverse out of pressure It's okay to kind of try and avoid some of these things. But that one in particular today, I think all of this is more of an indictment on just not really addressing your offensive line this offseason. And it's hard because Christian Derrissaw didn't play today. 90 minutes before kickoff, he was active. And you think, okay, they dodged a bullet there.

At least they're going to have their left tackle playing in that game. Well, according to Kevin O'Connell, he aggravated it during warm-ups. And at that point, you've already submitted your actives. Christian Derusaw has to suit up. So I guess if they could go back, maybe they would make him inactive in retrospect, but then you're just in the same position you're in with Ole Udo playing left tackle for you. If Christian Derrissaw played today, maybe that strip sack doesn't happen. But you know, maybe it does.

Like, it's just like it, it, a lot of this thing, as much as we don't want to blame Kirk here, these plays seem to follow him. So maybe we need to get off the strip sack. I don't know. Like, he did play a really good game. There were elements to his game today that I thought were outstanding. The way he held in, you know, the pocket, took punishment, worked his reads, found Jefferson,

fit balls into tight windows, really kept the team rolling and made it so they at least had a chance late. We could call it stat padding maybe, but not really because they, they, they came within one possession of potentially going down to win the game. So, you know, it's a weird balance with Kirk. I feel like it's almost every week we're talking about it. Every time they lose, it's like, So, you know, it's a weird balance with Kirk. I feel like it's almost every week we're talking about it. Every time they lose, it's like, well, you know, a big reason they fell behind was because of Kirk's play.

And then a big reason they came back is because of Kirk's play. It's just kind of the roller coaster that it is with Kirk Cousins. In case you missed it last week, folks, we are starting a brand new segment on the show using the website and the app for prize picks if you haven't heard of it before it's super simple you just pick more or less between two and six players stat projections for that week and that's it now you're playing unfortunately for me i only went one for three last week with jordan love getting more than 212 yards and i was a little foolish

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Daily Fantasy Sports made easy. Yeah, I mean, I think with the way Cousins played in the second half, he gave them every possible opportunity to come back outside of the strip sack, which, of course, it's hard to say whose fault is it anyway, is a game that we've played since 2018 like is it the is it the guards is it the tackles is it the you know is it kirk is it the receiver is it the fumbles is it the whatever and at the end of the day you know you come short here in philadelphia again where you're making excuses for whatever it is

or explanations for whatever it is but they're not just like last week where they outplayed the tampa bay bucks in a lot of ways but they don't put that on the banner they don't put that in the standings where it's like outplayed the bucks by a little shouldn't have had those fumbles like now you're oh and two and you've got some serious problems but i also want to talk about the issues that go beyond just the fumbles. And it was a lot of randomness. There's no question about it. But if you are giving up 259 yards on the ground,

and this is two weeks in a row where we have seen the opposition just have these long, plodding drives, and they are totally fine with saying, you know what, you're going to ask us to run. Okay. We'll run. And Kevin O'Connell said that was part of their strategy, which was to try to force them into long drives, which sounds a little Ed Donatello ish to me, by the way, uh, they started out the game pretty well. And, uh, but pretty well ish, you know, they give up a 54 yard pass right away. And we're saying, well, they started off pretty well, well ish, you know, they give up a 54 yard pass right away.

And we're saying, well, they start off pretty well. Like ish, I guess. I mean, they got to stop at that point. And you could say that the turnovers caused them to be on the field a lot. And I would agree with you overall. But I mean, it was so even when the game was close, even when the game was still very much up in the air, the Eagles just were like, maybe we should run every play. You know, they play Army-Navy here, I think maybe last year, and you could just have an Army-Navy game.

They could not stop DeAndre Swift, who is going to sleep well this evening. They could not handle this offensive line, which is one of the best in the entire NFL. But, I mean, they're going to face other teams that can run the ball. And by the way, too, you know, we're talking about that at the end of the night, Jalen hurts ends up 18 for 23. That's 78% with 193 yards, 8.4 yards per attempt. And they sacked him a couple of times, but a 98 quarterback rating on the night i mean that's that's a horrendous defensive performance he completed passes he hit a couple of deep shots the only thing they did well was stopping him from beating them with his legs he didn't have one of those big runs but the other

guys boston scott had eight yards a carry rashad penny had a couple of good runs in there i mean when we're talking about whose fault is it anyway, all right, fumbles, I'll give you that. It's number one. But giving up this type of performance on defense for a defense that looked a little bit better, looked a little bit smarter in week one, I mean, I think that that's as much of a concern

or probably more of a concern to talk about than it is the turnovers that have happened early in the season. Yeah, that's fair. or probably more of a concern to talk about than it is the turnovers that have happened early in the season. Yeah, that's fair. And they, you know, look different as a defense with the way that they're showing pressure and bringing seven to the line and then dropping a D lineman into coverage. So it looks different. And I think that's more palatable for Vikings fans. It looks different play to play. They're bringing blitzes. They sack Jalen Hurts twice. At least it's not, okay, this team's going to, we're going to drop in shell and this team's going to throw chunk eight, nine, 10 yard passes all the way up and down the field. But the process may be different, but the result is kind of the same, right? Like how much different

was this than an Edonatel defense tonight not much right yeah they probably stuffed the run better last year because they had delvin they had better players and sorry i'll let you continue on this but i just wanted to throw it in there that pat schirmer used to say it's jimmies and joes not x's and o's and the jimmies and joes got their tails whooped by this offensive line tonight yeah you can't change the personnel that you have that's true but there was one possession and we talked about this when we were sitting next to each other in the game so you'll remember it um it was right after the vikings had taken a 7-3 lead it looks like okay they fumbled twice they somehow managed to keep

their head above water and then k Kirk leads them right down the field. TJ Hawkinson had that big catch for 24 yards. And then he, three plays later, catches a five-yard touchdown. The Vikings are up 7-3. On that next drive, the Philadelphia Eagles ran that 16-play drive you're talking about. They ran the ball 13 times. Alexander Madison ran the ball eight times all night. So they ran the ball 13 times that drive.

And you're just sitting in the press box, and you're probably sitting at home watching. What makes you want to pull your hair out is the personnel they have on the field. It's not just the players that they do or don't have on defense. It was the players that they chose to continue to trot out. Patrick Jones playing defensive tackle. Harrison Phillips was the only player in there that you can even fathom would be able to stop the run. And it's another run.

It's six yards here. It's seven yards here. It's eight yards there. And it's Patrick Jones as one of your defensive tackles. It's like you said, a safety playing up in the box as a linebacker while that linebacker bumps down and basically plays tackle. It was a bunch of small guys on the field there. So the personnel matters, like the players that are in the building probably aren't good enough right now as far as just stopping the run.

But the scheme on that possession in particular was maddening if you're watching. And like I would I would think at some point that's going to figure itself out like they're not just going to continue to just trot small guys out on the field and say like but maybe they are because when you talk to kevin el cano after the game to your point that you made about five minutes ago it's like it does seem like part of the scheme is part of this defensive scheme is we're going to be aggressive we're going to blitz and we're going to give up long drives and hopefully just maybe lock ourselves into a turnover so yeah i mean i guess for all that we made about this brian flores defense through

because they were pretty good in the first half last week in the season opener but i felt like that was more baker mayfield in the bucks than it was the Vikings. Through the last three halves of football, it hasn't looked that much different than last year. No, and I think about sometimes when it comes to the idea of like modern defense is always talked about as getting smaller, faster, better in coverage. And you have to have positionless players you know you're josh metellus who can be everywhere he can play in the box he could play out you know deep and all those things and those are always talked about as these wonderful things until someone whoops your ass like right like until someone just takes you freaking out back and that is exactly what happened here and that's why i want to talk about other stuff outside of the just the miscues because yes this was a straight up bully you know

schoolyard beating you down after school type of offensive performance for the philadelphia eagles that that blows all of that other stuff right out of the water. And you can run out 16 safeties against Jason Kelsey and against Lane Johnson and all these great players. And they are just going to truck you. And they were like, they were like, all right, let's throw another tight end on the field. He's, you know, tight end come out there. And they ran the same play over and over and over and over.

I mean, honestly, it was kind of beautiful. If you love old school football, I mean, it was like, what year is this? But at the same time, like that's what you can do against the defense that wants to play this like positionless football, which I think is kind of a myth. And it especially is a myth. If you do not have Delvin Tomlinson, if you don't have Jerry Ball, Gilbert Brown, Casey Hampton, like if you don't have some monster beast dude in the middle, like you watched Vita Vea play last week. I mean, they can do whatever they want with that guy in the middle. He's going to stuff two dudes. He's

going to drive you back, but you're absolutely right. If you're putting a light defensive end slash outside linebacker as the biggest guy in the middle at times on the field, you're just going to get bullied and destroyed. And I don't really understand that schematically other than that. Hey, they were probably a pretty afraid of those great wide receivers who, side note, also smoked them tonight. Like there's a third down. They can get a stop and make a big play. A.J. Brown makes a catch. There's a stop to be had.

And Devontae Smith runs right by a Caleb Evans. Reminder, a Caleb Evans has barely ever played football before. And like that was a reminder because that's an elite player going right by you for a touchdown. And so the issue is, OK, do you put lighter people on the field to try to stop your Dallas Goddards and your yards after catch receivers like A.J. Brown? Or do you put Jonathan Bullard, Kyrus Tonga, Harrison Phillips and just try to like stop the run a little bit? And the answer is none of that. Yeah, the answer was none of that tonight. And I guess when we're talking about this team, it's like, can you match up against teams that are good and play this way and win regardless of turnovers or anything else?

And maybe in a 35 to 32 shootout or something, but if the other team can consistently, if every week we're going to watch other teams have 16 play drives, I don't, I don't know when Justin Jefferson's going to do all the damage except for when you're down by two touchdowns yeah i i do think it's interesting you talk about the position less defense you can do that if you have the talent to do that if you have christian wilkins was the guy they had in miami right like if the vikings had a vita fea if the vikings had a vikings had a jordan davis who looked spectacular tonight if if beast if the vikings had a Vita Vea, if the Vikings had a Jordan Davis who looked spectacular tonight, if the Vikings had a player like that, sure, that would help you. If you want to go out and play Patrick Jones at your other nose tackle or your other defensive

tackle position in your 3-4 set because you trust that your guy Vita Vea or your guy, Jordan Davis is just going to eat up the middle of the field. You can do that, but like, you can't do that. And this is not necessarily a knock on Harrison Phillips. I think he's being asked to punch above his weight class. Literally like you're in the middle, Harrison Phillips, you're tasked with just stopping the run. And and we're not going to give you basically any help to your left or right. Just like I get what Ryan Flores wants to do. I think at some point you're going to have to change your scheme a little bit this year,

or you're going to continue to give up these long drives. You're going to continue to give up 200-plus rushing yards a game, which that's back-to-back weeks now where like the way that the game goes that it starts to just get away from you and snowball because you can't get off the field so it's it's personnel it's talent all of it like i think we knew deep down like this defense has many changes as they wanted to make as far as like overhauling just the scheme that they they they run they were going to struggle on the talent standpoint and i think through two weeks we're seeing that that they're just not going to be more talented or even close to being as talented as many of the teams they play on a week-to-week

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and have them arrive right to your phone. It's great. Download the GameTime app, create an account, and use the code IN for 20 off your first purchase terms apply again create an account and redeem code insider for 20 off your first purchase download the game time app today last minute tickets lowest price guaranteed i guess what comes to mind for me is when it comes to scheming against the Philadelphia Eagles, did you not think they would run every play? That seems like if you would ask them before the game,

hey, what do you want to do? What would be the most fun for those incredible beasts that you have up front? For some reason, Philly just always has these great offensive lines they would say oh we'd love to run 59 times for 270 yards or whatever like that's that's exactly what philadelphia would have dreamed up as the scheme is like yeah why don't you put all your light people in the box and it'll be wonderful and that's exactly what happened it was a great time for them and and i don't know what if you're another team like aren't you saying the same thing going into the game like if we need to run the football we're going to be able to have success in doing so and i mean it's yeah i mean joe in the comments

mentions letongo was out there sometimes but i doubt his snap count was all that high jonathan bullard but these aren't guys who are good. I mean, in comparison to like what we're watching on the other side with Philadelphia's defensive line, I mean, these are just guys. They're just, they're just players in the league. They're not at all, uh, you know, spectacular. And Harrison Phillips to me is a run stopping three technique who is being asked to play nose tackle and punching above his weight class is exactly right. So every team will not have this offensive line. Tampa Bay couldn't really run until the second half against the Vikings.

But when it comes to playing competitive teams, successful teams, the teams you're going to have to beat throughout this season in order to have a good year still, then you can't have this happen. And I don't know what solution it is other than you can't put all these safeties on the field. Now, there's some things we have to get to that are just sort of like things that happen that need to be discussed. We mentioned all the safeties on the field.

Louis Scene wasn't one of them. That is, in my mind, a horrendous sign for Louis Scene. I mean, horrendous. There's just nothing other you can say about theo jackson is an un or whoa six round pick i think of the titans who showed up here last year when lewis scene got hurt we were surprised he made the roster and he's out there instead of the first round draft pick i mean you just you just couldn't be lower at this moment on the 2022 first round yeah i have tried have tried my hardest to defend Louis Scene.

I think I just go out of my way to sometimes defend busts because it's just so sad to watch a first-round pick bust in real time, and we're watching it right now with Louis Scene. I remember in training camp, or maybe it was in OTAs, it's like, give this guy a break. He snapped his leg in half in week four last year. He's really just starting to regain his level of comfort on the football field. He's trying to figure out how to play fast again.

And then you get to the summer and you're realizing, okay, well, Josh Metellus. The funny thing is, in the summer, at training camp, I still thought there was a chance that Louisine was playing in the role Josh Metellus has just guaranteed himself to play moving forward. I thought Louisine had a chance to compete for that Metellus role, that positionless, safety, hybrid, linebacker role that Metellus has just basically taken a stranglehold over. But yeah, Metellus goes down in the first series of the game and he goes to the medical tent and out trots number 25, Theo Jackson. And it happened like,

so like almost like unassumingly that like, I remember being like, is that Theo Jackson? Like, yeah, that's not number six. That's number 25. The Eagles noticed who was on the field right away.

Yeah, they just ran their best receiver right at him. Yeah, and that goes back to the talent thing we're talking about, right? Like, and this is hard because it's not Theo Jackson's fault. But yeah, they noticed Theo Jackson is on the field. They immediately throw a goal ball to him. And Theo Jackson is actually in pretty good position. And Devonta Smith just plucks it off of his head. But yeah, he got mossed but the larger issue here is the fact that theo jackson is on the field and lewis scene is not and lewis scene is not on the field because i think they

don't think lewis scene is very good and they don't trust him at all i'm starting to think that you know he's not very good and i'm not sure he's ever going to be very good. It's really hard to not call bust right now. It is. Yeah, this was very telling. It was I mean, I guess I wondered, like with all the safeties that they like to run out there. But after this, I always judge what they do rather than what they say. And them doing this said a lot. That's a career special team or you're saying that would be like throwing out

Marcus Sherrill's or something as opposed to, you know, somebody who is a more of an actual defensive back. You know, Theo is, I mean, he worked hard. He had a great training. He had a pick tonight too, but any, any made a great play on that pick. It seemed like he sort of confused hurts a little bit and made the play, but my gosh, that's not what you expect. And I also will not give the break of, oh, well, he had the injury and everything else. He was in OTAs, complete OTAs, complete mini camp, complete training camp, did not miss

more than a couple reps one day. I mean, it just is what it is right now. I mean, it's just this is not a guy that they feel comfortable at all playing. And yeah, like you said, I mean, it's time, it's probably time to call it now. I mean, maybe we'll give him another training camp, but that seems so far out in the future. This was just a really telling sign. Another thing I want to talk about on the other side of things and what a world it is of the NFL draft. We go from the worst draft pick to let's talk about an incredible draft pick for the Vikings, Jordan Addison, who, I mean, for the second week

in a row, just shows can run a post route. I mean, he's got great speed. He's got great quickness. He is a playmaker. He got the ball. He made a play. I mean, Jordan Addison has just looked great from day one. And this is why if you're making a case, if there's any argument and maybe we should try it to say it's not Owen tombstone for the Minnesota Vikings, I guess you would have to say that with Hawkinson, the best receiver in the world and the way Jordan Addison has looked so far, this will give you a chance to be in every single football game every Sunday. Yeah. Or Thursday.

He's really good. Or Monday. Whenever they play. Sometimes Saturday at the end of the year. Yeah, we don't want any more Thursdays, though, so get those out of here. But Jordan Addison, we knew it when we saw him in the summer. He just looked different. I was talking to someone earlier this week.

I wrote about Addison. He said it looks like he doesn't have ankles when he runs his routes because he's like Gumby in the way that he is able to cut at full speed. And you see that today. And last week you saw it too. It's a post route he's running. He does make a subtle cut. It's not just like he's running straight.

Like he loses that guy a little bit. And last week's touchdown was impressive. But at the end of the day, it was a cornerback bit. Carlton Davis bit on an out route. Jordan Addison running open, caught the ball, touchdown. Today's was impressive because not only is it 62 yards as opposed to 39 yards last week, Jordan Addison finished the play. He caught the ball and he spun and broke a tackle. And then he got all the way to the end zone. How many times do you see that throughout the course of an NFL

season? Long pass downfield, guy catches it, guy gets tripped up or guy tries to spin out of a tackle can't and and then all of a sudden that's three points and not seven I think I remember Kirk Cousins talking about Justin Jefferson in this way last year the way he can finish plays Jordan Addison is showing the ability two games into his career to be able to finish plays. And I think that is a thing that if you want to be optimistic about this season still, and it's only two games in, I don't know how you could be really feeling that optimistic. Not tonight, you're not. But if you want to be grasping at straws

at what can we feel positive about, it's Jordan Addison. It's what this offense could be with him, and it's just his potential which seems to be limitless at this point well and Jordan Addison these are just his first games so with him what matters is the long haul of how good this duo can be for a very long time and also they just signed TJ Hawkinson I mean you have now that's three players and KJ Osborne. Uh, there's always with KJ Osborne sort of, uh, the ups and downs, like he had an 18 yard catch. That was kind of a quick throw to him. He turns it up the sideline. It's a big play in the game. And you know, it just,

uh, there was also a drop that was mixed in there. And then that's kind of always how it is with Osborne where it's a good week or a bad week. I mean, that's like what happens with a good receiver who's not a great receiver. But what you see from Addison is potential to have greatness there. Maybe it's not Justin Jefferson greatness where the I mean, you could do anything. But you know who he reminds me of is the guy on the other side of the field, Devante Smith. I mean, they're both kind of on the lighter side, but they're both, he's probably a little bit quicker. Smith is a little bit taller, but they just are so natural football players. And like, this is not going to get worse. It's only going to get better for Jordan Addison. So you might have a duo there that is there in

place for a very, very long time. And I also think that when you can move the ball like this, you can win a lot of football games the rest of the way. This is a team that was in the Super Bowl. This is, I mean, I think right now, probably them and San Francisco would be presumptive favorites to go to the Super Bowl this year. So you're playing a great team.

You have coming up, two out of the next three are very good teams. Your schedule does get more manageable for the rest of the season. and that's kind of the big picture that we have to arrive at unless was there anything else that you wanted to bring up um marcus davenport tried to play but couldn't uh that might just be a weekly thing with marcus davenport and it seemed like they were pretty disappointed that he wasn't able to get on the field. Um, I, I do wonder at times why there was not more effort to get anyone else except for Marcus Davenport, since we've seen Wanham when we've seen Patrick Jones, we kind of know what that looks like. Um, so it, was there anything else

before we talk about the big picture of this? No, I think we covered everything from this game in particular. I mean, nothing else. I mean, just the lack of running game, Alexander Madison. I just don't know if he's that guy. Um, so I think it was really easy to pin the struggles of the run game on Dalvin cook last year and old Dalvin cooks washed Dalvin cook. Can't gain any yards after contact Dalvin cooks's the least efficient rusher in the NFL. All of those things can be true. And it can also be true that Alexander Madison seems like a really nice guy who tries really hard. But Alexander Madison's probably being asked to do a little bit too much right now

to be a definitive RB1. I get it. The run blocking has not been there. The opportunities, eight carries blocking has not been there. The opportunities, eight carries have not been there. But I think some of those things go hand in hand with who's carrying the ball for you. Who's your option back there? Is it hand the ball to Alexander Madison 20 times or is it throw the ball to Justin Jefferson, Jordan Addison, TJ Hawkinson. I can see why O'Connell is so quick to kind of go away from the run game because of who his option is there. Yeah, no, I mean, I definitely agree with that. I also think that when you have backup offensive linemen in and you're playing two really great run stuffing defensive lines, that it will probably

get better than this. But how much better is a pretty good question. I mean, I, I don't know how much better it can really get from the running game perspective, but then you're like, well, should they just use Ty Chandler? Then Miles Gaskin is not really an option right now. And then you're starting to look at it like, all right, well, if that's not going to work, which I think it will work better as we go along, it'll definitely work better next week against the chargers. Yes.

So you can all of a sudden feel way better after, you know, a hundred yards against the chargers, but against good defensive lines, it's going to be pretty, pretty tough for them to run the football. I think the big picture on this is, you know,

we talked about kind of that panic meter last week and it was like, well, we were kind of assuming that they weren't going to win this game. So our discussion started there and they didn't. So now they're 0-2. And I think that I don't ever want to say season's on the line when it's this early, but it certainly feels like it against the Chargers. That is a team that you could beat or could beat you.

It feels like the AFC and NFC looking in the mirror with those two teams. I think that this if you beat the Chargers, then the season is is back on and then you play the Panthers. It's a winnable game. And then you go and you're you're facing Kansas City. But if you come out of that two and three, the playoffs are still very much in the mix. I think Chicago is going to be pretty horrendous this year. And then we don't don't have to talk about, um, just like it's over, it's over, it's over. But, uh, if they don't beat the chargers, it's pretty hard to not say that you're going to start one in four and one in four is very hard to overcome. It's a little easier with 17 games, but it's very, very hard to overcome. I think the Packers schedule is a little easier than theirs. You

know, Detroit looks like they're going to be a good team, so it can snowball. So it feels like this is your season a little bit here. Can you swing it in the right direction or is it going to crumble if you if you don't beat them? It's going to feel like 2021 where they started 0-3 and it was like they lost that game to the Browns and we went, I don't know how you're overcoming this yeah it's hard to call a must win so early but in a lot of ways that week one was a must win because each time you don't win these games now you're just you're totally like evaporating your margin for error like it went away last week when you lost to the buccaneers because you probably

were always going to lose this game like yeah i mean stranger things have happened thursday night but i don't think anyone if it's like hey you have your life savings here and you have to bet it on who's going to win on that thursday night football game you we could have said two days ago we could have said a month ago we could have said the day the schedule came out people are going to pick the eagles like the vikings weren't supposed to win this game but they were supposed to win week one and they didn't and if you win week one and you lose week two and you go into the chargers game week three and you're one and one and it's like okay we'd like to win this game and be two and one and maybe beat the carolina panthers in week four and be three and one

and going into the matchup with, with the Kansas City Chiefs. But that's why that, that loss last week was so devastating is because now you're on one and you lose this game, your own two. And yeah, I think I, I think I'll say it's a must win next week because like, what, what are you playing for? What do you want to do with this season? Do you just want to kind of flirt around 500 and like hopefully sneak into the playoffs or do you want to win the NFC North? If your goal is to win the NFC North, you want to do with this season? Do you just want to kind of flirt around 500 and like hopefully sneak into the playoffs? Or do you want to win the NFC North? If your goal is to win the NFC North, you have to win next week. You cannot start 0-3 with one of those games after that being the Kansas City Chiefs thinking, okay, if we drop to 1-4,

we can still beat the Lions who just, by the way, beat the Kansas City Chiefs. So it's, it's why I think for the rest of this season, unless the Vikings just completely fall by the wayside and are an irrelevant team by November, December, I think you're always going to be lamenting that week, one loss to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, because I still think this is a pretty good football team. I think there are obvious glaring weaknesses here, but I think they is a pretty good football team. I think there are obvious glaring weaknesses here. But I think they're a pretty good football team that can still be pretty competitive in the division.

But you only get to play 17 of these games. And if you put yourself behind the eight ball right out of the gate, it's going to be tough. So, yeah, they have to win this game against the Los Angeles Chargers coming up because of everything that's happened at this point. I think the long-term weaknesses are going to be too much for this team, especially if they're getting banged up as we go because they started 0-2. If they started 2-0, I would still wonder if they could make the playoffs with just how it looks. Like, let's say they didn't turn it over and they won the game and we all went like wow this team's really good now but when you still look at who they have on the

team and and who can't get injured and what happens if they do and and things like that i think that's going to be very very hard for them to be in the playoffs to be any sort of competitor and that's showing up this early when we haven't even had that many injuries outside of a couple of guys on the offensive line. Everyone on the defense is healthy right now. If guys get banged up, like I don't even know who you're playing. So I think that we've seen everything that we thought might be there in these

first couple of weeks, except for we didn't expect the Butterfingers act. And we, you know, we thought like, okay, like Tampa Bay maybe could be a little dangerous or Philadelphia would win this game. And we, you know, we thought like, okay, like Tampa Bay, maybe could be a little dangerous or Philadelphia would win this game. Um, but coming out, oh, and two, it

does feel like the season's on the line, but we've also seen all the things that are going to haunt them at different times. And I think you said it really well. And we'll wrap on this is that the margin for error is now gone. And if you even go one in one then later in the season you can lose at soldier field and maybe still make the playoffs because uh even if the bears are horrible they always have a chance to lose there right right or you can lose to a denver team that has a good defense and will probably be way behind in the race there's always there's always a bad loss somewhere and if you used it up week one like that's a lot of weeks you have to avoid it's like a survivor pool where if you use you know if you use the worst team in the league, use

Arizona in week one that you don't get to use Arizona. It's like you used up your bad loss and now you can't really have another one if you're going to make the playoffs. And if you're going to keep, and, and, and by the way, I mean, I know like this week people are going to ask about the draft and they're going to ask about trading Kirk to the Jets and all those things. And like that's still not in the discussion. You lose another game, then maybe we're talking about it. So that's how fast it can snowball in the NFL. Anyway, well, sorry about tonight, everyone did not go your way, as it so often hasn't here in Philadelphia.

Dane Mizutani wrote a great piece about Jordan Addison. You should go check that out because he will be here for a long time. No matter what this team looks like, Jordan Addison is going to be here and make plays. So go check that out at the Pioneer Press. Dane does a tremendous job. And read his recap for tomorrow in the newspaper. And thanks so much for everybody joining. I mean, I know it's not that late in Central Time, but it's still pretty late.

So thanks so much to everybody for tuning in from the Philadelphia press box, where I think most people have left now. And we have to leave or we'll get locked inside the building. So thank you very much, Dane. And thank you all for watching. We'll catch you next time back in Minnesota.