Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - POSTGAME REACTION: Vikings destroyed by Chargers, what now?!?!?!

Episode Date: October 24, 2025

Matthew Coller and Dane Mizutani break down the disaster loss in Los Angeles. The Purple Insider podcast is brought to you by FanDuel. Also, check out our sponsor HIMS at https://hims.com/purpleinsider 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 into the Purple Insider Postgame show, presented by Fandul. Matthew Collar here, along with Dane Mizatani, the Pioneer Press. And let me just start by saying, I'm sorry you wasted your time watching that football game. It was about as ugly as we have ever seen a game in the Kevin O'Connell era as the Vikings lose to the Chargers 37 to 10. And I want to start here, Dane, things that you can control and things you can't control. The Minnesota Vikings cannot control that Carson Wentz is a backup quarterback who's been with six teams and six years for a reason. Did they have better options for backup quarterbacks? I would argue probably not really.

They cannot control that their superstar left tackle has not been able to consistently stay on the field for full games. And Christian Darrasaw played nine snaps tonight and then was taken out. and now they're shifting offensive linemen, playing an experience guys, they can't control that. They can't control that Ryan Kelly got hurt and they're playing their third string center. They cannot control that the environment here on a Thursday night was really going to be tough for them coming off of a game against the Philadelphia Eagles. So there's a lot of things that happened in this game that maybe we're bound to happen when you're playing a backup quarterback. But there's also a lot of things that happened on the defensive side that are really shocking to me. Starting with that they have played three competent quarterbacks, if not good quarterbacks,

and those quarterbacks have throttled them, not just beat them, but beat them down into the ground. And given them no chance to win, even with a backup quarterback, even if you could have scored 28 points tonight, you would have lost the game because the defense was so inept. They spent so much money. They made so many bets on this defense. And we have talked about Brian Flores' scheme, as if it is absolutely unsolvable. But, you know, I remember a game where it was solved. And that was in 2003 by Justin Herbert.

And how did he do it, Dane? He did it by throwing over the middle repeatedly, time and time again, to wide open, wide receivers in vacated areas. And it looked like Justin Herbert, all he had to do was watch the film from 2023, rinse, repeat, And certainly leave us wondering if Brian Flores' scheme is not so unsolvable as it has been made to seem because when we look at the last five or six good quarterbacks that this has faced going back to Jared Gough, Matthew Stafford, Jalen Hertz, Aaron Rogers, Justin Herbert, nobody has had the type of problems that we talk about that say Jake Browning or Dylan Gabriel have against this defense. And if this team ever wanted to be a serious contender, they were going to going to have to have an elite defense. Now it looks like so, so, so much less than that. And it is brought us to this season being at really the brink, which is they are three and four. They are nowhere near the teams that are truly in the playoff race. And I don't think it's even unfair at this point to start shifting our mindset to saying the rest of this season is about one person

and one person only. And that is J.J. McCarthy because the rest of this roster has not shown any signs of the ability to actually compete in the NFC North or in the NFC playoff race with teams like Los Angeles, San Francisco, who has injuries, by the way, the Green Bay Packers, the Detroit Lions, as we saw the Philadelphia Eagles, and Kevin O'Connell did confirm that J.J. McCarthy will play if he is healthy enough against the Detroit Lions, save your applause, but at least he will be back for that game. Now, they might give up 50 points, but at least we can start the evaluation of the young quarterback. I thought today, Dane, it was one of those. If it goes one way, then we could start talking about them is, hey,

right in the mix of things, new season. If it goes the other way, then it's probably going to be too steep of a hill to climb for them. And it went so far the other way that I think it's not a hill. It is a mountain for them to climb to convince anyone that they could, be competitive, especially with their upcoming schedule. Yeah, I mean, we call this a week-to-week league, and honestly, I don't need to see many more weeks ahead on this team to kind of make my declaration on who they are. There are three-and-four football team that squeaked out a win over the bears that maybe they shouldn't have one, stole that one, dominated the Bengals in a game that was about as

wonky as possible, took Isaiah Rogers doing something that's never been done in the NFL for them to run away with that victory and then barely beat the Browns. So your three wins are right there. You look at that and then compare it to the way you've lost games to this point. And it's pretty clear what type of team you are. I wrote this in the Pioneer Press last week leading into this game. So at that point, they're three and three. At that point, you could say, oh, their whole seasons ahead of them if they could just take care of business against the Chargers. I wrote last week that this season is now all about J.J. McCarthy, and that was last week. That was before they got their doors blown off by the Los Angeles Chargers, like you said, 37 to 10 today. And it felt like they lost by a million. Like 27 points, like the deficit there doesn't speak to how dominant the game was from the Los Angeles Chargers. So I think it does start to shift to, okay, what is this season about? Because it's no longer about contending for a Super Bowl.

I think when we sat on your porch in the summer, even at the beginning of the fall, we thought this team has the potential to do something if everything clicks. But all of a sudden now we're sitting here in October already. I didn't think we'd be having this conversation already saying, like, how good or how many wins is this team even going to get? I think we've talked about this on the podcast. How many wins? Are they going to get to six wins?

Are they going to get to eight wins? Are they going to get to 10 wins? they're going to get to 12 wins. They're not going to get the 12 wins. They're not going to get to 10 wins. They'd be lucky to get to eight wins. And honestly, find me three wins on the schedule with what we've seen over the last two weeks. Now, I think the only hope for this team moving forward is Jay Jim McCarthy comes back. He shows that week two against the Atlanta Falcons and three of the four quarters against the Chicago Bears were an aberration and he hits the ground running and he looks like the quarterback you thought he was. That is the only one.

way that there is hope this season. Otherwise, I think it's going to be every game really looking at it at the beginning and saying, how are they going to beat this team? Because I'm not sure. You mentioned it with the defense. Anytime the Brian Flores defense has played a quarterback with experience in the NFL that is capable of getting the ball out quick, that quarterback has then had success. You look at the four losses last year to Matthew Stafford twice, to Jared golf twice to Justin Herbert today, to Justin Herbert in 2023. There are ways to beat this defense, and it's just by simply knowing where to go with the ball pre-snap and finding the vacancies over the middle of the field.

The defense only confuses young, inexperienced quarterbacks, but you know who you usually don't see in the playoffs? Young, inexperienced quarterback. So how good is a defensive scheme if it can't beat up or even contain in the slightest someone like Justin Herbert, because all he did today was pick you apart. Series in, series out, there were times where it felt like he, the one interception he threw it, it was just because he simply, I think, was just screwing around at that point. He thought, okay, I'll just try this one over the middle.

Everything else is working. If that game's close, I don't think he even throws an interception today. It's just you're starting to see the DNA of this defense, which I think has been lauded it as a group that bothers quarterbacks, well, it only bothers certain quarterbacks, and it doesn't bother the good ones. So where does this team go from here? Like the guys we talked to in the locker room, Kevin O'Connell, Carson Wentz, all of them said the right things. They said, oh, I believe in this group. We have the guys necessary and inside that room to turn this around and make sure it doesn't snowball. But I mean, if this is what we're looking like every

week, it's just going to snowball whether you feel that way or not. So they need to look themselves in the mirror. This game was obviously not what you wanted it to look like, but I think zooming out from this game, you start to say, this thing could get bad. How bad could it get? Well, and this is kind of the point about J.J. McCarthy and how it's all about him now. But while that may be true, there is an analysis to be done at this point in questions to be asked about the process in which we got here. And yes, it does feel like the scheme has been figured out by anybody good enough to actually execute those throws or to slide in the pocket as Justin Herbert did. And by the way, I've joked about Herbert a lot, but truly a terrific

quarterback who made all world type of plays all over them. Also, I thought this defense was designed and the money put into it to slow down quarterbacks like this. And I'll go back to it, win a lot of different types of fights. Well, you not only can't win a lot of types of fights, you're on the other side of Mike Tyson punches every time you're facing a good quarterback at this point. So then we need to start asking about certain decisions that were made in the off season about this team. And all, you know, admit as well as you will that we both thought that this would work. We both thought that it made a lot of sense to spend around the rookie quarterback contract to keep certain players, to add certain players, not saying that we gave A pluses to every

single decision that they made. But we did think, all right, well, this is a plan that has been deployed many times. But when we've looked at it actually on the field and we start to see the weaknesses against the run, which I know when you're playing from behind all day, this is what happens, but you're giving up 200 yards, scrambling quarterback, end of the game, just getting blasted, not giving your offense any chance to come back. And the secondary, I think, is the thing that I will say we did question in the offseason. We did wonder, is Jeff Okuda really the type of reclamation project that you guys think you can turn around?

And they thought so much so that they didn't give themselves any backup option at all. And who's on the wrong end of the dagger long touchdown, but Jeff Okuda, who is now injured again, and obviously that's not good and hope for the best health-wise. But that was a player who has been let go by every team he's been with. he has not stuck anywhere. And with his talent and size and speed, wouldn't he have stuck somewhere? There was a gap in logic there for me that showed up again. It showed up multiple times in huge moments against Philadelphia, but also they've paid Byron Murphy a lot of money to be a top-notch corner. They've relied on Isaiah Rogers, who again was on the wrong side of a lot

of plays. They believed in Theo Jackson, who has been on the wrong side. They brought back Harrison Smith, who has not looked like the same Harrison Smith, a lot of throws in front of him as much as we have the deepest respect for Harrison Smith. They paid him a fair amount of cash to come back and be that guy. And they let Cambinem walk out the door. And they shifted to, hey, we're going to rush the passer with our defensive tackles rather than focus on stuffing the run. That has not resulted in a lot of success. And then I think we can also talk about the Dallas Turner. We've said, hey, give him time, turn the corner, but the results at this moment have been mediocre, not great, and also him headbutting a guy showing a little bit of lack of restraint there

and just sort of one of those dumb penalties where you go, all right, man, like you've already not shown a whole lot in this league and then headbutting Justin Herbert after he releases the ball three seconds later. I mean, is this what you're going to do as a player? Make dumb mistakes like that. So there's a lot of decisions there that can be second-guessed at this point to me on the defensive side that that was all under their control to reshape this defense to spend differently to let certain people go to add certain people and at the end of the night there's 37 points on the board and to me it means a bigger crisis because I think that we're at the point then where we can start saying how are you going

to resolve this okay you've got the rookie quarterback contract but a lot of these checks are written And it feels like now older players underperforming. Where have we heard that one before? Oh, the 2021 Vikings. I thought tonight had a very 2,021 Vikings. Hey, there's a lot of money out on that field that's not good enough. And how do you get out of these problems? There's a lot of players that have to prove to us going forward that they're not a problem

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uncommon goods.com slash purple insider for 15% off don't miss off on this limit don't miss out on this limited time offer uncommon goods we're all out of the ordinary yeah and I think that's why like the defense itself I don't think it's just going to solve itself I think there are like you said written guys that are probably past their prime now being asked to produce as if they are still in their prime. And then to feel like they're going to come back and just all of a sudden start playing like they're in their prime again is probably, you know, a fool's errand to kind of hope for at this point. So then you look at how do you feel hopeful about this team in any way? I don't think it can come from the defensive side of the ball this year. I don't think you have

the horses this year on the defensive side of the ball. And that's why it's going to always go back to J.J. McCarthy at this point. If J.J. McCarthy hits the ground running and looks competent next week, if he plays against Detroit, the games will slowly start to feel like, okay, maybe this isn't the season, but we have our guy. Where it gets really dicey is if J.J. McCarthy looks like he did at times against the bears and against the Falcons. All of a sudden, you tried to end. insulate this rookie quarterback. I know he's not a rookie, but to me he's a rookie. Like he hasn't played. He's played two games in two years, essentially. What you try to do this offseason

with the defense and then obviously what you did with the offense was insulate this rookie quarterback. So he doesn't have to feel the pressure. So he can slowly but surely start to feel comfortable in the NFL. So he can take the reins as a franchise quarterback, but not feel like the way of the world is on his shoulders. Well, the way of the world is suddenly on his shoulders. Like, if he doesn't look good, the franchise is screwed. And that's just the truth of it, because the way that the defense was supposed to carry the offense at times, and the way offense as a whole was kind of supposed to function independent of

whoever was under center because they wanted to make sure that the guy who was under center, J.J. McCarthy, didn't feel like he had to do too much. Well, all of a sudden, I think you're looking at a situation where the quarterback of the future has to be the quarterback of the present, or everyone is going to feel like this is a directionless organization. It all of a sudden puts a ton of pressure on the guy that you didn't want to put a lot of pressure on. So, I mean, did they miscalculate how good of a team they could be this year? Yes. Did we miscalculate how good of a team they could be this year? Yes, but I thought at times we would see more from the guys that they've poured money into. I think we're starting to see now

seven games into the season, like those free agent signings, like you don't just bat a thousand every year. You don't just get a Jonathan Granard, an Andrew Van Ginkle, a Blake Cashman, like you did last season, and then guarantee that you're going to bat a thousand free agency.

You take swings, you take misses. I think they took a lot of swings and misses this offseason. So let me pull back a little bit because you're right that now the whole idea was that you're supposed to be able to create this roster around J.J. McCarthy that's untouchable where he doesn't have to do everything. And now we're looking at it saying, well, I mean, if they're going to win any games this year, he better do everything. And then next year down the road, who's staying, who's going? And how are you finding the money to add anything to this or finding the young players that you're developing? Because there's not a

whole heck of a lot of them out on the field at this moment. But if we remove the existential crisis for But beyond all of that stuff that we're going to talk about, you know, with big picture and everything else, like, we're there, by the way. But even if we just set that aside and focus on tonight, it certainly makes you wonder, Dane, about the overall message of Kevin O'Connell and whether it's really getting through. Because we're hearing the same thing over and over again, which is technique, fundamentals. And I know that those are kind of just blow off type of terms, but I didn't see a whole lot of technique and fundamentals. out there tonight. And after the game, we expected maybe to hear a little bit of indignation, a little bit of anger. And it was really a lot of the same stuff. The foxhole was thrown out there, nut up was thrown out there by Blake Cashman, but really not a whole lot of specific here is what happened to lose 37 to 10 to the Los Angeles

Chargers, a team that came in after being bludgeoned by the Indianapolis Colts. This is not a team that they came in against saying, wow man you're going to have a really tough time against those chargers they had really struggled and they got some guys back and were a little healthier tonight but i wasn't looking at this team based on their resume and saying hey you're going to be really really and tough especially against their defense which had struggled mightily to stop the run which had allowed daniel jones to light them up like crazy off of play action and tonight they had no issue at all beating down card Wence into the ground, which I guess we may have buried the lead for a lot of people, which is KOC's decision to keep playing Carson Wentz, despite the clear agony that that man was in. And you and I have talked about Max Brosmer a ton throughout the training camp, OTAs, mini camp. I mean, the Max Brosmer discussions have been all over the place. But there was a couple of points tonight where I did think, look, I mean, it just looks like

that man is suffering out on the football field. And I saw fans saying, like, does Kevin O'Connell just want him to get hurt worse? And what O'Connell said was that he was in communication with Tyler Williams and the training staff and basically asking, like, can it get worse? Or can he significantly injure himself longer term because of what's going on right now? And the answer was, no, if he could tolerate the pain, then he can keep going out there. But at what point is it too much pain to ask somebody to continue to play through. And also he said, well, I don't want Max Brosmer to have to go out there and try to navigate what he was clearly wanting to say was an offensive line that had no chance to block the chargers whatsoever. But I do think

that they reached a point much earlier, much, much earlier than Brosmer went in that you could have said, okay, well, Max Brosmer is an NFL backup quarterback right now. He's wildly healthier than your starting quarterback. And even if you're very unlikely to lead some sort of miracle comeback with QB3 in this football game in particular, at least getting Wentz out of this game while he's in almost tears on the sideline throwing his helmet in frustration, staying down after multiple hits. How are we supposed to expect that guy to play competent quarterback when he's dealing with

that many injuries? I think if you're going to call Max Brosmer a pro, that, you have to let him go out there and at least try to get something going, get rid of the football quickly, check it down, complete some passes, start moving the offense a little bit just because he's actually healthy. Now, I think that this conversation overall is deck chairs on the Titanic. Like, oh, well, we're going to debate whether they should have played the backup quarterback or not. But I did feel sad watching Carson Wentz knowing what he's going through to be out there playing. Yeah, I gained a new level of respect from Carson Wentz tonight. I know

people who listen to the pot who hate Carson Wentz are probably not going to want to hear me say that. I'm not sitting here saying he played amazing tonight. He didn't. But he kept playing. He kept, he didn't tap out once. You see you guys tap out all the time. You saw Anthony Richardson tap out last year after a run on, you know, a random, pretty innocuous play, you know, on the sideline. Carson Wentz was destroyed tonight. And by the way, he is dealing with a pretty significant injury. He's battling every week to be out on the field. And then he's just getting beaten to a pulp.

Some of it his fault. Like, he could protect himself better for sure. But the end of the day conversation is he's getting beat up. He's getting to the sideline. They're saying, do you want to keep going? He's saying, I'm good to go. And then he's going out and he's continuing to play. There is some stubbornness involved in that.

for sure but I think just the ability to kind of just keep going put your head down and show that toughness like he got my respect tonight whether he played good bad or indifferent now the conversation of should he have been in the game look I think there is an element of as the head coach you should protect players from themselves like Carson Wentz understands I think where his career is headed he's probably a perpetual backup the rest of the way he understands that Jason McCarthy is getting healthy. At no point is that guy going to tap and say, I'm good. Take me out, please.

I've had enough. So at some point, you probably should have protected him from himself. But I do understand, like, the Kevin O'Connell thought process of, like, these are not opportune scenarios to get a UDFA into the game on a short week where a lot of the game plan this week was installed via walkthrough. I get that Max Rosemar is a pro. But Max Rosemar is also someone this organization feels pretty good about. Like they're very confident in.

I think in a perfect world, he's the backup to J.J. McCarthy moving forward. And I think to throw him in a game like this, when you're watching the other guy get beaten to a pulp, you could argue that would be irresponsible. He would have been playing with Justin School as his left tackle. Blake Brandel is his center. Walter Rouse is his right tackle. that's for those keeping track at home left tackle two ish center three ish right tackle three ish like not really a good place to throw a guy in who i know he played against the bangles but really hasn't played in the NFL so i think there are parts of that discussion that need to

kind of be illuminated of like yes i would have loved to see max prosmer play tonight you would have love to see Max Brosmer play tonight. Certainly my timeline on Twitter would have liked to see Max Brosmer play tonight. But watching Carson Wentz get beat up, I do have an understanding on why he wasn't put into the game. At the end of the day, though, like the lasting image from this game to me is not going to be 3710. It's not going to be Kamani Vidal, who was a practice squad player, I think a few weeks ago, running all over the Vikings for 117 yards. It's not even going to be Justin Herbert looking at times like White Michael Vic and taking off up the middle or showing off that arm that he has. It's going to be Carson Wentz writhing in pain on the ground,

getting to the sideline, chucking his helmet, and just like looking like the most devastated human on the planet in that moment as he sat on the bench. That's going to stick with me. I think in some ways it's probably a little bit of a microcosm of how this Viking season has gone to kind of just focus in on how Carson Wentz walked off the field in that moment. But I just felt sad for him. You hit the nail on the head with that word. I just felt sad for Carson Wentz, and that's probably going to stick with me more than anything else.

I do think if there was one point to play Max Brosmer with any hope that he was just the better quarterback to play tonight, it's probably when you get within two touchdowns that maybe there's a chance he could provide a spark and get something going. And this is where I do lean a little bit on the, side of the fans that is Carson Wentz really the guy that gives you a best chance to win this game tonight? And I know, like, I looked at their ESPN game cast and what they had for percentage of chance to win. And that touchdown to come within 14, move them from 2.7% to

to 6.8%. So not a whole lot of difference. But at the same time, Wence is struggling so much. And it's not just with the injury. It's also to get rid of the football that a lot of this is caused by Wence being Carson Wence. And look, if you had, if we recall Wence's career, they had one of the best offensive lines in the NFL in his best season. And as their offensive line in Philadelphia started to degrade, then so did his play because he's a guy that will stick on that first read that will try to make the throw down field, not too different from Sam Darnold. And that results in a lot of when the offensive line breaks down, a lot of big hits against him. Again, similarly to Sam Darnold.

It's also what this offense is. I didn't see too many plays tonight where the ball just immediately came out. Though one of them went five yards behind Aaron Jones to start the game. Something wasn't right there. He sort of insinuated that they weren't on the same page with where that ball was supposed to be and so forth. And, you know, that's fine, whatever the detail is.

But that's the second time in two weeks. He's just thrown it behind a guy on a screen pass. And I just don't know how hard that can be. But, you know, there weren't a lot of those easy button type of plays. There weren't a lot of those. Take the snap, get rid of it immediately. They did try on a third and one to put Justin Jefferson in the backfield rather than handing off to Jordan Mason. That, again, seems like deck chairs on the Titanic when you lose 37 to 10.

That wouldn't have mattered at all. But there probably is a moment in this game where Wentz is so hurt that, like, oh, well, you know, structurally his bones will continue to stay in place and not fall apart like a skeleton. well okay i get that but is he really giving you the best chance to be in this game even if max brosemar came in and led a couple of drives with totally short passes and ran the clock out on them doesn't that do everybody a little bit better than watching this guy just get beaten down over and over and over again so look i mean kevin o'connell knows better than we do what brosemar needs whether he could play carson wince or not but i think in this one it is fair to say second guess, him not going in the game and giving them a better chance to move as an

offense. I also want to share an opinion that I formed during this game, Mr. Mizatani. This is profound. This is a big one. Okay. So up until this point, and I heard that this came up in the pregame and the discussion, I had felt maybe a little bit like a lot of people of, wow, you know, who would run this offense pretty well is Sam Darnold, who's kind of killing it for the Seattle Seahawks. Like, you know, I wasn't ever afraid. of them giving him either a really short contract or a franchise tag thought, okay, maybe that might be the best for J.J. McCarthy. That's going back months and months. But now after watching this, if Sam Darnold had come back, it would have looked like that. It would have looked like

him just getting thwacked over and over and over again. It would have looked like the defense getting destroyed by really good quarterbacks. And it would have been a bad move because it would have hurt them on the salary cap or they would have wasted another year of Sam Donald's life. This team wasn't going to be a competitor with a really good quarterback. So I think tonight that really became crystal clear where we weren't really sure who this team was. Like, how good are they? We don't really know. We just haven't really seen them. And after tonight, you can say that I'm not even sure good quarterback play would have made them competitive. And now here we get to it. This has been my stat of the year. They have now played

28 quarters, and they have only led six the entire season. That's a bad football team, my friends. You could talk about technique and fundamentals and say that over and over and over again in press conferences, but the bigger picture is you're bad. You're just not a good football team. And if you were, then your backup quarterback could be in a game like tonight. And sometimes it's your fault that you're bad. And sometimes it's not. And sometimes it's a mix. But you're bad. There's not a lot of evidence that you're good when your wins come against Chicago in the fourth quarter, Cincinnati, when they threw you the ball a bunch of times, and then the poor Cleveland Browns. And this, I thought, was a really good test case because it's not a great team. So show us, like, where are you at?

Can you just beat an average team and go forward with your season or not? And the answer was very strongly not. But I did want to ask you about your thought of O'Connell after the game. And I know, you know, he's going to be positive. all the time. We have never seen them laid down the way that they did here tonight. Yeah, this is kind of what I wrote in my game story today. Like the DNA of Kevin O'Connell's teams have been that of they fight to the end. He's always in one score games for better or for worse, but they fight till the end. You could count on one hand the games that have just been

complete stinkers. Dallas, the hangover after that Buffalo game in 2022, they lost 40 to 3. Green Bay on New Year's Day. I think that was the game that Brian O'Neillop popped his Achilles. They lost 41 to 17. Green Bay, the next year, when Darren Hall played, they lost 33 to 10. And you could throw in Week 18 against the Lions in 2024 and obviously the playoff game against the Rams. Those are the only games where I felt like they're not even competitive. They're lifeless.

The main difference, those teams, aside from the 2020, team, that was an utter disaster after Kirk Cousins blew out as Achilles, and we got the pastor-on-on, and we got Nick Mullins, and we got Jaron Hall. The teams in 2022 that got their doors blown off by the Cowboys, by the Packers, and the teams in 2024 that lost to the Lions and then lost to the Rams in the playoffs, those teams were good teams that just failed to meet the moment. This team, I think for the first time, like if you want to consider this the worst loss of the Kevin O'Connell era, I wouldn't fight you too hard on it because they lost 37 to 10 against a team that to this point has been pretty mid, and you to this point have not

looked good at all. So you never want to lose 40 to 3, but when they lost 40 to 3 to the Cowboys, you could say, this is a good football team. They just had a bad week. Bad weeks happen all the time. You could say in Green Bay when they got killed, like, it's fine, end of the year. like they had their eyes on the playoffs you can make excuses you can kind of explain away why that the teams were bad in the worst moment of kevin o'connell's career to this point you can't make any excuses you can't explain it away they they laid down tonight it really it really feels like they did and look i get it you'll go in the locker room they'll say we battle to the end we're like no you didn't it was 37 to 10 the offense was anemic

The defense, a lot more than 400 yards of total offense. Special teams was getting caught. Tyler Baddy got called for holding to ruin Miles' prices, returns. It was a total system failure, offense, defense, and special teams over 60 minutes. I wrote in my game story, if you were forced to play that game on Madden at home, you would sim to the end and then you would sell your PS5 on Facebook marketplace. Like, that's how bad the game was. It was as bad as it gets. And that's why when I listen to Kevin O'Connell talk after the game, look, I get it.

You want to evoke a sense of calm. You want to not be the one who raises the temperature in the room. Frankly, it would seem a little disingenuous if Kevin O'Connell came to the podium and was banging it and trying to act like Dan Campbell. Like, I get that you want to see some indignation, but I do think you have to kind of be who you are at your core. what I just didn't love is just like there were no explanations for why they played the way they did. It was just kind of buzzwords. And maybe it's just because it was so raw. And when we talked to him, I don't even know when we're going to talk to him because it's such a short week, when we talk to him and we reflect on this game, maybe he'll have more answers for us. Maybe

those are hard to come up with right after you get your teeth kicked in on national television. But I didn't love that there weren't answers to why we just, what happened in front of our eyes. Whatever you feel about how he should be reacting, you're entitled to feel. I also wouldn't have felt any certain way if he came up and he did bang the podium. He said this isn't good enough. I think sometimes there are moments throughout a season that call for that. But I understand what he's doing right now.

He's trying to keep the temperature calm. But at a certain point, you might have to stand at the podium and bang on it because three and four is three and four. This could quickly spire a lot of control, though. And I think that the other losses, there were pretty fair explanations, and there was fight. I mean, in Pittsburgh, they've got the ball with a chance to go try to tie the game at the end. And even last week against Philadelphia, get one stop and you've got a chance. And, hey, convert one more in the red zone.

And you could buy those different explanations. But then you get to this week, there is no explanation whatsoever. And when we've talked about this team and they've earned this reputation, from winning 14 games last year. So I don't want to throw out all the priors and overreact to one game because that doesn't seem fair to anybody, to Flores, to Kevin O'Connell. But at the same time, every group is different. Do you have the answers to this group?

And it seems like it's no that they do not have the answers to elevate the backup quarterback to the point where they can. And look, if they had lost this game 24, 21, we would have said, man, that's a tough loss. Welcome back, JJ, and hey, maybe this team can get to eight or nine wins and give themselves a chance. But now when you do this, I mean, this does sound the alarm bells of is this coaching staff not only just getting through, but having the right schematic answers because one thing we know about the NFL is that it changes quickly. And when everybody studies Brian Flores' defense, because it's so successful, well, are they finding the offensive answers against it as well? And do they have enough sample size to look and say, well, hey, I mean, this is how the Rams beat it. This is how the lions beat it.

And then Justin Herbert doing it again tonight. That's just more tape for everybody to how to beat this defense. And it also goes all the way to the top of the front office as well. There's a reasonable question about how some of the decisions were made because an all-in type of approach, it makes sense with J.J. McCarthy. but then you think about how raw J.J. McCarthy was. It would have been better to take a longer term approach than saying, hey, we're going to go compete for a Super Bowl with somebody who really was not that close to being ready to do that, or at least it looked that way until he got hurt.

So there's a combination of a lot of different things. There's front office moves that have not paid off that were very risky. There's extreme bad luck. There might be schematic and messaging things that are not popping the same way. way that they do during a 14-win season. But they have reached a critical, critical point now where can you turn it around to win eight plus games? Well, I got my friends a fan duel right up here, and they think the answer is no. The Vikings are not even favored. They are plus 155 to win eight games or more. The Carolina Panthers have better odds than that. You know who's

right behind them? The Cleveland Browns at plus 360 are not even that far behind the Vikings for a chance to win eight games. So now not too many folks are buying where this thing is going, and it's on them to prove that they can go there because it's a no confidence vote here after tonight to perform this well. And I did want to just rant for a second about the special team's penalties. I have, there's a lot of things, Dane, that we've been, I think, very patient about, like, hey, Matt Daniels is dealing with a lot of young players, undrafted free agents. You know, they wave Kobe King after he got a bunch of penalties. Then Tyler Batty comes in and does the same thing.

What do they have in common? Late round draft pick, undrafted, free agent. But, you know, that's life as a special teams coordinator. And a lot of times when the penalties come up, they say, well, you know, if they're competing, it's fine. It's not fine. In fact, it crushes your offense if you get penalties on kick returns. And if you can't coach your players to not get kick returns anymore, then you need to find

somebody who can because they have. have a good kick returner in Miles Price, a really talented young player who has been ripped off by people. And I don't think that a lot of his success is just due to holding every time. A lot of times it looks like it's just somebody who may be trying too hard or who doesn't have the technique. But at some point, this number of penalties, you're missing something when it comes to coaching. And also, you know, the whole cute, you know, turnover thing was great when they were getting them, but not so much anymore unless Herbert throws it right to somebody. So that's just a part of his job. But you have to be, we talk about accountability. It's like at some point, there has to be

accountability for the same things going wrong over and over, the same penalties on special teams, the same run schemes that don't work, no matter who the running back is. And I get it. There's offensive linemen that are backups. That's the National Football League. You get really tired of, well, you know, we had a backup lineman, so we got to get freaking destroyed. Well, that this doesn't work for me, that on third and one, you can't get a yard with Jordan Mason or you're running him minus two because it seemed like the Chargers knew exactly what you were going to do. There's been way too much predictability with this team where it seems like everybody probably studied them in the off season and this is why it's hard to repeat 14 wins,

but it's not supposed to be this hard to even look like you're a competitive team as it was tonight. So look, hot seats, fire, everybody likes to do that thing. How about just in general that where we go with this thing will really dictate how everyone feels about this coaching staff because you're not really proven when everything is going well and every player is healthy and your quarterback is starring and it's all great. You're really proven when it's going bad. And right now, not a very impressive coaching performance, offense, defense, or special teams when things are going bad.

Congratulations to the Chargers, though, and Jim Harbaugh, who did a great job tonight with their team with things going bad, and they crushed the Minnesota Vikings. So do you have more thoughts? I mean, this felt like it was one where I needed to rant a lot, but please. Yeah, no, I mean, it's, look, they get to dictate how the rest of their season goes. I'm sure they would love to sit there. And I'm not saying that the players are watching this podcast every single week. But sometimes, sometimes they are. Fives aren't good now, pal.

I think if they can use this as good, and that's such a cliche of sports, and they can turn this around, they can sit there at the end of the season and bang on their chest and say, nobody believed in us after we lost to the Chargers. You all doubted us. Yeah, I doubt you right now. I don't believe in you right now. It's on them to prove us wrong. but I think we're not alone in this feeling and I think if I had to guess there is a seat of doubt that has kind of crept into the locker room itself you don't lose 37 to 10 on national television in prime time and feel good about yourself you don't feel like oh we can still accomplish whatever we want there is probably a seat of doubt that has been planted in that locker room it's on them to make sure it doesn't grow into something more three and four there's still time

But right now, I'm not sold. What they can do is make it interesting with J.J. McCarthy coming back, which again, Kevin O'Connell basically said he's coming back. He said if he's healthy, he's playing. Well, yeah, I mean, after these last two games, there's no debate whether Wentz was just going to become the next version of Sam Darnold. And there's only so much whispering that you can do. A lot of it is based on the roster and the talent, believe it or not. But, you know, when it comes to McCarthy, two things on that.

Number one is it wasn't supposed to be getting to the point of J.J. McCarthy playing halfway through the season and we're saying, oh, at least it's interesting. That sounds like you're the New York Jets or someone like that. It doesn't sound like you were supposed to be this year with the money you spent and the cap space you spent and the plan that you concocted over three years. We were not supposed to get to week nine and say, at least it's interesting. The other thing is, too, you're not supposed to be saying, hey, J.J. McCarthy, come save us because the defense can't stop anybody. And, oh, by the way, make sure you can hold on the ball for a long time and throw it down field while getting destroyed because that seems to be a lot of the offensive game plan at its root core. And certainly, again, tonight, wondering about change and whether that's possible when it is necessary. So far, we haven't seen a whole lot of that.

And it seems like under the right circumstances, when things are going well, when you're winning last second, or you have a quarterback who can throw down field, that you get the protection, that this team is really good. This scheme is really good. If not, then it's not. And with Flores, if you're playing bad quarterbacks, then it's good. And if you're not, then it's not. Those are not the realities that anybody was looking for. And yet, it certainly is the feeling of right now. But as you said, it is on them to prove everything we said here tonight in a random office space in SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles. Usually we'd love to bring you the outside of the stadium. It was a real thing to get some space to do this podcast. So we do appreciate them for finding a spot for us. But, you know, I guess no one really cares whether they're looking at the stadium or not at this point with this podcast. But I like it. Anyway, Dane, thank you for your help and thank all of you for taking the time to listen.

We will go forth. and at very least have the 10th overall pick from the 2024 draft, presumably if his ankle can get back, which, hey, looked okay, him jumping over Justin Jefferson on the sideline. So there you go. He passed the jump on the sideline test. Time to play. And we'll go off into the future,

but not a highlight of the Kevin O'Connell era this evening in L.A. So thanks, Dane, and thank you all, as always. Football. Football.