Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - POSTGAME REACTION: Vikings fall apart in red zone in loss to Eagles

Episode Date: October 19, 2025

Matthew Coller and Dane Mizutani analyze the Vikings' brutal loss to the Eagles where they went 1 for 6 in the red zone and gave up a perfect passer rating. 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, Minnesota Vikings post-game show, presented by Fanduel, Matthew Collar, here along with Dane Mizatani, inside the U.S. Bank Stadium press box. And we have a lot to discuss about the Vikings 28 to 22 loss to the Philadelphia Eagles that drops them now to three and three. but the word of the day today is catastrophe because the Minnesota Vikings in this game on a play to play basis completed passes ran successfully moved the ball between the 20s and on defense they slowed down Saquan Barkley who looked like an average running back they dominated the line of scrimmage in that way after maybe a little bit of a slow start and then all of a sudden they just shut down that run game and then with the passing game it wasn't really all that hot until they threw it deep. And then every time they threw it deep,

catastrophe. And every time the Vikings got in the red zone, catastrophe. And I guess the interesting thing about the game was how many different ways they messed up both things. A third and 15 down the sideline in front of Jeff Okuda, who was in the game. And deep pass at the end of the game where all the Vikings need is a stop. And A.J. Brown ends up with a big catch over Isaiah Rogers. And then in the red zone, it's a holding. It's a snap over somebody's head. It's Carson Wentz, maybe not knowing the play and just throwing the ball down and taking a penalty. Dane, this to me was a game where last year when you move the ball, they would win the turnover battle. They would get sacks. They would convert in the end zone in the red zone. And they would

win this type of game all the time last year. And it seems like this year in their losses, they have just not been on the right side of these things. And I don't want to call them random. Maybe some of it is, like whether the referees decide a catch is a catch or not, where you can't really see the ball moving too much. And it's a little bit of a head scratcher or a holding call that is on a standard legal technique for what Blake Randall did in the red zone.

That stuff's a little bit random. But when you start to add up the catastrophes, the turnovers, the key, sacks and some of the weakness that we've seen in the secondary, especially today, the first time they're really playing a great quarterback this season. It all adds up to a loss that I think you can walk out of the stadium and say, you really beat yourselves in a lot of ways. And also, it's very, very hard for us to stand here and say, no, no, this team is actually good. They're fine. They threw for 300 yards. It doesn't work that way. I mean, if you make huge mistakes time and time and time again. That's kind of who the 2025 Minnesota Vikings are, a day late and a dollar

short. Yeah. And I think the way you kind of phrased it, comparing this season to last season, why the Vikings came out on top more often than not last season, 14 times last season, was because of the quarterback. And why so far I think they've looked the way they have. It's because of the quarterback. And while I've probably gotten some heat on this channel, for being really hard on J.J. McCarthy. I think for the most part, the criticism has been merited. Maybe I've been a little reactionary post-game against Atlanta, but for the most part, it's been merited with the quarterback play

not being good enough. And while Carson Wentz has, I think, at times shown he can move the offense better than it moved early in the first two games, the difference between this season and last season is just the quarterback play. Plain and simple. I think today we can go look at every single part of this game, nitpick this penalty being called on Blake Brandl

or this touchdown that wasn't on T.J. Hawkinson or Isaiah Rogers getting cooked by Devontas Smith or Isaiah Rogers getting cooked by A.J. Brown late in the game. But the truth is the Vikings were chasing all game. Obviously, the eagle scored on the opening possession and had a lead. they wouldn't relinquish, but they were chasing for most of the game because of the inconsistency of Carson Wentz at the start of the game. I think back to everyone's going to point

to the interception that went for a touchdown, and while that was a catastrophe, on the first drive of the game, there's a chance to throw a touchdown to Jordan Addison to tie the game 7.7. The entire complexion of the game probably feels a little different. If you complete that right away, show the Eagles, we're here. Games tied, game on. last season they complete that ball last season that's a touchdown last season it's 7 7 going in the rest of the way this season whether it's been j j jay mccarthy or carson wince like those balls aren't being completed and the bikings are having to chase i think when you're chasing over the course of a game it does lend itself to having to talk about the randomness of a penalty that maybe should or shouldn't have been called a catch that maybe should or

maybe was or wasn't. You know, the defense, I understand, like, and we're going to talk more about the ability of Jalen Hertz to escape pressure and many of these plays that ended up being made. Probably should have been sacks, but the defense has been asked to do a lot this season because of the inconsistency of the offense. And all of that hinges and kind of falls on the shoulders of the quarterback.

There were more than just Carson Wentz mistakes that contributed to this 28 to 22 loss. But for the most part, from the jump, they were chasing because of his inconsistency. So I think we can ping pong back and forth here between the criticisms of the offense and the defense in this loss. Because while you're saying that, and I totally agree that it was the huge mistakes, the intentional grounding, which was just insane. C.J. Ham was wide open and there's way too many moments where Carson Wentz just loses his mind. And it actually reminds me a lot. This was like a Nick Mullins game.

It looked exactly the same. The passes are not accurate, but he's throwing it to the right people enough. Jordan Addison and Justin Jefferson to get big chunks of yardage. This team has the best wide receivers, and maybe the other team is right up there with them in the entire NFL, along with Cincinnati, but your top three at worst in the league. So if you just direct the football toward Addison, toward Jefferson, sometimes it can be on a short pass. Like there were a few very good ones today to Jefferson. He takes it 50 yards down the sideline, but the things that go wrong go so epically wrong that it's really, really hard to win.

And the interception that does happen sometimes. An outside linebacker drops back into a window you don't expect. And if Blake Brandel hadn't gotten demolished by an all-world player, then maybe he sees it and says, oh, I can't get rid of this, but instead he rushed it like a backup quarterback will do. And this is my thing about the defense, because a lot of the stuff that happens, with Carson Wentz was stuff that backup quarterbacks do. Backup quarterbacks, throw a pick six, backup quarterbacks miss open opportunities, they don't finish in the red zone. The idea of the 2025 Minnesota Vikings was supposed to be that even with mid-quarterback play, flawed

quarterback play where maybe there's a day that you don't finish in the red zone, maybe there's a day where you do make a big mistake that you are supposed to have a defense that's good enough to shut down, other teams and allow for that to win. Allow 22 points to be good enough for you to win. And you spent millions and gazillions and millions and millions of dollars to build this defense with defensive tackles that are supposed to take the quarterback down in the backfield. At some point, Jonathan Grenard will have to get a sack and not just pressures. And look, I'm going to go off about Jalen Hertz at some point. But this offense for the Philadelphia Eagles came in as really struggling.

think you knew that they were going to have somewhat of a bounce back. But when we talked about all offseason, the secondary, the cornerback group, and it's third and 15, and there's Jeff Okuda who just never really made a ton of sense as someone to have to lean on in any way. They trade away Mackay Blackman. He's playing for the Indianapolis Colts. I'm not saying he's playing great, but he's playing. And it's a comeback where he can't get around him, can't stop on a dime quick enough, A.J. Brown gets a big play. It's Isaiah Rogers who had a great game against Cincinnati. That game will never be forgotten, but this guy was not a starter and maybe there's a reason. But it's all together. You also can't ask these guys to cover for six seconds because your defensive line, which is paid out the wazoo, can't get to the quarterback.

Dallas Turner did get a sack today, didn't have many other impact plays. That's a first round draft pick. This is not good enough for a defense that they stack. backed up so much with lots of names, but today was good against the run. We could not get the quarterback down and absolutely could not cover well enough to slow down Jalen Hertz. I mean, he had one of the best games I think we've ever seen statistically against the Vikings. I can't read your phone. Is it 19 for 23, 326? Perfect quarterback rating. The last time we saw this was 2018. And you know what? It's actually starting to feel like 2018, where there's so much hype, so much build up, so much money spent in the off season, and mediocrity that follows.

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does not approve or verify for safety effectiveness or quality. Prescription required. See website for full details, restrictions, and important safety information. See, this is good, though, because I think we're going to bounce back and forth. Because while I agree, while I think the defense deserves blame in this, even Let's take the last drive, for example. Say Isaiah Rogers doesn't get just absolutely dusted by A.J. Brown there. Say that goes down as an incompletion. Say it even goes down as a sack and the Eagles have to punt.

The Vikings still need to then go the length of the field and score a touchdown because they got in the red zone a bunch today and couldn't punch it in. I think at a certain point you are asking too much of a defense, even though they are paid to do what they have been asked to do and what at times they have failed to do. Settling for field goals when you're down in the red zone, time and time again, does have a wear on the defense. And even if that last drive, the defense stepped up

didn't allow the third down conversion, which they did, I understand that. There is nothing that suggests that the Vikings were then going to be able to march down the field and score a touchdown and win the game like they did against the Cleveland Browns because they scored one touchdown today on a wildcat formation to Jordan Mason that really needed replay assist to even show if he crossed the line. The idea that if the defense would have just stepped up, the Vikings could have won this game, I think is a little bit one that I would push back on because even on the

second to last drive when they have an opportunity to score touchdown, and to be fair, probably did. We'll talk about that as well because T.J. Hawkinson was very vocal about that decision that came down from New York. I just don't know if it's as easy as saying if the defense steps up there, the offense is going to then put the game away because at no point this season have we seen consistency from the offense to do that.

At no point have we seen consistency for the defense either. I mean, look at this time of possession. 34 minutes and two seconds for the Vikings offense. I mean, I know, okay, they gave up seven points. That's really bad. But it's not like the defense had any reason. to be worn down today. Saquan Barkley didn't do a lot.

This team was missing offensive linemen. Cam Juergens went out early and they just smashed his replacement and he struggled to get their running game going. Jalen Hertz, in my opinion, is a great quarterback. I don't think you win the Super Bowl. I don't think you play as well in the Super Bowl twice if you're just some schlub. I think that his ability to extend plays to keep his eyes downfield to take risks and throw the ball up.

I think he's one of the best deep ball. throwers in the league. So he's a fantastic player, but not being able to get enough pressure to bring him down for a defensive line that has this kind of investment. You have massive dollars in Grenard, massive draft capital and Turner, massive dollars in Javon Hargrave, in Jonathan Allen. I mean, it's not like this is a group of young players that you're like, well, you know, they're out there trying to take him down. You are paid to be able to slow him down. But here's my thing, though, on this for like, whose fault is it anyway? This felt very like bad Kirk era loss.

If I told you before the game, if we were doing a preview and I said, hey, I went forward in time, just got back for my time machine, the Eagle scored 28. You think that the Vikings will win the game? You would have said absolutely not. If I told you that Jalen Hertz had a perfect quarterback rating, I don't think you would have thought that the Vikings would have a chance to win the game. But I think that as we go back and forth and kind of pick apart each side of it, I mean, there's a pretty clear bottom line to this, which is, that this team is a three-and-three team. You are what your record says, and that's exactly what I would say about them.

In fact, they should probably be worse because they had to pull out last-second wins against two teams that, well, I guess the Bears are maybe now pretty good. In fact, the Bears just moved ahead of the Minnesota Vikings in the standings today. And the Cleveland Browns, hey, good, congrats to the Browns. They got a win against a really tragic Miami Dolphins team. But think about how many minutes

this year, the Minnesota Vikings have led in football games. Let's just go. Let's just take the time here and go through it. They led for a few minutes at the end of the Chicago game, nothing in the Atlanta game. They win against the Bengals. Okay, the Bengals they had the whole game. They're trailing Pittsburgh the entire day. They're trailing Cleveland the entire day.

Pull it out at the end. They're trailing Philadelphia all day and lose. They have led for about five, six quarters for this entire season. And that's why three and three, you might be lucky to be three and three. This team feels like it is too flawed to be consistent on either side of the football to where the point of the ping ponging back and forth is just to point out that across the board, it's not what it was expected to be. And some of the things that we talked about as potential major weaknesses, hey, a backup quarterback, if he has to play, you're probably in a lot of trouble. well, Carson Wentz is doing about as good as you could do as a backup quarterback in the NFL. Look around. When they play, it's usually a travesty, and I guess it's been at least entertaining,

and the two losses are by one score, so I guess they don't count. But he's doing as best as he can. But what they needed this year was J.J. McCarthy playing good at quarterback, and they needed on the defensive side, whether it was McCarthy or Wentz, to be a shutdown defense, to be an elite defense, five. They have not been that this year. And they got away with some things because they faced Dylan Gabriel and because they faced Jake Browning and even Caleb Williams didn't have that offense down yet. But, you know, next time they face him, it might be better. This was the first

time they faced a good quarterback and he had a perfect passer rating. I just, I'm, I don't know how you could look at this defense right now and say this is what you expected it to be. No, and it's probably just a miscalculation on the first and foremost the Vikings part and probably our part. I thought they were going to be good. I thought on paper, everything makes sense. And it's, look, it's week-to-week league. We talk about it. We joke about it.

They're three-and-three. If they go beat the Rams on Thursday, everything looks. Chargers. Chargers. Sorry, L.A. If they beat the Chargers on Thursday, everything feels a little different. But at the same time, I do think that there is probably, at least right now, we can say they thought they would be better than they are because I think they thought they

would be getting more production out of the players that they invested in. I thought they probably thought they were going to get more out of Jonathan Allen, more out of Javon Hargrave. He's been good, but still not enough impact plays from him even. Up front, I think Ryan Kelly, obviously I don't want to make light of the concussion, but he's not playing right now. You invested some money into him. Will Fries, he's coming into his own. Donovan Jackson's coming into his own. But at a certain point, I think the team thought it was going to be able to, to your point, buoy whoever was playing quarterback and make it so they didn't have to be Hercules, someone who puts the team on their back and says, follow me. The only thing, though, is I do think the entire DNA of games

would look different if you got better quarterback play. And maybe it's not fair to hold Carson Wentz to that standard because he is a backup because he didn't get here until August. Maybe it's not fair to hold J.J. McCarthy to that standard because he's only gotten two games to show us who he is and that's not nearly enough to make a declaration on a guy's career. But I then only can look at the guys that you passed on this offseason. I think if there was a different quarterback in here, it would have pissed off the fan base. People are going to come at me and say, I hate J.J. McCarthy because I'm even suggesting this. But I think the entire operation looks different if you have a quarterback who functions in the flow of this offense. The offense

that Kevin O'Connell has run since he's gotten here that he's had success with, since he's gotten here, this is the most inconsistent quarterback play we've seen. And there's a reason that now we can ping pong back and forth whose fault is it? Is it the offense's fault? Is it the defense's fault? It's everybody's fault. But at the same time, I think a quarterback in its why it's the most important position in sports can mask a lot of the deficiencies of a team. And it's what Sam Darnold did last year time and time again. I think even the haters of Sam Darnold can now appreciate what the heck he did for that team last year. There were times this team last season won games that it shouldn't have,

simply on the right arm of Sam Darnel. I'm willing to wait before I make a declaration about J.J. McCarthy. I'm not going to be too hard on Carson Wentz because he is in a different. situation, probably still learning some of the offense as a backup in this league. But there was a miscalculation on how good this team could be, I think, from the Vikings internally. And I think there was a miscalculation on who was leading this team under center. Well, I totally agree with that. I mean, I think when you look back and you say, oh, well, Sam Darnold would have been too expensive. And then you're like, well, I can get to $41 million for a franchise tag pretty fast by adding up a

couple of players that they paid who have not come through for them. We talked to Jonathan Allen after the game and it's been a lot of, well, we were almost there just this year in general from the defensive pass rush. They only got 23 chances to chase after Jalen Hertz today. That's been another part of the issue is when you give up either run success in previous games or big plays as far as today. Well, yeah, the opposing quarterback's not going to have to throw 50 times. also when you're playing from behind all the time is where they really do tie together. And I don't disagree with the criticism of Wentz today that a lot of the yards that got put up were put up when they were trailing.

And it's that classic garbage time type of yards of, well, they're panicking. They're throwing every play. And Philadelphia's got a bunch of guys hurt. Adori Jackson went down. Hopefully he's okay. That was a scary injury. And so they're short on the secondary. Quinion Mitchell's playing injured and getting roasted by Jefferson.

and okay, so they're going to give up yards after yards after yards. If you finish a single drive, if you don't throw a pick six because you're trying to make a throw at the very last second. And this is part of the issue with Carson Wentz is that he always thinks he can make a play. I mean, he said after the game about the second pick, which I was fine with, by the way, it's an arm pun. But the second pick, although maybe Ryan Wright kicks at 77 yards. So I guess it does make a difference. But he said, like, oh, I thought I saw an opportunity. down the field and you're like 47 yards down the field at this point in your career with that

it just doesn't really add up some of the plays that he tries to make the reason that i don't want to slam too hard is just that like this is who you are you've been with six teams in six years and you're over 30 years old there wasn't going to be likely that it was just magic pixie dust you were going to have to play a certain way on defense to win games like this but you're right i mean wents make one more throw, make one more play, get in the end zone. And even though I thought Kevin O'Connell, from an offensive perspective, really did call a good game today, if not a really, really good game with the number of yards they put up, how well they ran the football. I mean, when you talk about how we hear from coaches all the time players, well, each mistake has its own story. Like,

yeah, wow, we got a book today of the mistakes that happened in the red zone. But one of them was second down in one. You've got a chance to just hand it off to Jordan Mason, slam forward, try to get in the end zone there. They decide to throw, throw, throw. The third one gets in the end zone. It gets called back for a holding. And you know what teams that lose do?

They go back to every bad break and they go, ah, if we only had Hawkinson's catch, which by the way, didn't give him the lead, even if he scored there. And if they throw that ball to AJ Brown, it doesn't matter anyway with the fact that they couldn't stop them. even though that is annoying and we can talk about the nuance of how silly instant replay can be in the NFL, it didn't really matter that much because they weren't stopping A.J. Brown and

Devante Smith anyway down the field. And then you do have some mistakes from Wence that are just inexcusable. But when you play on the razor's edge all the time and you make any mistake or you don't get any call, like this is what you get when you're just not that great of a football team. And that's why I said 500 is really truly a perfect record for a team that's got a lot of really good players and has a lot of talent, but is not a true contender. They're not a top-notch team because they can't put it all together at once in a game like this to beat a team that would you be surprised that Philadelphia comes together throughout the season and they're there again? This is the type of game that they have won in the past and gelled together and then taken off and then been legit Super Bowl content. I thought this was an opportunity today with so many injured players on Philly side for them to have a comeback win that sort of push them forward, get through these Wents games, and then get to a point where

you're talking about bringing back J.J. McCarthy. And instead, I think now we're talking about, can you beat the Chargers on a short week? Already Carson Wentz saying he hates playing on Thursday night. So that didn't sound promising with the amount of hits that he took today. Some from his very good scrambles, but, you know, took some hard hits there. He was winting. He was holding his side. Like, it just doesn't feel all that great of them going into the game against the Chargers.

So the only silver lining that I could come up without it today is that there's, there is no quarterback controversy, or at least there shouldn't be. Even if he throws for 300 and they beat the Chargers handily, as soon as J.J. McCarthy's ankle is ready to go. J.J. McCarthy needs to come in. And I think with this game, you shift to. since I have a big enough sample to know what you're going to be, which is just a very inconsistent 500-level team,

then we need to see as much J.J. McCarthy by the end of this season as we possibly can, and then they can get to the end of the year and assess all the different moves that they're going to have to make with the players who have not performed at the levels that they expected when they spent all this money this off-season. Yeah, I do think I had that same thought today that we thought we would be, talking probably at this point in the season. They're three and three now. I thought there was a chance they'd be five and one. I thought for sure they'd be four and two. Now they're three and three. I do think we've gotten to the point probably quicker than I thought and we've gotten to that point multiple

times this year where I say, oh man, they better win the next game or that can this thing's going to go off the rails. I felt that against Cleveland. I felt like Cleveland was a must win game or the season was going to go off the rails. I now feel that Thursday night against the Chargers is a must win game or things are going to go off the rails. But I had that same thought sitting in the press box about J.J. McCarthy that this now shifts from a team that let's just get competent quarterback play and give the group that we've constructed a chance to chase a Super Bowl, a chance to contend at a high level. And if that's not J.J. McCarthy giving us the best chance to do that, then too bad he's 22. We'll wait.

I was under that thought process this year because I thought the team itself was better. But I feel the same way you do. Now this shifts from maybe you're not a Super Bowl contender. Maybe you miscalculated. All we can go off of is what we know so far, which is that you did, that you're three and three. And truthfully, Carson Wentz is not going to turn your season around in the same way that I think perhaps another quarterback could that would justify not finding out about the young kid now. What I do want to say, though, is when J.J. McCarthy plays,

it's not a guarantee that that kid is just going to have absorbed a bunch over three weeks and take off running. There's going to probably be some ebbs and flows, but I think you need to see them. I think that is what we've probably learned more than anything today outside of just the fact that the team is probably just good, not great, is that we need to see J.J. McCarthy. We need to figure out what he is because that question needs to be answered sooner rather than later. I think if he can get healthy, probably if I had to guess, will not play Thursday.

I just have a hard time believing that on a short week, they're going to throw the kid back in there. But if he can get healthy by Detroit, if he can get healthy by Baltimore, I think you give him the rest of the year a full ramp way. There's going to be highs, I'm sure. There's going to be lows, I'm sure. but you need to see a lot of him. We've only seen two games. I understand that. The sample size is far too small

to make a decision on if he's going to be good or if he is going to be bad. But I think by the end of the season, whenever he gets healthy, we will have a pretty good idea one way or the other. We need to figure that out sooner rather than later. I just need to see as many starts and as many throws and as many dropbacks.

And at this point, I don't really care what else happens that that needs to happen. And they can convince me otherwise if they beat the Chargers 42 to nothing and then they stay with Wentz because he throws for five touchdowns. And then he destroys the Detroit Lions and drills the Baltimore Ravens. And then all of a sudden we're on the way to a magical season. I suppose it's still on the table. But after today, I thought, is it really on the table?

Because as the sample size grows of just pure quarters that you lose, like games are a small sample size so if we tried to split it up into how often did you outplay the other team the answer is just very rarely how often have they had the lead all season long and you could say well we move the ball against them but we've been over this before many times in the past and that's why when we say hey even nick mullins threw for 400 yards well why did he throw for 400 yards they were losing that entire day because of huge mistakes by mullins and because the defense at the end of the 2023 season was not good. It was just another defense in the league. And I think that that's what you have here is another defense in the league, where on a

given day, it might be better or worse. When they play bad quarterbacks, they'll look better. When they play offensive lines that are banged up, they'll look better. When they play quarterbacks who may someday wear a gold jacket, despite everybody saying the guy stinks all the time, yeah, you're going to get roasted the way they did against Jalen Hertz today because this isn't a defense that's good enough to slow down really good offenses. And that makes me think that you're only a contender to maybe get to 500, 9 and 8, 8, 8, 9 at the absolute best, which to me is go ahead and get J.J. McCarthy as much experience throughout the rest of this year. And it maybe feels like an overreaction to be saying that right now. but in what game does the light come on? Like, how many games in do you need to be where you could say, well, we still haven't found out about this team?

We still don't really know who this team is. In fact, Justin Jefferson, after the game was asked, like, are you guys still trying to figure out who you are? He said, no, like, we just need to make plays. We need to execute and then blamed himself for dropping a ball that was probably a bad play call on a fade anyway in the end zone. So that's Jefferson, and that's how he handles himself. but I think everyone's got to be looking around similar to those other seasons we've covered, where it's a disappointment after a great season, and you just go, this thing is not clicking. There's a lot of great pieces, but there's also a lot of holes.

And that's where I think we're always kind of going back to the off season and saying, were you sure with the secondary that you could let go combine him? Because to me, that was a huge mistake for a really good player to replace him with a guy that had never really played before in Theo Jackson, who I liked in camp, you liked in camp, everything else, but the money was spent on defensive linemen that aren't getting after the quarterback and aren't making a huge impact that we thought that they would do.

So there's a lot of things that have, even like the Ryan Kelly injury and not having a veteran backup center. And so you're asking Blake Brandel. And last week, okay, Brandel survived and he was okay. Well, now he's facing a guy who's an all pro and getting demolished. And how many times have we seen that story before? Although we never saw Garrett Bradbury long snap on a regular snap that went back 30 or 40 yards.

That was one of the plays of the day. By the way, Carson Wentz getting it. Hey, what a day for Will Reichard. But when you just have these massive holes, including at the quarterback position, this is the type of team that you end up being. Like, we've got the Cardinals on TV and they're playing Jacoby Brissette. And I think you're kind of the Cardinals. You're the Cardinals. Could the Cardinals win today?

sure they could. Could they next week have the worst loss? Sure they could because they're the Cardinals and they're just sort of another team in the league that's so far away from where we thought this team was going to be this year that this has to be, I think, one of the bigger gut punches, especially because you felt like if you were ever going to get a big momentum win against a team that purports itself to be great but is probably just real good in Philadelphia, it would have been today it's at home the crowd was amped up from the beginning they're not running the ball like you thought and all the mistakes let that slip through but that's what average teams do is they make a lot of mistakes and come apart so it's it's hard to have like it was even

hard for the players when you're asking about this game post game it's just like i don't know don't make seven or eight different enormous miscues and we would have been fine yeah i think I sat on your podcast during the bye, and we kind of went through, will this team win eight, six games? They're going to win six games. Like, let's be, let's be honest, they're going to win six games. But will this team win six games? It was all part of a fan duel question of the day. Like, will this team win eight games? Will this team win 10 games? Will this team win 12 games? And I said, in order to get to double digits, you had to go two and two over the next month, the month that featured the Eagles, the Chargers, upcoming, the lions, and the Ravens.

If I had to pick two games that you could win at the time on the pod last week, we didn't know Lamar Jackson's health. It sounds like he's going to play in three weeks. But the two games that you would pick to win are certainly the Chargers game because that team is banged up without a running game. You would have said probably the Ravens if Lamar Jackson didn't play. But a lot of people would have pointed to the Eagles game. This game today is a chance, like you've said, countless times on the pod to turn it around. to feel good about where you're headed, to improve to four and two with a chance to then go forward against the Chargers and then notch another win, B5 and two, and all of a sudden look at who we are, we're the team that we thought we could be. It's why this loss feels pretty damaging.

They all feel damaging. It's a week-to-week league. But this did feel like an opportunity against a team that, sure, maybe the Eagles figured out, but I don't think the Eagles did a ton. And to me today to show that they're going to repeat as Super Bowl champions, they kind of just played with their food against the Vikings and almost lost because of it. But today was a chance for the Vikings to kind of push themselves forward, kind of have that upward trajectory. And now I said it earlier. We're looking at the Chargers game as a must win.

I think one of the reasons that this loss in particular has stuck in the old craw for me is because of how many chances the Eagles said, would you like to win this football game because we'll let you. I mean, whether it was just giving up huge chunks of yardage late in the game or the struggles that they had running the football or the fact that they put themselves in third and long a bunch of times. And, you know, even at the very end of the game where they throw a slant to A.J. Brown where you're trying to just wear out the clock, but he drops it or it's a bad throw and they stop the clock for you. Like, here you go. We'll stop the clock for you. Here you go. We'll stop the clock for you.

here you go we'll let t j hawkinson be wide open in the end zone can can you take advantage we'll get we'll allow you to come into the red zone six different times can you take advantage and they kept saying no thanks we're good uh we don't want to win this football game we're going to mess up in a bunch of different ways which that's where it feels to me like you could in in past years if they had a locked in quarterback if you had kirk as your quarterback maybe you would have said well this was just a weird game like you're never going to go one six ever again. You know, a pick six is a random kind of event. The deep shots are random kind of types of events that, you know, they fluctuate up and down. But when you give up also a huge touchdown to D.K. Mecalf a couple of weeks ago and you give up an incredible completion

percentage to the only other good quarterback that you've played all season, then it's just becoming harder to convince me that it's all going to be okay. And then it's, well, you know, earlier you're missing an offensive lineman. Well, today you had as close as you could get to a good offensive line and still couldn't finish those drives. And then we're just talking about too many excuses. But this one was here to be one. I think that's the reason why it's so frustrating because if they did win, then I think it's a very different discussion of, all right, win one more. You're five and two. You're right in this race. We're watching the Packers. They're losing 13 to three right now to Arizona. They're not a perfect team.

The Bears are okay and improving, but they've had some easy opponents. They're not a great team. I don't think Detroit is perfect. They're missing their entire secondary. It was right there to show everyone, hey, we're in this conversation, and instead, they show that they're not. And to really kind of demonstrate that, you mentioned Fandul. Well, right now on Fandul, the Vikings are plus 370 to make the playoffs.

To put that in context for non-gamblers, the Dallas Cowboys are ahead of them, as are the Cincinnati Bengals. and the Chicago Bears are way ahead of them at plus 186, and right next to them is the Carolina Panthers who got a win today against the Jets. That's what the world thinks of you right now as a team, and it is on all of them to prove that wrong, but it's sort of getting late early to prove that wrong,

and that's why it becomes more about McCarthy, even if they can get to four and three. It just doesn't feel like there's enough here to actually turn a corner and be some different team than they've been so far. A couple other things I want to talk about. Let's talk. Well, I got the Hawkinson catch and the rant about Jalen Hertz.

So I'll make the rant quick. Look, if you're watching TV and someone comes on TV and says, I don't think Jalen Hertz is a great quarterback. Oh my gosh, you're a hero. Wow, you're so special and smart. He's a great quarterback, guys. If you see it, shut the TV off. you see it on Twitter and someone says, I don't think Jalen Hertz is all that good at

quarterback, close out your social media, unfollow that person. We saw an incredible performance from a guy who has remarkable toughness, cannot be taken down, can make plays all over the field out of structure, deep ball accuracy, poise, all the stuff. And you know, you would have thought that that garbage would have gone away about Jalen Hertz after he won Super Bowl MVP, but somehow he didn't do enough, I guess, in the Super Bowl. His defense played too good, so he can't get any credit. He's really, really good. And that was a great demonstration today.

I was impressed. So the T.J. Hawkinson catch. All I want to say is, I thought we went through this NFL. Now, look, I don't think it lost them the game. I think if they score a touchdown there, it doesn't matter because Hertz hits that play on the next drive anyway. But I thought we understood that someone has control of the ball and they're going down. There could be a jostling.

It's got air in it. They could jostle. It might move around a little. But if you have it contained and you have it pinned to your body that it should be a catch. And here's what I even further don't understand because we got the replay reviews in the stadium and we looked at them. What I even further don't understand is normally when a catch is, call the catch on the field and it's very unclear unless you're zooming in and you're going pixel by pixel usually the call on the field stands i didn't understand that one at all and i did think

that the vikings were a little bit on the wrong side of the the luck element today because of that and the holding in the red zone if you looked at expected points added how much that cost them i mean it was that was an enormous swing in the game because that's a touchdown otherwise yeah i i will say with the t j hawkinson catch he was pretty hot about it he actually said that two reps on the field told them we had it as a catch new york told us it wasn't so people watching television in new york i understand like they have all the angles but people who were not here did not see the play live determined that it wasn't a catch we've just created a slow motion to the point where single thing is like deceiving because I'll give you a college example where there was the

Oregon Penn State game where they said that a guy was down and you could see tiny little grass brush against his knee which to me is not down like just touching a blade of grass with your knee like that's not down into the ground but how can you look at it with a downward angle and say oh no I'm sure that he was down also another quick complaint just because I'm in this sort of mood right now. The NFL noted from New York that Jared Goff and the Lions had had an illegal formation, and they buzzed it in, and they called it. It wasn't called on the field. Last year, when Sam Darnold's head was ripped off, it wasn't called on the field against the Rams, and New York couldn't buzz in and change the call, but they could do it for an illegal

formation. I just want to understand the rules, and I want them to be consistent. I thought that a receiver going to the ground, if they had it controlled, if it jostled, that that was allowed to happen. That's exactly what we saw. And maybe it does feel like, who cares? The bigger picture is this team's not good enough right now and may never be. But still, just a, if we're, if we're complaining, then we might as well throw that on the fire. I think that's what kind of grinded Kevin O'Connell's gears after the game, too, is that he talked about the play earlier in the game that he challenged. That was rule the catch on the field that I would say looked more like an incompletion than the T.J. Hawkinson. We thought it was. We thought for sure that was incomplete because it was Jocelyn.

That was rule they catch. Actually, it was ruled call on the field stands because there was not conclusive evidence to overturn the call. If that one wasn't conclusive, then the T.J. Hawkins one sure as heck didn't feel conclusive to me. I think they have a legitimate reason to be upset with that one. But I do think getting upset over whether it was or wasn't a catch is probably losing sight of what's important in this game, which was that you continuously got down to the red zone, often the low red zone, and had to settle for real Reichert and his right foot scoring you points. So that is the bigger issue at hand here, but certainly a legitimate reason to be upset. So in a short week, I feel like we have to turn the page a little bit from this one and start previewing the next one. I don't really know how good the chargers are. They started out really, really good.

I think they're playing the Colts as were talking. They're getting demolished by the Colts right now. So they haven't looked very good at all in weeks. And it's a beatable opponent who has a ton of injuries and they're down O'Mary in Hampton. They're down their two tackles. Their defense isn't the same. You can get a win on Thursday night. can get to four and three. But my thought is that this team has a really long way to go after

this loss and barely escaping Cleveland and losing to a mediocre Pittsburgh team. It's just got a long way to go for me to be able to say, oh yeah, like they're right in the mix with everybody else. The season didn't end today. But I think that the difference of the two paths of winning and losing and how the overall vibe is, the overall feeling that's been the word of the year on the show. The overall feeling about where this is going, I do think took a different path, even if they can get to four and three on Thursday night football. Again, the season is live. It's still live. There's a lot of teams that are around 500. It's the most 500-e league that I can ever remember seeing. It's just, for me, it's the secondary. What do you do there?

How does that get different? These are your starters. The whole defense was healthy today, except for one player, Andrew Van Ginkle, and guess what? In football, you're going to have one player missing sometimes when you can't cover top receivers, when you can't sack a top quarterback, when you can't slow down the explosive plays, just like they had against Pittsburgh a couple times that cost them. It's just hard for me to buy that the light goes on for them. Yeah, I feel like we'll probably just be talking, at least certainly until further notice of this week was good. This week was bad.

This week was good. This week was bad. I don't think they're going to go like five and 12. No, I don't think they're going to be one of the worst teams in the league. There's too much talent across the board for them to completely unravel in the way that we've seen teams across the league unravel, even Vikings teams unravel over the course of this franchise's life. But what I will say is I don't think we'll be sitting here for a while, certainly maybe at all, this season saying, how good can they be? How dangerous is this team?

And I think that was the conversation we were having at the beginning of the season, during training camp, or in the preseason, during joint practices, when the New England Patriots, who they've had a very easy schedule, but they're making, your record is what your record is. They are showing that they are on the rise. The Vikings looked like the better team in those joint practice.

I thought we would be talking about a team that could make noise, and I think right now we're just going to continue to kind of ride this roller coaster of sometimes they look good and maybe they've turned a corner oh wait, never mind this is kind of who they are

it's on them to just kind of prove us wrong but right now I love every time you say it you are what your record is they're three and three and there's probably not a better record that encapsulates this team so far

are they one of the worst teams in the league no no are they close to one of the best teams in the league no and that is the unfortunate reality my friends again not where we thought we would be at this point but a long way to go i i think that it's the right approach to say though until further notice you're going to have to prove it it's going to have to be over multiple games that they can string together because right now even their wins look very underwhelming a couple points against the bears a couple of points against the cleveland browns and so long as carson wents is in a

you are going to have these major up and downs. That's what I would expect from any backup. And you can say this. At least Wentz makes it entertaining when they're down by two scores that, hey, against Pittsburgh. And that's the other thing about this game, too, is that, yeah, it's a six-point game. Oh, they had the ball all day and everything else. But you have to score within the last three minutes at the two-minute warning.

You have to kick a field goal to make it a one-score game, which is why a lot of the one-score game analysis is bogus. but the same with Pittsburgh. You're really losing the entire game and you have a chance at the end and you don't pull it off, but until they can put together multiple wins where they actually outplay the other team

and they're not walking away saying, well, if only the refs gave us a break here, if only that one ball, you know, didn't go this way or only whatever. No, it's just, it hasn't been anywhere near enough on so many levels, except here's what I want to end on. Will Reichert is awesome. I'm serious.

This guy's unbelievable. I know the kicking balls are a little easier this year, but that's what we've come to expect from him. 59 made it look easy. And then absolute money on all those other field goals. We cannot downplay. Poor Will Reichard. You know, he's doing a press conference after,

and a lot of people talking to him and everything. And he's got to act like he's kind of sad. But, I mean, he'd had nothing to do with anything else. I mean, he went out there and kicked the bleep out of the ball. So a great job today for Will Reichard. Now, he is who we thought he was going to be as a great prodigy kicker. in the NFL. So just end on a happy note there. Miles Price had a good kick return. I don't know. Oh, man. The Eagles found so many ways to leave the door open. They just did not kick it open and win the game.

So that's where we're at. And now we go forward into a quick. That is the one benefit, though. You get a quick other game. You don't have to stew on this one very long. Next time, it'll be on national TV versus a struggling Chargers team. And we will be there in Los Angeles. So we'll break it all down. Then, listening to the Purple Insider postgame show presented by Fanduil. We will catch you next time. Football.