Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - POSTGAME REACTION: Vikings false start their way to loss vs. Ravens

Episode Date: November 9, 2025

Matthew Coller and Dane Mizutani break down the Vikings' loss to the Baltimore Ravens at US Bank Stadium to drop them to 4-5. 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 postgame show, presented by Fandul. Matthew Collar here, along with Dane Mizatani inside U.S. Bank Stadium after the Vikings fall to the Baltimore Ravens 27 to 19 in a game that will forever be remembered as the false start game. I don't think anybody showed up to the stadium, parked their car, got up and came up to the press box, or got into the locker room or onto the sideline, and ever dreamed that a football team in the National Football League, a professional squad, could commit eight false start penalties. And we heard a lot of different things after the game. J.J. McCarthy took responsibility for it. Aaron Jones said that the Ravens were making a lot of calls that maybe confused them. and there's not a lot of stadium noise, so I guess they can hear it, and maybe some people jump because of that. There was an explanation to do with hard counts.

Whatever it is, I've never seen it before. I don't know what the record is. You guys can chat GPT it or whatever, but it's insane, and it played a major role in the Vikings losing this game. I also think that a thing that played a major role was the inaccuracy of J.J. McCarthy, who completed under 50% of his passes today,

day, very, very hard to win in that way. But there's a lot of other reasons, too, which we will dive into. But I think the most frustrating thing for me, Dane, about this Vikings lost to the Ravens, is that Baltimore was just not Baltimore. The team that we've known over the last X number of years since Lamar Jackson emerged as a megastar quarterback, the team that would have pounded the Vikings into oblivion, the team that never would have given them second, third, fourth chances that never would have kicked a field goal on fourth and short in the red zone, that never would have failed on third and short at the end of the game to give the Vikings another shot. That team is not here with Baltimore this year. Jackson is still good.

The rest is pretty middling, and yet the Vikings were not able to take advantage. So it feels like this was a game that the Vikings coulda, shoulda, won. And what makes it worse is it felt like all the opportunities were right there, and they did not take advantage. And now they fall back below 500, and it gets a lot more sketchy going forward with their opportunities to get back in the playoff race. So where would you like to begin? Or would you like to start to begin? Have a little full start there. Where do you want to start with this, Dane? No, I think what you said is pretty spot on. Like, an old version of the Baltimore Ravens destroys this Vikings team. Crushes them. It's not a contest. To be fair, though, 2719 was not as close as this game was either. I mean, I know the Vikings technically had a chance to go score a touchdown and get a two-point conversion to tie the game at the end. But be honest with yourself. Did anybody think that they were going to drive 90-something yards down the field once they got the ball back at the end of the game? No, it's because this game wasn't close. It was in the first half and after for halftime,

The entire thing unraveled on the Vikings. So while I agree with you that an old Ravens team or an old version of the Ravens blows the Vikings out on this particular day, what I think we saw today, though, is two teams who came in struggling, two teams who truly believed if we win this game, we can be a playoff team, and only one of those teams is actually a playoff team. The Baltimore Ravens, for all their faults, for all the times that they gave Vikings chance to come back and win this game, now they get to walk out of this. stadium, go on forward at four and five, and still say, like, we have a chance. I know the Vikings

are four and five, but the NFC is slowly running away from you. The Bears won today. They came back and beat the New York Giants. The lions are killing the Washington commanders now. The Packers will play later. And, like, you just can't have these games. So I think what we saw today is the Vikings looked across the way, thought they were a playoff team, and saw what a potential playoff team actually looks like. Do you have to win this game in dominant fashion? No, but if you're a playoff team, you have to win this game. And there were opportunities to do that. Why did they not do that?

It's all across the board. We'll dive into it over the next 45 minutes. But as much as people are going to hate to hear this, a lot of it just falls on the shoulders of the quarterback. I think last week in Detroit, we saw what can happen, a recipe for success. Offensively stay balanced. Don't ask J.J. McCarthy to do too much. Defensively, dominate, keep the other team off balance.

All of those things are hard, though, when balls are just sailing with regularity. You can't pitch and catch. You can't run the offense if a simple throw from A to B is sailing over Justin Jefferson's head. People are going to say, well, maybe Kevin O'Connell should have stuck with the run game more. That's probably true. They ran the ball well and they didn't do it enough. Well, maybe Justin Jefferson didn't look like himself today. That's probably true.

Like all of these things, though, that we're going to go over at length, don't really matter if you can't complete passes. And that's just not happening with the consistency that it needs to happen for an NFL quarterback. It's his fourth game. I'm not going to call bust yet. I'm not. I know a lot of people think I hate J.J. McCarthy. I don't.

Like, he's a good kid. I think he's going to keep working hard. I think he's going to give himself opportunities to succeed. But right now, he's just not nearly accurate enough. And that's pretty in arguable. Well, I think that in every day. game that he's played, we have seen all the points where Kevin O'Connell has talked about he needs to develop X, Y, and Z. He's talked about the base. He's talked about the feet, the footwork, the

eyes, the timing, the rhythm, and all those words that he's given us a 101 class on quarterback play as they've developed J.J. McCarthy here, but I think what we are really seeing is a quarterback who has not thrown a lot of passes in his life. And every time we've said, that throughout it's hey no it's going to be fine and i think you could argue that the viking's organization thought it was going to be fine and thought that they could bring him along and only ask him to do so much x y and z the problem is that at the end of the day the quarterback is the one who as he said orchestrates everything from your team jumping offside eight times well that is on the quarterback regardless of which guy it was or who it is you're the one that's supposed to be running that operation

And to have it happen that many times, something we've never seen before, would seem to me that that just can't be a different guy every time deciding to jump and commit all those false starts. But even the false starts, to me, is a random and bizarre thing that was costly today. The fact that his accuracy is so all over the place on a given play where he can have Justin Jefferson wide open on probably four or five different targets and just have it fly right over. his head. I mean, that right there needs a lot more work in the middle of a season. And I think today, along with Detroit and the number of throws that were missed, should alter our expectations a bit. Because after you beat a team as good as Detroit, you're thinking, all right, well, if they just play that way, then you can survive some of those situations and you can be okay and you can get back in the race and et cetera, et cetera. I don't think that was an irrational thought. But I do think

that if it's going to be this erratic or it has the capability of being this erratic, you can't win games that way. I don't care if you don't false start at all. I mean, that it was sort of, I don't know, a little annoying to me in the postgame that everything was able to just lean on that and sort of ignore the thing that really caused them to lose, which was the number of sheer passes that were just not close to their targets. You cannot have an offense that is going to operate on a play-to-play basis. And we, can get into the third down calls and asking him to throw the football, but if your quarterback can't convert stuff that's right in front of him and wide open, then you're not going to have an offense

that can consistently win. And I think what we saw in Detroit was truly blueprint, which is, as you said, if you can get ahead in the game and get your defense causing some turnovers, getting a lot of sacks, get favorable field position, then you can run some play actions and you can create some easier throws, some easy button stuff that we didn't see a whole lot of today. But still, at any given point in the game, you're going to need throws to connect with the targets. And when you go 20 for 42, that's just not happening anywhere enough. I mean, the league average quarterback is about 65% completion percentage these days. And you're at 47.6. That's not even in the ballpark of being good enough for McCarthy. Now, that, as you see,

said. It doesn't mean that we're saying bust. It just says that if it's going to be like this from a week to week basis, there's going to be a lot of games where you walk out of and go, gosh, the other team gave us so many opportunities and we didn't come through. Well, that comes down to the inexperience of your quarterback. And we don't have to get into the bigger, you know, because we'll get into all that, you know, throughout many, many months of the bigger decisions and what we're seeing Sam Darnold do on this day. And what he did last week. week and what he's done for the Seattle Seahawks, we don't have to really go there. But if we keep it focused on this game in particular, there were some very high level plays from McCarthy. There's

some phenomenal throws. There's some phenomenal runs. And the flashes are there. But in terms of actually winning a football game as opposed to just, hey, I see something that they're able to build on, this isn't going to be enough. Yeah. And I think you see kind of the importance of getting this kid into a rhythm and how much that impacts his game. Just look at the last two games. scripted plays, scripted right out of the gate. J.J. McCarthy last week, first drive of the game, touchdown. Second drive of the game, touchdown. This week, first drive of the game, touchdown.

Beautiful 62-yard throw to Jalen Naylor, who will talk more about him, but he continues to make himself millions upon millions of dollars. Jalen Naylor will not play for the Vikings next year because somebody will sign him this offseason. But when J.J. McCarthy is able to get into a rhythm, he does seem to at least deliver the ball from point A to point be with a little more consistency, it's when he gets hit. It's when things go off, you know, schedule a little bit, when things go a little bit awry. And we saw this in the win last week with J. Jim McCarthy. When he's scrambling outside of the pocket, the ball is sailing. When he's moving

a little bit too far to his left and he can't stay planted into the ground, the ball is sailing. Those things just got covered up because the Vikings got to play from ahead for so long last week for prolonged stretches. When I look at this week, though, you see when he's, you see when he's, being asked to do more than maybe he should be asked to do right now, I think you saw that those inaccuracy issues kind of pop up again. And that's why it goes back to rhythm. Can you get this kid to be able to play in a rhythm? How do you do that? What is the key to getting him to feel comfortable in the pocket? That's something Kevin O'Connell is going to have to unlock in him, maybe have to push himself to run the ball a little bit more. I'm not going to hammer

that they only gave their running backs 13 carries today, that's not good enough because I think you, but when you talk about quarterback play, not completing the ball with any sort of consistency, that's going to hurt your ability to then stick with the run. But I do think there needs to be a way or you need to find a way to figure out what McCarthy does well and just hammer that. I think there are too many times, even today and in his past three starts,

where Kevin O'Connell wants him to be the quarterback that maybe he will be in two years, in three years, and not really looking at what he is right now, some of the plays just might not be there right now. Some of the play calls that are beautiful and when you watch back the tape and you can take your clicker out and say, look, if J.J. McCarthy lets the ball go out on time, Justin Jefferson's flashing over the middle of the field. At a certain point, we're going to have to say, well, he can't do that right now. And I know he's going to have to get there.

But how can you help him along by more time so he can continue to progress? I think it ends up a little bit on leaning on the run game, probably asking him to do less, probably asking him to do a little bit less with his progressions, maybe even a little bit less pre-snap. But I think you see over the course of a game, he gets knocked off his rhythm and he struggles. We saw early in the game this week.

We saw early in the game last week when I think he knows. knows exactly what he has to do because the plays are kind of laid out on a menu. It's not so much like, this is the first play we're going to run. This is the second play. But a scripted set of plays, Jay-J. McCarthy has a good idea what is coming his way. When he is then all of a sudden mid-game asked to do more than he's able to do right now, I think that's when we see him go a little awry. So it's everybody, look, it falls squarely on the shoulders of Jason McCarthy

that he struggled with inaccuracy today and has for, each start that he's played in the NFL so far. But I do think it's a total system kind of issue that they can't get this kid in a rhythm. Well, and it is not the first time that pre-snap penalties have been a problem for the Vikings in general. I mean, last year, I remember Sam Darnold

was having some issues with them as well. And Justin Jefferson mentioned something in a press conference about having a conversation with Kevin O'Connell about limiting some of the stuff that they're asking, even Sam Darnold. to do pre-snap because it was causing some of those false starts, delays of game. And it has been a bit of a common thread with this team. And you do wonder about asking a quarterback of this age to handle everything that veterans like

Kirk Cousins, Nick Mullins, even Josh Dobbs and Sam Darnold were able to do with the pre-snap type of stuff. And I can't say that it wasn't there with Carson Wentz either, that there were operational issues, even when a veteran like Carson Wentz came in, and we can say, well, this guy's new to the offense. That guy just got here in August. This guy is young. And at some point, if you've had enough of these problems, you do have to look at the offense and say, what is it that you're asking them to do that has been the long cause of this? But when you get eight, I've never seen eight before. That's when it goes beyond just, hey, maybe you're giving him too much in the

huddle, too much in terms of his play calls, putting too much on to his plate. And yet still, I come back to the game was there to be had if the throws are made. And then I just kind of go back and forth again of, well, are you asking him too much? Or did he even know where the ball was supposed to go and just not get it there? I thought there were too many times where McCarthy looked in the right direction, released the football in the general area of where the receiver was supposed to be. And it just did not get there, which to me is a function of him needing to play a lot more football. And truly, him needing a full, complete, healthy offseason next year to work on this because we've seen quarterbacks, including the other guy that won today, Lamar Jackson, improved greatly in terms of accuracy.

Josh Allen is the example. Matthew Stafford, Sam Darnold, many, many quarterbacks have improved their accuracy. But have they improved it from week seven to week nine or something like that? Like, probably not. So you're going to also have to factor that in if you're Kevin O'Connell that the actual. that the accuracy is not just going to have one bi-week workout with the feet and eyes. And then all of a sudden, you're going to fix those things in real time when Roquan Smith is chasing you down and you're scrambling around and trying to make plays or you're seeing things in real time.

So we can talk about the O'Connell element of this a little more, though, because it does come back to one particular situation where it felt like the game changed on a dime. And that was midfield, third down and one. They decide to take a shot to Justin Jefferson. Now, let me say this. Kevin O'Connell has done this many, many times. And a lot of times it's actually worked by throwing the ball up to Jefferson against the zero look. It's not a new concept to throw it up to your number one wide receiver and take a deep shot and go for a bomb on that play.

And normally what the plan is is if it goes incomplete, you're going for it on fourth down. That is a thing that he has done many, many times. However, when you have failed also many times with this idea of tricking the other team on a third and short, when they're not really tricked at this point, and they've got their best all-world corner on Jefferson, he falls down. I don't know if it's a pick if he doesn't fall down, but I definitely know it wasn't going to be a completion. And I think it could have still been a pick, considering where Marlon Humphrey was on that play. So I think that there is certainly a question there about, hey, these third downs and fourth and short, you're always calling a pass play and you've been doing it for years and it hasn't really been working.

Are we learning or not? But then I want to go on the other side of that just to say that I've gotten very tired of sort of arguing the same couple of things over and over and over again with O'Connell. This is a quarterback-driven offense and J.J. McCarthy is going to have to learn to play that way and this might be one of those times where you have to learn a lot from a game like this and yet i mean we can fixate on the play calling over and over again on run the ball there you're running well and i agree with all of you on that when i saw the ball go up in the air i was like really we're really doing this we're really going to do this again and then there's a fourth down where

it's fourth and one or two they throw it again we really doing this there's a trick play that was putting your quarterback at risk of catching a ball and getting run into and his knees Are we really doing this? Those tendencies to me, though, are probably always going to be there. I don't see them changing. And I don't want to rant and rave about them every week. What I want to talk about is, overall, McCarthy can't just be a Jimmy Garapolo. He can't just be a game manager, rollouts, 80% runs, and then hit a play action to a tight end and get a bunch of yards after catch.

That is not this offense, and it's not this team. And so there's going to be, I think, a lot of growing pains and interceptions and miscue throws and things like that that that go down the field because that's the offense you're asking him to play in. And the real thing for me is much more than one particular third down call is can you get there? How close can you get to him looking like he can be a quarterback-driven offense player when right now he looks like you have to have an extreme game manager situation, but that's just not who this is. And we knew that from Dobbs, we knew that from Mullins, we knew it from Wentz. They never handled any of those quarterbacks that way,

and we shouldn't have ever thought that it was going to be handled that way with J.J. McCarthy either. So this is truly, here's the deep. end, here's young J.J. McCarthy, who, and into the deep end. And today, uh, less swimming than, uh, you know, more, more sinking than swimming. Yeah. And maybe that's what we're going to have to just kind of accept that this season is at a certain point is that there aren't going to be a lot of guardrails for J.J. McCarthy. Maybe, you know, when you, you know, when you bowl when you're a little kid and they put the bumpers up and you can't get a gutter ball, it's impossible because they have bumpers up. Maybe they're just aren't going to be bumpers in this office. You know,

offense. And whether I think there should be, you think there should be, the fans listening think there should be, maybe they're just won't. Because I think that third and one is a good microcosm of this entire experiment, this entire development cycle with JJ McCarthy. And that, yeah, I mean, it makes sense. A kid making his fourth start, third and one, you have the lead at that point? Ten to nine. Ten to nine. Yep, it's your first drive of the second half. And the running game's been working. I believe you, it just hit a 17-yard run with Aaron Jones on the first play of the second half. So when you're on, when your third and one, while it makes sense to me to keep running the ball,

if Kevin O'Connell knows deep down that in order to run this offense, you're going to have to be able to throw the ball in zero coverage. And by the way, you very rarely get zero coverage one-on-one on the outside with Justin Jefferson. If he believes that that is how this quarterback is going to have to play in his offense, I guess I can see throwing the ball in that situation. My only pushback would be you can take those chances over the course of time, maybe decide, be a little bit more concerted at when it is a good time to do that, when is a bad time to do that.

I also understand like results very much drive conversation. If third and one, JJ throws a good ball like he did to Jalen Naylor on the first drive and Justin catches it, we say, oh my God, like he was going to go for. on fourth down anyway, why not take a shot there? So I understand that part two. So I'm not going to just hammer Kevin O'Connell for not running the ball. But it just goes back to what I said earlier. Are we asking him to do a little bit too much right now? Are we asking J.J. McCarthy early in his career to do a little bit too much? I think the answer is yes. Like throwing the ball 42 times, I get it, you were losing. So that number is going to be ballooned. We saw that all the time in the Kirk Cousins era.

but I think there needs to be just more of a balanced approach that asks this kid to make five or six plays a game rather than feel like he has to drive the bus forward. And to me, on third and one, the way you were running the ball, the way you had run the ball, and the way you continue to run the ball, knowing what we know now, you're going to pick up a first down, maybe you run it again, maybe then you ask him to do something a little bit less, throw the ball up for grabs. It's just one of those plays, though, that when you lose in the way the Vikings did, and it's so frustrating to watch for the fans at home that people are going to latch on to,

and I understand that. But I think you might be on to something when you say deep end throwing JJ in. Like, this might just be what this season is. It might be, why do we ask him to do so much? And the answer might be Kevin O'Connell understands that if he is going to be, if J.J. McCarthy is going to be his course. quarterback moving forward. He's going to have to do those things at some point. So why not get him the experience now? And I mean, for the record, just on that play in particular, if we separate

the bigger issue with third and short, fourth and short versus this play, this play happens a lot in the NFL. He's done it a lot. He's succeeded a lot on it. You know who else did it? Gary Kubiak, Kevin Stefansky. It's a classic type of play of load everybody up, send one wide receiver down the field, run a play action and take a shot because you know they're going to be sending everybody. This happens all the time and you especially do it on third and short because if you are going to go for it and you know you're going to go for it, it's one of the benefits of being aggressive and going for fourth down. So this one in particular was, I think, a results-based conversation. How many times does a jump ball end up being even picked off by someone else?

I didn't think it was a great throw. I thought it hung in the air for way too long. and it sort of speaks to the how much touch do you put on the ball? And that was a little too much. And then other times it was straight line drives. And some of them were getting knocked down, which we could talk about as well. That one play, I don't think is actually a bad play call. You're kind of looking to put a dagger in the Ravens or at least make it really difficult for them, get them down eight points, get them feeling a little panicky, less running the football maybe for them.

And they start trying to press a little. turn the ball over? Like, that's what you're thinking, right? And you're also thinking, because we've run well, we can get a first down here. It's the bigger topic, though, people are 100% right, which is time and time and time again, whether it was Donald or Kirk or whoever or Dobbs, third and short, they seem to think that they are like next leveling the defense by passing the football. And a lot of times it's not a screen. It's not a quick motion where you drop the ball out to somebody like the play that worked against Cleveland late in that game with Carson Wentz and Jordan Addison, it's like an actual dropback and looking around and trying to

make a play, which happened, I think, one or two other times in the game. And that's to me something that doesn't make a lot of sense, especially when you paid Jordan Mason, you traded an asset for him. What is he here for? And he finished with four carries and 25 yards. Why is he here, if not for that? He's not here to pass protect. He's not here to run go balls. He's here to convert on third and short and if you look at his numbers he's been pretty successful doing so so to that point i think people are right on now other in terms of key moments of this game we do have to acknowledge that one of them had nothing to do with j j mccarthy which was miles price fumbling the ball and the ravens end up recovering it then they go and they end up scoring now at the end of the day

27 points is not good for a defense to give up, but I thought that this was as good of a defensive performance as you could expect from the Vikings against one of the all-time great quarterbacks who, if he retired today as a Hall of Famer, and they kept him from looking too exciting. I mean, 17 for 29, 176, he runs for 36. I mean, if you told me that that's what Lamar Jackson did in this game, then I would have said they won, right? I would not have expected that they would have lost this game, but I thought that as much as the offense, making mistakes, turning the ball over, not sustaining drives, committing penalties, that one play really shifted also the tenor of this game. The fumble? Yeah, the fumble. Yeah,

it just can't happen. I mean, Miles Price was the bell of the ball last week because he had a 61-yard return. to take the edge off early against the Lions and then had a 99-yard return for a touchdown that frankly, you go back and look at that play, maybe should have counted. Who knows if it was actually a hold on Tavia Thomas obviously was called. It's like the ebbs and flows of a career.

Like you can be the best kick returner in the league by some metrics one week. And then you can fumble at a huge moment. Baltimore can score a touchdown. And then he actually fumbled again. Like this was a moment. in Miles Price's career that hopefully he can learn from. I understand wanting to fight for extra yardage.

I understand the guy. It succeeds because he runs through arm tackles. But you see it a lot now, and it's guys punching out the ball. When you are down, like when you're going down, you probably don't need to lunge forward for that extra yard. That's how he fumbled the first one. It was just trying to fight for more yards. I understand.

I appreciate the competitiveness. But that's a learning moment in Miles Price's. career is that when you're down, especially on the kickoff, bundle that thing up, high and tight, and go down. You've done all you can at that point. He's there to break off tackles, get up into the open field, and take it to the house if he can. He's not in there to get you an extra one yard at the 25-yard line. So that's a learning moment for Miles Price. And I do think it is unfortunate that it happened at that moment of the game because that learning moment for a young player who is proven already to be somebody that you think can be somebody

that can contribute on this team for a long time moving forward. That play changes the entire tenor of the game because it goes from being 1210. Vikings are, oh, you know, they can't get anything going on offense, but they're right there. If they can just score a touchdown here or shoot, even kick a field goal and retake the lead, it's right there. All of a sudden, boom, Miles Price Bumbles. A couple of plays later, the rate. Ravens are in the end zone finally. Credit to the defense for stepping up time and time again. Classic bend don't break. Forcing field goals, Tyler Loop missed a field goal. The defense did its job today. But when you give Lamar Jackson a short field, when you give the Baltimore Ravens enough chances,

eventually they're going to find the end zone. And yeah, when the game went from 1210 to 1910, when it became a two possession game, that's when it started to feel like this is going to be a pretty tough uphill climb. It's also when it started to feel like Kevin O'Connell felt we got to throw this ball. We got to move. We got to get it all back now. And I think that is if we go back and watch the All-22, which we both will, I would imagine that is when the inaccuracy really started to rev up for J.J. McCarthy when he felt like he had to bring them back. So that huge play cannot happen. Are we cutting Miles Price? No. Like he's a good kick returner. But that that just can't happen in that situation. You lose games because of mistakes.

like that. It truly changed the game because as you mentioned, it went from 12 to 10 to 19 to 10. And then the very next drive, and this is where I actually, too, have a big issue with the way that O'Connell handled it. You mentioned that J.J. McCarthy felt more panicked after that. Well, the head coach certainly did too, because you get to a point where it's, I got it right here, it's third and two, and they're at the Baltimore 46, which seems like the perfect place to just hand off, get a first down, keep going. They throw there. It's incomplete. And they throw again on fourth and two. It's incomplete.

That's where you get the penalty. And then, you know, Baltimore gets the ball back. The defense gets them a stop and keeps them around. But you just sensed that O'Connell and McCarthy, their vibe changed from, oh, it's a one-score game. We're right in this. We're going back and forth. And we've got this opportunity still to all of a sudden, oh, now we have to try to throw on this. We've got to get a chunk play here.

We've got to get more yards here when you can really just hand off and convert it. And if they weren't having so much success running the football, in all circumstances, when the game was close, when they had the lead, when they were behind, they were running successfully. And in that drive, that was where they bailed on it in those key moments of third and two and fourth and two. And that's where you have to just run the ball and get a first down and move on, as opposed to putting it in McCarthy's hands to now bring you back from nine points and trying to get all nine points back in one drive, which of course is not something you can do. But in terms of the way that they handled overall, the approach to Lamar Jackson, the approach to Derek Henry, I think we saw the Vikings win a lot of those battles. And as the game went on, as is typical, all of a sudden how Henry gets a big run, you know, he breaks a tackle here, there, the defense, as usual, getting worn down when the Vikings are not on the field, a whole heck of a lot. But the early game and midgame plans against Lamar Jackson to stop his running to keep. him contained in the pocket. Absolutely fantastic to cause some confusion for him, to make

him make good throws. They did get some plays where Zayflowers broke tackles or he threw some darts that were excellent throws from Lamar Jackson. But overall, the game plan and the way that the defensive front performed against this team, 3.8 yards per carry for Derek Henry. And most of that was on a handful of runs later in the game. I just thought you couldn't have done a whole lot better. And even we saw, just in general, maybe there was one play where it's a tough tackle against the Zay Flowers that doesn't happen. But the corners played better, I thought, in this game. And for the most part, the throws were in front of them. They forced the Ravens to complete multiple throws. I believe it was 6.0 yards per attempt from Lamar Jackson, who in his

career is over eight, I think. I mean, he's normally one of the most efficient. This year, he's over nine yards per attempt. And that's where you look at a game like this, and think, about what's out in front of the Vikings and the opportunity that might still be there probably isn't because of this game unless they get really hot. We would have been saying if they could have pulled off a victory here. If they don't have that fumble, if they don't have the fourth down failures or the interceptions or the false starts, all that stuff, if they don't do all those things on offense, that you did well enough not only to win, but to give confidence to, hey, next week, you got to face Caleb Williams again.

And then the week after that, you've got to face Darnel. But if the defense is playing like this, then you can stay in games. And I guess that if you're taking any sort of silver lining from this, it's probably that you're starting to stack some games where they've stopped the run. And it seems Brian Flores has found resolutions there. And they've created pressure and the quarterbacks that they're facing these last two weeks have been uncomfortable. Yeah, I think the defensive takeaways over the last two weeks,

that you think back to the offseason, what was the defense supposed to look like? Generally speaking, I think it was supposed to look like it had over the last two weeks. Major air golf very uncomfortable. Stopped David Montgomery and Jemir Gibbs, won the game. I don't know if Lamar was uncomfortable, but he felt sped up today sometimes.

He felt like he was throwing quick because they were showing a blitz and then pushing back or not showing a blitz and then coming with all. all eight. I think you got Lamar Jackson uncomfortable. You stopped Derek Henry. You lost the game. But like results aside, I think the Lions game, which was a win, I know, and the Ravens game, which was a loss, if you just bundle up those two games that the defense played and compare them to the, what are we now, four and five, the other seven games that the Vikings have played, you would say, well, those seven games that they played before these two, I have no idea what that

defense was. That's not the defense that we thought we were going to be covering. That's not the defense you thought you were going to be watching. I don't think it's the defense. The Vikings thought they would be playing for prolonged stretches over the early half of the season. But now you've had two games in a row against the Lions, which is a dynamic offense, against the Ravens, who for all their faults at times this year, and all of a sudden got themselves right back in the playoff push. So it's going to be an uphill climb for the Vikings to make the playoffs, especially when the Bears pull out another victory today and in the NFC, everybody in the NFC feels to win every week. But if you're going to do that, if you're going to pull off

a pretty incredible feat and make the playoffs, the defense is going to have to continue to carry the team in the way that I think you thought they were going to at the beginning of the season. So silver linings don't mean anything right now because you're four and five, because you are firmly on the outside looking in. But if you want to latch on to something moving forward as, hey, why, how could we get hot here? It's, the defense has been pretty damn good over the last two weeks and you're one and one to show for it. But if you keep getting that consistent level of play from that side of the ball, you're going to give yourself a chance to win the game. And then it's on the offense. And then it's on McCarthy. And then it's on

O'Connell as the play caller. And then it's on the playmakers to make plays. It's on the special teams not to fumble at a certain moment in the game. But the defense, which I think we all felt was the problem of this team walking out of Los Angeles a week and a half or three, two weeks ago. If they continue to play like they have over the last two weeks, the Vikings are going to have a chance to win virtually every game. They play the rest of the way. Right, because these weren't just average offenses that they were slowing down. These are absolutely fantastic offenses. And this is a credit to Brian Flores for adjustments that were made. And it looks like they're using J. Von Hargrave and Jonathan Allen differently. You look out there and you saw true.

three, four stuff, which you know, warms my heart as an enjoyer of 90s football, but that's kind of where we're at these days. They were out there using a 300 pound fullback and he's plowing people and everything else, so you have to do it. But they have the personnel to do it, and we saw Eric Wilson

and Dallas Turner mixing and matching in this game. Turner gets a sack on Lamar Jackson. He cannot drive. Now, this is mostly an irrelevant play. They're going to kick a field goal anyway. Maybe the field goes longer. But the way kickers are now, I don't know, most field goals go in, I guess. But, well, that guy did miss

one. So maybe I saw complaining about that penalty. He broke the rule. Like, that's the rule. He drove his helmet is dead down on his chest, driving him into the ground. You can't do that. We all know that because right here on this field is where that rule was forged. And like it or not, it's against the rules. They spend lots of time in practice working on this. We see them in training camp. We see them every day of turning off of the quarterback. Dallas Turner didn't do it. But I like that he won and I like that he hit Lamar Jackson. And last week, there was kind of no sign of him. And so to show a flash there, to get a sack that even though it's going to be taken off the board, I thought was a really nice play for him. And so I think that finding his

role back again with Van Ginkle, Van Ginkle, just fantastic today. He knocks down a pass and he's out there making plays and chasing Lamar Jackson all around, but there is a concern here now going forward, which is Jonathan Grenard getting banged up. And can they continue to be like this if he's going to be missing? We don't know what his status is yet long term. I don't know. I was talking to Jefferson and I got into KOC late. Did he? No, no like definitive timeline. You watch the game, like he was writhing in pain with that left shoulder. It's a shoulder injury. That's pretty much the only update we got that timeline we wouldn't have got one after the game usually anyway if we didn't get one today okay that's that is very concerning because of his value to this defense but just

overall in general and today Mattelis played back at safety had I thought a fine day made some plays had some blitzes where he hit the quarterback we saw j ward mix in there which I'd like to see more of j ward Fabian morrow we saw elijah williams is on the field at one point like they were mixing and matching and rolling and rotating and this is is probably about as good as you can do for a 27 point of performance. And it feels like sometimes with Cleveland's defense where they play great and they give up 27 points because the offense turns the ball over or they're not able to move it. But as you mentioned, I think that if Grinard is not out for a long period of time and they continue with some of the adjustments that

have been made, that they can give them a chance over a week-to-week basis. And I want to give a little bit of time to that still of the outlook here going forward. Chicago winning is pretty big for them and pretty bad for the Vikings' playoff chances overall. But before we do that, I think we have to talk about Justin Jefferson today. There was a moment that concerned me with him. And I thought Jefferson post-game handled it very professionally, and he did put a lot of it on himself and talked about how the offense was unacceptable with the fall starts and how they need to have extra practice or whatever it might be to get on the same page

with J.J. McCarthy, but the one moment that was kind of concerning to me was on that interception, he falls down. He's clearly frustrated. Now, he probably knows that Humphrey was actually down because he touched him on the way down, but he doesn't pursue at all to try to help on that tackle. And I'm not calling out effort or anything else, but just the body language of Justin Jefferson in this game, how he struggled to win sometimes when he was given opportunities, maybe not on the same page with McCarthy on certain plays and then throws that were going over his head just the way that he looked dejected throughout this game.

I don't, again, I'm not trying to call him out on this game. I thought it was his worst game that he's played since Detroit last year. It actually reminded me a lot of how he looked in that game. And for me, it's a little bit of something to monitor with him because he has been the good soldier of all good soldiers they've changed quarterbacks many times with him. You usually see a Marvin Harrison and a Peyton Manning playing together for 12 years or something. And Devante Adams and Aaron Rogers, you can name a hundred of them, Jerry Rice and Joe Montana.

He's never had that. And last year he had a connection with the quarterback. And this year he's trying to get into a groove with him. Didn't make some of the plays that maybe were there for him today and then fell on one of the biggest plays. I don't know if it was just him, just frustration, but I didn't feel his energy today the way that we often do. And that's all I can really say about it. I feel like I don't want to go any farther and say anything more than just that stood out to me.

Yeah, I feel like I know the play you're talking about. I think it was Malachi Starks who had the interception on that one. And I think because when you go back and you watch that play, it looks like Justin Jefferson's just standing there jogging. I think truthfully, the answer is he knew he touched Malachi Stark, so I chase him down the field. But I think what people are going to look at is they're going to take that play and look where he looks dejected after an interception and then apply it everywhere else on the game tape. But it wasn't just that. I mean, it was really kind of all day for him.

That's what I mean. But I feel like that was the play people are going to look at and say, see, if that play doesn't happen, I think it's just, oh, Justin's frustrated because they're having. offense can't move. But because you have a play where he, it's pretty atypical of him where he usually busts his butt after the guy who gets interception, I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt. I think it's that he touched Malachi Stark's, he knew he was down. But you're right in that you didn't feel his energy today. And you're also right that it was probably his worst game of the year, certainly his worst game of the year. And a game that maybe could have been augmented stat-wise if he would have caught a ball that I think all of us expect him to make at this point.

it's second down. It's a throwing other goal line. Offense hasn't been moving it very, very well all game. James McCarthy rips one into a spot. And I got to go back and watch it in full. But in that moment, it felt like that's a tough catch. But that's a catch Justin Jefferson usually makes. So, yeah, I don't think we felt his energy as much as we usually do.

I think in the form that is the peak of his powers, he catches that ball with relative ease and they score touchdown and his stats look better and we're not talking as much about it. But it's probably something to monitor. Yeah. Because I think for as much as we've seen the quarterback's change here in Minnesota, Justin has always looked at the same. He looked a little different today. And we can kind of leave it at that. Yeah. No, you're right. That play too is another tenor changing play potentially because they end up with a field goal, right, as opposed to a touchdown. And then again, Baltimore just can play right in the game as opposed to feeling like they're playing from behind and feeling like they're more panicky. And this is the year that

I have observed more and more often how teams play when they're headed behind than maybe ever before. And I think what we learned is that this Vikings team better get ahead by probably two scores if they're going to play the way they need to play to win games. So that will apply to next week and going forward. Now, the four and five element of this, our friends at Fandul have the Vikings as minus 105 to win eight games, which means basically a coin flip to win eight games this year after this loss. Now, I said earlier this week that in this section where, wow, is it a tough run? I mean, Chicago, like I thought at the beginning of the year after the first game, I'm sure you did too, like, oh, that's Chicago again. Typically.

old shy town but now with their record they got their sixth win you can no longer say that about them so a difficult chicago team down to lambo field out to seattle there's a lot going on there i said they had to win two out of four in order to stay in this race to still be at 500 when we that would put them at six and six right they need to be six and six because then they have washington and then they have dallas and they have the new york giants you've got a chance to get hot, go on a run, win some, at least go into those last two games with them, meaning something. That's what they have to do through this, which now makes the game against Chicago must win. So what would you say to the minus 105 favored to win at least eight and their playoff chances after today?

That's four more wins. And see, I ride the roller coaster a little bit after these wins. And if you look back my prediction on these win totals after the Los Angeles Chargers game, I said, find me three more wins, because I didn't know if they could get the six. They're obviously at four now. When you look at the schedule, I still think they can get to eight. But eight doesn't really mean anything. That's just a number that we've used all year.

We've said, are they going to win six games? Are they going to win eight games? Are they going to win 10 games? Are they going to win 12 games? We have stopped even bringing up 10 and 12 because that is. They'd have to get pretty hot for us to start talking about that again. Could they win four more games? Yeah, but if you finish eight and nine, like you don't make the playoffs.

So according to Fandu, they're a coin flip to win eight games. Do I think they can win four more games on the schedule? Yes, I do. Do I think they're going to beat the Bears next week? Yes, I do. I think the Bears are a little bit fraudulent. I mean, you got to play the games on your schedule, like we said, and we always say you are what your record says you are.

So they are a six and three football team. But I think the Vikings are going to set up pretty well next week against the bears. Brian Flores will get to try and confuse Caleb Williams some more. They'll get to be at home. But even if you win that game, then you have kind of a bear of a schedule moving forward. Going to Green Bay, that's not going to be easy. Going to Seattle to play Sam Darnold, that's not going to be easy. And then you can, after that, hopefully, stack some wins against the commanders

who will probably not have Jaden Daniels at that point. The Cowboys who are pretty Jekylline Hyde all over the place. Maybe you get them at a bad day. If you get them at a good day, though, they might put up 40 on you. And then you play the Giants who, kind of similar to the Cowboys. What are you going to get from them? Like, is it going to be a good Jackson Dart game or is he going to get hurt like he did today? And Russell Wilson is going to play.

The rest of the schedule, we'll talk about it. But four wins, yeah, I think they can get to eight. But do I think they can make the playoffs? No. Like, I don't know. Like, I think it's why you go back to the early portion of the schedule when it was very easy, at least by the strength of schedule, the metrics. That was the perceived easy part of the schedule. And it's after every single loss, we would stand in here or stand in wherever we were on the road and say, this one's pretty damaging because it lessens the margin of error.

And then now we're seeing it play out. Like, if you win today, you're five and four. and you're moving forward. But because you have very, very little margin of error in the game itself, because it shows you the difference in this team compared to others. But as a whole, because of what you did early in the season, it just makes it hard for me to find a path for them to make the playoffs. It'd have to get pretty hot and prove to be a team that they have not proven to be

over the first two and a half months of the season. Here's what eight wins means to me. if they get eight wins, it will mean that J.J. McCarthy has gone 500 from the rest of the way to where they were in Los Angeles walking out of the stadium, that he came back and won half of his games. I think we have a sense now that the defense is going to give them a chance to do that, that adjustments have been made and adaptations and players got healthy, which, you know, Blake Cashman getting healthy has clearly been a massive deal for them. I didn't think Harrison Smith maybe had his best game today, but also he's still out there. And you see that. moving around and doing all the things they like to do, that's big for them to have. So they have enough defensively in order to be a 500 team or better the rest of the way. If you can't do it, that means your quarterback probably played pretty badly. And today, you didn't get quarterback play that was good enough to win the game. I would love to know how often a quarterback wins a game when his rating is below 60, when his completion percentage is below 50. There's

probably some funny Kyle Orton games from 20 years ago that happened, but there's not many. So if you can win half of your games the rest of the way with a lot of difficult ones on the way, then that would likely mean that McCarthy kept you in the race and that he got some more good wins like he did against Detroit. And we are going to have to ride this roller coaster. But I think that as the sample grows here of not being able to hit open receivers and having it be chaotic, a lot of the time. And he used his athleticism today, did a really good job at scrambling and getting extra yards. And he did make some wow throws. The throw to start the game to nailers, a terrific touch pass. The throw in the back of the end zone is a great play. So there's

stuff to hold onto. And if you're grading McCarthy, it's obviously a very, very poor grade for today. But if you're looking for the flashes, the silver lines, you got them. And his athleticism and in these handful of throws that were just, wow, he had another one that I'm sort of blanking on who it was, maybe Addison across the middle of the field, just lets it rip, bang, right on time. Those throws are there. But as we go forward, if he gets more consistent,

you probably win eight games. So I don't want to say just after this, oh, hey, that playoff thing that we talked about last week, it's all over, mail it in. Once again, it's all just McCarthy in development. It's not, like the race is not over with yet. But a loss like this now puts immense pressure on them to win two of the next three games and at least be at 500 to try to potentially sneak into the playoffs if you could beat Chicago twice and have the tiebreaker against them and so forth. But after today, what it feels like is that is now a long shot that is going to require them to win at least a couple more of these games and then go from there.

But if they get to eight and nine, considering the start, considering the, I think, fact that McCarthy was way farther away than they thought. I'm going to say that now. I mean, he is as far as actually throwing the ball, we've got enough throws at this point to say he was way farther back in terms of needing development as a thrower than we thought and probably that they thought. That doesn't mean it's over. There's a lot of way to go and you want to see a corner turned and a lot of development. But in terms of making the playoffs and being a contender, you're going to need a quarterback that's much farther along than one that has eight false starts. I know they're not all his fault, but still. And then this many throws that

get missed. So the Vikings lose a game that felt like it was right there for them to win, fall to four and five. And of course, we will be doing our usual thing covered. And actually, the first time all year, I think, right, where we cover a game here at US Bank Stadium and then come back the next week. So that is okay for us. Anyway, thanks everybody for watching slash listening. Not the game that you'll be rewatching on YouTube in 20 years, but we'll all do it again next week. So thank you very much, Dane. And thank you all for listening. Football. Football.