Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - POSTGAME REACTION: Vikings save the season with last-minute win

Episode Date: October 5, 2025

Matthew Coller talks about the Vikings crazy comeback win over the Cleveland Browns. Carson Wentz leads a game-winning drive without 4 of his offensive linemen. Justin Jefferson and Jordan Addison come up huge to save the year. 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 Minnesota Vikings postgame show presented by Fanduil, as we will break down a game that every single one of us thought the Vikings were going to lose and then they didn't. So let me give you the Fandul question the day and then we'll start to break down everything that happened between the Vikings and Browns. Here's the question is going into the day, the Vikings were minus 160 to win at least eight games. Give me a one to 10 chance now that the Vikings can win nine or more this year after what you've seen and knowing that they now get a buy week to try to get healthy. So let's start from the beginning and break it all down.

At the beginning of the game, there was something curious that started with the Vikings. You're looking around. You see Jalen Naylor, check, Justin Jefferson, check, T. J. Hawkinson check, Jordan Mason, check, Jordan, wait a minute, Jordan Addison, not out on the field. And then ESPN's Keffin Sefer reported that it was a coach's decision to not play Jordan Addison to start this football game. And we, I assume, we'll find out more. And if you guys in the comments see Kevin O'Connell's comments from social media, please let me know what he has to say. I'll keep an eye on it myself about Jordan Addison, not playing the beginning of,

the game, but he sure did play the end of the game. Jordan Addison coming through with a game winning touchdown on a spectacular route, a great throw by Carson Wentz, who led a nine play drive to close that out and hit Addison also on a key third down that they converted on a great play call by Kevin O'Connell. And one thing you could say about Kevin O'Connell is that when his quarterbacks need a game winning drive. My goodness, they know how to get it. And that's where, you know, they show that one score game graphic that we have all become very, very familiar with. The one score game

graphic has basically been the, did you know Adam Thieland's from Mancato? Like, did you know that Kevin O'Connell has won a bunch of one score games? But when the Browns went three and out and then stopped the clock for the Vikings, they did him a huge favor. And they gave the ball back. And the Vikings get a big run from Jordan Mason, and then they complete passes to T.J. Hawkinson, who had largely been a ghost in the game, and you wonder, where was some of that throughout the contest? But Hawkinson gets a few big catches. Justin Jefferson, who can make any quarterback into Joe Montana at times, did it again against Denzel Ward down the sideline. He leaps up and Mosses Denzel Ward to put them at least in

field goal position. They complete another pass to Jordan Mason. He doesn't get out of bounds, forcing the Browns to use one of their timeouts that they didn't have in the final drive and then convert the third down, throw the touchdown, win a hideous, ugly,

gnarly, grotesque football game that the Vikings had to find any possible way under the sun to win. They had to beat the Cleveland Browns on this day, no matter how. And we'll get into the different things that went right and wrong.

We'll get into the different critiques as we always do of Kevin O'Connell and the offense and play calling and defense and stopping the run and Quinn Sean Judkins running over them a lot today. But as of this moment, the biggest thing is just a three and two record coming back from Europe. Because if they did not come back three and two and they instead came back two and three, and three. This thing would feel like it had gone completely off the rails into the Atlantic ocean and it was going to float home in wreckage to Minnesota and have to be shipped, I guess,

from the coast all the way back to Minnesota, just in pieces is where this franchise would feel like it was. And that feels overdramatic. And it feels like it's too much to say. But when you look at what's ahead, even if you get everybody back and feel great about yourself, coming back at two and three and then having to play the Eagles and the Chargers and the Lions and et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, down the line. It would have felt like way too much. It also would have felt like if you can't beat Dylan Gabriel and the Cleveland Browns, no matter how many people are hurt, then who are you going to beat? And this doesn't solve everything. Christian Derisaw leaving this game is very disturbing. The fact that he wasn't able to stay

healthy. And now you have four backup offensive linemen. So, there's problems that come from today's game that do not get solved by the snap of the fingers when they return, but they get an entire by week and they have a bunch of players, a superstar bunch of players, Cashman and Van Ginkle and Aaron Jones who could have been, I think, useful today. Those who are down on Aaron Jones, I get it. And high on Xavier Scott, I get it, but they could have used an Aaron Jones out of the backfield catching passes and not fumbling like Xavier Scott did today, him back, potentially some offensive linement, potentially Brian O'Neill. We'll see what happens with Christian Derisaw.

Donovan Jackson is supposed to come back. And then more likely than not, I would say, after watching this game, you have to go back to J.J. McCarthy, but we will get into that as well. But the biggest bottom line here is that if the expectation was shifted after the first couple of weeks to, hey, you should just be able to make the playoffs. Let's not talk about the other thing. Let's not talk about the Super Bowl or winning the NFC North or being better than the Lions right now after they lose to Pittsburgh. But you can still be a playoff team. You still have enough talent. You still have good enough coaching. But make sure you beat the Browns because then I

won't say any of that stuff about you. I won't say you have any chance under the sun to make the playoffs if you don't beat the Cleveland Browns. So it was. wasn't pretty. It wasn't perfect. It wasn't even actually good. They had lots of penalties. They had catastrophic mistakes in the form of fumbles. Carson Wentz deciding that he was Lamar Jackson and he could take on two Browns defenders and try to just run through them. I guess maybe it would be more of a Josh Allen or Cam Newton type of play that he hurt himself on. And we all thought you're getting Max Brosmer at some point. And then Wentz comes back and at the end of the day is walking off the comeback hero with actually a pretty good stat line, too.

His stat line for the day ends up 25 for 34, 236 yards, a touchdown and did get sacked three times. The Vikings running for 97 yards on 23 carries in this game. So Kevin O'Connell, this game, though, there were some moments where I thought he just can't help himself. In the third quarter, when the Vikings got down 17 to 14, the first play from scrimmage is a double move for Justin Jefferson, which looked like it was one-on-one and had a chance.

But of course, Wentz gets sacked. They give the ball back to the Browns. And that was the, ah, there's the Kevin O'Connell who can't help himself and has to throw down field. There was another play where Miles Garrett, who was largely not a big part of this game, Miles Garrett chases down Carson Wentz on a third and 17. I think it's the same sequence. And again, you're like, can't help himself.

needed to try to convert the third and 17 instead of just dunking the ball underneath, punting it away. But they found a way on defense to toughen up in some of the biggest moments. And that's a major storyline from this game is that at the beginning, it looks like Judkins is just going to run over them, that Cleveland's going to rack up 200 yards. And Dylan Gabriel did not look that lost, that confused, that flustered. He actually looked like he was pretty well in command and he was pretty

poised and he throws a couple of touchdowns and they get a couple of good drives going, but there are spots in this game where if the Vikings give up one more first down, it is over good night season, good night London, and the Vikings are coming back with the tail between their legs. And the Vikings defense found a way to get those key stops. And when you look at it at the end of the day in the box score, they did not give up that many yards to Cleveland. I mean, they end up with giving up 322 total yards on 67 plays. And here's where they were the biggest. Three for 15 Cleveland was on third down against this Vikings defense.

And not that you ever want to hear too many times saying Ben don't break and that kind of thing. But that's how they had to be in this game coming up a few times really big. And overall, yards per pass for Dylan Gabriel, 5.2, when you include everything Let's see, did he get sacked today? It felt like he didn't get sack twice. So when you include sacks 5.2 yards per play, which per pass, which is about what you would expect. And in the run game, they ended up with 140 total yards, 4.4 yards per rush, which is really not that many. They just ran a million times.

And the penalties were everywhere for both teams, seven for 50 for the Vikings, 10 for 78 for the Cleveland Browns, the two huge errors by the Vikings. fumbling the football is something that they have just had problems with. It feels like going back to 2023, then last year they cleaned it up and then this year have had problems with it again. So this was not a game that you would want to rewatch 10 years from now. Hey, man, what are you doing on Friday night? You know what? I'm going to stay in and rewatch Vikings Browns from 2025.

No, you're not going to do that. But they did find just enough in the tank. So we can criticize the run game and the run stopping from the defense and talk about how Judkins ripped off some big runs and they controlled the game by doing it. We can say that you would have expected a little bit more in terms of getting the ball away from Dylan Gabriel or more turnovers, although they played it extremely, extremely safe. But you walk out with 17 points on the board, 322 yards allowed, and 3 for 15 on third downs. you can't ask a whole heck of a lot more from any defense than having a day like that.

It ends up being overall a good day for the Vikings defense about what you would expect, 17 points when the other team is playing a rookie quarterback who does not look shook or scared or flustered, but looks like a guy who is, hey, he's 24 years old and he's played a lot of football. Imagine that and looking more comfortable at quarterback. And from the O'Connell perspective, if you guys have been wearing hats or trying different haircuts in order to cover up for your hair loss. Trust me, I totally feel you, and maybe you've tried different hair loss solutions, and nothing works. Well, I've got something for you then. It's called Hymns. Hymns offers convenient access to a range of prescription hair loss treatments

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gift, go to uncommongoods.com slash purple insider. That's uncommon goods.com slash purple insider for 15% off. Don't miss out on this limited time offer. Uncommon goods. We're all out of the ordinary. I thought that he came out with the right ideas. They threw the ball quickly. They threw it short a number of times. They used a little bit of creativity. They actually threw a slant to Justin Jefferson, in a quick slant. Imagine that. And then the trick play from Cam Acres. So Cam Acres is elevated from the practice squad. And this guy, we know how much O'Connell loves Acres. So you had to figure, all right, he's going to find a way to get Acres involved, right? So he comes out at quarterback, where he played in high school and apparently threw some passes in college as well,

rolls out, they never see it coming, throws to Josh Oliver, and it's the first ever Kevin O'Connell trick play that actually worked. So I want to congratulate the head coach for that, that they came up with a trick play that worked. And I felt at that moment when they pulled off the trick play and they score a touchdown there to start, like, okay, this could go, this could go all right for the Vikings. They had given up the touchdown. They had gotten down 7-0 and it had been a good drive off the fumble that Cleveland

got going and they got their run game going. And then the Vikings, they clap back. to make it seven to seven. But then after that, I mean, listen to this, the rest of the half, the second quarter after both teams scored touchdowns, punt, punt, punt, punt, punt, punt, a 14-play 53-yard drive by the Browns

to get a field goal. And then the end of the half. That's exactly what we thought it was going to look like. It was going to be a grind fest. Neither team really able to get a whole lot against the other team and some mistakes. end up proving costly for both teams. The Vikings with the two fumbles and the Browns with the mismanagement at the end of the game,

but also they couldn't convert third downs, keep any drives going. And one of the heroes of this football game ends up being Ryan Wright, who took a lot of criticism from folks at the, you know, in the off season, why aren't they bringing in legitimate competition, I'd rather have the Australian guy, Ryan Wright's not any good. and he ends up punting five times 285 yards, two of them inside the 20, including a 77-yard punt for Ryan Wright.

He continuously flipped the field and was on point. But they also had the Will Reichard missed field goal mixed in there, which was a strange one where it looked like it came off his foot as if it was going straight and then it just whipped to the right. I don't know if there was some wind that was a factor or footing was a factor, but that was unusual. and when Reichard missed the field goal, I think everybody felt the same exact way.

Okay, this might go bad for this Vikings team. This might just be one of those days where you're fumbling and you're not recovering it, you're falling apart, everything. You can't even get a field goal to go through with your great field goal kicker. And yet they find a way to win 10 plays 80 yards, nine throws on that drive from Carson Wentz.

But big stops in the fourth quarter. So this is the fourth quarter defense for the Vikings. punt punt punt punt end of game that was the clutch defense for the viking so on this day i think you could break apart all the different facets of well this didn't go right this play call was wrong this player had a tough day stopping the run that player didn't do his job on a particular play but this is one where when this team is so banged up and by the end of the game think about this for Carson Wentz. At the end of the game, Carson Wentz is going under center with Miles Garrett, Malik Collins, Mason Graham on the other side to chase after him. And his

offensive line looks like this. Justin's school is at left tackle. He's been moved over from right tackle to left tackle. So he spent the whole week preparing at right tackle. Now he's got to play left tackle. Joe Huber has never played before and did have a key holding penalty at one point that negated a really big Jordan Mason run at center is Blake Brandel who had I thought and it's hard to figure out right after without all the data and the all 22 film I thought an amazing game for a guy of in his position I think he did have a holding penalty on a big play to Jalen Naylor that was tough though they never showed the replay and some strange handling of replays when penalties came up we saw 50 flags in the game

and never got another look at any of them, which I don't know if that's an NFL network thing where when they broadcast the game, they don't ever want to shine a light on any controversial call. But I didn't see a holding on that play. And then it was just called back and it looked like the defender fell down and we have no idea. So that was very frustrating to watch

when you didn't even get a second look at, like there's all these penalties on special teams plays. Somebody falls start. Do we see any of it a second time? And even with Jerry Judy, when he dropped that key third down, they were so slow with the replay that O'Connell had to challenge it. When I thought that was one of those plays

that New York should be buzzing in and saying, I don't know if they could buzz from New York across seas, but they should be saying, yo, he didn't drop that. You don't have to challenge it or he didn't catch that. You don't have to challenge it. So that was weird to me with the handling of some of the things there. But anyway, to get back to the line,

amazing job by Blake Brandel. The guy's never played center before. He had one bad snap. I think. And Wentz caught it just fine. They handed off and got a few yards and it didn't matter. It was toward the end of the game. Right guard, Will Fries, of course, a starter.

And then at right tackle, Walter Rouse becomes one of the heroes of this game coming in off the bench at right tackle in the biggest moments where the opposing team is pinning its ears back and you have to hold up as an offensive line. And they were able to do that. I mean, that is incredible because this is not a Brown's defensive line that's, uh, Browns. No, they are, they were grading by PFF as the best in the league against the pass and the run as a defensive line. That's ridiculous. And Miles Garrett was almost a non-factor in this game. I saw Darisaw do a great job against him sometimes. It also speaks to the game plan that when the ball was coming out of Wentz's hands faster, the offensive linemen grade better. And I've been asked questions a lot about,

hey, this guy, former Viking is grading well or that former Viking is grading well. When you get the ball out quickly, you get a lot fewer negative plays as opposed to dropping back, sitting there, sitting there, and then everybody has to do their job perfectly or you get sacked or you get pressured. And that was the biggest thing for O'Connell today that was a test case. But for those guys to hold up in those moments, that was just all of them. because there's no plays you can call that are like, hey, let's just, you know, hand off and play conservatively,

although O'Connell knew exactly how much time he had on the clock. So when we go back and look at that drive, let me take a look at the play-by-play on that drive. You get a nine-yard run, then a three-yard pass, a six-yard pass, a 14-yard pass. Two of those were to T.J. Hawkinson that totaled 20 yards on two throws. And then, of course, Jefferson has to do some legendary stuff. But I thought that the opening play calling was great where the Browns weren't ready

for a run and they get nine yards. And then it's quick pass, quick pass, quick pass to get things going. And no matter who's playing quarterback next week, two weeks from now, it should be J.J. McCarthy, but no matter who's playing quarterback, that sequence needs to stick in his mind. And really a lot of the drives that succeeded and some were just killed by fumbles, a lot of the drives that succeeded today follow that type of pattern using Jefferson early on in the game getting the ball out of the hands of Wentz and just making it easier for this group up front and that's what happened here too when you get a three yard pass with two minutes and 40 seconds left then a six yarder with two 17 and then a 14 yarder to take you to the two minute warning he didn't try

to get it all back in one deep drop back one double move one deep post and ask Carson Wentz to do too much that was very very well done and then you take the shot to just to jefferson and eventually throw it up and have jordan addison make a great play but even before that on the third down where it was third and four and they throw a little flat round again not trying to do too much just put them in motion goes out into the flat we see the chiefs do that all the time uh excellent clutch play calling there from kevin o'connell for this team to come away with a win so they are three to as they return, there's questions to be answered all over the roster of who's going to be healthy, who's going to start a quarterback is still a question. I suppose after this, I don't know

why you would stick with Carson Wentz after this. I mean, he had a great drive. He won the game. It's iconic backup quarterback stuff, right? To have your backup quarterback come in. You just, like, we love backup quarterbacks on this show because of moments like that. because he comes through in the clutch. He's not even supposed to be here. He's hurt. He just joined the team. All his backup linemen are in and he finds a way, right?

That's why you sign a really great backup quarterback. But there was nothing here today against the Cleveland Browns that would make me say, you know what, guys, they can't go back to JJ. It's Carson went to show the rest of the way. Now, if he had gone overseas and he had thrown for 800 yards and 10 touchdowns, and they looked like an unstoppable freco offense, okay, then yeah, I might have actually said that. But in this case, no, Carson Wentz was okay.

He did not throw any interceptions, a couple of sacks, but I mean, the one, it's a double move and the guy just gets free, okay, I mean, there's not a whole lot that Wentz could do about that. But aside from that, I mean, he did a good job of not making catastrophic errors overall. his accuracy was all over the place on this day. There were plenty of plays that were there to be made that Wentz could not. And the screen stuff worked once to T.J. Hawkinson. And then there was a brutal tight end screen later in the game that got taken down for a three or four year yard loss.

I mean, that's not on Wentz, but just, you know, it kind of shows you where they're at with him trying to play it as safe as they possibly could and not feeling like in that moment that they could do a whole lot other than throw a tight end screen. So it's limited of what they can do with Carson Wentz. But if this season goes back to McCarthy and still ends up being an entertaining season where they have a chance to make the playoffs in the last day or something, we're going to go back to this moment. And Carson Wentz will be one of those heroes of Vikings lore that we talk about many years from now. At least that's still on the table after this day. And you

couldn't have asked for a whole lot more of Carson Wentz in these three weeks. Maybe could have been better against Pittsburgh, but that also was on the defense and offensive line and play calling and everything else. And he's a backup quarterback for a reason, but this is why you get one that has as much experience as Wentz does in the NFL. So a great, great job on that final drive by Carson Wentz for the Vikings to get this win. And I thought of this as I was writing my little postgame recap after, of course, I had deleted the one that was ripping them to shreds, that I had been working on

throughout the fourth quarter. But I said that whoever the person was that said a win is a win was a genius. Great job by that cliche monster. A win is a win. And you don't have to apologize for it. You don't have to give it back. Now, if they play like this the rest of the season and they will certainly be getting players back and they shouldn't play like this.

but if they play like this against the Eagles, the Chargers, it's going to be really difficult to win. I think we all know that. But this is not the team. This is not the 2025 Minnesota Vikings. This is a bunch of guys that we thought were in development mode, like Walter Rouse and Joe Huber, who are out there in the biggest moments.

I will say, though, that when Donovan Jackson comes back, the way that Blake Brandl played today, and I'll have to go back and really look at it and investigate a little more, but just my sense, I would want Blake Brandel on the field continuing to play center for the rest of the way. I know that's hard to judge on one game, but against this team and this defensive line

to handle things the way that he did is probably good. I mean, somebody who has great knowledge of the system and the checks and all that sort of stuff and is a veteran player who's been around, unlike Michael Juergens, who just started playing, gets into two games and ends up getting hurt. I mean, it's probably better that Brandel goes forward. if you get the line back, you don't feel quite as bad about it if you have a veteran center

who is your backup in Blake Brandl playing instead of Ryan Kelly. And then you end up with, you know, we'll see about Darisaw and where his health is at. But if it's Darisaw, Jackson, Brandel, Fries, and O'Neill at some point, you feel way better about that than going into today. So I can't say it was a good win. I cannot say it was a beautiful win. I cannot advise anyone watch that game back when they replay it on NFL network at some point this week. But I can say that for the sake of discussion over the next two weeks, what a difference.

What a massive difference between, okay, what do they need to get back on track? Can O'Connell stick with a lot of the short stuff that he implemented when J.J. McCarthy returns? Because there were a lot of good plays out there today. some of them were just missed by Carson Wentz, but there were a lot of good ideas out there to get the ball in the hands of Jefferson. How many targets did he end up with? I don't think we have to send anyone to jail.

Let's see. No, let's see, 11 targets. We don't have to send anyone to jail because Justin Jefferson got over 10 targets in the game, 123 yards, and then contributing on short stuff, Addison, Hawkinson, Josh Oliver with one big play, Nailer with three catches for 27 yards. This is what you're looking for, and they could have used maybe a little more out of the backfield today overall and then just in the past game.

But Jordan Mason got banged up, had a fumble. It wasn't perfect, but also had some big runs in this game. So they need the full version of themselves if they're going to still really compete. But at least it's possible. At least it's still on the table. There was no way if they came in at two and three that I would have been able to say to you, hey, guys, it should be okay. they're still in the race,

like not at two and three. Two and three, it would have been, give me a match and some gasoline and let's burn this thing to the ground. But at two and three and two, it is still on the table. Now, I did want to talk about some other things that throughout the day on the defensive side

were concerning to me. The way that the interior D-line has looked, now they did toughen up a few times and make some stops, but Javon Hardgrave didn't play a lot of snaps early in this game. and I wondered about the health situation for Hargrave. I did think that Dallas Turner contributed.

I'm curious to see where that ends up. He had a good rush on Dylan Gabriel that didn't go down as a sack, but I think maybe as a TFL. I think they put it down as a run play. Eric Wilson was kind of all over the field again today. Harrison Smith ends up with five tackles, but didn't play at the beginning of this game, which kind of made you wonder what exactly is happening there.

Jonathan Grinard came really close to another sack. guy, he's going to end up with 30 pressures or something and one sack this year. He's come close time and time again. But the defense feels like it is a little bit wobbly still just with the personnel and what they're getting from the defensive tackles versus what they expected to get from the expensive defensive tackles. And we also saw at times some of the, just the fact that they have backup linebackers in and how badly they need Blake Cashman, how badly they need Van Ginkle. But it looked to me like Turner was involved for most of the day.

There was a play where I thought he could have set the edge better and Judkins got out, but he made a couple of big tackles for them. Overall, not a great day, not a spectacular day, but a do just enough, be just clutch enough to win. And I think that we have to keep that in mind going forward. At one point in the game, well, Gabriel scored his second touchdown. I think I wrote in my, like, sort of running recap, like, maybe this defense just isn't good. And then they made a bunch of key stops after that.

And I still would not say that they've made an argument this year for being great. But they're going to have some flaws as they go forward. And this is where the offense will on the other side of this have to pick things up. Because I think we have to accept that it's not going to be the 2000 Ravens defense that we thought it was going to be. when we went into this season. But they acted like it at the end of the game and the Vikings get a win. So why don't we get to your thoughts, your comments, and how you feel about this? I mentioned the Fanduil question of the day.

Going into today, the Vikings were minus 160 to win at least eight games. So Fandul thought that they would still get there. Give me your one to ten chance that the Vikings can win at least nine because that will be the bar for them competing for a playoff spot. let's let's get into your comments we'll start with first name last name said the run defense is terrible i think if our run d was better the defense as a whole would be great uh they came up with some huge stops in this game that really saved it as far as the run defense now i wouldn't use different descriptive language i mean giving up a 32 yard run to quinchon judkins like right

away it looked like he had the advantage. There were a couple fourth downs where they could not get a stop on fourth and one and they're getting pushed and Judkins is making plays. At the end of the day, he ends up with 23 carries for 110 yards, which is pretty good. So I would not say that they were secretly great or that your eyes deceived you. And as we go into games against Philadelphia, the Chargers, the Lions, those teams want to run and they generally do it really well. So this is concerning in terms of the results of how they've slowed the run overseas and then going back to the Atlanta game because now when you look at the entire season, they did a decent job against the run against Chicago and probably lose that game if they didn't. Then they get

destroyed by Atlanta. Cincinnati couldn't do anything and they were losing the whole game because of the defensive touchdowns. And then these last two games, it was a run at will type of situation. You do need to give them credit for huge stops in the fourth quarter on the ground. It was very predictable that Kevin Stefansky was going to run at those moments. And Dylan Gabriel does not scare you enough and didn't make enough plays for the defense to be like, oh, let's, you know, let's all drop back into a deep zone here on third and short or something. So it did help that it was predictable in that moment, but still 23 for 110 often wins you a game. if you are the Cleveland Browns and you run that well.

So it is concerning. I don't know what the answer is. They played Redmond more today. They played Levi Drake Rodriguez more today. I don't, I mean, a guy on the practice squad that gets brought up constantly, Takitai Amani, I don't know if that's the answer. It's probably not. Javon Hargrave certainly needs to get healthy.

It seemed like he was banged up against Cincinnati and then it looked like it a little bit today, although he was always going to have to play less if they were going to run as much as they did. maybe there's an acquisition there to be made during the buy week to help them, or maybe it's just that they're missing Van Ginkle and Cashman. And as much as Eric Wilson's involved a lot and gets a lot of tackles, it's not the biggest guy can be pushed around. Ivan Pace, as we know, is not the biggest guy. And I think that those things, and also as far as edge setting,

it's not even close between Dallas Turner and Andrew Van Ginkle. Dallas Turner is meant to be a guy who is lining up over here. lining up over there, roving, rushing from different spots, dropping back in coverage. That's how they want to use him. Playing 50 or 60 plays, setting an edge every single play is not exactly the plan for Turner. So there are reasons why they have struggled as much against the run, but it's also hard to see a path where you could just snap your fingers and all of a sudden that is fixed. So the run defense does remain an issue as they go into some really tough games here.

General Soreness says, how do you miss a team activity? when you're on the road for 10 days. Addison is a problem and the vikes need to move on. Don't let a couple of big plays distract you from who he is. General Sornis, as far as the Addison thing, thank you for reminding me to circle back to it. When you are Jordan Addison, you can't miss anything.

You can't make any mistakes. Not when you're coming off of two different issues, one of which cost the Vikings three games of one of the best wide receivers in the NFL because you couldn't get behind the wheel responsibly or in that case maybe not get behind the wheel at all. I totally agree with you that Jordan Addison is towing a very, very delicate line here of the great player who you just cannot trust. And if you look to the other side at Josh Gordon, you remember the story of Josh

Gordon, who was an unbelievable wide receiver for the Cleveland Browns, but they had to move on from him and get rid of him. And he ended up out of the league because they just couldn't trust him. And he had problems off the field that he was not able to overcome. And I'm not implying that it's the same problems. I don't know that. But with Jordan Addison, showing that he can't be trusted to go overseas with the team like this and not commit some sort of violation is very concerning because this is somebody that you know Kevin O'Connell loves, you know, has a huge impact on the quarterback. He is, as you saw, I mean, a great, great football player. And so often in this league, if you're a great football player, you get suspended for one quarter, college style,

and they have handled Addison with the kiddiest gloves of the kiddiest gloves. But in a game like this, they needed to. And I would kind of agree. with it, no matter how egregious unless he harmed someone else or was in jail or something, you know, I think they needed to play him just because you need to win this football game and you can deal with all that when you get back from overseas. But with a potential contract extension looming with a fifth year option looming for Jordan Addison, any sort of violation is a massive, massive red flag. And you just have to ask, is this guy ever going to get it?

Because if you don't get it right here, then when are you going to get it? If you're not going to grow up after the 150 miles an hour thing, 160, if you're not going to grow up after the DUI incident that cost you three games, when exactly is that going to happen? And so we don't know every single detail. I'm sure that they'll not reveal every single detail. But anything, again, costing your team, anything, not having him for the first quarter. it matters is to me another sign of, I don't know how you can give this guy $30 million a year, $25 million a year. And maybe you're looking at, I mean, they're not probably, well, we'll see how it goes. I mean, you're not probably talking about after this moving on and trading him or getting

rid of him or whatever it is. But you have certainly been pushed closer to that edge. Because if you were arguing to me, young people make mistakes. He did this. He did that. But we've gotten him, you know, on the straight and narrow. It's all good to go. He's not going to be a problem for the franchise anymore. Okay, I can buy that. I'm not saying that I excuse it. And he certainly deserves to be criticized.

Being young doesn't mean that you are not responsible for your actions. I certainly should be. And I always felt that the team did not lay down a strong enough message ever to Jordan Addison after his last two incidents. And I guess, you know, maybe that was true. as was demonstrated here today. But at some point, it's personal responsibility on his part. You have to get it together and missing the first quarter of this game.

If that's a sign of more things to come, then he won't be here for a long time. And the Vikings need him. They need him in the lineup. You saw the struggles in the first couple games. You saw what he could do today in making two massive catches. Actually, I mean, even the diving catch that he made toward the sideline. a special talent, but you have to weigh the headache versus the talent and the scales were very clearly much more toward the talent. And are they getting pushed back the other way? Or was this

a misunderstanding of some kind? I guess I'm not sure. But it is concerning. And it's a red flag with Jordan Addison for sure and something to watch as we go forward. So, all right. He'll be a raider after his rookie contract is up. uh well you know that's uh that's how it goes so you know and and i'm sure that there'll be a whatever this happened or that happened it wasn't that bad or whatever it doesn't matter it doesn't matter if if he wakes up five minutes late for his alarm then he's going to get scrutinized because you don't get the benefit of any doubt anymore that's out the out the window so uh let's see if uh

If we don't know, Andrew says, if we don't know what happened, can we judge this really? Yes, because you don't get the benefit of the doubt anymore. If this happened for the first time, there was no incidents, there was no background, there was no, there was nothing in the past. Then I would probably say, geez, that's a, it's a silly mistake to make. And maybe it was something to do with being overseas or whatever. That's, that just, it's not, he doesn't get that. He does not get that anymore. So, I mean, as always, you know, you're going to help, you're going to have.

have, you know, the apology comments, the team won't be at all happy with people criticizing him and so forth. But that's where I'm going to stand on Jordan Edison. You don't get any leeway in the discussion when you've got the past history that you have and miss and being suspended for a quarter in a game that your team has to win. And even if you came through and he's a great player, I mean, absolutely phenomenal player. He made an incredible play. He won the game. Great job, Jordan Addison, but it definitely has a little shadow over it because he was not able to play in that first quarter. So, let's see. First name, last name says, fingers crossed it. Fries holds up long term since he was the big long term signing on the line. But Huber playing well,

potentially gives us an option down the road. Well, I think that's a great point on the backup offensive linemen. And this is where, yes, it's really, really hard to play. with backup offensive linemen. But at very least, they had a Blake Brandel who's played a lot of football. Huber was really good in training camp and preseason, really good. And I think he ended up, he made the roster out of training camp, right? And I think that that happened because he played so well, they were worried, if my memory is correct, because they were worried about someone picking him up.

He was just really good and showed some serious potential there. And Rouse has had development. he's somebody that imagine that right a young player who gets time to develop and improve behind other good players and then steps in and gives them a chance and hey everybody was very hard including me on just in school but what he did today switching from right tackle to left tackle he was holding down the right side and then he has to go over there in the biggest moments and face miles garrett this is just in school we're talking about somebody who is you know bounced around and is a veteran but doesn't have elite athletic traits to hold it up. I don't care if you didn't have to make that many great blocks. I mean, to even hold it down at all at that position was really, really excellent. So now you feel like you have backups that can step in, not that you want to have to do this week after week, but Huber showed you something and even school getting it together. Rouse showed you something that backup offensive line. Those guys are 100% heroes of this day in this Vikings

win over the Cleveland Browns and I mean what what else what else can you say about you know somebody like Joe Huber and yeah first name last name is Huber's a guy who probably made the team well before cut day he did I mean we came out of the first preseason game saying whoa like this guy is actually pretty darn legit so so where do we think that this is going to go the rest of the way like where does it need to go what needs to happen now for this team to get back into what we thought they were going to be. Because today was a game that if you played against most teams, you probably lose, like most good teams.

You play this way offensively against the lions, you lose. You play this way defensively against the lions, you lose. I think that the answer lies in getting J.J. McCarthy back, but carrying over some of the things that worked. because this is a defense that was very, very good in the Cleveland Browns. Coming in, they had played as well as anybody, and some of their numbers as far as points allowed were not telling because the offense had given up the ball a bunch of times

and Detroit ends up with 34 points, but a pretty unimpressive overall offensive performance against this Cleveland defense. And the Vikings find a way to beat them. And I think that that does say something about, this type of strategy working and this is a weird thing to say but with the punter playing as well as he is i mean you can actually start to have a little bit more of a run and short pass mentality and look it it's something that i am so impressed by san francisco and the way that

they beat the rams on thursday night and this reminded me of that i wondered as that game was going on kevin o'connell are you watching do they have this game over Are you watching Thursday night football in the way that Kyle Shanahan was able to keep the sticks moving and able to avoid that crazy pass rush of the Los Angeles Rams? And hey, they have a bunch of guys hurt. They don't have great wide receivers right now. They have a backup quarterback in and they found a way to beat the same team the Vikings lost to in the playoffs with that same defensive line because the ball came out quickly. And as we talk about these offensive linemen stepping in, well, you know who you're also allowed to help is Donovan. Jackson. You're allowed to help Brian O'Neill. You're allowed to help Christian Darrasaw.

And this line might not ever be back to 100% with the way that things have gone wrong for them and the injuries and we'll see what happens with Dara saw and where he ends up at. But they may not ever be back to 100% all season long. So this mentality should not change of getting the ball into Jefferson's hands quickly and occasionally looking for him down the field. and trying to hold on to the football more often, trying to ride with Jordan Addison more often. And Zay Scott has shown you something, a bad fumble today,

but he's shown you something that he can run with it. I had a couple of good carries today. What did he end up with? Five for 18, okay, had a nine-yard rush mixed in there. The fumble's not great. They kind of missed a block on that one, but still not good,

but get Jones back in there. And they may have to be a run-first type of offense. I think that they are able to do that. And they showed that today, where they could run and then play off of it with underneath stuff. But you can't wait to succeed until the last minute. But when you end up with, I mean, think about this. If J.J. McCarthy ends up with this type of stat line, and we'll talk about that in a second, if he ends up with this type of stat line, 25 for 34, with 236 yards of touchdown, no picks,

they're going to win a lot of games, I think, with that, considering who they have, as their receivers, the fact that they can run the football, the offensive line gets healthier, the defense gets healthier, they can win that way. They're not going to win every week that way, but they can win that way if that's what you end up with for a final stat line. And I am going to remain of the opinion that J.J. McCarthy should come back and start against the Philadelphia Eagles. The choice with Kevin O'Connell, I think even though Wentz did a great job leading the game-winning drive throughout this day was really given to him. Wentz is banged up as he decided that he was going to run over two defenders for the Cleveland Browns

and still thinks that it's the year 2017 in some ways. He's not all that accurate. He is a really good leader. That is very clear how he led them through. I mean, both weeks never collapsed, never got overly flustered, found a way to keep them in the Pittsburgh game. They had a chance to win the Pittsburgh game in part because of Carson Wentz. So he acted like a veteran. backup quarterback. He had some plays that you just can't believe where the ball was going. He had

some decisions that were frustrating. And he had some great throws. And he had some really good moments. And his poise and his toughness was all on display. That's why he's still in the league. That's why teams like the chiefs and the Rams wanted him as their backup quarterback because he has these traits. But you can't really run your full offense with Carson Wentz. The lack of mobility is crushing at times where he gets out and looks like he's going to have a first down and just there's no wheels there. He thinks there are in his head, it seems, but there's no wheels there. The pocket navigation can be pretty tough. The decision making at times where he tries to make a play and hang with something could be pretty tough. But the way he played today was

the way that you would like to ask J.J. McCarthy to play where sometimes you have to live to have another down. Sometimes you have to punt the ball away. You need Jordan Mason and whoever else is in the backfield to carry the ball successfully. You're going to need the defense to get big stops from time to time. A turnover would have been nice today, but get turnovers down the road. And then the quarterback does just enough. Well, that's the way that you want to ask J.J. McCarthy to play. And I think it's as good as you ever could have asked Carson Wentz to be in these last three games. For a backup quarterback, it's as good as you ever could have asked. You go two and one. Maybe we would have thought they lose to the Bengals. I don't know. Maybe you would have thought it

would have looked a little different against Pittsburgh, two and one with your backup is great. How many teams in the league can go two and one with their backup? Not that many. Usually your starter goes down, look at Cincinnati, and it's like season over. But in this case, they escape two and one with the backup in. So now you, I think you go back to the starting quarterback who you began with from the beginning of the season. And this is your guy and you've called them the franchise quarterback.

and you stick with this plan you stick with get the ball into the hands like that flow flat route from addison a little flat route from jefferson early in the game where he lined up in the backfield and it seemed like they lost him a little bit he goes into the flat catches the ball gets i don't know 10 yards stuff like that the hawkinson stuff where was it early in the game i'm not sure but in the biggest moment a 14 yard catch from him a six yard catch from him if you do that if you take on that mentality with McCarthy, then you can be in every game going forward. If you put McCarthy back in and then ask him to go be Sam Darnold from last year, then you're going to have problems.

If you ask him to beat Kirk Cousins and make 50 different checks at the line of scrimmage, which today I did not feel like we saw issues with the clock, which was really good. And O'Connell needs credit for that. And Wenz needs credit for that because you have backups all over the place on the line, we didn't see him tapping on his head a million times looking around who's supposed to go where you're in motion we didn't see a lot of that and i'm sure that some of that costs them open receivers at times but the price is your quarterback's not getting killed constantly and hanging on to the ball so are you feeling good about that i want to know from you guys i assume that you want j j mccarthy

back in but do we think that's going to happen after winning this game that mccarthy will be back in some of the reporting from Diana Rossini, I think, that said he might not be 100% healthy. That's not my understanding of the situation, but is that a way to leave the door open to potentially keeping him out longer? It would be Philadelphia and then right out to the Chargers, but that's life in the NFL. So I'm not too afraid of that. I think Philadelphia is not quite as strong as they have been in the past. The Chargers are banged up. and then you get some extra time to prepare for the Lions, go back to the plan and stick with it.

And that's how I think they should handle it now. But if it's Wentz coming out of the buy, then you got some serious questions about where they're at with J.J. McCarthy. Do they, did they lose belief that fast? That would be crazy after just two games that they would, and because nothing Wentz did in the last three games would make you scream, oh my gosh, this guy has to be the quarterback. It was very typical great journeyman backup quarterback play. I loved it as a as an enthusiast for Vikings journeyman backup quarterback history. It felt Todd Baumani.

It felt Gus Ferrati, but it didn't feel like it was Randall Cunningham. So he comes out of it doing a great job and deserving whatever paycheck they're giving him, give him more for two wins and three games. But it's time to go back to the to the plan. and they should have offensive linemen back. But even if they don't, we saw today that you can protect the quarterback with your play calling as long as you can stick with it, which I thought O'Connell mostly did. So, you know, Cody comes in that COC was bleep with play calling today.

Totally disagree. I totally disagree. I had a lot of criticisms coming out of the Pittsburgh game. I thought he nailed it today. I thought he mostly nailed it today. There were a few times a tight end screen that gets blown up, didn't love that. You're always going to have that. I don't know what game has every single call that works out perfectly unless I guess you

have Tom Brady and Randy Moss or something in 07. Maybe that was perfect. But aside from that, a game like this with a backup quarterback and four backup offensive linemen, yeah, I don't think every play call is going to look brilliant. But I thought the overall concept was. Right. And KOC also can't control that his two running back just put the ball on the turf, that he actually was running the ball. And there was a run on second down for goodness sake.

No, I thought he nailed it. And then when you were talking about the clutch play calling, nailed it at the end of the game, knowing you don't have to get it all right away. But also, Cleveland was playing back. They were playing a kind of a prevent type of defense and seeing that knowing, you have two minutes of 47 seconds and timeouts. let's take a little bit of profit here underneath. Oh, that was great. And the third down play call was great. No, I don't see that today.

I think that that just gets said after every game. And there are some games where I didn't like the overall mentality this year. And other times like today, I thought that they did really well with that. Marley says Wence is bad, but McCarthy clearly needed a full year of sitting behind a veteran quarterback to learn the offense, fix. his footwork and learn the timing. Obviously, the injury last year derailed the plan. So you might be right. You might be right. And if he does not play against Philadelphia, then you are right. And that's exactly how they must feel is that all that stuff, the technique of, uh, that he tried to learn in the off season and all that sort of stuff that it just didn't

stick when he got to the actual games. But he only played two games. And well, one of them was a total catastrophe. The other one ended in a last second victory, and I didn't think that everything against Chicago was bad that he did early in that game that wasn't working. I thought that that was a little bit of everybody. And maybe his footwork isn't perfect, and maybe his timing isn't perfect and all those things, but sometimes you just have to, and I don't know, I don't know how chaos he's going to feel about this, but sometimes you just have to play the guy. I mean, he's been practicing all year it's just like having a rookie quarterback playing except for he has way more knowledge and he started at the beginning of the spring I mean he should be at a point

mentally where he can get under center and play in this offense and if he's not starting then that means that there's a problem and that means that KOC agrees with you and that he thinks that he's going to have to treat this year like a red shirt year if that's the case then it's hard to see, you know, going back to that fan dual question of the day, which was, you know, their minus 160 coming into today to win eight games. I think that'll even improve or maybe they were assuming that they would beat the Browns. So I want your chances that they win over nine games still. I think with Carson Wentz playing every single week the rest of the way, if that's how they wanted to do it, it's going to be very hard to get to nine wins. I mean,

you're barely squeaking by the Browns and he did a great job. At the end of the game, he did a great job, not getting a strip sack, not throwing a, pick six or anything that would have been super costly. But it was backup quarterback play. And that's only going to take you so far. So if they end up with Carson Wentz continuing to start when they come out of this by, first of all, I guess I'd be surprised because it's not like Wence did anything through this run that would make you say, oh, yeah, well, they can continue to win.

But it would be very telling about J.J. McCarthy. I think that he needs to play football. And unless he's a danger to him. then he should be out there playing. And I also think if you give him some of these same concepts, some of these same ideas, the quick slant over the middle, the Jefferson,

the flat routes, the little quick out to T.J. Hawkinson, you know, that sort of stuff, the running game, the offensive line getting healthy, then you're going to be in a better spot. So the update on Darisaw was that he was okay, but they had him on a snap count.

Okay. Well, that makes sense. You're always concerned when you see that guy go out. but a really good job by the backup offensive line. And I'm sure that was really tough to actually take him out of the game on the snap count. Steven says the ceiling is limited with Wentz, even if he had a good offensive line in front of him. We just don't know the ceiling for McCarthy

and we need to know what it is. I think the ceiling, because of his athleticism, because of his armed talent, the physical tools that he possesses, it's pretty safe to say the ceiling is higher. now the percentage of chance that you reach the ceiling that i don't know that i need to see a lot more of j j mccarthy to have any idea i know that a lot of inexperienced quarterbacks have played bad games before and you know there were i think too many people for my liking trying to say

oh it was actually a good game that he played against atlanta it was just everyone else's fault okay well that wasn't true but it even as bad as it was that doesn't mean his career is over or he should be stuck to the bench the rest of the season at least the way I see it. But if O'Connell is not happy with other things that have happened behind the scenes, then I don't know. They should be healthy coming out of this with the high ankle sprain. It's not a great injury, but none of them are. And no quarterback ever plays an entire season feeling wonderful, as you saw today from Carson Wentz. So I think it's time to get back and play, because otherwise, it's going to be when then? Because let's say you lose to Philly,

but you beat the Chargers, well, then you're starting Wentz against the Lions. And then, let's say you upset the lions and then when are you playing him right so um i think that now is probably the best time because he can get back during the by week have the full week as a starter have plenty of time to prepare have two weeks to get ready for the philadelphia eagles and then go from there uh it will feel like they're sort of what what would you how would you make the golf analogy that they're trying if they're how about this you guys ever instead of of, let's say you're having a tough day with the driver and you're nervous about hitting the driver. So you're like, you know what? I'm going to use a three iron off the T for this par four.

And you hit it in the woods anyway. I mean, your chances, if you can't hit a driver straight, your chances that you're a brilliant iron player are not that great. So there's up and downside to playing J.J. McCarthy. The downside could be very bad. But if you're trying to play it safe with Carson Wentz, I think we saw it today. There's just limitations on that. And this is me giving him giving him an overall like B plus on your backup quarterbacking would have been an A if they could have beat the Steelers. I know it's not all his fault. Some of it definitely was. But being a backup quarterback, great job. It didn't have to look good. It didn't have to be wonderful. It just had to happen. And you can't give a backup much more credit than that for coming in and getting a win like

today to keep the season on the rails. That's the entire concept. We talked about it so many times with the backup quarterback situation. Just don't be screwed, right? Just don't be so bad at the backup spot that your season falls apart when you miss your starter. That doesn't mean fall in love with that guy and leave him in as the starting quarterback. Laying up and missing the fairway, Zoom or Kev, exactly right. A little bit 54 says, what did you think of Oliver and Hawkinson today?

Well, I mean, Oliver catching the touchdown pass was unexpected from Cam, acres. And I'm not really sure in terms of his blocking. I thought he was in there a lot. It felt like he was in there a lot, which I know they needed to do, considering just where they were at with the offensive line. He felt valuable to me. I know that he couldn't escape on that little flat route that he catches and then he gets tackled before getting into the end zone. So he almost had two touchdowns. But I thought, I thought just coming off of the game that playing him was meaningful. And then Hawkinson, I just want to see more of him all the time because I know that I think it was the color annals there, Jonathan Vilma, who I know you guys love from his Saints days,

but Vilma said something like when they ran the tight end screen, he actually was critical of play calls on both sides. And I appreciated that, that there were times where Vilma said, I don't, yeah, I don't think so. And that tight end screen was one of them. Like, I don't think so. That's not the guy that you're looking at is having crazy wheels and getting a tight end screen and running. There was one early in the game that actually hit for O'Connell and maybe that was

in his mind. Maybe it was a similar look. But at the end, there's Hawkinson making some plays in the clutch that was really important. And they have to get him more involved early in the game. I think he had a catch on the first drive. There was a tight end screen that worked. And then it felt like for a very long time that Hawkinson was not playing. And Kirk Cousins really understood what to do with T.J. Hawkinson. I think that Nick Mullins did as well. But I don't know that Sam Darnold ever really did. And we haven't seen that yet from Wence or J.J. McCarthy to be able to find him. And the most common explanation for that is that he just stinks now. And I think in the last drive, you saw that he didn't. He found ways to get open and gets a 14-yard reception. He did it against

Cincinnati where he was open and made some plays. I don't think that he's forgotten how to play football. I think if you're asking him to be, you know, the yak monster. that maybe we thought he was at one point, or if you're asking him to be a contested catch freak, that's probably not going to happen. But running underneath, running an out route, getting to the middle of the field, those are things that Hawkinson should still be pretty useful in doing.

And it just needs to happen more if you're going to be a consistent offense. Blinky says really impressed with Jalen Redmond. Yeah, he's been good all season. He's been a good player for them. They've really found something in Jalen Redmond. and as bad as the run defense was early, it was not in the second half of this game. They did kind of luck out that there was some holding on the tight end at one point, but I guess they would have blown up that play if there wasn't holding,

and that's why it was called. But they did toughen up as the game went along, and they forced all punts in the fourth quarter. I don't even know, I can take a look here. I don't even know what was the longest run by Judkins in the fourth quarter when they needed the most. I mean, these drives in the fourth quarter from Cleveland, three plays, five plays, three plays in the fourth quarter.

After they scored the touchdown to go up 17 to 14, they stopped Judkins on a zero-yard run, and Hargrave was actually in on that one to start the fourth quarter. That was huge because that got the ball back and that while the Vikings fumble, but it was still big because you can't give up a touchdown there. If you give up a touchdown, the game's over. And then after the fumble, this was the game-changing moment here. After the fumble, the Vikings come out and stop Quinshon.

Well, you got, yeah, well, it was a short and complete pass. That was a weird call. And then there's a six-yard run for Judkins. And then they sack Gabriel as he tried to kind of escape there. That was maybe where Kevin Stavansky's getting second guest on his post game was probably throwing there and stopping the clock. And then let's see. middle of the fourth quarter, they did get a couple big runs.

Judkins had a 14-yarder, but then they stopped them on a two-yard run on second and 10, and then they tried to throw again and stop the clock. Oh, man, I got to say that there's probably some people over on the Cleveland side who are yelling and screaming in their post game. Dude, if you just run the ball and don't throw any passes in the fourth quarter, you might have a chance to actually win it. That's kind of interesting to look back at that because I, looking at the results. of those drives, I thought, well, you know, I guess they,

I guess they must have stopped Judkins, but they kind of didn't. Like, he had some big runs and they only gave him to him on those two drives two times, and he got 20 yards. And yet they did not continue to go back to him. So they were given some gifts there, uh, for sure. But Redmond, you're right. Redmond has been pretty, pretty darn good. Uh, Ronnie says it's not safe to say that it's higher.

I assume you mean the ceiling. No, that's, that's just how this works. That's just how this works. When you have the 10th overall draft pick who has mobility and arm talent and he's young and he's skilled and he's got a lot of raw talent, his ceiling is higher. That's just a fact. Carson Wentz is what he is. He's been a backup quarterback for several years.

The last time he was a starter, he got benched. He is what he is. This isn't going to magically become something else with Carson Wentz. That's how ceilings work. So what we saw from Wentz in these three games, that's it. There's no surprise Carson Wentz that's around the corner. And if he plays like this, the rest of the season against good opponents, opponents that have offenses, opponents that have quarterbacks and are not going to give the way the game,

the way that Cleveland did today, you're probably going to win seven games, maybe eight, even if they get the offensive line back and healthy. That's just who Carson Wentz is. the last time he started, he played pretty well with the Colts, and they went nine and eight. That's just who he is. It's not a criticism. That's about as good of a backup quarterback, which he's signed to be as you're ever going to find. It's just a reality that the younger quarterback with the raw talent has the chance to click in

and provide you with difference making quarterback play. Now, like I said, the odds of that happening, I guess, are in question. The chances that that happens is really the question. because if Kevin O'Connell feels like there's no chance that J.J. McCarthy can reach his ceiling this year with his lack of experience and then he's going to just get hurt again or he's going to struggle or he's going to lose games and the season's going to fall apart. If he feels like that's what's going to happen. If he puts McCarthy back in, then you might see him just settle for whence. And to get back to the golf analogy, if he feels like there's a 90% chance, he's going to hit it in the woods with J.J. McCarthy. but he feels like keeping it on the fairway with the three iron is the only way to do it, then he's going to have to go to the three iron.

And that will tell us a lot about how he feels about J.J. McCarthy. And if you put yourself in the situation, this is where it could get a little dicey. And we may not know what this decision is going to be until they get back to practicing and maybe even until game day against the Eagles because he can kind of play the, we don't know who the quarterback is type of thing. But, I mean, if he doesn't play McCarthy, then anything is out there for where this quarterback situation could go. It means he could be back if it's a bad game for Wentz.

It means we might not see him. I mean, who knows? At least if he gets back in, you know the plan is J.J. McCarthy and they're going to stick through it. And it will tell us everything that we need to know about how Kevin O'Connell feels about where J.J. McCarthy is at right now. And there's going to be a lot of questions. G, given the circumstances, Wence has done well, without any training. and camp reps and continuity. Yeah, I mean, I think so.

Even to be on the field with less than a minute and down by three last week to Pittsburgh, if I told you that they won a blowout, a tight game, and lost one by three with your backup quarterback in, win two out of three and the one loss is three points. It's about the best results that you could have asked for. Dusty says when they brought Hawkinson in, he was said to be basically a wide receiver. The guy can block. He has, I think, been blocking well over all this year. It's not something that you really love that he has to do.

He does line up a lot as a wide receiver. I mean, he is a tight end. Like, this always happens with tight ends. Kyle Pitts, you hear it a lot. Well, this guy's really a wide receiver who can block. No, he's a tight end, which means he runs a 4-7 coming out and he's had an ACL surgery and stuff, but he's smart and he's reliable and he understands defenses and he's there for you when you need him.

Is that worth what they're paying him? I don't know. Not so far this season, but that's a different discussion. I think that he just needs to be a bigger part of the game plan there. It just needs to be something that they're leaning on from the beginning and sticking with, which at times it doesn't feel like that's something they're able to do. Oliver's too slow to do the red zone screen stuff that they want to do with him. Yeah, no, he's definitely not the fastest guy.

I agree with that. It seemed like a decent enough play, but you need him to break a tackle there. Yeah. I mean, that's just not really who he's ever going to be yards after catch guy. He's a blocker. He's a blocker with really good hands, surprisingly good hands. It can go down the field a bit. J. Pieces was some of whence decent play, knowing Schwartz's defensive scheme.

Could have been. Could have been. He might have been comfortable. And they don't have that complicated of a scheme. And that I think helped. Like in comparison to Pittsburgh, so Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh was running a lot of deceptive coverages, a ton of deceptive stuff up front, where in this game, and it is kind of like Cincinnati.

It was really all laid out for Carson Wentz, especially at the end of the game. I didn't see any sort of blitz. I mean, Carson Wentz came into the game as one of the worst graded quarterbacks in the NFL against the Blitz. I don't know if I saw a blitz from the Browns at the end of the game. They didn't make him sort through stuff the way that some defensive coordinators are going to do. I would expect that from the Philadelphia Eagles will not make it easy to identify everything

they're doing and they have the talent with that Fangio scheme to be really, really good. We've seen a lot of quarterback struggle against Philadelphia. It's going to be probably a different story. Maybe, you know, that's a concern for them with going back to McCarthy. I don't know, but it played a role. I think that's a good observation. It played a role. Stephen said Wish Flores was more aggressive early in the game against the rookie quarterback.

You know, I thought that the. reason that they weren't was probably just because the ball was coming out of Gabriel's hand so fast, Stefansky for three quarters of that game is sort of putting on a show of how you play that type of game. And I was thinking to myself, like for this one, if you go sort of choose your fighter, Stefansky has a lot more experience playing this type of football game. This knock down, drag out possession game. Like, this is kind of how they won a lot of games in 2019. For the Vikings, it's certainly how they won a lot of 2017 games with Case Keenomen, where it is this. It's running the ball. It's playing field position. It's getting

defensive stops. And it's keeping your quarterback from ever really having to do anything. And they did a great job of that, really did a great job of that through three quarters. And then Stefansky kind of lost his mind a little bit. bit where he starts dialing up passing plays up by three and you're like why i mean the the vikings aren't moving the ball against you and you just they're not stopping your run game why are you run why are you passing on first down and why are you passing on third down when you need to run the clock down there and gabriel probably should have scrambled or checked it down or something but he killed the clock and gave the vikings all day they score with 25 seconds left he could have worn

25 seconds off the clock and put way more pressure on Carson Wentz. So there were some mistakes there big time by Kevin Stefansky at the end of that game that were really surprising. But overall, he was doing a great job of keeping Dylan Gabriel for never really having to deal with the pressure of the Minnesota Vikings. And I think that that's something we're going to see as Pittsburgh did it really, really well to avoid any of that stuff, to sort of get him to throw it out, like the the extra blitzing and the confusion and make things simple.

But at the end of the day, I mean, Dylan Gabriel ends up with, let's see, he did hit the, he did barely hit the fan duel over. He's going to end up with a good quarterback rating. 19 for 33, 190 yards, two touchdowns. He ends up with a good day, but 190 yards on 33 passes. You would have taken that all day for the Vikings defense, is that he just got it out quick and they didn't get any explosives. Did they have wide receivers who played in this football game?

I mean, In Joku's good. Fanon had a catch, but I mean, I didn't see them complete anything to wide receivers the entire day. You would definitely take that the way that they played. It was really that, that run game that you're still kind of worried about. Narcal says Darisal was on a pitch count. Stop your hyper freak out. Is there somebody else here that hyper freaked out? I think I said you don't want to see him leave the game. I don't, I don't, I don't recall a hyper freakout.

Did you just get here? Strange. Anyway, uh, let's see. Two dog dad said, uh, if it's six weeks, then the earliest McCarthy would be back as Detroit. Yeah, I mean, it shouldn't be. The initial diagnosis was two to four weeks, at least courtesy of Adam Schaefter. It shouldn't be six weeks before you see J.J. McCarthy again. That's why I think.

I think if in 2000 or if, I'm sorry, in two weeks that if he's not back, then it's something more than just the ankle, then it's, they don't want to play him yet. They want him to stay behind Carson Wentz. And if Kevin O'Connell comes out and says, look, guys, he got a chance to play and we feel like he's not ready, he could get hurt playing again, and he needs more time, then I guess we have to accept that explanation because there's probably nobody better on earth that would know than Kevin O'Connell. If it is a coach, I mean, he doesn't feel like he has to be in self-preservation mode. This is a guy who just signed an enormous contract, just one coach of the year. I don't think

he's in self-preservation mode by playing the veteran over the young player. It would truly be because he doesn't want to fail J.J. McCarthy as his famous quote that gets mentioned all the time of, you know, not failing young quarterbacks. And if he feels like it's going to fail J.J. McCarthy to play him, then he won't play him. And then we'll have a lot of questions about when J.J.J. is going to play. But I don't think after the break here, that it's going to be connected to an injury. I think that might give him some plausible deniability.

But, I mean, for this kind of injury, it should be enough time for him to be back. Zumer Kev says, Will McCarthy have to earn the starting spot before the Eagles game in practice? If he struggles heavily in practice, you have to play Went to keep the playoff, hopes alive. I mean, that's true, but it's not like training camp.

You kind of have to decide. And then you just can't, you can't have a quarterback competition throughout a week in practice. You can't be splitting the reps. I mean, I guess if he was horrible, then you would just have to go with your backup, but you can't really,

there's not enough reps out there. There's not enough time in the day to just go. So, hey, let's just have a competition in the middle of the season in practice. It doesn't really, you can't really work it that way. Someone's got to be the scout team quarterback. Someone's got to be the starting quarterback, and you have to go from there. Now, maybe you're thinking if McCarthy looks lost at the beginning of the game,

that Wentz should be ready to go. But I think you really have to just make your call and go with it for who's going to be the quarterback. Rob says, happy to see KOC make the adjustments in the play calling with a refugee offensive of line. These guys will help us later in the season when a starter needs a break. Excited to be a get two out of three or three, three and two get healthy or to be three and two and get healthy. Yeah, I think that COC did a great job overall today with the entire idea. Was every play call perfect? Did every play call work? No, not even close. And we shouldn't

expect it to with all the backups on the field. You're playing 11 players. And by the end of the game, what five of them are backups i mean that's like half of the players on the field are not supposed to be starting for you and to adjust the game plan correctly to be able to find a win i i think is a really good job by o'connell overall skywalking mccarthy says saving the season is hyperbolic every team that wins in january can run and stop the run this team can't do that and isn't winning a playoff game well you know what mccarthy say skywalker guy it's not January yet. So why don't we just take one step at a time?

Okay, why don't we take one step at a time? Through five weeks, what they can do and can't do is still, I think, being determined by how healthy they're going to be. And I would like to see the full team at some point, which I think we're getting closer to with Harrison Smith. I think he played some more snaps today. And then Van Ginkle and Cashman, we'll see if they come back. We'll see what adjustments Brian Flores is able to make against

Philadelphia and against the Chargers, here's why it saved the season. It saved the season because if you go back two and three, you can't even win half your games the rest of the way and make the playoffs. Now, if you do that, you've got a good chance for it because after five games, that means you got 12 of them left. And if you go six and six the rest of the way, you've got a chance to make the playoffs on the last day. If you were to go six and six the rest of the way, this is some great math here at two and three.

and then losing to one of the worst teams in the league, you would have no belief that they could even go 500 the rest of the way with this schedule if they couldn't pull off this win. And even if you do, then all of a sudden you've got to be an above average team against all the things that you're going to face. I'm not at January yet.

That's a long way away. And it's a team that we haven't really seen yet. So when we get to January, I guess we'll find out. And I agree with you, not being able to stop the run is a huge concern. and that is something that's schematically and personnel-wise, they have to figure that out because the teams that they're playing are not going to let them off the hook.

I think another part of it is the types of games you've been playing. Now, if you're playing the type of game where you're playing from behind as they started out today and then played many of the snaps from behind today and only came back to win at the very last moment, you're going to put the other team in a position to be able to run the football. That's just a fact of the matter that, opposing teams are in a spot where we saw at times last year, teams would average four and a half, five yards of carry, but they'd run it 12 times because they were losing the whole game.

And that was the offense putting them ahead. That's, you know, when they beat Atlanta last year, Bejohn Robinson, I think was running fine, but they just couldn't go to him after they scored so many points. These two things play off of each other. They were built to play from ahead. And they were also built to play with two of their best players at linebacker, making a lot of these tackles that have not been in there to make those plays. So I'd like to see that.

I'd like to see what schematic adjustments are going to be made or personnel adjustments are going to be made. I thought actually they ran the ball fine today. I mean, Jordan Mason ran it 13 times for 52 yards. That's fine. Overall, 23 carries for 97. They probably could have run a few more times in there, but those two fumbles were bad.

But when you say they can't run while they can, I thought last week they didn't run that successfully against Pittsburgh because they were down in the game. And even there, some of the catastrophic mistakes were what cost them. But I haven't decided yet what this team is going to be because we haven't seen them. My point is that we now have a chance to see them. At two and three, you barely have a chance to see them. Then it takes some sort of miracle to get you back into the mix.

But now it takes a 500 record to give you a chance and one game over 500 to get you potentially in the playoffs. So Ryan says, I feel like Brando being 6'6. will have problems with defensive tackles getting under his pads and driving him back. Could be true. Could be true. But on the other side, Michael Juergens is not that big or strong. So strong defensive tackles might push him back as well.

I mean, Brandl played guard all last season. That's the same sort of thing. Same sort of opponents that you're facing. They didn't put a guy right over Brandl today that much, at least I don't think they did, which probably made his life a lot easier. But the way he played today, I thought it was, thought it was good. I thought he did as well as you ever could have asked him to and snapped the ball pretty well. DACQ says people seem to think Will's field goal hit a wire. Oh, is that real?

Is that true? That would be crazy. What, like a TV wire or something? I guess I'm going to have to see that. It looked really weird. It took a hard right turn. I thought, well, I don't know. It's a funny shaped ball. Stephen says Ravens are a team more banged up than Minnesota. You're seeing the results of today versus Houston. Let's just hope they are just as injured when we play them. I haven't checked the scores. Things going badly for Baltimore.

Is that what's happening? Oh, yes, it is. 24 to 3. Well, they're playing their backup quarterback. Cooper Rush, somebody who once beat the Vikings. But yeah, I mean, look, that's another point, too. when I mention how the season is saved, yeah. I mean, that's part of it is that the teams coming up are not perfect.

And I said that a lot last week of like, hey, these results have kind of thrown some things into the mix that maybe give the Vikings a chance, which is that Philadelphia has had trouble with their receivers being frustrated and the Chargers have huge injuries up front, which may limit their offensive abilities. and the Ravens, Lamar is banged up and they have a lot of injuries and they stink on defense. I mean, look, that's why I mean, if you go two and three and you lose today, then you can't even bring that stuff up. You can't even say, well, hey, these other teams are flawed because, like, well, you lost the Browns. It was kind of like when the Vikings lost to the O and 11 or whatever it was Detroit Lions in 2021.

It was like, well, if you could lose to the O and 11 Lions, who can I write in a W for? at least now you've got a chance to say hey maybe this these some of these games are a coin flip and that's what you need the second half of the season to be first name last name says I wouldn't be upset if McCarthy was QB2 for a week or two but I don't know what that would look like in terms of practice well it might look like him running the scout team which is important and is helpful for a young quarterback even if it came up on the broadcast today where Carson went said that running the scout team actually kind of was good for him to understand how to make some throws or what throws he could make when he was a backup over the last two years,

he felt like he even grew being on the scout team. It does matter. Josh McCown said the same thing to, I believe it was Kevin Seifert maybe, that brought this up that running the scout team can help you because you're practicing against the first team defense and you learn a lot about offense. You learn a lot about, you know, defenses as well when you're doing that. I mean, is it, is it a bad thing for J.J. McCarthy's long term if he doesn't play? No, it's not. I don't think it's restricting his potential growth if McCarthy stays behind Carson wins.

I think it restricts the ceiling to the season. And it also just tells us a lot about where they think J.J. McCarthy is more than anything. Logically speaking, you name a starting quarterback. You have him the entire off season. He comes in. He goes one in one and one. one game is pretty good but not great another game is absolutely horrible okay that sounds like football he gets hurt you expect him to come back you don't expect all the sudden them to just shift course because if they thought that mccarthy was going to be a guy who needed this entire year then you would have done a lot more to keep daniel jones here you would have said daniel actually you're going to start or you would have done a lot more i think in the backup quarterback category then just sort of hang around and get Carson Wentz at the last minute, right?

So there's no signal you would have tried to keep Darnold as a franchise tag. You would have signed Rogers. You would, like, you would have handled this totally differently if you thought McCarthy wasn't going to be able to play. So a huge shift in course, if he doesn't play against Philadelphia, it would be really significant. But it doesn't mean he's a bust. It doesn't mean his career's over.

And I'm going to have a tough time second guessing Kevin O'Connell if he does that because O'Connell knows more about it than I do. he knows everything about it in fact where we only know 75% of it and he knows the other 25 which would determine he knows the footwork he knows where he was truly at coming out of training camp I thought he looked pretty darn good coming out of training camp but there might be details that I'm not privy to he knows the behind the scenes he knows the health I don't know the health I can only just suspect on certain things health wise we can only kind of guess so there's a lot of things that are going to go into it. And I think you have to say that O'Connell will know what to do

in this situation better than any of us. And if he doesn't play him, then there's a reason. My point is that it just tells you where it's at. It just gives you the information. And unless O'Connell does make that decision, it makes total sense to me to go back to McCarthy, run the offense the way they were running it today, deal with the fact that sometimes you'll have to punt, deal with the fact that you might have to lean on Jordan Mason a little bit more. and Aaron Jones, if he comes back a little bit more and go from there. Mama says, still can't believe KOC didn't run Mason up the middle on third and one, instead got cute.

You know, that's, I think, an example, though, of if it works, then we never remember it. I know what you're saying, and I generally agree, that Mason up the middle, he's hard to stop. He's hard to keep from getting a single yard when he's going up the middle. Maybe they thought they had a look that they were going for with the pitch out. Yeah, I mean, I generally had the same feeling as you, but if they pitch out and the entire Cleveland team smashes in and then he gets 15 yards, it's like, great play call. That would be one that goes under the category of kind of judging it after the result.

But I know what you mean. I think sometimes you do have to do the simplest thing. And that's not always the easiest for Kevin O'Connell at times. Dusty says both sides of the field that Tottenham had functional play clocks. was helpful in comparison to Dublin. I don't know exactly what the issue there was, but it seems like there was some, at least. Let's see, Zoom or Kev, don't you get to re-kick if it hit a wire?

I mean, I would think so, but did they know that? If it did, I haven't seen the clip in slow motion. Maybe some of you have. But if that happened, though, if that happened, if it hit a wire, then they did get screwed. Uh, Dusty says, Brandl stepping in and playing center for the first time ever, uh, and you never heard his name, huge win. Yeah. Yep. Totally agree. And, and that's why you keep guys around who are swing players, who are just pros is because you know you're going to need them.

And I'm sure it was really disappointing for Blake Brandel to not be able to start with them drafting Donovan Jackson. I mean, can you imagine being Brandel on draft night when they take a guy at your position? You got to be like, okay, well, that's it for old Blakey. But, uh, he stayed ready and he stayed prepared. He had a good training camp. He was ready here to play center when he's never done it before. There is big, big value there. Two dog dads at Quinn John Judkins is a beast. That also needs to be thrown out there that, yes, they have not just a regular running back who is having success. The guy was a monster. Last week against Kenneth Gainwell, yeah, that one had a little more of a critique to the run game, but Judkins was great.

He had some serious explosiveness and power. Steven says sometimes not who you play, but when you play them. Yeah, that's been a problem of mind for a long time, which is when they come out with, hey, this is the strength of schedule. And it never turns out to be the actual strength of schedule. I researched it. There's very few times. I shouldn't say never.

It's not always that it comes out to be the actual strength of schedule. I mean, it might be that you're playing, who knows what Lamar Jackson's injury, how lingering it is. I mean, you might not even be playing him by the time you get to Baltimore. You might be playing. We all thought that they were going to play Joe Burrow and you didn't. The teams look more flawed because the season has gone on and things have gone wrong, which is what happens.

Ryan says, think we should be really happy. We really patched up an offensive line and beat a team with one of the best D-lines in the league when the starters come back should be pretty good. Yeah, I think it feels a little bit as far as the overall sense after this game. It feels a little purgatory-ish as in, well, yes, like you beat the Cleveland Browns. They're a very bad team. They just got killed by Detroit last week. They got killed by Baltimore earlier this year.

They did beat the Packers, though. So they're kind of a team that any given Sunday could show up and beat you. But you kind of felt like you needed to be four in one to stay in the race. race with the Lions to stay in the race with the Packers in the same way. Packers have that funky tie that's mixed in. So they're not perfect either, that they have, you know, some blemishes on their roster or on their resume as well. So it's a little bit of you're another team in the NFC.

This team expected after five games to have shown the world that they were the best team in the NFC or one of the best teams in the NFC. And that hasn't been the case. they are too flawed right now as they're currently constructed to make any argument that they belong in the first tier of NSC teams. But the second tier has a lot of, a lot of passengers in that second tier. That bus is pretty full. And so getting healthy out of the break, and we'll see what happens to quarterback,

but getting healthy out of the break gives them at least a chance to emerge among that bus full of second tier type of teams. let's see Stephen says we all get to see May and year two in a big time situation tonight in Buffalo would like to see if he has it

tough tough situation to ask if he has it against that team in Buffalo but yeah you're right yeah you're right I'm curious about him uh Jude says congrats to Ingram Dawkins for his first career first career sack

yeah I I mean Ty Ingram Dawkins is another guy that they've developed at that position. And that's the thing about the run defense and the interior D-line is when you look at the way that the young guys have played and I have to go back and see about Levi Drake today or Jalen Redmond, but overall with those three, those look like three young promising players who could be part of a D-line rotation for quite a long time. I mean, I think that Ingram Dawkins was somebody who had raw skill coming out that they really wanted to try to mold and they've done that through the off season where he could be a

legitimate contributor and now I guess you're wondering about did you spend overspend on Alan and Hargrave or as the season goes along and you get ahead in some games will they get key sacks and then we'll all feel differently because after Chicago they had put up what 11 pressures or something between them and I remember trying to look back at any other time that Vikings defensive tackles had put up that many pressures so these things things can change over a season. But as of right now, you're feeling actually better about the younger players than you are some of the guys that you spent the most money on. Let's see. First name, last name says what KOC does will tell us how close the team thinks

McCarthy is. Yep, that's right. That's exactly how I think of it. And that doesn't mean that if he doesn't play, that McCarthy's career is over and they need to trade him to the Raiders. it means that they're going to develop him slower on his timeline and not force his timeline, which everyone would have loved that idea a long time ago, but maybe not now, because they want to see McCarthy. And I've never been afraid of developing a player. I've probably been very snarky about it this year. Like, oh, imagine a guy gets in in his second year and does something, a developing.

Look at that. But it does, I think, change the expectations for the season of where we think. that this team can go with Carson Wentz. I think overall, he is grinded as much as you could with Wentz and he's done as much as he possibly could have. But are you going to Detroit for a late game in the season and winning? Or I guess they're going to play Detroit at home. Detroit and Green Bay are the last two games?

Like, are you beating them with Wentz? I think that might be a tough bill. That might be tough to do when they have Jared Gough and Jordan Love, their starting quarterbacks and they have great teams and all that. So it would much more be like, hey, getting to the playoffs would be a huge win and then it really hits the fan next year. But if he comes back, then we get to start finding out about J.J. McCarthy. So I know that people really, really want to.

It still remains up in the air and possible that they will not play him when they return. And that just means that they are feeling like he needs much, much more development before he's ready to go. So the Vikings win. That's the bottom line. The Vikings win a game that I thought they were going to lose, that you thought they were going to lose, I'm sure in the fourth quarter when they couldn't stop the run.

And when they were down 17 to 14 and Dylan Gabriel, I give him credit. He did a good job in this game, keeping the train on the tracks, had a safer game that I think we all thought he was going to have and made the Vikings very, very nervous there. and Jordan Addison comes through, Carson Wentz comes through a bunch of linemen play hero,

and now there is the opportunity there to get this back into what it was supposed to be, the shape, because it was an unrecognizable lineup today. When you saw all of the roster moves and all that throughout the week of, you know, this, you know, Kelly going on IR. They did get CJ Hammback. That's good for them.

But, I mean, this group, it was a bunch, I mean, Max Brozmer taking a snap from Blake Brandel just blew my mind. Like, what are we in the fourth preseason game? Like, what's going on here? So the fact that they escape this with still being able to have a chance to race in the NFC North is kind of remarkable, considering where things looked like they were about to be. And a win is a win. So if you're watching the post game or listen to the post game back in the comments,

Fandul question the day. Don't forget to answer that. Vikings were minus 160 to win at least eight games before today. Now that they have won against Cleveland, they're three and two. Give me a one to ten chance that they get at least nine, that they clear that number and have a chance to go into the playoffs. So thanks everybody for watching and listening. Appreciate all of your participation.

And it'll be an interesting week. We'll have Mani Hill and Brian Murphy for the roundtable to react to this win and preview what's coming next. That is tomorrow. and also react to the other games that happened today. And we'll do the Tuesday morning left guard and get the full review from Jeremiah Surles. We'll get some other fun guests on.

I've talked with Chris Trappaso about getting him back on. It's been a little while. So we'll break everything down in this by week and still have some fun. You know the Purple Insider train never stop. So thanks again, everybody, for watching and listening. And the Vikings are three and two. Don't ask how they got there. We'll catch you all later.

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