Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - POSTGAME: Vikings BLAST Bengals behind Wentz, defense

Episode Date: September 21, 2025

Matthew Coller talks with Dane Mizutani of the Pioneer Press about the Vikings' win over the Cincinnati Bengals 48-10 at US Bank Stadium and what it means going forward. The Purple Insider podcast is brought to you by FanDuel. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hey, everybody, welcome into the Purple Insider Postgame show presented by Fandul, Matthew Collar here along with Dane Mizatani and just how everyone predicted. The Vikings won 48 to 10. So this, I got to say, was the ultimate week of any given Sunday. Any given Sunday for this game, any given Sunday with the Cleveland Browns beating the Green Bay Packers. and et cetera for a lot of different games in the NFL as the Vikings are now two and one and have the same record as a team that everybody had winning the Super Bowl last week. And I guess that's why they play 17 of these things.

But, Dane, let's just begin with the most obvious place. And then we will get to everything else about how this played out. The most obvious place is what it all means that the Vikings blasted the Cincinnati Bengals. I think we start there with Carson Wentz playing a very reasonably solid football game for a game managing veteran quarterback. And I thought Wentz did everything that you could have asked him to do. It wasn't perfect. It wasn't flawless.

We're not going to grade him an A plus for this game. But he didn't throw the ball away. He didn't fumble it. He got it out of his hands. Just the Jefferson caught it. Nobody has to go to jail. Jordan Mason ran extremely effectively and they played off it. They had long drives.

They held on to the ball, so the defense didn't get tired, except for when they were blocking for Isaiah Rogers' touchdowns. A very good game at the quarterback position, and I think that this was the team that we expected the Minnesota Vikings to be. This is what we thought they were going to look like in all three weeks. It didn't exactly look this way, but we thought dominating defense, mauling pressure on the quarterback. Being able to stop the run was huge for them today. that was always iffy, but the idea of this defense just taking over games and then the quarterback only have to do his job, that's what we saw today from Carson Wentz and the Minnesota Vikings. Yeah, and I think that's what you'll look at this game and say if they can get

quarterback play like they got today, whether it's Carson Wentz or whether it's J.J. McCarthy, they're going to win a lot of games. But Carson Wentz looked like an adult in the room today. He looked like a guy who has played 94, made 94 starts in the NFL. Ball came out on time. look, the Cincinnati Bengals stink. The defense is terrible. J.J. McCarthy very well could have done what Carson Wentz did today in theory, but after what we saw last week against the Atlanta Falcons where the game looked too big for him, the Atlanta Falcons, by the way, who got their doors blown off by the Carolina Panthers today,

so any given Sunday. I don't know if you can just say, well, J.J. McCarthy would go 14 of 20 like Carson Winst did. J.J. McCarthy would throw for 173 yards like Carson Wentz did. J.J. McCarthy would have thrown for two touchdowns. touchdowns like Carson Wentz did. I think that's probably just taking a comparison and just imparting it on to just because they stink, J.J. McCarthy would have been good. I think this has everything to do with Carson Wentz. And I think you saw him get more comfortable. Certainly it's easy to feel comfortable when your defense scores two touchdowns, when Isaiah Rogers literally

takes the game over and it's a close game and then all of a sudden you're winning by three scores. But I think big picture here, what we saw was Carson Wentz has been. been here a month. It was probably going to look clunky early on at times, but opening drive, the ball went where it was supposed to, they scored a touchdown. Then they hit a lull, but you know what he didn't do? He didn't turn the ball over. He just took his medicine, a couple three and outs, maybe some clunky plays on offense, a sack here, a sack there, but he didn't screw anything up. And when the defense had their chance to take the game over, Carson Wentz had already put the team in position by not throwing the ball to the other team.

by not turning the ball over but not taking bad sacks, that the game was there to be won and the defense won it for them. So I think big picture, what does this mean for the Vikings? I don't know. We can get in quarterback controversy in a few weeks here. But I think what you can take away from this game is if they get just competent adult-like quarterback play, they will win a lot of football games. Yeah, the way I would describe it is professional.

It looked like a professional quarterback who had played in a bunch of games who has made all those throws before, seen all. all those defenses before he did say it was a little unique out there with the way that teams guard Justin Jefferson. But aside from that, Jefferson was open and he got the football. We know that that's where this offense always starts. And from the beginning of the game, I thought it was even a positive sign for Kevin O'Connell where there was a quick little throw to Justin Jefferson just to get the ball in his hands right from the outset of the game. And then it seemed like it was a major priority for them to get the ball into Jefferson's hands. He has a 36-yard catch down the

middle of the field. There were several other ones that were not necessarily bombs that were, I wouldn't say quick game either. I would say just the intermediate plays that we tend to expect Jefferson to catch the ball. The other thing, too, was over the last few weeks, people have been asking, where is T.J. Hawkinson? Is T.J. Cook? Is he falling off? What's going out with him? Well, I think we got our answer today. The answer was that he needed a quarterback who was going to look underneath and find him and manage the pocket well enough to do that. And I think we can't really ignore that Wentz played a smart brand of football that the ball came out quick. There was a few times where he tried to scramble a little, but then if it

wasn't there, he just fell down. Or he almost made an amazing play to Adam Thielen just overthrew him by a little bit in the end zone. He found Josh Oliver. He found T.J. Hawkinson for touchdowns. They finished drives, which they have struggled to do so much. And that's why when we have a game like this where it's crazy plays on defense that are random of picking up fumbles, although I don't think it's completely random that this team causes turnovers. Like they emphasize it and they have players who do it. But okay, you could say, well, you know, they were playing from ahead all day. But I think in a process perspective, if that's how you play offense,

if you end up with pushing 200 yards passing, well over 100 yards rushing, relying on the guy that everybody wanted them to rely on over the first couple of weeks, which is Jordan Mason, who just could not look better over these first couple weeks. This is the best running we've seen since probably 2020 Delvin Cook, the explosiveness, the strength. So they stuck with that. There were several even instances, believe it or not, of second down runs with Jordan Mason.

And then Wentz would be in third and short, third and manageable. He converted some of them. And even when he didn't, they were able to punt the ball away, play the field position game. It is not the 1998 Minnesota Vikings. Some of the alumni were here today, some of the guys from that team. It's not that at this moment. The other thing, though, that they benefited from was having Christian Darrasaw back, which I think, I'm sure J.J. McCarthy was on the sideline watching that going,

now wait a minute. Like, wait a minute, he's got some time in the pocket to throw. This was everything coming together. It wasn't just Carson Wentz, but when you have someone who's functional, it kind of reminded me of how the 49ers played with someone like Jimmy Garoppolo, where we never watched Jimmy Garoppel and went, oh my gosh, this guy's incredible, but they had great defenses, they ran the ball well, they had an all-world left tackle, they had good wide receivers who could make plays after the catch, which they did today,

and get open over the middle and keep the sticks going. They stayed on the field a ton, and there you go, you win a football game. And to me, I think that that means, well, we know already that Carson Wentz is going to start next week. there's no question about that. Tracy Wolfson apparently said before the game on TV that week seven was the target date for J.J. McCarthy. That is odd to me with this particular injury. But, you know, I guess I don't really know. We'll have to hear more from Kevin O'Connell about that this week. But to me, this is how it was meant to be. And if Carson Wentz is the guy to do that, this isn't a season of development. This is a season of winning. Then you stick with Carson Wentz and have him play this

kind of football. Yeah, and I guess that's probably a conversation that they'll have in a couple of weeks, a few weeks. But what we do know, Kevin O'Connell kind of let it slip after the game when he said Carson has earned, something along the lines of Carson Wentz has earned another opportunity. So Carson Wentz will start for the Vikings against the Steelers in Dublin. And if he looks like he did today and they managed to win a game like they did today, they should beat the Steelers. They should beat the Browns, even though. I know the Browns just beat the Packers on some wacky blocked field goal and then a field goal of their own at the end. But they should win these next two games on paper.

And if Carson Wentz is the guy who was just playing point guard, you heard Sam Darnold say it last year. You heard Carson Wentz say it. It's got to be a KOCism because two guys seeing that at this point in their career, two guys who have kind of garnered the reputation being gunslingers, all of a sudden talking about just playing point guard, just throwing it around to my playmakers. that's really all you need the quarterback in this offense to do. But you need him to be able to process, to hit the back foot, to throw on time, to where the ball should be. I think what Kevin O'Connell kind of said, something along the lines afterwards is like, if you, in this offense, there's going to be people open. So if you can hit your back foot and throw on time, there's going to be people open. If you can get the footwork right, there's going to be people open.

I think you can go back and watch the film from Atlanta last. week, J.J. McCarthy, there were people open. I know people are going to say he had no time to throw, but there were people open if you just look at that all 22 over the course of that game. That game was there to be won if you just got a little bit more professional quarterback play. So I think the good thing about this situation is it's going to play itself out over the course of time. I don't think the Vikings have to make a decision now. Do we bench our franchise quarterback for the journeyman veteran? But Carson Wentz now. has an opportunity. If he continues to play good enough, not great, doesn't even have to play awesome. If he just plays good enough, takes care of the football and lets the entire team kind of position themselves for victories, I think he has a chance to keep starting even after the by week, after this ankle injury for J.J. McCarthy calms down. I guess it's a reason to keep sticking around and watching this team because there is going to be some entry with the quarterback position if Carson Wentz plays like he did today. Folks, I know a lot of

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ZipRecruiter, the smartest way to hire. There were just so many plays today from Wentz, and this is with all recognition that the Bengals do not have the best defense in the NFL, that they have kind of one pass rusher and it's not the same as the Falcons with the offensive line and they were in a better spot. Today, there's no question about that. And there's a huge difference between clean pockets and messy pockets. But at the same time, you sort of create your own clean pockets by getting the ball out quickly. And last week, I think the smoking gun for J.J. McCarthy's tough week was that time to throw metric,

where he was the slowest in the league at getting the football out. And we saw today how quickly it came out of Carson Wentz's hands. And there's one to T.J. Hawkinson. it's just a regular old first down he drops back he looks he looks he looks and it's just bang bang bang hawkinson and then it's a first down just moving the drive a little bit nothing super special from him wasn't a crazy type of throw into traffic or anything else but that's who t j hawkinson really is in this offense which is find space and be available now last year sam darnold looked over him all the time and just threw it down the field we didn't see that from

I thought that his anxiousness, I'm sure, of playing in front of this crowd, which he was a part of when he was a kid and everything else, never showed at all, like the big stage or, you know, Tony Romo's here and Jim Nance or any of that, because his timing from the start of the game was just on point. He was seeing it well. He was seeing his receivers. And he was making plays like that to T.J. Hawkinson, where he wasn't trying to do too much. And Hawkinson ends up with five catches for 49 and a touchdown. There's nothing really special about that. What did Oliver had just the 112 yards? So to the tight end, six times he throws to them, gets like 60-something yards.

That's exactly what you're looking for from this offense. And then you can ask Justin Jefferson to make big plays. And by the way, next week, Jordan Addison returns. And there's another guy who they sorely need because we have not seen a whole lot yet from Adam Thielen. But let your receivers make the plays. And he said that after the game that he said his favorite thing in the league is when he could just get rid of the ball as quick as possible, into a receiver's hands, and let them do the rest. It's too old for this stuff now.

That sort of mentality is one that can keep this team on the field, let their defense stay fresh like it was today, and allow them to make plays. And if they get too far down the road here with winning games playing like this, then there will not be an opportunity to go back to J.J. McCarthy. Now, I don't want to get too far ahead of myself after one game against a pretty bad. team that I think is maybe going to be drafting high next year if Jake Browning looks like this. It's just that by design, the way that Kevin O'Connell had it in his head going into this season, this was what it was supposed to look like. And we heard him say, I have to run Jordan Mason. I have to lean on the run. We have to get completions. And underneath, we heard West Phillips talk about quick game. And we're like, yeah, right, Kevin, we'll see that quick game

when we believe it, it was actually there today. And if Wence is the one that's executing it, then I think you actually, in today's NFC, I think you actually can win this way. A lot of football games, but you have to have Mason running. You have to have the defense playing this well. And you have to have a healthy offensive line. Yeah, I think it's a good point you make about this is what it was supposed to look like. Because, yes, they were one in one when they entered this game.

They were not 0 and 2. They had not been a complete and total utter disaster. but outside of one quarter, the football team did not look like what we thought the football team was going to look like. And I don't want to kick a guy when he's down, but the quarterback is the reason for that. It's just in the aggregate,

not just with J.J. McCarthy, but if a team doesn't look like it's playing the way that you think it should be playing, more often than not, it's because of the quarterback leading the charge. So, again, we'll see that, like I said, the thing about this is it will play itself out over time, just because Carson Wentz looked good against the Bengals

does not necessarily mean he's going to look good against the Pittsburgh Steelers. Their defense kind of stinks. But does not mean he's going to look good against the Cleveland Browns. But I think the larger point is that this is what it was supposed to look like and this is the first time all year that it's looked like what it's supposed to look like.

The fourth quarter in Chicago was awesome. It was a great moment for JJ McCarthy, but it was a title wave. It was not real. It was not over the course of a game. The Vikings looking like they're operating like the Vikings told us they were going to operate throughout the summer. This was the only time so far. So I think while we're not jumping too far ahead of ourselves, it's certainly worth asking.

Is the guy who played quarterback today, the guy who should be playing quarterback moving forward? And we're going to find that out because they could ultimately down the road end up in a difficult spot where Wenz has a bad game or two. And then you're asking, is it time to go to McCarthy? and we'll just save that conversation for when we get there. But as of right now, it makes sense to play Wentz as long as he is looking like this. And if it was a different type of universe for this team, if it was a spot where they were 0 and 3 and he got hurt, you'd be like get him back as soon as possible.

But when you look at the Packers, clearly not a perfect team. You look at the Lions, not a perfect team. The Bears, as of right now, are in our TV where we're doing this. and it's 1414. I don't think that they're going to be super special this year. If you're in this race with this roster and this team and this defense, which now was more healthy today and looked way different with Andrew Van Ginkle and Harrison Smith. Yeah, when you get a guy who has a Hall of Fame case back on your defense,

even if he's old, it turns out it makes a big difference. And there was one play in particular where I really saw this. Harrison Smith lined up at the line of scrimmage like he was going to rush. and Jake Browning did some sort of change and then Harrison Smith went nope and bailed way out and he was 20 yards away from the line and Jake Browning looked around like he was seeing ghosts had no idea what was going on. Jonathan Grenard pressures him. Dallas Turner had a great day by the way, had a bunch of pressures on this day. And when we talk about randomness versus things that are repeatable, okay, two touchdowns from the same player. We're going to get to Isaiah Rogers Day. that's pretty crazy. You can't expect that every week. But the way they stopped the run, the way that the defense was much stronger tackling today, Harrison Smith and his role in this defense, which allowed Josh Mattelis to play up at the line of scrimmage. I saw a stat this week that from NextGen that Mattelis had only played in a traditional safety spot 12% of the time last year and was doing it 64% this year. I don't think that's his strong suit. I think his strong suit is up at that line of scrimmage. That made it a massive issue.

impact today too. So I think there was a lot of process type things. Like if you play this way, even if you don't get multiple defensive touchdowns, you're going to be once again the defense that we expected you to be. Yeah, it's actually a perfect hand-in-hand marriage with the way we just talked about the offense. Like the process of how the offense function today will win a lot of football games. The process of how the defense made plays today will win a lot of football games. It doesn't mean that you're going to get forced like four or five turnovers. It doesn't mean you're always going to punch the ball out and the ball is going to land in your lap and you're going to run 66 yards

for your second touchdown of the day like Isaiah Rogers did. But if you stop the run, something they did very well last year, and you force turnover, something they did very well last year, this is a recipe for success. And if you can pair that, Kevin O'Connell always talks about complementary football. If you compare that with the way the offense played today, their process, then you start to see why we sat there on the porch at your house and said, I think they can win 10, 11 games

because the talent is there, they're good enough. They held the Bengals to 53 yards rushing today and 118 yards passing. Jake Browning was a disaster by the end of it. Obviously, we're going to talk about Isaiah Rogers, but I think the point you made about Harrison Smith is a good one. It reminded me of what Brian Flores talked about last week in the lead-up to the Bengals game.

when we asked him about how important Harrison Smith is. And he basically said Harrison Smith has carte blanche to make certain checks that very few players in the entire league do. So when you talk about him going to the line of scrimmage, bluffing a blitz and dropping in a coverage, I don't know for a fact that he did that on his own, but I can say with full confidence there's a chance he did that just all by himself because he makes those checks in real time and he unlocks something else in this defense that they don't have when he's not on the field because he has so much experience. He brings a little extra swagger to the defense, no doubt about it. He's not the dominant hitman guy that he was in his prime. But when you're that smart, when you've done it for that long,

you can kind of see what it looks like when you're on the field compared to when you're not on the field. So the process of the defense today, while the turnovers weren't repeatable, the process, I think, was. If they do what they did today, stopping the run, playing the pass, pressuring the passer, enforcing turnovers, if that's just something they focus on, I mean, they're going to be a really good football team. Well, and they said that it was really execution this week that was so much better for them against the run. And I felt like it all started there because what this team wanted to do was throw their short passes and they wanted to run the ball and they have a backup quarterback in the game. They didn't want Jake Browning doing a lot of straight dropback. And then for Harrison

Smith to be right place, right time to tip that ball for Isaiah Rogers to intercept it, I guess was no surprised to anybody that go there there's harrison smith being a playmaker right off the bat right off the what was that first or second drive maybe uh of the entire game not a shock for harrison to be there and i also think that it brings a lot of calmness for all these guys who have relied on him he doesn't miss a lot of football games in his career and so he's always been out there and he's the one that's there for the josh metellus the theo jackson they're always listening to him for what he's doing from a communication standpoint, and I think Flores has always viewed him as a defensive coordinator on the field. Again, not having that is a pretty big deal. But everybody was knocking

the ball out today. Eric Wilson, Isaiah Rogers, Jalen Redmond, who had a great game, by the way. Some of these younger players are stepping up here. I mentioned Dallas Turner. PFF grades the game live, and then they go back and look at it again. The last time I looked at it, he had five pressures today, which is a really good game for Turner. And I thought he probably could have had two sacks. Maybe if he just kept accelerating, he kind of dove for Jake Browning. And Browning was able to scramble away from, I don't know, three, four different sacks that it looked like this team was about to get. Jonathan Grenard remaining kind of on his warpath this year to just play like a lunatic every game. And he definitely did that today. But Isaiah Rogers is the reason this game is a blowout.

if the Vikings played offensively and defensively the way that they did today, they would have won if they didn't get those big plays. If they had zero defensive touchdowns, they win this game. They were the better team. But the first half that he played is the most insane first half of football by a defensive player that I have ever seen in my life. And I was thinking back about the, like, the number of amazing players in the NFL in the history, the Dionne Sanders, Rod Woodson, Aeneas Williams, like Ed Reed, none of them. did this. What he did today, forcing fumbles and it should not be discounted, at least getting a thumb or something on that deep ball to T. Higgins, where T. Higgins routinely mosses people

as we saw from that game in 2003, and he went up and broke it up. And all I could think of Dane was when we were in Florida sitting at the table with Kevin O'Connell, and we asked O'Connell, hey, this Isaiah Rogers guy, like, what's his deal? Yeah, I mean, we'd known him. He was a player had been around a little bit. And he said, said, when Brian Flores gets his look in his eye about a player, we just get him. We don't even think about it. And he had that look with Isaiah Rogers. I guess we know why. He is about the fastest guy you'll ever see in your life. The way he didn't even jump at the right time to break up the Higgins and still was up in the air high enough to break up that play. The athleticism and playmaking

of this guy is clearly, clearly special. It's amazing that he was a backup. I guess we know why the Eagles won the Super Bowl. They had backups that are as good as Isaiah Rogers. This was a historic day for him and I think bodes extremely well for the secondary, which we were asking a lot of questions about going into the season. Yeah, you, it's impossible. You cannot play cornerback better than Isaiah Rogers played cornerback in the first half today. You can only play it as well as he did. You can't be better than him because he did today what no player has ever done in a game. he had two defensive touchdowns and two forced fumbles. No one has ever done that in a game.

He did that in a half. Insane. You mentioned those names. None of those guys have ever done it, and I get it. We can cherry pick certain stats and say, like, nobody's ever done this on a Tuesday, and you can all create a stat out of thin there. That one's pretty just self-explanatory.

He had two defensive touchdowns and two forced fumbles, and no one's ever done that before. You can't play a cornerback in the league better than he did today. But I think what it gives you, like, big picture is you just all of a sudden feel really good about your cornerback, too. And I think this guy, Isaiah Rogers, kind of lived in obscurity. You didn't really know who he was. He was signed on the first day of free agency when everybody was monitoring other things. It was like, oh, the Vikings finally signed.

Oh, no, they signed Isaiah Rogers. I should look up who this is. I remember, we were on the podcast. And I was like, got to go. I got to go right about Isaiah Rogers because I don't know who he is. I think he existed like that to everybody across Minnesota, not his teammates, not probably players in Philadelphia, but maybe even players across the league probably wouldn't have known who Isaiah Rogers was before today. And it doesn't mean every week he's going to score two touchdowns, but I think it gives you a confidence now. It's like, man, if we can just get corner, like, if that's the guy that we have playing cornerback too, we can be pretty good.

And I think when you start to kind of break it down, you mentioned the conversation that Kevin O'Connell talked about with Brian Flores, you start to see the DNA of certain people that he looks for. And then when you see what Isaiah Rogers did today, and then you look at what the defense has done in the past, the marriage is there. It makes sense. And I think they might have, shocker, found another diamond in the rough.

I mean, Brian Flores' scouting background shows up all the time. He really wanted Andrew Van Ginkle. Then he got Andrew Van Ginkle and turned him into a demon. He really wanted Isaiah Rogers. And while he's not going to get two touchdowns every week, I think what we've seen already is that he has the tools to be a pretty top-flight starting quarterback in the league. He's fast. He's athletic.

He has good ball skills. The interception that he made earlier today, that's not an easy interception to make. I get it. It fell in his lap. But tip ball, you see defenders drop that all the time. He tracks the tip ball by Harrison Smith. brings it in, breaks a tackle, by the way, and then he's off to the races. We asked Josh Mantellis about his speed after the game, and he said,

if you really go back and watch, dude is just jogging on those two defensive touchdowns. He's not even running at top speed. He's a special playmaker in this defense that has a lot of them, and I think he's somebody that after today, a lot more people in the league are going to know about him, and a lot more people within kind of the opponents that the Vikings are going to face have to all of a sudden say, they got Byron Murphy Jr. who is among one of the top paid cornerbacks in the league. And now they got this guy Isaiah Rogers, who's just a walking playmaker. Maybe we should reconsider throwing the ball at times. And that sort of speaks to as well.

Like they were able to have two corners on the field a lot, just Rogers and Byron Murphy because Harrison Smith was healthy so they could have Josh Mattelis playing in a nickel position a good amount of times, and if you're only relying on those two corners more. And Okuda, you know, it a questionable penalty, made a couple of tackles today, but you don't want him on the field quite as much. If Rogers and Murphy can be on the field and then have Mattelis playing your nickel corner type of spot in the box, you are feeling a heck of a lot better about that than maybe you did just a couple of weeks ago. Theo Jackson is another guy that stepped up for the secondary and just mentioning sort of the process over the random element. It is part of the process to

be a playmaker. And to go out, and they, Mattalis was joking with us about how often they practice punching the ball out. But you've really seen that over the last couple years. I actually did a story on it last year with Josh. And he said that even the peanut Tillman stuff from years ago where the peanut punch, that they are shown filmed by Matt Daniels. This is part of who they are and you need the players to be able to execute it. So that's not completely random that this team takes the ball away. It is when it bounces right to you and you pick it up and run it for a touchdown, but not guys who have a penchant to be playmakers, which I think we're learning that about Isaiah Rogers today. And his speed reached over 20 miles an hour. And apparently he was not

even going full speed. That is extremely, extremely impressive. But I thought just start to finish top to bottom. It was as good as we've seen this defense in a really long time. I mean, wouldn't we have to go back to maybe the way they played in the first half of the Packers game last year is the last time that we felt like this defense was really rock solid and jalen redman getting into the backfield making plays forcing running backs to you know have to bounce out to where your tacklers are and eric wilson had a really great game again today so i think two out of the three times he's had to come in he's done an extremely extremely good job and it just sort of goes back to the main theme of this postgame podcast which is that's what we expected that's

That's what we thought, and the last two weeks were a little perplexing to come in here and talk or in Soldier Field and talk about it and say, yeah, they couldn't do some of the stuff that we expected them. We didn't think there'd be as many open receivers as there was in Chicago. We didn't think that someone would just steamroll them in the running game like they did against Atlanta, and now they have to take this overseas to Dublin and then to London. but I think that all of it coming together today gives you the expectation that over the next two weeks, they should win these games and they should come back home at four and one if this is the way they're playing. So what I'm balancing though, Dane, is we started the podcast by saying any given week and now I'm saying, well, they should just win the next two games, guys, obviously, and then just come back and it'll all be fine. And you go forward with the season that we all thought they were going to have.

And let's all forget whatever tweets we had last week during the Atlantic. game is how realistic is that based on what we saw today i think it's more realistic than not like obviously nobody predicted that the browns were going to beat the packers today but we do see it in the NFL sometimes you just play with your food against a bad team and then all of a sudden like oh crap we lost Vikings have done that countless times in the past so i got to go back and watch the game i was obviously watching this one but i don't know that it was the packers playing down to the Browns, you see that sometimes, maybe overlooking the Browns, you see that sometimes. I guess what I'm zooming out and saying is that the Vikings should be able to walk into

whatever Croke Park in Dublin, never hosted a game there, that should be fun. But they should be able to walk into Croke Park in Dublin and feel like we are better than the Pittsburgh Steelers. We should beat the Pittsburgh Steelers. The Pittsburgh Steelers who barely beat the New England Patriots today and the Patriots had like two turnovers in the end zone, so probably very well could have lost the New England Patriots today. Like, talking about results each week is probably a little silly because of what we saw

today across the league, that it doesn't really matter. But you should feel comfortable and confident if you're the Vikings, we are better top to bottom than the Pittsburgh Steelers. And if you're better top to bottom than a team, then you should win the game. They should feel the exact same way, if not stronger, about Cleveland, who is starting a 49-year-old quarterback named Joe Flacko. I just think it's not getting too far. It's not putting the carriage before the horse here.

you say they should be four and one heading into the buy because I think that entering last week we were sitting at in us bang stadium eating dinner and saying they should they're going to beat the atlanta falcons today and they're going to play a joe burrow list bangles team and they're going to go overseas and they should be five and no heading into the buy we did this all last week and then obviously it felt like the sky was falling for seven days in minnesota but this is what the team was supposed to look like we saw it today in a 48 to 10 victory over the bangles And I think they'll walk into each of the next two games. If they just play like they are supposed to, I think they'll win handily in both.

They're just better than the next two teams are going to play. There is probably an element of randomness when you play in Dublin and then you play in London and that's never happened before. But it's just football for three hours at the end of the day. That's the most football thing I've ever said. But you should walk out of those two games or you walk into those two games thinking you're better and you should walk out of those two games with victories under your belt. It is indeed just football for three hours.

Tremendous analysis there. But, yeah, I think setting the bar at winning these next two games and having the start to the season that we all projected to prepare yourself for the tougher part of this schedule. And that's why what we're working with with this small sample of these first three weeks is so hard to pin down certain things. And I think we can end with our final part of this conversation with sort of what you feel fairly certain about and what you're still on rocky ground about. One thing I am extremely certain of is that Christian Derisaw completely changes this franchise, not just changes the situation for this game or next week or whatever.

I mean, everything operates starting there at left tackle. And if we didn't really think too much about that, last. year when he was playing so well before he got hurt or 2023 where he was a superstar boy you thought about it a lot over those first two weeks when jay mccarthy was getting consistently pressured and then we saw carson wends today drop back read read oh there's my receiver and i'm not terrified that i'm going to get murdered so uh christian daresaw just such a massive factor the way that jordan mason runs the football and i look it's not better that aaron jones is hurt it's not That's not what I'm saying.

But now that they're in a situation where they're forced to lean on the better back as a pure runner, not as a receiver, not as a pass protector, which there was a little bit of an issue today on one particular rep, but as a ground and pound, if you're going to play this way, this is the kind of guy you want to play with. Aaron Jones is not the kind of guy you want to play this way with. Jordan Mason is. And even I thought Zay Scott was good today. I mean, he got one called back that was a good play. Or maybe it was actually two that were good plays that were.

called back, but he looked pretty good in that spelling role. But I think that's something through his career. He's averaged five yards of carry. This is not a random event today that he was good. And Justin Jefferson getting the football and having the offense operate more smoothly, I think is sustainable. I think the ceiling is capped for this offense at they're not going to go 500 yards. But if Jefferson is getting the ball from his quarterback, we've seen this before from Mullins and a little bit, you know, Dobbs, but especially, you know, Mullins and darn old, those who have leaned on Jefferson, as we saw Went to do today, and Hawkinson have thrived because of it. And I still have some questions about this defense, but if it is

at all cylinders, if it's completely healthy, which is a question in itself, I think this is closer to what you think they're going to be, especially the next few weeks. And then if they play like this they can go to battle with just about anybody yeah so the question is do i what do i have questions about moving forward what i feel confident about moving forward i feel confident about what i already felt confident moving into the season i feel confident that they're going to be able to run the ball better if they just commit to it they did today they committed to it and they finished with the 169 yards rushing i feel confident that that is repeatable moving forward even if you're not playing the terrible defense of the the Cincinnati bangles i don't

think it always means you're going to score a hundred or run for 169 yards but I think you can put pressure and stress on the opposing defenses with the investment you put into the running game this off season I feel confident that that will be something you can continue moving forward I also feel that it's repeatable to get high level production out of your playmakers because we've just seen that in the past Justin Jefferson is the best receiver in football Jordan Addison is the best number two receiver in football to me. We'll see him back. It's T.J. Hawkinson. I think if you can use him the way, like, this is what the playmaking is supposed to look like. The only question I have is the quarterback play. Are we going to see this out of Carson Wentz against better teams? And I guess

that's why I'm having a hard time jumping all the way to the conclusion of, well, they got to roll with this guy moving forward. I think, and I've said this time and time again over the last 35 minutes. If he forces your hand, that's a good thing. Because if you are in a position where you're like, I think we have to play Carson Wentz. It's because he's played so well. But I got to see it again. I got to see it again and again and again for me to really believe that he can just be the point guard, that he can just be a guy who, if it's not there, I'll just take this sack. I'll fall down it to the ground. I won't try and be Superman and throw the ball 40 yards downfield for an interception that can hurt my team.

He's been both over the course of his career. So if you can bottle what he was today and apply that moving forward, the team's going to be really good. But outside of the confident people that I have, the confidence I have in certain areas of this offense, that is a big question mark. On the defensive side,

I just don't know if they're going to be able to continue to force turnovers at the rate that they do. but maybe I should stop thinking that this is not sustainable because to your point earlier, they work on this. They work on punching the ball out. They work on ball hawking when the ball's up in the air. Turnovers are random to a degree, but some turnovers are not. Like a ball bouncing around and you recovering a fumble,

fumble luck random. But you just going out as a defensive coach or a defensive coordinator like Brian Flores and finding certain guys that have that knack for making plays, maybe that's not random. So while that might be the only question I have on this defense, outside of health, that's a big question, too. Can they stay healthy?

I think I feel pretty confident about the defense playing the way it did today. It doesn't, like I keep saying, it's not going to look like a 38 point blowout, but the process, if they can just do what they did today, I think most of what they did today is repeatable. I think that we're going to have to see more from the run defense specifically, and they were facing Jake Browning. and yeah he is jake brown i know that he had a pretty good season in 23 he beat them in

2003 and made some plays in that game this is a backup quarterback coming into a place like this that i thought was rocking today i thought the atmosphere was really good there were a lot of legends vikings legends in the house and i thought i was kind of impressed by the crowd from the start of the game because i wondered about the last week and if there would be a little bit of a lull which we have seen in the past. I didn't feel that. I thought there was a lot of really good energy and it helped that good things happened for them. But even from the beginning of the game that was helpful to the defense especially, and Jake Browning was freaked out and he was freaked out by the different looks that they gave him, which they've probably never given him before. They were

using a much less talented group of people in 2003 than they were this game. And one thing I think is consistent with causing turnovers is pressure on the quarterback. And this, group, if Dallas Turner plays like he did today, they will pressure the bleep out of every quarterback they're going to play. Now golf's going to be better against it. Hertz is going to be better against it. The great quarterbacks that are eventually on their schedule, Lamar Jackson, I'm sure, will give them more trouble than Jake Browning did today. The run defense, this is Chase Brown. He's not good. Their line isn't good. It's actually kind of a joke. So that part of it, I still have questions. Jayvon Hargrave got banged up today in this game.

but I was also very impressed with Levi Drake Rodriguez. And that's where if Redmond and Levi Drake Rodriguez develop, those guys can fill in some of that gap where we thought, how they trade away Harrison Phillips, what's that going to look like? But the way that Levi was getting into the backfield today and Redmond, again, it's a bad offensive line, but those were really impressive performances. We also have to talk about two more things before we wrap.

One is Will Riker. Whoa. I thought so, Will. I thought so. we had seen him kick some of the most impressive balls that we've ever seen our life in training camp last year. Then he started out camp a little bit, shaky, I think, and then got it together and started doing it again, where he'd be kicking from 55, and it looked good from 65. But that doesn't mean you could do it in the game. He comes out and bangs a 62-yard or home.

I guess we know what his distance is. I thought this one would have been good from 65. That was very impressive. Ryan Wright was fantastic today. I know in a 38-point game you're like, whatever, the punter, but early in the game, though, they were playing a possession-type game where you are punting sometimes, and he flipped the field multiple times. I think he has been way better so far this year in the past. And we also have to talk about Kevin O'Connell and the way he guided the ship this week. I wrote about it, and the main sort of thesis of what I was talking about is all of this stuff that O'Connell just bangs home of the culture, his relationship with players, his ability, as Justin Jefferson said, to sort of guide the ship without having

too many emotional ups and downs. Thielen added that as well, said that he's actually learned over the last couple of years to do that. And the Kevin O'Connell that we saw this week, I didn't think was shaken. I thought he seemed projected confidence in Carson Wentz. And we kind of wondered, well, how are they going to reflect Kevin O'Connell's message? And the other part was, you can only improve on your mistakes if you learn from them. And I think he did make mistakes in that Atlanta game. I think he did ask too much of his quarterback at times. He did not ask too much of his quarterback today. It was just right. It wasn't too hot. It wasn't too cold. It was just right. So if we were doing our grades for the different parts of this team, I would give the coaching staff

a phenomenal grade for this game for the game plan on defense from Flores, the game plan on offense play calling which you guys love to always talk about so much but guess they use the good plays today when they execute them they're the good ones and just the overall leadership to get through that because I thought last week could have had the potential to be a very very stressful week on this entire franchise knowing the eggs that they had put in the McCarthy basket and here they are with one of the biggest blowouts in team history yeah I think it's almost something with Kevin O'Connell that he preaches his culture so much It doesn't feel real.

It doesn't feel authentic. It doesn't feel genuine until you realize that, like, he is who he is at all times. If you just met him after last week and you didn't know anything about Kevin O'Connell and you heard a guy standing at the podium, banging the drum, culture, it's revealed in hard moments, you would roll your eyes. But we've seen this. We've seen what a steady hand through the chaos can do for a franchise. We've also seen what somebody who rides the roller coaster can do for a franchise. franchise. He has a head coach in the National Football League, especially in 2025, especially

in the hot take era, especially when social media is so prevalent, especially when fans can quit a team in two quarters, you cannot ride the roller coaster. There are coaches in the NFL that still ride the roller coaster every week, and their teams reflect it. The teams ride the roller coaster as well. I think if Kevin O'Connell wasn't so steadfast in his culture, his belief in that culture, they've built since they got here in 2022. This could have looked, dare I say, 48, 10, the other way, because the vibes were terrible going into, like externally, the vibes felt terrible going into this game. It felt like, oh, they better win, or are they one of the worst?

Like, these are the conversations that get had outside of the building because it's hard not to ride the roller coaster in the NFL. They only let you do this thing 17 times in the regular season. So every game feels like the most important game in the world. The fact that Kevin O'Connell was able to operate this week after getting your doors blown off in prime time at home, by the way, you lost your franchise quarterback to a high ankle sprain, you're starting Carson Wentz, who hasn't started a game of actual consequence since 2024, and that he was just steady hand through it all, yes, high marks across the board for that because I don't think they probably still win the football game because the Bengals are a disaster. But I don't think they come away with the win that is so convincing that it projects confidence of what this team could be moving forward if the head coach is not just steady through the chaos. So, yeah, I mean, he deserves the credit for this. The players obviously went out and made it happen on the field.

But I think we see at times, and we've seen it in the past, leadership really matters in hard moments. It's why he made a lot of money this offseason. whoever said week-to-week league should have copyrighted it because they would have made a lot more money. It really truly is. I think that Vikings fans should prepare themselves, though, with all that being said about Kevin O'Connell and the way he guides them through adversity and so forth, I would strap in. This feels like a roller coaster. You know, I was talking with Ben Gessling on our way up about 2017 and how week three, 2017, they killed the Tampa Bay Bucks who were kind of in. a similar spot. They had a bunch of injuries. They were downtrodden when they showed up

and Case Keenham went off in that game and they got a couple of picks of James Winston, whatever it was. And it was the same feeling of like, yeah, something just happened there. And I don't know exactly what it is or what it's going to mean, but you don't just blow teams out like the way they did then and like the way they did today. The over under on Fandul for the Vikings, nine and a half, still despite the fact that, you know, gestures at everything. I am going to every week look back at this, the pick of 11 wins and where I feel confidence-wise in it. My confidence clearly went down after last week. Shocker, right?

I think after seeing them be the team that we thought they would be by week three and now two and one, which is a record we probably projected them at, two and one or three and oh, I'm going to go back to the confidence that I was at before, which is fairly. Like if I was doing the meter thing, I'd put it in the orange. I'm still now back to having seen Carson Wentz operate this thing, fairly confident they could be a double-digit win team, also seeing Green Bay lose, knowing that Detroit is fallible, looking at the schedule, Jaden Daniels is injured, and who knows what Washington is, although Marcus Mariotta, shout out to your guy, Marcus Marriota,

who had a phenomenal game today, but nobody's perfect. They play Dallas later this season. They play the Giants later this season. Like, you know, preseason schedule, you never know what it's going to look like when you actually face those teams. We thought that Burrow was going to be here today. He was not.

So I'm going to stick with that and stay that I am confident in it. But I would also just warn. And I know it wouldn't be football if it wasn't this way. But what we just went through, I wouldn't be shocked if you go through it again at some point this season, where it's what's JJ going to be? Is Carson Wentz going to be the starter? They lost a terrible game. They blew out a team and had a great game.

I think that's what this team is going to be in 2025. Yeah, I can't get to 12 wins. I should have probably never got to 12 wins. So my confidence level in 12 wins is low, very low. But if you just go back each week and we look at the Fandu over under at 9 and a half, it's going to be a good line. And I've still, I even said last week after the loss to Atlanta that I felt confident about them clearing that number,

about getting to double-digit wins. I feel that even more so after today, obviously, because they won by 38, but I feel that more so after today because we finally saw what I think we thought the Vikings were going to look like. And I think that's a perfect way of kind of putting a bow on this thing, is that we had not seen that in the eight quarters that they played prior to today. We only saw it once for a hot second and a fun moment in Chicago. Other than that, they looked like a team that I did not recognize from the training camp that we saw. Today was the first day that they looked like they were supposed to. So I feel confident about them getting to double-digit wins, but I think you're on to something. I mean, we're going to probably at certain points throughout the year think,

oh, are the wheels falling off this thing? And then the next week, everything's fine here in Minnesota. That's the way this thing goes. Who will be the captain of that ship? Will it be Carson Wentz? Will it be J.J. McCarthy? I guess you've got to tune in to find out. I don't know if anybody, including Kevin O'Connell, Carson Wentz, and J.J. McCarthy knows.

Just to be specific, it is minus 180 to go under for nine and a half wins and plus 155 to go over. So right in that range, eight and a half, nine and a half still, I don't think Fandul knows either. But they do know that they present this postgame show. We appreciate them for that. Dane Mizatani, Matthew Collar, should be a very interesting. week of conversation with all of you. So I hope you, uh, jump in on that for some of the live shows, some of the guests that we'll have. It's, it wouldn't be Vikings football if we knew it was coming next. So thanks, everybody, for watching Vikings win 48 to 10, which is exactly

on our pregame prediction, incredible work by us. And we'll, uh, catch you guys later. Football. Football.