Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - QB School's JT O'Sullivan breaks down Josh Dobbs and best Saints-Vikings matchups

Episode Date: November 10, 2023

Former Minnesota Vikings quarterback JT O'Sullivan, who now runs QB School on YouTube, joins to talk about why the Josh Dobbs story has resonated with former quarterbacks and then Manny Hill ranks the best Vikings-Saints matchups Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

🎵 Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. And joining me, I am fanboying a little bit here for J.T. O'Sullivan, former Viking quarterback, but it's more as a content creator, the great QB School. Every week I am logging on and watching JTO Sullivan break down the film. And I have to say, JT, this week was a special one to watch you break down Josh Dobbs and listen to you laugh all the way through in disbelief at what he was able to pull off.

How fun was that for you to watch and then look through the tape and see how Josh Dobbs was able to do it? I mean, it was wild. It was like living through like a roller coaster because obviously the game, there were ups and downs within it, and then just trying to empathize with what that would actually be like, let alone one time in a season but twice in a season, and then to do what he did and how he was kind of not only do what he did

but how he did it. I thought like the way he used his skill set to kind of augment the craziness of that situation just made it that much more special. And it was really cool for the whole organization to kind of rally behind that performance and find a way to win. I mean, there aren't many people on earth who could take us inside the headset like you can

in situations like this. Even when you were a Viking, you had to kind of drop into the mix and learn an offense quickly. Give me an idea of degree of difficulty here for Josh Dobbs, but enhance it a little bit because he's a rocket scientist. Well, I mean, probably no one on the planet is more prepared to do this than he is, right?

He's already done it this year, essentially. But it doesn't make it any easier. It really doesn't. I think it's a combination. It certainly peaks with Josh Dobbs and what he's able to do and was able to do on the field, but it's really a collective effort. So from the play caller, from Kevin, from the communication, from the offensive line, from the adaptation of the entire unit to be able to go out there and make the kind of adjustments that they were able to make in game and kind of you know again there were some bad plays out there like it was a rough start I mean it was uh there were some tough turnovers it was not clean or pretty it wasn't just him running around making plays it was kind of fighting through that

adversity and using his skills his skill skill set, his legs, his athletic ability and making big plays when it mattered most. It was just a really cool, crazy opportunity. But to do that, let alone to do it once as a Cardinal getting traded, but then trade it again and doing it again. It just, I mean, I can't overstate how difficult that is for a quarterback to go in and do, let alone survive, let alone win. From the perspective of Kevin O'Connell, you had a number of different coaches and a number of different offenses in your career. I guess, what did he do in your mind to make that work right i mean because it seemed like in the way that o'connell explained it to us he was having to call plays have dobbs repeat it and then explain plays right after and then take every single second in between to get them over to the sideline and go over whatever

they could on the fly i think it spoke to kevin o'con like, first, he didn't kind of freak out, but also just his breadth of knowledge as a former quarterback and knowing what he could communicate to Josh Dobbs. Yeah, so all of the above there. I definitely think it speaks to Kevin's capacity as not only a play caller, but also a teacher. So you have to be able to teach in real time and really through multiple languages. So I definitely think it helps to be a quarterback and for Kevin to be

a quarterback who played in multiple systems. So once you kind of understand what is commonly referred to, at least for me on the channel, it's like universal football. You can speak it in a way to that can cut through the language barriers. So, you know, everybody knows, like the easy way to think of it is like a linguist, like everybody knows the verb to be, you know, like we can have different iterations of that across many different languages, but you know what a verb is. We can kind of talk about this past protection, or we can say what the concept is to this side or where you want the ball to try to go. And so they were able to kind of communicate that in a way that allowed him to function. Now he wasn't out there ripping balls with anticipation and you know, those types of

things when you're just meeting people probably in the huddle, if I'm being honest, you know, and the idea that he's going to go out there and at least Kevin was able to give him the kind of bones of every single concept to be like, Hey, this is where your eyes need to be. This is what the drop is. This is what the read is probably. And not only that, but Josh has to do exactly what you said, regurgitate it to the team. So you have to speak their language and then go back into your head in the headset, have somebody tell you in someone else's language, hey, flat curl to the left or, you know, go routes or anything like that to be able to actually play it quickly. So it's a combination of so many different skills. And then Josh was able to go out there and execute at a high enough level to win on a Sunday. It's just crazy.

So for someone like myself, having covered a lot of football, I think, I mean, this is really something. This is is crazy but for former quarterbacks uh and even you know people around the league playing quarterback currently but anybody who's been under center i think it seemed to hit different like warren moon's out here tweeting about it like even some of the best quarterbacks ever of what kind of accomplishment it is i guess put put that in context to what it means or how it hits you as a former quarterback when somebody who has played the position and you know how difficult that is, is able to do what Josh Dobbs did. Yeah, I mean, I think it's the ultimate sign of respect for the guys who have

done it, you know, especially you're talking about guys who are like Hall of Famers who they can kind of nod and appreciate. I can't imagine going in and doing that. You know, those types of things really do put it in perspective about how special it was. And it's one of those things where you just kind of, you know, it's almost you kind of joked about it, but there's some real truth in just the, you know, you almost have to laugh at it. I mean, it's I could not imagine.

I could not imagine doing that one time. And Josh has done it twice this year. I mean, it really is that kind of special. And so then I think, you know, the one with the Vikings was even more impressive because he really did come in midweek and just kind of like figure things out on the sideline and have that kind of like, you know, in-game translation. But it just, it's one of those things that it's a career defining weekend, career defining performance. I think I might've mentioned it in the video, but this is the kind of performance that really does catapult you into another,

you know, half decade, decade in the league. Yeah. And I'm curious to what you think of that because the next step of discussion in the NFL is always what's going to come next because it's sort of like we celebrate what happened or complain about what happened and then we move on to okay what are they going to do next uh you've done other Josh Jobs breakdowns and he's playing for Arizona and you saw he did let a couple of throws go that were pretty darn impressive that he you know threaded into some windows the one to TJ Hawkinson was nice on the out route um finding jordan addison down the sideline great catch by addison but there's a few plays in there that were very impressive quarterbacking also a few turnovers and so forth i i don't know how to judge josh dobbs though based on what he just did like

obviously i'm very impressed but how far should i go down that road to talking about what they can do the rest of the season with him at quarterback oh i thought you were going to jump even further i think they can absolutely have a good rest of the season for sure i think he hopefully learned from his opportunity to play in arizona this past year i think exactly what you said is all true i would just add that you know my thing about it was when that trade happened, I was like, why is Arizona trading him? What am I missing? And I wasn't really watching every single snap of the Arizona Cardinals, but I can guess that the reason they were trading him is because they got tired of him turning the ball over. And it was a combination of missing some of those throws that we saw and those turnovers make it really hard to win. Now, Arizona's got their own set of other outstanding issues, but that's the reason he was available. And so he's got to get away from that. He's got to, you know, refine some of the misses, make those things a little bit tighter,

which I think he certainly can do. You can see the polish that he has on his game. He's certainly been coached at a high level for a long time. He's not a guy who's on the streets, who was an undrafted free agent last year and was playing college football. He's a pros pro. And so you just need to take that game and get him to protect the ball and be a little bit more precise with his accuracy consistently. And, you know, who's to say what the ceiling is for this team and him playing quarterback for the end of this year. Now, moving forward, you know who's to say what the ceiling is for this team and him playing quarterback for the end of this year now moving forward you know who knows what they're going to do at the position and i insist that people go watch your video on qb school youtube channel uh i've mentioned it enough times on the show that uh people probably know where to find it by now

but some of the details were really cool to listen to you break down the way that he angled his drops to make throws. The anticipation throw to Tristan Jackson in the end zone that he kind of alligator armed. But I didn't realize in real time how much of an anticipation throw that had to be and how he had to kind of, you know, knife it in there, which I think he's got good velocity on his football and he's got the physical skills to be somebody that you talk about as a starting quarterback. The trouble with the turnover thing is it's hard to talk someone out of those. Like the one that he makes on the fumble, he's trying to do like some sort of jump pass where he's rolling out.

And the, the plays that work in this game are wild plays where he breaks tackles and runs for first downs. But I think that's a really difficult thing to balance of when can I be a playmaker and do something awesome, and when is that going to result in turnovers? Because normally you're not going to run 50 yards and gain 20 for a first down or something. Normally it's the turnovers that kind of sustain. Yeah, it's absolutely a fine line.

You would hope that, you know, I think Josh is a smart enough guy. We can make the assumption that the situation is different for the Minnesota Vikings than it was for the Arizona Cardinals. So you can play the game different early on. You can be more protective of the ball early on. Some of those turnovers are going to happen when you've got to have it into the game. You're going to have to take some chances if you're down. That's stuff you have to live with. It's the early in-game, kind of loose with the football, significant misses on throws that are easy. Those types of things are the things that you're going to look for for Josh Dobbs to immediately clean up. Now, it's not going to be perfect. Absolutely not. But just as far as the radius of some of those mistakes, you look to hone those things in.

Because I think everybody around the Vikings thinks that in that division, they've got a good chance to see what happens here at the end of the year and potentially play their best football down the stretch. I think so too. You look at their schedule, you look at the division, it's kind of laid out there with someone who has a sample size of seeing them play

to potentially take them to the playoffs. But since you kind of crack the door open, the long-term quarterback situation, Kirk Cousins has the Achilles injury. There's a lot of other factors that go into that. He was also playing some darn good football before he got hurt. Now you have another guy come in. If he plays well, does this speak to what Kevin O'Connell and the supporting cast can do for another quarterback?

I guess, how do you view this more on a global standpoint, the quarterback situation? I mean, I would say it would be hard to look at it and not think that you're at the beginning of a transition. You know, that's no shade to Kirk. He absolutely was playing outstanding. I think he's probably a better quarterback than people want to give him his kind of flowers across the league. And I think a's probably a better quarterback than people want to

give him his kind of flowers across the league. And I think a lot of people who know the position realize how well he's played. For whatever reason, it hasn't happened probably in the biggest moments, whether you want to categorize that as prime time or playoff opportunities or end of game things that just haven't gone his way. And so, you know, you add the injury into it and now they're probably looking for whatever the future looks like. All of a sudden got a little bit quicker, got here a little bit sooner. You know, I think depending on how Josh plays this thing out, it would be really hard to think that they're not going to go through the draft. And depending on how this thing plays out, they might be in a great position to capitalize on a lot of quarterbacks coming out

this year. So you'll just see how that thing goes. I mean, it's one of those things where you hope Kirk comes back. You hope he, you know, is comfortable in where he ends up. He's healthy, ready to go, but there's no, you know, I'm not that kind of doctor, so I don't pretend to get into those weeds, but it's one of those things where it's a good time to be in the market for a quarterback too. There's no doubt about it. A lot of young guys that can play it at a high level coming out. And you are most of my draft prep when it comes to quarterbacks, by the way. So you've got lots of content on that as well. But I mean, I think the thing that we're going to be all trying to figure out

is how much does Kevin O'Connell and a group of receivers, you saw how good Addison is, Justin Jefferson will come back, and then Hawkinson has made big plays for them as well. They have two of the best offensive tackles in the league like how much does that impact the quarterback i think is one of the hardest questions to answer but if we just distill it to kevin o'connell you talk about kirk in the biggest moments and i've seen a change in his demeanor under o'connell and then now we see it with dobbs even jaron hall looks pretty prepared to go out there when he first got out there and leads a drive down into the red zone. Give me a sense for how much a coach that is on the same page with you

as a quarterback understands your language, the offense that you see when you look at them on tape. How much does that affect the quarterback? I think it's a significant amount. I think each situation is a little bit different, but that relationship between not only the quarterback and the head coach, but I think it's magnified and compounded when that coach is also the play caller. And so when you're in lockstep and that person is really good, meaning that the play caller is creating opportunities for your eligibles in the passing game to pop wide open and have space and have the ability for you to deliver the ball on time and protect yourself and thrive consistently. It's pretty awesome. And you've already alluded to it. You know, you look across the landscape of the league.

It really matters if you've got a true one. It really matters if you've got perimeter speed. And so the Vikings certainly seem like they're a good opportunity for any quarterback to go in there and thrive. We'll see what it looks like, you know, for Josh and the rest of the year. But yeah, I mean, if you're a young quarterback coming out of college football, there's a lot to like about the Minnesota situation. Is there something to you that's a staple with, with O'Connell that stands out? I mean, to me, receivers are running open so often. And when I, when I go back and watch, I think like, I don't know,

I don't know what the defense was doing there because Jefferson's wide open or Addison's wide open. Is there something conceptually that like ties into that? I don't know. It all kind of stems back to the Shanahan, but then McVay. And it's not like a bunch of bootlegs or whatever, like Gary Kubiak would run. I guess it just seems like he understands his receivers' strengths

and then puts a lot on their plate that they can handle. But what do you see? I would say that's fair. I would also add that I think Kevin seems like he's got a real knack for being able to take advantage of what his players do really well and magnify that. So asking Kirk to make those types of throws and be the best version of himself is something that intuitively makes sense. But a lot of coaches will say, no, my system square peg, you're fitting in this thing, we're running it this way, this is how it's always done, as opposed to Kevin knowing Kirk from before. to take off. There's trust built in. And you alluded to it, but there's something about

having a true one and one of the best players in the league and Justin Jefferson when he's out there that it doesn't matter what coverage they're in. He's open. They can double him. He can do whatever. We're going to find ways to move him around and not have a static out there that he's going to be open and we can trust him to win. And we can trust Kirk when he's healthy to hang in there and deliver the ball down the can trust him to win. And we can trust Kirk when he's healthy to hang in there and deliver the ball down the field as well as anybody. And so those things make Kevin look good. But I think it's a combination of all those factors probably rolled together.

It'll certainly be – there's no doubt about it. I think it's worth acknowledging. Hopefully that building feels really good this week, and I'm sure they do. But it's not going to get any easier here down the stretch. And they're going to face some adversity here. And what that looks like for Kevin and company over the course of the season will probably be the defining factors when we think about this year. Right. If they don't take advantage of this, then it will be a blip on the radar that, you know, we say, hey, remember that game? Maybe that one time that Josh Dobbs showed up, but that will be kind of it unless they take advantage of it. I just wanted to ask you about the channel, about the QB school. And, you know, I did a whole

article over the summer about how you started and everything else. And clearly my article sent it, you know, it sent that over the top. And so you're welcome. I'm just kidding. It's obviously your content, but no, it has been, it has been cool to see it grow. And I wonder what you think of, because I saw a local news segment on JTO Sullivan says this or that about quarterback. And it's like, oh, OK, people are really paying attention now. Just the cottage industry of former quarterbacks making content and the challenges of watching the tape and studying it. But also as you acknowledge many times on the channel, it's hard to know exactly what guys are being coached and you know,

the critiquing part of it. I think that your honesty is what makes the channel that you don't seem to sugarcoat at all. But I I'm just interested in how you've sort of felt watching your channel, get more attention this year and what that's kind of been like for you. Well, I appreciate the kind words. I'll inevitably have people like send me stuff like, oh, this got picked up over here. I heard you got mentioned over here.

And it's it's if I'm being honest, it's a nice, you know, acknowledgement for what I try to have a lot of fun doing. You know, I hope that comes across in the videos. I really do because it is fun for me. Like I've just kind of, you know, not lucked, but intentionally created this niche that has kind of provided me this opportunity to do it and do even more of it. And I've been intentional about trying to create

more of it this year with just kind of how my schedule has worked out in the fall. And it's been beneficial for the channel. I've enjoyed it. It's one of those things where it's just in a real sweet spot for me, if I'm being honest. As far as the workflow, how I create the videos, how I share the videos, YouTube has been a great platform for me to kind of be able to continue to grow and grow it my way. And I just really have fun with it. I mean, that's the honest truth. The reason that I, you know, I appreciate you thinking that I'm being honest with it. And I, cause I try to be, but the way

that I talk on those things would be the same way that if we were in the quarterback room and I was the coach or I was the backup is the exact same way that we would talk. I might have some more F-bombs in there, but I mean, those creep into the Patreon community when you get a little bit more truth serum in there. But like for the most part, you know, the film is the film. And so we just try to make fun of make sense of it and have fun at the same time. It really is what a quarterback room is like. Well, yeah, I mean, for people in my position that are covering the league and always want to understand it better, it is an invaluable resource.

But also I have a lot of fun, especially if you don't enjoy an offense, then, uh, seeing you try to hold back those F bombs can be pretty good as well. Um, just one more thing. And then I'll let you get back to, and you're going to play some basketball there. Your, your background looks fake, but it's not, that's actually where you are because you wanted to taunt me being in Minnesota where it's all dead leaves and 30 degree weather. Uh, but, uh, I, I wanted to ask if when you arrived in Minnesota in 2005, if that was the strangest circumstance you ever walked into, because you had a lot of different stops and there were different circumstances every time, but it was certainly, um, unique when, uh, you arrived during that season in 2005,

which I think a lot of people clearly remember. Yeah, it was definitely weird. I came, I want to say like the week after or maybe two weeks after the boat incident. And so they were still dealing with kind of the, you know, pun intended, the ripples of that. And so like the, it was wild. And it was an interesting group of people, coaches, and I really enjoyed it. I'm not going to lie. I had a lot of fun, and Brad Johnson is still a good buddy of mine, and so it was fun to see him kind of operate and work. But, yeah, it was a wild time around that building, Eden Prairie.

Yeah, it's a little bit different, I would say, a little more calm now, even with random quarterbacks showing up and thriving, which none of us really expected, but, uh, that's why we watch. So again, QB school on YouTube, it's just tremendous. Uh, make sure you go check that out. JTO Sullivan, former Viking, and I can't name all the other teams or we wouldn't have time. So, uh, thanks. Hey, shout out NFL Europe though. I used to watch those games when I was a kid. That was a great league. But anyway, thanks again, JT.

You know how much I enjoy what you do. So I really appreciate all the time. And hopefully we'll do it again soon, man. Yeah, man. Anytime, Matthew. Appreciate it. Folks, I hope you've enjoyed listening to us talk about prize picks this year. But if you've missed it, here's how it works.

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great passes between Bajent and Bryce Young, who has basically no wide receivers. I don't think actually it's one that people are going to be too sad about tuning in to listen to us rather than watching. Or if you really don't like yourself, you could do both and watch the game and then come and watch us. Boy, they nailed it on this Thursday, man. They made it great for people to rather tune into our live broadcast than what's going on on TV. This has been a miserable schedule of national TV games. And I feel for our friend Courtney Cronin right now,

who's like out there in Chicago. Of course, she covers the Bears for ESPN, and she's out there in Chicago, and it's like cold, and the Bears aren't any good. And now you've got the Panthers in town in Chicago, and they're not any good either. Justin Fields isn't even playing in the game. And so shout out to our friend Courtney,

who's just toughing it out out there in Chicago. Yeah, these Thursday night games, man, you know me, I'm already like anti-Thursday night football. Anyway, in the NFL, I just think it's really dumb unless it's Thanksgiving, which is, you know, we've always been seeing the Lions and the Cowboys playing Thanksgiving every year for decades. Outside of that, and maybe week one,

that sort of thing too to start off the season is kind of cool. But outside of that, I want no parts of Thursday night football. And games like tonight are exactly why. It's just excessive. And, you know, I guess what they they used to do if i'm not mistaken is they would late in the season early you know years ago in the nfl they would have like a game on thursday night or it would be a couple of like special hey we're doing this in late november they're gonna have this game and i could be wrong this, but before they started doing it every single week and then diluted the product. And I'm just not ready for it.

Even when it's a good game, I feel like I'm not ready for it that we've just recovered from the last week and we're preparing for the next matchup. And then like, Oh, you've got a game. And the times where the Vikings have played on Sunday. And then on Thursday, they've won some of those games, but usually it's pretty hideous for one, which we see, I think, the quality of play, the injuries, which the NFL wants to always talk about, and then puts guys out there a few days after going through what they do on Sunday. But usually it's just the way that the team ends up looking and how quickly they have to turn it around. You barely have any practice. So how are you even supposed to install game plans at that point?

And I think that plays into it, but we are never going to get it back that, that way of just having, you know, the NFL on Sunday and Monday night football. So I guess we can embrace Panthers and bears. Now we got a lot to talk about Manny. You have made a list of the five best saints and

Vikings games of your lifetime, of which there are a lot of nominees. And I know that you spent all afternoon and this, I'm not actually kidding, uh, researching and looking back at some games to talk about tonight. So we'll get to that later on. This matchup is always really something. But Justin Jefferson talked today, and he said that he doesn't want to be just 80% or 90% if he's returning. He wants to be at 100%. And he also said in response to people who had put out there that Justin Jefferson might not return because of his contract situation, he said that he never considered that and that he wants to be a hall of famer and you don't make the hall of fame by just sitting out halves of seasons that no matter what their record was, he was going to come back based on

what I saw from him during training camp. I completely believe Justin Jefferson in this, but I also want to tell him he's making the right choice. Like, dude, don't come back too fast because we've seen this many times in the past where guys do come back from those hamstrings and they push it and then they hurt themselves. So what is your feeling about Jefferson, where he stands, whether he actually will come back and how long he should wait now that the window is open for him to return off of IR yeah I think he's got the right mindset in that you know we we know Justin Jefferson's very competitive and he wants to play and he wants to show out and he he wants to still you know show people that he's the best wide receiver in football. So, you know, he wants to get back out there, but I like the fact that he's going to wait until he feels 100% because you don't want to come out there a week or two early and, you know, potentially do more damage to that hamstring to the point where now you are out for the season because you came back too early

and now all of a sudden the hamstring is torn because you didn't wait that extra week to kind of rest it and let it heal completely. And now at that point, you know, considering where we are at the point of the season, a hamstring tear would be very likely that a season is done. And so then you're just coming back too early for, for no reason at that point. So I think it makes sense for him to not come back until he feels a hundred percent. And I think with what we've seen the last couple of games that, you know, certainly not going to suggest that the Vikings don't need Justin Jefferson because they absolutely do to be at their best. But I think what they've shown the last couple of weeks, especially Sunday

with everything that went on on that day, that Kevin O'Connell can scheme this team to be very competitive and still have a chance to win games, especially when you look at their schedule coming up. Things aren't going to get too dicey until Cincinnati and Detroit come up in sort of that last quarter of the season. But these next few games, these are all winnable games for them. And so there's not going to be a need for him to come back too early. Maybe if they were playing, if that Eagles game that they had early in the season was coming up in the next couple of weeks, then maybe there might be a little bit more of an enticement

to push him out there sooner but i think as long as this schedule is the way it is right now these next few games that are very winnable without him um i don't see any reason to rush him back at all i think you just have to think about the long term of both this season and the long term of justin jefferson as a minnesota viking in general because like this even it's happened to Devante Adams, where he's always kind of dealing with some hamstring thing here or there. And I don't know where that stems back to. And sometimes it just happens to players,

but I can give you a few examples right off the top of my head. 2019 Adam Thielen, where he gets hurt on that great touchdown catch against Detroit and then tries to come back a few weeks later against Kansas City hurts it again and Delvin Cook in 2018 where he was coming off the ACL and sometimes that leads to some other injuries so you know he ends up getting the hamstring they try to bring him back he re-aggravates the hamstring that we're talking a few more weeks before he's 100% and then you know Ken in the comments brings up a pitch count. They tried to do that

with Delvin cook. And I thought it hurt them more than it helped him. I want him 100% before he returns. And that leads me to something else, which I'm sure you remember the Jay Z line, where he said, I read a newspaper that messed up my day. I read a question from someone to the mailbag that messed up my day where someone asked, hey, they went 4-0 without Justin Jefferson. Does this mean that they should trade him? And I was just like, what are we doing here? I mean, look, the win against San Francisco was great. The rest of the wins are against pretty bad teams.

And the goal is not to just be good enough to beat Atlanta. The goal is to be good enough to win the Superbowl. And in order to win the Superbowl, you need great players. I mean, this, I guess it was bound to come up. Look,

they went for an O without him. So they didn't win that many games with him, but this is like one of the best players in all of football, and we've seen so many times, Manny, where a Tyreek Hill, an A.J. Brown, a player of this caliber can take a quarterback to another level. That's your big goal here. So I don't think that the way it's played out this year has changed anything about how I feel about how much money Justin Jefferson needs to have in his wallet next off season. And that is

all the money still for Justin Jefferson. And by the way, when they were one in four, wasn't Justin Jefferson, the best receiver in the league. I mean, I, I I he did fumble once but he didn't drop the ball in the end zone like TJ Hawkinson did I mean the guy was completely dominating through that time so I feel like I had to get that off my chest that like this this can't be an opinion we cannot let this happen to be talking about uh Jefferson's future just through the lens of, hey, they won those games. Well, I mean, and Vikings fans should know, we've experienced this before when we've had a dominant wide receiver on this football team, Randy Moss, who was like all world, one of the greatest receivers of all time. And we saw what Randy was able to do and how he elevated the play of the quarterbacks that he played with. He even elevated the play of the greatest quarterback of all time, Tom Brady,

when he went to New England. We saw Tom Brady's numbers. I mean, Brady was great before Moss got there, but we saw Brady's overall production as a passer increased when Randy Moss became his teammate. And Justin Jefferson is kind of the same way. He makes the quarterbacks that he plays with better. And so, you know, I think you want him at 100%. You want him as a huge part of this team going forward. You get the contract figured out. And then, you know, wherever the quarterback is going to be, whether it's,

you know, if Kirk Cousins comes back next year, or if it's a young guy that they go in the draft, or if it's Josh Dobbs, whoever it may be, that quarterback is going to be better for it. If Justin Jefferson is on the field, and that's why it's important in this particular situation for him to be 100% before he returns for, you know, the short term, as far as the short term goes for this team, and like you said, the long term as well. And we also have to keep in mind that if you're going to compete for a Super Bowl, which if you look back at Vikings history, how many times they've really been a true contender for the Super Bowl.

I mean, one of them, of course, is with Randall Cunningham and Randy Moss. The other one is with Brett Favre. And what they have, and we'll talk about 1987 maybe when you come up with your list with New Orleans, but what they have had in those years is elite passing games. 2017 was the anomaly with Case Keenum, although their passing game that year was very good with Thielen and Diggs. It's not enough to be a good passing team.

It's that you have to be an elite passing team. You have to be a top five scoring team. I think that I had this stat, but since 2015, when the Broncos won the Super Bowl with a bad offense. Every team has been in the top five in scoring except the Rams in 2021, who I think were seventh, but were also at the top of the league in passing expected points at it. It's not enough to be good. I think they could be good with Jordan Addison

and with TJ Hawkinson, and maybe if you traded him for two first-round draft picks or something, you get an edge rusher to go along with Daniil Hunter. And again, that would be great. But the thing that's going to drive your success the most is that. And if you're talking about drafting a quarterback, giving him Justin Jefferson, giving him Jordan Addison for what we've seen, giving him TJ Hawkinson over the last four weeks, those guys, I think it's been big for those guys, but it's not like you have to give it back.

Like with Addison, he's learned what he's learned about playing in the NFL and being a top wide receiver, and he can continue to carry that on. We've seen massive growth from him. We've seen Hawkinson step up quite a bit since Jefferson went down. It's not like those guys all of a sudden go like, oh, okay, I'm not going to do that anymore. I'm going to get it right. So, I mean, I think that that's one of the biggest reasons that if we're talking about the Vikings

with this current setup with Josh Dobbs can make the playoffs. That's one of the reasons you'd be talking about it is if Jefferson comes back for that stretch run where they're going up against Detroit, they're going up against Cincinnati. That's where you're going to need to compete with those teams because those are elite passing games. But I'm not saying that this is a common opinion with the Jefferson thing. It's just that every time someone's negotiating a contract, it kind of like hits some people the wrong way. And it's okay. It's okay. It's okay to pay the greatest players. We can do that. Now, speaking of Dobbs, we've gone too long now into the show without talking about Dobbs mania. Do you think that he keeps it rolling against the New Orleans Saints, Manny?

Because I was looking this up. They'll stat for you. PFF grades the New Orleans Saints defense, the fourth best in the entire NFL. And I think this is going to be a real, real test for Kevin O'Connell and the rest of the group and Josh Dobbs against the New Orleans Saints. Yeah, I think it's going to, I think it's an opportunity for them to really show that Sunday wasn't just a sort of a fluky out of nowhere performance. I happen to think, based on what we saw, considering the circumstances on Sunday, I happen to think that it's not going to be a fluke.

I do think Josh Dobbs is going to continue to play well. Now, what it's going to look like on Sunday, it might be different. It might, from a numbers standpoint, it might not look as impressive because they're going to be going up against a pretty quality defense that's going to challenge them. But I think ultimately what you want to look for in a game like this

is you want to just hope that the Vikings can limit the mistakes, can have the safety and the fumbles and that sort of thing, which if there's one thing about Josh Dobbs that he's shown so far is that he does have a tendency to turn the ball over a little bit. So you just want to avoid that. You know, if you don't score 31 points and light up the defense on Sunday, I think that's okay. I think the Vikings defense themselves has shown that, you know, that's not a great unit, but it's a unit that I think is good enough to keep you in games. And the Saints don't really, you know, they're, I don't think their offense particularly is very good. So I think this is a chance for the Vikings defense to perform

really well. And I think offensively, if they can just limit the mistakes, you know, maybe control the clock a little bit, pick up first downs, you you know do long sustaining drives um then i think they can come away with a win it just might not be a situation where they you know put up 31 points like they did on sunday against atlanta i'm still in my brain wondering like how did they put up 31 points because we saw so many great passing performances by Kirk Cousins before that. And of course, I don't blame anybody for saying, well, you know, you saw him run and sometimes you get those extra first downs. You score a few more points when that happens.

I don't blame anybody for pointing out that it's wild that Josh Dobbs scored more points than they had with Cousins. I would also say just like the Justin Jefferson 4-, without him thing, let's not go too far in, uh, you know, conflating those two kind of facts, but, uh, it was impressive to see how they were able to sustain drives with Josh jobs. Once he stops getting safeties and fumbling, uh, the football. And I, I, it is going to be a lot more challenging. think that new orleans defense is way better so it very much could continue and if it does then we might be having a little bit of a different discussion and i'm not sure why manny just disappeared maybe his uh camera ran

out but um still here okay yeah i'm still oh'm still here. Oh, now we got a new angle. Laptop camera now. There you go. I was wondering, because you were kind of sputtering a little bit, and usually we have been on really good internet connections lately. Now you actually look a little bit smoother. So anyway, well, Ken brings up an interesting discussion there. See, just like Kevin O'Connell, no panic from me,

just smooth sailing right through, called a little audible. You did. Yeah, we like Kevin O'Connell, no panic for me, just smooth sailing right through call a little audible. You did you change? Yeah, we're on the same page. We were like Dobbs and O'Connell. Ken brings up this point that this is going to be the best defense that the Vikings will see for the rest of the season. I think that's a hundred percent correct, which kind of leads me to this, Manny. At what point would you entertain the, hey, can Dobbs be the quarterback of this team discussion? I'm not anywhere near there yet, and I want to see how this plays out against a really good New Orleans team with lots of star talent across the board.

But looking forward at the schedule, there's going to be a moment where we cross over potentially into, Hey, is it, should we talk about this guy? Like, cause right now it's, Hey,

what a great story. Rocket scientist, super fun game. Great job by everybody, but okay. We'll see if it, if it carries on, when,

when would that be for you? Um, it's a great question. I think, you know, if they can rattle off a few games in a row here and really get themselves into a position where if – okay, I'll word it this way. If they can get themselves back into a significant conversation of maybe winning this division down the stretch like if we get to that first Detroit game which I think is what week 15 or something like that late in the season um if we get to week 15 and they're right there with the

chance to to win this division with a win over Detroit and, you know, maybe tie them in record or something like that, that's going to have me thinking, okay, maybe this guy can pull this off. Maybe this guy can be, you know, a multi-year starter for this team, you know, certainly not in a position where you want to give them a, you know, a six-year, you know, Kirk Cousins level type of contract or anything like that. But he might be a guy that can kind of hold down the fort for you for a couple of years until you get into that point where you really want to move on to a younger quarterback. But I'm like you.

I'm not ready to say that yet. I think right now it just looks like he's going to be a guy that can kind of stabilize the position right now for now until you're you're really ready to go on to that younger guy for next year. But who knows? I mean, he's got the physical ability to do it. I think it's just a matter of him, you know, kind of putting it all together and staying consistent, limiting some of the mistakes. And then we'll see what happens after that. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. Folks, if you're struggling with the holiday blues and you're having some trouble getting excited in the same way that other people in your life do

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That's BetterHelp.com slash Insider. Rob asks, could he be a candidate for a bridge quarterback and i think that's the discussion we're having is like when do we talk about that right now the answer is look uh and by the way pro football reference needs to give him the win for sunday because they gave it to jared hall just like our buddy Sage Rosenfels, who had a 20-point comeback win when he was in Miami and didn't get the W because Gus Farratt started. So anyway, that, in my mind, makes him two and nine as a career starter.

And I know QB wins. I don't need the whole thing. But just based on the guy's history, the bar is higher for him to prove that this is legit it's sort of like with geno smith and what we saw last year where you're going through that season going okay well geno smith is doing well but you know like does that mean that he is their franchise quarterback i don't know and then this year we've seen sort of the ups and downs of geno smith and even did uh throughout last year and it tells you how small sample size can fool us when it comes to quarterbacks, they get on a hot run,

they play an easy schedule, whatever else, and then they look better than they are. But I think as far as a bridge quarterback, the answer would be maybe, and so many things have to depend on that though. Like how does he play the rest of the way? In my opinion, it's probably if you get one of those two against Detroit, because I think they can win some of these other games and they'll probably have a stinker in there somewhere. But if you can get one of those two against Detroit or if you can go toe to toe against Cincinnati with Josh Dobbs in as your quarterback, then I would say, like, I'm thinking about it because that's the level of opponent that you have to beat and you have to go up against in order to have somebody as your quarterback and make me think you could actually compete with them. But the thing about a bridge quarterback is as long as we're talking about a Ryan Fitzpatrick and Tua type of situation where it's, hey, everybody loves this guy. He's going to keep you in games.

He's going to help you compete and maybe he can win. But we also got this other guy who is going to be the, you know, the player that we're developing to go in and be the franchise quarterback. It would take a lot, a lot to change my mind of thinking about Dobbs or no Dobbs. You're still focused on the draft next year at the quarterback position. Yeah, I mean, like, you know, the other day when when we were on, I brought up the comparison of like John Kitna with the Cincinnati Bengals when they had drafted Carson Seattle and, you know, Mike Holmgren had anointed him as, you know, the guy in Seattle in like 1998 or nine or something like that. It didn't quite work out that way for John Kittner. He ended up moving on to Cincinnati and he was just, you know,

Kittner was a quality quarterback. He was a guy that could, you know, step in and start some games for you and keep you competitive and put up some decent numbers for you. But the plan all along for the Bengals was, look, we had now in the case of Cincinnati, they had used the number one overall pick to take Carson Palmer. So it's a little bit different than it maybe would be in the case of the Vikings if they're not picking number one overall. But if your plan is to have a young quarterback as part of your future that you're going to grow and develop,

depending on what Josh Dobbs does the rest of this season, if he does enough, performs well enough, and gets you maybe into a playoff spot, then he might be a guy that you, you know, want to bring in next year as your starter. And that way you can kind of slow cook things with that young quarterback that you take in the draft next spring. And, you know, Josh Dobbs seems to me like a guy that would, you know, depending on the situation, would stick around for a little bit to help that younger quarterback grow and develop and use some of his own experiences

to help that young guy, whoever it may be. Bland Toast asks, if Dobbs continues to play well, is it more of a sign that he's a great quarterback or that most any quarterback could play well enough with this team and coaching staff see the thing about that is like when we talk about almost any quarterback it's like well there's definitely a must be this tall to get on the ride like josh dobbs has starter caliber skills like obviously the running is pretty impressive but his throwing ability also was better than i

thought it was coming in. And you see the physical capabilities that are there with Josh jobs. So we have to start at that point. I don't think that Nick Mullins could do the same thing when Nick Mullins was in San Francisco, he won like four games with Kyle Shanahan and that's the one that's always talked about. Right.

And Hey, Trey Lance could not succeed with Kyle Shanahan. So it's not like anybody can just be plopped into these situations if they're not all that good. I think what you're looking for is how do you win the most games and what a take. Right. Like now there's a bland toast take for you. But what I mean is like how how strong does the team have to be? How good does the coaching have to be for this quarterback to actually compete for a Super Bowl? And what we see in San Francisco is, last year especially,

that was the best team in football top-to-bottom roster-wise. And the best coach on the offensive side, that's what it took for Brock Purdy to get them to the NFC Championship. When Case Keenum went to the NFC championship, they needed to the best wide receivers in football, a really good running game, an offense that everybody bought into and the number one defense in the NFL. And it still wasn't enough to get them there. So the question is like,

can you build that with Josh Dobbs or do you need someone that's more physically skilled as in accuracy and not turning the ball over and stuff like that in the form of a first round potential draft pick? And also, what is Dobbs cost if he plays really well is going to be another discussion. Also, because we saw this from Daniel Jones, where if the NFL sees someone play good football for like this long, they're like, all right, lots of money, lots of money going to that quarterback. And that, I mean, we are way down the road on that. I, my main goal was to focus on new Orleans, but we just went completely off the deep end. But all these things end up playing into a discussion like we're talking about with Josh Dobbs. And it's also, you know, altogether possible that we could see Jaron Hall back in two weeks because it doesn't work out well.

So there's lots of different ways it could go. But I think to answer the question, Manny, I think that if he plays really well, it's probably a sign that he was better than people thought he was. And it's also probably a sign that you don't have to have a $40 million, 36-year-old quarterback coming off an Achilles injury. And I'm not letting Dobbs make that decision for me. I'm just saying that it would be a pretty clear control case study to see how someone else performs in this offense over a longer sample size, and that's what Josh Dobbs gives me.

And sometimes in some situations, it just kind of requires or it becomes kind of a perfect storm. I mean, I go back to, you know, and I'm not suggesting that Josh Dobbs is going to be this, but when you look at what happened with Kurt Warner with the St. Louis Rams in 1999, it was just kind of a perfect storm of really talented time, and Mike Martz as the coordinator. Dick Vermeule is a head coach that kind of, in some ways, kind of had a little bit of Kevin O'Connell in him, is that he was very positive-minded, emotional, connected with his players on an emotional level, and it kind of drove that team to winning.

And sometimes that's what it takes, too. And Kurt Warner was a guy that, you know, people kind of knew who he was when playing in the Arena League a little bit. But that was it. He had been a journeyman kind of guy, you know, in Packers camp like the year before and just not kind of an afterthought. And then just all of a sudden, boom, everything happened. And it was a perfect storm. And they went all the way to the Super Bowl and won. And, you know, I'm not saying that that's going to happen with Josh Dobbs, but, you know, it might just be a situation where Josh Dobbs and Kevin O'Connell are a really good fit. And they just, for whatever reason, it just, it just works. Now, how well will it work? That's going to be, that's, you know, we're going to have to figure that out. We're going to have to see the rest of the season, how that kind of plays out. But, you know, it's, I think outside of that, it's really going to be hard to really pinpoint like exactly what it is that is working. It might just be a situation where it's a, it's a perfect storm and it's,

it's, you know, maybe it's the best situation that Josh Dobbs will be in you know, for him to perform well in the course of his career. What I've felt over the last week from Vikings fans. And if you look at our numbers, thank you everyone for joining. If you're new to the show, welcome, welcome. We've seen a bigger audience this week is the energy that comes along with intrigue. And I think that what Josh Dobbs did is he gave you enough reason to be intrigued. If this was just a guy like, remember when mike white had an average depth of target

of like two yards through a bunch of screen passes and end up with like 400 yards passing like whoa mike white and then you know like okay this is not the guy i i experienced something similar to this uh when i was in buffalo with kyle orton where kyle orton had kind of been around the league and you know was a starter sometimes back up other times and they benched ej manual orton came in and won a streak of games and everyone was like whoa the bills may have just found their quarterback because this guy is such a great fit and he's playing so well with everybody as time went on it became more clear that it was still kyle orton so that's the question here is did they find a diamond in the rough? Because Dobbs had never gotten that opportunity before. And we've seen quarterback development work out before in the league and, and, and, you know, compare with his, uh, or combined with his

physical skill, um, you know, how fast he is and his natural instinct for running and everything else. And his intelligence, you combine those like superpower type skills that he has and you go like maybe like this this has more intrigue i think that we've had at the quarterback position since i don't know like since 2018 the most most intrigue that we've had is would they actually draft lamar jackson no they wouldn't they took a corner hey but would they actually extend kirk oh they did. And then Will Levis is on the board, huh? Oh, okay. Well, they're going to take a wide receiver, which, you know, look, you know, no criticism for that wide receiver. But this is the most intrigue that we have had in a very long time at the quarterback position. And I think that's what has everybody kind of wondering what's going to come next. Can I ask you a Saints question? I want to pivot to a different thing. It leads into your top five list. At what point do you let go of beef with another team? And what I mean is, I know about 2009.

Everybody does. Greg Williams, Sean Payton. But the Vikings have since then eliminated Sean Payton a couple of times in very epic fashion in the Minneapolis Miracle and then in 2019. on the double doink over in London, they've pretty much owned the saints it recently. And Sean Payton is not there anymore. Is it time for people to let it go with the new Orleans saints? Like, when do you move on to your next rival? Whoever is bothered you lately, or is that something that people should as Vikings fans just hold on to

forever? Because I feel like it's just not the same Saints it doesn't have the same juice if Sean Payton isn't there and it's you know Drew Brees doesn't play for him anymore what what are you really hating on other than the colors that they're wearing not saying you should love your opponent or something it's just I thought it's time to find a new rival that you don't like as opposed to like oh well i hate the saints because of 0.9 like okay well i don't know i guess the same people on the team and they play in the same stadium but that's all that's really similar at this point yeah i mean i've

if you ask me i i let it go a long time ago and you, the primary reason why I was able to let it go is because when you look at what has happened with the Saints ever since, you know, ever since they won the Super Bowl that year against the Colts, that franchise has had a lot of heartbreak. I mean, you look at the, what do they call it? The beast quake, the Marshawn Lynch run, that was in the playoffs the very next year. It's a seven and nine Seattle team that won a terrible NFC West division, and that play happens. And then you have the catch three, the Vernon Davis winning touchdown in the divisional round the next year against San Francisco. You had the play where I think it was Marcus Colston, you know, the Saints are driving for like a tying touchdown late in the playoffs against Seattle.

And Marcus Colston does like a, he catches a pass and then he like throws the ball forward when he should have thrown it backwards. And it essentially just ended the game and ended any opportunity for the Saints to maybe tie that game and all he had to do was just catch the ball and step out of bounds to stop the clock because I think there were still like five seconds left.

Then there was that. There was the pass interference, no call against the Rams in the NFC title game. There was the Vikings playoff game the next year after that where the Vikings went down there and won in overtime. We'll get to that game a little bit later. But when you kind of look at the history of the Saints

since that NFC title game outside of the Super Bowl a couple weeks later, that's kind of a cursed franchise if you really think about it, just all the post-season heartbreak. So for me, it was kind of like, it was easy for me to kind of let it go because it's like, that's a fan base that's been kind of suffering a little bit ever since. It's almost like they're kind of paying back for their, you know, the Saints are kind of paying back for their sins of that, you know,

the bounty gates and all of that stuff that happened in the 0-9, 0-9 title game, you know, because they were able to go on stuff that happened in the 0-9 title game, you know, because they were able to go on and win the Super Bowl. And it feels like they're kind of just paying it back by going through a lot of suffering and heartbreaking postseason play. So I've gotten over it and, you know, I'll just speak for myself. It's always easier for me to just get over stuff you know what i mean you you look back on it and it's heartbreaking but you know even like 98 i'm i'm

over that it was 20 almost 25 years ago it's just the vikings have had other opportunities to get to the super bowl since and they've come up short so it short. So I'm able to kind of just put that behind me and let it go. It's fun to talk about. It's fun to reminisce about sometimes and have some fun with poking fun at the curses of all the heartbreak and everything. But for me, it's been really easy for me to get over a lot of this stuff. Can't speak for everybody else because some people still, to this day, hate Sean Payton, and they're rooting for him to lose in Denver.

A lot of people were enjoying the fact when the Dolphins hung 70 on the Broncos a few weeks back and just because it was Sean Payton and they hate him so much. So I don't know. I personally, I've been able to get over all that stuff

and I think it's, you know, hopefully some of the fans can kind of get past it too. I think that if you're talking about Sean Payton paying his penance and one you forgot was the Jared Cook fumble that that playoff game may, who was that? I forget who that was against where, you know, they were on in routes looking like they were going to win the game and then he fumbles, they blow a lead and so forth. But also, if there was any like, hey, you paid your debt to society type of situation.

It was that Sean Payton was played by Kevin James in a movie on Netflix like that. I mean, I don't know if I would wish that on anybody. Now, you know what? I'd love to know in the comments if people have let it go about the Saints or when the Saints are coming to town, you just deeply hate them. And, like, that's – either way, like, I feel you because that's a hard thing to move on from. What I'm always thinking about, Manny, is that people should just update their beefs.

Like, keep updating all the time. So look, Joe Buck hasn't done anything to you in years. He had the great Minneapolis miracle call, you know, dig sideline, unbelievable, put it on shirts and everything else. So, hey, like that, let it go. We just update. We just, we got new information.

The guy gave you everything he had on a great call for your big moment. So you don't have to be mad at him for Randy Moss anymore. And the same thing goes for the saints. Like they have been through absolute hell since they won that super bowl. And of course, many Vikings fans would sell their souls for one of those as well. But all right. Like he's not here anymore.

You can hate him individually, but it's really not their franchise anymore so like update the beefs uh people are talking about the eagles i'm not sure if a team owning you is really like a beef but they're fans okay that that that's true the fan abuse in 2017 that's a good reason right there to start uh you know a new a new uh beef with a different fan base so i was just kind of interested in your angle on that because i know a lot of people i get a lot of notes like i will always hate them no matter what happens and no matter who's coaching them and so forth uh we will get to your list of the uh most compelling vikings and saints games of your lifetime but first manny want to let everybody know that in the second week of December, it's coming up pretty soon,

I am headed to Las Vegas for football. And if you want to escape the Minnesota December weather like me, come join me at Circa Las Vegas, where I'll be hanging out and doing the podcast for a few days there leading up to the game. You can find me outside at Stadium Swim at Circa, watching games on their giant TV, spending time relaxing in their heated pools. So even if it's only 70 degrees in Vegas, they got the heated pools outside. That's awesome.

It's one of the coolest places on earth to watch sports. And then the Friday night before the game, we're going to have a special party just for Minnesota fans there that includes drink specials, ticket giveaway. so come meet me there at circa talk about football at the amazing overhang bar inside of circa las vegas you have to rsvp for the party so if you go to circa las vegas.com where it says sportsbook click there and you'll see huddle up at overhang click that and you can rsVP for that weekend. So make a whole weekend of it at Circa in Las Vegas.

Plus, this game now has some extra juice to it, I think, for maybe both teams, actually, if the Raiders are turning things around. So it is located, again, on Fremont Street, and we'll have a great getaway from the Minnesota winter there. And again, CircaLasVegas.com for more details. Book your spot today and I will see you there. Do I need someone to carry my bags? They did give me and I tweeted this out. They gave me a limo the last time that I went and I have never actually

been in a limo before. I was very surprised, but they picked me up at the airport and had a limo. I was like LeBron or something. I was like, are you sure this is for me? Like, uh, but sir, circle rolls out the red carpet. All right. So you have made this list the best and most compelling games of your lifetime between the Minnesota Vikings and new Orleans saints. Let us begin. I feel like we need, um, to get some NFL music uploaded into the system for these top five lists. So we'll work on that for, for future reference to get the, the, you know, I'm not just going to sing it, but you know, we, we need to, we need to get that for the show. We need to continue to upgrade here.

So begin number five, saints, Vikings, most compelling games of your lifetime, Manny, go ahead. Okay. number five. So I'll preface all of this by saying, even though the Vikings historically have owned the Saints in the postseason, they've played five times and the Vikings have won four. We know what the one is in that series. Don't need to speak on that anymore.

But there's only three of those uh three of those postseason games are on this list so and they are the top three but anyway number five uh 2008 week five vikings 30 saints 27 the vikings win this is monday night football by the way and the uh the the vikings are uh they win this game on a Ryan Longwell field goal with about five seconds left to win the game. But this game was wild, absolutely wild. The Vikings get a touchdown on a blocked field goal. Kevin Williams blocks a field goal.

Antoine Winfield, as he's so good at just having a knack of knowing where the football is and going to get it, just like his kid, by the way, picks up the blocked field goal and runs it back for a 59-yard touchdown to tie the game at seven. We saw Chester Taylor throw a touchdown pass on a trick play to Vysante Shanko in this game. And also, and I see we have one comment that says Bush punt return. You mean Bush punt returns because Reggie Bush returned two punts for touchdowns in this game. And I remember when the second one happened, literally everybody else, everybody watching this game was like,

why are you kicking to Reggie Bush again? Why would you punt to him again? He already burned you earlier in this game. So this game was absolutely bonkers. And this was a high powered Saints offense with Drew Brees really kind of in his prime as the year before the Saints won the Super Bowl. But Drew Brees was still was still like one of the best quarterbacks in the NFL. And, you know, if you take out the two Reggie Bush punt returns, the Vikings defense actually held a pretty powerful offense to under 20 points in this game. So Vikings win that game 30 to 27 week or um number four may surprise a lot of people because i think it might be a game that uh people will remember when i mention it

but i guarantee you nobody has thought about this game in the 20 plus years since it happened week can i guess can i guess can i guess yes is it two is it 2001 uh you're i think you know what game i'm talking about but it's right you're thinking of the wrong year oh okay this is this dante at the end of the game yes okay okay i'm thinking the wrong year is it oh three oh two 2002 okay, gotcha. All right, go ahead. If people don't remember this one, I watched this not too long ago on YouTube, and holy cow, for a lost season, mind blown. So go ahead, go ahead.

Yeah, so this is week 15 of 2002, the first full season with Mike Tice as head coach of the Vikings, and the season is just a disaster. The defense is just completely falling apart. It's awful. The Vikings are 3-10 going into this game. They're one of the worst teams in the league outside of Culpepper and Moss.

But Dante and Randy Moss put on a show. And Randy has 11 catches, 113 yards, and two touchdowns, including a touchdown late in the game with five seconds left to make it 31 to 30. And Mike Tice and I and I love this. And this is part of the reason why I love Ticey so much. Mike Tice said, what the hell? We're three and ten. We've got you know, we've got nothing else to lose here let's just go for the win so they go for the two-point conversion and it's fantastic because it looks like everything's going to fall apart Dante's in the shotgun he takes a snap bobbles the ball you know kind of fumbles the ball and he just has the instincts to pick it up and run it in for the two-point conversion

for the Vikings to go up 32-31, and they go on to win against a pretty good Saints team. This was before Sean Payton and Drew Brees. This was the Jim Haslett, Aaron Brooks, Deuce McAllister, Joe Horn Saints. So they weren't a great team, not like a championship-containing team, but it was a pretty good team that was in playoff contention for a few years there. So the Vikings pick up a wild, crazy win to go to 4-10.

The Vikings actually ended that season with three straight wins to finish 6-10 on the year. And so people were pretty excited going into 2003. So the Vikings win that game 32-31. All right, number three is a game that I decided to go on YouTube and re-watch late this afternoon. It is the 1987 NFC wildcard game. The Saints go into the Superdome, or the Vikings go into the Superdome and just absolutely throttle the Saints 44-10. Here's what makes this game awesome, though. It's not that the Vikings blew out the Saints, which was awesome in its own right.

The way this game started for the Vikings was a total disaster. First play of the game, the Vikings get the opening kickoff. First play of the game, Tommy Kramer, who before I watched this game, I did not know had actually started this game for the Vikings. I thought it was Wade Wilson because Vikings went to the NFC Championship game that year, and Wade Wilson was the quarterback for that run. But I didn't know that Tommy Kramer had started this game, actually. So he starts the game.

First play of the game, he gets sacked for like a seven-yard loss. And the Saints crowd, even back then, the Superdome, the roof is going to get blown out. The crowd is going crazy. So Tommy Kramer gets sacked first play of the game. Second play of the game, it's like a botched handoff or something happens where the ball gets fumbled and the Saints recover the ball. So, you know, it's it's just a disastrous start. Two plays later, Bobby Avera throws a touchdown pass. It's seven nothing Saints. The crowd is going nuts and it's looking like the Vikings are going to get blown out.

And obviously we all know that they didn't. But when you look at the way this game started, it's like, holy bleep. Like this game, the Vikings blew the Saints out of this game. This should have been the opposite way. And then on the ensuing possession, Tommy Kramer gets hit on a pass that gets incomplete and they punt. And then Kramer gets pulled from the game and in comes Wade Wilson. And things don't really start out and in comes Wade Wilson and things don't

really start out that great for Wade Wilson either but then they kind of pick up the play a little bit Anthony Carter returns a punt for a touchdown Anthony Carter by the way for younger Vikings fans you know I knew this already but for younger Vikings fans who didn't get a chance to see Anthony Carter older fans would get it Anthony Carter was a beast. This guy was six feet tall. He was about 160, 165 pounds. He's like Allen Iverson. He's not very big at all, but he's fast and he's just a monster. Returns this punt for a touchdown to give the Vikings a 10-7 lead. We saw a trick play, another

halfback pass for a touchdown where Allen Rice throws a touchdown pass in the game. Wade Wilson threw sort of a tight window throw to Steve Jordan for a touchdown. The Vikings eventually win the game 44-10. And Tommy Kramer actually comes back in the game in the third quarter because the Vikings had – they were up big. They were up big they were up 31 to 10 at the half they had uh Wilson had hit I think it was Leo Lewis uh if I remember on a

Hail Mary to end the first half to go up 31 to 10 and then Jerry Burns just decides eh put Tommy Kramer back out there what the hell we're up big you know let's let's get Tommy some more reps or whatever um but an interesting stat Madden andall, who did this game for CBS, brought this up before the game. Because I told you that I was going to watch this game, and you were talking about how Tommy Kramer was always banged up. He was always injured. So an interesting stat that they discovered, Madden and Summerall, was that they put up a graphic that had the games started by Tommy Kramer and Wade Wilson. Wade Wilson had started seven games. Tommy Kramer started five. This was the strike year, so they had the replacement players for three weeks.

Wade Wilson started seven games, finished six, ended up with a 5 and two record tommy kramer started five games had three and two record as a starter zero games finished so like tommy kramer was that's incredible like he was he was so banged up he never finished any games that he played in uh so that was amazing and of course we know the rest is history the vikings went on to the the NFC title game that year. Yeah, a couple of things on that. Number one is, do you ever think about moments from either our childhood or history in sports of like what Twitter would have looked like?

Because if you remember in 1987, they limped into the playoffs. It was very ugly. And Patrick Royce, he loves to tell the story of him writing a column of like, this team's done. They have no chance to win in the playoffs. The Saints are going to crush them. Look how bad they've played leading into the postseason. And then they demolished the Saints. But then, you know, you start the game down seven, nothing. I cannot imagine what that would have looked like, how angry people were and how much they must have thought the season is over i also agree with you multiple people have said in the comments anthony carter jordan addison there is a comp there and i i think that's right this undersized guy who just i mean the way he flew through the air to catch that dobbs pass and keep his feet down that was very anthony carter like because carter had such springs in his feet and he was such a natural catcher of the football. And yeah, this is like us being old guys.

But I mean, what a great player he was. And him driving that run in 1987 is, I think, one of the greatest performances in the playoffs from a receiver. Kind of reminds me of Steve Smith that one year for, was was a Carolina where he just went completely nuts over a couple games but Carter's performance is way up there and to do it with also Wade Wilson who I think was one of the coolest quarterbacks in Vikings history because the dude would just let it loose he would come in the game and just throw it deep down the field Anthony Carter so that yeah that win very very much one of the I think the best in Vikings history if you were ranking all their wins in history that's one of the most impressive that they ever had so now number two and number one I think it's going to be hard not to guess what they are but

why don't you why don't you take us through it so So number two, I think it's pretty obvious. 2019 NFC wildcard Vikings beat the Saints 26, 20 in overtime. So much going. I mean, you've been covering this team for going on eight seasons. Now so much was happening with that team going into that game. So much speculation about is Mike Zimmer going to, you know, is he going to get fired if they lose this game? Or is he going to get traded to the Cowboys if they lose this game? Like what's going to happen with,

with the Vikings going forward because I think a lot of people felt like it was kind of a foregone conclusion that they were going to lose this game. The saints were a 13 and three high powered offense team that, you know, a lot of people thought could go to the Super Bowl. And the Vikings just go in there and find a way to win. The Saints have Taysom Hill is making plays all over the field for the Saints. And Kirk Cousins makes some throws, the big throw to Adam Thielen to set up the Kyle Rudolph winning touchdown. I know people would kind of get on Stefan Diggs about, you know,

everything that I kind of went down that season and all the emotions that he had, the time where he, you know, kind of went AWOL and disappeared from the team for a few days or whatever it was. And Ds only had two catches in that game if you remember and i think it was for like 14 yards or something but they were like two of the biggest catches of that game because they were both on third down and they both set up touchdowns in that game uh the one earlier, I think it was like a pass like inside the five yard line that he caught on third down that set up a touchdown.

And then he had the other one was a third, it was like third and seven, kind of a slant pass that he caught from Cousins that kept that drive going. And then I think it was Cousins hitting Thielen on the deep pass to set up the Rudolpholph touchdown after that so only two catches but two of the biggest catches um in recent playoff memory for the vikings um as far as that's concerned so vikings win that game 26 20 we know what happened in san francisco yeah let me throw a couple things out there about

that game and i think scott is right that that was the last year of the old overtime rules um but i think that even with the new overtime rules scoring a touchdown would win you the game anyway um i think or wait do you get is it okay i'm gonna have to the playoffs someone's gonna have to remind me if the playoffs are different um but both teams don't if you score a touchdown it's over right still or is that changing i don't know i don't think the saints never had the ball in overtime i don't think right right right no they didn't um but you know um that game in particular there's a few one of the things i love about playoff games and going back and watching them is these moments that

happen and k mac is bringing up one of them that I was going to bring up. These moments happen that shape the game that just never leave you. Right. That you just think about forever. One of them is feeling fumbling on the opening drive and the saints come out with the ball and you're like, Oh my God, this is a 13 win team with drew breeze.

Like this is going to be over fast. If they fumble the ball, they hadn't played particularly well going into the playoffs. Jeez. And they held them to a field goal. And it right there. I thought I remember thinking because I was there in the Superdome. Like, like, that's big. Like, that might be big.

And another one was that at the end of the half, they returned a kickoff back into field goal position and then missed a pretty decently easy field goal and again it was one of those that could come up later that could come up later and with mike zimmer what one thing i always try to push back against is when we're talking about kevin o'connell and we compare him to mike zimmer and we go like oh well zimmer wouldn't won that game or whatever. And look, the last couple of years of Zimmer, very rocky, very ugly inside those walls. But the defensive game plan he had for Drew Brees in that game was a masterpiece. I think it was his best work even past 2017.

I think it was his best work because past 2017 i think it was his best work because of how good that team really was uh so you know that those those couple of things really stand out to me and also you talk about digs he was on the sideline when i remember him being shown super upset on the sideline and the superdome you're you're like really looking down on everything so you can see kind of everything on the sidelines i remember seeing him being so upset and everyone's thinking like oh digs is having a meltdown and whatever else and then when the nfl film stuff came out it showed him like yelling at kirk cousins to trust him and believe in him and believe in himself which i thought was kind of interesting. And that was one of those moments where Kirk overcame those whole, like, can he lead a

game winning drive and everything else and still remains and may always end up being his best moment as a Minnesota Vikings quarterback. All right. I cannot imagine what your number one on your list is, Manny. Go ahead. You can guess it's that it's that obvious, huh? That obvious what number one on your list is, Manny? Go ahead. You can guess it. It's that obvious, huh? It's that obvious what number one on the list is.

Yeah, of course it is. 2017 NFC Divisional Playoff. Minneapolis Miracle, say no more. 29-24. Diggs, sideline, touchdown, unbelievable. The call from Joe Buck, as you mentioned earlier. Just an all-time, just classic game. A chess match between Mike Zimmer and Sean Payton.

And, you know, the Vikings kind of withstanding an onslaught of just quarterback precision and just like a surgical second half performance by Drew Brees and the Vikings survive it obviously it's the big play at the end that ends up winning the game but you know it that was that was a tough second half the Vikings really had to kind of endure uh just a masterful performance by Drew Brees in the second half. The Vikings really had to kind of endure just a masterful performance by Drew Brees in the second half of that game because the defense was dominant over the Saints in the first half. They had an interception and just really were able to get off the field

a lot on third down situations. But then we just saw Drew Brees make just some unbelievable throws in the second half of that game, especially on the drive. There was the I think was the fourth and. Was it like fourth and eight or something where he hit somebody on the on the near side? You know, according to the TV screen, this was the drive that Will Lutz kicks the field goal to go up 24, 23 and essentially win the game. I mean, we all thought it was over at that point, but there was like a fourth and eight and just Drew Brees just drops. I forget who the receiver was,

but he just drops an absolute dime to convert that fourth down. And I'm like, oh my God, the Saints are going to win this game because Drew Brees is on fire right now. He can't miss. He's hitting everybody. But I think the big moment in that game was

um i think there it was like a a third down that there was a third down run on that drive that ended up forcing the field goal and that was huge because if the saints pick up the first down there they're running the clock down and letting will Lutz kick the field goal as time expires to then win the game. And there is no miracle at that point. Very subtle, just like a two-yard handoff that, you know, forces the fourth down. But that play was everything. It completely would have changed the landscape of the game if the Saints convert that third down. That's one of those games.

I don't know if you've ever seen anybody tweet out like, hey, if someone woke you up in the middle of the night and you had to give a TED Talk, what would it be on? All the times that the Vikings could have lost that game or that they could have won the game. It's mentioned in the comments, the Kai Forbath 52-yard field goal, the most cursed kicking franchise, and Forbath comes out and makes that field goal and then isn't brought back the next year for some reason.

But that's a whole other discussion. What you're talking about, it was Willie Sneed on an out route where he beat Mackenzie Alexander. And part of that was, I don't know if he was on the field in part because Andrew Sodejo had gotten hurt, right, in that game. I think, yeah, it was Sodejo who'd gotten hurt. Maybe it wasn't. Maybe he had just been playing at that point.

But I believe he broke an out route and the anticipation on the throw was so insane. Like when you went back and looked at it, Breeze was getting the pocket push and release the ball. When the dude wasn't anywhere close to looking or turning around, he breaks it's right there. And as Juan is mentioning that, that was heartbreaking. I think for everybody in the stadium, that was soul crushing.

And then we used to have this joke in the press box during that season. Why are people running at Linval Joseph? It was one of the most dominant nose tackle seasons I've ever seen in my life. Every third and short. I remember looking at the numbers on this. They had destroyed the rest of the league. They were head and shoulders above

on third and short, fourth and short, especially running up the middle at Linval Joseph. And with Drew Brees as your quarterback on third down, and this is what they'll always regret. Also, maybe Willie Sneed throwing a pass in that game, but they'll always regret handing off and having that run stuffed. And I can't remember who it was that got in there. I think it might've been Anthony Harris who got in there and made that play. And he was the one that came in from Anderson Dale, all the puzzle pieces of the Minneapolis miracle. They just fit so beautifully together from the blocked punt,

which was caused by the backup long snapper. I mean, there's so many things, the Vikings kicking a field goal early in the game. They only go up 17 instead of going up, you know, maybe if they score a touchdown there and so forth, the right tackle was moved to left guard, I think. And so you had like Rashad Hill facing Cameron Jordan plays the kind of the game of his life. So many things had to come together for the Minneapolis miracle to happen easily the best match up there. And one of the tops ever in Vikings history.

Juan asks also about the Superdome and favorite playoff stadiums. Well, the Vikings haven't been in the playoffs that much since I've been covering the team. So the only places that I've traveled for a playoff game are the Superdome and San Francisco. And when I was working in Buffalo, they made the playoffs zero times.

So that's my only experience. Yeah. I would say the Superdome, it was completely insane. US Bank Stadium is wild in the, in the playoffs. The noise is out of control and San Francisco is, you know, it's not like the old candlestick or something, but we could talk all night to me about the Minneapolis miracle and everything that came before and everything that came after that everything that came after. That is a great list, and I'm glad you put that together, Manny. So let me ask you this. When we talk next on Monday, and I want to compare

what we're going to say right now to what actually we're discussing, what are we going to be talking about with the Minnesota Vikings next Monday? Are we going to be saying do this josh jobs thing this is no fluke or are we going to be saying okay well look they're not out of the playoff race but that was the letdown game that happens sometimes during a season what are we going to be saying i think we're going to be saying that the Vikings found a way to win a football game. It was not going to be pretty. I don't think it's going to look great because it's going to be a real challenge.

I think going up against that Saints defense on Sunday. But I think they're going to find a way to win. I think their defense is going to I think the Vikings defense is going to keep them in this. And I think Josh Dobbs is going to do just enough to pull out a win. I'm going to say the Vikings win 20-16. And we're going to be looking at this and saying, hey, it wasn't pretty, but Josh Dobbs found a way. He overcame some things. There was a big run in the third quarter that led to a touchdown that otherwise would have been a field goal if it hadn't been converted and maybe that ends up being kind of the difference in the game

that's what I think we're going to be talking about on Monday that it didn't look great but the resiliency of this team allowed them to kind of overcome a bit of a challenge going up against that Saints defense on Sunday I think we're going to be talking about how they did not win, but they showed, and don't call me a hater. I'm just saying like this, these things happen, but they did show resilience in the game and back and forth battle. I just think it's a lot to ask with how banged up they are. That's a major factor to me. It looks like K. Osborne might have a chance to play, but I don't know if he will. And if he doesn't, then you're in pretty tough there. Christian Derrissaw's banged up. T.J. Hawkinson's playing with half a body this week after he got banged up last week. The defense

had to be on the field a ton. And what you saw, the one thing that I would be a little concerned about is what you saw at the end of the Falcons game. They had that drive where they scored a touchdown and the Vikings defense did start to get worn down. They were on the field a lot during that Falcons game. All these things are kind of tough, but I think that I think it'll be a battle. I think it'll be a close battle between two teams that are pretty evenly matched to your question. One, if Madison answers the call, running against this defense is hard. And that's another factor for me.

Running is going to be hard. This one might be one of those where you dial up some crazy, you know, Jordan Addison throws a touchdown to, you know, Brandon Powell or something. Like maybe you need, maybe you need something like that to be as part of this game. Sean Mannion with the comeback win is the only answer, Scott. Thank you.

That's the, I have a milkshake bet with Kevin Seifer for the rest of the season. If Sean Mannion takes a single snap. So that even means like victory formation. That means anything. Somebody gets banged up. He has to come in hands off and then leaves anything kevin thinks that sean manion will take at least one snap i say no i i think that uh jaron hall or nick maul is going to come back they'll be the backup and we'll never see nick or sean manion take a snap which which side would you take of that? If Sean Mannion has to take a snap, you know,

in any scenario where the Vikings are not up by like four touchdowns, we're in deep trouble. It's not good if that's the case, if that's what happens. Now, if they're up by four touchdowns and Mannion's in the game because you just don't want Dobbs or Hall or anybody else to get hurt, then OK, I'm cool with that. But if he's in the game under any other circumstance, whoa, baby, look out. And that would lose me the bet if they were up by three touchdowns. Sean Manion comes in just for a handoff or something, whatever. I did think before we wrap up with Sean Mannion,

he's one of the players that I've covered that I appreciate the most because he is so, so intelligent and such a professional and everything else. And everybody respects this guy. But when Kevin O'Connell was talking about it, he goes, Hey, he's going to be a heck of a coach one day i'm like yeah man that kind of that that tells you the story right there like we don't want to show him any playing we want him in that room and we want him as you know a major part of that room and uh other than that

you know let's let's not have him play in the football game so you're right uh horse feathers we did go after nine so we should have gotten a little weirder here on the show but anyway uh we got a lot of awesome football to go back to for Thursday night to see how excited Al Michaels is about the game. And so we're going to go find that out. But thank you, Manny. Great, great list tonight. Really enjoyed kind of going down that road. It's been all Dobbs mania all the time and haven't really talked about the actual matchup.

So great stuff from you. Great stuff from everybody in the comments. Really appreciate your participation. If you're just finding the channel every Monday and Thursday, we go live here. Also we premiere new episodes on the channel with myself and Jeremiah Searles on Tuesday nights. Sometimes Wednesday depends on what's going on.

We'll be live as well. And then Friday nights we have on the youtube channel the round table as well with myself will raggetts and andrew kramer so we stuff your face with football as only i can so thanks everybody we'll talk to you all soon