Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Sam Monson answers: Is Sam Darnold elite? Will he beat the Packers?

Episode Date: December 27, 2024

Sam Darnold has been playing the best football of his career as the Vikings sit at 13-2 with just two weeks left in the season. Matthew Coller is joined by Sam Monson of the Check the Mic podcast to discuss Darnold's season and answer whether Darnold is elite. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

TD Direct Investing offers live support, so whether you're a newbie or a seasoned pro, you can make your investing steps count. And if you're like me and think a TFSA stands for Total Fund Savings Adventure, maybe reach out episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here, and look who's back at the perfect time. Sam Monson, Check the Mic podcast with Sam and Steve Palazzolo, which when you do the old Spotify wrapped, guess what comes out to my number one most listened to podcast of the year. Indeed, it was Check the Mic every week with the previews, the reviews of each week of the season.

You keep me informed about everything around the NFL. Well, I am in a cone of focus on the Minnesota Vikings, Sam. So I'm glad that the Check the Mic podcast is rolling with you and Steve. And I'm hoping you're having a fun season. How are we doing, man? Yeah, it's doing good. And, you know, a big thank you to you for being so encouraging and helpful along the process as we were, you know, exploring going out on our own. That was definitely a big help. It was fun. The Spotify rap thing this year, because we left sort of mid-August, you know,

so we had a lot of people that were sending us these Spotify raps where it was us, you know, check the mic. And then us is the PFF NFL podcast as well. We were like one and two on their Spotify rap. That was pretty cool. Yeah, I think that actually was the case for me because I like to jog and throw it in, especially after a Sunday. So the Monday night jog is pretty much your entire show. Although sometimes I don't make it through two and a half hours of Sam and Steve. Yeah, I was going to say, but it's a, yeah,

it's a substantial jog. So anyway, look, this is, this is the game of the year for the Vikings. This is the game of the last couple, many years for the Minnesota Vikings, I think. So start, start me off with when you and Steve are previewing this one, which you may have already done just before we recorded this. What, what's your number one storyline going into Vikings Packers? I think the opportunity there for the Vikings, really. I mean, they've been so good this season. I mean, completely a surprise package in terms of what our expectations, certainly mine, were before the season. You know, we expected this team to be pretty good, but just treading water once they lost J.J. McCarthy, once they were sort of tied to Sam Darnall for the entire season.

But Kevin O'Connell has done it again. I mean, his ability to change a quarterback. He did it with Kirk Cousins and he's rewired Sam Darnall. And now Darnall isn't just playing well for Sam Darnall. He's playing well, period. And maybe not quite at the sort of MVP caliber of Lamar Jackson or Josh Allen, but like the next tier down. I mean, he's in that group of really, really impressive performance, pro bowl type of caliber, if that term has any meaning anymore. And the Vikings are really good because of it.

And they're obviously keeping pace and still right in line for that number one overall seed competition. And now they have, you know, maybe the two toughest games of their entire season to end the season. So on the one hand, it's like, that's a brutal way to finish your year. And the other hand, this is your opportunity. You go and beat two division rivals who are also chasing 13 wins in the season. If you're able to beat one or both of those teams, you could go into the post season as the number one seed with the week off, you know, on the wildcard weekend with everything having to come through Minnesota and, you know, Detroit dealing with a really banged up defense with Philadelphia having sort of thrown away the opportunity to get that number one seed and, you know, looking like the team to beat. Give me more context in the bigger picture of Sam Darnold for this season. Just, you don't have to say where he ranks for you. Exactly. We'd have to rank quarterbacks. We'll save that for a July content. But as I was going through, and I wrote about this today,

looking at the elite quarterbacks league over the last couple of years, I don't think that Sam Darnold is quite on the level of Lamar Jackson, who is putting up a historic season. I don't think it's quite Josh Allen because of his running ability and his ability to avoid sacks. But if you give me almost anybody else in the NFL and stack up where he is adjusted net yards per attempt, quarterback rating, PFF grade, big time throw percentage.

Even his turnover worthy play throw percentage has dropped and dropped. Just to use all the PFF stats we can get our hands on. And in a year and a world that is throwing the ball shorter and shorter, A dots are going down. Sam Darnold is pushing the ball down the field as well as any quarterback that we've seen over the last, what, five years in the NFL since everybody started going to two high shells. So how would you compare him kind of across the league for what he has done this year? Yeah, and bouncing back from adversity as well. Like anytime anything does go wrong, it's like he's been perfect this season. You know, everybody has a bad game here or there or something bad happens within the game.

He's consistently demonstrated the ability to bounce back from those, have a good performance following a bad performance, or rectify a bad play or a bad opportunity with something later in the game. The Seahawks game, the fourth quarter, all of a sudden Seattle's defense is really turning up the pressure. They're getting home. I don't want to say they got lucky. It was a face mask call, right? And they missed one of those earlier in the season. So it's not like they were writing their luck,

but you sort of get a do-over on that play where the pressure did get home and a guy just used the face mask to make the tackle. And he takes advantage of that by then hitting a touchdown and being essentially the game winner. So Darnold, the kind of the non-statistical stuff, the more ancillary stuff has been really impressive as well. Yeah, look, there was a brief glimmer of time where I think he was forcing himself into the fringes of the MVP conversation. And really, that pretty much sums it up.

I don't think he should be there. Like, I think that is the purview of, you know, Lamar Jackson, Josh Allen. Maybe you want to put Joe Burrow in there, depending on what you want to do with wins as a concept for the MVP. But he is the next step down. Like, after that, if you clear those three guys that are the MVP conversation, who would the next quarterback that you bring up be? And it would be Darnold. It would be Jared Goff. It would the next quarterback that you bring up be? And it would be Darnold, it would be Jared Goff, it would be people like that. So that from where he came from, you know, from his sort of career baseline up until this point, is an insane turnaround. I mean, that's, I don't want to say it's unprecedented, because I don't think it quite is. But

it's extremely unusual, and extremely unlikely for a thing to happen so what what is your explanation for it because i think the explanation is about seven or eight tiers or layers of things that have all played into it uh the number one thing is that he's a really talented football player and stupid talented after I've gotten to see him up front, uh, up close and personal. I mean, even during training camp, I remember you and I talked about expectations for this season. And I think we did this in Vegas at circa, right?

And we were talking about how you were calling it, Hey, maybe it's a Mulligan season and we're just giving everybody a free pass until next year. And I was like, the one thing that holds me back is how just insane this guy's arm is throwing the ball to Justin Jefferson. And that's, what's really driven this offense for the entire year. What's number two for you? Cause clearly the draft status means something, the size, the athleticism, the arm strength. What is this? What is the second layer down for why Sam Darnold has surprised the entire NFL this year? I think number two is probably Kevin O'Connell. And honestly, I might make that number one.

I know what you mean, though. It is funny when you see these guys that have sort of former first round pedigree or whatever. They are physically different. I mean, you watch these guys play and it's like, oh, look, the ball comes out of his hand different to these other guys. You can see why somebody was drafted in the top five, even if their career hasn't panned out yet. Like you can immediately visualize those people. Same thing in college. Like when you see one of those guys, like, oh, that guy will be a former, you know, he will be a top X draft pick simply because of the way he looks and the way he throws the ball. And it's why you hear all the time, as soon as a personnel guy

actually sees these guys in person, it changes. They immediately go, oh, that guy, he's getting drafted higher because of it. Yeah, I mean, I think number two probably is Kevin O'Connell. And you might even make that number one. The job he's done has been incredible. I think at that Circa conversation, we were talking about how there might be pressure on kevin o'connell if this season went badly like it wouldn't be his fault he's lost the quarterback that presumably he was going to be starting if not right away then very early in the season um and you're like but that's the way the nfl is

right if it's a bad season he will be under pressure and instead he's like no i'll just take sam darnall and fix him just immediately like a project, right? I'm just going to take this guy that had been a bust that hadn't worked out in multiple different spots and just fix him and just rewire him and get the most out of him and remind people why he was a top overall quarterback. And, and actually not just that, but remind them verbally as well. Like come out and say, organizations fail players more than players fail organizations, like literally place the blame elsewhere and then demonstrate that the blame was elsewhere by actually fixing him myself. And it's pretty incredible. I mean, Kevin O'Connell, I think deserves an absolute ton of

credit. I think he genuinely changed the way Kirk Cousins plays the game while he was the quarterback of the Vikings. I think he's done the same thing with Sam Darnall. He has resuscitated his career and demonstrated that he was that top pick for a reason, and that is still in there, even if it didn't work out with the Jets, it didn't work out with the Panthers. Is it just me? Because maybe I, we lose things in history and kind of forget about stuff, but I feel like supporting casts are impacting quarterbacks more than ever. Maybe because defenses are so complicated, maybe because a lot of the quarterbacks aren't that different from each other in terms of like maybe in the nineties or something, the gap between the really good quarterbacks and the average quarterbacks was enormous,

but now it might be only this much someone's difference between being a backup level versus a star if they have that amount of talent and where it all ties into Kevin O'Connell is he has the receiving options to be able to do whatever he wants to do. And so then when he's creating this confident quarterback who can work with his feet and eyes and throw to spaces and things like that, which every quarterback wants to be able to do, someone's got to be there to go catch the football. And for them to draft Jordan Addison is a huge move in the, why is Sam Darnold succeeded and to trade a draft pick for TJ Hawkinson, where I've seen Darnold become a different quarterback, even from the first couple of weeks, because he has TJ Hawkinson.

I think this is just everything coming together all at once for O'Connell to be able to use those weapons because if he has Irv Smith Jr. or something at tight end and not TJ Hawkinson, it's probably a little bit of a different story. I think it definitely is. This is why these things are always multi-layered. There's always multiple things involved in all this. think you're right like kevin o'connell has done a fantastic job but if you took kevin o'connell and placed him on one of the worst rosters in the nfl and said okay do the same job does it work the same way almost certainly not right you you require that level of talent to be able to do something like this as well i think the point you made in terms of the supporting cast has become a bigger part of the puzzle because i think the quarterback landscape has leveled a little bit um i don't

i think you know people still complain about bad quarterback play but i think there have never been more capable starting nfl quarterbacks than there are right now. Like you only need to go back a decade or 15 years or whatever, where you needed to pay Alex Smith a hundred million dollars a year, because if the, the risk of not having him and Alex Smith, like, okay, he was a former number one overall pick, but like his career, even at his best, he was like average, right? Like average became more, became worth a hundred million dollars a year because the threat of not having average meant that you had to put Brody Croyle out there. And it's like, this doesn't like, we can't play, we can't play football like this. Um, and there was only 15 guys that were

like that. And everyone else was dealing with their version of Brody Croyle and try to make something work with nothing. Now, like you've got okay this week you're gonna have a game between mason rudolph and mac jones each of whom are clear backups at this point but both of whom are functional like they both work they can both play offense they can both make it you know make a make an offense exist and function and put up 300 yards in a random game and three touchdowns or whatever they're both both functional NFL quarterbacks. That I think is maybe unprecedented. I'm not sure that's ever happened. So the gap between the best quarterbacks in the NFL and the worst starting quarterbacks is so much narrower than it was, you know, 15 years ago. So I think now you're right.

One of the big differentiators becomes who's throwing to Jamar Chase and Tee Higgins as opposed to, you know, a team that doesn't have any receiving help. And that starts to become a big separator. I suspect the way defenses have changed in the last 15 years is also a part of it. But yeah, it's all it's all a big part. And Darnold being able to throw to Justin Jefferson and TJ Hawkinson and Jordan Addison is obviously a huge part of his success as well. There's also the point that Steve keeps bringing up, which is we're now four or five years deep into every time Jordan Addison plays football, the quarterback that he's playing with

is the best quarterback in the nation or the NFL. He might simply be the most powerful force in football at the moment. No, you're right. Kenny Pickett was drafted in the first round because of Jordan Addison. And I did a story about one of Pickett's biggest games when Addison came out in the draft, where Addison just took over the entire game, every contested catch, every opportunity. And he's done that here. And he's also kept the nose clean since he has been back

inside the facility no other issues from him with the driving and so forth but when he's on the field he has made contested catches he gets open versus man coverage he is a a 1b to justin jefferson which is how they dreamed it up. What you're talking about though, I think that the separator starts to become, what can you do when everything goes wrong? And this is where I've been most impressed with Sam Darnold, especially in recent weeks, because I mean, I think there's a lot of quarterbacks who can read a zone defense and throw it to the tight end, open in the zone and complete passes and move the ball. And if someone's one-on-one, they could throw it to the tight end, open in the zone and complete passes and move the ball. And if someone's one-on-one, they could throw it up to him and see if they can make a play. But what most quarterbacks can't do is when the rush comes and they're dodging tacklers and they're stepping up in the

pocket and Jefferson's 40 yards down the field, throwing an anticipation ball to him. I froze the film when Darnold made the decision to throw the ball. Jefferson's at like the 25 yard line. He catches it at the three. I mean, it just, you know, being able to do that stuff like that. I think that's what puts quarterbacks in a different category, which of course has to lead to the question because I need your thought and opinion on what they should do here with this situation. I have been sold on the idea of bringing Sam Darnold back in whatever capacity, whatever button they need to take or to push. And then you can still have a Jordan love situation with JJ McCarthy and move on if it

doesn't work out. But that extra level of playmaking to me from Sam Darnold and the fact that he's limited his number of turnovers to me says you can win consistently with someone like this. Yeah. I mean, I think clearly that's the case if he maintains this kind of level. I think that, that sort of late in the down stuff, it's just become not necessarily a necessity, but it's become the thing that separates almost all great quarterbacks, right? Like Lamar Jackson, the touchdown he had yesterday where he just bought like seven more seconds until eventually Isaiah likely made the right adjustment and got himself open in the back of the end zone. Lamar puts the ball like he's buying time like it's a high school game against Danell Hunter, like one of the most athletic defensive end pass rushers in football. And Lamar Jackson is acting like this is a high school game

where I'm just a better athlete than you. I'm going to take all the time I need until my guy eventually uncovers. Now, okay, most people aren't Lamar Jackson, but Lamar Jackson, Josh Allen, Patrick Mahomes, Joe Burrow, these are all guys that are able to extend the play and make those late in the down adjustment plays and it's funny because every you know month or so kurt warner fires off a tweet about how pocket passing is still the most important thing in the game and you know in kurt's

eyes every quarterback should play the game like kurt cousin or like kurt warner does or did and it's like okay but almost nobody does that anymore. Like it's still, obviously if you have Tom Brady, you can still do it. And it's still a theoretical way of winning the game. But like, who is doing that now? I mean, even, you know, Justin Herbert is maybe the most prototypical pocket passer

and he's super athletic and makes plays on the run. And there's almost nobody anymore that does that so if you don't have a guy that can succeed late in the down and that's a big difference between you know kirk cousins and sam darnall like darnall could do that stuff cousins can cousins is a statue even before he got his achilles popped and now he's absolutely a statue who can't move at all so having that guy is almost a prerequisite at this point, unless you find a Tom Brady from somewhere. Um, and that doesn't appear to be any on the horizon. So it's a hugely important thing. Like you need a guy that can make those plays. Otherwise you're camped. You're at

that level where we will take you as far as the offense takes you. And when the offense runs out of answers, you run out of answers because you're not Tom Brady. You're just a pretty good quarterback who can make the plays off script and late in the down. So, you know, I think a big variable is, A, obviously the recovery of J.J. McCarthy, but B, like where they think he is, which probably has changed. So this is the thing, right? We didn't think that was a particularly great draft class for quarterbacks. You know, obviously a ton of them went in the draft and went early, but all of a sudden, all of them look good. Caleb Williams, okay, number one overall. He's maybe struggled the most, but Jaden Daniels is a superstar already.

Drake May looks phenomenal and has zero help, like the worst offensive line in the league, the worst receiving core in the league and he still looks pretty good Michael Penix Jr. just unseated Kirk Cousins Bo Nix was threatening rookie of the year for a period the other five all look pretty useful and J.J. McCarthy was seen by some as you know QB3 QB4 certainly in that group right not like an outlier or the last of the group so if that represents a baseline for him like he could be somewhere in the middle of this group of rookie quarterbacks who are all pretty good, then, you know, it's, it's a lot easier to

say, yeah, we could turn the ball over to him and be good. Um, but if they don't have that confidence, if he's a normal quote unquote,quote rookie young quarterback well then the potential drop-off from this fringe mvp all pro caliber sam darnold is huge and that would be a huge risk to take obviously the complicating factors are what kind of contract are you gonna have to pay sam darnold based off this insane season and you know the dynamic of franchise tag trade you know compensate or compensatory draft pick like what will you get if you just let him walk out the door these are all variables that all need to get thrown into the hopper and decide what the best course is yeah the thing with jj mccarthy is uh they couldn't have been more impressed with what they saw last year. However, he took a

grand total of, I think, three reps with the first team for the entire off season. And then, yeah, I mean, he beat up the Las Vegas Raiders second and third team in preseason. It was great. Can't take anything away from that, but that's a lot different than having a Pro Bowl caliber season with 13, 14, or 15 wins where you're the reason that's driving the offense. It's not like a Case Keenum. Oh, they had the number one defense, and they just ran the football all the time, and then he had a few balloons in the air fall into people's hands.

This has really been a quarterback driving the success this way. And I just think that, I mean, you come from the ultimate analytics guy background at PFF, but, you know, one of the concepts that was the drum that got banged was cheap quarterbacks and the advantage there. And I believe in it and I don't disagree with it, but I also think that it could be overstated in a small window. Like the amount of levers to pull for the salary cap are just so immense in the NFL that anyone can pry open a window and make plays in this off season, even if you pay Darnold. And it's just not a crime. This is what the thing that we should really learn from Sam Darnold. It's just not a crime. If a quarterback actually gets to develop, that's what I think about JJ McCarthy. If he has to wait for a couple of years, it's fine. Look who the Vikings are playing this week. Oh my gosh. If Jordan Love only has one year of

his rookie contract, their franchise will just fall into the ocean. Well, not really because they're a Superbowl contender here. So, you know, I just think that it's okay if they slow play this a little bit more rather than taking the risk of turning over a 13, 14 or 15 win team over to someone who's never played before. Like it's clearly, it's clearly a massive sort of cheat code from a roster construction standpoint to have a really good quarterback on a rookie contract. But the most important thing is having really good quarterback play. Like even just this division, you've got Jared Goff, who was on a big money contract that became quite cheap just by the

amount of time that's passed since he signed it. He's then re-upped for another contract and the Lions still have one of the best rosters in the NFL. So it's clearly not a crippling handicap on your ability to construct a good roster. You've got Jordan Love, who got the deal after his sort of weird, unusual succession path road that the Packers have done. You've got Minnesota with the Sam Darnall cheap throwaway one-year $10 million thing. And then meanwhile, Brock Purdy remains still on literally the best value quarterback or best value contract in football, right? The very last pick of the draft who had been playing up until this point, very, very good football. We can debate elite or not, but like very high level football, which makes that the single greatest advantageous contract from a salary cap standpoint in the game.

Like better than if he'd been an undrafted free agent, they would be paying him more money then. So, and then the 49ers are on their way. They have six wins right now because Purdy in part isn't playing as well as he played last season and the season before. So the most important thing is Purdy playing at that level, not the fact that he's getting paid $7 a year.

Like that's the variable. So this is why, yeah, it's, it's obviously worse if you have to go from Sam Darnold on one year, $10 million to now we got to pay him 45, 50, whatever it's going to be. Clearly that's worse, right? But it's more important that you would keep Sam Darnold if he's able to keep playing at this level, then run the risk of going to JJ McCarthy and that being a big drop off. And just to give you an indication of how risky it is to sort of put all your eggs in the basket of like preseason performance. I thought that Dorian Thompson Robinson was a terrible prospect as a quarterback. Didn't like him, saw him in college a lot. Didn't

think there was any chance whatsoever that that guy panned out into a quarterback at any kind of viable level at the NFL. He had an amazing preseason for the Browns. And people were like, look, everyone wrote him off. He's got a ton of experience. He got better every year. And now he looks like a star. And I was worried. I was like, wow, this guy legitimately looks good in preseason. I must've got this wrong along with a bunch of other people. And then Mike Clay had a tweet today that dtr has 697 yards and 180 career pass attempts that 3.9 or 3.9 yards per attempt is the worst in nfl history the next closest to some guy called kim mcquilken at 4.2 yards so after that preseason everyone was like writing apology letters and saying DTR is going to be the next guy to come from the middle of the draft.

You guys all wrote him off. And yet he's actually statistically the worst quarterback that's ever played the game. So that's the risk, right? Is that, yeah, J.J. McCarthy looked really good in a limited preseason action against largely second teams. He might do that in the NFL. He might completely turn that seamlessly like Dak Prescott did, right? Look great in preseason, became the quarterback, was clearly the right guy, carried it into the regular season.

It might happen or he might be the next DTR. And if that's the case, it's a catastrophe if you move on from Sam Darnall and he then goes and lights it up for the Raiders. And, you know, he's the solution in Las Vegas and you turned it over to the rookie who actually isn't as good as he looked in preseason right if this had been an eight win team then the risk wouldn't be much when it's a 13 14 or 15 win team then the risk is enormous of falling off the face of the earth and taking a team that was just deep into the playoffs or at the top of the conference and then sliding backwards with that veteran team the other thing is too the vikings aren't young they're a very much win now roster i think that they have the lowest percentage of

rookie contract snaps of any team in the nfl this is a team that really was built to win very soon maybe not necessarily this year but it was really built to win in 2025 and then popped before that because of how well sam darnold played so there is a huge risk in that idea and they better be unbelievably sure and not only that but he's missed an entire year of throwing footballs which is the thing that he was needing to improve the most is just his accuracy and consistency throwing the ball but he's not able to do that with the footwork for what six months out of this year that's setting him back so i think there's a lot of factors that kind of point toward that i just pulled it up by the way i was curious like what jordan loves cap hit was for this year it's

20 million like these contracts not the cap isn't fake but you can certainly fake it with the contracts for a window of time if you need to which they could with sam darnold if they need to so and critically critically the more the more the vikings win down this stretch like if they win the next two games if they get the number one seat if they make it deep into the playoffs like the more they win between now and the end of the season, the bigger a call it would be to walk away from him because you're, you're demonstrating more and more conclusively that him in this environment is capable of winning a Superbowl, right. And doing it on the, at the head of a really good roster. so every win from now on makes it harder i think to

make to justify walking away from that um and you're right like the like let's say darnel whatever contract he gets given it's probably not going to be like the top of the market contract right it's not going to be the dak prescott market resetting deal. So it's almost like it's unlikely to be the most prohibitive camp situation in the NFL, even if you add his deal to JJ McCarthy's deal and take them as a unit, right? If you take whatever contract you're giving him and McCarthy's contract and put them together, it's probably not amongst the most money being given to quarterbacks in football, which again, just makes it easier to do. So I think I have a general theory about this, uh, about like roster building and everything

else. Cause people love the draft and people always want the draft picks to be the guy, but sometimes it's a random player like Adam Thielen being better than Laquan Treadwell. And my thought is always, I don't really care where he came from and how you got him. I just need him to play great. And that's the case with, they didn't draft Kyle Hamilton, but that left the door open for Josh Metellus. It's like, well, oh, well,

you got the guy you needed in that position. I don't care if you drafted him or not. And it's kind of like that with Sam Darnold. Like all we were ever talking about with Kirk Cousins was it's just not good enough. It's just not to the level. This is to the level as has been proven throughout the season. Now they're facing the Green Bay Packers, sir. How good are the Green Bay Packers? And let me preface this by saying one of the funny things that's played out in the NFL is that there is a very clear group of really good teams. And then a little bit small group of, and then just crap everywhere.

And so if you go through everyone's schedule, you're like, they didn't play anybody. Who have they beaten that? It feels that way for the Vikings a little bit. It certainly feels that way for the Packikings a little bit it certainly feels that way for the packers where i'm looking like when was the last good team they played oh yeah they lost to the vikings they lost the lions they lost the lions again and no one else is any good but if their green bay podcasts are doing the same thing they're like who are the vikings beating huh so it's kind of a hard thing to compare these teams when you don't have too many recent

elite versus elite matchups. How good are they really? Well, that's the thing. You can look at that data point two different ways. You can look at it and say, the only teams that they've played that are any good, they lost to. You can also look at it and say, the only teams, they're undefeated if they haven't played number one seed contending football teams, right?

Literally, the only teams that have beaten them this season are all still in the hunt for that number one seed in the NFC. And outside of that, they're an undefeated football team, despite losing their quarterback for a couple of games and having to do it with a backup. That's really impressive. And I think they're a better team now than they were earlier in the season for a lot of those games. So I think the bottom line is very good. You know, that game, okay, it was against New Orleans team

that was banged up with Spencer Rattler quarterback, but they murdered them. I mean, that was the first shutout of the season. They were great on both sides of the ball. They can run the ball. They can pass the ball. You don't know where the of the ball. They can run the ball. They can pass the ball. You don't know where the passes are going to because everybody is pretty useful. They can spread the ball around. One day it's going to be Jaden Reed. One day it's going to

be Christian Watson, Tucker Kraft. The ball can go anywhere. Jordan Love is reaching that stage where I don't think it's quite the utterly untouchable level it was for a while late last season, but he's getting there. Like he's putting performances like that together. And the defense is so much better than it was a year ago. I think that's a big factor in this as well. So yeah,

it's a fair point that they haven't had the toughest schedule in the world and the best teams that they've played, they have lost to. But I do think that right now this Packers team is playing as well as anybody. It's just unfortunate that they're in Packers team is playing as well as anybody. It's just unfortunate that they're in the division where that's true for three teams. Well, I think similarly to the Vikings. So the Vikings two losses came against really good teams and by a grand total of 12 points.

And when you look at Green Bay's losses, yeah, they were down to the Vikings. But at the end of the day, it's not a terrible loss for them. And then their losses to Detroit. Well, the most decided one was to Detroit in the Vikings. But at the end of the day, it's not a terrible loss for them. And then their losses to Detroit with the most decided one was to Detroit in the weather. But most recently, they really should have won that game against Detroit. So they've been playing really close games as well, just like the Vikings and then blowing out a couple of bad teams where I see the biggest difference between a green Bay now and how I would talk about them in the past is their defensive scheme. Because in the past, one thing you could say was, hey, they've got Kenny Clark. He's going to eat Garrett Bradbury. We know that that's going to be a problem. However, they are somehow going to end up with Quay Walker on Justin Jefferson,

and that'll be fine. I haven't seen too much of that this year. They are in a different place defensively. and when I look at their pass rush grades they have a lot of different it's almost like they're receivers like they have a lot of different people contributing and they don't rely on just one person which I think makes them even a little bit more dangerous yeah they can get pressure from everywhere there I think you're right they're still they're still going to have an advantage against garrett bradbury and that's the one area the vikings were a bit like seattle it's like it's the one achilles heel to the team it's like this is a really good team top to bottom but every now and again you're going to run okay he's not this year but you're going to run into

a dexter lawrence right and he's just going to destroy your center for the entire game and if you don't have a workaround to that the garrett bradbury i think he's given up 33 34 pressures this season which is a huge number for a center like that's twice the volume you would want a good your center to be giving up over the course of the year you're going to run into teams they're going to exploit that and green bay is probably one of them but now they're so much more diverse than that from a pass rushing standpoint they can get pressure from everywhere and it's a really formidable unit and quay walker is suddenly giving way to an edger and cooper who looks phenomenal i mean young but that dude is incredible and for some reason they've been kind of holding him back and slow playing his uh push into the lineup but that

guy's fast he can cover he can blitz he can do everything he doesn't make as many mistakes as somebody like quay walker so they're actually getting better with the personnel moves that they're making on defense i think that's a big difference between this group now in 2024 going into 2025 on last year's team like their defense is so much better and you could see too that teams that have an attack into the middle have caused the most problems for the vikings teams that blitz up the middle like arizona did a bunch of times or teams that have good defensive tackles like the seattle seahawks caused them the most problems you know bradbury he this sort of always happens he had a run there where if you're looking at the

pff numbers he was up into the middle of the league in pass protection just a couple weeks ago you're like oh okay well you know he's been pretty solid and then the last few weeks it has really gone downhill and it's almost always who was he playing oh grady jarrett came to town uh-oh oh it was leonard williams and uh jaron reed and uh-oh and that's exactly what they might be in for here with a team that has a good defensive tackle. It's always a factor that they'll have to work around. So give me,

give me like a, why don't we do like an old school? What's your three keys to the game Monson? And if you want to do it in a very Yelly fashion, cause you guys do a segment about the yell, the Yelly show, you can do that too if you like my consignment of shouty show merch just arrived you could have i could have put it on

for the uh for this um yeah look i think one big thing really is how much of a factor is bradbury in this game like and not just him like the interior as a whole we're singling out bradbury because he is the weakest link i think from that point of view but the interior as a whole. We're singling out Bradbury because he is the weakest link, I think, from that point of view. But the interior as a unit remains relatively suspect compared with the rest of that team. So how much of a factor is that? Like, can they stop that being a consistent problem? And against, you know, against Seattle, it wasn't a problem all game. Like late in the game, it became a problem.

And they were able to overcome it with the face mask penalty and then the touchdown. But like I think he had eight dropbacks, something like that, in the fourth quarter, and five of them he was under pressure. Like it became a real factor late in the game. So how big a factor is that in this game? The Justin Jefferson, like I think they're getting Jair Alexander back for this game.

I think they've been kind of working him towards this as the return. We're going to need you against Justin Jefferson and the Vikings. That matchup has gone a couple of different ways with Jefferson and the Packers. Where does that land? Are we going to get – they actually keep him pretty quiet and they force somebody else to win, which can happen, but is obviously less ideal than just your best player taking over or does jefferson just remind everybody that no i'm the best receiver in the nfl and i'm gonna go i'm i'm better than your number one guy that you're gonna rush back

to try and cover me in this game and he goes off for 180 and two touchdowns and you know that's a big factor and then look it's always a cop-out but turnovers are the kind of thing that determines these games right we talk about this is why football is great and maddeningly frustrating all at the same time is you work out you know the pluses and minuses those big uh you know comparison charts where you see who's got the edge and all these 15 different categories and then it comes down to like which way does the ball bounce when a crazy things happens in the first quarter right does this like these massive high leverage 14 point swing plays that like we're talking about these these games that have betting lines of like two and a half you know one and a half whatever those plays individually are

14 point swings if it bounces your way or the other way there's no way of getting away from those like if you get one or two of those go your way you win the other way. There's no way of getting away from those. If you get one or two of those go your way, you win the game. If you get one or two of them go their way, they win the game. It sucks that that's the way these things are determined, but it's sadly true. Do you steal the ball away from Jordan Love? They did it a couple of times last time. Vikings are number one in the league in interceptions,

and a lot of that is caused by pressure. It's making plays on the football. Some of it is just like Theo Jackson said, I was as surprised as you guys after he picked off the pass from Gino Smith. Does the quarterback just do something crazy or make a big mistake? And in this game where you have two big arm quarterbacks who like to push the ball downfield and are also prone to the occasional overconfidence in the cannon that is a great factor it wasn't as shouty as it could have been for you for the uh for the shouty show segment but people can check out check the mic

for uh for that terrific segment sam monson always the best uh to have you on it's got to be fun for you man i know that as you go along in your career and you've covered all the teams all the time you get farther away from that vikings fandom the of yours from the randy moss era but there's got to be a there's got to be a little twinkle in the eye this week when you have this kind of game right oh definitely it's still cool and look if the vikings win a super ball i'm going to be as happy as anybody about it i'm absolutely rooting for that i'm also you know experienced and damaged enough as a fan that i'm not buying it until it happens like i am still waiting for the wheels to fall off this thing uh right up until they don't and they get they get over the line and that right there is the proof that you've been following it for uh

as long as you have sam uh once again going into this playoffs everything else check the mic a must listen for all so i appreciate your time make sure you check that out and uh we'll talk to you again soon man maybe before the parade possible absolutely thanks for having me