Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - SB Nation's Mark Schofield talks about whether Justin Jefferson can keep getting open and if the Vikings can stop Jalen Hurts

Episode Date: September 15, 2022

Matthew Coller talks with SB Nation's Mark Schofield about what the Vikings are going up against with Jalen Hurts and whether Hurts can continue to run and put up big point totals. Plus what did the Vikings do to get Justin Jefferson open so much and can they continue it? And: Why is Vikings-Eagles a big game? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello and welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here and a return guest, but now has a new job. Mark Schofield has just joined SB Nation. And Mark, it's been really fun. It's like every time I have you on, you have a quarterbacks is top-notch. Everybody knows that. And so I'm happy to see it. And thanks for taking the time to come on as you're adjusting to a new gig. Matthew, thank you for having me. It's always fun to come back. And yeah, it's been a fun little first week. I'm now part of the corporate machine. We've got know, things I got to take care of. And, you know, it's different, but it's been one heck of a journey. And to get here, it's kind of pretty cool. I will say that. I mean, I announced it on the eight year anniversary of the first piece I ever wrote in this space over at Inside the Pylon, RIP ITP. And so that was pretty cool.

But excited to be back. We got week one in the books. I have no idea what we're going to talk about. I can't imagine there's anything to talk about after the week that was in the NFL. But as always, buddy, it's great to be back with you. It's great to see you. You're such a dear friend. And it's great to come on.

I'm such a huge fan of everything that you do. Well, I really appreciate that. And, yeah, I mean, inside the pylon from back in the day uh kind of uh you know trailblazing there's things going around on twitter even right now about film analysis and stuff like that and inside the pylon introduced me to a lot of football concepts when i got the job covering the vikings i went googling for everything i could learn about how football actually works and inside the pylon really kind of guided me through that. So it's very cool to see you go from there. It's amazing to see like the people that kind of went through ITP,

like Maddie Brown, who does a great job covering the Seahawks, Ted Wynn, obviously at the Athletic, Deontay Lee at the Athletic, John Ledyard, Brandon Thorne, Ethan Young, who's like Chip Kelly's right hand at UCLA. Like the list goes on. And I know I'm missing people. Dave Archibald, obviously, he's such a driving force behind ITP. Remains a dear friend to this day.

Like the names of people. Michael Kist. I mean, Chuck Zotta. Like so many great people spent some time at ITP. And to see all the success that everybody has gone on to in this space or other tangential football spaces, it's been the best part of it for me, seeing other people go on to great things. So that's been awesome. No, it's very cool, and it's one of my favorite parts of this show

is that people we have on, even like Charles McDonald or Stephen Ruiz or yourself, guys who started out in kind of unique spots in the space and then built out really cool careers. So anyway, you're the, you're the quarterback guy. You are the go to quarterback. It's what you are, what you do. Eagles fans aren't happy with me right now. Okay. Well, let's begin right there. I want to know what you thought of Jalen Hurts first performance because the Eagles offense overall was very good. It's interesting. The big question,

Matthew, facing Jalen Hurts this year, can he perform the pirouette, you know, balance and act that he needs to perform as an athletic quarterback? Because you watch him last year, you watch him in Oklahoma, you watch him in Alabama. He's a tremendous athlete. But for some athletic quarterbacks, and he's certainly one, balancing what he can create, what he can do with his legs, with the need to just sometimes stick in the pocket and make a throw and protect yourself as a quarterback,

it's a balancing act that he is going through, and it's going to be a process. Last year, particularly early in the season, there were so many moments where you see him make his first read and he's like, I don't like this, pulls the ball down and runs. And then around, I keep bringing up the Denver game from last year. There was literally a play, Matthew, where he starts to bring the ball down and it's like, here we go again.

And then he's like, no, and he resets himself and makes a throw. And I thought, okay, where he starts to bring the ball down. And it's like, here we go again. And then he's like, no. And he resets himself and makes a throw. And I thought, okay, the light's coming on. Now he's sort of figured it out. Now fast forward to Sunday because he ran it 17 times. He ran for like 90 yards. And a lot of Eagles, not just fans, but analysts, Benjamin Solak, who covers the Eagles, loves the Eagles.

He talked about it. Les Bowen wrote He talked about it. Les Bowen wrote a piece about it yesterday that's like, this is not sustainable. He's still got that desire in the back of his mind that the second he doesn't like something, he's going to bail the pocket. I watched that game and kind of had a different take on it. I thought there were some moments, and I highlighted in a piece I wrote at SB Nation, like three different plays where it's like you can see him

get pressured and hand in there and make the throw, wherein last year, particularly early in the nation, like three different plays where it's like, you can see him get pressured and hand in there and make a throw. Where in last year, particularly early in the year, I thought that's a situation, that's a scenario where he gets one or two points of pressure in the pocket where he's like, I'm out of here, I'm going, I'm making something happen with my legs. And so I thought that there were signs of growth from him in that regard. Now he's nowhere near where he needs to be you know but you know they're eagles

fans are very divided on jalen hurts like extremely divided i know that's probably something you're a little bit familiar with given kirk cousins who i'm sure we'll talk about but for some eagles fans it doesn't matter like what they saw sunday he cannot do it's further signs that he's not going to get to where he needs to be and then there there's an underlying aspect to this, which is whether it's sustainable. Like, even if it's good or not, whether there's growth or not, can you win, can you survive in the NFL today as a quarterback if you're running it 17 times? You're exposing yourself to hits. And, you know, there was an interesting clip earlier during training camp from, I think, Pat O'Hara, the Titans quarterback's coach, talking about Malik Willis, another athletic quarterback. And he made the point that you have to make throws from the pocket because the second you get out, the rules change.

The league doesn't protect you as much. And so that's the push and pull with Hurts right now. Can he sort of grow to where he needs to be or at least do it more so he protects himself? Or does he continue to bail from pockets, particularly when he shouldn't,'t expose himself to hits and we're seeing Gardner Minshew by Halloween yeah I think I mean that's the biggest issue is just staying healthy if you're doing that um I don't know that it's a massive concern for me from a winning football game standpoint now I think when you get to the playoffs and you're playing the best defenses in the league, that usually is where the running part of it sort of runs out. Right. And even, I think there's something to it with Lamar Jackson, where it's like that offense does not

have a great passing game, a lot of the amazing passing game concepts. So they rely on him doing a lot with his legs. And then when you get to the playoffs i think that's much harder but in a regular season i think that you can make up for some shortcomings running the ball and think about like not it is an efficient play to run the ball for the quarterback a lot of times right you're not throwing interceptions you're not taking sacks you're making positive plays and then a lot of times what you see is oh it's third and seven and they dropped everybody back in coverage, but whoop, there's your quarterback running for a first down. Like, I think it's a huge edge. And even if he leans a little bit too far toward it, I think it's still very hard to defend for most defenses. And the other thing is, is I feel like I am a pretty big Jalen hurts defender, uh, in, in part because I don't think he throws the ball badly. Like,

I don't think he's, I don't think he's Vince Young where you're like, this guy better run all the time because half his throws are going into the dirt. Like, I think he is very capable of throwing the ball and improving in this area as he goes along. Yeah. And you bring up a very important point, Matthew, which is kind of the landscape of the NFL right now. We live it in this drop seven, drop eight, cover two quarters world where defenses are basically showing offenses light boxes and saying, look, we know that passing is more efficient than running. We know that. I mean, Huddle 21 clinic, Chris Vasseur, Kyle Kogan, like all these high school coaches

did a great presentation on how the high school level they're showing light boxes because they're Darren high school quarterbacks to run the ball because they don't want them throwing the ball. It's the same thing we're seeing at the NFL as stuff always sort of trickles up. The way you change that to your advantage is sometimes not just by running the football and sort of taking the bait, but you want to really get a numbers advantage as an offense. Run it with your quarterback. Because now if you've got five in the box and they're trying to account for all the gaps and you run it with your quarterback, you really flip the numbers advantage in your favor. And I think that certainly is an efficient weapon for offenses in today's NFL. Like look at Josh Allen and the Bills.

I mean, they had almost no running game last year, except for Josh Allen sometimes running with his legs. I mean, they had almost no running game last year, except for Josh Allen sometimes running with his legs. I think the Eagles can do that with Hurts. So I think it's certainly a winning recipe, at least formulaically right now. Of course, there's the injury factor and Hurts and other athletic quarterbacks. Jackson does a great job at sort of protecting himself. There are moments when you know Lamar can try a move in the open field to get more yards but he'll just dip out of bounds he'll slide he'll protect himself Hurst Allen some of these other guys I mean even Geno Smith on Monday night like lowering the shoulder into defenders in the open field as a quarterback maybe not the move to make

but you know you like it when you see it you sort of you know respect it but if you want to play all 17 games you probably shouldn't do that. But I think the landscape of the NFL and the way the game is played right now, particularly with what defenses are showing offenses, running the quarterback is a big advantage. And I just checked it. Jalen Hurts had the highest EPA running for week one. So not a surprise that it did make a legitimate impact that so i understand the

criticism but i also think that if you're a defense i mean last year i you know kyler murray against the vikings kyler murray kind of played a very up and down game he had a couple of bad interceptions in that game but where did he get bailed out the most daniel hunter is running at him free and he ran away like that's yeah and that's another part of it too. So it's like pocket quarterbacks. I don't know that they're that much healthier because they're a sitting duck. A lot of times now,

Kirk cousins is great at this and staying healthy, but I don't know that all of them are standing in the pocket and just knowing exactly where the werewolves defensive ends are coming to eat them. Right. So there's, there is a lot of, there is a lot of, there is a lot of give and take. I guess I always just want to kind of lean toward defending the running

quarterback in part with Jalen hurts too. I wonder what you think of this. Adding AJ Brown is awesome for him to have a receiver. Who's going to be open and catches the football last year. You know, after you got past Devante Smith and Dallas Goddard it was like whom's plays for this team right um but but now you know you have your your multiple weapons but I also think it draws a lot of attention there as well so if you're looking at A.J. Brown as your

first read and he's double covered well that's two guys who aren't anywhere near you as the quarterback like I think that adding A.J. Brown has ancillary benefits beyond just being A.J. Brown. There's a massive, Matthew, sort of butterfly ancillary effect of the Brown acquisition, which is why I think it was brilliant for the Eagles. And one is certainly the coverage attention that he's going to draw. I always love getting into the mind of an opposing offensive coordinator, defensive coordinator, when you're thinking about things like this. You know, if you're,

you know, the Vikings this week, you're the defensive staff and you're thinking, all right, who are we going to rotate coverage towards? Who might we bracket or put up a true double on? It's A.J. Brown. Like that's the answer there. And so, you know, that's what it's going to be week in and week out. He's going to draw attention. And so it's going to take perhaps one defender away from getting an after hurts. And the other sort of big benefit is, and I know he didn't have a, didn't put up numbers against the Lions, but for Devonta Smith, you know, had a good rookie year as a wide receiver, but we all know the sort of criticisms of him, or at least concerns about him him size can he beat press aligned defenders and physical corners in the nfl and last year there were moments when bigger more physical corners

were able to pin him to the boundary but now with brown although the eagles sort of use brown off the ball a lot you can put him in the on ball role that's sort of prototypical x receiver to draw press coverage and move Smith around and get him some free releases, get him some favorable matchups. And so that's another sort of ancillary effect, what it's going to mean for the other receivers on the team in addition to what it means for Hurts. And the final thing is Hurts thrown over the middle.

Another big sort of concern about his game that Eagles fans have, and it's an understandable one, a perfectly valid one. Brown did some of his best work over the middle like fearless no qualms about protecting himself like if you want to throw him a dig route and the teeth are covered too and he knows he's going to get hit by one of the safeties both of the safeties the drop in linebacker people on the sidelines like he does not care that's going to help Hurts attack in the middle of the field because as we saw Monday night with Russell Wilson he's hurts attack in the middle of the field because as we saw monday night with russell wilson he's not comfortable attacking the middle of the field sometimes when defenses know we don't have to worry about like the outside we don't have to worry about

the middle of the field between the hashes the numbers that makes their jobs easier having brown will help hurts in that effect as well and and i look at the way, and I know it's against the Lions and they have not restored the defensive roar, but the offensive line for the Eagles, I think is in a much better place than what the Vikings faced in week one. The Vikings faced the team in week one that was lacking its two best players on the offensive line. And that really showed, I mean, Dalvin Tomlinson had a big game for them, Zedary Smith, Daniil Hunter, but you know, you look at this offensive line and that really showed i mean dalvin tomlinson had a big game for them zadari smith daniel hunter but you know you look at this offensive line now and the fact that they added landon dickerson to this uh you know and and he's developed and jason kelsey's one of the

best players in the league lane johnson is one of the best players in the league and i even go back and i don't mean to ripple uh wounds open for the Vikings fans but in 2017 that NFC championship uh a lot of people walked out of that and said man Mike Zimmer's defense just got schemed like maybe you know Zimmer couldn't get it done in the biggest moment and I remember reviewing that game being like oh when the offensive line blocks all four guys and you get no pressure on any quarterback in the NFL, the dude can deliver passes with five seconds to throw. And I think of this with Hertz where it's like, we kind of talk about this with Kirk's contract all the time. Jalen Hertz being on a rookie deal

and the talent that they've been able to put around him, like the shortcomings that everyone's going to talk about with Jalen Hertz, just all matter less when you can put this offensive line, these weapons, make a trade for AJ Brown. I think he has one of the best situations in the entire NFL to work with. He absolutely might, Matthew. Let's not forget, you're talking to somebody who, you know, after that NFC championship game, then had to watch his Patriots get decimated by that same 2017. I know exactly what you're talking about. That started the whole, are the Patriots athletic enough on defense so they have pass rushers, they have linebackers? Like, no, that offensive line kind of kicked their butts up and down the field.

Like, that's what happened. But you're right about the situation that Hurts finds himself in because this is the sort of prototype, right? Like, this is the model, like, almost to a T, the Russell Smith and Seattle model, which sort of started the whole conversation about quarterbacks on their rookie deals, build around them. If you get, you know, Wilson was our, you know, third round pick Hertz was a second round pick.

Like you get those guys in the later rounds that they're not on that big money deal. You can acquire an agent Brown. You can put together this offensive line around them. You can right before the season starts trade for Chauncey Garter Johnson and add yet another piece you could add a James Bradbury like you can just build and build and build around that player and hope that either he gets there to where yeah he's worth the long-term extension or he's at least good enough where you can win and like you said the pieces that you've added minimize the shortcomings and deficiencies and areas where he needs to improve and grow as a quarterback.

Howie Roseman has done a tremendous job. And I remember standing like eight, ten feet in front of him at the podium at the combine, you know, last combine where he said, we're in a very good position because we have draft capital and we have cap space. And those teams that have those two things are able to be aggressive and so we're going to be as aggressive as we can to build around Jalen Hurts both he and Sirianni said that in lockstep of course it came out that at night

they were trying to trade for Russell Wilson but still they had the cap space they had the draft capital to be aggressive they've done that they've put this all around hurts and now it's up to see you know does he get there where he needs to be or is he still at least good enough that all this talent has made it a winnable recipe so my question is as far as this matchup goes with the vikings i mean how tough is it because i look at philadelphia especially since dallas is uh now in a lot of trouble, and Washington, we've seen some decent Carson Wentz performances before that do not sustain over a full season. And I'm not ready to shave my head for Brian Dable yet or whatever.

So I think that Philadelphia is the strongest team in that division, but how good are they actually? And does that really rest on the shoulders of how good Jalen Hurts plays? I think in part, you know, this is a quarterback driven league. So in part, in large part, perhaps it rests on Jalen Hurts. But I think, look, Jonathan Gannon is also under a microscope. I mean, you talk about putting people in positions to be successful. Look at what they added on defense, right?

Like you add, obviously, Jordan Davis in the first round, a tremendous draft pick. You add Bradbury. You add Chauncey Gardner-Johnson. You add Hassan Reddick. Like they have put talent on the defensive side of the ball as well. And last year it was they're playing all these soft coverages. They don't want to give up huge plays. Like they can't get get home they don't want to blitz because they're afraid about the

linebackers and the guys they have in the secondary those arguments are all out the window now like you look at the talent they have because they're white the linebacker that they added like a an athletic component to that second level that they've been missing for a long time and yet you see the lions have the success that they did. You see the Lions, particularly when they took Jordan Davis off the field, have success running the football. And so now there's a lot of sort of angst about that defensive performance. And is Gannon going to be able to adjust what he has done in the past,

given the talent that he has, or are they going to continue to play like this and give up plays give up yards and so you know i think get is under a lot of a little to a lot of pressure with how he uses these pieces that they've added on the defensive side of the ball folks football season is here and you need more gear to represent minnesota football adam theelin Minnesota football Adam Thielen Randy Moss John Randall the purple people eaters Bud Grant all great designs from SodaStick that you can put on hoodies hats t-shirts go to SodaStick.com S-O-T-A-S-T-I-C-K.com use the promo code purple insider to get 15% off your purchase yeah that kind of reminds me of Washington last year where everyone expected their defense to get 15% off your purchase.

Yeah, that kind of reminds me of Washington last year where everyone expected their defense to be amazing because of the talent and then their scheme was bad and it just didn't really matter. And I wonder like how much of that just is starting to apply in the NFL. Like obviously, you know, you can go back to Dick LeBeau or whatever, like scheme matters for

defense, Bill Parcells and all that. And it's always going to be the players who are most important, but I feel like a defensive play calling defensive scheme, how you teach these things with so many complicated route combinations, motions, everything that, that offenses are trying to do, it just becomes more and more and more important. And I feel like last year I felt like, what are they doing? If I can recognize everything they're doing on tape, then it's like, okay, it's not enough. If it looks like that Madden cover two play that I use every single time, it's just not enough. And this is where I think that the Vikings have the biggest advantage in the game.

I think that the offense for the Eagles is going to score some points, but it feels like, what are you guys going to do? Because if you don't confuse Kirk Cousins, he annihilates you. And you saw it last week. You saw it many times against the Patricia lions that just wanted to play the very basic coverage. I think he's going to do it again against Philadelphia. Yeah, and you talk about sort of the schemes. Everybody knows what everybody's doing. Where you really sort of make your mark as an offensive play designer is how well you break coverage rules. And Kevin O'Connell did a fantastic job of that.

Just an easy, quick example, quarters you know four deep or whatever you know the safety will take the inside number two receiver if he's vertical well what does that mean some teams teach five steps from that receiver some teams seven yards ten yards whatever it is you have to have route combinations that will break that like if you're running post out a nice sort of quarters, cover four, be to where outside guy runs a post, inside guy runs an out route, you want the safety to read that inside guy number two as a vertical threat. So if you're having to run a two yard out route,

I don't need that. Then the post guy runs right into the safety. You're not breaking the rules. And so you've got to find ways to break those rules. You've got to find ways to confuse, not just quarterbacks because if you look at play designs, you look at playbooks, routes will convert based on coverage, right?

So if you're middle field open versus middle field closed, you might run a different route depending on what happens there. You rotate the coverage, you spin the safeties, you try to confuse the quarterback. You might not confuse him, but you might confuse the receiver. And suddenly the receiver is not where the quarterback expects them to be. If you look back at Brady's first couple of weeks with the Buccaneers, you saw some interceptions where it's like, what is happening here? And that's what was happening. They were confused, not just the

quarterback, but the receiver as well, or at least getting one of those guys on a different page. That's what you have to do to teams these days. That's what you have to do to teams these days that's what you have to do to offenses try to confuse somebody on the other side of the ball and if you're just as coach bass loves to say you know drop it into you know country cover three or whatever that's not going to work like teams quarterbacks everybody's going to be able to figure that out but if you're making it confusing or at least making them take a half second or so to read something out throw time it off that's where you're going to have success. Yeah, and I remember PFF studied this, like how the coverage looked different than what it was supposed to be

based on the alignment and how quarterbacks reacted. Like, no surprise, Allen and Mahomes, like they still had great EPAs, but Kirk was one of the ones that dropped quite a bit. And that's no surprise because he has to read, react from the pocket, make a throw. He's not going to just run all over the place and then find somebody open. And I think that if Philadelphia doesn't do that, it's been one of the best indicators of how Kirk is going to play,

is how much does that team change up its coverages after the snap? And then, as always, does the defensive line get after kirk cousins which i think is is is always the kryptonite uh and could always be an issue but i i wonder about i wrote about this at the website sustainability of what they did on sunday against the packers because this was not kirk cousins first big game i mean he has shredded many an opponent but it's always been the over a 17 game schedule where you have the Kirk coaster. But I saw some things that I think on tape when I watched it back yesterday that were what I would refer to as maybe like easy buckets for Kirk Cousins,

a clear out route from Adam Thielen and Justin Jefferson runs underneath and catches an eight yard pass or something like that. Like things like that. I think a lot of times the previous offense, the wide zone, the boots, they were just always going for broke, like always looking for those big plays. And sometimes maybe forgot to like,

just get Kirk a completion and get him comfortable back there. Yeah. And you know, that's important for a quarterback, you know, cousins or otherwise like to sometimes give you that layup, give you that throw, get you in a rhythm, you know, that's important for a quarterback, you know, cousins or otherwise, like to sometimes give you that layup, give you that throw, get you in a rhythm, you know, and it also it's a way of giving the defense something else to think about.

Like some of those outside zone, wide zone boot designs, like it's you're trying to get that three-level stretch. You're trying to get that shot over the top. But the intermediate out route is often wide open, and sometimes it's okay to just take that. And if you're dialing those concepts up, you have to have a willingness to hit that throw and an ability to hit that throw. Same thing on that sort of like two man flood, but you've got the clear out in the out route where you got somebody running it

off and Jefferson running that out. You know, that's a nice throw to take too. I think the question of sustainability might get more to the, will Justin Jefferson be left wide open as he was on sunday i mean as somebody that loved justin coming out like you know i i the production was huge he's a fantastic route runner we've all seen the clip of him against jair alexander on that dig route um but the packers of time sort of left them wide open but that gets to the coverage rules part of it when you know, look,

they're going to be in this coverage or we expect them to be in this coverage based on what we're going to do formationally or personnel wise, this is the route that's going to sort of break that coverage rule. You know, that's a great job by Kevin O'Connell. And I think, you know, we sometimes say, oh, guys running wide open, it's all about the defense. There's miscommunication. And sometimes there is that. Sometimes there is that based on what the offensive play caller and play designer did, and so I think that's important too. If you can get Justin Jefferson running wide open for the next 17 games, next 17 weeks, I think you're going to have a good season, Matthew.

Hot take? Yeah, is that a spicy one for this Wednesday morning? If the number one receiver is wide open, they will be good. But, no, I do think that that's something that, you know, they can continue to do even better than the previous coaching staff did. Not that the previous coaching staff struggled to get Jefferson open. He had the most yards in the league for the first two years of his career. So, you know, but it looked to me like, yeah,

they understood a lot of ways that uh the Packers were going to try to cover them and even putting like Phelan and Jefferson on one side of the field and a running back tight end and number three receiver on the other side of the field and it was like wait our nickel corner should go to the strong side but those two good players are to the weak side and then the packers were just looking at each other like i don't know i'm quay walker what am i supposed to do here right so it was uh it was really impressive to see but now there will be adjustments um before we wrap up i want to ask you this so uh we spend 230 days from the super bowl to week one making

opinions and uh predictions and all those things and then after one week they're all blown to heck so i want to know i want to know which ones of your opinions do you feel great about still off-season opinions after week one and which ones may have been blown up yeah i mean the one i still feel good about is that Detroit when we get to you know post Thanksgiving holiday season December and all the networks before the games they have the playoff picture graphic right I've been saying all summer that when we start seeing those Detroit will still be listed at the bottom as in the hunt like Like they might not ultimately get in, but Lions fans will have reasons to tune in come December beyond, are we going to get the first overall pick for the first time in a long time?

And I still feel good about that. Despite the loss to Philadelphia, like I still think this is a team that's going to get some wins along the way that might get one with Washington this week to get to one and one. I still feel that they're going to be in the playoff mix so I still feel good about that one you know one that I don't feel as good about was that you know I think after what we saw Sunday I'm not so sure Indianapolis is going to have this sort of easy path to the division title that we thought I mean I would

have expected more against Houston now I think that think that speaks to, you know, Houston might be a little bit better than we thought, but I really thought that, look, Indianapolis was set up. We were hearing all training camp that, like, oh, it's a new sort of feel around the locker room with Matt Ryan. It's night and day, and of course, that might have more to do with Carson Wentz than anything

else, but there are all these great thoughts about how Indianapolis was going to be in a much better position, and then they go out and they tie like yeah feel a little queasy about that one and so you know maybe it was just a week one sort of mirage but i'm a little worried about the right now uh i kind of expected aaron rogers to just make romeo dubs the next great wide receiver and now i'm not convinced that's going to happen. I also, and I'm not like,

this is like just week one reaction. It's not saying this won't happen, but I kind of expect Trevor Lawrence to be great by the end of the season. And I'm not so sure he was great. And it's like, is that going to happen? Or is that not going to happen? As somebody that's still sort of on the Trevor bandwagon here,

not getting the warm and fuzzies after re-watching that game like i still think he's tremendously talented and i still have faith and i still believe that like yeah he's going to be the guy by the end of the season but would have thought it would have gotten off to a bit better of a start uh at mark scofield on twitter sb nation, NFL writer now, and a great pal. So I appreciate you taking the time here, despite the fact you have SB Nation meetings and plenty, plenty to write about to preview week two. So you're the best, man. Always tremendous insight and analysis and great to catch up with you again. Always a blast, Matthew.

Love it every time, man. Appreciate you, buddy. Okay. Before we wrap up the show for today, let's get to some of your fan questions. Got a lot of great questions after Vikings Packers. And as always, you could send them at purpleinsider.com or you can tweet at me at Matthew Collar. Feel free to send a direct message if it's a longer question, or you could just use the regular at function and I will get your question put it in the file and answer them as best as I can so let's jump right into it this from at all time great 28 why is the Eagles game such a big deal they backed into the playoffs last year and got whooped. Jalen Hurts completed barely over 50% of his passes last week.

Frankly, I see it as if the Vikings are just an okay team. They should win. I think that Philadelphia is a very good team. When you look at their roster from top to bottom, what they've built, they are not the same team as last year. A.J. Brown, as we talked about earlier in the show, completely changes the math when you're talking about that offense and what it could be.

We've also seen numerous times where a quarterback on a rookie contract, a team builds around that player, even if they're not perfect. And Carson Wentz and Jared Goff would be great examples of that in the past. That doesn't mean that I think Philadelphia should be crowned as the next great NFC team of the future. But as we're talking about big matchups, national TV, a chance to go 2-0. This is a game that the Vikings have definitely lost a lot in the past. This type of game under Mike Zimmer. And you're looking, can they carry over all the things that they did offensively and defensively from the first week?

I think it's a big stage and a really good proving ground. And even if Philadelphia turns out to be the sixth best team in the NFC, that would be a quality win against a good team that's in the playoffs going on the road, incredibly difficult environment. I mean, yeah, I think it's a really good test for the Vikings. You talk about an offense that now has good receivers, a good running game and completion percentage is not really a good way to evaluate what Jalen Hurts did last week. I mean, their offense was quite good last week, the Philadelphia Eagles, against a bad Detroit Lions defense. But nonetheless, I mean, they had a lot of success in that game.

Of all the teams in the NFL that played last week, if we're using last week as a barometer, the Philadelphia Eagles scored the second most points with 38. The only team that scored more last week was the Kansas City Chiefs. In total yardage, they were third. Last week, small, small sample size, but they ran for over 200 yards, including a lot of running, as Mark and I talked about with Jalen Hurts. So that offense, at least out of the gate, was very explosive. That will test the Vikings defense. The secondary will be tested by very good weapons. And on the offensive side, they face a defense that has talent, has a good defensive

line, but has some serious weaknesses, particularly I think defensive scheme wise that they should be able to take advantage of and you're also looking for and I will tell you I have never bought into Kirk Cousins can't win on Monday night Kirk Cousins can't win a prime time whatever but you are looking for a confident Kirk Cousins going into a game on national TV. That's a big stage. And you're looking for likewise with Kevin O'Connell, his first big stage type of game, you know, other than the Packers,

but going on the road on national television. So there's a lot to be taken away from this. I don't look at it as, Oh, if they're good, they should win to me. That's week three. That's Detroit.

Detroit's probably an average team, but you should win against Detroit at US Bank Stadium if you're a halfway decent team in the NFL. So I think that's why this game is really big. This one comes from Michael via email. Couple of quick observations about the Packers game. It was interesting to me how after the first deep ball to Watson, Rogers stopped throwing to his receivers. I know he dropped it, but he absolutely burned Peterson. Instead of focusing on what worked, he completely abandoned anything down the field and basically dumped it off the rest of the game. Secondly, Cook had a really good,

really quiet 90 yards rushing and Madison did a great job backing him up. I love that he only had 20 carries because of all of how well Justin Jefferson did all game. The rushing attack wasn't discussed, which has been the main topic in during the Zimmer era. They achieved balance with 32 passes and 28 rushes, but it did not feel like they were running all that much. Would love to hear your thoughts. When you're ahead, the running game can be used to put things away. And that's how the Vikings used it. There were a couple of second down runs. You have to do it sometimes. You have to run on second down sometimes, or it's just a tendency and the other team knows what you're doing on every second down and they can sit on it. But they did run fairly successfully throughout

the game. The only thing I would say as a slight critique is I thought they blocked very well, but did not create any explosive runs out of it, depending on how you characterize explosive runs. If you make it 10 yards, they did. If you make it 15 yards, they didn't. They didn't have one of those big gaping holes that Delvin cook breaks through and jukes a guy and goes for 30 or 40 yards. That's not really a huge criticism, more of a nitpick that they didn't create any explosives out of it, but they use the running game in the way you should use the running game. No one ever says don't run the football ever. That's a straw man argument. Oh, analytics people. They say don't football ever. That's a straw man argument.

Oh, analytics people. They say don't run ever. That's not true. You do need to set up the pass with the run. The play action was very successful for Kirk Cousins at times during that Packers game. And you also need easy first downs, easy big gains. And Delvin Cook can give that to you. But what you're really looking

for is at the end of the game, can you have a drive where you don't turn the ball over, but you keep getting yardage, keep moving it forward, run the clock down by running the football. And that is where their running part came into it, that they didn't come out and throw it 60 times because that wouldn't make a whole lot of sense so they still like and this was always an off-season point of like change the things that need to be changed but don't do things just not to be mike zimmer like don't ignore a great player in the backfield in delvin cook just so you're not like mike um and alexander madison's we've talked about it.

It's why they didn't trade him. Cause he's a pretty good NFL player. Ty Chandler, Kenny Wong Wu, their time may come, but for now, Madison and cook are a really, really strong backfield to your point about Rogers,

not going to the receivers after that. I would love to have heard the receiver room on Monday in green Bay to hear what they said about it. Now I haven't looked back really closely at their film, like from a Packers perspective, I've looked at it more from a Vikings perspective. I do wonder if some guys were open that he just refused to look at, or if that was really the only opportunity. I tend to think that Rogers does lose confidence and does freeze people out. And maybe once Alan Lazard comes back, things will be different for him. I think that probably is going to be the case because then he will trust at least Randall Cobb and Alan Lazard. But it was really noticeable that he froze some guys out after that. It was like he instantly lost trust. The Vikings could not have dreamed up something better to happen from the outset

than a rookie receiver dropping an easy 75-yard touchdown because after that, like you said, it's a great observation. He just did not feel like throwing to those receivers and green Bay's best drive of the day or one of their best drives of the day was built on a couple of big runs. And then an end around, like you'll take that all day if you're the Vikings, but you also have to think that eventually Rogers will work his way into some trust for some receivers and it's not always going to look like that but it is a flaw of Aaron Rogers that he has rested so much on one guy on Devante Adams for a long time that you do have to wonder about whether he'll be able

to build trust quickly with these other receivers because he'll just stop doing it and I think he mentioned in an interview that you know some things like some details weren't right or, or whatever like that. And look, if you have a great quarterback, your receivers have to get it right, but you also have to set them up to be able to make plays too. But that's a, no, that's a good point. And that will be a storyline throughout the entire season, just in the NFL in general, does Aaron Rogers figure out who he's going to throw the ball to and who he's going to trust? Because he lost trust for Christian Watson right there. This one comes from Cole via email.

Question for fans only. What kind of defense do the Eagles play? And can we expect similar mismatches and scheming Jefferson open from Kevin O'Connell? If not, does this mean Delvin is in for a big day? Been listening for years throughout the many iterations of the show and have appreciated your analysis. Well, thank you very much, Cole. I appreciate that. So I haven't looked at their exact scheme yet, like whether it's, you know, more zone or more man, but just based on how Jair Alexander didn't get his chance against Justin Jefferson very often, I am going to guess that they are going to put Darius Slay

on Justin Jefferson as much as they possibly can. I think there's some question there, as Mark and I discussed about their defensive scheme and whether it's too simplistic. And the Vikings in the past have shredded simplistic defenses with Gary Kubiak, with Kevin Stefanski. And I would expect the same from Kevin O'Connell, but some of the stuff is a little bit Island proof. Like when you send a receiver in motion and then you line them up behind another receiver and what they call a cut

split. So there's say Irv Smith and then adjusted Jefferson is essentially behind him. And then they run opposite ways off the line of scrimmage. There are rules that the opposition has where, okay, if this guy breaks this way off the line of scrimmage, you take him. And if he breaks that way, I take him. And what Kevin breaks that way, I take him. And what Kevin O'Connell's offense seems to be very good at understanding is who's going to take who and how they can take advantage of that. So when I was looking at the film the other day, I noticed one particular play where they lined them up in a cut split, you know, where they're behind each other. And one receiver, I think it was KJ Osborne ran straight up the field but he ran between Justin Jefferson and the defender that was supposed to follow him just based on the way

the leverage was Jefferson ran an out route but the guy couldn't get over to him fast enough and it was just a wide open play it was sort of like a pick a little bit but a very much legal one just based on the route combination. And there's a lot of these clear outs too, where you have two guys line up right next to each other. One of them goes deep. The other one goes underneath. And a lot of times the underneath guy ends up with a one-on-one matchup because that's the rules of the defense. And if you can do that, it's, it would take a lot to be able to stop it if you're a defense and that's where you know you look around the league and there's not too many island corners

and there's not too many ways that teams have figured out how to stop things like this which i think is a major part of why we're seeing such an explosion of incredible wide receiver play because no longer is it, we're going to line up by formation. You go out there wide, you run the route. I throw it on time. That's the play. Like that's how it used to be. I was watching a Pittsburgh Steelers game from the nineties where Cordell Stewart was starting. Think about Cordell Stewart, one of the great athletes to ever play the position. He's under center in the I formation and it's two wide receivers out at the numbers and a tight end. Like that's the formation and runs a straight

drop back and throws a like 20 yard hitch or something like, it's just absurd. Like that, you know, in the, in the old, you know, dino ages or whatever, like think of what someone like Cordell Stewart could have done with all these offensive advantages, but also there was a, probably a lot of great wide receivers who didn't get a chance to be as good as they could have been just because you used to be able to line up and press those guys and be more physical with them and everything else. So long story short is I don't think that Philadelphia has an easy way. I think that we all know the way it's not that digs wasn't open. It's not that Thielen wasn't open. It's not that Jefferson wasn't open. What is it? It's the pressure. And in last week's game, cousins really played well

under pressure and was pressured 42% of the time, which is very high. Last year, I think it was 33% of the plays that he was pressured on. So that's high. That cannot happen week after week after week and expect Cousins to do some of the things that he did under pressure against Green Bay. I think that's the only real way that Philadelphia can slow down Justin Jefferson. But I would expect that week after week for Jefferson

to be running these things and being open and everything else just because the system works. Um, this comes from at, I see you too ugly on Twitter, a friend of the podcast, a fan's only question here. I want the Vikings to move on from Kirk Cousins next year, no matter how good he is. I want us to draft a quarterback because we have Justin Jefferson. I believe the quarterbacks hit slash bust by the wide receivers that they have. And this is a starting careers, not after they are established. Do you agree? Yeah.

So, you know, I think that it's, it's a bit inevitable, right? Like this is why what you should do is ride the train or whatever, wherever it's going, jump on board and go with it this year, because in the future, very likely this team is going to draft a quarterback because you cannot really afford Kirk cousins and Justin Jefferson on the same roster. It's just a fact. I mean, if you're, if wide receivers are getting paid quarterback money and Kirk Cousins is going to be one of the most expensive quarterbacks in the league, especially if he has the same

year that he's had the last few years, like let's say he puts up 4,500 yards, 30 touchdowns, eight picks, makes the Pro Bowl, especially takes them to the playoffs and so forth. It's going to be extension time again. And at some point, it's going to also be Jefferson extension points. So you could play another season with Kirk Cousins if you feel like the veterans on this team are still very good and have that window with Kirk open another year if you make the playoffs. But at some point, you just won't be able to afford both players. You have to draft a quarterback and the age with Cousins. He's

already 34. By the time we're talking about starting a new extension, that's like 36. You're talking about getting way up there. So if there's not a Joe Flacco-like Super Bowl run, you are drafting a quarterback at some point. It's the not talked about thing about Alex Smith. Alex Smith was up for a contract extension when they drafted Patrick Mahomes. And when he was traded to Washington, they signed him to an extension. And it was very, very expensive. Like, that's some of the point that because Mahomes is so dynamic

and his arm talent is so crazy, it's always talked about as if, like, well, you just can't win with an Alex Smith. Kansas City put themselves in a position to win a lot with Alex Smith. And had he been extremely cheap, maybe they would have stuck with him. I'm not saying they didn't think that Mahomes was going to be better or hope that he was

because of his freakish arm talent and creativity. It's just that the money has to be a part of it and the conversation. So that's why with this year, as you watch these games and everything else, there's going to be some people who have stress over, oh, Kirk's playing good. This might mean that they stick with them long-term. And I think that where it's going is eventually drafting a quarterback, having Jefferson be the highest paid receiver in the league and giving that quarterback. And this is where I agree with

you that circumstance matters so much to hit or miss with quarterbacks. Giving that quarterback the best receiver in the NFL right off the bat gives you a way better chance of that player to succeed than it would if you were putting him into a bad situation with no receivers. And I think that receivers are dictating the success of quarterbacks more than they ever have. Like Ryan Tannehill having AJ Brown. And then all of a sudden Jalen hurts looks pretty good. And, uh, you know, we've just Tyreek Hill goes to Miami and, you know, two is looking okay. All of a sudden, like, I think there's a lot of that.

Josh Allen was not accurate. And then Stefan digs showed up and was great, right? Like case Keenum was handed digs and Thielen and the other places he went, he did not have digs and Thielen, all of these things. They do matter to what a quarterback can do. Uh, and so Jefferson starts you off with X number of wins just by being Justin Jefferson. Just by knowing you're going to have a receiver open all the time. So it's an interesting question. But I would not stress too much about it right now. Because they're 1-0.

And they just beat the Packers. And things are very interesting on both sides of the ball. This comes from Jeff via email. I don't think anyone should take player PFF grades, good or bad, very seriously based on one game, maybe as an indicator of how a player performed in that game, but you shouldn't project anything based on that performance. Would you agree? Yes. Yes, I would. Um, you talk about sample sizes a lot in the NFL. I mean, one game, 60 plays, if that is not going to be indicative of who a player is over a full season, even great players do not always get incredible PFF grades

every single week. So I'll give you an example here. Like Brian O'Neill, we all agree. Brian O'Neill is a great player, right? So let's look up what he did last year. I bet that there are games where he wasn't good last year. And there were games where he was really good. So looking at last year, this is actually really a point to be made about Brian O'Neal. Is that last year, there's only one game that he had that was graded below a 60, which would be an average type of performance. Only one game. That's really great consistency. So maybe he was a bad, bad choice because he's always having average to really good games, but we'll just pick this one. Anyway, he was graded a 51 against the Los Angeles Rams. Now remember who played for the Los Angeles Rams last year,

Vaughn Miller, Aaron Donald, Leonard Floyd, one of the best pass rushes in the league. And, uh, he had a bad grade in that game. So if that was the first game of the year and you were trying to make some sort of assessment of Brian O'Neill, you, you would say, Oh, well, gosh, he was a, he was a 47. He's just not good. Well, you, you can't do that. So if you're looking at the grades from just this game, I think that it does give you a solid snapshot of a few positions and how they played. So cornerback is probably one of them. It doesn't project out to the future, but it does tell you how often they threw into their coverage and how they performed in that coverage. Pass rush is certainly one of them. How many pressures somebody got is interesting and can tell you from week to week, how much success they might have in the future. But if it says that

area Smith, you know, got two pressures or something like, I think he's going to get more than that. And I also think his impact went beyond that. Delvin Tomlinson had three pressures in the game. That's interesting. You know, so I, yeah, I think that you're looking at offensive line to how many pressures were allowed, what their past blocking numbers were run blocking. I do wonder a little bit about how much that depends on scheme and how much that depends on the person next to you, what you get graded as a run blocker, but pass blocking.

I mean, it's a lot of you against that guy. Let's see who wins. And those tend to stand up, but from week to week, the matchups means so much. If you're facing Kenny Clark, that's way different than if you're facing whoever the heck plays for the Lions, right? Like, it's just a big difference. So you can't take one grade and make a big picture assessment of a player. I think it's much more of a guide. For me, I look at the PFF grades to say, well, when I'm going back and looking at the game on tape, what am I looking for, right? If somebody had a really good performance that I didn't notice, or if somebody was graded way

worse than I thought, and, uh, you know, that would kind of go for the offensive line was actually graded because of the interior, because of center and right guard was graded worse than I thought. And after I looked back at it in the past blocking, I mean, the run blocking was very good, but after I looked back at it, I agree. Like there was a lot more pressure on Kirk cousins than I guess I remembered because the offense had been so successful and that they really commanded the entire game. So you overlooked some of those plays. Um, but you know, I think that's probably the way to do it is when some, when you kind of have a good idea of how someone played and if there's something different, you want to go find out why did I have it wrong? I can't watch 22 players at once for every single play.

And you definitely can't when you're at home. I mean, so it's a great little guide from game to game, but you want to look for the bigger picture. And I guess Brian O'Neill is a great example of somebody who he never has a really bad game. I, that what a great skill to have is that every week Brian O'Neill goes out there and the worst version of him is still a decent player. And the best version of him is a great player. Like that's a good way. I think to use a PFF grade in a bigger sample to point you towards something. Um, but you always have to do it in context and you always have to do it

carefully with small samples, try to factor systems, try to factor injuries. Like it's a starting point for analyzing players. It is not an end point for analyzing players by any means, even for an individual game. So good question. Good question, Jeff. Uh, next question comes from carved creations on Twitter. Uh, fans only question PTSD. I've come to expect that when Aaron Rogers scrambles in the pocket and buys time, I'm holding my breath and he hits a bomb nine times out of 10. That did not happen in this game. Was our old defense, especially susceptible to that type of play or is our new defense better than that? Or are the Packers receivers just incapable? Last one. I think it's the last one. I think it's just

that the receivers see, and who did he always find on those bombs? Always Devontae Adams, right? Almost always. And I think that when you're talking about going off schedule, that's where really being on the same page with receivers takes actual in-game reps. And he did not play during the preseason. Now, I saw somebody put out the stat, well, these quarterbacks didn't win, who didn't play in the preseason and so forth. You're like, well, both the Vikings and the Packers quarterbacks didn't play in preseason.

One quarterback was phenomenal. The other quarterback wasn't that good. I don't know. Probably means not a whole lot, but in Rogers situation, maybe he did need to play with receivers during preseason. I don't know. I would not have risked that if I was the Packers a thousand times out of a thousand, I'll take a bad week one to have a 17 game season and not have Rogers get hurt in the preseason. But I'd be willing to go far enough to say that it might've affected him in trying to get on the same page. And the receiver that he looks for, I think is going to be Alan Lazard who wasn't playing and the injuries in a game like

that in week one, they're not even at all. The Vikings were completely healthy and the Packers were not, but there's another point here too, that I think that what Matt Lafleur did when he arrived in green Bay was he tried to put in an offense that's not that different from what the Vikings have tried to do with Kirk, which is you're not asking him to be mobile. You're asking him to run some play actions, find easy receivers. They run a lot of actually the same concepts as the Vikings do. And when you see it break down, Rogers just is not as mobile as used to because he's old. I mean, Russell Wilson is the same way. Like Russell Wilson just doesn't run anymore. Russell Wilson does not have that escapability that he used to have because he's

a little old in the tooth. So now it's the younger guys who do it. And that might be a factor throughout the season with Rogers or, uh, it might not be, but I think in terms of putting up an MVP season, if he has to be that guy, if he has to be the old Aaron Rogers that used to scramble and run all over the place, I don't think they're going to have a ton of success with that offense. If that's the case. Uh, all right. Next one comes from DTPKLL on Twitter. Fans only question here, at one point in this season, can a 40 plus year fan like myself fully, fully place my trust in the 2022 Vikings?

What has to happen? Okay, well, who wants to say it, right? Like the guy's got to make the field goal in the NFC championship. Is that what you want me to say? I mean, it's the Vikings. They've had a lot of years where there was plenty of reason to trust them and they have let you down. But I do think that when you get through the difficult portion of the schedule, let me call it the schedule real quick here, because there's a difficult portion of the schedule for the Vikings that if they get through it and do really well, and they're like nine and three or something at that point, then it might, there might be something

there. And I think that comes now there's a bi-week in between at Miami. I do not think will be an easy game. They get a bi-week Arizona. They might not be good at Washington will be kind of an emotional game for cousins at Buffalo, Dallas, new England, which I know at this moment, that doesn't look that hard. In fact, wow. What a week to be the Minnesota Vikings. When you look at it through week one, as far as their schedule strength, right? Like, Oh my gosh. I mean, Arizona was horrendous. Dallas loses their quarterback. Dak will be back by the time they play the Vikings. New England looked like they had no idea what they're doing. The Jets coach is melting down already.

Indianapolis, Matt Ryan looks washed. So, you know, a good day for the Vikings week one schedule wise. I still think that when we get there, Arizona, Washington, Buffalo, Dallas, New England is a tough stretch. If they get through that and they are, let's see if that would be 12 weeks, 11 games. Yeah. If it's, if it's eight and three, I think you can feel like this team has a really good chance to have a high seat in the playoffs and be a legitimate contender, but that's a long way from now. But if you're asking, when can you believe that they're a legit contender? That's it. When can you trust them to do the thing that they need to do to actually go to the Superbowl when it happens, that's when

you can trust them. But, uh, I think based on their schedule, you know, some of that is pretty plausible. All right. Last last one here. It's been a long show, but I'm glad that it has been. It's been really fun. This is from Len. And I know I know Len is a consistent listener. So I hope you listened all the way to the end, Len, to hear your email.

I tend to value to value the podcast that offer insights more than the ones that entertain. But that said, I enjoyed the debut of hot routes, which by the way, if you guys haven't listened, we do a, now the hot routes podcast, it has its own pod feed each week, reacting to week one. There'll be some different guests sometimes, but a lot of times it'll just be me talking about the first week. Anyway, uh, Len says, uh, a a podcast from a couple days ago made me realize that i need some insight regarding the opening script concept i thought it was just a sequence of plays that gary had in his basement but when you said that they worked on it all week i began

to wonder if the whole team is involved in this is it more more complex than I realized? Yes, yes, yes. So every team will script out the first, usually it's 15 plays. So they go into practice that week and they have the opening script drawn out. The whole offensive staff works on this and they get the 15 plays they want to start the game out with. ideally, right? Sometimes those get blown up really quickly. Sometimes those are three touchdown drives, but it's the 15 plays they want to open the game with. And it's kind of your best stuff because if you get up seven, nothing, if you get up 14, nothing, your chances to win are immensely higher than if you don't right. Like hot take. So it's really important,

but you can also teach that week based off of those concepts. So here's the 15 things we're going to do. They also have, when you look at the play card, you'll see usually little sections and things like that. They'll have the third down plays and they'll practice those during the week. And usually the quarterback will pick the third down plays. So let's say there's five to seven plays. Hey, these are obvious passing situations. What do you want to do? And the quarterback will say, all right,

these four are the ones that I want to use on Sunday. And then when you get into later in the game, then you're talking about going into the bag a little bit. It'll be sometimes stuff that they practiced, but every once in a while, it might're talking about going into the bag a little bit. It'll be sometimes stuff that they practiced, but every once in a while, it might not be something that they looked at because the situation calls for it. Where, where Gary Kubiak was really great is sort of laying little, I don't know, little traps early in the game for a defense to show their hand. Steve Berline explained this to me actually in an interview I did for a story on Kubiak

and he said, so he would study what they did, like what a safety did or what a linebacker did on a certain look. And he would put that in the memory bank. And then in the second half, he would call it, call it up to take advantage of that, like a similar look, but a different route or whatever it might be. And they had a lot of success. And Gary Kubiak was an all-time great play caller because of it. I think everyone's trying to achieve that. Not only are you getting points out of the opening script, you're also

getting clues. You're seeing how the defense is handling things. So then you can go into the playbook and decide what you want. I'll give you another example here. It's like the opening script might be 15 or 20 plays, but these teams will prepare way, way more than that. And for the Philadelphia Eagles, when they went, uh, won the super bowl, I believe they had over 200 plays that were in the playbook for that week that they could potentially choose from that all the players have to know and be on the same page. So, uh, you know, there's a lot to it. National football league. It's not easy. It's the best of the best. Um, so yeah, it's very intricate. Uh, thanks for all the great questions. Hope you guys enjoyed the show. Will raggets will be on the show, uh,

with a big hardcore preview later in the week and, uh, we'll have a lot of fun. So keep sending your questions and, uh, we'll catch you soon.