Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - The Athletic's Daniel Popper says the season is on the line for the Chargers vs. Vikings

Episode Date: September 19, 2023

Matthew Coller gets together with Daniel Popper of The Athletic to talk about the Chargers and Vikings playing a do-or-die game for each team. What's gone wrong with the Chargers? Is Brandon Staley on the hot seat? How will they try to stop Justin Jefferson? Is Justin Herbert actually elite? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider, and we welcome back to the show. Daniel Popper covers the Los Angeles Chargers for The Athletic, one of my favorite writers to follow. And a few weeks ago, I don't know when it was, middle of summer sometime, we said, why don't we just get together and talk about teams and football and everything. And we were talking, Daniel, about how similar these franchises are, the Vikings and the Chargers. And lo and behold, the Spider-Man meme as we go into week three here, the Vikings and Chargers both sitting at 0-2. Let me begin with this question for you, Daniel. How desperate is the football team that you cover?

Well, first off, thanks for having me on, Matthew. Like every time I see a DM from you asking to pod, I love it because it's always a great chat with you. And I think we were just talking for about 10 minutes before we hit record because we just get going every time I'm on here. But to answer the question, I mean, very desperate. They were very desperate heading into the season. And I think that's kind of colored, like, you know, the coverage around the team for me, definitely. Like everything was on the line. Like there were no questions about what the

expectations were for this organization like they had to win you know and I think a lot of it stems from what this ownership group did last year spending more cash on their defense than any team in the league giving Brandon Staley everything that he asked for defensively whether that was trading for Khalil Mack whether that was signing Sebastian Joseph Day and Austin Johnson on the interior of the defensive line, whether that was signing JC Jackson, he has all of the pieces. He has all of his guys. And so it had to come together this year. And so, you know, an 0-2 start is disastrous. Like game one, okay. Right. Like I think there were a lot of issues defensively that I wrote about. But, you know, Miami's looking like one of the best teams in the league,

potentially the team to beat in the AFC. And you play them close and you have a chance to win at the end and you don't get it done. Okay, I can understand that logic. But to play the way they did against Tennessee, to make the mistakes that they did against Tennessee across the board, I mean, I went back and looked at just in overtime. You had a misread from Justin Herbert.

You had a procedural error on third down with the ball to start overtime. You had a misread from Justin Herbert. You had a procedural error on third down with the ball to start overtime. You had a poor punt coverage on a kick that J.K. Scott had at over five seconds of hitting time where they should have gotten down there and they give up an 11-yard return. You had a toss crack play hit the edge, something that they struggled with all of last year. You give up an explosive pass to DeAndre Hopkins on a bad play call. You call a timeout on third and one when Derrick Henry's off the field to get a different personnel package in there, and Henry's able to get back in the game and convert a third and one.

Like, you're talking about offense, defense, special teams, game management, play calling. Where am I? Play calling. Like, it's everything. It's everything. And, like, now you're 0-2 and you look at the numbers sorry I'm ranting but like this is this is what it is for this team right now like

you're 0-2 and your percentage chances of making the playoffs plummet I mean going back to 2000 is 18 out of 187 teams that started 0-2 not a lot of stock in that because obviously they expanded the playoff in 2000 to seven teams per conference. You look at that one team out of 23 teams that started 0-2 have made the playoffs since then. That was the Bengals last year, which felt like a complete outlier because they overhauled their offense in like week five and completely changed how they were doing things. So like there is, I guess, hope. But this is about as bad as it could start because the defense just is not coming together by any stretch of the imagination. Yeah. There's a lot of places that we could go from there.

So why don't we focus a little bit on just that, the defensive part and Brandon Staley, because I think after about three games, a lot of people decided that Brandon Staley was the new wizard galaxy brain coach who was going to go for it on fourth down all the time. And he had been with the Rams, had a successful defense there. So it's like, okay, that team's got a great coach. the new wizard galaxy brain coach who was going to go for it on fourth down all the time. And he had been with the Rams, had a successful defense there. So it's like, okay, that team's got a great coach on the, whatever other controversy we're talking about. And I feel

like I haven't heard anything about it since. And yet, as I just watched from afar, there's nothing to me that indicates that Brandon Staley knows what he's doing as a defensive mind slash head coach. They have had poor defenses every single year. They finally got around to changing offensive coordinators. I guess we'll see if that plays out in the long run. It seems like the offense is moving the ball pretty successfully. But when you're giving up that much to the Tennessee Titans, who, I mean, have to have one of the worst offenses in the entire league,

and we saw them in joint practice. It's not good. And for them to look competent against the Chargers defense, I mean, what is happening? Because as you mentioned, there was a lot of investment there in the personnel. Yeah, a lot there. So let's sort of parse all of that. So Brandon Staley is a very intelligent person. He is very eloquent.

He's really good at explaining complex things in a simple way. He has those things going for him. And I, so I think like what, like the point you're making is that he did win a lot of people over with how he presented himself early on. Now we're three years into this thing. So a lot of that stuff is falling on deaf ears now. And he certainly changed how he's gone about it, you know, since he's gotten a lot of that criticism. One part of it is the game management stuff. I think that he is a good game management coach overall. I think he is above average in that area. Now he's not making decisions the same way that he was in year one. Now, some of that is they have a better punt team. Some of that is that

he believes more in the defense. But when you make decisions like that, they're going to be magnified. And so I think part of it too, is that he realizes that if these decisions go his way, even if they're correct mathematically, like if there's enough backlash, he's going to be out the door a lot earlier than if he makes decisions that are, you know, more within the, you know, what the public perceives as, you know, the right decision. And so you can go back to the Tennessee game. I mean, you have a fourth and two from the Tennessee 45 yard line. He punts it away. I mean, I mean, even, even like your, your, you know,

your 55 year old football watcher who, you know, you know, fell in love with the NFL in the eighties would be like, Hey, maybe go for it there. Right. But, you know, and you look at it, like true media had it as like, as a, in terms of EPA lost by the decision was was negative one. So they basically lost a point with the decision. Ben Baldwin's model had it as, you know, plus four percent win percentage by going for it there. You know, I have a tough time thinking that the Chargers analytics team, their model said to punt that in that situation.

That would be really surprising. so the decision making has changed he's gotten more conservative and i think that it has backfired for them in certain situations now the defense is separate the question is like you look at some of these guys right that are that are play callers and head coaches how many of them would you classify as excellent game managers like sean no that's a good Kyle Stanahan, Andy Reid, brilliant offensive minds. And two of those three have won Super Bowls because of how great they are as offensive coaches. The third one's probably going to win one soon, right? But are they great game managers? Are they great decision makers?

I don't know. It's hard. Like there is so much that goes into managing a football game as a head coach and making the right decision every single time, which is what you're paid to do. To add play calling on top of that, it takes a ton of capacity. And I don't know if there's anyone in the world that can do both things at a very high level. Now, Brandon Staley certainly believes that he's capable of doing that.

He hasn't proven capable of doing that because the defense has been bad. Like, it's just been bad. It's been one of the worst defenses in the league since he took over in 2021. And you can make excuses or even find explanations. I think there's a difference between those two things. But the biggest concern to me is that, like, they can't play staple coverages in this defense properly and it's not like you have guys out there that are it's the first year in the scheme right like you know one specific coverage that i've been sort of honing in on is quarter quarter half so basically have quarters to one side of the field

and then you know half field safety to the other side of the field basically cover two to one side of the field, and then half field safety to the other side of the field. It's basically cover two to one side and quarters to the other side. They've given up seven explosive passes on 12 passing plays out of cover six, quarter, quarter, half. Three of those plays, one was a 35-yard touchdown to Tyree Kill. One of them was a 49-yard ball to Chris Moore in the Tennessee game that set up Tennessee's go-ahead touchdown in the fourth quarter. And another one was a 70-yard bomb to Traylon Burks in the Tennessee game that set up the touchdown that brought them back into the game at 11-0. And all three of those plays attacked the same player in the coverage. Now, different individual player, but the same person in the coverage, which is the corner to the quarter side.

And on two of those plays, the corners, one was JC Jackson, one was Asante, just played the quarter side. And on two of those plays, the, the, the corners, one was JC Jackson. One was Asante just played the wrong leverage. Like it's not that it's not that complex. Like you have help to the inside. That's where your safety is playing that, that middle quarter of the field. You can't get beat to the outside. You have to force that receiver to the inside so that you help have your help over the top. JC Jackson and Asante Samuel both let the receiver get outside leverage. There's no help over there and they get beat over the top. J.C. Jackson and Asante Samuel both let the receiver get outside leverage. There's no help over there. And they get beat over the top. And it's like, you're in year three of this. Asante Samuel was your second draft pick ever in 2021. J.C. Jackson is now in his second year in the scheme, and they're making these mistakes. There's a lot more to it,

obviously. But that's a good example of how the messaging just isn't getting through. Whatever the coaching points they're delivering to these guys about staple, staple, staple coverages in the scheme. I mean, you're talking about coverages that they play over 16% of the time, which is a big number because in Staley's scheme, you're playing a lot of different coverages. It's their second most played coverage since he took over, and they're still making these types of mistakes,

and that, to me, is the biggest issue. You have the personnel there, but whatever they're trying to do to coach these guys up defensively, it's not getting through right now that's going great though i mean other than that really smooth sailing no and you know i i think of this all the time for defensive coaches and it's always and i'm sure you know this and feel this way but it's always the players it's always who you have who who can execute what, how good they are. Like if you have, this was the thing about the Fangio system being so hot. And we saw this last year with Ed Donatello, who was Fangio's guy. It's like, if the players can't play it, then you shouldn't play it. You have to do something else. And so I

don't know if that is the issue or not, but it is odd to me that someone like JC Jackson was so good with one team and so bad with another team but I also know that there are a lot of coaches and I think Donatello was this way I think Brian Flores is actually the opposite of this that are going to just do what they do and if the players make mistakes they're going to be like well wasn't my system it was the players who didn't get it down. But as you're pointing out, if you have had the same players for multiple years and the same issues are still pervasive, then you have to change something about the way you're calling it, the way you're coaching it. Because I look at the roster of the Chargers defense and I go, all right, well, this should be like an average team, but they're not an average team. They're

a horrendous team defensively. And I agree with you that, okay, Miami week one, McDaniel was probably working since, you know, the moment of season ended for that week one game to just shred everything. But then when you get beat by Tennessee, it's like the Vikings should be looking at this game thinking what's the receiving record can flipper Anderson's number get beat by Justin Jefferson. I mean, I think that this is probably the biggest disadvantage, other than when they play the Bears, that the opposing defense is going to be at against this Vikings offense all season long because of this.

And it just doesn't seem like Staley is able to find the answers here, which may result if the Chargers lose, I mean, in going down a path where he's not the coach anymore. Yeah. So the only thing I would respond in going down a path where he's not the coach anymore yeah so the only thing i would respond there is like a trend with staley is that when he is when he does have his back against the wall and everyone thinks that he's going to get shredded by uh you know an opposing offense he does have a tendency to pull these game plans out of nowhere and show up like

it's happened in his time as head coach, particularly last year. You know, they went up against San Francisco in San Francisco. They were already thin on defense. By the end of the game, fourth quarter, they had three healthy defensive linemen and they were able to hold the 49ers to 22 points with Christian McCaffrey out there. And, and, you know, it was just a really, really sound game plan, particularly, you know, run game plan that they were able to execute. You brought up the Dolphins. I mean, Miami week 14 last year, they you know, they're without Bryce Callahan. They're starting slot corner. Just here. Taylor makes his first career start. And, you know, they shut down what to that point had been one of the best offenses in football.

So, like, it wouldn't surprise me if they come up with a great game plan against Justin Jefferson or somehow able to, to slow him down because everyone and their mother thinks that he's going to go off for, you know, 700 yards in the game. Like it's, you know, like Matt in 2006, you know, but you know, so that, that, you know, that wouldn't surprise me, especially given where they're at and what needs to happen in this game. But like the issues are there, like the issues are there and they and like you alluded to like i agree with you 100 like they have what they need on this roster to be a super

bowl contender like they do they have enough talent and so like you know ownership the front office like they that's how they feel about the roster and so like ultimately like the buck stops with the head coach if it's not happening and you're losing games, when you feel like you have the talent to get it done. Yeah. And I feel like those Owen two stats, I mean, one of the things is it's always hard of who you play in the second week. And, you know, so the Vikings had to go in three days to Philadelphia. That's pretty hard. That's why you can't lose the first game. But a lot of times I think that the really good teams, they figure out quickly what happened and they turn around quickly if they're actually good.

And that's why they don't end up 0-2. Also really horrific teams are 0-2. So all those stats are very muddy for what you can actually take out of them. But this game in particular, it did make me think about how with Brandon Staley, with the Chargers organization in 2017, the Vikings went to Philadelphia for the NFC championship, thinking that they were going to go to the Superbowl thinking we're playing Nick Foles. We're hosting the Superbowl. It's going to be incredible.

And they scored on the first drive, got up seven to nothing, and then gave up 38 straight points. And it impacted everything that happened to them after the pressure on everybody the kirk cousins decision it just rested over everyone now last year yeah i was gonna say now last year let me get my whole my whole setup last year i was in a uh restaurant with drew mcgary from the defector watching jaguars and Chargers in the playoffs before the Vikings were going to play the next day. And when it was 27 to nothing or whatever, I was like, man, should we just go like this game looks like it's over. And then all of a sudden it happened. And that is where I'm going with this. How much does that

rest over everything that is going on with the Chargers? If they had just lost a regular football game to the Jaguars, I feel like it would be a little bit different, but maybe that's just reverse engineering. Oh, and two. Well, Brandon Sealy doesn't seem to think it has any impact on how his team is playing. And I tried to ask a question to him in the press conference. I'm sure everyone listening to your podcast has seen it at this point. He didn't really let me. You made awful announcing.

That's good for you. Yeah. I mean, listen, I didn't even get to ask the question. I literally just like I said six words. The sixth word was Jacksonville, and he cut me off and just, you know, and delivered like a passionate response, which is what you expect. Like, listen, like I've been doing this a long time. I've been getting yelled at in press conferences

since I was 19 years old. Like it is what it is. It's part of the job. I felt like it was a question that had to be asked. I didn't get to frame it the way I wanted to because I didn't get to finish it. And so a lot of people are, you know, picking my words apart

and saying that I didn't frame it well or whatever. It was a bad question. I didn't get to ask the question because I got caught off. Now, that aside, right? He has to say that. But like we've been talking about, this is pretty much the same roster. I mean, a lot of these guys, 90 plus percent of the guys that are playing for this team right now, were in that locker room in Jacksonville. And I was in that locker room in Jacksonville.

And it was the darkest locker room I've ever been in and you had guys in there saying like we're never gonna live this down like we're gonna be known for this for the rest of our lives like and it's true until you win a Super Bowl and so like players are human so it's not like these guys are robots right and you just like okay offseason you know wipe the wipe the memory card clean and you reprogram them. Like, no, they're human beings, right? And like, you know, the way I've kind of been framing it is like, you know, there's motivation,

there's confidence. So I think that these guys definitely are motivated by that loss. But confidence is separate than motivation. And so like when you're in these moments late in games and you need to make a play or you need to like not commit a dumb penalty or you need to get lined up right, like confidence matters in those moments. And 100% like losing in that fashion affects your confidence. Now, are they consciously thinking about Jacksonville in those moments? No, I don't think so. But are they subconsciously thinking about No, I don't think so. But are they subconsciously

thinking about it? I don't know that. I am not inside these guys' brains. And all I can do is ask them questions and they'll answer them. And everyone is saying that, no, it has no impact. Right. But like at the end of the day, they're human beings and anyone that suffers like a public embarrassment like that, you don't just forget about those things. You know, maybe I'm different than everybody else, but I suck at compartmentalizing things. You know, some guys are a lot better at it. I'm sure guys, you know, women, whoever, like some people are good at it. Some people are bad at it, but like when you suffer a, an enormous public embarrassment. All right. And then eight months later, you got to go back out there and do the same thing that you were doing when you suffered the public embarrassment. All right. And then eight months later, you got to go back out there and do the same thing that you were doing when you suffered the public embarrassment. Like

there has to be something there. And on top of that, like in the two games now to start the season, the two games, since you lost that way, you've lost two games at the end of the game where you've made mistakes. You've done similar things that you weren't able to do, you know, in the, in the Jacksonville game. And so like, until you win games late and make plays in those situations, like that is there. And those questions are going to be there and that game will be hovering over the team. And, and that's, that's it. Like, you know, as much as you want to go up there and you want to say, Oh,

that doesn't matter. That's last season, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Like that's just not what the reality of the situation is in my opinion. Folks. I am absolutely pumped about my prize picks this week because I crushed it. If you have not heard of it, prize picks is the easiest and best way to play daily fantasy, except instead of betting against thousands of other players or people who spend their entire life doing fantasy. All you need to do is pick more or less between two and six player stat projections. Say a quarterback's number is 250 yards

or a wide receiver, 100 yards receiving, go more or less and bang, you're in, you're playing. And you can pick from hundreds of players and numbers this football season. And there are other sports that you can choose from as well. So last week, I nailed that Devontae Smith, Justin Jefferson, and TJ Hawkinson numbers this football season and there are other sports that you can choose from as well so last week i nailed that davante smith justin jefferson and tj hockinson would all get more yards than

expected pretty easy ones to pick if you ask me so it doesn't take an arm and a leg uh money wise to be able to play you can turn ten dollars into 250 with just a couple taps. Perfect way to fit it in in a busy day. Do it right before the game whenever you want at PrizePix. And we're going to be going in on it all season long. You're going to hear every week making our picks. So go to prizepix.com slash purple and use the code purple for a first deposit match up to $100. That's prizepix.com slash purple. Use the code purple daily fantasy sports made easy.

I would say I know nothing about reporters getting their head bit off by the coach. I just, I covered Mike Zimmer. So it was always just friendly. And no, actually it's, it's been a little weird because Kevin O'Connell,

even when bad questions are asked that I think like, Oh, I think he should, he's going to go off here or something. He's always very smooth about it, but we'll see. He's still, he's still new. So he'll, he'll break eventually, but you're not doing your job. Probably if you've never gotten a, a, a whatever kind of response you want to categorize that. I think passionate is a good way to describe it. And I,

and I think that getting his response to that is the goal. And so, yes, I know because every press conference has to be broadcast. Now, everyone can pick apart the way you asked or whatever. If they just read the quotes instead in the athletic, they might've been like,

Oh, that's actually quite insightful for how he's looking at it, as opposed to worrying about how you asked it. But that's a whole different discussion. But anyway, I've just I don't know. I understand fans want to see what the coach is saying and they want to watch the press conferences and stuff like that. But I get a little bit frustrated sometimes when they make it about the reporters. It's like, okay, well anyway, anyway, that's the game we play. What I'm saying though, is to, to your point,

I felt this from what happened in 2017 with the Vikings. I felt it in that room that the following season in 2018, the tension started at nine and ended up at 11 by the end of that year. And I have a lot of friends still in Buffalo. And I asked my friends in Buffalo, I think after the 13 seconds thing, when they were going into last season, I said, is that, is that lingering? I mean, where they, you know, could have gone to the AFC championship and lost to Kansas city after having the lead with 13 seconds left. And they all said, I don't know. I don't think so. But as things went along last year, you could sense kind of where that's at.

And then they lose to the Jets to start the season, which for a team that good, they should be like, ah, who cares? But they're not. Their reaction is Josh Allen's kind of losing it in the postgame press conference. And there are people asking, well, Sean McDermott, nobody's doing it. I feel like this just happens. It happens because of the magnitude of what we do here in the NFL, that when you have something go wrong in the playoffs, it just lingers and it's on everybody's mind.

And like you said, you can't just men in black and wash it out of your brain. So it exists there. And this is a team that's playing a lot of close games, which, you know, I wanted to ask about this as well. So I have, and I've told you this before, I have called them Justin Kirkberg because everyone always talks about how great it should be and how incredible it is. And when you look at the box score, you're like, man, that was really good. What a great game it was. And they lost by three. And that's, that's how it always feels with Herbert. And I guess my question is over the first couple of

weeks, it looks like he's actually played really well, but is there an element of Herbert can't make this all right? Because I tend to think that if you have like one of the guys, like the Mahomes or whatever, that a lot of stuff that happens to everybody else happens to Mahomes. They blew an AFC championship. It doesn't matter. He just comes back and wins the next Super Bowl. Nobody is Mahomes. I understand that.

But I also think that there's going to be people who start asking questions if they go to 0-3 and they lose to the Vikings about, like, is this quarterback the guy who is in that echelon, or is he in the Kirk-G that echelon or is he in the kirk golf echelon but taller yeah so here's where i stand on that okay like he's he has 13 game-winning drives in the fourth quarter overtime like and and all you need to do to learn about what Justin Herbert is in big moments, go watch the Week 18 game against the Raiders. I mean, he made nine throws in do-or-die situations.

You've got to have situations. I mean, you're talking about fourth and 10, fourth and 21. Just like that is, in my opinion, who he is late in games. Now, like he's had moments where he hasn't gotten it done absolutely especially to start this season and you can even go back to the Jacksonville game I mean he missed Keenan Allen on a wide open touchdown that might have iced that game and so like I think it's fair to criticize him um but like I do believe that he's very good late in games like I do believe he has that you know that killer instinct um now the other part of this is when you're a quarterback on a rookie deal and you're a young player, you can sort of frame it as, well, he's coming into his own.

He's still developing all of those things. When you sign for fifty two and a half million dollars a year. Those excuses go out the window, my dude, like that's's just what it is. Like, and you have to be the guy, like, if you're getting paid, like, right now, the second highest paid quarterback in the league and average annual value, you better be playing like it. And in order to play like it, you have to, you know, perform in those moments, down to 145. Left, you get the ball, you cannot commit a grounding penalty, and spike that drive you know against the 10 against the titans you know you get the ball first in overtime you've got you

got to at least score a field goal like at least you cannot go three and out and i don't want to reveal too much because that's what my film review is going to be on this week um but like you know that drive first down mike william, one's runs a wheel route out of the slot. Both Titans defenders carry Williams. Josh Palmer is wide open. And like, when I say wide open, I mean, completely uncovered because the guy that was supposed to be on him carried the Williams route and Justin misses him, throws into double coverage

to Mike Williams. And it's incomplete. Second down protection breaks down. Both tackles get moved and the's incomplete. Second down. Protection breaks down. Both tackles get moved, and the pocket collapses. But we talked – in the pre-show here, we talked about how important creation is at quarterback. Like in that situation, he threw the ball away once the pressure came. He's got to escape there.

I mean, you have all the tools to do it. Go escape and at least give yourself a shot. Third down, you know, I mentioned a procedural error. Mike Williams lines up incorrectly Kellen Moore gives Justin a quick snap cadence so as soon as Corey Lindsley gets to the ball he's supposed to snap it Mike Williams isn't lined up and so Mike Williams tries to run from the left side of the formation to the right to get to the right position Justin tries to stop him he doesn't stop Corey snaps it like if you're getting paid that, like you have to be operating with like, okay,

this is not going down. Turn around and bang a timeout like immediately. Like that's what you're getting paid to do is to be that type of operator on the field. And so they snap the ball. Mike Williams doesn't run a route. It's a complete mess because the concept isn't complete. And Justin throws it away and they go three and out without gaining a yard. And so like now in these situations with the contract that he has now, I think the criticism is founded, but I'm not going

to say that he's, you know, Jared Goff or Kirk cousins. Like he's still, he is still that type of guy. You know, to me, he's still a top five quarterback in the league, but to cement himself there and to live up to the contract, like you have to get it done in those situations a lot more times than you don't get it done. And there's 15 games left. Like, you know, it's a small sample size.

It's two games. Like by the end of the season, you could have 10 game winning drives in the fourth quarter and overtime. They could be on their way to the playoffs and all of these, you know, conversations are no longer being had, but until it happens, like we have to talk about it.

Yeah. Yeah. It's funny though. It feels like even though there's 15 games left for both of the teams we cover it feels like there's potentially one game left for one of the two teams because oh and three is death here let me uh slightly defend the justin kirkbert thing which is every game that kirkins plays comes down to one score and whether he leads a game winning drive or not.

And for the first couple of years with cousins, there was the big thing about Gizzy clutch. Can you really lead these drives? And then last year he gets eight game winning drives, eight fourth quarter comebacks. It was like, Whoa, he led all these drives.

Now I once looked into all this and his percentage of actually winning those games was no different than anybody else's how often he leads the game winning drive and everything else. But the thing with Kirk is that he's always in these games. He never runs away from anyone. And you mentioned the three and out and the Vikings always kind of have these three and outs. And it feels that's where it feels similar to me is where i think i saw us that that the chargers since herbert was drafted have played like 70 of their games of one score games and it's like you're always riding the wave with him of all the offensive lines kind of banged up and that's why it's not working and that's why you can't throw it farther down the field or oh they you know they had this go wrong or that go wrong and that's why they didn't blow out this garbage team that they

were facing and they let them hang around and then they missed the field goal. And that's why they lost. And that's why they missed the players. It feels like a lot of the same sort of stuff with that, where the, the offense is good as it looks and is fantastically talented as he is. I just never feel like they're putting people on ice. And so of course, yeah, he's got the talent to lead game winning drives. But also one thing I noticed is that Tom Brady actually doesn't have that many game winning drives because he's always just winning. So, you know, he's not the Vikings were down in a fourth quarters. That's like not good. And so I feel like there's a similarity there with him and Justin Herbert that they just

can't seem to have that little extra gear that runs away from teams and finishes games. Yeah. The thing I'll say, though, is that like if you so the point you bring up about percentages is important. Like I would have to do a deeper dive to tell you like what percentage of two minute drives down a score he's been able to execute. I mean, if he has 13 and three plus seasons, like I imagine the percentages are pretty high, but I can't give you those right now. And I think that's a better way to look at it. But what I will say is like, go look at, you know, the athletics, Mike Sando does a good job of kind of framing like the amount of help that

quarterbacks get. And what he looks at is combining total defensive EPA and total special teams EPA over the course of like however long you're looking at it. And that can give you a good representation of like how much help a quarterback's getting, like absent of what's happening offensively. And, you know, Justin hasn't gotten help. Like they have not had a good defense or even an above average defense at any point in his career. They were horrific on special teams in 2020. That's why Anthony Lynn got fired. They were bad on special teams in 2021.

They changed special teams coordinators and brought in Ryan Ficken, you know, former Viking, obviously, and he's done wonders. I mean, they were, they were a good special teams, you know, last year and they're looking to be trending in that direction this year. But, you know, it's, you, you put so much on a quarterback when your defense is consistently bad. And in some of these games, you talk about like separating, right? Like putting games on ice, you know, the chargers offensively were okay early on, but they found a rhythm in the second quarter. They go up 11, nothing on the Titans.

You got to get a stop there defensively. That's where games flip. Like, get a stop, get the ball back to the offense, and you score, and potentially you're up 18-0 in the first half. Now, you know, considering what happened with this team last year in the playoffs, like, that league's obviously not safe. But, like, those are the moments that matter. Instead, on the very first play of the next drive,

Asante Samuel gets beat over the top by Trillian Burks and Ryan Tannehill's throwing 70 yard bombs on you and like considering how he looked in week one like that's inexcusable so all of a sudden what could have been 18 nothing game is now an 11-7 game and that just changes the complexion of everything so like until he gets a little bit more help it's hard to say that Oh, the reason that they're in so many of these one score games is on him and the offense. They're not putting games away. And he hasn't gotten that help. Like that's an objective fact that he has not gotten that help from the other phases of the team.

And I think that has to be factored into the conversation when you're talking about Justin Herbert. I totally agree. And I think that if you were talking about all the quarterbacks that you would take on your team just based on their talent you're certainly taking Justin Herbert at the top and if he had Justin Jefferson say or the some of the setups that the Vikings have had they I know they don't have great guards or whatever but the Vikings have two of the best tackles great receivers great weapons,

great offensive coordinators. The whole time Kirk has been here, some bad defenses in the same way. And you know, that's kind of how you end up in a lot of these close games. And, and I, I just feel like there's like a discussion sometimes of making it sound like he's like really close to my homes. I just don't think that's the case, but i also think that's not the case with anyone and so there's sort of a how far are you from my home's quotient and the way that i've always looked at this is also when the team that i cover is playing another team how much like how much do i think that that other quarterback is going to just destroy the vikings or cause when it was zimmer cause problems for a great defensive mind. And I, and the one time that, uh, the Vikings played Los Angeles, it was okay. It was

a, it was a decent performance and the chargers lost by one score like shocker. And I feel like it's kind of the same deal. Now, if he throws for 400 yards, I'll be like, okay, I take it back. I take back the, uh, Justin Kirkbert, but I feel like because of that, this game ends up being close, which I think we should talk about, is just this matchup specifically. I'm just so captivated by the Chargers, though. Like, we could talk. This podcast, I try not to take it any more than like 35, 40 minutes. But when it's the Chargers, I feel like you and I could talk all day

because I'm so fascinated by their history and all the close calls and everything else. But on this specific game, how are you viewing the matchup between Chargers offense, Vikings defense? Yeah, I mean, whenever you're going up against a Flores defense, it's all about handling the blitz looks and how he disguises things. Now, interestingly, and I'm going to dive in, obviously, to more of the previous stuff, you know, during the week. I mean, the Flores Miami defenses were a ton of cover zero and playing man behind it. What I've seen, you know, early on looking into this matchup

is that maybe he's shifting away from playing more man behind those blitz looks and playing some more zone. But that's really what it comes down to. Can you handle those pressure looks? Now, a lot of it, right, is making sure you're efficient on first and second down, making sure you run the ball well so that you stay out of those, you know, known passing situations that you get fewer of those looks. But, you know, I think a lot of this is going to come down to, like,

how does the Chargers offensive line and Justin Herbert pre-snap, like, handle a lot of that stuff? You know, week one, the Chargers offensive line looked fantastic when they rushed for 243 yards. They pass protected really well. I still think it's a strength of the team. You know, you have an all-pro level player in Rashawn Slater. You have an all-pro level player in Corey Lindsley. I like the two young guards that they have in Zion Johnson and Jamari Salyer. And then I really liked Trey Pipkins at right tackle who they re-signed

this off season. I think it's a really solid group, but they had some real issues with the Titans, man. And you know, like I think. Great up front. Titans are beasts up front.

I'd like to see a front. That's better than that in the league, honestly, like, and I'm going to dive into the tape now, but just watching it live, I mean, they could not block Jeffrey Simmons. I don't know who can block Jeffrey Simmons.

That guy's a freak. But then the guys they have coming off the edge, I mean, Danico Autry had a great game. Harold Landry's back in there. He had a big sack. Tyer Tart, like, totally abused Corey Lindsley on a run stop for a tackle for a loss. And so, like, I think a big question for me is like, what is this unit?

You know, what are they? Are, are they, is it really a strength of the team or, you know, is, is there a weakness there, you know, on the interior with the two young guards that I, that I mentioned, you know, Zion Johnson is a really good run blocker. I think that they've been using him more as a weapon in terms of getting him out on some of the, on some poles and stuff in space. But he is, I don't want to frame this.

I don't know if he's there yet as a pass protector. Like I think right now he's, he's a below average pass protector, which is not what you want from a first round pick, especially a guard. And so like, that's going to be a big thing for me. Like, can this unit bounce back? Can they run the ball well early on early downs to avoid some of those, you know, known passing situations to, to, you know, prevent some of those looks that Brian Flores is known for? And then if they do get in those situations, can they hold up? Can they pass protect? Can

they communicate well? Can they pass off some of these stunts? Because they struggled in that area against the Titans. You know, obviously the Titans, like we said, one of the best fronts in the league, and you have to, you know, put some stock into that. But that's really what I'm looking at offensively is like, can this offensive line bounce back and be the unit that like i think they're capable of being my big question is so last week the vikings dared the philadelphia eagles and would not advise other teams do this dared them to run every play and the eagles said wonderful we'd love to and they did and they ran 13 times out of a 16 play drive. And they just keep doing it? Because I remember specifically in that 2021 game where they were running the ball well against Zimmer's

defense, but they just couldn't stick with, they were like, nah, we got to throw, we got to throw. And that was playing into what Zimmer was trying to do. So I think that Flores is kind of daring opposing offensive coordinators. Will you actually keep running against us? Cause I don't think you will. And the Eagles will, but I don't know if the chargers will. So anyway, in the interest of just not actually talking for 14 straight hours about this game and the chargers,

we can do it. We can do it. We truly could. If there's ever like one of those marathons where we're raising money for rabies or something like in the office, then that will be our thing. We'll just have 14 hours of going through the Vikings and Chargers history and comparing calamities and everything else. But the last thing I have for you, though, is just what do you think happens here? I mean, do you think they win this game?

Do you think they turn it around? Do you think that you're like DMing me and saying, can't believe you called them Kirk Burt when he's winning MVP. Like what, what do you think happens the rest of the way? All right, well, let's start with this game. Part of me, like I mentioned earlier, feels like this is one of those staley moments where he, he pulls a game plan out of thin air and and they like

pass defense wise it just all clicks and you know everyone's shocked that you know staley was able to slow down justin jefferson but i'm not willing to say that's going to happen right you know the last time he brought up the 2021 game justin jefferson had nine catches for 143 yards in that game like i just don't, like you can double him. I mean, they tried to double Tyree kill and Jalen Waddle didn't work, you know? And so like, at the end of the day, players win games. And so you can come up with the best scheme you want, but they don't have anybody in that secondary that can really match up with

Justin Jefferson outside of Derwin James. Cause I think he's that good, but you're not going to like, you can't do that with Derwin. He does too much in the defense for you to like, you know, match it, match him up with Justin Jefferson one-on-one. So like, I, you know, I I'm with everybody else on this. Like I feel like Justin Jefferson is going to go off. And the question is like offensively, can you do enough to, to, to keep pace? Like, that's really what I think it's going to be.

Now I think you brought up a really good point with the running game. Teams are going to do that to the chargers every game. You're going to play two deep shells. Right now, they're facing the fifth highest rate of two deep shells of any team in the league, and that's how teams are going to play the Chargers. They're going to take away the deep part of the field, and they're going to force you to either run the ball or force Justin Herbert to check it down. Now, they made a change in offensive coordinator going from Joe Lombardi to Kellen Moore, and a big part of that was to improve the run game schematically to put more of an emphasis on it but also to get bring guy in here who play calling wise would be willing to

stick with the run and that was a big issue with joe lombardi is like one negative run he was off it he was like let's go back to justin which i don't think was like necessarily the wrong decision considering like you know how they were running the ball, but also a lot of it falls on him for not putting an emphasis on it, how he was coaching and how he was scheming up all those things. Now, Colin Moore ran six run plays in a row on a drive against the Dolphins and he, and they, they schematically look a lot cleaner.

Everything looks a lot cleaner, a lot more precise. It's a lot more downhill, a lot more between the tackles. And they're letting these offensive line get off the ball and get downhill. And they're telling their running backs, hit the hole and go north-south. And it worked in week one. Now, I don't put a lot of stock into that Titans game running-wise because no one runs the ball against the Titans. And it's because of 98, Jeffrey Simmons. You can put it pretty much all on him. But if Brian Flores makes that strategic decision, like, hey, we're going to play with you know light boxes we're going to defend the deep part of the field and if you want to run it a hundred times in a

row go for it kellen moore will do that absolutely and so you know if if the defense is struggling to contain justin jefferson it becomes sort of a situation where run the ball and keep the ball out of the of the vikings offensive hands offenses hands and if brian floors is tempting them to do that they will do it and they did it in the Dolphins game they put up 34 points um and so you could end up with with like another shootout similar to that Dolphins game if everything goes how I think it's going to go but obviously we are always wrong um and you know Justin Herbert's going to throw over 450 and Justin Jefferson's not going to have a catch yeah I mean I think I think any reasonable analysis of this game finds that it's 38-34.

We just don't know who. Might be who touches the ball last or which quarterback gets called a choker at the end. We're not really sure. But that's how it always tends to work. I think this is the type of game that over my long time following Kirk Cousins, that he usually wins. Just when you feel like, oh boy, this thing's about to crumble. It's over. They're going to be out of the play. Oh, Kirk won the game. It's happened many times. I also think that anytime Justin Jefferson has faced a bad secondary,

he has mauled them to death. But there is one fella that plays for the Los Angeles Chargers that I would be very concerned about because he has ruined football games before against the vikings and that is khalil mac and uh it if he's on the other side i know that he's not the same version he was with the bears but if that man plays for the other football team i'm always going to be like that's a strip sack waiting to happen he's still a really good player. That narrative is really, I still have to watch the tape from, from, from Sunday,

but week one, he had six pressures. Like he rushed well. And, and two was getting the ball out in 2.4 seconds. So like, he's still, yeah,

I think you're on it. Like, he's still a very good player. Yeah. That's the game wrecker. It's like, does he wreck the game? And you and I were talking before we went on about Kirk cousins,

fumble problems that can ruin games for them. And the turnovers have continued to be an issue. So I wish that the Vikings and chargers were in the same division. So we could talk more often than we do. Your work is phenomenal at the athletic. I've followed it for a long, long time, Daniel,

you do a great job. So everyone should follow you. Is it just Daniel Popper on Twitter? Is there some hyphen or something? This is actually funny not to take up too much more of your time but it's daniel r popper because there is a famous sculptor from south africa named daniel popper who does these like pretty epic and awesome like landscape sculptures in in cities so anyway if you want the the sculptures follow daniel popper

if you want chargers content and n content, follow Daniel R. Popper. Okay. Well, there's got to be some crossover there somewhere. Probably. Well, we'll see which coach can beautifully sculpt a game plan and victory. So make sure you check out his work leading up to the game. And really, as always, even if you're just slightly intrigued by the Los Angeles Chargers, you do a great job, man. Always love talking to you.

And we will definitely do it again. I don't know when, but we absolutely will. Awesome. Can't wait. Thanks for having me and very excited to read your book. That's coming out in two weeks, man. Looks like an awesome project. I'm really excited to read it. Yeah. I'm really pumped, man. Thanks for that. I appreciate that. I need to get better at constantly promoting myself.

Actually, maybe with every question. Like, you know, I wrote a book, so tell me about the offensive line. Just squeeze it in there whenever you can. Exactly. Thanks a lot, man. Thanks for having me.