Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - The Athletic's Robert Mays compares the Vikings and Bears timelines

Episode Date: November 21, 2024

Robert Mays of The Athletic compares the 2022 hires of Ryan Poles and Kwesi Adofo-Mensah and where the two teams stand now. Plus, Brian Flores's reemergence as a head coaching candidate and much more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here and returning to the show, Robert Mays, the Athletic Football Show. One of my big three rotation podcasts in the car when I'm driving out to the Vikings facility on a daily basis. Robert, it's great to have you back. We got Vikings, Bears. I thought this is the perfect week to have you back. We got Vikings Bears. I thought this is the perfect week to have you return to this here football podcast. So what's going on, man? How are you? I have two things. One, have I been on the show since it was Purple Insider? Yes, you have. Yes. Okay. All right. Okay. All right. Okay. All right. I couldn't remember the timeline of it

all. Second, what are the other two podcasts? Uh, there is, uh, our friend, Sam Monson and Steve Palazzolo. Okay. All right. And then there is also a Sumer sports and their show with Thomas Dimitrov and

Lindsay Rhodes. I like to listen to that as well. That's worthwhile company. I feel okay about that. You're in a good place. You're with a former NFL GM, a couple of former PFF guys that have kind of gone on and now working with the 3013 two of my favorite people they were a big part of my book so yeah yep that's it kind of bounces back and forth see what everybody's got to say about the old national

football league you and derrick classin new on the show this year has added a different dynamic from nate tice so uh it's been fun but um I have to, I want to take you back in time though, because you were definitely on this podcast before the 2022 season. Or that might as well be 20 years ago now. No, it feels that way. I wouldn't have, I wouldn't be surprised if you were one of the very first guests when this started because you were- That sounds right. Yeah. Yep. A consistent radio guest for sure.

But you and I, I'm certain, talked about the two different timelines for the Vikings and the Bears starting in 2022, the different approaches from the front offices, Kweisi Adafo-Mensah and the competitive rebuild where the Vikings ownership was like, we ain't tanking. We got too many good players.

We're going to stick it out. And then, hey, that's your job to figure out how to get through this. And then Ryan Poles, who did tear it all down, traded everything away, and then lands one of the all-time lucky trades with the Carolina Panthers to get Caleb Williams. The book is not written on this, but as it stands right now, how do you think it worked out for both teams to take their different approaches? I think that'll be hard to say about the Bears and hard to make a final determination

until they get the right coaching staff in there, right? And I don't think this is the right coaching staff. It would take a very huge turnaround in the back half of the season, I think, for Matty Rifflewis to save his job. So I would like to see what Ryan Poles' roster looks like with a different group of people in charge before I'm willing to kind of shut the book on that. On the Vikings side of it, it's gone about as well as it could have gone.

And the Vikings were ready to make a big, splashy move at quarterback in this draft, independent of where their draft slot was. That's why they kind of did the maneuvering that they did. They had those two first-round picks, but there were no takers. So I honestly think that the Kirk Cousins injury and the accidental, if not tank, then slide in the back half of the 2023 season set the Vikings up pretty well to bridge that gap in a way they might not have if they had won 10 games last year and been left in a place where it's like, all right, who's going to be our quarterback in 2024 and 2025. So I think it worked out okay for both teams in terms of the roster health and the general

direction they're headed in now compared to where they were two years ago. The biggest thing for Kweisi Adafo-Mensah was going to be who he hires as the coach, right? He takes over as the general manager, who they decide. There was Jim Harbaugh discussion. And, uh, well, I guess the Vikings probably would have won if he had become the coach as well, because he's doing that with the chargers right now. But when you look back at those 2022 hires and you see a bunch of dudes who don't have their job anymore, and a bunch of dudes who will soon not have their job anymore. And then Kevin O'Connell, to me, that was

the biggest decision that they could have made and got right. That is guiding them to where they are right now. And I think that it permeates every part of the organization in a positive way, but there's no more glaring and obvious way than the quarterback. And this year, if you're wondering what could he do for JJ McCarthy in the future, I think that you're getting a good sense for how he's going to coach a quarterback that isn't a 35-year-old who had been through all the wars with a bunch of other coaches, but how he can meld his quarterback to what he wants him to be now and in the future. It's funny, I was talking to Kirk Cousins this offseason for something else I was working on,

and we were just discussing his career and the trajectory of players like him as they get to their mid thirties, because I think that it's been a little bit of a Renaissance over this season, specifically with pocket-based quarterbacks. If you look at the way that Gino is playing, if you look at the way that Baker is playing, obviously what Jared Goff has done in his second act and Kirk Cousins was talking about how some of the guys that he looks to for advice, hall of fame type quarterbacks, most of them got the same play caller for a huge majority of their career. And you can have that relationship that really starts to build. And he never had that. He bounced around from different guys, whether it was because John D. Filippo gets fired really quickly or Kevin Stefanski gets hired to be a head coach. He didn't have that one voice and that ability to build on it with one person.

Well, now JJ McCarthy comes in and I and we have all the indications in the world that Kevin O'Connell is probably going to be in Minnesota for a while if it keeps going at this pace. And so now J.J. McCarthy gets the opportunity that Kirk Cousins never had to build a career, build a football life with this one partner, this one creative partner that is clearly somebody who can lift your performance. And if you're a quarterback, that's really all you can ever ask for. And ask Sam Darnold how he's doing this year and how his day-to-day feels this year compared to some of the other

stops that he's had in his career. And I think he's having a much better time right now. I can't imagine what it's like now in comparison to Matt rule who, uh, even Teddy Bridgewater took us at one point. Yeah. Adam Gase, my gosh. I could. Yeah. I mean the, the, well,

and what's happening, what will happen with Caleb Williams on the other side of this is what happened to Sam Darnold early in his career. He came in with a defensive coach in Todd Bowles. They were trying to have the rookie quarterback to save the coach's job. And he struggled as a rookie, as most of them do, the pressure of New York. And Todd Bowles has run out of that job. That's not to say Todd Bowles is amazing at his job, but he's certainly better than Adam

Gase was. And then it just gets thrown into other utter calamity. And I don't know what rookie quarterback who isn't flawless can just dig himself out of this. And it feels like they're doing the same kind of thing to Caleb Williams. I just don't understand. As we evaluate like Ryan Poles versus Kweisi Adafo-Mensa and how they built it, the coach is such a huge part of it.

And to have the same coach stick through to Caleb Williams, even though he was going to be on the hot seat if it didn't work right away, it just seems like a blunder to me of not firing Ibra Floos and hiring a coach specifically for Caleb Williams. I 100% agree. And I think especially when you consider the organizational history, it becomes even more of a blunder. We've all seen this movie before. If you're a Bears fan or somebody who is generally close to the Chicagoland area, it happened with John Fox when they drafted Mitchell Trubisky in his final year there, the general manager did not tell him he was drafting

Mitchell Trubisky. And then after one year, John Fox gets fired, Matt Nagy gets hired. He's paired with a quarterback. He did not draft the last year, potentially of the Ryan Pace, Matt Nagy era. They are allowed out of desperation to draft another quarterback. After one year, they get fired. Ryan Pace and a new staff comes in. They didn't draft Justin Fields. They're not attached to Justin Fields' success. And then you start a whole nother rebuild. And I get it. Back at the last season, Matt Eberfuss takes over as the defensive play caller. Your defense was great, but I don't think that you should make long-term head coaching decisions when you know you're going to draft a quarterback in the first round and first overall based on what your play calling defensive head coach did against

Josh Dobbs. Like, I just don't think that's how you should make big scale organizational decisions, but unfortunately that's what the bears did. And it's a very familiar story for people who have paid attention to that franchise. You had to go there with that one. That's it was all sorts of backup quarterbacks in the back half of the year. It was Josh Dobbs. It was Taylor Heineke. It was Joe Flacco, whoever it was. If you go look at the quarterbacks that the Bears played in the back half of last season,

that is not a group of quarterbacks that should drive seismic decisions about how you are going to oversee the next era of your franchise. And I think the people in the building probably under already understand that they made a mistake. So what I don't really fully understand with Eberflus is because he has given the Vikings a hard time, his defense against the Vikings offense, no matter who was playing quarterback, whether it was Dobbs, but earlier that year, Kirk Cousins had one of his worst games against Eberflus' defense. So there's something there and they've started to build up the quality of the defensive unit as far as the players go and so forth. But what is it about culture wise that's not going right there?

Because when I'm seeing how Kevin O'Connell has turned things around after a very low point with Mike Zimmer culture wisewise it was always something before o'connell got here that i was kind of like i don't know what do you want me to say about it it's always the players and so forth but boy they they screw up a hail mary and the players ran to the media to tell everybody whose fault it was and it's just for some reason no matter the haircut no matter the beard they do not buy into this man and then with shane waldron he's the guy and then they hit they hit the skids and then he gets fired pretty quickly and feels like desperation it doesn't seem like it should be like this they have a positive point differential and

they're two special teams plays or one special teams play in a random al mary from having a winning record and yet it just feels like the guy is sinking into the lake. There's no doubt. And if you, even if you watch the sideline during these games, it just feels like the entire team is dead. And I think they know what's the writings on the wall and no matter what you do in firing an offensive coordinator, I think we all know how this movie ends. And it goes back to the fact that it's just a really hard job. It's just a really hard job. And, you know, schematically, I think that what you've been able to see over the last three, four, five years is if you just pick the next guy off of the McVay, Shanahan sort of tree, you're probably going to be in a pretty good spot design-wise.

Shane Waldron being the weird exception to that, even though by the time he got to the end in Seattle, he was doing very little that resembled what the Rams were doing on offense. But beyond that, I just think that what Kevin O'Connell is as a person, that's the thing about the Sean McVay clones, quote unquote, and trying to steal that version and that archetype of a coach that I think people are misunderstanding or misrepresenting. Yeah, you're getting the schematic innovation and that stuff is great. When you watch the Vikings offense, it's dynamic. I love it. It's just one of my favorite offenses to watch week in and week out because of the positions

they're putting their players in. But it's also just the energy and just how authentic it all feels. When you're watching those Josh Metellus videos and Kevin O'Connell is telling his story about his welcome to the NFL moment, that's real. That's not forced. When you have a conversation with Kevin O'Connell, it's engaging, it's dynamic. You can understand why people are bought into the message that he is sending. And so that is why the job is so hard. You have to consistently, if you're the play caller on either side, give your guy, you have to make life easier on your

guys like that. That's the job. If guys know, if you're not making their lives easier, if you are making their lives easier, they're going to buy in much faster. But there's also the personality element to this and finding guys that are able to have both of those things in equal quantities, where they have the schematic side of it, they have the details down, but they also make 53 rich men like coming to work every day in a physically demanding job where they're going to get kicked out of them all the time. That's not an easy needle to thread. And there are not 32 people who are capable of doing that job very well. And we unfortunately find that out every single year. Right. And I think that there's so much that goes into it with O'Connell. His authenticity

as a person is a big deal. I did a story with him about his post-game speeches. And what every player told me is, I know that you guys are seeing two minutes of that, but we're seeing every, every week of that. We're seeing months of that, that he keeps that energy. It's not just for the cameras because they're in the locker room. And I thought that was what was so interesting about it is that we get that window into his enthusiasm, but he also knows how adults want to be talked to in the NFL because he was there and he saw coaches belittle people or talk down to players. And I think just having, it's so small

of a thing, but having that perspective and that respect for, I know you're a pro, so I'm going to treat you like a pro just goes a really long way. And I think another part of it too, what he said in that, uh, tell us with Mattel, this thing was that it taught him something about how hard the job is. And I think that he always keeps that in mind when he's talking to someone like Sam Darnold. And I remember people saying this to me about Gary Kubiak, that Kubiak having played in the NFL knew how hard it was and was able to communicate with quarterbacks better because he would know what you could and couldn't see. And he would know which parts to say, Hey, your feet or your eyes should have been better. Or Hey man, there was nothing you could have possibly done

about that. Something as small as that seems to really resonate super well with his quarterbacks. I agree with that. And I also think that we're seeing that trend start to emerge with some of these coaching staff and some of these hires. I think that as teams start to chase the Dan Campbells of the world, and they will, that voice. And trying to find that balance of, I'm going to be this kumbaya, hey, I'm here for you, I love you, I'm behind you guy that Mike Zimmer never was, while also being able to create a team that plays with a certain edge, that can be difficult to do. And I think that we've seen that from some of these younger head coaches where, yeah, the guys love them and there's a lot of creativity,

but are they playing the way that you need to play to beat the Pittsburgh Steelers, to, the guys love them and there's a lot of creativity, but are they playing the way that you need to play to beat the Pittsburgh Steelers, to beat the Detroit Lions? And I think one of the things that I've landed on as I've thought about this, because it's always a moving target for what you need as a head coach. I was talking to an OC last week that I think is going to be up for head coaching jobs this year. And we were just talking about how you instill culture and how you create it. And he said, the biggest thing for me is honesty. You guys know when you're BSing them, guys know when you are not telling them the truth. And if you're just open and upfront with people, that's what they want, even if sometimes it's not something they want to hear.

And when you listen to people talk about Tomlin, that to me is the most impressive thing about Tomlin is that he'll call guys to the carpet in front of the entire team. Like if there's going to be a moment on tape where you're not bringing it, he has no qualms about being like, listen, if this is what you're, and this is in team meetings, be like, if this is what you're going to put on tape, we're going to find somebody else who's not going to do this. And the fact that it's honest and consistent, you can balance that with the, Hey, I love you. You know? And I just think that again, it gets back to why it's such a hard job. Like there's such an alchemy to the right blend of things to consistently get the most out of those guys. And I think that Kevin

O'Connell has really shown us over the last couple of years that he is somebody who understands how to strike that balance. Well, when you talk about blend and play style the nasty comes from the other side and i think that the first his first hire was more of a nice guy it was more ed donatel everyone i've ever talked to has always said ed donatel is like the greatest guy and that has not always been the review of brian flores now it has been here but he also got a group full of sociopaths that play defense on this team. These guys, truly, Blake Cashman is crazy. Have you seen Blake Cashman play on tape? It's crazy the way that he throws his body around. Harrison Smith, you know well over the years.

Nuts. I mean, these football psychos who play super, super fast, they're dynamic, they understand the X's and O's. Brian Flores is with his people when it comes to the defensive players that he's built. So in a way, Kevin O'Connell can have the nasty side over there. He could be a little more on the, Hey, I love you guys. I'm going to build you up. I just think that it's created something very unique with a perfect kind of yin and yang with the offense and defense of this team. I think that's right. And I think that part of the benefit, and it's funny, I had a conversation earlier this summer when I was asking Sean McVay about this,

because I was like, you know, you have less practice time and you want to be somebody where you have a good relationship with your players. How are you hard on guys to build a physical football team while also being somebody who is not a hard ass all the time? And his response was essentially, they got to come in that way, right? Like I don't have to teach Puka Nakua to block or to want to block that's just going to happen by virtue of who he is so i think there's some of that in the way the vikings have built the defense but you've written about this i think i know some other people that have covered the team have written about this this is another example of if you're

going to make it easy on the guys and you're going to make it exciting on the guys that's how you can create buy it right you have this defense and what ed donatel was doing and i think you could tell the same story about what the Packers did over those last couple of years. Really nice guy, beloved figure in the NFL, bad defense. Players didn't like it. Players weren't engaged. When you are Brian Flores and you're coming into the first team meeting and you're like,

we're going to try some stuff and you start drawing this up. I think that players get excited when the defense and the scheme feels dynamic in the way that Brian Flores does. So some of it is probably the wiring and the personalities that these guys are bringing to the table. But I think that the way they play is very easy to sell to players on a consistent basis because there is nothing stagnant or boring about it. Ready to kick off some extra fun on Football Sundays?

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for a limited time. Again, Catan shop.com coupon code purple to get a 10% discount on Catan for a limited time only. Yeah. And I think also players are smarter and more knowledgeable about football than they have ever been before ever in history. They come in with way more knowledge and players who have been around a while, they have all of these years of experience. And what Brian Flores does is say, Hey, what do you see? Tell me what you see. Tell me what you think works. I don't want to ask you to do something that you're not comfortable with. And I remember him name dropping Jonathan Bullard, who time about our fronts. And I was like, you do? So I went to Jonathan Bullard and I asked him. He said he had never had that happen ever before. But they talk it over a lot of what do you think will work?

What do you see? And you think about buy-in. Well, if I'm invested in, hey, this was my idea, there's just more energy there for it. There's more belief in it that it's going to work if it's everybody's ideas put together as opposed to one person. And I think when Brian Flores is painted a certain way because of his relationship with a former quarterback, it's not indicative of who he is in his room with his defense. And being a head coach is such a different story.

But the way that he's handled that defense has been a major part of how successful they are. But also, I don't want to lose the thread here. Van Ginkle, Cashman, Grenard, Gilmore. What do these got? Oh, they all cost money. And the Vikings moving on from Kirk, we cannot lose how that decision has now turned out for them being able to use that cap space and build an elite defense that has really

driven this eight and two start. And you're still paying Kirk, right? Next year, they're going to have even more because he's going to be off the books. And I think that's really important. I think that that is definitely a component of the build that they were thinking about when they decided to make that decision. A hard decision that I think a lot of other organizations wouldn't be willing to make because they don't really have the vision that Quasey does.

And I think that, you know, that's cut both ways. There have been mistakes that they've made because they're trying to do things in a slightly unconventional way. And I think that there have been some hits that they've had because they're trying to think outside the box a little bit. The Flores messaging is very interesting to me because this is going to be a conversation

over the next 45 days as other coaches get fired and as lists get made and as candidates get talked about. People are going to point to what happened in Miami and they're going to be scared and beyond the lawsuit and all the other considerations that you have to work through if you're an owner making this decision. And I think what, I don't know if this is true and I haven't asked him about this, but I have to assume there's something to it. A lot of those guys who are New England guys and they get those jobs, they only worked in New England. It's all they've ever done. It's all they've ever known in an NFL level. And when Brian Flores got the job in Miami, that was it. He worked for Bill Belichick. He'd

worked in that building. He had seen one head coach up close and personal and how that guy operated. And I think that a lot of guys try to operate that way when they get the job and it doesn't work because you need the built-in equity. You need the, hey, I'm wearing five Super Bowl rings in order to get away with operating that way. Well, Brian now over the last three years went to Pittsburgh for a year with Mike Tomlin. And I think that schematically that helped him. My understanding is that some of the curve balls that the Steelers throw and some of those cover two looks influenced the way that he wanted to think about some of the changeups within his own defense. But I also think personality-wise, now you saw Mike Tomlin up close and personal,

you saw what that sort of leadership looks like, and now you've been around Kevin O'Connell for two years. So the fact that Brian Flores has already had the job before, I think that we would be making a mistake and just assuming that he was going to operate the same way if he ever got another one. The holdup is the lawsuit for me. It's not about whether he's earned it or not. He most certainly has. I mean, this defense, when he took over, was giving up hundreds of yards to Daniel Jones. I mean, had zero talent, like absolutely not.

That's not even being cruel. It's like that's just the reality of the situation. Right. The only players that were still there in 2022 were the older players they had to let some of the guys go eric kendricks patrick peterson and really rebuild this from scratch the secondary last year had a player starting the whole season at corner who is not allowed to step on the field this year i mean it really tells you and you can't underrate his scouting ability. That's where he started. And he is central to getting Cashman, Van Ginkle, Grenard, because those are the guys that fit with him.

Josh Metellus was a special teamer. Now he's a star on this defense. I mean, that's his eye for talent. But I can't overlook that the league knows how to blackball a guy as well as anybody in the world does. And last year, he did a great job with the defense. Didn't get a single coaching interview. I just don't know if the owners are going to be able to look past that because it feels like if someone does it, that they are breaking rank with

the rest of the owners. I think that's fair. And I do think that it's going to be the biggest obstacle, but when you do it two years in a row and you do it at this level, last year, it was a curiosity, right? Last year, it was people like me going back and watching the Vikings games and like, oh man, that's pretty cool. Like, look at all the stuff they're doing. Nobody's playing like this. But then you finish like 18th in advanced defensive metrics because you get injuries

in the back half of the season. You still don't have a lot of talent, et cetera. When you are trotting out what is objectively by most measures, the best defense in the NFL with marginally better talent, but still not aligned with superstars, both of your starting corners when you're in nickel are guys you signed off the street for like $2 million in August. That is where people start to take notice.

That is no longer just a curiosity. This is something that is undeniable and is going to take the attention of people who are in those decision-making roles. The question just becomes, are you willing to be the person who steps across that line and kind of goes against the other owners in that way? And we'll have to see what the answer to that is. Right. And maybe Mike Tomlin deserves all the credit because he was the only one with enough credibility to bring him in and be able to do that in that organization as well

and open the door for him to be here. I will be really interested to see it. I'm kind of cynical on this, but when it comes to what the players say about him over these last two years, it's been very consistent that he's built his own culture there in the room. And I think he's learned a ton from the way that O'Connell has related to his players. Let me flip back to the bears on this. They're going to have a new coach next year,

barring a miracle, right? I mean, I think, right. You would think so. I mean, the schedule that they have down the stretch is a total nightmare. It feels very implausible that they could turn this thing around by the end of the season. So now what with, with their build, they're going to go out and hire what like drew Petsing or something who I think is actually deserving and a really good coach. Uh, but some offensive coach to pair with Caleb Williams and form that bond is Caleb Williams set back by this. It's not Urban Meyer in Jacksonville or something but I guess I'm wondering as JJ McCarthy is likely to take over next year what's what's it

going to look like Vikings and Bears where the Vikings have it all established and set but the Bears still have the guy with all that talent that if he clicks they can have the highest ceiling out of this. Yeah. I mean, I think that even if Ben Johnson leaves, the Lions are still in a very good situation. And I think that the Packers are in a very good situation. And that's kind of the cruel part about this. If you're a Bears fan, even if you find the right guy next year, no one else in the division has the wrong guy. Everyone else is set up so well that it's not like, if you're in Jacksonville

right now, right? And if they hire Ben Johnson or if they get the right guy in there, you can make an argument that they're in as good a situation as anybody in that division. It's very difficult to make that argument no matter who the Bears end up signing because of the strength of the other three teams. And I do think it's probably going to end up being an offensive coach and outside of Ben Johnson, I think that should be the thing everyone is chasing, right? And I do think it's probably going to end up being an offensive coach. And, you know, outside of Ben Johnson, I think that should be the thing everyone is chasing. Right. And I think that this idea that the bears are cheap and they wouldn't be willing to pay him is probably, there's some validity to it. The idea that you would want to save an extra 10 million bucks a year and hire somebody that's worse considering your coaching history and considering what Caleb

Williams is supposed to be for you is the most frustrating thing in the world, but that's an entirely different conversation. If it's a guy on that second line, it's one of those offensive coordinators who has not had a huge history, is not somebody that a lot of casual fans are chomping at the bit for. It's a Liam Cohen, it's a Drew Petzing, all those guys. There's going to be some inherent risk there, but I think that's probably where they'll shop if they don't end up getting Ben Johnson,

who's going to be at the top of everybody's list. So here's the question I can't really get past with Caleb Williams. How many quarterbacks who get their offensive coordinator or head coach fired in the first year end up working out? And some of the flaws that, as we call them generational, not saying current parties included, but a lot of people use that word, maybe were overlooked. The fact that he had something like a 30 PFF grade while under pressure last year at USC and fumbled like crazy and bailed on a lot of plays that were there.

And then I watch him and I see like, oh yeah, he's taking the snap and then immediately dropping his eyes and starting to run around and scramble, which is not really an ideal way to play the quarterback position. How much of this is Caleb Williams' serious flaws that might be difficult to overcome? The way that I've said it over the course of this year, and especially over the last month or so, is it's gotten bad. He's contributing to the problem. He's not the root of the problem. And that's still how I feel about it. And I honestly think that the biggest issue he's had

over the last month as things got really bad before they hired Shane Waldron, isn't that he wanted to take off. It's that he was hanging in the pocket for too long. He wanted to prove I can operate from this space. I can be this guy that you don't think that I am. And I actually think it was detrimental to him in the offense because he wasn't willing to take off quickly enough. And that was one of my favorite things about watching him against Green Bay last week looked really robotic playing the position in the pocket. And you see him, you know, his, he plays with good fundamentals. Like he plays with a good base. You know, you see him go on one, two, three. I just think some of it is a little slow and a little bit too methodical. And so I actually want to see him just play a little bit looser and more

free and look more like the guy he was at USC because some of the things that have cropped up as weaknesses this year weren't actually weaknesses dating back to college. It's new stuff that he's struggling with. And when it comes to getting your offensive coordinator fired, you know, this is, there's two buckets of quarterbacks. I think when they're young players, there are guys who are there in bad circumstances and they overcome them.

And if that happens, you're probably going to be a capable starting quarterback in the NFL for an extended period of time. Like I watch what Drake May is doing and it's like, we're good. Like, I don't know how good he's going to end up being, but I know that he is going to be the Patriots quarterback for two contracts at least.

And I think he's probably going to be pretty good. On the other side of it, being bad earlier in your career doesn't necessarily mean you're going to be bad. We have plenty of examples of guys who had awful numbers in year one and two under really bad regimes and then ended up turning it around to some extent. Trevor Lawrence is one of those players. Alex Smith is somebody people always point to.

If you look at Jared Goff's numbers in year one when he was with the Rams. So I do think that there's a little bit of a silver lining here in that there maybe is a path out of this with the right coaching change, but it's definitely more worrisome than you want it to be when you took a guy first overall who came with this sort of fanfare. Well, let me put it another way.

Well, there's two other ways they come to mind for me. One is what if they had traded down to number three also comes to mind. But I guess I'm thinking what are the odds still right now that Caleb Williams ends up as the best quarterback out of this class? Because I agree with you historically, historically, we don't even know really for sure until year three

of what a guy is going to be. And a lot of times teams pull the plug a little too early on that, but year three is where they finally tend to kind of figure that out. But knowing how well Daniels has played, how good Drake may has looked recently, Bo Nix is suddenly a thing. And JJ McCarthy is going to come into a team that has just made Sam Darnold into a star quarterback and, and Pennix, you know, Pennix could be starting sooner than you think, even maybe next year. I don't't know depending on how that goes so what are the chances still that caleb williams is the best guy out of the class i think they're probably they're significantly smaller than they were coming into the year just based on the

evidence that we have here's where i land on this and i know this isn't your question nor a compelling answer i don't care i don't care what the chances are that he ends up being the best guy i don't care that he might not be the best guy i would would never care if Jaden Daniels is better than him, if Drake May is better than him. If he is a good starting quarterback in the NFL for two full contracts for almost a decade, if he is an answer to your problems, where he sits in the hierarchy of his draft class is completely immaterial to me based on my personal history and the franchise's personal history at the position gifting is hard but here's a hint give the gift of connection from us cellular not sure what that means here's a slightly more

specific hint you can choose four free phones and get four lines for 90 a month from us cellular your family wants new phones. How do we know? They told us. The good news is that compared to wrapping presents, you are great at getting hints. So take a hint and get them four free phones and four lines for $90 a month.

U.S. Cellular, built for us. Okay, fair enough. Fair enough. And, you know, I've said this also about jj mccarthy you actually want to be the team where everybody on tv is like he's only good because he's got all these great players around him you know i guess i guess all jared goff should just write a written apology to every football fan for throwing his open receivers receivers. I'm deeply sorry. Joe Montana, you stink, pal. You had John Taylor and Jerry Rice. I mean, it's one of the funniest criticisms.

I also do wonder about Chicago and the situation around him, around Caleb Williams, the inability to build maybe the offensive line, the receivers not quite pumping up the production as well as it should. But I hear my other thought was, I said this the other day, if this was happening in Arizona right now and not Chicago, I think we'd all be going like, ah, that'll be all right. He'll probably be fine. It's just so much attention on this situation. It's like when a Vikings kicker shanks one to the left, then everyone's like, Oh no, this, this, this training camp, we were all reporting this will Riker kid. He's amazing. Fans were unhappy with us for

reporting this. You're like, you're going to jinx him. Cause he's going to miss a kick in the NFC championship game. I really think that the, that white hot light of Chicago and all the history, it influences a lot of our coverage and viewpoint on this. I agree with that. And I also think that there was so much discourse coming into the season about this is the best situation a rookie quarterback has ever stepped into. And people said it over and over and over again. And we had a conversation about this on our show last week, and I'll kind of give the clip notes version of it. But I think a lot of that conversation was driven by the fact that people recognize the names on the wide receiver depth chart, which helps, but that's not the most important thing. And I think this year, this has become very clear to me.

And I look at it this way. There are two buckets of offensive ecosystem coaching, et cetera. It's not just play calling. It's the way that this thing is built from the ground up. You either have a guy who is helping out and elevating the players that he has, or you have a guy who's doing the opposite. Play callers and offensive ecosystems, in my opinion, act as multipliers for the talent that you have on the roster. You can be a situation like Washington's where you're elevating what was supposed to be a bad group of skill position players in a bad offensive line. Washington's

offensive line coming into the season, Brandon Thorne, who's a friend of mine and does great work on offensive line play, had them dead last in his preseason rankings for offensive lines. Last week, before the game they played against the Eagles, PFF had them as the eighth best offensive line in the NFL. Their ecosystem has been a multiplier and a positive way for the talent on the roster. The Bears has been the opposite.

So if every player on the roster is 1.7%, 1.7 times worse than he was coming into the season, rather than 1.7 times better, that's where you see the chasm start to form. And I think that the talent on the roster, even along the offensive line, I don't have a ton of issues with what they did along the offensive line. We've seen this so many times over the last three, four or five years, the Colts are the best example. The Colts in 2022 had an unworkable NFL offensive line. Matt Ryan was getting his head ripped off consistently play after play after play. The Colts walked into the 2023 season without doing a single thing along the offensive line. They had the same five starters that they walked into the next year with. They went from being one of the worst offensive lines in the league to one of the best. And that's what coaching and ecosystem can do.

So I have some faith that with one move on the interior of the offensive line, use the 33rd pick you get from the Panthers to draft the guard and a new coaching staff and ecosystem offensively, that this can look drastically different than it has over the course of this year, next year, if you bring the right people in to oversee it. Such a weird final seven weeks for the Bears then where everyone's looking at their watch, waiting for the next coaching announcements, right? It's not weird for me because I've done this before, right? And that's why Sunday was such a strange experience because I'm watching the game,

the field goal gets blocked and I feel nothing, right? And because all I care about right now is whether the next seven weeks are detrimental to the development of the quarterback. If they played seven more games like the Patriots game, I would be deeply concerned about what that would mean for the long-term progress of the guy you drafted number one overall. If they play seven more games like the Patriots game, I would be deeply concerned about what that would mean for the long-term progress of the guy you drafted number one overall. If they play seven more games like the game they just played against Green Bay, they could not win another game for the rest of the

season. And I think that there is something you can hang your hat on for how the rest of the year went. The only thing that throws a wrench in that is losing takes away from buy-in and buy-in helps you create that environment that is beneficial to the quarterback. That's the only reason I care about wins and losses is because hopefully if you win a couple of games, you are going to get the correct amount of effort and buy-in from the players. You know, what's important for him. And this is talking to, I don't know how many players over the many years I've covered this team, but I think they just, they need to see Caleb fight. They really need to see him scrap and claw. And if you lose every game, but he fought, I remember this with Joe Burrow

that going into 2021, remember that team was horrendous, bro. Uh, they didn't win many games. Mike Zimmer, we were sitting down with him before the Vikings played the Bengals. And he said, guys, this, this dude is a fighter. He's, he's going to be good. Don't worry. He's going to be good. And there was no real sample of that outside of just a handful of games, but that's what the players are going to look for, for buying in long-term to Caleb Williams. Does he keep them in games? Does he give them a shot? Drake may keep screwing up and losing games,

but, but he's fighting like crazy. And that's why they're buying into him there. So last thing for you, well, you're a show host. You got any questions for me? What do you want to know? What do you want to know about the Vikings? Outside of Sam Darnold and the, the Sam Darnold experience, which I'm sure is keeping a lot of Vikings fans up at night. And now that they've switched out the right guard, which would have been the other thing for me that had been a consistent problem for the last like two years. And the amount of Vikings fans that tried to gaslight me about Ed Ingram over the last two years, I'm mad about it. I'm bitter about it. So the fact that that's how this, this thing ended is the least surprising

thing in the world to me. So interior offensive line play, which has been an ongoing concern for this team over the last like eight years, every single July, when you and I have a conversation and standing there in the sweltering heat, uh, in Egan every single year, it's like, I wonder what the interior offensive line is going to be. So other than those two things, what is like the major concern about how things are going to go in the back half of the season? Uh, yeah, it's not, it's not Tom Compton or Josh Klein or Dakota Dozier or the Mike Remmers moving positions. Oh, what a time it's been at right guard. But yeah, and also I've had the same thing with Ed Ingram the last couple of years. Guys, it's not going good.

Well, Dalton Reister is not the answer. It's better than that anyway. It's better than this. So whatever the answer is, it's better than what's currently going on. You just said right guard in my brain explodes. That's what I've been dealing with. But I think it is a twofold, two things, two major concerns other than if Darnold just throws three interceptions and they lose one is that they cannot play man coverage. I'm not sure they're allowed to play man coverage. Uh, Stefan Gilmore is still very instinctual still

really smart and he's been good but he can't be left alone with anyone one-on-one uh Shaq Griffin his usage has gone down and he's probably the best man-to-man cover guy they can't leave someone like Josh Metellus man-to-man with wide receivers in the slot or anything like that. And when you have to play one type of defense, this is how they gave up a 98 yard touchdown is that the Titans put two receivers on one side, ran nobody on the other side. And there's Vikings players playing zone on the other side, guard nobody. And they just ran by them. So I think that other teams knowing these, there's only so many coverages you can play. Yes, you mix them up, but we know what they're going to have to be is problematic.

And the other thing is, too, that as much as we're joking about the right guard, they can no longer run block without Christian Derrissaw in there. They just can't. And they got destroyed by the Tennessee Titans. I think they had three runs over five yards in that game against the Titans because Devondre Sweat and Jeffrey Simmons just ate them alive. They won't probably be able to run against the Bears. Aaron Jones is dealing with rib injury. He had a hamstring injury earlier as to be expected. There's no real answer there for someone who's going to make up the difference.

So Sam Darnold, 40 pass attempts per game, maybe coming to a city near you. And I just don't know if you can really trust that to be consistent week in and week out. So there, there are weaknesses, but there's only one team that doesn't have many weaknesses and everybody else in the NFC is kind of like all their podcasters are saying the same stuff. Yeah, I think that's fair. And I think that the Derrissaw thing, beyond the run blocking concerns, we know that, and I've made this joke before, and we'll shamelessly use it again,

Darnold and pressure is just like throwing water in a gremlin. That's just kind of how it feels. And having Christian Derrissaw not in there is only going to lead to more of those scenarios where he's not playing from clean pockets and he gets just sent into, let's generously call it creation mode. So it gets sent into Sam Donald creation mode. And we know that what's waiting for you on the other side of that can sometimes be good,

but it can also sometimes be bad. Yes, exactly. Uh, before I let you go, I want to tell you that I made the worst Superbowl pick of all time this year, going into the season. I picked the Dallas Cowboys to go to the Superbowl this year, which was an enormous mistake. Who did you use on the other side? Texans. Yeah.

You know, I had the lions over the Texans. Okay. And I regret that. I regret the Texan side of that a lot. And I think that I just fundamentally the Texan side of that a lot. And I think that I just fundamentally misunderstood what the AFC would look like on a few different levels. That's probably unfair just to me

because I always couch everything I say in like six layers of contingencies because that's just my personality. With the Ravens offense coming into the year, I was of two minds about it. And every time we talked about them, I was like, all right, I think this can go one of two directions. Year two of Lamar in this system can give us something that I don't think we've ever seen with the Ravens offense before. If they're able to have some multiplicity and some flexibility pre-snap where they can go to the line and say, all right, we have Derrick Henry now, and we have the MVP at quarterback. Whatever you do, we can make you wrong.

That gives them a ceiling offensively that we've never seen with the Ravens, even last year when Lamar won the MVP. That happened. And so I think that that version of the Ravens, I thought it was possible, but not likely. And then with the Bills, I think I just undersold the infrastructure in that building. And it's a very similar model and it's a very similar thought process in the way that they went about this offseason to what the Chiefs did last offseason. Where it's like, all right, we have an offensive line we feel really, really good about. That's the best position group we probably have on this team. We have one of the best two players in the world, a quarterback.

However you want to cut it. And Lamar this year is now in that conversation. If we have those two things and a running game, we can rely on whoever we put out there to catch passes. We'll be okay. We'll figure out a way to do this. And I think that's a dangerous way to live when you don't have a fully formed quarterback, but when you do have a fully formed quarterback, you can do that. And so what the bills have been with that sort of thinking and that sort of model, I undersold what their offense could look like, even with questions at the past catching spots. So those are the two. And then the Texans offense, I just, I was not aware that they would have, I think so many times this off season I said, or other people said, well, the run game and

the offensive line can't be worse than it was last year, right? They had one of the worst run games in the league and their offensive line, the pass protection wasn't that bad, but they cycled through like 20 different combinations. So as I was thinking about the Texans, it's like, all right, the arrow on the explosive plays will stay the same. And then the run game will go from being worst in the league to middle of the road. And that means there'll be a top eight offense. Well, the press protection has been markedly worse than it was last year when they were cycling through offensive line combinations and the running game has still been inconsistent. So those are kind of the three elements that I probably misunderstood about

these teams coming into the year. And I think that has reshaped the way that the current AFC feels. Well, and just to your point on the bills, I didn't know they were going to get Amari Cooper in the middle of the season for almost nothing, which is a big deal. Cause I made fun of them in the off season for saying like, we're just gonna have a lot of weapons. And then the way that it started was not so sexy with their passing game. But now you bring in somebody that good.

He's not Justin Jefferson, but he's still very, very talented. And even if he's not getting the same target numbers as elite receivers, he's still him. And he's going to draw attention and allow the more distribution for Josh Allen. And also we just,

the running of Josh Allen, I know that play is going to go on his Hall of Fame reel when they run the highlights of that play against Kansas City. But when you look at something like expected points added, the first downs, those things that he gains, the lack of sacks that he has to take, it is astounding what he's able to do just by himself. It's like a better version of what Cam Newton was.

And here it is. Like, they have a great chance now to win the Super Bowl. I've said this before, and I truly do believe it. If Patrick Mahomes didn't exist, we would talk about Josh Allen in a very different way than we do. He would be the player of his generation. He would be the best quarterback in the league.

He'd be the best player in the league. And I think the fact that he has felt like that in stretches over the last couple of years in a world where Mahomes and Lamar exist speaks to what type of player Josh Allen is. And I hope that we have more games like player Josh Allen is. And I hope that we have more games like we did on Sunday. And I hope the Bills continue doing this because it's been very frustrating to be a part of the Josh Allen discourse over the last couple of years, where

everyone is so focused on these two or three plays a game. And then if you actually go look at the totality of what he's putting on the field, the number I kept parroting last year, if you look at sacks taken and interception slash turnovers, Josh Allen lost the least amount of total value of any quarterback in the NFL last year on negative plays. So if he's going to be one of the most explosive dynamic players in the world and actually contribute fewer negative plays to his offense than most quarterbacks in the league, what are we doing here about not being sure about what type of player josh allen is you know what it reminds me of uh because you and i are both old enough for this is uh john elway before he won the super

bowls where it was well you know he throws picks or he's you know loses the big games and stuff like that and it's like you're that guy until you're not until you finally get it because ring culture, I guess, but he, uh, he might have his best chance, uh, this year, uh, the athletic football show again, of a favorite of mine, uh, in the car when I'm heading out every day. And, uh, you're a favorite of mine too. I love seeing you out there in training camp. You don't tour as much mid-season these days. We used to see you pop up every once in a while. Maybe someday we can do a mid-season athletic tour or something. I'm doing, it's harder to justify these days because I'm not writing anymore.

And, you know, we're doing three shows a week. And so there's really no good day of the week for me to be on the road when I'm doing the show. I will say I miss the reporting. Like that's the thing that I miss the most. I miss the conversations with people. And that's why I try to take advantage of that preseason tour as much as I can, because it just informs so much of my thinking about the teams all year and the relationships that you can build. Like even if I do a little bit less of it these days,

I can, I still consider myself an NFL reporter first and an NFL podcaster second. I'm probably the only person who thinks of me that way, but I'm going to hang on to it as long as I possibly can. Well, for sure. No, I, well, I kind of still think of it that way because you're, because you do do the tour, but it's funny. I also think that this right here is just a window and to what it's like whenever we get together, whether it's, you know, just hanging out on the sideline or for a podcast.

So I'm really appreciative though of your time. I know you are a busy podcaster, so thank you for making the time. And it will be a fascinating Vikings bears contest at soldier field as it is required to be every single time. So thanks again, Robert. And we'll talk to you soon, buddy. Sounds good. I'm genuinely worried about Caleb Williams against Brian Forrest. I'm going to spend the next like 72 hours concerned about it. So we'll see how that goes. All right. Sounds good. Vikings fans are always worried about everything. So that's just how it is. All right. We'll see.