Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - The roundtable wants to see how Josh Dobbs and the Vikings match a stronger opponent in New Orleans

Episode Date: November 9, 2023

Matthew Coller, Andrew Krammer of the Star Tribune and Will Ragatz of Sports Illustrated break down the Vikings' matchup with the New Orleans Saints and how they will be more difficult for Josh Dobbs and the streaking defense. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Once again, it is a Raggits Roundtable. Matthew Collar here with you as always. Will Raggits from Sports Illustrated. Andrew Kramer from the Star Tribune inside TCO Performance Center as we so often do to preview games. And you know what? Last week, I'd say we nailed it.

We predicted perfectly everything that was going to happen on this show, which is why you need to turn in every single week for this roundtable. I don't remember anything that we actually got wrong. And now, you know, the Vikings are 5-4 heading into New Orleans. So we're good to go. Yeah, I really enjoy doing these on Thursday because it's just kind of like a little snapshot each week of where we are. And recently, it feels like so much has been changing each week.

I mean, a couple weeks ago, we're talking about, all right, the Vikings just beat the 49ers. Kirk Cousins playing some of the best ball of his career. They're going to Green Bay. And then last week, it's, oh, okay, Jaron Hall starting now. Kirk's out for the season. This is just throwing a complete wrench into everything. And now for the third consecutive show, we're talking about a new starting quarterback. So, I mean, we have to talk about, obviously obviously Dobbs mania or whatever you want to call it really one of the coolest stories in the NFL all season. Um, but I guess my question

would be, did that performance, um, by, by the Vikings as a whole, but Josh Dobbs specifically kind of change your outlook, uh, for the rest of the season, or Or was it that was a one-time cool thing? I don't know how Kevin O'Connell and Josh Dobbs pulled that off. And now we need to see more before we start to feel like, okay, season's back on. If I'm the Vikings, I feel a lot better starting Dobbs than I do Jaron Hall. At least somebody who's played eight games this season has seen a bunch of NFL football and defensive coordinators this season. And you could see him playing in rhythm, even though he knew nothing on the field

in terms of the offense. And they're talking to him about, hey, you've actually got a curl over here and a corner over here on this side. He literally has to walk through plays like that at times. And I feel much more confident just from the outside in Dobbs, too. And I would think that looking at the rest of this schedule, it's going to, it's going to be much harder, obviously than that Falcons game. You're not going to play Arthur

Smith every single week. Um, but you are going to be in games. You're going to have chances. And initially I didn't think it was going to be this seamless for him to come in and be a competitive quarterback for you. But with another week with Kevin O'Connell, at least a second week, it might look a little steadier out of the gate maybe not two turnovers in the safety um and i do feel like this team has um some competition in what is really a weak nfc playoff field so last week when we talked about the backup quarterbacks playing uh i was pretty skeptical on how that would go and let me tell you at halftime my skepticism felt like it

was really going to be the right opinion. And then, of course, Josh Dobbs turned it around. And what really I think I underestimated about Josh Dobbs, of course, I did not underestimate him being a rocket scientist because I had heard that before. But his ability to run with the football was, I mean, I'm not going to say Mike Vick in Atlanta, but he was doing stuff that you see Justin Fields do, Lamar Jackson do, in space, running away from people, dodging tacklers. And that is really what even the playing field, because when you look at his throwing statistics, and he made some very good throws, two of them to Jordan Addison that were just aces and then there was another one that Tristan Jackson should have brought in there was a great throw so I'm not saying he can't throw the football because I was impressed by the velo he put behind it but if you're gonna have a journeyman backup quarterback

even the playing field and find a way he's got to be able to do something like that. And I knew he could run. I'd seen him run a little bit in Arizona, but those were game changing runs. So I guess my question is, is he going to be able to continue to do that? Because even as he learns the offense, he's going to learn more this week. We know he can retain a lot of information. Uh, aerospace engineering is what he did. If no one's heard that at home why right right yeah why is a good question um but i don't think that he can do it just on throwing the football alone uh if he could he would be a starting quarterback already uh in the league but i think when you have that rushing ability you can kind of even the playing field and you can move the sticks and you can make things happen even if there are a lot of ugly moments along the way.

So it did change my opinion. It changed my opinion from, all right, this is probably going to be pretty nasty at times. And maybe the winsome games here or there based on their defense to, you know what they should win. Like they should win games when they're playing teams that I don't think are very good, especially when they're coming to us bank stadium. Yeah. It changed my opinion too. And I think like if it was going to be Jaron Hall and we didn't really know a whole lot and you're going to just find out what you have in him,

maybe there's a slight chance it works out, but you're probably looking at not winning too many more games with Josh Dobbs, a guy who hadn't won many games in Arizona because of the circumstances around him, but had played a lot of football and comes in. And to your point, he's legitimately been one of the best scrambling quarterbacks in the NFL this season. That's not a mirage. He was doing that in Arizona. And he's not like the Lamar Jackson, Mike Vick, like twitchy, super fat. Nobody is other than those two guys. But he's got a little of like the Justin Fields, like not as big as Cam Newton, but it's the combination of size and the ability to shrug off arm tackles.

And that happened a couple of times in that game where he's hard to bring down. And then once he accelerates, he can really start to move to, as we saw on that early one down the sideline where he got a huge block from Cam Akers. So I just think that having a guy who can do a little bit of that opens up a lot of possibilities for Kevin O'Connell as an offensive mind. And I think that's one of the reasons why last week I was still a little bit optimistic, even in the face of losing Kirk Cousins, because I just believe in Kevin O'Connell and what he can do and how he can maybe adjust on the fly. And I think that was proven in that Falcons game. What I want to see from Dobbs is maybe a little bit more of a sustainable formula for success as he learns the playbook more this week. There's one specific play where he ran for a touchdown, but TJ Hawkinson was wide open on kind of a post route when the defense bid on a Jordan Addison fake screen type of thing.

And it's those plays where I'm not I'm not going to criticize him for that. And, or I'm not, I'm never going to criticize him for getting a win in the circumstances that he did. But that's what I want to see more this week against the saints is that balance between, you know,

take off and run. That is a weapon. Do that. Do not Kevin O'Connell said, you know, you don't want to coach that out of anybody, but also you don't want to subject yourself to big hits and you don't want to pass up on open big plays downfield because you're not always going to get 18 yards on the screen. To your point, maybe the thing that you should be worried about with Dobbs taking the reins here is that with that play style, a team that had a turnover problem, you know, might continue to if he does take chances, whether as a runner or as a thrower.

We saw just more of that mobility leading to issues with the fumbling, obviously, in that game. So Dobbs leads the NFL, leads all quarterbacks in 20-yard runs, and he leads the NFL in 20-yard runs, tied with a bunch of running backs, with six of them this year already. This guy's done it, did it in Arizona, had three rushing touchdowns, came here, already had one. He already tied for the Vikings lead in rushing touchdowns. So Wes had one he already tied for the vikings lead in rushing

touchdowns so uh west phillips one of our favorites said we really needed that production on the ground and this is a guy who's done it from tennessee to when he's had his chances in the nfl shown that mobility and the only people he's surprising is people like us who just hadn't seen him before yeah i mean i i think that when a dude has a defensive back one on one in the open field and drops a nasty juke on him, I'm like, whoa, OK, now that was something I saw his speed in Arizona. But that was something that just kind of to me, like very much surprised me that he was able to pull that off. But also, you mentioned the ability to break tackles like legit break tackles uh i mean he is dead to rights two different times in key moments in the game and shakes those off i think that his strength this guy is not only getting in the lab but he's also getting in the gym as well all right that's that

this show is going to be full of those however if we are talking about reasons this might not carry on to the moon. That was two in two quick seconds. That was forced. Sorry about that. Sorry about that. I'll get to the point. It would be a couple things. Number one is this guy beat Dallas earlier this year and went like 17 for 20 passing and had a great game and then hit some rocky times after that.

And I think he had five interceptions in six games. You mentioned the fumbles like the turnovers are definitely an issue. And also with every quarterback who is kind of that category of journeyman type of quarterback, usually like Ryan Fitzpatrick is the most famous for this. They can have spurts of greatness and they can have spurts of what in the world is happening today with this quarterback. And I do think that we should not conflate Atlanta with New Orleans because New Orleans is a much better coached defense. So I think this is the real challenge for Josh Dobbs is can he be somewhat consistent? How much can Kevin O'Connell beat the inconsistency out of him and would just call and plays and everything else? Like I should say,

scheme the inconsistency out of him. But you're right. Like work, work through that. It might be a feature though, and not a bug. It might just be kind of who Josh Dobbs is. And I think this is a much different level of defense than what we saw from Atlanta. Yeah. And be kind of who Josh Dobbs is, and I think this is a much different level of defense than what we saw from Atlanta. Yeah, and as well as Dobbs played in that game and as cool as the story is right now, I'm not going to completely rule out the possibility that if he doesn't play particularly well

and he turns the ball over a few times against the Saints, the Vikings could go back to Jaron Hall and see what they have in him for more than 11 plays, which is all he was able to play both in the end of the Packers game and then the start of the Falcons game before getting knocked out. And that drive before he got concussed, like there were some legitimate examples on tape of some high level quarterback play where he does a rollout and kind of adjust his platform to get it to Josh Oliver on a little dump off pass. And then he looks away the safety and recognizes that he

has Alexander Madison of all people streaking up the right sideline and gets almost 50 yards on that. So I felt bad for Jaron Hall because he had his opportunity there and then he's just trying to make a play on the goal line and he takes a huge hit and it's like, all right, this is the NFL. Those windows close really fast. You can't subject yourself to those kind of hits as a quarterback, but I'm not going to rule it out. I think the Vikings, they're going to ride with Dobbs for as long as they can. And as long as it looks like he's their best option to win games.

And I think right now he is because of what we saw, but it comes back to me to the, or for me to the throwing the football and what he can do within the pocket within Kevin O'Connell's offense. And as he has this whole week to prepare, I think that's going to be better. But I thought of another example where the second fumble, I believe, that was almost returned – no, the first fumble that was almost returned for a touchdown, he had, I think, K.J. Osborne on the backside

of his progression on a dig route that was open. And it's like – it's one of those things where we take for granted that Kirk Cousins is going to hit that because he's so good at just seeing the whole field and knowing where everyone's going to be in this offense and Dobbs. I don't know if he just didn't like the look or whatever it was, but then he takes off, he fumbles and it's almost returned for a touchdown.

The defense came up huge and held him to three there, but I need to see a little bit more of some of the examples that he showed late in the game of being in the pocket. And you can extend plays and get out of the pocket and run and do all that. But when the first or second read is there, can you deliver an accurate football and keep this offense in rhythm? And if he does that at a pretty high level against the Saints and can avoid some turnovers, let's just let it rock with him

for as long as it's working. Yeah, the problem with being consistent is that this is such a high volume passing game offense system because they don't have a running game. Now Cam Akers is hurt. They got to lean more on Alexander Madison and maybe some Ty Chandler if he lines up in the right spot. There's just a lot of issues for quarterback in the Minnesota Vikings that Kirk Cousins did solve. And when you bring up him, yeah, you take for granted a lot of those third and in the Minnesota Vikings that Kirk Cousins did solve. And when you bring up him, yeah, you take for granted a lot of those third and longs. And yes, Dobbs will be able to do that sometimes where he backpedals 10 yards, goes down the sideline and picks it up like he

did. That was awesome. But those are plays, those are highlight for the season plays. Those generally do not happen every single week. So he's going to need to find more ways to create. Kevin O'Connell is going to have to find more ways for this offense to create in those spots. And I think O'Connell and Wes Phillips talked about how the balance that this coaching staff faces right now is we have a lot of scheme, right? We can try to scheme guys open and try to make it easier for the quarterback that way. But we've got a quarterback who's learning the scheme. And how much do you make it simple, just a straight post pattern for Jordan Addison versus doing something that's going to require much more kind of mental heavy lifting and could lead to more hiccups and issues at the line just operationally.

So they've got a lot that they're balancing with Dobbs and how they move forward for that consistency. And you're right. This New Orleans defense is going to be a much tougher test for them. And there's a game that's on my mind from last year that I'm kind of making a little bit of a comparison to where they beat Buffalo and it was insane and the whole world talked about it. And they were in the limelight for that whole week. They did every NFL network interview and every podcast and everything else. And it was an exhausting game for them.

And they came back and Dallas is much better than what new Orleans is, but new Orleans is not a joke. And we're going to talk about that. Like they're not coached by Arthur Smith. So they're pretty good. And they got pummeled by the Dallas Cowboys. And I think that it was sort of that run of games that they had just barely survived Washington and then Miami and the heat. And then they had, you know, Buffalo and as

emotional as that was, and everybody had to strain so much to win that game that there was nothing left when they showed up the next week. And I feel like that's also possible. And in part, because you might be asking some players to do it again so brandon powell is a great story for this team another guy who's been a journeyman love to see it but also like if kj osborne doesn't play you're talking about a pretty liked wide receiver room if christian derisaw is not 100 or does not play david questenberry one of the heroes of that game also josh jobs was this close from being knocked out of that game himselfid questenberry one of the heroes of that game also josh jobs was this close from being knocked out of that game himself because questenberry got beat around the edge

and guess what new orleans has got some dudes that they run at the quarterback up front and that's the one thing that i don't know if there's a strategy to say to stave off but i wonder about this going into this game about just the toll that it takes and also the sheer number of players who had to play at their absolute best. I mean, Brian Flores said it like Daniil Hunter's best game. I thought Harrison Phillips was fantastic in that game. Jonathan Bullard, like Byron Murphy, stepped up and was by far, I think, the best version of himself. So now you need it to happen again with some players out on the field and now short of running back, who was in my opinion, you're better running back.

I think this is a tough task to ask for them. I don't want to make this game the whole rest of the season, but if they overcome this, I will be extremely impressed because I think that this is a much harder challenge. Yeah, it is a little bit of a classic possible letdown spot. And I think the challenge for the Vikings coaching staff and their players is to avoid that. And I think they can, at the very least, be in this game because, yes, a lot of defensive players stepped up in that game.

But that's kind of been happening all year since the early season when they were facing some of the best offenses in the league. Every week, whether it's Josh Metellus or Cam Bynum or Jordan Hicks or Ivan Pace had a great play against the Falcons, there's just enough guys there that seem to be able to, as long as you have a few of them step up and make some plays, I don't know. I just believe in what Brian Flores does from a game planning perspective each week. I think the Saints offense isn't all that scary with Derek Carr. And I know there's guys like Chris Olave, Alvin Kamara has been really good as a receiver, not very efficient as a runner. Michael Thomas is still there, but I think the Vikings defense has to kind of like this matchup and the challenge of it. What I'm a little concerned about is what

you've talked about, and it's the Saints defense. And this wasn't a bad Falcons defense by any means. You look at some of the numbers, they ranked pretty highly, but I's the Saints defense and this wasn't a bad Falcons defense by any means you look at some of the numbers um they rank pretty highly but I think the Saints defense is just on a little bit of a different level they've they've got some veteran guys who have been there forever Cam Jordan and Marshawn Lattimore and Tyron Matthew and uh DeMario Davis all these all these guys are really talented smart football players and it's not like the Falcons didn't know about the rushing element of Josh Dobbs game like they could throw on any of his Arizona tape and see that they could throw on his Tennessee tape from six years ago and see that. But D. Alfred, we said after the game, we know we like to scramble to his right. Well, he didn't do anything about it.

He didn't. I think the Saints are going to be coached well and really have a spy on him a lot of times and do what they can to take kind of take away that rushing element and make him beat you from the pocket. And he might be able to do it, but if you're throwing to Jordan Addison is going to get a lot of maybe bracket looks and it's Tristan Jackson and Brandon Powell and Josh Oliver and guys like that, especially if TJ Hawkinson can't play. I mean, it's going to be a challenge against this Dennis Allen team. Folks, I hope you've enjoyed listening to us talk about prize picks this year, but if you've missed it, here's how it works. You go to prizepicks.com and it is simple. You pick either more or less between two and six players stat projections, and that's it. Now you're playing. So if it's X number of yards for a quarterback, you just decide, are they going to throw for more or less than that number of yards? But it works with lots of different options, receiving yards, touchdowns, even field goals,

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So go to prizepix.com slash purple. The code purple. Daily Fantasy Sports made easy. Yeah, it's going to help to get Derrissaw back. hawkinson i would expect to play but we didn't even really mention the kj osborne injury yeah with him being out too and if it's down to just jordan addison and who else yeah powell jackson all these guys harry season keel harry starting the game on a run heavy package um we're gonna see a little bit of him but i i imagine it's gonna be big josh oliver johnny

munt you know kind of game for them and try to establish some kind of ground game i imagine alexander madison's going to get 20 carries for 50 yards and they're going to continue to try to run that into the ground because they need to take some pressure off dobbs not make him feel like he has to do everything because that's how you lead to the turnovers and the issues that this team has previously had you do think derrissa and hockinson will play well i think just what we've seen from the coaching staff and the practice reports i do think that there well derisaw is the one that i i would um be questionable about at this point just because he didn't play last week but i mean hockinson was able to finish the game with the rib issue i think he'll gut through it yeah yeah i i think in a lot of ways though with

hockinson and what he did and what everybody did there was adrenaline going and there was also another side of this and look i'm not trying to be a hater i saw your comments last week i know i know what you said but the the comment section was a little upset that we were doubting jaron hall but you know it is what it is come on guys it's a fifth round rookie are you serious yeah i i know i know i mean he played well until he got hurt my glasses just aren't purple anyway you know it it's fine uh but when we're when we're trying to lay out all the different scenarios here and the factors that go into this game uh not having a running game is is pretty concerning for sure and you know i just i i want what i want to be if if they ask me to do anything anything in the building it would be the outside zone coordinator. This is the one thing I could actually do.

I couldn't do anything else. I can't punt return. I can't scout anything. I can't make personnel decisions. And I don't understand the salary cap. I have guests for all that, but I do understand outside zone. And I don't understand why they have a runner whose only success in his career is on these outside zone, these wide zone type of plays. And they continue to run him into spaces where he doesn't see it or doesn't feel it. Because I think about Le'Veon Bell as being the most extreme example of like these duos and inside zones where you have to be patient, read it, and then lightning, right? And that's just not who he is as a running back. But I also don't want to say that he's like should be way better because this was the bed they made by deciding to go with a guy who had only ever been a backup as their running back. But I do think if you play against the saints

and don't run the ball ever successfully, and you're hoping a banged up TJ Hawkinson and Addison just goes all world, which, you know, he has the capability to, but that's the only thing that you're counting on. And by the way, they've got cornerbacks and they're not going to be freaked out like Atlanta was. It was very clear. That's, that's why I think we criticize Arthur Smith so much that that team just freaked out. I thought, I thought Atlanta just was like, wait, are we going to really lose to Josh Dobbs off the bench?

And then they did. The Saints are preparing for this as if they're going to win that division and they're going to fight their way into the playoffs and they're going to be a contender. That's the way they're looking at it. Not like, oh, my gosh, our coach has no idea what he's doing. Our backup quarterback keeps trying to throw interceptions. Our first round running back's a bust. And Josh Dobbs just broke a tackle. What do we do? So I think there's like all those factors playing in. But that's my only answer for the run game is to name me outside zone coordinator.

And when they ask me, what should we run? I'll say outside zone. And that's my job. That'll be the whole extent of the job i like it i mean yeah it's it's the run game and its lack of success has been it's been weird to me all season because this should be a good run blocking offensive line it should be you know good run blocking tight ends and a scheme that has had success running the ball in the past and i I just, I don't

know exactly what it is. And it's really easy for fans and for anybody to criticize Alexander Madison and say, he's not, he's not seeing it. He's not hitting that hole, right? He's not reading whether to cut back or bounce it or, or whatever. And I think there's been some of that where if you look at the advanced metrics and people who are grading these things, and then they haven't been super fond of maybe his decisions and how he's played the position this year. But there's also a lot of times against Atlanta all season long where he's just running and he's immediately getting hit.

And it's somebody who's getting, losing their rep up front or these combinations that are supposed to create a big hole just aren't working for whatever reason. There's no running room and they have to just try to find a way to figure that out and get it going. And Madison's not going to be breaking a ton of long ones. He doesn't have a 20-yard run all year, I don't think. But you have to find a way to be able to get four yards and five yards and not have so many plays that are just dead at the line of scrimmage.

And then it's second and 10, and then it's third and long. And Kirk Cousins could get you out of those situations. But I don't know that I would be as confident in the sustainability of Josh Dobbs getting you out of those situations. And if you can't run the ball, it's going to be Cam Jordan and Carl Granderson coming after Josh Dobbs. And it's going to be Marshawn Lattimore and Paul Sinodivo, who's been playing well at corner on the back end,

and Tyron Matthew Roman around. And it's a good defense that's going to be hard to beat one dimensionally, especially with a quarterback who, yes, he'll have another week, but he's not going to be anywhere near the Kirk Cousins mastery of this playbook, the way he masters those aeronautical engineering problems. Yeah, if you look at all the NFL run defense stats, yards, or offense stats, excuse me, yards before contact, all those kinds of things. Obviously, the Vikings rank near the bottom, and that doesn't account for whether

it's the running back running into contact or yes, the blocker not blocking. But when you watch it, I watched the last one I watched intently was the Green Bay game a couple weeks ago, where it was 25 carries for 50 yards from those guys. And yeah, it's just you see Brian O'Neill and TJ Hawkinson running into each other on a gap play because maybe they're not comfortable running it because they've normally run zone here. Or maybe it's Dalton Reisner just missing a linebacker. Like they're absolutely blocking issues where they've got great individual performers. We've talked about it a lot with Derrissaw, Josh Oliver, guys who can really move people, but collectively they're not a good group and they just haven't been. They haven't been comfortable with what they're running. They haven't done it consistently.

They've been throwing things that would seem to try and find answers like cam acres, more gap plays, those kinds of things. And it's not turning into any kind of production, um, to have the zero, uh, touchdowns on 10 carries inside the five yard line this year is, is asinine for them to be in that, in that spot. So I think a lot of it is Alexander Madison. I also think a lot of it is also that offensive line. You can't be this bad and have it be on one person. Madison having three receiving touchdowns and no rushing touchdowns this

season is just a hilarious that I don't think Ty Chandler does is catch touchdowns. I don't think Ty Chandler is going to step into the full cam acres role, but I want to see Ty Chandler. I mean, dating, I know preseason last year doesn't really mean anything, but even when we've seen him a little bit this year, he showed some juice. I think it was the chiefs game. He got in there a little bit and,

and had a couple of plays where you could see the burst. So I want to see a little bit Ty Chandler as well. The what was it? The pass from Jordan Addison that went wrong. It's like he's had a couple of his best plays of the year that are taken away from him, like the kick return as well. I agree. I mean, Ty Chandler seems to me to have some really special ability with the football.

And I think Kenny Wong Wu, who just has been phased out of this entire operation, also is one of the fastest human beings on earth. And yet we can't find a single way to give these guys the football i mean that's it was puzzling to me last year with wong woo it remains puzzling to me with ty chandler where i understand that the details matter a lot i'm not saying the coaches are wrong and being frustrated if a guy lines up wrong whatever else the running back position though has always been you got the ball make people miss run by them and that's the thing that ty chandler is the best that uh i i feel like it's the scheme because brian o'neill

and tj hockinson have been around long enough very high iq nfl players there shouldn't be miscommunications and at the goal line they hand handed off to the left side and somebody from the falcons just walked right between reisner bradbury and he was like oh tackle like he couldn't believe it it looked like he was shocked that no one even tried to block him so there there shouldn't be this much confusion and it's funny because they pick up blitzes really well so they communicate but yet they can't figure out who to block in the run scheme uh on the new orleans saints side though guys um derrick carr has been pretty widely criticized uh on the internet i follow some people who cover the new orleans saints it's been a pretty rough year for him however the one way to move the football in the

minnesota vikings seems to be if you can patiently throw it short, short, short, short. You can beat the blitzes and also the umbrella that Brian Flores seems to like to form with his defensive backs. That's what the Kansas City Chiefs did to some extent with Travis Kelsey in the second half of that game. It's absolutely what the Chargers did in the best passing game against the Vikings all year. This team does have weapons. I don't know if I have a ton of confidence in Carr, but I know that that's his thing, right? Short average depth of target, getting rid of the football quickly. He doesn't like to be hit. He was hurt a little bit last year. I am really interested to see how Brian Flores manipulates that part of it

because he's been taking away the deep shots. This team gives up almost no deep shots whatsoever, but they can be the victim of sort of death of a thousand cuts. Yeah, it's going to be an interesting matchup for this Vikings defense that's been playing well because Derek Carr is not anywhere near that elite tier of quarterbacks and he's and he hasn't had a great season but he's also a lot a big step up from Taylor Heineke and you're going to pressure him a lot because that's what Brian Flores does and

that's going to happen every week and you might be able to force him into some mistakes he's only thrown like I think four interceptions this year but he's a guy who's in the past has thrown some picks but he's gonna know what to do a past has thrown some picks, but he's going to know what to do a little bit more than Taylor Heineke did at times last week, I think. And he's going to have those hot options. And a lot of times it's going to be Alvin Kamara underneath who like leads all running backs in receptions by a wide margin since his suspension ended to start this season. There's Michael Thomas and Chris Olave and some of the other options. Rashid Jahid has been their deep threat.

And I think the Vikings, to your point, have been really good about taking guys like that away. You also have to deal with the whole Taysom Hill experience and whether he's going to run it or throw it or catch it and do what he's been doing the last few weeks. So it's going to be a challenge for the Vikings. I think this defense is playing at a really high level and all three of their safeties are playing well. And I think you're going to rely a lot on, on Jordan Hicks and Ivan pace this week with the Camara underneath angle and Harrison Phillips is playing well. Daniel Hunter, um, playing really well, whether he's getting sacks or not, his run defense has been huge. And as I said earlier, the saints have not run the ball at a very high level either. They're also averaging like three and a half yards per carry with their running back.

So neither run game has done a lot. It's going to come down to the quarterbacks. And as always, it's going to come down to which team can create some takeaways. Yeah, I think it was a lot easier to create than with Taylor Heineke. I know Derek was begging to throw in an exception that whole game. I think he's going to have probably four of them. Yeah. And I think I only came up with the two.

But yeah, Derek Carr wants to give the ball up sometimes just not as much as Taylor Heineke. And I think Brian Flores has been really good at scheming things up to force that pressure, um, make the ball come out and then try to get guys in position to make plays on it from there. Um, Shahid's the one that you bring up that, that a lot of people aren't probably going to think much of a factor in this game, but he's somebody that can break some big plays that if you give up that back end, you think, ah, they're not going to really test as deep. That's the guy that could kind of surprise you.

It makes me think of a lot of Vikings-Saints games of the past, but Taysom Hill to Michael Thomas was one that single-handedly ended the George Iloka experience in Minnesota because Mike Zimmer benched him and we never saw him again. So this Saints team can be creative even without Sean Payton. They can find ways to test you and counter what you throw at them. So I think it's just going to come down to, yeah, you bring up the quarterback thing, the turnovers, that is going to be huge. And when we talk about Josh Dobbs too, with inconsistency, it is not ruining the game. He needs to be more of a manager, I think, than people maybe want to

see out of his dynamic ability. Yeah, this has a kind of low score feel to it, which we said last week, and then it was 31-28. So, I mean, who knows how that's actually going to go. I am interested in your guys' opinions about this run defense, though. I have been blown away, totally stunned. More stunned by the run defense than Josh Dobbs. Honestly. I mean, if you told me that a quarterback who runs a four, six, uh, at his size, who had that much experience won a game, I mean, I might be like, Oh, okay, well, I guess that does happen from

time to time. But if you told me that Harrison Phillips and Jonathan Bullard, Kairos Tonga, who's not even active every game, Dean Lowry out and they're they're running these five-man fronts against atlanta which by the way they seem to know every time atlanta was going to run atlanta never caught them off guard not a single time not a single way they tried to run some reverse stuff and the vikings were just all over it so i don't know if that's going to happen every week that they will be massively predictable but still it's every week now i mean they shut down the packers run game they didn't give the bears a whole lot outside of maybe one drive same with atlanta outside of one drive when i think the defense was gassed can this continue i mean i think that it can and i

think again kind of schematic finding what people do at their best but i i don't know that like i don't know if it's just been a run of bad running games or what it is. Atlanta is supposed to have a really good running game. I was so, so impressed by the way they slowed that down last week. Yeah, I think, I mean, we saw in week two, they got just trampled by the Philadelphia Eagles, and that's a great offensive line. DeAndre Swift had a great game.

And ever since then, they've just, I don't know if they made any adjustments to that or if it's been, like you said, just you haven't played the Eagles again, but it's been really impressive. I think like when we're looking back at this game, and I think that's a game in Atlanta that people are going to be talking about in Minnesota for a long time, it's going to be Josh Dobbs scrambles and that game winning throw and that Jordan Addison catch and maybe Byron Murphy interception. But to me, just a huge sequence.

That's really, that really sums up what you're talking about is after that first fumble, when they're down at the one yard line and the Vikings were kind of fortunate to draw a false start and go back to the six, but then Kairos Tonga makes a great play against the screen to John who Smith and, and tackles him at the one. And then it's two straight runs from the one yard line where this was a little bit of like,

all right, Arthur Smith, what are you doing here? He gives a handoff to Johnnie Smith in the direction of Daniel Hunter. And that goes nowhere because Hunter is one of the best run defending edges in the league. And then he gives a handoff to not be John Robinson, Tyler Algier, who he loves as a goal linebacker to Hunter's side again. And he makes a wide run, another wide back to Hunter's side again uh and he makes a wide run another wide run to Hunter's side he makes another play and he just throws the tight end back into Tyler Algier and it's like all right first of all that was weird from from Arthur Smith but it was really really

impressive from the Vikings run defense and you talked about Harrison Phillips Jonathan Bullard these aren't like the Williams wall or anything like that, but they've been playing at a really high level. Phillips can occupy those double teams and maintain his gap integrity and allow the other guys to come through and make plays. And to me, I think it's fairly sustainable with the way that those guys have been playing. I think Tonga deserves to have like the 15 to 20 snaps per game. mean dean lowry like there's a reason the coaches were playing it but also it's a little interesting that they played really well and he wasn't playing um and then i i just continually want to see more of jaqueline roy who seems to make like one splash play every week so it's not a star-studded defensive tackle group but they've

been getting it done yeah the adjustment i've seen since week two and i think the big thing with week two obviously was jalen hurts right When you have to account for the quarterback in the run game, it just, you kind of give up on the running back a little bit. And you saw people dive like Daniil Hunter and Wanham diving for the quarterback, even when they shouldn't have been, or maybe when the running back had the ball. But the adjustment I've seen since then is you've seen Ivan Pace less. That's not because he's a bad run defender, I think. I think it's because they've been leaning more on the five defensive line that has one linebacker. It's more of a five, one, five defensive front. That's kind of become their main where Metellus can drop down and be that extra

linebacker in the front. And that's allowed them to be, um, in a personnel grouping that allows you to defend the pass while having kind of a heavier front with how versatile Metellus is. And you've seen them just tackle. Well, You've seen the Caleb Evans, you've seen Cam Bynum drop down and make excellent tackles. Harrison Smith's still doing what he does. And then Ivan Pace, even underneath plays that didn't go down as a run, they're doing pop passes to Bijan Robinson where he's shaking two defenders and getting the tackle for a one-yard gain. They have a lot of guys contributing that aren't just the Bullards, the Phillips, the Hunters. Collectively, while we talk about the running offense, not playing well, collectively, the defense is doing the exact opposite. And they're, I think tied for fifth

at 3.7 yards allowed, um, throughout the entire season right now. Um, that hasn't happened since 2017 for the Vikings. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. Folks, if you're struggling with the holiday blues and you're having some trouble getting excited in the same way that other people in your life do about holiday get togethers, and all of that just sounds stressful to you, then maybe it might be helpful to add something new in your life to help deal with those feelings. That's where therapy could be a bright spot for you. It can help give you the tools to manage stress and help you feel more grounded. If this

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My friends, you are going to want to check out Game Time. It is the fast and easy way to buy tickets to any sports event that you want to attend and much, much more. One of the cool parts about Game Time is that they have flash deals on last-minute tickets and a low-price guarantee, which means if you find something lower in the section or row, they will credit you 110%. You also get images of your seat locations, which I love because those maps can be a little confusing.

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played great i think he's done his job as well as you could ever ask him to do but josh metellus played maybe 250 snaps last year most of it in in relief, Harrison Smith was out one game. They mixed them in from time to time. Uh, but now this guy has become a star of this defense. I mean, if you're going to talk about one player who has swung the tide, I think Josh Mattel is, is that guy now before the season, I was doing a story on him. We probably all did stories on Mattel because we noticed he was out there so much. Andordan hicks said we've known how good this guy was we just had to put him in the game okay all right well i i know what you're saying donatello's already dead right right right right he doesn't need any more dirt poured on the the grave there but uh part of it is will it continue because i'm always

asking this question whether it's josh dobbs or whether it's Metellus or Bynum or whatever, like if, if it's a player who we don't expect, that's always the question is, will it continue the Vikings? It cannot be ignored that the Vikings played offenses operated by Bryce young Tyson, Bajan slash Justin Fields, a very lost and frustrated Jordan love. And then, you know, Taylor He Heineke like that can't go without mentioning that when they played the Eagles and the Chargers two very good offenses they they got smoked and I feel like the uh this this team the Saints team is in between somewhere with their quarterback and with their talent but how much of this is they have played some pretty rough offenses I haven't looked where

those offenses rank, but it can't be high collectively. And how much of it is no, actually, Metellus is a star. Actually, Bynum is that guy that you're going to want there for a long time and give these guys contract extension. Well, Metellus already got one, but Bynum and so forth. How are we viewing that? It's both. I mean, it's always both when it's a question like that. But I think there's a lot of really impressive things with this Vikings defense. You even look at the Chargers and the Chiefs games, and they had opportunities to make some plays there, and they made things difficult at times for those really good quarterbacks.

Not as much for Justin Herbert, but that was just kind of a game plan thing, I think, in that one. The ball did bounce off of Caleb Evans' face. It did bounce off of Caleb Evans' face and ended up in a touchdown. I just maybe will pour a little bit more dirt on the grave of the defensive coordinator from last year because I've just been so impressed by this coaching staff. And I think, yes, they lost some games due to the weird turnover stuff earlier this year, and they were one and four, and then4, and coaching was involved in that too.

There were some maybe decisions that they would want to have back. But to get to where they are and to be 5-4 and to have won that Falcons game, I just think it reflects really well on both sides of the ball on this coaching staff. And it's Kevin O'Connell on offense, but it's also Wes Phillips and Keenan McArdle and all those guys and Chris Cooper up front.

Defensively, it's Brian Flores what an incredible hire like there's either I don't think there's any debate about that the way that he's uh performed the Vikings may have a hard time keeping him in the building after this year with the way that he's coached but it's also like let's give credit to Durante Jones and people like that for what he's been able to do with Josh Metellus and Caleb Evans and the DBs. Let's give credit to Chris Rumpf, who I know has missed a couple games here, and Mike Pettin. This whole coaching staff, I just think it's been a really impressive performance because you mentioned Metellus didn't play a bunch last year. Jonathan Bullard, you're like, all right, he's just kind of a replacement-level guy.

He's been playing well. Cam Bynum, I thought last year I was like, all right, he's not going to be a starting safety option. And he showed flashes as a rookie, and, I was like, all right, he's not going to be a starting safety option. And he showed flashes as a rookie. And then I was like, all right, this isn't it. And this year, he's been genuinely one of the better safeties in the NFL. And I just think a lot of that comes down to good coaches putting their players in positions to succeed, learning what those players do well, and kind of tailoring their roles to that. Yeah, we've heard Brian Flores say that over and over since he came here in terms of just learning everybody's, I think he's, he always says

everybody's got strengths. We just need to figure it out and kind of play to them and, you know, not worry about somebody not being a complete player or whatever. And you're seeing somebody like Cam Bynum, whose intelligence allows him to anticipate and be in the right spots, take good angles, not be just sat back in kind of a third or half field zone and just read the quarterback and see what happens. That felt like that's all they were doing last year in that defense oftentimes. So, Matt, to answer your question about Metellus, I think he legitimately is a good player.

I think you're going to see good quarterbacks continue to expose their secondary, though. Fortunate for them them they only play one in joe burrow the rest of the regular season um i think you gotta give you gotta give jared golf look jared i like amante amante brown i think amon ross ain't brown is the one who makes that thing click i like golf a lot and i've come a long way on giving him credit i used to be a hater it's a lot of ben johnson um of course of course so but what i'm trying to say is that there are players who can transcend scheme and transcend what you're trying to throw at them. And I don't know if golf is there as much as certainly Joe Burrow is. So they, the whole

slate that they've got is full of the Russell Wilson's and the Taylor Heineke's and the Derek Carr's here. And that is going to play in their favor when they don't have the personnel to lock down a true number one receiver and a quarterback like Justin Herbert who can take advantage of I am very interested though in in the mid quarterback test though because Derek Carr is 15th in the league Russell Wilson at this point from what I've seen of him has been way less atrocious and much more like an average quarterback which is quite a bit better than Taylor Heineke, Jordan Love and so forth. Guys that might be playing for the St. Louis Battle Hawks in the future.

That's a different level. And that's what I'm curious to see how we feel about everybody after that. As far as picking this game, you talk about playing to the strengths. Our strengths is picking every game correct. As we've done each week. We delete the shows after the game happens. So you can't go back and look. No, I think that the Vikings will not win this game, but they will play well that we're going to walk out of that game being like,

well, you know, that was one that was 24, 21 and they were right there and it, and you know, they ran out of gas a little bit at the end of the game. That that's how i would project it but you know again i i think i picked uh 14 to 11 or something last week and it worked out completely differently but that's that's how i view this game i think new orleans is just a notch better than atlanta and may actually finish those some

of those drives instead of kicking a field goal every time. Yeah, just quickly to your quarterback point, they've played a couple of guys who I think are kind of in the Derek Carr tier. I would look at Baker Mayfield and Brock Purdy to some extent. Purdy, yeah. Purdy. Mayfield, maybe not. He averaged nine yards a pass before he got the concussion. Before he allegedly got concussed.

Yeah, so I think it is going to be a tougher test. I don't know. I picked the Vikings to win last week, and of course I predicted exactly what was going to happen and the way that it was going to play out. Crushed it. Unreal. I believed in Jaron Hall a little bit. I mostly believed in the defense,

and they thought they were going to win like 16 to 13, and it ended up being their highest scoring game of the season, which is just one of the, one of the many crazy things about that Josh Dobbs performance. I'm going to stick with the Vikings here and I'm going to, I'm going to believe in the coaching staff that I just talked about and Kevin O'Connell finding ways to utilize Josh Dobbs strengths after a full week of preparation as the starter, seeing a little bit of that dual threat stuff. I'll feel better about this. If both Christian Derrissaw

and TJ Hawkinson play, certainly. It seems like KJ Osborne maybe won't be cleared. That's not going to affect my opinion too much. They'd obviously love to have him, but I'm going to take the Vikings, and it's going to be another – I think it's going to be another low-scoring game, not that last week was, but most of the season they've been these games in the low 20s that have been decided by a player too and and i think this will be another one of those and i think the vikings are gonna force a derrick car turn over or two and um get some big dobs plays and i think i

think this this jeremy lynn type story is gonna keep rolling uh i want to keep applying logic to this i want to just throw out the whole like yeah it's gonna be hard to run against new orleans front dobs is gonna come crashing back to earth they're gonna no logic there's no rocket scientists puns intended there um i and i think that um that this offense is just gonna have kind of an awakening but yeah this is what it's like without kirk cousins kind of thing but i keep doing that and i keep being wrong so i'm just gonna say to say the Vikings because they've Kevin O'Connell, this offense, this team, this locker room, they've got something going that we're continuing to see even through this tough one and four start, even after the 13 and four, like they've carried this through with, and I think it's just O'Connell. I think it is the

coaching staff. I think it is the collection of veteran talent and locker room that they still have. Um, I don't think it's a Superbowl contender. Obviously I don't think they're going to make some kind of magical run because of that, but I do think they will be in November games against the saints because of it. And then why not give them a chance because they haven't shown us recently any reason not to. I think Josh Dobbs might engineer a game winning.

There you go. There you go. See, I noticed on Twitter that Andrew used the words NFC Championship when talking about this. That happened. That happened. Classic me, man.

I know I'm a homer. I know. I know. I'm just saying that the words NFC Championship were in a post online under your name. So maybe you were hacked. Last time they had a top five run defense. I'm just saying.

There was a lot of other things about that 2017 team that that aren't here right now but that is true they had a good run defense well we'll see how it plays out and uh what we're talking about next week nobody knows so but we will continue to do this throughout the season and now a new energy into this team really looking forward to what happens this week and beyond so thank you all for watching our round table as always and we will catch you all next time. Football. Football.