Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - The Vikings are much better than the Giants, right?

Episode Date: December 22, 2022

Matthew Coller and Sports Illustrated's Will Ragatz dive deep into Vikings-Gaints, from whether there will be an impact of the emotional game last week to Daniel Jones' super bizarre stats to the things that the Vikings need to carry over from the second half against the Colts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Purple Insider is presented by Liquid Death, delicious water that's bringing death to plastic. Learn more at liquiddeath.com slash insider. Hello, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar along with Will Raggins of Sports Illustrated. And Will, we have to turn the page here. As easy as it is to continue to go back to that Colts comeback game, what it all means, we have broken it down in every which way. And now it is a discussion about the New York Giants. But here's where I want to begin. And I know there's no real way to project this, but we have to discuss the possibility. The last time the Vikings had a historically a great comeback game where they won an unbelievable fashion. And by the way, had like 170 plays in a game that went to overtime and they went four hours and that I was very

hungry at the end and needed some food and they had no consideration for that. They came out the next week and lost 40 to three. Now, I don't think that the New York Giants have 40 points in them anywhere. Usually it takes about two to two and a half games for the Giants to get that many points. But is it a legitimate concern that the Vikings are coming off another very emotional game and have to play a team that does have eight wins? I think it is a concern. And yeah, you can set it up like there's some good parallels where they come off the emotional end of overtime, crazy game of the year win to play an NFC East team at home. And like you said, the Giants are not the Dallas Cowboys.

I think that's pretty clear. But they do have eight wins. I don't know if I want to say that they're a good team or a great team, but they have eight wins. They have some areas of their game that they do pretty well. Kayvon Thibodeau, their rookie pass rusher, has been really coming on. So they have some pieces. And I think the bigger thing is from the Vikings end of things.

Like they are coming off a very emotional win. They clinched the NFC North. Like there's almost sort of some finality to the NFC North thing where you put on the t-shirts and you put on the hats and like, oh, we did it. But now you got to go play a game in the next week anyways. And these games still matter because there's seating on the line that has real implications for what will happen in the postseason. So I think from the Vikings perspective, it's going to be a challenge to kind of just flush

this and it was a great win and it was cool and historic and all that, but you got to move on and you can't take this Giants team lightly coming into your building on Saturday. Yeah. The funny thing about the Giants is that on paper, there's just nothing to be impressed by really at all. But the way that they played against Washington made me think they could definitely be dangerous to this Vikings team. They do not have a passing attack that's going to scare you really at all. Saquon Barkley's been dealing with a bit of a neck thing. I don't know if he's exactly at 100% coming into this one. And one of their top corners has not practiced in the first two days leading up to this game. So there's a lot of things on paper where you'd say,

you know, I don't know, like what's really good about this team. But the Vikings have had this tendency to make teams that were not all that impressed by hang around in these games and play really close with them. And I just feel like the way the Giants play a lot of their games, it's intentional. It's like by design for them to run the ball a lot and blitz a lot and try to get a couple of turnovers, try not to turn the ball over. And, and, you know, Kirk Cousins has taken quite a few sacks this year, and this is a team that's starting to ramp up the pressure. So there's definitely a world, even when you're not saying, okay, the giants are Superbowl contenders or something. And when they're 20th and offense and 14th and defense, where this is

one that's disappointing for them because of what they went through over this last week and how hard it is to bounce back for that. But also because the Giants, as much as they have sputtered, they still have enough talent to make things interesting. And I actually think, Will, that it's a good test for all those Donatello things that we've been breaking down this week, the man coverage playing tighter. I think Duke Shelley's going to start as the corner as opposed to cam Dantzler,

which is a positive for them moving Harrison Smith around more often, like all these things that they did to fluster the Colts. Well, it's, it's on tape now for Brian Dayball. So I feel like it's a really good test case for them, even if I don't think that this is a team that's like San Francisco or like Dallas or like the Philadelphia Eagles. Yeah, it's an interesting game for several reasons.

And one of the reasons is, I mean, this is almost a guarantee to be a one-score game. If you look at the Vikings have played in so many one-score games the Giants have played in all kinds of one-score games they have a couple tough losses as do the Vikings they got blown out by Philly recently actually lost by 14 to Seattle and they lost to Detroit by 13 but other than that every game's been one-score game all of their wins have been one-score wins so these are two similar teams like you said it they want to try to win like 21 to 20 or 23 to 17 like those are some actual results that they have had this season looking at their schedule and just with the way they play I think the biggest difference for them compared to previous seasons has just been coaching like they haven't massively

upgraded their talent I think that the path they're on, they could be good down the line. They probably need to figure out the quarterback situation. I don't think Daniel Jones is their long-term guy, but it's not a massively talented team, but the coaching has gotten a lot better. Brian Dable has helped Daniel Jones have a career year, and that hasn't meant lighting the world on fire, but it's meant cutting down massively on the turnovers that were such a major issue for him his first few seasons he's playing fairly efficient effective football he's not putting up huge numbers but again taking care of the football he's he's a dual threat guy which so the Donatello stuff they blitzed the heck out of Matt Ryan at least compared to uh what we what we had seen from them all season and that worked well Daniel Jones a lot more mobile

than Matt Ryan which is going to kind of present some some different challenges for how you want to approach that and then on the other side of the ball which we'll talk about too like Wink Martindale is he loves blitzing if Vikings fans are watching have been watching their team all season like why don't we blitz more well you'll enjoy watching the Giants because they blitz like half the time I mean I think I think it's 40 percent which leads the league by a blitz like half the time. I mean, I think, I think it's 40%, which leads the league by a good clip. Like he is going to come after you all the time, rarely rushing for,

especially in obvious passing situations. So how the Vikings adjust to that with kind of hot route options for Kirk quick reads, different pickups from Dalvin cook, the tight ends, things like that are going to be important. So when you play a blitz heavy team, there's potential for disaster, fumbles, sacks, forced throws that lead to picks. But there are also opportunities if you can diagnose it right and get the ball out quickly to take advantage of them vacating a lot of numbers and coverage and

hit some explosive plays. And the Vikings definitely have the weapons starting with Justin Jefferson to do that. There's a lot on paper that is sort of similar and the Vikings definitely have the weapons starting with Justin Jefferson to do that. Yeah, there's a lot on paper that is sort of similar to the Vikings in that the Giants are great at not turning the ball over. They have caused a good number of turnovers themselves. They get after the quarterback, like you mentioned. But when you look at their scoring percentages, very mediocre, like they're 17th in the league in them scoring. They've allowed the percentage of opponents scoring the sixth most, but they've been really good in the red zone. Does any of this sound familiar to you?

Like they are really good on third down. Does any of this sound familiar with you? It's like these two teams kind of looking in the mirror, and when you look at their expected points, and there are differences, of course, namely Justin Jefferson is really the difference between these two teams, but the expected win loss for the New York giants, they should be a six and eight football team right now. And instead they are eight, five and one because of a lot of these close games. And I mean, this has always been sort of an NFL truth. And I think this is why the whole one score game thing has always been pretty predictive and almost might be a

reason why it's hard to apply to the Vikings if they stay where they are in offensive rank, where they're in the top 10. It's usually teams will try to shrink the game down and hope for one play or one pass interference, not called at the end of a game when you're not that good. Like that's what you're trying to do. You're trying to not turn the ball over. You're trying to run the football. You're trying to kind of make it short or keep the other team off the field and then hope for some big plays, send some big blitzes on defense. You get one turnover, one key sack. Like that's how the Giants are playing. It's I think that it's very self-aware of Brian Dable to play a style of football that is not saying, hey, you know what, Daniel Jones, why don't you go out there and throw

for 350? Let's light the world on fire. Like that's just not going to play well for them. And they've been on the right side of variance. So it's two teams who have kind of played in that same style and really until the last couple of games I think the Vikings offense has tried to do that in a lot of games where they've tried to throw the ball short and they've tried to run the ball with Delvin Cook quite a bit and in these last two games they've been playing from behind so they've been

forced to opening up what I would like to see from the vikings is on both sides of the ball i mean play like you're already in the playoffs and try some things out here because blitzing more worked running harrison smith all over the place worked throwing the football down the field to just to jefferson works and and being aggressive with some of the you know things like delvin cook in the passing game, getting that going to a point where they ran a five wide receiver and he was all the way out the sideline. He ran an underneath kind of slant route and they hit him for a decent size game. We haven't seen something like that all year long. So there's some things that you can kind

of experiment with. But what I think would be the most effective method when there's kind of nothing to lose is go all in on being aggressive and see what it looks like against a team that you could play in the playoffs and the Giants yeah I agree I think this will be a big game I think for Dalvin Cook's usage and you pointed it out like the way he was using the passing game was something we had been talking about going back to OTAs and training camp, whether that was going to be a thing. And we hadn't really seen it all year. And then it kind of finally showed up in this game.

And there was that underneath route that he ran where everybody cleared out. And then the big, the biggest play of the game, he lines up wide, catches a screen, has two blockers right there in front of them and takes it 64 yards to the house. So that was a big thing. Just looking at the run defense. I mean, the Giants are towards the very bottom of the league that's been a huge issue for them nobody's given up more yards per carry than them I think 5.4 EPA DVOA their their run defense is terrible which in on one hand you're like wait they have

Dexter Lawrence and Leonard Williams like they have some good guys up front but I think we've seen you can have Dalvin Tomlinson and Michael Pierce up front and still not be a good run defense like that's not the only thing that matters it's linebackers fitting the run it's can your DBs come down and tackle against the run and then what we already touched on if you blitz a lot that'll leave you susceptible like maybe team will hit you with a draw on third and four and that can get 30 yards like that leaves you open to the run as well so I think this will be a big game for for Dalvin Cook's usage both in the running game and in the passing game but I agree with you like it's still an important game like you want to win because you want to stay ahead of the 49ers for

the two seeds in the event that both the Vikings and 49ers win and they play each other in second round you want that game to be at U.S. Bank Stadium to give yourself at least a better chance I still don't know if they'd be favored at home against the 49ers but there are things to play for in terms of winning this game but it's totally a time to continue to kind of lean in on some adjustments and some things that you may want to do more of in the postseason, blitzing and trying some different things on offense. And just, yeah, just lean into that because you already have won the NFC North. You've clinched the playoffs. And this is a Giants team that I don't think is that good where you can't get away with maybe getting away from your bread and butter a little bit at times. So they need to continue focusing on improvement.

I think that's something Kevin O o'connell talked about this week like yeah we just glitched the nfc north and we had the greatest comeback ever but why were we down 33 nothing to the colts at halftime in the first place that's something we need to figure out and and some of it he said was kind of random like you're usually not going to get a blocked punt because you have your one guy Patrick Jones on the punt team was ill and wasn't playing and then a interception a pick six because Jalen Rager and Kirk Cousins weren't on the same page because Justin Jefferson wasn't on the field like there were some weird things in that game a cook fumble um two fourth and ones that they just took out of Kirk Cousins hands from inside their their own 35. And so things like that. But offensively, defensively, there were some things that really didn't go well in the first half that they need to fix.

So this week will be a good kind of chance to do that. Their last home game of the regular season, a beatable opponent. Lots to watch in this game before they then head out to the frozen tundras of green Bay in Chicago to wrap up the regular season. Do you think that they play everybody for this one? Because I think they will. I don't think this is one to start resting players or even limiting your snap counts because you know, the last two are, but I mean, being in a playoff spot is great.

If there's any open door to the number one seed it doesn't really look like it um the possibility is quite low but jaylen hurts injured he's banged up but my phone went off just as uh we were talking here and when i look at the adam schefter report he says that says that Jalen Hurts did not practice due to his sprained shoulder. So, I mean, that's a reason if there's any percentage chance at all whatsoever to fight for that number one seed, you have to do it. Even if it means the Eagles losing all of their games and you winning all of your games, crazier things have happened, especially in Vikings land, you can come down from almost any deficits even in the standings um but also i you know i think that when it's resting starters week

18 is the time to do it and even if next week it looks like you're in good shape for number two or you could lose number three i think you sort of reassess when you get to that point but for this one even though it's wrapped up, you're in the playoffs. I don't think they can treat this entirely like preseason or experimentation land or whatever. I think that they really have to treat this one like you need a win here to stay in line to try to get that number two seat. No, I agree.

You start to think about resting players as the earliest would it would be the january 1st game uh in green bay and then definitely in chicago depending on what the scenarios are but yeah you touched on it the eagles lose out and they have at dallas this week which dallas is really really good we know that they have the saints and the giants at home the final two games those aren't tough opponents but they're also not like the Cardinals or whoever the Texans like those are those are teams that you have to play well to beat we don't really know what the status of Jalen Hurts shoulder is will he miss a game two games whatever it may be in garden

Gardner Minshew is a solid backup and the Eagles are really really good top to bot like they're 13 and one for a reason they're they're probably not going to lose out but for this week if they lose to dallas and the vikings beat the giants then you're a third of the way there and you're like hey who knows and if the vikings win this week and the 49ers drop a game which hasn't happened in a long time if they lose to washington then all of a sudden you have a little cushion there and maybe you start to limit some reps against the pack like it all depends on kind of what happens with those other two teams but now this week they're doing the whole whiteout thing which will be cool at US Bank Stadium they have a chance to if they win go eight and one at home which would be just really impressive

something to kind of hold your hat on and you And you can use that if you're the Vikings, like marketing people to sell tickets for future seasons and stuff as a cool accomplishment to go eight and one at home. But yeah, and it's another, I mean, it's an eight, five and one team coming into your building, an NFC East team that they've lost two NFC East games this year pretty badly. I think they want to come in, work on things, but play their game and try to win this game. And then maybe they'll continue to mix things up a little bit, especially on the defensive side.

But yeah, I don't think you start to think about resting guys until those final two games. I will say, though, that Brian Asamoah is a guy who I think continues to get involved this week, especially with Eric Kendricks being limited with a hip thing that he picked up in that Colts game. So Asamoah,

Asazio Tomowo, who's played like 10 to 14 snaps the last couple of weeks, continue to get those guys involved, but you're not thinking about like cutting down on Justin Jefferson or Zedaria Smith or people like that just yet. It's the most wonderful time of the year, folks. And what I mean is that time where you put liquid death in your family stockings just to see their reactions.

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can get liquid death at liquid death.com slash insider. And yes, it does fit in a stocking. Right. I, yeah, I don't think that you want to just like sit harrison smith for josh patellis for three weeks or something like you want to i yeah i think that some rotations for players who have succeeded like i mean brian asamoah i think has been pretty good when he's come in uh or at least to my eye on tape he looks like he is deserving of a few more reps and he certainly is a guy that's going to have to be the future for them because I don't see Eric Hendricks and Jordan Hicks being long-term options really for this team as soon as next year.

Asamoah could be a starter. So you try to get them some reps when you can, but I also don't think it's like, let's just treat this like the preseason when there's still something on the line for where they have to play. I don't mean to bounce kind of all over the place, but I did want to circle back to Daniel Jones. He has one of the weirdest stat pages of the year, right?

Like he has, this is nuts. He has five big time throws all season long, which is something that someone could reasonably do in a game. Like Patrick Mahomes could reasonably register five big time throws in a single game and Daniel Jones has five I would I would wager that he probably has he probably probably has Josh Allen like that probably has happened I don't think we can look that up right now but I'm gonna look up the leaders right now so the leader in the league is Josh Allen with 39. Oh my God. And Daniel Jones has five.

And he has, he has been just not asking him to do difficult things really like keep the ball out of harm's way, make simple throws and you're not going to turn the ball over, but you're also not going to have big time throws. And I guess that works for them. I mean, Baker Mayfield has five big time throws.

Okay. I just pulled up. Go ahead. I just pulled up Josh Allen's PFF page and he has two games this year with at least five last week against Miami in the snow. He had five big time throws in week six at Kansas city. He had six. He has four games with six at Kansas City, he had six. He has four games with four. And Daniel Jones has five all season. That's great. I'm trying to see how many did Mike White had three against the Vikings.

Amazing. What? Daniel Jones has 12 touchdown passes all season in 14 games. He's averaging fewer than a touchdown pass a game. He has good completion percentage, a fairly efficient passer rating, all these things, only four interceptions, way fewer fumbles, all these things. But they're just really, I think, smartly limiting his responsibilities and just trying to simplify the game for him.

And I don't know what their ceiling is this season, but they're eight, five and one. And it looks like they're headed for a wild card spot, but he's been sacked 41 times, which is a ton, but he's only thrown four picks. This is,

this is a funny staff for you. And this is kind of crazy. Daniel Jones this this year despite those numbers has a higher qbr which is espn's one through a hundred metric that tries to weigh game situation a lot of different things uh then kirk he has a higher qbr than kirk this year which i think that one of the things that we should just all know all the time is that every single statistics you look at has to be weighted with what you already know. Because a lot of times you can look at a single number and be like, well, that doesn't match up with what I think. And sometimes it's enlightening to tell you something about maybe whatever that you didn't know or you can't watch all the games all the time and sometimes it's like well i think we need to factor in some things to this like if you're

looking at the pff grade for last week and you and i both watched the tape back i find you know a lot of throws that are regrettable for kirk cousins on that tape uh he threw a lot of passes and not all of them were good. And so I see why they gave him negative throws and negative grades on throws. But also like the guy had to come up with a two point conversion that loses the game if he doesn't hit it.

He made a lot of huge plays in the game. So you can walk out of the stadium being like, wow, what a performance in the second half by Kirk Cousins. But also acknowledge when you watch play by play, there's a dropped interception in the end zone there's a couple of balls that just fly over people's heads there's you know a pick six there's things mixed in there and so the same thing with like this qbr where what the qbr is clearly not factoring is that daniel jones almost never throws the ball and absolutely never throws it near anybody. But he does run now, Will.

And this is what makes it even weirder. Like he's run for over 500 yards. Yeah, you would have, I mean, I knew he was fast, but like, I didn't think he was a running quarterback. So how many running quarterbacks have they even faced this year? Like Kyler and Jalen Hurts, and that's kind of it. So I don't even know.

Like, oh, Justin Fields had his breakout running game on a block in the back but uh so that i guess that's like a test we need to talk about as well them facing a running quarterback here yeah it is and i think that's another area where like you want to keep brian asamoah involved and i i know maybe we're talking a lot about like their third string linebacker here but he is a third round pick a rookie who I think is a big part of their future and what you see when you watch him on tape is just I think what they saw in him to make him a third round pick was just the ability to kind of diagnose things and just fly around the field and close really quickly and when you're playing a running quarterback it's about your your defensive lineman your pass

rushers having good rush lanes and being disciplined in that and not kind of getting out of position but your linebackers have to fly around and make plays your safeties have to come up your your slot corner people like that have to be able to make plays so yeah with Daniel Jones I mean in the past it was so like risk reward with him high upside like you would make cool throws and he almost had like an 85 guard rushing touchdown once and then he fell over when he was running. That's like what I always think of when I think about Daniel Jones. Sorry to Daniel Jones, but that'll that'll stick with you for a while.

But now I think he's I think he's a little bit he's kind of reined that in. But the running aspect is still there where when you're a running quarterback, you're going to hold on to the ball longer because you think you can escape from certain situations and create something out of nothing and use your athleticism. And then that also makes you susceptible to taking a bunch of sacks. So the Vikings are going to have chances to get home, whether it's blitzing or whether it's just rushing forward. Another like crazy similarity between the Vikings and the Giants. There are so many of them is like their offensive lines aren't that good but they have the they have an unbelievable young left tackle Andrew Thomas for the Giants is one of the highest graded tackles in football Christian Derrissaw is right up there as well so that'll be interesting to watch whether it's Daniil Hunter is it Aria Smith whoever on that

side but then whoever else I think like Dalvin Tomlinson against their interior could have an opportunity Dalvin Tomlinson revenge game I might add I don't think he's played the Giants since uh since leaving them so that that I could be wrong there but I could feel the vengeance from here oh yeah the Dalvin Tomlinson revenge game big big storyline there we got it we got to talk about one every week at least um but yeah Daniel Jones like he's he's taking care of the football well this year but he's still going to be susceptible to taking a lot of sacks him and Kirk Cousins are actually third and fourth the most sacks taken this year Cousins weirdly is about to like set a career high in that mark and I don't I don't really know why that is I think I don't know if

he's been holding on to the ball longer if it's been a new offense thing, if it's been the interior offensive line, but he's had worse interior offensive lines before. So I don't know if you have theories on that. But yeah, two of the most sacked quarterbacks in the league facing off on Saturday. My theory is that Kevin O'Connell wants the routes to go down the field. And when he's waiting on routes, that's something that's kind of always been a balance for him in 2018. He took a lot of sacks as well. I mean, they were a

little bit more quick passing offense, but when he had to make a lot of reads at the line of scrimmage and things like that, and it wasn't just those play actions and bootlegs, which are kind of designed to keep him away from getting sacked. I think that's played a pretty big role in it. When I break down some of the numbers here, by passing expected points added, Cousins is top 10, and Jones is more toward mediocre. So that kind of tells a better story about the QBR. But running-wise, expected points added,

who would have had this list? Justin Fields, Josh Allen, Jalen Hurts, Patrickts Patrick Mahomes interestingly has done well running the ball Lamar Jackson and Daniel Jones I wouldn't have had Daniel Jones on the list going into the season but as far as expected points added lost to Saks Cousins is one of the lowest in the league he's 29th and Daniel Jones is 27th as far as losing EPA to sack. So it has been harmful to their offense. And when you look at the three and outs, they are, they have the seventh most three and outs in the NFL this year.

So the boomer bust offense continues. And that was last week. And that's why I like, I don't know. Like Vikings, you're saying have the seventh most. Yeah. They have the seventh most.

Yeah. The Vikings do. And so it's like last week, is that not the exaggeration of boom or bust the first half i mean yeah the block punt and everything else they didn't move the ball at all when they had it outside of 140 yard run by delvin cook and then they come out in the first drive of the second half and they go three and out and it's like okay well here we go and uh by the end of the game it's 400 something yards passing all of these things are very hard to process what they're actually supposed to mean

and that's what i was going to ask you because my takeaway has been hey those little quick throws to kj osborne good plus you get a little plus for that keep doing that uh using delvin cook getting some screen game going a little plus for that you You should keep doing that. I think that those things actually can be transferred. I don't think that those were simply a product of being down in the game and having the Colts never blitz because they don't know what they're doing. I think that especially with a team that blitz is like crazy, getting Delvin Cook involved in the passing game, getting KJ Osborne on those quick passes, those could be a huge deal to keep Kirk Cousins from getting sacked as much as he has been. Yeah, oh, absolutely. I think that's something they should continue having be a big part of the offense. We talked about Delvin Cook in the passing game. I think KJ Osborne,

he really, really showed up in so many different ways with short routes, intermediate routes, deep routes. And you were like, okay, this was the K.J. Osborne we thought we might see in his third season kind of taking another step that just hadn't really been there all year to the point where we were like, should Jalen Rager play more? And clearly the answer to that is no, because Jalen Rager was directly involved in both of Kirk Cousins' interceptions. But yeah, more K.J. Osborne. I think Adam Thielen kind of took a backseat in that game,

and it wasn't the worst thing because Adam Thielen's a good player. He's just – I don't think he's quite the same caliber of athlete in terms of the shiftiness as K.J. Osborne is, and that's mainly just because K.J. Osborne is like eight years younger or whatever it is. And T.J. Hawkinson, getting him more involved, he was not efficient at all in terms of he was targeted like nine times and had three catches.

But continuing to get Cousins and Hawkinson on the same page. There's been times this year where when you think about why Cousins takes sacks, like you said, like you'll watch the tape and it's like all four guys were running deep routes. And then Cousins get sacked because it, Ed Ingram and Garrett Bradbury and whoever can't hold up in the middle. And you're like, all right,

you should have, even if it's third and long or something, you should have some sort of shallow option that cousins can hit when he's under pressure. So I think they've done a better job recently of kind of incorporating that. And that's something you definitely have to do against a giant team that blitzes this much. Folks, you have just days left before Christmas.

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So they had some of that stuff implemented before the game, and maybe it took them until the second half to get to it because they didn't have a whole lot of success in the first half. But that stuff that, you know, it's funny because I feel like we're getting to the point where you would hope that they are combining things that were done in the past with things that are done now i feel like at times they've really struggled with that like how much do we use the bootlegs how do we use these screens how do we get delvin cook involved in the receiving game you go back

to training camp and we're discussing like non-stop like oh are they going to have delvin cook look like marshall falk or something And it just never happened until really that game. But then I go back to like, there is a lot of stuff in that second half on tape. And I know you watched it back to there's so many plays for one, because I was, I'm, I'm work. I haven't completed my film review yet for the website, but like, oh my gosh, how do I pick? I usually pick like 10 plays. How do I pick 10 out of that whole entire thing? It was absurd. But there always has to be this factor of like, you are playing one of the most inept teams in the league.

I don't think the Giants are one of the most inept teams in the league. I don't think any of your playoff teams are. So can you do this? Like, can you get some of these things involved because maybe even uh i got fooled a little bit with that patriots game where they ran a lot of bootlegs moving pockets and i was like okay all right now it's solved but then they haven't really had a lot of success with that uh you know going forward so in a lot of times it's been like steps forward then steps back and steps

forward and steps back. And the accumulation of everything that they have is a, is a still a decent looking team. But I think that in order for people to believe in them and not get called pretenders or frauds or anything else, you can't go out and like score 12 points against the giants or something and lose this game. Cause then everyone's going to go back to like, ah, yeah, it was just the Colts. And that's just how the league works as spectacular as it was. Everyone's going to move on pretty quickly. Is there anything that they can do over the final three weeks to like escape the fraud narrative? I don't know if there is, cause you play the giants, the Packers and the bear, I guess if you

like win all of those games by 30, which there's enough evidence to suggest that that ain't happening, then that would probably maybe shift some people's opinions and would certainly help their point differential a lot, which I think is what plus two right now for an 11 and three team, which is continues to be pretty amazing. I don't know how much they can do. I think this game though, we've talked about, it's going to be interesting. And like, you could see the Giants in at the same building in the first round of the playoffs. I don't know exactly what seed the Giants will probably end up as, but they could be the seven and you could be the two, especially if the Vikings win this week and give the Giants another loss, like you could see them in the playoffs. So kind of how does that impact

the way that you play this game this week? Probably not at all. But then if you see them in the playoff so kind of how does that impact the way that you play this game this week probably not at all but then if you see them again there will be adjustments to make based on what happened in the first game and um it's just it's a it's an interesting match of the giants really need it i think to stay kind of where they want to be in the wild card race the vikings need it for seating purposes it's a matchup of maybe two of the front runners for coach of the year or at least two of the front runners for coach of the year, or at least two of the top five or something. I think Nick Sirianni with the Eagles is probably going to be really up there since they're 13 and one. But I think the two most successful

first year head coaches pretty clearly have been Kevin O'Connell and Brian Dable. And that's not necessarily due to the underlying metrics, but what matters most, which is winning football games. And the Giants offense, we've said it, Daniel Jones hasn't been turning the ball over at all. I was just looking at his pro football reference page. He had 19 fumbles as a rookie, which is just ridiculous to even think about.

And that continued to be an issue. 10 the next year, 7 the next year, only 5 this year. So he's kind of cut that down every year and then made that less of an issue while the rushing production has gone up the interceptions have gone down Saquon Barkley he's got off to such a strong start this season and then is kind of tailed off but still I mean you just I talked about so you looked at all you look at all the parallels like efficient quarterback that maybe doesn't have the best numbers this year really good running back really good left tackle uh the one thing the giants are clearly missing is the superstar wide receiver they don't they don't have anybody like that i think darius slayton's like their top receiver um but there's parallels there defensively i mean like the matchup i'm looking at is austin

schlottman who's probably going to start again since again since Garrett Bradbury's back is kind of a weird situation. Austin Schlotman against Dexter Lawrence. If you look at the interior defensive players who lead the league in pressures this year, it's Chris Jones in Kansas City is number one. And Dexter Lawrence is number two. He has 53 pressures this year, which are like edge rusher numbers. He has the highest grade of any interior defensive player slightly ahead of Jones so like that dude is a beast they also have Leonard Williams in the middle there was pretty good Kayvon Thibodeau coming along on the edge so another challenge

for the Vikings offensive line like this Giants team like the again the advanced metrics aren't great but they have some talent on both sides of the ball. Andre Patterson coaching the defensive lineman, by the way. Revenge game. Another revenge game there. And that could be actually like a real revenge game. We talk about the revenge games where it's like, oh, it's just a player playing their former team. How often is there really any sentiment?

Like when it's Patrick Peterson, yes, there is. Maybe Zedaria Smith. Other times it's like Tyler Conklin doesn't hate the Vikings. But Andre Patterson got fired by the Vikings when they were when they fired his good friend Mike Zimmer. So maybe he wants to stick it to Kevin O'Connell in this new regime. But, yeah, it's going to be a test for the Vikings for sure. And I think the most interesting part being just the blitz heaviness of the Giants. That's really the unique thing that stands out about this team. And Wink Martindale, who had a great quote of saying he's a blue-collar guy

going against Harry Styles, comparing Kevin O'Connell to Harry Styles, which I never thought I would see. But I think that matchup will be really fascinating. You ruined the game at the end of the show, which pertains to that quote. So we'll get to that in just a minute. I've got more on that. People have asked me, and I'm not even saying like, oh, this actually exists, but I've had people say like, you kind of look like Kevin O'Connell, to which my answer is he's 6'5". So we don't actually look to say, and he's in much better shape than me. And his hands are gigantic and he could probably dunk a basketball and I I'm six, two, but it's

not the same as an NFL quarterback. So, but I think he looks more like me than he does Harry Stiles. Like Harry Stiles. Does that make me the wink Martindale of this podcast? Yeah. Well, you're a blue collar guy. No, you're went to northwestern you're soft as hell you're not no i'm not that blue collar not at all not even a little uh but but uh yeah that was kind of funny though because i was like i uh kevin seifer tweeted out a picture of both of them and it's like i just don't i don't see it at all he's got like dark hair it's long like i don't even know what's going on. Harry styles. Yeah.

Harry style. Yeah. I mean, Harry styles is like British and not a football. Like, I guess they're like, he's like, oh,

he's young and attractive is probably what he was getting at. But like, okay. I don't, I don't know. I've never heard Kevin O'Connell sing. So maybe he's good at it. I don't know.

But my thing was, why is this blue collar football guy know about harry styles right like maybe he has maybe his daughters i don't know maybe he's seen dunkirk good movie that is a good movie i was impressed with harry styles is acting in that movie but uh that's one one more comment before i get to our little game since we've gone we've gone too far there uh i don't remember what the comment was. Oh, the Vikings have the weirdest stats though, in the whole world. And I guess it just has to be this year.

The Vikings actually score on a lower percentage of their drives than the New York giants, which makes no sense. But the Vikings are up to eighth in total scoring where the giants are 20th. And the other thing is like the Vikings are within a shout of getting to maybe the top five or six, depending on how other teams play as far as their scoring. And if that happens, well, first it'll be kind of weird because they hovered in such mediocre lands forever. But if they end up with the top five offense, because they play so

well offensively these next two weeks, I'm not even really looking at Chicago. Cause we don't really know yet against defenses that are like flawed, but decent enough. Then I think people would say if they had decided wins against the giants and green Bay, and they're pushing for a top five off five offense, I think people would have to say like,

you're going to, you're going to, you need to pay attention to this team as a legitimate Super Bowl contender. If they kind of no-show offensively the next couple weeks, they fade out of the top ten, they're in the middle, and they're expected points and win loss or expected, yeah, expected win loss and point differential. If those things finish the next two weeks as being around, hovering around zero, I know that putting it into the next two weeks is sort of silly because it's a 17-game season,

but it does kind of come down to how you're playing going into the playoffs. And I think that the jury is out right now. Like last week was exactly who they've been the last five weeks where sometimes it's amazing and sometimes it's terrible. Like, be amazing for two straight games if you really want to be, you know, considered to be one of those Super Bowl contenders. Or even for just four quarters in one game.

That would be a concept, right? Yeah, I mean, this game is weird. And you said it. Like, this is an 11-3 team hosting an 8 5 and 1 team and you're like oh wow these must be really good teams and then you go to DVOA which I know some Vikings fans don't like because it doesn't reflect well on their favorite football team and the Giants are 22nd and the Vikings are 25th you would think that this is a battle of two like five or six win teams at this point in the season the giants have 5.7 expected wins

the vikings have 5.4 the vikings have more than double their expected wins according to football outsiders dva which is just i don't think there's ever been anything like that and it's it's just fascinating to me to see where this kind of wild roller coaster ride goes for the rest of the regular season what will we learn in all likelihood they will keep doing what they've been doing which is playing these one score games and with one more one score win they will set the all-time record by the way nobody has ever won 11 one score games in a season they're 10 and 0 they're 10 and 0 i i just it breaks my brain and so i but i think unless they really stink it up over the next three games or they really start to soar and improve,

they're going to go into the playoffs just with the perception that we have of them right now, which is they could lose to anybody, they could get blown out in the first round, or they could win four straight one-scorer games and win the Super Bowl. And they have a lot to prove to do that because of what we've seen specifically in those Philly and Dallas games. But when you have a quarterback in Kirk Cousins who's as experienced as he is and is playing to the system the way that he is and making some big plays,

and you have the best wide receiver on the planet, and you have some defensive talent that Ed Donatel maybe is just now starting to figure out how to use or maybe it was just the Colts like you're gonna have a chance you have one of the best left tackles on the planet too like they have this team has the ability to I think make a run if the pieces break right they also have the ability to lose by 15 in the first round so it's that's what makes this season so fun and so crazy and I it's it's one I'm going to remember forever, no matter how this ends,

because I will, I will get to say, I was at this Vikings bills game in Buffalo that I'd never seen anything like. And then I walked through a blizzard to try to get an Uber four miles away from the stadium. And then I was at the biggest comeback in NFL history. So,

you know what? It's, it's been a crazy ride covering this team. And, yeah, three more regular season games, and then it's money time. And since I was there with you in that Uber, it was uphill both ways. It really was. I mean, we did have to go, like, up a hill. We went across parking lots, across a field, up a hill. It across parking lots across a field up a hill it was treacherous it was very treacherous so yeah but that uber to then drive back by the stadium where

we initially were which was just hilarious honestly the fact that we survived made it okay in the moment it was really not okay everything that was happening there uh and uh also like we're standing out there freezing and there's campus security that has giant suvs like you think you could like let us sit in your suv while we wait or like no okay never mind we'll just we'll just sit out here and i didn't bring a big jacket just to complete the story so anyway uh i was looking at this and oh you know sometimes if you ask me about a stat it's like i could talk about it all day because i'm so interested in what stats just tell us about a team like dvoa would not be impressed at all by coming back from down 33 because one of its functions

is to eliminate a lot of the stats that are put up in garbage time. Now it turned out that it wasn't garbage time, but its function is not going to change it because it assumes you're going to not win that game. So all the yardage Kirk cousins put up DVO a would be programmed to be like, ah, nope, not real, not real. And most of the time that's right. But in this case, it turned out to be wrong. And I looked this up. Now, Kirk Cousins has 2000 yards passing when playing from behind this season. So that's more than half of his total yardage passing has come when playing from behind, which is kind of classic Kirk Cousins statistics that he's been criticized for, except for playing from behind has resulted in wins seven times in the fourth quarter usually it doesn't you his career high before this was four so it's interesting that he could tie for

an all-time record if they have another fourth quarter comeback in the next three weeks 2016 matt stafford is the only one who's ever done that eight times so we could get kirk cousins tying or breaking that record just another reminder of how insane the season has been. So you mentioned we're both picking the Vikings here. Is that right? Yeah. Are you going Giants? You going to go for it?

No, I mean, no. The Vikings just, unless they're playing the Cowboys, I'm just going to assume they're at US Bank Stadium. They'll find a way, even if they're down 33 at halftime. And look at the Giants' schedule. And I was saying nice things about them earlier, but they haven't beaten or tied a team other than Washington since they beat the Texans by a touchdown in mid-November.

They're 2-4-1 in their last seven games, and the wins are Houston and Washington and a tie against Washington. They're not good. So I'm taking the Vikings. Right. seven games and the wins are Houston and Washington and a tie against Washington. Like they're, they're not good. So I'm, I'm taking the Vikings, right? The Vikings actually have the star power and the superstar receiver to play

with anyone. I don't think that's true. There are parallels. A lot of them, as you mentioned, but that's the one separator. I don't think that the giants can play with Justin Jefferson. So I think the Vikings will win,

but here's the quick game. So wink Martindale, as you mentioned, compared Kevin O'Connell to Harry Styles, which like, is it Jeff Bridges who would play Wink Martindale in the movie? Yeah, that would be good. So I typed in to Google the words pop singer and 21 results popped up, including a Harry styles.

I want to know how many of the other 20 you can guess that came up as results for pop singer. And I will tell you, there's only one that's like way, way out there. All the other ones are ones you could absolutely guess. They're definitely people, you know,

these are not movies set in Chicago or whatever we did. The movie set in Miami one I had a tough time with. This one is much more up my alley as someone who listens to perhaps an embarrassing amount of pop music mixed in with other genres, of course. But, okay, I will say Taylor Swift, obviously. Ariana Grande. That's right. Um, Ed Sheeran. Ed Sheeran is a perfectly reasonable guess. His name did not pop up. His name is not interesting, but, but, uh, you know, it's a good guess. He's certainly one of the bigger pop stars. Um, let's see who, okay. Now, of course my brain is going to go blank here, but it wouldn't be like the weekend, would it?

It's another good guess. And I will tell you that there's only three male singers on here. Okay. No, four. There's four. Two of them are legendary singers and two of them are present, but one of them is Harry Styles. But like think think

even bigger than the weekend okay um well i'll go with some more females then like dua lipa dua lipa is correct she on there okay that's a good one um katie perry katie perry's on there yep um kelly clarkson that might be too much of a that might be too old here uh kelly clarkson is not again a very good guess and uh but a bit of a throwback since steve carell in the 40 year old virgin was yelling kelly clarkson so maybe she's been around a little too long i don't know some of these i've been around a while but these are like these are the biggest the biggest google did a good job finding these rihanna rihanna is correct yep beyonce beyonce is uh she certainly uh queen b deserves to be on here maybe more like r and b but not really i don't know um not in the in the top 20 oh no wait yeah no she i'm sorry i overlooked it yep she is so okay you only have

a couple left here to go. You've done a great job. Okay. Interesting. I feel like I've only gotten like seven, but... Oh, man. Well, think about Christmastime. Okay.

Mariah Carey. That's correct. Yep. Yep. Is there like Madonna on there? Madonna is. Yep. Okay.

You're doing a great job with this. How about this girl is famously from the block. J-Lo. That's correct, yep. Nice. How about one recent just sort of blew up on the scene last year. She's pretty young. Olivia Rodrigo.

That is correct. Nice. Kind of took over the pop scene yeah you're missing a hockey playing canadian male singer justin bieber that's right yes yeah my these hints you're giving me are too easy here but yeah i should have got i should have got the beads very much like draft season this singer's hips do not lie oh my god shakira yes yes i should have gotten Justin Bieber because when I was in high school,

I like when I used to have hair, I like did it in front, like the Justin Bieber cut. Yeah, it was amazing. Photos or it didn't happen. Oh, I'll show you sometime. Okay, so you're missing- I might tap out here.

A really big female vocalist. Also, because this is great podcast content of me just she sung at the super bowl female vocalist oh um um she swung down all the way from the top of the stadium i don't know who is this she did a movie with bradley no was it bradley cooper oh lady gaga lady oh yeah yeah was that him star a star is born was a bradley cooper oh lady gaga lady oh yeah yeah was that him a star is born it was bradley cooper oh okay i forgot who the male was yeah because you can't sing yeah i mean let's just be honest here uh okay so now this is a funny thing you've checked

off all but one uh or no all but uh all but three one of them is britney spears another is michael jackson and again this is just me googling michael jackson so there's no skill i probably should or no, all but three. One of them is Britney Spears. Another is Michael Jackson. And again, this is just me Googling pop singer. Michael Jackson, the king of pop, I probably should have gotten. The hilarious one that you would never guess that shows up here in the top 20 for pop singers is John Mellencamp. Oh yeah, no way.

All the other ones make complete sense and they're all legendary, except for John Mellencamp. Well, that was good. I like that game that you tied into a random Wink Martindale quote right there. This is why the people come to the Purple Insider podcast. I think Wink probably listens to a lot more pop music than he wants to let on. Anyway, so that was ridiculous.

But that's the way I like to end the show with you. So, well, enjoy. You're going to have a little family time for Christmas, so enjoy that. And it will be an interesting game to study and normal. It'll be normal. And everyone in Minnesota, stay safe out there. It's cold. It's snowy.

It's slippery. Don't be cautious. That's all I'll say. Yeah. If you're coming to the game on sunday give yourself a lot of time i always want like there are freaks out there that think that the like outside playing outside is good like i guess it's not it's not it's terrible like thatSnow game looked cool, but then you're like, if the Vikings were playing outside this week, everyone would just be miserable.

Right. Yeah. And when they did it, your kicker missed the 27-yard kick. So enjoy your stadium. Anyway, thanks for all your time, Will, and thank you all for listening. We will see you after the Giants game.